The Prodigal Mage: Fisherman’s Children Book One (24 page)

“Rafel?” said Deenie. Her voice was nearly a whimper. “Rafel, what’s the matter? What—”

And then the chamber door opened, and Mama was standing there with
such
a look on her face.

“Rafel? Deenie? Jervale’s mercy, what do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. “Do you know what time it is? Back to bed at once, young lady. And you, Rafe! You should be in bed too. There’ll be no more supper apples for that pony if
this
is how you carry on!”

Deenie tumbled off the bed, swallowing a sob. She never could help snivelling if ever a voice got raised at her. “Sorry, Mama.”

“I should think so. And you, Rafe?” said Mama, as Deenie squeezed past her on bare, scurrying feet. “Are you sorry too?”

No, he wasn’t, but if he said that, Stag wouldn’t get his supper apple for nigh on a week, most like. So he ducked his head. “Aye, Mama.”

“Ha,” said Mama. She was a tough one to fool. “A likely story.”

She still sounded cross, but not
too
cross. So he looked up again. “Mama…”

“What is it?” she said, and came properly into his chamber. “Rafe? What were you and Deenie talking on? You didn’t tell her anything, did you? About what happened today?”

No, Mama. She told me
. But he couldn’t say that, either. “Course not. You said not to say.”

“Good,” she said, and sat on the bed beside him. Smoothed her hand over his hair. “Because she might be bright as a button but she’s still a little girl. A shy little girl, Rafe. She’s not rough and tumble bold, like you.”

Rough and tumble bold
. Mama had never called him that before. He liked it. “Deenie’s a watering pot,” he said, pulling a face. “Boo hoo hoo, all the time.”

Mama’s fingers pinched his ear. “That’s not nice, Rafe. Big brothers look after their little sisters. They don’t call them names.”

“Yes, Mama,” he said, like a good boy, because he didn’t want her taking away his nightly visit to the stables. “Sorry, Mama.”

“Wheedler,” she said, half-smiling, half-scolding. “As bad as your father. Now into your nightshirt, my fine fellow, and bed.”

“All right,” he said. “I will.”

This time she kissed his forehead. “Good boy.”

“Mama…” he said, as she stood. “Da—Da—”

“What about Da?”

Can he save us? Will he save us?
But he couldn’t get the words past the lump in his throat. Mama dropped to a crouch, and took his cold hands in hers.

“Rafel, you’re not to fret,” she said softly, her eyes hard and bright. “Nowt bad is going to happen. Your da won’t let it. Your da is the strongest, bravest man in the kingdom. We’re safe as safe, all of us. I promise.”

He nodded, feeling his eyes sting, seeing her face blur. He hadn’t snivelled once when he was telling her and Da about what he’d felt in the riverpond… but now he couldn’t help it.

“Hush, now,” Mama said. “And into bed. When I come back I want to find you fast asleep.”

“Yes, Mama,” he said, gulping a bit.

As she closed the chamber door behind her, he kicked off his boots. Yanked off his socks. Stripped off his shirt and trews and smalls, leaving them draped all anyhow over his chamber chest, and slithered into his nightshirt. Dove beneath his blankets and doused the glimfire lamps with a finger-snap.

Your da is the strongest, bravest man in the kingdom. We’re safe as safe, all of us. I promise.

Hugging Mama’s words tight, his fears banished for now, and not needing Tollin’s parchment, he drifted to sleep.

A
sher hadn’t thought to find himself back in the royal crypt so soon. After leaving Darran to sleep here, he’d thought he were done with the place. It prodded him in old, half-healed wounds he needed to leave alone. Not just for his sake, but for everyone else’s too. It was those closest to him, the ones he loved best, Dathne and the sprats and Pellen, who suffered when a black mood came on him like a southeast winter sea storm.

“But since when did my druthers get noticed, eh?” he asked Gar’s still, stone face. “Never, I reckon. So nowt much has changed.”

Glimfire, flickering, seemed to reveal Gar’s lips quirking in a wry, reproving smile.

Asher, Asher. Petulance doesn’t become you.

Startled, he looked around. Thought for a moment he’d see Gar standing behind him, warm, living flesh instead of cold white marble. But no. He was alone.

“Petulant?” he said, and snorted. “I ain’t petulant. I’m
fratched
. And I reckon I’ve a right, Gar. This were s’posed to be
over
. You and me, I thought we ended it.”

No reply. He didn’t expect one. Gar was dead, and the dead did not speak.

For a long time he stood there, brooding. Dathne had offered to come with him so he didn’t have to face without her what was hidden in Gar’s coffin. But he’d said no, because he had no idea how long he’d be here. And her coming with him would’ve meant leaving Rafe and Deenie in the Tower with only Cluny to call on if Rafe woke from a bad dream, tormented by the uneasy earth. Remembering his son’s tale of the river-pond, Rafe’s wide eyes and pinched face, he felt his belly gripe tight.

I got to stop this. I got to. It be hurting my boy.

Reluctant, resentful, he used a Doranen spell of compulsion to ease aside the coffin lid, with its effigy, just far enough for him to fit his hand and arm within. He held his breath as the lid shifted, fearful of being assaulted by something foul, the heartbreaking stench of decay and corruption… but instead he caught the faint, sweet scent of flowers. Pamarandums, best favoured by Nix in the rooms of the dead. Holze and Pother Nix between ’em had done right by Gar. He was whole. He was clean. Time had left him alone.

Closing his eyes, feeling his heart’s dull thud within his broad rib-cage, he eased his hand into Gar’s burdened coffin.

Mayhap hidin’ that bloody diary in here weren’t such a crackin’ good idea after all
.

When his fingers brushed against Gar’s linen wrappings—against Gar—he felt his belly heave in revolted protest. Had to press his fisted left hand hard to his lips, his teeth, to keep the surging bile at bay. Where was the sinkin’ bloody thing? It had to still be here. No-one knew what he’d done. It couldn’t not be here.

On a sharply indrawn breath, almost a sob, the sweet pamarandum scent turning sour in his throat, he scrabbled blindly for the diary, skinning his knuckles on the coffin’s smooth side and floor as he poked and prodded and slid his fingers into places he couldn’t bear to think on closely.

Come on—stop hiding—come on—

He nearly shouted when at last he touched the diary’s ancient leather cover, smooth and cool after ten years in the dark. Snatching it hard, he pulled, desperate to be done with this. Grunted in pain as he banged and bruised his hand on the coffin lid dragging Barl’s secrets into the light.

Sweating, breathing harshly, he stared at the small, unremarkable book that in Durm’s arrogant hands had seen a prophecy fulfilled and a kingdom brought perilous close to destruction. Seen lives ruined. Villages smashed to bits and pieces. Seen the helpless innocent made widows, widowers and orphans, and bodies piled high in the streets like corded firewood.

So much death. So much ruin. All ’cause one man couldn’t leave well enough alone
.

But it were done, and couldn’t be undone, and Barl knew Durm had paid a terrible price for his pride.

Easing himself backwards until his shoulder blades and spine touched Fane’s cool, quiet tomb, he beckoned a hovering ball of glimfire closer and started leafing through Barl’s diary. Not to read the actual entries, because to his Olken eye they were nowt more than chicken scratchins in the dirt. But Gar’s scribbled translations were still stuck between its pages, so he read those. Well, some of them. He didn’t need to read the translated warspells. Didn’t even want to look at them. Instead, for the first time, he read the other bits and scraps, memory stirred by Gar’s neatly fluent penwork.

Remembrances of the Doranen’s battle to cross over the mountains… the lands they travelled through, the peoples they encountered. Grief at the loss of friends, of children… relief at finding such a pliable people, the Olken… the fateful bargain they’d struck. The words of Making and UnMaking—
sink me, I bloody remember that
—and the spell that had let Durm see through the Wall, that brought Morg into the kingdom, sealing their fates…

Page after page, and no mention of the Weather map or how the Weather Magic worked its will. Eyes hot and gritty, feeling as though sand were trapped under their lids, Asher read and read… starting to feel desperate as the scraps of Gar’s scribbling mounted up, with no answers. There hadn’t been time to translate every last page of the diary, true, but surely,
surely,
if he’d been able to translate the history, which didn’t matter a bloody damn, then Gar would’ve bothered to translate the
important
bits, the
magic
. It weren’t like he didn’t know the magic mattered most.

Except it looked ezackly like that, ’cause eventually he got to the last hastily scrawled page and he’d not found a single useful word.

Disbelieving, despairing, he let the diary drop into his lap. Stared at the stone effigy he’d created with such care. “Gar, Gar, you
fool
. You bloody
barnacle
. Why didn’t you realise I’d
need
that magic one day!”

Gar, being dead, or canny, had nowt to say for himself.

Muscles cold and stiff, his joints seized up, Asher levered himself to his feet, groaning, letting the diary tumble to the crypt floor, and stamped about relieving his temper with unbridled bad language.

When he was calm enough to think clearly he dropped onto the edge of Darran’s coffin, taking mild pleasure in knowing it’d make the ole trout curse and cuff.

“All right, then,” he said, glaring at Gar’s silent effigy. “You weren’t the only bloody scholar in Lur, were you? There’s other Doranen studied the kind of claptrap you liked. Old books and poems and the way you folk used to talk. Barlsman Jaffee, he’s nigh on cross-eyed from readin’. I could show him the diary, couldn’t I? I could trust him with it, don’t you reckon? He’s a bloody Barlsman. All that piety. If I swore him to secrecy he’d have to keep his word, eh? Wouldn’t he?”

He wanted to think so. But then, Durm had been Borne’s Master Magician, hadn’t he? The most powerful, most important mage after the king. Nobody knew better than Durm the dangerous muck in Barl’s diary. And what did he do with it? He let Morg in through the back door.

So no. He didn’t dare even trust Barlsman Jaffee. Which meant he’d have to try and sort the problem on his own. Bloody wonderful. As if he had the first idea what to do… He scowled at Gar’s serene stone face.

Don’t know where you are, or if you can hear me, but just in case? A bit of help about now wouldn’t go astray
.

Silence. Shadows. The dull beating of his heart.

“Right,” he said. “So that’s that. Lucky me, eh?” He shook his head. “All I ever bloody wanted was a fishin’ boat of my own…”

He returned the diary to its hiding place. Magicked the coffin lid back where it belonged. Took a moment to honour Borne and Dana and pull faces at Fane. Tweaked Darran’s stone nose, just ’cause he could. Then, with a final frown at Gar, he doused all but one ball of glimfire and left the royal crypt without it bobbing overhead.

The earlier high cloud cover had cleared, leaving a night full of stars and a fat moon. They’d not had rain in nearly three weeks. He stared at the humped darkness of the mountains. Even after all this time he sometimes found himself surprised that the golden wash of Barl’s Wall was absent. If he closed his eyes he could see it, that curtain of magic cutting Lur off from the rest of the world.

If someone had asked him, scant weeks ago, whether he was sorry it was destroyed he’d have said
Are you bloody daft? Of course not
. Without thinking twice. Because until a few weeks ago he’d believed life was good, and they were safe, and the future smelled sweet. But that were a few weeks ago. Now the land was losing its balance… men like Fernel Pintte were stirrin’ trouble round the edges… and the safety of a kingdom sat fair and square on his shoulders. Again.