She hadn’t seen an omen in over a decade. Nor even anything vaguely omen-shaped (Tea leaves did not count; one could read anything from them. Many did.). But her arthritis was not as bad, this morning as others, and Edwina had not switched any herbs. Further, the old instincts coming back, like falling off a horse all over again, the weather had an unseasonable cold bite to it, and there were more beggars on the streets than normal, when she went to the market.
She still did that, omens be cursed! Routines could shatter them, or make them true. Edwina did not know which was true, or if either was. But it was comforting to see the same old shops, the same familiar faces two hours before noon, and she bought more than she usually did, and some food for travel out of a habit older than the pain in her lower back.
The market was bright and alive, but beyond the urchins she spotted more hungry faces, heard the desperation under merchants casual greetings, saw the way people paused to count up coin before paying, the way the few guards in the market kept their hands too close to the blade. Oh, then Edwina knew what was coming. She bought a few other things, lastly, before going home, and cleaned up the small single room flat she considered home, above the shop of a spice merchant who should have charged for the aromas she got for free.
It didn’t take long, but her body was old and it too longer than she lived before she began to make supper. She went down for some spices, before she was done, to mask the extra ingredients, and was unsurprised at the single knock on the door when the afternoon faded into twilight.
Edwina stood and walked over to the door, leaving her cane by the chair. It had no power, and she did not want to seem weak. “Welcome,” she said, opening the door.
The young man standing on the other side of it was tall and pretty, with eyes as cold and empty as the barren seas. He had a sword on either side, no doubt other blades hidden, and his hair was short, chopped ruthlessly above the far too pretty face below it.
“I am Edwina,” she said, offering up no bow or curtsey.
“Kel,” he said, voice low and rough. His gaze flicked about the apartment, even hunting into shadows “You expected me.”
“Or someone like you. Omens, you know. No dead birds,” she added, and he gave her a thin wintry smile but just followed her inside without a word, closing the door. He didn’t lock it; Edwina didn’t ask him to.
“Food?” he said, surprised, voice almost rising to its normal tone.
She pretended not to notice, nor the faint blush that followed. “It is poisoned,” she said, offering him a bowl. “Just in case.”
“Ahhh.” He let the breath out slowly, taking one. “All the dishes?”
“Not quite.” She poured them both wine, from her meagre stock. “Few seek out a mage in this age. There are few of us left.”
“I know. But there is something I wish for.”
“Hmmm.” She drank her wine, noting that he drank first. Courage, or something else? His eyes gave away nothing. “Across the ocean, this would not be done.” He waited with the patience of death, respecting her magic. Or perhaps only age.
“Warriors marry, in fair Calderon by the sea. It is law, there. To marry, to have children. To fight for more than lords and kings, gods and wizards. I would wish more did that here.”
“Calderon has fallen to such things many times, has lords who build castles they need to design to defend against their own hired mercenaries. That is not true here,” Kel said mildly. “We do not betray our lords. Not for love nor other things.”
“A pesky thing that gets in the way of duties and obligations. Yes, yes. I know all the reasons. You should know they don’t matter, who walk and do skilful murder and are nothing else beyond that.”
“But there is something beyond that.”
She said nothing in turn, starting on the salad. He followed suit, and broke first.
“I have married to death, to the battlefield, to the fatalclash of blades.”
Edwina nodded slowly. “I felt as much.”
“I have fought battles that would be legend, were their any bards left to speak of them. I have killed mages. Even wizards.” He smiled strangely. “With help, but even so. Two years ago I met my best friend from childhood. We did what was duties sake, and I killed him. He used to be better, but he hesitated when I did not.”
“It has not been the same since.”
“It has not. I find I want another path, but I cannot find one. Not alone. And so I have sought a mage, though few are left in our land.”
“And how many did you have to kill, to find me here?”
“Only three.” His smile was crooked now, and she was relieved the irony had not escaped him. It was possible to go so far even magic could not save someone. If they did not wish it, there was no magic that could at all.
“I do not know how many spells I have left in me,” she said. “I am old now, Kel of Orshkar Reach. A mage is not a wizard, to kill others and extend their own life, extend their own magic. We pay with our own years. Surely a wizard could help you more than I.”
“Wizards -- seek different things, and they would demand prices that would make this pointless.” He began eating the bread. “Many deaths, and always they would hold their power over me.”
“When did you first kill?” she asked.
“I was seven. Over this face, and a fool’s jokes.”
“You could arrange for scarring,” she said mildly, eating the rice.
He ate some, then looked up. “I tried; it made no difference.”
“And yet you had the scars healed, hmm?” He said nothing, not returning her gentle smile, and Edwina sighed and stood up slowly. “I will cast a spell for you, then, before I did.”
“Why?”
“You remind me of my daughter. I had one, before the magic woke inside me, and now -- well, I doubt she’d recognize me. In five years, I became close to this, and have walked the world since. Her daughter might be alive, but I have not looked in on them.” She smiled into his cold, cold face. “You should know better than to ask questions to which you do not want to know the answer.”
“I see.”
“What do you seek with a new life?” she asked as they finished the meal, before the silence became too brittle.
“A wife. Children, perhaps. A place in the world where I do not have to kill a friend again.”
She nodded slowly and leaned back into her chair as he reached for the wine. His hand shook, slightly, and he drew a knife from somewhere, swifter than thought and it flew through the air straight and almost, oh! almost true.
“You should be honoured,” Edwina said as the second blade fell from his fingers and Kel fell over. “Even for one such as yourself, who has made death his bride, it took longer to work than it should have.”
She stood slowly, trembling a little, ignoring the blade and pain as she had ignored all other pains in over two centuries of being old. “Almost too long. You make wake and remember this, you may not: I do not know. But one cannot be reborn without having died. The poison is only a short death. Your blade a - true one.
“ Mages die slowly, unless by our own spells. And so few do, because of what we’d return as. Because of what wizards can do to our bodies and spirits. It does not matter: you gave me my death, warrior, and I owe you magic.”
Edwina reached down slowly, the made moving that little moment it needed, and felt her life’s blood begin to flow from the wound. It was a simple spell, a minor wish only, and she threw the rest of her magic out into the world, to cure the aches and pains of those she’d known in the market a little, because there was nothing to hard now, and no reason to keep it inside.
Much of the magic had died, during her long time of wandering and wishing to do things other than die. But there was enough for those little things, and she sank down beside the warrior, and wondered as the poison killed her own pain and she drifted into sleep, just what he would think of his beard when he awoke.
Edwina truly hoped he would not cut it off, but she had put measures into the spell to prevent that.
“No excuses,” she whispered, or thought she did. “No more, for killing and drawing of blades. That is my gift to you, Kel. Wear it well.”
And then there was just blessed darkness.
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