Magician by K.L. Noone

Chapter 9

The water burned like ice and flowed like ribbons. The pebbles dug into his back, small and hard. Sprawled in a stream, over stones, Lorre let the rush of mountain river pour through him and open him up and dissolve him into itself. He’d left his clothing on a boulder on the bank.

He liked being water. He could bend and ripple and splash and leap; he knew the pulse of himself up from a deep far-off spring, and the sensation of rocks being worn down bit by bit beneath his running across them, and the dance of silvery darting fish inside the liquid tumbling world that he was. He’d always fit into rivers easily: maybe his heritage, or maybe just because he also had been restless and flecked with sunlight and dappled with rain, running onward.

The sky above the Mountain Marches grew darker, thick as lead. A storm quivered, imminent. Lorre tasted lightning like high thin violet air, purple as an afterimage seared behind eyelids.

Without a physical head, his headache grew less; it drained and spilled down the mountainside. He hadn’t gone far, in fact only out to the noisy clamoring silver line behind the hall. He was listening indistinctly, not exactly meaning to eavesdrop but spread out into the world and overhearing, and also used to picking up on his own name.

If he focused, it grew sharper. He toyed with the idea while someone brought in a fishing-net from one of his current lower branches, downstream.

Gareth was, if not angry, at least frustrated, and also concerned, and being protective. He hadn’t been the one to say Lorre’s name, but he was thinking it very loudly: all tangled up with worry about the oncoming storm and the Northern cold and Lorre’s headache, coppery strands looped around with silver and gold glints of astonished gratitude at what Lorre’d said about him, plus a steady hope that Lorre could help his people and Gareth himself could help Lorre in turn, and also a kind of exalted incandescent fondness that Lorre ducked away from because it was far too pure and clean to be directed at himself. Evidently, despite everything, Gareth still looked at him with too much worship and not enough reality.

He ought to not sleep with Gareth again. He ought to end that here and now, before he did anything to hurt that big earth-rich heart any more.

He ought to make it clean and clear as the rain: Gareth owed him nothing, no obligations, no need for self-sacrifice to keep a legendarily selfish sorcerer happy.

He ought to pull the droplets of himself out of this mountain stream and go and find bandits, and, having done that, he ought to go back to his island and his own company as immediately as possible. No political power shifts. No instability.

No princes gazing at him and fretting over his headache and remembering how sweet he liked his tea.

A flicker of motion caught his attention. Not local. Down South. Averene. He listened to that one for a moment, would’ve cursed if he’d had a non-riverine mouth, and contemplated his own arrogance as far as walking into a public inn in a bustling harbor town, where the gruff unremarkable man who’d ducked out the door had absolutely recognized him from descriptions and had sent a message, and that message had made it down the coast, and to King Henry’s court, and to the new Grand Sorceress…

He’d half-wanted to be seen. Just to be seen: to know that he was still someone.

Causing harm, he thought wearily. The headache was back. Bits of himself bounced and swirled over boulders, frothing and foamy.

Gareth’s mother was worried as well, about the Marches and her people and most pointedly about her son; she’d been the one to speak Lorre’s name aloud in the hall. She’d asked again about the terms of any bargain, about Gareth’s safety. She knew Lorre’s reputation. Of course she’d fear.

Lorre listened in despite knowing what he’d hear, soddenly drawn to it, expecting the reply. The resignation, on Gareth’s side.

Not regret, because that hero’s heart would sacrifice itself in a single beat to keep a sorcerer in a good mood, when that sorcerer might offer assistance. Not remorse. But agreement with his mother’s words would certainly come: this was a sacrifice, and Lorre was dangerous and had to be placated, and all of that was true.

Gareth, arm braced against a window-frame, staring out at newly green hills under misty rain, retorted, “I chose. I wanted it. He tried to tell me I didn’t have to. He’d never hurt me.”

“He’s a magician.” His mother stirred her own tea, slowly. “The magician. If you say you said yes, freely…you’re my son and I trust you. But you know the stories.”

“I know all the stories.” Gareth kept watching the storm. “He’ll be cold. He likes being warm. I should—”

Dan, who’d been refreshingly quiet—at least in Lorre’s half-focused watery head—came up and put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Gar. Thank you.”

Gareth did turn, at that: surprised. “I said I’d find someone to help.”

“And so you did.” Dan tilted an eyebrow at him. “And you always did like big blue eyes and a pretty face and someone you could fuss over…remember Gwen Connell, and you bringing her all those lemon cakes, when she had that broken ankle…”

“I remember putting one down your shirt when you said she could get around just fine and she was taking advantage of me,” Gareth said, but he’d begun half-smiling. “You know you don’t need to thank me. Not for this, not for me.”

“Actually I’m thinking I do,” Dan said. “My brother the hero. Going on quests, sleeping with magicians.” But his voice, his sense, were affectionate and impressed.

Thunder boomed. Lorre, being a stream, felt drops lance down into himself: piercing and plummeting and distracting.

He lost track of time, for a while: not thinking, not listening, only being. Nothing but water and stones and a tempest. Nothing else, nothing left.

He felt a presence approaching, a balanced steady glow of amber and autumn and bedrock and bonfires. He hauled himself back out of disparate drops and river-water in time to sit up and find Gareth looking thoughtfully at the waterlogged heap of Lorre’s clothing on the rock.

“I’m fine,” Lorre said. “I’m here.”

“I was trying to give you space.” Gareth, bundled into a heap of thick Northern plaids and an oiled water-resisting cloak, held out an arm; Lorre accepted, picking his way across pebbles. Gareth added, “But then I thought you’d be cold, and your clothes’d be all wet…come inside? Please.”

“I didn’t go far.”

“No, I can see that.” They found their way back to the hall, tucked together. Gareth kept an arm and a blanket around Lorre, who flung up a small rain-shield again—Gareth shouldn’t need to get wet, coming to find him—and also dried himself off so as not to spread the river-dampness.

Gareth took him in through a side door, and up a short stair: not back through the main audience chamber, then. Not seeing anyone else, stirring up more consequences.

But the flagstones of the floor were tranquil, and the hall itself welcomed people: tapestried, laced with family and color, love of each other and love of their home. This house did not seem to mind the footfalls of a wayward magician.

Gareth took him to the southwest corner, up on the story with the private family living quarters, and opened a door. A bedroom, or rather two connected rooms with no separation, unfolded: a slanted roof, wooden beams, braided rugs in muted hues, a bed with thick green hangings loosely tied back, ready for extra warmth on cold nights. An entire library’s worth of books stampeded across the walls of both the bedroom and the open study. A fire, already lit, crackled in greeting.

“Your room?” Lorre knew it was; it felt like Gareth, from the books to the somewhat inexpert small carving of a unicorn on a wooden beam to the very earnest presences of oils and cleaning-supplies for travel leathers and pen-nibs.

And then he saw his own pack, at the foot of the low bench near the fire. Unopened, but settled in place. Leaning against Gareth’s own.

He looked over at Gareth. A question.

Gareth glanced that way too, with faintly pink ears, but wasn’t too embarrassed to explain, “I didn’t want to assume anything, and we do have guest chambers, but…mine’s warmer. And you and I can talk. And my family already knows we’re…ah, doing what we’re doing. But I can go and make up one of the guest rooms if you want.”

Lorre raised eyebrows at him, murmured, “No, I enjoy being comfortable and scandalizing your family…” and wandered in the direction of the fire, kicking his boots off first. He touched the small awkward unicorn—it danced along one of the wall-beams—on the way.

Gareth joined him. “In my defense, I was only eight. Reading Plinus’s Natural History. Clearly not an artist, especially with a pen-knife.”

“I hope you don’t expect flattery.” He petted the unicorn again, though, before getting closer to the fire.

“Were unicorns ever real? I know the histories say so, but some of them also say you’re eight feet tall and could shoot fireballs from a quarterstaff.”

“If that’s volume two of Edward Chauce’s History of the Middle Lands,” Lorre said, “as far as I can remember, I was bored and he was wrong about the territorial disputes in the river valleys, so I showed up and, ah…explained some inaccuracies to him. I don’t remember ever using a quarterstaff. I might’ve lit a branch on fire.”

Gareth laughed.

“I think unicorns used to be real.” Lorre held out hands to the fire: reminding his fingers of the here and now. His senses lay like a jeweled net over the Mountain Marches: aware, at a low level, of villagers and cloth merchants and fisherfolk and visitors coming and going between houses and shops. Nothing felt out of place or threatening or threatened. His head didn’t hurt as much, more the memory of a headache. “I never saw one, but I spoke to people who swore they had, maybe, oh, a hundred years before. Mostly up here in the mountains, or in the wild forests. I think they were as real as the giant turtles, or the river sprites, or the wood-nymphs. But they’re all gone now, or if any exist they’re hiding someplace I couldn’t find.”

“You know so much.” Gareth started to run a hand through his hair, remembered it was tied back, yanked the tie out. “You’ve seen so much. I’m sorry about my family. My mother. She says we’re grateful, of course. You’re invited to dinner with everyone tonight.”

“I used to think,” Lorre said, “that I knew everything. That no one in the world could possibly be more right than I was. I can leave, if you want. I can find your bandits from anywhere.” With greater and lesser degrees of difficulty; but he didn’t mention that. The fire skimmed his cheek, hot as a bruise.

“No.” Gareth reached out slowly, giving Lorre time to draw away; when that didn’t happen, he let his hand rest on Lorre’s shoulder, a weight. “I want you to stay. Did it help? Being the river.”

“I told you,” Lorre said, “I can do anything.”

“Not an answer.”

“You could kiss me again.”

“Could I?” Gareth ran fingers through Lorre’s hair; gold drifted over his fingers like silk. “Anything you ask, I said. Anything you want from me.”

“No.” Lorre did pull away, at that, though not far. “Not like that. Not a price. You’re not a martyr and I’m not that cruel. Not on purpose. Not anymore.”

Gareth’s hand stayed poised for a second, then dropped. “It’s what Dan said. About sacrifice. Isn’t it? He’s wrong.”

“He’s not. And you shouldn’t offer to give a magician anything. No conditions, no rules—whatever I want, you said.”

“We’ve had this conversation,” Gareth said. “I’m offering because I want to. And you want to.”

“If you won’t tell me no—”

“You told me once,” Gareth said, “that I was persistent. The sort of person who’d come to find you, and argue for my goats and my villages and my quest, and not give up. Does that sound like someone who doesn’t know what they want?”

Lorre wanted to answer, found himself abruptly tired of arguing, shut his eyes, opened them. “I don’t know.”

“I do. Can I kiss you?”

Lorre nodded, and then said, “Please,” because he wanted to feel warm and he wanted to be held, in this body, this self, even if only for a moment. Gareth felt real and strong and sturdy, and Gareth’s lips were tender and sincere, and Lorre leaned against him and yearned to be just as real and safe and anchored.

Gareth took him to bed easily, unhurriedly, surrounded by the leap of fire and the susurration of rain. They kissed more, long lingering discoveries and affirmations; Gareth undressed them both, though Lorre could’ve. The touch of hands felt more private, more right: something he was craving, and somehow Gareth guessed, and simply unfastened and undid and stripped away his layers.

Gareth touched him more, in bed: deliberate, gradual, no rush to a finish. Only grave intent, and serious pleasure, evident in each gesture. Gareth told him to lie back and not move, much: to not worry about doing more than he already was, to rest, to let himself be taken care of. Lorre said, “I’ve never had a problem with being indulged and enjoying myself, but it hardly seems fair.”

Gareth paused, lips brushing Lorre’s shaft. “Believe me, I’m enjoying myself as well.” He certainly looked it: pink, tousled, aroused, happy. A strand of his hair swooped down beside one eye, auburn as a shifting season; he tucked it back.

“Tell me if there’s something you don’t want to do,” Lorre tried.

Gareth grinned at him, bent down, and took all of him: one glorious plunge into that luscious mouth. Lorre made a terribly incoherent sound, not on purpose, and arched up; Gareth made no secret of enthusiasm, after that.

They ended with Gareth atop him, riding him. Lorre moved and thrust, buried in him, breaths ragged, and Gareth told him again not to move much, but to watch and enjoy; and they both came that way, shuddering and nearly simultaneous. Lorre, feeling Gareth all around him, tight and hot with ecstasy at the peak of release, couldn’t not follow, in that instant.

The fire flared. The carved unicorn ran along the wood-beam, higher up. Somewhere in the distance an extra shock of life pulsed through mountain fields. The end of the cheese in Gareth’s unopened pack unexpectedly became cream, milky and flowing. Lorre swore aloud—Gareth looked surprised, then twisted to see the direction of his gaze, and started laughing—and hastily intangibly hauled back elemental building-blocks that’d been cheese and ordered them all to be so again.

“Still strawberries,” Gareth said, still laughing, “but also cream, this time…”

“I used to have better control—!” He thought that one over, amended, “Maybe I didn’t.”

“The world feels what you feel.” Gareth drew him close, draped an arm over him, cuddled their bodies together. “It’s a compliment, I told you, on this side. Cream, indeed.”

“Your toes are warm.”

“And yours aren’t. How’s your head?”

“Better.” He’d forgotten about it, in fact. “Thank you.”

Gareth kissed his shoulder. “I’ll get us tea and cakes in a minute. And there’ll be supper later, but you don’t have to come to that. Neither do I, really. We can stay here if you want.”

“I’m not keeping you from your family. Besides…” He shifted, rolled over, got them face to face. “There’s something you should know. Not immediate, but soon.”

Gareth’s entire body tensed: a prince prepared for action, defense, a leap from a bed.

“Not bandits! I’d tell you. That’s quiet. But…your mother was right. I was right. About the politics. You remember the man who left the inn, back at Whiskey Harbor, when we came in?”

Gareth got it instantly. “Who’s on the way?”

“I’m not entirely sure…yet…but probably at least the Grand Sorceress. And Prince William—his brother decided to make him legitimate, did you hear? He’s still Henry’s usual problem-solver. And I’m certainly a problem. You are, too, now.”

“We heard,” Gareth said. “We don’t have much to do on a daily basis with Averene, but we’re on decent terms, the old trade agreements and all. Rumor says King Henry can’t have children. And William’s at least in the bloodline, and he might’ve been a scoundrel and a degenerate and too ambitious for his own good, but he’s mostly reformed, hasn’t he? Now that he’s married…to…the new Grand Sorceress…” He stopped.

“There’re at least six reasons,” Lorre said, “why I’m not welcome in Averene. More and less recent.”

“Oh sweet Goddess,” Gareth said.

“You see the problem. Problems. You’re not only harboring a dangerous weapon, you’re harboring me.”

“Six reasons?”

“One’s shaped like a dragon. A few have to do with the previous king—their father. And the Church. And that time I suggested Will be disposed of, if Henry ever wanted a stronger claim on the throne.”

Gareth rolled onto his back, and very slowly draped an arm over his face, and said nothing.

“I did try to warn you,” Lorre said. “By the way, that rumor’s true, about Henry. I could tell. So can Lily, though, so I didn’t bother to say anything. They know.”

Gareth said, not moving the arm, “I miss the days when I only had to worry about getting the harvest in and settling local disputes over salmon fishing rights.”

“You went on a quest. And bought a map to your heart’s desire, and found an unplottable island, and talked to a magician.” Lorre sat up, looped arms around his knees, couldn’t look at the prince beside him. “Hero.”

“And I’d do it again.” Gareth sat up too. Right next to him. “You haven’t felt anything, tonight? Maybe they won’t come. The bandits.”

“Maybe,” Lorre said darkly, “they also know I’m here.”

“Would that be so bad?” Gareth bit his lip, though. “No, I see. You’d have to stay here. So they’d keep on being scared of you. You could never go home. Obviously I’m not asking for that.”

Stay here, Gareth had said. And: would that be so bad?

Lorre’s head took all those words, and did not quite form thoughts, only a blank white sort of curious surprise. Soft, like feathers. Sweet like cream.

Gareth went on rapidly, “Don’t mind me talking, I’m only trying to work out how to have a conversation with the Grand Sorceress and the heir to the throne of Averene. Given that you’re you, and I’m me, and we’re, ah. Doing this.” He waved a hand: them, naked, in bed. “Here, though—stay in bed, stay warm, I’ll see about tea. Take this.” The last comment meant the topmost blanket, a thick knitted green-and-gold stripe.

Lorre took it automatically. Gareth bolted in the direction of tea and comfort: something to do, a kettle to find, some books to gather. He threw on trousers to venture out of the door and have a hurried conversation with someone; the someone returned with a tray, after a minute or two.

“Dan was baking, earlier,” Gareth informed him, reappearing. “He does that when he’s worried. Or happy. Or any time, really. Though this morning it was him trying not to fret about not having heard from me. Which means blackberry-walnut scones. They’re always excellent.”

Lorre looked at him, gazed at him, took him in. A prince, a younger son, with bedroom-rumpled falling-leaf hair. A man who adored his family, with steadiness and without envy. Someone who’d help every person in his path, whether that meant settling fishing disputes or caring for a magician with a headache. Or leaving home and family behind and walking right up to the magician in question, on a tropical isle, and asking for assistance. Because his people needed help, and that was the right thing to do.

Lorre had been in love, or he’d thought he had, a time or two. He’d cared, at least. He wasn’t sure he’d ever loved anyone enough: not more than his own power or desires or self-interest.

He thought, looking at Gareth, that he would do whatever those rich velvet-brown eyes asked of him; he’d trust Gareth to be his conscience, his compass, his humanity.

Was that love? Did it feel like being broken open and tethered all at once, like surrender and freedom and welcome pain?

Like knowing, down in his bones and heart and sense of self, down where his magic lived, that this was the best person he’d ever known—while also knowing Gareth deserved so much better, so much more, than one of history’s villains?

He’d known Gareth for a handful of days. But then Gareth was easy to love, and Lorre was old enough to know that love, if it did happen, could happen any time. He’d seen it, if not understood it.

He was also old enough to know all the hurt he’d caused. And would continue to cause: Lily and Will would be riding North, not through the night, but inarguably on the way. And Gareth’s family would find themselves squarely in the middle.

Gareth sat down beside him, balancing scones and a teacup. “What’re you thinking?”

“That you only poured one cup?”

“We’re sharing.”

“You don’t take sugar.”

“It’s mostly for you, and I don’t mind it, if it’s there.”

“I’m keeping all the wards up,” Lorre said. “I’m listening, I promise. I’ll tell you if anything happens. Not only bandits, I mean, floods or washed-out bridges or whatever else happens up here in your mountains.”

“You’re listening to the world.” Gareth handed him the teacup, put an arm around him. “All the time. Does that get tiring?”

“Do you get tired of hearing? Or sight? Or taste?”

“I know what you mean,” Gareth said, “but I’m also pretty certain you know about days when it’s hard to keep your eyes open, or one more sound’s one sound too many, and you’re aching to go sit by a waterfall and read, alone with yourself.”

Lorre leaned into him, because here and now he could and Gareth wanted him to. “You’re not even angry with me. About everything.”

“What part of it’s your fault? Aside from you being obnoxious enough to annoy the entire Averenish royal family. Certainly our bandit problem’s nothing you’ve done.” But Gareth was grinning at him, and kept the arm around him. “You’re you. I know. We’ll manage.”

“You’ve got such touching faith in me.”

“And I like touching you. We’ll go and tell my mother and Dan about this over supper, in an hour or so, since you said it wasn’t immediate.”

“It’s not.” Lily couldn’t travel the way he could; no one else could. It’d be a few days, he estimated, with some magical enhancements as far as speed and weight-carrying, but it’d depend on what size of delegation—or military force—they’d brought along. Might be a week, or more. Or less.

“We’re fine, then. Have a scone. I’ve found a copy of Chauce’s History, and you can tell me all about the bits he got wrong. I’m guessing there’re a lot, and you want to mention them all.”

“Well, if you’re asking,” Lorre said, and had a scone. It was delicious.