The Failed Mage

“I think I can hear the ocean,” the boy said, turning around to look at Lawrence. This was probably the fourth or fifth time he’d done this to the man, and he was in no mood to be yammered at with clear, yet misaligned excitement.

The failed magician was very sick—on the verge of dying, even. Since the arrow wound in the battle, he’d been feeling worse and worse as the days progressed, and after five days of wandering about the forests and skulking along the roads late at night to avoid any possible pursuers, he’d gotten much sicker. The wound was festering now, and occasionally Lawrence thought he caught a whiff of something foul. It could have been the boy, or him, since neither of them had bathed in over a week, but he knew the truth. He knew it was that wound. Pulling the arrow out had been an ordeal in and of itself, but the pain after was excruciating, sending fiery tendrils up his arm in a pulsating throb. But that had stopped a day ago, and now his upper arm only felt numb.

“Enough, boy,” the man muttered, leaning against a tree for support. If they didn’t reach a settlement with a magical healer soon, he’d die.

He grunted, sucked in a lung full of air. He was so tired, and dizzy. “Go on ahead and make sure.” He was letting hope seep in instead of holding fast to his accustomed realism. A bad sign for a certainty.

Ishi turned and marched up a steep hillock covered in treas. The canopy overhead was thick, so there was little underbrush here. A lucky thing, otherwise Lawrence probably would have collapsed half a day ago had he needed to trudge through thick scrub. The lack of a beating sun on his back was also quite lucky. He was so thirty, but not to the point of being in danger. He was dehydrated, certainly. But they passed several farms within the last few days, and making off with a pale of water or a few carrots and a cabbage hadn’t been difficult for the Ishi. He was a good boy. Certainly way too young to be an attendant for a man fighting on the front lines.

Well… that was over now. Their side had lost and Huromata had won. That ruthless whoreson. The failed mage had lost everything with the end of the war, and it had been the end of the war, as he saw his own daimyō perish under the blade of his foe. It had been all Lawrence could do to escape, run for his life like a coward. Never mind that seppuku nonsense—a common custom of these lands far in the east.

The failed mage—he was really more of a swordsman and mercenary—had failed the academy, and hence forth was known as “the failed mage” by all his peers back home. That blasted moniker had stuck. So well in fact, he simply thought of himself as the failed mage—though not as a failure. But then…

This damn title, he thought, smirking. Normally he wouldn’t laugh at himself in such a situation, but he was so weak and sick, strangely, things were beginning to seem funny to him. Was he delirious? His vision swayed, but it wasn’t blurry. It hadn’t been blurry for the last hour or so. Maybe he was starting to feel better? No, that couldn’t be it.

What had he been thinking about? He thought for a moment, wondering, trying to recall his own thoughts that seemed to keep slipping from him. He felt like an old man weak in the head. Was this what it was like?

Never mind. He looked up the hillock as he reached its base. He drew a deep breath, a dizzy spell hitting him hard. He leaned over, put his palms on his knees and breathed in and out until he caught some of his breath. After he felt better, he began to make his way up, pulling on tree branches and the occasional vine to help him along. They couldn’t use the roads since there were probably bounties to be awarded to anyone who reported information on fleeing soldiers. Daimyō Huromata was known for that sort of behavior, going so far as to even send soldiers into neutral territory to hunt men down. No, they wouldn’t be seen. In fact, more than once he spoke quite sternly to the young lad about not being seen on the road.

Gods, he hoped they were nearing a real settlement. Even a large town should do, but he’d have to get lucky. He began making his way up the hill in earnest, but he became winded and dizzy so fast, he had to stop as one knee came down on the soft damp earth.

Am I going to pass out? Those trees were swaying quite a lot, and it wasn’t windy. Slowly he lay on his side, the incline of the hill threatening to send him rolling if he fell unconscious.

“Boy...”

He listened. No sound. None. Where was he?

“Boy!”

He blinked and his attendant was there, rustling in the leaves and the grass as he kneeled beside Lawrence. Ishi was hardly his attendant anymore. They were just traveling companions. Why the young lad hadn’t just melted away in the night, he didn’t know. Maybe he was loyal. Lawrence liked that. Would he have stayed by the boy’s side had their positions been reversed?

Hard to say, he thought. But he didn’t want to think about that now. Useless waste of mind power. He needed to keep his strength.

The boy shook him again and he opened his eyes.

“What is it?”

Ishi looked at him for a moment, a visible air of worry etched across his smooth features. He couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen years old. So young. Too young to die in a battle. A good thing the fighting was over. At least for now. Maybe Lawrence would leave him behind once he was back to good health. Being around a mercenary could be dangerous. No, it was dangerous.

“Yes,” the boy said again, shaking the mage. “A city. Big one. Very close. Down the hill.”

“Is it on a river?”

Ishi shook his head. “Coast.”

“Well,” Lawrence said, “guess the sea will be over enough hills and you’ll eventually be right, I suppose.”

Ishi frowned, seemingly confused.

He was babbling nonsense. “Never mind.”

He lay there for a few more moments. It felt good to lay, to just be still. He felt now that he could close his eyes and just not wake up. His body wanted this. But his inner being cried out at the thought. No he wasn’t going to die here.

“Help me up, boy.” He turned, grunted as the short lad grabbed onto his forearm and helped haul him up. It took two tries. Ishi wasn’t strong—rather skinny, and Lawrence wasn’t short or even thin. He wielded a sword, being a failed mage, after all.

It took some time, and much effort, but eventually he and the boy made it to the top of the hill. The mage was feeling too sick and dizzy to care for the view, but had he been healthy, he’d have stood there and admired it for a moment or so. The golden sun was just rising above the seaborne horizon, casting the walled city in stark morning shadows, the edges of the walls and the guard towers were limned in golden light while the city remained silhouetted in black, the purple hues receding briskly.

“I told you, Ro-rensu-san.”

“That you did, boy. Now help me down this blasted hill and then find me a passing wagon.” He knew he couldn’t go on any longer, but as sick as he was, any wagon driver would be hesitant to pick up such a passenger.

Still, they managed to make it to the city gate. The failed mage and his boy attendant only had to wait for an hour despite the city being in plain sight. But Lawrence didn’t begrudge them their hesitancy to haul him into their wagons with the city so close. Not close, but still in sight, close enough that any healthy man, or not clearly lamed by past injury, wouldn’t have trouble walking to. When they reached the gate, the boy helped him out of the back of the wagon.

“Here,” he said, taking the mercenary’s arm and putting it over his shoulder. He had to lean to keep his weight on the boy because of their difference in height. It made it hard to walk properly, not that he could walk properly.

If they don’t let me through the gate, he thought, I’m dead. Very dead.

They waited for what seemed ages before they came forward in line. They simply waved most through, but occasionally stopped some people, taking them aside to question them or refuse them entry into the city. Lawrence didn’t even know what city this was. But judging from the direction they had traveled. And his copious knowledge of the surrounding geography, he had to say that this was probably Omosaku, a pit of a kingdom. Or was it Mikuma? Another pit. Sure, it was rich, but it had a lot of slums, gangs and rife racial tensions—at least that’s what he had heard. Word was that the emperor’s ineptitude in leadership had been steadily deteriorating the country. Why the shōgun or some daimyō didn’t just dethrone him was beyond Lawrence’s understanding.

They were halted and pulled aside. The boy glanced toward the mercenary questioningly, almost acting suspicious and alarmed, damn him. He was probably afraid for Lawrence’s sake, but right now that wasn’t helping. His heart beat faster and unsteadily. He hadn’t known fear like this in some time. He hated it. He felt pathetic. He was pathetic.

“There’s an entry toll,” the guard said, nodding over to a booth where a man was collecting coin from people entering into the city.

How had he not noticed that? They didn’t have any money. Was he going to die because he didn’t have a few silvers? Damn, he didn’t even have a sword to pawn to the cost.

“I see,” Lawrence said as he tried to think of what to say. Nothing came to him. He looked at the boy, and Ishi said nothing. Of course he said nothing.

“All right,” the guard said, a tone of finality in his voice. “If you don’t have the coin, you’ll have to move along.”

Lawrence was a dead man if he didn’t get through that gate. They could make to rush past. No that wouldn’t work. Too weak. He took a moment to catch his breath as the guard walked back to the booth where the toll collectors sat. There were four of them and they were letting in dozens of people every few seconds. Evidentially getting into the city was easy, so long as you had the entry fee.

Leave it to a greedy ruler to let just anyone in so long as they drop coin into his coffers…

Lawrence put his hand on the boy’s shoulder for support, then told him to go find some money. He nodded and ran off farther down the line. Smart. Begging up here would gather the attention of the guards.

He moved toward the toll booth, staying out of the direct line of entrants into the city. He must have been moving as though he were drunk, but in truth, he was ready to drop to the ground. He had no energy at all.

Instead of speaking to the toll collectors he addressed the guard. “I don’t have the money to get into your city, but I’m a mage, I can—“

The guard shook his head. “No money, no entry!”

“No—you’re not listening—I—“

“I said,” the guard snapped, “no money, no entry! Move along, before I move you along.” He shook his truncheon.

“The taxes I’ll pay from the money I make in the city will more than make up for it,” Lawrence said. He felt a note of desperation creeping into his voice. “Don’t you slanted-eyed bastards understand—“

The guard moved forward, his truncheon moving in a wide arc as he pulled back to put some force into his blow , but Lawrence, grabbed him by the forearm and ignited his inner flame. What looked like scars on his arm lit up, bright as embers.

The guard tried to shrink back, but Lawrence griped him hard, told him that if he moved, he’d singe the man’s arm off right there in front of everyone. “Now bring your commander down here,” he ordered.

“I’m here,” a voice called.

Lawrence looked up to find a man in his thirties with a goatee, hair pulled tightly back into a tail. He was standing on the stairs leading up to the guard tower adjoining the wall. By now Lawrence and the guard he had threatened were surrounded, a large halberd blade angled toward the back of his head, a silent but deadly warning.

“Lower your weapons,” the commander said. The guards obeyed, and Lawrence glanced about, everyone froze stock-still as they watched the commotion. He let go of the guard’s arm, and the man shrunk back, grabbed his singed flesh. Lawrence hadn’t damaged him, but he would be in some pain for a few hours.

He barely made it up the steps and into the guard tower. By then Ishi was there to assist him, every step a laborious toil. He was breathing like he’d just run up a mountain as the commander of the gate guard watched him, concern etched across his features. He didn’t strike Lawrence as an unkind mind—just the opposite.

“You look unwell,” he said. “Please sit.” He gestured to a bench near the window. Lawrence felt cold. Too cold for this summer heat.

I’m not going to die now!

“You need immediate magical attention,” the commander continued.

Lawrence met the man’s eyes for a moment, his own eyes half closing. He shivered for a moment, then nodded, too exhausted to speak.

“What happened?” The commander nodded toward the mercenary’s arm.

“Arrow,” the boy said.

He nodded. “The Xai Qi don’t take prisoners. You’re lucky to be alive. My name is Nakamura Tomiichi, and as is no doubt clear, I am the commander of the city guard that patrols the northern wall. My sister…”

If only he’d cease his incessant ramblings.

He was nudged by the boy at his side. He stirred. “What is it?”

“You didn’t hear him?” The boy asked, leaning over to look into his eyes.

“Never mind,” Commander Nakamura said. “Mage,” he added pointedly, “I’m going to save your life. I hope you will repay the favor in kind.”

Lawrence found the strength to nod to those words. That last act of calling forth his flame must have sapped what little strength he had left. Regardless he…