Errantry: Strange Stories (32 page)

“Nor I,” said Paytim. She laid her hand upon Saloona’s shoulder. “Come now. Time for a proper breakfast.”

By the morning of the after-ball, Saloona had devised a half-dozen charms and nostrums of varying power. The fire witch wanted nothing to interfere with her deployment of the Black Peal: her plan, therefore, was to sow the air with sores and spells that would discourage or retard any effort to restrain her once inside the court. The most severe was a spell of Impulsive Corrosion, caused by spores of panther caps, pink mycenas, and fragile elf cups infused with azalea honey and caladium. The rest made ample use of fungi that caused convulsions, temporary paralysis, hallucinations, reverse metamorphosis, spasms, twitches, and mental confusions.

Saloona refused to create any charm that might induce fatality. Still, for many years a favored entertainment had been researching the means by which her crop could depopulate large areas of the surrounding mountains. She grew poisonous mushrooms alongside their benign and sometimes all-but-indistinguishable relatives, and took pride in recognizing the subtle differences between, say, the devil’s bolete and its honey-scented cousin, the summer bolete. Her longtime sangfroid had made this a macabre but innocent pleasure. It had never crossed her mind that she might someday harvest spores and stems and caps from this toxic wonderland.

She took no delight now in concocting her poisons. More alarmingly, she
did
feel guilt. This too she associated with the long echo of the Black Peal. It must be a most powerful charm, to overcome the emotional inoculation she had experienced from handling so many psychotropic substances for so long.

“It seems inappropriate to sow such tumult among innocent guests,” she observed to the fire witch.

“I assure you, no one within the Crimson Messuage is innocent.”

“
I
am innocent!”

Paytim held up a deadly gaelerina, a fatal mushroom which Saloona claimed tasted exquisite. “A dubious statement. Innocent? You use that word too often and inappropriately. ‘Naive’ would be more accurate. Or ‘hypocritical.’”

“Hypocritical or not, we will be fully reliant upon your Ubiquitous Antidote,” said Saloona, whose efforts to create a spell to cause temporary deafness had been ineffectual. “If this spell is as powerful as it seems . . .”

“So few spells are not reversed by your marvelous restorative,” replied Paytim in silky tones. “You are certain there is sufficient to protect us both?”

Saloon removed the crystal vial from her pouch. A small amount of glaucous liquid remained, which the fire witch regarded dubiously. “There is enough to preserve us, if the Black Peal does not prove resistant. Its potency is such that a very small amount is effective. Yes, there is enough—but no more than that. We’ll be cutting it fine, and not a drop can be wasted.”

“If necessary, we can stop our ears with beeswax.”

“If that succeeds, this is a far more feeble charm than previously suggested,” said Saloona, and replaced the vial. Paytim Noringal said nothing; only stood before a deeply recessed window and stared mournfully at the dark line of spruce and cat-fir that marked the horizon.

She was looking for her basilisk. Saloona considered a sharp retort about the unlikelihood of its return.

But pity stayed her tongue, and apprehension at the thought of annoying the fire witch, whose temper was formidable. Saloona had never seen her neighbor exhibit much fondness for other humans. Paytim’s treatment of her former lover, the Court lutist, was not anomalous.

Yet she displayed great, even excessive, affection for the basilisks she bred. They were lovely creatures, otter-sized and liquid in their movements, with glossy, sharply defined scales in vibrant shades of coral, cinnabar, chocolate-brown, and orange; their tails whiplike and their claws sharp enough to slice quince-apple rinds. They had beautiful, faceted eyes, a clear topaz yellow. Unlike their mythological counterparts, their gaze was not lethal. Their breath, however, was fiery as an athanor, and could turn sand to glass at a distance of three paces.

They were almost impossible to tame. To Saloona’s knowledge, only the fire witch had ever succeeded in doing so. Her affection was returned by her charges, who consumed whatever was offered to them, living creatures or inert matter, but showed a marked preference for well-seasoned hardwood. Saloona imagined that was why Paytim’s gaze returned to the nearby forest, despite the inferior quality of the evergreens.

“Perhaps it will find its way here.” Saloona wiped fungal detritus from her fingertips. “You have always claimed that they have a well-developed homing instinct.”

“Perhaps.” Paytim sighed. “But this is not its home. And in a few hours, we depart.”

Saloona touched her hand. She hoped the gesture was reassuring—she was out of practice with such things. She very much needed the fire witch’s assistance during this final stage of assembling each spell. Since breakfast, they had worked side by side in the small, steel-and-glass-clad laboratory that stood in the darkest corner of Saloona’s farmstead, deep within a grove of towering black spruce.

There, beneath glowing tubes of luminar and neon, Saloona utilized an ancient ion atomizer that reduced spores and toxic residues to a nearly invisible dust. The fire witch then used Saloona’s telescoping syringes to inject the toxins into a series of jewel-toned vesicles. Paytim strung these gemlike beads onto a chain of finest platinum, which would adorn Saloona when she entered the after-ball. Saloona and Paytim had taken mithradatic doses of each poison.

When the last vesicle had been strung, they returned to Saloona’s cottage. There she decanted half of what remained of the Ubiquitous Antidote into a vial and gave it to the fire witch. Paytim then organized lunch. Saloona continued to express reservations regarding the night to come.

“I received no personal invitation to this celebration. Surely they will not be expecting me.”

Paytim stood beside the stove, preparing two perfect omelets laced with sauteed ramps and oryx bacon. “My response to the court was clear: you will be my guest.”

“I haven’t left this place for nine years.”

“You are well overdue for a journey.” Paytim slid an omelet onto a copper plate and set it in front of Saloona, alongside a thimble-sized lymon tartlet and a glass of fresh pepper jelly. “There. Eat it while it’s hot.”

“I have nothing to wear.”

A wisp of white smoke emerged from the fire witch’s left nostril. “It would be a grievous day indeed when a Cobalt Mountain witch could not conjure attire suitable for paying court to a ruler of such legendary incompetence as Paeolina the Twenty-Ninth.”

“And if my incompetence outshines his?” Saloona stabbed irritably at her omelet. “What then?”

“It will be for such a brief moment, only you will be aware of it. Unless, of course, your spells of confusion fail, and the Ubiquitous Antidote is deficient against the Black Peal. In which case . . .”

Paytim’s voice faded into an uncomfortable silence. The two witches looked at each other, contemplating this unsavory prospect. A spasm assailed Saloona, and she clapped her hands to her ears.

“Do you hear that?” she cried.

The fire witch paled. “I hear nothing,” she said, then added, “but I suspect the Velvet Bolt has expired. We must not speak of the musical charm again. Or even think of it.”

Saloona bit her lip. She prodded her omelet with her fork, and reflected unhappily on how little joy she had taken from Paytim’s cooking in the last day and a half.

This too is due to that malign spell,
she thought.

Before another fit of trembling could overtake her, she began to eat, with far less avidity than had been her wont.

Sky and shadows mingled in an amaranth mist as twilight fell that evening. At the edge of the forest, the prism ship had for some hours kept up a high-pitched litany of admonition, interspersed with heartrending cries. Since Saloona now seemed to possess a heart, the ship’s lament frayed her nerves to the snapping point, and drove the fire witch wild with anger. Twice Saloona had to physically restrain her from reducing the ship to smoking metal and charred wire.

“Then silence it yourself!” demanded Paytim.

“I cannot. The neural fibers that give it sentience also propel it and govern its navigation.”

Paytim’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Then we will walk.”

“And arrive tomorrow,” said Saloona with impatience. “Perhaps this is an opportune moment to test your beeswax plugs.”

The fire witch exhaled with such force that the hem of a nearby curtain curled into gray ash. Saloona ignored this and returned to her bedroom.

Clothes were strewn everywhere. Stained lab tunics; an ugly crinoline diapered with paper-thin sheets of tellurium that whistled a jaunty air as she tossed it aside; an ancient silk kimono, never worn, embroidered with useless sigils; rubber booties and garden frocks; a pelisse she had made herself from a Deodand’s skin, which still gave off a whiff of spoiled meat and blewits.

Saloona stuffed these back into the armoire from which they’d emerged, then sat brooding for some minutes on the edge of her little carven bed. She had lived here alone, had taken no lover for many years now, and had virtually no interest in fashion. Still, a sartorial cantrap was well within her powers.

But if one lacked an affinity for fashion, or even a mild interest, what use was such a spell? Might not the attire it procured turn out be inelegant, even fatally offensive? Certainly it would be unsuitable for an affair of such magnificence as the after-ball.

Saloona was, in fact, naive. She shared the province’s general disdain for the ruling dynasty, but she had never visited court, or entertained the notion that she someday might. Her anxiety at the prospect was therefore extreme. She once more flung open the door of her armoire, inspected the garments she had just rejected, and continued to find them wanting.

After a fraught quarter-hour, she still wore her faded lab tunic. “Are you ready?” Paytim’s voice echoed shrilly down the hall.

“Another minute.” Saloona bit her lower lip. She undressed hastily, retaining only her linen chemise and crimson latex stockings—the color, she thought, might be viewed as a sign of admiration. She pulled on a pair of loose sateen trousers, a deep mauve, and then an airy silk blouson, white but filigreed with tiny eyes that opened to reveal scarlet irises whenever bright light shone upon the fabric.

“Saloona!” The fire witch sounded almost frantic. “
Now.
”

Saloona gave a wordless cry, swept her marigold hair into an untidy chignon that she secured with a pair of golden mantids whose claws tugged painfully at her roots. A final glance into a mirror indicated that she looked even more louche than she’d feared. The subtly glowing necklace of toxic vesicles around her throat seemed particularly out of place, its false bijoux glowing like Viasyan adamant. The entire effect was not mitigated by her worn leather slippers, which had long curling toes that ended in orange tassels.

But she had no time to change her shoes. As Paytim’s footsteps boomed down the corridor, Saloona grabbed the silk kimono and rushed from her room.

“I’m ready,” she said breathlessly, wrapping herself in the kimono’s folds.

The fire witch scarcely glanced at her; merely dug her fingers into Saloona’s elbow and steered her out the front door and toward the paddock. “Your ship knows the way?”

An answering retort, midway between a turbine explosion and the shriek of a woman in childbirth, indicated that the prism ship was aware of the destination.

Saloona nodded, then glanced at her companion, her eyes widening.

The fire witch rewarded her with a compressed smile. “It’s been such ages since I’ve worn this. I’m surprised it still fits.”

From her white shoulders to her narrow ankles, Paytim was encased in a gown of pliant eeft-skin, in shades of beryl, sea-foam, moonlit jade. Where twilight touched the cleft between her breasts, opalescent sparks shimmered and spun. Wristlets of fiery gold wound her arms, wrought like adders and fileels. A comb of hammered copper, shaped like a basilisk’s head, restrained her shining hair so that only a few golden tendrils fell saucily against her cheeks.

“Your attire becomes you,” said Saloona.

“Yes.” The fire witch smiled mirthlessly, displaying the placebit carved from her lover’s finger-bone; then raised her hand. The wand that had confounded even Resta Gestille glowed as though it were an ingot just hauled from the flames. It was so bright that Paytim blinked and looked aside.

More discomfiting to Saloona Morn were the sounds that emanated from the wand. A subtle, refined yet cunning cascade of notes, at once bell-like yet ominously profound, as though played upon an instrument whose tympanum was the earth’s very skin, its sounding rods the nearby crags and stony spires. The notes rang inside Saloona’s skull, and she gasped.

But before she drew her next breath, the sound faded. The ensuing silence, fraught with malign portent, Saloona found more disturbing than the uncanny music.

She had no time to ponder her unease. With a soft command, Paytim urged her toward the paddock. As they approached, the air grew increasingly turbulent. The evergreens’ heavy branches thrashed. Dead fir needles and bracken rose and whirled in miniature wind-funnels
. Fenceposts buckled, then exploded into splinters. A flock of mal-de-mutes rose from the topmost branches of the tallest spruce and fled screaming into the darkening sky.

“Can’t you control it?” Paytim shouted.

Saloona shielded her eyes against a bolt of violet plasma. “I don’t think it wants to go.”

As she spoke, the air thickened until the ship’s outlines grew visible, coruscant with lightning.