New Blood (36 page)

A babble of voices responded, excited by the idea, which made Amanusa nervous. She did not want the pressure of attempting brand new, never-done-before-by-anyone magic with an audience. She feared her look to Jax was close to desperate.

Harry must have seen it. “You lads 'ave been workin' all night. Mrs. Greyson don't need a bunch o' rubber-neckers spyin' over 'er shoulder. We'll give a full report at the conclave session this evenin'. And we'll see wot we can do about gettin' you another machine to work on. They're gettin' more aggressive about folk goin' into the zones, so maybe it won't be hard to grab one.”

He paused, his mind obviously ticking something over. “That's why I think they built themselves. They're startin' to act like, like ants protecting their nest. I don't know any machine that'll do that. I don't
know any man smart enough to build somethin' that'll do that.”

The babble started up again and escalated quickly as old arguments arose. Harry seemed to take this as farewell, for he tipped his head toward the door in signal, and the English party filed out.

Just before the door shut on the noise, Amanusa heard a deep voice cry, “Data! We need more data before any hypothesis.”

The cab ride to the dead zone near the
Chambre de Conseil
was long enough Amanusa fell into a doze. When they arrived, she looked around her with great curiosity. Though they had passed through the magical vacuum of a dead zone, Amanusa had been on a train at the time, traveling at great speed. She wasn't able to inspect it closely. Now, holding tight to Jax's hand, she ventured past the line of demarcation into the barren section of the street, watching him closely for any sign of distress.

She stretched all her senses, especially the one that detected magic. Jax was a blazing bonfire of magic, but other than his bright glow, she could sense nothing at all. The vacuum sucked at their magic, trying to break the loop that fed it from Amanusa to Jax and back again, endlessly. It wasn't a vicious, purposeful attack. More like the magic had died and the land—the stones and air and plants—everything in the zone needed magic so desperately to replenish what was lost that it tried to steal it from those who had it.

“Oi!”
Harry called from halfway down the block, beyond the magic's boundary. “You all right?”

Amanusa looked the question up at Jax.

“I'm fine.” He took in a deep breath to demonstrate. “Where do you suppose we might find a machine for the lads in the laboratory?”

A buzzing, clicking sound made Amanusa turn around. On the steps of one of the doorless, derelict houses stood a mechanical creature. The body was vaguely cylindrical, for it was made of a series of once-hollow tubes—pipes or stove flues, perhaps—sealed together in a bunch about the length of her forearm in diameter. It was about twice that in length. Down the sides of this body ran a series of scalloped wheels that appeared to be made of spoon handles welded together like flower petals. Amanusa didn't know where the bowls of the spoons might be.

The thing seemed to Amanusa more a curiosity than a threat. Until it rattled forward and pitched down the steps of the abandoned house in a controlled tumble to the street. A metallic clatter behind them had Jax jerking her around to see another machine—this one squat and flat, apparently made of tea trays with insectlike legs of narrow pipe—scuttling down another set of stairs.

“No need to search, I see.” He pushed her behind him, toward the zone's boundary. “Seems the machines have come to find us.”

“Maybe they'll follow and we can capture one at our leisure.” Amanusa dragged Jax with her toward the boundary, entirely certain she did not want to be outnumbered by them. The first two machines had been joined by half a dozen comrades, all apparently armed in some fashion. They gave chase, some faster than others. The ones with wheels seemed to have
more trouble with the round cobbles than the ones with legs.

“They're rather like soldier ants, don't you think?” Amanusa walked backward, watching the creatures. “Designated and equipped to protect the nest. I wonder if there's a queen machine, like a queen ant.”

“Stop observing them and run.” Jax shoved her ahead of him with his grip on her upper arm.

The tea tray creature caught up to him and sliced at his ankles with whirling blades.

“Run.”
Jax let go of Amanusa to dance out of its range.

She ran. A few more paces put her safely across the magic line. She turned back to shout at Jax, and her heart nearly stopped to see him dart back in, snatch the tea tray thing by its edges, and fling it over the heads of the watching magicians to clatter on the street beyond.

“There,” he said, when he was safely on the living side of the line, not even breathing hard. “You've got a local machine to study.”

Amanusa snatched up his hands to examine them. As expected, white blisters formed where he'd grabbed the machine. “You could have waited for help.”

“I saw the opportunity,” Jax said, white-lipped. “And I took it. I was afraid it would get at you.”

Harry and Grey stood a few paces away, observing and guarding the machine Jax had tossed. It crawled feebly toward the dead zone boundary, pipestem legs collapsing at every step. It flung its whirling blades out at the men to keep them back.

Elinor joined Amanusa in examining Jax's injuries.
“I have an ointment for blisters like this, but it's in my room.”

Amanusa reached in Jax's inner coat pocket for his silver flask. “Pour this over his hands. It will sting, but it was spelled just last night. It's still potent.”

As Elinor poured, Amanusa cast a glance toward the machine again, just as Grey lashed out with a foot and flipped the thing onto its broad, shiny back, where its legs twitched in midair and its sharp blades clattered against the cobblestones.

“Do you know how galling it is,” Grey said, voice bored and elegant as always, “to have to stand aside when someone is in danger because any attempt to assist would only make things worse?”

“I do indeed.” Harry nodded. “I never make it past that first set of steps there without collapsin'. If I'd gone in, I'd have to be dragged out by my heels.”

“Quite. Doubt if the ladies could drag our unconscious carcasses to safety without slicing away large chunks to lighten the load.” Grey sighed as he prodded the dying machine with a toe. “Still, it is extremely galling.”

Amanusa turned her attention back to Jax's palms, healing rapidly under their coating of bespelled liquor. She slipped into the magic of her blood inside him to ease the pain and hasten the healing more.

When she returned from the magic, Harry and Grey had joined them, leaving the machine lying dead in the gutter. Harry was the most obvious in his staring, but Elinor and Grey stared too.

“How are you feeling?” Elinor took her hands, studied Amanusa's face.

“Fine.” She looked at each of the others in turn.

“Why?” Harry said. “Why do the dead zones bother a sorcerer less than they bother us?”

“Because Amanusa carries the source of her magic within herself,” Jax said. “Sorcery is
blood
magic. Internal and self-contained.”

“There was magic in the room when I was stitching Amanusa,” Elinor said. “I could sense it, but I couldn't manipulate it. I don't have the right tools. Blood magic, wasn't it? From all the blood that was spilled.”

“Yes.” Amanusa wondered how much Elinor had deduced, and if any of what she'd deduced were sorcerer's guild secrets.

“Jax said to give it to him, because sorcery must be stored in blood and bone and flesh, not in plants or rocks or spirits. So by holding onto Jax, you are holding onto a store of your magic.”

“Alchemy's in the rocks and air and water—but there's no magic in those things inside the dead zones,” Harry mused. “Maybe if I carried something with me—a stone I powered up, maybe—”

“I could wrap a spirit round my head.” Grey leaned on his cane, his expression of ennui a thinning mask over intense interest. “Like a magic tank, instead of a fish tank for transporting fishes through air.” He paused. “Hate to put the poor things through that. They're already dead. The dead zones make them more so.”

“Why would you want to?” Amanusa asked. “What would be the purpose of wrapping a spirit around yourself or powering up a stone and going in? Just to prove that you could?”

“To learn what the zones are so we can learn how
to stop 'em,” Harry retorted. “You can't cure a disease until you know what disease you're treating. We got to know what this is.”

“It's a dead zone. It's a place where the magic has died.” Was that what she'd felt? “Or maybe—the magic has been all used up. When we were in there, I felt something sucking—no, that's not right—” She worked her way through, thinking out loud.

“There was a vacuum. No magic. And the magic we had—it wanted to spread out and fill up the vacuum, but we didn't have enough to refill what was empty. It would have taken all the magic we had until we had nothing left, and we would have been empty, and the dead zone still wouldn't have enough magic to fill itself up again—and the magic it took would die too.”

“The earth,” Harry said. “The earth and the stones are empty. Earth is the most basic of magics, an' the most vulnerable, because it don't move. Air, water, fire—they move. They change and change back, but the earth, it just sits there. Other things pull magic from it. Plants grow in it. Spirits rise from it. People live on it. But maybe when it's empty, it reaches out to pull magic back, enough to stay alive. As alive as earth can be.”

“And when the magic isn't enough,” Elinor said. “It pulls more and more and more, making the dead zones grow larger.”

“But why is it in
spots
?” Grey demanded. “If that is what is happening, why isn't the level of magic shrinking uniformly worldwide? Or even continent-wide?”

Amanusa shook her head. She had no idea, and
she was sure no one else did. “Perhaps we should concentrate first on a way to keep the zones from growing any larger,” she said tentatively. “And let the men in the laboratory try to find answers to the machines and all the other questions.”

“Trust a woman to keep us focused on practical matters.” Grey's eyes twinkled as he swept off his top hat and bowed to her.

“I been thinkin',” Harry said.

“Dangerous behavior,” Grey put in when the silence stretched.

“Stifle it, conjurer.” Harry didn't bother to look at him, just glowered at the dead zone and the machines. “I been thinkin' it for a long time, that we needed all four magics to deal with these things, all four workin' together, and it worried me, 'cause we didn't 'ave but three. Till now.”

“But what kind of spell would work?” Amanusa couldn't imagine.

“We shouldn't simply make something up.” Elinor sounded less alarmed than she likely was. “We need to study the matter, look at possibilities, see what's been tried before.”

“I know what's been tried before,” Harry said. “I've kept track of every spell in every country across Europe. I've done 'alf of 'em. An' nothing's worked. Not until Mrs. Greyson here worked that justice magic that made the dead zones shrink.”

He bent and picked up a handful of dust and gravel from between the cobblestones. “Amanusa's right, though. We need to start with keepin' the zones from growing. All the magics 'ave protective warding spells. Let's try buildin' one. We got magicians here
from all the four guilds. Let's each of us put up our own sort of seal an' figure a way to tie 'em together.”

“If everyone contributes a little blood,” Amanusa offered, “I believe I can do that.”

“Wot do we put it in?” Harry cast about for a container. “An' I'll need water, as well as earth. Earth with magic in it.”

“This dead zone stretches for five city blocks,” Grey said. “Just how much blood are we talking about?”

Five blocks.
Amanusa blinked. She hadn't thought there would be so much ground to cover. She should have, given the size of the dead zone they'd passed through in the Grand Duchy of Baden. “More than a few drops. Less than the average doctor's bloodletting. But if you're that opposed to it, Mr. Carteret, I don't want your blood. It must be
willingly
offered. Otherwise, it's no use to me.”

“I didn't say I wasn't willing,” Grey protested. “I simply reserve the right to moan and whinge about it. I'm perfectly willing.” He thrust his arm at Amanusa, exposing the veins on his wrist, covering his eyes with his other arm. “There it is. Take it.”

“Let's wait 'til Harry's found us a bucket.” Amanusa glanced at Jax, who rolled his eyes, and she sputtered with laughter.

“Now you're laughing at me?” Grey lowered his arm and glared at her over it, before dropping his mock-cower. “I am hurt. Deeply hurt.”

Harry returned from his search. “Found a lad who'll sell us a bucket and fill it with water—from a fountain, not the Seine—for a few francs.”

“Why not the Seine?” Amanusa asked.

“Clean water's got more power. An' I think the river runs too close to the dead zone here. I think it's leaching magic out o' the river.”

“The river doesn't flow
into
the dead zone, does it?” Elinor touched Harry's arm, concerned.

“Nah. No river does, that we've found. Probably part o' the reason the zones are in spots.” Harry looked at Elinor. “You got what you need for the spell?”

“Oh. No.” She looked sheepish. “I'd better busy myself with my gathering, hadn't I?” She glided to one of the living chestnut trees lining the streets and stared up into its branches. “Though as usual, I seem to be in need of more stature. I need twigs. Green branches to build my wall. And I can't reach them.”