There
was no hope of escape or release for the burning soldiers. They could
only writhe, and scream, and cry out for a quick death that was not
awarded. The sight of it nauseated Ion and filled his body with cold
terror, but he couldn't bring himself to look away. He stood as if
frozen, as if something outside of his own will commanded him to
watch as the soldiers perished in the flames. So he watched, as their
skin withered like winter leaves and their flesh melted away from the
bones...
There
was no one around but Magus, who was also petrified. He was curled up
on the ground, his face buried in his hands and his knees drawn to
his chest, as if he himself had perished silently along with his
victims. But when Ion finally managed to tear himself away from the
horrifying sight, he knelt down beside the boy and felt for a pulse.
He was alive. “Get up,” Ion ordered, nudging him with his fist.
Magus
uncovered his face and looked into Ion's blue-steel eyes. His face
was blotchy red and stained with tears, but Ion could not muster
sympathy. “Did you see what occurred out there?” he asked
urgently, tightly gripping the boy's shoulder. “Tell me what
happened right this instant, and don't you dare lie to me!”
“It
was...me,” Magus told him in a cracking voice that gave way to more
tears. He covered his face again and his whole body trembled and
heaved. Ion took a step back. He knew it couldn't have been a
lie—this boy, by some inexplicable force, had truly managed to set
an entire squad of soldiers aflame, and so he could be capable of
anything at all. Ion had to take a few moments to think over what was
to be done next. Finally, he approached the boy cautiously and, when
he did not react, he grabbed him under both armpits and lifted him to
his feet. He found himself staring down into a terrified pair of
eyes.
“How
did you do it?” he asked.
“I...I
had to do it, sir!” Magus insisted through his blubbering.
“They...they were...going for the city...the princess...”
“That
isn't what I asked,” Ion said sternly. “I asked how you did it.”
“I....can
do things like that...” Magus admitted. “I...it's my
magic...it's...” The sound of approaching horses startled him into
silence, and his body tensed. “Behind me,” ordered Ion, removing
his sword from his sheath. Both were relieved to see that it was only
Ion's seven comrades, with Lovisa at their head. Without really
thinking, Magus ran to her, and she flung herself from her horse and
took him into her arms. “Oh, Magus!” He felt as though he melted
into the warmth of her arms. “Are you all right?” she asked, her
eyes full of concern. He simply nodded, and she held him close.
“Lovisa,
be careful!” Ion said urgently. “All of us must be careful! He
has proven to be dangerous—I've observed what he is capable of!”
He looked down at his feet and winced as the image of the soldiers'
gruesome end appeared in his mind. It was a memory that he knew would
never leave him. “An entire army, engulfed in flames that had no
discernible origin! Each and every one of them perished in a fire
that seemed to have come from the sky. I watched them perish! I heard
their cries as the flames consumed them—the most haunting sound I
have ever heard in all of my days! It was a horrible way to perish,
to be sure, and the boy himself confessed that it was all his
doings!"
“I...I
had to do it!” Magus said abruptly. “If I hadn't, then so many
others would have perished! They were Aldine's soldiers! They were
heading for the city! I had to do something!” He raised his voice.
“I had to protect the city! I had to protect the princess!”
He
gripped Lovisa's arms, his eyes overflowing with tears again. “Please
understand me, Lovisa! I had
to
do it!”
“You killed your own
soldiers?” was Morgana's hasty response, but she was ignored. The
others were stunned to silence. Lovisa held Magus as he looked into
her eyes and silently pleaded for her, of all people, to understand.
But she just didn't have the words to say. His and Ion's stories
seemed like the retelling of a shared nightmare, rather than
something that had actually taken place. Finally, Ion spoke: “Come
with me. I'll lead you to the fallen.”
“I'll stay with Magus,”
Lovisa said, but Ion shook his head. “He is coming with us, and so
are you,” he told her, and though Lovisa's stomach churned at the
thought of charred corpses, she chose not to argue. She set Magus on
her horse and climbed up behind him. Magus turned to look at her, his
eyes pleading. “You do understand me, don't you?” he asked.
“I'd like to, dear,”
Lovisa assured him, “but right now I'm just not sure what I can
understand.” When his face fell, she rubbed his head and said, “But
don't worry. Either way, I won't let anything happen to you.” He
relaxed, settling himself comfortably against her as she urged the
horse on.
What had once been an army
of soldiers and their horses was now a mass of blackened corpses,
their faces frozen in the agony they had died in. Piles of ash that
had once been flesh were morbidly decorated with what remained of the
regalia of Aldine. Sanjaia gagged and turned away, clamping his hand
over his mouth and breathing heavily to fight off the nausea. Rodin
closed his eyes. Lovisa wanted to follow suit, but she couldn't; it
was as if an external force willed her eyes to stay open and fixed
upon the gruesome scene. The sheltered young lady from an Eridell
herbalists' commune had never seen anything near as awful as this,
and as much as she wanted to tell herself it wasn't real, she knew
better.
“How did you do it?”
Morgana asked Magus, simultaneously fascinated and horrified by a
human child with the power to cause such destruction.
“I...I have magic inside
of me,” Magus said, trying hard to avert his eyes from the carnage.
“I could always do things like this...”
“You're a human,”
Morgana said almost accusingly. “Where did you get that kind of
magic?”
“I don't know!” Magus
insisted. “I don't think I got it from anywhere! I've had it for my
whole life!”
“You
were named for it,” Rodin observed. “Or...were
you?
Is Magus your given name?”
“It's the only name I
ever had,” Magus said.
“Your mother named you
that?” Rodin asked.
Magus shook his head. “They
gave it to me at the convent. I don't know what my mother named me. I
never knew her.”
“You grew up in a
convent?” Eluani asked. “What sort of convent was it?”
“I
didn't grow up there,” Magus said hastily. He was getting annoyed
with the questions. He just wanted Lovisa to take him in her arms
again, and take him back to the palace with the good food and the
warm bed. He just wanted to forget this entire afternoon and at least
pretend to be a normal boy that someone actually cared for. But he
knew he'd lost the chance to do that, and he had a dreadful feeling
that he would never see the palace again. He cursed himself for
running away. “I just lived at the place when I was really little,”
Magus went on, “and then they sent me away. I grew up on
the streets, all
right?”
“Look,” Troy said, “we
don't really need to hear the kid's entire life story right now.
We've got a much more pressing issue to deal with.” He looked over
the army of charred corpses as if he needed to commit them to memory,
or else assure himself that they were in fact real. Then he reached
for his communicator, and this time Magus refused to run away.
Princess Cordelia of Rasta
was not Magus' idea of a princess. Of course, he had never seen a
princess outside of books and pictures, as he had not been alive
during the princess days of Aldine's Queen Alora. What Magus knew of
princesses, he knew from storybooks and fanciful tales that he had
been told in his childhood. They had not taught him to expect a
princess in chainmail, with a sword at her side and a strong, stocky
black horse built like a tree. The princesses he knew of wore
trailing gowns and rode elegant white steeds.
Magus
stayed close to Lovisa, holding on to her hand tightly as he watched
the princess and her party examine the remains of the fallen Aldinian
soldiers. She was at least as beautiful as the princesses he knew of,
and right now her lovely face bore an expression of horror and
disgust. It unsettled Magus to see her dainty hand, wrapped up in an
armored glove, prod at and turn over the bones of the dead. This was
not an affair for a princess; a princess ought to be locked away in
her chamber, safe from such sights. Oh,
please, Magus
pleaded internally, don't
let her find out I'm responsible! Not yet, not now! But
it was not to be; that knight in red was already carrying on, telling
her everything in his dramatic, theatrical way. “One moment they
were making their way across the field, and in the next moment they
were ablaze! Their death was brutal...they screamed and writhed in
agony. I watched their skin wither and melt away from their bones...I
know that those cries and those sights shall forever haunt my
dreams.” He winced at the memory and put his hand to his breast. “I
have met with many horrors in my days, and I have long learned to
steel myself in the face of them. But this was something that I was
wholly unprepared for. There seemed no explanation, no real reason
for these soldiers to die as brutally as they had. But then there was
the boy...”
Now both the knight and the
princess fixed their eyes upon Magus, who stared back defiantly in
spite of himself. He wanted to hide, but he wouldn't. His hand
tightened around Lovisa's and his body became hard as stone as the
princess approached him. “Hello there,” she said, with a voice
much friendlier than Magus could have expected. “So, you're the
knights' young house guest from across the border, am I right?”
Magus did not respond. “I'm
awfully sorry that we had to meet on such terms,” the princess went
on. “I had a much warmer welcome planned for you at the city
entrance. Have the knights been treating you very well, dear?”
Still, Magus refused to
respond. He resorted to a tactic he had learned on the streets of
Aldine, in which he pretended to be a statue and therefore could not
speak, move, or even display any outward emotion. It was something he
employed when he was questioned or interrogated. Lovisa picked up on
it immediately and realized that she would have to do the talking.
“I'd like to think that we are,” she told the princess. “We
cleaned him up, we gave him some food, he's had a nice rest...”
“And this was all by the
Jewel's instruction?” asked the princess.
“Well, yes,” Lovisa
answered. “But do you know what? I think I would have done it
regardless. Cordelia, young boys do not belong out in fields, with
dirty faces and holey clothes, no matter what the situation is! And
whatever the situation is, you know Magus has no willing part in it!
I mean, he's a street waif! Somebody put him up to it!”
If
Magus had not been trying so hard to be a statue, he would have
hugged her. She was going to defend him, even after everything that
had happened. She was going to stand up for him, no matter how much
trouble he caused. She understood. She
loves me,
he thought, surprised that he was able to identify such feelings. If
anyone had ever loved him before, he didn't remember it. Love, no
matter what type, was always something that existed outside of his
reach. And yet he knew, without a doubt in his mind, that Lovisa
loved him. He smiled in spite of himself, and the princess caught on
immediately and returned it. “I understand,” she said, laying a
hand on Magus' shoulder. “So, your name is Magus?”
“Yes,” Magus answered
monotonously.
“And you're from Aldine,”
Cordelia said. “Where in Aldine are you from?”
“The capital,” Magus
replied.
“Who took care of you
there?” Cordelia asked.
“Nobody,” Magus
answered.
For a few moments Cordelia
was silent, her thoughtful eyes looking over Magus' head. Finally,
she said, “It would probably be best for us to discuss this at the
Palace of the Jewel. It was...”
“Yes!” Magus cried out,
and Lovisa couldn't stop herself from laughing. But he didn't mind
it. He rather liked her laughter.
“Yes,” the princess
went on, nodding as if in agreement with him. “It was quite foolish
to leave the palace unguarded for so long anyhow. We'll go back there
and discuss this over a meal.” She turned to her party of armored
soldiers, who talked over what to do about the fallen soldiers.
“Patrol the area,” she said firmly.
“Of course, m'lady,”
one of the men answered, placing a hand to his breast in a gesture of
loyalty.
Tears came to Magus' eyes,
and he allowed them to fall. Lovisa brushed his wind-tousled hair
back from his face and pulled him into a hug, which he returned.
The roast chicken, peas,
and cheese that were served at dinner were met with largely the same
reception as the earlier milk and sweetbreads. Magus was allowed to
take as much as he liked, his less-than-perfect table manners were
excused, and the princess allowed him a few moments before he
answered her questions. He was much more receptive to questions now,
and Cordelia and the knights had learned much more about him than
they thought he'd be willing to provide: his name was Magus, and it
had been given to him by the head of the mages' convent he had been
sent to somewhere between the ages of one and three. His mother had
died long before he was old enough to remember her, and no one knew
anything about his father. He lived in an orphanage until they had
managed to send him off to the convent, which was a convent where
practitioners of all varieties of the magic arts were sent to
practice their craft. “They sent me there because of my powers,”
Magus had explained. “The orphanage was afraid of me because of my
magic. They thought I was too dangerous to keep around.”
Up until Magus was six, the
master magi at the convent worked hard at teaching him the control
and management of his magic. Life at the convent was strict and
regimented, and even moreso for Magus; his days consisted of bland
meals, long days of hard work and education, and nights asleep in his
own room far away from the mages' dormitories. He was the only child
there, and the mages were unconcerned with him. His instructors
tended to his lessons—praising modestly, punishing harshly—and
left him alone once they concluded for the day. He had not a single
friend in the world, and not a single person truly cared if he was
happy or if he was well. “I don't think they wanted me there any
more than the orphanage did,” Magus said. “They all treated me
like I was a time bomb about to go off at any moment. They could
contain me, but that was all that they could do, or wanted to do. I
spent those years thinking that I was a monster, and that's why
nobody ever played with me, or talked to me outside of lessons, or
wanted my company at all. It was why the mages hurried away whenever
they saw me, and why I wasn't allowed to stay in the dormitories and
make friends with them. I would look at myself in the mirror and
wonder why a monster like me looked like any other kid. Those days
were just awful.”
By
the time Magus was nearly seven years old, he had learned that he had
something inside of him that was beautiful and dangerous in equal
parts. His instructors had established that he was born with a gift
and that no one else in the world had power such as his, not even the
most powerful of the master magi at the convent. It was a wonderful
gift that he could make use of only when the time was right, and they
made sure that he knew when the time was right. But when it was not,
it was to be safely locked away inside him, where it could not cause
any harm to others. “I thought that if I showed them I could do
this,” Magus said, “then they wouldn't be so hard on me anymore.
They might praise me more, they might talk to me more...they might
even like
me. I wanted to impress them. All I wanted was someone to like me.”
Magus maintained control of
his powers, retaining an impressive amount of caution and discipline
for a child his age. He used his powers only in the ways he had been
instructed to, and in doing so, he earned the praise that he so
craved. In his daily activities, he was well-behaved and out of the
way, absorbing himself in the books that he had taught himself to
read. It reached the mages studying at the convent that the young boy
the masters presided over had an incredible ability to handle the
powerful elemental magic he had inexplicably acquired, and they
became fascinated with him. The master magi themselves were impressed
with Magus' ability to handle such power, and an overheard
conversation let on that they were very proud of him. When he was
called down to the head magus' chamber after a long day of being left
entirely alone, Magus anticipated the reward of love and approval
that he had worked so hard for; he would be hugged and kissed like
the children in the books he read, and the magi that had been his
instructors would become his family. But to his horror, the head
magician told him that they were sending him away. “He told me that
they had no more to teach me,” Magus said, “and that I showed
them that I had learned well. He said that I'd grown in leaps and
bounds, and there was nothing more I needed to know. Then he said...”
Magus looked at the table then, and Lovisa lightly nudged him. “What
did he say?” she gently prompted.
“He said that he had
spoken with the children's home two villages down,” Magus went on,
“and that there was room for me there. I was sent there the next
morning.”
Magus' send-off had been an
uneventful one. His instructors, whom he had gotten to know for the
past three years, went about their daily business as if he was only
an afterthought that they had pushed to the back of their minds. The
convent mages tended to their studies and paid him no mind. He sat
waiting in the lobby, carrying a bag of his clothes and books,
overcome by the rage and tears that come with betrayal. Nobody liked
him or wanted him, and he hated them all. He hated everybody. The
caretaker of the children's home seemed kind enough, squeezing his
cheeks and calling him “sweetheart,” but he hated her because he
didn't want to go with her. He glowered at her with all of the
ferocious rage that a small boy could manage, and as she took him by
the hand and led him away, he shot the head magus this same hateful
look. The head magus simply waved at him and turned to leave,
putting the boy out of mind forever.
It was evident that the
home had been informed of Magus' powers; the other children regarded
him with odd glances, as if they did not recognize him as entirely
human, and he was kept in isolation just as he had been at the
convent. “You are a very special young man,” his caretaker had
informed him with kindness that seemed false, “and you have special
abilities—things you can do that other children can't. They can be
very dangerous, and we must make sure that the other children don't
get hurt. You wouldn't want to hurt anybody, would you, Magus?”
All Magus took away from
this patronizing lecture was that he was going to be alone again, and
he was fine with that. He had given up on his dreams of having
friends or being loved. The caretakers that came by to bring him food
and pat his head did so out of obligation, not love. The other
children wanted nothing to do with him, and he wanted nothing to do
with them. He hated them even more when they were allowed to go away
with some kind soul looking for a child to complete their family.
Every so often, a smiling child would leave the home, holding the
hands of some happy couple or kindly person leading them on their way
to a new life. Every so often, a child destined for a new home bid
their happy farewells to the friends they had made, who cheered them
on and wished them good luck. Nobody came for Magus, and nobody ever
said goodbye to him. He was an afterthought in the back of the
world's mind, and for that, he hated the world.
“I
had my books, I had my magic, and they were all I had,” Magus
explained. “So I wondered why I even had to stay there. That
so-called 'home' had nothing for me. Being there made me feel lonely
and overlooked...and trapped, very trapped. I saw the friendships and
associations the others had and I knew that I would never have
anything like that. It hurt me. Everything about the place hurt me
and made me angry, and I made up my mind that I didn't have
to
be trapped there. I ran away.”
Magus left behind the toys
and small possessions that the caretakers had given him, which had
belonged to other children that decided they didn't want them
anymore. “I didn't want them either,” Magus said, “but it broke
my heart when I found out that I couldn't take all of my books. They
were just too heavy on my back, even after I'd thrown aside my
clothes to make room for them. I cared much more about my books than
my clothes.” In the end, he had only been able to keep three very
favorite books, along with two sets of clothes in addition to those
on his back. While the other children played in the yard, he sat in
the corner with a book in his hands, as he did every day. He stayed
close by the fence, and when he was certain that nobody was watching,
he slipped out of the fence and took off down the street until his
legs wouldn't carry him anymore. He never went back.
“Didn't anybody come
looking for you?” Alicia asked.
“If they did, I never
knew it,” Magus told her, “but I don't think they did. They
didn't really care about me.”
“So, you've been out on
the streets ever since then?” Lovisa asked, appalled. “Since you
were seven or eight?” All at once, she had been struck hard with
sympathetic pain for the poor young man who never had a friend in the
world. She wanted to take him in her arms again, to kiss his hair and
tell him that he was going to be all right. She wanted to tuck him in
under the blankets and tell him that she was going to take care of
him from now on. He would be liked, and even loved. To her question,
Magus nodded. “My magic kept me alive,” he said, “and my books
kept me company. They were all I had and all I needed. I never had a
home, and after a while I didn't even want one.”
The
entire time that Magus had been telling his story, Cordelia had
retained a polite, attentive silence. Now, she held her hand out to
him and said, “Come here, Magus.” Magus wouldn't budge without
some coaxing from Lovisa, but then he cautiously extended his shaking
hand to take hers. “Magus, you will have a home now,” Cordelia
told him. “From now on, you will have everything: good meals, good
clothes, a place to live, all of the books you want, and somebody who
will truly care for you. I will do whatever it takes to ensure that
you have a home...a real
home,
Magus. And if nobody else will take you in, then I will do it
myself.”
“Couldn't he stay here?”
asked Lovisa. “I can take care of him! You'd like to stay here,
wouldn't you, Magus?”
“May I?” Magus blurted
out before Cordelia could answer. “Oh, may I, please? I promise I
won't...” But his heart fell when the look in her eyes told him it
was not to be. “It isn't safe for you here, Magus,” she said
gravely. “This place is threatened; there is always a possibility
of an enemy strike. I'll take you into the city, where I can find a
much safer place for you to live. Oh dear, don't look so dismal! I
will personally ensure that you are well cared for, and never
overlooked. And Lovisa can still visit with you. You won't be losing
her!”
Magus relaxed, though he
was still dubious. He turned to Lovisa, and she softly laid her hand
on top of his head. “I will visit you every day,” she told him.
“That's a promise! And now, Cordelia, do you think that you could
send for some ice cream?”
“I think that could be
arranged,” Cordelia said with a light chuckle. “But there's one
thing that you haven't told me, Magus, and I think that it's crucial
for me to know.”
“What's that?” Magus
asked, his nerves returning.
Cordelia folded her hands
and propped her chin upon them, in a way that reminded Magus of his
stern instructors back at the convent. “How and why did you cross
the border?”