The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic (36 page)

Of course she would have, under Ilissa's smiling, adamantine enchantments—but in truth, the enchantment might not have been necessary, because whatever the child looked like, it would have at least earned her pity by being tiny and helpless, and by then there would have been nothing else for her to love.

It was all so wrong. So unfair. Although she could not be sure of the real object of her outrage: Ilissa or Raclin or her own gullibility. She'd been an easy mark, so greedy for love that she had given the best of her own heart without stopping to consider what she received in exchange. Just as with Adam. If she could not learn to be more discerning, the only safe course was to avoid love altogether. Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust.

How old did you have to be before you learned the difference between the simulacrum of love and the reality? Listening to an owl calling outside, she tried to sleep.

•   •   •

The lessons in fire magic began a week later. Aruendiel refused to let Nora try any fire spells near his books; she had to practice with a pile of wood shavings in the great hall, with a bucket of water nearby. A wise precaution, Nora had to admit, after charring a hole in her apron.

Aruendiel was not amused. “It is the kindling that is meant to burn, not you.”

“Either nothing happens”—which was most of the time—“or pop, suddenly I'm on fire.”

“You must be firm with it. Fire wants to please, which is one of the things that makes it so useful, but sometimes its enthusiasm becomes dangerous. It will come straight to you if you do not direct it elsewhere. Keep it in check.”

Nora looked over at the fireplace, at the fire she had built there in the ordinary way, stacking the logs and then applying a hot coal from the kitchen. Somehow she was supposed to draw on its power to set the shavings alight. “This fire doesn't look very enthusiastic. Maybe I should start again.”

“The wood is damp,” Aruendiel said disapprovingly. “But that should not affect the spell.”

She kept trying. Aruendiel, obviously bored, returned to the tower, after putting a spell on the water in the bucket so that it would dowse the flames if Nora caught fire again. “If you do not wish to be drenched, you had best master this spell,” he warned. By the end of the day, Nora had singed the end of her braid, causing the water in the bucket to slosh about alarmingly before she managed to extinguish the spark. The smell of burnt hair lingered.

Coming into the hall from the kitchen, Mrs. Toristel paused to sniff, then looked hard at the almost-untouched pile of shavings. “You haven't started the fire yet,” she observed.

“No, not yet.”

“You've been at it all afternoon. I would think it frustrating to keep trying, with no luck.”

“Yes, but I'm close, I can feel it. I can feel the fire, sometimes. It's an amazing feeling.”

“There's nothing remarkable about feeling the fire, if you're close enough to it.”

“I feel it inside.” Nora smiled, elated enough to disregard her self-imposed rule about not talking to Mrs. Toristel about her magic studies. “I feel flashes of something that's—it's not exactly happy—it's excited, very excited, and hopeful. Hungry. I know it's there. Now I just have to make it do what I want.”

Mrs. Toristel looked unimpressed. “You don't have to be a magician to make a fire. How long before you learn to do the kinds of things that he can do?”

“I don't know. Someday.”

“Someday. Well, if you have the patience for it. And if he has the patience. Why is he trying to teach you this, do you know?”

Nora had to say again that she did not know. “I assume it interests him, somehow.”

“He takes these fancies, sometimes, about teaching people what he thinks they should know. He tried to have me read one of those great long poems once, when he taught me my letters. I didn't know half the words. I had to tell him, I wasn't cut out to be educated.” Mrs. Toristel frowned, her features growing pinched. “Well, maybe it will be a help to him to have someone around who knows a little magic,” she added grudgingly. “At least you can mend the broken plates now, that's useful. I never liked to ask him before.”

Once Nora could reliably set the shavings, and not herself, on fire, the next lesson involved precision: lighting every other candle in a twelve-branched bronze candelabra. It was surprisingly hard, after she had gotten the hang of lighting a fire magically, to learn to hold back and
not
light some of the candles. The fire that she wielded seemed all too willing, and the magic did not seem to understand that some of the candles should remain unlit. Every time she wound up with the whole candelabra enthusiastically blazing.

She knew exactly what Aruendiel would say when he came down to check on her progress: that skillful magic was as much about control as about power, and would she have the grace to remember that candles are expensive? When Aruendiel finally appeared, she almost told him to spare his breath.

Then she saw his face. Hollowed out with rage, his eyes cold and wild.

W
hat's wrong?” Nora stood up. Her eyes went to the scroll Aruendiel held.

He took a deep breath. “I have just heard from Dorneng Hul. Concerning Hirizjahkinis.”

“Dorneng Hul?” It took Nora a half second to place the name: the magician from Semr who'd gone north with Aruendiel, trailing Ilissa back to her domain. She had the vague impression that he was up there still, working for one of Aruendiel's friends, keeping a watchful eye on Ilissa. “What—”

Aruendiel brandished the scroll as though it were a weapon. “He writes that it has been three days and two nights since Hirizjahkinis and Hirgus Ext drove into Ilissa's kingdom, and that he is growing concerned, since he understood that they meant to spend only one night there. Spend the night? Paying a call upon the Faitoren? Has Hirizjahkinis gone mad?”

“Jesus,” Nora said, and Aruendiel fixed her with a stare.

“Did she say anything about this in Semr?” he demanded. “Any hint that she was considering such a thing?”

“No, not at all. She said—she told me she didn't even think about Ilissa that much—that Ilissa wasn't worth bothering about.”

Aruendiel swore a few hot syllables. “She will know differently by now. Three days! And Dorneng only now thinks to inform me. What possessed her? Why did she say nothing to me?”

“Who is Hirgus Ext?” Nora asked.

“That's another mystery. He is a wizard of no great skill from Mirne Klep. As tedious as his tongue is long. I have no idea why Hirizjahkinis would spend an hour in his company—let alone travel to Ilissa's domain with him. Yet Dorneng says they arrived together at Luklren's castle and went on together.” Aruendiel glanced suddenly at Nora as though he had just been reminded of something. “I do not think—”

“No, nothing like that. He doesn't sound like her type,” Nora said at once. “Are you sure they're actually in Ilissa's kingdom? Dorneng isn't mistaken?”

Aruendiel shook his head. “There is no reason to doubt him. I can find a few traces of Hirizjahkinis's magic northeast of here, near the Faitoren. They are at least a day old, nothing more recent. She has my token. But she has not used it to call for help.”

“That's a good thing, isn't it?” Nora saw, as soon as the words were out of her mouth, how stupid her question was. “Unless, of course, it means she can't use it,” she finished lamely. “Because the Faitoren have enchanted her.”

“Or worse.” Aruendiel turned away, back to the tower. “I will leave shortly to find Hirizjahkinis. Tell Mrs. Toristel to pack a bag for me.”

Take me with you, Nora was about to say, but at the same time she remembered Ilissa smiling at her in Semr, the kind of silken smile that could bind your soul in an instant and never let you go. Nora flushed and stopped in her tracks as Aruendiel went through the wall.

•   •   •

“At nightfall, at this time of year? In this rain, he's leaving?” Mrs. Toristel put down the onion she was holding and wiped her hands on her apron with a kind of studied vehemence. Nora had finally located her in one of the storerooms. “Dear gods, and where is he going?”

Nora began to explain again about Hirizjahkinis having fallen into the hands of the Faitoren.

“Well, she was fool enough to put herself in danger, wasn't she?” Mrs. Toristel demanded. “And now
he
has to get her out of it?”

“Yes, of course!” The words came charging out louder than Nora had anticipated. She found that it was a relief to shout, although Mrs. Toristel only looked sour. “Of course he has to. Look what the Faitoren did to me. And they'll treat her worse.”

Nora had had time, as she searched for Mrs. Toristel, to consider exactly how Ilissa might deal with a captive and defenseless Hirizjahkinis. “Hirizjahkinis is their enemy, she fought them before. They'll torture her, humiliate her. Raclin will—” Nora spread her hands frantically, helplessly.

“Will do what?” Mrs. Toristel asked.

“If she's lucky, he'll just eat her,” Nora said. She went flying out of the room, headed for the tower, propelled by an incoherent conviction that somehow, with the right argument, with the right amount of insistence, she could persuade Aruendiel to take her with him.

Nora was disconcerted to find him sitting quietly at his usual table, a piece of paper in front of him. “Aruendiel, before you go—”

“I'm not going.” His voice was sharp with frost. “Not yet.”

She stared at him blankly. “Not going!”

“There is another letter,” he said venomously. “From Luklren. Ilissa holds them hostage. She is trying to tie my hands.”

“Oh.” Nora waited, but there was no other explanation forthcoming. “May I see it?”

The parchment was covered with large, rather childish brushstrokes. She skipped over the long greeting, studded with Lord Luklren's various titles and Aruendiel's, and read:

The Faitoren queen sent an emissary today to inform me that she has taken prisoner the two magic-workers who entered her kingdom three days ago. I said that had nothing to do with me. The emissary said that his queen understood that perfectly and then asked that I pass this message along to you.

For the lives and safe return of the wizard Hirgus Ext and the witch Herezjawkenus—
judging from the smeared ink, Luklren had made several attempts at the name—
the Faitoren queen wants you to dissolve the imprisonment spells around the Faitoren kingdom. She asks that you then swear to abandon the practice of magic and that you surrender to the Faitoren. She also wants ten thousand additional
silmas
of land and two thousand head of cattle.

As immediate proof of your good faith, she asks that you return her son's wife, the princess Nora, by dawn tomorrow. If not, one of the captives will be killed. If you come near or attempt to enter the Faitoren domain before the dissolution of the imprisonment spell and your surrender, both of the captives will be killed.

Lord Luklren evidently felt himself ill-used by all sides. His handwriting grew still larger and more agitated as she read further.
I told you the last time I saw you not to stir up trouble with the Faitoren. If that imprisonment spell goes, they'll steal everything on my lands that they can carry away. What were those two magic-workers up to? I warned them not to go in. I've already told the Faitoren that I'm neutral in this dispute, and I do not intend to be a party to any hostilities. . . .

Her eyes raced through the remaining lines of the letter; then she handed it back to Aruendiel. “He thinks you should send me back,” she said.

“Yes. I must apologize for his language there. He has an imperfect grasp of the situation.” Aruendiel stood up abruptly, as though he were tensed for some great exertion, but he only turned and began to pace fitfully in front of the fire.

“
Are
you going to send me back?” Nora asked.

“No.” He made it sound like a reprimand.

With a sense that she was stepping over a precipice, Nora said: “But otherwise Hirizjahkinis might—”

“I said no,” Aruendiel sliced through her words. “I do not intend to present Ilissa with any proof of my good faith. She knows exactly whom she is dealing with.”

“It's outrageous, what she demands.” Briefly Nora wondered how large a
silma
of land was, but filed the question away for later. “The only good thing—we know that Hirizjahkinis and Hirgus Ext are still alive.”

“No, I don't think we do.” He spoke with more weariness than before. “Ilissa is not negotiating in earnest, I fear. Her demands are too outsized. And she offers no evidence that her prisoners still live.

“That makes my course more difficult to plot just now. If they are alive, I must proceed more cautiously. If they are dead—if Hirizjahkinis is dead—I will have a free hand to attack.” Arundiel gave a quick, hard smile, and Nora had the icy thought that perhaps he almost welcomed the idea of Hirizjahkinis's death, if it meant that he had an unshakable reason to destroy Ilissa.

“You sent a wind for me,” Nora said. “It carried me away, right in front of Ilissa, and she couldn't do anything to stop it.”

Aruendiel was already shaking his head. “It was almost the first thing I tried, this time. Ilissa is better prepared now. My winds cannot cross into her domain.”

“Well, what then? Why not—” Nora balled her fists, thinking in fury of how little she still knew of magic. “Why not just attack Ilissa herself? Make her drop dead? Raclin, too.”

“This calls for more subtlety. I will tell Ilissa that I must have proof that Hirizjahkinis and Hirgus are alive. And in the meantime, I will start to dissolve the spells that hold the Faitoren captive.”

“Let Ilissa go free?”

“Those spells are walls that keep the Faitoren in—but they also bar or blunt many other kinds of magic. For example, a spell to make Ilissa drop dead.” A gleam of anticipation in the pale eyes. “Or to extract a captive. Ilissa has her own defenses, of course. I must think of how best to take them apart.”

He threw himself down at the table and began to write rapidly on a sheet of parchment. Nora, after hovering for a moment, went downstairs to tell Mrs. Toristel that Aruendiel would not be leaving at present. When she returned, Aruendiel sent her down again to ask Mr. Toristel to bring out the chains from the dungeon and all the nails he could gather. “And the spikes from the old mercy bed.”

Mr. Toristel's arthritis had been bad lately. Nora had to help carry up the biggest chains, the links as thick as her index finger. It took four trips to get it all moved into the courtyard. The spikes from the mercy bed were heavily rusted, as though they had not been cleaned after their last use.

In the kitchen, Mrs. Toristel was assembling a tray of bread and mutton for the magician. “I suppose he'll be up all night. Make him eat something, will you?” Nora said she would, although she herself felt no desire for food. Mrs. Toristel sawed at the meat with irritating slowness.

“When I was a little girl in Pelagnia, there were elves in the forest that had black skin,” the housekeeper said suddenly. “My granny told me about them. They liked to steal little children and eat their tongues. You had to be quiet and not speak, going through the forest, so they wouldn't know you were there.”

Nora saw where this was headed. “Hirizjahkinis isn't a black elf.”

“No, but I always think of them when I see her.” Mrs. Toristel was silent for a moment, tearing the bread. “Those Faitoren, they put spells on
you
to make you look different—prettier.” She gave a sideways glance at Nora, gauging her reaction. “Will they do the same to that Hirizjahkinis? Make her skin white, maybe?”

Astounded, Nora opened her mouth to retort—
she looks fine the way she is
—and then closed it. If you looked past all the ways in which Mrs. Toristel's inquiry was depressingly narrow-minded and offensive, there was a good question buried in it. What were Hirizjahkinis's secret wishes, and how would Ilissa twist them to torture her? Nora could not say. She was fairly sure, though, that they did not include being white.

“No, Mrs. Toristel,” she said finally. “I don't think so.”

Nora took the tray upstairs. Both tables in the library were now piled with a jumble of books, most of them lying open, and Aruendiel's eyes were locked to the page of the folio in front of him.

“What has taken you so long?” he demanded, not looking up. “The second volume of Vros—find it, will you? I need the section on inanimate-to-animate transformations. And then Seethros on reversals. And my notebooks on Faitoren illusionwork.”

She had only begun to master Aruendiel's library cataloging system—which grouped books by subject, by date, and also by how skilled a magic-worker Aruendiel judged the author to have been—but she found the books as quickly as she could. By then he had a new list of volumes to be fetched.

“Do you have a plan yet?” she asked him, when books covered the floor around his chair.

“Yes. Do you not see it? Are you paying no attention?” But he was too much occupied to direct any more abuse at Nora's lapse. He jerked up from his chair after a few minutes and went upstairs to his workroom without a word. Nora, bent over a treatise by Trankias Mins on augmenting spells over distance, felt her stomach clench and roll and was thankful that she had not touched the mutton that Mrs. Toristel had prepared. Only rarely since she started practicing magic herself had Nora felt queasy in the presence of magic; whatever Aruendiel was doing up there, it was stronger magic than she had experienced before.

Sooner than she expected, Aruendiel clattered down the stairs, pausing in the library only long enough to tell Nora to follow him down to the courtyard. Outside, the day's heavy rain had eased to a freezing drizzle. Nora shivered and hugged her elbows, but Aruendiel seemed not to notice the cold. A single torch burned in a niche, showing a rumpled mass on the ground, where Mr. Toristel had bundled the chains and nails under an oiled tarpaulin to keep them dry. Aruendiel snatched away the cover.

“I need more,” he said after a moment's inspection.

“That's all we could find,” Nora said.

“It's not enough. Iron—that's what I want. Anything made of iron or steel.”

“The old armor in the attic?” She had been sorting it all week; Mrs. Toristel was after her to polish it.

Aruendiel made an impatient gesture, as though flabbergasted why Nora was dawdling. “Bring it here.”

She came back with helmets stacked in her arms like bowls. Now Aruendiel was in the center of the courtyard, looking upward. He held something in his left hand—a fistful of iron nails, Nora saw as she came closer. Methodically, he selected a few at a time to toss upward into the air. They disappeared into the darkness. Nora found herself waiting for the ping of nails falling onto cobblestones, but there was no sound at all. Or was that a faint clanking above?