The Smoke-Scented Girl (2 page)

Being able to create a defensive shield
independent of his body had turned out to be the easy part. Making
it flame resistant, heat resistant, was proving more difficult. He
refused to think it might be impossible; Miss Elltis was not paying
him for impossible. And if he didn’t find a solution soon, she
wouldn’t be paying him at all. He threw the wax-smeared cloth
toward the dustbin and picked up the palm-sized ceramic tile from
the center of the table. Wax had puddled in the grooves of the
runes he’d carved on it, and he lit one of the dozens of candles in
the room and heated the tile in the flame until the wax ran like
oil off its surface, then took it over to one of the tall windows
that let in the cold blue winter daylight and held it up to examine
it. Perhaps the rune was wrong. He’d tried everything else. Silica
glass bell, so the shield would manifest at a distance. Ceramic
tile for fire resistance, and he couldn’t think of anything more
symbolic than that. And
presadi
was the standard command
word to shape magic into any shield. It had to be the rune.

He threw the tile after the wax-coated cloth
and heard it clatter across the floor instead. Nothing he’d thrown
at the dustbin in the last four hours had come anywhere near it. He
must be tiring. He eyed the cot in the corner of the room. No. He
wasn’t yet so tired as to sleep before he discovered the secret,
and he was running out of time. It had to be the rune. Maybe he was
overthinking it. Maybe the rune needed to be simpler, not more
complicated.

A knock sounded at the door, and Evon,
startled, reached up to straighten the neckcloth he wasn’t wearing.
Miss Elltis had strong opinions about the behavior and attire of
the magicians belonging to her cooperative, and finding Evon in his
shirtsleeves with, he suddenly realized, a thin film of ash and
copper chalk dust coating said shirtsleeves would prompt her to
make one of those subtly cutting remarks that reminded the
recipient that she was first among equals, even if Evon was more
equal than most.

“I must say, Lore, I didn’t expect to find
you quite so disheveled,” Piercy Faranter said, pushing the door
open with his hawk-headed walking stick. He’d started carrying the
thing when he was twenty-one, probably in an effort to look more
mature than his youthful face suggested, and in the last three
years Evon had come to think of it as an extension of his body. “I
had the impression that professional magicianing—is that a word?
Well, it is now—was rather cleaner than being a chimney sweep.” He
sniffed dramatically and held a linen handkerchief to his nose.
“And it’s rather more...fragrant...than I would have imagined. When
did you last bathe?”

Evon sat down on the stool again, realized he
was looking up his friend’s nostrils, and stood back up. “Piercy.
What in the Twins’ names are you doing here?”

“I’m crushed, dear fellow, crushed indeed.
Can a man not visit an old friend at his place of employment
without being greeted with such dismay?” He tucked his handkerchief
back into the pocket of his elegant maroon waistcoat, straightened
the front of his equally elegant black frock coat, and gave Evon a
look of sorrow that on his long face looked more comical than
injured.

“I’m working on confidential government
research—visitors aren’t allowed. I wonder that you were able to
pass the doorkeeper. Tell me you didn’t bribe him.”

“Merely a trifle. Besides, I told him I was
on official government business. I have the most brilliant
secretive gaze, you know. Gets me into so many places.” He winked,
his brown eyes merry as always.

Evon picked at the wax that, despite his best
efforts, had coated the table with a thin veneer. After hundreds of
tests, that was to be expected. “If I don’t solve this problem
soon, we’ll lose our contract. I’m very busy.”

“Yes,” Piercy drawled, and poked Evon in the
sternum with the head of his stick. “I inquired at your home. Your
mother informed me that you’ve been ‘very busy’ for several days
now. Haven’t slept in your own bed for a week, I believe was her
precise wording. I heard in her unspoken plaint a clear message to
me. It was a message that said, ‘Piercy, your old friend Evon
Lorantis has once again chained himself to his desk, possibly not
metaphorically, and it is your duty, nay, your Gods-given
responsibility to free him from his shackles, possibly not
metaphorically, and ensure that he cleans himself up and eats
something more nourishing than the hunk of cheese he has stowed in
a bag hanging out of his window.’”

Evon glanced at the window. “There’s bread
too,” he said defensively.

“You have the most distressing tendency to
become wrapped up in your work these days,” Piercy said. “What are
you doing that is so important you forgot to keep your appointment
to dine with me?”

Evan’s stomach sank. “That wasn’t today, was
it?”

“It was two days ago, and I was deeply
wounded. Well. In truth I was merely put out a bit, since I have
known you since we were both ten years old and I’m accustomed to
your little quirks.” Piercy looked around for a chair, dusted its
seat with the same dove-white handkerchief, and sat. “In all
seriousness, Evon, I’m concerned for you. You can’t possibly do
your best work if you push yourself past breaking, and based on
what I see before me, you are very close to breaking.”

“I’m very close to
succeeding
, Piercy,
I’ve almost figured this out! A fireproof, heatproof shield! Think
how much it will mean to the war effort!”

“And I’m sure the Despot of Balviros trembles
in his sweaty boots to know it, but a day’s rest isn’t going to
change the course of the war. You need food, you need sleep, and
you need something else to think about to give your prodigious
brain time to recover.” Piercy removed a sheaf of papers from
inside the greatcoat draped over his arm and slapped them against
Evon’s chest. Evon reached out to take them automatically, turned
them over and nearly dropped them.

“These are restricted-access government
documents! Piercy—”

“You can thank me later, Lore.”

“From inside my prison cell? Or will I be
sharing one with you?”

“I have my superior’s tacit permission to
show this to you. He may be under the impression that you’re
somewhat older than you are and have a quarter-century’s experience
in all things magical, but I couldn’t exactly tell him that my
‘specialist’ has barely a quarter-century’s experience in
life
and is a junior member of a magicians’
cooperative.”

Evon squared the pages without looking at
them, as if they carried some contagion transmitted through the
eyes. “Why
didn’t
you take them to an experienced
magician?”

“Because we have many experienced magicians
in Home Defense, and all of them are stymied by what’s in those
papers. You have a flexibility of mind that they lack, something I
know from personal experience of all the times your cleverness has
gotten me into trouble. And you clearly need a new challenge.”

Evon scowled at him, but turned over the
pages and began scanning. Almost immediately, he said, “You can’t
be serious.”

“I am very serious.”

“There’s no mystery here. Fires start all the
time. Particularly in parts of cities built with a great deal of
wood and very little space between buildings. There doesn’t have to
be some supernatural explanation for it. And I see here that some
of this information has come from the
Weekly Gazette
. They
claimed last week that the King of Dalanine is really a woman with
a hairy chest. I think their reliability is questionable.”

“A great many men and women in Dalanine’s
government, sober people with very little sense of humor, are
taking it very seriously indeed,” Piercy said, and there was
nothing teasing about him now. “These fires are hot enough to melt
stone and vaporize flesh—and have done, at every site we’ve
investigated. Whatever this phenomenon is, if we can harness it, it
could tip the balance of the war in our favor. And I don’t mind
telling you that the Despot is pushing forward faster than anyone
thought possible a year ago.”

“Yes, I know; did I mention I have a
deadline?”

Piercy waved that away. “We need this, Evon,
we need to know who or what is causing it, and I think you’re the
man to figure it out.”

“I—that’s praise indeed, Piercy, but I don’t
know what you want me to do.”

Piercy tapped the sheaf of papers. “This is
all the information we have to date. Places, times, deaths,
anything our agents could learn. Find a pattern. See if you can
identify the magician behind it.”

“Are you certain that there is an
intelligence behind it? It could be some naturally occurring
phenomenon.”

“Find that out, too. Whatever it is, the
government wants to know.” Piercy grinned, once again the carefree
man about town. “With you working on fire-resistance spells, who
knows? It might turn out to be related to your work after all. Now,
put your clothes on. I refuse to be seen in public with you in this
state. Besides, you’d freeze in just your shirtsleeves. It’s
snowing again, did you realize?”

“I can’t leave now. If I don’t solve this
problem in the next two days—”

“If you do not
rest
, dear fellow, you
won’t be solving it at all. You know I’m right. Home, bath, food,
bed, possibly not in that order, and a fresh start in the
morning.”

Evon sighed, but buttoned up his waistcoat
and tied his neckcloth, then submitted to Piercy retying it for him
properly. Now that he thought about it, he was very hungry and a
little cold now that he wasn’t lighting fires every ten minutes.
Perhaps he needed food, and some rest. He glanced down at the
papers. Mysterious fires. Melted stone. If Piercy was right, and
this wasn’t simply sensationalism, it would be a fine challenge
indeed.

It was, in fact, snowing rather heavily
outside, and Evon turned the collar of his overcoat up against the
fat flakes and filled his lungs with cold air that cleared away the
last funk of hot wax and fire that clung to him. In the wintry
light, the businesses lining both sides of the wide, well-traveled
street looked gray and tired, upper stories jutting out above lower
ones, threatening to overbalance entire buildings. He glanced at
the neatly-painted letters on the leaded window above him, lit from
within despite the morning sun. ELLTIS & CO., FINEST MAGICS.
Someday he intended it to read ELLTIS, LORANTIS & CO. or, if he
really dared to dream, LORANTIS & CO. He buttoned his overcoat
and said, “Where are we going?”

“I told your mother I’d bring you home like
the little lost lamb you appear to have become,” Piercy said. They
proceeded up the street, stepping aside when a carriage rattled
past on the rough cobbles, throwing up a fine spray. By evening the
carriages would be sending up waves of filthy water to douse
unsuspecting pedestrians. Evon nodded and tipped his hat at a pair
of young women whose full skirts were already a little dirty from
the road. They glanced at him and giggled as they passed, and he
felt his face grow warm. How disheveled must he be, to inspire such
a response? He knew himself to be reasonably attractive, even
handsome according to more than one young lady, but at the moment
he felt like a hideous creature out of myth, something the
legendary hero Alvor might have slain with his equally legendary
mace. He self-consciously pushed his hair back behind his ears. He
needed a haircut. He needed a bath.

“How have I come to this?” he muttered under
his breath.

Piercy had very good ears. “Do you mean your
current physical condition, or the extremely prestigious employment
that caused it? I am certain that Elltis woman is grateful for your
tendency to become absorbed in solving a problem to the exclusion
of all else, but when you’re not obsessed with your work, you can
be quite charming. Those young ladies certainly thought so.”

Evon reddened again. “I think they were more
amused by whatever odor I’m emitting.”

“You have never been good at interpreting the
intentions of the fairer sex, Lore. You are, in fact, almost as bad
at it as you are at recognizing when your own heart is engaged. As
I recall, I had to tell you that your interest in Velena Torenter
was non-platonic because watching you moon about in unhappy
ignorance was more painful than I could endure.”

“I’m at least capable of knowing when my
condition is less than appealing to anyone, let alone women. I
swear, Piercy, I won’t let myself go this seedy again.”

“You almost certainly will. Come now, Lore,
why so despondent?”

“Piercy, I’ve been working at this problem
for days and I feel I’m no closer to the solution than I was at the
start. Yes, I know, I need to think about something else, give my
thoughts time to come together, but I’ve...I realize it’s
arrogance, but I’ve never encountered a magical problem I couldn’t
solve before.”

“You mean you haven’t faced a challenge that
hasn’t bowed down and kissed your boots in ten seconds before. I
have tremendous faith in your abilities, old friend, or I wouldn’t
have brought you my little problem.” He tapped Evon’s breast with
his walking stick, making the papers tucked inside rustle.

“You’re trying to distract me.”

“No, I’m selfishly trying to get you to work
on something that could mean a promotion for me if I can bring in a
solution. I know you can read and walk at the same time. It gives
you an undeserved air of studiousness that as I recall usually
concealed your planning some kind of mischief.”

“You never complained at our exploits, though
you probably should have done.” Evon sighed. “I can’t read and walk
in this weather. Why don’t you just tell me the essentials?”

“I was rather hoping not to do quite so much
work, but if it will halt your slide down the slope of despair,
then I will make the sacrifice. What do you know about these
fires?”