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time in a week, he’d gone to the imperial healers for a sixth time. He was losing far too many shifts to stay in the emperor’s service much longer. The healers had muttered and chanted and probed, but finally had to explain that they couldn’t find any source for the headaches. He’d nearly cried when they’d pushed seeds of poppy into his hands again. The seeds weren’t working. They just made him drowsy.
    Seeing the state he was in, the healer he’d come to see on his sixth visit - an old friend from the school for mages, had looked around and then leaned over to whisper, “This isn’t sanctioned, but I’ve heard stories.”
    He’d hesitated.
    The Weather Mage had grabbed the lapels of the healer’s coat and dragged him closer with bloodshot eyes. “What? A cure? For this malady?”
    “Calm down, man,” the healer had said soothingly while unlatching the Weather Mage’s fingers from his coat. “Yes, in the markets. Healers, natural ones that get their training from the clans.”
    “Hedge witches?” the Weather Mage had said, shrinking back in distaste.
    “You may have no other choice.”
    Taking the man’s written directions in trembling hands, the Weather Mage had gone to see the hedge witch in the local market. Down side streets and behind an alley, he finally found the rundown shack the man was supposed to be in. When he had entered, he was met by a foul smell and a shrouded figure in black. Stammering his apologies, he’d stumbled back and prepared to leave.
    The voice had called him back, saying, “You have an illness—a throbbing, striking pain that leaves you half mad.”
    Raising his hand, the hedge witch held out a vial of indeterminate substance. “I have the answer.”
    “How? How did you know?” stammered the mage while eyeing the vial. It was filled with a black liquid that shone with a metallic gleam even in the darkness of these quarters.
    The Weather Mage couldn’t see the hedge witch, but he could hear the smile in his voice as he’d said, “Call it a gift.”
    The Weather Mage was usually a cautious man, but every passing day the headaches grew worse. Soon he feared he wouldn’t be able to perform his duties at all, not to mention the fact that he was slowly losing his mind from all of the pain.
    “How much?”
    “Fifty shillings for three. After three you will need no more.”
    Frazzled, tired and desperate for a cure the Weather Mage was willing to try anything. Especially for such a small price. The Weather Mage had held out the paltry amount and snapped, “Here. Take it.”
    Rushing out of the shack, he’d pretended that he didn’t see the shadows moving or smell the overwhelming stench of the dead. Anything to end the cursed headaches.
    He hurried out so fast that he stepped around the body of the true hedge witch, bloated and lying under a discarded burlap sack. Behind him the charlatan smiled in the dark and vanished without a trace, his task completed.
    Back in the storage house, the Weather Mage prepared to drink the last of his treatment vials that he had acquired. Over the last few days the headaches had lessened until they were almost gone. Sometimes he’d gotten sharp pangs that distracted him or hit him by surprise, but nothing compared to the monstrous headaches that had left him an invalid in his bed for days when they’d struck before. Preparing to drink the disgusting substance, he held his nostrils pinched closed and tilted back his head.
    It was the only way he could get it down. The liquid smelled like tar and oozed down his throat like a slug. Drinking it down, he shook his head rapidly to clear the smell. As he gulped the tonic a sharp headache surfaced. He winced, waiting for the pain to rise in a crest like it always did. In utter surprise he felt it die down almost immediately – dwindling until he felt nothing more. He began smiling with joy, thinking the cure was working, and it was.
    His joy was short-lived. Out of the shadows emerged a