Mallara and Burn: On the Road by Frank Tuttle

everything! Back up! Leave us alone!"
    The goblins halted. An axe fell. And
another.
    Tears ran down the boy's face. "Begone," he
said. "All of you."
    The black-eyed goblin took a step away, head
down. "Not you," said the boy. Then, "He's not like them."
    Mallara shook her head. Black eyes met her
own.
    "No," she said. "He isn't. He can stay."
    "Old Mage Herridge will have a conniption
fit," muttered Burn.
    Behind the trio, the shaft of lightning began
to fail.
    "Unbind the spell," said Mallara. "It's not
enough to send them away."
    "How?" asked the boy. "It never told me
how."
    "It had you make something," she said.
"Something material. A wand or a necklace or a bag."
    "This?" asked the boy, fumbling with a
leather cord around his neck. From the cord hung a pair of short
smooth sticks, bound with a long blond hair. "Staff said it was for
luck."
    "Pull out one of the sticks," said Mallara.
"Hurry."
    The lightning ceased. Thick billows of smoke
rose up from the blackened sand around the staff of bone.
    The boy pulled out a stick.
    "Now break it," said Mallara.
    The boy shook his head. "What about him?" he
asked nodding toward the goblin at his side. "Will it hurt
him?"
    "He's not spell-stuff anymore, like the
others," said Mallara. "He's a part of you. He's here to stay, if
you will it."
    The bone staff began to mutter and grumble. A
harsh white light flared within the staff, leaking from the crack
and casting strange, moving shadows in the smoke and steam.
    "Break the bloody stick," said Burn from atop
the boy's head. "Or would you like to face your old friend
again?"
    The boy grimaced and broke the stick.
    Every goblin in sight, save the one at his
side, evaporated, adding their substance to the cloud of steam
already wafting over the grass and between the trees.
    The yellow bone staff howled. The black-eyed
goblin patted the boy on the back, and its slit of a mouth lifted
in a smile.
    "One goblin army down," said Burn. "One
pre-Kingdom necromancer's staff to go. What about it, Mistress? Run
or fight?"
    Mallara glared. "This fight is over." She
spoke another Word, and the staff of bone fell silent and dark. "We
win."
    Smoke and steam coiled about the grass. The
melted sand-pit in which lay the staff of bone popped and
hissed.
    "That's it?" asked Burn. "Old Bones is
dead?"
    Mallara raised an eyebrow. "Next time I'll
try for more flash and thunder," she said. "But now I'm tired. And
we've still got things to discuss."
    Mallara kneeled and wiped the boy's
tear-streaked face clean with her sleeve. "It's over," she said.
"All done."
    The boy stared. "I'm sorry," he said. "I
found the staff, one day last winter. It was under a stone, by the
creek. Over there," he said, pointing. "It talked. I asked it about
magic, and it told me what to do. I just wanted help with my
chores. That's all. I'm sorry, um, Highness."
    Mallara patted his hand. "Apology accepted,"
she said. "And I'm Sorceress Mallara, not Highness. And what is
your name?"
    "They call me Pots," said the boy.
    Mallara shook her head. "I didn't ask what
they called you," she said gently. "I asked for your name."
    "Pots is all I know," he said. "They said
Pots was good enough for a foundling."
    "Pots isn't a name, boy," said Burn from the
vicinity of the boy's right ear. "Pots is what you wash." The boy
went round-eyed.
    "That's only Burn," said Mallara. "He travels
with me. Burn is a shimmer, and shimmers have no visible bodies --
just loud, penetrating voices."
    "Bah," said Burn. "First thing we've got to
do is give our rouge wizard a proper name. Can't go marching up to
the Council of Mages and Sorcerers with a name like Pots."
    The boy's eyes darted frantically to meet
Mallara's.
    Burn snorted. "You think maybe we can just
kick sand over Old Bones there and forget this ever happened?" he
said. "You think your people here won't figure out who to blame,
eventually?"
    "They aren't my people," said Pots. "Never
were." He paused. "What will the wizards do to me?"
    "They'll