The Scofflaw Magician (The Artifactor Book 3)

by Honor Raconteur

  “A simple solution,” Aran observed. “You can’t do this here?”

  “Right, because it’s not a curse, it’s a portation spell. And a transformation spell mixed in. That’s what makes this tricky. This acts like a curse, but it’s not. It’s a perfectly legitimate spell that’s doing what it’s designed to. On the surface, it’s not the slightest bit evil or underhanded, either. That’s how it got around the protective wards of the Belen King and the princess. Their wards would have protected them against anything overtly dangerous.”

  Aran let out a soft hum of understanding. “So this is, what?”

  “Two spells we have to counter. Well, a spell and a half. And the only way that I can think to do that is to create another door to the portal where people are trapped.” Satisfied he knew enough to keep up, she turned back to Master. “I think we need to take the same ingredients that are used to make the ink and make a wash with it.”

  Master lit up as her words penetrated. “The wash, since it has the same ingredients, will activate the spell all over again and give us a gateway to the person trapped.”

  “And it won’t affect the original drawing in the process, so it can’t injure or somehow warp the people.” Sevana grinned at him. She did adore moments like these, when they were so in tune with the other that they could continue each other’s thoughts.

  Stroking his chin, Master asked almost rhetorically, “But will it work just like that? Will they be able to step out themselves?”

  “I don’t think it’ll be that convenient. We can try it, of course. I’d be pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong.”

  “But you’re thinking that we’ll need some sort of interface instead, something to act as a new gateway.”

  “Exactly. And you’ve found a good candidate already.” She arched an eyebrow at him.

  Master snapped his fingers together in recognition. “The mirror. Of course. Perfect. Or it will be, if it works. I think you’re right and that it will. If you read me the ingredients of the ink, I’ll make a wash while waiting for you to come.”

  Sevana shook her head. “No, I brought ingredients with me. I think it should be the same elements and strength, as exactly as we can match, so that the spell doesn’t alter.”

  Behind her, she heard Aran say to himself, “So that’s why she wanted them.”

  “That’s sound thinking, sweetling. In that case, let me examine the spell anew and see if I can find any holes in your theory. You say you’re on your way back? Good, I’ll expect you in four days or so then.”

  A thought occurred and she asked, “Do you have a full length magical mirror?”

  Master instantly responded, “Of course…” only to trail off sheepishly and admit, “Just not here. Mercy, but that would be difficult, wouldn’t it? Yanking full grown adults through that small mirror I have. No matter, I’ll have Morgan buy me something large enough and do the necessary spellwork on it. We’ll have a working mirror large enough for the job by the time you get here.”

  Satisfied, she shooed him off with her free hand. “Then get to it. If I think of anything else, I’ll call you.”

  “So bossy,” Master complained with a mock-sigh. Then he grinned when she stuck her tongue out at him. “Have a nice ride, sweetling.”

  Sevana growled at him wordlessly. Horrible man. He knew she hated riding.

  Cackling, Master signed off and the Caller went still.

  Aran seemed to sense what she was thinking and apologized, “Even a chellomi can only go so fast.”

  Resigned, Sevana just sighed.

  Over dinner that night, Sevana asked a question that she had been curious about for days now. “I have two questions for you.”

  “Ask,” Aran encouraged.

  “How old are you?”

  This made him look up, eyes crinkling in a subtle smile. “How old do I look, in your eyes?”

  “Eight hundred,” she said promptly.

  Aran choked, making a strangling sound, then caught the twinkle in her eye and laughed aloud. “Tease me, will you.”

  She waggled a finger at him. “You know as well as I do that the Fae don’t show their age until they are very, very old. You can be anywhere between twenty or a thousand and I wouldn’t be able to tell looking at you.”

  “I’m seventy-three,” he admitted.

  Oh? Not as old as she had assumed him to be. In fact, he was actually older than Master. And wasn’t that a strange thought. Shaking it off, she went to her second question. “What does a Fae tracker do?”

  Aran paused in scooping out a leaf wrapped fish from the coals, considering that question, before continuing to unwrap his dinner. “Anything that involves crossing the borders of our territory.”

  That was a very vague answer. “Such as?”

  “Finding and bringing back children.”

  Sevana blinked, jaw dropping. “I took your job?”

  “In part,” he agreed, grinning widely. “I didn’t mind that, though, you have an easier time taking children out of a human city than I do. I have to jump through all sorts of legal hoops and dish out quite a few bribes before I’m allowed to take a child out. And most of the time, the children are a little afraid of me even after I bring them to their new parents.”

  Well, granted, she could see how that would be the case. Even with her, the kids were nervous, and it was a fellow human that was taking them. How more unnerving would the experience be if it was a full blooded Fae instead? “So you were glad when I started doing it?”

  “Relieved. You do a good job of it.” His smile was brief, but warm, as he glanced up at her. Taking a bite, he chewed and swallowed. “This is good. What did you season this with?”

  “Green tea salt.”

  “I must remember to get some for the next trip. Well, aside from that, I’m involved in all of the trading. Anyone that brings things into our territory, or if anyone is leaving to do trading, I go with them. I am their guide and guard until the business is concluded and everyone’s home again. Let’s see, what else?” He paused to think. “If anyone is foolish enough to try and breach our borders, I take care of that as well.”

  A memory flashed through her mind of trees weaving themselves into sturdy walls, blocking a Sa Kaon army from advancing. “Like last time? But I didn’t see you.”

  “No, I was nearby watching. I sent Lorien to speak with you as he knew you better.”

  Probably wise on his part. “How do jobs with the Fae work? Do you get assigned from early childhood and grow into the roles?”

  “For the most part, yes. Because early on, they see what talents and interests we have and they offer us training in those areas. I was always restless, wanting to go out and do things more than sit and create. So they assigned me to a master tracker when I was ten. I loved it.”

  Sevana remembered that moment, when she had finally met a master that spoke her language and she could focus on learning something that she loved doing. It was wonderful.

  Aran’s head cocked. “Isn’t it the same with humans?”

  “If you’re lucky and find what you want to do early on. Some humans inherit positions in a family business, some never really find what they’re suited for, and they work day jobs just to make ends meet. There’s no set system in human lands.”

  “But you found it early on.” His tone indicated this was only half a statement and what he really wanted to know was how she’d become an Artifactor.

  “Well, my magic isn’t amazingly strong, but I was still showing indications of it at five years old. So my parents started me off with a magician when I was six but it only took a week for him to realize my magic wouldn’t be the right sort for his line of work. So he ran me through a series of tests, found that I had all of the strengths of an Artifactor, and contacted my master. My parents were delighted to have me train as an Artifactor instead.” A reminiscent smile creased her face. “I was too. I got to create things, and learn things, and test myself on a daily basis. It was like heaven.�
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  “You’ve told me all that an Artifactor has to know. You never found it overwhelming as a child?”

  “Only once.” Sevana leaned back against a log, letting it support her, her eyes going blind as she stared over the fire. “My friend, Kip, was hit with the Sleeping Princess curse. In spite of the fact he’s a boy. His parents in a panic called my master for help, as he was the only magician they knew how to easily reach. Master said they couldn’t afford him—which was true—so set me to break the curse.”

  Aran seemed very interested in this story, as his dinner lay cooling in his lap. “How old were you?”

  “Nine.”

  Letting out a low whistle, he said, “That’s too young to place a burden like that on a child.”

  “I thought so too but was willing to try. It took me a solid week of pounding my head against the problem, but I finally did come up with a solution, and broke the curse. He’s been teased about being a Sleeping Princess ever since.” Mostly by her because Sevana wasn’t about to let him live it down.

  “That’s remark—” Aran cut himself off, head snapping about. He stared hard into the forest to their right for a long moment before he put his dinner aside completely and shifted so that he was several feet away from the fire.

  Sevana had no idea what it was that had caught his attention, but she stayed perfectly still and waited. The Fae could sense things she could not and it would behoove her to wait until she knew what was going on.

  From the forest, a whole colony of rabbits popped their heads out of the brush. Their ears swiveled back and forth in a nervous tic, noses twitching. The younger ones were literally trembling. And yet, in spite of their obvious nervousness, they didn’t budge when Aran knelt in front of them. His long ears twitched like theirs did, nose moving, head tilting this way and that, and it was obvious that he was speaking their language. It was fascinating to watch.

  After several long moments, he rocked back on his heels and turned to her. “They’re requesting help. There’s a wild boar here that’s lost his senses and he’s killing anything in his path.”

  “Disease-addled, maybe?” she ventured, brow furrowing. She’d seen it before, when an animal got a certain sickness, they lost their minds and would destroy anything until something came along to kill them.

  “That would be my guess. They haven’t gotten too close so aren’t able to give me details. I’m apparently the only Fae they’ve seen in this area, so they’re asking me to deal with him.”

  The way he said this, as if it were perfectly normal to receive a request from rabbits, tickled her sense of humor. At the same time, she felt admiration stir, that he wouldn’t ignore the request in spite of where it was coming from. Aran was tired, she knew he was, from traveling around and escorting her for the past several days, but he was still willing to put his dinner aside and go hunt down a wild boar. “Can I help?”

  The tension in his face relaxed a hair. “I’d be glad for it.”

  Boar hunting was a dangerous thing, not something a person should tackle alone. Humans normally gathered hunting parties to go after boars. Sevana couldn’t imagine that it worked that way with the Fae—the idea that a boar would pose a significant danger to them was laughable—but it still felt wrong to send him off into dark, unfamiliar woods to track down a mad boar.

  So she set her own dinner aside, grabbed a wand and her sword, while he took a short sword and his bow. A regular bow couldn’t penetrate far into a boar’s hide, but a well-placed arrow could slow it down enough that someone could come in close to finish the job.

  “Shame we don’t have a spear,” she mentioned to him.

  “That would make this easier,” he agreed. “Ready?”

  “I am.”

  To the rabbits, he ducked down enough to say something. They stopped shivering quite so hard and seemed more perky as they bounded off, disappearing into the brush. Watching them go, she asked, “This is part of your job as well?”

  “I deal with any dangers that affect the forest as a whole. Of course we let the natural order of things take precedence, but when a creature goes mad, or some inhabitant of the forest becomes too greedy and takes what it should not, that’s when I step in.”

  That would explain why she had never encountered this problem in Noppers Woods.

  He stepped into the woods with her right at his side. Sevana reached into a pocket and pulled out her multi-purpose glasses. Most of the time, she only used the magnifying lens on it, but she did have other lenses that she could adjust and use. Shifting to the right one, she pulled the others higher and set the screw to hold them in place. Satisfied, she put them on and watched as the world became a sharper definition of whites, greys, and blacks.

  “Those are?” he asked her with piqued interest.

  “Night glasses. They let me see clearly at night.” Come to think of it, the way he was moving, it was like it was broad daylight here. “The Fae don’t have a problem with seeing at night?”

  “We do not,” he confirmed. “Our eyes function like a cat’s. Daylight or nighttime, it makes no difference to us.”

  How terribly convenient. Sevana also found it highly unfair. Was there anything that the Fae couldn’t do?

  “You’re jealous?” Aran seemed to find this amusing. “But do you not use your magic to rival our strengths?”

  “Do you know how many inventions I’ve had to come up with to manage that?” she grumbled, still annoyed.

  “It’s a remarkable feat that you’ve managed it at all. Sellion.”

  The use of her Fae name reminded her just what her new status was among them. True, she might not naturally have all of the strengths and abilities that the Fae did, but they acknowledged her in spite of that. It was more than a compliment. It was an honor to be so recognized.

  Aran stopped and lifted his head, taking in a deep breath through his nose, eyes half-closing as he seemed to focus. “I smell blood.”

  Sevana didn’t smell a thing but moist earth, wood, and moving water from the brook nearby. “How strong?”

  “We’re some distance from it. It’s blood spilled but also blood gone bad.” His head swiveled to a more south-easterly direction. “I think we’re not far from him.”

  That was good and bad all at once. If they weren’t far, then they wouldn’t be able to surprise the boar in any way and he probably had their scent already. But at least they wouldn’t be stumbling around in the woods all night trying to track him down.

  Aran took another, deeper breath and when he let it out, he sounded disappointed and resigned. “I had a small hope that perhaps his sickness was not so deep that I couldn’t heal him. But the way his blood smells tells me he’s too far gone.”

  Was his nose like a dog’s? Sevana had seen dogs with noses so sensitive that they could detect illnesses. Well, his eyes were like a cat’s, so maybe that wasn’t too far of a stretch. “You can heal sicknesses like this?”

  “Sometimes. It depends on how much damage has been done to the body. I’m not a healer, after all, I just know some of the basics.”

  Interesting. Sevana made note of that for future reference.

  With a ‘follow me’ gesture, Aran moved forward, this time making special effort to not make noise as he walked. She assumed he was, anyway, since he suddenly became silent as he moved. They moved in between the trees like a pair of ghosts. Baby had taught her as a teenager how to walk silently, and while she couldn’t quite manage it on the same level as a mountain lion (or a Fae) she wasn’t bumbling around either.

  At one point, Aran paused, holding a hand to indicate she needed to do the same. Without a word, he pointed to their left, near a small gathering of fallen logs, then made a circular motion with his finger. So, he was behind them? Sevana didn’t have a nose like a dog’s, so she couldn’t be sure, but she thought she detected the metallic, rusty smell of blood in the air.

  Drawing her wand, she held it at the ready, a spell poised on the tip of her tongue.


  Seeing she was on the defensive, Aran eased forward once more, hand reaching for an arrow at his belt quiver. Nocking it, he half-drew the bow, holding it steady.

  There was a grunting sound, guttural and low, and what might have been the scrape of a hoof against wood. The sound was too distinct for Sevana to think it was her imagination and she knew that the boar had detected their presence and would either run or charge. Holding her breath, she planted her feet, waiting to see which it would be.

  The boar charged, screaming in a deranged whine as he cleared the logs, hooves digging into the ground as he ran.

  Aran didn’t flinch, didn’t startle, simply lifted the bow completely up and aimed. The boar was twenty feet away and he remained unmoved by the proximity. With a twang, the arrow released and hit unerringly between the boar’s eyes.

  The momentum was such that the boar still managed another three steps before his nose dove into the ground, skidded forward, flipped once, then lay still. Sevana let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Good shot,” she praised in true admiration. Hitting something that was moving like that, and was coming straight at you, was incredibly hard to do.

  Aran gave her a boyish grin, the smile lighting up his features in a way she had never seen before. “I’m glad you were at my back. It steadied my nerves.”

  Sevana didn’t believe him for one second but it was nice of him to say so. “I don’t recommend leaving it here.”

  “The disease will spread,” he agreed, smile fading. “I will burn his corpse clean.”

  She had been about to suggest something similar, but if he wanted to do so, she had no problem with that.

  Lifting a hand, Aran concentrated, and a burst of flame shot out of his fingertips. It was almost pure white leaving his hand, but by the time it settled on the boar’s corpse, it was in the usual golden tones of a fire.