The Fire Rose em-1

by Mercedes Lackey

  "You will find these books a little more difficult than the ones I sent you in the past," he said, leaning forward so that his voice carried clearly down the tube. "They are mostly handwritten manuscripts, copies of books still older than they are."

  "I am quite accustomed to reading medieval script, Mr. Cameron," she replied briskly, taking the top book without hesitation and opening it. "I see you have not marked a passage. Am I to read the entire book?"

  "Precisely," he told her, with a touch of coolness. "You may begin now, in fact."

  He really didn't need to hear all of that particular book-but she needed to read it. Although the author was not credited, it happened to be Doctor John Dee, the ancestor of the Dee whose work had precipitated tonight's crisis, and there was a certain symmetry in beginning her real education in Magick with this book, intended for the instruction of his Apprentices. It was a symmetry that John Dee himself probably would have approved of.

  She read through it, unflinching, even when she encountered concepts as foreign to a well-bred young lady of this century as a fork was to an African Pigmy. Much of Dee's work was pure nonsense, of course; he often got results that were quite astonishing, and would correctly deduce the cause of some particular event but he would arrive at that cause by some of the wildest twists of illogic! For instance-the admonition that to rid a village of Plague one must first rid it of rats was, of course, correct-but the reason was absolute bunk. Dee's assertion was that both Plague and rats came under the auspices of the Moon, and thus the rats carried the Moon's influence indoors, where it otherwise could not penetrate!

  His notes on transformations were sound though, as far as they went. Dee had never actually attempted a transformation; he only related what he had learned from colleagues on the Continent. His tastes ran to the mystical, which certainly suited a Master of Air. The Sylphs were the least effectual of the Elements, and the most capricious. It didn't do to depend on them for much of anything, and they could not keep their attention on a task for more than an hour or two at most. They made tremendous messengers and information-gatherers, they could fetch something from anywhere in the world in the blink of an eye, but if their Master had an accident and sent them for help, chances were that without the Master's eye on them, they'd become distracted on the way and leave him to bleed to death.

  Not that they were harmless, any more than a tornado was harmless, or a hurricane. No would-be Master of Air ever made that particular mistake twice. Very few ever made it once and lived to tell about it. Such was the case with each of the Elements and its Elementals. They had their strengths and weaknesses-and all were deadly and dangerous.

  In the final section of his book, Dee described the first Ordealan Apprentice underwent in the process of becoming a Master of Air, and Cameron felt it would be instructive for Rose to read it. It should serve as a cautionary tale, as well. He waited expectantly when she closed the volume and put it aside. She reached for the next book, but did not open it immediately. From the expression on her face, he deduced that she was making up her mind whether to say something or not.

  She cleared her throat, self-consciously. "Clearly, some of that was flummery," she said.

  "A great deal, actually, but anyone with a rudimentary scientific education would recognize what is nonsensical," he replied, quietly.

  "But that final chapter-?" She let the sentence hang in the air, ending it on a note of query.

  "The final chapter is accurate, insofar as it describes the correct First Ordeal for an Apprentice seeking to become a Master of Air," he told her, as matter-of-factly as if he were confirming that the sun rose in the east. "The Ordeals for other Elements differ, of course. Each is determined by the Nature of the Elementals; the one thing they all have in common is that there is a cost to the acquisition of power. Nothing comes without a price."

  She did not answer that, but he had not expected her to. After a moment, she opened the second book, and began reading it aloud.

  When she finished, it was well past four, and he called a halt. Even if she was able to absorb the stress of the past evening without any overt problem, he had not been. As she finished reading, he cleared his throat. "That will be all for tonight, Miss Hawkins-"

  "You called me Rose, earlier," she interrupted.

  He recalled immediately, much to his chagrin, that she was right. "So I did. I apologize."

  "Don't," she replied, surprising him. "The use of Christian names or even nicknames to another has more than one interpretation. It can be the sign that one is far superior to the other, but it can also be the sign that they are equal, if the liberty is equal."

  He felt the corner of his mouth pull in an approximation of a smile at her cleverness. "Very well, then. I freely give you permission to call me Jason. I never had a nickname."

  "I frankly can't imagine anyone daring to give you one," she countered, the blue eyes behind the thick lenses of her glasses sparkling with a hint of mischief. "I have no objection whatsoever to you calling me 'Rose,' however. I never particularly identified with my namesake."

  "The character from Shakespeare?" he said, surprised. "But why ever not?"

  "Because I wasn't named for the character from Shakespeare, but the naughty wife from Die Fledermaus," she admitted, blushing. "My father's taste ran to music rather than theater."

  She startled him into a real laugh. "Now that I understand! We have done a good night's work, Rose; a great deal has been accomplished. Thank you, and good night."

  "Good night, Jason," she answered, setting the book aside and standing up, brushing her skirt as she did so. "May I say that, strange as this has been, I fervently hope that I do not wake in the morning to discover this has been a dream brought on by too many medieval manuscripts and too much imagination? Life will be so much more interesting if all this is real."

  "It is real enough, Rose," he told her image soberly, though too softly to be heard. "Real enough to be more nightmare than dream-which I pray you never discover."

  In the morning, Rose woke quite certain that she had dreamed all of the events of the previous evening. It was too fantastic to be believed, too ridiculous. A railway magnate with a double life as a wizard, with magic at his command that truly worked? Absurd. She laughed at herself even as she stretched and made ready to rise-

  Right up to the point where she drew aside the bed curtains and groped for her glasses, only to find them floating mere inches from her face, with a blurry globe of brightness hovering in the center of the room.

  She seized the spectacles and fumbled them on hastily, and the blurry form resolved itself into a Salamander. There was no mistake; it was exactly as she remembered, a lizard-like creature that glowed a brilliant, flame-colored yellow, with fiery blue eyes. She could not tell if it was the one from last night or not, since she didn't note any real differences.

  Then it spoke, and the voice was significantly different from the other; higher, breathier, like a small, shy child's. "What would you care to wear today, lady?" it asked. Its tone was deferential.

  She blinked at it, and said the first thing that came into her mind; the slight chill in the air reminded her that it was November, and she identified the first warm ensemble she recalled. "The brown wool plush suit and one of the ivory silk blouses," she told it. The Salamander began to spin, and the wardrobe doors opened.

  The suit lifted out, jacket and skirt together, looking uncannily as if it was alive. "This?" said the Salamander, as the suit turned for her examination.

  "Oh-yes," she replied, still feeling rather stunned.

  A bureau drawer opened, and one of the blouses rose from it, unfolding itself before her eyes. Even as she watched it, dumbfounded, the creases it had acquired from lying folded in the drawer smoothed out.

  "And this?" asked the Salamander politely. "Or another?"

  It was silk, it was ivory-the details of ornamentation hardly mattered at that moment. "I-yes, that will do nicely." She stared in wonder as the suit draped
itself over the back of a chair, the blouse followed, and the appropriate underskirts, petticoats, and underthings followed it. Without prompting, the Salamander extracted a pair of fine brown kid boots that matched the suit from the special rack holding shoes, and those skimmed across the floor to join the rest of the ensemble.

  "Will you have a bath?" it asked breathily. "Your breakfast is here already, if you would care to eat while I prepare the bath." "Please-" she said, still dazed. The Salamander, still spinning, floated off into the bath room.

  She groped for the dressing-gown she had left at the foot of the bed, slid her legs out from beneath the covers, and put it on. She made her way into the sitting room in her bare feet; there were already fires burning in the fireplaces, warming the air.

  Of course there are fires. This is a Salamander, a creature of fire. It would probably want a fire here.

  The usual tray was indeed waiting for her. She sat down, bemused and a bit dazzled, but not too bemused to eat. Long before she was finished, the Salamander, no longer spinning, floated in through the door.

  "Your bath is ready when you are, lady," it said. "Is there anything else?"

  "Not-not at the moment," she told it, hesitantly.

  "Only say what you need, and it will be here." The Salamander gave itself another spin, then vanished completely.

  She put her fork down, still staring at the place where it had been. At least now I know what has been in and out of my rooms, and how things appeared so silently. It could be worse, much worse. It could have been du Mond. The very idea was enough to make her lose her appetite.

  It also made her skin crawl, and the bath suddenly seemed very inviting.

  There were distinct advantages to this new situation. The Salamander had laid all her clothing out, perfectly; had drawn the bath while she idled at breakfast. She discovered another, when the creature appeared as soon as she stepped out of the bathtub. It warmed her towels before she touched them, then brought her garments, one at a time, into the bathroom without her having to ask. She felt rather like a French queen with a hundred attendants before she finished dressing-and for once she didn't have to do up her corset herself as an approximation. The Salamander tightened it snugly for her-not fashionably constricting, but not so loose that it was uncomfortable and unsupportive. Not for the first time, she wished she did not have to wear the silly thing-but she was not the kind of wild and rebellious woman who would shed her skirts and corsets for a vest and bloomers, and stride off to march in a suffragette parade. Perhaps she was a rebel in her own way, but she preferred to keep her rebellion to paper and academia.

  Sunshine outside beckoned, and she hurried down the stairs to see what her new change in status meant to the running of the household.

  The change wasn't immediately obvious, but as she walked around the gardens, she did see the occasional spinning globe of light moving along a hedge or over a flower-bed. Where they passed, order appeared in their wake. And when she reached Sunset's paddock, the handsome stallion was enjoying the ministrations of three of the creatures; one giving him a thorough brushing, one cleaning his hooves, and a third slowly combing out his tail. Or rather - one hovered above his back while a brush passed over his flanks, one spun around the vicinity of his knee while a hoofpick cleaned his upturned hoof, and one spun above his tail while a comb ran carefully through the long hair. He seemed perfectly at ease with them, which surprised her, as she would have thought that such strange apparitions would have sent the stallion into a fit of fear.

  But perhaps-if he came from a 'friend" of Jason's, perhaps that friend is also a Firemaster. Perhaps Sunset has always been handled by supernatural as well as human grooms, and they seem ordinary to him. Even so, he was remarkably steady with them; the little she knew of horses was that they were often restive even with human grooms.

  She took the remainder of her "stroll" at a very brisk pace, trying to cover as much ground as she could, to get the paths of the gardens firmly in her memory. Before long, she intended to have a mental map of every path on the grounds. A need to escape was still a possibility; Jason's cordiality last night had not changed her mind on that score. If anything, she regarded him as more dangerous, rather than less, no matter what she had told him. If she no longer needed to worry about interference from human servants in an escape, now she had to be concerned with the even more dangerous Salamanders. If she had to flee, she would have to get off the estate before they were sent to search for her, for she would never be able to escape them.

  That set her to wondering just what Jason' s accident had involved. Is he terribly burned, I wonder? That would make sense-the little I remember about Salamanders is that they were employed to smelt ores, fire up crucibles to incredible temperatures, and make fine steel by alchemists. Perhaps he had slipped, or somehow angered them, and they had burned him. But if that was true, would he still have such control over them now? I thought he said that his accident was because he attempted something foreign to his Magickal Nature. But I can't imagine that Sylphs or Gnomes could do much to him-and what kind of deformity could an Undine inflict?

  The question kept part of her mind occupied as the sun slowly sank and she hiked her way through Jason Cameron's extensive complex of gardens.

  For he had more than one. There was the Formal Garden, with its mathematically precise flower-beds and its carefully sculpted topiary trees in geometric shapes. This garden featured roses extensively, but also rhododendrons and other blooming shrubs. There was the requisite privet-hedge Maze, which she very quickly reasoned out to be a Fibonacci series and had solved the same afternoon she entered it. There was what she privately thought of as the Pleasure Garden, after the gardens mentioned in the poem "Kubla Khan" by Coleridge. This was a place of nooks and bowers, artificial grottoes and other places suitable for romantic tete-a-tetes, all planted around with bushes of fragrant leaves or flowering vines, all planned in such a way that each was invisible to the next or the one behind.

  There was a Water Garden, a series of ponds graced with waterfalls and fountains, planted with lilies and other water-loving plants, and stocked with enormous, gracefully-moving fish of gold, white, and black.

  A Kitchen Garden clearly supplied the estate with herbs and salads, and there was even a small orchard. But by far the largest part of the grounds had been sculpted into a clever imitation of a wild forest, complete with an artful "ruined tower," rustic swings, pretty little "forest huts" for shelter, and sculpted seats beneath the branches of some quite magnificent trees. A masterful hand had been at work here, keeping the best of the wilderness that had been here intact, leaving pockets of completely wild brush to preserve the illusion of absolute wild, while taming the rest so that it was inspiring rather than intimidating.

  Cameron had walls around the gardens, but they were decorative rather than functional. At the extreme of his property, he had a single wire strung as a token fence. It was not even barbed wire-he had no near neighbors, and there were supposedly no dangerous animals about, so all that this "fence" did was to define his property line. Once she got this far-if she had to flee-she could make her way down to the coastline and follow it to San Francisco, or follow the fence-line in the other direction to the rail-spur and follow it to the main line. It would be a long and grueling walk; it might well take two or even three days. But she had no doubt that she could make it, provided she could avoid pursuit.

  Perhaps it was foolish to think about a need to escape from this place-

  But it would have seemed ridiculous to think that Jason Cameron was a magician, two days ago, she reminded herself, as she made her way back to the mansion itself. I believe in the next day or so I will try to find where the rail-spur crosses the property line.

  And if nothing else, this was certainly ensuring that she got her exercise!

  "Do you try again this afternoon?" the Salamander asked, watching Cameron lay out the lines of a magickal diagram in specially enchanted chalk on the floor of his workroom. He
had stuck the chalk itself through a potato so that he could manipulate it, for otherwise his paws did not have fine enough control to hold something the size of a stick of chalk.

  "Yes," he replied in a grunt that betrayed his pain; his body was poorly suited to bending over, and the position was causing him more difficulty than usual. At the same time, he dared not take any narcotic for the pain; he could not afford to make a mistake in this diagram.

  "Are you certain this is a good idea?" the Salamander continued. "You have not found out anything new in what the girl has read to you."

  "Nevertheless-I think-I have-a new-insight," he grunted. Perusal of his notes this afternoon had given him a slightly different perspective into the spell-or rather, the counter-spell-that was supposed to have reversed his condition. He thought, perhaps, he might have deduced a piece that had been deliberately left out of the original manuscript. If he was right, he should be able to enact the altered spell and return to human form.