Page 2 of The Mage on the Hill
The director’s sigh was slower this time, more melancholy. “Tobias, he found his channels long ago, both his major and minor Arcana. Yes, he lives because as long as he respects the web, his magic won’t tear him apart. He had some early success with teaching unplaceables, but Pittsburgh was the ultimate result of his unorthodox methods.”
“Yes, sir. Of course.”
Director Whittaker rose with one last pat to Toby’s shoulder. “Get some rest. We’ll talk again in the morning. Please keep in mind we’re not simply turning you out onto the street. We want to be certain you’re looked after properly.”
Toby nodded, no longer trusting his voice. He didn’t turn his head to watch the director leave, staring at the white ceiling tiles instead. Ugly ceiling tiles.Places where you have to lie in bed like hospitals and infirmaries should have nice ceilings with meadows and bunnies painted on them. I don’t want to die. Oh gods… I don’t want to die.
When he finally felt like he could parse written words without his head exploding, he skimmed through the packet. He would have to face it eventually. Not looking at the papers wouldn’t change the guild’s mind. Not looking wouldn’t mean he was in any way preventing the inevitable, which wasn’t going to happen because he was going to find a way, dammit.
The first two pages contained the separation agreement. He’d certainly signed those before.Tobias Kingston Freelander Jones agreesblah-blah-blahnever to practice magic within the guild’s districtblah-blahagrees that access to guild facilities and resources have been revoked except for provision stipulated in Appendix D. His hands shook as he turned the papers. The appendices were on the third page, D being the one providing for his hospice funding.
Unless they had this packet ready as a standard document, just in case, the guild officers had been considering all this for some time. Maybe since the day he first wrote to the Montchanin Guildhall asking for help.
The rest of the packet contained information on three hospice facilities. If he’d wanted an end-of-life option, they all would have been wonderful choices—quarters that resembled apartments more than hospital rooms, with gardens and solariums. The one where the rooms all had views into a central courtyard garden would have been his first choice.
If he was willing to sit around waiting to die.
A seed of an idea germinated in his tired brain, insisting on pushing up through the dark mental soil. It was a stupid idea, probably, and one he had little hope of bringing about, but it persisted with its little green shoot emerging, waving its cotyledons around shamelessly.
When Margie, the older infirmary nurse, brought his dinner tray, he asked her, “Did my tablet come in with me?”
“Should be in the drawer next to you. You youngsters and your having to stayconnected.” She winked at him as she took his wrist to check his pulse. “How do you feel? Think you can manage a little?”
“Better than an hour ago. Maybe? Some?”
“You need me to stay?”
“Nah. Thanks. I think I can manage to eat like a big boy.”
With a soft laugh, she patted his shoulder and left the room. The nurses here were always so attentive and friendly, he’d wondered sometimes if he’d been their only patient over the last few months. Probably. He blew out a sigh when he uncovered the tray. Bland chicken and rice. Something that might have been green beans before they’d been boiled beyond recognition. He picked up the brownie and nibbled on a corner while he retrieved his tablet. The desserts weren’t usually half-bad.
Darius Valstad….
A quick search brought up a bio on a mineralogy article from the late ’90s, complete with photo and contact links that were either dead or hadn’t been used in years. The Darius in the photo was handsome, blond hair pulled back in a professor ponytail and bright blue eyes the color of a Siamese cat’s. No other articles, though, nothing more recent. Sometimes Toby wished magic users had their own news sources, like in Harry Potter, but even the craziest mage didn’t want exposure to the rest of the world by posting magic articles online.
All right, Mr. Valstad didn’t want an online presence. He was one of the outcast mages. Toby supposed that made sense. Next he tried a selection of nearby zip codes, Valstad, and property transfers.
Ha. There you are.
It was a Centreville address, so probably hoity-toity, or maybe just isolated enough for a recluse, and Darius Valstad had acquired the property fifteen years earlier from another Valstad.
Address. GPS. I can do this. Am I doing this? When I can barely walk?
If he delayed, he might find himself sedated with his parents making decisions for him. They’d be devastated, but they wouldn’t fight what the authorities would tell them was necessary. Separation papers from seven guilds and rejections from all the others Toby had contacted, every single guildhall on the continent, had scuttled all hope that he could be saved. No one would take him now, and he was a powder keg waiting to commit magical suicide, possibly taking out a small town or two in the process.
Be a stubborn, irresponsible, persistent bastard—or die.
All things considered, Toby preferred to persist. There was too much he hadn’t done, too much of the world he hadn’t seen yet. Maybe being scared of dying was overstating it…. No, it wasn’t. He was petrified, and waves of anguish closed his throat and made his eyes sting if he thought about it too hard. He signed the separation forms and prepared himself for pretend sleep so Margie would leave him to rest and he could slip out the window before the change of shift at eleven.
THE WEEPINGcherry threatened to choke the koi pond. He should trim it back. The koi shouldn’t suffer. In the morning. Plenty of time in the morning. Nothing but time.
Some things should be seen to.
The pool, for one. He’d had thoughts in February of opening it again, cleaning it. Now the snow had vanished and taken the desire to do so with it. The cover needed tightening down. That, at least. No more living things would die because of his neglect.
Darius stood at the back window of the sunroom staring down at the pool terrace, then into the gathering shadows farther down the hill. The darkness reached for him. Beckoned. Even its promise was too much effort. Instead, he wrapped his hand around one of the steel support poles for the raised upper level of the sunroom. The iron hummed to him, soothing his soul while it jarred his bones.
Reach, reach, through the pole down to the stones and earth below, his thoughts sliding easily into the streams of connections, crystal structures, organic molecules, this symphony of notes that existed in no other major Arcana.
