Magic Astray (The Llandra Saga) (3 page)

Randall and Berry were content to travel in silence. At one time, Randall might have been excited to have someone on the road that he could talk with. He couldn’t really hold a conversation with Berry; he didn’t know nearly enough of the donnan’s language to keep up any kind of decent conversation. Not that the sprite seemed to be interested in the same kinds of things that Randall wanted to talk about, anyway. But the years of living off the land had made their mark on Randall, and he had grown to love the peace and serenity that came from keeping one’s own counsel without feeling the need to fill the silence with needless chatter.

After another hour’s travel, Eamon finally broke the silence. “Hey! Aren’t we going to take a break, or did you plan on trying to walk all the way to Shaderest forest in one day? My feet are killing me,” he wheezed, out of breath.

Randall stopped, puzzled for a moment.
His
feet were fine. Eamon seemed fit enough, so why did he sound so exhausted? Then the realization hit him: Erliand’s healing talisman! He carried it constantly under his tunic, and had grown so used to its effects that he had completely forgotten that most people couldn’t travel from sun-up until sun-down, only taking short breaks for meals.

“Sure,” Randall said as he moved off the road. “Now’s as good a time as any to break for dinner, I suppose.”

“You’re not tired?” Eamon panted. There were patches of sweat soaking through the armpits of his tunic, and he sounded slightly out of breath.

“Not really,” Randall replied. “I can pretty much walk all day. You’re going to have to speak up and tell me when you’re getting tired, because if you’re going to make this entire journey hanging back like some kind of scared puppy, I’m not going to notice when you’ve over-exerted yourself.”

Eamon nodded and followed Randall off the path, sitting down heavily in the grass and lying back, his arms spread wide and his chest expanding as he took in deep lungs full of breath.

“Berry, why don’t you find us something good to put in the stew while our friend here catches his breath,” Randall said.

Berry chittered excitedly and scrambled down from his customary spot on Randall’s shoulder. Randall had grown to trust the imp’s judgment when it came to ingredients. He didn’t always know the different plants and tubers that the donnan brought back, but they almost always made a welcome addition to the stew pot. Well, almost always, anyway.

“Hey, Berry,” he called out, causing the donnan to stop in his tracks and look over his shoulder. “No bugs this time.”

Berry chittered and stuck out his tongue before scampering off to look for food. Randall busied himself with making camp and starting a fire as Eamon watched from his resting place. It seemed clear to Randall that the boy still had something on his mind, but hadn’t yet gotten up the courage to speak about it.

After a few moments of watching in silence, Eamon cleared his throat and sat up. “I have a question.”

Randall suppressed a grin—he knew Eamon would break eventually. He remembered his first trip from Geldorn, newly apprenticed to Erliand and buzzing with questions but too afraid to speak. Erliand had kept his peace, waiting until he could no longer take the silence. Forcing him to make the first move had helped Randall drop his guard and bridge the distance that was between them at the beginning.

“So, ask, then,” Randall said.

“Why didn’t you kill me back there when I threatened you with my crossbow?” Eamon asked, toying with the grass and not making eye contact.

Randall sighed. “Because I didn’t think you’d really shoot me in the back. What would be the point of killing you? Have
you
ever killed anyone?” He waited for Eamon to shake his head negatively before continuing. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told you then. It’s easy to kill someone. What’s hard is living with it afterwards. I’ve had to kill, yes.
Had to.
And even though it was in self-defense, those men that I killed were still men. They had families. They were someone’s son, or brother, or husband, or father. I wished to hell I hadn’t had to do it. You think it’s fun? You think I enjoyed it?”

Eamon looked up at the rising anger in Randall’s voice before looking away again. “I guess not,” he mumbled.

“Well, I didn’t.” Randall spat.

But it was a lie—some part of him
did
enjoy killing those men. That was what truly fueled his anger and guilt. Not that he had taken lives, but that part of him had reveled in the power over life and death that his magic had given him. And he hated himself for it.

Randall brooded a few minutes longer in silence while he continued to make camp, annoyed with himself. He had probably just destroyed whatever rapport that he had hoped to build with Eamon. After a moment, he spoke up.

“Look, Eamon, I’m sorry I snapped at you. I don’t know what kind of stories you’ve heard about me, or what you’ve heard about the fighting that went on in Ninove, but you have to understand that those are just stories. They probably aren’t even close to what really happened. I was just a kid when all that happened—I bet you’re older than I am.”

“I really didn’t think about it like that,” Eamon said with a conciliatory tone in his voice. “I’m sorry. I guess with all the stories I heard, I expected something different.”

“It’s not your fault. I guess I’m just a little touchy about it,” Randall conceded. “Look, Berry’s coming back. Let’s see what he’s brought for the stew.”

Berry skipped up to Randall, burdened with an armload of leafy matter. Randall took the offerings, and examined it carefully. “What is this, Berry? Some kind of grass?”

“I’m not eating grass,” Eamon declared from where he sat.

While Berry’s mouth always seemed to be turned up in a perpetual grin, Randall was learning to read the subtle cues of expression in the rest of his facial features. He was sure that he saw annoyance in the glance Berry shot toward the newcomer before he began chittering excitedly, too fast for Randall to follow. He was able to make out the word “good” several times, though, and he held up his hand in surrender.

“I get it, Berry. It’s good,” he laughed as he sniffed the grass tentatively. “Hm. It smells a little like lemon. Well, I suppose it won’t hurt to add it to the pot,” he decided before looking back over at Eamon. “And if you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it.”

Randall tossed the grass along with some dried rabbit, turnips and wild carrots that he fished out of his travel sack. The meal would be a simple one, more soup than stew. With Eamon tagging along, they would need to hunt for fresh game more often in order to keep themselves well fed.

For all the time Randall and Berry had spent together, the donnan had not learned patience at mealtime. As the stew began to cook and the camp filled with a savoy-sweet lemony odor, the little imp began pacing back and forth, chittering excitedly and occasionally shaking his tiny fist at the stew pot.

Eamon watched Berry’s antics with growing fascination, a grin creeping onto his face. After observing for a few moments, he called over to Randall. “So, what exactly is he, anyway?”

“Well, he’s some kind of fae, of course. I’m told he’s called a donnan,” Randall said with a shrug. “Don’t ask me what that means. I have no idea. All the Mages I’ve spoken to about it seem frightened of him.”

“Doesn’t look that frightening to me,” Eamon snorted as he watched Berry scold the cook pot.

“Me either. My momma said that he’s also called the Harbinger, on account of whenever a donnan shows up, bad things are supposed to happen.”

Eamon took on a thoughtful look, before replying. “Well, I guess I can see her point. King Priess
was
killed after it showed up, and it threw the whole country into chaos.” Randall’s mother had made a similar argument when he had told her about the imp.

“But that wasn’t Berry’s fault!” Randal protested. “It was…it was mine,” he concluded, his chest deflating. “I’m the one who convinced Mages to fight back against the king’s secret police. The Rooks were killing us—even children! They’d have killed me if I hadn’t run. Berry had nothing to do with it.”

“Well, couldn’t you have just not practiced magic?” Eamon asked. “It seems to me that would have been much easier than starting a rebellion.”

“Could you stop having brown hair?” Randall snapped back. “Being a Mage isn’t something you do. It’s something you are. You’re born with the Talent; they would have eventually found me and killed me regardless. I’m just glad Master Erliand had been there to teach me how to defend myself first.”

“Master Erliand? I haven’t heard of him. Who’s he?” Eamon asked, leaning back and propping himself up on one elbow.

“He’s the Mage I was apprenticed to. The Rooks killed him. Let’s get dinner, and I’ll fill you in on all the details. It’s a long story.”

Randall pulled the cook pot off the fire, and both he and Eamon shared a laugh at Berry as he unsuccessfully tried to have his portion before the pot had cooled. The donnan squatted down in the grass and stalked the cook pot, as if he thought that he could snatch a mouthful of soup before the heat drove him away, if only he were sneaky enough. After stalking the pot for a few moments, he would pounce onto the lip of the pot, only to leap off again with a chittering yelp, scolding the pot for thwarting him.

“You think he’d have learned by now,” Randall chuckled. “He does that every time.”

Once the soup had cooled, Randall dished out portions for everyone. He only had two bowls, so he and Barry ate out of the same dish. Eamon had to admit that the citrus-like grass was an interesting and tasty addition to the soup.

Over the course of the meal, Randall outlined his entire adventure, from running into Master Erliand at the job fair to the fight with Aiden, the head of King Priess’ secret police. He left out the fact that he had completely burned out his magical ability in that final battle. Eamon looked up to him, due in large degree to his reputation as a Mage, and part of him felt ashamed at admitting that he no longer had the ability to draw power from Llandra.

“So, you see, Berry really had nothing to do with what happened. I really didn’t have much to do with it either. We mostly just had the bad misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Randall concluded.

“I guess so,” Eamon said, but he didn’t seem entirely convinced. “That’s not the way the stories tell it at all, though!”

Randall laughed. “Of course it isn’t. What’s more exciting? Me fighting bog-wights with lightning at my fingertips, or spending weeks tied up in the back of some greedy bounty hunters’ cart?”

“Well, the bog-wights, of course,” Eamon snorted. “But something about that part bothers me. If Berry is supposed to be so smart, why did he leave you tied up in the first place?”

“You know, I never thought to ask,” Randall said, turning his attention to the donnan curled up on the grass, seemingly dozing after the meal. “Why
did
you leave me tied up back there?”

“No danger,” the donnan chittered without opening his eyes. “Following right path,” he continued, followed by a long string of words that Randall couldn’t follow.

Randall sighed in exasperation. “He says that I was going that way anyway. Sometimes I think he doesn’t think about things the same way we do. Anyway, if your feet are up to it, we should probably try to get another couple of hours’ worth of travel in before evening time.”

Eamon groaned. “I can probably walk a little bit longer, but I’m going to be sore tomorrow!”

“Fair enough,” he said with a nod. “It’ll probably take us three or four days to reach Shaderest at this pace. You’ll grow used to the walking the more you do it.”

Randall considered using the talisman he carried to help heal the worst of Eamon’s aches and pains, but quickly discarded the idea. Erliand had stressed that healing magic was a mystery owned solely by the elves, and that they would kill to keep that secret. Though Eamon was his traveling companion, Randall hardly knew the young man, and he didn’t really trust him yet. He’d learned his lesson about being too trusting when he was kidnapped by his last travelling companions—people he’d come to think of as friends.

Eamon interrupted his train of thought. “Do you really think we’ll see the elves once we get there?” he asked, a touch of excitement in his voice.

“I don’t see why not,” Randall answered. “The caravan that I ended up traveling with used to trade with them a couple of times a year. I don’t think they’ll be that hard to find.”

“Elves!” Eamon said, more to himself than to Randall. “Who’d have thought one day I’d be seeing elves!”

Randall smirked to himself, remembering a time when he was nothing but a country bumpkin. And if the truth were told, he would probably still be seen as such to a more sophisticated traveler. But Eamon clearly looked up to him as knowledgeable and worldly, and Randall basked in the adoration. In the not-so-distant past, nobody took Randall seriously, or considered what he had to say to be of any great importance. It was a welcome change.

* * *

It took nearly a week to reach the edge of Shaderest forest, moving at the slower pace that Eamon required. Along the way, the two young men shared stories of home, though Eamon was more interested in hearing tales about Randall’s adventures. The older boy was also more than happy to do his share of the camp chores, though he balked at most of Berry’s suggestions when it was his turn to tend the cook pot. By the time the forest was in sight, Eamon’s feet had toughened somewhat, and the pair of travelers had fallen into an easy camaraderie.

“We should probably make camp,” Randal called out, dropping his travel sack as the tree line came into view. “I want plenty of light to hunt for the trail, and if we start early, we’ll probably reach the forest by mid-morning. I’ll go hunt for something to add to the cook pot if you’ll get the camp ready,”

Eamon nodded his assent and began emptying Randall’s travel sack and preparing the camp site. Berry leapt off Randall’s shoulder and began dragging items from the bag around the camp. Randall felt a pang of jealousy; as often as not, Berry stayed behind at camp to play with Eamon and keep him company. Randall pushed the feeling away. It was easy to think of Berry as ‘his’, but he had come to see the donnan more as a friend than as a pet. It wouldn’t be right to try to tell his friend what he could or couldn’t do.