The Smoke-Scented Girl

by Melissa McShane

  Evon’s top boots were only slightly better for walking across muddy roads than Piercy’s custom-made footwear. He watched his footing carefully, avoiding the deep ruts filled with icy slush and the occasional pile of half-frozen animal waste. Villagers stopped to stare at him as he passed, and he nodded at them, though he wasn’t sure how friendly he looked, what with how hard he was concentrating on not falling. They did look as if they were accustomed to strange gents from the city wandering around their village. Evon sidestepped a particularly large turd and glanced around. He had walked nearly half the length of the village and passed half a dozen depressed houses. He felt a little depressed himself, looking at them. He hadn’t realized how much a creature of the city he was until that moment.

  He nodded again, this time at an elderly couple who were walking toward the tavern, hand in hand, and felt unexpectedly jealous. When this was all over, he was going to take a leave of absence—he was certainly owed one—and go to the theater, and the menagerie, and the Royal Gardens, with…his imagination stuttered to a halt. It had been six years since graduation; all the young women he’d known at school had returned home, or gotten married, or any number of things that put them beyond his reach. He drew in a deep breath of frozen air that tasted of snow and mutton, and moved on. It could wait until later. Right now, he had a mystery magician to find. About a hundred feet ahead he saw winter-dead yellow grass give way to blackened turf, and shortly he stood before what was left of Fullanter’s house.

  It hadn’t burned entirely. The outer walls, made of large river stones, still stood, though the roof was gone and the wall over the doorframe had collapsed, leaving a fall of stones for Evon to step over. Inside, the packed dirt floor was black with char that stirred as Evon walked through, sending up a bitter smell of old fire and dead earth. If Fullanter had owned any furnishings, they hadn’t survived the fire. Snow drifted shallowly against the inner corners of the cottage, clean and white against the burned stones.

  The cottage had originally been bisected by another stone wall. Now that wall lay in a heap in the center of the cottage, not a heap of stones but a pile of what looked like fossilized mud. Evon touched it with his finger. It felt like cold stone, exactly as it should, except stone wasn’t supposed to flow like water. He crouched so his eyes were level with its top and examined it. It looked a little glossy, as if it had been polished, and the grain seemed finer than that of the stones in the wall. He laid his palm against it, not sure what he expected, but nothing happened. It might as well have been sculpted into this bizarre shape.

  Evon stood and brushed his hands off on his coat, then reached into his inner pocket and pulled out a quizzing glass with a smooth brass handle. He’d scratched runes along the frame of the lens, which gave it a seedy look, but Evon didn’t carry it to show off. He polished the lens with the lining of his waistcoat, then passed his open palm across the glittering crystal and said, “Epiria,” and held it to his eye.

  He was nearly blinded by the glow of residual magic the glass revealed. Blinking hard to keep from tearing up, he turned away and looked at the stone pile from the corner of his eye until his vision adjusted and he could see clearly. Even then, it was almost too bright to bear. The revelation spell showed the remnants of the fire spell as flying, twisting ribbons of blue-white light that left afterimages printed on Evon’s eyes. Runes scrawled up and down the ribbons, as blindingly dark as the ribbons were light. He leaned in to examine one more closely and it drifted away, as if, impossibly, it was aware of his interest. No matter how he approached, the memory of the spell stayed just far enough away that he couldn’t make out the runes. After a few failed attempts, Evon stepped back to look at the spell as a whole, and realized it had a larger pattern.

  The twining ribbons outlined two human figures, one much taller than the other. The taller one reached out toward the shorter one with both arms, the shorter one raised its hand above its head, then both dissolved into fluttering ribbons of light only to come back together and repeat the strange dance. Evon watched the little scene play out a few times, then lowered the quizzing glass and said, “Desini.” Two people, present at the center of the extraordinary spell. They had to be Fullanter and the Fearsome Firemage. Standing in the wreckage of Fullanter’s cottage, surrounded by the remnants of the most powerful fire Evon had ever heard of, the whimsical name didn’t seem so funny. He tucked the quizzing glass back into his pocket and dusted his hands again, though they weren’t dirty, and licked his lips against the dry taste epiria had left in his mouth.

  He breathed shallowly, inhaling the scent of char and snow and, distantly, someone’s dinner. He had no idea if this next part would work. He’d worked it out by candlelight the last two nights while Piercy muttered in his sleep, scribbling notes and crossing them out and sketching the shape of a spell he wasn’t sure was even possible. Tracking someone when you had a piece of them, a hair or a drop of blood, that was a commonplace. His quarry hadn’t left anything like that behind. But she had left something else, if Evon could manage to find it. If it even remained here. If the spell worked.

  He chalked a rune on the back of his left hand, then closed his eyes and let his mind wander. The bitter brown scent of burned earth. The clear crystal smell of snow melting. Mutton boiling over a fire, cold damp stone like ancient caverns. He pinched his nostrils shut with his left hand, pressed down on his eyelids with his right, and whispered, “Olficio.”

  Even with his fingers clamped over his nose, the raucous clamoring of a thousand odors made him stagger. There was a river—he remembered their coach passing over it—a quarter of a mile away, and he could smell the water rushing past its banks, throwing up the rougher scent of the rocks it wore away at. The nearer smell of mutton drilled into his lips and tongue, warring with the bitter coffee flavor of olficio and making him want to vomit. He swallowed hard and kept his eyes shut. Trees with green sap flowing through their veins waiting patiently for spring. The sharp musk of a fox in its den. And somewhere, in all of this olfactory noise, a scent that didn’t belong.

  He became gradually aware of a more human smell, the noxious odor of a body infrequently bathed and the warm, slippery scent of greasy hair. It permeated the stones, but faintly, as if the air was tugging it free and blending it with the wind that blew through the wrecked cottage. Fullanter. Then, even more faintly, the scent of smoke. Not the smoke of a campfire or even of a burning building, but a darker, thicker smell, slightly sour, as if someone had smeared grease on a hunk of ancient cheese and then set it alight. Evon let it seep into his closed nostrils and into his lungs. It wasn’t exactly an unpleasant smell, but it made him uneasy, as though he’d invited something to take residence in his body that might not be the most gracious of guests. But nothing happened. He let the scent fill him to the core, then said, “Desini,” and the smells vanished so completely that even after he lowered both his hands, he felt as if his sense of smell had been surgically excised. Only the thick, sour smell of smoke remained, trailing away out of the cottage and down the road south toward Chaneston.

  Staring down at the melted lump of stone, Evon ran through his careful deductions in his head and realized just how much guessing he’d done. Suppose he was right that the...he couldn’t call her that name anymore, he’d have to say “the unknown magician.” Suppose the unknown magician really was turning her devastating magic on people she believed deserved punishment. That didn’t mean she was incapable of turning it on innocent people. Or that she was incapable of turning it on him, even though he only wanted...well, what did he want? He wanted to know how to wield that fire. He didn’t want to hurt her, or stop her vigilante quest, he just wanted the fire. The realization shocked him. Even if she was killing evil men and women (and that was another guess he could be wrong about) innocent people were being killed along with the guilty. Shouldn’t that matter too? Evon shook his head to clear it. First, they had to find her. Everything else could wait until then.

  Chapter Four

/>   “I have already explained that we are moving as fast as we can, Miss Elltis,” Evon said. It became harder for him to control his frustration with his employer every time he spoke with her, which was increasingly rarely. “This tracking spell—”

  “I am not interested in the tracking spell, Mr. Lorantis,” Miss Elltis said. Today she wore her flaxen hair parted in the middle, coiled in ringlets on both sides of her face and braided into a bun at the back of her head. Her small blue eyes peered at him myopically; he’d never understood why she refused to wear her spectacles when communicating with someone. She pursed her lips, causing a host of wrinkles to erupt around them and deepening the ones at the corners of her eyes. “I am interested in the fire spell. How soon will you have it?”

  Evon ground his teeth against a host of angry words he wanted to fling at her. “We are very close now.”

  “Which is the same as saying you do not have it and can make no guarantees as to when you will.” Miss Elltis leaned forward, narrowing his view of her until she was nothing more than a pair of bulging eyes and a twitching nose. “I am beginning to think this excursion of yours is a waste of my time and money.”

  “I fail to see how you can say that, when I have already achieved more than anyone else the government has set to this project,” Evon said, and was afraid his words sounded like a snarl. “Have patience.”

  “Do not tell me what to do, Mr. Lorantis,” Miss Elltis said, and she did snarl. “The government expects results from us, and they are not accustomed to patience. Find the magician, Mr. Lorantis. You have five days. After that—”

  Evon cut the connection. He didn’t need to hear any more. She wasn’t serious; she could not afford to fire him. But it was a measure of how much she had promised the government that she could even imply that threat. He tucked the mirror away inside his coat and went outside to mount his horse, an indifferent gray gelding that always seemed to be laughing at him.

  “Inveros, then?” Piercy said, his voice a little muffled by the collar of his coat, turned up against the chill wind. He prodded his own horse, a much nicer animal, and led the way out of the coaching inn’s busy yard.

  “It’s the next place south of Chaneston,” Evon said, “and although I think she came through here twice, I’m fairly confident she went south instead of west the second time.”

  “I am confident in your confidence, dear fellow, but I wish we had acquired horses sooner. It feels as if we are traveling faster, though I realize that is likely an illusion.”

  Evon only nodded. He felt an urgency now even greater than the one that had propelled him to discover the fireproof shield, a fear that they would reach Inveros only to learn that a giant explosion had leveled three buildings the day before. Knowing that he could now track the woman, having her scent in his nostrils day and night, couldn’t dispel his fears. The smell had become so familiar he no longer perceived it as an odor, but as a compulsion, drawing him onward like a fish caught by a silver hook for the last two days.

  Piercy had fallen silent when Evon did. Evon had no idea what thoughts preoccupied his friend. Regrets for the life he was missing in the capital, possibly, or something more mundane, like what hovel they might sleep in that night. So it surprised him when, a few hours later, Piercy said out of nowhere, “It appears our Fearsome Firemage is a young woman, then. Named Kerensa.”

  “It seems so,” Evon said. “Though I wonder if that’s her real name.”

  “True,” Piercy said. They rode a few minutes in silence, then Piercy said, “Evon, would you be capable of such destruction?”

  “I? Do you mean, could I so callously kill so many people, or could I cast the spell?”

  “The latter, of course. You’ve too much compassion for the former.”

  He said it in such an offhanded way that Evon felt the tips of his ears redden with embarrassment rather than cold. “I—no, I can’t imagine casting such a powerful spell. I can’t imagine anyone capable of such power.”

  “And you are the most powerful magician of your generation. Don’t protest, we both know it’s true. No one else in our class was recruited to a highly prestigious cooperative directly out of school, bypassing university entirely. No one in the history of Houndston took the gold medal six years running. And if this woman is of an age with you, or younger....” His voice trailed off.

  “You’re wondering what else she might be capable of.”

  “I’m wondering what might happen to us if we face her directly. You know I have the utmost faith in your abilities, dear fellow, but I also have a deep and abiding love for keeping my integument intact. Perhaps this isn’t the best idea we’ve ever had.”

  Evon blew out an explosive breath. “She’s been targeting men and women who’ve done great evil to those around them. I was hoping I could convince her to turn that desire for justice on the Despot of Balviros’s armies. You know better than I how his forces are advancing. You know the kind of destruction he leaves behind him.”

  “I know that his atrocities have multiplied in the last year,” Piercy said. “It seems as if he no longer cares whether the countries he conquers remain a viable part of his empire. But...Evon, I’m beginning to agree with you that the Fearsome Firemage, whatever her name is, might not be sane. Convincing her of anything might be impossible.”

  “Do you think we should go home, then? Report...what? I don’t know what we could even tell our superiors that wouldn’t see us out on the street, unemployed and unemployable due to no references.” He chose not to think about Miss Elltis’s probable reaction.

  “I don’t know. I simply wish we had a better plan of attack.”

  “So do I.” Evon wiped his nose, which had begun to drip from the cold. Another two hours and it would be too dark to go on. “Let’s just focus on finding her. We can decide what to do from there. If we’re right, and she’s taken a job somewhere, we might be able to confront her in public so she’s less likely to simply attack us.”

  “There is still a great deal of ‘if’ and ‘might’ attached to that plan, but I agree it’s better than nothing.” Piercy sniffled and wiped his own nose. “Not to complain, dear fellow, but I am so weary of sleeping on floors that I become less interested in the fate of our mysterious quarry with every mile that passes.”

  “Let’s push on a little farther,” Evon said, flicking his reins, “and with luck we’ll find a bed rather than a floor.”

  They rode into Inveros around eleven o’clock in the morning the following day, following a wagon caravan laden with raw lumber headed for the port. Evon felt as if the city grew up around them, new construction giving way to established buildings of brick and limestone and then to granite quarried and hauled from over fifty miles away, tangible evidence that the more prosperous residents of Inveros could afford the same amenities as their wealthier neighbors in Matra. Inveros was smaller than the capital, but it felt bigger because of the wide streets, wide enough for two carts to pass without inconveniencing pedestrians on either side. There were few riders on horseback, and Evon and Piercy had trouble navigating between coaches and carts that regarded the streets as their property. By the time they found a satisfactory inn—satisfactory to Piercy, who dismissed Evon’s first three choices as lacking in amenities, by which he meant an en-suite bath—Evon was more tired and irritable than he’d been the past three days living rough on the road. They turned their horses over to the care of a perky stable girl, paid far too much for a room with two beds and the essential bath, and collapsed onto their respective beds. “Is she here?” Piercy asked.

  “She’s here. Somewhere. We should start looking,” Evon replied, but he put his arm over his eyes and let the tension drain out of his shoulders. He needed to get up if he didn’t want to fall asleep. He wanted to fall asleep. He groaned and rolled over, then stood, his whole body aching more than if he hadn’t taken that moment to rest.

  “Piercy,” he said, prodding his friend on the shin with his boot. “Piercy. We can’t sleep
now.”

  “I believe you are entirely mistaken in that statement. I feel that I am quite capable of sleeping.” He had his arm flung over his eyes much as Evon had done moments before.

  “Piercy, we need to track this woman down. Let’s at least find out where she is. Then we can rest and decide what to do next.”

  “You do it. I await your findings with great anticipation.”

  “Do you want me to face this woman alone? She might kill me. Then you’d feel horrible and never be able to sleep comfortably again.”

  Piercy removed his arm and stared at the ceiling. “Why is it that you take such pleasure in having guilt as a major weapon in your rhetorical arsenal?”

  “Because it’s worked on you for nearly fifteen years. Come on. Get up. Her scent is very strong—I don’t anticipate this taking very long.”

  Inveros was beautiful in the bright winter sun, everything sharp-edged and crisp like the smell of snow that still hung in the air and blended with the tangy salt of the sea. They left the horses behind at the inn and set out on foot. Everyone they passed had a smile or a greeting for them; even the sweepers at the street crossings had bright, eager faces. Brick and glass storefronts displayed wares from all parts of the world, and Evon had to remind Piercy why they were there when his friend kept falling behind to examine an exquisite pair of shoes or the perfect top hat. The scent led them through that major shopping district toward the heart of the city, where red and brown brick and greenish-white limestone gave way to quarried granite and wrought-iron gates and fences. There were fewer pedestrians now, and they had to walk more carefully to avoid the gray slush cast up by the passing carriages.