The Fire Rose em-1

by Mercedes Lackey

  She held out her hand by way of sealing the bargain. He looked at it dubiously for a moment.

  "I do not understand you," he said at last. "But if you are going to throw yourself into the breach this way, I would be an idiot to refuse to accept. You are old enough to be aware of the consequences and to live with them if need be." He hardly sounded gracious, but she didn't care. He also did not offer her his hand, but she did not press him for it. In his position, I would be shy of offering a lady my paw, too.

  "Fine. We're agreed." She looked him over carefully, finding it easier now than it had been a few minutes ago. Perhaps she was getting used to the way he looked. "Well, logic suggests that you should be in bed, but I have no notion of how to get you there. Frankly, I do not believe I have the strength to carry you further."

  Put him to bed! No proper lady would have spoken so boldly. She was truly changing. If I continue to think of him as a naughty little boy, I believe I can say these things without blushing.

  "The Salamanders will help me," he said, with indifference. "Just at the moment, your assistance really isn't needed."

  She glanced at the Salamander for confirmation, and it nodded, as if it understood what she wanted.

  "Very well then," she replied, standing up and brushing off herskirt. "I will leave you to make your recovery. Master Pao directs you to drink his tea whenever you are in pain or fatigued, but no more than six cups a day."

  His lips writhed in distaste. "I am not likely to endure that devil's brew more than twice a day! Be off with you, if you're so concerned that I get some rest."

  She suppressed the urge to say something quelling, and simply nodded. She gathered up her package with the remaining packets of herbs in it, and turned, walking out the door of the bedroom into the hall.

  He did not thank her, but she didn't expect him to.

  Cameron watched Rose leave, seething with a mixture of positive and negative emotions. He supposed he should be grateful to her, but he didn't feel grateful, and he wasn't about to feign an emotion he didn't feel. He was angry, though not at her, and frustrated, though not with her. He was mortified that it should have been she who rescued him. He was relieved that the masquerade was at last over, and utterly astonished that she had reacted as well as she had.

  His predominate emotion just at the moment, however, was disappointed exhaustion. All that work, and to have failed again! Perhaps Rose-and Master Pao-were right. Perhaps he should give over taking those pain-killers.

  He listened as her footsteps receded, then heard the door at the end of the hall open and close again. "Don't bother to lock it," he told the Salamander wearily. "Now that I've given that damned interfering woman permission to 'help' me, if she finds the door locked against her, she'll probably batter it down."

  The Salamander did not reply, but he sensed that it disapproved of his attitude. Well, let it!

  The tea that Pao had so cleverly gotten to him seemed to be helping, at least. The aches in his malformed joints had subsided, and his energy was trickling back sooner than he would have expected. He sat up, experimentally, and found that his head was no longer swimming with every movement.

  At least I can get back into my own bed by myself. The one thing that the Salamanders could not do despite his assurances to Rose-was to touch living flesh without burning it. Only in the Conjured form called a "Firemare" could they actually, physically, touch and be touched. And they could not levitate more than-say-the weight of a fully-laden suitcase.

  But I would crawl to my bed rather than have her assist me there!

  It had grated on him, deeply, to find himself in the position of being unable to help himself. And then to have her appear and retrieve him from the results of his own folly-a subordinate, an employee, a woman-oh, it was ignominious! He gnashed his teeth as he extracted himself from the embrace of his chair, stopping often to pant with exertion.

  To have du Mond discover me in such a case would be bad enough-but her! Why, two months ago she did not even believe in the power of Magick, and now she gives me lectures about how to conduct myself! The cheek! I, who rescued her from abject poverty, from that hovel of a boarding-house, from ruin! And she sits on my footstool, in my private chambers, in my home and dares to tell me that she will dose me like a sick puppy if I do not voluntarily take some vile potion that quack Pao has made up!

  Still, his conscience whispered, she was right, and so was Pao. The opiates were affecting his judgment; he would not have attempted tonight's exercise if they had not been affecting his reason. And Pao's potion, vile as it was, had certainly revived him....

  But that was not the point!

  He clung to the back of the chair for a moment, then got a hand on the wall behind it. Using the wall as a prop, he worked his way over to the bed, still stopping at frequent intervals to rest. The bed had never looked so inviting; the covers were turned down, and all he needed to do was to fall into it once he finally reached it. He untied the belt holding his velvet Working robe to his body, writhed out of it, and dropped the long robe halfway along the wall for the Salamanders to pick up later. He could have trousers and shirt off in a trice, and today he had been in too much of a hurry to bother with anything else.

  Working that damned tail through the Tight places in the seats of my clothing takes twice as long as everything else. Thank heavens this is no clime for long underwear!

  It was with a groan of relief that he reached the bed, and lunged for it, landing half in it and half out of it.

  No matter; that was close enough. He rolled himself onto the mattress, and with a growl of frustration, clawed the clothing from his body, ripping seams and popping buttons as he did so. It was not the first time he had done such a thing, and it would probably not be the last. The Salamanders could see it was mended, or he could buy new. He certainly didn't lack for the means to do so. Though everything else was falling down about his ears, his finances were prospering, especially with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in the offing.

  Naked now, he scrabbled the covers up over himself, and lay with his eyes closed. His head spun, but fortunately not in a way that made him sick to his stomach.

  "Why don't you make me another dose of Pao's damned medicine?" he said, knowing he would be obeyed by the Salamander still waiting for orders. "You watched her do it, didn't you?"

  "I did," the Salamander replied. He heard the dry ticking of bits of herb falling into the cup, then water pouring.

  "I suppose you went and got her, didn't you?" he asked the Salamander.

  "It is my duty to serve you," it replied calmly. "That was the best way to serve you at the time."

  Trust the thing to tell him that!

  "You have trusted her with everything else," the creature continued, and once again, he heard water trickling. "Why not this? She is worthy of trust. And she was not revolted by your appearance."

  "Oh, she was revolted; she is just good at putting the proper face on things. She'd have to be; she grew up going to academic parties. If there was ever a hotbed of machination and deception, it is a sherry-reception given by a Noted Professor. I had rather swim with crocodiles; at least my reputation would survive." He opened his eyes as he felt the warmth of the Salamander near him, and saw the cup floating within grasping distance. He was pleased that his hand did not shake quite so much this time as he reached for it.

  The medicine was just as appalling the second time, which probably meant that the Salamander had gotten it right.

  For the first time since I was changed, I had a woman in my room-and I couldn't even touch her. His body's needs hadn't changed, and they reminded him urgently that Rose Hawkins was a most attractive, if annoying, woman. What woman could look on me as I am and not be revolted? I could not pay a courtesan enough to serve me. Even the lowest, vilest woman in the meanest crib in the Barbary Coast would refuse to serve me. Good God, kissing me would be like kissing an Alsatian! And as for lovemaking- He winced away from the thought. No healthy, s
ane woman would find him anything other than repugnant.

  Although he did look mostly human from about the nipples to the knees.

  Except for the tail, of course ... but no one would ever look farther than his face and his hands.

  The fur of his head and neck thinned and vanished altogether once it reached the middle of his chest, although his skin was paler now than it had been before. The fur did not resume until about the middle of the thigh, until it was a wolf's pelt again from the knee downward. He could not wear shoes anymore; his feet were more paw-like than his hands; he wore soft moccasins and slippers when he wore anything on his feet. The one place his torso was not bare was a ridge of hair that ran down his spine to the tail which had sprouted just above his buttocks.

  A charming sight, that. Sure to inspire passion in any red-blooded woman. Sure to inspire her to think of her pet spaniel, of course.

  And of course, Rose had treated him exactly as any normal woman would, provided that woman had the ability to take what he had become in with a measure of composure. She had treated him like a puppy.

  At least she didn't scratch my ears and tell me to be a good boy. He put the empty cup down, and curled up on his side. Not surprisingly, the "curled" position was more comfortable and felt more natural than lying on his back.

  That damned tail again.

  The Salamander was mercifully quiet. "Put out the lights," he ordered, and the light visible through his closed eyelids vanished.

  That led to another thought-the behavior of the Salamander, in fetching Rose, presumably the moment she had reached her rooms. What had gotten into the creature? It wasn't supposed to act on its own initiative!

  At least, he had never come across any references to Elementals that did. But then again, his relationship with his Elementals was not coercive in nature; perhaps they had never acted on their own initiative with other Masters because those coercions prevented such actions.

  But why had the Salamander brought Rose? Why not du Mond?

  They don't like du Mond, not any of them, but that isn't the answer. One of their primary functions is to guard me from danger. Could they see A Mond as a danger now? That was always possible; this particular Salamander had been warning him away from du Mond for some time now.

  But again: why bring Rose here? Why not do the simple things they could do? They could have left him where he was, brought blankets and restoratives to help him regain his strength. Why bring Rose in at all?

  The door below him opened and closed again, and he heard du Mond's steps coming up the stairs. The one good thing about this change was the alteration in his hearing ability: it had quadrupled. Not a pin dropped in this house without him knowing.

  The man was whistling softly to himself, evidently, something had put him in a very good humor. Well, since I permit it, he can command the Salamanders to hitch up the horses to take him in the carriage as far as Pacifica; perhaps that is the reason. It makes him feel like a Master.

  But if the Salamanders thought du Mond might be a hazard to him, he did not want du Mond to know of his weakness. I can handle him when I am fit-but I do not want him to think he has the upper hand because I am incapacitated.

  The man paused on the landing, then tried the door to the suite. Finding it unlocked, he ventured inside, naturally. "Jason?" he called. "Is something wrong? The door is unlocked."

  "What is that?" Cameron growled loudly, knowing that his voice would carry down the hall. "Paul, go to bed. I'm going over my books, what can you possibly want now?"

  "Nothing-well, except to tell you that you really ought to have the Inn at Pacifica send some hampers up here. They have a new cook, a man from New Orleans, that does wonders with fowl." That was so trivial an excuse to bother Cameron that he at once suspected that du Mond sensed something was wrong and was trying to snoop.

  "Fine. Start an account down there, and see to it," he replied, trying to sound as irritated as possible. "And if you won't go to bed, go find something useful to do."

  "He's sniffing the air, trying to detect incense or burning herbs," the Salamander said calmly. "He must suspect that you attempted a Working without him."

  Now how had the fool gotten so clever and observant, suddenly? And why couldn't he have done so when cleverness would have done Cameron some good?

  Well, he won't find anything. The Working tonight required balsam and pine gum. He won't detect anything that a good fire in the fireplace wouldn't put out, His lips twisted in satisfaction.

  "I'm trying to concentrate, du Mond, and I would prefer you weren't interrupting me. If you have anything else, keep it until tomorrow," he called, allowing his irritation to show in his voice.

  "All right, Jason." Finally the footsteps receded and continued up the stairs.

  "He's muttering something under his breath about opium, and he seems to think it is serious," the Salamander reported, evidently getting the information from one of the others of his kind that was keeping watch over the Apprentice. Interesting. So they were keeping a guard of their own on him. That meant they did consider him a hazard.

  He must think I'm dosing myself too much.... He suffered a momentary pang of guilt, for that was exactly what Rose and Master Pao had said. If even du Mond was of that opinion, then he must have allowed pride to take him too near the edge again.

  Oh, damn them all, every one of them! He was perfectly capable of assessing his own needs! He didn't need them to tell him what to do!

  "Now he's talking to himself." That was a habit du Mond never had broken, despite the fact that it posed a danger of being overheard by Sylphs or Salamanders. "It's about Rose. He does not like her. And yet he would like to have her to himself. He has plans for her that do not sound as if she would like them."

  Cameron was well aware of what du Mond got up to when he visited the city, and his irritation turned to anger. "I can well imagine," he muttered. The man could have been the internal reflection of Cameron's exterior; he was a beast in spirit as Cameron was in body.

  That cad. I should have had him horsewhipped out of here when I first found out about his hobby. I thought it didn't matter, after all, many Masters had little peccadilloes when they were Apprentices that they outgrew once they learned discipline. But he's not simply flawed, he's warped. He's another like that charlatan, Crowley. He's a malicious, filthy-minded, self-indulgent blackguard, and he thinks he has the right to besmirch any woman he comes across with his foul paws! And now he thinks he can take advantage of Rose because I am confined to these four walls!

  Once again, his anger rose until his vision was red-tinged, filling him with such rage that if du Mond had been in the same room, he would have found the strength to rise from his bed and rip his throat out. Fortunately at the moment he did not have the physical resources to do anything.

  He forced himself to simply be still until his anger wore itself out. Logic asserted itself. He dares do nothing under my roof or on my grounds, and Rose will not leave either without my watchful eyes on her She is safe enough from him. But it is a good reason to be rid of him. The only question is-how to accomplish that without his realizing I have done so and seeking revenge?

  The easiest way would be to simply kill the man. The idea had its merits. No one cared about Paul du Mond; no one would miss him if he simply vanished.

  Except for certain parties in the city for whom he performs his vile services, who will find someone else of similar disposition within a fortnight.

  Still, murdering him did carry some risks. Not in his mundane circles, of course; he need only say he had dismissed his secretary for embezzlement and that the man had taken ship for the South Pacific in disgrace. No one would make any further inquiries, for men did frequently take passage to the Islands to lose a bad reputation.

  No, murdering du Mond would attract attention only in Magickal circles. One did not go about incinerating one's Apprentices; he would probably be called to account for it before an assembly of Firemasters. If that happened befor
e he managed to change himself back, his altered state would become public knowledge, and some of his deadlier rivals would know of his plight.

  No. Much as I would like to, I cannot afford to kill him. Yet.

  That left another option-find some place to Put him that was out of the way. That would require a great deal of thought, more than he had put into it until now.

  But until now, if I had come across a Working that required four hands rather than two, I would have needed him after all. Now, I no longer do. Now I can afford to think about getting rid of him.

  Perhaps the Hawkins girl's impetuous offer was not such a bad thing after all.

  She certainly can't be any worse as an assistant than du Mond.

  He curled up a bit more and pondered the problem. If he worked hard at it, he could probably manufacture a situation that would require du Mond's presence in the city for some time. Perhaps that would be best.