Signy reminded me more than ever of Grandmother. My face flamed with rage; my nostrils filled with the memory of orange blossoms, though none were in sight. Instead, all around us were yellow weed-blossoms like the one I remembered the bee alighting on after I’d given up calling. Remembering, I felt something within me fall into place. I sent a silent call, and suddenly, from every direction, bees streamed toward us.
Not everyone reacts to bees in the same way. Some go still and quiet, avoiding any sudden movements until the bee flies off about its business; some run away; others flail their arms and swat at the bee. As I had expected—as I had gambled—Ursula was the first type, the quiet kind, the same as all the bee-keepers I had ever met, or have ever met since that day.
Orme and Signy were the third kind: the kind that invariably get stung. While they flailed ineffectually at an ever-growing swarm of bees that stung their arms and faces, Ursula and I made our escape.
~o0o~
I sold my embroidered gown for travel money at the next market-town. “I wish you hadn’t had to part with it,” Ursula said. “It’s lovely—finer than anything I’ve ever had.”
It had never occurred to me that she envied me the dress. “I’ll never miss it. I took part of the payment in floss. I can embroider my plain travel gown just as well or better.”
“Really? Those acres of embroidery were all your work?”
I sat on the ground, gathered up a bit of my skirt, and began embroidering. “That gown was covered in flowers of the Isle of Sorcery. It’s time I made myself a new herbal.” With deft, rapid stitches, before I could forget, I began setting down an image of the weed-blossom that had drawn the bee, stitching myself to my new life and my rediscovered powers.
Grave Magic
Steve Chapman
Princess Shada has always been confident of abilities, a trait that tends to get her into trouble. It’s not that she can’t learn from her mistakes; she just never runs out of new ones to make.
Steve Chapman is a learning science professional who writes genre short fiction and novels in his somewhat elusive spare time. He lives with his wife, daughter, and sailboat at the New Jersey shore. This is his sixth appearance in Sword and Sorceress.
Shada resisted the urge to block the black sword. She could smell a feint, even when it was about to stab her in the face.
Rather than raise her own blade, she held her stance for the long moment it took the black sword to change its angle of attack, dropping for her gut. She resisted an easy downward block, instead leaning into a sideways slash that tore the hilt from Miss Delirium’s hand. The black sword clattered across the floor.
Miss Delirium darted inside Shada’s guard, aiming a hard chop at her throat. Shada’s blunted sword was faster, blocking the blow. Shada kicked low and put Miss Delirium on the mat.
“Two out of three?” Shada helped her instructor to her feet.
The Fighting Master, a slim, hard woman of indeterminate age, regarded Shada with contempt. “You have more natural ability with a sword than any child I’ve taught. Yet the lesson escapes you.”
“I won,” Shada said. “I always win.”
“Winning is not the point of this instruction. Some battles cannot be won with a sword, not matter how expertly wielded.” Miss Delirium picked up her weapon. “As a princess, you will need to understand this.”
“I never asked to be a princess.” Shada yearned for the simplicity of combat. You fight the enemy. You win or die.
“That’s why you come to me. Here you’re no princess. Here you’re nothing but what I say you are.” Miss Delirium bowed. “I say you are leaving.”
Shada weighed punching her in the face.
“Shada.” Her sister Sienna stood in the doorway, dazzling in her blue dress uniform. “You’re not ready.”
In the brief thrill of forgetting she was a princess, Shada had forgotten she had to get dressed up to watch her godfather die.
~o0o~
It was called the Black Parade, the procession of Court worthies that marched from the gates of St. Navarre along the cliff road and past the Elders’ Boneyard up to the Tartarsfell Point, where the execution would take place.
Shada rode near the front of the column. Her father, King Sisco, was just ahead, surrounded by Scarlet Guardsmen, blood red capes billowing in the bitter wind. Before him, wrists bound, cloaked and hooded in traitor’s black, rode Shada’s godfather, the man known as the Consul.
Autumn clouds pressed low to the ground. Below the ocean raged and smashed.
Shada couldn’t contain her anxiety. She urged her mount forward and drew up beside the King. “Father, there’s no other way?”
He looked away.
She bounded forward again, coming abreast of the Consul. He was of middle years, but within the dark hood looked older, recent events having drained the color from his face.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted.
The Consul shook his head. Whether he was accepting her condolences or still protesting his innocence, she couldn’t say.
The column halted. The shadow of the gallows fell across the road, the noose dancing in the wind.
The Consul stood, hooded and bound, as the charges were read: plotting the murder of King Sisco to take St. Navarre’s crown. The Consul was her father’s closest friend, the kindest and cleverest man Shada knew. It seemed impossible that he could have done this.
But in her sixteen years Shada had met no one like her father. He was a strong ruler, yes, but there was wisdom to his strength unique among the men of power she’d met. Her father was never wrong. This certainty was the only thing holding her together now. On the night of the Consul’s arrest Queen Allaire had fled St. Navarre to parts unknown. She had left no word, communicated no reason.
Shada loved her mother as much as her father. She felt dizzy wondering what could have sent her away. The King refused to speak of it.
The Pontifex led the assembly through the Lost Prayer. Shada mouthed the words but was lost in her own thoughts. Her family, imperfect as it was, had fallen to pieces in the space of days. She felt shattered, like she couldn’t make it through the ceremony. But when she looked up she saw her father, standing tall, and understood she didn’t have a choice. She would soldier through, as always.
The Pontifex closed The Book of the Dead and the guardsmen pulled the hooded man to the noose. He came apart in their hands, a collection of gourds and melons rolling across wooden planks, an empty cloak whipping in the wind.
Of the Consul there was no trace.
~o0o~
Days later, the sky was as low and dark as Shada’s mood as she retraced the steps of the Black Parade. A soaking wind blew off the sea, fall segueing fast into winter.
Her friend Micah, cloaked in the violet of the College of Mages, marched ahead, fingers in quick, deft motion. At the overlook where the gallows had stood, he halted. “There’s nothing.”
“I spoke to the Consul during the procession,” Shada said. “He didn’t escape in St. Navarre. He used magic. Right here.”
Micah sighed. “The College performed a full investigation. They found no trace of sorcery.”
“Then they missed it.” Shada didn’t give an inch. She knew she was right. “I’ve known the Consul my whole life. He’s the smartest man I’ve ever met.”
“Shada, the man virtually raised you. Now he’s going to murder you?”
When the Consul vanished on the gallows, she’d felt a shock of relief: she wouldn’t have to watch him die. But a second later the first hint of dread tickled her spine. The Consul would have thought everything through. He would understand that he would never be truly safe while Sisco—and his bloodline—still drew breath.
“He’ll work through every other possible option,” Shada said, “Before he realizes he has no choice. Please, check.”
Micah opened his hands, revealing tattoos on both palms, and cast. The air about him shimmered. “No sorcery recognized by the College has been cast along
this road.”
“What about sorcery they don’t recognize?”
“Assumption spells?” Micah laughed. “Grave magic? Banned curricula are lost to us. But to everyone else as well.”
Shada looked back along the road. The tombs of the Elders’ Boneyard jutted into the bleak sky. “Grave magic is powered by dead bodies.”
“It’s not that simple,” Micah said.
Shada was already jogging toward the cemetery. Statues and mausoleums sanded by centuries stood blank-faced watch above hundreds of overgrown graves.
“The older the corpse the more powerful the magic, right?” Shada hadn’t paid excessive attention to her sorcery tutorials. “These are really old.”
“If the Consul somehow recovered an old necromantic scroll and dug up one of these graves to power it,” Micah said, “He might have managed a transmigration as the Parade passed.”
“Then that’s what happened.”
“No.” Micah gestured at the overgrown necropolis. “Look. No one’s disturbed anything here for—” He gestured with tattooed hands—another spell.
The landscape shifted. Micah fell to his knees.
Shada’s eyes watered from the effort of seeing the boneyard. “What’s happening?”
Micah looked like he’d seen a dozen ghosts. “I’ve dissipated a huge enchantment, cast across the entire cemetery.”
Shada followed his gaze and gasped aloud. The cemetery was no longer overgrown and desolate. That had been the illusion. In reality, every grave—hundreds of them—stood open.
Recently opened and emptied.
~o0o~
The King’s Conclave was in session.
Shada had run straight from the Boneyard. She slipped into the shadows of the vast chamber. The walls and floors were unfinished rock, the ceiling lost in darkness. The only light came from the Cordis, an enormous, milky crystal threaded with shifting coils of cyan, throwing eerie saltwater illumination. Representatives from St. Navarre’s Fourteen Families fidgeted in chairs set around the crystal.
King Sisco stood, casting iridescent shadows on the walls.
Shada kept to the shadows. She couldn’t just reveal herself. While her father would believe her, he needed to convince a majority of the Conclave to take action. She had to find the words to make the rest of them listen.
Sienna, beautiful yet without vanity in her dress, stood. Shada’s heart sank. Her sister was as articulate as a House Liege, while Shada, a natural athlete and skilled fighter, was a proven klutz with her tongue. She’d never find the words.
“Gift the Consul with a faraway Seat,” Sienna said. “It will appear an honor, yet remove him from his base of power.”
“I offered him Devonnair. Two thousand acres.” King Sisco’s voice was a thrilling tumble of gravel. “He spurned me.”
“The Consul is an honored servant of St. Navarre.” Lucius Arabount, tubby and pox-marked behind magicked tattoos that presented a trim figure and fair face, rose. “We must hold a summit. Resolve our differences peacefully.”
“Here, here,” someone muttered.
A summit would take days to arrange. Days in which the Consul would use the power he had gathered.
Grave magic sunders the barrier between life and death, Micah had told Shada in the boneyard. Centuries ago the necromancers of Errebia penetrated the mortal curtain. They resurrected their dead, created armies from their opponents’ fallen. They believed the entire world must submit to them. Much of it did. But grave magic can’t be controlled. The fissure between life and death spread, bringing Errebia down in ruins. The few who survived burned their books before taking their own lives. The College executes any sorcerer found researching necromancy. The threat is too great.
This was the threat the Consul now represented. Shada had to act before Arabount carried the day.
She stepped into the light. “The Consul used grave magic to escape the gallows.”
The room bustled and murmured.
“Shada.” Sisco spoke softly. “This is not your place.”
“Hundreds—” Shada couldn’t help the stammer. “Hundreds of corpses have been excavated from the Elders’ Boneyard, hidden by sorcery. Do you understand what this means?”
Arabount spoke. “That your imagination is puissant as ever, Princess?”
Snickers erupted.
Shada felt her face flush. But she mastered her tongue and explained, as Micah had explained to her. “A single corpse could power enough grave magic for the escape we witnessed. But a hundred corpses? The Consul can only intend to summon a necromancer.”
“It hasn’t be done for centuries,” someone said. “The Archmage claims it’s impossible.”
“You all know the Consul.” Shada took her time, found her rhythm. “If he set his mind to it, do you truly believe it couldn’t be done?”
No jeers. She had them thinking.
“Necromancy has been forbidden so long we have no defenses against it. A necromancer—able to set our dead against us—could destroy St. Navarre in a matter of days.” A wave of nausea nearly doubled Shada over as she realized what she was about to say. “We have to kill the Consul. Before he destroys us.”
For a long moment Shada thought her argument had carried the day.
Then her father spoke. “We’re all grieved by your mother’s disappearance, Shada. But I’ll indulge your nonsense no longer. To your chambers. The Conclave will complete its business without further interruption.”
“This Conclave’s business is done,” Arabount said.
Sisco looked up sharply.
“Setting your daughter to libel the Consul.” Arabount stood. “This blatant attempt at manipulation is unworthy of the Crown. I ask all who agree to join me in protest.”
He turned and marched out. Eight of the fourteen Seats joined him.
~o0o~
Two Scarlet Guardsmen escorted Shada to her rooms. At the top of the long stairway one said, “Five days.”
The length of her incarceration.
A necromancer would slaughter the Guard and turn their walking corpses into weapons. In five days everyone in the Citadel could be dead.
But that wasn’t the worse of it. Shada could barely wrap her mind around it: her father was wrong.
“Arabount is secretly backing the Consul.” Within the chamber, Sienna rose to greet her. “He was looking for an opportunity to scuttle the Conclave. Your appearance was just what he needed, sister.”
Furious at the intrusion, Shada drew her sword. The Guardsmen raised their blades.
“Stand down.” Sienna’s voice was calm as ever. “My sister loves me, and merely wishes to add a new weapon to her collection.”
Shada had transformed the large outer room into an accoutered practice space, the walls lined with swords she’d taken as souvenirs from beaten opponents. Beyond arched windows the sun sank into the ocean, leaving the sky a brazier of angry pink light, shimmering across the many blades.
Her sister was playing one of her inscrutable Court games. Sienna the perfect princess, beautifully dressed and spoken, was as crafty a manipulator as Arabount.
“For each one of these swords you’ve left some Duke’s son or infantry captain bleeding in the dust.” Sienna made of a show of examining the weapons. “No wonder you’re so beloved at Court.”
“They already hated me.” Shada despised the lies and cruelties of Court. “Now they fear me.”
“It must be lovely, to be so feared.” Sienna took a hilt, tested its weight. “But if you’re planning to thrash everyone in St. Navarre who says something unpleasant about our mother, you’ll need a larger room.”
“Your heart is stone,” Shada said. To Sienna everything seemed a joke.
Sienna raised the blade. “Do you make clear to an opponent the approach of your attack before you make it?”
“Am I your opponent?” Surely just this once the two of them could manage not to fight.
Sienna blinked. “Force of habit.” She looked to
the Guardsman, positioned just outside the door. “But one must assume the walls have ears.”
Shada knew Sienna was her last chance. She swallowed her fury and accepted this wisp of a peace offering. “We can’t stand against grave magic.”
Sienna’s expression was unreadable. “Tell me.”
Shada related her trip to the boneyard.
Her sister eyed the guardsmen and dropped her voice to a furious whisper. “Yes, we should spike the Consul’s head on Eastgate. But to do so without Conclave support is political suicide. I worked for weeks to build a case for his assassination that could win a vote. And just now you destroyed it.”
Shada felt like she’d been slapped in the face. “I didn’t know.”
“In the future maybe you’ll leave the politics to me and just concentrate on the punching and stabbing?”
“Then help me do some punching and stabbing.” Shada glared. “Get me out of here.”
“How do you talk to Micah?”
Shada looked about. “I, uh, don’t—”
“Of course you do.”
Shada didn’t trust her sister. But Sienna had followed her first, panicked glance to the silvered wall mirror. She saw it and knew.
“How do you turn it on?” Sienna asked. “Activation word?”
Shada nudged Sienna out of the mirror’s frame. She stared into her own eyes and smiled. A glow ignited within the crystal.
“Seriously?” Sienna rolled her eyes.
“So only I can make it work.” Shada felt her face grow crimson.
Mercifully, Micah appeared in the glass. “Shada?”
“They didn’t believe me,” she said. “The College has to act.”
Micah swallowed. “They won’t.”
“But you told them about the bodies?”
“And they’re terrified. Their sorceries can’t fight grave magic. So the College of Mages will wait—offending neither party—until the matter is resolved. One way or another.”
Shada felt as if the world was collapsing around her.
“I have to go.” Micah looked over his shoulder. “I won’t be able to contact you—“
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