A Mage Of None Magic (Book 1) (14 page)

17

Arwin called a halt a few hours before sundown, which suited Niel fine. His neck no longer ached, but his backside felt like someone had spent the day dragging him by his ankles down an endless flight of stairs.

They’d come to a small field, surprising given how thick the forest had grown. When the group began making camp inside the tree line, Niel asked why not sleep in the middle of the clearing instead. Arwin explained the clearing would be difficult to cross without being noticed. Anyone sneaking up on them would have to stick to the woods for cover, which would make an approach more difficult and meant less area for the group to watch. The answer impressed Niel. He wondered how many times he’d left himself vulnerable on his journey through Lyrria by merely stepping off the path and curling up to sleep under a tree.

Jharal and Cally unhitched the team from the wagon, removed their bulky gear and replaced it with simple rope halters. Niel helped Arwin unsaddle the three riding horses, then arranged the tack neatly alongside the wagon upside down to let the padding dry. They hitched the horses to a clump of trees with enough line to let them graze.

“No tent?” Niel asked Arwin.

Arwin shook his head. “If you suddenly need to defend yourself in the middle of the night, you don’t want to have to kick your way out of a tent first.”

“I see,” Niel said, a touch disappointed. He’d never slept in a tent before.

“Not to worry, though. It’ll be clear enough, and shouldn’t be too cool. We’ll roll out blankets by the campfire. If it rains, we can all fit pretty well under the wagon and pull the tarp out for an awning. Which reminds me,” Arwin added. “Go grab Jharal and help gather firewood. I need to go over a few things with Cally about tomorrow.”

“Excuse me?”

“We need firewood. For the fire.”

“In case you haven’t been paying attention,” Niel said, “Jharal and I are experiencing a little turmoil in our relationship.”

Arwin smiled. “Yes, I’ve heard that. But you can’t avoid him forever.”

“I’ve always felt it’s the attempt that matters more than the result.”

The swordsman headed for Cally, leaving Niel alone.

Niel looked at the giant of a man sitting cross-legged on the grass beside the array of tack, sharpening his newly repaired axe. He supposed a chicken felt much the same way when the cook ventured out into the yard.

“Hey, Jharal?” he called in a chummy tone and trotted the short distance between them. “Arwin asked me to give you a hand in getting some firewood.”

Jharal made a long scrape with his whetstone. “Did he, now?”

“So, what do you say? Not much light left.”

Jharal blew across the axe’s blade, gave each side a perfunctory once over, then leaned it upside down against a nearby stump. He stood, towering over Niel, and slapped the dust from his trousers.

“Sounds delightful,” he said, pulling his lips into a frightful grin. “Let’s go.”

Niel stepped back. He pointed at the axe. “Don’t you need that?”

“Oh no. Won’t need any help from that. As an old, bandy-legged friend taught me a long time ago: that’s a weapon, not a tool. I think I’ll do just fine using my bare hands.” Jharal cracked his knuckles for punctuation, then gestured toward the darkening trees.

***

Niel ambled along in the deepening evening, grateful he still had all his limbs.

He smiled at the pun.

Jharal strode a few paces behind, carrying a mammoth armload of fallen branches, sticks, and other sundry pieces of dead wood that Niel had collected. Niel had made a few attempts at conversation, some of them sincere, but Jharal refused to engage in discussion.

They approached the edge of the forest. Niel could see the outlines of the horses near the campsite. He glanced down to step over a small, fallen bough, then decided to pick it up and add it to the firewood instead.

When he bent over, Jharal’s boot caught him hard in the seat of his pants. The kick sent him sprawling into a tree, making him crack his head against one of its many jutting roots.

Niel sat up, rocking slowly back and forth, cradling the side of his face with both hands.

Jharal crunched his way over and squatted without setting down his load of wood. “I have your attention?” he asked quietly, though not quietly enough to soften the menace in his voice.

Niel nodded, his head throbbing.

“Good, because I’ll say this once: I’ve waded through too much blood and shit to ever,
ever
take lip from a child, magician or no. I don’t care if you are smarter than me, boy. Let fly another bit of sass like you did this morning about letting you sleep in, and I’ll chop you in half so fast the last thing you’ll ever wonder is why you’re suddenly face down across your own ass. Do you understand?”

In his nearly twenty years, Niel had managed to go without once having his life threatened. In the past several days he’d achieved it three times by as many people. Captain Jorgan had been likely more growl than gore, and the thugs in Glensdyl hadn’t actually threatened him regardless of their intent, but nothing in Jharal’s tone or expression—clear, even in the frail light—suggested anything but perfect seriousness.

“I understand,” Niel said. “I do.”

Jharal glared a moment more then gave a curt nod. He stood, knees popping, and stepped over Niel to continue on.

Niel listened to the big man’s rustling footfalls fade, then winced as he pressed at the small but painful swelling beneath his left eye.

He wondered what Biddleby’s reaction would be when the College sent word his apprentice had disappeared. Anger? Shame? Would the old man mourn him at all, or simply shrug away the loss and begin anew?

Niel stood, brushed himself off and started back for camp as well, all at once feeling a very long way from home.

***

If he wasn’t going to bed then he should have been studying the spell book, but Niel didn’t feel like doing either. Instead he sat with his back against a massive log Jharal had dragged over, and watched a tiny flurry of fireflies in the last of the waning light.

“You have the appearance of someone deep in thought,” Arwin said as both he and Peck approached.

“As dark as it is, I’m surprised you can tell,” Niel replied.

“Easily remedied, Lord Elder,” Peck said, crouching beside the knee-high arrangement of sticks and broken branches. With a drop of lighting oil onto a wide leaf and a stroke of flint from his tinderbox, Peck coaxed a comforting fire into being.

“So,” Arwin asked as the two settled themselves on either side of Niel, “anything in particular causing your pensiveness?”

“Aside from everything, you mean?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, belated as this may seem, my unexpected chat with Jharal made me aware—”

“Painfully aware,” Peck offered.

“—that I may have followed you all the way out here, but I don’t know the first thing about any of you.”

Arwin shrugged. “I’d say you know pretty much all that matters. But like I said: If you have questions, ask.”

“All right,” Niel said. “How about why you became an explorer?” He had nearly said adventurer again.

Arwin gave a wry grin. “Oh. That.”

“You promised specifics if I came with you to Trelheim, since your answer back on the
Alodis
wasn’t the most enlightening.”

Peck nudged Niel’s arm with his elbow. “This is a good one. You’ll like this.”

“Well,” Arwin said. “Suffice it to say I’m the son of a nobleman. And, believe it or not, one-time heir to a moderately significant territory in Lyrria.”

“Which territory?” Niel asked.

“It doesn’t matter. A long-lived point of contention between my father and me was that my interest in the aristocracy was slight at best. It frustrated him that instead of attending various councils and meetings to learn the art of statecraft, I chose to gallivant around the countryside in search of… well, in search of anything else.

“I have a cousin, though, who unlike me developed an early interest in the political machinery that drives the upper classes. In my absence, he took a place at my father’s side, becoming in the eyes of all concerned his apparent successor. However, according to a dependable source, in a final effort to rein me back in, my father made known to my cousin his intention to formally name me as next in line. Enraged, my cousin had my father murdered. Since no one else knew of my father’s plans, my cousin was recognized as his heir and conferred the rightful Lord by the Assembly.”

Even those in the lowliest stations knew something of the treachery and conflict innate to life within the aristocracy. However, the idea of family members resorting to such tactics disturbed Niel, filling him with an unanticipated sadness. “So that’s what you meant that you’d lost,” he said.

“No easy feat,” Arwin replied, “misplacing an entire homeland, wouldn’t you agree? Apparently my dear cousin’s first act as Lord was to hire an assassin to make sure I didn’t have a change of heart and show up to undermine his claim.”

Sadness quickly chilled to apprehension.
Assassins.

Niel had heard tales of the shadowy cabals and other mysterious brotherhoods of thieves, spies, and trained killers that prowled the night. Parents often used them to convince rambunctious children to stay in bed and go to sleep. But he’d never known anyone directly connected with an assassin; few outside the aristocracy had wealth enough to afford such services.

“You mentioned a dependable source,” Niel said. “I’d think that kind of information would be fairly hard to come by.”

Arwin nodded. “And you’d be right. Good fortune, I suppose.”

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Niel pressed, “how did you find out?”

Arwin slipped a finger out toward Peck. “He told me.”

Peck pressed a knuckle to his forehead in a cheery salute.

“Then I guess the next question is: how did
you
know about it?”

“That’s an easy one,” Peck replied. “I’m the person sent to kill him.”

What Niel had considered a firm grasp on the conversation faltered utterly. “You’re…”

“An assassin, Lord Elder,” Peck finished.

Niel’s stomach went icy. He lowered his forehead into his palms for a moment, then wiped his hands down his face and considered his companions. “I know I’ll regret this,” he said, “but how did you convince your assassin not to assassinate you?”

Arwin smiled. “As it was explained to me, Peck happened to know my father, and for reasons between the two of them, owed him a debt. No small matter in Peck’s cabal. Like I said: Good fortune, I suppose.”

“I was looking for a change of vocation anyhow,” Peck said. “Adventurer seemed promising. Wandering the world aimlessly, enduring society’s scorn holds a certain appeal, don’t you think?”

“And you’ve never gone back home?” Niel asked Arwin.

“I’ve considered it. More than once.”

“I don’t mean to be indelicate,” Niel said, “but your father was
murdered,
Arwin. Didn’t that—”

“—bother me?” His face turned grim. “Don’t be foolish, Apprentice. Of course it did. To say the least. Most people where I’m from think me a coward. Most people in my family think me a traitor, that the very meaning of the word ‘honor’ is lost on me.”

“That’s why you hit me,” Niel said. “When I accused you of arranging my being robbed.”

“In part, perhaps.” Arwin smiled a little, but it lasted only a moment. “No, when the time comes I’ll make my displeasure known to all parties involved with my father’s death. And it will be part of an agenda of my own making. Not anyone else’s.”

Niel put his forehead down on his arms again. “This is all so insane.”

Arwin stood abruptly. “It is
never
insanity,” he said, “to do the best you can with what you have. That’s another lesson you’d do well to learn quickly.”

With that, he strode off into the darkness.

Taken aback, Niel turned to ask Peck what had upset Arwin, but Peck had vanished as well.

***

The night did not pass with ease. Peck reappeared once more, long enough for a bite to eat, then crept back into the night to resume his watch. Jharal snored like a legion of woodsmen sawing for their lives. Niel’s own fitful sleep eventually came, filled with terrifying dreams. First, bloody and mutilated dolphins screamed for him to save them from the crimson stew in which they swam, only to flail away when he reached out his hand. Then, the more familiar shrieks of a deranged and grotesquely feminine-looking Biddleby:

Never, ever ask that again, boy…

***

Niel had read of the enormous, crumbling temples scattered throughout Lyrria, erected in the distant days when humankind still strove to lure the gods back into the affairs of the world. He had admired drawings of them in various journals—designed by the most renowned architects of their day, built by the most skilled craftsmen, and adorned by the breath-taking works of the most gifted artists. For all their magnificence, none compared a tenth to the splendor of the Great Forests of Aithiq.