Forest Mage

‘Hold up a minute,’ he suggested. He reined his horse in and I pulled Sirlofty to a halt beside him. He dismounted and tightened his cinch. ‘Came loose coming down that trail,’ he observed. Then he looked up at me, squinting his eyes against the fading sunset. ‘Never used to do that, Nevare. The “keep fast” charm held it tight. And now it doesn’t. That’s proof enough for me. The plains magic is fading. Will you think me a fool if I say I’m sorry to see it go?’

‘I’ll never think you a fool, Sergeant Duril. But are you saying that you believe in magic? You believe I went somewhere with Dewara and that Tree Woman stole part of my soul, and that I took it back and killed her? And you believe that my being fat is not my fault but the magic affecting me?’

Duril mounted his horse again. He didn’t say anything as he kicked him to a trot. I started Sirlofty after him, and in a few moments we were cantering. Before full night fell, we were back on the river road. We went more slowly in the dark and finally he answered me.

‘Nevare, I don’t know how to tell you what to believe. On the Sixday, I worship the good god, same as you. But every time I saddled my horse for the past thirty years, I’ve made the “keep fast” sign over my cinch. I’ve seen a windwizard, and I’ve seen gunpowder send a bullet on its way. I don’t really understand how either one worked. I guess what I believe in is whatever works best for me at that time. I think most men are like that.’

‘What am I going to do, Sergeant?’ I didn’t expect him to have an answer. I was shocked when he did. His voice was grim.

‘We both have to pray to the good god that you can find a way to turn the magic against itself, I suppose.’

EIGHT

Judgment

It was past full dark before Sergeant Duril and I reached home. We put our own horses up and said a subdued good-night outside the stable. ‘Clean up that gash before you go to bed,’ he warned me, and I promised I would. A gash. I knew Dewara had thrust his swanneck into me. It still hurt, but less than my arse and back hurt from the long ride. I went in through the servants’ entrance and stopped at the kitchen.

A single lamp was burning there, the wick turned low. The usually bustling room was deserted and quiet. The kneading table was wiped clean of flour and the food all stored away in crocks or covered with clean cloths. The room was still uncomfortably warm from the day’s cooking. The week’s baking of bread was set out in fragrant round-topped loaves on the counter. The smell was heavenly.

It was my father’s pride that our home had water piped right into it. A large elevated cistern was regularly replenished from the river, and the gravity flow system supplied all our drinking and bathing water. The thick stone walls of the cistern kept the water cool even in summer. I drank three tall mugs of it, one after another, and then slowly drank a fourth. I damped a kitchen cloth and wiped the sweat and dust from my face and the back of my neck. It had been a very long day.

I wet the cloth well and gingerly opened my shirt. I had bled. I turned the wick for better light. Blood soaked the front of my shirt. The waistband of my trousers was stiff with it. Cautiously, I washed the blood from my gut, wiping it carefully away until a fine seam as long as my forefinger showed on my belly. I gritted my teeth against expected pain and prodded at it.

It didn’t hurt. I couldn’t even make it bleed. The blade of the swanneck had sunk into me, but this wound was no deeper than a bad cat scratch. Had I imagined it? No. There was too much blood. I traced the puckered seam with my finger. The scratch closed up behind my touch like magic. Like magic.

A wave of vertigo washed over me. I held the edge of the sink until it passed. Then, very carefully, I rinsed my blood out of the cloth and watched the dark water trickle down the drain. I wrung the water out and hung the rag to dry. My wound had healed. Like magic. Because it was magic. Magic inside me. I suddenly thought of Dewara’s purpling face and bared teeth. Had Duril’s lead shot killed the old man? Or had he been dying even as he attacked me? I recalled again the thundering of my heart and the seething of my blood. I poked at the idea that I had killed Dewara with magic. I didn’t much like it. I took a deep and steadying breath.

The evening’s ride and the weight of the revelations I had received had left me ravenous. I took a loaf of the still-warm bread and a small crock of butter to the table. I filled a mug with the cheap ale that my father kept for the servants. Then I pulled out a chair and sat down with a sigh. For a short time, I just sat in the dim stillness, trying to come to grips with what I had learned.

There was nothing new in what Dewara had told me. His words confirmed the fears that had grown in me for the last four years. I had not previously seen the truth because it was not a Gernian truth. To someone like my father, the things I had experienced were simply not real. If I tried to explain them to him, he would think me a liar or a madman. What had I gained tonight? What had Dewara’s death bought me? Duril had overheard what Dewara had said. Duril believed me. At least I had that.

I sliced off the crusty heel of the loaf, spread it with butter and took a bite. The simple, familiar food was comfort to me in a time when my world seemed to be distorted beyond recognition. I chewed slowly. I swallowed and took a deep draught of the ale. The mug made a small, comfortable ‘thunk’ as I set it back on the table in the dimly lit kitchen.

Magic was the province of the uncivilized world. It was the feeble and untrustworthy weapon of folk too primitive to create the technology to master the natural world with engineering and science. Magic, I had always believed, was suitable for trickery or small conveniences, but useless on a large scale. The little spells and charms I’d known about were handy but scarcely necessary. The ‘keep fast’ charm was an example: it could save a man from having to stop and tighten his cinch. That was not to be confused with a true invention or real technology. Something as simple as a pulley or as sophisticated as a system of pipes that fed water into our house was genuine human innovation. Those were the things that lifted mankind from the squalor and sweat of daily toil.

Thoughtfully, I cut another slice from the loaf and buttered it slowly. Over and over, I’d seen technology defeat magic. Iron could destroy magic just by its presence. Iron pellets killed the windwizard. Dewara blamed the weakness in his magic from having been shot by my father with an iron bullet. I’d witnessed a small steel blade bringing the Dancing Spindle to a sudden halt.

So how could magic do this to me?

I touched iron every day of my life. Magic should have no power over me. I was a Gernian, a follower of the good god, and a damn good engineer. Magic was for ignorant tent-dwelling nomads. I picked up the bread knife and studied the blade. Then I set it, flat sided, against my arm. I felt nothing. No burn, no freezing cold, no antipathy to the metal at all. Disgusted with myself for even trying the experiment, I put the blade to its proper use, carving off another slice of bread. My ale mug was empty. I refilled it.

For the first time in my life, I wanted to sit down and talk with a priest. Most of them, I knew, dismissed magic entirely. It was not one of the gifts the good god extended to his followers, and therefore not the province of just men. They didn’t deny it existed. It just wasn’t allotted to me. I knew that from the Holy Writ. But what about what was happening to me? I didn’t desire it; so how could magic reach out and take hold of me this way?

In the next instant, I admitted to myself that perhaps I had desired it. What else had I intended that long-ago night when I had followed Dewara over the cliff? He had made me want to be Kidona, enough that I had been blindly willing to risk my life. Had that been an offence to the good god? Had that been when I had literally fallen into the powers of magic? Unbidden, the image of the sacrificed birds came to my mind. The old gods had been willing to grant magic to those willing to make such offerings, or so the old tales said. I shivered and the warm and friendly kitchen suddenly seemed darker and more ominous. As a child, I’d been taught that followers of the good god were immune to the horrors and brutality of the old gods. Had I lost that protection when I stepped over the cliff’s edge? An image of a croaker bird, wings extended and neck shot out as it cawed at me, came to my mind. I’d interfered with the sacrifice to Orandula, the old god of balances. He controlled death and life, fortune and misfortune. Had I offended him? Was I vulnerable to him now? Superstition stood all the hair up on my arms, and I nearly leapt out of my skin when a harsh voice spoke suddenly behind me.

‘What are you doing?’

I jumped guiltily and turned. ‘Just having a quick bite to eat, sir. I came in late and didn’t want to wake anyone.’

My father crossed the kitchen with quick strides. I suddenly saw myself as he must see me: a fat boor, hunched over food in the dark, gobbling it down out of sight of others. The half loaf of bread, the greasy knife, the plundered crock of butter and the ale mug all spoke of furtive gluttony.

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