A Mage Of None Magic (Book 1) by A. Christopher Drown Read Free Book Online Page A

know each other.”
    Niel slipped his arm up and out of her clutches. “Really, thank you, but I don’t—”
    “What’s the matter, lovely one?” She pressed herself against him and brushed her clammy face against his neck. Her breath smelled of whiskey, her hair of stale tobacco smoke. “Don’t you think I’m pretty?”
    “Well, yes, but—”
    “Then a drink. Maybe a story. You can tell me all about yourself.”
    “Please, I’m trying to—”
    “Oh, come on. Don’t you like girls?”
    “Yes, of course, but—”
    “Then come buy me a drink, pet, and maybe we could—”
    Niel moved to one side around a post, intending to cross the street, but the woman twirled around the other side and cut him off.
    “Honest, you’re very attractive,” Niel said. “It’s just...” He thought for a moment. “Well, have you ever heard of Belavian slugs?”
    She gave a quizzical look. “What are those?”
    Niel hoped his sigh conveyed more troubled resignation than relief. Until Captain Jorgan mentioned them, he’d never heard of Belavian slugs, either. He wouldn’t know one if he found it in his pocket.
    “Well, you see,” he said, “they’re not actually slugs. People just call them that. And shameful as it is to tell, I picked up a fairly nasty case of them not too long ago. In fact, that’s why I’m here. Someone told me there’s a certain berry that grows nearby and works wonders on the itching and swelling.”
    The woman took a step back.
    “Although,” Niel continued, “now I can’t remember whether you’re supposed to eat them or just mash them up and rub them ... where they’re needed, let’s say. Guess I could do both. I just hope they don’t make me smell as awful as everyone says they will.”
    The woman gestured back to where she’d been standing. “Perhaps—”
    “So, yes, you’re right,” Niel said, taking a step toward her. “I’d love to spend some time with you. I was just embarrassed, is all, even though it’s only fair you know my condition.”
    The woman gave Niel a quick reassessment from head to toe, then leaned forward and patted his arm. “Best of luck to you, dear,” she said, and disappeared back through her door.
    Niel turned and continued on his way, on his face a large, self-congratulatory grin.
    ***
    Lunch consisted of half a round of flat, hard bread, a pear, and a few small but tasty portions of roasted mutton—or what he chose to trust was mutton.
    In all the years Niel had spent with Biddleby, meat rarely made it to the dinner table. His teacher often sputtered on about how people no longer put forth the effort to grow their food because they’d rather just kill it instead. In large part, Niel agreed. Yet on the days when it had been Niel’s turn to go to town for supplies, the spicy smoke wafting over from the market’s spits often proved too tempting to resist.
    Sitting in a spot of shade from a tree that evidently had been too large to remove—the wooden sidewalk jutted gracelessly around it—Niel noticed the sole on his left boot had begun to peel away. Since Glensdyl didn’t constitute enough of a going concern to warrant the College posting a magician to whom he could pay a courtesy call, and with little else to do, he decided to see if he could find a cobbler. He tossed his last scrap of mutton to a lumpy little dog who had waddled over to watch him eat, then started down a nearby side street to the other end of the village.
    First, Niel noticed the relative quiet of the alley. Next, he noticed the reason for that relative quiet—the smell. With no sewer system, the businesses and other occupants of the town’s center used the areas behind their shops to dump all sorts of refuse. A few stray animals dined amongst the flies clouding over piles of rotting food and puddles of who-knew-what. Some shopkeepers had dug shallow pits by their back doors in which embers smoldered, slowly roasting rubbish to ash over the course of the day. Niel covered