Magesong
Authors: James R. Sanford
MAGESONG
JAMES R. SANFORD
This book is a work of
fiction. Any resemblance to events or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.
Text Copyright © 2012 by James R. Sanford
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written
permission from the author.
To Tom, for many,
many reasons
Table of
Contents
CHAPTER 1: A Troubadour's
Quest
CHAPTER 2: The Barren
Springtime
1st INTERLUDE: An Object of
Desire
CHAPTER 3: The Song of
Returning
CHAPTER 4: A Message for
the Stranger
2nd INTERLUDE: The Supplicants of
the Final Grammarie
CHAPTER 5: The Magician's
Passage
CHAPTER 13: The Poorest
Quarters
CHAPTER 14: A Brief
Darkness at Midnight
CHAPTER 15: The Sound of
the Depths
Graifalmia held her breath as she placed the spirit box into
the shallow notch atop the stone. The power held. It touched.
“Master,” Lorenna said, “it is very beautiful.”
“Yes, as the forests and streams of the Pallenborne once
were. That was the genius of Derndra — understanding that only beauty could
capture the
Aevir
.” For how long had she tried to release the great elementals?
How many months of pouring over every scrap of writing that Derndra had left
behind, how many days of ritual incantations? She had even invoked the Unknowable
Forces themselves.
Lorenna went to her master and took her hand. “I know you
are disappointed, but this is a great act of power, greater than your defeat of
Derndra and the breaking of his grammarie. By using the same craft he used to
make the stones of summoning, you have made the touching stones. You have
defeated his legacy.”
“The work is incomplete. I still have hope of releasing the
Aevir
from their prisons. Yet I fear the very nature of magic is
weakening because of their imprisonment, and as that happens it becomes even
more difficult to free them. Too much power has been used in these final days.
Derndra’s sorcery has almost undone the Essa itself.”
“Final days?”
“This war of mages we have finally ended will signal the
last days of this age. The high age of the magician is almost gone, and you
will be the last of my students to wield power as we now know it. Soon you
must become the teacher and take students of your own. You, Lorenna, and those
who come after you must learn to live in the new age to come, and you must
create a way to keep the art magic alive even as the nature of the Essa
changes. This is the burden of your generation, and it is a greater one than
any I have shouldered.”
“Will it really change so much?”
“It must. Look how the face of the world has changed — coastlines
altered, whole islands sunk, grasslands made into deserts. The lifeforce of
magic is connected to this world, so it too will be altered. And I will be
thankful it was not destroyed.”
Graifalmia closed the glass doors of the inner shrine and
led Lorenna outside. The mountain top stood bathed in sunlight; it was a mild
day. Far below, the valley lay dusty and barren. Nothing remained of the camp
where the craftsmen and laborers had lived.
“Master, the stone in the valley, the summoning stone, why
did you change it into a touching stone? It would have been simpler to destroy
it.”
Graifalmia shook her head. “I only knew that the Powers
demanded it. That stone has been marked by the Unknowable, and many fates are
bound to that stone. Perhaps a people will grow up around it. Perhaps they
will touch the spirit through the stone. Who am I to say?”
“We have planted well,” Lorenna said. “With
E’alaisenne
upon the touching stone the lifeforce of the land is returning. I can feel
it. This valley will be lush and fair once again, though we may not live to
see it to its fullness.”
The Essa was strong here. Graifalmia could feel the ebb and
flow of time across the years. “We must ensure that this and the other secret
shrines are not forgotten. It must be passed down with all the secret
knowledge of our order. Because Derndra had many students who were never
found, and I can promise you that they will not forget. And they will surely
teach their students of the unlimited power they had once wielded.”
The reach across the inlet was deceptively wide, and
darkness, stealing out across the waters, began to encircle the little boat.
He never would have tried the crossing had he not seen the pinpoint light on
the other side, but now an hour had passed and he had only come to the halfway
mark, a steep rocky headland dividing the bay into two deep channels. He had
lost sight of the tiny beacon.
The storm had started as an innocent grey smudge on the
horizon, soon becoming a black chariot rolling swiftly landward from the
Western Sea. Yet it was only a single squall, the skies to the north still
cloudless in the early twilight, a handful of the brightest stars resting
overhead. He had guessed that it would pass behind him and started across the
bay on a fast broad-reach. Unexpectedly, the wind shifted toward his stern
quarter, and the course of the squall shifted with it.
The boat creaked with complaint, a fierce gust of wind
striking it abeam. Fine mist stung the windward side of his face.
"No more," Reyin said, though no one was there to
hear him, and swung the tiller over to run straight at the headland. The wind
rose to drive the skiff hard before it, and soon he dropped the sail, removed
the centerboard, and started rowing toward a boulder-studded shoreline.
Massive upthrusts of bare rock stood darkly over him like the shadows of gargantuan
fingers. And he felt the weird come upon him.
He paused and listened for the pulse of the greater world
around him. Soon to be caught in a storm, he thought the moment would be that
of the winter dragon — the need for shelter. When he heard the vibration of
the Essa, he knew it to be the moment of the hand, and he was surprised, and he
was not surprised. He was in the northern lands.
He had never before travelled farther north than the
mist-enshrouded land called Drendusia, still a few hundred leagues south of the
Pallenborne. But old Ty'kojin had told him many of the strange ways the
Unknowable Forces manifested themselves here. Designing powers existed. One
could be touched by them, and that which was seemingly chance often turned out
to be no chance at all.
A narrow gravel beach near the point looked like the only
landing place, and as darkness at last closed with him, he jumped from the bow
and pulled the boat halfway out of the water. The shore rose steeply and
tugging soon became futile as he lost his footing in the loose gravel. Alone,
he could do little else but wade into the sea and push.
The coldness shocked him. He had swum in the ocean at
Olorande a month before, on the first day of spring. It had been cold,
bracing, not like this. A man would freeze to death in this, he thought as he
got a solid foothold on a submerged rock and bulled the skiff onto the land.
He took all his things from the boat, placing them in a wide
hole behind an enormous boulder on the high ground. After unstepping the mast
and securing it to the inside, he managed to turn the hull over, keel pointing
skyward. Even in the deepest dusk he saw that this was a desolate piece of
land. Rock. Dirt. Little else. Not even driftwood for a fire.
He returned to the sheltered place, opened his store box,
and found the remainder of the morning biscuit on top of the dried apricots and
some very ripe Ravvendon cheese. He ate in the dark, avoiding the frustration
of trying to light a lantern in turbulent airs. At last he wrapped himself in
a wool blanket and listened to the raucous symphony played by the winds and the
waves. And he sang softly to himself. And he liked the sound of his singing.
It had not always been so with him, and in his youth it had
not been so with his teachers as well. He thought of the music academy in
Tamurr, forgetting the name of the singing master who had tormented him,
remembering well the face. He left the school; the master didn't leave him for
many years.
He laid out the spare jib for a bed and tried to doze. He
could usually sleep anywhere when he was tired, but the wind continued to rise
and now a wall of rain slammed hard against the huge boulder, the air suddenly
icy, his blanket quickly getting damp from the backlash, the warmth seeping out
of his body. He sat up, then sat still.
He felt for the Essa. It hid away from him, sat brooding in
silence.
Had he been a true magician it would not have turned away. Artemes
could have seized the Essa in an instant, would have bespoke this storm to
calm. But Artemes was a master even among true magicians.
The squall should have passed
over by then, yet the wind continued to rise and the rain fell harder, coarse
sleet falling with it. Perhaps this storm had sought him, was part of the hand.
He pulled his bedding close to the boulder as he could, almost underneath it,
and got out of the spray. He found his winter coat and settled down for a
miserable night. Blowing at half a gale, the storm bedded there with him.
Cold. No sunrise. Grey emerging from the black. Low
overcast sky. A briny smell.
He awoke fully, aching with dull tiredness, and stood to
face a dark choppy sea. And no boat. Wait, there it was, about twenty yards
from the place he had landed. He scrambled across the rocks to where it lay.
It had not been much damaged, nothing a shipwright couldn't
repair easily, but it was no longer useful as a boat. Dimietri's boat. Oh, Dimietri
had made it sound easy. Yes, just take my little skiff, stay close to shore,
it will be like day-sailing, twelve days with fair wind, winter is long over,
it will be beautiful. It had instead been ten days of overexposure to salt and
sun and wind. And now not only had he wrecked Dimietri's boat, he still sat
fifty leagues from Noraggen in a land of few people and no roads
.
He changed into dry clothing and considered his options.
The tiny light he had seen across the bay could have come from a town or
homestead. It could have been a bandit camp as well. But it appeared to be
only a long day's walk around the inlet, and he would be going in the direction
of Noraggen as well. The mountains on the other side lay thick with evergreen
forest. If he found no sign of civilization there, at least he could build a
fire and cook himself a hot meal.
He sat on a stone and ate walnuts for breakfast, listening
to the sound and rhythm of the morning after the storm. He stuffed a knapsack
with food, filled his empty wineskins, then forced himself to drink from the
water cask until it nearly made him sick. He lashed his bedroll to the
underside of the knapsack, and his instrument cases to the topside. He wrapped
the other things in the spare jib and laid the bundle in the dry place where he
had slept, under the boulder. He thought about the quadrant Dimietri had
loaned him along with the boat. He no longer needed to measure latitude, but
it was too valuable to leave behind with the elements. He folded a
handkerchief over it and slid it into the oilskin bag with his pistol and
powder. With waterskins across one shoulder and the leather bag across the
other, he slung the overloaded knapsack onto his back and started down the
shoreline knowing that a hard day lay ahead.
He should have returned to his father after quitting the
music academy, to the house in Kandin where his mother had died. He had been
too ashamed — why was that? He couldn't remember. Had he felt like a failure
at the age of sixteen? That had been part of it. But if he had gone home he
would not have met Artemes, found his way to Ty'kojin and learned the ways of
the Essa. If only Ty'kojin had lived longer, if only he had found the old
magician earlier in life.
A cliff front that had collapsed onto the shore and into the
ocean soon halted his march. The jagged stone shards stood big as houses, the
narrow paths between them filled with sharp loose rocks and man-sized boulders.
The footing treacherous, the going hard, he wound his way
through this chance-built labyrinth for nearly two hours and found that he had
come only half a league. He looked ahead and saw that it was a waste of time
following the shoreline, for even past the place of fallen rocks the steep
ground would make for a slow traverse, but close on his right a fallen column
of boulders curved upward to the heights of the headland. The way would be
better along the ridge.
He didn't stop to rest until he gained the top. The
northwest wind dug into his chest, forcing him to button his coat. It was then
that the chills struck. He sat down, shaking hard, afraid at first, but it soon
passed. He chided himself for letting his underclothes get so sweaty during
the climb, but up here the walking would go quicker, and he might even get to
the woodland before nightfall. The days had grown considerably longer as he
travelled north, and the sun set, he reckoned, at about nine o'clock. He drank
some water and ate two walnuts.
The way along the ridge was less obstructed and more
exposed. The wind pushed at him relentlessly, and as the sun passed its zenith
his stride shortened, his gait slowed. A brief rest helped little. It wasn't
the exertion, he told himself, it was the awful night and the lack of sleep.
The afternoon found him almost stumbling with fatigue, and
he caught his eyelids falling closed even as he went. He sat down right where
he stood, and in the most bitter of springtime winds fought the urge to go to
sleep.
His eyes flew open and he sat up
stiffly. He was falling ill. It was suddenly very clear that he suffered from
more than weariness. Why did he act as if he were on a summer hike in the
Syrolian Alps, with a quaint village in every valley?
A smile on his lips
And a jump and a start,
The minstrel took skips
With a song in his heart
.
Perhaps for the first time he couldn't just skip off and go
down the road, counting on his sense of charm and knowing what pleased people
to see him through his current trouble. No one lived on this mountain of
stone. The place lay empty except for a lone sea eagle high on a nearby
pinnacle. If he were a true magician, he could enter the Dream of the Winged
and for a time be one with the sea eagle, seeing through its eyes, flying along
the coast as he willed, easily finding the nearest town.
He had found himself to be a natural talent at dreaming,
there in the cabin on the shoulder of Wind Peak. Artemes had taught him much
of that craft in the months after Ty'kojin's death. That mountain was a place
of power, one of the rare places where the Essa flowed into the mundane world
and anyone who knew a spell could perform it as if he were a magician. Only in
such a place could a master teach the art magic. The mark of a true magician
was that he could summon the life force of magic from the realm of power.
He reached for the Essa. It was not there. Not for him.
Then he felt something else, or the lack of it rather. A wrong, an absence,
but he didn't know what it could be. He thought about having to survive alone
while marching five leagues a day for ten days. Could he do it? He had never
been much of an outdoorsman. He could shoot well enough, but he had only vague
notions of how to hunt or how to dress freshly-killed game. And he didn't even
have an ax, couldn't build the simplest lean-to. Certainly this last gasp of
winter would soon quiet — only a week before he had been sailing warm waters.
Maybe he would make it through. But he could do it only if he didn't fall
ill. He needed a fire.
He struggled to his feet and continued following the high
rocky way among slender pinnacles, stunted columns, and delicate arches of
stone, the spine of the ridge at times rising to allow a view of the Wolf's Teeth,
the highest peaks of the central Pallenborne, some thirty leagues to the
northeast. Those summits stayed snow-capped the year round, and immense fields
of ice flowed westward from them towards the sea. He would have to pass them
to get to Noraggen.
He at last came to a branching spur of the ridge, and it
sloped down to the tip of the vee-shaped inlet. As he shuffled steadily
downhill, drowsy and tired, he saw a dark mass lying near the shore and headed
straight for it. Little of the day remained, but he was off the tortuous
headland.
As he had hoped, the dark thing turned out to be a tangle of
driftwood. One piece looked like it had been cut with a tool. That was a good
sign. He built a small fire and sat close to it. Later, he ate boiled noodles
and onions. The night was dry, but he spread a tarpaulin over his blankets
anyway and slipped his instrument cases under the covers. He slept with his
arms around them.
He knew he was very sick even before he came fully awake,
and when he tried to stand he knew it was worse than he thought, his head
feeling like an old hard stump and all his bones hurting. Then the chills
brought him to his knees. He slid his bedding next to the kindling he had
prepared the night before and crawled under the blankets to flick sparks off a
piece of flint until one caught hold of the bundle of tender.
The fire made him feel better, and he thought for a moment
that he might be alright after all. But this was how people died in the
outdoors — for someone alone a crippling injury was all it took. Perhaps he
could get up and walk one league this afternoon. Perhaps this was as bad as it
would get. If it got a great deal worse and he was bedridden in this wilderness
for several days, then he would likely die of thirst. Tomorrow he would be out
of water.
He boiled four potatoes, ate two, and drank the dirty soup
in which they had cooked. After an hour of fitful rest he gave up trying to
sleep, rose and packed his things. He still felt bad. Fully laden, he broke
into a fierce, feverish sweat before he had gone a hundred steps, even with the
easy pace he set for himself.