season avatars 01 - seasons beginnings (8 page)

“Why don’t you portal to them?”

“I can’t. My home has changed out of my memory—”

“You could find a way to do it, if you really wanted to.” Sal-thaath’s

voice rose from its childish treble to a grating pitch. “But you don’t.

You like that pretty woman who lives with the chicken dame.”

Kron gaped at the child. “How...how did you know?”

Sal-thaath grinned. Was it remnants of his meal stuck in his mouth,

or did he have pointed teeth? “I go everywhere and see everything, Kron

Evenhanded. I could portal you to your country if you wanted me to.”

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Delns! The smell of the sea, the cold breezes in the morning, the

taste of his mother’s flatcakes, unlike any he’d found no matter where

Kron traveled. Longing flowed through him for a tide of heartbeats.

Perhaps he should accept the boy’s offer. He could always portal back

to Vistichia afterwards to make sure Phebe and Bella were well...but

did he dare leave them alone that long?

How well could he trust Sal-thaath? Would the boy even keep his

word, or would he find a way to harm Kron? He couldn’t leave Vistichia

vulnerable to the child; the king’s magician had no idea what Sal-thaath

was capable of.

Kron shook his head. “I still have business in Vistichia.”

Sal-thaath glared at the fire, which shot up as tall as a full-grown

man. Kron scooped a handful of water out of the river, but the flame

died down before he could quench it.

“I still have business in Vistichia too.” The menace in Sal-thaath’s

tone belied the softness of his face. “Farewell, Kron. I’ll see you there—

soon.”

Sal-thaath disappeared as silently as he’d arrived.

Kron moved like an ancient man as he put out the fire and tossed the

leftovers of the meal into the river. He should have known he couldn’t

get a child, no matter how magical, to listen to him. Maybe he should

have lectured Sal-thaath more about the harm he was doing, but the boy

would have disappeared the heartbeat Kron raised his voice.

He’s too powerful. I can’t do anything with him like this. I can store

magic in artifacts, but that will never bring me up to his level. He needs

to have his magic neutralized for a while, long enough for him to un-

derstand what it’s like to have no magic. It wouldn’t have to be a long

time, maybe less than a day.

Kron looked up at the sky, as bright blue as ever. It had to be his

imagination that the blue was a little lighter, a touch more yellow, than

it normally was this time of day.

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However I do it, I’ll have to do it soon. If Salth is right and she can

harvest magic from the golden haze, then she and Sal-thaath will con-

trol more magic than a dozen Magic Institutes put together.

But what could absorb all of that magic?

Kron stared at the river flowing past him until the sunset turned the

sky pure gold. He portaled home, still without an answer.

* * *

Kron spent the next several days wandering through Vistichia, col-

lecting every discarded item he could find, then taking them back to his

room at the inn–while he loathed the expense, sleeping in a rough shel-

ter grew less appealing when the nights became colder–and enchanting

them until he ran out of energy and collapsed onto his pallet. But it was

a futile effort. No single item was strong enough to siphon off a tenth

of Sal-thaath’s magic, and his artifacts were too varied to mesh well.

Desperate, Kron portaled to the Magic Institute for another meeting

with Pagli. He held nothing back, not even Salth’s speculations about

the golden haze. At that, Pagli shook his head.

“Magic in the sky? What a strange notion, especially since everyone

knows it comes from living things. While I have noticed the sky is more

yellow these days, it’s probably due to something we don’t understand

yet.”

Kron discreetly checked to see how much Pagli had watered his

wine. Perhaps he added one drop of water to every bowl. “Then it could

be anything, Pagli.”

“Or nothing at all.” He waved his hand. “Anyway, it’s too far away

for any of us to feel, so we don’t need to worry about it.”

“What about Sal-thaath? I still have to worry about him. How do I

contain his magic?”

“You can’t, Kron.” Pagli became serious. “Be grateful he’s leaving

you and your friends alone.”

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Kron couldn’t be grateful. Sal-thaath was too intelligent to forget

about Phebe and Bella, let alone Kron. If he was ignoring them, it was

only temporary, while he was distracted by something else, perhaps

something in the sky.

“Do you have any new materials I can experiment with?” he asked

as he rose to leave. “My selection in Vistichia is limited, despite the

trade.”

“I have a pair of attracting stones, though they don’t always work.

Sometimes they repel each other. You can have them if you fix the

fountain in the courtyard. Its aim is off.”

Kron agreed. The fountain was easily fixed—something had

clogged one of the nozzles—and soon he found himself in possession

of two chunks of black rock. He played with them after returning to

Vistichia and discovered they could attract or repel each other depend-

ing on how they were oriented. He marked the sides so he would know

how to hold the stones. That was minimal work, barely enough to turn

natural materials into artifacts. He would have to shape them more in

the morning. Between the lack of sleep and the magic he’d poured into

his failed artifacts, Kron was too weary to let the music and talk in the

inn’s common room keep him up. He barely remembered to hide his

new stones in his enchanted pouch before falling asleep.

* * *

Kron roused as someone shook his shoulder. “Kron, Kron, wake

up!”

Still weary, he opened his eyes. Phebe, her husband Troge, and sev-

eral others surrounded him. Their angry expressions sent him reeling

backward. “What’s going on?”

“Where’s your apprentice?” Troge asked. He shifted benches and

chairs as if he thought Sal-thaath was hiding under one of them.

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“Sal-thaath?” It took him a few heartbeats to make the connection;

when he did, a flood of anxiety reenergized him. “What has he done

now?”

“He took Bella!” Phebe said between sobs. “We were mending

clothes when he appeared in our house. I didn’t even hear the door open.

Before I knew it, he put his arms around Bella, and they both disap-

peared, like they’d become air.” She looked pleadingly at Kron. “Do

you think he’s going to change her into a chicken too?”

No. Whatever he has planned for her, it’ll be something worse.
He

couldn’t say that out loud, though, as that would only send Phebe into

further hysterics.

“When did it happen?” Kron asked. The common room was brighter

than it’d been when he went to sleep, but the light didn’t seem as clear

as morning sunshine. How long had he slept, and how close was it to

nightfall?

“It was after the noon meal. We looked for you in the marketplace,

but we couldn’t find you.” Some sharpness returned to Phebe’s tone, as

if she couldn’t understand that someone who worked when others slept

would have to sleep when everyone else was awake. “It’s close to sun-

set now.”

“Kron? Do you know where they are?” An edge in Troge’s voice

warned Kron he’d better give them an answer they wanted to hear.

“Yes, I do. But I’ll need to portal there.” Normally he wouldn’t por-

tal indoors, but it sounded as if he’d already lost too much time. He

needed to improvise a portal from whatever he could find in this room.

Kron whipped his cloak into the air. Before it could fall to the floor, he

touched it, freezing into half an arc. Phebe gasped. He completed the

rest of it with a remnant of wool thread. The portal was so narrow he’d

have to suck in his breath to pass through, which meant he’d be limited

in the supplies he could carry. At least his small pouch wouldn’t be a

burden.

Kron took a bottle of a restorative from his pouch. The potion

smelled like lemons and tasted a little like chalk, but drinking it restored

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him to full magical reserves—still pitifully small compared to what

Salth and Sal-thaath controlled. “I’m sorry, but none of you are power-

ful enough to deal with the boy or his mother. Don’t follow me through

the portal. I’ll return with Bella as soon as I can.” He hesitated as he

faced the hope and fear in their eyes. “If I don’t return, you’d better flee

the city.”

“But why—”

Kron didn’t respond as he collected beads, pieces of string, and a

few splinters of wood. He wasn’t sure what he could do with them, but

perhaps he could use them as distractions.

He touched his stiff cloak and closed his eyes. Focusing on every

detail he could remember of Salth’s room—every book cover, every

cobweb—he forced his will past all of her protections. Then he dove

through the portal.

C H A P T E R S E V E N

The Golden Haze

Magic was thick in the air, aiding him as much as it strengthened

Salth's spell. For a moment, Kron thought he’d be caught in some space

between the portal and Salth’s house, and the fear made him push

through with all of his might. He landed roughly on Salth’s marble

floor, scraping his skin and shredding his tunic in a score of places.

“Kron! You’re always interrupting me!” Salth shouted.

He pushed himself to his knees, then to his feet. Shimmering golden

light obscured the objects in the room. Kron waved his hand in front of

his face to clear the light away. Bella had been laid on Salth’s table as

if for her funeral. Her chest heaved up and down, but otherwise she

didn’t move. Kron sensed two spells at work: a spell to paralyze her and

another one encapsulating her like a cocoon.

“I knew you’d come if I brought this Nil, Kron!” Sal-thaath appeared

next to him, eyes bright with excitement. “Mother says if we kill a Nil,

we get more magic from its soul than if it dies naturally. We can then

bring the magic of the stars down to us. Are you here to watch? I think

you’d have to be very, very nice to Mother if you want some of our

magic. She’s very angry with you.”

When Sal-thaath finally ran out of words, Kron said, “You shouldn’t

kill Bella or any other person without magic, Sal-thaath.” To his

mother, he said, “Let her go, Salth. What do you need magic from the

sky for, anyway? You’re already the most powerful magician I know!”

He fingered the items in his pouch, searching for anything that could

break Salth’s spells on Bella.

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“You can never have too much power. Power protects you.” She

tapped the cocoon-like spell with a finger, then folded her arms and

glanced at Sal-thaath. “It’s almost time. Sal-thaath, be a dear and kill

this woman for me so I can take the magic from her soul. You can do it

any way you like.”

“Sal-thaath, no!” Kron shouted. The pair of magnets grew warm in

his hand, and he clenched them as if they were his only hope. “You

didn’t like it when I caught you with my thread; think how she must

feel!”

Sal-thaath glanced back and forth between Kron and Salth. Except

for their breaths, the room was silent. Then Sal-thaath drifted closer to

the cocoon. “Aw, I could’ve broken free of you anytime I wanted,

Kron,” he said. “I just stayed cause I’ve never met another magician

before. But you’re as dull as a Nil, always telling me I can’t do this or

that. And Mother says Nils are like animals anyway, so it doesn’t matter

what we do to them.”

No child should be this callous. Maybe if Kron could permanently

separate him from Salth and send him to the Magic Institute, Pagli and

the other instructors could teach him empathy. But for that to happen,

Sal-thaath’s magic had to be drained off enough so he couldn’t portal

away. The magnets might be able to do it, but Kron needed more time

to shape them into an artifact.

“Pagli doesn’t believe the golden haze in the sky is magical, or that

you or anyone can bring such magic down to Earth.” Kron rubbed one

of the magnets, willing it to attach itself to Sal-thaath and stay there no

matter what he did.
Cling to his very nature, his essence. The more he

tries to rid himself of you, the more secure you’ll be.
“And he won’t

approve of you kidnapping an ordinary person to fuel your own magic.

He’ll punish you even if it takes the entire Magic Institute to do it.”

She laughed. “Then when I’m done here, I’ll have to pay him a visit,

won’t I? The Magic Institute always tries to restrict magic, not free it.

That’s why you’re limited to working through your artifacts. Deep

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