by Garon Whited
The breeze brought me the scent of scorched earth.
“I’m going to have to dispose of that corpse, aren’t I?” I murmured, eyeing the dragon remains.
“If you wish,” she answered, looking at it with me. “But it is rotting with a vengeance.”
“It is?”
“Yes. Almost as though… well…”
“Yes?”
“…the life had been sucked out of it,” she finished, softly.
I patted her hand. “It was. Yes. I know. It isn’t something… if I’d had a choice, it isn’t something I would choose to do.”
Pay no mind to the fact that you were drunk on your own power, boss.
Hush, you, I thought back. Firebrand heard me and chuckled.
“You frighten me,” she whispered. “Yet I must be with you.”
I glanced around. Nobody was within fifty yards of us; there were only two sentries on the wall, walking beats. We were private.
“Why?” I asked, softly.
“I am not…” she paused to take a deep breath. I kept her hand in mine. “I am not used to things that have so much of darkness within them. Yet you…” she trailed off, squeezing my arm. “You make me feel even more alive. No, that’s not right. I feel… whole around you. Completed,” she finished.
“I’m glad of it,” I noted. “I really am. I don’t want to make you nervous or upset. I’d really rather try and be your friend.” As for whether or not I felt completed… well, I don’t know. I’m not as in touch with my feelings as I could be, I guess. But I like her. I like her a lot. I’m glad she’s around.
“I am glad of that,” she replied, softly, and I put my arm around her shoulders, wrapping my cloak around her.
“What would you like to do?” I asked. “If you could go anywhere and do anything, what would you want to do?”
She considered it, one hand resting low on her belly.
“I don’t know. It is all so strange, now. I… I still have difficulty understanding what the Lady of Fire wishes of me. We speak often, but I cannot understand Her; She is a Goddess, and I am only a woman. She would not have chosen you for the rite and brought us together again now if I was not meant to be with you. But I do not understand why.”
“I don’t, either. But I asked what you want,” I reiterated, touching the tip of her nose with one finger.
She smiled. “I would like to go away from here and be with you. I like you. And, as Mother wills, I will know more of you.”
I thought about it. “I can do that. I think. We can try.”
She turned her head toward me more fully, to look me in the eyes. “What do you feel?”
Funny; I’d just been thinking about that. It was a simple question, but the answer was profoundly difficult.
“I have trouble sorting that out,” I answered. “I can give you a partial one. I know I like you, too. I know I don’t understand what the hell the gods are playing at. I know I want you to be safe, along with whoever it is you’re growing in there. I’m not sure if I really want the responsibility, but I’ll do my best at it. And I want to know you better, too.”
She squeezed my hand and nodded. “You have had little time to think on this.”
“That’s right. But I hope I do the right thing.”
“I have faith in you.”
“Oh, thanks. Like I didn’t have enough pressure.”
She laughed, a delightful sound, then kissed my cheek.
“Shall we finish our tour of the battlements? Or are you ready to go inside?”
“Up to you. I don’t get cold.”
“Oh yes, you do. You just don’t feel it.”
“How about you?”
“A fire-witch is never cold,” she replied, primly.
“Fair enough. Let’s walk.”
We continued our walk and I traded salutes with the other sentry.
“Good morning, lord.”
“Good morning,” I answered. “How stands the keep?”
He drew himself to attention and held a fresh salute, grinning from ear to ear. “Secure, lord. There has been no sign of the viksagi.”
“Very good. Carry on.” He dropped his salute and marched away. I almost growled after him. I didn’t like the look of admiration in his eyes.
“Get used to it, hero,” Tamara whispered, answering my unspoken thought. I did growl at her, a little.
After a brief stop by the stable to reassure Bronze—she managed to express her displeasure at being kept out of the loop regarding my condition; Tamara tried to brush the soot from her dress afterward—we spent the rest of the nighttime hours in my sickroom. I encouraged her to tell me more about herself. I learned more about what it was like to grow up with red hair in this world: it involved a lot of running, hiding, and the occasional incineration of people. Not pretty. I told her a more complete version of my own tale, complete with cars and airplanes and telephones… the university, Terri, Travis, Hutch, and Sasha. I didn’t have time to tell her everything, no, but it was a good start.
I’m thinking of a spell to let her come in to my mental study and read this journal. It might be the easy way to let her find out about me for herself. I’ll have to think about it.
She found my explanation of my relationship with Shada to be enormously interesting.
“You mean she is not your wife?”
I should have seen that coming. I had to explain about that in more detail while she fixed me with a burning gaze. I’d always thought that was just an expression.
“You mean to say that you made a bargain with her. That I can understand and accept. But your behavior! How could you be so callous? No, cruel. So unfeeling!” She shook her head. “She was right to say such things to you.”
There was more on that subject, but I really don’t want to think about it anymore. Suffice to say that I have been chewed out about it twice now, and have no wish to relive either.
When dawn rolled around, it stung. I’d already gotten out of my new finery in anticipation; it doesn’t do to sweat nastiness into your brand-new clothes first thing in the morning. It was a bad morning. Apparently, the evening’s adjustments were fairly extensive. I took it, toughed it out, and it finally settled into a feeling approximating normality.
Tamara had a bowl of hot water and some cloths already at hand. My sponge bath went a lot faster with her helping, despite her playfulness and giggling. Then I dressed again and checked myself as I did. I felt fine again. Good balance, decent coordination, and strong. Still unreasonably thin, though. And hungry.
I didn’t notice my skin color had darkened appreciably; Tamara pointed it out and I let my coloration spell lapse. As far as we could tell, I looked normal.
We went down to breakfast.
Word had spread I was up and about; everyone came to breakfast. There were few enough infantry to fit in the main hall along with the knights, but the place was still overcrowded. But everyone was there, talking and jostling and sucking up the soup.
Like ripples on a smooth pond, silence spread from the pebble of our entry.
Tamara and I stood in the open arch of the main doors and looked at the assembled men. You could have heard a pin drop. A small one.
Then the cheering started.
And got louder.
And kept getting louder.
Voices rose, hands clapped, mugs thumped on the tables, people whistled, feet stomped, the works. I haven’t seen anything like it since the final closeout of a rock concert. And it kept going on and on and on.
I couldn’t stand it. I raised my arms for silence, smiling because I couldn’t help it. If they kept on cheering me, I’d have burst. They didn’t want to stop.
The Duke rose slowly and carefully. He looked older and thinner—I guess everyone did; it was a nasty, nasty poison. But he rose without help and gestured us to approach. The cheering diminished as we walked forward.
“Good sir wizard,” he began, once there was silence, “while you have slept, I have heard mu
ch of your doings.”
I bowed. Tamara did not. Priests (and priestesses) have different rules.
“Your Grace,” I replied, “I trust you found your keep in satisfactory order?”
He smiled. “In better order than I dared to hope. But I find myself at a loss to explain the disappearance of some thousand or more viksagi, to say nothing of the appearance of a dragon’s corpse almost upon my doorstep.”
“I accept the responsibility for these things, your Grace.”
“Then come to my table and be welcome, for I am of a mind to honor you.”
Tamara and I circled the table, and chairs were drawn out for us; I was guided to the Duke’s right hand, and Tamara to my right. When the Duke sat, we all sat, and conversation broke out in a hubbub.
“It would seem we owe you our lives, sir wizard,” the Duke offered.
“In part, perhaps, your Grace. But to Tamara you owe the rest, even as I owe mine. I would have healed you, but I was busy dying under a dragon.”
“Ah? Of course. The efforts of the fire-witch are not unappreciated.”
I smiled. “As you say, your Grace.”
Fire-witch, indeed, I thought. She has a name, your Grace. Maybe you’ll learn to use it, someday.
“You have done the kingdom a great service,” he went on. “A great service indeed, as well as preserving my own duchy from the invaders. I would knight you, but you already are. What sort of boon would you have, sir wizard? If it is within my power, I will grant it.”
I thought about it. A servant placed bowls of soup in front of us and Tamara and I spooned it up for a bit while I thought. What would make a good boon? A piece of land? A noble title? A ton of gold?
What do you wish for when you only have one wish?
“If I may, your Grace, I would think on it. Perhaps I may have leave to call upon you this afternoon?”
“Of course.”
The remainder of breakfast was relatively uneventful; the Duke made light conversation and asked about the battle. I ate everything I could reach while I told the tale, with the exception of claiming to rely on wizardly powers instead of vampiric ones. The Duke was very pleased and much impressed.
My attention, though, was mostly on another table—a smaller one, where the priests were eating. And their attention, for the most part, was firmly fixed on the lady to my right.
After breakfast, there were quite a number of people who wanted to see me. Tamara tried to fade into the background and slide away; I caught her hand and kept her at my side. Why? I don’t know. Maybe because I didn’t want to face a horde of admirers alone. Part of it, at least, was the fact she deserved a great deal of credit for life-saving in her own right.
I smiled and chatted and thanked people I barely knew for what must have been hours. We couldn’t go anywhere without someone saluting or shaking hands or otherwise falling all over themselves to be courteous and respectful.
Except the priests, of course. We were anathema to them, and they ignored us. I did grin and wave at Marel, though. Of all the people who had to survive, he wasn’t one I would have picked. He pretended not to see my wave. I wonder how they must have felt in owing their lives to the blasphemous heretic? Or did they pray for their own recovery without her?
Raeth and Bouger tried to hang around as we took a walk outside, enjoying the crisp, winter air.
“I’m fine, guys. Truly I am.” I flexed my arms. “See? I don’t even stagger.”
Raeth nodded. “So I see, but you have the lady to steady you. Yet you are not unmarked.”
“I am?”
“You move with more grace after your ordeal, and you are terribly thin. How has it changed you?”
I wondered.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Watch and see, will you?”
Bouger nodded. “I will. Raeth, too.”
“Good; I feel safer already. In the meantime, I think we may safely take our leave of this place, don’t you?”
Raeth chuckled. “I doubt they will protest that you have not done your duty and then some. Where do you wish to go?”
“I have in mind to find a place where no one will bother me for a year or ten. And there build that manor I once spoke of.”
Raeth’s eyes gleamed. “I take your point, lord. I shall see what can be done in that regard.”
I nodded at him and he took Bouger with him; they would find people we needed—and who wanted to go. Stonemasons, perhaps. Definitely a blacksmith. Who else would I need for such a thing?
“Halar?” Tamara asked.
“Hmm? Oh. Tamara, I’m sorry, but that isn’t my real name. I’ve been using it for what seems a long time and I forgot to tell you. My real name, the one I was born with—”
She placed a finger over my lips. “Hush. I have no need to know it. You are Halar, my wizard and my knight, chosen for me by the Mother. That is all the name you need.”
I kissed her finger and shut up. She smiled and lowered her hand before speaking again.
“Where do you plan to go? Or, where do you plan for us to go?”
“I’m thinking of looking for some real estate on the far side of the Eastrange, but still in the mountains. Someplace impossible to reach without going through Eastgate and riding for a day or more. Someplace bloody inconvenient to get to.”
“The barbarians beyond the Eastrange are dangerous, are they not?”
I paused in our walk, our crunching footsteps in the snow falling silent. I looked at Tamara for a long second, then drew her into the circle of one arm.
“Tamara, I have met those barbarians. They are not as technologically advanced as people on this side of the Eastrange, but they are most definitely not barbarians. They are people, with loves and hopes and fears like any other, and some of them were kind, even generous to me when I was shipwrecked in their land. Okay?”
She nestled against me. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. I know I shoot my mouth off about things I don’t know anything about. I just hope I don’t do it very often.”
“Shall I tell you when you do?” she asked, impishly.
“With a bucket of water in my face? Or with soft words?”
“Either.”
“Try words. If those don’t work, try a stick.”
“You may regret that.”
“Possibly. But growing is sometimes painful.”
She dimpled. “I cannot contest that.”
“Good. So, do you think you could stand to live in a manor and teach people anything you know?”
She cocked her head at me. “Such as?”
“I don’t know what you know. I know I’ll be teaching people to read, do math, and both science and magic—at least until I can find people who know them better than I. Herb lore? The worship of the Lady of the Blessed Flame? You pick a subject, because I’m thinking of opening a school for wizardry and anything else I can think of.”
“Perhaps I might. But why?”
I shrugged. “At heart, I’m a teacher. Besides, I know there are a dozen guys out there who are really grateful to me and would like a job as a guard; if I can swing it, I’ll hire them.” I paused for a moment, worrying at my lower lip. “And another thing… Someone heard a promise I made to myself, I think.”
“I don’t understand,” she answered, fine eyebrows drawing together.
So I told her about my dream, or vision, or near-death experience. As I did, her eyes grew steadily wider. I found a sort of perverse pleasure in making a priestess have such an expression.
“You… spoke… with the gods?” she whispered.
“If it wasn’t all a dream.”
“I recognize the gods you mention,” she said, wonderingly. “The Mother and the Father, of course. The Huntsman. And Ssthich, lord of the deeps. But who is this other goddess that wishes you to teach? Her I do not know.”
“I’ve no idea. The Lady of Knowledge? Mother Nature? Quantum Physics? The Patron Saint of Teachers?” I shook my head. “I couldn�
�t tell you. But she was on my side in that argument, and she’s the only one that asked me to do something. So I think I ought to try.”
“I suppose so. How will you pay for it all? Are you wealthy?”
I nudged her in the ribs, gently. “I was hoping to marry you for your money. And now I find you’re a gold-digger, yourself!”
She laughed and took my arm again. “Silly. You’ll find a way. What about the Duke’s boon? Would he not reward you well?”
I snapped my fingers. “All that beauty and brains to go with it. That does it; I’m keeping you.”
She smiled and half-curtseyed. “As you will, my lord.”
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 18TH
My new color scheme is mildly annoying. Why a night-stalking creature of darkness should have bright skin is beyond me. A reaction to having it burned off by dragon ichor? I dunno. I’ve taken to shifting my color with magic to hide my unusual shade. It’s like remembering to put on my pants before leaving my rooms. I don’t want to surprise or shock anyone.
The Duke was quite happy to reward me with money; I think he was lavish. Raeth and Bouger started preparing for a journey, getting supplies and such. I let them, being more interested in finding someplace to go.
It’s inconvenient, not having a mirror, but a glass ball is so much easier to get and to carry. Still, some things are best done using a mirror—or, at least, easiest done through one. So I spent the afternoon hunting down a mirror.
Okay, having one made. I had enough silver for it.
So, now, nighttime and a large, flat sheet of polished silver. Time to think of exactly what I’m looking for.
What I want is a spot on the far side of the Eastrange and isolated from everyone else. Preferably a not-too-large mountain that can access the plains with nothing more than a couple of bridges and maybe a little blasting. Near coal and iron, if possible—although that shouldn’t be hard; the Eastrange is loaded with natural resources. I found that out in Delvedale.
I looked into the mirror and a deathly pale statue looked out at me. My new appearance would take getting used to.
I enspelled the mirror and laid my will upon it.