by Tanya Huff
The battle began again.
Zayd felt ribs break a moment later, but he got in blows of his own, and the demon was not as unhurt as he pretended. His spear shaft shattered against a golden elbow, and he tossed it away as Rak'vol twisted to protect his numbed arm. They closed, brown hands around golden throat, golden hands around brown. Zayd peered over the demon's shoulder, through the red mist that was rising behind his eyes, and screamed, "Magdelene!"
Too late, as Muk, who had crawled on his belly all the long way from the door, threw himself at the wizard's back. Magdelene went down.
Golden talons grew suddenly on fingertips and dug furrows of pain through the muscles on Zayd's back. He felt blood run down his legs, felt his hands lose their grip, and heard the demon call his name.
He had no choice. He looked into the ovals of onyx that had become the demon's eyes. The sound ripped from his throat was more than a scream. And he couldn't stop making it.
On the cushions, Joah stirred. She raised one hand as if to bat away the rising cadences of sound, frowned, opened her eyes.
"NO!"
The lightning bolt caught Rak'vol in the center of his back. His cry of agony added to the din, and he dropped Zayd as he turned to face this new menace.
Zayd's whole awareness was centered on pain, but he dimly knew that he couldn't quit yet. He saw his sister facing the demon, her lips drawn back in a snarl, then he saw her fall, wrapped in blue light and shrieking. With both hands he drew his dagger, and with the last of his strength drove in, up, and under the demon's ribs.
The sudden silence was overwhelming.
Copper brows rose as Rak'vol sank to his knees. "Who," he demanded querulously, "carries an ivory dagger?"
"The sons of Tamalair," Zayd told him, and they collapsed together.
Joah was at her brother's side in an instant, but Magdelene was there first.
"Help me lift him," Magdelene commanded. "We’ve got to get out of here."
"But he's hurt," Joah protested. "And you're hurt. Can't we wait? The demon's dead."
Magdelene rolled Rak'vol's body out of the way with her foot. "Demons turn to ash when they die," she said shortly. "This one will be back."
"Then kill him!" Joah shrieked, cringing from half-memories of her time in the Netherworld. "Kill him!"
Magdelene shook her head; her eyes were sunk deep in purple shadows, her skin was grey and clammy, and her ears were still bleeding freely. "I can't."
The two women half-carried, half-dragged Zayd from the room, disturbing a pile of ash and two ivory horns. Muk had clearly marked the route through the maze with his broken and bleeding knees.
Outside, the freezing wind dragged Zayd up from unconsciousness. He groaned and tried to stand.
Magdelene twisted around, searching the immediate area desperately, but there was nothing to find. She draped Zayd in Joah’s arms, spread her own, and called, "Door!"
Still nothing.
She straightened and reached. Power crackled around her, and this time she didn't call, she commanded, "DOOR!"
"Onyx eyes," Zayd muttered as darkness claimed him again.
With a pop of misplaced air, the great brass-bound door appeared inches from Magdelene's nose. She flung it open, helped Joah get Zayd inside, then slammed it shut.
"Never forget," the most powerful wizard in the world snarled at the demon embedded above the door, "who put you there."
His terrified gibbering followed them up the stairs.
* * * *
"But how did you summon the door," Joah wanted to know, "if you had no power left?"
"I tapped into the power of the Netherworld."
Joah's eyes went very wide, and she bounced on the end of Zayd's bed. "Wow! Can you do that?"
"I did it." Magdelene's eyes were still shadowed. Although she had healed Zayd, certain wounds of her own only time could take care of.
"That's amazing! When will you teach me?"
Magdelene's "Never!" and Zayd's "Are you crazy!" rang out at the same time. They looked at each other and laughed, but Joah only looked sulky.
"It's not like I'd do anything stupid," she protested. "I've learned my lesson." She stood and turned before them, a young woman in her mid-twenties who had lived only thirteen years. "I've lost ten years of my life."
"Balderdash," snorted Magdelene, sounding more like her old self. "You haven't lost anything. You are who you always were, not even the demon princes can change that. So, who are you?"
Joah glanced down at herself and shrugged. "I am Joah," she said at last.
"And who is Joah?"
"Me."
"Well?"
"Well, what?" Joah wanted to know. Then she looked down at her hands. Old hands. Young hands. Joah grinned.
"That's very good." Magdelene took a five-year-old by the shoulders and pushed an old woman out the door. "Go show Kali," she told a young matron. "Your brother has had a rough time, and he needs his rest." She closed the door on a giggling thirteen-year-old and leaned against it with a sigh.
Zayd looked up at her through his lashes. "Uh, actually, Magdelene," he murmured, "I’m not that tired."
Magdelene's smile said many things as she twitched back the covers, but all she said aloud was, "Good."
[Publisher’s note: “And Who is Joah” is the fifth story in chronological order. To go to the sixth chronological story, jump to “Nothing Up Her Sleeve.” To continue in written order, proceed to the next page.]
Author's Note for "The Last Lesson"
Although "The Last Lesson" was the third Magdelene story written, it's the first chronologically. It was written in the midst of a Canadian winter, the trip to Cuba where Magdelene was created having dwindled to a warm and distant memory.
But then, every superhero needs an origin story.
The Last Lesson
The lizard peered out from under a layer of dust and seemed to sneer at the girl languidly flicking a cloth around the cluttered room. Safely tucked on a top shelf, it rested far beyond the reach of such a careless cleaning. Although its topaz eyes were dull under years of accumulated grime and sawdust seeped from a tear in an uplifted front leg, the lizard gave the very definite impression it would rather continue to slowly deteriorate than risk destruction under the grimy rag being waved about. It almost flinched as a rodent skull, as ancient as itself, was caught up and dashed to the floor.
"Oh, lizard piss," muttered the girl, looking down at the scattered ivory shards. She pushed heavy chestnut hair back off her face and kicked a yellowed tooth beneath the edge of a bulging cabinet. "I don't even know why I bother.
"It's no wonder a wizard's apprenticeship is so long," she continued, glaring about the room. The edges of several loose papers curled, and a tarnished silver goblet acquired a tracery of frost. "A good half of it's spent cleaning up after other people." Then her eyes lit on the massive spell book lying closed and locked on its lectern, and she smiled.
She stuffed the cleaning rag between a badly dented brass horn and the jawbone of an ass and sped across the workroom. At the lectern, she ran her fingers lightly over gilded runes, murmured the standard unlocking spell, and watched the worn leather cover of the spell book roll back.
"He doesn't really expect me to get this place clean," she told the prodding of her conscience. "He only wants me to stay busy while he's gone." That the massive book and its ancient contents had been expressly forbidden her, she chose to ignore. Had her master truly wished her not to read the book, surely he'd have used a stronger lock spell. The one on it was absurdly easy to break.
"Besides," she added, tossing her hair back over her shoulders, "he could be closeted with the king for hours. I'm sure he'd want me to study." She flipped the thick parchment pages with little respect for their age and quickly scanned the titles as they passed. A spell for bringing in water? Not happening. Bringing in the water ranked among the high points of her day. A spell to look as beautiful as the morning? Mornings were made to be slept throu
gh. A spell to move carpets through the air? She'd tried that the last time, and as far as she knew, her little rug still rose through the heavens.
Good thing she'd jumped off as it headed for the window.
A spell to bring warmth on the coldest of days? Now that was more like it.
Glancing up through the workroom's frost-edged window, she shivered at the bleak view of winter-grey sky. At least here in the palace, the windows had glass. She bent her head to read.
"MAGDELENE!"
When she could breathe again, when her heart had stopped pounding so loudly in her ears, Magdelene slowly turned around.
Adar, the king's wizard, her master, stood just inside the doorway, the colour of his face almost matching the deep purple of his robes. "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"
Magdelene dove for her duster and grabbed it just as Adar, moving faster than a man of his apparent age should've been able, got her by the ear. She twisted in his grip and waved the filthy bit of cloth under his nose.
"I've been, ouch, cleaning."
"You've been into the spell book again!"
Well if you knew, why did you ask? Magdelene wondered, but wisely kept the thought to herself. "I didn't do any. I was only reading."
"I thought I told you to stay away from it!" He punctuated each word with a tug on her ear. "I'll say when you're ready." He thrust her away and shook his head. "I should beat you."
Magdelene rubbed her throbbing ear and backed up. "We have a deal," she reminded him.
The wizard's eyebrows rose almost to the edge of his hat. "I know we have a deal," he snarled. "You remind me of it every time I catch you doing something I've told you not to." His arms flew wide for dramatic emphasis. "You get beaten less than any wizard's apprentice in the history of the art."
"How would you know about other apprentices?" Magdelene asked before she considered the consequences. "You've been in hiding for years." She yelped as a heavy hand cuffed her soundly and a well-placed foot sent her sprawling towards the door.
"Go!" roared her master. "Get out of my sight before I forget myself!"
"Where should I go?"
"I don't care."
"I could go get water."
"You do that."
As his apprentice caught up her jacket and fled the room, slamming the door behind her, Adar rubbed his face with both hands and attempted to calm down. Teaching a dragon manners would be easier than living with that obnoxious brat. He walked slowly over to the spell book and looked down at the open page. Reading it, was she? The words crawled about the parchment in joyous abandon, one in five in a recognizable language. In the six years he'd had the ancient book, he'd deciphered two spells. The lock spell she'd so blithely demolished had been stronger than the one on the king's treasury.
He sighed, plucked a large grey-and-white cat off his chair, and collapsed into it.
"I don't know why you're looking so depressed," he muttered at the cat, who snorted and walked away. "Your apprentice doesn't walk through your most powerful spells like they aren't there." He snatched off his sagging felt hat, and a surprising amount of scraggly grey hair came with it. Gradually, wrinkles and lines smoothed out and the wizard's true face emerged. Although the king thought his wizard an elderly sage, Adar was barely ten years older than his apprentice.
He swung his feet up on the scarred oak table that dominated the room and let his head fall back. "Why?" he asked a spider mending her web by the ceiling, "do I bother?"
"You bother," growled a small, harsh voice, "to keep your miserable life."
Adar turned his head just enough to see the glass vial that held his greatest achievement. The tiny demon within glared out at him and flicked impossibly small claws.
"You bother," the demon continued, "because you know full well she'll tell if you don't. The king and your cushy job will be no protection if your master's old friends find you."
"It was an accident."
"Oh sure, that's why you burned the body, grabbed his spell book, and ran."
"And who asked you, H'sak?" Adar purred, black eyes glinting dangerously. "Remember who put you there."
H'sak shrugged scaled shoulders and leaned against the wall of his prison. "Oh, you've got power, I'll give you that, but it was a lucky shot that put me here and you know it. You'll never do it again."
"I'll never have to."
"Now your apprentice... If you want to talk about power..."
"I don't." The wizard scooped up Magdelene's discarded cleaning rag and tossed it over the vial. "And I've plans for taking care of her as well. Her and her power."
From under the rag came muffled but malicious laughter. "Better hurry."
Hurry? Adar rose, stretched, and preened a little in front of the large oval mirror leaning upright against a stack of moldering books. Why hurry? He glanced over at Magdelene's bed tucked into a corner of the workroom. The brat couldn't be more than... He thought back. She'd been twelve when she'd nearly exposed him before the king and all the court at the last Seven Year Festival, and that was only... Netherhells! Over four... nearly five years ago? It couldn't have been. He counted back on his fingers.
Six years ago he'd slain his master to get at the forbidden spell book, a book the old fool was incapable of even opening.
Five years ago he'd used the book to trap the demon and then used the demon to impress the king and become court wizard. A position that not only netted him rooms in the palace with his every material need instantly seen to, but was the first step on his road to world domination. He paused and preened again; world domination, how he loved the sound of that.
Four years ago a grimy girl-child had almost snatched paradise away by seeing through his elaborately magicked disguise. A disguise which, until then, had held up against the combined powers of his ex-master's searching friends. He'd struck a bargain with the brat, who fortunately had no idea of her incredible potential. Training in wizardry in exchange for her silence. He knew, in time, he'd remove the threat. Knew, in time, he'd use the second spell gleaned from the stolen book.
If four years ago she'd been thirteen...
"Show me Magdelene!" he commanded, and the mirror, like the well-trained wizard's tool it was, cleared to show his apprentice sitting on the well's edge gazing up through her lashes at a brawny guardsman. The demon was right. He'd better hurry.
* * * *
Precariously perched on the ice-covered stones of the well, Magdelene considered how much she hated being cold. She hated the woollens she was forced to wear in the winter, she hated the way her hands ached, and she hated the way her nose ran. Given a choice, she'd make her home where the only cold came in frosted mugs, and she'd every intention of finishing that spell to bring warmth on the coldest of days. In the meantime, however, she explored a possible alternative source of heat.
"There you go, Magdelene." The young guardsman secured the well handle and reached out to swing in the full bucket. "This'll fill your other pail, and you'll be set."
"Thank you." Magdelene peered up through her lashes and wondered when Pagrick was going to do something besides draw water. She hoped he didn't expect her to make the first move; she hadn't the vaguest idea of how to begin. And a girl could only take so much flexing and sweating and sighing.
Pagrick flexed mighty shoulders, the ripple visible even through his winter furs, wiped the sheen of sweat from a tanned brow, met Magdelene's eyes, and sighed longingly. Magdelene gritted her teeth. Several large icicles broke free from the south tower and crashed to the ground.
Ever vigilant, Pagrick spun about at the noise. His sword, hanging sheathed at his side, caught between Magdelene's legs and tipped her neatly into the well.
Although chunks of ice floated on the surface, the water began to steam when she hit it. For quite possibly the first time in recorded history, the white heat of rage meant exactly that.
* * * *
Spraying water with every move, Magdelene slammed open the door to the workroom and stamped t
hrough the barricade spells. If she hated being cold, there were no words to describe how she felt about being cold and wet. She slammed the door shut again just to hear the noise.
Adar, perched on the edge of the table, was thankful he'd had enough time to recover from his bout of near-hysterical laughter and arrange his expression into one more properly sympathetic. Beside him lay his own fleece-lined robe. The scene at the well had decided him. He would use the second spell this afternoon, and in a few short hours he'd not only be rid of his apprentice but would have more than enough power to face his master's old friends and anyone else who dared interfere with his plans.
"The great, stupid, clumsy..." She sniffed and flung her sodden jacket to the floor. "Oh, how I hate him!"
"Enough," Adar said firmly. "Get out of those wet clothes before you catch a chill." He forced a note of gentle concern into his voice.
Magdelene fumbled with her tunic laces, but her fingers were too stiff to untie the wet leather. She started to shake and found, to her surprise, she couldn't stop. She sniffed again, and a tear joined the ice water still dribbling down her face from her hair. She realized the path of the tear was the only warm spot on her body, and as it felt so pleasant, she began to cry in earnest.
The wizard sighed, impatient to begin now he'd made his decision. Finally, he threw the robe over his shoulder, stepped forward, and with his dagger split Magdelene's tunic from collar to hem. Holding the wet wool distastefully in two fingers, he slipped it back and off, to join the jacket on the floor.
Magdelene continued to sob, turning, lifting, and moving obediently as the wizard undressed her. The next thing she knew, she was wrapped in his robe and sitting on her bed, her hands clutching a mug of warm milk. She sniffed once or twice more and stopped crying. There seemed to be nothing remaining to cry about.
That was certainly interesting, she thought, drinking the milk and remembering the touch of warm fingers on breast and hip. I wonder what happens next. Surprisingly enough, Adar was thinking pretty much the same thing. He knew what he had to do before he could work the spell, the ancient book had been very specific, but under the layers of wool and leather and cotton, his apprentice was not the grubby child he remembered but an attractive young woman. Almost four years, he was forced to conclude, made one Netherhell of a difference. He wondered how he'd missed it happening.