Street Magic (13 page)

“You’re not here for me?” Briar asked, trying to look scared. It wasn’t something he was sure he could do. When he was afraid, he did his best to hide it. “You want Evvy.”

“That’s right.” The Viper advanced another step, ignoring the rustle of the roses along the wall behind her. “And you don’t have a thing to say to it, not if you don’t want me gutting you.” She sneezed.

“I have plenty to say,” Briar told her coldly, showing her that he carried a knife of his own. The girl settled into a street-fighter’s crouch. Briar was about to ask the rose bushes to grab her when she sneezed twice more.

“What’s your name?” Briar demanded.

She spat a curse that ended in a sneeze. Briar smiled. She had rose fever, what the Winding Circle healers called an “allergy.” Just as some people got sneezes or itching spots at haying time or in a room where cats had been, others could not live with roses.

“I’m going - to - leave you for, for fire ants,” the girl raged between sneezes. “I’m - ” She sneezed three times in rapid succession, then wiped her eyes on her sleeve. Briar used the moment to push two more potted rose bushes forward, until the Viper was hedged all around. The older girl gasped for air, forgetting the knives in her hand.

“Wrong answer,” Briar replied calmly. The roses had faded, preparing for the autumn rains. He called them to full, lively growth. Buds swelled to the size of grapes, then exploded into heavy crimson blooms. The Viper sneezed repeatedly, unable to do anything else.

He let the blooms shrink, fade, and die, calling even larger buds from their stems. Wait a moment, please, he asked them before they could open. The Viper was scrubbing her red, itching face on the hem of her tunic. Briar walked over, passing through the screen of rose bushes without even hooking his clothes on the thorns. Before she knew what he did, he coolly took her knives and replaced one with his pocket handkerchief. He then walked back through the screen of roses and sat on an overturned washtub. “Comfortable?” he asked.

He listened to her curses for a moment, and shook his head. “You know, there’s kids about, learning bad ways from you,” he said. “This is a respectable neighborhood - not what you’re used to.” When she continued to swear Briar gestured to the plant behind the Viper. It had grown as tall as she, and had sprouted a very large rosebud next to her cheek. At Briar’s gesture the bud started to open, one petal at a time.

The Viper mopped her eyes and looked to see what tickled her cheek. She shrank away, only to discover the other rose bushes had closed in around her, forming a thorny cocoon that reached as high as her chest.

“Calm down and behave, or you’ll have more than one of those to worry about,” Briar informed her. Using one of her knives, he cleaned dirt from under his fingernails until she stopped thrashing. “You going to behave?”

The girl sneezed ferociously, then nodded.

Briar saw that there were a number of red spots on her face. “You’re one of the ones who tried to grab Evvy out by the Market of the Lost, aren’t you?” he asked. “One of the ones she burned with her rocks.”

The girl hesitated, then nodded.

“Didn’t you learn anything from that?” he inquired.

The girl cursed him and Evvy alike. Briar nodded to the flowerbud that bulged next to her cheek. It unfurled swiftly, a blood crimson bloom that was nearly as big as her head once it was fully open.

“Do your bidding like little scratchy lapdogs, don’t they?” she demanded before the sneezes took her.

“I can’t think of anything so bleat-brained as to insult me at just this moment,” Briar remarked. “But then, you Vipers lost the clever race a while ago, didn’t you?”

Any reply she might have given was lost in a thunder of sneezes. Her eyes were swelling shut; from her gasps, Briar realized her throat was swelling, too. “I suppose I don’t want to kill you,” he decided. “At least, not like this. It’s not exactly fair.”

Slipping off the saddlebags slung over his shoulder, he touched one of the many outer pockets of his mage kit. It opened, letting him remove a corked glass vial. As he wriggled the cork out, he made sure the rose stems were wrapped securely around the Viper’s arms and legs. He then reached over them to dab one droplet of oil from the vial beneath her nose, and two more on each eyelid.

She gasped, an open-throated effort that filled her lungs. Her eyes slid open, the swelling down, though they continued to water. The sneezes stopped. His all-allergy oil was powerful: it could relieve symptoms for over an hour until Briar or Rosethorn learned what caused the allergy and blended a medicine that would help with that alone.

Once the Viper could breathe, Briar requested the rose bush at her back to produce four more of the very large buds near her head. As they swelled with growth, he asked, “Why spy on Evvy?”

“So we know where she is,” the Viper replied sullenly. “Our tesku means her to join us sometime.”

“Why?” Briar wanted to know. “She’s just a kid.”

“She’s a stone mage,” the Viper said. “She can say where jewels are hid, what’s garbage and what ain’t. We could be the main gang in Chammur with a stone mage.”

Briar folded his arms. “When the Thief-Lord wanted me for his gang, he asked me first. He said I’d get food and nice goods and mates to watch my back,” he informed her. “All of my mates were invited, and told why it was good to be in that gang. You, the way you do it, you don’t want a mate. You want a slave. She’ll never gang with you. I’ll make sure she doesn’t.”

The girl’s mouth curled. “You want us to court some little slant-eyed rat from Princes’ Heights? She ain’t even Chammuran!”

“I don’t want Vipers courting her at all,” Briar replied coldly. “You don’t know how to act. And if I see you around here again, you’ll think this” - he signaled to the rosebuds, which burst into flower around the Viper’s face - “is a token of my love.”

The slight amount of oil he’d given her wasn’t enough to counteract the pollen from the huge flowers and the surrounding bushes. She sneezed so hard Briar thought she might sprain something. Clear mucus poured from her nose.

Briar asked the plants to free her. He stood aside as she fled the roof, sneezing and stumbling over things she couldn’t see with her eyes pouring tears. He kept her dagger.

Rosethorn heard Briar out, her slender brows coming together with an almost audible click when he repeated how Jebilu had dismissed the influence of Lightsbridge and Winding Circle. She served up midday in silence, opening her mouth only once, to call Evvy to the table. The girl had arrived that morning, while Briar was gone. Rosethorn had made her bathe, change into clean clothes, and help to harvest the new corn crop on the roof. That Evvy had obeyed didn’t surprise Briar. It took a stern spirit to defy Rosethorn.

The woman ate in silence while Evvy pelted Briar with questions about the palace. The white stone walls of Jebilu’s room, what were they made of? Were the inlays on the walls also stone? Did the people press such inlays into the stone as she did stones in the walls of her squat? What did the mage’s pastries taste like - and what did Briar mean, he hadn’t even tried them?

“Enough,” Rosethorn said, throwing down her napkin. “Aren’t stones quiet?”

“But I’m not a stone,” Evvy replied, “I’m a stone mage.” Her cheerful grin didn’t even flicker under Rosethorn’s admonishing look. Briar decided maybe Evvy’s head was stone, and that was how she could resist his teacher’s emphatic personality.

“You two wash up,” Rosethorn ordered, getting to her feet. “I’m off to have a word with Master Stoneslicer.”

“I’d like to come,” Briar wheedled. He wanted hear what Rosethorn said to the fat mage.

Rosethorn shook her head. “Dishes. Then you’re going to teach her something.” She pointed to Evvy. “Don’t let this time go to waste.”

“Teach her to meditate,” Rosethorn said firmly, cutting off his arguments. “And to get her power in a tighter grip. Don’t forget to put a circle of protection around you both when you do it, either. Uncontrolled stone magic won’t do my beans or your miniature trees much good.”

Briar winced. “Thanks for reminding me.”

“Don’t mention it,” Rosethorn said. “And get to work.” She strode out of the house, her face set.

“Is she going to eat Jooba-hooba?” Evvy wanted to know. “She looks like she’s going to bite him, at least.”

“No - if she bit him, he’d die,” Briar informed her.

“And his name’s Jebilu. Learn it. He’s still going to be your permanent teacher.” Evvy shrugged.

They settled in the front room for the lesson. Briar made sure Evvy was seated and comfortable before he drew a protective circle around them with a specially prepared oil. Circles came easily to him. The strength he had placed in his oil surged up and in to enclose them in a bubble of power. No matter what happened inside, no magic would escape his barrier.

Evvy’s nose twitched. “What’s that?” she demanded.

Evvy propped her chin on her hand. “It smells like something died,” she remarked.

Evvy shook her head solemnly.

“I thought you were afraid of me. I thought you were afraid of everybody,” he pointed out.

“You’re all right,” she replied carelessly. “You could’ve done all kinds of bad things to me by now, and you haven’t.”

Briar shook his head and sat cross-legged. “Now, with meditation, you breathe special, by counting, like this.” He demonstrated for her the pattern of inhaling for a count of seven, holding for a count of seven, and letting go of all that over a count of seven. “And while you breathe like that, you empty your mind of all thoughts. Just, empty. It’s hard at first, but you’ll get the knack. You’re clever, for a girl.”

Daja would have cuffed him; Sandry would have tugged his ear or his nose; Tris would have ignored him. Evvy stuck her tongue out. Briar grinned. “Not that I’ve much against girls in the common way. Now, let’s try that breathing.”

Evvy did, twice, then shook her head. “What’s that supposed to mean, clear out my thoughts? I don’t have a broom for between my ears, you know. It’s not like I can sweep them away.”

“You have to learn to do it, though,” Briar explained. ”That’s how you get to the place where you can handle your magic. If you don’t learn, your power will cut away from you without you wanting it, and get you in trouble. Or it’ll come spilling out and you won’t be able to stop it, or you won’t be able to find enough to do the job.”

Evvy tried again. She managed to hold and release her breath three times before she cried, “But I’m thinking all kinds of things, like midday and supper and I thought I saw a Viper this morning - I can’t stop thinking things!”

“Just forget about the Vipers,” ordered Briar. “I’ll handle them.” He rubbed his temple. “Look,” he said after a moment’s thought, “do stones think?”

Evvy giggled. “Of course they don’t, silly!”

“Good. Do the breathing, and become a stone,” Briar suggested. “Just close your eyes. Be a stone in your mind.”

“What kind?” she wanted to know. “If I’m the orange stone or the salt-and-pepper stone, the sun will hit my sparkly bits and I’ll notice that. Or - “

“You remember the flagstones in Golden House?” Briar asked swiftly, before she could say any more. “The ones under the main aisle? Black, not shiny at all, heavy?” Evvy nodded. “Try that stone.”

She began to breathe as Briar counted. He didn’t try to enter the center of his own power, feeling it was up to him to keep her on track. As it was, he wasn’t sure how long he’d been counting for her before he realized she was silent. Her power shone softly throughout her body. Her eyes were motionless under their lids; her face was still. Only the tiniest shift in her nostrils and the shallowest rise and fall in her chest said she was alive. Briar rested a hand on hers, and found her skin was cool, almost hard.

“Evvy,” he called, his heart pounding. “Evvy, listen, come out of it. Evvy…”

She stayed unmoving.

Briar wiped a hand over his circle to break it and ran up to his workroom. He needed something powerfully scented.

Finding the right plant, he broke off a stem and carried it downstairs. The smell didn’t bother him - most plant smells didn’t - but from the complaints voiced by others he knew not everyone appreciated its strong odor. He held the stem under Evvy’s nose.

Her nostrils twitched. After a moment they flared; her chest heaved; her eyes flew open. “Ugh!” she cried, leaning away from him, a hand cupped over her nose. “Heibei’s luck, what’s that?”

Briar smiled regretfully. “It’s called asafetida,” he told her. “Good for lung ailments and exorcisms.”

“Who’d want to breathe around that?” Evvy demanded. “I take it back about the stuff you used before. This really smells like, like somebody died. Why’d you make me sniff it, anyway?”

Briar gently placed the stem on the floor. “I never said turn into a rock,” he informed her, closing his circle again. “I just said clear your mind like one. If they don’t think of anything, you don’t think of anything! Especially don’t think of being one!”

“I couldn’t’ve turned myself into a stone,” she scoffed. Then she met Briar’s eyes. “Could I?”

“I don’t know. You looked pretty close to it,” he informed her. “Now. Let’s try again. Clear your mind. Don’t be a rock.”

He began to count, Evvy to inhale, hold, exhale. For a little while nothing happened. Briar continued to count as first her fingers, then her nose twitched. Suddenly she relaxed, and brilliant white light flared all around her, half-blinding Briar.

“Stop!” he cried. “Stop it right there!”

“Now what?” she demanded, opening her eyes. “I almost had it!”

“You did have it,” he reassured her, breaking his protective circle. “I just wasn’t ready. Wait here.”

“I want a drink of water,” she complained.

“What’s that for?” she asked.

“It helps me see,” he replied absently. “Now, do the breathing. Try to go to that same place in your head.”

Evvy closed her eyes obediently as Briar began to count. For a short while the only sounds came from outside as women talked, children shouted, and an unhappy donkey brayed somewhere in the distance. Briar watched Evvy.

First she hitched and scratched her hip. Then she sneezed. He could tell she was thinking as her eyes shuttled rapidly behind closed lids. Suddenly she went still. Her power blazed out to fill their protective bubble.