The Last Wizard

by Jane M. R.

  “Till tomorrow. Unless I’m intruding?”

  Funny how she is in my castle and I’m the one who feels like the intruder. Is it too early to ask her to be my queen? Probably. I will definitely need a shave first. I actually tell her that. Well, the part about being an intruder, anyway.

  “How dost thou believe ye art intruding when tis meself that feels compelled to bow to thee?”

  She apparently has no answer to that. She looks back in the fire. It’s then that I notice a basket beside her feet that has something wrapped in a blue checkered cloth. Maybe if I took my eyes off Brine for once, I would have seen it.

  She sees my gaze go to the floor. “Oh! I’m sorry. I was so distracted with being cold that I forgot to show you the food I brought for thee – you. YOU!”

  I’m laughing. She picks up her wet head wrap and throws it at me. “You’re going to get me in trouble with my parents if I start speaking Old English!”

  “Old English?”

  “Yes. Old. Like, you-are-over-three-hundred-years, old.”

  “Hear ye, I art so devilishly handsome that even age cannot touch upon me. Ye, otherwise, there tis nary a fix for trolls.”

  She’s glowering at me, but because her hair is wet and she looks to be about sixteen – shorter than me, besides – she looks no angrier than a baby chick with its wings spread. I might like that look more than her smile.

  “Anyway, I brought you food.” She picks the basket up and brings it to the table where fish blood is engrained into the wood. “Have you been eating?”

  I haul up the sleeve on my arm to show her the truth of what the deer meat has been doing for me. Curly black hair shrouds most of my skin. Repulsed, I yank the sleeve back down. “Yea, me hast. Tis doing me muscles well.”

  “That’s good.” Her eyes look out the window. “Why is it raining? It was a perfect summer day when I left my house. I walk through the Fae Gate and into a thunderstorm.”

  I reach over the table and reveal the secrets of the basket. “I nary tell ye.”

  “Why?”

  “For the same reason I canst nary tell ye why ye wouldst nary spy upon the castle if ye quested over the mountain as opposed to riding through the Fae Gate. Twould confuse thee upon this moment. Maychance I tell ye later.”

  “You just want me to keep coming back.”

  I stuff a handful of crackers and slices of sausages in my mouth and decline to answer.

  I eat the entire contents of the basket.

  When I reach the bottom, I spy something that makes my heart jump. I’m pulling the red leather bound book out before I even bother to ask for permission. But then I don’t have to. It’s mine.

  “Whence dost…” I can’t even finish. My not-so-bony-as-of-yesterday finger traces over the abused cover of the book held closed by two clasps.

  She’s watching me patiently, watching me pop the clasps. The pages fan open, glaring delicious color on me from the paintings and drawings inside. I select the first page where my sister had scripted her note:

  Zadicayn,

  I hopeth thou hast a birth year happiness like upon a sunrise.

  ~Elshina

  I only don’t cry because I am out of tears. As if holding a relic, I begin turning each page, laying eyes upon all the creatures my sister had commissioned a quester of many lands to paint which he had seen in his travels. She then found a book binder to bind it. I feel one of my snakes die but I don’t know which one. The empty space is then filled with a dove of Hope because my re-entry into life is not near as badly as I have so far envisioned.

  “Whence dost thou acquire this?” I’m whispering because I don’t know where my voice went. Now I know for certain that Brine is a descendant of my sister… a many times great niece of mine, affirming that my sister kept her promise that she would release me.

  I go to the very last page, on the inside of the back cover:

  Dearest brother,

  I journey old upon this day, having thus born children where upon one I hath bestowed the secret of thee, charging them with pleas and prayers to ne’er stop seeking a method of thy release. Dangerous men swarm about me, having thus threatened us all upon Death if we bespeaks even but thy name upon our tongues. I be weighed with sadness that tis nary meself to see thy eyes again. I hath sought the Black Magicians to extend upon me life, with nary findings of them. Forgive me inabilities. Forgive that I wast nary stronger to push aside the threats of dangerous men. Three hold the key in secret places. They art guarded well. I loveth thee brother. I hopeth thy book tis returned upon ye again soest ye mighten hear again me everlasting devotion to thee.

  ~Elshina

  “There’s a note in the back, isn’t there?” Brine asks to my left. I forgot she was even here.

  “Yea,” I murmur. “Tis from me sester.”

  Brine slaps her forehead and I don’t know why. I keep staring at the note. I read it again. And again.

  “I saw a Faewraith a month ago.”

  I snap the book shut, staring ahead of me before I turn slowly to look at her. “Sayeth again?”

  She’s holding the blanket tight around her but still shivering, so I direct her to stand in front of the fire.

  “It was four weeks after my cousin – Durain’s – funeral, that I went for a walk at night through the forest close to my house. I heard a sort of chiming noise, like a bag of marbles being shaken. Then over me flew what looked like an orange dog with wings. It was so strange I couldn’t place it. Then I was helping my aunt clean out Durain’s bedroom and I saw that book and opened it.” She inhales deeply and then releases it. “I saw the first inscription on the front inside of the book. Your name sounded familiar when you first said it to me but I couldn’t remember where I thought I’d heard it. Anyway, I found the drawing of the Faewraith in your book. I looked at the picture again last night just to be sure. The Old English text was a little hard to read at first, but now there is no mistaking it.”

  “What didst happen when ye laid eyes upon it?” I’m looking her up and down as if she might have sustained injury from the encounter that feels like it happened outside on the bridge.

  “It just flew over my head. But then I heard horses so I climbed a tree because I didn’t want them seeing me. There were three cloaked riders, chasing it. From my position in the tree I saw them shoot it down.”

  I almost sink to my knees. My amulet. Those five riders had touched my amulet which triggered an influx of magic that pulled the Faewraith into the Human Realm. The Faewraith had gotten away, but then shot down. Clearly, those three families have not in three hundred twenty-four years figured out how to harvest my magic yet. Would ne’er figure out how to harvest my magic. Like I told them.

  But still, they try. Fools.

  She sees me contemplating. I just nod to acknowledge what she said. This is yet another thing I will have to explain later.

  “Methinks we art related,” I say to get my mind off all the tainted hands that have tarnished my amulet.

  “Related?” She shakes her head.

  I bring the book from the table and show her the last page. She takes longer to read it than I did. She hands the book back. “One of your sister’s descendants could have given the book over to a friend.”

  “Nay. Me sester wanted to hold to the promise that she set me free. She wouldst have kept it in the family.”

  “What if one of her descendants that had your secret were not able to have children? Or what if they only had one child and that child died of the black plague?”

  “Why doest thou insist it perchance fell upon a friend?” I grin. “Art ye afraid any ancient ancestry we share wouldst taint thine admiration upon meself?”

  She bunches the blanket in her hands and throws it at me. “Go put that somewhere else. I’m done with it.” Arms folded indignantly, she looks back at the fire and I know I see a grin being fought there. I am devilishly handsome, after all. My rusty head of my Charisma snake is waking up now, too.

 
I take the blanket out of the kitchen upon her request, giving her time to erase those smiles off her face so she can continue to act indifferent toward me.

  Entering the kitchen, I’ve completely run out of entertainment for her. It’s going to be a long rest of the day if we just sit and stare at each other in the kitchen.

  “I couldst use thy help cleaning.” I scratch my head, hoping I haven’t picked up lice. Is that the exchange? I find my charisma with the price of lice? “If ye art up to the quest.”

  She puts both hands on her hips and pulls back her shoulders. “The gauntlet hath been thrown. I accepteth the challengeth.”

  “Ye art better,” I reassure. “And if thou art generous in thine questing mood, I also hath the honorable offer to present to thee the gauntlet of seeking out me amulet.”

  Her eyes say it all. Still not converted to everything I’ve said about being a wizard. Happy to keep that odd tidbit comfortably unrealistic in the back of her head.

  “I’ll help,” she finally says, though I can’t fathom her real reason. “Just let me know when. It will have to wait until next week because the Whaerin family is having their, like, bazillionth business anniversary in three days and the whole hamlet is invited.”

  “Bazillionth?”

  She nods. “It means they’ve had their business for a very long time. Anyway, every year it’s this massive Ball and everyone has to be their best dressed.” She presses the back of her hand to her forehead. “Propriety and feminism are exhausting.”

  My eyes slid up to her face. “A Ball?”

  “Yes. It’s this big party. I’m sure you’ve been to parties during your time?”

  I know what a Ball is. I don’t even care that Whaerin is putting it on. “Well… ye just tell meself after this atrocious Ball,” I roll my eyes to encourage her to remain ignorant to my own thoughts on the matter, “whence ye wouldst like to begin. I hath nowhere else to be.” I smile and it lifts my mustache. For effect, I wiggle it at her. She laughs. “I count good fortune when I canst make ye laugh with this ugly face. Gives meself purpose. Ye, on the other hand, still looketh upon like a troll.”

  She looks about as if for something else to throw at me. I hope she will consider throwing herself. “Let’s get this troll den cleaned up, then.”

  OOO

  I find out soon that it was actually vital she help me clean up some of the rooms in my castle because the divider in my brain which sorts through what is trash and what is useful was actually a sieve and so the two continue to fall into the wrong pile.

  “No, Zadicayn, you can’t keep that boot. A mouse has chewed a hole through the ankle and it is missing its sole.”

  “Methinks we shouldst nary abandon things just because they be lacking a soul.”

  “It’s a boot. Boot sole.”

  I see no difference. If I turn my head just right, the boot kind of looks like me.

  I demand to cook at lunch time. I want to show that I am not as incompetent as she must think I am. I find stuff in the larder I bless off as seasoning and serve up a large plate of deer. I consume mine through inhalation.

  I need a break from cleaning. My attention span keeps getting distracted and I have this intense boyish urge to play with half the things I find. Which is unreasonable for me since I think I’m eighteen and should be long gone from such things. I blame it on my time in the vault. So I offer her a tour of the castle.

  I show her all the rooms. I realize, too late, that she’s already seen mine from that day she came in to comfort me while I was sobbing, yet again, like an idiot. Now I blush, worried she saw my codpieces all over the floor.

  We wind ourselves down to the lower level. I don’t take her into the chapel. We hit the larder where the remains of the deer is hanging and all the molded lumps of stuff that still needs to be cleaned and it smells mostly atrocious but… now I get to show Brine how I’m going to pay her back when I am able.

  A narrow descending stair case branches from the larder. I take a torch off the wall and light it with the fireflints from the kitchen. I motion for Brine and she follows me down. Coming off the last step, I enter into a circular room with a domed ceiling. Brine stands next to me. Together we stare at the stone archway directly center of the small chamber.

  The archway is eight feet high by six feet wide. The two pillars on either side and top look like ivory. I don’t really know what they are made out of. They came from the Fae Realm. Black symbols paint both pillars all the way around and spread away on the floor.

  “This tis how I shall return all the favors I owe ye,” I murmur to prevent an echo. “If I dost understandeth thee, I trust ye shalt enjoy it immensely. I must have me amulet to access it, howeverso.”

  “I’ve already told you, Zadicayn, you don’t need to pay me back.”

  I touch the tip of my finger under her chin, guiding her to look at me. I bore into her eyes with a sincerity that makes her shiver. She looks away. “Ye hath nary an idea how tormented I wast mentally and emotionally when I fled that vault. I wast so emotionally broken that I be sure ye canst tell I hath nary fully repaired. I mayest ne’er repair. If ye nary stayed that night, or even the second, I wouldst hath gone insane with desperate loneliness and confusion.

  I hate ye seeing me such, but I need thine company more. Ye shalt permit meself to return the favors, because I must.” My eyes slipped into gold again. I know because everything has remarkably better color. I take a breath and all the brilliant colors melt away.

  “Okay,” she says, a little breathless.

  I take my finger off her chin and step back, indicating the stairs. “Shall we?”

  It is still raining. On our way back to the kitchen, I get lost and wind up outside. Brine follows me, though is staying safely dry just inside the Grand Hall while I stand like a fool looking up at the sky.

  Touch.

  I look at Brine. “Trolls hate being rained on.”

  “I’m not a troll!”

  “Provest thou.”

  “I had to walk through that to get here. I’ve just managed to dry off completely.”

  “Well, then, if ye cometh nary out…” I take a step toward my castle, splashing into a puddle on the bridge, “I cometh after thee!”

  She ducks back into the Grand Hall. I’m faster. I latch on and haul her around. She shouts things at me, interspersed with that word “bloody”.

  She’s flailing too, and I’m barley strong enough to hold on. She doesn’t know how weak I am. Eating has been returning my strength but it’s only been four days. I don’t know why these four days feel longer than the previous three hundred.

  She’s squirming so hard I nearly drop her, but I’m not far from the doors and so I drag her with me outside into the deluge bursting upon us. I let go of her because I can’t hold on anymore and she shoves me backward. I retaliate and stomp a boot into the puddle at my feet, splattering her. I stand between her and the doors.

  She’s throwing a tantrum, stomping her feet and tries to get passed me, to which I continue to stomp into the puddle when she gets close. Finally, she just rushes me.

  I wrap her up, squeezing the water out of my clothes onto her. Not until she is most definitely upset do I let her go and she runs into the Grand Hall.

  “I withdraw me previous statement,” I say as I follow behind her. It’s raining from the hem of her dress and she’s moving about as if she doesn’t know where to stand, bickering all the while. “Thee hair bears witness ye art most certainly a troll.”

  She doesn’t say anything. Just continues to stomp and grumble. I walk passed her. She follows, knowing a fire awaits us both.

  Her annoyance evaporates as soon as heat from the fire licks upon us both. Our dinner cooked, we take our places at the table to eat, still mildly wet.

  “How’s your trousers coming along?” she asks, eating far more delicately than me with my elbows all akimbo.

  “I told ye. I needeth to lose all of me own hair firstmost. Hopefully the barber
I find shan’t make a pair of trousers out of me hair.”

  “The word is my.”

  Still chewing, I look at her steadily as I lean back in my chair and prop my boots on the top of the table. Bad choice. The chair gives out and dumps me unceremoniously onto the floor.

  Brine laughs, and I look about for some dignified way to recover. There isn’t one. I stomp over to the corner to acquire a stool and bring it back. She’s still laughing at me so I flick a piece of meat on her with my fork.

  She tries to be offended and makes some unroyal noise but I ignore her and resume eating.

  I clean up the kitchen, dumping the dishes into the boiling cauldron to clean them. Brine is sitting on her stool, fighting with the floor mat of her hair with her fingers. It looks like she is trying to braid it.

  “Here,” I say, replacing her fingers with mine. “please allow me.”

  Brine freezes, then quietly rests her fingers in her lap as I begin to braid her hair.

  “Me sester made me braid her hair,” I say. “And I still be trying to sooth the need to touch another human. So… this tis for me.” Liar.

  “It’s okay.”

  I finish the braid, tying the end off with a string from the cuff of my white, threadbare shirt. She’s not moving. Is she still breathing? I don’t know. I leave the kitchen to retrieve the blankets for bed.

  I return and she has relocated to the fire, staring into the flames. She stands up to help but I indicate for her to sit down. She’s done serving me. It’s my turn to serve her.

  I lay out two beds, giving her the thickest blanket with the least amount of holes. I’ve washed all the blankets in the river with my mother’s rosemary soap. I wish I had silk pillows for Brine to rest her head on.

  Our clothes finally dry, we lay down in our respected beds, mine laying between Brine and the door. Naught should come through that door during the night. But just in case…