THE LAST OF THE MAGIC

by

DAN CRAWFORD

Joel Spector

* * * *

Polijn swung herself up to the first branch she could reach. The approaching dust told her it would be best to get off the road, the thunder of hooves adding the information that the dust was being raised by horses, plenty of them, in a hurry. Farther west, that would indicate a company of soldiers, but you didn’t see that around here. Here, horses moving so fast at this time of year could mean only one thing: The original owner was in pursuit. A minstrel’s best move would be to get out of sight until the ruckus was past.

She checked above her for a sturdy branch more concealed by leaves. The boots behind the leaves became obvious seconds before she was grabbed from behind and hauled up among the boughs, twigs scratching at her face as she was taken past them.

Polijn went limp; it was generally better to learn what you were fighting before you fought back. The man wore a dagger and a coat that had small metal bars sewn across it in case someone else had a dagger as well. He pushed her back against the trunk, not letting go until he was certain she had a leg on each side of the branch. Releasing her, he nodded, and set a finger across his lips.

Polijn nodded back. The original owners of the horses had been a little quicker than the thieves had imagined.

Horses thundered past. The gang in the boughs waited until mounted men were spotted at the rear. “Now!” cried the man on Polijn’s branch.

A dozen armed men dropped to the ground, dragging the thieves from their mounts. The stolen horses moved on, but they would stop eventually, finding themselves no longer driven. Swords and daggers were drawn. Polijn clung to her branch. Now was an even better time to stay out of the way. She could wait to resume her journey until after everyone who needed to be killed was dead.

But the battle was over before more than token drops of blood were shed. “Bergous! Bergous!” shouted a man on the ground. “Stop! Stop! He’ll hear us!”

The man who had hauled Polijn into the trees paused in the act of thrusting his knife at the man’s throat. “Aye, and smell the blood too. He always could.”

“I need the horses, Bergous. We all need to get clear of town after what he did!”

“That’s true. Your well, wasn’t it?” Bergous pulled back and shoved his dagger into its sheath. “But why my horses, you bloody fool? I owe him plenty for that spell he cast on my old stallion. Every horse there is his, if he chooses to make a claim!”

The other man stayed on the ground, eyeing the sheathed dagger. “If anything is left of the village, I can bring them back. They’ll be beyond his reach, and if you live, Bergous, you’ll have that much to start over with.”

The owner of the horses pulled on one ear. “Aye, but how do I know you’ll come back?”

“Look, you know where I’ll be going. Send one of your lads to...”

Bergous held up a hand. Turning to the trees he called, “Here, wench, come down!” Polijn slid down the trunk and came forward, her eyes on that dagger as well. “No sense doing this with a witness,” said Bergous, rummaging under his augmented tunic. He brought out a coin. “You’ve seen nothing of this,” he informed her. “We don’t want old Wamac to hear of it.”

The coin disappeared into her belt before Polijn noted, “Not much chance, since I don’t know old Wamac.”

The leader of the rustlers eased up to his elbows. “Ah, well, the old magic-monger’s dying, and there are old debts he says he’s going to settle.”

The men around them were helping each other out of the dust. Many of them nodded to each other as Bergous said, “Aye, his last spell. Said he had things to prepare for us, in memory of unpaid scores. Well, I meant to pay him one day. No idea he was going to die in my lifetime.”

A graybeard in the circle slapped dust from his rough pants. “What good’s a wizard if he isn’t going to live forever? I ask you! I told everybody we should get together and burn him out. Not so much to get it done but to get his attention. He’d need to use up that last spell fighting back, and there’d be nothing left to punish us with. Then I remembered the giant owls that stand guard at his place.”

“Aye,” said the leader of the rustlers. “And who knows what else he might have to keep him safe at night? Better just to hunker down and hope he’s got bigger debts than mine and not attract his attention.”

Polijn looked up the road where the dust was still settling from the passage of the horses. “Well now. There are stories that deal with pacifying old wizards. Maybe I can help.”

Bergous pointed the way the horses had gone. “Well, I need to get my herd together for Wheltin here. You go on up to the village. It can’t hurt.”

“Put in a word for me,” said the graybeard, passing Polijn a coin. “Gorsky. Tell him I didn’t mean ... no, don’t mention me at all.” He hurried on as Bergous barked his name.

Polijn considered the coin and put it in her belt next to the other. There might be a bit of money in this, and little enough risk, as long as she kept clear of old Wamac. If none of the tricks from old stories seemed likely to work, she had only to get out of town.

It was midday before she reached the village, or at least an inn called The Hot Kettle. There was a crowd at the benches in front, many of its members packing mules, or bags slung across their backs.

A tall woman whose hair was not the color it had intended to be was passing out loaves of bread and taking what seemed a rather large number of coins in return. “Oh, aye. Dister says we’ll keep on here till everyone else goes. We’ll sell anything a body needs to get on the road.”

“Your funeral,” said a short man with a beard. “If there’s anyone left to bury you, of course.”

“Who’s this, now?” the tall woman demanded.

Polijn had her flute out in evidence before she replied, “My name’s Polijn. I’m a minstrel.” She nodded around at those in the crowd. “I hear old Wamac is dying.”

“That’s what he said himself,” said the man with the beard. “Said he’d soon be finished and asked us to leave him be, so he’d have time to work his last spell, something that would put paid to all old debts in this place. So I’m off. I owe him for those fireworks at my daughter’s wedding. And the spell that convinced young Ruxin to marry her in the first place.”

“Is he so fierce?” demanded Polijn, tucking her flute away.

“Oh, a nice enough old beggar on his own,” a thin man with no hair and deep bags under the eyes said. “But I saw him fighting those bandits last summer. Where he’d been standing, there was suddenly this great crow, made all of fire. He singed their whiskers for them!”

The bearded man took a drink from the clay mug near him on the table. “My granddad said his granddad saw him come to the village that dry summer of the big fire. Riding a dragon, he was, and set a fire that fought the other until they wore each other out, just short of the village. They gave him that cavern he lives in and a banquet. We should’ve done that when he saved us from the flood.”

The tall woman scratched her collarbone, which rose high above her collar. “He’d already got a cavern.”

“The banquet, you buttock!” The bearded man thumped his mug back on the table. “All old Wamac got was people asking for spells to dry out their fields, and why couldn’t he have kept the water out of their root cellars. If he remembers that, he’ll probably send all the rivers up to wash us away.”

Polijn stuck her thumbs in her belt. “Why don’t you give him something now? Call it a farewell present, or a memorial tribute.”

The tall woman tossed her head. “Do you think nobody else could come up with that? But what’s he going to want, when he’s dying? Besides, he’ll know it’s naught but a bribe. Always did know everything. When Skolter and I...”

“The whole village knew that,” said the bald man.

“He’ll send wasps,” murmured a man with heavy eyelids and a cleft chin. “I never paid him for his spell on those wasp nests in our orchard.”

“I know he remembers what I asked for,” said the bald man. “Lord, I hate to think of him magicking that away.”

The tall woman nodded. “Remember those big cats of his, when we had the rats?” She swung a large iron spoon at gouges in the walls of the inn. “They clawed like anything, but it was better than rats, and I could’ve been grateful. I can’t reckon whether I’ll get the rats back, or the cats, or both.”

She swung the spoon up before her. “And he gave me this, he did, with the good word on it, so nothing I stir with it ever burns. Burn us all, he will.” She clutched at her throat with her free hand. “I dreamt it last night. Hot spoons flew in the window and stuck to my arms and legs and down my throat. Dister didn’t half let me have it when I woke him, screaming.”

A small dark woman put up her mug to be refilled. “When me uncle’s skull wouldn’t stop screaming, he came and gave it what for. I suppose I’ll have uncle and aunt and all the cousins screaming now. Sell me some of your biggest muffins, missus; I’ll stick three of ‘em in me earholes.”

The innkeeper’s wife swatted her on the shoulder with the magic spoon as the crowd laughed.

“Well, I’m off,” said the man with the beard, taking up his pack. “Maybe I’ll come back when I hear the river’s gone back down.”

“Maybe I’ll be off as well.” Polijn looked around the crowd again. “But before I go, I’ll go have a look at your wizard. Where does he live? I might be able to come back and tell you what he’s preparing. Then you’ll know what to watch for.”

“Now, there’s a notion!” said the small woman. “You don’t owe him anything, do you? So he’d have no reason to sic anything on you!”

“Here.” The tall woman grabbed up a bag near the door. “Just in case he’s still hungry. Take him some of these muffins. And he always liked my sage sausage!”

“Aye, but not for eating,” said the bearded man. “To ward off burglars. They’re scarier than giant owls.”

“Here,” said the bald man. “Why not take him this?” He thrust a handful of coins at Polijn. “Just a little remembrance from Daukend, tell him! It won’t pay him for what he did, but it’ll maybe make him think kindly of me.”

The idea was contagious. As Polijn left the inn for the road they pointed out to her, people leapt from doorways, thrusting food or money or family treasures on her. It had always amazed Polijn how news traveled in a small village. She saw no one running ahead of her, but everyone she passed had something to contribute to her collection and advice on what to look for.

“Locusts,” a housewife told her. “It always starts with locusts.”

“Trouble goes in threes, I thought,” said the first woman’s neighbor.

“Three times threes, I shouldn’t wonder,” said her husband. “He never was the stingy type.”

Walking much more slowly under the weight of the tribute, Polijn finally found herself headed out of the village, downhill, toward the river. The terrain was thick with greenery, which was more pleasant walking than the dusty road, if a little chancier underfoot. A cool breeze fanned her, and that with the rabbits peering at her from the undergrowth made it seem a very unlikely venue for a den of dragons.

The dragons could still be there, of course. Magicians of any sort could be dangerous, and it was not Polijn’s habit to walk straight into trouble, if she could help it. It was entirely likely that her best course right now would be to veer off with all this tribute, toward the next village. The food and money would mean a good deal more to her than to a dying wizard. Or if he was of the all-seeing sort, it would be better, perhaps, to drop it at his door and hurry away.

But she knew even as the thought ambled through her mind that she would do neither of these things. It was a professional consideration. Oh, she could write the song without knowing the truth of the matter: That was part and parcel of her trade. But the question was one that roused her curiosity. With so many revenges to take, what would a dying wizard choose for his last spell?

She had been told to look for a massive brass-bound door in the side of a hill. The door she saw now was likely the right one: There could not be so very many hills with doors. But she had not expected the door to be standing open. Curiosity eased back behind self-preservation in her mind, and she moved up silently, setting her feet down gently on the white-pebbled path.

There were no dragons, no owls, no bad smells, no shooting flames. Polijn licked her lips and brushed the hair off her forehead. “Hello?”

“Hello! Come in!”

The voice seemed to fit neither a brooding, glaring monster nor a fragile, shrinking old sorcerer. Polijn slid just to the far edge of the threshold and peered into a room cluttered with glittering heaps of mismatched objects and long tables lumbered with the same. Among the confusion bustled a tall, thin man in a dark blue robe. He was setting things onto piles, shaking his head, and whisking them across to other piles.

“Hello?” Polijn said again.

He swung around to look at her. Polijn found herself gazing into eyes that were living question marks. The tall man smiled and the skin bunched around his eyes.

“Oh, how do you do, love? I’ll be with you in a moment. So much to do at the end! Can’t finish everything, of course, but I can try to clear up some of the mess. I should have written a will, but who’d read it? Go on in, dear. There’s a pitcher on the table. Help yourself. This place is a thirsty walk from anywhere.”

Her throat was a bit dry, now she thought of it. The old man was the first to offer her a thing for it. Polijn passed the man, not turning her back to him at any moment, and stepped into a bright room with light green walls and sturdy wooden chairs. A tall metal pitcher sat on a round wooden table. She leaned in and sniffed at the contents. Shrugging, she poured a quantity of something green into a nearby cup. Since she was very much in his clutches as it was, it would be silly to be too careful now. But she didn’t drink just yet. Reaching out, she took another cup and filled that.

Returning to the front room with both cups, she watched as he stepped along the line of objects. Her head tipped into an attitude of attention, though she wasn’t sure whether the old man was talking to her or to himself.

“Bergous never paid me what he owed for the horse spell, so he must need money.” A few coins plunked onto one of the piles. “Reena married a beast, but she would have him. Better have the magic kettle that goes with her magic spoon.” He shoved a small metal sphere into another stack.

He swung toward Polijn, gesturing at the biggest heap, on the other side of the door. “These things have no particular recipient, but people will take what they need. You take something for yourself, too, my love, before you go. What was it you were looking for, dear?”

Polijn was positive now that her glass held nothing hazardous and drank deep before she replied. She waved the cup at the piles. “Where I come from, we wouldn’t dare stack so much so close to an open door.”

He winked at her and took the cup she wasn’t drinking from. “Well, most folks around here are a bit afraid of me. They don’t know that there’d be even more to fear with the door closed. That’s what brings Hoot and Screech to stand guard over them, and other things.” He drank, then nodded to himself. “Other things, aye, beneath the doorstep. Only I can take them off, by unlocking the door.” He set a hand on a silver key that hung on a nail in the doorframe. “And I don’t expect to be answering the door anymore, once it’s closed.”

Polijn emptied the cup. “You’re Wamac. It’s true, then, that you intend to die soon?”

He shrugged. “It wasn’t my idea, dear. It’s been a lot of fun, but it’s just about to the end now, and I’ve been blessed to know when it’s going to happen. Gives me that much time to pay my debts to all my old friends.”

“They had some idea the debt ran the other way.” Polijn set down the bags she’d brought with her. “They sent you all this.”

“Oh!” The old man bent to look but straightened almost immediately, a hand wiping one cheek. “Oh! Oh, that is kind of them. But they don’t need to do that. They’re always needing help, you know. All manner of troubles afflict them. Poor Dirva thinks he’s a smith, when nature intended him for a farmer, and he never can ... that reminds me.”

Wamac caught up an armful of iron from a table and thrust it into one of the broader piles. Then he spun to face Polijn again. “And what do you do, my dear?”

“My name is Polijn,” she told him. “I’m a minstrel.”

She reached for her flute as evidence again, but stopped at the stiffening of the man’s face. “Oh!” He turned to regard the tables around him. “Ah!” His hand went to his mouth, and he looked her over with suddenly darkened eyes. Then he straightened his shoulders. “Ah! And ... do you know a song called ‘Spring Comes to the Lake?’”

Polijn knew eighteen songs called “Spring Comes to the Lake.” “I believe I do.”

Wamac took a deep breath. “Well, you come in good time, my sweet. Can’t always be getting ready for a trip and never setting out.” Regret showed in his face now as he studied his piles of stuff. His eyes came around to her again. “My father used to sing it to us at bedtime, you know. Mother pretended she couldn’t hear him, but he had a lovely voice. He whistled a verse once in a while: the chickadee and the robin, you know.” He regarded the piles once more and sighed. “Follow me.”

He picked up the pitcher on his way past the table and led her to a room beyond that one. This was smaller and darker and contained little more than a small table, a chest, and a bed. Polijn watched with some suspicion as he climbed up into this last.

But he had pulled the cover over himself before he held a hand to her. “There’s the chest there, if you like. He sat down to sing it, but perhaps you don’t. I always wished to hear that again, and it seemed appropriate...” He took another breath “...now.”

Polijn watched him bunch his pillow up under his head. “Is that your last ... spell? Did you bring me here?”

“My last wish, let’s say.” Wamac reached under the pillow and took out a pair of gloves. “You do know all the verses, don’t you? What the hens said to the ducks and what the ducks said to the chickens?” He slid the gloves on over long, thin hands.

That narrowed it to one song, but Polijn knew it in three different versions. Her mind raced to what might be the one sung closest to this neighborhood. “It starts with the hens?”

He turned, his eyes troubled. “Oh, no no. What the farmer told his wife.”

She nodded. “I know it.” She sat down and took out her flute.

Wamac watched with interest as she played a few notes to find out whether the thing was in tune. “Almost like whistling,” he sighed as she played a verse to remind herself how it went.

She set down the flute and raised her voice instead. How does a wizard die, she wondered. Is it violent at all? With his eyes on her, though, she could only move to the end of the chest that brought her nearest the bed.

Wamac did not die right away, though he did not speak either. His lips moved now and again, in a smile, or sometimes in a wry moue, perhaps suggesting that she had sung a word differently than his father had done it. She remembered to bring up her flute for a few lines of music after the chickadee and the robin. His smile was one of content.

She had sung the verse about what the little lady mouse said to the big fat rat when his eyes turned to her. “That was my brother’s favorite. I haven’t spoken to my brother in ninety years. Does he know, do you suppose?”

Polijn opened her mouth, but he went on, “And my sister?”

It so happened that Polijn had once had a sister, and his question unexpectedly made it difficult to reply. But after a moment, she said, “How not?”

“Of course,” he said. “Good night, my dear.” Polijn continued with what the big fat rat had said to the cat.

He did not speak again, and after four more verses, his face ceased to move. Polijn felt her contract was to sing the whole song and brought it right down to what the moldy old cheese told the wind across the lake and polished this off with another verse on the flute. Then she rose, knees stiff, and looked down at the old cave wizard.

His eyes sprang open, and his lips moved as if to form words. But there was no breath to carry them. He smiled at her, and she knew he was gone.

Polijn looked along the length of the body in the bed, then turned away. She took her cup, refilled it from the pitcher, and moved toward the door. The piles of bounty were casting shadows into the outer room; this reminded her that she was to take something.

It didn’t bother her; Wamac obviously wouldn’t mind, and she had earned her fee, she thought. She considered the piles. The sage sausage looked good, as did the muffins, but that might be a little shortsighted. There was a little horse next to one pile of silver, but she supposed it was a sign that this pile was for Bergous, as the kettle marked the pile for the innkeeper’s wife. They knew him better than she did, of course.

She looked out at the river and the setting sun. What could she take to remember him by?

There was only one thing, finally. Raising her chin, she stepped to the door and lifted the little silver key from its nail. Marching outside, she shut the door with a louder slam than she’d intended and turned the key in the lock.

She tucked the key into her belt, not looking back as she heard the barely perceptible sound of owls settling and a creak as of something reaching from under the threshold. Her face was turned toward the village, and she nodded once, with some decision.

Let them work for it, she thought, and moved off downriver.

Copyright © 2007 Dan Crawford