She saw Marcus’s quizzical look.
‘What? I was twelve years old. My body was changing. You know how sensitive girls are to mana at that age. It is why we are so much better at our art than men.’ She set her chin
defensively while wishing she had been a bit more discreet.
‘When you return to the college and start mentoring others, will you advise all the young ladies in your charge to do the same thing?’ She saw his barely suppressed smile and
realised he was teasing her.
‘Why not?’ she smiled. ‘Perhaps naked lightning worship is the future of our art.’
They laughed together softly, two old friends sharing a joke, when suddenly the prone form on the bed opposite started to stir.
‘I have been asleep, haven’t I?’
Cheris got up and moved over to her, crouching on the floor next to her bed.
‘You could say that – you have slept all day. According to Sir Norton, we are not far away from your house.’
A strange expression briefly crossed Anaya’s face; it was almost one of dread as if it was the last place on earth she wanted to get to. But it passed almost instantly. She smiled at
Cheris. ‘I didn’t realise it had been that long.’
‘How do you feel?’
‘Oh the sleep has helped definitely. I feel a lot stronger now.’
‘Have a pastry. I hid this one from Marcus. The man is a wolf around sweet cakes.’
‘Thank you.’
She ate it hungrily then swung her legs over and sat upright, inviting Cheris to sit next to her. ‘When do we have to return?’
‘We will only have one day at your house. Felmere wants us back quickly in case he can still attack the enemy.’
Anaya sighed resignedly. ‘I suppose it was inevitable. It will be a long winter.’
‘Maybe not for you Anaya.’ Marcus stretched his legs out and yawned.
‘What do you mean, Marcus?’
‘I have written to the college. If they listen to me, and I see no reason why they shouldn’t, then they will be recalling you and sending another in your stead.’
She stiffened, her eyes wide. ‘No, no, you cannot do that! I have so much to do here; there is a system in place. Someone just can’t walk in and take over. I, I swore to myself that
I would stay here till the war ended. If I go back now, I would have achieved nothing.’
Marcus leaned forward, his eyes scanning her shocked face. He spoke firmly. ‘Anaya. You are not well. You have done a world of good in this place, but you have to return before you become
the war’s latest casualty. I would not normally interfere, but Cheris and I are very concerned for you.’
Anaya’s eyes were wild. ‘I have no say in this? Neither of you know what you are doing; you cannot just walk in here, spend a few weeks and hand out orders to me. Surely I outrank
both of you?’
‘It is the Chief Magister’s decision, not mine. Remember, I have been here a few times and each time I have found that your condition has deteriorated a little more than the time
before. You obviously cannot see this; sometimes it takes a detached mind to see what is right and what is wrong.’
Cheris put her arm around her. ‘It is for the best, believe me.’
Anaya started to cry, hiding her face with her hands. Cheris kept her arm around the woman, trying to comfort her as best she could. Eventually she stopped and wiped her reddened face.
‘Very well, Marcus, then I will have to accept it.’
The silence that followed was awkward. Cheris decided to try to break it.
‘I bet you have forgotten what the college is like after all this time; I have only been away just over a month and it seems like a distant memory to me. There are a lot of good things
about it, the weather for one; have you forgotten what the sun looks like?’
‘Not quite!’ Anaya smiled wanly, blinking away her tears. ‘I do remember it could get very hot in the summer; if you went outside for too long your face would be burnt red by
the wind, and who was that old man who would sing those terrible songs on festival days? People would indulge him because he was so old, but I have carried his thin reedy voice with me to this
day.’
‘Oh Elissa preserve us, you are talking about Brother Rebdon. I had rather blotted him out from my mind.’
‘He is not still alive, is he?’
‘Very much so,’ said Cheris, ‘and still singing.’
‘He must be a hundred if he is a day.’
‘I believe he is ninety-two,’ said Marcus. ‘He was a Chief Magister some forty years ago. Of course no one remembers that now; just his warbling interrupting you when you are
trying to eat.’
‘What was that song he always sang every summer? The one about how awful it was being a mage? It used to have me gnawing the table.’ Anaya was perking up now.
‘You mean “A Mage’s Lot”, don’t you?’ groaned Cheris. ‘He has sung it so many times I know it off by heart.’ She started to sing, affecting the
burr of Brother Rebdon’s south-western accent. Anaya joined in shortly afterwards.
‘Oh a mage’s lot is a terrible thing
So hearken ye all to the song I now sing
As a child other boys would keep well away
For with a click of my fingers I would make them obey
But alas I was caught when I burnt a boy’s hair
As a knight clipped my ear with nary a care
On a boat I was put and sent forth to an isle
And was told that my stay would be for more than a while
It was books, a hard bed and rules upon rules
And stern teachers who would thrash you for acting like fools
And slowly years passed and a long beard I did grow
A part of this isle am I, never to know
How the world moves far away from its shores
And...’
The two women looked at each other, realising that they didn’t know any more of the words and simultaneously they both burst out laughing. Marcus looked bemusedly at both
of them until they had stopped.
‘Brother Rebdon regards it as his finest work.’
They both looked at him, trying to look serious, but seconds later they were off again collapsing into fits of hysterical laughter that seemed to go on for ever. Marcus sighed and picked up the
book Cheris had been reading. ‘Women!’ he said exasperatedly to himself.
The following morning, not long after dawn, with a thousand songbirds greeting the new day from trees almost denuded of leaves, they arrived at their destination. Sir Norton
hammered at the door to wake them all and, grumbling and mumbling to themselves, they clambered out of the caravan into the weak sunlight, their breath frosting in the brittle air.
They had been climbing slowly up a narrow country path barely wide enough for the caravan, but finally it had come to a dead end in a small forest clearing strewn with leaves. Ahead of them was
a shelf of rock into which some stone steps had been crudely carved. A narrow, barely discernible path led from it northwards, heading further towards the mountains.
‘You have a half-hour walk,’ said Sir Norton. ‘Just follow the path. I and the other knights will be here and will see you when you return tomorrow morning.’
‘I didn’t know I would have to walk,’ grumbled Cheris.
‘Stop moaning,’ said Marcus. ‘You are the youngest person here.’
And with that he followed Anaya up the stone steps and into the forest.
Before being exiled to the Isle of tears, Cheris had been a city girl. She remembered loving what the city had to offer, a feeling that had been partly recaptured in her ever so brief stop in
Tanaren. A forest was to her an environment as alien as the surface of the moon. She pulled her cloak close to her body, as though every one of its unseen noises, the crack of dead wood, the rustle
of wind in the ferns, the groaning of the swaying trees constituted an invisible threat of some sort. She could see its beauty and its serene tranquillity – it was a timeless place after all,
a place where monks and priests would come to meditate on the nature of eternity and their own place in the divine plan of the Gods – but she could not bring herself to trust it.
Ferns and shrubs pressing close to the narrow stony path pulled and tugged at their garments, leaving them damp and sticky against their bodies. Despite the cold air, Cheris was feeling warmer
and warmer as she walked. She was starting to have fantasies concerning hot baths perfumed with herbs and scented oils when Anaya stopped in front of her.
‘Here we are,’ she said.
It was an unprepossessing little cottage, standing in a small clearing in the trees. It looked like the sort of place a woodcutter would have once lived in before conflict drove him to the slums
of Athkaril. The thatch on the roof looked like it would soon need replacing and there were cracks in the wattle and daub which would also soon need looking into. Nevertheless, Anaya seemed happy
enough to see it.
‘An hour’s work and it will soon be a little palace.’
It had three rooms: a main living room with a small fireplace and a wonky wooden table with chairs placed neatly around it; a tiny bedroom with one bed, a straw pallet, and a chest of drawers
stacked with books; and at the other side an area for preparing food, not that there was any food in the place. Sir Norton had given Anaya a pack that presumably had some, before they left him. It
had a besom, though, and Cheris busied herself with sweeping the floor while Anaya put fresh coverings on the bed (she and Cheris were to share it, she said) and then went to unload the food from
her pack. Marcus went to draw some water from the small well outside, before collecting some firewood, which he ignited just by pointing his finger and uttering a couple of words of power.
By noon it was a pleasant little habitation. They sat and ate lunch, warming themselves next to the fire. Once that was done, the table was cleared and Anaya went to get a couple of books from
the chest of drawers.
‘Now, I have a couple of questions concerning the theories in these books. I believe they have been discredited by more recent discoveries but I need clarification on a few
points.’
And so the main business of the day started; ideas were passed back and forth and developments in magical theory discussed. Anaya was animated and curious the whole time while Marcus, as ever,
was happy to dispense what knowledge he had. Cheris was the least involved of the three; she had heard so many similar debates between crusty old academics before and repeatedly found herself
drifting. She did wonder as to the importance Anaya attached to the whole thing, though; there was nothing that couldn’t have waited a month or two when the land would be in the grip of
winter and soldiers would be far more interested in keeping warm than in killing the enemy.
After a few hours they broke for a brief and light dinner. Through the slatted window Cheris could see the light outside begin to descend into the gloom of an early dusk. Marcus sat back in his
chair while Anaya popped into the bedroom. When she didn’t return for a while, and when she felt that she could no longer bear sitting on the hard chair, Cheris went to see if there was
anything wrong.
To her surprise, she saw Anaya leaning at the bedside silently praying. Cheris decided to leave her to her devotions when Anaya heard her feet shuffle on the earthen floor. She turned to face
the younger women and Cheris saw immediately that she had been crying again. ‘Is everything all right?’ she asked.
‘I am wrestling with a question,’ she replied. ‘I hoped the Gods could guide me but they are silent on this issue.’
‘Then what is the question? Perhaps I can help.’
‘I am just wondering if it is justifiable to commit a small evil that would ultimately result in achieving a much greater good. Are acts of questionable morality allowable in such cases?
What do you think? I must admit I have wrestled with this for a long time.’
‘It would depend on the scale of the evil, I suppose, and this good you speak of, would it truly be worth achieving? Would the price truly be worth paying?’ There was something about
the question Cheris found disturbing.
‘Oh yes,’ Anaya smiled sadly. ‘It really would, more than anything.’
‘Then I suppose the answer is yes. Did I not kill men so that Grest could be taken? I suppose that is one example.’
Anaya stood and brushed her knees clean. ‘I suppose so, although Grest could easily be lost again, in which case what you did in the field merely furthered the futility of this
war.’
‘Are you saying I committed an evil act?’
‘No, my dear, for you acted with a pure heart and entirely altruistic intentions, though I have seen so many before you do the same thing with little good resulting at the end. Come,
let’s get back to things; we have plenty more to get through.’
She took her place at the table and continued talking to Marcus. It was soon dark and Cheris busied herself lighting candles and closing the shutter on the window. After what to her seemed an
age the two older mages finally seemed to be bringing things to a close.
‘I have learned much,’ said Anaya. (Had she really? thought Cheris. The practice of magic changes little over centuries let alone the few short years she had been away.) ‘You
forget so many things, so many things, when a library is no longer close at hand.’
‘True,’ Marcus replied. ‘But for you in a few months that will no longer be a concern.’
‘You mean when I go back to the island? You are right, of course.’ She paused, and brushed a loose strand of hair from her face. ‘I tell you what, Sir Norton has given us a
bottle of wine. I have no idea how good it is. Let me go and prepare a warm posset for us, something to celebrate our all too brief time here.’
‘Do you need a hand? It is quite dark, is it not?’ asked Cheris.
‘No, my dear, I will be fine. There is actually a lantern out here; I will light it and bring it in for us.’
After she left, Cheris looked at Marcus and yawned, ‘Elissa preserve me from academics,’ she said with a smile.
‘Just be grateful your natural ability more than compensates for your reticence at study.’ Marcus seemed in a good mood, as he always was after a productive teaching session.
‘Though Anaya has forgotten more than I thought possible. I even wonder if she is pretending not to know certain things; some of the basics seemed to elude her, even though she has been
practising magic constantly ever since she left the college.’