The Mage

I've had a very sad song stuck in my head for the past week. I've tried replacing it, ignoring it, listening to it, everything to get it out. The only way to tend to such matters is to write an appropriate story, though, so I thought of a sad story and created a skeleton plot for it. I started writing yesterday at the Writing Circle.

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The Mage

          Few knew what triggered the demon mage’s great slaughter – why he burned all of the once-great city in one fire tornado that still smells of molten mortar and burned meat, why ash still chokes the earth of the once-great forest, why the once-great river still does not flow after six years of high-strung silence. Why, oh why, did this man whose face living person can remember, kill so many people?

          It was a flyer on the northside tavern, if you must know. Posted haphazardly with a good spit and goat dung, the flyer hardly distracted the regulars. No one could possibly remember its exact words, by the sleepy copse of flowers and river that decorated it belied the words. “Followers of Great Stella, the goddess has granted mercy!” it read. In a blot of dribble and lies, the flyer called upon the suicide, the final rest, of its audience, by the high priest of the goddess Stella. A suicide promotion. On a tavern window. Funny how the high priest condemned suicide except by the devil worshippers, the Drok Grogah, who really should join their god and do greater works by immortal hands.

          On top of the usual abuse among citizens, they were now trying to murder each other by autonomous hands. All in addition to the corpses lining the alleyways, blood flooding the storm drains, farmers tilling rocks and dead stalks, and the great river that was foul with floating bodies (though no one seems to remember this.) Then from the shadows of a tiny guild below a blacksmith’s forge, a man in a red velvet cloak appeared. He’d been quiet, they say, and sometimes strange, pausing in the street as half a dozen people trampled him. The man stopped to have a drink, paused at the flyer in the window, and was shoved aside by anxious work hands. The man left, and not one person in that tavern, or anywhere in the city, woke the next day.

          The demon mage, as they called him, disappeared after the first city fell for three months, exhausted by his wrath. Some hoped that he’d died of his guilt, but the citizens of Zur were not so lucky. The mountains around the cloud-caressing city opened their jowls and swallowed the city in one bite, leaving only the fastest and luckiest merchants and farmers to tell the tale. Another six months passed, and everyone was afraid.

          Then the demon mage appeared in Talitha. He watched a drunk beat a bar maid senselessly in the street and nearly flooded the city in his wrath. Instead, he struck the drunk blind and cursed the apathetic audience with the pox. From that day forward, he became the tyrant.

          Whispers in the streets spoke of his new atrocities, and when he didn’t slaughter all he saw, he forced his new laws and curfews upon the people cowering at his feet for their lives. There were no enforcers of his new laws, for the demon mage was powerful enough to transcend space. No sooner could a spirited boy whack his buddy too hard before he was without hands or had aged thirty years. The demon mage did all of these things swiftly and without mercy. His velvet cloak and rune-scarred hands made the very foundations of the earth falter, and whispers of his crimes silenced even mad men’s screams. He was feared, but more so, without expression, he was hated. Though, the suicide flyers were gone, and the murders in the streets were a shameful memory.

          Then came the day of promise. Behind a grinding mill of Moonfield town, a leper ate a rotten apple. He could no longer hold himself upright in the progression of his disease but instead leaned against the iron gate to a private garden. The mage appeared in a bolt of lightning before the diseased man. The man shook at the sight of his tyrant, but he was starved beyond care.

          “You stole that,” said the mage. His young, tenor voice shocked the leper, as did the tyrant’s short stature, but the shadows of the red cloak still spoke of his evil.

          “Yes, I did,” the weak man said quietly. “I have no food and no means to acquire any, my lord.”

          The mage lifted his hand to reveal the orange embers popping from his palm. “Then I will end your misery, leper.”

          The tyrant demon closed his fist to throw his fury, but a shriek ended his strike. Emerald eyes struck back, and a svelte body shielded the man. “You’ll not kill him, demon!” said the girl.

          “Demon?” the mage laughed. “I am no demon. Move, girl. You stand in the way of justice.”

          She stood straight with her nimble arms outstretched, quaking and firm at once. The mage turned the embers green and blue, stretching the flames until beads of sweat dropped across her feminine shoulders. “I will not move,” she said. “You will have to kill me, too.”

          The mage ground his teeth. “The man is a thief. He is not fit to live. Move now, girl. It is not any of your business!”

          “Then kill me for defying you. It will be my honor!”

          “Defying me?” the mage repeated. He stepped back. ‘There are no laws against defying me,’ he nearly whispered. ‘No one has ever defied me.’

          “Kill us both or go away!”

          He froze and noted the stiffness in his knees as though his earth spells had suddenly swallowed his legs. The girl still stood between him in the leper, terrified and angry and hating him with every inch of her body. Such green eyes! The mage closed his hand, scaring her stiff for a second, but he lowered his fist and turned on the heels of his boots to the main street. He couldn’t hear the terrified audience or the running as he approached, but instead tried to summon thoughts in his empty head.

          She still quaked in front of the leper in anticipation of the mage’s return. Who was she? Why did she help the man? Did she owe him money? Did she owe his family a favor? The mage zapped himself to the top of the mill and watched her in solitude.

          “Are you all right?” she finally asked the leper.

          “I am, thanks to you,” he said. “You are very brave – or very stupid, or both. I do not know how to repay you. What is your name, child?”

          “Evynne,” she replied.

          “Well, Evynne, get home quickly before the mage returns.”

          “What of you, sir?”

          “I will get by, dear. Now, go!”

          Evynne dashed into the main street with a glance over her shoulder and a wave. The crowd swallowed her like a river to a rain drop and carried her through the veins of the market, through the business district, the apartments the gardens, and the livestock. The mage followed numbly in the shadows of the rooftops until she found her place in the rural stands. A man with the same hazel-colored hair laid his lips on the girl’s cheek upon her return. Was that a kiss? The mage gritted his teeth. What a rare thing those were.

          He cast a new invisibility spell as he sat on a rustic two-story inn roof and watched the girl. She and the older man – her father? – sold the bundles of green and yellow, stalk and smooth plants to anyone with the gold. A half-blind nag stood behind them nipping at some of the plants in a wooden cart, and the man sometimes paused to cajole the indifferent creature. The sun fell slowly over sky like a tottering toy, falling faster as it neared the horizon in a pink blast, but the mage could not remove himself from his seat on the inn.

          When the cold of blackened night nipped at the edges of the city, the farmers began packing their carts and journeying to their fields. Evynne and the man had sold all of their herbs save the few the nag had eaten, but instead of retreating to the safety of the run-down inn, they led the nag to the road and toward the field with the others. Were the farmers so forgetful to neglect the murderous highway men that lined the roads? Did they care so little for their lives that they’d ride sleepily to the fields, so sure they would arrive without trouble?

          The mage looked over his shoulder at the bickering women in the street, exchanging harsh names and something about a sticky-fingered boy. He breathed a hot breath, stood, and followed Evynne’s cart in the darkness of the cliffs and woods.

          The warm presence of bold bodies and hungry wolves filled the darkness of the wood passages. The mage followed the warmth to a circle of bandits waiting for the entourage of farmers. They laughed and sang and danced by the fire, waiting for their prey to funnel through. The mage leaned against one of the broken wagons of past prey and counted the men, twelve in all, and decided on a proper punishment.

          “Gods!” a bandit screamed.

          The ragged band drew swords, knives, and bows, but the mage felled them with a stone spell, petrifying them forever as ugly statues in the woods. Their dinners still cooked over the fire for the wolves as the mage turned again toward the green-eyed girl and her father.

          The pair and their nag arrive at a quiet meadow late in the night. Evynne let out a musical laugh at the sight that struck the mage so profoundly that his spell broke, but the darkness was too complete for his cloaked figure to be seen. The girl ran to the cottage at the center of the field and threw open the door, releasing six more brown-haired creatures from the home. The man released the nag by the lake and took all of the children into his strong arms, a glowing smile on his stubbly cheeks.

          The mage slid down the trunk of his tree and gripped his knee with a tight fist. He could not think straight for the moment, and the frustrated quiet in his head was uncomfortably unfamiliar to him. He cast a spell and retreated to the slums of the city where he still knew the nature of man, but even as whoremongers and cut-throat merchants sucked the life out of their fellow humans, the mage could not think. He smashed an apothecary’s poisoned vials in a windstorm and silenced a barking dog with a sleep spell. The city was quiet then, too tired and afraid to hurt, leaving the mage with only his maelstrom of thoughts.

          He returned to the meadow home the next morning. The girl was already awake and had begun a trek through the woods past the rippling brook and a moldy boulder. She passed an arch of willows and a cherry tree, a fox’s den and a hawk nest. At the bottom of a cool, earth-scented hill, she paused to look over her shoulder. The mage held his breath in the shadow of a chestnut tree, and she continued down a tangle of half-buried roots to a circle of evergreens.

          A tall statue stood in the circle, her bird wings circling wooden foxes, deer, rabbits, an owl, snake, squirrels, and a bear cub. Her long hands were splayed open, her arms open, and her eyes expressionless stone. Evynne slipped a handful of nuts from her pocket, set them at the statue’s feet, and knelt peacefully at its feet.

          The mage stood with weak knees at the sight. Which of the blood-thirsty deities was this woodland spirit? Was this the mark of sin that he’d waited nearly a day to see on this girl? He closed his hand in a fist.

A brush of softness against his hand struck his arm with shock, and he stumbled into the tree. A juvenile deer had brushed past the mage in its journey to the altar. Evynne turned with a gasp toward the mage, giving the deer pause, but it stood at her side and ate oats. Evynne, though, stared at the stalking mage.

He looked at his hands, but they were visible. His rune scars were dark and quiet as well, empty river beds where bright magic had coursed. She could see him, he realized.

“Changed your mind, then, demon?” she spat.

After hearing such a melodic laugh from those same pink lips, her angry tone scathed like a fire bolt. The mage breathed a hot breath, frustrated for his lack of words, and lowered the velvet cloak for a cooler breath. “I am not a demon,” he said, “and I do not change my mind. Ever.”

Her emerald eyes widened at the sight of his human face: black curls, not horns; brown irises, not red; a round jaw without fangs or tentacles. She stood and crossed her arms to examine him with her furrowed brow and frown. “You seem human enough in this sacred circle.”

“Because I am a human,” he said again, crossing his arms to match hers. “A human with a name. Seth.”

Her brow quivered at his remark. They watched each other for a moment longer. “Very well, Lord Seth-”

“Seth,” he snapped. “Not Lord Seth or Master Seth. Seth.”

“Very well, Seth,” she said with a faux bow, “have you come to kill me?”

“I told you. I do not change my mind.”

“Then why are you here?”

The deer dropped a bit of oats onto the wooden rabbit statue and nipped at the seeds. Deciding the statue was also delicious, it nipped at the creature’s ear for a moment. The mage watched it for a moment and looked back into the puzzled emeralds of the girl. He didn’t have an answer and was not fond of games.

She grew tired of standing like her altar statue and lowered an arm. With a lazy shrug, she returned to the statue’s feet and prayed. A finch joined the girl and the deer to have bite of seed from the goddess’s hair, and squirrel scared it away to take some nuts. The mage still held his arms crossed and watched.

Evynne finished her prayer after a moment longer and caressed the deer’s neck in parting. She looked about for the mage with her lowered brow. Satisfied that he was gone, she lifted her dress skirt and jogged across the road to her home.

For the rest of the day, she collected hen eggs, fed the nag, cleaned her hooves, brushed her coat, cleaned the troughs, milked the cow, chased her naughty brother, checked the fishing line in the brook, chased off a chicken hawk, swept the porch, and fed the animals. The dance of busy bodies was dazzling and coordinated, but its finality at the dinner table with laughter and chatter was its most beauteous moment. The mage watched from the window, invisible still.

He pulled himself away as she stripped to a chemise for bed. Watching her, he’d forgotten about the evils just a day’s ride away in the slums and streets of the city. The smell of blood was a memory of a memory, and the cries of human pain were blurred in the mage’s mind. What spell was this that had left him so weary and ignorant?

The mage looked through the bedroom window at the family bed. Toddler brothers and sisters hugged the legs of adolescent siblings and their parents. An elderly grandmother had fallen asleep in her rocking chair, a knitted blanket tucked over her shoulders and around her arms. Smiling, drooling, and thumb-sucking mouths let out easy snores filled with the breath of life. It took the mage’s breath away.

He stomped off to the clearing in the woods and cast his cloak aside. It smelled of blood, ash, and rotted corpses. The stench made him sick now. He removed his bracers, a gift from the blacksmith that had hidden his coven of wizards, and cast them to the darkness of the bushes. His robe was wet with the sweat of twenty-two-hundred nightmares, so he cast the tunic to the shadows and into the brook. Then he stood naked before the nameless goddess and crossed his arms.

“I am Seth of Alvetia, exiled son and bringer of justice to this realm,” he muttered. “Who are you, pagan spirit of the woods? Why are you worthy of the girl’s worship?”

The altar said nothing. The wooden rabbit with nibbled ears still looked adoringly at the fox that played with a chubby bear cub. The mage waited a moment longer.

“Are you a powerless being, spirit? Is this magic circle a relic of a more powerful god, or an anomaly of the woods?” he demanded. Still more silence.

The mage grinned and opened his palm. With a spark, the runes coursed through his flesh again. What a weak spell circle! He closed his eyes to fight the barrier, and with a toothy smile, he shook the very earth beneath the circle. The rabbit toppled over, and the trees dropped their half-ripe nuts to the earth. A moment passed, and then a riot of sleepy animals became the loud excitement of a dinner party.

“What a worthless decoration you are, spirit,” he mocked.

He half-stomped to the altar and its hollow creatures and raised his fist to break it. So useless and ugly this statue seemed! Just as he was close enough to punch it into pebbles, he froze. The mage could almost feel the girl’s spirit standing with her arms out, her neck vein throbbing with terror, her emerald eyes cutting his body apart. He tried to step forward and could not.

“Worthless!” he cried to the altar. “You are powerless! A worthless spirit like every other god and devil!”

The mage closed his hand and disappeared into one of the tributary river beds. He spun himself a robe of pine-scented moss, cherry blossoms, orchids and the darkest grasses with a spell and hugged it to his skin. Everything smelled of gore, so he bathed in the river and scratched at his flesh until it was raw. The smell was gone, but the memory was not. Was he a demon? Were demons born from humans? He dressed himself in the dark green robe and slept beside a fallen oak tree.

For three more days he watched Evynne tend to her daily chores alongside her brothers and sisters. She pulled weeds from the garden until her hands and knees bled. The chickens pecked her sore hands when she tripped on their water dish. The nag stepped on her toes when she cleaned her hooves. Still she smiled at the dinner table with her family and slept like a queen of old without trial or trouble. Still the mage watched her.

On the fourth day she returned to the statue in the woods and prayed. The animals were quiet and bloated with nuts and seeds already, so when the mage leaned against the tree, Evynne could hear him. She stood slowly this time and watched him with a wary gaze.

“You’re following me,” she accused.

He stepped from the weeds and crossed his arms. What could he say? He crossed his arms and stepped closer to her, one long-legged step at a time, until she stepped back toward the statue. If he reached his arm, he could almost feel her breath.

“Why are you following me?” she asked more directly.

“What is this spirit’s name?” he asked instead.

The line across her lips quivered with frustration, but she turned to the statue for a moment in introduction. “Isara,” she said.

“You pray to Isara?”

“I do,” Evynne said more defensively.

“What do you pray?”

Her green eyes squinted with pointed malice. “You are the demon. What do you hear in my prayers?”

“I am not a demon,” he said.

She bared her teeth and stepped toward the embrace of her useless forest spirit. “Why are you following me, Seth? Don’t you have a city to destroy? Some epidemics to spread?”

“That statue will not protect you,” he warned. “It is as powerless as the dirt between your toes.”

At his mockery, the girl raised her hand and swung for his face. The mage grasped her wrist, surprised by the cool touch of human flesh. She gasped at the sight, sobered by his touch, and tugged at her limb. The mage held it a moment longer, reveling in the feeling. It made him weak and his thoughts warm.

“You are different,” he whispered.

Her eyes widened at his words, and she dug her nails into his offending grasp. The mage released her indifferently and gazed into her confused and scared face. She stumbled into the altar and protected her heart with her arms. “Go! Go away now! You are not welcome in this holy place any longer!” she cried.

“I will not hurt you,” he said softly. “I give you my word.”

“Your words are venom to me, demon!”

He gritted his teeth and clenched his hand. “Insufferable, vexing woman!” he hissed. Then, as though she were the omnipotent mage and he the fool, the mage left the circle at her command. He cast himself to the ocean shore, days away from the forest or the city, and threw himself into the crashing waves. The power of the ocean, millions of times greater than the earth or the sky, calmed his raging body and the angry words that filled his head. He dove into the powerful current until darkness surrounded his vision. Foolish woman. Naïve girl. Beautiful creature.

The mage slept in a small cave along the ocean side. He’d slaughtered the pirates that had once taken over the ocean shores long ago, but the white sand was still a blossoming virgin, untouched by sweating bodies or honeymooners since the first buccaneer spill blood across the pink seashells. Only the hungriest fishermen came anymore, but there were no fishermen tonight. The mage cast a weak sleep spell on his self and threw his mind into the abyss of dreamless slumber.

          Evynne had returned to her daily chores, and the mage returned to his regular watch from the shadows. She wore a frown in her duties and was quiet at the dinner table. The nag noticed her foul mood and the lack of oats, and the brothers and sisters stomped their feet as they lost a player in their daily games. She had nightmares, too.

          The mage noticed the shriveled crops of the garden only when the father cried over them one night. He cast his tears to the roots of a tomato plant and lamented that they too were too salty to give life to the plants. Evynne and her brothers had to bring water from the brook in holey buckets to keep the plants from wilting, but the brook was dried up too, and soon the animals would not have any water, either.

          One night, after her family was asleep, Evynne left the tangle of limbs and feet, slid into a dress, and ran into the woods. The mage almost hadn’t noticed except for his nocturnal meditation had been interrupted by the presence of her warm body in the cool air. He followed her to the forest shrine and was silent.

          “Please, Isara,” she prayed aloud with a whimper. “Please give us rain. The rivers are all dried up and the farmers say that the earth is dying. Please, Isara, save us.” She sniffed and hugged herself. “I’m scared.”

          The mage closed his eyes. Should he show her how powerless the forest spirit was? He could snap off its head with a crack of lightning or, if he wanted to exasperate every inch of his power for the next year, summon a beast to destroy the statue for him, right before her eyes. His heart was soft, though, and sleepy. The mage looked over his shoulder at the groveling woman, folded over on her cramped belly, and silenced a sigh.

          Timing the noise with her sob, he snapped his fingers. The sound thudded against the hard woods and rocks and echoed over and over, until a thousand snaps and cracks echoed across the entire forest. The earth released an air of perfume, and the pouring rain carried away the last of the tree nuts to the brook’s belly.

          Evynne looked into the sky beyond the altar’s head and pushed aside a wet strand of hair. She smiled for a moment before staring deeper into the cloudless sky and into the pinholes of stars in the black quilt over her. She hugged her belly again and fell to her side.

          The mage watched her a moment longer. Her dress was soaked through with warm drops of spell-laden water, but she didn’t move to protect herself. He summoned a tendril of wind to tug at her hair, but she was out cold. He stepped from the darkness surrounding the spell circle and knelt beside her, readying a teleportation spell, and stopped. His chest was heavy. The mage lifted her knees and then her back, staring into her wet face and closed eyes, and feeling the heartbeat pulsing in the cold flesh against his skin. He turned and carried her up the tangle of roots.

          “Da?” she whispered. The mage was quiet as he climbed the last of the hill and ducked under the branches of the first willows. “Da, it’s raining. It’s a miracle. Can you believe it?”

          Evynne sighed into the mage’s chest, freezing the hairs on his neck straight, and became a dead weight in his arms. He bolted to her home and into the bedroom where her family slept and tapped his toes. No spell he knew could weave her into the tangle of loved ones, especially if she was wet and feverish. He turned to the grandmother’s cot, long abandoned for the tired rocker, and laid the girl on the bed ropes and chicken feathers. She shivered a moment.

          “You need to be sick,” he whispered, “and learn not to work yourself so hard.”

          Evynne shivered until her sun-kissed cheeks turned as white as the moon. The mage clenched his fist, raised his hand, and summoned a down blanket of spoiled hen feathers and cotton tufts. The magic wove the soft fabrics into intricate patterns he would never conjure for himself – too luxurious, too much focus – but seemed natural over her wild hair. He glanced over his shoulder at the sleeping family, then at the girl, and tucked the blanket over her shoulders. Then he stepped away and vanished. Moments of such tenderness were not like him, and neither was the worry that gripped his heart.

          The miracle of rain, as the hazel-haired family called it, distracted everyone from their chores. Fat droplets still fell off the rafters and into pregnant puddles. The mother spent twice as long milking the happy cow, and the chickens proudly displayed their healthy bounty of eggs. It was an easy day on the farm for the first time in weeks. Evynne, though, slept under the heavy blanket at her grandmother’s delicate care. The mage watched as the old woman fed fried eggs to the girl and warmed milk for her, and the girl slowly came to. She tried to help her family work, but her grandmother pressed her into the cot and told her to sleep. No one questioned the origin of her blanket, and Evynne hadn’t given it a second glance in her feverish sweats.

          Days passed. The mage wove a nest for his self from branches and earth magic and spied from his peak. Goshawks investigated his small dwelling, but the mage had no energy to the red-eyed creature away. He meditated in the day and surveyed the cities, the towns, the villages and coasts for blood and war, but the world was quiet again. He watched Evynne recover quickly from her fever and work her way to cooking, then sweeping, then to gathering the eggs and milk.

          Just as she was strong enough to stand, someone had a birthday. The mage had nearly forgotten about such celebrations and was pleased to remember the occasion. If he could remember correctly, his birthday was sometime near the winter solstice, and his young mother had baked blueberry cake for him in celebration. Evynne’s toddler brother wanted no such thing. He wanted chocolate cake like the boys in the city had. He fussed until his mother cried and dropped his sugar cake into the dirt. Evynne baked a second cake from over-ripe strawberries, burned the sugar until the cake was brown, and told her brother it was chocolate. The family ate in celebration, tired and finally happy.

          Once she was able to walk, Evynne asked her older brother to walk her to the shrine. He nodded and led the way to the altar’s feet, where Evynne prayed until she nearly fell asleep for exhaustion. Her brother shook her, whispered a question, and then they returned home.

          The next time she came to the altar, Evynne was alone and finally healthy. She left bits of bread and carrots at the statue’s feet. Then she removed a cloth and started to clean the spirit’s wings and head. The mage watched sleepily, decided it was boring, and closed his eyes. He had not slept since he carried the girl from the altar – didn’t sleep much in general after the officiating ceremony of his magician status – and was exhausted.

          The quiet woke him from his short nap. He blinked open his eyes and saw the ragged hem of a skirt before him. At the top, pursed lips and studious eyes glowed in the afternoon sun. Evynne tapped her foot beside his booted ankle, distracting him for a moment, before he turned to her eyes again.

          They said nothing for a moment. Her eyes studied him closer, and he was still half-asleep against a cozy lichen-laden rock. Her lips relaxed to a complacent line, and she stopped tapping her feet. “You still following me?” she asked. The mage rubbed his eyes with indifference to the question. “Were you here the night it rained?”

          The mage didn’t speak. His voice had atrophied from its lack of use. He had not visited the cities or towns in so long, and his tongue didn’t know how to wag any longer. He lowered his eyes again to the runes on his hands as they regained their former glow.

          “Well, Lord Seth?”

          “Seth,” he said. His mouth was dry, but it moved.

          She bit her cheek. “You make that robe, Seth?”

          He looked over the boring weaving of his green robe. It still smelled of the forest and suited his needs for clothing his body. The mage glanced back to Evynne. “I did,” he said.

          “You make that blanket, too?” she asked. “After you did whatever spell to me?”

          “I did not make you sick,” he snapped. The hot tightness in his chest gave him the strength to stand. His brow was heavy with frustration again.

          “Nay, but I don’t see a mage carrying a girl an hour’s walk through the swamped woods,” she said.

          The tug at her lips suggested a smile. Was she teasing him? The mage frowned. “I carried you,” he bit out, but before she could stir any other strangeness inside his head, he willed an invisibility spell to protect him. Evynne gasped and reached for him, touching the sleeve of his robe and grasping it.

          “Seth!” she yelled. He tugged his sleeve from her grasp and willed the wind to carry him up and away from her searching fingers. Her mouth hung open as she looked over the woods for him. “I just wanted . . .” She turned again. “Wanted to say . . .” Then she started on her journey home, slow and sighing.

          The family packed the old cart full of the season’s nuts, roots, and herbs for the coming market day. A new excitement laced the air like pollen in the first spring breeze. With the cart packed and the first rays of morning shining, Evynne started the journey alone. Her family waved from afar with kerchiefs and winks, laughing and teasing.

          The mage watched carefully from the shadows. Why was the girl traveling alone? He’d slain every bandit in the realm, but she couldn’t possibly know that. There were still wolves and bears preparing for the long winter who would eat her alive. Evynne rode along, bouncing gently over rocks and ruts, with a blush over her cheeks.

          At the land bridge, she paused and looked about. Someone yelled her name, and she rode quickly to the name. Another farm boy with golden hair and a lanky frame greeted her, and they rode together down the road to the city. The image of the boy brought a blush to Evynne’s neck that all of the breathing and evading eyes she could muster would not quell the coloring. The boy smiled at the sight and showed a toothy grin. They talked awkwardly at first about the market, the river and their families. As they spoke, their words flowed more easily between each other.

          Evynne stopped the nag suddenly. “I think something is off with this wheel,” she said.

          “Let me fix it,” the boy offered.

          “I am a smart girl. I can fix any broke thing.” She grinned and leapt from her seat on the cart. As she landed, she grasped the wooden side, glanced over the wheel, knocked on it, and stood. “No, it’s all well.”

          “Good to hear.” The boy leaned over to watch her over the wagon, but Evynne still leaned against the wheel. She bit her lip and reached for her ankle. “Are you all right, Ev?”

          The mage bolted before her without a thought and knelt beside the offending limb. The boy yelped and fell into his wagon, and the mage froze him instantly with a spell. Evynne gasped, but the mage would not be distracted by two-legged wolves and their plights. Instead, he held his hand over her flesh and whispered an incantation.

          “You came,” she whispered.

          “I need silence,” he grunted. “Healing is difficult for me.”

          The mage clenched his eyes closed and felt for the blood, the tissue, and the bones and begged them to be wholesome and healthy. Words from his youth long gone evaded his grasp as he tried to remember the incantation. He had not used such mottled sentences since his first exam in the guild, and the language was long worn among the fortified fire and lightning spells.

          “All better,” she said softly.

          The mage opened his eyes and saw the soft-skinned ankle before him, unmarred by pain or swelling. Evynne retracted it and offered a half-smile. The mage gritted his teeth.

          “You faked it,” he murmured.

          “I wanted to see if you would come, and you did,” she said.

          He grunted. “Get on with your courtship ritual, girl.”

          “Come with me, tyrant mage.” She still mocked him with a steadier smile and cocked brow.

          The mage glanced at the petrified farmer boy. The spell had been weak and would fade in hours. His horse pattered impatiently at the dusty path, but she seemed calm enough. “Very well,” he muttered.

          “Sit beside me like a normal human.” Evynne patted the wooden seat beside her. “You make me nervous when you stalk around in the shadows like that.”

          The mage eyed the seat carefully before sitting beside her. He tucked the excess of his robe between his knees and leaned against the splintered edge of the back. Evynne glanced back, clucked her tongue, and started both wagons again. The bounce of the wood over the rocks nearly jutted the mage from the seat, and the girl laughed. He groaned.

          “You cannot be the powerful mage everyone fears,” she said softly. “You are a silly boy.”

          The mage leered at her. “I do not know what to say to that. You are a rude girl.”

          The mage threw a water spell over the road and sealed the path with fire, paving the even road with shining clay. The wagons became silent except for the bumping of gourds. Evynne glanced into the mage’s eyes, looked back at the road, and back to him.

          “Can you do anything with your spells?” she asked.

          “A lot of things. Not anything.”

          She reached into the cart for a gourd and handed it to the mage. “What can you do with this?”

          He lowered his eyes in an attempt to scare the girl. Her games were becoming annoying. The mage held the gourd with both hands and muttered a forbidden and powerful spell, transmuting the gourd into gold through and through. The very water inside its skin oozed shining yellow metal. Evynne gasped.

          “You can do this?” she whispered.

          “I can,” he snorted. The mage rested his chin on his fist. The spell had taken more out of him than he could ever admit. His every breath felt wasted and weak, and his legs were numb.

          “You can’t be the demon,” she whispered. The mage glanced and saw that she’d hunched over and shook. “If you can do such wonderful things, why would you kill all of those people?”

          “Because those people hurt each other,” he bit. “They murdered each other in cold blood and left their friends and family in the alleyways! They burned down stores that undersold them and poisoned the wells over stupid rumors!” Evynne’s chin shook, and the mage immediately regretted yelling. “How old are you?”

          “Sixteen,” she replied in a hoarse voice.

          “You could never remember how horrible the cities were if you were so young.”

          “But you didn’t have to kill all those people.” Evynne sucked a breath. “You can do good things. You could heal the sick people and give them water so they wouldn’t be so hungry.”

          The mage leaned into his arm and watched the road beneath half-closed eyelids. What a child. He tried to think of words and could not. Instead, he grasped the nag’s tail and released the storm of confused thoughts on the beast. The horse whinnied at his touch.

          “Don’t hurt her!” she cried.

          “I would not.”

          “Please, she’s a good horse!”

          The mage seized for a moment as the power surged through his body. Then, with a loud cry, the horse bucked her head and sped forward. Evynne pulled the horse back and stopped the procession, leaping to the nag’s side.

          “Your eye!” she cheered. Evynne hugged the nag’s neck and rubbed her nose. “You did this?”

          The mage was too exhausted to reply. He slumped in the cart on his fist and ignored the girl’s cheering. If he’d had the strength, he’d return to the comfort of his shadows or a roost on the cliff side.