Unusual Suspects: Stories of Mystery & Fantasy

by Dana Stabenow

  “Itt was only a matter of some dozenss of impss, until now,” he said. “I’m sure that when my master learnss high magic is involvedd, he will sendd someone more appropriate to collect payment.”

  The old man leaned back in his chair.

  “And what do you suppose that payment might be?” he asked.

  Marlowe shrugged again.

  “I tthink we both know whatt iss traditional in a case where someone borrowss power without permission,” he said.

  The old man ran his hand through his beard.

  “A soul?” he said. “Does it have to be a particular soul? Could I interest your master in the girl, perhaps. Certainly she bears some responsibility for this problem, if only that she made my apprentice lose his senses. No? Then how about this oaf? No one will miss him.”

  Marlowe rolled his head around in what Alf hoped was a negative motion.

  “We know who hass to pay,” Marlowe said. “And we know who hass to pay iff, somehow, the rresponsible one cannot.”

  The old man nodded and played with his beard some more.

  “Then I’m afraid we have a problem,” he said, “since the responsible party is my patron’s wife’s sister’s son. She’ll make his life a living hell, you should excuse the expression, if anything happens to the boy. And my patron, in turn, will wonder why he so lavishly supports a mage who cannot protect the members of his family from demons. I can’t have that. Sorry.”

  He sat stroking his beard.

  “You could returnn the powerr,” Marlowe said. “With interestt, of course. Then all would be well.”

  The old man nodded vigorously at that.

  “I could do that,” he said, “but it would take all the power I possess. Perhaps more. And, again, the count would wonder why he is supporting an old man who is, without any magical power, just an old man.”

  Silence stretched out until the old man said, “No, I’m afraid I’ll just have to kill you, find a way to bring the boy back, and pretend all this never happened.”

  He picked up a scroll.

  “This should do the trick for an afrit,” he said.

  Marlowe made a noise.

  “Oh, yes,” the old man said. “This room is warded. No teleporting out of here.” He pointed the scroll at Marlowe. “Now, if you’ll just raise your hands, or whatever those things are, I’ll take you somewhere tidier for what comes next.”

  The afrit raised his arms.

  “What about my Brittney?” Alf said. “You’ll be bringing her back, too, won’t you?”

  The old man looked at Alf and laughed.

  “My dear fellow,” he said. “How droll. Waste power on a peasant girl? I think not.”

  Marlowe moved then, faster than anything Alf had ever seen. Something shot from the scroll and whistled past the afrit’s ear, hit the stone wall, and ricocheted back into the room, blowing a pair of beakers to dust. Marlowe dove and came to his feet next to the old man’s chair. But he was looking right down the tube of the rolled scroll.

  “Nice try,” the old man said. He leveled the scroll. “Good-bye, afrit,” he said, just as Alf hit him over the head with his thornwood walking stick with a noise like a five-pound hailstone hitting a melon. The old man slumped in his chair.

  “Not bringing my Brittney back, eh?” Alf said. “Won’t waste power on a peasant girl? We’ll see about that.”

  Alf, Elspeth, and Brittney were just finishing dinner a few nights later when Marlowe appeared in the corner.

  “Do nott lett me disturb yourr meal,” he said. “I have come to say good-bye.”

  “Then your business here is finished?” Elspeth asked with what sounded like sadness in her voice.

  “Until nextt time,” Marlowe said. “Magic mustt be paid forr.”

  “What does thet mean, exactly?” Alf asked.

  “I suppose I can tell you thiss,” Marlowe said. “Magic changess the nature of reality. Doing this requiress power. There is much powerr in the universess, butt all belongs to someone or something. If you are strong enough, like the count’s mage once wass, you can justt take itt. Few are thatt strong. Mostt must pay for itt. If itt is simple magic, kitchen magic, the paymentt is not much and can evenn be pleasantt.”

  Elspeth nodded at this and smiled.

  “But,” the afrit went on, “serious magic, high magic, requires big paymentt.”

  They were all silent for a moment.

  “This, what happened to Brittney, it was high magic?” Alf asked.

  “It wass,” Marlowe said. “The mage’s apprentice did nott know whatt he wass doingg. So instead of casting a simple glamour, which would have made all humanss think he and your daughter were horsess, he cast a transmogrification spell. Very expensive, that spell, and not cheapp to undo. And since he was nott an establishedd magic wielderr, he had no arangementt to purchase the powerr. His spell stole it from my masterr, and in such a clumsy fashion that the impss leaked through into yourr world as well.”

  “That’s right, the imps,” Alf said. “What about them? The last I saw they was tryin’ to set th’ barn cat afire.”

  From the farmyard came a series of pops.

  “That’s themm now,” Marlowe said, “returning to where they came fromm.”

  “And what about the other?” Elspeth asked. “Who paid?”

  “Why, the mage, of course,” Marlowe said. “The boy hadd no powerr. My master simply had me take all knowledge of magic from his mindd. Unfortunately, it sweptt all other knowledge as well, but he is of noble bloodd so few will notice he iss a simpleton. But someone hadd to pay, because magic isn’t free. And the mage was supposed to be the boy’ss teacher.”

  “Did he have enough power to pay?” Alf asked.

  “No,” Marlowe said, “but he made upp the balance in the usual wayy.”

  “How is that?” Elspeth asked.

  “Why, with hiss soul,” Marlowe said.

  The three humans and the afrit sat in silence until Marlowe spoke again.

  “That’s the problemm with menn gaining knowledge of magic,” he said. “Women use gentle magic for protectionn. Butt men are aggressive magic userss. They are dangerouss. We cannot stop themm from gainingg knowledge through studyy, but we cann prevent the easy spreadd of such knowledge.”

  The afrit wove its fingers, if that was what they were, in front of Alf’s eyes.

  “He will rememberr nothing of magic, now,” Marlowe said, shooting Elspeth a look. “High magic or kitchen magic. He will be happierr thiss way. I owe himm that, for he saved… I guess you couldd call itt my life.”

  With that, Marlowe vanished. Mother and daughter sat looking at each other until Alf suddenly came to his senses.

  “I really think Brittney should go to the castle for finishing school,” Elspeth said, as if continuing a conversation already in progress.

  “Oh, yes, father, please,” Brittney pleaded, batting her eyes.

  Alf set his fork on the table and stood.

  “I’ll hear no more of sech talk,” he said, even though he knew this was an argument he would lose. “This comin’ an’ going’ an’ strangers an’ such, it just ain’t nacherul. But I’ll tell you what is.”

  “What’s that, Alf dear?” Elspeth asked.

  “Goin’ t’ the pub,” Alf said, and stalked toward the door.

  Spellbound

  Donna Andrews

  Gwynn stopped outside Master Justinian’s study. She knew she hadn’t left the door hanging wide open. That was the first thing she’d learned as an apprentice: the importance of keeping the Maestro’s door closed. Although it wasn’t Justinian but Headmaster Radolphus who found it so important.

  “We don’t want anything just wandering in or out, my dear,” the headmaster had said. “Especially not out,” he added, looking disapprovingly at some of the Maestro’s more unusual pets.

  Indeed, everyone at the Westmarch College of Magical Studies knew better than to wander uninvited into Justinian’s study. But since it was the firs
t day of the college’s annual conference, the halls were overflowing with strangers who wouldn’t know any better.

  Surely that’s all it was. Someone who didn’t know any better. Not someone deliberately causing trouble. Though Gwynn knew Radolphus was worried about the possibility.

  “Mark my words, Jus, we’ll have some kind of trouble,” Gwynn had overheard the headmaster saying a few nights ago.

  “From old Horatio?” Justinian had asked. “Surely even a reactionary like him wouldn’t embarrass the college publicly.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him. And if he doesn’t cause trouble, odds are one of his allies will.”

  “Or one of his enemies,” Justinian had said. “He’s got enough of them.”

  Gwynn didn’t know what kind of trouble the headmaster expected—only that everyone was on edge. She took a deep breath, tiptoed up to the study door, and looked in. The gremlins were not in their usual place. At that hour, they would normally have been lying on the windowsill taking their after-breakfast nap, sunning their round little bellies and belching softly from time to time. But they were nowhere to be seen. Instead, the sill contained Master Justinian’s cat, Asmodeus, who would normally have been sleeping in the Maestro’s chair. Asmodeus was washing himself with great fury and glancing from time to time with narrowed eyes at the back of the chair.

  Gwynn sighed. She would have to evict whoever had appropriated the Maestro’s chair, then inventory the entire study to see if any creatures had wandered off and make sure none of them had eaten anything or anyone they shouldn’t have. She walked in, closing the door carefully behind her.

  And was overcome with a fit of sneezing.

  It was the smell. The Maestro’s study had been home to many odors in her time, not all of them pleasant. But she’d never encountered such a strong, cloying, sickly-sweet smell before, like rotting tropical flowers, with a nasty undertone of stale musk.

  She steeled herself, walked farther into the study, and started with surprise to see a woman sitting in the Maestro’s chair. A beautiful and relatively young woman, wearing a red silk dress and rather too many rings, charms, and amulets. You didn’t see many women at the college, apart from the servants, and none of them would dare invade the Maestro’s study.

  So obviously their visitor was a witch, come for the conference, though the woman was a lot younger than any of the other witches Gwynn had seen arriving at the guesthouse.

  A traveling cloak was draped over the nearby table, but Gwynn doubted that their visitor could have traveled far in that spotless, low-cut silk gown. She glanced involuntarily down at her own worn homespun apprentice’s tunic and hose. The woman’s legs were crossed in a way that showed more of her bright red stockings than was considered quite proper for a respectable lady—although Gwynn wasn’t sure witches cared about such niceties.

  The woman was leaning over a book, in a pose that showed both her bosom and her profile to advantage. She held the pose a second longer than was believable, then looked up, her face assuming a look of pleased surprise. Then she glowered at Gwynn, who clearly wasn’t her intended audience.

  “Well, don’t just stand there, you silly girl,” she snapped. “Go and fetch Master Justinian.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Gwynn said, curtsying. “May I tell him who’s calling?”

  “Carima,” the woman said, rolling the R slightly, and making the name sound slightly suggestive.

  Gwynn noticed, with dismay, that Carima was reading one of the Maestro’s rare books. A book of Chthonian poetry.

  Pretending to read it, Gwynn realized, hiding a smile. Apparently Carima had no idea that because of the peculiarities of their anatomy, the Chthonians wrote diagonally, rather than horizontally, and bound their books on the bottom, which meant that Carima was holding the volume sideways.

  “I’ll go and fetch him right away,” she said, with another curtsy.

  As Gwynn turned to leave, she heard Asmodeus sneezing delicately.

  Of course, fetching Justinian would be a lot easier if she had any notion where he was. She had to search through the college halls, which were teeming with every imaginable kind of magic user—not only mages from other colleges and witches like Carima, but also contingents of astrologers, alchemists, necromancers, shamans, illusionists, seers, mediums, theurgists, thaumaturgists, soothsayers, sigilists, amulet-makers, ring-wrights, and practitioners of magical arts so obscure they hadn’t actually been named yet.

  Not many women, though, except for a few witches, most considerably older than Carima.

  When she finally found Justinian, having tea in the headmaster’s study, he didn’t seem overjoyed to hear that Carima had arrived.

  “What in blue blazes is she doing here?” he asked.

  “Here for the conference, obviously,” Radolphus said.

  Justinian snorted.

  “Now, now,” Radolphus said. “She’s our guest. And one of the official witch delegates. Not, of course, one of the speakers.”

  “Well, I should think not, since this year’s theme is magical ethics—not precisely Carima’s forte, is it?”

  “Now, Jus. You’re starting to sound like old Horatio.”

  “I am not,” Justinian said. “I don’t think the conference is an abomination, and I’m not signing his petition to the duke to outlaw it. We can learn a lot from the allied branches.”

  “Even the witches,” Radolphus said.

  “Especially the witches,” Justinian agreed. “We know almost nothing about how their magic works. I’m particularly looking forward to Mistress Hecate’s classes. I support the conference, you know that. But Carima!”

  “Is our guest, for the time being,” Radolphus said. “Perhaps for the last time, if Master Horatio’s efforts succeed. But in the meantime—”

  “Yes,” Justinian said, gulping the rest of his tea and standing up. “Be hospitable. I’d better go see what she wants.”

  As Justinian stalked out, trailed by Gwynn, Radolphus sighed.

  “As if there were any doubt what she wants,” Gwynn heard him murmur.

  Master Justinian didn’t say anything on the way back to his study, and he walked so fast Gwynn could hardly keep up—though she had no trouble keeping his tall, gaunt frame in view as he plowed through the crowded halls. Gwynn felt reassured by the Maestro’s reaction. No doubt he’d find out what Carima wanted and toss her out of his study as quickly as possible.

  “Justinian!” Carima cried, as he strode into the study. “I’m so glad to see you.”

  “Carima,” the Maestro said. “I—achoo!”

  Master Justinian sneezed with great vigor, startling some of the fledgling bats into flight.

  “Your study is rather dusty,” Carima said, frowning at Gwynn. “It can be so difficult to get the servants to clean properly.”

  “Oh, a little dust never hurt anyone,” Justinian said. “And I don’t let the servants in. They could do untold damage, bustling about in my things.”

  “Then what—” Carima began, looking at Gwynn.

  “Gwynn’s a student. And my apprentice,” Justinian said. “Very promising young mage. Sit down, if you like.”

  Gwynn began to feel alarmed. Carima’s expression suggested that she wasn’t at all happy to learn that Gwynn was a fellow magic user. And the Maestro was being remarkably polite. He wasn’t usually so polite to visitors. What if his show of annoyance in Radolphus’s study was only that—a show?

  What if he liked Carima?

  Carima resumed her seat in Justinian’s chair. Instead of taking the other large chair beside it, Justinian pulled a stool in from the workroom and perched on it at a safe distance from Carima. Gwynn slipped into the workroom and tried to appear busy while maintaining absolute silence, in the hope they’d forget she was there.

  “Oh, I brought you this,” Carima said, picking up a box from the table beside her.

  “What is it?” Justinian said.

  “Come and see,” she said, with a sidelong gla
nce. After a moment, Justinian slid off the stool and went over to peer into the box.

  “Candy?” he asked.

  “Not just candy!” Carima said. She selected a piece, bit into it, uttered a small ecstatic sigh, and began chewing it with half-closed eyes.

  Justinian watched the performance over the top of his spectacles, his face expressionless.

  Carima swallowed, licked her lips suggestively, and offered the box to Justinian.

  “You’ve never tasted such delicious marzipan,” she said.

  “Marzipan? Too sticky-sweet, for me, I’m afraid,” Justinian said, with a grimace. He returned to his perch on the stool.

  “Oh,” Carima said, closing the box. “Well, perhaps you can offer it to your guests.”

  As Carima placed the box back on the table, Gwynn saw a small gremlin head peek out from under the tablecloth, following the motion of the witch’s hand. Then the gremlin sneezed several times and used the hem of the tablecloth as a handkerchief.

  “Gwynn,” Justinian said, turning, “open a few windows in here. It smells… rather stuffy.”

  “I really must be going now,” Carima said, rising from the chair. “But I do hope you’ll invite me back for tea.”

  “Yes, of course,” Justinian said, “although I suppose you’ll be very busy with the conference.”

  “Oh, I’m free in the afternoons,” Carima said. “We shall have plenty of time to get reacquainted.”

  Justinian stood, watching her departure.

  Gwynn took several deep breaths. Amazing how much easier it was to breathe all of a sudden. And it wasn’t just Carima’s overpowering perfume. The scent, she realized, also carried some kind of spell. Neatly camouflaged, as perhaps Carima had intended, by all the other magical auras and residues that permeated the Maestro’s study. Had Justinian noticed?

  Yes, almost certainly. He was still frowning at the door. Then he sighed, shook himself, and turned to Gwynn.

  “Let some air in, and do something with that stuff, will you?” he said, waving his hand at the marzipan. “Take it down to the dormitories if you like.” Then he strode out.

  Gwynn stared at the marzipan for a few minutes. Then she picked up the box, took the top off, and slid it gently underneath the tablecloth.