Wasting no time, he dug into the depths until he found the vial he was looking for. Pulling it up out of the bag, he held it to his lips. In the darkness of the huge storage building, he couldn’t see the dark liquid that moved around inside the vial, but he knew it was there. As he pulled out the stopper, he reflected on how he’d gotten to where he was.
Months ago, after a debilitating headache had left him incapacitated for the fifth time in a week, he’d gone to the imperial healers for a sixth time. He was losing far too many shifts to stay in the emperor’s service much longer. The healers had muttered and chanted and probed, but finally had to explain that they couldn’t find any source for the headaches. He’d nearly cried when they’d pushed seeds of poppy into his hands again. The seeds weren’t working. They just made him drowsy.
Seeing the state he was in, the healer he’d come to see on his sixth visit - an old friend from the school for mages, had looked around and then leaned over to whisper, “This isn’t sanctioned, but I’ve heard stories.”
He’d hesitated.
The Weather Mage had grabbed the lapels of the healer’s coat and dragged him closer with bloodshot eyes. “What? A cure? For this malady?”
“Calm down, man,” the healer had said soothingly while unlatching the Weather Mage’s fingers from his coat. “Yes, in the markets. Healers, natural ones that get their training from the clans.”
“Hedge witches?” the Weather Mage had said, shrinking back in distaste.
“You may have no other choice.”
Taking the man’s written directions in trembling hands, the Weather Mage had gone to see the hedge witch in the local market. Down side streets and behind an alley, he finally found the rundown shack the man was supposed to be in. When he had entered, he was met by a foul smell and a shrouded figure in black. Stammering his apologies, he’d stumbled back and prepared to leave.
The voice had called him back, saying, “You have an illness—a throbbing, striking pain that leaves you half mad.”
Raising his hand, the hedge witch held out a vial of indeterminate substance. “I have the answer.”
“How? How did you know?” stammered the mage while eyeing the vial. It was filled with a black liquid that shone with a metallic gleam even in the darkness of these quarters.
The Weather Mage couldn’t see the hedge witch, but he could hear the smile in his voice as he’d said, “Call it a gift.”
The Weather Mage was usually a cautious man, but every passing day the headaches grew worse. Soon he feared he wouldn’t be able to perform his duties at all, not to mention the fact that he was slowly losing his mind from all of the pain.
“How much?”
“Fifty shillings for three. After three you will need no more.”
Frazzled, tired and desperate for a cure the Weather Mage was willing to try anything. Especially for such a small price. The Weather Mage had held out the paltry amount and snapped, “Here. Take it.”
Rushing out of the shack, he’d pretended that he didn’t see the shadows moving or smell the overwhelming stench of the dead. Anything to end the cursed headaches.
He hurried out so fast that he stepped around the body of the true hedge witch, bloated and lying under a discarded burlap sack. Behind him the charlatan smiled in the dark and vanished without a trace, his task completed.
Back in the storage house, the Weather Mage prepared to drink the last of his treatment vials that he had acquired. Over the last few days the headaches had lessened until they were almost gone. Sometimes he’d gotten sharp pangs that distracted him or hit him by surprise, but nothing compared to the monstrous headaches that had left him an invalid in his bed for days when they’d struck before. Preparing to drink the disgusting substance, he held his nostrils pinched closed and tilted back his head.
It was the only way he could get it down. The liquid smelled like tar and oozed down his throat like a slug. Drinking it down, he shook his head rapidly to clear the smell. As he gulped the tonic a sharp headache surfaced. He winced, waiting for the pain to rise in a crest like it always did. In utter surprise he felt it die down almost immediately – dwindling until he felt nothing more. He began smiling with joy, thinking the cure was working, and it was.
His joy was short-lived. Out of the shadows emerged a cloaked figure.
Stumbling up and leaving his bags on the floor, the Weather Mage demanded, “Who are you? What do you want?”
“Why, what I’ve always wanted, Weather Mage. You.”
The Weather Mage vaguely recognized the man’s voice but couldn’t place it. Deciding that he’d teach this idiot a lesson, he called lightning to his fingertips. A costly magical measure, but one that always sent thieves and vagabonds running away as fast as they could. The cloaked man didn’t move.
Smiling, the Weather Mage thought just before he threw the ball of lightning, He can’t say I didn’t warn him.
He watched as the ball of lightning—enough to destroy a man, and usually in spectacular fashion—arced toward his victim. He had to give the man praise; he didn’t run, he didn’t scream or cower. Instead he stood still in the face of certain death. And when the lightning ball his him directly in the chest, the man absorbed it. The Weather Mage watched in astonishment as the lightning hit a writhing dark, shadowy thing on the person’s chest and was gone, like it was never there. And then the Weather Mage knew dread. He was in trouble.
The cloaked man laughed and strode forward, unafraid. When the Weather Mage tried to run, he felt the wall behind him grab him. Screaming in fear, he saw dark shadows come down over his shoulders and slither up his thighs to bind him to the wall. As the cloaked man stopped in front of him and pulled back his hood to reveal his face, the Weather Mage still didn’t recognize him. But he recognized that smell—the smell of death.
Shaking as the man traced a finger down his trembling face, the Weather Mage licked his lips and said, “Please. I’m a wealthy man. Anything. Anything I have can be yours.”
“You see, Weather Mage,” said the man with surprising gentleness, “I already have what I want.”
And then he clutched the Weather Mage’s face in one hand, and shadows began to pour down the mage’s throat. Before he lost consciousness, the Weather Mage thought, They feel just like slugs.
Chapter 5
A few hours later, Ciardis was rushing across the outer courtyard of the Companions’ Guild. As she reached the courtyard’s center where the cobblestones started radiating out in ever-growing rings, she stopped and stuck out her hand in confusion. Frowning, she took in the falling precipation in dismay. It was snowing...in fall. It was far too early for this sort of nonsense. It shouldn’t be snowing for at least another four months. Maybe five. And even then the snow was only likely to fall in the early morning hours when night had yet to release its hold and the sun still slept.
Snow never lasted long in Sandrin. The capitol city was too close to the sea and too warm year-round for it to have a regular annual snowfall. She lifted her hand hesitantly and watched as snowflakes dropped from the sky and dissolved in the heat of her palm.
So why I am looking up in the sky and seeing flurries come down?
Shaking her head at the bizarre weather, Ciardis hurried forward to get access to the Archives. She hadn’t wanted to go her normal route through the colonnade and into the main entrance. Too many prying eyes. So instead she went outside, across the courtyard, and cut through a side garden to a small entrance adjacent to the side garden’s entrance.