The Galactic Mage (31 page)

Chapter
32

A
ltin woke nine hours later, every muscle in his body screaming as he sat up out of bed. Rising stiffly and with a groan, he made his way back upstairs. Taot was still unconscious. Considering the horribly broken wing and the pincushion state of its arrow-riddled membrane—not to mention the giant spear still jutting from his ribs—Altin thought it was probably for the best that the dragon remained asleep. Letting Taot rest did little to fill the time, however, and empty time gave Altin too much opportunity to focus on his guilt, on the sense of helplessness that had begun to plague him since he’d brought the dragon home. There had to be something more that he could do. It occurred to him that the dragon was going to need something to eat when he finally did wake up. Procuring Taot’s food would distract Altin from his thoughts—and from the awful thing that he was going to do to make things right once the dragon was returned to health.

He went downstairs and nosed around the pig pen for a bit, but Nipper grew furious when Altin suggested slaughtering a prize hog to feed, as the aged steward had put it, “that infernal monster,” and so Altin decided that getting a deer was probably a better choice. He went to the stables and asked the groom to saddle up a horse, too sore to want to do the work himself. Happy to oblige, the groom set about the task, giving Altin time to go to the armory and select a longbow and a quiver filled with arrows suited for the hunt.

As he was choosing his weapon from amongst the dusty racks of Calico Castle’s ancient weapons store, a shadow moved into the arc of light beaming through the opened door at Altin’s back. Altin turned and looked up to see Pernie standing in the doorframe peering into the musty gloom. His stomach abruptly tightened; he wasn’t prepared for her just yet.

They stood motionless, looking at each other for quite a while, as Altin tried to make out the expression on her face. The light behind her limned her blonde hair in a white glow, like the silver that trims a cloud, and highlighted stray threads poking out from the fabric of her simple, homemade dress, making them shimmer like luminous hairs themselves and giving Pernie’s diminutive frame a soft and radiant air. He could not see her face. Backlit, her expression was lost in shadow leaving Altin to guess what was going on inside her mind. Guilt colored him and he had to briefly turn away.

He made an act of studying an old shortbow he lifted from a rack, but quickly set it back. He owed her more than that. He pushed past the awkwardness and forced himself to speak. “So are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Just a cut. Kettle stitched it up. You want to see?” She shifted her weight forward, prepared to come into the room.

“No, that’s all right,” he said, stopping her. “I was there when she did it. Kettle’s a good woman. She loves you quite a lot.”

Pernie shrugged. “I know.”

They stood there for another long moment, Altin wishing he knew what else to say. How does one explain to a child that the horror they just endured, the terror and the pain, was brought on by someone they trusted to keep them safe? How does one go about doing such a thing? He couldn’t even fathom where to start. Nervous laughter almost made a sound as he recollected Kettle’s accusatory words. “The brains of twenty men,” she’d said. What a joke. He couldn’t even talk to a little girl.

“So what’s the bow for?” Pernie asked, giving Altin a momentary reprieve. “You gonna shoot somethin’?”

He was able to get his breathing started once again. He hadn’t realized that it had stopped. “A deer,” he said. “Taot needs something to eat.”

“Why can’t he get it his self? I seen him do it a thousand hundred times.”

“He’s sick.”

“Oh?” She looked puzzled, like trying to adjust to some impossibility. “What’s wrong with him?”

“He got hurt. Doctor Leopold treated him though, so he’ll get better now.” His voice lacked conviction, but Pernie seemed not to notice as she pressed.

“Was it the orcs what hurt him? Because I seen him flying down. I heard him roar real loud. I thought he might be coming after me.”

“Well, he was coming to help you, so he was coming for you in a way. He was helping me to get you back. And the orcs did hurt him, but Doctor Leopold healed him, so now everything should be okay.”

She tilted her head and studied him for a moment. “Where is he then? Are you going to his cave?”

Altin hesitated, wondering if he should tell her that the dragon was here, up in the tower, or if he should tell her something else. But hadn’t he hurt her enough? Certainly she deserved the truth. But this truth might get her killed if she tried to sneak up and take a look; what if Taot suddenly woke up? So he probably shouldn’t tell her. Which meant he had to lie, another form of injury. Or was it? Why was this little girl so hard to comprehend?

Little bits of blue. That was why. Glimpses of Neechy danced across his mind, spinning around in her bright blue dress, laughing and playing. Alive before Altin dealt the killing blow. And now there was Pernie. Altin realized as he stood there beginning to sweat why it was he had such trouble with this tiny child. Suddenly he knew. But the knowledge didn’t change anything. At least not now, not for this.

“Well are you?” she said again. “Because I can help you if you do. I’m a pretty good hunter, you know, if you need help finding him some food.” She puffed her chest out proudly.

He exhaled carefully. “No. He’s not in his cave. He’s in my tower. Up in the battlements. He’s very sick. And you must promise to stay away. If he wakes up, hurt like he is, he might be angry and lash out at the first person that he sees. Promise you won’t go up.”

“But I could go up with you,” she said. “He wouldn’t be angry at me then.”

“I don’t know if even I am safe.”

“Of course you are. You saved me from the orcs.”

He winced. “Yes. Listen, about that Pernie. That should never have happened, and you should know that the whole thing was my fault.”

She looked at him as if he’d just told her Kettle was the Queen.

He needed her to believe him, and he stepped forward and knelt before her to look her in the eyes. “Really, Pernie. It is my fault. They came in through the wall, through the hole I made. I never should have taken the tower out without putting something in its place. I opened up the castle and just let the orcs come right in. It’s my fault you got hurt. And I’m really sorry.” He forced his gaze to stay in hers, his breath held awaiting her rebuke.

“Is that why Kettle was yellin’ at you last night?”

Altin nodded.

“She was yellin’ pretty loud. She yelled at me like that when I forgot to shut the gate and all the goats got out one time. Nipper paddled my behind too.” She hesitated then, her mind drifting for a moment to the memory of which she spoke. “I bet Nipper won’t paddle your behind though,” she said at length. “Nope, I bet he won’t.” She seemed satisfied with this assessment, but felt compelled to ask, “Will he?” with tangible concern reflecting in her large blue eyes.

Altin could not stop the smile that came to his lips, although he felt unworthy of it even as it did. He shook his head. “No, Nipper won’t paddle my behind. But I think perhaps he should. I certainly deserve it.”

She laughed at that. Apparently the thought of an all-powerful magician being spanked by the cantankerous old man was hilarious. “You could fix it so it didn’t hurt,” she giggled as she began contemplating the possibility. “You could turn his hand into a pillow or grow your butt into a stack of hay.” She laughed louder as she thought about it more. “I wish I could make my butt into a stack of hay. Or maybe a big prickly pear tree.” She was nearly overcome with hilarity as she began to rattle off every soft or menacing thing that she might turn her bottom into if only she had Altin’s magic to command.

The irony was too great for Altin to share in Pernie’s fun, for he had no intention of ever using magic again. He realized now that everyone was right. He was just a Six. The circular irregularity to which he’d clung for all these years meant nothing. And not only was he just a Six, he was a deadly Six, a Six that had been taking people’s lives all along the way. His only question now was whether he should burn out his mythothalamus and stay here as a blank on Kurr like he’d decided to do last night, or if he should just vanish into space, one last cast and then drift forever in the night. The latter seemed a more fitting end. Particularly as he watched little Pernie laugh. She was so innocent and full of life. She didn’t care what people thought. She was just alive. And she was not cursed like him, not a menace like Kettle said. He wished that the worst thing he had ever done was to let some goats get out.

Pernie ran out of items to list as options for the transmogrification of her backside, and so she abruptly changed the subject as children are wont to do. “So can I help you find Taot’s deer?”

Her question caught him off-guard and at first he had no reply.

“Well, can I?” she repeated. “Help you find the deer?”

He didn’t know precisely what to say, but he was certain that “no” was not an option given the events of yesterday. “Fine,” he said, retaking the shortbow from the rack and grabbing a quiver of arrows hanging on a nail. “You can come along.” Why not, he thought. Hells, she’d probably find one faster than he could anyway if ravens were any kind of clue.

The groom saddled a pony for Pernie to ride, and soon the two of them were off across the meadow and out onto the plains. As Calico Castle grew smaller in the distance, Altin couldn’t help thinking that he was probably the last person Kettle would have chosen to have watching over Pernie now. He tried to shake the thought. The girl roamed these lands almost daily as it was. She probably
was
safer when he was not around, which gave weight to the option for disappearing into space.

Strips of blue cloth wrapped around his thoughts as they rode along, memory’s garrote tightening amongst the imagined sounds of Pernie screaming from inside a tree. He could hear the screams clearly echoing off the insides of his mind, much like they had off the face of the orcish cliffs. The screams he’d caused her—a gap in the wall was an invitation that an open gate was not; one spoke of vulnerability while the other spoke only of people at their ease.

Sure enough, it was Pernie who spotted the doe and her fawn as they topped a modest hill. “Down there,” she whispered, breaking Altin from his trance. “See? By that tree. And look, she has a baby too.”

Altin would have ridden right on by if Pernie hadn’t spoken up. He blinked a few times, clearing his head, and then looked where Pernie was pointing down the slope. The deer grazed beneath the sweep of a weeping willow’s boughs, unaware of their approach.

“Yes, I see them,” he said. “You have good eyes.” He was reluctant to go after them, however, because the doe did have a fawn. He didn’t think Pernie would be too happy about killing the little one. They’d either have to kill it, or leave it motherless, and neither option was likely going to sit well with a child.

“Kill the mother first,” she said, “then the little one won’t go too far away.”

Altin turned in his saddle and gaped at her.

“It’s true,” she said, misinterpreting his incredulity. “Gimmel told me so, and he hunts all the time.”

Altin shook his head and had to suppress a grin. He didn’t deserve it anyway.

They dismounted and, after hobbling the horses, they slunk down into the grass, trying to keep the willow tree between them and the pair of deer. The wind was blowing across their path, preventing the deer from scenting them in the air, and they finally made it close enough for Altin to take a shot. His tired muscles protested as he drew the bowstring back, and when he shot, his missile flew harmlessly past, so much so that the doe didn’t bother looking up.

“You’re not very good at that, are you Master Altin?” Pernie said. There was no judgment in her tone. She merely observed.

“No,” he replied. “I’m not. I haven’t used one of these things since basic training.” He didn’t want to admit that he was sore and feeling weak.

“I can probably get the baby with my sling,” she offered.

“No. I’ll get it,” he said, not wanting to subject her to such a thing.

He drew the bow back again, grimacing, and fired another shot. This one was worse than the first. Pernie giggled. The doe remained oblivious to the shot, the errant projectile seeming little more than an insect buzzing by; but the child snickering did make the deer look up, forcing the pair of hunters to dive for cover in the grass.

“You sure you don’t want me to get the little one before they both run off?” Pernie offered. “At least Taot could have a snack.”

“I’m sure,” Altin said. “I’ll get it this time.” He wanted to cast a seeking enchantment on an arrow, but he pushed the thought aside. First off, he didn’t have one memorized, and secondly, he was no longer using magic anymore. He’d sworn it off, so he was going to have to shoot this deer just like anyone else would have to do.

“What’s that?” Pernie asked as Altin rose up on his hands to peer through the grass and see if he was clear to take another shot.

“What’s what?”

“That, around your neck.”

He looked down at the fast-cast amulet now dangling a few inches from the ground. “It’s an amulet. I made it for bringing my tower close to home. It’s just in case something goes wrong.”

“What can go wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Now be quiet so you don’t scare the deer away.”

“It’s not very pretty,” she observed.

“Yes, well, it only has to work.”

“How do you make it go?”

“You don’t ‘make it go.’ You just strike it. Like a match.”

“Oh,” she said.

He got back up onto one knee and fitted another arrow to the string. Pernie fell silent as Altin drew back the bow, this time trying to remember everything his drill instructor had said. He took careful aim and released another shaft. This one was too low and hit the ground early, sliding through the grass and coming to a stop right between the doe’s front feet. She jumped and darted off, perhaps thinking it was a snake, and she didn’t stop until she was eighty paces from the tree. The fawn followed along behind her, bounding through the grass as if its feet were made of springs.