by Mark August
A branch broke near the edge of the clearing, and Jolina extinguished her lights.
“What witchcraft do we have here?”
Three
Curse
Two guards pushed aside low-hanging branches and entered their sanctuary. These weren’t the local militia. The four would have recognized anyone from the local community serving their military duty. These were regulars from local nobility.
Conical helms protected their heads, and boiled leather armor, solid enough to deflect a weapon, completed their defensive equipment. But Cormac worried about those blades. Unlike local forces equipped with spears and bows, this pair wore swords and daggers. Fine steel weapons were too expensive for town protection.
“Looks like two witches and their boy servants, Lars.”
The whisper of steel being drawn dropped the temperature in the grove several degrees. Cormac’s sweat instantly dried as he concentrated on the reflected light dancing along the waving blade. The man speaking had missing teeth, like someone growing up who lost too many fights.
“Might have to save the boys from these witches. Never can tell what spells they cast over them,” the second guard said. This one also drew his blade and threatened the group.
Cormac slipped in front of his friends. “Hey, no witches or spellcraft here. We’re locals, from Densen.”
“You think the devil took over his tongue, Reiner? First thing you’d expect from witches.” The second guard was taller than his compatriot, and he had dark eyes that bounced between Maren and Jolina.
Cormac didn’t like those looks, and he held his arms out wide to form a human barrier between himself and his friends. “Look, we don’t want any trouble. Let us get the rest of our clothes and get back to town. We can get you a good bed and some food at the Farmer’s Delight. It’s the local inn. On us.”
Raham nodded and stood next to Cormac. His family owned the Farmer’s Delight and would back up the offer.
“Need your clothes, huh. Think it was some sort of mating ritual?” The first guard pointed his blade at Cormac’s belly but stayed about three paces away. One lunge and the blade would be in his gut. But they stopped their advance.
“We’re not doing that here.” Maren snapped at the pair. Cormac sensed the first trickle of power coursing through Maren’s body. It wouldn’t be visible to the pair yet, but she also knew which way this was going.
“Ok, then we’ll take you back to camp for questioning.” The second guard never took his eyes off Maren.
“Step aside, boys,” Lars growled his command, and the first guard eyed Jolina.
They made their choices, and Cormac and Raham were in the way. Cormac wondered if this pair of thugs would leave witnesses behind. Their hidden glen was remote, and no one would come looking for the four friends for at least a day. And if the ladies ended up in their field camp, wherever that was, Cormac doubted they would ever return.
He was out of choices, and the ones remaining looked bad.
Waving their swords, the pair of guards separated the young men from their friends. The first guard lowered his blade and grabbed Jolina’s arm as a lecherous smile lit his face.
Jolina’s eyes flared. That was the best way to describe what Cormac saw. A flash of intense red light illuminated the clearing, and the guard snapped his hand back as his glove cooked and smoldered from the intense heat. Shock and pain flashed across Reiner’s face, but anger replaced it.
Cormac dodged a backhand blow by slipping under the blade and danced back to the water’s edge. The other guard thrust toward Raham’s stomach, catching the young man’s clothes with the tip of the blade. Raham scrambled backward.
“Kill the witches,” Lars shouted.
Pushing Cormac out of close range gave the soldier room to swing his blade. No longer intent on capture, the man went straight for Jolina’s throat. Cormac couldn’t move fast enough to grab the soldier’s arm, and Jolina crouched with her arms up in defense.
Steel impacted and flashed, sending sparks skittering along the forest floor. The blade’s impact shifted from a pure ring to a snap as the weapon's tip plunked into the standing water. Reiner looked down at his shattered blade and then at his target.
Jolina’s arms were untouched by the weapon, but she glowed in a shifting red light that pulsed with each thump of her heart. She glanced down at her uninjured body and undisturbed clothes with the same disbelief as Reiner.
The man hauled his arm back and threw the ruined sword at Jolina’s glowing body, and she didn’t bother to duck or hide. Inches away from her skin, the blade dropped to the moist earth. He drew his dagger from his belt.
“Lars, help me.”
But Lars was already busy with his engagement. Raham slid away from the fight as the man wielded the sword in two hands. Maren watched the sweeping blows toward Raham and prepared her defense.
A crooked smile appeared as Raham backed away, and the man turned toward Maren. He swung low, toward Maren’s feet, and then tried a quick reverse toward her middle. But Maren summoned a column of air and slammed it into Lars’ chest. His feet slid backward, leaving two trails in the forest clearing.
“They are witches.”
Lars and Reiner came forward again, and Cormac couldn’t will his feet to move. His friends needed him, but he couldn’t pull his eyes away from their arcane display. They were amazing.
Reiner moved swiftly, shifting his weight and moving in fast with the dagger held low. Jolina’s confidence wilted under the pressure, and her glow flickered. The evil grin returned as he approached striking range.
Cormac sensed the tidal wave of power building within Jolina. He and his experienced friends never tried to harness that much energy. She transformed. Her posture stooped, gray hair whipped around her face, and she summoned even more power. She aged right before Cormac’s eyes.
Jolina unleashed her arcane hatred in a pure blast of fury. Fires leaped out from her hands and enveloped the shocked Reiner. Clothes burned away in a flash, and the armor smoldered under the unrelenting heat. A mortal body couldn’t stand the intense blaze, and Reiner collapsed to the ground.
Jolina poured more energy into the unmoving body.
Lars fared no better than his friend. Maren wielded the air around them like her own weapons. She blocked a pair of blows before they could reach her body, and as the glen lit with the unearthly power, Maren knocked the remaining soldier to the ground with a crushing blast of wintry air.
Cormac reached Jolina’s side and yelled in her ear. “Jolina, please stop.” No response as the forest smoldered. “Please, it’s us.”
Blinking twice, Jolina came back to herself, staring at the steaming crater at her feet. Nothing remained of the guard; no proof the man ever existed.
Until the second guard groaned and got to his knees. Maren’s energy pushed him back down, but Jolina’s rage ignited again. The avalanche of power exploded in the blast of arcane fire.
Lars didn’t have time to scream in the inferno. In a few moments, he was gone, destroyed by Jolina’s attack.
The clearing was silent. The four looked at each other, and Cormac couldn’t believe what he saw. Jolina was an ancient woman, probably in her nineties. The beauty and energy of youth transformed into a few tufts of white hair, a bent back, and wrinkled skin. The Jolina they once knew was gone.
“I need to sit down,” she said.
Maren moved first to cup her elbow and guide her to the log they always used in this clearing. Slow, shaky steps followed each tentative step as Maren tried to help their friend to her seat. Cormac glanced at Raham to find not shock but anger.
“We had to show her how to use magic.”
“They would have killed us, Raham. All of us.”
“So you think this is justified? We were playing with magic. That’s how they found us.”
“Raham, don’t you think—”
“Hey, we’re sitting right here. Your voices aren’t as low as you think,” Maren said from the log
.
Cormac and Raham approached the pair, and Cormac struggled to look at Jolina. Her eyes looked the same, although filled with so much suffering now. It was the same young woman they had been friends with since they could walk. Now, her body was wracked with crippling age.
“This is the curse of magic,” Raham said to no one. “It has a price.”
Four
Cure
“We have to find a cure,” Cormac said.
“It’s a curse, Cormac. Why can’t you understand that?” Raham said.
“It’s a responsibility,” Maren said. She gazed at the frail body of their once-youthful friend and ran her fingers through Jolina’s straw-like white hair. “No, it’s an opportunity.”
“After what you just saw?” Raham jumped up from the log and paced by the river’s shore. His shadow merged into the gloom and then emerged by the moonlight reflected from the surface. “Look at Jolina.”
“Still sitting right here.” Jolina coughed into her hand and grimaced from a spasm in her chest.
“Then how many more will suffer like this?” Maren asked as her eyes tracked Raham’s movement.
“She’s right. With magic, there’s a price. People need to know before they find out the terrible cost,” Cormac said.
“We’ve given up on a cure already?” Jolina held out her arms and looked at the paper-thin skin and blue veins across the back of her hands. Her voice already seemed fainter.
“No, Jolina. We’re not giving up on anything,” Maren said. She scowled at Raham and Cormac and turned back to their friend. “We’ve played with magic and lights, but nobody tried to do what you’ve done.”
“I was so scared. When I felt the power inside me, I would never let them hurt me.” A smile tickled the corner of her lips. “Or us.”
Cormac slid off the log and dropped to his knees in front of her. He held her frigid hands within the warmth of his own. “Thank you, Jolina. When they drew their blades, I froze. I don’t know what would’ve happened if you didn’t save us.”
“Good thing you showed me how. If it happened yesterday… well, I don’t want to think about it.”
“Do we think this was a coincidence?” Raham returned to the log and stared at his friends. “Maren, your family has owned the mill for what, three generations?” He waited for her to nod before he continued. “And we’ve never had some lord’s guards stop. No one stops by. And on the same day we found some fantastic book in your parent’s shop, Cormac. Tell me this isn’t a coincidence.”
“Isn’t it?” Maren countered. “There’s no diabolic force out to get four young adults learning magic.”
“I’m not so sure, Maren.” Raham didn’t back down under her intense gaze. “I keep hearing those whispers. It’s like a voice pushing us to go a particular direction and keep pressing with magic. It’s been the loudest today.”
“So part of your coincidence is you hear voices in your head?” Maren shook her head and raised an eyebrow. “Call me skeptical. We have free will. What Jolina did saved the four of us, and we owe it to ourselves to understand more.”
“I don’t know about voices or coincidences, but I know what I saw. Jolina used incredible power and burned those two men to the ground. Not even their metal survived that blast. If we can do that, we need to understand this power.” Cormac’s eyes drifted back to Jolina, who appeared to be nodding off to sleep. “We know what this power costs. But ignoring everything that happened isn’t a better solution, Raham.”
“Cormac, I’m not claiming that you’re wrong. But who are we paying?”
Silence fell over the clearing as the friends listened to Jolina’s raspy voice struggling for the next breath. Until she didn’t struggle anymore.
Cormac didn’t know how long they sat on the log with their lost friend. The river continued its journey to the mill and locations downstream. The trees that lined the banks continued their silent sentry duties as nocturnal animals scurried.
“May she find her peace,” Raham whispered.
Cormac nodded. His fear crippled his reaction when those strangers came into the grove. With the body of his friend as a witness, he would never let that happen again. He had to understand his powers, and they had to understand the cost. He couldn’t let this happen to anyone else.
But the emotions of the moment threatened to overwhelm his thoughts. One of his childhood friends aged decades and died next to him. He couldn’t process the loss as fast as he considered the consequences of his arcane power. The frail body slumped on the moist soil.
“What do we tell her parents?” Cormac wanted his voice to come out stronger, like he was in charge. But he croaked before he got to the last word.
“Nothing,” Maren said. Her voice had none of Cormac’s uncertainty.
“We can’t pretend this didn’t happen, Maren,” Raham said.
“No one is pretending anything. We were here and saw it happen. We have two guards who disappeared. There’s nothing to account for other than those two smoldering holes. We have a body that looks nothing like our friend. Are we going to explain that our witchcraft created these craters and killed our friend?”
Cormac wanted to disagree, but he couldn’t.
“Maren, what happened to you?” Raham took several steps away.
“I’m a miller’s daughter with no hope of her own life. My father will marry me away, hoping to align with another family. I’ll bet he’s talking to the landowner of the new mill further downstream. Cut down on the competition by marrying into the monopoly.” The words came out in a rush, and Maren paused to regain her composure. “I will not be someone’s property. With this power, I will never have to be just the miller’s daughter.”
Raham nodded. “I’m sorry, Maren. I didn’t know those things.”
“You wouldn’t. You’re a man.”
Cormac began collecting dry wood from the edge of the clearing and formed a pile. In a few minutes, his friends helped him gather a larger stack of logs. Without another word, the group laid Jolina on top of the pile.
Cormac rubbed away the tear wetting his cheek as he considered what they had to do. Her family would never know what happened to her, and this was the best they could do to honor her memory. Cormac tried to convince himself it was the only option.
“Wood is wet,” Raham said.
Cormac summoned a trickle of power and brought flames to life. In less than an instant, the flames caught across the entire pile and consumed the fuel. The pillar of smoke disappeared into the night sky, and the fire burned impossibly hot for the fuel. There would be nothing left of their friend.
As the flames finished their terrible work, the friends faced each other again.
“What do we do now?” Raham asked.
“We leave by tomorrow night. Make our final arrangements and leave this town,” Cormac said. His voice was more confident than what he felt. But something inside told him it was the right move. People would start asking questions. Not just the bodies, but about their power.
“Where?” Raham asked.
“A place where we can start a school. This can’t happen again. Not when we know the price of magic and what it can do. We have to find a cure, a solution, or a cautious approach to what we can do.” Cormac looked at each of them.
“I’m with you.” Maren slid her hand into Cormac’s, clutching his fingers within his own. He’d wanted this for so long, but at this moment, he just couldn’t look forward to the future.
“I’m with you,” Raham said. “For now.”
“I’ll take it.” Cormac held out his hand, and Raham shook it with a firm grip. “Jolina deserves answers.”
Also by Mark August
Soul of Magic is available in paperback, ebook, and KU.
Schools of Magic is available for pre-order. May 1, 2021 release with paperback and KU.
