The Awakened Mage (46 page)

She wished she could.

Her nose was tickled by the scent of rich rotting mulch. She caught the sound of trickling water somewhere to the left. Keeping herself distracted she let her gaze roam the encroaching forest as it rolled along beside her. Caught sight of a glowing orange fungus on a fallen tree trunk— newt-eye, good for enhancing concentration—and wished she could ask Veira to stop the cart. Newt-eye was hard to come by in the countryside round the City.

The City. Her home for six long years, but now a place of danger she could never visit again. At least not until… and always assuming there was anything left to visit afterwards. Was her absence noticed yet? Had anyone raised the alarm? Were they hunting for her even now? Well, let them hunt. Let them tarn the City upside down. They’d find no clue to help them. No guiding trail of breadcrumbs. She’d escaped. She was safe.

She’d abandoned Asher behind her.

The passing forest blurred and she rubbed a hand across her face. If Veira saw it she didn’t say so. All her attention was on the pony and the winding road ahead. Dathne pulled her coat more tightly round her ribs, wondering what would happen to her bookshop, that convenient mask she’d come to love, despite herself. And all her things, in her tiny rooms above it. Obeying Veira’s command she’d brought with her only the items that might raise suspicion. Her Circle Stone. Her orris root, the tanal leaf, other herbs and simples not generally found in an Olken pantry. A few clothes, too, for necessity. A dragonfly in amber, gifted to her from Asher the first Grand Barl’s Day after his arrival in Dorana.

She felt her heart hitch, and fisted her fingers in her lap. She
would not
think of Asher.

Beside her, Veira cleared her throat. “‘Nother half-hour and we’ll be there, near enough,” she said.

Dathne nodded. “Good.”

It was strange to hear the old woman’s voice out loud, | a sweet and solid sound, after so long with nothing but i Circle Stone communication, mind to mind. Even seeing her was a shock. In the link she’d seemed younger. Smoother. Less … wrinkled. Aware of the scrutiny, Veira chuckled breathily and glanced at her sidelong. “Told you I weren’t no oil painting, child.”

She felt her cheeks heat. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude, I—” Her fingernails were close to drawing blood, so tightly were they clenched against her palms. “I’m sorry.” And not just for staring. She was sorry for everything.

“I know,” said Veira, and patted her on one blanketed knee.

She blinked her vision clear. “You warned Matt all right? He’s safe?”

“As safe as any of us,” said Veira.

“I handled that badly,” she whispered, pinning her fists between her knees.
The look on his face, as she sided with Asher
... “I handled it all badly. I’ve no business being part of the Circle. Prophecy is falling to pieces and it’s all my fault!”

In the flickering torchlight Veira’s expression was a mystery. “You don’t know that, child. Best not to run ahead of ourselves. This business ain’t done with till the Wall’s fallen down, and last time I looked it was still standing.”

“Then we’re not lost? The kingdom can still be saved? Asher won’t—” She couldn’t finish the sentence out loud. Didn’t even dare complete the thought.

“I hope not,” Veira said at last. “We’ll do our best to save him. Though I fear it will come at a terrible cost.”

“You have a plan?”

Another long silence.

“I have an inkling of a possibility,” said Veira without looking at her. “I’ll not be speaking of it yet. I’ve others to consult, and hard thinking to do first.”

And that sounded less than encouraging. Sounded frightening. Dangerous. Likely to fail. In Veira’s comfortable voice, there tolled a premonition of sorrow.

She’d had enough sorrow for one day. “I can’t imagine living in a forest,” she said, staring at the branch-latticed sky.

Veira smiled, revealing crooked teeth. “I can’t imagine living anywhere else. Not any more.”

“Do you like it?”

“Well enough. A forest’s cool. Quiet. And there’s always fresh rabbit when the fancy takes me.”

“Yes, but what do you
do!
How do you live?” In all the time she and Veira had known each other, she’d never once asked. Once, it hadn’t seemed important.

“I’m a truffle hunter,” said Veira. “Means nobody asks me why I live so far out from the village. Why I spend so much time alone with my pigs.” A breathy chuckle. “Mind you, the pigs is more for company. I got easier ways of finding truffles than parading about the forest with a pig on a leash. Good listeners, pigs. Better than most people I know.”

“And the other villagers? What do they do? Why would they choose to live in such isolation?”

Veira shrugged, and rattled the reins to keep the pony up to its bridle. “It’s only isolated from the Doranen. The village is a happy, close-knit place. Lively. And there’s a mort of things to do in the Black Woods, child. Berrying. Mushrooming. Trapping. Herbals and dye-plants. Sweet-sap. Woodcarving. Clockmaking. Bees—some of this kingdom’s finest honey comes from our bees, you know. Oh yes. The Black Woods are full of bounty for those who aren’t afraid of the dark.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling ignorant. Feeling helpless. She should have brought some books to sell… “Well. I had no idea.”

“No reason you should do, child,” said Veira comfortably. “Is the village large?”

“Large enough. A hundred and fourteen families, last count.” Veira pointed ahead of them, to the right. “Over thataways, it is.”

“And how will you account for me? I’ve always been told villagers are a curious lot. They’ll want to know who I am, where I’m from …”

“No, they won’t,” said Veira. “I’ve done a tidy job of keeping myself a loner. Folks know me, but only as deep as I want ‘em to, and only when I go to them. I discouraged visitors years ago.” Clicking her tongue, she once more rattled the plump pony’s reins. “Get on with you, Bessie. You ought to be smellin’ home by now.”

Not long after that they turned left onto a rutted grass-grown roadway. Followed it in silence, and at last reached Veira’s thatched stone cottage all alone in the wooded vastness of the forest. Warm light glowed through a curtained front window. The night air smelled of jasmine and moonroses, the flowers’ perfume mingling with the spicy sweet scent of honey-pine smoke drifting out of the cottage’s chimney.

Veira eased the cart to a halt by the open front gate. “Bessie’s bedroom’s round the back. Get yourself inside, child, while I see the poor beast settled. Stir up the hob and put on the kettle like a good girl. I’m parched for some hot sweet tea.”

Oh yes, yes, tea. Clasping blanket and knapsack Dathne clambered out of the wagon and made her unsteady way up the garden path. She felt stupid with tiredness.

More than anything she wanted quiet, and somewhere to rest her aching head. Just as she reached the front door, it opened.

Matt.
Tall. Frowning. Swallowing all the space in the small doorway. Here? In Veira’s cottage? She felt the knapsack slip from her fingers. Heard a tinkling crunch as something broke inside it. Or did the sound come from inside her? She couldn’t tell. Couldn’t speak. Could only stare, and stare, and stare …

“Hello, Dathne,” said Matt, unsmiling. “Welcome to the Black Woods.”

When Asher groped his way back to reluctant consciousness he found himself in a different cage. This one was outside. On a cart in the middle of the City Square—just as Jarralt had promised. The straw beneath his huddled body was fouled and stinking. There were heavy iron manacles on his wrists and his ankles, connected by a short, heavy chain. The manacles’ inner surfaces were rough and rusty. Chafing. The pain was small compared to the enormous hurting in the rest of his abused body. Jarralt had been thorough. And enthusiastic.
Bastard.
Who knew he’d wanted that damned King’s Cup so bad, eh?

Pity I didn ‘t just let the mongrel have it. Might’ve saved me a lot of grief.

It was dark. Late. Hovering glimfire splashed shadows and soft light. Standing at attention a few feet from the nearest corner of his cage, a poker-backed City Guard. If he’d wanted to he could’ve called the man’s name out loud.

He didn’t want to. Also as promised, his throat was raw and swollen. Only one thing kept him from surrendering to despair: they hadn’t found Dathne. Orrick had returned to report his failure, refusing to look at Jarralt’s bleeding, moaning victim hanging in his chains.

So. No Dathne, and no Matt either. It seemed that sulking out of sight somewhere after their quarrel had saved him.

Thwarted of more victims, Jarralt had been furious. Had returned to his vengeance with greater vigor. Asher shuddered, remembering. He would’ve died happily then, knowing she was safe—that they both were safe—but Jarralt knew to perfection how to hurt, and hurt, yet keep him on the wrong side of death’s door.

He blinked, shivering, trying to clear his pain-blurred vision. Unfolded his arms and legs, needing to ease his cramped muscles. His putrid straw bed rustled, pressing against his filthy shirt and trousers, his burned and bloodied flesh. From somewhere quite close, a shout.

“He’s awake! The blasphemous bastard’s awake!”

He lifted his head. Four guards, not one. Four men who once had been his friends, matched to each corner of his cage. He strained to see past then blue and crimson uniforms. Slowly, achingly, the world swam into sharper focus. What he saw stopped his heart, or so it felt. Beyond the cage, beyond the guards, beyond the wavering circle of glimlight, a sullen shifting mass of silent faces.

The Olken of Dorana City had come to feast then eyes on the traitor.

Wincing, breathing harshly through pinched nostrils and gritted teeth, he made himself sit up, even though it hurt so much he thought he might vomit again. There were faces out there that he knew. Guild meisters he’d counseled. Guild members he’d helped. Turning his head looking over his shoulder, he saw more friends. People he’d drunk ale with down at the Goose. People who’d laughed to see him. Thrown roses without thorns. Flirted. Flattered. Boasted that he knew them and smiled at his approach. Screamed his name as he’d traveled the road to Justice Hall. Who’d witnessed him sitting in judgment in that grand place and applauded as though he was their hero.

Nobody was applauding now. Now he wasn’t anybody’s hero.

“Filthy blasphemer!” somebody called from the crowd. “Liar!”

“Traitor!”

Somebody threw something. An egg. It burst against the bars of the cage to drip stinking, rotten and slimy to the floor. The stench mixed with the reek of excrement and vomit, clogging his blood-caked nostrils, churning his stomach with acid and bile.

“I ain’t!” he croaked, and felt the split skin of his face crack and ooze. “I ain’t no more a traitor than you!”

As those in the crowd close enough to hear him burst into jeering laughter, the nearest guard turned and thrust his pikestaff into the cage in a single, economical jab. It caught him in the mouth, crushing his lip against his teeth, tearing his flesh even wider.

“One more word,” the guard said, “and I’ll cut out your tongue. Got it?” It was Dever. They played leap-jacks together down at the Goose on the nights they found themselves there at the same time. Used to play. Dever wasn’t grinning now, wasn’t reaching out to slap him on the back, buy him a pint, bend his ear about the latest lady love.

Now he looked cold enough to kill.

Another egg came sailing out of the crowd. This one found its target. Hit him on the side of the head. The smell was gut-wrenching. Somebody else threw fresh cow shit. Lukewarm but still stinking, it burned his face where Jarralt had laid him open, searching for satisfaction.

The guards made no attempt to stop the rain of abuse. Only when something landed too close to them did they raise their pikestaffs and shout. There was no escape. All he could do was survive it, just as he’d survived Jarralt. In the end he curled up on his side and tried to ignore the shouts, the insults, the eggs, and everything else they threw at him. The pain. Concentrated instead on the one thing that would sustain him for as long as this ordeal endured. Hate. On the one name that fed his slow-burning fury.

Gar.

When he woke a second time it was again to glimlit darkness and the rise and fall of unfriendly voices, sibilant as the ocean, to the smoky scents of roasting meats as food merchants catered to the avid crowds of Olken still gathering to gloat and deride. So large had their numbers swelled that a barrier had been erected around the cart and cage, keeping the insomniac onlookers at bay; standing beyond it, pikestaffs at the ready, a different set of guards.

What was wrong with the bastards, eh? Didn’t they have homes to go to? Children to care for? Did they have nothing better to do than stand around here feeding their faces on sheep fat and bile?

Well, no. Clearly not.

Groaning, swearing as all his hurts growled, biting, and colder than ever he could remember, he managed to force himself upright. “Barl’s ti—” he began to curse under his breath, then stopped. Stared. Closed his fingers into fists.

Willer stood outside the cage, smiling in at him. In his pudgy hands a hot beef sandwich, dripping bloody juices down the front of his apple-green jacket. He didn’t seem to notice. His bloated face was shiny with grease, with triumph, and his eyes gleamed in the lambent glimfire.

“I told you I’d make you pay,” he said conversationally, around a mouthful of sloppily chewed bread and meat. “Didn’t I?” The gloating smile widened, like a toad’s. “This should teach you to disbelieve me.”

“Go away,” he said, even though he knew he was wasting his breath.

Willer shivered with pleasure. “The executioner was in the guardhouse all afternoon, sharpening his axe. I went to watch. Zzzt, zzzt, zzzt. You’ll never guess: the townsfolk are placing bets on how many strokes it’ll take to do the job. They hate you, Asher. Thanks to you, Olken life is about to change for the harder. I’m hoping it’ll take three strokes to kill you. Four, even. I’m hoping it hurts. A lot. You deserve to suffer. You deserve everything that’s happening to you.”