by Tanya Huff
For her part, Magdelene had discovered that her teacher was actually quite attractive in a, well, wizardly sort of way. He was no Pagrick, with mighty thews and sun-bronzed curls, and she doubted he could croon a ballad to save his life, but his black hair lay sleek and shining against his head, and his black eyes had an intensity that sent new chills up and down her back. Even his silly ambitions – Magdelene had no idea why anyone would want the bother of dominating the world – took on a slightly majestic hue. When he sat on the bed beside her, she realized, with a sudden stab of excitement, she was finally going to discover what came after the flexing and sweating and sighing. She quickly drank the last of the milk just in case the next step would require both hands free. Unfortunately, she choked and a great deal of warm liquid came back up through her nose.
During the back pounding that followed, things got a bit tangled up. The empty mug fell to the floor, but neither Adar nor Magdelene noticed. The robe soon followed and Adar found himself sprawled out over the bed, flat on his back.
"Maybe," he gasped, "we should slow... Okay, that's... Goddess!"
"Talk later," Magdelene told him, tightening her grip. "I've almost got this figured out."
H'sak, watching from his prison, almost felt some sympathy for Adar as the wizard struggled valiantly to match the enthusiasm of his apprentice.
Almost.
* * * *
When Adar awoke the next morning, it took him a moment to remember where he was. Hardly surprising; once or twice throughout the night he'd forgotten who he was. Where were his red velvet bed curtains? What on earth had happened to make his feather mattress so hard and cramped and... Magdelene.
He slid out of bed, not a difficult manoeuvre as he was barely balanced on the edge of the cot, and looked down at his sleeping apprentice. Slowly, he smiled. More slowly still, because he wasn't entirely certain his back was up to it, he straightened to his full height. The prerequisite of the second spell had been met. As prerequisites went, Adar mused, it beat the Netherhells out of sacrificing goats. He began to chant.
"What are you doing?" Magdelene asked sleepily, rising up on one elbow. "You're making an awful lot of noise."
"Noise? Ha!" His eyes widened, and red and gold sparks, the visible manifestation of his power, danced along his outstretched arms. He couldn't resist gloating. "With this spell I take your power just as I took your virginity!"
"Took?" She pushed her hair out of her eyes and yawned. "Took where?"
Adar ignored her and spoke the last three words of the spell. In spite of, or perhaps because of, his exertions of the night before, he felt terrific. And once he added Magdelene's power to his own...
Always fascinated by new magic, Magdelene watched with interest as sparks of green and blue began lifting from her and flying to join their red and gold brethren on Adar's arms. Faster and thicker they flew until Adar was near buried in them and beginning to look worried. Then they merged and became a stream of green and blue fire.
The last Magdelene saw of Adar, he was definitely not happy as he disappeared within the flames. For an instant longer, a roaring column of power danced in the centre of the room, the occasional red or gold spark looking lost and alone in the green and the blue, then, almost too fast to follow, it flowed into the only receptacle in the room capable of containing it. It returned to the girl on the bed.
All that remained of Adar was a pile of soft grey ash.
Never at her best first thing in the morning, Magdelene studied the ash for a moment. "Ooops," she said at last. Common sense told her this was not what Adar had intended. Before she could ask what next, the sound of breaking glass made the question unnecessary.
One inch, two, a foot, three, seven... H'sak stretched and his claws scored the ceiling. "FREE!" he roared. "FREE!"
Magdelene looked up, way up, and tried a tentative smile. It wasn't returned. "Oh, help," she sighed and dove off the cot just as eight-inch talons reduced it to kindling.
"Couldn't we talk about this?" she protested, scrambling under the table.
"Talk?" bellowed the demon. He grabbed the table's edge. "All I've done for five years is talk! I wanna kill something!" Muscles bulged under scaled skin, and the massive table flipped up against the wall.
At the last possible instant, Magdelene dove between his legs.
"Your death," H'sak bellowed, whirling about, "will restore my standing in the Netherworld!"
"Mine?" Magdelene squealed, and ducked. "Why mine?"
"You saw..." H'sak stopped suddenly and leaned against the wall to get his breath back while his quarry watched him warily. Apparently, five years' imprisonment had left him a little out of shape. "You saw," the demon began again, "what your power did to Adar?"
"Yeah." She slid one foot toward the door, but stilled when H'sak tensed. "The spell failed."
H'sak roared with laughter. "Failed? It succeeded only too well. He took your power, but the posturing braggart was unable to contain it. The sheer amount of it destroyed him."
"But I got it back."
"You did," the demon agreed. "And his as well. Not," he added, "that you needed it."
"I have Adar's power?"
"You do."
Magdelene checked. There were certainly a number of strange feelings surging about this way and that, but until now she'd assumed they'd been caused by the discoveries of the night before and concentrated on staying alive. A closer look showed their true cause. The demon was right.
"Am I going to be in trouble because of this?" she wondered.
"You mean more trouble?" H'sak asked.
"Good point," Magdelene conceded, diving out of the way as the demon took up the chase again.
Five circuits of the room later, and he sagged against the door, gasping.
"But why," Magdelene panted, a little winded herself, "kill me?"
"Prestige," H'sak told her, puffing out his chest so the scales gleamed. "What matter that I was captured and held when I've just killed the most powerful wizard in the world."
"Me?" Her voice was an incredulous squeak.
"You."
"Because of Adar's power?"
"Hah, a drop in the bucket."
"The most powerful wizard in the world." Magdelene savoured the words, then her eyes narrowed. "Demons lie," she accused. "Swear it on the six Demon Princes."
H'sak sighed. "If it makes you happy during the short time you have left to live, I swear it on the six Demon Princes."
The most powerful wizard in the world, Magdelene thought, leaping the demon's grasping arms and scrabbling to the top of a bulging cabinet. Me. Wow.
H'sak demolished the cabinet, but his prestige had already climbed onto the laden shelves above it, barely keeping her footing as years of accumulated junk rained down around her. She snatched a leather bag from the air, ducked an overhand slash that nearly scalped her, and threw the contents in the demon's face.
He screamed out a physical impossibility, and both hands went to his eyes.
As silently as she could, Magdelene slipped to the floor and began to move towards the door.
H'sak froze, green tears streaming from both eyes, his head cocked to catch the smallest noise.
Magdelene's bare foot came down on a yellowed rodent's tooth, and without thinking, she swore.
H'sak swung at the sound.
Magdelene dropped.
H'sak clutched at air.
Magdelene rolled through the pile of ash that had been her master and up against the ruins of her bed.
H'sak nearly embedded the full length of his claws in the floor.
Magdelene dodged a vicious swing from the demon's left hand.
H'sak closed his right.
Magdelene looked down at the scaled fingers that nearly encircled her waist, at the tiny trickles of blood from where the tip of each claw just barely pierced her skin, and sighed. H'sak brought up his other hand and completed the circle. Magdelene now wore a girdle of demon flesh that tightened and hoisted h
er into the air.
As her feet came off the floor, she kicked once or twice in an experimental sort of way, but the claws dug deeper and so she stopped.
"You're going to take a long time to die," H'sak informed her in conversational tones, blinking the last of the powder from his eyes.
"If it's all the same to you," Magdelene replied, just as politely, scrabbling behind her for something, anything, to hit him with, "I'd rather not."
The demon licked his lips.
Magdelene's fingers closed on the edge of something cold and smooth.
"I think..." H'sak almost purred with anticipation. "...I'll start at the top and work my way down. Your death should, after all, be an event. Perhaps I'll begin by sucking the fluid from your eyes."
"Oh yeah, well suck this!" Magdelene screamed and slammed Adar's mirror down on the ridge of bone between the demon's ears, hoping to startle him enough for her to squirm free.
It was difficult to know who was more startled, the demon or Magdelene herself, when the mirror, with a loud slurp, responded to the wizard's order and did exactly as it was told.
Breathing heavily, Magdelene stared at the mirror lying face down on the floor then squatted beside it. She pushed at it with the tip of one finger. It skidded a few inches. Moving slowly, ready to leap back at any further display of initiative, she flipped it over.
Receiving no further instructions, the mirror held what it had swallowed.
Trapped within the glass, H'sak roared in silent rage, fists uplifted to pound against his new prison.
Pounding?
Magdelene shook her head. No, that wasn't coming from the mirror.
"Open this door! Open I say, in the name of the king!"
She looked at the door. She looked at the mirror. She looked at the demon marks around her waist. She looked up to the heavens. "Why me?" she wondered.
The pounding continued.
"Stuff a sock in it!" she snapped, just a little on edge. "I'm coming!"
Digging through the wreckage, looking for clothes, the most powerful wizard in the world – newly named – considered her options. The king was going to be royally angry; wizards were rare, and she'd just killed his. There was bound to be unpleasantness, and Magdelene hated unpleasantness. She picked up the old stuffed lizard, which had somehow survived intact, and placed it carefully on the room's one remaining shelf. As far as she could see, there was only one way out: abject surrender. Perhaps groveling. She dragged Adar's robe free and put it on.
At the door, she paused.
"It wasn't really your fault," she reminded herself firmly, and opened it.
Pagrick, about to demand entry for the second time, snapped his mouth shut at the sudden view of destruction within the room and let the butt of his spear drop slowly to the ground.
"We heard noises," began the king from behind his guardsman.
Magdelene bowed awkwardly; she hadn't expected the king himself. "There, uh, was a slight accident."
The king leaned forward and took a quick look around. "A slight accident? Young woman, if this is your idea of a slight accident, I'd hate to see what you consider a disaster. What happened?"
"Well..." Magdelene shot a look back over her shoulder. H'sak had certainly made a mess of the room. "The demon did it."
"The demon?"
"Yes, Sire. While he was chasing me, he..."
"The demon got loose?"
Pagrick's spear came up as he prepared to defend his king.
"Yes, Sire. But it's all right, I took care of him and..."
"You?" His Majesty looked sceptical. His guardsman looked adoring.
Magdelene bristled a little. "Yes, me." She stood aside. There, leaning against the wall, was the mirror. Within the mirror was H'sak. "I trapped him within the mirror and..."
"How?"
"Well, I don't exactly know." Her brow wrinkled. "It was an accident."
"Another accident," said the king. "You appear to have had a busy morning."
"You could say that; yes, Sire."
"Where was your master through all of this?" He took another look around the room. "Where is Adar?"
Magdelene's mouth opened and closed a few times, but nothing came out. Finally, she held out her arm. On the sleeve of Adar's robe was a fine sprinkling of pale grey ash.
The royal brows rose. "Adar's robe," he prompted.
"No, Sire." She indicated the ash. "Adar." A lesser man, on hearing his court wizard, his ace in the hole, had become nothing more than a laundry problem, would have taken his anger out on the bearer of the news. The king, stronger than that, said only, "One last accident?"
"The first actually." She sighed. "It's kind of a long story. Which," she added, "would go a lot faster if you stopped interrupting, Sire."
"Your pardon." He leaned up against the doorframe, crossed his arms over his chest, and gave every indication of settling in for a long stay. "Tell," he commanded.
So she did.
"The most powerful wizard in the world..." the king said speculatively as she finished. He studied the demon in the mirror. "So, where do you go from here?"
Magdelene swallowed hard. "You aren't going to detain me? For what happened to Adar?"
"Detain you? How could I?"
The most powerful wizard in the world thought about that for a moment. "Oh." This, she decided, was going to take some getting used to. "You don't want me to replace him?"
"No, I don't." With the toe of one boot, the king nudged something, shattered beyond recognition, back into the room. "I have the safety of my people to think of and you seem to attract an unusual number of... accidents. I'm reasonably certain it's easier to replace a wizard than a country. I suggest you head towards less-populated areas. Perhaps south."
South. The pique she'd felt at not being wanted vanished. South. To never have a runny nose again...
"And what's more," His Majesty continued, breaking into her reverie, "if you take your friend there with you, I'll see what I can do to ease your way. Just in case he gets free again..." His mouth twitched. "...accidentally, of course, better he's with you than me."
Magdelene dropped a deep curtsy. South. The world was her oyster, and she the pearl in it. "Your wish, Sire, is my command."
"How fortunate for us both," replied the king, and turned to leave. Pagrick smiled down at her as he made ready to follow his liege, and Magdelene remembered one last bit of unfinished business. Adar's end had been poetic justice of a sort, done in by his own ambition, but she'd always be grateful for the last thing he'd taught her before he died.
"Oh, Sire," she called. The king paused. "Could I, uh, borrow Guardsman Pagrick for a time?" Pagrick flexed, sweated, and sighed all in the space of about two seconds. "I'd like to, uh, clean up the workroom before I go."
[Publisher’s note: “The Last Lesson” is the first story in chronological order. To go to the second chronological story, jump to “Be It Ever So Humble.” To continue in written order, proceed to the next page.]
Author's Note on "Be It Every So Humble"
"Be It Ever So Humble" follows directly after "The Last Lesson", both chronologically and in the order I wrote them. With this story, I realized I wasn't just writing about the same character, I was creating a mythos. A somewhat loosely linked and occasionally borderline farcical mythos, but nevertheless a world with familiar touchstones and a physical geography.
In "Third Time Lucky", the first Magdelene story written, I said: She had lived in the turquoise house on the hill for as long as anyone in the fishing village that held her closest neighbours could remember.
"Be It Ever So Humble" is the story they've forgotten.
Be It Ever So Humble
"So, got any dirt on this place?" Magdelene asked the gold and black lizard sunning itself on a nearby rock.
The lizard, looking more like a beautifully crafted piece of jewelry than a living creature, merely flicked its inner eyelid closed and pretended to be asleep. Children with rocks or nets i
t had to do something about. Young women in donkey carts who asked stupid questions could safely be ignored.
Magdelene studied the little village nestled along the curve of its natural harbour and chewed reflectively on a strand of chestnut hair. It looked like a nice place, but as much as she wanted to settle down, as tired as she was of constantly packing up and moving on, she knew better than to get her hopes up.
In a dozen years of travelling, she'd learned that the most jewel-like villages, in the most bucolic settings, often had the quaintest customs. Customs like welcoming wandering wizards with an axe, or attempting to convince wandering wizards to stay by outfitting them with manacles and chains, or by suggesting the tarring and feathering of wandering wizards with no better reason than the small matter of a straying husband or two. For the most part, Magdelene had found these customs no more than a minor inconvenience, although had she known the man was married, she would never have suggested they...
She grinned at the memory. He'd proven a lot more flexible than she'd anticipated.
"Well, H'sak?" She spit out the hair and glanced back at the large mirror propped up behind the seat of the cart. "Shall we check it out?"
H'sak, trapped in the mirror, made no answer. Magdelene wasn't entirely certain the demon was aware of what went on outside his prison, but, travelling alone, she'd fallen into the habit of talking to him and figured, just in case he ever got out, it couldn't hurt if he had memories of pleasant, albeit one-sided, conversations. Not, she supposed, that a bit of chat would make up for her trapping him in the mirror in the first place.
Stretching back, she pulled an old cloak down over the glass – no point in upsetting potential neighbours right off – then gathered up the reins and slapped them lightly on the donkey's rump. The donkey, who'd worked out an understanding with the wizard early on, took another few mouthfuls of the coarse grass lining the track and slowly started down the hill to the village.