The Magus

by Ted Neill

  Her Maurvant companion had put on weight since returning home. The sunken hallows were gone from her cheeks, replaced by a more attractive roundness. But Tallia was far from preoccupied with her appearance: she kept her hair pulled back, except for a few short stands she kept feathered out to the side. Today she wore two streaks of white with red in between on each cheek. Something about how she kept her clothes belted close to her body with her baldric, crisscrossed with the strap of her quiver, reminded Katlyn of Gail, even Chloe.

  Their journey continued. Katlyn’s mind was restless with thoughts of her family during the day and occasionally disturbed by nightmares at night. The skies they slept beneath held stars that were bright and piercing, like the winter air that had taken on a sharp edge. They slept close to the fire when they felt safe enough to build one, otherwise they spooned together for warmth, Tallia placing an arm around Katlyn when she woke from night terrors, Katlyn doing the same when Tallia shook and wept at night for her family.

  It was after one particularly cold night that they were roused by the sounds of voices.

  Katlyn moved slowly, stiff from the cold and sleep. Tallia bore no signs of such lethargy, leaping to her feet and reaching for her bow and quiver. But it was too late. The party had already spotted their horses and half of dozen men converged on their camp.

  They were Maurvant. Katlyn knew this with certainty after having lived among them. They recognized Tallia as one of their own and spoke to her in their language, Katlyn only catching fleeting words and meanings. But from the way Tallia closed ranks with her and kept her arrow nocked back on her bowstring, Katlyn did not take their visitors to be friendly.

  The men, wrapped in cloaks and furs, their breath forming clouds about their heads, who had found them called to the rest of the party. At first Katlyn was encouraged to see women among their numbers, but these women’s expressions were hard and unforgiving. One pointed at the antler-knife from the Rakne that Katlyn had stuffed under her belt and mumbled the Maurvant word for “killer.”

  When their leader stepped into their midst, Katlyn understood why. The others she had not recognized, but the chief, this man with dark inky pools for eyes, his sulfur-yellow cloak clasped at his shoulder with a bone buckle, she remembered. He was the same man who had stared at her with such animus at the lakeshore when they had killed the Rakne.

  “These are those that worship the Rakne,” Katlyn said.

  “Yes, the Candelin. And they remember us.”

  Not fondly, Katlyn thought.

  “They know you are Maurvant?”

  “It does not matter. We killed their master.”

  And they intended to kill them as well, that was clear to Katlyn. The chief gave a signal and the others closed in for the attack. Tallia let fly an arrow, and struck a man in the shoulder, but there were too many of them. Their resistance, although fierce, was quashed quickly and soon they were both pinned down. Without other means, Katlyn cried out for help, her voice echoing like a ghost among the trees. There was no one to answer. But for good measure the Candelin tore a strip of her sleeve and stuffed it into her mouth. The chief gave another order and Tallia protested with a stream of incomprehensible words, her face pale. But she moved no one, not even the women, who began to gather firewood and stack it in a pyre.

  “No—” Katlyn said.

  Tallia met her gaze for the briefest of moments. “I am asking that they spare you.”

  “No. Both of us, spare both of us!”

  Tallia shook her head as an old woman, her mouth puckered in a frown, dumped a bushel of branches onto the pile. “It’s no use. They want to punish us for the sake of their god.”

  “Your god is false. It was just an animal. A twisted creation,” Katlyn cried out, even though she knew her words were useless. The men found a log, and using their axes, chopped its end to a point and drove it into the ground so that it stood upright in the pyre. Using rope from Katlyn and Tallia’s own saddlebags, they tied them to the log and continued to pile wood. Katlyn’s bladder suddenly felt full to exploding and ready to burst when two of the men started to rub two sticks together to create an flame.

  “Katlyn, I’m so sorry,” Tallia said, her face turned close to Katlyn’s. Katlyn reached her fingers out and locked them with her friend, words failing her completely for a response.

  The firewood was piled up to their knees now. It was only for the others to wait now. Katlyn knew she was crying. She could not help it. She knew her words, her pleas for mercy were lost, even the ones she spoke in the Maurvant’s own tongue. The women, the men, most of all, the leader in the sulfur-colored cloak, watched with soulless eyes. Katlyn had heard of woman being ravished and that they had survived the ordeal by imaging themselves somewhere else, a place of peace, a moment of happiness: a childhood day playing games in the garden, resting in a mother or father’s arms. She reached into her mind for memories of her family, remembering meals with her cousins, her aunt and uncle, the glow of laughter in the love in their tiny house in on the fringes of the city. Would she be able to hold onto that memory, those feelings, even as the flames licked her flesh, scorched her hair, and blistered her skin?

  “Don’t cry,” Tallia said. “Don’t cry.”

  Katlyn tried to compose herself, tried to summon the courage she had seen in Gail, in Tallia, in Chloe, even in herself when she had faced the vaurgs, but even that was not as terrible as this. Then she had been free to move, to fight, not a helpless victim, immobile, impotent.

  The men sparked a flame with the sticks, blew on it, and fed it strips of bark. The flame kindled. They handed it to their leader.

  Not like this. Not like this. She was thinking it, then she was saying it, her fear turning to pleading as she clutched Tallia’s fingers painfully with her own. Something warm was running down her leg. As the chief stepped closer her breaths became shorter, her chest fighting against the ropes. Tallia spat. It was fruitless but the symbolism meant something. Katlyn’s own mouth was too dry but she noted with satisfaction that Tallia had struck true. The chief reached up to wipe his face with the corner of his cloak, the color of bile. Finished, he dropped it back down, the hem flapping close to his knees, Katlyn wishing it would catch fire and he would be immolated with them. There was no such twist, no such turn of luck. He stepped forward into the pyre, kindling snapping beneath his footsteps. His eyes locked on Katlyn’s, eyes that were pitiless and already aflame with the fanaticism born of cults formed in times of destitution.

  The wood crackled around her. She could already feel the heat. As the chief began to move his eyes away, back to his followers, there was a soft thud, like a whip striking a hollow pumpkin. His lips parted and he dropped the burning brand completely, the flames roaring up to engulf all three of them. Still he did not flee. Instead he leaned towards Katlyn, his lips parted, flecked with spittle and blood. He put his hand on the center pole next to Katlyn as if to balance himself. His eyes were now wide and lidless. With a grunt he fell into the very flames he had fed, an arrow with red fletching sticking out of his back.

  Chapter 11

  Black Tea

  Gregor had always felt the throne—his throne—to be an ill fit. Gregor Lachnor, the last great leader of the Servior, had been an imposing man, so too his throne with its high arms and deep seat and a back that rose much higher than Gregor’s own head did now. At fourteen, unless he came into a sudden spurt of growth, it was becoming obvious that this “reincarnated” version of the great Servior leader would not be the same size as he had been in his previous life.

  This was a wrinkle his master had not foreseen, but Gregor continued with the charade. What choice had he? He kept his face impassive as Felix shared the business of the day with his small court of advisors, lackeys and sycophants all of them with their own faces blank and expectant as they studied Gregor for sign of pleasure or displeasure and took their cue from that.

  But right now he was bored with the reporting, the reading of their amount of stores
, the sharing of lesson plans for the novices, the noting of the students who were excelling and those who appeared to be weak in their resolve to continue.

  Gregor was always secretly relieved when students left, either out of failure or when their novitiates were completed. Failure actually meant they were likely too human, too soft, too kind for the Servior’s nefarious business—a sort of triumph in Gregor’s eyes, at least for those lucky enough to be expelled. They never saw it that way, but perhaps with time they would. The successful students were more of a threat. Most were older than he by the time they matriculated, and he always feared them finding him out. He had only been able to stay ahead of their powers with his own raw gifts as well as the personal training his received from his master through the revenant.

  But such illusions cannot last forever.

  Finally, they came to the business of the slave insurrection.

  “All forty-eight slaves are now accounted for. Those who tried to escape by swimming have been retrieved. Those that rebelled shall be punished with minimal rations of water and no food for three days. Then they shall receive twenty lashes,” Felix announced.

  “Make it ten, Lord Felix. We need them healed quickly so they can repair the seawall.”

  “Your council is wise, your eminence,” Felix said with a bow. The other counselors nodded in eager agreement. “That brings us to our last item of business,” Felix said, clearing his throat. “Your new manservant.”

  Gregor sat up, turning his eyes but not his head as a young man, perhaps a year or two his senior, was escorted into the throne room. They had dressed him in the plain, brown wool uniform of a first year novice except without a sash that denoted his cloister. Instead of a leather belt, they had cinched his trousers up with a piece of rope, wrapped around his narrow waist.

  Gregor was hopeful. The manservant’s eyes were intelligent and alert, boding well for what he needed, an assistant who could anticipate what he needed and a slave to save him the headache of worrying about simple chores. On a closer look, Gregor could see that the slave’s eyes were hazel with flecks of red like flames of an eclipsed sun. His cheekbones were well defined, perhaps overly so, his cheeks sunken from starvation. His chin was scarred from what appeared to be more than a couple of fights and if it were not for his frizzled hair, washed clean of lice, he might have been handsome. Gregor had no doubt this was the same slave he had seen collapse on the deck of the ship during the insurrection.

  “You will find that he knows his letters and can write them as well,” Felix said. “He escaped punishment because he did not participate in the rebellion.”

  “Could not,” Gregor corrected. “What condition do you have slave?” he asked, speaking not as one peer to another but rather as an adult might a child.

  “The shaking sickness,” the manservant said.

  One of his advisors gasped and made a sign to avert evil. He was an old man with untrimmed whiskers growing from his ears and nose.

  “Your eminence, we cannot risk your health,” he began to say while covering his mouth.

  “The shaking sickness is not contagious, you old fool,” Gregor said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “He will do. If there is no other business, we are adjourned.”

  Felix shook his head to signal there was none, so Gregor rose to his feet and beckoned for the new manservant to follow him.

  From then onward the new slave attended to him throughout the day. Indeed he was responsive, quick, and adequate at anticipating Gregor’s needs. It was almost as if he had been trained before. His penmanship was legible and he could take notes quickly as Gregor dictated. He said little and asked no more questions than were necessary. But it was clear from his ever-present look of sadness that his thoughts wandered and his feelings were dark.

  Gregor knew slaves could be that way at first and knew that in time, the manservant would come to appreciate his lot. He certainly was better off serving in the castle than building the seawall; half of those slaves would be dead in three months’ time.

  The weeks rolled by. The sea’s pewter face matched the sky an unchanging view that Gregor grew weary of. They ordered extra shipments of coal from the mainland to keep the chambers warm, the chimneys of Drahlstrom constantly pouring out clouds of black smoke. Gregor inspected classes, supervised construction of the seawall, had meetings with Felix, and in his private time studied enchantments in his own books or those his master showed him in their secret meetings in the north wing. These were fewer this season as his master was busy with other affairs and possessed the body of the revenant only rarely. When he was present, Gregor tentatively reached into his mind and caught glimpses of crowded council chambers, long lines of refugees filling roadways, and rank upon rank of soldiers, even slaves. Sometimes he would see things he could not explain: hideous creatures with slitted eyes and needle-like teeth; babies ripped from their mothers’ breasts and smashed in bloody puddles; gallows, gallows, and more gallows, with hanging misshapen bodies.

  But if his master suspected Gregor of glimpsing these things when he was present in the revenant, he did not betray it. His concerns centered on keeping Gregor trained, his powers more advanced than the novices, and diverting Felix’s attention, the advisor growing more independent each day. Gregor knew himself to be under suspicion. The illusion, their story, growing frayed at the edges.

  “When the winter storms clear, perhaps Felix can be sent on a sea voyage, an assignment to distant lands,” Gregor suggested to his master.

  “Agreed,” said the husky voice that emanated from the dead warrior’s lungs. Then, abruptly, Gregor felt his master’s thoughts shift. It was like a cloud passing before the sun, leaving him in shadow.

  “I am needed elsewhere.”

  The body stiffened in its seat and Gregor’s master was gone. He felt the loss of time with his master as an actual hollow in his chest. Their sessions were the only times Gregor could be himself, when he was comfortable being a student; otherwise the role of Gregor Twiceborn was a burden. It made him irritable and short with everyone else. Anger could cloud judgment, anxiety perception. He knew it was not a good state to be in.

  So Gregor tried to distract himself in studies, bearing down on his folios, books, and scrolls. For this reason, his temper flared when his new manservant brought him cream for his tea, placed the cup on the edge of the table, then let it fall, smashing into the floor, splattering a star of white liquid on the floor.

  The cat immediately scampered across the room and began licking at the puddle. The manservant attempted to shoo it away but Gregor snapped, “Don’t bother. Someone should enjoy the milk.”

  “My apologies, my Lord.”

  Being forced to play a roll, Gregor knew a performance when he saw one, but why his slave showed relief rather than trepidation piqued his curiosity. He had known the manservant for weeks now. He had observed him and he was not clumsy. This drop did not appear inadvertent, but rather calculated.

  “Clean it up. I’ll have my tea black.”

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  Gregor sipped the bitter tea, turning his thoughts back to the spells before him. He was marginally aware of the clicking of the cat’s tongue, then the return of the servant with a rag to clean up the spilled cream. The door opened, a draft blew on his feet, then closed again, the draft cut off. He practiced pronouncing the words under his breath then willed them to appear in his mind so he could conjure them without speaking them—the true sign of an arch mage, as he was supposed to be as a man, reincarnated with a lifetime of memories and experiences. When he was satisfied he had the words memorized, he rewarded himself with a sip of tea. It was still warm and its heat was welcome in his chest as he listened to the wind toss spray up against the castle walls. His thoughts drifted to the elements of nature, the passage of time, and how no matter how many times they rebuilt the seawalls, someday Drahlstrom would fall, crumbling, into the sea, under the waves.

  Another sound cut through his thoughts. The bells were
peeling in the courtyard. Time for instruction. He drained the cup, closed the folio, pushed off his chair, only to freeze in place.

  The cat was sprawled on its side as if stretched out for a long nap, but from the pink tinged foam at his mouth he knew better.

  It was dead.

  Chapter 12

  Of Slaves and Masters

  Gregor ate his midday meal in the north wing: biscuits and honey cakes he took from the students’ hall, items that were not meant for him. He left instructions for his manservant to come to him in his private chambers—the first time Gregor had allowed anyone there. The manservant would have no way of knowing which door led to Gregor’s chamber, so Gregor got up from his table and ventured into the hall. Sure enough, the manservant was there, tray in hand, checking each door along the corridor.

  “I am here,” Gregor said. “Come.”

  Gregor studied him as he moved down the hall, his footsteps light, nimble even. When his servant was just before him, Gregor tossed him a hardboiled egg from his pocket. Quick to react, the servant shifted his weight, held the tray with one hand, and caught the egg with the other.

  “Intriguing. Follow me,” Gregor said, turning into his chamber. The room was dark, the shutters closed against the afternoon gale, the drafts causing the flames of the candles to tremble above their wicks. “Please set the tray down on that table.”