Jonathan Strahan - Swords & Dark Magic - The New Sword and Sorcery

“If we get him—”

“There’s a thing about demons. Hurt them and they don’t think. They don’t think. They’ll go for any port in a storm and it’ll be dangerous as hell.”

Tewk leaned onto the table. “I’ll tell you. Korianth is poised to come in here. King Osric has his army in the field…waiting. A fire in the tower. That’s the signal. I’m to take out Jindus. Light the fire. It’s a simple job. And you have an army at your gates.”

“Demon fodder, if you don’t get Miphrynes with Jindus.”

Tewk’s head dropped a moment.

Then he looked up, and looked around, and looked straight at Willem. “How’s your nerve, kid?”

“Master!” Willem said, but Master was looking at him the same way.

“The students,” Master said, “are all I’ve got. All the town’s got, between them and that . Willem’s baffled the thing. He doesn’t know it. But he has.”

“ Me ?”

The word just fell out. Willem had time to draw a breath, and then Tewk’s hand shot out and grabbed him by the wrist.

“Master!”

“I’ll be borrowing him,” Tewk said. “I’ve got an army on the march and a cousin I already thought was a damned fool, but maybe he knows something. If what you describe gets Jindus—Korianth isn’t safe, either.”

“It won’t be,” Master said, not even mentioning what Tewk said about borrowing, or cousins. Willem tried to pry one of Tewk’s fingers loose—which he couldn’t do.

“Sorry,” Tewk said, and let go, then reached up and clapped Willem on the shoulder. “You’re smart and you’re fast. I tracked your footprints. Didn’t think to cloud them up, did you?”

“No,” Willem admitted faintly. He hadn’t had time. He’d been scared. He’d gotten in that door and he hadn’t even thought somebody who could tell he was doing magic could also find his way through the Alley and wouldn’t fall into the trick of wanting a door. Tewk hadn’t wanted a door, so he didn’t see one, or didn’t pay attention to it when he did. What Tewk had wanted was a magic-worker, and that was what he’d tracked—here. Right to Master and all of them.

And now Master as good as agreed with this man.

His stomach had turned queasy. And it was a very empty stomach.

And this was a rich man. By the standards of the Alley, this was a rich man, and talked about armies and the king.

“We’d like breakfast,” Willem said. “We’d like a good breakfast. And you can tell me what kind of spell you want, and I’ll write it. I’ll make it a good one.”

Tewk shook his head. “Breakfast, yes. But writing won’t do it. You have to fix whatever comes up.”

“I can’t.”

“You’ve been doing it, the wizard says.”

“Not—I didn’t, really. You saw through it. You tracked me.”

“A little Talent. A very little Talent. It’s useful, sometimes. But it gets me into messes like this. You’ll get your breakfast.” He fished his purse loose and turned it out on the table. Gold shone among the coins. Heavy gold. One piece could buy every shop on the Alley. There was silver, winking pale and bright. There were all sorts of coppers, clipped and not.

Tewk used his fingers to rake out most of the coppers, and shoved them across the table to Master. And pushed over several silvers and one of the bright new golds. “For the boy’s services,” he said. “And your silence. You can take the kids and get out of Wiscezan. Get over to the coast, set up in style…supposing the boy and I can slow Jindus down.” He looked straight at Willem then. “We take Jindus. That’s all you have to do. One, get me near him. Two, get me cover to light the signal fire. Then keep us hidden while my lazy cousin twice removed gets his army over here and gets the gates open. I’d recommend you keep the kids here, Master Wizard. You know magic, but I know armies. It’s not going to be good out there for a few days.”

“Understood,” Master said, and picked up the coins. He handed one to Jezzy. “Go down to the Ox and get us breakfast. This gentleman’s business can wait that long. Hot bread. Fresh bread. Butter. Fish. For this man, too. Go.”

Breakfast. Things rare in their lives. Jezzy scampered for the door with the coin and Willem just sank down on his heels where he stood, because he wasn’t there. He didn’t want to be there. He told the world so.

“Pretty damn good,” Tewk said, and nudged him with his boot. “I know you’re there. Can you get us both through the palace gate?”

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe I can.”

“Willem,” Master said, and Willem got up, not feeling well at all. “Fetch me a scrap of paper, and a pen,” Master said, and Willem did that, one of the little pieces they used for spells.

“Bigger than that,” Master said, so Willem brought that, and Master uncapped the inkwell, dipped the quill, and wrote symbols on the scrap of paper. “That’s an unlock,” Master said.

“Thank you, sir,” Willem said. He could see how that was going to be useful.

Master used the larger piece of paper and wrote something long and elaborate, in the twisty way Willem had never yet been able to master. When Master finished, he held up the paper, not quite giving it to him.

“This,” Master said, “is a master’s paper. It ends your journeyman’s restrictions. You will be able to do a master’s spells if you take this. But if you take it, it will mark you as mine, and you will shine like a bonfire, once you leave the Alley, if you don’t take the Alley with you.”

“Maybe I should just be quiet, Master.”

“And what when you do get there? What will you do?”

“I’d hope you’d tell me, Master.”

A shake of Master’s head. “I can’t imagine what you’ll do. But you’ll smell like me. And you won’t be me. Do you understand?”

He was a journeyman of Illusion. He understood instantly how that helped. “And the—the problem we don’t talk about…can it tell?”

“Oh, maybe. Maybe it’ll know who’s really been holding the Alley together. It’ll know who could have brought it across town. But it’s not altogether here , with all that means. It has its limitations.”

An illusionist understood that, too.

“Don’t kill,” Master said. “Look at me. Don’t intend to kill. Especially not by magic. That takes you down a path you don’t ever want to set foot on. Do you understand me?”

He did. He nodded toward Tewk. “That’s his job.”

“Good lad. Just do what you know how to do. Take this. I advise you take it. You’ve earned it. Gods willing, you will earn it.”

He reached and took it from Master’s hand, and a tingle went through his hand and up his arm and to his heart. He couldn’t breathe for a moment. He wasn’t scared. He wasn’t anything. He really wasn’t anything. He looked at his own hand and couldn’t see it.

I want me back! he thought, and there he was.

“That was good ,” Tewk said.

“He needs to think,” Master said. “Go sit down in the corner, Willem, and think a while.”

Just like with important lessons. Go think. He did. And he tried not to think about demons. That was how they got in, if you started thinking about them. He thought about the whole Alley not being there, but that wasn’t too bright: if Wiggy or Hersey stepped out back and missed the steps they’d be mad. Really mad.

He marshaled his thoughts in a parade through what he had to do. Master had taught him how to do that. And everything was there. If nobody startled him, he felt stronger than he ever had.

Fool, maybe.

But a wizard couldn’t doubt. Every illusion came apart when you started doubting. He sat there concentrating on believing he could do most anything, but not being specific about what he could do, until Jezzy tapped at the door and brought in the biggest breakfast anybody had ever seen: Jezzy was sweating from just carrying it.