Blood Red (9781101637890) (16 page)

The two women stared at each other, ignoring the missiles.

Why ice-daggers and lightning and nothing else? Why not call in boreals to attack me through the shields and try to freeze me the way the undines are being frozen? Why doesn't she switch to some other form of attack?

Of one thing there was no doubt. There was a second spirit inside that woman. And now Rosa recognized the energy signature of the second. Small wonder she hadn't known who it was till now, for after all, she had only ever seen it once.

But the shape of the ice-daggers should have given her a clue.

She knew that shape. She had helped to forge one in exactly that pattern, blade and hilt. It was her own throwing knife in ice form, one of a set of four, that differed from each other only by the sigil on the pommel nut.

The ice-dagger was identical to Zephyr, the knife that had killed the Air Mage that had tried to murder the Graf's agent, Fritz. The spirit inhabiting her attacker was that of the Air Master who had called himself “Durendal.”

The man's face was etched in her mind, as were the faces of every human she had been forced to kill. There were, thank the Good God, not many of those; most of her Hunts were against things other than human—or against those humans who no longer wore a human face. But she remembered him; oh yes, she did. And now she could see the family resemblance in this woman's features. She even looked as if she was the same age as the man that Rosa had killed.

Twins?

Probably. It would explain how he had come to possess this woman's body, and why she had let him. Twins had a special bond, and Water was a pliant, yielding Element. It would have been easy for someone like the arrogant Durendal to bully and dominate a female twin whose power was Water, making her totally subservient to him—easy for him to forge an emergency path to her body, so that if anything ever happened to his physical body, his spirit could leap to hers and take it over completely. Small wonder Fritz had been unaware of the girl's existence; Durendal would have kept her isolated, cloistered, hidden away. The only reason Rosa was still alive was that his control over his sister's magic was limited, and as he was in a foreign body, his control over his own magic was just as limited. That was why he only seemed to be able to ice over the pond to trap the undines, forge shields, ice-daggers, and wield weak lightning.

If he'd taken the time to gain true Mastery over both his sister's power and his own, she wouldn't have had a chance without a full Hunting Party. But he had let the burning desire for revenge drive him, and not good sense. He must have set out to find her as soon as he was able to completely control his sister's body.

They might have stood there forever, locked in stalemate, except that at the same moment Rosa recognized the situation for what it was, one of the little water nymphs, the undines, gasped and died. The transparent body slumped to the ice that held her, and faded into nothingness.

A stab of fury and fear coursed through Rosa.

The woman's shields shivered, and one of the fauns' rocks sailed through it, catching her on the cheekbone.
This
time she let out a little cry and one hand went to her face. She'd
felt
that, as she had not felt the blow to her head when she fell to the ice. The death of the undine had weakened her!

The shield shivered again.

And Rosa suddenly felt the ice underneath her vibrate with furious pounding . . . exactly like the pounding of dozens of fists from the water beneath.

“The ice!” Rosa cried, “Attack the ice at her feet!” And the fauns redirected their deadly fire to the ice where the shields ended. The remaining undines suddenly seemed to gain in strength, and the ice-daggers dropped out of the air and shattered on the ground.

The ice at the woman's feet cracked. She started and stared downward.

The ice at her feet spiderwebbed, and she took a slow step backward, a look of disbelief on her face.

With a sharp
crack,
the ice before her disintegrated into a mass of chunks.

With a shrill cry, the woman tried to turn and make for shore, but it was too late. The ice fell apart beneath her. And as she dropped into the water, dozens of scaled arms reached for her.

But not to save her.

She—or her brother in her body—had abused her power and murdered those who would have helped her. The vengeful Water Elementals called the nix claimed her for their own.

T
HE
Hunting Party—now a Hunting Party in truth—arrived just as the last bubbles broke on the surface of the rapidly thawing pond. The fauns had vanished, as had the undines and the nix, and there was no evidence of the Water Master or the spirit of her presumed brother who had possessed her. Rosa could not see or feel any other energies but the ones that should be there; the slow pulse of natural Air, Earth, and Water.

Nevertheless—and rightly—the Hunting Party spread out over the forest and the land around it, checking everything twice and three times, to be sure there were no leftover Elementals, trapped or coerced, and above all, nothing left behind by—well, really, what would you call the thing she had fought? Had it been Durendal alone? Durendal and his sister? The revenant of Durendal, composed of rage and magic?

Well no matter what you called it, since Rosa wasn't in any danger, the priority of the Hunting Party was to make sure there was no other danger lurking.

Eventually, by ones and twos, they came back to her. Rosa sat on the bank of the pond, dabbing at a cut over her eye with a pocket-handkerchief. This was by no means the most she had ever been injured in a fight. She had a couple of shallow cuts, and a good many bruises, but no broken bones, no serious wounds, and nothing worse than a foul ache from where she had hit her shoulder against the bank. It hadn't dislocated, but it hurt almost as much as if it had.

Still, the Graf and the others fussed over her until Gunther waved them all off with irritation, helped her to her feet, held her out at arm's length to examine her, and nodded.

“You'll do,” he said brusquely. “What did you learn?”

“Never to go unarmed, not even on a friend's estate,” she replied, with great irritation at herself. “I should not have been so great a fool. If I had had a pistol, or a knife, this would have been cut much shorter.”

“We will speak of this later,” Gunther replied. “Markos has caught your horse. Let us return to the manor, and you may get a bath and change of clothing and have your injuries tended. Are you feeling well enough for dinner?”

“I could eat a boar,” she said, knowing that once she had conquered her aches and pains, all that expenditure of energy, magical and physical, would have to be repaid. Gunther chuckled, and squeezed her shoulders before letting her go.

At that exact moment, the last two of the party returned. “You must come see this!” one shouted, as soon as he was within hearing distance. He beckoned, and of course, everyone traipsed toward him, including Rosa.

The two—the professor and one of his students—led the way through the forest tract to the other side. And there, just off-center in the meadow and sticking up out of the long grass as if a gigantic child had set it down there, was—a wicker basket.

A basket trailing strings further on into the meadow. Rosa finally realized what it was just as the Graf uttered an astonished exclamation.

“By God, it's a
balloon!”
he gasped.

And so it was. Those strings led off to an enormous, and now deflated, balloon made of varnished silk. There was no mechanism for producing hot air, so this must have been a gas balloon.

“Well, that explains how the cad was able to get here without anyone noticing,” the Graf said. “He was an Air Master; he could have traveled as fast as his captive Air Elementals would take him, and once here, all he had to do was empty the balloon.”

“Oh! And that would be how he got ahead of the train!” Rosa exclaimed. “I knew he must have used Air Elementals somehow—I do not know enough about what they are capable of to have guessed
how
he used them.”

“There are legends that very powerful Air Masters could somehow fly with the help of their Elementals, but—” The professor shrugged. “Legends only. No details on how that was possible.” He looked thoughtful. “Archytas in ancient Greece was reputed to have built a bird-shaped flying device. And of course, we have gliding, fixed-wing machines that can carry a passenger. I myself have ridden in one that is pulled into the air by a team of horses. But using a balloon—that is very clever indeed.”

“He obviously did not intend to return the same way,” the professor pointed out. “There is no way to fill the balloon from here, and it is not a hot air balloon.”

“I presume he did not care.” The Graf and the some of the others prowled around the little basket, which was just big enough to hold a single person, but no more. “He must have had more than one of these things stored away in case he required them. And perhaps he also had one or more gliders as well, but a balloon has the advantage of being able to land vertically.”

The professor shook his head. “So much intelligence. So much ingenuity. Such a waste.”

Rosa found a large boulder in the grass to sit down on. Her shoulder really did ache abominably. “We should tell other Lodges about balloons and gliders,” she pointed out. “Even though such things would probably entail gaining the cooperation of a great many Air Elementals at once, surely there are
some
Air Masters that can coax such cooperation out of their allies.”

The Graf nodded. But Gunther made a face. “I should not care to trust my safety high in the sky on the fidelity of flighty Air Elementals.”

“Nor would I,” said one of the students. “Perhaps that is another reason to use a balloon. Even if you lose control of the Elementals, you still have the gas to keep you aloft safely and you can land safely in the usual manner.”

“A wise precaution for someone who is coercing his Elementals,” said Markos, who came up at that moment leading Rosa's horse.

“And it would be a wise idea for all of us to return to the manor,” Gunther pointed out. “Your people are wise enough to collect this contraption and any clues Durendal might have left behind.”

That was the best idea that Rosa had heard since the trap had been sprung on her.

“You will have a whole new story to tell us,” the Graf said, as Markos brought her poor, tired horse to her.
This
time she did not disdain the stirrup he made for her with his hands, and gratefully used it to get into the saddle.

“Yes, sir,” she replied, taking the comment for the order it actually was. “As soon as I am bathed and changed.”

The lot of them rode slowly back to the palace, taking the direct way, and as they approached the gardens, Rosa sensed all the anxious eyes peering out of the windows, though at this distance it was impossible to make out any individual forms behind the glass. She also sensed the relief and the lowering of many shields when the party had been counted and the correct number arrived at.

Markos was riding a tall pony, which had to work hard to keep up with the horses as they scented their stable and picked up their pace. The pony's gait didn't look to be very comfortable for the poor young man, and Rosa got the feeling he didn't ride very often.

She, however, spared very little energy worrying about him; she gave her tired gelding a little heel, and encouraged him into a canter. She wanted to be in the ministering hands of Marie before she fell off his back. The very first thing she wanted was something for the vile shoulder-ache she had. And the next was a hot bath for that and for her bruises. And after that?

Well the Graf had promised them all a sort of
bierhalle.
She wanted a mountain of bratwurst, and a pail of beer!

“The grand thing about living in a Fire Master's home is that one never lacks for hot water,” Marie said, somewhere past the steam rising from the bath Rosa was soaking in. The Graf had turned what might have once been a maid's room into a bath room. Water came from cisterns on the roof, and was heated by a cooperative salamander. Rosa reclined in an enormous bathtub of carved marble with absurd clawed feet. The hot water felt impossibly good on all her aches. In the Lodge that the Bruderschaft shared, one had to bathe in the kitchen, in an ancient brass bathtub that might have dated all the way back to the days of knights. It was made to sit in, not recline in—though one certainly did get hot water up to one's chin.

This tub, however, also allowed you to have hot water up to one's chin, but there was plenty of room to stretch out. And Marie had put in scent, a sort of honey-rose. It was wonderful. She'd never bathed in scented water before.

“That alone could convince me to leave the Schwarzwald if we didn't already have a Fire Master among the Bruderschaft,” Rosa replied. “Is my jacket utterly ruined?” She was going to be irritated if it was. It was her favorite hunting coat.

“I don't believe so,” Marie replied. “I believe we—and by ‘we,' I mean the laundry maids—can get the scorch marks and mud out of it successfully.” The maid loomed up through the steam and looked down at Rosa. “Are your bruises soaked enough you feel ready to join the others?”

Since tantalizing whiffs of frying sausage had somehow been making their way to the bath room for the last half hour, it would have taken more than a few bruises to keep Rosa away. “Quite,” she said, firmly, and rose from the bath like a weary undine. Marie wrapped her in one enormous towel, her hair in a second, and helped her out.

She bit back a few groans as the maid also helped her into fresh clothing; for once, having Marie help her dress was welcome rather than faintly embarrassing. The willow tea Marie had given her in the bath was finally doing something about her aching shoulder.

Well, tonight's “theme” was a
bierhalle,
and that meant she would be able to dress comfortably. She only had the one loden jacket, but there was the jacket from the riding habit that was similar, and evidently Marie judged it to go well enough with her divided skirt that it would pass muster. At this point, Rosa was putty in the maid's hands when it came to a clothing selection. All she wanted was a plate of sausage and kraut and a stein of beer. Preferably a very large stein of beer.

Marie probably sensed her impatience, because all she did so far as a hairdo was concerned was to braid Rosa's long hair and coil the braid into a knot at the nape of her neck. “There!” she said, when she had driven the last hairpin home. “Go, and I advise that you do not polka, unless you want your shoulder to complain mightily about being bounced about.”

Since Rosa had absolutely
no
intention of dancing, that was going to be a very easy order to obey.

Her arrival at the ersatz
bierhalle
that the Graf had set up in the morning room was greeted with mingled enthusiasm and concern. A comfortable, heavily padded chair had been brought from another room for her, and she settled herself gratefully into it at the end of the table rather than taking a place on one of the benches.

This wasn't a bad imitation of a
bierhalle.
The servants were wearing what looked like their second-best clothing for holiday and fair days, and the ones in the brass band even boasted Bavarian
lederhosen,
fancy suspenders and dashing hats
.
Garlands of ivy had been looped over the windows, and all the furniture had been taken out and replaced with tables and benches. Literally all the furniture, down to the rugs; it would have been a daunting task for just a single evening's entertainment by Rosa's standards, but . . . this was the Graf, and his palace alone had more people living in it than many villages in the Schwarzwald. Grilled sausages warmed over chafing dishes, and barrels of beer were lined up on stands along one wall. Of course, a real
bierhalle
at home would also have had deer, bear and boar heads, and mounted deer antlers stuck up wherever there was room on the walls, and the floor would
never
be so polished, but these were minor things and did not at all detract from the general atmosphere of great cheer. A servant brought her bratwurst and sauerkraut on a tray for her lap; another set a gratifyingly large stein of beer on a little table at her elbow. The little amateur brass band was reasonably in tune, and made up in enthusiasm what they lacked in skill—reminding her strongly of the band her Vati played in. She devoured her plate of sausage and kraut, and was brought a second, which she likewise demolished, and finally was brought a plate of sliced apples and cheeses—sweet cakes not going very well with beer. The children were alternately romping to the music and devouring sausage—the littlest ones eating with their fingers, while their mothers indulged this momentary lapse in table manners. There were larger chunks of cheese and bowls of apples on the tables, and anyone who wanted to could just carve some cheese off with the huge knives placed nearby and help himself to apples.

By now, Rosa was basking in the warm glow that surrounded her thanks to some really excellent beer. The company was good too; she had Markos on one side, and the Graf's secretary, Rudolf, on the other. Rudolf was regaling the company with a story from his university days, a complicated tale of getting a donkey into a professor's rooms that had
nothing
to do with magic. Both young men were paying her flattering attention, and she had drunk just enough to lose her self-consciousness about that, but not so much that she would say or do something stupid. It was a fine balance, but nothing like as hard to keep as balancing magical energies. Perhaps the only fly in the ointment was that she really
liked
to dance, but she knew it would be a very, very bad idea. Her shoulder was just beginning to settle down to a dull ache, and it was definitely not going to cope well with dancing.