The Bookminder

VEGETABLE soup might have heralded the mage's collapse, but a quiet night in front of a roaring fire was just what the apothecary ordered. Another parade of flurries had blown in and snowdrifts piled high 'round Parentino's narrow windows, catching even in the ledges of the upper-story casements and shrouding the entire castle in eerie gray light. Nagarath was right. It wasn't a night for reading, not with the fitful, dim light in which they soon found themselves.

The evening darkness coming on as fast as it did, Liara guessed it to be just about the end of the year. Which was fine with her. Short days and long nights suited her darker soul. It could be winter forever, as far as she was concerned.

They had dinner in the great room, a simple affair of foodstuffs gathered from the cellar. And true to his word, Nagarath soon raided the cabinets of herbs and tea-making supplies, lecturing on what this or that was supposed to do for a person.

It not being a formal lesson, Liara curled up into a ball in front of the fire, listening to the mage drone on, occasionally asking a question here or there. She'd had no idea, for example, that a headache could be cured so many different ways.

"No wonder you were so disappointed in me the day I turned the trees pink." Liara sat upright, remembering the basket of wilted mint with which she'd returned, and realizing now why Nagarath had been so picky with everything that went into and came out of his garden.

He chuckled at the near-apology. "Yes, as with my books, the condition of an item affects its performance."

"Law the Second of Magicked Artif— But I thought you said we don't enchant the herbs, Nagarath."

He grinned in response. "The laws can still apply to the innate magick of an item. And before you ask, yes. Yes to mint and sage, lemon balm and elderflowers . . . the list goes on. All have inborn magickal properties. I mean, you're not going to become some famous warlock drinking tea, but the power is there, and its effects can be enhanced with a skillful hand and Artful eye."

"Can I?" Liara was afraid to ask, her hands fairly itching to touch the arrayed herbs, the cluster of little glass bottles sparkling in the firelight, waiting to be filled with new concoctions.

"You haven't steered us wrong thus far, Liara. Be my guest." Nagarath smiled and rose from his chair, disappearing into the shadows of the room. "You do know that, for one with your gift, it makes very little difference simply knowing that it's magick."

To me it does. Liara gently picked up a bundle of lavender, the sweet smell bringing back thoughts of summer. He was right. It felt as though an instinct guided her, something that whispered what the plant did, what it paired with, something that went beyond experience in the kitchen. To her surprise, she realized it had always felt that way.

Satisfied, she lost herself in the exploration, until Nagarath's return to his chair caught at the corner of her eye. Something in his hands drew her attention.

"You play the cindra?" Liara was skeptical. Yet, there it was, lute-like and delicate, its burnished wood gleaming in the light of the fire. It was odd how it had never occurred to her that Nagarath might have any musical inclination. Krešimir had. He'd even played for her, now and again. The memory brought tears to her eyes, and she looked to the fire, trying to draw back the sudden emotion.

"A little." Nagarath's voice seemed to come from far away. "It reminds me of home."

His words reclaimed Liara's attention. He'd never mentioned a home before. Not a real one, anyway. She pressed, gently so as not to ruin the moment. "Home?"

She needn't have worried. Nagarath seemed to be in a talkative mood. "Naples. Though, technically, I was born in England. The cindra, you see, is much like our mandolino . . . but with fewer strings, making it perfect for me."

"You're from England?"

"And Naples and France and just about everywhere else."

"How did you—?"

"End up here?" Nagarath sighed, his eyes staring into the fire.

For a moment, Liara figured that she'd killed the conversation.

"I came to Limska Draga about ten years ago. The circumstances are . . . complicated. But the place suited me, and I was able to ensure that the valley stayed safe from further invasion." Nagarath's words were slow and measured, though whether because he was thinking hard or just lost in the past, Liara couldn't tell. He snapped back into the present with a smile. "As you can see, the area grew on me. Piotr wasn't just Dvigrad's apothecary—"

"—he was your friend."

"I wouldn't go that far," Nagarath hedged. "But he was a social sort. More so than Father Phenlick, though he, too, was quite pleasant. No, Piotr simply went out of his way to make sure that I found the valley to my liking. I think he just liked having someone to drink with. Now, are you going to let me play or not?"

Liara smiled, turning back to her own quiet work as Nagarath plucked out a few notes and then began to play in earnest. He wasn't a skilled musician, but he played tolerably well. Soon the soft notes of the cindra added to the warmth of the crackling fire, and Liara found herself wanting more such nights.

Lost in her own thoughts, trying to determine which of five dried flowers would best accompany the rosehip tea with which she experimented, Liara was startled to hear Nagarath's voice join his instrument, beginning a familiar tune.

She looked up from her work, enchanted. Arms wrapped around her knees again, she sat back, listening.

Not much different in tone than his speaking or incanting, Nagarath's singing style was simple and warm with the slightest hint of a rasp. Liara found the sound quite pleasant. The rounded rise and fall of the notes, the artful interplay of soft and loud—she could tell this man believed in what he sang, and that lent a whole new timbre to his voice.

For the first time since coming to live at Parentino, she realized how little she knew about Nagarath . . . and how little she'd really bothered to ask, having generally fixated on issues helpful to her and her pursuit of magick. In listening, it now occurred to her how deeply painful it must have been for him to come upon Dvigrad and find everyone gone.

No. Not just gone. The emptiness Liara carried within her could certainly not match the bleak reality of Nagarath's discovery. Instead of warm greetings, the mage would have found bodies. Instead of cook fires, the stench of death, of rotting, wasted flesh that had belonged to men he'd come to know—Piotr, Phenlick—and value for their friendship. People he was likely closer to than she'd ever been.

Or was that also a fallacy? She had loved them, too. Hated them, certainly, but loved them, their familiarity. And that comforting familiarity was gone, leaving in its place Nagarath. Whom I almost lost as well.

The moment returned to her then, the image of Nagarath lying prone on the floor of the library, seemingly lifeless, her own heart stuck high in her throat, scarcely beating with fear for him. What would it be like to find an entire settlement like that?

Liara could imagine Nagarath helplessly pacing in front of Dvigrad's gates, eventually entering and finding devastation in answer to his hails. Friends, dead and purpled with disease. And to be alone, knowing he had to use his Art, his life's love, to burn the bodies, to scour away the pestilence and honor the deceased.

Lost in black thoughts, Liara's imaginings nearly tore her from the present until Nagarath's voice, solid and reassuring, bled into her consciousness, calling her back to him. Rescue. She no longer merely listened, but clung to the mage's words, the sweet, haunting melody. Solace in the form of song—comfort she had again failed to give her wizard, lost as she'd been in her own fears and self-doubts. Hugging knees to chest, Liara lifted her face to Nagarath's and let his rich tones wash over her.

I would pick you, my flower,

I have no dear one whom should have you.

Should my brother have you?

I am his brother even without flowers.

I should give you away to a young sailor,

Sailing over the blue Adriatic Sea.

Liara considered his choice of song. It was one familiar to her. To her mind, the lyrics had always spoken to her of love and longing, beautiful and playful in its cadence. Had he learned it in memory of someone? His family, or a woman, perhaps? Someone he'd had to leave behind, somewhere in his homeland beyond the Adriatic Sea? What else had magick forged for this mage of hers? What had it taken from him that made him sing so?

Such questions seeming too personal to ask aloud, Liara sat silent, caught on the sweet brokenness of notes that lay just beyond Nagarath's natural range. The sliding melody carried with it a deep wistfulness that the wizard rarely, if ever, expressed.

By the end, the song's comforting familiarity was such that Liara found herself humming along under her breath, desiring to step into the flickering firelight warmth of the song, but too shy to join. She hoped that, by not joining in, she wasn't somehow insulting him. For listening provided enough participation for her, and she did not trust her high, thin voice alongside Nagarath's rich tones.

He had been nothing but kind to her. But it was only now, in the midst of the music, that Liara truly saw the tenderness in him. And something in the way the firelight flickered across his face while he sang suddenly and unexpectedly made Liara wish the song were meant for her.

~*~

Nagarath felt something ease inside his mind as the final notes of the song faded into the soft crackle of the dying fire. Sitting back, he enjoyed the moment, letting the sense of peace slide in, ousting the sorrow that had lived in his breast these last few days.

It still hurt, of course. Losing Dvigrad was one of the great horrors of his life—and that was saying something, considering the life he'd led. But the familiar melody, the meditative act of playing, had done far more for his shattered psyche than had the vast burning of magicks employed in honoring the fallen.

But the fire on the hearth isn't going to tend itself. Nagarath considered asking Liara to stoke it, but instead roused himself. The girl was still staring off into space, her own contemplative mood not something he wished to disturb just yet. It was a perfect evening, not to be spoilt by words.

Kneeling before the grate, his lanky form casting dark shadows across Liara, Nagarath found himself hyperaware of the close and comforting intimacy of the night. Under his skillful hands, the fire blazed back to life, driving back the chill that had begun to creep in from the corners of the room, and illuminating Liara's features more clearly.

Her expression was enough to make him turn back to the blaze, where the warmth of the new flames helped cover the heat creeping into his cheeks. It was a look he'd never seen—never expected to see—on his ward's face. Empathy. Compassion. Wistfulness. A mixture of all three, completely disarming in its intensity.

"I think I'm going to head up to sleep," she said, her tone betraying that she, too, sensed the sudden tension in the room. "Good night, Nagarath."

"Good night, Liara," he spoke without turning around.

And she was gone, carrying with her the strange, bewildering quietude full of a loudness he'd been hard-pressed to ignore. Too close. You're letting her get too close.

The warning pounded in his ears, the sensation eerily familiar. It felt like Dvigrad. It felt like when the library had gone dark around him and he'd woken flat on his back, undone by his own spellcasting. It felt like Archmage Cromen's tutoring all over again.

He was losing control of the situation.

The thought accompanied Nagarath back to his seat, temporary peace broken and fear creeping its way back in. He wasn't just losing control of the situation, he was losing control of his magick. He stared at his fingers, his hands and wrists. This had all happened before. Spells escaping his control; consciousness slipping from him when most urgent. And then, consequences.

He looked up at the dark ceiling, towards Liara's quarters—Liara with her strange mood and unspoken questions. Though he hadn't quite figured what had come over her while they sat together by the fire, he could tell when she was holding back. She clearly had questions that went beyond magick, beyond tea-making and the like.

But so had he.

Nagarath turned his eyes back to the fire, as if staring into its searing light might burn away the fog that had settled into his mind. What he'd found in Dvigrad made no sense. He hadn't counted the bodies, but he was certain that some, if not all, of the guard had been missing. Or had they? Perhaps it was only Father Phenlick's letter making him think so. He couldn't remember.

He could remember pain. And fear. He remembered quite clearly the pull of Parentino's spells, drawing him back in an instant, away from the plague-ridden air of Dvigrad. Or had he first finished his work in the annihilated town? Again, the memories felt dulled, masked by that same mental fog, the fog that felt like wayward wizardry.

Mine or hers? The fog, its aura, foreign and yet familiar. Nagarath's pulse quickened, his breath coming in hitching gasps of building rage. Why couldn't he see it? It was confounding, as though he was looking at two overlapping realities. Or perhaps he truly was imagining the menace out there in Limska Draga. Liara could well be right about Dvigrad's devastation coming via natural, if unfortunate, means. But the power in the air. Familiar yet veiled beyond the reaches of his mind—

The thought wouldn't leave him alone.

"Settle your mind, mage," he murmured angrily. Of course it wasn't Liara's power he sensed, even with her successful casting of a high-level ward. That he'd even considered her as the source of that power demonstrated his frazzled state.

"What you need are answers." What he needed was to stop blaming others.

Jumping to his feet, Nagarath left the fire's warmth, ascending to his workroom, still strangely agitated. A word of power opened the door and he reached for his cloak, another word laying bare the ceiling, stripping it of its protective network of spells. Thick, bitter snow swirled down through the open roof and he laughed aloud, challenging the winter skies with his upturned face.

Snow like white ash. The imagery brought to mind more memories of Dvigrad, jumbled as they were, arousing Nagarath's fierce anger anew.

How dare they treat his Liara so. How dare they deny magick. And how dare they parade their soldiers about the woods—his woods—keeping this quiet, peaceful region in a constant state of fear, always on the verge of panic.

Drawing a shaky breath, Nagarath closed his eyes, shutting out the completion of the thought. No, they did not deserve what had befallen them.

There. Reaching out with his Art, Nagarath could sense the fog like a blanket over the valley, like smoke on the wind. Elusive, but proof enough that the source of his terror wasn't only of his imagining. Something was out there in the wood, some menace that he could feel with his heart and nothing more. He had to know what it was.

He pushed further. Scrying outward, reaching, stretching as far as he could in all directions, Nagarath swept past the darkened shadow that had once been Dvigrad, past the empty woodsman's hut, and even back along the Pazinčica River towards the sea. His sight darted around pockets of darkness amongst the rocks and trees, a taint he could sense yet not see.

The shadow stretched to the coast, to the very limits of his power, the formless shade a match to what he felt there, right outside of Parentino. But what was it? He could not tell, his Art stretched far too thin in the search. Only that same hint of darkness and a resulting ache in his heart confirmed his fears.

Nagarath withdrew back into himself. He had half hoped that his worries would have been dispelled by the sight of the winking campfires of the Venetian soldiers or perhaps nothing at all.

But the shadow of a threat was worse than a fully visible one. One couldn't defend against a shadow. They fell where they would. So his answers were worse than the questions, serving only as proof of his inadequacy. Again.

Do I tell her? The temptation was almost more than he could bear. To be less alone in his fears. . . . But then again, most of his fears were for Liara—for the consequences of her finally holding the power to learn the truth. If she gained true knowledge of the Art, she might well bend everything in the world toward making herself whole. Which would mean finding her progenaurae. And that would be disaster for everyone—especially you, little magpie.

No, he more urgently feared that his power alone might not be able to protect her from what was coming. If Father Phenlick had appealed to Rome for help, the secret of Liara's past was out, and her life forfeit if they were discovered.

And then it hit him, the reason for his anxiety, his anger at himself.

What if his stubborn-heartedness had denied Liara something she might need in the days to come? What if, when that dark cloud on the horizon lay fully overhead, his little magpie was standing alone and defenseless?

~*~

Nagarath stood on the other side of the kitchen door observing, as best he could, Liara as she hummed under her breath and flitted about, readying breakfast. He wondered if she was even aware that she was doing it.

She might not have joined in last night, but she certainly knew the melodies, Nagarath noted with surprise. For some reason, he had long assumed that Liara's refusal to acknowledge Dvigrad as her home also meant that she would have rejected its culture. But then, in his long wanderings, he had encountered very few people who could resist the charm of a simple song. He entered the kitchen, eager to start the day and further remove himself from the memories of a sleepless night.

"Good morning, Liara."

"Good morning, Nagarath."

She was up to something. Nagarath noted the carefully laid implements for tea, the eager greeting, the self-absorbed smirk on her face. "And what are we making?"

"Tea." Liara glided over, cup at the ready. "I managed to create three new kinds. Would you like to know what they do?"

Nagarath could feel a repeat of yesterday afternoon looming. Already, he felt cornered—certain that any response he made would be the wrong one. He would inadvertently hurt Liara's feelings with some ill-timed, if educational, observation about how rudimentary tea-making was. Then she'd cry and claim that he wasn't giving her anything to do, that he was trapping her in the castle unfairly . . . which, in a way, was true.

But it's safer inside. Nagarath sat, head in his hands, having the argument for both of them. Only because you won't teach her, mage. He spoke through his fingers, "I have a headache, Liara. Which one helps with that?"

"Oh." Liara's monosyllabic response fell upon Nagarath like judgment.

I'm not mad at you, Liara. I'm angry at myself. He was so terribly awkward at times. But even self-accusing, he couldn't find the words with which to answer her. Not unless he wanted to delve into what he was so uneasy about. The girl is so . . . persistent.

Nagarath made his excuses. The evening by the fire had been wonderful, but the dead of night had been hard on him. Over and over again, he'd found himself weighing Liara's words against his conscience. Could he not just let her learn the Art? A promise to a dead man and a lot of fears—all of it holding him back.

But the danger. Both that magick poses to herself, and that of . . . whatever is out there.

Nagarath nodded his thanks as Liara placed a steaming mug in front of him, touched by how respectful she was being of his claim of a headache. He took a sip of tea. It was delicious.

As if this alone settled it, he cut through the girl's quiet readying of breakfast. "Liara. After long consideration, I think it would be prudent for me to teach you some spellwork that could aid in your defense, and in the defense of our position here, should the need arise."

She nearly dropped the teapot. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me." Nagarath lifted his tired eyes, managing a smile. "I'm teaching you magick, girl."

~*~

Liara didn't want to eat. She didn't want to move. The wizard was teaching her magecraft. Could not they begin that instant?

Nagarath raised his mug. "After we break our fast, of course."

"Of course." As if this conversation were the most natural thing in the world, as if the past eight months—nay, seventeen years—of wishing and hoping had merely been a bad dream.

Liara had never eaten so quickly in all her life. This fact was not lost on Nagarath, giving in more fully to good humor at last. "I'll wash up, little magpie. You're all aflutter anyhow, and would likely shatter the plates in your haste. If you could bring me . . ."

He paused, thinking.

Liara wished he'd think faster.

Finally, he rattled off no less than a dozen lengthy and archaic-sounding titles. "Bring them up to my workroom. We'll meet there."

"Thank you, Nagarath!" Liara flounced from the room, eager to begin her new life, and afraid that if she tarried too long, she'd forget half the titles Nagarath had bid her to fetch.

She could have been borne upon the wings of magick itself, so quickly she flew about the library. She'd half expected that her mind would have been too unsettled for the Catalogue to point the way to the books she needed. But then, Liara's heart was steady on the matter of sorcery.

It was therefore no surprise that she made it to Nagarath's workroom first, and so of course decided to use the extra time exploring the room's wonders. Doing a slow turn about the center of the floor, she once more wished that she had discovered Nagarath's trick of revealing the auras of things. The glowing mists of each individual signature had somehow impressed her more than any massive illusions might. The auras had given her a sense of belonging, that she was but one of a whole host of magicked items, rather than a solitary outcast in a town of nonbelievers. Reliving the memory, Liara recalled that she still had a question to put to the mage, that of his own aura . . . or seeming lack thereof.

Liara nearly shrieked as her slow rotation brought her gaze directly upon that of another face. A skull. Horrified but curious, she crept closer. The skull had friends.

Back in the dark recesses of a shelf, half hidden behind a few bottles and a dusty sheaf of scrolls, sat no less than a half-dozen human skulls. She nudged aside the rest of the shelf's contents that she might better view the macabre oddity. "Nagarath, what on earth?"

The skulls made no answer and, gaining a bit more courage, she reached out to one gingerly. It shifted against its fellows at her touch, and Liara leapt back as if burned. Strange. The skulls felt . . . not evil. Unlike the spell books for dark sorcery that still pulsed at her from across the room—Liara had made a wide arc of these upon entering—the skulls seemed almost friendly.

"Perhaps because they're always grinning," Liara joked to herself, then sobered. Unbidden, the spectre of Dvigrad rose in her mind. While she knew that Nagarath had used magefire to burn away the last of the plague from the village, effectively turning the remains to dust, a wild part of Liara's brain still pictured the town littered with bones. Skulls leered up at her out of the soil, accusing her of witchcraft and worse.

For hadn't their deaths been, in many ways, the cause of her learning magick today? What a price for them to have paid for Liara to finally fulfill her heart's desire. When I said I wanted power so I could show you all what a mistake it had been to treat me thus, I hadn't meant it to turn out like this.

The words in her heart were sincere, and she further vowed that she would use her gift to avenge them. She would. I'm sorry.

Shaken, she moved on to the next shelf. Eager to find anything that would distract from the turmoil of her heart, her eyes lit on a small glass bauble that seemed to shine with an inner light all its own. Half the size of her hand, the round ball sat safely on a silver ring. Liara couldn't resist.

Upon picking it up, she found that the light inside seemed to dance and swirl. She peered closer, only to jump as Nagarath's voice sounded from the doorway.

"I presume you've not been so foolish as to go around touching things without knowing what they are, Liara." He frowned at her, scolding but gentle.

Sheepishly, she reached to put the bauble back on its silver base. "What does it do?"

Nagarath opened his mouth, then shut it, looking for all the world like he didn't quite know how to answer. His sheepishness soon matched hers. "I . . . I don't remember."

"Nagarath!" Liara laughed and gestured to the books she'd brought up. "I hope you remember what you'd planned to do with these."

"Ah, yes." Nagarath hastened over and ran his index finger down the spines, carefully selecting one and handing it to her. "This will give you an excellent working foundation of what we are about to attempt. I'll be over at my workbench should you have questions."

Reading. As usual. How lovely.

Liara snatched the book from his hand, and after eyeing the nearest armchair, petulantly opted for the peace and quiet of her own room.