A Touch of Magic (33 page)

“Berry!” Randall cried, though the word came out gritty and hoarse, forcing him to fight back another coughing fit.

The donnan was alive! The skin all along the right side of its tiny body was gnarled and twisted into horrendous scars, but he was alive! Randall cried out in joy, causing him to fall into another bout of coughing. Berry chittered angrily and shook his spoon at his friend, splashing the nasty brew everywhere. Randall’s heart lifted at seeing his friend’s antics, and it was all he could do to contain himself and not burst out laughing again. He reached out to grab up the little imp and hug it to his body, but the motion caused shooting pains to course up his shoulder and down his spine. Gasping and panting, he ended up simply laying in the grass with a wide grin plastered on his face.

“It’s good to see you again, friend,” he whispered, each word like ground glass in his throat.

The donnan chittered at length before speeding off in a flash. Randall followed the creature with his eyes, and saw that the donnan had rigged up the cook pot, and had started a fire. He had made some kind of soup! Randall could just imagine all of the gross twigs, insects and roots that the donnan had put into the stew, and had to fight down another wave of affection and amusement at the thought. When the imp brought back another spoonful, he just shook his head gently, raising his hand weekly to ward of the offending concoction. Wearily, he pushed himself into a sitting position to take stock of his condition. His clothes were caked with blood, both dried and fresh. Upon further inspection, his shoulder and hip were still oozing, though only faintly. He guessed that the shards of metal that Aidan had conjured were still buried deep within the muscle. Those would have to be cut out. Not today, but soon.

Looking down, he saw that he had Erliand’s healing talisman dangling from his neck. Berry must have replaced it as he slept. He owed his old master a debt of gratitude. The talisman had saved his life more than once, and had saved Berry’s too. Grabbing the talisman in his hand, Randall attempted to open himself up to Llandra to feed it some power and stop the flow of blood from his wounds. Making the connection sent liquid fire shooting along all of his nerves and ripped a scream from his tortured vocal chords. The pain was so intense that he instinctively slammed the connection closed instantly, before he could draw any real measure of power. After coughing and panting for several minutes, he looked at his scolding friend, and smiled wanly.

“I guess I burned myself out a little,” he whispered carefully, shaking his head sadly. “I guess I’ll have to let it work the slow way.”

Looking at the talisman more closely, Randall could see a spider web of tiny cracks all throughout the relic, giving it a marbled and antique appearance. There was no telling how much longer it would work, but it still seemed solid enough for now. Nodding to himself, he tucked the talisman under his tunic, and lay back in the grass to rest and let it slowly work its power over him. Giving up on the idea of feeding him any more stew, Berry abandoned the cook pot and curled up on Randall’s chest, purring contentedly. Soon, they were both fast asleep.

They awoke later that day, and Randall found that his wounds had mostly stopped bleeding. The effort of standing up ripped open the wounds, however, causing fresh blood to well up and soak through his clothes. Looking around the campsite, his eyes landed on Aidan. His body would stand here for a long time, serving as a monument to the battle that they had waged. And then, one day, it would simply be gone, disappearing into so much soot and dust—forgotten and blown on the wind. It was a fitting end, Randall thought.

After a while, he spotted Berry. The imp had pulled practically everything out of Randall’s travel sack and had strewn it about the camp site. At the moment, the little imp was digging for grubs in the cold dirt with a spoon. Smiling, Randall began gathering up his belongings.

“Come on, Berry,” he croaked. “It’s time we left this place.”

Randall wasn’t sure where he and Berry would go, but the thought of the tiny villages of his homeland brought him a pang of homesickness. He was sure he could set up a home somewhere close by. Perhaps he could live in one of the smaller villages, growing his own food and catching his own game. He would only need to travel to town occasionally to barter for goods that he was unable to eke from the land. He felt another pang when he realized that such a lifestyle was much as Master Erliand had lived. It was peaceful, and Randall decided that he’d had enough adventure to last him a lifetime.

It took the pair of travelers several days to reach the main road leading out of Ninove. The road had dozens of refugees making their way from the city, many of them wounded. Berry gave no complaints as they drew closer, and faded quickly out of sight. Randall found himself shy and uncomfortable around throngs of people. He found it difficult to trust anyone, and realized that he had been happiest when foraging off the land, with his friend on his shoulder.

Still, he wouldn’t be able to do much hunting and foraging until he saw his wounds tended to. He met a trapper who was skilled with a knife and willing to cut the metal shards out of his shoulder and hip. The man even offered to let Randall convalesce in the back of his small cart, for which the boy was extremely grateful. He never quite learned to trust the man, however, and slept fitfully each night until he was well enough to strike out on his own. After that, he spent as much time off the road as on it, though he would still veer back to the main road from time to time to hear of any new news from the capital.

By piecing together travelers’ stories, Randall figured that after the fight, he had been unconscious for two days, maybe three. He guessed that Berry had probably been out nearly as long as he had. The news among the refugees was that the first night of fighting amongst the Mages was the most intense. But without Aidan’s help, the rebellion had proved difficult to crush.

Days later, the fighting still raged in pockets of resistance within the city. There was even a rumor floating about that King Priess himself had been killed. About as many people believed it as didn’t, but Randall never ran into anyone who had seen the king’s death first-hand. He silently wished the rebellion well, but he was in no condition to aid them, mentally or physically.

 Mentally, he was beat down. He had seen more death and destruction than any one person should ever have to experience in a lifetime. Physically, he was still recovering from the wounds he suffered at the hands of Aidan and his men. Regardless, he couldn’t have helped, even if he had been fit and whole. Every time he tried to touch Llandra, he suffered the same excruciating pain as when he had tried to charge up the healing talisman.

“I think I burned myself out for good,” he told Berry when they were alone one night. The thought left him saddened. As much has he had resisted becoming a Mage at first, it turned out to be the one thing he was truly good at.

His voice had changed since his fight, too. It was rough and throaty, like a sailor who has spent a lifetime on the high seas breathing the salt air and drinking rum. Even if he
could
draw power from Llandra without the pain making him want to pass out, he wasn’t sure his voice would be suited to giving form to that power ever again. It seemed like his future as a Mage was at an end. “I guess I really could become a caravan guard,” he said to Berry one night as the two shared a supper of squirrel stew and wild carrots. He laughed at the irony of the statement, and his friend seemed to take it in good humor as well.

Eventually, Randall broke away from the main road altogether, and spent his days foraging on the land with Berry. Each day seemed to flow into the next, and it was an easy, comfortable existence. Now that he was no longer on the run for his life, he had no plan of action and no pressing need to go anywhere. Still, each day, he found himself a little further south, and a little further west. It wasn’t until he reached the Great Red River that he realized what his subconscious had shrewdly been keeping hidden from him: he was going home. Few refugees had made it this far from Ninove, but the ferryman had heard of the stories of the fighting. He was no better informed than anyone Randall had met on the roads. The stories floating around conflicted wildly: either the king had ruthlessly crushed the rebellion, or King Priess had died in the fighting and a cabal of Mages now held power in the capital. It would probably be months before the official word had spread through the land, and until then, people tended to be antsy and suspicious.

Randall had no money to pay the toll for the ferry, but the ferryman let him work off the fee. He didn’t know if it was the same ferryman that had betrayed Brody, Tobsen and Declan, and he found to his surprise that he didn’t really care, either. After three days, Randall bid the man farewell, and the man wished him good luck in return. He then continued to travel lazily, staying off of the main roads, and away from cities, but slowly making his way back toward his home town. He had a better feel for the land, now, and let his feet be his guide.

Several weeks later, as spring gave way into summer, Randall found himself within a day’s walk of Geldorn. To his surprise, he found that he was nervous. He couldn’t go into the village itself, of course. He had been gone over a year, but people in small towns had long memories. He would still be a wanted criminal, and people would recognize him immediately. But still, he couldn’t resist visiting his old home on the outskirts of town. Someone would have buried his family there. He knew that the reason he had traveled all this way was for this opportunity to say goodbye to them.

It was early evening when he reached the outer gate to his family’s land, and he was surprised to smell the odor of a home cooked meal on the breeze. His brief pang of nostalgia fled instants later as the outrage welled up within him with a fury and intensity that he hadn’t felt since his fight with Aidan.

How dare they! How dare they move into Papa’s house! That’s our house!

Without a second thought, Randall stormed through the gate and up the path to his family’s home. Berry chittered nervously and faded from view, as he was quick to do these days whenever other people were around. He still carried with him his own wounds from their fight at the capital. A boy who was just beginning to become a young man sat on the front stoop, whittling a block of wood in the fading light. As Randall stormed up to the house in anger, the boy looked up from his idle work with surprise. His eyes grew wide as he took note of the figure stalking up the path toward him.

“Randall?” he asked, stopping the young mage in his tracks. His voice was so familiar! “Is that you, Randall?”

Randall knew that voice. Even though it had been nearly two years since he had heard it. There was no way that he could mistake that sprinkling of freckles across his nose, either.

“Joshua?” Randall called out, refusing to believe his eyes. It had to be a trick! They said that his family had been killed!

“Momma!” Joshua called back into the house.” Momma, come quick! Randall’s come home!”

Randall took the rest of the path at a shuffling run, barely noticing the pain in his leg or the limp he had grown accustomed to. As he reached the porch, his mother burst out of the front door, with flour on her hands and still wearing her kitchen apron. Her hands flew to her face when she saw her son, and her mouth widened in shock.

“Randall!” she cried, and rushed out to grasp him in a tight embrace.

“Oh Momma!” he cried into her shoulder, as if he were still a child. “I thought you were dead. I thought you all were dead!”

“We thought you were dead too,” she said softly, pulling back to look at him as tears streamed down her cheeks.

“I have so much to tell all of you,” he said, voice raw with emotion.

“Why don’t you come inside,” she said, dabbing at her tears with her apron and leaving streaks of flour on her cheeks. “I’m baking a pie.”

Randall never noticed Berry flit from his shoulder as his mother pulled him through the front door of his home and to the shouts of surprise from the rest of his family.

Epilogue

Life at home seemed strange, because Eric and Joshua still acted like kids. Not a day went by without one or the other receiving a scolding from Momma for fighting and teasing each other. Randall felt so much older than either of them, even though Eric was technically a grown man. His parents treated him differently, too. Gone was the chiding tone of voice that they often took with their children—when they spoke to him at all, it was with a tone of mutual respect. It felt more like he were an adult cousin or uncle staying for a visit, instead of their son.

For weeks, he was content to work at the mill, doing what little he could with his lingering injuries. His family could sense that he had come home changed, and left him alone for the most part. Randall slept on a bedroll in the living room, while Eric and Joshua continued to share their tiny bedroom. Taken as a whole, the entire house seemed so much smaller than he remembered.

It was Randall’s mother that broke the wall of silence first. She approached him one afternoon, while the other Miller children were helping Pa at the mill. Randall’s shoulder had ached fiercely that morning, and so he begged off. He would have never gotten away with shirking his responsibilities when he was younger, but these days his father gave him a lot more latitude. Randall sat on the porch, scanning the surrounding land idly. He had seen neither hide nor hair of Berry since he had returned home, and he found that he missed the donnan’s company greatly.

“You’re going to have to talk about it sometime, Randall,” his mother said gently as she laid out a picnic lunch for them.

“I know, Momma,” he replied. He didn’t know where to take the conversation from there. So much had happened to him, and he had gotten used to keeping his secrets to himself. A thought occurred to him.

“Why aren’t you all dead?” he asked, matter-of-factly, as if he were discussing nothing more serious than the weather.

“Oh, baby,” she said. “That spell you cast that day...it was
powerful!
Nobody even remembers exactly what happened at Frank’s. Aiden only had time to gather up the few guardsmen that hadn’t been at the fight to chase after you. He never even came here.”

Hearing Aiden’s name seemed to break down some of Randall’s reluctance. He had nearly allowed himself to forget that his mother was a Seer, and probably knew more about what was going on than anyone else he knew.

“But I heard that I supposedly burned everyone to death! I just assumed Aiden had done it and blamed it on me.” Randall protested.

“Pshaw,” his mother answered. “Go into town, and you’ll hear fifty different rumors about what happened that day. Almost none of them even have your name in them. Most folks have come to the conclusion that Old Earl turned out to be a devil touched magicker, and that he attacked the town before being killed by the militia. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s an easier story to swallow than most.”

Randall nodded. He knew how the gossip network could whip up any exciting event into a handful of wild rumors, and Erliand’s fight with Aiden had to have been the most dramatic thing to happen in generations. Thinking about all of the events that he had experienced caused a swell of emotion of wash over Randall.

“I miss him,” he said, more to himself than to her.

“I miss him too, Randall,” she replied, putting her arm gently around his shoulders. “You didn’t know it, but he was an old friend.”

It took Randall a moment to realize that she was talking about Erliand. He considered keeping his mouth shut, but he was tired of keeping secrets. This was his mother, and a Seer to boot. If he couldn’t trust her with his story, then he couldn’t trust anyone.

“Not Master Erliand, Momma. Berry. I miss my friend,” he said, tears welling up in his eyes.

With that admission, it was if a dam had burst within Randall. He found himself telling his mother the entire story of his journey to Ninove, from beginning to end, leaving nothing out.

There were many times in his story when tears welled up in his mother’s eyes, and she gasped in terror when Randall related to her the fight with the bog-wights, but her biggest reaction came when Randall first described Berry to her.

When he described meeting the little imp, her mouth widened in horror, and her knuckles whitened where she tightly gripped the hem of her apron.

“Randall! That was a donnan!” she gasped.

“Why does everyone act like that?” Randall snapped in frustration. “He was just a little imp!”

“No, Randall, he wasn’t,” his mother replied, deadly seriously. “Do you know what else we call a donnan? We call it the Harbinger. Donnans have only been seen a handful of times in all of recorded history. We don’t even know if there’s more than one of them. But every time it shows up, it bodes ill. They’re creatures of unspeakable evil.”

“Berry’s not like that!” Randall protested hotly. “He was my friend! He hasn’t done anything bad!”

“Oh, Randall,” his mother said sadly. “How can you say that? It may be quiet here, but the country is still at war! Think of how many people that have been killed? Think of how many people
you’ve
killed. And the Harbinger was there, every step of the way, leading you into danger. And look what has become of Tallia! Look at what it has made you do.”  Tears of pity welled up in her eyes as she spoke.

“That wasn’t Berry’s fault! And it wasn’t mine either! That was all Aiden’s doing!” Randall yelled. “You wouldn’t understand. You didn’t know him! It doesn’t matter anyway. He’s gone,” he finished, breaking into fresh tears.

His mother didn’t say anything further, but only held him close and let him cry out his anguish. Afterwards, she left the picnic lunch and quietly went back inside the house.

If Randall thought unburdening his soul would bring him closer to his family, he was mistaken. Over the next few weeks, he felt himself growing more distant from them—especially his mother. He simply couldn’t forgive her for not hearing what he had to say and blaming everything that had happened on him and Berry. She hadn’t told Papa or his brothers about the conversation, but still a gulf between them grew.

Erliand’s talisman continued doing its work, slowly but surely, and each day Randall felt a little stronger and though he was able to help more around the family business, he found himself begging off more often in order to spend time out wandering around the open fields. With each passing week, the itch to go back out on the open road grew stronger. He often daydreamed about his prospects for the future.

He had long since given up becoming a Mage—he had made numerous attempts to gather magic from Llandra since his fight with Aiden, and each time caused searing pain to burn him to the core of his being. He hadn’t even bothered to try in months.

But even if he couldn’t be a Mage, he could be so much more than a simple miller. He could still be a perfectly acceptable caravan guard. In fact, with Brody, Tobsen and Declan dead, there was an open market for the goods that the trio brought from Dyffryn every year. He could start his own caravan business. It seemed like as good an idea as any.

Official word had finally begun trickling down to the small towns in the far-flung reaches of Tallia: King Priess was dead. The Mages of the rebellion had set up a council to try to keep the country from falling apart, but their grip on power was tenuous at best. Without a strong central authority to keep banditry and petty criminals in check, the roads were dangerous and travel was at a minimum. It seemed like an exciting time to be out on the open road, and a good opportunity for an enterprising young man to make a profit.

Randall realized one day that he was seriously considering the idea. His father and brothers were working at the mill, as usual, and his mother was out delivering flour. He realized that he could leave today, and not miss this place.

Now’s as good a time as any,
he said to himself. He was as fit as he would ever be, and he was sure no one here would really miss him once he had gone. They might even be relieved to not have the constant tension of his presence.

Making his mind up, he quickly packed a travel sack, strapped his dagger at his side, and left his family’s home. He didn’t leave a note, and he didn’t look back. But he felt as if a large burden had been lifted from him. He wasn’t ever meant to be a miller, this much he was sure of. He wasn’t sure what the future would hold for him, but starting today, his fate would be in his own hands.

He had only gone a half-dozen paces from his family’s front gate when a familiar weight landed on his shoulder.

“Berry!” Randall cried in amazement. “Where have you been? I thought you were gone for good!”

Berry chittered merrily, as if no time at all had passed since the last time the pair had traveled together and Randall laughed, rubbing the little sprite on his head. With Berry at his side, there was nothing that the two couldn’t accomplish! He started the journey with a spring in his step, and as he began walking down the path, he began whistling a jaunty folk tune.