Magician's Ward

by Patricia C. Wrede

  "An interesting idea," Mairelon said. "We'll pursue it tomorrow. In the meantime, Mother, you and I should get to work on that warding spell. Kim, you'll watch; you're not quite ready for a long-term spellworking yet, but watching one will give you some idea what's ahead of you."

  "I'll leave you, then," Mrs. Lowe said. "Kindly let me know when it will be convenient to have the servants come and clean up."

  "I will see to that," Lady Wendall said. Mrs. Lowe nodded and left.

  As the door closed behind her, Mairelon let out a long breath. "Good. Now, Kim, I take it you wish to visit this witch friend of yours tomorrow?"

  "It's a place to start," Kim replied with a wary look at Lady Wendall.

  "When, exactly, were you thinking of going?" Lady Wendall asked. "There's a new bonnetmaker I wished to investigate, and we are engaged for dinner with the Black burns."

  "It'll have to be after dark," Kim said, resigning herself to the bonnetmaker. "I won't pass for a boy in daylight."

  "I'll make your excuses to Lady Blackburn, then," Lady Wendall said.

  "Mine as well, Mother," Mairelon said, and looked at Kim. "The same procedure as last time, I think? Hunch and I waiting in the carriage."

  Kim was too surprised by the ease with which everything had been arranged to do more than nod.

  Lady Wendall looked thoughtful, then smiled. "I shall tell Lady Blackburn that you have both been called away on some magical project. It will raise your stock with her considerably; she's terribly intrigued by wizards, though she's not in the least magically inclined herself. And it has the additional merit of being entirely true."

  "That's settled then." Mairelon tucked the battered little book absently into his jacket pocket. "Now for the general warding spell. We'll need four candles, Kim, as closely matched in size and shape as you can manage. Hunch, will you fetch the largest lump of coal you can find from the kitchen? Mother, would you like to be the Respondent or shall I?"

  Hunch nodded and left, Kim began hunting through the candlebox, and Lady Wendall moved to Mairelon's side to discuss their respective parts in the upcoming spell.

  11

  For the second time in less than a fortnight, Kim slipped through the dark London streets in her boy's clothes. She was considerably more nervous, though she did not have as far to go--Ma Yanger's rooms were only a block and a half down Ratchiffe Row from Bath Street, where Mairelon and Hunch waited with the carriage. Because she was not answering a summons from Tom this time, it was earlier in the evening, and there were more people about. Several bricklayers clustered around an iron brazier on the corner, warming their fingers, while on the opposite side of the street a toothless old woman offered a cup of soup to anyone with a ha'penny to pay for it. A collier strode toward the bricklayers, possibly hoping to sell them another lump or two of coal before they packed themselves up. Huddled in a doorway, a young girl with haunted eyes took a swig of bottle courage from a flask. As Kim passed, the girl pulled the neck of her dress lower and started toward the bricklayers in a cloud of gin fumes, her hips swaying suggestively.

  It was with a degree of relief that Kim arrived at the tenement at last. Like most such buildings, it was a rickety wooden structure--Ratchiffe Row was an alley well away from the center of London, and no one enforced the laws that, since the Great Fire, had required bricks to be the principal building material. The rates, however, were collected regularly, and as a result most of the windows had been blocked up to avoid the window tax, giving the exterior a hodgepodge look and making the interior gloomy and airless.

  Kim climbed the dark stairs with care; it was early to find squatters sleeping on the steps and landings, but some liked to stake out a space before the competition got too intense. She stepped over one man who was already snoring loudly, but from the smell of him, it was liquor and not opportunity that had put him to sleep.

  Ma Yanger had two rooms on the third floor, a palatial home by the standards of the place. No one had ever dared to complain that she was taking more than she should--not when the occupant of the rooms was commonly known to be a witch. So long as the landlord received his rent on time, the rooms were hers . . . and possibly longer. It was widely speculated that the only reason this building hadn't collapsed like so many others was because of Ma Yanger's spellworking.

  Once, Kim had believed those speculations like everyone else. Now, with her magical training and her sensitivity to spells, she was fairly certain that the only thing holding the building up was good fortune. Even right outside Ma Yanger's door, there were no traces of magic.

  Frowning, Kim rapped at the door. There was no answer; well, Tom Correy had said that Ma had holed up in her rooms and wasn't seeing any customers. But unless she'd cut off her friends as well, she'd have to answer the door to find out which it was. Kim's frown deepened, and she rapped again.

  There was still no response. Kim glanced quickly up and down the hall to make certain that no one was in sight or earshot, then pulled a bit of wire from her pocket. She was out of practice, but the locks in a place like this wouldn't be much. She bent toward the lock, then hesitated. The locks wouldn't be much, but Ma Yanger was a magician of sorts, and she'd know that as well as everyone else. And Ma was too canny to rely on her reputation to keep the cracksmen away. If she'd witched the lock . . .

  Kim straightened and returned the wire to her pocket. That spell Mairelon had taught her last week would tell her whether the lock was enchanted, but she hadn't thought to bring paper or ink with her. Well, Mairelon was always working spells without actually drawing the diagrams; maybe she could, too.

  Slowly and carefully, she traced the diagram in the air, visualizing it as her hands moved. "Epistamai, videre, l'herah, revelare," she said, and with the final word she felt the spell take hold.

  The lock did not glow even faintly green. Puzzled but relieved, Kim retrieved her wire and bent to her work. Two minutes later, the lock clicked open and she slipped inside.

  Ma Yanger's front room was one of those that had had its window blocked up to save taxes; it was nearly pitch black and smelled suffocatingly of herbs. Nothing in it glowed green, either, though Kim could feel that the spell she had cast was still active. How come a witch doesn't have anything magic in her rooms? But Tom Correy had said that Ma hadn't done any witching for two months; maybe she had let her personal spells lapse, too, if she'd had any.

  "Ma?" Kim called into the darkness. "Ma Yanger? It's Kim, from the Hungerford Market. I got to ask you something."

  There was a shuffling noise in the next room, which subsided almost immediately. "Ma?" Kim called again.

  No one answered. Kim thought about working the light spell she had shown Tom Correy, but Mairelon was always warning her about overextending herself, and she had a great deal of respect for his advice in matters magical. Her eyes were adjusting to the gloom, and there was no great hurry. She waited a moment longer, then began picking her way toward the far door, past a table strewn with anonymous packets and a set of shelves laden with jars. At the far door, she hesitated again. "Ma? Ma Yanger?"

  On the other side of the door, something grunted. Kim's throat clogged, and she almost turned and ran. It's just one of Ma Yanger's tricks to discourage visitors, she told herself firmly. And anyway I probably know more magic than she does, now. Whether it was the sort of magic that would do her any good in a confrontation with Ma was something about which Kim refused to think. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door.

  Ma Yanger was clearly visible in the faint green-glowing haze that surrounded her. She sat on the edge of a low, lumpy bed, one corner of which was propped up by an orange crate because the leg was broken. Gray hair hung in rat-tails around her face. Her eyes were empty and her mouth hung slack; a thin trickle of drool trailed from one corner.

  "Ma?" Kim whispered.

  "Uuunh," said the woman on the bed. The noise was clearly only a reflex; no trace of sanity or intelligence showed, even for a moment, on her face.

  Kim
started forward, then paused. Mairelon hadn't glowed green when she cast the magic-detecting spell before; only the button on his jacket that he'd enchanted to foil pickpockets had responded. Ma Yanger wasn't glowing green because she was a witch. She was glowing because someone had cast a spell on her. And there was no knowing what the effect would be if Kim touched her while the spell was active; the contact might cure her, or it might kill her, or it might afflict Kim with the same bizarre malady.

  This is too much for me. I'm getting Mairelon. Kim backed out of the bedroom and hurried across the front room. By the time she reached the stairs, she was running. She vaulted the drunk and pelted up the street at top speed, ignoring the attention she attracted.

  By the time she reached them, Mairelon and Hunch were out of the carriage and scanning the street behind her for pursuers. "Easy, Kim," Mairelon said as she leaned against the coach, panting. "No one's after you."

  "I know," Kim said, forcing the words out between gasping breaths. "That . . . ain't it."

  "What is it, then?"

  Still panting, Kim told them. Mairelon's face grew grim as she described what she had found. "No wonder you were shaken," he said when she finished. "Do you want to stay here with Hunch while I go back?"

  "No!" Kim and Hunch said together. They exchanged glances of perfect understanding, and then Kim went on, "You'll need someone to cast a ward, if you're going to do anything about that there spell on Ma."

  Mairelon studied them for a moment. "Very well, then. The sooner, the better, I think. Though I'm afraid you will have to stay with the horses, Hunch."

  "O' course I 'as to," Hunch said sourly. "And I'll 'ave them ready to move the minute you come running back."

  "Very good," Mairelon said, oblivious to his servant's tone. "Let's go, Kim."

  They started up the street in silence. Half a block later, Mairelon said in a musing tone, "You know, you were very fortunate with that spell of yours. There are a number of unpleasant things can happen to a wizard who dispenses with written diagrams too soon."

  "Like what happened when I tried it in English?"

  "Worse. If you get the diagram wrong--if the lines don't quite connect in the right places, or they overlap somewhere because you can't actually see what you are doing--then the energy of the spell will not be correctly shaped. At best, the wizard can be drained of all magical ability for weeks or months. At worst, one can end up in a condition similar to your friend Ma Yanger."

  "But not dead?"

  "I said at worst," Mairelon pointed out.

  Kim digested this while they continued. "You haven't told me not to do it."

  "I don't intend to tell you that," Mairelon said as they entered the tenement. "You've done it once; you obviously have the capacity to visualize a diagram clearly without having an actual, physical drawing. Just make certain that you always know the diagram well enough. Simple ones are easiest; the more advanced spells require too much precision, even for the very few wizards with absolutely perfect recall."

  The reached the top of the stairs and turned down the hall. "Did you leave the door open?" Mairelon said, nodding at a wide-open entrance just ahead.

  "That's Ma Yanger's place, but I don't think I left it open," Kim said. "I'm . . . not positive, though. I was kind of in a hurry."

  Mairelon nodded. "We'll go carefully, then. Fiat lux."

  A ball of light appeared on Mairelon's palm. Resisting the impulse to point out that a light spell was not consistent with her ideas of "going carefully," Kim followed him into Ma's rooms. Mairelon took only a cursory look at the front room. "Workshop and business parlor both, hmm?" he said, and headed for the far door.

  Ma Yanger was gone. Nothing else had changed; the lumpy bed still bore the dent where she had been sitting during Kim's first visit.

  "She was here," Kim said.

  "Yes, well, given your description of her condition, she can't have gone far if she's just wandered off."

  "If she's just wandered off?"

  "Someone may have come and fetched her," Mairelon said. "Let's have a look around, shall we?"

  They did not find Ma Yanger, and no one they spoke to would admit to having seen her in weeks, with or without companions. A small boy on the lower floor admitted to leaving food at her door every day for several months, but said he never saw her. He would give a special knock, a shilling would slide out under the door, and he would depart, leaving the package of food behind. No one else had had even that much contact with her. After half an hour of fruitless searching, they returned to her rooms, where Mairelon made a quick but thorough investigation that made Kim blink in respect.

  "You would of made a top-drawer cracksman, the way you sort through things," she said with considerable admiration.

  "I got plenty of practice when I was in France," Mairelon replied absently. "And it's easy to be fast when there's nothing of interest to find." He frowned, then glanced toward the bedroom. "Wait here a minute."

  "What are you planning?" Kim demanded.

  "Something I should have done at once," Mairelon said. "Check for residuals." He made three sweeping gestures and spoke a long, involved sentence. Kim felt the spell, but nothing seemed to happen. She looked at Mairelon. He was turning slowly, studying everything in the room with narrowed eyes.

  It must be something like that magic-detecting spell, that only shows things to the wizard who casts it, Kim thought.

  Mairelon crossed to the bedroom and stood in the doorway, looking at it for a moment. "That's odd."

  "What's odd? What did that spell do?"

  "I told you, it's a check for residuals. Spells leave traces, and these rooms are full of them--but every last one of them is over two months old. No one has done any magic here in all that time."

  "Tom said Ma Yanger had given up witching people," Kim said, uncertain of what point Mairelon was trying to make.

  "Yes, but she can't have been incapacitated until very recently," Mairelon pointed out. "From your description, she doesn't sound as if she can clean or cook any longer; she'd have starved to death if she'd been like that for two months."

  Kim thought of the empty eyes and the expression void of intelligence, and shuddered. "You're right about that. Maybe someone has been taking care of her."

  "Possibly," Mairelon said. "But would whoever-it-is also take care of her herbs and spellworkings? There's no dust on these shelves; they've certainly been cleaned in the past day or so. And look at the table."

  Kim looked. A candle stub sat in a puddle of melted wax; next to it, a wilted violet lay on top of a heap of crushed herbs. "It looks like the makings of a spell," she said cautiously.

  "It is," Mairelon said. "It's a traditional spell for averting harm or bad luck. It's very old and not terribly reliable, which is why I haven't bothered to teach it to you--there are much better spells available nowadays."

  Kim looked at the table again. "That flower isn't much wilted. Somebody set this up yesterday, or maybe the day before."

  "Exactly. I'll wager that the somebody was your Ma Yanger. Somehow, she knew that something was going to happen to her, and she tried to avoid it."

  "But you said nobody's done magic here in two months!"

  "They haven't," Mairelon said, and his tone was grim. "She set this up, but she either didn't have time to use it, or couldn't for some other reason."

  "Maybe that spell hit her and . . . and made her like that before she could cast this," Kim said.

  "Possibly. But if it was a spell that incapacitated her, it can't have happened here, because there's no trace of it. And as far as we know, she hadn't left these rooms in two months."

  Kim stared at Mairelon. "Then what happened?"

  Mairelon looked at her. "That is the question, isn't it?"

  12

  Mairelon and Kim stayed a few minutes longer, turning out Ma Yanger's bed and checking the iron kettle they found underneath it, but they came no nearer to answering Kim's question. When they returned to the coach at las
t, Hunch was wearing his most sour expression, from which Kim concluded that he had been worried. He refused to drive anywhere, or to allow Mairelon to do so, until Mairelon set up a protective spell around the coach. Mairelon eventually did so. Once they arrived home, he informed Hunch with insufferable smugness that the spell had not even been tested during the drive.

  It was something of a shock to return to the trivialities of a social schedule the following morning. The London Season was under way at last, and invitations were pouring in. To Kim's surprise, many of them included her.

  "At present, people are merely curious," Lady Wendall said. "That will change when they meet you, and I am quite certain that between us we can see to it that the change is a positive one. To that end, I should like you to accompany me on a few morning calls."

  Kim sighed. "Morning calls are boring."

  "That depends largely on just whom one is calling upon," Lady Wendall replied gently. "Wear your jaconet morning dress with the pink ribbons, I think."

  Kim rolled her eyes, but nodded. She let Wilson dress her and arrange her hair, then joined Lady Wendall in the salon. Shortly thereafter, they were on their way. The first two stops were houses Kim had visited during the horrible week with Mrs. Lowe, but to Kim's astonishment, Lady Wendall did no more than send in her card. As they pulled away from the second house, Kim ventured to ask why.

  "One cannot cut someone dead simply because they are dull, but one need not endure their conversation in order to maintain the social niceties," Lady Wendall replied.

  Their next stop was quite close, and this time Lady Wendall climbed down from the coach to rap on the door. A moment later, they were ushered up to the drawing room, where they found their hostess, Lady Clement, already engaged with several earlier visitors. Kim was dismayed to see that one of them was Miss Annabel Matthews, who had been at Mrs. Hardcastle's disastrous tea.

  Lady Wendall presented Kim, and Lady Clement introduced her guests. Miss Matthews was accompanied by her mother; the tall, brown-haired girl beside her was Miss Marianne Farrell. Miss Farrell's aunt completed the company of ladies. Across from them was a handsome, blond man in his mid-twenties, who was introduced as Lord Gideon Starnes. As he rose and bowed, Kim's eyes flashed automatically to his hands. They were ringless.