The Smoke-Scented Girl

by Melissa McShane

  The man looked at Kerensa again, reluctance and disgust at war on his face. “I suppose I can make an exception, given your situation, but just the one night, understand?”

  “That’s all we need.” Evon took the glass and shook the man’s hand vigorously. “Thank you for your compassion. I’m sure the Gods look favorably on a good man such as yourself.” He quickly turned away and beckoned to Kerensa to follow him, just in case the good man changed his mind.

  “You’re sure there wasn’t another room?” Kerensa said.

  “Of course I’m sure. And yes, I could have slept in the stables, but I’m not willing to lose another night’s study just because you don’t want me snoring on your floor all night.” The tiny room had one bed with a couple of thin blankets and no other furnishings. “I didn’t realize Holdplain was so small.”

  “It’s all right, I don’t mind. I just feel sorry for you not having a bed.”

  “Don’t worry about me. Look, why don’t you sit down, and we’ll try a couple of things. I planned everything out while we rode today, so it shouldn’t take long. Then you can get some sleep and I’ll dig into my notes a little further.”

  Kerensa sat on the bed. “How certain are you that this will hurt? Or be frightening?”

  Evon hesitated. “Fairly certain.”

  “Then I need a minute to prepare.” She closed her eyes and breathed out, slowly, then inhaled. Evon cast epiria while she relaxed her body. He watched her, mesmerized again by her beauty, even in her travel-worn state with her hair disheveled. He looked at the single bed, just wide enough for two people to sleep close together. What would she do if he suggested it? If he bent down right now and just kissed her? He turned away and did a little deep breathing of his own. She deserved better than to be assaulted, especially by someone who loved her, in a situation she had no way of escaping, and if he couldn’t summon the courage to be honest with her, he needed to stop thinking about her that way.

  “I’m ready,” she said quietly, and Evon turned to see that she had gripped the edges of the bed loosely and sat upright, her eyes closed, waiting for him.

  “I’m going to try vertiri again. I still don’t understand why the spell reacted to it the way it did,” Evon explained, and cast the spell. Once again the spell-ribbons came to a halt, quivering, waiting for something to happen. “Now there are a few command words I want to try. I hope they won’t hurt or frighten it, but this is when you should be prepared.” Kerensa nodded. Her grip on the edge of the bed tightened. “Cucurri,” he said, and once again the spell-ribbons stretched like kneaded dough, and Kerensa made a whimpering sound through her clenched teeth. “Desini,” Evon said quickly, and gripped her wrist as she panted, her lips pulled back to bare her teeth.

  “We can stop,” Evon said, but she shook her head vehemently and said, “Try again.”

  Evon released her and stepped back. “Once again,” he said. “Vertiri. Sepera.”

  Kerensa’s eyes snapped open and she arched her back, a hiss of pain emerging from her throat. Evon dismissed the spell and wrapped his arms around her, murmuring to her as she clung to him and sobbed silently. “I can’t do this to you,” he said. “Let’s just leave it at that for tonight.”

  She shook her head, pressed against his chest. “How many more?” she whispered.

  “Just one. One more.”

  “Then do it.” She released him and wiped tears from her eyes. “I can handle one more.”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “You can endure it if I can. One more.”

  Evon stepped back and waited for her to regain her composure, then raised his right hand. He was almost out of words that enacted movement and change. “Vertiri. Trattuci.”

  The spell-ribbons went from being alert and still to raging about Kerensa, flying so fast they turned into a blue halo surrounding her. “Are you all right?” Evon said.

  “I don’t feel anything but dizzy,” Kerensa said. “What did you do?”

  One of the spell-ribbons rose above its fellows and began flowing away from Kerensa. Others began to follow. “I think I did it,” Evon breathed, afraid to hope. “They’re moving!”

  Behind her blue halo, Kerensa gasped. “Moving? Moving away?”

  The one spell-ribbon had become a stream of them. “Yes!”

  Kerensa clasped her hands in front of her. “I can’t believe it!”

  The stream of spell-ribbons flowed up the wall and across the ceiling. It seemed to be looking for an outlet. “It’s trying to get out,” Evon said.

  “So catch it! We still need the spell, right?”

  The spell flowed down the wall and over the floor, swerving back and forth like a headless blue snake. It came to Evon’s feet and flowed over them, then stopped. It came back and began twining up Evon’s ankles, moving more quickly now. Evon felt a warm, unpleasant tingle flow through his legs wherever the spell touched. “Oh no,” he said. “Desini!”

  The spell flowed backward as quickly as it had come, returning to circle Kerensa’s body as if it had never gone anywhere. “But—” Kerensa said in a small voice. “You said it was working.”

  “It was,” Evon said, “but what it was doing was looking for a new host. Damn it, I should have let it take me. That would have solved our problem.”

  “By creating a new one,” Kerensa said. “And suppose you weren’t able to work magic on it because it was attached to you?”

  “But you would have been free.”

  “It wouldn’t be worth it at that cost. But Evon, you figured out the solution! We just need to find the right person to attach the spell to.”

  “How could you want to condemn anyone to what you’ve had to endure?”

  Kerensa’s face fell. “I couldn’t. Not even someone evil. Well, maybe someone evil. But it would be hard to find the right person.”

  Evon sat on the bed next to her. “You’re right, though. We found the right spell. Now we just need to know how to use it.”

  She leaned against him. “So it’s a victory.”

  “Absolutely.” He had to get out before he did something stupid. He stood and said, “I’m going down to the stables for a bit, so you can get undressed in private.”

  She looked as if she were going to say something, then changed her mind. “All right. And—thank you again, for not giving up.”

  He smiled at her. “You’re stronger than I am; maybe I should thank you for not giving up.”

  He went out to the stables and brushed the horse, which had already been well cared for, and tried not to think about sleeping in the same room as Kerensa, only feet away from her. Think about something else. Vertiri and trattuci. Vertiri for change, trattuci for...the best translation might be “transfer.” So the spell’s reaction made sense, but why would its creators have made it respond to those commands? Suppose one host became unsuitable; they apparently wanted to be able to move it to another host without killing the first. So these magicians cared at least a little for human life; why would they build a spell that required someone’s death to activate? And why set it up so it would find so many false targets?

  He put the currycomb away and went back to the room. Kerensa was sitting on the edge of the bed in her nightdress, golden hair braided neatly and feet tucked under the hem of her gown. “Are you going to do some reading?”

  “Yes, unless it will disturb you.”

  “No. I’m not very sleepy.”

  Evon sat on the floor and took his notes out of his bag. He found the runes comprising the spell to find the next target and compared it to the slimmed-down version he’d created to prove the existence of the entity. It really did look as if they hadn’t known any better, as if the awkward, false-target-finding version was the best they could do. If the creators of the spell had used his version, Kerensa would have been drawn directly to the Despot and...he shouldn’t be pleased that so many people had died because of the spell, but he would never have met her otherwise. Suppose all the spells could b
e adjusted the same way? Not that there was a purpose to doing that, unless he could alter the spell itself. He picked up a few more pages and set them aside. What was he looking for? Something that might tell him why the spell’s builders had attached the spell to a person, since vertiri and trattuci proved it could move independently. If he knew that, he could figure out how to keep it free of a person. Probably.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Kerensa asked. He looked up and saw her propped on her elbow in the bed. “Go ahead,” he said.

  “What will you do when this is all over?”

  Evon blinked. “What makes you ask that?”

  “What happened tonight...the whole time I’ve known you, it’s been in the middle of this horror. I don’t really know what you do when you aren’t following me around.”

  He grinned. “I do very much as I’ve been doing this whole time. I invent and refine spells for whatever client Miss Elltis has brought in. We had a government contract when Piercy brought me the problem of the Fearsome Firemage.”

  “Who is—oh, no, Evon, did you really call me that?”

  “Only at first. Anyway, I suppose I’ll go back to doing that. Though Miss Elltis won’t have me back. Mistress Gavranter says she may have work for me. So I don’t know exactly what it will be, but likely it will look much the same as what I was doing before.” The thought made him unexpectedly unhappy, and not because it meant never seeing Kerensa again. The prospect of spending the rest of his life in small, cold rooms researching spells depressed him.

  “For the longest time I didn’t think I had a future,” Kerensa said, rolling onto her back to stare at the low ceiling. “Now I don’t know what I want to do with it.”

  “I thought you were interested in university.”

  “It seems so impractical, though. Elkenhound isn’t much bigger than Holdplain; what use would an Alvorian scholar be there?”

  “There are other things to study. You might decide you’re interested in something else as well. And...there’s no reason you have to stay in Elkenhound, is there? Matra is a beautiful city, and there’s so much to do, so many people to meet.” Could she live in Matra? What might happen if they saw each other regularly, without the burden of this spell between them? On the other hand, could he bear to watch her fall in love with someone else?

  “I’d miss my family,” she said, but there was a question in her voice. “I don’t know. I’m still a little afraid to make plans until...whatever happens. I’m sorry. I’m keeping you from your work.”

  “I don’t mind. Tell me about your family.”

  “I live with my aunt and uncle. They took me in the year of the influenza, when my parents died. They’re wonderful people, but I think my aunt—she gets this look in her eye sometimes, like she doesn’t know what to do with me. Most girls my age are married by now or have permanent work somewhere. She doesn’t understand why I’d work in the tavern when I could take a job in a shop, or marry Turley.”

  “Who’s Turley?” Jealousy gripped him like a fist around his stomach.

  “He courted me for a while, when we were both younger. I liked him well enough, but then he asked me to marry him and I knew I didn’t like him as much as that. He follows me around back home with this lovesick look in his eye. I wish he’d find someone else to moon over. I’ve been gone long enough, maybe he has. At least he never followed me as far as you have.” She laughed. “But you’re much harder to send away.”

  “Nearly impossible.”

  “Only nearly?”

  “I suppose you could have me stuffed in a grain sack and put on a wagon headed north, but that would only slow me down.”

  She laughed again. “I can’t tell you what a comfort it is to have you here.”

  So he was a comfort. Like a blanket, or a stuffed toy. “I’m glad to hear it. I don’t think you should be alone for this.”

  She fell silent, and he went back to his notes. After a few minutes, he heard her breathing change. She’d fallen asleep facing him, her head cradled on one hand. He watched her for a little while, until she made a sort of gentle grunting sound and rolled onto her back. He looked back at his notes. He wasn’t going to get any more work done tonight. He gathered them up and put them away, turned out the light, then rolled up his overcoat for a pillow and wrapped himself in his voluminous cloak and tried to get comfortable. He had trouble not thinking about how close she was. He could think about runes instead. He was sick of thinking about runes. Kerensa began to snore, not very loudly but with a kind of intermittent irregularity that was impossible to predict. Not a very romantic trait, but Evon found it endearing and then mocked himself for being so smitten as to love even her erratic, annoying snore. He rolled onto his side, facing away from her, and began going over spells in his head, simple gesture and word combinations, more complicated spells which could be cast swiftly if you knew how to draw the runes in the simplest form that was still intelligible. Spexa. Cleperi vertiri, bitter and soapy to the taste. Solto epiria. The soothing monotony calmed his mind and eventually, despite Kerensa’s snoring, he fell asleep.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “The tavern keeper says another big storm is coming,” Evon said, entering the stable after settling the tab. “I think it might be wise to stay here another day, wait it out.”

  “I don’t want to wait.” Kerensa drew her cloak more closely around her. Even in the shelter of the stable, a chill wind blew around them, bringing with it the aroma of baking bread and, below that, the icy smell of snow.

  “Suppose we get lost in the storm?”

  “You have that map. We can’t get very lost with that. And there are little farming villages all up and down the road. We can find shelter somewhere, and be that much closer.”

  Evon looked out at the sky, which still looked clear. It was impossible to believe a storm was coming. “All right. But let’s hurry.”

  They left Holdplain and went south under the clear blue sky, the sun turning the untrodden fields into carpets of sparkling white. Around noon the great highway ended, becoming a much smaller, unpaved road that was frozen hard into ruts where the wagons had passed. A wagon approached at that moment, forcing them off the road. Evon felt sorry for the passengers, who were jounced and jolted in the bed of the poorly sprung wagon as it passed over the ruts. “It makes the horse seem much more comfortable,” he said over his shoulder.

  “More refugees,” she said. “Did you see how they had all those possessions loaded up? How far is it to the border?”

  “Another seventy miles or so.”

  “Do you think the Despot has crossed yet?”

  “Piercy says not, but he’s close.” He and Piercy still hadn’t worked out how they might get near enough to the Despot for the weapon to work. Evon didn’t think he and Kerensa were stealthy enough to work their way through the enemy camp and sneak into the Despot’s tent without anyone noticing, and their wildest plan—to pretend Kerensa was a gift for the Despot—had so many disadvantages it had only been arrived at late one evening, when Piercy had had a little too much to drink and Evon was mentally exhausted and ready to embrace any mad idea.

  Clouds began gathering soon after, high, thin clouds that obscured the sun but clearly didn’t hold any snow. Evon looked at his map and located a village some ten miles further on. They ought to be able to reach it before dark. He put it away and glanced at the road ahead. No more wagons had passed since the first one. Far in the distance, a copse of trees stood on a rise, and beyond that, heavy clouds massed on the horizon. Evon cursed, then flicked the reins and urged the horse into a faster gait. “What’s wrong?” Kerensa said.

  “The storm is coming,” Evon said. “I’m going to try to reach that village before it arrives.”

  “Aren’t we running toward the storm?”

  “We could turn around and go back to Holdplain.”

  Kerensa thought for a moment. “Do you think we can reach the village in time?”

  “If we run.”

&n
bsp; But the road was too rough for a full-out run, and Evon’s stomach clenched as they trotted into the oncoming storm with no shelter in sight. They should have returned to Holdplain. His stupidity was going to get them both killed. The sky was now fully overcast and the oncoming clouds blanketed the fields so completely that Evon could see the edge of the storm as it pressed on toward them. He pulled the horse up and took out the map; they were still a mile or two from the village. They would run into the storm long before they reached it. But there was nothing to do but move on.

  The wind had picked up and blew tiny flecks of snow at them that bit into Evon’s face. He pulled his hat low over his eyes and ducked his shoulders to keep his vision as clear as possible, which wasn’t very clear. Kerensa huddled behind him, clinging tight; he glanced back and saw that she had pulled her hood well over her head. He turned around, and the wind swelled and the storm was upon them. Evon was blinded by the white, whipping snow that battered them both. It came in gusts, the wind occasionally dropping to a mere growl instead of a roar, glimpses of the road sometimes visible between blasts of snow and wind. The horse stood still, as placid as if this were a summer shower. Evon spoke to it and it moved forward, Evon leaning over to stare hard at the ground, looking for evidence that they were still on the road.

  He lost track of time as they plodded slowly along, his eyes burning with effort and the blowing snowflakes. Once he felt the horse go off the frozen track and pulled it back; another time he saw the edge of the road just before the horse stepped off it. He had no idea how Kerensa fared, but her grip on his waist never varied and she made no sounds of distress. Then the wind picked up yet again, and Evon couldn’t see anything at all. He stopped the horse and they stood still for a few minutes. “What’s wrong?” Kerensa shouted.