The Reluctant Mage Read online

  Because I won. I always win.

  His other great pleasure was in tormenting Rafel with his father’s pain. Asher, being a coward, had never told his son their whole story. So he did. In great detail. He let Rafel relive it as though the memory were his own. The son’s screams, echoing his father’s, soothed the troubled places in his soul.

  But not tonight. Tonight he had Rafel locked away, rendered mute. Ordinarily he was content to let the Olken mage batter and rail and smash his mind against his own skull, but his mood had shifted.

  Tonight is for memories.

  His dravas, standing sentinel, would not move without his command. His warded human servants were locked away underground. Arlin was sleeping, his broken pet Olken on the floor by his bed.

  And he drifted through his palace with the ghosts of his past.

  There. That corridor. That was where he first saw Barl. She’d been waiting for an appointment with Lord Hahren, so frightened, so hopeful of being noticed, of being approved. Newly arrived in Elvado, not a soul to call her friend. He’d had mage business with Hahren himself that day, and with his wishes made clear he’d left the ignorant fool’s chamber. One stride through the doorway and he saw her: small and slender, wrapped in blue linen, her golden hair like a crown. The scented air had shimmered round her, rippled by her raw power. He’d felt his heart stop. Felt his blood seize. Forgot how to draw breath.

  It was love. And it was painful. He never knew love could hurt.

  She didn’t see him. Not properly. Not then. But when she did? Oh, when she did…

  The bitch, the slut, the treacherous whore.

  With the lift of his finger he sounded her voice through the halls. Listened to her singing. Let Rafel’s eyes weep.

  It was perfect, Barl. We were perfect. What led you astray? Who convinced you to betray me? I gave you my soul, woman. Why wasn’t it enough?

  She didn’t answer. She never did. Six hundred years of asking and still he didn’t know. He stopped the tears. He stopped the music. He walked in silence. Alone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  It was Charis who found the spirit path, four days after they fell in with the barracks captain and his men.

  Deenie hadn’t noticed a thing. Wrapped up in her fears for Rafel, distracted by the truth of Morg’s survival, by the growing sense of blight curdling through her the closer they rode to Vharne’s crossroads border with the lands of Manemli and Ranoush, she was as startled as Ewen when her friend hurtled back into their makeshift camp.

  “Deenie! Come quick! You have to feel this!”

  Scorning any suggestion of danger—“Deenie would know if there are beasts hereabouts, Captain”—she’d gone off to look for wild mushrooms and berries. Ewen had tried to stop her, but short of tying her to a tree Charis was unstoppable. So irritated it was almost funny, Ewen had let her go. “And if you fall face-first into trouble, girl, don’t bother calling to me for help, you needn’t.”

  Now he was on his feet, sword half-pulled from its scabbard, his barracks men following their captain’s lead. “Feel what?” he demanded. “Girl—what are you—”

  Charis flapped a hand at him. “Hush. You’re not Deenie.”

  “Charis, don’t be tiresome,” Deenie sighed. “What have you found?”

  Charis was jiggling with impatience. “I don’t know. Not exactly. You have to come and feel it, I tell you.”

  With another sigh she put aside the torn shirt she was mending, thanks to Ewen’s needle and thread. “Charis doesn’t imagine things, Captain.”

  There was an odd glint in his eye. “We’ll all three of us go, we will.” He turned to his new Dirk. “Robb. Stand sharp.”

  The look on the barracks man’s face said he didn’t approve, but his captain was his captain. He nodded.

  Following Charis, they plunged into the surrounding thick woodland, heading away from the mostly-overgrown path they followed north and the mean trickle of stream and kerchief-sized clearing they’d found to sleep in that night. The treetops blotted out the sinking sun and the ground was choked with brambles and rotted fallen branches and travelling vines and clumps of dubious mushrooms. It was cold in the shadows, winter’s promise being kept.

  Deenie felt Ewen glance at her as they clambered over an uprooted sapling. “No, Captain. I still don’t feel any beasts nearby. Or wanderers.”

  “Know what I’m thinking to ask before I ask it, do you?” he said, glaring. “More sorcery, girl?”

  Girl. She gritted her teeth. “Of course not. It’s just you hardly ever ask me anything else.” ’Cause she made him uneasy, though he’d never admit it. “So I thought it was a fair guess.”

  “More to think on than blathering, I’ve got.” Then he looked at Charis, forging ahead. “What’s she found, d’you think?”

  Her foot slid on a fallen branch hidden by rotting leaf mulch. Ewen caught her elbow, keeping her from a stumble. His unexpected touch jolted her anew. There was safety and warmth in it. She pulled free.

  “I don’t know, Captain. Why don’t you tell me?”

  “Who says I know?”

  “You do,” she retorted. “Four days I’ve been riding behind your saddle, remember? You’re not so much of a stranger now as you were when we first met.”

  And he didn’t like that overmuch. “Sorcery,” he muttered, and pushed on after Charis.

  She let him go. It was easier to feel for beasts and wanderers and other trouble when he wasn’t close by her, fogging her mind.

  I’m tired of him clouding me. I wish he’d leave me alone.

  Deeper into the woodland Charis led them, hardly glancing behind her to make sure they kept on her heels.

  “How much further, girl?” Ewen called after her. “We’re a ways from camp, we are. I don’t like it.”

  Charis laughed. “Frighted of tree-boggles, Captain? Don’t fratch, we’re almost there.”

  “Fratch,” said Ewen, unhappy. “Fratch you, girl, I will. Rampaging me through the woods.”

  But Charis didn’t hear that, or else she didn’t care. She was slowing of a sudden, one hand lifting.

  Then, just as sudden, Deenie could feel it too. An odd tingling of power. A tickling reminder of that sleeping presence she sometimes felt in this land.

  “Deenie?” said Charis, turning. “You can feel it now, can’t you?”

  Astonished, chagrined—I should have felt it first—she nodded. “I can.”

  “There!” Charis pointed. “I marked the spot. See?”

  A scrap of Charis’s green linen shirt fluttered on the branch of a low bush laden with dark blue berries.

  “Stand right there,” said Charis, her eyes shining. “Where I marked. Go on. It won’t hurt you.”

  But instead of proving Charis right, Deenie looked at Ewen. “If I stand there, Captain, what will I find?”

  “Oh, never mind asking him,” said Charis, scornful. “Just because you saved his life, why is that any reason to trust us?”

  Ewen’s eyes narrowed, but still he didn’t answer.

  Barl’s tits, but he’s fratchsome.

  She turned her back on him and went to stand beside the berry bush waving Charis’s little flag—and felt her mage-sense shudder as her feet touched a blaze of power sunk deep in the earth’s bones. Mind whirling, she dropped to her hands and knees. Dug her fingers through the leaf litter, into the damp soil, feeling that unexpected power thrum through her. Then she stared at Ewen.

  “What is it? Tell me!”

  Charis smirked. “Perhaps he doesn’t know.”

  “He knows. He—” And then she had to stop talking, and simply breathe, because the waves of light and warmth washing through her were making it hard to remember what she wanted to say.

  “Deenie!”

  “I’m—I’m all right. I think,” she murmured, as Charis knelt beside her. “Only—Charis, it’s so strange. The blight’s gone. At least, I can’t feel it. And the mankiness inside me, because of the reef? I can’t fe
el that either. I feel—I feel—safe.”

  As safe as when she rode behind Ewen with her arms clasped tight about his narrow waist. Then she felt the way she had as a spratling, with Da. Like nothing awful in the world could touch her.

  But she wasn’t going to think about that.

  “Well,” said Charis, frowning, “I can’t feel the blight so I’ll have to take your word on it. But there is something here. D’you know—it almost feels familiar. A bit like I feel when I’m working in the garden.”

  Charis was right. “You think it’s Olken magic? But how can that be?”

  “No, not Olken magic. Its kissing cousin, maybe? But if that’s true, then—”

  But before they could explore the notion, Ewen kicked through the leaf litter to stand a stone’s throw away, in line with the berry bush.

  “It’s a spirit path,” he said, his voice tight, as though he was fighting to get the words out.

  Deenie took another deep breath, pushing against the strange power’s flooding heat. “And what does that mean?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Told about it not long ago, I was. Vharne’s greatest secret, they are.”

  “And what’s their use?”

  Ewen hesitated, then sighed. “Hide a man from beasts, they do. I’ve a map—” He slipped his hand inside his shirt, pulled out a grubby piece of parchment and unfolded it. “Only—”

  “This path isn’t on it?”

  He lifted his gaze, frowning. “No.”

  “Is that a surprise?” said Charis, standing to consider their surroundings. “We are awfully off the beaten track. Perhaps this path’s been forgotten.”

  Knowing he’d not hand the map over, Deenie got up, dusted her hands and knees free of dirt and dead leaves and approached him. “Can I see?”

  Ewen angled the map towards her, tapping it with a fingertip. “It’s here, we are. Roughly.”

  “And all these squiggly lines—” She traced one. “Those are Vharne’s spirit paths? Then you’re right. This one’s not here. But that one—” Her turn to tap. “Is that what you’re trying to get to? Is that why we’ve been following such a higgledy-piggledy line north?”

  Nodding, he refolded the map and shoved it back inside his shirt. “Yes. Spirit paths defeat sorcerers and sorcery.”

  “Really?” Charis raised an eyebrow. “Then perhaps you’ll stop expecting us to turn you into a frog any ticktock, Captain. Because here’s me and Deenie standing on your spirit path and neither of us has burst into flames. Which I s’pose means we ain’t sorcerers after all.”

  Deenie swallowed a smile. Ewen’s fratched scowl reminded her of Da and Rafel—and for once the reminder didn’t cause her pain.

  “If you’re right about these spirit paths’ power,” she said, “then I agree we should travel them when we can.”

  She felt the tight knot of tension inside him ease. “That’s the plan, it is,” he said. “But we won’t travel this one. Not when I don’t know where it’ll take us.” He looked at the fading sky. “Dusk’s coming, it is. Robb’ll be worrying. Back to camp, girls. Starting early in the morning, we are.”

  Sure of his way, he pushed ahead of them. Deenie lingered, reluctant to leave the cradling warmth of the spirit path. As soon as she stepped off it she’d be steeped in blight again. And it felt so good to be free of its roiling, curdling taint.

  Charis was glaring after Ewen. “Girls,” she spat. “Tell me, Deenie, is it in you to turn him froggy? If it is, I wish you would. Just for a night, to teach him a lesson.”

  Is it in me? I don’t know. I don’t want to find out.

  “He means well, Charis,” she said, and took her friend’s arm. “Besides, he only says it to fratch you. Smile when he does it. That’s your best revenge.”

  “I s’pose,” said Charis, sighing.

  “Girls!” Ewen shouted, almost out of sight. “Want to walk north, do you?”

  Charis spluttered. “Please, Deenie. Please. Just a little frog? For five minutes?”

  “No,” she said, laughing. “Charis Orrick, clap tongue!”

  It was one of Ewen’s expressions, and the look on Charis’s face for her using it made her laugh again. But the laughter stopped as she set foot off the unseen spirit path and the blight rushed back through her, more ravenous than ever.

  Gritting her teeth, she kept on walking.

  Two of Ewen’s barracks men came back from their hunting with a scrawny wild goat, already skinned and butchered and ready to cook. They let Charis do that, wary as ever but prepared to be coddled a bit. Ewen, being sarcastic, asked if she was leaned on against her will.

  “I don’t mind cooking it,” Charis retorted. “At least this way I know I’ll eat more meat than charcoal tonight.”

  And he couldn’t say anything to her about that, because last night his men had burned their rabbit dinner to cinders.

  Eavesdropping, Deenie had to smother a laugh.

  Later, having eaten her fill and so relieved she hadn’t had to kill her dinner, she lost herself in the leaping flames of the fire she and Charis shared, trying to lull the blight in her to sleep.

  Charis sat beside her on the small sheet of oil-cloth Ewen had given them for the damp. In her baggy, borrowed leather jerkin—it was one of the barracks men’s spares—and her woollen hose and her boots, she’d never looked less like Charis Orrick in her life. She sighed. She sighed again. And then she cleared her throat.

  “Deenie.”

  Stirred from reverie, Deenie bit her lip. “What?”

  “I think I’ve been good,” said Charis. “I think I’ve been patient. But you’ve not said a word and I think I deserve to know.”

  “About?”

  “About everything!”

  But though she said everything, what she meant was the diary.

  “Charis, keep your voice down,” she muttered, glancing at Ewen and his men. They weren’t so far away that they’d not overhear two girls fratching. Not that Ewen’s men would understand the words. They hadn’t been spelled to understanding—his decision. But he’d understand, and his men would be roused suspicious of them all over again. “And any road, there’s nothing to know.”

  “Nothing to know?” Charis said, her voice nearly a squeak. “When you put a spell on me I’ve never heard of and suddenly I can understand every word that—that Captain Noddyhead says? When you tell him bold-faced lies about the things you can do? Really, Deenie? Nothing?”

  Charis sounded more than cross. She sounded hurt. And who could blame her? She was right. She’d been patient, and trusting. Four days of hard, fast riding across rough country, bouncing and banging piggyback on a horse, and she’d not complained. She’d not demanded. She’d endured all of it and never once badgered for the truth about the mysterious little leather-bound journal.

  Be honest, Deenie. You knew you couldn’t keep your secrets forever.

  “It’s safer he doesn’t know everything I can do, Charis. I can’t believe you’d fratch me on that.”

  “I don’t,” said Charis, after a moment. “That’s sensible. But the book?”

  “It’s Barl’s diary,” she said, still brooding at the flames. “Da lied. He never destroyed it, like he said.”

  “Oh,” said Charis, hushed. “Barl’s diary.” She hugged her ribs. “Now there’s a thing. And you can read it, even though it’s in Old Doranen. Is that because of the reef?”

  “Yes. I think it must be.”

  So many things different in her now, because of that sinkin’ reef.

  “So the understanding spell’s in it,” said Charis, trying so hard to be practical and matter-of-fact. “What else?”

  Barl’s regrets. Warbeasts. The way to keep a tiny kingdom safe. Other spells, small and helpful. And the Words of UnMaking, the worst Doranen magic of all.

  “Nothing to help us find Rafel,” she said at last. “And that’s the only magic I care about, Charis.”

  Charis shivered. “You still can’t feel him?”<
br />
  “No,” she whispered. “I’ve tried and tried but he’s not there.”

  Flames crackling in the silence. The barracks horses shifting hooves. Deep voices murmuring, as Ewen’s barracks men passed the time dicing with bones. Ewen played too. He didn’t hold himself apart. She liked that about him, that he wasn’t lofty. That reminded her of Da, too.

  Charis reached for a stray piece of kindling and dug it, vicious, into the dirt. “Does that mean he’s dead, Deenie?” No tears. No wobbly voice. This adventure was tempering her, like steel in a forge. “Is Rafe dead?”

  Turning her head, Deenie met her friend’s furious stare. “No.”

  “Is that true, or are you just saying it?”

  “I’d feel if he was dead, Charis. I would. And I’d tell you.”

  “Deenie…” Again, Charis dug at the dirt with her piece of kindling. “If he’s not dead, I’m wondering—d’you think he might be held prisoner in Dorana?”

  Deenie felt her heart thud. “Morg’s prisoner, you mean?”

  “Mmm,” said Charis. “He could be. That could explain why you can’t feel him any more.”

  Morg.

  “I don’t understand,” Charis whispered, with a cautious glance across the camp to the dicing barracks men. “My papa saw your da kill Morg, and he wouldn’t lie. Neither would your mother, Barl rest her. They all said Morg was dead. But with these beasts about, and Captain Noddyhead summoned by him, then—”

  “Who said anything about lying, Charis,” she retorted, just as whispery. “Could be Da made a mistake.”

  “A mistake?” Charis nearly laughed. “And that’s likely, is it? Asher of Restharven, the Innocent Mage, making a mistake about something like that?”

  Deenie closed her fingers around her friend’s wrist. Four days they’d gone not talking about this, and she’d happily go four hundred more.

  “Charis, clap tongue.”