The Last Wizard

by Jane M. R.

  She comes up the stairs. I flinch when she touches my arm. Her touch freezes me. Every time. Another arm wraps around me and I brace against the kiss she presses into my mouth, the same bolt of fire lancing to my toes. I meld into her, joyous and hysterical at the same time.

  “Have you spelled me to love you?” she whispers like a breath of life against my lips.

  “I dost nary wit how to do that,” I half moan into her mouth.

  “You can’t turn invisible, you can’t spell people to love you… you are a terrible wizard.”

  More kisses, sinking me into further delirium.

  “Wilt ye marry me?” Who said that? I did, but I’m so dazed with her closeness that her intimacy has left me weak and disconnected from thought and speech.

  I barely hear her reply through the fog in my head. “Please.”

  The fog in my head swirls down my body, muting thought and movement… I force myself away from the kiss with great effort. “Brine?”

  “What? This better be important for stopping me.”

  “Ye art serious about marrying me?”

  “You are exhausting me. How many more times do I have to tell you ‘I want to stay here with you’?”

  A billion more. I spent forever convincing myself I could not have her that it is now so hard to pull out of. “We art both acting on emotions here. Dost nary get me wrong,” I say quickly to her raised eyebrows, “I desire ye to stay here too. Badly. But… ye must make sure this tis what ye want – nary interrupt me – because ye wilt shatter me if two days from now ye change thy mind. That wilt hurt worse than if ye dost nary stay at all. So… I want ye to go home. Think about it overnight, over the next few days to be sure –”

  “I get married in a week!”

  “Then take as long as ye dare to make sure ye want this.” I grasp her hand. That kiss filled my sense of need for touch very thoroughly, but that void is yawning open again. “Even if it only takes a couple of hours. But ye hast to go back so ye can tell thy parents to whence ye goest. They gave birth to ye, raised ye… dost nary leave them with a lifetime of worry that they dost nary wit what happened to ye.”

  “But they’ve only met you once. They’ll have no idea what I’d be going on about!”

  “Just tell them ye met a devilishly handsome wizard who plays with magic and owns a castle in the Fae Realm. They shall understand.”

  She giggles nervously, hesitation fading in and out on her face. My stomach is so tight I feel sick. I can’t trust right now that she could be mine. I shan’t trust that until she comes back. But when she looks into my eyes again, I see the truth there and let myself accept a future I had before believed I had no hope of ever having.

  I release a tight breath as she leans in for another tight embrace before pulling away. “Well,” she says, “let’s get me out of here so I can come back, then.”

  As if we’d been doing it all along, we reach for each other’s hands and walk side by side back into the Human Realm.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  BRINELLA

  I pop into my room and go immediately to Durain’s bag under my bed. What do I need? I pack the hair brush with the pegasi engraving and the bar of rosemary soap. What else?

  I have to force my emotions to calm so my brain can supply the need for socks and underclothing. Should I pack anything for Joseara? I’m beyond joyous that I can help Zadicayn bring life back into her by offering my blood.

  I open my wardrobe, glad this will be the last time I ever see the dresses. I’m not even nervous to tell my parents. My parents will be happy for me when they see how happy and complete I am. They’ll cry with me, embrace me. I should have brought Zadicayn with me to formally tell them. Too late. He probably wouldn’t have, anyway. Society is still on the hunt for him.

  Elated jitters keep me moving. I open my secret box and take everything. They are my secrets, after all. I pull the white container out, the one Durain Willed me with a map marked on one of the long sides which sent me on the path to where I am right now. How could I have possibly known this is where I would have ended up on that day when I first deciphered the map? Joseara’s advice when she looked at it for the first time was to ask him what it is. I’d forgotten about it. I stuff it in my bag. The last secret to be revealed.

  My giddiness is quick to make me tired. How long was I in the Fae Realm? Two Fae hours? In any case, long passed when I usually sleep. I’ll go back and we will go to the Fae Realm to get married and… how long would that take? I want to be awake for it, after all.

  He’d want me to be awake too, so I consent to take a short nap.

  One more scan around the room to verify I have everything I want, hoping I can come back later but planning in case I can’t. That thought makes me sad but it is overruled by how much joy floods me when I think of why I am leaving.

  I set my bag by the door. Still in my slippers and untiable pink dress, I curl my knees into my chest on top of the covers and sleep.

  OOO

  I open my eyes and don’t know why, for I am still tired and it is still dark outside. How long was I asleep?

  I look around the room but nothing reveals itself as the culprit to disturb my rest. But between the narrow space where the curtains over my window meet, I see light glancing off the glass. Faintly, I think I hear the nicker of horses.

  Slipping off the bed, I part the curtains and look down. A herd of eight horsemen are gathered on my lawn, each bearing flaming torches stabbing barbs of forked red through the dark. Unreasonable fear surges inside me as the thought of a mob comes to mind. Of course they aren’t a mob. The constables watch too closely for anything like that. Wait… they look like the constables.

  I run to ring the bell for Varseena but before I can reach it the door opens.

  My father steps in, wearing his bathrobe. It would be the second time in my life I had seen him in it. And it is not unlock hour yet. Still, the oddest thing I see is him. He is… not composed. His rankled hair splatters above black stubble needling his chin and neck. I have never seen him like this.

  “Father…” I don’t want to question. Don’t want to know what answer a thousand fears might give me.

  “Brinella,” he says in a surprising calm tone. “There are constables outside. They want to speak with you.”

  “Me? Wh–?” My throat pinches so tightly I can’t squeeze the rest of my question out. Did they find out I’ve been associating with the wizard? How could they? I’ve been using the bloodstones to relocate here and there for a while now. Was it that day we stopped to give Zadicayn a ride when I saw the two constables following him? It has to be. I’ve got an excuse ready right here. Mutely, my father shakes his head. “They just… have a question for you.”

  “Do you think it is safe?”

  “They are constables. Of course it is safe. One of them is the same man who escorted you around.”

  My fear dissipates but worry remains. “Why are they here at this time of night?”

  “I could ask why you are dressed in that instead of your nightgown but there is a better time to ask that question and I’m certain you have a good reason for it, which I’m sure they do too. Come along.”

  In the wake of my father’s pseudo calm, I follow him down the hallway. My mother leaves their room as well, her night robe flaring around her delicate body.

  My father appears ready to speak to her but doesn’t, letting her fall in step with him. Now I am worried. My mother has no comment for why I am wearing my untiable dress.

  The cook, the stable hand, Varseena and her husband, and the two servants are gathered in the foyer in various stages of night clothes. All eyes pin on me. The front door is wide open. They want to question me about giving Zadicayn a ride. It was obvious they were tracking him. They are going to charge me with obstruction of justice or some bloody junk. I’ll play dumb. Act innocent. If they get belligerent, I’ll run to my room and use the bloodstone to zap back to Zadicayn.

  Empowered by my easy b
ack up plan, I step outside with my father, mother, and the rest of the house staff. Biting red torch light floods my vision. Torches? So archaic. The horses shuffle restlessly, the riders looking much the same. All eight pairs of eyes fix on me.

  “Brinella Frondaren?” asks the man astride his horse in front of the pack.

  Play dumb. Act innocent.

  “That’s her,” says another voice behind the speaker before I can respond. I see him. It is Brick Face. “I recognize her from my escort a few weeks back.”

  “That’s – that’s me,” I stutter, weak against the oddness of what is before me and not ready to go to jail.

  The first speaker looks over his shoulder, his raised torch spitting ash onto his custodian helmet. “Do you know this young man?”

  From behind the speaker emerges two horses, side by side, connected by a wooden pole between them where a body, hog-tied with a bag over their head, writhes against the thick coils of rope binding him to the pole at his boots and wrists. He shouts but his voice is inaudible and muffled. Gagged.

  Zadicayn.

  A scream rips out of me before I can stop it, silenced – too late – when everyone looks at me.

  “He claims to be a wizard. The church has been trying to find him to stop his evil before he perverts this town. We saw you enter upon the place where he lives tonight. He tried to spell us so we gagged him.”

  “That’s impossible!” my mother bursts out. “My daughter knows no such atrocity. She’s been locked in her room since dinner. You’ve been mistaken. You saw another girl –”

  “I know him.”

  “What?”

  With the seventeen people gathered there, a blind man would never know it with how silent everything becomes, broken only by Zadicayn’s muted shouts.

  Pin pricks of darkness spatter my vision. I swoon, heels hanging off the edge of consciousness. I can’t run to my room and use the bloodstone to flee. And since I can’t do that, then this is not real. Of course this isn’t real.

  But they’re staring at me. Waiting for me to finish.

  “I know him,” I say, as if those are the only words they need to hear to let him go. They’ll let him go anyway when they find out he is harmless and is actually keeping the Faewraith away just by being alive.

  They’ll let him go.

  “Brinella!” My mother folds her arms. Through clenched teeth she says, “You don’t know –”

  “His name is Zadicayn!” I shout, still trying to face the reality of what all this meant. My fear pulls the coach. My courage steers it. “You know him as Elden, mother. We gave him a ride after church last Sunday. He is the last wizard. Three hundred two-four years ago, three families locked him away in a vault and kept his amulet so they could figure out how to harvest the magic from it. He is the last one. If… if he… dies… the Faewraith will come and they will kill every human and animal. He means no one any arm and just wants to live and let live.”

  Let him go.

  Flickering torch fire snaps in the silence between both groups standing in the cold darkness of the lawn.

  I need to say more. Convince them. “My cousin was murdered by one of those families who was trying to keep Zadicayn secret. I gathered the key and followed a map to a castle beyond that mountain.” I point. No one looks. “But you have to walk through a special door to find it, because it is halfway in the Fae Realm. The Fae are the ones that give Zadicayn his magic. I have been there. It is real. I even saw a dragon –”

  “Mr. Frondaren,” says the speaker, “Your daughter has been spelled by this wizard.”

  My mother releases a strangled gasp and hangs onto my father.

  A knife of cold, barbed fear plunges through my lungs so I can’t breathe. My eyes won’t leave Zadicayn’s struggling body. Dangling from the pole.

  Just let him go!

  “This boy who claims to be a wizard has spelled your daughter so she’ll believe his Devil Magic has grand purpose… she is even on his side.”

  The blackness needling my vision is going to mass and punch me unconscious.

  “We needed to speak to your daughter to confirm the damage. Thankfully, the church was able to find him in time before he spelled everyone else. We sent a runner ahead to notify the priest and ring the bell to gather the town. The priest will want everyone to know what men infused with a demon look like and how they are purged. I encourage you all to show so you can see for yourselves what happens when people make deals with the devil. You must hurry because we are leaving here in haste to lessen any chances of this wizard doing anything unsavory.”

  The silence that follows sharpens into edges. The speaker taps his horse, causing the beast to spin around with a flick of its tail. The other seven follow.

  “LET HIM GO!” Icy death lances through me in a screaming haze. I run toward the stables.

  “BRINELLA!”

  If I run into the stables, my father will stop me before I can get a horse out. I turn abruptly left and sprint into the forest.

  “BRINELLA!” My father’s voice is frayed with panic and fear.

  He believes every word the horseman said about me being spelled.

  I shoot a look over my shoulder but he stopped chasing. I catch his night robe dash into the stables. Distantly, my mother sobs my name.

  The forest is too thick to take by horse so my father will take the road. I drive onward, shooting the straightest way I can through the dark pillars, the canopy overhead, brambles grabbing to stop me. The road to town is three miles. To cut through the forest makes it about two.

  Purge him… they are going to drive a pike through his amulet just like they did to his father. His father died instantly.

  I run with mad blindness, a terror so deep within me at what they would do to Zadicayn I feel my vision darken because I’m no breathing.

  Not after I just made my decision to marry him… not after everything he’s been through, not after everything we’ve done to help him, not after he just found all the pieces to his fractured self, not… not… not…

  If he dies, the Faewraith will come and everyone will die. I know that, but Zadicayn will die, rip a hole out of me where there is no bandage enough to stop the bleeding. I don’t know what to say to them when I reach town, the magic words they need to make them stop, make them believe. I need Joseara to tell her story, need Corden to tell his. The whole town will be present. Corden will see the wizard and defend him until I get there.

  Please God, please God… no… no… no…

  And I run.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  ZADICAYN

  The gag crammed in my teeth drowns my shouts. I arch my back, everything else bucking in sync with every trounce of the horses my pole is affixed to. The ropes are tight around my hands though I still wrestle, chaffing and pulling until my fingers numb with the strain.

  The horses stop.

  My body swings side to side from the momentum. My pole is lifted evenly by both ends. Ground presses against my back. Hands clamp around my wrists as the pole slides away from me.

  I’m hauled up by two men on either side, dragging me backward. With my ankles tied, my frantic kicking avails me nothing. Waving orange glows penetrate the threads of the potato sack over my head. I hear sounds. Shuffling. More voices. People gathered around? Is Corden among them and the others who claim to share my side?

  The men holding me stop, driving me to my knees.

  “You see here,” says a loud voice of authority, “is a young man who has taken into the practices of evil. He has made a deal with the devil so he can work the Devil’s Magic. You can see how the demon inside him is fighting to get out. This is what happens when you choose evil… the demon consumes you. He has a bag over his head so he cannot steal our souls with his eyes and he is gagged so he cannot spell us. This amulet here he has filled with his blood mixed with the devil’s which gives him the ability to do whatever he wishes, to make other people do as he wishes.”

  Footsteps crunch ar
ound me as the person continues. “But I arm merciful, as God is merciful, and I will grant him a second chance to cleanse himself and be lifted up by the Almighty. For we are human and we all make mistakes.”

  “I can attest to Zadicayn’s innocents.” Corden! “He is a wizard, yes, but he is a wizard with Fae Magic, not Devil Magic. The Fae govern his magic and they will not allow magic to be used selfishly or in a manner which is not self-defense. Most of this town hasn’t even seen him until tonight. Let him go and we will let his actions speak for himself.”

  This is answered by mummers of quiet approval. Hope quells my terror.

  “You all sound like this demon-seeker will die once I break his amulet,” the priest says. I recognize his voice now from church. Even if I did not, the intense fluctuations in his tone compels even the most righteous to believe they are damned. Priests have not changed since I knew them in my day. “If that is the case, then he is bound too closely to the demon and God shall will him to die. Unless the wizard has spelled all of you to his cause and I must cleanse all of you. Are you verifying you need cleansed?”

  The quiet approval silences. “I just think he is an innocent young man,” says someone else. “I’ve never seen him before and to lay such harsh judgment on him seems the opposite of what the church preaches every Sunday.”

  The approval echoes. The priest’s shoes crunch on rock near me. “Three hundred twenty-four years ago, there were twenty of these amulets, each bound to one man who used the demon inside the amulet to work magic. That magic turned other men evil for want of that power; the demon in the amulet beckoned evil. These men started killing wizards for their amulets but the church stepped in in time to save the rest, but the amulets had to go. The wizards would not yield them; bound too tightly to the demons. So we started breaking the amulets to kill the demon. But the bond was too tight and so the wizard died with the demon. We thought all twenty had been destroyed until recently. All of your souls are at stake because of this sin which tempts evil to destroy. When I break the amulet, the demon will flee, and if this boy is not bound too tightly, he will live.”