by Unknown
“Some wine would taste lovely. Thank you.”
He called for a servant. Therese partially angled her back to him and studied the mantel more closely. At least two dozen globes were displayed there, each holding an animal prisoner. A lion raged against the glass, deer cowered behind it, rabbits tried to burrow. A buckskin stallion lashed out with its hooves, again and again and again.
And at the far end, its eyes upon her, coiled a tan and speckled snake.
“You like my collection, eh?” Yves said beside her ear.
Therese jumped. She hadn’t heard him approach. “Impressive work,” she managed. “You’d swear they were alive.”
“Yes.” He nodded, smiling. “Quite astounding.” The grumpy fellow from the door reappeared, this time carrying a tray that held a bottle and two glasses. Yves dismissed him with a wave and poured the wine himself. “It’s a unique array,” he went on. “There’s no other like it anywhere.”
Therese was careful to keep her voice steady. “Aren’t you worried so much magic might attract attention?”
“Don’t be such a worry-willy, Therese. We’re perfectly safe here, from anything or anyone.”
And why might he believe that, she wondered. Unless that barn outside housed a private army. Or unless …
He sipped his wine. Therese sniffed hers. It smelled of frost and apples. She allowed herself a dainty sip. So cool and crisp, like an orchard distilled. She wished she had the leisure to indulge. In another time, another place ... but that time had come and gone.
“So,” Yves said, brisk as the wine. “What brings you to my home? I doubt you would have come all this way just to pay a social call.”
“You’re right.” Therese let her gaze travel the room again. She held her glass in one hand; her other hand she held in a fist at her side. “Three years ... we’ve all lost touch. I don’t even know who’s out there any more, how many of us are left. Yours is the only name I’ve heard in recent times.” She strolled around her portion of the room, inspecting the rugs, the furnishings. Careful not to lose sight of him. Maneuvering herself ever closer to the mantel. “Rumor says you’ve sought out others. Maybe even organized some kind of retaliation against LeKestra.”
He smiled, like some indulgent older brother. “And you’ve come to sign on? Offer us what help you can, with your little herbs and powders?
“I was never much of a joiner. You know that.” She refused to let his nettles sting her. He’d been an arrogant oaf before, and not even disaster had changed him. But he was still a mage. A lord of conjure. She spoke the truth when she told him, “I think I just needed to speak with one of my own kind. Maybe even be reassured we weren’t all destroyed.”
“Dear Therese.” He oozed to her side. She tried not to stiffen when his arm briefly went around her. She realized she found Philemon’s serpentine touch more acceptable. “So brave, to travel all this way. I wish I had better news to tell you.”
Her clenched hand tightened. “Is no one left? No one at all with the power to face LeKestra?”
“Oh, there’s a few. Those like yourself, weak and limited in power. But as for lords of conjure ... no. Those who weren’t killed in LeKestra’s cleansing scattered into the countryside. Went into hiding, as you did. But you know how it is ... or perhaps you don’t, being only a witch. For those of us who’ve tasted power, being bested by some upstart human was too bitter a blow to the ego.”
And there it lay, the answer that she didn’t want to accept. In his arrogant stance, in the casual dismissal in his voice. Of course Yves would do whatever it took to maintain his accustomed position. “One by one,” he went on, “the surviving mages returned to their territories, with the purpose of uniting their forces against the common threat.”
“Where they were murdered, one by one.” Her blood had chilled to ice. “By you.”
He arched a brow. “You catch on quickly. I thought I was going to have to spell out everything.”
“There were times”—usually in the cold, short hours after moonset, when she woke in a sweat with a scream in her lungs—”when I wondered how LeKestra’s army knew so well how to thwart our magic. Who had armed and instructed them. Who sent them directly to the most powerful lords of conjure. Your friends and equals.”
“Friends and equals? You’re joking. A lord of conjure has neither. A few upstarts with a little talent. They got on my nerves. LeKestra would have struck at us anyway, sooner or later. He’s that kind of fanatic. Why shouldn’t I position myself to land on the winning side?”
And destroy all your rivals in the process. Along with the rest of us, and our lives. And anyone else in your way. “Then the rumor of a resistance movement was just another ruse. To lure the survivors here, where you could deal with them.”
Yves chuckled. “Knowledge, or guess?”
A guess, but his ugly smirk answered her. She held her clenched hand tight against her side. “That explains why this home is so exposed. It wasn’t built for defense. You don’t need to guard against LeKestra. You’re watching this side of the passes, for your master.”
Yves stiffened. “Partner,” he grated. “A lord of conjure has no masters.”
“Or rivals, or peers,” Therese finished. “Not now.” She waved her glass of wine at the mantel, and the globes of trapped animals there. “And what about them? Did LeKestra order this too? Or did you just grow bored?”
“Oh, them.” He tugged the wrinkles out of his arrogance until it set smoothly again. “Lovely bit of handiwork, aren’t they? Proofs of loyalty from would-be allies. All gone now, alas. We mages do tend to bicker.” A careless shrug. “I convinced LeKestra an army of shapechangers would be invincible. More than enough to deal with whatever few mages remained.”
“Was this before or after you had their spirits stolen?”
“I’m not as big an idiot as most of our kind, Therese. These are insurance. The shapechangers will fight for LeKestra—and will leave me alone—as long as I hold their kin. Consider them ... I favor the term ‘goodwill hostages.’“
“It’s killing them.”
He shrugged again. “The casualties of war.”
“They were never a threat to us. Certainly not to you.”
“How little you understand. A man of power is at war with everything that lives. LeKestra knows this. So do I. You, on the other hand, have yet to learn the importance of choosing the right side.”
At some invisible cue from Yves, two burly guards entered, hauling the struggling Philemon between them. A steady hiss blasted from him, to the clear distress of his captors.
Yves frowned. “Where’s the other one?”
“He eluded us, Lord.” The guard looked chagrinned. “He, um, he bit me. On the shin.”
Good for you, Marchand. Therese set down her wineglass and stood very still.
Yves dismissed this news with a careless wave. “Leave him for now. He’s no threat. He doesn’t even have any magic. Nor does this one, any more.” He turned from Philemon and stepped up to Therese, peering down at her as one would at a child. “Was this your plan of attack? If so, it’s as sorry as your magics. You should learn to come better prepared.”
“I have,” she said, and raised her arm. She unclenched her hand, revealing the blinding powder, and blew it into his face.
Yves fell back with a startled howl, clawing at his eyes. Therese was already reaching into her robe. The toadstool caps she hurled at the guards had been dried and soaked in blackroot. They shattered at the guards’ feet, belching sour smoke and a rank odor that seared both eyes and lungs. Through its screen she heard their choked, rough curses. She hoped Philemon had had warning enough to shut his eyes and mouth.
That would hold them, if only for a few precious seconds. Time enough?
She and Philemon had discussed this in the woods before Therese, both attack and diversion, went up to the fortress alone. Find the globe and smash it, he’d urged her. The snake will return to me. Or so they hoped.
She could see the snake now, its length pooled in the bottom of the globe, watching her. All the imprisoned animals were watching her. There had to be a way to help them.
Philemon first. She snatched the globe from the mantel. The glass was thick, heavier than she’d expected. Like the stone of the hearth. She smashed the ball against the fireplace. A tiny crack appeared. Another strike. The crack widened. The snake flung its coils against the crack, assaulting the glass from within.
Muttered words, a muttered spell. Yves, clearing his eyes. Therese slammed the globe against the stone with all her might.
The glass ball split in her hands like an egg. The tawny snake poured free, dissolving to mist as it left the globe. The mist shot arrow-straight toward Philemon.
Almost at once the curses of the guards changed timbre. Shriller. Frightened. As the blackroot smoke dispersed she saw they now had their hands full of eight feet of writhing, biting snake. The speckled python clamped its coils around the arm of one and sank its teeth into the neck of the other. Howling in panic, the guards heaved and yanked and finally got the python off them. They flung it away and reeled for the door without so much as a glance at their lord. The snake slithered into the shadows.
How many guards did Yves employ? Therese reached for a poker.
A bolt of cold electric fire blasted beside her, close enough that sparks from the impact singed tiny holes in her robe. Yves had recovered faster than she wanted. His hands glowed with dark power. The gems in his rings, she thought. They could focus and amplify his personal energy into a potent weapon. His eyes, however, were peering at a spot three feet to her left. “Damned witch,” he ground out, blinking heavily. “I’m going to roast you for that.”
Inspiration struck. Carefully, so the movement wouldn’t draw his attention, she leaned toward the mantel and rose on her toes. “The great Yves, bested by a cottage witch.” Her voice came out at roughly the height of the mantel, and the globes that lined it. “Lord of conjure? More like the lord of charlatans, I think.”
He roared wordlessly and blasted his full might toward the sound of her mockery. She dropped down and away, but the edge of the charge still caught her, struck her down and sent her skidding across the floor, every nerve-end in her body raw and shrieking for mercy. She bit her lip until blood flowed, choking back a vocal scream, riding out the pain.
The fireplace took the full brunt of his blast. The mantel shattered with a shriek of its own, and so did the bulk of the globes. The rest cracked upon hitting the floor. Therese forced herself to keep count of them. Not one remained intact.
In a rush of curling mist, the shapechanger spirits shot free.
It looked like a rainbow haze at first, but outlines of semi-sold forms took shape within the fog. Therese made out a bear, a lion, a rearing stallion, an eagle, a pair of deer. The mist-beasts swirled together for a moment, as if conferring, then speared straight at Yves.
Only spirits, but spirits have power. Especially furious spirits. They tore at him, solid for seconds then dissolving again, and each one left a mark. Scratches appeared on Yves’ face, left by a lion’s claws. The bear gouged its teeth into his neck. He began a spell, then lost it when the stallion kicked his jaw. Even the deer struck, with their small razor hooves, and the rabbits gnawed at his hands.
Atop it all, Therese caught a frantic shout from the corridor. “Help! The barn! The barn’s on fire!”
Therese smiled thinly. Marchand, making his presence felt. She tried to rise, in spite of her seared and jangled nerves, and got as far as her elbows.
Something brushed her cheek. Gold mist floated past her eyes, and took on the shape of a rabbit. It wriggled its nose at her and vanished. The stallion nuzzled her. The eagle’s wings stirred her hair. The lion licked her nose. Each soul-beast touched her before moving on to reunite with its body. Each touch restored a measure of her strength.
Still physically shaky but no longer depleted, Therese managed to sit up. Yves was still on his feet, though perhaps not for long. Blood oozed from dozens of tiny spirit-inflicted wounds. The air stank with it, and the charred scent of leaking magic. She peered at the dark beyond Yves. No sign of Philemon.
“The barn is afire,” Therese informed Yves. “Perhaps your servants will fight it. I suspect they’ll save themselves. If so, it will soon spread to the house. We have to leave. You’re finished here.”
“Not quite.” He bared his teeth at her. His eyes were raw and red. “You’ve still got some magic in you. Magic I can use.”
He snapped a word, and Therese found herself caught in a nimbus net. She thrust with knees and elbows, but the spell only tightened around her. Yves tottered to a halt in front of her. “Your blood to replenish mine. Maybe I’ll stick your soul in a glass, to punish you for—”
The threat ended on an oomph as Philemon dropped upon him from the rafters. Quick as thought, the python’s coils pinned Yves’ arms and slid around his neck and mouth. No hands, no voice, no gestures, no words, no magic. No air, as Philemon began to crush his windpipe.
Yves thrashed, but the snake was relentless. He turned desperate, beseeching eyes to Therese. Help me, his stare begged. We are mages. We are of a kind.
Therese touched the nimbus. The net crumbled, its power ebbing with the life of its caster. She shook her head. “I am not that great of a fool,” she said, and wrenched her eyes away from Yves, and Philemon’s revenge.
♦ ♦ ♦
“We have to destroy this place,” Therese said.
Philemon, in human form again, tipped his head toward the thumps and clatters upstairs, where Marchand was gleefully looting. “He won’t like it.”
“I don’t care what he likes. We can’t carry off everything, and we don’t dare leave anything behind. LeKestra’s men, or someone else—”
“No, I agree. I’ll be happy to set the fire, if you can’t.”
“I’ll do it,” she said. “Marchand! Let’s go.”
The trader appeared at the top of the stairs, dragging a bulging sack as large as himself. “But I’ve barely got started. There’s enough goods here to—”
“We’re leaving, Marchand, and we’re torching the place. Take what you’ve got and let’s go.”
“You’re a hard one, Therese,” Marchand complained. He hauled his sack down the steps. At the bottom he thrust it at Philemon. “Here, you’re young and strapping. Make yourself useful. I’ll fetch the carriage.”
Therese blinked. “We have a carriage?”
“Of course. I drove off the horses when I fired the barn, but first I hitched a pair to a carriage. It’s tied in the woods, out of sight of the house. Y’think I’d haul this much loot on my back? We’re going home in style.”
So they did, with Marchand handling the reins and Therese and Philemon riding inside, opposite Marchand’s sack of pilfered trade goods, the inferno that had been Yves’ fortress lighting the way. Both mage and shapechanger leaned out the windows to watch the flames leap at the sky.
“It makes an impressive sight, don’t you think?” Philemon observed.
“Yes,” Therese said, heavy-hearted. “LeKestra’s sure to hear of it.”
“LeKestra’s going to have a plateful.” Philemon’s eyes slitted. “It won’t take long for the ‘hostages’ to recover. For us, word travels on wings. This barbarity of his will unite the shapechangers.” He flashed a glance at her. “And the conjurers as well?”
Therese considered long before she answered. “I don’t know. We’re an individualistic lot. But maybe at last we’ve had enough. There may be some who’ll join you. Marchand knows where they are. He’ll carry word.”
“And you, Therese? Will you stand with us?”
She considered longer still. How long had she awaited and dreaded this moment, the chance to make a difference. “I’m not much of a fighter ... but I’ll do what I can.”
Philemon chuckled. “You’re a better fighter than you think. And more dangerous than you know.”
Behind them
, the roof of Yves’ stronghold fell in. Therese shuddered at the distant crash. Philemon covered her hands with his. She didn’t pull away.
♦ ♦ ♦
They parted ways just outside Therese’s tiny village. Marchand headed west, in search of profits and any mage receptive to the call to arms. He drove off in the carriage, whistling loudly and, every now and again, on key.
“I have to go home,” Philemon said, “help organize my people. But before I go, I found a gift for you.” From his pocket he drew out a golden-brown snake, about the length of his forearm.
“I’ve named her Amber,” he said. “Go on, take her. She’s harmless. No venom. A constrictor, like me. She’ll help you with that mouse problem of yours.”
“I couldn’t.” Yet here was her arm, stretching out, and here was her hand, falling open. The golden snake flowed from Philemon’s arm to hers. Her skin was soft and supple as fine leather, actually pleasing to the touch. She made herself at home on Therese’s arm, her little tongue flicking in and out, tasting her new friend’s scent.
Tentatively, Therese touched her body. Not a bit slimy at all.
“It’s small enough repayment, for what you’ve given me. And maybe, by the time I come back, you’ll have a better opinion of snakes.” He squeezed her shoulder, gently, briefly. “The shapechangers are in your debt, Therese. My people won’t forget.”
She touched his hand. “Be well, Philemon. Safe journey.”
He took his hand away, and changed. The sandy python pressed against her legs, then slithered into the grass. In a blink he was gone.
Therese also blinked, quite rapidly, until Amber’s movement on her arm distracted her. Relaxed by the warmth of Therese’s skin, the little snake coiled loosely around her forearm like a breathing bracelet. Her topaz eyes gazed up at Therese, lazy and content.
Therese sighed mightily. “I am a fool,” she said, not for the first time, and went home to prepare for war.
Copyright © 2009 by P.E. Cunningham