Guerrand stopped abruptly and asked himself, What am I thinking? He shook his head, graying now at the temples because of his Test at the tower, though he was still shy of thirty years. Stealing a glance around, the mage assured himself he was alone on this stretch of heath several rods west of Harrowdown. It was not fear of persecution that made him think twice about casting the simple cantrip that would pluck and carry to him the nutrient-rich fruit from which wild rose petals bloomed. Quite the contrary. The villagers had grown used to-almost complacent about-his magical abilities.
He had grown five years older since the day he and Esme had stopped for the night at the Settle Inn in the small, run-down village of Harrowdown, between Hamlton and Restglen in Southlund, the southernmost province of Solamnia. They had chosen it simply because the inn was nearby at the precise moment their legs would move no farther.
The couple had been wandering northward from the forests near Skullcap without real purpose for more than a fortnight after the building of Bastion was completed, vaguely intending to make their way to mage- friendly Palanthas. Their wanderings had taken them through Abanasinia, a territory decidedly unfriendly toward mages, which was why they were so exhausted. The struggle to keep from getting lynched by barbarian plainsmen or pirates had taken its toll, just as life had taken its toll on his relationship with Esme.
Guerrand chased the unexpected and unpleasant memory of lost love from his thoughts, as always. There were too many happy moments with her to recall. He focused his thoughts on the task at hand. The rose hips that he would use and sell for a soothing tea were steadily filling his basket when Guerrand heard the loud squawk of his familiar.
"Kyeow!" Zagarus's white wings lowered him from the cerulean sky to a dark branch of a spreading cypress tree. There you are, Rand! I have a message for you from Dorigar.
Guerrand looked up from the thorny bushes to the large sea gull. Guerrand had conjured his familiar more than a decade before, in what was perhaps his first successful attempt to wield magic. Zag's head was brown-black in a diagonal from the base of his small skull to his throat. His entire underside was yellow- white. Edged with a sliver of white, his wings and back were once as black as onyx. There was no doubt about it; Zag was getting old. The intense coloration of his leathers was duller than it once was; and his yellow legs shambled more than walked now.
You were no more than three rods away, near enough to speak with me," Guerrand remarked, referring to the mental link that allowed masters and familiars to communicate even over distance. "I'm surprised you left the comfort of your nest at the cottage," he gibed gently. Settling into the late autumn of his life, the gull was less inclined to fly these days.
Zagarus looked at him with one eye closed. I thought I find some food while I was about.
Guerrand snorted. "I should have guessed. What's the message?"
Message? Oh, yes. There's some creature Dorigar calls a waiting for you with a scroll from justarius. She won't it to anyone but you. An odd-looking little thing, if you "it-. Wings like spiderwebs. I don't know how she can "'J!e a head wind with them.
"justarius!" cried Guerrand, extricating himself from the tangle of rosebushes. "Why didn't you say so?" He booked the handle of the basket over his shoulder, hiked up the hem of his robes, and broke into a run.
Watching him flee, Zagarus muttered, I thought I did i*v ч1 Despite clouding vision, the wily old bird spied л fish leaping in the nearby straits and closed on it, Guerrand forgotten.
Instead of following the curving dirt path along the shore, the mage took a shortcut on the balk, the turf left unplowed between the rows of Jeb Sanbreeden's field of maize. The rich green leaves rifled Guerrand's shoulders and fluttered like a wave on the sea breeze of the late-Sirrimont day. Strange, he thought, that after five years he still thought in terms of the Ergothian calendar, instead of the Solamnic one the locals used.
Five years… Guerrand could scarcely believe so much time had passed since his and Esme's first night in Harrowdown, when Seth, the outgoing innkeeper, had recognized their calling and offered to hire the two mages for short-term work. Though Guerrand had found the man a bit unsettling, Esme had thought the respite the small village offered would do them good while they determined a direction for their lives.
They settled into a cottage on the edge of the village. Initially fearful of displaying their calling, little by little Guerrand and Esme let their skills be known. The people of Harrowdown immediately saw the good that could come from magic. The village and its people flourished. Months turned into two idyllic years for Guerrand.
He was not even aware that Esme had begun to find their life mundane until news reached them that Esme's father, farther north in Fangoth, was ill. Guerrand was equally surprised to hear that she was ready to return to her father and face the shadows of her past.
"You're hiding out here in Harrowdown," she accused him when he'd declined the offer to join her. "This was supposed to be a transition in our lives, not our final destination."
"I'm needed here now," Guerrand remembered responding defensively, "but I don't intend to live in Harrowdown forever."
"Your family in Ergoth, this dream you have of your Test and jumping from the tower as Rannoch…" She'd shook her head sadly. "You'll be here until you stop letting your past haunt you," she'd pronounced. Then, kissing him tenderly, bittersweetly, she'd wished him luck and exited his life with the same independent and determined spirit she'd exhibited on the day she'd entered it, in the hills surrounding Palanthas. He'd spent the last three years trying to fill the emptiness she'd left in him by helping the villagers of Harrow- down. Some days were better than others.
The field gave way to the first of the small buildings in Harrowdown, and Guerrand was reminded again how much the village had changed since their arrival. Timber-framed and of wattle-and-daub construction, the homes and businesses of the small village were neat, clean, and newly thatched. Guerrand remembered how run-down they'd looked when he'd first arrived; many had half rotted away, offering little more than a windbreak in winter and a place for rats and other vermin to find food in the warmth of summer. Life in Harrowdown-on-the-Schallsea had certainly changed since a wizard had come to town.
" 'Scuze me, Your Honor," said a stout woman in a well-patched apron, rosy jowls bouncing as she tried to match Guerrand's stride. "Just wanted to tell you them herbs you give me for Cowslip done brought the milk down again."
"Yes, well, I'm glad, Agnus. If you or your cow need anything else, just stop by the shop." Guerrand remembered the woman and her cow's malady, and he knew that if he allowed her to engage him in conversation for even a moment, he would be trapped for hours. The mage forced the pace of his stride until he left the woman panting before the huge, slowly turning water- wheel that marked the miller's shop.
Rounding the corner, Guerrand's glance fell upon two children on the green playing a placid game of mumblety-peg with dull trowels. He smiled and waved at their mother who was nearby, shooing chickens from the lettuce and onions in the small, burgeoning croft next to their house; she waved happily back. Wilery had come to him a fortnight before, haggard and pale, complaining that her children's wayward behavior was more than she could bear. A pinch of marjoram added to their daily milk had apparently calmed them considerably and put color in their mother's cheeks again.
Guerrand hastened past the Settle Inn. Seth, the scrawny innkeeper, spotted him through the open door and hurried out to the steps. "Stuffed that white chicken with wild onion and boiled him for soup," said Seth. "My luck turned around, just as you said it would!"