Chương 1: The boy

Ch 1: The boy

"Aye, he's Touched alright," said the magister, putting down his glasses as his face lost expression.

"I'm sorry for the bad news, brother." Marcus' father leaned against the wall of his smithy like he'd been struck. He put a hand to his chin, his dark eyes far away. Marcus already knew, course. He'd known for a few years—ever since he started lighting fires without meaning to. But he'd managed to hide it from his father. From everyone. Until the 'incident'.

"If it's… not much," said his father, "we can hide it. You owe me that, by God. Nobody cares about one little boy on the edge of empire. We'll just forget it ever happened." Marcus practically snorted from his hiding spot near the bellows. He'd had an… accident. In town. And it was fair to say the cat was out of the bag. A boy he didn't like much picked a fight with his best friend. Marcus knew not to fight, but he did it anyway.

Savros was his best and maybe only friend and Yanev and his two mates were thrashing him. So what the hell could he do? He'd pushed them off, and tossed some fists, and Marcus tried not to get mad but he did. Then the damn innkeeper's stables went up in flames for no damn reason at all. So, the town had come screaming to his father, and pretty soon they sent for a magister. A magister meant your life was over, or at least no one would ever see you again. Now here they were.

And the fact that the magister was an old war buddy of Marcus' father would make no difference. Just like begging or saying you were sorry wouldn't make a difference. Nothing ever did. The magister lowered his head and paced across the smithy like he was thinking, but Marcus knew how things were.

"Thing is, brother, the boy's got..." the magister threw up his hands, "he's got almost no mana to speak of."

"Well, there you are," said Marcus' father, looking relieved.

"The nobles won't want him. He'd be useless in battle." The magister shook his head with a grave expression, and Marcus knew he was especially screwed. It figured. His whole life had been terrible things that made folk shake their head and never mention it again. His friend Savros had said it best.

"Boys like us," he'd told him after his mother died in the second plague.

"We got bad luck, right?" Savros liked to turn most of what he said into a question.

"You see that castle over there?" Marcus had looked sullenly and wiped at his wet, sleepless eyes.

"That there castle has boys our age born with silver spoons in their asses, don't it?"

"I think it's their mouths," Marcus had managed through a sob.

"Whatever. Point is, they're lucky, right? Their Da's don't go to war and never come back, do they? And their Ma's don't take up the worst, cowardly men in town like mine, or die of plague like yours. They got everythin'. And it all comes from good luck. You and me? We got bad luck. And it helps to know that. Makes things easier." Marcus had never forgotten his friend's words. And he was right—it did make things easier. Including everything the magister said to his father next.

"Thing is, well, I'll just say it... your boy... he's got a trigger off the scale I brought. And without any kind of mana pool, he's got no choice but to pull it from the world around him." Here he stopped, and Marcus' dad looked at him with hard eyes, as if they both knew what he was saying, or was about to say.

"He's a Lifestealer, brother." Marcus didn't know much about magic, except that if you had it then a magister came and took you. But even he knew Lifestealers were bad. Everybody said they died young, usually on a battlefield, usually on a side where men didn't shout 'for the king!' but 'I'll kill you, and your dog!', or something else awful. They weren't as bad as witches, maybe, but they were a close second. People burned witches.

"He just needs discipline," said Marcus' father.

"You and I both know you can fight a big trigger with practice. I can teach him to keep it controlled."

"At the academy," said the Magister as he nodded.

"You're right. They'll train him, teach him how, he can have a good life there with..."

"I am not sending Marian's only son to a fucking prison of stone like an animal."

"Don't be dramatic," said the Magister more quietly.

"I was there for three years as a boy. It wasn't so bad. They let me go when I'd learned. It's the only way he can..."

"I've told you, I'll teach him! I fought in the fucking mage wars my whole life without a drop of the cursed gift, and I'm still alive. You think that happened by accident?"

"I know it, old man. I know what you did and what it cost you. Gods above, I'm trying to help you, and your boy. But you're not a mage."

"Then go back to the Guild and tell them it was nothing. I'll train him, I swear it. You'll never hear from us again." Marcus hardly knew his father could say so many words, and be so convincing. He'd only known him a little while since he'd come back from the war. Mostly he was a stranger, a stranger who'd come into town with a wagon stuffed full of bags, asking all over where 'Marian and her son' was. He'd arrived and paced in front of the house.

When he'd finally come in and found out Marcus' mother was dead awhile back from plague he'd wept like a child. Then he stayed, and took care of all the things Marcus was struggling with like the crack in the door and a few holes in the roof. He paid off debts and bought good clean food and cooked it for both of them. But he said little enough. Eventually he said he wanted to take them to a different town, but Marcus didn't want to go. Without another word about it, his father opened a smithy right in the house.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work. He must have done well because there was always food to eat. He didn't seem a bad sort. But talking to the magister was the most Marcus had heard him speak in six months.

"I would, you know I would," said the magister, looking a little stiffer now.

"But I can't. It's not about me or you. Your boy's trigger's too strong. Some kid will make him angry, or some girl will break his heart, and he'll just go off. If it was just our lives I was risking I could do it, but I can't risk what damage he might do to others. I'm sorry, I truly am." Marcus just about stood up from his hiding spot. You didn't argue with magisters, even if they were old buddies from the war.

Their word was law in the provinces, and even mayors and nobles did what they said, usually with a 'thank you, sir'. But Marcus saw a look in his father's eyes that stopped him cold. Something fierce and terrifying that made his bladder squeeze and his knees lock in place.

"I'm the one who's sorry," he said, his voice different. Worse.

"He's all I have left in this world. All I have left of her." The magister seemed to recognize the change, and got quiet, like he was talking to a skittish horse.

"If any man deserves peace and time with his boy, it's you. But he can't stay here. If there was any other way…" he shook his head.

"It's not a bad sort of life at the academy, despite what you may have heard. With his pool he won't ever be an important mage, but he'll be fed and taught and..."

"I saved your life at Murina," said Marcus' father, looking down now, his face back to normal.

"God curse you I know it," said the magister, his jaw clenching.

"And for that I'll owe you for the rest of it. I swear to all the gods I'll look in on your boy. After the first year, maybe two, you'll be able to visit him. Once he's considered safe the rules change. It gets easier, and before you know it..."

"You're not taking the boy," said Marcus' father, the harsher look in his eyes returning as he turned with an unfinished blade in his hand.

"Marian didn't tell me much about her life before. But she woke in the night screaming about your academy. It was the one thing she would never have wanted. I won't send her son. Not while I'm still breathing."

"Now you quit that foolishness," said the magister, a harsher tone and deadly look in his own eyes.

"I'm a mage of the fifth rank. There's nothing you can do to stop me. So put it down."

"I could have jumped you before you were ready," said Marcus' father.

"But I owed you one more chance. The mage wars taught me one thing, brother, there's always something a man can do. So go, turn and leave me and my boy in peace, or look to your life." It was real quiet after that. Like it got just before a bolt of lightning.

"You won't make it three steps," said the Magister. Light flared as the man extended his hands. Marcus grabbed the broom next to him and stood, ready to charge and stand beside his father as they died. He didn't really think about it, just as he hadn't thought before he defended his friend. It was just the right thing. Then the magister coughed and didn't seem to know what to do with his hands. Marcus flinched as what must have been spit sprayed across his face.

The light flickered, and the man stopped casting and reached for his chest, and Marcus realized the knife wasn't in his father's hands anymore. It was in the Magister's throat. The robed servant of the king stumbled and tried to hold himself up on the anvil, staring in disbelief at Marcus' father before he stumbled and collapsed.

"You stubborn bastard," Marcus' father said as he went to the other man and seemed to hold down his arms.

"I always warned you about overestimating magic. You never fucking listened." The magister thrashed and choked as he stared, then went still. Marcus' father closed the man's eyes then looked back over his shoulder.

"Come on out, boy. You were listening the whole time?"

"Yes." His father nodded like he approved.

"Then you know why I did it. How do you feel now? Is your skin getting hot? Do you feel anything in your chest?"

"N-no. I..." Marcus put a hand to his forehead, feeling mostly numb. His skin was a bit warm but nowhere near as bad as it got when things went up in flames. He ran through the exercises his father had taught him after the 'incident', counting slowly from one to ten, then back down, then up in twos...

"Good. You're doing your exercises?"

"Yes. But I think I'm fine." He looked at the corpse and all the blood spilling out. So much blood. He knew it was on his face, too, and smelled the copper. He'd seen plenty of dead animals, and plenty of dead folks during the plague, and even apprenticed with the butcher awhile before his father came home. But he'd never seen a man die violently like that.

"What do we do with…him?" he asked when he found the courage.

"They'll know he's in the village, or close by," said his father as he grabbed a cloth tarp from a shelf.

"We pack two bags, and we run. We won't have long before they come looking. We'll have to get far away. Start new lives." Marcus felt the tears coming down his cheeks and wiped them away. He had lived in Bremen his whole life, never going more than a few miles in any direction. His friends were here. Everyone he'd ever known was here. His mother was buried in the graveyard a hundred steps away.

"Maybe it's best... if I turn myself in," he said.

"We can burn him, say it was my magic. They'll take me to the academy. Like it was an accident." His father stopped packing and met his eyes, then came forward to kneel before him and took his arms.

"Clever boy. But I won't give you to them. You understand? You're my son and I'll never leave you with others. Not again. You come with me now, wherever I go." These were ground shaking words to a boy like Marcus, though he wasn't sure he believed them. Not after a life like his.

"I don't want to hurt anyone." Marcus hated his own blubbering and weakness before his father. But he couldn't help it.

"I don't want to hurt you." His father smiled. Despite the corpse and all the terrible things it seemed warm and safe and good.

"Isn't nothing you can do that scares me, boy," he said.

"So you don't worry about that. There's not much left of me." A little water formed in the man's hard eyes, and though it didn't help Marcus' tears, it made him feel a little less ashamed. His father cleared his throat.

"What's left of me is for love of your mother. I'll look after you because you're hers. And that's the end of it. Until you're a man grown you'll do as I say. After that, you'll do as you please."

"Yes, father." Marcus didn't bother wiping his face anymore.

"Good lad. Now go pack some things. We'll burn him, just like you said. It'll throw them off at least for a little while. Then we run east, to the coastal princes. Not even the Guild will find us there." An hour later they were on a cart with a horse and half of their things heading east. Marcus was torn between excitement and sadness, the worst part not getting to say goodbye to Savros.

"But he won't know why," he'd blubbered to his father.

"He'll think we weren't friends. Maybe I can leave a note?"

"I'm sorry, boy," his father said.

"But there's no time and we can't leave any sign. We'll burn the house. And when the rumors spread, he'll understand. Now get your things." So that's just what they did, then took the old dirt road to old man Seamus' farm that turned to mud every spring and fall. But it was summer now and dry as a bone. They'd follow it to the main cobblestone road that led past the city and all the way through the lands of the republic. Marcus looked back at the smoke and flames where his house used to be.

He heard the men calling out and probably running back and forth to the well trying to put it out. He hoped no one tried to go inside and be a hero. There was nothing left to save except a dead magister.

"Your name's Felix now," his father broke the silence and Marcus' reverie.

"Call me…Sylvio. We're going to the coast to trade. Once we're there... I don't know. I'll figure something out. Maybe we'll join a ship. No one will ever find us on the sea."

"Yes, father," Marcus said miserably, trying to be brave. It was hard to imagine a different kind of life—passing through giant cities and seeing the sea.

"Have you ever been on a ship before?" Marcus' father smiled a little, then patted his knee.

"I've been most everywhere. Don't worry. I'll teach you. About the world, about your gift, about me." He met Marcus' eyes, and for the first time there seemed something more than the deadness Marcus had seen for the past months.

"We're going to be alright, son. I promise. I'll protect you. I'll teach you everything."