Death of a Darklord

FOUR

A strange man sat before the kitchen fire. His hair was white as snow, his face dominated by a yellowish beard and a beaklike nose. He smiled at Elaine, gray eyes gentle.

Elaine sat in a chair on the other side of the fire. Mala had put another cup of tea in her hands. The cook was a great believer in the restorative powers of tea.

The man was also sipping tea. A plate of cookies balanced on his knees. It was the treatment any guest would receive, except that most guests would have been seen in the parlor.

Jonathan stood in the middle of the floor, arms crossed, frowning, staring at the stranger. He stood like a guard. Apparently, the kitchen was good enough for this particular guest.

Tereza sat at the table with Konrad and Blaine. They were the audience. Whether they were here to see a real live mage or to witness what Jonathan would do in the presence of one was unclear. It was certainly going to be entertaining either way.

"I am Gersalius, a wizard. I am told you have some magic of your own, Elaine."

She glanced at Jonathan's scowling face. "I don't think of it as magic."

The mage settled back in the chair, one hand steadying the plate of cookies. "Then what do you call it?"

She shrugged. "Just visions."

"Tell me about these. visions," Gersalius said.

Elaine sipped the hot tea, not sure what to say. "Do you want me to describe them?"

"If you like."

She narrowed her eyes, trying not to frown. Jonathan was doing enough of that for everyone. But the mage was being. frustrating.

"What do you want of me?"

"To help you."

"How?"

"For someone who has magical abilities, you are very suspicious."

Elaine looked down. "I don't know what you want me to say."

"Enough of these word games," Jonathan said. "Can you help her or not?" He stood over them like a tall, disapproving cloud.

"Mr. Ambrose, if Elaine had fallen ill and you had called in a doctor, would you be telling him how to do his job?"

"So far, you have done nothing."

Gersalius sighed. "The girl has magic powers. She sparkles to the eye that can see it."

"She has visions; that is all."

Gersalius stood, tea and cookies in hand. "If you insist on arguing with me at every point, I cannot help her."

"Good, then go," Jonathan said.

Tereza said, "Jonathan." That one word held something hard, almost threatening.

Jonathan turned to her. "He has done nothing but speak in riddles since he entered our house."

"You have not allowed him to do much of anything, Jonathan."

"Elaine is not a mage."

"Jonathan," Tereza's voice was gentle but firm, "she nearly died today. It was her vision that nearly killed her. The visions are magic of some kind. We need to know what happened."

"She is not a mage," he said.

"And if she is?" Tereza asked.

Jonathan closed his mouth with an audible snap. He turned away from them all.

Elaine huddled in the chair, the tea forgotten in her hands. Would he send her away if she were a mage? Would she be cast out of the only home she'd known?

Mala came up behind her, placing her hands on Elaine's shoulders. "You'll not be sending her away."

"If we're not wanted," Blaine said, "we can go." His voice was warm with anger. He was struggling to his feet.

"Sit down, Blaine," Konrad said. "No one is sending Elaine away." His voice was very firm when he said it.

Elaine turned in the chair to see. Konrad's green eyes were sparkling, the lines in his face tight with anger.

Would he have been this outraged over anyone's leaving, or was this especially for her? Elaine's face lit with a heat that had nothing to do with the potential loss of her home.

Tereza stood up. "Jonathan, you had better make yourself very clear on this issue."

He spread his hands wide. "Well, of course, Elaine will stay, no matter what. This is her home." But there was something in his voice that made Elaine shrink against the chair back. A hesitation, as if he had more to say but left it unspoken. If she were indeed a mage, Jonathan would never make peace with it. Not really.

She didn't want to be a mage. The visions were bad enough.

"Sit down, Gersalius," Tereza said. "Jonathan and I were just leaving so you could get on with your work."

Jonathan opened his mouth to protest. She stopped him with a small gesture. "We need to talk, Husband. And the wizard needs to see to Elaine."

She rarely called him husband. When she did, it was usually the beginning of a quarrel, or at least a disagreement.

Jonathan stood very straight. "If you say so, Wife." Anger was plain in his voice.

"I say so." She left the room first, and he followed.

There was silence for a time, then Gersalius sat down and said, "Describe one of your visions for me, Elaine. Please."

Elaine sipped her tea. She didn't want to talk to the wizard. It wasn't just wanting to avoid strife. Jonathan had taught them well. Magic could be useful, but it was easily turned to evil.

"I don't want to do magic," she said softly.

Gersalius's smile widened. "Child, magic is not a choice. I have known men who wanted more than life itself to do magic but had not the talent. You cannot force magic into your body, nor can you rid yourself of it if it is a natural ability."

"I have seen people who bargained with evil things to gain magic," she said.

"That is not natural magic, Elaine. That is abomination."

"Magic is magic."

"Those are not your own words, child."

She stared down into her cup. "I don't know what you mean."

"Elaine, magic-true magic-is not intrinsically evil. It is like a sword. The steel itself has no leaning to good or evil. It is the hand that wields the sword that dictates whether it will be used for good or evil. The weapon itself is neutral."

"But. " She searched his face, trying to find something that was not there. She could sense no trace of evil about him. Elaine wasn't sure she had ever been around a wizard that didn't bear some taint.

"You can feel I mean you no harm."

"Yes."

"It is magic that allows you to detect whether I am telling the truth or not."

She shook her head. "I can't always tell who's lying and who isn't."

"With practice you could."

"Can you?"

He grinned. "Most of the time. There are those with greater powers than my own. They can fool me from time to time."

"Magic is unreliable."

"Everything is unreliable, from time to time."

A small smile flashed across Elaine's face before she could stop it.

"See, not so bad," he said.

Elaine swallowed the smile, but couldn't quite chase away the warmth that had accompanied it.

Mala refilled Elaine's mug without asking. She motioned to the mage. "Would you like some more, sir?"

"Yes, please." He held out his mug. He offered her the empty cookie plate, as well.

"Would you like some more sweets?"

"Some more of those excellent cookies would be quite nice."

Mala blushed and dropped a rough curtsey. It wasn't as though Mala weren't complimented on her cooking often by the entire household.

Elaine watched the plump cook hurry away. Did Harry the stableman have a rival? No, that was silly. Mala would know that Jonathan would never let a wizard court her.

Elaine's stomach clenched in a cold, icy knot. Would Jonathan be able to abide a wizard under his own roof? Even if it were her?

Mala returned with a plate of cookies for both of them. She set it on a little stool before the fire.

"Thank you, Mala," Gersalius said.

Mala giggled.

A mere thank you, and she giggled. Elaine had never seen the cook like this, not even around Harry.

Mala left to stir something at the stove. The back of her neck was red with a blush of pleasure.

Was the mage that charming, or was it a spell? Elaine wanted to ask but didn't want to embarrass Mala.

Gersalius sipped his tea and looked at Elaine. There was a twinkle in his eye that seemed to say he knew what she was thinking.

"Do you know what I'm thinking right now?"

"Yes, but it is not magic."

"How, then?"

He leaned forward, lowering his voice. "Your body posture was very disapproving when your cook catered to me just now. Your face is like a mirror, child. Every thought chases across it."

She frowned at him. "I don't believe that."

"You don't want to believe it," he said. "The thought that your thoughts, your feelings, are so easily read by a stranger frightens you."

She opened her mouth to deny it, but didn't. It wasn't so much the mind-reading mage that bothered Elaine, but the others. Did Konrad know how she felt? Did everyone? Was she that transparent?

"I am a very noticing kind of person, Elaine. Most people aren't, even people that see you everyday. In fact, I have found, people that have watched you grow up are often oblivious to you. You know what they say, 'familiarity breeds invisibility.»

"I thought it was, 'familiarity breeds contempt.»

"Well, yes, maybe it was, but I don't think he has contempt for you, do you?"

"You are reading my mind," she said. She sat very straight, hands gripping her mug tight.

"Perhaps I am, a little. The fact that you are an untrained mage makes it easier for me. Strong emotions are also easier to decipher."

Elaine's hands trembled. Hot tea sloshed onto her skin. Mala darted forward, scooping the mug from her hands and dabbing at the spill with a clean towel. "Have you burned your hands?"

Konrad knelt beside Elaine's chair. He pressed a cloth to her hands. She started at the coldness. He had scooped snow into the cloth. "Cold is the best for a minor burn."

His hands enfolded hers, pressing the snow to her skin. Her chest was tight. The weight of his hands round her own chased the last of the cold from her body. Even with snow touching her skin, Elaine felt warm. She felt the warmth creep up her neck, and she knew she was blushing.

Konrad stared only at her hands, at his task as a healer. He never looked at her face.

Elaine's eyes met the mage's gaze. Gersalius was right, Konrad didn't know. He didn't see what a stranger had noticed easily.

"How do your hands feel?" Konrad asked.

She stared down at him. The blush had faded with knowledge that Konrad felt nothing when he touched her. When he'd carried her downstairs, the feel of his body against hers had thrilled her. To him it was just another task. Another sick person to be tended.

"They don't hurt," she said.

He nodded and stood, taking the cloth to clean it and set it to dry. He never glanced back.

"Do you want the tea, Elaine?" Mala asked.

Elaine shook her head.

Mala took the offending mug away. She didn't even flirt with the mage.

"Tell me of your visions," Gersalius said. His voice was gentle, as if he knew what she had just realized. Since he was reading her thoughts, he probably did know.

Her first reaction was anger. How dare he spy on her feelings? She opened her mouth to tell him to get out, to leave her alone, but the look in his blue eyes was too kind, his face too understanding.

"I would not hear your thoughts quite so clearly if I could help it. You give off your thoughts like the sparks from a fire. You shine, Elaine. You shine with so much talent. When I learned how old you were and that you had never been trained, I thought your abilities would be small. How else could the magic have stayed so controlled for so long?"

His face was suddenly serious. He leaned toward her, and Elaine found herself moving closer to the mage. "The strength of your will is fierce, Elaine. You did not want to be a mage, so you squashed the magic down inside of you. You locked it away with pure, shining determination. If you could turn that strength toward learning magic, you would be formidable. And you would learn quickly."

From inches away, she stared into his eyes. He was whispering to her before the fire, a conspirator. His power glided over her skin like wind. The hairs on the back of her neck and along her arms rose. Her skin crept with it. She felt something inside herself flare upward, something neither fire nor cold nor anything she had a name for. Whatever it was, Elaine felt it pouring up through her body, responding to the mage's magic. Like calling to like.

Elaine took a soft, shallow breath. She'd been holding her breath without realizing it. Her fingertips tingled as if magic would pour from her hands. She had the urge to touch the mage, to see if the pull of magic was stronger with a touch. She suspected it would be. She wanted to touch his hand. Her skin ached with the need to see what would happen. With the need came the fear.

She crossed her arms over her stomach, hiding her hands against her body. They balled into fists, digging into her sides, as if they would burrow out of sight. It took all the determination Gersalius had spoken of not to reach out to the mage.

She sat back in her chair as far from him as she could get without standing up.

Gersalius leaned back from her, giving her room. "It can be stronger when mage touches mage. It depends on what sort of magic a person possesses. Yours, even more than mine, is a laying on of the hands, I think."

"How can you tell that?"

He shrugged, smiled. "It is one of my gifts to judge talent in others. Most mages can spot power and judge potential strength, but few can decipher the actual method the magic will choose to come out."

"The magic chooses the way it will come out?" She made it a question, so he answered it.

"Often. If you had been trained earlier, perhaps you could have chosen the path of your own power, perhaps not. But now the magic has made some of the choices on its own. Your visions, for one."

Elaine shook her head. "You make magic sound like a second being inside of me, with a will of its own."

"I do not mean to. It is not separate from you. It has no thoughts or feelings of its own." The wizard frowned, thinking. He smiled as if something pleasant or clever had just occurred to him. "Say you had a talent for sewing-not a learned talent, but something you were born with. You were born to be a seamstress, or a tailor. But you were never allowed to study sewing. Then one day you made a beautiful ball gown. A week later you made another even more lovely than the first.

"Now, if you'd been allowed to study sewing from a young age, you might have decided to sew ceremonial robes, or winter woolies, but because you left your talent unused, the talent chose to make ball gowns. You might be happier knitting shawls or designing simpler dresses for more modest occasions, but it is too late. Your sewing has decided to make party dresses for the rich."

He studied her face for a moment, as if trying to gauge whether his analogy was working.

"Why don't you know what I'm thinking now?" she asked.

His voice broke into a lovely grin. "Very good, Elaine, very good. When you drew away from me that last time, you closed off more than just your body. You closed your thoughts as well. It was neatly done. But I think the fact you so quickly figured out I could no longer read your thoughts is even more promising."

"But I don't know how I did it."

"Think to how your body felt when you drew back. Think of the sensations. What did it feel like?"

Elaine thought about that for a moment. Had it felt like anything? She couldn't remember. She had moved away from him physically, but had she done anything else? Elaine closed her eyes, trying to recall what it had felt like. The sensation along her skin had retreated when she moved backward. The magic itself had moved back with her, inside her. She had broken contact with Gersalius. She had closed off her mind and her magic to him. That was a comforting thought.

She opened her eyes.

"Tell me," the mage said.

Elaine told him what she had felt.

"You have a wondrous grasp for the basics. What a pupil you would be." His face was eager, as if he had just this minute invented her.

"What would it mean to be your pupil?" She was amazed at her own question. Was she really contemplating studying magic? Yes, she was.

"The more time you could spend with me, the faster you would learn. The faster you would be able to control your powers."

"Would I need to move to your home?"

"You would be most welcome, or I could move here. I would be willing to do that. Under normal circumstances with someone as quick to learn, I would teach from her home. I would not willingly separate a young mage from her family and friends."

The thought sat unspoken between them: these were not normal circumstances.

"Jonathan will never allow a mage to live under his roof."

"Even if it is you?"

Elaine shook her head violently, and her hair whipped across her face. She didn't want to think about it. "I don't know."

"If we could not convince him to let a strange mage live under his roof, perhaps it would be easier to accept after you are trained."

It was logical, but Jonathan's hatred of wizards was not logical.

Blaine called from the table, "It might work."

"And I thought we were having a private conversation," Gersalius said, but there was no anger to his voice.

Blaine came to stand beside them, grinning. "If you move in here, there are no private conversations."

"There is that small hut on the grounds," Konrad said. "We would help you make any repairs and move your things in."

"Do you really think Jonathan would allow a mage to live inside the fort walls?" Elaine stared up at the tall warrior. She tried to find some hint that he wouldn't have made this effort for just anyone, that it was special just for her. His face was unreadable. Could she read his thoughts, as Gersalius had read hers?

The mage lightly touched her hand. No magic, just enough contact to gain her attention. "I would not try it, were I you. We often find out things we do want to know. Besides, how do you think Jonathan would feel knowing you were already trying to use magic on members of the household?"

"You can read my thoughts again."

"I told you, strong emotions make it easier."

Konrad and Blaine were frowning from one to the other. "What are you two talking about?" Blaine asked.

Gersalius smiled. "If Master Ambrose will allow me to stay here, even in the little hut, I will do so. For such a student, I would leave my own snug home even in this snow."

"I'll speak with Tereza," Konrad said. "If anyone can convince Jonathan to say yes, it will be her."

"Do you think he will say yes?" Elaine asked. She leaned toward him, wanting to touch his folded hands, to touch his bare skin, and have it thrill him as it thrilled her.

Gersalius tapped her hand again. He shook his head ever so slightly. Elaine frowned at him. "I wasn't…"

"Untrained magic has a tendency to reach out for things desired," he said, so soft that perhaps no one else heard. Heat crept up her neck to her face. She found herself blushing furiously, angry that her emotions were so obvious. She glanced up at Konrad, but he seemed merely puzzled.

"Why is the magic coming now? Why not before?"

"It has been leaking round the edges for some time. I am here now and can tell you when it's happening, and what the power is trying to do. But it has been manifesting for some time."

Elaine thought about that-Wild magic floating around her body, reaching for what she desired. "Am I dangerous?"

"Mostly to yourself, right now. But that will change, Elaine. With or without training, that will change."

Fear chased over her skin like an icy wave. "I can't risk the people I care about, if Jonathan will not let you remain here, I will have to leave."

"And I'll go with you," Blaine said.

"No, Blaine, we can't both leave."

He had that stubborn set to his chin. "I won't let you go alone. You know that."

"No one is going anywhere," Konrad said. "I'll find Tereza. If you can wait until we get this settled, Master Gersalius?"

The mage bowed his head. "Gladly, if I can have some more of those excellent cookies."

Mala came forward with a newly filled plate. "We'll not lose our Elaine for Jonathan's stubbornness."

"No," Konrad said, "we won't." He turned and left the room in search of Tereza.

"I'd best go with him. You know Tereza has a hard time saying no to me." Blaine left with a grin and a wave, all confidence, at least on the outside.

Mala was stirring the big pot on the stove.

"Konrad would do it for any of us, wouldn't he?" Elaine asked softly."

"I fear so," Gersalius said.

"I'll be able to read his true feelings someday?"

The wizard's eyes held sadness, as if of some old, remembered pain. "In very short order, I'm afraid."

"Did you read his thoughts?"

"No, child, that is unethical unless it is another mage. If the person cannot read your own thoughts, then it is unfair, like reading a person's private letters."

"You don't think I'll like what I find, do you?"

"Truth between us from the very first, Elaine Claim. Mo, I don't think you'll like it."

Elaine looked away from his kind eyes. The fire glistened in unshed tears until the room danced in orange shadow. She closed her eyes, and a single tear trailed down each cheek. There were more pitfalls to learning magic than she had thought. She would learn how to read thoughts and feelings, and no matter how Gersalius cautioned her, Elaine knew someday she would read Konrad. She would not be able to resist. There would be no more guessing, no more hope, or fear, just the truth. And her heart would break, just like that.