She finished boiling the water, then prepared two mugs of Kava out of habit. Rudolf snorted, then sat upright, looking around as if he wasn’t quite sure where he was. Emily winked at him, then used a spell to levitate the first mug over towards where he was sitting. Rudolf’s eyes went wide, then he took the drink and sipped it. She had to smile at his expression. It was rare for anyone to drink Kava in the mountains, according to Lady Barb.
“Thank you,” Rudolf said, doubtfully. “Didn’t she come back?”
Emily shook her head, more worried than she cared to admit. If Lady Barb had been killed...what should she do? What could she do? Part of her wanted to head out of the mountains and summon help, but the other part of her wanted to go after the older woman and avenge her death. If she were dead, that is…it was possible to hold a magician helpless, if you knew how to do it. Emily had been stripped of her magic once and found it disconcerting, even though she’d spent her first sixteen years without magic.
“Eat the rest of the stew,” she said, feeling a twinge of guilt. There was no way she could abandon Lady Barb, at least as long as she didn’t know the older woman was dead. “Then we need to go talk to the headman.”
The air was cold as they stepped out of the guesthouse and started to walk towards the center of town. Emily couldn’t help noticing that there were only a handful of people on the streets, glancing around as though they expected something nasty to be following them. They gave Emily and Rudolf a wide berth, making signs to ward off evil when they thought Emily wasn’t looking.
Do they think, she asked herself, that Lady Barb is responsible for stealing their children? Or are they just fearful of magicians?
She gritted her teeth as she walked past the guards and into the headman’s hut. This headman looked alarmingly like Imaiqah’s father, complete with the pleasant expression that masked a very sharp mind. His wife looked bigger, with a gleam in her eye that suggested she was just as cool and calculating as some of Zangaria’s noblewomen. An equal, Emily realized, feeling oddly relieved. This woman wouldn’t hesitate to tell her husband when he was making a mistake.
“Lady Sorceress,” the headman said. His gaze shifted to Rudolf. “And...?”
“A wandering minstrel, I,” Rudolf said, with practiced ease. “And sometimes a guide.”
Emily fought to keep her face expressionless. Minstrels were common in Zangaria – some of them were very good, some of them were so appallingly bad that she’d wanted to turn them into birds – but rather less common in the mountains. But they also wandered from place to place, bringing news and rumors. As covers went, she had to admit that it wasn’t a bad one. Like most noblemen, Rudolf had been taught how to sing.
The headman didn’t seem too pleased – and his wife looked worried. Emily remembered how Reginald had seduced a girl in the last village and realized that they thought that Rudolf would do the same. The thought made her smile. Rudolf wouldn’t be interested in any of the girls in the village, but would any of them think to chaperone him with the men?
“My mistress has not returned,” Emily said shortly, pushing the thought aside. There was no time for politeness. “Do you know where she went?”
“I took her to examine Tam’s house,” the headman said. His face showed nothing of his thoughts. “She found traces of magic and followed them into the forest. I didn’t go with her.”
Maybe that was a good thing, Emily told herself. If there was a necromancer, all the headman could have done was provide him with another power source. Anything Lady Barb couldn’t handle would be far too much for a mundane human. But she couldn’t help wishing that the headman had gone instead of her mentor.
“Right,” she said. “Do you know where she intended to go?”
“I believe she was following the magic,” the headman said. “I could sense nothing, myself.”
Emily scowled. He was mocking her, very politely. There would be no way to know where Lady Barb had been going...or if she hadn’t been lured into a trap. What sort of magician would leave a trail for someone to follow? It was unusually subtle for a necromancer, but it would bring a prospective power source right to him.
“I see,” she said. She’d have to retrace Lady Barb’s path, assuming that she could find it after a day and night for the tracks to be lost. “You can take me to the house in a moment.”
She scowled down at her hands. “Who is Mother Holly?”
The headman jerked in surprise. “Who told you about her?”
“Never you mind,” Emily said, trying to channel Lady Barb. “Who is she?”
It was the headman’s wife who answered. “She’s an old witch who lives in the next valley,” she said. “She likes her own company; sometimes, she will help someone who asks, or sometimes she will just banish him from her sight. No one goes there unless they are desperate.”
That matched with what Emily had been told earlier, she knew. “Do you think she might be behind the stolen children?”
The headman hesitated, noticeably. “It would be unlike her,” he admitted. “She never comes to town.”
Emily felt a moment of pity for the old witch. Powerful enough to use magic, but not strong enough to go to Whitehall...or perhaps she’d simply fallen through the cracks. There was a bounty on magic-using children, Lady Barb had told her, paid by whichever magical school collected the child. But Mother Holly had clearly been missed. Instead, she’d had to learn on her own – or from her predecessor – and live away from her former friends and family.
But they were looking for a magician...people from Whitehall tended to think and react one way, but would a hedge witch think differently? Maybe she didn’t know the limits, so she accidentally broke them...and, living alone for so long, she might be on the verge of madness in any case. And yet...if it was that simple to make necromancy work, it would have happened by now.
She shook her head. There was no proof, one way or the other.
“Take us to the house,” she ordered. She paused as a thought struck her. “Were any children taken last night?”
The headman and his wife exchanged glances before shaking their heads in unison.
Emily was torn between relief and fear; relief that no more children had vanished, fear that it meant the mystery necromancer had spent his time draining Lady Barb instead. Or her time, if it was Mother Holly.
She looked up at the headman, then at his wife. “What does Mother Holly do for people who visit her?”
The wife hesitated, then looked directly at Emily. “Some healing, some potions – she gave a girl in the village something to help her get pregnant – and not much else,” she said. “Most people won’t go into her valley unless they have no other options.”
Emily sighed and asked several more questions, but received nothing apart from vague and useless responses. No one knew much about Mother Holly, which suggested...what? Had someone done something to make them forget? Or were they simply unconcerned with an old and vulnerable woman? They didn’t know who in the town was related to her, just how old she was, or anything else that might be useful. Emily couldn’t help wondering if they really cared about their people. But then, a hedge witch might be too terrifying to face.
The headman led them to Tam’s house on the outskirts of town, a small house barely large enough for five people. Tam’s wife was pale and thin, Tam himself looked deeply worried and his parents looked fearful. The only person who showed no overt reaction was his younger sister, who might well have resented Tam’s wife for coming into their home.
Emily eyed her suspiciously for a long moment, then closed her eyes and concentrated on sensing magic. Apart from her own, thrumming around her like a living thing, there was a strange sense of darker magic in the house.
“Someone opened the door using magic,” she said without opening her eyes. Few homes had locks in the countryside – and even if they had, magic could open them with ease. She felt out the next traces, feeling them growing stronger as she looked for them. “They cast a spell first
, one to keep everyone asleep. Then they entered the house and took the child.”
Tam’s wife let out a gasp and fainted. Her husband caught her.
Emily opened her eyes and looked at them, seeing their fate written all over their faces. Life was cheap in the mountains and not all children lived to reach their first birthday, but they would never recover from losing their child to a necromancer. If it was a necromancer. There was something oddly dark about the traces of magic.
Emily closed her eyes again. “They went outside and headed into the forest,” she added, softly. “The trail leads there.”
“So we go after them,” Rudolf said. “Let’s go.”
Emily’s eyes snapped open. “You...”
She shook her head. “I’ll write out a letter for you,” she said, addressing the headman. There would be time to argue with Rudolf when there was no one else around. “If we don’t come back, send the letter on and others will come to help.”
She led the way back to the guesthouse, Rudolf shadowing her like a lost puppy. Once inside, Emily found a sheet of paper and scribbled out an update – and an explanation of what she intended to do. If she were killed too, at least the Allied Lands would know what had happened. They’d be able to send Void or another Lone Power to deal with the mystery necromancer.
“You shouldn’t come with me,” she said, once the letter was finished. “If you die, your father will be left without a successor.”
“The person who took the child might well be the same person who ensorcelled my father,” Rudolf pointed out. “I have a right to seek revenge.”
Emily sighed. The odds were he was right. Rudolf’s father had been pushed into marrying Rudolf to Lady Easter’s daughter – and children had gone missing from both lands. There was definitely a connection there. But she didn’t want Rudolf to risk his life.
“You could end up dead,” she pointed out, carefully. “Or ensorcelled yourself.”
Rudolf took a breath. “As heir, it was my duty to serve as justice,” he said. It took Emily a moment to realize that he’d effectively been the chief of police for his father’s lands. Alassa, in theory, had been the same in Zangaria, someone with enough power and position to hold firm against anyone. “This...person has been stealing children and butchering them, then casting spells on my father and his people.”
“This isn’t on your lands,” Emily said.
“I still have a duty,” Rudolf said, stubbornly. “And I will not leave you alone.”
Emily sighed, wondering if Rudolf was deliberately courting death. His life wouldn’t be easy, particularly not if he told his father the truth. Death due to a necromancer wouldn’t be suicide, at least not precisely, but it would end his problems. She sighed again, wondering just which god Rudolf worshipped. Some of them considered suicide a noble and rational act, if done in the service of the greater good.
“Fine,” she said, finally. “But you will do exactly what I say.”
Rudolf looked rebellious for a long moment, before nodding reluctantly.
Emily sealed up the letter, stamped it with a sigil that would keep it safe until it reached the Grandmaster, and hesitated. A thought occurred to her.
Bracing herself, she walked over to Lady Barb’s bag and cast the detection spell. Magicians almost always protected their possessions...and it would be the height of irony to be accidentally immobilized by Lady Barb’s defenses. But she found nothing, allowing her to probe through the bag. Rudolf watched in puzzlement as she dug through the various components until she found her pencil-sized staff. It tingled oddly as she picked it up and stuffed it into her pocket.
Lady Barb wouldn’t be pleased that she’d taken it, Emily knew. She’d have to explain afterwards – and try to avoid using it, if at all possible. But it might prove an advantage if she did encounter someone she had to fight. She briefly considered giving it to Rudolf to carry, but dismissed the thought. If she needed it, she’d need it very quickly.
Rudolf leaned forward. “What’s that?”
“Something,” Emily said, evasively. She stuffed Lady Barb’s clothes back into the bag, then closed it up. “Let’s go.”
She wrote out another note – for Lady Barb, just in case she returned – and then led Rudolf back out of the guesthouse. The headman was chatting with a pair of older men, but they retreated the moment they saw Emily. Emily sighed, then passed the headman the letter. He took it and wished them luck.
Emily walked back to Tam’s house and did her best to track the traces of magic. They led into the forest, a trail that almost any magician could follow. Emily felt a chill run down her spine as she led the way into the forest, wondering if it could be any more of an obvious trap. But the magic traces faded into nothingness the further they walked into the forest...
“Odd,” she muttered. “The trail just came to an end.”
She looked around. They were in the midst of the forest, with no trace of any hiding place, let alone a building. She looked up, half-expecting to see a treehouse, but saw nothing.
It puzzled her. Had the magician finally realized that he or she was leaving a trail and stopped bleeding magic? But how had they survived for so long without realizing what they were doing wrong? Bleeding magic could be very dangerous.
Rudolf looked around, his hand on his belt dagger, but otherwise stayed very still.
Emily cast a detection spell, but found nothing. There was no magic here, save for the constant hum of background magic, stronger – as always – away from civilization. But there wasn’t enough to hide anything. She tried to spot a trail she could follow, yet Lady Barb hadn’t left any footprints for her.
They’d come to a dead end.
“It rained last night,” Rudolf said. “Any tracks will have been thoroughly buried.”
“Maybe,” Emily said. She hesitated. Another idea occurred to her, but she couldn’t help wondering just how Rudolf would react to it. And yet...there was no choice. “Can you promise me something?”
Rudolf gave her a puzzled look. “It depends,” he said. “What do you want me to promise?”
Emily cursed under her breath. Honor, no matter how twisted, wasn’t a joke to the aristocracy. Most of them would keep their word, although that wouldn’t stop them searching for loopholes.
“I need to show you something,” she said. What good was a secret weapon if everyone knew about it? “I just need your word you won’t tell anyone.”
Rudolf still looked puzzled – she wondered what was going through his mind – but nodded.
Emily pulled the bracelet from her arm, placed it on the ground and released the spell. Rudolf let out a yelp and jumped back as the Death Viper reappeared. Emily had a sudden series of jarring impressions, starting with the sense of Rudolf being good enough to eat, that had to come from the snake. But, moments later, she managed to push the snake into sensing Lady Barb’s scent. It had smelled her back when Lady Barb had suggested turning it into a bracelet.
“Just like a hunting dog,” she said, reassuringly.
The snake slithered off, then paused, waiting for them to follow.
Emily started to walk down the path, motioning Rudolf on with a wave of her hand. His face was very pale. But then, only an idiot wouldn’t be scared of a Death Viper. “Come on.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
RUDOLF STAYED WELL BACK OF THE snake as it led them first through the forest, then up a winding path that led out of the valley. Emily couldn’t really blame him for wanting to keep his distance from the Death Viper, knowing just how fast the tiny snake could move. As a child, she’d been deathly scared of cockroaches, even though they were mostly harmless. A Death Viper was very far from harmless, even to a strong young man.
She glanced over at the castle, then looked down into the next valley...and stopped dead. For a long moment, it was hard to comprehend what she was actually seeing. There was a humanoid skeleton lying on the ground, half buried in the mud, but it was many times the size of a normal human
. Emily wasn’t good at estimating distances, yet she was sure that it was over fifty feet long
“The White Giant,” Rudolf said. He kept a wary eye on the snake as he paused beside her. “Legend has it that he turned on his own people in defense of human villagers, all for the love of a girl. But no one knows the truth.”
Emily had her doubts. The giant was colossal – and she found it hard to imagine how such an interracial romance could ever be practical. But she had to admit it was a nice story. The giants might have been created by the Faerie as yet another terror weapon, then released to seek food and drink in the mountains. Given their size, she suspected that they had needed enormous amounts of food just to live from day to day.
But they weren’t that intimidating. Sergeant Miles had told his class that giants were very rare, yet magic or determination could take one down very quickly. They had the same vulnerabilities as a human, only magnified. Breaking their kneecaps was even more effective than doing it to a normal-sized human, if only because gravity dragged them to the ground hard enough to make the damage worse.
On the other hand, Emily thought, would someone seeing a giant have time to realize how to take one down?
Unlike the previous valley, there were only a handful of massive trees looming over the remains of the long-dead giant. Instead, there were smaller bushes and plants that seemed to be laid out in a complex pattern. It reminded Emily of some of the plantations near Dragon’s Den, where alchemical ingredients were produced for Whitehall and the local alchemists. Someone had clearly created a plantation of her own...whatever else she was, Mother Holly was clearly a capable brewer. But how much training did she actually have?
Emily stared at the skeleton for a long moment before following the snake down the rocky path. She heard a stream in the distance, but she couldn’t see the water, no matter how hard she looked. The snake projected impressions of wariness at her as the scent from the plants grew stronger, making her head swim. Emily gritted her teeth, cursed her oversight and cast a spell intended to filter out the scent. The dancing poppies ahead of her, blowing in the wind, were a prime ingredient in sleeping potions. Breathing in too much would be enough to send them into a coma.
Work Experience (Schooled in Magic Book 4) Page 32