As he splashed along through the mud and grasses, he plucked at his garments, releasing more of the gift to freshen the color and dispel his unwashed body odor. His once neatly trimmed goatee had grown out and the stubble on his cheeks was long and scratchy. Bugs hummed around him, thirsty for his blood, and he used more of his gift to dispel them. It was exhausting and annoying.
With no trail to follow, he kept to hummocks of grass, working his way through reeds taller than his head. He easily vanished among them. He was surprised to find a path of trampled grasses on solid ground, a trail perhaps made by swamp boars or deer, but the path widened as he walked along. The reeds were too high for him to see far ahead, but the narrow streams led to larger pools of water where fish jumped—and he found baskets tied with cords and weighted down in the water. Animal traps of some kind? He saw footprints in the mud on the path.
He paused, wondering if these were Adessa’s footprints, but he hadn’t seen the morazeth leader in days, and he was sure he had lost her. No, this was something else, maybe a real settlement with dry homes and good food.
Maxim followed the trail through the reeds until it became an actual footpath, joining other paths leading from the scattered fishing ponds. Abruptly, the reeds opened up, giving him a view of the Killraven River, a calm oxbow on which stood a village of more than fifty reed huts, some structures extending out on stilts, with smaller huts built in the marshes. He saw racks of gutted fish angled over smoky fires, and his stomach grumbled with hunger. Villagers went about their daily business. Some took canoes through the waterways, while larger boats ventured out of the calm oxbow into the river’s main current.
Seeing the settlement, Maxim felt true joy, not just at the thought of warm food, clean clothes, and a dry place to sleep. This was a real town with a fair number of people, and he needed people if he was ever going to build a new city for himself.
Maxim counted more than a hundred men, women, and even rambunctious children. Fishermen in canoes dumped their catch on wooden docks, while half-naked villagers sat on reed mats at the shore to gut the fish and cut the heads off, separating the meat and the offal into different buckets. Old women tended smoky fires to preserve the fish. Teenagers clustered together weaving reeds and marsh grasses into baskets, while groups of women pounded the reed fiber and twisted it into twine, with which they wove and strung nets. Women and men came in from foraging in the marshlands, carrying sacks of spiny seedpods or muddy tubers they’d pulled up from the soft ground. Small children lay on paddleboards in the mud near the shore, using little nets to scoop up crayfish, which they dumped into pots.
Maxim was pleased to see his new village thriving. Cleaning any last smears of mud off his face, grooming his dark hair, which had grown longer than he preferred, he walked out of the marsh. With the power of his gift, he could make these villagers think positively of him, see him as their new leader, believe every statement he made.
He’d used that power long ago to enchant Thora into becoming his lover. He’d been ready to give anything for her! He had wanted her so badly. By the Keeper’s crotch, if only he could go back and tell himself not to waste the effort. There had indeed been some good times in their relationship, maybe a hundred years out of fifteen long centuries, but the best part was that he never needed to see Thora again.
He came into view with his arms raised, and as the villagers noticed him, their casual singsong chatter dropped into silence. They stared at the stranger in wonder and fear.
Seeing that he had their attention, Maxim released his gift with a flourish and made a boom of thunder echo through the cloudless sky. Then he put on a benevolent expression as he stepped forward. “I greet you with kindness. I am Maxim, the wizard commander of Ildakar.” He waited for the name to sink in, and smiled more broadly as he released his gift, let a tingle of glamour flicker through the air, like a blanket smothering their uncertainty. “And I have even better news, because I am now your wizard commander, too! What is the name of this village?”
“Tarada,” said an old woman at her fishing nets, plucking at the twine and tightening a knot. “We are a simple folk, and we have little. If you’ve come to steal, you’ll be disappointed.”
“I’ve not come to steal,” Maxim said. “You have great potential, and that is what matters. Who is your village leader, so I can meet my second-in-command?”
A broad-shouldered man in his midforties came forward, not looking happy. He had short gray-brown hair and was missing two fingers on his left hand. “I am Danner. I resolve disputes here, but Tarada doesn’t need much more leadership than that.”
“You have more leadership now. You have a wizard commander.” Maxim released more glamour, and the people muttered, nodding, displaying uncertain smiles.
“We’ve never had a wizard commander before,” Danner said.
“Then this is a great day for your village. I’ll help you make changes. You are all my subjects, and we’ll build Tarada into something much greater than it is. You’ve never before dreamed what was within your reach, but I’ll help you make it happen.” Maxim smiled at all of them, glad that he no longer needed to hide his face with a mirror mask. These people were already in the palm of his hand.
“First I’ll need food, clothing, and a home appropriate to my station.” He gestured to the town leader, who didn’t yet understand that he no longer had any power here. “Danner, find me what I need. I’m sure the people will be happy to sort through their possessions and provide the necessary items for their wizard commander.”
He scanned the women in the town, wistful for the beautiful noble ladies at his pleasure parties. When he had left Ildakar in turmoil and fled into the wilderness, he hadn’t considered how long it would be before he had a woman in his bed again, to lay her down and stroke her, to hear her moan as she experienced the pleasure of being the wizard commander’s lover.
The women in Tarada seemed plain and washed-out, looking older than their years from eking out a life with no luxuries. He did see some young ladies still barely in their teens. Maybe if they were cleaned up, he might find them attractive, and if Tarada was going to be the start of a new rule for him, he would have to grant these people at least some small reward. If the women pleased him, he would return the favor.
Men paddled in with their canoes, curious about the stranger that the rest of the villagers gathered around. Larger boats returned from the wide river, and Maxim greeted them all. He maintained the calming veil of his gift like a mist throughout the air. The village was already his, and he merely had to finish arranging the details.
Within several days, thanks to Maxim’s efforts, Tarada entirely changed. Five of the smaller huts had been torn down, and the reeds, structural poles, and thatched roofing were used for a much larger building. It certainly wasn’t a palace—anyone in Ildakar would have laughed at the very suggestion—but it did have a certain amount of grandeur in relation to the rest of the village.
Until now, life in Tarada had mostly concentrated on gathering food, and the people had succeeded well enough, but Maxim had far greater ambition, and he had to start his new empire somewhere. Even Ildakar had humble beginnings on the shores of the Killraven River in ages past. Once he established himself in Tarada, Maxim might move on to a grander place, maybe one of the bustling towns downriver. Tarada was a fine start, though, and he was pleased with his progress.
Danner proved to be quite skilled as his second-in-command. The man knew all the villagers and resources in Tarada. Under Maxim’s glamour, he threw himself wholeheartedly into serving the new wizard commander.