The Awakened Mage (49 page)

She lit a single candle, then the fire in her stove to boil the kettle. Outside the window darkness mantled her yard, the forest, the mountains. Barl’s Wall was a whisper of gold, lost amongst the stars. Sometimes it was easy to forget it was there. Or that she was here because of it, tied to a scattered group of not-quite-strangers whose lives she could end with one unthinking mistake. Who knew her but not each other and willingly lived with danger for the sake of an ancient prophecy and a life that had vanished centuries before they were born. Their courage had her weeping, if she let it.

Guardianship of the Circle had come to her three months before her thirty-sixth birthday. Married at twenty to a lovely boy whose face she no longer remembered, widowed childless at twenty-three, she’d not had the heart to woo or wed again. At least, for a long time she’d thought it was sorrow.

After her Great-Aunt Tilda had died, though, leaving her a mysterious box and a legacy she still had cause to curse, she wondered if that wasn’t Prophecy working its will upon her. Dabbling its fingers in her private doings long before it needed her. Keeping her ready for the day when it did.

For this day, when dark decisions must be made so that an even darker future might not come to pass.

The kettle took a deep breath and started whistling. She whisked it off the stove top and made her mug of tea. Cradling it between fingers just beginning to feel the pinches of age, she sank into a chair at the table to rest her I elbows and brood on matters like to break her heart.

After sending Matthias and Dathne to their beds scant hours earlier, she’d reached out to another Circle member, Gilda Hartshorn, to confirm the truth of Dathne’s scrying. A seamstress in Dorana City, Gilda sewed often for staff up at the palace and in the City guardhouse. She had a genius for gossip and inspiring confidences.

It’s true, it’s true, all true,
Gilda had told her.
Asher’s due to die at midnight Barl’s Day. A proclamation from the new king, Conroyd Jarralt.

Prompted by unfathomable instinct, knowing they’d need all the help they could find to rescue him, she’d told Gilda the truth about Asher. Shocked, then tearful, Gilda had demanded,
But he’s guarded day and night and there’s a crowd around him no matter what the hour! Veira, Veira, what shall we do?

Gilda knew no more of Dathne and Matt than they knew about her, and still it was best things stayed that way. So she’d settled the seamstress’s fears with a calm assurance three parts a lie, then climbed in her bed to sleep. She was sixty-three years old now, and nowhere near spry. And the journey to collect Dathne had shaken her bones to aching.

Sleep hadn’t come, though. She’d told Dathne she had an inkling of an idea on how to save their Innocent Mage, and she did. But that idea was dreadful. Merciless. Uncaring of hearts broken, lives lost, futures trampled. Doubtless it came from Prophecy itself, which accounted for its coldness. It also might account for coincidence: that of all the people who could be the key to Asher’s freedom, it was her flesh and blood. Her sister’s son. A boy grown now to manhood who she’d brought into the Circle against her will. Against all bonds of family. Against the voice in her heart crying,
No. Don’t. Choose another.

She hadn’t. Couldn’t. Like Dathne, like her nephew Rafel, she’d been chosen as Prophecy’s tool. She might rail against destiny from dawn till dusk but it made no difference. Rafel was part of the pattern. Part of Prophecy And so she’d called him to her, and willingly he’d come.

Listened to her fantastic tale of omens and promises and dead men’s dreams, and smiled.

“Of course I’ll help you, Veira. What am I meant to do?”

Then, not knowing, she couldn’t tell him. Now, suspecting … she couldn’t bring herself to think of it.

From the henhouse outside in the yard, a babbling of girlish chicken voices and the rooster’s lusty crow. Lifting her head, she realized the sky outside had lightened. That tentative sunsingers in the forest’s foliage were warbling in chorus. It was day, and she had chores to do. Decisions to make. Plans to devise.

Prophecy to obey.

She was sixty-three years old, and nigh on sick of Prophecy.

Her mostly untouched tea was cold now. Wrinkling her nose, she tipped it down the sink then crept back to her bedroom. Pulled on thicker socks and extra woolens and lifted her coat from its hook on the back of the door. Matthias would be rousing soon, and maybe Dathne as well. She wasn’t ready to face them yet

A walk in the woods was what she needed. Solitude, for the strengthening of heart and will. She’d take the pigs.

Pigs were good listeners, and they never talked back.

When Asher stirred again it was to a rising sun whose winter heat barely warmed his chilled and stiffened body. Far beyond caring about such niceties as privacy, modesty, shame, he pissed into the straw. The few remaining yellow stalks turned pink.

In the Square, the diminished crowd stirred and muttered and stamped its feet. A few half-hearted eggs cracked open on the cage roof. These ones were hardly rotten at all. Pale yellow yolk dripped onto his face. He opened his parched mouth and swallowed, because his belly was empty and rumbling. That small act of self-sustenance stirred his audience to anger. Someone shouted. Someone else threw a rock. Two rocks. Four. Five. One hit him, drawing blood. He threw it back, swearing.

The next thing he knew it was raining rocks, until the guards stepped in and stopped the sport. Not out of pity; they just didn’t want an accident that might prevent his keenly anticipated beheading. Or to get hit by mistake themselves.

Adrift on a shifting sea of memories, swaddled in a sharp glass blanket of pain, Asher let himself float, praying that the next time he opened his eyes he’d be dead.

Gar woke to the sound of curtains rattling along their thick brass rods and an unwelcome voice. “Your Highness? Your Highness.”

He rolled his head on the pillow then frowned. What? That wasn’t right. Since when was his pillow made of wood? Someone had crept into his bedchamber and turned his pillow into
wood.
And then they’d rolled it
flat…

He opened his eyes, blinking in the pale morning sunshine laid over his face like gauze. Oh. This wasn’t his bedchamber, it was his library. The pillow was actually his desk, where he’d fallen asleep at some point during the night while continuing his search for Barl’s diary.

His fruitless search. If the diary existed he’d failed to find it amongst Durm’s books. It must be in Durm’s study. If it existed…

He was starting to think it didn’t. That the diary was nothing more than a figment of Durm’s dying mind. That hope for him, for Asher, for the whole kingdom, was truly dead.

He sat up, groaning as every muscle protested his unorthodox mattress. His eyes were gritty, his mouth tasted like old socks and his head hurt as though it was spiky with nails and the sunlight was a hammer, pounding…

“Your Highness, really,” fussed Darran. “You hardly touched your dinner!”

He rubbed his eyes. Glanced at the abandoned tray on the floor with its burden of congealed roast lamb and soggy carrots. “I wasn’t hungry. What time is it?”

“A quarter after seven,” said Darran, retrieving the tray. “Now, sir, I’ve drawn you a bath. Please take it, and by the time you’re finished breakfast will be ready.”

He felt his stomach roil. “I’m still not hungry.”

“Hungry or not, Your Highness, you can’t miss dinner and breakfast!”

He groaned again. “You’re turning into an old woman, Darran, right before my eyes.”

Darran sniffed. “Well if I am, sir, you’re hastening the transformation. Come along now! Up, up, up! Your bath water’s getting cold.”

Clearly there was no escape short of dismissing the old man. A tempting thought, but no. Glowering, he shoved his chair back from his library desk and staggered upstairs to his bathroom, where there was indeed a hot bath waiting. Darran had even laid him out fresh clothes.

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Still. The hot bath, scented with oils, did feel good to his cramped and tired muscles. He let himself sink beneath the fragrant water and waited for the heat to suffuse him. For his headache to subside and his aching tension to ease.

But no. With wakefulness and silence came more uncomfortable thoughts. If Barl’s diary did exist and was hidden somewhere in Durm’s study instead of his book collection, could he hope to find it there? Without falling foul of Conroyd? Without alerting the bastard to his unpermitted wanderings and causing his limited freedom to be reduced altogether? He tried to imagine guards in Conroyd’s pay cluttering up his Tower, counting every step he took, every breath, and was forced to stop. Just the idea of it made him sick.

But he had to take the chance. If he didn’t it meant he truly was Gar the Magickless again, forever, and faced a life of virtual imprisonment in a kingdom ruled by the wrong man. A life of unbearable guilt and sorrow. No matter what it took, no matter what it cost, he had to believe the diary was real, and contained a means of rescue for them all.

His bath was getting cold. He stood, dripping. Wrapped himself in a towel and staggered into his bedchamber where Darran was fussing over a small dining table. Odd. He couldn’t recall having a dining table in here half an hour ago.

“I hope you don’t mind, sir,” said Darran, buffing silver cutlery with a linen cloth. “But I thought if you ate in here it might reduce the number of rooms to clean.” He looked up, stricken. “Not that I begrudge the task, sir! I don’t! But—”

“I know,” he said. “It’s a sensible plan, Darran. Whatever I can do to make your life easier, consider it done. And don’t forget to set yourself a place too. We’re in this together, old friend.”

Darran’s sallow cheeks turned pink. “I… I thought an omelette for breakfast, sir. With ham and asparagus. A little creamed cheese. I’ll serve it momentarily, if that’s agreeable.”

Gar sighed. Darran was trying so hard, and his own life was just as disarranged. Lay in equally smoking ruins. Through no fault of his own he’d been reduced to housewifery in the service of a disgraced and impotent prince of nothing. After a lifetime’s exemplary royal service he’d earned much better than this ignominious exile.

Eyes suddenly stinging, he smiled. “It’s perfect. Thank you.” The smile swiftly faded, though, as another unwelcome thought stabbed. “I can only pray Asher is treated so well.”

Something in the quality of Darran’s silence made him stare. “What?”

“Oh, sir,” Darran’s expression was anguished, his voice a strangled whisper. “I don’t know how to tell you …”

“Tell me what?”

“About Asher.”

His heart thudded. “For Barl’s sake, just say it, man.”

Darran was wringing the hnen polishing cloth as though it were a chicken’s neck. “I went and saw him last night.”

“Asher?”

“Yes.”

He felt his emptied lungs constrict. “Why?”

Very carefully, Darran smoothed out the throttled cloth and laid it on the table. “I was … concerned. I thought you’d want to know if he was all right.”

He didn’t.

He had to. “And was he?”

Darran shook his head, mute misery in his face. “No. He’s in a cage, in the Square. On public display like an animal. Lord Jarralt—the king—has hurt him.”

“The king is a cruel and wicked man.”

“Yes, sir,” Darran whispered. “I’m most afraid you’re right.”

Towel still clutched about his drying body Gar moved to the window, pulled aside the curtain and stared down into the grounds below where cheerful gardeners no longer worked. With an effort he kept his voice steady.

“And Asher. Did you have the chance to speak to him?”

“Briefly, sir. He asked me to give you a message.”

A message. The sunlight hammer resumed its pounding, and the nails drove into his brain. “There’s no need, Darran. I can imagine what it was.”

“No, sir,” said Darran. His voice sounded closer. “In fact, he asked me to say he forgives you. He understands the kingdom must come before all personal considerations, and that in denying him you did what had to be done so Lur might remain safe and at peace. He begs you not to blame yourself for his death.”

“Oh,” he said eventually. “I see.” Slowly he turned from the window and stared into Darran’s pale, composed features. “That doesn’t sound like Asher. Was he lying?”

Darran shook his head, vehement. “No, sir. Every word he said to me was the truth.”

Well. If Darran believed it—and clearly he did—then he’d believe it too. “How was he?”

“His spirits are low,” Darran admitted, reluctant. “Which is only to be expected. I think he’s afraid, though he’d never admit it. But he loves you, sir. I was wrong to think he never did.”

¥ A big admission from Darran. Gar nodded and turned back to the window, unwilling to trust his face, his self-control, to another’s scrutiny.
He forgives you.

And did that make things better or worse? He wasn’t sure. Might never be sure.

“You should get dressed, sir,” Darran said gently. “I’ll be back in a trice with your omelette.”

But when he returned some ten minutes later, he brought with him not breakfast but Willer. Smirking, resplendent in sky-blue satin embroidered everywhere with House Jarralt’s falcon emblem, the horrible little man strutted into the room as though he owned the world.

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Darran stiffly. “He insisted.”

Gar looked at his former employee. “What do you want? You must know you’re not welcome here, Willer.”

The smirk widened to a fatuous smile. “On the contrary,
Gar.
As an emissary for the king I am welcome everywhere. His Majesty sends me to say: surrender the Weather Orb and such books and papers removed unwisely from dead Durm’s apartments.” With a flourish he produced a sealed note and held it out.

Gar, forced to step towards him as though in supplication, raised a hand at Darran’s hiss of outrage and took the missive without comment. Opened it and frowned. “This is from Conroyd?”

“From the king, yes. And mind you address him as such, with ah his due respect.”