The Reluctant mage: Fisherman’s children

by Karen Miller

  “Go,” Deenie said, resigned, because of course the pother was right. “We’ll manage.”

  As Ulys ran to help the afflicted, Charis swallowed a sob. “Do you keep thinking you’re going to wake up, Deenie?”

  “Yes,” she said simply. “Now come on. We shouldn’t stay here.”

  It took a long time to reach Charis’s home, on foot, pushing the laden handcart, having to weave their way around buckled streets and collapsed buildings and gaping holes in the ground. Nobody they came across offered to help them. There was too much grief and trouble, not enough unhurt hands to spare.

  “Oh, no,” Charis whispered, when at last they reached her street. The first two houses they saw were reduced to bricks and glass and broken roof tiles. “Deenie…”

  “Keep going,” Deenie said, making her voice hard to keep the grief at bay. “Don’t look. Don’t borrow trouble, Charis. We’ve enough of our own.”

  When Charis saw her home, unscathed save for two broken front windows and a handful of slipped roof tiles, she burst into tears. They pushed the handcart right up to the front door, which Charis unlocked with the key she kept on a chain round her neck. Then Deenie flooded the house with glimfire and they carried Da inside to the parlour. They were too exhausted to get him up the stairs.

  Settling him on the old, sagging sofa, they stripped him out of his wet nightshirt and dressed him in one of Uncle Pellen’s—eyes closed, because some things just weren’t seemly—then made him as comfortable as they could with pillows and blankets and a pair of Uncle Pellen’s thick wool socks on his feet. There was no wood for a fire. The blankets and socks would have to do. With Da settled, they pulled off their own wet clothes down to the deepest dry layer and laid them about the kitchen and parlour to air dry.

  “Tea,” said Charis, with all that done. “That’s what we need. There’s a scoop of coal left to heat some water. I’ll make it, Deenie. You sit.”

  It wasn’t in her to argue, so first Deenie fetched her satchel of coin in from the handcart and stuffed it under the sofa. Then she pulled up a footstool and held her father’s hand between hers. It was cold, his hands were never warm these days, but there was life in him. She could feel it. There was the blight, too, but it had settled.

  “Oh, Da,” she said, helpless. “What do I do now?”

  Da didn’t tell her, and she had no idea.

  She drank the hot, sweet tea Charis brought her, but couldn’t eat the oaten biscuits and didn’t stir from the stool. Charis ate and drank then curled up in an armchair and was swiftly asleep.

  Da slept too. Even after such a terrible night, he showed no sign of waking.

  Time passed. Behind the drawn parlour curtains the night slowly surrendered to dawn. When she judged the light strong enough, Deenie tucked her father’s hand under his blankets then reached out to touch Charis on the knee.

  “What? What?” said Charis, startled awake. “Is it another tremor? What?”

  “No,” she said. “Don’t fret. I’m going out. I need to find Kerril. I need to know how bad things are. Will you stay and watch Da for me? I’ll not be gone long, I promise.”

  “Well, all right,” said Charis, sleepily frowning. “But you be careful, Deenie. And don’t dally. Learn what you need to learn and come back quickly. And whatever else you do, don’t fall down a hole.”

  Somehow, she managed a smile. “I’ll try not to.”

  With a handful of coins from her satchel in one pocket, she left Charis to watch her father and ventured outside.

  Water from the night’s storm lay in sheets and pools and puddles. In the sullen dawn light fighting its way past the lowering clouds, the breadth and depth of the city’s ruin was too easy to see. Not even the Wall’s falling had left it wrecked like this, if she could believe dear ole Darran’s stories.

  And she could.

  The early morning air was damp and chill, nastily tainted with the stink of death and destruction. Everywhere she looked she saw fallen houses, uprooted trees, ragged holes and buckled bumps in the streets and pavements. In too many front gardens she saw bodies, some under sheets or blankets, some left exposed. A few times she avoided the attention of a city guard doing his best to stop trouble brewing. She saw many weeping Olken. A few Doranen. Some of them were injured. None of them saw her, so lost in their own grief and horror were they. She didn’t mind. She didn’t want to face them, having no desire to say the obvious words.

  I understand how you’re feeling. My home’s wrecked too, and my mother is dead.

  She’d rather cut out her tongue with a rusty knife than say that.

  Leaving the residential districts behind, she made her slow, careful way to the centre of the city. To find answers she needed to find someone in authority, someone from the General Council… though of late, the councillors were sadly reduced. Or a Barlsman. Maybe even Barlsman Jaffee. Captain Mason of the City Guard. Someone whose business it was to keep Dorana on its feet and safe for its inhabitants.

  But as she came upon Market Square, she slowed… and slowed… and stopped.

  Oh, Da.

  She had no words. The square was buckled and broken, Barl’s statue reduced to scattered chunks of stone on the torn-up cobbles. And every last important building around Market Square was damaged—or destroyed. Justice Hall was half-collapsed. Justice Hall, where her father had helped make law in the kingdom. Where he and Prince Gar had first seen each other as real people, not strangers without one single thing in common. Stunned as she was, she felt the pain of that. Her family history, that was, lying in rubble. The Barlschapel was smashed to pieces, with not a Barlsman in sight. Uncle Pellen’s Guardhouse too, and the grand General Council chambers. The tremors had spared nothing, spared no-one. Beautiful Dorana City was in ruins.

  Oh, Da.

  Save for one man stranded on the pavement before the Council building, the battered, silent square was ghostly empty. Approaching him, she saw it was Mayor Stott. She called his name four times before he realised he wasn’t alone any more.

  Eyes dull and red-rimmed, his bruised forehead scraped raw and his narrow shoulders surrendered in a slump, Stott looked down at her. He seemed too exhausted to be surprised. “Deenie.”

  “Meister Mayor—” She had to clear her throat. Why can’t Charis be right? Why can’t I just—wake up? “Mayor Stott—”

  His expensive clothes were torn in half a dozen places. Beneath the rips she saw dried blood. There was dried blood on his hands. He touched his fingers to her shoulder.

  “Deenie—you’re Asher’s daughter,” he said, his voice harsh. “Can’t you help us? Can’t you fix this? Is there nothing of your father in you?”

  Shocked, Deenie stepped back. “I don’t—you’ve no right to—” She swallowed bile. “My mother’s dead.”

  “Scores are dead,” said Mayor Stott, his voice thick with grief. “Perhaps hundreds. Perhaps they’re lucky. They died quick.”

  Like Mama. “Meister Mayor, where’s the rest of the Council?”

  “Dead or dying or broken or indifferent,” he said, shrugging. “Barl knows, not I. I’ve not seen one of them yet.” He dragged a hand down his stubbled face. His eyes were full of tears. “It was a mistake to let your brother cross the mountains. If he was here, he could fix this. He could put this all to rights.”

  She swallowed more bile. Rafel. “Mayor Stott—”

  “What are you doing here, girl?” he said, frowning. “You shouldn’t be wandering the streets. You’ll get in the way. Go home, if you’ve not the wit to fix this. Care for your ailing father. That’s a daughter’s duty.”

  As if I need you to tell me my duty.

  “I have no home,” she said, snapping. Too tired and afraid to bother with courtesy. “The Tower fell down. Meister Mayor, would you know where I can find Pother Kerril?”

  His frown deepening, Stott waved a vague hand. “She’s out and about tending the injured. Deenie…” Briefly, he pressed trembling fingers to his lips. “Your fa
ther—he must be this kingdom’s only hope. D’you think he’ll wake? D’you think—”

  She turned on her heel and walked away.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Deenie wandered the almost-deserted streets for nearly an hour, but she had no luck finding Kerril or any other pother. At last, feeling faint from hunger and knowing Charis would be fretting, she took bread and cured meat from a partly tumbled shop in Tag Lane, behind the Square, and left a silver trin in payment on the counter. Then she made her way back to Uncle Pellen’s mostly unscathed house. Still nobody noticed her. She kept her head down and walked quickly. If another person asked her if she could fix this, or chased her about Da, likely she’d do something foolish.

  Charis leapt up when she entered the parlour. “Deenie. You’ve been gone ages. I was sure you’d killed yourself down a hole!”

  “I could have, easily,” she said. “Barl knows there are dozens to choose from.” She held out the bread and meat. “Are you hungry?”

  Distracted, Charis took the provisions. “Is it terrible? The city?”

  All of a sudden her legs wouldn’t hold her. She dropped to the footstool beside the sofa. Da hadn’t moved. She took hold of his hand and rested her gaze on his pale, quiet face. He was growing some stubble. He’d need a scraping soon.

  “Yes. What’s happened in Dorana—Charis, it’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Worse than Westwailing?” said Charis, breathless.

  She nodded. “Much worse. I think—I think—”

  But she couldn’t say it. Not yet.

  “I’ll make breakfast,” said Charis. “And then we can talk about what to do.”

  She withdrew to the kitchen. Turning to her father, Deenie raised his hand to her cheek. “And that’s the question, isn’t it, Da?” she whispered. “What are we going to do?”

  So still, so far away, he didn’t answer. But for the first time since he’d fallen into his awful stupor, she wasn’t sorry for it. Because so long as he was sleeping he’d never know Mama was dead.

  I’m not going to tell him, either. If I tell him he might go after her—and I’m not ready for him to die.

  After they’d eaten, Deenie told Charis everything she’d seen and learned in the city. Charis heard her out in silence, tucked back into the parlour armchair, and when the sad tale was done, sat silent for a time.

  But, at last she stirred. “Nobody’s in charge?”

  “I s’pose Mayor Stott is, but all he did was bleat about Da saving us. I don’t think he knows what to do, Charis. I don’t think anyone does. Nothing like this has ever happened before. I don’t even know how many of the Council’s left to do the bossing he can’t.”

  “Papa would never have carried on like that,” Charis murmured. “He and your Da between them saw Dorana put to rights after the Wall fell. They saw the whole kingdom put back together. And—and—” Her voice was small and hesitant. “And your mother, of course.”

  Mama. Without warning the parlour blurred, her eyes filling with hot tears.

  “Deenie, about your mother…”

  “I know, Charis,” she said, blinking furiously. “I have to go back to the Tower, I have to—”

  Put her somewhere. Bury her. Give her to the ground.

  “Actually,” said Charis, still hesitant, “I’ve been thinking. Perhaps you could lay her to rest in the royal crypt. If it’s not been destroyed, I mean. So you don’t have to—you know—dig a grave.”

  The royal crypt. “I think Da would want that for her,” she said slowly. “I want it for her. Only—”

  “I was thinking about that, too,” said Charis. “Maybe she could share one of the other coffins. Just for a while. Until everything goes back to usual.”

  If it ever does. But she didn’t say that out loud. “Not Princess Fane’s coffin,” she said. “Mama never said much, but I know Da couldn’t abide her.”

  “Queen Dana’s?” Charis suggested. “Everyone loved her, Papa said.”

  Yes. Queen Dana’s coffin. That sounded right. Da always said Mama was the queen of his heart.

  “You’ll need help,” said Charis. “You’ll need me. It’s not something you can do on your own, Deenie. Nor should you.”

  She certainly didn’t want to. “Except I can’t leave Da here on his lonesome, can I?” she pointed out. “Just ’cause he hasn’t stirred doesn’t mean he won’t. And I can’t take the chance he’ll—”

  Banging on the front door. She and Charis stared at each other, frighted. The city wasn’t lawless yet, but that could come. With nobody in charge, giving orders, and everyone so fratched and desperate, that would come.

  Charis went to see who it was and moments later brought Pother Ulys back to the parlour. The young novice was dirty and grey-faced with exhaustion. There were smears of blood and other things on her green smock.

  “Kerril can’t come to you,” she said baldly. “She’s sent me. I’m to look at your father and if there’s any change, run and tell her.”

  Pother Ulys didn’t look like she could run three steps, but Deenie didn’t say so. “Thank you,” she said, instead. “I’m grateful.” She glanced at Charis and saw they’d had the same thought. “Pother Ulys, you look weary. Are you hungry, too?”

  Ulys half-laughed, the kind of sound that said tears weren’t far away. “It’s been a long, bad night and a worse day, this far. So many hurt. So many dying.”

  “You should rest a while,” said Charis. “You’ll not help anyone if you’re fainting left and right. And if you stayed here, and ate something, and drank some tea, and composed yourself, well, you’d be doing Deenie and me a kindness.”

  Mindful of Da, Deenie took Ulys’s arm and gently nudged her aside. “It’s Mama,” she said, keeping her voice low. “I have to—take care of her. And I need Charis’s help.”

  Ulys’s expression changed. “Oh. Yes. Then of course I’ll stay a while, Deenie. But—be wary. There’s real fear brewing in the streets, now the first shock of what’s happened is wearing thin.”

  Another glance at Charis. “I was out, earlier. It seemed to me there was a great deal of confusion.”

  “Barlsman Jaffee perished in his chapel,” said Ulys, her eyes haunted. “Speaker Shifrin’s dead, too. Guard Captain Mason’s hurt. Half the city guard is hurt. And with the important Doranen long gone from here—”

  “It’s just Mayor Stott in charge,” she said, her heart sinking. Barlsman Jaffee? Oh, Da, there’s a mischief. “And Mayor Stott’s wits are so rattled it’s a wonder he can remember his own name.”

  “But I’m sure all will be well, in time,” Ulys added. Plainly not sure at all, but needing to believe it. “Only don’t linger up at the palace, Deenie. And come back before dark. For my sake, if not your own.”

  “I will,” she promised. “But before I go, please, tell me Da’s holding his own.”

  Charis retreated to the kitchen to cut up the last of the bread and meat and brew fresh tea. While she waited for her refreshments, Ulys took a quick look at Da, pressing a palm to his forehead, feeling his pulse, testing how strongly his breath fanned her cheek.

  “He’s taken no harm from last night that I can see,” she said when she was done. “A miracle, to be sure.”

  Deenie smoothed her father’s lustreless hair back from his face. “He’s the Innocent Mage.”

  “Deenie.” Ulys folded her hands before her. “I know what you say you can feel in him. Is it true? Do you feel it?”

  “If I said yes, would you believe me? Kerril doesn’t.”

  “Pother Kerril is a practical woman,” said Ulys, with great care. “She believes what she can see.”

  Before last night she’d never really paid Ulys much attention, beyond the fact she was a Doranen and a pother-in-training and sometimes sat with Da. Now what she thought seemed terribly important.

  “And you?”

  Ulys looked round as Charis returned with a meal and a mug of tea on a tray. “I might not understand it, Deenie,
and it might argue against everything I’ve been taught as a pother and a mage, but—I saw your face last night. I saw what you were feeling in the storm, and with the tremors. That was real. I couldn’t feel it, but it was real. So…” With a polite nod she took the tray from Charis and retreated to the parlour’s straight-backed wooden chair. “I’d be foolish to say you can’t feel anything else, wouldn’t I?”

  “As foolish as Kerril,” Deenie muttered. “And yes. It’s true. There’s some kind of blight in Da, trying to destroy him. It’s taking all his strength to keep it at bay. I think that’s why he won’t—why he can’t—wake up.”

  “And this blight,” said Ulys. “Do you know what it is? Do you know what’s caused it?”

  “If I did don’t you think I’d have said so long before now?” she snapped. Silly woman. “I’ve told you what I know, Ulys. I don’t know anything more.”

  “You should pay heed to every word Deenie utters,” said Charis, standing by the sofa with her arms crossed, belligerent. “She’s the Innocent Mage’s daughter, Pother Ulys. She’s Rafel’s sister. They’re none of them regular Olken, you know.”

  “I know.” Ulys took a mouthful of bread and meat, chewed, swallowed, then washed it down with tea. “I’ve another question. You might be angry with me for asking it, but—”

  “But everyone else asks me, so why not you too?” Frustrated, Deenie pushed off the footstool and stalked to the parlour window. She felt like Da, doing that. She and Rafe used to laugh about it, sometimes, the way Da stomped about staring out of windows when he was fratched. “Ulys, I’ll tell you what I tell everyone else. If Da was awake, if he wasn’t blighted, prob’ly he could do something to save Lur. He always has before. Mama—” She had to wait a moment, but even so she could feel the tears stubbornly threatening. “Mama said it was why he got born. To save our little kingdom. Only now he won’t wake, so he can’t save it, can he?”

  “Can you?”

  Two little words that felt like daggers shoved through her heart. She shook her head. “No.”