The Innocent Mage

by Karen Miller

  Now it was his mother’s fingers that closed, comforted. ‘Darling, I—’

  Scattering pebbles, Darran appeared before them at the base of the carved sandstone steps, harried, harassed and voluble.

  ‘Your Majesty, Your Highness, please forgive me but I must bring to your attention a catastrophe of—’

  ‘What is it, Darran?’ Gar sighed.

  ‘I can’t find Willer,’ said Darran, almost wailing. ‘He’s not in the coach where he’s supposed to be, he’s not in the office, I can’t see him anywhere in the forecourt or its environs and—’

  Gar lifted an impatient hand, cutting off the spate of words midflow. Turning to search the crowd in the forecourt he saw his target and raised his voice.

  ‘Asher!’

  Asher stopped interrogating a groom and nudged Cygnet sideways with knee and heel. ‘Yes, Your Highness?’ And added, with his first smile of the day, ‘Morning, Your Majesty.’

  The queen smiled back. ‘And to you, Asher.’

  ‘Do you know where Willer is?’ Gar demanded.

  ‘Were I supposed to?’ Asher jerked his head at Darran. ‘That’s his job, ain’t it?’

  Gar permitted himself a barbed smile. ‘As of now it’s yours. Find him.’

  Asher scowled, then offered a short, sharp bow. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Darran as Asher rode away.

  Gar frowned. ‘If you kept a better eye on your people, Darran, there’d be no need of thanks. Now hurry up. Call me eccentric but I’d like to leave before noon. Today.’

  ‘Yes, Your Highness.’ Darran bowed. ‘Your Majesty. Your Highness.’

  Gar watched him retreat then glanced at his mother and shrugged. ‘I know I shouldn’t show it but he does get on my nerves. If I wasn’t afraid it’d bring on a relapse I’d leave him behind with strict instructions to wait hand and foot on Father, just the way he used to.’

  He expected a short, not wholly undeserved lecture on the importance of keeping one’s temper with the staff, but instead his mother took his arm and drew him four paces back from the forecourt, close to the blue curving brick of the Tower wall. In her eyes was a look he’d never seen before.

  ‘What?’ he asked, alarmed. ‘Mama? Has something – is Father—’

  ‘Hush, Gar, and listen to me.’ Her voice was low, insistent, her fingers like a vice through his shirt sleeve. ‘You make jokes, but I’m afraid I can’t laugh at them.’

  He stared. ‘What do you mean? Are you saying he is in danger of relapse? Durm said – Pother Nix said—’

  ‘I know what they said. And they’re right, in their own limited fashions. He is recovering well enough from this fever. But, Gar, my dear, the situation is more complicated than that.’

  ‘Complicated how?’

  She released his arm. ‘The Weather Magic is a double-edged sword and every time you wield it, you cut yourself a little. Your father has been bleeding to death drop by drop since the day he called his first rainfall.’

  ‘Mama!’ If they’d not been in public he would have pressed his fingers to her mouth. He didn’t want to hear this. Not now. Not ever. She’d voiced concerns before, fretted his father’s dedication to duty at the expense of his own health many times, but never like this. Never so bleakly or with such cold despair. ‘Mama, why are you—’

  ‘He’s changed, Gar. He’s not been the same since that business with the young man from Basingdown. You don’t know. You don’t live with him. You don’t wake to the sound of his weeping in dreams, as I do. You haven’t had to watch him shrink from himself, as I have, all because of that one brutally necessary act. He may be your father but he’s my husband. And a wife sees things …’

  He reached for her hand. ‘I see more than you think, Mama. And I, too, have dreams.’

  She pulled away from him. ‘He is weary, Gar! Sick at heart. And the WeatherWorking grows harder and harder with every sunrise. I have asked him to abdicate, begged him, but he won’t. Fane is still too young, he says, and I know he’s right, of course he’s right, but even so …’ With an effort she collected herself. ‘When the day comes for her to ascend the throne – however that day comes – there must be a clean succession. There can be no hint of doubt as to her readiness. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, of course, but—’

  His mother’s eyes were fierce. Pain and brute determination burning there. ‘No matter what Fane does, Gar. No matter how unkind she may be, it can’t matter. Your father isn’t blind, he can see when she hurts you, and he mustn’t be given any more reason for worry. So you’ll have to hide it. However deep the wounds your sister inflicts, he must never see the blood. Now I know you’re pained because she’s not here this morning to wish you well. I don’t care. The more hours she spends in study the sooner she can take the burden of WeatherWorking from your father. And that could mean his life, Gar. His life. What are your bruised feelings compared to that?’

  He was finding it hard to breathe. ‘Nothing, Mama, they’re nothing, but—’

  ‘Your sister will be the greatest WeatherWorker this kingdom has ever known, but only if she’s ready when the time comes. If she’s not, if she’s forced to it before Durm has tempered her, she could break. And then what? We look to the likes of Conroyd Jarralt? Pray Barl not, Gar. For then the Wall would surely crumble and the horrors that lie beyond it will overcome us all.’

  Taking her cold hands in his, holding them tight, he said, coaxingly, ‘It’s been six hundred years since Barl and our ancestors fled Morgan – Morg and his tyranny, Mama. He is long since dead and gone to dust. Nothing but a name used to frighten naughty children. He can’t hurt us. In truth, we don’t know there are any horrors still beyond the Wall.’

  Again, she pulled her hands free. ‘We don’t know there aren’t! A man like Morg. A magician of his unspeakable powers and unbridled lust for domination. Who knows what legacy he left behind him? Who can say how far his hand stretched? He may have spawned children. He may have founded a dynasty of tyrants that has stretched from his time to ours. All that stands between us and the fruit of those diseased days, their savagery and their slaughter, is the Wall. Would I stand idly by as your father kills himself by inches to protect it if I didn’t believe the sacrifice was necessary? Would I give up a child of my body to the same cruel fate?’

  Another word, another syllable, and she would have him in tears. ‘I know you wouldn’t,’ he said, his voice unsteady. ‘I wish you’d told me this sooner. I wish I could do more to spare him. I wish—’

  She wrapped her arms around him then, and held him close to her breast. ‘Forgive me!’ she breathed, her own voice breaking. ‘I am all to pieces, dearest. It was wrong of me to speak on it. Especially now. Your father is making a fine recovery and I fear he’d be vexed indeed to learn I’d made you worry!’

  She felt as frail as a sparrow. ‘Don’t, Mama. Don’t treat me like a child. When I come back we’ll speak more on this. We’ll find a way to spare him, I promise. You—’

  A ripple of laughter, rising to a wave, ran through the crowd that had gathered to see him depart for the coast. His mother loosened her grip and they stepped apart to see what was causing the commotion.

  Asher, the thrown stone, jogged his horse down the path from the storehouses at the rear of the Tower. Slung over the front of his saddle was Willer, plump rump quivering like a satin-covered jelly, short legs kicking the innocent air. He was shrieking.

  ‘Put me down! Oaf! Cretin! Barbarian! Put me down!’

  Ignoring him, Asher jogged on through the crowd’s swelling mirth. Reached the foot of the Tower steps and lifted his reins, signalling an indignant Cygnet to stop. He was grinning. ‘Found ’im,’ he announced, and slid Willer to the gravel-strewn ground.

  Gar sighed. ‘So I see. Willer? I take it you have an explanation?’

  His secretary’s assistant, scarlet-faced and puffing like a bellows, staggered in a ragged circle and nearly upended himself in a bow. His blotch
ed face streamed sweat despite the early hour. ‘Your Hi-Highness! Your Majesty! Your Highness!’ Then he turned on Asher. ‘You! You did this on purpose!’

  Asher rolled his eyes. Darran, squawking up to join them like an enraged hen, attacked from the rear. ‘Depend on it, Your Highness, Willer is telling the truth! From the day he arrived Asher has failed to show me and my staff the veriest breadcrumb of respect! He—’

  Forgetting his place entirely, Willer interrupted. ‘He locked me in that storeroom so he could shame me before everyone!’

  Asher heaved a vastly put-upon sigh. Ignoring Willer and Darran he looked to his prince. ‘I didn’t.’

  Abruptly weary of the lot of them, Gar lifted a dismissive hand. ‘We’ll discuss it later.’

  Willer squeaked. ‘But, Your Highness—’

  ‘Later, I said!’ Gar snapped. ‘It’s time to leave.’

  Willer deflated. Bowed. ‘Your Majesty. Your Highness.’

  Ungently manoeuvred by Darran, the assistant secretary withdrew. Gar, still watching, smiled a little at the glare with which he scorched an impervious Asher; a degree or two more heat and his irritating friend would be stone dead on the ground and doubtless smoking. Turning his back on them all, he laid a hand against his mother’s thin cheek. ‘Tell the king I shall not fail him. Tell him to rest, and get well. The kingdom needs him.’

  Her hand came up to cover his and she met his gaze with her restored and customary cool strength. ‘Barl’s blessing on you, my dear. You carry your king and queen’s full confidence.’ She kissed him and stepped back, a determined smile on her lips. Only if he looked deep into her eyes could he see her smothered distress.

  ‘I’ll see you in a few weeks,’ he promised, not daring to say more. Kissed her hand, beckoned for his horse and swung himself into the saddle.

  Asher grinned. ‘No need to fret, Your Majesty. I’ll keep a close eye on him, make sure he don’t catch cold or stub his toe.’

  ‘I know you will,’ said Dana. ‘Goodbye, Asher.’

  For some reason, Asher started. A flea bite, perhaps, thought Gar. If so then serve him right, with a fulminating Darran still to come.

  Asher’s grin faded. ‘Goodbye, Your Majesty.’ He bowed, a fisted hand pressed close to his heart.

  Which was odd, Gar thought, and not the least like Asher, who disdained all public protestations of affection.

  As the rumbling cavalcade set forth with himself and Asher in the lead, and the people cheered and the horses tossed their bright heads and jingled their bits, gently excited, he turned to his assistant and said, ‘So, we’re off. Excited?’

  Asher was barely paying attention, his frowning gaze scouring the rows of wellwishers left and right. ‘Not really.’

  He raised his eyebrows severely. ‘Not really. The first chance to see your precious ocean again in more than a year, and you’re not excited. Asher, I declare, there is no hope for you.’

  ‘No,’ said Asher vaguely, still searching the crowd. ‘Prob’ly there ain’t.’ Some of the ladies were throwing flowers; absently, out of habit, he caught a dethorned rose and tucked it behind one ear. The black-haired girl who’d tossed it subsided amongst her friends in a flurry of giggles.

  Goaded, Gar kicked Asher’s ankle. ‘Looking for somebody special?’ he asked in a tone of voice guaranteed to irritate.

  Asher snapped his head round. ‘No,’ he said shortly, and after that did not let his gaze stray from the straight road leading out of the City.

  Gar grinned. Yes. Happy that he’d repaid at least a part of the debt he freshly owed Asher, all too aware of the sibilant dissatisfaction in the coach behind him, he patted Ballodair’s warm brown neck and looked forward to the journey ahead.

  In her tiny rooms above her bookshop Dathne gathered the tools of her secret business and laid them out on the table by the window. A breeze stirred the curtains and wafted the scent of fresh-picked jasmine through the cramped and book-crammed living room.

  A large shallow silver bowl, filled to the brim with untainted rainwater.

  Three glass vials, unlabelled, and stoppered against leakage.

  A sprig of dried tanal leaf, known also by another name, never to be spoken aloud.

  The leaf was bitter, flooding her mouth with sharp saliva. She chewed and chewed and chewed again but did not swallow, for that would lead to madness. When the shiny golden foliage was a pulped mass on her tongue, all its properties extracted, she spat the dregs of it into a scrap of rag for later burning. Tipping her head back, closing her eyes, she swilled the acrid saliva around and around her mouth, sieving it through her teeth and over the avid mucous membranes of her gums and palate. Then, giddy with the potency of it, she spat what was left onto the rag with the leaf pulp, and waited.

  In time the room grew dim to her sight, even as the sun’s bright light flooded through the open window. When it looked to her as though midnight were upon the world, she reached for the first vial, plucked free its stopper, and dribbled a scant three drops of vervle into the silver basin.

  The water bubbled and swirled and turned the colour of blood.

  Carefully she put the first vial aside and reached for the second. Cloysies’ tears. Four drops this time, and this time the water heaved in fury, spitting forth a burned ochre steam. It was pungent, smelling of the grave.

  The last vial, its potion the most virulent. Moon-rot. One drop only. The muddy water stirred and seethed, thickened like a porridge and belched a sour, sickly smell. Dathne flared her nostrils to catch it like a horse scenting home, and smiled. The steam thinned, thinned some more, disappeared, and now the water in the basin was black like glass. Reflected on its surface her eyes glowed back at her, gold around the edges, fathomless and wise. She spread her hand above the bowl and spoke aloud the name of he whose image she summoned.

  ‘Asher.’

  The shiny black water waited motionless in its basin, like a cat before the mouse hole. Breathing in through her nose, and out through her nose, Dathne waited with it, hands loosely resting palm down on the table, head drooping a little as the magic bubbled in her blood.

  A small bright light, brighter than a diamond in sunshine, pierced the darkness in the water. Slowly it blossomed, bloomed, opened like a window onto another world. Hazily a picture formed, bleary, the way a woman’s sight is bleary upon opening her eyes to the morning after a long hard night.

  Dathne eased a sigh from her lungs and leaned a little closer over the basin.

  The picture rippled, then coalesced into focus.

  Asher. And Gar. And the rest of the prince’s troupe, clattering their way over the City’s cobblestones, waving to the townsfolk who’d forsaken their beds to wish them good journey. Gar was smiling, laughing, waving left and right. Asher waved too, and smiled after a fashion, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

  For a long time she sat before the basin, breathing in and breathing out, and watched him. Knowing he rode towards heartbreak and shattered dreams. The exact nature of the pain awaiting him she could not tell, but she felt it as though it were her own. Like a knife in her heart.

  Soon after reaching the coast he would return. And she would be waiting for him, whether he wanted her there or not. Because she had to be. Because he needed her, even though he didn’t know it.

  And Prophecy, her cruel master, would continue.

  In sudden anger, sudden fear, her hands plunged into the silver basin of water. Asher’s image shattered. The water cleared, became just a jug’s worth of rainwater once more. Her heavy head ached. She lowered it into her wet hands and wept.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Without mishap, Gar’s mostly cheerful cavalcade made its stately way along the City Road, over the bustling River Gant and away from Dorana and its Home Districts. Leaving the Home farms and orchards in their wake they climbed up the gentle Saffron Hills and down the other side, where the Flatlands spread before them in a tapestry of green and blue and yellow and brown. Tiny birds like bright winged jewels dan
ced among the flowering grasses, flitting from stem to nodding stem. Butterflies floated indolently on the perfumed breeze, and rabbits, startled and scudding, caused the horses to dance on restive hooves.

  Just past noon they stopped for luncheon. Two cooks prepared the food while other servants pitched a silk pavilion to protect their prince from the unfettered sun, trapping the wild Flatland grasses beneath carpets of hand-woven splendour. The fresh bloom-laden air turned savoury with the spitting smell of venison roasting.

  But before food came business. Wedged into a folding chair plumped comfortably with cushions, and appeased with a goblet of wine, Gar reluctantly admitted a poker-backed Darran to his presence. The man was looking even more desiccated than usual. Pique, probably, sucking him dry of life’s joy.

  ‘Before you say anything, Darran,’ he said tersely, ‘I’ve spoken to Asher and he assures me that Willer being locked in the storeroom was an accident.’

  Darran’s nostrils pinched tight. ‘I have no doubt he does, sir.’

  ‘Do you imply Asher is lying, Darran? To me?’

  Darran laced his fingers across his middle and considered the pattern of the carpet beneath his feet for a long moment. ‘The alternative, sir,’ he said at last, lifting his gaze, ‘is to say that Willer is lying to me.’

  Of course it was. Damn. Gar tossed back the remains of his wine and held out the empty goblet. With only the merest hesitation, his secretary refilled it from the carafe on the sideboard and handed it back.

  ‘I grant you,’ he said, after another deep swallow of spicy Brosa red, ‘that Asher mishandled the business. As you very well know, at times he has a … dubious sense of humour.’

  ‘Dubious, Your Highness?’ Darran sniffed. ‘I submit, sir, that “dubious” is too mild a word for it.’

  Barl save him. ‘That’ll do, Darran. I’m not in the mood for semantics.’