Magician by K.L. Noone

Chapter 10

Supper happened in the smaller private family quarters, not a banquet room or feasting hall. Mounds of turnips and potatoes appeared, along with luscious salmon and a thick barley stew and gorgeous chewy slices of fresh-baked bread and the famous High Crags goat’s milk cheese. A person who did not eat meat could’ve made an entire meal, or several, out of the stew and the vegetables and the bread and cheese; Lorre looked at Gareth, sideways.

“What,” Gareth said, all innocence, “it’s all local specialties, you should try the cider, it’s Granny’s,” and poured him some. Rain danced a jig over the windows, busying itself in streaks of silver.

“I’m seriously tempted,” Lorre said, “to put potatoes on your chair, but it’d be a waste,” and took more. His heart warmed: foolishly fond and melting. Gareth had thought about him and food.

Gareth’s brother glanced between them, smirked, and tipped his own cider their direction. Took a sip.

“Don’t you start,” Gareth grumbled at him, and pointed a fork that way. “I could tell stories about you falling off a cow, right into a mud-puddle, trying to impress Rebecca Perry…”

“I’m not embarrassed about it,” King Ardan said. “No dignity. Explain to me again how you convinced your magician to help us, not that I’m complaining, but we’re hardly the center of power or politics in the Middle Lands, up here.” His eyes were young, but in the way of someone who’d grown up fast: expression dry and good-humored and extremely aware that, in fact, the last great magician of the world had no pressing reason to deal with a tiny local bandit incursion.

He looked so much like Gareth that Lorre momentarily found the resemblance disconcerting: like and not, less than a handful of years older and with shorter lighter hair but the same openness, the same sense of loyalty, the same thoughtful intelligence. He had the biceps of someone who turned to baking on a daily basis as stress relief, and also to help feed his people.

And he was expecting a response. Lorre said, “No, you’re not,” and turned his cup of cider around briefly, choosing a reply. Gareth remained a steady supportive presence beside him, letting him speak. “I could tell you that Gareth told me your bandits have a mage, and I’m curious about magic. Or that I wanted to see what I could still do, after being away. Or that your brother’s very persuasive. Are any of those good enough answers?”

“Maybe.” Dan reached for salmon; they were being informal, entirely without court protocol or servants, with the queen mother and the Goddess-priest included. The latter, Lorre guessed, was a member of the household and a confidant, and part of the family. “Gar said you’d set up some sort of warning system. Which I’m grateful for, but I’m also wondering. Are you listening to everyone in the Marches? Is that fair to them?”

Lorre revised his estimation of Gareth’s brother upward a few more notches: it was a good question, and not the one he’d been expecting. “It’s not that active. I could focus on someone if I wanted to, but I’m not. Just letting it simmer.”

“Until,” the young priest said wryly, “something—or someone—boils over.” He was also drinking the local cider with a fairly unpriestly amount of enthusiasm, at least in Lorre’s experience of the Church, and his hands had both inkstains and calluses, despite his youth and general fluffy lapdog appearance. “We’re glad you’re here, you know. I’ve been asking Her for aid, and trying to put bandages on the worst of the scalded wounds, not to keep pushing the metaphor. You’re an answer.”

Lorre eyed him. “Your Goddess didn’t send me. And I’d be surprised if all your people’re thrilled I’m here.”

The priest threw him a grin. “They were trading folk tales about you, down in the market. And how do you know She didn’t?”

“Save me from religious discussions and tax collectors.” Lorre found more delectably creamy goat’s cheese to spread on his bread. “Not that any of that applies in my case.”

“Because you don’t pay taxes?” said the priest, cheerfully, and passed turnips his way.

“Matthias,” Dan said, “what were they saying? The mood.” He was wearing what Lorre now thought of as the collective family royal expression: worrying over their people, and ferociously protective.

“Oh, they’re interested, and hopeful, I’d say.” Matthias waved his spoon at Gareth. “They trust you. I know I’ve not been here that long, and they don’t all tell me everything they’d’ve told Sister Cora, Goddess keep her, but I know how they feel about you. If you’re taking care of the problem, they’re saying, they’ll have faith in that.”

Gareth’s ears went pink. “I’m not a hero.”

“You always have been, though,” his mother put in. She’d been mostly quiet; observing them all, thin and capable as a Northern sword in mourning plaids. “Even when you were a boy. Saving rabbits from snares, standing up for your friends when they needed it, always knowing where Dan was…”

“Not that that was hard,” Dan said. “In the kitchens, mostly.”

“Speaking of politics…” Gareth made a face at the salmon, which had done nothing to deserve that. “So, in a few days…maybe three or four, was it?…we should be expecting a visit from the Grand Sorceress and Prince William of Averene, and it may not be the friendliest, just so you know.”

Dan said a word. His mother said, “Fair enough, but you’re not using that vocabulary at a royal reception, young man,” and scolded him with eyebrows.

“Sorry,” Dan said. “Gareth, honestly…”

“It’s not his fault,” Lorre said. “It’s mine.”

“Oh, I know. I’m just wondering why you never answered my question, and how much trouble you’re dragging my brother into.”

“Will you stop,” Gareth said. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Do you?” said both his older brother and Lorre, simultaneously; Dan looked Lorre’s way, laughed, slid the pitcher of cider over. “So you know him fairly well, then.”

“I’m learning,” Lorre said. Gareth’s leg was pressed up against his, and Gareth’s eyes were chocolate-dark and amused, drawing him in. “I like him.”

Gareth’s ears got more pink.

“The people you like don’t tend to find happy endings,” Gareth’s mother murmured, pointed and dry as rustling paper, tell-tale stories, tragedies. “Do they?”

Lorre poked at barley with his spoon, and thought about being a field of grain, an acorn, something that did not have to feel guilt and heartache and responsibility. “Does anyone? Your family would know.”

Her expression changed: an arrow-thump of impact. “Yes. So we would. And you’ll, what, go back to your life, after helping us? Vanish into magic, because you can, without worrying about next year’s crops or the rains coming late.”

“I’ve already saved one pasture for you today. Would you like more?”

“Mum,” Gareth said, “he’s here to help. That’s all that matters. That’s what we need, and he came, and he’s doing something good for us. That’s enough.” He even took Lorre’s hand, a gesture and a commitment; his fingers were firm and serious.

The storm boomed, an underscore. The fire leapt, sharing the conversation.

That’s all that matters, Lorre thought. Me. Helping you. Of course that’s what matters. What I can do for you. But I knew that. Obviously.

He took his hand out of Gareth’s, on the not untrue pretext that he needed it for eating stew.

Gareth’s eyebrows got that familiar tiny concerned line between them, tugging together.

“Don’t think we’re not appreciative,” Dan said. “We are. I can hardly believe it, you being here. Eating my bread.”

“It’s good bread,” Lorre told him. It was, thick and tangy, with a luscious crunch to the crust. “I’ll leave, don’t worry. After.”

“But,” Gareth began, and stopped. “No, of course. You’d want to go home. You can have any books you want to take with you. I did offer.”

“You like books,” Lorre said. “I won’t take your library. By the way, there’s a decently large seam of copper buried under one of your mountains. I don’t know how much it might be worth, but I can bring it up for you. Before I go.”

Gareth began picking at the crust from his bread, turning it into crumbs, staring at them.

Dan said, “We’d be appreciative about that too. Is there anything we can do for you? Anything the Marches can give a magician?”

“Possibly some warmer clothing. It’s colder than I remember, up here.” His fingers hurt with the need to reach out and find Gareth’s again. “And no one calling my existence unnatural would be nice.”

Matthias leaned in and said, exaggeratedly earnest, “Ah, well, of course not, She’s everyone’s mother, even yours, so you’re perfectly natural just as you are.” His eyes twinkled, though.

Lorre couldn’t not roll his own. “My mother was a river-spirit and my father was the second baron of Valpres, thanks.” But at least this priest had a sense of humor; that was promising.

Something he’d just said poked at his thoughts. “It is colder up here. I know I’ve not been here for fifty years, so is that normal? Is it always this bad?”

They all traded glances, and surprise rose, followed by consideration, and realization. The wind, with a playwright’s sense of timing, howled.

Agatha said slowly, “No. No, you’re right, it’s been worse…year after year, it feels like, it’s been worse…it’s always cold, though, and we hadn’t thought…”

“Which is why you have me. When did it start, do you remember?”

“I don’t think we noticed.” Dan grimaced at himself. “But of course you’re right. You would be. Is that related to our bandit magician?”

“Oh, probably. You’ve almost certainly got a weather-worker, but I wonder if they’re having trouble turning it off, as it were…” And they were likely powerful, if untrained. A challenge, at least a minor one. Intriguing, in a way, though his bones felt tired at the thought of yet another magical duel, another story, another stanza in a rambunctious ballad. “I might be able to do something about that. The cold.”

“You keep helping us.” Gareth had finished deconstructing the piece of bread. “Over and over again.”

“I did say you were persuasive.”

“Am I,” Gareth said, half under his breath, apparently to his pile of crumbs.

“You are.” Lorre touched the table, an impulse: the surface was smooth and polished, but he asked wordlessly for a gift, a curl of wood, a sharing of self.

He drew it up and shaped it into a sunflower, a bit of sunshine molded out of pine, blooming with petals that’d never fade. He put it next to Gareth’s hand.

Gareth looked at it. Took it, cradling it in one hand. Looked up, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

“Oh, that’s lovely,” Dan said. “Actual magic, at our table. And you’re using it to make gifts for my brother, which I wholeheartedly endorse, because he could use someone giving him gifts. More cider? Or whiskey? We’re good at that, too.”

“Dangerously so,” Lorre said, “if I remember right, and yes, why not.” His fingertips brushed Gareth’s.

After, as they moved to go back to various rooms—Dan had some trade agreements to look over, and Gareth said that Lorre needed warmer clothing and they should go and take care of that—the young priest touched his arm, in the doorway. Gareth was talking to his brother, and preoccupied; Lorre said, preemptively, “Don’t bother asking me to drop in for weekly services in your chapel.”

“No.” Matthias’s eyes were nut-brown and surprisingly unintimidated, even friendly. “No, though you’d be welcome. I only wanted to say again we’re glad you’re here. For all our people. And for Gareth.”

“Gareth,” Lorre echoed.

“He’s a good person, our prince. The kindest.” The priest shrugged a shoulder, not dismissive but simply light. “He deserves to have someone who’ll be kind to him. And give him flowers. They’ve had such a hard time of it, with all the hurt, and the way he grieves for everyone, while carrying his own. It’s good to see him smile again. That’s all I wanted to say, really.”

Gareth finished making his brother laugh, and came over. “Everything all right?”

“Fine,” Lorre said. “Absolutely fine. No arguments here.” He took Gareth’s hand, because he could and his own fingers were chilly.

Matthias gave him an approving nod, and went off to find the queen mother, being a comfort for her. Rain flung itself against sturdy walls and thick glass, companionably. Wind carried stories across the Marches, gossiping to water and land and sky.

“I’m sorry about that.” Gareth squeezed his hand. “I’d’ve stepped in, given another second. I know you don’t like the Church.”

“He’s not terrible. I’ve met worse.” They passed a curved window, framed by long thick curtains in the sage green of the family plaid. Lorre, drawn by raindrops and energy and a crack of lightning, drifted toward it. His forearms prickled. “I imagine he’s helpful. For your family.”

Gareth lifted their joined hands, put his other one around Lorre’s fingers, rubbed gently: summoning heat. “He’s been kind. Everyone loved Sister Cora, so it’s odd having someone new around, but of course by new I mean around three years. And he’s been here to sit with Mum, when Dan and I are…when we’re dealing with the work of it.” For a second his eyes were haunted: wearing the bruises of grief. “Sometimes I forget, you know. Even though it’s been so many months. I forget I’m not about to walk around a corner into the library, and find Da there looking up the history of corn laws and tax rates…”

Lorre, who had seen very many men die, wasn’t sure what to say to this; he guessed a comment to that effect wouldn’t help the pain that lay in Gareth’s voice like thorns among mountain flowers. He said instead, “Your brother’s a decent king. From what I’ve seen.”

“Dan? He’s fantastic.” Gareth’s smile resurfaced, if somewhat battered by emotion. “He’s really been doing it for years now…he started taking on more of the work when our father first got sick, and then more and more. I’ve tried to help. Dan’s better at mathematics and budgets than I am, but I like to think I’m good at talking to people. We were doing well enough, before all this. Or I thought we were. Did you want to head back to our rooms, or the library, or someplace warmer?”

“I want to try something.” He set the fingertips of his other hand against glass; smooth and flat and cold, it bit into his skin. “Think about heat for me. For your people. Baking bread and hearths and sunshine and all of that.”

“Here? Right now?”

“Why not?”

“Well…no reason. What do you need me to do?”

“Just stay there,” Lorre said, “and keep thinking about being warm,” and shut his eyes. The universe shimmered and sang and woke up gladly, inside his bones.

The Mountain Marches were chilly; that’d always been true. Rain and snow and wild windswept landscape pulled him in, made him a deep rocky crevasse and a pouring waterfall and a forest of branches and boughs and winter-sluggish roots. Every piece of himself—aureate, connected, woven like one of the hall’s tapestries—stirred in response.

He knew them all, or could if he plunged deeper into any shining well, followed any chosen thread. He could sing along with that melody, reverberating with it.

Gareth, beside him, was the unwavering welcoming heat of a domestic fire, and the scents of old books and fresh-baked scones, and the splash of sunlight over dappled rocks in a meadow, at the side of a stream. Lorre touched that heat, instinctively: a skim of fingers through tempting glow. Gareth’s breath caught, though he did not flinch.

Lorre tossed him a smile, or the impression of one: it’d been a need, a reaching out, himself drawn in, but he was also not above a flirtation via invisible caresses. Gareth laughed, soundless and joyous and fascinated by the feeling of magic.

Lorre smiled more, and got to work.

Forgetting his own human body for a moment, he fell into the land, the clouds, the air. Cold—and aware of it; cold and knowing there’d been some change, the earth more hungry, the rain more brittle…not an overnight shift, nor a hugely drastic one, but a scratching wrongness, a step out of place in the rhythm…

But he was the rhythm. He always had been: a boy who could walk into a river and breathe without effort, who could step onto raindrops and be held. One of them. An accompanying thread in the weaving.

He knew what they all should be, and he knew what felt out of tune. And he felt something small and shivery and icicle-bright, up in his foothills, near a closed pass.

The winter gathered white and taut in that place, muffling and dangerous. The presence did not notice Lorre’s arrival, because Lorre was simply the world, and so nothing perceptibly changed. Lorre noticed the presence, though: young and untrained and rather desperately unhappy.

He thought about that, for a moment.

But just now his priority was the Marches and the cold. He touched Gareth’s warmth again; he felt the banked glow of the castle kitchens, of chimneys down in the village, of the fire springing to life in a shepherd’s hut. He put heat into the ground, the air, the light: bringing the world to where it should be, swinging a few degrees back toward the direction of rightness.

It wasn’t quite enough; cold huddled unhappy dark ate up too much of the light. Lorre ran through various options, and put an invisible hand into his own heart, his own body, the blue and gold radiant tangle of desire and magic and instinct that moved this piece of himself. He wasn’t precisely annoyed about having to do so—he could handle an untrained magician any day, and this was only a different tactic—but he wasn’t delighted by someone’s lack of boundaries meaning more exertion on his own part, either.

He, at least this bit of him, was warm and dry inside a castle, holding a prince’s hand, with good boots and a nice linen shirt and snug trousers, and presently full of barley stew and good whiskey and bread and cheese. He could spare some of that comfort.

He took it out of himself, tenderly. He looked at the warmth, cupped in his hands; he poured it out along flickering webs of light.

Heat, added to the world, tipped the balance back toward true. The wrongnesses eased.

Better, for now. Not a long-term solution—he’d need to do something about that draining presence—but temporary amelioration. Holding.

He drew himself back out of light and raindrops and air and snow and stone. The return was harder than he’d expected; his joints hurt, stiff and old and icy and strangely breathless.

Something else felt nice, though. A pool of bronze, of honey, of tea. Hands touching him, rubbing his skin. A voice, rough with concern, a storm-fraught lake of Northern whiskey-laced chocolate.

“Lorre,” Gareth was saying, urgently. “Lorre. Come on, come back—you’re here, I’m here, this is real. Please. Please look at me.”

His name, on Gareth’s lips. That sounded tempting. Like an invitation.

He tried to open his eyes. Frost ruffled and fell from his eyelashes; he blinked, and brought the world back into human focus.

“Thank you,” Gareth whispered. “Thank you, or Her, or someone—” His eyes were very wide, and he was very close: they were, Lorre discovered, sitting on the floor of the hallway, on a long thick dark blue rug, beneath the window. Gareth was holding him, trying to warm him, arms around him. A swoop of red-leaf hair had slid forward out of its hair-tie, anxious.

“Breathe,” Gareth said. “Just—just do that, for me? You’re so cold.” His hands ran over Lorre’s body: the hands of someone who’d grown up a farmer-prince, who’d sat up with baby goats and a sickly parent, who’d just seen magic being done and immediately threw himself into helping.

“I’m fine.” Lorre stretched out fingertips, wiggled them: not being icicles or pine-branches, they did not creak. He was cold inside and out, but that was his own doing. The air, the world, thanked him for it. “I don’t always need to breathe.”

“Don’t you?” Gareth touched his cheek. “You sound all right. But you looked—you were here but not. And your skin’s like snow.”

“I’m—”

“If you say fine again, I’ll sing a ballad at you. Two.”

“The horror. I’m not hurt. I’m back.” He caught Gareth’s hand with his. “I am. I promise. It’s not like being hurt; I was just…preoccupied. Being your mountains, for a minute.”

“This body’s still you. I’m guessing it can get frostbite.” Gareth exhaled, let his head drop: his forehead pressed against Lorre’s for a moment. He’d tucked the wooden sunflower into a shirt-pocket; it peeked out now, with hope in its petals. “Some warning might be nice.”

“Oh,” Lorre said. “Right. Yes.” He hadn’t thought; he wasn’t used to asking for permission.

Sitting on the floor, with Gareth’s arm around him, he thought about love, and loss, and grief; he thought about the pain and the memories that hid behind Gareth’s eyes. Of course his prince would be afraid on his behalf.

He should have thought of that. He couldn’t fix it now. The way he couldn’t fix so much of what he’d done.

He said, “I think I’ve corrected your weather, but it won’t last. The next time their magician does something with intent…really we need to make them stop. I can keep feeding my power into it, but even I’m not an infinite resource. Only close to it.”

Gareth sighed, or maybe it was a laugh; and kissed the top of his head. “Please don’t. I’d hate to be the cause of you finding out just how close you can get. Do you need anything? Sugar, tea, someplace to lie down?”

“I told you, I’m not hurt. It’s more like pouring myself back into a shape…I don’t suppose you have any books on the habits of your mountain bandits? Their usual strategies, their attitudes toward magic, anything like that?”

“I might have some histories. Can I wrap you up in blankets and put you in bed, first?”

“You really do say what you’re thinking, don’t you?”

“Not for sex!” Gareth was looking happier, though: far less anxious. “I didn’t mean that. Keeping you warm. Please.”

“When you put it like that,” Lorre said, “how can I say no?” and let Gareth be an unnecessary support for him all the way back to the firelit bedroom and study. The care slid to his frost-laced bones and sank in there, becoming part of him.

Gareth put another log on the fire, muscles rippling and bathed in light, while Lorre skimmed bookshelves, titles, histories. Some he recognized; some were newer. He picked up The Culture and Geography of the High Crags, flipped through it, looked for notes on bandits and their feelings about magicians.

Something snagged his attention, a bit of flotsam in his distant perception. Not a person, but an animal: a small wandering goat, out in the storm and lost, not having come home. It was in distress; he scooped it up and looked around and found the closest barn, where it might or might not belong, but which was certainly warmer than the night. He put the spark of it in there, carefully disentangling it from himself, and discovered Gareth eyeing him.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Lorre explained. “Just rescuing a goat. You like them.”

“Just a goat?”

“Not a raid. Nothing’s moving in this rain.”

“So it’ll stay quiet?”

“As far as I can tell.”

Gareth’s shoulders relaxed. “Thank the Goddess for that. Or thank you. Again.”

“You’re not religious,” Lorre said. He was suddenly thinking of Gareth’s casual references, and the presence of the priest, and the chapel. “Are you?”

“I’d hardly say I’m devout,” Gareth said mildly, “given that I haven’t been to any regular services in years, and also I’ve done some reading about the Church’s less than savory historical bits. But I did grow up believing in Her, though these days I suspect She—or Whoever might be out there—doesn’t bother to intervene, much. If you’re asking whether I believe we all have a purpose, some reason for being here, then I think the answer’s yes.”

Lorre turned from the books. Crossed to the window, flattened a hand against glass, checking in. The clean cool line of the windowpane met his skin: raindrops and storm-drenched night.

Gareth came over too, holding a plaid blanket; he folded himself and heavy weave around Lorre. His arms were strong. “Is that a problem?”

“No.”

“And you’re certain about that, are you?” Gareth hugged him closer, nudged a kiss behind Lorre’s right ear. The rain redoubled, pounding from eaves and archways.

“I can’t say I’m thrilled,” Lorre said, as dryly as possible in the face of the storm, “given my history with the Church. But a lot of that was decades ago. I know there’re good Goddess-worshippers and good priests and priestesses, and absolutely horrible ones, too. It’s all just people. Like anyone else. Try not to think I’m an abomination, though, if you would.”

“That’s not how I was raised.” Gareth kissed him again: the nape of his neck, lingering. “If we’re all here for a reason, then we’re all a wonder. Every last person. Including magicians. I told you you were beautiful.”

Lorre turned, in his arms, to face him. “How does your version of religion feel about pleasure?”

“Very much in favor,” Gareth said promptly. “It’s about joy, isn’t it? All shared and sweet.” His hands roamed Lorre’s back, caressing under blanket-folds, sneaking up under Lorre’s shirt. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like myself,” Lorre told him, and then paused, surprised, hand resting on Gareth’s chest.

He did feel like himself. He felt it in a way he’d barely remembered: like a centuries-ago golden afternoon spent on a riverbank, taking the shapes of trout and cattails and wind and pebbles in mud, simple and free. Forgetting his father’s fury or the Church’s disapproval, and not yet old enough to have tried to reshape the world. Simply being, and being happy.

He curled fingers into the tie of Gareth’s shirt. “Take me back to bed and tell me about joy.”

“I’d love to.” Gareth kissed him, deep and gentle and incontrovertible: lips, tongue, tenderly exploring. “If you’re up to that. I’m not doubting you, it’s just you were awfully cold and you’re also doing so much already. I said I wanted to help, not distract you.”

“You’re not a distraction.” Gareth’s chest felt splendid: firm and broad, well-muscled, with that hint of masculine hair. Lorre’s hand liked the sensation of him; Lorre’s body got even more interested, desire building and stiffening. “And I like pleasure. I’d like to do that for you.”

“Well,” Gareth murmured, hand stroking through Lorre’s hair, letting long blond strands slide across his fingers, “I’m hardly about to turn that down, if you’re offering…” and tugged Lorre closer to him. The arousal was shared, and palpable. “Shall we see what else turns into cream, this time?”

“I do try not to repeat myself. Much more impressive that way.” He nudged Gareth’s shirt off. “Maybe not your bed. If I’m being thoroughly decadent and scandalous and debauching you. Maybe I’ll just take you right here, in front of your fire and your books, on this very convenient blanket you’ve brought…”

“Yes please,” Gareth offered, obligingly, and got to work removing Lorre’s trousers.