The Smoke-Scented Girl

by Melissa McShane

  “I didn’t expect you to,” Evon said, embarrassed that his voice had a little quiver in it. He remembered the sharp claw pressed against his throat and was extremely conscious that both his hands were occupied. Would he dare use magic against a legendary hero? Absolutely.

  They began walking forward again, somewhat less gracefully now. Wystylth’s walk was a sort of bob, as if he weren’t used to walking on two legs. “Your woman is beautiful,” Wystylth said into the silence, his smile growing broader.

  Fear for Kerensa made Evon forget fear for himself. “Stay away from her,” he hissed. “I can make you wish you’d never been born, or however it was you came into this world.”

  Wystylth looked at him for a long moment. “I left my lady wife behind the day we rode off into this place,” he said. “The Gods only know what she thinks happened to me. I meant no disrespect.”

  Evon wanted the earth to swallow him whole. “I apologize,” he said. “That was...by the Gods, I am so sorry. I thought....”

  “I know what you thought,” Wystylth said. “It is what everyone thinks. And I did threaten to slit your throat.” He smiled again, and Evon realized, looking more closely into the shadowy hood, that his eyes were merry. “You have the look of a man newly in love and not entirely certain what he did to deserve it. She is an unusual young woman. One who tries to help a man who attempted to kill her.”

  “She is extraordinary,” Evon said, wishing he had Kerensa’s hand in his right now instead of Carall’s too-thin ankle and a hand that wasn’t quite a paw. “And I am lucky.”

  “I had a feeling, all these weeks, that I would not return home to Merenna,” Wystylth said. “But it is not the same as learning she has been dead for a thousand years. Still, we were ten years together, and that is better than no years at all.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you. I think you understand a little of what I feel. You will have to tell me, ten years from now, whether you understand better.” Again that flash of a smile. Evon felt as if his world were being rearranged so quickly that if he let go with either hand, he would tumble to the ground.

  “I think—” he began, and the world jerked, and his foot came down not on bare, cold earth, but snow that crunched beneath it.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Evon stumbled a little bit, and Wystylth grasped his hand more firmly and kept him from falling. It was a clear, starry night, the still air several degrees colder than it had been just a moment before. Evon dropped Wystylth’s hand a little faster than was polite and saw the man grin at him; he returned the grin sheepishly. He let go of Carall’s ankle and suppressed the desire to wipe his palms on his trousers.

  “Wystylth?” Alvor said.

  Wystylth took a few bobbing steps forward, scanning the sky. “We are not in our own time,” he said. “But the sky is not so much changed that I cannot see we are still in southern Dalanine.”

  “I don’t see Valantis, or his men,” Kerensa said. “Evon….”

  Evon looked around. It was dark enough that he couldn’t tell if they were anywhere close to where they’d entered the place of power, and he had no way of knowing whether they had emerged the same day, or weeks later, or even years. Inspiration struck him, and he took out his mirror. “Eloqua Piercy Faranter,” he said, and the mirror frosted over. He waited; no response. Alvor and his companions moved forward, talking quietly among themselves. Evon followed them, his attention absorbed by the mirror. If they were so many years in the future that Piercy was dead...or if the Despot had destroyed all of Dalanine....

  “There are signs of other horses passing this way,” Wystylth said. He was crouched low now and examining the ground. Evon saw nothing but drifts of snow, but Wystylth leaned down until his nose was less than an inch from the drifts and said, “Three horses. Their tracks end here, as if they too passed into the place of power.”

  “Look there,” Kerensa said, and ran forward, her steps slowed by the snow-covered ground. Evon looked up to see her pointing at a dark hump on the ground. “It’s our horse. Poor thing, they killed it.” At that moment, the mirror cleared, and Piercy’s familiar face filled its small circle.

  “Good evening, dear fellow, and how goes the hunt?” he said.

  “Did I speak to you yesterday evening?” Evon demanded.

  Piercy’s eyebrows went up. “Have you forgotten already? I was not aware that love could so disorder your faculties.”

  “Did I?”

  “Yes, Evon, why are you so agitated? Do you have news?”

  Evon glanced over at where Alvor and Carall were having a low-voiced but intense argument. “I...no news yet. We may not be going to Nystrantor after all. I’ll tell you as soon as I know what our plans are. Do you know where the army is? Our army, I mean?”

  “North and east of your position, based on where you were last evening. I’m told they will engage the Despot’s army in two or three days. You ought to be able to circle north of them, but I have to say, Evon, my confidence in your plan is waning.”

  “It...might not matter. Things have changed.”

  “Evon, you sound shifty. Are you keeping something from me? Because you know that never ends well for either of us.”

  “I’ll tell you everything, Piercy, as soon as I understand it myself.”

  Piercy made an exasperated noise. “You had better do,” he said, and vanished.

  Evon put the mirror away and looked around again. If Valantis and his men had followed them into the magic place, it was impossible to know where, or if, they would emerge. They needed to move on immediately, though even as he thought that he had a brief image of Valantis face-to-face with Alvor, and it made him smile despite his anxiety. He went to join Alvor and Carall, who had finished their argument but were still, as Evon saw when he approached, angry about something. “We thank you for bringing us out of that place,” Alvor said.

  “Though Dania’s Glass would no doubt have done the same, had we waited a little longer,” Carall muttered.

  “They deserve no less thanks for all that,” Alvor said sharply. “Now I would have you explain why we should not pursue the Enemy as we have done before.”

  The abruptness of the question startled Evon. “Ah,” he stammered, “I mean no offense to you, but if you kill the Enemy as you did before, it will only come back again centuries from now.” He explained what he had learned about the spell and the inferences he’d made about the nature of the entity. Alvor listened, his face a dispassionate mask. Carall kept putting his skeletal hand to the pommel of his short sword, his eyes watching Alvor instead of Evon. Dania’s eyes were closed in thought, her head bowed. And Wystylth watched Evon closely, all traces of the smile gone. The more Evon spoke, the more dispassionate Alvor’s face became, and Evon began stammering under the weight of his scrutiny.

  “So is the young woman to die in order to destroy the Enemy utterly?” Alvor asked, after Evon’s explanation trailed off.

  “I won’t let that happen,” Evon said.

  “And yet you do not know how to prevent it.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Possibly not ever.”

  “As I said, I won’t let that happen.”

  “So you will wander until you discover a solution, while your Despot continues to ravage the land? And you consider my solution an impermanent one?”

  “Your solution condemns Kerensa to a life of suffering and some future generation to the depredations of the Enemy.” Evon felt his voice shake.

  “We should not stand here arguing with the boy,” Carall said.

  “He’s not a boy,” said Dania. “Alvor, his argument has merit.”

  “It has uncertainty,” Alvor said. “We are expected to simply stand by…every feeling revolts against it. I am sorry,” he told Evon, “but we have seen the destruction wreaked by the Enemy and we cannot afford to wait on you. We will carry you to the nearest settlement as repayment for your aid, but then we must bid you farewell.”

  “No
!” Evon exclaimed.

  “Alvor, please don’t do this!” Kerensa cried out. “You were always a man of action, and I know this goes against your nature, but this is the right solution.”

  “You are a brave woman, Kerensa,” Alvor said, and offered her his hand. “Ride with me and tell me what the people of your time remember of us.”

  “You’re making a mistake,” Evon said, his teeth clenched.

  “Alvor’s decision is the right one,” Dania said. She leaned over and pulled Evon up on the horse behind her. “I would know more of this spell that binds the fire.” She added, in a lower voice, “Perhaps with my assistance you will find the answer you seek, and then, who knows?”

  Evon said nothing. Four legendary heroes would pursue the Despot and kill the entity, and Kerensa would be doomed. You didn’t have a solution anyway, a cruel voice inside his head whispered. You were willing to see the world devastated by the Despot to prevent the death of the woman you love. Not quite the heroic type, are you? He looked ahead to where Kerensa was in vehement conversation with Alvor. Maybe she could argue him around to her way of thinking. But Alvor had an amused, condescending look on his face, the kind of indulgent look parents give their children when they perform a clever new trick. Evon responded to Dania’s next question absently. At least she was willing to help. But unless that help produced results before they reached the next village, however far that was, Evon’s journey was over.

  Dania deserved every bit of the reputation history and myth had given her. She grasped the implications of Evon’s research immediately and from that was able to independently come to the same conclusions he had. “Nystrantor may have the solution you seek,” she said, “and one that will not require you to use the magic on the Enemy.” This close, Evon could see that her dark hair had gray in it and the corners of her eyes and mouth were lined. They were all four of them much older than he had imagined.

  “You know Alvor is wrong,” Evon said desperately. “Why don’t you tell him so?”

  “Alvor is my Kiere, which by your expression is a word your language no longer has,” Dania said. “It means…not a lord in the sense that he is my superior, but someone to whom I owe respect and loyalty and therefore give my obedience. I follow where he leads, even into death. I will not cross him.”

  “But don’t you give him advice?”

  “Advice, yes. Orders, no. Evon, you should realize that Alvor is not a man made for patience. It grates on him to be told he must sit quietly in a corner while someone else is a hero.”

  “I don’t want to be a hero.”

  “Neither did Alvor, once on a time.”

  “Kerensa says he was just a man who became great because the times demanded it.”

  “That is very accurate.” She sighed. “It seems so long ago that we were all just ordinary folk wondering at the rumors of war we heard coming out of the northlands. Well, not Carall. He was a prince of…how strange that I cannot now remember it.”

  “Is he…undead?”

  Dania glanced over her shoulder at him. “Undead? That is a rumor I had not yet heard. No, he was touched by a malignancy that now eats at him, bone and blood. I have some skill as a healer and yet I cannot restore him. It makes him angry, to be so weakened. He was not always so hostile to strangers.”

  “I understand,” Evon said, not understanding at all. “Dania, isn’t there anything I can do to change Alvor’s mind?”

  “It is not a mind that changes easily,” she said. “Prove to him that you can do what you intend to do. Enlist his aid. He is not proud, but he dislikes feeling useless.”

  Evon lapsed into silence again. He still couldn’t prove that the fire could be removed from Kerensa. He was willing to beg Alvor for help—he wasn’t that proud—but he didn’t think there was much point. His mind fell back into the pattern of going over and over everything he’d learned, looking for an answer. He ought to be asking Dania about magic in her time; the Gods only knew what lost spells she might know. But the idea depressed him. She didn’t know the one spell that mattered most to him and to Kerensa, if it even existed. He looked ahead to where Kerensa rode with Alvor; they appeared to still be arguing. This was the opportunity of a lifetime for her, the chance to trade stories with her hero, comparing fact with legend. Instead she was still valiantly trying to argue him around to their point of view. That depressed him further.

  Dawn came while they were still on the road, illuminating a town on the distant horizon. Evon felt himself begin to droop and struggled not to fall asleep on Dania’s shoulder. The woman had to be twice his age and she was still alert and fresh as if she’d slept all night instead of riding. He peered at the road ahead. It seemed to be moving. He blinked and rubbed grit from his eyes and looked again. Dozens of wagons came ponderously toward them along the road, preceded by horsemen moving more swiftly. Alvor pulled up and the others followed suit. “What is this?” Alvor said.

  “They must be fleeing the Despot’s armies,” Evon said. “Piercy said his forces were advancing swiftly.”

  “The better for us, that we do not have far to go to hunt him down,” Alvor said. “Dania, does your Glass recognize the Enemy’s presence?”

  “It does, though the sign is not clear. I cannot tell how distant the Enemy may be.”

  “Then let us proceed.” Alvor motioned them forward.

  It was less than half an hour before they encountered the first riders. One of them stopped nearby, controlling his unquiet mount with difficulty. “You oughtn’t go that way,” he said.

  “We have no fear of the tyrant,” Alvor said.

  The man looked confused. “What’s that then?”

  “He says we have important business in the town,” Evon said. Without the cleperi spell, Alvor’s language was only gibberish to the rider.

  “You ought to rethink that. The Despot’s armies are on their way and it’s only a matter of hours before the town is overrun.” The man eyed Wystylth dubiously; Wystylth grinned at him.

  “We don’t expect to stay long,” Evon said.

  The rider shrugged. “Oughtn’t take the ladies into the battle,” he added. “Despot’s armies aren’t kind to women.”

  “Thank you for the advice,” Evon said. The man shrugged and rode on.

  “It sounds like the Despot is close,” Kerensa said.

  “All the better for us.” Alvor rode on, followed by the rest. Evon looked down and saw Wystylth looking back at him. Throughout the journey Wystylth had loped along beside the horses, sometimes disappearing for a stretch but always returning again, usually to speak to Alvor. His face was in shadow again, but Evon thought he saw sympathy in his smile.

  They now rode among the wagons, piled high with people and boxes and in some cases furniture; Evon saw a wizened old man perched on an enormous rocking chair, teetering high atop a mound of crates. None of the wagoners, or their passengers, met anyone’s eyes, except for several small children who hadn’t grasped the somberness of the situation. They laughed and waved, and Evon waved back, but their enthusiasm depressed him still more. He caught Kerensa’s eye as she happened to glance behind her, and smiled weakly. She didn’t smile back. If he was feeling despondent, she must be miserable. She wasn’t arguing anymore; she was listening to something Alvor was saying, all her attention on him. Maybe he was telling her a story after all.

  It seemed every inhabitant of the town was in the streets, loading wagons or horses and shouting at everyone else. Alvor led his procession through the streets at a slow walk, giving anyone who tried to interfere with him a level gaze that promised violence if that became necessary. They ended up in the stable yard of a small coaching inn, all the coaches of which had been pressed into emergency evacuation service. Only two horses waited in the stalls, and as they dismounted, a woman came out of the inn to saddle one of them. She ignored their little party despite the extremely old-fashioned dress of four of its members.

  Alvor dismounted and helped Kerensa down. Evon got down
with no assistance and went to Alvor’s side. “Please,” he said, “help us reach Nystrantor. We’ll never make it on our own. I’ll separate the weapon from Kerensa and we can destroy the Enemy forever.”

  Alvor looked at him curiously. “You are that convinced that your weapon will wreak such damage?”

  “I’ve seen it. Nothing survives. Alvor, I’m positive this is the right way to do this.”

  “Is his assessment of the weapon’s power correct, Dania?” The woman nodded. “Then you know how to save this young woman and still destroy the Enemy?” he said to Evon.

  Evon hesitated. Alvor looked at Kerensa. “Will you still argue against my point?” he asked her.

  “I can’t,” Kerensa said. “You’re right. About everything.”

  The woman saddling her horse mounted and rode out of the stable yard. Evon glanced at her as she left, then looked back to see that Kerensa had begun to cry. “What—” he began, and someone shoved him hard from behind, knocking him to the half-frozen ground, and knelt on the small of his back. Rough-palmed hands grabbed his and immobilized them. “No,” he shouted, and struggled hard against Wystylth’s grip to no effect. “Don’t do this!”

  “Thank me for saving your life,” Alvor said. He sounded regretful. “She is going where you should not follow.”

  “Leave her alone! Go on, kill the Despot your way, just leave her alone!”

  “He’s not forcing me, Evon,” Kerensa said, her voice choked with crying. “There’s no more time. I can’t let any more people die when I can stop it happening.”