The Reluctant Mage Read online

  Her only compensation was that in using the blight against itself, she became more keenly aware of its creeping rot, as though her mage-sense were a knife blade and she was whetting it, honing it to a lethal edge. It meant she could sense far more swiftly when a new ’spout was spawning, or where a whirlpool waited with its hungry mouth wide open, so she could jink the skiff to safety with plenty of time to spare. And that was a good thing. She couldn’t begrudge that. But it meant she was changing.

  She wished she knew into what.

  Not enough sleep. Not enough food. She was living off the blight… and feeling it consume her.

  Their fourth day on the open water was the hardest to endure. By her best guess they were somewhere close to level with Basingdown, Dorana City and home so close it was an actual pain. Just as the sun tipped over from noon and started its slow slipping towards the horizon, Deenie felt that prickling burst of uneasiness that heralded a spawning ’spout.

  “Sit tight,” she told Charis as her nerves sizzled, harder than ever. “This is going to be bad.”

  And it was. It was terrible. So many spawning waterspouts threatened them that she quickly lost count. No sooner did she collapse one than two or three more whipped up to take its place, twins and triplets dancing a wild, watery jig. The skiff spun like a leaf on a millrace and they spun with it, teeth rattling, joints wrenching, every over-stretched sinew on fire and screaming.

  In the end she couldn’t sail the skiff and save their lives, so Charis took the tiller and she knelt in the bow, screaming “go left” or “go right” as she sought to thread them to safety somewhere up ahead. Choked with ’spouts, the waters churned to a frenzy of foam-capped waves, soaking them over and over until her eyes were so salt-burned she thought she’d go blind. After that her mage-sense guided her. Her mage-sense, and the blight. It filled her so completely she thought she was nothing but thin skin and darkness. Feared this would be the moment that changed her beyond help.

  Afterwards, collapsed beside Charis on the skiff’s soaked and sloshing floorboards, leaving the boat to fend for itself, she stared bleary at the blue sky. Feeling her heart thud. Feeling her blood pump and pool. Feeling every scrape and scream and bruise.

  “Barl’s tits,” croaked Charis. “Let’s not do that again.”

  “Spoilsport,” she croaked back. And laughed. And laughed. And wept.

  Then it was clear sailing until sunset and through the night. The next day saw a brief squall, two whirlpools and two bouts of waterspouts. It rained the night after, but not stormily, and they had to contend with five waterspouts—but were spared a whirlpool. As the sun rose on the sixth day, Deenie left Charis in charge of the tiller, crawled exhausted under their canvas awning and plunged into sleep.

  Five hours later the blight woke her, dark and bubbling in her blood. And before she even opened her eyes she heard a familiar roaring, louder and hungrier than ever before.

  Dry-mouthed, she crawled back out from under the canvas to find Charis sitting numb and silent in the stern, the tiller quiet in her hand.

  “It’s over, Deenie,” she said, empty. “We went through all of this for nothing.” She pointed. “Look.”

  After days and nights of struggle and fear, against every sensible hope of survival, they’d reached the end of the reef—and at its ragged end, between the ancient barrier and the rocky coast, roared a whirlpool seemingly big enough to swallow Dorana City whole.

  Dismayed, Deenie stared at it.

  Oh, Da. Da, no. This just ain’t fair.

  For a treacherous moment she trembled on the brink of overwhelming self-pity. Because it wasn’t fair. Not after everything she and Charis had survived. Not after the hardship and the suffering and all that peeing in a tin bowl.

  There’s no way around it and there’s no way I can collapse it. I might as well try to collapse the sun.

  But even as she stared, ready to admit defeat, she felt a dreadful surge of fury, as vast and as powerful as the whirlpool now denying them the open ocean.

  Bloody sink that for a sackful of hammers. I ain’t sailed all this way to turn tail on Rafe now.

  “Deenie?” said Charis, suspicious. “Deenie, what are you scheming?”

  If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

  “Nothing you want me to tell you, Charis,” she said, and gently shoved her friend away from the tiller.

  Am I mad, Da? I’m mad, aren’t I? Prob’ly even you wouldn’t think of doing this.

  “Deenie?” Now Charis sounded nervous. “Deenie—you’re sailing us towards the reef.”

  She nodded. “I know.”

  “But—but why?”

  “Because I’m not about to let that sorcerer Morg and his reef beat me.”

  “But Deenie—”

  “Don’t fratch at me, Charis,” she said. “I need to think.”

  Muttering crossly, Charis gave up.

  Deenie closed her eyes, willing her pounding heart to ease.

  I can do this. I can. I’m Asher’s daughter. I’m Rafe’s sister. And I’m stronger now than I was this time last week.

  Stronger… different… honed into a blade.

  As though this was meant, they had nothing but clear water, all of Morg’s blight poured greedily into the whirlpool. She nudged the tiller until the skiff was pointed as near to the end of the reef as she dared go. The morning breeze skipped them over the small waves, and the whirlpool’s roaring seemed to cheer her on.

  A long stone’s throw from the ragged, jagged Dragon’s teeth she swung the skiff sharply to empty the wind from its sail and bring the small boat to a rocking halt. Then she looked at Charis, who was cross-legged on the floorboards, her skirt torn, her shirt without three buttons, blistered hands fisted hard in her lap.

  “Take the tiller, Charis,” she said briskly. “And hold here until I’m done.”

  “Done?” Charis was glaring. “Done with what?”

  She should be terrified—and a part of her was—but she was grinning, too. Because why not? Why shouldn’t she? Why couldn’t a mouse grin from time to time?

  “You’ll see,” she said. “Now come on. Take the tiller.”

  Grumbling, Charis wriggled her way to the stern. And then she choked. “Deenie! What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like?” she said, stripping herself of shirt and linen leggings, leaving only her manky smalls. She was barefoot already, they both were. “Now hold the skiff here, remember? I’ll try not to be long.”

  And before Charis could stop her, she dived over the skiff’s side and into the seething water’s cold embrace.

  So used had she grown to the blight beating through her blood, she hardly noticed how strong it was this close to the reef. Hardly felt the darkness bubbling as she swam to the Dragon’s teeth. But she noticed it when she fetched up against the living rock and anchored herself to it with clawed fingers, opening herself to the source of the blight.

  A maelstrom inside her, twisting power and might. This was nothing like collapsing waterspouts and dodging whirlpools. They were games for spratlings compared to this. As the reef’s ruthless blight scoured her hollow she could hear herself screaming. It felt like Morg’s tainted magic was ripping her apart. She was no rock reef, she couldn’t sustain this. Her bones would break soon. She was going to die.

  I don’t want to… I don’t want to…

  And then in the midst of the madness she felt something new, something gentle, threading itself through her blood and bones. Heard a different voice, sweetly descant to Morg’s brutal bass. Bewildered, she tried to make sense of it, but even as she drew another deep, shuddering breath she was deafened and battered anew by the sorcerer’s lingering hate. By the sound of that monstrous whirlpool, roaring louder than a hundred storms.

  Help me, Da. Help me. We can’t let Morg win.

  But Da was too far away, he couldn’t hear her, and her mousey strength was ebbing, ebbing, like a tide. She felt the blight rise to swamp her, felt her fingers
loosen on the reef. And that was all right, because if she let go the pain would stop.

  If I let go, Rafe will die.

  With a shout of fury she clamped her fingers hard on the reef again, heedless of the pain and the feel of warm, slippery blood. And then she stopped fighting. She had to use the blight, not battle with it, just as she’d used it to defeat all those waterspouts.

  But it hurts. Da, it hurts.

  With the tattered shreds of her endurance, closing her mind to the thought of shadows sliding under her skin, to the darkness thundering through her, she channelled the blight’s power towards the enormous whirlpool. Danced her mage-sense around its spinning circumference, searching for a way in. Searching… searching…

  There.

  Holding her breath, she was dimly aware of that sweet, high voice at the very limit of hearing, teasing and tantalising. A warm note of hope. But it was a distraction, so she pushed it away.

  Bit by bit she fed the blight into the whirlpool, like Charis in her kitchen adding sap-sugar to a sauce. At first the whirlpool resisted, tried to spit her and her mage-sense and the cloying blight into the sky. But she was stronger now, so much stronger. In her bones she’d been changed. Teeth gritted, bloodied fingers clinging, she pitted herself against the maelstrom.

  Let me past! You can’t keep me here. I need to go. Let me go!

  She fought the whirlpool, and the whirlpool fought back. Bloated with Morg’s malevolence, it tried to smash her to pieces, smear her to blood in the water. Weeping, she resisted. And when she heard that sweet, whispering note of hope again, she welcomed it.

  Help me. Please, help.

  A new strength poured into her… and she felt the whirlpool falter.

  Da… Da…

  She screamed as she felt the whirlpool die, killed by its birthing blight. Screamed a second time as she felt the last of the blight burn through her.

  Everything went dark.

  Am I dead? Am I dead?

  But then she opened her eyes and saw blue sky. Heard her pounding heart in her chest. For the longest time she clung to the reef, too weak to move, almost too weak to breathe. Her clinging hands hurt horribly. Everything was hurting. She felt cold and shrivelled and so very, very small.

  And then she heard Charis shouting. “Deenie! Deenie!”

  Oh, yes. The skiff. She had to go back. But could she swim? Could she even move? Wouldn’t she rather stay here and just breathe? Yes, but Charis needed her. That meant she couldn’t stay.

  Slowly, feebly, she paddled to the skiff. Charis had to help her back into it. Her bones had turned to string.

  “Oh, Deenie.” Charis’s teeth were chattering and her cheeks were wet with tears. “How did you do that? How are you not dead? Oh, Deenie, look at your poor hands!”

  She didn’t want to. She could feel them, and that was bad enough.

  “Never mind my hands, Captain Orrick,” she said, gently scowling. “You go man the tiller. It’s time to fetch our missing Rafe.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Alone in the barracks tiltyard, the sun just cresting the treetops, Ewen doggedly exercised his right arm. Though its broken bones had knitted well enough he wasn’t yet returned to full strength, so he was training with the light sword he’d wielded as a youth. Running sweat despite the chilly air, he plunged the blade over and over again into the heart, lungs and belly of the sand-filled mannikin the barracks men had dubbed Morg.

  And as he trained he heard his father’s voice, just as he’d heard it day after dragging day since returning from the Eastern Vale, clipped and cold with a scarcely bridled fury.

  “Blood your brother, I told you. Not a hard task. One poor witless wanderer tied to a chair for a kind killing. And you failed! Ewen, how could you fail? No blooding, but a butchery. It’s angry word from the Eastern Vale, I have. That witless Nairn, he rails to me of your blundering. What am I to say?”

  Weeks gone by since that confrontation and still the pain of it persisted. His ride home to the High Vale with a broken arm had been a retching agony, but gladly he’d have turned and ridden back to the Eastern Vale rather than endure one more pounding heartbeat of the king’s bitter rage.

  “It’s king after me you’re chosen!” his father had shouted. “Wear a crown, can you? After this? I wonder.”

  Next the king had rounded on Padrig, disgust and disappointment doled out with a heavy hand.

  “Is it a man, you are, or a milkish maid? What have I sired, a gelding? Have your balls dropped, boy? Do you shave? Can you rut? Should I send for a seamstress, should I, and have her sew you a dress?”

  The unexpected cruelty of the attack had left his brother speechless. But when he’d tried to take the blame, tried to see Padrig shielded, his brother had turned away. There was no forgiveness in him, either.

  Remembering, stung anew by the unfairness of that, Ewen thrust his sword home to the hilt through the mannikin’s heart, grunting as the impact jarred his mended bones.

  “I’m sorry, Padrig,” he told the empty tiltyard. “I let you down, I did.”

  He’d tried to say that to his brother’s face, but humiliated Padrig hadn’t wanted to hear it. Shamed by what had happened in the Eastern Vale, shamed again, deeper still, by the king’s derision, he’d shut himself in his chamber with spare lamp oil and his books.

  And then, four difficult days after their ignominious return, Tavin’s three roaming scouts had ridden back into the barracks. The news they brought home with them had driven the Eastern Vale from their minds.

  More blighted wanderers crossing into Vharne from Manemli. To swell their numbers, blighted wanderers from the long-silent lands of Ranoush. Worst of all, half a small village of men, women and children was blighted because of it. The scouts had put them all down.

  The king turned ash-pale hearing that, and stayed silent for a day.

  Two days after that he’d ridden out of the High Vale with twelve heavily armed barracks men, two nephews and Padrig, still unforgiving, to hunt down the truth.

  “I’d rather you rode with me, Ewen,” his father bluntly said, the night before. “But the Eastern Vale took care of that, it did. So it’s Padrig I’ll take. I’ll see him blooded in the north.”

  Which had left him to sit his princely arse in the king’s seat, in the Hall, nursing his broken arm and pretending the crown belonged on his head.

  “Spirit guide you, Padrig,” he muttered to the cold tiltyard morning. “Find common ground with the king, you should.”

  Something else he’d tried to tell his little brother, that Padrig hadn’t wanted to hear. Padrig held a grudge the way a miser clutched coin.

  Grunting again, Ewen pulled his sword from the mannikin and watched the sand trickle out of its wound like pale yellow blood.

  “Boy, what are you doing?”

  Tavin. He turned, trying to mask the pain burning in his arm. “What does it look like?”

  “Ewen—” His scarred face scrunched with displeasure, Tavin slapped the tiltyard’s open gate with the flat of his hand. “Is this helping, is it?”

  “You’re the one said my arm won’t find its lost strength with wishing.”

  “And I said,” Tavin retorted, stepping into the tiltyard proper, “that it’s more harm than good you’ll do hating yourself, you will.”

  Easy for him to say, that was. He’d not disappointed a king and a brother at once.

  “What do you want, Tav?” he said, the ache in his arm fierce, and in his heart even fiercer. “Is there word from the king?”

  Joining him at the mannikin, Tavin shook his head. “No word.”

  He lowered the point of his childish sword to his boot. Painful or not, tomorrow he’d train with a proper weapon. Who would trust a prince wielding a blade made for a boy?

  “Near a month since the last pigeon, Tav.”

  “Pigeons feed falcons,” said Tavin, shrugging. “That’s trouble for the pigeon, not for the king.”

  “The scouts spoke of wander
ers from Ranoush, Tavin! Ranoush! That old enemy’s been asleep since before I was born!”

  “A handful of snowflakes don’t make a blizzard,” said Tavin, mildly enough. “A good king doesn’t sweat himself before he needs to.”

  But I’m not a good king. I’m a prince with a crown I never asked to wear.

  “Swordmaster, I say there is a blizzard,” he snapped. “It’s not whispers of blighted wanderers we’re hearing. They’ve been seen. They’ve been taken and put down. Keeping count, are you? I am. Twelve since the king rode from the barracks, Tav. Twelve.”

  Tavin poked a finger into the mannikin’s fresh sword-slits. “It’s not a good number.”

  “No! It’s not!” Breathing hard, he calmed himself. Shouting at Tavin wouldn’t bring Padrig home safe. “That Eastern Vale man. Jeyk. Called, he said he was. Tav, we have to learn more. We have to find who called him. Then maybe we’ll know why.”

  “You know who called him,” said Tavin, brooding. “The north.”

  “The north is a place, Swordmaster. Say a valley called him and make as much sense, you would.”

  “Ewen…” Tavin sighed. “The king rode out to find answers. Scouts are riding the rough to find answers. You’ve been chewing this bone since the day you brought your broken arm home, boy. And if you want we can chew it again. We can chew it ’til our teeth break, we can. But there’s no answer in this tiltyard or in the castle or in any corner of the Vale. So save our teeth, I say.”

  The swordmaster was right. With a shout of frustration, Ewen snatched up his blade and shoved it through the mannikin’s throat. A flash of fire slammed up his arm, all the way to his shoulder. He shouted again, this time with pain, and pressed his right forearm hard to his chest.

  Tavin listened to his cursing, one grey eyebrow raised. Then he pulled the sword free. “Boy, it’s a stubborn fool, you are.”

  Scowling, he held out his left hand. “I’ll have that back, I will.”