The Smoke-Scented Girl

by Melissa McShane

  “Better than very dead.” Kerensa found a fallen tree to sit on and dragged the bag of food into her lap. “Do you want something to eat? Mortal terror seems to make me hungry.”

  He sat next to her and accepted a hunk of wax-coated cheese. Something stirred in the bushes behind them, and he whipped around to see—nothing. “I’m still edgy,” he laughed. The rustling started again, louder and more persistent. “I’m suddenly thinking about the kinds of fauna places like this might produce.”

  “So am I. But isn’t it just as likely that the creatures are friendly plant-eaters?” Then she leaned away and said, “What is that?”

  Evon turned to look behind him and saw what looked like a shimmering square, radiant with blue and green and yellow, ripple through the air several feet above his head. “Ambient magic,” he guessed. “With magic being visible here, if the place’s magic were part of the landscape, everything would glow. It must pool together, or something similar.”

  “Or weave together. That looked like cloth,” Kerensa agreed. “There’s another one, way up there.”

  Now that he knew what to look for, Evon saw the magic everywhere. It didn’t seem to be self-aware the way Kerensa’s spell was, but it had enough instinct to avoid obstacles, such as trees or his head. They sat on the tree and watched the magic for a time, mesmerized by its beauty.

  The rustling started again. Something kicked up the leaves fallen at the base of one of the trees. “I didn’t see anything,” Kerensa said, alarmed. “And I just realized we haven’t seen a single bird.”

  Evon pulled out the glass and cast epiria, which sent out white tendrils like hair-thin vines to tangle around the lens; he tried wiping them away, but his fingers passed through them without feeling anything. Shrugging, he held the glass out in front of him and scanned the ground where the leaves had been disturbed. “I don’t see anything,” he began, and then he did. “It’s a chipmunk,” he said, handing the glass to Kerensa. “A normal chipmunk, except that it’s invisible.”

  “Why doesn’t the epiria of this place reveal the creatures?”

  “I have no idea. It makes no sense. I wonder what else is invisible.”

  Kerensa swung the lens up to look at the sky and exclaimed, “I saw a raven!”

  Evon looked where she pointed and saw nothing except a blue and red cloth of magic undulating across the sky. Suddenly it rippled as if shuddering, then for a brief moment he saw a flying bird outlined against the cloth, then the cloth wrapped itself around something that struggled and cried out weakly. The cloth constricted, twisting as if it were a rag being wrung out by invisible hands, until it was twisted nearly in half. Then it spun open and continued undulating through the air. Seconds later something hit the ground nearby with a soft thump. Evon and Kerensa looked at each other, aghast.

  “And now we know why the animals are all invisible,” Kerensa said.

  “I wonder that we haven’t been attacked,” Evon said.

  “Maybe we’re too big to be enveloped?”

  “Or perhaps they just aren’t that hungry yet.”

  “I like my explanation better.”

  Evon took Kerensa’s hand and squeezed it gently. “I want to see whether I can work out how the fire is attached to you,” he said. “It won’t hurt, I promise.”

  “If you find a solution, I don’t care if it hurts,” she said, but her voice was a little wobbly. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Just sit there.” He stood and surveyed her body, trying to look at the golden fire objectively and not think about how perfect her figure was and how it felt to have it pressed against him. He pinched the bridge of his nose to clear his thoughts and tried again. The spell-ribbons were a manifestation of the binding spell. They were attached to that spell. Therefore, it followed that the golden fire he saw must be attached to the fire magic deep within Kerensa. Suppose it was visible all the way down? If he could see inside her body....

  “This may take a while. I’ve only ever read about it and I don’t remember it very well because I wasn’t planning to go into medicine.” A spell that let doctors look inside the body, something about spexa and some other command word, something unlikely...why couldn’t he remember? Another cloth of magic drifted past, this one hovering only a few feet above Kerensa’s head; he waved it away and the draft he caused made it flutter a little before continuing on its path.

  “All right,” he said finally. He held his hand out, palm upward and fingers spread wide, and said, “Spexa torpia.”

  Nothing happened aside from a spicy-sweet taste filling his mouth. There was a silvery-green thickening of the air as an oculus tried to form, but failed to open. “Hmm,” Evon said. No, of course, torpia was too obvious. He paced around the clearing, feeling Kerensa’s eyes on him. Another iridescent cloth passed near him, brushing his shoulder, and he flicked it away. “Let’s try this,” he said, coming to stand in front of Kerensa and repeating the gesture. “Spexa madi.”

  An oculus with a rim made of silvery-green light opened in front of Kerensa’s chest, and Evon winced. It was like a round window on her innards, heart pulsing, lungs pumping, blood flowing through her veins. “What?” Kerensa asked, alarmed. She craned her neck to try and see through the oculus. “No, don’t,” Evon said. “It’s really better that you don’t look.”

  She gave him a narrow-eyed look, but said nothing more. Evon turned his attention to spexa madi. Golden fire outlined each organ, each rib; it was, again, beautiful, if also a little grotesque. The fire didn’t seem to be connected to any of the things it touched. “Um...torpia auctata, I suppose.” The rim flashed pale blue briefly, and the image quivered. He repeated the spell with the same results.

  “What are you trying to do?” Kerensa asked.

  “See deeper into your body. But it’s beyond my reserves.” His lower back ached. The spellcasting against Valantis’s people, and performing the unfamiliar presadi spell, had wearied him. A cloth woven of pink and green brushed his hair, and he ducked away from it.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I told you that spells give focus to the incomprehensibility of magic, right? Well, when a magician uses command words, he’s using his body to shape that focus, but the spells shape him too, drawing power through him. Or her. The amount of magic a magician can wield is called his reserves, and they deplete and replenish the way…well, it’s a little like how you start feeling tired when you’re hungry and you’re alert again when you’ve eaten. That presadi took a lot of my reserves to cast.” He sat beside Kerensa and saw that the oculus, from this side, was opaque black and rippled from the center as if a steady stream of water were dripping into it. He looked up and watched one of the cloths undulate past. “I wonder,” he said, and flicked his hands up and out. “Desini cucurri.”

  Red ropes surrounded the cloth, tangling it in an irregular web like the work of a drunken spider. The magic convulsed and went entirely stiff, then drifted to the ground. Evon went and picked it up. It tingled in his fingers, a pleasant sensation like the purr of a cat. It looked like a heavily starched napkin, if napkins were made of loosely-woven blue and white threads that sparkled.

  “This is essentially pure magic,” he told Kerensa, who came over to touch it. She smiled and stroked its surface. “I think I can use it to boost my own power, but...you should step back, probably.” He turned to face away from her, clasped his hands together while awkwardly clutching a corner of the cloth, and said, “Presadi.”

  The shield came into being explosively, knocking Evon down and blazing with red light that pulsed and flared with a sound like a roaring bonfire. Kerensa came to his side and gripped his shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” Evon said, dazedly. He looked at the magic in his hand. The threads had come a little loose and one or two had pulled free of the weaving and waved free in the air. He dismissed the shield and got to his feet. “That is a lot of magical energy.”

  “Is it safe for you to use?”

&
nbsp; “I think so.” Now that he knew what to expect, he thought he could draw on a portion of its power instead of using the whole thing. “Stand still.” He bent the cloth a few times until it was a little more pliable, then wrapped it around his left forearm. It gripped him when he overlapped its edges, which worried him, but otherwise simply continued to purr. He cast spexa madi again; it took almost no effort. It was a pity these things probably couldn’t exist outside of this place. “Torpia auctata,” he said, and the rim went from green through blue all the way to dark violet, and the view shifted to display a nebulous, pinkish substance that quivered with energy. It was as deep as it was possible to see, and he felt barely any strain. He also saw no golden fire anywhere. “Torpia adenuo,” he said, and the lens’s rim flashed backward through the rainbow until it was dark red, and the view reverted to the semi-revolting sight of Kerensa’s organs outlined in fire.

  “Well?” Kerensa said.

  “I don’t—actually, would you cross your arm over your stomach?” The binding spell had said something about blood and bone, and maybe that was literal instead of metaphorical. Kerensa’s arm came into view, the edges of the bones fiery. He leaned in close. “Torpia auctata,” he said. Kerensa’s forearm filled the oculus. Evon’s eyes widened. “Your bones are covered in patterns,” he said. “It’s as if someone took an awl and scratched designs into them. It’s...actually it’s beautiful. All these curves and spirals.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t share your enthusiasm,” Kerensa said. Her voice was a little shaky.

  “I’m sorry,” Evon said. “I forgot again. I told you I was prone to say stupid things.”

  “And I love you anyway,” Kerensa said. “Is that what you needed to learn?”

  “It’s part of it. Torpia auctata.” Soon the image showed a close-up view of one of the lines, a long gray highway across a white field of bone. “I don’t see anything. I expected to see the fire connected to this in some way, but...oh, by the Gods, look at that.” Tiny spheres of gold drifted past, following the line in the bone as if they were travelers on that highway. Where they collided with each other, they merged with a little flicker of flame.

  “Look at what?” Kerensa shrieked. “Evon, don’t say things like that!”

  He looked in her direction. “I’m sorry, that came out all wrong. There’s nothing to worry about, Kerensa, it’s just not at all what I assumed.”

  Her gaze flicked over his shoulder, and she said, “Evon, that thing is coming awfully close.”

  He turned to see a flying cloth, orange and purple and somewhat larger than the others, descend toward his head. He lifted his arm to fend it off and shouted as it wrapped itself around his right hand and arm to the shoulder and began to squeeze. Kerensa screamed and started beating at it with her fists, while Evon tugged at its edges with his left hand trying to pull it off. It felt as if his arm was being pumped full of air, swelling painfully until he thought it might pop. His left forearm, still wrapped in the paralyzed cloth, brushed against it, sending up sparks of orange fire. The attacker shuddered, but didn’t release him. Evon slammed his left arm against the thing over and over again, creating showers of sparks every time and accidentally striking Kerensa once or twice. All at once the thing loosed its grip and drifted to the ground, convulsing as it fell. Kerensa shrieked and stomped on it until it was half-sunk into the earth. Evon examined his hand closely. It didn’t look puffy; it was crisscrossed with the imprint of coarse threads and hurt a little when he put pressure on it.

  “Are you all right?” Kerensa said, breathlessly.

  “I think so, if my heart will just slow down. That was stupid. I should have paralyzed it, but I panicked.”

  “I thought you needed both hands for desini cucurri.”

  “Oh. True. I must really have panicked.”

  “They just look so harmless, it was like having a baby rabbit turn on us.”

  They both looked at the cloth wrapped around Evon’s forearm. “I think we should get that off,” he said.

  They tugged at it, Kerensa trying to pull it off like a glove, Evon picking with his fingernails at the seam where it overlapped. Between the two of them, they had it removed just as it started twitching free of the paralysis. Evon carried it far away from them and did his best to crush it into the ground. “It probably wouldn’t try to attack, it’s so small, but I’d rather not have another incident like that,” he said.

  “But now you won’t be able to finish what you were working on,” Kerensa said.

  Evon smiled. “I already did. I was just distracted by being almost eaten by a tablecloth.” He dismissed the oculus and picked her up by the waist and swung her around, unable to contain his relief. “The fire is drawn to those grooves on your bones, or they confine it, or something like that. Those grooves are the alteration, not the fire. The fire isn’t part of you! I’m certain the alteration was to make the original...I suppose she was a host, too, like the Despot is to the entity—anyway, it was to make her able to hold the fire, to make her a, a hospitable environment for it. The fire can be removed. I don’t know how, but it can be removed and I swear to you, Kerensa, I swear I’ll find out how.”

  “I know you will,” she said, smiling up at him. Then her eyes shifted to look past him, and her face went white. “Evon, look,” she whispered.

  He turned to follow her gaze and saw a great dark blot a few hundred feet away, dozens, hundreds of flying cloths, all coming directly at them. Coming for them.

  “Get your bag,” he said, shouldering his own bag and the backpack full of food. Individual cloths were now visible, drifting downward and toward them in a casual way that felt more menacing than if they’d swarmed them directly.

  “If we get under the trees, they won’t all be able to follow like that,” Kerensa said.

  “Good idea. Let’s keep moving.”

  They struck out in a random direction; Evon had lost track of the way they’d entered, and now all he wanted was to get them away from the aggressive magic. They left the copse and crossed a piece of bare ground before entering another, slightly larger grove of trees. They stumbled on in the late autumn light, Evon wondering where the sun was and if it ever set, or if the light even came from the sun at all. He looked behind them, occasionally, and saw nothing following them, but they passed smaller magics now and then and Evon was afraid to assume they were safe. Eventually, though, he saw that Kerensa was breathing heavily and had her hand pressed to her side, and he realized his chest and legs ached and that he wasn’t breathing easily himself. “Stop,” he gasped, and Kerensa immediately sank to the ground and tried to calm her breathing.

  They were in another small clearing just like the first, except that there was no fallen tree, so at least Evon knew they hadn’t been running in circles. Running had been stupid. They should have found the way they’d entered and taken their chances with Valantis. Now they were lost, with no functional map, in a place of power that might well have taken them out of their own time a millennium or more forward or back. Evon staggered to sit next to Kerensa and put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him and said, “We’re lost now, aren’t we?”

  Evon nodded. “I’m sorry. I panicked again. Those things really unnerve me.”

  “I panicked too, so it’s on both of us if we never get out of here.”

  He laughed, a little breathlessly. “We’ll find a way out. I can cast—”

  “I think it was casting spells that drew their attention.”

  He stopped. “I...think you are correct. Well.”

  Kerensa dug in her pocket and pulled out something that shimmered. “But I think this still works, even in here.”

  The coin with the finding spell. “You are brilliant.”

  “I like hearing that.”

  Evon’s heart was still pounding from the near catastrophe. Pounding too hard, really. Then he realized the thrumming sound was coming from outside them both, hoof beats on the hard ground, and they were coming closer. Kere
nsa looked at him. “Could Valantis—?”

  “Get behind me,” he said, backing them both into a sheltered corner between the thick trunks of two trees. Too late he realized they had left their bags in the open, but the rider was too close now for them to do anything about it. He thought about casting presadi until he remembered that the bright red light would draw any attacker right to them, and limbered up his hands for desini cucurri. He’d have to risk drawing in more of the flying cloths if it meant protecting them both. Was it Valantis? He’d gotten turned around, couldn’t remember which direction they’d entered by to tell if the rider was coming from the same place. Kerensa gripped his shoulder, then released him as if she’d remembered he would need his hands and arms free for spellcasting. The sound of hoof beats turned from one horse into several, and Evon’s heart sank. Even with the help he’d taken from the magics, he was still tired from all the spellcasting, and if there were too many of them, or if they were magicians, he and Kerensa would be hard pressed to defend themselves.

  The first rider trotted into the clearing. He was bearded, like Valantis, but his beard was black rather than red and there were streaks of gray in it. He wore old-fashioned chain mail over a loose-sleeved white shirt, stained at the cuffs, and dirty leather trousers with boots scuffed and scratched from heavy use. His right hand rested on something laid across his lap. His eyes scanned the clearing and lighted on Kerensa, and he said something in a strange language and pointed with his left hand at her.

  Kerensa let out a strange sound halfway between a gasp and a squeak. She slipped past Evon and approached the rider. “I can’t believe this,” she said. Evon reached out to grab her arm and she shrugged him off. “Evon, look at his hand,” she said in the same breathless tone. The man raised his hand and pointed at Kerensa again. The middle finger of that hand was missing and the stump shone golden in the autumn sunlight.

  “It’s Alvor,” Kerensa said, and turned her face up to address him.