Third Time Lucky: And Other Stories of the Most Powerful Wizard in the World

by Tanya Huff

  Magdelene shrugged and set her travelling bag down on the kitchen floor. "They've been warned."

  "How did they take it?"

  "They took away my powers."

  "They took away your powers," Kali repeated, crossing her arms across her chest.

  "Uh huh."

  The demon looked disgusted. "Is that all?"

  "Not quite." Magdelene frowned at the sudden realization. "Those pompous bits of toe-jam kept my carpet!"

  * * * *

  "Mistress, do you sense it?"

  "Pretty hard to miss, isn't it?" Magdelene yawned, stretched, and stood. It had been a wonderful six weeks – lying in the sun, swimming, eating, attempting to get in and out of her hammock using no magic – but as parts of her house had gotten completely out of hand without supervision, she supposed it was time to call an end. "Don't wait up, Kali."

  Kali sniffed. "I never do, Mistress."

  A heartbeat later, Magdelene stood just inside the gates of the council's stronghold.

  "Magdelene!"

  "Good grief, Micholai, you look awful!"

  He staggered forward, swayed, and nearly fell. Grey-blue shadows ringed his eyes. One sleeve of his robe appeared to have been chewed off. "Demons... From out of nowhere. We barely got the gate closed after the council..."

  "The council opened the gate?"

  "They went out to talk."

  "To demons?" Inflated egos were one thing, but blatant stupidity was something else again. "What happened?"

  He shook his head. "What do you think?"

  She shook her head in turn. "What a pity. With the council gone, who's going to give me back my power."

  Micholai sighed and sagged down on a pile of rubble. "Don't be more difficult than necessary, Magdelene. After I thought about it for a little while, I realized that the council could no more take away your power than it could..." One corner of his mouth quirked up. "...force you to put on one of these stupid robes."

  Leaning forward, she gently brushed a bit of slightly charred hair back off his face. "Could you use some help?"

  "I'd be thrilled."

  "Later," Magdelene muttered and turned to face the gates. They were no longer in the best of condition. As she watched, they took a direct hit, trembled and crumbled into a line of smoking ash.

  A screaming horde of demons advanced through the opening and came to a complete halt.

  "Oh shit," said one.

  A less articulate demon stomped taloned feet, gouging great chunks out of the flagstones, and flung a serrated battle-axe in Magdelene's direction. Whistling obscenely, the axe made a complete three hundred and sixty degree turn and would have bisected the thrower had its shape allowed for two equal halves. As it was, the larger of the two pieces took out one of its smaller brethren as it fell.

  Those at the front of the horde, suddenly decided they'd rather be at the rear.

  When the carnage died down and self-inflicted wounds were being licked, a green-scaled, ivory-horned demon, enough like Kali to be her twin, called out. "We heard you'd lost your power!"

  "You heard wrong."

  "But we have been observing you! You have used no power since you came from here!"

  "So?"

  "So, you..." Ruby red eyes widened and the demon's tone grew peeved. "It's a trap!"

  Magdelene smiled. "Of course it is. You know how I hate to exert myself."

  "That's not fair!"

  "Oh for pity's sake, you're a demon. What do you know about fair?"

  "Good point," the demon acknowledged.

  The ground erupted under Magdelene's feet. Half a dozen tentacles with claw-edged suckers whipped around legs and arms and body, tightened, turned white, and flaked apart as Magdelene stepped out of their hold. The battle that followed didn't last long. When over half the horde had been destroyed, lowering the odds to barely fifty to one, the remaining demons voluntarily disappeared.

  "Demons," Magdelene explained to the silent semi-circle of black-robed wizards she found watching her when she turned, "may enjoy nothing more than wholesale slaughter, but they aren't actually stupid. Self-preservation almost always wins out over bloodlust."

  "But why a trap?" Micholai asked.

  "A demon exists only to gain power and status. While destruction of a wizard raises both, it comes with a risk. Demons don't like risk. In order to get his troops to assault me, Kan'Kon had to lead them himself. You know what happened. This place has probably been under discussion of assault for some time..."

  "But why the trap?" Micholai insisted.

  "I'm getting to that." She wiped a bit of ichor off a block of stone that had been blasted out of the wall and sat down, ignoring the decomposing demon feet sticking out from underneath. "The council wouldn't listen when I explained they were in danger. If things had continued the way they were, sooner or later one of the demon princes would've decided that the potential gain from so many wizards in one place outweighed the risk. As he wouldn't want me to get involved, he'd probably goad one of his brothers into keeping me busy long enough to destroy this place and gain its power. Which," she looked around and shook her head, "wouldn't have taken long, as the odds changed rather drastically in demonic favour when the council served themselves up on a platter."

  "So you let them think you'd been removed already." Micholai began to pace. "Essentially, you made them attack on your terms."

  "Essentially," Magdelene agreed. "And if the council had just stayed inside the walls it would have been a perfect plan and no one would've gotten hurt." She scratched at a sucker mark on the back of one calf and sighed. "Boy, am I hungry. I could really go for a plate of Kali's calamari about now."

  "Look! Look what I found!" An apprentice, no more than twelve, came running through the ruins of the gate holding Gillian's massive crystal in both hands.

  The assembled wizards stared at the huge stone. All but two lifted right hands to clutch the smaller crystals hanging around their own throats. No one spoke.

  "Give it to me," Magdelene said at last.

  As no one protested, the apprentice solemnly stepped forward and laid the crystal – worn for two hundred and fifty years by the head of the Council of Wizards – on Magdelene's outstretched hand.

  Magdelene tightened her fingers.

  The crystal shattered into purple dust.

  Eyes dancing, Magdelene blew the dust off her palm. For a moment the breezes were purple and then the dust began to settle.

  A pair of purple pigeons looked significantly unimpressed, but the small flock of ravens, violet highlights gleaming in the sun, continued to feed uncaring on scattered piles of lavender entrails.

  Micholai rolled his eyes. "Magdelene..."

  "With great power," Magdelene interrupted, "comes great responsibility." She stuck out a purple tongue. "But no one ever said that we weren't allowed to have a good time." Then she disappeared.

  Only to reappear a moment later, swooping out of the ruins of the tower and down into the courtyard.

  "Well?" the most powerful wizard in the world asked, hovering a foot or so above the ground and offering Micholai her best smile. "You coming?"

  Micholai started to protest, shrugged, grinned, and climbed cautiously aboard.

  The carpet rose straight up, and the last anyone heard, as a black wool robe drifted slowly down from the clouds, was a strangled, "Magdelene! We're going to fall off!"

  [Publisher’s note: “Nothing Up Her Sleeve” is the sixth story in chronological order. To go to the seventh and final chronological story, jump to “We Two May Meet.” To continue in written order, proceed to the next page.]

  Author's Note for "Mirror, Mirror, on the Lam"

  I always saw the Five Cities as the sort of place that Conan often ended up in. The original Robert E. Howard Conan, not the John Milius/Arnold Schwarzenegger or the Jason Momoa versions.

  Mirror, Mirror, on the Lam

  The turquoise house on the headland had stood empty for some weeks. The wind off the sea
whistled forlornly through the second floor cupola, tried each of the shuttered windows in turn, and finally, in a fit of pique, tossed a piece of forgotten garden furniture into what appeared to be a halfhearted attempt at a shrubbery.

  The green and gold lizard crouched under a wilting bayberry scrambled to safety just in time. Racing counterclockwise up the nearest palm, it stopped suddenly, lifted its head, and tested the air.

  Someone was coming.

  * * * *

  Ciro had left his donkey and cart carefully hidden at the foot of the hill. Although he doubted that any of the inhabitants of the nearby fishing village would venture so far from the cove, he never took risks he could avoid. As his dear old white-haired mother had told him, right before her public and very well-attended execution, chance favors the pessimist.

  He'd have preferred a faster form of transportation, but since his current employer had been somewhat vague on the size of the object he was to acquire, he'd erred on the side of caution. If he couldn't deliver, he wouldn't get paid.

  For safety's sake, he avoided paths and moved, where he could, from one patch of rock to the next. As he approached the house, the vegetation grew more lush, easier to hide behind if harder to move through. At the edge of the garden, he paused and studied the structure, a little taken aback by the extraordinary colour. It was smaller than he'd expected but perhaps the most powerful wizard in the world had no need for ostentatious display.

  To his surprise, the kitchen door was not only unlocked but, if the crystal his employer had given him was to be trusted, also unwarded. As he crossed the kitchen floor, Ciro sincerely hoped that the shadows dancing in the corners owed more to the way the louvred shutters filtered light than to anything the wizard may have left behind.

  Stepping out into a large square hall, he found himself facing three identical doors. As he moved forward, eyes half closed against the brilliant sunshine blazing through the circular skylight, the kitchen door closed behind him.

  Four identical doors.

  The door on his right lead to a bedroom. The bed – a huge, northern-style four-poster that overwhelmed the southern décor – had been left unmade. Ciro pulled a sandal from the closest pile of clothing and used it to block the door open before he stepped cautiously forward.

  The door closed.

  No need to panic, he told himself. You can always go out the window.

  A cloak, in a particularly vibrant shade of orange, had been draped over a large oval mirror. Standing safely to one side, he tugged at the cloth and took a quick look into the glass as it fell. A man of average height, his light brown hair and beard a little darker than his skin and a little lighter than his eyes, looked back at him. He frowned and his reflection echoed the movement. Either he'd lost weight or the mirror made him look thinner.

  It was the only mirror in the room.

  The door proved to be unlocked. It opened when he lifted the latch, and as he stepped back into the hall, it closed behind him.

  Continuing to his right, Ciro opened the next door and found himself staring into the kitchen.

  This time, he closed the door on his own.

  The door to his left should now lead to the bedroom, but he was no longer willing to take that for granted. He checked the crystal. The wizardry moving the house about was not directed at him – a mixed blessing at best. For lack of a better plan, he continued moving to the right.

  A spare room. An unmade bed and empty wardrobe. One mirror; not very large and not what he was searching for.

  The kitchen again. With luck, the shadows had changed only because the light had.

  A spiral staircase leading up to the cupola, a small square room containing only a pile of multi-coloured cushions. Peering through one of the louvred shutters that made up the bulk of the walls, Ciro found himself staring out at a view from some fifty feet above the house. Without actually lifting his feet from the floor, the thief backed up and made his way carefully down the short – the far too short – flight of stairs.

  The wizard's bedroom.

  A bathing room. A dolphin mosaic decorated the tiles surrounding the sunken tub. The drying cloths were large, thick, and soft. From the variety of soaps and lotions, it was obvious that the wizard was no ascetic. There was no mirror.

  He hadn't found a workshop yet, but figured that he would in time. He'd never known a wizard who wasn't happiest puttering about with foul-smelling potions and exploding incantations.

  The kitchen.

  The staircase.

  The bedroom.

  A sitting room. Big brightly coloured cushions were piled high on round bamboo chairs. A carafe, two glasses, and a pile of withered orange peels had been left on a low table. On one wall, floor-to-ceiling shelves had been messily stuffed with scrolls and books and the occasional wax tablet. There were more shelves on the opposite wall, but they were less regular. Most a held variety of ornaments ranging, in Ciro's professional opinion, from the incredibly tacky to the uniquely priceless. Out of habit, he tucked a few of the latter in his pockets.

  In the exact centre of the wall was an open section. In it, covered by a black cloth, was an oval object about two feet across at its widest and three long. Holding his breath, Ciro flipped the cloth to one side.

  Even knowing what to expect, he almost jumped back.

  The demon trapped in the mirror snarled in fixed impotence, as it had for decades.

  Ciro smiled, re-wrapped the mirror in the cloth, tucked the bundle under his arm, unlatched one of the large windows, and stepped out into the garden, politely closing and latching the window behind him.

  He never noticed the watching lizard.

  * * * *

  "Well Emili, did you miss me?"

  The tiny grey cat cradled in Magdelene's arms hunkered down and growled.

  "Because you're too old to leave by yourself, that's why. You're lucky Veelma was willing to take care of you."

  The path from the beach to the top of the headland was both steep and rocky, although generations of use had worn off the more treacherous edges. As the wizard climbed in breathless silence, the cat kept up a constant litany of complaint, squirming free with a final wail the moment the summit was reached and disappearing under a tangle of vegetation the moment after.

  "I know exactly how you feel," Magdelene muttered, sagging against the end of the sea wall and pushing a heavy fall of damp chestnut hair back off her face. "There's no place like home."

  Magdelene seldom travelled. It required far more exertion than she was usually willing to expend, and experience had taught her that the easier she made it for herself, the more exertion it invariably required. This particular trip had been precipitated by an extremely attractive young man who'd come a very long way to request her assistance and had cleverly exploited one of her weaknesses by making the request on his knees. He'd almost made it worth her while.

  Reluctantly rousing herself, she crossed to the kitchen door, latched it open and went inside. The wind followed her, only to be chased back outside where it belonged.

  Sometime later, cleaned, changed, and holding a tall glass of iced fruit juice, Magdelene entered the sitting room and rolled her eyes dramatically when the opened shutters exposed a fine patina of dust.

  "I've got to get another housekeeper," she muttered, dragging a finger along the edge of a shelf and frowning at the resulting cap of grey fuzz. The problem was, every time she got used to a housekeeper, they died. Antuca had been with her the longest, and the fifty years they'd shared would make it even harder to replace her.

  "On the other hand," Magdelene told herself philosophically, "someone has to do the cooking." Taking a long swallow of the juice, she crossed to the other side of the room. "Well, H'sak, did you..."

  The section of wall was empty. Even the black cloth she'd thrown over the mirror before she'd left had been taken.

  "Oh, lizard piss," said the most powerful wizard in the world.

  * * * *

  The Five Cities
were five essentially independent municipal areas set around a huge shallow lake. Reasoning they had more in common with each other than with the countries at their backs, they'd formed a loose alliance that had held for centuries. The Great Lake was the area's largest resource, and the agreement allowed them to exploit it equally. Overly ambitious city governors were traditionally replaced with more pragmatic individuals practically before the body had cooled.

  Two weeks to the day after the thief had stolen the mirror, and twenty minutes after she'd dropped the cat back at Veelma's, Magdelene appeared in Talzabad-har, the Third City, clutching a black velvet pillow in both hands. Gratefully discovering that the contents of her stomach had travelled with her, she released the breath she'd been holding and took a quick look around.

  The picture embroidered on the pillow over the barely legible words "A Souvenir of Scenic Talzabad-har" had been more or less accurate. The small stone shrine, five pillars holding apart a floor and a roof, had been rendered admirably true to life. Unable to anchor the transit spell in a place she'd never seen, Magdelene had taken a huge chance using the pillow for a reference. Fortunately, it appeared to have paid off.

  Unfortunately, the shrine was not standing in isolation on a gentle green hill as portrayed but in the centre of a crowded market square, and the clap of displaced air that had heralded Magdelene's appearance had attracted the attention of almost everyone present. Fidgeting under the weight of an expectant silence, Magdelene looked out at half a hundred curious eyes.

  Then a voice declaimed, "She has returned!" and everyone fell to their knees, hands over their faces, foreheads pressed against the ground.

  Obviously, it was a case of mistaken identity. Magdelene, who had no time to be worshipped – although she had nothing actually against it – ran for an alley on the north side of the square.

  Someone peeked.

  "She goes!"

  Experience having taught her how quickly a crowd can become a mob, Magdelene ran faster. Ducking into the mouth of the alley, she tossed the pillow back over her shoulder.