Heart's Darkness

by H D A Roberts

  A very pretty girl, actually...

  "One of us is a Sorcerer," I said calmly.

  "The one that lives on three?" she asked.

  "Which answer gets us out of here faster?"

  "Um, neither, really."

  "And we're running," I said to Tom, darting down the stairs with a grin on my face.

  "Jailbreak!" Mary bellowed and girls started appearing at the floor entrances, some stumbling in the grips of some sort of chemical influence, which caused enough confusion for us to get to the ground floor.

  I led us off to the left, down a corridor, casting Mage Sight as I went, looking for an unlocked and empty room.

  "The front door's that way!" Tom pointed out.

  "It's also blocked and guarded... there!" I said, pushing through a door and walking to the window, which I unlocked and opened, swinging my legs out before dropping to the grass. Tom followed, and we were soon running across the square.

  "They're getting away!" Mary said from an upstairs window.

  "We live here!" I replied over my shoulder.

  "Oh, so you'll be back, then?" she asked as we stopped out of egg range, and I bent over, gasping for breath (running was not my thing).

  "Of course," I said between gasps.

  "Huh, well, then we'll get you later, I guess. Can you bring back snacks? We're running low."

  "You tie me to my own bed, and you want me to feed you?!" Tom asked.

  "Tell you what," I said, interrupting the jilted Adonis, "we'll trade you safe passage for snacks."

  She tapped her lip for a moment, "Fine," she said, "but they'd better be good snacks, none of that home brand crap."

  "Agreed."

  "Seriously?" Tom hissed.

  "The way to a woman's heart is through her stomach," I whispered back.

  He muttered but stayed quiet as I took a list of requirements from Mary, ably assisted by additional shouts from other windows. By the time we were off, I had a much longer shopping list, and Tom was looking at his watch.

  "Okay, we'll be back in a couple of hours," I said, and we walked off.

  "Yeah!" said another girl, "Do our shopping, Bitches!"

  I turned, "Was that the girl who asked for Jaffa Cakes?"

  She immediately darted back below her window sill.

  "That's what I thought."

  I had to leave Tom in the pub while I went shopping. Thank goodness I could use Magic for things like this, they wanted a lot of stuff, and carrying Tom back after I'd fetched him wasn't exactly easy, either. In the end, I just floated the whole lot behind me as I walked back to Naiad.

  "Girls, he's back!" came the cry and fifty faces appeared at the windows.

  "Did you get everything?" one of the girls asked pointedly, she'd been the one to ask for certain products a man had no business buying on his own, if you know what I mean.

  "Yep," I said, "How did you want me to get it in?"

  "Door's open," Mary said, a glint of mischief in her eye as she told me this.

  I rather believed I was about to be double-crossed...

  I lowered the various supplies to the hall floor, about a dozen heavy plastic bags full of all manner of things they should have bought before starting a siege nobody was actually interested in as far as I could tell, and which nobody was enforcing.

  Mary was at the top of the first floor landing with six others, and the corridors either side of the hall had another dozen or so, all carrying improvised, but thoroughly un-dangerous, weapons like pillows, swimming floats and ping-pong paddles.

  "Well done, Male Oppressor," Mary said.

  "Oh, we're not back to that again?"

  "Always! Sisters forever!" she cried, which was greeted with whoops and cheers.

  Oh no. They'd formed a pack. Not good. Mono-gendered groups tended to become cliquey and mean, and there were a lot of ladies under that roof.

  "If you renege on a deal, then your group becomes known as people who don't keep their word, and you lose all credibility. What is your group, by the way?" I asked.

  They all looked confused.

  "Group?" someone asked.

  "Oh for heaven's sake," I said, "Did you have any plan going into this, or were you just planning on having a week long party and were looking for an excuse?"

  "The second one?" a girl offered from next to Mary, who slapped her own forehead in exasperation.

  "Worst activists ever," I said, they bristled at that.

  "We caught you, didn't we?" Mary asked.

  "No, no you really didn't."

  "Seize him, girls!"

  "Can I put Tom in his room, first? He's not well, and I can't detox him again for a couple of days, his liver will take damage, and then I'd have to fix that...," I asked, "For humanity's sake?"

  "Um, I guess," Mary said, "We don't want anyone to get sick."

  "Thank you, I'll be right back," I said, walking up the stairs, past the girls, who looked a little dumbstruck as I made my way past, watching as Tom floated behind me.

  I deposited him in his room and went back down, where a girl apiece took an arm, adopting a threatening pose. One of them was shivering.

  "Are you ready for your trial?" Mary asked with a grin.

  "You feeling alright?" I asked the shivering girl, ignoring Mary's attempt at intimidation.

  The girl nodded, swallowing in a way I recognised.

  "No you're not, you're about to be sick," I said.

  And you can guess what happened next. I caught most of it in a bowl of Shadow as she fell to her knees, groaning. The other girl let go, and I knelt next to the sick one, casting a modified Mage Sight spell I'd learned recently called Flesh Sight (which was a rather useful little diagnostic Spell).

  "Fever," I said, "You've got a pretty bad case of food poisoning."

  I floated the vomit into a nearby sink and flushed it, placing a hand to her head. She was young and quite plain looking, with nice green eyes and brown hair. Her figure was soft and attractively plump. She was shaking harder now.

  "I can fix you, if you like?" I offered.

  She shook her head.

  "Oh, go on Penny," Mary said, "Let him take a look."

  She held the girl's hand, and the others gathered around, worried looks on their faces, suddenly looking very young and scared.

  "It's just food poisoning, everyone, no need to worry," I said, "She'll get better on her own in a few days, unless you want me to see what I can do?"

  "Let him, Penny!" Mary said.

  Penny groaned, puking into another Shadow bowl. When she was done, she nodded.

  I got rid of the vomit again and knelt next to Penny.

  "I'm going to pick you up now, is that okay?" I asked.

  She nodded.

  I used my Will to help and gathered her up into my arms.

  "Her room?" I asked.

  Mary led the way to the second floor, and I lowered Penny gently into her bed in a green and poster covered room. I pulled her duvet over her and she curled into a ball.

  "What do you need?" Mary asked.

  "Time," I said, looking Penny over.

  Now that I was looking more deeply, I could see that it was actually a pretty bad infection. She wasn't too far off sepsis, actually.

  "How long have you been sick?" I asked.

  "Four days," Penny said, "it's only got worse in the last couple."

  "That's because you have a tiny bit of chicken bone lodged in your stomach lining," I said after a long look. It was a shard, almost like a needle of bone, barely half a centimetre long but swimming in evil-looking bacteria.

  I put my hands on her head and stomach, concentrating.

  "Try and relax, this will take a while, and you may feel odd when I extract the bone, try not to move.

  I grabbed the bone with Will and slowly pulled it away from her stomach lining. She gagged as it came out of her mouth and into a tissue. Penny and Mary both grimaced. I used a Flesh lattice to close the wound in her stomach and a more extensive pu
rification spell to gather all the harmful bacteria back into her stomach, where I drained the Chemical Energy out of them, killing them instantly. She'd digest the remains eventually.

  Next the fever, which would take care of itself in time, now that the bacteria were gone, but I could ease the symptoms for her. I cast a light painkiller spell on her, which would make things a bit easier until the fever was gone, which should be by morning.

  "There," I said as Penny relaxed into her pillow, the spasms gone, and the pain in her head decreasing, "Drink plenty of water and call me in the morning."

  "Oh, thank you, that's so much better," Penny said, already half asleep.

  I gently patted her shoulder and shut down my Mage Sight, following Mary into the corridor, where the girls were waiting for news. Say what you like about the female pack, they did take care of their own. The male equivalent would leave the sick to puke in an alley and think it was hilarious.

  "She's going to be alright," Mary reported. They all relaxed.

  "Party!" said a pretty blonde girl, all bounce and cheer.

  "Shh!" Mary said, "The doctor said bed rest."

  "He's not a doctor," one of the others pointed out.

  "No, a doctor wouldn't have spotted the chicken bone, and she'd be septic!" Mary pointed out.

  "Chicken bone?" the blonde asked.

  Mary brought it out and explained, one or two went a little green.

  I took the opportunity to slip away and back to my room while they were chatting, a conversation which had quickly devolved into an indictment of the poultry industry (activists...).

  I yawned, a little tired. Flesh-crafting required an obscene amount of concentration if you wanted to do it properly. I settled down on my bed, a book in hand, thinking to doze my evening away quietly.

  Naturally that blasted girl wasn't going to let me.

  Though at least she knocked.

  "Come in," I said, sitting up.

  "Thanks for that," Mary said.

  "No need. What else was I going to do? Let her get sicker?"

  She smiled, it was quite attractive on her...

  You know, they may be right about my redhead thing.

  "Still, we were a little hard on you, I hope you know that we're just doing a bit, here. You know? Fun? We don't mean anything hard by it."

  "Wouldn't matter if you had. Still would have helped," I said truthfully, "Though I'd appreciate it if you kept that under wraps. Healing Magicians tend to become targets pretty fast, and I have enough problems."

  It was a big issue, in fact. Healers were immensely valuable, and very difficult to come by. Add to that a large population of people afraid of cancers and infections and you have a recipe for disaster, with desperate people fighting over Healing Magicians, it didn't tend to end well. And most of them weren't like me, they couldn't really defend themselves.

  "Of course, your secret's safe with us."

  She subsided for a minute, "Um, you hungry? We have food," she said, "Betty's cooking."

  "I wouldn't want to impose."

  "Don't be silly," she said, grabbing my hand, "You're an honorary sister now!"

  I thought of protesting, but I was hungry.

  And as it turns out, Betty was kind of a genius in the kitchen.

  And that's how I came by fifty overprotective den-mothers.

  Naturally they came to me with every ache, sprain and boo-boo you could imagine, and I had to fix them, not to mention all the... social diseases that idiots can catch if they're not careful. I had to master an entirely new set of spells to fix Agatha's herpes, which wasn't fun (I lost an entire weekend getting her through it).

  I didn't get a minute to myself what with one thing or another, but I have to say that it was rather nice to be trusted and valued like that. I got to know a lot of them very well in the following weeks (a little too well in some cases). Tom thought I was some sort of genius. After all, a parade of women was walking into my room and walking out again, sometimes hours later, with smiles on their faces.

  Mary, though, became something of a nag. The only other person who fretted that much over me was Tethys, not that Mary was quite on her level yet. She and the others stuffed me with food; it was getting a little ridiculous. And they even did their level best to enforce a bed time, which was worse.

  And when they weren't doing that, they tried to make me go places I had no desire to go, just for example, two weeks after I'd fixed Penny's stomach, it was a Friday night, and Mary was wearing makeup and a set of tight clothes, which I was not sneaking peeks at...

  "Oh, come on, Mathew, it'll be fun, I promise!" she said, tugging gently on my ear. This was her thing; whenever I was being (according to her) difficult, she tugged on an ear until I cooperated. Not too hard, but enough to be distracting.

  "For you, it'll be fun. For a high level, and technically proficient, Sorcerer it'll be like watching two Neanderthals clubbing at each other with spongy bats."

  "But we have tickets! And we want you to come!"

  "I hate duels, Mary, loathe them, in fact," I said.

  "I'll let you nitpick, all you want," she said in a tempting tone, "You can call them stupid all you like and tell me how."

  "The last time I did that, you hit me," I reminded her, "and then Penny hit me, and Emily, and Sasha, and Temperance and Leticia..."

  "Once, that happened," she pointed out.

  "And then they told everyone else, who also hit me."

  "Please?"

  "No."

  "I'll bring snacks."

  "No."

  "I'll have sex with you."

  "Alright."

  "What, really?"

  "No."

  She swatted my shoulder and let out a theatrical sniff.

  "No, don't do that. Bad form, you swore you'd only do that once a week!" I said as her lower lip started trembling.

  "I'm," sniff, "sorry," she said, her head hanging as she turned away, her shoulders shaking.

  I sighed, "Oh, fine!"

  "Good," she said, kissing my cheek to show there were no hard feelings, "We're off in half an hour, dress smart."

  I grumbled and she smiled, leaving me to it.

  See what I mean? It's not fair. Everywhere I go, women were bossing me around. I was one of the five most powerful Magicians on the face of the Earth, and I was that easily manipulated, it was getting ludicrous!

  I didn't dress up, though. I managed that victory.

  Mary led the way with Polly and Betty while I brought up the rear, yawning. I'd been anticipating a weekend at Blackhold; I'd rather become used to sleeping in a full bed, and I missed it. Alas, Mary and her brood had declared that I would be 'having fun' with them, so I was stuck at university.

  Back at Windward, duelling was just another sport that Magicians could do. There was a team, but it wasn't huge, and it wasn't something I was into. After all, when you fought people who didn't bother with rules, rounds and niceties, it was a bad idea to get into the habit. Anyway, at Stonebridge University, it was a much bigger deal. The team had fifty members, ranging in power from low Wizards to mid-range Sorcerers. More than one world Champion had started right there, and it was well known for training Duellists.

  Not Battle Mages, I should point out. Duellists.

  They were concerned with putting on a show, making it look good for the Pureborn.

  And in their way, what they did was essential. They demystified Magicians to the general public, made us something to be appreciated, embraced, rooted for. I'd been giving that quite some thought, of late. I knew that, generally speaking, Duellists were in it for the glory, the money and the adulation, but they'd done more for the acceptance of Magicians in wider society than any other group, the Archons included. I'd read that, worldwide, the Duelling industry had surpassed every other sport in viewing figures, with the top sportsmen able to command amounts in the million for every match, it was that big.

  Anyway, duellists at universities were often snapped up by one of the major
duelling leagues, which made these matches very important. That meant I couldn't mess with anyone without potentially wrecking a future, and even I wasn't that evil (most of the time).

  The Duelling Ring was suitably impressive. And by that, I mean huge.

  It's more like a miniature stadium. There was space in the stands for two thousand, with a large central space containing three separate, smaller duelling circles inside a larger one. The idea was to allow a tournament style arrangement, with three duels taking place at once, and then a larger final match at the end. It was surprisingly clean, and if not fragrant, at least not offensively smelly.

  We showed our tickets at the doors and Mary lead the way up to the stands. We had seats up front, with a good view. It was half an hour until the first matches and the place was already two-thirds full. Mary put me firmly in the middle, between her and Polly, with Betty on the end.

  "You ever duel, Matty?" Mary asked.

  "Not like this," I said vaguely.

  "Then how?" she asked, tugging my ear again to let me know that evasiveness would not be tolerated.

  "Against people who wanted me dead, you happy?" I asked.

  "Who would want to kill you? You're harmless. You're a Magic doctor, for heaven's sake!" Polly asked.

  "I'm also a Shadow Mage, and other Magicians don't like us very much, I'm afraid."

  "Why?" Betty asked.

  "We tend to go bad. Use evil Magic. People have a right to be a bit wary."

  "Have you?" Mary asked.

  "Not yet, and not ever, with any luck."

  "Then why would people hate you?" Polly pressed.

  "It's like... having a venomous snake around. They want to make sure I won't bite, and it doesn't matter that I haven't yet."

  "That's sick. You Magicians are stupid," Betty said.

  "Hey," I complained.

  "You're one of the nicest guys I've ever met, so you've got the Ebola eyes-"

  "Hey!" I protested again.

  "-and those ugly scars-" Betty continued, no filter, that girl...

  "-but just because you look dangerous doesn't make you dangerous. And you've never hurt anyone... have you?"

  "Well...," I said, looking away, "nobody who didn't deserve it."