The Prodigal Mage: Fisherman’s Children Book One (34 page)

“D’know,” he said, his blood seething. “Will you watch Deenie a mite longer? I need to—”

“No, Rafe,” Deenie said. “Please, I don’t—”

“I ain’t going far,” he said. “And Goose is with you. Don’t fret, Deenie. I’ll be back in a ticktock.”

“Do what you need to,” said Goose. “I got her.”

There was something about the way his friend said it, the way his arm cradled Deenie, the look on his face. He stared.
Goose… and Deenie? He’s never said a word to me.
But there wasn’t time to think on it. He had more alarming things to think on just now.

Everyone in the Guildhouse was shouting. Someone had found candles—little puddles of light were popping up everywhere. Someone else must’ve told the musicians that fiddles were soothing, ’cause them as were stuck up in the gallery had started playing again. Over the music and the fratching he could hear Fernel Pintte trying to be mayor, but it wasn’t working. Too much fright, too much upset. Too many Doranen demanding explanations. And in Pintte’s voice he could hear the pain of Lur’s pain. Dorana’s new mayor was a powerful Olken mage.

Trying to shut out the noise and the hurt, Rafel stumbled and shoved and excused his way to the Guildhouse’s open doors.

Escaped outside, he nearly fell over his mother, and Da.

“Where’s Deenie?” his father demanded. “Rafel—”

“She’s with Goose. She’s fine. I wanted to—” When he saw the sky, his voice died in his throat. “Oh, Da,” he whispered. “Da… we’re in trouble.”

He felt Mama’s arm slip round his waist. Felt Da’s hand come to rest heavy on his shoulder. “Aye, sprat,” his father said. “We sinkin’ well are.”

The glorious summer stars were vanished, blotted out by thick cloud. Vivid forks of lightning stabbed the city like a cut-throat. Thunder rolled and rumbled, pressure against his skin, in his head. He could feel his magic roiling, boiling in his blood. The night’s wildness was calling him. He wanted to leap and shout.

“Hold fast, Rafe,” said Da. “ ’Cause this be only the beginning.”

And as though Da’s words were a knife blade severing a taut, restraining rope… lightning cracked—thunder roared—and a cold rain fell like hammers. Like the end of the world.

B
ecause she couldn’t trust herself to speak, Dathne stood at the Tower’s solar window and stared at the sullenly weeping world beyond it.

Since the night of Pellen’s farewell ball, nearly two weeks ago, it had stormed and rained almost without ceasing. Tremors had been felt in every part of the kingdom. Countless creeks and riverlets and ponds were overflowing. There’d even been some drownings. Dorana’s City Guardhouse—all the Guardhouses in the kingdom—were on the highest alert. Frightened people did silly things. Dorana’s Guardhouse was full right now of hotheaded Olken and Doranen youths caught brawling in Market Square, each blaming the other for Lur’s overwhelming strife. Rafe’s friend Goose was one of those arrested, swirled up in the disturbance trying to save another lad from harm.

All fear and no sense, the fools, and not once stopping to think. Don’t people understand anything? We survive this together or we perish alone
.

Behind her, she heard Asher shift on the solar’s low couch. “Dath? You goin’ to say somethin’?”

“Trust me, Asher, you don’t want to hear what I have to say.”

“Yes, I do,” he said. “I always do.”

All right, my love. But don’t say you weren’t warned.

She turned on him. “You can’t do it. You nearly killed yourself last time. And anyway, we both know this has gone far beyond fixing, even with Weather Magic. Whatever time you bought for Lur—it’s spent now. And there’s no more coin in that purse.”

“Dath…” Asher lifted his head from his hands. “If I don’t try again, them fools Pintte and Garrick are goin’ to—”

“Then let them!” she snapped. “If they’re so stupid they won’t listen to you then
let
them. You don’t like them anyway, so why should you care if they get themselves drowned?”

He sighed. “You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t I?” She laughed, scornful. “Given a choice between your life and theirs do you think I’d choose those fools over you?”

“No, Dath,” he said, pressing his thumb tips to his eyes. “Course I don’t.”

“Asher…” Heartwrung for him despite her frightened fury, Dathne stepped swiftly to the couch and sat by his side. Smoothed his close-clipped, badgery hair. “Stop blaming yourself. You’ve done everything you could. More than anyone had a right to expect.”

He shrugged, unconsoled. “Ain’t been enough, though, has it?”

“Asher, you bought us
another ten years
. There’s not a man or woman in Lur who could’ve done more. And as for Fernel, and Rodyn Garrick—you’ve shouted yourself hoarse in both Councils
and
you’ve petitioned them privately and still they insist on ignoring you. I say if they’re determined to be blind fools, then so be it. But you
cannot
risk WeatherWorking again. I won’t have it. I won’t lose you to—”

Hurried footsteps on the Tower staircase. Rafel. He strode into the solar, his face lit with elation. But Dathne, knowing him, thought she saw trepidation beneath it.

“Goose’s let out,” he announced. His hair and shoulders were damp from the rain. “They all are. Cautioned and fined, but no worse.”

“Ha,” said Asher, unslumping. “Don’t tell me that Captain Mason’s a soft-head. When the Council hired him in charge of the Guardhouse he promised he’d be strict.”

“It was a steep fine,” said Rafel. “Fifty trins, which Goose’s da said he won’t pay. And every offender’s name noted in the record of affray. That’s strict enough, seeing as how Goose did nowt wrong.”

Dathne smiled. Always leaping to someone’s defence, was her son. “But aside from being poorer, he’s none the worse for wear?”

“Got himself a ripe black eye,” said Rafe, pulling a face. “And a couple of loosened teeth.”

“Well, mayhap that’ll teach him not to brangle in Market Square,” said Asher. “Hope you been payin’ attention, sprat.”

Dathne saw the flash of resentment in their son’s eyes. Saw his jaw tighten, briefly, and the instinctive clench of fingers to fists.

Oh, Asher. Have a care. Don’t let Lur’s new troubles blind you
.

“Any other news, Rafe?” she said, patting her tactless husband’s hand in warning. “What’s the gossip?”

Rafe looked at his father sidelong, then wandered over to the solar’s window. “Word is Fernel Pintte and Rodyn Garrick are set to leave for the coast by the end of the week.”

“Anyone goin’ with ’em?” said Asher, eventually.

“Didn’t hear that.” Rafe grimaced. “Though I s’pose Arlin’ll traipse along, so he can say after how he saved Lur single-handed.”

“If there is an after,” Asher muttered. “If they don’t kill ’emselves and half of Westwailing while they be about it.”

“Da…” Rafe shoved his hands in his pockets, looking so like his father. “We can’t sit on our arses doing nowt. I don’t see what’s wrong with trying to break the reef.”

“Rafe, it’s
been
tried,” Asher said sharply. “
I
tried.” It was another cruel memory he’d worked hard to smother. “And when I failed, Barlsman Holze and the best Doranen mages Morg didn’t manage to kill,
they
tried. And how did that tale end? With most of ’em dead outright and Holze ravin’ witless for nigh on three months. The bloody reef’s poison. There ain’t no undoin’ it.”

Rafel was staring. “I never knew you tried to break the reef.”

“Aye, well, it were a long time ago and we never did run around shoutin’ it from the roof tops. Point is, Rafe, we failed.”

“But Da, like you say, it was a long time ago,” said Rafe. So young, so—so
cocksure
. “You said it yourself—things change. We all thought Lur was a safe and peaceful place, but it’s not. It’s growing more dangerous by the day. What if the rain won’t stop? What if the earth tremors get any worse? There’s already crops ruined and stock drowned. Much more of this and food’s going to get scarce. What do we do then? How will we live? We’ve got to find a way out of this bloody kingdom. And if we can’t go over the mountains we’ve got no choice. We have to get out on boats.”

Asher shoved to his feet. “What boats, Rafe? Fishin’ boats? They’d never stand up to the open ocean.”

“Then we’ll build bigger boats,” said Rafe, reckless. “Better boats.”

“And sail ’em
where,
sprat?” said Asher. He was starting to lose his temper. “Like as not there ain’t nowhere to sail to. For as long as there’s been Olken in Lur has a boat ever come here?
No
. We ain’t seen so much as a sail on the bloody horizon!”

“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t
try!
” Rafe shouted. “And if you won’t then someone else has to. Someone’s got to do more than stand around telling folk to give up hope. Barl bloody save us, Da, you could be wrong. Why don’t you ever admit you could be
wrong?
”

Seeing Asher’s face, Dathne leapt up. “Rafel, that’s enough.” Her voice was trembling. Her whole body was trembling. The hurt in Asher’s eyes… “You don’t know everything. You don’t know—”

“I know enough, Mama,” said Rafel, pale with temper. “I know Lur’s broken and Da can’t fix it. And if he can’t
no-one
can. Now, I don’t like Fernel Pintte and Lord Garrick any more than you like ’em, but at least they’re trying to
do
something. So I say let ’em. I say we’ve got nothing to lose.”

“That ain’t always true, Rafe,” Asher said quietly. “Sometimes we don’t know what we got to lose till we’ve gone and bloody lost it.”

Rafe’s face shuttered. “Any road,” he said. “That’s the latest news.”

“Rafe, where are you going?” said Dathne, as her son headed for the solar door. “Rafe—”

“Out for a bit,” he said, not slowing. “I’ll be back for supper.”

She stood there, silent, listening to his footsteps fade. Then she looked at Asher. His face was shuttered too, all thought and feeling locked away. She reached out, touched his arm.

“Asher, he’s young. He doesn’t—”

He walked to the window. Rested his palm on its pane of glass and stared out at the rain and the waterlogged garden. “Dath, I got to go too. Down to Westwailing. If them fools are bent on doin’ this… I got to be there.”

She wanted to say no. She wanted to rail against his sombre certainty, hold him and kiss him until he changed his mind. But she couldn’t, because down in Westwailing there was still a small chance he could make a difference. And he needed that. He needed it badly.

And whatever he does there, at least it won’t be WeatherWorking.

“I’ll go with you,” she whispered. “We’ll all go.”

His head snapped round. “No, Dath. You and the sprats got to stay here. Ain’t no tellin’ what’ll happen when they start faddlin’ with the reef. Me and Holze and them others, we went at it careful. That won’t be Garrick and Pintte. Them fools are goin’ to try rippin’ it to shreds. It won’t be safe.”

“Right now, nowhere in this kingdom’s safe,” she retorted. “Rafe’s right about that much. Besides. It’s time he learned a thing or two first hand, our brash son. And I don’t want Deenie left behind on her own. She’s fragile, yet. She needs me. And Asher,
you
need
us
.”

She could feel the conflict in him. He wanted to argue, declare himself the stalwart hero. The lone wolf. But his eyes told a different story. He was hurting, because of Rafe, whose youthful arrogance was sharper than a knife. And worse than the pain, there was shame… because he’d let her talk him out of trying to WeatherWork again.

But she refused to be ashamed of that. Though they didn’t speak of it, she knew there were wounds in him that hadn’t healed. Might never heal. What was it Queen Dana had said once to Gar, that Gar had told Asher and he had told her?

Weather Magic is a double-edged sword, and every time you wield it you cut yourself a little.

Well. For Gar’s sake and Lur’s, Asher had nigh on cut himself to ribbons. She had no desire that he cut himself again. Not now, not ever. And he knew it.

But… could she trust him to honour her fear? If Pintte and Garrick failed in Westwailing, as seemed most likely, and Lur’s strife made good on its threat to tear the kingdom apart—could she trust him not to try WeatherWorking their way out of trouble a second time?