The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic (40 page)

“An old family connection. She mistook me for an enemy.”

“Why would she do that?”

He gave a crooked shrug. “She was a poor, distracted thing, who had had troubles in a distant land. My sister gave her refuge for a time.”

“What sort of troubles?”

“I do not remember.”

“What happened to her?”

“She left my sister's house and disappeared. That was a very long time ago.” He said to Hirizjahkinis: “I am sorry now for teaching you that spell, if you can do nothing better with it than torment the shade of a long-dead madwoman.”

Hirizjahkinis's mouth twitched with what appeared to be a mixture of abashment and impatience. “She was perfectly calm until you appeared!”

“Let the dead stay dead, Hirizjahkinis.”

“Yes, yes, I understand. They will never forgive you, otherwise,” she said, biting the words off. “They are very ungrateful, the dead.”

“Your impertinence grows tiresome.”

“So does your rudeness, Aruendiel. I am sorry now for ever thinking your life was worth saving.” Hirizjahkinis flung the miniature into the wooden box. Immediately the nest of papers exploded into flame.

The fire rose quickly, cheerfully from the box. No one moved. It devoured the parchment, then chewed through the portrait of Wurga. Her face charred and crumbled.

Not until the box itself began to burn did Aruendiel rouse himself to pick it up and deposit the remains in the fireplace. He gave it a series of blows with the poker, then turned stiffly, as though his back ached.

“I should start working on dinner,” Nora muttered, rising. Hirizjahkinis announced that she would rest before dinner. Aruendiel said something about not leaving Hirgus alone.

The kitchen was quiet and dim. The fire in the stove had burned low and drowsy. Adding a new log, Nora wondered which of the two magicians had set the papers on fire. They were Aruendiel's; he might have felt entitled to burn them. But maybe Hirizjahkinis was angry enough to burn them simply because they belonged to Aruendiel. What would have happened, Nora thought, if the box
hadn't
caught fire—and what were they fighting about?

She found a knife, sat down, and began to peel turnips in the half-darkness. The knife was a shadow in her hand, and she could barely distinguish the white skin of the turnips from their white flesh.

Without thinking, she turned her eyes to the candlestick on the table beside her and watched as it flared into light.

•   •   •

Dinner that evening was not as awkward as Nora had feared, at least at first. By some unspoken agreement, the Faitoren were not mentioned. Hirgus was bubbling with pleasure over the books and manuscripts he had encountered. Aruendiel, initially cantankerous, was gradually flattered into a reasonable simulacrum of cordiality.

“. . . and you have an unredacted edition of Piris's
Fruits of Hell!
It makes all the difference to have the proper dosages, with poisons. And then, Torgin's commentary on the
Metamorphoses
! I've heard about it all my life, but I'd begun to think that it was just a hoax, like that Rgonnish manuscript you were telling us about.”

“My Torgin is quite genuine.”

“Of course, I could see that at once, but how did you manage to get hold of it?”

“A present from an old teacher—one of Torgin's students,” Aruendiel said. Hirgus beamed at him insinuatingly until he added: “Lord Burs of Klevis.”

“Lord Burs! Chief wizard to Tern the Sixth! Well, that goes back a bit. They won the Battle of the Chalk Hills together, didn't they?”

“Not just that battle,” Aruendiel said, in a tone that was familiar to Nora from her own lessons, “but the whole southern campaign.”

“Marvelous! You were there? There was a famous engagement—the Rout of the Dogs, they call it.”

“I was Lord Burs's aide-de-camp.” Aruendiel's black eyebrows knitted together. “Yes, the Rout of the Dogs is famous, but almost no one understands the real significance—” Apparently, Nora gathered, Lord Burs had turned an opposing battalion into a pack of dogs and then introduced a bitch in heat onto the battlefield. “—more important, the Orvetian battle order was completely disrupted, and their morale—”

Hirizjahkinis caught Nora's eye across the table and smiled. “In the end they must rely on a female, even in war,” she whispered. She was eating with a good appetite; there was no obvious sign that any recent disagreements with Aruendiel had dampened her spirits.

“There's one thing I've been meaning to ask you, my dear sir,” said Hirgus, when Aruendiel had finished his analysis. “Your Lord Burs was a wizard, was he not? Like myself.”

“Everyone was, in those days.”

“So how did you train as a magician, eh? When did you acquire your expertise in simple magic?”

“Real magic,” Aruendiel said snappishly.

“Real magic, true magic, simple magic—the point is, how did you learn to practice it? I've taken a special interest in the history of real magic—you might not think it of me, but it's true. One of my great disappointments was finding that I have absolutely no aptitude for real magic, so at one time, I delved deep into the study of its origins, thinking that I might find some way for even a talentless dullard like myself to practice it. Alas, I had to content myself with being an ordinary wizard.” Here Hirgus smiled, ivory teeth showing through the curls of his beard. “But what surprised me was how suddenly real magic appeared on the scene, and how quickly it became the dominant method of working magic. And from what I can tell, you, sir, were the first of the magicians.”

“There were several of us,” Aruendiel corrected him. “Micher Samle, Nansis Abora, Norsn—and we were not the first magicians, far from it. The most ancient magic-workers you can name—the Frogskinner, Nagaris, Rgonnish, the Master of Hons—all practiced true magic. It was only later, as men discovered that they could entrap or entice spirits to do their magical work for them, that they began to practice wizardry. It was easier—in some ways more powerful. Eventually wizardry supplanted true magic entirely; for centuries it was almost forgotten. We did not invent true magic, my friends and I, we rediscovered it.”

Hirgus leaned back in his chair and placed the ends of his fingertips together. “Very interesting indeed! Of course, those ancient magic-workers left very little in the way of written records. It is hard to say exactly what they practiced.”

“It is clear enough, if you are intelligent enough to know what to look for.”

“It is not so clear to me, but then I am a mere wizard! All right, assuming your theory is true, sir, how did you and your friends develop a working, practical knowledge of real magic?”

By the look on Aruendiel's face, Nora thought that he might be considering whether to end the discussion by turning Hirgus into something small and voiceless. “We built upon the writings of the early magicians,” he said finally.

“But there is so little! Only fragments! Unless—” Hirgus held up a finger, half-teasing, half-admonitory. “Unless they left some writings that remain unknown, or
mostly
unknown? Perhaps some of those books in your library that I was unable to open today?”

Aruendiel raised an eyebrow and smiled very briefly. “That may be so.”

“Ah! Well, we all have our trade secrets. I hope someday I may persuade you to share a few more with me. I must confess my real motive: I have a book in mind, a history of magic—there has been nothing authoritative written since Kerenonna's
Annals
. So there is a real need for a history that covers the appearance—or revival—of real magic and takes us up to the present moment, and I think that your recollections, dear sir, and perhaps your papers would be at the heart of such a history. I am not asking anything, not now”—Aruendiel was already shaking his head—“I am simply mentioning this project of mine. We will talk some other time about how I can best record your contributions to the development of modern magic.”

“By the sweet night, Aruendiel, I had no idea that this was in Hirgus's mind,” Hirizjahkinis said, laughing. “And now I see why he so generously invited me to Mirne Klep this winter.”

“Any help that you can provide me with, my dear lady, would be much appreciated,” Hirgus said, the metallic threads in his beard glistening as he nodded. “I must say,” he added to Aruendiel, “that I am delighted to hear you acknowledge that wizardry has some advantages over simple magic. That is a theme that I hope to explore in my book, in a balanced way, of course. Wizardry, for instance, gives you far more control, in some situations, than simple magic. My new carriage”—Hirgus lifted his goblet and waved it vaguely toward the courtyard—“would have been impossible to construct with real magic.”

“There was a magician from Ou, years ago,” Aruendiel observed, “who made a carriage out of fire, and one out of water, too. He used no wizardry.”

“Ah, but we are speaking of my carriage, which is not simply a utilitarian vehicle, but a thing of beauty, too. You must have observed how it is decorated, the wonderful little faces, their clever expressions—all wrought in living fire. It's the work of an artist. The best magician would be hard-pressed to duplicate it.”

“I see.” Aruendiel's face was almost expressionless. “You have either found a very unusual fire demon or—”

“I do have a fire demon, but it is a different spirit who does the decoration. One of the palace sculptors in Mirne Klep, a young fellow, very talented. He was sentenced to die for knifing a man, so I bought the execution rights. Not cheap, but the result is well worth it, don't you think?”

There was a pause. “I don't understand.” Nora's query sounded, to her own ears, as loud as a stone dropped into water.

“In some places,” Hirizjahkinis said quietly to Nora, “condemned prisoners are sold to people who wish to make special offerings to the gods—”

“—or sold to wizards who are too lazy or too incompetent to treat with demons or the other spirits that already exist,” Aruendiel said. “Who have to make their own ghosts to do their will.”

“Make a ghost? You mean, they kill someone, and then put his ghost in a spell?” Nora asked.

“Precisely,” Aruendiel said. “In this case, this ghost is probably bound to the carriage itself, to create that rather vulgar ornamentation.”

“My dear young lady,” Hirgus said, a dark wrinkle of annoyance appearing on the gleaming expanse of his forehead, “this was a matter of carrying out the emperor's justice. The boy would have died in any event. And this way, his work lives after him.”

Nora frowned, weighing what to say next, reluctant to be overtly rude to a guest, although Aruendiel had set the bar high on that score. “Where I come from,” she said finally, “we have legends about vehicles that have ghosts attached to them. And it's always very bad luck for the people who happen to ride in those vehicles.”

“This sort of spell is perfectly safe when done correctly. As I am sure you can attest, Lord Aruendiel—you must have killed often enough for the sake of a spell, when you were a wizard, before you discovered simple magic.”

“Often enough to find that unwilling spirits make for poor magic.”

“My carriage is sound enough, as the Lady Hirizjahkinis will tell you.”

“Hirgus, I can say that your fire demon is very well trained and does a fine job of keeping us warm, even in this abominable season. To be quite honest, I do not care a pinprick about these decorations you are so proud of. As though a fiery carriage does not attract enough attention!

“But as for ghosts—pff! If they can be useful, let them be useful.” She fingered the Kavareen's vacant head and smiled.

T
he next day, Mr. Toristel was cautiously harnessing the giant black horses to the fiery carriage by the time Nora found another opportunity to speak to Hirizjahkinis alone. She found Hirizjahkinis finishing her breakfast in the great hall, dipping a piece of bread into broth in a desultory way.

“I wanted to tell you,” Nora said, “I'm sorry that things have gone badly between you and Aruendiel this visit.”

Hirizjahkinis waved a nonchalant hand in the air, although the corners of her mouth flexed with irritation. “Oh, Aruendiel has such a bad temper, sometimes he makes me lose mine, as well. But it will all be forgotten by both of us, eventually.

“It is ridiculous of him to be so angry at me for my visit to Ilissa,” she added, with a faintly malicious grin. “I am not more reckless than
he
was, once upon a time.”

“I know—he had an affair with Ilissa,” Nora said.

“How do you know about that?” Hirizjahkinis's eyes were wide, prepared to be amused.

“Well, he told me. That is,” Nora corrected herself, “I guessed that, ah, something had happened between them, and he said that was right.”

“Yes, exactly,” Hirizjahkinis said, erupting with laughter. “They burned up the sheets together, he and Ilissa. He does not like to think of it now. He might have married her—but then he married that poor, foolish Lady Lusarniev instead.”

Nora shifted on her stool. “Hirizjahkinis,” she said, after trying to think of a polite way to say what she wanted to say, and not finding it, “he also said he killed his wife.”

Hirizjahkinis gave a quick, definite nod. “Yes, he did.”

“Well, what do
you
think about that? I mean, we've been talking about how dangerous Ilissa is, but sometimes I wonder—”

Hirizjahkinis's eyes met Nora's, quick and shrewd. “Ah! You think, ‘Aruendiel murdered his wife, perhaps he will murder me, and I am not quite as accomplished a magician as Hirizjahkinis—not yet—so I would be helpless to defend myself.'”

“I know it sounds silly.”

“Not so silly. Aruendiel is a very powerful magician with a bad temper, as we have seen. Are you afraid of him?”

“No,” Nora said immediately. “Not at all. I mean, I've gotten used to his temper now, and it's not always pleasant, but I never feel threatened. Then I think perhaps I'm just naive. Maybe I
should
be afraid of him.”

Hirizjahkinis thought for a moment, the lines around her mouth deepening, and then she shook her head. “I do not think you should fear him. He would never harm you, a woman living in his household—his pupil, yet. In fact, he would go to some trouble to protect you from harm, as he has done already.”

“Yes, but what about his wife? He didn't protect her, quite the opposite.”

“Ah, that was a mistake, a series of mistakes. Poor Lady Lusarniev, she was not worth killing! He should have been happy that another man took her off his hands. But he was angry—at her, at the friend who had betrayed him. He does not like to be made a fool of.”

“Why do you say she was not worth killing?”

“Oh!” Hirizjahkinis smiled. “Well, there was nothing wrong with her. She was pretty, kind, very rich—and not stupid, either. But magicians should not marry, in my view. I told Aruendiel that, at the time, but he did not listen.”

“Tell me what happened.” When Hirizjahkinis hesitated, Nora added quickly: “It would make me feel better, to know the facts.”

“Well, to allay your fears, then! There is no sign of Hirgus yet, is there? And Aruendiel is still upstairs. I will try to make sure that he does not overhear us.

“Let me see, where to begin? This happened years ago, as you know. I was in Semr then, an exile—at home I was still sentenced to death—and I made my living by doing magic for whoever would hire me.

“Aruendiel had been away, on a long journey, exploring other worlds. And then he came back. He had gone away because of some unpleasantness at court—Queen Tulivie, I think you remember her?—but she was dead by then, and so was the king her husband, so it was safe for Aruendiel to return. He caused a great stir. People had assumed he was dead or lost. And he came back with a thousand wonderful tales from the worlds he had visited, some odd magical things—and gold, quite a bit of gold. He wanted to get married, you see.

“I remember how we sat up, one night after he returned, and Aruendiel told me all about the places that he had visited. But after he finished his stories, he said he was weary of travel and loneliness. ‘I've been roaming for more than a lifetime,' he said. ‘It is time to root myself. I want to take a wife from among my own people, I want to go back to my ancestral lands and live the way my fathers lived.'

“The idea sounded absurd to me, and I said so. ‘You're a magician,' I said. ‘You would not be happy in the simple life of a country lord. The magic always comes first. You taught me that.'

“That made him a little angry. ‘I'm not going to give up magic,' he said. ‘But there's no reason why I can't be a magician and still have the life that any other man would want to live.' He was very serious, so I nodded and tried to imagine which of the pretty little girls who had come up to court to get married that year might become Aruendiel's wife. It was not easy.”

“Ilissa was a distraction from this marriage plan of his. She and the Faitoren were new arrivals in the north country. They had come from no one knew where—a few at first, and then dozens of them. They settled then where they live now, far to the north, but in those days there were no restrictions on their travel, and Ilissa and the other Faitoren came quite often to Semr. I remember the sensation Ilissa caused at court. So beautiful, so charming—and so powerfully magical, even if she was not a trained magician. We did not know quite what to make of her. All the men in court fell in love with her, and the women were so busy trying to copy her, they did not seem to mind.

“After Aruendiel met Ilissa, I did not hear anything more from him about getting married.” Hirizjahkinis smiled broadly. “Ilissa set out to charm him, and she succeeded, of course! For several months, they were always in each other's company. Part of the appeal, I am sure, was her skill in magic. She was his equal or better.

“Frankly, I was relieved. Another love affair—it seemed more suitable than those marriage plans of his. Although perhaps he intended to marry Ilissa. Or she intended to marry him. It would have been a brilliant match—magic, riches, beauty on both sides. He was still handsome in those days! Aruendiel would have been king over the Faitoren and perhaps more, given Ilissa's ambitions. But then one day he returned from Ilissa's castle alone, and it was clear that he wanted nothing more to do with her. He would not tell me what had happened.”

“He said she had enchanted him,” Nora interjected.

“He told you that?” Hirizjahkinis eyed Nora for a moment, raising her eyebrows slightly. “Well, a year or so later, he did marry, the heiress to Lusul. She was better for him than most of the young ladies at court, I thought—she had some education and it seemed to me that she took time to think before she opened her mouth. Aruendiel settled down to be a country lord who practiced a little magic, just as he had predicted.

“I visited once or twice. He gave me the impression of a man who wants everyone to know how happy he is. He and his wife, they talked about nothing but the estate and court matters—the things she was interested in. I thought Aruendiel was bored but would not admit it, even to himself. I expected that after a few years he would find other ways to amuse himself, magical or otherwise.

“Meanwhile Ilissa had started her famous war. Some of the Semran lords supported her and the Stoian king; some of them supported the Pernish. A huge mess, like most of the history of this dreadful country. I was very busy advising one of the Semran nobles opposing Ilissa, Lord Kersan, and then one day I heard that Lady Lusarniev had gone away with another man. The capital was buzzing like flies on meat! Most people said it was a judgment on Aruendiel, for seducing the wives of other men—but you know, he never actually stole another man's wife, it was more a matter of borrowing them.

“Some time later,” she added with a roll of her eyes, “I heard that he had tracked down his wife and her lover and killed them both.”

“And then?” Nora asked. “He wasn't tried or punished?”

“Oh, no! People thought it was in very bad taste, very old-fashioned, to kill a runaway wife, but they saw he was within his rights. And then he came into the war and fought against Ilissa and the Stoians—and then he was killed, too—at least for a little while. So—” Hirizjahkinis's hands opened, palms up, as though to indicate there was nothing more to say.

Nora was not satisfied. “But what did he tell you about all this? Was he sorry, did he regret what he'd done?”

“Regret?” Hirizjahkinis closed her eyes for a moment, as though she were trying to summon up a recalcitrant memory. “When I first saw him after she died, he looked darker than I had ever seen him. But then it was wartime. I gave him condolences for the death of his wife—in these situations, you know, you are supposed to pretend that she died of something like pneumonia—and at first I thought he was not even listening. Then he looked at me and said, ‘You advised me not to marry, Hirizjahkinis. You were right.'

“‘I am sorry that it has ended so sadly,' I said.

“‘I am, too,' he said, and that was all he would say. I could tell he was angry, but at whom I could not say. Perhaps at me, for being right all along! But what did he expect, marrying a girl young enough to be his granddaughter—at least—with no interest in magic?” Hirizjahkinis made a clucking noise with her tongue.

“You are safe enough with him, Mistress Nora!” she went on. “Better than being under the tender protection of Ilissa, no? But, listen, if it will ease your mind, I will give you a present. Here—” One of Hirizjahkinis's bracelets became a small pair of golden scissors. With one snip she cut off the end of one of her slim cornrow braids. She slipped the gold bead from the end of the cut piece, then handed the braided locks to Nora.

“That is my token,” she said. “You can use it to call me, if you are in desperate need—if Aruendiel tries to murder you, for example.”

“He gave me something like this, when I was with the Faitoren,” Nora said, watching Hirizjahkinis rethread the bead into her hair. The shorn braid had already regrown to its full length.

“Ah, his feather? Then you know how to use it. Listen, is that Hirgus coming downstairs, finally? If I had known how long he would lie abed, I would not have gotten up so early myself. But then we would not have had a chance to talk, you and I. Well, remember my token—and remember that Aruendiel also gave you his token. Certainly he was willing to help you escape
your
dangerous husband!”

“I see your point,” Nora said, as Hirgus came smiling across the great hall, rubbing his hands and calling out a greeting. “Although it's not quite the same situation.”

•   •   •

“What on earth were you talking about with Mistress Nora this morning, that you needed a silencing spell?” Aruendiel asked Hirizjahkinis as they walked out of the house and into the courtyard.

Hirizjahkinis smiled unconcernedly. “She had some inquiries of an intimate nature, things she could only ask another woman.”

“As though I would be interested in overhearing any such exchange. A silencing spell was certainly an excess of caution.”

“Servants gossip, even your wonderful Mrs. Toristel! And Mistress Nora was really worried, poor girl. You know,” she added, with vague suggestiveness, “a forced Faitoren marriage is not something that one gets over quickly.”

Aruendiel narrowed his pale eyes, surprised and a little irritated at the continued interest that Hirizjahkinis seemed to take in the amatory life of the girl Nora. The ghost of a question rose in his own mind. He usually preferred not to think about Hirizjahkinis's own tastes in love. This attention to the girl—he could not tell for sure whether it was friendship, the confidences that women share, or something else. Odd, definitely odd, on top of the insufferable suggestions Hirizjahkinis had made yesterday.

And what exactly was worrying the girl anyway? Aruendiel was debating whether to demand more details when a cry from behind halted his ruminations. Hirgus, following Hirizjahkinis and Aruendiel across the courtyard, had just gotten a good look at his carriage.

“My coach!” he shrieked. “My coach! Oh, you filthy blackguard!”

“Hirgus? What's wrong?” Hirizjahkinis turned quickly.

“What's wrong? Can't you see? It is ruined! Ruined!” He pointed at Aruendiel. “You thieving, lying, broken-backed son of a pig! You child of vipers! You did this!”

“Hirgus, I pray you, do not insult my parents,” Aruendiel said, well pleased.

“You cheat! Barbarian! Vandal!”

Nora, who had been walking behind Hirgus, looked at the burning carriage more closely. The flames were pale, almost watery in the daylight, but they had looked that way yesterday. Something else was different. “The faces are gone,” she said. “The little curls along the roof, the decorations.”

“Yes! He stripped it bare!” Hirgus roared. “He took off the spell!”

“You did not, Aruendiel!” Hirizjahkinis frowned, making herself look very stern.

“You have offended against all the laws of hospitality, sir! You have willfully destroyed the valuable property of a guest beneath your roof.”

“Not destroyed, Hirgus. Your carriage is still perfectly functional.”

“But defaced now. Ruined! This was not the act of a gentleman. No civilized host treats a guest thus—”

“But your slave ghost, the one powering your spell, he was a guest in my house, too. And I have treated him as a considerate host should—by releasing him from an irksome bondage.”