A History of Magic

by Scott J Robinson

  Rawk’s hand twitched in his lap and the creature noticed. It stopped where it was.

  The back of Rawk’s skull itched. He shifted uneasily but kept his hands where they were and kept his eyes forward.

  Finally, the duen hobbled forward, leaning heavily on his staff. It went to within a couple of yards of Rawk’s spot, then paused, before slowly kneeling on the grass.

  “What are you wanting?” the creature asked.

  “I am Rawk. I came to talk.”

  The creature nodded, but said nothing. He looked as if he expected to be attacked at any moment.

  “Are you a duen giant?”

  “No. Are you be a human midget?”

  “No. We are...” Rawk put away his answer and tried to find the point. It took a moment. He was describing the world from a human perspective. He gave s small nod. “I see your point. Are you a duen?”

  “That is what we are sometimes calling. My name is being Opok.” Opok stared silently for a moment. “Did you be kill my son?”

  Rawk cleared his throat.

  “And his wife?”

  “I believe so.”

  “And their children?”

  A small nod. “The girl attacked me.”

  “Atine be searching for her pet.”

  Rawk must have looked embarrassed.

  “You be killed Kaj as well?”

  “Yes. Atine saw me with the collar and...”

  Opok nodded. “And now you have come to be killing me, too?”

  “I have come to ask if you like arm wrestling.”

  The creature looked puzzled. “Apparently knowing the words you be speaking is not necessarily be the same as understanding.”

  “It’s a metaphor about expectations. Anyway, we are sitting here talking, so I believe I already have my answer.”

  The duen stared for a moment. “So, do I be like wrestling arms?”

  Rawk gave a small laugh. “No, I don’t think you do.” He started to shift to relieve the pressure on his legs, but Opok looked a bit worried so he sighed and stayed where he was. “My friend, Hubb, arm wrestles for money. But now he can’t walk into a room without someone taking it as a challenge.”

  “So if you are not here to kill me, or to wrestle arms, what is it that you are wanting?”

  “I want you to stop sending exots into Katamood.”

  “What be exots?”

  “Exotic animals. Creatures from other realms.”

  Opok’s eyes narrowed. “We be seeing many creatures but know naught of which realm they come from. We did not let them through.”

  “You didn’t?”

  Opok shook his head. He seemed to give something some thought, then decided to speak. “I be the most powerful shaman for a thousand years and I cannot be open a portal. Even here it be take two dozen shamans to[HG1] open a portal such as brought us to this world.”

  “The portals must be natural then,” Rawk muttered half to himself.

  “They be not. This place has a history of magic, there are lines of power that sing to me and a node is not far away, so perhaps some portals be natural. But not these ones. These ones be made.”

  “Are you sure? How can you tell?”

  “I cannot make them, but I can feel them. I can see them. I can hear their songs.”

  Rawk wasn’t sure that actually answered the question, but he didn’t complain because he doubted he understand the next explanation any better. “And you didn’t make them?”

  “No. No duen be making them. Of this I am certain. They are being made by someone not very far from this place.”

  “That isn’t possible.”

  “If you be knowing the answers then why have you come to speak with me?”

  Why, indeed?

  “You be having thoughts?”

  “Yes. I’m not used to it, so it may take a while.”

  Opok nodded and sat quietly, as if prepared to wait all day if that was how long it took.

  So, Weaver was right, for once. Someone in Katamood was opening portals. It wasn’t certain, of course, but there was nowhere else close. It had to be Katamood. Or Westport at the very least. And he didn’t know how to start looking for them.

  “I can’t make any decisions here, Opok— I can’t think— but I would like to visit again, if I can.”

  Opok looked at him for a moment, and like he did earlier, seemed to reach a decision. “If you come to this place, I will know.” The duen rose slowly to his feet.

  Rawk nodded and watched the creature hobble out of the clearing. He sighed and climbed to his feet as well. It was a long walk home and he imagined he was going to hobble like Opok the whole way.

  Before he went, Rawk stopped by the two graves on the far side of the cabin. Galad and the dwarf. He didn’t even know the dwarf’s name. He stood for a while, silent and watching, wondering if he should say some type of prayer. But the didn’t believe in the Great Path, so it would be hypocritical. And it would be too late as well. Galad and the dwarf were either with Path or not, his prayers would make no difference.

  He lingered by the dwarf’s small mound. Galad had known what he was getting into; he was a Hero. But the dwarf just wrote stories for the newspaper. He shouldn’t have even been in the forest let alone attacking a creature more than twice his size with a dagger.

  Rawk sighed. “Sleep well, you two,” he said. He straightened Kult and moved away into the forest.

  -O-

  It was getting late by the time Rawk climbed over a low, crumbling section of the wall and stumbled down into the city. He sat down in the alley so he could rub his knee and drink the last of his water. And then he sat there for a while, back against a rough timber wall, because he could. But it wasn’t long before the heavy scents of rubbish and dead things urged him to his feet and on towards more hospitable places.

  The dim, narrow walk along the alley seemed to last forever. The sky was hardly visible overhead and his fingers were left slick with... something... as he ran them along the plaster between the wooden frame of the wall by his side. The next street was hardly bigger but breathing wasn’t offensive and there were other people going about their business. The business probably wasn’t legal, but it was reassuring none-the-less.

  Rawk limped uphill, small slope though it was at this point, keeping an eye out for a familiar landmark. He was trying to ignore whatever was stuck to the bottom of his shoe, because he wasn’t sure that he really wanted to look and wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get moving again if he stopped. But, eventually, he needed to look or else it was going to annoy him all the way home. So he paused and spent a minute scraping something brown and sticky away on the corner of a building. When he looked up there was an exot watching him.

  It was a big thing, as tall as a man, but had four arms of varying sizes and was covered in a rough, leathery hide. It was carrying a flail in the biggest arm, twirling it around as if it weighed no more than a feather duster. The people in the street were, quite sensibly, backing away. Those that were slightly further away thought running was a good idea and did just that.

  “It’s Rawk!” someone yelled.

  The exot started, looking around, though weather it was trying to work out who Rawk was or was looking for whoever had shouted was hard to tell.

  “Kill it, Rawk.”

  The people stopped backing away. They started to cheer. Were they really that stupid?

  Rawk swallowed and looked back at the creature. It had a wild look in its eyes. He wondered if his eyes looked the same.

  The creature let out a huge roar, and still the people didn’t run. They surged back, but were apparently more interested in watching the fun that was about to follow. Rawk looked around again, wondering where all the other Heroes were now? Why hadn’t Josey turned up this time, threatening to take his claim? Where were all the other random men and women who thought it was fun to kill creatures for money? He grunted. They were probably in a richer part of town where someone worthwhile was sure to notice t
heir heroics.

  Perhaps he could let the creature...

  It didn’t make a sound as it leaped towards the nearest person. The man stumbled back, but couldn’t go too far because of the crowd behind him. He fell, then died when the exot tore open his neck with claws as long as knives. And Rawk had been worried about the flail.

  Rawk drew his sword and charged. He let out a battle cry as he went. But his charge wasn’t quite the fearsome advance he’d been hoping for. His knee slowed him down. His arm hurt, and reminding himself that it wasn’t actually his sword arm didn’t help. And the exot stared at him as if he was an ant crawling on its boot. It revised its opinion when Rawk started battering at it. He was too close for the creature to use the flail the way it was intended so it was forced to block three quick attacks with the handle of the weapon instead.

  Then it turned, took a few steps and killed a woman who was holding a basket of herbs. It glanced back at Rawk, as if to say, I could have killed you. And a moment later it was scrambling up the wall with its spare arms. It disappeared over a roof a moment later. A crow flapped up into the air as it passed, complaining loudly, then settled back down

  Rawk stared at the bird for a moment. It was better than the other options. The dead man was bleeding everywhere, eyes staring vacantly. The woman hardly seemed to be hurt at all. But she was staring as well.

  The crowd was watching him silently as if he was the enemy. Until one of them said, “Why didn’t you kill it? You just let them die?”

  Rawk didn’t know what to say. “Why did you all just stand there? Nobody would have died if you’d run.”

  “But you were here.”

  “I am just a man, you fools. Just one old man.” He sighed. “Call the Guard.”

  But the crowd was still staring at him accusingly. So he turned and left as well, though not with the same speed and agility shown by the exot. That creature was bound to cause havoc somewhere else, very soon. He tried to work out where it might have gone, but he wasn’t exactly sure where he was himself, so all he could do was try to head in the direction it had gone. Perhaps, if he was lucky, he would come across some other Heroes on the way.

  Three minutes later he came across two dead elves. One was missing an arm. The other had a hole in her chest.

  Further down the street, Rawk came across a dwarvish work gang. They had been working on the sewers, digging the deep, sheer sided drain one minute, covering it up the next. Two of them were dead, another four were injured, but the creature was down and bleeding as well, a pick sticking from his leg, a shovel with a broken handle and bloody tip by its side. And as if by magic, a crowd was starting to appear.

  Rawk rushed up, pushing through the first of the onlookers and stopped by the side of a big dwarf, almost five and a half feet tall, leaning on a mallet. He was looking at the exot as he wiped blood off his hand.

  “What happened?” Rawk asked.

  The dwarf glanced over at him. “Came down the wall like a damn spider.” And with that, he hefted his mallet and finished the job with one powerful swing.

  Rawk winced. “I don’t know that—”

  The dwarf spat. “I don’t like spiders.”

  “Well, no, but still.”

  “Well then, you make sure these four good dwarves don’t die, and bring back the ones that already have, and I’ll see what I can do about getting this thing back as well.”

  There wasn’t much he could say to that. Rawk looked at the dead dwarves for a moment and nodded. “What’s your name?”

  The dwarf grunted. “Kepler.”

  “It’s 2000 ithel for killing an intelligent exot that’s carrying a weapon. You can give the money to their families.”

  Kepler narrowed his eyes. “The claim for killing an exot? We aren’t Heroes.”

  Dwarves couldn’t be heroes. There probably wasn’t a rule written anywhere, but everyone knew it was true. Elves could, but not dwarves. “You are today.”

  “Weaver won’t give us any money. If it wasn’t for Thacker I doubt we’d get paid for the worked he actually hired us to do.”

  “I’ll put in the claim. You’ll get the money.”

  Kepler gave it some thought. “They would appreciate that,” he said eventually.

  “It isn’t much, I know.” Nothing seemed like much any more. He could never do enough.

  “It’s something, which is more than most humans would give.”

  And it was. But still not enough. Rawk looked around at the crowd and knew that most of them didn’t care at all about the dead dwarves. As far as they were concerned all the dwarves could die if it meant they were safe.

  “It isn’t much,” Rawk said. “I’ll find you when I have the money.”

  He looked at the dwarves, then at the exot. He didn’t really want to think about either of them, so he turned and walked away. A few blocks further on he came to Meera Square, a place that he actually recognized. In the mornings it was home to a blacksmiths market, but now it was mostly quiet. Except... Rawk narrowed his eyes as the anomaly finally hit him. There were half a dozen children playing on the remains of the Barbarian Gate. The gate had stood in that spot forever, as far as he knew; probably since before Katamood existed, seeing it was nowhere near the walls of the city, but now it was nothing more than a pile of rubble. An impressively tall, rose-red pile of rubble. He considered the symbolism of that for a moment before shaking his head and continuing his slow journey up towards the top of the hill.

  When he finally reached the kitchen door, Rawk almost trod on a dead mouse.

  “Kalesie, there’s a dead mouse here.” He poked it with his staff, just to make sure it really was dead. With all the magic creatures around it was better to not assume.

  “Another one?” Kalesie scowled without looking up from her cutting.

  “Mice are committing suicide on the doorstep? “ Or perhaps it was one more local that he couldn’t save.

  “It’s the cat.”

  “What cat? An exot cat?”

  “What? No.” The old woman shrugged. “It’s just a small, black cat. And if I get a hold of it, I’ll wring its neck.”

  Rawk didn’t doubt it. And he wondered if they’d all be eating cat stew the next day.

  He pushed the mouse off the step then hung his pack on the back of the door. He almost sat down but decided he would most likely be there for the night if he did, and he didn’t want to spend the night with Kalesie. So he made his way towards the far door, contemplating the long slog up the stairs to his room as he went. That seemed beyond him. When Valen came in from the taproom a moment he brought with him a surge of noise. There would be smoke and expectations as well, and Rawk didn’t want any of those any more than he wanted a climb.

  “Can you bring some tea down stairs for me?”

  Rawk made his way down to his new office. He leaned Dabaneera and his staff in the corner and lit a lamp with the flint and striker in his pouch. Then, finally, he slumped down in the chair and closed his eyes. A minute later he opened his eyes again and looked accusingly at the light. He would have been better off sitting in the dark. He was exhausted. His legs ached, from the walking and the sitting both, and his mind was numb. He had gone out into the forest hoping to end the threat of the exots but was, literally and figuratively, right back where he had started.

  And there were dead dwarves. There always seemed to be dead dwarves. Dwarves and elves and... People. All sorts of people dying in all manner of horrible ways, no matter how hard he tried to save them.

  He stayed where he was for a long time. He needed sleep, but when he thought he was about to drift off, Travis entered the room carrying a tall silver pot on a tray. There were also some fruit pies. “So I can call off the search?”

  “Who’s searching for me?”

  “Nobody. We’re still searching for Fabi so he can tell us where to look for you.”

  “Ahhh. Well, yes. I’m here and I’m fine.”

  He didn’t feel fine. Perhaps he didn’t
look fine either because Travis set the tray on the table hiding the chest of gold and said, “I have tea for you, just in case.”

  “In that?”

  “Yes. I put the leaves in a strainer and poured the water through them. You shouldn’t have any leaves in your tea.”

  Rawk raised an eyebrow. “You might just be a genius.”

  “I knew that already.”

  “Of course you did, being a genius and all.”

  Travis poured a cup of tea. “So, did your mission go well?”

  “Not as well as I hoped.”

  “So...”

  “So I think I need to retire.”

  “You already did that.”

  “I know. But I really need to do it this time.”

  “Why is that?”

  Rawk sighed and leaned back, rubbing his eyes. “When I got back, there was an exot.” He waved away the details. “It got away from me and some innocent people died.”

  “So now you want to really retire?”

  “I don’t think I can do it anymore. Before, it was all a game. It was...”

  “So, you tried to save the people, and you failed, so they died?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Let’s say you really retire and tomorrow you’re walking down the street and come across some people being attacked by an exot.”

  Rawk gave a pained expression. He thought he knew where this was going.

  “You wouldn’t try to help them, because you are no longer a Hero?”

  “Maybe.”

  “So you would stand and do nothing while they were killed?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “And when they died, you would feel no guilt at all, because it is no longer your job to kill exots?”

  “Possibly.”

  “And nobody would expect you to feel guilty because there are no expectations at all placed on retirees?”

  Rawk didn’t say anything.

  Travis brought the cup of tea over and placed it on the desk. “I think ‘conceivably’ is the word you’re looking for.”

  “It isn’t just about desire any more, Travis. I traipsed around in the forest for a while today then failed to kill an exot, and now I can hardly move anyway. I’m an old man.”