The Smoke-Scented Girl (25 page)

“Twice now,” he said. “I imagine it’s killing
you, not knowing how I did it. How many traps did you lay along our
path?”

She began walking toward him, her black
tiered dress swinging like a bell. “It doesn’t matter,” she said.
“I’ve almost got the secret. How long have you had her? A week? And
you haven’t figured it out, or you wouldn’t need her.”

Evon wondered why the other magicians weren’t
attacking. She was distracted, she was taunting him, and they
couldn’t get off a simple paralysis? He flexed his fingers and
said, “I’m not as ruthless as you are, I suppose.”

“Quite the character flaw, I’ve always
thought.
Desini cucurri!”

Evon countered it with a flick of his left
hand. “I’m not leaving without her.”

“You’re not leaving here at all.
Frigo!”
she shouted, and threw herself to one side as Evon
shouted “
Recivia
!” and sent the spell flying back in her
direction. She ducked, far too agilely for someone wearing that
layer cake of a dress, and Evon took the opportunity to look behind
him. His heart sank. Her
desini cucurri
hadn’t gone astray;
it had been aimed at the four magicians behind him, who now lay in
varying frozen positions he would have found comical if he weren’t
fighting for his life. They were so
slow
and now he was on
his own, which was what he’d always thought would happen, because
the Gods were not on his side. He ran for a door and got it open to
dive inside just as Odelia unleashed another
frigo
at him.
She was good enough that any breaking spell she hit him with would
splinter his bones. Across the hall, Piercy stood in the shelter of
another doorway, glancing out occasionally. “I’ll distract her, and
you go,” Evon called out, and Piercy nodded. Evon left his doorway
long enough to direct four different spells at Odelia, and Piercy
made his run as Odelia had to concentrate on defending herself. She
half-turned in Piercy’s direction as he passed her, and Evon cast
his own
frigo
to keep her from pursuing him.

“Your shadow won’t do you any good. There are
plenty of guards on that room,” Odelia called out. “Though I would
like to know how you located her. I have enough obstructions on
this building to block anyone, especially you.”

“Oh, Odelia, you know I’m better than you
are,” Evon said. “Gold medalist. Top of the class. And your
spellbuilding never did compare with mine. You had to cheat to even
come close to matching me.”

“
I am not a cheat!
” Odelia screamed,
and the door behind Evon shattered, showering him with wood
splinters. “You always had everyone believing you were the golden
boy, they gave you all the chances and I had to claw my way to the
top! I should have arranged an accident for you years ago, but I’ll
just have to settle for killing you now.
Forva!”

The doorway burst into flame, and Evon rolled
away from it and scrambled to the doorway Piercy had occupied.
“Recivia!”
he shouted, and the next
forva
rebounded
on Odelia. He heard her scream and looked out just in time to see
her extinguish the fire burning her tiered skirt.
“Forva!
”
he shouted, snapping his fingers, and a circle of fire surrounded
her. He sank back into the shelter of the room and tried to catch
his breath. He was tiring, and losing his focus. At some point, his
reflexes would slow enough that he couldn’t cancel whatever she
threw at him, and then he’d be dead.

Soft footsteps approached along the carpeted
corridor, and he flattened himself against the wall next to the
doorway. The footsteps slowed, and then—

“
Frigo!
” Odelia shouted, and the wall
collapsed on him, knocking him to the ground and filling his lungs
with plaster dust. He rose to his hands and knees and then cried
out, hacking and spitting plaster, as she kicked him hard with her
pointed boot. “Do you know how many ways I could kill you,
Lorantis?” she said in a conversational tone. “I figured out your
little shielding trick. I’d say it was brilliant, but it was really
pathetically simple.
Presadi
.” The shield sprang up around
him, clinging to his nose and mouth, and with his last breath he
gestured to cancel the spell. He sucked in air and threw himself
away from Odelia, wincing at the pain in his side. “
Forva,”
she said, and again Evon rolled to avoid the fire that sprang up
where he’d been lying. He wouldn’t be able to last much longer.

“You see, Lorantis? I
am
better than
you,” Odelia said.

“Better at torturing people, possibly,” Evon
wheezed.

“Better at being ruthless,” she taunted him.
“Really, a trait you ought to learn.” She stood over him where he
lay on his back, feeling as paralyzed as if in the grip of
desini cucurri
. He had perhaps one spell left in him. The
right spell.

He returned her gaze and saw mad obsession in
her eyes. She would never stop trying to kill him and Kerensa both.
And he knew what that one spell had to be. “All right,” he said.
“Frigo.
”

Odelia’s neck snapped back so hard the crack
was audible. Her shocked eyes met his once more before the life
drained out of them and she collapsed to the floor.

Evon lay, breathing heavily, unable to move
for a moment. He closed his eyes. He’d never killed anyone before.
It had been far too easy. Then the horror of what he’d done struck
him, and he rolled over and vomited up whatever it was he couldn’t
remember eating. It smelled of bile and the lemony tang of
frigo.
He crouched there on hands and knees, breathing
heavily. He couldn’t even swear he’d never do it again, if it meant
protecting Kerensa, and he felt sick again to know he was capable
of such a thing.
Time enough to hate yourself when she’s
safe.
He pushed himself to his feet and went wearily to the
door.

Someone rushed at him, and he was too tired,
he couldn’t react before the person attacked him with his bare
hands. No, it was Piercy, grabbing at his coat. “Evon, you have to
come now,” he said. “She won’t let me take her. Keeps saying
something about the spell. She’ll listen to you. Come
now
.”

Fresh strength poured through him.
She’s
why I’m here
. He ran with Piercy down the corridor to the
servants’ stairs and down the narrow hall to the room he’d seen in
spexa
, passing the limp bodies of four men Evon didn’t
recognize, blood pooling beneath them. Piercy could be deadly when
he wanted. They burst through the door and skidded to a halt. The
red-bearded man, Valantis, stood in the center of the room with
Kerensa bundled over his shoulder. She was struggling, but weakly,
her legs hanging limply down her captor’s chest, and Valantis
seemed not to notice her exertions. “Out of my way,” he said. His
voice was deep and raspy, the voice of a man with a long
tobacco-smoking habit.

“Put her down,” Evon said.

Kerensa struggled harder and cried out,
“Evon—”

“The weapon is mine,” Valantis said. He
reached up with his free hand and casually struck Kerensa on the
back of her head, hard, and she fell silent. Evon shouted,
“Frigo!
” but he was too exhausted for it to do anything more
powerful than make the big man sway where he stood.

“Not much of a magician, are you? Now get out
of my way and I won’t kill you where you stand.”

Evon began circling to the man’s right,
limbering his fingers. Piercy went to the left, flexing his wrist
and letting a knife fall into his open hand. Valantis shifted his
weight trying to follow them both. “Clever,” the big man said. He
dropped Kerensa, making her cry out in pain, and whipped out a long
knife and put it to her throat. “I’ll kill her, and then neither of
us will have the weapon. But I judge you care more about her
welfare than you do about the spell.”

Evon looked at Kerensa, whose face was set
and white. She looked exhausted. He felt as if Valantis’s knife had
gone through his chest. “All right,” he said, raising his hands in
submission, his mind working frantically. “Don’t hurt
desini
cucurri!
”

He had never tried targeting only part of a
person before, and it didn’t work as well as he had hoped—Valantis
could still move at the waist, but his arms and neck were frozen,
and that was all that mattered. Evon carefully pulled Kerensa away
from the knife before Valantis realized he was still conscious and
that his legs were free. He wrenched the knife out of the man’s
frozen hands and gave it to Piercy. “Take him to Mrs. Petelter,” he
said. “I’ll bring Kerensa.”

“No,” she said in a voice raw from screaming
that made Evon wish he had the power to kill Odelia again. “You
have to get everyone out of here. I can’t hold it off much
longer.”

He knelt next to her. “You—the spell. You’re
keeping it from activating?”

She nodded. “I don’t know how long. You have
to get everyone out. I can feel it building.”

Evon exchanged glances with Piercy. “Forget
him,” Evon said, nodding at Valantis. “Use the mirror to get
everyone out of the manor. If he wants to live, he can find his own
way. Do you understand?” he said to Valantis, who looked very
confused. “You’re about to see that weapon you were so interested
in demonstrate its power. If you don’t want to be part of the
display, I suggest you start running.”

Valantis gave him one more stunned look, then
stumbled out of the room, his neck and arms unnaturally still,
unbalancing him so he bounced off the doorframe on his way out.
“Evon—” Piercy began.

“Get out. I’ll help Kerensa.
Move!
”
Piercy ran out the door. Evon turned to Kerensa. “This isn’t a safe
place for you when you’re reborn,” he said. “You won’t be able to
get out of the wreckage. Can you stand?”

She shook her head. “She broke my legs,” she
said. “You have to go.”

“I told you I’d stay with you, didn’t I?” He
scooped her up in his arms, staggered a little under her weight,
then headed toward the servants’ stairs. “We’ll go out the back. It
might still destroy the house, but we won’t be under it.”

“I can’t control it much longer,” she cried.
“You’ll be killed.”

“Just tell me when you’re going to let go.”
He went down the stairs as fast as he dared with his burden.
Kerensa tucked her head into his shoulder and clasped him tightly
around the neck. Her skin was hot to the touch and reddening as he
ran. She must have extraordinary willpower, to prevent a spell of
that magnitude from activating for even a short time. He could hear
her whimper every time he went down another flight of stairs,
jogging her broken legs, and cold fury filled him to the point that
he could barely see.

They reached the entrance hall and Evon
turned toward the back of the house. He hadn’t paid much attention
to this part of the building, since it had nothing to do with the
route to the fourth floor, and he was casting about for a door that
might lead to the outside when Kerensa said faintly, “It’s
happening.” Evon quickly set her down. Her skin was bright red and
faint irregular lines of yellow began to form underneath it. He
realized, too late, that his reserves were low and he had no idea
if he could cast a spell strong enough to withstand this blast.
Nothing to be done. He rolled into a ball and said,
“
Presadi,”
just in time to see Kerensa convulse on the
floor, and then he squeezed his eyes tight shut as the blast hit
his shield.

The light was so bright it burned his eyes
through his eyelids and the forearms he put up to shield his face.
He felt himself buffeted by a wind that rolled him in his shield
across the floor, bumping as if the smooth floor were made of
jagged rocks instead. The airtight shield blocked sound as well,
blocked it so completely that he felt as if the blast had knocked
him deaf as well as blind. He kept his arms up, afraid to look,
afraid he’d already been blinded, and waited for the shield to stop
rolling.
No heat, isn’t that lucky? I guess it works
. He was
beginning to feel lightheaded. Was the event over? How long did it
last? He wished he’d thought to ask Kerensa, then realized she was
probably too preoccupied with dying to notice things like the
passage of time. Kerensa. He dared open his eyes a crack and saw a
red haze and the afterimages of the white, searing light. He needed
air. He dismissed
presadi
and felt panic clutch at his
heart; he couldn’t see anything, not fire, not walls or masonry. He
blinked, hard, and saw red and orange in the distance, and felt
cold air that smelled of char and old stone on his face. Heat
seared his palms, and he rolled onto his back and panted, drawing
in deep breaths of the frigid air. Then he let out a cry and leaped
to his feet, swatting at the back of his head and Kerensa’s bag,
still strapped to his back, where they had begun to burn. The
searingly hot ground gave off waves of heat he could see in the
moonlight and began to burn through the soles of his boots.
“
Presadi,”
he said with a gesture, acting by instinct, and a
flattened bubble appeared on the ground before him; he stepped onto
it, wobbled, and found his balance. He really ought to learn to
cast that shield as a wall rather than a sphere.

Things began to swim into focus, and far
above he saw specks of light. Some of them danced and sparkled with
rainbow light, and they were probably imaginary, but others
remained stationary and he was fairly certain they were stars. The
manor was nothing more than heaps of ash and still-flowing stone,
rising at intervals around him that mirrored the walls and pillars.
Steam rose from the cracked, blackened tiles beneath his feet.
About twenty feet away, a dark shape huddled on the ground,
weeping. Evon wobbled his way toward her by kicking
presadi
until it rolled, awkwardly, knocking him off balance with every rut
and bump it went over. He removed his coat and draped it around her
as he’d done once before, though what he wanted to do was take her
in his arms and kiss her until her tears stopped.