She wrote the impresario in Germany, canceling her appearances, and sent payment to him for the cancellations without a qualm. This was war, now, and she was not going to lose.
13
NINA had made a major mistake when she first arrived in Blackpool, and now she knew it.
She had assumed that her imposter was just an ordinary, greedy little human being. Now she knew better. The girl had a protector, an Elemental Master, a Fire-Master to be precise. She still didn’t know which of the men around the girl was the magician. Humans were infernally good at hiding their powers, if one was bent on hiding them, and most of the clever ones would never come out in the open if they could help it. If a mage was of her own element, she would certainly sense him in the powers when he actually worked magic, but if he was not of her element, he could be conjuring away at removing mountains and she would never know it if he was shielded.
And if he was shielded all the time, she’d not be able to tell him from an ordinary sort of human.
She had made a grave mistake, choosing to attack the building as she had. She had used creatures of her own element—the rats were of earth, of course—to be the carriers of disaster, but it had been his element, fire, which would have been the actual cause. Some of these blasted humans were on good terms with their Elemental creatures, good enough terms that the benighted things acted as watchdogs, and that must have been the case here. There was absolutely no doubt what had put out the fires. Salamanders, dozens of them. And that could only mark the work of a Master.
All right. This meant that she couldn’t go after the girl directly. She would have to be very careful how she did it indirectly. That meant working entirely in her own Element.
It was unlikely there was another Earth mage anywhere in this city; Earth mages felt acutely uncomfortable in places where the ground was paved over, where there were filthy slums and tenements, and where the air and ground were poisoned by the smokes and effluvia of humans living in such crowded conditions. These conditions did not trouble Nina in the least; on the contrary, these were the sorts of things that Trolls thrived in.
So it was unlikely that there would be a mage of her own Element to sense when she was working. And it was very unlikely that the Fire Master would sense it either. He couldn’t know who or what she was, or he would have tracked her down by now. So long as she stayed within her own element . . . it was safe to use magic.
So . . . what to do?
Well, the obvious thing was to try to get at her with one of the most powerful weapons in Nina’s arsenal.
Illness.
There were all manner of things that Nina could strike her with. And now that she had an establishment of her own from which to operate, she could investigate which might make the best weapon.
The vehicle would be another question entirely. Nina was not going to trust this to one of her dim-witted underlings, oh no. Nor to any old rat or mouse that she might trap.
Nina was going to make a homunculus, a bit of magic for which the Earth magicians were unusually apt.
And she moreso than a human magician. She needed no implements, no herbs, in fact nothing but a shielding circle—and herself.
She called in her maid. “Is the cellar prepared?” she asked, with an edge to her voice. She had told the creature to have the cellar made ready as soon as she took possession of the house—but had her servant done so? They could be astonishingly thick. It was the problem with the creatures of Earth; they often moved slowly, and they were not very clever. Nina had been an exception even among the Trolls who were the cleverest of the sorts of Elementals that wise magicians did not call up. But that was probably because of the number of humans she had absorbed over the years; it was not just their forms that stayed with her, it seemed that some of their intelligence remained as well.
But fortunately the maid nodded, and Nina felt a moment of satisfaction. They were learning, it seemed. Good. It was about time.
Waving the maid away, she descended into the cellar alone.
She did not need a lantern, nor indeed any light; Trolls could see in the dark as well as any cat. The steep wooden stairs were no trouble to navigate once she rid herself of her clumsy and encumbering human garments and continued on in her shift. What foolishness it was to wear such things! Humans were so stupid sometimes.
She felt the cool and the damp on her skin with a sense of great relief. It was at times like these that she almost regretted giving up her existence in the underground world of the darker Earth elementals. And yet, the life she had now was so rich, so varied, so . . . luxurious . . . she could not even contemplate giving it up. When she thought about how simple-minded and dull her own servants were . . . no. She was never, ever giving up this life.
The cellar was paved with stone, which, fortunately, was all native to the area. That made it ideal in every possible way. The preparations that Nina required were simple; a protective double circle had been deeply inscribed into the stone, with words in the ancient language of the Earth Masters etched between the inner and outer circles. Nina inspected these carefully, until she was satisfied that they had been written perfectly, that there were no flaws in the words, nor breaks in the circles. It was not that she was in any danger of course. These circles were not to keep anything out. Her human body with its Trollish powers was more than enough to take care of anything that might come at her across these circles.
No, this was to keep her power in, to keep from betraying her presence to that accursed Fire Master, and any other meddlesome human mages that might be alerted. The Fire Master shouldn’t be able to sense Earth power, but . . . she preferred not to take any chances. And anyway all the Elementals gossiped, especially the Bright Powers. Let a Faun or Dryad get a scent of her presence, and the next thing you knew a Sylph would find out about it, and from there it was a short step to the ears of those Salamanders that danced attendance on him.
She had not gotten as far as she had by being careless.
She crossed the lines of the circle, knelt in the center, and with a touch, called Earth magic into the carvings. Slowly, gradually, they began to glow a smoky and sullen ochre.
With a whispered word, she raised the power into a dome, arching above her head. Invisible to mortal eyes, though visible to hers, the corresponding half of the dome penetrated deep into the stone and earth of the cellar floor. Now she was walled, shielded, protected from every prying sense. She was invisible in here; even her own servants would not be able to sense her.
She cupped her hands over her belly, feeling the power rise in her now; she concentrated with all her might, for what she was about to do was the closest her kind ever came to giving birth.
And it was just as much work, although the time of “labor” was considerably shorter.
She pulled her own substance out of herself and into her waiting hands, panting and sweating as she robbed herself of her own flesh, and gave it shape and life. She groaned, not with pain, but with effort. And when she was done, there it was in her hands, about the size of a newborn human baby, a faceless, smooth little thing like a dough-man or a wax doll, waiting patiently for her to give it purpose. It was the same color as the earth hereabouts, and it was cool to the touch, with a faint dusting of grit over the surface of it.
She would have liked to lie down at that point, for the effort had been greater than she remembered. But she did not have that leisure. If she did not give this thing its purpose, it would start to merge with her again, and this would all have been for nothing.
So she called up more power with another whispered word, invoked the particular form of pestilence she wished to visit upon the girl, and gave the creature her “scent.” With every layer of magic, the homunculus glowed a little more, a dark and angry glow like cooling lava. Finally, when she was done, she set it down on the floor in front of her, feeling weary to death, as she never felt after mere physical exertion like dancing.
The homunculus stood there on its own, nearly vibra
ting with the need to be off about its purpose.
She dismissed the magic in the protective circles, and the homunculus did not waste a single moment. It sank into the floor of the cellar as easily as if the stone had been water, and in a moment, it was gone. Not even another Earth mage was likely to be able to detect it. Only another Elemental could. That was the beauty of this: since it had once been part of her, it became its own little independent creature. Not quite a Troll, but close enough it should raise no alarms among the other Elemental creatures hereabouts.
Finally, after a long, long rest on the stones, slowly drawing in Earth energy to replace what she had lost, she got to her feet and pulled herself up the stairs.
If all went well, within the week, her imposter would be dead. And she would then be free to decide whether or not to take her place.
There was something going on that no one was talking to her about. Ninette could tell by the way that Arthur, Nigel and Jonathon would look at her when they thought she wouldn’t notice. And it wasn’t the “we are suspicious of you” look, it was the “we are really worried for you” look. That made her uneasy, and it made her even more uneasy to think that whatever was going on probably had a great deal to do with magic.
She really didn’t want to think about magic. Despite that there was a very helpful brownie living in her flat. Despite that Jonathon was producing all manner of magical—the real sort, not legerdemain—effects on stage. Despite the fact that she was half friend and half slave to a talking cat. She just would rather not think about magic at all. Rather than growing easier about it over time, knowing about it, knowing it was real, actually had the effect of unnerving her further. It was as if the solid and understandable world she knew was just a thin shell over something impossible and deadly, something she could not see nor guard against. All her childhood fears of night-hags coming through the windows and demons up through the floor could be real. And what was more, she had no way to protect herself against these creatures.
It was horrible, every moment of it, and so she thought about it as little as possible.
Ailse astonished her. The little Scots maid was as practical and level-headed as any Parisian landlady, and yet, she not only accepted all of this, she seemed to have no particular difficulty in doing so. She put out a little food and drink for the Brownie every night, and pretended to ignore the shy little creature whenever it happened to get caught in the open. Although she said she could not hear Thomas unless he spoke to her directly, she spoke to him at all times as if to a human being. And Wolf, whom she certainly did hear, she flirted with in a sort of dry, ironic manner. The practical and level-headed nature would seem to preclude any belief in magic. And yet . . .
All this glancing and looking worried had begun about a week ago. Ninette finally got fed up with it. It was making her more nervous than thinking about magic. So she decided to accost the one person of everyone in the group that was likeliest to give her the truth.
“Ailse,” she said that night, as the maid was combing out her hair, “why is everyone so on edge this past week? And why do they keep looking at me?”
The maid was silent for a good long time. Her hands kept moving automatically, but looking in the mirror, Ninette could see a very thoughtful expression on her face. “Well, ma’amselle,” the girl said thoughtfully, “They wouldna like my tellin’ ye, but I’ve been thinkin’ ’tis a sin and a shame to be keepin’ ye in the dark.”
“I knew it!” Ninette said fiercely. “I knew there was something amiss!”
“Well, it’s that summon tried to burn down the theater, d’ye ken? And they be thinkin’ it has sommat t’ do with you,” Ailse said reluctantly.
“Me?” Ninette’s mouth fell open with surprise, and she turned and took the brush from the maid’s unresisting hands. “How could that have anything to do with me?”
“Because, ma’amselle, they’re thinkin’ it’s all of a piece, that you have a strong enemy, a magician—well, not you, but your Papa that’s gone.” The girl nodded. “They’re thinking that the wreck of your friend’s wee boat, the laddie that tried to set fire to the theater, and the accidents are all at the hand of this magician, d’ye ken. Because they’re unnatural for certain sure. There’s thousands as wouldna believe that tale yon Harrigan told, of the hole in the street opening up under his feet, but I do, and more’s the point, so do Master Nigel and Master Jonathon.”
Ninette listened to this with astonishment, not the least because Nigel and Jonathon were hanging their theory on a slender thread indeed. That their entire “chain of events” began with a shipwreck that never really happened—
She bit her lip and was about to turn away from the maid, feeling a terrible load of guilt, when suddenly from the direction of the kitchen a commotion erupted that sounded like a cross between a cat-fight and a drunken brawl, punctuated by the crash of crockery.
Both young women hesitated a moment, then Ninette leapt up from her seat and ran for the door. She stopped long enough to grab a poker from the fireplace tools, and flung open the door of her bedroom.
It was easy to see the cause of the noise. Thomas and the brownie tumbled together on the floor, tangled up with something else, both of them fighting, both of them screeching. The brownie was shouting something incomprehensible, while Thomas sounded like a perfectly ordinary cat in a towering rage.
The thing they were fighting, strangely, made no noise at all.
Ailse went straight for the kitchen, as Ninette stood by looking for an opening in which she could bash the thing with her poker. She couldn’t tell what it was; it was a sickly, muddy-earth color, and had four limbs and a head, and that was all she could tell for sure. But as she set eyes on it, she felt a creeping horror, absolute revulsion, and her hands shook as she clutched the poker.
Ailse came back with a big iron pot and a lid. Before Ninette could ask what that was for, she shouted, “Stand aside! Cold iron!” and in a flash, both the cat and the brownie freed themselves.
Ninette, who had been waiting for just that, took the opportunity to bash it with her poker. Incredibly, she connected with it. Even more incredibly, she stunned it. And while it was stunned, Ailse clapped the pot down on top of it, then slid the lid underneath, and flipped pot and creature back over. Ninette slid her poker through the pot’s two handles, locking the lid down tight.
And a good thing she did so, too, for a moment later the creature recovered, and the pot began gyrating as it tried to batter its way out. Ninette, went quickly to the fireplace, then put one of the fire-dogs on top of it just to be sure; this stopped the pot from bounding, but a furious hammering came from inside as the creature beat on the lid and sides.
The brownie stood there, panting, staring at the pot. “Damme! Wha’ be that?” he asked, the first time that Ninette had ever heard him speak.
That, Thomas replied grimly, is an homunculus, and it means us no good, I promise you. Don’t, on your lives, let it out. I am going to get Nigel and Jonathon.
Limping slightly, the cat leaped out of the window, leaving the two young women and the brownie staring at one another.
“Well,” Ninette said, finally. “Do you think we ought to put more heavy things on top of the pot?”
“I’m thinkin’ it wouldna hurt,” Ailse said, and went in search of something heavier than a fire-dog.
An hour later, Ninette sat on the bed in her room, seething. It was quite bad enough that Nigel, Arthur, Jonathon and Wolf had all come rushing up the stairs to her flat, acting as if she and Ailse didn’t have the sense the Lord gave a goose, but it was worse that they all but shoved her maid and herself into this room and barred the door with a chair to keep them in!
Ailse sat primly in the chair staring a hole in the door. When she glanced over at Ninette and saw that the dancer was looking at her, she grimaced.
“You are thinking,” Ninette said, and marveled a little at how firm her own grasp of English had become. Then she shivered. That was magic again.
Creeping into her life, little by little. Making such tiny, helpful changes—until the moment when some shapeless thing, some awful monster that was terrible all out of proportion to its size, got into your own flat and—
And what? Why was it here? Preying on the Brownie? She didn’t think so. Something told her it had come for her. Thomas had said it meant them no good, and she could well believe it. Had it come on its own? Had it been sent? If it had been sent, who had sent it?
Was this somehow tied to the person who had tried to set fire to the theater?
“I am thinkin’ ma’amselle, but ’tisna my place t’say—” Ailse said with great reluctance.
She grimaced. “Oh please do speak your mind. I think it will be the twin of my own thoughts.”
Ailse looked at the door again. “Men,” she said, slowly, and with great deliberation. “Now an’ then, they be as a’mighty as they think. But ’tisna often.”
Ninette was surprised into a giggle, and some of her nervousness ebbed. “What do you suppose they are doing out there?”
Ailse shrugged. “Some mess of magic, do ye ken. And we shouldna see it on account of we have no magic of our own, and we’re puir weak women besides. We shouldna fash oursel’es. Let the braw laddies handle it.”
Ninette nodded, flushing. “Forgetting who it was caught it in the first place.”
“Aye.” Ailse looked back at the door. “But nivver mind. I’d be guessin’ we’ll find oot soon enoo—”
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