Which brought him to Elaine. Little Elaine. All this time, he had been harboring a mage under his roof. Jonathan sighed and leaned back in his chair. A broken table levitated through the shed door, turning itself effortlessly to fit through the narrow opening. Would Elaine be able to do that, someday?
He had known deep inside that she possessed power, but he had pretended. He had not wanted to know the truth. She had nearly died today. When he touched her, she had been icy, like the long dead. It had not been Tereza's words that had decided it for Jonathan. It had been Elaine's ghost-pale face. Her immobile hand like death in his warm one. The memory of her lying in the snow had decided it for him. If her magic could kill her, she had to be trained. He would not risk her dying because of his prejudices.
A circle of sparks like multicolored fireflies danced against the shed's windows. The question was, could Jonathan stand a mage under his roof? A trained, powerful mage in his household? He had never had children, and never regretted it. What he had not admitted, even to himself, was that Elaine, Blame, even Konrad-they were his children. Or, at least, his family.
Tereza had lost two babies in childbirth. The doctors said another might kill her, and the baby would most likely die. Thordin told of healers in his own land, those who could heal with a touch-could bring life, true life, back to the dead. Jonathan would have given much to have such a healer bring life to his dead children. To heal the pain he saw in Tereza's eyes, and in his own.
A whirlwind danced out through the shed door. In and among the swirling dirt and debris, magic lights whirled, so fast that the individual lights became stripes of glowing color. Snow blew upward in white plumes, reflecting the colors. Dirt mixed with the blowing snow, obscuring the bright lights. All that whiteness and the rainbow lights turned dark. The whirlwind rose above the snow, leaving its load of trash behind, then floated back in the open door.
Magic was like that. Pretty, even beautiful, but it dirtied what it touched. Then it floated away, untouched.
With a sigh, Jonathan turned away from the window. He scooted his chair up to his desk. The top was surprisingly clean. Tereza had recently made him go through all his papers. There had been something comforting about the familiar stacks of papers, and now the bare desktop looked somehow intimidating.
A letter lay in the center of that smooth, dark surface. The heavy velum bore only a few scrawled words. Calum Songmaster's bold, theatrical hand was reduced to a wavering line. It was the handwriting of a sick man, an old man, a dying man. Jonathan slammed his hand on the chair arm, three hard blows. It wasn't fair. It simply wasn't fair.
He shook his head, a soft smile peeking through his beard. Jonathan Ambrose, mage-finder, bemoaned the Fact that the world was not fair. As if he hadn't known that for years. It was funny, and bitter. No matter how wise in the ways of the world, some things are too awful to understand or forgive. Calum's declining days in a sickbed was one of them.
Thordin claimed there were healers in his homeland who could save Calum, could make him whole again. Jonathan shook his head sharply, as if to clear such thoughts away. Brooding would not help. Answering the letter might.
The note said simply:
Dear Jonathan,
The village of Cortton has fallen under an evil spell. They have asked for the brotherhood's help. Please aid them.
Yours in Devotion, Calum Songmaster
Jonathan reread the letter. It said the same thing. No new information appeared. It was not like Calum
to be so brief, but if it was painful to write. Still, it bothered Jonathan.
Calum was their contact, their only link to the rest of the brotherhood. It was he who passed to them assignments from the rest of the brotherhood. Jonathan had served with them for most of his adult life, but he knew none save Calum and a handful of others. That handful took its orders from Calum. The original intent had been to protect the brotherhood's leadership. If an operative were caught, tortured, he could reveal only a few names, and no one who was irreplaceable. The movement itself would not be hurt. Mow Jonathan chafed under the restriction. Calum was dying, and if he died without passing his own contacts to someone else, they would all be' cut off.
Jonathan could still battle evil, but as a vigilante going from one disaster to another. There would be no long-term goal to work toward. Fighting individual evil was a good thing to do with one's life, but ultimately useless. The evil sprang up faster than any one person or small group could destroy it. But if they destroyed the evil that infected the land, cut off the maleficence at its source, there would be no new monsters. If the evil stopped breeding, the monsters could be hunted down one at a time and killed. Even the evil magic might fade, the evil that corrupted all magic-users. Jonathan was not sure he believed that wholeheartedly. Mages were a weak lot, easily tempted. He sighed.
His thoughts turned back to Elaine. He shifted his chair toward the window. A soft amber glow filled the hut. It took a moment for Jonathan to realize it was fire-healthy, normal fire gleaming against the windows and open door. Flickering shadows caressed the snow outside the door.
The piles of debris were gone. The snow looked as if some great broom had brushed it clean. Where had all the broken pottery, the warped furniture, the dirt, the rotten cloth, gone? He shook his head. He was not sure he wanted to know. He hoped Lilian, their maid, had not been watching. If she saw how quickly magic could clean, she might be tempted.
Of course, as far as Jonathan knew, a person had to be cursed with the magic from birth. She could not simply choose it.
Gersalius came to the shed's open door. Firelight bathed him in warm colors. He had a broom in his hands.
Jonathan sat up straighter in his chair. If the old wizard was going to take to the air on the broom, Jonathan wanted to see it. He had heard of such things, but never been witness.
The wizard bent over the broom, hands a foot apart on the stick. Orange fire shadows turned the ordinary broom to gold, or perhaps that was its true color. The wizard breathed a great fog into the air-a word of command?
Jonathan stood, leaning close to the cold glass.
Gersalius propped the broom against his body, rubbing his hands against the cold. When the broom was once more firmly grasped, he began to sweep the stone stoop.
Jonathan stepped back with a snort of laughter. Perhaps the wizard heard him, for he looked up. He must have, for he waved, then went back to sweeping the snow. It had not been some giant hand that had cleaned the snow, but one old man with a broom.
Gersalius stooped and picked up a small bit of cloth. He shook it out, frowned, then made a sharp flicking motion with his hand. The cloth vanished. No light display, no wind, no tricks; it simply was no more.
Jonathan stepped back from the window so he could no longer see the disturbing old man. Perhaps Gersalius could not fly on a broom, but what he could do was bothersome enough.
There was a solid knock on the door. "Enter," Jonathan called.
The door swung inward. Thordin entered. His square shoulders filled the doorway. His round face looked too small atop his powerful shoulders. Both the roundness and the size was heightened because he was totally bald. His head gleamed softly in the lamplight. The bones of his skull seemed thick under his skin. Thordin held the door while Blaine limped in behind him.
"Blaine, you should be in bed, resting," Jonathan said.