Shade and Sorceress

by Catherine Egan

  “Lah, Charlie,” she breathed. “So that’s who you are.”

  “Shades are such odd things,” said Nia, regarding him briefly without interest. “They seem to make everybody uncomfortable, don’t they?” She looked back at Eliza, animated again. “We’ll leave him there for now and get on with our visit. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to insist that you bathe. You absolutely stink.”

  Eliza tore her eyes away from Charlie’s undulating non-shape on the wall. Behind Nia, the white tiger was stretched out and watching her.

  “I have the Book of Barriers,” she said, taking it out of her satchel. She didn’t know what kind of tone to take, how to behave. She had expected the Sorceress to be frightening, had braced herself for that. She was not prepared at all for this lovely, smiling woman in silk pajamas. “I’ve come for my da.”

  She handed the book to Nia, who wrinkled her nose a little and took it, turning it over in her hands and flipping through a few pages.

  “I’ve been on my own here,” Nia said with an annoyed look, “or practically alone, for quite some time. Your father is not exactly the best company I’ve ever had. You’ve been romping all over Tian Xia while I sat here twiddling my thumbs, and now I want to hear about it. So if you want to see your father you’ll wash your filthy self and stay long enough to have a nice gossip.” She slammed the book shut and tossed it onto the divan. Eliza was horrified to see the object she had risked her life and her friends’ lives to bring treated so carelessly.

  “You said you just wanted the book...” she pleaded.

  “What I want,” said Nia, and her eyes flashed dangerously, “is to talk. I’m bored out of my mind here, do you know that? I’ve been conjuring up my own entertainment for the last ten years. But I’m bored, and I’m homesick, and I’ve been waiting and waiting to see you, and now you just want to run straight off with your da. No. That is not how this is going to work. You are going to have a bath and put on something pretty and then we are going to have fun. All right?”

  “All right,” stammered Eliza. Nia relaxed, smiling radiantly at her.

  Without really meaning to, Eliza found herself putting down her staff and starting to remove the dragon claw from her neck. It required all her force of will not to remove the dragon claw. It was the only thing she had resembling a weapon, and she wasn’t about to give it up. She looked up at Nia obstinately, and Nia laughed.

  “Swarn took a liking to you, I gather. Don’t worry; I can’t take it from you, even when you’re dead. I’m sure she told you that.”

  The words even when you’re dead chilled Eliza. She didn’t want to take off the dragon claw or have a bath, and yet refusing seemed somehow impossible. She watched, appalled, as her own hands removed the long, black claw and laid it down by her staff. She turned away from Nia to undress herself.

  “Oh, honestly,” said Nia, clicking her tongue impatiently. “We’re like family. No need to be shy.”

  Eliza hurriedly took off the furs and Nell’s clothes and stepped into the tub. The water was lovely and hot. Next to the bath was a shelf with a sponge and crystal bottles of shampoo and scented soap. Now that she was in the bath, it seemed to her that she could have refused if she had really wanted to. She felt terribly vulnerable and rather ridiculous, too, taking a bath in front of the legendary, dangerous Xia Sorceress, all her weapons lying out of reach.

  Nia threw herself down on the divan again. “So, you stayed with the Faithful,” she said conversationally, picking up a pillow which turned into a blue ribboned dress roughly Eliza’s size. She frowned and shook her head at it and it became a pillow again. “Their cuisine could use a little work, don’t you think?”

  “You’ve been there?” said Eliza, surprised. “I thought you were at war with...them. Everyone.”

  Nia smiled at that. “Not with everyone, silly. What do they say? The victors write history. But this story is far from over and I plan to write my own version when all’s said and done. Well, I stayed with them long before the Oracle and I fell out. What did you think of the Oracle, by the way? Isn’t she horrible?”

  “They wanted to kill me,” said Eliza. She had the urge to pour out the whole story, but she bit the words back. This was a spell, of course. She remembered what Foss had told her about floating the pencil, how it ought to be easy because the pencil had no will of its own to resist her will. Well, Eliza had a will of her own, and she wasn’t going to be pushed around by this Sorceress. She scrubbed herself vigorously with the sponge.

  “Typical of them,” said Nia, eyeing her with a coy smile. She went back to concentrating on the pillow, which became a variety of party dresses, one after the other. She settled on a beige suede skirt and jacket lined with soft white fur and held it up for Eliza to see. “How about this? It fits the Arctic theme. Do you like it?”

  “Yes,” said Eliza, simply because it was the easiest answer and least likely to offend. Nia tossed the dress aside. Matching boots appeared next to the divan.

  “Show me your tattoos,” she said, leaning forward. Surprised, Eliza held up her palms. Nia studied the pictures carefully.

  “What does the dagger signify?”

  “I dinnay know,” said Eliza. “I dinnay know what the raven is, either.”

  “Oh, don’t be obtuse,” Nia chided her, and grabbed her right hand to look at the dagger more closely. “Odd that it points towards you,” she said thoughtfully. “You know, with most beings I don’t care much one way or the other if they live or die. It’s not as if they’re going to do anything with their little lives. But I feel quite sorry about you. You’re so full of possibilities. I wish we could know somehow what you would do, if you had a chance to grow up. What do you think you would do?”

  Eliza went cold with fear, even in the warm water. “I brought the book,” she said, and her voice shook. “I did what you asked.”

  Nia gave a listless shrug.

  With a splash, Eliza got out of the bath and dried herself on the large towel that lay where her clothes had been. She looked around for her furs and the clothes Nell had given her, but they were gone. She had no choice but to put on the outfit Nia had conjured up. It fit her perfectly and was very comfortable, but she felt foolish wearing something so girlishly fashionable. She hung the dragon claw around her neck again and snatched up her staff, feeling only slightly better to be clothed and armed again.

  “Better,” observed Nia. “We still need to do something about the rest of you. We’ll be spending quite a bit of time together and I so prefer being surrounded by beauty. Look at me; you’d never guess that I was centuries old, would you? I won’t say how many centuries, but when you know the right Tian Xia Faeries there’s no need to worry about getting all wrinkly or having a heart attack. You know, I can’t think why miserable old Supreme Mancer-Nose doesn’t get off his high horse and arrange to be handsome, or at least bearable to look at. Honestly, that massive forehead!”

  Eliza was warm and flushed from the bath but even through the dress the end of the dragon claw was ice-cold against her stomach. She clung to her staff to keep her hands from shaking, looked squarely at the Sorceress and asked again, “Where’s my da?”

  Nia rolled her eyes. “You have no idea how silly you look, trying to be menacing.”

  “You dinnay even care about the book,” said Eliza, the horrified realization creeping over her. Nia had scarcely looked at it since she’d handed it to her.

  “Poor thing, when you’ve carried it all this way. Look, I don’t mean to say that it’s useless. Books are knowledge, and knowledge is never useless. But it’s not quite the same as power, is it? I mean, it would take ages to use this book to break the barriers, and patience and diligence are really not my thing.”

  “What do you want, then?” demanded Eliza.

  “Why, you, of course!” said Nia. “And now you’re here.”

  Eliza found herself suddenly seated in a large, very soft chair. There was a tea table between the two of them and a monkey in
a blue suit was pouring out tea into delicate little cups. Nia was watching Eliza eagerly for her reaction but Eliza refused to play along with this nonsense anymore. She leaped to her feet, spilling the tea and frightening the monkey, and pointed her staff straight at Nia. I killed the hound of the Crossing, she thought desperately. I escaped from the Mancers and from the Triumvira. I’ve been through both worlds. I can do this.

  “I...want...my...da,” she ground out between her teeth. “Now.”

  She had hoped beyond hope that when she needed it most, the staff the Mancers had given her might do something at last. But nothing happened.

  “Look at you,” said Nia with an affectionate little smile, not putting down her teacup. “Adorable! A child with the barest smidgen of Magic and the sad delusion that you could last five seconds against me.” She was holding Eliza’s staff in her own hand now. She stood up slowly and bent close to Eliza. Eliza could smell the sugary tea on her breath. Nia wrapped one of Eliza’s damp, disorderly curls around her finger and gave it a little tug. “Well, little smidgen, you’ve come running straight into the only place left where I still have power, eager as anything, and now that you’re here, what fun we’re going to have. Although,” and here she gave Eliza’s hair a yank that made her cry out, “it might not be quite as much fun for you. You should have listened to your horrid Mancers.” She laid a hand on Eliza’s chest and gave her a push, and Eliza fell back into the chair. The monkey was cowering in a corner of the room while the tiger eyed it intently, licking its lips.

  “Now,” said Nia, looking at the staff disdainfully as if she’d just picked up a piece of trash, “what in the worlds did you bring this for?”

  Eliza didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She was frozen in the chair, looking up at the Sorceress, waiting for whatever killing blow must be coming next.

  “I suppose the Mancers told you it was special or important,” Nia went on. “You know, they were right to try and keep you from me, but if I had a mind to I could teach you a great deal more than they can.”

  “Like what?” Eliza managed to ask, just to keep her talking, which Nia seemed more than happy to do.

  “Well, for starters, do you see me waving a sissy wand about? No, you do not.” And she snapped Eliza’s staff in two over her knee. Eliza felt it like a knife in the gut. She doubled over with a cry.

  “That’s their fault, the pain it causes you. Trying to bind you to them with artificial links,” said Nia. “I know it hurts now, little smidgen, but it’ll get better and then you’ll be glad to be rid of it. I’ll bet they told you it was unbreakable. Further evidence of their delusions. But it’s just like them, do you see what I mean? All these mystical objects and so on. Power sources, channeling, that’s their kind of weak, breakable magic. You and I, we are our power. When your mother came to face me she was empty-handed and I liked that, I respected it. She was different from the others, all your dogmatic ancestors. She was stronger than them. We don’t need toys and trinkets to help us. Like their wretched whatever-it-is sphere. Why does it have to be some particular ball made out of special glass? Of course, you’ll give me the speech about the age of objects and continued use for specific Magic and so on, but I don’t care. We can make use of whatever’s on hand. If there’s nothing on hand, we conjure. Look.” She was holding a tall glass of water. Eliza clutched her stomach and stared up at it. The pain was beginning to subside. “What would you like to see? We could have a peek at the Mancers running round trying to make alliances and contingency plans, as if any of that will help them. That’s always good for a laugh.”

  “Show me my da,” said Eliza. She knew it was risky but couldn’t help herself. To her surprise, Nia seemed not to mind at all.

  “What a one-track mind you have! Here,” she said, and handed Eliza the glass. In it, she could see a watery image of her father standing by a window looking out at the snow. It looked like a hotel room, bleak and impersonal.

  “Where is that?” squeaked Eliza, tears springing to her eyes. “Is he here?”

  Nia laughed, evidently very pleased with herself. “Do you know, the entire size of my prison is only about fifty square feet. The Mancers aren’t generous with space, are they? And since your father is here too, he’s obviously very close by. The reason you can’t see him, or even the actual size and boundaries of this place, is because within the barriers all is governed by my Illusions. So you see, I’m quite busy keeping all this up. It isn’t easy. I could have just made it one cozy room for me and never changed any of it, but that would have been lazy, sort of like giving up, don’t you think?”

  The glass in Eliza’s hand disappeared. The monkey and tea table vanished at the same time. The tiger threw Nia a reproachful glance.

  “It would take your Mancers months, all of them chanting away together, to do the kind of thing I can do in a heartbeat,” said Nia scornfully.

  Eliza’s mind was reeling with this new knowledge of her father’s proximity. She would have to play this very carefully. Her immediate terror was draining out of her slowly, since in spite of her threats Nia showed no evidence of wanting to kill her right away. She wanted to keep Nia talking in the hopes of getting more information, so she said, “I did learn some things...from the Mancers.”

  “Go on, amaze me. What did you do, in your ‘lessons’?”

  “We practiced Deep Listening, aye,” said Eliza.

  “I used to do a fair bit of that when I was younger,” said Nia dismissively. “But I found myself bored to tears most of the time. Nobody was ever thinking anything worth the effort of eavesdropping on.”

  “And potions.”

  “Witch-lore meets cookery. Anybody can make a potion.”

  “And they were teaching me to make a pencil float.”

  Nia boggled at that. “What in the worlds for?”

  “Just...for practice.”

  “But what were you practicing? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!”

  “I couldnay do it, lah,” said Eliza.

  “Well, of course not! It’s an entirely purposeless act! Why should you be able to do it? I’ve never heard such nonsense. And they pretend to be the great mighty trainers of the Shang Sorceress! The truth is, Smidgen, they’re just desperate for power and relevance. Why do you think they hang about in Di Shang anyway? Altruism? Because they care so deeply about humans? No – it’s because they’re the Big Shots here, whereas in Tian Xia they’re nothing. Oh, don’t mistake me, the Mancers live a very long time, and they know a great many things, and their barriers are the mightiest in the worlds, but when it comes to power, unadulterated power, they’re nothing to you and me. That’s why they’re so eager to hang on to you.”

  “You said I dinnay have any power,” said Eliza. “Everybody says I dinnay have any power.”

  “I said you had barely any Magic,” Nia corrected her. “That’s not the same as not having any power. Unluckily for you, you can’t use the power you have, so you can’t turn it into Magic. You can thank your dear mother for that.” She paused. “Who do you mean by everybody?”

  “The Mancers, and Swarn, and the Oracle...all of them,” said Eliza.

  “I almost wish I could give you the chance to prove them all wrong,” said Nia with a sigh. “Never mind. When I’m free of these barriers and taking revenge, I’ll be sure to mention to them that they were wrong about you. How did the King of the Faeries look to you, by the way?”

  Eliza had no idea how to describe the Faery. “He was...shiny,” she stammered. “And mean.”

  Nia looked thoughtful and Eliza cast her eyes about the room. The tiger was sprawled in front of a roaring fireplace that she was sure hadn’t been there a moment ago and Charlie was still pinned to the wall. There was no door anywhere to be seen.

  “Am I trapped by the barriers too?” asked Eliza.

  “Not by barriers,” said Nia, breaking out of her reverie. She gave Eliza such a warm and dazzling smile that Eliza found herself smiling back without meaning to.
“The Mancers’ barriers only bind me and my Magic. I prefer Illusion, in the Faery style. You could learn a lot from Faeries, you know, as long as you’re careful never to trust them. If I had tried to enclose you in a barrier you would have ripped your way right out with that dragon claw by now. But to see through my Illusion...well, you’d need Faery blood to undo that! It’s not easy to kill a dragon, but it’s a good sight easier than killing a Faery, believe me.”

  “But you can make things appear and disappear so easily,” said Eliza. “Why cannay you just conjure up a dragon claw and get free?”

  “Because I haven’t killed a dragon,” said Nia as if this were a very stupid question. “Though in retrospect I should have, as a claw would be very useful. I must say, it never appealed to me, the way Swarn was always off in that foul marsh of hers throwing sharp sticks at brutish, screaming monsters. It struck me as sort of pathetic and, well, boring. I never imagined I’d end up in a situation like this. Never mind, I’ll be out soon enough. But first, I want you to tell me absolutely everything about Tian Xia. I really do miss it terribly.”

  Thinking it best to play along, Eliza proceeded to give a halting version of their journey. However, it quickly became obvious that Nia was much more interested in hearing what she herself had to say about Tian Xia, for she interrupted every sentence Eliza began with stories of her own. Eliza half-listened, so that she would be able give appropriate responses and ask questions to keep the Sorceress talking, but her mind was racing. Nia had more than once mentioned killing Eliza but was clearly in no rush to do so. She seemed starved for company – this was possibly the only thing keeping Eliza alive. She had to find some way out of this room, but it was confusing because the room kept changing. Eliza wasn’t sure how the Illusion worked. Perhaps her father was behind the wall, or under the floor, or trapped in one of the paintings (which were now hanging on the walls – the room had become much tidier since her arrival) and how was she to get at him? She had walked through the wall as if it were nothing, but would she be able to walk out the same way? The floor and the sofa were not any realer than the walls, and yet they felt entirely solid.