Heart Quest

by Robin D. Owens

  “I’ve never ported to the place at night. I don’t know the light and shadows. Mitchella D’Blackthorn doesn’t have the Flair to teleport and I doubt she hired any workers who could. I sense no landing pad—with or without a light.” He began to run, following the fox.

  “Just as cautious as I originally thought.” Tinne loped beside him.

  Ilex briefed him as they ran through the night. The exercise swept more of the cobwebs of depression sticking to his heart away. His mind felt clear and focused, his body strong and tireless. The twinmoons were ripening to full, which would be Samhain, the new year.

  Twenty-eight

  They arrived at the house that had once belonged to the Lobelia Family, a now defunct line. The courtyard was clean and cobbled. Large skeletal trees were black against the dark blue stars-and-moons-bright sky, hiding a portion of the front aspect. Neat and tidy flower beds ran along each side of the paved courtyard and against the house itself.

  The place stood, solid and beautiful with an architecture of times gone by, but the aura from it was young and fresh and cheerful, and reminded Ilex of Trif and Greyku, and he couldn’t speak.

  Tinne rubbed his hands. “How do we get in?”

  Ilex just slanted him a look. “Legally. All building identify spells include access for Druida guards.”

  “Even deep in the night?”

  “Especially deep in the night.”

  “Ah. Well, I really wouldn’t have wanted to mess up D’Blackthorn’s work in restoring the place.”

  “Not to mention that the spellshields will be top-of-the-pyramid. Put in by T’Blackthorn himself at least.”

  “Not to mention that. Probably would have gotten a shock that bounced me to the Cave of the Dark Goddess and back.”

  “Probably.”

  It hears you, Vertic said.

  They hadn’t kept their voices down and the house began to glow turquoise.

  “It’s becoming,” Tinne said with awe. “Becoming a Residence. A real entity.”

  “Yes,” Ilex said. The house was changing from wood and plaster to a sentient being.

  It takes time for a Residence to be born, Vertic said. His mental voice was projected enough for Tinne to hear it. The young man must have passed some internal Vertic-test.

  Tinne glanced down at the fox. “So it does. I’ve never seen it before.” He shivered a little. “I’ve never been in a place that was becoming.”

  It won’t eat you. Vertic grinned. It loves company.

  “Huh,” Tinne said.

  Standing and flicking his bushy tail, Vertic trotted up to the door. He sniffed around the threshold. It is a good place now.

  Ilex and Tinne exchanged glances. Tinne shrugged. They walked to the square front door, new and wooden and shining with black tint. Ilex placed his hand in the depression and touched the cold identify. “Guardsman Ilex Winterberry and associates, FamFox Vertic and Tinne…Winterberry.”

  Tinne twitched, but Ilex ignored him. The door opened smoothly and quietly. As they swept over the threshold, pretty spell lamps set in wall brackets lit, glowing gold and picking up the creamy wall color.

  “Welcoming,” Tinne said.

  Thank, said a tiny voice in Ilex’s mind. The voice of the house-becoming-Residence.

  Vertic’s claws snicked down the red tiled corridor and he turned left…and the sound disappeared.

  “He’s doing that on purpose?” asked Tinne, setting his hand on his blazer.

  “Yes.”

  No danger here. Never, never, never…again, whispered the house, unhappiness in the sound of its words, and radiating from the walls.

  Sighing, Ilex lifted his hands. “Calm.” He sent the feeling through the house like a soft, warm breeze.

  Thank.

  Tinne shifted his shoulders. “Yes, well…”

  They turned the corner, but there was no sign of the fox.

  This way. Vertic sent a map with a fox-red color trail. Ilex was grateful since he was near the end of his Flair energy for the day. Tinne didn’t seem much better. Emotional storms played hell with Flair. Finally, they found Vertic sitting at the end of a narrow hall, before a door.

  No one goes here. The room is still not ready for a den, not even for humans.

  “Ah,” Tinne cleared his throat.

  Sorry, the house sobbed. The atmosphere in this corner of the house was oppressive.

  I will not go in, Vertic said. Smells are too strong, FamMan.

  Since Ilex was sensitive to odors, he decided to play it safe, and took a bespelled triangle of cloth and put it gently against his nose and mouth. It formed around them and he breathed in sweet pine.

  Tinne sniffed. “There’s a lingering heavy odor, but nothing too bad.” He opened the door.

  Emotions poured out, engulfing Ilex. Though they had faded, he still sensed the fight-or-die feelings of the three who’d battled for their lives…knew where each had been at the moment death had overcome.

  “Lights,” Tinne said, and several sconces lit. Strolling in and around, Tinne said, “A nice room.” He went to the far end, then paced back, rolled his shoulders. “This part doesn’t feel the same, though.” He tapped a faded line scarred on the wooden floor. “Used to be a wall here.”

  “Yes,” Ilex forced from his throat. He stepped in, and more layers of people coming and going flowed around him, more recent. Workers. Mitchella Clover. He withdrew a record orb from his belt, went to the middle of the room, and hung it in the air with a spell.

  “The guy at the bar was right,” Tinne said. “That incense Lobelia used soaked into the walls and floor. Hard to get out, even with a cleansing by a Temple priest and priestess.”

  “I think there’s already been a molecular cleansing.”

  “You’d have to tear out the walls and floor—”

  The house whimpered. Tinne stiffened, bowed. “Sorry, house.”

  Tinne sighed. “The place is a nice size, but Genista would never live here.” A slight drift of air held depression. “Sorry, house, you are quite lovely, but my wife wants something bigger and in a more titled neighborhood.”

  “I think it is unique, has definite possibilities,” Ilex said truthfully.

  “Nothing here,” Tinne said.

  “Yes, there is.” Ilex had completed a circuit around the room. He went to a corner where the scent of incense was the heaviest. Gesturing to the right-hand wall, he said, “There was an altar there.”

  “All houses have altars, though I wouldn’t have said this room was a good Ritual room.”

  “Not an altar dedicated to the Lady and Lord. One to the Negative Force. To Evil.”

  “Like the current murders?”

  “Perhaps,” Ilex said. Palms up, he crouched in the corner, running his hands down the walls, sensing energies. “There is an extra shieldspell here, slight, but noticeable, of Lobelia’s making. Difficult to unlock.”

  Tinne joined him and ran his hand where Ilex had. “Maybe you can feel it. I can’t.”

  “Illusion spell to cloak the shieldspell,” Ilex muttered, thinking of possible spell-breaking codes.

  “Very tricky.”

  “Yes.”

  “Ilex…the last Lobelia was an oracle, right?”

  Ilex stopped concentrating on the corner and looked at Tinne. He’d forgotten that. “Yes.”

  “You wouldn’t want to trigger anything that could, uh, send a blast of that sort of Flair at you, right?”

  “No, I wouldn’t want any sort of prophetic Flair melding with my own.” Ilex stood. “I don’t have the time or the Flair to deal with this tonight.” He plucked the record sphere from the air, turned it off, and sent it to Chief Sawyr’s desk in the guardhouse. Staring at the corner, he narrowed his eyes. “But this is one of the keys to the case, I know it.”

  Tinne nodded. “Good. We might be able to end it before the new year.”

  “I hope so. I’ll come back tomorrow morning and root it out.”

  Thank, said th
e house. Was ordered. Not able to say about hole. Thank. The air thickened around them as if gathering energy. I will be clean. Someday.

  Trif woke in her childhood room and was disoriented for a few minutes, then remembered all that had happened. Pain washed over her and she shoved it away, refused to feel it, to think about Ilex. What with the big Holly Family crisis and Tinne Holly…Winterberry coming to Mitchella at T’Blackthorn’s, all her attention had been focused on helping him and settling him in a guest suite and preparing one for his wife. So she hadn’t had time to strategize how to get Ilex to change his mind and come to her.

  Going to him would not accomplish what she wanted, but living without him was painful. The bond between them remained the thickness of a fine hair, barely noticeable, and that hurt too.

  She slept late, then rose for a late breakfast, leaving Greyku sleeping on a pillow next to hers. Neither her mother nor her aunts scolded her because they were eager for first-hand information about the Holly scandal. Then they had to discuss whether the Clover Compound should remain a venue for D’Holly’s lessons with Trif.

  “Yes!” Trif said, spitting bread crumbs and hastily covering her mouth with a softleaf and swallowing.

  Since no one commented on her manners, she knew they listened. They, the matriarchs of the family, were listening to her. She had grown up. After another swallow, she said, “D’Holly is a wonderful woman, but she’s a HeartMate and supports her husband. Lark told me that D’Holly sent a note blessing the marriage, so her broken Vow of Honor doesn’t weigh on her as much. It’s T’Holly’s that seems to be the curse. He’s head of the household, after all. She needs us, needs this place, and I want her to have it.”

  “Well said,” replied one of the aunts. “I agree.” There was a murmur around the table and by the time it was done, Trif knew that the Clover women would stand behind D’Holly. Not that she’d thought any differently. The GreatLady had charmed the women.

  “To lose a child is ravaging enough, without being ostracized,” one of the aunts said. Again, everyone agreed.

  Trif ’s mother gave a little cough. When Trif looked at her, she’d flushed. “I did want to say that there was a scry from T’Holly Residence canceling your lessons again today, Trif.”

  “I see,” Trif said, though disappointment shimmered through her. What was she going to do to keep her mind off Ilex?

  “And there was also a scry from the Noble Council for you!”

  “Me? Trif said blankly.

  “You are to play for a two-hour set during the New Year Celebrations, in GreatTemple roundpark.”

  “Me!” This time she squeaked.

  “Yes. I saved the scry, the details are in the cache.”

  “Oh.”

  But before she could scurry over to the bowl, her mother leaned forward. “What of your HeartMate?” Trif felt like a child again. As she’d expected, they wormed the story from her.

  At the end, her mother sighed, frown lines creasing her brow. “I don’t like this premonition of his, and if it was anyone other than you, I’d say wait and see.” Her voice caught. “But being who you are, you won’t wait, will you?”

  “No. I’m figuring out what to do next.”

  “You’re right in that if you two are to have a future as equal mates, he must come to you.” One of her aunts nodded.

  “Thank you.”

  Picking her words, Trif ’s mother said, “What of this man’s mother? Could you speak with her?”

  “I don’t think they get along.”

  Her own mother folded her hands, nodded. “All the more then. See the mother and you may understand the son better.”

  “Perhaps. But I don’t know that I want to intrude into his life that much.”

  “He should know you wouldn’t give up on him and your love. You will continue to be in his life, affecting him.” This was punctuated with a jabbing finger.

  “You may be right.”

  They all told Trif what to do and she left the dining room with her mind spinning, as well as a list of tunes that she would perform on New Year’s according to the scry message. She escaped into her room, but just before she was about to leave the compound, the men clumped home from work for lunch and insisted on a noontime concert.

  After that, the women commandeered her efforts for the preparations for Samhain and New Year’s; then the children were home from grove study and she had another, more critical audience. The break for afternoon snacks was welcome, and flung her back to her childhood with kids of all sizes jostling for their favorite foods, telling jokes and stories of the day, playing with Greyku. It was impossible not to fall into old habits.

  By the time she left in the late afternoon, she’d practiced her pieces and variations on them long and hard enough that she was ready for the performance. She’d taken part in the daily household rituals and the long family traditions in planning for Samhain. All this steadied her, made her think of her connections to her family, and how she wanted to shape her future. With Ilex.

  She ’ported from the Compound to MidClass Lodge lobby and stepped out into a puzzling red haze, flicking the safety light on. Then felt a sting like a bitemite.

  Greyku gave a startled mew. Sleepy!

  Blackness swallowed Trif.

  That morning, Ilex had spent little time in his apartment, just enough to wash and dress, then went to the turquoise house. It greeted him with a wash of sunlight and warmth, with real pleasure in seeing him again, and Ilex sensed bubbling anticipation—as if it had a deep sliver he would remove.

  It took him a morning of straining, delicate Flair work and more patience than he thought he had to unravel the spells that the last GrandLady had layered over the hidey-hole.

  Chief Sawyr and a couple of other guards were there when Ilex attacked the final barrier. “You’re sure this will lead us to the cult?”

  “I’m sure,” Ilex said for the twentieth time. He chanted a pair of Couplets and the shieldspell vanished. Scents and emotions like those he’d felt at the murder scene radiated from the small square hole. “Feel that.” He moved away.

  Sawyr bent down. A shudder rippled through his frame. “It’s the same.”

  “Yes.”

  “But this safe hasn’t been opened for more than a year.”

  “Right. I think that Lobelia was the originator of the cult.”

  “She’s dead now.”

  “Yes.” Ilex gestured for the Chief to investigate the hole.

  “Lightstream,” ordered Sawyr, and played a beam of white light over the cavity. “A bag.” He picked it up, sniffed. “Pylor. And well, well, well, what do we have here?” He reached in and pulled out a small sheet of folded papyrus, banished the light, and snapped the page open with a flick of the wrist. “Names,” he breathed. “Two columns. One with the names of young Nobles who had unsteady Flair and whose Passages might echo and repeat. As they did.”

  “The other column?” Ilex moved in to look.

  “‘Prospective members,’” Sawyr read.

  Ilex glanced at it. “I know some of these—and two don’t surprise me, but—”

  “But?”

  “I don’t think the leader is listed.”

  “No?”

  “No. I believe she came along later and refined their ceremonies, made them stronger, called forth Evil.”

  “A few months ago.”

  “Yes, that would explain why some of the ritual places didn’t look or smell or feel the same as the one murder place we found.”

  Sawyr stared him in the eye. “You have an idea who she is.”

  “I do, but no proof.”

  Showing his teeth, Sawyr said, “We’d only have to leak the name to one FirstFamilies lord….”

  “You think so? What of the law? You recall what happened when the law was circumvented in the case of Ruis Elder?”

  Sighing, Sawyr nodded. “You do have a point. That was a case the FirstFamilies mishandled from the very start.” He pummeled Ilex on the s
houlder. “Used you too, didn’t they.”

  “Yes. On several occasions. I didn’t like it. In the matter of the law, I’ll side with SupremeJudge Ailim Elder every time.”

  “That’s a lady we can respect,” Sawyr agreed. “Think we could go to her?”

  “I think we should follow procedure. Bring in these”—he tapped the column of suspects—“and question them with all the tools we have at hand.”

  “Truth spells, comparisons of their persons with the poppets you’ve made from all the data. Scents they wear or their natural fragrance, skin tone, voice timbre. You’re close on those, Ilex.”

  “I think so. That’s how I suspect the one I do.”

  “Right. Let’s go! You can ’port me back to the guardhouse.”

  Guard, whispered the house, anxiety in its tone.

  “I need to purify this safe-hole,” Ilex said. He took the Temple-blessed smudge-flare that another guardsman had brought for him and put it in the square hole.

  They all stepped back.

  “Shield your eyes.” He waited until he heard everyone say the Words, then did so himself. With a wide gesture, he said, “By the Lady and Lord, may the darkness of this secret place be vanquished by the Lord’s bright sunlight and the Lady’s twinmoonslight. May this alcove be cleansed and purified!” He snapped his fingers, and an explosion of light took place along with a sizzling and a burst of herbal fragrance that stung his nostrils.

  They waited until the spell ended. Examining the sconce, Ilex knew it was now simply an unimpressive feature in the wall. Since it had been shielded from the rest of the room it had little scent or sense of evil. No shadows lingered like dusty black spiderwebs in the corners.

  Thank, said the house. Again, the emotion in its voice seemed like a sob—but unlike the night before, this one was of joy.

  Sawyr clapped Ilex on the shoulder. “Let’s go do our work. If we manage this right, we’ll have everything wrapped up today and we won’t need to risk a hair of that boy GreatLord’s head. That will be more than fine with me.”

  Twenty-nine

  “This time, let’s kill the Fam too. Drain it. It can’t contain much Flair and we will need it all.”