WinterMaejic Read online

  Woodbury, Minnesota

  WinterMaejic © 2007 by Terie Garrison.

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  First e-book edition © 2010

  E-book ISBN: 9780738724980

  Book design by Steffani Sawyer

  Cover design by Gavin Dayton Duffy

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  Editing by Rhiannon Ross

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  To

  Mrs. Erelene Christensen, Hilltop High School

  Dr. Sharon Yaap Caballero, Hilltop High School

  and

  Dr. Alida Allison, San Diego State University

  “It is the supreme art of the teacher

  to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.”

  —Albert Einstein—

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks, as ever, to the members of the

  South Manchester Writers’ Workshop,

  who make magic happen every week.

  And to Sally. Always.

  The Candles

  The Candlesticks

  ~from The Book of Lor

  Maejic is a difficult gift with which to be blessed. Or cursed. I should know, for I have lived with it for eighty years and more. I wonder now whether being the leader of a vital mage community is sufficient recompense for my sacrifices. Would it not have been easier to deny this . . . this . . . this skill and immerse myself in the safer realm of magic?

  But it is too late—far too late—to change my course. I have a new task ahead of me now, one entirely unexpected and not altogether savory. For a powerful new mage has appeared, and it has fallen to me to train her.

  Her raw talent leaves me speechless and, all unknowing, she has done things few mages have the power to do. I know I should consider it an honor to teach her. But I begin to doubt that I have it within me. When she first appeared, I suppose I was harsh with her. But in truth, you can scarcely blame me. For, full sixty years too late, I found myself face to face with my soul mate.

  “Hey, that’s brilliant!” ten-year-old Traz said to me, his big brown eyes shining. “Do it again!”

  I cocked my eyebrows at him mischievously, then looked back at the fire. It took only a moment for the anger I still felt toward Yallick to course through me again, and as I stared, the flames turned green. And stayed that way this time.

  An idea occurred to me, and with scarcely another thought, I held my hands cupped in front of me. I imagined some of the flames flowing into them, and they did. A moment later I held a glowing green ball of light.

  Traz’s jaw dropped, and his eyes widened. I couldn’t help smiling: Traz was hard to impress.

  The ball didn’t burn at all, although it made my palms tingle. I held it in front of my face and looked through it. Traz still stared at me, and through the green light, his face looked sickly.

  Without warning, I tossed the ball at him. Quick as lightning, he raised his staff, and when the light hit it, the ball burst into thousands of bright sparks.

  Before either of us could say a word, the door of the cottage opened and Yallick strode in. The grumpy old mage barely glanced at us as he closed the door behind him, took off his cloak, and hung it on the row of pegs.

  “I have told you before,” Yallick said in his gravelly voice, “that I do not wish for you to play with fire.”

  Beside me, Traz let out a small noise as he tried to hold in a snicker. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing myself.

  “You,” Yallick said, his gaze falling onto Traz, “go outside and gather up kindling. And then bring in some more firewood. You shall be staying here for supper tonight. And you, Donavah,” I looked straight into his icy, blue-green eyes without flinching, “please go to your room and continue translating the manuscript I sent you last night.”

  I gave him a small nod, but waited until Traz passed me on his way out before I actually moved. I had agreed to let Yallick become my teacher, and I was learning a lot, but I still felt uncomfortable around his unpredictable moods. Whenever possible, I tried to exert some small degree of my own will in a vain effort to feel more like a partner than a student.

  In my room, I sat at my desk under the wide window that looked out across the back garden. My eyes flicked back and forth between the manuscript of herbal lore, the lexicon, and my translation. Absorbed in the pleasure of unlocking the treasure of knowledge for myself, I completely lost track of time.

  A sudden sound of click-clacking outside startled me. If it was already time for Traz’s training session, it must also be time for my afternoon meditation. I still didn’t understand why Traz didn’t have to meditate. At Roylinn, everyone from Master Foris down to the youngest serving girls and boys had to take morning and mid-afternoon meditation. But once when I’d asked Yallick why Traz didn’t have to, he’d said that it was none of my business and directed my attention back to the star chart I’d been studying.

  I looked out my window to find Traz and Klemma, the martial arts instructor, just outside. They were working with staffs today, and as usual, Traz used the one he’d found when we were traveling together. Not that we’d known it had any special powers at the time; we’d thought it was just a really good walking stick. Now, each time Traz’s staff crashed against Klemma’s as he blocked a move or tried to get past her defenses, I winced. But the staff always came through the most aggressive of sessions without even a scratch.

  As I watched, Klemma stepped backwards, and Traz danced toward her. He swung his staff low, then up under Klemma’s outstretched arms. The tip of the weapon touched Klemma’s breastbone, and with a yip of delight, Traz sprang back and raised it into the air.

  “I gotcha!” he cried.

  Klemma smiled at the boy, small for his ten years. “Indeed you did. Of course, your opponent won’t always be obvious about leaving you an opening,” Traz’s face fell, “but you’re catching on very quickly.” His smile reappeared. “Very quickly, indeed. Now, aga
in.”

  They both assumed battle stances. I enjoyed watching Traz train, and I looked forward to beginning my own martial arts lessons, but for now, I needed to find someplace quiet to meditate. I reached into my desk drawer, grabbed two taper candles without paying any attention at all to which ones they were, and went into the front room. No sign of Yallick, so I went outside. And immediately returned to get my heavy cloak. Winter was almost here and despite the bright sunshine, it was cold outside.

  I followed a path into the wood that led in the opposite direction from where Traz and Klemma were making all their racket. About a fifteen-minute walk from the cottage, there was a meditation shelter that I loved to use when weather permitted. The shelter had been carved from the bottom half of a huge boulder. Somehow—I suspected it must be by maejic after Yallick hinted as much—it stayed dry inside, and the wind couldn’t get in to put out the candles. Yallick used the shelter for his morning meditation, but had yielded it to me for the afternoons.

  As the dry leaves on the path crunched beneath my feet, my thoughts turned to my older brother, Breyard. I hadn’t been able to break the habit of worrying about him, not after spending a month trying to rescue him. Why had Yallick sent him away so soon—only a day after we’d arrived at his cottage? Why wouldn’t Breyard explain what had happened to him? And what exactly had happened? He’d told Traz and me about what it had been like in that awful prison they’d kept him in, and about his sham trial. He even had some vague memories about the execution fight. But about what happened after Xyla, the dragon, had snatched him away, he wouldn’t tell me any more. He just gave me a maddening smile and said, “All in good time.” Then Yallick sent him away, home to our parents. And he’d seemed glad to go, almost as if he were grateful to escape.

  When I reached the meditation shelter, I dragged my thoughts away from their pointless spiral and ducked inside. A wooden seat, carved from a tree trunk, faced out, and in front of it stood a stone table. I sat down and looked at the bare trees interspersed here and there with evergreens.

  In this quiet place, meditation was easy. I placed the meditation candles—blue and purple today, as it turned out—in holes in the surface of the table. After I lit them, light flickered on the rock above and around me, twinkling where it struck bits of mica.

  I stared into the flames for a moment, then closed my eyes. One deep breath. Another. My mind’s eye closed, leaving my imagination blank. I felt the vibration of the life of the forest surrounding me, and matched my heart’s rhythm to it. The vibrations flowed through my body, which began to feel as if it had turned into something fluid. I swirled and spun round, celebrating the dance of life and my own place in it.

  Eventually, the flow stopped and my eyelids fluttered open. The candlelight still flickered, the forest still surrounded me, and I still sat in the same seat as I had every afternoon since my return to Crowthorne. But power still surged within me as it never had before. I looked at my hands, half expecting to find them glowing, but they looked just as they always had, right down to a thin line of dirt under my fingernails that I never seemed to be able to get entirely clean.

  I blew out the candles and took them with me when I returned to the cottage. Yallick, sitting at the table reading an ancient illustrated manuscript, looked up when I walked inside. He smiled.

  “You did it,” he said in his slightly raspy voice.

  “Did what?” I asked.

  He stood up and walked over to me, looking closely at my face. “You accessed the power.” He touched my cheek with surprising gentleness. “You glow from it.”

  I looked at my hands again, confused. “No, I’m not.” I showed him my hands. “See?”

  He actually laughed. “No, no, not that kind of glow. But I can see it in your face. Come; sit down and tell me.”

  I did as he asked, still completely mystified as to what he was talking about. When I was done, he slapped the table with his hand, making the fruit in the wooden bowl jump.

  “Yes! Your skills are markedly improving. I am quite proud of you, Donavah.” I sat there, stunned. It was as if I were talking to my father instead of the maejic master who’d grudgingly agreed to teach me. “Off with you, now.” Yallick shooed me away as if I were the cat. “Go check on Xyla.”

  “All right,” I said, rising quickly. Anything to get away from his confusing behavior.

  I set the candles on the table, intending to take them back to my room when I returned. Just before the door closed behind me, I heard Yallick mutter almost gleefully, “Ah, blue and purple. Blue and purple.”

  What could possibly be the significance of that, I wondered as I walked to the nearby clearing where Traz and I had, following Xyla’s precise directions, created a bed of dead leaves and fresh-turned earth for her.

  She now lay on her bed, her eyes closed. I shuffled my feet as I approached, not wanting to startle her. One eyelid opened a fraction. “Ah. Donavah.” Xyla’s voice spoke inside my head, and it was this ability to communicate with animals that was a mark of the gift of maejic. Not that this was necessarily a good thing, as practicing maejic had been outlawed in Alloway centuries before. That had not, of course, stopped the mages, but only forced them—us—into hiding.

  I approached the huge red dragon and placed a hand on her jaw. Her skin was incredibly soft and smooth, and I loved touching her. “How are you, Xyla?”

  “I am tired, but otherwise fine.”

  I scowled. “Still tired? You’ve done nothing but sleep since we got here.” What could be wrong with her? She’d never been like this on our journey.

  “I hunt, too. Do not worry about me; I am well.”

  I leaned against her shoulder, just absorbing her presence. Then I heard the crunching of footsteps approaching her other side. I was just about to ask who was there, when I heard Traz’s voice.

  “Hello, my lovely lady,” he whispered, and I had to strain to hear. “I’m working hard. I’m getting stronger. I’m quite sure I’ll be able to hear you soon.”

  I almost gasped in surprise. Did Traz mean he was trying to become maejic? Was that even possible? From what Yallick and Oleeda said, you were born with it, you didn’t acquire it. And what happened to his desire to be a bard?

  Then I wondered how I was going to get away without the boy discovering that I’d overheard his plan. Before I could figure out what to do, Traz walked around Xyla’s head. He froze when he saw me standing there, and I’m sure I had a guilty expression on my face.

  He spoke first. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

  For a moment I toyed with the idea of pretending that I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I decided that wouldn’t be fair.

  I shook my head. “No, of course I won’t. But why, Traz? Why would you want to?”

  “What do you mean, why would I want to? I love Xyla, but I can’t hear her. Everyone else, all the mages, they can. They all keep having conversations that I can’t hear. How do you think that makes me feel?”

  To tell the truth, I’d never thought about that, and I had to admit I could understand his point. “But, Traz, I can’t hear other conversations, either.” He gave me an exasperated look. “I know, I know. That doesn’t make up for it. Still, why would you want to become maejic? You don’t want always to live in hiding like this, do you?”

  He stuck out his jaw stubbornly. “I’ll do it. You just wait and see if I don’t.”

  I sit and ponder the setback we’ve endured. A red dragon—red!—in our grasp. Yet she slipped through our fingers when we least expected it.

  No matter. My son has done his work well, and our original plan proceeds apace. The red dragon was nothing more than an aside, and her loss signifies nothing of importance. Success shall be ours, with or without her, for the plan was set in motion five hundred long years ago. We have played the game carefully, and victory is at hand.


  Tomorrow—yes, tomorrow!—I send forth the messages that will move the final pieces into position. Once the last play has begun, no one will be able to keep us from Securing the Queen’s Heart. Ah, such a game of Talisman and Queen it has been! I shall savor the glory of the king’s final defeat.

  Iarrived back at the cottage just as Oleeda was getting ready to leave. A master at Roylinn Academy, where I’d been studying magic, she was also—unbeknownst to the authorities, of course—a mage. It was she who had sent me to Yallick and she who’d convinced him to take over my tuition.

  She took my hands and gave me a peck on my cheek. As she let go, I realized with a start that there had been no shock of vibration.

  “How’d you do that?” I asked.

  “Do what?”

  “The, umm, well, when we touched. It was like normal, not like that first time.”

  “Ah, that. You will learn how to control it. It only takes training.” She smiled in a very unsatisfying sort of way. “I must return to the academy now, or they will begin to wonder what has become of me. Have you any messages for your friends?”

  I thought of Marileesa, who must be already practicing for singing at the Summer Solstice celebration, and of Loreen, who was probably broken-hearted over Breyard’s disappearance. Well, I couldn’t tell them anything without telling them everything, so I just shook my head. “Just give them my love and tell them I miss them.” I sighed. “I don’t even know when I’ll see them again.”

  Oleeda gave me a sympathetic look. “I know it is hard to be so far from everyone and everything you know. It will not always be this way. Be patient.”

  “But why?” The words burst out of me unexpectedly. Yallick would’ve given me one of his disapproving scowls, but Oleeda placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. I continued. “What is all this being patient about? I’ve been here for weeks and haven’t done anything.”