Left Hand Magic (6 page)

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Authors: Nancy A. Collins

BOOK: Left Hand Magic
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“May I touch it?” I asked, barely able to contain my excitement.
“Be my guest.”
I could hardly keep my hands from trembling as I ran my fingers along the breastplate of the armor. It felt like a strange mixture of leather, horn, and fiberglass, and seemed both lightweight and extremely resilient. The last dragons had been put to death over a thousand years ago, and yet here was a relic fashioned from the remains of one. The realization that I now knew what a dragon’s skin felt like was at the same time deeply exhilarating and tremendously sad.
“The ancient Kymerans made a number of items from the sheds of their dragons,” Lady Syra explained as I inspected the armor. “This particular suit has been in the family since before the sinking of Kymera. It was worn by my ancestor Lord Bexe.”
“The last Witch King,” I said in wonderment.
“Or so the human history books would have it.” She smiled wryly. “In any case, he was the last to rule over a true kingdom. The royal family still abides, as you well know. Tell me, Tate, what do you think of my new footman?”
“You mean Elmer? I thought he was your bodyguard!”
“Believe me, I have
all
the protection I might possibly need right here.” Lady Syra laughed, placing a hand on the tiny albino snake twined about her throat, mouth-to-tail. “But as Witch Queen, I am honor-bound to help
all
of Golgotham’s citizens, not just the Kymerans. It is a covenant that dates back to the Sufferance, and one the royal family takes very seriously. Elmer’s such a dear boy—I would hate to see him fall back into the hands of those who would abuse his good nature. Plus, he is exceptionally handy when it comes to rearranging the furniture. Come, let’s sit down. The foyer is no place to chat.”
As I followed Lady Syra to the living room, we passed down a hallway whose walls were covered with framed photographs: Here was a picture of Lady Syra with Elvis; there was one of her having tea with Queen Elizabeth II; and over there was a photo of her at John Lennon’s fiftieth birthday party, sitting at a table with Jimi Hendrix and Keith Moon. She had led quite the glamorous jet-setting life.
The living room was a large open area with a sunken conversation pit, and a signed Warhol serigraph of Lady Syra hung over the fireplace. Arranged on the mantelpiece was a collection of unusual bric-a-brac, from an African fetish doll bristling with nails to a fire opal the size of an ostrich egg set on a pedestal and sealed under a glass dome.
“Would you care for a smoke before dinner?” Lady Syra asked as we sat down, gesturing to the collection of hookahs arrayed on the coffee table. “I have a wide variety of
shisha
tobaccos—hazelnut, mocha . . . perhaps some lemon mint?”
“No, thank you,” I replied as she loaded the bowl of one of the water pipes with a sticky mixture that smelled of equal parts Turkish tobacco and cognac. “I don’t smoke.”
“Ah, yes! Cancer!” Lady Syra said, clucking her tongue in self-reproach. “How thoughtless of me! Would you care for a champagne cocktail instead?”
“That would be lovely.”
Lady Syra clapped her hands and a Kymeran butler with a vermilion buzz cut stepped into the room, an empty silver serving tray balanced on his right hand.
“Yes, Your Highness?”
“Miss Eresby would like a champagne cocktail, Amos.”
“Very good, ma’am.”
The butler moved to where I was seated and leaned forward, extending the empty serving tray to me. I glanced at Hexe in confusion, but he did not act as if anything was at all unusual. When I looked back at Amos, I was startled to see a champagne flute full of bubbly on the silver platter.
“Thank you,” I said as I took the proffered glass, trying not to look impressed. The last thing I wanted to do was come across as a nump in front of Lady Syra.
“So—why did you
really
invite us to dinner, Mother?” Hexe asked, folding his arms across his chest.
“What a question!” she replied, blowing twin streams of hookah smoke from her nostrils. “Is it so strange for me to want to share a meal with my only son and his new friend? Why, I’ve barely seen the two of you since that unpleasantness with Boss Marz.”
“Dinner is ready, Your Majesty,” Amos announced, even though, as far as I could tell, he had yet to leave the room.
“About time! I’m positively famished!” Lady Syra exclaimed. “Do bring your drink along with you, Miss Eresby.”
“Please, Lady Syra—I’d rather you call me Tate.”
“You’re right.” The Witch Queen smiled. “There’s no need to be so formal. I will call you Tate and you shall call me Syra.”
The dining room was off the living room, and easily the same size as the one in my parents’ home. The table was long enough to accommodate up to twelve guests, outfitted with an Irish linen tablecloth, the finest cut crystal, and Tiffany flatware. In the middle was a centerpiece composed of deep-hued fruits arranged on a large platter around dark pillar candles. Overhead hung a French Renaissance Gothic chandelier decorated with gargoyle heads, with tiny balls of blue-white witchfire glowing inside their gaping maws.
As I made myself comfortable at the table, Amos the butler placed an empty plate in front of me. In the weeks since arriving in Golgotham, I had acquired a taste for certain Kymeran cuisine, such as rook pie and ostrich steak. But there were some “delicacies” I simply could not stomach. I hoped whatever Amos had in store for us didn’t involve bugs, snakes, or the boiled heads of barnyard animals. I tentatively sniffed the air, in hopes of preparing myself for whatever culinary “treat” lay ahead, but all I could smell was the butler’s own unique scent of black pepper and cinnamon.
“You’ve truly outdone yourself, Amos!” Lady Syra exclaimed in delight.
I looked over at my hostess, confused as to why she would be moved to compliment her butler so lavishly for simply putting an empty plate in front of her. To my surprise, I saw a heaping serving of crawfish étouffée, even though Amos had yet to leave the room.
Baffled, I glanced down at my own plate and was rewarded by the sight of a sizzling, thick-cut medium-rare New York strip and a loaded baked potato. I gasped in surprise and looked back up at Amos. “Where did this come from? How did you—? I mean, you haven’t moved an inch!”
“Amos is a wizard in the kitchen,” Lady Syra explained, amused by my bewilderment. “He charms my dishes, so that they manifest whatever it is you’re hungry for. It’s a very rare skill, and I’m lucky to have him in my service.”
“Madame is too kind,” Amos said, blushing slightly. “If everything is to your satisfaction, I must finish charming the dessert cart.”
Once the butler left the dining room, Hexe put down his fork and turned to face Lady Syra. “I know when something’s up, Mom. You wouldn’t have invited us for a friendly little dinner on such short notice if you didn’t have an ulterior motive.”
I was all too familiar with dinner table confrontations in my own family, and had long ago mastered the skill of keeping my head low and my eyes fixed on my plate. I started cutting into my steak, praying that the drama between mother and son would be relatively mild and over by the time Amos returned with that magic dessert cart of his.
Lady Syra heaved a deep sigh. “I had hoped we could forestall this conversation until after dinner. But the truth of the matter is, Hexe, I’ve been getting complaints about your behavior.”
“What kind of complaints?” Hexe demanded sharply. “About what? From whom?”
“Some of the more conservative members of the Kymeran community have complained about you publicly flaunting your relationship with Tate. . . .”
I looked up, my dinner totally forgotten. Suddenly I was very much a part of what was going on.
“You call going out to dinner and walking hand in hand in public
flaunting
?” he snapped, wadding up his napkin and hurling it to the floor. “By the sunken spires, you make it sound like we’ve been having sex on our front doorstep!”
“I know it sounds outrageous,” Lady Syra said, shifting about uncomfortably. “But you have to understand that this is
not
a good time for this sort of controversy. There is already significant anxiety concerning the increasing infiltration of numps—I mean,
humans
—into traditional Golgothamite venues. Some see you carrying on a romantic relationship with one of them as a conflict of interest regarding the gentrification issue.”
“That’s absolute spraint, and you know it. I’m not going to shun the woman I love simply to make a bunch of blue-haired bigots happy!”
“Do you
truly
love this woman?” Lady Syra’s golden eyes widened in surprise, as if it had never occurred to her that our relationship was anything other than physical.
Hexe paused and looked across the table at me. Suddenly the anger and irritation drained from his face, to be replaced by a gentle smile. For that brief moment, everything else disappeared, and we were the only ones that mattered in the room.
“Yes,” he replied, reaching out to take my hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze.
I expected Lady Syra to smile and nod her head upon hearing her son confess his true feelings. After all, the whole world loves a lover, right? Instead, she began knotting and unknotting her cloth napkin. “Oh my.” She sighed in exasperation. “That complicates things even further.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Dalliances are one thing, but a committed relationship is something else entirely!” she explained.
“So Hexe has a human girlfriend—what’s the big deal?” I asked.
“The ‘big deal,’ as you put it, is that you’re
not
a ‘girlfriend.’ There is no such thing when it comes to the Heir Apparent. There are only consorts and concubines,” Lady Syra said pointedly. “Hexe, you know as well as I do that our private lives are not entirely our own. We have certain obligations to our people, no matter how difficult we find them to bear.”
“Times have
changed
,” he replied testily. “Just because you allowed Grandfather and Uncle Esau to ruin your happiness doesn’t give you the right to destroy mine.” Lady Syra flinched and quickly looked away. As soon as the words left his lips, Hexe’s outrage disappeared, and he got up and put his arms around his mother. “I’m sorry I said that to you, of all people! It was a cruel and thoughtless thing to do.”
“I understand your frustration, sweetheart,” Lady Syra said with a sad smile as she caressed her son’s cheek. “I know what it’s like to face disapproval in the name of love. But you needn’t fear, darling—I am not going to do as Papa did. I’m not going to forbid you from seeing Tate. However, I
am
concerned that the two of you don’t fully understand the social and personal turmoil a mixed relationship such as yours creates. I don’t want to see either of you hurt.”
“I appreciate what you’re trying to say, Lady—I mean, Syra,” I replied. “And I realize it comes from genuine concern for our safety. I’m only now starting to comprehend the challenges Hexe and I are going to face as a couple; and I have to admit, it worries me at times. But, in the end, I believe that what we have is worth fighting for.”
“You are both very courageous,” Lady Syra said, dabbing at the corner of her eye with her napkin. “Far, far braver than I was at your age.”
“It was different then, Mom,” Hexe said gently.
“Not as much as you think.” She sighed, patting his hand.
The quiet moment between mother and son was broken by raised voices on the other side of the dining room doors, followed by a loud rumbling sound, as if someone was hastily moving a large piece of furniture.
“Get out of my way, kitchen-witch!”
The doors to the dining room flew open to reveal Amos and Elmer arguing with Lady Syra’s older brother, Esau. Great—as if things weren’t already
I, Claudius
enough.
The minotaur took a tentative step forward, a pained look on his face. “I am sorry, Lady Syra. I told man you were busy. But he threaten to turn me into ox.”
“It’s all right, Elmer,” Lady Syra said, getting to her feet. “Please return to your station before you get caught in the chandelier again.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the minotaur replied, obviously grateful that he no longer had to be in Esau’s company.
The necromancer strode into the dining room as if he were in his own home, shooing Amos away with an imperious wave of his hand. He was dressed in a black wool coat with caped shoulders, and he had shoulder-length hair of dark indigo laced with streaks of ice blue at the temples. While he had the same distinctive golden eyes as Lady Syra and Hexe, they lacked his sister’s graciousness and his nephew’s warmth.
“Syra! I need to speak to you
immediately
!” Esau announced, only to halt in midstep upon catching sight of Hexe. “Of course!” he sneered, his eyes narrowing. “I shouldn’t be surprised to find you here, clutching your mother’s skirts.”
“What in the name of the Outer Dark are you doing here, Esau?” Lady Syra asked in exasperation.
Syra’s brother ignored her question, and instead pointed a finger at Hexe. “How
dare
you lift my curse!”

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