That made sense; whatever their mage had been holding off, and however he'd done it, the spells he'd set would be fading with his death.
I looked at the headman a little more closely, this time using a touch of mage-sight. "I would say you need one for more than that—or haven't you got a healer hereabouts?" Mage-sight told me his sallow complexion came from a half-poisoned liver; something a simple healing spell could deal with readily.
"Have you skill at healing, too?" He looked like a child with an unexpected abundance of Yule giftings. "Nay, we've no healer; our herb woman died a good three years ago and her kin hadn't the talent. And Master Keighvin, he didn't have the knack, either, though he tried, I'll give him that. Milady, we built him a house; we've kept it cleanly and snug, hoping one such as you would chance this way. If you choose to stay, milady, the house and all he left are yours; keep the evil in the forest bound, and we'll provision you as we did him. Do aught else, and you'll be well repaid, in cash or kind."
The offer was far too tempting to resist. This was just such an opportunity as I had longed for; and whatever it was that had killed Keighvin, I was certain I would be able to deal with it.
"Done," I said.
Perhaps I should have been more cautious; if any evil power had wanted to lay a trap for me, this was the perfect bait. Yet such was my weariness, my longing for a place to settle, that I threw all caution to the winds.
Headman Olam led me to a snug little cottage set apart from the rest of the clustered houses of the village. It was exactly the land of dwelling I would have built for myself, far enough from the village to allow me to feel undisturbed, yet near enough that isolation would not become a burden. Three rooms below it had, and one above—and I knew without his telling me that the one above was the former wizard's room of power and knowledge. I could feel the residuum of magics worked there even from below. For the rest—a bedroom, a sitting room, a tiny kitchen, all showing the subtle carelessness of a bachelor. I probed about me carefully, paying closest attention to the area where the wizard had been found dead, and felt—nothing. Nothing at all, I stood quietly in the very center of the house, and still felt nothing. The house was empty. If Keighvin had been killed by something here, it was long gone. And I was certain my wardings would be proof against any second such intrusion.
I spent the remainder of that day cleaning out all traces of the former owner—although I somehow could not bring myself to destroy his possessions. Instead, I packed them away in three barrels brought me by the miller, and stored them up in the attic.
My own few possessions were soon augmented by gifts, brought shyly by the village women—a bunch of bright autumn leaves and grasses in a homely pottery vase, a bright bit of weaving to grace a chest, an embroidered cloth for the table, another in a handmade frame to adorn the wall, some soft pillows to soften the wooden settle. I surmised that they would gladly have gifted their former mage with such things, but that his bachelor austerity seemed to forbid such presents.
More substantial giftings came over the course of the next three days from their spouses: firewood, smoked meat and fish, cheese and meal, ale and cider, root vegetables. In return I began my own work; curing first the headman's ailing liver, then the miller's cow that had a tumor of the womb, then casting half a dozen finding spells to recover lost objects.
By week's end the little things that had needed doing since their wizard had gone were all taken care off and I had the greater work before me—to determine just what it was that he had kept in check. And, if I could, what had killed him.
I went out northwards into the forest; by night, for if I was going to confront evil, I wanted to know it at its full strength. There was a kind of path here, with a touch of magic about it; I surmised that he had made it, the Wizard Keighvin, and followed it.
Deeper and deeper into the inky shadows beneath the trees it led. There was a little breeze that murmured uneasily among the dying leaves, but there was no sign of animal or bird. At last it grew so dark that even my augmented sight could not avail me; I kindled a witchlight within the crystal on the end of my staff, and forged onward by the aid it gave me. The branches of the trees seemed to shrink away from the cold blue light. My own steps crunching through the fallen leaves seemed as loud as those of a careless giant. The sharp-sour scent of them told me that few, if any, had taken this path of late.
When I had penetrated nearly half a league, I began to feel eyes upon me—unfriendly eyes. And more, I detected that magic had been worked hereabouts, somewhere. Powerful magic, wizardly magic, akin to mine, but not precisely of the school I had been taught in. Soon enough thereafter I came upon the source of that magic.
It lay before me like a wall that only wizardly sight could reveal. It was a great circle-casting, fading now, but still powerful. Nothing material of evil birthing could have passed it; only wraiths and shades, and they would have found the passage difficult and painful. When Keighvin had been among the living, it must have been impossible even for them to cross. I found myself pausing to admire the work; it was truly set by the hand of a master, and I wished I could have known him. Such an orderly piece of work bespoke an orderly mind—and the strength of it implied a powerful sense of duty. Both are traits I find admirable, and more pleasing than a fair form or comely face.
Vague shapes lurked at the edge of the light cast by my staff; I could see only their eyes, and that not clearly. My mage-senses told me more than enough—the villagers feared them, with good sense. Whatever it was that spawned them, they hungered; some for flesh and blood, others for death and pain. And now beneath the casting placed by Keighvin, I could sense the faint traces of others, older and older—it was plain that one wizard had always guarded the people of the village from these creatures of the Dark, passing the task on to a successor. I guessed (truthfully, as I later found) that the Things had broken loose enough times that the villagers had come to value their wizards, and to fear to be without one.
I opened my shields to the casting, for to reinforce it I would have to take some of it into myself. No wizard's workings are the same as another's; were I to impose my powers alone upon that circle of protection I would surely break it. I must blend my own magics with it, as all the others had done before me.
I ignored the looming presence of those Others—they could not harm me, double armored as I was by the circle and my own shieldings. I tested the flavors of Keighvin's magic: crisp and cool, like a tart, frost-chilled apple. I felt the textures, smooth and sleek; saw the color, the blue of fine steel; knew the scent, like jumper and sage. And beneath it, the fading flavors and colors and scents of the others, cinnamon and willow and sunrise, ice and harpsong and roses, fire and lightning and velvet—
When I knew them, knew them all, I built upon them my own power. I reached into the core of myself, and wove a starsong melody, blending it with pinesmoke silk and crystal rainbow; knotting it all into a cord stronger than cold iron and more enduring than diamond; for those were the hallmarks of my own powers.
When I opened my eyes the circle glowed at my feet and reached breast-high, so brightly even the untaught could have seen it; glowed with the same blue as the witchlight of my staff.