The Smoke-Scented Girl (17 page)

“I understand the urgency—”

“I’m not certain that you do, Mr. Lorantis,
but I take your word that you are fully committed to providing
Dalanine with something that will change the outcome of this war.”
She turned to look at him. “I do wish we had understood the nature
of Miss Haylter’s involvement. We have been gathering magicians in
Matra to study the spell, but as it seems taking her back to the
capital is impossible, we will have to continue to depend on you
for now. I’ll send word for our magicians to join us here as
quickly as possible.”

“I’ve had a great deal of success on my own,”
Evon said, concealing his irritation.

“Your desires don’t enter into it. We cannot
afford you the luxury of working at your own pace. More magicians
mean more expertise—or do you deny that you lack the experience of
maturity?”

“Mrs. Petelter, Evon is the finest magician
of his generation and far more skilled than many magicians with
more, as you put it, experience of maturity,” Piercy said. “I
brought this task to him for that reason.”

“The department is grateful to you, Mr.
Faranter, but now I will be supervising this affair, and my
assessment is that Mr. Lorantis’s efforts will be more productive
with the assistance of his fellows.” She settled her cloak over her
shoulders. “Home Defense has already declared this spell war
materiel, and under our jurisdiction. You will all three of you
serve your country as I dictate or face charges. I am sorry it must
come to this, but the Despot has left us with no choice but to
appropriate whatever we believe will win us this war.”

“I’m not a thing, Mrs. Petelter,” Kerensa
exclaimed.

“It is unfortunate for you that you are, for
the moment, inseparable from the spell, but that changes nothing. I
suggest you accelerate your efforts if you wish her out of this,
Mr. Lorantis.”

“What of Speculatus?” Piercy said. “They pose
a not inconsiderable threat to us.”

“We are aware of the danger and our people
are prepared to defend the spell if Speculatus comes against us. If
we are fortunate, Speculatus will overextend themselves and commit
to an action that will expose them for what they are, and leave
them vulnerable to the law. The best circumstance would be for
Speculatus to succeed at abducting Miss Haylter and then be
captured by us.”

Kerensa’s expression was even more wooden
than before. She seemed not to hear what Mrs. Petelter was saying.
“And suppose you didn’t capture them? You would dare put her in
danger like that? Speculatus wouldn’t shrink from torturing her to
gain secrets she doesn’t have,” Evon said hotly.

“Control yourself, Mr. Lorantis. Miss Haylter
is far too valuable to risk. If I decide such action is necessary,
she will have every protection we can muster.”

“Stop treating her like she isn’t human!”

“Careful, Mr. Lorantis. I am your advocate in
this situation. Would you prefer I leave things to Garaid? Miss
Haylter, I apologize, but I’m sure you understand better than
anyone what it means that this spell is part of you. Mr. Lorantis,
I expect a report on your findings at the end of each day. Mr.
Faranter, walk with me. I have further instructions for you.”

Piercy’s lips were set in a thin, hard line,
but he held the door for Mrs. Petelter and followed her into the
hall. When the door was again shut, Kerensa sat in her chair and
stared blindly at the wall. Evon said, “I’ll figure it out. I
swear.”

“I know,” she replied in the dull,
emotionless voice Evon had hoped he’d heard the last of. Damn Mrs.
Petelter, and damn Mr. Terantis, for doing this to her. He
dismissed
epiria
, then knelt at her side, scuffing the chalk
circle, and took her hand in his. “Mrs. Petelter’s going to leave
us alone. This changes nothing, do you hear me? I’ll work harder
and soon they’ll have their damned spell and it will be nothing to
do with us anymore. Kerensa. Look at me.”

She turned to face him, her poreless skin
pale, her eyes haunted. “Will you start work again now?” she said.
“I want this to be over.”

He squeezed her hand, gently. Her skin was
warm and soft and felt just like ordinary skin. “I will,” he said,
“if you remove that expression that says I just killed your
favorite puppy.”

Her eyes widened, then she smiled. “I like
cats,” she said. “And I think you come up with outrageous things to
say to me so I’ll laugh.”

“That’s true,” Evon said, and released her
hand. “I lie awake at night inventing insults and absurdities to
keep your spirits up. It keeps me sane when Piercy snores.”

“Well, it works. Thank you. And, Evon? Thanks
for defending me.”

Her hazel eyes were fixed on his, and he
found himself tongue-tied. All he could do was smile, and nod, and
turn away as gracefully as possible.

Now Evon fell into a pattern: breakfast,
study, dinner, study, supper, study, sleep. Piercy had to force him
to take rests and ultimately resorted to pointing out that Kerensa
had begun to look haggard from inactivity, which made Evon feel
horribly guilty. After that, Piercy and Kerensa went for walks in
the mid-morning and after dinner, accompanied by one of the Home
Defense agents, and Evon organized his notes and made more of them
and analyzed his findings until his eyes ached. Occasionally he
joined Piercy and Kerensa, but he was always so preoccupied with
his thoughts that he was a poor companion and sometimes had to be
steered out of the way of other pedestrians and lampposts.

His lexicon grew slowly, which infuriated
him. It felt like the spell was taunting him, becoming more obscure
the more he learned. More phrases:
fire to destroy
,
tell
it to return, bind the call
. Too many long sequences of
indecipherable runes. Some of the five hundred runes seemed to be
variants on others, and he didn’t know what to make of that; were
they the same words, written differently, or did the variants alter
the meanings, change present to past tense or turn a noun into a
gerund? He used up his paper and sent Piercy to the stationer’s for
more, set Kerensa to sharpening pencils, and drew runes until he
felt he would overflow with them.

At the end of the third day, Evon sat at the
dressing table, staring at his notes, wondering why anyone had ever
thought he was a brilliant magician. He’d deciphered another fifty
runes since Mrs. Petelter had descended on them, trailing agents in
her wake, and they hadn’t made any difference. The problem, he knew
now—and discovering this had been important, so maybe he shouldn’t
be so hard on himself—was that it was actually a host of smaller
spells working together for one purpose. He’d worked out many of
the small spells already. He knew how it made Kerensa impervious to
normal fire—he’d used that one to improve his own shield spell. He
knew how it was able to resurrect her after the explosion. He
understood the tangle of spells that caused the spell’s activation,
though he still wasn’t sure how it chose its specific targets
beyond the unhelpful “no soul” cluster of runes. And he knew how it
directed Kerensa to find its next target. He just didn’t understand
the great central spell that all the rest connected to, the spell
that contained the secret of the magical fire. And he didn’t know
how to break Kerensa free of it.

A hand removed the pencil from his. “Stop,”
Kerensa said. “Rest. It’s not so urgent that you have to kill
yourself figuring it out.”

He looked up at her. Motionless blue
spell-ribbons made a halo around her head. “I want you to be free,”
he said.

“So do I, but not at the cost of your
sanity.”

“Those other magicians will start arriving in
a day or two, Kerensa. My work will effectively end then, because
even if they let me continue working, I’m going to spend days
explaining what I’ve already learned to magicians who won’t respect
me enough to listen.”

“Let’s just start again tomorrow, all right?
You need sleep, and honestly, so do I. I’m exhausted and I’m going
blind because of this blue light. Can you turn it off, please?”

Evon gestured and the spell vanished. “I
can’t sleep. I see runes every time I close my eyes.”

“You need something else to think about,”
Piercy said, entering in time to hear Evon’s last words. “But I’m
afraid I am all out of new projects for you, dear fellow.”

“How is our dear friend and patroness Mrs.
Petalter?”

“Friendly and patronizing as ever, Lore. She
greeted my suggestion that in remaining here we are a more obvious
target for Speculatus with polite dismissal and the unspoken
suggestion that I should take myself off so the adults could make
decisions. I didn’t bother speaking to Terantis, of course.” He sat
heavily on his bed. “I need a drink.”

“So do I.” Evon lay back on his bed.

“You need hot milk and a bedtime story, dear
fellow.”

“Hot milk sounds disgusting, but...Kerensa,
wait.” Kerensa paused with her hand on the bathroom doorknob. “Why
don’t you tell us a story about Alvor?”

“Aren’t you a little old for bedtime
stories?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“It will give me something to think about
besides runes. Please?”

Kerensa shrugged and took her seat again.
“What do you want to hear?”

“I barely know any of them,” Evon said. “Pick
one of your favorites.”

She tapped her lips with her index finger,
thinking. “All right. Do you remember the story of the
Dirn-Hound?”

“No,” said Piercy.

“It helped Alvor find the gates of the
Underworld,” Evon told him.

“Is this a true story?” Piercy asked.

“Depends on who you ask. Do you want to hear
it or not?” Kerensa said. “Then stop talking. All right. Alvor’s
best friend Carall was trapped in the Underworld, and Alvor needed
his help to defeat Murakot. So he went on several quests to get him
back. They all have their own stories, like the Dirn-Hound, but the
short version—”

“Why can’t we hear the long version?”

“Because you might want another bedtime story
tomorrow, Evon, and I want to save something for then. Now shush.
Alvor collected all sorts of things: a vial of magic oil, a stick
from the oldest oak in Telwyth Forest, a hazelnut the size of his
fist, and of course the Dirn-Hound and the leash he used to capture
it. And the Dirn-Hound led him, with all his magic things, to the
gates of the Underworld.

“None of the legends say what the gates
looked like, just that they opened in the Dirn-Hound’s presence and
let Alvor walk through. The halls of the Underworld teemed with the
spirits of the dead, none of them able to speak and all of them
able to lead a mortal visitor down the wrong path. Alvor was
prepared. He blindfolded himself and with the stick from the oldest
oak in Telwyth Forest found the path that took him past the spirits
and to the antechamber to the five Death-Lands, where he discovered
five identical doors.

“Now, in the Twins’ domains, there are doors
you can only pass once, and these were the doors the dead go
through to their final home. Alvor had to choose the one Carall had
passed through, and if he chose wrong, he’d never be able to come
back to choose again. So Alvor put the magic oil on his eyelids,
and saw that one of the doors was blacker than a crow’s heart. He
chose that door and came through to a black hall filled with
spirits, and every one of them was Carall.

“Now one of the people whose help Alvor had
asked for was the Witch of Marhalindor, who was insane but saw
things sane people don’t. She told Alvor to take what Carall hated
and give it to him. So Alvor took a giant hazelnut—stop laughing,
Piercy! It’s how the story goes.”

“I simply think it lacks sufficient gravitas.
Hazelnut, indeed. Much better a stinging nettle, if you must have
some type of flora. Or some kind of vicious animal, like a
cat.”

“I like cats. And I’m telling the story. It
was a hazelnut because Carall couldn’t eat them, they made him
sick. And Alvor took the giant hazelnut and tossed it into the
middle of the throng. All ghosts love food, even though they can’t
eat it, and they dived on the nut—all except one. And Alvor took
the Dirn-Hound’s leash and tied Carall’s hands, and led him out of
the Underworld to the lands above.”

“How did Alvor get out if he’d gone through
the door you only pass through once?” Evon asked. Kerensa’s low,
musical voice had relaxed him nearly to sleep.

“He took the God Cath’s route, the one the
Twin takes when he leaves his realm. He had to fight his way free,
that’s how he lost his finger.”

“And Carall was alive again?”

“No, he was dead, but he walked the living
world like a breathing man. And he fought with Alvor against
Murakot and defeated him.”

Evon rolled on his side to face her. “So,
where’s the kernel of truth in that story?”

Kerensa stretched. “You want to know what I
think? I think the whole thing’s true.”

“Dead men walking the earth?”

“Aren’t there places people don’t go because
they’re so saturated with magic the laws of nature break down? If I
were going to hide the entrance to the Underworld, I’d put it
someplace like that. But if you want a more realistic
interpretation, Carall wandered into one of those places, Alvor
went after him and had some kind of hallucination, and the place
changed Carall into something not quite human.”

“I prefer the second interpretation, but I am
a pragmatist,” Piercy said.

“I’m surprised you believe the more
unbelievable version this time,” Evon said. “You’re usually so
quick to dismiss the less likely elements.”

“I just think the idea of Alvor going into
death after the person he cared most for in all the world rings
true,” Kerensa said. “And now I’m going to bed. Good night.”

“Good night,” Evon said. “I’m starting to
understand the appeal of these Alvor stories,” he said to
Piercy.