The assignment was simple. There is a
wandering magician. He interferes in matters that do not concern
magicians. Find him. Kill him.
Working for the Metric Commission meant
dealing with problems. I had killed several with magical Talents in
my time. And one magician, though she was new to her power and I’d
barely escaped with my life even so. This assignment wasn’t like
that.
They gave me the aendar, a stone that
nullified power. And promises I’d be able to leave if I did this
one thing. I said yes. Sometimes that’s all you can do. There were
ways to find him, of course but I wasn’t about to try them:
magicians have good instincts for traps.
Instead I ended up in the town of
Cresthaven. Because it carried a scar in the skin of the world that
was opening and the magician would end up here. It was the sort of
thing magicians fixed and there were none around here. There were
four talents in two surrounding towns: killing them proved
surprisingly simple.
That was probably a warning. Only I
didn’t think so at the time.
The magician arrived three weeks later.
Places feel different once a magician comes to them. Like the calm at
the centre of a storm. As if everything was more real, more
important. There was a fulcrum here, and everyone knew it without
understanding what they knew.
He looked ordinary. That surprised me.
He wandered the streets and if I hadn’t been told what was wrong
with the town, I’d have never noticed him. But he paid attention to
the wound. I followed, waiting until he was done mending it.
He turned to me as I came up behind
him. The aendar was cold in my hand and warm as well as though the
stone were somehow liquid and solid as once.
“Ah,” he said, and then words in a
language I didn’t know. The aendar was in his hand a moment later.
The stone purred.
I didn’t move.
“You brought two snipers with you.”
He didn’t use power, not in the way magicians can. But he was
certain in a way that shook me.
“Three,” I admitted.
“Including you, yes.” He sighed.
“If I asked, would you tell me who you worked for?”
“I am trained to resist such things.”
“Mmm. You think that will matter to
me, considering you planned to kill me?”
“No. The stone was going to my my
method.”
The magician blinked once, studied the
stone. “Few can carry an aendar for three weeks without it leaving
them. Whatever agency you work with, you know how dangerous a
magician can be.”
“In a place of power, yes.”
He smiled, and the smile set me back a
step. “I am the wandering magician. Each place I wander to is a
place of power for me.”
I fell back another step at the truth
behind those words. I swore. I don’t often, but sometimes it’s
the only way to voice fear.
“Even if that were not true, you must
have known this would not work. Why did you do it?”
I think he threaded power into his
voice on a level so subtle I never sensed it; I’d like to think
that’s why I answered. “I wish to retire. Almost no one has. I am
tired of – the things that have to be done to keep the world safe.
Of how much I’ve lost and given up of myself, my own dreams. I
wished to be free from those I worked for.”
He laughed. The magician’s laugh
shook me with the kindness that lurked under him. “You have an
aendar stone: they unmake bindings, and some magics as well. Whatever
connected to you to your employers is gone, Aram.”
“And those who came with me?” I
asked.
“I have dealt with them.”
I didn’t ask. If I have learned
anything, it’s that some things are best left unknown. “And what
happens to me?”
“That is up to you. I will let the
stone go: no one is meant to hold one, and certainly not for three
weeks. You may forget some things you knew, but some of that will be
the stones doing on the behest of your former employers I imagine.”
I nodded. I could have asked for his
help, but there are some things you don’t do.
“And Aram?”
I paused, half-turned away. I’d never
told him my name, but he was the wandering magician.
“If you try and kill anyone else with
a Talent in your life, you will answer to me.”
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