LITMIR.BIZ

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gold and oaths to serve the Mayors,” said Colrean. “And I have been here two winters already. I hope this acquits me of being thought some bird of ill omen. Besides, I certainly do not wish to leave. Or seek payment.”

      Wendrel did not say anything for a moment, and silence fell between them. Colrean turned his head to glance at the Corner Post. But his body remained still, and he did not otherwise move, or take his leave, seemingly caught in indecision on the moment of commitment to a likely short-lived future.

      In the distance, one of the reapers nicked herself with her sickle, and swore. Her harsh words brought Colrean back into the present. He blinked and looked at the midwife, who returned his gaze with a concern he recognized from seeing her with patients.

      “I will bring you one of Rhun’s second-best blankets, a waterskin, and food. Is there aught else you will need?”

      Rhun was Wendrel’s husband, save his wife the youngest of the elders of Gamel. He was barely old enough to bear the title without ridicule, having gained his position not from mere seniority, or as in Wendrel’s case her wisdom, but in recognition of him being the best weaver in the three villages, and in fact for many leagues around. Even Rhun’s second-best blankets were thicker, heavier, far more water repellent and more attractive than the city-bought ones Colrean had back in his lodge.

      “All will be welcome, and a blanket perhaps most of all. It will be clear and cool tonight, and I must stay until the dawn. But be sure you come and go before nightfall.”

      “There is time enough,” said Wendrel.

      “Do not approach the stone,” added Colrean. “Leave everything by the wall here; I will fetch it.”

      “As you will,” said Wendrel. “I hope … I hope you are wrong about the staff, and nothing will come.”

      “I hope so too,” said Colrean. But he knew he was not wrong. Whether he had become more accustomed to it, or the stone’s grip on the staff was loosening as the day faded, he was much more aware of the silent call of magic emanating from whatever was in the Corner Post. If the children had not come to him, he would still have been drawn here, by sunset at the latest. And there were creatures far more sensitive to magic than he was, more sensitive than any mortal. They would come, once the sun was down.

      Unless a wizard claimed the staff.

      That would be another problem, perhaps no less dangerous than the creatures. For despite what he had said to Wendrel, not all wizards were bound to the Mayors by oaths and gold. There were some who considered themselves above the concerns of ordinary folk, and only sought to please themselves. They were kept in check by what they called the tame wizards of the cities, but that was in the cities.

      Not out here.

      Here there was only Colrean.

      Who realized he had been woolgathering again, delaying the inevitable. Wendrel was already hurrying after the children, and he could hear them excitedly calling out his warnings to the harvesters, the repetition of “salt your windowsills” clear.

      Colrean walked over to the Corner Post, pausing by the rowan to bend his head respectfully, as if the tree might bar his way or take umbrage at his presence. But the rowan gave no indication it was anything other than a normal tree, leaves and branches still in the quiet air. Colrean would have welcomed a breeze, particularly a brisk southerly, for that wind was antithetical to some of the creatures that might come in the night. But there was no wind, and it seemed, little chance of one.

      Colrean passed by the rowan and cautiously approached the Corner Post, each of his six clumsy steps slower and shorter than the last, till he shuffled as close as he dared go, almost but not quite in touching distance.

      There was a staff in the stone.

      Colrean didn’t really need to look at it to know it was indeed a wizard’s staff. But he cautiously examined the exposed length that projected from the ancient stone, wondering why the staff was placed so high. Indeed, either an extraordinarily tall wizard had plunged it into the stone, or they had brought a ladder, which seemed unlikely. Even if so, why bother to put it out of easy reach?

      This was not the only puzzle. Only three or four inches of the dark bog-oak beyond the bronze ferrule on the foot of the staff was exposed, and there were no obvious runes or inscriptions that might have helped him identify the staff’s provenance. All he could tell from sight and his sense of the unseen was that this staff was very old, and very powerful.

      Colrean could tell it was not a single staff at all, but a composite of many. Staves were made by wizards to store more power than they could hold in their own fragile bodies or in other tools of the art, and particularly powerful staves were made by a process of accretion, combining a new staff with the old.

      But as making a wizard’s staff was a time-consuming and potentially dangerous process, there were renegades who would simply take or steal the staves of weaker or unsuspecting wizards, using whatever means necessary—including such things as poison and assassination. Then they would combine the stolen staff with their own, growing more powerful in the process, and thus be able to take even more staves from other wizards.

      “Better and better,” muttered Colrean to himself, meaning quite the opposite. For a moment he contemplated touching the end of the staff, for that would reveal to him from whence it came, and might even give him the name of the wizard who had put it here. Though Colrean could not think why a wizard would want to put their own staff in such a place, or indeed, why a wizard would put someone else’s staff there.

      Unless it was a trap or a lure of some sort … but he could sense no other magic-worker nearby, nor see anything that might be one in another shape. There were no new trees, no odd horse, no peculiarly large raven watching from the stone wall …

      Colrean also contemplated placing his hand upon the Corner Post itself and beseeching it to inform him what it knew of the matter. But it was not a serious thought, and was immediately dismissed. He knew more about such stones than he had revealed to Wendrel. Most were long dead—or their animating force dissipated—but the few who retained their power were typically averse to interaction with any but the most innocent of mortal folk, and were best left very much alone.

      Though, in this case, the stone must have allowed the staff to be placed where it was, else there would have been a dead wizard among the barley, pieces of broken staff strewn about the commons, fires burning, people screaming, and no need for anyone to summon him from the forest.

      It was all a great puzzle.

      Colrean sighed and found a place to sit some twenty paces from the Corner Post and the rowan, where the ground rose a little, giving him a longer view. He sat with his back against the Gamel-Thrake border wall and settled into the reverie magic-workers called dwelm, calling forth power he had stored over time in various items about his person, drawing it either into himself or reapportioning it among his objects of power.

      This was a key part of any magic-worker’s preparations, for there were things that stored magic well but were slow to give it up, and objects that released power swiftly, but could not hold it for any length of time; or some combination thereof that was necessarily a compromise. The first were typically made of stone, petrified wood, amber, and/or gold, sometimes rubies or emeralds; and the latter silver or bronze with moonstones and diamonds or any of the paler gems, and younger wood or porcelain.

      A properly prepared staff of ancient bog-oak, shod in bronze and tipped with iron, was unrivaled as a magical instrument, in that it could store power very well and release it reasonably quickly. There was a good reason every wizard had a staff. Though a wand of well-aged willow, with bands of gold and silver, could serve near as well, if there was some reason to dissemble and appear to be some other kind of magic-worker.

      But Colrean had neither staff nor wand, nor, it seemed even a mere sorcerer’s ring. His fingers, still somewhat stained with pheasant blood, were bare.

      The sun had begun to set by the time he emerged from the dwelm trance. Wendrel had been; there was a basket sitting on the wall some distance

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