The Other Side of Magic

by Ester Manzini

  Leo kicked a pebble and grunted, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “I would offer you a coin for your thoughts, but I’m broke. What about half a stale cookie?” Ampelio tilted his head toward her with a grin, and Leo grimaced at him.

  “I don’t like you,” she said calmly.

  “Impossible. It’s just a matter of time, and then…”

  “No, seriously. I don’t know you, and what I see isn’t my cup of tea. If you want to impress your friend, there,” and she beckoned to Evandro, “go ahead, but don’t think I’ll trust you.”

  Ampelio's bright smile blurred a little. He looked briefly at Evandro, then back at Leo.

  “Why are you saying that? I think I did my part in keeping you both safe--one could even say I saved both your lives…”

  They were falling behind, and Leo hurried so as not to lose track of Gaiane.

  “Yes, well, you basically handed us both to a dangerous savage who you claim is someone he’s clearly not…”

  “Oh, he is,” he interrupted her, serious. “He’s just forgotten many things. And I hope I can make him remember.”

  “Still not buying it. Now stop talking, your voice gives me a headache.”

  “Weren’t I so tired I could show you a trick or two, and then you’d ask me never to stop singing ever,” he grinned with a wink.

  Leo hurried on, leaving him at the rear of the group. To her relief, Ampelio didn’t insist. Begrudgingly, she had to admit he knew when to shut up, but only right before being slapped across the face. An annoying guy, but with some sense of preservation.

  On the other hand, Evandro barely had spoken a word since their unfortunate meeting. He kept his eyes low, his angular face half covered by his long red hair.

  Leo seized yet another chance to inspect him attentively from the distance. The moment she focused on him, he stopped his horse and raised his fist, signaling them all to wait. He raised one hand and gently patted the animal’s neck before crouching. When he touched the ferns at the base of a tree, his shoulder tensed. He looked through the bushes, and only then Leo noticed it, too: broken twigs and trampled grass.

  Evandro returned frowning to his horse; from the saddle, Gaiane sighed in resignation. Leo quickly looked away, and at his gesture they all set off again.

  She couldn’t believe he was the Dawn Star. Not only the legendary knight was dead--he had to be, tales of his armor and sword taken by the Asares as war spoils were widespread--but this man looked nothing like the hero he was supposed to be. He was shaggy and smelled like a goat, and there was the whole ‘trying to kill a girl in her sleep’ thing.

  A very small voice pricked her determination.

  Weren’t you the one who wanted to give Gaiane back to her family just a few days ago?

  She swatted the thought away like the annoying bug it was. She had very good reasons to be angry with the princess, whose hands were still stained with her mother’s death and the ruin of her simple life. But there was more to it, and Leo was better than Evandro on the matter.

  “Excuse me, ser knight.” Gaiane asked in her soft voice. Leo groaned under her breath.

  Couldn’t she stop being a princess for, like, ten minutes? Evandro didn’t deserve any of her politeness.

  He didn’t even raise his head, just peeked at Gaiane with those uncanny icy eyes.

  “How much longer are we going to ride? I’d like to stop to rest, this horse is a majestic beast but I’ve never been on saddleback before, and…”

  “No stops.” he snapped, and Gaiane pouted. Leo trotted to her side and poked her leg to get her attention.

  “It’s useless to appeal to his good heart. There’s none, just a clump of mud in his chest. And some horse dung, probably.” she said out loud. Evandro flared his nostrils, but didn’t reply.

  “But my back hurts! And I’m hungry!” Gaiane said in a querulous voice. Here we go again, Leo thought.

  “Ah, if I may, my ladies…” Ampelio scurried behind them and bowed to Gaiane, who seemed to appreciate the gesture. “My knowledge of the land is second only to that of our good guide, here,” and he smiled to Evandro, who didn’t even acknowledge him. “I’d say it won’t take long, in a couple of hours we will…”

  “Halt.” Evandro said, lifting his fist. The horse was the first to react, and Ampelio bumped into his wide rear with a grunt.

  Evandro glared at him but didn’t speak. He let the reins slide in his fist, moved to the side of the path and stopped under the canopy of a large oak. He looked up through the leaves and squinted—and Leo did the same, but all she could see were the dark shapes of nests perched on the branches. Empty, apparently.

  Gaiane missed the whole procedure and continued with her monologue.

  “See? I knew I could count on a noble knight’s common sense. One can’t expect a princess to forgo her needs,” Gaiane said with a smile, sitting up straight on the saddle. “After all I just…”

  “Someone’s coming.” Evandro growled, throwing the reins to Ampelio. Leo forgot her previous grudge and hurried to his side, seeking the knife at her belt.

  “Where?” she asked. No matter how little she liked the man: during their trek he had showed more than once an attention to the wilderness she could only envy, and his instinct was reliable.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Someone’s hiding in the woods. Everything’s too quiet, and I’ve seen traces of men and horses. We’re not alone.”

  It was the longest sentence he’d spoken since their departure, and Leo was inclined to believe him. She’d seen the signs, too, although she hadn’t been able to decipher them.

  “I can’t see anyone,” Ampelio said, patting the horse’s head and joining them in the front line. “Are you sure, Evandro?”

  “Don’t call me that,” the man grunted, then shook his head. “No, I’m not. But I’m not at ease.”

  “I could go and scout ahead,” Leo suggested. “I know how to move in the woods, and…”

  “No!” Gaiane uttered, her blue eyes wide and round. “Please, don’t leave me!”

  Leo frowned minutely.

  “I… well, you…”

  Suddenly the thought of leaving her burden of a princess felt wrong. Alone, with two men--one too sly for her tastes, the other outright beastly--and without the only person she’d come to reluctantly trust? It would’ve been cruel. She opened her mouth, but Evandro spoke first.

  “No way. You two would try to escape—and don’t say you wouldn’t, girls, I can’t trust you. I still have to decide what to do with you, but letting you go free isn’t among the options. No, we’re moving on, and pray the Spirits I’m just being unreasonably suspicious.” He snatched the reins from Ampelio's hands and carried on walking, sulkier than ever.

  Comforted, Leo nodded at Gaiane and stood by her side, until a bottleneck on the path forced her to fall behind.

  “I think she likes you,” Ampelio said to her ear. “Lucky girl…”

  “And I think I’ll stuff your mouth with a handful of nettles if you don’t mind your own business,” she snapped back. “You’re insufferable.”

  “Don’t worry, I can be discreet, I promise!” and he flicked his fingers, as if pretending to lock his lips with a key. Leo stomped her feet: between the hot weather and the fatigue, the last thing she needed was a meddling brat to bother her.

  The narrow track unfurled down the hill, and after a while even Leo recognized the landscape opening in front of her.

  She’d been to Nikaia only once, when she was six or seven and Da had gone to the richest marketplace in Epidalio to buy the priced dye extracted from some rare seashell. She remembered little, but the distant skyline was nothing like the cluster of bastions and squared towers of her memories. Nikaia had been the jewel of the realm, a meeting point of cultures and trade, with a tree-lined avenue leading to the great main doors, and white statues with the faces of the old Laskaris kings and queens smiling at the passing citizens. All around it, the infinite expa
nse of the paddy fields, with the tender green rice sprouts above the still surface of the water.

  Leo blinked in the bright noon.

  Nothing of that past glory remained. The muddy expanse spreading where the rice fields once were didn’t surprise her too much: so few farmers were left to tend to them, all taken to Zafiria to work for the Asares. The farms that once had thrived around the city were either abandoned or burned to the ground, and of the countless buildings that had clustered around the walls in the past, only collapsed walls and broken beams remained.

  Leo scanned the desolation, barely daring to breathe. As her gaze raked through the lifeless village, she gasped. Nikaia was barely recognizable.

  The outer walls still stood, but what siege could they hold, now? Vines grew among the stones, and large gaps and cracks opened in the thick structure. What had once been a luxurious avenue was now a stripe of sparse grass and puddles; only a couple of the trees remained, one being so badly damaged by fire and fungi it was probably standing out of mere stubbornness. Behind them, the main gate had collapsed: the lintel was broken in two, and its carvings were crumbled in the mud in a pile of mossy parts of marble flowers and leaves. Through the mess of ruins that partially obstructed the doors, Leo could see the city. She could hardly believe this was once a beautiful capital, because it was like staring into the open mouth of a skull: broken, empty windows gaping from abandoned buildings, empty streets infested by weeds and thorns. Looking up wasn’t encouraging, either, because the picture of how the royal palace had looked was still bright in her mind—and not it didn’t exist anymore. Shards of towers emerged from the desolation like the broken bones of a dead animal from a pond: bare, blackened, silent.

  A gust of wind blew through the plains, and the moan it created when passing through the many gaps and openings was the mourning wail of countless lost souls.

  Leo shivered. She had expected it, and had no particular tie to the capital; still, seeing it in person made her skin prickle with horror.

  “That’s… that’s Nikaia.” Gaiane whispered so softly the wind almost carried it away.

  Ampelio took a deep breath.

  “What’s left of it. The Spring Slaughter did most of the job, but in the first years after the invasion everyone left the city. They said it’s haunted, but the truth is…”

  A small, shivering sound made them all turn to stare at Evandro. Leo gasped at the transformation: the silent, brutal man she’d quickly learned to dislike had large hand covering his brow. His lower lip, caught between his teeth, trembled; his eyes were wide, his pupil’s pinpricks of black. In his white face, every freckle was but a shadow.

  “I… think it’s the first time he’s seen the city in many years,” Ampelio murmured.

  Leo could very well believe it. Seeing such an unpleasant brute, one with nothing of a knight about him, crack and shake at the sight of what was his home changed her perspective a little.

  “Sir,” Gaiane said gently, bowing from the horse and brushing Evandro's shoulder with her fingertips. “Would it help if I said that I’m sorry, and that I never meant to be part of this? That I didn’t know I would cause such a devastation?” No tears, curiously, just a soft confession.

  “No,” Evandro grunted.

  “Not even if it was the truth?”

  How can you ignore her, you monster?

  Leo took a step forward, because Gaiane needed an ally, right now. Someone who could take her sides and remind their two companions that she was a victim, too, even if of a different nature.

  But Evandro only glared at her and pulled the reins. The horse let out a short blow and chewed on the bit, following his owner down the hill. Gaiane turned to Leo with a disarming look on her face, and she ran her fingers through her hair.

  “He’s a jackass and an idiot,” she snapped at Ampelio, by her side. “He just… he just doesn’t get it! He won’t even listen to her side of the story!”

  “He lost everything because of her, and much more than a house or his family. No, don’t look at me like that--I’m not saying it’s her fault, but maybe she was part of something bigger, and he’s not ready to acknowledge that yet…”

  She sighed and followed them.

  “You’re making sense. It’s disturbing.”

  “Have you stopped to think that maybe I know something more about the whole thing?” he said, then cleared his throat. “Holy Mother of All Things, I really need some honey for my throat. My voice is at its worst…”

  “If you shut up every now and then, perhaps… anyway, she really had no choice, you know? She didn’t even know she was being used, and what could a child of ten know of war and strategy?” Leo plucked a yellowing grass blade and held it between her teeth. “She escaped because she wanted no part in the Asares plots.”

  “I sense there’s a story waiting to be told, there,” Ampelio said cheerfully. “I may be many things, but I’m a very good listener. So if you, or your cute friend down there, want to share it with me…”

  “I’ve said enough,” Leo cut him short. It was Gaiane’s story, not hers, and Ampelio was way too eager to stick his nose in other people’s business. “Now let’s go.”

  The silence on the plain facing Nikaia’s collapsed gates was eerie. Leo wished they were in the woods still, sheltered and with the comforting sounds of nature surrounding them. Here, walking in the dry red dirt, with dusty puffs raising at every step, they were in the open. She looked in the distance--what if some Asares soldier was looking at them? They were trapped, and she regretted her decision to follow Evandro's orders.

  Not that I had much choice in the matter, she thought. She stood no chance against Evandro: while he hadn’t intended to hurt her during her failed attempt at resistance on their first meeting, all her struggles had been in vain. She still bore the bruises from their fight, and Evandro hadn’t even turned his sword on her. He was a trained warrior, way out of her league. Trying to fight him was pointless.

  “I don’t like this place,” Gaiane said, squinting at the crumbled battlements. “It’s weird, and scary, and…”

  “You did this.” Evandro said, turning to look at her for the first time in hours. His pale eyes were sharp as broken glass. “It was all your fault.”

  “I never…”

  “Leave her alone,” Leo stepped in. She faced Evandro, shoving him back. She might as well have tried to push a wall for all the good it did. But her ears were burning, her hands itching with the need to slap him. “She knew it! And we need to take her somewhere safe, not where…”

  “I hate to interrupt you, but…”

  “No,” Evandro said, ignoring Ampelio. “Let her look at her spoils of war! This, princess, is what your victory looks like!”

  “You… you ignorant twat!” Leo cried out. “You never even asked her what it was like for her… and look! Does this look like a monster to you?”

  Gaiane’s face was white, her eyes wild. The quiver in her lips, grey and half open, mirrored that in her hands, buried in the folds of her skirt.

  Evandro took Leo’s arm and shook her so hard her teeth clattered.

  “I’ve seen my prince die! I watched my guardsmen--my friends, my brothers in arms--be slaughtered and thrown from the walls! This,” and he pointed at Gaiane, “is nothing!”

  “Well, yes, but if you could listen…”

  “Shut up!” Leo shouted, and Ampelio pressed his lips together. “The last thing we need is some…”

  And then Gaiane let out a loud, high pitched scream. Different from any complaint or wail she’d ever produced since Leo had met her. Urgent, hard, enough to end the group’s quarrelling and to make Leo turn around in panic.

  The horse reared, and the princess fumbled with the saddle’s horn not to be thrown down. Evandro bared his sword, facing the walls with his jaws set and his arms bulging under the frayed sleeves.

  They hadn’t seen them. Too busy shouting at each other, or too troubled by their past to remember their previous caut
ion, they’d missed the dozen people poking from the battlements. Their bows, the metal of their arrows glistening in the sun. A couple of rifles poked from the loopholes.

  “... as I was trying to say,” Ampelio said with a sigh. “But no, let’s ignore poor Ampelio and his sharp eyes, he’s just a nuisance, why should we…”

  Leo poked his side with her elbow, making him squirm and grunt.

  Sweat beaded on her brow and rolled down her nose. She stepped at Evandro's side, in front of the horse.

  “We’re screwed, aren’t we?” she said. A lump of tears clogged her throat.

  From the gaping archway that once was the city’s gates, a figure emerged. A gangly shadow at first; a bony man with sparse blonde hair on an equally scrawny donkey, as he walked under the sun.

  “Who’s that man?” Leo asked. Ampelio shrugged, awfully relaxed, and Evandro held his sword higher. As if it could be any use against all those archers and shooters up there…

  Nobody answered her. Behind the stranger came more people, men and women in ragged clothes, armed with clubs, rusty pitchforks, old shovels.

  “Don’t move,” Evandro said, and Leo sneered.

  “As if we could go anywhere…” She looked at Gaiane: the princess seemed about to faint, her freckles faded in her bone-white face. She wasn’t crying, too shocked to let out a single sob.

  “I wasn’t talking to you.” Evandro took a step toward the man on the donkey. “Stay where you are!”

  “Drop your weapon.” the stranger said in a strangely soft voice. The lower part of his face was wrapped in some sort of shawl, grey and frayed. “You’re outnumbered.”

  “You think you’re scaring me? I won’t surrender.”

  “I think you will.” He unmounted from his ride, and the gaze of his dark eyes moved past Evandro, ignored Leo and Gaiane, and rested behind them. “Good morning, Ampelio.”