The Smoke-Scented Girl

by Melissa McShane

  She kissed him again, then took her apple and descended the ladder. Evon stared after her for a while, then shook his head and tried to focus on his notes. He knew them so well by now that he probably could have written them out again by memory. Knew them well, and yet couldn’t find the answer. He thought of the look on Kerensa’s face when she woke, and picked up his notes with renewed determination. He just had to look at it in a new way.

  His eyes passed over a rune, something that triggered a memory. It had been in Haderon’s spell, the resurrection spell, and in the finding spell too. He did a little digging and found variations on it in every section of the spell. He spread the notes out on the hayloft floor so he could see them all at once, then found his lexicon and started reading the runes as if they were words, one slow rune at a time. So many were still missing, but it was easier, now, to identify those unknown runes by context, though he also had to translate the resulting “sentences” into modern language. The one he’d been looking at was “bind,” or sometimes “bound.” He took out a pencil and circled the rune wherever he found it, then stood up and took a few paces back. If he linked each spell by overlaying the “bind” rune....

  Suddenly, a new pattern emerged. bind the fire to destroy the one who has no soul, he read. It wasn’t a sentence fragment; he’d started in the wrong place. He ran his finger backwards through the runes and tried again. To the destruction of the Enemy of life and the host that binds it.

  It was the spell. The whole spell, not just its pieces. The secret of the fire.

  Fingers trembling, he read on, making guesses at the runes he didn’t know.

  From the heart of Nystrantor we make our instrument, blood and bone, host to the fire that she may defeat the Enemy. In her we bind the fire to destroy the one who has no soul. In her we bind the call. In her we bind our wills.

  I, Minta, bind her that she may endure all but the fire.

  I, Leandrie, bind her that she be drawn, host to host, to the one who has no soul.

  I, Wadley, command that the fires be bound within her and released by the one who has no soul.

  I, Haderon, bind her to return again if the one who has no soul escapes our instrument.

  I, Danior, bind our commands as one and command that binding to seek out the enemy of life. May the Gods look with favor on our instrument, who chooses death that life may return.

  Evon’s heart sank. It wasn’t a spell; it was an old-fashioned binding magicians used to use to connect spells. It didn’t tell him anything new, since he’d already worked out how the five spells interacted. He read through it again. So where was the fire spell? This referred to it as if it were something separate, some other spell they had access to. And what was Nystrantor? The word had been spelled out, not written as a proper name, but it couldn’t be anything else. He knew he’d heard it, or read it, before. If the magicians had created the fire spell separately, it was going to take a great deal more effort for him to unravel it.

  “That horse is lonely,” Kerensa said from below, and her head rose above the ladder. “It was far more affectionate than I was comfortable with. I almost wish we’d gotten that other horse to keep it company.”

  “Have you ever heard the word Nystrantor?” Evon asked absently. And what did it mean, “instrument”? They couldn’t have known Kerensa would come along, a thousand years later, so there must have been some other woman bound to the spell back then. Was that important, that it was a woman?

  “Of course. It’s one of the places of power, the ones saturated with magic. The Witch of Marhalindor made it and it drove her insane. Why?”

  Now he remembered. He’d learned of it in a geography class, in a series of lessons about those dangerous places and how to avoid them. “It says the magicians created the spell from the heart of Nystrantor. No, that’s wrong, it says they made their instrument in the heart of Nystrantor.”

  “That sounds dangerous. Anything might have happened.”

  “They were probably very desperate.” Something nudged his memory. Something about being changed. “What did you say happened to Carall?”

  “Um...he became undead?”

  “No, the pragmatic explanation.”

  “Oh. I said he probably wandered into one of those places and was changed by it into something not quite human.”

  Evon began pacing. Something felt wrong about all this. “And there’s no fire spell,” he said. “I’m certain of it. Five control spells and nothing to control.” Unless the fire came from something else. From the heart of Nystrantor we make our instrument host to the fire. They made the woman an instrument. She was—

  “Sit down,” he told Kerensa, who was watching him pace with curiosity. He took her arm and guided her to the pile of hay where they’d slept.

  “Evon, what’s wrong?”

  “I hope nothing. Just sit.” He cast epiria, then, in quick succession, vertiri and trattuci. The spell-ribbons went wild and once again started to flow away from Kerensa’s body.

  “You found a solution!”

  “I don’t know. Just...don’t say anything for a moment, all right? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be impatient. I just need to think.”

  The blue snake of the spell once again cast about until it found Evon’s legs and began spiraling up them. The warm, unpleasant tingle grew into a mild burning itch. He resisted the urge to scratch and held his arms well away from his body, in case he was wrong.

  “Evon, what are you doing?”

  “Just tell me if you feel strange.” He felt very strange himself, with the spell-ribbons weaving around his body, past his waist and creeping up to his chest. Kerensa was nearly free of them now. “I feel wonderful,” she said, her face glowing. Evon took a closer look. She really was glowing, her skin pinker than usual.

  “You don’t feel too warm?” he asked.

  “No. I feel comfortable for the first time since we left Holdplain.” She took off her cloak. “Do you suppose the storm is letting up?”

  Her skin was rosy now, almost red. He reached out to touch her face and felt heat radiating off it. “Desini!” he screamed, and the spell-ribbons reversed their course, but her face grew redder and beads of sweat appeared at her hairline. She looked at him, uncomprehending, but frightened at his terror. He grabbed the canteen and emptied its contents over her face; the water steamed, and Kerensa cried out in pain. “What’s happening?” she said, then saw the red skin of her hands and screamed. Evon grabbed her and held her close to him, hoping this would speed up the process of restoring the spell to her. She was hot to the touch and the smell of smoke was stronger than it had ever been. He closed his eyes and prayed he hadn’t been so much the fool that they were both about to die and take this barn with them in the conflagration.

  Nothing happened. They were both surrounded by flying ribbons of blue, which made it impossible to tell which of them the spell was attached to, but at some point he realized Kerensa’s skin was cooler and, when he drew back to look at her, no longer red. She looked at him, confused and terrified, and he released her and turned away. It was a guess that had turned out to be horribly right.

  “What did you do?” she whispered. She looked at the backs of her hands again, shivered, and went to retrieve her cloak.

  “I...tested a theory.” How could he explain it to her when he barely understood it himself? All he really had were a few ancient lines and his well-honed instincts. “I’ve been looking for a spell,” he said, beginning to pace again, “something like the ones that urge you toward a target, that releases the fire when the spell activates. I haven’t found anything because there isn’t anything to find.” He couldn’t bear to look at her. “A thousand years ago there were five magicians who were looking for a way to stop Murakot, or the entity riding him, however you want to look at it. They found a woman who volunteered to...she knew it was suicide, but she agreed to be their instrument to kill the entity. They took her to Nystrantor and used the loose magics there to make the changes, probably.
Then they built these spells to control what she’d become.”

  He paused, hoping she would understand and he wouldn’t have to say the words, but she sat silently on the hay. He could feel her attention on him, and it broke his heart. “The fire wasn’t a spell,” he said. “It was a part of her. The magic changed her, and she became host to the fire. I don’t know what happened to you,” he went on quickly, as he heard her draw breath to speak. “Maybe you’re descended from that woman; Alvor killed Murakot, and the fire was never needed, so she probably lived to have children and go on with her life. Maybe it was the entity’s re-emerging into the world that woke up whatever lay dormant inside you. All I know is that the fire is a part of you, and there’s nothing I know that will remove it from you. If I transfer the spell to someone else—well, you saw it. It’s all that’s keeping the fire from consuming you. I’m sorry, Kerensa, I’m so sorry, I don’t know how to save you and I know I promised but there’s nothing I can do—”

  “But you said,” Kerensa said quietly, “you said you would find a way.”

  “There isn’t any way.” He finally summoned the courage to look at her and saw that her eyes were empty, her face expressionless, and he moved to embrace her, but she stepped away, her eyes never leaving his.

  “It can’t be right. You said you would find a way,” she said. Her voice was emotionless, that same terrible empty voice he’d heard the first time she’d ever spoken to him.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he said.

  Her face crumpled into tears. “I don’t want to die,” she said, and finally she let him hold her while she wept, tears running down his own face. “It’s not true. You promised. It’s not true.”

  Every word struck his heart like a spear tipped with ice. “I know. I’m sorry. I love you, and I don’t know what else to do. I don’t.”

  She wrenched herself free of his grasp. “Then think,” she said, furious even though she was still crying. “You know more about magic than anyone else alive, you know it’s true, and you know this spell better than anyone alive. They had to use magic to make the fire, they couldn’t have...couldn’t have just wished it to happen! They did this to me and you love me and you will figure this out.”

  “But—Kerensa, it’s not a spell, I don’t even know what it was they used to make it happen! For all I know, they didn’t do anything but let Nystrantor work its will on her!”

  “So? The magic is inside me. Find it and take it apart.”

  “I—”

  “If you tell me you can’t, I’ll walk into that blizzard and keep walking until I meet the Despot or die.”

  Her eyes were wild, her voice shaking, and Evon had no doubt she meant what she said. He looked at her, so beautiful and so convinced of his abilities that he began, against reason, to feel hope rise up within him. “I won’t let you die,” he said. “I worked out the first spell. I’ll learn to defeat this one too.”

  “Good,” said Kerensa. “Then let’s get started.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “Where in the hell have you been?” Piercy demanded. “I realize you have many demands on your time, dear fellow, what with riding into what is fast becoming a war zone, but you may recall that you promised to speak with me every evening. I have been arguing with myself about whether the advantages of contacting you outweighed the possibility of my dulcet voice alerting enemies to your presence. As I am an expert arguer, you can imagine how that conversation is going.”

  “We were caught in a snowstorm, and I was...preoccupied,” Evon said, reddening. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t share the news of his changed relationship with Kerensa with his best friend, but he felt a little shy about simply bursting out She loves me, she loves me, I spent the night with her and it was wonderful like a burbling fool. And there were more important things to discuss.

  “I made a discovery that changes everything,” he went on, and began to explain the true nature of Kerensa’s magic. The small circle of Piercy’s face grew increasingly confused as Evon spoke, until he shook his head and said, “Stop. You are making very little sense. The spell isn’t a spell, but it is a spell, just not the same one?”

  “No. Look, we’re dealing with two things. The magic is the fire. The spell is what controls it. I can remove the spell, but the fire is part of her. So we’re going to find a way to remove the fire and still use it to kill the entity.”

  “I see. ‘Magic’ and ‘spell’ are different. Can you do it?”

  “I’ll do my best. But that’s what I have to tell you. We’re turning aside and going east, to Nystrantor.”

  “By the Gods, Evon, why would you want to go to that desolate place? Is fire suddenly calling to fire?”

  “In a sense. Nystrantor is where the magicians changed the first volunteer. I’m hoping to learn how they did it.”

  “You know the Despot is moving closer every day. If you go east, you will end up walking into the middle of our army. It’s unlikely they will simply let you pass.”

  “I know, but I don’t see that we have any other options if we want to use the weapon and not kill Kerensa doing it. It shouldn’t take more than four days’ journey, allowing for climbing the mountain. The storm’s starting to abate, and we’ll ride out as soon as we can. We’re both tired of this freezing barn.”

  “You’re sleeping in a barn? Evon, I had no idea your situation was so primitive. Do you huddle together for warmth?”

  Evon grinned. “We do at that. But we would do that anyway, since it turns out she loves me.”

  Piercy’s jaw went slack. “Evon...that’s incredible. I’m thrilled for you both, though she’s clearly deranged to think of you as a viable romantic prospect. I trust you are treating her with the respect she deserves?”

  “I won’t say it isn’t hard, but we’ve both managed to keep our baser desires in check, thank you for asking.”

  “Now I’m glad I didn’t come with you. Romance is very well, but watching other people moon about after one another, even if it is my best friend and my almost-sister, is positively exhausting. Though I assume her affections have spurred you to even greater effort?”

  “You assume correctly. I won’t let her die, Piercy. I just need to understand this thing better. The magicians changed their volunteer; maybe I can work out how to reverse that change.”

  “I don’t understand how Kerensa could have ended up with the magic. No one took her to Nystrantor, correct?”

  “I think she’s a descendant of the volunteer, and that change was something that gets passed on to children, like height or eye color. Isn’t it sad, that that woman’s name didn’t get recorded anywhere? She was incredibly brave.”

  “I know I would have trouble walking into one of those places of power voluntarily. Are you certain it’s safe, dear fellow? There are tales of people wandering into one and wandering out fifty years later. Your solution might be too late to stop the Despot.”

  “Kerensa says Nystrantor is fairly well known. No time alteration, just the burning lands. Not that it isn’t dangerous. I’d say I’ll be careful, but at this point I’m desperate enough to risk anything.”

  “I’ll tell you to be careful anyway, Evon. Stay in contact. The magicians are still trying to track you, and Mistress Quendester is furious with me that I won’t provide them with your location. I am, naturally, devastated that I cannot help the war effort, but since you won’t tell me where you are, I have no way of using the mirror to discover that.” He winked. “Mistress Gavranter has lectured me quite sternly on my recalcitrance. She speaks repeatedly of your stubbornness and her hope that it hasn’t gotten you into trouble on your journey, which I interpret to mean that she wishes you luck.”

  “Thank you for convincing Mistress Gavranter to let you be my contact. She means well, but she would want updates more frequently than I have information.”

  “I am still endeavoring to discover a way to get you and Kerensa close to the Despot without being killed. Our information on his forces in
creases, sadly because said forces draw ever nearer, as I believe I’ve mentioned.”

  “Well, you now have more time to figure it out. I’ll speak to you again tomorrow night, all right?”

  “Yes, and I will attempt to learn more about the location of Dalanine’s forces as well. Don’t let your mooning about cause you to forget our appointment. Perhaps I should task Kerensa to remind you. She is probably less likely to be distracted from the essentials despite her affection for you.”

  “I don’t know. She thinks I look like a warrior out of Alvorian myth.”

  “By the Gods, is it as bad as all that? You two deserve each other, and I mean that in all seriousness.” Piercy smiled. “Good luck.”

  “Thank you.” Evon glanced over his shoulder. “Were you listening to all that?”

  “I was, until you told Piercy that I love you,” Kerensa said, “and I got distracted thinking about that. We do moon about a little, don’t we?”

  “I spent a great deal of time wishing you felt for me what I did for you, so I deserve to do a little mooning.”

  “The storm’s let up to the point that I think we can leave,” Kerensa said, coming to sit beside Evon. “Is there a road to Nystrantor?”

  “Most of the way.” Evon took out the map. “We go a little farther south to here, to this village, and buy supplies. Then we take that road there that leads east into the mountains. From there we have to find our own way to the burning lands, assuming we can also evade the army. If we move quickly enough, we can pass through before they come far enough south.”

  “I’m worried about your safety,” Kerensa said. “I should be immune to the fire, but you won’t be.”