The Smoke-Scented Girl

by Melissa McShane

  Evon was coughing too hard to answer at first. Finally, his eyes streaming, he said, “You could get another room. You probably should get another room. I can’t promise that won’t happen again.”

  “If I acquired my own room, there would be nothing constraining you from staying up all hours and forgetting to eat. You and I will simply have to come to an accommodation. And I will find something to occupy me during the daylight hours, when you are busily engaged in finding new and unpleasant ways to fumigate a room.”

  “There was the one that ended with a flash of light and purple fire.”

  “All right, fumigate or illuminate a room, though I am not certain purple is anyone’s color.” Piercy stepped away from the window, ostentatiously holding his nose. “It is dinnertime,” he said. “I will take myself off to the dining room, and you should away to speak to Mistress Gavranter. She kept Kerensa far too long yesterday.”

  “Kerensa looks exhausted still. I’d hoped it was just the effect of the weapon’s activation, but I think the magicians are pushing her too hard.”

  “You are the one with the power to stop that, dear fellow. I cannot credit how those magicians’ attitudes toward you changed when you walked out of that desolation unscathed.”

  “Not totally unscathed. My coat is never going to be the same, and the hair on the back of my head is still a little singed.”

  Piercy walked around Evon and tugged at the indicated hair. “You saw what remained of the deceased when they were retrieved yesterday. Everyone is shocked, amazed and awestruck that you did not resemble them. With good reason.” Serious now, he added, “Evon, that was extremely dangerous. You had no idea your spell would even work against a fire of that magnitude.”

  “I promised I wouldn’t leave her,” Evon said. He went to shut the window, which was letting in a frigid breeze.

  “She wouldn’t thank you for killing yourself to keep that promise,” Piercy said. “And I hope you don’t think that risking your life will change her feelings for you.”

  Evon shook his head. He looked out over the rooftops of Ostradon, watching smoke rise from the chimneys of the tall, narrow brick houses. “I couldn’t leave her.”

  Piercy sighed. “I know.” He went to the door. “Eat something. Don’t force me to bring you something vile from the kitchens. Hunger may be the best sauce, but it’s murder on the intellectual faculties.”

  Evon heard the door close behind Piercy, then turned and moved things off the small round-topped table he’d appropriated from the downstairs hall of the inn. It was covered with a layer of orange dust, under which was a layer of brown crumbly things. He used a handkerchief to wipe the top of the table, sending dust and crumbly things to the floor. If he took a positive view, that was one more thing he knew didn’t work. From a more negative perspective, it was one thing that didn’t work out of what might be a million other non-viable possibilities. He sat heavily in his chair and stared at the bare table. He felt as though he was on the right path, but he couldn’t work out which of the many things he’d tried were part of that right path. Piercy was right; he needed to eat something. No, first he had to extract Kerensa from the magicians’ clutches. They’d all been awed by their first sight of the spell, but now that it was a commonplace, they had a tendency to forget there was a woman attached to it.

  He went down the hall and up a flight of stairs to the third floor, which the magicians had appropriated for their use as sleeping and working quarters. He knocked on the door at the far end of the hall, then entered. Kerensa sat quietly in a chair, her caramel-golden hair bundled at the base of her neck, spell-ribbons frozen in place around her. Several of the magicians hovered over her, making notes or copying runes. It infuriated Evon that the magicians insisted on repeating his work, claiming that his perfectly clear notes were unintelligible. Such a waste of time. The slow pace of their work further infuriated him. They seemed to believe that the activation of the spell meant they had plenty of time before the urge struck Kerensa again. Evon kept having to remind himself that he was there solely because Mistress Gavranter had overridden Mrs. Petelter’s demand that Evon obey the Home Defense command for him to return home. Mrs. Petelter, who’d failed utterly to capture Valantis, was in disgrace not only for that failure but because of the debacle that had gotten Kerensa kidnapped in the first place. She’d intended to send Evon home immediately, to avoid looking disobedient as well as incompetent, but Mistress Gavranter had taken her aside and had a few quiet words with her, then the two women had gone into Mrs. Petelter’s room for a mirror conversation with Home Defense, and ultimately they’d emerged, Mrs. Petelter looking relieved, Mistress Gavranter looking smugly pleased. Now Mrs. Petelter avoided him, and Evon avoided her, just in case she changed her mind.

  “Mistress Gavranter,” Evon said. The magician was seated near the window, frowning over a page of notes. She looked up inquiringly. “Mistress Gavranter, I believe it’s dinnertime, and I think everyone would do better with a little refreshment.”

  Mistress Gavranter’s eyes went to Kerensa, then back to Evon. “Thank you, Mr. Lorantis, I think that is an excellent idea.”

  “It can wait another five minutes,” Mistress Quendester said, not bothering to look at Evon, who had to stop himself making an angry reply. “Five minutes” was Mistress Quendester’s habitual response to any suggestion by Evon that it was time to stop.

  “I really need to stop, Mistress Quendester,” Kerensa said. “Don’t worry, I’ll come back.”

  Mistress Quendester glared at Kerensa. “I’d think you would want us to work as fast as possible,” she snapped.

  “I wish you would,” Kerensa said sweetly.

  “Oh, let the girl go, Caris,” Master Waldratis, the balding magician, said, stepping back and mopping at his forehead with his handkerchief. “I could use a rest myself.”

  “Desini,” Evon said with a sharper flick of his fingers than was necessary to dismiss epiria, taking advantage of Mistress Quendester’s irritation and the distraction of the other magicians. They murmured crossly, casting dire glances Evon’s way, but no one challenged him. It was good to have a reputation.

  Evon offered Kerensa his arm, and the two of them went down the stairs to the dining room. “I’m glad you came in when you did,” Kerensa said. “I was starting to get restless. Have you made any progress?”

  Evon grimaced. “If you call several more explosive failures ‘progress,’ then yes.”

  “At least you know what doesn’t work.”

  “That’s what I told myself, but I knew I was lying.”

  She laughed and squeezed his arm. “Isn’t there anything I can do to help?”

  He looked at her cheerful face and thought of a million things he wanted to say to her. “Continue to cooperate with the magicians,” he said. “Maybe they’ll find a way to separate the spell from you, and then it won’t matter whom it’s targeting.”

  “I think some of them couldn’t find a way to their own backsides without a map and a guide dog, but I’ll try to be helpful.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. They’re a lot more careful of my comfort than I expected. I think some of them believe I really do have control over the spell and are terrified I might repeat my performance at the Speculatus manor if they anger me. I haven’t done anything to correct that impression.”

  “It seems I’m not the only one with a reputation for fearsomeness.”

  “They do walk softly around you. You must have been something to watch, back at the manor.”

  Evon thought of Odelia collapsed on the floor with her head hanging at an unnatural angle. “I did what the situation called for.”

  They entered the dining room and joined Piercy at his table. A waiter brought them somewhat dry roast chicken with boiled onions and potatoes. Evon picked at his food and went over his last failure in his head. Phosphorus wasn’t working as a source of light, symbolic of guidance. Plus, it was dangerous and volatile. Wood and candl
e hadn’t burned hot enough, and oil gave off too much smoke. What was left? Alcohol might work...in fact, a nice clear alcohol would be more symbolic than white phosphorus, clarity of liquor, clarity of purpose.

  “Excuse me,” he called out to the waiter, across the room. “Could you bring me a large bottle of grain alcohol? Or gin, if you don’t have that.”

  The waiter gave him a skeptical look, but shrugged and left the room. Evon went back to his food and found Piercy and Kerensa staring at him. “Dare I ask why you want to make yourself very, very drunk at twelve-thirty in the afternoon?” Piercy asked.

  “It’s for the experiment,” Evon said. He took a bite of chicken. It really was dry and unpleasant.

  “That’s a relief,” Kerensa said. “I thought you’d gone mad with frustration.”

  “I have, but not enough to destroy my brain with a 190-proof beverage.” Evon washed down the last of the chicken with water. “Kerensa, will you come to my room before you go back to the magicians? I need to copy something out from the spell.”

  “Evon, I think you need to have a rest,” Kerensa said. “You have the strangest expression.”

  “Have I?” He’d thought he was behaving normally.

  “You do, dear fellow. Your eyes are a little glassy and you look paler than usual.”

  “I feel fine.” Now that he thought about it, he did not feel fine. He felt a little stiff from standing over the table all morning, and the room seemed too cold.

  “I think you might be coming down with something,” Kerensa said. She laid the back of her hand on his forehead and he flinched at how cold it was. “You have a fever.”

  “It can’t be very serious, because I don’t feel unwell,” he lied. “But I promise I’ll rest once I’ve copied out the spell. I have the runes, but I want to see them in order.”

  “All right,” Kerensa said, and her look of concern forced him to turn away before he did or said something stupid.

  The waiter returned with a large bottle of clear liquid and a small glass. “Thank you,” Evon said, pressing a few coins into the man’s hand, and pushed back his chair, taking the bottle and the glass with him.

  “That man thinks you are going to your room to drink yourself to death,” Piercy said. “I can see it in his eyes.”

  “He can think anything he likes now that I’ve got this,” Evon said. “Kerensa, if you don’t mind?”

  She followed him up the stairs and into the room, where Evon soon had the spell-ribbons visible and stationary. “What are you trying?” she asked.

  “I’m creating a spell to prove the existence of the entity,” he said, squatting to look at a curve of spell-ribbon near her feet. “This is the hardest part because there’s no real evidence that it ever existed, let alone that it exists now. But I’ve worked out the material components, I hope, and now I’m going to use the part of this spell that draws you toward the next target as an identifier.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  Evon scratched out a rune and drew a different one. “The spell...might as well say it ‘knows’ what it’s looking for. It knows the identity of its ultimate target. I’m treating ‘fathlon’ as the name of that target, which I think is accurate, and using the spell—” He coughed briefly. “Excuse me. I’m using the spell to tie that name to the identity of the target. Then the glass there represents the concept of ‘no soul,’ emptiness. And all of those things together will say whether or not a creature with all those characteristics exists.”

  “Why does it matter? What if it’s just the Despot that it’s targeting, a plain old ordinary person?”

  Evon coughed again. “The spell was made far too long ago for its makers to know about the Despot rising up in this time. It’s targeting something more abstract, not just a person. Maybe its target is just some quality the Despot has in common with Murakot and all the other victims. But if your story is correct, and it’s a creature separate from the Despot, then there’s no reason it might not leave him for some other host. And if...if the spell is sent after the Despot when it’s the entity it wants, it won’t find the right target, and this cycle will just keep going on.” He’d remembered, as he spoke, what would happen when Kerensa reached that final target. He felt guilty, now, about keeping it from her. She ought to know the truth. He coughed again. He’d tell her about it tonight, after the magicians were through with her for the day.

  “You are sick,” Kerensa said. “You should go to bed.”

  “I will as soon as I finish copying these out.”

  “...You’re not going to bed, are you.”

  “No. But I thought I sounded very believable.”

  “You did. I just know you well enough to ignore anything you say when you sound that believable.”

  Evon stood, stretching against the aches in his knees and shoulders. “Thank you. That should be enough.”

  “Please promise me you’ll rest,” Kerensa said, and the look in her eyes made his heart thump harder. If only you would see me the way I see you.

  “We can compromise,” he said. “I’m going to try one more experiment and then I’ll take myself off to bed. Will that satisfy you?”

  “I suppose,” she said dubiously. “Don’t forget you promised me.”

  “I won’t. Go on. I’m sorry you have to put up with the magicians all afternoon.”

  “It would be easier if I thought they’d be at all effective. I know they’re good, but you’re better.”

  Evon’s face warmed. “Thank you. I hope your faith in me isn’t unfounded.”

  “It isn’t,” she said, smiling, “because you didn’t burn.” He watched her leave the room, his body aching from more than just illness. He could just say it. He could say Kerensa, you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and I love you, my heart lifts every time you enter the room, and I want to make you happy. And she could look at him with pity, and then everything would be awkward between them, and he would feel like even more of a fool than he already was.

  He opened the bottle of alcohol and poured a splash into the bottom of the glass, thought about drinking it, then set it on the floor. With his coppery chalk, he began to copy the runes onto the table top exactly as they’d appeared on the spell-ribbons, scattered rather than in a straight line or a circle. He set the glass in the center of the table, snapped his fingers and said, “Forva,” and the alcohol burned with a pure white-blue fire. Quickly, before the alcohol was consumed, he spread his left hand palm-down above the fire, feeling its heat on his hand, and said, “Solto epiria.”

  Nothing happened. The fire burned a little longer and went out. Evon stepped back and surveyed the tableau. He’d gotten something right, but he wasn’t sure what. The fire and the glass, that felt right to him, and besides, if he’d gotten that part wrong, the glass would probably have shattered as the magic tried to force its way through the wrong vessel. He cleared away the glass, juggling it a little because it was hot, and looked at the runes. This was the spell, he was certain, he knew exactly what it did, so why wasn’t it working?

  He looked again at his paper copy, then went for his notes. The magician who’d created this spell was sloppy. There were redundancies, not in places where they might have been actual safeguards, but in places where they looked as though they’d just been copied over twice. Evon got some paper and made a fresh copy of the spell he’d just read off Kerensa—if he was wrong, he didn’t want to have to go in there to recopy it and take her away from the magicians, who would make a fuss he didn’t want to deal with. Then he started crossing pieces off. Here, a rune that didn’t do anything; there, a complicated sentence that could be written so much more simply. After a while, he had a slimmed-down version of the spell that he was sure would still work. Too bad for those long-dead magicians that he hadn’t been around back then. Of course, if he had been, he wouldn’t have known any better than they did, so it was just as well. He coughed again, harder this time, then scrubbed off the table and wrote out his new
version of the spell.

  He set the glass in the center of the table, poured in more alcohol and lit it, then again said, “Solto epiria.”

  Something grabbed him by his sternum—he could feel the cold fingers wrapping around it, digging into his flesh, and he cried out in pain. He was somewhere dark and cold, suspended in air by the hand that gripped him. No, it was more like talons than a hand, sharp talons that felt as if they might rip his breastbone out of his body with no more effort than tearing a piece of paper. Evon cried out again, and suddenly black became red and he found himself inside something that pulsed unpleasantly and dripped fluids onto a floor made of glistening, puffy pillows of flesh. He continued to dangle, feeling paralyzed by shock rather than desini cucurri.

  Something was there with him, something other than whatever had him by the chest. It didn’t seem aware of his presence; its attention was elsewhere. Evon could hear distant whisperings he couldn’t quite make out, however he strained. The...thing...radiated cold the way a fire radiated heat, in waves that varied in intensity and burned his face and hands. If he looked at it from the corner of his eye, he could almost see it, or pieces of it, the flash of an eye, the twitch of a limb. It looked and felt wrong, unnatural, like something that didn’t belong in the world.

  Whatever had hold of his chest wrenched at it again, and Evon screamed in pain. Instantly the thing moved, its awareness focused on him. He felt himself at the center of a scrutiny so intense it bore down on him like a boulder, pinning him to the wall, or the floor, he’d lost track of where he was, and he tried to scream again but there was no air in his lungs—

  —and he was lying on the floor in his room, Kerensa pounding on his chest and shouting at him, and people crowding in at the door. He breathed in deeply and said, “That hurts.”

  “I should hope it hurts, what with you scaring me like that!” she shouted. “I came back here to make sure you had gone to bed, because I knew you wouldn’t, and I heard you fall and you were lying on the floor, and your lips were blue and you weren’t breathing. What in hell did you do to yourself?”