Ringwall's Doom. Wolf Awert

but caution held him back. He was still too close to Ringwall to be sure his questions would not backfire. The question for Perdis was not meant for the wrong ears. On the way here he had already felt he was not alone, and the feeling had not ceased even here among these people.

      “I come from Metal and journey to Fire, but I have no haste in my steps. How can I repay your hospitality and aid you?” Nill asked formally after they had finished their meal in silence. Although hospitality was a sacred law, it was customary in some places to always repay a gift with an equivalent service.

      One of the older men, the kind who looked like they were in command, looked at Nill’s hands and furrowed his brow.

      “I have nothing to give you for your meal except my labor. But that you can have, as far as I can provide,” Nill said, having noticed the doubtful glances.

      “We could use some help, yes,” the man replied hesitantly. “We need to build a new field.”

      “It has been a while since I’ve worked outdoors, but I have not lost what I learned,” Nill said, but silently he wondered how one built a field. Houses were built; fields were cropped.

      Nill spent the night outside with his ram. He had been offered a camp in one of the stables but had declined with thanks. He rose early and helped the women carry water and break thin branches for the fire. After a meager breakfast he was given a wickerweave basket and followed the others to a depression between three hills where the rare, but always heavy rain had washed the sparse earth from the stony hills.

      “Put the earth in your basket and take the small stones to one pile and the bigger stones to the other pile,” one of the men instructed him.

      Nill picked up a stone, scraped the earth off it and threw it onto one of the piles, where it landed with an audible clack. He quickly noticed that this was not easy work; along with the weight, the sun burnt hotly in the sky and shortened his breath and dried his skin. But Nill knew a way around it. With a delicate spell, too small to be noticed, he made the earth heavy and the stones light. The villagers nodded in approval as they saw how precisely he could throw even the larger stones over a distance. Nill did not need to worry about keeping his magic a secret. There were no arcanists in the village.

      Nill had soon filled his basket with precious earth and attempted to lift it. His back gave a menacing crack.

      By the five elements, he cursed in his mind. I never thought earth could be so heavy.

      Nill filled basket upon basket and the two stone piles grew higher and higher. His hands burrowed into the pit, pulled out a stone, cast aside the earth and – clack! – the stone fell on the pile. Over and over again.

      Nill surrounded the stones in a slight veil of Earth magic. The earth fell into his basket and the stones flew through the air. Nill did not even look anymore. He dug and separated and threw. Clack. The stones left his view and ceased to exist. Earth was left. Dark, reddish-brown earth. Hidden fire, slowly burning out before his eyes as the topsoil darkened. Even the blue sky seemed to be growing darker until Nill entered a world in which his eyes were irrelevant. At first Nill smelled the earth, the spicy scent of hidden life, the bittersweet smell of invisible mushrooms and the aged fumes of disintegrating leaves. But soon the smells vanished too, with a breath of decay that stayed in the air for a few more moments. All that was left was a dull strength that exuded from the earth and surrounded all the life upon and within it. Nill’s hands kept working without his realizing.

      As if from a great distance an occasional clack! would reach his ears, but he was unable to say whether he or someone else had thrown the stone. The earth surrounded him on all sides.

      Nill loved the magic of Earth, but there was something unknown here, something that threatened to take hold of him. He gave all his attention to a single stone he held in his hand, its white breaking through the earth that stuck to it. A saving white in all the dull brown. It shone in the light of the sun and grew stronger, it gave color back to the sky and the earth and soon overwhelmed it, so bright that he had to close his eyes. But his eyelids could not hold it back. Nill bathed in the light and froze, for the light had no innate strength or warmth. This light had nothing to give. It only took. It wanted to rule and had forced the Earth magic away and taken its place, and now it flowed around Nill as the darkness that had preceded it.

      This is even worse, Nill thought. At least, he believed he was thinking, for he no longer knew where he was or how the sun stood. All he felt were small, soft chunks of earth falling through his fingers to the ground. He had raised his hands to his head and now pressed his fingertips against his eyes. Shadows fell over the whiteness and slowly the world came back into focus. Nill opened his eyes and saw that he was sitting in front of a large pile of earth. His basket had toppled over.

      “Is everything all right with you?” one of the men asked.

      “It is, it is. I suppose I’m not used to so much sunlight,” Nill answered somewhat absently.

      As the sun set they admired their day’s work, a large hole in the ground from which all the earth and stones had been removed. The evening meal was simple, but there was plenty – potatoes, dark bread and onions. Nill could not recall having ever eaten a better meal.

      “A capable sorcerer or druid here would get a lot of fields done in a short time,” Nill said after a while.

      One of the men gave a contemptuous snort. “Where are you from? Can’t be around here; no sorcerer would ever stoop to helping us build a field. The lords and ladies only care about themselves. And druids – I don’t think I’ve seen one all my life.”

      “I heard Ringwall lets its disciples go every winter. Some return to their parents to take over tasks for their families. Others, so they say, roam the land to perfect their art and gather experience before taking on more daunting challenges. Do you really mean to tell me that no sorcerer has ever even passed by here?” Nill was chewing on an onion, so his words came a little muffled.

      Several of the men muttered to each other, others shrugged or shook their heads. The women said nothing. One did not talk about magic. Nothing good ever came of it. Only the eldest kept his thoughtful gaze on Nill.

      On the next day the hole that was to become a field was filled again with the larger stones. On top of the large stones they laid the small ones, then atop that they piled the earth. It looked dark and smelled fresh, and after a few pitchers of water it was moist enough to give the seed life. The new field was small and would likely feed no more than one family, but it had a good and fertile topsoil. It would serve for many harvests.

      Nill witnessed none of it. He had barely closed his eyes when the gentle caress of sleep crept over his body and took off his mantle of caution, and the magic of the night fell upon him. Unable to act against the onslaught, he simply let it carry him. Pictures appeared before his eyes, no more than memories in the surrounding blackness; he felt, more than saw them. The white light, that terrible brother of darkness, had no place in the shadows of the night when sleep reigned.

      The darkness was not content with surrounding Nill. It seeped into his every pore, filled his ears and shut his eyes. It brought with it its own sounds, smells and images, for which it needed no senses. Nill tossed and turned in his bed and attempted to fend off the darkness with every ounce of magical power he had over the five elements. He had as much success as a person trying to shatter a rock with a small twig. The elemental magic was still there, though; it circled around him like a pack of spectators watching two pitfighters, observing every change and suffering, yet elated, but not part of the battle and unable to intervene.

      The night drew to a close. Day came with the light gray of dawn and passed as it had arrived as night fell once more. It took two days for Nill to awaken.

      “I’m fine,” Nill reassured his hosts. They finally showed him, not without pride, their new field. And indeed, Nill felt full of strength and life.

      What sort of life would it be if I have to make the field before harvesting the plants? he wondered, but at the same time he had great respect for the people who lived and worked here,