The Smoke-Scented Girl (21 page)

“It fits, though,” Evon said. He was thinking
so furiously that his voice sounded to him like it was coming from
very far away. “If the ‘Enemy’ isn’t Murakot, but something that
was riding him—”

“Evon, that’s ridiculous. You can’t build a
theory on one story that isn’t even part of the lore.”

“Can’t I? Kerensa, the target word is clear
and we’re both certain Murakot isn’t alive now. You’re being drawn
gradually south, in the direction the Despot’s armies are camped.
And you tell me there’s a possibility that Murakot had
some...entity...guiding him.” He leaped to his feet and began
pacing. “Oh, by the Twins, Kerensa—this all started a year ago, and
that’s when the Despot began to make headway in his conquest. It’s
when he stopped caring about doing anything but razing the lands he
captured. He
changed
just about a year ago.”

“You’re serious.”

“Deadly serious. And I think I can prove it.
It’s going to take a complicated spell—damn it, it’s going to take
forever
now that we have to be on the road, never mind if
the magicians get here and interrupt me—no, if you let them get
caught up in examining you, they’ll leave me alone—”

“Evon,” Kerensa said, “stop pacing and take a
deep breath.” She went to where he stood restlessly in the center
of the room. “Can you start now?”

Evon looked at her, surprised. She seemed
more animated than she’d been all evening. “Aren’t you sleepy? I’ve
kept you up far too late.”

“When you’re so close to another
breakthrough? I wouldn’t be able to sleep now if I tried. What can
I do to help?”

Evon thought.
More notes, and material
components....
“Think of something physical that might
represent Murakot, and the Despot,” he said. “We don’t have
anything of theirs that might stand in for them in the spell, so it
has to be something with...emotional resonance. I have to get
things from my room, but I’ll be right back.” He grabbed her by the
shoulders and kissed her forehead. “This could work,” he said with
a grin, and dashed out of her room, bumping the guard and ignoring
the epithet the man spat in his direction.

Piercy was soundly asleep, so Evon moved as
quietly as he could, gathering paper and pencils and snatching up a
handful of material components: his pen knife, a coin from the
detritus littering Piercy’s bedside table, a piece of coal from the
hod, his quizzing glass. He dropped to his knees and reached far
back under the dressing table with a pencil to gather up cobwebs in
a soft ball. It would—

Suddenly, it was daylight. Evon blinked. It
took effort, as if something were pressing down on his eyelids. He
blinked again. His arm was stretched out straight under the
dressing table, and he couldn’t turn his head. He could feel his
knees pressing into the rough wooden floor, but his hands and his
face felt numb, and the things he’d held were scattered on the
floor around him. Paralysis. His thoughts were as numb as his face.
He couldn’t remember what he’d been doing or why he’d had to do it
on the floor. He tried to move and discovered that his left leg and
arm were both free from the paralysis. He pushed off from the floor
and managed to roll onto his back. The ceiling was painted the same
light blue as the walls, the exposed rafters stained almost black,
and a crack like the silhouette of a mountain ridge ran between two
of the beams. With a little rocking, he managed to roll onto his
side facing Piercy, who was also awake and seemed to be in the same
condition Evon was in. He said something Evon couldn’t understand
because his mouth barely moved. Evon flexed his jaw. “See if your
legs or arms work,” he said, more intelligibly than Piercy. Piercy
blinked once and began to stretch his legs.

Evon stretched his left arm and managed to
reach his right leg, and began massaging it. Something about this
disturbed him, but he couldn’t remember why. Obviously someone had
attacked him and Piercy, but why? He would feel like a fool when he
finally remembered. His right leg began to twitch on its own, and
he concentrated his efforts on his right arm. At some point, his
neck loosened, and he rotated it gingerly. Paralysis didn’t leave
you stiff once it had passed, the way you would be if you’d fallen
asleep in such an awkward position, but it did take time to recover
from. Kerensa had recovered quickly from
desini cucurri
,
back in Inveros—

Oh no.

“
No, no,
no, no,” he chanted.
Memory came back in a rush. He rolled
onto his hands and knees and pushed himself up with the aid of
Piercy’s bed. Piercy sat up and flexed both his legs. “What’s
wrong?” he asked, still mumbling.

“It’s morning, that’s what’s wrong,” Evon
said, and hobbled out of the room. From his doorway, the guard at
the end of the hall appeared to be asleep. As Evon drew nearer he
saw that the man was actually very dead, his throat slit and blood
drenching the front of his coat and speckling the wall with
rust-brown spatters. The door to Kerensa’s room was ajar, but he
pushed it open anyway. The bedclothes were rumpled. The lamp on the
side table still burned. Kerensa was gone.

Speculatus
.

Evon stumbled back down the hall, taking a
wide path around the dead guard. “They’ve taken her,” he said.

Piercy stopped rubbing the back of his neck.
“How long ago?”

“I—let me think. Around ten o’clock last
night.” He swung his still slightly numb right arm up until his
hand caught hold of his watch. “It’s eight-thirty. Over ten hours.
Piercy, they could be anywhere in ten hours.”

“Evon, calm down. You can track her,
remember? They can’t have gotten that far away.”

“Right.” He took a deep breath through his
nostrils. Kerensa’s smoky scent tickled at his nose, faint but
still distinct. “The guard is dead. We should see if Mrs. Petelter
is all right.”

“I notice you’re not worried about Terantis,”
Piercy said as they left the room.

“I’m not so callous as to wish him dead, but
I wouldn’t cry many tears over him.”

Once in the hallway, Evon could hear the
noise of several people arguing, and doors slamming, and
occasionally the sound of boots running. On their way down the
narrow back stairs, they met one of the agents, who was limping and
whose face seemed to sag a little from being paralyzed on one side.
“Get back to your room,” she said, though it came out as “Et ack to
or oom.”

“The guard is dead. Kerensa is gone. Where is
Mrs. Petelter?” Evon said.

One of the agent’s eyes widened, and she
shoved past them without saying another word. Evon and Piercy
continued their descent and found the hall below full of people.
Some of them leaned against the wall, massaging their necks or
arms, while some sat on the floor being helped by their fellows.
Evon and Piercy went to Mrs. Petelter’s door, which was open.

“See if anyone else is missing,” Mrs.
Petelter was saying to an agent as they entered. One arm hung limp
from her shoulder, and she leaned heavily on her dressing table
with the other, her leg folded beneath her. Her usual expression of
placidity had been replaced by one of frustration and anger. She
saw them, and her frown deepened. “Where’s the girl?”

“
Kerensa
has been taken by
Speculatus,” Evon said. He bit back
And what a fine job you did
guarding her
. His position was still precarious; no sense
antagonizing Mrs. Petelter further.

Mrs. Petelter cursed. “They came upon us
unawares,” she said. “The guards outside were lax and they paid for
that laxity with their lives. I had no idea Speculatus had
magicians capable of casting a spell to blanket an entire building.
Everyone in this place last night was paralyzed.
Everyone
.
Who can defend against something like that?” She sounded as if she
were preparing to report on this to her superiors and was looking
for some way to excuse her complete failure. If Kerensa hadn’t been
in danger thanks to her, Evon might have felt sorry for Mrs.
Petelter.

“Was anyone else killed?” Piercy asked, and
Evon knew him well enough to guess that he was trying very hard not
to say
I told you so
.

Mrs. Petelter shook her head. “We don’t know
yet. Her guard?”

“Dead,” Piercy said, “though I’m not sure
why, since he would have been paralyzed with the rest of us.
Possibly they intended to make sure of him.”

Mrs. Petelter rubbed the inside of her right
elbow fiercely. “Our priority now is getting everyone accounted for
and mobile again. Then we will wait for the magicians to arrive in
a few hours. I have no intention of confronting Speculatus until we
have magic enough to counter theirs.”

“We need to leave
now,
” Evon insisted.
Anxiety clenched his stomach. “Every hour we wait is an hour in
which they will be trying to extract her secrets. They killed at
least three men last night, including one who was no danger to
them; do you think they’ll be any gentler with her?”

“Mr. Lorantis, I have no idea of your magical
capabilities aside from what Mr. Faranter keeps telling me, but I
note that you were paralyzed along with the rest of us. I have no
other magicians of professional level. How much success do you
think you alone will have against whoever cast that spell last
night?”

“It wouldn’t have been one person, it would
have been several, working together....” Evon’s voice trailed off
as he realized he was proving Mrs. Petelter’s point for her.

“If you wish to be of assistance, help some
of these people recover,” Mrs. Petelter said. “Have patience. You
are far too agitated to think clearly. I’ve already spoken to the
magicians and they will arrive shortly. Then we can decide what to
do.”

***

The magicians arrived four excruciating hours
later, while Evon was in his room failing to work out the spell
he’d conceived the night before. Every footstep below jerked him
out of his concentration. He didn’t have the right components for
this. He didn’t know what he was looking for. Proving the existence
of some...creature...he knew nothing about, could barely imagine—he
must be out of his mind. But he needed something to keep his
imagination from circling back around to Odelia, psychotic Odelia,
trying to break Kerensa with every vicious tool she had in her
arsenal. Kerensa was strong. He shouldn’t be this worried about
her. Odelia couldn’t beat her. But Odelia could try, and Evon knew
her too well to believe that she’d confine her torture to mere
words. And Odelia must have a superior.... He went back to
shuffling things on his bed, coal, coin, webbing, pen knife. He
needed something to represent the Despot, something that could be
easily divided...where could he find clay in this town?

“They’re here,” Piercy said, sticking his
head in the door. “You’re not going to like this. Caris Quendester
is with them.”

“Mistress Quendester,” Evon said, frozen in
the act of rising from the bed. He sank back down onto it. “Piercy,
have I offended the Gods in some way?”

“No more than usual.” Piercy looked grim.
“It’s always possible she’s forgiven you.”

“I humiliated her in front of the advanced
spellbuilding class. Mistress Quendester doesn’t forgive
easily.”

“True, but she’s also rational. She has to
see that your skills are essential to this endeavor.”

They looked at each other for a long moment.
“She’ll send me back to Matra,” Evon said. “Piercy, I can’t go
back.”

“I know.” Piercy pursed his lips. “No, wait.”
He grinned. “You’re an idiot.”

“I am? Thank you so much for the boost to my
confidence.”

“They can’t send you home,” Piercy said
slowly, as if Evon were a very slow child, “because they need you
to find Kerensa.”

Evon suddenly felt ten pounds lighter.
“You’re right,” he said. “There’s no way Speculatus didn’t cast an
obscuration on their path. But no one knows about the scenting
spell.”

“Come downstairs, and for the Gods’ sake be
polite to Mistress Q.,” Piercy said. “She can still make your life
a misery, and you know how easily she gets under your skin, dear
fellow.”

Evon shrugged. “She’s proud and arrogant and
not as good as she claims to be. I can’t help but want to show her
up.”

“Well, you’ll do that with the scenting spell
alone. Try to pretend that you are a mature adult for once.”

“That’s fine advice coming from you, a grown
man still playing pranks on his co-workers. One of those guards
told me what you did to the back door at your headquarters. She
seemed concerned that I know exactly what kind of reprobate I put
my trust in.”

“You didn’t tell her that was a jape I
learned from you?”

“Of course not.
I
look like a mature
adult.”

Evon said this as they came out of the stairs
and almost ran into a tall, thin woman with red hair piled high on
her head. She wore a dark green gown with a full skirt and carried
a white baton about a foot in length. She looked at Evon with a
sneer and said, “Lorantis. I was told you were in the middle of
this debacle. I’m not surprised.”

“Mistress Quendester, good morning,” Evon
said with a small bow, barely more than a nod of the head. “I
didn’t realize you worked for Home Defense.”

“I don’t,” Mistress Quendester said. “Home
Defense put out a call for the best magicians to assist in this
little endeavor.”

Then why did
you
come?
Evon
thought. “I’m grateful for the assistance,” he lied. “How many
magicians are there?”

“Ten,” Mistress Quendester said. “Not all of
the same caliber, but all competent enough.”

A man came down the stairs behind Evon and
Piercy, holding a bundle of dark cloth. “Mistress Quendester, I
believe we can begin,” he said. “This belonged to the girl.”