The Queen of Mages

by Benjamin Clayborne

“I’m only saying that it will serve us better if they know.”

  “You promised me, repeatedly, that you wouldn’t tell anyone about your power.” Dardan glowered from the kitchen doorway.

  Amira plunked the knife down next to the carrots and faced her husband. “Well then it was a foolish promise! They’re going to find out eventually. It won’t stay a secret, not from everyone.”

  “That’s why it’s dangerous for us to stay here,” Dardan said. Amira heard heat, and maybe a little fear, in his voice. “People aren’t going to react well.”

  “They will—” She stopped. It was no use going over all this again. She returned to attacking the carrots, and heard footsteps a moment later as Dardan retreated, probably to go brood in the sitting room. Why couldn’t he understand? Edon wasn’t hiding his power, and there were other mages out there as well. It was only a matter of time before everyone knew about them. Better that the folk of Stony Vale learn about mages from her—gentle, sweet, charming—than from a monster like Edon. But Dardan wouldn’t hear of it.

  Amira sighed and focused on the vegetables. She’d never really had to cook for herself—her mother had been able to afford a cook and maid for her townhouse, when Amira was little—but it gave her something to do while waiting for Garen to show up. Each night, after the smithy closed up and he had dinner with the Walkers, Garen came by the cottage so that he and Amira could practice their powers together. Dardan always sat and watched, even if he had nothing to contribute.

  The cottage, only a few minutes’ walk from the square of Stony Vale, had belonged to an old widow who’d died recently. All her remaining kin lived far away, so a neighboring widow, old Clarys, looked after the place. She’d agreed to let Amira and Dardan stay there in exchange for keeping it tidy.

  During the days, Amira made an effort to get to know as many of the townsfolk as possible. Even if she couldn’t reveal her power, at least she could lay the groundwork. If Dardan did change his mind, or her hand were forced by circumstances, she wanted to be prepared.

  So she socialized with the neighbors, implying that Dardan came from wealthy parents and had struck out on his own with his doting wife in tow. She hinted that they might settle permanently in Stony Vale. This endeared them to a great many people, who appreciated the prosperity that a wealthy man could bring to the town. Amira made sure to spend visibly: she bought dresses, blouses, underclothes, and a proper bodice from a local seamstress, and put her vest and trousers aside for a while. As much as she liked the garments, the townsfolk would accept her more easily if she were dressed normally.

  Most of them were pleasant enough, quite willing to chat with a beautiful stranger. Especially the menfolk. A few treated her with indifference or contempt, but she let that roll off her back. You can’t please everyone.

  One to whom Amira could not endear herself was Constable Adams. No matter how polite she was to the man, he glowered and acted rudely. A few days after their arrival, Magistrate Baxter had come to the cottage to return Amira and Dardan’s swords, with Constable Adams at his side. Baxter left them with a stern but polite warning that no foolishness would be tolerated. When his back was turned, Constable Adams spat at her feet.

  ———

  A week after their arrival, Amira went for a walk in the woods. To the north and east of Stony Vale the land was cleared for miles, farms and sheepfolds stretching to the coast, but to the west a thick old forest came up almost to the edge of the town. Towering, solemn sentinel pines shaded the undergrowth with their boughs.

  The forest held an immense silence. Amira loved it. She spent the whole morning there after Dardan declined to join her. He’d wanted to go for a ride, he said. He was still grumpy that they’d stayed in Stony Vale instead of continuing on to Seawatch; he claimed Duke Eltasi would help them. Dardan told her often how House Eltasi and House Relindos had no love for one another.

  Well, Eltasi could wait. Amira had found a real live mage here in Stony Vale, and she wasn’t about to give Garen up.

  She threaded between the pines, struggling to enjoy the serenity of the forest while another part of her brooded about Dardan. She happened upon a little clearing, and noticed two boys, maybe six or seven years old, fighting with sticks and shouting merrily. Amira stopped and leaned against a tree, watching them with a smile on her lips.

  After a minute, she heard a querying voice in the distance. A woman’s voice, in the tone of a mother ready to scold her children. The woman emerged into the clearing: a youngish brunette, flush from exertion, striding purposefully toward the boys.

  They stopped, stick-swords dangling at their sides, heads hung low. Amira couldn’t quite make out the woman’s words, but her meaning was obvious: You boys are in trouble. Come home right now.

  They started to follow, just as Amira glimpsed something moving in the trees beyond them. What was it? Brown, and large, and padding along on four feet—

  A bear. A big one, its fur almost black in the shade. The woman swiveled her head at the sound of its footsteps, and she gasped. By instinct or reason, she moved between it and the children and backed away, keeping them behind her.

  The bear’s head came up as it snuffled at the air. Amira’s heart thudded in her chest as the bear padded forward. The woman kept backing up. The children were trying to see, and finally one of them realized what it was and shrieked. The other boy did as well, and then they were both crying. The woman tried to shush them, while keeping the bear in sight.

  The beast growled low, and had closed to no more than twenty feet from the woman. She had nothing in her hands, not even so much as a kitchen knife.

  Amira felt her feet moving. She’d been watching it unfold, like a minstrel’s drama, but this was no man dressed in furs, lurching about for the amusement of a common room’s audience. That bear was well and truly interested in them.

  The bear either didn’t notice her approach or didn’t care, because it growled suddenly and lurched forward. Amira didn’t think: she flung out a silver bead and pushed as much energy into it as she could. The bear’s head exploded in a shower of blood. It flopped to the ground, dead in an instant.

  The woman had been silent, her voice perhaps paralyzed by fear, but now she screamed and stumbled back, knocking over one of the children, who wailed all the louder.

  Amira hurried forward. “It’s all right!” she said, her own voice loud in her ears. The brunette had begun to struggle back to her feet, and stopped halfway up to swivel around and look. Amira’s blood felt on fire, but she forced herself to smile, and repeated herself as calmly as she could. “It’s all right. It’s over.”

  She knelt down by the boy who hadn’t fallen over, the younger of the two. He stared at her with big brown eyes, as wide as the sky, and then flung his arms around her and sobbed loudly.

  The young woman breathed heavily as she looked over at the bear again, as if worrying that it might get up and come after them. After a long minute, she got to her feet and picked up the boy she’d knocked over, and they clutched each other tight. The woman’s eyes came to rest on Amira.

  Amira felt compelled to break the silence. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded once. “Did you do that?” Her terror hadn’t left completely; perhaps one threat had simply been replaced with another.

  “Um. Yes. It seemed the right thing to do.”

  The woman looked over at the bear again. “How?” She still clutched the older boy to her; he’d stopped crying and now watched Amira curiously. The younger boy had drifted to his mother’s side, but seemed more interested in the dead bear than the conversation.

  Amira almost spoke, but stopped herself. I promised.

  To the black spirits with that. This woman had a right to know. She could deal with Dardan later. “I have a… a gift, you could call it. I don’t know where it came from.” She paused. “My name is Amira.”

  “I’ve seen you,” the woman said. “Around town. At the shops. I’m Mari. This is Josiah.” She squeezed h
er son a little tighter. “That’s Henry, over there.” The younger boy paid them no heed; he’d crept close to the dead bear and was now poking it with a stick.

  “Perhaps we ought to get out of the woods,” Amira suggested, and Mari did not argue. She clutched her boys’ hands tight and led the way to a house a stone’s throw from the edge of the trees. Amira thought the forest could stand to be cleared much farther back, if there were bears willing to come that close to the town. Someone had gotten a start; there were a score or more of decaying stumps between the house and the woods.

  There were two young girls inside the tidy little house, one who must be ten or eleven and another who was at most three. The older girl seemed to have been looking after the younger while Mari had gone out to find her boys. Mari introduced them as Anna and Gwendolyn.

  Mari looked not much older than Amira, but with all these children she must be near on thirty. She offered Amira some water and bread. The bread had gone a little stale, but Amira accepted it graciously.

  The boys seemed to have recovered from their adventure, so Mari sent them outside to play. “But I’ll do to you what that bear didn’t, if you go near those trees again.” She pointed at a leather strap hanging from the wall. Henry and Josiah glanced at it with fearful eyes before skittering outside. Mari sent the girls out after them and watched them all through the kitchen window for a few moments as they ran around in the dirt. Soon her eyes drifted over to Amira, who sat at the table.

  Amira had been considering what to say. She saw no hostility on Mari’s face, just curiosity mixed with caution. “Well?” Mari said.

  Amira gave an abbreviated explanation: the power had come upon her one day, and she’d been learning to use it since. She had no idea where it came from. She said she’d come across others who had it, but did not name them. Mari said very little during all this, only wiped absently at some plates as Amira spoke.

  “Does all this frighten you?” Amira asked. She really had no idea what the woman thought. The bear attack must have been terrifying to Mari, but like her boys she’d recovered quickly.

  Mari shook her head. “You seem honest. I don’t see bad in you. What does your husband say?”

  Amira shrugged. “He wants me to keep it a secret. But after what happened out there… It wouldn’t have been fair to keep it from you.”

  “Hm. Well it’s no secret now.” She glanced out the window. “The boys’ll talk,” Mari said, “no matter how much I swear to thrash them. And then people will ask questions.”

  “Then tell them the truth.” Amira felt emboldened. Dardan was going to have to deal with people knowing the truth sooner or later. Why hand fate the reins?

  Mari nodded. “I will. But see that your husband don’t feel betrayed or he’ll brood for weeks, if he’s like most men.”

  ———

  It was barely two days before the first questions came. Amira was at the greengrocer’s shop; Tim Thorn was his name, a friendly, portly fellow forever offering samples of his wares. Amira had never known there were so many varieties of turnip.

  A tall, thick-armed man with a mop of amber hair came in the door, and he immediately locked eyes with Amira, but seemed reluctant to approach. Finally she strode over to him, impatient for him to stop staring. “Yes?”

  “You’re… My wife said you saved her from a bear.” His face showed that he only half-believed it.

  “You must be Mari’s husband.” She held out her hand. “I’m Amira.”

  “Hugh Hamm.” He shook her hand gently, as if afraid he might break it. Her hands were dainty compared to his enormous fists, but really, she wasn’t made of porcelain. “The boys… they said you done witchcraft.” He spoke quietly enough that Tim Thorn couldn’t overhear.

  “Something like that,” Amira said lightly. “It’s nothing to be scared of. Some people are strong, some very wise… I can do this.” She held out her palm, and made a tiny flame dance above it, much too small to be frightening. Hugh’s eyebrows climbed high, but he leaned forward to inspect the flame for a moment. Abruptly he nodded and left.

  It was a day later that Hugh Hamm came to the cottage in the morning. Dardan answered the door before Amira could get to it, and when Hugh asked for her, Dardan pivoted to stare at her. “Excuse me a moment,” he said to their visitor, and closed the door while Hugh tried to peer inside, confused. “Do you know what this is about?”

  Amira pressed her lips together. She hadn’t told Dardan anything. Butterflies batted her stomach. You made your bed, girl. Why had she been so cavalier about it? She’d known this would happen eventually.

  She took a deep breath and told the story to Dardan: the forest, the bear, and how Mari had wanted to know what happened. “I couldn’t very well lie to her face.”

  “Yes you bloody well could have!” Dardan shouted. “It’s as if you deliberately sought out a circumstance that would allow you to reveal yourself.”

  “Oh, so I followed a bear around until it attacked someone?”

  “You know very well what I mean.” Dardan glanced at the door. “What does this fellow want?”

  “I have no idea. He’s Mari’s husband.”

  “Does he know too?”

  Amira couldn’t meet Dardan’s eyes any longer. “Yes.”

  He let out a long sigh, then turned and opened the door again. Hugh stood there, his hand half-raised as if he meant to knock again. “Er… I could come back.”

  “No, by all means, come in,” Dardan said. “It seems we have no secrets here.”

  Hugh stepped inside, doffing his hat, and introduced himself to Dardan. “Um, Missus Howard…” He glanced at Dardan again for a moment, but Amira’s husband was staring up at the ceiling and turning an alarming shade of red. Hugh cleared his throat and went on. “I was wondering… thinking, I mean, about the bear. It came awful close, and another one could, I mean, it might come to the edge of the trees, which ain’t far from our house. I been clearing the trees meself, but it’s slow work for a man alone. I was wondering if maybe you could cut down some trees for us, clear them farther from the house.”

  Amira looked at Hugh’s thick arms. “Wouldn’t you be better suited—oh! I see.” He meant, couldn’t she use her power? “Hm. I’ve never tried that. I suppose it could work…” She considered for a moment how she’d do it, her latent argument with Dardan fading away. Could she maybe push her ember into a line, and use it like a saw? “Well. I can try, at least. Lead on.”

  “Indeed. Why start exercising caution now?” Dardan muttered, and followed them.

  It took Amira ten minutes to do what would have taken Hugh hours of exhausting labor. She hooted and laughed as the pine nearest the Hamms’ house crashed down through other trees—away from the house, since Hugh had showed her where to make the proper cuts.

  Dardan remained grumpy, but Hugh Hamm sang Amira’s praises. Whatever doubts the rest of the townsfolk might have had, within a week Amira had daily visitors asking if she could come help with this task or that. Half of them simply wondered if she would relight hearthfires that had gone out; she suspected some of them had quenched their fires on purpose just so they could see her power in action. A farmer asked if she could break up some rocks in a field; a mason wanted her to apply heat to his mortar so that it would dry faster.

  Even Magistrate Baxter gave in and sought her help when a wandering minstrel came to Stony Vale. This was a rare treat, as far off the main road as they were, and so everyone wanted to hear the minstrel sing, but the common room of the Giant’s Foot was too small to fit the whole town. So they held the performance outside in the square, but as the evening deepened, the air grew unexpectedly, bitterly cold. Baxter wondered if there was some way Amira could warm them all up, without the expense and time of building fires. She obliged, casting her bead in a wide net over the whole area and slowly warming the air.

  Amira was happy to help them all. The townsfolk came back with unexpected gifts of food and clothing, still somewhat skittish around
a witch—“mage,” she insisted on reminding them, was the term she preferred, lacking as it did the suggestion of macabre, gruesome rituals practiced under moonlight. She felt a persistent satisfaction, glad that she had found a way to make some use of her power without scaring people off. Dardan had been wrong, and it was all she could do not to rub his nose in it.

  Even Garen eventually revealed his power to the townsfolk, when he saw how well they’d reacted to Amira. Oddly, the townsfolk were more worried by Garen; many of them had known him since he was a little boy, and he was well-liked, so it jarred them to see this side of him revealed. But they accepted this change and tried to figure out ways to put his power to use as well.

  ———

  The silver bead sped through the air and buried itself in a boulder the size of a foal. Garen pushed energy into the bead, and the boulder cracked in half, little shards of granite careening through the air. “That’s as small as I can make it now,” he said, frustrated.

  Amira gazed at the cloud of dust that had risen off the rock. It was becoming evident that this power was wielded by men and women in very different ways. Garen’s power had grown with terrifying speed in these few weeks; he was easily as strong now as Edon had been at Foxhill Keep, able to smash huge boulders to rubble. A rocky hillside beyond the edge of town was pocked with craters the size of horses, the remnants of Garen’s practice.

  Amira herself had gained a great deal of control and finesse. She could etch black lines into parchment without burning through it; she’d never need an inkwell again. If she pushed her ember faster, she could cause a small tree to burst into flames in an instant. But that was the limit of her strength. Garen, by contrast, could no longer light a candle, because his smallest detonation would obliterate it, not to mention the room it was in. They’d had to find open space to practice in, lest he destroy the cottage and kill them both.

  Dardan had come with them the first few times, but after a while he’d admitted he was bored to tears and instead stayed at the cottage—or, more likely, went to the malthouse. He’d been drunk a time or two when she’d come home, but he’d said nothing except to ask how it had gone.

  Amira shook her head. Why was she thinking about Dardan? If he wanted to be a wet blanket, there was no reason to let that infect her mood. She focused on Garen again, thinking about what they’d learned of his power. He had no ability to stretch his bead into a line or a net the way Amira could. All he could do was cause explosions of varying sizes. Amira could spread her ember into a line or a sheet, to heat the air under a scrap of silk and make it float, or fry a fish from the inside out.

  They’d both gained firm control over the aim and placement of their beads. Either of them could hit a rock thrown into the air; Amira could crack it in half with a well-placed strike, focusing all her power into a single spot, a sort of archery of the mind. Garen’s attack would simply cause it to vanish in a cloud of dust.

  Men had power; women had finesse.. as far as she knew. She’d only witnessed two other mages using the power, both men. I’d have to find more mages to be sure. Not that there were any others in Stony Vale, not that she’d seen.

  Garen plopped down angrily onto on a dead log. It was late afternoon; Orville Walker had given him half a day off, thanks to a lull at the forge. Amira sat beside Garen. “Are you all right?”

  “It’s not fair,” he said. “You can do all sorts of wonderful stuff with it. All I am’s a glorified hammer.”

  “The world still needs hammers,” she said, wanting him to cheer up. “Just think, you could… you could dig a quarry, or an entire mine all by yourself! That’s got to be worth something, hasn’t it?”

  “I suppose,” he groused. His bead appeared before him. Amira watched as he spun it around in circles, then made it soar high above them. He pushed, and a crack echoed through the air. Amira looked over her shoulder at a couple of townsfolk who stood at the edge of the field, watching. Their practices attracted gawkers sometimes, but they never ventured close.

  “What if… what if I became a warrior? Or a knight?” Garen said. “Imagine, fighting off Vaslander berserkers! They wouldn’t know what hit them. How do you become a knight?”

  “You join the army, and rise through the ranks. Knights command many other men. It takes years of work, though. Supposedly men are raised only on merit alone, but everyone knows that noble sons find the path to knighthood much easier.”

  “Everyone? Everyone where?”

  Amira froze. She’d still never revealed her or Dardan’s true identities, not to Garen or anyone else in Stony Vale. And here she was, talking as if she had the insight of nobility. “Well, that’s what I always heard. Anyway, let’s not speak of such things,” Amira said. “You don’t want to be a knight. Killing is not pleasant.”

  Garen laughed. “How would you know? You’ve never killed anyone.”

  Amira looked away to hide her expression. “Let’s speak of something else,” she said, and stood up. She really didn’t want to think about it. About the bandits. About Gaelan Thoriss. She’d forgotten what he’d really looked like; in her mind’s eye, she saw him as a kindly old man covered in blood. The image did not please her.

  But something had gripped Garen’s imagination. “What if… what if two mages were dueling? Trying to kill each other with the power?”

  Amira sighed. It was a good question. If she ever did confront Edon again… how would it go? “I’m not sure,” she said. “I suppose it would come down to whoever got their bead out the fastest.”

  “If you could block it, that would really be something,” Garen said, getting excited. His earlier dejection had vanished. He often went from exultation to melancholy and back in a trice.

  “Block it with what? It goes right through everything we’ve tried. Stone, metal, cloth, water…”

  “What about another bead?” He came around to where he could see her eyes. She forced herself to stop scowling. “What if you set off your bead inside mine? What if it, I don’t know…”

  “It… it might disrupt it, or something, I suppose. We could try it.”

  “Yes! Let’s try it.” He had his bead out and hovering before Amira could draw another breath.

  She sighed again and pushed her own bead out. “Wait. Farther away. Just to be safe.”

  Garen nodded sheepishly and sent his bead all the way over to the rocky hillside. The importance of caution had become apparent early, when Garen had unintentionally caused a blast mere yards away from them. It had been weak compared to what he could do know, but the bang had knocked them both down and left a ringing in Amira’s ears for half a day. One misplaced bead could kill them both in an instant.

  Amira sent her bead after his. “All right. I’ll move my bead into yours and then fire it.” She took a steadying breath—the beads were about a hundred yards away, which was as far as either of them could reliably control—and prepared herself. She moved her bead to touch his, and got ready to fire it—

  The instant they touched, before she could fire, both beads winked out of existence, and a sound like bees swarming filled her head for a split second, overlaid with an echo of ten thousand squeaky floorboards all being scraped with rusty saw blades.

  She fell to one knee, grunting, but the sound was gone in an instant. Garen had clamped his hands over his ears. “Augh! What in the black spirits was that?”

  Amira shuddered and stood up. “As soon as they touched…”

  “That was horrible. I heard—no, I felt an awful buzzing, like I was covered in bees.”

  “I felt the same.”

  Garen stared out at the rocky slope. “Let’s do it again!”

  Amira sighed, and nodded. They tried again, and the same thing occurred: the beads vanished as soon as they touched. The sound of bees filled Amira’s mind for a fraction of a second, although since she expected it, it was somewhat less startling—but still unpleasant. They tried colliding the beads at close range, and found that they gave off no heat or shock. A
nd at that range, it became evident that the beads did not quite have to visibly touch; when they came within a few inches of one another, about a handspan apart, was when they vanished.

  They practiced trying to get their beads past one another, as if dueling. Inside of a hour they had both become relatively expert at stopping the other’s bead before it could reach them. “Two mages might fight to a standstill, it looks like,” Garen said, grinning.

  His earlier doldrums had vanished, which heartened Amira. She smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. “See? There’s something you can do besides blow things up. You could defend people. Protect them.”

  Garen nodded, and met Amira’s eyes. It was hard to tell, in the fading light of early evening, but she realized he was blushing. “A—Amira, I—”

  “We should get back,” she said, and turned away abruptly. Dardan would be waiting at the cottage; she should get home.

  She glanced back at Garen. Now he looked dejected again, and Amira’s heart nearly broke from the shame. Had she been making him think she bore some romantic interest in him? He certainly was a handsome boy, when the sweat and grime of the smithy were wiped away. But that ship had sailed; she was bound to Dardan. Well, Garen knew that, of course. Dardan… Dardan did too, didn’t he?

  CHAPTER 27

  DARDAN