A Matter of Magic

by Patricia C. Wrede

  Not just when someone attacks, Kim thought. Mairelon’s spell had been intended just to trace Mannering’s scrying spell, but all his magic had been swallowed up by this . . . this enchantment of Mannering’s. The thought made her feel ill.

  “It’s getting harder to keep it balanced, though,” Mannering went on. “I need more power, but if I get too much at once it starts to burn out the spell. That’s what did for Ma Yanger—when those wizard friends of yours attacked me just for looking at them at that opera, it was too much for my sharing-spell to handle all at once.”

  Mairelon’s first tracing spell, Kim thought, feeling even sicker than before. They’d found Ma the day after the incident with the flying book, and they’d known she couldn’t have been incapacitated for very long, but they’d never connected the two.

  “The wobble hurt everybody else in the link, too,” Mannering went on, “but it burned the Yanger woman’s mind out completely.” He laughed suddenly, a harsh, half-mad sound. “Serves her right for being so uncooperative.”

  “Uncooperative?”

  “She wouldn’t work for me,” Mannering said in the pouting tone of a child complaining that he had been denied a sweet. “I’d have let her have a little magic, if she had agreed, but she wouldn’t.” He frowned and added fretfully, “The spell’s been unbalanced ever since. I thought it would settle after I added that Russian’s magic, but it’s worse than ever. I’m going to need a new wizard soon. I suppose I’ll have to take Starnes after all, but I wanted to have everything steadied down before I started on wizards with real training.”

  And in another minute or two, it might occur to him that he had a wizard right in front of him who was barely started on her “real training,” and therefore much safer to steal magic from than Lord Starnes was likely to be. Surreptitiously, behind a fold of her skirt, Kim made the one-handed gesture Shoreham had shown her and murmured the activating word of the spell in a voice too low for Mannering to hear. If he had all the skills of a real wizard, and not just the borrowed power, he’d feel the refuge spell go up, but by then it would be too late for him to stop it. From what Shoreham had said . . .

  Mannering’s head jerked back as if he had been struck. “What are you doing?” he demanded. “You’re trying to trick me, like those others, like that Russian. Well, I’ll stop that! I hold yours, to me thy power comes!”

  The air crackled with the power of Mannering’s final words, and Kim felt his spell strike her shield. The force behind the blow was enormous; had the shield been meant to withstand it, force for force and power for power, Kim knew it would have failed. But Gerard’s Refuge didn’t block or absorb or resist attacks—it “sort of shoves them to one side where they can go off without doing any harm,” Shoreham had said. Mannering’s spell slid sideways and whizzed invisibly past Kim’s ear.

  Kim stared at him in shock. “You cast that spell in English!”

  “Of course! I am an English wizard,” Mannering said proudly. His expression changed. “You—How are you keeping your magic? I should have it by now!” He raised his hands. “I hold yours, to me—”

  “That is quite enough of that!” Mrs. Lowe said, and stepped in front of Kim.

  “—your power comes!” Mannering finished. Kim flinched, but Mrs. Lowe did not seem to feel a thing as the spell hit her. Mannering, however, groaned and clutched his head.

  “What did you do?” Kim asked, staring at Mannering.

  “Nothing whatever. Nothing was all that was necessary.” Mrs. Lowe gave a small, wintry smile. “While I did not entirely comprehend what this . . . person was saying, it seemed clear from his remarks that whatever spell he was casting was meant to affect another wizard’s magical powers. As I am no wizard and have no such abilities, the spell could not affect me. I presume it recoiled on him, and though I understand that spell recoils can be quite painful, I must say that I think he deserves it.”

  Kim found herself heartily in agreement with this sentiment. “How did you guess it would work that way?”

  “My dear Kim, I have not spent years as a member of a family rife with wizards without learning some of the basic principles involved in magic! One need not have the ability in order to understand the theory, after all.” With a brisk nod, she resumed her place in the outer doorway, watching Mannering.

  Mannering looked up, panting, and took a deep breath. “You’re keeping me from your magic. How are you keeping me from getting your magic? That Russian taught you, didn’t he?”

  “Prince Durmontov?” Kim said.

  “I got his magic, all of it, but he still cast a spell at my men when they went to bring him here. How could he do that?”

  So Mannering didn’t know which wizard’s magic he’d stolen on the night of the musicale. Well, she certainly wasn’t going to straighten him out. “Why did you want to talk to the prince?” Kim asked.

  “He’s got training,” Mannering said patiently. “I’d have given him back a bit of his magic, just like all the others, in exchange for his help holding the spell together.”

  “If you think anyone would help you under such circumstances, you have even less intelligence than I had given you credit for,” Mrs. Lowe commented. “Why should he help you keep hold of his power?”

  “He wouldn’t want to end up like the Yanger woman, would he? That’s what will happen if the spell breaks apart. They all know it, too, all my wizards.” Mannering frowned. “But I forgot, he still has magic. Maybe he wouldn’t end up a Bedlamite like the rest of them.”

  But it wasn’t Prince Durmontov’s magic that Mannering had stolen; it was Mairelon’s. And from the sound of it, Mannering’s spell had worked exactly the same way on Mairelon as it had on the lesser wizards whose power he had stolen. Which means that if Mannering’s spell breaks apart or goes unstable, Mairelon’s likely to end up just as witless as Ma Yanger did. Kim swallowed hard, hoping her face didn’t show what she was thinking. “If you’re having trouble keeping the spell stable, why don’t you just let it go and start over?” she suggested in what she hoped was a casual tone.

  “I can’t do that,” Mannering said patiently. “If I let it go, I won’t be a wizard any more, and none of them would ever let me try again. And they’d all be angry, and if I wasn’t a wizard anymore, how could I protect myself? No, what I need is—” Mannering stopped abruptly, and his eyes widened in terror. In a voice that was almost a squeak he said, “What are you doing? Stop—stop it!”

  “Stop what?” Kim said, frowning.

  “You can’t—you don’t want this!” Mannering said in tones of desperation. “You won’t just destroy me; you’ll destroy every wizard in the link!”

  No! Mairelon’s in the link! thought Kim, and suddenly realized what was happening. The wizards in Grosvenor Square had started recasting the power-sharing spell, and Mannering could feel the beginnings of it because he was linked to Mairelon’s magic. Her eyes widened as she remembered her conversation with Mairelon. The duchesse and Lord Kerring and the others thought that Mairelon had been stripped of his magic; they didn’t realize that he was somehow part of Mannering’s linkage. When they brought Mairelon into their newly cast spell, they’d be bringing in Mannering’s entire network of spell-linked wizards as well—and they wouldn’t be expecting it. The duchesse’s spell was supposed to be the final, unflawed version of the one Mannering had cast, and therefore able to absorb and overpower it, but the duchesse’s spell was designed for only seven wizards, not a dozen or more. And on top of that—“Did you cast that power-sharing spell in English, too?” Kim demanded urgently.

  “I cast all my spells in English,” Mannering said with dignity. “I am an English wizard. I had the others use English, too; I’m not such a flat as to let someone cast a spell on me when I can’t understand what he’s saying.”

  “You are a blithering idiot,” Kim snarled. Casting a spell in a foreign language keeps power from spilling into it uncontrollably. And uncontrolled power was unpredictable; it could make spells
stronger, but it also could change their effects. Her own experiment with working magic in English was still vividly clear in her memory; she could practically see the spots dance in front of her eyes. If Mannering had persuaded one of the untrained wizards from the rookery to cast d’Armand’s already-flawed power-sharing spell—and to cast it in English—then it was no wonder the spell didn’t behave anything like the way it was supposed to.

  Kim stared blindly at Mannering, thinking furiously. What would happen when the duchesse’s spell linked the magic of six fully trained wizards to Mairelon . . . and through Mairelon, to Mannering’s warped version of the same power-sharing spell? More than likely, the two spells would merge, flooding Mannering’s network with power. And if absorbing Mairelon’s spell had been enough to destroy Ma Yanger’s mind, the unexpected addition of six wizards’ worth of magic at once would probably burn out the mind of every wizard in the link, just as Mannering claimed. Jemmy and Wags and Bright Bess would turn into vacant-eyed, mindless husks . . . and so would Mairelon.

  On top of that, the duchesse and Lady Wendall and Lord Shoreham and the others who were trying to help Mairelon would also be linked into Mannering’s network as soon as the spells merged. At best, they would probably lose their magic to his twisted version of the power-sharing spell; at worst, their minds might be burned out as well. Who could tell what effect the uncontrolled power in Mannering’s spell might have?

  “We got to get back and stop them!” Kim gasped, and started for the door.

  “No!” Mannering said, darting forward and grabbing at her left arm. “You have to stay—You have to give me—You have to tell me—”

  Kim let his grasp swing her around. As she turned in to face him, she brought her free arm up hard and fast. The heel of her open palm connected cleanly with the bottom of Mannering’s chin, snapping his head up and back. He let go of her and staggered backward, off-balance. His head hit the jamb of the rear door, and he went down in a dazed heap.

  “Get Hunch!” Kim said over her shoulder to Mrs. Lowe, and started forward. They would have to take Mannering with them; left to himself, there was no knowing what he’d do or whether they’d be able to find him again. And if the duchesse and Kerring and Shoreham had Mannering himself to interrogate, they might be able to figure out a safe way of removing his spell from Mairelon. If they got back to Grosvenor Square before the current spellcasting was finished. . . .

  “Not just yet, I think,” Mrs. Lowe murmured. Stepping forward, she jabbed Mannering with the point of her sunshade. Mannering yelped and fell sideways. Mrs. Lowe picked up the thick wooden shaft he had been lying on and barred the rear door.

  A moment later, the door rattled as if someone were trying to enter. “Mr. Mannering?” said a muffled voice. “Is everything all right?”

  Mannering was shaking his head and trying to rise; Kim knocked him back against the door jamb once more with a well-placed kick. “Get Hunch,” she repeated.

  Mrs. Lowe pursed her lips disapprovingly, crossed to the outer door, and vanished outside.

  I got to get Mairelon to teach me some spells for this kind of thing, Kim thought as she grabbed a linen shirt from the nearest pile of clothes. Keeping a wary eye on Mannering, she yanked at the tough fabric.

  The outer door opened again and Hunch and one of the grooms entered. “Now what ’ave you gotten into?” Hunch growled.

  “Mr. Mannering?” The barred door rattled again.

  “We got to get back to Grosvenor Square as fast as we can, or it’s all up with Mairelon,” Kim told Hunch, ripping a strip from the shirt as she spoke. “The bully-boy in back don’t matter, but we got to take this cove with”—she nodded at Mannering—“and he’s a weird sort of frog-maker. If we tie his hands and gag him—”

  “I know ’ow to ’andle is kind,” Hunch said. “I’ve ’ad to do it for Master Richard a time or two.” His hands were busy with the linen strips as he spoke, and in a few seconds he had Mannering expertly bound and gagged. With the groom’s help, they loaded him into the coach.

  As she climbed in beside Mannering and Mrs. Lowe, Kim heard loud thumping noises from the interior of the shop; apparently Mannering’s henchman was trying to break down the door instead of going out the back way and nipping around to the front entrance. She spared a fleeting thought to wonder how much trouble Mannering’s bully-boy would make for Tom once he finally got into the front room and found Mannering gone. Well, it was Tom’s problem, and with luck Matt would have gotten back with a constable by then. She leaned out the coach window. “Spring ’em,” she said to Hunch.

  24

  The trip back to Grosvenor Square seemed to take forever, though Hunch urged the horses to a speed far greater than was really safe on the crowded streets. Mrs. Lowe sat stiff as a poker beside Kim, radiating disapproval but not saying anything. Mannering had recovered from his daze and alternated between glaring balefully at Kim over his gag and making terrified whimpering noises. On the whole, Kim preferred the glares; as long as he was sane enough to glare, she knew that the wizards in Grosvenor Square hadn’t completed their spell.

  It’s a complicated spell, it’ll take a long time. But would it take long enough? The picture of Mairelon turned empty-eyed, grunting, and helpless haunted her. Faster, she thought at the horses. Hurry faster.

  At last they pulled up in front of the door. Kim was out of the coach almost before it stopped moving, and banging the knocker long before any of the grooms reached the door. When it opened at last, an interminable time later, she darted past the startled footman and ran up the stairs to the ballroom. As she tore down the hall, she heard a muffled feminine voice rising toward a climax, but she couldn’t tell whether it was Lady Wendall’s or the duchesse’s. The duchesse was supposed to be last. . . . She flung herself through the ballroom door.

  The air inside the ballroom was heavy with power; the sharp, glittering structure of the spell nearly complete. The Duchesse Delagardie stood in one of the triangular points of the star that Kim had watched the wizards preparing. Lady Wendall, Lord Shoreham, Lord Kerring, Renée D’Auber, and Prince Durmontov occupied the other points, and Mairelon himself stood in the center of the star. The duchesse had her back to the door, and her arms were raised in the final invocation.

  Kim hesitated. To interrupt now would shatter the spell, and the enormous power that had already been poured into it would recoil on the wizards, doing nearly as much damage as Mannering’s spell would. To let them continue would destroy Mairelon’s mind as soon as he was linked into the duchesse’s spell, not to mention the minds of the other wizards whose magic Mannering had taken, and quite possibly the six spellcasters themselves into the bargain. As soon as Mairelon was linked to the duchesse’s spell . . . but if the duchesse linked her spell to someone else, instead of Mairelon. . . .

  Without pausing to think further, Kim picked up her skirts once more and ran forward. Mairelon saw her and took a half-step to meet her, then stopped, plainly realizing that to move any farther he would have to step outside the star. Renée and Lord Shoreham saw her next and frowned; then the other wizards—all but the duchesse. As Kim reached the edge of the star, she realized that the duchesse had closed her eyes to speak the closing words, and a tiny corner of Kim’s mind sighed in relief. At least she wouldn’t accidentally distract the duchesse and cause the spell to shatter.

  Kim made an urgent shooing motion at Mairelon and pointed emphatically to the floor outside the star. If only he doesn’t take a notion to get stubborn. . . . Mairelon hesitated and glanced at the duchesse; he knew, even better than Kim did, the possible consequences of miscasting a major enchantment. Frantically, Kim gestured again for him to move.

  On the far side of the diagram, Shoreham frowned and shook his head, but Mairelon’s gaze was fixed on Kim’s face, and he didn’t notice Shoreham’s gesture. Move, move, get out of the star! And finally, his eyes alight with questions, Mairelon nodded and stepped sideways out of the diagram. As he did, Kim stepped into i
t, taking his place.

  Mairelon turned, an expression of horrified comprehension dawning on his face. He reached for Kim, but he was an instant too late. The duchesse spoke the final syllable and brought her arms down in a decisive movement, finishing the spell.

  Power crashed down on Kim, filling her to bursting and beyond, burning through her mind. Is this what it felt like to Ma Yanger? The room went dark and she felt herself sway. Far away, a babble of voices broke out, but the only one she could decipher was Mairelon’s: “Duchesse! The counterspell, quickly!”

  Three words blazed across Kim’s mind like lightning bolts across a darkened summer sky, and then the storm of uncontrollable power passed. Almost gratefully, she started to collapse. Arms caught her as she fell; she struggled mindlessly until she heard Mairelon’s voice by her ear and realized the arms were his. Then she relaxed into unconsciousness.

  Her insensibility could not have lasted more than a moment or two, for the first thing she noticed when she began to recover was Mairelon’s almost panic-stricken voice in her ears: “Kim! Kim?”

  “Mairelon?” she said hazily through a pounding headache. “Oh, good, it worked.”

  “Thank God!” he said, and kissed her.

  Kissing Mairelon was much nicer than she had ever dared to imagine, despite the headache. After much too short a time, he pulled away. “Kim, I—”

  “I see you have decided to take my advice after all, Richard,” Lady Wendall’s amused voice said from somewhere above and behind him. “Marrying your ward is exactly the sort of usual scandal I had in mind; I wonder it didn’t occur to me before.”

  “However, it is quite unnecessary for him to add to the talk by kissing her in public,” Mrs. Lowe put in. “If he must indulge in vulgar behavior, it would be far better done after the notice of his engagement has appeared in the Gazette. And in private.”

  Mairelon looked up, plainly startled, and Kim’s heart sank. Then his face went stiff, and her heart sank even further. “It was a momentary aberration, Aunt,” he said in a colorless voice. “It won’t happen again.”