A Cloak of Destiny

The infant slept wrapped in her extra linen shirt and fleece scarf on a pile of hay over the packed dirt floor. The ward she had placed to inhibit the child’s awareness of The Power was doing its work. It was a necessary evil for the infant’s protection. She could not watch the child in her sleep, after all. But placing the ward always left her feeling sour. The Power flowed through all. It was not the child’s fault she happened to distinguish its current so early.

Her considerably larger hay pile, pulled from the hayloft with the farmer’s consent, was next to the baby’s. The woman breathed deep. The smell of hay calmed her. This would make a fine bed. And the old barn a fine shelter. They had travelled for three days through Allegreene Forest with nothing but tree cover to accommodate them—herself, her horse, and the infant. Signs of summer’s close were everywhere including in Allegreene’s cooling night air. She had slept little to make certain the infant was warm. The barn would relieve her of this duty tonight. She could sense her horse and companion, Liolelle, had felt temporary relief from his own duty also—worrying about her. She reached out to the great stallion through The Power and smiled. He stood in his pen in the adjacent stable, already dozing.

She sat now in the middle of a work area, an open space adjacent to the wide doors, with her back against a large, load-bearing timber column. She watched for a time the orange dusking sky darken through a small window under the rafters. She had taken off her deerskin shoes, placed her feet on the floor, and leaned her yew staff across one knee. She held her staff and opened herself to the barn. Those of her kind from nearly all Orders spent months constructing beacons that would act as reserve for a merging of The Power. A stone monument would be carved, and many would labour to weave channels that draw The Power and allow it to flow. She imagined that sitting at the center of one such beacon, not drawing The Power but flowing with it, would certainly feel like it did to sit in a barn.

She felt the moving weave of The Power as it brought everything to a delicate yet unerring consistency. She eased into that ambiguous space been interpretation and sensation. It took years of training to accomplish this balance and there was always a new wavering, a new signature of The Power to learn and take up. She called on that training now to explore the barn. She felt Power enter and exit her like waves on a shoreline. The ward she cast was all too obvious as it stifled the weave’s flow from behind her. The baby was there within that cancelling force. She felt the hard ground buzz. She sensed beneath her feet the ants and their tunnels. She sensed grasses pushing between the wooden walls at the floor and the walls themselves staying and stabilizing. She felt a mouse seeking an exit. She felt the farmers tools suspended about her. She shifted her attention to the column at her back and all that flowed through it. She relished the signature of hay and smiled again as its scent return to her nose. Finally, she identified an owl waking in the rafters. It must have felt the echo of her reaching for it stirred, turning its head forward and back.

The barn hummed with it all. And she hummed with it. Humming in resonance. Humming. Humming. Humming—.

Her eyes opened as she felt the farmer approach. A knock on the door. She snapped away from the sensing.

“Hello there,” she said.

“I thought you could use some food,” said the farmer. He entered carrying a steaming bowl of vegetable stew, bread, and a wineskin. “Milk for the child.”

“That’s very kind of you.”

The farmer had spotted her exiting the Allegreene that afternoon on horseback. The village’s farmlands stopped at the hills which themselves led to the treeline. The farmer had all afternoon to inspect the woman’s approach. Even in miniature, they appeared unusual. He knew the horse would be as large as his largest workhorse. The stallion was burdened by two sacks thrown over his back in counterweight but arrived in a fresh trot as though unincumbered. The woman wore a deep brown cloak. Her long staff protruded from what was more commonly a flag carrier strapped to the saddle. The farmer, seeing a bundle of cloth, worried the woman bore an injury. The farmer then had some time to worry what might have caused the injury. The woman arrived with the dusk. She was younger than the farmer expected. Perhaps she had seen not thirty years. And to the farmer’s amazement, the bundle bore not an injured arm, but a child, an infant. The woman asked after the barn for the night. The farmer knew better than to refuse a wizard.

“I checked on your horse. Beautiful. He seems settled,” said the farmer, setting down what he had brought on a workbench.

“Yes, he’s quite comfortable, thank you. Happy to have a good night’s rest,” the woman replied.

“So, you do speak to your animal.”

The woman smiled her kind smile. “And many others besides. After a fashion.” Her eyes were a piercing gray.

“Such a skill would certainly be useful around here.”

“You need not be modest. I dare say we wizards learned it from you.”

The farmer nodded. “Well, I don’t know about all that,” he said flashing a quick smile.

“Never be ashamed of your work,” the woman said, her grey eyes suddenly hard. The farmer swore he heard the woman swallow. “The wizard that shames you shames themselves. Now, we didn’t speak of payment, but I…”

“No need for that,” the farmer interjected. “We’re doing just fine here. The Powers watch over us.”

“There is only one Power, and It does not watch. You weave it with more skill than you know. Or perhaps you do know. In any case, I will pass by your village market tomorrow and spend there. Deal?”

“That would be fine,” said the farmer, eyeing the bundle of clothes on the hay in the back of the barn. “Not every day you get to help a wizard.” He looked about to say more, thought better of it, then said goodnight. The woman thanked him again.

She would leave a silver coin on the workbench at tomorrow’s departure. Leaving more might upset the economy of the village. And besides, she was running out herself.

As though following the farmer’s gaze, the woman turned to observe the bundle on the hay. She touched the wineskin and drew some heat into her body to cool the wineskin's contents. She then approached the sleeping baby and looked down on her warmly, if sadly.

She had been seeking tell of a disturbance in The Power. A ripple, faint but terrible, had been felt across those in her Order and others like hers. If a group outside an Order meant to upset The Power’s flow, to halt it or fan it, even for a time…. A successful effort would bring harm to many. She been tasked to seek its origin. Those who knew may not know of what they speak, so she went about listening for gossip in a region that seemed a probable source. She sought news of a collective ailment or affliction, a localized rot or disease. A patch of forest suddenly wilting, or a certain illness in a small population—anything that might hint at the location of the disturbance.

She had just departed from the port city Orlanda to investigate a lost crop of apples in a feeder village. She had been passing through a small village along the way, staying at an inn, when the innkeeper burst into her room.

“Master Wizard!” he had bellowed. “Your aid! Please, your aid!”

They had run across the street to what must have been the village hall. The woman could hear a baby’s scream as they approached. The innkeeper threw open the doors. A group of villagers were already pilled into the hall. Many were crying. They stood around a man holding a writhing bundle. He rocked the bundle hopelessly. The screaming came from within.

The wizard ran, tore open the bundle, and gazed at the baby. Its face was beet red in agony. The wizard looked up at the man who then tore open more of the cloth. Green shoots snaked from the infant’s fingers on its left hand. The shoots grew, sprouted leaves, and wilted. The tiny fingers themselves were greening and she could see vein turn to root turn to vein. The woman quickly drew her hand over the tiny infant’s and closed her eyes. Its breath calmed with hers. The sprouting slowed and ceased. The hand had returned to its initial form.

The villagers had separated the baby from its family. They implored the wizard to take the child. She knew she had no choice. In truth, she stifled a welling joy. This was how many wizards began. And although this infant appeared uncommonly young, she feared it was not as uncommon as generally believed. Most infants of this age, she knew, were not so lucky as to have a wizard passing through.

The child had stumbled upon the flow of The Power, had found leverage in the weave. It was like finding a limb once bound released. She herself had been a girl when she found it. This sudden appendage, however, moved in surprising ways. The infant had simply began experimenting as all infants did with hands, feet, or voice. The baby infiltrated the weave as babies scream in a room to hear the echo. But echoes are unpredictable. Changing the pattern of one’s body was not an altogether rare skill among some Orders. But this particular power in someone so young—. The infant had fallen into a familiarity that could mature into a great skill.

The child looked calm now under her gaze. They were still two days from the closest Holding of her Order. The Holding was outside Vollare, a town itself outside the city Vollstrome. A great wizard, once her teacher, had been assigned there two years prior. He now ran the school there. She would explain the nature of the child’s attunement to The Power. The child would be taken care of, and the protections slowly released. One must use a limb to develop its strength.

It would be good to see her teacher. But she could not stay long. She had been in haste to reach the Vollare Holding. The child’s life was of great importance, but the threat of the anomalous ripple grew in her mind. She must return to her search. She would ride back to the orchard with fewer stops.

She reset the ward. Thankfully, she had not felt any further disturbance and the issue remained a simple one. Perhaps after some conclusion was found she would visit the baby girl. She took one last look at the child and prepared for sleep. She snuffed the lamp, wrapped the cloak around herself, and eased into the hay. She caught the stars twinkling in the frame of the window before shutting her eyes. The flow of The Power was her lullaby as it was each night, but the possibility of a break or swell in that complex symphony kept her awake for longer than usual.

Just before drifting away, she felt the cloak of some vague destiny fall over them both.