The Morning of Magic

The Morning of Magic:

Tales of Wizards and Adventure volume 3

Edwin C. Mason

© 2013 Edwin C. Mason

all rights reserved

GND Publishing

Toronto ON, Canada

Smashwords Edition

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Contents

The Lake

The Guardians of Roydai

The Enemy of My Enemy

Cards

The Long Wait

Masks

Also Available by the Author

About the Author

The Morning of Magic:

Tales of Wizards and Adventure volume 3

Edwin C. Mason

The Lake

Margaid watched while the others rowed. It was the privilege of age, and the hard-earned white hair resting on her shoulders attested to her right in the matter.

Ealisaid rowed beside Voirriy. Friends for many a long year, they were nothing alike. Ealisaid's wide, fleshy body contrasted with her friends bony-slim and wiry frame. Only in their dark hair and knowing eyes were they similar. Blaanid's youth and prettiness contrasted with the rest of them, as did her flowing blonde hair. Paai, the newcomer, rowed beside Blaanid. Older than her rowing partner, younger than the rest of them, she had crossed the mountains with her husband and sons a year hence.

The lake rippled only to their passage, lily pads undulating, the air still around them. Good, any wind would have made the day a little too cool. They had thrown off their cloaks enough to enjoy the sunlight and the sweet air, far from the thickness of the village.

What shall we do today? Ealisaid asked.

Voirriy flashed her tomboy grin. Go fishing.

Margaid laughed because life was good.

I'm serious, Ealisaid said, trying to hide her own smile.

So am I. The fishing was dreadful last year, and blessing the fish will bring more food.

So will catching one or two, Blaanid chimed in.

Paai scowled. Be serious, all of you. We've come to bless the crops so we don't go hungry next winter. If only one of you recognised the seriousness of the business we do....

Margaid said, We know, Paai, we know. She trailed a hand in the lake, cool water splashing her bony fingers, taking her back to her childhood. Back to the first time she came to the lake when she was seventeen and prettier than Blaanid. We bless her mother said that day, sometimes we shift or adapt. But what we do here we do for health and wellbeing, for good and love and warmth and happiness.

Yes, we know what we are doing here, Voirriy said, not missing a stroke in her rowing, but we are also five friends, we don't see enough of each other, and a joke or two on the water does no harm.

Paai looked off to the side for a time, then turned back. You don't know harm. You haven't seen harm, not in all Margaid's years. You've been too quiet in your villages on this side of the passes. You've been too happy.

She hadn't brought news when she came, not a word of why she left. She was strong and skilled, though, and crops grew well under her care. Sick children got well, and no one here healed broken bones or other injuries with half her delicacy, half her skill. They had no choice but to accept her for what she could do, but Margaid would as soon have learned how she got such skill, and how she got such anger.

What's that?

They all looked where Blaanid pointed. Margaid saw no more than a blur of green and brown against a blue sky. No, something moved there, but she couldn’t' make it out.

Soldiers.

No!

Yes, sister. Soldiers, Voirriy said again. I can see their spear points glittering in the sun.

Margaid gave up trying to see them and looked at her sisters within the rowboat. Ealisaid and Voirriy looked thoughtful, Blaanid scared. But the anger on Paai's face disturbed her more than all the rest.

What do we do? They asked it in different voices and different words, but they all asked the same thing and they all asked it of her.

Her children and grandchildren lived in one village or another along the valley. She wanted to run and comfort her granddaughter Breeshey who would be so scared. She wanted to stand up to the captain and push him back by force of will. That didn't seem likely. Soldiers do frightful things to old women who stand in their way. So her mother had said all those years ago. Margaid didn't know; war had never come here. Well, not until now.

The decision rested on her shoulders, no one else's. She rolled her tongue to moisten her mouth enough to talk. We continue to the sacred place and pray for guidance. Row now, and with feeling.

The creaking of the oarlocks and the low splashing of the blades drowned out all other sounds for a while, until the boat thumped against the dirt shore. They heaved together to beach it properly — no one wanted to walk home — and started toward the hole.

The sacred place was more than a hole of course, a place where the roots of four great trees converged over a small hollow in the earth. The trees would have fallen over centuries past if not for the blessings of those who worked beneath them. Instead, they grew tall and strong, dropped apples and chestnuts in their seasons, and so nourished those who nourished them.

They all held on to Margaid and helped to lower her to the ground beneath the trees, then gathered around her in a circle, cross-legged or squatting or lounging depending on age and flexibility.

Now, what shall we do? she asked.

Stop them! Paai said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Ealisaid shook her head. Her voice was gentle as always. Search them out. Find and understand them; then we can decide.

They are men! Paai said They are men armed and bent on war! What can there be to search, to understand?

Margaid extended her hands, saying, Take hold, sisters. We must learn what manner of men they are before we can take action. That much was as clear to her as the warm smell of the earth and the cool of the shade.

Paai snorted, but she took the hands of the sisters beside her.

Eyes closed, their minds drifted on the winds. Disoriented at first, they touched the winds and swirled about the oaks and beeches. Then they caught sight of the sun, judged direction and angle and swooped toward the army, pausing only to caress a new-hatched sparrow in its nest.

Men they were, lean and scraggly, scarred and unshaven, hard of body and mind. Hungry. Margaid knew the recent taste of horseflesh in their minds, along with the vile taste of violence done, and not just violence on the battlefield. She read a defeat in their minds, and flight, and the beginning of a search for a knew hire. She read rage and fear — always together — and the mean desire to fight again and regain some of their pride and confidence.

As I told you, men.

Hush, sister, Voirriy said.

Then Blaanid's voice, Your husband is a man. Someday your boys will be as well.

Margaid's eyes opened. Blaanid still held her right hand, Voirriy her left. Her disorientation these days was often worse returning to herself than floating on the wind, and when her anchor parted....

Not like these.

She sat in beneath the old roots, leaning against the dirt wall, apart from the rest.

Perhaps you should tell us how you know men so well? As soon as Margaid said it she wanted it back. In all her years she had never known being snappish to help, and especially not when dealing with one of her sisters.

Paai scowled. I have seen more of the world than you have, from the high mountains to the cities. Has one of you ever left this valley?

Ealisaid opened her mouth, but closed it at the slight head shake from Voirriy. Given half a chance she would relate again the tale of her epic journey across the ridge to the village of Hul's Crossing for her niece’s wedding. That wasn't seeing the world as Paai would have it, and this was hardly the time for a tale of sweetmeats and dancing.

My grandmother spent thirty years outside the valley, Margaid said. She told me much of those times, of the face of evil and the face of war. That is one of the reasons I've never left, but that doesn't make all armsmen evil.

Blaanid scowled for a moment. There were soldiers when I was young.

Voirriy nodded. When the high lord from somewhere-or-other called all his men, one band passed through the valley. They paid for food and danced with the young girls. They were good men, farmers and tradesmen shoved into the ranks. When they came back through they were fewer and bitter, but still good men.

Paai looked between her feet, then out of the roots, then at the women. The wrinkles on her forehead stood out. Through pinched lips and clenched teeth she said, Fine. Do as you will.

They must be stopped. Ealisaid said it first, bless her gentle heart. Children flocked around her like cats at feeding time, but iron lurked beneath that flesh, the iron of a shovel blade or ploughshare, not a weapon.

They must be stopped, Blaanid said, and Voirriy echoed half a beat behind.

Margaid looked at Paai. As eldest, she declared last, and always would. Even without the need to break a tie, she waited. Finally Paai spat — outside the sacred place at least — and said, They should be killed. But they must be stopped.

Margaid nodded. They must be stopped. But how?

Confusion.

Blindness. Just temporary. Then we can lead them away.

Trap them.

Rot their food and spoil their drink.

Margaid sighed. That would only make them meaner and more desperate, and that we do not need.

A crow cawed outside, a grim reminder of what would come if they didn't act soon enough. They all reacted to it, turning to look. Blaanid shuddered.

Confusion so we can lead them away. Margaid thought about the possibilities in that. Removing the soldiers would remove the threat, and that was all they wanted to do. A portal, she said. Past the valley, so they have no thought to return.

Paai covered her mouth with her hands, then said, No that will just send them on to the next valley, and the villages there will suffer at their hands.

Then send them back where they came from, Voirriy's face remained grim.

Back where they came from, back to their homes the women couldn't know, or back to the battlefield?

Or send them on, Ealisaid said. Her kirtle rustled as she shifted position. Not just to the next valley, but all the way to the next war. There they will find what they seek, employment, and busy men are always less trouble than idle ones.

Blaanid asked, Would that be worse for these men, or the men we send them to? Does it matter? We would still send them to death and violence. Like the rest of you I have sworn neither to hurt nor endanger, never to curse. We bless, we cradle, we nurture.

Leave it to the youngest to admonish her elders, but she was right. All of her friends looked sobered, and Margaid didn't want to think how her own expression might have changed in the last minute. Still, that left the danger and no sure resolution.

We must act, Paai said, and soon. It takes time to weave a portal, especially one large enough to move an army, and it takes time to camouflage it.

They kept silence for a time. What then? Where could they be sent but forward or back?

Voirriy grunted. They looked at her. Send them to their lord's home, wherever that is. There he will be responsible for them, he'll want to keep them from harming the populace, and he will have the resources to do so. She leaned forward slightly. "There may be unforeseen consequences there, crimes they may be guilty of,