The Awakened Mage

by Karen Miller

  “Gar... that were the wrong sigil.”

  Gar’s look would have burned stone. “It was not.”

  “You just drew the third sigil for the right hand. Not the first for the left.”

  “I did not.”

  He sighed. “I’ve watched you call rain enough times now that could I teach the incantation in a classroom. That were the wrong sigil. And you didn’t walk widdershins.”

  “Asher!”

  He sat back. “Fine. You’re the king.”

  Walking this time, Gar started again. Waved his hand through the incorrect sigil, dispelling its energy, and this time drew the proper one. “Tolnek.”

  He winced. Luknek, Gar was supposed to say luknek first. “Gar...”

  “Be silent!”

  Asher bit his tongue.

  Breathing heavily, Gar raised his right hand and drew the fifth sigil, not the second. Instead of burning brightly it hung wraithlike for mere seconds, then faded. On a stifled curse he tried again, and this time managed the correct sign.

  Increasingly uneasy, Asher watched Gar stumble through the rainmaking incantation. This was wrong. By now the power should be rising, but the atmosphere in the chamber was unstirred. Instead of painting the sigils smoothly on the canvas of waiting air, Gar’s fingers clawed the shapes without grace or commitment. All his precision was gone, and with it his accuracy. His confidence. This Working was a mishmash of meaningless gestures, a litany of misremembered words. A travesty.

  At last he could bear it no longer. He got to his feet and moved to intercept Gar’s disjointed procession. Held out his hands and said, rough with compassion, “Stop. Gar, just stop.”

  “No,” Gar said, and shoved him aside.

  Stepping in front of him a second time he said, “You ain’t rested enough. Leave it. The rain can wait.”

  “It can’t wait. Without the Weather Magic the Wall will fall.”

  “In one night?”

  Gar dragged a shaking hand down his face. “You’ll have to help me.”

  “What?”

  “The words are in here!” said Gar, rapping his forehead with his fingers. “And the sigils. But I can’t quite see them ... grasp them...”

  “Me, help?” He tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry. “With magic? Are you mad?”

  Impatient, Gar looked at him. “You said it yourself: you know the incantations back to front and inside out. Guide me through them. Say the words and draw the sigils so I can copy them.”

  “You are mad,” he whispered.

  “Weren’t you listening?“ Gar’s eyes were feverish. “I can’t remember the incantation’s proper sequence! If you don’t help me then it won’t rain tonight and that will be all the provocation Conroyd needs to challenge my fitness as WeatherWorker.”

  “And if I do, and he finds out, that’s my head usin’ a wooden block for a pillow!”

  “How would he find out?”

  Asher opened his mouth. Closed it. Glared.

  “I’m not asking you to break Barl’s First Law,” Gar said with quiet intensity. “I’m asking you to help your king.”

  Shit. Shit. He could just see the look on Dathne’s face if he told her about this. “I don’t know.”

  “Please.”

  Stomach churning, he took refuge in movement. Stamped back and forth across the chamber, anger fueled by resentment. He could feel Gar’s eyes on him. His tension and barely controlled fear. Echoing in memory, a promise to an unwell man. I’II look after him. He stopped.

  “All right. I’ll do it, on one condition.”

  Gar couldn’t hide his wild relief. “Name it.”

  “First thing in the morning you go see Nix and tell him you’re sickenin’ for something. You drink whatever disgusting muck he puts in your hand. And then you pay a visit to Conroyd Jarralt and congratulate him on his promotion.”

  A long silence. A reluctant nod. “Very well,” said Gar.

  He looked as though his heart was breaking. Asher didn’t care. “Then let’s get this over with. Before I come to my bloody senses.”

  “How do you want to do this?” said Gar, frowning. “Long-winded explanations won’t work.”

  He shrugged. “You ever play a mirror game?”

  “When I was three!”

  “You got a better idea? ‘Cause I’m all ears!”

  They stood face-to-face beside the Weather Map, arms outstretched and fingertips touching. Torn between fear and feeling stupid, Asher closed his eyes. “You ready?”

  “Yes. When the power ignites, be sure to get out of the way.”

  He snorted. “Like I need tellin’.”

  Stepping slowly sideways they began the Weather Working dance. Not exactly meaning to, with his inner eye Asher saw the Flatlands in full sunshine. The rolling hills and the nodding grasses, burdened with tiny birds. Tasted the clean tang of open air and heard the curlews crying. Closing his eyes he commanded from memory the exact sequence of signs that would summon the rain. Then, hesitantly, he raised his left hand. Gar’s hand lifted with it. Together, they drew a picture in the air. His voice whispered, “Luknek.” Gar echoed him. Walk, walk, walk. Raise the right hand. Draw the second sigil. “Tolnek” Another echo. Walk, walk, walk. Raise the left hand. Draw the third sigil. It was getting easier somehow. “Luknek.” Again, the echo. Asher frowned. Was it his imagination or did his fingers just tingle? No. It was nothing. The blood not getting to his fingertips properly, that was all. “Tolnek.” Gar cleared his throat. “Asher...” His voice sounded strange.

  “Shut up, I’m trying to concentrate,” he growled. What was the next sigil? Oh. Aye. Confident, now, he drew it. “Luknek.”

  A rising breeze trailed hot fingers across his face and his silk shirt whispered. Deep in his blood, a seething sizzle. “Asher!” Gar said urgently. “Look!”

  Sweating, he halted and unclenched his eyelids. Gar was untouched, but blue fire was dancing over his hands and up his arms. Even as he watched, Gar let his fingertips drift away. Let his arms fall by his sides. Stepped back.

  But the blue fire kept on dancing.

  “Sink me bloody sideways!” he choked out and stumbled away from the map until he hit the wall, hard. It was the only thing that stopped him from falling.

  Silence. The thickened air above the map slowly uncurdled. Asher stared at it.

  “What was that?”

  “Start the incantation again,” said Gar, his voice thin and strained. “By yourself this time.”

  “No bloody way!”

  “Please.”

  “No! No more please, no more help! I’m gettin’ out of here!”

  He headed for the door, but Gar got there first. “Asher. Start the incantation again.”

  He was so afraid he thought he might suffocate. “Get away from the door, Gar. Or so help me I’ll knock you on your arse and step over you on my way out.”

  “Asher... I think there’s magic in your blood.”

  “No, there ain’t!”

  Gar pointed at the map. “Then how do you explain what just happened?”

  “I don’t! And neither do you! It didn’t happen. I ain’t never been here. I’m goin’ home to bed and I ain’t never comin’ back!”

  He shoved Gar aside and wrenched wide the chamber door. Gar’s cold, unfriendly voice said, “Leave and I’ll have you arrested.”

  He stopped. Couldn’t turn round. “You’re threatenin’ me?”

  “I’m asking you to stay. I’m telling you we have to learn the truth. Here. Now. Don’t you understand? If you have power, everything changes!”

  He felt dizzy. “I don’t want it to!”

  “Our personal private desires don’t count. Asher, on the night of Timon Spake’s death—”

  He turned. “I don’t want to remember that!”

  There was no color in Gar’s face now. No emotion either. He looked as human as one of those marble effigies in his family crypt. “On that night,” he said, relentless, “I called Barl�
�s First Law stupid and senseless because Olken couldn’t do magic. But it seems you can. And that explains everything. Why Barl made that law, why your people must die if you break it. Because there’s only room for one race of magicians in this kingdom. Mine.”

  “That’s fine with me.”

  “But not with me! Don’t you understand?” said Gar, entreating. “We stole more from you than land! We stole your magic! For six hundred years your people have been living a lie! One that my people forced upon you somehow.”

  “And do we look like we’re sufferin’ because of it?” Asher demanded. “No. Gar, it don’t matter. Who cares what happened six hundred years ago?”

  “I care! And so should you!”

  “Well, I don’t. I ain’t you, a romantic in love with the past. I’m a practical man livin’ in the here and now. Let this go, Gar. Pretend it were a dream. If you don’t it’ll only end badly for both of us.”

  “I can’t,” Gar whispered. “Please. Try the spell again. Perhaps I’m wrong and you don’t have magic. Perhaps it was just an odd kind of Transference, because our fingers were touching.”

  He nodded. “Fine. That’s what it was. Problem solved. Good—”

  Gar put his arm across the open doorway. “But if I’m right. .. Asher, you say you can forget this but we both know that’s a he.”

  Damn him. Damn everything. Why had he come to this wretched bloody City? Why hadn’t he just left well enough alone, stayed in Restharven and worked some-! thing out with his brothers? Or he could’ve upped stakes and shifted to Rillingcoombe. Bibford. Tattler’s Ear. What had possessed him to abandon his safe life on the coast for this?

  He had magic inside him? How could that be? It had to be a mistake.

  Damn it. Gar was right about one thing, the bastard Until he knew for sure, he’d never get a good night’s sleep again.

  Cursing, terrified, he returned to the Weather Map.

  This time he kept his eyes open. Felt an odd kind of tugging sensation, drawing his mind and imagination to the map’s recreated Flatlands. He watched his shaking fingers draw the sigils as a voice he scarcely recognized as his own recited the rain-calling incantation. Watched the sigils burst into fiery life. Saw blues flame dance up and down his arms. Felt magic’s wind rise, gently at first then stronger and stronger till it buffeted him like storm breath racing inland over the open sea. His blood bubbled with an unfamiliar power that remembered the ocean. He couldn’t have stopped even if he’d wanted to.

  Barl save him, he didn’t want to. How was this possible?

  The air above the map begin to thicken. Darken. The unwanted power he’d raised gave tongue in rumbling thunder and tearing cracks of lightning. He was hot and cold all at once. Shaking and utterly still. His body tingled, like the kissing of a hundred pretty girls. His hair spat sparks, and his fingers, and all the world shimmered bright and blue.

  Then the rain burst forth... and the world washed blue to red in a heartbeat as his blood exploded through the confines of his flesh, poured burning from his eyes, his nose, his mouth. And everywhere he turned there was pain.

  He fell, screaming. Consciousness receded on a scarlet tide. When it flowed back again he was propped against the chamber wall. His face was tacky with blood and Gar was pressing a cold cup to his lips. “Drink. It will help.”

  Dazed, confused, he swallowed. Gagged. Then opened his eyes as Nix’s foul concoction burned through the fog in his aching head. “Tell me I’m dreamin’,” he whispered. “Tell me I didn’t just do that.”

  Gar put down the cup. “I wish I could.”

  Humiliatingly, he wanted to whimper. “Sink me, that hurt.”

  “I know.”

  Yes, he knew, but so what? It was supposed to hurt him, he was Doranen. The WeatherWorker. I’m a bloody Olken, I’m s’posed to get hurt stubbin’ my toe, not workin’ magic!

  “Gar, this ain’t right. It can’t have happened. We have to be dreamin’!”

  Gar shook his head. “Sorry. It was no dream.” He grimaced. “A nightmare, perhaps . ..”

  “But...” He struggled to sit up. “Barl bloody save me. What do I do now?”

  “Now?” Gar straightened out of his crouch and looked down at him, all emotion buried. “Now you drop snow on the Dingles and freeze the River Tey.”

  The words stole his breath like a gut punch. “I can’t.”

  “You must.”

  “I can’t, I—”

  “If you don’t there’ll be questions. I can’t afford questions, Asher. Not until I’ve had time to think.”

  He never knew fear could make a body physically sick. Sweet-sour saliva flooded his mouth, and his belly churned. Now Gar looked almost... angry. “This ain’t my fault. I never asked for this.”

  “I never said you did. Just... finish what you started Asher.”

  “And then it’s finished?”

  Gar nodded. “Yes. Then it’s finished.”

  His body still thrumming with pain, he clambered to his feet and did as he was told. He called the snow, and he froze the river, and when it was done he was a twitching, blood-spittled heap of unstrung bones on the floor.

  He felt Gar’s hand press his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Thank you.”

  He couldn’t have opened his eyes if his life had depended on it. But even with them shut he could feel the warm golden wash of Barl’s Wall through the chamber’s glass ceiling. The touch of it made him want to vomit.

  “Go away.”

  Gar went.

  Alone at last, he surrendered to tears.

  “Barl bloody save me ... who am I? What am I? And why did this happen to me?”

  ———

  “Damn!” Pother Nix cursed explosively. “And he was doing so well!”

  Beside him, young Kerril gasped as a writhing Durm banged a violent fist to his forehead. The blow reopened an almost-healed wound. Blood spattered his hand, his face, the sheets.

  “Now, now, Durm, that’s enough,” Nix grunted, pressing his palms to the Master Magician’s heaving shoulders. “Tincture of ebonard, Kerril, quickly, before he breaks his bones a second time!”

  She obeyed, fumbling a little in her haste. At the door to Durm’s chamber crowded the other pothers on duty, the ones who’d come screaming for help when the Master Magician’s convulsions first started.

  The ebonard fumes from the cloth Kerril pressed to Durm’s nose and mouth were taking effect. His thrashing slowed, became more feeble. His eyelids flickered. A crescent of white showed, rolling.

  “Good girl,” said Nix. “Now a lozenge of ebonard and tantivy. You can administer it. Use a spatula or you’ll lose your fingers.”

  She was an excellent student. Deftly she slid the wooden stick between Durm’s teeth and tucked the dark green drug under his tongue to dissolve. As they waited for the soporific to calm him completely, Nix looked again to the gaggle of pothers in the doorway.

  “Well? Your duty’s done here. Be about your business.” They retreated in silence, but their exchanged glances said it all. Even staunch Kerril looked doubtful.

  “Go,” he told her. “I’ll sit with him till I’m satisfied he’ll stay sleeping.”

  She nodded and withdrew and he sat there with his fingertips pressed to Durm’s erratic pulse, his mouth bitter i with the taste of impending failure. He couldn’t maintain the charade any longer; this fit had stripped him of all final, fading hope.

  Durm was dying. It was merely a matter of time now, before the Master Magician’s weakening will succumbed.

  “I’m sorry,” he sighed, and patted Durm’s slack wrist. “I tried. Please believe me, I tried.”

  ———

  So close, so close to breaking free, Morg feels the drug seep into his prison of blood and bone and cries aloud his fury and despair. Barl’s Weather Magic burns him like a brand It means the cripple still has his unnatural magic... but how can that be? Gar’s artificial powers should have failed him by now! They were explicitly designe
d to fail!

  Thrust into the shadows, Durm the dunghill rooster crows his temporary triumph. Morg snarls at him, revealing all his terrible teeth, and Durm wisely shuts his beak and cowers.

  Satisfied, Morg bends his mind and will towards victory. He must escape this fleshy cage. He must discover why the cripple’s magic still holds sway. He must bring his exile to an end.

  Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!

  ———

  Matt felt the change roar through the world like fire. The ferocity of it sat him bolt upright in his bed, shattering sleep, scattering dreams. Heart pounding, he lit his bedside candle and stared around his tiny bedroom.

  Everything looked exactly the same.

  There was sweat on his face, stinging his eyes, trickling through his stubble. Dragging up the sheet he blotted himself dry and waited for his thundering pulse to ease.

  Was it Asher? Had something happened to him? He couldn’t tell. Sight wasn’t his gift, and for the first time in his life he regretted its lack.

  As always when he was troubled he sought solace in his horses. Safety lamps burned throughout the night beside each stable, casting shadows. Overhead, the cold stars shone like chips of living ice and the Wall glowed gold as steadily as ever. He trod across the yard softly, slippers whispering, mindful of every step. His lads were good lads, well trained; they’d wake at the first sign of upset or the sound of unexpected feet crunching gravel.

  Poor neglected Ballodair roused from dozing and chumbled sleepily over his stable door, curved ears flicking. Patting him, petting him, Matt promised to make sure the king rode him more often or else let him go away for a time to the countryside, where a horse could be a horse and kick up his heels at will.

  Wheeling like rooks disturbed, thoughts and questions crowded his aching head. Something momentous had just occurred. The balance of Lur’s magic was changed, upset, disordered. Turned arse over eyeballs, as Asher would say.

  He frowned, letting Ballodair’s tidy forelock thread through and through his busy, distracted fingers.

  Was it Asher behind this change? And if so, did that mean they’d truly reached the end of waiting? In the last year there’d been so much tension. Anticipation. He felt as though he’d been holding his breath forever beneath a lowering sky, watching lightning flicker, listening to the thunder roll, expecting it to rain now ... now ... now ...