by Jean Johnson
Puss-in-Boots
Author’s Note: Question—How can you possibly compete with a suave, seductive, ginger-furred Antonio Banderas? Answer: You can’t. Or at least I knew I myself couldn’t. So—since I wasn’t in the mood for another science-fiction piece—I just swapped genders. Let’s see if this one works . . . and yes, we’re actually returning to the Sons of Destiny universe for another brief visit . . .
SIONA cursed, as only a cat could curse—by yowling, hissing, growling, and clawing up the earth behind the stables. If there had been a rat within her reach at that moment, it would have died in a rather bloody fashion . . . but even that level of violence wouldn’t have satisfied her. Only the death of the figurative rat responsible for her predicament would solve her problems. The filthy, overgrown rodent had expanded his catch wards; she couldn’t take her natural form any closer than this inn, which was outside the range of her estate, and at that, she could only do so under the heaviest of wards.
Someone else’s wards.
Unfortunately, her fit of rage caught the attention of the stable hand. He peered around the side of the building, scowled at her, and shouted, snapping his fingers, “Hey! Hey—scat! Get out of here!”
“That sounds like a real scrapper,” another male voice stated, amusement lacing his words.
Startled out of her rage, Siona flicked her ears. That voice . . . she knew that voice. Instead of leaving, she trotted after the stable hand. Her viewing angle was wrong, coming from down low instead of close to level with his head, and he had a beard now, a neatly trimmed growth of rich brown hair covering him from nose to chin, but she thought she knew who he was. It was confirmed by the way he lifted his hand and rubbed his chin, then slid his finger up to rub behind his ear, giving the expected little tug on his earlobe as he finished. There was only one man she knew of with that little habit, though she hadn’t seen it in at least four, maybe five years.
Marc Tresket of Thessalina . . . finally, a fellow mage! Of course, he spent all his time studying Arithmancy and not nearly as much on the offensive and defensive spells most of the rest of us studied. I don’t know how much help he’ll be in my current quest, but any—
“Hey!” the stable hand shouted, kicking at her. “Scat!”
Siona jumped out of the way. Dodging a second kick, she darted between Marc’s boots, twined quickly around his ankles in a deliberate show of affection, and hissed at the stable hand.
“Damn feral cats,” the inn worker muttered, reaching for the pitchfork hung on the stable wall. “The barn cats are good mousers, but they attract all manner of strays, which end up fighting at all hours, clawing at the patrons, and plague us with too many useless litters that have to be drowned. Mind stepping away? I don’t want to get you.”
“You’re actually planning on killing this cat?” Marc asked as Siona narrowed her eyes and growled.
The stable hand gave him a sardonic look. “No, I’m planning on crowning it our next sovereign king.” He stepped forward, but Marc shifted, blocking him. “Out of my way, milord. The innkeeper doesn’t want feral strays hanging around.”
Come near me with that pitchfork, you idiot, and you’ll need a healer, she growled, though she was unable to say the actual words in her current form.
“Excuse me, but this is my cat.” Hands came down and scooped her up, one under her ribs, the other under her hind legs. Wisely, Siona didn’t protest being manhandled. Switching from growling to purring wasn’t possible, but she did manage to nuzzle her former academy mate in a show of affection.
“Hmphf.” Backing off, the stable hand hung the pitchfork back up on its pegs. “Make sure you keep it in your room while you’re here. One of the other servants might not wait to find out if it’s yours or not. We’re dog people hereabouts.”
Balancing Siona in the crook of one arm, the mage holding her slung his saddlebags over his other shoulder and headed for the inn. The scents of horses and hay were exchanged for the scent of cooking and canines. Siona sneezed, catching the attention of the innkeeper. He scowled, but allowed Marc to rent a room for the night. Their path through the common room took them past a table where three men sat, clad in the yellow and blue tabards of her enemy.
Restraining the urge to hiss and fly at them took most of her attention. It wasn’t until Marc hissed at her that she realized she had dug her claws through the wool of his sleeve. Relaxing her paws, she let him carry her up to the assigned room. Once the door was closed and he had draped his saddlebags over the footboard of the bed, Marc lifted her in both hands so that they were nose to nose.
“No claws, got that?” he ordered, giving her a slight but gentle shake. Lowering her to the bed, he stroked her from head to tail. “I have just rescued you from being pierced by a pitchfork. It would be a sign of gratitude on your part to refrain from playing the part of a pitchfork around me. Not that I expect you to understand, of course.”
I understand more than you know . . . and I owe you a debt for saving me from having to dodge that stable hand, she thought. More than that . . . I think I can trust you. It’s not like I have many options to find a better mage to assist me, this far from the more heavily populated lands.
From her position on the bed, Siona could just see onto the nearby table. As she watched, he pulled out some of his belongings and set them on the age-worn surface, including some of the tools of his mathemagic trade. Jumping down from the bed, she trotted over to the chair, leaped up, worked her way as close to the back as she could, and leaped again.
The gap between the back of the chair and the edge of the table was narrow; she barely made it. Marc frowned softly at her. “What are you looking at, puss? Are you a curious cat?”
Sure enough, he had set some shrunken chalkboards on the table, as well as a slender book with an interesting title, The King Who Heard a Joke, and Other Salacious Tales. Unfortunately, she didn’t have time to investigate it; stopping her family’s killer was more important. Pawing at the dusty surface of the topmost slate only got her scooped up, however.
“Bad cat! Don’t go messing with my equations, you got that? Do I have to spank you?”
Meeting his gaze, Siona deliberately shook her head no. Firmly, from left to right. Marc frowned softly.
“Did you just . . .?”
She nodded just as emphatically.
He blinked. “You’re not a regular sort of cat, are you?”
Again, she shook her black-furred head. No.
“Are you . . . trapped by a spell? Do you want me to free you?”
She hesitated, then shook her head.
That made him frown. “Then why don’t you just pop out of your fur and talk to me?”
Looking around the table, Siona spotted a snapped-off stub of chalk. Though her paws weren’t exactly designed for holding things, she padded over and did her best to pick it up. Carrying it back over to the topmost slate—patiently, since she dropped it twice—she placed it on the surface and gingerly pushed it and patted it, marking what she wanted to say in crudely drawn squiggles.
sIOnA
Moving aside, she let him read the letters. His jaw dropped and he peered at her. “You’re Sio—”
She hissed loud and clawed at him, ears flatted to her skull. She didn’t get near enough to actually touch him, but at least it shut him up.
Marc gave her a wary look. “Do you mean that you’re trapped in this form because of a spell that Sio—”
She hissed and clawed again, then shook her head hard. Come on, figure it out!
“So you’re not trapped in a spell?” he asked cautiously. She nodded firmly. Marc frowned again. “You’re in a cat shape because of your own free will?” Again, she nodded. Pulling out the chair, he sat down and braced his elbows on the edge of the table. “So what does that have to do with Sio—”
Hiss! She thumped her tail for emphasis. His brown brows lifted.
“So it’s the name you don’t want me to mention?” he asked. Siona nodded sharply. Ma
rc eyed her speculatively. “Are you . . . her?”
She nodded, glad he had finally caught on and wasn’t going to state her name out loud. That would cause the mage-wards seeking her to trigger.
Marc slumped back in the chair, staring at her. “But . . . you’re dead !”
Shaking her head, she turned back to the chalkboard. Scraping with the little piece of chalk, she managed another word.
OgeR
He leaned forward and read it. “Baron Oger? That doesn’t make sense. From what I’ve heard, His Majesty sent Baron Oger to manage the Marque of Calabas while the deaths of your family are being investigated. It’s even been rumored he’ll get the estate permanently if a living inheritor can’t be found.”
She patted the chalk on the board, squeezing in a few more letters. The piece was melting down as it scraped across the slate, dragging her toe-tips through some of the marks she made. It took him a bit of squinting and muttering to make out what she wrote, for all it was a single word.
muRdEr
“Your parents . . . were murdered?” At her nod, Marc tapped the previous word. “So what about the baron?”
Deliberately facing the chalkboard, Siona hissed and swiped her paw at the name, raking her claws across the four letters. Both of them shuddered at the nerve-wracking scree, but that was all right; it made her point all the more effective.
Marc sat back again. “But then why . . . ? Of course. He’s a fellow mage, and a powerful one. I remember you from the Academy; you weren’t bad at spellcasting, but Baron Oger . . . he has a reputation as one of the best. And the ear of the king. As His Majesty’s officially sent investigator . . . he could easily cover up any evidence that pointed to him.”
Siona nodded.
“The question is, what evidence?” Marc muttered. “I wish you could talk; I have a lot of questions I’d love to ask you.”
Pawing the surface of the chalkboard, Siona wiped away the three previous words and started scraping new ones on the cleared surface. She ran out of chalk when she had only written “BiG wA,” and had to mark the “Rds” in the dust of the slate with her furry little foot.
“Big wa . . . big . . . Big wards?” Marc asked, and received an equally big nod. He mulled that over for a few moments. “I think I understand. I saw some artifacts set up at the crossroads outside. The curves of the wires caging the crystals looked like tracking symbols. No doubt he’s told everyone they’re up there in the hopes of tracking the murderer . . . but given how even your family’s few cousins to the third and fourth generation on your father’s side have wound up dead in their beds over the last week, they’re probably designed to track down the Calabas bloodline instead.”
Siona nodded.
“Well. If there’s one thing I’m good at as a mathemagician, it’s precision, getting the most magic out of the least amount of spellpower. It’ll take me several hours to craft something appropriate, but I should be able to come up with the right runes for a ward circle tight enough to disguise a major Netherdemon, never mind a mere former Academy mate—if you don’t mind my putting it that way,” he allowed.
She couldn’t shrug very well in cat shape, so she settled for blinking at him, tail curled patiently around her haunches. Marc rubbed at his bearded chin for a few moments, then slid his finger up to his ear for a little rub and tug, ruffling his brown curls.
“Right. How about I go tell the innkeeper I’ll be staying here for a few more days, get us something to eat for later, and then the two of us hole up in this room while I craft a means to safely talk with you?” he asked. Siona nodded. Marc lifted his hand to the nape of her neck, smiling as he scritch-rubbed gently. “You know, you are just as pretty in this form as you ever were as a student. I’m regretting not spending more time getting to know you back then.”
Siona decided it was a good thing cats couldn’t blush.
SHE had forgotten what she was, or rather wasn’t, wearing. The moment her senses finished testing Marc’s carefully drawn wardings, telling her it was safe to expand back into her normal form, Siona had done so . . . only to find herself wearing a very short sleeping gown and a pair of low boots.
Marc, seated inside the chalk-drawn circle with her, whistled slowly as he looked up, and up, and up. Blushing, Siona squeezed her bare thighs together and folded her arms across her chest. “Hush. I didn’t exactly have time to dress the moment I realized a foreign mage was casting magic inside the manor.”
“You had enough time to throw on some boots,” her former Academy mate pointed out, still studying her curves.
“I thought the attack was coming from outside, and they were right there by the bed.” Sinking down, trying her best not to flash him, Siona settled on the floor with a sigh. “I was just starting to grab my dressing robe when I felt a spell being targeted at me. Specifically, at my name.”
“Name magic?” Marc asked. He focused on her face, now that she was seated at his level. “Isn’t that Mendhite magic?”
“Yes, it was among some of the spells Don Carlo taught in his Runic Theory classes. And Don Carlo is old enough, he could have taught the baron,” she added grimly. “That was when I shifted my shape.”
“I didn’t know you studied Animism. Don Marie only took on those students who showed an aptitude for spellshifting,” Marc admitted. “I’ll confess I never passed the entrance test for her classes.”
“It’s . . . not spellshifting.” She blushed as she admitted it, but forged on. “The Marque of Calabas is a bit unique in the Kingdom of Guchere. The estate is entailed. Magically entailed. Some of that entailment is tied to the title of ‘marquis’ or ‘marquess,’ but some of it is tied to my family’s blood. So long as one of the line of Calabas lives—a legitimate descendant—certain spells and spell-like effects will remain in existence. The king knows this, and I suspect the baron does as well, considering how careful he’s being in exterminating anyone with a legitimate claim to the place.”
“What’s so important about these entailed spells?” he asked her. “If the Calabas line is wiped out, doesn’t the magic go away? Is that what Baron Oger wants, to get rid of whatever magical benefits you’re enjoying and thus make Calabas a normal sort of marque?”
Siona shook her head. “No, he wants the spells attached to the title. A long time ago, an ancestor rescued the people from enslavement to a vile sorcerer. The bloodlines of most of the villagers and farmers within the marque were enslaved to the marque. Permanently enslaved. They had to obey the person who held the title marquis or marquess of the estate. My father’s ancestor came in, defeated the sorcerer, and when that didn’t stop the enslavement, he oath-bound his life and the lives of his descendants to protect these people, rather than exploit them.”
“What sort of exploitation?” her former classmate asked.
“Imagine, if you will, being able to order a family to give you every last bushel of beans, haunch of meat, and copper coin they had saved . . . and them actually doing so, even if it meant their starvation and death.” She held his gaze as he paled. “That’s the level of abuse Baron Oger wants to inflict. He’s not bound to protect this land like my bloodline is. And there’s worse—the sorcerer who originally enslaved the local peasants . . . sometimes he’d order them to fight against and kill each other, just for his amusement. They had no choice but to obey. It wasn’t pretty.”
Marc rubbed at his chin, then tugged on his ear. “So what does the cat thing have to do with all of this?”
She blushed. “That’s something from my mother’s side. Her great-plus-grandmother saved the High Priest of Cheren from being eaten by rats—it’s a very long story—and the God Himself blessed her family line with the ability to become cats. The reason it helped me escape the name magic is because I’ve never been called by my name when I’m a cat, and I’ve never answered to it as a cat. That name has no power over me as a cat, and thus the name magic has no power over me . . . but only while I’m a cat—you know, I’m giving you a lot of m
y trust by telling you these things.”
“I won’t betray that trust,” Marc reassured her. “Besides, I agree: if you don’t ever answer to it, then it’s not your name. I remember Don Carlo’s lectures on the subject. ‘If you don’t like what someone is calling you—’”
“‘Then don’t respond to it, Stupid,’ ” Siona agreed, smiling. “I remember them, too. Anyway, the spell missed. Barely, but it missed. It’s still out there, too. I can feel it.” She grimaced. “Unless Baron Oger recalls the spell . . . or if he dies . . . I’m stuck either living out my life as a cat, or living it inside very tight wards. Just saying my name outside these wards will cause his finding spells to focus on the speaker. The last think I needed was for him to magically overhear you speaking my name while you were figuring out my identity.
“I can also sense the spell hovering near those catch-ward crystals he’s been putting up . . . and I’m now outside Calabas lands. Just barely outside, since the other side of the crossroads is Calabas land, but those wards now extend beyond my family’s property. With the king backing him, he could have every major and minor city covered in just a few more weeks, plus all the crossroads watched . . . I’d have to flee the kingdom practically.
“I need your help, Marc,” she murmured, holding his green gaze. Hoping he could help, somehow. “I need to figure out some way of taking him down before every last relative within seven generations ends up dead. Time is running out.”
“If you don’t have solid evidence he’s doing it . . . he’s too politically powerful to demand that he be Truth Stoned. Not without evidence to cast enough doubt on his innocence. Not to mention there are a few spells in existence for getting around that sort of thing, or at least the standard truth-sensing spells—I actually started out studying Veritamancy, thinking I might become a royal inquisitor,” he explained. “But I have a better head for math and logic, so I ended up studying for my degree in Arithmancy. In some ways, I should have stuck with Veritamancy; there’s always a demand for truth-discerning in the court systems, both here and abroad.
