David Coe: The Sorcerer's Plague

Some things could never be forgotten. Or forgiven.

Sunlight sparkled on the windblown waters of the wash, shifting and dancing like stars in Morna's sky, so bright that Giraan had to shield his eyes from the glare as he checked his traps at the water's edge. The first two of his eight traps were empty. One of them had been robbed of its bait. He doubted that he'd find much in the others either. This trade was still new to him, and he knew better than to expect success to come quickly.

The gods rewarded labor. They found virtue in the struggle to perfect new skills. Giraan had spent sixteen years making his living as a wheelwright, and he had mastered the saw and the rasp, the plane and the hammer. In return, the gods had given him a strong back and a steady hand. They had given him a beautiful wife and four fine children. And they had granted him long life, so that he might see his sons and his daughter take the first steps into their adult lives. They had seen to it that he and Aiva wanted for nothing.

If anything, they had made life too comfortable, too easy. It almost seemed to Giraan that they were telling him to try his hand at something new. So after four fours as a wheelwright he passed the business on to Oren, his eldest, and he started teaching himself to trap. He bought one trap from a peddler who had passed through Runnelwick just after the thaw. The rest he built himself, copying that first one as closely as he could. It took him two or three tries to get it right, but in time he had his eight traps.

Qirsi in other villages would have thought him a fool, of course, struggling with his tools when he possessed shaping magic. But such was the way of the Y'Qatt. His people understood that the V'Tol, the Life Power-what others called magic-was a gift from Qirsar, one that was not to be squandered out of indolence. He'd heard the names by which others called the Y'Qatt: ascetics, fanatics, lunatics. Even the name Y'Qatt had once been meant as an epithet, for it was believed that the Y'Qatt, an ancient Qirsi clan, who had refused to fight in the early Blood Wars, had been driven by cowardice. But it wasn't that they were craven; they had been opposed to war itself, seeing it as evil, a misuse of Qirsi power. And so those who, like Giraan, refused to wield their power for any purpose embraced the name, seeing in the principled stand of these ancients an echo of their own piety.

Giraan had argued with the Qirsi peddlers who occasionally stopped in the village to sell their wares. He'd been called all the usual names. And always he silenced them with the same question: If Qirsar had intended for us to expend our V'Tol on acts of magic, why would he shorten our lives every time we use it?

No one had ever been able to answer to his satisfaction, because, quite simply, there was no good response they could offer. Throughout the Southlands, magic was killing the people of his race. It was a slow death, imperceptible to some, but real nevertheless. In recent years, as the number of Eandi in the land increased and the number of Qirsi dwindled, others had begun to realize this as well. Already the Eandi lived longer than did the men and women of his race. What sense was there in adding to this disparity by using magic frivolously, by relying on V'Tol to do what might also be accomplished with some physical effort, with sweat and muscle and skill? More and more Qirsi were asking themselves this same question; the Y'Qatt movement was growing.

The next two traps Giraan checked were empty as well, and he walked on to where he'd set the third pair. As he drew near, he saw that the nearer of the two had something in it. A beaver. The gods had been generous. Beaver skins fetched a fair bit of gold from most merchants- at least, the peddlers he'd seen trying to sell them had been asking quite a lot. He'd made a deal with Sedi, the old tanner. Sedi would skin and treat any animals Giraan managed to trap, and in return Giraan would make any repairs that Sedi's wagons might ever need, free of charge. Sedi had agreed to the exchange with a chuckle and a shake of his bald head, no doubt thinking that he had won the old wheelwright's services at no cost to himself. He was going to be disappointed.

When Giraan finally started back toward the village, he was as giddy as a child. He'd caught a stoat in the seventh trap. By the end of this day, Sedi would be trying to change the terms of their bargain, or he'd be looking for a way to be done with it altogether. Angry as Sedi would be, though, they'd have a good laugh over it before the night was through.

On his way back home, he walked past the village plantings and checked to see how the crops in his and Aiva's plot were faring. It had been a fine Growing season-warm, with enough rain to keep Elined's earth moist and dark. It would be another turn before the goldroot was ready, but they might be able to begin picking the vine beans in half that time. Whenever it finally began, Giraan was certain that this would be a generous Harvest.

His home stood near the southern edge of the village. It was no larger than any other house in the village, but it wasn't small either. And now that all the children had been joined and had built their own houses, it felt almost spacious, like one of the great palaces in which the Qirsi clan lords lived.

Aiva sat out front, sharpening the blades she used in the kitchen. Her white hair was pulled back into a plait, and she wore a simple brown dress. She'd been a beauty as a youth, with long, thick hair and eyes as pale as bark on an aspen. As far as he was concerned, she'd lost nothing to age. As he drew near she looked up and waved. Giraan held up the two animals he'd trapped and laughed at what he saw on her face: her widened eyes, her mouth agape and covered with a slender hand.

"Two of them!" she said, breathless.

"A beaver and a stoat." He couldn't keep the pride from his voice. In truth, he didn't even try. Where was the harm in letting his beloved Aiva see how pleased he was?

"Does Sedi know?"

"Not yet." He smiled. "But he will soon enough."

"He'll be angry."

Giraan shook his head, the smile lingering. "He'll act angry at first, but he won't really mind. He knows that it was a fair bargain we struck."

"I hope you're right." She stood and looked at the stoat and then the beaver. "They're fine animals, Giraan. You should be very proud."

"I doubt that either one is fit for eating."

"We both know that you didn't trap them for their meat. You trapped them for gold, and for the sheer challenge of it."

Giraan frowned. "You sound as though you disapprove."

"Not at all. Just don't be talking about the lack of meat as if that makes you less thrilled about the catch than you really are."

She smiled to soften the words. Then she raised herself onto her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. "Take them to Sedi," she said. "I don't want them in my kitchen."

He had to grin. "Yes, my lady."

It usually made her laugh when he addressed her so, but suddenly Aiva was looking past him, toward the path that wound by their house to the marketplace. He turned to look.

An old woman had paused on the track to watch them. Her hair was as white as that of any Qirsi, but the darkness of her skin and eyes marked her as one of Ean's children. She wore a simple brown dress much like Aiva's except that this one was frayed and tattered. Though the day was warm, she also wore a faded green wrap around her bent shoulders. She carried two large baskets, one under each arm, both of them covered with small blankets that concealed their contents. She also wore a carry sack on her back.

"Hello," Giraan called, raising a hand in greeting as he stepped around Aiva to put himself between this stranger and his love.