“Aye, well, as I recall there were one or two truths
you
forgot to mention along the road, Dath,” said Asher, well and truly fired up now. “So mayhap you’d best not start flingin’ mud, my fine lady, seein’ how—”
“All right,” said Pellen, as Dathne stalked to the parlour window. “Please. Let’s everyone take a deep breath. The last thing we need is to say something we’ll soon enough come to regret. Asher—”
“What?”
said Asher, his scowl ferocious. “You got a knife you feel like stickin’ in me too, Pellen?”
“No. No, of course not,” he said, as soothingly as he could. “But I can’t help wondering—Asher, did you think you couldn’t
trust
us with the truth?”
Asher looked at him as though he’d lost his wits. “Don’t be bloody stupid, Pellen. I reckoned you’d be happier not knowing, is all. Happier thinkin’ there weren’t no chance of a Doranen gettin’ their hands on the sinkin’ and usin’ old Doranen magic ever again. I know I’d be bloody happier thinkin’ that!”
Remembering his nightmares of that battle in the Market Square, of seeing Morg transform helpless men and women into foul, slaughtering beasts… remembering the terrifying creatures Asher had summoned from thin air to defeat them, he nodded. “I’m sure you would.”
Asher’s eyes were grim. “Sometimes I wake up at night, frighted on what’s in that diary,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. “Frighted on what could happen if some of them spells got loose. Think I want that for you and Dathne?”
“Oh, well I’m sure it’s very considerate of you,” said Dathne, icy. “But perhaps that’s the kind of decision we should’ve been left to make for ourselves!”
“Don’t you be bloody stupid either, Dath,” said Asher. “Once I told you then you’d know, wouldn’t you? There ain’t no takin’ it back after, is there?”
Dathne opened her mouth, then thought for a moment. “That’s not the point,” she muttered. “The point is I don’t appreciate being treated like a child.”
“I didn’t treat you like a bloody child!” he snapped. “I treated you like the woman I love best in the world. I was tryin’ to protect you, Dathne. And you, Pellen. Any road, you know now the diary ain’t burned, so let’s not fratch on it, eh? What’s done is done.”
As Dathne breathed hard, subduing her temper, Pellen frowned. “So… where’s it hidden?”
“Ha.” Asher’s lips quirked with brief, wry amusement. “Gar’s got it.”
He stared. “What? You don’t mean—”
“Aye. It’s in his coffin. Ain’t nobody goin’ to footle about in there.”
“That’s disgusting,” said Dathne.
“Why? He won’t mind,” said Asher. “Means he’s still safeguardin’ his kingdom, don’t it? Reckon he’d smile on it, if he knew.”
“
Asher
—
”
Pellen raised a calming hand. “Peace, Dathne. He’s right. What’s done is done. And what we need to do now is decide what’s to be done next. Is the diary even any use to us? We know there are warspells in it, but is there anything else? Anything that can help us now?”
“Gar translated some of it,” said Asher. The lingering amusement in his face died out, leaving him sorrowful. “But I never read nowt ’cept the warspells. And after I killed Morg… after Gar…” He shook his head. “Never wanted to lay eyes on the bloody thing again, did I?”
“So it is possible,” he persisted, “that somewhere in that diary is an explanation for what’s happening here. Maybe even some kind of spell that can—can
heal
Lur before even the least sensitive Olken among us realises something is wrong, or someone tells the Doranen, or they notice it themselves.”
“If there is, and Garland translated it, we could avert widespread panic,” said Dathne. Arms folded, eyes brooding, she flicked a glance at Asher. “We could save Lur without anyone else having to know it needed saving at all.
Without
WeatherWorking.”
“I could live with that, I reckon,” said Asher. “Ain’t like I be champin’ at the bit to start that malarkey again.”
Pellen considered him, uneasy even though this was their best hope for averting disaster. “So you’ll retrieve the diary?”
“Soon as I can,” Asher replied. “My word on it.”
He nodded, feeling strangely comforted. If there was a way out of Lur’s new trouble his friend would find it.
“Good.”
Asher frowned. “Pellen, don’t you go gettin’ your hopes up. There ain’t no surety I’ll find an answer in that diary. And even if I do, could be I ain’t good enough to use the magic. I ain’t trained and there ain’t a Doranen I can ask for help. I mean—I’ll try. I’ll do my bloody best. But I can’t promise you nowt.”
It wasn’t fair, what they were asking. What they expected. Stung with guilt, he tried not to see the fear beneath Asher’s customary brusque exterior. “I know you can’t,” he said, trying to smile. “It’s all right.”
“Ha,” Asher muttered. “It ain’t all right, Pellen. It’s just the way it is.”
An uncomfortable silence fell then, as they lost themselves in their separate thoughts and separate fears. At last, afraid of letting himself drown in the doldrums completely, and niggled by one last piece of unfinished business, he looked up. Reluctant to mention it, though he did badly want an answer.
“What?” said Dathne.
He felt his face warm.
She knows me too well
. “Nothing. Sorry. Only… you were going to tell me about Rafel.”
“Rafel,” sighed Asher. “Aye.” He rubbed his chin. “The thing is, seems Rafel’s like me.”
“Like you,” he said blankly. And then he realised what Asher meant. “A
mage
like you? He can wield Doranen magic?”
“Aye.” Asher didn’t look pleased about it. His eyes were bleak, his mouth pinched. “Which ain’t what me and Dath were after.”
Of course it wasn’t. Who knew better than they did, the kind of complications such a talent wrought? “Who else knows?”
“Well, Rafe knows,” said Asher, with a kind of grim humour. “Ole Pother Nix. And Pother Kerril, as he’s retired. And Darran knew.”
“No-one else? Not any member of the Mage Council?”
“No,” said Dathne, as troubled as her husband. “And we want to keep it that way.”
“ ’Cause the last bloody thing we need is Rodyn Garrick and his poxy friends gettin’ the wind up over Rafel,” said Asher. “Bad enough they still look sideways at me. I don’t need ’em lookin’ that way at my son.”
“And what of Deenie? Is she—”
“We don’t think so,” said Dathne. “She’s shown no sign of it so far.”
“So cross your fingers for us she never does,” said Asher, scowling again. “My little mouse don’t need Doranen magic.”
Thinking of Charis, and how he’d feel were he to find she was blighted like Rafel, he frowned. “No.” And then the implications of this news began to stir. “Rafel knows, does he, how important it is that he not—”
“Aye,” said Asher. “Me and Dath, we’ve told him.”
Looking closely at his friends, Pellen could see his own unease reflected in their tight faces. Saw more than unease, and felt his nerves jump. “Ah—just how powerful is he?”
Asher and Dathne exchanged guarded glances. Then Dathne sighed. “Powerful enough that we—took precautions when he was still small,” she admitted, reluctant. “With Nix’s help we’ve hobbled him so he can’t do himself or anyone else a mischief.”
“Does he know?”
Asher shook his head. “Tell Rafe that and like as not he’d see if he could unhobble himself. Gets easy fratched over not bein’ able to magic as he pleases, does our Rafe.”
That didn’t surprise him. Asher and his boy had so much in common. “Thank you for telling me,” he said, feeling oddly formal. “Of course I’ll not breathe a word.”
After that there seemed nothing left to say. As he saw Asher and Dathne to his mayoral home’s front gate, Charis returned from her playtime at the Tower. The maid who’d brought her back let go of his daughter’s hand, bobbed a curtsey to him, then Asher and Dathne, accepted a silver trin in thanks and went on her way.
“Dadda! Dadda!” Charis squealed, flourishing a sunflower. “Look what I grew!”
Snatching his daughter up in his arms, he buried his face in her frothy black curls. Love was a battering storm within him. “I see it! Who’s a clever puss, then?”
Wriggling, Charis flashed a smile at Asher and Dathne. “Deenie grew one too, but mine’s bigger,” she said proudly. “And Meister Rumly didn’t help me
one bit
.”
“You had lessons with Meister Rumly?” he said, and shook his head at his friends. Not because he minded her learning to use her magic, Ibby’s gift, but because the Olken mage charged handsomely for his tutoring and neither Asher nor Dathne would countenance him paying part of the fee whenever Charis joined in Deenie’s lessons.
Dathne dropped a kiss on Charis’s head. “It’s a beautiful sunflower, Charis.”
“Aye,” said Asher, smiling. “You be the queen of sunflowers, poppet.”
Pellen squeezed his daughter tight. “No, she’s the queen of the tub. Come along, little gardener. Bath-time for you. Asher—Dathne—”
The smile died out of Asher’s eyes. “We’ll talk, by and by.”
“Good,” he said, and let his voice snap, just a little. “No more secrets.”
“Secrets?” said Charis. “What secret, Dadda? Who’s got a secret?”
Ah, Barl save him. Children. “I have,” he said, turning away from the front gate, and his friends. “And I’ll bet you never guess what it is.”
“I will! I will!” she said, pouting. “I can guess, Dadda. I can!”
Laughing at her vehemence he took her inside, closing the door on the world and its troubles. Letting himself pretend, for the last sweet time, that they were safe, and Lur was safe, and bad times were nothing but stories from the past.
Leaving behind the leafy residential district where the wealthiest Doranen and Olken lived, and Pellen lived for as long as he was mayor, Asher and Dathne made their unspeaking way into the commercial district so they could wander along the high street up to the palace, and home. With the weekly markets still four days away, the City’s streets were only moderate busy. A few ridden horses. A handful of carts and carriages. Some folk trudging, wearing out their shoe leather. Dorana’s inhabitants, well-used to seeing them out and about on foot, did nowt more than nod and smile as they passed. Sometimes not even that, if they were Doranen.
The sun was starting its long, slow sink, gilding the brightly coloured buildings’ walls and tiled roofs. With afternoon’s shadows lengthening, some shops were starting to close their doors and shutter their windows. Asher felt himself frown at that. He and Dath had lost nearly the whole day to Lur and its troubles, yet they were still no closer to solving them. Instead they’d piled more strife onto their plates, what with dratted Fernel Pintte and his foaming hatred of all things Doranen, and Polly’s unwelcome opinion that his resentments were widely shared.
Chewing on that news, not liking the taste of it one little bit… not liking either the thought of digging up Barl’s bloody diary… he let the heavy silence drag on until he and Dathne reached halfway to the Tower. Then he took her hand in his, possessively, and tugged her a step closer.
“Come on, Dath,” he wheedled. “You know you can’t stay fratched at me forever.”
She snorted. “I can try.”
“Mayhap it weren’t right I never told you about the diary… but I didn’t hold my tongue ’cause I don’t trust you.”
He felt her fingers relax. Heard her release a long, slow sigh. “I know,” she said. Sounding like she did when she wanted to be fratched with him, and couldn’t. “But that doesn’t stop me wanting to slap you.”
“Y’can do more than slap me after lights out,” he suggested. “Y’can have your wicked way with me, woman, and I won’t try to fight you.”
Another snort. “You’re impossible.”
“Aye,” he said, grinning. “It’s why you love me, I reckon.”
A third derisive snort. “Who says I love you?”
Heedless of anyone who might be watching he halted, swept her to him and bent her over his arm to plunder a breathless kiss. “I do.”
Blushed bright red, she beat a small tattoo against his chest.
“Asher!”
she protested, as Olken passers-by whispered and giggled. “What are you
doing?
”
He raised an eyebrow. “Practisin’ for lights out. ”
And she laughed, just like he knew she would. Hand in hand they kept walking up the sloping High Street.
“Asher…” said Dathne, breaking the brief silence. “About Fernel Pintte…”
He squeezed her hand. “Don’t you go fratchin’ yourself on him, Dath. Reckon I put that fool straight.”
“You scared the daylights out of him, is what you did,” she retorted. “
And
me.”
“Didn’t mean to,” he said, surprised. “Not you, any road. Him I meant to bloody terrify. Stupid bastard. What’s he thinkin’ on, eh, wantin’ to stir up that kind of trouble?”
Dathne chewed at her bottom lip. “Asher, what if it’s true? What if some Olken are as unhappy as he and Polly claim?”
“Dath, I ain’t heard that kind of claptrap from a single Olken I know. You let him rattle you, is all.”
“Just because people aren’t saying things doesn’t mean they’re not thinking them.”
“And what if they are? You said it, Dath. We can’t kick the Doranen out. There ain’t no place for ’em to go. So if there are more stupid Olken like Fernel Pintte and that biddy Polly, they’ll have to face facts, eh? ’Cause ain’t nowt going to change. The Doranen be in Lur to stay, just like us Olken.”