by B J Hanlon
At times, she’d even forgive the debt in desperate situations such as a husband passing or becoming grievously injured, a child born with a rare malformity, or a mother leaving the world while bringing in a new soul.
During a difficult season, she would allow a farmer to forget their rent. This made many people love her, but others in the village would seethe, nearly demanding she did the same for them.
The townsfolk may not say it outright, but too many people want a handout. Something for nothing.
The door to the kitchen opened and Master Horston stepped in taking a seat toward the middle of the table. “I invited Horston for dinner,” his mother said with a smile. “We will need to discuss certain events.”
“It is much overdue if you ask me,” the old man said curtly before quickly changing his tone. “But it smells delicious, Laural.” Master Horston slapped his wrinkled hands together.
“Smoked pork, potatoes, and some surprise. The chef was mum about it but said we’d love the surprise for the young crillio slayer.” Her words held some hesitation as she glanced at Edin.
“Yes, the heroic lad,” Horston said in his usual sarcastic tone. Then he spoke softer. “Let us keep our voices down,” Master Horston said looking at Edin. He took a sip from a wine glass. His lips smacking, he rested his elbows on the table. The cuffs of his gray robes dropped to his elbow. His arms displayed the same coarse hair that emanated from his beard.
“That is a good idea.”
“Of course it is, it’s the only kind I have.” Horston smiled at Edin. “I am curious though, how were you able to kill the beast. You had no weapons and even if you had, it takes many men to bring down that ferocious animal.”
Edin grabbed a mug next to his plate, a dark amber liquid. Ale? He took a sip and looked toward his mother who shrugged her shoulders.
“The alcohol should help with the pain,” Master Horston said.
“Don’t get used to it, you’re not a man yet.” His mother spat back.
“It’s not like he hasn’t tasted it before.”
His mother growled.
“Now, what did you feel when the beast attacked?”
“Feel?” Edin asked.
“Yes.”
“Fear…” Edin whispered. Was it unmanly to admit such things? He hadn’t wet himself so that was good. He glanced up at Horston who frowned. Edin had seen that look before. It wasn’t the answer he was looking for. He looked back at his drink and sloshed it in the cup.
“I do not speak of emotions…”
“Well that was all.”
“Was it?”
Edin looked to his mother, she wore a sad look like she had a terrible burden that she didn’t want to give up. “How do you know I felt anything, I was…”
Master Horston said nothing, he just stared at Edin over his spectacles.
Edin swallowed. He remembered the feeling, the tugging and twisting like something inside was trying to claw its way out. Is that what the old man meant?
“That’s all I felt.”
“You can trust Horston and me,” his mother said. “You felt it right? It is said to be powerful, a connection to the world that rises inside of you–”
Just then a pair of servants entered with large platters of food and set them on the table before them. Edin watched the two women, Ali and Freta—both older than his mother and had been employed in the manor since she was girl. They were grandmotherly.
Kesona wasn’t here; he hoped she would’ve come by to visit him by now. Maybe she did. The sweet smile and cute brown eyes she aimed in his direction tended to make his heart beat like he’d just run ten leagues.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Edin said when the servants left.
What were they saying? The connection to the world? No, it couldn’t be true. Magi felt that and Edin wasn’t a magus.
“Only someone especially gifted could survive that encounter. A terrin perhaps.” Horston said.
“What are… terrins?”
“Natural warriors, though through some sort of magic, or maybe just skill, they have more speed, strength, and endurance than a normal human,” Master Horston said with a sigh. “Some of the more devout priests consider them mages for their inhuman abilities, but others see them as too valuable. One terrin is worth ten fighting men. Sometimes more.”
“You think I’m one?”
“Grent doesn’t, and he would know.” Horston took another drink from his goblet. Tears of wine rolled down the sides of his mouth and into his beard. “I think it is something else. You felt the connection to the talent.”
“Talent?”
“What…” his voice lowered and he glanced toward the door conspiratorially. “What magi call their gift.”
Edin snapped his jaw shut but Master Horston looked back to his food and stabbed a piece of pork. It was as if the comment were something a person would just spout at any random moment, not something considered heresy and punishable by death. The old man knew the divine law.
‘Anyone who discovered their access to the ability was to immediately and without hesitation end their own life.’
If not, the Por Fen monks came. they’d be tortured before being executed. After which their remains were to be drawn and quartered and posted around the nearest village or city. Everything but the head. That was to be sent to the Citadel to be put on display for any other’s who’d defy the law.
Until that moment, it never dawned on him how brutal, merciless it was. Abominations… magus were always some distant concept. Other people, not him.
To order men, women and children to take their own lives… it was horrible.
Master Horston taught law, many of them. He remembered the emphasis that the master had put on a few of the church laws, or divine law as they called it. This one was one of them. There were only two laws pertaining to magi, the second was that anyone harboring or aiding a magus was to be executed as an accomplice.
A meat knife was inches from his fingertips. How quick would it be? Would there be any pain if he just ended his own life with the steel blade? The thought of plunging it somewhere into his chest made his heart skip. His hands began to shake.
His mother kept her eyes on Edin. There wasn’t shame, anger or fear in them, only worry. Her gaze rested on the blade.
“Do not fret it boy,” Master Horston said waiving a dismissive hand. “As your tutor for these many years, I have firsthand knowledge that you have no talents.” He grinned trying to lighten up the mood.
It didn’t work. Edin felt no better.
“This is not good dinner conversation. Let’s eat first, then if we’re up to it, we can retire to the great room to discuss matters,” his mother said.
Edin nodded. The meal looked like a winter-tide dinner, the recent festival that celebrated the end of the cold season. When he’d last kissed Kes…
It smelled just as amazing with pungent spices, sauces and vinegars. The roasted tomatoes and corn would be treasures to the mouth.
But Edin wasn’t hungry anymore. He poked at the meal as the dinner continued in silence, Master Horston staring out the window toward the forest, his mother’s eyes moved from Edin to her food to the master.
When Freta brought out a large sweet cake he had barely touched the rest of the meal. His meat was cold and the oils had coagulated into a fine yellow film on the dish. He took one bite of the cake and was done.
An hour later, Edin sat on the chair next to the fire. The large head of the beast glared at him, its pupil-less eyes following his every move. There was little he could do about it now.
His body was tired and his arm still throbbed. He absently touched the bandage.
“All of the servants are out of the house,” his mother said sitting on the couch across from him. In the glow of the firelight, her unique greenish yellow eyes danced. His own were hazel. Their hair was the same color, a light blond merging on brown. His mother, as usual held her chin high.
She w
as as tall as him, taller than most women he’d ever met and wore an air of intelligence that was confident without being arrogant.
“Good,” Master Horston said leaning back in the companion chair to Edin’s and pulling a pipe from his sleeve.
Did he have pockets in there? Edin wondered. What other trinkets did he keep hidden up his sleeve?
“Now on to business.” Horston held an observant look beneath his mustache and beard as he twisted the edge around his thin forefinger “tell us about the feeling, I am curious.”
“I never said…” Edin started then saw the look on Horston’s face. He swallowed and glanced toward the stairs, Berka and his mother were up there. She took her food in the room and didn’t want to be away from him for any length of time. Even a short meal.
“I’m unsure…” Edin started glancing between his mother and the old teacher. The man’s dark gray cloak hid the rest of his body. Edin only ever saw his head, boots, and his arms to the elbow. Never any more. Even in the dead humid heat of summer the man wore it. He wondered sometimes if the old man was mangled beneath the clothes. Was his body as frail as his face or as wrinkled as his hand?
“Start from the beginning, when you were late for supper and past curfew,” his mother said.
Edin began to tell the story, the game, the chase… then stumbling over the cat. He shot glances up to the mounted head staring down at him as he got to the attack.
“So, it was in the grove?” Master Horston said stopping the twirling of his mustache. Edin nodded. “Interesting.”
Edin looked to his mother who cupped a wine glass in her palms. Her shoulders were sagging and she stared into the fire. “Why is that interesting?”
“Continue your tale,” Master Horston said waiving his hand.
Edin began to feel like he was being interrogated. He didn’t want to discuss the possibility of magic, and he needed to slow the conversation… to stall. They were implying he was a magi…
“I’ve only heard fairy tales about it… the grove I mean. What is the place, what happened there?” Edin said.
Master Horston looked at him carefully, smiled, then glanced at Laural; she nodded as if confirming it was okay for him to go on.
The old man sighed and took a long drag on his pipe. “There are not many records from before the fall of the kingdom, most having been destroyed in the purges. From my research it was originally a place of worship, a temple of some sort for the Elves.”
“Elves? They were real?”
Master Horston shrugged. “According to my research they were, and like men some were magical and others mundane, or normal. It is said the marble stones were stained red from sacrifices.”
“Sacrifices?” Edin said.
“Some tales say humans, others say it was animals. The stories were all told by the tongues of our kind, so we don’t know if they’re true. Not since the end of the kingdom have they been seen. Like magi, they were hunted. Their temples destroyed or methodically taken apart by our forbearers. Large stones were floated down the Crystalline all the way to the sea. They say the grove is cursed.”
“Curses are real too?”
He shrugged. “It wouldn’t do to discuss that now,” Master Horston said. “Tell me, what happened to the beast?”
Edin consciously looked back toward the head, his stomach twisting but not like the feeling when it attacked. With his hand clutching the fang around his neck, he stared into the black eyes. He faced it down while it lived, but even in death, the animal was a nightmare.
“It tossed Berka into the grove… only feet in front of me. I couldn’t leave him,” Edin said thinking about Berka. He clenched his jaw as he thought about his friend upstairs. He needed to see him. “I stood between the cat and Berka with my sword.”
“What sword?” His mother said with more than a little concern and some anger in her voice.
“An oak one I crafted, Berka and I both did.” He moved his eyes to her, “we practice in case we ever need it, and Berka especially, since he will be heading to the Citadel soon. We were working on our tracking and evading skills.”
“Fools,” Master Horston let out in an exasperated sigh, “without a proper teacher, there’s no way you’d be good at any of that, you’d more likely get lost or stab yourselves.”
“We had no other options,” Edin said looking toward the Master. He took a drink of his ale, it had warmed by the fire and wasn’t as crisp as before.
“Enough, go on,” his mother urged, she was gripping the arm rest so tight that even with her ivory skin he could see her knuckles whitening.
“It seemed to slow as it leapt, I dodged but a claw caught me...” Edin trailed off while rubbing a hand down his bicep, “and then I don’t know.”
He saw his mother tense.
“You don’t remember?” Master Horston said taking a puff from his long pipe. The smell of the smoke lingered long after the visible cloud disappeared. Edin was on the fence if it smelled descent or just plain terrible.
Edin shook his head, “I didn’t say that. I said I don’t know. We got up and faced each other… I knew I couldn’t do that again. I was about to die… hoping it’d be quick and painless. I closed my eyes. But nothing happened though and when I looked again, there was a translucent white light around me and the crillio was stunned.”
“What did you feel inside you?” Master Horston said, there was no sarcasm in his voice.
Edin looked toward his mother who wouldn’t meet his gaze. Was she afraid for him, or afraid for herself if she was found to have harbored a mage, an abomination? Could she be thinking about killing him? Killing her only son.
Edin nodded, “both times.”
“Both times.” Horston said leaning forward. “What did you feel?”
“A wrenching feeling… a release, like something coming from inside me.”
“And the second? What happened?”
“The same.” Edin said shifting in his seat. He sipped the ale and tried not to look at the head mounted on the wall. “It was as if a spear shot from the ground and pierced the heart. It fell dead.” Master Horston nodded, he tried to catch Laural’s face but she wouldn’t look at him.
“I thought he wasn’t supposed to have it,” she said quietly.
“Have what?” Edin said.
“It was always a gamble, most if not all are born from two mage parents. At least that’s what is said in the west,” Horston offered.
“The west? Porinstol?” Edin said, but the two were clearly not listening. Two parents, what did that mean? he looked at his mother as she raised a hand to her head.
“I hoped it wouldn’t get him,” she pressed.
“Both parents need to have lineages, ancestors. It’s half the population of Bestoria. We know about his father.”
“My father? I know nothing about the man.”
“Now you do,” Master Horston said. “He was a mage, though I’ve never heard of one who could create barriers or objects out of the void. I have to research. If we can keep this quiet he may be able to stay for a while, but he’ll have to…”
“How do we keep it quiet?” his mother asked.
“The curse of course.”
“The curse?” Edin’s eyes widened as it snapped into place. “Could that explain what happened?” Edin ventured, his heart was thumping and he rubbed his sweaty palms against his trousers. It could’ve been magic, but not his. A smile began to tug at his lips.
The old man turned his gaze to the ceiling and brought the pipe up to his mouth. He lit it while still staring into the wooden planks above.
The chair squeaked as Edin shifted in his seat.
“No, but that’s what the story can be, you know nobles and their spins,” Master Horston said with a smile. “People have been talking. In the village today, there were already murmurs about one of the boys being a magus, though I think this story could placate them some… for the time being at least.”
“Time being?” His mother asked. �
�You mean it can’t last? He can’t stay?”
“I’m afraid not; we knew this was a possibility. A hunter will come to the village with a stone. When tested, I’m afraid young Edin will fail.”
“Fail at what? I’m not a mage.”
“Of course you are child.” Horston said, his voice firm and knowing. “And you’ve known the village all your life, the gossip will spread and someone will come looking, checking,” Master Horston said. “In a place like this, stories are all they really care about. Histories do not register with them. Why would a lumberjack or a cooper need to know about the fall of the magi? All he needs to know is magi, or abominations, are evil and will steal your virtuous daughters and slaughter your sons. There will be no trial and no hesitation. If the tales of your… talent aren’t squashed immediately a mob will form… or maybe a lone adventurer will show up. Even if the guards stay loyal eventually even they will not be able to stop you from dying. In that case, few will lament your death.”
Edin took a drink of his ale and refilled it with the wooden pitcher. Would they believe that? People he knew his entire life? Would Kesona or Berka’s family?
“I’m not a murderer, I wouldn’t want to steal…” he couldn’t say it.
“I know that, but it’s not what these uneducated commoners have been taught. As for now, no one saw you perform magic and that should help give us time to prepare. I need to research and Grent will need to be informed. With the lore around the grove…” He looked toward Edin’s mother who understood what he meant. “If we can convince some of the people who adore you, they may just look at the place, and not the people, as magic. No one ventures near there for fear of the spirits. Especially due to the legends of what happened to the last men who did.”
“Will they question the grove protecting humans?”
He spread his hands. “It’s a mystery we cannot solve,” Master Horston said with his wicked smile returning. The man had a plan to shift the blame. A barrier of some kind sprang up around him. Edin wasn’t evil, he wasn’t an abomination. They were cruel murderers and never did he think of that sin. Dreams of adventure didn’t count right? He was only fighting for good, slaying the pirate or the evil mage, and saving the beautiful lady. Berka had those same dreams and he wasn’t a magus. It had to be the place, he wasn’t a crillio slayer, the elfin curse was.