Patricia Briggs

by The Hob's Bargain

  “So this king called upon his mages, and they set spells upon the magic of the last of the wild lands. Here. The king’s mages bound the magic of this land as well as they could, and after them successive generations of wizards tied the threads of magic so tightly that, at last, there were no more wild lands in the world at all, no more wildlings—for they cannot live without magic. This binding allowed human mages no access to the magic either, but they had another way of gaining power.”

  “Bloodmagic,” said Koret needlessly.

  I nodded. “Those of us who choose not to use that path have little power. And what they—we—have, we hide. Bloodmages are rightly feared—” I looked up, and as I spoke the next words, I met the eyes of each elder in turn—“and any mage can decide to take that path. You have no guarantees that I won’t: none other than my word.”

  I paused, staring at Kith’s boot. “Gram’s talent was healing, but mine is the sight. This morning I could tell something bad was going to happen—but I thought it would be something…well, something like a storm or a twisted ankle. So I didn’t say anything to Daryn when he left for the fields.”

  I paused, then said rawly, “He is now dead because of it. I won’t make that mistake again.

  “While I hid from the raiders, I saw”—I added emphasis so that no one there could have any doubt how I got my information—“the raiders kill Daryn, my father, and Caulem. Then I saw something else. A bloodmage tore the bindings of the land away, and one of the aftereffects of his spell was the earthquake that toppled Silvertooth.”

  I expected to feel relief once I’d told them my story—or, if not relief, then fear of my impending death. But I didn’t feel anything.

  Cantier held out his hand and, after an assessing look, Koret dropped the acorn into his hand.

  “Can you prove you are what you say you are, girl?”

  I looked at him stupidly for a moment—why would anyone claim to be a seer if they weren’t? When it was apparent that he was serious, I shrugged. “The sight comes when it wills. What do you want me to look for?”

  He frowned, looking grumpier than usual. Finally he pulled up his sleeve, displaying a jagged scar. “How did I come by this?”

  I stared at the scar for a bit, then closed my eyes and pictured it in my mind, but nothing came. At last I looked up, opened my mouth, and—visions came, if not precisely the ones I had sought.

  Lord Moresh argued with another nobleman. There was no sound, but the smell of blood and death was overwhelming. Moresh gestured toward something lying beyond sight. The other man nodded and turned away as an arrow slid into Moresh’s eye.

  Glimpses of battlefields full of men one moment and ashes the next. Faces of people flashed by so fast that I could only know that they were strangers to me.

  Sound came at last: screams and prayers of the dying….

  My face hurt suddenly, and I saw Kith, his upright hand a few inches from my face. But the screams in my head continued unabated. I pushed my face close to his and said, “The wildlings will return.”

  “Is she all right?” asked Cantier, kneeling on my other side and taking my shoulders in his hands. I realized I was sitting on the ground.

  Kith raised his eyebrows and said, “How the…” He drew in a breath. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  A man in strange livery pulled his gold-embroidered, purple cloak around himself, striking a heroic pose as he stood before his men. Something…something happened between one moment and the next. Where he had been was a skeleton in his uniform, standing in front of a skeleton army. Nothing moved but the purple cloak flapping gently in the wind. Then the skull of a horse, bitted and bridled, slid off the narrow bones that held it in place. It dangled momentarily, held up by the reins. But the finger bones that held the reins fell apart. They all came apart then, the whole lot of them, one after the other. An army of bones in uniforms lying on a field of yellow flowers; bones that shifted to ashes and blew away in the spring wind.

  I CLOSED MY EYES AGAINST THE ANGRY VOICES, ONE shouting over the top of another so none was heard. At last Koret’s bellow rang over the rest, shouting them down until they were silent.

  “Killing the mageborn is barbaric,” said Tolleck the priest in his smooth baritone. “The One God does not demand it—he condemns the bloodmages and those who call upon their power from death. But a man…or woman cannot help how they were born. To condemn them for it is wrong.”

  “Brother Gifford did not agree with you,” called someone from the crowd. “He had more experience as a priest than you.”

  “Brother Gifford is not here now,” thundered Tolleck in a voice I’d never heard from him. It almost made me look, but I was afraid I’d see something else. There was power in his voice, and it subdued the crowd.

  Calm and forceful, the priest continued. “It is not for you to condemn someone who has committed no crime.”

  I saw the priest’s face, proving that I didn’t need open eyes to see. The thought of living with these constant visions for any length of time made me wish Tolleck would be quiet and let them hang me.

  “Drink this, Pest,” said Kith, putting a glass against my chattering teeth.

  I swallowed, tasting apples and poppy juice.

  “She needs rest. My home’s just around the corner, and that lot won’t bother me.” It was Cantier’s voice, rough and unmistakable.

  I WOKE UP ABRUPTLY, STARTLED BY THE STRANGE SURROUNDINGS—THOUGH when I gave myself a moment to really look around, I realized I was lying on a makeshift pallet in the main room of Cantier’s house, which smelled faintly of fish. It was dark but for the banked embers in the fireplace. From the loft overhead came the soft sounds of sleeping bodies. I wondered how he’d talked his wife into allowing me here.

  By the darkness and by the silence of the streets, it was sometime past midnight. I was still wearing my dress, but it took me a moment to find my boots. As quietly as I could, I let myself out the door and into the street.

  THE HOME I SOUGHT WAS MY PARENTS’ HOUSE RATHER than my own. I needed to cling to something familiar, somewhere safe. The house was dark and empty when I got there. I had nothing to light my way into the interior, so I fumbled my way into the main room.

  Ma’s bride chest was highlighted in the faint wisp of moonlight leaking through the broken oilskin of the main window. Someone had taken an axe to it, leaving its contents scattered on the floor. I wondered if it was the same man who destroyed the furniture in my home, or if the raiders specialized in hacking helpless furniture to bits.

  There was blood on the floor, and I lost the humor I’d been trying to summon. I turned away. A blanket lay in a rumpled heap in the corner of the room. I snatched it up and wrapped myself in it, though I didn’t believe anything could make me warm again. I sat in the corner where the blanket had been and stared into the night.

  I STAYED AT THE HOUSE UNTIL LATE MORNING, GATHERING what I could use from the things the raiders had left. There wasn’t much. The house had been stripped of food, weapons, and anything anyone could use to pack things in: sacks, baggage, backpacks, even bedsheets. I don’t know how the blanket I’d used came to be overlooked.

  I found an assortment of Caulem’s clothing. Father’s clothes were gone. I folded my brother-by-marriage’s shirts and pants carefully and left them beside the remains of his cot. Perhaps his parents would want them.

  My hands stopped as I folded the last pair of pants. I was tall for a woman, though skinny. Caulem had been a growing boy, almost as tall as he would have been as a man, but thinner. Caulem’s pants would fit me.

  I stood and stripped my clothing as quickly as I could, exchanging it for boy’s trousers and a loose-fitting shirt. I had to tighten the drawstrings around my ankles and waist, and fold back the sleeves. The shirt, which had come to Caulem’s hips, hit me just above the knee. I belted it to keep it out of my way. His boots were too big, but mine would work.

  The boy’s clothes made me different from the silly
woman who believed in happy-forever endings. The woman who’d killed her husband because she’d tried too hard to be like everyone else.

  It occurred to me that I was more than a little crazy. If the priest could have seen me running to my cottage and slipping through the shelves into the cellar, he might not have been so quick to defend me.

  Over several days, the dark enclosure of the cellar became my shelter against the world. I left the main floor as it was, covered with the scattered remnants of my life. Like some half-mad animal I cowered in the dark of the earth, leaving its embrace only at night.

  I couldn’t run from the visions, for they came to me no matter how hard I tried to hold them away. They came with sound more often than not, and sometimes smells as well. I watched as the villagers buried my family in the plot behind my father’s house and scattered fragrant petals on the disturbed ground over their graves. All from the closed darkness of the cellar.

  I knew what the world outside my cellar was doing, whether I wanted to or not.

  LIKE ME, THE VILLAGE BURIED ITSELF AWAY FROM THE truth of its isolation. The planting season was so much work, they were soon lulled into complacency. The raiders were quiet. The houses that could be repaired, were, and new houses were started to replace the one or two dwellings that were beyond fixing. There were a few more earth tremors, but they were weak and easily ignored.

  Perhaps, opined the townswomen as they washed their clothes at midweek, the bandits had left altogether. Perhaps they’d wandered on to Beresford and kept going. Didn’t Albrin’s man, Lomas, report that Wedding Pass was clear, though he hadn’t followed it all the way through to Beresford? Wasn’t it sad about Hobard’s daughter, Aren? Doubtless she was just maddened by the grief of losing so much so quickly, but what a thing to claim! She was lucky that the old priest had died; he would have had her burned for that—and some of the women whispered that the new man was too soft.

  No one came from Beresford—but then the Beresforders, like the Fallbrook farmers, were in the middle of spring planting, and they were even farther north and higher in the mountains than we were. Except for Wandel Silver-Tongue, we seldom had anyone come through in the spring, even with the road to Auberg open. Melly usually left only the tavern open until after planting, for Wandel stayed in the manor house when he came. Lord Moresh was particularly fond of him and allowed Wandel free access to his library.

  Six days after Silvertooth fell, Wandel had an argument with the steward (and didn’t everyone at some time or another, for a more disagreeable man I’ve never known) and rode out for Wedding Pass.

  He sang as he rode, mostly about nasty things that happen to stewards who have no understanding of music and harpers. He used both hands on his harp. His white mare followed the cobbles of the King’s Highway. As they neared The Bride and Groom, Wandel put his harp away.

  The steep sides of The Bride rose to his left, casting her shadow over the road, and The Groom rose almost a third again as tall, though not half as steep, on the minstrel’s right.

  Up on the side of The Groom, the scar of the original road wound steeply to Beresford. The King’s Highway was much more gradual because the king’s bloodmages could clear through the thick thorn bushes that grew between the mountains as ax and scythe never could. I’d heard the farmers swear the stuff could grow a fingerspan in a day and take root where only moss would thrive; but even after centuries, not a single sprig pushed up between the stones of the King’s Highway.

  Wandel looked at the path lying before him and began humming a soft tune. It was one of his favorite songs, having to do with a man whose house lay in the path of the road. He’d been so stubborn and tricky the mages had finally gone around his house. To this day, Wandel swore, there was a valley where the road traced a neat half-circle around a bare spot of ground where a hut might once have stood.

  Goes to show you, the harper liked to point out, that a person could be more stubborn than the worst curse of nature.

  Wandel was on the last small incline when he stopped the mare. He slipped off his horse and walked to the side of the road. One of the paving stones was kicked out of place, leaving a deep hole and several loosened stones around where it had been.

  “Lass,” he said to his mare, “in all my years of riding the Highway, I’ve never seen a cobble out of place before.”

  He remounted slowly, and watched the ground as he traveled; but there was nothing more amiss with the road. Not even when it disappeared under the still waters of a lake that occupied the valley where Beresford had been.

  “Another rockfall,” he said softly to himself or the mare. “Half the mountains in this region are cliff-sided, with boulders falling every spring. I thought Silvertooth might not have been the only one to fall. At any rate, something dammed the river and flooded the valley, which is why the water level in the river has fallen so drastically.”

  The lake in the valley was deep—only the drooping tops of trees broke the surface where Beresford should have been. The water was mucky with rotting vegetation and worse.

  Tight-mouthed, Wandel turned his mare and rode back the way he’d come. By the time he rode into the yard of the inn, he was dusty and looked tired. The innkeeper’s boy gave the harper a curious look as he took the Lass, but was too well trained to ask the questions on the tip of his tongue.

  There was no one in the public room when Wandel entered. He set his harp and his travel bag down in an inconspicuous corner and ventured into the kitchen, where Melly was cleaning some pots.

  “Mistress Melly?”

  She turned and wiped her wet hands on her apron as she hurried forward. “Why, Master Wandel, I thought you’d be in Beresford by now.”

  “So I would,” he said without his customary good humor, “if there were a Beresford to be at. Lord Moresh’s steward and I had a falling out. Would you be so kind as to give me a room in your inn?”

  “Of course, of course, but it’ll take me an hour to air it out. What do you mean about Beresford?”

  “The whole valley’s flooded, mistress.”

  Her face whitened, but she nodded and led him out to the main room, by tucking her arm under his and ushering him to a bench near the fire. She brought him a tankard of dark ale and, in his hearing, sent her boy to fetch Merewich and then see to the airing of a chamber.

  When the old man came, he sat down across from Wandel and braced a hand under his chin. “So, harper. Tell me about Beresford.”

  Wandel shrugged. “The earthquake must have dammed the river and flooded the valley. There doesn’t seem to be a Beresford anymore.”

  “Did you see any sign of the people?”

  The harper shook his head. “No, but I think they’d have had enough time to get out. A valley that size would take a while to fill. Since they haven’t shown up here, I guess they headed out to Auberg by some goat trail. It’s impossible to tell for certain, since the King’s Highway to Auberg is blocked.”

  “Ah.” Merewich nodded and took a sip of the harper’s ale. “There’s an old trail over Hob’s Mountain to Auberg. Kith knows it. I showed it to him myself when he was a lad and his father sent him to help with the sheep. He’s not busy with farming, like most of the other men.” He paused, not mentioning Kith’s missing arm—the reason Kith wasn’t helping with the plowing. “It would do him good to take the trip.”

  “Hob’s Mountain?” said Wandel.

  Merewich nodded. “No thornbush there. Only mountain in these parts that doesn’t have it. There’s a shorter trail between Carn and Harvest—they’re the mountains just south and west of Silvertooth, but you can’t take a horse through it.”

  “You think Kith would take me to Auberg?” Wandel’s tone was reflective. “I’m not so certain.”

  Merewich sighed and shook his head. “Wandel, the folk here who aren’t related to someone in Beresford are married to someone who is. Kith will take you over and bring us back news—regardless of what lies between you. Perhaps someone there will know what has ha
ppened to the Beresforders. All we ask is that you agree to come back next year and tell us what’s happening.”

  I’d never known that there was something between Kith and Wandel. I would have spent more time wondering what it was, but the vision would no more let me waste time fretting over it than it would give me time to mourn for Beresford.

  “You think there is something in the tale the girl told, then, that the earthquake was just a minor part of what has happened?” Wandel took his tankard back and drank deeply.

  “Hmm.” Merewich rubbed his hand on the table. “I know her grandmother was a witch. She saved my oldest boy. He’d fallen and hit his head on a rock. Four years old and the joy of my life. I took him to her, but I knew it was too late—there was a soft place on his temple that shouldn’t have been there. She looked at him, then she looked at me. Without saying a word, she took him and set him on her dining table. She laid her hands on that soft spot and closed her eyes. When she took her hands away, his skull was whole again. Forty-two years ago, and you’re the first soul I ever told that to. I’d thank you not to repeat it.”

  He drank from Wandel’s tankard again. “Do I believe her to be mageborn? Yes. Do I think she believes what she says is true? Yes.” He looked the harper in the eye. “Her grandmother showed me that mageblood doesn’t make a person evil.”

  Wandel pursed his lips. “Today I saw a cobble knocked askew on the King’s Highway.”

  “Eh?” said Merewich softly. “I’ll tell Albrin we’ll be borrowing Kith for a few days.”

  A DAY OR TWO AFTER THIS CONVERSATION I AWOKE stiff and sore from sleeping on the hard earth and stared into the darkness around me. Over the past few days, either I’d grown used to magic or the magic had faded, but I couldn’t feel it humming in my bones anymore. The dirt in the cellar was just dirt, cool and dry. Best of all, no visions clouded my mind.

  I hadn’t changed clothes since I’d put on Caulem’s tunic and trousers, and it struck me that he’d never have let them get this dirty. The cellar stank of sweat and sloth.