The Smoke-Scented Girl

by Melissa McShane

  “A spell. Quickly! I don’t need much. In a cruet, if you can.”

  The cook, still stunned, found a glass cruet of oil and handed it to him, her hands shaking a little at his intensity. Evon nodded his thanks and dashed back upstairs. His own hands trembling, he dribbled oil in an awkward circle around candle, snuffbox, and shell, then set the cruet far away on the other side of the room and clenched his fists to steady himself. This had to work. It was so simple. He closed his eyes briefly and said, “Presadi,” feeling the all-too-familiar numbness pass briefly over his tongue.

  A silvery dome that looked like a soap bubble, its surface slick with rainbows that sparkled rather than gleamed, sprang up around the three objects. Evon held his breath. It looked the same as any other shield. He exhaled, slowly, then snapped his fingers and said, “Forva.”

  A ring of white fire sprang up along the line of oil, over a foot tall. Evon was several feet away, but the heat parched his face and hands and crisped his hair. It felt as if all the air in the room were being sucked into it. Evon shielded his face and shouted, “Desini!”

  The fire went out. So did the shield. He’d need to be more careful about directing that command word. Evon went forward, his lips still tingling from desini. Shell. Snuffbox.

  Candle. Completely intact.

  Evon sucked in a breath, then shouted a wordless cry of triumph. It worked. By the Twins, it actually worked! He picked up the candle stub. Not only wasn’t it melted, it was cool to the touch. So were the other two objects. He clasped them to his chest and did a joyful little dance around the room. Piercy had been right; all he’d needed was to think about something else for a while. He stopped dancing and drew in several slow breaths to calm his racing heart, set the spell components on the desk, and sat down on the bed. Sleep was out of the question now. He might as well turn his attention toward Piercy’s little problem. It couldn’t possibly be as difficult as the one he’d just solved.

  Chapter Two

  Evon shivered and once again wondered why Miss Elltis was so opposed to installing some form of heating in her magicians’ offices. A series of metal grills with a radiant heat spell cast on them, for example, would fit neatly under the long row of windows and not interfere with the rest of the wall space. He rubbed his hands together, then pressed the tips of his index and pinky fingers together and whispered, “Presadi,” and the iridescent shield rose up around him, two inches from his nose. He immediately felt warmer, felt his breath coming up against the shield and rebounding to brush his face. His breath was damp and warm and smelled slightly of hazelnuts, for no reason Evon could imagine. After demonstrating the fireproof shield to Miss Elltis and a handful of government officials from Home Defense, he’d worked long hours coming up with the gestures that would replace the runes and material components of his initial experiments. The shield had turned out to be airtight as well, which made it dangerous for long-term use. Eventually he’d have to work out a solution for that, too, but at the moment he felt he’d earned his bonus, as well as Miss Elltis’s grudging approval. They both knew Evon was Elltis & Company’s brightest rising star, though Miss Elltis behaved as if Evon were just another junior member of the cooperative and Evon behaved as if he actually thought of her as his superior.

  He dismissed the shield with a word and a flick of his left hand and felt the chill descend upon him again, oppressive and distracting. Time to take another look at Piercy’s project. The map tacked to the wall was the biggest map of Dalanine and environs that he could find. He’d marked the sites of the...fires? Events? Explosions? that Home Defense had identified. Why they didn’t just come out and call it the War Department, given that Dalanine was actually at war, he had no idea. Then, with some pride, he’d marked in a different color the sites he’d identified. True, he’d had to resort to the dubious help of the Weekly Gazette, but when he’d stripped away all the Alvorian nonsense and talk about people being struck by acts of Gods, he’d actually found truth hiding away at the core. Three more sites, all of them matching the specifics of the other explosions. Three more sites proving that this...this epidemic had been going on much longer than Home Defense believed.

  Someone rapped at his door and opened it without waiting for an invitation. “Lore, I half expect to find you frozen to your chair one of these days,” Piercy said. He wore padded kid gloves and an overcoat with a fur collar turned up to shroud his ears and hairline and had his walking stick tucked under his arm. “Doesn’t your Miss Elltis believe in the basic human right not to freeze to death in one’s place of employ?”

  “Miss Elltis believes in the basic human right not to spend unnecessary money, and she defines what is unnecessary,” Evon said, rubbing his hands together and blowing on his fingers. “And I forgot my gloves. Did you bribe the guard again?”

  “The guard is under the impression that I am Home Defense’s liaison with this cooperative, which is true except for all the ways in which it is false. For the Twins’ sake put on your coat, at least. You make me cold just looking at you.”

  Evon crossed the room to where he’d left his frock coat and overcoat and put both on. Piercy went over to the map and stood with his hands behind his back, gazing at the marks. “You’ve been a busy boy these last three weeks, dear fellow,” he mused. “I hope this represents actual progress.”

  “You have such little faith in me. It represents the progress of the Fearsome Firemage through Dalanine.”

  “The ‘Fearsome Firemage’? How very alliterative of you.”

  “A term coined by the Weekly Gazette. I may have to take out a subscription, it’s been so useful. Care to know the latest act of Gods? Strange creatures emerging from the magical places where nature’s law no longer applies? Or perhaps some Wystylth sightings? It’s a full moon, always good—”

  “Thank you, no, I encounter enough insanity at my place of employment every day.” Piercy riffled through one of the stacks of the pages tacked to the wall beside the map. “I recognize this name. Lendan Hansaltis. One of the victims.”

  “I think not. It’s his wife those clippings are about. Charra Hansaltis was accused of viciously abusing her husband and children over a course of several years.”

  “Abusing her husband? That seems unlikely.”

  “You’d be surprised at what some women are capable of, and what some men are incapable of resisting. Don’t you want to know why it matters?”

  “Since you clearly want to tell me, yes.”

  Evon tapped another stack of papers. “Only six victims in four events were ever identified. But four of the six have criminal histories. Harkel Stantis, who turned out to have six bodies buried beneath the foundation of his home. The most recent one, Frandon Toltis, who was accused of poisoning both his wives. Charra Hansaltis. And Storna Cathelter, whom Joral Donalter says—”

  “Gimpy? How is the old fellow, anyway? Haven’t seen him in a dog’s age.”

  “He’s fine. He’s employed in the constabulary in Carshan, where Storna Cathelter lived. He says they had complaints all the time about her from her neighbors, serious criminal allegations even, but no one ever brought her up on a charge.” Gimpy had been surprisingly happy to hear from him, and Evon felt a renewed pang of guilt at having let that old friendship slip by, a pang intensified by his feeling that he had only looked Gimpy up because he needed something from him. One more friendship he’d let fade.

  “I’ll wager he still has the fastest legs in Dalanine. I would hate to be a criminal run down by him. Lore, is there a point to this?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? All four had what I think Gimpy would call a criminal nature and none of them were brought to justice for their crimes. I would wager, as long as we’re placing bets, that if we could identify the rest of the victims, we’d find similar evidence. In fact, in Alsenth, where the first event occurred, there was a series of unsolved murders that stopped after the explosion. I was thinking of contacting Chess Blaketer, see if he’s heard anything more.”

&nb
sp; Piercy shook his head. “Not a good idea. He joined Speculatus after two years at university. He and Odelia were both recruited pretty heavily. I’m surprised you didn’t at least know about Odelia. I was under the impression that you kept a careful eye on her so you would never again have to share the same breathing space.”

  Evon scowled. “I really have no interest in what she does with her life. And I don’t see how Chesley being employed by Speculatus means I shouldn’t reach out to him for information. In fact, that might make him more likely to know something.”

  “Their unsavory reputation, according to my inside sources, is more than a little deserved,” Piercy said. “I realize none of their members has ever been convicted of shady dealings, but there are people employed by my department who watch them like a starving man watches someone else’s meal, waiting for them to misstep.”

  “I can’t imagine Chess being involved in anything like that.”

  Piercy shrugged. “Maybe not, but it’s still better not to bring him in on this. For all we know, Speculatus might have an interest in finding our mystery magician themselves.”

  “That’s an excellent point. Well, I would like to have more evidence about Alsenth, because I realize it’s a stretch, but it fits the evidence. I think the Fearsome Firemage is targeting evildoers whom the law has no hold over.”

  “But Storna Cathelter—”

  “Was killed with her child, yes. It’s likely some of these victims were innocent bystanders. The spell isn’t exactly discriminatory.”

  “Then you know how it works.”

  Evon shook his head and shoved his hands into his overcoat pockets. “I wish I did. I’ve been able to duplicate the ten-foot diameter, but nothing I’ve tried has come close to being hot enough. Either the Fearsome Firemage—”

  “You really do enjoy saying that, don’t you, dear fellow?”

  “It has a certain appeal. She’s either using a combination of runes and gestures I’ve never heard of, or she’s found some material component that is far more potent than anything we have access to.”

  “Then you believe your Fearsome Firemage is a woman.” Piercy riffled through the clippings again, as if looking for her identity among them.

  “It can’t be coincidence that witnesses at every location have reported seeing a woman either fleeing the place, or watching the fire, or standing out in some other way. There’s too much consistency—a woman with long blonde hair, of average height, young or at least not yet middle-aged. That’s discounting the witnesses who saw a naked woman leaving the site, which simply proves that some people have very low minds.” Evon grinned. “I think we’re looking for a woman.”

  “That’s—what do you mean, we’re looking for a woman?”

  Evon grinned more broadly. This was how he used to feel all the time, everything knife-edged and clear in his mind, all the steps laid out before him and all he had to do was leap from one to the next, towing Piercy with him, or occasionally pushing him out ahead. Piercy needed danger in his life, and Evon needed a challenge; their friendship was based on that symbiosis. “You and I,” he said, savoring the words, “are going to make a journey. South.”

  Piercy shook his head, slowly but emphatically, and held up his stick as if to ward Evon off. “No. No. You have that look in your eye, Evon, and besides, I can’t exactly leave my work and go haring off with you on whatever mad quest you have in mind.”

  “You won’t have to leave your work, Piercy. Your employers are going to pack you a box lunch and kiss you farewell, metaphorically speaking, because you are going to tell them that you know how to track down the Fearsome Firemage. Though you might not want to call her that in front of them. They’ll think you read the Weekly Gazette and the Twins only know what kind of mental instability that might mean.”

  “I, track down the Fearsome Firemage? Evon, if anyone is displaying mental instability right now, it’s you.”

  Evon rapped on the map with his knuckles, then blew on them to warm them. “Would I lead you astray?”

  Piercy covered his face with one gloved hand. “I am experiencing a vivid memory. Would you like me to tell you what it is?”

  “I already know it’s a memory of our fifth year at Houndston, winter term, when we rearranged Mistress Goulter’s personal spell components so she mistook her hair growth tonic for her skin cleanser and grew what I recall to be a very fine beard.”

  “Yes, and because you made me handle the jars, I spilled some of the tonic and grew hair on my palms. As if my in-house suspension wasn’t enough of a trial.”

  “To be fair, I confessed my part in the adventure and stood suspension by your side, as a true friend would.”

  Piercy raised his head. “My point, Evon, is that our mutual history could be construed to be a long, long line of events in which you led me astray.”

  “Well, I promise I’m not leading you astray now.” Evon pointed at the map again, then covered his nose with his cupped hands and breathed heavily to warm his face. “There’s a pattern there,” he said, his voice muffled, “or rather a trend, since there’s no consistency in the timing of the events or the distance between them. The trend is southward. The Fearsome Firemage is seeking out criminals who can’t be or haven’t been apprehended by the law. We just have to find those criminals first.”

  “Evon, did I mention that you are out of your mind?”

  “I’ve already received a leave of absence from Miss Elltis. You tell your superiors that you are accompanying your, whatever you called me, civilian expert as the government’s representative because said expert needs to examine the evidence personally. Tell them I’m close to discovering the secret. It’s true, I am. I’ll wager they won’t have any problem letting you go.”

  Piercy took a deep breath and let it out, slowly. He smiled, brown eyes twinkling. “I have to say, it is good to see your old self is still in there somewhere, dear fellow.”

  “I feel the same.” Evon looked around the dismal workroom and wondered if he even wanted to come back to it. Lorantis & Company. Right. He could endure a little dullness for the sake of his dream, be satisfied with mere contentment, but Piercy was right: his old self had been locked away too long. Time to see what that self could accomplish.

  ***

  It was the most tedious and most anxious two weeks of Evon’s life. He and Piercy took the coach from Matra to Chaneston, site of the most recent event, and searched outward from there, looking through newspapers for reports of unsolved violent crimes in the larger cities, asking after female strangers in the smaller ones. They took coaches down narrow roads that were more like game trails, bare tree limbs and spiny brambles almost scraping along the sides of the vehicle. They spent nights in villages so tiny they weren’t even marked on Evon’s map, sometimes bedding down on the floor of a willing cottager’s home because there was neither inn nor tavern with rooms to let. After the first week, Evon began to fear that his plan wasn’t as brilliant as he’d thought. He found it hard to meet Piercy’s eye, though his friend never complained or criticized. It was that lack of complaint that worried Evon; if Piercy’s flow of pointed witticisms dried up, it meant Piercy was as frustrated as Evon, and that made Evon feel guilty at having dragged Piercy into this.

  Ten days and sixteen villages after Chaneston they rode through the streets of Rainoth, which was a fairly large city only three days’ journey south from the capital. New construction on every corner proclaimed its prosperity, though Evon observed that the builders hadn’t taken advantage of the opportunity to upgrade the existing properties. The mix of styles gave the city a lopsided look, older wooden houses with upper stories jutting out over lower ones pressed cheek to cheek with the flat brick façades of the newcomers. It had snowed the previous night, and the streets were already churned into a dirty slush the horses kicked up with every step. Evon stepped down from the coach at the way station and stretched to get the kinks out of his back. They’d slept cold on some farmer’s hearth the night before,
and Evon had wakened several times imagining the unknown magician had passed and was far ahead of them preparing to strike down some new victim. His eyes felt dry and itchy and his shoulders ached. The Fearsome Firemage would have had to backtrack to strike in Rainoth, but it was the last large city between Chaneston and Matra and he was running out of ideas.

  “Did you want to begin searching immediately, or find a bed? Or send your Miss Elltis an update?” Piercy asked. He, damn him, looked as fresh and impeccably turned out as ever.

  “An inn,” Evon said, “to drop our gear. I’d rather not haul it all over town.” And, he thought, I want to delay the moment where I have to tell Miss Elltis I’ve still had no success as long as possible. At first he’d communicated with her by mirror every evening, then every other day, and now his contacts with her were sporadic as he convinced himself he shouldn’t waste her time by telling her he had no news. He dreaded seeing her severe visage in his mirror, hearing her precise voice, tinny with distance, dressing up her message in formal words but always saying the same thing: come home successful or don’t come home at all. He thought the last part might be a little extreme; Miss Elltis couldn’t afford to lose him. Even so, every time he felt the palm-sized round mirror in his inner pocket press against his chest, he cringed.

  “That one looks promising,” Piercy said, gesturing across the road to a three-story stone building with a wooden sign over the door that said THE FIREBRAND. It did look prosperous and the sign depicting a burning torch was new, the paint fresh. Evon’s eye returned to that picture. “Interesting,” he said.

  “Well, it looks no more or less promising than any of the other inns I’ve seen on the way here, but it has the virtue of being in our immediate vicinity,” Piercy said.

  “Fire,” Evon said. “I wonder.”

  Piercy glanced at him. “You aren’t suggesting that after ten days of searching, we step off a coach and just happen to stumble upon our quarry’s trail?”