The Smoke-Scented Girl (31 page)

“Can I ask you a question?” Kerensa asked. He
looked up and saw her propped on her elbow in the bed. “Go ahead,”
he said.

“What will you do when this is all over?”

Evon blinked. “What makes you ask that?”

“What happened tonight...the whole time I’ve
known you, it’s been in the middle of this horror. I don’t really
know what you do when you aren’t following me around.”

He grinned. “I do very much as I’ve been
doing this whole time. I invent and refine spells for whatever
client Miss Elltis has brought in. We had a government contract
when Piercy brought me the problem of the Fearsome Firemage.”

“Who is—oh, no, Evon, did you really call me
that?”

“Only at first. Anyway, I suppose I’ll go
back to doing that. Though Miss Elltis won’t have me back. Mistress
Gavranter says she may have work for me. So I don’t know exactly
what it will be, but likely it will look much the same as what I
was doing before.” The thought made him unexpectedly unhappy, and
not because it meant never seeing Kerensa again. The prospect of
spending the rest of his life in small, cold rooms researching
spells depressed him.

“For the longest time I didn’t think I had a
future,” Kerensa said, rolling onto her back to stare at the low
ceiling. “Now I don’t know what I want to do with it.”

“I thought you were interested in
university.”

“It seems so impractical, though. Elkenhound
isn’t much bigger than Holdplain; what use would an Alvorian
scholar be there?”

“There are other things to study. You might
decide you’re interested in something else as well. And...there’s
no reason you have to stay in Elkenhound, is there? Matra is a
beautiful city, and there’s so much to do, so many people to meet.”
Could
she live in Matra? What might happen if they saw each
other regularly, without the burden of this spell between them? On
the other hand, could he bear to watch her fall in love with
someone else?

“I’d miss my family,” she said, but there was
a question in her voice. “I don’t know. I’m still a little afraid
to make plans until...whatever happens. I’m sorry. I’m keeping you
from your work.”

“I don’t mind. Tell me about your
family.”

“I live with my aunt and uncle. They took me
in the year of the influenza, when my parents died. They’re
wonderful people, but I think my aunt—she gets this look in her eye
sometimes, like she doesn’t know what to do with me. Most girls my
age are married by now or have permanent work somewhere. She
doesn’t understand why I’d work in the tavern when I could take a
job in a shop, or marry Turley.”

“Who’s Turley?” Jealousy gripped him like a
fist around his stomach.

“He courted me for a while, when we were both
younger. I liked him well enough, but then he asked me to marry him
and I knew I didn’t like him as much as that. He follows me around
back home with this lovesick look in his eye. I wish he’d find
someone else to moon over. I’ve been gone long enough, maybe he
has. At least he never followed me as far as you have.” She
laughed. “But you’re much harder to send away.”

“Nearly impossible.”

“Only nearly?”

“I suppose you could have me stuffed in a
grain sack and put on a wagon headed north, but that would only
slow me down.”

She laughed again. “I can’t tell you what a
comfort it is to have you here.”

So he was a comfort. Like a blanket, or a
stuffed toy. “I’m glad to hear it. I don’t think you should be
alone for this.”

She fell silent, and he went back to his
notes. After a few minutes, he heard her breathing change. She’d
fallen asleep facing him, her head cradled on one hand. He watched
her for a little while, until she made a sort of gentle grunting
sound and rolled onto her back. He looked back at his notes. He
wasn’t going to get any more work done tonight. He gathered them up
and put them away, turned out the light, then rolled up his
overcoat for a pillow and wrapped himself in his voluminous cloak
and tried to get comfortable. He had trouble not thinking about how
close she was. He could think about runes instead. He was sick of
thinking about runes. Kerensa began to snore, not very loudly but
with a kind of intermittent irregularity that was impossible to
predict. Not a very romantic trait, but Evon found it endearing and
then mocked himself for being so smitten as to love even her
erratic, annoying snore. He rolled onto his side, facing away from
her, and began going over spells in his head, simple gesture and
word combinations, more complicated spells which could be cast
swiftly if you knew how to draw the runes in the simplest form that
was still intelligible.
Spexa. Cleperi vertiri
, bitter and
soapy to the taste
. Solto epiria.
The soothing monotony
calmed his mind and eventually, despite Kerensa’s snoring, he fell
asleep.

“The tavern keeper says another big storm is
coming,” Evon said, entering the stable after settling the tab. “I
think it might be wise to stay here another day, wait it out.”

“I don’t want to wait.” Kerensa drew her
cloak more closely around her. Even in the shelter of the stable, a
chill wind blew around them, bringing with it the aroma of baking
bread and, below that, the icy smell of snow.

“Suppose we get lost in the storm?”

“You have that map. We can’t get very lost
with that. And there are little farming villages all up and down
the road. We can find shelter somewhere, and be that much
closer.”

Evon looked out at the sky, which still
looked clear. It was impossible to believe a storm was coming. “All
right. But let’s hurry.”

They left Holdplain and went south under the
clear blue sky, the sun turning the untrodden fields into carpets
of sparkling white. Around noon the great highway ended, becoming a
much smaller, unpaved road that was frozen hard into ruts where the
wagons had passed. A wagon approached at that moment, forcing them
off the road. Evon felt sorry for the passengers, who were jounced
and jolted in the bed of the poorly sprung wagon as it passed over
the ruts. “It makes the horse seem much more comfortable,” he said
over his shoulder.

“More refugees,” she said. “Did you see how
they had all those possessions loaded up? How far is it to the
border?”

“Another seventy miles or so.”

“Do you think the Despot has crossed
yet?”

“Piercy says not, but he’s close.” He and
Piercy still hadn’t worked out how they might get near enough to
the Despot for the weapon to work. Evon didn’t think he and Kerensa
were stealthy enough to work their way through the enemy camp and
sneak into the Despot’s tent without anyone noticing, and their
wildest plan—to pretend Kerensa was a gift for the Despot—had so
many disadvantages it had only been arrived at late one evening,
when Piercy had had a little too much to drink and Evon was
mentally exhausted and ready to embrace any mad idea.

Clouds began gathering soon after, high, thin
clouds that obscured the sun but clearly didn’t hold any snow. Evon
looked at his map and located a village some ten miles further on.
They ought to be able to reach it before dark. He put it away and
glanced at the road ahead. No more wagons had passed since the
first one. Far in the distance, a copse of trees stood on a rise,
and beyond that, heavy clouds massed on the horizon. Evon cursed,
then flicked the reins and urged the horse into a faster gait.
“What’s wrong?” Kerensa said.

“The storm is coming,” Evon said. “I’m going
to try to reach that village before it arrives.”

“Aren’t we running toward the storm?”

“We could turn around and go back to
Holdplain.”

Kerensa thought for a moment. “Do you think
we can reach the village in time?”

“If we run.”

But the road was too rough for a full-out
run, and Evon’s stomach clenched as they trotted into the oncoming
storm with no shelter in sight. They should have returned to
Holdplain. His stupidity was going to get them both killed. The sky
was now fully overcast and the oncoming clouds blanketed the fields
so completely that Evon could see the edge of the storm as it
pressed on toward them. He pulled the horse up and took out the
map; they were still a mile or two from the village. They would run
into the storm long before they reached it. But there was nothing
to do but move on.

The wind had picked up and blew tiny flecks
of snow at them that bit into Evon’s face. He pulled his hat low
over his eyes and ducked his shoulders to keep his vision as clear
as possible, which wasn’t very clear. Kerensa huddled behind him,
clinging tight; he glanced back and saw that she had pulled her
hood well over her head. He turned around, and the wind swelled and
the storm was upon them. Evon was blinded by the white, whipping
snow that battered them both. It came in gusts, the wind
occasionally dropping to a mere growl instead of a roar, glimpses
of the road sometimes visible between blasts of snow and wind. The
horse stood still, as placid as if this were a summer shower. Evon
spoke to it and it moved forward, Evon leaning over to stare hard
at the ground, looking for evidence that they were still on the
road.

He lost track of time as they plodded slowly
along, his eyes burning with effort and the blowing snowflakes.
Once he felt the horse go off the frozen track and pulled it back;
another time he saw the edge of the road just before the horse
stepped off it. He had no idea how Kerensa fared, but her grip on
his waist never varied and she made no sounds of distress. Then the
wind picked up yet again, and Evon couldn’t see anything at all. He
stopped the horse and they stood still for a few minutes. “What’s
wrong?” Kerensa shouted.

“I can’t see anything. It’s not safe to move
on if it’s possible we could leave the road.” Evon ducked under the
warm, heavy folds of his cloak and made a space where he could
safely pull out the map, then conjured a tiny light. His heart
sank. They had made hardly any progress. It would be hours before
they reached the village, and Kerensa, who already shivered now and
then, would be frozen before that. He wouldn’t be in very good
shape himself.

“I think that’s a light,” Kerensa shouted,
tapping Evon’s shoulder. He put the map away, dismissed the light
and looked around. He saw nothing. “There, that way, it looks like
lamplight,” she said.

“It’s probably the snow blinding you,” Evon
said.

“No, I’m certain of it. Isn’t there some way
you can look ahead, or look closely?”

“I don’t think I’d see anything but
snowflakes, even if there were something there.”

“I think we should take the chance.”

“Kerensa, if we leave the road, we could
wander until we freeze to death.”

“We’re already doing that. Please, Evon, I
know what I saw.”

Evon chewed on his lip. “All right,” he
shouted. “Point me the right way.”

She stuck out her arm and pointed. Evon
turned the horse and once again began their slow progress.

There was nothing but snow. Evon wondered if
it would be possible to make their way back to the road using the
map. There were so many obstacles the horse could trip over, and
break a leg, and then they really would be doomed. He wondered if
Kerensa could be killed by something like this. Would the spell’s
creators have built some sort of safeguard into it, to protect the
host from dying in some pointless fashion? He blinked hard to clear
his lashes of snow. There was a light—no, it was gone. Evon
strained to see anything in the encompassing whiteness. There it
was again. A lamp in a window, and someone passing in front of it,
blocking it out occasionally. Evon urged the horse onward, feeling
his despair begin to drop away.

“Did you see it?” Kerensa asked.

“Yes, and thank you for not saying ‘I told
you so.’”

“I wasn’t even thinking it.” Kerensa shivered
again, a hard, convulsive movement. “I’m just glad I was
right.”

“So am I.”

The rectangle of light grew larger and
stronger until the outline of a house loomed up out of the
whiteness. Evon had an impression of rough framing and two stories
and then he saw the door. “Don’t get down,” he told Kerensa, and
slid off the horse to go and bang at the door. Nothing happened.
Whoever had been moving around behind the window stopped. He banged
on the door again and shouted, “Can you help us?”

The door opened a crack. A suspicious-looking
eye that might have belonged to someone of either sex squinted up
at him. “What do you want?” The voice was old and pitched low for a
woman or high for a man.

“My wife and I need shelter from the storm,”
Evon said, deciding at the last minute not to risk another
Holdplain incident. “Can you help us?”

“No shelter here. Get along.”

“We’ll die if we don’t find a place out of
the storm. Isn’t there anywhere we can stay? A spare room? We can
pay, or—I’m a magician, I know many useful spells—”

“Don’t need none of that. Get along, I
said.”

“
Please
,” Evon said. “My wife isn’t
well. We’ll take anything. I swear we don’t mean you any harm.”

“I ain’t seen a wife. Ain’t seen nobody but
you. You could be a murderer, kill an old woman in her sleep.”

“Wait.” Evon went back and helped Kerensa
dismount. Her shivering was coming more rapidly now. Evon led her
to the front door, then conjured a light so the old woman could see
them both clearly. The suspicious eye flicked from one of them to
the other. Kerensa smiled. Evon tried to smile, but felt his face
was frozen.

“You can sleep in the barn around back,” the
woman said finally. “No fires. And don’t think of tryin’ to get in
here once I’m abed. I got a little magic of my own.”

“Thank you, ma’am, we truly appreciate it,”
Evon said. They went back to the horse and, clutching its harness,
made their slow way around the farmhouse, then struck out toward
the dim shape of the barn. Snow was packed against the base of the
doors, and it took some shoving for Evon to pull one of them open
wide enough for them and the horse to fit through. It was less cold
than in the heart of the blizzard, but still freezing inside, and
empty except for a swaybacked mule, though stalls and rusted pails
showed that this had once been a dairy farm. The floor was swept
clean, but a ladder led up to a hayloft which appeared to be full
of messily stowed hay.