The Prodigal Mage: Fisherman’s Children Book One (70 page)

He scrambled to his feet, the diary discarded. “You’re a sinkin’ bloody bastard, Arlin. You knew about this and you didn’t say a
word?
So you’re pissy with Sarle Baden. So
what?
That’s your shitty trouble; that ain’t to do with anybody else. But you’re so sinkin’ selfish, you don’t care who gets hurt just so long as
you
get what
you
want. And when you
don’t
…”

Eyeing him warily—and he was bloody
right
to be wary—Arlin uncoiled gracefully. Stood lightly on the balls of his feet, tensed. “Calm yourself, Rafel, you—”

His clenched fist came up, and the sparking glimfire flared hot. “
I ain’t finished, Arlin.
You kept your mouth shut to punish Sarle Baden and now there’s Goose out there somewhere in the wicked dark, and that Fernel bloody Pintte, and them others who never hurt you, and from what we heard through their talking stone it sounds like they’ve been punished right along with Baden. And for what?
For what?
So you can have
revenge?
”

The damp night air in the cave was shivering, shining golden. The ball of glimfire glowed like a small captive sun. Eyes glittering, Arlin stepped back.

“You’re wrong to blame me, Rafel,” he said. “You said it yourself, Tollin’s account also spoke of the gruesome illness that befell them. How can you blame me when—”

“Tollin never said a bloody word about voices!”

“Most likely because he knew he’d be laughed to shame!” Arlin retorted. “These are the mindrotted ramblings of a dying man, you fool. Who would give them credence? No-one with a whit of commonsense!”

“Da would’ve!” he said, so close to breaking, so close to smashing Arlin flat with his power. “After what he survived with Morg?
Da
would’ve known to take those ramblings serious. And if you’d given him the bloody chance, Arlin, if you’d told him, told
someone,
then—then—”

Then Goose wouldn’t be out there alone. Maybe dying. Maybe dead already. None of them would.

Arlin stepped back again. More than cautious now. More than wary. The poxy shit was afraid.

And so he bloody should be. He should be pissing himself.

“Rafel—” Arlin held both hands out. No shimmer of power in him, all his magic locked away. “It was a mistake. You’re right. I was angry with Sarle. My only thought was to deny him success. I didn’t believe the diary. I didn’t think anyone would get hurt. We still don’t know for certain that anyone
has
been hurt. For all we know their talking stone was damaged. For all we know we’ll stumble over them in a day or two.
Rafel
.”

Slowly, so slowly, the roaring in his mind faded. His burning blood cooled, and with it the urge to slaughter. He breathed out, hard, so dizzy he nearly staggered.

“As the official Council presence on this expedition,” said Tom Dimble, “I tell you, Lord Garrick, that we are heartily displeased.” He looked at his companions, and they all clambered to standing. “The Council should’ve been told of Marbury’s account before it allowed Mayor Pintte and Lord Baden to lead their expedition. Before
we
were sent in their footsteps. You might well have put us all in grave danger!”

Recovered most of his arrogance, Arlin shook his head. “And you wonder why I never mentioned this. You
Olken
… you start at your own shadows and somehow you’ve managed to turn the Council’s Doranen as cowardly as yourselves. If I’d shown you Marbury’s diary you and those other timid fools might not have allowed—”

“
Might
not?” said Hosh Clyne, his voice uneven with temper. “
Would
not. Permission for this expedition would
not
have been granted had we known—”

Arlin smiled, so unpleasant. “But it was. And we’re here. And—”

“We’ll not be here beyond tonight,” said Tom flatly. “This expedition is over. Mysterious, malevolent voices in the dark lands beyond these mountains? It’s too dangerous to continue. Not until this matter has been discussed by all the Council and prayed on by Barlsman Jaffee and—”

“
Prayed
on?” said Arlin, incredulous. “Discussed in Council? There’s no
time
for that. We must—”

“The decision’s made, Lord Garrick,” said Nib Hambly. “No point you arguing. You’re not the authority here. Come first light we’ll—”

“Keep on going,” said Rafel, stirring.
I can’t bloody believe it. I’m agreeing with Arlin. Again.
Much more of this and he’d drop dead with a brainstorm. “He’s right, Meister Hambly. Lur’s running out of time. And Goose and the others, they’re running out of time too, even faster. Dangerous or not, we’ve got to keep going.”

All three councilors were staring at him, dismayed. “You’d side with the
Doranen?
” said Clyne. “But Rafel—you
loathe
him.”

He shrugged. “No. Loathe is much too mild a word. But it happens I agree with him on this. I can loathe him and agree with him, Clyne. It ain’t that hard, ’specially with so much at stake.”

“Rafel
—
”

“Save your breath, Tom,” he said, suddenly so bloody tired. “If you want to turn tail, you go right ahead. I won’t stop you. Truth be told, I’ll prob’ly cheer. But
I
ain’t turning back and neither is Arlin. Any of one of you try to stop us and—” Another shrug. “Well. Ain’t no point in you trying to stop us, is there? We all know you might as well try spitting against the wind.”

The looks on their faces answered him.

“Good,” he said, nodding. “Now I’m a mite weary—and we need to be on our way again come dawn. Reckon I’ll get some sleep.” With a snap of his fingers he extinguished his glimlight, plunging their meagre cave into flame-flickered darkness.

As Tom and the others huddled close, muttering, he dropped to his groundsheet. Felt the abandoned diary under his arse, tugged it free, then held it out to Arlin. “Here.”

Arlin was staring at him, half-lit by the dying fire. “You think this makes a difference? You think because you strut and puff your bravado like a cock on a dung heap I’ll
forget
Westwailing?”

He grinned, not kindly. Lightly sleeping in his blood, all that power. “I don’t want you to forget Westwailing, Arlin. I want you to
remember
it. Every bloody time you’re tempted to do me a mischief, I want you to remember it. Now take this sinkin’ diary before I use it as bloody kindling.”

Tight-lipped, Arlin took the leather-bound book. Shoved it safely back in his pack, then hesitated. Looked up. “What happened to Vesty and the others. The way they died. You’re not… concerned?”

“Afraid, you mean,” he said, curling up beside his fire. “I’ve known since I were a sprat how Morg’s magic killed them.”

Arlin finished shoving the diary away and dropped cross-legged to his canvas groundsheet. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

“No?” he said, yawning. “There you go. Fancy that.”

Tom and his Council friends were still huddled. Then their whispering stopped, and in the faint firelight their mingled shadows separated.

“We’ll continue,” Tom said coldly. “But Speaker Shifrin will hear of this, and the rest of the Council. You can both expect to be severely censured on our return.”

Arlin didn’t bother to reply. Rafel just sighed. Grunted. Let them make of that what they would. Tom and his namby-pamby friends chose to decide he’d accepted their authority, and all three settled themselves down to sleep. Beyond the cave, the rain continued.

And that was the first night.

A sodden dawn woke them, and the journey continued.

The long, wearisome days passed slowly. By their third sunset the constant rain had dribbled and died, along with any pretending that they were five men with something in common. Tom and his fellow-councilors even stopped their private whispering, all complaints exhausted. Strength was needed just to keep going. The Doranen hexes on the rocks and trees made sure they never once took a wrong step, and thanks to Tollin and Vont Marbury they knew where to find the natural springs bubbling through cracks and crevices in the mountains. Knew that the bright green lizards with the blue eyes were safe to eat, provided the sac of poison was cut from each scaly armpit… and that the stub-tailed brown lizards with the orange tongues were instant death. Knew that the dull blue berries on the scraggly vines wrapped around the mountains’ stunted saplings tasted bitter, but would help them stay awake… and the pale, foamy-headed fungus that fed on rotted logs would make a man vomit till he turned his insides out.

As they fought their way over the unforgiving mountains, hating them too much to care for their wild beauty, they stumbled across signs that Fernel Pintte and his group had journeyed ahead of them. Boot prints dried around this water spring, and that one. Recently broken branches. Charred embers where a campfire had burned. Roasted animal bones picked to ivory by small, busy ants. The going continued cruel. Phena hadn’t lied: Barl’s Mountains were merciless.

Lying each night on hard rock, or gathered leaf-litter, staring at the tree-latticed sky or hiding from rain and mist beneath his broad-brimmed leather hat, Rafel thought about Barl and the terrified mages she’d brought with her from the Lost Dorana he and Arlin were so desperate to find. Thought of the children.
Children
. It was a bloody wonder all the sprats didn’t perish. And babes-in-arms. There’d been babes-in-arms too, according to Doranen history and stories.

Hundreds of Doranen, starving and terrified, running for their lives from Morg. Hard to imagine. Though they brought such trouble with them, hard not to feel sad.

How can I blame them? You’d be crazy not to run.

With the unknown lands beyond the mountains crawled closer with every sunrise, the pain writhing in his blood and bones darkened. Grew more intense. As though now he didn’t only feel the echoes of bitter magic in the mountains… but also in what lay beyond them. The ruined lands Tollin and Vont Marbury had run from. That Da had said would never change. But still, still, he clung to hope.

Da could be wrong. He’s got to be wrong. Or we’ve come a sinkin’ long way for nowt.

And that was all he’d let himself think of his father. If he let himself think any deeper he’d stir his fears to waking. Start to wonder if…

Even his body’s constant thrumming of pain was more bearable than that.

Conversation continued scarce. What did any of them have to say to one another? The councilors were friends, true, but exhaustion had silenced them. Of the three men only Hambly, the farmer, was used to such relentless physical toil. Tom and Clyne, City folk both, suffered for their comfortable lives. He wanted to feel sorry for them, but it was hard.

I bloody told you not to come.

As for Arlin, he was showing the strain of their travelling, too. Like all of them he was scraped and cut and bruised from clambering over boulders, over fallen trees, into gullies and out again. No Doranen magic to ease his way—it was too dangerous. Could start a rockslide, or worse. Even he could see that. Did he still mourn his father? Watching him sideways from time to time, Rafel found it hard to tell. The way Rodyn had snapped and snarled, the way Arlin never stood up to him… had there been love there? Was there true grief? How could any son love a father who treated him so cold?

But that kind of thinking sailed him too close to dangerous waters. Better to dwell on less difficult distractions, like his never-ending pain.

Once he spoke to Arlin on something personal. Something not to do with trapping lizards or finding water or making sure a guiding hex wasn’t corrupted. On the nineteenth night of their brutal journey, wrenched and skinned and too tired for sleep, he sat propped against the scorched trunk of a lightning-struck tree and struggled to breathe through the seething agitation in his blood. His small fire, carefully walled with loose rocks, threw a little heat and light. Better than nothing, but not enough to chase the deep-seated chill from his bones. He was used to it now. Had glumly accepted he’d likely never be properly warm again.

Beneath him, around him, the poisoned earth whispered. Here in the wilderness, just like in Lur’s Home Districts, there was nothing stood between him and what he felt.

A good job Deenie ain’t here. She’d be curled up screaming right about now.

Spikily aware of nearby Arlin’s brooding gaze on him, he opened his gritty eyes. “You don’t feel a sinkin’ thing, do you?”

Stubbled with beard, his blond hair dirty, matted with sweat, Arlin looked as battered and exhausted as he felt. Unhealthily thin, the flesh fallen away in his face, ’cause the jerky and nuts and hard-tack biscuits, the lizards and berries and occasional birds’ eggs, they kept starvation at bay, and no more.

I’d bloody kill for a ginger cake.

“What? What are you talking about?” said Arlin, croaky with weariness. Snappish that he’d been caught staring.

Rafel let his head bump against the rough dead bark behind him. “No. You feel nowt. Reckon this is the first and last time I ever felt jealous of a bloody Doranen.”

Arlin snorted. “That you’ll admit to.”

Sitting well apart, like they always did, Tom and his friends fed twigs to their own campfire. Pretending they were the three of them alone. Just as thin, just as filthy and stubbled. Regretting their predicament, now it was days too late to change their minds.