A Mage Of None Magic (Book 1) (5 page)

He stomped away to the far side of the ship, leaving a silent Arwin behind.

***

That evening, Niel sat cross-legged on his bunk as Arwin entered the darkening cabin. “I thought magicians didn’t lose their tempers,” he said.

“They’re not supposed to,” Niel replied flatly, “and I don’t appreciate you making me lose mine. But as you pointed out, I’m not a magician.”

“Yet,” Arwin added.

Niel glanced up at him, then looked away again.

“I came to apologize, Apprentice, and to offer an explanation.”

“I don’t need an explanation, and I don’t need to hear another attempt to get me to change my mind.”

Arwin sat on the opposite bunk. “Well, I’m going to explain anyway, and I promise I won’t try to further persuade. It’s true that by saving you I was mainly trying to employ a magician. But I was taken aback by how much you reminded me of that friend I mentioned. I couldn’t help thinking how I’d enjoy having someone like him to talk with again.”

Niel grew uncomfortable at the compliment.

“I won’t feign love for the College,” Arwin continued, “or for how its Members are expected to go about their work. Drudge around when you’re young, drudge around when you’re older, then set up shop somewhere and charge people whatever they can spare for working petty miracles. Wasteful if you ask me, despite whatever Canon might demand.” He shrugged. “I’m sure that sounds perfectly heretical to your ears, but I mean no offense. Truth be told, I envy your abilities, and offer my sincere regret for any insult earlier. Far more than most, I’d wager, I do respect your right to choose what’s best for yourself.”

The two sat in silence.

“I don’t suppose you know how to play Stash,” Niel said.

With a sly smile Arwin dipped his hand into his vest and produced a well-worn deck of cards.

***

Two days and a few dozen rounds of Stash later, the
Alodis
put into port. As they disembarked, Arwin mentioned he and his friends could be found at the Ragged Rascal Inn, if by chance Niel wandered his way into Trelheim.

Niel offered his thanks and bid the swordsman farewell, more than a little glad to be rid of him forever.

6

To Ennalen the acolyte sent to collect her looked small, delicate—even for someone so young. She thought his slender, feminine features attractive, but they also emphasized his unease which she found quite satisfying. She liked the two-step distance he kept behind her, though the boy should have had no trepidation being in the company of any College Member, even a Magistrate like herself. He served Thaucian the Second, the ruling Lord Elder, and personally attending the Lord Elder of the College of Magic and Conjuring Arts meant enjoying the highest degree of protection.

They headed toward the New Tower in silence, save for the brush of their robes on the walkway. Ennalen inhaled deeply and relished the smells of the coming winter, but kept the enjoyment from her face. Her pleasure was precisely that—hers. Not that herds of people stood about watching them. College Gate had long been closed for the night, relegating the laity to the remainder of Fraal University. Most apprentices were either deep in their studies or getting precious sleep. Most resident professors, freed from the distraction of pupils, used the night for personal pursuits, magical or otherwise.

While the hours following sundown left the grounds abandoned, the abundant signs of their continual and exhaustive care would have been obvious to even the most passive observer. Ancient, ivy-covered buildings of dark, rough-hewn granite, with their imposing towers and steep spires, sat like mountainous islands surrounded by perfectly-trimmed seas of thick grass normally the color of jade but now turned topaz with the passage of autumn. An elegant system of tidy cobblestone paths, worn flat by two millennia of use, branched from each structure. Trees, plants and flowers of all the varieties the world had to offer, even those native to distinctly different climates, thrived under the supervision of the groundskeepers. Never was one leaf astray, nor one blade of grass bent, and all of it achieved without the aid of magic.

At the College’s inception, the Board of Elders agreed that those studying within its walls, delving deeply into the realm of the preternatural, required an unquestionable foundation on which to base their endeavors. Therefore, never had an incantation been uttered to benefit the appearance of the grounds. The tradition counted amongst the College’s oldest and most revered.

Ennalen grew more appreciative of the surrounding beauty with each passing year. Many would find it ironic that she, who conducted her affairs with notorious detachment, could hold the artistry of the College’s landscape in such high regard. Appearances alone, though, did not move her; the force of will necessary to prevail day after day, century after century over the inherent relentlessness of nature stirred Ennalen just as deeply. Only the shallow of mind would think beauty unavoidably begot a flood of cumbersome sentimentality, hence the reason she preferred to walk the campus at night—the fewer around to ruin it with their idiocy, the better.

“Did the Lord Elder mention what this was about?” she asked without turning to her escort.

“No, Magistrate. He did not.”

Living in the Tower meant overhearing or becoming involved in matters of extreme delicacy or outright secrecy. When the time came, Ennalen would decide whether to reward the boy for his loyalty or kill him for daring to think she would believe such a ridiculous lie.

***

A magnificent column of smooth white stone, the New Tower loomed like an ivory spear driven straight through from the other side of the world. No windows adorned the outside, though thousands lined the walls within. At the base, where a score of adults hand-in-hand could have easily encircled it, a modest wooden door marked the only entrance. Its tip disappeared into a single, dizzying point in the heavens. A perpetual pale glow emanated from its surface but cast not the faintest shadow.

Illusion provided the Tower its height and breadth; in that knowledge most of the Membership felt secure. But because its construction took place amidst the paranoia following the Devastation, none but the Board of Elders knew anything about the Tower’s true physical properties. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, magic abhors an unknown—the very reason charms and potions require elements like hair or blood from an intended victim. With no tangible information available, a magician wishing to harm the Tower would find it all but impossible to actually do so.

The walkway led Ennalen and her young escort to the Tower’s only door. No need for gate or guardhouse; a rune engraved in the keystone above prevented anyone not specifically invited from entering. They waited only a moment before the door glided open.

Custom dictated the acolyte enter first to issue the ceremonial greeting, to remind that no incantations could be worked within, and to warn that the sensation of having one’s abilities temporarily negated could be disconcerting. Ennalen had long found the ritual intolerably long and flowery; worse, a waste of time. She’d visited the Tower so often that crossing beneath the rune reminded her more of riding a swing than the nauseating vertigo most others suffered. So rather than endure the needless preamble, she hastened across the threshold and proceeded down the entryway, amused by the fluster with which the boy trotted past to retake his proper place.

The hall ended with a second door identical to the main entry. The boy opened it, stood aside, and bowed deeply with a sweep of his arm, directing her into the main audience chamber.

“Magistrate Ennalen, of the Ministry of Law,” he announced as she stepped into the great room. Ennalen plainly heard relief at being rid of her in the boy’s tone.

The Tower’s main audience chamber overwhelmed the senses just as thoroughly as its exterior. By her recollection there had never been more than a few people in the room at one time, though it could easily accommodate a thousand. Broad columns of polished, caramel-veined marble reached up to support an ornate domed ceiling of gold and frosted glass. Stained into the glossy floor with the subtle translucence of watercolor was an intricate map depicting the known world. At its center, a large, gold-embossed compass marked the cardinal directions.

A grand dais spanned the far wall, designed to accommodate the entire Board of Elders, though centuries had passed since all fifteen had assembled. Tall maroon curtains hung behind each high-backed chair, through which swirled a curtained portal of purplish fog that allowed its designated Elder passage to and from any other location within the Tower.

Two persons sat atop the dais: Denuis, the Lord Magistrate; and the ancient, withered Lord Elder Thaucian. Years ago, to satisfy her own youthful curiosity, she had tried to uncover Thaucian’s true age. Even with her considerable resourcefulness, she’d found nothing.

“You are welcomed, Magistrate,” the Lord Elder said, his mild, unwilted voice belying his many years. He gestured a dismissal to the acolyte.

Ennalen waited until she heard the door close behind her. “I am honored, Lord Elder,” she replied with a small bow. She gave another to Denuis. “Lord Magistrate.”

Thaucian beckoned with a spindly hand. “Come close, so we might speak more comfortably.”

Ennalen climbed the several shallow steps to the top of the dais.

So went the normal routine of their meetings: first the formal salutation, then an invitation to approach for a quiet visit. The Tower served as primary residence for the Board of Elders, and in theory the Lord Elder ruled both the Board and the Tower with supremacy. Even so, only a fool would fail to recognize that many had enough interest in his goings-on to risk being caught and punished for eavesdropping. Meeting in seclusion with Thaucian— in his personal chambers, for example—would have been more practical and private, but also would have quickly caught the attention of anyone even idly mindful of his affairs. Convening in the relative open of the audience chamber was less provocative.

“A matter of some importance has come to light, Magistrate,” the Lord Elder said.

Ennalen stopped just short of the top of the dais, and the world stopped dead under Ennalen’s feet.

“One that requires your care and expertise,” he continued. “Conclude what open matters you have with due haste and discretion, then pass along your remaining casework to Chief Magistrate Tamias for others to tend. Afterward, you are excused from your regular duties at the Ministry.”

Ennalen mustered her best indifference, even as her mind reeled.

“Of course,” she replied.

Of all the details to which she had tended regarding her plans, being directly charged with an assignment by the Lord Elder was the one thing over which she had no control, which obviously meant it would be the very thing to happen. A major undertaking now under Thaucian’s scrutiny would set her back weeks, perhaps months. Whatever the task, she would have to find a way to beg off without rousing suspicion. Unless, of course, the coming assignment was evidence of an already-present suspicion on their part.

Don’t be absurd
, she told herself.
They did not, could not know.

“Now, now,” the old man comforted with a shushing motion, clearly having sensed her vexation. “We think you’ll find this request quite… compelling.”

“Yes,” Denuis added. “We can discuss it at length in my chambers. You’ll join me for breakfast in the morning.”

Ennalen gave a pleasant smile. “Certainly.”

“Thank you for coming, Magistrate,” Thaucian said. “You are dismissed.”

Being beckoned by any of her so-called superiors rankled Ennalen, but at the very least the Lord Elder kept audiences short and succinct. She bowed, turned, and took care that her steps back down the dais and to the door were unhurried.

Outside, the fresh, chilled air cooled her face and neck and went a long way toward easing her agitation. A private conversation with Denuis would permit greater latitude and candor, and it would— she hoped—help her find purchase should the chasm now cracking open beneath her wish to swallow her whole.

7

Clumped at the northeastern tip of Aithiq, the coastal village of Glensdyl turned out to be little more than a haphazard circle of dreary, sagging structures, and nothing at all like what Niel had hoped. He held his disappointment at bay as best as he could by reminding himself he hadn’t made the trip for luxury’s sake, and that within a couple of days he’d be back aboard a ship bound for Lyrria and the College.

His side of Glensdyl’s main street appeared much the same as the opposite—grey wooden storefronts thrown together, many with portions looking recently and repeatedly patched. Niel stepped onto the gap-planked sidewalk skirting a shabby row of shops, each displaying a signboard more tawdry than the one before.

In the doorway to his right leaned an overly busty, overly red-haired woman whose frayed, slitted dress revealed a deliberately immodest amount of thigh.

“Hello, lovely one,” she said in a light, dry voice.

“Hello,” he replied, then squinted away toward the street.

“You should come inside and relax for a bit,” she purred.

Niel shook his head. “Thank you, but I’ve got—”

The woman closed the distance between them with surprising quickness and clasped his arm with both of hers. “A drink, then. We could get to know each other.”

Niel slipped his arm up and out of her clutches. “Really, thank you, but I don’t—”

“What’s the matter, lovely one?” She pressed herself against him and brushed her clammy face against his neck. Her breath smelled of whiskey, her hair of stale tobacco smoke. “Don’t you think I’m pretty?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Then a drink. Maybe a story. You can tell me all about yourself.”

“Please, I’m trying to—”

“Oh, come on. Don’t you like girls?”

“Yes, of course, but—”

“Then come buy me a drink, pet, and maybe we could—”

Niel moved to one side around a post, intending to cross the street, but the woman twirled around the other side and cut him off.

“Honest, you’re very attractive,” Niel said. “It’s just...” He thought for a moment. “Well, have you ever heard of Belavian slugs?”

She gave a quizzical look. “What are those?”

Niel hoped his sigh conveyed more troubled resignation than relief. Until Captain Jorgan mentioned them, he’d never heard of Belavian slugs, either. He wouldn’t know one if he found it in his pocket.

“Well, you see,” he said, “they’re not actually slugs. People just call them that. And shameful as it is to tell, I picked up a fairly nasty case of them not too long ago. In fact, that’s why I’m here. Someone told me there’s a certain berry that grows nearby and works wonders on the itching and swelling.”

The woman took a step back.

“Although,” Niel continued, “now I can’t remember whether you’re supposed to eat them or just mash them up and rub them ... where they’re needed, let’s say. Guess I could do both. I just hope they don’t make me smell as awful as everyone says they will.”

The woman gestured back to where she’d been standing. “Perhaps—”

“So, yes, you’re right,” Niel said, taking a step toward her. “I’d love to spend some time with you. I was just embarrassed, is all, even though it’s only fair you know my condition.”

The woman gave Niel a quick reassessment from head to toe, then leaned forward and patted his arm. “Best of luck to you, dear,” she said, and disappeared back through her door.

Niel turned and continued on his way, on his face a large, self-congratulatory grin.

***

Lunch consisted of half a round of flat, hard bread, a pear, and a few small but tasty portions of roasted mutton—or what he chose to trust was mutton.

In all the years Niel had spent with Biddleby, meat rarely made it to the dinner table. His teacher often sputtered on about how people no longer put forth the effort to grow their food because they’d rather just kill it instead. In large part, Niel agreed. Yet on the days when it had been Niel’s turn to go to town for supplies, the spicy smoke wafting over from the market’s spits often proved too tempting to resist.

Sitting in a spot of shade from a tree that evidently had been too large to remove—the wooden sidewalk jutted gracelessly around it—Niel noticed the sole on his left boot had begun to peel away. Since Glensdyl didn’t constitute enough of a going concern to warrant the College posting a magician to whom he could pay a courtesy call, and with little else to do, he decided to see if he could find a cobbler. He tossed his last scrap of mutton to a lumpy little dog who had waddled over to watch him eat, then started down a nearby side street to the other end of the village.

First, Niel noticed the relative quiet of the alley. Next, he noticed the reason for that relative quiet—the smell. With no sewer system, the businesses and other occupants of the town’s center used the areas behind their shops to dump all sorts of refuse. A few stray animals dined amongst the flies clouding over piles of rotting food and puddles of who-knew-what. Some shopkeepers had dug shallow pits by their back doors in which embers smoldered, slowly roasting rubbish to ash over the course of the day. Niel covered his nose and mouth with his collar and trotted ahead toward where the alley again met the street.

For an instant he thought he’d stumbled. When his shoulder and head slammed hard into the wall, however, Niel realized someone had shoved him.

Dazed, he fell to his hands and knees. He opened his mouth to cry out, but all that came was the sour spew of his lunch thanks to a brutal kick to his stomach.

“I think we have a winner,” someone said.

“Told you it’d just take one,” another giggled.

Someone used the toe of his boot to roll Niel onto his side. “Get it over with, will ya? You take too long.”

Niel managed a feeble struggle, but he couldn’t stop his pack from being yanked off his shoulder. His head throbbed, his vision spun, and the putrid stench of the alleyway and his own vomit made him heave once more.

“Wait,” he groaned. “You don’t—”

A final blow to his head brought a dazzle of light, and didn’t let him finish.

***

Niel,
Biddleby said.
Niel, it’s time to get up.

Overslept again. Late for chores.

But he wasn’t in bed.

Where, then?

Dirt gritted in his teeth. Something smelled awful.

Alleyway. Lunch.

He hoped he hadn’t made that little dog even lumpier by feeding it.

“Niel,” the voice said again, but it wasn’t Biddleby’s. “Come on, I need you to wake up.”

Niel slowly, painfully opened his eyes. A watery form quivered in front of him.

“Arwin?”

“There you go,” Arwin sighed. “Had me worried. But then, I imagine a head as hard as yours can take quite a lot.”

“That’s not very funny,” Niel whispered despite the vice clamped around his skull.

“I know,” Arwin replied. “Let’s get you to your feet. We have to get moving.”

Moving?
he thought.
But I haven’t packed...

Niel gasped, snapping back to lucidity. “Wait! My pack! Where’s my pack?”

Arwin’s grip tightened on Niel’s arm as he wobbled. “Afraid that’s gone, friend. They took it.”

Gone? Took it?
Just the thought brought stinging tears of fear and anger.

Panicked, Niel gathered himself to search the alleyway, then froze in place as his eyes fell on the form of a man lying face down in the muck barely three steps away. A dark oval of crimson soaked the man on one side, flowering out to a rosy hue as it spread through his dirty shirt. The oval reached up toward his shoulders and down below his belt line. The man gazed in glassy amazement at his own pale hand resting just a few thumbwidths from his face.

Niel had seen dead bodies, though not many—the elderly, the sick—but he’d never seen anyone who’d actually been murdered.

“Niel, I need you to listen,” Arwin said.

Niel wiped his face on his sleeve. “Did you do that?”

“He was going to kill you. So yes, I stopped him. The other one ran off before our friend here even hit the ground.”

Niel stared. He’d never seen anyone who’d actually committed murder, either.

Arwin sighed. “Look, I know you’re banged up, but we need to get you out of town.”

Niel shook his head. He should have gone straight to the College. He’d been so stupid.

“No,” he said. “I need to find the Lord Sheriff, or whatever passes for one in this piss bucket of—”

Arwin jutted his thumb toward the end of the alley. “Those two probably worked for the Lord Sheriff. Odsen’s his name. It’s an old frontier-town arrangement. But whether they’re acquainted with Odsen or not, this isn’t going to go over well. So we need to leave.”

“You don’t understand.” He tried to keep his voice steady, but heard himself growing more shrill with each word. “My whole
life
was in my pack. I’ve got no money. I’ve got no letters of introduction. I don’t have a thing. Without it I can’t get home, which means I can’t get into the College. Ever!”

Arwin took Niel’s arm and led him to the near end of the alley. “I do understand, but first things first. Objects can be replaced.”

Niel jerked his arm back. “No, they
can’t!
”

Arwin grabbed him again, hard.

“Dammit,” he said, voice low, jaw tight, “I’m trying to tell you that if you stay here much longer, you are going to
die.
” He pointed at the man on the ground. “When the partner of our friend there starts talking, people will come looking for you. And when they find you, they’ll kill you. And when they kill you not a soul in this backwater will care enough to scratch his ass about it. Your things are
gone
. You can’t get them back. The sooner you come to terms with that, the sooner you can get on with saving your own hide.”

The swordsman pushed Niel’s arm away with another loud sigh. “Now, I know you’re not supposed to, but can you sit a horse?”

Niel shrugged. “I’ve never tried.”

“Fine.” He pulled a silver coin from his vest pocket. “Take this. Get food to carry with you. Make them give you a sack as well. There’s a trail inside the woods running more or less parallel to the road that leads south from here. Don’t use the road; just keep it in sight as best you can when the trail gets hard to follow—and it will. Try to make as little noise as possible. Trelheim is less than two days on foot. I’ll take a separate route and catch up with you at the Ragged Rascal. We can figure out what to do there.”

Arwin turned away. “You decide.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if we went together?”

Arwin didn’t answer. He rounded the corner at the end of the alley and disappeared.

Niel stood by himself, unable to remember ever feeling so lost. He looked down at the coin in his palm. There was no way he’d get to the College in time to begin the winter semester.

The thought stabbed deeply.

His next thought, though, struck him even deeper than that, and even more viciously than had his attackers: He’d just become a rogue magician.

Confirmed Members went forth from their schooling with the collective influence of the College behind them. Without benefit of the vast resources available to the Membership, accumulating magical knowledge as a rogue would be more arduous than the labors of a peasant farmer—grueling work yielding pitiable results. With luck, he might find a traveling carnival in need of a prestidigitator, or some similar arrangement. But in the end, most magicians working outside the providence of the College amounted to nothing more than wandering indigents, begging for food in exchange for a card trick or a fortune telling.

Niel started walking, and in his mind tested the notion again:

He’d just become a rogue magician.

The absurdity of it made him laugh out loud. At first.

***

Along the deserted street fewer than ten torches flickered in the late evening breeze, casting broad, jumpy shadows that made the narrow avenue darker in places than had there been no torchlight at all. Before Niel stood The Ragged Rascal Inn—three stories high and like all the other buildings in Trelheim, grey and rundown. Shutters dangled from the scant number of windows that still boasted them, though beneath the nearest window an abundant, lone rose bush appeared freshly pruned.

Niel stepped wearily onto the porch—poorly patched, rickety, and stained with spilled liquor, paint and what looked like blood.

He paused at the entrance and noticed nail holes and indentations where hinges had once held a door; now heavy, black drapes hung to seclude the Inn’s guests from the rest of the town. He parted the curtains with his fingers, peered through, and as though someone had pulled a lever the empty Trelheim night transformed into a glowing carnival.

Inside, in what looked to have once been a grand parlor, fat candles in sooty chandeliers poured a rich, buttery light over the goings-on. Sconces of all shapes lined walls that clearly once had been white—large, less-filthy rectangles indicated where portraits once hung. Musicians plucked, puffed and slapped their instruments, and filled the air with a rowdy melody. To the right a makeshift bar comprised of crates and boards occupied most of the room, where nearly all the stools were taken by those talking, drinking, or doing both. The center of the room accommodated numerous round, battered tables around which all manner of characters sat conversing, arguing and laughing. On the worn, wooden floor lay a huge, equally worn rug whose intricate patterns had faded far from their original grandeur and bore innumerable stains and patches of mismatched material. On the far wall hung a long row of pocked and chipped dagger boards.