The Mage of Trelian

by Michelle Knudsen

  All right. Good. Really good. This was really, really good. But what did it mean, exactly? What did he do now?

  Good question. He didn’t see a note attached to the bird’s leg in the way that birds sometimes carried messages. Maybe they had been afraid of the bird delivering its message to the wrong person. This bird had zeroed in on Calen as soon as it had become aware of him. It must have been spelled to speak to him and him alone.

  He leaned forward and asked quietly, “Meg? Can you hear me?”

  The bird just looked at him. He supposed that was too much to hope — that the bird could somehow let them communicate directly, in the moment.

  “Can you say anything else, bird?”

  “Calen!” it said, still using Meg’s voice. “Calen, Calen, Calen!”

  Okay. Probably not, then. So the purpose of the bird must have been . . . to find him. To find him and let him know that they were looking for him.

  And to give him a way to send a message back.

  He thought about how something like that might be accomplished. Unfortunately he could only see the colors of active spells as they were being cast; there was no hint that he could see now of what Serek might have done to make the bird able to find him or able to carry Meg’s voice. He had to assume that the bird must be able to find its way back home again; maybe Anders had used one of his sequence spells to send the bird to find Calen and then, once it found him, head back to Trelian. So all he had to do was figure out how to give it a message to carry back.

  A paper message was too risky. Even if he’d had any paper. If by some chance Mage Krelig saw this bird on its way home, it had to appear to be just a regular crow with nothing special about it at all. Hopefully the mage wouldn’t be able to tell that it had any kind of magic attached to it. He hadn’t noticed it on the way here, anyway. At least — at least as far as Calen knew. He looked anxiously over his shoulder toward the door that led to the hallway.

  No. He couldn’t worry about that. He had to seize this moment. He had to trust that Mage Krelig was distracted with the other mages or whatever had been making him so angry this morning or any of his usual crazy things. Or that Serek and Anders had done something to make the bird pass unnoticed. Or at least less noticeably.

  Stop worrying, and start thinking. The voice in his head sounded a little like Meg. It made him smile again.

  All right. Thinking.

  White energy for communication, obviously, but what else? Should he try to make the bird sound like him? How had they done that? He shook his head. First things first. He had to make it say something other than his name. If it returned and just kept saying the same thing they had trained or spelled it to say when it left, they would never know it had found him.

  He tried nonmagical means, just to see. But he couldn’t get the bird to just repeat something he said. It only cawed at him, or said his name in Meg’s voice, over and over.

  After a few more minutes of thinking, he tried his original information-gathering spell again, the one he’d tried sending at the bird in the first place. Maybe there was something he could find out that way.

  Luckily the bird seemed perfectly content to stand there while he tried all these things. “Good bird,” Calen said, because it was true. He wished he had some bread left to give it. He wished he had a whole feast of all of its favorite foods to give it, in fact. If this bird really helped him get home, he was going to make sure it was kept in . . . well, whatever crows liked best, for the rest of its life.

  Slowly, he reached toward it with another tendril of questing white energy. He got back a sense of . . . speed, he thought. Speed and sky and flight. Well, all right. He could have guessed that part. He reached a little deeper, trying to direct the magic to find out what was different about this bird. What had happened to it? What had Serek and Anders . . . ? Come on, he thought pleadingly, then suddenly remembered his candles and heard Mage Krelig’s voice, telling him that a mage didn’t plead with the magic to do his will. He demanded it.

  Tell me! Calen commanded his spell, sending it forward more forcefully. He was no longer trying to tease out little hints of information; he was insisting that the magic show him what was there to be discovered. He didn’t want to hurt or alarm the bird, and he didn’t want to push too hard . . . but he discovered that he didn’t have to. The shift in his intention was enough. Almost at once he felt his attention drawn to the bird’s head. Or — not its head, exactly, but the space around it. Very faintly, he could see . . . what was that? A tiny ball of energy, seeming to float just above the tiny feathers that rimmed the bird’s bright eyes.

  He sat back, amazed. That must — that must be the spell that Serek and Anders had cast. But — but he couldn’t see colors after the initial casting. He could only see magic when it was first happening.

  Well, not anymore, apparently, said the Meg-like voice in his head. Be amazed later. Right now, use it to cast your spell and send the bird back home!

  Right. He nodded to himself, not even caring anymore about what that said about his sanity. Then he tried to examine the ball of energy more closely. There was a mix of colors — white, of course, as well as purple, blue, green, black. . . . He studied them, trying to sort out how Serek and Anders might have used them, and why. He’d never done anything like this before. He’d identified the colors in magic countless times, and could often reason things out afterward, if the spells and colors were straightforward enough. He could cast counterspells very quickly based on the colors he saw in another spell, but that was more instinct than reason. This was the first time he’d been able to spend more than a few seconds looking at the colors of a spell. He couldn’t quite see how they were all connected to one another, but he could see the relative amounts of each type of magic energy used, and given what he knew about what the crow had been able to do . . .

  It took some trial and error, and many, many whispered words of thanks to the gods for the crow’s continued patience and cooperation, and also to Serek and Anders and to the bird itself and any bird-gods that might exist and be listening as well, just on general principles, but eventually Calen thought that he had it. He could see enough of what the mages had done to figure out his own version, something that would give the bird speed and strength and purpose and would let him give it a message to carry back. Not quite the same spell that Serek and Anders had used, but close enough. And maybe . . . maybe even better.

  He picked up the bird gently in both hands, and began.

  Later, when it was time to go down for dinner, Calen stood for a long moment in his doorway, trying to pull himself together.

  He was still reeling from the relief of knowing that his friends — his family — wanted him back and were trying to help him, and from the astounding realization that it was possible, at least some of the time, for him to see the colors of spells that had already been cast. And on top of that, he was now feeling so hopeful and impatient and excited for the crow to make its way back home.

  But what he was feeling right that moment more than anything else was terror that Krelig would be able to tell.

  He had been terrified of Krelig from the start, certainly, even if he had to try to hide it to avoid the mage’s anger whenever Calen actually showed his fear. And he’d been determined to find a way home from the start as well. But now that the crow had come, now that he’d heard Meg’s voice and sent a reply and it seemed that escape might truly, actually be possible . . . now the idea of Krelig finding out and stopping him was absolutely unbearable. It hadn’t been nearly as bad when it had all just been vague dreams of how he would somehow, someday get away. Now it was actually beginning — he had taken the first steps toward getting back where he belonged. Which meant that now there was a real plan, a real chance, for Krelig to discover and destroy.

  Calen swallowed and tried to slow down his breathing and his frantically beating heart. He had to act normally. He had to go down there and get his food and not draw attention to himself and not seem in any w
ay any different from the person he had been when he left the mage’s presence earlier that day. Sometimes the man was too crazy and distracted or just too uninterested to notice anything going around him. But sometimes he wasn’t. Sometimes he was very perceptive indeed.

  Well, being late to get his food was not going to help him stay inconspicuous. He forced himself to take a step into the hallway. After that it was easier to take another. And another. And then he was walking, and then he was at the end of the hall, and then the stairway. And eventually he was all the way down in the dining hall.

  His covered plate was waiting in its usual location. But there were five other plates beside it.

  For a second, he couldn’t make any sense of it. And then he remembered. The other mages! He’d completely forgotten about them.

  They weren’t there yet. He wondered if Krelig had bothered to tell them how meals worked around here. Probably not. Almost certainly not. Well, Calen wasn’t going to go fetch them. They could figure it out, just as he had. He took his plate and carried it to one of the long tables, sitting in the corner with his back to the room in a way that he hoped would discourage any of the others, should they eventually show up, from thinking he wanted company.

  He ate without noticing the food, his mind continuing to dart against his will to thoughts of the crow. Stop it, he told himself firmly. Stop thinking about it! But that was far easier said than done.

  He was just about to stand up and carry his plate to the counter when he heard someone enter the dining hall behind him. He turned to see which of the mages it was, and his heart sank. It was Mage Krelig.

  He never came to dinner when Calen was there. Never. Why tonight, of all nights?

  Maybe because he senses that something is wrong, the voice in his head said. It didn’t sound like Meg anymore.

  He can’t. He can’t know anything.

  Krelig didn’t seem angry, but of course, that meant nothing. Calen waited to see if maybe Krelig had gone to fetch the other mages after all and was just leading them in, but no one else entered behind him. He walked straight over to where Calen was sitting and sat across from him. He continued to sit there, silently, just looking at Calen.

  Calen thought carefully about what to say. What would he have said if this had happened yesterday? Would he have asked whether something was wrong?

  Maybe?

  “Is something wrong?” he asked, and immediately wished he hadn’t. Mage Krelig’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  “I don’t know, boy. Why don’t you tell me?”

  Calen fought panic. This could be about anything. Or nothing. Don’t give yourself away, curse you.

  “Did you — did you want me to bring the other mages down for dinner? I didn’t know . . .”

  “Don’t play the fool with me,” Krelig said. His voice was doing that scary calm thing that sometimes preceded violent action. “Something is different about you. I can tell. What is it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Mage Krelig didn’t move, but Calen saw the red energy a second before he felt the blinding pain in his head. He screamed and jerked backward, knocking over his chair and falling to the floor. The pain stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Mage Krelig was still seated, still looking at him calmly.

  “What is it?” Krelig asked again.

  Calen was suddenly furious. Good! he thought frantically. Use that — fury is better than fear.

  And it was.

  Without another second of thought, he sent his own red-energy spell at Krelig. He wasn’t quite able to do it without moving his hand, though, and Krelig’s eyes widened as he realized what Calen was doing. He blocked the spell easily, but seemed caught off-guard by it all the same. “What —?”

  “You want to know what’s wrong? I’ll tell you!” Calen said, pushing himself up off the floor. “What did you bring those other mages here for?”

  “What? You knew —”

  “I knew you were going to get other mages to turn against the Magistratum. I didn’t know you were going to bring them here and turn this place into a boardinghouse! I didn’t know you were going to parade me in front of them and tell them how unimpressive I was. You brought me here because I was the one you needed, the one who was going to help you. I didn’t want to come, I never wanted to, but you made me! You took me away from everything, made them all hate me — and now you’re just going to bring in a bunch of other mages and — and . . .”

  Krelig stared at him in astonishment, then burst out laughing.

  Calen just stood there, breathing hard. He had no idea what that meant. He had no idea where that little speech had come from, either, for that matter. He had just been trying to think of something, anything to distract Krelig. He didn’t really feel that way. Did he?

  “Oh —” Krelig said, as soon as the laughter subsided enough that he could speak. “Oh, Calen. Is that — is that really what this is about? Are you jealous?” He started laughing again, but not quite as uncontrollably this time. He pointed at the chair. “Sit down, sit down. Let me explain some things to you.”

  Calen righted his chair and sat back down at the table, eyeing the mage warily.

  Still chuckling, Krelig wiped at his eyes and then made a little gesture with his hand, which made a goblet of wine appear before him on the table in a burst of purple energy. “You’re not being replaced, my boy, although I’m touched to know that you would care so much.” His tone conveyed just enough sarcasm to suggest he knew that Calen didn’t really care in any way that indicated affection or loyalty, but Calen thought the older man was a little affected by Calen’s outburst all the same. Maybe just by the idea that there was anything at all keeping Calen here other than his inability to leave.

  “You are the one I need — make no mistake. My visions were quite clear about that. With you by my side, I cannot fail. Without you . . . my success is not guaranteed. I would probably still achieve my goals . . . but not definitely. Not for certain. And I’m not about to leave anything to chance. Not this time.” He paused, and Calen wondered if he was remembering whatever had gone wrong the last time he’d faced the other mages, all those years ago, when they’d beaten him and exiled him forever. Or what they thought would be forever. For a moment, Krelig’s face went still and he seemed to be looking inward, at something he did not like at all. He almost looked . . . afraid. And then he gave his head a little shake and refocused on Calen. His expression cleared, and he went on as though he’d never stopped.

  “Believe me when I say that I need you with me, Calen. I will never cast you aside. You and I are going to do great things together; never fear.” His eyes glinted with apparent excitement at those great things, and he took a sip of his wine. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t need others to stand with us. We are powerful, you and I, more than any of these other so-called mages, but we can still use them to our advantage, to make us stronger — do you see?”

  “Yes, but —”

  “Of course,” Krelig went on, his smile fading, “we’re only going to do great things together if you stop resisting your full power.”

  Calen felt his hands curl into fists almost of their own volition. He was so tired of this conversation.

  “I am not —”

  “What did I tell you about saying no to me?”

  Calen knew he should be scared, but all he could feel was anger. Anger at being threatened and beaten and tortured when he didn’t learn quickly enough. Anger at everything Krelig was planning to do to the people and the world that Calen loved. Anger that Krelig knew so much, so much, and it was all going to waste.

  “Then stop telling me I’m resisting!” Calen shouted. “If you’d stop saying things to me that aren’t true, I wouldn’t have to say no to you, would I?”

  Krelig’s eyes blazed with fury. “You insolent —”

  “What are you going to do — hurt me? Like this?” He lashed out, sending another blood-red spell at his new master. Krelig blocked it
even as he remained otherwise completely still, apparently mesmerized by Calen’s behavior. “And this? And this?” He climbed out of his chair and backed away, not to run, but because he suddenly felt too confined, he needed more room, he needed more space around him to draw in the energy. Krelig just sat and watched him, anger and astonishment and an odd sort of curiosity warring in his expression.

  “I’m tired of being punished for nothing!” Calen went on. He kept sending bolt after bolt of energy at Krelig. He didn’t care that they weren’t landing, that Krelig would be able to block anything he sent before it so much as grazed him. It felt so good just to be sending them. To just let go of all the fear and caution and attack with everything he had. It felt more than good. It felt wonderful.

  He fired again and again, and when he next spoke, he heard his voice grow stronger and louder with each phrase. “Stop telling me I’m not trying!” he screamed. “Stop telling me I’m resisting! Does it look like I’m resisting to you?” He punctuated that last question with a swirling ball of fiery red-black-orange and sent it straight at Krelig’s hateful face.

  He watched it shatter into pieces against the shield that Krelig had, somewhat hastily, flung up to block it.

  Calen stopped then, abruptly spent. He didn’t think he could manage to light a candle right at that moment. He stood, the room silent except for his own labored breathing and the pounding of his heart. But it still wasn’t fear that was causing it. He stood, not afraid, waiting to see what Krelig would do.

  “No,” Krelig said finally, his voice soft, but not quite in the way it tended to be when he was most angry. Calen didn’t hear any anger his voice. It sounded more like . . . wonder.

  Krelig leaned back in his chair. Incredibly, he grinned. “No,” he said again. “It doesn’t look like you’re resisting at all. Not anymore.”

  Calen blinked. Then, in a great rush, he realized what the man meant.

  He thought again about how good it had felt to let go. To let go. To stop . . . doing whatever he’d been doing before. Holding back. He hadn’t known it; he’d been sure that he was trying as hard as he could . . . but Krelig had been right. He had been holding back.