THE WIZARD HUNTERS

by Martha Wells

  Ander shrugged, smiling affably, reassuming his feckless playboy role. “Just curious.”

  Gerard turned away, stepping out into the garden and replacing the aether-glasses. Tiny green lizards basking on the sun-warmed stone skittered away from his feet. He would have to warn Tremaine, of course. God knew how she would take it. The one thing he knew for certain about Tremaine was that she never reacted to anything the way you thought she would. He wasn’t worried that she might retaliate, the way her father Nicholas surely would have, but still. . .

  As the others trailed after him, Giliead asked cautiously, “What do you mean by ‘etheric traces’?”

  He had done a good job of pronouncing the unfamiliar words. Gerard explained, “To put it simply, the disturbance that a spell makes when it travels through the air. They’re invisible to the naked eye.” He paused by the cistern, an ideal spot for a disease-causing element, but the glasses showed no traces in the air above the water’s surface. “The most common method of cursing a house is to enspell an object and hide it somewhere on the premises. The etheric disturbances would be stronger near the spot where the object was hidden.” He paused, head cocked back toward the other men. “Were the deaths associated with any particular part of the house?”

  “No. There was sickness, then a fire,” Giliead explained, with a quick glance toward Ilias. “The fire was in the new house, across the field, but there were deaths here too.”

  “I see.” Anything that virulent would surely have affected the growth of the plants, but Gerard couldn’t see any evidence of it. “The etheric tendrils should spread throughout the area of influence like a spider’s web.”

  He looked back to see Ilias and Giliead exchange a dubious expression. “They should?” Giliead echoed.

  “But they aren’t.” Gerard pivoted slowly, frowning. He could see indistinct spots of congealed ether here and there, near the stone floor of the walk, hovering above a climbing rose in the corner. But no clear pointers to their source. He began to wonder if they were talking about an actual curse in the Rienish sense of the word; from the description of its effects he had assumed so. “There are traces, but they’re very faint. I think there’s been some sort of protective influence at work.”

  “Maybe it’s the god,” Ilias said.

  Giliead, arms folded, didn’t venture an opinion.

  “Perhaps.” Gerard removed the aether-glasses, checked the lenses and put them back on again. He wondered if Giliead’s reluctance to comment was policy or just reticence. Moving slowly down the atrium, studying the rafters of the second-level gallery, he asked, “Does the god have a name?”

  “No.” Giliead’s tone didn’t change, so it was hard to tell if the laconic answer was because he found the subject objectionable.

  “But there are other gods in other areas, correct?” Gerard paused at an open doorway into what must be the kitchen. There was a big open hearth in one corner with a smoke-stained plastered chimney above it and tall blue pottery jars lined the far wall. Dried herbs and bundles of root vegetables hung overhead and the room smelled pleasantly of olive oil. Gerard turned to look at the two Syprians, the glasses distorting their images. “How do you tell the difference between gods?”

  Ilias leaned in the doorway, not much concerned by the question. “If we were somewhere else, it wouldn’t be this god, it would be that one.”

  “You can tell the difference,” Giliead said, looking absently around the room.

  It wasn’t much of an answer, but Gerard supposed that was all he was going to get. He stepped into the kitchen, checking carefully over the battered wooden table and the jars. Again, he saw small blots of ether, but nothing that could cause any foreign substances to be introduced into the food. If the local god was protecting this place, it was doing a good job of it.

  He caught a glimpse into a small larder, where three things that looked and smelled like blue sea crabs, but were the size of small sheep, hung from hooks. Better warn the girls to take care if they walk on the beach, he noted absently. A young man with a bewildered expression stepped into the doorway, wiping his hands on a rag. Gerard turned away, moving out onto the walk again.

  Ander had remained outside and was waiting there with folded arms. Gerard paused, considering the problem. He had an idea, but he wasn’t certain Giliead would accept it.

  “There’s a possibility I could draw the curse out of hiding.” He turned to Giliead, taking the aether-glasses off. “I can produce a generalized Manifestation that causes most common curses to respond.”

  Giliead’s enigmatic expression became more enigmatic. His face troubled, Ilias leaned back in the doorway and looked at his friend. Gerard didn’t blame them for their caution; this wasn’t a method anyone, even Rienish who were used to the benefits of magic, liked. “It antagonizes the curse, causes it to perceive that the object of its focus is present. But the curse attacks the Manifestation rather than the actual object.”

  Giliead’s opaque expression was much harder to penetrate than Ander’s. He looked at Ilias, who shrugged one shoulder, a gesture of indecision. Giliead sighed, as if he had been hoping for more help than that. Gerard persisted gently. “It would allow us to see the curse’s actual form. Have you ever seen it?”

  Giliead shook his head. “No.”

  “Would you like to?”

  There was a flicker of something in Giliead’s eyes. Yes, Gerard thought, he wants to see it. After living with a faceless enemy in your own home, who wouldn’t? Giliead nodded.

  Ander lifted a brow as if he thought this a dubious exercise, but didn’t make any comment.

  Gerard stepped out into the garden, feeling the wet grass sink under his boots. This was a delicate piece of scholarly sorcery developed at Lodun University less than twenty years ago and needed no preparations. No matter who did the casting, curses were all built on the same framework of hate; this spell would weave its way into that framework to read the bitter heart at the center.

  He cleared his mind, putting aside tiredness, worry, the pain of various bruises and the persistent ache in his back, and sank into the words of the adjuration. The spellform took shape, growing, drawing substance from the light, the water, the living breath of the green plants. Gerard sealed the spell and gently pushed it away from him.

  “Something’s over there.” Giliead’s voice was sharp. “Did you do that?”

  Gerard opened his eyes. The Manifestation was invisible to normal sight but he could feel it not far away, hovering over the flowering brush on the opposite side of the garden. It wouldn’t have appeared if the curse didn’t exist; this certainly wasn’t a case of people imagining a single cause for unrelated tragic occurrences. “Yes, that’s it.” He blinked, still a little distanced from casting the spell. “Can you see it?”

  Giliead took a couple of slow paces toward the Manifestation, frowning. “Sort of. A cloudy gray shape?” Ilias was trying to follow Giliead’s gaze but it was obvious he couldn’t tell what his friend was looking at.

  “Close enough,” Gerard said under his breath. So Chosen Vessels can see etheric traces. Doubtless Ixion had known that when he had constructed this spell. If it isn’t moving through the ether... we may be looking for something far more substantial than I was expecting.

  Ander stepped up to Gerard to ask softly, “How can he do that?”

  Gerard shook his head, answering him in Rienish, “It could be latent magical talent—I certainly wouldn’t suggest it to them, though. Or it could be as they say, it’s a gift that comes from the god.” He hesitated, turning back to face the garden. Was the sunlight a little darker? He hastily put the aether-glasses back on.

  He saw the Manifestation but nothing else. It was a cloudy shape as Giliead had said, but the glasses allowed Gerard to make out the forms roiling within it. Those images were etheric illusions, created by the spell to antagonize the curse and force it to react as if its quarry were present. The sunlit air appeared just as undisturbed as it had before and Ger
ard frowned, afraid this curse of Ixion’s was simply too different to be affected. He didn’t have much of a sense for Ixion’s craft yet; all he had to work with was a strong feeling that he would be damned if he let the bastard get away with this.

  The ground trembled under his feet, just the slightest tremor; if he had been at home, he would have thought a heavy truck had passed in the street outside. Then the earth under the Manifestation erupted upward.

  Gerard flinched back in surprise as Ander shouted a warning. Dirt, roots, leaves, gravel boiled up in a gush and out exploded something the size of a large dog. He had a confused impression of spiky black fur, wildly flailing claws and nothing that looked like a head.

  The Manifestation dissolved and Gerard snatched the aether-glasses off but the creature remained, solid as the ground under his feet. Silently it rounded on them just as Giliead got his sword drawn and swung at it. It avoided the blow with unnerving speed and darted toward the house. Gerard saw, impossibly, that part of its body was still under the surface, that a plume of dirt fountained up behind it as it furrowed through the ground. Ilias dodged in front of it, blocking its path. It turned at bay, then suddenly leapt at Gerard.

  He barely had time to throw his arms up to protect his face when it struck, bowling him over. He fell back into a bush and hit the ground hard, the foul-smelling weight crashing down on his chest. An instant later the weight lifted and he saw Ander crouched over him, gripping the creature by the fur and wrenching it away. Ilias leapt in to help him and together they wrestled the thing down as Giliead stepped in and rammed his sword through it. It gave one sharp cry, an animal squeal, then went limp.

  Shaken, Gerard got to his feet, absently brushed the dirt from his already ruined trousers. Grimacing with disgust, Ander was wiping his hands on the tail of his shirt.

  Gerard took a step forward for a closer look, but the creature’s body was disintegrating. He caught a glimpse of six legs ending in paddle-shaped feet and a flat hole of a fanged mouth before it dissolved back into black dirt.

  Ilias stared down at the fading remains, his mouth set in a thin line. “That’s why we never saw it.”

  Giliead gave him a grim nod. He looked up as Karima appeared in a doorway across the court, calling, “What was that?”

  “I’ll tell her.” Ilias hurriedly crossed the garden toward her.

  Ander leaned over the disturbed ground as if tempted to prod it with a boot but not quite daring. “It only moved underground?” He glanced up at Gerard. “Have you ever seen anything like that before?”

  Gerard nodded slowly. “Yes. It’s not. . . usual.” It was an ability that only fay and other elemental creatures possessed. Creating a creature that could pass through solid ground wasn’t something that should be possible in human sorcery at all, especially not as a by-product of a curse. So like the Gardier, Ixion and the other sorcerers here have abilities that we don’t understand and can’t match.

  Giliead sheathed his sword, eyeing Gerard thoughtfully. “It’s not over.”

  “No,” he answered, though it hadn’t been a question. “After dark I can do a spell to make the etheric disturbances in the ground move to the surface so we can track the curse back to its heart.” He looked up to meet the man’s eyes. “Then it will be over.”

  Karima led Tremaine and Florian away from the atrium to a room on the outside wall of the house. It had been a children’s room, a fact Tremaine had deduced by noting the wall behind the low carved table had been scribbled on at about knee height with the universally recognized figures of horsies and doggies. The bed was beneath the windows, big and low, piled with a thick feather-stuffed mattress, pillows and more of the gorgeously woven and dyed blankets. Tremaine ran a hand over them wistfully. The figures of leaves and vines were precisely picked out and the colors soft. If the Valiarde Galleries hadn’t closed for the war, these would have made a wonderful exhibit.

  A very bashful young boy brought a basket of clothing and Karima took it and shooed him away. “These should be more comfortable,” she said, eyeing their torn and mud-splattered tweed. She pulled out a couple of long-sleeved shirts of tough cotton. “Try that for size.”

  Tremaine picked out a shirt and held it up. The hems and open neckline were decorated with block-printed geometric designs. No buttons, just lacings. She bet they were hand-me-downs from the young men in the household.

  As Karima turned out the rest of the basket onto the bed, she said, “Your people are really wizards?” She was carefully not looking up at them.

  Florian glanced at Tremaine, then plunged in, “They are. But we’re not like the ones here. We don’t treat people like that.”

  “I know Giliead—and the god—wouldn’t have brought you here if you did.” Karima nodded slowly, then looked up and gave them a rueful smile. “It’s just very strange.”

  Deciding this was a good time for a change of subject, Tremaine asked, “Is Ilias your son too?”

  “No, he came to us when he was very young.” She countered with, “Is Gerard your father?”

  “No, none of us are related. Gerard was my guardian when I was younger.” At Karima’s questioning look Tremaine found herself explaining awkwardly, “My father disappeared—he was fighting the Gardier—and he appointed Gerard to take care of me and the estate in case anything happened.”

  “In Syrnaic cities women own the property.” Karima cocked her head. “I know it’s not that way among the Chaeans and the Argoti.”

  Horian sat down on the bed, curiously poking through the colorful clothes. “It’s not like that with us.”

  Karima frowned. “It’s not?”

  “No, it’s both. I mean, anybody can own it,” Florian explained hastily. Tremaine knew she must have realized that Karima had wanted to make sure they weren’t oppressed. This is a matriarchy. Men could still hold positions of authority, like Nicanor did now and Halian had before his retirement, but if they couldn’t own property that still left the women with a great deal of power. It gave her an insight into why Ilias had objected so immediately to Ander’s tone of voice when he had been arguing with her on the island.

  “Ah, I see.” Karima held up a shirt, measured it against Florian, ascertained that it would fit her like a three-man survival tent, and tossed it back in the basket. “I wish it was that way with us, then I wouldn’t have to worry about what happens to my family when I die.” She paused, absently smoothing the fabric under her hands. “Chosen Vessels don’t marry. People are afraid of wizards and curses and they’re afraid of the ones who have to fight them too, and that’s just the way it is. But I had a daughter called Irisa and she wasn’t the kind of girl to turn her brothers out, so I wasn’t worried about the boys. But Ixion’s curse killed my Irisa and Ilias’s cousin Amari, then it killed Halian’s daughter Delphi.”

  Despite her matter-of-fact tone the pain that crossed Karima’s face aged her. Tremaine, who never knew what to say in such situations, stood tongue-tied, but Florian winced in sympathy and said, “I’m sorry.”

  Karima sighed and patted Florian’s shoulder. “So if your friend can make the curse leave, you’ll have our gratitude.”

  Tremaine found herself running a rapid calculation. She wondered if they were certain Ixion had cast the curse. It wasn’t as if they could verify the curse’s origin. And it was suspicious that it had apparently eliminated Karima’s direct heirs, since Giliead couldn’t inherit anything. This house and land had to be worth quite a lot. Holding a pair of pants up to her waist to check the length and lost in thought, she said, “Who does the house go to now?”

  “It will all belong to Nicanor’s wife Visolela, Halian’s daughter by marriage, which is not her fault, but there it is.” Karima regarded Tremaine thoughtfully for a moment, her hands planted on her hips, the sparkle coming back into her hazel eyes. Her lips twitched in a rueful smile and she said softly, “I thought of that too.”

  Tremaine felt her cheeks go hot. It probably wasn’t a good idea to introduce hersel
f to the family by hinting that even a distant relative was a murderer. “Sorry. I can’t help it.”

  “Don’t be sorry.” Karima stepped up to her and put her hands on Tremaine’s shoulders. “It doesn’t hurt to be clever and careful and have eyes in the back of your head. Now hurry with your baths so you can come and eat.”

  Chapter 14

  Finally getting rid of the last remnants of the mud and the stink of the caves was a relief, but Ilias was too preoccupied to enjoy it. He sat in the window embrasure that looked into the atrium, rebraiding his queue and trying to gather his thoughts.

  Maybe the curse’s dramatic appearance had brought it back to him, but he kept seeing that image, that heartbeat’s flash of Ixion’s face among the Gardier in the tunnel. He couldn’t put it out of his mind. It was just your imagination. That was where he caught you before, so it’s natural you’d imagine . . . all right, that’s not working. He let his breath out, frustrated.

  Giliead wandered in from the bathing room, saying, “I talked to Mother about the village.”

  Ilias glanced up, his mouth twisted ruefully. He meant what was about to happen to it, that the wizards would destroy it tonight when they came to find out what had happened to their other flying whale. “How did she take it?”

  Giliead shrugged one shoulder, looking away. “She understands.”

  That there was nothing they could do about it. At least not now. Ilias looked out the window again. It hadn’t been so long since Ixion; they had all thought the big battles were over.