Terciel and Elinor (9780063049345)

by Nix, Garth

  “Me, too,” said Corinna. “Next week, Hazra.”

  The magic lessons had come on top of a full day’s work, in Elinor’s case including not only rehearsals with Corinna and several other cast members, but also two periods of swordplay with the Sarge’s senior classes. Now that she was sitting down, the full extent of her weariness hit her. She had to push against the stone with her hands to get up, and tottered as she did so.

  Corinna steadied Elinor, and Hazra picked up the book and handed it to her. They started for the door, with Angharad close behind, when Kierce hurried to get ahead.

  “Let me go first,” she said.

  “Why?” asked Corinna.

  “Tallowe’s probably watching the door,” said Kierce easily. “I’ll distract her.”

  “What?”

  The question came from all the others, speaking together.

  “Why would she be there now?” asked Elinor. “When we started you said she always plays cards on Thursday nights . . .”

  “I saw her earlier,” said Kierce unapologetically. “She was lurking on the first landing of the tower. So she could see anyone going in or coming out. I’m surprised none of you noticed.”

  “What!” exclaimed Elinor. “But . . . why didn’t you tell us?”

  “The others were already here, it was too late. Besides, it won’t matter. I have a plan.”

  “A plan! We’re out of bounds, practicing unsupervised magic, when even the supervised magic is barely allowed!” said Corinna. “Tallowe probably thinks she can get the four of us suspended or expelled, and Elinor fired, so we’ll be out of the way when the Clayr woman comes to check up on the lessons.”

  “I expect so,” said Kierce calmly.

  “There’s no other way out,” said Hazra. “I can’t be expelled! My parents—”

  “I told you, I have a plan,” replied Kierce. “She’s not going to catch us coming out. In fact, I don’t expect she’ll stick around when I go out. You all wait a full minute after I go, then follow.”

  “But you’ll be in trouble—” Elinor began.

  Kierce shook her head and smiled, a wolfish smile, and growled.

  “Oh no,” said Corinna.

  “Brilliant!” exclaimed Hazra.

  “Good thinking,” added Angharad, with approval.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Elinor, with some trepidation.

  “Tallowe’s a coward,” said Kierce. “She’s frightened of Charter Magic, of the Old Kingdom and most particularly of things that come from the Old Kingdom . . .”

  She took a breath and with clawed fingers began to trace Charter marks in the air above her head. They came shimmering into existence, golden light falling on the faces of the other young women, in part horrified, part fascinated. The marks joined to become a circle that slowly spun above Kierce’s head. She plucked a final mark from the Charter, manifesting it in front of her face. The circle of marks fell to join it and slowly descended to the floor. As it sank, Kierce changed.

  Hair, skin, school uniform swirled and shifted, becoming horny hide and stiff bristles. Her clear grey eyes became half-shuttered roundels of reddish murk, her hands taloned paws, her mouth and jaw stretching out into a tusked snout. Within a few seconds the transformation was complete, and where a young woman had been there was now a monster, a boar-headed thing that stood upright on hooved feet, russet-bristled over crosshatched skin like a lizard’s, dull and red, arms hanging down past its strangely jointed knees.

  Elinor gasped and reached out, as if to somehow snatch the human Kierce back into existence. But Corinna grabbed her arm and Angharad her shoulder.

  “Don’t touch her, it will break the spell. It’s only an illusion.”

  “Oh,” said Elinor. She took a deep breath. “Is it safe to do this?”

  “She wouldn’t have been able to complete the spell here if it wasn’t,” said Hazra confidently.

  “What . . . what are you?” asked Elinor to Kierce.

  The monster shrugged, lifting long, yellow-taloned hands, and growled. The growl made Elinor flinch; it carried with it terror.

  “She can’t speak while under the seeming,” said Hazra. “The spell is from my grimoire but it doesn’t say what the creature is, simply that it’s for the frightening of enemies. Don’t do the howl, though, Kierce. You’ll wake up the juniors and panic the whole school.”

  The monster bowed its massive head and turned to the door. Corinna stepped past and opened it, and Kierce shambled through, picking up speed as she started up the steps.

  The others shared a glance.

  A moment later there was an awful scream up above. It rose and fell, the echoes bouncing down the stairwell. Hazra started for the door, but Corinna held up her hand.

  “We need to wait a little bit, for Kierce to chase Tallowe up the tower. Another thirty seconds. Then straight back to our rooms.”

  There was more screaming. It sounded farther away.

  “What about Kierce?”

  “She’ll drop the illusion and then she’ll be a prefect investigating the scream,” explained Corinna, with a smile. “Rank hath its privileges. Let’s go.”

  They went up the stairs more hurriedly than usual, all of them pretending not to be in a hurry. At the base of the tower, without the need to speak, they took different doors, the privileged Sixth Formers Angharad and Corinna into the main north corridor; Hazra the western door into the shadowed quad; and Elinor the southern door to the strip of garden that lay between the school proper and the row of teachers’ houses.

  She could not hear any screaming outside. Either it had stopped or was simply muffled by the thick walls of the old tower, which had no windows on this side. But she half imagined she could, and it worried her as she hurried along the path, frost crackling under her feet, moving quickly between the pools of light surrounding the lampposts that were now electric, but had once been paraffin, the province of the school’s own lamplighter. Her breath puffed out in a fog around her as she walked, for winter had firmly settled in.

  Tallowe was unkind, lazy, and possibly vindictive, but did she deserve the kind of fright that scream suggested? Elinor frowned and lowered her head in thought. Kierce’s methods typically were to aggressively attack any problem, be it a spin bowler’s ball in cricket or a troublesome teacher. But perhaps they should have tried to deal with Tallowe’s threats in a different way. Or rather, Elinor, as the notional adult of the group, should have worked out a way to do so.

  Elinor sighed and rubbed her wrists. They were hurting again, as happened on and off, but it was far worse tonight than it had been. At least there was no pain in her side anymore, she thought.

  She reached her house, dutifully wiping her feet on the doormat. Ice cracked, the sound echoing. She heard laughter and looked back. A big group of teachers was leaving the school and heading her way, intent on their own beds. There had been a party for something or other in the senior common room, and clearly considerable sherry had been imbibed.

  Someone moved hurriedly from the shadow of a tree to slip behind the neighboring house. A student out of bounds, Elinor thought, probably a Sixth Former coming back from an illicit cigarette in what the girls called Smokers Wood, the copse in the east of the school grounds, an extension of the wood beyond that had lapped over the old stone wall that bordered Wyverley College, save along the front, where it had been replaced fifty or sixty years before with a fence of spiked iron railings.

  She went inside, locking the door behind her. The two other teachers she shared with must have already retired. The light was out in their shared sitting room. Elinor went through her nightly routine, a quick wash and brushing of teeth, and visit to the toilet, then climbed up to her room, the smallest of the three. It was little more than an attic, but she liked it.

  Her wrists had stopped hurting but now she had a headache, probably from simple weariness. But Elinor did not immediately turn off her light. Instead she opened the newspaper-covered book and began to l
ook at the pictures and try to puzzle out the possible meaning of the words.

  The world beyond Coldhallow House was so much more complicated than she’d ever considered, there was so much of everything to know . . .

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was within the stone, under the chest,” said Tizanael.

  “How did it get out of the bottle in the first place?” asked Terciel. His voice was hoarse from screaming, and he was supporting his injured arm up against his chest. It hurt marginally less that way.

  “I think it was released on purpose,” said Tizanael thoughtfully. She used the point of her blade to touch the slightly discolored area of stone where the chest had stood. Charter marks answered, fading marks that rose to the surface but were already dissipating and broken, so the nature of the spell they had made could not be discerned. “But it was constrained under the chest, so the creature could not escape unless someone moved it. The empty bottle was a clue for some future Abhorsen that the creature had been put to such a use, though I did not read it right. Our distant predecessors worked far more with Free Magic and its creations than the Abhorsens of the last few hundred years.”

  “So, it was set to protect the chain,” said Terciel.

  “I presume so,” replied Tizanael. “Let us step back across and I will look at your arm, before we do anything else.”

  “You think there are other traps?” asked Terciel anxiously. He winced as he jumped across the drain, the jar of landing sending a bolt of savage pain from wrist to elbow, and a lesser ache flaring up his leg. He would have some nice symmetrical rings of bruising there, he thought.

  “Perhaps,” said Tizanael. “We will go slowly. Can you straighten your arm?”

  Terciel couldn’t straighten his arm, and he had to swallow a sob when Tizanael pushed gently against his fingers. With her help and considerably more pain, he got out of his hauberk and the leather jerkin and linen shirt beneath. Tizanael examined his forearm, and made a disappointed clicking sound with her tongue against her teeth.

  “It is broken, and there is Free Magic contamination, so it will resist healing spells. I will do what I can to ease the pain and knit the bone, but you are going to have to rest. This is an ill chance. I do not want to let Kerrigor have more time to break Charter Stones in the north!”

  “I didn’t break it on purpose,” said Terciel sulkily. “If it wasn’t my arm it would have been my throat.”

  Tizanael nodded, acknowledging this truth, though she did not offer an apology. Instead her eyes lost focus as she reached for the Charter, and she began to trace marks in the air above Terciel’s arm. He recognized several marks of healing, but not the spell, and once again felt the inadequacy of his own skill. He studied all the time, and practiced, but there were so many marks, so many spells . . .

  The marks moved into a new configuration. Tizanael gestured with the palm of her hand and they sank into Terciel’s arm, slowing as they met the already darkening, bruised skin. Tiny silver sparks flashed around the marks, but they had no heat. This was a sign the Free Magic of the creature had already leached into his flesh, and Terciel felt his heartbeat rise with that anxiety. But the sparks receded and the spell did not fail, the marks sinking farther in until they disappeared. He felt a warm glow spread up to his shoulder and down to his fingertips, and the pain was greatly lessened.

  “I will still have to set it straight,” warned Tizanael, promising great pain to come. “But it should be easier now, and will get no worse. Keep holding it up. I am going to examine the chest more closely.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait and come back when my arm is healed?” asked Terciel anxiously.

  “I need to know if the chain is here,” said Tizanael. She walked over to where Terciel had laid his bell bandolier earlier and divested her own before jumping back over the drain to the island and approaching the chest. She bent over it, looking at it closely, running her hand an inch or so over the lockplate and the reinforced corners. Charter marks flared under her palm and she watched them carefully, before moving on.

  “There are many spells in the wood and metal, but they all are to lessen the effect of that which lies within,” she said after several minutes. “And it is locked to open only to the Abhorsen. I judge it is safe enough.”

  “I can’t draw my sword,” warned Terciel. He knew if he dropped his broken arm he’d probably pass out from the pain, despite Tizanael’s healing. “Or focus on a spell. I can’t even stand up properly!”

  “I am not incapable myself,” replied Tizanael. Nevertheless, she edged back before extending her hand to touch the ruby on the lockplate with the tip of her index finger.

  The lid sprang open. Terciel flinched, but Tizanael didn’t move. There was a faint waft of hot iron, but not the overwhelming stench the snakelike creature had given off.

  Using the tip of her sword, Tizanael shifted what looked like a piece of heavy leather. As it slid over the side, Terciel saw it was a pair of gauntlets made from some strange cloth, tied together with a silver cord. As they flopped onto the stone, Charter marks in the gloves and the ground beneath flared up for a moment, then faded into quietude.

  “Protective gauntlets for handling the chain,” said Tizanael. She reached with the sword again, moving it about. “There’s some sort of bag. I think I can flip it open. The chain may be inside.”

  There was a flurry of silver sparks, and she lifted up a length of a surprisingly flimsy-looking chain. Each black iron link was no thicker than Terciel’s little finger, and they were not directly joined together, but rather connected with odd-looking fringed roundels of gold or something plated or finished with gold. It took a moment for Terciel to realize they were metal daisies, beautifully made to look like the real flowers. Charter marks swarmed on the daisies, thick as bees in high summer, but he couldn’t see any on the black iron links. There was a faint shimmer in the air about the links, as if they were hot from an oven or a forge, but he could feel no heat and Tizanael did not lean back.

  “It is Lerantiel’s chain,” said Tizanael with satisfaction. She let the chain fall back into the chest, and used her sword point again to gently lift the gauntlets back on top, and then to push the lid closed once more. She picked up the chest carefully and tucked it under her arm. “We’d best get you back up top and see to your hurts.”

  They took the stairs from the middle terrace, which did not lead to the kitchen as expected, but actually came out in the chicken shed of the garden, a ramshackle lean-to that might have been built entirely to disguise the door that led to the subterranean regions of the House. Hens squawked and waddled out of the way as Tizanael and Terciel emerged, bowing their heads under the low ceiling.

  “Interesting,” remarked Tizanael. “This is not mentioned anywhere I have read, nor is it shown on any of the many plans we hold in the library.”

  Terciel turned back to look at the door they’d exited, but there was no sign of it now. Only what seemed to be one of the whitewashed exterior walls of the House, rather the worse for years of close proximity to the chickens who roosted either side on various perches up the lean-to’s wooden walls.

  “An exit only,” said Tizanael. “The kitchen Sendings must have another way down. Drat!”

  The “drat” was because she’d stepped in a heap of chicken shit. Muttering, she wiped the sole of her boot on the door sill and strode out of the coop, between the fallow rows of the vegetable garden, which were currently lightly dusted with snow.

  Terciel limped behind her, cradling his arm. His leg ached and was stiffening up. The spells Tizanael had cast below to take away the pain had mostly worn off, and he felt ill and weak. He had almost fallen on the many steps a few times, and once had been forced to let go of his broken arm to use his left hand to brace against the wall, and even though he had tucked his right hand into his belt so the wounded arm didn’t completely drop, the resultant blinding stab of agony and an awful grating sensation in his arm suggested the broken ends of the bone had moved.<
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  “Once I set your arm and place a few higher-order healing spells upon it, I expect you will need three or four days to fully recover, perhaps a week,” said Tizanael as they went in through the kitchen, comfortable warmth enveloping them both. “We will not waste that time, however. You can learn the spells needed to reinforce yourself against the corrosive effects of carrying the chain. It would be wise if you are conversant with them, rather than simply having them cast upon you.”

  Terciel nodded, not speaking. He really needed to lie down, but Tizanael kept talking. He hardly noticed the Sendings who came to lift him up and carry him bodily away.

  “Take him to his room,” said Tizanael to the Sendings. “I will follow shortly.”

  Half an hour later, Tizanael set his broken forearm. Despite spells to dull the pain, Terciel almost passed out, gripping the side of his bed with his good hand so hard he thought he might break those fingers, too. But when it was done, the height of the pain lessened, and as Tizanael splinted the arm and set even more spells at work, it faded to a constant ache. Then she set to work on his leg, once again making the tsk-tsk sound with her tongue against her front teeth.

  “What is it?” asked Terciel. He was familiar with that habit.

  “Burns from Free Magic are dangerous,” said Tizanael. “And must be cleansed well, lest they become a weak place for Free Magic to enter once again. It is both insidious and corrosive to living flesh, and given I want you to bear Lerantiel’s chain, I must ensure not even the slightest hint of Free Magic remains. Hold still.”

  Terciel tried to see the marks she was summoning and linking together, but he didn’t have the strength to lift his head. He felt the spell sink in, a welcome, calming warmth, but it changed quickly to a lancing pain that traveled from his toe to his hip and back again, again and again, each time increasing in intensity. He cried out and began to thrash reflexively, but the Sendings held his legs down.

  The fourth time the wave of pain reached his toes, Terciel passed out.

  When he came back to himself, Terciel was surprised to see sunshine through his window. Weak winter sunshine, but when he’d been put on his bed, it was late afternoon. Now it seemed to be morning. He edged himself upright and found his broken arm was splinted and strapped to his chest, and his bruised leg was loosely wrapped in some sort of herbal poultice.