The Prodigal Mage: Fisherman’s Children Book One (21 page)

“Yes,” said Polly, unhappy. “I’ll send word.”

“All of you should stay vigilant,” said Dathne, looking from Jinny to Polly to Beale. “Not only about Fernel. We need to know as soon as you hear word of unrest, or misgivings, or folk whispering about what they’ve felt in the earth.”

The three remaining Circle members nodded.

“Thank you,” she said. “And if I’ve been high-handed, or bossy, or made you feel—feel
slighted,
I beg your forgiveness. I never meant to. I’ve been worried too. And I’m no better at being worried than Asher is.”

She kissed each of them then, and afterwards Pellen escorted them to the front door. Blind Jinny held Polly’s arm, steadfast and composed. He watched Beale shepherd them courteously down the path to the gate, then drew back into his home and returned to the parlour.

“Sink me, Pellen,” said Asher, looking up. “What a bloody great mess that turned into.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, dropping gratefully into the chair Jinny had used. “Things might’ve got a bit heated here and there, but you got what you wanted. You learned what they knew… and pulled the wool completely over their eyes.”

Asher stared at him, nonplussed. “Eh? Pellen, what are you—”

“Don’t even bother trying to deny it,” he snapped, and fixed Asher with his best Captain of the Guard glare. “Because we both know you know more than you revealed to those three Circle members. But you
are
going to tell
me
the truth, Asher. Every last syllable of it. Starting right now.”

Instead of answering, Asher looked at Dathne. Pellen, watching their silent communion, thought
Ibby,
and felt his heart thud. Oh he missed her, he
missed
her, and the thoughts they could share with a single, fleeting glance.

“You have to, Asher,” said Dathne, sighing. “He has a right to the truth.”

Stifling a groan, Asher returned to the window and hitched himself once more onto the deep sill. As though he found some kind of strength, or solace, in the sturdy timberwork around him.

“I know that,” he grunted. “Reckon I don’t know that, woman?”

Dathne’s eyebrows shot up. “
Woman
? Careful. Innocent Mage or not, I can still—”

“Oh,
enough,
” said Pellen. “After all we’ve been through do you think the pair of you can divert
me?
”

They fidgeted, silenced.

“And I want to know about Rafel, as well,” he added, still curt. “If he’s sensing things—” His throat closed, fear stifling the words.

“Pellen?” said Dathne. She could read him almost as well as Ibby ever did. “What is it?”

With a wrenching effort he laid his unclenched fingers on the arm of his chair. “Charis.”

“She’s sensing things too?”

“I don’t know. I think so. I have my suspicions.” He had to blink hard, to hold back the stinging fear. “So whatever’s troubling this kingdom we have to fix it. Because she’s my little girl and she’s suffering. She’s suffering, Dathne, and I can’t help her. I’m her father, it’s my duty to protect her, keep her safe, but—”

Dathne dropped to a crouch beside him and took hold of his forearm with both hands. “Pellen, don’t fret yourself. You’re a
wonderful
father. Charis adores you. The way she looks at you sometimes, with her heart in her eyes? She’d drown you in love if she could. You’ve not failed her. You’ll
never
fail her.”

“Dath’s right,” Asher said gruffly. “You be a grand da, Pellen. Ain’t no call for you to be doubtin’ yourself on that.”

Touched, comforted a little, he looked first at Dathne, then at Asher. “This—this wrongness in the earth. How did you explain it to Rafel?”

“I didn’t,” said Asher. “Not ezackly. I told him not to be frighted. I told him it weren’t nowt to worrit on. I told him I’d explain what it meant when he were older.”

“Oh,” he said. “And he accepted that?”

“Course he did. I’m his da, ain’t I?”

Well, yes, except… “He’s very much your son, Asher. He’s a stubborn lad. The kind of boy who likes real answers when he asks a question.”

“Weren’t no point fillin’ his head with tales of Weather Magic and suchlike,” said Asher, pulling a face. “He don’t never need to know about any of that.”

Need to? Of course he didn’t. But Rafel was the kind of lad who’d want to. Surely his parents knew it? He was their son. They weren’t blind to him, were they?

“Rafel’s fine,” said Dathne, retreating to the couch. “And I’m sure Charis will be, too. Let’s not worry about them now. This problem in Lur, Pellen—we’re determined to fix it. Quickly, so Rafel—and Charis—and all of us in the kingdom—can go about our lives untouched by shadows.”

A sentiment with which he heartily agreed. But—“Fix it how, Dathne? Come on. The time’s come for you to empty your purse on the table.”

“Aye,” said Asher, and let his head fall against the window’s embrasure. Turned his gaze to the garden beyond, so his eyes were hidden. “You’re right. You got to be told. So, any road, here’s what I know…”

With increasing alarm, Pellen listened to his friend reveal dreadful, close-kept secrets. So many times waking at night, tormented by a nameless dread. The knots in his gut that grew tighter, never easing, as Lur’s underpinnings tilted, unbalanced. The growing suspicion that terribly, fantastically, Barl’s Weather Magic was somehow involved.

The Weather map, for ten long years believed to be dead.

“Alive?”
he said, horrified. “With
power
in it? How can that be?”

Asher shrugged. “I don’t know, Pellen. How am I s’posed to know? I didn’t invent the bloody thing, did I?”

“But you said it was
dead
.”

“That’s ’cause I thought it was!” Asher retorted. “Now it looks like I were wrong. You want to lock me up for makin’ a mistake?”

“No! I want you to tell me what this means! I want to know what’s happening, what’s gone awry!”
I want you to fix it!
But he didn’t say that. He knew better than to say that, after today.

Except Asher, being Asher, heard his unspoken words. “Sink me, Pellen. Not you too.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, stricken. “Asher, I’m sorry.”

Asher pulled a knee to his chest and let his forehead drop to it, hiding his face. Skewered with guilt, Pellen watched him wrestle fear, wrestle despair, fight his never-ending battle against what was asked of him, who he was, that he’d never asked to be. The self he couldn’t deny, because he was a good man.

“I am sorry,” he said again. “Truly.” He breathed deeply, hesitating… then surrendered to his own fear. “But it’s
Lur,
Asher. And we’ve no place else to go.”

Asher lifted his head. His eyes were bleak with resentful acceptance. “I know. Pellen, I know what I am. The Innocent Mage. And like it or not, Lur’s last livin’ WeatherWorker.”

Weather Magic
. Remembering what it looked like, he winced. “You were WeatherWorker once. But must you be that again?”

“I might.”

“No, you mightn’t,” said Dathne sharply. “We’ll find another way.”

“And if there ain’t one?” said Asher, so weary. “What then, Dath?”

“I don’t know! And I don’t care!” Dathne leapt up. “I nearly lost you to the Doranen’s magic once, Asher. If you think I’ll lift a finger to help you risk yourself again—”

“Fine!” Asher banged a fist on the windowsill. “So this time I sit on my arse and do nowt. And what—Lur perishes? Then what were the point of savin’ it the first time, Dath? What were the point of Gar dyin’, Matt dyin’, your precious bloody Veira dyin’, and her Rafel, if I do nowt to help when there’s more trouble stirrin’?”

“I’m not saying don’t help! I’m saying
find another way!
”

Pellen, uncomfortable, considered a loose thread in his blue trousers. He’d have to pinch it safe with a stitch or three, later. Glancing up, he caught the anguish on Dathne’s face, the grim endurance in Asher’s, and felt his own heart break a little.

“Please. Don’t fight. We’re this kingdom’s caretakers. Its guardians. How can we help it if we’re battling each other?”

Dathne dropped back to the couch. “And how can you ask me
not
to fight for him, Pellen? He’s my life.”

“Just as you’re his. But he’s right. If we aren’t going to save Lur this time we might as well have given it to Morg.”

“Besides,” said Asher, striving for lightness. “You be the one who started this, Dath, with your prophecy and your Circle and suchlike.”

“Oh, don’t remind me,” she said bitterly. “As if the thought doesn’t make me sick at heart, Asher.
Sick
.”

Asher slid out of the embrasure and went to her. Sat beside her on the couch and drew her close to him, kissing her hair. “Don’t feel too sick. It were prophecy brought us together, remember?”

She sagged against him. “Well, now I want it to leave us alone!”

“You’re certain, are you,” said Pellen, “that the solution to our problem will come down to WeatherWorking?”

“Certain?” Asher shook his head. “Ain’t nowt certain about any of this, Pellen. But I got my suspicions.”

“And if what you’ve all felt is connected with the WeatherWorking? With Barl’s Weather map? What then? We don’t truly know how the map’s magic works, do we?”

“No,” said Dathne. “Not beyond what little Gar told Asher. And I don’t think he understood it. I don’t think even Durm did. Or Borne. Barl was the expert, and she left no instructions behind.”

Frustrated silence. Then Asher cleared his throat.

“As it happens, Dath… that might not be true.”

P
ulling away from him, Dathne stared into her husband’s apprehensive face, her dark eyes hollow with misgivings. “The
diary?
” she said at last. “Asher, are you saying…”

“Do you mean Barl’s diary?” said Pellen, as she and Asher held each other’s molten gazes. “Asher, you said that was destroyed. To keep Lur safe from the magics it contained, Gar burned the diary to cinders, you said.”

Asher shrugged. “Aye, well. I lied.”

“To me!”
cried Dathne, and wrenched herself off the couch. “Asher, how
could
you?”

Jaw stubbornly set, Asher shrugged again. “I promised Gar I’d keep it safe, didn’t I?”

“And what about keeping Lur safe?” Dathne demanded, hands on her hips. “You said it yourself—for all the equality that now exists between the Olken and the Doranen there are still mages like Rodyn Garrick who consider themselves superior. Who pine for the old days. Let the brute magic in that diary fall into his hands, or the hands of a mage like him, and—”

Asher shook his head. “That ain’t goin’ to happen.”

“You
hope
it won’t happen!” she retorted. “But in matters of Doranen magic
I
prefer certainty to hope. You
should’ve
burned that diary, Asher. You had no business keeping it. You had no right to lie!”

“Look,” said Asher. “I’m sorry. You weren’t never meant to find out the diary ain’t destroyed. But—”

“And why isn’t it?” Pellen asked. “You and Gar, of all people, you both knew how dangerous it is.”

“ ’Cause Gar—” Asher sighed. “It sounds daft, I know, but he… I reckon he went a bit soft on Barl, there at the end. Translatin’ bits and pieces of that bloody diary, I reckon he—and he was goin’ to
die!
” He scrubbed his hand across his face. “It were his dyin’ bloody wish, weren’t it, that I keep the diary safe so there’d be somethin’ of her left in the world. How could I say no?”

Stony-faced, Dathne stared down at him. “You could’ve said yes, then burned it after.”

“Gone back on my word to him?” said Asher, his own stare just as hard. “I don’t bloody think so. And if you reckon that’s the kind of man I am, Dathne, then—”

“I don’t know what I
reckon,
” she said coldly. “Not any more. After all, until a few moments ago I
reckoned
you’d never lie to me.”

“Sink me bloody sideways!” said Asher, close to shouting. “I
owed
him, Dathne, and I—”

“And what of your debt to me?” she said, tears threatening. “Your wife. The mother of your children.”