Trapped lop-6

by James Alan Gardner

  Gretchen was mostly naked: wearing nothing but a crimson bra like the one I'd seen on the floor of her bedroom, and a pair of matching panties that were surprisingly demure by Gretchen's standards — no lace or frills or cut-outs. She looked up at me as I came through the door, but gave only a distracted smile. If I'd been some other man, she would have felt obliged to do something flirtatious (flash her cleavage, wiggle her hips, pretend she had to cover up to protect her "modesty"), but with me, she didn't bother. I considered that a compliment.

  As soon as Gretchen had deigned to recognize my existence, she turned back to Myoko and said, "Well?"

  Myoko took longer to collect herself — she looked flustered and even blushed slightly at my arrival. My rough-and-ready "Platonic" friend was betraying a hitherto unsuspected bashfulness… as if I were her husband and had caught her in flagrante delicto with a nearly nude woman. Not that anything salacious was going on; Myoko herself was fully clothed, and from what I could see, she was simply trying to unknot the lacings on the back of a red knit gown. No doubt the gown was Gretchen's, taken from that traveling case she'd packed the night before. Perhaps Myoko was merely embarrassed to be seen playing Gretchen's dressmaid. But it was a small cabin, and Myoko had no room to keep her distance from Gretchen's bare skin. As I watched, she surreptitiously tried to squeeze a little farther away, dropping her gaze to the knots she was trying to untie. "Don't rush me," she mumbled to Gretchen.

  The blush burned more brightly in Myoko's cheeks.

  Annah was behind the other two, higher than both because she was standing on the captain's bed. Like Gretchen she gave me only a distracted smile; then she went back to arranging Gretchen's hair. In the dim confined quarters, I couldn't see much of what Annah was doing, but I assumed she was making a braid. Annah had a reputation for braids: at the academy, girls sometimes tried to transfer to Annah's floor solely so she'd do their hair. Personally, I've never understood the female fascination with braids — braids always remind me of the ugly leather bumps on a crocodile's back — but I learned long ago to keep quiet on the subject.

  Gretchen soon grew bored watching Myoko worry at the gown's knots, so she turned back to me. (Behind her, Annah made an exasperated sigh and tried to hold Gretchen's head still.) "So, Phil, darling," Gretchen said, "aren't you just amazed?"

  I almost said, "By what?" The part of my brain devoted to self-preservation vetoed that initial response and frantically searched for some source of amazement I'd overlooked. Gretchen's body? Always delicious, but I couldn't see anything different from last night (except the absence of goose-pimples). The fact that Myoko and Gretchen weren't sniping at each other? Yes, that was amazing, but probably not what Gretchen meant. I looked around the room, knowing I was taking too long to answer, but unable to see anything but the three women… Gretchen in her underwear… the crimson gown…

  Crimson? Sorcerer's crimson?

  Gretchen's lingerie was the same color. And I'd seen a crimson bra in her bedroom the night before.

  I blurted, "You're pretending to be a sorceress?"

  Gretchen's eyes flashed. "No, silly billy — I am a sorceress. Do you think I buy all those shine-stones?"

  My mouth hung open for an undignified length of time… but meanwhile facts were sorting themselves out in my brain.

  Gretchen had grown up with sorcerers: her father employed quite a few to cast obedience spells on demons. Most children of wealthy families also received training in sorcerous fundamentals, partly to prepare them for managing spellcaster underlings, and partly to see if they themselves had any aptitude for enchantments. It wasn't necessarily good news to find you had a knack for magic — considering the nature of most arcane rituals, sorcery wasn't a respectable profession — but just as the well-to-do are allowed to draw and paint as long as they don't become artists, they're allowed to cast spells as long as they don't get too mystical. All of which argued it was possible that Gretchen had received substantial arcane tutoring from mages on her father's staff.

  Then I remembered how Gretchen had suddenly been so interested when she heard I'd encountered a Sorcery-Lord. She'd immediately announced she'd accompany us to Niagara, where Dreamsinger was going to be. And now Gretchen was putting on crimson, the first time I'd seen her wear the color. Why? So Dreamsinger would recognize her as another dear sister on the Burdensome Path?

  "Gretchen," I said, "seriously, seriously, Gretchen: this is a bad idea."

  "What do you mean? A sorceress can wear crimson whenever she wants."

  "Yes, but—"

  "You don't think I'm real, is that it? I'm just some deluded brat? Oh that Gretchen, she might know a few tricks, but she's nothing special. Is that what you think?"

  "What I think is that Dreamsinger is an unpredictable lunatic. Anyone who wants to meet her is suicidal."

  "Well, maybe I am suicidal." Gretchen stormed forward the three steps it took to cross the room. The partly woven braid was yanked out of Annah's hands and flopped forward along the side of Gretchen's head. Gretchen ignored it; she gave me a fierce push, her hands hitting my shoulders, her eyes glaring into mine. "Have you looked at me lately, Phil?"

  I was looking at her now. The braid hanging down by her ear had begun to unravel. "You aren't suicidal, Gretchen. It's not in your nature."

  "Maybe not. But desperation is." She dropped her gaze; she glanced quickly back at Myoko and Annah as if trying to decide whether to talk in front of them. Then she took a deep breath and returned to me. "I'm good, Phil. I'm good at sorcery. I think." She gave a twittering laugh. "But I don't know for real, do I, darling? I've just… I've done nothing with it. Instead, I lived off my father's money. Slept with a lot of pretty men. Kept my sorcery to myself because I didn't want someone saying, Gretchen, the spells you're so proud of are really quite trivial…"

  Her hands were still on my shoulders. She let her head slump against my chest. "Whenever I wanted to convince myself I was good, I'd whip up another shine-stone. The spell's actually quite complicated… at least I think it is. Then again, what the hell do I know?"

  I thought about all the shine-stones in her room the previous night. Dozens of them. Made to reassure herself she was somebody.

  "And Dreamsinger?" I asked. "What do you want with her?"

  Gretchen sighed. She kissed the front of my shirt, then straightened up and gave her head a little shake. The last of her braid unwound. "I can't put it into words, Phil. It's just… she's a Sorcery-Lord. If there's anyone who could look at me and say, You've got potential…"

  She gave another twittering laugh — a choked sad sound. "Here's where you tell me it's ridiculous to talk about my potential when I've never made an effort to use it. If I had an ounce of real potential, I'd get off my dumdum and do something. Go to school… buy an apprenticeship… or just start incanting on my own. Something. Instead, I'm squandering my existence. On parties and fine food and umty-tiddly, as Zunctweed says. Doing nothing, day by day."

  She suddenly turned to Myoko and Annah. "Do you know what it's like to have dropped out of life? To have had a hundred chances to be special, but you avoided them all? Or just botched them up because you were a horrible coward, afraid of letting yourself change. You clutch your comfortable excuses, saying, Someday I'll be brave, it won't take a lot, just give me one more chance and this time I'll grab it. But chances come and go. It would be easy to do something, but you don't. You just don't. Do you know what that's like?"

  Myoko and Annah nodded. Their faces were both so sad.

  Gretchen nodded too. "So here we are. Here I am. A woman of… a woman who's no longer young… who got her feelings hurt by some stupid young earl and found herself looking in the mirror under bright, bright light…" She turned back and gave me a small rueful smile. "I suddenly thought, maybe it's time. This time it's time. To see if I'm somebody or just a middle-aged slut who lies to herself about being gifted. Next thing I know, my one true friend comes along…" She held out her hand to me; I took it, feeling
awkward and guilty but fond. "…and he tells me there's a way to meet a Sorcery-Lord."

  She gave my hand a squeeze before letting it go. "So it's really my chance. To talk to this Dreamsinger and find out once and for all. To find my place. That's all I want: to find my place. You three have done that already. Right? You must be happy being teachers. I know Phil is. A font of inspiration, guiding young minds and spurring them on to heights of intellectual achievement. That's what you say, darling, and it's wonderful. You've found your place. All of you."

  If she'd looked my way at that instant, I couldn't have met her eye. Myoko and Annah couldn't either. But Gretchen didn't seem to notice. She moved back and plucked the crimson gown from Myoko's hands. "I can dress myself," Gretchen said. There might have been tears in her eyes. "We'll be coming into port soon. Why don't you all go watch the landing?"

  Annah looked at me, then asked Gretchen, "Are you sure you don't want anyone to stay?"

  "No, no, all of you, go ahead." Gretchen tried to smile. "I can't have you learning the deep dark secrets of how I put on my makeup."

  Annah gave Gretchen's shoulder a pat before stepping down from the bed and moving toward the door. Myoko reached out to do the same, stopped herself for a split-second (probably a spasm of shyness, touching a near-naked woman), then continued on to press her fingers lightly against Gretchen's cheek. "We'll see you when you're ready," Myoko said.

  Annah, Myoko, and I left quietly, almost on tiptoe. We closed the door behind us and said nothing as we climbed up on deck.

  Dainty Dinghy didn't try to put in at the docks: we dropped anchor well out from shore. When Pelinor asked why, Zunctweed said he didn't know the depth of the harbor — he had no detailed charts of Crystal Bay and wouldn't trust them if he did. Our frigate drew a lot more water than fishing boats; if we wanted to avoid running aground, we had to stay out a goodly distance.

  At least, so Zunctweed claimed. Quite possibly, the rotten Patata was just being spiteful: forcing us to row in by jolly-boat rather than giving us an easier option. But none of us had enough sailing experience to know if Zunctweed was lying. Impervia and Oberon both tried their best piercing stares, but Zunctweed wouldn't back down. Eventually, they had to yield to our captain's nautical "expertise."

  As the NikNiks lowered the jolly-boat over the side, I examined Crystal Bay: both the harbor and the town. This close, I could see the fishing boats were aswarm with activity. Crew members toyed with ropes or dangled over the sides to examine the hulls; others banged away with hammers or swabbed hot pitch around holes that needed to be sealed; still more mended rips in fishing nets or dabbed bright red paint on the nipples of lurid figureheads. It was a furor of spring renovation, getting boats shipshape after winter's long languishing.

  People lifted their heads to look at the Dinghy, but did so only briefly — this was the first sunny day after thaw, and no one had time to waste. Besides, our ship was the sort used by Feliss customs agents to track down smugglers; and while Dover-on-Sea was Lake Erie's smuggling capital, Crystal Bay surely had its own share of midnight runners. When the locals saw what they thought was a customs ship docking in their harbor, people kept their heads down and looked industrious.

  On shore, the same attitude prevailed: folks were ostentatiously busy at various jobs, mostly refurbishing the docks. Like docks everywhere, these were lined with automobile tires serving as rubbery bumpers; and it says something about OldTech times that after four centuries, you could still find plenty such tires. You didn't even have to visit a garbage dump — go to any crumbling subdivision and beside the collapsed townhouses you'd find the rusted hulks of cars. Generations of kids would have pried off the most interesting bits, the mirrors, chrome, and hood ornaments… yet the tires would still be in place, weathered but adequate for nailing to the side of a pier.

  Beyond the tire-strung piers were the usual dockside attractions — a ship-chandler's shop, a salting house, and half a dozen shrines to whatever saints or spirits the local sailors appeased before setting out each morning. I didn't see a tavern, but I wasn't surprised; these fisherfolk weren't itinerants who hung around the waterfront, they all had houses in the main part of the village. That's where the taverns would be: in the center of town, where you could go after supper, drink a few liters, and have only a short distance to stumble home.

  Thoughts of taverns turned my mind to the previous night — The Buxom Bull and its aftermath. With a start, I remembered that Knife-Hand Liz had headed for this same area shortly before we did. Had she landed in Crystal Bay? I looked around once more, but saw only fishing boats. Perhaps the Ring of Knives chose some other harbor for their landing (Zunctweed had admitted there were several ports that were equally good for traveling to Niagara); perhaps the Ring's boat had been slow enough for Dinghy to pass in the night; or perhaps a fast ship owned by smugglers looked the same as an ordinary fishing jack, especially to a landlubber like me. Tzekich and Xavier might be watching us, hidden among the other ships… and all of a sudden I felt dangerously exposed.

  I turned to say something to Annah beside me… but she was already scanning nearby boats with a wary eye. So was Myoko, a few steps away. And Impervia paced back and forth along the rail, like a guard dog who expects trouble. Oberon lifted his head high, sniffing for odd smells on the breeze. Pelinor had quit asking nautical questions and was simply watching the harbor. Even the Caryatid had stopped fussing with her pet flame; she'd gone still, holding a single unlit match.

  I gazed out on peaceful boats in a peaceful port. I saw no sign of danger; but that didn't comfort me.

  The NikNiks released the jolly-boat. It dropped the last few centimeters into the water, splashing lightly. Pelinor had already tethered a rope ladder to the railing; now he slung the ladder over the side and clambered down. The jolly-boat scarcely rocked as he stepped into it — solid and seaworthy. It could hold eight people: three pairs of rowers, plus someone in the rear to hold the tiller and an authority figure in front to shout orders (the boat swain or coxswain or whatever one calls the tinpot tyrant of such a tiny craft). The boat would admirably hold our somber band…

  …except Oberon. He'd barely fit in the boat on his own, let alone with us sharing the space. I had no idea how he'd get to shore — though he looked like a lobster, I didn't know if he could swim like one. Nevertheless, one thing was certain: if Gretchen came with us, Oberon would never stay behind on the ship.

  Speaking of Gretchen, she still hadn't shown up on deck. If I wanted to be cynical, I'd say she was just avoiding the sunlight… and perhaps making everyone else wait for her. But that was the old, manipulative Gretchen; the new, vulnerable Gretchen wasn't so easy to characterize.

  "I'd better get our hostess," I said.

  Beside me, Annah nodded and squeezed my hand.

  "I've been waiting for you," Gretchen said.

  She stood in the cabin doorway, dressed in her crimson gown: as stylish and form-fitting as all her other clothes, cut to keep a man's eyes glued to her body. She had a matching jacket and cape, plus dyed suede boots and a broad-rimmed sunhat, all in crimson. I wondered how long ago she'd had the outfit made — how many years she'd kept it in her closet, having it catch her eye whenever she rummaged for something to wear.

  "So you're really a sorceress?" I asked.

  "That's the question, isn't it?"

  The only light came from above us, sun shining down the companionway. The cabin behind her was dark — all lamps blown out, all shine-stones put away. Her sunhat cast shadows that hid her face.

  "Do you know," she asked, "what kind of spells I'm good at?"

  "Besides shine-stones?"

  "Besides them. What would I specialize in, Phil? You can probably guess."

  "I'm not sure I want to."

  "I don't suppose you do." She gave a humorless laugh. "Love and beauty, darling. I specialize in love and beauty."

  "They say there's no such thing as a true love spell."

  "Of course they say that
." This time her laugh was a bit more real. "It depends how choosy you are. The purest truest love may be impossible to impose artificially, but there are some truly diverting facsimiles. Ways to make a cold night hot."

  She waited for me to speak. I refused to ask the obvious — if she'd ever cast a spell on me. Never ask a question when you don't want to hear the answer.

  "Anyway," she said after a moment, "there's more to love spells than just making some pretty man pant for you. There are spells to find out if a pretty man loves you — or someone else." She paused. "I wasn't sleepy when the rest of you went to bed last night… so silly, silly me, I thought I'd start my renewed career as a sorceress by casting a few spells. Ones I'd avoided before."

  She tilted her head back slightly; her eyes glimmered wetly in the shadows beneath her hat brim. "How long have you loved Annah, Phil?"

  I considered denying it. Something must have shown on my face, because Gretchen said, "Hush," and put her hand to my lips. "Don't you dare cast aspersions on the awesome insights of my witchcraft."

  "Gretchen—"

  "No," she interrupted. "Just don't. It's not like I thought we'd grow old together. Although I have, a bit. Grown old. With you." She forced her voice brighter. "But I'm starting a new life as a sorceress, aren't I? It's good not to have entanglements. Or illusions. Or—"

  I bent forward and kissed her. Her arms came up to pull me nearer; for the briefest instant, I thought she would squeeze me with all the lonely desperation of a middle-aged woman afraid to let go. But she returned the kiss with nothing but tenderness: soft and gentle… almost motherly.

  When our lips parted, she whispered, "The last kiss should always be sweet." She reached up to her head; her crimson hat had a veil attached, thrown back all this while. Now she lowered it to cover her face… so the brightest sun could never reveal her wrinkles, her age, or her tears.