Page 25 of Witchcraft and Fury (Chronicles of the Divided Isle #1)
A NIGHT-TIME SWIM
When King Campion the Austere reformed the laws regulating magic, it wasn’t just witches who suddenly found themselves forbidden to practise it.
Anyone not of noble birth had to relinquish any magical objects they possessed, including staffs.
By concentrating magical powers in the hands of the nobility, in a single stroke he made their position at the top of society more secure than had any ruler throughout the Ages.
A crowd stood in the main square, watching as the town constable and his men dragged a bound and gagged Gib Ralston in the direction of the town dungeons.
‘What will happen to him now?’ asked Pingot, standing at Loveday’s side amidst the throng.
‘That is up to the town court to decide,’ replied the wizard, ‘but I do not expect him to be seen roaming the streets again. He is a commoner who taught himself magic illegally. His other crimes are numerous: murder, theft, poisoning, illegal potion brewing and the unsanctioned possession of a magic staff. The law treats such men harshly, and rightly so. Execution is the most likely outcome.’
‘And what will you do with his staff?’ said Bear. The other students leaned in to listen to their instructor’s response. The boys, all of whom dreamt of owning a staff, cast covetous glances at it.
‘Well, we can’t destroy it,’ Loveday said, looking down at the crudely carved staff in his hand.
‘Although it is hardly the finest I have held, it still has qualities that make it indestructible. It is also bound to its maker – no other wizard, or witch, can wield it. As such, Solar, I recommend you keep it as a trophy. What you did here was remarkable. Own it with pride.’
He handed it to Solar. She looked at it with distaste, remembering the cruel blows it had rained down on her the evening before.
‘I don’t want it. I’ll keep hold of it for now, till we’re far away from this place and the reaches of Gib, and then bury it so that it never sees the light of day again. ’
Loveday regarded her approvingly. ‘Or you might want to cast it into a body of water. A lake. Or a river, perhaps. That is the traditional way of discarding unwanted staffs, and of offering them to the gods. They sink like a stone, did you know? Their magic increases their density.’
As she spoke, her bruised and cut lips throbbed painfully.
After taking the antidote yesterday, she had swept the remaining vials into a sack she found lying in the corner of the cellar and raced back to The Cantankerous Mule.
People had stared at her as she forced her beaten and aching body to run through the streets, her clothes stained with sweat and blood.
Offers of help had, for once, died on their lips when they saw the half-determined, half-crazed glint in her eyes.
When she found the other trainees, they were unconscious, with barely a flicker of a pulse. She forced the antidote into their mouths, and finally they had stirred groggily. Solar had then raced upstairs to administer it to her instructors.
At the bottom of the sack she had found a silver bracelet, beautifully crafted to resemble a ring of interlocking leaves. She had put it on and did not intend to remove it: it, not the staff, would be her reminder of the events at Ravenbridge.
‘Typical girl,’ sneered Cal as Gib Ralston and the constable turned out of sight. ‘No sense of pride.’
Solar was about to retort when Oswald stepped between them and rounded on him.
‘Do you not feel any gratitude whatsoever for what Solar did for us? We wouldn’t be standing here now were it not for her,’ he said fiercely.
Cal was so taken aback that he was momentarily speechless.
Solar, too, could barely believe her ears.
Then Cal collected himself. ‘If it were not for her, we likely never would have been poisoned in the first place,’ he spat.
‘Witches are bad luck – we all know it. It’s just that I am the only one man enough to say it.
’ He stormed off to fetch the horses from the stables, gesturing for Wyman to follow.
The younger boy threw Solar an apologetic look as he went.
The people of Ravenbridge were safe, Solar reflected.
The town’s entire supply of beer had been drained away, and, once the effects of Azure Euphoria had fully worn off, the townspeople would return to their usual dour selves.
But the world still hated witches. People were still just as quick to frighten children with tales of evil sorceresses as they were to recount the great deeds of wizards.
Her actions here would soon be forgotten, or attributed to Loveday, and she would continue to face prejudice and fear wherever she went .
She looked up at the statue of Harold the Hag Slayer, his handsome face gazing to the heavens, his foot crushing the wizened old crone. Why does Cal have to be so unreasonable? she asked herself.
She felt a hand clap her on the shoulder. ‘You know,’ said Oswald, his face solemn, ‘maybe the storytellers got it wrong. Maybe Harold the Hag Slayer was the villain, and the poor old witch at his feet the forgotten heroine. Maybe we’ve been getting it wrong for a hundred years.’
*
They left Ravenbridge as soon as Cal and Wyman returned with the horses and pack animals. Solar hugged Mae and mounted, wincing as her weary muscles protested. Pingot had given her some of his muscle-relief potion, but she felt sore and stiff nonetheless.
They journeyed north-west through thick forest, the imps flying ahead.
The king’s coronation was still some two months away, and so they had no cause for haste.
Loveday even permitted them to make camp early, as soon as they found a suitable spot in a small forest clearing.
It was by a river some hundred feet wide that cleaved through the forest like an enormous snake.
That night they feasted on a sumptuous supper of cheeses, chutneys, pork pies, sausages and olive bread which Loveday had asked Pingot to purchase in Ravenbridge.
Before stopping at the town their supplies had been running low, and they had been relying heavily on the food they hunted and foraged whilst on the road.
Pingot was positively brimming with excitement as he had left for the market at daybreak on their final morning in Ravenbridge, and he bought as much food as the pack animals could carry .
Solar was licking grease from her fingers when Loveday spoke, silencing the contented hubbub of the camp.
‘We rode into Ravenbridge a wizard, a master-at-arms, an apprentice and five novices in the field.’ He looked at Oswald, Wyman, Bear and Pingot in turn.
‘Novices you are no more. You have had your first taste of what it means to be pitted against a magical foe. But one of you in particular showed your mettle in this early stage of your training.’ His eyes came to rest on Solar, and she felt herself flush as she met his gaze across the campfire.
‘Solar, please approach.’ Solar did as she was bid, feeling the stares of her classmates upon her.
The wizard stood and pressed something into her hands.
It was a simple cord necklace, the clasp at the back shaped like a magician’s staff.
A black pendant hung from the cord, and at its core a ruby-red light swirled and shifted with an entrancing elegance.
‘The pendant signifies that you have excelled in your first magical mission.
If you continue to show the same skill and bravery as you did in Ravenbridge, then I do not doubt that you will soon have a green and blue pendant to wear round your neck with the red, as Cal already does.
Eventually you will earn your yellow too, and then a staff of power will be yours to carve.
‘Wield justice. Honour the code.’
‘Wield justice. Honour the code,’ the encampment echoed, Binns and Cal slightly quicker to respond than the trainees.
Solar fastened the clasp around her neck, her thrill at the token causing her fingers to tremble – she had just three more pendants to collect before she could search for her father!
‘Wield justice. Honour the code,’ she said, heart beating hard with pride to have received such recognition from her instructor .
She was about to go back to her seat when a thought stopped her – a burning question she needed answered. She’d ideally have asked Loveday alone, but the fact was that such opportunities were hard to find whilst travelling on the road. It may as well be now , she thought, summoning her nerve.
‘Sir Gaderian, there’s something I haven’t yet told you about how I worked out that Gib Ralston was the culprit.’
‘Oh yes?’ said Loveday, raising an eyebrow.
‘You see, he didn’t admit to it. I … I seem to have mind raided him.’
Loveday stood very still, his expression unfathomable. A deep silence descended over the camp.
‘But how is that even possible?’ Solar pressed, finally giving voice to her confusion. ‘I’ve had no training in it.’
Loveday’s face was pensive in the flickering of the flames. ‘Cometh the hour, springeth the power,’ he said eventually, voice barely audible.
Solar looked at him questioningly.
‘A common phrase in wizarding circles,’ Loveday elaborated, louder now, although Solar sensed he did not speak with full conviction.
‘It is a frequently observed phenomenon that students’ powers often develop quickest not in class, under strictly controlled conditions, but rather when the magician is placed in extreme danger.
It is one of the reasons why you work such dangerous jobs as part of your training.
The strongest swords are forged in the fiercest of fires.
Did you not finally master manipulation when on the verge of losing your duel with Ralston? That is a prime example.’
‘Yes, but I’d actually had some training in manipulation!’ Solar insisted, not satisfied with Loveday’s answer. ‘We haven’t even learned the foundations of mind raiding.’