The Smoke-Scented Girl (23 page)

“The process will be accelerated,” Mistress
Gavranter said, cutting across whatever insult Mistress Quendester
was about to fling at him. “Are you certain this northeastern
heading is their true route?”

“Yes. Positive.”

“Then proceed,” the white-haired magician
said. “And hurry.”

They rode across snowy fields now, Evon
taking the most direct route rather than trying to follow the
roads. He learned to triangulate the course Speculatus took,
cutting across corners, only once having to backtrack to pick up
the scent again. Twice they caught sight of the heat shimmer of a
magical trap, no doubt Odelia’s work, both times before it could go
off; Evon guessed they were avoiding dozens more with the route
they were taking. Finally they reached the broad highway that led
northeast from Belicath to Ostradon and from there all the way to
Matra. The scent followed it precisely, and so did they, able to
keep up a faster gait on the smoothly paved road. Carriages that
would normally have expected the right of way pulled aside for the
contingent of horses riding all-out along the highway. Evon leaned
forward along his horse’s neck and urged it on, chafing at the
delays when they had to slow to keep from exhausting the horses.
The scent was stronger now, but it was growing dark, and Evon
despaired as twilight fell and the trail showed no sign of coming
to an end.

“Mr. Lorantis,” Mistress Gavranter said,
coming up beside him, “we will have to stop for the night. I
believe we can make Ostradon in half an hour.” She reached out and
took his arm, awkwardly because of the motion of both their horses.
“I am sorry for the delay, but we
will
find her. Speculatus
can’t afford to kill her, not and obtain the secret of the fire
spell.”

Evon looked at her. In the fading light, he
thought he saw compassion in her eyes.
Can everyone see how I
feel?
“I understand,” he said. “I’ll see if they went through
Ostradon. It makes no sense to continue on tonight.”

Mistress Gavranter patted his arm again.
“That spell of yours really is remarkable.”

“It was hard-won. You’re not going to like
learning it,” he warned her.

She laughed, a delicate bell-like trill much
higher pitched than her speaking voice. “I haven’t gotten to be
this age without learning many things I didn’t enjoy. Good luck,
Mr. Lorantis.” She dropped back into the gloom.

Evon sagged. He’d been so certain they could
find her today. Unwanted images tried to rear up in front of his
eyes again; he ruthlessly brushed them aside and refused to think
of Kerensa alone among her captors. He concentrated so hard on
blocking those images that he almost didn’t notice that the scent
had changed. He stopped and looked around. They were riding through
a small forest of pines, heavily laden with snow that the moonlight
reflected off, and by that light he saw a smaller road, unpaved,
that left the highway going east, toward the mountains. The scent
turned to follow that road.

“Wait!” he shouted, and guided his horse a
few steps along the road. It was certain. Kerensa had gone this
way. He returned to the group and sought out Mistress Gavranter.
“It’s definitely this way,” he told her. “I wish I knew how long
ago.”

“We’re all tired,” a thin magician with plump
cheeks said. “We should rest in Ostradon and return in the morning.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to face their magicians when we’re
in this state.”

“Mistress Gavranter, we have no idea what’s
at the end of this road,” Evon said, “and by morning they may have
moved on again. We have to pursue this.”

Mistress Gavranter considered him, his
desperation, and said, “Mr. Lorantis, I suggest that you and your
friend follow the road until you have a sense of what we face, then
join us in Ostradon. Do
not
engage Speculatus if you find
them.” She gave him a look that said she
did
know exactly
why Evon was on this journey and warned him: if you want your woman
back, don’t be a fool.

“I understand, Mistress Gavranter.” They
arranged a rendezvous point in Ostradon, and then Piercy and Evon
rode off along the side road while the magicians and agents
proceeded north. It was even more overgrown than the main road, and
dark under the branches where no snow had been able to fall. Evon
ducked to avoid a low branch and said, “I’m sorry I dragged you
into this.”

“Which this? The part where we are riding
along in the ebon-black heart of winter’s night toward what may be
our certain doom, or the part where
I
came to
you
asking for help to find the Fearsome Firemage?”

“All right,” Evon said, amused despite
himself, “so we did some mutual dragging. But right now I’m
beginning to think Mistress Gavranter was right, and we should have
waited until morning.”

“You needed something to do, and she took
pity on you, lovesick fool that you are. And
I
am along to
ensure that you do not go racing off to the rescue and get yourself
killed by a hundred Speculatus agents.”

“Do you really think there are a hundred of
them?”

“No. But there might be fifty.”

“There couldn’t have been that many that took
Kerensa, or someone would have noticed—”

They came out of the woods into a wide plain
covered in snow that gleamed pale blue in the moonlight. Far ahead,
at the end of the road, lay an enormous manor house blazing with
light, with a pillared entrance capped with snow and two pointed
towers flanking it like a pair of giants protecting a
fifty-foot-tall treasure chest. Dark shadows passed in front of its
lower windows, sentries making their rounds in well-trodden paths
in the snow. The house rose four stories high and was made of red
or brown brick; the towers were made of what looked like white
stone, though it was hard to tell their true color in the
white-yellow light of the magic-lit lamps that burned in every
window. Evon looked closer at the sentries. Smaller shadows paced
beside them—dogs on leashes. Evon and Piercy looked at one another,
then slowly moved their horses back into the comforting concealment
of the forest.

“I am not going in there alone,” Piercy said,
“though I love Kerensa like the sister I wish I had in place of my
own.”

“I agree,” Evon said. “Much as it kills me
to.” He dug in his inner pocket for his mirror. “I’ll tell Mistress
Gavranter what we’ve found. Then we’ll make a plan.”

***

“We aren’t at our best, after riding all
afternoon,” Mistress Gavranter said. They were once again gathered
at the intersection where the smaller road left the main road. Evon
saw disgruntlement and open annoyance on several faces. He had to
find a way to convince them.

“It’s dark,” he said, “which gives us an
advantage we won’t have come the morning. And the longer we delay,
the more time they’ll have to improve their defenses. They know
we’ll come after them, but they won’t expect us here so
quickly—they have to believe their traps and obscurations slowed us
down.”

“I, for one, am not keen on the idea of that
weapon remaining in Speculatus hands one second longer than it has
to,” the balding magician said. “Belitha, I know we’re all tired,
but we’re none of us
that
exhausted that we can’t
perform.”

“I disagree,” Mistress Quendester said. “We
ought not to attempt to retrieve the weapon until we’re physically
and mentally at our peak.”

“They won’t have more than five or six
magicians,” Evon said. “And they won’t be expecting us.”

“Mistress Gavranter, I think we should
attempt an assault,” Mrs. Petelter said, surprising Evon, who’d
become accustomed to the idea that Home Defense had become
irrelevant now that the magicians were here. “We’ve heard rumors of
a Speculatus stronghold in this area, and it sounds as though this
is it. We’d be wasting our advantage if we didn’t strike now.”

Mistress Gavranter looked from one person to
another and ended with her gaze on Evon. “How certain are you about
the number of magicians?” she asked.

“Ah...well, it would take five magicians
working together to blanket a building the size of the inn with
desini cucurri
that creates a paralysis lasting ten hours,”
he said. He’d done the calculations in his head on the road,
desperately trying to keep his mind off Kerensa. “And Piercy tells
me—you can confirm this, Mrs. Petelter—that Speculatus doesn’t have
many magicians as a whole. He said it was why they recruited our
old classmates so intensely. So it’s unlikely they would have more
magicians than they needed for that
desini cucurri
. And
there are no magical defenses on that manor, no shields or anything
like that, so they don’t have enough magicians to spare maintaining
them. So I estimate no more than seven magicians, and more likely
only six.”

“I agree with your reasoning,” Mistress
Gavranter said, “but I’m concerned about your report about the
non-magical defenses and the location. It will be difficult to get
close without being seen and losing our advantage.”

“Piercy is working on that. He’s a sneaky
bast— sorry, a sneaky fellow when he wants to be. He’s examining
the patrol pattern and looking for a hole we can exploit. And,
forgive me, but shouldn’t a group of magicians this powerful be
able to create a few camouflaging shields?”

“Camouflage, yes, but it’s hard to move a
group this size quietly.”

“My agents have training for situations
exactly like this,” Mrs. Petelter said. In the moonlight, her face
had the look of someone determined to prove herself competent.

“Then—”

“
Evon Lorantis
eloqua,” a tiny voice
in Evon’s pocket said. Evon pulled it out and repeated,
“Eloqua,”
and the mirror cleared to show most of Piercy’s
face.

“They’re sloppy,” he whispered. “The guards’
paths don’t overlap, and there’s one fellow who takes long breaks
in a corner out of the wind. We can approach from that side, but
there’s still the problem of crossing the field.”

“We have a plan for that,” Evon said,
catching Mistress Gavranter’s eye and receiving a nod from her.
“Wait there and we’ll join you shortly.”

“Your attention, please,” Mistress Gavranter
said. “We’ll be moving forward on horseback, then proceeding to the
manor on foot. When we reach the edge of the forest, we—the
magicians—will cast
spexa
to determine the interior layout
of the manor, then fall back to allow Mrs. Petelter’s people an
unimpeded view of the building. Please have patience; this is a
complicated...operation, I believe you call it, Mrs. Petelter?”

“Are you sure this is wise, Belitha?” said
someone near the back.

“I am sure it is the wisest option of a host
of suboptimal ones,” she replied. “Any other questions? Then let us
proceed. Mr. Lorantis, to me.”

Evon brought his horse alongside Mistress
Gavranter’s. “I assume you know the young woman well,” she said
drily, and Evon flushed. “Can you cast
spexa
on the move, so
to speak?”

“I’ve never used it except on spectacles and
the odd wall and door,” Evon said.

“Then I’ll have to teach you. It will help us
to have a sense for where she is in the manor, if it’s as large as
you say, and it’s likely Speculatus’s magicians will have cast
abjurations on the manor itself to prevent our using it on the
physical building.” Mistress Gavranter dropped her voice to a
near-whisper, and she added, “I suspect those magicians are of
better than average capability, if they are able to work so well
together as to cast
desini cucurri
over an entire building.
Some of our magicians are not ones who do well under pressure, so I
hope they will stand firm when it comes to a fight.”

“They seemed to work well together casting
the finding spell. It was not their fault that it failed.”

“Working well together when someone is trying
to break both your arms at once is very different.” Mistress
Gavranter grimaced. “Now,
spexa
. When you draw the runes on
a door, you think of
spexa
as creating a hole through which
you may see. To cast
spexa
on air, you must believe the
opposite: that
spexa
reveals a hole that is already there,
that has always existed....”

It was a strange way of casting the spell,
and the first time Evon succeeded he nearly fell off his horse
because
spexa
was not so much a hole as it was a tunnel that
led into emptiness. They were nearly to the edge of the woods
before Evon cast the spell properly and had a good look at his
bathroom back home. The image was so clear he thought he might be
able to reach out and pull the chain on the cistern. He dismissed
spexa
and sat back heavily in the saddle, swallowing hard to
rid himself of the cloying taste of strawberries it left in his
mouth. Learning a new spell was exhausting, but it was also
interesting and had the side benefit of keeping him distracted.

“You
are
good,” Mistress Gavranter
said. “Eight minutes. I thought perhaps your reputation was
exaggerated.”

“Thank you,” Evon said. “I didn’t know I had
a reputation.”

“If you tire of working for Tifana Elltis,
see me first. I’m certain I can find employment for you.”

“Again, thank you. I may need to take you up
on that offer soon.”

“Tifana isn’t treating you fairly?”

“She wants me back in Matra. I’m not
going.”

“I see.” Mistress Gavranter glanced over at
her magicians, who were dismounting and making various preparations
for spellcasting. “Let us see if we can find your young lady.”

“Her name is Kerensa, and she’s my friend,”
Evon said curtly.

Mistress Gavranter raised her eyebrows at
him, but said nothing more. “To find a person, you should know the
person well enough to picture her in your mind. Think of that
image, keep it close at hand, and cast the spell.”