Winter Witch (7 page)

That was unless the books’ new owner decided to eliminate anyone who might otherwise lay claim to the spell.

The thought prompted Declan to pick up the pace. He trotted the gray stallion down the quiet streets. Along the way he rode past two patrols of the city watch and several members of the Sable Guard. All of them noted the little dragon perched on his saddle and let him pass unhindered. Skywing was a useful companion in more ways than one.

Soon the gate to the Theumanexus loomed up ahead, a massive barrier of intricately wrought iron. A fence of similar design surrounded the estate upon which the university had been built. The iron, as Declan understood it, was intended to hold back the fey. Apparently the gnome who’d built the gate had made some enemies in the First World. It was a story Declan hoped to hear someday. At present, however, he was more concerned with the gate’s ability to keep him out.

Declan dismounted and gave the bell pull a few vigorous tugs. The bell itself hung in a window of a tiny stone building just beyond the fence. The guard stumbled out, scowling and scratching sleepily at the stubble on his chin. His expression became considerably more respectful when he noted the drake on Declan’s saddle.

“Master Avari,” he said respectfully. “So you became a wizard after all! No surprise to me. I never thought you were as hopeless as the professors claimed, never once.” He grimaced and raised one hand to his bald pate. “Except maybe for the time you accidently set my hair afire, but no lasting harm done, eh? Even the All-Seeing Eye of Nethys would overlook a passing doubt now and then.”

“Of the two of us, I’d say you have more cause to remember that unfortunate incident,” Declan said with a rueful smile. “If you’d be so kind, I have business with one of the professors.”

“At this hour?” The guard huffed incredulously. “They’re long asleep.”

“Including Paddermont Grinji?”

“Well, no,” the guard allowed. “Probably not him.” He tipped back his head and sniffed the air like a hunting hound. “Ambergris and sulfur. Oh yes, he’s still at work.”

He swung open the gate and took the stallion’s reins. Declan had a brief and silent exchange with Skywing, who grudgingly agreed to stay with the horse.

Declan hurried past the manor house that was the main building of the Theumanexus and made his way to Geezlebottle Hall.

The building resembled a large tree stump out of which grew many large and bizarrely shaped mushrooms. Its rambling walls had been shingled haphazardly with dark wood. Oddly shaped turrets rose here and there from the roof, and an occasional dormer window jutted from the gables. The strangest aspect of the building, however, was its scale. It had been designed for the size and comfort of gnomes and halflings, few of whom pursued the study of magic in Korvosa. The building had been half completed before someone pointed this out to the gnome patron. As a result, half the building was scaled for humans, the other for shorter folk.

Declan ducked his way through the main door and veered into a corridor that led into the gnome-sized section of the building. Hunched down to spare his head a banging on the lintels, he followed his nose toward the worst-smelling workroom in the hall. Billows of foul red smoke roiled out of an open door. Declan took a deep breath and plunged through.

The air inside was breathable, and the room itself had a mercifully high ceiling. Declan straightened and looked around the workshop.

A long row of tables placed end to end stretched down the center of the room. Shelves lined all the walls. One of these walls resembled a floor-to-ceiling wine cellar, but the compartments held dusty scrolls rather than bottles. Every other available space was crowded with books, vials, bottles, crates, casks, and every conceivable sort of container needed to hold a veritable dragon’s hoard of spell components.

The room’s only occupant was a gnome, a chubby little man with curly green hair. He stood with his back to Declan, and he seemed intent upon pouring a blood-red liquid, drop by drop, into a steaming basin. Several strangely shaped glass flasks and vials stood near at hand, holding liquid in shades ranging from clear turquoise to sunshiny yellow and bilious green sludge. Some vials shimmered with light. A few bubbled ominously. A vial filled with something pink swayed back and forth in time to the melody it whistled. Declan thought he might have heard the tune at one of the Kendall’s musical events.

He cleared his throat. “Pardon the interruption, Master Paddermont, but I’m in urgent need of your expertise.”

“Which one?” the gnome inquired without turning around.

“Rare and obscure spells.”

The gnome harrumphed. “To the untutored, magic of any sort is a mystery.”

“It’s a type of magic that isn’t taught in the Theumanexus, or even in the Acadamae.”

“And you’d know that how?”

“I suppose I don’t, but it involved ice.”

Paddermont Grinji turned around, revealing a round, rosy face begrimed with soot from a recent explosion. “You have my attention.”

“It appears to be a teleportation spell of some sort, one that’s cast from a distance. It encases a living person in ice. That person fades away inside the ice and leaves behind a thin shell.”

The gnome stroked his pointed green beard as he thought this over. “A shell of ice, you say. I’d like to know the thickness. Was there an aura of crystalline motes around the subject when the spell was cast? Was anything nearby frozen? And the object of the spell, did he disappear slowly, or all at once?”

Declan suppressed a sigh as he glanced toward the gnome-sized window. It was not daylight but close to it. Years of acquaintance had taught him that Paddermont Grinji was capable of asking questions for hours.

“Do these particular details really matter?”

“Probably not, but I won’t know which details are important and which not until I hear them, will I?”

Declan nodded and drew a long breath. “Here’s everything I know: The object of the spell disappeared slowly. I couldn’t break through the ice to free him. When he disappeared, the ice melted immediately. He wasn’t the first person taken. I found an ice casing, very thin and fragile, after my friend Silvana had already vanished. The most obvious difference in these two cases,” he added, because he knew the gnome would ask, “was location. One was taken from a steamy bathhouse in Cliffside, the other from its rooftop.”

“Interesting,” Paddermont murmured. “Ice spells. That’s a strange choice for Korvosa. And the spell was cast from a distance, you say?”

“Presumably, since there was no one there that I could see. Naturally, I have no way of knowing what sort of distance was involved.”

“No, of course not.” The gnome tugged at his beard and gazed off into nowhere. After a moment, he said, “Most likely the work of the jadwiga, I’d say.”

“The jadwiga?”

“Northern witches,” the gnome answered. “They’re humans, more or less, descended from Baba Yaga. Notorious for snatching people when the mood suits them. They’re seldom known to travel, so most likely the spell originated from Whitethrone.”

“Whitethrone? But that’s in—”

“Irrisen,” Paddermont finished. “Anyone captured with an ice spell would almost certainly have been whisked off to Whitethrone, the royal seat. It’s quite an accomplished spell, you see. Well beyond the grasp of any but the most powerful of witches.”

Declan dropped heavily into a gnome-sized chair. “Irrisen. A witch stole Silvana away to Irrisen. And not just any witch, but a descendant of an evil goddess.”

The gnome pursed his lips. “That’s a rather narrow assessment of Baba Yaga, but not entirely inaccurate. And I dare say this Silvana you mention wasn’t the target. You humans are always marveling about finding things in the last place you look, but once a thing is found, what’s the point in continuing?”

“That much I’d figured out on my own. The witch kept casting the spell until she got the person she wanted.”

“Or possibly until she ran out of spells,” Paddermont suggested. “Either way, it seems apparent that she wasn’t trying for the girl and probably won’t have much interest in keeping her. That’s good news for you, assuming you intend to get her back.”

“Of course I do!” Declan said. “Uh—any suggestions as to where I should begin?”

Exasperation skimmed the gnome’s face. “The first logical step would be to tell me who was taken next.”

“Oh, right. Majeed Nores, the astronomer.”

“In that case, the observatory would be the obvious choice. Whitethrone has a rather famous one. Unless he was taken for revenge, I assume they brought him to Whitethrone for his expertise, in which case he’ll be quite safe for as long as he’s useful. But the girl?” The gnome grimaced and hissed in sympathy, revealing tobacco-stained teeth.

“Do you think they’d consider taking ransom for them both?”

“I suppose it’s possible.” The small wizard pursed his lips and studied Declan. “Since you’re coming to me, I assume the astronomer has no family to make inquiries on his behalf. Has he wealthy friends or patrons to contribute to a ransom?”

Declan shook his head. “To the best of my knowledge, he has no friends of any sort.”

“Then you’ll need to scare up the coin yourself, and plenty of it.” The gnome sucked his teeth as he thought this over. “Does the astronomer pay you well enough?”

“No,” Declan said glumly. “In fact, I’m paying him. I’m his apprentice, not his assistant.” He brightened. “But Basha still owes me for several maps.”

The gnome raised one green eyebrow. “You had treasure maps to sell? And you didn’t give me first refusal?”

“You wouldn’t want these,” Declan assured him, “unless, of course, one of your spells requires a pile of hippogriff dung.”

“Ah.” Paddermont nodded sagely. “The maps were your work. In that case, you gauged my interest precisely.”

Chapter Four

The Cunning Mouse

A bright rim of sunlight crowned the eastern hills as Ellasif sauntered into the Varisian merchants’ camp. Just north of Korvosa’s city walls, broad meadows stretched out on either side of the road, offering fodder for the caravan’s draft beasts and a level camp ground for merchant caravans whose members, for one reason or another, preferred not to entrust their goods or well-being to Korvosan law. Korvosans regarded full-blooded Varisians with suspicion, so Ellasif wasn’t surprised to learn that many Varisian caravans opted to stay outside of the city.

The camp hummed with activity, and Ellasif paused a moment to take it in. Bright colors barded the horses that nipped at the tall grass beside the road. Mostly red and purple, Ellasif noted, a color choice also reflected on the clothes of most of the sun-browned men who moved goods from sturdy wagons to smaller carts suitable for traversing city streets. She also saw flashes of emerald green and deep, brilliant blue. Varisians liked any bright color, but they seemed fondest of those that mimicked gemstones.

The morning meal, a thick soup that smelled of fowl and onions, simmered in a vast black pot hung over an open fire. Two dark-eyed women knelt nearby, deftly patting down balls of dough. The fragrant circles of completed flatbread heaped a brightly painted wooden tray on the ground between them, and several more loaves baked on the hot rocks surrounding the fire.

The traveling community included not only whole families but also their animals, from dogs to chickens to goats. The barking and clucking and bleating made the camp sound exactly like a farmyard, but Ellasif noticed with some pleasure that it did not smell the same. Such Varisians who wandered from city to city rarely spent more than two or three nights in the same place.

Near the edge of the camp, one of the men strummed a triangular gusli as he sang a ballad about a clever fox and a gullible farmer. Ellasif had heard versions of the song all her life, although the verses changed from town to town. “The farmer’s yard is guarded by a fence of wood and stones,” sang the musician. “But Foxy knows a secret path that winds beneath the bones.” The man’s Varisian accent gave even the common tongue an exotic lilt.

A wistful smile stole onto Ellasif’s face as she listened. Like the Chelaxian-descended citizens of Korvosa, Ulfen viewed the far-traveling Varisians as vagrants and thieves, but she had enjoyed the few occasions when bands of them passed through White Rook. They told such fascinating stories and sang such lively songs. Liv loved few things better than a well-sung tale.

The thought of Liv froze Ellasif’s smile and then let it melt upon her face. She forced the memory to strengthen her resolve and focused on what lay ahead of her rather than the infuriating betrayals of the past.

Ellasif looked around for the caravan leader, one Viland Balev. A tall, black-bearded man stood near the center of the camp, directing the surrounding activity with sweeping arm gestures and bellowed commands. Ellasif strode toward him, raising a hand to shape the gesture the Varisians knew as a warrior’s hail. He responded with a grave nod, but his mustache twitched with amusement. It was the same reaction, Ellasif noted sourly, that he would likely have upon being approached by a precocious child.

“You have only fourteen caravan guards,” she said without preamble. “You could use more before you travel all the way across Varisia and back.”

The big man propped his hands on his hips and gave her a long, assessing stare. “And how do you know so much about my caravan?”

“I can count. And since I know the land between here and Irrisen, I have a pretty good idea of how many guards you’ll need to protect a caravan of this size.”

“Not all of the guards are wearing weapons,” he mused, “and some of them are reloading the goods. Yet you were able to tell the guards from the workers and merchants?”

“Warriors move like warriors.”

“So they do,” he said. “You have a good eye. If you recommend a guard, I will consider hiring him.”

“Her,” Ellasif corrected. She spread her arms wide to present herself.

The captain burst out laughing. His laughter stopped abruptly when the point of Ellasif’s sword materialized at his throat.

Silence fell over the camp. The captain motioned away the men who crept toward them, weapons drawn.

“You are quick, little one,” he admitted. “What is your training?”

Ellasif fell back a step, keeping her sword at low guard. “I am a shield maiden from the Lands of the Linnorm Kings.”

His face contorted in disbelief and his gaze slid down Ellasif’s small, compact form. “Were you hexed as a child?” he asked. “I have seen Ulfen women before. One traveled with this company some years back. She was taller than me, twice your size.”

“At least twice her size,” one of the captain’s men echoed, cupping his hands several inches from his chest. This drew laughter from the other guards.

Ignoring his man’s joke, the captain pointed to the biggest fellow in the camp, a massive Varisian who wore his black hair in four long braids and his beard in two. The big man went shirtless beneath a short cape of brilliant blue, and his brown torso bulged with muscle.

“This is Gisanto. He is a fine swordsman, and, as you can see, not a small man. Do you think you could deal with him?”

Ellasif looked Gisanto up and down. “Yes.”

“How?”

She shrugged. “I’m more cunning than I look.”

Gold glinted in the captain’s smile. “Show me.”

Ellasif gathered a handful of her long amber hair with her free hand. “I wasn’t expecting to fight. I’ll need a moment to prepare.”

“Take all the time you like,” Gisanto said with a grin. “It will change nothing.”

She sheathed her sword and reached into a pocket for a leather thong. She plaited her hair into a single long braid. After securing the end with the thong, she shrugged off her travel cloak and took a few moments to check the broad dagger she kept strapped to one forearm and the knives in her boot sheaths. In her experience, four weapons struck most people as an excessive number for one small woman to carry. Drawing attention to them led most people watching to assume they’d seen all there was to see.

While she prepared for the fight, Gisanto put on a show of his own. He circled Ellasif with his sword drawn, his cloak swirling as he moved through an elaborate display of lunges and feints.

“Are you ready for me, mouse?”

Ellasif picked up her own cloak and wrapped it around her arm with a flamboyant swirl. “Shall we have music for this dance?”

A few of the other guards snickered at her confidence. “Timoteo,” shouted Balev. The skald—Ellasif reminded herself that the name for such singers was “bard” or “minstrel” so far south—needed no further instruction to strum up his gusli. As the company began to clap in time to the music, irritation flashed across Gisanto’s face, but Ellasif smiled as she recognized the tune she’d heard earlier.

With a growl, the Varisian rushed toward Ellasif.

She sidestepped the charge with room to spare. They whirled to face each other, cloaks swirling, and both attacked high and hard. Swords clashed and held. The big Varisian leaned into the crossed weapons heavily enough to demonstrate his superior strength.

“Too easy,” he said.

Ellasif’s sword slid away first. As she backed off, one of the guards barked a laugh.

Gisanto sent him a glare, eyes demanding an explanation for the outburst. The laughing man pointed to Ellasif, and Gisanto looked at her.

She’d tossed aside the cloak, which had obscured a small blade. In addition to the hidden knife, she also held one of Gisanto’s long black braids. His hand flew up to palm his head, where he found the frayed stump of his braid. He bellowed and charged again. Ellasif wheeled back from her feigned retreat and counterattacked.

They exchanged a flurry of blows, sharp and fast and ringing. But the Varisian could not keep his gaze off of the braid in Ellasif’s hand. Distracted, his attacks lacked force and focus. Ellasif deflected and returned them with ease.

Gisanto’s temper cooled after a few clashes. He tried to shift the battle’s pace to one that favored his strength over the smaller fighter’s speed. Ellasif pressed him, staying inside his reach and keeping her attacks coming so fast that he was forced into small, quick defenses.

Finally they broke apart and began to move in a circle, stalking each other while searching for an advantage.

Ellasif noted the amulet hanging over Gisanto’s heart. It was a small wooden disk upon which was painted a crude image of a firepelt cougar. There was no knowing what meaning the big man ascribed to it, but Varisians were a superstitious folk who felt strong affinities with totem animals. Ellasif smiled as a new ploy formed in her mind.

She began to sing, improvising words to the tune Timoteo played. Instead of the clever fox outwitting the farmer, she sang of a little mouse turning the tables on a fat, stupid cat.

“The cat is fat, and slow at that,” she sang, snapping Gisanto’s ample belly with the whip of his own hair. “The mouse is quick and cunning!”

Gisanto’s face darkened as he covered the distance between them with three long strides. Their swords met again and again in an angry metallic clamor.

“She hears his big old belly thump,” she sang, retreating. “And through the grass goes running.” Ellasif slapped Gisanto hard on the buttocks with his braid.

The big Varisian’s eyes blazed. He drew a long, curved knife from his sash. Sunlight glinted on the keen edge. The man’s sword was designed to thrust or bludgeon, so he’d need that curved knife if he planned to retaliate in the manner she expected. He would also need a free hand.

Sure enough, Gisanto thrust his sword point-down into the ground. He feinted low with the knife. When Ellasif parried, he reached over their crossed weapons and seized her braid with his sword hand.

Instantly he jolted back, staring with disbelief at his hand. The palm was bright red, and his fingers were already starting to swell.

“Swamp nettles,” Ellasif explained. “I hid a few in my hair when I braided it. Worse than hornets, don’t you agree?”

A few chuckles came from the watching Varisians, along with some angry muttering and one lone whistle of admiration. Ellasif nodded toward Gisanto’s sword. “Need more instruction?”

Gisanto tried to grasp the weapon, but his swollen fingers refuse to close around the hilt. He gave up the effort and brandished the curved knife in his off hand.

“Knives, then,” he said.

“That’s enough.” Balev strode between the combatants and put a restraining hand on Gisanto’s shoulder.

“You are the best fighter in the camp, even with one hand. Perhaps you want to know what other tricks the Ulfen knows, but I do not. Let them be a surprise for any who seek to waylay us on the road.”

“You’ve won your place,” said Balev, turning toward Ellasif. His eyes held some admiration, but no love for her.

Ellasif realized she might have flaunted her cunning too much. Taunting Gisanto was valuable, but humiliating him was a mistake if she wished to remain safe in this company. An apology would only make things worse here before all his peers, so she avoided his glowering stare and nodded at Balev.

“If you have business in Korvosa,” said the caravan captain, “conclude it quickly. We leave at dawn tomorrow.”