Forest Mage

I ate, and as each dish was emptied, others were pushed forward to take their place. Eating had become an adventure in sensations, with no relationship to appetite or nourishing the body. I fed something larger than myself, something that took satisfaction in every morsel that entered my mouth.

There were moments when my true self broke through, moments when I realized the incongruity of my pale nakedness in the flame-lit velvet darkness, moments when Olikea’s satisfied patting of my swelling belly reminded me that in the streets I had walked this morning, that distended paunch was a source of mockery and shame to me. My hidden self that Tree Woman had nourished and educated emerged into his own. He, at least, understood that this tribute was due to him and proper, and he showed his satisfaction in ways that would have made my aristocratic self shudder, had I taken time to consider it. He licked his fingers and moaned with pleasure at some tastes, smacking his lips over others, and licking bowls to obtain every last morsel of the best offered to him.

The People adored his praise of the food they brought him. As the night progressed, they built the fires higher, making the circle of light broader. They joined in the feasting, serving to themselves the lesser food unfit to offer me. When I was full nigh to bursting and had reduced my activity to sampling the best morsel from each dish presented to me, I became aware that the other mage had seated himself beside me. I turned to look at him. Jodoli gravely inclined his head to me.

“My people feast you well,” he informed me. There was no warmth in his voice, only the statement of fact.

I suddenly felt awkward. The scattered fragments of my real self assembled and I found myself groping for ma

“Great Man Nevare.” Jodoli’s low voice summoned my attention back to him. His gaze held mine. It was singularly uncomfortable to look at him. His eyes were u

“Olikea said—” I began, but he cut my words off with a strange smile. He was rubbing the fingers of one hand together as if he were polishing a small coin. “These people of mine,” he warned me. “They may not be as easy to win as you might think. You are bigger than me. And you know as well as I that the magic courses through you. But magic is like any other strength, Plain-skin. It must be trained to be useful. And I do not think you have been trained.”

“And you have?” I asked him with a coolness that I did not really feel.

“My teachers stand all around you,” he said. I felt him watching me as he spoke, and knew that I was being tested just as surely as I knew I was failing that test. I looked at the gathered people and wondered what I could set against them. Mentioning the academy would probably not impress him.

“My teacher is within me,” I said impulsively, mostly for the sake of saying something different from what he had asserted. The words had no meaning for me, but I was pleased to see a flicker of uncertainty in his masked eyes.

“I propose a small competition,” he said. “One that will allow my people to choose wisely between one who is better schooled and one who is greater in girth.”

His eyes flickered away from me as he made this challenge. I followed the direction of his glance and saw the woman who had earlier championed him standing at the edge of the firelight’s circle. I sensed how they conspired to unmask my ignorance. For one instant, I scrabbled for a strategy. Then I realized I simply didn’t have one. My Speck self might have a working knowledge of magic, but I didn’t have access to it. I leaned back lazily and smiled at him, wondering if I should bluff. What did Olikea expect of me? She seemed to have deliberately maneuvered me into this confrontation. My eyes roved the gathering, looking for her. The moment my gaze touched her, she lifted her face. Our eyes met. I saw Olikea become aware of my danger. She began trying to hurry back to me without betraying her haste. Her gaze warned me, but I looked away from her. The smile on my face was becoming fixed. I nodded at Jodoli as if I’d been carefully considering his challenge. “What sort of a competition did you have in mind?” I asked him.

“The simplest sort,” he replied complacently. “As you know, in times of plenty, the People care for their mage. In hard times, we burn our magic and ourselves to care for the People. So. Shall we show which one of us is more capable of taking care of the folk in lean or dangerous times?”

I was not sure how to reply to him. A woman carrying a flat tray toward me blocked Olikea. Her eyes flashed desperately toward me, but I looked away from her at Jodoli. He’d judge me weak if he caught me looking at a woman for advice. If I were going to move among these people, I must make my own way. I sized up my rival carefully. If this fellow thought he could best me in a competition of strength, he was wrong. I was not only wider than he was, but at least a head taller. My daily labor meant that my muscles were hard under the fat that coated him. He looked soft to me. The food I’d eaten had charged my magic. I could feel it scintillating through my blood, heady and intoxicating as liquor. Power. I had power and I had it in greater quantity than he did. Hitch had said I’d worked wonders beyond anything he’d ever seen a Great One do. Perhaps I had a natural talent for magic. I knew I had the benefit of a military education. Everything I’d ever learned about strategy warned me that now was no time to appear indecisive or afraid. My only hope was to draw Jodoli out and try to find a weakness. “Set the terms of the challenge as you wish,” I told him affably. Did he look surprised at my nonchalance? I hoped I was buying time.

He bowed his head. I thought for an instant that he smiled, but when he lifted his face to mine, his mouth was serious. “And when shall we begin?” he asked me softly.

“Whenever you like,” I said magnanimously.

I opened my eyes to dim light filtering down through the forest canopy. A light rain of dew was sprinkling down from the leaves high above me as the morning breeze stirred them. The falling droplets sparkled in the random rays that broke through the canopy. They fell on my face, my bare chest and belly, for I lay flat on my back. I yawned and stretched. I could not recall a morning when I had awakened feeling better. My belly was still pleasantly full from the evening before, and I had slept as deeply as if I’d been snuggled into the finest featherbed. I sat up slowly and looked around.

I was alone on a forested hillside. The events of the evening before came back to me in a rush of sensation and detail. Try as I might, though, I could recall nothing after I’d accepted Jodoli’s challenge. As if someone had blown out the lamp, darkness followed his words until I opened my eyes to this day.

Yet something must have happened, for there was absolutely no sign at all of the fires or the feast or the Speck encampment. The lay of the land did not match my recollection at all; the Specks had been settled in a little dell and I rested on a slant of hillside. I doubted I had been carried here, yet surely I would remember if I had come here under my own power? Most a