EDGE and Tesseract are imprints of Hades Publications, Inc.

Chapter One

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Small Magics A Novel by
Erik Buchanan

Chapter 1

Singing, in the distance.

Thomas smiled. He had timed his arrival almost perfectly. His friends had questioned the wisdom of setting out for home so soon after the term had ended—in truth, they had called him a fool and worse. April, they had said, was the worst time for travel. Rain, mud, and desperate brigands; that’s what Thomas would have to face. And someone as small and thin as Thomas would stand no chance. The trip was certain to end in grief, they had declared between draughts of wine. Besides, what sort
of an idiot would walk home when he had money for a boat?

Thomas had protested the remarks about his person—he was only slightly shorter than average, though thin was an unfortunately accurate description—and shrugged away the rest. The river may be faster, he’d said, but the walk would be far more interesting, and would give him a chance to practice his botany. There were plenty of farms to buy food from and plenty of barns to sleep in. Besides, no brigands had been reported along the river road in ten years. He would walk.

His companions had shaken their heads in drunken solemnity and continued to forecast his imminent demise.

Thomas had set out exactly as he had planned, hoping to be home for the start of the five-day long May festival. There hadn’t been as many barns for sleeping as Thomas had hoped, and he spent more than a few nights curled in his cloak underneath trees by the side of the road. Twice he had slept in one of the stone circles that dotted the landscape.

Legend had it the stone circles were part of a religion, but it was only legend. Those who built them had disappeared long before the followers of the Four Gods had come to this country, and long, long before the Four had lost their names. Now, the circles stood abandoned and overgrown, their purpose gone with their builders. Still, they made a handy windbreak, and fed Thomas’s imagination as he lay against the great, grey stones, staring up at the stars.

None of the predicted brigands had appeared to accost Thomas on the road, but his friends had certainly been right about the rain and the mud. Asolid week of rain in the middle of the journey had soaked Thomas through, made the roads into a quagmire and added three days to his journey. Still, I made it, thought Thomas, listening to the singing. Barely, but I did.

He stopped walking and started to brush the dirt from his clothes. A moment later he gave it up as hopeless. Three weeks of travel had left his clothes ragged and dirty. His thin frame had grown thinner from the days of walking, and his black hair was a tangled mess. He should have cut it short before he left, but in his rush to leave after the term ended, he hadn’t thought of it. Now, it was almost to his shoulders and completely unruly. He rubbed a hand across his face, felt the ragged edges of a very light, very scruffy beard. Fortunately he’d had the river to wash in or he was sure he’d have smelled as bad as he looked.

Thomas turned his grey eyes to the road ahead. Excitement and nerves warred within him to see which would get the upper hand. He had been fourteen when he’d left.

Thomas smiled, remembering the desperate cramming he’d done to pass the Academy entrance exams, and his breathless anticipation the day before the trip.

He also remembered his mother waving and crying, his brother grinning and cheering him on, and his father beaming with pride as he drove his son to Greenwater and the river barge that would take Thomas downstream to Hawksmouth and the Royal Academy of Learning.

Four years, Thomas mused. I wonder if it still looks the same?

Well, one way to find out. He shifted the bag on his shoulder, adjusted his rapier and dagger on his belt, and started walking again. He grinned at the thought of what his father was going to say when he say the blades.

The weapons were strictly functional; no filigree, no gilding, no engraving, but high quality and well made. The rapier had a plain steel bell guard to protect its wielder's hand and a long, straight, wickedly sharp blade that ended in a deadly point. The dagger's blade was thick and wide and as long as his forearm, the better to parry away attacks.

Thomas had won the rapier and a matching dagger at a fencing tournament during the winter. He had entered on a dare, using a borrowed sword and padding, and had stunned himself by emerging victorious. His friends, thrilled for him, had pitched in to buy the sword belt. He had written home immediately to tell his family about the victory.

His father’s reply had been less excited than Thomas had hoped.

John Flarety had been very happy that Thomas had won the tournament. He was pleased to learn his son was studying his fencing with the same dedication as his other classes. Nonetheless, John Flarety insisted that Thomas not wear the blades. Such things were not appropriate for the son of a merchant. Noble fops carried swords. Soldiers carried swords. Rogues and ne’er-do-wells carried swords. Honest country folk had no need to carry swords, especially not merchants and their families.

Thomas had written back, explaining that, in the city, many honest folks carried swords, including every student who could afford one. Thomas’s father disagreed entirely and the written argument had been going on ever since.

The road turned down a hill, the forest gave way suddenly, and Thomas was on the edge of the Elmvale town common. The little field was filled with makeshift booths and milling bodies celebrating the May Fair. Children ran around and between the legs of the adults, playing incomprehensible games and begging money for sweets. His mouth started to water when he spotted the pastry booth. He used to stuff himself with blueberry jam tarts, and the sight of them made him realize just how hungry he was. Lunch had been several hours before, and the stale bread and dried sausage had been far less than palatable.

Thomas left the road and crossed the common. It was buzzing with activity. He had hoped to spot his parents or his brother in the crowd, but there was no sign of them. Nearly everyone else from the village was there, though. There were men testing their skill at throwing knives or shooting arrows or wrestling—and wasn’t that Liam, standing victorious in the wrestling ring? It had to be; no one else was that tall. The women were laughing at their husbands, and in some cases, showing off their own skills. Thomas stopped to watch Mary Findley put three knives dead centre into one of the targets. The sight made him smile. She’d been beating men at the knife throw as long as Thomas could remember. On the far side of the common, a small man was standing on a stage, juggling five clubs and singing a bawdy song that kept his audience bawling with laughter.

Thomas found himself grinning like an idiot. Compared to any market day in the city, the crowd was tiny. Compared to the May Festival in the city, this was hardly an event at all. There were only a few hundred people here, and the entire fair took up only half the common. Thomas didn’t care. There was an energy among the people here that he’d missed at the May festivals in the city. There, the festivals had been too large for any one person to take in.

Here, the festival was small, intimate, and filled with the joy that comes from living through a cold country winter.

“Thomas!”

The bellow was deep and loud enough to fill the entire common. Thomas turned and saw a mountain of a man detach himself from the crowd around the juggler’s stage and charge across the common. Thomas barely had time to identify the giant before he was grabbed, squeezed, and lifted off the ground.

“Thomas! I didn’t think to see you before June!”

“You didn’t believe I’d miss the fair, did you?” gasped Thomas between squeezes. “Now let me down, George, before you crack all my ribs.”

George Gobhann, son of Lionel Gobhann, the village smith, was brown-eyed, brown-haired, and far bigger than Thomas remembered. He had always been larger than Thomas, even though they were of an age. Now, though, he stood head and shoulders taller, and was easily as big as four of him. His arms were thick and sinewy and both of Thomas’s legs could have fit into one leg of George’s breeches with room to spare. The chest against which Thomas was currently being crushed would certainly have over-stretched any number of normal men’s shirts. George brought Thomas down with a force that rocked him to his boots and held him at arm’s length.

“Look at you!”

Thomas heaved in a breath. “Me? What about you?”

“You’re skinny as a rake! Didn’t they feed you at the Academy?”

“Not as much as they fed you. Are you a smith now?”

“As if there was ever any doubt. How did you get home?”

“Walked.”

“Hawksmouth to here? No wonder you’re a mess.” George stood back and inspected Thomas head to foot. “What are you doing wearing a sword?”

Thomas put his hand on the hilt, turning it so George could see. “Like it? I won it at a tournament.”

George shook his head in mock-disapproval. “No one wears swords, Thomas.”

“No one here wears swords,” corrected Thomas. “Everyone in the city does.”

“Well, you’re in the country now, and you’ll look silly being the only one.”

Thomas rolled his eyes. “You sound like my father.” He scanned the crowd around them again.

“Speaking of whom, is he here?”

“Not since this morning.”

“George!” a new, female, and slightly annoyed voice called. “Who’s that you have there?”

They both turned, and Thomas barely managed to keep his jaw from dropping open. “Eileen?”

The girl came closer, peering at him as she did. Her eyes widened. “Thomas?”

Thomas was stunned. The last he had seen, Eileen was a skinny, gangly twelve-year old pest who took great delight in throwing stones at him. Now though, she was a trim young woman. Her red hair, always a tangled mess before, flowed cleanly down her back and her blue eyes sparkled as she watched him taking her in. Thomas was suddenly much more aware of how much of a mess he truly was.

Eileen found her tongue before first. “Well, stop staring. People will talk.”

“I wasn’t staring.” Thomas protested.

“Oh, nay,” she said, putting her hands on her hips and doing her best to look offended, “your eyes just locked on to my bodice without your brain taking any part of it.”

Thomas felt a flush begin to rise, and forced it down. “Actually, I was wondering how the same family that produced such a hulking monster could create someone as lovely as you.”

“Listen to you!” Eileen said, keeping her tone the same but starting to flush herself. “Is that what they taught you at that Academy? How to charm girls?”

Thomas smiled. “There are entire courses dedicated to it.”

“Don’t bother,” said George. “The lass spends all her time up at the nunnery. I hear they’re planning to keep her for their own.”

“A nun?” Thomas felt a twinge of disappointment, followed immediately by a larger twinge of embarrassment. He hadn’t even seen the girl in four years, he had no right to be thinking of her that way. “And you not even dressed as a novice.”

“I’ll not be a nun,” protested Eileen. “They’re just the only ones who’ll teach a girl to read and write around here.”

George snorted. “If she had her way, she’d run off and join you lot at the Academy.”

“Thomas?” a very familiar and very nasal voice called out. “Thomas!”

The voice belonged to a long-limbed man riding a short-limbed donkey. So short, in fact, that Thomas was certain the man could touch the ground without dismounting. Thomas waved. “Gavin!”

Gavin, his long, cadaverous frame making him look like a spider riding a beetle, turned the donkey and rode towards them. He had been tutor to Thomas and his brother, Neal, from childhood, and had helped Thomas prepare for the Academy’s rigorous entry exams. When Thomas had gone and Neal was finished his schooling, Gavin had stayed on to handle the family’s business accounts. He was, Thomas recalled, quick and clever, polite to the point of obsequiousness, and his nose dripped incessantly.

George sighed. “So much for any fun we might have today.” He looked to Thomas, “That man never approved of us.”

“He doesn’t dislike you,” protested Thomas.

“George didn’t say he disliked us,” said Eileen. “He just disapproves.”

“Aye, well…” Thomas could think of nothing to say to that except, “True.”

“He thinks we’re bad company.”

“He’d be right,” said Thomas grinning. “But not to worry. He won’t stay. The ass you see yonder will be taking me from the fair very soon, I expect.”

George raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to ride Gavin’s donkey?”

Thomas’s grin widened. “I was referring to the ass riding the donkey.”

All three started snickering, then had to stifle it as Gavin pulled the donkey to a halt in front of them and dismounted—it was a slight reach to the ground, Thomas noted, but not much. The man, who was not young when he had started tutoring Thomas twelve years previous, creaked his way to the ground and took a long moment to straighten.

Once upright, Gavin looked down his long nose at George and Eileen, then turned and bowed to Thomas. “It is good to see you have returned, young master,” he intoned with a sniff. He gave Thomas a short, meticulous examination with his eyes, then sniffed again. The slight down-turn of his mouth let Thomas know that he had been assessed and found wanting. “Indeed, your father and mother have been waiting for this day with great anticipation. I imagine they would be somewhat distraught to discover that you have chosen to remain here at the fair, rather than to come immediately home.”

“And how are my parents, Gavin?” asked Thomas, hoping to distract the man.

“Sad for lack of your company, I am certain.”

So much for that. “I only just arrived. George and Eileen spotted me in the crowd.”

“Of course,” said Gavin, raising his rather large eyebrows. “It was fortunate that I had been sent to bespeak wine for your father’s guests tonight, or else I might not have spotted you.”

“Fortunate indeed,” agreed Thomas, doing his best to keep any sarcasm from his voice. He turned back to George and Eileen. “Would you walk with me? If you don’t mind leaving the fair, that is?”

“Us?” George’s tone was doubtful, and the look he gave his sister was troubled. “Nay, we should not go to your house, I think.”

“Why not?” asked Thomas, surprised at the refusal. “What’s happened?”

“Nothing new,” said Eileen.

George nodded his agreement. “Your dad’s a merchant, my dad’s a smith.”

“Oh, by the Four above,” Thomas rolled his eyes up. “Wheel-irons again?”

“And axles and everything else they can think of,” said Eileen.

“I swear they enjoy fighting about it,” said Thomas.

“Aye, usually,” said Eileen. “But this time it got nasty.”

“Nasty? How nasty?”

“This is not a subject that should be discussed here,” interrupted Gavin, “especially with Thomas so lately come home.”

“Yes it should,” said Thomas. “Nasty, how?”

George looked embarrassed. “Your father called ours the worst lying, thieving excuse of a blacksmith he’d ever seen.”

Thomas’s eyebrows went up of their own accord. “And your Da didn’t throw him through a wall?”

“He came close,” said Eileen. “But your father stormed out before he could.”

“That’s not like him.” Thomas remembered the various arguments Lionel had had with John Flarety over the years. They had been loud, boisterous, drawn out, and had usually ended with a handshake and a drink. This, though… “What did your father do, then?”

“Cursed your Da up and down twice and swore there would be no more work done until the man apologized,” said George.

“After which your Da said that none of us were welcome in his home until my Da came to his senses,” added Eileen.

George nodded. “Exactly.”

Thomas was aghast. “You must be joking.”

“I am afraid they are quite right,” said Gavin.

Thomas shook his head. “They’ve been friends for years. Whatever’s gotten under my father’s skin, it will pass and he’ll apologize. You’ll see.”

“Aye, surely,” said Eileen. “But until then…”

“Aye.” Thomas nodded. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow then. Right?”

“Tomorrow for sure,” said George. “Not even your father would miss Fire Night.”

Thomas grinned. Fire Night was the culmination of the May Festival. The village would build a bonfire, and all the men and women would leap over it. The legend was that each jump brought luck to the village and strength to the earth.

“Ancient superstition at its worst,” sniffed Gavin. “Nothing but a chance for lechery under the cover of darkness.”

Which was more or less true, Thomas had to agree, even as he rolled his eyes. The other belief was that the more couples who spent the night together in the woods and fields, the more fertile they would become. And while there was no proof of that, the lack of it did not stop anyone from participating if they had the chance. It was, Thomas’s father had once said, the single most popular and practiced belief in the region.

George and Eileen were also rolling their eyes, and Gavin waited until all three of them had stopped before saying, “Now, Master Thomas, if you will go?”

“Aye, I’ll go.” Thomas shook hands with George, then bowed with exaggerated courtesy to Eileen.

“If I can ever be of service, my lady,” he said, using his best courtly manner, “do not hesitate to ask.”

“Oh, she won’t,” promised George before Eileen could speak. “And like as not she’ll ask you to haul water from the well for her.”

Eileen stuck her tongue out at her brother. “You’ve no manners, you.” She smiled at Thomas. “See you tomorrow, then.”

The two walked away, and Thomas found himself watching Eileen go until Gavin sniffed noisily behind him. “Come, Master Thomas. We should not keep your father waiting.”

Thomas picked up his bag and settled it over one shoulder. “No, we certainly should not.”

Gavin politely offered Thomas use of the donkey, and was obviously relieved when he declined. He kept the donkey to a slow pace, which gave Thomas time to look over the village as they passed through. There had beenhardly any changes in the last four years. The streets were the same deep brown earth that filled the fields, instead of the cobbles one found in the city. The houses were still mostly wattle and daub construction, with thatch for the roofs. The old tower—built on a hill overlooking the town two hundred years before to watch for raiders—was still the tallest structure in the village, and its rough, weather-worn grey stone walls still looked ready to fall down at the slightest breeze.

Despite the lack of change, the village looked prosperous. The houses were well-cared for, the roofs and doors in good repair, and all the people Thomas saw were looking healthy and happy. When they came to his father’s warehouses, just outside the village, Thomas saw that two new ones had been built, bringing the total to six. Beyond that, a single path led through a strand of trees to the house. How his father had managed to make so much money was quite beyond Thomas. John Flarety claimed to have started with one cart and built from there. The story might well have been true, though Thomas was certain there had been money in the family all along. Thomas’s older brother, Neal, shared his father’s zeal for mercantilism and had, since reaching maturity, helped further expand the family’s business. According to his mother’s proud letters, the family had gained control of the cloth trade in three surrounding counties, and was in the process of moving into others.

For Thomas, it was a mystery as to why it was all so important. Of course, given that his father’s mercantile skills were paying Thomas’s way through school, he was not in a position to be judgmental. If Thomas had had any doubts about the prosperity of his family, the sight of the house, which had been built before Thomas’s birth was certainly proof enough. Half-timber, half-stucco, after the pattern of newer houses in the city, and set on a solid stone foundation, the Flarety home was easily the largest in the village. It had been kept in near-immaculate condition while Thomas had been gone, and from the looks of it, had been recently re-stuccoed and painted. The low stone fence that surrounded the yard was in perfect condition, and a new building had been added behind the house.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing.

“For the staff,” said Gavin. “Your father has made many important connections in the time since you left, and has often had to entertain. Even now, your father has several important guests, and room is somewhat scarce.”

Mischief got the better of Thomas. “Does this mean I’ll be sleeping in the barn?”

“Certainly not!” Gavin looked appalled, and Thomas did his best to hide his smile. It wasn’t good enough. Gavin’s eyes narrowed, and he waved one long, skinny arm in the direction of the open front gate and sternly said, “Go home, Master Thomas.”

“Yes, Gavin.” said Thomas, giving his old tutor the same courtly bow he’d given Eileen. “I thank you for the escort.”

The front gate—freshly painted in green, Thomas noticed—was wide open, and the stone path to the door was swept clean. Thomas was about to step through when the front door opened. A thin, rather handsome woman with a basket on her arm stepped out. She caught sight of Thomas and stopped dead. A moment later, a man a few years Thomas’s senior stepped through the door and nearly knocked her down.

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