The hovel door creaked open a finger’s width. She could discern no details, but a high pitched and gritty male voice shouted, “Go away!”
“Which way to the wizard?”
“You don’t want to see him. Go back!” The door slammed. Dust fluttered off of the rotting roof planks.
“Which way?” When no answer came, she dropped Pitch’s rein and advanced on the door. “I will not be turned from my quest. Please tell me, which side do I take?”
From behind, the boy called, “Mama!”
She spun around; he had returned to the saddle.
“Mama! Dun,” he called, meaning “down.”
“No. Stay there, boy.” She backpedaled, watching the hovel while returning to her child.
The door groaned as it opened wider. A man, short and barrel-chested, stepped through. He was dressed all in black, the brim of his broad hat angled downward, hiding his features. “You brought a child?” His tone rebuked her.
With a quick glance over her shoulder, Maganhild noted that the boy had obeyed her. “He is my virtuous reason.”
“But the risk—”
“—is worth it. I am certain of my request.”
“They all say that.” The small man’s shoulders slumped. “Stay to the left for three splits. Then choose the right path for the fourth. Then stay to left three times again. There you will find the wizard.”
“What of the garden?”
“What of it?”
“There we will rest. And seek the wizard in the morning.”
The broad brim swayed back and forth as the wearer shook his head. “Night is best; he sleeps through the day. Three lefts, one right, and three lefts. Say it back to me.”
“Three lefts, one right, and three lefts.”
“Again!”
“I’m not an idiot. I have it.”
“Grace be with you.” The door shut.
Pitch’s ears pricked forward at her return. The boy giggled and waved his arms over his head excitedly until she came close enough for him to lean down and hug her. She accepted his embrace, unsurprised when he slid from the saddle into her arms. He began tapping his fingernails on her armor, enjoying the tink tink sounds.
He should have grown much more than he had. His eyes sat too close together on the face of his too-big head, with too-tiny ears. His short and stubby fingers matched his short and stubby arms, same as his legs and toes. Too often people asked what was wrong with him.
Every time, the question broke her heart a little more.
She had taken him to a healer who said that the boy had not grown right because she was too old to be a mother, that she lacked the vitality to nourish him in her womb and at her breast. Despite her doubts, the healer had recommended supplementing other food with what milk Maganhild could provide for as long as the boy would take it, even though it was clear in the woman’s face that she didn’t think it would be enough.
But Maganhild knew this wasn’t about what she couldn’t give him as he grew inside her. This was about what she had given him.
In all the years of her adult life, only once had she ever been unable to defend herself. Hired as a guard and guide, the client didn’t want to pay at the end of the journey and so poisoned her canteen. In the height of her sickness, he’d forced his seed inside her and left her naked in a field, assured that death would soon follow.
But she refused to comply with his plans.
Defeat was not acceptable.
Failure haunted her, awake and asleep. When she recovered, she vowed to taste that man’s blood and know the glory of revenge. She hunted and killed him in a manner that equaled his own cruelty.
But his death had not purchased an end to the nightmares.
When Maganhild learned his child grew in her womb, she believed his evil tormented her from within by way of the dreams. Raging at the injustice, furious that her enemy remained inside her, feeding on her to grow again… she wanted the baby to die, too.
Months later, when he arrived in the winter, a squalling bloody mess between her legs, she raised her dagger…
He stopped crying. He kicked and flailed his fists. He smiled.
…and she found there was such a thing as an acceptable defeat.
She was unable to resist loving him, and, in the four summers that had passed, unable to forgive herself for what her hate had done to him.
The wizard would hear her story. He would pity them and cure the boy.
He will. This is a virtuous entreat.
Maganhild led Pitch up the mountain path through three lefts. The full of night and the height of Wolkehn combined to chill the air. She paused to put the boy into the saddle sling, but he fought his drowse and rallied, reaching for the saddle to indicate he wanted to ride more. She wrapped his blanket around him. Having his way made him smile, and that smile, after all, had defeated her.
Hungry howls echoed from the wilderness below. Pitch would alert her if he smelled anything close, but he plodded along unconcerned, through a right and another left. Maganhild began to feel the need for rest and sleep in earnest. She was not the only one.
“Mama.”
Though lacking in words, the boy could communicate an abundance with his expressions. His chubby hands reached toward her, fingers straight, then curling. She welcomed him into her arms again and kissed his cheek as a shiver ran over him.
The armor, too cold and rigid to snuggle against, needed to come off. Sliding him back onto the saddle she said, “Give Mama a minute.” After unbuckling the straps of shoulder armor, she pulled a cape from the saddlebag and tucked the armor into the vacant pouch. Once she removed the breastplate, she refastened it around the saddlebag. With the cape settled about her, she pulled the boy into her arms and adjusted the cape to swathe him. “There. Sleep now, boy.” He pushed the flaps of her shirt aside and fed from her breast until slumber claimed him and his breath became a soft rhythm on her neck. His absolute trust, his innocence, bolstered her resolve. He deserved this.
Before they made the final left, she tucked the sleeping boy into the saddle-sling. Leading the stallion onward, her heartbeat increased with her eagerness to meet the wizard, then hammered as she made the last left.
There was no garden here, but the wizard was waiting for her.
He sat upon a throne built into the mountainside, a giant of a man, with a headdress and veils disguising his features. He wore fine robes and the sleeves draped over his gloved hands. One finger curled under. His foot shifted. “A lady in armor.” His deep voice hardly seemed real, thundering from within him and echoing off the mountain’s walls.
Maganhild thought it likely this strange voice was some magic meant to frighten her, but her only fear was that the boy would awaken. Her hand slid into the sling, but he slept on.
“Are you afraid?”
“It is said you slay those who do not have a virtuous cause.”
“Have you come with a foolish request?”
Her chin lifted. “No.”
“Then remove the rest of your armor and come closer that we may speak.”
“Does my armor offend you, wizard?”
“Have you come to fight?”
“No.”
“Then unburden yourself of useless weight.”
“But—”
“I have spoken.” His words were elongated, uttered slowly. As each emphasized sound crossed his lips, his body moved underneath his robes as if his whole torso contorted and transformed.
Her hand strayed to the pommel of her sword. “I am beginning to fear you.”
His head tipped to one side and, behind her, small rocks showered down along the mountain wall. The show of ability emphasized his words, “Your armor cannot protect you should I find you lacking. That sword hasn’t the reach to stop me should I want you dead. And you will never leave this place unless I choose to let you go.” He sniffed the air. “Do I smell a child?”
“Yes. He isn’t far.” The way Pitch stood, the wizard couldn’t
see into the sling.
“Ah.”
She removed the leg and thigh armor, set them aside. Her fingers worked to loosen the sword belt, reluctance slowing each move. With her arms spread wide she turned in a circle, holding the cape to the side so he could see she had no weapons.
“Come.” Five steps away from him, his giant finger flexed to point. “Kneel.”
His ominous tone made her wonder if Pitch could flee with her son safely back to Tremain should the wizard become violent, but on the heels of that thought she cast her doubts away. The time to worry had passed. All she had sought was at hand.
Maganhild knelt.
“Tell me your purpose, woman.”
Head bowed, she spoke. “I have come to ask for the life of my son.”
Distaste sullied the words, “You think a mere illness makes your request worthy?”
Her brows knit. “He… he is not ill.”
“Ahhh. Then what do you stand to gain by asking for his life?”
Peace of mind. Assurance of his independence. Her throat tightened. Selfish.
Her chin dropped and her stomach became ice. Her motive had been for his betterment. Hadn’t it?
“Please understand.” It hurt to force the words out. “I was poisoned and raped. When I learned that he grew within me, I hated him. I wanted him to die—”
“Iniquity!”
“—but then—” She looked up.
The wizard was in motion. A move she recognized. She began to rise before seeing the weapon. Her earlier weariness disappeared and her renowned speed returned as the wizard leaned, torso angling strangely, and his arm shot forward.
“Wait!” she cried, spinning to dodge the thrown dagger by a hair’s breadth. As the rotation brought her back around she kicked at the giant’s forearm. The toe of her boot pushed the fabric of his sleeve easily up and into what should have been the flesh of his arm. There, it became stuck. Unable to follow through and rebalance herself, she fell, causing half of the wizard to lurch from the throne and land on her, knocking away her breath.
She didn’t understand what had just happened—had the wizard severed himself to attack me? Regardless, her life was at risk. Her confusion redoubled when small but strong hands pushed out from folds in his robe and circled her throat.
The large headpiece loomed over her. She made a fist and punched where the jaw should have been, but it didn’t feel like a jaw when she made contact. Still, the wizard cried out and the grip on her throat loosened. Seizing the moment, she grabbed the arms that had attacked her even as she pushed with one leg and sent both the wizard and herself into a roll.
Now atop the oddly-lightweight wizard, she glanced around, anticipating the longer arms would strike at her next. She noted, however, that the wizard’s sleeves lay crumpled around and under them, flat and without arms in them. A gloved hand and arm made of wood lay not far from her knee.
Flashing a look toward the throne she realized the other gloved hand was attached to the rock chair-arm, and a pulley system of rope stretched from the wrist to the shoulder. Another mechanism attached to the foot she had seen moving.
The figure under her was not nearly as big as the wizard had portrayed himself. This man was small. Like the man at the hovel.
It’s a ruse!
There was no wizard. No hope for what she sought.
Rage infused her, as did the willingness to fight and kill from days long past. Altering her grip to hold both of his small wrists in one hand, she jerked the headdress away. Her arm drew back, ready to pommel him, but she froze and her fist unclenched.
The veils had created an illusion of size, but without them or the low brimmed hat he’d worn earlier she saw things she did not expect. His eyes were small, and too close. His ears were tiny on his too-large-for-his-size head. His fingers were stubby and misshapen.
She was looking at what her boy would become.
All her fears culminated in this one man who had learned to lure people high on the mountain to rob and slay them in order to survive.
Cruelty begets cruelty.
Either her shocked expression or her hesitation set him off. His struggles renewed and he cursed and kicked and snarled like a beast, but like this, he was powerless to defeat her. Fighting to change a situation he could not hope to alter, he only looked like a fool.
Is this what strangers see in my boy?
But this individual was not like her sweet and happy son.
This man, she guessed, had been tormented as she feared her son would be tormented in her absence… or after her death. She was getting old; he would have no one if she died. That inevitability had prompted this journey… this fight… to enable him to live his life, to change a situation she could not hope to alter.
I am the fool.
She had succumbed to cruelty and called it revenge when she maimed then killed the man who’d raped her. Afterward, she’d learned the empty pain she’d been struggling with had not been healed by her violence. Only when she actively chose the boy’s life over her need for vengeance, when she allowed love to replace the hate within her, only then did she cease to suffer with nightmares.
She released the man’s wrists. He stilled and stared at her as she shifted away and stood beside him. Maganhild offered him a hand up. “You don’t have to do this.”
Light flashed, and Maganhild lurched away as a green-robed woman appeared before them. One slender hand wrapped around a gnarled staff, the other fondled a crystal hanging from a cord around her neck. “Marcus, take the hand of Maganhild the Strong.”
Gaping at both this magical entrance and the wizard’s knowledge of her name, Maganhild hesitated before returning to again offer her hand.
Once on his feet, the man cast off the oversized robes to reveal the black clothes underneath.
The Wizard of Wolkehn regarded them both with a shake of her head. “A thousand years I have been here. Waiting.” She stepped toward the rock throne and sat. “One after another, men have climbed this mountain to ask for things. And one after another, I turned them on each other, baiting them like beasts to see which would show me their virtue. How many have you slain, Marcus?”
His chin dropped. “Twenty-nine.”
“Twenty-nine,” she repeated. “How long?”
“Forty years.”
“And your predecessor stayed for thirty-two years and killed twenty-three men. His predecessor stayed for thirteen years and killed six. And so on and so forth over centuries.” The wizard’s mouth curved ruefully. “Maganhild the Strong, you have ended my long wait. You have not fought this day to survive or to win, for you have not fought Marcus. By equal measures, you have fought yourself and fought to understand the complexity of your situation, both here,” she pointed at the ground, “and there,” she pointed at Pitch. “Speak your desire that I may grant it.”
Maganhild’s heart sputtered in her chest. Her mouth opened and shut. Her gaze transferred from the wizard to Marcus, then lingered on the sling at Pitch’s shoulder.
“What request brought you all this way?” the wizard prompted.
She whispered, “I brought my son.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted him to be… normal.” Her tone grew to a regular speaking voice as she met the wizard’s eyes and continued. “Normal. Like the rest of us. I came to ask you to change him so that I won’t have to worry about his survival when I am gone. But…”
“But?” The wizard’s brows lifted as a sign of patience.
She thought of the flowers the boy would pick and bring to her, and how his little hands would push at her cheeks trying to make her smile. She recalled the random moments when he ran to her like something terrible chased him, but all he wanted was to hug her tight.
No womb-curse had touched him. Neither did he suffer from an after-effect of the poison. He was her boy, her son. Just as he was meant to be.
She would be miserable if the boy was changed and even an ounce of his sweetness disappear
ed because he was made what others deemed ‘normal.’
“But even now I see that I am the one who is flawed, the one in need of changing. Though I love him, though my eyes adore him, I needed him to be different.” She looked at Marcus, then twisted to glance again at the saddle-sling before facing the wizard once more. “I saw what he wasn’t. I saw what I thought he should be. I didn’t accept what he is.”
The wizard’s chin lifted; she looked down her long and crooked nose and prompted, “What is he, Maganhild?”
Her head shook slightly as she considered how to answer his question. “He is innocent and trusting and happy. He is… he is virtue.” She swallowed. “If you alter him as I came here intending to ask you to, he would no longer be that. I thought this quest was for him, for his benefit, but now,” her gaze shifted to Marcus again, “I realize it was for me.”
The wizard came forward and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Maganhild the Strong, I cannot change you, as you have already changed yourself.” She sidestepped and glowered down at Marcus. “And you… what have you learned?”
“Shame, madam. The value of having honor and virtue.”
“It’s about time,” the wizard mumbled. She bent and spread her fingers over Marcus’s head. “I release you.”
Light flashed again and standing in Marcus’s place was a man in armor not unlike Maganhild’s own. He was tall and rugged, and silver streaked his dark hair. He studied his hands and his body as if he didn’t know himself.
“Mama!”
Maganhild turned and saw her boy climb from his sling onto the saddle. When he was sitting and holding on tight, she whistled and Pitch brought him close.
His stubby fingers curled and uncurled. “Mama!” She opened her arms. He slid into her embrace and snuggled under her chin. She stroked his hair.
“What is his name?” the wizard asked.
“I never gave him one.” A pang of shame twisted her stomach. “At first, I just didn’t know what to call him. He was my boy in my every thought and deed, but I allowed him no identity. Why?” Tears welled up.
“Name him,” Marcus said urgently. “Name him now.”
Maganhild pulled back to gaze on her boy. Tears spilled down her cheeks and the boy wiped them gently away. “Mama no cry.”
Knaves Page 19
