Magicless Read online

  He’d been staring at it since Noz had so unceremoniously reached through Alekka and drawn it. It still didn’t make much sense, a fact that clenched Magicless’ guts and sent chills down his spine. Noz had specifically named him as navigator, saying no one else could possibly lead the way. He’d said it showed the true way, and no one else could see it for what it was except one who could see through magic, but all Magicless could see was a chaotic drawing with vague suggestions of mountains and forests and vast inland seas that made little sense and lined up not at all with what he saw around him.

  It didn’t help that, until beginning this journey, he’d never been more than two handfuls of miles away from Aclay. He had no idea what the layout of the country beyond that looked like. He’d heard tell of distant mountain ranges and even a body of water no one had ever been able to sail to the end of, but he knew little of these things. Why had Noz made him the navigator? Truth be told, he wasn’t sure he even knew where they were now, let alone where they were trying to go. Noz could have at least put a big X where the cabin was. He’d tried to match up the landscape around him with the details on the map, but it was impossible to be sure. How could he figure out where they should go when he didn’t even know where they were?

  He became aware of the silence around him and he glanced up to see the entire group staring at him. Alekka and Jobin were smiling—Alekka quite warmly, he realized with a blush—but Tredon’s face was a slight shade of purple and his lips were clenched tightly together. They’d not even been on the road for five minutes and he was already furious. Magicless drew a breath deep into his lungs and let it out slowly as he stared at the map once more. There was a river that looked like it might be a day’s walk away, maybe a bit more depending on how quickly they moved through the mountains. He gazed up at the mountains stretching to the sky all around them, looking for something that he could use to orient himself. He looked back at the map and saw a mountain that looked taller than the others. He scanned the landscape again, zeroing in on the peak he thought was higher than the others, but he couldn’t be sure. He squared his shoulders and made his decision. If they didn’t hit the river by mid-morning tomorrow, he’d have his answer. Tredon would just have to deal with it. He turned without a word and began walking, trying hard to convince himself that Noz’s confidence was not misplaced.

  Jobin jumped in beside him, Alekka and Elisa behind them, and from further back an exaggerated sigh punctuated the air as Tredon took up the rear with Leali and Ashier.

  “Oh let him simper and whine,” Jobin said. “That man has too much ego for his own good and it’s good for him to get a dose of humble pie from time to time.”

  “I don’t think humble has anything to do with it, Jobin. He’ll try to cause problems every step of the way to prove he’s right. He wants me to fail, you know, even if it means setting the group back as a whole,” Magicless said.

  “Oh, he definitely wants you to fail, Micah. But I don’t think he’ll sabotage you that way. His pride won’t let him do that. He wants you to fail all on your own.” Jobin smacked him on the shoulder so hard Magicless almost fell off his feet.

  But did Tredon have that kind of influence anymore? Magicless wondered. In the beginning he had. But over the last months of their journey Magicless had managed to earn a place in this group. He and Alekka had openly acknowledged their feelings, something Magicless had never dared believe to be possible. Jobin and he were friends, and the man had even volunteered to learn swordplay, something most mages in Aclay scorned. Through Jobin he had earned respect from Elisa, too, and after she’d helped Alekka in the cabin after her reaching, Magicless had started to respect Elisa a bit more, as well. Even Leali didn’t treat him as she used too, even though she was clearly still aligned with Tredon and Ashier. He knew that the mission was too important to her for petty squabbles to get in the way. And Ashier…who even knew about Ashier. He mostly remained aloof, as was his way, always at Tredon’s side but never actually taking sides if it came to that.

  He felt confident that the others would not allow Tredon to chase Magicless out of the group. They’d certainly not allow Tredon’s actions to derail the entire mission. He looked up at the sky and smiled at the feel of the warm sun on his face. He’d carved a niche for himself in the group. He didn’t know how to use the stupid map Noz had drawn for him, but he would figure it out. No...they would figure it out. All of them. Together.

  “I’ll race you to the top!” Magicless shouted, feeling suddenly buoyant and alive, and without waiting for agreement launched into as fast a sprint as he could manage across the steep and rocky landscape.

  “You cheater! That’s cheating, you…huge cheat!” Jobin flung the accusation—not the most creative, Magicless noted with a huff of laughter—up the hill but laughed as he lurched up after Magicless. “If I had my powers I’d be at the top by now,” he panted.

  “Yea, but you don’t. Not yet, anyway. And I’m beating you to the top!” Just like in their race at Noz’s pond, Jobin had no hope of even keeping up with him, let alone beating him.

  Magicless reached the top and stood grinning while he watched the others pick their way up the steep hillside. He held his arms over his head, enjoying the cooling touch of the breeze at the top of the hillside and catching his breath as he waited. He felt light despite the weight of their journey and the thought of the cost if they were to fail. Even in the face of grave danger, simple things like a race to the finish line or a smile exchanged between comrades could bring contentment and happiness. A strange yet not unpleasant tightness gripped his chest.

  So this is how it feels to have friends.

  Jobin caught up and then passed him, continuing down the steep slope on the far side of the mountain. Magicless waited for Alekka to catch up. She and Elisa were not far behind, and Magicless settled in with them as they walked. They’d been chatting as they’d climbed but Alekka and Elisa had fallen silent as he stepped in with them. He wondered if he’d interrupted something.

  Elisa glanced at Magicless, studying him under lowered eyelashes. “I know you vanish with Jobin into the forests in the early mornings, Magicless. What do the two of you do, man without magic?”

  There was no hostility in her tone. Just a simple question. Magicless squirmed nevertheless.

  “I’m not comfortable talking about it, Elisa. Please, no offense, I think any sharing in that regard should come from Jobin, not from me.” There. He’d avoided breaking Jobin’s confidence.

  A contemplative humming was her only reply. She shifted her gaze forward toward Jobin and watched him walk along ahead of them. Magicless wondered at what she saw there. He saw joy in the bounce of Jobin’s step that he’d never seen before. Did she see how much Jobin had changed since his sword training had begun? Did she see his burgeoning confidence, the steady mellowing of his moods and his growing happiness? As if he knew they were talking about him Jobin spun to face them, his normally stormy grey eyes clear and bright. He lifted an arm in a wave, and Magicless could see the strength building there from their hours of sword training.

  “Well. Whatever it is, I thank you for it. I misjudged you…Micah. For that, I am sorry. He is happy—whatever you are doing is making him happy. Thank you.” With that, she picked up her pace to catch up with Jobin. Magicless stared after her, temporarily dumbfounded. Alekka twined her fingers into his and he felt a swell of pride and a further loosening of that tight knot of anxiety he’d been carrying with him since the start of their journey.

  Ahead, Jobin and Elisa had stopped walking, and seemed to be staring at something in the distance. Elisa turned back and looked at Magicless with an odd expression on her face. The knot that had just eased tightened back up with sudden, brutal force. “What is it?” He asked as he came alongside them.

  Elisa pointed, and with a start Magicless realized they were on the high lip of the mountain headed back down into Noz’s valley. Magicless could see the cabin sitting snugly at the bottom, surrounded by garde
ns. Smoke drifted lazily from the chimney and the sunlight glinted off the lake as the wind blew up small ripples on the surface of the water.

  “What...? How—” Alekka stuttered. “We’ve been walking away from this place for at least a couple of hours. How are we suddenly walking back down toward it?”

  Magicless stared, wondering what he’d missed. There was no way they’d circled back unintentionally. The view here was wide and uninterrupted—it should be impossible to get turned around here. They’d gone in a single direction but had ended up back where they started.

  “Why’ve we stopped?” Leali asked as she stepped up to them. Then she turned and gave Magicless a hard stare. She shifted her gaze to Tredon and Ashier as they came into view of the cabin. Tredon, predictably, glared at Magicless.

  Magicless ignored him and pulled out the map again. Scanning the ring of mountains surrounding the valley, he saw that they were directly across from the mountain Magicless had pegged as the taller one and the one they’d just climbed. It was as if they’d done a full circle traveling underneath the valley and then come up on the far side—like they’d just walked around a ball instead of along a mountain range.

  He studied the map, looking for some hint of where they should start. Clearly this valley was spelled. He supposed it made sense, giving Noz’s description of his cabin existing in a “wrinkle” in magic. He mentally kicked himself for not remembering that sooner. Well, they’d found a way in, so there must be some way out. There was nothing on the map providing any hint of what that might be. Noz had said only one without magic would be able to read the map. No, he’d said only someone without magic would be able to see the real way, thought Magicless, realization dawning.

  “Alekka, tell me what you see when you look at these mountains,” he said, turning to her, eyes alight.

  Tredon moaned and rolled his eyes. “Great. Someone wake me up when Magicless learns how to read a map.” He moved some distance away and threw his bulk to the ground, settling with his head on his pack. Ashier joined him, leveling a considering look at Magicless.

  Alekka described the ring of mountains identically to what Magicless himself saw. Wherever it was, their path wouldn’t be found there.

  “What do you see down below in the valley?”

  He listened to her description, but soon his mind began to wander. He was thinking of how they’d come into Noz’s valley. They’d been attacked and fought with the bat creatures, but that itself didn’t open the door. Door…he thought. More like window. He’d seen Noz’s cabin as if through a small window. They’d not gone through that window to get to Noz-it was more as if Noz himself had expanded the window until they were actually in it already without having to walk through it, like a soap bubble. But maybe what he’d seen was actually the doorway. None of the others had seen it. Even after he’d pointed it out they still hadn’t been able to.

  “Does it move, though? Or is it stable?” Alekka stopped talking, and he realized he’d spoken the words, not just thought them.

  “Does what move?” She asked him.

  “The window. Or door...whatever it is. We came here through a door, we need to leave through a door as well,” Magicless said, certain now that he’d said it aloud.

  “There is no door, Magicless,” Leali said as she gestured around them. “The only door within many days’ walking distance is the one that leads into Noz’s cabin.” Her tone was even, but it was clear to Magicless she was frustrated.

  “There is a door. I saw it when we entered the valley where we were attacked by the bat creatures. I saw Noz’s cabin through it, too, just before we were attacked. He himself said his valley was not in the same place as that other valley. We need to go back through that door to get to the other valley.”

  “But we didn’t walk through any door to get here, Micah,” Jobin said. “We were just suddenly here.”

  “It feels that way because Noz was able to…expand it, or something, so that it was all around us and we didn’t realize we’d walked through it to another place,” Magicless insisted, “but we did leave there to get here, and we need to reverse that if we want to get out of Noz’s valley. Come on.”

  They climbed back down the mountain and approached Noz’s house once more. Tredon grumbled and swore the entire way. Magicless ignored it as best he could. Once there, he looked for a place that matched the view he’d originally had of Noz’s cabin. He moved around quite a bit, trying to match up what his eyes saw now with what he remembered seeing through that tiny window. It was harder than he might have guessed. He’d had no idea at the time that he’d need to remember the details so precisely or he might have paid better attention.

  Finally he found a place that seemed to best match the vision in his mind. He turned to face away from Noz’s cabin toward where he hoped the door to the valley in their world lay. He scanned the area but saw nothing. No portal, no vision that looked out of place or unusually tiny, nothing that appeared as if it were at a great distance. Everything looked just as he would expect it to.

  He motioned Alekka to his side. “What do you see?” She went through the litany, everything matching up exactly with what he was seeing. Disappointment washed over him. He’d felt so certain this was the key to getting out of Noz’s valley. It was the only thing that made sense.

  “Wait...what?” Magicless looked at Alekka, a jolt of excitement passing through him.

  “I said there is a copse of trees there.” She motioned to an area where Magicless saw no trees at all, just open grassland flooded with sunshine.

  “You see trees? Right there?” Magicless asked, pointing.

  “Yes.”

  “Exactly right here, you are certain?”

  “Yes, I’m certain, Micah. They are right in front of you there,” Alekka said, smiling slightly, a bemused expression on her face.

  “You find something?” Jobin asked, joining the two of them.

  “Right there, Jobin, right where my finger is pointing, what do you see?”

  Jobin studied the area Magicless was pointing to, and then he shrugged. “Trees, just like Alekka said. Just a bunch of trees.”

  Magicless smiled and smacked him on the back. “Excellent.” Before he could stop himself, he snatched up Alekka’s hand and kissed it. She giggled. He didn’t think he’d ever heard her giggle before.

  “So what is it?” Jobin asked him. “I take it you are seeing something different than we are.”

  Magicless grinned. “I see a wide meadow filled with sunshine and wildflowers, but no trees.”

  “But that other valley had no sunshine, Magicless. Or wildflowers. It was a swampy, foggy place filled with creatures that wanted us dead, if you remember.” Tredon strolled their way, his lip curled in disdain. “For all we know you’re making this crap up, too afraid to admit Noz made a mistake when he named you navigator. But even if what you claim to see really is another place, how do you know it’s the place we came from at all? It could be anywhere, or anywhen, for that matter. We have no idea what sorts of traps Noz has set up here. We could end up on the other side of the world for all we know.”

  Magicless felt his grin fall from his face. He hated to admit it, but Tredon had a point. He had no idea what really lay through that door. He was certain it was a door, but a door to where, he knew not. He forced himself to relax his shoulders. “You are right, Tredon. We don’t know for certain this leads to the place we came from. It could turn us out anywhere. But this is the place we came in, and I think it is reasonable to believe it will return us to the same place. But I am open to suggestions if you have other ideas.”

  He looked at Tredon, willing his face to neutrality. He would not give him the satisfaction of seeing his frustration or his concern. Tredon’s face was likewise blank. He coolly returned Magicless’ look for many breaths.

  “As long as you acknowledge the risk it is worth the effort, I suppose. Though I’d have hoped our navigator would have a bit more confidence in how to navigate.”
>
  Magicless ignored the barb. He looked toward the others.

  “Anyone else have any concerns they’d like to voice or other ideas to try?” He got no reply to that, so he shouldered his pack and stepped into what he saw as a meadow.

  As he walked, he wondered how many other things he saw differently than the others. He’d always had a different perspective on things of course. His need to do things manually and on his own guaranteed he saw things differently than the mages around him. But he’d never considered he might actually see things differently than they did in the physical sense. How many other magical blinds existed in the world that they missed completely? Could things have gone differently in Aclay if he’d known then? It made him want to have Alekka at his side day in day out simply describing what she saw to see if it differed from what he saw.

  He had never considered his lack of magic to be a strength before, but this made him begin to wonder. If what Jobin said was true, he could nullify others’ powers, and he could also see things as they really were. He could not be fooled the way the mages could be. That kind of skill could have value if he could convince the others. Perhaps your mystical musings weren’t so ridiculous after all, Da, he thought, smiling fondly as he thought of his father. He’d always said that things were not always as they seemed to be. Magicless held onto this thought as the group passed through the doorway.

  Once they’d reached the center of the meadow, Magicless stopped and pulled out the map. He again located the one mountain that towered over the others and then scanned the landscape around him to find that mountain. His confidence returned. It was there, clear as could be, a towering peak much higher than the others around it. He shifted his route to head in that direction. If he was right, and he felt certain he was now, they’d hit a wide, open plain and a large river by midday tomorrow.