The Awakened Mage (7 page)

A battering of fists against his apartment’s outer doors startled him. Then came a voice, raised in impatient demand: “Asher! Asher, get out here at once!”

Willer.
Bastard.

For one single, luxurious moment he contemplated deafness, or insensibility, or even self-inflicted death. Any or all were better than dealing with Willer at half-nine in the morning on a growlingly empty stomach after a day and a night like the ones he’d just lived through.

But no. Somebody had to take charge of the Tower till Darran was released from Nix’s clutches, and if he didn’t do it Willer would. Which meant that by eleven o’clock he’d have
everybody
running around killing themselves.

Scowling ferociously he flung wide his apartment doors. “Keep the noise down, you bloody great fool! You want to wake the prince?”

Blinding in purple satin, Willer stared at him, took one horrified breath and immediately fished for his kerchief. “Barl preserve me!” he said through pale mauve silk. “You
stink!
And you’re filthy! What is going on? And where is Darran? He sent all the staff home yesterday over my strenuous objections and now he’s nowhere to be found and the maids are milling about like hens!”

“Darran’s been taken poorly. He—”

“Poorly?” Willer dropped the silk kerchief and lunged. “What do you mean? What have you done to him? I swear, Asher, I
swear,
if you’ve harmed so much as a hair on Darran’s head I’ll—”

With some difficulty Asher fended him off. “I ain’t done nowt to the ole crow! Now shut your trap so’s I can tell you what’s what, or I’ll push you headfirst down my water closet!”

Willer hurriedly stepped back. “Lay a finger on me and I’ll have you arrested.”

“You could try,” he said with an evil, rehshing grin. “Now listen. Seein’ Darran’s in his sickbed you’ll need to stand in for him today, Barl save us all.”

“Of course I shall stand in for him!” Willer snapped. “Who else could be entrusted with such an important task? Certainly not you.”

He throttled the impulse to kick the little pissant where, on reflection, it wouldn’t do much damage. “Look, you, stop flappin’ your bloody lips and
listen.
There’s an important announcement to be made on another matter. Get the staff together in the foyer while I—”

“Announcement? About what? Asher, I
demand
you tell me—”

“Listen,
I said! Or are you deaf as well as a dimwit? Get the staff together, grounds folk and stable as well as Tower, while I see how the prince wants to proceed. All right? Understand? Or do I have to draw you little pictures?”

“And who are you to give such orders?”

“I’m the man who’s goin’ to punch you in the nose if you don’t do as you’re told!”

The sea slug’s eyes narrowed in fury. “You have no authority over me.”

“Want to bet? If you don’t about-face right now and get the staff assembled, I’ll see you dismissed and chucked out of here on your pimpled fat arse. And don’t think for a moment Gar won’t back me up, ‘cause we both know he will.”

“You arrogant, insupportable
bastard.
One day,” said Willer, wheezing with rage, “there will be a reckoning for you! One day I shall strip you naked before the world and you’ll be seen for the rotten, pernicious, power-hungry—”

Closing the door in Willer’s face made him feel a lot better. A hot bath and some food for his empty belly would’ve made him feel better still but there wasn’t time for that. So he washed quickly out of his privy basin, haphazardly scraped the bristles off his face with a razor one stropping short of sharp, brushed the worst of the sweat and dirt from his hair, hauled on clean clothing and went upstairs to rouse Gar.

This time when he knocked on the royal suite’s front doors they swung open on soundless hinges. There was nobody on the other side.

“Smart-arse,” he muttered, and entered. Crossed the empty sun-striped foyer and took the stairs up to Gar’s bedchamber. With a brief knuckle-rap on the closed door he opened it, and was confronted with darkness.

“Gar? You in here?”

All the bedroom’s curtains were drawn: only the merest silver of sunshine slid between them to leaven the gloom. Asher banged and bruised and cursed his way to the nearest window and pulled back the brocade hangings.

“If I’d wanted light,” said Gar, “I would’ve made some.”

He was slumped in an overstuffed armchair, still ” dressed in the clothes he’d pulled on last night in Durm’s office. His pale hollow cheeks were stubbled with gold; grief was smeared into dark shadows beneath his half-closed eyes. The sumptuous bed was unslept in.

Asher crossed his arms and bumped his backside onto the windowsill. “When Nix said rest, I think he meant in abed.”

“And if I’d wanted company,” Gar added, eyebrows lowering, “I would’ve sent for someone.”

He shrugged. “Darran says a good servant anticipates his employer’s wishes.”

Gar let his bruised, unbandaged head fall against the padded chair back. “I’m sure he does. But since when do you give a fat rat’s fart what Darran has to say?”

“I don’t. How are you feelin’? Collarbone all right?”

Gar lifted his left arm. Waved it overhead, and let it drop back to his lap. “Fine.”

“Your bumps and bruises?”

“Also fine. Nix is an excellent physician.”

“Good.”

An awkward silence fell. Asher took refuge in it, frowning at the carpet. Gar looked bad. Brittle, as though one word too many, one breath too deep, would shatter him.

But he couldn’t say nothing.

He looked up. Felt his eyes burn, his throat tighten. With eyes wide open saw again the blood. The bodies. He took a deep breath and let it out, shakily. “Gar. About yesterday. Your family. I—”

“Don’t,”
said Gar, one hand swiftly raised. “I can’t afford your sympathy, Asher. Not now. Not yet.” He blinked. “Oh.”

“If you want to help … then help me stay strong.” “I can do that.”

A little of the bleakness eased from Gar’s face. “Thank you.” He pushed to his feet. “Now I must make myself presentable. The staff—”

“I got ‘em waiting downstairs. Will you make the announcement, or d’you want me to—”

“I’ll do it. Tell them I’ll be with them shortly, would you?” He pulled off his weskit and tossed it over the back of the armchair. “Give me ten minutes.”

Nodding, Asher slid off the windowsill. Started for the chamber door, hesitated, and turned back. “Gar…”

Impatient, Gar glanced at him. “What?”

Still hesitant, he took another step closer. Brittle or not, grieving or not, there were things Gar needed to hear. Things that couldn’t wait. “Nix may be a good pother, but he ain’t got the power to make a man live if his body’s hurt past healing. Or mend a mind that’s broken. I know this is hard, but—”

Gar paused in the middle of undoing his buttons, his eyes abruptly cold. “No.”

“You don’t know what I’m goin’ to say yet!”

“I know exactly what you’re going to say,” Gar replied, and returned to his unbuttoning. ‘The answer is no. I have a Master Magician.”

“Gar…” He closed the gap between them a little more. “I know Durm’s your family now, but you can’t let that make your choices for you.”

Gar stripped off his shirt and threw it at the chair.

Despite Nix’s stinking green ointment, his torso looked like a mad painter’s palette. “I’m not.”

“You are! You got to look at this the way the people will,” he insisted. “All your life they’ve known you as Gar the Magickless. Gar the Cripple. And it never mattered because there was your da, and your sister, two of the best magicians this kingdom’s ever seen. The. smallest spratling in Restharven knew the kingdom was safe, because of them.”

“The kingdom is still safe!” retorted Gar, stung. “I am Gar the Magickless no longer!”

“I know, but it’s only been weeks!
Weeks,
Gar, after all those years. Folks have barely got used to the idea that you’re a magician, and now you want ‘em to see you as king? As
WeatherWorker!
You may be as powerful as Fane ever was, but you’re not trained. Not the way you should be. You said it yourself, Durm still had so much to teach you!”

“And he shall teach me,” said Gar, eyes bright with temper. “As soon as he recovers.”

“You don’t know he will!”

“And you don’t know he won’t!” snapped Gar. “Unless we are now to number physicking amongst your many talents!”

Asher shoved his hands in his pockets, sorry he’d ever opened his mouth. But he had, and it was too late now to take back what he’d said. “I ain’t the one holdin’ out little hope, Gar. That’s Nix. His words, not mine. You can’t pretend otherwise just because—”

“I’m not pretending anything!” said Gar, and turned his back. “And neither am I continuing this conversation. The subject is closed.”

Asher reached out, grabbed Gar by the arm and spun him around. “No, it ain’t. Like it or not, you have to face facts. You need a Master Magician. You can’t leap into WeatherWorking on your own, without some other trained magician to guide you. It’s too difficult. Too dangerous! You can’t—”

Gar raised a warning finger. “Say ‘can’t’ to me one more time and I promise you’ll be sorry!”

“Sorrier than if you charge pig-headed into Weather-Working and bring the Wall crashing down around our ears?” he said, ignoring the raised finger, and the dangerous light in Gar’s eyes, and everything save the need to make the fool see sense. “I don’t think so.”

“I have no intention of destroying Barl’s Wall!” retorted Gar. “Or of appointing Conroyd Jarralt my Master Magician!”

“You have to! Who else is there powerful enough to manage the job? You have to appoint him Master Magician, even if it’s only for a while! Until Durm gets better, since you’re so sure he won’t die or wake up an addled wreck. ‘Cause if you don’t, if you try WeatherWorking alone, without help, and somethin’ goes wrong, that more’n likely means you’ll be dead and Jarralt’ll be king and then what’ll the rest of us do?”

“Are you deaf?” cried Gar. “I will not do it! I have a Master Magician!”

“No, Gar! What you’ve got is a lump of bloody meat held together with catgut and pothering and prayers and you can’t—”

“Enough!”
Gar shouted, livid with pain. His arm came up, fingers fisted—and the room was filled with furious power.

Asher felt the magic hit him. Felt it lift him and toss him like a bundle of kindling on fire from the inside out He flew backwards. Hit the bed. Bounced off it again, slammed into the wall, then slid into a crumpled heap on the carpet. Every sleeping bruise woke and started screaming. Deafened, he lay there feeling warm blood trickle from his nose, his mouth. Smelling scorched air. Beneath the pain there was fear.

Bleached white and still as stone, Gar stared back at him. Watched as he groped his way to his feet and half sat, half collapsed onto the bed. Watched as he touched the blood on his face and considered his crimsoned fingertips.

“Asher,” he said at last. “I—”

Asher lifted a hand and Gar fell silent. Turned on his heel and disappeared into his privy closet. There came the sound of water running into a basin. The opening and closing of a cupboard. Then he came out again carrying the basin and a soft white cloth. Closed the immeasurable distance between them and waited.

Silently Asher took basin and cloth and cleaned his face of blood. The sharp pounding pain subsided, but the fear remained. Translated slowly into anger. Still unspeaking, he handed back the basin and stained white cloth, stood and pushed past Gar to stand once more at the window. His bones ached. Looking outside he saw a horse and rider draw to a halt in the Tower’s front courtyard. Saw a liveried servant—Daniyal—appear and take the animal’s reins.

He knew that horse. Knew its rider, too.

“Pellen Orrick’s here,” he said, not turning around.

“Asher.. .”

“I’ll go down and see what he wants while you finish tidying yourself ready to speak to the staff. After that you’d best get over to the infirmary. See how Durm’s doin’ this morning. And Darran. The ole man‘11 howl like a girl if you don’t make a fuss over ‘im, take him some flowers and a box of sweetmeats.”

“Asher…”

Still he refused to turn round. Couldn’t trust what his face might show. “Reckon that’ll be the first and last time you ever raise a hand to me, Gar. Reckon you do it again, with magic or without, and that’ll be the end of that.”

Subdued, his voice small in the large round room, Gar said, “Yes. Asher, I’m sorry. Forgive me.”

Now he risked revealing his face. Looked at Gar for long moments and saw that the prince’s contrition was genuine. He nodded. “You’re grievin’.”

“That’s no excuse.” He didn’t want to talk about it. Wanted to forget it had happened, forget that this Gar, magician Gar, wasn’t the man he’d made friends with in Dorana’s market square a lifetime ago. That this man was about to become a king, and contained in his fingertips the power to kill. “Anythin’ you need me to say to Orrick?”

Gar shook his head. In his eyes understanding and a reluctant acceptance. “No. Not that I can think of.” “Fine,” he said, and headed for the chamber door. “Asher!”

He slowed. Stopped. Waited. “I’ll think on what you said. About Durm. And Conroyd Jarralt.” “Good.”

“And I truly am sorry. It will never happen again, I swear,”

He nodded, and kept on walking.

Pellen Orrick was waiting halfway down the Tower’s front steps. Immaculate and self-contained as ever, the Guard captain looked at him closely and said, “Are you all right?”

“Aye,” said Asher, meeting his sharp gaze full-square. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“No reason,” said Orrick after a brief hesitation. “Beyond the obvious, that is.” Beneath the spit and polish he looked weary. Sick at heart. “We got the family up safe and sound, just after dawn. Barlsman Holze took them to the palace directly. The infirmary.”

With an effort, Asher blotted out memory. _Red blood and white bone and black flies, crawling. _”No sign of Matcher, I s’pose?”

“I’m sorry.

He’d known before asking. Had to ask anyway. “So, what now?”

Orrick shrugged. “Now we wait for the results of the physical examination. Holze, my men and I combed the accident site before retrieving the bodies, looking for any sign of tampering. Anything that could suggest that someone somehow sent the carriage over the Eyrie on purpose, with or without magic. We found nothing.”