Shadow Mage

by Sarah McCarthy

  “Well, I wanted to apologize. I made you uncomfortable the other night, and… well, I was only talking about myself.”

  He seemed very sincere, but Kel only watched him curiously.

  “So… I’m sorry.” He looked up and gave her a rueful half-grin. It was very charming, but Kel’s stomach felt cold.

  “It’s all right.”

  “It’s not. I’m a little overwhelmed by all of this. I haven’t been a mage that long and… well, I wasn’t very popular back home.”

  I wonder why, Smoke interjected.

  Kel surpressed a smile.

  “It’s OK.”

  Illiam sighed, and his shoulders relaxed. He gave her a sideways glance and then looked out at the trees. “What are all those orange spots?” he asked.

  “Oh, that’s what I was looking at. There are beetles eating the trees.”

  Illiam paused, concentrating. “I can get rid of them for you.”

  A few droplets of rain began to speckle down around them as the last of the light faded from the sky.

  Kel inwardly rolled her eyes. There was no way he could do that. “Oh, I don’t want to get rid of them.”

  Illiam frowned. “You want them to eat the trees?”

  “No, but I don’t want to kill them.”

  He seemed genuinely confused. “Why not?”

  “They haven’t done anything wrong. They’re just doing what comes naturally to them.”

  “But…” Illiam looked at the gardens behind them in the dark. “So… if something were to come and start eating all the plants in your gardens you would… just let them?”

  Kel shifted uncomfortably. She was hoping that wouldn’t happen.

  Illiam was watching her. He seemed to be purposefully not moving any closer.

  In the distance, a crow cawed, and they both turned. Rain began to fall in earnest around them, and without thinking, Kel parted it over their heads, leaving them in a dry little enclosure together. Darkness had shrunk the world around them, and now the only light came from the torches in their glass sconces, shining their light through the rainy darkness.

  Illiam offered her his cloak, but she shook her head. She wasn’t cold.

  He watched her for several seconds, still holding out the cloak, but when she seemed certain, he let it drop to his side.

  Finally, he shrugged. “Well, anyway, I’m sorry. About the other day. I hope we can be friends, still?”

  Reflexively, she nodded. “Sure, friends.”

  He smiled.

  After Kel left, Illiam stood for a long while on the battlements. Excitement kept him rooted to the spot. The rain thundered down around him, saturating his hair, dripping off his eyelids and coursing down his cheeks like tears. He waited for a long while, wondering if she would return, if she was thinking about him now. She must be.

  His heart turned over in his chest. When he’d first seen her, he’d known. Known that she was the one. But then, when he’d learned what she was, he’d wondered how he could possibly fit into her life. She didn’t seem to need anything—to need him—at all.

  But now he knew. She could create, but she couldn’t destroy. She was afraid, hesitant. She needed someone who would make the hard choices for her. Who could accept consequences.

  I’ll do what you can’t. The things you know you should but you’re too afraid to, Illiam thought.

  He looked out into the rainy darkness, listened to the droplets thundering on the leaves. If he strained, he could feel the warmth of the beetles out there, the little crawly things that were eating her trees.

  He lifted his hands, focusing, and little flickers of light, millions of little sparkles like bright fireflies, danced through the forest, popping out of the darkness. Tiny little pops of light that disappeared again in puffs of smoke as millions of beetles incinerated where they crouched.

  Illiam smiled. He knew that no other fire mage could have done what he just did. That was what his benefactor had said. That he would be the most powerful. The strongest.

  Stronger even—in some ways—than Kel.

  Kel had just pulled on her pajamas when something flickered in the back of her mind. She froze, just about to pull back the bedcovers. There is was again. Frowning, she closed her eyes and waited. At first, everything was the same. She couldn’t tell what it was. What was different. Then she realized, and her eyes snapped open.

  She was out the window before she’d even transformed. For half a second, she plummeted towards the ground, but then her wings were wide, and the air lifted her. Two seconds later, only half-transformed, she alighted on the rain-slick battlements, to see Illiam leaning against a wall.

  Her talons clicked on the stones, the feathers sprouting from her shoulders ruffled, the rain cascading off them.

  “What did you do?” she demanded.

  “I took care of the beetles for you, Kel,” he said, smiling.

  “I told you, I didn’t want that.” Somehow the fact that he was calm made her angrier.

  “But it had to be done. It was the right thing to do. You just didn’t want to do it.”

  “I would have figured something else out. But that’s beside the point.”

  He looked abashed. “I was only trying to help. I thought you wanted this.”

  “No, you didn’t, otherwise you would have offered. And you wouldn’t have waited until I was gone, either.”

  She thought she saw a tiny smile flicker across his face, a hint of amusement in his eyes, but then it was gone.

  “I’m sorry, Kel, I really am.”

  It looked so sincere that Kel wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. She shook the rain out of her eyes and swallowed her anger down.

  “Next time…” She took a deep breath. There wouldn’t be a next time, because she wasn’t going to talk to him again. “Don’t do something like that without asking me.”

  “I won’t so much as slap a mosquito without your permission,” he said seriously, bowing.

  She clenched and unclenched her fists, unconsciously crushing some of the vines of her hand.

  Kel’s mind spun for several seconds, then she unfurled her wings and lifted off again.

  She took a few furious laps around the Table before winging back into her room, shaking the water from herself and slamming the doors to the balcony unnecessarily hard.

  Smoke poked his head up from his basket by the fire as she sank into a chair.

  What happened?

  Kel shook her head, angry tears sprouting in her eyes as her feathers slowly smoothed back into skin. She shouldn’t have told Illiam what she was worried about. Now all those millions of beetles were dead—it was a miracle he hadn’t started a forest fire—and it was her fault.

  She must have been muttering to herself, because Smoke caught on to what was bothering her.

  It wasn’t your fault. He chose to do that.

  Because of me.

  Still.

  Kel shook her head.

  He’s horrible. She thought of what he’d said, that he was just trying to help, and ground her teeth. He hadn’t been trying to help. Whatever that was, it was not helping. But it looked a lot like helping. Her heart rate slowed a little. Maybe he’d thought—no. Kel knew what it looked like when someone wanted to help but was just going about it the wrong way. This was something else.

  She took a deep breath and let it out again.

  Whatever it was, she would be more careful next time.

  25

  Finn

  Finn cracked his neck and grimaced as he jogged up the steps towards the gardens. He still didn’t feel quite… right after Sarai’s attempt. At least Agnes would be keeping an eye on her now. This may have been a bad plan. Too late now. He needed contingencies. Morthil would be appearing soon. How did time move so quickly?

  But no. He shook his head, picking up the pace, letting the movement clear out his uncertainty. He had things to do. Things that were more important than he was.

  Artair, Frewin, Nat
e, and the Baron were clustered together in the central plaza of the garden. Artair leaned against a mossy wall, eating a pastry. Frewin paced back and forth and was the first to look up at Finn’s approach.

  “Thank you for waiting,” Finn said.

  “Yes, well, how about you make it worth our while, then?” the Baron suggested.

  “Of course, yes.” Finn adjusted his tunic surreptitiously and tried to keep his expression neutral as he felt something pop back into place in his back. “Right this way.”

  He led them through the gardens, in the direction of the towering black spire at the far end of the Table. Pulling a key from his pocket, he turned and grinned at the group. “All right, would you like to take the stairs or Isabelle’s way?”

  “What way is that?” the Baron asked, his eyes lighting up.

  “I think it’s better if I don’t tell you.”

  The Baron glanced at his companions.

  “I will be your demonstration, if you like,” Frewin said, and the Baron relaxed.

  “Thank you. Right this way.” Finn gestured around the edge of the base of the tower, to a small roped-off platform.

  “What do I…”

  “Just step right there in the middle. You don’t have to do anything.”

  Frewin stepped over the ropes and climbed onto the platform. Immediately, his muscular form went shooting silently up into the sky. Artair dropped his pastry.

  “Anyone else want to try?”

  “The stairs are fine,” the Baron mumbled.

  “This,” Finn said, as the group followed him up the stairs, “is Isabelle’s lab.” Well, the lower levels of it, anyway. Isabelle would never have let anyone into her main lab at the top. But these lower levels, where the students took her ideas and tried to craft them into something useful, these were acceptable.

  This will impress you. This will make you see. When you go back home and tell stories about us, this is what you’re going to tell.

  He led them through another locked door into a large, sunlit lab. About fifteen young wind mages stood at various desks and tables consulting notes, adjusting dials, and bustling about efficiently.

  Finn crossed to a side door that led to a balcony, and opened it to allow in a windswept Frewin, adjusting his sweater.

  “Interesting,” was all he said.

  Finn clapped him on the back.

  “We’re working on new sound technologies currently,” Finn said, taking them past a desk where a young wind mage was crafting little blue bubbles of air, speaking into them, and blowing them fifty feet to the other side of the room, where another mage held the bubble up to his ear and then jotted something on a piece of paper.

  “And this is interesting,” he said, leading them to the next set of desks where a student worked a complicated pattern with his fingers. “Time delays. If we can set up just the right pattern of rotating air, it will go through a certain number of rotations before it does what we want it to do.

  “And this,” he said, moving on, “is where we’re working on wind magic that is dependent on external factors, like sunlight, rain, high winds…that sort of thing.”

  “Or, say, an intruder passing through a certain area?” the Baron asked.

  “Exactly,” Finn said. The Baron nodded, clearly impressed, and Finn smiled.

  Frewin, a dour expression on his face, scanned the room and crossed his arms.

  “Now,” Finn continued. “If you’ll follow me this way, we have some demonstrations for you.”

  At the far end of the room a space had been cleared, and two older girls stood, one tall, one short with glasses.

  “This is Eirene and Japhlet, Isabelle’s assistants.” They bowed to the group.

  Finn looked around and noticed the Baron was back at the last table, bending interestedly over the whirling current of air. He poked at it and it unraveled, spiraling apart. He moved to say something to the mage student but caught Finn’s eye and straightened. Smiling, he hurried to rejoin the group, but Finn thought he saw the wind mage tuck something into her pocket.

  He made a mental note to ask her what that had been about later, then gestured for Eirene to begin the demonstration.

  “We’ve been working to solve some of the major problems with inter-city trading. One of the biggest expenses is of course bringing all the various deliveries to the different locations inside each city. We can solve that with individual wind currents that split apart—”

  “Fascinating, fascinating,” the Baron said, moving forwards. “But could this be done without a mage present at every location?”

  “Yes, well, we’re working on a tagging system.” She held up a delicate paper fan that looked a little like a fancy wing. “The different shapes have different amounts of lift. So, what we do is we create a current of air that has different levels, varying in speed. The packages with more lift move to the top of the current, the packages with less lift move lower, and so on.”

  “Again, fascinating,” the Baron said, smiling widely at her. “Truly ingenious.”

  She nodded curtly at him. Nate and Finn exchanged looks.

  Artair was at the edge of the group, gazing out the window. They were around fifty feet above the top of the mesa, which was itself a hundred feet above ground level, and the views were incredible. You could see the Blackwater snaking its way through the dry plains from here. What would catch your attention?

  “Artair?”

  The man jumped and turned back.

  “What are some difficulties you have in the Uplands? What could we help with?”

  He shrugged. “Not much, things are fine, really.” He glanced towards the window again.

  There has to be something.

  “You still use the Floating Citadel, is that right?”

  He shrugged again. “Oh, sure. We meet there once every three years for the Gathering. It’s empty most other times, though.”

  “You don’t have problems with snow? In winter?”

  “Sure, sure, but who needs to leave their house in winter, anyway?”

  “We could make the main roads repel snow, with tiny wind currents that are always blowing.”

  “Sounds chilly.”

  Not as chilly as wading through four-foot drifts. “I heard that a few years ago Paendly ran out of food, but they were snowed in and no one could get to them for weeks. Didn’t some people die?”

  Artair’s expression became decidedly colder. “That was a tragedy.”

  “Of course.” Finn clasped his dirt-streaked hands in front of him. “And one we could help you prevent.”

  “Right… and all you’ll be wanting for that is for us to bend a knee and follow your laws and pay your taxes. That about right?”

  “No. No it’s not right. I’m asking you to send representatives, to create a government together. If you vote for taxes, you vote for taxes, along with the Macai and Westwend and everyone else. If you don’t, you don’t.”

  “We don’t need your help, kid. We’ve been doing just fine.”

  Finn glanced at Frewin, but the man’s face was unreadable. He only watched them with his dark eyes. The Baron was now whispering something to Eirene, who looked at him coldly and moved away.

  I guess now is as good a time as any to have this conversation. “Look,” Finn said. “I get where you’re coming from.”

  “And maybe you’ve forgotten, but mages had the rest of us pretty well enslaved for hundreds of years,” Artair said, no longer his usual relaxed, sticky-fingered self. “It was just handy for us that you went and blew yourselves up. So, you’ll forgive us if we don’t come running to your offers of fancy comforts.”

  Finn unclenched his jaw and took a deep breath. “Yes, yes, I get it. But that wasn’t me. That wasn’t any of us. We grew up being persecuted.” He pointed to the half-moon brand on his temple. “And all we want now is to rejoin you, to be accepted and useful and—”

  “As I said,” Artair continued. “We are doing just fine without you.”
r />   “Frewin?” Finn asked. “What do the Macai have to say about this?”

  Frewin examined the tattooed rings on his fingers.

  “I am here simply to gather information to bring back to my people.”

  “But… is there any sense of…” Come on, Finn. He squared his shoulders. “Do you see the potential here? There is so much we can offer, and we’re not asking to rule, we’re just asking for a seat at the table. And for there to be a table.”

  Frewin was quiet for several seconds before he answered. “We see… potential… but we haven’t forgotten how dangerous magic is. We do not use magic. We do not let our children use magic.”

  “Of course, I understand. But… can you see how far we’ve come? Look at what we’ve built. Have you seen anything dangerous?”

  “You mean aside from the catapult that blasted me up here?” he said, but Finn thought he saw the slightest twinkle of humor in the man’s eyes.

  “Right, well, I mean, we have that roped off.”

  “We are not entirely opposed. We are withholding judgement.”

  Well, that was a step up from complete repudiation.

  “That’s great to hear,” Finn said. “As you can see, we’re working tirelessly to create safe technology. Things that can be used by mages and non-mages alike.”

  “Yes, yes, very impressive,” the Baron said. “Now, enough politics, let’s see the demonstration.” He rubbed his hands together. Finn noticed his pockets were bulging and sighed. Well, whatever he was stealing wasn’t worth making a scene about.

  Eirene stepped forward and began working the air around her, a look of fierce concentration on her face. Japhlet moved to a pile of packages, began affixing the wings to each one and dropping them into a swirling whirlpool of air, where they drifted in slow circles.

  Eirene grimaced, then cocked her head sharply to one side, glancing behind her as if she’d heard something. She shook herself and continued. but there was a tension in her face he wasn’t used to seeing. Eirene was one of their most competent, serious, and careful mages. It was why he’d suggested she be Isabelle’s assistant all those years ago.