Renegade’s Magic

Beneath my loosened clothing, my emptied skin sagged around me. The excess skin on my arms, legs, belly and buttocks all but flapped around me as I walked. I groped at my body, finding the jut of a hipbone and the ripple of my ribs as if greeting old friends. The warning of Jodoli, a Great Man of the Specks far more experienced with magic than I was, came back to me.

‘You can die from loss of magic, just as you can die from loss of blood. But it seldom happens to us without the mage knowing exactly what he is doing. It takes a great deal of will to burn every bit of magic out of yourself. A mage would have to push past pain and exhaustion to do it. Ordinarily, the mage would lose consciousness before he was completely dead. Then his feeder could revive him, if she were nearby. If not, the Great One might still perish.’

I smiled grimly to myself as I tottered on towards the standing stump of the fallen tree. I had no feeder to come and tend me. Olikea, a woman of the Specks, had served for a time as my feeder. The last time I had seen Olikea we had quarrelled because I had refused to turn against the Gernians and come live among the Specks. She had reviled me before she left; I’d been a great disappointment to her. She competed hard with her sister Firada, Jodoli’s feeder. I wondered, almost sadly, if I had ever been someone that she cared about, or only a powerful but ignorant mage who she could manipulate? The question should have meant more to me but I was too tired to care any more.

But I had done it. My blockade of the road builders would slow them for months. For a fleeting instant, pleasure warmed me as I thought how proud of me Epiny would be. But a chill thought followed it. Epiny would never know it was my work. She would hear of the dog’s death I had died, and mourn me fiercely. If she heard of what had transpired at the road’s end, she would put it down to Speck magic. I was dead to her. Dead to her, dead to Spink, dead to Amzil and her children. Dead to my sister Yaril, as soon as word reached her. Dead to old Sergeant Duril, the mentor of my youth. My exuberance drained and darkness swirled around me. Dead to everyone I loved. Might as well really be dead.

I fell to my knees in my weariness. That was a mistake. The instant I settled into stillness, hunger woke in me and clawed at my guts and throat. It was beyond hunger pangs; it felt as if my guts were devouring themselves and I groaned with it. If Olikea were here, I thought hazily, she would bring me the berries and roots and leaves that sustained my magic. And afterwards, she would have roused my passions and then sated them. Some desperate sentry in my brain realized that my thoughts were circling uselessly. The sky was greying. I’d spent the night as recklessly as I’d spent my magic. Daylight was coming. Time to flee.

It took me some little time to rise. I staggered on, my ears ringing. I felt as if I could hear a great crowd of people talking at a distance. There was that uneven rise and fall of vocalization, rather like water lapping against a shore. I lifted my eyes, but no one was there. Then my knees folded under me again. I had not gone even a dozen paces. I crumpled to the earth beside the massive stump of the fallen kaembra tree. I caught myself before I went face down in the wood chips and sawdust that littered the forest floor. With a groan I twisted my body to lean my back against the stump. I had never felt such weariness and hunger, not even in my worst days of starvation in my father’s house. ‘Am I dying?’ I asked the implacable night.

‘Probably not,’ a dusky voice behind me said. ‘But I am.’

I did not turn my head nor even startle. Despite my own distress, I felt shamed to have forgotten that others suffered more keenly than I did. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said to the tree. ‘I’m sorry. I tried, but I was too late to save you. I should have tried harder.’

‘You said you would speak to them!’ he cried out. ‘You said you would do your best to put an end to this.’ His outrage and pain rang, not in my ears, but in my heart.

I closed my eyes to sense him better. ‘I thought you would be dead,’ I said thoughtlessly. My own deep weariness and stabbing hunger eroded my manners. My magic was at its lowest ebb. I could barely sense the old Speck in the tree. Once his hair had been dark, but now it was long and grey, with the streaks of white barely showing against it. His pale blue eyes were almost white, and his speckled markings had faded against his skin to a dapple of freckles. He’d been old when he went into his tree, I suddenly knew. Once he had been fat, a Great One, a forest mage like myself, but now he was bleeding to death. As his magic ran out of his tree, his flesh hung flaccid around him. I stared at him, wondering if that was how I looked, and if our fates would be the same.

‘I am dead,’ he told me bitterly. ‘Swift or slow as the end may come, it certainly comes now. They cut me with cold iron, with many, many blows of cold, sharp iron.’

I shuddered, imagining the pain. Could it have been worse than a thousand lashes? He had been unable to flee his fate as I had done. His life had depended on me, and my paltry efforts to save him had failed.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said with great sincerity. ‘I did try. I was too late for you. But what I have done tonight should frighten the road builders. If they find the courage to try again, I have created a chaos they will not quickly undo. Even if they start tomorrow, it will be months before they undo my destruction. Winter is coming and work will stop when the snow flies. I have bought us some time in which we can seek a permanent solution.’

‘Months,’ he said with scorn. ‘Part of a year? What is that to me? Nothing, now! I am dead, Jhernian. My death will be a slow fading to you, but I will be gone before the spring comes. And to me, it will seem but a wink of the eye. Once we have our trees, we do not count time in hours or days or even seasons as you do. I am dead. But while there is still enough of me left to speak, I will tell you again. Delaying them is not enough. You must drive these intruders out, so that they never come back. Kill them all, if you must. For years now we have refrained from that, but perhaps it is the only thing that will stop them. Kill them all. A delay? What good does that do? You have been just like any other Jhernian, bidding living things die to please your ends, and then claiming you have benefited us all! What a fool you have been, throwing magic like dust, wasting a hoard such as not been seen for many years!’

I had scarcely the strength to answer him, but so stung was I that I rallied what little remained to me. ‘As the magic wished me to do, I have done.’

He laughed bitterly. ‘I did not feel the magic speak at your act. Instead, I witnessed you bending your will to force trees to their deaths, to push plants to spread where they cannot sustain themselves, to push life just as unnaturally as the intruders have pushed death. Any of us could have told you that it would not work. Tomorrow, half your magic will be undone by the rising sun as the plants wither and fade. What a waste!’

I felt childish and everything seemed unfair. The magic had never told me clearly what it wanted of me. The ancestor trees had never offered me advice. ‘I did not know I could seek your advice,’ I said stiffly. I was so tired. It was hard to make the words form in my mind.

‘Why do you think we exist, if not to answer questions and give advice? What other value could the ancestor trees have? A silly, selfish continuation of life and pride? No. We exist to guide the People. We exist to protect the People.’

‘And the People are failing to protect you.’ I felt a deep sadness and shame.

‘The magic is given to you to protect us. Use it as you are supposed to use it, and we will not fall.’

‘But – the magic showed me the forest, alive and complete. The road is the death that cuts through it. If I can remove the death, if I can stitch the halves of the forest back together …’

‘You are like a little child, who sees the nut but does not comprehend that it came from a tree, let alone that it holds another tree. Look larger. See it all.’

He lifted me or perhaps he released me to rise. What he showed me is hard to put into words. I saw the forest again, as the magic had shown it to me, as a perfectly balanced dance of lives. And the road still intruded into it, a skewer of death. But the forest elder lifted me higher still, and I saw the road not as a single stripe of death, but as a feeler reaching out from a foreign organism. The road was to that system, not a stripe of death but a root, securing it in new soil. And just as I had imagined the pathways and byways that would spread out from it as small rootlets, so they were. And if I followed that root back to its source, I saw the Kingdom of Gernia, growing and spreading just as organically as a vine crawling up a tree. The vine that used a tree to reach the sunlight did not intend evil to the tree; it was incidental that it sucked all life from the tree as it climbed and spread, shading the tree’s leaves with its own tendrils and foliage. The roads fed Gernia, and were focused only on sustaining their own organism. For Gernia to live, the road must grow. It could not survive without its growing, spreading roots. My civilization and the forest were two organisms, competing for resources. One would shade out the other.

Then, just as quickly as I had risen over all, I was in my own flesh again, leaning against the severed tree, bereft of strength and hope.

Defeat soured even my brief memory of the triumph I’d felt. I spoke softly. ‘Magic can’t change it, Tree Man. It isn’t the road or the fortification at Gettys. It isn’t even the people who have come here. It’s so big, it can’t be stopped. You know that even if I could kill all the intruders, I would not. But if I did, if we killed every last man, woman and child in Gettys, it would be only like clipping off the end of a tree’s branch. Other branches grow. Next summer would see more people here, and the road building would start again. For the Gernians to come here is as inevitable as water flowing downhill. Now that some have come, others will follow, seeking land to farm or routes to trade and wealth. Killing them will not stop them coming nor from building this road.’

I drew a breath. It took so much effort. I thought again of the vine, climbing and choking and overshadowing the tree. ‘I see only one possible path. What we must do is find a way to persuade the intruders to take their road elsewhere. Show them a route that does not come through the groves of the ancestor trees. Then both our peoples can live alongside one another in peace.’

It was getting harder and harder to organize my thoughts. Speaking seemed a great effort. My words were slurring but I couldn’t find the energy to sit up and speak clearly. I closed my eyes. A final thought jabbed at me and I made a vast effort to voice it. ‘If I can stop the road builders, if I can divert them, cannot you send up a new sprout and live? Tree Woman has.’

‘Lisana’s trunk was not completely severed. Although her crown and trunk fell, enough of a connection was left that her leaves could go on making food and one of her branches was positioned well to become a new sapling. But I am cut off short, and have no leaves left. Even if I could, I would have to send up a sapling from my roots, beginning as no more than a sprout. I would be greatly diminished for scores of years.’

‘But you would be alive. You would not be lost to us.’

He was silent.

All my exhilaration at spending my magic was suddenly gone. We had come full circle back to my great failure. Everyone insisted that the magic had given me the task of making all the Gernians leave and putting an end to their road building. It was impossible. I’d told them that, endlessly, but no one listened. Even the tree elders know that the intruders could not be stopped. Not even with magic.

I managed to lift my hand and placed it against his bark. Something was very wrong with me. I could not feel my legs and my vision suddenly faded. Had I closed my eyes? I could not tell. I forced out sluggish words. ‘I have used too much magic. I do not have a feeder to revive me. If you wish, take whatever nourishment you can from my body. Use me up. Perhaps you can live that way. Perhaps someone else will find a way to stop the road and let the Gernians and Specks live in peace. It is beyond me.’

Silence greeted my offer. Perhaps I had offended him. As strength fled my body, I decided it no longer mattered. I pushed my fingers into a fissure in his bark; my hand would stay in place even if I lost consciousness. My whole body was clamouring for sustenance and rest. I suspected it was too late. I’d passed the redemption point. ‘Use me up,’ I offered him again and let go.

‘You have no feeder? You are a Great One and no one attends you? This is intolerable!’ His words reached me from a great distance. I sensed he felt insulted more on his own behalf than concerned for me. ‘This is not how a Great One dies, untended and treeless. What have the People come to, to allow such a thing to happen?’

My hearing was fading. I was distant from his dismay and alarm. I wondered, dispassionately, what the penal workers would think when they found my deflated body here. It would certainly be a mystery for them. A great mystery.

Everything stopped.

FIVE
The Other Side

‘Lisana,’ I said.

She did not hear me. I saw her more clearly than I had in many days; she was as she had been in my dreams when I was at the Cavalla Academy in Old Thares. The tree woman was sitting with her back to her tree trunk. Her glossy hair was tangled on the bark. She was naked, a fleshy woman of indeterminate years. The day’s early sunlight dappled her flesh as it streamed through the canopy foliage, and I could not tell the real dappling of her skin from that which the sunlight created. Her eyelids were half-closed, her breathing heavy and slow. I smiled down at her, my gaze fondly tracing the lines of her plump lips, the small furrow in her brow that deepened when she was annoyed at me. I came closer to her, and whispered by her ear, ‘Lisana! I’m here.’

Her eyes opened slowly, sleepily, without alarm. The little line on her forehead deepened in puzzlement. Her eyes moved past me and looked through me. Her rounded shoulder twitched in a small shrug. She started to close her eyes again.

‘Lisana!’ I said, more urgently.

She caught her breath, sat up and looked around. ‘Soldier’s Boy?’ she asked in confusion.

‘Yes. I’ve come back to you. I’ve done my best to stop the road building. I failed. But I’m finished. Finished with all of it. So here I am, come to be with you.’

She scanned the forest all around her twice before her eyes settled on me. Then she reached out a plump hand to me. Her fingers passed through me, a sensation rather like sparkling wine spilling on my flesh. Tears welled in her eyes. ‘Oh, no. No! What has happened? This cannot be. This cannot be!’

‘It’s all right,’ I reassured her. ‘I used up all the magic in me to try to stop the road. My body is dying, but I’m here with you. So that’s not so bad, is it? I’m content.’

‘Soldier’s Boy, no! No, it’s not bad, it’s terrible. You are a Great One! The magic made you a Great One. And now you are dying, treeless and untended. You are already fading in my eyes. And soon you will be gone, gone forever.’

‘I know. But once that body is gone, I will be here with you. And I do not think that is a bad thing.’

‘No. No, you fool! You are vanishing. You have no tree. And you have fallen—’ She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she did, tears spilled from them. She opened them wide and her gaze was full of anguish. ‘You have fallen far from any sapling. You are untended and unprepared and still divided against yourself. Oh, Soldier’s Boy, how did this happen? You will fade away. And when you do, I will never see you again. Never.’

The wind blew softly through me. I felt oddly diminished. ‘I didn’t know that,’ I said lamely. Stupidly. ‘I’m sorry.’ As I apologized to her, a flicker of panic raced through me and then faded away. There wasn’t enough life left in me to panic. I’d made a mistake and I was dying. Apparently not even a Speck afterlife was available to me. I’d simply stop being. Apparently, I hadn’t died correctly. Oops.

I knew I should be devastated. An emotion washed through me, too pale for me to recognize. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said again, as much to myself as to her.

She stretched her arms wide and gathered in to her bosom what was left of me. I felt her embrace only as a faint warmth. It was not even a skin-to-skin sensation, but was perhaps my memory of warmth. My awareness was trickling away. Soon there would not even be enough left to be concerned. I’d be nothing. No. Nothing would be me. That was a better way to express it. I vaguely remembered how I would have smiled.

The water was sweet. Not just sweet as fresh water is sweet, but sweet as in flavoured with honey or nectar. I choked on the gush of it into my mouth, coughed and felt the coolness spatter down my chest. Then I drew a breath through my nose, closed my lips around the mouth of the waterskin and sucked it in. I drank in long gulping draughts, pulling in as much liquid as my mouth would hold, swallowing it down and then sucking in more. I sucked the waterskin flat. Nonetheless, I kept my mouth firmly clamped to it, sucking fruitlessly at it. Someone pinched my nose shut, and when I had to open my mouth to breathe, the waterskin was snatched away. I moaned a protest.

Another one was offered to me. This one was even better; it was not just sweet water. The liquid was thicker. Meat and salt and garlic were blended in a thick broth with other flavours I did not know. I didn’t really care. I sucked it down.

The disorganized sounds around me suddenly evolved into language. ‘Be careful. Don’t let him have that much that fast.’ A man’s voice.

‘Would you like to be his feeder, Jodoli?’ That was a voice I recognized. Olikea sounded just as angry as she had been when last we parted. She was a powerful woman, as tall as I was and well muscled. Her anger was not a thing to dismiss. I suddenly felt exposed. I tried to draw my arms and legs up to protect myself, but felt them only twitch in response to me.

‘Look. He’s trying to move!’ Jodoli sounded both surprised and relieved.

Olikea muttered some sour response. I did not make out her words, but someone else did. A woman spoke. I did not know her voice.

‘Well, that is what it means to be a feeder of a Great One. If you did not wish to have the work of it, you should not have taken it on, little sister. It is not a task to take up lightly. Nor should it be seized merely as an opportunity to advance yourself. If you are weary of the honour of tending to him, say so plainly. I am sure there are other women of our kin who would be glad to take him on. And they, perhaps, would not have let him fall into such a state. What if he had died? Think of the shame you would have brought down on our kin-clan! Such a thing has never befallen one of our Great Ones.’

‘Jodoli has extended himself into such a state! I have heard you complain of it. He often tells the story of nearly dying from using too much magic.’

Olikea’s sister stiffened with fury. I became aware I’d opened my eyes to slits. I recognized her. Oh. Yes. Firada looked very like her younger sister, yet their features bore very different expressions at that moment. Firada’s hazel eyes were narrowed with displeasure. She had crossed her arms on her chest and stared at her younger sister contemptuously.

Olikea was crouched over me. She held an empty leather skin in her hands and her lips were drawn tight with fury. Her eyes were green. She had a dark streak from her brow to the tip of her nose and the speckles on her face were more generous than her sister’s. On the rest of her body, her specks were a dappling that became streaks on her ribs and legs, almost like the striping on a cat. The striping was repeated in her hair. I had thought she was about my age but now she seemed younger. Her skin blushed a hot pink today around her dapples. She wore the most clothing I’d ever seen her don. It consisted of a leather belt slung on her hips, with several pouches attached to it, and some loops that held simple tools. Although it was decorated with beads, feathers and small charms made from fired pottery or beaten copper, its function was to allow her to carry her supplies with ease rather than to cover her body.

Jodoli stood well back from both of the sisters. My fellow Great Man and sometime rival was not nearly as large as I was, but his size would have turned heads in any Gernian setting. He wore his black hair in plaits. His blue eyes were surprising in the dark mask of pigment on his face. ‘Stop your quarrelling. He’s awake. He needs food now, if he can stomach it.’

‘Likari! Give me that basket of berries and then go and get more. Don’t stand about staring. Be useful.’

For the first time, I noticed a small boy just behind Olikea. He had green eyes like hers and the same stripe down his nose. Probably their younger brother. In response to her words, he jerked as if poked with a stick. He thrust a heavily laden basket at her. The moment she took it, he turned and scampered off. His reddened bare buttocks were dappled like a horse’s; I almost smiled to see him run.

But Olikea’s scowl bored into me. ‘Well, Soldier’s Boy. Are you going to eat, or just stare about you like a frog on a lily leaf?’

‘I’ll eat,’ I said. Her offer of food drove all else from my mind. I would do nothing to offend her, lest she change her mind about feeding me.

Slowly it broke through my foggy brain that I was going to live. I felt a pang of regret at that, strange to say. I had not planned to die nor especially enjoyed the prospect, but it had been invitingly simple. All my worries would have been over: no more wondering if I was doing the right thing. Now I was back in a world where people had expectations of me.

I reclined in a natural shelter formed by a vine that had climbed up a sagging branch of great tree. Its drapery made a thicker shade for me in the muted light of the forest. The moss beneath me was deep and soft. I suspected that Jodoli had used his magic to form such a comfortable couch for me. In the same moment that I knew I should thank him, Olikea dropped the basket of berries beside me. My attention was riveted upon it. It took all the strength I had to command my wasted hand and arm to move. The emptied flesh hung from my bones in a flaccid curtain of skin. I dug a handful of berries from the basket, heedless of how I crushed the ripe fruit and shoved it into my mouth. The flavour blossomed in my mouth, life-giving, sweet, tangy, redolent of flowers. I chewed it twice, swallowed, licked the dripping juice from my hand and scooped up another handful. I pushed them into my mouth, as much as my mouth could hold. I chewed with my lips pursed tight, afraid some morsel would escape them.

Around me, a storm raged. Jodoli and Firada scolded Olikea and she responded angrily. I had not an instant’s attention for it until the basket was emptied of berries. It was not a small basket. It should have filled me, but with every bit of replenished energy, my body only grew stronger in clamouring for more. I wanted to demand more, but some underlying craftiness told me that if I angered Olikea, she might not help me. I forced myself to hear what she was saying.

‘… in the light where the Great One’s tree had fallen. As a result, I am burned. Even Likari was burned, though the little wretch did almost nothing to help me. It will be days before I can move without pain, or even sleep comfortably!’

Jodoli looked embarrassed for me. Firada had pursed her lips in the Speck gesture of denial and looked stubbornly righteous. ‘What did you think it meant to be the feeder of a Great One? Did you think all you had to do was bring him food and then bask in his reflected status? If that was all there was to it, a Great One would not need a feeder. All the People would simply feed him. No. A Great One needs a feeder precisely because he will not fix his mind on the ordinary concerns of life. He will listen to the magic instead. Managing the ordinary part of his life is your task. You are supposed to seek out the proper foods for him and be sure he has them in full variety. You are supposed to keep the nits out of his hair, and aid him in his washing so that his skin stays healthy. When he dream-walks, you should stand watch over his body until his soul comes back to it. And you are supposed to see that his line continues. That is what it means to be the feeder of a Great One. You seized that duty for yourself as soon as you discovered him. Do not pretend he chose you. You found him; he did not come seeking you. If you are tired of the duty, then say so and set it aside. He is not uncomely, even for a plain-skin. And all have heard of the gifts he gave you! There are other women who would gladly take up the tasks of being his feeder, in the sole hope of getting his child. You have not even been successful at that, have you?’

My gaze travelled to Olikea’s face. Firada’s words were like rainfall on dry ground. They pattered against my senses and only slowly soaked into my brain. The Gernian in me pushed his way to the front of my mind, commanding me to pay attention to what was going on. Olikea had rescued me. I’d lain where I’d fallen, in the sunlight. She’d been burned when she had to emerge from the forest to drag me back into its shelters. Speck skin was notoriously sensitive to light and heat. She’d risked herself. For me.

And she wasn’t sure I was worth it. Nevare the Gernian was inclined to bow his head to that and watch her walk away, without too many regrets. I had once believed that Olikea was genuinely infatuated with me, to the point of feeling guilty that her feelings were so much deeper than my own. To hear that Firada believed Olikea only cared for me as a way to gain power put everything in a very different light. I was not a prize bull to be groomed and exhibited as a possession. I still had my pride.

But the Speck part of me perceived things from a very different angle. A Great Man not only needed a feeder, he was entitled to one. I was a Great Man of the Specks, and Olikea’s kin clan should have felt honoured that I had chosen to live among them. For Olikea to decide that she did not relish her duty was a grave insult to me as well as a threat to my well-being. Anger up-welled in me, an anger founded deep in a Speck awareness of the affront to me. Was I not a Great One? Had not I given up everything to become a vessel for the magic? What right had she to begrudge me the assistance that most would have found an honour?

A peculiar tingling ran over me from head to foot, not unlike the pins-and-needles sensation of a limb that has been still too long. From somewhere in me, Soldier’s Boy summoned strength and sat me up. My Speck self, so long subjugated by my Gernian identity, looked around with disdain. Then, as if he were pulling off a sweaty shirt, he peeled himself free of me. In that instant, he separated us and I, Nevare the Gernian, abruptly became a bystander observing my own life. He looked down at his wasted body, at the empty folds of skin where once a wealth of magic had been stored. I felt his disgust with me. Nevare had wasted his magic, wasted it in a temporary solution that saved no one and nothing. He lifted the empty ripples of belly skin and then let them fall with a small groan of dismay. All the magic he had stolen from the plainsfolk at the Dancing Spindle, all the magic he had acquired since then and painstakingly hoarded, gone! All of it foolishly squandered in a vain show of power. A fortune had been traded for trinkets. He lifted the folds of his depleted belly and then let them fall again. Tears of rage stung his eyes, followed by a flush of shame. He had been immense with magic, full of power, and stupidity had wasted it all. He gritted his teeth at his diminished status. He looked like a starved man, a weakling who could not even provide for himself, let alone shelter his kin-clan. That wastrel Nevare knew nothing of being a Great Man, nothing of magic. He had not even chosen his feeder well, but had simply accepted the first woman who offered herself. That, at least, could be quickly mended. He lifted his eyes to stare sternly at Olikea.

‘You are not my feeder.’

Olikea, Jodoli and Firada were staring at him in amazement, the sort of amazement that would be roused by a stone speaking. Olikea’s mouth opened in shock and a parade of emotions passed over her face. Insult, shock, regret and anger all vied to dominate her features.

As Nevare, I watched the drama unfold before me as an audience rather than a participant. I could hear and see, but I could not speak or control the body I inhabited. I was aware of his thoughts. Could I influence them? I could not find in myself the ambition to try. My Speck self’s devastation at how I had wasted our magic drained me of purpose. Let him deal with the unreasonable demands of the magic and see if he could do any better!

I watched with sour amusement as Olikea tried to master her face. She strained to look concerned rather than insulted. Olikea had never heard this man speak to her in such tones before. It angered her, but she tried for a calm voice. ‘But, Soldier’s Boy, you are weak. You need—’