The Smoke-Scented Girl (39 page)

“It has uncertainty,” Alvor said. “We are
expected to simply stand by…every feeling revolts against it. I am
sorry,” he told Evon, “but we have seen the destruction wreaked by
the Enemy and we cannot afford to wait on you. We will carry you to
the nearest settlement as repayment for your aid, but then we must
bid you farewell.”

“No!” Evon exclaimed.

“Alvor, please don’t do this!” Kerensa cried
out. “You were always a man of action, and I know this goes against
your nature, but this
is
the right solution.”

“You are a brave woman, Kerensa,” Alvor said,
and offered her his hand. “Ride with me and tell me what the people
of your time remember of us.”

“You’re making a mistake,” Evon said, his
teeth clenched.

“Alvor’s decision is the right one,” Dania
said. She leaned over and pulled Evon up on the horse behind her.
“I would know more of this spell that binds the fire.” She added,
in a lower voice, “Perhaps with my assistance you will find the
answer you seek, and then, who knows?”

Evon said nothing. Four legendary heroes
would pursue the Despot and kill the entity, and Kerensa would be
doomed.
You didn’t have a solution anyway
, a cruel voice
inside his head whispered.
You were willing to see the world
devastated by the Despot to prevent the death of the woman you
love. Not quite the heroic type, are you?
He looked ahead to
where Kerensa was in vehement conversation with Alvor. Maybe she
could argue him around to her way of thinking. But Alvor had an
amused, condescending look on his face, the kind of indulgent look
parents give their children when they perform a clever new trick.
Evon responded to Dania’s next question absently. At least she was
willing to help. But unless that help produced results before they
reached the next village, however far that was, Evon’s journey was
over.

Dania deserved every bit of the reputation
history and myth had given her. She grasped the implications of
Evon’s research immediately and from that was able to independently
come to the same conclusions he had. “Nystrantor may have the
solution you seek,” she said, “and one that will not require you to
use the magic on the Enemy.” This close, Evon could see that her
dark hair had gray in it and the corners of her eyes and mouth were
lined. They were all four of them much older than he had
imagined.

“You know Alvor is wrong,” Evon said
desperately. “Why don’t you tell him so?”

“Alvor is my
Kiere
, which by your
expression is a word your language no longer has,” Dania said. “It
means…not a lord in the sense that he is my superior, but someone
to whom I owe respect and loyalty and therefore give my obedience.
I follow where he leads, even into death. I will not cross
him.”

“But don’t you give him advice?”

“Advice, yes. Orders, no. Evon, you should
realize that Alvor is not a man made for patience. It grates on him
to be told he must sit quietly in a corner while someone else is a
hero.”

“I don’t want to be a hero.”

“Neither did Alvor, once on a time.”

“Kerensa says he was just a man who became
great because the times demanded it.”

“That is very accurate.” She sighed. “It
seems so long ago that we were all just ordinary folk wondering at
the rumors of war we heard coming out of the northlands. Well, not
Carall. He was a prince of…how strange that I cannot now remember
it.”

“Is he…undead?”

Dania glanced over her shoulder at him.
“Undead? That is a rumor I had not yet heard. No, he was touched by
a malignancy that now eats at him, bone and blood. I have some
skill as a healer and yet I cannot restore him. It makes him angry,
to be so weakened. He was not always so hostile to strangers.”

“I understand,” Evon said, not understanding
at all. “Dania, isn’t there anything I can do to change Alvor’s
mind?”

“It is not a mind that changes easily,” she
said. “Prove to him that you can do what you intend to do. Enlist
his aid. He is not proud, but he dislikes feeling useless.”

Evon lapsed into silence again. He still
couldn’t prove that the fire could be removed from Kerensa. He was
willing to beg Alvor for help—he wasn’t that proud—but he didn’t
think there was much point. His mind fell back into the pattern of
going over and over everything he’d learned, looking for an answer.
He ought to be asking Dania about magic in her time; the Gods only
knew what lost spells she might know. But the idea depressed him.
She didn’t know the one spell that mattered most to him and to
Kerensa, if it even existed. He looked ahead to where Kerensa rode
with Alvor; they appeared to still be arguing. This was the
opportunity of a lifetime for her, the chance to trade stories with
her hero, comparing fact with legend. Instead she was still
valiantly trying to argue him around to their point of view. That
depressed him further.

Dawn came while they were still on the road,
illuminating a town on the distant horizon. Evon felt himself begin
to droop and struggled not to fall asleep on Dania’s shoulder. The
woman had to be twice his age and she was still alert and fresh as
if she’d slept all night instead of riding. He peered at the road
ahead. It seemed to be moving. He blinked and rubbed grit from his
eyes and looked again. Dozens of wagons came ponderously toward
them along the road, preceded by horsemen moving more swiftly.
Alvor pulled up and the others followed suit. “What is this?” Alvor
said.

“They must be fleeing the Despot’s armies,”
Evon said. “Piercy said his forces were advancing swiftly.”

“The better for us, that we do not have far
to go to hunt him down,” Alvor said. “Dania, does your Glass
recognize the Enemy’s presence?”

“It does, though the sign is not clear. I
cannot tell how distant the Enemy may be.”

“Then let us proceed.” Alvor motioned them
forward.

It was less than half an hour before they
encountered the first riders. One of them stopped nearby,
controlling his unquiet mount with difficulty. “You oughtn’t go
that way,” he said.

“We have no fear of the tyrant,” Alvor
said.

The man looked confused. “What’s that
then?”

“He says we have important business in the
town,” Evon said. Without the
cleperi
spell, Alvor’s
language was only gibberish to the rider.

“You ought to rethink that. The Despot’s
armies are on their way and it’s only a matter of hours before the
town is overrun.” The man eyed Wystylth dubiously; Wystylth grinned
at him.

“We don’t expect to stay long,” Evon
said.

The rider shrugged. “Oughtn’t take the ladies
into the battle,” he added. “Despot’s armies aren’t kind to
women.”

“Thank you for the advice,” Evon said. The
man shrugged and rode on.

“It sounds like the Despot is close,” Kerensa
said.

“All the better for us.” Alvor rode on,
followed by the rest. Evon looked down and saw Wystylth looking
back at him. Throughout the journey Wystylth had loped along beside
the horses, sometimes disappearing for a stretch but always
returning again, usually to speak to Alvor. His face was in shadow
again, but Evon thought he saw sympathy in his smile.

They now rode among the wagons, piled high
with people and boxes and in some cases furniture; Evon saw a
wizened old man perched on an enormous rocking chair, teetering
high atop a mound of crates. None of the wagoners, or their
passengers, met anyone’s eyes, except for several small children
who hadn’t grasped the somberness of the situation. They laughed
and waved, and Evon waved back, but their enthusiasm depressed him
still more. He caught Kerensa’s eye as she happened to glance
behind her, and smiled weakly. She didn’t smile back. If he was
feeling despondent, she must be miserable. She wasn’t arguing
anymore; she was listening to something Alvor was saying, all her
attention on him. Maybe he was telling her a story after all.

It seemed every inhabitant of the town was in
the streets, loading wagons or horses and shouting at everyone
else. Alvor led his procession through the streets at a slow walk,
giving anyone who tried to interfere with him a level gaze that
promised violence if that became necessary. They ended up in the
stable yard of a small coaching inn, all the coaches of which had
been pressed into emergency evacuation service. Only two horses
waited in the stalls, and as they dismounted, a woman came out of
the inn to saddle one of them. She ignored their little party
despite the extremely old-fashioned dress of four of its
members.

Alvor dismounted and helped Kerensa down.
Evon got down with no assistance and went to Alvor’s side.
“Please,” he said, “help us reach Nystrantor. We’ll never make it
on our own. I’ll separate the weapon from Kerensa and we can
destroy the Enemy forever.”

Alvor looked at him curiously. “You are that
convinced that your weapon will wreak such damage?”

“I’ve seen it. Nothing survives. Alvor, I’m
positive this is the right way to do this.”

“Is his assessment of the weapon’s power
correct, Dania?” The woman nodded. “Then you know how to save this
young woman and still destroy the Enemy?” he said to Evon.

Evon hesitated. Alvor looked at Kerensa.
“Will you still argue against my point?” he asked her.

“I can’t,” Kerensa said. “You’re right. About
everything.”

The woman saddling her horse mounted and rode
out of the stable yard. Evon glanced at her as she left, then
looked back to see that Kerensa had begun to cry. “What—” he began,
and someone shoved him hard from behind, knocking him to the
half-frozen ground, and knelt on the small of his back.
Rough-palmed hands grabbed his and immobilized them. “No,” he
shouted, and struggled hard against Wystylth’s grip to no effect.
“Don’t do this!”

“Thank me for saving your life,” Alvor said.
He sounded regretful. “She is going where you should not
follow.”

“Leave her alone! Go on, kill the Despot your
way, just leave her alone!”

“He’s not forcing me, Evon,” Kerensa said,
her voice choked with crying. “There’s no more time. I can’t let
any more people die when I can stop it happening.”

“Kerensa, I can find a way! Please—” He
bucked and kicked as rope went around his wrists and bound them
tight. “
Please
,” he begged.

From where his face was pressed into the mud,
he saw her kneel beside him, felt her lay her hand on his cheek. “I
love you,” she said. “And not just because you’ve done more for me
than anyone else. You have to let me do this. There’s been too much
suffering already.”

“Alvor made you think this way,” Evon said,
“he made you think it was hopeless but it’s
not
, Kerensa, I
swear it’s not. Just give me time.”

“There’s no more time.” She kissed his cheek,
her tears falling onto his face. He struggled more, but Wystylth
shoved him harder into the ground and he grunted in pain. “Don’t
hurt him,” Kerensa said, her words barely intelligible through her
tears.

Evon shouted incoherently, desperately, as
more rope went around his ankles and Wystylth heaved him off the
ground with no more effort than if he’d been a child. “Don’t fight
me,” the man said in his rasping voice, and cuffed Evon so hard
across the head that he bit his tongue and his vision went blurry
for a moment. When he could see clearly again, he was in one of the
empty stalls and Wystylth was tying the long end of the rope
binding his ankles around the brace supporting the feeding trough.
“I am sorry about this,” Wystylth said, and shoved a piece of cloth
into Evon’s mouth. “But we cannot have you rescued too soon.” He
came around and tugged on the rope around Evon’s wrists, testing
the knots. Then he was gone. Evon heard the sound of horses riding
out of the stable yard, and then there was nothing but the horse in
the other stall snuffling at the food in its trough. He was
alone.

Evon strained against the ropes binding his
hands, twisting and stretching until his wrists felt raw. It was
too much to hope that Wystylth didn’t know how to tie a knot.
Eventually he sagged, breathing heavily through his nose. Beyond
the stable, he heard the sounds of shouting and the occasional
scream, all of it too far away. No one was going to find him and
free him in time. It was over. He closed his eyes and saw again
Kerensa’s face, what little of it had been visible with his own
face ground into the mud, remembered the touch of her lips on his
cheek, and despair overwhelmed him. Of course this was how it had
to end, because the Gods were not done playing with him yet.
You’ve barely known her three weeks
, a cruel voice inside
his head taunted him,
in a year you’ll find someone else and
she’ll be a sad memory.
Had it really only been three days
since she’d put her arms around him in that dark, freezing barn? He
remembered waking next to her, the look on her face when she’d seen
him there, and his heart broke into splinters inside his chest.
She’d trusted him, and he’d failed her.

In his memory, Kerensa raised her face to
his, her hazel eyes shining, and said,
I know you’ll find a
way
. It was like an electric jolt to the chest. No. He was
not
giving up yet. Evon dashed away tears he didn’t remember
shedding and strained at the ropes for a few seconds before
remembering how stupid that was. He needed a different approach. If
he could speak, he could cast spells—awkwardly, probably, but if he
was the best magician of his generation he had damn well better be
able to manage it with his hands tied behind his back.

The cloth Wystylth had stuffed into his mouth
had a trailing end; he could feel it brushing his cheek. He began
scooting along the muddy ground, folding himself so his nose nearly
touched his knees, then began scissoring his legs, trying to catch
the loose end of the gag between his knees. He twisted his head,
lifting the cloth, trying to flip it over one of his knees, and
finally he was able to pincer it and unfold his body, pulling the
cloth slowly out of his mouth as he did. He spat out the last of
it, coughed, and spat again, trying to moisten his mouth enough to
speak. “
Fri
—” he began, then couldn’t stop coughing.
“
Frigo,
” he said, and gestured at the ropes binding his
hands. He hoped.