Elementals small magick, p.8
Elementals: Small Magick, page 8
Chapter Six
When she met up with Cyrus again, he’d already loaded the sack of flour on her mule. The other supplies she’d bought were in a heap nearby.
“Have you finished visiting with your friends?” he asked.
She nodded and bent to organize the pile. Some they would carry and some would be loaded on the mule. Cyrus tried to start several conversations but she merely shrugged. They made the trip home in silence.
After the evening meal she sat down and faced him. “I’ve learned there is another mage in the valley,” she began.
“And what of it?” He shook his head. “You summoned and bound me. You are the only one who can free me.”
The resigned look on his face strengthened her resolve. No matter what price Kelsh might ask of her, she would pay it, and gladly, to give Cyrus what he longed for. “I know that. However, I can’t figure out how to do it and I don’t want to take forever to reach that point. You deserve to be freed now.”
“So keep studying.” His voice was flat. His clear blue eyes turned to pale gray.
By now she could read his thoughts and emotions well enough. How did he know she was going to tell him something he wouldn’t like? She took a deep breath. The words came out in a rush, not at all the way she’d planned and rehearsed on the way back from the village. “I’ve asked to become his apprentice. He agreed.”
Cyrus sat and stared at her with a dumbfounded expression. “What has he said he can do for you?”
“I didn’t tell him about you.” The words tumbled over themselves in her haste to explain. Sweet Goddess, she was making a mess of this. “He told me I do have great Power but I haven’t learned to tap into it. I asked him if he could help and he said he would.”
“At what price?”
She turned her face away, too embarrassed to reply. She’d hoped he wouldn’t ask the very question she’d avoided thinking about.
“There’s always a price, Drey. What is his?” He put a finger under her chin and gently turned her to face him. “Well?”
“He will tell me when it’s time.”
Cyrus exploded from his seat. “What?” He crossed the room with angry steps and whirled to face her. His eyes darkened to the swirling gray of a storm cloud. “You made a blind bargain? Never do that, least of all with a mage! You know nothing of him! Do you realize what he could ask of you?”
With her heart pounding in her chest so loudly she thought surely he could hear it, Drey drew herself up to face him. “Aye, I do. Anything he wants.”
“How could you agree to that?”
“How could I not?” How could she make him understand how much she wanted to do this, for him? The words burst from her, the anguish that had been locked within her finally breaking free. She pounded her fist on her chest. “I’m the one who bound you against your will. I’m the one who’s so stupid I can’t undo it! I’m the one who has to watch you suffer, knowing you long to return to your world.” She paused to dash the tears from her cheeks.
“I’d do anything to set you free. I love you,” she whispered brokenly, admitting what she’d suspected for days.
“And I you. Ah, sweetling, how can you be so foolish?” He came back and gathered her into his arms. “I’d never cost you so much.”
His lips met hers with a sweet tenderness that almost broke her heart. Nay, that would come when he left her for good, to return to his own world. For now, she’d take what she could of him and rejoice.
She twined her arms about his neck and pulled him closer. Opening her mouth, she invited him in with a soft sound. He obliged and tenderness became entwined with ardent possession. She reveled in the familiar taste of him, the flavor that was his alone, that whispered, Cyrus, to all her senses.
In perfect harmony, they shared the task of disrobing, tangling their fingers together in the laces of her shift. Cyrus chuckled as she paused to kiss him as the soft linen passed over her head. The fabric held the unforgettable sweet smell of her cleft. When her face appeared, he captured her lips on a sigh.
He held back as he had not before, loving her with the seductive curl of a gentle breeze rather than the tempest that she knew lay beneath the surface. She arched into him, seeking the pleasure of skin against skin. His fingers feathered across her, followed by the slightest breath of a kiss. She shivered, feeling the answering rise of desire and passion within her, pulsing hot and heavy. His heart answered the rapid beat of hers but his touch remained as soft as the sigh she gave as he found her most sensitive places.
His tongue barely touched her nipple before he sucked in a breath, cooling the drop that lingered on the tip and wringing a gasp from her. Lightning streaked from there to her other breast where he repeated the sweet torment, fanning a tempest to life.
Desire raged within her as his fingertips, tongue and lips skimmed over her skin. He paid attention to every sensitive spot he’d discovered during their time together, kissing first her ear and then her neck before moving back to her breasts. Each kiss was followed by a swift lick of his hot tongue and a soft puff of cooling air. The effect of the contrast between heat and cold astounded her, as every inch of her body came alive as never before.
The slightest touch on her neck, her breasts, her belly called forth ever stronger gusts of passion. He moved over her skin slowly, until she was fairly beside herself with the relentless sensations. She clutched at his hair, his shoulders, the blankets—when had they reached the bed?—to keep the buffeting gale from tearing her apart.
When he at last parted her thighs to delve his tongue deep into her nether curls, she lost hold and found herself swept out of control, into a pelting, driving torrent of ecstasy. Cyrus never stopped touching her as he shifted to replace his mouth with his cock, pressing into her. He filled her in a relentless, slow surge, giving her time to feel his entrance, the stretching of her tight passage. Scorching gusts blew through her, a flood of escalating turbulence. She found herself rising on the wind, ever higher, ever more taut, until he began to move within her and the storm broke. A flood of ecstasy rushed over her, wild and hot. Lightning flashed within the cloud of bliss, sparkling delight that howled through her again and again.
“Cyrus!” she cried. As she tightened about him, she felt the flow of his seed fill her. His roar of release was the last thing she heard before rapture blinded her and she fell into darkness.
*
At dawn two days later, Drey stood shivering with cold outside the mage’s small house. ‘Twas far grander than her tiny cottage, with a tiled roof rather than thatch and a second story, where she had only one room and a curtained sleeping alcove—not even a loft.
The door creaked open, giving her a glimpse of the empty hall and four doors on the first floor. Steep, narrow stairs rose at the far end.
“Come,” the mage’s deep voice called from somewhere inside.
Before she set foot in his house, she hesitated. She regretted the foolish offer she’d made him but she couldn’t think of a way to undo their bargain. Mayhap she could talk a village merchant out of an agreement but not a mage and certainly not one so much more powerful than she.
Screwing up her courage, she swallowed and placed a foot over the threshold.
Nothing happened. There was no clap of thunder, no bolt of lightning from above or explosion from within. She crossed into the hall, chiding herself for her flight of fancy.
“Welcome to my home.” The words floated softly from the shadows in the front room to her right. “Be blessed, as I am by your presence.”
The formal greeting flustered her for a moment and she groped for a suitable reply. “You bless me with your welcome and your hospitality.”
“Good, good, glad to see you’re punctual.” Kelsh strode toward her, down the hall from one of the back rooms.
Drey glanced into the shadows to see what device he used to throw his voice. She saw only the dim forms of chairs and small tables clustered around a fireplace.
“Come along, we’ll be working in the largest shed today.” He led her out the front door and around the house. Four outbuildings formed a square beyond a tidy kitchen garden. Merv, one of Anice’s boys, was enlarging the planting area, breaking through clods of grass to turn the winter-hardened ground. His breath gusted white in the morning chill. He looked up from his work and nodded to her.
Today Kelsh wore a lighter cloak, also of fine wool, embroidered about the hem with all manner of birds. She admired the craftsmanship even while she was amazed at some of the creatures flying around the hem. Who had ever seen such odd birds?
Before they entered the outbuilding, he shrugged out of the cloak and she saw that he wore the normal surcoat and long shirt as every other man she’d met but his were made of bleached snowy linen and rich wool the color of a bluebird. The neckline splayed open, revealing several curls of dark hair on his chest.
The building proved to be lined with worktables and benches. She recognized herbs she worked with herself, hanging in bunches from the rafters. Rows of bottles and jars and crocks and bowls of various sizes lined the shelves that ran around the walls above the tables. Through the thick glass of the tiny window she could see a distorted figure where Merv worked his shovel in the garden.
Her master turned to face her, waving a hand to indicate the room and its contents. “This is where I now work. I’m sure some of these supplies and tools are familiar to you. Even if your aunt and granny are the weakest hedge-mages, they’ll have taught you something of herb craft and mixing unguents.”
She bobbed her head, unsure of just how an apprentice ought to act. Should she speak up or let him do all the talking?
“I prefer not to do all the talking.”
Her head jerked up. Had he read her thoughts?
Kelsh continued, apparently unaware of her surprise. “You may ask me any question you wish, just do not be surprised if sometimes I do not answer. Or I may not give you the answer you seek.”
He righted a mortar that lay on its side. Catching up a cloth, he wiped the remains of a few leaves out of it before he placed it beside a pestle on the nearest shelf. “These work areas are designed to keep necessary tools and substances within easy reach. I know where everything is and you must not move anything without my order or approval. When you use something, be sure you return it to its proper place.”
Drey eyed all the devices and containers. Some she’d never seen and others she recognized but could guess no use for. “What do you want me to do?”
He pointed to a set of shelves near the door. “First, before you can be of any use to me, you must read those scrolls.”
She gaped at him. Read? How was she to learn if she didn’t do anything, only read? Trial and error was the only way she knew to master any task.
“You can read, can’t you?” he asked sharply.
“Yes, of course.”
“Then get started.” He softened his command with a smile. “You have several days of reading ahead of you. Use the table under the window while there’s daylight. You are to get through half of them today and the other half tomorrow.”
“What then?” she managed to ask.
“We’ll discuss that after you’ve finished.”
She seated herself, picked up the first scroll and began. When the sun set, he brought her two lamps and she read on. There were philosophical treatises on magick, line after line of spells from all over the world and crabbed notes scribbled on some recipes for healing potions and lotions. Some she could barely decipher, so old and faded was the ink, on thin vellum brittle with age.
Different hands had penned them all, with different styles of wording and reasoning. Some authors drew her readily into their arguments and stories; some wrote convoluted prose that was a trial to slog through.
She read far into the night, finishing the last one he’d set out for her just before midnight. She stretched her aching back and rubbed her sore eyes. Another large box awaited her attention in the morning, stuffed with scroll upon scroll upon scroll, she saw with a grimace. She rose on trembling legs and leaned over, stretching those muscles, too.
She turned to leave the shed, seeking Kelsh and instruction on where she should spend the night, when she stumbled over a pallet laid out on the floor. Three heavy wool blankets were folded on it, with the small brazier that warmed the building pulled to a close but safe distance. She hadn’t even heard him, or whoever had made up her accommodations, creep in and then out. It must have taken several trips, or several people, to put all this in place.
Still in her clothes, she gratefully sank into the softness of the pallet. He must have filled it with something other than straw, was her last thought as she adjusted the down pillow before she slipped off to sleep.
Before dawn, she was awakened by a loud knocking on the door. Kelsh entered, with a large pot of tea and scones. He cleared a table of its tools and clutter and spread their breakfast on it.
“Now, tell me what you have learned from the first batch of texts,” he ordered as he poured steaming fragrant tea into two heavy mugs.
While she munched on the raisin cakes and sipped her cooling tea, she tried to consolidate the information she’d gained from the texts into a coherent summary. Despite her best efforts, she knew she rambled all over the world and all over the topics of medicine, magick and art.
He said nothing about being displeased or pleased with her response, just motioned her to continue her reading once they’d finished their repast. She picked up where she’d left off.
Today’s reading went more easily than it had the day before. She found her eyes racing over the scrawling writing, rapidly taking in the meaning and absorbing the details when they seemed necessary.
She finished several hours after Kelsh brought their evening meal. Once again, he’d left the pallet and blankets for her, along with a final scone on her pillow. The lamps had burned out just before she finished, leaving her in the dim light of a single candle.
Restless once she’d worked the kinks from her spine and legs, she prowled the room, reading labels and examining the contents of some of the containers. She knew enough not to open those holding unfamiliar substances. Some containers were made from the clearest glass she’d ever seen, permitting her a good view of the contents without risking inhaling some dangerous dusty herb.
One held an item she dared not touch, not even through the bottle. Within the glass something moved, writhing in odd colors when her hand came close. As she drew back, she thought she glimpsed an eye, one without a proper pupil, slit like that of a cat. After that, she didn’t reach for any other bottles or jars.
Under one of the tables she found a small box of scrolls.
Should she read them? He’d told her to read them all but these had not been with the others. Had she come across something she’d be better off ignoring?
Curiosity got the better of her and she dug into the box, selecting the thinnest and most fragile of the lot. Taking it to her table, she unrolled it with care. The ink glowed strangely in the failing light of the candle. She leaned closer and saw it was pure gold.
The wielder of the quill had a lovely hand. The script flowed beautifully across the page. She followed it with ease.
The text addressed the question of success in love. She read of trying too hard to hold what one prized, of trying so hard that one drove one’s goal away to the point of never reaching it. She read of holding with open arms.
It might as well have spoken directly to her about her magick.
Could magick be like love? Was she unable to tap the well of Power within her because of trying too hard? Had she thrown up barriers for herself simply by wanting too much? Had she always bound herself with her ambition, limited her achievements by the intense need to be like her aunt and Gran?
She thought about the first time she cast the circle in her meadow. She’d worked simply for the sheer joy of it, the wonder of discovery fresh in her mind, leaving herself open and ready.
That was when she’d called and bound Cyrus.
That was the only time she could think of that she’d not worried if she was doing it right, that she hadn’t tried to do anything in particular, that she had let herself go and had rejoiced in an act of celebration.
Relief flooded through her, relaxing her. For the first time in her life, she could contemplate magick without feeling a knot between her shoulder blades or tension building in her belly.
With that relaxation came the realization of great fatigue. She yawned and stretched once more. So many sleepless nights, spent both worrying about Cyrus and enjoying his company in her bed, were taking their toll on her.
Working to control the nearly irresistible urge to keep yawning, she rolled up the scroll again, retying it carefully with the ribbon before she returned it to the box. Tomorrow she would examine her newfound knowledge, the treasure she’d been seeking.
Tomorrow she would return home. To Cyrus.
Tomorrow she could begin working on the spell to send him back to where he belonged.
Tomorrow she could begin dreading his departure.
Chapter Seven
Kelsh awakened her before dawn with a hearty knock on the door. Once more, they feasted on scones and tea while he questioned her on the knowledge contained in the scrolls. Under the close scrutiny of his intense gaze, she answered to the best of her limited ability, unused to forming opinions of such complex and diverse ideas, let alone articulating them to a stranger. Where she would have answered her aunt or Gran quite readily, putting forth her perception of how the ideas put forth by the various writers connected and collided, she found speaking to Kelsh’s expressionless visage to be unsettling, to say the least.
Finally, he pronounced himself satisfied with her progress. “You show an innate ability to synthesize and define the arguments of the greatest philosophers the world has given birth to. However, can you guess what pleases me the most?”
“That I read all the scrolls within the allotted two days?” she queried hopefully. Making his deadline had given her great pride in her reading abilities, as well as proven to herself that she wasn’t a completely daft blunderer.
