Murder by Magic (35 page)

1. Magda was dead. He had come home from the waterfront to find her body sprawled across the kitchen floor.

2. He had made all the final arrangements, including her burial, and was sorry that these could not wait for me to make the long trip from Crowfield to Ferdralli and attend my sister’s funeral, but it was summer, and he thought that a woman of my intelligence didn’t need to have some things spelled out for her.

3. He was leaving Ferdralli at once on a trading voyage to Beska.

4. The children would stay home, in the expert care of their governess, Lady Ulla.

5. I was welcome to come and visit anytime I liked. He hoped I would not wait for his return to do so, since he didn’t think I wanted to see him any more than he wanted to see me.

That letter was Kopp all over, blunt as a barrel stave, practical as a pair of waterproof boots. He didn’t like me because he’d been raised to believe that all witches were evil creatures. It didn’t matter that he’d married one; you could tell just by looking at the love in his eyes whenever he gazed at my sister that he’d enthroned her in his mind as the exception that proves the rule.

I let out a groan fit to rouse the dead when I read that letter, a groan loud enough to bring my loyal servant Scalini running to see what was wrong. Scalini did not run, as a rule; for preference, he slithered. Scalini also did not work unless strictly enjoined, nagged, and browbeaten. Before my spells had summoned him from Underrealm, he had been the eldest spawn of Rax, the demon lord in charge of intentionally negligent schoolchildren. Scalini had appeared before me in a burst of flame, attended by a pack of homework-devouring hounds, and I’d slapped the indenture bondspells on him before fully determining what he was.

That was a mistake. It takes talent to raise a demon, and plenty of power to control him the instant he sets foot in this world; it’s not one of those spells you can whip out on a whim. I summoned Scalini years ago, when I was still working on a limited budget but needed some serious help around the house and in my craftwork. Demons don’t just
know
magic, they
are
magic, plus they do windows if you lay the bondspells on them properly. I thought that by summoning a demon I’d found the best and cheapest way to solve my problems. I put all my eggs into one basket, as it were, only to wind up with those same eggs all over my face. Scalini was loyal, but otherwise useless. However, he was also sympathetic, for a demon. The news of my sister’s death moved him to tears.

Tears and more.

“
He
did it!” Scalini thundered. “That grabpenny husband of hers did this to her. It’s no natural death she died, you mark me, mistress. Why else would the lubberlout have her poor body shoved into the ground and get himself out of town so quick? So you can’t come and make the corpse talk to tell you how she truly died!”

I tried to assuage Scalini by telling him that I had never really gotten the hang of necromancy. Any corpse I came across would keep its secrets.

He was not to be comforted.

“And who’s this Lady Ulla when she’s at home, eh? Probably the husband’s by-the-way bed warmer.”

“Lady Ulla is an impoverished noblewoman whose family fled the kingdom of Tyrshen in the days following the Unpleasantness,” I explained. For the life of me I never did understand why folks insisted on referring to the Tyrshen bloodbath as
the Unpleasantness.
Due to an unfortunate combination of circumstances, the crops had failed, the dam had burst, the peasants had revolted, the Queen had died without legitimate issue, the witches had gone on strike, and the wizards had decided to throw demon armies at one another all at the same time. It was like referring to the Baby-Eating Black Dragon of Koolai as
the skink.

“Tyrshen!” Scalini echoed sarcastically. “That nest of would-be wand-wielders? My folk know all about people from Tyrshen, especially the aristocrats. They’re never satisfied to leave magic to the professionals, oh no! They have to force every last one of their talentless brats to try a hand at it. So the nobles’ kids learn a spell or two, which they generally bollix up past all recognition
if
they’re lucky, and forever after they’re trotted out when company comes to call and told, ‘Show
Auntie Inez how you turn a goldfish into a goat, darling.’ They could accomplish the same thing if they’d just give the tykes spinet lessons, and then they wouldn’t have to worry about what to do with all those goats!”

“Scalini, Lady Ulla no longer has to worry about goats, goldfish, or spinet lessons. Her whole family was wiped out and her lands seized. She’s only a governess now.”

“A governess who was taught magic in her salad days.” There was no diverting my demon. “A governess who saw that the road to success led through your brother-in-law’s bed! Your sister likely caught them at their games, made threats, and had to be gotten out of the way.”

I rolled my eyes wearily. The news of Magda’s death had dealt me a blow that drained me of all desire to debate the details of it. I decided not to waste my breath pointing out that Lady Ulla was a sting-tongued woman with an education that left her smarter than most men and an abiding belief that marital relations were the gods’ painful, humiliating way of punishing mortals. She was hardly the foundation on which to build an adulterous fantasy, but I knew better than to take the road of reason with Scalini. There was no arguing with demons at the best of times, especially not with one whose sire, if not the Father of All Lies, was certainly the Father of All Excuses.

Before I could instruct Scalini to let the subject drop, he announced, “Your sister was always highly thought of among my folk. She never overworked any demon she invoked”—here he gave me a meaningful look—“and her pronunciation of our names was flawless. That sort of thing means a lot to us. By all unholy, I hereby vow upon the left hoof of Vadryn the Venomous that I will take a horrible vengeance upon the one who encompassed her death! Yea, upon him and all that is his, I swear it!”

And with that, he vanished in a puff of bloody smoke that reeked of sewage and rotten apples.

I did the only thing that I could do, under the circumstances: I went over to my friend Pella’s house and had a cup of tea.

“Murdered?” Pella echoed after I had recounted the whole affair. “Are you sure of that?”

“I am now,” I replied. Pella was not a witch—though she was a bit of a sorceress when it came to baking tea cakes—so I often had to explain professional matters to her. “Vadryn the Venomous is the most puissant prince of the Underrealm. When a demon takes an oath on his left hoof, its validity is instantly reviewed by the demon lord himself. If Vadryn decides it’s just silly, he tears the oath-maker limb from limb.”

“My!” Pella was impressed. “Not too well known for his patience, is he?”

“Nor for his forbearance
nor
forgiveness, but they’re not demonic virtues, are they? On the other hand, if he finds that the vow in question serves his idea of justice, he grants the oath-taker full immunity from all other obligations until the pledge is fulfilled. The fact that Scalini was able to vanish from my sight, despite the binding spells laid on him when I first summoned him to my service, means that Vadryn approved his oath of vengeance.”

Pella laid one finger to her lower lip in thought. “Which in turn must mean that your sister
was
murdered. Oh, Alisande, I’m so sorry!”

“Not as sorry as I’ll be if Scalini’s not stopped. He thinks that Kopp killed her, which is bad enough, but his oath includes vengeance on Kopp and on
all that is his
.”

Pella’s hands flew to her face. “The children!”

I nodded. “Scalini never thinks things through. He certainly didn’t when he made that oath. Not that it matters now; he’s bound to it.”

“Um . . .” Pella toyed with her teacup, looking ill at ease. “Are you sure Kopp
didn’t
kill Magda?”

“Oh,
please.
He adored her.”

“But that letter he sent you, the one you showed me just now. It was so—so cold.”

I shrugged. “What if we judged every soul by how well they poured their heart’s blood out on parchment?”

“But he fled the country!”

“And his grief, I’ll wager. I’m thankful for that. Scalini abhors salt water. It comes from all that slug blood on his mother’s side of the family. He can’t touch Kopp until he returns to Ferdralli.”

“But the children! The children are still there. Won’t he—?”

“He swore to destroy the murderer and all that’s his.
In that order.
I’ve dealt with demons long enough to know that they set unnatural store by the letter of the law. Niko and Mira are safe enough while their father stays out of Scalini’s reach.”

“Yes, but when he does come home again . . .”

“Well, by that time let’s hope the real murderer’s identity has come to light.” I smiled, but there was no joy behind it. “I’ll be most grateful for a box of your tea cakes for the road, Pella, and a couple of loaves of your best bread. It’s not a long journey to Ferdralli, but it’s hungry going nonetheless.”

I made my first visit to my late sister’s house in my own guise, just to get the lay of the land. The children were overjoyed to see me, poor lambs. I found Lady Ulla to be less than welcoming, with a shiftiness in her eyes that made me suspicious. Perhaps Scalini’s melodramatic ravings weren’t so far off the mark, after all. The otherwise impoverished governess wore a gold locket around her neck. When I admired it aloud, she opened it readily and showed me the painted face of her great-niece, a lovely girl living in the same genteel poverty afflicting Lady Ulla and all highborn Tyrshenese refugees. Even if the governess herself had no designs on a newly single Kopp, could I swear she did not covet him and his wealth for her pretty kinswoman? The lady would bear watching, but I was not in a position to do it effectively if I remained under that roof as a human houseguest.

A cat, on the other hand . . .

As soon as I left Magda’s house, I ducked down an alleyway, shucked my clothing, and assumed a cat’s shape and seeming. I took care to dirty and draggle my white coat by rolling around in the muck of the alleyway before showing myself to anyone within, the better to elicit pity. I even called up a short cloudburst so that when I climbed the ivy vines outside and scraped my claws against the window of my niece Mira’s room, she would have no choice but to take me in. It worked like a charm.

It was the last thing about the job that worked well at all.

I had been nosing around the house for the better part of five months, turning up nothing but Joram’s hostility. A cat may prowl where she will, so I made it my purpose as often as possible to slip into Kopp’s office, Magda’s library, Lady Ulla’s chamber, and any other room of the great house that might contain written records of a revealing nature. I could have saved my breath to cool my porridge. Kopp’s records were all business, Magda’s journals spoke only of domestic joys, and Lady Ulla had apparently devoted her free time to the writing of a wench-and-wizard romance. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t proof of murder, either.

Time was running out. One morning, as I sat on the doorsill, I caught the scent of sewage and rotten apples tainting the briny tang of the Ferdralli harbor air. Scalini was lurking nearby. Demons have an uncanny way of knowing when their prey is nigh. Kopp’s ship must have been due to dock any day, and once it did—

Once it did, Scalini would slay him and then turn his attention to Niko and Mira.

I had failed in my self-appointed task to discover the true identity of Magda’s killer, but I refused to fail in protecting what was left of her family. That very night, with Scalini’s reek still strong in my nostrils, I padded up the stairs to the children’s room and leaped onto each of their beds in turn, purring loudly in their ears and kneading furiously at their sleeping bodies with claws fully extended. They awoke grumbling, but they woke.

“Snowball?” Mira sat up, rubbing her eyes. She was eight, just two years older than her brother, but already I could see that she’d favor Magda when she was full grown. “What is it, puss?”

I mewed insistently and raced to the door, then back to the foot of her bed, then to the door once more. Short of standing up on my hind legs and announcing, “
This
way and hurry!” I couldn’t have done anything more to demonstrate what I needed them to do.

The children exchanged a puzzled look, but they followed me. I scampered down the steps, bringing them to the kitchen. At the far end of that capacious chamber stood the entrance to the wine cellar. It would provide me with the best possible place to use my arts to conceal the children or, if it came to that, to defend them. I planned to lay a shape-change spell on the pair of them down there. Better a live wine cask than a dead dog, or something like that.

Of course the wine cellar door was locked, so without thinking I used a minor spell to cause it to unlatch and swing back on its hinges. That was a mistake: the children were not expecting their beloved stray to work magic. Niko whimpered and clung to Mira, who gasped and goggled at me.

“Children, come with me,” I said. “You must. Your lives depend on it.” The pair of them continued to regard me in trepidation. A witch’s children knew enough to fear the presence of unknown magic.

Mira was the first to recover herself. “Who are you?” she demanded. “
What
are you? Keep away from my little brother, I’m warning you!” She shook off Niko’s grasp and thrust her hands out at me. I saw the first faint tinge of magic illuminating her fingertips. She was all bravery and bluff, Magda’s girl: she didn’t command enough magic to hold off a mouse, yet she stood ready to face demons.

“Mira, it’s me, your Aunt Alisande,” I said. I would have cast off my disguise, but that would leave me standing before her naked as an egg.

On hearing my name, Niko stopped crying. He squatted down and brought his nose up close to mine. “Prove it,” he said.

“I’m
talking
to you,” I replied. “I’m a cat and I’m talking to you. Isn’t that proof enough?”