A Taste of Magic

by Andre Norton

  She shook her head and her arms, her skin going instantly paler than normal. Her lip trembled, and a faint line of blood sat on the corner of her mouth, as if she’d bit her tongue. She let out a breath she’d been holding. I heard it as a great sigh and felt it as a strong breeze. It blew across the flames and vanquished them.

  “Eri. Help me.”

  I looked back to her. She crumpled, and I dropped to my knees next to her, wrapping my arms around her and holding her close. She shivered, as if freezing. The magic had demanded so much of her it had taken her heat, the inner fire that fuels the heart. I tried to give her some of mine. I took one glance away, to the spot where Grazti had stood. Ashes and charred feathers blew south across the rock.

  13

  I held the back of my hand against Alysen’s forehead. She was now burning with a fever, though she shivered and trembled like one caught in a winter storm. I’d not seen the wyse exact such a price for its use, but I’d also not seen it wielded in the manner Alysen had demonstrated.

  My use of wyse magic had always been subtler … out of respect, and out of fear.

  Alysen had wielded it to save our lives.

  “Eri, I heard Grazti call to me. It sounded so helpless and frightened. In my head it was calling and whimpering.”

  “That … thing … can’t hurt us anymore, Alysen. Grazti’s gone.”

  “Now it is. Now, but not before. Grazti called to me, Eri. When we rode in the woods near the Nanoo’s fen. The place with the tangling vines.” She gulped in the acrid air and clung to me. “I didn’t think you heard the creature. And I didn’t know it was cruel—not then. I thought it was in danger. Its cries were so desperate, its voice was so strong in my head. Loud, pleading. And yet … so weak. Grazti was dying, Eri. I sensed it, and I wanted to help. I didn’t know that any of this would happen. I saved the creature … and now I’ve killed it. I never killed anything before.”

  I let a silence slip between us for several moments. In it I heard some night bird cry, and I heard Crust nicker. “You thought you were doing the right thing, Alysen. Your intentions were good when you rescued Grazti. You couldn’t have known that the woods had caught the bird-beast for a reason.”

  I wanted to tell her that of course she’d been wrong, that it had been impulsive and selfish of her to bolt from the clearing and into the enchanted brush. I wanted to shout at her that her act had cost us days and days out of the way of the Nanoo’s fen, and had cost the life of my precious Dazon—and brought pain and suffering on us. But I kept quiet and stroked her hair and prayed she was too tired to read my troubled, angry thoughts.

  “They wanted to control her rule,” Alysen said after a few more moments. “They wanted to control her.”

  I cocked my head, not sure if I’d heard Alysen correctly. She was slow to continue, so worn out from using the wyse.

  “They were desperate to control her, I think.”

  “Control who? What are you talking about?” Had the fever made Alysen delirious? One moment she was talking about Grazti, and the next …

  “The Emperor and your father. They wanted to control the Empress. That’s how all of this started. That’s when everything went so horribly, horribly bad.”

  Where has this talk suddenly come from?

  I put her at arm’s length and studied her face. Her eyes were closed, and she looked so pale.

  “Because of all of that, because they thought to control her, Lord Purvis came to the village, Eri. Because of the Emperor and your father … because of them, the Empress sent Lord Purvis for you, too.”

  How can she know such things? More—why would she say such things? I swallowed hard. My father?

  “The Emperor and your father,” she repeated, opening her eyes. “They made the Empress killing mad.”

  I shook my head. “You’ve a fever.”

  “They made the Empress furious, your father and the Emperor. The rage on her face, it reminded me of a roaring fire. I saw her.”

  The Empress’s face? Had Alysen truly seen the Empress? No, the girl had not left the village since her arrival, save to go on a few jaunts with Nanoo Gafna. She could not have seen the Empress, and I told her so.

  “The Empress and the Emperor rule this island continent, Alysen.” But it was just the Empress now. “You’ve never seen the Empress, nor have you set foot in the great southern city. You need rest.”

  “I saw her, I say.” She continued to breathe raggedly, and though I again and again urged her to rest, she kept talking. “The Empress always has been the real power. Everyone knows that, and her decrees and rules have been just and for the good of most of the people. But she is not without her enemies, including the one she shared her bed with.”

  I turned her face to look into mine. “You’re dreaming things, Alysen. You’ve used too much magic and—”

  “Your father conspired with the Emperor, Eri. For how long, I don’t know. And what exactly they meddled with, I don’t know. But I do know that the two of them wanted to cut the Empress’s power, befuddle and charm her, I think. They wanted to make her weak, just like Grazti becoming weakened by the fen. But Grazti died, and the Empress lives. Your father and the Emperor, though … the Empress was the fen that ended their threat.”

  “You’re dreaming,” I repeated. Or you’ve gone mad.

  “I wish this was all a dream,” she shot back. Her tone was stern, but there was little strength in her words. It sounded as if talking was a struggle for her. She paused to catch her breath. “But it’s real, Eri. And I should have told you before. I am so very, very sorry I said nothing before. It was cruel of me.”

  Alysen couldn’t know these things. It wasn’t possible, I told myself. And yet … Bastien had taught me that few things in this world are wholly impossible.

  “Alysen, if it’s real, how do you know all of this? What claim to this knowledge do you have?”

  I told myself that in her exhaustion she’d become confused, was fabricating things about my father. Perhaps Alysen was trying to unnerve me, though for what purpose I had no clue. Maybe she was talking nonsense so she wouldn’t have to think about killing Grazti and about everything else bad that had happened.

  It was very possible Alysen had somehow slipped into madness … a backlash from using the wyse so much, slaying a creature she’d rescued, and above all, watching the people of the Village Nar being slaughtered. Her world, and mine, had collapsed in the passing of a handful of days.

  “Eri, I’m not mad. Don’t think such things of me.” Her words sounded even more strained. She desperately needed sleep. Still, I let her talk, my curiosity winning out over my common sense. “Eri, I know all of these things—and more—because I tap into the land and watch people. Hidden things are not hidden to me. I can see and learn anything I want to. Nanoo Gafna taught me to scry.”

  I gasped. “Scry? That is not magic to be used lightly!” I did not try to hide the venom in my words. “It is dangerous magic! It is magic I’ll never use.” In truth, I didn’t know how to use it.

  The cob let out a whinny and I looked to the pasture. She and the pony had calmed down and were grazing again, the fire and the threat well out of their memories.

  “I scry more often than I should. But once I learned the magic, I just couldn’t help myself. It, scrying, became a…” She paused, searching for the word. “Habit. It became a habit. And because of it I learned so much. Oh, Eri, I know lords and ladies who are untrue to each other. I know about brother alchemists who require tribute from the Village Oakton to help the crops grow—and who will cause them to wither if enough isn’t paid. I know about a noblewoman in S’har who took her life after her child was born dead. I’ve seen so many things that…”

  The cob nickered and pawed at something on the ground in front of her. She cast her head back and let the wind catch her mane. I wished Dazon could graze in the pasture. I had a sudden image of his body, surely bloated now, being picked at by crows. I fought against the bile rising in my
throat and returned my full attention to Alysen.

  “What about my father? And the Emperor? How do you know those things?”

  She cast her eyes down. “I know those things because every day I’d slip away from my room and use the magic. I looked in on various villages and cities … on the ruling city most often; it is all so fascinating, Eri, the scry magic. Wonderful and horrible, and once you start watching someone, you have to keep on. You have to know what will happen to the people you’ve been looking in on. Every day, Eri. You have to watch them every day.”

  “My father—”

  “I watched your father die, Eri, though I hadn’t intended to see such! I saw the Emperor die before him. They made it look like he died in his sleep, the Emperor. But I saw them.”

  I edged away from her, my hand tipping her face up again and finding her eyes and holding them with my stern gaze. Her eyes didn’t drift, like Bastien said a liar’s did. They stayed true and unblinking, though they were filled with a horrible weariness.

  “I should have told Nanoo Gafna about all my look-seeing, I know, Eri. But I was afraid she’d be angry that I was using the rare magic, and that somehow she’d unteach it to me. I intended to tell her, eventually, though perhaps not until word of the Emperor’s death reached the village. I did not tell her, though, even when the news came just before Lord Purvis and his men rode in. I did not tell her because my words would have changed nothing. The Emperor would still be dead. Your father would still be dead. And my words could not punish their slayers, for I looked upon them through a muddy puddle. No one would believe the magical visions of someone my age. No one that mattered.”

  She shook her head, and raised a corner of her lip. “And, Eri, even with the scry magic I’d used, I couldn’t anticipate … couldn’t discern the difference … from an evil bird-creature and a helpless one.”

  Anger and disbelief flooded me. Could this child truly have such magic? I knew she was powerful. But could she scry? And had she really seen everything she said? Did she see the Emperor die? My father die? I wanted to doubt her, but I couldn’t. With all my breaking heart, I knew she spoke the truth.

  “You are of the House of Geer, Alysen. Strong with magic, someone would believe you.” I paused. “I believe you. You should have told Nanoo Gafna—before the men came.” It felt as if my stomach rose into my throat in that moment.

  If Alysen had told Gafna about the scry images, would the village have been spared? Would Gafna have learned that Lord Purvis was coming for me? Could my life have been given in exchange for the village? Or would Gafna have ordered the villagers to flee? Could all that bloodshed have been avoided if Alysen had said something to the Nanoo?

  “You saw who killed my father, Alysen.” Why tell me now? Why not tell me back in the Village Nar when you told me about the slaying of the villagers on Lord Purvis’s command? “Did Lord Purvis kill my father?”

  “No blood on his hands, Eri. He ordered it, though, ordered your father’s death. I didn’t hear the words, the scry magic won’t let me listen. Only watch. But I saw him outside your father’s room. You don’t need to hear things to understand what is going on.”

  “And Lord Purvis came to the Village Nar for me.”

  “Because of your blood.”

  “Because they killed my father and wanted to kill me, too. Because I am strong in the wyse.” But not near so strong as you, Alysen t’Geer. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  She shuddered and shrugged, and I pulled her close again. She coughed and coughed, and then her body stilled and her breathing became more regular. “Eri, they want you for your bloodline. To end it—that has to be what this is all about. Your father worked against the Empress, and the Empress wants to end the chance that your family’s magic could dethrone her.”

  “The Empress…”

  “Wants the magic to die.”

  I stroked her hair, something I remembered my mother doing when I was a young girl with nightmares. “Do you truly think the Empress is behind all of this? You’re certain?”

  I felt her shoulders shrug again. “I did not see her in the murder rooms. But I watched her before, often with Lord Purvis.”

  “The Emperor…”

  “He wanted more power, Eri, I told you. I didn’t need my scrying on him to learn that. Rumors were whispered from village to village for more than a year about the Emperor and the Empress. You would have heard them yourself if you were not always hunting and working.”

  I nodded. “Rumors that their marriage was uneasy.”

  “See why I could not tell any of this to Nanoo Gafna?”

  “Alysen, the Nanoo care nothing about royalty and power and people manipulating each other. But they care about nature and the magic in it.”

  Alysen nodded now. “And Nanoo Gafna would have been angry at the use of the scry magic.”

  She pushed herself away from me and shakily stood. She rubbed her arms with her hands, then drew her cloak around her. “You must promise not to tell Nanoo Gafna what I have told you, Eri. You must promise me.”

  I stood next to her, looking past her and to the horses. “Alysen, don’t you think she—”

  “Promise me, Eri. I told you of your father. I told you why he was killed. I shared my secrets. Now I’ll have your promise.”

  I slowly and carefully regarded her. She was half my age, but probably had two or three times my power. She needed Nanoo Gafna and the other witches to help hone her skills … and to control them.

  “I promise, Alysen. I do not like it. But I promise.”

  14

  I flinched, and my tongue pushed against my front teeth. But I held my mouth closed and fought to keep from asking Alysen more questions. My mind and heart reeled, and I felt weak … not just from the heat and the pain I’d suffered at the bird-creature’s will, but from everything that had happened. My father dead, murdered. Had he truly conspired against the Empress? I’d no clue of that when I’d visited at the side of his sickbed. My eyes snapped wide now, remembering something. My father … on his sickbed he’d mentioned that I should swear fealty to the Emperor, be prepared to serve him. He’d made no mention of the Empress.

  Did Alysen speak true of all this? How could she scry? A mere girl? Scry magic was powerful and guarded, and the Nanoo hadn’t been known to share its knowledge. Nanoo Gafna had never taught me such … and I’d known Gafna for a decade. This girl had been in the village not quite a year. What could—

  “The Emperor wanted to rule and to gain favor with the Dawn Priests.” She moved close again and looked up into my face. I felt her breath on my neck. “You want to know why Nanoo Gafna taught me such magic. How could you understand, Moonson? You turn to weapons of the hand and not of the mind. You spent your time with Bastien, and left little for Nanoo Gafna.” She thumped her fingers against the knives hanging from my belt. “I will never use such primitive things. There is too much strength in my thoughts, and too much power in the wyse.”

  “Magic is a gift, Alysen. One not to be abused … wielded as a bludgeon.” I didn’t want to talk about magic, though. I wanted to know about my father and his murder and—

  “I am magic,” Alysen returned. “So very much of me is magic.” She edged closer, and I backed away. “When I was very, very young, Eri, those in the House of Geer and our neighbors told me I was ensorcelled by my mother. But my mother told me in secret that was only partly true. It was not Mother that my power came from, but from the Green Ones themselves.”

  “Alysen, the Green Ones are gods. You speak blasphemy.”

  She shook her head and drew her lips into a thin line. “I speak true. Sealed by the cold iron, my mother was in her youth. She suffered a laying on of the Black Force. When I was born my mother begged that I be sent away from our manor to be helped … to learn how to wield all the power inside of me. So I was taken to the Exile Holding. But there was no one there who could help me. I returned home and was sent away again.”

  “To the Vil
lage Nar and Nanoo Gafna and Lady Ewaren.”

  She took in several deep breaths and held me still with her searching eyes. She edged closer again, and this time I did not back away. “What do you know of the feeding of the fields, Eri?”

  “Little.” Her nearness unnerved me, but I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing that, so I did not move. “Little enough.”

  Alysen’s voice took on a singsong lilt, like that of a boring recitation made before a tutor. “Just as the Dawn Priests require payment for their prayers and services, in the spring there must be payment to the Green Ones to thank them for the bounty of the earth. Thus the maids of the clans in a Holding gather so that a choice may be made for the proper messenger.”

  “I don’t understand, Alysen.”

  “You don’t understand because the Village Nar had no Dawn Priests,” she returned. “The messenger must be a maid, indeed, never the seed of man having touched her. Fair of face and of body she must stand, well tempered, quick to offer aid…” Alysen paused, then her voice took on its regular tone again. “Then they bid her farewell and give her to the Green Ones.”

  “No longer a—”

  “No. My mother … she was a messenger.”

  “Your father…”

  “Is one of the Green Ones.”

  I shook my head slowly and took a long step back. I felt suddenly pricked by the thought that she was playing with me. I stared deeper into her eyes.

  “Eri, Nanoo Gafna and Lady Ewaren kept me safe.” She finally stepped away from me and narrowed her gaze. “And I should thank you for keeping me safe, but I cannot bring myself to say the words … not when the Village Nar died because of you. If only I could have done something, but the no-see had pulled me out of the world, like I was in a locked house looking out a window. But you weren’t in that locked house with me.”

  So cruel, her words! But also true. Again I wondered if I’d been in the village if I could have spared all those people. I was stunned, angry, defensive … all those feelings battering at me and welling up within me at the same time. Her words were daggers stabbing at my heart, wounding me all the worse because they were true. I could scarcely breathe.