God of Magic

by Logan Jacobs

  “You know, this one is kind of cute….” Aerin mused as she regarded the puca, and when she held up her hand, the puca allowed her to stroke its fur. “It’s kind of small, I think it’s just a baby.”

  Lavinia scoffed. “It was just trying to lead us out into the middle of nowhere!”

  “Aww, you were only playing, though, weren’t you?” Aerin asked the puca in a sweet voice as she scratched it beneath the chin. “You didn’t mean any harm.”

  Draped over my other shoulder, the puca’s long tail twitched like a cat’s.

  “I cannot believe you two,” Lavinia said flatly. She turned to appeal to Maruk instead, but the orc had already retrieved some dried fruit from his pack that he offered to the puca in one enormous green hand.

  The puca snatched the piece of fruit and nibbled at it happily, its green eyes narrowed into slits.

  “Look at how it holds things in its tiny little fingers,” Maruk whispered. “It’s soooooooo cute!”

  “You’re giving it our food?” Lavinia cried. “You know that thing is probably crawling with fleas, right?”

  Maruk frowned. “Actually, I’ve read that pucas are resistant to most parasites, and they groom themselves regularly.”

  “I’ve heard that, too,” Aerin said with an encouraging nod.

  Lavinia stared at us. “It’s a wild animal! And dangerous! And there are thousands of stories of how dangerous they are!”

  The puca had finished its fruit and crawled halfway down my arm to sniff the orc’s palm in search of more. That gave me an idea.

  “They’re smart, though, right?” I asked. “If this one knew enough to trick us into going the wrong way, maybe it could lead us to the river instead.”

  At that, the puca raised its head and mimicked the sound of running water again.

  “That’s right,” I said as I reached into my own pack and pulled out the bread Nesta had made, still wrapped up in a napkin. As soon as I took it out, the puca whirled away from Maruk and wrapped its paws around my hand as it sniffed the wrapping greedily.

  “We want to go to the river,” I told it. “If you show us the way, I’ll give you this.”

  The puca made an excited gibbering sound and leapt off my shoulders and into the branches of a nearby tree where it looked back at us expectantly.

  I grinned. “Look, it understood. It wants us to follow.”

  “Of course it wants us to follow it,” Lavinia groaned. “It’s going to lead us in circles again.”

  The puca rotated its head upside-down again and fixed Lavinia with a glare. Then it snickered like it was trying to mock her words.

  Lavinia began to raise her bow to take aim at the creature again, but Maruk stopped her with a hand on her arm.

  “It’s going to help us,” he said.

  “It doesn’t understand ‘show us the way to the river,’” the archer argued. “It’s a stupid animal!”

  The puca’s tail twitched irritably, and when it opened its mouth again, the voice that came out was perfect mimicry of Lavinia’s as it repeated, “Stupid,” and then, in Aerin’s urgent tone from before, “Lavinia!”

  Aerin suppressed a surprised giggle, and Maruk held the archer back while the puca looked on with an all-too-human grin.

  “I think it understands more than you give it credit for,” Aerin said with a smirk, and Lavinia shot her a withering glare.

  As if to provide further proof of its intelligence, the puca sat up on the branch and said, in a flawless rendition of my voice, “River, river, river.”

  I couldn’t blame Lavinia for being wary, but I felt confident that we could bribe the puca. I held up the bread again, and the puca’s eyes went wide as it swept its gray tongue over its short muzzle.

  “You have to take us to the river if you want the bread,” I told it in a firm voice.

  “Bread,” the puca repeated. “River.”

  “Take us to the river first,” I said. “Then you get the bread.”

  The puca’s ear twitched, and it rotated its head from side to side. Then it jumped to another branch and looked back at me. “River,” it said.

  I looked over at the others. “I think we should follow it.”

  “I think so, too,” Aerin agreed, and Maruk nodded.

  Lavinia, however, still wasn’t convinced. “Have you all lost your minds? It’s going to be getting dark soon, and you want to follow that little monster deeper into the forest?”

  “Well, do you know where we’re supposed to go from here?” Aerin asked.

  Lavinia narrowed her eyes. “No,” she admitted after a moment.

  “Then we follow the puca,” Aerin replied. “It’s better than wandering around all night.”

  Lavinia pursed her lips. “I still think it’s a terrible idea,” she said, “but I want to be there when you all realize that thing tricked you again.”

  “River,” the puca insisted. Evidently, it was beginning to grow tired of waiting for us.

  “Alright,” I said, “let’s go to the river.”

  We followed the puca as it leapt from branch to branch above our heads, and it paused now and then and looked back, careful not to lose us. Well, perhaps not us so much as the food we offered, I realized, but at least it seemed like the plan was working.

  Between the fight with Allowen and the puca’s misdirection, we had added a couple of hours to our trip, and Lavinia was right about one thing, at least. It was going to be getting dark soon. It seemed that we would have to default then to our original plan, which was to camp by the river for the night, find the Dovar-cu in the morning, and then head back to Ovrista as soon as we had the blood for Magdalena.

  At least as the sun began to set it was cooler, but as the afternoon wore on into evening, we were all so tired that no one talked, not even to complain, and the last few miles of our hike were filled only with the sounds of insects and the rustle of leaves as the puca moved through the trees. At last, as the forest darkened in the deepening twilight, I heard the sound of running water and actually breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the faint stripe of silver through the trees ahead.

  We dumped our packs in a heap on a grassy section of the bank and threw ourselves down with them. I didn’t think I’d ever enjoyed sitting on grass before, at least, I’d never had much of an opinion about it either way, but now as I closed my eyes and ran my hands through it, I decided it was one of the best things I’d ever felt.

  An urgent trill to my right reminded me that I still owed our guide for leading us here, and I unwrapped the roll and held it out to the puca. It snatched the bread out of my hand and made a pleased sort of sound low in its throat before it sprang up into the trees again and disappeared.

  I hadn’t really expected it to stay, but I was sort of sad to see it go, nonetheless. It was probably for the best though. The longer it stuck around, the higher the chance Lavinia would make good on her promise to turn it into a hat.

  Aerin sighed contentedly as she stretched out on my left and laced her fingers behind her head. “I could go to sleep right now,” she said.

  “You can sleep after we’ve made camp,” Lavinia replied. “You’re in charge of the fire, I’m going to go set some snares.”

  Aerin opened one eye and gave me a wry grin. “Here’s some advice, Gabriel,” she whispered. “Don’t ever be good at anything you don’t want to do forever.” Then she rocked to her feet again and began to poke around in the brush for kindling.

  As she did, Maruk gathered the canteens we had brought and took them to the river to refill, and Lavinia had already slipped away as silently as a shadow, so I decided the most useful thing I could do would be to help Aerin with the fire. I had only been camping a few times before, but I knew what to look for, so I started to gather an armful of suitable kindling. My dagger was not made for cutting, and I had to resort to breaking off smaller branches from the surrounding trees and brush, but between Aerin and I, we had enough between us to keep a fire going throughout the night before
Lavinia had returned from setting her snares.

  Aerin showed me her own technique for starting a fire, and Maruk brought over a pot full of water that we set on stakes above the flames to boil. With some of the fresh vegetables we’d taken from Allowen, we started a soup, and when Lavinia returned a few minutes later with some sort of bird she’d shot, we added it to the pot.

  Between the warm food, cool breeze, and good company, the stresses of the day begin to melt away as the sun set and the stars appeared in the sky overhead.

  Suddenly, one of the stars streaked across the sky and Aerin let out an excited squeal. “Did you see that?” she asked as she pointed up at the sky. “A falling star, that’s good luck!”

  Lavinia raised an eyebrow and cast a sidelong glance to Maruk. Neither said anything, but Aerin didn’t miss the look.

  “What?” the elf demanded as she crossed her arms and stared the other two down.

  Maruk scratched the back of his neck. “Oh, don’t mind us,” he said.

  Aerin turned to Lavinia. “Tell me. What are you two smirking about?”

  “You think everything’s a sign from the gods,” Lavinia replied as she stretched out her legs in front of her.

  Aerin looked affronted. “I do not!”

  “Last week you said that drowned mouse we found in the tub was a good omen,” Lavinia reminded her.

  Aerin frowned and gestured to me pointedly. “And then Theira sent Gabriel to us at Kildon,” she insisted.

  “Wait, sorry,” I cut in, “but am I being compared to a dead mouse?”

  Lavinia grinned at me. “Be grateful it’s not worse. You could have been a dead cockroach.”

  Maruk laughed while Aerin looked helplessly between us.

  “That’s not-- You’re not a dead mouse,” she said quickly. “The mouse was just a sign. Don’t you have things like that? Omens and things?”

  I wasn’t sure how to answer. “Uh, where I’m from dead mice are usually just dead mice.” Aerin looked disappointed, and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I added, “People believe in other things, though. My grandmother used to tell me stories...” I trailed off when I realized they were all looking at me intently.

  “Stories about what?” Aerin prompted, her hazel eyes alight with excitement.

  I found myself smiling back. “Well, there was one about the ghost of a woman who haunts rivers,” I said. “She’s looking for her children who drowned, and if you ever saw her ghost, it meant you would die soon, too.”

  Lavinia rolled her eyes. “You’re making that up because we’re camped by a river.”

  “No, it’s true,” I insisted. “At least, that’s what my grandmother told me.”

  I looked out at the thin shroud of mist that hung over the silver line of the river in the moonlight, and suddenly I got an idea. I pulled my cloak around to hide my hand and frowned. “Hey, do you see that?”

  Aerin and Maruk turned, and as they did, I moved my hand beneath my cloak toward them. My magic hummed in my veins as I willed them to see something else in the mist, the shape of a woman.

  Aerin started and grabbed Maruk’s arm. “It’s the ghost!” she yelped. “Gabriel, it’s your ghost!”

  I wondered if I could cast auditory illusions as well. I made my expression serious as I answered Aerin and attempted another spell, “No, it couldn’t be. She would have to be crying--”

  “I hear someone crying,” Maruk said in a low, nervous voice as he, too, stared out at the water.

  “Look, Lavinia!” Aerin insisted in an urgent whisper. “Do you believe us now?”

  Lavinia fixed me with a skeptical look, and I couldn’t hold back my smile.

  “I believe Gabriel’s messing with you,” she answered as she tossed a pebble at me. “He’s a manipulator, remember?”

  I couldn’t help but grin as Aerin and Maruk turned to me, wide-eyed, and I held up my hands. “I thought I should practice.”

  Aerin tried to look scandalized and punched me on the arm, but then she laughed. “You sneaky bastard, I was actually scared!”

  Maruk sat up a little straighter. “Well, I knew it was a joke,” he said. “I wasn’t frightened. I was just playing along.”

  “Yeah, right,” Aerin scoffed.

  “You’re both so gullible,” Lavinia said with a shake of her head. “It’s embarrassing.”

  “Come on, Lavinia,” Aerin said. “You really don’t believe in anything? Didn’t your parents ever tell you ghost stories when you were little?”

  The archer frowned. “No,” she said. “What do you even need ghosts for? We fight real monsters all the time, that’s not enough for you?”

  Aerin sighed and waved her off dismissively. “Forget it,” she groaned as she leaned back against her pack.

  “And speaking of fighting monsters,” Lavinia went on, “don’t forget we have a job to do in the morning.”

  Maruk grinned as he settled back as well. “Sure, change the subject,” he said.

  Lavinia glared at him, but he had already closed his eyes, so she turned to me instead. I held up my hands and tried to keep from smiling.

  “Whatever you say,” I said.

  Lavinia pursed her lips but evidently decided against trying to argue further, and she lay back on her bedroll and muttered something about wild superstitions.

  I lay down as well with my cloak bundled up beneath my head and closed my eyes. I didn’t remember actually falling asleep, but when I opened my eyes again, I was lying face-down in the dewy grass, and the sky held the dim grayish purple hue of approaching dawn.

  I sat up and rubbed my eyes. The fire had burned down to embers, and Lavinia, Maruk, and Aerin were still asleep, but it was immediately apparent that someone had been in the camp. Our packs had been upended, and their contents lay strewn across the riverbank.

  As the scene finally registered in my groggy mind, I scrambled to my feet. I was relieved if only faintly, to find that I still had my dagger in my belt and the pendant from Aerin on its chain around my neck, but whoever had ransacked our camp was nowhere to be seen.

  My heart hammered as I began to gather up our remaining belongings and tried to figure out who would be out here and what they would want to steal from us, and I realized then that my pack was untouched, as were Maruk’s and Aerin’s. It was only Lavinia’s things that had been disturbed.

  I closed my eyes as the realization dawned on me. It looked as though everything Lavinia had packed was here except the food, but her maps had been torn into pieces, and the rest of her belongings were trampled into the mud by tiny raccoon-like paws. I had an idea exactly who the thief was. I turned to scan the trees for any sign of the puca, but it was long gone.

  At that moment, Lavinia stirred and sat up, and I watched as her initial expression of shock turned to outrage as she took in the state of our camp and leapt to her feet. Her red eyes met mine, and she spread her arms.

  “What in the nine hells happened here?” she demanded, loudly enough to cause Aerin to wake up as well.

  “Whas goin’ on?” the elf muttered.

  “We were robbed,” I said hesitantly. Actually, only Lavinia had been affected, but I didn’t want to say that.

  Aerin jumped up like she’d been shocked. “What? What did they take?”

  I held up my hands. “It looks like it was just some of the food,” I said quickly.

  Aerin frowned as she took in the scene.

  Lavinia shoved Maruk with the toe of her boot. “Get up,” she said sharply, “we were robbed.”

  Maruk groaned as he sat up, but once what Lavinia had said registered, he was on his feet in a moment. “Robbed?” he echoed. “By whom?”

  Lavinia looked to me, brows raised in silent question. I wondered if she had guessed what I had, but it didn’t matter either way. It wouldn’t do any good to try to lie now.

  “I think it was the puca,” I sighed.

  “That furry little bastard!” Lavinia kicked at the remains of our fire and sent up a p
lume of fine gray ash and embers. “I told all of you we couldn’t trust that thing!”

  “Quit that, you’re getting soot on my boots!” Maruk protested.

  Lavinia rounded on him. “This is your fault! You’re the one who fed it in the first place--”

  “It was being perfectly gentle with me,” the orc shot back. “You’re the one who upset it. And look, it didn’t touch anything of mine.”

  Then Lavinia did look more carefully, and I watched her lip curl as she realized what I already had: that she had been the sole target of the puca’s mischief.

  “That little monster--” she said under her breath.

  Maruk, evidently still annoyed by the ash on his boots, raised his chin. “It serves you right, you ought to know better than to threaten cute woodland creatures like that.”

  Lavinia shot him a poisonous look, but Aerin pushed between them before either could escalate the situation further. “Settle down, both of you! Let’s focus on finding the Dovar-cu so we can get out of here.”

  I had just collected the last scraps of Lavinia’s maps when I heard the archer ask in a low, dangerous voice, “Where is my bow?”

  “You propped it up against that big oak tree last night,” Aerin replied.

  “Well, it’s not here now.” Lavinia’s voice was oddly pitched with advancing panic as she turned in a circle as she surveyed the camp again, but her bow and quiver were gone.

  A chill ran down my back. I knew how important Lavinia’s bow was to her, and I could guess how she must be feeling now.

  Movement caught my eye, and when I looked up, I wasn’t sure whether I should be relieved or worried. “Uh, Lavinia?”

  She turned to me, then followed my gaze up to the highest branches of the big oak tree where her bow and quiver hung and caught the light of the rising sun.

  Lavinia swore and stepped up to the oak’s wide trunk. “If I ever see that little monster again--” she cut herself off with a grunt as she hoisted herself onto the lowest of the branches, “--I’m going to skin it. I swear I will.”

  “Lavinia, hang on,” Aerin called out. “That’s really high up, maybe I should go instead.”