The Awakened Mage (26 page)

An expression of grudging acknowledgement crossed Darran’s face as he pulled his arm free. “Perhaps.”

“Glad you agree. Now if there ain’t anythin’ else—”

“There is. Apparently there are several matters pending at Justice Hall that require the attentions of a Master Magician. Lady Marnagh feels the issue is becoming… urgent. If you could mention as much to the king?”

Coward. “Aye,” he said, and sat down. “I’ll mention it Now close the door on your way out”

Alone at last, he eyed the pile of legal books with weary distaste. After the madness of Crasthead Moor he couldn’t be less interested in Glospottle’s pissy piss problems.

Barl save me. What have I done?

The office door opened, admitting Dathne. “I’ve finally settled that business with the Midwives,” she said, hanging her cloak and satchel on the corner coat rack. “I doubt we’ll have any more trouble now.”

He couldn’t remember what the problem was but smiled anyway. “Fine.”

“Ori—and His Majesty asked me to give you this.”

He leaned across his desk and took the note she held out to him. Cracked the crimson wax seal and read it

See me. The crypt. Two hours after sunset.

Barl save him, what now? What else could there be for him to sacrifice on the altar of Gar’s desperate dedication to Lur?

Dathne was watching him closely. ‘Trouble?”

“No,” he lied, sliding the note into his pocket.

She dropped into the chair opposite his desk and nodded at the pile of books Darran had left behind. “A little light reading?”

“More like a recipe for headaches,” he said, and let himself look at her, just look at her. Since joining the Tower staff she’d unwillingly exchanged her comfortable bookseller cottons and linens for the suffer formality of silk and brocade. The expensive fabrics suited her. Brought out the sheen in her thick black hair and softened her lean angularity. Damn, she was so beautiful…

Even when she was frowning. “You’ve got a headache now, haven’t you?”

He rubbed his throbbing temple. “Does it show?”

“Only to me.” Returning to her satchel, she rummaged for a moment and withdrew a small stoppered pot.

“No potions!” he protested. “You’re as bad as bloody Nix. Just you keep away from me with that muck.”

Affectionately scornful, she moved to stand behind him. “Gossoon. It’s a salve, not a potion. Now be quiet.”

The smell from the pot as she unstoppered it was almost pleasant, hinting at mint leaves and honey and other things, unknown but soothing to the senses. Her ointment-smeared touch on his skin was a benediction, a tingling taste of what could be. Should be.

Would be, if fate just once was kind.

Kneading, stroking, her strong and supple fingers smoothed his temples, his neck, slipped inside his shirt collar to flirt with his shoulders. “You’re so tense,” she murmured. “No wonder you’ve got pains …”

He sighed and let his head fall back to rest against her blue brocade chest, soft and welcoming: a pillow long desired. Her fingers roamed freely, wandered upwards to dally through his hair.

“You’ll make me smelly,” he complained, drowsy and only a little serious. “Like that pissant Willer.”

A soft chuckle. Slender fingers waking fire. “Barl forbid. Now—”

A sharp rat-tat of knuckles on the office door. “Asher!” said Matt, barging in. “Those horses are—oh.” Foolishly he stood in the middle of the office, staring, and foolishly Asher stared back. Behind him he could feel Dathne stiffen.

“Asher’s busy, Matt,” she said, all amusement fled from her voice. “Go away.”

“Busy,” said Matt, still staring. “Yes. I can see that.”

Asher sat forward, a tide of heat washing through him. “I had a headache. Dathne was helping.”

The strangest look passed over Matt’s abruptiy pale face. “Yes, well, she’s a very helpful woman.”

“Matt!” said Dathne sharply. “Don’t you—”

Asher raised one finger and she fell silent. A miracle, of sorts. He stood. Stared Matt full in the face. “That’ll do. Horses in good fettle?”

Matt nodded. “They are.”

“Good. The king’ll come see ‘em directly. Anything else?”

“No.”

“Fine. Then you can go.” Another nod. “Very good. Sir.” Dathne broke the awkward silence Matt left in his wake. “I should go. More meetings. You know how it

is. I’ll leave the ointment here, shall I? You can rub it in yourself if the pain returns.”

No,
he wanted to cry. Stay. Tell me what you meant by this, tell me I ain’t dreamin’, tell me if you felt what I felt when you touched me.

“All right,” he said. “You have any trouble, you let me know. I got to make a start on these bloody legal books.”

Her smile was fleeting, and impish. “Good luck. If I finish my meetings in time I’ll help you with them, shall I?”

He shrugged. “If you like.”

“No promises, mind,” she warned.

No promises.

For some reason, the comment made him shiver.

The day dragged on, and at long last died in a fiery sunset. Dathne didn’t come back. He wasn’t hungry but he ate dinner anyway. Cluny would read him a lecture if he didn’t, then for good measure badger the cook into serving him a dessert of offended complaints and insulted imprecations. He didn’t have the stomach or the energy to hear them. His headache had returned with a vengeance.

See me.

Hiding in his private sitting room, he stared through the uncurtained window and watched the world outside dwindle into dusk, into darkness. Even the glow of Barl’s Wall seemed faded. Tarnished. Or was that just fear, pulling a deadening veil across his eyes?

See me.

When it was time he fetched a coat from his wardrobe, shrugged it on and let himself out of his apartments. The Tower was hushed. The faintest murmuring of voices drifted downwards from the staircase over his head: Cluny and her hardworking housemaid friends tending

the stairwell candles. A door banged. Someone laughed Someone else shouted two floors down, sounding disgruntled. He thought it was Willer. With a sigh, needing support, he took hold of the handrail and began his reluctant descent. Slipped unseen from the Tower and made his way to the palace grounds.

Gar was outside the crypt, holding a candle-lantern and looking annoyed. “At last. Two hours, I said. Have you forgotten how to count?”

“I ain’t that late.”

“Late enough. Come on.”

He pushed open the crypt door and went inside. Asher stared after him, apprehension like a sea swell rising to swamp all other, harsher emotions. Then he followed.

In the royal family’s chamber three more candle-lanterns had been lit and placed around the small, chilly room. Flickering shadows danced up the white walls and over the flagstone floor. Balanced on Borne’s incomplete effigy was a creamy-white globe.

“What’s that thing?”

Gar glanced at it. “The Weather Orb. Come in, would you?”

Fascinated, repelled, Asher took half a step closer. “There’re colors in there …”

“That’s the Weather Magic,” said Gar, withdrawing a battered, ancient-looking book from a satchel on the floor.

Asher nodded at it. “And what’s that?”

“A collection of spells and incantations specific to the role of Master Magician. I took it and the Orb from Durm’s study this afternoon. The rest of his books and papers are being boxed up and delivered to the Tower tonight. One month isn’t long, Asher. I don’t intend to waste a minute of it.”

He felt his guts cramp. “So you pinched Durm’s stuff. What’s that got to do with me?”

“Everything,” said Gar, impatient. “If you’re going to preserve Barl’s Wall you have to take on her Weather Magics. Or try to, anyway. I’ve no idea if the Transference will work with you saying it instead of a Master Magician. I’ve no idea if it’ll work on you at all, given you’re Olken. Still, we don’t have a choice. The attempt must be made. And in secret… hence us meeting here.”

Mouth dry, heart racing, he stared at the Orb. “And if this Transference don’t work? What happens to me?”

Gar shrugged. “I don’t know that either. But these magics come from Barl herself. I can’t believe she’d let them hurt someone. Kill them.”

Beneath the fear, a spark of anger. “She’s six centuries dead, Gar, and you never knew her. You got no idea what she would or wouldn’t let happen.”

Gar frowned at the floor, then looked up. “Are you having second thoughts?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Probably.”

He tried to smile. “What about third?”

“Asher---”

“Ah, sink it!” he said, and scrubbed a hand across his face. “Let’s just get it over with, eh?” Gar nodded. “Agreed.”

They sat facing each other on the flagstones. Gar held the Weather Orb and balanced the open spell book in his lap. “It’s only fair to warn you … this might hurt.”

He rolled his eyes. “Now he tells me.”

“Since you can’t read Ancient Doranen I’ll recite the spell and you can repeat it after me. If what happened in the Weather Chamber holds true, that should trigger the Transference.”

“And if it don’t?”

A wintry amusement touched Gar’s face. “Then it’s hail King Conroyd.”

Asher glared at the pretty pearl-white Weather Orb. “Hurt how much, exactly?”

“I survived,” said Gar, and gave him the Orb.

It felt peculiarly heavy. Almost alive. Or aware. The colors swirling beneath its skin made his senses swim. Without conscious thought his fingers formed a cradle.

“That’s right,” said Gar. “Hold it just like that. No tighter, no looser. Close your eyes. Breathe. Good. Now … are you ready?”

Asher felt the crypt’s cold air catch in his throat. Ready? No, he wasn’t bloody ready. How could anybody be ready for something like this? He grunted.

“All right,” said Gar, softly. There was a rustling of pages, a slithering of leather, as he picked up Durm’s book. “Repeat after me:
Ha’rak dolanie maketh …”

Heart booming, head spinning, Asher licked his dry lips and repeated the tongue-twisting words.
“Ha ‘rak dolanie maketh…”

As he whispered the last syllable the Orb trembled in his grasp. He felt warmth. A humming energy. He opened his eyes, stared down at the maelstrom of gold and green and purple and crimson magics he held between his hands… and fell headlong into it. From some impossible distance he heard Gar’s voice and he echoed it, repeating the words he had no hope of understanding.

Deep within, some secret place he never knew existed seemed to … open. Unfold, the way a rose unfolds its petals at the first kind kiss of the sun. The Orb was glowing so brightly he shouldn’t have been able to look at it, but he could. He could see right into the heart of it, and it felt like staring into the heart of magic itself. Images poured into the newly opened space within him, and with them came words … knowledge … Power.

He could feel his chest heaving, his breath rasping. The Orb’s heat and light burst free of their shell, rushed through his skin like hot sweet wine through cheesecloth and now he was the Orb, glowing with magic, his bones were burning with it and the world had turned crimson and gold.

There was no pain.

Gar was still speaking; standing on the rim of this brand-new world he could hear his friend’s voice, drifting towards him from a vast distance. He let the words float into his ambit. Breathed them in and breathed them out again as though they were incense, or the smoke from one of Dathne’s scented candles. The power pouring into him swelled like a wave racing in from the ocean, deep and strong and impossible to control. He felt like a child again. Remembered the time Da tossed him over the side of then fishing boat and into the water, so he’d learn how to swim.

“Don’t fight her, boy! You ‘11 never win! Let go, just let go! She’ll hold you like a woman if you let her! Let go…”

He let go now, as he had then. Let the wave of power take him, lift him, drag him deep under and throw him up high. He heard himself cry out, a sound of wonder an( despair. A fountain of words welled into his mouth ant he shouted them for all the world to hear. A final surge of magic speared him like a javelin of fire. For one brief exulting moment he knew himself invincible …

... and then the fire faded. The power snuffed out like a pinched candle. He was a man again, not magic made flesh, and the Orb in his trembling hands was nothing more than a bauble.

He could have wept.

When at last he stirred, Gar was staring at him as though they’d never met. “There was no pain for you… was there?”

He shook his head. Slowly, awareness returned. That was a lantern. He sat on the floor. Above him lay the quiet stone faces of dead people. He felt light enough to fly Weighed down with impossible knowledge.

“Do you know that at the end you were saying the last words of the Transference spell with me, not after me?”

Carefully, he returned the Orb to Gar. “If you say so. can’t remember… it’s a blur.”

Gar stood. His face was cold, all emotion smothered like a river under ice. ‘There’s one more thing we have to do.”

He slumped against the nearest coffin, groaning “What? Gar, I don’t want to do anythin’ else. Not tonight I’m knackered. All my insides are turned upside down and my head’s near to burstin’ open there’s so much stuff been crammed in it.”

Gar’s answer was to look in his satchel and remove a small pottery bowl filled with damp soil. “There’s a seed in here,” he said, holding it out. “Make it sprout.”

“Make it sprout?” Asher stared. “Why?”

“As a test. We need to be sure the Transference worked.”

“I ain’t a bloody gardener! I don’t know how to—”

“Yes, you do!” said Gar. Leaned down, grabbed him by one arm and hauled him to his feet. “It’s
in
you now, as it once was in me.”

“Ow! Leave off!” he protested as Gar tapped him ungently on the side of the head to make his point.

“Just think of the seed, Asher. Imagine it bursting into life. Magic will do the rest.”

Scowling, he snatched the dirt-filled bowl and glared into it. His mind was blank.
Think of the seed.
He held his breath, screwed up his face and imagined green and growing things. Words floated to the surface of his mind and flirted there like sea foam on the ocean.