Quiet Magic

QUIET MAGIC

Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

Pinbeam Books

http://www.pinbeambooks.com

This is a work of fiction. All the
characters and events portrayed in this novel are fiction or are
used fictitiously.

QUIET MAGIC

Copyright © 1999, 2011
by
Sharon Lee
and
Steve Miller
. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic
or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.
Please remember that distributing an author's work without
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works.

First published in June 1999 by SRM,
Publisher.

Master of the Winds first appeared in
Dragon #84, April 1984

Candlelight first appeared in Pulphouse
#19, Spring 1995

ISBN:

Kindle: 978-1-935224-75-4

Epub: 978-1-935224-76-1

PDF: 978-1-935224-77-8

Published May 2011by

Pinbeam Books

PO Box 707

Waterville ME 04903

email [email protected]

Cover design by Sharon Lee

Image ©2011 by Jupiter Media

QUIET MAGIC

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And Hawks for
Heralds

Steve Miller

ROVE CAPTAIN ROMILY Slate sat
comfortably ahorse, enjoying a moment of solitude. Afternoon clouds
shredded themselves on still higher mountains. Before him a hanging
mist was folded into a green-and-stone tumble of hillsides;
hillside and mist fell away together into the river gorge they'd
heard so much about for the last ten-day. Beneath all, a
disquieting distant rumble-- more felt than heard-- as if the
entire land trembled at the might of the river they
approached.

Ahead lay the Carrsbritch Crossing. It
was best, he'd been told, to keep merchants hours when crossing, no
matter that the bridge was open all the hours of the day and night
to accommodate the traffic that flowed so heavily between the
lands.

It wise, too, to avoid those folks too
eager to sell in the hurly-burly town of Hartwell they'd just left.
Indeed, if one more well-meaning citizen told him "Never buy from a
traveler on the Carrsbritch Road" he would likely draw
sword!

Advice could not be avoided in these
lands. Everyone was sure to let you know that it was unwise to
enter Lamonta with stolen goods if your route took you through
Hartwell and the Carrsbritch Crossing.

And so they were warned....

They were from overseas. Even in this
well-traveled corridor there was fascination about those from
beyond the Bilder Sea, especially when they traveled not as
merchants or mentor-and-student, but as soldiers under flag. The
fascination extended to their accents, which were sharper and
quicker than the speech of the seamen and coastal merchants the
locals were accustomed to encountering as travelers.

"Captain! Hah! I'd camp if I were you!
Mist makes a crowd on the bridge, you know! Hah! Better view, too,
in the sunlight! Hah! Besides, soldiers deal better with soldiers
than magicians! Hah!"

This from Ekyr Farer, the odd herb
merchant they'd met on the road days before. He tugged his train of
pack ponies behind him, and headed for the fork down-trail toward
the cliffsides, where he had business collecting precious yellow
'fron. The little man rode, as always, urging his own small horse
as if pursued; as always he smelled of his wares--a stark contrast
to the bracing scent of the river valley.

"Hah. Camp before the rain comes! Hah!
Sleep till dawn! Hah!" came his instruction as he disappeared
around a sharp hillside to the right.

Slate muttered under his breath while
Grayling, his horse, cocked his head, as if turning to get a repeat
of a badly given command, and then pulled slightly on the reins,
attempting to drift to the left...

"Poof, horse! Everyone wants to give
me directions, including you!" Slate quieted the horse with a
good-natured pat on the neck.

Slate and his small troop had made
good time from their bivouac on the far side of the sprawling town
of Hartwell until a series of gusty rain showers had overtaken them
on the slopes rising toward the divide, turning a relatively
comfortable fall ride into a miserably damp one, and slowing their
progress considerably.

Now his troopers--Catania, Disburno,
Arbran, Littlebrook, and Hall-- were relaxing around the luxury of
an afternoon fire while they grazed their horses in a hilly meadow
a few hundred paces off the busy trade route. The area was known as
Kinzel Overlook after some ancient mage. Slate laughed to himself
and Grayling, already grazed, pranced for a moment.

Fifty days ago he and his men had been
hurried out of DaChauxma on the order of his Lady and her new
wizard. Since then he'd gathered to him a magic map, a coin
sectioned by a wizard's will, a one-night lover who slept with a
glowing talisman around her neck....

Fifty days ago he'd have ridden
through a thunderstorm to avoid stopping in a meadow said to have
been a wizard's vantage. Now, he merely did his best to move on
quickly. His sword had given him no warning of danger, after
all.

With that thought he shrugged, flexed
his knees, and stretched into the stirrups, nearly standing in
them. No getting around it: he was well and truly immersed in
magic, against his will. That he'd willingly carry--much less
depend on--a magic sword was proof that he was taking leave of his
senses well before his mission to find and deal with griffins would
likely take his life.

Grayling eagerly accepted his hand's
casual hint that they return to the troop and Slate let the horse
set his pace on the ride to the day-camp. A cooler, drier breeze
was at his back coming away from the valley and as he approached
the campsite the high keening of hawks echoed about him--a sign
that clearer air must be on the way.

The sound of hawks got unexpectedly
louder and more boisterous the closer they got to the campsite; not
even the noise of Grayling's quickening strides hid it. Under that
was another bird-like call.

Slate hurried his mount on the damp
road and up the trail to the meadow. The scent of the wet meadow
grass mixed with the husky odor of low-drifting wood smoke as they
entered the clearing. Slate caressed the pommel of his sword and
found no sign of threat even as he sighted his men and their
horses. He reined in Grayling and dismounted beneath the ancient
gnarled oak whose deadfall branches had supplied much of the wood
for their fire; his eyes were on the sky as soon as his boots
touched the meadow.

Flying under the canopy of departing
mist were at least a dozen hawks, each keening and calling more
loudly than the next. They circled easily in the freshening breeze
while DaChauxma's troop stared upward, transfixed.

In the midst of the hawks was
something else. Winged and gray, and preternaturally large and
silent, it drifted with lazy wings above the meadow. Some trick of
the light gave it a brightly shining beak.

It took Slate several moments to put a
name to that form--he kept thinking that the creature was an eagle
the while his eyes saw something else. Finally he said the word out
loud.

"Crow!" the word came unwilling. "A
tremendous gray crow!"

It was if the strange tableau had been
waiting for just those sounds.

The hawks went silent as one, and the
great crow, near colorless against the mist above it, nonchalantly
curled wing-feathers and started a long, smartly executed
parade-ground glide toward Slate.

Still the sword was quiet.

Slate stood as if rooted as the crow's
glide brought it near, then was startled into action as the crow
swooped suddenly onto the closest oak branch, barely two arms
lengths above, showering him with old bark. The Rove Captain swept
his hand in the air to ward off the bark and found his eyes drawn
to the intelligent face and strange bright beak.

The crow studied him and with a quick
shake of its head it tossed off that shining beak. Instinctively,
Slate caught the falling object, to be rewarded with the loud
nearly purring crow sentence: "Braddack! Braddack carthulu!
Braddack Kinzel carthulu!"

In his hand Slate found not some
unnatural beak but a surprisingly heavy piece of cool, shaped
glass. He began to inspect it, but was interrupted by a very
ordinary and bird-like clucking noise.

The crow clucked again and Slate again
found himself looking into that curious and insistent
face.

"Braddack," the crow mumbled at him.
"Braddack, Braddack carthulu. Carthulu Kinzel."

Slate lifted his hand toward the
bird.

"Do you need this back?" he asked
uncertainly.

"Carthulu. Carthulu Braddack. Carthulu
Kinzel," the crow said, edging slowly away from the proffered
glass, and turning his head slightly, denying need.

Slate shook his head in wonder. "I
guess you don't need it, eh? My thanks..." He studied the glass,
realized that it was some kind of a lens, and put it to his eye to
see what the world looked like through it, saw a strange dark
apparition approaching looming from nowhere...

"Is it a diamond?" came the
apparition's question.

Slate unabashedly jumped as
Littlebrook spoke.

"Damn, man, you near surprised the
life out of me!"

"And you damn near spooked the rest of
us, Captain, showing up like the hawks had called your name. The
horses were all unnatural nervous, like they get sometimes when it
thunders. We got them all together--thought maybe another storm was
showing up, but it was all them birds...."

The hawks above wove through the
slowly clearing sky in an intricate dance.

"Look Captain!"

Slate turned to see the crow drifting
lazily in the breeze toward Grayling. Shrugging its wings briefly
it dropped several hand-heights to land unceremoniously on Slate's
sleep pack behind the saddle.

Grayling turned to look at the bird,
shook his mane, and resumed grazing. The bird muttered something
very much like "Braddack, chick-chick Braddack-chick," folded wings
and settled in as if it was something he did every day.

There was something else to see, as
Disburno's quiet watch-whistle let Slate know. The avian juggling
act overhead had drawn the attention of other travelers, and now a
half-dozen or more stared about the meadow. Some were obviously
interested in the birds; others looked to be planning on setting up
camp.

Slate looked at the bird still perched
behind his saddle, then toward the clearing sky with its decoration
of wheeling birds, and shook his head a moment. Then he sighed and
called out "Break day camp and mount up, Rove Troop. With any luck
at all we'll sleep dry in Carrsbritch tonight."

* * *

SLATE SAT AS comfortably as he could
on Grayling, the occasional mutter of the crow a strangeness at his
back as they waited for yet another party to be ushered off the far
end of the structure. The crow had refused to leave its perch and
Slate had given up in time, unused as he was to sharing horse. Two
more wagons moved onto the dirt, and the Rove Captain sighed a
small sigh of relief as their rumble faded away.