Chapter 9
As the weeks wore on and summer moved inexorably toward fall, Cedric dragged Henry from town to town and from village to village, their progress across the northern agricultural belt of Mythesti just as relentless as the changing seasons. Henry dragged his feet through the dust on the road upon which they trudged, feeling generally sorry for himself. He'd cast all of one spell since leaving Master Rylan's care - though he'd cast it what seemed like a million times. He'd been forced to eat his own cooking far too often, he'd been rained on a number of times, and the worst thing of all, his birthday had come and gone without... Well, without anything. Even while away from home attending to his studies, there had been some sort of recognition for the annual event at school, be it a special meal or treat, and there was always a gift from home. Now, wandering through the kingdom the way he was, Henry knew that there really wasn't any possibility of a gift finding him while he was on walkabout. He sighed and kicked at a rock.
"Why would anybody want to be a mage?" Henry asked a short while later. "Why did you decide to become one?"
Cedric glanced over, his eyebrows drawn down in confusion. "That's an odd question," he observed. "Why wouldn't I become a mage?"
Henry scowled, not happy to have his question answered with another question. "I know that I was tested like my father and grandfather were tested, because of the prophecy. When they found that I had magic potential, my course was set, whether I wanted it or not. But you, you had a choice in all of this. You didn't have to sign up for this." As he finished, Henry gestured to the countryside around them, encompassing their entire situation in his statement, and Cedric smiled.
"Again, why wouldn't I choose this?" Cedric asked with a chuckle. "I get to travel throughout the kingdom, I'm welcomed in every city, town and village I come across, and I know that I will always have enough to eat and a warm bed, which is more than most people in the kingdom can say."
Henry blinked, surprised by Cedric's answer.
"What?" the older boy asked as the silence stretched between them.
"So you're working to become a mage for the material gain?" the prince queried.
"Why not? I didn't have a lot growing up, and not going to bed hungry is a big step up, trust me. When we're out working like this, we get fed first, even in the villages that have little to offer. You'll see, my young prince."
A slow smile spread across Henry's face, Cedric's reasoning something that he could understand easily. His perception of Cedric as unselfish and a perfect servant to the needs of others shifted, and in a way the prince could relate to.
The sun was beating down on the young men and Cedric called for a short break when they reached a small copse of trees. Henry threw himself down into the small area of shade with a groan before pouring a small amount of water from his water skin over his head.
"It's so damned hot!" the prince complained before taking a drink of the tepid water. Cedric nodded and poured some water into a pair of pots for the mules.
"It shouldn't be too much farther to the next town, and we can get this dust washed off when we arrive."
Henry quirked an eyebrow. "Can we actually bathe when we arrive, or do you mean that we can bathe after countless spells cast over fields?"
Cedric laughed. "The weather has changed, in case you hadn't noticed. The crops are past the point of us using our spells to encourage a bigger yield, but it isn't time to harvest yet. We're off the hook, so to speak, as the hot weather will ripen the crops better than we could."
Henry smiled and stretched out on the sparse grass. "So why are we here then?"
"Just passing through, though we may be asked to cast some spells to help protect crops and animals from pests," Cedric informed him. "This time of year is one of the most peace-"
"You there!"
Cedric broke off, startled by the cry, and both journeymen turned their faces to look up the road. Galloping toward them was a young boy bent low over the neck of a pony, pale blue and white ribbons streaming from the animal's bridle. There were symbols written on the ribbons in gold, and while Henry had no idea what it meant, Cedric certainly did. The older boy cursed and Henry jumped to his feet, uncertain about what was happening.
Cedric waved the boy down, and the pony was reined in with a cloud of dust rising around them all. "How long?" he demanded.
"No more than a day."
Cedric nodded and turned away, while the boy kicked his pony back into a gallop and continued down the road. Henry, still having no idea what was happening, simply stood there in the shade and tried to absorb the meaning of the fragments of conversation. Cedric packed away the pots and rearranged the packs on the mules before flipping the lead ropes back over the beasts' heads.
"Get up."
Henry blinked, and when he didn't move fast enough for Cedric, the other journeyman walked over and shoved him in the direction of his mule. "Mount up. Now."
Henry didn't hesitate this time, pulling himself awkwardly onto the mule beside him. Without a saddle, it wasn't the most comfortable perch, but the prince could sense that arguing right now really wouldn't be a good idea.
Cedric pulled his mule over beside Henry's, and placed his hands on the animal's foreheads. He quickly muttered the words to a spell that Henry had never heard before, pulled himself up onto his mount's back, and kicked the beast into a trot. Henry followed suit a few moments later, but his mule got caught up quickly.
"What do you know about the Weather Wizards?" Cedric asked him when he was riding alongside.
"Nothing," Henry answered with a shake of his head. "Should I know something?"
Cedric shrugged. "The capital city is right on the edge of the agricultural belt, so I wasn't sure if you would have had anything to do with them. Anyway, they're a group of Air and Spirit mages who live in a tower in the middle of Mythesti's agricultural area. They are a mix of journeymen and master mages, who all have a particular gift for weather or precognition magic."
"So I assume that whatever is going on has something to do with weather then," Henry observed, his tone of voice a touch sarcastic, but if Cedric noticed, he let it go.
"This time of year, when the weather is hot like this, strong storms can whip up."
"So? We've already been through a few bad storms, one of them while we were on the road," Henry reminded him.
"It's not the rain that's the problem, it's the hail. A hailstorm will destroy the crops, so the Weather Wizards have sent out runners in every direction to try and find mages to help all of the farmers in the path of the storm."
"So we're supposed to help save the crops? How? And what did you do to the mules?"
Cedric chuckled, but it wasn't a happy sound. "We'll save the crops through magic, of course, or at least as many of them as possible. And I cast a strength spell on the mules, so that they have the ability to carry us and the gear at a trot."
True to the power of Cedric's spell, the pair moved down the road at a good pace, and they came in sight of their target village before the sun had moved too much farther across the sky. Cedric reined in his mule to a quick walk, Henry doing the same, and it was at that moment that the enormity of their task stretched before them. Fields of growing wheat spread out before them in every direction, as far as they could see.
"How are we supposed to do anything at all to save all of that?" Henry wanted to know. "And do we have any help?"
"I don't know about the help, since that will depend on how far the storm is expected to stretch. As to what we can do, well, each type of mage has their own way of dealing with this type of problem. Us, as Earth mages, are going to ripen the wheat so that the farmers can harvest as much of it as possible before the storm hits. If we're lucky enough to get another type of mage, they'll cast shields over the fields to protect them as long as they can, or as long as they need to."
They'd reached the first edges of the fields by this time, and Cedric slid down fro
m his mule, the animal moving to the side of the road and putting its head down, obviously tired.
"How do I make wheat ripen?" Henry demanded as he slid down from his own mule. He could see people farther down the road rushing around, and he assumed that they were doing what they could to be ready. Already there were farmers with scythes coming toward them, and women with baskets to collect the fallen wheat to take to the threshing barn right behind them. "What do I do?"
"It's just like personalizing a spell," Cedric called over his shoulder as he took up a position beside a field, propping his staff in front of him, one end planted in the earth to help him draw power. "It's the same spell you've been casting all along, the growth spell. Just change what it does."
"I don't know how to do that!" Henry blurted out, his voice wavering with uncertainty.
"And I don't have time to show you!" Cedric yelled back. "Figure it out, Henry."
With that, Cedric turned his back fully and started to cast his spell. Henry closed his eyes and cast a detect magic spell so that he could see what Cedric was doing, and he was amazed by how far the other journeyman's spell reached across the field of wheat, how powerful his mentor was. Henry couldn't see exactly what Cedric was doing though, and so he turned away and focussed his attention on his own field. Taking a deep breath, he began to cast.
The words came easily to Henry's lips, and as he stood with his feet shoulder-width apart and his hands resting on the jewel at the top of his staff, he felt his magic ripple out over the field. As the spell fizzled and died without effect, a surge of panic rolled through the prince with the failure, especially as there were farmers starting to gather behind him, ready to harvest what he ripened.
It took a few shaky breaths for Henry to realize that since he'd cast this spell so often in the week leading up to now, the spell had escaped his lips without him performing any alterations to it. Cedric had told him that he needed to modify the spell, and so he tried again, taking a little longer before whispering the words this time.
Once more his magic rippled out over the area of the field in front of him, and Henry held his breath, looking for some evidence of success in the growing wheat. The sky above was still blue and free of clouds, but there was something in the air that urged him on, something that told him that if he didn't get this right, these people and the kingdom would suffer.
Ever so slowly, the green growing wheat in front of him began to change, shifting into the golden colour of ripe grain. The heads on the stalks weren't terribly large, he noticed, but surely some grain would be better than nothing, and nothing is what this community was going to get if he didn't hurry up. Resisting the urge to cheer his success, Henry advanced into the field to where the wheat was still green, and he cast the modified spell again.