So Impervia was ready for the bleary-eyed enforcer. He popped a kick at her knee — not serious, just a distraction — then came down hard with his kicking foot, hoping to crush Impervia's toes. Simultaneously, his hand lashed out at her head, the punch timed to coincide with his toe-stomp. It looked like the kind of combination you'd practice in a gym, feint-kick to foot-slam with coordinated cross to the face.
Too bad for Hump that none of his strikes connected.
Impervia parried the first kick with her own leg, knocking Hump's kicking foot to one side. That meant Hump's stomp came down nowhere interesting: on bare floor instead of the good sister's instep. At the same time, she used a high block to deflect the punch over her head (a move made easier by the enforcer's height, since Impervia could slip under his shoulder). Finally, she delivered a strike of her own — a palm-heel driving hard under Hump's chin to snap his head back, then raking her fingertips down the man's face in a move she called the Tiger's Claw. This wasn't, as you might expect, a scratching maneuver intended to draw blood; Impervia kept her fingernails almost invisibly short, so she had nothing to scratch with. It was more a gouging action designed to wreak havoc on soft tissues like cheeks and eyes… not to mention Hump's nose, which had already taken one nasty hit. If the nose wasn't completely broken before, the Tiger's Claw finished the job, shifting the nasal position several centimeters to the left and rearranging all adjacent facial features.
Herewith, another translation from body language:
Hump: Oh goodness gracious me!
Impervia was close to the enforcer's body, a dangerous place to be even when your opponent is half-blind and reeling with pain. I wondered if she'd risk staying there long enough to deliver a few more whacks or if she'd withdraw before she got cracked by the man's wild flailing. Impervia chose to disengage: not going backward but continuing forward, past Hump's back. As she went, she snapped a low kick behind her in the general direction of Hump's right leg. I couldn't tell whether she was trying to buckle the knee or to hit one of the femoral nerve points she swears will induce an instant charley horse if struck correctly. Either way, she missed… probably because she was distracted by a sudden ripping sound as Hump's leather jacket sleeves burst open from shoulders to wrist.
Impervia took cover, diving over a nearby table and kicking it behind her as a defensive wooden wall. I don't think she knew what had happened — she just wanted to get out of the way till she figured out what the ripping noise had been. A weapon hidden up Hump's sleeve? Some kind of concealed pistol? Hump was just the sort of man who'd carry extra "protection" to whip out when things didn't go his way. He'd already lost the fight; yes, he was still on his feet, but Impervia had hurt him enough that she could now whittle him down. Kick at his legs from a distance, try hitting him again with a chair… she had plenty of options, and with his damaged nose, he couldn't see well enough to fend off everything. From Hump's point of view, it was time to play his hidden cards.
In this case, said cards were razor-sharp spines growing out of his arms. Sharp enough to shred tough leather as they sprouted bloodily from his skin.
They reminded me of spikes on a sea urchin: organic white spurs, even if they were the size of the studs on a morning-star. Definitely not some strap-on weapon — these were part of the man himself, rooted in place by sorcery, surgery, gene splicing, or all three. The physiology that let the barbs extend and retract might be fascinating to study under more detached conditions; but at the moment, all I needed to know was that they were big, lethal, and heading for Impervia.
The good sister muttered something, possibly a quick prayer; but her words were drowned out by cries and curses from others in the room. Up till now, the patrons had been hiding in the shadows, staying out of the fight but watching keenly all the same — bar brawls no doubt passed for high entertainment in The Buxom Bull. However, a man with spikes running the length of his arms seemed more than the crowd could stomach. Amidst yells of panic, I caught words like "Demon!" and "Witchcraft!"… which brought to mind more images of peasants, torches, and Gothic castles after dark. Some night very soon, Hump might find himself waylaid by a mob who didn't like freaks in their midst.
But the mob wouldn't convene in time to help Impervia — they were too busy scuttling for the exits. Meanwhile, Hump treated us to his own show of strength by slamming his right arm into a table. The spikes bit deep into the wood, spraying splinters. When he lifted his arm, the table rose too, as if attached to the man by nails… but he clenched his fist and the spines retracted, releasing the table and letting it fall with a thump.
"Now you," Hump said to Impervia. His voice was low and controlled — no screaming "Bitch!" now, just pure focused malice. Impervia's face was focused too: not the grim smile she usually adopted for bar fights, but something more somber. I don't think it was fear; it looked more like finality.
"As God wills," she said.
She was close to a chair, so she threw it. Just something to keep Hump busy; in the time he took to knock it aside, she was halfway toward the bar. The path was clear of bystanders — people were stampeding out both doors, and even through windows (smashing out the glass with hastily swung tankards). Only Dee-James, the Caryatid, and I stayed where we were… rooted to the spot like scared rabbits, hearts pounding, barely able to breathe.
When Impervia reached the counter, she vaulted over with gymnastic ease and grabbed two bottles of high-proof liquor. One was cheap rum distilled in Feliss City; the other was something colorless in clear glass, gin or vodka, maybe schnapps. Both bottles were almost full. Impervia yanked the corks with her teeth, one after the other, then threw them full in Hump's face.
He hadn't been standing still through all this — he'd been bashing his way toward the bar, kicking furniture out of his way rather than going around. When the bottles came spinning his way, he swatted them aside with his hard-spiked arms. The rum bottle was simply deflected (splashing rum as it flew), but the clear bottle shattered against his bony spikes, spraying glass shards and hooch in his face. Hump grimaced, but didn't seem hurt. In fact, he was wearing an "Is that the best you can do?" smile when Impervia reached for an oil lamp sitting beside the beer taps.
It took Hump a moment to realize he was damp with flammable alcohol. He charged at the same instant Impervia grabbed the lamp and smashed its glass chimney on the bartop. Amazingly, the lamp flame didn't go out… but then, one should never be surprised by the behavior of flames when the Caryatid is close at hand. I don't know if our sorcery teacher really did keep the fire going by means of hocus-pocus, but the lamp continued to burn, even as Impervia hurled it full in Hump's face.
The enforcer had no time to duck. His reflexes were good enough to shield his face with one arm, but that simply meant the lamp stuck sharp spikes instead of anything softer. Smash. The alcohol on his skin combined with flame and lamp oil to ignite with a gusty whoosh: a blue halo burst around his head and shoulders.
Beside me, the Caryatid murmured, "Pretty!"
Though the fire was searing hot, Hump didn't let it faze him. A man of blazing determination. Even Impervia was taken aback by his stubbornness — she stared in surprise a dangerous half-second, giving Hump time to get closer. Nothing separated the two of them now except the bar-top itself. Hump threw himself forward onto the counter, his hands streaked with fire, the spikes on his arms slanting toward Impervia as if they were hungry for blood. In the cramped space behind the bar, she didn't have room to dodge. Spikes and flames came straight for her. Nothing to do but tuck tight, arms in front of her head, the defensive tortoise position of a boxer who can't do anything but ride out a flurry of hits…
Then suddenly, everything stopped. The world froze as motionless as a painting. Hump in mid-lunge, spikes less than a hand's breadth from spearing their target. Flames around him snuffing out as if smothered. Impervia frozen too, like a bug in invisible amber. The Caryatid leaning forward, her mouth open slightly. Dee-James suspended a short distance off the f
loor — he'd been rolling off the table, preparing to run elsewhere. Even I was struck inert, not paralyzed but simply trapped, as if the air around me had turned rock-solid. It held me encased, no wiggle room at all. Breathing was like sucking wind through a woolen blanket.
Behind me, from The Buxom Bull's front door, somebody crooned, "Quiet now… everyone quiet. Hush-a, hush-a, all fall still."
It was a woman's voice, lilting softly as if singing a baby to sleep. I couldn't turn my head to look, but I guessed we'd found our mystery sorceress.
10: SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS ARE MADE ON
She walked forward, ‹TIP›, ‹TIP›, ‹TIP›: as if she were up on her toes, trying to make as little noise as possible. The shy tread of a mousy person… but when she came into view, there was nothing shy or mousy about her.
She was the most beautiful woman I'd seen in my life.
I mean this literally — she was an exact double of my cousin Hafsah at age eighteen, and teenaged Hafsah was the most exquisite woman I've ever known. The last time I saw Hafsah she was still quite lovely, though approaching forty and uninterested in the draconian regimen required to preserve great beauty into middle age; but at eighteen, Hafsah was monumentally breathtaking… and I was a moonstruck ten-year-old whom she spent time with because my puppy love amused her. Sweet indulgent Hafsah was the pinnacle of feminine beauty and I would never meet anyone who could make my heart pound so fast.
We are all prisoners of our ten-year-old selves.
Now that I'd reached thirty-five, one could wonder why my tastes hadn't matured… especially since I knew eighteen-year-olds were not the amazingly sophisticated creatures I once believed them to be. But the woman tiptoeing into The Buxom Bull was living proof I hadn't outgrown my boyish infatuation; I saw her as Hafsah, the teenaged Hafsah, and that meant my beautiful cousin still had a smiling stranglehold on my psyche.
What am I talking about? Sorcery: a well-known spell called Kaylan's Chameleon of Craving. (Mage Kaylan was superb at research but a lowbrow hack when it came to naming his enchantments.) In scientific terms, the spell must have been caused by nanites in my brain stimulating whatever set of neurons encoded my ideal of feminine beauty. I saw what the nanites told me to see — the woman most guaranteed to arouse me.
Creating such an illusion had to be a complex neural process, but the result was utterly simple: when Kaylan's Chameleon was cast on a woman, every man viewed that woman as the embodiment of his personal lust. If a man was entranced by breasts, he saw mammaries of his favorite size, shape, and degree of gravitational impossibility. If he adored auburn hair hanging creamy smooth down to the ankles, that's what he saw… and what he felt too, if he ran his fingers through the tresses. If a man didn't pant after women, he saw another man… or a child, or a high-heeled shoe. And if a man dreamt of his cousin Hafsah (or his sister, his mother, or that nanny who used to spank him), Kaylan's Chameleon could be a real eye-opener.
Despite its vagaries, the Chameleon was one of the most popular spells in the world — a sure moneymaker for any sorcerer who endured the ritual to acquire it. Lots of rich women paid cartloads of gold to become artificially dazzling… including a number of girls at Feliss Academy. It was a popular first-menses gift from doting grandparents: the bestowal of Ultimate Beauty.
Or at least a hint thereof.
The extent of Kaylan's Chameleon depended on the power of the caster. When a bazaar-class sorcerer muddled through the spell, it might enchant only the woman's eyes, or her hands, or her navel. There was nothing wrong with a pair of eyes men couldn't stop pining for, but a mediocre mage had no control over which part of the subject's anatomy would become irresistible. A woman who paid her life's savings often felt cheated when all she got was a particularly winsome elbow. (Though I've heard of men who would crawl over hot coals to fondle such a thing.)
Even first-rate sorcerers had trouble enchanting a woman's whole body; they considered the spell a success if it charmed a meaningful subregion, like the face, torso, or legs. The Chameleon-bewitched girls at Feliss Academy almost all had this partial level of ensorcellment… and let me tell you, it had its drawbacks. I'm reminded of a warm lazy day outside the dorm when a blonde fifteen-year-old named Ilsa sunned herself in a meager bikini; it was most disconcerting to see the sharply marked "tan-line" at her waist where the pale Nordic skin of her upper body changed to the dark complexion of my cousin Hafsah, shapely brown down to the calves, then abruptly white again at the ankles. One boy who saw her ran screaming across the courtyard and vomited in the hollyhocks. Heaven knows what he saw.
But the woman in The Buxom Bull must have received her Chameleon from a stupendously powerful sorcerer — she was totally Hafsah from head to toe. And an exquisite head it was; a fine mouth-watering toe. Dark laughing eyes, demure yet kissable lips, softly rounded nose, chocolate brown hair that practically demanded you bury your face in it, and hips one could grab like a drowning man seizes a life preserver. She looked perfect and I knew she would feel perfect, whatever I kissed or nibbled.
That really pissed me off.
The falseness of her. Beneath her Chameleon glamour, she could be a scrawny twelve-year-old or a pock-marked crone of ninety; tall or short, dark or fair, and I'd never see the truth. I longed to ask the Caryatid what she saw — the Chameleon spell fooled only men, not women — but I couldn't speak a word with the air still solidified around me.
One last thing about the woman entering the room: she was dressed in an outfit Hafsah once wore to a formal family dinner (gold silk trousers of the style foreigners call "harem pants," a midriff-baring white shirt with a half-sleeved gold overjacket, assorted bangle-jangles and gold-mounted pearls), but in addition she wore something that clashed glaringly with the Hafsah persona: a billowing knee-length cape of crimson. Sorcerer's crimson. Hidden under the doppelganger of my cousin, there was indeed a sorceress.
The sorceress. Powerful enough to blast a hole through Death Hotel. Powerful enough to immobilize us all like bugs in a spider's web.
"Hello," she said with a baby-soft version of Hafsah's voice. "I'm called Dreamsinger: Sorcery-Lord of Spark."
Uh-oh. Even more powerful than I thought.
Dreamsinger continued a few more steps: TIP, TIP, TIP. She wasn't actually walking on her toes, but each time she placed a foot, she did so with gingerly caution, as if fearful of making too much noise. Not the spit-in-your-eye brashness one expects from a Spark Lord. In fact, she stopped in the middle of the room and looked around as if she had no idea what to do next. Lost and dismayed. At last her gaze settled on the Caryatid; her face brightened.
"Sister!" she cooed. The Sorcery-Lord tip-tapped to the Caryatid and air-kissed her cheek. This wasn't just an empty gesture, the way unctuous people pretend to kiss while avoiding actual contact — Dreamsinger's lips pushed as close as possible to the Caryatid's face, but a hand's breadth of solidified atmosphere blocked the way. The Spark Lord kissed the invisible barrier fervently, once, twice, three times. "Sister! Dear comrade on the Burdensome Path. Please tell me what's happening here."
The Caryatid remained motionless. Dreamsinger waited a moment… then a moment longer… then raised her hand to her mouth in the embarrassed horror of a little girl realizing she's done something rude. "You mean you can't just… but it's such a simple spell!" Dreamsinger leaned in close, her forehead pressed against the imprisoning air as she stared into the Caryatid's face. "All you have to do is shrug it off. A tiny trivial shrug. Not the physical sort, but you know when you focus your mind, then flip the magic away?"
No response. The Caryatid looked as if she was straining to shrug/focus/flip, but the only result was a flush of effort turning her cheeks pink. Dreamsinger watched a moment more, then dropped her gaze. "Well, ah, it can sometimes be difficult…"
Eyes still averted, the Spark Lord made a twiddly gesture with the last three fingers of her left hand. The Caryatid lurched forward, as if she'd suddenly regained her momentum from a minute before and was c
ontinuing her run toward Impervia. Dreamsinger waited politely (keeping her gaze elsewhere, pretending she didn't notice anything ungainly) until the Caryatid staggered to a halt. Then the Sorcery-Lord lifted her head and said, "So, dear sister, you were going to explain…?"
The Caryatid curtsied low. My grandma Khadija (who'd been governor of Sheba for twenty-three years) had told me the Sparks hated people bowing or scraping—"They don't want deference, they want obedience." But Dreamsinger waited placidly as the Caryatid held the curtsy for a full five seconds. Then the Caryatid rose and said, "Milady, we… we're on a quest."
Dreamsinger's eyes grew wide. "Really? My brother says the only people who believe in quests are professors of literature. But he must have been teasing. My family likes to invent stories to see what I'll believe. They call me 'delightfully gullible.' "
She repeated the phrase in the singsong voice of a little girl who's heard the words frequently but doesn't quite understand them. Perhaps beneath her luscious exterior, Dreamsinger was far more child than woman. As I said, girls from affluent families often received Kaylan's Chameleon as a "Welcome to puberty" gift; take away the sorcerous glamour, and the real Dreamsinger might only be eleven, with scrapes on her knees and a first-figure bra. One might ask why her family let her leave Spark Royal without an adult chaperon… but her freeze-the-room spell showed she could take care of herself. Perhaps it was standard practice for the High Lord to send his children on the prowl: GO YE INTO ALL THE WORLD, AND INSTILL THE FEAR OF THE LORDS.
"I regret," Dreamsinger said, "I don't know much about Life. I have paid a great price to follow the Burdensome Path. A grave and awful price." She looked to the Caryatid for sympathy. "Studying day and night, learning to reprogram the world. This is the first time I've been outside Spark Royal since… dear me, I don't remember. Sorcery has jumbled my brain."
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