Calamity's Child (8 page)

The frown extended to her face,
drawing the light brows together. "I'm reading," she stated. "Why
are you here?"

"I'm here to see your father," he
answered, and moved carefully to sit in the chair opposite hers.
Quick motions frightened her, and loud voices. Music, she could not
abide, nor birds, nor dogs. Despite this, she had a fascination
with pictures and books on the subject of all kinds of animal, and
would spend hours immersed in one page of her bestiary. Indeed, it
was this characteristic of absorption in her own projects to the
exclusion of any other stimulus that sat at the core of her
affliction. Benjamin had the best and most learned doctors --
psychological, magical and spiritual -- to her, and some progress
was made in the direction of encouraging her to interact with other
humans. It was rare to find her in so talkative and gracious a
mood, however.

"Your father tells me that you are
progressing in your magical studies," he said, choosing a topic of
conversation that might be expected to engage her
interest.

Aletha stared at him, blue eyes
unblinking, then abruptly shut her book, slipped to her feet and
walked away. A moment later, he heard the door to the parlor
slam.

"How very maladroit of me," Nicky
murmured, around a sigh. He allowed his head to fall back against
the chair, and closed his eyes, wishing that Benjy would
come.

The chair was comfortable
and he was very tired. And it really would
not
do to fall asleep before he
had a chance to speak to Benjy. Grimly, he pried himself out of the
chair and wandered back to the shelves.

He was browsing the novels when a
gleam caught his eye, back among the dark books. Aletha liked to
hide those things she had identified as precious, according to
Benjy; and her taste appeared to run to shiny.

At great peril to his sleeves, Nicky
reached back and slid the object out, discovering nothing more
precious than a silver cigarette case. He frowned down at it,
noting Benjy's initials, and a slight shimmer across the surface,
as if --

Behind him, the door opened. He
turned, slipping the case into his pocket.

"Nicholas! A thousand apologies for
keeping you cooling your heels!"

Nicky smiled. "It wasn't as long as
that."

"Well, you're kind to say so," Benjy
said, running a hand through his already disordered hair. "I
suppose it's about Wolheim? The news report said the circumstances
were suspicious, and I thought of you."

"Yes, it's precisely about Wolheim,"
Nicky said. "Listen, will you, and see what you make of
this."

Quickly, he described the scene as he
had found it: the grotesquely transformed body, the cocoon of
spells, the lack of signature.

By the time the tale was told, Benjy
was shaking his head. "I can't help you, I'm afraid. Wolheim didn't
confide in me, if you're thinking that this is one of his own
projects, gone hideously wrong." He frowned. "Though, how he might
have achieved that affect -- and there would have been a signature
in that case -- his own."

"Too true. I'm wondering though,
something along the lines of your stored spell
system..."

Benjy blinked, then shook his head
again. "No, old man, it's not like that. Even if Wolheim had
managed to completely overload his vehicle, the spell would still
have shown a signature -- his." He moved his shoulders. "A stored
spell is the same as any other -- just held in abeyance for a bit.
I'd show you just how it is -- but my prototype's gone
missing."

"I see." Nicky frowned, wishing he
weren't so desperately weary. "Do you know of any enemies Wolheim
may have had?"

"Besides myself, you mean? Only half
of the practical magicians on the town -- and half of the
philosophers, too."

Despite his weariness, Nicky smiled.
"Explosive on all fronts, the late doctor."

"That he was." Benjy shrugged. "Not
very helpful, am I?"

"Not yet, but I expect you will be. I
would appreciate a list of those people you know Wolheim had
offended."

Benjy sighed. "Is tomorrow morning
soon enough? You understand, it's a project which will consume some
time."

"Thank you," Nicky said with a weary
smile. "Tomorrow morning will be soon enough."

*

"Nicky?" Nora's voice wafted into his
dressing room. "Whose cigarette case is this, darling?"

He shrugged into his jacket and walked
out into the main room. Nora, adorably tousled in her carmine robe,
was fiddling with the catch on the silver case.

"Oh, it's Benjy's," he said. "There
was something odd about it and I wanted --"

Across the room, the case sprang open
with a loud swell of music and an expanding yellow cloud of a
thousand tiny butterflies.

Nora squeaked and dropped the case;
Nicky leapt forward and caught it before it hit the rug. On a
higher plane, the butterflies reached the sky-blue ceiling, and
melted into snowflakes, embracing the two of them in a brief,
indoor snowstorm. The snow dissipated, leaving behind a lingering
sense of cinnamon -- the magical signature of Benjamin
Hillier.

"What in heaven's name --" Nora
gasped, but Nicky was holding the silver case, his face perfectly
blank. She sighed, rather unsteadily, and went over to the table to
pour herself a cup of coffee. By the time she had added cream and
brought the cup to her lips, Nicky had blinked back to everyday
awareness.

"It works," he said, in soft
wonderment.

"What works, darling?"

"Benjy's spell storing system," he
said, staring down at the case as if he had never seen anything
like it before in his life. "This will revolutionize the Arts
Magical."

"Well, good," Nora said. "Benjy
deserves some --"

A knock at the door of their suite
interrupted her. Nicky slipped the expended cigarette case into his
pocket as he crossed the room and opened the door, finding their
butler, bearing a tray with a single envelope on it.

"Special delivery, your Lordship," he
said.

"Thank you, Jensen," Nicky
replied and took the envelope, recognizing Benjamin Hillier's
hand.
The list of possibles, then.
Splendid.
"That will be
all."

He closed the door, slipped his finger
under the seal, and pulled out a single sheet of paper.

It was not a list, but a
letter.

Dear
Nicholas,

By the time you
receive this, matters will be in hand. I apologize for leading you
a little dance yesterday afternoon. Yesterday afternoon, I had not
fully understood the problem -- or the solution.

But, there, you wish
to know who killed Wolheim.

I performed that
well-earned deed. I, and my accomplice.

Certainly, there was no one else who deserved to die as
much as Wolheim -- for Sarah alone he deserved a dozen excruciating
deaths, and she was only one of many, though dear to me. Very dear
to me.

The reason you could
find no signature is because there was none to find. The phenomenon
we call a "signature" is nothing more or less than the spin given
any particular spell by the mind of the magician. Wolheim's
concoctions, for instance, were notable for the stink of unexpended
power. Your own efforts have a silken essence, marking them out as
the constructs of an unusually subtle mind.

The spells that
transformed and killed Wolheim bore no signature because there was
no interaction between the magician and the spell.

Allow me to
explain.

My accomplice, Aletha,
is an exceptionally strong and talented magician, but she is
intensely literal.

She cannot alter what
she is taught by as much as a breath. Therefore, I used the process
which I have perfected to prepare a perfectly ridiculous mechanical
monkey. I then placed Tanister's book on transformation magic, open
to the page where the base spell is written, before Aletha. As she
read those words, over and over and over, I guided her thought --
aimed her, if you will, at the toy. Then, I went to the opera,
leaving her to it.

When I returned home,
Aletha was asleep and the monkey was fairly shimmering with energy.
I wrapped it up and put it with the other mail, which was in due
time taken down to the post office. I confess that I hadn't
expected the matter to go forth so quickly. Wolheim must have wound
the toy up the moment he received it. The spells would have been
released when the mechanism was engaged. With what exceptional
results we have seen. I had not expected it to work nearly so well
as it did. Eighty-five transformations! I hope each was an
agony.

So, the thing was
done. Wolheim was dead. The monkey, its energy expended, would
scarcely invite the scrutiny of the Prince's Sorcerer. I thought
that would be an end to it. Alas, I had reckoned without my
accomplice.

Last night, after I
saw you out, I went in search of her. It is our custom to dine
together on those days when I'm not engaged, and to work through
some of those exercises the doctors had prescribed. I found her in
the kitchen, torturing one of the cats. She transformed the poor
creature into a monstrosity as I watched -- as she watched, smiling
delightedly, then laughing aloud when it gave up its life in a
shriek of anguish, horribly, horribly misshapen.

It was then that I
realized what I had done -- and what I must do.

On another subject,
before I bid you adieu -- the seek-spell I employed to locate my
prototype reveals that it has come to you. Nothing could be more
satisfactory. You will by now have understood it -- and what it
will mean for our Art. The papers are on file with my solicitor. I
would be honored, if you would take up the work and see it made
available. The process is, if I may be forgiven a certain amount of
pride in the child of my own intellect,
revolutionary.

And now, I do bid you
adieu, old friend. Pray assure your lady of my everlasting regard,
and -- make her see, won't you, that this was the only way. When
you hear the engines go out of Station Nine, you will know the
thing is done.

With respect and
affection, your humble servant,

Benjamin
Hillier

He let the letter fall from nerveless
fingers, seeing it -- seeing it all too clearly.

"Nicky?" Nora touched his arm lightly.
"You look as if you've seen a ghost."

"Very nearly. I must --"

From the street below, a sudden
shouting of sirens. Nicky jumped to the window and threw it wide,
staring down as Engine Company Number Nine's scarlet pump truck
streaked away. He raised his eyes, staring across the rooftops, to
a plume of smoke, dark against the egg-blue sky, and flames,
licking up from the fire. He turned away from the window and looked
into Nora's dark brown eyes.

She held up the letter he had dropped,
and wordlessly opened her arms.

END

Sharon Lee and Steve
Miller have been making beautiful fiction together since 1984.
Together, they built and maintain the Liaden Universe®, which now
numbers ten novels, well over two dozen short stories, and is still
expanding, as well as several other novels, and numerous science
fiction and fantasy short storie
s.

Liaden
Universe
®
novel
Balance of
Trade
is winner of the Hal Clement
Award for best Young Adult Science Fiction of 2004, while
novels
Local Custom
and S
cout's
Progress
received second and first
prize, respectively, for the prestigious Prism Award given by the
Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal Chapter of the Romance Writers
of America.
Scout's
Progress
was also named Best Science
Fiction Novel of 2003 by the reviewers of Romantic Times
Bookclub.

Sharon and Steve live in Central Maine
with lots of books, four erratic muses in the form of cats, and a
large cast of characters. They maintain a web presence at
www.korval.com.