A Touch of Magic

by Gregory Mahan

  Pushing his last dregs of power out, he called out to the lightning. As he sang the Word, Aidan snapped back into focus and quickly bellowed out an answering spell. The lightning missed Aidan by a wide mark, instead slamming into the ground far behind him. Aidan then shouted the Word of fire, and Randall knew it was over. He had no time to gather any power to erect a shield. He wasn’t even sure if he could. He had channeled more energy in this battle than he ever had before in such a short time. But the column of flame never reached him. Instead, it had been directed at the two fighting creatures before him! Randall heard them both scream in anguish as the fire washed over them.

  Berry! Randall opened himself to Llandra and tried to shield his small friend from the flames, but the Word broke against his ravaged vocal chords, and all Randall could manage was a rasp, followed by a coughing fit. Randall tasted blood, and spit mixed with the vital fluid as it drooled down his chin. Randall knew he had lost. Berry was dead, and he could not manage the simplest Word to save himself. Weak from his wounds, he sunk down, putting his forehead on his arms and sobbed silently. He didn’t look up as Aidan approached, hoping the end would come quickly.

  “You know, I was planning on killing you,” the Mage growled. “You’ve caused me an awful lot of trouble for such a young boy. But to summon the Harbinger? That’s...astounding! When Shawncy told me you had a gift for the demonic arts, I had no idea you had such talent!”

  Shawncy? Berry, summoned? Harbinger? Randall was in too much pain to make much sense of Aidan’s words. He looked up at the Mage in confusion.

  “Oh, didn’t you know?” Aidan asked sarcastically, putting his hand to his lips in mock innocence. “Oh yes, the little coward has been guiding you to me ever since you escaped me in that nasty little cesspool you called home. We heard rumors that Erliand had made some kind of breakthrough, but when we didn’t find it, we assumed he had given it to you. But now, I see that you are what he’s been hiding all along!”

  So it hadn’t been Edwin that had turned traitor. It had been Shawncy! But then why did he ride out here to warn me? Randall would probably die without ever knowing the answer to that question.

  Randall tried to call forth the flames, but the Word died on his lips, his body wracked by blood-choked coughs. Given enough time, the talisman he wore would heal him, but that was time that he didn’t have, and he no longer had the strength to juice it up.

  Reminded of the hard lump under his tunic, Randall knew what Erliand had really been hiding. And he knew that if this man got his hands on it, he would become nearly invincible. I’m not going to let that happen, he vowed to himself. His shoulder crying out in pain, he drew the dagger from his hip, holding it menacingly before him as he lay on the ground.

  “Oh please,” Aidan snorted, as he ground the tip of his boot into Randall’s wounded shoulder. The younger Mage’s mouth opened wide in silent pain, followed by another round of coughs. “Your voice is ruined, and you don’t even have the strength to stab me with that thing if you wanted to.”

  It was true. Randall rolled over and tried to bury the dagger in the other man’s foot, but he barely had the strength to scratch the leather of Aidan’s boot. With his wounds and loss of blood, he couldn’t even muster the physical strength to push the thing through the leather. But there had to be a way! He couldn’t give up! His mind raced furiously to his early lessons, looking for any dirty trick that Master Erliand had taught him that could save him now. And then he seized upon an idea. He had no hope of it working, but it was his only chance. Again, he slashed feebly at the tip of Aidan’s boot.

  “Come now, boy,” Aiden cajoled, “Give up the fight and join me. Even with all of your Talent, there is still much for you to learn. We can pool our knowledge, and you can become my apprentice! Imagine how much more powerful I will be when you teach me to summon a donnan!”

  As Aidan spoke, Randall continued to slash weakly at his boot with the dagger. After getting no response from Randall, Aidan snarled and kicked the dagger from the boy’s hand.

  “You don’t know when you’re beat, do you, boy?” the Mage growled. “No matter. I will eventually learn the trick on my own anyway. Still, it would have been deliciously ironic to have Erliand’s apprentice by my side. But since that seems unlikely...” He stepped away and began gathering magic.

  Randall still had a small reserve of his own magic from when he had tried to shield Berry from Aidan’s spell. He seized that power and pushed it out, hard. At the same time, he opened himself to Llandra to channel as much power as he could into his spell. The power tore through him, sending fresh waves of pain through already abused nerves. Aidan felt the surge of power and looked down to follow the other’s gaze.

  “What? No!” cried Aiden, as he felt the surge of power that tore through Randall and into his boot. The boot which now had a tiny rune carved into its surface. It wasn’t a neat rune. It wasn’t the rune as Master Erliand would have written it. It wasn’t made of fine lines and well-formed angles. But within it was every sense of strength that Randall could conjure. It was rough and haggard, made of hard lines and strong, squat angles. It was perfect.

  There was a sound like a thunderclap, which deafened Randall and left him momentarily senseless. After several long moments, clutching the grass and fighting unconsciousness, he managed to raise his head. Standing in front of him was a perfectly formed statue of Aidan, seemingly carved out of the purest dwarven steel. The rune had worked! The weight of exhaustion crashed down on him like a ton of bricks, and it was only by fighting with all of his might that he was able to hold onto consciousness.

  “Berry,” he whispered, and the word came out like a croak. He knew he didn’t dare to hope for another miracle, but hope was the only thing he had left to hang on to.

  Using the last of his willpower, Randall crawled to where his friend lie charred and motionless next to the burned remains of the beast he was fighting. Randall rolled over onto his back, panting heavily as he struggled to fish the healing talisman out from under his tunic. Finally, he was able to free the relic. Reaching over, Randall pressed the talisman against the tiny imp’s limp torso, before he allowed darkness to overcome him.

  * * *

  It was a tiny trickle of liquid on his lips that finally brought Randall out of the depths of his near coma. He was still lying on his back, and the foul-tasting concoction pooled at the back of his throat, and he rolled over to cough up the liquid. Coughing brought fresh spasms of pain to his chest and throat, and a weak moan escaped his lips. Cracking his eyes open a mere slit, he saw that it was bright daylight outside. Squinting against the sun’s glare, he saw a tiny brown figure, holding a spoon and dancing from foot to foot. When the little man saw that Randall was finished coughing, he tried to spoon more liquid into the prone youth’s mouth.

  “Berry!” Randall cried, though the word came out gritty and hoarse, forcing him to fight back another coughing fit.

  The donnan was alive! The skin all along the right side of its tiny body was gnarled and twisted into horrendous scars, but he was alive! Randall cried out in joy, causing him to fall into another bout of coughing. Berry chittered angrily and shook his spoon at his friend, splashing the nasty brew everywhere. Randall’s heart lifted at seeing his friend’s antics, and it was all he could do to contain himself and not burst out laughing again. He reached out to grab up the little imp and hug it to his body, but the motion caused shooting pains to course up his shoulder and down his spine. Gasping and panting, he ended up simply laying in the grass with a wide grin plastered on his face.

  “It’s good to see you again, friend,” he whispered, each word like ground glass in his throat.

  The donnan chittered at length before speeding off in a flash. Randall followed the creature with his eyes, and saw that the donnan had rigged up the cook pot, and had started a fire. He had made some kind of soup! Randall could just imagine all of the gross twigs, insects and roots that the donnan had put into the stew, and had to fight down a
nother wave of affection and amusement at the thought. When the imp brought back another spoonful, he just shook his head gently, raising his hand weekly to ward of the offending concoction. Wearily, he pushed himself into a sitting position to take stock of his condition. His clothes were caked with blood, both dried and fresh. Upon further inspection, his shoulder and hip were still oozing, though only faintly. He guessed that the shards of metal that Aidan had conjured were still buried deep within the muscle. Those would have to be cut out. Not today, but soon.

  Looking down, he saw that he had Erliand’s healing talisman dangling from his neck. Berry must have replaced it as he slept. He owed his old master a debt of gratitude. The talisman had saved his life more than once, and had saved Berry’s too. Grabbing the talisman in his hand, Randall attempted to open himself up to Llandra to feed it some power and stop the flow of blood from his wounds. Making the connection sent liquid fire shooting along all of his nerves and ripped a scream from his tortured vocal chords. The pain was so intense that he instinctively slammed the connection closed instantly, before he could draw any real measure of power. After coughing and panting for several minutes, he looked at his scolding friend, and smiled wanly.

  “I guess I burned myself out a little,” he whispered carefully, shaking his head sadly. “I guess I’ll have to let it work the slow way.”

  Looking at the talisman more closely, Randall could see a spider web of tiny cracks all throughout the relic, giving it a marbled and antique appearance. There was no telling how much longer it would work, but it still seemed solid enough for now. Nodding to himself, he tucked the talisman under his tunic, and lay back in the grass to rest and let it slowly work its power over him. Giving up on the idea of feeding him any more stew, Berry abandoned the cook pot and curled up on Randall’s chest, purring contentedly. Soon, they were both fast asleep.

  They awoke later that day, and Randall found that his wounds had mostly stopped bleeding. The effort of standing up ripped open the wounds, however, causing fresh blood to well up and soak through his clothes. Looking around the campsite, his eyes landed on Aidan. His body would stand here for a long time, serving as a monument to the battle that they had waged. And then, one day, it would simply be gone, disappearing into so much soot and dust—forgotten and blown on the wind. It was a fitting end, Randall thought.

  After a while, he spotted Berry. The imp had pulled practically everything out of Randall’s travel sack and had strewn it about the camp site. At the moment, the little imp was digging for grubs in the cold dirt with a spoon. Smiling, Randall began gathering up his belongings.

  “Come on, Berry,” he croaked. “It’s time we left this place.”

  Randall wasn’t sure where he and Berry would go, but the thought of the tiny villages of his homeland brought him a pang of homesickness. He was sure he could set up a home somewhere close by. Perhaps he could live in one of the smaller villages, growing his own food and catching his own game. He would only need to travel to town occasionally to barter for goods that he was unable to eke from the land. He felt another pang when he realized that such a lifestyle was much as Master Erliand had lived. It was peaceful, and Randall decided that he’d had enough adventure to last him a lifetime.

  It took the pair of travelers several days to reach the main road leading out of Ninove. The road had dozens of refugees making their way from the city, many of them wounded. Berry gave no complaints as they drew closer, and faded quickly out of sight. Randall found himself shy and uncomfortable around throngs of people. He found it difficult to trust anyone, and realized that he had been happiest when foraging off the land, with his friend on his shoulder.

  Still, he wouldn’t be able to do much hunting and foraging until he saw his wounds tended to. He met a trapper who was skilled with a knife and willing to cut the metal shards out of his shoulder and hip. The man even offered to let Randall convalesce in the back of his small cart, for which the boy was extremely grateful. He never quite learned to trust the man, however, and slept fitfully each night until he was well enough to strike out on his own. After that, he spent as much time off the road as on it, though he would still veer back to the main road from time to time to hear of any new news from the capital.

  By piecing together travelers’ stories, Randall figured that after the fight, he had been unconscious for two days, maybe three. He guessed that Berry had probably been out nearly as long as he had. The news among the refugees was that the first night of fighting amongst the Mages was the most intense. But without Aidan’s help, the rebellion had proved difficult to crush.

  Days later, the fighting still raged in pockets of resistance within the city. There was even a rumor floating about that King Priess himself had been killed. About as many people believed it as didn’t, but Randall never ran into anyone who had seen the king’s death first-hand. He silently wished the rebellion well, but he was in no condition to aid them, mentally or physically.

  Mentally, he was beat down. He had seen more death and destruction than any one person should ever have to experience in a lifetime. Physically, he was still recovering from the wounds he suffered at the hands of Aidan and his men. Regardless, he couldn’t have helped, even if he had been fit and whole. Every time he tried to touch Llandra, he suffered the same excruciating pain as when he had tried to charge up the healing talisman.

  “I think I burned myself out for good,” he told Berry when they were alone one night. The thought left him saddened. As much has he had resisted becoming a Mage at first, it turned out to be the one thing he was truly good at.

  His voice had changed since his fight, too. It was rough and throaty, like a sailor who has spent a lifetime on the high seas breathing the salt air and drinking rum. Even if he could draw power from Llandra without the pain making him want to pass out, he wasn’t sure his voice would be suited to giving form to that power ever again. It seemed like his future as a Mage was at an end. “I guess I really could become a caravan guard,” he said to Berry one night as the two shared a supper of squirrel stew and wild carrots. He laughed at the irony of the statement, and his friend seemed to take it in good humor as well.

  Eventually, Randall broke away from the main road altogether, and spent his days foraging on the land with Berry. Each day seemed to flow into the next, and it was an easy, comfortable existence. Now that he was no longer on the run for his life, he had no plan of action and no pressing need to go anywhere. Still, each day, he found himself a little further south, and a little further west. It wasn’t until he reached the Great Red River that he realized what his subconscious had shrewdly been keeping hidden from him: he was going home. Few refugees had made it this far from Ninove, but the ferryman had heard of the stories of the fighting. He was no better informed than anyone Randall had met on the roads. The stories floating around conflicted wildly: either the king had ruthlessly crushed the rebellion, or King Priess had died in the fighting and a cabal of Mages now held power in the capital. It would probably be months before the official word had spread through the land, and until then, people tended to be antsy and suspicious.

  Randall had no money to pay the toll for the ferry, but the ferryman let him work off the fee. He didn’t know if it was the same ferryman that had betrayed Brody, Tobsen and Declan, and he found to his surprise that he didn’t really care, either. After three days, Randall bid the man farewell, and the man wished him good luck in return. He then continued to travel lazily, staying off of the main roads, and away from cities, but slowly making his way back toward his home town. He had a better feel for the land, now, and let his feet be his guide.

  Several weeks later, as spring gave way into summer, Randall found himself within a day’s walk of Geldorn. To his surprise, he found that he was nervous. He couldn’t go into the village itself, of course. He had been gone over a year, but people in small towns had long memories. He would still be a wanted criminal, and people would recognize him immediately. But still, he couldn’t resist visiting his old
home on the outskirts of town. Someone would have buried his family there. He knew that the reason he had traveled all this way was for this opportunity to say goodbye to them.

  It was early evening when he reached the outer gate to his family’s land, and he was surprised to smell the odor of a home cooked meal on the breeze. His brief pang of nostalgia fled instants later as the outrage welled up within him with a fury and intensity that he hadn’t felt since his fight with Aidan.

  How dare they! How dare they move into Papa’s house! That’s our house!

  Without a second thought, Randall stormed through the gate and up the path to his family’s home. Berry chittered nervously and faded from view, as he was quick to do these days whenever other people were around. He still carried with him his own wounds from their fight at the capital. A boy who was just beginning to become a young man sat on the front stoop, whittling a block of wood in the fading light. As Randall stormed up to the house in anger, the boy looked up from his idle work with surprise. His eyes grew wide as he took note of the figure stalking up the path toward him.

  “Randall?” he asked, stopping the young mage in his tracks. His voice was so familiar! “Is that you, Randall?”

  Randall knew that voice. Even though it had been nearly two years since he had heard it. There was no way that he could mistake that sprinkling of freckles across his nose, either.

  “Joshua?” Randall called out, refusing to believe his eyes. It had to be a trick! They said that his family had been killed!

  “Momma!” Joshua called back into the house.” Momma, come quick! Randall’s come home!”

  Randall took the rest of the path at a shuffling run, barely noticing the pain in his leg or the limp he had grown accustomed to. As he reached the porch, his mother burst out of the front door, with flour on her hands and still wearing her kitchen apron. Her hands flew to her face when she saw her son, and her mouth widened in shock.