The Locksmith

by Howe, Barbara;

  The world stood still, waiting. I croaked, “Doggerel, sir?”

  “From Jack and Julie and the Three Witches. ‘Hide from witches my witchery. Send them away, and let me be.’ Have you heard that story?”

  A long-forgotten memory surfaced of my mother telling me bedtime stories. I nodded.

  René said, “I don’t know that one.”

  Arturos said, “Once upon a time…”

  The verse he had just spoken appeared in my mind’s eye. The letters hung in front of me, as clear as text on a page. I imagined a flame tracing out each letter, starting with the last and running backwards. What was I doing? I wasn’t a witch. I couldn’t unravel a spell. The flame sizzled through the letters, finished, and with a little ‘pop,’ the door to the glass cage flew open.

  Arturos leapt to his feet, sending his chair crashing backwards onto the floor. His coffee cup smashed into pieces on the flagstones, the coffee splashing across the kitchen. He shouted, “What did you just do?”

  The lines of text reappeared in my mind’s eye, the flame racing through them. The door in my mind slammed shut again.

  The fire roared. The Warlock charged out, scattering sparks and embers before him. I screamed. He scowled, and raised his wand, poised to strike. The massive ruby throbbed like a heartbeat, the light as painful to the eyes as looking into the sun. He came to a stop in front of us, balanced on the balls of his feet, his eyes darting around the room, taking in everything, scowling at me as if I were a total stranger.

  Good God, he looked wicked. I jammed my fist against my mouth and whimpered.

  Arturos held up a hand, then waved at me.

  The Warlock asked, “Is there a threat here?”

  Arturos chewed the end of his moustache. “Probably not.”

  The Fire Warlock relaxed a little, sinking back down and lowering his arms, but he still scowled. René opened his mouth and Arturos hissed, “Shhh.”

  The Warlock walked in a circle around us, making sweeping motions with his wand. On a second circuit, he paused at every step, tapping things—the table, the chairs, me, René—with a feather’s touch of his wand. When he finished, he flicked his wand at the floor. The coffee and pieces of broken cup flew through the air into the fire.

  He said, “It is not safe to talk here.” He looked at Arturos. “I will go to the aerie with René and set the wards. You come with Miss Guillierre as soon as they are set.” Arturos nodded. The Warlock motioned to René, and they vanished together into the fire.

  I hunched over, hiding my face in my hands. My heartbeat pounded in my ears. “Arturos, I—”

  “Be quiet,” he barked.

  We waited without speaking for several minutes. The only sounds in the quiet kitchen were the bubbling soup, the crackling of the small fire, and my rasping breath. I peeked through my fingers at Arturos. He glowered at me, looking as ferocious as his little pet.

  I would rather have faced the lion.

  “It’s time.” Arturos rose and started towards the fireplace, motioning for me to come.

  I followed him to the hearth, but my feet wouldn’t obey my order to go further.

  He put his arm around my shoulders. “Close your eyes if that will help.” I closed my eyes and let him guide me into the flames.

  The Aerie

  We took three steps and Arturos’s arm dropped from my shoulders. I opened my eyes, and was disoriented. What was I seeing? Oh, my God. I screamed and clutched at Arturos. We stood in the open air on top of the highest peak of Storm King. Outside of a small flat circle, the ground dropped vertically on all sides, the vast caldera yawning at my feet, the long drop to the plains at my back.

  I yammered, “Falling, falling…”

  Walls and a ceiling appeared, closing us in. My vertigo disappeared; the other terrors resumed.

  The Warlock said, “My apologies. I forget how this appears to visitors, I rarely have them here.”

  Couches appeared, arranged in a square around a central fire pit. The pulsating ruby lit the room. A small fire in the fire pit gave it no competition.

  “Please, sit,” he said. “We may be here a while.” We sat. He paced. “Each of you in turn will describe what just took place, starting with René.”

  René said, in an unsteady, high voice, “I didn’t do anything this time. Honest, Your Wisdom.”

  The Warlock, no longer scowling, but with his eyes hooded and face unreadable, said to René, “I did not mean to suggest that you did. I asked what you experienced, that is all. Tell me.”

  René said, “We were sitting at the kitchen table. Arturos was telling a story, when all of a sudden he jumped out of his chair and yelled at Lucinda. She did something, but I don’t know what. And then you came. I don’t know anything else.”

  “Thank you, René. Your turn, Miss Guillierre.”

  Miss Guillierre? I felt as if he’d stabbed me through the heart. What happened to ‘my dear’? I clenched my hands together in my lap, and stammered a barely coherent explanation of my dreams, the conversation about locks, and unravelling the spell. “And then Arturos yelled at me, and before I had even had time to think, I had read the spell and the door slammed shut again. And then you came charging out of the fireplace. And that’s it.”

  They stared at me, Arturos with an expression of disbelief on his face. I couldn’t read the Warlock’s expression. Did I dare say, may I go now? No.

  There was a long silence. The Warlock resumed pacing, his hands together behind his back, the wand twitching. The pulsing of the ruby slowed, but the light was still bright enough to hurt. I couldn’t look at it. Or at him.

  He said, “You are telling me then, that you, as a small child, with no training, took a bit of doggerel from a child’s story, and created a lock from it—a lock so powerful it hid an important talent from view for more than a decade. You held the lock for so long because you forgot its existence, and when reminded, could not remember the words of the spell. Is that a correct summation?”

  What could I say? I looked at Arturos and René, but got no help from either. “I don’t know, sir.”

  The Warlock paced another circuit of the room. “Your turn, Arturos.”

  Arturos said, “It’s pretty much as René said. Lucinda asked about locks and I told her what I knew. I was starting to tell the story when I was shocked by the appearance of a…an apparently high-level magical talent that I didn’t recognise, emanating, as far as I could tell, from the young woman across the table from me. I shouted at her—I don’t remember what—and the high-level talent vanished. Like a door had slammed shut, just as she said. As far as I could tell from that brief glimpse, it seemed to be at least a level four, maybe even a level five talent.”

  René stared at me with eyes and mouth both wide open. “Are you a level five witch?”

  I shook my head. The Warlock continued to pace, frowning at me. He said, “A good question. I also was shocked by the sudden appearance of what seemed to be a level five talent, one that I, too, did not recognise, shining like a beacon from inside the Fortress. I assumed that the Fortress was under attack by one of the Europan Empire’s warlocks. I located the source in the kitchen, but it winked out before I got there.

  “Miss Guillierre, I do not know how much you know about the castle’s defences—I hope neither you nor René know much—but such a thing should not happen. Ever. Having known you now for several months, I would like to believe your story, and trust that you are not one of the Empire’s spies. But as I had not seen any indication of talent from you greater than level one, this sudden jump to level five is extremely disturbing. Not just to me, but to the Fire Office. Even more so to the Office, which has little regard for personalities or the lives of individual people. Let me remind you that the primary purpose of the Office of The Warlock of the Western Gate is the defence of this country. Everything else connected with
the Office—the library, quests, the lives of the people holding the Office, everything—is secondary.”

  He sank down on the couch across the fire from me, and looked at me sombrely. “I am afraid that we are going to have to make a test to see if your story is true, and to assess the full nature of your talent.”

  I said, “Do you want me to run the spell backwards again?” I brought up the mental image of the lines of text. Both warlocks shot to their feet shouting, “No, no, no,” and waving their hands at me to stop.

  I cringed, and blinked away the image. The Fire Warlock crashed back down onto the couch and raked a hand through his hair until it stood on end, the monstrous ruby throbbing like a heartbeat.

  He said, “Good God, girl, you have no idea what you do to me. I do not know who is more terrified, you, because you do not know what will happen next, or I, because I do. Yes, soon I will want you to drop your lock—assuming that is what it is—but please do it when and where I tell you, or we risk the Office assuming the worst.”

  He got up and went back to pacing. He had always seemed to me to be the calmest person I had ever met. His pacing terrified me as much as his words. “Please keep in mind that while I have some discretion in guiding the Office in how best to achieve its goals, if it perceives that I am at odds with it, it will have no compunction about reducing me to a cinder and choosing a new Warlock. It has done such things many times already, and surely will again.”

  He smiled wanly. “And while I am not completely averse to sacrificing myself if it would improve the overall outcome, doing so simply because I am at odds with the Office serves no useful purpose. It would choose another Warlock, and another, until it found one who would satisfy it. No other candidate can perform the necessary test as gently as I can, so putting two lives rather than one at risk does not seem wise.

  “I am holding back the demands of the Office as best I can, to give us breathing space to find out what the situation is, but the Office is pressing me quite hard to do something I would rather not have to do. It demands a full probe, and I cannot hold it off much longer.

  “We will go down into the caldera, where the volcano will protect us on all sides from prying eyes, and there I will ask you to release your lock. Then Arturos and I will each, in turn, probe your mind and heart for all possible magical talents, and for whether you are an agent, or the dupe of an agent, of one of our country’s enemies.”

  Arturos growled, “Hold on, why do you need me to do it, too? If she is a level five with a special talent for locks, then you’ll find that out and you’ll come back up here and we’ll drink a toast to her health and the discovery of a new witch.”

  “You are not thinking this through. If she snapped that lock back on so quickly after you shouted at her, then we risk her shutting it back down reflexively in response to the probe. If she does so while I am probing her, that will have dire consequences.” Arturos’s face went white. “If you go first, she will know what to expect when I probe her, and is less likely to come to grief.”

  Arturos nodded slowly, looking sick. “I suppose that makes sense. But I don’t have to like it.”

  The Warlock gripped the big wizard on the shoulder. “If you did, you would not be my friend.” Then to me, “It is not a pleasant experience, and if done by a hostile wizard, or with a subject who fights the probe, it can cause permanent scarring. But Arturos and I have both experienced it first-hand, as a necessary part of our induction into the ranks of potential Officeholders. We suffered no lasting damage. I assure you we will probe you with as light a hand as possible while still getting the job done.”

  I nodded. I couldn’t speak.

  The Warlock looked from me to Arturos and back. “Then let us go before we have any more time to scare ourselves. It is too dangerous to use the fire to get down into the heart of the volcano. Instead, we will fly.” He offered me a hand, and helped me up. “Put your arm on my shoulder.” He put one arm around my waist, and the other around Arturos. One wall of the room disappeared, and he led us out into the empty air.

  The Probe

  We floated downward into the volcano as if we were autumn leaves drifting towards the ground. The enormous crater, miles across, into which we descended looked like nothing I had ever seen or even imagined before. There was no grass, no trees, nothing green or living anywhere in that vast expanse. It looked like Hell.

  Why was I not afraid of falling, when I had been so dizzy on my own with both feet planted firmly on the ground? Was it because I trusted the Warlock? If things went bad, he couldn’t save me from the Office. Maybe I was so terrified of what would happen when we landed, that nothing more could scare me.

  As we sank, the Warlock said, “As best I can describe it, the test we will be using feels like someone rummaging around in your mind, watching your most embarrassing memories. It is a galling invasion of privacy, but it feels slightly different for everyone who has gone through it. I experienced it as quite rude pushing and shoving, and I came out flaming the warlock who performed it on me. Celeste described her experience as being groped by a drunken soldier.

  “The probe is a specialised form of mind-reading, but it looks strictly for magical talent, or traitorous intent. We are not interested in the boy you kissed at age fifteen under the apple tree.”

  I was sixteen, and it was behind the church. My cheeks burned before I realised he was making an educated guess.

  “Or the petty sins you confessed to your pastor. If, however, those experiences involved any magical talent, we will see them. It will also stir up a number of old memories, some bad but some good, and you will have nightmares for several weeks afterwards.”

  The nightmares I was already having weren’t bad enough?

  Farther down, he sucked in his breath. “I forgot about René. I should have sent him back down to the Fortress after hearing his version of the event. He should not have had to hear all that.”

  On the other side, Arturos rumbled, “Maybe not so bad. You’ve giving him a first-hand demonstration of the need for control. Might do him more good than all my lecturing.”

  We landed, and the Warlock led us into a narrow tunnel. “A lava tube,” he said. “Do not touch the sides; the rocks will cut like broken glass.”

  A few yards in, the tunnel opened out a bit wider, and the Warlock motioned for me to stand in the middle of the wide spot. There was no air movement. I tugged at the neckline of my dress. Five minutes in there and Arturos would have to dry me off for the third time.

  Arturos stood in front of me, hefting his wand and blowing out through his moustache for a bit, before nodding and saying, “I guess I’m ready.” He reached down and tapped on the floor of the tunnel. Cracks opened and a fiery pentagram surrounded my feet.

  The Warlock said, “While the pentagram is there, Miss Guillierre, do not attempt to step out of it. Remember, the less you fight the probe, the easier it will be. Remember also, you must not reset the lock until we are done. Release it when you are ready.”

  I blinked back tears, and brought up the words of the spell in my mind’s eye. I tried to trace backwards with the flame, but it wouldn’t move. This was what the lock was for, to protect me from tormenting wizards. I struggled and shoved, and finally forced the flame to creep backwards. Tears cascaded down my cheeks. When the flame reached the beginning of the spell, I once again heard the little ‘pop’ in my head. The glass door of the cage flew open.

  Arturos raised his wand, tapped me on the forehead and the temples, and began.

  Memories—things I hadn’t thought about in years—went flickering by. He dredged up everything I’d ever done that was embarrassing, awkward, rude, or sinful. What right did he have to see any of that?

  The probe hurt, too, as if Arturos was manhandling me and stomping on my toes. A hard jolt, as if he had poked me in the ribs with an elbow, made me flinch. The lock spell flashed into my
mind’s eye. The flame raced through the letters. I caught and stopped it, even as the Warlock barked, “Stop!” Painfully, letter by letter, I forced the flame backwards to the beginning of the spell.

  After that happened several times, I gritted my teeth and held the flame in place. Better to have it before me and stopped rather than risk it snapping all the way through before I could react.

  How long would this go on? How long had it been? Fifteen minutes? Half an hour?

  Arturos dropped his wand and the feeling of shoving vanished. The pentagram disappeared. I let the flame go, and as the lock snapped back into place, I stepped forward and slapped him as hard as I could. We both stammered out, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” His arms came around me, holding me tight, stroking my hair. I sobbed into his tunic.

  The Warlock gave me a few minutes to recover before saying, gently, “It is time, my dear.”

  If I didn’t obey, the Office would have no mercy on me. I pulled away from the comfort of Arturos’s arms and moved back into the middle of the tunnel. “It might be easier to ensure I don’t use the lock again if I’m already holding it and concentrating on not letting it go.”

  “You have a point. If you would prefer to do that, you may.”

  He tapped on the floor and the pentagram reappeared, then he stood in front of me for a moment with his eyes closed, turned slightly away from me so that with his right arm raised and his left hand tucked into the small of his back, he looked like a fencer waiting for a challenge. He opened his eyes and looked at me. “Release your lock when you are ready.”

  There were tears in his eyes.

  A strange calm settled over me. I was still close to a violent death, but Warlock Arturos had already seen that I was not a spy. The Fire Warlock must have thought that he, too, would see that I was a true daughter of Frankland—he had gone back to ‘my dear’ instead of ‘Miss Guillierre.’