Quiet Magic

by Sharon Lee

  QUIET MAGIC

  Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

  Pinbeam Books

  http://www.pinbeambooks.com

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are fiction or are used fictitiously.

  QUIET MAGIC

  Copyright © 1999, 2011 by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author. Please remember that distributing an author's work without permission or payment is theft; and that the authors whose works sell best are those most likely to let us publish more of their works.

  First published in June 1999 by SRM, Publisher.

  Master of the Winds first appeared in Dragon #84, April 1984

  Candlelight first appeared in Pulphouse #19, Spring 1995

  ISBN:

  Kindle: 978-1-935224-75-4

  Epub: 978-1-935224-76-1

  PDF: 978-1-935224-77-8

  Published May 2011by

  Pinbeam Books

  PO Box 707

  Waterville ME 04903

  email info@pinbeambooks.com

  Cover design by Sharon Lee

  Image ©2011 by Jupiter Media

  QUIET MAGIC

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  And Hawks for Heralds

  Steve Miller

  ROVE CAPTAIN ROMILY Slate sat comfortably ahorse, enjoying a moment of solitude. Afternoon clouds shredded themselves on still higher mountains. Before him a hanging mist was folded into a green-and-stone tumble of hillsides; hillside and mist fell away together into the river gorge they'd heard so much about for the last ten-day. Beneath all, a disquieting distant rumble-- more felt than heard-- as if the entire land trembled at the might of the river they approached.

  Ahead lay the Carrsbritch Crossing. It was best, he'd been told, to keep merchants hours when crossing, no matter that the bridge was open all the hours of the day and night to accommodate the traffic that flowed so heavily between the lands.

  It wise, too, to avoid those folks too eager to sell in the hurly-burly town of Hartwell they'd just left. Indeed, if one more well-meaning citizen told him "Never buy from a traveler on the Carrsbritch Road" he would likely draw sword!

  Advice could not be avoided in these lands. Everyone was sure to let you know that it was unwise to enter Lamonta with stolen goods if your route took you through Hartwell and the Carrsbritch Crossing.

  And so they were warned....

  They were from overseas. Even in this well-traveled corridor there was fascination about those from beyond the Bilder Sea, especially when they traveled not as merchants or mentor-and-student, but as soldiers under flag. The fascination extended to their accents, which were sharper and quicker than the speech of the seamen and coastal merchants the locals were accustomed to encountering as travelers.

  "Captain! Hah! I'd camp if I were you! Mist makes a crowd on the bridge, you know! Hah! Better view, too, in the sunlight! Hah! Besides, soldiers deal better with soldiers than magicians! Hah!"

  This from Ekyr Farer, the odd herb merchant they'd met on the road days before. He tugged his train of pack ponies behind him, and headed for the fork down-trail toward the cliffsides, where he had business collecting precious yellow 'fron. The little man rode, as always, urging his own small horse as if pursued; as always he smelled of his wares--a stark contrast to the bracing scent of the river valley.

  "Hah. Camp before the rain comes! Hah! Sleep till dawn! Hah!" came his instruction as he disappeared around a sharp hillside to the right.

  Slate muttered under his breath while Grayling, his horse, cocked his head, as if turning to get a repeat of a badly given command, and then pulled slightly on the reins, attempting to drift to the left...

  "Poof, horse! Everyone wants to give me directions, including you!" Slate quieted the horse with a good-natured pat on the neck.

  Slate and his small troop had made good time from their bivouac on the far side of the sprawling town of Hartwell until a series of gusty rain showers had overtaken them on the slopes rising toward the divide, turning a relatively comfortable fall ride into a miserably damp one, and slowing their progress considerably.

  Now his troopers--Catania, Disburno, Arbran, Littlebrook, and Hall-- were relaxing around the luxury of an afternoon fire while they grazed their horses in a hilly meadow a few hundred paces off the busy trade route. The area was known as Kinzel Overlook after some ancient mage. Slate laughed to himself and Grayling, already grazed, pranced for a moment.

  Fifty days ago he and his men had been hurried out of DaChauxma on the order of his Lady and her new wizard. Since then he'd gathered to him a magic map, a coin sectioned by a wizard's will, a one-night lover who slept with a glowing talisman around her neck....

  Fifty days ago he'd have ridden through a thunderstorm to avoid stopping in a meadow said to have been a wizard's vantage. Now, he merely did his best to move on quickly. His sword had given him no warning of danger, after all.

  With that thought he shrugged, flexed his knees, and stretched into the stirrups, nearly standing in them. No getting around it: he was well and truly immersed in magic, against his will. That he'd willingly carry--much less depend on--a magic sword was proof that he was taking leave of his senses well before his mission to find and deal with griffins would likely take his life.

  Grayling eagerly accepted his hand's casual hint that they return to the troop and Slate let the horse set his pace on the ride to the day-camp. A cooler, drier breeze was at his back coming away from the valley and as he approached the campsite the high keening of hawks echoed about him--a sign that clearer air must be on the way.

  The sound of hawks got unexpectedly louder and more boisterous the closer they got to the campsite; not even the noise of Grayling's quickening strides hid it. Under that was another bird-like call.

  Slate hurried his mount on the damp road and up the trail to the meadow. The scent of the wet meadow grass mixed with the husky odor of low-drifting wood smoke as they entered the clearing. Slate caressed the pommel of his sword and found no sign of threat even as he sighted his men and their horses. He reined in Grayling and dismounted beneath the ancient gnarled oak whose deadfall branches had supplied much of the wood for their fire; his eyes were on the sky as soon as his boots touched the meadow.

  Flying under the canopy of departing mist were at least a dozen hawks, each keening and calling more loudly than the next. They circled easily in the freshening breeze while DaChauxma's troop stared upward, transfixed.

  In the midst of the hawks was something else. Winged and gray, and preternaturally large and silent, it drifted with lazy wings above the meadow. Some trick of the light gave it a brightly shining beak.

  It took Slate several moments to put a name to that form--he kept thinking that the creature was an eagle the while his eyes saw something else. Finally he said the word out loud.

  "Crow!" the word came unwilling. "A tremendous gray crow!"

  It was if the strange tableau had been waiting for just those sounds.

  The hawks went silent as one, and the great
crow, near colorless against the mist above it, nonchalantly curled wing-feathers and started a long, smartly executed parade-ground glide toward Slate.

  Still the sword was quiet.

  Slate stood as if rooted as the crow's glide brought it near, then was startled into action as the crow swooped suddenly onto the closest oak branch, barely two arms lengths above, showering him with old bark. The Rove Captain swept his hand in the air to ward off the bark and found his eyes drawn to the intelligent face and strange bright beak.

  The crow studied him and with a quick shake of its head it tossed off that shining beak. Instinctively, Slate caught the falling object, to be rewarded with the loud nearly purring crow sentence: "Braddack! Braddack carthulu! Braddack Kinzel carthulu!"

  In his hand Slate found not some unnatural beak but a surprisingly heavy piece of cool, shaped glass. He began to inspect it, but was interrupted by a very ordinary and bird-like clucking noise.

  The crow clucked again and Slate again found himself looking into that curious and insistent face.

  "Braddack," the crow mumbled at him. "Braddack, Braddack carthulu. Carthulu Kinzel."

  Slate lifted his hand toward the bird.

  "Do you need this back?" he asked uncertainly.

  "Carthulu. Carthulu Braddack. Carthulu Kinzel," the crow said, edging slowly away from the proffered glass, and turning his head slightly, denying need.

  Slate shook his head in wonder. "I guess you don't need it, eh? My thanks..." He studied the glass, realized that it was some kind of a lens, and put it to his eye to see what the world looked like through it, saw a strange dark apparition approaching looming from nowhere...

  "Is it a diamond?" came the apparition's question.

  Slate unabashedly jumped as Littlebrook spoke.

  "Damn, man, you near surprised the life out of me!"

  "And you damn near spooked the rest of us, Captain, showing up like the hawks had called your name. The horses were all unnatural nervous, like they get sometimes when it thunders. We got them all together--thought maybe another storm was showing up, but it was all them birds...."

  The hawks above wove through the slowly clearing sky in an intricate dance.

  "Look Captain!"

  Slate turned to see the crow drifting lazily in the breeze toward Grayling. Shrugging its wings briefly it dropped several hand-heights to land unceremoniously on Slate's sleep pack behind the saddle.

  Grayling turned to look at the bird, shook his mane, and resumed grazing. The bird muttered something very much like "Braddack, chick-chick Braddack-chick," folded wings and settled in as if it was something he did every day.

  There was something else to see, as Disburno's quiet watch-whistle let Slate know. The avian juggling act overhead had drawn the attention of other travelers, and now a half-dozen or more stared about the meadow. Some were obviously interested in the birds; others looked to be planning on setting up camp.

  Slate looked at the bird still perched behind his saddle, then toward the clearing sky with its decoration of wheeling birds, and shook his head a moment. Then he sighed and called out "Break day camp and mount up, Rove Troop. With any luck at all we'll sleep dry in Carrsbritch tonight."

  * * *

  SLATE SAT AS comfortably as he could on Grayling, the occasional mutter of the crow a strangeness at his back as they waited for yet another party to be ushered off the far end of the structure. The crow had refused to leave its perch and Slate had given up in time, unused as he was to sharing horse. Two more wagons moved onto the dirt, and the Rove Captain sighed a small sigh of relief as their rumble faded away.

  With all the advice they'd been given no one had explained exactly why some bridge crossing times were better than others. He'd not been prepared for this slow confusion of people, carts, and wagons and the strange impromptu shelters that people raised--either against the night or against the sight of the bridge, waterfall, and river far below.

  It had taken an incredible amount of time for them to move through the bustle, ignoring last minute attempts to sell this or that special luxury for an absurdly low price. Littlebrook could not buy what he wanted--as the troop wouldn't wait for a rendezvous--and what was most for sale were bits of jewelry, or silver and gold.

  The bustle had perhaps gotten busier when folk saw the crow; they'd gained space but lost time as onlookers had gawked at the sleepy rider behind Slate. It hadn't helped that they'd arrived bridge-side just as the traffic flow was reversed, and had to wait for twenty wagonloads of goods and twice as many riders and dozens of folk on foot crossed from Lamonta.

  Once or twice the crow had muttered when someone spoke loudly, but for the most part he was a quiet passenger, and Slate had seen it go slit-eyed as he'd finally turned and given the command to cross.

  The troop had come willingly enough onto the bridge. Littlebrook, even, had started across without comment after receiving his orders. Perhaps it was that Arbran, pulling the pack pony, rode behind Littlebrook for the moment. Arbran being silent, what could an experienced hand like Littlebrook say?

  Grayling went more willingly than Slate; but Grayling had come through the trip across the sea well enough and trusted Slate, despite the rumble of the river and the tremble of the bridge.

  "Mist means crowds," had said the herb man, and well did he know the truth! For who but the senseless would cross this ancient, trembling structure when one could see the river beneath one's feet and watch entire flocks of birds happily pass beneath as if there were nothing overhead?

  Why, too, had none explained that as the mist disappeared entire caravans might abandon their crossing, or delay it until the night made seeing the river impossible?

  Slate watched the far end of the bridge rather than looking from side to side. They faced a steep-walled pass, curving out of sight into the mountain range that blocked the setting sun already. The bridge led into a surprising darkness, though portions of it were still in light.

  He'd told his men to ride single file, call in case of trouble, but otherwise to look ahead only. Now Slate followed his own advice. In part he wanted to avoid looking down at the waterfall a few hundred paces away--that fell to the river a few thousand paces below--and in part he wished to pay attention to the soldiers and other officials on the far side. What magic he might face he couldn't know. But troops and taxmen? Those, at least, he could be alert for.

  He would have preferred for the Rove Troop not to have been noticed. Yet that was impossible with the crown of hawks still circling above. Only those already on the bridge when the troop arrived had not given way before them, though DaChauxma rode with weapons sheathed and house-flag furled.

  In front of him was a cart pulled by a pony between wooden drawbars, who from time to time was helped by two women who pushed against crossbars on either side of the draw; when they'd seen him behind them they'd nearly fled the bridge and only some resolute word from one to the other had changed their minds. Was it the bird? Was it himself, a foreign soldier?

  He sighed. It didn't matter--it could just as well be the bridge and the roaring of the water and the lowering night as his face or the crow. Slate, too, was nervous.

  Here they were as trapped as on ship, or more so, for on board there had always been the vague chance of surviving going over the side. Ahead was a threat more visible than any he'd imagined on that ocean crossing, for he could see stonework set back from the bridge, stonework that smacked of hidden archers, and of troops in waiting. What a pass to guard, with the bridge your ally! Crossing that height with but some board between a man and his doom could be enough to unnerve an enemy without having soldiers to deal with as well!

  Now they moved slowly by the covered section in the center of the bridge where, for a moment, Slate felt a little more secure. The crow riding behind muttered something and Grayling pranced a half-step, but both settled down immediately. This was not a place for a nervous horse.

  Slate involuntarily glanced over the side rails into the river gorge, s
urprised and relieved at the depth of the darkness there, but more surprised at how fast that darkness was falling all about as they waited for their turn at the bridge-gate.

  There was smoke ahead now as torches were lit; a runner was making his way around the permanent emplacements on the hillside beyond and around the curve of the hills, and another moved across the bridge, lighting flickering fires in the great ceramic urns on the side of the bridge as the shadow out of the gorge rose palpably.

  Torch-light illuminated what looked to be a stone corral beyond the bridge-end, large enough for eight or ten good-sized horses. The place was cluttered with bundles, kegs, oddments, several crates, and leather carrybags of many kinds.

  Only the pony-cart ahead of him was still on the bridge now, in front of it the counter-weighted wooden swing-arm that acted as gate for the travelers. The several wagons on the other side of that gate were inspected rather casually, two men on a side. The inspectors moved like tired men, thought Slate, men all too likely to be bored or cross...and he'd seen them administer no test, give no challenge.

  From behind came a familiar sound, distracting Slate. The sound was of a small pony or two pacing steadily, their step punctuated by "hah!"

  Slate turned involuntarily, perhaps waking the crow, who blinked and rustled about a bit but said nothing. Behind him his men had also turned, and saw a remarkable sight in the dimming light.

  Herbalist Farer was making hurried headway across the bridge. Travelers were letting him by, as if his "hah!" was an order. Then the bridge was too crowded, and the herbman paused. He raised a hand as he saw Slate and mouthed the words "too late!"

  Slate smiled and sketched a salute before facing front and relaxing back into the saddle--had the herbman really expected to cross so quickly?

  Ahead now was a commotion. The wagons were being passed through and the cart ahead was moving up. At the same time new guards and inspectors were arriving. There were different uniforms now and Slate recognized a change of shift. Just as well, he thought, to get a fresh crew and get through quickly.