The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic

by Emily Croy Barker

  But that moment of revelation would not occur now, Nora realized, facing Ilissa. Ilissa’s charm was still intact, her face ready to launch a thousand ships or sell a million magazines, and worse, Nora herself had not changed, or at least not enough. Whatever unprotected place Ilissa had found before, she still knew how to find it.

  “Nora, you poor darling!” Ilissa’s voice was soothing, gentle, impossible to ignore. “Dressed in rags! We’ve missed you so much, you know,” she added sadly.

  In spite of herself, Nora’s heart was wrung. Without exactly meaning to, she took a step toward Ilissa.

  “Are you really happy, darling? You don’t look happy. There’s something so dissatisfied in your face.”

  Nora willed her feet to stay firmly planted on the marble floor. After a few seconds that seemed very long, she took another step.

  “You look lonely, I think. Are those magicians”—a little purr of scorn underlined the word—“being kind to you?”

  Nora looked over at the magicians in question, a few dozen paces away. Hirizjahkinis had her back turned. Aruendiel’s head was visible above the crowd; he was looking down, listening to something the double-chinned man was saying. “Help!” Nora screamed as loud as she could. “Ilissa’s here!” Nothing emerged from her mouth except a silent rush of air.

  Ilissa gave a short laugh that sounded nastier than anything that Nora had ever heard her utter. This could be the crack in the crystal, the tip-off that she’d been waiting for, but it was a little late. Nora took another step.

  “Wouldn’t you like to come home with me, darling?” Ilissa held out her hands. “Where we love you so much.”

  No, you don’t, Nora thought swiftly, although part of her only wanted to run straight into Ilissa’s arms. Again, she concentrated on staying exactly where she was. The desire to move her foot forward was like an overpowering itch. Five seconds, she could hold back for five seconds. She counted them off. Another five seconds. That was a little worse, but she could stand it. Another five. The desire to move forward was agonizing.

  A shade of exquisite disappointment passed over Ilissa’s face, and Nora winced inwardly. It was very wrong, she knew, to make Ilissa unhappy—Ilissa, the only person who loved her. And what Ilissa said was so true. Nora was lonely, worse than lonely—she was terrified, lost, worn out from making her way in a world of strangers, from being at the unpredictable mercy of magicians.

  Tears filled Nora’s eyes. But she did not move.

  “They don’t care about you, those magicians. What do you matter to them?” Ilissa’s voice seemed to be coming from within Nora’s own heart. “No one here understands you. This is not your world. You mean nothing here.”

  Ilissa was false to the bottom, Nora could smell it, and yet there was no resisting the truth of her words. Nora uttered a silent whimper. If she kept standing here, trying to resist Ilissa, she would collapse and lose control of her own body—go sprawling on the floor, helpless as an infant. And even then, perhaps, the magicians over there, absorbed in their conversations, would notice nothing.

  She tore her eyes from Ilissa’s face and looked frantically around again. Only the round eyes of the clay lion met hers.

  All at once, a new emotion rose within her, a calm, spreading exhilaration. Surprised by joy, Nora thought. There was no reason for her to feel this way. Was it part of Ilissa’s honeyed enchantment? Why did she suddenly feel so powerful, when she had no power? Then the fear seized her again, roughly.

  In the corner of her eye, off to the right, there was a blur of movement. An animal leaping. Something shattered, explosively. The noise splashed against her ears like cold water.

  * * *

  “If what you’re saying is true, Lord Aruendiel,” the minister said, “we’ll have to—” He broke off at the sound of the crash. The murmur of voices halted.

  Aruendiel looked up. Broken crockery was sprayed across the floor at the far end of the gallery.

  The minister clucked, turning back to Aruendiel. “The servant girl knocked something off the mantelpiece.”

  “Wasn’t that one of the Deriguisian figurines?” said someone disapprovingly. “They’re irreplaceable.”

  Aruendiel saw that the girl Nora was standing near the smashed figurine. Her head half turned, and her eyes met his. Her mouth worked silently. There was a heavy, glazed look on her face that was unusual for her.

  “Excuse me,” he said to the minister, pushing his way through the group. Nora took a step into the next room, disappearing from view.

  * * *

  She was giving in now because she was too exhausted to do otherwise. The sound of the smashing statuette—poor lion, she felt oddly responsible—had startled both her and Ilissa, had given her a brief respite. But now she was completely out of strength. Weary of desires and dreams and powers, of everything but sleep. Ilissa came toward her, smiling graciously now that she’d won.

  Awkward, hurrying footsteps sounded on the marble floor, and Nora sensed rather than saw a dark figure looming at her back. “Ah,” said Aruendiel’s voice, in a tone that indicated he was neither surprised nor pleased to see Ilissa. He clamped his hand onto Nora’s shoulder. She felt a jolt, a backlash surge through her body, trying to repel his grip. His hand only tightened.

  “Let her go, Aruendiel,” Ilissa said warningly.

  “After you do.”

  Ilissa did not answer. Her eyes moved back and forth, studying him closely.

  A smaller figure came up behind Nora on the other side. “Well, if there must be a fight, I don’t want to be left out,” Hirizjahkinis said.

  With an almost imperceptible shrug, Ilissa stepped back. “Very well then, Aruendiel,” she said, flashing a radiant smile. “You take her, the poor child. But it’s sad, really. Is she the best you can do, these days?”

  Aruendiel said nothing as Ilissa turned on her heel and strode down the other hall toward the bronze door. Only when it had closed behind her did he let go of Nora’s shoulder. She turned to look up at him.

  The girl was pale and drained, he saw, but the dull, preoccupied look in her eyes was gone. “All right now?” he inquired brusquely.

  “Thank you,” Nora started to say, but no sound would come out of her mouth. She tried again with no better results. “My voice is gone,” she mouthed, gesturing toward her throat.

  “A silencing spell, eh?” Aruendiel said. He yanked Nora’s jaw up and glanced quickly into her nostrils, then into one of her ears. He had done something similar, Nora remembered now, the first time she had met him. Then, frowning, he looked over at the mass of broken crockery.

  “What happened here?”

  Nora made a hesitant gesture to indicate something jumping. She was almost positive that she had seen the lion leap off the mantelpiece.

  Aruendiel smiled sardonically. “You like to break things, don’t you?” he said. “Hirizjahkinis, can you get this silencing spell off Mistress Nora? I want to make sure Ilissa has really made her departure.”

  A faint look of surprise crossed Hirizjahkinis’s face. “Certainly. But are you sure? Would you like me to—?”

  “No,” he said abruptly. “Don’t worry. I won’t engage her. I’ll be back tonight.” He turned before she could say anything else and walked quickly through the archway.

  * * *

  Some time later, Nora sat facing Hirizjahkinis in the small salon to which Hirizjahkinis had ushered her. Nora had consumed some cold roast chicken and a glass of rather sweet white wine, and was feeling more like herself again, although her voice was still gone. It was tempting to think that hunger alone—low blood sugar—might have made her succumb to Ilissa. Nora kept replaying the scene in her mind, thinking of what she should have said to Ilissa, the defiance she would have offered with just an instant’s more preparation. But she could not shake the memory of those unwilling, inevitable steps that had carried her toward Ilissa’s summons.

  “I hope he’s back soon,” muttered Hirizjahkinis, placing her hand
s lightly on either side of Nora’s neck. “If only because he may be the only one who can take off this silencing spell. He knows a dozen times more about Faitoren magic than I do.”

  She was talking about Aruendiel; Nora raised her eyebrows in an interrogative way.

  “Oh, yes, he has made a deep study of it. It is to keep an eye on Ilissa. Me, I never even think about her anymore, except when I come to this wretched north country. Of course, Aruendiel has strong reasons to, I suppose.”

  Hirizjahkinis must have caught another flicker of interest in Nora’s eyes, because she smiled and gave her a shrewd look. “You must tell me more about yourself, Mistress Nora, while I try to remove this spell. So you come from another world?” Nora nodded, as Hirizjahkinis gently palpated her neck. “And you fell into the hands of Ilissa and her horrible son.” Hirizjahkinis touched the scars on Nora’s cheek. “Then you escaped from the Faitoren. Aruendiel helped you?” Nora nodded again. “And you have been staying at his castle ever since? Does he still have that housekeeper with red hair? I think she was very shocked the first time she saw me; she had never seen anyone with black skin before. And, tell me,” she added, “are you Aruendiel’s mistress?”

  Startled, Nora shook her head as vigorously she could.

  “I am sorry, I do not mean to offend you. Well, too bad for him!” Hirizjahkinis chuckled.

  Nora shook her head again, smiling very deliberately in such a way as to say never in a million years.

  “I only ask because in times past, he would have expected, as a matter of course—well, I must tell you, Aruendiel saved my life, too. Oh, yes. This was long ago, back in my home country, when I was very young. I was a nun, a priestess of the Holy Sister Night, but I broke my vows of purity. So they were going to stone me to death, until Aruendiel happened by, saw me tied up in front of the temple, and decided to spirit me away. It was not easy—the witch priestesses are powerful—but he managed it. We escaped into the mountains, we found a cave to spend the night in, and then!” She went into a brief gale of laughter.

  “Well, I was very grateful for my rescue, but not that grateful. It took me some time to make him understand the situation. Aruendiel had assumed that I’d broken my vows with a man. Lady moon, he was furious!”

  With slight consternation, Nora telegraphed another question with her eyebrows.

  “Oh, no, Aruendiel did not force me, nothing like that. But he was very disappointed! He was used to a different reception from women he wished to bed.” Hirizjahkinis laughed again, then looked suddenly troubled. “I would be happier if you were his mistress. It would be a sign that he takes some joy in living. Do you think he does?”

  Nora looked blank, then made an equivocating gesture with her hand: I guess so. I don’t really know.

  “I do not think he does, myself. He takes pleasure in magic, of course—how can one not? But to hole up in that backwoods castle of his for so many years, and this obsession with Ilissa! She is a bad one, but she is not worth so much attention. She is the sort of creature who, if she cannot be loved, is very pleased to be hated. It would be much worse for her to simply be forgotten.”

  Hirizjahkinis sighed. “Well, I am rambling on. Let us see about taking off this spell.” She studied Nora from several different angles, peered down her throat, rubbed a finger along her neck, touched her own neck, muttered to herself, and then sat back to regard Nora once again.

  “These Faitoren spells, there’s no logic to them,” she said, more to herself than to Nora. “I can’t even find where this one begins. Well, we must try something.”

  Her first attempt only made Nora’s ears ring. The second did nothing. The third produced a violent coughing fit. After the fourth try, Nora found that she could sing but not speak, and in fact could only sing snatches of an aria that she thought might be Puccini. “Very pretty,” said the magician. “But I suppose you want to be able to talk, too.” Slightly to Nora’s regret, she undid the singing spell and made a few more tries until Nora’s throat began to feel as though she were in the first stages of a cold.

  “By the sweet night, Aruendiel! What sort of task have you set me? Now we must really hope Ilissa does not kill him again, because I am running out of ideas.”

  Nora wondered if she had heard Hirizjahkinis correctly. “Did you say kill him again?” she tried to ask, forgetting that she had lost her voice.

  Hirizjahkinis had no difficulty understanding. “Oh, yes, Ilissa killed him,” she said composedly. “That is another reason for him to hate her.”

  “Killed? Dead?” Nora mouthed, but Hirizjahkinis only laughed a deep, rumbling chuckle, as though she enjoyed keeping Nora in suspense.

  “I can see you are very impatient to retrieve your voice,” she said. “I have one more idea. I confess that I cannot neatly unpeel this spell and take it off in one piece, as Aruendiel might be able to do, but I know another way. A little cruder and not as pleasant for you, but you will have your voice back. Would you like me to try it?”

  Apprehensively, Nora nodded.

  Hirizjahkinis pulled off one of her golden bracelets. In her hands it reshaped itself into a pair of long tweezers. “Open your mouth,” she said, leaning closer. “Wide, wider. Take a deep breath. Now—”

  Nora choked, her throat clogged with something solid that had not been there a moment before. Worse, the thing was alive. She could feel it moving just below her larynx. She would have shrieked if she could, but all she could do was gag.

  “Careful, careful!” Standing up, Hirizjahkinis forced Nora’s head back and reached carefully into her mouth with the tweezers. Another sickening throb in her throat, and then the blockage loosened. Hirizjahkinis pulled out a pale, wet, writhing ribbon and dropped it on the table. Nora went into a prolonged coughing fit.

  “What is it?” she asked hoarsely, when she could get her breath.

  Hirizjahkinis poked disdainfully at the white thing with the tweezers. It was fat, segmented, and many-legged, much like a large millipede. Its armored body had a silvery, mother-of-pearl opalescence.

  “It is Ilissa’s spell. Lovely, isn’t it? I simply gave it a physical form, something I could get a grip on.”

  “Ugh!” Nora cleared her throat passionately again, and then again.

  There was a knock on the door, and a young man in a long blue coat came in. His brown hair was scraped back in a braid from a doughy face; Nora recognized him as the magician who had been talking to Hirizjahkinis earlier. “Lady Hirizjahkinis,” he said, ducking his head slightly, “I wondered whether you might need some assistance with the silencing spell.”

  “If you had come sooner, I might have used your help, Dorneng. The spell was very stubborn. But I have prevailed, as you can see.” She indicated the pale curling thing on the table.

  “Oh, how interesting,” he said, coming closer. “I have never seen a Faitoren spell—it’s still very much alive, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, although it will probably die soon. If it doesn’t, I will kill it, the horrid thing.”

  “Oh!” He seemed mildly shocked. “Would you mind if I took it away with me? There is so much to learn about the Faitoren magic, and so few opportunities.”

  “Please,” said Hirizjahkinis with a wave of her hand. Dorneng produced a blue glass jar from a pocket of his coat, and, using a napkin, he carefully nudged the insectile form into the jar and inserted a plug. He thanked Hirizjahkinis with more warmth than Nora felt the disgusting thing in the jar justified, then left the room.

  Nora thanked Hirizjahkinis, too, and was about to ask whether all Ilissa’s spells were similarly repulsive, when she remembered the questions she’d wanted to ask: “What you said before—that Ilissa killed Aruendiel—what did you mean by that?”

  “I meant that she killed him.”

  Chilled, Nora objected: “But he’s not dead.”

  “Not anymore.” Hirizjahkinis gave a knowing smile.

  “Do you mean magicians don’t die?”

  “Magicians die, as any
human does. But sometimes they have friends who are other magicians.”

  After a moment, Nora said: “You raised him from the dead.”

  “I helped. There were several of us.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Sometimes.”

  It was easier to believe that magicians could control the weather or turn people into stone. But if you could bring back the dead—Nora felt a kind of greedy, astonished hope, then reflected that Hirizjahkinis might simply mean something like the kind of miracle that paramedics accomplished every day in her own world for victims of heart attacks or drownings. “How did he die?” she asked.

  “He fell,” Hirizjahkinis said, still smiling, but with a trace of sadness. “It was in the war, during a skirmish in the mountains. He was riding an Avaguri’s mount—it’s a flying device—and Ilissa managed to unseat him. He fell a long way down onto a mountain. And then an avalanche took him away. We didn’t find his body for weeks.”

  “Oh. How awful.” It felt odd to be expressing condolences for someone who was no longer dead. Another thought struck her. “An Avaguri’s mount, is it made out of wood and feathers?”

  “It can be. Why do you ask?”

  “We flew here to Semr on one.”

  “He flew here on an Avaguri’s mount?” Hirizjahkinis said. “That is surprising. He does not like to fly now—at least not when it’s not his own wings.”

  “When he fell, is that how he broke all of his b—” Nora began to say, when the door opened and Aruendiel walked into the room. She couldn’t help uttering a small gasp when she saw him. It was almost like seeing a ghost.