Lackey, Mercedes - Mage Storms 04 - Darian's Tale 01 - Owlflight.doc Read online

  He looks like a real rag-bag today, Darian thought critically, looking down at the wrinkled, winter-stored apple. He looks as if birds were nesting in his beard. Is this part of his act, or is he getting even more senile? Justyn was about the most ill-kempt male in the village, his only wealth that of his untidy hair and beard. He had three or four shabby and patched robes, all pretty much alike, with badly-made, lopsided, Esoteric Symbols sewn on them by Justyn himself. If you looked closely, you could see little rusty spots where Justyn had stabbed his thumb with the needle and bled on his work. He kept them clean, Darian had to give the old man that much credit, although he was always spilling things on them that made stains that never would come out, rendering the garments into a mosaic of blotches of various faint colors. It was difficult to tell how old the mage was; his hair and beard were gray rather than white, with a few streaks of darker color in them, and his brownish eyes, very sad and tired, were sunken so deeply beneath his shaggy eyebrows that it was difficult to see the wrinkles at the corners. He could have been any age from forty to ninety, and since no one in the village knew anything of his history before he came to Errold's Grove in the company of a Herald on circuit, his true age was anyone's guess.

  "Well?" Justyn said, showing a bit of impatience. "Are you going to just sit there wasting time, or are you going to actually do something?"

  With another reluctant sigh, Darian stopped merely staring at the apple and began concentrating.

  He narrowed his focus until the apple filled his vision and his mind, simultaneously relaxing and tensing. He concentrated on the apple being above the plate, as if an invisible hand held it there. As he concentrated, the apple began to wobble a little. The movement was so slight that it could have been caused by someone bumping the table itself, except that neither he nor Justyn had moved.

  After a long moment of tension, he felt something inside himself relax.

  Slowly, agonizingly, the apple rose, still wobbling, but now doing so in midair. It hovered about the width of his finger above the plate surface. Sweat broke out all over his forehead in beads, and he felt the pinch of a headache starting just between his eyes. And behind the concentration, he seethed with annoyance and impatience. This was a stupid waste of time; he knew it, and Justyn knew it, but Justyn was never going to admit it, because that would be admitting that he had been wrong about Darian, and Justyn would die before he admitted that. What on earth good would floating an apple about do? Would it bring in more crops? Chase away sickness? Bring prosperity back to the village?

  The answer, clearly, was "no" to all three questions.

  Behind Justyn, the cat finished his grooming and began coughing, making gagging and strangling sounds. Danan struggled to maintain his concentration, but the wretched creature's noise was more than he could ignore.

  The apple wobbled and dipped, as Darian's control over it began to unravel. The cat hacked again, more violently than before, until Darian was certain it was going to cough up a lung this time and not just another wad of hair.

  It was too much distraction, and he lost the "spell" completely. The cat spit up a massive, moist hairball with a sound that made Darian's stomach turn, just as the apple thumped down on the plate.

  Darian swore furiously under his breath at the cat, the apple, and a fate that conspired to make a mess even of things he despised. The cat sniffed, coughed once more, jumped down, and limped over to the fireplace where it curled up on the ash-strewn hearth.

  Darian gave the cat a look that should have set its fur on fire if there had been any justice in the universe, and glowered at the apple. If he'd had half the power Justyn swore he had, the apple should have exploded from the strength of that glare. The fact that it didn't only proved to him that his Master was a fraud and was trying to make him into another fraud. What is the use of this? he asked himself angrily. What's the point? If a stupid cat can break a spell, how is anyone supposed to get anything done by magic? It's stupid, that's all it is, it's just as pointless as everything else in this village!

  "Try again," Justyn ordered him, with a kind of weary disgust that angered Darian even further. What right did that old fake have to be disgusted with him? It wasn't his fault that he had no magic! And as far as that was concerned, Justyn had no room to find fault with Darian on that score!

  How long has it been since he did anything with real magic? I bet he couldn't have kept that apple in the air any longer than I did!

  Anger and frustration rose to the boiling point, and instead of doing as he was told, he swept his arm across the table in front of him, knocking apple, plate, and anything else in the path of that angry sweep off the table and onto the floor with a crash. The plate didn't shatter, since it was made of pewter, but it made a lot of noise and acquired yet another dent. As Justyn opened his mouth to scold, Darian shoved his chair away from the table, sitting there with his arms folded over his chest, glowering, silently daring Justyn to do his worst.

  Justyn visibly pushed down his own temper. "Darian, I want you to try again," the wizard repeated, with mounting impatience. "And since you won't do it properly, you can pick that apple up off the floor and put it back on the table with your mind-yes, and the plate as well! A bit more hard work will teach you to control your temper. A mage can't ever lose his temper, or-"

  "Why?" Darian snarled defiantly, interrupting the lecture on self-control that he had heard a hundred times already. "Why should I use my mind to float fruit around? There's no reason to! It's faster and easier to grab it like any normal person would!" And just to prove his point, he bent down and seized apple and plate and banged both down on the wooden tabletop. "There! Now that's what a person with plain common sense does! You don't have to muck around with these stupid tricks to get things done!"

  Now, of course, was the moment when Justyn would launch into a lecture on how in magic one must practice on small things before one could expect to succeed in the larger, how he was being immature and childish, and how very ungrateful he was. Next would follow how it was criminal that he refused to obey, that he had such a wonderful gift and was apprenticed to a wizard who would teach him skills, and didn't appreciate his easy circumstances when instead he could have been bound out to a farmer or the blacksmith-

  Darian knew it all by heart and could have recited it in his sleep. And it wouldn't make any difference if he protested that he didn't want to be a wizard, that he hadn't asked for this so-called "wonderful gift," and that he didn't see what was so wonderful about it. Justyn would ignore his protests, just as everyone else had, and did, and always would. For some reason that he did not fathom, every other person in the village was astonished that he didn't appreciate being farmed out to the old fake.

  But just at that point, there were sounds of thumping and a grunt of pain outside. Harris and Vere Neshem, a pair of the local farmers, staggered in through the door with Kyle Osterham the woodcutter supported between them, his leg wrapped in rags stained with fresh, red blood. Darian jumped immediately out of his chair and moved aside for them, shoving the chair in their direction.

  "He was chopping up a stump and his footing slipped," Vere said, as they lowered Kyle down into the seat Darian had just vacated. "Bit of a mess. Good thing we were close by."

  Since Justyn served Errold's Grove in the capacity of a Healer far more often than that of a wizard, Darian had seen men who were worse wounded stagger in through the door, but Kyle's leg was a bit of a mess. Surface cut, he noted critically. Ax blade probably hit the shin bone and skinned along the top of it. That'd peel back a lot of skin, but it'll heal quickly as soon as it's stitched, and it won't leave much of a scar. Lucky if he didn't break the shin, though. It would bleed a lot, and hurt a great deal, but it was hardly life-threatening. He edged out of the way a little more and got nearer the door.

  Justyn rummaged through the shelves behind him, grabbing rags, herbs, a needle and fine silk thread, a mortar and pestle.

  "Darian, boil some water," he ordered, his bac
k to the room as he hunted for something he needed.

  But now Darian was in no mood to comply. This little incident only confirmed what he had been thinking. The people of Errold's Grove didn't need some fool who could suspend apples in the air, they needed a Healer, sometimes a Finder, sometimes a Weather-watcher, but not a wizard, and they never had needed a wizard in all the time Darian had been here. Most especially, they didn't need him. It would make more sense for one of the girls to learn everything Justyn could teach about herbs and simples, distilling and potions, setting bones and stitching skin. So Darian just stood there, ignoring Justyn's order, radiating rebellion and waiting for their reaction.

  One of the farmers glanced at him with censure written clearly on his face. "Justyn," he said in an overly loud voice, "is there any help you need?"

  Justyn, who had been muttering to himself as he mixed herbs in the mortar, got flustered and distracted at the interruption. He had to dump the lot of what he was grinding out into the tiny fire, and start again. The fire flared up with a roar and a shower of multicolored sparks, and both farmers exclaimed in startled surprise, taking everyone's attention off Darian.

  That was all he needed. For once, Darian was not going to stand around and wait for people to give him stupid orders. Taking advantage of the distraction, the boy edged around behind Vere and made good his escape, sliding quickly out of the door before anyone noticed he was gone.

  That'll show him! That'll show all of them that I'm not going to be treated like I have no mind of my own! I'm not a slave, and I never agreed to any of the things they've done to me! They don't give me the regard they'd give a rooster; why should I stay and be insulted and made to do things I hate?

  He didn't want to be caught, though, so he moved around to the back of the cottage, plastering himself against the wall and ducking under the windows until he reached the side that faced the forest. He was just underneath the open window when he heard Justyn say in an exasperated tone of voice from which all patience had vanished, "Will you please boil that water, Darian? Now, not two weeks from now-"

  But Darian was out of reach of further orders, and as he paused to listen to find out if either of the farmers was inclined to volunteer to go look for him, evidently Justyn looked around and saw that for himself, for there was a muffled curse.

  "Useless brat," the first farmer muttered. "We should have 'prenticed him as a woodcutter to you, Kyle."

  Vere gave a snort. "He'd be just as useless there. Lazy is what he is. You oughta beat him now and again, Justyn. You're too soft on him. Them parents of his spoiled him, and you ain't helping by bein' soft on him." There was a clatter of metal as someone put the kettle on the hook over the fire.

  Vere's brother seconded that opinion. "Them two was useless to us and dangerous, Justyn. It's in his blood, an' you oughta beat it out of him, else he'll bring somethin' out of the woods that none of us'll like." Darian, lurking right beneath the window, heard every word too clearly to mistake any of it, and his stomach seized up inside of him as both fists clenched in an unconscious echo of the knots in his gut.

  They were at it again. In front of him, or behind his back, they never let up, not for a minute! He felt his anger boiling up again, felt his face getting hot and his eyes starting to burn with the misery of loss he had vowed never, ever to show. He wanted to storm right back inside and confront both of those miserable old beasts, but what good would it possibly do? They'd only say to his face what they'd just said to Justyn.

  With a strangled sob, he wrenched himself around and ran off-not into the village, but into the woods beyond, where the villagers were too cowardly-unlike his Mum and Dad-to go.

  His feet knew the path, so he didn't need to be able to see to find his way to one of his many hiding places. That was just as well, since unshed tears of anger and grief kept him from seeing very clearly. Darian wasn't old enough to remember a time when things had been other than hard here at Errold's Grove, but until last year, he had been happy enough. He hadn't spent much time in the village itself, and although he hadn't had any playmates, he hadn't felt the need of them. Solitary by nature, he enjoyed the mostly-silent companionship of his parents.

  Errold's Grove lay on the very far western edge of Valde-mar; nominally it was part of Valdemar, but the people here seldom saw a Herald more than once a year, and of late it had been longer than that between visits. Not that a Herald would do Darian any good, but the Heralds' absence made the villagers feel neglected and forgotten, and that made them even harder on anyone who didn't conform.

  And Darian would never conform. He hated the village, he hated the people who saw no farther than the edges of their fields and wanted nothing more. He wanted more; he was stifling for want of freedom, and felt as if he were starving on a diet of confinement and mediocrity. He'd been out there where these villagers feared, and he remembered it far more vividly than anything that had happened to him in this dull little huddle of huts. Once he'd traveled the deep Forest he was never the same again, and he didn't want to be part of this insular flock of humanity.

  He ran like a hare through the field of corn behind the cottage, bare callused feet making little noise on the soft, cultivated earth. Nobody stopped him; the tall green corn hid him from view, and if they heard his running feet, they probably thought it was one of their own children coming back from an errand. A moment later, Darian burst into the shadows of the Forest at the edge of the fields and slowed once he was in the shelter of the undergrowth. He took a moment to orient himself, then twisted his way through the brush and sought refuge in his favorite tree, one of the enormous Forest giants that ringed the village and kept it in shade for most of the day. He climbed as swiftly as a squirrel or a tree-hare and as surely; even blinded by tears he had no trouble finding his hiding place where the great trunk split in two, forming a cup that a boy could easily curl up in and still have room for a few possessions. Beneath him lay the village, a cluster of about fifty buildings on the forested side of a bridged ford on the River Londell right on the edge of the Pelagiris Forest.

  It went on forever in three directions, climbing hills, plunging into valleys, and crowning the huge bluff that rose above the river downstream of the village, with only the Londell halting its march toward the heart of Valdemar. The hard-won fields carved out of the forest were tended and fertilized with the greatest and tenderest of care, for it took terrible effort to gain a foot of clear ground from the trees, and there was always the chance (so it was said) that the Forest would decide to take revenge for trees that were cut down rather than falling down naturally. The Forest had always been a fairly uncanny place according to the old granthers and grammers of the village, but since the start of the mage-storms it had gotten very much stranger and far more dangerous.

  A Herald had come-the first he had seen-three months after his unwanted apprenticeship to Justyn had been decided for him. The Herald had been light-skinned, with a long blond braid of hair, and looked all the paler because of the white outfit and matching riding coat. With him, of course, had been his Companion, a white horse that was more than a horse-it was more like a dreamer's ideal of everything a horse could be, with lambent blue eyes, a long mane and hide that stayed impossibly clean, and silvery hooves. The Herald had explained that the strange things that were happening were called "mage-storms," and they were caused by the magic of the world being disturbed a very long time ago. They had been told that the greatest mages of the world had united under Valdemaran leadership, and were working to prevent any major catastrophes. The Herald had answered the few questions posed by the villagers, looking to the white horse and then back. Darian had wondered at the time if he was the only one of the group, Justyn included, who felt like the white horse and the Herald were communicating with each other through their looks and subtle gestures. The Herald would have gone on, but several of the older folk of the village hauled him away to explain more, out of Darian's earshot. Since that took Justyn away as well, he was perfectly happy
with that, and went off then to spend time alone in this very place of refuge. By the time he'd emerged, the Herald and his Companion had gone, and there hadn't been one through here since.

  According to Justyn, the fact that Errold's Grove was relatively near Lake Evendim meant that they got the worst of the mage-storms. Huge circles of land and the creatures in them either changed completely or warped and twisted out of all recognition. Monsters appeared, things worse than the worst nightmare or legend, and unfortunately there were no friendly Hawkbrothers nearby to chase away or kill them-not that the people of Errold's Grove particularly trusted the Hawkbrothers. At one time these people had made a good living out of going into the Pelagiris Forest and collecting some of the strange plants and fungi that grew there for use as dye-stuffs, and that business had occasionally brought them into conflict with the Hawkbrothers. Traders had come far out of their way for those dyes, and that had encouraged some people to go in deeper, in search of any other things that traders might find valuable. Of course, the deeper in they went, and the more they looked for ancient treasures instead of mosses and fungi, the more likely it was that they would wander into Hawkbrother lands and be warned off, often at the point of a drawn weapon. Once or twice, outsiders had come hunting treasure as well-and their bound bodies would later be found neatly arranged on the Forest edge, without a single copper piece or trinket missing, awaiting discovery and burial. Each such discovery would discourage deeper incursions for a few months, but there were always greedy outsiders ready to dare the Hawkbrothers for the sake of treasures, and their fates were a warning to the dye-traders to stick to their business and leave whatever "treasure" was out there alone.

  Nevertheless, there was enough and more than enough of legitimate "quarry" to tempt the people of Errold's Grove out into the Pelagiris until things started getting out of hand. The village had been quite prosperous, with visits from Heralds twice and three times a year, a fine wooden bridge over the Londell built by the order of the Crown, and even a pair of Valdemaran Guards stationed to watch the bridge and keep the peace on the road. There were still two sturdily built guardposts here, one on either side of the bridge, to prove that Errold's Grove had once been considered an important border town.