Phoenix and Ashes em-4

by Mercedes Lackey

  Perhaps the only difference between her and those now in the trenches was that her experience of combat had not left her disillusioned and bitter.

  "Nor are you my primary concern at this moment," she said, stabbing her finger down at the tablecloth for emphasis. "You might be able to protect yourself behind your shields and your walls. But what about others? What about the sensitives down in your village? Can they? When whoever this is levels barrage after barrage of magical attacks against you, who do you think is going to pay the price as those attacks reflect off your defenses?"

  He gulped. "I hadn't—"

  But in his mind's eye, he saw the shattered remains of the villages of Belgium and France, wreckage that proved it didn't matter how innocent you were, once you were in the way.

  He dropped his gaze to his own hands. They were shaking. "Did you see or sense anything that might give you an idea who was behind the attack?" he asked, instead, trying to put off the moment of decision for a little while longer.

  "All that I sensed was a momentary hint of someone—a Fire magician, I thought, half-trained at best. It wasn't there for long, and I don't believe the Fire magician had anything to do with the revenants, I think it was just someone caught up accidentally. Possibly one of your sensitive villagers or someone dreaming and coming to investigate the flares of power; the aura suggested someone walking in an astral projection." He looked up at that, but she shook her head at him. "And at any rate, revenants are far more likely to be sent by an Earth magician. They don't respond well to Fire."

  A Fire Magician, in an astral projection? "Could it have been one of the London Fire Masters responding to the presence of the revenants?" he hazarded.

  "Possibly. More likely one of their students; the brief impression I got was of someone still in apprenticeship, so to speak." She frowned. "There isn't anyone in your village who would match that description, is there?"

  "I never heard of any Fire Mages there." He shrugged helplessly. "Mind you, I was not here most of the time. If I wasn't at school, I was in London. Father never even told me who the other Masters were around here; he always said there would be plenty of time when I was finished at Oxford." He frowned as he concentrated on a fugitive memory. "I think there's a witch down there—Earth, of course—or at least, there was. I don't know if she's still alive, or if she's taken on students of her own. But Lady Virginia, if someone is strong enough to call up revenants and set them on me, shouldn't we inform Lord Alderscroft?"

  Hope that he might yet evade Lady Virginia's demands sprang up in him.

  "Surely this is a task for Alderscroft and the Council?" he persisted. "An attack on a Council member—"

  "First, there would have to be a Council left to do something," Lady Virginia replied, caustically. "What's left, now that all the young lions are at the Front, dead, or incapacitated, has their hands full with arcane demands from the Almsley's branch of the War Office." Her lips tightened into a thin line. "But that still isn't the point, Reginald. The point is that even if you are safe for the moment, there are innocents around you who are not." She stared him in the face and would not let him look away. "So the question is, what are you going to do to protect them?"

  He wanted, badly, to say that he wasn't going to do anything, that their protection was none of his business. He wanted to protest that he was the injured party here, that he had taken wounds to the spirit as well as the flesh in defence of his own country, and that it was past time that someone protected him for a change.

  But he couldn't. As his father had once told him, there was an obligation that came with power. That obligation left him with a very clear code of conduct.

  An officer and a gentleman. "I'll do what I must, Lady Virginia," he said, even though his hands shook with fear and his skin crawled. "It seems I have no choice."

  June 22, 1917

  Broom, Warwickshire

  Alison was furious, and everyone was staying out of her way.

  She had every right to be furious. Bad enough that the card-party last night had been invaded and taken over by that dreadful old cow in her outmoded dresses, so that the careful work being done on Reggie by the girls was utterly disrupted as he went to dance attendance on the creature. Worse that she was Reggie's godmother and a particular friend of the family.

  But worst of all—this Lady Virginia was an Air Master, a crony of Alderscroft's, and someone it would be very, very dangerous to cross. Any sort of covert magical work in Reggie's direction would have to stop; Alison could not take the risk of being uncovered.

  Alison had been forced to sit there and smile and make polite noises, while her ladyship monopolized the conversation with tales of that fellow who'd gone native with the Arabs. As if he or a lot of unwashed camel-herders mattered! By the time she was able to make her excuses and escape, the greater part of the evening had been wasted, and Reggie wasn't even looking at the girls anymore. It had been his mother who'd sent for the chauffeur and the car to take them home.

  But that wasn't the end of the evening's disasters, oh no. Because she had tried to call in her army of revenants to increase their strength—except when she tried to find them, they were gone. Vanished. Dispelled.

  In fact, they had been dispelled so thoroughly that there wasn't a trace of them left—although the signs of the magic that had destroyed them were clear enough.

  And the signature of an Air Master who didn't care who knew what she had done was clear enough for anyone to read who had the eyes to see it.

  It hadn't been Reggie. It certainly wasn't the Broom village witch. That left only the newly arrived Lady Virginia. . . .

  Alison had been so angry last night that she had called up and torn to bits several of her own kobolds, just to relieve her temper. She'd have dragged Ellie out of bed and beaten her—and in fact, she was tempted to—but if she started, she had known she wouldn't be able to stop, and the complications of hurting or killing the fool began with the mere inconvenience of not having someone to cook or clean in the morning, and ended with losing the Robinson fortune.

  So instead, she made an example of three of the dullest of her minions, smashed a couple of china ornaments, and still went to bed in a temper.

  She had awakened feeling no less angry, but by midmorning, her temper had cooled sufficiently to allow her to think clearly.

  The girls knew better than to trifle with her in her current mood; when she summoned them to her room after Howse had finished her work, they came immediately and quietly.

  "We have a problem," she told them, grimly. "That woman that arrived last night is an Air Master, and Reggie's godmother."

  The girls exchanged a look of apprehension. "Does that mean no magic around her?" Carolyn asked.

  "Nothing directed at Reggie, at least," Alison said sourly. "Alderscroft knows I'm an Earth Master—after all, he was the one who sent me!"

  "But mother, I thought you said your job here was to be kept secret," Lauralee protested. "Why should Lord Alderscroft have told Lady Virginia about you?"

  Of all of the things that had been running through her mind this morning, that hadn't been one of them. She sucked on her lower lip a moment. "In fact, he probably didn't, come to think of it. She's not on his Council as far as I know, and I can't believe he would have told an outsider War Office business."

  "So it's not as bad as you thought!" Carolyn said, brightening.

  "No, Carolyn, it is as bad as I thought," Alison corrected caustically. "It is simply not as dire as it could be. She's gotten rid of my revenants, and she will certainly be able to trace any active Earth magic used against her godson straight back to me—or to you. Which means we can do nothing directly. . . hmm."

  "Mother, we can still use charms against our rivals," Lauralee pointed out shrewdly. "As long as we do so away from Longacre Park. She won't bother to look for magics being worked in that way."

  Alison turned a surprised—and pleased—gaze on her elder. That was two good thoughts in as many minutes.
"Now that is certainly a plan," she agreed. "And a good one. I approve. And as for me—you know, I do think it unlikely that Lady Virginia will even consider watching over Lady Devlin. I will redouble my efforts, and become Lady Devlin's best, most trusted friend. . . ." She felt her lips curving into a slight smile. "Yes. I could do that. It's the sort of exercise of Earth magic that an Air Master is usually blind to—slow, deliberate, and subtle, playing on the emotions. Then, I can play on her fears. Reggie will certainly have to go back to the Front. He's the only male left in the Fenyx line. He must marry and do his duty for the Fenyx name before he goes off again."

  "And who better to wed than one of the daughters of her very good friend?" Carolyn put in coquettishly.

  Lauralee laughed. "Pretty, polite, presentable . . . we're no worse than any of the other girls she's been trying to interest him in. Perhaps not as blue-blooded, but if she's growing desperate, she may overlook that." She cocked her head to one side. "Do you think we could get away with some small seductive magics, if we were careful to make them look—accidental?"

  "Possibly, possibly." Alison thought hard. "It suddenly occurs to me that the reason Lady Virginia might be here is to urge Reggie back into the practice of magic. He has been walled against your charms until now—but if she succeeds, he'll be vulnerable to such things again." Her smile widened a trifle. "Now, there's a fine thought! If that is indeed the case, Lady Virginia might be doing us a favor! A delicious irony, though I doubt she would appreciate it herself."

  "All I care about is that she not interfere," Lauralee countered. "Nothing else matters."

  "Quite right," her mother declared, with satisfaction for her daughter's practicality. "So, we need to put together our new plans. I want you two to decide what magic you are going to use on your rivals. When you have your course of action, come to me so I can be sure it is something that won't alert Lady Virginia. I will intensify my campaign to win Lady Devlin. And the three of us will work out what sort of seductions you can use against Reggie and how to make them look like the innocent work of untrained sensitives."

  "Yes, Mother," they chorused, looking maliciously cheerful as she shooed them out.

  Alison went to the window of her bedroom, and looked down onto the garden below. Ellie was hanging out bedlinen, and it occurred to her that there was yet another loose end that needed tidying. She still had not made up her mind what to do about the girl. For all that her emotional self enjoyed the idea of putting Locke's plan into motion, her logical self warned that there were far too many loopholes in it—not to mention pitfalls.

  The problem with adding outsiders into a plan was that you could never be sure of their loyalty—nor their discretion.

  No, the more she thought of Locke's plan, the less she liked it. Still, the basic notion, of driving the girl mad—that was a good one.

  She resolved to put more thought into it. Time was not on her side in this.

  But there must be a better answer. And she was just the person to find it.

  23

  July 10, 1917

  Broom, Warwickshire

  ALL WAS DARKNESS, SAVE ONLY a tiny pool of yellow light from the lantern that the old man held. He looked like a monk, the sort that wore simple, hooded robes. He wasn't, of course. He was something altogether different, with no more than a nodding acquaintance with Christianity.

  Eleanor had expected someone hard and ascetic, and possibly unfriendly. Instead, she looked up into the face of a man who looked down on her with kind, warm eyes. He looked like a grandfatherly wizard, and was the most real of all of the Tarot creatures she had yet met.

  "And now," said the Hermit, "You come to me. Do you know me yet?"

  Eleanor shook her head; oh she knew what he was, and even what he represented, but to know him, understand him as deeply as that simple question implied—no, she did not know him yet. She knew only enough to know that this was someone who had spent all his life looking for wisdom, and had learned to distill things down to their simplest, who would, unlike Gaffer Clark, use the fewest words possible to cut to the heart of something.

  It was night here in the world of the Tarot cards, and the Hermit held the lantern that was the only source of light for as far as she could see. It was that lantern that had led her to him.

  In fact, tonight, for the very first time since she had begun this quest through the Major Arcana, she had not passed through the stages she had already been tested in. That had come as something of a shock. She had gone to bed early, since Alison and the girls were at Longacre Park—again—and she was bone-weary with all the work they had put her through. They went through as many clothing-changes in a day as Lady Devlin did now, and it wasn't Howse who picked up the discarded items, laundered them, hung them to dry, starched and ironed them. Oh no—it was Eleanor, up and down the stairs three times a day, with extra demand on her because the tennis dress discarded in the afternoon would be wanted in the morning.

  Alison was getting very familiar with Lady Devlin, and Eleanor didn't think it was all name-dropping. There was something going on up there at the big great house, somehow Alison had managed to worm her way into Lady Devlin's regard.

  Eleanor was trying very hard not to care. After all, Alison's machinations were giving her the freedom to gain in knowledge and control of her magic and her Element. Her hands and body might be busy, but her mind was free to think, to reason, to analyze every tiny bit of information she got from the alchemy books and her mother's notes. And when the others weren't about, she could practice some of the smaller magics, sharpening her skills. Fire magic was quite good for keeping the iron hot, for instance. And if her hands weren't nearly as smooth and lovely as her stepsisters', the Salamanders had healed the cracked skin, shrunk the joints, made the nails stronger and neater.

  Besides, as Sarah had said, more than once, "The manor's the manor and the village is the village, and the less we have to do with each other the better." There was no point in even thinking about Reginald Fenyx and his mother. The gulf between them was just too wide to bridge.

  But if there was one thing that all this delving through the paths of the cards was teaching her, it was to look inside herself and be honest about what was there.

  Never mind that her little passion for Reginald Fenyx hadn't the chance of a rose in midwinter. It was certainly there. It didn't take having her mind slip off on a daydream of what he'd looked like asleep in the meadow to tell her that. And how not, really, when you came down to it? He was handsome, he was a war hero, and he was vulnerable; put the three traits together, and how could any girl not fall a little in love with him? And he had been kind to her—carelessly kind, but kind, nevertheless. Never mind that he had most likely forgotten her entirely by now. Between his own concerns and the round of entertainments his mother was contriving, he probably hadn't given her a single thought in weeks.

  Which was just as well. It allowed her to have her secret passion without embarrassing herself. There was safety in distance.

  If grown women can be in love with some actor on the London stage, she told herself, helplessly, I can be in love with Reggie Fenyx, surely. Where's the harm? So long as I don't delude myself into thinking he'd ever look twice at me in public.

  Some of that was going through her mind before she went to sleep tonight, knowing that if she dreamed, she would be facing the Hermit, the embodiment of "know thyself." She was afraid, to tell the truth, not of the card-creature himself, but of failing to pass whatever tests he set her. The more she thought about the Hermit, the less confident she was; how could she even begin to meet him mind-to-mind?

  She really didn't think she was ready for this card—surely he should have come at the end of the Major Arcana, not barely halfway through! Surely the end of the journey that began with the Fool should end with the Hermit.

  She had hoped to gain a bit more courage by passing through all the stages she had won through before facing the Hermit—but instead, when she "woke" in the Tarot realm, sh
e woke to darkness, a darkness broken only by a single pinpoint of light in the distance, a light that she stumblingly made her way towards.

  "I don't know you," she said, slowly, admitting her ignorance. "I mean, I know you are the Hermit, but—but that's not just some misanthropic old man in a desert. I don't know really know what you are."

  "I am an eternal seeker," the Hermit said, and smiled. "I am Merlin, Taliesin, Apollonius of Tyanna, I am anyone who has ever sought for wisdom knowing that it is the search that is important and, not the end. Because—?"

  "Because—there never will be an end because you never actually find wisdom?" she hazarded, feeling as if she was groping in the dark without the benefit of the Hermit's lantern. "Because if you think you've found it, you haven't? Because looking for wisdom is a process, and not something with an actual goal?"

  "And?" he prompted. "Think what you have learned from the other cards thus far."