The World of Myth Magazine

Harrix the Magus was the best of us. One moment of carelessness cost him everything. His dying words still haunt me, and I wish he were here to explain himself.

Once again, I end up in the tavern. A few people nod or say hello, but they know not to bother me overmuch. If I had a notch on my blade for every man I've killed over the decades, the steel would be corrugated, brittle, eventually falling apart.

But I haven't slain anyone or been in a battle for many years. These dominions are at peace, and I have become statesman instead of swordsman. A revered, wise ruler who, like many of my countrymen and women, has allowed his waistline to expand a little with good food and ale at these premises. Maybe also my reflexes will have lost just a little of their polished sharpness. Certainly, my notoriety as "Garvin the Gouger" seems like a different lifetime.

Cynthisia is in the corner, a half-finished goblet of wine twisting in her spell-casting fingers. We have known each other for so long that I have hardly noticed the subtle changes. It's not the lanterns and firelight that render her luscious hair silver these days.

"You're thinking I look old and unattractive," she says.

"I'm thinking you've never looked more beautiful. And that I should have joined that serpentine line of suitors you've seen off over the years."

"Why bother worrying about them, Garvin? You stabbed most of them, anyway."

"Only when necessary. The politics of governance. But to business: what of the eastern quadrant?"

"No outbreaks of bad magic for over a year. I went there. I looked – with first and second sight. I listened. I smelled. All clean."

"Harrix the Magus would have approved. I hope."

"I too miss his wisdom. Although his final words still trouble me: You shall not know the time you live in."

"It's too much to expect clarity from a man with a pikestaff in his guts. You lead the sorcerers now, Cynthisia. Wisely. It's your place to make pronouncements."

The familiarity of the tavern and my close companion lulls me but only slightly. Once a soldier with eyes like a hawk and the hearing of screech owl, always the soldier…

Later, we eat. The tavern keeps a stock of mountain herbs with which to flavor the plant-based confection that Cynthisia feasts upon.

Once again, I tease, "How do you keep your strength and spirits up with cattle feed?"

"So speaks Garvin the Gouger," she replies. "The way you are attacking that meat suggests that you know only one way to use a knife, my dear lord. Subtle slicing was never your style."

Her hair is like the twists of smoke from an evening campfire. Her eyes are the deepest blue with flecks of gold. Irresistible.

She smiles. "I am not bewitching you, Governor Garvin."

"You don't need to," I answer, before choking on a morsel of meat and causing both merriment and concern around us.

Afterwards, the innkeeper pushes a few tables aside to create a performance space. Instead of the wrestling and fencing of old days, we are treated to a short play based on a fable. This is followed by a set of songs ranging from a tale of a tree spirit luring unwary travelers into the dark woods to a morality piece about the state's revenge on a captured pirate. There is even a rowdy ditty with humorously strained rhymes detailing the failings of a kind-hearted but incompetent governor. I take no offence.

It is good to have friendly laughter surrounding me in this familiar place.

In the corner, a portraitist has been chalking and daubing gentle caricatures for the past half hour. It is a fine likeness of my once smooth but now battle-scarred face. Cynthisia haggles over the price, her voice firm but not magic-enhanced. As we leave the tavern and its rich aromas, her fingers flutter across the drawing's surface, adding a barely detectable golden luster.

"I shall hang it above my bed," she laughs.

"You will become prone to nightmares," I answer. Then, under her direct but amused gaze, I add, "You could always swap it for the real thing."

"But what of my many suitors?" she asks.

"I believe, my lady, that my sword and your expertly cast spells have put paid to those pretenders."

"I have a new featherdown quilt from Argonay, my lord. Try not to ruffle it too much."

This is not our first time together yet somehow there is a rightness to our union here and now. Like the prince and princess have finally found each other in a tale we would tell to children.

I awake early and enjoy the warm yellow rays as they bathe the balcony on the eastern side of her dwelling. All is right with the world at this moment. There are territories where heinous plans are likely being hatched and there are creatures – cave ogres, giant spiderlings, a surviving colony of dragons – whose resentment at human rule is hidden but still present. It has been nigh on ten years, though, since the last major war. The children are growing up to become poets, actors, farmers, cattle merchants… not pikemen, infantry, or battle scouts.

Cynthisia joins me at the window and says, "I have solved the riddle of Harrix the Magus. In fact, I suspected the truth long ago. My waking thoughts this morning have confirmed it."

"Go on," I say, although my attention is drawn to a cavalry officer galloping towards the house from the direction of the north gate.

"This is the golden age. We dwell in an earthly paradise but cannot see it. Yet all future generations will look back and want to recreate or re-attain what we have today."

"What we had today," I answer.

"How so?"

The rider has paused in the street below. He unfurls a pennant bearing the image of a grey skull against red raindrops. "The dragons have risen in the western isles, sire," he calls up. "There are many casualties as well as a burning threat to our grain supplies."

Cynthisia grabs my arm, then turns me round to face her. Those eyes can bewitch, those hands make and unmake. Thank the deities that she is a lifelong friend, a lover.

"So ends the golden age," she says, adding with a twinkle, "it's what you secretly wanted, isn't it?"

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