Spellborn Lost
“Are you alright, lad?”
Dabir forced himself to look up, and pulled his cloak closer around his body. It didn’t help, but anything was better than the cold that gnawed on his bones and made him shiver uncontrollably. He wished he dared even a little magic, but no. Better to freeze than be found by those who hunted him.
The speaker turned out to be a handsome, well-dressed man about fifteen years than Dabir himself. His mouth was stubborn, but his eyes were kind, and his blonde hair was cut close to his head. There was hard muscle under those fine clothes, and the faintest outline of at least one knife hidden in easy reach.
Dabir dropped his eyes and tried to get his voice to work, but nothing came out. Concerned, the man gestured to someone Dabir couldn’t see, and knelt in the snow without a care for his expensive clothes.
“Look at me,” he commanded gently. Defying a noble would get him noticed, and Dabir followed the order unwillingly, although he still kept his damning eyes shadowed in the fall of his hair. “Can you speak?”
It took some effort both to remember this twisting foreign tongue and to get his chilled voice to respond, but finally he managed.
“Yes M’lord,” he said, attempting to hide his distinctive accent under peasant slang as he had so many times before. “Jes’ cold is all.”
“You’re Evati,” the noble continued. Dabir was glad his shivers hid the way his hands shook from terror. Noticed by a noble, and more, noticed as his true nationality. Most people just throught he was one of the desert folk. He would have to leave the city as soon as possible, before word got back to Chakir and his mage-hunters. “Why’re you on the street in this mess?”
“Nowhere else t’go, M’lord,” Dabir stuttered, and looked down so his hair would hide his face. “Be travelin’ wi’ one of the troops soon as the road clears.”
“Aye, and I’m a dancing bear. You have too much magic t’be freezing like this.”
That was the very thing he had feared, and he couldn’t help meeting the man’s gaze again, all too aware that his magic showed in the white-flecked gold of his eyes. The noble reached out to catch him when his instinctive attempt to bolt was foiled by his nearly-frozen legs. When he was steady, the noble caught his chin in a firm grasp.
“Easy,” he said gently. “Breathe. I won’t hurt you. I have a touch o’the sight, and it’s been prodding me all week to find a lad of your look.”
“M’nothin’ special,” Dabir protested, and crushed his magic into a tiny ball, hopefully away from the too-sharp eyes of this nobleman. It fought him, already as hidden as he could make it, even with hours of meditation every night. “Jes’ a street magicker wi’ a lil’ spark f’charms.”
“Nah, Lad,” the noble said, cutting through Dabir’s excuses like a razor. “See, I was a thief before I was a noble. I know the look of a street mage. Mostly they fend for themselves better’n you.”
“I’m no one, M’Lord,” Dabir tried again and struggled to get his chilled body to respond. He didn’t think he could outrun this man. Not cold and half-starved as he was. But if he could turn a corner, maybe he would have time for a cloaking spell.
It would alert the mage-hunters to him, but better a threat he could run from than one at his door. “Please- I don’ know nothin’ ‘bout foresight nor any magic-”
The nobleman clearly didn’t believe a word of it, and took Dabir’s arm in a firm, but careful grip and hauled him to his feet.
“Hells, you’re far too thin,” the noble complained worriedly. “An’ I’m terrifying you aren’t I? Whatever trouble’s haunting you must be bad, to have you choosin’ to die in the snow rather than use that magic of yours.”
“Please, don’t,” Dabir gave up on pretense and tried to struggle away without success. As he feared, the noble was far stronger than he looked and he would have to use magic for any chance at escape. “I’m no one- truly-”
“Trouble it is,” the noble said frankly, and gestured to someone. “Jesy, get that heavy cloak in the back and bring the carriage around. You have a name?”
“Teva,” Dabir lied and glanced down the street. “M’Lord-“
“My name is Cyn, an’ you ain’t much of a liar even without foresight to tattle on you,” the noble- Cyn- told him bluntly without releasing his arm. “Tell me true, would you rather die here than get aid?”
With the cold eating away at him, Dabir shivered and thought about it. “I don’t know,” he admitted at last, reluctantly. “It depends what you want of me in return.”
“Least I know you can tell the truth when it suits you,” Cyn snorted. “But fair enough. When I was a street-rat, I didn’t trust nobles either, an’ I wasn’t as pretty as you are. Well, I’m bettin’ you can smell a lie when you want, aye?”
He could, but not without waking his magic, and he wondered if the man would see that small deception as he nodded slowly. By the skeptical look Cyn gave him, he wasn’t fooling anyone.
“I have a lady-wife who’s all I can handle, an’ I’m not looking for a pretty lad to warm my bed,” the noble told him calmly, and took a heavy fur cloak from his footman as a carrage rattled towards them down the street. “A fool could see you’re running scared and damn near out of options. Why don’t you come with me. If nothin’ else, I’ll give you a hot meal and a room for the night, an’ you can make up your mind from there.”
“I can’t,” Dabir told him tiredly, tempted despite himself. He couldn’t remember the last time he slept in a real bed, and his last good meal was weeks ago. “Please m’lord- you don’t know what you ask of me.”
Cyn chewed on his words for a while, even as he slung the cloak around Dabir’s thin shoulders. The heavy fur muffled the painful cold and the relief nearly took Dabir off his feet. Cyn steadied him again with one hand on his elbow until the dizziness passed.
“Runnin’ from a bad master?” he asked when his man was out of earshot.
“Something like that,” Dabir answered warily. He didn’t want to lose the cloak, but he wasn’t a thief. Not yet, anyway, and he ignored the man’s noise of displeasure when he shrugged it off and offered it back. Night was falling, but if he was fast he might be able to clear the gates before they closed for the night.
“Must be bad, to have a lad from the desert riskin’ the snow,” Cyn said again, quietly, and took the cloak, only to slung it back around Dabir before the freezing mage could stop him. “Keep that on, dammit. I don’ want to carry you off because you collapse in the cold. What would it take to convince you I mean you no harm?”
He just wasn’t taking no for an answer, and Dabir didn’t think he could make himself refuse a second time.
“A blood-oath to Kasheret” he replied, naming the goddess of justice. An oath to Her had to be kept, or the goddess sent her priesthood to hunt down the oathbreaker. “That you will do me no harm, nor allow harm to be done to me.”
Cyn cursed, and no wonder. It was a binding oath with little room for loopholes or interpretation.
Dabir watched him cautiously, unsure what to do if the man refused. He wasn’t sure he had enough energy to Portal, and that was all that would get him clear of the city if Cyn turned out to be one of the mage-hunters on his trail.
“Mage you are, to word an oath like that,” he said dryly. “I hope you’ll give me some answers after this. If my foresight wasn’t stabbin’ me in the ribs to get you before someone else does, I’d leave you here. I can’t swear to protect you over my other oaths, y’ken.”
“I know.”
Cyn produced a little quill-knife and slit the pad of his thumb deep enough to draw a few drops of blood.
“I swear before Kasheret, I’ll not do you harm, nor allow harm to come to you if I can prevent it,” he said calmly as his blood dripped on the dirty snow between them. “Not includin’ self-defense, should ye attack me or mine, nor defyin’ any oaths that might supercede this one.”
That left a lot of loopholes for the noble to exploit, but Dabir was past caring. It would take a better mage than most to undo the death-spell he wrapped around his own heart when he found out who was after him, and a faster mage than most to stop it if Cyn turned him over.
The cut on Cyn’s hand healed in a shimmer of dark blue- a sign of an oath accepted- and Dabir breathed a small sigh of relief. Cyn glanced down at it, and then to Dabir.
“In the carriage,” he said and gave Dabir a small push towards the open door. “Warm you up a bit and git somethin’ in you and we’ll deal with whatever’s after you after that.”
+++
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Into the Darkness
Turn Me
Wolf Moon
Blood Moon
Code for Magic
Hallowed Halls Memorial
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