Glamour of the God-Touched (2 page)

“Evo will kill you if you chase his coin
away.”

Garrick chewed his bread. It tasted like
sand. “He looks like a crimson buffoon.”

“You’re just jealous.”

“Why would I be jealous of a Koradictine,
and a grimy one at that?”

“He’s fair enough.”

“He’s too old for you.”

“That just means he knows the world. Perhaps
he’ll sweep me off my feet.”

“Not likely.”

The Koradictine waved Arianna over. She
wiped her hands down her apron and moved to attend to him.

Garrick grabbed her arm.

“I’m serious, Arianna. If he keeps talking
to you I’ll—”

“You’ll what? Zap him with one of Alistair’s
lightning bolts?”

He sized the mage up.

“Maybe.”

Arianna arched an eyebrow and removed his
hand from her elbow.

“I’ve got to go to work.”

She went to the Koradictine then, leaving
Garrick to daydream of raking the mage with his own high magic.
What a stir that would cause—him, a Torean apprentice, taking down
a Koradictine.

He would be able to do it someday.

Someday soon, too.

And now that Alistair was also bringing
Garrick into his
business
dealings—his superior taking him
to visit Caledena’s Viceroy next week being just one
example—Garrick was feeling, perhaps for the first time, a sense of
true confidence. He knew the basic structure of spell work, he had
cast smaller cleaning magics and mending cantrips so often that his
gates and the pathways to the plane of magic had scoured themselves
into his mind. It felt good to actually have a future.

It gave him a swagger bold enough he was
actually able to talk to a girl like Arianna. It was just a matter
of time before he would be able to address this situation in the
manner the Koradictine deserved. He hoped Arianna would not be
fooled by this fop’s advances. Or, to be precise, he hoped Arianna
would not be swayed by the lure of a full mage. At least not
yet.

It could happen.

What did he know of her, after all?

They had talked often, and they had shared
that one kiss. But who really was Arianna, daughter of Helene,
floor maid of the Ladle? Certainly she was beautiful and quick
witted, but was she trustworthy? Was she the kind of woman who
could fall for a swarthy Koradictine?

These questions flashed through Garrick’s
mind as Arianna approached the Koradictine.

The mage gestured out the window as she came
to his table. Both of them laughed. She smiled at him, and put her
hand on his shoulder as he pointed to the menu Evo had chalked on
the wall earlier.

Garrick liked the Koradictine less every
moment.

He hated the air of superiority that came
with
every
Koradictine, the air that marked the order as
certainly as that garish crimson vest did. He despised the aura of
control the mage conveyed, and absolutely loathed the wiry patch of
a beard the Koradictine was failing to grow.

It was all disgusting.

What was it about Koradictines today,
anyway? Garrick had been in Dorfort for less than an hour, and he
had already seen enough crimson to last a lifetime.

Made him sick to his stomach.

In truth, Garrick knew little about the
orders—only that Lectodinians and Koradictines had very different
ideas about how magic should be done, and that they detested each
other. Their only area of agreement was that independent Toreans
were the scourge of the plane, and that Torean wizards should, at
best, be ignored.

He scowled and gripped the edge of the
counter.

Garrick would alert Alistair to the
Koradictines’ numbers later this evening, and if his superior was
feeling talkative enough he might teach Garrick something more. If
not, then Alistair would file the information away to index against
other reports, and it would come back to Garrick later.

The Koradictine finished ordering and, as
Arianna turned to leave, he pinched her high on her hip.

She jumped and batted playfully at him as
she walked away.

Heat rose to Garrick’s cheeks. Was she
actually encouraging this lout?

As Arianna neared, though, her face grew
dark, her jaw set at a firm angle, and her step grew purposeful.
She stalked toward the back to give Evo the mage’s order, and as
she came to Garrick’s place she paused and spoke in a low, firm
tone.

“Just don’t get caught,” she said.

The doors swung stiffly shut behind her.

Garrick and the Koradictine exchanged grins in
the way men do when they think women aren’t watching.

To the Koradictine, Garrick was probably
just some young punk, eighteen or nineteen. Maybe older. Garrick
was thinner than most his age, and a shade taller, a combination
that made him feel awkward. His dirty-blond hair was pulled off his
face for travel, making his features even more peculiar. He wore a
simple cloth shirt and riding breeches that were frayed and scuffed
by long use—not that he ever dressed for much otherwise. Even if
the Koradictine was aware of Garrick’s apprenticehood, he would
probably not have cared. And, even if he had already been
triggered, Garrick was a mere
Torean
—an annoyance at
best.

He stood at the counter, feeling the
pressure of Arianna’s comment and the Koradictine’s smugness. It
was time to defend his woman’s honor, time to make this Koradictine
into the fool he most certainly was.

He would have to be careful, of course. The
Koradictine could not know what had happened or things could get
out of hand—and Garrick most certainly didn’t want to cause a big
enough furor that it got back to Alistair. His superior would be
livid if he found Garrick playing pranks on a mage of the order, so
he would have to be sly. But Garrick could link to the plane of
magic, and he had a few useful little spells at his disposal. He
was sure he could manage it.

As he reached for his link, Garrick focused
on the Koradictine’s ale. The honey-sweet taste of magestuff pooled
in his thoughts and wicked up through his gates until it was ready
to go.

The mage brought the mug to his lips.

Garrick lidded his eyes and concentrated on
the essence of the mug, then the ale. He imagined a hole in the
ceramic just below the mage’s lip. He pictured a fine stream of
amber liquid dribbling out of the hole to splash over the
Koradictine’s vest. “
Ajero,
” he whispered while at the same
time twisting a finger.

The flow of magic burned through his
link.

The mug shattered with a resounding crack,
pieces of ceramic flying in every direction. Amber liquid
splattered across the table and—with the best of all blessed
luck—all over the front of the Koradictine’s prized vest.

“Gods be damned!” the Koradictine cried as
he held the remnant of his mug aloft, ale dripping from his beard
and nose.

Conversation around the room drew to an
abrupt silence.

All eyes turned to the Koradictine.

Garrick struggled to maintain a proper face
as the mage’s cheeks grew to be as red as his vest.

“What are you grinning at?” the mage said to
Garrick as he threw the handle away, slid from his seat, and dabbed
at his vest.

Hearing the ruckus, Arianna came from the
kitchen.

She stopped short, and stifled a chuckle.
“Are you all right?” she said as she went to the Koradictine.

Evo arrived next, wiping his hands on a
towel. He was a big man, and his bald head glistened with sweat
from the cooking oven’s heat.

“What happened?” Evo said, his gaze flashing
between Arianna and the mage.

Arianna opened her hands at each side, her
eyes growing wide. “I don’t know.”

“Use your brain, cook,” the Koradictine
said. “Your cheap mug soaked me.”

“It broke?”

“I was drinking, and it shattered. Ask the
boy there.” He pointed to Garrick.

Evo looked at him.

Garrick steeled himself for the final
touch.

“He poured it on himself,” Garrick said.
“Then he broke the mug. I think he’s just looking for a free
meal.”

“You’re a damned liar, boy.”

The mage took a step toward Garrick, but Evo
interceded, biceps bulging.

“I think it’s time you left,” he said.

The Koradictine gathered his wits and glared
at Garrick with a stare laced with venom.

For a moment Garrick thought the mage was
going to cast a spell. He worried that the faint aroma of honey
associated with his own magic might have wafted to the Koradictine
and given him away.

“So be it,” the Koradictine finally
replied.

He returned to the table to pick up his hat,
and a walking stick he had leaned against the wall. He looked at
Garrick. “You’re getting on to being a man someday, boy. You best
think about taking care of yourself.”

Then the Koradictine pointed at Evo.

“And you, sir, have lost my meal coin.”

Then he was gone, and the place grew
awkwardly silent.

Evo turned to Arianna. “That’s coming out of
your pay.”

“But “

“Clean the table,” Evo said as he returned
to the kitchen.

Everyone went back to their food.

Conversation rose.

Arianna picked up the bigger pieces of the
mug, then swept up the rest. She grabbed her rag and flung it at
the table, wiping in hard, circular motions. There would be a price
to pay for this, Garrick saw. But it would be worth it. When the
table was dry, she straightened and went toward the back to dispose
of the debris.

“You owe me a mug,” she said as she passed
him.

He could not help but smile.

Garrick was nervous as they left the Ladle. The
memory of last week’s kiss was firmly on his mind.

It had taken Arianna only a short while to
forgive him, and by the time he returned with Alistair’s supplies
she was already laughing about the expression on the Koradictine’s
face. She even told the story to several patrons.

Now darkness was nearing, and he walked with
Arianna through a woods stained red by the setting sun. The trees
gave the coarse smell of wood, and a dry creek bed ran nearby. The
thatch of the winter past scratched a thin tune in the faint
breeze.

He left his hair free because Arianna said
she was fond of it that way. His shirt and breeches were no defense
against the evening chill, but the weight of his pack caused him
enough exertion that he kept warm.

She walked with a shawl draped over her
shoulders, her gait free and graceful, the skin of her face soft
and dark in the evening light.

“Did you have to shatter the entire mug?”
she said.

“I admit that was a mistake.”

“Indeed, it was. I thought Evo was going to
throw me out.”

Garrick sighed.

“That’s not what I meant. I didn’t mean to
actually break the mug at all. I really just wanted to put a hole
in it so the ale would flow into his lap.”

Arianna laughed—he liked it when she
laughed.

“That was brilliant, then,” she said.
“Perhaps you cost me a husband, though.”

“He would not have been good for you.”

“And you—the man who has stood at my counter
and boasted of being a lone wolf in the forest, and who has said he
could never tie himself to anything—you
would
be good for
me?” Arianna replied.

He swallowed anxiety.

Garrick had never been in love before. He
had never yearned to know another person, had never known it was
even possible to feel this way. It was hard, after all. It hurt in
such a strangely good way. The thought of exposing this desire
brought a weird mix of excitement and nakedness that he just didn’t
understand.

Did
she
think of
him
the same
way?

“Perhaps your charms have changed me,” he
finally said.

“Gods!”

“I don’t believe in them, and neither do
you.”

She cast him a sideways glance as she
stepped over a root. “Perhaps
they
are what have changed
you?”

“Now you’re just laughing at me.”

She gave a perfectly wicked smile. “Perhaps
a little.”

He turned to her.

“Let’s be serious, Arianna. You know I don’t
want to be a mason, or a member of the city league. And I don’t
want to be tied to the orders because I’ll not serve another if I
can avoid it.”

“No self-respecting Torean would.” Arianna
gave an understanding nod.

“You’re different, though. I can’t stop
thinking about you—about our last walk. About…I’ve never thought
about what might come later…I’ve never…”

He looked for words of poetry here,
something befitting the moment, but his tongue was stuck to his
mouth. Finally he blurted.