by Pam Uphoff
Beck glowered. "Damn them all. I told Coo to not mix it up with witches and wizards, but the Auld Wulf crooked his finger and he went off to war again. He was too damned old, and the God must have known it."
Bran nodded. "Sending men into battle, knowing many will die is the hardest thing an officer can do. Grandfather died to keep those people away from his family."
The old mage straightened and glared. "The Auld Wulf could have dropped that bridge earlier, and just sat there and stymied all other attempts to cross. He let enough cross to beat up in person and satisfy his ego, and bid Coo blow up their 'tanker' to show our superiority. How can you trust someone like that, ever again? How can I ever trust you again? Run away from your responsibilities and join the Army."
Oscar grit his teeth and decided to ignore the part of that aimed at Bran. "I understand the four hundred men they had there were not the totality of their resources. If they'd chosen to turn it into a war we would have been run over. As it is, they were sufficiently impressed to back off. To take a diplomatic message home. And so perhaps the next fatalities won't be your children and grandchildren."
"This is a matter for mages to decide." Beck dismissed him out of hand.
Bran grinned. "Oscar is a Sea King, a kind of Mage."
Beck lowered his brows and studied Oscar. Oscar lowered his shields and reached out mentally, as Selano and Bran had been teaching him was needed to form a compass.
Beck snorted. "Barely trained. Not our kind. I have work to do." He turned and walked out.
Bran sighed. "Nice to see you again, brat. Who's Mother married to now?"
Jame shook his head. "She's retired. Living with her daughter who's married to Herb now. Third house, if she's not out in the fields. You going to see Juli and Fava again?"
"I expect we'll stop by. Most likely they won't want to see us."
Jame snickered. "They were going to tie the knots on you two, but everyone figures those goats got them first."
"Gossip. See you around."
Outside they looked at each other. Oscar shrugged. "Well, we didn't think it was very likely the Compass would accept me. At least Beck didn't throw you out."
"Not that I was ever really in. Not old enough when I left. I dunno if he'll let me work with the others. I committed two major sins. Didn't seek his advise, abandoned my training."
"Well, I'll try to stay away, so he doesn't reject you just because I'm there. Selano really wanted us to practice in a Compass so at least you ought to grab the opportunity. Now go see your Mom. I'm going to catch up on all my brothers. Umm, 'tie the knot?' Is that what you call these roving marriages?"
"Nah. It's silly girl stuff. Tying us to them forever. It's supposed to work if both parties are virgins. But since girls don't have any power, it doesn't work."
Oscar searched his memories and found the right one.
"Only the Sea Kings can pull power from the motion of the waves, but do not dismiss the powerless as having no magic. They have brief flashes of ability that they cannot sustain, but they can save up their bodily resources and throw one strong spell." His tutor had been a kindly old man, and he hadn't the faintest idea of what had happened to the man.
Had Fava been planning on throwing one strong spell on him? Movement pulled his mind back to the present.
A sudden flood of children poured down the street, some heading out toward the Farmers' houses, others invading the houses in the middle of the village. Oscar spotted Never's daughter, in a cluster of darker haired children. With honey colored eyes. He very nearly jumped into rescue her from the goats, but Bran's painful grip on his arm stopped him. More kids joined them, some lighter colored.
The little blonde said "Come on then, let's ask." The group splintered, running off to various houses.
Oscar tracked the group heading back toward the school. A red headed boy, a blonde girl, and two girls and three boys with black hair. Four more of the goat children made for the tavern. How many live here?
"Go see your Mum. I'll probably be in the Tavern." Oscar followed the goat babies in and wasn't surprised to find them surrounding Dydit.
"How far into the woods, and are you going to burn them down or any other such anti-social behavior?"
The four shook their heads.
"No fires at all, got it?"
Four black heads nodded.
"Very well. And come down in time to get home for dinner." Dydit caught Oscar's disapproving eye, and raised his eyebrows in question.
"I hadn't realized how many rapes there'd been in the village." Oscar gritted his teeth.
"Oh, most of the Goat Boys are from down south, when the Scoone Wizards were running around with Rivolte. Nil felt a bit responsible, since he'd lost control of them. Us. I wasn't with them, at that point."
"Yeah, I remember. I hadn't realized the Sheep Man had brought them here to the village. So these aren't yours."
Dydit touched one of the black heads. "Havi is my son. The rest are sort of adopted nephews or something." He snorted. "Off with you now. So Oscar can be properly rude to me."
"You never let us hear the good language," one of them complained as they all headed for the door.
Dydit leaned back and eyed Oscar. "Eight hundred years ago, I was a twenty-three year old apprentice wizard when my Master led the revolt against the Tyrant Wizard, King Nihility. I got caught in that goat spell, and Nil wouldn't release me, because Maleth still controlled me, even as a goat. After Maleth died, Nil gave me some simple instructions. 'Don't rape or kill anyone but Ba'alists.' Such was the strength of the goat spell, and its corruptness, probably compounded by the master-apprentice wizard relationship that I promptly went out hunting for Ba'alists. But over the last six years I have hunted down and eliminated all the shreds of Maleth in my soul and killed them. I'm probably safe to be around."
"Right. And the other wizards were nice fellows as well?"
"Not that I'd ever noticed. The attempt to overthrow the Tyrant wasn't to bring in an enlightened government, it was to free the other wizards from any control what-so-ever. Do you lot have an Archmage anymore? Nihility was the Archwizard, and he placed some limits on the wizards. Believe it or not, he was the least tyrannical king Scoone had had for centuries. The wizards didn't like being forbidden—magically as well as legally—from experimenting with death magic."
"Necromancy?"
Dydit snorted. "Hardly. They had no interest in bringing the dead back to life. They wanted to harvest the power of killing. And slow painful deaths of the magically talented have the most energy to reap. Spending centuries as a goat, and then being freed of Maleth's influence, and finally Nil taking me on as a student and making me hunt down and kill all those spell shreds . . . I'm not the person I used to be. I'm a hell of a lot better. Now, if there's another Earther incursion, you're going to have to work with me, because I'm the only trained help and backup Nil has."
"Poor sod."
Dydit grinned. "Exactly. But I suggest you realize that those evil wizards are dead, and stop judging everyone with black hair as if they were guilty of their father's sins. You harm a single child in this valley and you're toast."
Oscar glared.
"Save the hatred for me, but get it under control."
A chuckle from the door caught both their attention. Nil grinned wickedly. "I expect it would be a good training exercise, having you two running about trying to murder each other. But I'll back up the threat. You harm one of those children and you will spend the next ten years on hooves, herding my sheep. Got it?"
For a long moment Nil's humor faded, and his shields softened enough that something ancient and cold and implacable leaked through on a shimmering glow of immense, deep, power. Then the shields tightened, and the wizard disappeared from his magical sight.
Oscar cleared his throat a bit nervously. "Sorry, sir. I have some unfortunate reactions. I am working on getting past all that, and have never and will never attack a child on the basis of those feelings."
Oscar braced himself. "Actually Bran and I are back for training. Mage style."
Nil's eyes narrowed, and he nodded. "Good luck. Beck was upset when Bran disappeared. Said it was your bad influence. "
Oscar sighed. "Yeah. I don't think I'll get any help there, and even Bran . . . well, he didn't get the prodigal son's welcome."
"Running away from responsibilities." Dydit shrugged. "Sometimes running away is the best option."
"Yeah. But eight years ago, almost nine now . . . it probably wasn't."
Then four big tall men walked in and he gawped at the size of his foster brothers.
"Tivo? Tivo, you can't possibly be that big!"
They laughed at him and told him all about their plans to head for the New Lands and mine gold.
"Summer's the worst season, down south, so we're collecting the last stuff we'll need and heading out in a week. We'll go down to Havwee and cut east from there." Theo, just a year younger than Tivo, had grown into a broad muscular man, who looked like he was well up to the rigors of hard rock mining. Fiber was seventeen, as was Piph, a boy Harry'd adopted after Oscar had left.
Dydit and Nil withdrew and other people came and went.
They quieted back into the comfortable camaraderie they'd always enjoyed, and Oscar people-watched with pleasure.
Idea and Opinion walked in, Opinion obviously pregnant and Idea carrying a little girl of perhaps four. Another girl trailed them. One of the almost eight-year old cohort.
Idea put the girl down and sat with a tired huff. "You'll have to take them both for a week. Answer says I need some intense Waning Half work, so I can start the Dark Crescent preliminaries."
"Mom? Can I have an ice cream?"
Opinion stiffened. "Mother! I have my hands full with Hematite and my ankles are so swollen, surely you can't expect me to babysit Tromp as well!"
"Daughter, I help you as much as I can. I expect more than griping when I need your help in return."
"Can I?" The eight year old, Tromp, was looking half teary and half angry as she was ignored.
"But must you ask when I'm so far along? Two months, well, three or four for recovery, and I'll be in much better shape."
Idea was looking pissed. "I need the time now, not a promise of time sometime in the future."
The cohort of black haired kids swept back in. Nine with black hair, three blondes and one redhead. As they passed Idea's table, Tromp stepped out and shoved one of the black haired kids. "Stay away from me, Goat Boy!"
All the group rallied to face her down, and Idea leaped to her daughter's defense. "How dare you! Tromp, come away. Nasty little animals."
Tromp smirked, happy to have finally won her mother's attention.
Tivo winced. "They're doing their damnedest to turn that kid into a real monster. I swear there are so many kids here now that we've got gangs. That bunch they call the Goat Boys, for obvious reasons, and despite six of the thirteen being girls. Tromp and her miserable group are the Dark Triad; there's a core of three with floating outliers. The Princesses are all prissy—prissy witches, can you imagine? And the Farmers and the Farmer Girls. And the Dragons. Did you know that the Mayor was back?"
"I didn't know she left. How many kids are there?" Oscar watched as a woman he vaguely recognized from a trip down south stuck her head inside and collected four of the kids with a crook of her finger. The others settled down well away from Tromp.
"Over seventy in school, right now. Most of them are eight, like Tromp, with a batch just turned seven and another wave at five and a half. There's a scattering of younger kids, too."
"Wow. There were . . . sixteen of us when I left."
"And everyone pregnant. That was the start of it." Theo looked over at the door, and slapped his hands on his thighs. "Well, work to do and all that."
His brothers fled as Fava walked over to the table and stared down at him, disapproving. "I don't suppose you have a clue which of these children are yours?"
Oscar looked back at the Goat Boys. "Let's see. The blonde girl right in the middle, and the black haired kid that just poked her."
Fava blinked. "Well, I'm impressed."
"Easy, the girl's a dead ringer for you, and the boy was acting like a brother. How have you been Fava? Theo said you were teaching school. I'm impressed." He edged a chair out in invitation.
Fava flushed a bit. "Thank you Oscar. What did you think I'd be doing?" She sat down cautiously, obviously unsure if she wanted to actually talk to him.
"I thought you'd have given up your name and married someone who'd at least be around, even if he did treat you like one of the barnyard animals."
She glared. "You're an outsider. You don't understand the Mage family, the life of a Magewife." She scowled, then shrugged. "Enough. We haven't seen much of you. What have you been doing?"
"I've been out on ships a lot, mapping islands and such. Next I suspect we'll be mapping the coast of this 'Old World' Never and Question have been exploring. This winter, I'm here, though."
"Here in the village?"
"Officially at Fort Stag, but because of the expected weather, as long as the pass is closed we can shift to the village. Lefty will be getting training from Nil, Bran and maybe me from the mages."
"You are a mage?" Fava eyed him thoughtfully. "Not that I expect they'll let you in. They won't give Brad any early training."
"Bran and Juli's kid? Why not?"
"Because Juli and I left the Circle. We refused marriage. Umm, because we're together."
"Oh." Oscar blinked. Did she just say that she and Juli are lesbians? "You didn't used to be. Umm, I mean . . . "
She waved it down. "I know. But we always did everything together, and after those horrible goats, we weren't very interested in men. I mean, I tried once, but just kissing him made me sick to my stomach."
Oscar nodded slowly. "Yeah. I can see how anything that reminded you of that would be off putting. Are you all right with the kids?"
"Oh yes, once we sorted out our feelings and realized it wasn't the kid's fault. Besides, I think Cor looks like you, even with the black hair." She looked around, crooked a finger and, like the other woman, summoned a quartet.
Oscar got the formal introductions, and shook hands with all four. It was strongest with Vala, but he got a tiny zing of recognition from all four children. What the hell? Did that goat spell do something weird, or maybe the wine?
"Maybe, while we're here this winter, Bran and I can drill the boys on the basic mage spells. It's just a matter of memorization, they won't have any power until they reach puberty, and then not much until they hit eighteen or nineteen and their power comes in solidly."
"And if they don't have those spells memorized?"
"They may accidentally hit on a way to make the magic happen, otherwise they'll be oh, good guessers, convincing talkers, lucky at cards and so forth."
"Humph. A good idea, none-the-less. Just the two of them?"
"The others ought to be wizards, if anything. Um, I suppose I should check."
"Humph! That sounds like a tiny, lukewarm bit of responsibility. Where's Bran?"
"He went looking for his mother."
"Oh, of course." Fava eyed him . . . surely there was no hint of tears in those eyes? "Well. No doubt we'll see you both around, over the winter." She raised her voice. "Kids, time to go home." She led the four out the door, and the others followed. The two blonde girls turned right, the last three black haired boys galloped off the other direction.
Oscar looked around the nearly empty room and sighed. Well, the first day was pretty much a disaster. Tomorrow is sure to be brighter. Right?
It was at least different, as Lebonift decided they should take advantage of the clear weather to take a good look at the pass. Oscar knew the road well, having been an errand and note runner for the engineering company that built it, while they were building it. Even so, the new high bridge over the Feather River
Canyon took his breath away. Or maybe it was because he'd seen the work the ordinary bridge had taken that the soaring arch of the new one . . . frightened him.
"I didn't think anyone could do something like this." Bran ran his hands over the seamless side rail.
"Never and Dydit, working together. Impressive, isn't it?" Lebonift looked a bit amused.
"What about thermal contraction and expansion?" Oscar looked at the wedge at the start of the bridge. "I can see where that slides, but is it enough?"
Lebonift's smirk broadened. "I understand that in mid summer the arch is a bit higher, and those supports lean slightly out instead of slightly in."
Oscar leaned over and eyed the supports. "Right. So . . . you're a wizard, too. Can you do things like that?"
"I can slice rock, shove it around and melt it. But I'm a bit weak on forming it. Apparently witches are better at that, and managing the power requirements." Lefty shrugged. "And Dydit has both a Wizard gene and a Mage gene. Work like this may need all three power genes. Or be easier with three."
"He's a mage and a wizard?" Oscar felt his back stiffen. Bran looked offended as well.
Lebonift shook his head. "I think I'll ask Nil if he'll give you two the academics of magic. The genetics and the theories of application. Being mages just mean you two pull power from kinetic and thermal energy. Once you've collected it, you can do the same things a wizard or a witch can. Sort of."
Oscar and Bran exchanged indignant glances. "Mage Compasses can do more."
Lebonift nodded. "And witch triads are more able and more powerful than the same number of independent witches. Pity wizards can't seem to get along well enough to do combined work."
Bran grinned nastily. "Or maybe that's a good thing."
Lebonift snorted, and led the way across the span.
They topped the last of the mountains and took a long look out over the New Lands. And a longer one at the darkness to the north. The winter storm front moved in and they lost the race to stay ahead of it a few miles short of the village. Oscar and Bran were happy to shelter in the Tavern, and however wistful the glances Lefty sent further south, the experienced scout decided to forego another ten miles in the blustery wet snow.