Getting off the bed, she drew a different wand from her bag and activated it with a simple, “DE NE FOLE .” Light glowed from the tip of the wand in a steady pulse, barely large enough to cover her hand. Raising it high above her head, she started writing on thin air, leaving letters, numbers, and lines behind in glowing trails of light. She’d drawn out most of the spell’s structure and written in the linking elements’ numbers when Morena walked in. She stopped dead in the doorway, mouth open to say something that never emerged. She took in the glowing lines that steadily shone in the air, eyes bulging. “Sevana…what are you doing?”
“I’m drawing out the design of the curse, of course,” she responded with strained patience.
“B-but how are you doing that?” Morena demanded, pointing at the glowing lines and figures with a shaking finger.
“This? This is nothing.” Sevana shrugged, evilly amused at shocking her aunt. “Really, Aunt Morena, how do you think spells are crafted? You can’t do it on paper.”
“So, these lines are created by a spell?” She looked at the wand still glowing in Sevana’s hand. “But isn’t that dangerous, then? For you to draw out the curse in the air like this.”
“It’s not a real spell until you add elements of power to it.” Otherwise Sevana wouldn’t dare to do this. “I’m just drawing it like this ‘cause I didn’t have enough room in my book.”
“Oh.” Morena put a hand to her heart and let out a breath of relief. “Mercy, child, don’t scare me like that. I just came to see how you’re faring.”
“I’m fine,” Sevana said automatically.
“Alright, well, I’m going to market. Do you want anything?”
Oooh, market? “Cheese pastries!” she responded hopefully. They didn’t make those in Kindin, so she could never get them.
Morena softened into a smile. “I’ll get a dozen. I’ll be back soon.”
Sevana bounced on her toes as Morena left again, a happy smile on her face. She loved cheese pastries. Better, Morgan wasn’t awake, so she wouldn’t have to share them. Her smile faded when she realized that actually, she’d give up those pastries in a heartbeat if it meant he was awake.
Shaking her head, she went back to drawing out the design, looking for a weakness as she did so. There had to be something there, some part of it that she could use. Master had seen a weakness from the very beginning, a flaw in the design of the spell itself. If she could just figure out what he’d seen….
Finally finished, she took a step back and looked the design over carefully, questioning everything she saw. No weak points leaped out at her, unfortunately. Well, except the limitation: that the curse would release upon death. Turning her head, she told Morgan factually, “It’s a shame I can’t kill you and bring you back to life. The curse would break in a snap that way.”
…Wait. Why couldn’t she do just that?
She froze in place, mind whirling as two different memories clashed. Not a month ago, Master had taught her a spell to freeze something in mid-motion. She’d been practicing with a water fountain, stilling the water and releasing again. But those two spells would stop and start anything, right? Why not a human body, then? Couldn’t she stop and restart Morgan’s heart, mimicking death?
Could she fool the curse into breaking itself?
De-activating the light spell, she raised her wand, the hold spell on the tip of her tongue. But she paused before speaking, another thought striking her. What if this didn’t work the way she wanted it to? If something went wrong, she might well kill Morgan and not be able to bring him back. No, she’d better test this first.
Spinning on her heel, she dashed out the door and toward the front of the house, Baby bounding in her footsteps. She passed Master as she ran, who sat in the front room. He called after her, “Where are you going?”
“Testing something!” she called back, not pausing. Her head turned this way and that, eyes frantically looking around her. Something living, something living, a small animal of any sort would do. The street and the yard looked vacant, which considering this very cold weather and the snow threatening, wasn’t really a surprise. The wind had a bite to it that went right through her sweater, making her shiver hard. She wouldn’t be able to stay out here for long before she’d have to go back inside.
From three doors down, she heard a dog barking. Oh, perfect! It was Snoops, the Fendor’s dog. No one on the street liked him, and he wouldn’t be missed if he dropped dead (except, perhaps, by the Fendors). It’d be safe to practice on him. She raced off, hugging her arms around her chest against the cold.
Snoops, stupidly, didn’t run from her. But he’d always liked to chase anyone that came near (which was part of the reason why no one liked him) so when he saw her coming closer, he ran to meet her, barking ferociously. With an evil smile, she raised her wand and pointed it directly at him. “Stay behind me, Baby. XOLD N E FOLE .”
The dog stopped in mid-motion, one paw up, mouth hanging open, even his long black fur standing out. She walked the rest of the distance and knelt at his side, checking for breathing. Nothing. Then she put a hand to his chest, checking for a pulse. Again, nothing. Heart and lungs both still. He was, technically, dead. Ha! She giggled in pure glee, delighted that the spell had worked as she wanted it to.
Hmmm, now how long could she leave him like this before risking damage? How long would it take for the curse to be satisfied that someone was ‘dead’ before leaving? She didn’t know. Perhaps she should wait a few moments, just in case, and then try and revive the dog?
Kneeling on the cold cobblestone, being racked by icy winds and shivers, didn’t feel at all pleasant. She didn’t like staying out here one bit and waiting patiently became torturous. It didn’t help that Baby kept coming closer to the dog and sniffing him curiously. When a minute or so had passed, she stood up and backed off a pace before pointing her wand at the dog again. “FE KATS .”
Snoops took a step forward, as if running, but without the momentum he stumbled instead. Bewildered by what had happened, he stopped altogether and backed off a pace warily, growling at her and Baby in warning.
“Oh, afraid of me now, eh?” she grinned, more a feral baring of teeth than a smile. “Smart dog.” But before he had the wits to run away from her, she needed to do a quick scan to see how healthy he was. She quickly switched to the diagnostic wand from her side pocket and activated it. Hmmm…the results writing themselves on her hand said the dog was in perfect health.
Excellent.
Not liking another wand pointed in his direction, the dog took off with his tail between his legs, whining in the back of his throat as he moved. Sevana did nothing to stop him, but took off running as well, back to the Chansamone house. She barged in through the front door with a clatter, slamming it shut behind her almost before Baby could make it inside, impatient to get back to Morgan.
Master rose from his chair at her entrance. “How did the test go?”
“It worked,” she answered impatiently, pausing just enough to answer before going directly to the back bedroom.
With a wave of the hand, she banished the light diagram still hovering in the air, and switched wands once again. With a deep breath, she steadied her breathing and enunciated clearly, “XOLD NE FOLE .”
Morgan’s heartbeat and breathing instantly stopped, making him appear even more of a corpse than before. Sevana held her breath as well, watching as the curse’s power faltered, wavering as the life force powering it faded. Was it…was it actually working?
From behind her, she heard Morena and Master’s voices talking.
“—what worked?” Morena asked.
“I don’t know,” Master admitted, not sounding worried. “She was in too much of a hurry to explain. But she’s always like that. If there’s one thing that I’ve yet to teach the girl, it’s patience.”
“But do you think she’s found a solution?”
“Perhaps. She was very excited about something, certainly.” Master came into the room a
t that moment. “Sevana, what did you…sweetling. Is that a suspended animation spell that you have on him?” his voice rose to a higher pitch as he asked.
“That’s right,” she confirmed without turning around to look. The curse was taking a little longer to break than she expected it to. The very instant it was gone, she needed to revive Morgan.
“Suspended animation?” Morena repeated the words as if they were some foreign language.
“In short, I killed him,” Sevana explained, still not looking away from Morgan. “But don’t worry, it’s only temporary.”
“YOU KILLED HIM?!” Morena screeched.
“It’s only temporary,” Sevana repeated impatiently. “Calm down. I’ll reverse the spell in a minute.”
“Sevana, sweetling, this is not the solution I had in mind.”
At that, she dared to shoot him a glance over her shoulder. “Master, when have I ever done something the way you would do it? Besides, you wouldn’t give me any help or hints.”
Master looked faint, eyes bulging. “Yes, well,” he managed hoarsely, “that’s a point I’ll keep in mind in the future. Don’t you think you should revive him now?”
She gave Morgan a thorough study but couldn’t find any trace of the curse still lingering. Yes, it was probably best to reverse it now. “FE KATS .”
Morgan took in a deep, shuddering breath, and then another. His eyes flew open and he half-jerked into an upright position. “Wha—”
His mother let out a sob of relief before she flew to the bed and caught her only son up in her arms, hugging him hard. “Morgan, Morgan, Morgan. Are you well? How do you feel?”
Looking bewildered, he answered, “I’m fine. I feel fine. What…” he trailed off, looking around, clearly not understanding the situation. “Last I remember, I was in Nickerchen playing. What happened?” he demanded, one arm hugging his mother back, the other trying to push her away so he wasn’t squashed. “Sevana? What are you doing here?”
Climbing onto the bed, she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him to her hard. Alive. And better than that, he was finally awake. It had been nerve-wracking and scary to kill him as she had, even after testing it out, so hearing his voice and seeing him move and react like this reassured her as nothing else would have.
“Uh, Sevana?” Morgan ventured, obviously finding her hugging him strange. She’d never done so before, after all.
A little embarrassed by her own reaction, she drew back so she sat on the edge of the bed instead and beamed at him. “Welcome back, Kippy.”
“Welcome back?” he parroted, frowning in confusion. “And what do you mean ‘Kippy?’”
“Well, you’ve been napping for several weeks now, so kippy fits, don’t you think?” she responded artlessly.
“Napping?” Morgan scrubbed at his head with one hand. “Will someone tell me what’s going on!”
Master took pity on him and said, “I’m Tashjian Joles, Sevana’s Master. Do you remember me, young sir?”
“Ah…” Morgan clearly had to think for a second before he nodded slowly. “Yes, sir. I do. I met you once before, when you came to get Sev.”
“That’s right,” Master agreed with a gentle smile and nod of encouragement. “Well, we came here because you fell prey to a curse.”
Morgan’s frown deepened, causing a crease to form in between his eyes. “A curse? How?”
“The Sleeping Princess curse,” his mother supplied helpfully.
Morgan objected this in an automatic reflex. “But that curse only works on girls! I’m a boy!”
“A fact I now question,” Sevana chimed in mock-seriously.
“SEVANA!” Morgan protested, wailing.
Master gave her an exasperated look. She shrugged as she defended herself. “What? I didn’t say I questioned his manhood, just that the curse only works on girls.”
“You did too!” Morgan growled, now pouting under his frown.
She grinned at him, unrepentant. Nice to see she could still rile him up so easily. Actually, after days of ranting and chewing him out without getting any response at all, it was a relief to see that sullen expression period.
“We are very grateful that Sevana and her Master came,” Morena inserted, not looking the least bit grateful. Actually, her eyes glared daggers at the young Artifactor apprentice. “But Sevana, you really shouldn’t have broken the curse the way you did.”
“Why?” she gave a blasé shrug of the shoulders. “It worked, didn’t it?”
“You could have caused serious internal damage,” Master added, sounding far more stern.
Uh-oh. She recognized that look. She would definitely be hearing about this later. At great length.
“I’m almost afraid to ask.” Morgan half-winced in anticipation. “What did she do to me?”
“She killed you,” his mother answered crossly.
Morgan’s eyes bulged, and for several seconds, he couldn’t do anything more than splutter and make uhhhh noises.
“Oh stop that,” Sevana ordered her best friend crossly. “It was only temporary. And I tested it out properly before doing it on him,” this she said in the direction of Master, hoping to curtail some of that impending lecture.
Master raised his eyes to the heavens in a clear bid for patience. “Tested how, sweetling?”
“On a dog.”
“Sevana!” Morena looked appalled.
“What?” She was starting to get fed up with all of these demands and critiques. Where was her congratulations for a job well done? “It was only Snoops.”
“Oh.” Morena didn’t say ‘fine, that’s alright then’ (probably because she didn’t want to encourage Sevana) but her tone clearly implied that. No one would miss that dog when it died.
“That is not the point, sweetling.” Master rubbed both temples as if trying to stave off a headache. “Doing something once is not properly testing anything.”
Morgan sat on the bed muttering over and over again, “I can’t believe she killed me.”
Sevana resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him childishly. “You owe me big time, too.”
“SEVANA!” every person in the room yelled at her.
Cackling, she waved off their irritation and sauntered out of the room, calling for Baby to follow as she went. Well, she had successfully solved the problem, and without needing anything from Master’s pockets, thankyouverymuch. She’d reward herself by playing with some old friends. Sevana stopped by the kitchen long enough to swipe a few cheese pastries, grabbed her coat, and headed for the front door. With any luck, she could play with Big and Baby for a while before Hinun tracked her down and dragged her back.
Humming, she skipped outside, the door shutting firmly behind her.
Edmund Isaacson was an unlucky man. In fact, Edmund Isaacson might have been the unluckiest man in the whole wide world.
(If you had told Edmund this, he would have laughed at you. Not because of its preposterousness, mind you, but because of the word ‘might.’)
The life of an unlucky man was not as lonely as you’d believe, though. A number of hangers-on and would-be friends flocked toward poor Edmund. After all, if Edmund repelled luck, then it had to land somewhere else, didn’t it? (It did—usually on the person sitting right next to him, whose lap was always conveniently free of piping hot soup.) And so they pointed him at ventures and schemes and plots and rubbed their hands gleefully as each venture and scheme and plot crashed down on him.
It was not a life anyone would fight for. Fortunately for him, though, he had gained a wife and young son over the years and found them rather worth the fight.
Unfortunately for him, they were still the wife and son of the unluckiest man in the whole wide world.
The Oracle of Blintz was not such an unlucky man. It helped that he could read signs out of bird intestines and tea leaves. (His lunches were never dull.) It helped that he could see lives in the creases of a man’s palm. Indeed, the odds were very much stacked in favor of a man
who could tell the future.
And tell the future he did. He told it to anyone willing to pilgrimage from the mainland out to his speck of sea-lashed rock. He told it better if they had a pocket of gold or silver to offer at the start.
Still, the life of an Oracle, while rich in gold and silver, was a little lonely. Hard to make friends when all those potential friends wouldn’t be your friend unless you tell them it is so, huh?
Years and years of solitude at last convinced the Oracle. The layer of dust on the vanity didn’t hurt.
The time had come to find himself an apprentice.
Upon first meeting Isaac Edmundson, one would be remiss for thinking he had inherited his father’s gross unluck. He had good looks. (He looked, in fact, liked a bruised Montgomery Clift, which everyone delighted in telling him, or would, if the year were 1952 and the place anywhere but the Isle of Blintz, and the isle full of anyone to tell him anything, actually.) He had a steady job. He had three solid meals a day. He had a lot of time to do a lot of thinking.
Which was good, because Isaac did a lot of thinking. Right now, as he scrubbed the spots out of the Oracle’s fine silver, he was thinking that a day off might be a very nice thing, indeed.
He hadn’t a day off, you see, since his master had brought him to this godforsaken isle twelve years ago.
Twelve years is not such a long time in the grand scheme of things.
Twelve years to a seventeen-year-old boy who has spent every day of those twelve years scrubbing and polishing and tidying up is a very long time, however. It was a long enough time to build up a good deal of resentment against the man who had landed him in this mess to begin with.
Make no mistake, Isaac Edmundson loved his father. He had loved him for five blissful years, right up until the night Edmund Isaacson had crept into his son’s bedroom, kissed him, and bid him a swift goodbye, the luckless bastard. Even then, young Isaac had understood the gambling. What he hadn’t understood was the gambling by a man who could roll sevens on a pair of loaded dice.
Heroes: A Raconteur House Anthology Page 5