The Early Years of a Great Mage

Chapter 1: The Cursed Library

“Nail!” Jeremy, the village berry farmer, yelled after the little boy who had just ducked through his stall and snagged a few of the fresh blackberries sitting in one of the several baskets strewn about his stall. “I will be speaking with your mother!” The vendor’s cries fell on uncaring ears as the boy popped a few of the berries into his mouth and continued running. The boy caught his brown burlap shirt on a corner of one of the tent spikes, as it was far too big for his chest. Nail’s shirt came away with a new hole for his troubles, but luckily, his pants remained intact, rolled up to his knees so they would not drag on the dirt, but whole.

As he ran along the village footpath, the clangs and bangs of the forge called to him like a sweet bird song; contrasting them were the sounds of pipers in the field practicing their marches and cadences. Nail did not really know what he wanted to be one day, and in his defense, he was only eight years old, so he had at least two years to figure it out. Everything the village offered was so enticing, smithing, pipping, farming, herding, even the Town Cobbler made that work seem fun and inviting. Perhaps, though, the most inviting and enticing of them all was the place he was heading that day.

Nail pushed through a great deal of unmanaged brush to enter a clearing that opened up before his goal. The old, worn-down, and half-boarded building, Nail approached it and peered inside at the dusty shelves and counters. Despite its age and neglect, this place still seemed the most mysterious and magical to Nail. The elders called it a “library,” and they say the only reason it hasn’t been hollowed out and turned into an inn or something “useful” is because of the curse.

As Nail peered in at the dark corridors and shelves, a branch broke behind him, and he whipped around fast. Two of his older brothers were there, Heming and Swerting. These two were older than him by several years and so much the wider in stature. They both towered over him and grinned. “I think I saw his brown eyes go black for a moment, Hem,” Swerting teased.

“What? No, they did not.” Nail argued. He had determined to never have his eyes “go black” for anything again ever since they went black for a book when he was seven.

“I think I saw it too, Swerting. I think he’s in love with the dusty old shelves.” They caught Nail by the scruff of his collar before he could squirm away during their mocking. The rough leather cloaks they wore made their bodies a slick surface that he slid off of when he tried to fight back. The eerie skin-like cloaks they both had received on their eleventh birthdays, partnered with the dew of the morning grass to deny Nail the grip he desired when grappling with them.

Swerting hauled Nail off of his feet, and Heming shoved him. The combined efforts of the brothers threw their little sibling through the rotted wooden boards that barred the cursêd institute. With a loud crash and a cry of pain as something came undone in his shoulder, the boy slammed onto the floor of the library. The only sight that welcomed his eyes as he opened them was the cloud of centuries-old dust awoken from its slumber. He groaned while trying to push his chest off the floor to a seated position. The moment he put pressure on his right shoulder, however, he crumbled back to the floor and cried out in pain. “Swerting!” He cried; he knew his brothers; they could not have meant any real harm with their game. “Heming help me! I…” He felt his lips beginning to quiver, “My arm! It hurts.” The only sound that reached his hoping ears was the sound of boots rushing through the brush of the unkept wilderness bordering the library.

The cloud of dust that his unwitting acrobatics had awakened had begun settling when he went to cry out for his brothers again. “Swer-” he was cut off by a loud cough and sudden dryness of his throat. The tears began to flow. The curse was upon him, and he was bound for Infrinn, that cold dark nothing, soon. When the coughing died, he finally tried again to stand but found that his arm was in too much pain to do that.

As he lay there crying and yelling, he realized he had never received his name. The thought of dying and going to Infrinn without even a family name terrified him, the unclaimed children and gypsies were said to be sent to the most desolate parts of the ice plains. The images of ice-ghouls and horrors he couldn’t comprehend scared him into silence. Then, like a siren calling him out of the depths of an ocean, he heard the voice of Jeremy.

“Those blasted boys… always getting into trouble.” He grumbled as the door to the library creaked open, and Nail heard the boards move. He must have been having a nightmare earlier because when he looked now, it was dark outside and he was covered in shadows.

“Berryman?” Nail called out. “Berryman, it’s me, Nail.”

“Oh, you know your tricks don’t scare me, you old witch.” The older man groaned as he snatched the broken wooden boards from the ground and began slamming nails into them against the frame of the window, “I never took the name, your curse can’t hurt me.”

“Berryman…” Nail began to weep when he realized he might get left behind again. “I am sorry I took the berries earlier. I will pluck four baskets full tomorrow if you want me to.”

The sounds of carpentry and repair stopped as the man turned back around and squinted into the black.

“Please, I promise I won’t take any more either, don’t leave me here, I don’t want to go to Infrinn, not without a name, please.” Nail’s tears and betrayed voice reached the distrusting ears of the nameless berry farmer.

“Nail?” The man spoke something so softly that Nail could not catch the words, but as the boy stared into the darkness of the man’s figure, he saw two blue rings glint to life for only a moment, then extinguish as fast as they appeared. “Oh, you stupid boy, come here.” The kind old berry farmer bent down and collected the broken boy, and hauled him high into his arms. Jeremy cradled the young boy in a fatherly embrace as he took him out of the library and back into the unkempt foliage around it.

“Wait, where are we going?” Nail asked when Jeremy took a route he was unfamiliar with.

“We are going to the village doctor to get you looked at, boy.” The berry farmer told him.

“No, wait, I can’t go back to the village, I’m cursed.” Nail explained.

“That old witch is harmless to those without family names, boy,” Jeremy explained.

“What does that mean?”

“It means you are going to be just fine, Nail. I won’t tell you any more.”

The unlikely pair forge ahead through the foliage and eventually find themselves walking on dirt paths again. The trodden dirt was brown and moist from the night’s early dew. The quiet road was only illuminated by the stars above and the moon, which shone in its second quarter.

“So, I won’t curse my father’s home when I return there?” Nail asked after several minutes of quiet trudging.

“With anything other than a berry debt? No, Nail, you are still clean, for now. But I will warn you, after your ceremony, upon your eleventh birthday, you must never return there.” Jeremy explained.

Nail was peering off towards the horizon and across the black waves miles away.

“Did you hear me, boy? You must promise to never return there after you take the village name.”

“Yessir, I heard you. I’m sorry, I just thought I saw something out on the ocean.” Nail said.

“Well, did you see anything?” Jeremy asked.

“Well, no, I think it was just the moon’s reflection, Berryman.” Nail said.

“Ah, well, that’s good as long as it was nothing.” The man adjusted the hurt boy in his arms and groaned slightly against the strain of the task. “Try to keep your eyes off the waves for a while, boy, the library does things to the mind, even to those immune to the curse such as yourself.”

“I’ll do that.” Nail said. The boy set his head down on Jeremy’s shoulder and let himself be rocked by the man’s rhythmic steps. This peace and rest only lasted for a few moments, however, as Jeremy crossed the threshold into the doctor’s home.

“Goodman Froda,” Jeremy called into the darkened place. A light blinked to life not a minute later, and Nail could spot a figure moving in the shadows, slow and deliberate like he had just been woken up.

“Jeremy Berryman, what is it you seek at this untimely hour?” The small source of light approached the unlikely pairing, and the doctor’s face was illuminated in the small light. This was a man of many years, over 100 easily, Nail thought. The number of wrinkles on his cheeks, under his kind hazel eyes, and beneath his chin implied such an age.

“I found this boy, Nail, son of Hermod, desolate in the woods, in pain and crying for his mother. I saw a great deal of bruising and swelling on his arm and thought the first place he should go is your home to be seen. I don’t know if this can wait a whole night.” Jeremy explained.

“Good thought.” Goodman Froda said. The light moved away from the men’s faces and hovered over Nail’s shoulder and arm. In the fall, the sleeve had been torn away from the skin of the shoulder and revealed a painful bruise and limp arm. The good man reached for and squeezed the boy’s shoulder, “Does this hurt, my boy?”

Nail had braced for the pain but only felt a numbness. “No, it just feels prickly.”

“Oh well,” The goodman and his light disappeared for a moment, and Nail heard some things being moved. “Jeremy, put him down here on my table.” Jeremy did as he was instructed and set Nail down. Nail felt the goodman’s cold fingers on his arm and eventually, at one bout of prodding, he felt a sharp pain and cried out. “There.” The goodman disappeared for a moment again and returned with his light and something in his hand. The goodman brought the item, which Nail was able to recognize as a stick, to the boy’s mouth. “Here, bite down on this.”

Nail did as he was told, and as soon as the stick was secure in his mouth, his world erupted in flames and pain. Everything was illuminated for a brief moment; there was shock and horror on the face of the goodman and a cocky half-smile on the berryman. Nail’s teeth bit the stick in half, and he spat it and all of its splinters out of his mouth. “Aaaah! Ow!” He cried. As tears began to flow, he thought he could hear a slight hissing sound as everything around him returned to a dim black that appeared blinding in a stark contrast to the illumination he had just experienced.

“That should do it.” The goodman nervously chuckled. “You should begin to feel things in that arm again quite soon, Nail. If you do not, come back and see me again.” Nail’s eyes adjusted to the darkness just in time to see the goodman hold up a hand and silence a protest from Jeremy, “All I witnessed was a boy with a dislocated shoulder being repaired. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Quite right.” Jeremy sighed in relief. The berryman scooped Nail up again, thanked the goodman for his help, and removed them both from Froda’s home.

“What happened?” Nail asked when they had taken to the brown dirt paths once more.

“Nothing you need to worry about.”

“Why did Goodman Froda sound so scared when saying goodbye, then?”

“Listen, Nail,” Jeremy set the boy on his own two feet, “Can you walk?”

Nail nodded.

“Good, now go home, and tell your mother what I told the goodman happened, you fell in the woods. Tell her that and nothing else. In fact, forget everything you may have seen,” he punctuated the word ‘seen’ with a sharp two-fingered gesture at both of their eyes, “tonight, do you understand? Pray you never see it again.” Jeremy returned to his full height and looked down on the boy with care in his eyes. Nail could see the berryman’s eyes despite the darkness, which was strange.

“What about the berries, sir?” Nail asked.

“Tell your mother what you did, and she will give you what you deserve. Goodbye, Nail.” Jeremy stood as Nail turned and took off down the road heading for home.

As Nail ran, the events of the day flashed through his head again. The blue discs in the library that seemed to stare at him, the illuminated Goodman’s home, and the lie that Jeremy told. After all the things that had happened in the real world replayed in his mind, the memory of nightmares returned, too. His mind’s time spent in that cold, dark pit, alone, wandering, freezing, and dying forever. These images spurred his feet to greater speed. The village roads were illuminated silver by the moon far, far above in the night sky; he had to still his desire to gaze at the sea as well. Why could he not look? What had the library done to him?

None of these questions would be answered alone on the street, however. He passed by the market stalls, the blacksmith’s shop, and the cobbler’s home, all on one street, so he knew it would only be a few more minutes until he arrived at home. The three landmarks acted as a compass, setting the young boy on the right path.

What was he going to tell his mother, at that rate, what was he to tell his father? “Hello, mum, da, sorry I got lost in the woods that I’ve never gotten lost in before, I’ll try not to let it happen again.” No, that would not work; they would take note of his discolored arm in the morning and interrogate him on how he got the small injury. He decided, on the final approach to his home, that he would use the berryman’s story. He fell in the woods and got hurt all on his own quite stupidly, and was rescued by Jeremy the Berryman, who took him to see Goodman Froda. Then he sent him on his way home.

Nail’s feet turned one final time onto the small gravel patch outside the door. In the dim moonlight, he could see that the tiny gift he had left the family gnome had been taken, and so his room was probably all made up and waiting for him. The thought of a warm wool covering after walking alone through the evening’s brisk air enticed him greatly. The gnome himself did not appear to be present; that was good, no one to raise the alarm when he snuck into his room.

As it would turn out, however, he needed no announcer, as when he swung the door open, the metal hinges did the announcing for him.

The door into his home was made of a modest wood, nothing terribly expensive. Really, it was only as nice as it was because the village bench joiner gave it to Nail’s father as a gift in return for his father going above and beyond on the hinges the bench joiner had ordered from the forge. The handle was a cold iron ring that Nail pushed on to crack the door ajar. Inside, Nail could see a lit lamp in the kitchen, and that gave him pause. Then, when he heard the praying, he understood.

The boy’s mother, a five-foot-nothing lady with shoulders like a lifelong forger should have, curly brown hair, dark green eyes, and a nightgown of sheep’s wool, sat at the kitchen counter on a stool with her hands folded and tears flowing down her cheeks. Nail had not thought about what his disappearance might do to his mother; she went through all the trouble of carrying a second, unwanted pregnancy to term only to have him die without a name. How horrible.

When the creak of the door was heard, her eyes shot open, and she called, “Hermod, is that you? Did you find him?” She closed the distance to the door with the lamp in hand with a great swiftness, so fast in fact that Nail could not even remember blinking before the slap fell across his face. “Oh, you stupid boy, come inside,” She grabbed his collar and yanked him inside, “you are likely to catch a cold standing in the doorway.”

Nail felt some tears coming out of his eyes as he rubbed his cheek. “Sorry, mother.” Nail said.

“I don’t want to hear it, you made me worried sick, the things I had to promise your father to get him to even go look for you…” She shook her head, and the dark green of her eyes glinted with water. “Get to your room, we will discuss this in the morning with your father.” Nail did not wait to be told twice; his mother only sounded like this when she contemplated serious corporal punishment. He weaved through the house, plotting through the pitch-black common area with only the hints of the silhouettes of the furniture met his dashing eyes that looked back and forth from one unseen landmark to the next.

He reached the door that led to his room, and he breathed a relieved sigh as he entered and saw both of his brothers sound asleep. The young boy would have to deal with more of their ridicule and torment tomorrow, but for now, the beasts did sleep. Inside the room, there was one bed frame with three stacked beds on top of one another. This contraption filled about a quarter of the room and reached just below the ceiling. Nail, being the youngest, had been given the top bunk, of course. Normally, this would cause some small amount of grumble or mumble, but tonight he was just happy to be home and safe, for now.