Magician by K.L. Noone

Chapter 14

Time did not stop, of course. Lorre had not ever quite figured out how to do that, though it would’ve been a useful skill. He wasn’t omnipotent, as much as he liked to pretend, and he had limitations.

But he could stop motion. He could reach into the weaving of the world, and find particular strings, and still their continuous thrumming with intangible fingertips.

He felt Gareth at his back like the embodiment of the North, broad and muscular and loyal.

He stood on the road, barefoot because he’d forgotten to bother with boots and socks, a slender weary magician with messy long blond hair falling over borrowed green-blue plaid and the raspberry weave of his coat, not exactly clashing. He kept one hand up: touching the universe.

It was all he needed to do.

He looked at the seething bubbling cloud of winter, as he held its advance in place. He felt its burden on the warp and weft of the world, bending lines and seasons and patterns out of true.

He told it gently that it shouldn’t be there, that it did not belong. Not an accusation, but an explanation: it had been created, summoned, and this was not its fault.

He held a knot of bright little lives—men and women and tough mountain ponies—in his other hand, with some care. They quivered, unmoving, wide-eyed, nostrils flaring. They were dressed for the cold, in patchwork furs and leathers and layers; they were hungry, even starving, beneath that. And they were scared, bone-deep. He felt that too.

Ice trembled against his skin. Frost lay against the gold and blue of his magic, shamefaced and distressed. Lorre petted the coldness with invisible comforting hands, and took it apart, dispersed it, promised it he’d take care of everything, and let it go. It went with relief: fading, exhaling, draining.

This wasn’t showy magic, at least not to anyone not a magician. No splashes of lightning, no bursts of fire, nothing that an onlooker would gasp at. Only himself, with closed eyes and one lifted hand.

The vain lonely part of him that always thought about appearances wondered whether Gareth would appreciate it nonetheless. Himself, one person, doing seemingly nothing—while around them cold dwindled and blinding empty white ebbed away, and color and life returned.

He opened his eyes. The blizzard had vanished. A tangle of bandit raiders trembled, kept in place: not more than eight of them—no, nine—

No. Eight. And one.

Gareth, at his shoulder, did not quite touch him—perhaps recalling warnings, or also afraid—but held out a hand as well, just under Lorre’s. He said softly, “If you need an anchor.”

Lorre turned, ignored immobile bandits for a second, caught his gaze. Felt the world tremble: Gareth was smiling, despite everything, small and warm as a promise for later.

Lorre touched his hand briefly, drank in heat and solidity and calluses and perceptions. Gareth did not flinch. Not afraid, then. “Thank you. Stay here.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll need your help in a moment.”

“Anything.”

The foremost poised bandit made a muffled noise, furious; they both looked up. Lorre said, “That was what I wanted your help with,” and Gareth’s next breath caught as if sliced through by a sword.

The man who’d tried to speak had Gareth’s banked-fire hair, shot through with silver, and wore the sage-and-sky plaids of the North. He did not wear a mask, because they’d been confident in their shield, and he had Gareth’s face, or nearly; older, an uncle’s, but clear as anguish.

Gareth murmured, through heartbreak, “Uncle Osric…”

“Should I let him talk?”

“Yes.” Gareth lifted his chin. Because of the suddenness of Lorre’s magical transportation, he had no armor and no weapons. But he had love and pain, and he wore them openly. “Uncle Osric, why?”

His uncle’s eyes narrowed. “You.”

“Me,” Gareth echoed, an arrow to the chest. Lorre, not liking that, invisibly plucked a few wild prickle-burrs from a nearby shrub and shoved them down the man’s shirt. Gareth had said he couldn’t kill anyone, not that he couldn’t enjoy petty revenge.

Osric winced but ignored it. “You. And your brother. Both of you.”

“What did we do to you?” Gareth took a step forward. Lorre kept an eye on him—and a shield—but had something else to look for. Someone.

The cold wasn’t gone. Or, more accurately, it continued building, emanating, throbbing. He had an idea about why; and he was right.

“You’re both such children,” Gareth’s uncle said. His eyes were green, and spike-sharp, and full of passion. “I loved you both—I love you—but you’re so young. You, and Dan…did you think the Marches would be safe in your hands? What do you know about the world? About fighting, or politics, or anything that isn’t a bakery or a book? Angus would have named me in Dan’s place. If he hadn’t been so ill. He should have.”

Gareth had gone pale, then flushed with emotion. “You’re fighting us because you think Dan’s too young to be king?”

Lorre, half-listening, nudged a few immobilized bandits aside. They’d been in something very much like a bodyguard formation.

Osric shook his head, ran a hand through his hair: avuncular, frustrated, angry that Gareth wouldn’t hear. “I love the Marches, boy. I’ve fought for us, bled for us—I was your father’s advisor, militia commander, brother—”

“You used to tell Da that we needed to be more prepared to fight,” Gareth said. “More weapons. A standing army. More power. In case anyone attacked us. But they never did, much—the occasional raids, once in a while, but it wasn’t ever bad until—you know Dan was always the heir, you knew when he was born—”

“And it should have been me!”

Lorre paid attention to human family squabbles with half an ear—Gareth cared, and therefore it mattered—but took a few steps into the middle of the parted riders, amid wiry mountain ponies. He said lightly, to the girl at the center, “You haven’t felt warm, really warm, in years, have you?”

Her eyes were huge and pale, silvery as the undersides of storms; her hair was long and white-blonde and braided. She couldn’t’ve been more than twelve years old, and she was visibly hungry, gaunt, hollow, the way they all were.

She gazed at him as if seeing a hawk with talons out. Lorre understood: he was who he was, and he’d just taken apart her magic with a moment’s focus.

He was getting a bit—not tired, not when he had the world at his fingertips. Overextended, perhaps. It’d been a long time since he’d tried to manipulate power at this level, and he was holding irate bandits and horses and momentum in place, protecting Gareth from deadly cold and possible arrows, healing the earth around them, keeping up his guardian net, and dissolving the ends of the ice attack, simultaneously.

Old, he thought. Out of practice. Or not. After all, he could handle it all. No doubts admitted. The greatest magician the Middle Lands had ever seen; and if that was arrogance it was also a strength, because he would not give in or break or fail when Gareth needed him.

When someone needed him. He watched the girl—the untrained magician—watching him. She was very very still.

I can’t do nothing, Gareth had said. When I can help.

Gareth thought about other people’s needs. Not only what they might do for him, nor how they might be useful, nor the ridiculous idea that, as younger Lorre had believed, a powerful magician should by rights always know best.

Gareth’s land had needed him. He’d’ve never known, alone on his island.

The balance of magic had needed him. A wrong, put right. Lorre had done that. And it had felt…

It had felt right.

He’d never not be everything he’d been, over the centuries. He couldn’t undo the past.

But he could be more, as well. Something for the future. Maybe not a hero, not after everything, but that was all right; he’d come to terms with that a long time ago.

Maybe something else, though. Something new.

Anyway, he’d always liked being unpredictable.

He pushed up his sleeves, one at a time. Tucked a bit of hair back behind his right ear. Made each motion visible, transparent, casual. “I know what feeling cold is like. I’ve been that, too; I was very cold for a very long time, I think. And also a dragon, once. And a chipmunk, though that one’s much less impressive. I personally prefer being impressive, don’t you? But there’s also something awfully nice about being small and fuzzy and cozy in a burrow. I’ve been appreciating that lately.”

The girl whispered, “The Dragon of Averene.” Her voice was thin, and broke over his name, but she did not shrink away; she lifted her chin as if prepared to meet her fate.

“Ah, yes.” Lorre glanced over at Gareth. “That and more. Would you like a strawberry? Here, I promise they’re perfectly safe, I’ve just collected them from the fields outside Venterra, go on.”

She caught the strawberry, now looking faintly shocked.

Gareth’s uncle snapped, behind them, “You know I couldn’t let our people—our home—be led by two boys I used to lead around on half-sized ponies—if something happened, if an invasion came, what would you do, read a book at the enemy? Send Dan over to offer them cake? You never grew up—you both believe in stories and heroes and other people—”

“Uncle Osric,” Gareth interrupted. His voice was pained, but calm, and also assertive: making a point. “You’re riding with bandits. I’m here with the last Grand Sorcerer of the Middle Lands.”

In the sudden silence, Lorre—and the girl, and the short ragged man closest to her, and most of the rest of the bandits—glanced over, intrigued.

Gareth’s uncle went red, then white; he looked over at Lorre, then back at Gareth, and something of that truth sank in. The younger of his nephews, whom he’d dismissed as useless, had left the Marches and had, incontrovertibly, returned with the Dragon of Averene as an ally. That was true.

“We’re young,” Gareth said. “Believe me, I know. I wish Da were alive, Uncle Osric—I wish it hadn’t been this soon. But it is, and we’re here. And I’ll do whatever I have to, to protect the Marches.” His voice softened. “Like you. That was your plan, wasn’t it? To frighten everyone enough that they’d welcome you back, taking command—if you came to us and said you knew the bandits, you knew how to defeat them…and we might’ve even listened. We’d’ve let you come home. If you’d asked.”

Lorre leaned over to the girl. “He really is the kindest person I know. Depressing, isn’t it? None of us will ever measure up. By the way, what’s your name? I’m Lorre.”

She whispered, “Hilda.” Her eyes remained huge.

“I think,” Lorre said, “I can help with the cold. Would you trust me? Just for a moment?”

She drew a breath. “Why?”

Lorre lifted a shoulder, let it drop. “Because he makes me want to be a nicer person? Because I’m very tired of being the villain? Because I’d like to try to fix something, but only if it’s all right and comfortable for everyone involved? That’s something else he told me. He’s a hero, of course. So he thinks about things like that.”

Hilda looked from Lorre to Gareth. “You love him.”

“Probably, yes. I’m not very good at that sort of thing. But I’m working on it. Can I try something? It’ll help if you take off at least one glove. So I can feel it a bit better.”

She hesitated.

The man beside her twitched, hand stirring as much as it could. Lorre took in his face, his grey eyes, the shape of his nose and cheekbones and jawline; and then said quietly, “I promise not to hurt her. And I don’t lie to anyone.”

“Magicians,” Hilda said, “can’t lie. Can they?” And her voice was, for a moment, the voice of a child who’d wistfully wished someone would whisk her away for a place at a shining magicians’ school by a rippling river under glowing sunshine, where she might be warm and everyone would tell the truth and enchantment would be good instead of cold and painful and inescapable.

“Oh, we can. Like anyone else. Want another strawberry?” He tossed one to her father as well, this time. “But it is true that the most powerful magicians try not to lie. Words can change the world, with enough intention—and power—behind them. If you’re not careful it’s all true. Of course that works for anyone, to some extent, not only magicians. I mean, look at him.”

They all collectively looked at Gareth, who’d folded his arms and was regarding his uncle with hurt, and compassion, and persistent love that would move mountains. Or magicians.

Hilda and her father looked back at Lorre.

Lorre gave them one of his best winsome smiles. “Can I try? With your permission, of course.”

She nodded.

Lorre held out a hand. Hilda set her ungloved fingers into it, tentatively.

Lorre gasped out loud—her skin was sharp, icicles and needles and frozen seas—but bit his lip hard, caught his balance, put up a hand when Gareth whirled his way. “I’m fine, it’s fine—don’t mind us, go back to your conversation…”

“Later,” Gareth said to his uncle, and then ran: skidding to a halt at Lorre’s side, eyes going wide at the sudden core of cold, or else at the visible black gnarl of frostbite on Lorre’s palm. “Your hand—oh, Goddess—is she doing that, what’s happening, how can I help?”

“Don’t worry, I’m just trying something…” The frostbite was his own fault. A tiny mistake. Not thinking ahead. He’d fix it after.

“I’m sorry,” Hilda mourned, despairingly, and started to pull away. “I don’t mean to—it’s always—I can’t stop it, I can never stop it, and it hurts everyone…”

“And everything. I know. I do know, understand? If anyone does, I do.” He kept her hand in his, kept his gaze on hers. “I’m famously dreadful at teaching anyone anything, but let’s see…”

His hand hurt, and his arm was beginning to hurt as well, but Hilda hurt too, and she’d lived with the hurt for longer: a cold that’d gnawed its way out from inside, all white and silver and splintery in the same way Lorre’s own magic lived blue and gold and hot deep down within him. She was human, and she would not ever feel the universe the way he did, infinite rainbows of overlapping connection. But she was the sort of human who’d be a magician: someone born with an affinity for a particular melody, attunement to a certain element, a sensitivity and a sense running beneath her skin.

Some of the strongest human magic-workers—the sorceresses, the other magicians, the legends who weren’t Lorre—could feel more than one reverberation. Could almost see those threads, the way he could without effort. Could touch the world, at least a single aspect of it, and know when that piece was right or wrong, and guide it and shape it.

Young Hilda would be a weather magician, and a good one; the cold knew her, wreathed itself around her, had been born in her bones. Without training, without help, she had never known how to turn it off.

He felt, as if it were his own, her pain and grief and guilt: dying grazing lands, starving ponies, empty-bellied people; the flayed-open horror when someone touched her bare skin. The knowledge that she was killing her people, that they had no choices left, that it all was her fault. The raids and the loss and the hollows under her father’s cheekbones. The frantic need that’d driven them to fight and steal and look for an ally who came knowing the Marches. She knew she’d caused it, all of it, but she couldn’t stop it, she could only try to help, to do what was asked of her…

The anguish hit him like a scream, all too familiar. Self-castigation, responsibility, impossible weight.

Lorre, who knew about impossible weight, answered silently, wordlessly: she might’ve been a cause, perhaps. But not a villain. Not a monster.

She doubted that.

You know who I am, Lorre pointed out. The thought wasn’t shaped in syllables, precisely, but the sense carried. No story’s ever disputed how much I know. And I know you. Like the trees, like the fish, like those ferns over there. I know you, and you’re not evil. I would know.

I’ve done—I’ve caused—

Are you saying I’m wrong?He let her feel his indignation, not anger at all, a breath of amused teasing assertion.

She shook her head, both visibly and intangibly. But I’m hurting you—

Don’t worry. Or—worry, if you’d like. It’s how we make amends. We care. If you feel you need to, if you want to help someone else—then do that. For now…He’d stopped being able to feel his arm. He also felt a bit lightheaded, stretched thin, less substantial. He was keeping the ice from burrowing into the land, and Gareth, and everything around them. You’re not me and I’m not you. But I think I can show you something. Pay attention.

She did.

Lorre studied the cold, the glittering white crystalline spikes that grew and grew unstoppably. You already have some control. You must. Or you’d’ve frozen everyone near you.

A barrage of images swept his way: panic, desperation, frantic scrambling. A still white face covered in frost—her mother, he guessed, from the glimpse and the grief and the sobbing that echoed in his chest. A howl of loss. A wild clutching at half-understood power, a heartbreak and a determination—not again, not someone she loved, she would make the cold listen, if she could not stop it—she could not stop it enough, but she could direct it away, outward, a weapon—

It’s a foundation,Lorre answered. Knowing it belongs to you. Here…He threaded his own power gently into the cold, held it out, let her see: about balance, about sensing what was needed, about awareness of time and place and rhythm and being, and then asking, finding, shaping. Don’t fear it. Let yourself be it, feel it, be who you are. You’ll feel the rightness, if you’re not pushing it away. It’s easier for me, I know. But you’ll feel it too. With practice.

Practice—

You’ll learn.He took a bit of his own guardian web, held it up: let her see the structure, the weave, the lattices of sapphire and light. You can see what I’m doing, here? Yours won’t be the same. But you can see the connections. The way it’s responding to the shape of the world, what’s right and not-right. And if you’d like…I can leave some protections in place for you, for now. If you want that.

She leapt at that idea. Whirling, springing, astounded joy. Reprieve. Hope.

All right. Here.He laced some of his own magic into hers, bound threads together, knitted blue and gold and silver and white. Not a removal, not a barrier, but a response: if her power threatened to harm another living being, attentive glowing strands would soothe it back down. It would hold, for a while; he did not mean it to last longer than a few days, slowly dwindling.

Hilda’s hand warmed, in his.

The air shifted; she caught her breath, an audible inhale. Her face was transported: feeling the air, the whisper of breeze, a sensation that wasn’t numbing chill. Feeling it all for the first time in years.

Lorre, caught up in her emotions and his own unaccustomed exertion, lost focus for a second. The only piece that slipped was his control over bandits and ponies and motion.

But that was enough. Gareth’s uncle put furious spurs into his horse, spun, bolted. Away from his nephew and a dangerous magician. Putting distance between them.

A frightened mob of bandits came apart and sprinted after, following. The world dissolved into motion and chaos and the sounds of hoofbeats.

Hilda’s hand dropped from his. Her eyes were wide; the world had changed, for her.

Hilda’s father reached to catch his daughter’s reins, to pull her away: a man afraid for his child, afraid of repercussions, afraid of a prince who’d brought the world’s most powerful magician here to fight them. They fled as well, without a word.

The road, the forest, lay cool and empty around them. Unthreatened. Rescued.

Gareth said, “Lorre—” His voice cracked with emotion.

“Let them go.” His head did not precisely hurt. More unfocused. Empty. Drained. “It’ll be all right.”

“Lorre!” Gareth’s hands were hot. Solid. Anchoring. Gripping his shoulder, folding back his sleeve, holding him. “Your hand, your arm—oh, Goddess—I can try what I know about frostbite, I can get you to Ellie’s for help—but you have to look at me, you have to be here, you have to stay with me—”

“I’m fine,” Lorre said. His voice sounded distant. He was having a small amount of trouble focusing on Gareth in front of him, though he thought that was partly just being too many separate pieces of himself, spread too far. He could gather some pieces back in, though, now, surely. “I’m here. I can heal that. I might need to sit down.”

Gareth’s arms felt very nice and very strong around him, taking his weight, easing him down. “Lorre. Please. You said you wouldn’t leave me. You promised. You said.”

“I’m not.” He blinked; Gareth’s eyes were shaken, no longer calm and practical, brimming over. “I don’t lie to you. I can fix the arm.” Maybe that was why Gareth sounded so frantic; Lorre hadn’t looked directly at it yet, but he could see the edges of black and discolored flesh, and he couldn’t feel it. Not the pretty shape Gareth would be used to; not what the world expected of him, nor what he liked.

He let his eyes close. He stretched outward: finding exhausted trails of illumination, faded sparks.

“Lorre, please!” Gareth was holding on tighter now. Voice cracking. “You said—what you said, to me, you said you love me, and I—oh, Goddess, I said we’d talk about it, of all the worst answers—Lorre. Stay with me. So we can talk about it. What you said. How I feel. You know how I feel, you have to know—I do, of course I do, but you need to look at me, you need to be here, you’re here and I’m here—I’m your anchor, the way you said, so I am here, I’m here and being stubborn, like you always tell me I am, and we’ll talk about it. We will. Just come back to me. Please. Lorre.”

“It’s all right,” Lorre told him. “You don’t have to. I didn’t expect you would. I’m just me and I like saying things.” This shape, this body…this version of himself, hard-won and made and practiced, over and over…

He knew the lines of light that ran through it. He knew how he wanted to look, the form he’d lived in and inhabited and built legends around. He knew himself, even half-dissolved into hazy clouds and blackened smudges.

The universe knew him too. They’d danced together for a very long time.

Sweet sensuous coils of magic, of awareness, brushed his power, his heartbeat, his skin. They wrapped around him, through him, piercing him.

Rightness in the world meant having him in it, suggested the touch. He was the land, the seasons, the rhythm. He had a place, and a shape, like all the rest of the universe did. He only had to let go, to let the light flow back into long-known channels.

Lorre, glad of the assistance, simply allowed streaming radiant threads to knit themselves together; and leaned against Gareth’s broad chest.

He could feel his arm again, which was promising. He could move it. He wiggled his fingertips. Good as new, or nearly.

Gareth made a sound, a sob, and one hand stopped clutching him for a second; Lorre looked up to see him swiping a hand across his eyes.

That very much wasn’t right. Lorre sat up more. He was feeling more like himself with each second: exhausted but clear as daylight through glass, opened up and strung out in fields of stars. He could hear the murmur of the universe in his veins. “I’m here. Sorry. Your bandits have retreated to the pass. I think they’re having some discussions about what happens next. No one’s thrilled about being used by your uncle. Your lands shouldn’t face any more killing frost, either.”

Gareth stared at him, grabbed his arm, ran hands all over him: feeling unblemished skin, drinking him in. Then shook him, but terribly gently. “You think that’s what I’m thinking, right now?”

“It isn’t?”

“Lorre,” Gareth sighed, and kissed him: not long, not demanding, but flavored with salt and heat and tenderness. Gareth’s hands kept stroking his hair, cradling him close, supporting him.

“I told you,” Lorre said, after the kissing, “I could fix it. Me.” His head was resting on Gareth’s shoulder. “I can get us home, if you want. I’m only enjoying myself, now.”

“Or I can carry you.”

Lorre looked down at himself. He might be more slender and more willowy compared to Gareth’s shoulders, but he was still a grown man. “We’re not that close to your Hall.”

“Home, you said.”

“Did I? I must’ve been very tired. You know what I mean.”

“You said it just now.” Gareth ran a hand over Lorre’s head. They were still sitting in the dirt, in the middle of the road. The breeze, no longer unnaturally brittle, picked up a few leaves and made them twirl. “Of course it’s your home. If you want it to be.”

“You can’t,” Lorre said. The other problem, the one he’d nearly forgotten, loomed up: riding North. “Not that I…that I wouldn’t…I might…if I thought…but you can’t.”

Gareth’s jaw clenched. “Why not?”

“Six reasons. Or more. All the Middle Lands’ worth of reasons, really.”

“What—”

“The Grand Sorceress and the Prince of Averene will be here the day after tomorrow. Or that’s my best guess. They’re making good time.”

Gareth said a word. It was the same word his brother had said, for much the same reason.

“Yes,” Lorre said, shutting his eyes again. Gareth’s muscles made a large attractive bed to rest against. “Exactly.”

“No,” Gareth said.

“What do you mean, no?”

“I mean…” Gareth’s jaw did that heroic jump again, but his hand was fond, caressing Lorre’s temple. “If you want a home, and I want you to stay, then you can stay. I know about the politics and the problems. We’ll figure it out. But you need to rest, and I’m here to be your anchor, so that’s that. You’re staying as long as you want.”

“Hero. Making it sound so simple.”

“Magician. Making things complicated.” Gareth kissed him again, though, lightly. “I like solving problems. I promise I can carry you. You’re not to use magic to transport us.”

“Compromise?” Lorre tried. “I’ll ask the river. Then I won’t have to do anything. If you don’t mind getting us to it.” The rush of water lay nearby; he could taste it. It’d carry them securely down right behind the Hall, if he asked politely.

“I’d argue, but I’ll get you safe and in bed faster if I say yes.” Gareth was playing with Lorre’s fingers now, the recovered ones: holding them, tracing them, considering clean new skin. “We’ve got some things to talk about, I’m thinking. But not yet. Not until you’re not leaning on me like a newborn kid.”

“Goats? Now? Me? Take that one back.”

“And now you sound more like you.” Gareth’s grin carried relief like a banner, tattered but waving. “Maybe a kitten, then. All wobbly and fluffy, with claws.”

“I’ll do the whole shapechange just to scratch you. Once I’ve been this shape for a while. Once we’ve dealt with an angry Grand Sorceress. And an untrained ice magician. That was a temporary solution, not permanent.”

“I’ll look forward to seeing your whiskers.” Gareth scooped him up with impressive ease. Lorre discovered that he definitely felt well enough for a sudden and wholly justified swell of pure lust, and put both arms around Gareth’s neck, holding on. The tangle of clothing, his own and borrowed, bundled him up and warmed him.

He said, “It’s a good thing you like solving problems. Since I am one.”

“Funny, that,” Gareth said, not at all out of breath, arms sturdy as Northern hills. “I was just thinking I like holding you. Sorceresses and magicians and all…we’ll sort it out. We have so far, you and me. But this right now’s a very good thing.”