For once the wittering ole Barlsman were offering pithy advice. Still stood on the Speaker’s table, he fisted his hands on his hips. “You heard Barlsman Jaffee,” he said loudly. “Now sit down again, the lot of you.”
Olken and Doranen stared at him, unwilling to obey.
“Plant your bloody arses or I swear I’ll start throwin’ the furniture!”
Eyes wide, every councilor sat. Wary now, a smidgin afraid. Remembering—and not before bloody time—that he were the man who’d killed the sorcerer Morg.
“Fernel, Fernel,” he said, shaking his head. “You don’t bloody learn, do you? First the Harbour, now this. Tollin proved there weren’t nowt for us beyond the mountains.”
“Tollin crossed the mountains fourteen years ago!” Pintte retorted, on his feet. “How arrogant you are, to stand on that table declaring there’s no point us seeing for ourselves what’s happened in the world in all that time. Or do you claim to know without seeing? Does this mean there’s something else you’re not telling us, Asher? Or are you simply making things up?”
As the Council chamber rustled with whispers, Asher climbed down off the Speaker’s table. Put himself at floor level, with Pintte, and shoved his hands in his pockets.
“You sayin’ I be a liar, Meister Mayor?”
Pintte held his ground. “I’m saying you’re—what’s your quaint term for it? Oh yes. Frighted. And because you’re—frighted—you want everyone else to be frighted too.”
You poxy shit, I should’ve let you drown. “So. I be a liar and a coward?”
Relishing an audience, Pintte smiled with mock-humility. “Asher, once you did Lur a great service. I don’t deny it. But that great service did not make you our king. You don’t lay down the law or issue decrees. You are one voice, no louder or more important than any other.” He indicated the gathered Council with a sweep of his arm. “And we, the chosen representatives of Lur’s people, we decide what will be done and what won’t.”
Asher considered him. “What? Like you decided how it’d be a clever idea to try breakin’ the magic in Dragonteeth Reef? That worked out dandy, didn’t it? So aye, by all means, let’s go rompin’ over the mountains, Fernel. I mean, what could go wrong, eh?”
“Then what do you suggest we do?” Fernel shouted above the renewed clamour. “Cling to the frail hope Barl will send us a miracle? If Barl cared for Lur we’d not be suffering now!”
“Frail hope?” said Jaffee, creaking to his feet. “I find that an unfortunate choice of words, Meister Mayor. Particularly since you are shouting at one of Barl’s miracles. You’ve accused Asher of arrogance. The same might be said of you in declaring she has abandoned us.”
Fernel’s chin came up sharply. “Barl was a Doranen. It was the Doranen who brought calamity here in the first place. Forgive me if I’m reluctant to trust Lur’s future to the hands of the sorceress who helped create this dilemma.”
The council chamber burst into another furious uproar. This time both Olken and Doranen berated Pintte. But not all of them, Asher noted. At least not all the Olken. A handful ranged themselves beside Dorana’s mayor, vigorously defending him against attack.
He slumped on the edge of the Speaker’s table, not at all inclined to put himself in the middle of this brangle. This were Jaffee’s business, him bein’ Lur’s senior Barlsman. But Jaffee didn’t seem inclined to fight.
I miss Holze. He were a doughty man. He stood up to Morg. But Jaffee ain’t got hisself much of a spine.
In the end it was Sarle Baden who called for order, and was listened to. As one of the mages who survived Westwailing, one of the most powerful Doranen mages left in Lur, he could clap his hands together and flare a bit of light round hisself and that gave folk pause long enough for him to get a word in edgewise.
“It’s no secret, Mayor Pintte, that you harbour resentment towards my people,” he said. “And that you wish for us to leave this kingdom and never return. Nor is it a secret that your sentiments are shared by many Olken.” His eyes narrowed as he smiled without warmth. “It’s time this Council knew that as many Doranen feel the same way.”
Stunned silence. Then Rufus cleared his throat, and leaned forward over the Speaker’s table. “You want to leave Lur?”
“You’re surprised, Speaker Shifrin?” said Baden, turning, his pale eyebrows lifted. “Have you—has any Olken—never once wondered if the Doranen are happy here?”
“Of course we’re happy,” Lady Marnagh said quickly, and looked around the chamber at the Olken seated nearest her. “Lur is our home. Lord Baden, please don’t presume to speak for—”
“Lur is our adopted home,” Baden interrupted smoothly. “Forced upon us centuries ago by dire circumstances. But times have changed, Sarnia. Morg is dead… and somewhere beyond Barl’s Mountains lies our true homeland. Lost Dorana. There are many of us who wish to return there and create for ourselves lives not circumscribed by outdated, unnecessary laws.”
Asher frowned. “Laws against muckin’ about with magic?”
“You’d have us abandon Barl’s wisdom?” said Jaffee. “Lord Baden, that would be—”
“A choice,” said Baden. “That I and many Doranen believe should be available to us. Hence our willingness to assist in breaking the reef.”
“But you failed,” said Jaffee. “You should take it as a sign.”
“And so we do,” Pintte declared. “A sign that it’s time for a second expedition to cross Barl’s Mountains. On this, at least, Lord Baden and I are in perfect accord.”
“Pintte—” Asher shook his head in tired disbelief. “Did that knock on your noggin doddle you altogether? How many times d’you need to hear it? There ain’t nowt for us over them bloody mountains.”
“I don’t believe that,” said Pintte, his jaw clenched tight. “If Tollin had pushed on, if he’d not cravenly turned back when—”
He slid off the Speaker’s table. “Cravenly? What’s that s’posed to mean? Are you sayin’ Tollin and his people were cowards ’cause they turned for home once folk started dyin’?”
Fernel Pintte’s face reddened. “If they hadn’t let their fears overcome them then—”
“Then what?” he demanded, furious. “Pintte, you be an ignorant fool. Only thing any of us’ll find over them mountains be a slow cruel death. And if you reckon I’m about to stand here with my thumb stuck up my arse while you chinwag frighted folk into throwin’ their lives away on your bloody say-so—after Westwailing?—then you ain’t been payin’ close enough attention to me.”
Not giving spluttering Pintte a chance to reply, he rounded on Sarle Baden.
“And you! You got a bloody nerve, Lord Baden. You know in your belly how bad Morg’s magic is. How long it survives. How it twists and kills. Your friend Lord Garrick just died goin’ up agin Morg’s magic. And you want to send folk out to where that mad bastard once ruled? What’s wrong with you? Eh? What are you thinkin’?”
Pale with fury, Sarle Baden pushed his way through his fellow councilors until he, too, stood before the Speaker’s table. “I am thinking that if Barl hadn’t rendered the Doranen impotent there would be a chance of us defeating Morg’s legacy,” he spat. “For you’re right about one thing, Asher—we have no hope of cleansing the world of his stain when the only magic we have is the watered-down trumpery left to us by Barl. But somewhere beyond the mountains, in Lost Dorana, lies our true magic. Our heritage. It is past time we reclaimed it. And because my friend Rodyn Garrick died for that dream, I am determined to finish what he began.”
“By going over them mountains?”
“Yes,” said Baden. “Asher, there are Doranen who were prepared to brave the ocean beyond Dragonteeth Reef. Even though we have never been a seafaring race. Compared to those terrors, braving a mountain range is nothing. The Doranen did it once. We can do it again.”
“With Fernel Pintte, who’s been agitatin’ against you? Stirrin’ up bad feelings and creatin’ ill will?”
Baden spared Pintte a brief, sidelong look. “With anyone who’ll help us achieve our aims. Besides. What Pintte and Olken like him feel isn’t new, Asher. Your people have resented mine for six hundred years.” He smiled without warmth again. “As you well know. You may’ve been friends with King Gar, but otherwise… ?”
“Don’t you chuck me in the same basket as Fernel bloody Pintte,” he said, his voice low. “I might not have a lot of time for your folk, Baden, but that be a long stone’s throw from wantin’ to see you tossed out of Lur on your arses.”
Baden sighed. “This isn’t about us being tossed, Asher. It’s about us leaving of our own free will.”
“You see?” said Fernel Pintte, triumphant. “So Asher, will you attempt to force people to stay where they have no desire to be?”
Loathing Pintte, confronted by questions he’d never asked himself and didn’t want to answer now, in public, he looked at Jaffee.
“Barlsman? You got an opinion on this?”
“Not at present,” said Jaffee, sounding shaken. “I would pray on the matter before passing pronouncement.”
“We don’t require your prayers,” Baden said bluntly. “Nor do we seek the approval of a woman dead six centuries. The religion you serve holds no purpose for us, Jaffee. We look to Lost Dorana for answers now, not to a painting on your precious chapel wall.”
As the chamber echoed with alarm and consternation, Asher glared at Fernel Pintte. Now look what you started, you meddlesome shit. “What Lord Baden believes or don’t believe ain’t no business of this Council,” he said. “Reckon that be between him and Barlsman Jaffee and Barl. The only thing as matters to us right now is this fool idea of puttin’ together another expedition. So I reckon we ought to—”
“And what I reckon,” said Fernel Pintte, raising his voice, “is that you should tell us the truth, Asher. At last. Tell us how you’ve known for ten years that trouble was coming to our poor little kingdom. Tell us what your peculiar mage senses told you—that you refused to tell this Council.”
Asher felt his mouth suck dry.
You bastard, Pintte. You stupid, stupid bastard.
“Asher?” said Lady Marnagh, as the silence stretched to breaking point. “What is he talking about?”
Not a sound in the chamber. Hardly even a drawn breath as thirty shocked gazes skewered him. He could feel his heart pound to pulp against his ribs. With an effort he unclenched his fists. Steeled himself for a lie that had to be told.
“Asher,” said Jaffee. “Is what he says true?”
“Aye, it’s true. Ten years ago I knew Lur might be in strife. I felt things. Wrong things, in the earth and the air. I—”
“But Asher,” said Jaffee, frowning. “In the Mage Council—when I raised the matter you said—”
It was hard, bloody hard, but he made himself meet the old cleric’s pained stare without flinching. “I know what I said, Barlsman. But—”
“So Rodyn was right,” said Sarle Baden. “He told me you’d lied. Did he perish because of that lie, Asher? Did he die in Westwailing because—”
“No!” he shouted over the Council’s outcry. “I tried to save Garrick down in Westwailing. I tried to save all of you! I lied in the Mage Council ’cause I weren’t sure of what I felt and I didn’t want to start a panic for nowt! Turns out I were wrong, and I be sorry for that, but—”
“So you say now,” said Baden. “But with Rodyn dead—”
No, no. This were all going wrong. “I ain’t the only one knew somethin’ weren’t right, Baden! Fernel bloody Pintte knew. Why not say he wanted Rodyn Garrick drowned?”
“You’d smear me to save yourself?” Pintte demanded. “How typical. My friends—” He stared around the turmoiled chamber. “I had nothing to do with what happened in Westwailing. As you all know, I nearly died myself.”
Choked almost beyond breathing, Asher shook his head. “I swear on Barl’s bones, I tried to save everyone. I never let a soul perish, not one.”
“We know you did,” said Barlsman Jaffee, and looked darkly at Sarle Baden. “To suggest otherwise is wicked calumny. But this other business…” He sighed. “Meister Mayor—”
“Yes!” said Pintte, truculent. “I held my tongue ten years ago, it’s true—because Asher said speaking out would be dangerous. I held it because he’s the Innocent Mage, above reproach, and may Barl forgive me for that. Perhaps if I had trusted myself instead of Asher we’d have long since found what we need somewhere beyond the mountains. Then we wouldn’t have risked the dangers of Dragonteeth Reef, and young Arlin Garrick and all those other families would not be in deep mourning even as we meet here today.” He turned, his eyes burning with hatred and triumph. “Think of it, Asher. All those deaths avoided. Our people’s terror avoided. Perhaps even famine and widespread suffering avoided… if only I had not trusted you.”
He felt dizzy. Sick. “So everything gone wrong in the kingdom be my fault, Pintte? Is that it?”
“No, no, I hardly think so,” said Barlsman Jaffee, distressed, his wheezing louder. “Certainly there are some questions to be answered but—”
“Yes,” said Pintte, over-riding Jaffee. “Do you dispute me, Asher? Do you deny anything I’ve said?”
Asher stared round the council chamber. At the hostile faces and the doubts and the fears. Watched folk look down, look away, refuse to meet his eyes. So. He could argue Pintte’s accusations till he were breathless, but the damage was already done.
“No.”
“No,” said Pintte, almost crooning. “And tell us this, Asher, since for once you seem inclined towards honesty—can you save Lur this time? Are you still the Innocent Mage?”
Sweat was trickling down his spine. “No.”
“Then I think,” said Fernel Pintte, his voice raised over the Council’s loud dismay, “that you should stop interfering with those who would seek to do what you can’t. Indeed—it seems to me you’ve done quite enough.”
Feeling sick enough to vomit now, Asher stared at Fernel Pintte. Then he looked around the suddenly silent council chamber. “You want to blame me for Lur’s troubles? Fine. Blame me. I can’t stop you,” he said, hearing his voice grate. Feeling his throat close. “You want to listen to Pintte? And Baden? You want to send your loved ones over them mountains? Then you send ’em. I can’t stop that neither. But when they don’t come back, or when they come back dyin’, like Tollin and his folk? Don’t say I never warned you. Don’t you bloody dare say it. ’Cause here’s me standing afore you, and I’m sayin’ don’t do it. ’Cause it’ll end in blood and tears, I promise. Just like Westwailing.”
The silence persisted, and still folk wouldn’t meet his eyes. Pintte was smiling. Sarle Baden was impassive. So he shrugged and walked out.
Weren’t nowt else he could do.
Dathne took one look at Asher’s face as he slouched into the Tower solar and put aside her quill and paper.
“What is it? What’s happened?”
Instead of answering, he crossed to the rain-slicked window. Rested his forehead and one fisted hand on its leadlined diamond panes, looking so defeated she had to fight herself not to run to him. But any kind of fussing would only rouse his temper. Since Westwailing he’d been prickly, quick to snap and snarl. He blamed himself for everything. Not stopping the mageworking. Not saving the lives that were lost. For Arlin Garrick’s violent grief. For Rafel and Deenie, and what they suffered. In truth she’d not yet quite forgiven him for that, either… but the rest?
The rest wasn’t his fault. Sometimes people can’t be saved from themselves. When is he going to learn that lesson?
Never, most likely. Because he was a good man who couldn’t bear to see anyone in strife.
“Asher…” She clasped her hands on her small writing desk. “Please. Don’t shut me out.”
He sighed. “Pintte. And Sarle Baden.”
“Not Rafe?” she said, sick with sudden fear. “They’re not raising trouble because of his—”
“No,” he said quickly. “Rafe’s fine. They don’t care about him.”
“Then what?”
Unsteadily, he told her. When the sorry tale was finished he fell silent, his breathing harsh. His face hidden. Tormented by her own pain, her own guilt, she stared at him, silent. Then a stirring of awareness turned her gaze to the solar doorway. Deenie was standing there, her blue cotton blouse and skirt dusted with flour. She’d been downstairs in the kitchen, baking with Meistress Watt. But of course, being Deenie, her father’s distress had called her like a beacon.
Dathne shook her head. Not now. Deenie nodded, her thin face stricken, and softly withdrew. Such a good girl. If only there was a way to—to undo what she could do. Life promised to be cruel if she continued to feel everything so keenly.
She looked again at Asher. His back was still turned to her. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “If I hadn’t asked Fernel to come here that first time—Barl’s tits, I knew he could be difficult. But he’s one of our best mages. I thought we needed him.”
“Ain’t your fault, Dath,” he said wearily. “I be the one who said to keep what we knew secret.”
“To protect Lur! To prevent panic! Not for any other reason. Not to—to miser power to yourself, or—”
“Aye, but that ain’t the point now, is it?” he said, and shifted to face her. His eyes were grieved. “The point is he’s got folk lookin’ at me sideways. Doubtin’ me. Wonderin’ what else I know that I ain’t told. And Dath, I have got secrets.”
“Everyone’s got secrets, Asher.”
“Not like mine they bloody haven’t! The Weather Magic. Barl’s diary. What I did to keep Lur steady. And if folk ever find out—”
“They won’t,” she said, standing. “But Asher, even if they did, I’ll never believe the likes of Fernel Pintte or Sarle Baden could turn the people of Lur against you. Not after what you’ve suffered and sacrificed for this kingdom.” She felt rage rise, scalding her blood. “And if they try—”
“Dath…” Asher rubbed at his eyes. “It ain’t me you should fret on. Pintte and Baden be set on gettin’ up a second expedition. Pintte’s come right out and said it—the Doranen don’t belong here. And that bloody Sarle Baden, he stood there agreein’ with him. He says there be a mort-load of Doranen mages as want to quit Lur fast as they can. They want to go home, to Lost Dorana.”
“So let them,” she retorted. “We won’t miss them. We don’t need them any more.”
“Now you sound like bloody Pintte,” he said, staring.
She shrugged. “Being hateful doesn’t always make him wrong. Asher, Lur’s broken. Too broken to fix. You know it. With the Doranen gone, the strain eases on the rest of us.”
“You don’t mean that,” he said, pushing away from the window. Crossed to the solar’s couch and dropped onto it as though every breath, every step, hurt him. “Dath, Pintte and Baden are goin’ to get ’em all killed. Every last fool they hoodwink into goin’ with ’em? They’ll die.”
“Asher…” Hesitant, she joined him on the couch. Left some distance between them so he’d not feel cornered. “If people choose to go, then—”
“Then I don’t need to lose sleep on ’em?” he demanded. “That’s what you said about Westwailing, Dathne. And in case you ain’t noticed, I’m bloody losin’ sleep! I can’t stand back and watch the Doranen go to their deaths. How could I make that right with Gar?”
She reached for his hand. “Gar is dead, Asher. Your loyalty belongs to the living. To your people. The Olken.”
It might’ve been true, but it was the wrong thing to say. Even as she spoke the words she knew that… but it was too late. He leapt up, and started pacing.
“There be enough folk dead, Dath. I can’t—I ain’t about to—” He rounded on her. “I can stop this. I can make it so no-one has to leave.”
She went cold. “Asher, don’t even think it.”
He took a step towards her. “Dath, I—”
“No.” She flung up both hands, halting him. “After Westwailing? After what happened the last time? No. Besides—even if you could pour more magic into that Weather map without killing yourself, which you can’t, how would it solve anything? The Doranen want to leave. And you’ve no right to stop them!”
“They want to leave ’cause they be frighted by what’s gone wrong in Lur!” he retorted. “And ’cause Sarle Baden’s fillin’ their heads full of romantic bloody nonsense. If they weren’t frighted they wouldn’t lissen. He’d just be some crackpot, mutterin’ in a corner. And Pintte? Bloody Pintte’s usin’ Lur’s strife as an excuse to push ’em out! And neither one of ’em wants to be told there ain’t nowhere to go!”
“Then stop trying to tell them! Stop trying to save people who don’t want to be saved!”
Incredulous, Asher stared at her. “Dathne, you ain’t thinkin’. The Council’s goin’ to say yes to Pintte and Baden’s expedition. And when it fails, ’cause it will, the rest of us’ll be right back where we started. Stuck here in Lur, and Lur fallin’ to pieces around us. So if I don’t try fixin’ things, what happens then?”
“I don’t know,” she said, defiant. Terrified. “All I know is that you promised me you’d not touch that Weather map again. Asher, you promised. And if you break that promise I will never forgive you.”
And she walked out so he could think on that for a little while, on his lonesome.
Goose peered over the rim of the vast oak tub. “No,” he said. “Not yet. Keep crushing.”
Sweating, choking on the stink of bruised malted barley, Rafel glared. “I’ve been crushing the bloody stuff for hours, Goose. My arms are about to fall off!”
“You’ve been crushing it for nigh on five minutes,” said Goose, grinning. “You little girl.”
“Little girl?” He blotted his forehead dry with his sleeve. “In case you’re addled from drinking your own ale, Meister Goose, you might remember I’m back from Westwailing where—”
“You were a hero. I know,” said Goose, still grinning. Then the grin slipped. “And came bloody close to feeding a whirlpool. So if you’re still weary, then…”
He was. Not just from the harbour, but from the long carriage drive home, too—and most of all from the effort it took to keep his newly woken magic contained. It was unruly, his power. Simmering always on the edge of his mind. Teasing, taunting, demanding to be let loose. And fighting, fighting so hard, ’cause he couldn’t let it. ’Cause it had to be contained.
Oh yes. He was weary.
But he’d skin himself alive before admitting it. “Weary yourself!” he scoffed, and starting pounding the malt again. “You roll them oats. That’s your job, I reckon, not giving me grief.”
Snorting, Goose fed another scoop of groats into the handroller and cranked its heavy handle. “Come on, Rafe. Life ain’t worth living if I can’t give you grief.”
“Ha!” he said, and picked up his heavy wooden hammer. “Life ain’t worth living upside down in an ale casket, neither!”
Goose pulled a face. “True.”
Comfortably companionable, they continued pounding and rolling. Goose was experimenting with a new ale recipe he’d dreamed up, so they were making a small batch in the home brewery down the back of his family house. The air was thick with the rich smell of crushed malt and rolled oats, and damp with steam from the huge kettles of freshly boiled water standing ready to make the mash for fermenting.
Rafel, watching Goose roll his last scoop of oats, seeing the fierce concentration in his friend’s face, and the carefully buried excitement, felt a pang of envy. Lucky Goose, knowing what he loved and was good at. Was allowed to be good at. No-one ogled him for being a brewer. No-one stared at him with curiosity and suspicion. As though he might erupt into dangerous magic any ticktock.
Goose looked up from his rolling. “How’s your father?”
“Da?” He reached for the broad oak paddle and loosened up the crushed malt. “He’s fine.”
“And you?”
“And me.”
“You sure?”
He scowled. “Yes.”
The look on Goose’s face said he wasn’t convinced. These days his da wasn’t Meister of the Brewers’ Guild but that didn’t stop him hearing every last whisper from what went on in the General Council. Three days had passed since Da’s brangle with Fernel Pintte. Dorana was still buzzing on it—and City folk didn’t know half of what went on.
And I only know all of it ’cause Goose told me. His da talks to him like the man grown he is. Da and Mama want to keep me a sprat. Even after Westwailing, they’re trying to protect me. When are they going to realise it’s too late for that?
Goose came over to check the pounded malt again. “That’ll do,” he declared, and fetched the large pail of rolled oats. Together they lifted the heavy tub of malt, tipped it into the oats, then shoved the emptied tub to one side. “Here,” said Goose, handing him the oak paddle. “Mix them up good and proper.”
“Aye, sir,” he said, and got stuck in with the paddle. While he mixed the malt and oats, Goose lugged over the empty oak barrel set aside for his new ale. Levered the first full, steaming kettle off the stove and tipped the boiled water out slowly, encouraging more steam to billow. Tipped in the second kettle, and some of the third.
“Right,” said Goose, smiling. He was a man who surely loved his work. “Time for the magic.”
They dribbled the dry malted barley and rolled oats into the sloshing oak barrel, then Rafel stood back as Goose poured in more steaming water. When that was done his friend nodded, well pleased.
“Now we wait a bit. Fancy a tot of my last brew?”
“What was your last brew?” he said, feeling cautious. “I ain’t of a mind to tiddly myself so early in the day.”
“You won’t,” Goose promised. “It’s mild as mother’s milk. Weaker than what we’re brewing here, which is why I had a little fiddle with the recipe.”
Rafel took the cool bottle Goose offered him, plucked from a clay-and-tile lined pit in the brewery floor, unstopped it and swallowed. Liquid gold poured down his throat. “Not bad,” he said, pretending indifference, and hitched his hip onto a handy oak barrel. “I’d pay for it in a pinch, if I had to.”
Goose didn’t bite. “So tell me the truth, Rafe,” he said. “How are you?” He sighed. Should’ve known he wouldn’t let it go. He never does. The day they got back from the coast he told Goose everything about Westwailing. Told him how Da had hidden most of his magic from him for years, and only revealed the truth ’cause he’d been pushed to it. With Goose there wasn’t any need to hide. All his pain, his rage, his bewildered betrayal—Goose knew it all. There was comfort in that.
“I ain’t fine.”
Goose was watching him closely. “You still not talking to your dad?”
“Not about—” He shook his head. “Not really.”
“Rafe.”
He swallowed more ale. “He could talk to me. He could say sorry.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know how,” Goose said gently.
“Or maybe he’s not sorry.”
“And if he’s not?” said Goose. “What then? Are you going to stay mad at him forever?”
Bloody Goose and his questions. As bad as Deenie, he was. “You saying I ain’t got a right to be mad?”
“I’m saying with what’s going on, maybe there’s other folk deserve your anger more than him. Fernel Pintte, for one.”
“Aye,” he admitted, feeling his belly gripe. Fratched as he was at Da, and he was bloody fratched, what Pintte had said in the General Council… “I tell you, Goose, I wish I’d never helped save that poxy shit’s life. Or Sarle Baden’s.”
Goose snorted into his ale. “Don’t let Barlsman Jaffee hear you say that.” Then he shook his head. “Sarle Baden’s grieving, and Pintte’s raving, you know that. Your dad—he’d never hurt Lur. Only a fool would think it. Only a mean fool would say it. Fernel Pintte’s a mean bloody fool, Rafe.”
“I know,” he agreed. “Da knows it too. But still—he’s hurt. He’d never say so but I can tell.” He grimaced. “Even if we ain’t talking.”
“What your dad said about not sending more folk over the mountains,” Goose said, frowning. “Did he mean it?”
“Course he meant it. You ever know my da to say nowt he didn’t mean?”
“But…” Goose was still frowning. “He doesn’t know for sure that what Tollin wrote about is still true, does he? He’s not had a vision or anything. Right?”
“Right,” he said slowly. “I s’pose you could say it’s nowt more than a feeling.”
“Do you feel it?” said Goose. “Do you think it’s still death to cross Barl’s Mountains?”
Rafel stared at the brewery’s cool brick floor, and was suddenly five years old again. Hiding in the lampha bushes outside the palace, listening to things he wasn’t s’posed to hear. Looking back at himself, a man now, remembering the sprat he’d been, his dreams of exploring, he remembered too how full of fear Tollin’s voice was. How cracked and seamed with grief. And how angry Da had sounded, that good men died with nowt to show for it but sorrow.
And he remembered Westwailing, so close and so raw. The taint of Morg’s sorcery. How he and Da had vomited half the way home, purging that taint the only way their bodies knew how. It meant he understood a bit better, why Da was so set on keeping everyone in Lur.
But does that mean I don’t want to go see for myself what’s over the mountains?
No. It bloody didn’t. Even if it was dangerous he wanted to go.
He looked up at his best friend. “Goose, I hate Fernel Pintte’s miserable guts… but he’s right. We can’t stay pinned in this kingdom. Not with its troubles, and no sign of healing them.”
Goose put down his half-drunk ale bottle on the cool end of the stove. “So you think it’s safe to go?”
“I didn’t say that. What Morg left behind him?” He shuddered. “I ain’t got words to tell you. But it ain’t living magic. It’s leftovers. And I reckon it can be beat.” I reckon I can beat it. But he couldn’t say that out loud, not even to Goose. “With enough good mages, any road.”
“And Sarle Baden? He’s a good mage?” Goose said, looking to his brew again. “Good enough to keep folk on an expedition safe?”
Rafel watched him add more water to the steeping mix of grains in the oak barrel. Breathed in the thick, fuggy smell of the mash. “Well, Rodyn Garrick wasn’t a complete fool, and he put his life and Arlin’s in Baden’s hands when they were working the reef. Why?”
Goose fitted the barrel’s lid back on, put the waterless kettle on the floor with the other two, then shoved his hands in his pockets. And then he pulled one hand free, and rubbed his nose.
“Rafe… I’m going.”
“Going?” he said blankly. “Going where? The mash ain’t done yet, Goose, and I don’t know how to finish it. You’re the fancy brewer here, not me.”
“Rafe.” Goose sighed. “I mean I’m going with Pintee and Baden. It ain’t been announced yet, but the Council’s said yes to another expedition. Pa and I talked it over, and we decided I’m going, for the guild.”
Years ago, when they were sprats, he and Goose once fratched themselves into fisticuffs. Some stupid reason or other. Maybe he’d said Stag was the better pony, no argument. Any road. Goose had punched him in the belly so hard he couldn’t breathe. So hard he fell on his arse and sat there gasping like a landed fish, while Goose stood over him with his fists clenched, howling, “Take it back! Take it back!” So he took it back and they never talked on that again, not ever. He never said diddly about Goose’s ponies again, neither. Not the dirty cream one or the one that came after.
Now he stared at his friend, gut-punched a second time. Gut-punched so he couldn’t speak, disbelieving and dismayed.
“See, the thing is,” said Goose, determined, “Pa’s too old. He wants to go, but his leg’s bad and his chest’s wheezy and there’s no pother who can fix him. And see, Asher, the guild’s worried. After all the bad weather the barley yield’s down by more than half. So’s the oat crop. And the quality of the grain? Nowhere near what it used to be. I’ve seen the guild records. And it’s not just the rain and tremors. It’s like Lur’s getting tired. Like it’s worn out with growing things. And we’ve got to do something. All our brewings are at stake. The whole guild’s at stake, I think.”
“And this is what your da came up with?” he said, finding his voice. “You joining Pintte and Baden’s expedition?”
Goose nodded. “That’s right.”
“But—why you?”
“Why not me?” said Goose, ready to be offended. “If it’s guild business, someone in the guild’s got to go. And Gryf Macklin might be Guildmeister these days, but no big decision gets made without Pa’s chinwag. And he wants it to be me.”
“What about you, Goose? Do you want to go?”
“I wasn’t sure at first,” Goose admitted. “It’s a big thing. And with what your dad said—but like you say, he could be wrong. And if I go, then I’m a part of something important. Not just for the guild, but for Lur. I’d like to do something important. I’d like to matter.” His cheeks tinted. “Like you matter.”
“Me?” Doubly dismayed, Rafel slid off his oak barrel perch and started pacing. “Goose, don’t be bloody stupid. Ain’t you the youngest brewer ever to get the Guild Medal? Ain’t the strong brew you cooked up last winter the best-selling ale in all Dorana City? Goose, you’ve done more than I have. And you—”
“What?” said Goose. “Rafel, what?”
“You’ve got a future,” he muttered, goaded into saying what he’d sworn he’d never confess. “And what’ve I got, eh? Magic nobody wants me to use. And a da as—as—”
“Asher, your dad’s a hero,” said Goose. “Your dad’s the greatest man ever born in Lur. Beating Morg—and what he did down in Westwailing, he—”
“He ain’t the same, Goose,” he said, still pacing. “Westwailing—it changed him. Day and night he sits around brooding on them fools who drowned, and on how every harbour in the kingdom’s ruined, and how he didn’t stop it and how he can’t fix Lur. And he broods on my magic.”
“Can’t blame him for that, Rafe,” said Goose. “It’s something to brood on.”
“Maybe, but it’s mine, not his,” he retorted. “Mine to use, mine to ignore, mine to study on, if that’s what I want. But Da’s so scared of magic fuddling me, Goose, he’s got me chained up like a dog!”
Goose shrugged. “Then unchain yourself, why don’t you, Rafe? Do what you want. Come with me.”