From a High Tower (29 page)

“If'n we got there early enough, we might could snug it up a bit,” Cody mused. “Most of us're good rough builders.”

“Free . . .” said Texas Tom. “I'm a-likin' the sound of that.”

“I am too.” Cody looked to Kellermann. “Whadya think?”

“I think we have our winter quarters,” Kellermann said. “Show me where, on the map.”

“Here,” she said, pointing.

He looked the map over carefully. “Yes, this is good. I can easily arrange for the last bookings to be within easy striking distance.” He looked up at her and grinned. “My dear Giselle, the day you became our lady marksman was a good day for this show in more ways than I can count. Thank you for the offer of hospitality!”

She flushed. “The worst that will happen is if I miscalculated and some of you have to spend the winter in wagons.”

“That is no hardship,” Kellermann assured her. As she looked around at the others, she was relieved to see that they were nodding.

“For that matter,” Fox spoke up for the first time. “We know ways to make good shelters with turf and some good long logs. Good enough to sleep warm in, at any rate.”

“There's plenty of turf,” she said, the remembrance of those strange earthen houses that the Pawnee called home flashing across her mind. “And it's the Schwarzwald. There's no end of logs.”

“Well, there you go. We'll be fine.” Cody chuckled a little. “Cain't imagine that anybody near to a city would have been too happy 'bout us diggin' up their purdy meadows t'make sod houses, no way. An' . . . be honest with y'all, I dunno how we'd git anyone t'put us up inside four walls for free.”

“Hmm.” Rosa had been listening all this time, and although she didn't say anything she gave Cody, Giselle, and Fox looks that suggested she had something to say that wasn't for general consumption.

“Well, that settles that, then!” Kellermann said cheerfully. “I will leave you all to settle in for the night, we complete loading in the morning and go back down the road we came.”

The group broke up then and, responding to Rosa's silent signal, the four Elemental Magicians and Kellermann gathered together and began to walk slowly toward the wagons. The main show tent was already down and had been taken down after the show, as had the sideshow tents. “So what were you arching your eyebrows about, Rosa?” Giselle asked, as they got out of listening distance of the others.

“I can help with some of that, if you end up needing to make those earthen shelters,” Rosa said. “I'm an Earth Master, and my Elemental allies could build those easily enough, so long as you have instructions or plans.”

Cody snorted. “In that case, we ain't got nothin' to fret about. If there ain't enough shelter in this here abbey, we kin make 'nuff. I spent plenty winters in a sod house, an' they kin be right cozy.”

“And it isn't as if anyone would have to spend the entire day there,” Giselle pointed out. “It would just be a warm place to sleep. For that matter—” she looked at Rosa. “—if your Elemental allies would not
mind,
they could be at work rebuilding the chapel and adding onto the other buildings while we are still performing. Then no one would have to sleep in a dirt shelter.”

Rosa snapped her fingers. “Now that is good thinking! Given that your Mother was an Earth Master, I am sure they all know where it is—and given that the abbey is far away from the nearest village, they could work openly. I'll just let them know how many people, and how much livestock to build for.”

“And food storage!” Giselle reminded her. “It isn't likely that Talinsdorf or Marekdorf could supply food for as many people as we have all winter long! Whatever we need, we should plan on getting in a bigger town and bringing with us.” She thought about that a moment. “Would Earth Elementals know how to harvest hay?”

“I can find out,” Rosa promised.

“Then they should be able to get at least two harvests from the meadows around the abbey, and that should be enough for all winter long.” Giselle was feeling extremely happy now, and it showed in her voice.

And the others noticed. “What're you so chipper 'bout, Ellie?” Cody asked, sounding amused.

“After all this time with all of you, I wasn't looking forward to the winter alone,” she confessed, flushing. “I was perfectly happy when it was just me and Mother, and I thought I would be all right with her gone and just my sylphs, but . . . I find I like being with other people much more. And the idea of spending a whole winter by myself was not very appealing.”

Cody patted her shoulder awkwardly. “'S'all right. I know how you feel. Hellfire, most've us thet've had t'spend a long winter 'lone know it ain't somethin' a human oughta do. I did thet once. I ain't never doin' it agin, if I kin help it.”

“Well, now that we have all of that neatly settled, I will do some investigation and see if I can't persuade some dwarves in your part of the world to show off their skills.” Rosa laughed. “I suspect I can, if I start now. And if I can't, Papa Gunther almost certainly can.”

And what would happen the winter
after
next, when the entire company would presumably be gone?

Perhaps I can persuade the Bruderschaft to establish a new Lodge in the abbey!
she suddenly thought.
I shall ask Rosa about that . . . later.

“Do you think you'll be staying the winter too?” she asked Rosa instead.

“I can't promise anything,” Rosa replied. “It will depend entirely on if the Graf wants and needs me for that season.” Giselle felt her heart drop a little. But then Rosa added “It's as good a place to overwinter as the next, and the Graf does a great deal of the sort of entertaining in winter that I am not all that fond of.” Her voice took on a wry cast. “I do like luxury, and I do like the fine food and the lovely clothing he supplies me with, but I don't much care for catering to the whims of a lot of inbred idiots whose pedigrees are as long as my arm, but who have more hair than brains. And last winter, persuading some of them that my favors were
not
part of the Graf's hospitality cost me a great deal of my temper, and they are fortunate I
have
an even temper, or three of them would be missing hands!”

“Well then, I hope the Graf does
not
need you,” said Giselle, with a laugh.

“An' on that cheerful thought, I'm sayin' good night,” said Cody, parting from them as they reached his tent.

“As am I,” added Fox, heading across the campground to the Pawnee teepees.

Since Kellermann also was one of the few who had a
vardo,
he walked with the two of them to where the wagons were parked and paused at his. “I am grateful beyond words for all you have done for us, Giselle,” he said. “But the offer of a wintering spot . . . makes me very happy indeed. I cannot think of anything that would suit me more than to be able to spend Christmas in your company.”

With that, he took her hand, and squeezed it, and went to his wagon.

“Well!” said Rosa, after a moment. “I was going to give you a little warning about not getting attached to the Captain . . . but . . . I'm going to say
no
such thing about our friend Kellermann!”

“Oh don't be silly,” Giselle replied, blushing, and glad it was too dark for Rosa to see it. “He's just being extremely polite.”

“Hmm. I don't think so,” Rosa opined. “But suit yourself. I'm going to bed!”

I
T
occurred to Giselle that a seasoned walker could probably go faster than the show train did. They were forced to keep their speed to what the cattle would do, and the cattle were not at all eager to move past an amble. That was why it was taking them so long to travel the winding roads of the Schwarzwald. On the other hand, the leisurely pace gave them all a bit of a rest between the nonstop, even frenetic pace of show days.

And when they found an absolutely
perfect
meadow to camp in overnight at the place where the road to Menzenschwand branched off from the one they were on, they even stopped early. The meadow was bordered on one side by another sparkling stream, which meant no one would have to carry water, and there was plenty of grass. The farmer who owned it was happy to share it with them, since he was going to get free entertainment as they practiced, and his children were nearly over the moon on seeing the Pawnee set up their teepees. Once again, Giselle got her practice in early and settled down after an equally early supper thinking she was going to get a good read in on the Bruderschaft book.

Which was, of course, when Rosa tapped on the door.

The sun was just going down, and Giselle repressed a sigh of exasperation. “What is it?” she asked, opening the door. “I hope there isn't something else you want me to meet.”

“No . . . no, it's that . . . there's something not right about this place.” Rosa cast a look over her shoulder. “Not like the ruined convent. And it's not
here,
specifically. But off that way.” She waved vaguely in the direction of the north. “Somewhere between here and Pieter's bridge. Earth Elementals don't move very fast. So . . . I was wondering . . .”

Giselle rolled her eyes, but only a little. “All right, give me a moment. I'll get a sylph, they're the most articulate.”

She waved Rosa inside and shut the door, then opened a bottle of lavender water and spun up a ball of magic. She'd learned since Todtnau that sylphs liked perfumes and incense almost as much as magic.

It seemed as ridiculously easy now to call a sylph as it had been when she was very little, and they just came. It was a night-sylph, this one with velvety batwings, who wafted in through the window over the bed, snatched the floating ball of magic and ate it, then hovered over the vial of lavender with a blissful expression.

“What do you need, Air Master?”
she asked.

“My friend wants to know if there is anything amiss to the north—” Giselle only got as far as the direction, when the sylph's expression of bliss turned to one of terror.

“No! No! No! We do not go there! It is death! It is death!”
she shrilled.

And vanished.

Rosa and Giselle exchanged a look of alarm. Finally it was Giselle who cleared her throat and spoke first. “And I thought you were being overly nervous because nothing has happened for several weeks. . . .”

“Not nerves. Instincts,” Rosa replied, her jaw set. “Once you've been in the Brotherhood a while, you get them, very keen, very accurate. The only question I have is if you are game to go with me to find out what this ‘death' is.”

Giselle bristled a little. “Of course I am. Should we get Cody or Fox?”

But Rosa shook her head. “Not just yet. We two are natives here, this has nothing to do with them. In any event, Cody doesn't have all that much in the way of power, and I don't know what Fox can actually
do
besides call on his own version of Elementals. At least I know how you've been trained.”

“Well, my Elementals, at least the little ones, are clearly too terrified to be of any help.” Giselle reached up to get her gunbelt and her newest acquisitions; since Bad Schoensee she had been learning to handle the revolvers that Cody Lee was so good with. She was a fair shot with them now, and was used to their weight and kick. She very much doubted that she'd be ever be as good as the Captain was unassisted, but with another month of practice she thought she might be able to do some trick-shooting with them.

Right now, though, if she and Rosa were going to go hiking through the forest in search of something dangerous, they presented a better option than a rifle, no matter
how
good she was with the rifle.

She buckled the belt on and settled the weight of the revolvers so they rode comfortably, and made sure she had enough cartridges. “Anything else I should take?” she asked.

Rosa considered. “Salt,” she said. “Lots of things besides ghosts are discomfited by salt.”

Giselle added a pouch of salt, procured from a box in the ammunition chest, to her belt.

Rosa got her crossbow, her coach gun, a pair of daggers and—somewhat to Rosa's surprise—an ax from her arsenal. She stared meditatively into the chest for a moment, staring at something that Rosa couldn't see. Then she shut it resolutely. “Not the silver armor,” she said. “Your sylphs would not have been the least afraid of a werewolf or a
vampir,
and those are really the only two things that the silver armor is useful against.”

Rosa came back down the stairs, holding out some leather straps. “Bind that split skirt close to your legs. More mobility.” Giselle noted then that Rosa had done exactly that already, and followed her example. “I don't want anyone to stop us from leaving or try to go with us, so we're going to sneak out of camp.”

“Probably best.” Giselle made a face. “No matter how many times we prove otherwise, the men don't seem to believe we can take care of ourselves.”

“Which is ridiculous,” Rosa agreed, “Especially when you consider how many settler women over there on their frontier are doing just that.” The wagons were always placed at the outside of the camp, so it was a simple matter for them to slip across the strip of meadow between them and the forest, then find a game trail into the trees. It was going west, not north, but once they were under cover, Giselle made a dim little light, just enough for them to pick their way among the trunks and start going in the right direction.

What was it that Rosa was feeling, anyway? If Rosa could sense something amiss, and the sylphs could, surely
she
could. As Rosa led the way, she extended her senses, or tried to. Earth Masters were typically very sensitive to the “health” of their Element.
That might be because their Element doesn't move about,
she considered, still unable to “pick up” whatever it was that was making Rosa so anxious. Had the sylph actually sensed the danger too, or had she reacted out of experience?

Probably experience,
Giselle decided, as Rosa struck a game trail that was going in the right direction. Sylphs were not particularly known for anything but “living in the moment.” As long as a danger stayed in one place, and it was a place they could avoid, they really didn't much care or think about it. It was only when you reminded them of it, or asked them to go there, that they reacted with distress.

“What do you think it is?” she asked, in a low voice, but not a whisper. The sense of the forest here was . . . not oppressive, but not welcoming either.
Wary,
that was the word she would have used. As if all the Elementals here were not quite sure of them or their intentions.

Then again, there was a farmer here. Elementals didn't care for farmers. Farmers tamed things, and although there
were
“domestic” Elementals, like brownies, they were rare. Most Elementals were creatures of the wild, and like creatures of the wild, they did not approve of anything that went about taming the wilderness.

Giselle didn't blame them, actually.

“Well,” Rosa said, after a long pause, as they picked their way down into a little gravel-strewn valley and back up again, still following the game trail. “Whatever it is, it's affecting mostly the Earth. I gather you aren't feeling anything?”

“Nothing,” Giselle replied.

“Well, that only leaves about a hundred things it
could
be. And if you eliminate the ones that wouldn't be ‘death' to a sylph, that leaves about fifty. Which is why I have a coach gun, a crossbow, and an ax. Most things it could be are things we can deal with by simple material violence.” Rosa held aside a branch so it wouldn't slap Giselle in the face.

There didn't seem to be anything more to say.
So watch where you step, and don't make any more noise than you can help. . . .

“That?” Giselle whispered doubtfully, peering through the parted branches of the bush she and Rosa were hiding behind. They were looking at one of the most charming little woodland cottages she had ever seen. Its windows shone with warm, friendly light, its thatched roof looked practically new, it was clean and neat and all the plaster was freshly whitewashed. There were flowers in the yard, and yellow curtains at the windows. The only anomaly was that there was a big oven in the yard going full blast. You'd never be able to bake anything in an oven that hot, you'd have to wait until the roaring fire in there burned down to coals. Which did not look to be happening any time soon.

But it was hard to imagine that something that innocuous, even welcoming, could hold any sort of a menace.

“Really?” she said doubtfully. “That?”

“That,” Rosa affirmed grimly, as if her teeth were clenched. “If you were an Earth Master, you'd be throwing up at this point, because despite its looks, that place is pure poison. It's a lair, a horrid, tainted, vile lair. It's supposed to look like a friendly cottage to lure victims in. And now I know what the problem is. It's a Blood Witch.”

“I haven't gotten that far in your book . . .” Giselle said, uncertainly.

“It's . . . special,” said Rosa, grimly. “When a witch who practices blood magic manages to find and mate with an Erlkoenig, and she has a child, the child is much, much worse than she is, and absolutely not human. If the offspring is male, it's another Erlkoenig. If it's female, it's a Blood Witch. They're rare. Thank God, they are rare, in part because an Erlkoenig is as likely to kill the witch as mate with her. But we have a Blood Witch here, and we are going to need help. The damned thing is as fast as a snake, as strong as a troll, and its hide is as tough as a crocodile's. My crossbow bolts will just bounce off, and I'm not too optimistic about your bullets.”

She let go of the branches, and Giselle did the same. They both slid deeper back into the bushes and put their heads close together so they could talk. “What do we do?” Giselle asked.

“You try and get some Air Elemental to come close to this cottage and take a message for us. An Earth Elemental won't be fast enough.” Rosa looked over her shoulder. “We need to get some distance between us and it. I don't want to take the chance on it sensing us before we can get that help.”

They retreated into the dark forest and took shelter in the middle of a circle of juniper bushes. Nothing was going to be able to find them in there, not with the strong smell of juniper covering their scent. Giselle concentrated, as hard as she could, bringing in all the Air Magic she could hold to bolster her plea. She wasn't trying for a sylph this time; they were too timid, and given how the last one had reacted, probably would not come close. Anything smaller would never, ever take the risk if a sylph was too frightened. She was trying to reach something she had only ever encountered once.

She was trying for an aether.

“Aether” could refer to the Greek god of air and chaos, or a greater spirit of air sometimes identified with storms and tempests. But an aether was not, in fact, either of these. It was aloof, and powerful, and according to Mother was rarely seen, yet the one she had encountered as a child had regarded her in a kindly fashion and actually hovered outside her window and told her stories. It was certainly powerful enough not to be concerned with a Blood Witch, or so she hoped.

She concentrated on her plea, trying to make it as forceful yet as humble as she could, and holding the image of the aether she had seen in her mind. It had been as if there was a man before her entirely made of air, something she could only see vaguely, mostly by the way things behind it were slightly distorted. She might not have been able to see it, but she had
felt
it, and so had Mother when she had come back from a trip to one of the nearest villages. Mother had been extremely surprised to see it, and when it had gone, had warned her to always treat such creatures with great respect.