Witchfinder (Magical Empires Book 1)

by Sarah Hoyt

  They were wrong. They smelled wrong, too, their stench following them. And they fell upon the passers-by, the late night opera-leavers, the prostitutes and their clients, the beggar children, with equal ferocity.

  They didn’t fall on Jonathan. He didn’t expect it. Honestly, even creatures of the abyss had more sense than to fall on a trained wizard with years of practice, even if the trained wizard was Jonathan Blythe, who’d learned magic rather by default, and more to stop his masters' badgering him than because he had any interest in it.

  But gripping his cane – with its silver handle – in his hand, and frowning at the scene of mayhem around him, Jonathan was taken with a most unexpected sensation. He was sure – in fact, he could almost swear – that he was supposed to be doing something about all this. He heard screams from a group of crossing sweeper children who were trying, ineffectually, to defend themselves with their brooms against fanged purple horrors.

  But, damn it all, he told himself. I am a rogue. Jonathan Blythe, only out for what he can get, if what he can get is a bit of tupping or some good liquor, at least. I am not a hero.

  And yet, the growing conviction at the head of his mind, was that if he did not do something, he would not be able to wake with himself in the morning. His father’s death didn’t bother him – what? Far less ignominious and far less shameful than he deserved – but these children had done nothing but get caught at a bad time.

  Sighing inwardly, he charged with his cane, swinging as hard as he could at the furry head and feathered one, at violet horror and red one, at horn and claw and fang.

  The horrors recoiled, as the urchins, gaining heart, started swinging with vigor, sending the minor demons flying across the street.

  Jonathan started forward, towards a group of besieged opera-goers, all female, all clustered and screaming, as demons pulled at their dresses and bit them. He realized the urchins were following him and, without looking, he said a careless spell endowing their brooms with demon-killing spells.

  The screams of glee from the urchins as the demons exploded on contact told him everything he needed to know. They batted the demons off the opera-goers and flagged down a coach going too fast to accrue abominations, then charged forward, towards the next group.

  He continued in this fashion, aware that he was gathering a growing crowd of followers, only because he was charging their weapons, until he met with a group coming the other way. They converged on a group of debutantes, just out from Almack’s, screaming and crying as demons tore their pretty muslin frocks and bit their peaches-and-cream faces, and their rounded, perfect arms.

  He’d seen a group of demons trying to drag one of the girls off, and he ran forward. His cane almost met, midair, with a fan going the other way. Fan and cane fell on demons at once, and demons exploded and burst. Jonathan’s group of street urchins set to, clearing the road around, while the other chap's – no, girl’s – followers, who appeared to be a ragtag group of prostitutes, did likewise.

  And Jonathan, looking up, met with the brightest pair of green eyes, the reddest hair he’d ever seen, in the most impudent female face this side of a streetwalker’s. He registered this impression, as well as the impression the girl was quality, if not wealth. She was dressed as a dowdy children’s governess, in a black, very modest dress, which was all out of kilter with her beauty and her bold style. The fan she’d clearly bespelled to be lethal was chicken skin and drawn upon in jewel colors.

  Jonathan set to killing demons again, but between one and the next, he removed his hat for a moment and said, “Jonathan Blythe, at your service, Madam, and you are?”

  “Ginevra Elfborn,” came a voice that matched the face, clear and loud, and well-accented.

  “Elfborn,” he said in some confusion.

  “Elfborn and not ashamed. I am a governess at the orphanage where I grew. I was out for the evening to… well… and I came upon this!”

  To… well…Those words set Jonathan’s mind reeling. He was not going to ask, not right now, but the many things a woman like that could be doing out at night… well, he should be shocked, but he never had been a very regular man.

  She caught the silence, he thought, and felt his thoughts.

  “It is no use,” she said, "your thinking a lot of indecent things. My mother was a swan maiden, you see; sometimes I need– Sometimes I need to be near water.”

  Jonathan realized that even as he was smiting demons, his face had split in a grin. He’d known a swan maiden once—

  “Miss Elfborn. If you do me the honor, I’ll escort you to the river, and help you kill demons on the way. That is, if you’re agreeable.”

  He looked up for a moment to catch a glimpse of green-flashing, narrowed eyes, and a brief and surprised smile, “Indeed, Mr. Blythe. I shall be very pleased.”

  He’d tell her about the title later.

  This Unwanted Crown

  Nell advanced. It seemed to her that it had got unbearably hot, but she didn’t feel it as heat, so much as unbearable confinement, touching the skin at all points. She got sweaty, too, instantly, and uncomfortable in ways she didn’t even know people could be uncomfortable. It seemed to her she could feel every inch of her skin, she realized, startled that this was not normal, that in fact, most of the time, people forgot about most of their body. Just let it run on its own. Perhaps that was necessary to stay sane. You couldn’t always be thinking of your left eyeball.

  Then she thought these were very odd thoughts, and then that she must be dreaming. Yet she continued walking towards the glow ahead. There was a sense that if she were to get out of here and return to the world as she knew it – one of the worlds that made sense, at least, be they Earth or Avalon – she needed to go forward.

  Only, as she got closer, the light seemed to grow dimmer. No, not dimmer, just more concentrated into strands, which seemed to drape all over, from ceiling to floor, like immaterial cobwebs. They gathered in three glowing cocoons at the end of the corridor in a sort of domed cave-chamber. It seemed to Nell that the walls of the chamber glowed gold, and also that inside the cocoons were three people – tall people with broad shoulders, though it was impossible to say whether they were men or women.

  When they spoke, the voice that resonated didn’t give her any idea, either, since it was a vibration, more than a voice. It gave the impression of a boom in the ears, but there was no sound.

  “Daughter of the isles,” it or they said. It was hard to tell if it was one person or all three speaking. “You come to claim your crown.”

  Nell spoke before she could stop herself. “No,” she said.

  “No?”

  “No. I want no part of the crown.”

  There was a low thrumming. She couldn’t tell if it was a thrum of disapproval. Then there was a question that almost managed to sound surprised and taken off expectations, “Why not?”

  Nell had to think, because her words had come out before thinking. But as she looked into her heart, she saw that it was indeed true. She wanted no part of the crown. “I am not of this world,” she said, and as the thrumming resumed, she said, “What I mean is, I believe I was born in Britannia. Someone… someone I trust said I was. But I am not of this world. I was taken while still very young to another world, to a world we call Earth, a world without magic, and that is my world and what I think of as home.”

  No thrumming, but the words came again, “And yet, that person you trust – perhaps love? – is in Britannia, is he not?”

  Trust and perhaps love. Nell didn’t have much experience with men. There had been Antoine, but apparently he hadn’t been a man as such, just a lost centaur, carrying out some ancient prophecy. Then there was Seraphim. She had enjoyed her days with him. And perhaps it was love – maybe. She could imagine his moving back to the farm and living there, while they took some of the work from Grandma and did their best to make the place profitable and—

  And it was totally impossible. He was a duke. Yes, he had brothers, and yes, perhaps h
e could leave and leave the inheritance to his younger brothers, but she was not stupid. While other dukes in the same position might do so, Seraphim would not. His family and his responsibilities were at least part of his being.

  She shied away from what this might mean for her and for her family and for her responsibilities. “I… I am not for him. We’re not of the same worlds. Our positions are so different.” That was a justification, her unforgiving mind told her, for dereliction of duty. But why should she have this duty? She hadn’t chosen to be born of this world, this kingdom, or this family. She hadn’t been raised to them. She didn’t want them. “I want to go back home and live there.”

  Another low thrumming, this one with a note of … yes, she was almost sure of it now. There were words in there. This low thrumming was a conversation between the people in those cocoons. “But you came to Britannia willing,” a voice said, and it seemed to her this voice had what she would call an Irish accent, even though there was no sound as such, just a feeling. “You embraced magic willing. This is not normal on Earth.”

  “I was curious,” she said, and then felt herself blush, fiery red. She knew she was blushing because her cheeks were even hotter than the chamber she found herself in, so hot she expected to smell burning flesh. “And there was a man. Or rather, he was a centaur. It is perhaps not known in Avalon, but women with… women who work in professions of the mind, on Earth, often have trouble… that is, men are not very interested in most of them. Or only some men. Most men who had been interested in me didn’t interest me, and then there was… the centaur. He was interesting, and he took me traveling the worlds.”

  She waited. The thrumming resumed. “The centaur fetched you obeying a prophecy and gave his life for it. Does that not move you?”

  “No. It is not my prophecy, and I did not want him to give his life.”

  “In fact,” another voice said, one that sounded somehow older, "you have known or suspected for some time, perhaps from before the centaur fetched you, who you were and what your responsibilities were, have you not?”

  “No,” Nell said, in a little cry, then stopped. “Perhaps, but….”

  “But?”

  “It is crazy to imagine you’re the princess of a lost world, and besides… and besides, I did not want it. Not after I saw the real Britannia, the responsibilities, the needs. Even with my fath– Even with the king in power, the heir would need to take up her share of magic. I’ve heard old people say the land suffers from lack of an heir. I– the heir would need to take up any future planning that involves magic and carry a burden that…. I do not want it.”

  The thrumming picked up again, this time sounding like a furious swarm of bees who were running rather hoarse. “In fact, you’d prefer to desert?” another voice said.

  “Not desert. Not that,” Nell said. “I wasn’t raised to it. There are better people than I.”

  A long silence fell, and for a moment, for just a moment, Nell thought they’d now let her go, probably transport her all the way to Earth, and then she….

  “Well then,” the voices said altogether. “Look what will happen if you’ll not take this unwanted crown.”

  In front of the cocoons of light, a mist formed, thick and glossy, like reflective fog. And upon the fog scenes formed and moved. People she knew, people she– Yes, she was sure she recognized Seraphim, and her heart leapt. Why on Earth was he in an underground chamber, trying to fight a dragon with what appeared to be a flint knife?

  And then the scene shifted. And Nell screamed.

  The Duke’s Trial

  There was blood on the floor, and Seraphim was dimly aware it was his blood, come from wounds suffered in combat with the dragon. In the same dim, distant way, he was aware that his body hurt. There was a claw through his shoulder, and the dragon’s teeth had grazed his thigh. There were other wounds too. Seraphim didn’t remember them all, and didn’t think he had the strength to tally them.

  It was enough that every part of him hurt, and hurt more when it moved. The hand he lifted, holding the fragment of the dryad’s cage, might have been held down by weights. The legs that supported his body might have lost all strength. And pain screamed along his every nerve ending. It was enough that he felt more tired than he’d ever felt, so tired it took all his will power to stay standing and awake.

  Blood soaked his clothes, ran to the floor, and became slippery underfoot. He was cold. It seemed to him the cave had grown dimmer. He knew it couldn’t be true, and assumed this meant he was dying.

  For some reason the thought didn’t disturb him as much as it should. Perhaps because he lacked the strength to be disturbed. He wanted to close his eyes and to be done with all this.

  And through it all there remained the dim but certain awareness that not only had he barely injured his foe, but his foe was enjoying this.

  If the dragon had wanted, Seraphim knew, he could have ended Seraphim’s life long ago. Instead, he chose to prolong it, like a cat playing with an injured mouse.

  Seraphim could understand the behavior in cats. Instinct dictated it. Perhaps it dictated it in dragons too. They knew so little about the creatures of Fairyland.

  Those that strayed into the ordered world of Avalon, they chose rather to immure and to make behave by human rules. Gabriel—

  The thought of Gabriel brought a sharp pain in his mind, joining the physical ones. Perhaps it was true what Sydell said, that Gabriel had been the cause of Seraphim’s magical strength and most of his ability. Perhaps it was true that without Gabriel, Seraphim would never have been able to evade the prohibition spells and go to other worlds and rescue people. Perhaps – as Sydell now said, his voice echoing funny in Seraphim’s ears, while the dragon sprawled, smiling like a cat, across his pile of treasure – “You know, milord, it really was always your unacknowledged half-brother doing all the work, and allowing you to preen and strut like the useless peacock you are. He saved you from that siren. Even in the middle of his affair, he became aware of your peril, and he saved you. You didn’t even know he stood in danger or of what.”

  But it wasn’t that that upset Seraphim and caused the deep ache in his – for lack of a better word – soul. It didn’t matter if he’d appeared ridiculous to Gabriel, or, indeed, to the world at large. What mattered was that he could not slay the dragon. And without slaying the dragon, he couldn’t leave here. And without leaving here, he couldn’t help Gabriel.

  He’d been aware from a very early age that his father – hero to others, as he’d later been revealed – was not a responsible head of the family, and not capable of protecting them.

  And so, Seraphim had joined with his mother in protecting both the family and their reputation: the ill-fated duel on Gabriel’s behalf had been part of that. As had been the paying of fees and removing of entanglements from his father’s name, and making sure that, whatever else he or the family went without, there was money for the younger ones’ school fees.

  But now – he remembered – Marlon had told him that Gabriel was fighting for his life, and if Seraphim knew the stakes involved, it was a terrifying enough fight – but Seraphim could not help him. Seraphim would die here, alone, and, more importantly, forsworn. His brother would die, alone, thinking Seraphim had left him to die. Thinking he was indeed unacknowledged and unaccepted.

  The dragon head came in for a bite, and as it opened, Seraphim reached into the half open mouth and cut it across the tongue. The teeth closed around his arm so hard that Seraphim screamed.

  From the shadows came the scurry he’d heard before. Seraphim dismissed it. It might very well be nothing more than an illusion of his dying ears.

  The pain in his wrist was such that it was all he could do not to scream, and there was blood dripping between the dragon’s jaws. Mine or his? Seraphim thought, but it didn’t seem to matter. There was blood dripping down his forehead, across his eyebrows. He didn’t remember getting cut there, but obviously he had. The droplets of blood that managed to make it into
his eyes left a red curtain before his vision.

  The dragon smiled across the arm he had captured, and let go. For some reason, seeing that his arm was still attached, with deep puncture marks across his forearm, but attached, seemed to make the wound hurt more.

  “There is nothing you can do, duke. There was nothing you could ever do.”

  Seraphim tried, though he barely had strength left, to throw a spell-net at the dragon, but nothing came of it. Some sort of shield stopped it, before Seraphim could even see what it was, and with it went the last of Seraphim’s magical strength.

  “Your magic is now gone,” the dragon said. “And you were never a physical match for me. Say you surrender and I might let you live… a while longer.”

  Seraphim gritted his teeth. He thought, yes, if he lived longer he might have a chance, but he remembered the bodies, the skeletons around him, naked, eaten. No. There would be no hope. Besides, he would live with the knowledge he’d let his family be destroyed.

  “No,” he said between his teeth, and lurched forward, and tripped on something that made a horrible metallic clatter.

  He noticed, without much thought, that the dragon looked alarmed; then he looked down and saw a glimmer, a—a sword. It was gold and had cabalistic symbols on the handle, and Seraphim had a feeling someone – was someone alive in this horrible place, besides him and his foe? – had taken it from the pile of treasure and slid it across the ground at him.

  All of this took a moment, and then he was – despite the screams of his body – grabbing the sword and running – running, though he was sure he’d die of the effort – at the dragon, and plunging the sword to the hilt in the dragon’s chest.