Phoenix and Ashes em-4

by Mercedes Lackey

  She did not take the road. The road was too long. She fled headlong and heedless through the grounds, across the long, empty lawn, and into the "wilderness" which was no wilderness at all, of course, only a carefully cultivated illusion of one. She couldn't think; not clearly anyway. Only fragments of thought lanced across the all-encompassing demand of Alison's spells.

  Why was this happening?

  She stumbled across a bridle-path that went in the right direction, and turned down it; her rose-wreath and garland were gone, and her hair was down all one side. Her sides ached, but the coercions were not letting up. A branch tangled with her skirt and she yanked it free without missing a step.

  How had the coercions suddenly snapped into place?

  There was a low stone wall in the way; she scrambled over it, and found herself in a meadow full of sheep that scattered before her, bleating indignation. She kept going; at least here there was enough light to see—

  Why were the coercions so strong, suddenly?

  Another low, stone wall; she left more of her gown on one of the stones. Dimly, she recognized the top of the Round Meadow where she had met Reggie so often, the upper end, where she normally couldn't go. At least she knew the way from here.

  If the pain in her side and her head would let her. Her world narrowed to the pain and the next step, each step bringing her closer to The Arrows, closer to the end of the pain. The end of the pain—

  Run!

  Her breath rasped in her lungs, sending sharp, icy stabs into her chest. Her vision blurred and darkened; she felt branches lashing at her as she passed. But all she could think of was that she must, must get to The Arrows.

  Run!

  She felt hard, bare dirt and hard-packed gravel under her feet. She was in the road to Broom. She didn't remember getting over the fence.

  Run, run, run!

  She stumbled into the side of one of the houses on High Street; caught herself, pushed herself off, and kept running.

  There was Sarah's cottage, just ahead. Then past.

  She tripped and fell, bruising hands and knees at the corner; shoved herself up and kept running. Here was the Broom Tavern.

  Almost there—

  She stumbled again and fell into the fence around the garden of the Arrows. She caught herself, and ran the last few yards completely blind, shoving open the garden gate, and falling inside, down onto the path, as the gate swung shut again behind her.

  And the pain stopped.

  The mental pain, anyway.

  As she lay on the ground, gasping for breath in great, aching lungfuls, she discovered an entirely new source of very physical pain. Her palms and knees burned, her side felt as if someone had stuck a knife in her, and whenever she moved, she could feel deep scratches and bruises everywhere. And all she could do was to lie there and try to get her breath back, because she couldn't move in her current state if her life depended on it.

  But she could think, at least—though not coherently. Whole thoughts, rather than fragments, but they came to her in no particular order as she lay on her back with her eyes closed, gasping.

  Freed from the coercions, her mind raced. I have to get cleaned up and changed. Alison and the girls will be coming home. I can't look like this—maybe I can disguise some of the scratches and bruises with kitchen ash. At least they won't be expecting me to still be awake.

  Sarah would, she hoped, surely know when the coercions had suddenly tightened around her, and would take the cart and horse back to its owners. Surely she wouldn't sit there all night.

  Another thought, a bleak one this time. I failed. I didn't find the Air Master—

  Why had there been that breath of Air Magic around Reggie?

  Oh heavens—what did I say to Reggie? Did I really tell him I loved him? How could I have done that? What on earth possessed me? I don't—

  But there the thought came to an abrupt halt, because she could not, in all truth, have finished it with "I don't love him," because it wasn't true.

  What was he saying to me? It had all gotten jumbled up in the coercions, in the headlong flight across the countryside. She couldn't remember any of it clearly.

  Except she knew very well he hadn't said that he loved her.

  But had he implied it? He'd asked if he could be more than a friend to her, she remembered that much.

  The pain in her side ebbed a little, and with a groan, she pushed herself up off the ground. Her hands were tough, and little more than bruised, but her knees—well, her stockings were surely ruined, and the way they stuck to her knees argued for a bleeding scrape there.

  I need to start a fire. The Salamanders can help heal this enough that it doesn't look fresh. I should sleep in the kitchen. . . .

  In fact, she had a good idea that she was going to have to sleep in the kitchen whether she wanted to or not. She didn't think she could get up the stairs right now.

  It was just a good thing that there was still some clean clothing, laundered and dried just yesterday, that was still waiting downstairs to be taken to her room. Everything that wasn't connected to the ball had been given short shrift in the last few days, and her own business had been last on the list of things to be done.

  She got herself to her feet, and stumbled into the kitchen, shoving open the door with an effort. The fire leapt up to answer her unspoken call, and she put another log on it while she stripped off the rags that were all that was left of that wonderful gown, and, with intense regret, threw them on the fire. There was no point in leaving any evidence for anyone to find.

  She drew a basin of water from the kitchen pump and cleaned off the dirt and the dried blood with soap and a wet towel. Both her knees were a mess, and there were scratches all over her body. She could hide her knees, but not the scratches on her face and arms.

  Something had to be done about that.

  When the fire was burning brightly, she called a swarm of Salamanders to wreath around her injuries. They'd only have burned someone who wasn't a Fire magician, and they couldn't heal things up completely, but what they could do was minimize the appearance of the scrapes and deep scratches, so that they looked days, rather than hours old.

  Finally, she put on the clean clothing, spread out the pallet-bed, and fell onto it. She felt as if she wanted to weep. All that work—and for nothing! All she had done was to allow herself to be distracted by Reggie and betrayed by her emotions. She hadn't found the Air Master. She was no nearer to freeing herself than she had been this morning.

  As for Reggie—if he dared to come looking for her here—Alison would want to know why, and then—

  Unbidden, the image of the Wheel of Fortune card rose in her mind. A few hours ago, she had been up, up, up—now the Wheel had turned, and she had tumbled down, down, down—

  The Wheel would turn again. She had to believe that. She had to.

  Exhaustion, mental and physical overcame her while she was trying to convince herself of that, and she slept.

  Only to be jolted awake by the impact of a delicately pointed toe on her own sore ribs.

  She started out of sleep, and looked up, dumbly, to find that Alison, her daughters, and the odious Warrick Locke were all gazing down at her with expressions on their faces that made her heart turn to stone. And a scrap of lace and a single rosebud dangled from Alison's fingertips.

  "Take care of her," Alison said to Locke, before Eleanor could say a word.

  And before she could move, he had swooped down on her like a hawk on a mouse, a rag in one hand that he clamped over her nose and mouth. There was a sickly-sweet smell—

  —and then, nothing.

  28

  August 12, 1917

  Broom, Warwickshire

  ALISON LOOKED DOWN AT THE unconscious and much-battered form of her stepdaughter, sprawled on top of the heap of ragged blankets that was her bed, and seethed with rage that she carefully kept from her expression. There was no point in letting everyone know how close she was to unleashing that rage. In fact, sh
e was quite sure that it was her control, and not her 'anger, that frightened Locke. "I am very glad you were clever enough to see past her costume at the ball, Lauralee," she said, keeping her voice level. "And gladder still that you kept her from seeing you. She very nearly undid everything we have accomplished so far. Who could have guessed that idiot boy would have been attracted to her?"

  Carolyn pouted. "What I want to know is, where did she get that dress?" Her expression, as well as her voice, was raw with envy. That would have been moderately interesting under other circumstances, as her mother would never have guessed she had a passion for pink, lace, and rosebuds. It was an exceedingly misplaced concern, given the situation.

  "Light the lamp, Carolyn," was all Alison said. She was not entirely in charity with her younger daughter at the moment. Carolyn continued to pout, but did as she was ordered.

  "And how did she get in the door?" Lauralee added, her own voice hard with the same anger her mother was feeling.

  "More to the point, how did she get out the door—this door?" Alison retorted, gesturing at the exit from the kitchen. "There are explanations for the rest—she could have found the dress in the attic, for instance, and she could have told the butler that she was with us in order to get into the ball. Didn't you say Reggie had asked about her, Carolyn?"

  Carolyn blinked, as if the question caught her by surprise. "Well,"

  she admitted reluctantly, "yes, but—"

  "So she could easily have been on the guest list, and all she had to do was claim she misplaced her invitation. But how did she manipulate my coercive spells?" Alison glared down at the wretched girl. "That's what I want to know!"

  "You have been concentrating on Reggie," Warrick Locke reminded her. "And you've been quite careful about working magic anywhere around Lady Virginia since her ladyship arrived. Between the two, your coercive spells may have weakened. It's just a very good thing for all of us that Lauralee spotted her, and that the rest of us were at the ball too."

  "If you hadn't had Warrick along, he wouldn't have been able to shield Lady Virginia from sensing magic," Lauralee reminded her mother. "So you were able to redouble your coercions and force her back here. She didn't fight that, so possibly, as Mr. Locke says, it's only that your binding spells were weakening over time because you haven't been renewing them."

  "Or possibly the girl is coming into her powers." Alison gritted her teeth. That was the one possibility that simply hadn't occurred to her up until this moment. And it was the one possibility that made her the angriest. "If that's the case, then there's no time to waste. We'll have to take her out to the nearest mine, the one closest to the Hoar Stones, and dump her there now instead of later. If she is becoming a Fire mage—her powers won't do her any good in there. Not underground, and not when my creatures are finished with her."

  Oh, the miserable chit! She was forcing everything—and ruining what she hadn't forced!

  "Alison," Locke said, warningly, pulling out his watch, and showing the face to her, "It's nearly five in the morning. We can't take her now. Someone will see us."

  For one moment, Alison deeply regretted her rise in social status, because it would have been very relieving of her frustrations to curse like a fishwife right now. Locke was right, of course; none of the motors had anywhere to hide a bundled-up body, and the sun would be up by the time they got everything packed up and into the automobiles. It would have to wait until dark.

  "How do you want to keep her unconscious?" Locke continued, now looking nervous. "I hate to advise against more chloroform, because it is dangerous, and there's an equal chance that I'd kill her or she'd come out of it—and you don't want her dead, that will do you no good at all—"

  "I have something," Alison interrupted him. "It's a bit more precise."

  She went upstairs to her room, and came back down with the morphia kit in both hands. It amused her slightly to see Locke's eyes bulge a little when he realized what it was. She readied the needle, pleased that she had learned to do all of this a long time ago. One of the few benefits of caring for the aged. . . .

  "You surprise me," Locke said, finally, as she pulled a measured dose of the fluid into the chamber. "This is not something I would have expected you to possess." The look of shock still on his face made her raise an eyebrow.

  "Don't be an idiot, Warrick," Lauralee snapped. "Mother's not an addict. She just believes in being prepared. She got that from our doctor in London ages ago. She told him it was because Eleanor had fits."

  "And I pay him well enough to be incurious," Alison said, kneeling down at the girl's side, turning her arm over, and probing for a vein. "He noted it in his records as being for Eleanor, and it cost me a pretty penny, too. But you never know when you're going to need to keep someone quiet." She injected the fluid, and stood up. "There. That should keep her for quite some time. And it has the added benefit that, if she is coming into her powers, it will throw her right out of her body for a while, which should thoroughly disorient her."

  She waved at Locke, who was just standing there, gaping at her. "Take the little wretch and bundle her out of sight somewhere."

  "Where?" he asked, and she turned a furious face towards him.

  "I don't care] You know this house well enough to find some place! I don't want anyone coming in here and stumbling over her, that's all!" She suppressed the urge to stamp her foot. Did she have to think of everything?

  "The wash-house?" suggested Lauralee sweetly. "No one would look in there, and it will be handy for taking her out to the autos when we leave tonight."

  They all looked to Alison, who nodded. Carolyn, she noted, was looking more and more calf-like. Stupid and sulky. Well, it was clear which of her daughters was the more useful.

  Alison watched, lips pressed tightly together, as Locke picked up the girl, heaved her over his shoulder, and followed Lauralee out the kitchen door and into the dark and shadowy yard. There was a creak as the wash-house door opened, a soft thud, and the creak of the door again. Then a rattle as Lauralee shot home the bolt, locking Eleanor in. Wise little Lauralee, who was also taking no chances.

  Lauralee led the way back in through the kitchen door, yawning, and in spite of the tension, Alison found herself yawning as well. "Mother, I am shattered—"

  "We all are," Alison said, cutting her off, grimly. "This has been a less than successful night, and we are going to have to act quickly and resolutely to minimize the damage. We can't do that without sleep. She will keep. Warrick, you can take one of the spare bedrooms; at this point, with as much as we have at stake, I am willing to risk a little gossip."

  Lauralee nodded, looking relieved. Carolyn walked up the first few stairs, and her sister followed, more slowly, burdened as she was by her elaborate costume.

  "I did come to the ball with you," Locke pointed out meekly. "And it would only be hospitable to offer a place for me for the night, after such a late return."

  "Do you think Reggie will come looking for her here?" Lauralee asked suddenly, turning back to look down at them with an expression of worry.

  What with everything else that was going wrong—probably. "He might," Alison replied. "And we need to be prepared for that." She thought about it for a moment. "Our best bet may be to try and convince him that the girl he met was not Eleanor, but—Lauralee."

  "Lauralee!" Carolyn exclaimed angrily, jealousy sharpening her tone. "Why Lauralee?"

  "She's the nearest in size, he didn't set eyes on her once all evening, and the difference in hair-color can be explained with a wig," Alison replied, consigning Carolyn's hopes to the dustbin without a twinge. "Whereas you, dear, he danced with twice, so he knows very well that you weren't in the fairy princess costume. He can't possibly have known who Eleanor is; when would he ever have met her? It might work, and if it does, we'll have saved the situation. You can explain running away somehow. I leave it up to you to think of something."

  "I will," Lauralee promised, and she turned to go back up the stairs. Her sist
er led the way, bristling and pouting at the same time.

  "That one's going to be trouble," Locke warned. "She's going to let jealousy of her sister take precedence over everything else."

  Alison sniffed. "She's the least of my worries. She'll behave herself now because this situation will fall to pieces if we don't all work together. And she'll behave herself later—because she knows what will happen if she doesn't."

  "Oh?" Locke replied, looking skeptical.

  She dropped the mask she habitually wore and let him see the true Alison Robinson, just for a moment. He shrank back, as she reinforced the revelation with her next words.

  "I only need one daughter," she said, icily. "And I periodically remind them of that." She smiled as he nodded, trembling, and all but scrambled up the stairs to a guest room.