The Smoke-Scented Girl

by Melissa McShane

  “It fits, though,” Evon said. He was thinking so furiously that his voice sounded to him like it was coming from very far away. “If the ‘Enemy’ isn’t Murakot, but something that was riding him—”

  “Evon, that’s ridiculous. You can’t build a theory on one story that isn’t even part of the lore.”

  “Can’t I? Kerensa, the target word is clear and we’re both certain Murakot isn’t alive now. You’re being drawn gradually south, in the direction the Despot’s armies are camped. And you tell me there’s a possibility that Murakot had some...entity...guiding him.” He leaped to his feet and began pacing. “Oh, by the Twins, Kerensa—this all started a year ago, and that’s when the Despot began to make headway in his conquest. It’s when he stopped caring about doing anything but razing the lands he captured. He changed just about a year ago.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “Deadly serious. And I think I can prove it. It’s going to take a complicated spell—damn it, it’s going to take forever now that we have to be on the road, never mind if the magicians get here and interrupt me—no, if you let them get caught up in examining you, they’ll leave me alone—”

  “Evon,” Kerensa said, “stop pacing and take a deep breath.” She went to where he stood restlessly in the center of the room. “Can you start now?”

  Evon looked at her, surprised. She seemed more animated than she’d been all evening. “Aren’t you sleepy? I’ve kept you up far too late.”

  “When you’re so close to another breakthrough? I wouldn’t be able to sleep now if I tried. What can I do to help?”

  Evon thought. More notes, and material components.... “Think of something physical that might represent Murakot, and the Despot,” he said. “We don’t have anything of theirs that might stand in for them in the spell, so it has to be something with...emotional resonance. I have to get things from my room, but I’ll be right back.” He grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her forehead. “This could work,” he said with a grin, and dashed out of her room, bumping the guard and ignoring the epithet the man spat in his direction.

  Piercy was soundly asleep, so Evon moved as quietly as he could, gathering paper and pencils and snatching up a handful of material components: his pen knife, a coin from the detritus littering Piercy’s bedside table, a piece of coal from the hod, his quizzing glass. He dropped to his knees and reached far back under the dressing table with a pencil to gather up cobwebs in a soft ball. It would—

  Suddenly, it was daylight. Evon blinked. It took effort, as if something were pressing down on his eyelids. He blinked again. His arm was stretched out straight under the dressing table, and he couldn’t turn his head. He could feel his knees pressing into the rough wooden floor, but his hands and his face felt numb, and the things he’d held were scattered on the floor around him. Paralysis. His thoughts were as numb as his face. He couldn’t remember what he’d been doing or why he’d had to do it on the floor. He tried to move and discovered that his left leg and arm were both free from the paralysis. He pushed off from the floor and managed to roll onto his back. The ceiling was painted the same light blue as the walls, the exposed rafters stained almost black, and a crack like the silhouette of a mountain ridge ran between two of the beams. With a little rocking, he managed to roll onto his side facing Piercy, who was also awake and seemed to be in the same condition Evon was in. He said something Evon couldn’t understand because his mouth barely moved. Evon flexed his jaw. “See if your legs or arms work,” he said, more intelligibly than Piercy. Piercy blinked once and began to stretch his legs.

  Evon stretched his left arm and managed to reach his right leg, and began massaging it. Something about this disturbed him, but he couldn’t remember why. Obviously someone had attacked him and Piercy, but why? He would feel like a fool when he finally remembered. His right leg began to twitch on its own, and he concentrated his efforts on his right arm. At some point, his neck loosened, and he rotated it gingerly. Paralysis didn’t leave you stiff once it had passed, the way you would be if you’d fallen asleep in such an awkward position, but it did take time to recover from. Kerensa had recovered quickly from desini cucurri, back in Inveros—

  Oh no.

  “No, no, no, no,” he chanted. Memory came back in a rush. He rolled onto his hands and knees and pushed himself up with the aid of Piercy’s bed. Piercy sat up and flexed both his legs. “What’s wrong?” he asked, still mumbling.

  “It’s morning, that’s what’s wrong,” Evon said, and hobbled out of the room. From his doorway, the guard at the end of the hall appeared to be asleep. As Evon drew nearer he saw that the man was actually very dead, his throat slit and blood drenching the front of his coat and speckling the wall with rust-brown spatters. The door to Kerensa’s room was ajar, but he pushed it open anyway. The bedclothes were rumpled. The lamp on the side table still burned. Kerensa was gone.

  Speculatus.

  Chapter Twelve

  Evon stumbled back down the hall, taking a wide path around the dead guard. “They’ve taken her,” he said.

  Piercy stopped rubbing the back of his neck. “How long ago?”

  “I—let me think. Around ten o’clock last night.” He swung his still slightly numb right arm up until his hand caught hold of his watch. “It’s eight-thirty. Over ten hours. Piercy, they could be anywhere in ten hours.”

  “Evon, calm down. You can track her, remember? They can’t have gotten that far away.”

  “Right.” He took a deep breath through his nostrils. Kerensa’s smoky scent tickled at his nose, faint but still distinct. “The guard is dead. We should see if Mrs. Petelter is all right.”

  “I notice you’re not worried about Terantis,” Piercy said as they left the room.

  “I’m not so callous as to wish him dead, but I wouldn’t cry many tears over him.”

  Once in the hallway, Evon could hear the noise of several people arguing, and doors slamming, and occasionally the sound of boots running. On their way down the narrow back stairs, they met one of the agents, who was limping and whose face seemed to sag a little from being paralyzed on one side. “Get back to your room,” she said, though it came out as “Et ack to or oom.”

  “The guard is dead. Kerensa is gone. Where is Mrs. Petelter?” Evon said.

  One of the agent’s eyes widened, and she shoved past them without saying another word. Evon and Piercy continued their descent and found the hall below full of people. Some of them leaned against the wall, massaging their necks or arms, while some sat on the floor being helped by their fellows. Evon and Piercy went to Mrs. Petelter’s door, which was open.

  “See if anyone else is missing,” Mrs. Petelter was saying to an agent as they entered. One arm hung limp from her shoulder, and she leaned heavily on her dressing table with the other, her leg folded beneath her. Her usual expression of placidity had been replaced by one of frustration and anger. She saw them, and her frown deepened. “Where’s the girl?”

  “Kerensa has been taken by Speculatus,” Evon said. He bit back And what a fine job you did guarding her. His position was still precarious; no sense antagonizing Mrs. Petelter further.

  Mrs. Petelter cursed. “They came upon us unawares,” she said. “The guards outside were lax and they paid for that laxity with their lives. I had no idea Speculatus had magicians capable of casting a spell to blanket an entire building. Everyone in this place last night was paralyzed. Everyone. Who can defend against something like that?” She sounded as if she were preparing to report on this to her superiors and was looking for some way to excuse her complete failure. If Kerensa hadn’t been in danger thanks to her, Evon might have felt sorry for Mrs. Petelter.

  “Was anyone else killed?” Piercy asked, and Evon knew him well enough to guess that he was trying very hard not to say I told you so.

  Mrs. Petelter shook her head. “We don’t know yet. Her guard?”

  “Dead,” Piercy said, “though I’m not sure why, since he would have been paralyzed with
the rest of us. Possibly they intended to make sure of him.”

  Mrs. Petelter rubbed the inside of her right elbow fiercely. “Our priority now is getting everyone accounted for and mobile again. Then we will wait for the magicians to arrive in a few hours. I have no intention of confronting Speculatus until we have magic enough to counter theirs.”

  “We need to leave now,” Evon insisted. Anxiety clenched his stomach. “Every hour we wait is an hour in which they will be trying to extract her secrets. They killed at least three men last night, including one who was no danger to them; do you think they’ll be any gentler with her?”

  “Mr. Lorantis, I have no idea of your magical capabilities aside from what Mr. Faranter keeps telling me, but I note that you were paralyzed along with the rest of us. I have no other magicians of professional level. How much success do you think you alone will have against whoever cast that spell last night?”

  “It wouldn’t have been one person, it would have been several, working together....” Evon’s voice trailed off as he realized he was proving Mrs. Petelter’s point for her.

  “If you wish to be of assistance, help some of these people recover,” Mrs. Petelter said. “Have patience. You are far too agitated to think clearly. I’ve already spoken to the magicians and they will arrive shortly. Then we can decide what to do.”

  ***

  The magicians arrived four excruciating hours later, while Evon was in his room failing to work out the spell he’d conceived the night before. Every footstep below jerked him out of his concentration. He didn’t have the right components for this. He didn’t know what he was looking for. Proving the existence of some...creature...he knew nothing about, could barely imagine—he must be out of his mind. But he needed something to keep his imagination from circling back around to Odelia, psychotic Odelia, trying to break Kerensa with every vicious tool she had in her arsenal. Kerensa was strong. He shouldn’t be this worried about her. Odelia couldn’t beat her. But Odelia could try, and Evon knew her too well to believe that she’d confine her torture to mere words. And Odelia must have a superior.... He went back to shuffling things on his bed, coal, coin, webbing, pen knife. He needed something to represent the Despot, something that could be easily divided...where could he find clay in this town?

  “They’re here,” Piercy said, sticking his head in the door. “You’re not going to like this. Caris Quendester is with them.”

  “Mistress Quendester,” Evon said, frozen in the act of rising from the bed. He sank back down onto it. “Piercy, have I offended the Gods in some way?”

  “No more than usual.” Piercy looked grim. “It’s always possible she’s forgiven you.”

  “I humiliated her in front of the advanced spellbuilding class. Mistress Quendester doesn’t forgive easily.”

  “True, but she’s also rational. She has to see that your skills are essential to this endeavor.”

  They looked at each other for a long moment. “She’ll send me back to Matra,” Evon said. “Piercy, I can’t go back.”

  “I know.” Piercy pursed his lips. “No, wait.” He grinned. “You’re an idiot.”

  “I am? Thank you so much for the boost to my confidence.”

  “They can’t send you home,” Piercy said slowly, as if Evon were a very slow child, “because they need you to find Kerensa.”

  Evon suddenly felt ten pounds lighter. “You’re right,” he said. “There’s no way Speculatus didn’t cast an obscuration on their path. But no one knows about the scenting spell.”

  “Come downstairs, and for the Gods’ sake be polite to Mistress Q.,” Piercy said. “She can still make your life a misery, and you know how easily she gets under your skin, dear fellow.”

  Evon shrugged. “She’s proud and arrogant and not as good as she claims to be. I can’t help but want to show her up.”

  “Well, you’ll do that with the scenting spell alone. Try to pretend that you are a mature adult for once.”

  “That’s fine advice coming from you, a grown man still playing pranks on his co-workers. One of those guards told me what you did to the back door at your headquarters. She seemed concerned that I know exactly what kind of reprobate I put my trust in.”

  “You didn’t tell her that was a jape I learned from you?”

  “Of course not. I look like a mature adult.”

  Evon said this as they came out of the stairs and almost ran into a tall, thin woman with red hair piled high on her head. She wore a dark green gown with a full skirt and carried a white baton about a foot in length. She looked at Evon with a sneer and said, “Lorantis. I was told you were in the middle of this debacle. I’m not surprised.”

  “Mistress Quendester, good morning,” Evon said with a small bow, barely more than a nod of the head. “I didn’t realize you worked for Home Defense.”

  “I don’t,” Mistress Quendester said. “Home Defense put out a call for the best magicians to assist in this little endeavor.”

  Then why did you come? Evon thought. “I’m grateful for the assistance,” he lied. “How many magicians are there?”

  “Ten,” Mistress Quendester said. “Not all of the same caliber, but all competent enough.”

  A man came down the stairs behind Evon and Piercy, holding a bundle of dark cloth. “Mistress Quendester, I believe we can begin,” he said. “This belonged to the girl.”

  Evon realized it was Kerensa’s dress, she’s only in her nightgown, she must be freezing, and was filled with unaccountable rage that anyone would handle her things so carelessly. “You...are trying a finding spell,” he said.

  “Yes, Lorantis, when someone is lost that is indeed what we do,” Mistress Quendester said. “You can observe if you want, but I don’t think your assistance will be needed.” She accepted the dress from the man and swept off down the hall. Evon hurried behind her.

  “Mistress Quendester, that won’t be necessary, I can already track Miss Haylter,” he said, but Mistress Quendester didn’t pause. “I’d be happy to show you the spell—it’s really quite effective—”

  “Lorantis, I’m not in the mood for your experimental spellcraft,” she said without turning her head. “I’m sure our poor finding spell isn’t up to your high standards, but I hope you’ll do us all the courtesy of not criticizing our work. As if you could help yourself.”

  Oh, she has most definitely not forgiven me. And when the finding spell failed, and he demonstrated the scenting spell, she would look even more like a fool. Well, the Underworld take her. He’d tried. He followed her into the taproom, where nearly a dozen other men and women waited, some seated at the tables, others standing. He didn’t recognize any of them, but he estimated that his and Piercy’s entrance into the room halved the average age of the group. None of them paid him any attention. He went to a corner of the room and leaned against the wall. Piercy joined him, carefully studying his fingernails in a way that told Evon he was actually looking forward to the upcoming spectacle. Evon’s anxiety returned. This was a waste of time. He thought, not for the first time, of simply taking his horse and riding off to find Kerensa, but Mrs. Petelter had a good point; his abilities and his determination alone would not be enough to rescue her. He was being irrational. So he stood, and stewed, and tried to run over possibilities for the new spell in his head. It would have to isolate the entity—wait, he could use part of Kerensa’s spell for that, if she were here, if she weren’t in enemy hands. Stop thinking about it. The spell would have to locate it—ironic, that he was thinking of a new location spell while Mistress Quendester and her cronies were about to fail at theirs. He definitely needed clay, and possibly ash—

  “Join hands,” Mistress Quendester said in that pompous tone that still irritated Evon to the point of wanting to prove her wrong even when she was right. She never failed to make him wish he’d gone to university and earned the title of Master, if only to force her to stop sneering at him. The group formed a circle around Kerensa’s dress, lying on one of the small tables like a sh
ed skin. Mistress Quendester stood just inside the circle, her baton raised. “All focus,” she added, and the room went silent except for the sound of Evon’s pulse racing, so loud he was surprised no one else could hear it.

  Mistress Quendester took in a deep breath and let it out. “Reperto Kerensa Haylter,” she intoned, waving her baton in an intricate and unnecessarily detailed rune that meant “uncover,” and a speck of light began to glow in the air just above the dress. It grew until it was nearly the size of an apple, spinning slowly on its horizontal axis like a roast on a spit. Then it drifted in the direction of the eastern wall. Evon saw one of the magicians smile. The smile faded when the glowing ball halted just past the circle and dissolved into specks of light. There was a moment of silence, then the magicians began arguing loudly with each other, unclasping hands to punctuate their sentences with broad, vehement gestures.

  “Silence,” Mistress Quendester said, though she had to repeat herself twice more to command everyone’s attention. “We’ll try again. Better focus this time, everyone, and I think we should all cast at the same time.”

  Piercy poked Evon in the side. Evon said, “Mistress Quendester, may I—”

  “No one is interested in your opinion, Lorantis,” Mistress Quendester said, not bothering to look at him.

  “Lorantis?” said one of the magicians, a portly man with strands of hair combed over his balding head. “Not Evon Lorantis? Aren’t you Tifana Elltis’s boy wonder?”

  “I am Evon Lorantis, yes,” Evon said, fuming over the “boy wonder,” “and I think Speculatus has cast an obscuration on their path. However, when I found Miss Haylter before, I used a different method they don’t know to protect against.”

  “I think I told you we’re not interested in your experiments,” Mistress Quendester said.

  “I’d like to hear about it, Caris,” the balding man said. “He did find the girl, after all, and I don’t like the idea of the weapon being in Speculatus’s hands any longer than it has to be. Speak, Mr. Lorantis.”