A History of Magic

by Scott J Robinson

  Dabaneera cut through the rear-most monkey and it fell without a sound. Or maybe it just couldn’t be heard above the boy’s agonized screams. Rawk laid about him, sending arcs of blood. His shoulder ached from his wound. His knee throbbed but he barely noticed until he had dispatched four of the creatures.

  After that the others finally noticed they were under attack and turned their attention to him. The biggest one stooped down to collect an apple from the basket the boy had dropped. It took a bite and Rawk thought he could hear the crunch, even through the noise of the panicked crowd. It was then that he realized the exots were all wearing belts. They were armed. Rawk took a step back as each drew a short, curved dagger and stalked towards him. Apple smiled a wicked smile and tossed the fruit aside dismissively.

  “Path.” Rawk looked around. “A little help, Sylvia.” He didn’t care who helped, really.

  Sylvia looked like she didn’t want to help at all.

  The boy still screamed. At least he was still alive, and that was probably a good thing. The noise was annoying though, like a mosquito in the dark, gnawing at the edges of Rawk’s consciousness. He shifted his grip on the hilt of his sword. The remaining creatures were encircling him but he kept his eyes on Apple. That one seemed the most theatrical so it might well be the leader. It was also on the opposite side to Sylvia, and hopefully she was working on some magic that would protect his back.

  A monkey on his left attacked. Rawk swung Dabaneera in the general direction, but knew he was just being tested. He didn’t turn away from the leader.

  Then there was a clatter behind him. Rawk almost turned to look, but a monkey started to scream a horrible, soul-tearing scream, then another joined it. So he managed to keep his eyes forward and attacked the closest monkey. He swatted away one riposte, and killed the monkey with a back handed flick of his sword. Then he stabbed another and barely avoided a wild slash from Apple. The exot screeched at him, showing long, yellow teeth. Rawk turned aside for a moment to cut down an opponent on his flank then was facing Apple again.

  “Come on, you little bastard.”

  If the creature understood him, it gave no indication. So Rawk stepped in and to the left. He simultaneously swung his sword wide to attack from the right. And Apple died with a gurgle and a hiss of disbelief.

  The crowd cheered, emerging from cover, closing in again.

  Rawk took that as a sign that the danger had passed. He spun slowly but still managed to hurt his knee and discovered that all the monkeys were dead. The four he had not accounted for were not much more than piles of blackened, smoldering feathers that weren’t going to be attacking anyone. He drew in a shuddering breath and noticed the stench for the first time.

  “Thank you, Sylvia. Your magic is as effective as ever.”

  But the sorceress didn’t pay any attention. She rushed to the elf boy to see if she could help. He had fallen silent, so Rawk didn’t like the chances. Watching, he sheathed Dabaneera and rubbed his knee. Neither made him feel better. He glanced around but could see no danger. Apart from the crowd. They were closing in. Those at the front were trying to hold their ground, but they were being pushed ever closer.

  “I cannot help him,” Sylvia said. She rested the boy’s head gently on the ancient cobbles. “It is amazing he lived as long as he did.”

  “Path, damn it.” He seemed to be failing a lot recently, even when he won.

  “Indeed.”

  The best way to help was to stop the exots from coming. “Come on then. We have things to do.”

  “We are going to just leave him?”

  “Are you going to fill in Weaver’s forms?”

  Sylvia followed as he pushed his way though the crowd. He limped down the hill towards the bay.

  “Is your knee all right?”

  “I twisted it a bit.”

  “You seem to do that a lot.”

  “You seem to ask questions a lot.”

  “It is how I find things out.”

  Rawk grunted and quickened the pace, just to prove he could. It hurt.

  -O-

  The Harpy was berthed close to the point where river and bay met, almost in the shadow of the southern river fort. It would have been a prime position if not for the unpredictable, tumultuous nature of the water there. The pewter and whitecaps of the bay met the muddy churn of the river and anything could happen.

  The suburb around there was about the same. The locals clashed with those who came off the ships and East Corner was the place where trouble was likely to start. It was where the first seed of Katamood had been sewn thousands of years ago and it showed. The buildings that were in one piece looked like they wouldn’t be for much longer. There was hardly a patch of white plaster to be seen between the dark wooden frames.

  “We are just going to walk in there?” Sylvia asked.

  “No. We’re going to knock.”

  “We are going to knock?”

  “The doors on those ships are a lot tougher than they look, you know— they have to be to stand a life at sea— and it isn’t really worth the effort of breaking them down when somebody will normally open up if you just knock.”

  Sylvia leaned to look out through the door of the bakery where they’d been lingering for the past five minutes. “Perhaps nobody is home.”

  “There’s only one way to find out.”

  “Actually, there are several ways.”

  “There are?”

  “We can wait for dark and see if a light comes on.”

  Rawk raised an eyebrow though it was obvious that Sylvia realized the suggestion was ridiculous.

  “We can send someone else to knock.” But that wasn’t much better.

  “And if someone answers the door, what then? We fire a flaming arrow at the ship so they all come to us?”

  “If we are going to do that we can just skip the knocking bit all together.” Sylvia winced. “Do you even have a bow?”

  “Come on.” Rawk paid for an apple-and-cream pastry and ate as he crossed the busy street to the wharves.

  And the wharves were even busier. There was hardly room to move. Dwarves were everywhere. They strained under the weight of goods from a dozen countries. Boxes, rolls, sacks and packages went from wagons to ships or back the other way. Gangplanks rattled and flexed as workers came and went. Cranes creaked as they swung bulging nets out over the decks and lowered cargo directly into holds. Everything was covered by the scent of fish and salt and rotting seaweed. It was a riot of noise and smells and other worlds but it all seemed to work like clockwork. Seeing dwarves were involved Rawk imagine that they got together each morning to choreograph each move for the day so that nothing would go wrong.

  Then he walked in and the first thing he did was bump into someone. The dwarf dropped the barrel he was carrying on his shoulder. It thudded onto the ancient timber but stayed intact.

  The dwarf looked up. “Watch it there...” He suddenly bowed and tipped his hat. “Sorry, sir. Didn’t see you there. You’re all right, are you? Didn’t drop it on your foot?”

  The barrel had gone nowhere near his foot and it had most definitely been Rawk’s fault. Before he had a chance to say as much the dwarf had hauled the barrel back onto his shoulder and been whisked away by the press of people. After a moment he was lost amidst a confusion of dwarves and humans, all lugging barrels and boxes and sacks as quickly as they could.

  Pushing on through the crowd as well, Rawk angled towards the Deep Green Harpy. The ship looked worse close up. It appeared to be more tar than timber. The main mast was gone, replaced by a sad looking tree that might once have bourn some type of fruit. And a clothesline dominated the forecastle. The gangplank looked like it would break at any moment.

  Rawk hurried up then paused to look around. Most of the deck was covered with raised gardens. Vegetables grew in neat rows. A puddle of water was spreading away from a bucket like blood away from a corpse. He checked to make sure Sylvia was still with him and hadn’t been the straw that broke
the gangplank’s back.

  “Are you ready.”

  “Last I knew, Shef was quite a capable sorcerer, Rawk. We cannot just walk into something like this with no preparation.”

  “Well what have you been doing? It’s taken a while to walk here.”

  “Rawk.”

  “People could be dying right now, because of this bastard. Do you really want to go and have some wine while we give it some thought? Anyone would think you were scared.” He made his way to the forecastle, took a deep breath and knocked. If Sylvia wasn’t ready then there was going to be trouble.

  A woman answered the door. She was bigger than Rawk, with a tussock of black hair on her head and a bleary look in her eyes.

  “Sorry,” Rawk said, smiling. “Did I wake you?”

  The woman rubbed at her face with a big, meaty hand. “No, I was just...” She motioned vaguely over her shoulder.

  “Of course. Are you the Captain?”

  “Yes. What do you want?”

  “Well, Captain, I was wondering if Hagen was home?”

  “Do I know you?”

  Rawk was stunned for a moment. Everyone knew him. He thought quickly. “Maybe. I used to collect taxes for Thacker. But I... we—” He motioned to Sylvia— “actually do a bit of work with Hagen now.”

  The woman looked over Rawk’s shoulder and gave Sylvia a nod of greeting. “What’s your name?”

  Rawk thought of some of the names on the list. He ruled out those that had been regulars in Katamood before Weaver changed the rules. “Trog.” He winced.

  “You don’t look like a Habonese.”

  “Only on my mother’s side. My father was a horse.”

  “A horse?”

  “No, a pig. That’s it. That’s what my mother said.” He smiled. “I knew it was some type of farm animal. And this is Freanna.”

  Another nod. “I suppose you’d better come in then. I’ll get Hagen.”

  Inside was a huge kitchen and dining room. A pot simmered on the stove as thin fingers of smoke searched for the chimney. The table was laden with a mountain of chopped vegetables that Kalesie would have been proud of. It smelled much better inside than it did out.

  The port wall was lined with a long bookcase. It curved to follow the wall and each shelf bowed as well as they struggled to hold the weight of the books. An ornate, carved handrail protected a set of stairs that gave access to the deck below.

  The Captain went down quickly, ducking her head to avoid being knocked out.

  Rawk looked at Sylvia. “Are you ready?” he whispered.

  “Ready for what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That is the point, is it not? We do not know what we have to be ready for. You barge in here without a plan and expect me to save you.”

  “Yes, but...”

  “I cannot just cast a spell in a second if...” Sylvia said, a bit too loudly. She tried to calm herself down, taking a deep breath and smoothing the front of her dress. “It takes time. And first I have to work out what he is doing.”

  “Just get to him first.”

  “Rawk, you really have no idea, do you?”

  Rawk realized he didn’t know any details about how magic worked. It just did, and that was normally a bad thing for him. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Magic might be a bad thing again very soon. He took a deep breath and moved closer to be bookshelves, hoping to stay out of sight, for a moment at least.

  Shef came up the stairs. He paused for a moment when he saw Sylvia, then kept coming.

  Rawk was an idiot. He knew he didn’t have any control at all over the situation and wished he had listened to Sylvia. It was too late now though. He moved quickly along the side of the stairs. Shef was still looking at Sylvia.

  “Silver Lark,” he said. “I’m not sure who I expected, but it certainly wasn’t you.”

  Sylvia swallowed. “Can I not drop in on old friend?”

  “Of course. Give me some names and I’ll see if I can point you in their direction.”

  Rawk drew Dabaneera as he crossed the last few paces. Shef heard and turned to look, but was too late. Rawk rounded the end of the stairs a moment later and had the point of his sword pricking the flesh just below the other man’s rib cage. Then he saw the Captain coming up the stairs as well. He was too late to do anything more than shrug his shoulder into the cudgel blow and go back the way he’d come.

  Shef smiled. “Ah, yes. That’s more like who I was expecting.” He was already weaving his hands. He started to mumble under his breath.

  Rawk cursed and tried to shake some feeling back into his arm. The Captain followed, closing the gap while Rawk was still caught between the books and the railing. The shelves were going to hamper his sword arm more than the blow. He paused to meet the first attack and Dabaneera got stuck in the soft timber of the cudgel. He disarmed the woman when she ripped the sword from his hand and threw the cudgel away with it. And she came in harder.

  But some of her advantage had been lost. The closeness of the books restricted her as much as him, now that the weapons were gone.

  He blocked a punch. Didn’t see a kick and wondered if his shin was broken. But he backed away a step without incident. He took another kick on his shin, deliberately this time, and pressed forward. Three punches, all to no avail, as expected, then he slipped a blow past the Captain’s guard, rocked her back. And he kept at it, keeping her busy while he looked for an opening. She backed away this time, blood trickling from her nose, eye already blackening. An opening came, then was gone while Rawk still considered it. She got in a kick that normally wouldn’t have worried him, but it was his bad knee and he almost fell at the unexpected pain.

  To top it all off, Rawk stepped on the discarded cudgel. He almost sliced the end off his boot on his own sword, still stuck in the timber. He stumbled and the Captain was on him in an instant. A kick that winded him. A blow that left his ears ringing. Another that knocked him sideways. He fell against the shelf, eye to eye with a big, leather bound volume. Rawk pulled the book from the shelf and use it to slap aside a punch that would have knocked him out into the bay. He swung again and heard bones break. And again. He hit the Captain across the side of the head and she fell to the floor. Rawk almost hit her again, but her eyes were rolled back and her mouth was hanging open. He looked at the book. He blinked and it was even harder than usual to get his eyes to focus. Seven Matters of Land and Claim.

  He grunted. “That would put me to sleep, too.”

  Then he remembered Sylvia battling against Shef and turned to see what was happening. There wasn’t much at all happening, as far as Rawk could tell. There was no lightning or thunder. There were no fireballs, which was probably a good thing seeing they were on a ship that had been liberally covered with tar. The two of them were staring at each other, hands raised, whole bodies tense.

  “You wouldn’t do it,” Shef said softly. Rawk could see a bead of sweat slowly trickling down across the other man’s forehead. “I don’t think you can cast a kincarch.”

  “Well, continue chanting your zaniel and we will both see if I can still do it,” Sylvia said. “Or let your spell go and sense for yourself.”

  Shef mumbled something and moved his hands a fraction.

  Sylvia raised an eyebrow. That was the only part of her that moved.

  Shef faltered.

  Sylvia looked cool and calm. He hands were as still as stone. “Do not try me, Shef. I am really not in the mood.”

  Rawk wasn’t sure if he should intervene, but was worried that Sylvia might have to kill the other sorcerer. And if anyone did that, he wanted to be the one. So he carefully pulled a dagger from his belt. He walked slowly forward, but the room was constantly moving and creaking anyway, and Shef was concentrating so hard that it was unlikely he would have heard a stampede of uliphants.

  “What if I do stop? I may trust your word, but not—”

  He started to turn and Rawk dashed across th
e remaining space. He threw the sorcerer onto the deck, thumping him onto the carpet hard enough to rattle cups on the table, and pressed the razor-sharp edge of the dagger down into his throat. “You don’t trust me, Shef? You’ve hurt my feelings.” Rawk held onto his rage. He wanted to kill the man, then and there, but information was more important than revenge.

  Shef swallowed noisily. “I didn’t mean to.” He could barely do more than whisper as he tried to see the blade against his throat. “It’s just that last time...”

  “Yes, I know. Last time we met I tried to kill you.” He grabbed Shef by the collar and hauled him to his feet. Then he found a chair and put him in it none to gently. “But look at Silver Lark. She’s proof that I can be in the same room as a sorcerer and not kill them.” Shef’s back was to her, so looking wasn’t an easy thing.

  “You killed Valo.”

  Rawk sighed. “I did not. I was there, but he died all by himself.”

  “I don’t believe you. And what about Mistletowe?”

  “Well, that obviously wasn’t me, was it? Do you think I can remove someone’s heart without leaving a wound in one of the usual spots? You’ll have to talk to Sylvia if you want to know about Mistletowe.” Rawk smiled as the other man glanced over his shoulder at Sylvia and completely failed to hide the look of awe that crossed his face.

  “Fiddernich?” Shef said.

  “You’ve never told me what the kincarch actually does, Silver Lark? Is it worse than what you did to Mistletowe?”

  “That depends on how you like your steak, Rawk.”

  Rawk had no idea what that meant, but Shef obviously did. The awe quickly disappeared to be replaced by terror. “I don’t really know anything.”

  “You don’t know anything?”

  He shook his head. “I get a note with an address and a time on it. I go there and cast a spell, then leave. It’s a different address every time.” He looked from Rawk to Sylvia and back again. “That’s all I know.”

  “There are others there?” asked Sylvia.

  “No. Yes. Of course, yes. Frixen, Valo and Mistletowe.”

  “That’s all?”

  “There are others, but everyone stays hidden.”