Herb-Witch (Lord Alchemist Duology) (34 page)

Nicia
squeaked and appeared next, complaining indistinctly through a
perfume-soaked handkerchief. Kessa followed, silently copying Nicia's
handkerchief-defenses. Brague brought up the rear, holding a
perfume-vial under his nose as Iathor did.

Working
from vague memories, Iathor cut through a breakfast nook into the
formal dining room. The tables and chairs were draped with fabric to
protect them from dust. Plates of clae vainly tried to absorb the
smell; in some, the clae'd already gone pitch black. A few newer
Incandescens Stones rested in graceful wall-holders.

Iathor
went past the stairs to the bedrooms, past a chill-room where Frigi
Stones kept the contents winter-cold, and into the informal back
sitting room. The dusty couch there had no protective covering. The
fireplace was cold. The Stones on the walls were dim, but not yet
flickering.

The
door into the apprentice's room's antechamber was closed. Breathing
shallowly, Iathor pointed. "There's a room beyond with an
outside door, a door to the apprentice-quarters, and one to the
basement workroom. It's used for storage, too."

Nicia
moaned quietly. Kessa said, a bit muffled, "Who'll you make open
the door?"

Brague
stepped forward. "I'll do it."

"Earth
bless you," Nicia said through her handkerchief.

Cravenly,
Iathor let his dramsman shove the door open. It seemed a black wave
of gas flowed into the sitting room and over their feet.

Kessa
skipped backward, perching on the back of the couch with her feet up.
Iathor reconsidered the assumption he'd
imagined
the effect.
"What's wrong?"

"You
saw it too?" Nicia added.

"Looked
like gray fog," Kessa said. "Is it eating your boots?"

Nicia
giggled and looked at hers. Iathor checked his more seriously, and
answered, "It doesn't seem to be."

"If
this ruins my clothing, I'm camping in your courtyard. Master Kymus."
Kessa slid down.

Iathor
grunted, since promises of new dresses would require breathing.

The
room beyond was dark. It stank. The Stones' light suggested the
basement door was open – possibly into some shamanistic
afterlife of torment and cold. Iasen'd not been exaggerating about
his house being unlivable.

The
shadows moved; Iathor twitched before realizing Kessa'd taken an
Incandescens Stone from the wall. The herb-witch journeyman said,
"Nicia, get one of these and we'll go down together. If we fall
over dead, the Guild Master gets to drag us out."

The
apprentice giggled through her scent-soaked fabric. Then, leaning on
each other's shoulders, Incandescens Stones held high, they sidled
into the room. Iathor followed reluctantly, suspecting Kessa of
bravado. Or perhaps her nose
was
less sensitive than his.

Platters
of clae studded the edges of the walls in the room beyond. A black
dusting of the stuff crunched underfoot. As the pair started down,
Nicia said, "Earth and Rain! We're
wading
in it!"

"Say
if your feet go numb," Kessa said.

"They're
cold
."

"Colder
than before?" she asked.

"I'm
not sure. I . . . Oh, I'm dizzy . . ."

Kessa
turned and wrapped both arms around the other girl. "Back
up . . . Back up . . . Brague! She's
fainted! Help me get her to the couch?"

Nicia,
still clutching the Stone, mumbled objections, but Brague went the
few steps necessary to get the apprentice and carry her into the
sitting room.

That
left Iathor with Kessa as she peered down the stairs. "Are you
all right?" he asked, trying not to breathe more than necessary.

"If
I don't spew all over the stairs." She took a few more steps
down, extending the Stone, then retreated quickly. She paused beside
Iathor at the top of the stairs. Quietly, she said, "Nicia's not
likely immune." Then she moved away.

One
fainting, the known immunes just ill . . . But
Brague
didn't seem as badly affected. He'd not been wading in it, though.

Iathor
followed Kessa into the other room, closing the door behind them.
"Shouldn't we take her outside?"

"Mayhap."
Kessa went to open the fireplace flue. There was firewood beside the
hearth; she set her perfumed handkerchief down to put some onto the
grille. "Help me start a fire. You've a . . . an
Igni Stone, right?"

"If
this stench is explosive, fire's the last thing we want." Iathor
went to pull out kindling-sized chips and sticks anyway.

Kessa
plopped on the couch beside her fellow student. "Nicia, are you
all right?"

"I-I
think so. You?"

"Aye.
We
were
wading in it, like a low-lying fog, right? And it was
cold?"

"Yes . . ."

Kessa
glanced at Iathor, through her hair. "Master Kymus, how long
would that smoking thing we made have kept smoking?"

"Most
of three days," Iathor answered. "Longer if you'd made a
larger batch."

Kessa
nodded. "Nicia, wasn't the smell
worse
outside, for a
bit? And worse in the kitchen, then not as bad in the dining room?"

"Perhaps,"
she said, uncertain.

"What
if it's like the thing we made? What if the key isn't pouring clae
all over it, but changing its preparation by heat? Blight, if only I
hadn't returned Keli's fur-fax stone."

"Fervefax
Stone," Iathor corrected. "Let's go outside, light a candle
or twist of straw, and take it back in, to make sure this gas isn't
some misbrewed explosive.
Then
we can light the fireplace."

"Fresh
air sounds good to me," Nicia said.

"All
right." Kessa stood and, with Brague, helped her fellow student
to her feet.

As
he'd only gotten the cook's key, Iathor didn't want to fumble at the
nearest door and hope it had the same lock. He led the way back
through the dark house and out the kitchen door. Then he took several
more steps and tried to gasp in fresh air. It seemed the stench'd
soaked into his clothing.

Voice
muffled, Kessa said, "I'm right. I'm sure I'm right."

Iathor
looked over. She'd done the undignified: hooked the neckline of her
dress up and over her nose.
Thus,
he realized,
trapping the
warmth of her body and breath over her face.
He sighed, gagged,
and held his vial of perfume to his nose instead.

There
were candles in the carriage house quarters, of all places, where
Iasen's groom and driver stayed. Brague took one, let Iathor light it
with the Igni Stone, and walked inside.

It
was anticlimactic. They waited, shivering and stinking, while the
lack of explosions made Kessa's theory more and more possible. Iathor
tried to ignore the two girls as they whispered to each other;
something about clae, smoke,
burning
clae, and skunks.

Finally,
Brague emerged. "I kindled a fire in that room, m'lord. The
smell does seem to fade when fought with honest woodsmoke."

"Indeed."
Iathor rocked back on his heels. "How counter-intuitive.
Normally smells like that are worse in warmer air. Kessa. Well done."

When
he thought to glance back, she was staring at him sidelong through
her hair.

Chapter
XXXIV

"
W
ell
done."
It wasn't his words that scared her, a few heartbeats
after she stood a little straighter. It was how she'd been smug and
proud and pleased to hear them.
Did he know . . .
How dare he think his words mean anything to me?

Unless
it was sincere? Even Maila'd approved of her work sometimes.

He
glanced over his shoulder. His expression, before she dropped her
gaze, was mild and faintly curious.

How
could one brother be dangerous as a street-lord defending his turf,
and the other . . . be what he seemed?

Kymus
went to talk to his carriage driver. Brague followed.

Recovered
from her dizzy spell, Nicia whispered, "You
were
right!
You're so clever!"

"Bah."
Kessa waved a hand. "I just remembered what you'd said about
heating the other thing. It was luck. You'd already solved this
problem two days ago."

"
I
didn't think of it, or notice it was a cold smoke till you asked."

"
You
were fainting."

"I
was just light-headed!" Nicia stamped her foot for effect.

"Hmph.
I wish I knew why Brague didn't get ill, too."

"He's
taller? It's a ground-seeking fog, stronger the farther down one
goes . . . We were walking down, and slowly. He only
came to get me back up, and I've been breathing lower down the rest
of the time."

"Could
be that simple," Kessa said. "Let's go inside. If cold
makes the smell
worse
, we'll be able to breathe better by the
fire."

"Oh,
true
." Nicia dragged Kessa along.

It
was nearly as eerie as before. The covered furniture, the dim and
flickering lights . . . The smell of rotting meat,
layered with bittersweet alchemy, clung to everything and blackened
the clae. Kessa ran a finger through a dish of the powder. The grains
stuck. She licked them and made a face. Rotten bittersweet and smoke,
with hardly any of the sour-numb of fresh clae.

"Kessa!"
Nicia hissed. Then she paused. "Earth and Rain, that's
safe
for you?"

"Ah . . ."
Kessa scrubbed her tongue off on her wrist, rather than swallow the
grit. "Fairly. Tastes awful. But . . . it's
concentrated whatever-made-the-smell, right?"

Nicia
nodded. "Clae's geometry binds with everything, yes."

"So
someone whose tongue is better than a geometry analyzer, who knows
what alchemy should taste like . . ."

"Oh!
Master Kymus!"

"Exactly.
It's nothing I've ever tasted. Mayhap a little like what we made,
mayhap like burnt clae, but I don't understand it. If
you
ask
him . . ."

"You
think he can taste the ingredients? From what the clae picked up?"

Metal-salts
on the edge of her perception. Smokey bittersweet. Some gagging
mold-taste. "I'd not be surprised. Here, let's go where it's
warmer."

In
the sitting room, they warmed their hands at the small, steady fire
Brague'd made. Nicia said, "Why do you want me to ask him? It's
your question."

"More
balanced if I share." And wouldn't reveal Kessa'd already told
Nicia about her immunities. Secret for the secret's sake, but no
reason to reveal it, either.

"All
right. Ah . . . I should apologize."

Kessa
blinked at the fireplace. "What for?"

"You'd
left, in the carriage, when I asked Master Kymus about, well, those
places. Where his brother said he went."

That
I know about.
"Mmph. What'd he say?"

"That
he just slept there. Stimulants don't work on him, so he's tired
after night patrols, and they've beds. But he doesn't tell his
brother about the night patrols, so Master Iasen just
assumed
."

I
wish I'd been there.
"Mmm."

"It's
probably true," Nicia said. "I asked about his bruise and
he said he'd
like
to say he just slipped in his own courtyard,
but really a criminal fell on him during night patrol. So if he
admitted that, why wouldn't he've told truth about the other?"

He
wanted it to get back to me that he was "harmless"? He
wasn't on night patrol every visit, Tag said.
"Sometimes
people admit things about fights that they won't about beds. I
suppose it's possible. His brother may be the sort who loves his
conclusions too much because they're
his
."

"Um."

Kessa
looked up at the ceiling, as if rain spirits might shower patience
upon her. "Tell me, please?"

"Master
Kymus asked if his brother greeted you politely. I said I didn't
know, I'd been out of the room. And then I remembered I shouldn't
stay out talking and went to mother's office."

"Thanks."
The girl was too sheltered to lie well. It would be a tangled web,
guessing who knew what, back and forth until one either gave up and
poisoned everyone – or stuck a knife in the table, told
everything, and challenged all present to do something about it or
surrender.

Except
poisoning'd surely take down people she thought she might like, while
a knife would upset Brague and he'd take it away from her.

So
she took a breath of air that was only sonewhat nasty and said,
"Think we should go down before they get in?"

"I'd
not want to faint. Perhaps if I stay at the top of the stairs?"

"I
can call up what I see. That's a good idea." Kessa pulled the
dull Incandescens Stone from her belt pouch, took a few more breaths
of warm air, and headed resolutely for the basement door.