The Staff of the Winds (The Wizard of South Corner Book 1) (2 page)

Dressed and ready, Owen headed out the door and across the yard towards the old barn.  As expected, he could see the line of light shining around the edge of the barn door from his father’s lantern.  The air had the crisp clean feel of an early fall morning, and the stars stood out each in their individual clarity.  The heavy morning dew which covered the grass of the south pasture sparkled with their light.  The easy morning breeze was from the west, coming off the Gray Hills, and Owen could smell the faint, nutty odor of the ash and oak that grew thick there. All the signs indicated that it was going to be a good day—an excellent market day.

“Good morning, Father,” Owen called when he entered the barn.

“Mornin’, Owen,” Matthew answered while maintaining the steady rhythm of jetting milk into the rapidly filling pail. One of the barn cats was watching intently from just inside the range of a good squirt of the cow’s teat.  By the wet, matted fur of its forehead, Owen judged that it had already benefitted at least once for its attention.  “I’ve already tossed some hay to Molly and Sam.  Take care of the pigs, and you can help me load the wagon for market.”

“Yes sir,” Owen responded as he headed for the pigpen. There was never an end to work on the farm, and this morning he discovered that the old sow had torn loose a board from her enclosure. So, after dumping some corn into the trough, he spent a few minutes nailing the board back in place.

Coming back through the barn, Owen stopped and fed a handful of grain to Molly, their draft horse.  They were about the same age at 19, but while Owen was just developing into manhood, Molly was starting to show her age.  Owen noticed a few white hairs growing from the velvety muzzle as her lips took the grain from his hand.  ‘
With luck and good care, Molly should still be able to work the farm for several more years,’
Owen thought, ‘
but soon we’ll have to invest in a younger horse to pull the heavier loads.’
  In the next stall, Sam nickered in envy of the attention given to his stable mate.  “Don’t worry old man, I haven’t forgotten you,” he said as he offered the gelding a handful of grain.  With a departing affectionate rub between the horse’s ears, Owen left the barn to join his father, passing Evan in the yard on his way to the chicken coop.

Owen and Evan had helped Matthew load the melons the night before, so Owen found his father with the wagon over by the springhouse. They still had some of the late cabbages and potatoes, as well as the milk, fresh creamy butter and large brown eggs that would mostly sell under contract to Mr. Prior at the Meadows Inn in South Corner.

Morning chores and preparations for market complete, Matthew and his sons washed themselves at the pump and went into the kitchen for breakfast. The warmth of the black iron stove and the mouth-watering smell of bacon, onions and potatoes welcomed them as they came through the door. Underlying these more definite smells was the yeasty aroma of fresh baked bread. Owen’s mother had left six loaves to rise the night before. Five, along with four rhubarb-apple pies, would go to market where Martha McMichaels was believed by many to be the best baker in the parish (although a few, most notably her closest relations, held staunchly that Mrs. Harris, the widowed school teacher, rightfully held that title). The sixth loaf would soon be cut into thick slices, toasted a light nutty brown, and served with melting yellow butter and a generous dollop of Martha’s own elderberry jam.

Marian was helping her mother in the kitchen, and shooed the men out of her way pointing them towards the table. “Take your seats,” she ordered, “the eggs are on and will be ready in a minute.”

“Make sure mine are done this time,” Evan whined. “Last time they were still runny.”

“You’ll get them the way I cook them,” Marian responded, “or you can just do without.”

“Mind your manners, Evan,” Matthew said, “it never pays to get crosswise with the women folk.  Especially
before
they feed you.”

“Listen to your father,” Martha joined in, with a laugh and a warm smile towards her husband, “he knows of what he speaks from many years of experience.”

“Ah, I didn’t mean nothin’,” Evan said, “I just don’t like runny eggs.  Let’s eat?  I want to get into town and see Brad.”

“And Owen wants to see Sarah Murray,” Marian teased as she laid a plate loaded with fried potatoes, onions and bacon and a healthy helping of scrambled eggs on the table in front of her older brother. “Have you kissed her yet, Owen?” she asked giggling.

Marian secretly had desires of her own, aimed at Sarah’s brother Aaron, but she was not tall like Sarah, nor curvy like Emily Pearson, and Aaron and the other boys their age pretty much ignored her. At 5’ 2”, tomboy fit, with brown eyes and mousey brown hair, and a late developer to boot, she just wasn’t in style as far as young romance was concerned.

“Hush now, Marian,” Martha chastised, “I’m sure that Owen will take things at his own pace. Just don’t let her get away, Owen, she’d be a good addition to the family, and it’s about time that you settled down.”  This had become a recurring theme of late.  Even his father had started talking about putting an addition onto the west side of their house for future family expansion.

“Ah mom,” Owen responded, blushing, “Sarah Murray hardly knows I exist.”

“That’s not what I hear from Suellen Bradford,” Marian teased.

“Enough,” Matthew interjected. “I’d like to eat my breakfast in peace and get on the road. I don’t want anyone taking our spot at the market.”

After breakfast, Evan hitched Molly to the wagon; Matthew gathered up his bow and quiver, Owen his staff and a light pack, and they set out for South Corner.  The walk to the village was only a little more than an hour, and trouble on the road was rare, but there was always the possibility that the stray brown bear or great-cat might take an interest in a horse that was encumbered by a wagon. Martha stayed behind with Marian to finish a few chores and pack up the quilts that they would offer for sale later that day.

Matthew had taught his sons and his daughter to be proficient with sling, staff and bow so that they need not fear the dark forests of the Gray Hills and the wild creatures that roamed them. As for what lay beyond, there had been no threat from that direction for almost two hundred years, ever since, as the story goes, the Old Wizard had sealed McDonald’s Break. The Break was an ancient pass in the great mountain range called the West Wall, which story held lay somewhere beyond the Gray Hills to the southwest of South Corner.  The pass was named after a dimly remembered hero of a great battle, long since faded to legend, between the men on this side of the mountains and the sorcerer led invaders from the western side.  If the legends were true, it was just a greater battle of many fought to hold the pass before the Old Wizard called down the mountain that sealed the Break through the Wall and replaced it with the vast dark lake dubbed The Wizard’s Moat.

The Old Wizard had settled in South Corner, and had been very old even when Matthew’s father was a boy. His name, like his origin, had long since been forgotten by the residents of the parish, and for generations he was simply known as the Old Wizard. He seemed completely indifferent to what he was called, spending his days with his books, or wandering the surrounding forests gathering rare plants and mushrooms. His presence and his power kept any troubles that might have come from the far northern passes away from South Corner, so that no few in the village believed that those troubles were the creation of myth or peddler’s tales invented to impress the “simple” folk in the south.

The farmers in the parish, especially those who farmed up against the Gray Hills, believed that the tales likely had some truth to them, and always kept at least a pair of hounds at hand to warn and protect them from the great-cats, or any other creature from the dark forests of the Gray Hills that might decide to take a lamb, a calf, or an unwary child.

Owen enjoyed the walk down the lane from the farm leading Molly to the North Road, the road that began in South Corner and connected it to all the towns and villages of the parish, and from them to the great cities and exotic lands that he had never seen far away to the east. He sometimes dreamed about traveling to these mysterious lands, perhaps even to the great sea that was said to lie far away to the southeast, but he knew that such journeys were unlikely in the future of a farmer’s son from South Corner, especially an eldest son who would one day be expected to take ownership and responsibility for the farm that his father, and his father before him, had built.

When Owen was sixteen, he had once traveled north with his father as far as the town of Shepherds Hill. Matthew had been on a mission for some breeding stock for his flock of blackface sheep, as well as something special from the weavers there for Martha’s birthday, and had wanted to show Owen a little of the world around him. That trip of just a few days had been full of discovery for Owen, and wetted his desire for exploration, but since then his travels had been limited to excursions into the Gray Hills with his friends to find hidden lakes and streams, the trails of deer and elk, and on one particularly harrowing expedition with Aaron and Jack Farrel, the secret den of a family of great-cat.

This morning, with the sky lightening in the east, Owen was relaxed and in tune with the change of life around him. The night’s heavy dew wetted his boots as he strode along watching the woods around him and the lane ahead. The birds and beasts of the night were gradually relinquishing the world to those of the day. Owen spotted a goshawk winging its way in short bursts from tree to tree along the lane, in search of anything that might be panicked by the passing wagon, such as a field mouse, quail or young rabbit. A fat possum and two deer crossed their path ahead, and the songbirds were waking to greet the rising sun.

There was no other traffic on the North Road when they joined it from their lane, but this was market day, and other farmers and their families would be appearing soon on their way into town.  The road itself was broad and straight, carving its way through the smaller hills, and cobbled with stones laid long, long ago.  It spoke of an earlier time—the light farm traffic that used it now, along with the occasional peddler’s wagon, hardly justified its existence—but no one in South Corner living today could recall when it was built, or by whom.  In truth, few in South Corner gave the question much thought.  It was just the North Road; there for anyone to use.

The morning was quiet and peaceful as they entered the village. The sun had just cleared the trees on the low hill to the east, and Owen could see a few farmers like themselves gathered to exchange news at the market across the green. The villagers didn’t seem to be up and about yet, and Owen wondered briefly what it would be like to lead a life that was not regulated by the needs of the livestock.

“Evan, go stake out our spot,” Matthew directed, “we’ll make our delivery to the inn then come join you.”

“Yes sir,” Evan responded, and pealed off to join the small gathering of men on the market green.

The inactivity of the village seemed strange to Owen.  ‘
Even villagers should keep some semblance of respectable hours
,’ he thought.  As they moved further into the village, he noticed the doors of two of the houses were standing open with no sign of their inhabitants, and that too seemed unusual to him on such a cool morning.  Then it struck him, they had seen no sign of smoke rising from the chimneys anywhere in the village.  He felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck as he became certain that something was wrong.  He sensed that his father had also observed those open houses and smokeless chimneys, but both men kept their thoughts to themselves.

With growing wariness, they led Molly around behind the inn and Matthew knocked on the back door. Mr. Prior’s horses noisily greeted Molly from over the corral fence, and Owen saw that their feeder was empty. It was not like John Prior to be this late with his chores.

When there was no answer, Matthew struck the door again, a little louder this time. Still receiving no response, Matthew pulled his belt knife from its sheath and motioned for Owen to stay behind him and to his left, then opened the door and stepped into the small, dimly lit mudroom behind the inn’s kitchen. Only silence greeted them. The warmth of the great kitchen stove, the smell of breakfast cooking, the sounds of plates and crockery mugs of coffee being loaded for the common room, none of these familiar things was present. Only a few feet inside the door, Owen could already sense that the inn was abandoned.

With a glance at Owen to assure himself that he too had his knife out and ready, Matthew quietly stepped toward the kitchen door.  In the inn’s large kitchen they saw their first clear signs of trouble.  The pantry was open, and its contents had been strewn out onto the floor.  Potatoes and yellow onions lay scattered.  A bag of barley flower had burst, dusting the table and kitchen counters like a heavy winter frost, and a large crock of pale green pickles had been overturned, the brine traced a small flood under the kitchen table towards the sink across the room.  Owen could see that the spill had partially dried, indicating that the crock had been overturned at least several hours earlier.