by Gail Dayton
It shrieked, a piercing scream with the shrill whistling overlain. Elinor wanted to stop up her ears, but didn't dare let go of Harry's hands. She didn't think Harry's guess had made it angry. More likely that they had put up such a lovely shield. The magic felt like plate steel, holding it out.
"But you ain't got the power to come through in the flesh," Harry went on, "'cause nobody's done a spell to give you a way through. So you got to use wot's already here. Like the poor machine things there."
By now, Kitty had clambered to the top of the heap. It extended long whip-like cables that penetrated the shell of the machine next below, fastening Kitty in place. Elinor suspected the cables did more than merely attach the machines. Those lower down shuddered and twitched, their semi-random clacking becoming more unified and rhythmic. The eye sockets of the cat skull atop the horrible creature began to glow a deep and terrible red. Elinor shivered, and tucked herself closer to Harry.
"You're weak," Harry sneered at it.
Elinor didn't think it was wise to antagonize the thing, but she didn't argue with him.
"You're naught but ugly whispers in the night," he said. "You got no real power. Just a bunch o' lies to tell."
"Real enough!" The monster lashed out with arms that were finally long enough to lash. The terminus of one limb was a machine that seemed to be mostly long, sharp blades, and on the other, a thing with saw blade pincers.
Elinor flinched away from its attack. So did Nigel, but Harry stood fast, confident in the strength of the shield he'd built. That, or his injury kept him from moving. The demon-machine struck the shield and-- It didn't bounce off, but its attack was slowed so greatly that Harry was able to dodge it with ease. He took a limping step back and the shield moved with him, which was a great relief to Elinor.
The patchwork construct shrieked in fury, its "eyes" flashing scarlet. The tiny skull, a little smaller than Elinor's fist, looked silly as the head atop such a large ungainly thing. It made her laugh, which drove the demon-machine to greater fury.
It smashed at the shield again and again, as if it thought it could batter it down by force. Unfortunately, she began to think it might. The magic dented under the continued blows, forcing the three of them to crowd closer together. Nigel began to whimper at each blow, cowering with an arm shielding his head.
"Nigel!" The monstrous thing punctuated its words with blows of its arms. "What--are you--doing--in there--with--them?"
He cringed at the sound of his name, whimpering, his crooked wand dangling from his limp grip. Elinor wanted to reach out, take his hand and bring him closer, but she was afraid to let go of Harry.
"You're one of us, Nigel," Harry said.
"You're not," the demon-machine whistled. "You're better than they are. Purer. Uncorrupted by fleshly lusts."
Nigel trembled, beginning to keen in a frightening way. Elinor feared he would break, feared what he would do if he did.
"You're not like them," the thing went on. "They are wicked. Corrupt. Consumed by vanity and ambition. You are different. Not one of them."
Elinor could sense Nigel's distress, his isolation and fear. She couldn't let him endure it alone. She let go of Harry's hand, the one behind his back, and reached past him toward Nigel. "That's a demon, Nigel, and demons lie. You are one of us. You're human. Fallible and forgivable."
She'd forgotten she'd lanced the hand she offered. The bleeding had stopped, but it still stained her fingers. Nigel recoiled, bumping into the shield.
It shivered, but didn't crumble. Nigel took another step back, sort of...melting through it. He was on the outside, with the machines.
"You are special, Nigel." The demon-machine changed its attack on the magic shield. It stopped beating on it and began to lean on it instead. The dents became an inward bulge.
The close contact with so much magic seemed to hurt the individual machines making up the demon's "body." They writhed and recoiled, squealed, and some parts of them went limp. As if the magic had "killed" them. The demon didn't seem to notice.
The attack wasn't doing Elinor or Harry any good either. She could feel the drain on their strength, the stress Harry was under to hold it intact, and she supported him as best she could.
"We're missing conjury," she murmured, clasping his hand again.
"Yeah, but conjury's all we're missin'." Harry held his copper wand in his fingers, stroked his thumb over her hand. "We'll stand."
Nigel shivered in a pond of machines, still clutching Elinor's wizard's bag to his chest. He'd uncurled a bit from his cower, lowered his damaged arm curled round his head, but he still trembled.
"Think of all they've done to you, Nigel," the demon-machine said. The whistle had lost most of its shrill pitch to become more of a hiss, the rumbling vocalization still sounding beneath it. "Think of all the sacrifices you've made to practice magic, and they took it away from you, stripped it and left you bare--"
Sacrifice. The word jolted Elinor and the shield wavered. Harry tightened his grip on her hand. "Stand strong, old girl."
From someone else, the word would have been an insult, but from Harry--she could feel the affection in it, understand it meant loyalty and steadiness and everything good.
"It's not all gone," Nigel said. Tentatively, but he said it. "I worked magic."
"Did you?" Elinor held tight to Harry, taking strength from him. Not actual physical strength, but courage, determination. "What magic did you work?"
"Fixed the pie woman's cart to keep her pies warm." Nigel thought a minute. "Put a binding spell on a small child to keep it from wandering." He paused again. "There was another, but I can't remem--I made a potion. A simple toothache potion of this and that. Things I found."
"Pah!" The demon-machine could spit contempt quite impressively. "Pies. Toddlers. Toothaches. Puny stuff. Mere hedge magic. You were the magister. After all you've given up, you should work great and powerful magic, but they stole it from you."
Again, the creature spoke of sacrifice, of giving things up to have magic. Did she have so much in common with Nigel? Elinor didn't want to believe it.
"Look at what they've done to you," the demon hissed. "What they have taken from you. They owe you. They should pay for what you have lost. Kill them. Use the knife you took from her and make them pay."
The demon-machine pressed harder on the shield, reaching slowly through with its knife-machine arm, so sluggish they could evade it. They didn't have much room to retreat, however. Not with all the other threatening machines blocking their exit. They might be small, but they were many.
"Knock it off," Elinor whispered. "Knock off the machine on the end of its arm."
She felt magic stir, Harry calling lightning. But they were inside the shield with the machine arm, and there were no clouds, little to call the lightning from. "No." She took a step to the side, dragging him with her. "It can't move fast. Just break it off."
She seized the next machine back, behind the one on the end. The demon squalled and tried to pull its piecework arm back through the shield, but it moved as slowly out as in. Harry caught on to what she meant. He stuck his steel wand up his sleeve, evaded the waving knives, and snapped the end machine off the monstrous arm.
The bone connectors were brittle, cracking right in two. The broken-off machine dangled from half a dozen wire cables, while the demon-machine pulled its arm out of the shield. The cables frayed and split as they passed through the magic, and the little knife-ended machine crashed to the bricks and hobbled out of the way. Harry reclaimed his wand and Elinor's hand.
"Kill them!" The demon-machine turned on Nigel, shrieking and flailing its arms. "Wreak your revenge. Make them pay! Females are corrupt, unclean, and he is complicit in her corruption!"
Nigel had the clasp knife unfolded in his hand. She hadn't noticed him take it out, what with their machine disassembly. Elinor's heart pounded in fear. He could get through the shield. It hadn't been made to hold him out. He had reason to hate her. Had she helped him any w
hen she's messed about in his mind? Had she made things worse?
"You know you want to." The demon's voice had taken on a seductive timbre, working at Nigel's hidden desires. "It is the right thing to do."
"Nigel--" Harry tightened his grip on his wands. "Don't. I won't let you hurt her."
"Corruption." The demon-machine hissed it. "All your sacrifice for naught, because of them. Their filth, their wickedness--"
"What God has declared clean," Nigel whispered, "you do not declare filthy."
Elinor blinked. Was that actually Nigel Cranshaw speaking? She'd never heard him utter such sentiments.
He opened the wizard's bag and put the knife back inside, taking out his primitive wand, bark still on the raw wood.
The demon-machine howled and lunged at Nigel, outside the shield, vulnerable. Elinor screamed. Harry shouted. She threw a peg, off-balance and poorly. Harry ignited it with another shout. It didn't stop the monster, didn't injure it. It did set its wheels on fire, and made it flinch.
The pitiful spell gave Nigel time to get his wand up, time to deflect the demon-thing's blow so that it didn't kill him. It struck his shoulder, something went snap! and he staggered. He didn't fall and he didn't drop his wand.
Elinor grabbed a whole fistful of pegs. This time, she intended to yank their magic out when Harry hit them with his spell. It might boost the effect. Harry wound up his magic as Elinor cocked her arm to throw. The demon-machine swatted Nigel to the floor and fled.
Elinor started to chase after it, but Harry nearly fell at her first step. She forgot to throw her pegs, despite Harry shouting at her to "Throw! Get it!"
The monster broke down the half-rotted door to escape, but it was larger than the doorway. It burst through both door jambs and part of the wall to go lurching rather speedily down the cobbled alley, leaving the building listing dangerously.
"Out!" Harry shouted. "Get out before it falls." He let go of the shield and shoved Elinor through the hole he'd made in the back wall, kicking the abandoned, now-purposeless little machines in all directions. Which only made them angry.
"Nigel!" Elinor cried. "We can't leave Nigel."
Harry swore as she clambered back into the building. "I'll get 'im."
"You're wounded. I will get him. You--" She pointed at the hole. "Hobble."
He cursed a great deal more, not moving from the spot. Elinor wanted desperately to chase after the demon-machine, but both men were hurt and the building let out a crack that sounded as if it was coming down on all their heads. It made the angry little machines skitter and snap at everything in reach, including Nigel who lay bleeding on the floor.
"If you're not leaving--" Elinor tried Harry's kicking method to get through the beasts, but it was hard to do in skirts, particularly with broken hoops. "At least put your fires out so you don't catch me on fire."
"Let 'em burn. They won't catch anything but other machines." Harry hobbled. The wrong way, coming after her.
Between them, they got Nigel up. In addition to the terrible blow on his shoulder, he'd suffered several other wounds from the little machines now going berserk in the groaning building. He was conscious enough to shuffle his feet, but not much more.
"Out the back," Harry ordered. "It's gonna fall toward the door."
Screams in the distance marked the path the "Kitty" demon was taking. "Surely they'll get Briganti, or the police, or someone down here quick to deal with that thing," Elinor said. It was difficult to be both the smallest member of the party and the only one not injured. Harry tried not to lean on her, but his leg was still seeping blood, damn it.
Machines scrambled and trundled and clattered in all directions like bone-armored rats escaping a burning building. How would they ever catch them all, destroy them all, if magic could no longer affect them?
A knot of scruffy urchins had gathered at the far end of the moonlit back alley, watching as the building gave out a last great groan, then a whole series of rotten-sounding pops, and collapsed into a heap. A few more machines escaped from the piled timbers.
"I'll pay a crown for every one of those you bring me," Harry called to the children. "Deliver 'em to the Magician's Council Hall."
"Dead or alive," Elinor added.
"Preferably alive," Harry added to her addition. "And warn folk about that big un. That one's dangerous."
The ragamuffins just stared as the battered trio of magicians limped toward them. Then they turned as one to stare down the intersecting street. Their eyes went wide and they vanished. Elinor never saw them go.
Then she saw why. "Kitty" had gone out the door, but circled round. It had built itself up larger, adding on more and more machines until it towered over the puny humans. Refiner's fire burned now around its midsection like some hellish belt, the new pieces added to the bottom, lifting the original construct higher. The tiny cat skull still perched on top, red eyes glowing. It was a terrifying sight.
But Elinor didn't know what advantage a greater size might give it, besides looking scary.
Nigel was barely conscious. He wouldn't be able to help them in a fight. Without needing to say a word, Harry and Elinor laid him in the meager protection of a wall not much more sturdy than the one just collapsed. She produced a fresh droplet of blood and placed it on Nigel's cheek. Harry mixed it with a bit of the alley's mud and they built a shield around Nigel with the help of his new tree-branch wand. He would be all right, Elinor thought. Really all right.
The demon-machine waited at the intersection. The alley behind Nigel's hiding place was too narrow for its new bulk to fit into.
"We could just wait here until help arrives," Elinor ventured.
"You should do that." Harry took his arm from her shoulder and limped ahead a few steps. "Shouldn't be too long till it does."
"Don't you dare take that thing on alone, Harry Tomlinson." She caught up with him easily and caught hold of his wrist, since he needed both hands to hold his wands. She held her handful of pegs and her own wand in her other hand.
He looked down at her, the smile on his face clearly visible in the half-moon's light. "No wonder I love ya. You're an amazin' woman, Elinor Tavis, in case nobody's told ya."
She opened her mouth, but nothing at all came to mind to say. She was too stunned. He loved her? Was that what he meant when he said he was hers?
"Love?" she whispered. He bent his head to hear her better. "You love me?"
"Yeah. I know you don't love me back, but it's all right. I can 'andle it."
He loved her?
The little voice in the back of her head, the one that kept saying things like, "But why shouldn't you be able to have both Harry and magic?" spoke up again.
This time it said, "If you are given the gift of talent and then presented with a man who supports you in that gift and loves you exactly as you are, how can it be wrong to accept with gratitude the gifts you are given? Wouldn't it be more wrong, a greater sin, to throw away such a gift? And thereby break his heart?"
She could do that, she realized. Break Harry's heart. She had done it already, because she was so afraid of things that could happen, that might happen. But might not.
She had always thought that voice was the voice of temptation, calling her to do the wrong thing. But what if it wasn't? How could loving Harry be the wrong thing when he pushed her to larger, greater magic, rather than making her smaller and weaker? Especially when he loved her back. Loved her anyway.
"But I do," she said, very softly.
"Wot?" Harry glanced down at her, then back up at the cat skull demon.
It seemed to be getting impatient, waiting for them to come out of the alley. It was bashing its bone-crusted fists against the corner buildings, which were no sturdier than their neighbors.
"I do love you back," she said a little louder, a little more certain with each word. "I love you, Harry. I tried not to. I told myself I didn't. But I do." She was nearly shouting by now. "I love you, Harry Tomlinson!"
He gaped at her, t
he bright glow of joy rising in his face. Then he ducked, pulling Elinor down with him as a--a machine went flying past to crash on the mud-covered stones behind them. "Do ya think you might've picked a better time to tell me?"
She laughed, too giddy with happiness to do anything else. "The best of all possible times, since I just realized it."
Another machine bounced off Harry's arm onto the alleyway behind, losing bits of armor in the bounce and landing.
"Have they learned to fly?" she asked, surprised.
"Nah." Harry straightened and let her up as well. "Monster-Kitty's throwin' 'em."
It was. It didn't even have to bend down for its ammunition. The machines crawled up its body to be plucked off. Harry and Elinor ducked twice more while she took in the sight. Monster-Kitty did not seem to be an expert bowler.
"I will kill you!" the thing raged in its hissy-rumbly voice, picking the terrier-sized machines off its piecework body and throwing them. "You have interfered with my plans for the last time!"
"You--" Harry went still, the stillness of a predator preparing attack. "You made the dead zones?"
"Of course I didn't. You wonderful humans did that yourselves when you set the magic so far out of balance. I simply took advantage."
Elinor absorbed the knowledge, her stillness matching Harry's. So now they knew what had caused the dead zones. Knew how to fix it--rebalance the magic--and had no way of convincing dissident magicians of the truth. They were the only two to hear the demon's confession. Nigel was unconscious, or as good as. No one who did not already agree with their plans would believe anything they said.
Monster-Kitty obviously realized it as well, for it gave a cackling laugh and a tiny caper. Its new bulk did not permit much capering.
"I'm tired of waiting." The demon-machine suddenly began disassembling itself, shedding machines in a ripple of disturbing motion--toward Elinor and Harry. It reminded her of ants pouring from a damaged nest, ready to attack anything in reach.