The Saffron Falcon (Transition Magic)

by Hopkins, J. E.

  “Merci.”

  Marie shoved the cart to the intersection and turned left. She had to swing wide to avoid a wagon piled with bodies and drawn by two men bent by their burden. The stench was so strong that she dropped the handles of the bread cart and rushed to the side of the street to retch. The men pulling the dead stopped and stared at her. One of them winked and licked his lips.

  She wiped her mouth and glared at him. “Have you no shame? Be on your way with your burden of God’s punishment.”

  “This is not a good street, Mademoiselle. Two have died here this day.” They turned and resumed their journey.

  Marie spat and returned to her cart. She lifted the handles and gazed down a street not much wider than the alley that separated her home from the bakery. The stone house was a dozen doors distant rather than the three or four the old lady had said but was impossible to miss. It rose proudly above the surrounding timber homes as if it knew that it would stand long after all else had fallen to ruin.

  This could be part of a cathedral. Madame Agard is truly a woman of wealth.

  Monsieur Agard had been a successful trader and rumored to be a distant relative of the royal family. He’d died the year before from an outbreak of the cholera that was a source of near-constant fear in Paris.

  Until now. Now no one even thinks of cholera.

  Marie jerked her cart over the rough street until she stood before the majestic building. It was two floors high, made of grey stones arranged in tidy rows, with a large door of lime-washed planks. Two windows of oiled parchment flanked the door. Two similar windows above gave light to the second floor.

  She parked the cart, strode to the door, and banged with the side of her fist. “Madame Agard? It’s Marie with your bread.”

  She stood silently for several minutes and called again, this time hitting the door with both fists. A moment later it jumped, as if bumped. Then the latch rattled, and the door swung a quarter of the way open. Madame Agard stepped into the opening and leaned against the frame. She wore a heavy woolen coat even though the day was warm. Bright red spots colored each cheek.

  “Marie? Did you say bread? Forgive me, my child, I don’t feel—” The short, stout woman collapsed back into the house, smacking her head against the timber floor.

  Marie screamed and looked around to see who might help. The street was empty. She put her hand to the poultice, given to her by her father, that hung from her neck. The herbs in the small leather bag would protect her from the pestilence.

  I am safe.

  After a moment’s hesitation, she crossed herself, moved inside, and stooped down. The old woman was moaning softly and staring at the ceiling, her eyes unfocused.

  “Madame? It’s Marie.”

  Madame Agard struggled to a sitting position.

  Marie put her hand to the back of the woman’s head and felt a large knot.

  “Stop! You’re hurting me!”

  Marie jumped, withdrew her hand, and glanced at her palm. No blood.

  “Help me inside, child.”

  How can I refuse?

  She walked behind Madame Agard and reached under her arms, lifting and tugging as the old woman gathered her legs and struggled to her feet.

  Madame Agard moaned, her breath hissing between clenched teeth. “Not so rough child! You’re killing me!”

  Marie shifted to the side, serving as a crutch as the two moved into the house.

  The lower level was an open room with a fireplace on the right. Stairs climbed sharply to the second level along the wall to the left. A long table was tucked under the front windows. A heavy bench, covered by a lambskin, jutted from the back wall.

  “The banquette. I don’t think I can climb the stairs to my bed.”

  Marie helped her lie down on the bench and turned to survey the room. She’d never been in a such a grand home.

  “There’s a water pitcher on the table; some cloths next to it. Wet one of them and bring it to me to cool my head.”

  As Marie delivered the damp rag, she asked, “How long have you been ill, Madame?”

  “I haven’t been able to eat for two days. Today has been much worse. One moment I’m chilled, then I’m sweating.”

  A bowl next to the banquette was sour with the stink of vomit.

  Madame Agard seemed driven to unburden herself. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I have sores on my arms and chest. They hurt so.” She pulled the sleeves of her dress up her arms to reveal ugly sores two fingers wide, oozing pus and black blood.

  Mon Dieu.

  “Oh, Madame, I fear you have it. The pestilence.”

  It took all Marie’s will not to jerk away and flee the house.

  Madame Agard seemed to shrink into herself. Her chest shook as she cried softly, tears streaming across her bright red cheeks. “I don’t want to die.”

  Marie hesitated, then reached out and wiped away the tears. “Shhh. Is there someone I should fetch? A physician?” She’d heard that the wealthy had healers like the nobility, but the rich still seemed to die in the same numbers as the poor.

  “Feh! Healers are only good for boils on your ass. They are worse than useless.”

  Marie laughed out loud, her heart warmed by the old lady’s bluntness.

  “Madame, I’m very sorry, but I must leave soon or my papa will be worried. What shall I do to help you?”

  Madame Agard turned her head and stared into Marie’s face. “I had heard that you’d begun Transition de la Vie. When did it begin?”

  “Pardon?” The sudden new direction to their conversation confused Marie. “Seven days ago.”

  “But you don’t know the words to the ritual, do you? Nor does your father. So few people do.”

  Marie shook her head. “Why do you ask these questions?”

  Madame Agard continued to stare at her, not answering. Then she sighed, the air rattling from her wet lungs.

  “I know the words. My late husband learned them from a member of the royal court and he taught me. I could teach you.”

  “But—”

  “I can show you how to heal me. And then you’d know how to heal your papa if he falls ill.”

  Marie sat and stared at the cobblestone floor, her thoughts swirling. “Papa says that Transition cannot heal. That it would kill me.”

  The old woman’s voice seemed adrift in the dimly lit room. “And so it would. Unless you were taught by someone who’s given this much consideration. Someone who knows how to satisfy Transition’s requirement that all magic be unique. As I have.”

  Is this what the voice of the Evil One sounds like?

  “Why should I trust you?” Marie asked. “You’d say anything to save yourself.”

  “Yes, child, I’m dying. But you don’t need to trust me. All you have to do is listen and decide for yourself. Transition demands that you believe in the words. I can’t make you say them.”

  Marie stood, shaking her head. “Non. Papa has forbidden it. I’m sorry, Madame.”

  Madame Agard twisted onto her side, dropped her legs off the bench, and sat up. Marie thought that her pale, furrowed face looked ten years older than when she’d answered the door, but her voice had grown in strength. “Then go. But bring my bread first.”

  • • • • •

  Marie returned to find her father outside the bakery, leaning against the wall and wiping sweat from his brow. “Where’ve you been? I should not have agreed to let you go alone. We have bread to make.”

  He coughed and spat into the street.

  “This was my first time, Papa. I had to find my way.”

  He’ll never let me leave the bakery again if I tell him about Madame Agard.

  They moved inside.

  “If you have trouble finding your way again tomorrow, I’ll have to go with you.”

  “You worry yourself too much. I’ll have no trouble.” She handed him the payments she’d collected for the bread. “Are you ready for dinner? Can we eat in the house?”

  Her fat
her nodded. Marie cooked for them at the bakery, their largest meal at midday, with a lighter supper as the sun set. She preferred to eat at home, which was across a narrow alley opposite the back of the shop. The open brazier in their house provided a little heat in the winter, but it was much easier to prepare meals on the bakery oven’s large hearth. She’d heard that the city’s wealthy were building homes with fireplaces that could be used for heating and cooking. Madame Agard’s was the first one she’d actually seen. The expense of the wood needed to fuel them was beyond imagination.

  Her father closed the shutters and front door while she went into the back and tore the bread from the center of two small rye trenchers. She wrapped the pieces of torn bread in a muslin cloth. They’d eat them with the hot porridge that she ladled into the hollowed center of the crusty trenchers. She finished by sprinkling pieces of salted pork across the top. Her father had taken the meat in trade from a local butcher. They had wine to drink, stored in a large stone pot.

  We eat like nobles.

  They carried their meal out the rear door and crossed to their home. Marie had lived there for all her twelve years, and it was where she felt happiest. The house was built from massive wooden timbers, had two open windows in front with shutters inside that swung from leather hinges. The dirt floor was packed so hard that it was easier to clean than the cobblestones in front of the bakery.

  A magpie screamed at them from the peak of the roof. The bird behaved as if the house and the bakery belonged to it, in no small part because Marie regularly fed it pieces of bread. “Nothing for you today, my black and white friend.”

  “Feh!” Her father’s voice was a low, rough growl. “Damn bird does nothing but shit on my roof.”

  She smiled. Her father was most proud of the wood shake shingles that sheltered them. When she was young, he’d terrified her with tales of the massive fires that leapt across the thatched roofs of the city. Just as she was about to cry, he’d sweep her up in his strong arms, cooing and promising to always protect her. He’d point to the roof as proof of his promise. Later she’d learned the city masters had decreed that all thatch be replaced by shingles, but she preferred to believe their roof was a measure of her father’s love.

  They finished their meal and returned to the bakery. Marie swung open the front door and was startled by an unfamiliar man standing just outside.

  He nodded briefly to her and strode into the shop, greeting her father with a handshake. “You are Monsieur Douzaine? I’m Jacque Bâtard. I’ve just taken possession of a house not two streets away, and I’m looking for a baker of high-quality bread. My new neighbors directed me to you.”

  “Give your neighbors my thanks, Monsieur. My daughter and I are proud of our breads. They exceed the requirements of my guild and are among the best in the city. Perhaps you’d like to see our flours and taste some samples.” He led their visitor into the back.

  Our third new customer in as many weeks.

  The house Monsieur Batârd now called his own was most likely available because of the deaths of its former inhabitants. Batârd wore clothing that was finely made but ill-fitting—also from the former man of the house, Marie guessed. The pestilence brought good fortune to some.

  She grabbed the straw broom and moved outside to sweep the cobbles in front of the shop. The mutter of conversation between her father and Bâtard was broken by a prolonged fit of her father’s coughing. Marie stared toward the back of the shop and shivered. Coughs were common enough but no longer easily ignored. Bâtard ordered two loaves to be delivered daily and left with a hard-crusted round of rye under his arm.

  She and her father worked until the light began to fail, making loaves for the customers who came into the shop and preparing orders for the next morning’s deliveries. His cough had steadily worsened and red splotches had blossomed on his cheeks. He and Marie pretended that nothing out of the ordinary was happening, talking about their new customers and the need for a new oven if the business kept growing.

  The last of the baked loaves had just been placed in urns to protect them from rats when her father sighed and turned to her. “Will you clean up? I need to rest for a bit.”

  “Of course. Papa?”

  He raised his hand to ward off her concern. “It’s a bit of a cough, nothing more.”

  She shook her head. “You never leave early. You’ve taken a sickness.”

  He stiffened at her challenge. She walked over and hugged him, then leaned back and reached up to his face. His skin was hot and damp.

  “Your cheeks are the color of blood, and you’re fevered. It’s not just a cough.” She hugged him again, unwilling to let go.

  After a moment, he peeled her arms away, bent, and kissed her on the cheek. “Perhaps not, but what do we gain by thinking the worst? Now close up the shop as I asked and bring us a bit of supper. I need to talk with you.” His chest heaved with a strangled, hacking spasm as he left the bakery.

  2015 CE

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Topeka, Kansas

  The United States

  “CNN just broke the story,” John said. “Three kids dead.” He was sitting in the Topeka airport waiting for the first leg of a connection to San Antonio and talking with Stony Hill, his partner. She was in Missoula investigating theTransition-related deaths being reported by the cable news channel.

  Stony sounded exhausted and frustrated. “The local school district has been trying to keep the story under wraps, but you know how that goes. Two boys and a girl. Part of a secret group in the Windy Hill Middle School. Using Transition magic was part of the group’s oath.”

  “Shit.” He didn’t need to ask where the kids got the words for the ritual. For eons, secrecy about the specific words required to trigger magic had been the primary protection for kids. The Internet had blown that apart. “Why didn’t someone—teachers, parents, someone—know about this group?”

  “Kids are good at hiding stuff. And this community assumed their kids knew better, so no one was watching very closely.”

  “You able to identify all the other kids in the group?”

  “Took a while, but yeah. Talked with each of them and then did a districtwide meeting with parents and kids. It was rough on everyone, but I think they get it now. The school superintendent and her curriculum director will come to a DTS training program in DC.”

  Stony was a pierced, purple-haired warrior. Her first name stemmed from her 60s parents’ love of weed and willingness to subject their kid to playground name-calling. She stood five-two and weighed a scant hundred pounds, with a personality more like two hundred pounds of fighting muscle.

  “Good. I assume I would’ve heard if you broke any bones doing the persuading.”

  She ignored John’s sarcasm. “I plan to hang out in the schools for a couple days to handle whatever bubbles up. There’s always something when you pull the scab off all the secrecy shit. Will head back to D.C. after that.”

  “Got it. I’m doing a community education thing in Texas; see you in a few days.”

  • • • • •

  John had just finished the call with Stony when his phone lit up with his boss’s number. Her name flashed in alternating red and black letters, reminding him that the call was encrypted. “Afternoon, Marva. How are things in balmy D.C.?”

  The DTS director hated idle chat. “Dish, I need you and Stony back in D.C. by late tomorrow. I’ll send a plane to pick you up if you can’t catch commercial flights.”

  John had been tagged with “Dish”—for disheveled—early in his DTS career. Men’s Wearhouse or tailored Armani, it didn’t make any difference; his clothes always looked like he’d slept in them.

  “We’ve just got a couple more days before we’re done. What’s up?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon. I’ll let you know where. Five sharp.”

  Typical. Marva wouldn’t provide more information until the meeting. Unless he poked. He was one of the few agents who dared. “Uh-uh. We’re gonna be late unless yo
u give me a little more.”

  “Quit busting my balls, Agent Benoit.”

  Also typical. Her reference to balls made him smile. She may have been one of the few women—the only black woman—running a departmental agency, but she had a bigger pair than most of her male counterparts. That was one of the reasons John loved working for her.

  “Archaeological find in northern Italy. Apparently some sort of second-century text that gives kids a way to use magic without uniqueness. Our guy who found the dingus is on his way here.”

  “Jesus. But why the rush?”

  “Because our asshole guy disclosed the find to some professor in Pakistan.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Islamabad,

  Islamic Republic of Pakistan

  Tareef stared at the shadows dancing on the ceiling of the darkened room. He lay under a light blanket on the sofa in the front room of the professor’s home.

  Rahman lived in a one-floor, white frame house at the edge of the city. The home faced a asphalt road that led north into the desert. It was the last house in a lonely row of homes, the last outpost between the city and the vast surrounding plains of dirt and scrub.

  The home was box with a peaked metal roof. Thirty feet of sparse grass separated the road from a front porch that stretched the width of the house, three steps above the ground. A wide living room faced the street; a bedroom and kitchen split the back. Each room had screened windows covered with sheer white curtains. A door in the back wall of the kitchen opened to a small landing and steps that led down to the rough ground behind the house.

  Rahman sat in a dim pool of light at a small desk on the opposite side of the room.

  Tareef felt hollow and exhausted, like he’d been working in the fields for days. But his mind churned with the day’s events, unwilling to let him rest. What would become of him if his father didn’t return? Where was he? Was he safe and unharmed? Professor Rahman had promised to help, but what could he do? Tareef relived his arrival at the Institute. The professor had embraced him and had taken him to a private bench in the building’s center courtyard.