Children of Magic

by Greenberg, Martin H.

  Holding a plate overflowing with confectionaries, the man waved a glass of wine in his direction. “How can you break your fast on such a lovely day eating such poor fare,” he almost bellowed. “Take a pastry or two before your health fails you.” He peered at him in what Montifero assumed was supposed to be mock suspicion. “You’re what fourteen, fifteen now?”

  “Fourteen, sir.”

  “Ah, yes, a young man with a keen intellect and an accomplished rider and swordsman to boot, or so I’m told.”

  As Montifero widened his eyes in feigned surprise, the Bishop chuckled heartily. “Didn’t think I kept my eye on you, did you, lad? But of course I did, for your dear departed mother’s sake. A fine woman,” he added thickly. “And a powerful court mage. She’s missed terribly, terribly. But then I advised her not to bring so many servants from the city during that frightful summer. The lower classes have no understanding of cleanliness,” he declared, slopping wine down the front of his robe. “They brought the plague to the countryside with them no doubt. It’s a wonder you survived. A miracle.” He took a large swallow before continuing. “As I said, I’ve kept my eye on you as you’ve grown, and here you are nearly a man. So what’s it to be then, magecraft like your sainted mother?”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t the skills necessary for magery,” Montifero began, his eyes glowing a faint, washed out green.

  “Limited power eh?” the Bishop interrupted tactlessly. “Well, so what? I haven’t much myself, but I do well enough. So what then, the Church perhaps?” He winked broadly. “I think I could find a position on my staff for a talented and pious young man with the proper breeding and background.”

  “I should be only to grateful, My Lord Bishop. I’d have to write for my uncle’s permission, of course.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. He’s not home much, I understand. The duc keeps him busy directing the offensive against Pisario.”

  “Very busy, My Lord, but we keep in touch by letter. His last missive suggested that he was considering finding me a position as a military aide, or possibly even a novitiate in the Scourge.”

  “Hm.” The Bishop made a show of considering his words. “The Scourge is a blessed calling,” he agreed. “But it’s a terrible business if you haven’t a true vocation. Weeding out heresy among the degenerate creatures of Bergo or Vericcio is one thing, finding it in Carmina is something else again. Could you arrest a member of your own class boy, a peer, a friend?” He gave him a shrewd look. “A relative of beautiful young Charlotte d’Angasi over there? The Death Mages are everywhere and the dungeons beneath the San Dante are a dark and terrible place.”

  Montifero made himself cast a horrified glance towards the cathedral. “San Dante?” he asked in a hushed whisper. “But I thought . . . I never would have believed . . . Beneath?” He shuddered.

  “Beneath,” the Bishop repeated, enjoying Montifero’s supposed squeamishness. “Right underneath the very nave where you hear services. Why at this very moment Captain de Croce is interrogating old Peruzzi and I think you can very well imagine what’s transpiring. He grew careless you see, they always do. So.” He gave him a bright smile belied by the triumphant expression in his eyes. “Shall I make an introduction to the Captain for you, lad?”

  His face a similar shade of green as his own eyes, Montifero gave a shaky bow. “I think perhaps it is as you say, My Lord Bishop, the Scourge demands a true vocation. With your permission, I shall write my uncle regarding your very generous offer of a position on your staff.”

  “A wise choice,” the Bishop agreed magnanimously. “Although not nearly so exciting as the Scourge, the prelacy can always find a place for a serious scholar and you could do worse than ally yourself with the San Dante. After all, the Achivescovo was a scholar before he took on the leadership of the Church. A young man could go far in such company.”

  “My thanks, My Lord Bishop.” Bowing, Montifero retired from the conversation and returned to the coquettish company of Charlotte d’Angasi waiting patiently to one side.

  An hour later, feeling a low grade love spell tingling against his fingers, he accepted a silver token in exchange for the promise to attend her and her family at supper later in the week and took his leave of the reception.

  He found Piero bent over a length of intestine in the Vericcio warehouse an hour later. Holding up the tiny, silver key, he laid it carefully on a shelf neatly stacked with necromantic components.

  “Charms,” Piero said disdainfully, wiping his hands on his long, leather apron. “Worthless trinkets sold in the marketplace to gullible marks from the country or to the foolish members of the nobility who don’t know any better.”

  “It’s the third one this week,” Montifero noted, slipping his own apron on before he approached the table. “A gift from Charlotte d’Angasi.”

  “You’d make an advantageous match, young master. The ladies of Cerchicava are well aware of this.”

  “So is the Bishop. He offered me a position this morning.”

  “He would ally himself with the house of Sepori.”

  “He would ally himself with the money of Sepori. I come into my inheritance in less than six months. The carrion are already gathering.” He glanced down at the intestine. “A divination spell?” he asked.

  “Yes, young master. Guido Peruzzi’s been arrested by the Scourge.”

  “Your first teacher. I heard. The Bishop announced it from the pulpit this morning. He’s being held in the San Dante dungeons. They’re questioning him as we speak.” He handed the older mage a fresh scalpel. “Exactly how much danger are we in, Piero?”

  “It’s hard to tell just yet. No one of his stature has ever been taken before and my usual contacts are too frightened to be of much use.” Slicing down the length of intestine, Piero inserted a number of small finger bones inside. His eyes glowed red for a brief moment, then he picked up a needle threaded with a length of plaited hair. “His protections are considerable,” he continued, sewing up the cut both deftly and swiftly. “How ever, if the Scourge can break him, he’ll name every subordinate who ever served under him. Masters do not wear binding spells.”

  “Then we have to make sure they don’t break him.”

  The intestine began to burn with a dull, ruby glow, then suddenly turned to ash. Piero stared down at the blackened finger bones for a long moment before gathering them up again. “His protections are still in place,” he noted. “But they’re weakening.”

  “Then we have time to formulate a plan.”

  “We can’t kill him in any conventional manner, young master,” Piero warned, noting the finality in Montifero’s voice. “No amount of money would be enough to gain access to him in the San Dante. And the priestly containment spells around him will be both subtle and powerful. The result of any offensive spell would be traced right back to the originator.”

  “A conventionally offensive spell, yes,” Montifero agreed, glancing towards the shelf with a thoughtful expression. “But I have something a little more unconventional in mind. Charlotte d’Angasi is related to Guido Peruzzi, is she not?”

  “Distantly, young master.”

  “How quickly could the components for a banishment spell be collected?”

  “From Charlotte d’Angasi?”

  Montifero chuckled at the worried tone in the man’s voice.

  “No, Piero, from someone both more closely related and less likely to arouse suspicion and outrage.”

  “His cousin Fernando is a worthless drunkard who frequents the wrong sorts of taverns,” Piero offered at once. “I could have a marker and a cutter on him before the sun finished setting.”

  “Do it.”

  The components arrived before nightfall. Accepting the three ceramic urns from Piero, Montifero emptied the contents directly onto the table. “Charms are worthless trinkets sold in the marketplace to gullible marks from the country or to the foolish members of the nobility who don’t know any better,” he said, repeating the older man’s words from
earlier. “And in the case of protection or love charms, I agree.” He picked up a cleaver and began to mince the components into a fine paste, using the side of the blade to mix them together. “But the foundation of an Intent Charm such as this,” he held up the silver key, “is a watered-down banishment spell strangely enough. Banishment for rats, toothache, disease, impotence, or in this case, thought or attention to anyone save the token’s originator, they’re all basically the same. Now supposing you lay a necromantic banishment spell onto the charm and direct it along the duel blood link from the token’s originator and the mark who supplied the components?”

  Piero smiled. “The duel blood link would be powerful enough to overcome any protection spells Peruzzi had in place.”

  “Exactly. The Scourge can only identify a necromantic spell signature and trace it back to the Death Mage once the spell has taken effect, but with the original spell still in place within the charm . . .”

  “The Scourge will be lead to Charlotte d’Angasi.”

  “Who may spend a rather uncomfortable night in their care but as she carries no taint of necromancy, they probably won’t hang her. And if they do,” Montifero shrugged as he dropped the key into the mixture. “I still have two others tokens should I wish to take a wife.

  “No one will make the connect through the token because the Church has no idea how necromantic spells actually work, and no one will assume that Montifero de Sepori could enact such a spell at all, since it’s well known that my power is limited,” he added with a snarl.

  “It’s sound thinking,” Piero agreed, “but what are you planning to banish, young master?”

  His eyes glowing a red so dark they were almost black, Montifero scooped the mixture into a heavy, iron box. “I’m going to banish the breath from Peruzzi’s body,” he answered. “You might want to stand back.”

  In the dungeons of the San Dante Cathedral, the violence of Montifero’s spell slammed Lord Guido Peruzzi against the bars of his cell hard enough to snap his spine, his cry of pain and surprise cut short as his windpipe collapsed. The conflagration that discharged from his dead body as his wards cut off flung Romuald de Croce against the far wall. By the time the Captain of the Holy Scourge was able to rise, there was little left of the city’s premier necromancer but a smoking shell.

  In the Vericcio warehouse the iron box held for less than a single heartbeat before it too vaporized in an explosion of crimson shards. After the dust had cleared, Piero Bruni, his ears still ringing from the force of the blast, knelt and removed his binding spell from Cerchicava’s newest Death Mage.

  A week later, seated amidst the profusion of roses in his uncle’s conservatory, Montifero read through Matteo de Sulla’s recent letter with a satisfied expression.

  “The duc’s cousin, Franco de Messandi, has offered me a position on his staff as a research scholar,” he said. “Should I be willing, my uncle has agreed.”

  “The Bishop will be disappointed, My Lord.” Piero noted.

  “No doubt, but it suits me well enough. Messandi’s no fool, but he’s easily distracted by books and scrolls. It affords me a ducal shield and the time I require for other pursuits.”

  Standing, Montifero walked to the window, staring out at the darkening gardens beyond.

  “The Trade is powerful, but it’s not invulnerable, Piero. The Death Mages are indeed everywhere but they have no order, no hierarchy and that makes them weak. Peruzzi was stupid, he was careless, and he nearly destroyed us all. Masters do not wear binding spells? Well, soon there will only be one master in Cerchicava.”

  Staring out at the line of cyprus trees, his intense gaze glittered like fire.

  “You’re to take charge of Peruzzi’s subordinates and whatever minor necromancers operated under his control or protection,” he ordered. “Those you believe to be the most trustworthy can carry your own personal binding spells. Any you believe to be a liability are to be executed at once and components from their bodies stored for future use. Once that’s finished, I want the names of every Death Mage in the city, their contacts, cutters and markers, and every member of their families, no matter how distant.”

  Beyond the line of cyprus trees, the setting sun reflected off the copper roofs of the San Dante Cathedral and he frowned. “Faith,” he sneered.

  “The Church is also weak, Piero,” he continued. “It too believes it’s invulnerable, and so it too has grown stupid and careless.”

  He fell silent for a long, introspective moment until Piero finally coughed faintly, then he gave a cold, decisive nod almost to himself.

  “In five months time I come into my inheritance. On that day I want a dozen setters sent into the Carmina District to collect and catalogue the names and movements of every relative of every leading Churchman in Cerchicava from the Achivescovo and the Bishop of San Dante to Captain de Croce and his Holy Scourge. Storable components that may be gathered without raising suspicion are to be collected. I want solid, reliable people, Piero, with the strongest possible binding spells you can apply. Nothing must threaten the security of the Trade ever again.”

  “Yes, My Lord.”

  Turning from the window, Montifero glanced across the length of the conservatory, his crimson gaze introspective once again.

  “What is the greatest power in the world, Piero?” He asked almost gently.

  The man went down on one knee, feeling his master’s new binding spell constrict about his throat ever so slightly.

  “You are, my Lord,” he answered.

  Montifero smiled, his eyes glowing hotly. “Not yet, Piero, but very, very soon I will be.”

  SHAHIRA

  Michelle West

  Michelle West is the author of several novels, including The Sacred Hunter duology and The Broken Crown, both published by DAW Books. She reviews books for the online column First Contacts, and less frequently for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Other short fiction by her has appeared in dozens of anthologies, including Black Cats and Broken Mirrors, Alien Abductions, Little Red Riding Hood in the Big Bad City, and Faerie Tales.

  THE EGG IS ROUND. Perfectly round, tinted a salmon and gold that blend to make the eye water. It is larger, and in the darkness of a room that might be finely appointed or utterly empty, it is the only source of light; they find their way in the dark, drawn to it. The floor is warm beneath their feet, and sandy.

  Here, at last, the priests draw braziers close to their chest as they approach the egg; their robes, red and gold, have dwindled in the shadows to a type of grey. They wear tall hats, carry tall sticks upon which the empty braziers hang; they walk in silence and frown several times when the silence is broken by the voices of those they lead.

  Shahira knows, for hers is one of the voices raised at times in the darkness; her toes are stubbed and bleeding because she does not know the way. Nor do the other children, boys and girls, her age and younger. They have been gathered in this long summer, this year of endless heat and dry, dry grass, from their village homes.

  Where water was not plentiful in the wells or the shallow lakes, in the empty trickle of river beds, it was shed in abundance by parents and grandparents, by siblings older and younger, all made gaunt by hunger in the sparse time.

  Shahira does not like the priests. Nor is she fond of the priestesses, for although many of them are round and ample, there is no warmth in their cold smiles, their shining eyes; they have either pity or disdain for the children, and not one of them offers comfort. They offer, instead, scant foot and harsh words, and many open handed blows. They offer no more harm than this; they would not dare.

  This is the year of the harvest, after all. And until the choice is made, they do not know which of the children they have taken will be the key, the awakener.

  Shahira’s grandmother makes baskets, and in her youth, when her hands were stronger, wove other things besides; many old blankets and cold clothing—which Shahira has seen but has never used—were made by her hands for the villagers, in trade f
or food and wood. Her grandmother, seeing in Shahira’s hands some memory of her youth, began to teach her these things only last year. She has learned them well enough, and on the road here, takes dried leaves and twigs with which to occupy her hands.

  But her thoughts are not occupied, and they turn—as they often do—to the children, the younger ones, born as she was born, to the moon and stars in their ill-fated positions. Marked at birth, branded and scarred although none remember the pain of that heat, they have waited, most in ignorance, as she was ignorant, until their coming.

  But she remembers asking about the brand, the white network of scars on her inner wrist. Like serpent coils, it rides her skin, moving as her skin moves, stretching as she grows. Her mother was silent, and her father left their home; but her grandmother, withered and old in the face of her father’s heated words, caught her wrist, and told her.

  “It is the mark of the Summer,” she said softly, her hands shaking as she traced it.

  “You don’t have it.”

  “No, Shahira, I don’t. Nor do your fine brothers—or Otto, that lout—and sisters. Only you.” And she had hugged Shahira for a moment before she spoke again. “You were born to the face of moon and moon, the meeting of moon and sun,” she said quietly, after some time had passed. “And the eye watches you. We all watch,” she added.

  “For what?”

  “For Summer.” The old woman looked away. “For the searing that does not end.”

  “But—but why?” She remembers, now, that it was stories of Winter that were a comfort. The long winter, when people worked together against the cold and the white, against the hunger of wolves and bears and the thin season of rabbits and starving deer.

  “Because if the Summer comes that does not end, it is time.”

  “Time for what?”

  “For the birth,” she said quietly, “of the fire.”