Winter Witch (6 page)

Ellasif rolled her eyes. “Please. That silver medal tells me you’re a death wizard, and I need to be dead for a while.”

“Ah.” He leaned back in his seat, his expression contracting to a supercilious little smirk. “I am a necromancer, yes, but even for someone of my considerable skill, ‘dead for a while’ is a tall order.”

Ellasif ignored the mockery in his voice. “I need to appear to be dead. Can you make a corpse look like me?”

“Did you have a particular corpse in mind?”

“I’m not particular, as long the corpse is close to my size and there’s plausible reason for it to be a corpse.”

Curiosity nudged the scorn from his face. “Close to your size,” he repeated. “Any particular reason for this?”

“There are stories of amulets, items that can be enchanted to make a corpse look like another person. A transformation,” she emphasized, “not just an illusion. I require a death wizard to put something of mine inside such a locket and cast the spell.”

The necromancer lifted one eyebrow. “You are well informed, for a barbarian. But had you actually studied the art of magic rather than relying upon traveler’s tales, you would know that such items are quite expensive. Even ignoring the spell for the moment, a necklace of sufficient quality to be worthwhile as the focus is probably worth more than—”

He cut off as Ellasif raised a shining locket to dangle in front of his face. It was a tiny silver cage rendered in layers of elaborate filigree.

The necromancer feigned casualness, but she could see he was suddenly taking their exchange more seriously. “A pretty bauble,” he said. “How did you acquire it?”

“I enjoy shopping,” she said. “Can you cast the spell or not?”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” He licked his lips, a gesture that was both nervous and greedy.

Ellasif tucked the amulet into her tunic. “Say the words.”

He blinked. “What?”

“The spell. Say the first three words.”

“Am I to understand,” he intoned ominously, “that you want me to audition?”

Ellasif placed both palms on the table and leaned forward as if she were about to rise. “I don’t have time to waste. If you can’t do the spell, I need to find someone who can. And just so you know, I’ve heard it cast before. I’m no wizard, so I can’t speak those words, but I remember the sound of them.”

The necromancer stared at her as his pride battled his greed. Finally he threw up his hands and muttered a sibilant phrase.

Ellasif nodded and leaned back in her chair. “You’ll do.”

“You’re too kind,” he said bitterly. He cleared his throat. “There remains the small matter of my fee—”

“I plan to use the amulet tomorrow morning. Afterward, you can keep it.”

“Agreed,” he said. From the speed of his acquiescence, she gathered that necromancy didn’t pay as well as she’d thought. At least not for this one.

She rose. “Let’s get on with it, then.”

He leaped from his chair and fell into step beside her, clearly buoyed by the good fortune that had fallen into his lap. When they reached the street they argued briefly about where they should go to cast the spell and the mode of transport needed to get there, but Ellasif knew she had him hooked.

The necromancer was surprisingly agile when it came to climbing a drain pipe to reach the Shingles. They hurried across the city’s rooftops without speaking and ducked into the window of her attic room with several hours to spare before sunrise.

The necromancer looked around the tiny chamber. “I’ll take that personal item now. A lock of hair will do.”

Ellasif drew a knife from her belt and sliced off a strand of her hair. She coiled it around her small finger and put the honey-colored circlet in the little silver cage.

His gaze lingered on the coin bag tied to Ellasif’s belt. “This is not an inexpensive spell. The casting of it requires certain things of considerable value.”

“We had a deal,” she reminded him.

“And I will honor it,” he said smoothly. “We agreed upon my fee for casting the spell. The cost of the necessary materials is another matter. The brimstone, for instance ...”

The last time Ellasif had seen the spell cast, the wizard involved had used nothing more than a lump of wax. This one was either trying to rook her or else was significantly less skilled. Either way, it didn’t matter. She placed a peridot on the bedside table, a gem the color of early spring leaves and the size of her thumbnail.

“That should cover you,” she said. “And you already have all the brimstone you need. I smelled it when you cast the summoning spell behind the astronomer’s manor, and the stink’s still on you.”

His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t see you there.”

“You weren’t intended to.”

“Neither did my infernal servant.”

“Oh, it saw me,” Ellasif said. When the wizard raised an eyebrow, she added, “It probably didn’t consider me much of a threat.”

“Yes, that’s probably it. Now, about the cost of the other components ...”

Ellasif curled the fingers of her right hand around the hilt of her dagger. “Two choices: You can cast the spell as agreed, or I’ll send you to a place where you’ll find brimstone in surplus.”

The little necromancer shrugged as if to indicate that he expected this outcome but felt compelled to bargain as a matter of custom. He flipped back one side of his crimson cloak and unbuckled the satchel strapped over his shoulder. He sat down on the edge of the bed. After a moment of rummaging, he put the satchel on the floor and rose with a half-burned candle and a lump of acrid yellow coal in one palm.

Ellasif dropped the amulet into his extended hand and watched impatiently as he cast the spell. It was not, as she understood such matters, an exceptionally difficult feat of magic, but the necromancer performed the spell as theatrically as if he envisioned himself surrounded by leaping flames and a choir of grim-faced men chanting in a forgotten tongue.

“And here you have it,” he said at last, handing her the amulet with a flourish. “When you find a suitable corpse, put this around its neck.”

Ellasif took the filigreed locket, gave the chain a twirl around one finger, and let fly. It opened into a circle as it spun toward the necromancer and settled around his neck before he could move away.

He gazed down at his prize with a satisfied smirk. The soft hiss of a weapon sliding free of its sheath drew his gaze up to Ellasif. Terrified understanding dawned in his eyes.

Ellasif hurled the knife at the necromancer. It spun once and buried itself deep in his gut. She stepped close, yanked the knife out, and plunged it in again, under the ribs and angled up to pierce the heart.

The necromancer was dead before he hit the cot. Ellasif knew this for a certainty when his face gradually transformed into the likeness of her own.

For a moment she stood over the bed and regarded her double. To her relief, she’d judged the weight correctly. She was small, but solid with muscle. The wizard was slightly taller but almost certainly weighed a little less than she did. That was important. She’d heard that if the corpse were significantly larger than the person it was intended to mimic, the spell took what was needed for the transformation and left the extra flesh behind. A pile of surplus meat, she reflected, was precisely the sort of detail that prompted people to stop and think more than was convenient for her present purposes.

A glance at the open window revealed a night sky fading toward the deep sapphire of early dawn. Time was running short. She went to work setting the scene, first cutting away the wizard’s rich clothing and stuffing it into his satchel. She uncorked a bottle of cheap wine she’d bought from a Shingles vendor and splashed some around. An empty coin purse, embroidered in the Ulfen style with a circle of entwined wolves, she dropped on the floor. She followed it with two small copper coins, one of which she toed under the bed to make it appear that it had dropped and rolled when someone hastily emptied the purse. On the bedside table she left a scrap of paper that guaranteed passage for two on a northbound ship due to set sail from Korvosa around midday.

She left the knife in the necromancer’s heart.

To be stabbed by a robber while sleeping off city wine was no way for an Ulfen warrior to die. Ellasif wasn’t sure whether Olenka would find this end tragic or appropriate.

She picked up the wizard’s satchel and slipped out the attic window. After pulling herself up onto the roof, she crouched in the shadows of the chimney and scanned the roofs, the streets, and the skies for anyone or anything that might have followed the wizard. Apart from the imps and dragons that occasionally whizzed past, intent on their skirmishes, the only sign of life was a trio of students staggering down the street, arms draped over each other’s shoulders as they sang a drunken hymn to brotherhood. They sang with gusto, despite the fact that only one of them seemed to know the words.

Across the street, a second-floor window banged open and a scowling, white-bearded man leaned out to heave a chamber pot at the singers. The pot shattered against the street cobbles, splattering the students’ robes with urine.

A shouted exchange of insults ensued, giving Ellasif all the cover she needed to scramble down the back side of the building to the second floor and then drop onto the roof of a large dovecote, a rounded tower with many tiny arched doorways on each nesting level. From there her climb was easy, and the only sound that marked her passage was the murmuring whirr and coo of the birds inside. It was, in her opinion, considerate of Korvosans to provide housing for the city’s doves, not to mention convenient handholds for those who wished to come and go unobserved.

Ellasif circled around to the Jittery Quill, a public house that stayed open throughout the night. The few patrons who’d lasted to this hour wore the strain of their efforts. Men with faces dulled by too much ale and too few proud memories slumped back in their chairs. Students and scribes drooped over their books and parchments and steaming cups of bitter-smelling brew, their fingers stained with ink and the shadows under their eyes as dark and hard-won as bruises. All were too deeply steeped in their chosen libations to take much note of her. She chose a seat that put her back to the wall and gave her a clear view of the lodging house.

Olenka entered the house at sunrise, as agreed. After a few moments, she returned to the street, “Ellasif’s” body rolled discretely into the bedchamber’s carpet and slung over one shoulder.

Ellasif smiled. When the transformation spell wore off, the ship would be well on its way. The elders of White Rook would not be fooled, but she would be rid of Olenka for the foreseeable future.

Now all that remained was arranging secure passage to the northlands for herself and the other wizard for whom she had plans, one Declan Avari.

Chapter Three

The Rare Magic

Declan’s pell-mell ride through Korvosa came to a halt a few blocks from Kendall Amphitheater. In his haste, he’d forgotten there would be a midnight performance and crowds of theater patrons thronging the streets.

Empty carriages streamed past him as drivers, having dropped off their wealthy patrons, headed toward taverns and alehouses for a different sort of entertainment. Up ahead, small parties of riders dismounted and handed their reins to the theater’s yellow-clad hostlers. Many of the patrons came on foot, and the crowds were especially thick near the Janderhoff Gate, an entrance for people who could not afford the full price of a ticket and were willing to risk sitting directly over the spot where dwarves labored to shore up the cavernous sinkhole beneath.

The clock in the castle’s Epochal Tower chimed. Declan turned the stallion northward toward Midland. The open-air market would be closed at this time of night, and the roads clear.

His reasoning might have been sound, but it fell short of reality. Declan’s impatience grew as he wove a path through carts trundling down the roads, drawn by sullen donkeys or pushed by sweating servants. He had to move off the road completely while a small caravan of ice carts rolled past, the precious cargo packed in straw and sawdust against the heat.

Finally the south bridge came into sight, a broad ribbon of light over the blackness of the Jeggare River. No shadows moved through the bright circles cast by the lanterns spaced along its length. By some happy turn of fate, it appeared that Declan would have the bridge entirely to himself. He shook the reins over the stallion’s neck and urged the horse into a gallop.

A squad of city guards, conspicuous in baggy red trousers tucked into low red boots, emerged from a side street just before the bridge. All were afoot, and Declan knew they would saunter in front of him, claiming the road for themselves just to show they could set his pace for him by dint of the uniforms they wore. On any other day, he might have tolerated it, but he was in a hurry. Declan gauged the distance and decided he could gallop past them before they could fan out and block his way.

As the gray stallion thundered toward the bridge, one of the guards stepped forward and raised a wooden wand. A short burst of light pulsed from it, and Declan’s borrowed horse stopped in midstride.

Declan, unfortunately, did not.

Time slowed to the languorous pace of dreams. Declan flew over the stallion’s neck and floated down toward the street at a speed that recalled the flow of treacle from a jar. Despite the oddly slowed descent, he hit the cobbles in a bruising tumble. He rolled to a stop and lay staring at the spinning stars, idly wondering if it might be prudent—and for that matter, possible—to draw another breath.

The flow of time resumed its normal pace. Guards gathered above him. Their faces swam in and out of Declan’s vision, but he was pretty sure the wand-carrying wizard among their ranks was smirking.

Two of the men dragged Declan to his feet. He cast a quick glance at the gray stallion. It stood frozen in mid-stride, balanced precariously on its back hooves, front feet stalled out in the act of kicking powerfully down.

Declan blew out a long breath, the closest he could come to an incredulous whistle in his current condition. Holding spells were common enough, but seeing a galloping horse suspended in midair was still impressive.

“Last I heard, the law prohibited magical attack against citizens of Korvosa,” he said.

“Magical detention is permitted if that citizen is engaged in a crime,” the wizard intoned, “or otherwise endangering the populace.”

“Or looks like he’s trying to avoid us,” chuckled one of the other guards to his companion.

Declan looked pointedly toward the empty bridge. “What populace? There was no one in my path.”

“The law forbids riding recklessly through the city streets,” the wizard said.

“Giving your horse free rein on an empty bridge is not reckless.” Declan looked to the guard wearing the captain insignia on his jacket. “With respect, sir, unless you had good cause to stop me, you’re acting outside of your charter.”

“Zimbidge didn’t stop you,” the captain said, reaching out to clap the wizard on the shoulder. “He stopped your horse. Dangerous beast.”

His squad seemed to find that amusing.

Declan hissed a sigh through gritted teeth. “Time is not my friend, gentlemen. I need to consult one of my professors at the magic school on a matter of great urgency.”

Most of the guards suddenly misplaced their smirks, but the wizard’s face twisted in doubt.

“If that’s true, you’re riding the wrong way.”

“I’m not going to the Acadamae,” he said. “I studied at the Theumanexus.”

“Oh.” A droll expression crossed the wizard’s face and he rolled his eyes toward the squad captain. “The law does make some allowance for the feeble-minded.”

The captain shrugged. “A wizard is a wizard. He’s done no harm. I say we let him go.”

Zimbidge spun back to Declan. “You have your Theumanexus medal, I trust? Or at least your student papers?”

“I turned them in when I left the school,” Declan said. “And I have no medal because I didn’t complete the training, which is why I need a wizard’s counsel now.”

“Did you by chance study with Canalora Rivista?”

“Everyone who enrolls at the Theumanexus studies with Lady Canalora,” Declan said. “Lady Lore teaches the principles of magic, and she tests first-year students on their mastery of basic spells and cantrips.”

“That is true,” the wizard admitted. “But it’s also widely known. You could have heard that from anyone. Cast a simple spell, and I’ll let you go.”

Declan shook his head. “I left the Theumanexus because I didn’t wish to become a wizard. In fact, I have sworn off the use of magic.”

“Isn’t that convenient,” Zimbidge sneered. The wizard’s attitude was not the most vexing thing Declan had experienced since nightfall, but it touched his honor in a way the other indignities had not.

“Forgive me if I misjudge your intent,” Declan said coldly, “but it sounds as if you were calling me a liar.”

“I most certainly am,” the wizard retorted. “One moment you employ magic to cushion your descent from a spell-stopped horse, and the next you tell me you’ve sworn it off altogether?”

“But—”

The protest that leaped to Declan’s lips died unspoken. There was no denying that his fall from the horse had seemed too slow and his landing too gentle. It certainly wasn’t painless, but a holding spell placed on a horse in mid-gallop should have flung him harder and farther.

The wizard took a small, tightly rolled parchment from a tube hanging at his belt and swept it over Declan’s head. He unrolled the parchment, glanced at the runes that winked into being, and cast an accusing, sidelong glance at Declan.

“According to this, you’ve also cast two other spells in the past few hours. A cantrip to light a fire and a defense against enchantment.”

Declan remembered taking the torch into the pergola to look for Silvana.

“Now that you mention it, I do recall lighting a torch,” he admitted. “That’s a routine bit of magic any first-year student could accomplish. Since my mind was preoccupied, I did it without thought. But a defense against enchantment? That takes considerable effort. I think I’d remember casting such a spell, and I do not.”

“Maybe he was in a warded building?” one of the guards suggested. “If he was in such a building when the wards were triggered, would the lingering effects of that spell cling to him?”

“Only if he cast it,” the wizard said. He considered Declan. “Did you by any chance set warding spells around a building? Activating those wards might read as casting a spell.”

“Sworn off the use of magic,” Declan reminded him.

“Perhaps you set these wards before you developed these mysterious and convenient scruples?”

He folded his arms and met the wizard’s accusatory stare. “No.”

“And you did not knowingly cast the slow-falling spell?”

“I have already told you that I did not.”

The wizard tapped the parchment. “Then how do you explain the result of this scanning scroll?”

“Inferior workmanship?” Declan suggested.

The rustle of wings drew the guards’ attention upward. Skywing fluttered down to perch on the frozen horse, settling on the saddle’s pommel like a falcon. The little drake stared balefully at the wizard. Declan could not hear what the dragon was telling Zimbidge, but the wizard’s face reddened.

“There’s no need to take that tone,” Zimbidge said stiffly. “Of course I have heard of Mareshka Zarumina, although I have never heard that she took apprentices.”

A few more moments of charged silence passed between the drake and the magic-wielding guard. Finally the wizard gave a curt nod and sent a glare in Declan’s direction.

“You’re free to go. But walk your horse through the East Shore, or you’ll be stopped again.”

As Declan walked toward the stallion, he wondered whether the horse’s awareness had been frozen along with its body. If not, the experience would be terrifying for the animal, worse that being caught in a trap or cage.

The wizard raised his wand and flicked it toward the horse in a sharp, dismissive gesture. Immediately the stallion burst into motion. Within a few strides, however, the horse checked, whirled, and headed back at a trot. White rings showed around the stallion’s brown eyes.

Declan caught the reins and wrestled the horse to a stop. The wizard backed away during the struggle. Just as Declan was getting the stallion under control, Zimbidge raised his wand.

A wet sheen like thin mucous sprang into existence all over the wizard’s body. For one terrifying moment, Declan thought the guardsman was being encased in ice the same way Silvana and Majeed had been.

Then the wand squirted out of Zimbidge’s grasp. His feet followed, windmilling on the slick stone cobbles as if they had been greased—which, of course, they had. He went down in a tangle of arms and legs. His fellow guards looked uncertain whether to laugh or attack.

Skywing, however, had no such qualms. The dragon’s amusement sang through Declan’s thoughts—not laughter, exactly, but a happy, high-pitched hum.

When at last the slime faded and disappeared, the wizard gathered the shreds of his dignity and stomped toward Declan.

“I suppose you didn’t do that, either,” he snarled. “Don’t bother denying it, and remember that commanding a familiar to cast a spell is no different from casting it yourself.”

I told him I’m your familiar
, Skywing explained.

Declan had never known the little drake could cast spells, but it made sense if Skywing were someone’s familiar. But he wasn’t Declan’s familiar, which led to the question of what wizard he served. Declan sent the dragon a look that promised more discussion on this matter later. “My apologies. Until tonight, I was unaware that ...my familiar could cast spells.”

The wizard opened his mouth as if to argue, then grimaced and shook his head. “If you can’t control your familiar, I suggest you turn the creature over to a wizard who can.”

Declan nodded and hauled himself into the saddle. The horse swung its head back toward the wizard and made a noise suspiciously like a snicker.

He reined the stallion toward the bridge. Once they were beyond hearing distance, he shook his head at Skywing.

“My familiar?” he repeated. “Apprentice to Mareshka Zarumina? I never even heard that name.”

Neither had the wizard. He just didn’t want to admit it.

Declan let out a bark of laughter. “Brazen and inventive—just the qualities I’d want in a familiar, assuming that I wanted a familiar. But I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. What happy coincidence brought you to the East Shore bridge?”

No coincidence. I’m protecting you
. The little dragon puffed out his chest.
Someone needs to.

Declan considered that answer. “So it really was you who cast those spells?”

Protecting you
, the little creature repeated emphatically.
I chased off an imp the necromancer sent to attack you
.

“Jamang didn’t wait long, did he?” Declan was impressed that he had taken action so soon. “I suppose he’ll keep trying.”

No more trying. The necromancer is dead.

Declan froze, astonished and more than a little horrified. “Skywing, you didn’t—”

No.

It seemed to Declan that the little drake sounded regretful. Even if it were true he had not slain Jamang, Skywing looked as though he wished he had. Declan decided not to examine that insight too closely. “How did it happen?”

A bad person
, the dragon opined.

“Ordinarily I’d agree with that assessment, but killing Jamang might have been an act of self-defense, or at least a well-deserved retaliation. How do you know he was killed by a ‘bad person’?”

I know,
the dragon insisted.
I watched this bad person follow you for more than three sleeps and sunrises.

“Someone has been following me for three days?” Declan demanded. “And you’re telling me this now?”

Telling you now, yes.

Declan cast a quick glance over his shoulder before he realized the futility of such precautions. If he hadn’t sensed the presence of this “bad person” over the course of several days, he doubted he’d have better success going forward. Whoever the stalker might be, most likely he possessed a command of magic far beyond what Declan had mastered at the Theumanexus.

He didn’t see the benefit of magic that could turn a pile of drawings into a single animated page, but apparently its novelty gave it value. If Jamang’s reaction was typical of his peers, competition to own the animated books and decipher the spell would be fierce. Apart from its current impact on his safety, Declan frankly didn’t care about the book magic. In fact, the sooner someone decoded the spell and claimed authorship, the sooner his part in this nonsense would be forgotten.

On the other hand, he did care about this unknown stalker. Jamang claimed he had others books like the one Declan had left on the observatory roof. Since Declan had made only three such books, Jamang’s wording suggested that he possessed the other two. If the stalker Skywing had followed killed Jamang, most likely the killer now had those books in his possession. Assuming the killer was a wizard of some sort and could figure out the magic on his own, Declan had no reason for concern.