The Smoke-Scented Girl

by Melissa McShane

  “I’ve had a great deal of success on my own,” Evon said, concealing his irritation.

  “Your desires don’t enter into it. We cannot afford you the luxury of working at your own pace. More magicians mean more expertise—or do you deny that you lack the experience of maturity?”

  “Mrs. Petelter, Evon is the finest magician of his generation and far more skilled than many magicians with more, as you put it, experience of maturity,” Piercy said. “I brought this task to him for that reason.”

  “The department is grateful to you, Mr. Faranter, but now I will be supervising this affair, and my assessment is that Mr. Lorantis’s efforts will be more productive with the assistance of his fellows.” She settled her cloak over her shoulders. “Home Defense has already declared this spell war materiel, and under our jurisdiction. You will all three of you serve your country as I dictate or face charges. I am sorry it must come to this, but the Despot has left us with no choice but to appropriate whatever we believe will win us this war.”

  “I’m not a thing, Mrs. Petelter,” Kerensa exclaimed.

  “It is unfortunate for you that you are, for the moment, inseparable from the spell, but that changes nothing. I suggest you accelerate your efforts if you wish her out of this, Mr. Lorantis.”

  “What of Speculatus?” Piercy said. “They pose a not inconsiderable threat to us.”

  “We are aware of the danger and our people are prepared to defend the spell if Speculatus comes against us. If we are fortunate, Speculatus will overextend themselves and commit to an action that will expose them for what they are, and leave them vulnerable to the law. The best circumstance would be for Speculatus to succeed at abducting Miss Haylter and then be captured by us.”

  Kerensa’s expression was even more wooden than before. She seemed not to hear what Mrs. Petelter was saying. “And suppose you didn’t capture them? You would dare put her in danger like that? Speculatus wouldn’t shrink from torturing her to gain secrets she doesn’t have,” Evon said hotly.

  “Control yourself, Mr. Lorantis. Miss Haylter is far too valuable to risk. If I decide such action is necessary, she will have every protection we can muster.”

  “Stop treating her like she isn’t human!”

  “Careful, Mr. Lorantis. I am your advocate in this situation. Would you prefer I leave things to Garaid? Miss Haylter, I apologize, but I’m sure you understand better than anyone what it means that this spell is part of you. Mr. Lorantis, I expect a report on your findings at the end of each day. Mr. Faranter, walk with me. I have further instructions for you.”

  Piercy’s lips were set in a thin, hard line, but he held the door for Mrs. Petelter and followed her into the hall. When the door was again shut, Kerensa sat in her chair and stared blindly at the wall. Evon said, “I’ll figure it out. I swear.”

  “I know,” she replied in the dull, emotionless voice Evon had hoped he’d heard the last of. Damn Mrs. Petelter, and damn Mr. Terantis, for doing this to her. He dismissed epiria, then knelt at her side, scuffing the chalk circle, and took her hand in his. “Mrs. Petelter’s going to leave us alone. This changes nothing, do you hear me? I’ll work harder and soon they’ll have their damned spell and it will be nothing to do with us anymore. Kerensa. Look at me.”

  She turned to face him, her poreless skin pale, her eyes haunted. “Will you start work again now?” she said. “I want this to be over.”

  He squeezed her hand, gently. Her skin was warm and soft and felt just like ordinary skin. “I will,” he said, “if you remove that expression that says I just killed your favorite puppy.”

  Her eyes widened, then she smiled. “I like cats,” she said. “And I think you come up with outrageous things to say to me so I’ll laugh.”

  “That’s true,” Evon said, and released her hand. “I lie awake at night inventing insults and absurdities to keep your spirits up. It keeps me sane when Piercy snores.”

  “Well, it works. Thank you. And, Evon? Thanks for defending me.”

  Her hazel eyes were fixed on his, and he found himself tongue-tied. All he could do was smile, and nod, and turn away as gracefully as possible.

  Chapter Ten

  Now Evon fell into a pattern: breakfast, study, dinner, study, supper, study, sleep. Piercy had to force him to take rests and ultimately resorted to pointing out that Kerensa had begun to look haggard from inactivity, which made Evon feel horribly guilty. After that, Piercy and Kerensa went for walks in the mid-morning and after dinner, accompanied by one of the Home Defense agents, and Evon organized his notes and made more of them and analyzed his findings until his eyes ached. Occasionally he joined Piercy and Kerensa, but he was always so preoccupied with his thoughts that he was a poor companion and sometimes had to be steered out of the way of other pedestrians and lampposts.

  His lexicon grew slowly, which infuriated him. It felt like the spell was taunting him, becoming more obscure the more he learned. More phrases: fire to destroy, tell it to return, bind the call. Too many long sequences of indecipherable runes. Some of the five hundred runes seemed to be variants on others, and he didn’t know what to make of that; were they the same words, written differently, or did the variants alter the meanings, change present to past tense or turn a noun into a gerund? He used up his paper and sent Piercy to the stationer’s for more, set Kerensa to sharpening pencils, and drew runes until he felt he would overflow with them.

  At the end of the third day, Evon sat at the dressing table, staring at his notes, wondering why anyone had ever thought he was a brilliant magician. He’d deciphered another fifty runes since Mrs. Petelter had descended on them, trailing agents in her wake, and they hadn’t made any difference. The problem, he knew now—and discovering this had been important, so maybe he shouldn’t be so hard on himself—was that it was actually a host of smaller spells working together for one purpose. He’d worked out many of the small spells already. He knew how it made Kerensa impervious to normal fire—he’d used that one to improve his own shield spell. He knew how it was able to resurrect her after the explosion. He understood the tangle of spells that caused the spell’s activation, though he still wasn’t sure how it chose its specific targets beyond the unhelpful “no soul” cluster of runes. And he knew how it directed Kerensa to find its next target. He just didn’t understand the great central spell that all the rest connected to, the spell that contained the secret of the magical fire. And he didn’t know how to break Kerensa free of it.

  A hand removed the pencil from his. “Stop,” Kerensa said. “Rest. It’s not so urgent that you have to kill yourself figuring it out.”

  He looked up at her. Motionless blue spell-ribbons made a halo around her head. “I want you to be free,” he said.

  “So do I, but not at the cost of your sanity.”

  “Those other magicians will start arriving in a day or two, Kerensa. My work will effectively end then, because even if they let me continue working, I’m going to spend days explaining what I’ve already learned to magicians who won’t respect me enough to listen.”

  “Let’s just start again tomorrow, all right? You need sleep, and honestly, so do I. I’m exhausted and I’m going blind because of this blue light. Can you turn it off, please?”

  Evon gestured and the spell vanished. “I can’t sleep. I see runes every time I close my eyes.”

  “You need something else to think about,” Piercy said, entering in time to hear Evon’s last words. “But I’m afraid I am all out of new projects for you, dear fellow.”

  “How is our dear friend and patroness Mrs. Petalter?”

  “Friendly and patronizing as ever, Lore. She greeted my suggestion that in remaining here we are a more obvious target for Speculatus with polite dismissal and the unspoken suggestion that I should take myself off so the adults could make decisions. I didn’t bother speaking to Terantis, of course.” He sat heavily on his bed. “I need a drink.”

  “So do I.” Evon lay back on his bed.

  “You nee
d hot milk and a bedtime story, dear fellow.”

  “Hot milk sounds disgusting, but...Kerensa, wait.” Kerensa paused with her hand on the bathroom doorknob. “Why don’t you tell us a story about Alvor?”

  “Aren’t you a little old for bedtime stories?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “It will give me something to think about besides runes. Please?”

  Kerensa shrugged and took her seat again. “What do you want to hear?”

  “I barely know any of them,” Evon said. “Pick one of your favorites.”

  She tapped her lips with her index finger, thinking. “All right. Do you remember the story of the Dirn-Hound?”

  “No,” said Piercy.

  “It helped Alvor find the gates of the Underworld,” Evon told him.

  “Is this a true story?” Piercy asked.

  “Depends on who you ask. Do you want to hear it or not?” Kerensa said. “Then stop talking. All right. Alvor’s best friend Carall was trapped in the Underworld, and Alvor needed his help to defeat Murakot. So he went on several quests to get him back. They all have their own stories, like the Dirn-Hound, but the short version—”

  “Why can’t we hear the long version?”

  “Because you might want another bedtime story tomorrow, Evon, and I want to save something for then. Now shush. Alvor collected all sorts of things: a vial of magic oil, a stick from the oldest oak in Telwyth Forest, a hazelnut the size of his fist, and of course the Dirn-Hound and the leash he used to capture it. And the Dirn-Hound led him, with all his magic things, to the gates of the Underworld.

  “None of the legends say what the gates looked like, just that they opened in the Dirn-Hound’s presence and let Alvor walk through. The halls of the Underworld teemed with the spirits of the dead, none of them able to speak and all of them able to lead a mortal visitor down the wrong path. Alvor was prepared. He blindfolded himself and with the stick from the oldest oak in Telwyth Forest found the path that took him past the spirits and to the antechamber to the five Death-Lands, where he discovered five identical doors.

  “Now, in the Twins’ domains, there are doors you can only pass once, and these were the doors the dead go through to their final home. Alvor had to choose the one Carall had passed through, and if he chose wrong, he’d never be able to come back to choose again. So Alvor put the magic oil on his eyelids, and saw that one of the doors was blacker than a crow’s heart. He chose that door and came through to a black hall filled with spirits, and every one of them was Carall.

  “Now one of the people whose help Alvor had asked for was the Witch of Marhalindor, who was insane but saw things sane people don’t. She told Alvor to take what Carall hated and give it to him. So Alvor took a giant hazelnut—stop laughing, Piercy! It’s how the story goes.”

  “I simply think it lacks sufficient gravitas. Hazelnut, indeed. Much better a stinging nettle, if you must have some type of flora. Or some kind of vicious animal, like a cat.”

  “I like cats. And I’m telling the story. It was a hazelnut because Carall couldn’t eat them, they made him sick. And Alvor took the giant hazelnut and tossed it into the middle of the throng. All ghosts love food, even though they can’t eat it, and they dived on the nut—all except one. And Alvor took the Dirn-Hound’s leash and tied Carall’s hands, and led him out of the Underworld to the lands above.”

  “How did Alvor get out if he’d gone through the door you only pass through once?” Evon asked. Kerensa’s low, musical voice had relaxed him nearly to sleep.

  “He took the God Cath’s route, the one the Twin takes when he leaves his realm. He had to fight his way free, that’s how he lost his finger.”

  “And Carall was alive again?”

  “No, he was dead, but he walked the living world like a breathing man. And he fought with Alvor against Murakot and defeated him.”

  Evon rolled on his side to face her. “So, where’s the kernel of truth in that story?”

  Kerensa stretched. “You want to know what I think? I think the whole thing’s true.”

  “Dead men walking the earth?”

  “Aren’t there places people don’t go because they’re so saturated with magic the laws of nature break down? If I were going to hide the entrance to the Underworld, I’d put it someplace like that. But if you want a more realistic interpretation, Carall wandered into one of those places, Alvor went after him and had some kind of hallucination, and the place changed Carall into something not quite human.”

  “I prefer the second interpretation, but I am a pragmatist,” Piercy said.

  “I’m surprised you believe the more unbelievable version this time,” Evon said. “You’re usually so quick to dismiss the less likely elements.”

  “I just think the idea of Alvor going into death after the person he cared most for in all the world rings true,” Kerensa said. “And now I’m going to bed. Good night.”

  “Good night,” Evon said. “I’m starting to understand the appeal of these Alvor stories,” he said to Piercy.

  “Really? I prefer a good straightforward adventure novel in which the men are heroes and the women are grateful,” Piercy said. He sat on his bed and began taking off his boots. “No concerns about whether or not it’s true.”

  “You don’t think Alvor really existed?”

  “Oh, I think he did. Somebody killed Murakot, after all. But no one man, or even three men and a woman, or two men, a woman and a whatever Wystylth was, could possibly have done everything they’re meant to have done.”

  Evon rolled off the bed and began to undress. “Don’t you ever feel as if we’ve wandered into one of these old stories? Ancient spells, a wandering quest...though I have trouble picturing you as Alvor.”

  “I’m Wystylth, the sneaky one, and since you’re a magician that makes you Dania. I’m just as happy not to be living in those times. No indoor plumbing anywhere, for one thing.”

  “Put out the light, would you? I’m saying, suppose one of those old stories found us. That spell is pretty old.”

  “As old as Alvor?”

  “Maybe.” Exhaustion overwhelmed him. If the spell were as old as Alvor...the thought reminded him of something, but he was too tired to dig it out of memory. He sank into sleep and dreamed of a faceless man fighting his way out of the underworld, towing Kerensa behind him.

  ***

  Evon flattened himself on the floor and peered under the bed, then summoned a light and looked again. Nothing but hardened dust clinkers and a deserted spider web. No pen knife. He searched under Piercy’s bed, then dragged the dressing table away from the wall and looked there. The movement sent drifts of pages sliding to the floor. Evon put the table back with more force than necessary, knocking over the rest of the pages and jostling the wall mirror. He hadn’t spoken to Miss Elltis in five days; between the arrival of Mrs. Petelter and her people, and the increased urgency to decipher the spell, there hadn’t been time. He was lying to himself, of course. He didn’t want to talk to Miss Elltis. What he wanted was to find the damned pen knife. Someone must have taken it.

  “Evon—you look awful. Let me help.” Kerensa came through from the bathroom and bent to help him pick up papers.

  “I’m trying to find my pen knife,” he muttered. “No, I need those in order. Thank you.”

  “You loaned it to me yesterday, to cut the pages of that new book,” she said.

  “Why didn’t you say so? I need it!”

  “I didn’t know that. Here, I have it right here.”

  He snatched it out of her hand. “Finally. Couldn’t you have returned it immediately? Sometimes I think no one cares about this undertaking but me.”

  Kerensa went very still. “You’re probably right,” she said. “The Gods forbid it could possibly matter to anyone else.”

  Evon’s heart sank. “Kerensa, I’m sorry,” he said. “That was thoughtless and insensitive and untrue and I should never have said it. I’ve become caught up in my work again...but that’s no excuse. Plea
se forgive me.”

  She surveyed his face, her eyes expressionless. “I’m going down to breakfast,” she said. “You should probably clean yourself up before you do the same. You wouldn’t want to get so caught up in research that you forget to eat. Again.” She turned and left, slamming the door behind her.

  Evon threw the pen knife at the dressing table and heard it slide and clatter to the floor. He sat on his bed and covered his face with his hands. He needed to stop thinking about this. He couldn’t afford to stop thinking about it. That look on her face...she wasn’t going to forgive him for that for a long time. The thought made his chest ache. When am I going to learn to think before I speak? He found he’d lost his appetite, or maybe it was just that he couldn’t bear to meet her empty eyes again.

  He stood and retrieved the pen knife, which was now chipped from its encounter with the table. It could be a reminder to him to stop being so caught up in his work that he forgot to be a decent human being. He moved most of the pages to the bed and spread fresh paper on the table, then drew up the chair. There was a tangle of runes he thought might be the key to the spell, if only he could work out which of their many configurations meant something instead of being gibberish. Knowing this was how ancient magicians had worked was different from seeing the technique in action. Evon picked up his pencil and began writing the runes on the blank pages, large and bold and separate from one another. Then he cut the paper so he had dozens of smaller, square-ish bits of paper, each with a single rune on it. He shuffled the papers and dealt them out as if he were playing a particularly fiendish game of patience. There was a combination that made sense, and he would find it.

  He spread the papers, rearranged them, gathered them up and spread them again. He took notes on the configurations that didn’t work. It was going to take forever. Shuffle and spread. Fragments of sentences took shape and dissolved again. More notes on his failures. His fingers became gray and dry with pencil lead.