The Book of Magic by Gardner Dozois & George R. R. Martin & Scott Lynch & Elizabeth Bear & Garth Nix

Author:Gardner Dozois & George R. R. Martin & Scott Lynch & Elizabeth Bear & Garth Nix
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2018-10-15T16:00:00+00:00

“Who’s?” asked Heln.

“Frossel?” finished Sommie.

“Frossel was a wizard, chronicler, and poet,” answered Colrean. He started walking, the slower pace forced by his limp easily matched by Wendrel at his side, the children ranging faster across and behind him on the path, like dogs on a tricky scent who nevertheless do not wish to go far from their master. “I might lend you one of his books. He wrote a lot. Go on, I want to talk to Wendrel.”

The children nodded together and bounded ahead.

“What does ‘a void waiting to be filled’ mean?” asked Wendrel quietly.

“A wizard’s staff, lost or abandoned by a wizard, will attract many things, many of them not of our sunlit, mortal realm,” said Colrean.

“Rannachin?” asked Wendrel.

“Yes, but worse things too,” said Colrean. “Far worse. And the staff—if it is a wizard’s staff—will call magic-workers of all kinds, even from very far away. Though I have some hope the stone will quiet it. I suppose that’s why whoever put it there did so, trying to keep it hidden.”

“The stone will hide it? Our Corner Post?”

Colrean looked aside at her as he strode on with his curious, lumbering gait. A brief look of puzzlement passed over his face like a cloud whisking across the sun.

“You do not know the nature of your stone?”

“I know it’s very old,” replied Wendrel, with a shrug. “But the powers I have are to do with people, and living things, not ancient lumps of rock or the like. The Corner Post has always seemed simply a stone to me. Though there is that odd rowan that keeps the stone company…sometimes I have felt as if it were watching me, that it is more than a simple tree…”

“It is,” said Colrean. “Though I do not know its nature either. All such mysteries are best left alone, save a pressing need to do otherwise. As for the Corner Post…there is definitely a power within it, though it sleeps, and sleeps deeply. I suspect it is one of the ancient walking stones, which many ages ago came down from the far mountains and took root here to fulfill some compact long forgotten. Those stone warriors served the Old Ones, the folk of the air, so long vanished but never entirely gone.”

Wendrel shivered. When she was a young apprentice, a birthing had gone terribly wrong. At the moment both infant and mother died, she had felt a sudden cold and unnerving presence, something drawn to the two deaths. The midwife who was her mentor quickly said this was one of the Old Ones, and that if they remained still and did not speak, no harm would come to them. Yet to warn Wendrel, the older midwife had spoken. She was at once struck dumb, and it was a twelvemonth before she regained the use of her voice at all, and she who had one of the sweetest voices in the three villages could never again carry a tune.

“Even the most powerful wizards do not readily meddle with such stones,” continued Colrean.

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