Magesong

by James R. Sanford

  "They do not judge."

  "No," Farlo said, death in his voice, "but I do." He strode out to meet the sorcerer, knife in hand.

  Reyin screamed, "Farlo! No!"

  The sorcerer stepped back, making an arcane gesture with his ungloved hand, and Farlo's legs collapsed under him. Wincing in pain, he dropped the knife to clutch at his knee.

  "Your friend is far too dangerous to allow within arm's reach," the supplicant said with a crooked smile, focusing on the grey glove. "You, on the other hand . . . "

  Reyin set the spirit box and the little lantern down in the mud, then reached into his purse and took out a fistful of salt.

  If this be nothing more than desperate defiance, then let it be.

  "Iurna Astyzaq," he intoned, throwing a pinch of sea salt into the air.

  The gloved magician cocked his head as he walked leisurely toward him. "What are you doing?"

  "Begone foul spirits and vanish airs of ill. Banish the nameless. Deny the unclean will."

  "A ritual purification? I suppose it is fitting, considering that this place will be your tomb." He was only a few steps away now.

  "Come forth unseen flames. Milluvian Gan! Make pure with your light this place and this man!" And with the last word Reyin flung the handful of salt full upon his enemy.

  Outside, lightning rained down from the heavens.

  The supplicant shrieked, his back arching as he sank to his knees, his face fixed in unbearable anguish, as if the salt clinging to his wet clothes burned into his flesh and his spirit. He screamed again, then fell over and was still.

  "I didn't know," Reyin said weakly, almost apologetically. "I wasn't sure. . . . "

  Abruptly released from his pain, Farlo flexed his knee to find that it worked perfectly. His eyes widened suddenly and he scrambled for his knife.

  Reyin, aware now that he stood bathed in yellow light, turned to face the group of sailors. They stopped and looked at him, their weapons held low.

  "The charm he held over you is broken," Reyin said. "You are free to do as you will, but he will not be coming with you."

  The sailors looked at one another as if they all woke from the same dream.

  "I'm going back to the ship," muttered one of them. Without any more words the sailors put away their weapons and started back the way they had come.

  Reyin watched as they trudged away through the puddles and mud, the grotto growing dim. At last they left the tunnel to be swallowed by the gale raging outside.

  "He's alive," Farlo called. He knelt over the form of the fallen sorcerer. "He weeps."

  Reyin went to them. By the orange glow of his lamp, he saw the flowing tears. But the feeble sound he heard was that of laughter twisted around a cry.

  "Ne'er for hadnedith bine. Caaless dormir hed bowth to noolun."

  Farlo gripped his knife tightly. "What is that? Some kind of magical tongue."

  "It's no language that I know," Reyin said, puzzling over his enemy. The man had made no effort to rise out of the mud. "I think it's only gibberish."

  "Are you sure that he isn't casting some evil at us."

  Reyin looked at the babbling man. "Yes. He can no longer harm anyone by sorcerous means. His magical essence is now fled."

  "What happened."

  "I don't really know. The ritual of purification is a spell which designs on the spirit plane. I thought that if I could purify something of his spirit he would forget revenge and not murder me."

  Farlo nodded as if he understood. "A poisoned soul, suddenly cleansed, could not live in the same body with a poisoned mind."

  Reyin shrugged. "It is seldom that simple, but maybe so."

  He peeled the grey glove from the man's hand and used his lantern to set it aflame. Blackened pearls fell to be lost in the mud. When nothing was left but a tangle of burned strings, he dropped it and ground it beneath the heel of his boot.

  "Foul, disgusting thing — your power, too, is broken."

  Farlo plucked the fire ruby from the other hand. "Is this cursed as well?"

  Reyin took it for a moment. "No more than any other weapon that can kill. Why?"

  "Then we'll use it to buy our passage back to the Pallenborne."

  The man who was no longer a magician sat up slowly now, looking at Reyin and Farlo with blank yet seeing eyes. He rose to his feet, starting one way, then another.

  "What's your name?" Reyin asked him.

  He stood still, as if he had heard the question, but only blinked at them.

  "He doesn't know his own name," Farlo said.

  Reyin nodded. "I wonder if there's anyone in the world who does?"

  The nameless man shuffled away to sit on a large stone against the side wall.

  "What are we going to do with him?" Farlo asked.

  Reyin shook his head. "Leave him here. I think, now, that this is the only home he will ever find."

  CHAPTER 18: The Return

  The open boat pushed across the open sea, gracefully topping the mild swells. Reyin and Farlo sat beneath a faded blue awning in the stern of the boat, their lips dry and cracked and encrusted with salt, their wind-burned faces solemn, their eyes fixed on the horizon. They had not spoken aloud all that day. Each did what was necessary, Reyin working the tiller, Farlo trimming the broad yellow lateen. An old canvass duffle lay between them.

  The ocean had been friendly and forgiving during the month-long voyage from Mira-Delvin, and whenever the summer squalls came dangerously close Reyin spoke to them soothingly. But it was also a journey that had weathered them.

  A horn-shaped peak rose out of the haze that lay ahead where thin clouds began to gather. Farlo looked to Reyin and held his eye. Hoarsely, he said, "Land ho."

  Reyin could only return his look.

  They sailed on in silence for a time, watching as the sun overhead cast a glory on the mists surrounding the Skialfanmir.

  "Farlo," Reyin said at last. "I was wrong about you. And I am sorry."

  Farlo continued to face the brown and grey land that had replaced the line where sea met sky. He cleared his throat. "No, you were mostly right. But thanks for saying it."

  The sea turned a deeper color. The breeze freshened, and Farlo brought the sheet in tighter as they sailed closer to the wind. More clouds crept over the mountains as they went, and the heavens grew dark as they tacked into the bay where Reyin had landed a season before.

  All the villagers of Lorendal stood in a circle around the touching stone, where newborn children were publicly named on the first full moon after their birth. Syliva smiled as she held the tiny infant in the crook of her arm. With her free hand, she held a miniature silver cup to the baby's lips and let a single drop of water fall.

  "And so she is named," Syliva pronounced to the circle. They all clapped hands, the men slapping one another on the back as if each one were an uncle or godfather. A dozen young women rushed forward to surround the child, and Syliva allowed one of them to take her.

  The company broke into small groups of friends, and they stood in idle chatter, watching the charcoal-colored sky form roiling clouds above their heads.

  "Do you think it will happen this time?" Kurnt said.

  Aksel and Celvake both shrugged. Syliva took her husband's arm. "It sure looks like rain," she said, "but this isn't the first time. I'm afraid of hoping too much."

  They heard galloping footfalls. "There you are," Syliva called. "Where have you been?"

  "They're back!" Jonn shouted, sliding to a halt in the center of the village, throwing up a curtain of dust. "They're here! Farlo and the stranger. They came sailing in a boat, but not the same one."

  Aksel went to his son. "Where are they?"

  "Coming up the path. Right now. Everyone from Siadal is with them."

  Kestrin turned to Syliva, wonder and relief and fear at war within her.

  "Oh Spirit," she said, her voice breaking. "Syliva . . . "

  "Just wait."

  Thunder spoke softly in the sky as Reyin and Fa
rlo broke out of the desiccated forest with the folk of the seaside hamlet close behind. The canvass sack having been discarded, Reyin held out the gleaming star-shaped vessel for all to see. Farlo walked next to him, his head held high, his eyes fierce, one arm swinging less freely than the other.

  Farlo pointed to the west. "The trail to the Skialfanmir is that way."

  Reyin shook his head.

  "Don't you mean to return it to the mountaintop?"

  "No."

  Then, her baby tight against her breast, Lovisa stepped out of the crowd, and Farlo ran to them. Lovisa blinked away her tears and simply smiled at him as he took her in his arms.

  He pulled back a little to see his child. "Is it a girl?"

  "Yes," Lovisa laughed, "this is your daughter. We just finished naming her."

  "What did you . . . "

  "I've named her Farla."

  "What? That's a foul name for a little girl."

  "No. It's a very good one."

  He took his daughter then and held her high on his chest. Tiny hands reached and plucked at his long beard.

  Reyin walked steadily toward the villagers, stopping at last behind the touching stone. He raised the spirit box, and lowering it slowly, placed it on the stone where it perfectly fit the star-shaped groove.

  Gently, quietly, a fine rain began to fall.

  He fixed his eyes upon Syliva. She looked back at him, not understanding.

  Ever so lightly, he touched the ancient vessel and whispered a word. The face of the imprisoning device fell away into dust, and everyone saw what lay within.

  It was a mirror.

  The mirror shimmered in its blackness, and in the depths of it they saw an amorphous light that pulsed now into the shape of a face, and now into the form of a teardrop.

  Syliva looked back to Reyin.

  "I can do no more," he told her in her own language. "It is for you to complete this act of power."

  She stared back at him helplessly. "I don't know what to do."

  His answer was stern, almost angry. "You are the only one who does know. If it is to be done, you must do it."

  The valley stood in silence for a long time. Rain ran in channels down Syliva's face.

  She stepped forward and knelt before the stone. With one hand, with one finger, she reached out and touched the mirror. The spirit trapped within caugh the edge of her finger and stayed there as she withdrew it. It danced on her fingertip for a moment like a tiny star, then floated free, rising, spreading, disappearing into the clouds and returning on drops of rain to at last and again unite with the land.

  A single point of light refused to leave Syliva's hand for a moment, and then it faded away.

  Reyin looked at her with magesight. On the spirit plane the point of light had not disappeared; it grew and engulfed her, bathing her with its aura, merging with her own spirit, combining and forming a pure essence of being, the essence of the healer. More rare than magic was such a one.

  The people of Lorendal all gathered around Syliva, speaking excitedly, wanting to know what had happened and if the land would now yield crops and grass and fruit. Reyin backed away. Farlo and Lovisa still stood to the side, discovering only now that they were getting wet. Slowly, Reyin turned full circle, taking in the glistening sheen that overlaid the valley.

  Suddenly he knew that she was standing near him. He turned back, and the slender young woman with hair the color of fire smiled nervously.

  "Hello Reyin," she said. "Do you remember me?"

  He stepped closer and took her hand. Then he began laughing. He threw back his head and sang his laughter to the sky. Kestrin was taken aback, not sure of what it meant, but she didn't let go of his hand.

  "Yes," he said to her, "I remember you."

  CODA: Harvest Eve

  The flames of the huge bonfire leaped high into the night sky, higher than the young men who danced the goatstep, but no one feared an errant spark. All the newly-dried fodder had been safely stored in the barns or covered by tar-cloth for days, and the land lay moist from the showers of autumn. The harpers strummed and plucked. The big girls watched their brothers step and step-jump, while the little girls sat with their mothers weaving dolls from straw. The boys too young to dance took futile turns at blowing the great ram's horn that had been used to signal the start of Harvest Eve, giggling and pushing as they qued for another try.

  The older men and women sat in a circle at the edge of the firelight. As the bonfire burned down, their breaths came out frosty for the first time of the new season. Syliva wrapped her shawl tighter and leaned against her husband for warmth. "I wonder where they are now?"

  "They're likely still sailing," Yothan said, "probably out of Pallenborne waters by now."

  "Didn't he say they were going to a place called Wind Peak?" Celvake asked. He stood and called out, "Hey Farlo! Is it really a custom in Syrolia to travel with a woman before you're betrothed?"

  Farlo laughed and turned back to his wife.

  "Well I thought that it was very rude," Taila sniffed, "the way they went off just when we needed every hand to get the harvest in."

  "We didn’t need extra hands," Kurnt said. “It was the smallest harvest we’ve ever had.”

  “In some ways it was the best,” Syliva said.

  “Good enough,” said Celvake.

  "There's still that field of wild barley that no one has done anything about,” continued Taila. “And anyway, what's poor Syliva to do now for a helper? Who will be cure-giver when our grandchildren are grown?"

  Aksel made a flustered sound. "They're coming back. Kestrin only wanted to see the southern lands, not live there."

  Syliva rose from the yew log where she sat. "I'm going to talk to my son," she said.

  The dancing had stopped, and Jonn crouched near the fire studying the play of the flames. Syliva gently stroked his hair.

  She had known even before Reyin told her, that when her spirit was ready, she could heal in her son what could be healed.

  "What are you thinking about, Jonn?"

  He watched an ember rise on the heated air. "I forgot to ask you something. What did it feel like, when . . . when you were holding it?"

  She looked into his open eyes. One day, he'll tell us what he saw in his secret wilderness.

  "It felt like this." And she touched his hand.

  THE END

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks to Bill for the email,

  and a special thank you to CJ for the encouragement.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  PRELUDE: The Touching Stones

  CHAPTER 1: A Troubadour's Quest

  CHAPTER 2: The Barren Springtime

  1st INTERLUDE: An Object of Desire

  CHAPTER 3: The Song of Returning

  CHAPTER 4: A Message for the Stranger

  2nd INTERLUDE: The Supplicants of the Final Grammarie

  CHAPTER 5: The Magician's Passage

  CHAPTER 6: Partners

  CHAPTER 7: Sailors

  CHAPTER 8: Shepherd

  3rd INTERLUDE: Solicitations

  CHAPTER 9: In the Forecastle

  CHAPTER 10: The Yeggman

  CHAPTER 11: The Far Kingdom

  CHAPTER 12: Hidden Measures

  4th INTERLUDE: The Retainer

  CHAPTER 13: The Poorest Quarters

  CHAPTER 14: A Brief Darkness at Midnight

  CHAPTER 15: The Sound of the Depths

  CHAPTER 16: The Wellspring

  CHAPTER 17: Night Storm

  CHAPTER 18: The Return

  CODA: Harvest Eve

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

 

 

 
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