The Prodigal Mage: Fisherman’s Children Book One (31 page)

“
Asher!
Oh, praise Jervale. Praise Barl.”

He sucked in a quick breath, wincing. Dathne? That were Dath. And the other voice… that were Pellen. Pellen Orrick, pretty well the last of his friends that hadn’t managed to die. Groaning, he opened his eyes.

“Here,” said Dathne, her face wet with tears. “Drink this. No fratching.”

Pellen’s strong arm eased his shoulders off the Weather Chamber floor and held him tight so Dathne could press a wooden cup against his lips.

“Drink!”
she said again.

It was Dathne, so he drank.

“Sink me, woman!” he spluttered, his mouth on fire, his belly heaving. The stuff was foul, worse than any potion Nix had ever forced on him. “You tryin’ to bloody poison me?”

“Here, take this,” said Dathne, ignoring him and thrusting the emptied cup at Pellen. “And give me that cloth.” A moment later she’d taken over where Pellen left off, dripping water on him and tryin’ to bathe him like a baby. Sinkin’ bloody woman, did she think he’d turned feeble? “Stop
fratching!
” she scolded. “If I’d brought a mirror with me and you looked in it, I swear you’d drop dead from fright.”

“How’s Deenie?” he mumbled as she slopped his stubbly face clean. Sunlight dazzled his eyes, and warmed his cheeks. He was ravenous. “And Rafe?”

“They’re fine,” she said. She sounded breathless with temper… or fright. “Deenie woke fresh as new milk an hour ago, and Rafe’s spent the day tearing the Tower down to get out into the countryside on that pony of his.”

He looked up at Pellen. “Charis? How’s Charis?”

“She’s fine too, Asher,” said Pellen. His face was carved deep with worry-lines, and his smile was half-hearted. “She said—she said—” His voice broke. “She said she heard the earth singing.”

He closed his eyes. “Singin’, eh? Ain’t that poetical.”

“Deenie said the same thing,” Dathne added. “Peas in a pod, those two.”

He listened to her swish the cloth in a bowl of water, and wring it out. “And what does Rafe say?”

“Ah well, you know our Rafel,” she said, sounding amused now. “No poetry for him. But he said he thought the earth was happy. Which for Rafe is dancing close to poetry.”

With an effort he opened his eyes again and sat up, Pellen’s arm helping. Every bone ached, every muscle shrieked a loud complaint. He looked at them in turn, his wife and his friend. “How long have I been here?”

“Not so very long,” said Dathne. There were still tears on her cheeks. “It’ll be sunset in an hour.”

That meant not quite a full day. He thought he remembered the sunrise. He did remember the magic. His head was pounding and his throat was sore.

“What happened?” said Pellen. “What did you do? Can you recall?”

Shifting on the hard floor, he turned to look at Barl’s Weather map. Blotched a little here and there, but mostly whole. Mostly remade. Some kind of miracle, surely.

“You were right, Pellen,” he said, his battered voice thin and scratchy. “The magic was in me. All I had to do was… let it out.” He shivered, memory stirring more keenly. “So I did.”

“Let it out how?” said Dathne. “What did you do with it, Asher?”

Frowning, he touched the Weather map. Sucked in a quick breath, feeling warmth and strength and an odd kind of peace. Feeling the Weather Magic soaked into its bones. The blight still tried to whisper, but it was faint. Almost killed. Encouraged, he pushed his feelings out further, ignoring the resentful pain, and felt an echo of that warmth and strength in the kingdom’s earth beneath them.

“I ain’t ezackly sure,” he said slowly. “I reckon… could be… I fed it into the Weather map. Into Lur.”

In silence they looked at Barl’s amazing creation.

“And sinkin’ near emptied yourself of life doing it,” said Dathne, at last. “You fool.”

“Don’t fratch at him, Dathne,” said Pellen quickly. “Not after he’s nigh on killed himself to save us.”

“Don’t lecture me, Pellen!” she snapped. “He’s my bloody husband and the father of my children and if I want to call him seven different kinds of sapskull for coming within a hair of making me a widow and his children orphans then
that’s
what I’ll do and
you’ll
not gainsay me!”

Asher grinned tiredly at his troubled friend. “Don’t fret, Pellen. Think I ain’t used to it after ten years of marriage?”

Dathne slapped him. “Watch your tongue, you rapscallion.”

Catching her hand, he pressed it to his dry, chapped lips. “Sink me, but you’re beautiful when you be angry.”

“Asher,” said Pellen, as Dathne spluttered. Silenced for once, though her eyes promised retribution. “Is it enough? What you’ve done? Is Lur’s trouble settled once and for all?”

Barl bloody save him, he hoped so. “I d’know. It better be. I couldn’t do any more.”

“No,” said Pellen, solemn. “You couldn’t. As it is you came close to doing too much. Never again, Asher. Do you hear me?
Never again
.”

“Trust me, Pellen,” he said, shivering, “you won’t get no fratchin’ from me on that.”

It was true. There was an emptiness inside him he’d never felt before. He felt almost… almost
broken
. Used up. Hollowed out.

“You know how we got to handle this, don’t you?” he said, looking at Dathne, then at Pellen. “Total bloody secrecy. This never happened. I ain’t been here for years. Same goes for you, Pellen. And you ain’t never been here, Dathne. You forgot the bloody Weather Chamber existed. And we don’t never talk on this. Agreed?”

Silence, then they nodded. “Agreed,” they said, a Dathne and Pellen duet.

“Good,” he said. If he weren’t so bloody tired, and in so much pain, he’d be well-pleased. “So that’s settled. Now let’s get out of here, eh? Reckon there be a bottle or three of icewine in the Tower somewhere with my name on ’em. You two get ale.”

Between them, Dathne and Pellen levered him onto his feet. Groaning, every inch of his body voicing new and shrill complaints, he turned his aching back on Barl’s Weather map and shuffled out of the Chamber. Stumbled down its one hundred and thirty bloody steps and outside into spring afternoon sunlight.

Beneath his tired feet, the replenished earth slept.

Dathne’s arm slipped round his ribs. Her warm lips pressed his cheek. “Come along, you,” she whispered. “Let’s see you home.”

S
etting aside partisan squabbling—choosing to overlook the four complaints that waited to be heard in Justice Hall—Lur’s oftfractious Olken guilds joined hands with each other, and the Doranen, and held a ball in the City’s Guildhouse on the high summer’s night of Pellen Orrick’s retirement, to thank him for twenty years of steadfast mayoral service.

The farewell gala was a grand and glorious affair. Lit broad floor to lofty rafters with golden glimfire, decorated with flowers and streamers and tricky bits of Doranen magic, the Guildhouse echoed to the lilting strains of genteel music, the swish of silk skirts, the measured tread of jewelled slippers and polished boots. Almost everyone who was anyone in Lur had come here this night to dance and flirt and gossip and drink and nibble away the frolicsome hours until dawn.

Catching her breath, Dathne snatched a glass of bubbled sweetwine as it passed her on a tray. “Look, Asher,” she murmured, sipping. “Don’t Rafel and Charis make a charming pair?”

Asher grunted, scowling into his tankard of spiced cider. After four dances in a row he’d had enough to be goin’ on with, so now he and Dath were squashed out of the way in a corner where he could keep an eye on things without folk comin’ up to natter. Out on the dance floor—the Guildhouse’s meeting room, made over—his troublesome son and his best friend’s daughter leapt and whirled and made fools of ’emselves rompin’ through some newfangled highsteppin’ jig, alongside a hundred or so other Olken and Doranen as ought to know better. Fernel Pintte was one of ’em, Barl rot his socks.

“Asher!” said Dathne, and niggled him in the ribs with her elbow. “Stop sulking. Fernel’s chosen. It’s done and done.”

Aye, it bloody was, though it griped him something fierce to admit it. Despite he’d nigh on talked his tongue loose, and made sure to monitor the vote-counting on the day, Fernel bloody Pintte were Dorana City’s new mayor. And if that weren’t a sinkin’ disgrace…

“So I suggest you get used to it,” added Dathne, tired of his grumping. The Guildhouse’s glimlight glowed on the ruby-red silk of her dress, and the ruby necklace he’d gifted her. “Like it or not, the chain of office is his.”

Well, he didn’t bloody like it, did he? Fernel Pintte were a trouble-makin’, rabble-rousin’ upstart of a jackanapes. Arrogant as a Doranen and twice as nasty. How he thought he could step into Pellen Orrick’s shoes…

Right to the last moment he’d thought Goose’s da could win the race for mayor. Weren’t Ned Martin born and bred in the City? A lifetime in the brewin’ game, with enough prize medals to sink him down a well and five turns as Guildmeister to show he could keep good order? That made up for his pricklesome nature, didn’t it? Shouldn’t it?

He’d thought so. He’d hoped so. But there weren’t never no tellin’ what folk might up and do. Three years ago Fernel bloody Pintte had arrived in the City to take over The Weary Traveller, one of its oldest and best-loved inns. Straight into the Hostlers’ Guild he’d walked and the next thing anyone knew his busy fingers were dabbling in every Dorana City pie and even some beyond it. Pellen were dismayed on that too, and did his best to uncover good reason to clip Pintte’s wings—but there was nowt he could find to prove the man a problem. So Fernel bloody Pintte went on his merry way, turning hisself influential, charming witless fools hand over fist, leaving ’em sundazzled so they couldn’t see the jackanapes behind the smile, and telling ’em ezackly what they wanted to hear.

Not once since the day he was sent packing from Pellen’s house had they heard another peep of a word from the man about chasing the Doranen out of Lur—and they’d been listening close. Anyone might reckon he’d abandoned the notion. Pellen was inclined to think it. But Asher wasn’t so sure. Pintte might not be talking on it, but men like him didn’t give up that kind of dream.

And then, with Pellen announcing he was stepping down, Pintte announced
he’d
be running for City Mayor.

Briefly Asher thought of tossin’ his own self in the race… but Dathne had flat forbade it.

“You’re not strong enough,”
she’d raged at him, tears in her eyes.
“Curl your lip at me all you like, Asher, but we both know it’s true. And I won’t stand for you risking yourself. For what? To be mayor? No. It’s not worth it.”

That were the trouble with Dathne—she had the bad habit of bein’ right. Ever since that night he’d poured himself into Barl’s Weather map, poured his magic, his terror, his hope and desperation into the sinkin’ thing so Lur wouldn’t founder, he’d been—different. More grey in his hair. More ache in his bones. More bad dreams in his sleep… and less sleep to have ’em in.

“Asher,” Dathne said again, softly this time. Her hand stroked his green-sleeved arm, pulling him out of harried thought. “Pellen
had
to step down.”

He swallowed another mouthful of spiced cider. Pity it weren’t a tad bit stronger. He needed strong drink tonight, with Pintte boastin’ about the Guildhouse in Pellen’s chain of office, trailing his cronies after him like a bad smell.

“I know,” he said, still frowning, as Rafel galloped Charis round the dance floor with both hands clasping her slender waist. He looked mighty fine tonight, in blue silk and dark green velvet. Every lass he smiled at sparkled. “But I don’t have to like that, either.”

An aguey chest had brought Pellen low early this past winter, turning him pale and listless, sapping his strength. By winter’s end, with Kerril making dire predictions, he’d had no choice but to call it quits.
Twenty years
. Pellen were the longest serving mayor in the history of Lur.

With his friend retiring, and confident Goose’s da would be Dorana’s next mayor, he’d thought mayhap, at long last, he could leave the City for good and settle down along the coast with a fishing boat. Not in Restharven, with his brother Zeth still there, a cantankerous ole man, but somewhere. Him and his family, safe and happy and never havin’ to think on magic again.