The Reluctant mage: Fisherman’s children

by Karen Miller

  Kerril sighed. “Deenie, I’ve known your father since first he came to the city. Whatever harsh words I say, I say them out of love.” She sighed again. “I’ve sent for Ulys. As soon as she comes, cajole Dathne to bed. You could sleep more too. And if you’ve any concerns, send for me at once.”

  After Kerril was gone, Deenie trudged up the spiral staircase to find her mother. The day wasn’t even half over and already it was full of pain.

  Prob’ly I shouldn’t have told Charis about Rafel. But I had to tell someone. I couldn’t sit on that, like an egg.

  And as for Pother Kerril…

  “Mama,” she said, entering Da’s sweetly scented, silent chamber. “We need to talk.”

  Seated by Da’s bedside, his hand in hers, Mama looked round. Her eyes were heavy with the herbs in Kerril’s posset. “I’m not sending him away, Deenie. I’m not giving him to strangers. So if you’ve come up here to rail at me on that, you can—”

  “No, Mama, of course I haven’t.” Distressed, she hurried to her mother’s chair and dropped to a crouch. “How could you think it? I don’t want Da in a hospice any more than you do.”

  Sighing, Mama stroked her hair. “Good.”

  She had to blink back a swift sting of tears. “But, Mama, Pother Kerril’s right about one thing. You need to rest more. If Da could see how fratched you are he’d start throwing plates.”

  “Deenie.” Mama looked at Da, so quiet beside them. “How can I waste my time in sleep when every hour I sit with him might be the last?”

  “Mama—”

  “Poor Deenie,” Mama said softly, still stroking her hair. “These past months have been hard on you, haven’t they?”

  “And on you.” Rafel. “But Mama—”

  Breathing deeply, her mother smothered a yawn. Kerril’s posset was fast taking effect. “Have I disappointed you, Deenie? Do you wish I was out there, fighting for Lur, instead of staying cooped up here in the Tower?”

  Yes. No. Maybe. “Mama, it’s all right. I understand.”

  “No, you don’t,” said her mother. “How could you? In many ways you’re still a child. Deenie, I was younger than you are now when I learned I was Jervale’s Heir—and almost every day since, I’ve fought for this kingdom. But I can’t face another battle, not on my own. Not without your father.” Her voice broke. “I just can’t. I’m worn down, Deenie. I’m done.”

  “Mama…” Hearing her own voice crack, Deenie pressed her lips tight until she could trust herself to speak. “What about the Circle? Couldn’t it help?”

  Mama raised Da’s hand to her cheek. “The Circle’s long broken, Deenie. Aside from me only Jinny is left—and neither of us have the magic in us that Lur needs.”

  “Rafe does,” she said, troubled. Should I tell her? I should tell her. “Mama—about Rafe—”

  And then, between heartbeats, she changed her mind. The last thing her mother needed now was something else to fratch her. Especially when there was nothing either of them could do.

  “What?” said Mama. Her head was nodding, her eyes drooped almost closed. “Deenie, is something wrong?”

  Deenie kissed her cheek. “No, Mama. Everything’s fine.”

  The sound of footsteps on the spiral staircase reached them, and a moment later the novice pother Ulys was tapping on the open chamber door. So she left Ulys to keep Da company and helped Mama to her chamber and into her bed. And then, even though she had chores, and cooking, she pulled up a chair and settled herself to make sure her mother slept.

  Before the posset claimed her completely, Mama opened her eyes. “I love your father, Deenie,” she whispered. “I love him more than my life. But I tell you, I’m so cross with him for doing this to me I could spit.”

  Deenie rubbed her mother’s thin arm. “I know, Mama. I know.”

  Her mother slid into sleep then, and she drowsed a little herself, only to startle awake when Mama began to toss restlessly beneath the bedcovers.

  “—should’ve burned that diary, Asher. You had no business keeping it. You had no right to lie!”

  Shocked, Deenie stared. Her mother might be muttering now, but once she’d shouted those words. Shouting and anger were loud in her sleeping face.

  Da lied to Mama? I can’t believe it. And I’ve never heard of a diary, either. Not one that should’ve been burned.

  So what story had she never been told, not even by that ole rattle-tongue Darran?

  “No secrets, we promised,” Mama muttered, resentful. “He broke his word to me. To me. How could he? That sinking diary. More trouble than it’s worth. Asher—” On a gasp, Mama’s eyes fluttered open. Mizzled with sleep and Pother Kerril’s posset, she blinked in the chamber’s gentle glimlight. “Deenie? Is something wrong?”

  She leaned close. “Everything’s fine, Mama. You were dreaming. Mama—” Go on. Go on. You might never get another chance. “Why d’you think Da should’ve burned the diary?”

  “Why?” said Mama, her half-lidded gaze blurry. “Because it was Barl’s, of course. He had no business keeping it. Horrible thing. Full of old Doranen magic. He told me he’d burned it.” Her face twisted, tears threatening. “But he lied.”

  Deenie felt her heart thud. “Barl’s diary? That sounds important, Mama. If Da didn’t burn it, where is it now?”

  “Mustn’t tell,” Mama said, her eyes drifting closed again. “It’s a secret.”

  Heart still thudding, Deenie watched her mother slide back into sleep. Barl’s diary. No wonder it was hidden. No wonder Da had lied. He was right to lie, if lying meant Doranen like Arlin Garrick and his father never knew it existed.

  But even so…

  Oh, Rafe. If only you’d known of it. If you’d had that diary with you perhaps you’d not be in trouble now.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Hearing soft, shuffling footsteps on the brickwork behind him, Arlin stopped cleaning his saddle and turned. It was Fernel Pintte and his faithful shadow, Goose—drooling idiot and Rafel’s best friend.

  We should have left him behind in that rotted village. He serves no useful purpose… and he makes my skin crawl.

  “You’re riding out again?” said Pintte, standing with the idiot in the aisle between the still-empty stables. “So soon?”

  He’d returned to the mansion only two days ago, after six days spent finding and dragging back with him another three pathetic victims of Morg’s sundered self. Two men and a woman, this time. The sorcerer had consumed and discarded them in swift succession, too greedy for leisurely, luxurious murder, then locked himself away to seek out other vessels. The more pieces of his power he collected the more he needed, it seemed… and the less willing he became to simply wait for their vessels to answer his call.

  Which is just what we need, of course. An impatient, unpredictable, all-powerful sorcerer.

  “I ride when Morg commands,” he said, and scrubbed a brush over the dried mud on his saddle’s girth. “Why? Does my absence inconvenience you, Meister Mayor?”

  “You think there’s cause to mock me?” said Pintte, his face flushed a sickly pink. “Why would you mock me, Arlin? What harm ever did I do to you?”

  The stables were smothered in cobwebs. Idiot Goose had shambled across the brickwork to the nearest dirty window and now stared open-mouthed and vacant-eyed at a fly caught up in sticky strands.

  Arlin stopped scrubbing the dirty girth. “What harm? Let’s see…” He pretended to think. “Oh, yes! You got my father killed. I think that’s harm enough to be going on with, don’t you?”

  “I never did,” said Pintte, chin lifting. “That was Asher and his son.”

  “Perhaps. But you helped.”

  “And you’re blameless?” Pintte retorted. “You were there, Arlin. You’re a mage. And I don’t recall you lifting a finger to help him.” The Olken’s face twisted. “But then there was no love lost between you and Rodyn Garrick, was there?”

  Unthinking, reacting with blind fury, he lashed out with fist and power, hurtling Pint
te across the stable block’s aisle and crashing him into a closed stable door. Dust belched. Echoes boomed. The shambling idiot Goose dropped to the brickwork floor moaning, arms clutched to his head.

  A thread of blood trickled from Pintte’s right nostril. Sprawled on the bricks, splayed awkwardly against the old, bleached timber, his thin chest heaved and heaved for air.

  And then, shockingly, he laughed.

  “You think you scare me, Lord Garrick? After Morg?” With a grunt he rolled over, found his unsteady feet and crabbed to the half-wit. “There now, Goose,” he crooned, one dirty hand gently patting a broad shoulder. “No harm done. No harm. Pay no mind to our Doranen friend, there. He’s a noisy, blustering shit but he can’t do us any mischief.”

  Vaguely ashamed of himself, and furious for that, Arlin watched Pintte help the idiot scrabble to standing. Almost rags, their clothes were now. Morg refused to give them any of the fine garments that were stored in the mansion. Hollow-eyed, hollow-cheeked, Pintte was a harried servant now, hounded to keep the estate and its captives in some kind of order. The idiot Goose had just enough wits left to fetch and carry, to chop wood and pull the guts out of dead deer and boar. Since neither man was fodder for beasting, they lived by capricious Morg’s lightest whim.

  As do I. And Pintte knows it.

  “So he commands you to ride out again,” said the once peacock-proud Olken. “How many more of his pieces will you bring back this time?”

  Arlin stepped sideways, clear of his saddle on its wooden stand, and slumped a shoulder against the brick wall. The mud-brush dangled negligent in his fingers. “I don’t know.”

  With his arm still sheltering round the idiot’s shoulders, Pintte ran a hand down his drawn, stubbled face. “How many more are out there? Has he said?”

  “He says little.”

  “He says enough,” said Pintte, his voice raw with bitter pain. “Arlin, can’t you stop him?”

  He felt his lips peel back in a savage smile. “Why, yes, Fernel, of course I can. The reason I haven’t is because the sight of him slaughtering innocents and turning men and women into beasts amuses me so much I can’t bear the thought of being deprived of the entertainment.”

  Fernel Pintte looked at him, his eyes bleak. “There’s not a day gone by when I was wrong about your kind. The Doranen are a blight and a curse upon the world.”

  For once he wasn’t in the mood to argue that point. How could he, when Morg’s existence made it true? But even so, no mere Olken could be permitted such disrespect.

  “Idleness offends, Pintte,” he said curtly. “So you and your addled pet can make yourselves useful. My horse needs fetching from the field and saddling. See to it.”

  Dull rebellion seethed beneath Pintte’s silence, but the Olken didn’t dare disobey Morg’s favoured assistant. To do so would be to invite an unspeakable retribution. Instead he caught idiot Goose’s ragged sleeve in a tight grip and tugged the doltish creature out of the shadowed stables and into the bright, unforgiving light of day.

  Arlin shook his head.

  And so the ignorant leads the idiot. What a world this is.

  He returned to the mansion. Each of its doors was guarded by Morg’s mindless, faithfully obedient bestial slaves. Familiarity with the dravas had not bred contempt. It didn’t matter how many times he was confronted by a snout, a tusk, a horny hide or a barbed tail, every time was like the first. Every time he felt his breath catch and his heart thump and a prickle of sweat break out on his brow and down his spine. The magic that made the creatures slept unquiet beneath their skins. They tainted the air. They darkened the sun. They were unnatural in such deep ways there was no easy abiding them.

  As he entered the mansion through its side scullery door, forced to pass between two viciously tusked beasts, Arlin dropped his gaze to the flagstones. Dravas could—they would—disembowel in a heartbeat if they detected a threat. He’d seen it as he travelled to collect Morg’s summoned pieces. The stink of spilled blood and shit and guts never left him. The sound of claws and teeth tearing. The animal shrieks of the dying. Whenever he closed his eyes he found the memories behind his eyelids, waiting to pounce.

  He wasn’t sleeping so well, these days.

  Heavy with resignation, he made his way to the mansion’s top floor, one vast space beneath its old, gabled roof. Morg spent most of his time there, sending arcane summons, reuniting himself, sitting in silent meditation as he gathered his strength. Plotting his second subjugation of the known world.

  And here I am, helping him. Wouldn’t Father be proud?

  Plodding step by step up the staircase, he wondered yet again why he didn’t just kill himself. He might be denied self-harm by an unbreakable compulsion spell, but doubtless if he provoked a dravas he could get the job done. The trouble was…

  I don’t want to. I have no desire to die.

  Doubtless Rafel would call that craven. But he wasn’t about to let that bother him, since it was unlikely Rafel would ever know.

  At last he reached Morg’s eyrie. Standing on the other side of its closed, brass-bound door, he waited to be summoned within. He never had to knock. Morg always knew when he was there. But this time he waited, and he waited, and no summons came. So at last he did knock. Not hard, just a light, respectful tap.

  Still no summons.

  On a deep breath, with a pounding heart, he unlatched the heavy door and pushed it open.

  Morg sat, as he always sat, in a plain high-backed wooden chair facing the chamber’s large circular window. The morning’s sunlight fell on him like a benediction, bathing him in a suffused, golden glow. Aside from the chair, the room was empty. Unimpressive, even. Its floor was unadorned polished timber, its plain walls painted an unremarkable cream. Nothing about the chamber suggested power or cruelty. It was a vacant space, filled entirely with the presence of one man.

  Arlin closed the door behind him and stood, silently waiting. Morg shared the same silence, his ring-laden fingers clasping the wooden chair’s arms. Malleable in the sunlight, time stretched on and on without purpose.

  At last, sick with fear and hating himself for fearing, Arlin softly cleared his throat. “Master?”

  The man in the chair did not reply or even stir. But he wasn’t dead. The power in him was vibrant, swirling the warm, dry air.

  “Master,” he said again. “I am come, so you might command me.”

  Still, Morg said nothing.

  “Master,” he said yet again, his heart pounding harder. Dangerous, treacherous hope flickered, a tiny flame in the dark.

  Let this be over. Let him be sitting there poisoned by his own sick soul.

  When Morg continued silent, he risked his life by approaching the chair without permission. By circling it until he could look into Morg’s face.

  Eyes wide and unblinking, Asher’s son stared back at him. Beneath the sorcerer’s jewelled silk tunic his chest lightly rose and fell. Shocked almost speechless, Arlin dropped to one knee and reached out his hand.

  “No, don’t touch me,” Rafel whispered, with a tiny, desperate shake of his head. “You’ll wake him.”

  Rafel. It was Rafel. But how was that possible? And how was it possible he should feel such relief? Such joy? Yet he did. Ridiculous.

  This man murdered my father. Helped murder my father. What does it matter that I never loved Rodyn Garrick? He was my father. He was Doranen. The Olken should pay for his death.

  And yet… and yet…

  “I know,” said Rafel, still hushed. “I can’t believe I’m glad to see you, either.”

  He ignored that. “You say Morg’s sleeping?”

  “Not exactly. It’s more like a trance.”

  Incredulous, Arlin rested his fists on his bent knee. Oh, for a sword. For a dagger—or even a rock.

  I could beat his brains out. I could kill him where he sits.

  “No, you couldn’t,” whispered Rafel. “You’re compelled to obedience, remember? That includes no act of murder. You’d
turn a dagger on yourself first.”

  “You know that?”

  A single tear fell on Rafel’s pallid cheek. “I know all of it, Arlin. I know everything he’s done and everything he plans to do. He makes sure of it. He likes to feel my agony when he kills. When he savours the coming enslavement of every land that escaped his tyranny after Da UnMade him. Or tried to.”

  There was truth in that. Another man’s agony, to Morg, was better than fine wine. “And why does he permit you to speak to me now?”

  Rafel smiled, as a ghost would smile. If there were ghosts. “He doesn’t. I’ve outwitted him, but I can’t stay surfaced for long.”

  “Outwitted him?” Disbelieving, Arlin shook his head. “That’s not possible. He isn’t a mage, Rafel, he’s a sorcerer. His powers—what he knows, what he can do—not even you can—”

  “Yes, I can,” said Rafel. Beneath his anguish there was pride. “And this isn’t the first time. But it’s getting harder and harder to break free. Arlin—”

  “How are you doing it?” he demanded. “Tell me. Show me. There might be a way—”

  “For us to link in a working and expel him?” Another ghostly smile. “You think I’ve not thought of that? We daren’t even try. One touch and he’d taste you. He’s still in here, Arlin. It’s just that for these precious moments he’s oblivious. He’s seeking. Summoning. There are still many parts of himself he’s yet to consume.”

  “How many? How complete is he? How soon will he be ready to transmute?”

  “I don’t know,” said Rafel, slowly blinking. “Some things he glories in showing me. Others he keeps hidden. That’s one of them. All I can tell you is that he’s like an artist, creating a self-portrait. And every gathered piece adds another layer to the picture.”

  He struck a fist to his knee. “Rafel, you must know more than that!”

  “I know he’s widely scattered, across hundreds of leagues and several sovereign lands. And I know many of the vessels carrying his scattered powers sicken and die, so those pieces are lost to him until they find a new vessel to sustain them. Some are even lost for good.”