Illusion

by Dy Loveday

  The towering rock shifted. It stretched and unfurled.

  A charcoal beast clambered to four legs. Sand spilled like a river from its bony back. It opened one reptilian eye and blinked over a yellow iris. Standing almost a story high, it stretched, arching its spine and revealing sharply defined ribs. Its black claws split the shore around webbed feet.

  She backed away behind a second boulder and pressed her body against the hot stone, trembling. She craned her neck so she could keep the beast in sight. The beach vibrated under its heavy tread. It waded chest deep into the waves. The thick hide split open, exposing membranous bat-like wings. They stretched upward, reaching for the sun. The wings accelerated to a lazy blur, making her hair snap in the wind. Then the creature took off, screeching like a banshee.

  It was as if the sound broke an enchantment. She could hear the echoing call of gulls and waves breaking on the shore. Shielding her eyes from the sun, she watched the serpent circle above the beach. It glided away, a triangular shape in the cloudless sky, black wings outlined against the bright light.

  The sun exploded, showering sparks of yellow and orange across the heavens. The world dimmed, turning violet, then darkness fell. Moonlight refracted through the atmosphere, illuminating the beach in an eerie display of red. The strange glow fell on the boulders, emphasizing their huge height against the darkness. Her shadow grew. It lifted into a vertical shadow, a handbreadth away.

  “Don’t touch me,” Maya said, squeezing her eyes shut.

  The shadow giggled.

  And the rock beneath her hand trembled.

  * * * *

  Maya fell back into her body with a racing heart and stared up at a white ceiling. Resheph knelt on the bed, holding her hand and crooning foreign words. He disappeared for a moment. When he returned he helped her sit up, offering water. She tossed it back, throat tight and rough with sand.

  “You were yelling. I couldn’t wake you up.” He brushed her arm softly. His face was white under the light of the lamp sitting by the bedside table, and gray smoke swirled in his pupils. “What happened?”

  “A big serpent ate the sun. My shadow wasn’t a shadow at all.”

  “A snake?” He stilled, and touched her cheek with the back of one hand. When he lifted it, it sparkled with sand.

  “I’ve been having bad dreams for years.” The words came out in a rush. “At least this time I’m not covered in scratches. This was from yesterday.” She pulled up the leg of her jeans and showed him the cuts on her leg.

  She didn’t think he could pale further, but he did. “I sent you to sleep last night. The spell shouldn’t have allowed you to dream.”

  She pulled away and sat up, glaring at him. “You had no right! Don’t do that again.” She could still hear the surf pounding in her ears. The dragon had seemed so vital and alive. But her shadow was something else again.

  “I wanted you safe while I went out.”

  “Safe? I couldn’t wake up, even though I knew it was a dream.” Her heart still raced and she licked dried salt from her lips.

  “It seems I misjudged the situation.” He ran his hand through his hair. “What else have you been dreaming?”

  She gave him the short version of the entities and the dark hole from her earlier dream. If he could cast sleep spells, maybe he could give her something to keep the entities away?

  He asked a few questions, then became very quiet.

  Her leg jittered under the covers and she slapped a hand on her knee.

  He gave her a quizzical look. “You describe a portal. I found a ghoul outside your building the night we met, and exorcised it. You’re bringing things back from your dreams. Thank the gods I didn’t return to find a dragon in the room. I’m not sure I could transform the body mass into anything useful.” He twisted his mouth, the scar a white line bisecting his lip. “I need to prepare a tincture of pearl ash to ward your dreams. Earth’s meridians are cracked from the Mage Wars. Balkaith is a subtler psychic world and offers more.”

  The scent of incense wafted across her face. She ignored the reference to his homeland. Really, did he think she was that gullible?

  “But I didn’t draw anything.”

  He got up and with a frown, tossed a pouch on the bed. “Who knows how you are doing any of this? Something is trying to reach you from the other side, and I don’t think you want a spirit tracing you right now. Your friend Don asked me to give you this. Unfortunately, the journal is missing.”

  “Look, you’re obviously used to people following orders. I don’t know why you didn’t just let me fall asleep on my own. But I make my own decisions, and have for a long time. It was a bloody arrogant thing to do.” She lifted her chin. After her childhood, she couldn’t stand the idea of feeling helpless. Damn him for bringing back the crap memory of being drugged while her mother left with her latest “friend.”

  He blinked. “You were planning on leaving once I walked out the door. In my haste to retrieve the journal I dispensed with the usual courtesies. In my world, I don’t need to consult before making decisions.”

  “I might need your help, but we’re not in Balkaith. Don’t do it again, or we part ways.”

  “You’ve made your point.” He glowered at the window as if it offended him somehow.

  The first rays of dawn spilled through the sheer curtains.

  “How was Don?”

  “Your mage friend is fine.”

  “Did he say anything about Jane?”

  “He’s leaving the city and I understand your female friend is out of harm’s way.” He hesitated. “After you’ve eaten, we’ll look for damiana root and fox tail, along with serruta extract.”

  “Are you sure my friends are safe?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know of an alchemagical shop near my apartment. It seems popular in the neighborhood.”

  “That will do.” He seemed distracted as he walked into the kitchen.

  “If I’m going out in broad daylight, I’ll need a disguise.” Her forehead creased. If she offered coin, the shop owners might sell her some spells. She didn’t have a license, so they’d charge her a fortune, but it would be worth it, especially now her supply was so low. She jiggled her leg restlessly.

  “Shall we get moving?”

  She couldn’t keep up with him, one minute tender, the next distant and cold. Perhaps he should try walking in her shoes for a day or two. She reached for her backpack and pulled out the spellbox from the side pocket. She winced at the click of the lid opening, but he didn’t turn around.

  “By the way. I want to talk about the mirror. The Conjurare mentioned bugs,” she said, and stuck a datura transdermal patch on her stomach. The anti-muscarine spell would help her deal with any motion sickness caused by portal travel. It was too bad one of the side effects was rambling speech.

  * * * *

  The sun had breached the horizon by the time Resheph had convinced her to try the portal again. Maya had stiffened and stared at him like he was unreasonable. When they made it through safely, she’d brushed by him, smiling, her elfin features relaxed, even though her hands still moved restlessly. He sucked in air at the sensation of her touch and walked the thirty yards to the alchemagical shop, numb to her jabbering.

  He almost growled when she took a breath and launched into another round of statements posed as questions.

  “They don’t come out in daylight, Resh?” Maya’s head tilted to the side. “The Khereb, I mean.”

  She’d started calling him Resh this morning. And the most unique forms of demonic torture couldn’t compete with her incessant questioning. For the first time in his life he felt at a loss for what to say. He was still struggling to answer the first question when she moved on to the next. He muttered an obscenity under his breath.

  “Can we go by the public comm-link? I’d like to contact Jane. I hope she didn’t step into my apartment.” And several seconds later, “So the bugs are chaos magic. I wonder if they came through the mirror, or if Jha
ra conjured them to distract the Conjurare?”

  What could he say to that? It was more likely that she’d evoked them, and if so, her active energy was volatile and dark—the polar opposite to his fixed state. If so, he could cast a transmogrification spell. They’d be able to move in one energy wave across the Abyss. He hoped he was right, or their particles would disintegrate and float in the Abyss until the High Council summoned them across.

  At some point he’d have to tell her about her friend’s death, but he knew she’d refuse to leave if she knew the woman was dead. They’d argue over funeral rites or something equally ridiculous. Then he’d have to force her. The topic was an emotional minefield. Whichever decision he made, it would be the wrong one.

  Despite her beauty and skills, she wasn’t vain or proud and she’d been ready to give herself up in the tavern instead of risking her friends. She could have disappeared down the fire escape, but she’d stayed, even though she had no chance against the Khereb. She thought like an incompetent warrior instead of a woman.

  He fisted his hands to disguise their trembling. Several potions had only slowed the Khereb poison. He probably had twelve hours to reach Balkaith healers before he went into a coma. Soon he would barely be able to stand, making him more of a liability than a protector. He’d have preferred to take her to a different part of town, but knowledge of the area and proximity to one of his short-range portals was essential.

  She stopped for a moment and looked across the road. “Jeezus. Look at my building. It’s a disaster.”

  Her mouth drooped, and her eyes lost their glint. In daylight, the desolate building looked charred and abandoned, windows skewed in their broken frames. Yellow tape barred the entrance.

  Early snow had fallen and the sludge made the ground hazardous. Two lower magi brushed past, wearing the brown homespun cloth of iron miners, almost nudging Maya off the path. Their wrinkled and dry skin folded into fissures on their massive faces. Resheph reached out automatically to save Maya from a fall, but she didn’t notice. Too busy chewing her lower lip and thinking about the next thing to say, no doubt.

  Her wretched expression made something shift in his stomach. “Why do you have to wear those boots?”

  “What’s wrong with them? These babies are badass.” She lifted a foot to showcase the heel.

  Resheph tugged her by the arm, letting the conversation drop. “The Khereb are not the only problem. Law enforcement also seeks you. Move along. We need to get off the streets.”

  “Thanks for the reminder, killjoy. I bet a hulking warrior stomping around with a sword extended over his left shoulder is a real eye-opener for the neighbors.” She motioned to the alchemagical shop a few yards away. “Lead forth then, Macduff. Trot along and I’ll try and keep up.”

  He didn’t ask what she meant. It would only prolong the torture.

  The lower magi looked through the windows of a shop. The store squatted on the corner, almost hidden by a huge elm tree that had pushed up the pavement, cracking the cement into mosaic shards. The wind swept along the streets, funneling icy tendrils straight through Resheph’s clothes. He hunched his shoulders and made an effort to avoid shivering. Despite her strategically ripped pants, Maya didn’t seem bothered by the wind.

  A battered sign banged in time with the wind. Enochian cuneiform announced to passersby that it was a registered place of magic. The symbols identified the owner as belonging to the higher mage caste. The proprietor’s name was scrawled in tiny letters. Jusef Ayban. Apart from the sorry-looking mixed-breed magi standing at the barren window, few folk walked the streets.

  “Let’s hope we find what we need,” she said. The glint was back in her eyes and he rubbed his jaw with his hand.

  Dead flies lay in the abandoned wasteland of a cracked windowsill. At best he might find a few raw ingredients in this shop he could purify. The mirror to Balkaith was gone, and he didn’t have time to chase her journal, either buried beneath piles of masonry or in the hands of the Khereb. The thought made his skin crawl.

  The door opened with a squeal and light clatter of bells. Maya stepped in behind him.

  It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. Cobwebs littered the ceiling and floated to the ground, giving the room a haunted air. Rows of warped shelves were mounted on the shop walls. The planks drooped with their burden of dusty alembic flasks, cucurbits, and retorts. Stoppered glass jars contained herbs and animal by-products.

  Resheph walked to a short man standing in front of a counter. Beneath the glass were wooden compartments holding herbs and powdered metals. The sharp smell of rosemary, lavender, pure alcohol, and potassium carbonate floated from the open trays. Amulets and calcinated crystals lay like lonely soldiers under the glass, along with dust and dead insects.

  A battered double door hung at awkward angles inside a lopsided frame. He narrowed his eyes to better see the two protruding knobs. One had been shaped in the form of a dog, the other a carved wolf. Facing one another, the animals snarled in prelude to an attack.

  “What are you looking for?” asked the short man. Nearly as wide as he was tall, he had the smooth cheeks and voice of a younger man. His brown eyes assessed them.

  Next to him, and twice his height, stood a buxom woman wearing a long purple dress. She stared at Maya and continued to scratch a thin metal board across her long fingernails. The woman’s curly red hair fell in luxurious waves to her waist.

  The little man seemed familiar, but Resheph couldn’t place him. He stepped forward and shook the shopkeeper’s hand.

  “Would you by chance have a Calvary Cross of ten squares? It is also known as the Double Cube.”

  “High magic indeed.” The man smiled, showing a row of yellow overlapping teeth. “Do you know how to purify it?”

  The woman returned to filing her nails with the board. Resheph shuddered. The small gentleman leaned forward, peering at the hilt of his sword extending beyond his left shoulder.

  Tilting his head slightly, he indicated the door behind him. “Perhaps you do. It will be back there.”

  Maya gave him a nudge. “I’ll stay here.” Her gaze had fixed on a dagger held captive beneath the smeared counter.

  His back stiffened. By the Divinities, did she really think he’d leave her alone?

  Absorbed, she waved him away. “I’ll be fine … go already.”

  The poison must be affecting him, highlighting his senses and making him more testy than normal. “Keep out of trouble,” he muttered. He considered her image for a moment, then waved his hand, further transforming her jaw so she looked nothing like her former self. The drain of magic rocked him on his feet, and the world took on a wavy cast.

  She must have seen her reflection in the glass case because she looked up and glared, pantomiming him walking with two fingers in midair. He considered pulling her along, but it would only reinforce her belief that he was arrogant. The term held a surprising sting.

  Striding behind the counter, he nodded his thanks to the shopkeeper. This close, the man and his assistant smelled like sulfur. Grasping the head of the wolf, he turned the cold metal knob and stepped into the room.

  *

  Good God, he has a hard head. Maya sighed. She flicked a glance at the door to make sure he wasn’t coming back. The shopkeeper and the woman seemed to be arguing, their tense voices low and heated. The shopkeeper gestured to the door that Resh had walked through and the woman shrugged.

  “Excuse me, do you have any Lycopodium tabs. Or Mescal buttons? I don’t have a license, nor a prescription,” she added hurriedly.

  The shopkeeper turned to Maya and frowned. “They’re powerful spells. Mescal will cause convulsions if you take it for too long. Lyco is a dangerous narcotic. We can’t sell either without authorization. You know that.”

  She shrugged. “It’s for my sister. She has terrible seizures and it’s the only thing that helps. My family can’t afford the House consent.”

  The woman sniffed. She’d stopped filing her nails and watc
hed Maya’s fingers as they tapped an incessant rhythm on the counter. “Is that so?” Her voice was languid.

  Maya felt hot shame wash over her cheeks and she lowered her eyes to the glass.

  The barbaric dagger gleamed beneath. Runes had been carved into the worn leather sheath. A serpent held a sun on the cap of the wire-wrapped handle.

  The shop bell tinkled. Heavy footsteps and the smell of oil and moldy clothes pulled her attention to the new customer.

  “I’ll be picking up the crushed amanita,” said a familiar voice. She mentally cringed and kept her eyes averted, hoping he wouldn’t see through the disguise. Just her luck—Jhara’s assistant, Trent. Letting her dark hair swing forward, she fixed her gaze on the jeweled dagger, trying to make herself inconspicuous.

  Pretending indifference, she worried her lip with her tooth.

  “They are difficult to find,” said the shopkeeper.

  “Don’t give me that rot. Here…” Trent tossed coins and a loose scroll on the counter. The coins rolled over the side, clattering to the floor. The little man bent over his large belly and tried to pick up the rolling kohner.

  The bell over the door tinkled again, but Maya kept her face forward. The rich smell of earth heralded the arrival of the two lower magi.

  Damn, why do shops immediately become crowded after I walk into them?

  The woman behind the counter continued to file her nails, unconcerned. The shopkeeper, finally locating the polymer kohners, reached under the counter and pulled out a silver scoop. He opened a small sliding drawer behind the counter and measured withered fungus into a conical cup. He said something to the woman in Latin.

  She finally stopped grating her nails and walked over to Maya. “Would you like a closer look?” She gestured to the dagger. Without waiting for a response, she selected an iron key from a thin leather belt around her waist. Opening the case, she withdrew the dagger and handed it to Maya.

  If only the others would leave so she could convince the shop owner to sell her the spells. In the meantime she’d pretend interest in the knife. She pulled it out of its sheath and caressed the silver handle. It fitted her hand as if carved for her.