“Says who?” demanded ’Gren belligerently. “How’s he ever even heard of my brother?”
“I told my Archmage that I had discovered magebirth was not unknown among the Mountain Men, as we have always supposed.” Usara lifted his chin defiantly. “That you seem unaccountably able to suppress your elemental affinity—” he shot Sorgrad a look of annoyance and suspicion—“is something better left until we return to Hadrumal. We can explore that peculiarity there.”
“You can forget that, mage,” said Sorgrad disdainfully. “I’m not going to Hadrumal as long as I’ve got a hole in my arse.”
Usara squared up to Sorgrad like a bantam taking on a fighting cock. “Planir said—”
“Why do you say magebirth is unknown among the people of the mountains?” Gilmarten’s courteous question in his soft Soluran lilt cut through Usara’s ire like a knife through cheese. The mage was still looking relatively dapper after our rough couple of days, though the loss of his hat meant he was a little sun-scorched around the face.
“Because it is, I mean, they don’t.” Usara looked bemused.
“They do in Solura.” Gilmarten looked a little self-conscious. “At least, I have met mages of both half- and quarter-Mountain blood and heard tell of at least one pure-blooded.”
“Something else you lot in Hadrumal got wrong?” ’Gren taunted.
“What about Forest blood?” Usara’s question was half a heartbeat behind my own.
“Something else you don’t know, Sandy?” asked ’Gren silkily.
The Soluran wizard nodded. “It’s the same as far as I know; uncommon, but not unheard of.”
“There’s your answer then.” I spoke hurriedly to stop ’Gren stirring the fire any higher. “If you want to get yourself a new apprentice, we see if there’s someone here with the…” I couldn’t think how to phrase it. “Somebody mage-born.”
“We have methods of teaching by rote in my tradition that could certainly offer these people some means of protection,” offered Gilmarten with a nervous smile. Usara looked obstinate but also unsure, aware that the ground had somehow shifted under him.
“Let’s get a grip on the reins here. Squabbling among ourselves is just handing advantage to the enemy,” said Darni firmly. “We need to know who we are fighting, so ’Sar, scry out the closest valleys. See which are mustering for a fight. You two, you know the mountains and you know fighting; the hunters here know the woods. We need to draw up a map tying everything together. We’ll want at least one trained mage in any fight but if we can find mage-born folk hereabouts who can defend their own, that’ll free up more fighting men and women. Gilmarten and Livak, go and see what you can find out.”
Darni’s bull-headed assumption of command at least broke the deadlock. The big fighter headed for Bera and ’Gren followed, Sorgrad walking more slowly, expression unreadable. Usara sniffed crossly as he bent over his scrying bowl but the irritation in his face gradually waned as he wrought his magic.
I turned to Gilmarten, who smiled uncertainly at me. “Let’s start with Harile,” I suggested. “He’ll probably have some ideas about who might be mage-born.”
We went into the gray gloom of the cave mouth. “Harile?”
“Over here.” He picked his way through the pallets and blankets wrapping tightly packed bodies. “What can I do for you?”
“Usara’s scrying out your enemies,” I pointed out the mage hunched over his bowl. “If you’ve something to dull pain without addling his wits, it would help.”
“I can make a tisane to give him a lift,” Harile suggested.
“Many thanks.” I felt Gilmarten stir beside me. “I was wondering, do you ever have mage-born among the Folk?” I asked casually. “It shows itself about the age Drianon bloods a girl, among the outdwellers at least.”
We followed Harile to a fire where he swung a battered kettle over the hottest flames. “We tend to notice it hereabouts when Trimon breaks a boy’s voice. With girls it’s any time after Larasion brings them into bloom.”
“What do you notice? What exactly signifies magebirth to you?” Gilmarten tugged absently on his tuft of beard.
“Some are an utter nuisance anywhere near a hearth until it passes. Fire either burns through half a night’s fuel inside a few moments or just dies away and refuses to be relit.” Harile paused in mixing pinches of herbs in a beaker. “You get some who don’t leave a footprint for half a year, and there’s always the story of one lass who got rained on from Solstice to Solstice, just her, you understand, no one else.” He laughed. “But I’ve heard that tale from a handful of folk between here and the southern sea, all saying it happened to a friend of a friend, so I think that’s just wind in the long grass.”
“Let me take that to Usara.” I reached for the cup and Gilmarten walked with me. He scratched his head, perplexed. “I’ve never heard of sympathy with an element just going away.”
“Can you tell if someone is mage-bom? Is there some test?” I set the cup down next to Usara and we went back to Harile, who was mulching some leaves into a poultice.
“There are methods of determining where the principal sympathy lies,” Gilmarten answered, “when the effects are first manifesting themselves.” He looked concerned. “Is it possible that if a sympathy is not trained it is lost?”
“Not if Sorgrad’s any guide,” I said with determination. “Harile, do you know of anyone here who once showed signs of magebirth? They might be able to help our wizards defend your sick and elderly.”
Harile set his bowl of pulpy mess down at once. “Come with me.” He led us to a fire no more than a few embers smoldering in a nest of feathery ash. Those sitting around it were somewhere between youth and adulthood, with little more than a blanket and a few salvaged possessions to cling to. None had anything like blithe confidence I had come to expect from Forest Folk.
“This is Sarachi.” Harile indicated a youth with Forest red hair over a face that should have been following a plow in Caladhria. “He showed magebirth, as far as we could judge.”
“What of it?” The lad had a hint of spirit left.
“This wizard thinks you could help him.” Harile indicated Gilmarten.
Sarachi started to get to his feet but Gilmarten waved him to sit again. I perched on a stump and watched quietly. Gilmarten lit a twig from the last glow of the fire.
“Concentrate on the flame.” He handed it to Sarachi. “See if you can make it smaller.” To my eyes, the feeble yellow flicker didn’t vary in the slightest until the flame threatened his fingers and Sarachi dropped the spill.
“I need a cup of water.” Gilmarten looked around as if he expected to see a potman. One of the girls wordlessly handed him a carved wooden beaker. “Cup your hands.” Gilmarten poured a little water into Sarachi’s hollowed palms. “Keep it there as long as you can.” Disappointment was audible all around as the water trickled out from between Sarachi’s fingers, despite the effort whitening his knuckles.
“No matter.” Gilmarten sounded as if he meant it. If he didn’t I’d finally met a wizard to challenge to a game of Raven. The Soluran scraped up a handful of earth, picking out fragments of long rotted leaf and then dusting it lightly with ash from the fire. He pressed this into Sarachi’s open palm. “See if you can lift the ash out of the earth. Concentrate, visualize the gray moving out of the brown and being carried away on the wind.”
Sarachi frowned with effort and in the next instant the whole handful spiraled upward into the air. We all looked up and then cursed as specks of dirt fell in our open mourns and wide eyes.
“An air sympathy,” said Gilmarten happily, “or affinity as they would call it in Hadrumal.”
“But you told me to concentrate on the earth,” objected Sarachi.