A Ragged Magic

by Lindsey S. Johnson

  I lurch to my knees, reach for Orrin’s hand, so close, so close. He looks at me but does not reach back.

  “Run,” he whispers, and throws himself into the bishop, keeping him from getting up.

  “Orrin,” I shout, but Gantry starts chanting a spell. I feel it trying to pull from me as well as Orrin, and I don’t know what all that power will do.

  I slam up all the barriers I can and trip, scramble up the stairs away from them as fast as I can, weeping.

  As soon as I feel far enough away, I lower them partially and scream out in my mind for anyone who can hear me to help, Dorei, help us.

  I crash through the hall like a panicked animal, panting, scrabbling for footing that eludes me. I slam into a body. Connor catches me before I knock us both over.

  “What is it? What happened?”

  “Gantry,” I gasp. “He has Orrin — he has Orrin, and he was coming up the tower stairs, and —”

  “How? How does he have Orrin?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know, but he does, and he’s, I don’t know what he’s going to do —” But I do. I do know. The vision washes over me and I sag against the wall, one arm on Connor’s chest. “The spell — he called him back, called him and found him where you hid him. The chapel,” I say. “He’s going to — he’s giving them a body. Orrin’s body. With all that power. And now he has Absalom’s body too, I dropped it, I’m sorry, I dropped him, and he’s going to do something awful.”

  Connor swears, wipes at my face with his sleeve, and I see blood, my nose is bleeding, my face throbs where Gantry hit me.

  I wheeze and weep and tremble.

  “Dorei save us,” Connor whispers. He kisses my forehead, shakes my shoulders. “Call for Hugh. Do you understand? He should be on his way back. Try to get him back sooner. Tell him to bring the cardinal. Tell them to hurry.” And he is gone, running toward the chapel, yelling for guards.

  I lean my weight on the wall, gather my magic on the spindle of my mind. I push at my range, at the ends of where I’ve ever been able to go.

  It hurts. My skin crawls with it, but I call up power and drop all of my barriers. I can feel Gantry’s spell reaching for my power, but I’m using it, and it will follow my commands now.

  Panting, I push past the castle, past the walls of the town, down the road, looking for Hugh. His mind meets mine as I call, try to find him. I feel thin and faint, but I hear him finally, and he hears me.

  Rhiannon? What is it? How did you get this far?

  Gantry has Orrin. Has Absalom. Spell. Bring the cardinal. Hurry. It hurts to push so far. I strain, feel my head throb, all my magic burn in me.

  How did this happen?

  Just hurry.

  A panicked call in my mind from Linnet. She heard my cry before and followed Connor to the chapel. They hide behind pillars outside the doors as blasts of raw magic rock the stones.

  I shamble into a run. Down stairs, around corners, I feel the magic in the air. Everyone else appears to be wisely hiding from it.

  Gantry’s voice grates on the air in the otherwise silent castle. “All your guards can’t save you from judgment! The night sky will swallow them whole! You are all tongues of evil — I shall cut you out!”

  I round the corner beyond the great hall. I feel demons gathering at his calling, whispering and enticing him.

  The wild power that breathes beneath the castle beckons me. The well is deep, viscous and bright with its gathered magic. I open myself to it despite the pain, relish the seering flash along my body, as I stumble down the corridor.

  Magic pours into me, burning, blistering the overused pathways of power. I try to control it, but it sings as savagely as the demons. I send it to Linnet, who cries out too, burning herself on the heat of it.

  Linnet flings power past the doors of the chapel in the form of a fire spell, but I hear Gantry laugh, Connor’s voice ringing out, a clash and clatter, my own heart beating.

  The wild power devours me. Clutching the power I have gathered in too-full mental arms, I manage to sever the link to the well. Magic swirls in my veins like a squall. I find myself on my knees against a pillar, Linnet across from me. I grasp the cold stone and drag myself to my feet, peer into the chapel.

  Connor dodges demon fire, slashes at Gantry with his sword.

  Gantry stands in front of the altar, hurling his spells and abuse. Three guards lie motionless among the pews. Wisps of my sweaty hair cling to my eyes and nose. I drop to my knees, motion Linnet to keep behind the pillar, keep throwing balls of fire. Which I did not know she could do.

  I start to crawl into the chapel, keeping low. I can hear hissed invective, see purple flashes of light like odd torches. I look around for something I can use to help, anything.

  Fire from Linnet glances off the marble statue of Dorei above me in the balcony, and I see it rock on its mooring. Gantry stands close by. I cannot poison him. I cannot stop him with spells I don’t know. But I think I have another plan.

  I send to Linnet, tell her what I want her to do. Crawling through the pews, dodging bael-fire as best I can, I head for the gentry box.

  Linnet runs past me, hurling her own insults and fire.

  Gantry stands below and to the left of the balcony. His hoarse whispers grate around my ears, swirling with the invisible demons in the air around us. I can hear them, feel them feeding from him, and from Orrin.

  Orrin lies behind the altar. From here I can see his face like ashes, his body limp. The demons whisper of power and righteousness, of the glory of their promised body, of death and destruction.

  I look for a way to cut them off from him, but I don’t know how. I only hope my plan works.

  Connor sprawls against an overturned pew across from me. He dodges bael-fire, throws himself under a pew. When he looks up at me I motion with my head to the rocking statue. Connor glances toward Gantry, eyes slitted against the flashes of fire, demon and Linnet-made.

  Gantry aims bael-fire at Linnet, and though she transforms what she can, it leaks through her barriers and scorches her. She yells and leaps away, and he laughs. At that laugh, I stand and scream at him, using all of my anger and pain and despair, and I overload his spell.

  I let him have my magic — the magic he so desperately wanted. The magic he cannot control. I push all of the pulsing, wild power into Gantry’s gathering skeins, and I break them.

  Gantry screams, tries to fight me, but I am not trying to control demons and a rogue spell and hurl bael-fire all at the same time. I concentrate on stuffing him with all of the power I pulled from the power-well, and I watch him start to burn. The lines of power warp and snap and rebound on him, and I scream and send the message to Linnet.

  “Now!”

  Linnet sends magic fire overhead, to the statue of Dorei. To its feet, to the moorings. She sends more. I hear it groaning.

  Connor springs into a shoulder roll, knocking Gantry to his back beneath the balcony. Gantry screams again, calls out for his demons.

  The crack of the mortar as it gives way makes Gantry look up. He aims his bael-fire upward to the falling statue, but too late, and it lands heavily as Connor rolls away just in time.

  Gantry’s control of the demons is gone with the thunk of the marble. Free of the restraints of his fragile chains, they rise, glittering to my Sight, supple and gorgeous, turn their attention to Linnet and Connor and Orrin. Their forms coalesce into dusky smoke, half-rotted faces in the air, changing and malleable and deadly.

  Connor stands, ragged and bloody, sword drawn. Linnet shakes, but raises her hands and her magic. I hang from the rail of the gentry box, try to get ready to add mine.

  Hugh and a man in cardinal’s robes pound into the chapel, their boots muddy and their voices raised. It is Robere, and his hands weave a silvery light in the air. The threads become a shimmering net around the angry, seething demons.

  I can feel the hum of power as he pulls the spell tighter. The net grows smaller. Shrieking in agony, the demons disappea
r with sounds of shattered glass and exploding purple starbursts.

  The chapel grows dark and quiet, silvery light fading, with only dusk from the windows to see by. Connor and Linnet stand panting. Connor turns stiffly to offer Linnet his arm as she wavers on her feet, but she stands taller and waves him away.

  I hang dazed where I am.

  Cardinal Robere looks around at all of us. He walks over to Gantry and looks down at him. He still lives, I can feel it. But I don’t think it will be for long.

  “Orrin,” I say, and I feel his fear like a weight in my mind. “Oh Dorei, the spell is still going,” I whimper, and stumble to the altar.

  Bare to the waist and bloody from a beating, from the teeth and fire of demons, Orrin looks far worse than when I saw him on the stairs. The scars on his skin look angrier than mine, as if they cut deeper. His eyes open, and he looks at me. “It is too late,” he says.

  I can feel the magic pulsing through him. Beside him is the still-wrapped form of Absalom, still tainted, magic going between Orrin and the corpse.

  Hugh and Cardinal Robere push me aside, and the cardinal starts a spell.

  I can See the darkness of the spells already on my friend, and I reach for his hand. “It is not too late, Orrin. Fight,” I whisper.

  Robere’s spell breaks and the threads scatter. He closes his eyes, rubbing at his temples.

  “It didn’t work,” I say.

  “No. I don’t have enough power left. I need help, Hugh. Link to me.”

  Hugh reaches to grasp Robere’s left hand. I watch them meld their magic together — silver and blue — and wrap it in and around Orrin until he begins to glow.

  The demons that tear him apart inside howl through his pores and rip at the spells they weave. I feel them weaken, and I add myself into the warp and weft of the spell, linking to Hugh.

  My lungs burn, my joints burn, and I am inside Orrin. His wounds bind the demons to him; they drink his blood and enter his spirit. Absalom’s body is still a vessel — his body carries the demon taint, and now I feel it, like a disease that can mar the very air.

  If the spell continues, the demons will use Orrin as a conduit from their plane, wreaking whatever havoc they can. He is demon-torn: his spirit bleeds as they try to meld with him. Though he fights them, he can’t hold out for long.

  Neither can the others. I feel them weakening, the drain on me. I open to the well of wild magic under the castle again, feel it burn through me. My scars singe and sear, the air driven from my lungs with the pain. I wheeze and gasp, but the warp is full again and our spell sings strong.

  Magic whispers in my mind. At first I think it is demons, but I see the shape of a spell, the shape of runes, the glorious arc and movement of words and shapes and color and power. I start to chant through the pain of it all, chant words that suddenly spring to life, on Orrin’s body. On my body. I take control of all of the magic, Hugh’s and the cardinal’s and mine, and I weave it all together.

  I can feel the shape of my runes change with the force of the wild magic. I chant though my skin burns, my eyes burn, all I see is the white-hot spell.

  Voices cry out around me, but they are driven back. Orrin twitches, I can feel him cringing away from the flame that is me, but I reach my burning arms around him. His body crackles in my arms.

  I feel the power rush out of me, rivers of power. It fills me, pours out of me in fountains of white so hot it is stars. I feel it enter Orrin and drive the demon-sickness from him, burning the reservoirs of his power until they boil away. The power encases us in a cocoon of light: Dorei protect me, I am fire.

  I take hold of this power with charring mental hands, direct it inward and away from Orrin before I kill him. The magic answers my call sluggishly, whirls in my veins, along new runes seared into my skin. I cut myself off from the wild magic, let it drain away. I think it drains all of me away with it.

  My eyes clear of the light. The heat of the magic has forced everyone back, and I see them staring, calling out to me, their eyes wide. They move as though slowed in time.

  I look at Orrin — his body seems whole, I do not see the sickness or the spell on him. His eyelids flutter, and he looks at me.

  I lie down beside him, so tired. It all aches. My cheek presses into cold and gritty stone. I reach for his arm. “No more demons,” I say, and I breathe a laugh because I can say it. “No more demons, and no more demon spells. We are free,” I tell him.

  He lifts a shaking hand and lays it on my cheek. “Don’t die,” he whispers.

  “You either,” I whisper back.

  Robere reaches Orrin at the same time Connor reaches me. Connor pulls me into his lap. It hurts, everything is pain. I gasp and shudder, try to speak again but I can’t. I open my eyes to Connor patting my face. I can’t hear him but his mouth forms words. “Breathe, Rhiannon! Look at me! Breathe!”

  My ears fill with a frantic beating. I drain away in dribbles and I can’t hold on any more. Darkness comes for me as Connor’s voice rings in my ears.

  Chapter Thirty

  I wake to the sounds of water pouring, voices, someone weeping quietly. When I open my eyes, I find I’m looking at high pointed arches and white marble. The great hall. I turn my head and see cots lining the walls, much more organized than when I last saw it. Someone lies on the cot next to me, the blanket pulled up and cocooning. Turning my head to look the other way, I see much the same thing.

  I spend some time trying to convince my body to move, but give it up as a bad idea after awhile. I only hope my bladder will hold out.

  “Rhiannon?” I look back to my left. Linnet stands next to my bed, a mug in her hands. Her left arm is bandaged to the elbow, her sleeve rolled up to stay off of it, and her face looks sunburned. “Are you really awake?”

  “Yes,” I croak, surprised at the state of my voice.

  “I mean it. What’s my name?”

  “Linnet,” I cough, try to lever myself to my elbows, give up. “Don’t be silly. Can I have that tea?”

  “There you are.” She smiles. “You’ve been either raving or asleep for days. Time you woke up for real.”

  “Days?” I cough some more. She has to help me sit up to drink from the mug.

  “Orrin,” I start to ask.

  “Look for yourself,” she says, and points to my other side.

  When I turn my head, I realize it’s him lying on that cot. He’s turned his head to look at me. One side of his mouth quirks up a little. “Hello, sleepyhead,” he whispers.

  A weight I didn’t know was holding me down lifts, and I feel my mouth widen and grin, my eyes close. I reach across to the edge of his cot, and grab at the blanket. “Hello, you.”

  “You sound terrible.” I stick my tongue out at him.

  “Your breath stinks, too,” Linnet adds, and Orrin smiles a real smile and turns his face to his pillow to chuckle weakly.

  “How kind of you.”

  “The rest of you doesn’t smell any better,” she adds.

  “Shut up, Linnet,” I say, but with no heat. She’s probably right. “So help me get up. I need the guarderobe.”

  My head pounds and my body shakes like a newborn calf as she helps me to the makeshift privy in the corner of the hall. Blankets have been put up as a little tent, and old-fashioned chamber pots for people to use. It’s not pretty, but with what looks like twenty or thirty people still in beds in this impromptu hospital, the guarderobe at the end of the hall is too far. At least it’s kept as clean as can be.

  There’s another blanket tent, with wash water warm from the fire, and several clean shifts and tunics on a bench. Linnet helps me wash and dress. All my scars are still there, but now there are new ones on my wrists — faint and white and more like filigree than the others. My magic changed the runes.

  Linnet stares, and stares at me staring. “Don’t ever do any of that again,” she says.

  I look up at her, wary. “Do what?”

  “Almost kill yourself. Nearly burn down a chapel.
Fall into a fever for days. But do try to stay awake for an hour altogether this time, will you?”

  “Did you miss me?” I tease, but she looks sad.

  “Yes.”

  I sit blinking, and she presses her lips together and pulls the shift down over my head, walks me back to bed.

  I try to be careful of her arm. “What’s the bandage for?”

  “Your, uh, magic. Burned me. Us.”

  I take a breath. “Oh.” She arranges the covers around me, fusses with my pillows. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s nothing,” she says. “Lie still. Do you want soup?”

  I look over at Orrin, who stares up at the ceiling. He doesn’t look back. “Who is — who didn’t —” I take a breath. “Who has died, then?”

  “Marla cook, Mary, Robert, Samuel. Gervaise. Lady Geneve. That new seamstress. Some guards. A lot of people in town.” Linnet clears her throat. “Really a lot.”

  “And Gantry —”

  “He’s dead.” Orrin’s voice stays flat, and his gaze stays to the ceiling.

  “And the demons?” I keep my eyes on Orrin, but I feel my mouth say the word, and I feel my breath even in my lungs, and I can’t help but say it again. “Demons. He called demons.”

  “I know that,” Linnet says.

  But Orrin turns his face to me. “He called demons, and he killed the queen, and he tried to kill Princess Julianna, and Princess Eleanor,” he says in a rush. “He is no true bishop. He is no true anyone anymore.” He takes a deep breath, shudders. “He called demons.”

  “He’s dead,” I say, to confirm it. To let breath into my lungs. I reach my hand over to him, and he reaches back to grab it. We hold on for a moment, but we are both so tired.

  “I’m getting Asa,” Linnet says.

  But I can feel myself slipping back into sleep, now I’m lying down again. I try to shake my head, mumble something, and the voices go fuzzy and far away above me as I fade back into darkness.

  ～

  I jerk awake in the blurry half-light, lamps turned down and a rocking weight on my cot. I blink my eyes to focus them, see who sits with me. A spike of fear clears the sleep from my mind as I recognize Archbishop Montmoore.