Glamour of the God-Touched (6 page)

Garrick felt a difference between the
captain and his mates. They all had airs of action, but the captain
carried himself with more conviction. He was bolder and more
certain.

“You’ll come with us,” the captain said.

“That’s not a good idea,” Garrick
gasped.

“I’m not suggesting, boy. I’m telling you
how it is. Stay here while we go take a look.”

Garrick’s head swam, but he stood still,
pleased he had won this battle with the dark curse inside him. He
could beat this. He
had
to beat this.

The captain directed one of his men, a man
he named Sidney, to remain behind as sentry while he and the others
went to investigate the manor. Garrick felt better as the men moved
away.

“Don’t be gettin’ no ideas,” Sidney said to
him, pulling a short sword from its sheath. “I ain’t got the
patience o’ the captain.”

A sibilant whisper rose in the back of
Garrick’s mind. He could escape. It would be easy. He may not even
have to touch the man—he could just ease this man’s life force
away, steal it without him even knowing what had happened.

Stop it!
He screamed, hoping it was
just inside his mind. He gritted his teeth, and his breathing
became labored.

You have given
, the voice
whispered.

“Whatever you’re doing, you best stop it,”
Sidney said.

But the void inside ripped at his gut and
his breathing became even harder. As if moving on its own,
Garrick’s hand reached out.

Sidney cried out and swung his blade.

Garrick sidestepped the attack without
effort, and used the moment to gather his senses. He swallowed his
hunger with a painful shove, then he set a simple spell gate,
twisted his tongue around a word, and reached to the plane of
magic. Magestuff flowed, and Sidney inexplicably tripped over his
own feet.

Garrick was running before the guard hit the
ground.

He did not know how long he ran, but it was long
and long and longer. The guards gave chase, but he was slender and
an able runner. The guards were older, bigger, and heavily
encumbered. He pressed his hunger down, and he ran harder as the
presence of the guards slipped away from his mind. This run had
none of the grace of last night’s race through the woods, though.
This was a pell-mell dash. He crashed through the forest, heedless
of root or undergrowth. He scrabbled through brush and fern,
falling and picking himself up, running harder, and bracing himself
as if to crash against waves sent by the undercurrent of the
world.

He cursed as he ran.

He cursed Alistair. He cursed Dorfort and
their woeful guard. He cursed this pain inside that seemed never to
leave.

When he was finally spent, Garrick fell to
the ground, gasping for breath.

He was in a clearing of knee-high grass
surrounded by elm trees. A pattern of fire pits, now days cold,
marked it as a way-point for travelers. He felt his hunger, still
there, still stirring beneath his anger.

He had beaten it, though.

Garrick rolled to his back and stared up
into the blue bowl of sky.

He had beaten it. He had spared the guard’s
life despite his pain. They wouldn’t get him. No one would. He was
Garrick. He would not give in.

Whatever Garrick had been before was in the
past, and whatever he had become now was…well, he didn’t know. But
he had to find a way to deal with it before it consumed him.

He had to
do
something.

The problem was that he had too many
questions, and not enough answers.

Questions like, what was this hunger? Where
did it come from? How could he get rid of it? Questions like, why
was Alistair’s manor attacked, and what did it mean that magical
residue from both orders had colored the site? Being a Torean, he
ignored the possibility of a magewar at his own peril. But if it
was a magewar, why were there no Lectodinian or Koradictine dead?
And if it was magewar, why did the orders hold their battle on
Torean ground?

In the end, this reeked of raid more than it
did of battlefield.

Had Alistair grown too strong? Had something
of his winter studies caused the orders to fear him? And why take
Kelvin, Bryce, and the rest of the apprentices?

These were Garrick’s thoughts as he lay in
the clearing. The trees and the grasses of that place,
however—cloaked in wind and rustling leaves and the calls of
crows—had nothing to say on the matter. Frustration grew like a
cancer in his gut. He felt exposed and defenseless. He was so
tired.

Why was the world doing this to him?

“Your life is yours, Garrick,” Alistair had
often said as he grew. “Take the world on its terms but stay true
to your own thoughts, and things will manage themselves.” After
long enough Garrick, like a blind fool, had bought it. But it
turned out Alistair didn’t understand the world like Garrick
did.

The world, it turns out, does not care how
things arrange themselves.

Now Alistair was dead and Garrick realized
he needed a new superior—someone strong enough to trigger his magic
as Alistair had promised he would, someone capable of giving
Garrick the power he needed to stand up to this terrifying curse,
or at least someone experienced enough to help him unravel it.

Pacar, for example—a friend of Alistair’s
who lived in the deep forests fairly close by to the west. Pacar
made him uncomfortable, but his magic was strong enough. Or
Dontaria Pel-An, another acquaintance who made house in the
southern marshes—farther away, but a mage Garrick had always been
comfortable with. He was a better choice.

Neither would work for free, of course—no
Torean would ply magic without compensation, and sorcery strong
enough to remove a curse like this would come only at a hefty
price. So Garrick also needed funds.

A job, perhaps.

A task?

It was at that moment that the idea struck
home.

Alistair had planned to take Garrick with
him next week as he traveled to meet Caledena’s viceroy, a
situation that always foretold of work. The viceroy would need a
replacement.

Who better than Garrick?

He could make it on foot in a couple
days—and merely making that trip meant he would stay away from
people, out of Dorfort, and specifically out of the reach of
Dorfort’s guard. If nothing else the trip would provide time to
deal with this. It would give him time to settle down.

He had wanted to be his own man, Garrick
thought with a grin. No better time than now.

If nothing else, it felt good to have a
plan.

He was walking northward almost before he
truly decided to go.

Garrick walked until the sky darkened to purple.
He scavenged as he traveled, picking berries and fruit, and digging
tubers and roots where he could find them. It wasn’t nearly enough,
though. His feet hurt, and his legs felt brittle. But his biggest
ache was that he was hungry in ways he could not describe. In this
condition, he could not help but turn toward the aroma of roasting
meat when it came through the woods, he could not help but be drawn
to fires from a small village.

Warmth enveloped him as he drew near—a
warmth that he first thought was brought on by the flames of a fire
pit, but was instead the tantalizing rise of the villagers’ life
forces against the dark desires of his hunger.

He could stave off this need, though. He had
done it before. He would not allow this thing inside him to become
who he was.

The villagers’ essence grew deeper as he
neared—farmers and shepherds, simple people who lived here by the
grace of a clear spring and nearby grazing land. They were
pure-hearted people, their life forces solid and firm. They
reminded him of Arianna’s family.

He paused at that thought, and nearly turned
back. The essence of Arianna’s young sister and the clotted remains
of the serving boy remained locked in his memory. But the aroma of
the roasting meat was stronger than the pain, so he continued
through the dark wood until he came upon the clearing.

He could do this.

He was strong.

The village was a ramshackle place marked by
dirt paths that ran between huts of wood and soil. He saw no guards
or sentries. They should be more cautious, he thought with sudden
anger. Didn’t they know how exposed they were out here in the
open?

Anyone could steal upon them.

It was almost as if they
wanted
to be
caught unaware, as if they
wanted
him to destroy them
all.

And he could do it, too. He felt the truth
of that as his hunger rose, he felt it in the way his legs seemed
to move of their own accord, felt it as he drew closer to the
gathering at the center of the village. They should be better
defended. If he wasn’t so set on controlling this hunger, if he
just let it free, he could cause such pain.

It felt strange to think of himself in that
way. Almost arrogant. It was the hunger talking, wasn’t it? Yes.
But it was also exactly what he had wanted to feel throughout his
entire life. It was importance, a feeling that he actually
mattered. The dissonance in these thoughts made his head spin.

Who was he?

The people of the village were gathered
around a pit, cooking a skewered boar. Embers flared from the fire,
and gray smoke rose through an open hole in the shelter’s roof.
Women laughed at an unheard joke, and a large man stood beside the
pit, examining the boar.

One of the villagers saw him and waved him
closer.

“Ho, there! Come, join us.”

Expectant faces turned his way. Their
attention was a flaming beacon. He felt rasps of air drawn into
lungs. Heartbeats came to him as an avalanche.

He heard the voice, then.

You have given…

Garrick shut off his mind and stepped to the
edge of the firelight.

“Oh, my,” a woman gasped.

He brought a hand to his cheek. Did he look
that bad?

A man rushed to his side and grabbed Garrick
by the elbow to lead him to a seat. The contact was like fire, but
Garrick staunched his hunger by clenching his teeth hard enough to
strain his jaw.

The man was built like a tree stump—short
and squat, muscles solid, his legs thick, his neck nearly
non-existent. A black beard covered his rounded face, and his eyes
sparkled in the darkness.

A woman with similar proportions came
forward.

“Are you well?” the man asked.

Garrick closed his eyes and fought to keep
control.

“I’m just hungry,” he replied.

The woman ran her palm over Garrick’s
forehead with the efficient motion of a chamber maid. Her hand
traced a glorious rainbow of heat over his face.

“I’ve never seen skin so pale.”

A young girl peered from behind her mother’s
skirts. “He’s scary,” she said.

“Shush,” the woman replied. “You’ll give the
boy a reputation. Bring him some meat, Melli. And a cup of John’s
mead. You’re thin as a twig, aren’t you?”

The boar was succulent. The honey sweetness
of the mead exploded on his tongue and burned a trail through to
his stomach.

“This is marvelous,” he said between
bites.

“Can’t be nothing wrong with a boy who eats
like that,” the woman said with a grin.

The villagers laughed.

“Welcome to Sjesko,” one said.

Garrick winced. The meal filled his stomach,
but did nothing for the other hunger that surged inside him. And as
the spirits of the village rose, darkness in his gut wrestled
against the bindings of his willpower.