The Reluctant Mage Read online

  Letting go of Ewen, Deenie slid their horse’s rump to the ground. As she walked towards the border stone she closed her eyes, let down her flimsy guard and tasted the blight.

  Worse here. Much worse. As though Morg’s pernicious magics were soaked right to the earth’s heart. There was a flat, coppery tang in the back of her throat. Her blood had turned corrosive, burning her veins.

  She opened her eyes. “Not Manemli.”

  “Why not?” said Ewen, belligerent. “It’s weeks longer we’ll take if we ride Ranoush then Brantone.”

  “Manemli’s blighted the worst. I won’t ride that way.”

  When he didn’t reply, she swung round. He was staring at her, his warm self hidden behind that icy stone mask. He hadn’t taken it off since killing those wanderers in the woodland. His barracks men were staring too, waiting for their captain to react.

  “And once we’re over Vharne’s border,” she said, ignoring them, keeping her voice cool and aloof, “I won’t help you hunt down any more wanderers, either, or chase after beasts. I’ll keep us well clear of them and kill meat for our supper if I need to, and that’s all. Agree to that, Captain, and we’ll ride with you, me and Charis. Refuse and we’ll part company here and now.”

  Ewen needed her talent for sensing trouble, and they both knew it. His lips tightened a moment, then he nodded, grudging.

  “Agreed. Only—what if beasts or wanderers come hunting us?”

  “Don’t worry,” she said curtly. “I’m no keener to perish than you are. If it comes to a choice between dying or killing…”

  Then I’ll kill, won’t I? I’m not a noddyhead.

  “Captain, I’m sorry about your missing king,” she added, risking an outburst of his temper. “I am. But he’s not why I’ve come and I won’t be distracted.”

  Ewen raked his gaze over the beckoning plain. “We’ve no map past Vharne. Lead us to Dorana, can you?”

  She tilted her chin at him. “I said so, didn’t I?”

  And she would. Even without Rafe to guide her, she could. Morg would coax her there, an ugly spider sitting in a cobweb made of blight.

  Ewen pulled his foot from the stirrup and held out his hand. “Then let’s ride,” he said. “Elvado’s a long way from here, it is.”

  And a miserable journey it proved to be.

  The weather closed in over them, three days of pelting rain. There was nowhere to shelter and any road, Ewen wouldn’t stop. If there were spirit paths in Ranoush, she and Charis couldn’t find them. So they picked their way across muddy plains, through stony ravines and treacherous rivers and forests dangerous with wolves and bear, and to keep them all safe she kept herself open to the blight.

  Charis gave up asking after her. She grew tired of having her nose snapped off for her pains. Deenie felt bad for it, but couldn’t spare the strength to make amends. The blight drummed her without mercy. She had nothing left for niceness. She’d not survive by turning back into a mouse.

  Ranoush wasn’t as empty as Vharne, but it was empty enough. Of people, at least. She sensed a great many beasts—but no wanderers—and bullied Ewen into crisscrossing the countryside to avoid them, even when it slowed them down or took them over risky terrain. A few times they spied hints of townships, or villages, once-travelled roads and roofs in the distance. But she always sensed beast presence most strongly there, and so they never rode any closer.

  Twice, beasts came upon them because she was too sick and weary to feel them. Once they were caught because the blight was so thick it hid them. Each time she killed them, and then the others had to wait and wait afterwards ’til she was strong enough to ride.

  Only then did Ewen come close to kindness. She’d given up hoping they’d get back what they’d had, whatever that was, however brief it had been. He was lost in a wilderness of his own personal blight, and it seemed she wasn’t strong enough to rescue him. Even if he’d wanted rescuing—and he’d made it clear he didn’t.

  She carried Barl’s diary snugged against her ribs. Took it out every night after the others fell asleep and re-read it by glimlight, no longer bothered by the fact that she could, taking comfort from the bits and pieces the Doranen mage wrote about the land she’d loved and fled. About the hardships she and her fellow mages endured as they battled their way to safe harbour in Lur. Reading those entries in the diary, she thought she could feel an odd kinship with Barl, a stirring in that part of herself the reef had changed that didn’t belong to Morg.

  She made sure to learn the diary’s spells too, even the awful Words of UnMaking. It was hard to think on but she couldn’t hide from the truth, that maybe those words would be her only way to stop Morg. Every time she closed her eyes and recited the spell, being careful not to twitch her fingers in its sigils, she felt a cold shiver. Remembered the reef, and his touch, and knew that because she was changed this was a Doranen spell she could surely wield.

  And she couldn’t even resent it, for without that lingering memory of Morg and his blight she doubted she could ever find Dorana.

  Though each long day’s riding took them closer to Elvado, no matter how hard she tried she still couldn’t feel Rafe. The failure would destroy her if she let it, so she refused to think on that, too. She didn’t talk of it with Charis. She kept the wound to herself.

  Poor Charis. She was the loser here, and no mistake.

  At last, with the weather turning colder every day, they reached the end of Ranoush and crossed the border into Brantone, heading east.

  “Charis,” said Deenie, pulling her aside as Ewen and his barracks men settled the horses and gutted the river fish she’d called and killed for their supper. “Charis? Can we talk?”

  Charis pulled a face. “I don’t know, Deenie. Can we?”

  It was a slap at her for countless days of withdrawn silence. “Please? It’s important.”

  Grudging, Charis clambered to her feet. “You can help me fill the waterskins.”

  They took as many ’skins as they could each carry down to the nameless river, which they’d have to cross tomorrow. Lean now, in a way she’d never been before, Charis hunkered down at its stony edge and dipped the first ’skin under the water’s slow-flowing surface. The sliding sun’s light threw her face into sharp relief, revealing all the new hollows and planes. Two days after crossing into Ranoush she’d taken her knife and hacked all her hair off, boyish short. Its raggedy ends framed her cheeks and jaw, making her eyes look twice as big.

  Crouching beside her, never mind waterskins for now, Deenie cleared her throat. “Charis, about Dorana. I think we’ll be reaching it inside a week, if we’re not bothered too much by any more beasts.”

  Charis plugged the stopper into her waterskin, laid it aside and reached for the next one. “And there’s still no hint or sense of Rafe?”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m trying to find him, truly I am.”

  Carefully, Charis dipped the waterskin into the river. “I know. I’m not blaming you, Deenie. I’m just asking.”

  She sounded so weary… and hurt. Flooded with sudden, scalding contrition, Deenie stared at her. “Oh, Charis, I never should’ve let you come. It was stupid and selfish and wicked of me.” Her voice broke, and she was weeping. “Charis, Charis, can you ever forgive me?”

  “Forgive you?” Charis pulled her waterskin from the river and dropped it. “This was my choice. Since when are you the captain of me? If I’m fratched at you, Deenie, it’s ’cause you’ve gone so quiet and far away!”

  “I never meant to,” she said, stricken. “I didn’t want to be a burden.”

  “A burden?” Charis gave her a little shove. “You—you noddyhead!”

  They clung to each other, both tearful. The river swished and chuckled its way through the shadowing silence, and further along the bank Ewen’s barracks men laughed. Hardy men, they were, to find lightness when so much around them was dark. They’d started a fire. The smell of cooking fish was enticing.

  Deenie let go, and wip
ed her sleeve across her face. “Any road. About Elvado. I’ve been thinking, and I don’t reckon it’s a good idea for us to stay with these barracks men once we reach the city. They’re going there to pledge Vharne’s loyalty to Morg but we’re going to find Rafel, and when we’ve found him, kill Morg. Now Ewen might say he wants the sorcerer dead, and prob’ly he does, but I reckon if there’s a chance harm could come to Vharne because of us? Well…”

  “Hmm,” said Charis, after a moment. “And there’s me thinking you were still giddycakes for the man.”

  Scowling, she busied herself with a waterskin. “When we’ve hardly swapped two polite words since those wanderers? Don’t be silly, Charis.”

  “All right,” said Charis, taking up another ’skin to fill. “No need to fratch.” And then she grinned. “Here’s a notion. We can steal a horse each and gallop to Elvado on our lonesome, so maybe Captain Noddyhead and that sour lemon Robb can ride piggyback the rest of the way. Serve them right.”

  Though she was scoured with blight and racked with misgivings, she had to laugh. “No. I’ll not risk any of them with such a daft scheme.”

  “Pity,” said Charis, sniffing, and swapped the filled waterskin for another empty one. “What’s your notion, then?”

  She’d been giving it considerable thought. “Once we reach the city, we’ll have to give Ewen the slip. But we’ll not pass as any kind of barracks men. Well—I might, at a pinch, since I’ve got my leathers. But all you’ve got are your woollen hose, and Charis—”

  “I know,” said Charis, her nose wrinkling with distaste. “I’ve stitched ’em and stitched ’em, but they’re falling apart. So what—”

  They both turned at the sound of someone approaching.

  “Girls,” said Ewen, politely enough. “Best you leave filling those ’skins, you should. Rivers in these parts aren’t safe at night, they’re not. There’s more than fish swim these waters.”

  “Really?” said Charis, glaring. “And you couldn’t warn us before we started filling the waterskins?”

  He shrugged. “Didn’t see you leave, did I?”

  “Noddyhead,” Charis muttered under her breath, collecting her share of ’skins. Then she looked up. “Me and Deenie, we’ve been talking. You’ll need to find us a place to stop before we enter Elvado, so we can change into our girlish clothes. We’ll get looked at in leathers and hose. We need to be strumpets.”

  Startled, Deenie stared. Really? When did they decide that?

  Ewen’s eyebrows were lifted. “Strumpets?”

  “Yes,” said Charis, impatient. “Light-skirts. Don’t ask me to believe you don’t—”

  “Tumble-wenches,” said Ewen. “I know.” His gaze shifted. “Deenie? You can’t magic your way in?”

  She hesitated, then shrugged. “I could summon warbeasts. I’ve got the spells in Barl’s diary, but I’m thinking that might prove too fratchsome. Besides, Elvado is Morg’s city. He’ll feel my magework there, for sure.”

  “He hasn’t felt it yet, I say.”

  “And I say we’ve been lucky. I’ll not risk my magic right under his nose!”

  Something softened in his cold green-gold eyes, and a shadow of pain, or regret, shifted over his heavily stubbled face. Instead of arguing, he nodded.

  “It’s right, you are. I’m sorry.”

  She felt herself thaw. “You’ve a lot on your mind.”

  “Come up from the river,” he said, closer to smiling than she’d seen him in days. “Dinner’s cooked, it is.”

  “You go on,” she said. “We’re right behind you.”

  As Ewen retreated, Charis sighed and shook her head. “What did I say? Giddycakes. Now come on, before they eat all the fish.”

  Five more days of riding followed, through green, silent Brantone, past deserted villages and empty townships. Just before noon on the sixth day after crossing the river they came to a narrow, baked mud-brick road. It was worn with old wheel-ruts and stretched in almost a straight line towards a distant hint of buildings.

  It was the first proper road they’d come across, and the horses’ hooves made a cheerful clatter. Deenie pressed her face to Ewen’s back. Couldn’t quite stifle a moan. She felt anything but cheerful. The blight was in her like a whirlpool, trying to drag her down.

  Ewen’s head turned a little. “Deenie?”

  “I’m all right,” she muttered. “Don’t mind me.”

  His answer was to break into a song.

  “Eryn was a likely lass, with cherry lips and eyes sky blue. When Eryn danced the sun rose twice, and when she danced the sun danced too and when she danced she danced my heart, she broke my heart, what’s a likely lad to do?”

  It was a lively, lilting ditty and despite her pain it made her smile. He had a rich, deep voice that soothed the roiling blight within her. As he started the ditty over, Robb and the other barracks men joined in and of a sudden, hearing the chorus of male voices was like being home again, in Westwailing, standing by the harbour singing the Festival songs to bring the fish.

  Eyes pricked with tears, Deenie let their lovely voices close over her aching head. Let them deafen the blight and every yammering fear inside her and lull her to a gentle drowsing.

  The stab of blight came so hard she nearly tumbled off the horse. She clutched at Ewen, so desperate he was half-wrenched from his saddle.

  “What?” he demanded as his barracks men raggedly let their singing die.

  Heart pounding, she saw the road was taking them through a small township. But unlike the other villages and townships they’d seen so far in Brantone, this one wasn’t dead.

  “Beasts,” she hissed. “Ewen—”

  A shout from one of the barracks men. “Captain. There!”

  And the beasts showed themselves, six of them, stepping onto the main road from a shadowed side street. They had captured people with them, bloodied and weeping and afraid.

  One beast was different. Tusks and talons, yes, but it was tall and bony, with leathery skin that hung in flaps like great wings. It turned its naked head and saw them.

  Ewen sucked in a sharp breath.

  “You know it?” she whispered. “You’ve seen it before?”

  “Or one like it,” he said. “Deenie, not a word. They slaughter in a blink these beasts, they do.” He raised a fisted hand to his men. “Hold here.”

  This wasn’t like him. She could feel his shuddering fear. “Ewen, I can kill it.”

  “No,” he said fiercely. “This beast’s not brutish. It speaks for Morg, it does. You kill it, you risk Vharne. Girl, you’d best get down.”

  The sweet man who’d sung her to drowsing was gone. Deenie slid off their horse and watched Barracks Captain Ewen ride towards the staring beast. Its wings flapped once, idly, and then it walked to meet him, talons clicking on the dusty road.

  “Man of Vharne,” it said, its voice oddly dry. Its eyes made her feel ill, storm grey and wrongly human. “Come to kneel.”

  Ewen’s head lifted. “You know me, then.”

  “Morg knows you.”

  The other beasts, horned and tusked and hooved, with thick hides and claws like farm scythes, closed tightly around the captive humans, who stared at Ewen and his barracks men with dull, hopeless eyes. Not one of them a wanderer. Just poor, taken people. She didn’t want to know for what.

  If I don’t stop Morg this will happen to Lur. All the Olken, even the Doranen, his beasts will take them too.

  The winged beast licked its lips with a thin, pointed tongue. “Man of Vharne, you carry a sword. That is a mistake. There are no swords in Elvado.”

  Ewen’s head lifted. “Then I’ll take it off.” His voice shook. “I’ll throw it away, I will. So will my men. Only don’t—”

  Hissing, the beast raised one winged arm. In the sunlight its curved talons glittered. Ewen whipped his head round, the look on his face so awful Deenie lost her breath.

  “Robb!” he shouted. “Drop swords!”

  And then came the sound of
a shrill, childish scream. Ewen whipped back to stare at the winged beast, and then a heartbeat later Charis screamed too, because the horned beast that had snatched a little boy from his father’s sheltering grasp snarled and ripped the child’s slight body in two.

  Deenie felt herself collapse. The captives’ screaming, the beasts’ roaring, Charis’s cries, and the clatter of swords dropped to the mud-brick road, they sounded odd and far away. She watched the winged beast knock Ewen off his feet with a single blow. Watched it bend over him and take up his sword. Break it with contemptuous ease and throw the pieces on top of him.

  She wanted to kill it, she wanted to kill every last beast here, only Ewen had said “don’t.” But it was so hard to follow that order when the winged beast took him by the hair and dragged him back to his feet, then struck him twice more across the face so that he went down hard on his knees.

  “Man of Vharne,” it said. “Defiance is death.” It laughed, a bubbling hiss. “You forget the dead men at your pretty castle?”

  “No,” said Ewen. His voice was thick with pain. “Never.”

  “Good,” said the beast, and released him. “Come with us to Elvado. Morg is waiting. Leave horses. Leave swords and knives. Walk on your feet.”

  Ewen groped his way to standing and turned. Still slumped on the ground, Deenie swallowed a cry at the blood slicking his cheeks and forehead, torn by the creature’s wicked talons.

  He limped back to them.

  “It’s done.” His eyes were wild, as they’d been wild that night in the woods, after the wanderers. His breathing was unsteady as he fought the pain of his wounds. “Strip saddles and bridles. Take care of themselves, the horses can. Leave your weapons behind with them.”

  Charis slid off Robb’s horse. “Deenie.”

  The father of the slaughtered boy was howling, held close by some of the other captives. Blood from his ruined son ran and pooled between the road’s mud bricks. The discarded bits of the child’s body were attracting flies.

  With Charis’s help Deenie got back to her feet.

  “Ewen,” she said, urgent, as he began to unsaddle their horse. “I can still kill them.”