Growing Up Magic (Wine of the Gods Book 9)

  Growing Up Magic

  Four stories of young magicians

  Pam Uphoff

  Copyright © 2013 Pamela Uphoff

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN

  978-1-939746-93-1

  This is a work of fiction.

  All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional.

  Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  Table Of Contents

  Purple

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Mortimer

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Hauling Freight

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Christmas

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  About the Author

  Other Titles by the Author

  Excerpt from an Upcoming Release

  Purple

  Chapter One

  Winter Solstice 1380

  Ash, Kingdom of the West

  The Comets that had been brilliant as the Fall progressed were now so close they filled the sky with the faint glow of the comas. Thinner than a fog bank, tens of thousands of miles across. Thin enough that the astronomers could detect the cores: spheres and lumps of ice and dust and sand and rocks and boulders, and occasionally something large enough to be dangerous if it hit the World.

  Xen sat with his father on the hill behind the winery, on an outcrop of rock.

  "I don't see anything that is both large and close." The man's voice was a murmur, almost more to himself than his audience. His eyes were closed, his survey entirely mental.

  Xen nodded, not wanting to disturb his father's meditating study of the sky. Xen couldn't reach out that far. Couldn't reach the clouds in the sky, let alone past the atmosphere. His parents could reach out to the Moon.

  Pyrite nodded. :: I saw Rustle practicing. She was moving rocks on the Moon. :: He looked over at the other horse.

  :: HE can't do that. :: Jet sounded reluctant to admit there was anything He couldn't do.

  :: He could if he wanted! :: Xen was equally unwilling to admit to limitations on his father's magic. He quieted his mind again, and reached upward. Just looking.

  "Here comes a little one." His father's voice was a deep rumble.

  Even Xen had to admit that his father couldn't hear Xen's conversation with the horses.

  A fireball streaked over head, flashed out of existence, miles up in the atmosphere.

  He could feel his father doing something. Some sort of pulling and then pushing. The ground twitched beneath him, a thump sounded from uphill. His father sat up in sudden alarm. The god's eyes went from Xen to the two horses.

  "Good. Got that a bit close. I'd hate to have to explain to your mother how I managed to burn down the house." He got up and stared down the hill at the winery.

  Xen had jumped up and was looking the other way. "You grabbed a meteor! That's it up there." He pointed to a spot a mile away. In the diffuse light of the comets a thin column of steam or smoke was rising from the snow.

  "Ah. Good thing we've had early snow this year. I should have thought about how hot it would be, before I grabbed it. The village will be pleased to have the iron, though." He sank down again, and Xen joined him.

  The god didn't catch any more meteors that night. The boy counted meteors and fireballs until dawn, when a triad of witches took over from their own hotsprings. As they rode back to the Winery, Xen could hear Jet's smug challenge.

  :: HE caught a meteor. ::

  Pyrite tossed his head. :: Xen's just a baby god. When he grows up, he'll be able to do anything. ::

  Jet snorted. :: He's got a lot to learn. ::

  The wizards were standing watches as well, but so far no one had raised an alarm. Two more weeks until the whole group of comets and their detritus was safely past.

  It was a quiet two weeks, everyone exhausted, and a bit cranky over the irregular hours. Xen helped down in the Tavern when Harry came back and brought his hotel-and-restaurant with him. At the end of it, his mother popped in from the Rip long enough to check on him and reassure him that everything was fine "at home."

  The Auld Wulf looked her over. "No problems?"

  She leaned on him. "No strain at all. No screaming voices. Relax."

  Quail Quicksilver pounced on Xen. She sent him mental pictures of fireballs. "Our meteors all burned up. I wished I was older, and could play with them."

  Xen looked around at his parents. Did they know Q could do that? She hadn't consciously sent the pictures, just projected what she was thinking about. "Dad caught one. Once the snow melts, we can take it down to the village. We can make horseshoes and stuff with it."

  Her eyes lit up. "Swords!"

  Their mother chuckled. "Takes after your side of the family."

  The weather got even nastier and colder. Xen was delighted to be kept home from school frequently. His Mom had her nose deep in books, full time, and passed a lot of them on to him. He liked the Astronomy ones especially, and read them out loud and explained them to Q. She'd stare at pictures and graphs and ask "Why?" a million times. Mostly it was funny, but sometimes he wondered if she really did understand.

  There was still snow on the ground at the Equinox. Their crops were a solid month behind, when they finally planted. But they grew rapidly in the bright sunny days and their supplies stretched a bit, but reached the early harvest without anything worse than having to eat oat bread.

  Chapter Two

  Spring 1380

  Foothills Province, Kingdom of the West

  The wolf eyed the Sheep Man cautiously.

  He was smart enough to know what was about to happen, but that didn't make it any better. A wolf shouldn't be manhandled like that. He tried to work his way back in the pack, but the silly sheep all turned and tried to follow him, and then the goat was there.

  The man was no more a goat than the wolf was a ram (and the wolf really wished he could figure out how to change back and forth like the man did.) But man or goat, he wasn't anyone the wolf wanted to tangle with. He turned again, and tried to get lost among the other sheep.

  And not go into that corner.

  But the sheep all pressed forward, and he wasn't getting through them. He leaped up and tried to run across their backs but his paws just couldn't grab like they used to. The goat grabbed him by the horns and hauled him up in front of th
e Sheep Man.

  ***

  Nil always started with That Ram.

  Once he'd dealt with him, the rest would be easy.

  The ram lunged, teeth bared like a trapped wolf fighting to the death, and Nil slipped a sleep spell around him. The ram very nearly shrugged it off, but he was dopey enough to be wrestled into the shearing shed where Nil magicked his beautiful silky coat off. He held him by one horn, wondering—again—why he kept him. Not to mention that he hadn't a clue where the ram had come from in the first place. He'd never admitted to anyone that this beautifully engineered ram had just shown up one day.

  He'd thought it was a joke at first, once he'd realized he had one too many rams. Dydit, or possibly Justice or Question, waiting to see what he'd say about the very fine animal. But his leading sentences had fallen flat, and none of them were that good with genes. The only people who were, didn't have that sort of sense of humor. If That Ram had been a creation of his grandmother's she would simply have shown up one day and thanked him for keeping her ram. And he couldn't wrap his mind around the concept of Answer losing track of an experiment.

  Lord Kell caressed the fleece. "Now I see why you put up with that vicious brute. Does he pass this on?"

  Nil nodded. "I've got a bunch of younger sheep with nice coats, and the next generation should be even better. I don't usually inbreed like that, but for that coat, I'll give it a try." He scowled down at the animal. The ram was throwing off the spell already, tough brute. He hauled him out the far door and turned him out into the ram's pasture. The ewes wouldn't be bred until fall, so their lambs would arrive in the spring, so the rams were kept in a fenced enclosure instead of turned out with the others. The ram bolted across the pasture to the far side, and backed into the corner, growling defensively. Or at least making sounds pretty damn close to growling.

  Aero sent the rest of the rams through the chute one at a time and Nil sheared them and funneled them out to the pasture. He swung the gate closed behind the last one and pressed the bale.

  "I've got so many horses now, I really ought to get rid of half my sheep."

  Dydit snorted. "Right, the wool sells for three times what you make raising horses. Not to mention all the mutton we eat, or sell to the army."

  Nil growled. "Lord Kell here could take over."

  "Lord Kell." The gentleman spoke up. "Is headed south to assume his position as Lord and land grant holder of section two, Ferris province. I sold all of my sheep last week."

  "The king finally decided to officially notice you, eh?"

  Kell nodded, and then grinned wryly. "Not that I wasn't sweating when I got that official summons to appear and explain myself."

  "All of you going?" Dydit aimed that question more or less in Aero's direction.

  "Yep." The armsman looked stubborn.

  Lord Kell looked apologetic. "So I'm afraid this is the last time we'll help with the shearing, and there'll be a lot of open grazing to the south west. I'll be heading into Ash tomorrow, to let the Auld Wulf know I'm relinquishing the grazing. And for a nostalgic look around. I'm going to miss this place—and all the magic. But the king is in a forgiving mood, and I really ought to see the wife more often."

  Before Opinion really does kill you. Nil suppressed his opinion of Kell's long distance marriage and off-and-on relationship with a witch. After all, his witch children predated his marriage.

  "I suppose your son must be seven or eight years old now." Nil's gaze drifted toward the tower, which did not, at the moment, contain his own family. "Good luck in the desert."

  "It's all irrigation. We'll see how fast I can remember it."

  Aero Genero nodded. "I'll get things settled properly there, then visit the grandkids in Gemstone. I don't suppose I can talk Jin into coming back, but the kids are getting old enough to decide for themselves, what they want to do. My namesake's nineteen this year, and the older boy is twenty-four."

  Lord Kell nodded. "Either one of them would be a welcome addition to my armsmen. And Jina's twenty-one. You should take a look at some of the younger sons of lords, find her a good husband."

  Dydit snorted. "Jin's a land grant holder, that makes him a lord in his own right. The boys will be aiming higher than armsmen. And Jina can probably nab a Duke if she puts her mind to it."

  Nil considered the young wizards of Gemstone. He'd given some lessons, Dydit had gone out there several times. The oldest bunch should be old enough to take off the hormone restricting spell, and start doing some serious magic. Dangerous magic. Am I insane, to even think about bringing wizardry back into the world? But then, he already had, training Question and Dydit, and the mostly absent Lefty. And Young. And the Goat Boys. But they were all family, or close enough.

  Then the ewes flooded into the corral and Nil turned back to the chute. He'd think about the wisdom of training wizards later.

  Chapter Three

  Spring 1380

  Foothills Province, Kingdom of the West

  Five witches snapped up the opportunity to take the ewes down to the low grass lands.

  Older ones than Nil had expected. Likely, Particular and Opinion's children were all grown and Catti's and Zamm's weren't far behind. Their two fourteen year old daughters opted to stay with other relatives.

  Nil looked indulgently at his own grandchildren and thought the witches foolish to actually want a break from family.

  But then, they hadn't lived alone for eight hundred years.

  And he had to admit that the village was bursting at the seams, even after so many kids had headed for the New Lands. He sent the sheep off and sighed with relief.

  Twenty rams seemed a light burden in comparison, and no doubt some of the village kids would want to earn some money over the summer, taking them up to the high pastures. He turned happily back to wizardry and horses.

  "I think we should send some Sun Gold Daughters to Guy this year." He noticed his assistant wizard's gaze was focused behind him and turned, spell web in hand. Then he relaxed and let the energy seep away. "Unless we can persuade Xen to let us give Pyrite a dose of medicine."

  The ten year old boy was small for his age, and rode the big chestnut like a centaur. Bareback, without a bridle. His three dogs galloped happily along with them. Half sheepdog and half hellhound. Nil eyed the dogs. He really needed to find the time to study those hellhounds.

  "Or, if Xen doesn't want to get into horse breeding, perhaps he would like to herd sheep."

  Xen dived off the horse to hug his grandfather, then looked at Nil. "I thought you were going to send all your sheep away?"

  "Well, the rams have to stay away from the ewes till fall. So they're still here. Those dogs of yours know how to herd sheep?"

  Dydit and Xen both nodded. "I showed them how it was done years ago," the grandfather explained.

  Nil eyed him censoriously. "And you've behaved ever since? You know you need to stop doing that."

  Xen looked up at the old wizard. "Mom says bones are fragile and break easy after transformations. Is that why?"

  "Well, mostly it's because that goat spell was designed for a really nasty person, and I worry about your grandfather getting nasty if he spends too much time as a goat. The bones are a little more breakable but just for a few days after."

  The little boy nodded and looked up at his horse. "That probably goes for dragons, too. We were talking about mom's friends the dragons, and how much we'd like to fly."

  The horse nodded.

  Dydit snickered. "I haven't caught him signaling the horse yet."

  Xen rolled his eyes. "Granddad! Oh, Grandmother is at the winery and says Harry's back visiting and you should meet her at the tavern for dinner."

  Nil perked up. "I don't suppose you noticed Justice when you passed through?"

  "Grandmother said all the senior witches were busy at the hot springs, but that she and Justice and Mostly were going to get together this afternoon and see how they coordinated, since you've messed up the Waning Half Triads. I think Answer'
s mad at you."

  Dydit chewed on a knuckle. "Surely she doesn't think Nil could influence a witch against her better judgment? I expect the witches simply felt the need to meditate out on the hills in peace and quiet."

  Xen grinned. "I don't think she'll fall for that, Granddad. Mom said the real problem was that she didn't have any Full Moons, and won't until Dusty and Crimson and Emerald and all those little kids grasp power."

  Nil nodded. "And they're just seven and less, so five to ten years before they advance their mothers to Full Moon. That's a bad gap."

  "Rustle's the only Full Moon, right now and she spends half her time in Rip World. Speaking of which, young man, what are you doing here?" Dydit folded his arms and frowned at the boy.

  "Mom says I need to go to school here. All the Rip kids are younger than me, and she says I'm so smart I need to be with older kids anyway." Xen frowned up at the sheep, who were straggling all over. "Lion, Blackie, Silky, go keep those sheep together a little better. Find them some good grass." The three dogs raced up the hill, splitting up with the red dog and mostly black bitch circling the flock and sending the most distant back into the mass. The little silver and black bitch ran around the hillside, found a greener area and barked. The other two promptly ran around to the far side of the sheep and closed in slowly. The sheep drifted toward the greener area.

  "Nice." Nil bit down his astonishment. "I don't know if there's many kids your age in school or not. The witches kinda have some big gaps in the kids as well." I really need to find the time to study those hellhounds.

  "Mom said Miss Nina had a girl a year older than me and Miss Fera a son two years older. And Vulperite and Wollastinite are about two years older than me."

  "True. The boy's completely non-magical, though. The witches are twelve and there's a passel of fourteen year olds." Dydit frowned. "I expect you'll think they're all silly girls."