he does something worse next time?”
“That’s what I want to prevent.” He sighed. “I’ll talk to the boy—
once I find him.”
Phebe looked up from her grinding to glare at him. “Just talk to him,
magician? Can’t you do more than that?”
“Dame, he’s just a boy. A very powerful boy, but not taught
properly. If I can correct him—”
“Boys do need a firm hand,” Phebe said. “I could never get my sons
to listen to me half as well as Troge does.”
Bella frowned. “That’s because he beats them senseless.”
“Wait until you have your own, Bella. Then you’ll understand how
hard it is to keep them out of trouble. Speaking of trouble, magician,
you should leave before more of it follows you.” Phebe finally looked
at him. Her expression still wasn’t welcoming compared to her sister’s,
but the hostility had melted away. “And ... for your trouble before...I
thank you. You’re welcome to stop by any time my husband’s working
for a quick meal.”
Bella’s expression brightened, as if she was being rewarded too.
5 0 · S a n d r a U l b r i c h A l m a z a n
“Show him out, sister, before more gossips stop by. There’s much
work to be done to make up for yesterday.”
Bella pressed a cooked flatcake filled with pickled vegetables into
his hand as she led him to the door. “She is grateful to you, even if she
doesn’t show it,” she whispered. “She’s just fearful of saying too
much.”
“She has reason to be frightened of Sal-thaath,” he replied. “His
mother has no respect for anyone who can’t perform magic, and I’m
afraid he feels the same way. If you see him, try to make sure he doesn’t
see you.”
“What will you do if you can’t change him?” she asked.
Kron gazed at her face for a few heartbeats before replying, “Then
I’ll have to find some way to keep you, your family, and everyone else
safe from him.”
She smiled at that, but when he reached for her hand, she ducked
away and closed the door. He tried not to take her rejection personally.
Of course a maiden would avoid contact with a strange man. But they
shouldn’t be strangers to each other by now, should they? What would
it take to make her more comfortable with him, a betrothal? Would she
be willing to leave her family behind and come to Delns with him?
Bemused, Kron shook his head. He needed to avoid crowds until
people forgot about him, so he headed for the city gates. If he wandered
by the banks of the Chikasi River, he would find materials, like
branches, stones, and various items dropped from boats, he could use
later in artifacts. And if Sal-thaath sought him out—though Kron sus-
pected he might have to hunt for the child this time—no one would be
around to suffer another of his spells.
Kron passed fishermen and washerwomen standing on the rocky
banks of the river. Other people gathered driftwood or birds’ eggs. The
sun was close to the zenith by the time he found a small curve in the
river, obscured by willow trees, where he was certain he was the only
other person within shouting distance. Using an enchanted thread from
his tunic, Kron lured in a pair of fish for lunch. He cleaned them, stuffed
Sea so n s’ Be gin n in gs · 5 1
them with wild herbs, and set them on a thin flat rock over a fire to
roast.
While the meal cooked, he found a few snail shells and feathers that
might be useful. Kron braided a grass rope, but he knew no matter how
much enchantment he poured into it, it wouldn’t last a heartbeat against
Sal-thaath’s magic. He’d studied magic for nearly twenty years, and a
child young enough to be his own easily mastered him. Kron let the
rope fall apart. Toys weren’t the way to make Sal-thaath treat others
with respect, and threats would be useless, since both of them knew
Kron wasn’t powerful enough to take action against Sal-thaath. What
else could he do?
“I’m hungry,” Sal-thaath said from behind him. “When do we eat?”
“How did you know I was expecting you for lunch?” Kron asked.
“I was watching you, and you caught two fish.”
“Can’t you feed yourself with your magic?”
“I like it better when someone else cooks. Sometimes I take sweet
bread or fruit tarts from a baker. Or sometimes when Mother is busy
studying, I bring her back a meat pie.”
No need to ask if the boy paid for the food. Kron simply nodded and
prodded one of the fish with a stick. “They’re done. Help yourself.”
Sal-thaath reached out with his bare hands for the closest fish,
yelped, and snatched up a pair of sticks to hold his meal. Kron claimed
the second fish before the boy ate both. He was definitely hungry;
maybe Kron could use that to reach him.
“Does your mother ever cook?” he asked.
“She never learned how. She said when she was growing up, they
had servants and slaves to cook and make their clothes.”
“She’s the daughter of a city-king, isn’t she?”
Sal-thaath shifted as if the ground had become uncomfortable.
“Mother says she’d rather be on her own, owing nothing to anyone, than
be a city-queen.”
5 2 · S a n d r a U l b r i c h A l m a z a n
“But people need each other,” Kron said. “How can you grow crops
and build a house and cook your meals and weave cloth all by your-
self?”
“With magic, of course.”
“But someone had to figure out how to do those things without
magic first before magician could create spells and artifacts to warm
food or keep it from spoiling. And what would you do if your spell
failed?”
Sal-thaath glared contemptuously at him as though he were the
teacher and Kron the student about to be forced out of the Magic Insti-
tute. “Magic doesn’t fail any more than the sun does, or the rivers. In
fact, Mother says soon we’ll have a brand new source of magic to draw
on.”
“The golden haze in the sky?” Kron asked.
Surprise broke out on Sal-thaath’s face. “How did you know about
that? You must be more double-clever than Mother says you are.”
“I did create the sight-enhancer she’s using.”
Sal-thaath frowned. “But it broke. Maybe you should come fix it.
Then Mother would respect you, and you could live with us forever.”
“But I don’t want to.” At Sal-thaath’s stricken expression, Kron
quickly added, “I mean, I like your company, Sal-thaath, but I need to
return home to Delns and visit my family. It’s been a long time since
I’ve seen them, and I don’t know how they’re faring.”
“Why don’t you portal to them?”
“I can’t. My home has changed out of my memory—”
“You could find a way to do it, if you really wanted to.” Sal-thaath’s
voice rose from its childish treble to a grating pitch. “But you don’t.
You like that pretty woman who lives with the chicken dame.”
Kron gaped at the child. “How...how did you know?”
Sal-tha
ath grinned. Was it remnants of his meal stuck in his mouth,
or did he have pointed teeth? “I go everywhere and see everything, Kron
Evenhanded. I could portal you to your country if you wanted me to.”
Sea so n s’ Be gin n in gs · 5 3
Delns! The smell of the sea, the cold breezes in the morning, the
taste of his mother’s flatcakes, unlike any he’d found no matter where
Kron traveled. Longing flowed through him for a tide of heartbeats.
Perhaps he should accept the boy’s offer. He could always portal back
to Vistichia afterwards to make sure Phebe and Bella were well...but
did he dare leave them alone that long?
How well could he trust Sal-thaath? Would the boy even keep his
word, or would he find a way to harm Kron? He couldn’t leave Vistichia
vulnerable to the child; the king’s magician had no idea what Sal-thaath
was capable of.
Kron shook his head. “I still have business in Vistichia.”
Sal-thaath glared at the fire, which shot up as tall as a full-grown
man. Kron scooped a handful of water out of the river, but the flame
died down before he could quench it.
“I still have business in Vistichia too.” The menace in Sal-thaath’s
tone belied the softness of his face. “Farewell, Kron. I’ll see you there—
soon.”
Sal-thaath disappeared as silently as he’d arrived.
Kron moved like an ancient man as he put out the fire and tossed the
leftovers of the meal into the river. He should have known he couldn’t
get a child, no matter how magical, to listen to him. Maybe he should
have lectured Sal-thaath more about the harm he was doing, but the boy
would have disappeared the heartbeat Kron raised his voice.
He’s too powerful. I can’t do anything with him like this. I can store
magic in artifacts, but that will never bring me up to his level. He needs
to have his magic neutralized for a while, long enough for him to un-
derstand what it’s like to have no magic. It wouldn’t have to be a long
time, maybe less than a day.
Kron looked up at the sky, as bright blue as ever. It had to be his
imagination that the blue was a little lighter, a touch more yellow, than
it normally was this time of day.
5 4 · S a n d r a U l b r i c h A l m a z a n
However I do it, I’ll have to do it soon. If Salth is right and she can
harvest magic from the golden haze, then she and Sal-thaath will con-
trol more magic than a dozen Magic Institutes put together.
But what could absorb all of that magic?
Kron stared at the river flowing past him until the sunset turned the
sky pure gold. He portaled home, still without an answer.
* * *
Kron spent the next several days wandering through Vistichia, col-
lecting every discarded item he could find, then taking them back to his
room at the inn–while he loathed the expense, sleeping in a rough shel-
ter grew less appealing when the nights became colder–and enchanting
them until he ran out of energy and collapsed onto his pallet. But it was
a futile effort. No single item was strong enough to siphon off a tenth
of Sal-thaath’s magic, and his artifacts were too varied to mesh well.
Desperate, Kron portaled to the Magic Institute for another meeting
with Pagli. He held nothing back, not even Salth’s speculations about
the golden haze. At that, Pagli shook his head.
“Magic in the sky? What a strange notion, especially since everyone
knows it comes from living things. While I have noticed the sky is more
yellow these days, it’s probably due to something we don’t understand
yet.”
Kron discreetly checked to see how much Pagli had watered his
wine. Perhaps he added one drop of water to every bowl. “Then it could
be anything, Pagli.”
“Or nothing at all.” He waved his hand. “Anyway, it’s too far away
for any of us to feel, so we don’t need to worry about it.”
“What about Sal-thaath? I still have to worry about him. How do I
contain his magic?”
“You can’t, Kron.” Pagli became serious. “Be grateful he’s leaving
you and your friends alone.”
Sea so n s’ Be gin n in gs · 5 5
Kron couldn’t be grateful. Sal-thaath was too intelligent to forget
about Phebe and Bella, let alone Kron. If he was ignoring them, it was
only temporary, while he was distracted by something else, perhaps
something in the sky.
“Do you have any new materials I can experiment with?” he asked
as he rose to leave. “My selection in Vistichia is limited, despite the
trade.”
“I have a pair of attracting stones, though they don’t always work.
Sometimes they repel each other. You can have them if you fix the
fountain in the courtyard. Its aim is off.”
Kron agreed. The fountain was easily fixed—something had
clogged one of the nozzles—and soon he found himself in possession
of two chunks of black rock. He played with them after returning to
Vistichia and discovered they could attract or repel each other depend-
ing on how they were oriented. He marked the sides so he would know
how to hold the stones. That was minimal work, barely enough to turn
natural materials into artifacts. He would have to shape them more in
the morning. Between the lack of sleep and the magic he’d poured into
his failed artifacts, Kron was too weary to let the music and talk in the
inn’s common room keep him up. He barely remembered to hide his
new stones in his enchanted pouch before falling asleep.
* * *
Kron roused as someone shook his shoulder. “Kron, Kron, wake
up!”
Still weary, he opened his eyes. Phebe, her husband Troge, and sev-
eral others surrounded him. Their angry expressions sent him reeling
backward. “What’s going on?”
“Where’s your apprentice?” Troge asked. He shifted benches and
chairs as if he thought Sal-thaath was hiding under one of them.
5 6 · S a n d r a U l b r i c h A l m a z a n
“Sal-thaath?” It took him a few heartbeats to make the connection;
when he did, a flood of anxiety reenergized him. “What has he done
now?”
“He took Bella!” Phebe said between sobs. “We were mending
clothes when he appeared in our house. I didn’t even hear the door open.
Before I knew it, he put his arms around Bella, and they both disap-
peared, like they’d become air.” She looked pleadingly at Kron. “Do
you think he’s going to change her into a chicken too?”
No. Whatever he has planned for her, it’ll be something worse. He
couldn’t say that out loud, though, as that would only send Phebe into
further hysterics.
“When did it happen?” Kron asked. The common room was brighter
than it’d been when he went to sleep, but the light didn’t seem as clear
as morning sunshine. How long had he slept, and how close was it to
nightfall?
“It was after the noon meal. We looked for you in the marketplace,
but we couldn’t find you.” Some sharpness returned to Phebe’s tone, as
if she couldn’t understand that someone
who worked when others slept
would have to sleep when everyone else was awake. “It’s close to sun-
set now.”
“Kron? Do you know where they are?” An edge in Troge’s voice
warned Kron he’d better give them an answer they wanted to hear.
“Yes, I do. But I’ll need to portal there.” Normally he wouldn’t por-
tal indoors, but it sounded as if he’d already lost too much time. He
needed to improvise a portal from whatever he could find in this room.
Kron whipped his cloak into the air. Before it could fall to the floor, he
touched it, freezing into half an arc. Phebe gasped. He completed the
rest of it with a remnant of wool thread. The portal was so narrow he’d
have to suck in his breath to pass through, which meant he’d be limited
in the supplies he could carry. At least his small pouch wouldn’t be a
burden.
Kron took a bottle of a restorative from his pouch. The potion
smelled like lemons and tasted a little like chalk, but drinking it restored
Sea so n s’ Be gin n in gs · 5 7
him to full magical reserves—still pitifully small compared to what
Salth and Sal-thaath controlled. “I’m sorry, but none of you are power-
ful enough to deal with the boy or his mother. Don’t follow me through
the portal. I’ll return with Bella as soon as I can.” He hesitated as he
faced the hope and fear in their eyes. “If I don’t return, you’d better flee
the city.”
“But why—”
Kron didn’t respond as he collected beads, pieces of string, and a
few splinters of wood. He wasn’t sure what he could do with them, but
perhaps he could use them as distractions.
He touched his stiff cloak and closed his eyes. Focusing on every
detail he could remember of Salth’s room—every book cover, every
cobweb—he forced his will past all of her protections. Then he dove
through the portal.
C H A P T E R S E V E N
The Golden Haze
Magic was thick in the air, aiding him as much as it strengthened
Salth's spell. For a moment, Kron thought he’d be caught in some space
between the portal and Salth’s house, and the fear made him push
through with all of his might. He landed roughly on Salth’s marble
floor, scraping his skin and shredding his tunic in a score of places.
“Kron! You’re always interrupting me!” Salth shouted.
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