1 Executive Lunch

by Maria E. Schneider

  I opened my eyes. "Thanks."

  "It doesn't look that much better." My friend eyed my hand critically.

  "I kept it from going outside my hand and that meant the blood pooled. It will get better."

  "Do you want to tell me what this is about?" Bridget was younger than me by twenty years. Her hair was still a soft brown that matched the honey color of her gentle eyes. To look at her, you would never guess she could bend metal with her bare hands.

  I shook my head. "I may need a suffusion of copper for some plants, but I haven't time to wait for it right now. Shelby's field--I think that is his name--is under attack. I need to get back to the garden and get some additional treatment for my hand and find out who did this."

  Bridget raised a single eyebrow. "Attack? The entire field?"

  "Cleverly infected," I said. "Give it a couple of days and it will spread. It will have to be burned."

  She winced. No farmer would take such news lightly or well. But there was no other hope for it. Rue, copper and thyme aside, some of the fungus would escape notice even if I stood in the field for days and hunted it down. It simply wasn't a practical use of my powers. Besides, saving one twenty-acre field would drain me--and whoever had done this probably knew that.

  "What can I do?" Bridget asked.

  "Alert Rhonda and Garth. Get them started looking at other fields. Any field that is as far gone as his will have to be destroyed." Garth and Rhonda owned the most premier gardening school in all of the seven kingdoms and many of the students would be trained enough to help.

  "You think other fields are infected already?" Bridget asked worriedly.

  "I don't know. They will all have to be checked." And we both knew that if there were too many of them, we would have a fight on our hands. The farmers wouldn't relish burning their crop. But even if we didn't burn them, we had a problem because rotted fields wouldn't produce food. Perhaps that was the Rat plan all along. A hungry enemy is an enemy willing to deal.

  I made my way quickly back home, but I was tired. It was only noon, and I had much work in front of me. Unfortunately, my dear husband, Ward, had also come back to our little cottage for lunch.

  He towered in the doorway. Bridget, like most villagers, had access to the messenger pigeons and must have gotten word to him before I arrived.

  "Demetria, Demetria." He looked at my hand, his handsome face scowling deeply. You would think that a Dungeon Master would be pale, but Ward spent many an hour in the sun supervising prisoners. His black hair was almost all silver now. As time touched him lightly, making its changes, he grew more handsome and dear to me.

  "Oh Ward," I swallowed pitifully. I tucked myself into his waiting arms, and he held me close until he was satisfied that collapse wasn't imminent.

  "I could have come with you." His deep voice rumbled through his chest into my ear.

  "It should have been nothing more than a crop rotation problem." I eased myself from his arms. By habit, he reached for my hand to hold it. I winced and yanked away.

  Clouds rolled over his face. "I will go with you from now on!" he bellowed.

  "Ward," I said, knowing we didn't have time for this argument, "most of the time it is a simple thing! I don't quite understand how this rot got established so quickly, but it is magical. The field is halfway from here to the outer wall. It's likely that whoever did it started the disease in a central region that could then leak all over."

  His eyebrows remained furrowed. "I'll get the horses. You need to eat."

  I grabbed a bit of cheese, but shook my head. "It's rue that I need, and a live plant at that. I want to make sure there's not any fungus or evil magic left in my hand." Rue had anti-magical properties as well as anti-fungal ones. The problem of course was that I didn't want the stuff negating my own magic.

  My dear husband growled, "I'll get the horses. You're not walking about in the hot sunshine after what you have been through. No doubt we'll be checking several fields."

  He slammed the door when he left, a stern warning for me not to leave without him. Not that I would. I was very worried about the way the fungus had been applied. Rats were extremely intelligent and sneaky, but even a Rat would expect eventual gain. Did they really think to negotiate with us after the crop was destroyed? Was it merely an attempt to weaken the kingdom?

  I chewed my food on the way to the garden. Because rue also causes drowsiness, I was extremely careful when I gently rubbed the leaves.

  Like a bolt, it aimed for me, attracted to my magic and the residual fungus. Rue loves nothing more than to assimilate, coat and smother. Like many magics, its nature is a boon and a curse.

  I harvested enough leaves for three large packets. Each bundle had to be specially wrapped in silk to keep the anti-magic properties still.

  Next, I went to my favorite oak tree. "There is a fungus growing." I described the valley in terms the tree would understand; a vast ocean where few oak roots lived. It was then a matter of Oak sending the request around root paths that stretched even past the kingdom boundaries.

  Oaks do not grow fast, but they do talk quickly. I received images so fast, it blurred. We had to backtrack twice so that I could get my bearings. I had gathered eight landmarks when Oak mentioned in passing, "one of those human marks." My mouth dropped. Normally Oak wouldn't bother with our markers, but even to a tree, the wall that bordered that part of the kingdom was a prominent marker. For one, the stones went into the ground, and to the tree, this was a root block. For two, the wall was a sun block. "The fungus is all the way to the wall?" I thanked Oak in a rush, promising a treat later. There really wasn't much I could give a full-grown oak that already had decent sunlight and rain, but Oak was partial to me sitting beneath his generous branches and reading him a story, crazy as it sounds.

  I hurried back to the cottage to find my husband waiting. "Ward, the rot is at the wall!"

  "Which?"

  "The far one." From my agitated state I could well imagine that he had worried that the rot had somehow managed to reach the castle wall.

  His lips thinned and he nodded sharply. "Garth and Rhonda set out as soon as Bridget informed them. We will contain it."

  As far as magic, Garth was almost my level. That is to say he was already a Master Magician, but I've been around longer so I knew a few more tricks. I taught a class or two at Garth and Rhonda's university when time allowed.

  It wasn't allowing right now, and I clenched my jaw even though my husband's next words were meant to be reassuring. "Bridget is making some copper solutions, although she needs you to verify the quantities of copper. At the moment, she is making strong batches for dilution later."

  He handed me my leather pith helmet, and I buckled it under my chin. No carefree bonnets this time. With an enemy afoot there would be nothing dumber than relying on magic as my only protection. Too many magicians have been killed by no more than a mundane arrow for lack of preparation.

  My husband wore a heavier metal visor. He was a likelier target being bigger, male and more than capable of fighting hand-to-hand combat.

  We made a fine and elegant pair. I rode proudly astride my black mare, tall and straight (well, my back curves just a tad), wearing long boots (I would dearly love to get out of them), and a clean, trusty green cape whose pockets were full of packets of thyme and rue.

  I told Ward more of what Oak had shared, describing the trees as best I could.

  "We'll get it under control," he promised. "Garth will have advanced students out in the fields. They can learn a lot from this and we'll need the help."

  "Did you send a message to the king?" I fretted.

  "Just a minor note. I had no idea that Oak would reveal this much spread."

  Tonight would be soon enough for long discussions. We probably couldn't burn all the affected fields today anyway.

  We were not even halfway there when a rider hailed us. "Teacher! Elders!"

  As we closed the distance, the rider reigned in heavily, panting nearly as hard
as her horse. Her young face was bathed in sweat and, good heavens! Her skin showed at least two black patches along her arm.

  "It's…it's…madness!" she shouted.

  I reached for the rue and the thyme. "Get hold of yourself," I commanded. "Where is your thyme? Did you bring rue?" The girl was not yet in her teens. She likely hadn't the experience to work with rue, so I performed a scant rubbing, keeping the silk between it and me.

  She breathed easier the minute the rue touched her skin. I knew the false energy jolt that she felt. It happened right before the rue tricked you into taking too much and knocking you out cold so that it could continue working its magic. I pulled the chemicals up a bit, choking them back into the silk.

  "Oh," the girl swooned.

  Damn drugs. Too much and she would only remember the instant relief and the giddy surge of well-being without learning the dangers. "Are there other spots?"

  "No," she sighed. "Just the two on my arm." Her eyes widened as she remembered how it had happened. "The spores exploded! I stood well away as I was told. I was only watching, but Mira!" Her breathing began hard again. "Mistress Rhonda said to fly to the castle and sound the alarms! The fungus had Mira almost completely before I could get Mistress Rhonda!"

  "Where?"

  "At the wall! It was worst there and Master Garth was back at the first farm. I looked, but couldn't find him at all and, oh, I do not think Mira will make it!" The tears started, and I couldn't blame her. I had an inkling of what the fungus could do. What I had seen this morning had taken hold and was strong, but if the magic was worse at the wall…

  I shuddered. "Ride on, girl! Get the warning out and make sure it is understood that we'll need Fire Masters immediately!" It would take magic and fire to get this under control and we had best hurry.

  We rode hard, flying across the hills and into the valley, still green and giving no clue as to the blight. As we closed in, I could see smoke just beginning. Either the Fire Masters had arrived or someone had gotten desperate with a torch.

  "Chaos," my husband declared.

  I hadn't the breath to agree, and from horseback, I couldn't talk to my plants to get an update. There was nothing to do but pound our way forward.

  It did not take a genius to figure out why my garden plants had not reported sooner. As we passed Shelby's field to the next one, there was old burn. A swath of twenty yards where nothing grew delineated the fields. The field to the south was in worse shape than Shelby's, but the dead ground in-between had kept the plants from getting their complaint to me directly.

  Ah, even the sides of the next field had been carefully burned, cutting off all but the deepest root systems from reporting. Unfortunately, the greater plants with the best root systems often ignored the complaints from the lesser ones. They might have told me had I asked, but they hadn't gone out of their way to pass along such unworthy news. Oh, insidious magic indeed!

  We reached Rhonda near the wall, and thank the stars for it too. Two students fought a dusty, horrible fungus that grew roots up their legs almost to their arms. Before I could leap from my mount, my husband was off and helping me, keeping me carefully away from the black soot.

  I admit my balance was a bit shaky, but I do not know if it was shock from the sickened soil or my age. Either way, I thought it was about time that I considered graduating to that fine class of wizards that use a staff, perhaps a fine Redwood from the kingdom of Sparta.

  Yes, I know. You thought the magical staff was to focus energy and power. Phlooey. You don't see young wizards pointing staffs here and there, do you? The simple fact is that the young don't need staffs to lean on occasionally like us more mature wizards.

  Drat and double drat my ego!

  There wasn't time for my regrets. Rhonda was fading fast, unable to free the students. Running to the nearest scrub oak, I pulled, commanding the bush to borrow energy from every link available.

  While I worked, so did Ward. He is, of course, a Master Magician who speaks to stones. Who better to guard the dungeon than a Stone Master?

  The soil was contaminated here, and he could little use it, but the protective wall surrounding the kingdom was less than two hundred yards away. Under my husband's command, it hummed and vibrated. A fine line of powdered dirt formed and covered the roots that held the children. The soil smothered the treacherous fungus.

  Ready at last, I went to Rhonda and fed her the energy I had harvested. When I touched her, she gasped and tried desperately to drag her hand from the student. I had thought she was helping the young man, but instead, he had already become a minion. He was fungus now, and he had a hold of Rhonda and the girl next to him.

  "Blimey!" I screeched. "Rhonda, quick." I threw her an entire packet of rue. No young girl, she knew its contents and how to use them, but she was so drained, she could barely hold the packet. Her energy had been sucked nearly dry fighting off the students.

  It was too late for them. Their eyes blackened as I stood there helplessly. "Fire Masters," I wished aloud. "Oh…Ward, it is too late."

  ...Here ends the excerpt of "Sage: Tales from a Magical Kingdom."

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  Maria's website: BearMountainBooks.com