The Smoke-Scented Girl (30 page)

“Good night, Evon, and don’t worry, I’ll
still be here in the morning.” She shut the door on the sound of
her laughter. He stood still in the hall outside her door for a
moment, then went back to his room to talk to Piercy. Between the
two of them, they ought to be able to come up with a plan.

They had two days of beautifully clear
weather as they traveled south, sunny and warm enough that even
high in the mountains the roads cleared somewhat and they made
excellent time. The first night, they stopped at a farmhouse where
the farmer’s grown sons appreciated Kerensa far more than made Evon
happy. He wished he could have pretended to be her jealous husband,
and had to settle for being her overprotective brother instead.
Kerensa seemed oblivious to the glances and jostling for positions
at the table next to her, which mollified Evon a little, but he
still watched her carefully until Mrs. Tefinter, the farmer’s wife,
showed her to a room she would share with the woman’s young
daughters. Evon bunked down with the sons and tried to fall asleep
to their chorus of whistling breaths and honking snores. Even
Piercy never made that much noise.

He was impatient, the next day, to reach
Holdplain; it had been impossible for him to make any more attempts
at removing the spell from Kerensa that night, and he began to feel
the pressure of moving south without any progress. According to his
map, Holdplain was an easy day’s ride from the farm, so after a
hearty breakfast he took Kerensa up behind him and trotted away
down the highway, which had begun to turn inland away from the
coast. He’d offered to buy her a horse of her own, though he winced
at the resulting leanness of his purse, but Kerensa admitted she
didn’t know how to ride, and he had to endure the guilty pleasure
of having her body pressed against his back as they rode. He didn’t
remember her holding him this closely before, and cursed himself
for being so sensitive to her presence.

“If the weather stays this clear, we should
reach the border in just a few days, right?” she said. She leaned
closer to him, her breath warm on his neck, as a wagon passed them
headed north; it had given them only a few inches’ clearance.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Evon said. “Mrs.
Tefinter said they’re expecting another big storm in a day or
two.”

“That’s too bad. I hate the delay.”

“I don’t. If a storm hits while we are safely
tucked away in a little inn somewhere, that’s more time for me to
work. And even the Despot can’t move his armies in a blizzard.”

Another wagon approached, this one wider, and
Evon went off the verge into ankle-deep drifts to avoid it. “Does
it seem to you,” he said, “that there are more wagons going north
than before?”

“I counted yesterday,” Kerensa said.
“Seventeen, and some of them were families instead of cargo. The
Despot is already driving people ahead of him.”

“If they have time to flee, it’s not yet
dire,” Evon said.

“Or too many people think they have more time
than they do. Look, there’s another one.”

Evon once again went off the road. “Don’t
blame yourself.”

“I’m not, but it does make me anxious.”

“Holdplain tonight. Will you be ready for a
few more experiments?”

“The way you say that makes me think you have
something more in mind than simple study.”

“I want to try a few more command words with
vertiri
to see if it responds to one of them. It will...you
may feel fear again.”

“I can endure that.” She didn’t sound as
certain as her words suggested. Evon cringed to think of causing
her pain, even if it was only emotional pain. He reminded himself
that it was better for her to feel a little pain now than to
undergo the ultimate agony of the spell’s final activation. He had
to find a way. There was no acceptable alternative.

But in Holdplain they ran into trouble of a
different sort. “You only have one room?” Evon exclaimed.

“Sorry. We’re a tavern and we only got so
many rooms. You can bunk down in the stables if you’ve a mind.” The
tavern owner was a brusque, thin, bald man who stood behind the bar
polishing the same glass repeatedly with a none-too-clean rag.

“But she’s my
sister
,” Evon said.
“There’s no impropriety in our sharing a room.”

“Wouldn’t be right, sister or no. This is a
decent, Gods-fearing establishment. Stable or nothing.”

Evon hesitated, then leaned close to the
tavern owner. “Sir, I really hate to have to tell anyone this. You
can see my sister looks like a beautiful, normal girl, yes? The sad
truth is that she has fits sometimes. Froths at the mouth and
everything. I try to take a room next door to her, so I can hear it
if she falls down, because it’s my duty to care for her in her
trouble.”

The bald man paused briefly in his polishing,
his eyes widening just a bit. He glanced at Kerensa, who was seated
at one of the tables, picking at something stuck to the table top.
“Not that pretty little thing?”

“It’s too true, sir. Now, I can understand
your position. It doesn’t look good for a man and a woman, not
married to each other, to share a room. And I’ll understand if you
want me to take myself off to the stables. It’s just that somebody
needs to care for her, and if I’m not there, well, I’d need to know
that you were ready to step up to help her.” Evon wished now that
he’d known about the room situation; he could have claimed they
were married. Too late now. “She sometimes loses control of her
bodily functions,” he improvised, seeing the man’s expression
wavering.

The man looked at Kerensa again, reluctance
and disgust at war on his face. “I suppose I can make an exception,
given your situation, but just the one night, understand?”

“That’s all we need.” Evon took the glass and
shook the man’s hand vigorously. “Thank you for your compassion.
I’m sure the Gods look favorably on a good man such as yourself.”
He quickly turned away and beckoned to Kerensa to follow him, just
in case the good man changed his mind.

“You’re sure there wasn’t another room?”
Kerensa said.

“Of course I’m sure. And yes, I could have
slept in the stables, but I’m not willing to lose another night’s
study just because you don’t want me snoring on your floor all
night.” The tiny room had one bed with a couple of thin blankets
and no other furnishings. “I didn’t realize Holdplain was so
small.”

“It’s all right, I don’t mind. I just feel
sorry for you not having a bed.”

“Don’t worry about me. Look, why don’t you
sit down, and we’ll try a couple of things. I planned everything
out while we rode today, so it shouldn’t take long. Then you can
get some sleep and I’ll dig into my notes a little further.”

Kerensa sat on the bed. “How certain are you
that this will hurt? Or be frightening?”

Evon hesitated. “Fairly certain.”

“Then I need a minute to prepare.” She closed
her eyes and breathed out, slowly, then inhaled. Evon cast
epiria
while she relaxed her body. He watched her,
mesmerized again by her beauty, even in her travel-worn state with
her hair disheveled. He looked at the single bed, just wide enough
for two people to sleep close together. What would she do if he
suggested it? If he bent down right now and just kissed her? He
turned away and did a little deep breathing of his own. She
deserved better than to be assaulted, especially by someone who
loved her, in a situation she had no way of escaping, and if he
couldn’t summon the courage to be honest with her, he needed to
stop thinking about her that way.

“I’m ready,” she said quietly, and Evon
turned to see that she had gripped the edges of the bed loosely and
sat upright, her eyes closed, waiting for him.

“I’m going to try
vertiri
again. I
still don’t understand why the spell reacted to it the way it did,”
Evon explained, and cast the spell. Once again the spell-ribbons
came to a halt, quivering, waiting for something to happen. “Now
there are a few command words I want to try. I hope they won’t hurt
or frighten it, but this is when you should be prepared.” Kerensa
nodded. Her grip on the edge of the bed tightened.
“
Cucurri,”
he said, and once again the spell-ribbons
stretched like kneaded dough, and Kerensa made a whimpering sound
through her clenched teeth. “
Desini,
” Evon said quickly, and
gripped her wrist as she panted, her lips pulled back to bare her
teeth.

“We can stop,” Evon said, but she shook her
head vehemently and said, “Try again.”

Evon released her and stepped back. “Once
again,” he said. “
Vertiri. Sepera.
”

Kerensa’s eyes snapped open and she arched
her back, a hiss of pain emerging from her throat. Evon dismissed
the spell and wrapped his arms around her, murmuring to her as she
clung to him and sobbed silently. “I can’t do this to you,” he
said. “Let’s just leave it at that for tonight.”

She shook her head, pressed against his
chest. “How many more?” she whispered.

“Just one. One more.”

“Then do it.” She released him and wiped
tears from her eyes. “I can handle one more.”

“I don’t know if
I
can.”

“You can endure it if I can. One more.”

Evon stepped back and waited for her to
regain her composure, then raised his right hand. He was almost out
of words that enacted movement and change. “
Vertiri.
Trattuci
.”

The spell-ribbons went from being alert and
still to raging about Kerensa, flying so fast they turned into a
blue halo surrounding her. “Are you all right?” Evon said.

“I don’t feel anything but dizzy,” Kerensa
said. “What did you do?”

One of the spell-ribbons rose above its
fellows and began flowing away from Kerensa. Others began to
follow. “I think I did it,” Evon breathed, afraid to hope. “They’re
moving!”

Behind her blue halo, Kerensa gasped.
“Moving? Moving away?”

The one spell-ribbon had become a stream of
them. “Yes!”

Kerensa clasped her hands in front of her. “I
can’t believe it!”

The stream of spell-ribbons flowed up the
wall and across the ceiling. It seemed to be looking for an outlet.
“It’s trying to get out,” Evon said.

“So catch it! We still need the spell,
right?”

The spell flowed down the wall and over the
floor, swerving back and forth like a headless blue snake. It came
to Evon’s feet and flowed over them, then stopped. It came back and
began twining up Evon’s ankles, moving more quickly now. Evon felt
a warm, unpleasant tingle flow through his legs wherever the spell
touched. “Oh no,” he said.
“Desini!”

The spell flowed backward as quickly as it
had come, returning to circle Kerensa’s body as if it had never
gone anywhere. “But—” Kerensa said in a small voice. “You said it
was working.”

“It was,” Evon said, “but what it was doing
was looking for a new host. Damn it, I should have let it take me.
That would have solved our problem.”

“By creating a new one,” Kerensa said. “And
suppose you weren’t able to work magic on it because it was
attached to you?”

“But you would have been free.”

“It wouldn’t be worth it at that cost. But
Evon, you figured out the solution! We just need to find the right
person to attach the spell to.”

“How could you want to condemn anyone to what
you’ve had to endure?”

Kerensa’s face fell. “I couldn’t. Not even
someone evil. Well, maybe someone evil. But it would be hard to
find the right person.”

Evon sat on the bed next to her. “You’re
right, though. We found the right spell. Now we just need to know
how to use it.”

She leaned against him. “So it’s a
victory.”

“Absolutely.” He had to get out before he did
something stupid. He stood and said, “I’m going down to the stables
for a bit, so you can get undressed in private.”

She looked as if she were going to say
something, then changed her mind. “All right. And—thank you again,
for not giving up.”

He smiled at her. “You’re stronger than I am;
maybe I should thank
you
for not giving up.”

He went out to the stables and brushed the
horse, which had already been well cared for, and tried not to
think about sleeping in the same room as Kerensa, only feet away
from her.
Think about something else.
Vertiri
and
trattuci.
Vertiri
for change,
trattuci
for...the best translation might be “transfer.” So the spell’s
reaction made sense, but why would its creators have made it
respond to those commands? Suppose one host became unsuitable; they
apparently wanted to be able to move it to another host without
killing the first. So these magicians cared at least a little for
human life; why would they build a spell that required someone’s
death to activate? And why set it up so it would find so many false
targets?

He put the currycomb away and went back to
the room. Kerensa was sitting on the edge of the bed in her
nightdress, golden hair braided neatly and feet tucked under the
hem of her gown. “Are you going to do some reading?”

“Yes, unless it will disturb you.”

“No. I’m not very sleepy.”

Evon sat on the floor and took his notes out
of his bag. He found the runes comprising the spell to find the
next target and compared it to the slimmed-down version he’d
created to prove the existence of the entity. It really did look as
if they hadn’t known any better, as if the awkward,
false-target-finding version was the best they could do. If the
creators of the spell had used his version, Kerensa would have been
drawn directly to the Despot and...he shouldn’t be pleased that so
many people had died because of the spell, but he would never have
met her otherwise. Suppose all the spells could be adjusted the
same way? Not that there was a purpose to doing that, unless he
could alter the spell itself. He picked up a few more pages and set
them aside. What was he looking for? Something that might tell him
why the spell’s builders had attached the spell to a person, since
vertiri
and
trattuci
proved it could move
independently. If he knew that, he could figure out how to keep it
free of a person. Probably.