The Reluctant mage: Fisherman’s children

by Karen Miller

  Oh, Da. I’m so tired.

  She felt scoured raw inside, smashed to quivering pieces. Felt herself drifting, like a cloud.

  Is this it, then? Am I dying?

  She thought she must be, and was sorry, in an odd, far-off way. Very slowly, she blinked. Prob’ly Da would want her to keep on fighting, but she couldn’t. I’m sorry, Da. I’m all fought out. Just like her mother. I’m sorry I was fratched, Mama. I had no idea. So it was up to Arlin now. He could be the Doranen hero. He’d like that. He really was a poxy shit.

  As she lay there, idly drifting, she felt her mage-sense stir. Go away. Leave me alone. But it wouldn’t. She felt it stir again, that horrible prickling that warned of beasts and wanderers and whirlpools and ’spouts.

  Hovered beneath the chamber’s ceiling, the cloud of blight shivered. Shivered. Trembled into life. But there was no crazed writhing now, no furious thrashing from wall to wall to wall. No. It moved steadily, with purpose, sinking towards the marble floor, gathering in upon itself. Cunning and sly.

  Heart thudding, Deenie stared at it. Then, with a groaning effort, one-handed, her injured shoulder on fire, she sat up. Dragged her sleeve across her face to clear her smeary, bloodied vision. Blinked. Blinked again.

  Oh, no.

  The cloud of blight was changing colour. Changing shape. She could see through it now as its menace bubbled in her blood. Her mage-sense was shrieking, chattering her teeth. The blight shivered again. Became a figure. Became a man. Blond hair. Piercing eyes. A thin, cruel mouth.

  Morg.

  Churned almost to vomiting, Deenie scrambled to her feet.

  A familiar voice whispered: No running this time. This time you’re mine, you bitch, you slut, you treacherous whore.

  The places within her that he’d scarred with his touch leapt to burning, blighting life. And then she felt a terrible pressure, felt the weight of his remade self bear down on her, felt Morg seeking his brutal way in, determined to take her and break her and make her his new puppet.

  Inch by inch she was driven to her knees.

  I can’t… I can’t…

  Not even the reef had prepared her for this. And being Asher’s daughter wasn’t enough. Not this time. Though she fought with all her strength her soul was splintering and Morg, laughing and triumphant, poured himself through the cracks. She was drowning. She was drowning. And there was nothing she could do.

  Then she heard a hiss of fury. Felt the sorcerer’s onslaught falter, felt him draw back in dismay and disgust as he encountered some deep, hidden part of her mind.

  Barl.

  As Morg thrashed inside her, furious, Deenie reached out and touched this other, kinder scar left behind by Dragonteeth Reef. And there was an echo of the magic she’d read in Barl’s diary. Incredibly, there was an echo of her. So she hadn’t imagined it. What remained of Barl in the reef had changed her.

  Morg was still raging. Bitch. Slut. Whore. Traitor. But it was more than anger, it was grief and pain and despair. Feeling it, Deenie realised Barl’s ghostly presence had overpowered him—just as he was overpowering her. So she had this moment, this tiny ticktock, to turn his brief overturning into his defeat.

  A sliver of her mage-sense remained unconsumed. Weeping, she clung to it with the tattered remnants of her strength and struggled to find a way to use it while she still could.

  Beautiful Elvado, the city of mages. Centuries of magic seeped into its bones.

  So Barl wrote in her diary, lamenting all she’d lost.

  Centuries of magic.

  Doranen magic, the most powerful ever known. In its pure form not blighted. Not tainted by Morg. And what was Deenie the mouse, the Innocent Mage’s daughter, if not a conduit for power? So that meant she could use it, surely—if she could find it beneath Morg’s ravaging blight. But to find it she’d have to abandon what remained of her pitiful defenses and pray she succeeded before Morg won.

  Oh, Da.

  Sick with terror, she stopped fighting. And of course Morg felt it, he felt her resistance collapse. Fury flashed to fresh triumph. His gleeful laughter thrummed her bones.

  Don’t listen to him, Deenie. Listen to Barl instead.

  With that stubborn surviving sliver of mage-sense, with the slumskumbledy part of herself that belonged to her mother, she embraced the scar Barl had left behind and reached for the memory of ancient Doranen power.

  Beautiful Elvado, the city of mages. Centuries of magic seeped into its bones.

  With a sharp pang she felt Morg’s surprise, and then his explosion of anger for this one, small trick. She pushed his rage aside so it wouldn’t distract.

  Help me, Barl. Help me. It’ll be your victory too.

  She could feel Morg’s searing blight and his passion for her destruction. She could hear herself screaming as he punished her with pain. It didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter. This mattered. Nothing else.

  Help me, Barl. Help me.

  And there it was. There it was. Doranen magic. Doranen power. Faint but unmistakable, faint but familiar, filling her with a strange sense of home. Shouting her relief, Deenie invited it in. And the magic poured through her, more powerful than blight.

  Morg was howling. She opened her eyes. Towering above her, the sorcerer raged and flailed.

  You bitch, you slut, you treacherous whore!

  Instinct. Desperation. On a cry she lunged upwards and plunged her right hand through the shimmering evil before her.

  And the power… the power… the power coursing through her veins…

  Morg caught fire. He was a man turned to paper and she was the flame. He burned—he burned—he burned—

  He died.

  Biting his lip, Ewen shifted himself carefully so he wouldn’t wake Charis. The wounds in his shoulder and hip burned with a constant, dull resentment, the pain not helped by the girl using his unhurt shoulder for a pillow—but he couldn’t rid himself of her. The tears had dried on her hollow cheeks, but even asleep he could see she still grieved. The man she loved dead, her best friend taken away by beasts…

  Her best friend. Deenie. He felt his own grief stir, waking his dull pain to a sharper suffering. The diary she gave him was pressed against his ribs.

  Robb looked at him. “Captain?” he said softly, out of habit. “You all right?”

  It was a fool question, and Robb knew it, but—“It’s fine, I am.”

  “And it’s sorry about the king, I am,” said Robb, his mouth turned down. Hain, listening and not drowsing like his fellow barracks men, nodded agreement.

  Letting his head rest against the dungeon wall, Ewen closed his eyes. “Murdo deserved a better death, he did.” Like Padrig, and every brain-rotted soul fallen victim to the sorcerer. “But it’s done, it is, Robb. Best let it go, I say.”

  As Robb nodded, accepting the gentle scold, Charis shifted against him, disturbed by their voices. Then she lifted her head. “Is she back? Is she all right?”

  She chafed him like ungreased leathers, this girl did, but still he felt a surge of pity. “No. Charis—”

  A terrible howl of agony burst out beyond their barred dungeon door. On and on and on it sounded, skincrawling and horribly inhuman. Robb leapt to his feet, the other barracks men right after. Charis scrambled up, then offered him her hand. Ewen hesitated, then wrapped his fingers round her wrist and let her help him to standing.

  “It’s the beasts,” said Robb, his voice raised, and took a step towards the door. “Something’s happened to the beasts, it has. D’you think—”

  The terrible howling stopped. Fighting treacherous hope, they stared at each other.

  “When Deenie’s da killed Morg—well, scattered him,” said Charis, the faintest thread of excitement in her voice, ��his beasts dropped dead and vanished. Every last one.”

  Robb turned, fighting to keep his barracks man face. “So he’s dead, you say? The sorcerer?”

  “He might be,” said Charis, suddenly cautious.

  Deenie. Heart thudding, Ewen
kept himself in hand. Her lips on his. The sweetness of her smile. “If his beasts are dead he must be, I say. And if he’s dead—”

  Charis shook her head. “No. Don’t you say it. Don’t you dare.” She clapped her hands to her ears. “I’m not listening to you, Ewen. I’m not.”

  But she’d have to face the truth, sooner or later. If Morg was dead then Deenie had killed him with her filthy Words of UnMaking. And that meant…

  In dreadful silence, they waited. And waited. And waited. Charis began weeping again, soundless tears sliding down her face. In the end Ewen returned to the floor, defeated by his wounds. And still they waited.

  When at last the dungeon door opened, they thought at first it might be some kind of trick—especially when they saw who it was in the doorway.

  “Arlin Garrick!” Charis spat. “What do you want?”

  The Doranen mage looked exhausted. “It’s over. Morg is dead.” And when they gaped at him, unmoving, twisted his lips in a bitter smile. “And Deenie lives.”

  “Is that true?” Charis demanded. “Or do you think to sport with us, Arlin?”

  Ewen glanced at her, approving. She’d stolen the words from his tongue.

  The Doranen sighed. “It’s true.”

  This time it was Robb who helped him onto his feet. Unevenly standing, shaken, he fixed the man with his coldest stare. “Take us to her.”

  “By all means, your Majesty,” said the Doranen, with another twisted smile. “Follow me.”

  Garrick led them up empty stairways, along empty corridors and through empty halls until they reached a chamber at the end of another empty corridor. Its door stood open.

  “After you,” he said, pretending generosity.

  Charis bolted inside, crying, “Deenie! Deenie!”

  Ablaze with pain, needing Robb to lean on, Ewen followed her. His heart was pounding.

  The lamplit chamber was a library, crowded with books. Morg—no, remember, that’s just Rafel now, it is—lay on a low sofa. Deenie, kneeling beside him, turned at the sound of Charis’s voice. Her left arm was bent and bound close to her chest, the pain of the injury plain to see. Another man hovered behind the sofa, an Olken from the look of him, with a foolishness in his face that spoke of a mind gone awry.

  The girls embraced awkwardly, laughing and weeping. Then Deenie retreated so Charis could weep over the man she loved.

  Robb stepped aside, leaving him to stand alone.

  “Ewen,” said Deenie, her smile a trembling, beautiful thing. Was she different? She looked different. But he couldn’t say exactly how. “Did I worry you? It’s sorry, I am.”

  He didn’t care that he was hurting, bad enough to make him retch. He opened his arms and whispered her name and, when she ran to him, held her close through the tears and the pain.

  Later, some four hours past dawn, after empty bellies were filled and wounds were treated and the aftermath of their captivity was dealt with, they gathered again in the comfortable library.

  Thanks to Robb and Vharne’s barracks men the dungeons of Elvado were emptied of the other kings and their servants and every living man, woman and child stolen into slavery. They’d fled soon after being freed, no matter their hurts, on foot and in horse-drawn carts. The once-empty city of Elvado was empty again, but for them.

  Now Robb and his barracks brothers stood sentinel around the bookshelves. Looking at them, Tavin’s trained and handpicked men, so self-contained and competent, Ewen thought he could burst with pride.

  The Doranen, Arlin Garrick, who’d explained to Robb where to find the rest of Elvado’s dungeons then disappeared about his own business, sat at one of the reading tables, a pile of parchments before him. Like Deenie, he was changed. His eyes were still shadowed but his torment had eased, and when he looked at her there was awe and a grudging respect.

  Charis perched on the low sofa’s edge, holding Rafel’s hand. He still slept. Deenie’s brother looked like a breathing corpse, he did, sunken eyes and sunken cheeks and not a word spoken, even in a dream. The foolish man, his friend Goose, sat on the floor by Rafel’s feet, mumbling softly under his breath now and then. A tragedy, he was, and the luckiest man alive.

  Padrig.

  “I know I sound like a noddyhead,” said Charis, shamefaced, “but—you’re sure Morg’s dead this time? He won’t come back?”

  Deenie exchanged looks with the Doranen. “I’m certain sure, Charis,” she said quietly. “I felt him die.”

  There was a chasm of darkness beneath her simple words. Ewen felt his guts twist, hearing it. She sat beside him on a second sofa brought to the chamber, her broken collarbone set and bound by Hain, Tavin’s best barracks healer, her hand warm in his, their knees lightly touching… but even so, she was leagues away.

  “I’ll tell you one day what happened, Ewen. Just not today.”

  He hadn’t argued when she said it. How could he? But her silence left him cold with dread.

  “So the sorcerer’s properly defeated,” he said. “What of his beasts? They’re truly dead with him?”

  “All dead,” said Garrick, with a vicious satisfaction. “Never to come again.”

  Unless you hanker after them, you do.

  As if he’d heard the thought, the mage stared at him. So haughty. Deenie was right, Arlin Garrick was an arrogant man. “Sorcery died with Morg. The world is scoured clean of blight.”

  Deenie pressed her lips to his cheek, careful not to touch his freshly salved wounds. “Don’t fratch yourself, Ewen. Arlin won’t betray us.”

  He had to believe she’d know.

  “I want to go home,” said Charis. “Can’t we please go home?”

  Deenie nodded, sombre. “Yes. Tomorrow.”

  Home. Lur. He looked down. Of course Deenie had to go. Her father was ailing. She had a people to save, just as he did. All those villagers lost in the rough. And Tavin waiting in the Vale, uneasy in the king’s seat, not knowing if Murdo’s son was alive or dead.

  Only the thought of losing Deenie tore fresh wounds in his heart.

  “Though I wonder how much of home is still standing,” Charis added, her voice unsteady.

  He felt Deenie shiver. “You mustn’t think like that, Charis.”

  She was trying to keep faith, but he had his doubts. From what she’d told him of her small kingdom’s sufferings, they’d be going home to heartbreak. Indeed, what she’d told him gave him pause for thought. But before he acted he’d have to consult Tavin, he would.

  “Whatever we find, Ewen,” said the arrogant Doranen, making free with his name, “you should know this. I intend to bring Lur’s Doranen here, to Elvado. Dorana is our ancestral home and we have been away too long.”

  He straightened, disbelieving. “You’d make this a land of mages again? After Morg?”

  “Ewen.” Deenie’s fingers tightened. “They have a right to a home, just as the Olken and the Vharne do. I’m sure once the dust has settled you and Arlin and your fellow kings can sit peaceably together and find common ground.”

  Unconvinced, he shook his head. “You say.”

  “And I say,” Garrick said, his eyes sharp. Sorcery is dead.”

  Which was a simple thing to say, but who could know what mages yet unborn might dream of?

  But that’s a worry for tomorrow, it is.

  Garrick tapped the parchments on the table before him. “I’ve retrieved from Morg’s apartments some ancient spells Rafel brought with him over the mountains. Among them is the incant to send a man many leagues in a heartbeat, but I don’t care to test it on so many at once, or this far from Lur.” His gaze shifted to Deenie’s brother, so silent, so still. “Nor do I care to risk anyone in frail health.”

  “Well, that’s easy fixed, that is,” said Deenie, less cheerful than she sounded. “Robb and his men kept back horses and carts, didn’t they, Ewen? So we’ll ride back to Vharne, all of us, and decide what’s next when we get there.”

  The last thing Deenie did before leaving Elvado was secure
Morg’s library with every binding incant she could find, finishing with a personal ward that only she could break. A reef legacy that she was pleased to claim, she said.

  “And that’s that,” she told Arlin.

  The arrogant Doranen was too clever to complain.

  With Morg’s beasts dead and no more wanderers to fear and the weather kind enough, if cold, they travelled straight through Dorana into Manemli, then into Vharne and on to the Vale. Fifty-one days, it took them, and in fifty-one days they saw no other living souls. Broken bones and torn flesh healed, Arlin Garrick minded his Doranen manners and they struck no trouble. Only Deenie’s brother never spoke, though at long last he opened his eyes and could walk with some help. Charis and the foolish Goose between them saw to his care. Deenie seemed content to let them. Seemed content to drive one of the two carts and walk and ride a little, sometimes, and hunt for their supper when Robb and the barracks men came up empty handed. But when she thought no-one was looking, her face crumpled with grief and some dreadful memory. Heartsick, Ewen kept her secret and prayed that she’d find ease, that her father still lived and her addled brother would recover his wits.

  In fifty-one days she said nothing of Morg.

  This time, warned of his pupil’s coming, Vharne’s Swordmaster rode break-neck through the Vale’s late morning sunshine to meet him.

  Hurtled off his barracks mount, stood straddle-legged and weeping in the middle of the road where it crossed into the High Vale, Tavin bellowed a greeting.

  “Boy! Boy! Is this your idea of timely, is it? Get off that horse so I can blade your skinny arse!”

  As Robb and his barracks men chuckled into their fists, and Arlin Garrick looked down his Doranen nose, Deenie, riding beside him, raised one dark, purposeful eyebrow.

  “That’s an interesting way to talk to a king.”

  Ewen grinned. “That’s Tavin, that is.” Then he kicked his feet free of his stirrups. “Hold everyone here, girl—and take care of this nag.”

  As Tavin’s arms closed around him he was sure his ribs would break, and when at last they stepped back from each other he was weeping too, unashamed.