The Prodigal Mage: Fisherman’s Children Book One (27 page)

Abruptly and coldly sick, Pellen felt his skin crawl. “The diary? You read the diary?”

“Aye,” said Asher, sounding tired. “And it ain’t no bloody use to us. What Gar translated, it’s just warspells and personal witterings. The spell that killed Morg. Nowt on the Wall or the Weather Magic or such-like. Nowt to explain what’s stirrin’ under our feet. Nowt on how I’m s’posed to save us from it.”

He was so bitter. And who could blame him? The weight of a kingdom was forcing him to his knees. “I agree, that’s a blow,” he said, with care. “But we can’t fall in a heap.”

“Why not?” Asher muttered. “Fall in a heap, stand on our heads, turn bloody cartwheels down the length of the High Street—for all I know that’s as good a way as any to get us out of this strife.”

Oh,
Asher
. Pellen slapped the table. “
No.
I refuse to believe we can’t find a cure for what’s ailing our kingdom. What about Durm? He was the Master Magician; he guided Borne in his WeatherWorking for all those years. Those books of his you spoke of, the ones you keep hidden in your library. Surely there’s something there we can use? He must’ve left behind some kind of Weather Magic instructions or—”

But Asher was shaking his head again. “When it comes to Weather-Working there were only one of his books seemed it might be useful. I got Barslman Holze to look at it for me, not long after the Wall fell. But he couldn’t make head or tail of it any more than me. Bloody thing’s writ in some stupid code, Pellen, squiggles and chicken scratchin’s. A load of bloody nonsense. Everythin’ to do with WeatherWorkin’ Durm kept secret. Just like he never said who he wanted followin’ him as Master Magician. Him and Borne, they were spit scared of another schism. So they never shared nowt.”

Pellen breathed out a slow sigh. “I suppose they never dreamed things could ever go so wrong,” he murmured. “And who can blame them? Only one man ever did.”

“Aye, well, that bloody Jervale didn’t finish the job, did he?” said Asher, surly. “Pity he didn’t stay asleep long enough to dream the rest of what could go arse over tits around here. Reckon my life might be a sinkin’ sight easier if he had.”

It was tempting to sympathise with him, but they’d make no progress moaning over what couldn’t be changed. “There’s nothing on the walls of the Weather Chamber that will help?”

“I don’t reckon so. I’ll look again, but…” Asher groaned his frustration. “I don’t know what to do, Pellen. I know I be the only one who can fix this, but I don’t bloody know
how
.”

“Yes, you do,” he said quietly. “It’s in you somewhere, Asher. Buried deep, perhaps, but it’s there. All the Weather Magic that was put into you,
somewhere
in there is the answer. It must be.”

Asher shoved out of his chair. “You don’t know that!” he snapped, pacing angrily, fists shoved in his pockets. “
I
don’t know it and I’m the one who got that bloody magic stuffed down his gullet!”

“I know it because Barl was no fool,” he retorted. “Everything the WeatherWorker needed to know she put in her magic, Asher, I’d stake my life on that. Why else would she not leave any instructions behind? All you have to do is
look
for it. Stop fighting who and what you are, and instead—embrace it. Open your heart and your mind and seek the answer inside you. You’ll find it. By all I hold dear, I’ll wager it’s there.”

“Just like that, eh?”
said Asher, still pacing. “So you reckon it’s a doddle? An easy peasy piece of piss?”

“I never called it easy,” he said. “But I think you make it harder than it need be. Did anyone have to teach you how to summon the rain? How to make it snow, or stir the wind?
No
. The knowledge was in you. It’s
still
in you. Asher, you can do this.”

“Aye, Pellen, mayhap I can!” Asher shouted, turning. “But I don’t bloody
want
to! I’ve spent ten years tryin’ to
forget
what I know!”

“Yes, well, I think that’s my point!” he snapped, nearly pushed to shouting himself. “And forgive me if this sounds blunt and unfriendly, but I’m of the opinion you’ve no
right
to forget it. Fair or not, Asher, you are who you are and you don’t have the luxury of putting the rest of us in danger just because—”

Asher leapt towards him. Snatched the nearest empty chair and slammed it down hard on the chamber’s parquetry floor. “Pellen Orrick, you’re a sinkin’ bloody fool! Flappin’ your lips when you know nowt about
nowt!
Care to guess what I did last night, Meister Mayor? Meister Mayor who can’t even sprout wheat seeds? While I were asleep, with my wife beside me and my son and my daughter but a few steps away? I summoned
warbeasts
. I nearly
killed
’em. Dath and Rafe and little Deenie, who mean more to me than
anythin’
. I nearly
killed
’em with the magic that’s in me. All I did were read Barl’s bloody diary, and that stirred me up enough that I summoned
warbeasts
in my
sleep
. So are you really goin’ to sit there and lecture me on how I don’t have the sinkin’ luxury of not wantin’ to wake what I got sleepin’ in my blood?”

Stunned, Pellen stared at him. Stared at the terror and the tears in his eyes and was flooded with pity and horror and hot, hot shame. “Asher—I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“And Deenie
felt
it,” said Asher, heedless. Wrenched himself away and started pacing again, staggering almost, buffeted by a depth of feeling he had never before revealed. “And she
screamed
. Oh, Pellen, she bloody screamed. If you’d heard her, my little Deenie, screamin’ ’cause of the warbeasts I called, ’cause she could feel ’em in me. I never knew she could do that, feel magic in folk. But she can. She never told us, but that be somethin’ she can do.” Breathing harshly, he fetched up against the chamber window. Flung out one hand to brace himself, and let his face fall into the crook of his elbow. “She can feel there be somethin’ wrong in the earth, too,” he said dully. “She can feel all of it. Reckon
I
poisoned her with that. Me and my bloody magic.”

Pellen tried to speak. Had to clear his throat. “Asher, you don’t know that.”

“Course I do,” Asher whispered. “Ain’t no other Olken who can do Doranen magic, is there? Well, there ain’t no Olken Dath’s ever heard of who can sense magic the way Deenie can. Course it be my fault. Can’t be nobody else’s.”

“All right,” he said at last, not quite certain of his voice. “Perhaps that’s true. Perhaps this—this ability did come from you. But why do you call it a poison? Why not call it a gift?”

“Gift?”
said Asher and laughed, with such scorn. “If you’d heard her screamin’, Pellen, you wouldn’t call it a gift.” Turning abruptly, shoulders hitting the wall, he let himself slide until he was sat on the floor. “It ain’t a gift. It’s a bloody curse.”

Heartsick, he nodded. “Yes. Yes, I can see that. I’m sorry, Asher. I—I don’t know what else to say.”

Asher dragged an unsteady hand down his face. “There’s nowt you can say, Pellen. Nowt to say, nowt to do.”

“You’re right. It’s awful,” he said. “And I hope you know I’d cut off my other leg to spare you and Dathne such grief. To spare Deenie the grief…” He looked down at the table. Hating himself, even as he knew he had to say it. “But it’s something apart from what this kingdom is facing. And I’m sorry, I’m
sorry,
but you
can’t
let it interfere. We’ve run out of
time
.”

“I know,” said Asher, after a long silence, letting his head tip back against the wall. “Why d’you reckon I’m so bloody fratched?”

“We may have a little grace left to us, but we can’t, we mustn’t, count on much,” he added. “You fobbed off Jaffee and the others well enough today, but what about tomorrow? Or next week? Other Olken are bound to confide their fears in our revered Barlsman. It’s what he’s there for. Or Thady will overhear something, tending his bar. And whatever it is that’s churning in the earth, if it gets any worse, if it gets any louder—then could be even folk as magic-deaf as I am will start to hear it. And then—” He felt his mouth dry. “I think things will be worse even than when the Wall fell.”

“Reckon I don’t know that too, Pellen?” said Asher, caustic. “I do. All right? I know.”

And still bitterly resented being pushed towards the inevitable. But that was just too bad. It couldn’t matter that Asher didn’t want this. All that mattered was that he did what had to be done.

And it’s not as if this time we’re asking him to die…

Thrusting aside any lingering guilt, Pellen cleared his throat again. “Asher—”

Asher looked up, his face so stark that seeing it was like a blow from a clenched fist. “I know what you reckon I should do,” he said, his voice ragged. “You reckon I should go back to the Weather Chamber and WeatherWork our way out of this mess. Either fix that bloody Weather map somehow so it keeps on doin’ what it’s been doin’ for centuries—or finish the job Morg started so Lur can start afresh, proper, like we thought it did already. Eh? Ain’t that what you want, Pellen?”

Doused with fresh shame, defiant because of it, he nodded. “Yes. This land is my home. It’s my daughter’s home. Thanks to Morg it’s the only home we’re ever going to have. And I want you to save it. I’m sorry, but I do.”

“Course you do,” said Asher, and stared into the distance at something awful that only he could see. “But here’s the thing. If I work the Weather Magic, Deenie’s goin’ to feel it. It bloody nearly kills me, Pellen. You know that. So what d’you reckon it’ll do to her, eh? Eight years old? A little girl? If you was me, and it were Charis, what would you do? Would you kill your little girl to save this kingdom?”

He couldn’t speak. Could hardly breathe. The ugly question hung between them, unanswered. Unanswerable.

“Aye,” said Asher, and clambered awkwardly to his feet. “That’s what I thought.”

The chamber door closed very gently behind him.

Dathne sat in the garden that used to be Gar’s private bower, the one he and Fane had destroyed with fury and glimfire, and tried to ease her jangled nerves by embroidering a small tapestry. The sunlight warmly caressed her skin, a welcome simplicity after the night’s cold terrors. Remembering, she jabbed the needle into her finger. Sucked at the ruby-red bead of blood, softly swearing, then thrust aside the awfulness, just as she’d thrust aside so many bloodied, haunting memories.

She was getting very good at doing that.

With a sigh, she considered the tapestry.
A pity I’m not getting good at this too
. But such sedate pursuits had never been her strong point. Business and books and herblore and visions. Bossing people. Those were her talents. Or had been, once. Teaching. She was good at teaching. In the first years following the Wall’s destruction it had meant everything to her, passing along to Olken children what she knew of Olken magic and its ways. Telling them their history. Making sure they knew the truth, when the truth was still new and imperfectly known.

But now everybody knew it. Lur’s history was taught in every school and chapel these days. Nothing hidden. No more secrets.

Well. No more but one.

And suddenly the sunlight lost its caressing warmth and she was shivering, once more burdened with shadowed knowledge.

I thought it was over. It was meant to be over.

“Hey now,” said Asher, dropping to the stone bench beside her. Appearing when he was needed most, like always. Blindly she turned to him, embroidery hoop dropping heedless to the grass, and blindly she hid her cold face against his chest.

“I know, I know,” he said, rocking her. “I know, Dath. I know.”

And he did know. It was her only solace, that in her pain for her children she wasn’t alone.

The bower’s carefully nurtured flowers scented the air sweet and fresh. Bees droned sleepily, and in the branches of the fussy tarla tree small green titbirds bobbed and chirped. Early spring was upon them, and Lur was reborn. Calming, she eased herself free of Asher’s tight, almost suffocating embrace. Caught sight of his face and lost her breathing again.

“What? Did something happen in Council?”

“Aye, y’might say that.” His voice was low, his eyes miserable. “Seems there be folk talkin’ to Jaffee about funny things they’ve felt. He told the Council and now they all know somethin’s wrong.”

“And what else?” Because she knew there was something else. She knew every mood in him, every twist and turn of his heart.

“I lied to ’em, Dath,” he said. “Told ’em I ain’t felt a bloody thing. They believed me for now, but…” He shook his head. “That won’t last long. Thady and Eylin ain’t felt it yet, but once they do they won’t believe their precious Innocent Mage can’t feel it. Rodyn Garrick neither, nor any other Doranen. So…”

So
. She knew what that meant.
WeatherWorking
. Frozen, untouchable by sunlight or any warmth, she slithered off the garden seat and backed away. “You can’t. What about Deenie? She’ll feel it. Asher, she’s too young to feel that.”

Instead of answering, he picked up her embroidery hoop and stared at her tapestry. A fishing boat on the ocean. Her own design; she’d meant it as a surprise. Washed in sunshine he touched her tiny blue stitches with the tip of one scarred finger. Almost,
almost,
his lips quirked in a smile.

She could have stamped her foot like a child in a tantrum. “
Asher!
Are you listening? I won’t let you do it. I won’t let you hurt our daughter.”