But he didn’t.
She walked over to his stall, then looked inside. There in front of her stood not a chestnut gelding, but rather a chestnut dog. A big dog, actually, that drooled. A big dog with hooves the size of halved melons.
“Castân?” she said in astonishment.
He whinnied at her.
Sarah could hardly believe her eyes. Daniel again at his work, apparently. She would have cursed him for it a bit longer, but the barn had begun to creak in a very unwholesome way. She jerked open the stall door, snatched up a blanket and a feed bag, then bolted for the open door, leaving her horse—er, her onetime horse, rather—to follow, which he did with just as much enthusiasm as he always had. He came to a skidding stop in the middle of the glade, then turned and leaned against her leg as she watched the barn collapse just as the house had. Sarah let her gear slide from her fingers, wrapped the blanket around herself, then looked at her ... dog. She took a deep breath.
“We have problems.”
He seemed to agree. Silently.
“The first of which being that I don’t have a way to fix you.”
He only looked up at her with sad brown eyes.
She couldn’t fix any of the rest of it either. She looked around herself in silent wonder at the ruin that had become her life. Almost all of her gold was gone, her home was gone, her future buried under bits of barn it would take her a week to clear away, and her brother was no doubt currently telling the villagers a secret that would have them up in arms the moment they heard it.
Then that brother would be off to raze the world with his very vile magic.
She was slightly disconcerted by the last, but she gave herself a hard shake to rid herself of any undue concern. She didn’t care what Daniel did with his unpleasant gifts. As her mother always said, when faced with difficulties, the only sensible thing for a body to do was look out for himself and leave the heroics to the Heroes. A very wise woman, her mother. Sarah started across the glade, with a spring to her step, fully prepared to take that advice as her battle plan. She had places to go, things to do, more gold to earn. Just because she was the only one alive who knew what Daniel intended didn’t mean she had to do anything about it.
It didn’t.
She realized, after a bit, that she was no longer walking. She would have preferred to blame her lack of forward progress on a dastardly spell, but she couldn’t. It was just her damnable sense of do-gooding rearing its ugly head and befouling her well-laid plans. She looked away from it, tried to ignore it, cursed it, and hoped it would go away.
To no avail, unfortunately. Her better self was obviously determined to outlast her.
She gritted her teeth and sidestepped anything to do with magic, mages, or tasks that were far too large for her. There was doing good, of course, and then there was being stupid. She didn’t lack courage, of course, or the stamina to endure a long, arduous quest, but even Heroes had to take stock of their weapons, didn’t they? She might have had the desire to stop her brother, but the truth was she didn’t possess anything equal to fighting what he could do.
Besides, she wanted a peaceful, safe house where she could sleep for hours at a stretch without a very large knife in her hand. She didn’t want peril she couldn’t see coming wrought by men with power she couldn’t fight. Surely there were lads enough left in the world to attend to her particular sort of difficulty. The task didn’t have to fall to her.
She stood there for several minutes, unable to go either forward or backward. Finally, she looked over her shoulder. Only now it wasn’t the ruins of her mother’s house that lay there, it was a vision of her own little yet-to-be-built cabin on the edge of a perfectly pristine lake surrounded by beautiful mountains. That once-safe, peaceful place was overrun by the evil she’d seen seeping out from under her brother’s door, that twisting, serpentine magic that had spread over the floor and slithered up and over everything—
The last wall of her mother’s house suddenly trembled, then fell onto the rest of the rubble with a tremendous crash.
Sarah turned away. She stood there and simply breathed, in and out. She didn’t want any of it. Not the darkness. Not the ruin. Not the magic she couldn’t hope to best—
But if not you, then who?
She wasn’t terribly fond of that voice in her head that echoed in her heart and always seemed to put her in Fate’s sights. It was the second time she’d heard it that day and that was two times too many. She was a village witch’s daughter, not a mage, nor a court wizard swathed in velvet robes and wearing a hat whose height was commensurate with his power and stature.
She cast about promptly for some pointy-hatted lad who might be willing to take on such a task. The wizard of Bruaih was three days’ journey to the northeast through mountains she would have to cross eventually anyway, true, but rumor had it he was an unpleasant and unhelpful sort, persuaded to extend his services only if a great amount of gold was exchanged. The sorceress to the south of Shettlestoune was equally skilled, but also notoriously unwilling to work for less than her full fee. There wasn’t another mage within a hundred leagues ...
She paused.
That wasn’t exactly true.
She lifted her eyes to the northwest. The western arm of the Cairngorm Mountains stood there, an impenetrable barrier between the bulk of Shettlestoune and Neroche, the city of Istaur, and the province of Meith. Rumor had it that those mountains were more unfriendly if possible than the ones to her right that separated her from the rest of the Nine Kingdoms. The forests to her left were full of ruffians and wild beasts.
And a mage.
That mage had lived there for centuries, or so it was hinted at gingerly, surrounding himself with spells and reputation and the bodies of those he’d slain for irritating him. No one braved the inhospitable path that led up to his house, at least no one she knew. Any who might have certainly never lived to tell the tale. That mage there was ancient, foul-tempered, and reclusive.
And quite possibly just the sort of man who might be bothered by the thought of her brother ruining his view.
She stood there for far longer than she should have with Castân leaning hard against her hip and the wind beginning to whisper unpleasantly through the surrounding forest of scraggly scrub oak. She didn’t want to have anything to do with mages or magic or hiring the former to see to the latter.
But, again, if not her, then who?
And if not the mage on the hill, then who else?
She took a deep breath and started up that path before she could think on it overmuch. She did look up, once, because the afternoon was waning, leaving not only the path but the lee of the mountain in shadow. She shivered in spite of herself. She wasn’t one to give credence to foolish tales told down at the pub, but she also couldn’t deny that there was nothing at all welcoming about either the mountain before her or the path that led to it.
There were other paths that led through the mountains to the northwest of Shettlestoune, but none so faintly worn as the one she stumbled along. Obviously, she wasn’t the only one who found other things to do besides visiting a mage who reputedly wanted his entire mountain to himself.
She rubbed her arms as she walked along, avoiding her right forearm and wrist. Perhaps the man could be bought. She obviously couldn’t give him everything she had, but perhaps a bit of gold along with an appeal to his sense of decency might do.
Though he was certain to have no decency. She supposed she would be fortunate to state her request before he attempted to silence her with some sort of dastardly spell.
She walked until the sun began to set, continuing up that faint path, continually brushing aside things that caught her across the face, spiderwebs of magic that she thankfully couldn’t see. Given that the mage had had centuries to perfect his spells of concealment and protection, ’twas a wonder she hadn’t run into a more impenetrable bit of business. Perhaps he saved that for those who had the cheek to actually brave his front door.
It took her less time than she wanted to reach his house, which was easily as frightful-looking as she’d imagined it might be—even in the deep shadows of sunset. It looked as if it had simply grown out of the rock behind it. What wasn’t cut from stone was built up with brick and impossibly weathered wood. Smoke from the fire-place curled upward into the frigid evening air. That should have been a good sign, but Sarah realized only then how badly she had hoped the wizard wouldn’t be at home.
She put her shoulders back and lifted her chin, refusing to entertain any more of those sorts of thoughts. She had a goodly work for the man in front of her, her coin while not much was sufficient, and she had other things to be doing. She would bring all of her powers of persuasion—and a fair amount of guilt, if necessary—to bear on the man and simply leave him no choice but to accept her quest.
She strode up the remainder of the rough-hewn path to the stout wooden door with its crude knocker. She reached out to lift it only to catch sight of her arm. The sinewy trail left by the spell had already stained the cloth of her sleeve, leaving a black spiral around her wrist and up to her elbow. She put that hand behind her back and knocked vigorously with the other.
No one answered.
She knocked again, then continued to knock until the door was wrenched open.
Darkness stood there in the doorway. Her mouth went completely dry despite her command that it not. She wasn’t one to cower, and she was unfortunately not unaccustomed to inventing reasonable-sounding tales on the spur of the moment to cover whatever exigency she might have been laboring under, but she found herself presently without a single useful thing to say.
The darkness didn’t move. It only stood there, filling the doorway and drawing all the light available into itself.
Or at least it did for a moment or two. Then it receded and revealed a simple man—if a mage could ever be called that. He wore a cloak with the hood pulled forward to cover his face. Perhaps his visage was ruined, or terribly wrinkled, or so fierce that he thought to spare anyone the ordeal of looking at it.
Then again, given that he was likely more interested in frightening off any potential visitors than sparing them discomfort, perhaps he was simply cold, or had just come in from a lengthy bout of terrifying his neighbors and hadn’t had the time to hang up his gear.
“Well?” he demanded, his voice rough, as if he didn’t use it very often. “What do you want?”
“I need aid,” she said quickly. “With magic.”
He stood there for another moment or two in silence, then slammed his door shut in her face.
She wasn’t quite sure what she had expected, but it wasn’t that. She looked at that rough-hewn door for a moment or two, then knocked again. And again. She knocked until she was pounding on the wood.
The mage jerked the door open again suddenly. “Woman, if you don’t stop that, I’ll make it so you can’t knock again.”
His threats were nothing worse than she’d heard from her brother and his tone nothing worse than she’d been accustomed to from her mother, so she stuck her foot in the doorway so he would have to shut her in the door before he might shut her out, and quickly got down to business.
“I need your services,” she said frankly. “I can pay you.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “I don’t need gold.”
“Good, for I have very little to give you.”
He seemed to consider for a moment or two, then cursed as he turned and walked across his great room. Sarah was surprised to find he didn’t move as an old man might have, but perhaps his magic rendered him eternally young. He cast himself down into a chair by a table, his hood still shadowing his face. Sarah didn’t particularly want to come inside his house, but if that was what was required, then that was what she would do. She left Castân sitting on the path outside, then started across the threshold. There were spells there, but they were merely fierce, not evil, so she parted them as she might have a curtain and passed through. She continued on until she stood next to the mage’s table.
’Twas obvious he lived alone. The floor wasn’t disgustingly filthy, but it hadn’t been swept recently either. Books littered the table in front of her, along with plates needing a wash and a collection of cups that begged for the same attention. She started to straighten a pile of manuscripts, but stopped when she remembered what had happened the last time she’d touched something on a mage’s table.
She hazarded a glance at the mage in question, but he sat with his head bowed, studying his fingers steepled together in front of his face. She took the opportunity to dust a little and stack a plate or two whilst making certain out of the corner of her eye that he wasn’t reaching for a wand of any sort.
He wasn’t reaching for anything, as it happened. He was merely sitting, as if a sudden bout of deep thought had overcome him. He actually didn’t look terrifying, his large stature aside. She was faintly surprised to find herself still breathing whilst standing at his hearth, but perhaps her offer of just a few coins had been more appealing than she’d suspected.
“So,” he said, lifting his head finally, “you want my aid, do you? In return for what? A handful of coins and a clean table?”
She stopped brushing crumbs off the table onto the floor and put both her hands behind her back. “I’m nervous.”
“I intended you to be.”
“I imagine you did.”
“I don’t like company,” he said shortly.
“You’ll like even less what comes crawling up your pathway once my brother creates another of what he fashioned in my mother’s house.”
The mage sat back and folded his arms over his chest. “Your brother?”
“Daniel of Doìre.” She attempted a dismissive wave, but succeeded only in tipping over a mug she then had to rescue from tumbling off the table onto the floor. She set it back down on the table carefully, then took a deep breath. “He vows to destroy the world.”