by A R DeClerck
“We were sent here by Lucan Orrin,” Bastion confirmed, and he saw a spark of recognition and respect in Stella’s eyes. “We will do our best to protect you all.”
“What kind of wizard are you?” Stella studied Bastion with a frank gaze, and he felt himself blush under her scrutiny.
“My name is Bastion Tinsley. I’m an Apothecary.”
“A healer, then?” The women murmured low and pressed closer to Bastion. Stella smiled and Bastion was smothered by her beauty. Her skin was flawless, golden and bright in the autumn sunlight.
“Yes.”
“My daughter is sick, can you help us?” the smaller woman squeezed Bastion’s hand. “Others have fallen ill, too.”
Bastion looked at Corrigan and the captain’s head had snapped up at that.
“People have fallen ill recently?” the captain asked sharply. “Have you consulted the town doctor?”
“He came,” Stella said, disgust dripping from every word. “He says there is nothing he can do.”
“Did he say what caused the sickness?” Bastion asked.
“He told us nothing, just ran away with his tail between his legs.” Gus spit on the ground, a sign of disrespect for the cowardly doctor.
“How many?”
“Five so far. Three more have begun to feel unwell.” Stella’s bangles clinked as she rubbed her chin. “Even my Roma medicine has had no effect.”
“Romani, are you?” Corrigan nodded thoughtfully as he processed everything they’d been told.
“Will you help us, healer?” Stella asked.
“Take me to the sick,” Bastion said, glancing at Corrigan. “Continue with your tour. I’ll meet you back at the house.”
“I’m not sure we should split up,” Corrigan said, putting his hand on Bastion’s arm, worry in his eyes.
“Go.” Bastion nodded to Gus and the other men. “Take one of them with you to watch your back. I’ll come back to the house before dark.”
Corrigan nodded, but Bastion could feel his eyes on his back as Stella led him away. He didn’t want to split up, either, but his first concern would always be the ill and infirm.
“Do you know much about healing?” Bastion asked Stella, and she shrugged.
“Some.”
“Good. I’ll need your help, if you’re willing.”
“My sister, Yasmin, is ill. I will do whatever I must to see her well.”
“I’m glad to hear it, because if this sickness was caused by black magic we will have a very long afternoon on our hands.”
THEY APPROACHED A GROUP of cabins at the far edge of the estate, next to the wooded lands that bordered Belvedere.
“Do you always carry a firearm?” Stella asked with interest, eyeing the modified pistol on Bastion’s hip.
“I prefer to heal, if I can. Corrigan insisted I bring it.”
“I prefer the Lewiston Model .22 myself. My Papa always said I was a better shot than both my brothers.”
“Then perhaps you should carry the gun.” Bastion smiled. “Lord knows I’m more apt to shoot myself with it than really do any harm to another man. Even one aiming to kill me.”
“There are plenty of men in this world to shoot one another.” They stepped onto the porch of one of the cabins. “There are few who can heal.”
The cabin was small but well kept, gingham curtains fluttering at the window. It was oppressively hot with the fire burning in the hearth. On a narrow bed lay a young girl with dark hair clinging to her sweaty brow.
“This is Yasmin.” Stella sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the girl’s limp hand. Her bangles clanked as she stroked the girl’s skin. Stella’s eyes were wide when she looked up at Bastion. “She is all I have left in the world, Mr. Tinsley.”
“Bastion.” Bastion knelt at the girl’s bedside, rolling back his sleeves. He touched her forehead and found her hot to the touch, her skin dry. He pulled up her eyelid and looked at her pupils. “Any boils or lesions?”
“Yes.” Stella moved back the blanket to reveal Yasmin’s leg, where pustules had formed over her upper thigh and across the knee.
“How many more have the blisters?” he asked.
“Three.”
“Why do you keep the fire burning?”
“If we don’t, they scream and cry out, shivering and their teeth chattering with cold, even though they’re fevered.”
Bastion stood and picked up one of the bunches of roots hanging on the bedframe. “Is this one of yours?” He sniffed the thick bunch of herbs.
“It’s called Dosha. My grandmother was a patragria, and I only learned the basics from her before she died.”
“Wolfsbane, thistle and parsley.” Bastion thumbed the other root he did not recognize.
“Burdock. It’s a purifier of the blood.”
“You have a good instinct for herbs.” Bastion removed the burdock, the parsley and the thistle from the bundle and moved to the pot of boiling water over the fire. He tossed in the roots and stirred. “They will work as you’d hoped, but we need a practical application of their properties.” He looked at the young girl’s labored breathing. “And some magical intervention.”
“I tried the witch-drum, but I could not divine her future.” Stella did not take her eyes off her sister. “Do you believe this is the work of a dark wizard?”
“The Romani have thier own beliefs regarding dark magic. What do you think?” Bastion knew that the Roma people kept their culture private, but they were sensitive to dark magic, if a bit superstitious.
“My Dosha is strong, my grandmother always said.” Stella turned her head to look at Bastion, a frown creasing the skin between her eyes. “When Mr. Wicket went away to war a shadow fell over SummerRidge. Whether that is dark magic or not, I cannot say for sure.”
“This is no simple sickness, of that you can be sure.” Bastion poured the pungent herbal tea into a chipped pewter cup. He passed it to Stella. “Once it cools pour as much as you can down her throat.”
“And then what?” Stella blew on the steaming liquid to cool it.
“And then the real work begins.”
CORRIGAN FOLLOWED THE brawny Romanian man through the lanes of dead vine. He walked quickly and did not speak, so Corrigan concentrated on studying everything around him. The land was fertile, the soil rich and dark for growing. Though the autumn air was crisp, the sun was warm on his shoulders.
“What have you seen that worries you?” he asked as he hurried to catch up with his guide.
“Why would you think I am worried?”
“I’ve never seen a Roma camp so subdued. Even with the sickness, there should be revelry so close to the end of the growing season. I suspect you’ll be moving on when the vines are put to bed.”
The man’s eyes slid sideways to glance at Corrigan. “What do you know of Romani?” he asked sullenly.
“I lived with a group of Roma for several months a few years ago in Romania. Hezekiah Petruluengro and his family took me in for a bit.”
The man’s eyes widened in recognition of the name. The Petruluengro family was a well-known one in the Romani circles. They were the richest and largest of the old families still traveling about their Romanian homeland.
“You know Esmerelda?”
Corrigan grinned. “Know her? You could say that.” He stopped and crossed his arms. “We were married for a time.”
The man’s jaw dropped. “You are either a very brave or a very stupid man.”
Corrigan couldn’t control his laugh. “A bit of both. She was the most exciting, most beautiful woman I have ever had the pleasure to meet.”
“A keen shot and able to hold her drink as well as any man.” The grizzled Romani field worker looked at Corrigan with knew respect. “We cannot leave. We owe Mrs. Wicket a great debt. We must stay on until the wine is casked and the fields are bare.”
“That’s an impressive debt, to hold a clan for so long.” Corrigan looked out over the vineyard where the Romani were still hard at w
ork on the vines. But there was no laughter, no genuine Romani revelry as he would have expected. They were subdued; heads down and mouths closed as they worked. Despite their disbelief when Stella spoke of black magic, the Romani were worried over something.
“There is a darkness here. Many of the elders have felt the breath of it on their necks.” The Romani man wiped his palms on his pants, as if removing the feel of the evil from his skin. “It came with the news of Mr. Wicket’s death, and it feeds on sorrow and suffering.”
“That is why we have come to help,” Corrigan assured the man. But the prickle of unease that crawled over his shoulders left him feeling on edge. “Show me the places that have been tainted.”
The Roma man rubbed a hand across his cheek, squinting his eyes as he looked out over the vineyard and the fields beyond. “Very well. But be warned, it is not a pleasant place to go.”
“Yeah.” Corrigan sighed, tugging on the lapels of his coat, his hand drifting over his pistol for the comfort of it’s weight. “It never is.”
Upon the Stair
“It’s a lovely home.”
The staircase wound from the open foyer, up and up toward a round skylight where the sun cast colored lights over the marble floors.
“I’d never feel at home in a place like this,” Archimedes admitted as he studied the heavily gilded woodwork and brocade curtains. He sniffed the wilting lilacs in the vase on the table. “Though I’m sure you’re used to this kind of opulence.”
“Me?” Lucia narrowed her eyes at the painting of a wooded landscape and shook her head. “Hardly.”
“Your parents are far from penniless. I’ve had occasion to visit House Conti with Icarus a time or two.”
“Perhaps.” Lucia frowned over the painting and turned from it with a shake of her head. “But I’ve never lived with my parents. I spent six years away at l’Academie des Etiquette et de Maintien, and when I returned to London I took my place at the Apothecary’s House.”
“A French girls’ school.” Archimedes smiled and held out his arm. She took it and he saw the brief smile that twisted her lips before she smothered it.
“Why is it that every low-born London lad thinks the ladies who attend French schools are fly girls?”
They took the stairs one at a time, stopping on each one to examine the railing, the woodwork and the density of the air around them. Archimedes choked on disbelieving laughter at her words.
“Fly girls?”
“Women of low morals and questionable ability to maintain their virginity,” Lucia clarified.
“I know what fly girls are. What I cannot figure is how you might have learned the term.”
She froze, one boot on the stair above. “Do you feel that?”
He didn’t have time to answer, as she was suddenly pulled from his grasp, tugged backward by some unseen force. Her hand slid along his arm, and he reacted with instinct, closing his metal fingers over her hand before it slipped away.
Her eyes were wide, fear draining the color in her cheeks. She hung, suspended over the marble floor below, with only his hand tethering her.
“Don’t let me fall,” she pleaded.
“I won’t.” He could feel it now, the pressure that blanketed the staircase. In his all-consuming preoccupation with her, he had failed to recognize the taint of the dark magic until it was too late.
Her free hand clutched at the waist of her dress, patting at the drapery of her skirts.
“I’m too heavy. If you try to pull me up the copper will shred the skin from my bones.” Her voice was calm, her tone gentle. He dropped his hat and reached for her with his human hand, and felt the press of the magic against his back. “If you lean over the rail it will push us both over the edge.”
He was at a loss. What could he do, he wondered, that would not hurt her, or end up with them both smashed upon the marble foyer floor?
“Move your head.”
He blinked, his eyes focusing on the small contraption in her free hand. She had pulled it from some hidden pocket in her skirt. He moved his head to the left as she held it out. She pressed a button and a line of steel shot from the small contraption with such force that it wrapped around the balustrade of the stairs with a ‘zip’.
“You can let me go now, and I’ll pull myself up.”
Archimedes had never known a woman, save for one, who was as self-reliant as this one. Of course, it would make sense, he thought arbitrarily as she began to climb hand over hand back toward the top of the stairs, that the two would be the best of friends. He steadied her elbow as she swung her leg over the railing and plopped to her feet with a cross sniff. He could not help wrapping her in his arms, relief making him squeeze her until she pushed at him to release her.
“That was inconvenient,” she groused, smoothing the wrinkles from her dress. “I could have been killed.” Her eyes narrowed. “You could have been killed.” She picked up his bowler and handed it to him.
“This contraption of yours saved the day, I’d say.” Archimedes unwound the sturdy cable from the stair rail and studied the small device with interest.
“It’s called a grapple.” She took the casing from him and pressed a button, and the cord wound itself inside again with a snap. “Corrigan gave it to me.” She tucked it into that mysterious hidden pocket again.
“Of course he did.” For some reason he chose not to name, Archimedes was irritated by the fact. Instead of commenting on it, he reached into his pocket for his wand. He waved it in the air, asking the aether to illuminate the remnants of the dark magic in the air. All around them the dust and dappled sunlight lit up with a pale green glow.
“Well.” Lucia moved around the rippling green-tinted magic, studying it from all sides. “That would certainly explain the worrisome behavior of the elder Wicket.”
“Maybe.” Archimedes wasn’t so sure. He tapped the undulating pulses of magic with his wand. Using a trick he’d only recently learned from Cora, he closed his eyes and actually spoke to the particles of magic that surrounded them.
Hello.
Hello, metal one.
Archimedes grinned. Cora had explained to him that the aether was literal in all ways, having little understanding of human behavior. From the first moment they had been introduced the aether had insisted on naming him ‘the metal one’.
This dark magic that surrounds us, have you ever seen it before?
Of course we have seen it. We see everything.
Archimedes counted to ten before speaking, to forestall the annoyance that wanted to creep into his voice.
Do you know who casts this magic? Who is the wizard who controls the black aether?
No wizard controls it.
Impossible. Aether does not push ladies over balconies without direction from a dark mage.
No wizard controls it.
Archimedes opened his eyes with an irritated grumble.
“What did the aether say?”
He shook his head and tapped his copper fingers on the stair rail. “Nothing of any sense.” His head snapped up when a tapping sounded from the window at the top of the stairs. “What the devil is that?”
They hurried up the rest of the stairs and Lucia leaned down to peer out the window. “It’s probably best that you don’t have your hat on,” she joked as she threw open the sash.
Archimedes cursed as a large black raven flew into the hallway. “Good to see you, Machiavelli.”
It was a dizzying spin of aether, felt rather than heard, that shifted him from a bird into a tall, thin man. “And you, wards-smith.” He bowed low over Lucia’s hand, pecking at her hand with his thin lips. “Nice to see you again, Mistress Conti.”
“And you, Machiavelli.”
The birdman straightened, his shiny black hair flopping over his forehead. He looked like a bird, Archimedes thought, even in his human form. His nose was long and pointed, his eyes still beady and cold. “My master sends his regards. He is off to India as we speak.”
“
I see Lucan has begun to allow you off your leash,” Archimedes said to the thin man. “But what will he do in India without his most powerful familiar?”
“No doubt be lost and bereft,” Machiavelli said with a sigh and a roll of his eyes. “The man can hardly function without me.”
Lucia smiled but Archimedes only snorted in derision. “Then perhaps you’d best return to your master. I’m certain we can make do without you.”
“Now why would I want to do that?” Machiavelli asked, slinging his arm around Archimedes’ shoulder. “I’ve missed you, my friend.”
“Friend.” Archimedes made sure to keep his bowler a suitable distance from the birdman who, in his raven’s form, loved to defecate on it at every opportunity. “Not bloody likely.”
“Come now. I will admit I’ve done wrong to your precious hat a time or two,” Machiavelli winked in Lucia’s direction, “but we agreed to forgive and forget.”
Archimedes sniffed. He disliked the familiar, but he was a powerful ally and in direct contact with the Grand High Master. He would be a useful resource in their hunt for the dark mage. “Very well. You have arrived late, as usual. Lucia and I were just attacked by dark aether on the stairs.”
Machiavelli straightened. He sniffed and moved about the landing, his head bobbing as he walked. “I sense it.” He looked at them. “Tell me what happened.”
Lucia recounted the story.
“And you used a ‘grapple’ to pull yourself to safety?” Machiavelli raised a thin, dark eyebrow in Archimedes’ direction. “Your strong, powerful Adept could not think of a spell?”
“There was no need.” Lucia crossed her arms and shook her head at the familiar’s goading. “Sometimes it is prudent to use science rather than magic to solve a problem. In the presence of the dark aether another spell might have gone horribly wrong.”
“True.” Machiavelli looked at the long hallway stretching out in either direction. “The wielder of the magic must be close.”
“The aether says that no wizard controls the black aether.” Archimedes shrugged when they both turned disbelieving looks to him. “I asked it twice.”