David Coe: The Sorcerer's Plague

"Why, Qirsar? Wasn't it your will that we live thus? Did we fail you in some way?"

But no answer came. Just the cries from the village marketplace, and that baleful orange glow flickering above the trees.

She sat on a small rise overlooking the river, gazing northward, her hands working the rushes into place. Occasionally she reached for her blade to thin a strand or cut off a frayed end. But she never looked away. She didn't have to, not with hands as deft and sure as hers. She'd been weaving baskets for more years than she cared to count. She knew her craft. Just as she knew magic.

From her perch above the gently flowing waters, she could see and hear her spell at work. Let the Qirsi dismiss Mettai blood magic as a lesser power. Let the Eandi-her own people-make outcasts of the Mettai. Lici knew just how potent her magic could be.

Now the people of Runnelwick knew it as well. Their cries floated up to her. The glow of their fires danced in the night sky. The forest swayed with their winds and shuddered with the power of their shaping magic. All because Lici had decided that it should be so. They were her puppets, her playthings. She could make them do anything she wanted.

She lifted a hand. "Look," she whispered to the night. "No strings." Then she laughed.

Her cart horse stamped and shook her head. Lici had left the cart outside the village, venturing into its lanes on foot. That way they'd think her poor, they'd buy her baskets out of pity, out of desire to do good. That was what she had decided, and she'd been right. They were as stupid as they were weak, and now, because of this, they were suffering the fate their kind had earned so long ago.

She was but a feeble, old woman-a Mettai, no less-and she had done this to an entire village of Y'Qatt. One small cut on her hand. One among so many. Yes, let them laugh at blood magic. Soon enough every Y'Qatt in the Southlands would be trembling.

It began as a rumor passed among the children of the village. They spoke of it in hushed tones during their lessons in the small sanctuary at the north end of the marketplace; they conjured wild explanations for it as they walked together back to their homes. Before long their parents heard the whispers as well, and though the men and women of Kirayde might normally have frowned upon such gossip, in this case the tale told by their sons and daughters was so extraordinary that they couldn't resist.

Old Lici was gone.

Nobody could say with any certainty on what day she left the village. Such was the nature of the woman and her standing in Kirayde. Sometimes, even when she hadn't gone away, Besh went for ten or twelve days without seeing her. At other times it seemed that she was dogging his every step, so often did he cross her path. No doubt it was the same for the others in the village. He preferred to ignore and avoid her, and yet in a settlement so small that was not always his choice to make.

For his part, Besh heard of the old witch's disappearance only a few days after speaking of her with Mihas. He was working in his garden again, waiting for his grandson to meet him there after his lessons with the prior. Usually the boy could hardly draw breath for all the things he wished to tell Besh about what he had learned and what games he and his friends had played in between lessons, and this day was no different. Except, the old man soon realized, nothing that the boy was saying had anything to do with lessons or games or the other children.

"Slow down a moment, Mihas," he said at last, holding up a dirty hand to silence the boy and settling back on his heels. "What is it you're talking about?"

"Her house!" the boy said. "It's just empty!"

"Whose house?"

"Old Lici's!" he said, as if Besh were the most foolish man on Elined's earth.

"What were you doing at her house?"

"I told you, it wasn't me. It was Keff and Vad."

"And they are?"

Mihas rolled his eyes. "Nissa's brothers, the two oldest ones." Besh considered this for a moment. "She's gone, you say?"

"Yes! Her horse and cart are gone, too. No one's seen her in days." "How many days?"

The boy shrugged. "I don't know. A lot."

"She's left before, you know. There was a time when she'd go to other villages to sell her baskets. Sometimes she'd be gone for more than half a turn."

The boy frowned, his excitement dampened for the moment. "I didn't know that," he said.

And with good reason. She hadn't done it for many years, since well before Mihas was born. In truth, it struck Besh as odd that she'd leave her but at all. He'd never thought that he would see the day when she left the village for any length of time. It wasn't that she was bound to Kirayde or any of its people-aside from Sylpa, long dead and buried, Lici had no real friends, and of course, she'd lost her family before coming to the village. But had she wanted to leave, she would have done so long ago. Instead, she'd made a point of remaining, of enduring the taunts of children and the silence of their parents, of staying right here, just where she knew she wasn't wanted. Besh had assumed that she would die here, if for no other reason than to burden those who would have to dig her grave.

On the other hand, he'd heard of old men and women from other Mettai villages simply going off into the wilderness to die when they thought that their time had come. As far as Besh knew, that had never been common practice here in Kirayde, but perhaps it had been in whatever village she'd come from.

He shook his head slowly. He couldn't imagine Lici doing anything so… quiet. For years he had expected that when her time finally did come, the entire village would know about it.

"What is it, Grandfather?"

He looked at Mihas. "Nothing. I'm just not ready to assume that Lici is gone for good. Not after only a few days."

"Keff and Vad are. They think that her but is filled with gold and silver from all the baskets she used to make. They're talking about going there when both moons are full and searching for it."

"Are they?" Besh said. "Well, you tell them that if anyone-anyone at all-takes even one grain of river sand from Lici's hut, I'll hold the two of them responsible."

"But, Grandfather, if I say all that to them, they'll think that I told you everything!"

"You did tell me," he said mildly.

"Yes, but…" The boy shook his head. "Never mind." He started to walk away.

"Mihas."

The boy faced him again, looking sullen.

"If somehow those boys don't get my message, I'll hold you responsible. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Grandfather."

Besh chuckled as he watched the lad go. Next time, Mihas would think twice before relating to him all that he and his friends said. That was regrettable, but this was too important. Even if Lici had left the village for good, it was not the place of two boys to root through her belongings.

Over the next several days, the old man began to listen more closely to the tales bandied about in the village, hoping that he might hear something that would help him make sense of Lici's disappearance. But with each day that went by, the stories about her grew ever more wild. A man from her past, perhaps that Eandi merchant who had once tried so hard to win her affections, had returned one night and taken her away. Lici herself had used magic to shed the burdens of old age, transforming herself into a beautiful young woman who then ran off to find a new life in some other village. Sylpa, her old mentor, had returned from Bian's realm and had turned Lici into a wraith so that together they might haunt the woods surrounding Kirayde. One man, who was nearly as old as Lici, swore that he'd seen her in the forest late one night, running with a pack of wolves.

Half a turn went by, and still she did not return. Gradually the power of Besh's threat faded, and the older children began once more to eye the old witch's house, wondering what riches were hidden within. At Besh's urging, the village elders had a guard placed at the house day and night. Several of the men living in the village took turns at this, including Sirj, Elica's husband. But even this precaution, though extraordinary in such a small village, did little to ease the growing tension. If anything, it made matters worse, by drawing attention to the fact that Lici had gone, leaving a house filled with who knew what. Soon it wasn't just the children who were expressing eagerness to get inside.