The Innocent Mage (59 page)

‘Records show that before today the oldest Doranen to finally exhibit his magical heritage was twelve and a half years old!’ retorted the king. ‘Gar is almost twice that!’

Durm shrugged. ‘Nevertheless … it is not unknown.’

‘So,’ said Gar. He thought he should be screaming. Dancing. Laughing … or crying. He could do none of those things. With the taste of burned oranges still lingering on his tongue and the memory of a power so grand and grim thrumming yet through his bones, all he could do was breathe. ‘I am a true Doranen after all.’

The idea was obliterating. In the blink of an eye his world was filled with possibilities. A wife … a family … the right to stand equal with the rest of his race …

Smiling, weeping, his father leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Yes, my son. Yes. You are a true Doranen.’

If one more person tried to squeeze into the Goose, thought Dathne, the walls were going to split asunder and the roof would crash down on all their heads. Matt had to press his lips against her ear and shout to make himself heard above the din.

‘But what does it mean, Dathne? It don’t make any sense. One more magician in the Usurper’s House makes the Wall safer, doesn’t it?’

‘I don’t know what it means, Matt!’ she shouted back. ‘I told you, I’m stuck. Can’t see any further forward than around the next corner, and that’s only if I stick my neck out. Looks like we’re back to waiting.’

‘Waiting!’ said Matt, disgusted, and drained his tankard dry. ‘I hate bloody (waiting!’

She had to grin. ‘You sounded just like Asher, then.’

‘Aye, well, reckon I —’ Matt began, imitating, then broke off and pointed at the door. ‘Speaking of …’

A huge clamour from the Goose’s patrons rattled the rafters: Asher had arrived. The walls and roof remained intact, just. Aleman Derrig’s customers mobbed their man; hands stretched to pluck at his shirt sleeves, to tug at his elbow, to hold him fast and make him answer their quarrelsome questions. He withstood it for a minute then shoved all the shovers aside to climb up onto the bar.

‘Shut your damned cakeholes, all of you!’ he bellowed. ‘Shut up and I’ll tell you what’s the business! Or at least as much as I can!’

A ragged silence fell. Dathne exchanged a raised-eyebrow look with Matt and sat back in her seat, waiting.

‘Right,’ said Asher. He was still dressed in his parade finery, though it was looking a little the worse for wear. He was looking the worse for wear, too, strained about the eyes and tense in the shoulders and back. ‘His Highness is fine. The king’s seen him, the Master Magician’s seen him, Royal Pother Nix’s seen him. 1/they thought it’d help they’d get in i vitinery to see him. He ain’t dyin’. He ain’t even sick. He’s just got his magic, is all.’ A fresh wave of clamouring questions. Asher let it rage for a moment, looking tired, then lifted both his hands till the racket died down. ‘That’s all I got to say. There’ll be a royal announcement presently, I reckon. In the meantime you could put yourselves to good use and start spreadin’ the word.’ Laughter, protests and a few jeering catcalls. Asher ignored them. From her booth up the back, Dathne caught his eye. Crooked her finger at him and beckoned. He hesitated, then shook his head and indicated the Goose’s door. ‘He wants us to meet him outside,’ said Dathne, and pulled at Matt’s arm. ‘Come on.’ The street was almost as packed with people as the inn.

Every second one of them recognised Asher and stopped to beg him for news. ‘This is bloody ridiculous,’ he muttered,

and led them round the back to the Goose’s service alley. It stank of stale beer and rotten cabbage.

‘The prince is really all right?’ said Matt. ‘You’re sure?’ Asher glowered. ‘No, I just said that ‘cause I felt like lyin’.’ Dathne shoved Matt with her elbow. ‘What happens now, do you know?’

‘With Gar?’ He dragged his fingers through his hair. ‘Don’t have a bloody clue. But I’ll tell you what’s about to happen with me. Come tomorrow I’m goin’ to be the only body in that whole bloody Tower workin’ as any kind of Olken Administrator. I’m goin’ to be up to my bloody eyeballs in Meister Glospottle’s piss problems and Mistress Banfrey’s lace shortages and Barl bloody knows what else!’ His eyes widened in horror. ‘Sink me\ I might even have to sit court at Justice Hall!’

Indeed a horrifying thought. Dathne took a deep breath, choked on it, and said, ‘What about Gar? This magic, it’s unprecedented. Do you know how, or ---‘

‘Why no, Dathne, I’m afraid I don’t,’ said Asher with exaggerated care. ‘My best friend Durm and I ain’t had time for today’s cosy little chat over afternoon tea.’

‘All right,’ she said, recognising incipient revolt. ‘Clearly this isn’t a good time.’

‘No, clearly it bloody well ain’t!’ said Asher.

‘Don’t shout at her,’ snapped Matt. ‘None of this is Dathne’s fault.’

‘Well it ain’t my bloody fault either!’ shouted Asher. ‘But who cares? Reckon I’m about to get covered in shit anyway! First Westwailing Harbour, then him and his mouldy ole books and now this! Barl bloody knows where we’ll end up with this! You should’ve seen the look on that Fane’s face when all those flowers started sproutin’. I’m tellin’ you, if looks could kill I reckon we’d’ve had a head start on a bloody funeral!’

‘So …’ Dathne tried a sympathetic smile, to see if that would calm things down. ‘You’re going to be fairly occupied in the next little while.’

The smile worked; Asher deflated, and kicked at the dirty ground. ‘Looks like.’

She patted him on the arm. ‘Well, you know where I am if there’s anything 1 can do. He must be pleased.’

He gave her a blank look. ‘Who?’

‘The prince. He must be pleased that at last he’s found I his magic’

Asher shrugged. ‘S’pose. I ain’t seen him yet.’ He sighed. I I’d best get back. That ole Darran’s flappin’ about like a chicken with its head cut off and bloody Willer’s no use at I ail’

Dathne stared. ‘Since when have you been so concerned I about Darran?’

‘1 ain’t bloody concerned,’ said Asher. ‘But if the ole 1 crow does hisself a mischief while he’s flappin’ you can bet your arse he’ll find a way to blame it on me!’

As he stomped off down the alley, Dathne let her head fall against Matt’s shoulder. ‘Jervale protect us.’

He nodded. ‘Dathne, I don’t like this.’

She stepped away from him. ‘It’s not for you and me to like or dislike. It’s Prophecy working itself out. All we can do about it is be patient and see what happens next.’

Matt turned away, hands fisted on his hips. ‘This can’t be natural. Magic comin’ on a Doranen so late in his life.’

‘It’s unusual, I grant you. But unusual doesn’t mean unnatural, Matt. You know as well as I their magic is a spiky thing, abrupt and uncomfortable. We can’t ever hope to fully understand it.’

He wasn’t convinced. ‘These past days … I haven’t felt right.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Don’t know, exactly,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Not sure I can put it into words. But I feel the world around us, Dathne, and something’s changed.’

‘Changed how?’

Frustrated, he tugged at his weskit. T don’t know, I tell you. Look, I ain’t a Seer, like you. I’m not Jervale’s Heir. I don’t have visions and I can’t scry to save myself. All I’m good at are horses and … and … feeling the way the world is.’

‘And you think it feels different?’

‘I know it does. Different, and worse than different. Wrong. I just don’t know bow, exactly.’

‘Why didn’t you say something before now?’

He shrugged. ‘I thought I was imagining it. I thought it was just jitters, after the storm. Losing Bellybone, and Thunder Crow. Worrying about Asher. It’s not like I can prove anything. How can you prove a feeling?’

She sighed. ‘I’ll be honest with you, Matt. I’ve not felt what you have. But then, as you say, we’ve all got different talents. You’ve always been especially tuned to the natural world.’ She thought hard. ‘It could be you’ve sensed Gar’s blossoming. Whenever a Doranen child manifests his or her powers it changes the tune magic sings in this place. Being so much older, with his Doranen magic repressed for so long … perhaps that’s it.’

‘Perhaps,’ Matt said after a moment. ‘But what if it’s not?’

Unfairly, she felt a stab of anger at him. As if she didn’t have enough to be losing sleep over. Then common sense reasserted itself. No point in having a voice of reason to hand if you stoppered its mouth every time it said something you didn’t like. ‘I’m going to sound like a corncrake, jabbering the same old song over and over again,’ she sighed. ‘But —’

‘I know,’ he said glumly. ‘We just have to wait. Well, like I said before — I hate bloody waiting.’

‘And so do I hate bloody waiting,’ she snapped, losing patience. ‘But we’re like a woman with child, Matt. We’ve had a long gestation and a false cramp or two and now we’re eager for our waters to break. Well, they’ll break when they’re ready and not before, and sticking a knife between our legs to hasten matters won’t do much beyond making us bloody and putting the whole damned business at risk. Is that what you want?’

He was glaring. ‘Of course it ain’t.’

‘Well, then. It’s getting late. Best you go and tend your horses and leave me to decide when we’ve waited long enough. Seeing as how I am Jervale’s Heir.’

That earned her an even dirtier look. ‘Fine.’ He bowed. ‘As madam desires.’

She let him go unhindered. His ruffled feathers would smooth soon enough. In the meantime, she’d take some time to sink herself in meditation and see if she couldn’t sense for herself whatever it was he had felt … and been so unnerved by.

In the end Gar sent everyone away. His parents. Durm. Nix. Especially Nix. Yes, it was amazing. Yes, it was a miracle. But dear Barl save him, he needed solitude. Time. A chance to breathe and come to terms with this tumultuous reshaping of his life. He couldn’t imagine feeling any more shocked and disarrayed than if he’d woken one day and looked in the mirror to find himself female.

Escaping to his private garden, where he could be sure of undisturbed privacy, he sat on a carved wooden bench in the late afternoon sunshine and let the perfumed air caress his skin. Let the birds in the trees around him sing and soothe his overwrought mind.

I am a magician. A true Doranen. My father’s son, at last.

He wasn’t sure if it was safe to feel so much joy at once. Could mere flesh contain it? Surely not. Surely any moment now his skin must burst and all his joy come pouring out, as golden and as glowing as the magic that burned and bubbled in his blood. In a heartbeat, in the blink of an eye, he was remade. Reborn. And nothing would ever be the same again.

As though to prove it he snapped his fingers and conjured a glowing ball of glimfire. Obedient, opalescent and there, right before his eyes, simply because he wished it, the coalesced magic bobbed on the breeze.

Suddenly, one just wasn’t enough.

He conjured a second ball. Then a third. Conjured more, until twenty balls of glimfire hovered in the air above him. Enchanted, he conjured them different colours. With a thought, nothing more. The ease of it stole his breath anew. Then he made them dance. Simply, at first, as he sought to find the balance of energy that would keep them under his control. Then more daringly, and more daringly still, until they looped and swirled and flirted like live things, butterflies or birds or some other, magical creatures, celebrating his great good fortune.

Then, without warning, the multicoloured balls of glimfire exploded into black smoke. He cried out in shock and protest and sudden fear as through the drifting remnants of his dancing glimfire Fane crossed the close-clipped lawn towards him, her crimson cloak billowing about her like blood. Her face was obdurate, carved in stone. There was no joy in her at all.

He leapt to his feet, furious. ‘Why did you do that?’

‘You think magic’s a game? Is that what you think?’

Heart pounding, he watched her halt before him. ‘No. Of course I don’t.’

‘You think it’s all pretty lights and showing off?’

There was pain in her eyes, as well as fury and disgust and something else he couldn’t define. He let his own pain show in return. ‘I don’t understand you, Fane. Why can’t you be pleased for me?’

She laughed. ‘Are you truly so stupid?’

‘I must be. You’ll have to explain it to me. Explain why my own sister, my only sister, whom I love, though sometimes she makes it hard, could so resent my miracle.’

She didn’t answer him straightaway. Pushed past him to the garden bench and sat on it, arms extended along the back, face tipped back to drink the sunshine. He stood there, watching her. Waiting.

‘On my fifth birthday,’ she said at last, eyes closed, ‘Durm took me to watch Papa work the Weather Magic.

The blood and the pain scared me so much he had to take me out of the Weather Chamber and slap me into silence. When I finally stopped screaming, do you know what he said to me?’

Aching, Gar shook his head. ‘No.’

‘He said, “You are this kingdom’s only hope. One day it will be your duty to call the rain and the snow, to sing the seeds in springtime and slumber the earth in winter. In doing this you will keep the Wall strong so that no harm can come to us from beyond the mountains. But if you fail, or deny your destiny, the Wall will fall and with it every man, woman and child in the kingdom. Abandon your childish dreams and desires, Fane. You are no ordinary girl, and your life has never been your own.”’

‘That was —’ He stopped. Cleared his throat. ‘That was cruel. He shouldn’t have done that.’

She opened her eyes; they were sharp with derision. ‘Of course he should. He was right. I was born to be a WeatherWorker. So every day since that one I have sweated and bled and wept, learning how to be one. How to be this kingdom’s only hope.’ She slid off the bench, sinuously, and in her pellucid eyes stirred something dark and dangerous. ‘I tell you this, brother. I did not sweat and bleed and weep in vain.’

He stared at her, helpless. ‘Fane, you have to believe me, I’m not interested in usurping your place. I don’t want to be the next WeatherWorker.’

Her tapering fingers became talons and her beautiful face twisted into ugliness, contorted with hate and despair and a lifetime of remembered whispers. ‘Liar\ You think I don’t know what you’re planning? Of course I know. There’s only room for one cripple in this family, Gar, we both know that. And now that you’ve got your precious magic you’re going to make sure I’m it! Well, it’s not going to happen. Do you hear me? I won’t let you cripple me! I’ll kill you first!’