The Magicians and Mrs. Quent

by Galen Beckett

  “Reach you? But why would she—”

  “Please, Miss Lockwell, let us save that question. You fear you did wrong by not telling me what you knew. If that is the case, then any offense you have committed is far outweighed by my own wrongdoing. There is more I have not told you. And I will. However, the start of a long night is not the time for such conversations.”

  Though these words filled me with great curiosity, I nodded. Despite my whirling mind, a heaviness had come upon me, and I felt an overpowering desire for sleep. I was not yet well. It was by then all I could do to rise to bid him good night.

  He bowed, seemed to hesitate, then bowed again and departed. With my last strength I readied myself for bed and climbed beneath the covers. It occurred to me that I should be afraid, yet the darkness did not trouble me as it so often did, not that night. I knew he was below and that while he was there no harm could come to me. I slept, and did not dream.

  I WROTE THOSE LAST pages some time after those events took place, Father. Much more has happened in the days since then—so much I hardly know if I can explain it. How can such thoughts, such feelings be composed in ink on paper? They are too brilliant to be rendered in black and white, yet somehow I must explain for you to understand what is to happen next.

  I can say only that I have seen what I had not before. Sometimes illness can strike a person blind, but I think sometimes it can grant one new sight as well. Heathcrest Hall had not changed, but the eyes with which I beheld it had. Before, I had thought the house stolid and old-fashioned, with its heavy columns and brooding eaves: well-constructed, perhaps even imposing, but not a thing to be admired.

  How my impression of it has changed! Now everywhere I turn I find something to appreciate: handsome panels of old wood, windows as tall as doors, the scents of smoke and sage, and walls that have with silent strength withstood long years of wind and rain. It is not a grand dwelling like the marble edifices in the New Quarter; it is in no way fashionable. But how could I not have thought it the finest, most admirable house in all of Altania?

  There! That must be explanation enough for you, Father. Except I have gotten ahead of myself. Let me tell you first about what took place shortly after that night I last described.

  When I woke the following morning, I found that, aside from being somewhat weak, I was very well. The children were also improved, I learned. However, in them the fever had burned more strongly, and its effects still lingered, so they were yet confined to their room.

  I paid them a visit and embraced them both. We did not speak of what had happened at the Wyrdwood. In fact, their recollection of the prior two days seemed vague. The doctor had said they might never entirely recall all that had happened just before and after they took ill, and if they indeed were never able to fully remember that night, I could not be sorry.

  My health continued to improve so rapidly that, when the doctor saw me next, he pronounced that I wanted for nothing but exercise to recover my strength completely.

  “Then she shall have exercise every day,” Mr. Quent said.

  I was not quite ready to ride, and he did not think it good for me to be out on my own. So it was that the two of us went for walks at least once a day, and more on longer lumenals. At first our rambles took us only around the house, but the more I walked the stronger I felt, and soon we ranged so far as the old heap of tumbled-down stones. These, he told me, had once been what country folk called an elf circle. The stones had not been arranged by fairies, of course, but rather by the ancient people who had dwelled in Altania long before the coming of the first Tharosian ships.

  “I have seen the remains of such circles all over the island of Altania,” Mr. Quent said. “How they lifted such massive things we do not know, nor why they did so. They raised the circles as places to gather, the historians suppose, or to hold ceremonies in dread of their heathen deities.”

  “No, to honor them, I think,” I said, making an examination of one of the time-pitted stones. It bore faint traces of spirals and angular shapes. “One does not build things up or bring things forth in the name of what one fears. Rather, one tears things down and ruins them in an effort to appease.”

  He laughed, a deep, bell-like sound that was all the more engaging for its novelty. “I had never thought of it so. But you are right, of course. Your good sense guides you where the learning of wise men fails. You are remarkable, Miss Lockwell.”

  However, I did not feel remarkable at that moment, for I still tired more easily than before. I meant to ask him why some of the stones were paler and sharper-edged than the others, but I found I had only breath enough for walking as we made our way back to Heathcrest.

  My walks continued, and that my companion continued to accompany me on them was something remarkable to me. Never in these last months had his business allowed him to remain at Heathcrest for so long a period of time. Each day we went farther, until finally we ventured past the remains of the stone circle to the very southern edge of the ridge.

  This was, perhaps, a bit farther than I should have gone. However, the day was fine, and I knew from the almanac the coming night was to be very long, so it would be some time before I could go out again. I did not mention any distress I felt, but he must have observed I was tired, for he suggested we sit on a piece of a broken wall.

  Below us, I saw the house I had glimpsed once before, nestled in a cleft on the side of the ridge, and I asked him about it. It was called Burndale Lodge, he said, and had from time out of mind been the home of the Quents, who had always served as stewards to the Rylend earls.

  Or, at least, always in the past. Burndale Lodge had been shut when Mr. Quent moved up to Heathcrest. No one dwelled there now.

  Our conversation dwindled, but in the pleasantest way, as speaking gave way to listening: to the song of the thrushes and the sigh of the grass.

  “I told you I had done you wrong, Miss Lockwell,” he said at last. The wind tugged at his brown hair and brown coat. “And so I have, by not telling you what I should have.”

  I turned to regard him, startled. “I am certain you had good reasons.”

  “Reasons? Oh, yes, I have devised many reasons for silence over the years. Reasons to keep a house with little light and no laughter. Reasons to be ever sober and to suffer no amusement or diversion that might distract me for even a moment.” He laughed again, but this time the sound was rueful. “That is the thing about quietness—it feeds upon itself. For as my household grew more quiet, only the very quietest of people could endure it. Mrs. Darendal has all but used up her allotment of words in this life, and Jance never had many to begin with. And Lanna is mute despite all my efforts to induce her to speak. I confess, sometimes I have tried the most vigorous encouragements, but to no avail. I suppose I have always known such efforts were doomed. She was very small when the—when she ceased speaking.”

  Inwardly, I cringed at this speech. How quick I had been to judge him! I had thought him so callous that he was oblivious to Lanna’s condition. Instead, he had hoped to cure her of it. However, my chagrin was forgotten as another thought quickly consumed me. I knew she was not so much older than I. She would have been nine at the time, or ten perhaps.

  “The Rising that happened nineteen years ago,” I said. “Lanna was there, wasn’t she? She saw it take place.”

  His left hand was tucked inside his coat pocket, but I saw it clench. “I suppose Mrs. Darendal must have told you of that. Indeed, I wonder why she did not sooner, given what befell her that day.”

  “So it is true!” I rose to my feet. “There really was a Rising of the Wyrdwood, just as in the histories.”

  He regarded me with the gravest of expressions. “There have been many Risings since ancient times, Miss Lockwell.”

  “You mean even in recent years?”

  “Especially in recent years.”

  A shiver came over me, but it was more from thrill than cold. “And there was one right here.” I gazed in the direction of the village, as if s
omehow I might see the oak tree rising above the slate roofs, its branches reaching over the commons, summoning green shadows.

  I looked at him again. “But how can it be we have never heard of them? Surely we should have been told in the city, and Assembly should have been warned of the danger.”

  “Warned?” he said, and now there was a hard note to his voice. “People in the city have been warned. They were warned years ago. It is all there in the Lex Altania. They had only to open a book and read.”

  I sat back down on the bench. “No, they would not have believed you if you told them. They would have said such things were only stories.”

  “Or the superstitions of country folk.”

  I winced. However, as I thought of the people I had met at Lady Marsdel’s, all so intelligent and witty and assuredly modern—men like Mr. Baydon—I knew the accusation was not unfounded.

  “But surely some people must know,” I said at last.

  “There are those who are aware of the recent Risings and who keep watch for signs of others. Not every lord in the Hall of Magnates is more concerned with powdering his wig and inhaling snuff than he is with the welfare of Altania. There is one in particular who knows what must be done. Though his physical strength may be failing, the strength of his mind and his will have not. With the authority of the king, he has commissioned some few inquirers to make such investigations as are necessary.”

  In an instant it came to me. The soldiers who came at odd hours of the night, his frequent and sudden departures on unknown business. “You,” I said. “You yourself are one of these inquirers!”

  He was still for a moment, then nodded.

  My mind labored to draw in this knowledge. It was not that I did not believe him. I did believe. If the Wyrdwood had been capable of rising up in ancient times, why not now? That such Risings were not well known was only due to the fact that so little of the primeval wood was left in Altania and that for so long after the Plague Years much of the countryside where the Old Trees did remain was abandoned.

  “But it is strange,” I said, and looked at him. “It is so strange you should dwell here within sight of a stand of Wyrdwood.”

  “Strange, you think it? Despite your fine intellect, on that account I would not agree with you, Miss Lockwell. It is my work to keep watch over the wood and to note its stirrings. There can be no better place for me to dwell. In this place, I will never forget of what it is capable.”

  I thought again of the things Mrs. Darendal had told me, about the Addysen witch and the gallows tree. It was no wonder Lanna had been struck dumb that day. No one should have seen such a thing, let alone a child.

  “To think I had wanted to see a stand of Wyrdwood,” I said, shaking my head. “I had thought it would be quaint and picturesque.”

  “And it is. So is a mountain, or a chalk cliff by the sea, but both are perilous if one is not properly cautious.”

  Only a mountain never strained to move itself; a cliff did not willingly throw people from its edge. Nor could either thing be easily destroyed. But a grove of shabby old forest, with its leaf mold dry as tinder…

  “Why have they not burned it all?” I asked. “They burned the stand closest to Cairnbridge. Why not this grove, and the others? If it is dangerous, if there are those who know this to be true, why was all the Wyrdwood in Altania not destroyed long ago?”

  “Because we dare not destroy it all.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Don’t you? The answer is there in the histories, Miss Lockwell. Men were only lost to the wood when they burned it, cut it down, drove it back.”

  “But the magician Gauldren worked the Quelling,” I said. Despite my own interest in magick, I had always believed that the Quelling was a legend—an allegory for the clearing of the primeval forest at the hands of men, by which the land was changed from a dense, mysterious wilderness to our familiar, civilized countryside. Knowing what I did now, I could only concede that the spell must have been real.

  “As great as Gauldren’s spell was, it did not destroy the power of the Wyrdwood. That was not its intent. Rather, it cast the wood into a slumber—a rest from which it can still wake if it is provoked.”

  “Yet they burned the stand north of Cairnbridge.”

  His shoulders heaved in a sigh. “So they did, even though once the tree on the commons was burned there was nothing more to fear from the stand. It was well guarded behind its walls. But they had fire in their hearts that night. They went to the Wyrdwood with torches and burned it. And we have since seen the consequences of that act.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that Halley Samonds was not the first young woman to be called to the Wyrdwood. And I fear for her. It is…treacherous to those who are lost to it.” A spasm passed through him, and he turned away.

  I wanted to go to him, to offer words of comfort. But what comfort could I grant him? A despair had come over me as well. For I knew! I knew the truth when I wished I did not. They had never said that she died, only that she had been lost. Where else on this bleak landscape could it have been? It had called to her, just like it had called to Halley Samonds.

  “Mrs. Quent,” I said before I could will myself to suppress the words.

  “It was my doing,” he said, his back to me. “At least, so I have told myself all these years. Had he not warned me, the vicar of the church in Cairnbridge, of the peril of marrying one of her line? ‘You must know what she is,’ he told me. As if she was anything other than a pretty young woman. She was only twenty!”

  “But he was awful to say that!” I exclaimed, unable to stop myself.

  He turned to regard me. “I never set foot in that church again, or any other church. However, though the vicar spoke those words out of prejudice, there was yet truth to them. Why else would they have angered me so?”

  I could not speak. For what could I say to him? I could only listen, held captive, as he told me what had happened.

  There had been a ball at Heathcrest, for Mrs. Quent had been fond of dancing, and in this as in all things Mr. Quent had indulged her. It was the middle of a greatnight. The entire house was alight with candles and alive with music and breathless laughter. Everyone who was anyone in the county was in attendance, and a good number of nobodies were there as well.

  No one minded; there was room for all. The musicians played without stopping, and Mrs. Quent danced every reel and round, while Mr. Quent—who admitted he had no talent for dancing—took his joy by watching her from the side of the hall.

  Then a headache came upon her, as they had with increasing frequency ever since he had brought her to Heathcrest. She was quite well, she assured him; she only wanted for some air. She had gone outside, and he had intended to follow her in a few minutes, to be sure she was well. Only then his opinion was wanted for what should be the next dance. Then he was pulled into the parlor where the younger people were staging a play, and after that another hand was needed for a round of cards. He was handed a drink and put in a chair, and amid the light, amid the laughter, he forgot—forgot to check on his pretty young wife. Forgot until someone asked where Mrs. Quent was.

  Had she not come inside? Was she not dancing? No, no one had seen her in an hour or more. He had gone outside and there had seen a sight that froze his blood: her lace shawl, which she had donned against the coolness of the greatnight, cast on the front steps.

  He ran inside, bellowing at the musicians to stop, calling for men and lanterns. At once the party ceased, and there has never been another in Heathcrest Hall since that night. Men went out in the dark, searching first around the house, then ranging farther afield. Mr. Quent shouted her name over and over, until his throat was raw and bleeding—indeed, so that his voice was ever low and gruff afterward—but there was no answer.

  A mist settled over the moor, hindering their work. It was not until the light of dawn burned away the fog that at last they discovered her. She was lying among the leaves and mold by the stan
d of Wyrdwood on the hill to the east. Frost had powdered her face, so that it was as white as marble. Her yellow dress was torn, and a scrap of the same yellow cloth fluttered in a crack at the top of the wall.

  What had happened was plain to all who saw her. She had been attempting to climb the high wall, but its stones were slick with dew and moss. Even as she reached the top, she lost her grip and fell. In an instant, her neck was broken.

  “I think you see now,” he said, “why I did not want you and the children to venture to the Wyrdwood. It was there that she—” He shook his head.

  Though he said nothing more, the rest of the story was clear to me, just as what had happened to Gennivel Quent was clear to all who had seen her there, pale and cold among the fallen leaves. He had blamed himself for not going out to her sooner. He had been distracted by merriment and revelry, and for that he could not forgive himself. As punishment he had made his house a grim and quiet place, even as he made himself a grim and quiet man.

  “You cannot blame yourself still,” I said at last.

  “Can I not, Miss Lockwell? I brought her here to live with me, so near to the thing from which I knew she must be kept. I even knew it fascinated her. The painting in the room upstairs, which I know you saw, was done by her own hand. I thought I could watch over her, that I could keep her safe.” His left hand clenched again inside his coat pocket. “Instead, I laughed and played at cards while she walked out into the night and fog.”

  He turned away. I should have felt horror or sorrow at what I had heard. Instead, a kind of resolve came over me. I stood and took a step toward him.

  “It was not your fault.”

  “You should not pity me,” he said. “If you think me blameless, Miss Lockwell, you are mistaken.”

  “I do not pity you, Mr. Quent!”

  He turned back to look at me, as if to see for himself. At last he said, “It was a long time ago. I told you only because I thought, after what happened, you should know.”