Magician by K.L. Noone

Chapter 3

Boat-building caused a minor argument almost immediately. Gareth, now that the most powerful magician alive had agreed to assist him, was understandably in a hurry to get started. Lorre, centuries older and still not quite sure why he’d agreed, found himself being practical. This was a new sensation, and he wasn’t certain he enjoyed it.

“I imagine,” Gareth said, not quite a question, “that there’s a reason we’re not just magically traveling. The way you brought us to your rooms.”

“There is.” Lorre considered kelp, driftwood, a tangle of sea-wrack. Settled down cross-legged among assembled pieces. Wiggled toes in the sand. He hadn’t bothered to change just yet; he appreciated the satin tumble of his robe and the heat of the late afternoon on his skin. It’d be night by the time they departed, but a humid sort of night, laced with frangipani and sugar and sea-salt. For now.

“I’m not arguing,” Gareth tried.

“Good.”

“I was only wondering—”

“It’ll take three days or so for us to reach Whiskey Harbor—that’s still the closest Northern port, right? Which is better than three weeks, so be grateful.”

Gareth said, “But you—” and stopped, obviously trying not to protest.

“I can do nearly anything,” Lorre said. “I’m not omnipotent, unfortunately.” The sun felt nice on his bare head, on his shoulders. He was going to miss it.

“In the reign of Queen Ryllis you blinded an entire invading army. You once turned a desert to grass. You can call water out of stone. You ensorcelled the Hearthstone Abbey so that no rain fell on their grounds for three months after the Mother Priestess insulted you.”

“I’m terribly petty,” Lorre agreed. “Why did you request my assistance, again?”

“I know what she said.” Gareth watched him across sunshine and waves and time and hope. “I know that was after she publicly denounced all magicians as unnatural abominations.”

“Which was the day after she said it to my face. And of course I went and proved her right.” He touched wood, felt it hum: not the same key as a living tree, but the resonance of precisely what it was here and now, part of the melody. Very gently, he asked a favor of it: to shift, to change, to merge and join with other bits of wood, to flow into the curve of a shape that’d float and sweep across waves and carry two men.

He added, “The desert was only asking water to move. The story about the army’s exaggerated. I played with the light and the reflections from the armor of the front lines and their eyesight. The rest of them panicked and ran away, and anyway it wore off.” The wood listened obligingly, and began to stir.

“But you did do something. And you saved the Queen, and her country.”

“You,” Lorre said, “seem to know my life better than I do.” Curls of vine and kelp offered strength and shape, guiding. The boat found an identity, a purpose. “Have you made a study out of me?”

A pause provided an answer; Lorre let the boat shape itself for a moment and glanced over.

Gareth was blushing again. “No. Yes. Not exactly.”

“That covers all your possible answers perfectly nicely.”

“I knew you were the strongest magician the world’s ever seen,” Gareth said. “I read what I could find. Only in the last few weeks, though. It’s not—I mean, I didn’t…”

“You weren’t sitting around obsessing over me and writing overwrought melodramatic poetry?”

“No, I—did someone? Really?”

“Half a century ago.” Lorre waved a hand, accidentally made a bit of driftwood perk up, hastily refocused. “He was a terrible poet and he got the details all wrong—I’m not burdened by the longing weight of a thousand peerless ages, thank you, even if he meant it metaphorically—but he wasn’t bad in bed. Or in a hayfield. I think. I’ve forgotten.”

Gareth looked at him for a minute, and then came over and sat down beside him. “How many ages, then?”

“What?”

“How many ages? Without, um, any peers. Any equals. Any company that didn’t involve terrible poets trying to flatter you—” He was smiling: purposefully teasing but in a very gentle way, an amusement that reached out and included the world and Lorre himself, an invitation to laugh along with ridiculousness rather than at it. Lightening a weight, perhaps.

“You can stop that,” Lorre said, meaning any attempt to cajole or comfort him; and showed the wood what he wanted in terms of seats and benches, for a moment. “You should’ve known what to expect, then. If you know so much about me.”

“I don’t,” Gareth said. “I didn’t. I don’t think I could’ve guessed. Do you need help? More wood? Anything to eat?”

“No.”

They sat in silence, for a while.

The sun brushed Lorre’s naked toes, and Gareth’s arms under rolled-up sleeves, and the graceful curves of a conjured vessel.

Gareth got up and found a nectarine. Settled back down at Lorre’s side. Peeled it. Held out a piece.

“This doesn’t cost much,” Lorre said. “Don’t feel you have to.”

“I can’t not do anything.”

“I’m eating this because I like nectarines.”

“I know.”

Lorre glared at him. Took another segment. The prince was offering. He might as well.

Gareth set the rest of the nectarine down on a small dusted-off rock right next to Lorre’s knee, and pulled out his book.

“Three days,” Lorre said, “because I can only push the winds and tides so far without causing a lot of disruption. And I can’t do what I did to transport us because I need to know where I’m landing. I wouldn’t get us stuck in a mountain—I can feel that much—but I need to know where to aim, what direction to walk, where to pop out. And it’s harder over long distances. And when I’m having to bring something not-me along.”

“Oh.” Gareth’s eyebrows did a small worried tugging-together. “So it wasn’t that easy.”

“It was. You’re not that heavy, and it was just up there.” He tipped his head toward the cliff. “Now you know.”

“Hmm.”

“You’re the one who said I don’t lie to you. Read to me.”

“I thought you didn’t like Lady Cavendra.”

“I don’t mind the novel. And I can use it as a background anchor.”

“Like assistance with meditation,” Gareth agreed, inexplicably happy-sounding for someone who’d just been told to read as background, and opened the book. “Helpful. I’ll skip the bits about you, shall I?”

“Please.”

“So.” Gareth flipped a page or two, paused. “Arrival on a comet? Just after? ‘And she bethought herself, upon awakening, of seeking shelter in this strange land; but yet there no shelter seemed of need, for the air itself lay warm upon her skin, and the heavens did pour golden light, such that Lady Margaret found herself refreshed and at ease…’ “

His voice was soft and expressive, weaving itself into sun and waves. Golden light, Lorre thought, amused; and then stopped really thinking, simply sinking into story and sensation and the burning dancing shapes of the souls of the world. Everything blurred and mingled, because nothing was inseparable: Gareth’s low amber Mountain-Marches-by-way-of-Middle-Lands-schooling burr, the glow of an imagined heavenly voyage, the sweetness of tropical air and the rhythm of ocean, alive and pounding, joined with the shore and the sand and the rocks and the driftwood and the sunset and Lorre himself, a fragment of one huge radiant web with shimmering threads, linking them all, and if he asked or nudged or imagined, those threads would move or step aside or stir to his hand…

He knew somewhere in the visible tangible world his body sat on sand, at sundown, and touched driftwood, while an optimistic prince perched on a rock and read aloud. He felt that too, distantly.

He never had been able to teach anyone precisely how he did magic, because no one he’d ever met had felt it quite the way he did. Some had come close—like Lily, brilliantly gifted—but even she was human, through and through.

Lorre—was not. Not precisely. At least half, as far as he knew. And the humming singing crackling luminous world opened itself up to him, and let him see and breathe and taste its immanence.

He opened his eyes to oncoming starlight in a barely-blue world, a kiss of silver and satin over a smudge of royal purple sunset. He drew a breath, felt his chest move, felt the slight tension of arms and legs that hadn’t stirred for a while. He wondered briefly whether he’d forgotten to measure time again; he touched his cheek, involuntarily. He did not expect a dragon’s scales, but he remembered them. Growing lost inside a shape-change would do that; the search for human skin was an instinct, or a comfort, these days.

He did not want to forget himself again. Not like that.

Gareth’s voice finished softly, “ ‘…and the Lady of the Green Stars did bestow upon Lady Margaret her own bracelet in turn, such that all should know by the exchange they would ever be true friends, and Lady Margaret’s heart did rejoice.’ “ He sounded closer; he was closer, Lorre discovered, having shifted to sit right at Lorre’s side. He’d buried his toes in the sand, trouser-legs rolled up; that and his wide eyes made him younger, washed in starlight.

Gareth added, quietly, “You did make us a boat.” He looked from Lorre to the shoreline; a graceful swan’s curve of boat, large enough to fit two grown men and provisions in comfort, stood up proudly at the edge of lapping water. “She’s beautiful.”

“She is.” Lorre ran a hand through his hair, unfolded one leg, stretched it out across cooling sand. Gareth sounded impressed but unafraid; Gareth had looked at his magic and seen beauty.

That ached, in a confusing way: he loved that Gareth had said so, because of course it was beautiful, it all was beautiful; but Gareth should have said dangerous, frightening, inhuman as well, because Lorre was that too, and refusing to see as much was unutterably foolish.

He said, “You can load some provisions, and I’ll change into something more practical for travel,” and only then realized how far his robe had slid up, revealing most of his left leg. He was no doubt horrifying a rustic Northern prince with a scandalous glimpse of bare tanned thigh.

He did not hastily tug any fabric down, because this was his home and Gareth had come to find him and the prince should know exactly who he was. He did get to his feet, though, gathering robe-folds around himself. “I expect silk and brocade wouldn’t wear well. Snow and rain and mountain goats…I’ll be back in a moment.”

Gareth blinked. Twice. And said nothing.

“Provisions?” Lorre nudged. “I’ll toss a few things down.”

“Things,” Gareth said. “Right. Yes. Of course.”

“We shouldn’t need much. It’s only a few days.”

“Yes. Right.” Gareth woke back up from his mysterious distraction. “You’ll want to be warm. We’re into the winter. The rain. Once we get to the North. You should, um. Layers. Furs. Magic.”

“Yes, thank you, I remember rain.” He left the prince standing on the beach beneath starlight, and walked on air up to the opening of his rock-dwelling, and ducked inside. He did not know what Gareth was thinking; he told himself it did not matter whether a prince of the Mountain Marches disapproved of un-magician-like behavior or of Lorre in particular.

In any case, he was used to the latter.

He did not have much to wear, not having brought much in the way of heavy clothing along when he’d departed the cities and clusters of humanity. He sighed, said to tumbled luxurious satins and diaphanous robes, “If you wouldn’t mind…?” and pictured what he needed: thick close weave, tight water-resistant fabric, wool and fleece. The fabric grumbled a bit but cooperated: it was meant to be worn, to be used, and it fell to that purpose. He took it apart, down at the seams of existence, and rewove it; he drew layers and disparate colors and patterns together.

He had far fewer clothes at the end, but several good sturdy shirts and trousers and a thickly lined long coat in glimmering raspberry and gold, courtesy of two former flowing shirts and a bit of a loose gilt-lined scholar’s gown. He gazed at himself in shining mirror-stone for a moment; he appreciated the color, and the cut, elegant and high-collared and nicely fitted.

He slid a hand through his hair, remembering for a moment older braided styles, a dangling sapphire earring that’d matched his eyes, the tastes of mead and plum cakes at a feast; these days his hair tumbled past his shoulders, golden and messy and unadorned. He hadn’t worn jewelry since coming to the island, though he’d always appreciated the way he looked in it.

He knew it was vanity, knew it was beneath him as a former Grand Sorcerer and a generally terrible person in need of redemption. Nevertheless he liked knowing he’d done well, crafted a graceful bit of magic, added some prettiness to the world.

He let himself enjoy it for a breath or two; and then he put that enjoyment away, because it was an indulgence and he knew where indulging himself led.

He threw changes of clothing, a book or two, his supply of tea, into his pack. His pack was not large enough, but it found room. He even managed the kettle, rather to his own surprise. He hadn’t knowingly asked space to fold open that far.

He found his boots—real boots, the ones he’d worn upon arrival, so long ago—and dusted them off with a thought, and stepped into them.

He wiggled his toes. Strange. A reminder. Someone else’s shoes: an older life, another him. A magician who’d tried to bestride the world.

They were his boots, though. And he couldn’t outrun the man he’d been.

He picked up his pack without really thinking about the weight, and gathered bread and fruit, somewhat haphazardly—he could summon food if they needed more—and, almost an afterthought, a fair amount of money from one of the sea-chests. He assumed gold would still be acceptable, even if extremely out-of-date as far as the monarch printed on the coins; Gareth, he recalled, had nearly run out of money, so more would likely be useful.

He poked his head out over the stone balcony ledge. “Are we ready?”

Gareth, standing on the boat, turned. A bit of his cinnamon-forest hair drifted in the breeze, under stars. “Do you have fresh water, up there?”

“Ah. Right. I can handle that, you understand, along the way.”

“I’m sure you can,” Gareth agreed. “But what if you’re busy, or saving your strength? Some reserves would be helpful.”

“Oh, fine…” That was easy enough, though he had to sort out a means of conveyance; he ended up coaxing water into an old wine bottle. He tossed it down to Gareth, who said, “Thanks.”

“For what?” Lorre grabbed one more book, ran on air down the side of the cliff, let his feet hit the sand. Felt wrong. Boots. Not bare skin. His body already ached to drink in the world more clearly. “Let’s go and find your goats before I change my mind.”

Gareth finished stowing his own pack and looked up. “For listening to me. You didn’t have to.”

“It was a fair point. Why wouldn’t I listen?”

“I thought you might be offended. If I questioned your ability to get fresh water out of the ocean.”

“You can’t offend me. Well. Maybe twenty years ago. Ten. Five. We’ll need a good current…no, sit down, you can’t help with this part.”

“Years ago.” Gareth did sit down, gazing at him under starlit shimmer, between light in the sky and light on waves. “But not now?”

“I’m just done with all that,” Lorre said, with more feeling than he’d meant to. He sat on the curving side of the boat; he dangled his fingers into the water, breaking a glimmer of reflection. He drew urgency, presence, a rush; he asked the ocean to shift, the world to change, in a small spot here around their boat. He felt the edges of his hand drift and blur: to speak the language of water, he had to know it, to let it in, to become for a moment the knowledge of old deep rhythms and secrets. “I can’t go around being offended by humans all the time.”

Their boat slid out into night-blue waters quietly, swiftly, without fanfare. The current picked them up and took them, fast.

“Three days,” Lorre said. “Or less. Tonight, tomorrow, the day after. If I remember the oceans correctly. Tell me about your North.”

“About the mountain bandits? Of course, I should’ve—you’ll need to know the numbers, the timing of raids—”

“No. Or, well, yes. That too. But I meant your home.” He slid his hand out of the water, with a feeling like he should’ve left a fingertip or a breath or a bit of self behind. The magic would continue; set in motion, it would remain so. “What makes it real to you. What you’re trying to save.”

“Like an anchor?” Gareth shifted weight. “You need to know something about it, to do some sort of spell?”

“Something like that. I don’t know the Marches well. You do. Tell me what you love.”

Gareth drew a breath, let it out. Framed by flowing silver and velvet blue, he was happy suddenly, broad-shouldered and heroic, a prince asked to talk about his home. He tugged the tie out of his hair and ran both hands through spice-dark waves. “All right. Have you ever been there in summer? At sunrise, in the mountains? When the light comes up just right, over rocks and heather and the hint of snow in spring, and it’s all gold and pink and glowing, like the first-ever morning, and the air tastes like ice and sharp grass and fir needles, and you know you’re awake and alive…or the winter, too, when there’s a good fire in the hearth and hot cider and long nights with everyone gathered up at the Hall, everyone telling stories and singing songs because we’re all in the dark together, the way we should be together, side by side…”

“You and the goats,” Lorre said, but lightly. Gareth spoke of home with such longing, audible and heartfelt. Gareth had a family and roots and a mountain hall. A prince whose family opened the doors and brought everyone inside. Togetherness in the dark.

“Sometimes.” Gareth did not take offense. “We make our own cheese. And grow our own cabbages. My family’s carrot cake’s won prizes at the harvest fair, and before you ask, of course everyone knew my brother entered, and if anything it counted against him. How many people would love to say they’ve beaten their king in a baking contest? Dan’s really good, though. And everyone cheered when he came first, last year.”

“Your people love him. But your uncle didn’t, did he.”

“Uncle Osric…” Gareth sighed. “We knew Da was dying—we’d known that, oh, for years, we’d known he was sick…I’m not even sure Dan wanted to be king. I mean, he did, of course he did, he wanted to help people, he knew he’d be asked to take it up, we both knew. But I think he’d’ve really been happy learning to ice cakes and make goat’s milk cream puffs all his days. And Uncle Osric was so angry about it…we’d never known how much he resented it, not being next in line. We didn’t know he wanted it so very badly. The way he’d tell jokes with us at supper, or make Da laugh through the pain, or comfort our mother when she wept…I remember he taught me how to whistle. When we were all younger.”

“People,” Lorre said, “can be more than one thing. All at once. That doesn’t mean they’re not who they were, when they meant something to you. It’s all still true.” The hurt in Gareth’s voice—a young man’s hurt, bewildered and betrayed—should not tug at his heart. Shouldn’t make him want to reach out, to rest a hand on Gareth’s knee.

Gareth, he thought, believed in people. Had believed, at least. Still wanted to. The same way Gareth believed the most powerful magician in the world had to help: because quests could be rewarded, because some good remained, because somewhere the universe would be kind and true and full of stories on a long winter night, with a farmer-king who baked cakes for his people, and a younger brother who set out to bring home aid.

“I know.” Gareth pulled up a knee, wrapped his arms around it. “I know people’re complicated. Sometimes they leave, in the night. And then other people see them riding at the head of a raid on the northern pastures.”

Lorre said, rather helplessly, “I’m sorry.” He knew that was the sort of thing people said; he knew he wasn’t much good at comfort. Too old for that. Too amoral. At some point in the past he might’ve shrugged and supported a usurping uncle, especially if the man promised to support magic and the old ways in turn.

He added, “I can’t make the past not’ve happened. But maybe I can protect your goats.”

“You can do anything,” Gareth said. Light caught in his eyelashes, painted the side of his face: silver over the line of a cheekbone. “Or nearly anything. You’re the last great magician.”

“Our new Grand Sorceress would have something to say about that.” The night was growing brittle and icy, unless that was his bones. Lorre put out a hand, pulled light and heat and energy from his own veins and from the air: borrowing thrumming sparking flecks of gold. He’d thrown in a small brazier and stray wood; he lit the fire for them both, amid water and night. “I might be the last of—something. But they’re rebuilding, down South. There’ll be magicians again.”

“They won’t be you.”

Lorre had to laugh. “No one’s me. Not even me. Not anymore.”

Gareth uncurled from his forlorn leg-hugging pose. Held out both hands to the fire. “You care whether I’m cold.”

“I care whether I’m cold. It’s only going to get worse, sailing North.”

“You tell me you’re selfish,” Gareth said. “You tell me you’re not what I think. But you’re here. Helping me.”

“It’s a mistake,” Lorre said. “Bringing me back to the world…do you know how many people hate me? And what it’ll do to the politics, the treaties, the balance of power…”

“But you’re still here.”

“You were very convincing.”

“Was I?”

“No,” Lorre said. “Yes. Maybe.”

And Gareth laughed. “What was it you said? Covering all the possible answers?”

“Something like that. You should get some rest.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t sleep much. I do sleep!—I enjoy it—” Gareth was looking at him oddly, amused or impressed. “But I don’t need to. Much.”

“Do you need to—”

“Keep the magic going? No. It’ll carry us.” He touched the water again, felt the brief murmur of connection. “Until I ask it to stop. Though there might be unexpected hazards. Whirlpools. Merchant ships. Giant sea turtles as large as an island.”

“Are there?”

“There were,” Lorre said. “Once. I haven’t seen any in decades. Not that I’ve looked, I suppose. They might still be out there.”

“Tell me about them?”

“I’m not a storyteller.”

“Did you meet a giant sea turtle?”

“They don’t talk,” Lorre said. “Not exactly. It was more…impressions. Slow, and vast, and not terribly interested in me. Like stones, almost, but more in motion, swimming onward. They aren’t really very fond of people, or they weren’t, back then.”

“They? More than one?”

“The two I met were traveling together,” Lorre explained, and then found himself telling Gareth about island-sized sea turtles and a search for ancient sandy hatching grounds and the calm deliberate tug of instincts, a sense of companionship, a mate and a pull toward new life. Gareth settled down by the fire, wide-eyed, wrapped up in warmth, and listened.