Call of Wizardry, page 4
One picture depicted four people, three men and a woman, dressed in the fashion of forty years ago, formal and stiff-looking. The woman had very black hair in a braid pinned around her head, much the way Dianthe habitually wore hers. The men all had short, utilitarian haircuts that to Sienne screamed “scrapper.” She lingered a few steps to look at it, but hurried her pace when Milo turned to see where she was.
Two doors opened off the hallway, one to either side, and stairs as narrow as the hall led up at the far end. They creaked as Milo trotted up them, forcing Sienne to hurry along behind. Though the stairs went all the way up to the top of the house, Milo left them at the second floor landing, which let off on a hall just as narrow as the one below. There were two doors on the left and one on the right, all of them painted a flat white that matched the walls, which were devoid of pictures and made the hall feel wider than it was.
Milo opened the right-hand door, saying, “Grandmama, this lady is here to see you.”
Sienne followed Milo through the door. The room beyond was flooded with light from two of the small, four-paned windows whose diaphanous midnight blue curtains were drawn back and held in place with silver cords. The room was long and thin, and Sienne suspected it ran the entire depth of the house, front to back. Bookcases flanked the windows at one end of the room, where an armchair matching the curtains and a small table sat.
A fireplace, empty at this season, lay opposite the door, its wooden mantel stained a dark cherry color and rubbed until it gleamed. At the far end of the room from the bookcases stood a larger table surrounded by four wooden chairs with embroidered cushions. Sienne immediately felt she would like the owner of this room. Whoever she was, she knew what she liked and surrounded herself with it.
An elderly woman sat in a chair drawn up before the empty hearth. Her hair was mostly gray, with a few black streaks through it, and the wrinkles of her face said she’d had a long, interesting life that had left its marks on her. She’d been reading when they entered, and now she took a peacock feather that lay on the arm of her chair and marked her place before setting the book down where the feather had rested. “A visitor, eh?” she said, her voice as hoarse as if she’d just finished a coughing fit. “Milo, you know better than to bring uninvited strangers up.”
“But she’s the duke of Beneddo’s daughter, Grandmama,” Milo said. “You’ll want to see her.”
Carys Bettega looked Sienne up and down. “But why would she want to see me, I wonder,” she said to the air.
“Ghrita Chakhorkurda mentioned you,” Sienne said. She hoped she hadn’t mangled Ghrita’s surname too much. “She said you were a scrapper wizard once. I’m a scrapper looking for spells, and I hoped we might be able to come to an agreement.”
The old woman’s eyes narrowed. “Milo, fetch coffee,” she said. She indicated an armchair facing hers as Milo left the room. Sienne sat and arranged her spellbook in her lap. Carys eyed it and smiled.
“A scrapper’s spellbook,” she said, sounding contemplative. “It’s been a long time since I routinely carried my spellbook with me. It brings back memories.”
“How long were you a scrapper?” Sienne asked.
“Twelve years. I know, that’s a long time,” Carys said as Sienne tried to control her astonishment. “I had a good team. We gained and lost members over that time, but it always felt like family. It fell apart maybe three years after I was invalided out.” She gestured to her legs, which looked normal to Sienne aside from being completely motionless, without even the minutest shifting or tensing of muscles. “But three of us survived to have lives beyond scrapping. I call that marvelous.”
“It is marvelous,” Sienne said. “I’ve never heard of a scrapper team lasting so long.”
“You have to have the right mix of personalities. How long have you been a scrapper?”
“Fourteen months. It’s how long my team has been together, too.”
“So you’re no longer fumbling about trying to work together. I take it your team is working well?”
“We’ve come through so much together. I hope we have many more years in us.”
“I hope that for you, too. And that you don’t have to replace anyone, though that’s unlikely.”
Sienne shivered. Carys’s casual words felt superstitiously like a warning. “I can’t imagine replacing any of my friends.”
“Neither could I.” Carys was looking at something past Sienne’s right ear, probably the past from the way her brow furrowed. Then she blinked, and turned her attention on Sienne. “So. You’re looking for new spells.”
“I am. We’re facing a tremendous challenge, and I’d like to be as prepared as possible.”
The door opened, and Milo backed in bearing a huge silver tray with a matching coffee pot and an assortment of cups and bowls. With the grace of a man twenty years older, he poured coffee and handed cups to Carys and Sienne. Sienne poured in plenty of cream and a chunk of sugar and stirred. Carys took hers as black as Perrin did.
“Anything in particular?” she added when Milo left again.
“More powerful targeted spells than I currently have. Defensive spells to back up Perrin—he’s a priest of Averran. Transport, if you have it.” Asking about dominate was probably too much for this casual acquaintance.
“A priest of Averran? They aren’t usually scrappers.”
“He fell into the work when there wasn’t anything else he could do to support himself. Now I think he likes it.”
Carys nodded. She held out one hand. “May I see your book?”
Sienne removed the harness from around her shoulders and handed it over. Carys turned the pages, giving each one her full attention. “A lot of confusions early on,” she remarked. “Were you at Stravanus?”
“I was.”
“I’m surprised you were able to survive as a scrapper. Most confusions aren’t much good against monsters.”
“I had a few other spells. And a lot of help from my companions. And luck.”
“Indeed.” She turned a few more pages. “And you said you’ve been a scrapper fourteen months? How many spells did you have before that?”
“About a dozen.”
Carys riffled the unbreakable pages, counting, and whistled in appreciation. “You’ve been busy. And successful, to afford this quantity of spells.”
“Some of them we found.” She didn’t mention the wizard necromancer she’d inadvertently killed, or the spells she’d taken from his book.
“Even so.” Carys went back to reading. “Castle, fury, shout…I’m not sure what I can do for you that you don’t already have.”
Sienne swallowed her disappointment. “Oh.”
The old woman glanced up at her with a keen eye. “Tell me,” she said, “how to use castle as an offensive spell.”
Sienne blinked. “Ah…well, I’ve done it to move an enemy away from a defenseless ally, but I’ve always thought it would work in reverse—to bring someone, maybe a wizard or an archer, from where they’re attacking at a distance to close enough my companions could hammer them.”
“What’s the most creative magical attack you’ve ever made?”
“I don’t know if it’s the most creative, but I once disarmed an enemy wizard by casting grease on his spellbook. And later, when the grease had evaporated, I used invisible fingers to open the latch of his book and snatch all the spells out. They went all over the room.” She decided not to mention she’d stolen three of his spells before that, just in case Carys wasn’t as friendly as she looked.
Carys laughed. “I’ve done that, too,” she said, “unlatched a spellbook. I don’t know why it doesn’t occur to more people, though I suppose it’s fairly rare to be fighting other humans rather than monsters.” She sobered. “What about casting a spell that might catch your companions in its effect? How do you deal with that?”
“Teach them to duck, mostly. But that’s when I switch to a targeted spell like force. It’s easier with shout, because that spell spreads out in a plane, but even with fury, if they’re paying attention, they don’t get hit.”
“Though having to pay attention means dividing their attention.”
“Right. Which is why I use force or burn instead.”
“Smart.” Carys nodded. “Are you sleeping with one of your companions?”
Sienne, wary, said, “What makes you ask that?”
“It’s inevitable, when you’re as close as you are to your companions, that more profound emotions emerge. I’m wondering if you’ve acted on them.”
Sienne wanted to tell the old woman it was none of her business, but Carys’s expression didn’t seem condemnatory. “I…yes. Alaric is my lover.”
“And that’s not a problem?”
“No. It was more of a problem when we were still dancing around the issue of being attracted to each other and being afraid to act on it. Alaric is our leader and I think he worried about…oh, favoritism, or the chance he might do stupid things to protect me. But he does stupid things to protect all of us. And we’ve never let it interfere with work. We don’t sleep together when we’re in the wilderness, for example.”
“That’s an interesting solution. Linus and I…well, I was our team’s leader for nine of those twelve years, and I was with Linus for eight. Our relationship was tempestuous, and it drove at least one companion away, but I couldn’t give him up. It sounds as though you’re more well-adjusted than I was.” Carys smiled, her mind once again wandering down memory lane.
“So…you stopped because you were injured?” Sienne asked, feeling Carys had grilled her long enough and was due some questioning of her own.
“I did. Broke my back fighting a pod of chimeras. Serran—he was a priest of Kitane—he had some powerful healing blessings, but nothing short of a miracle can repair damaged nerves, and Kitane apparently thought my scrapping career should be over.” Carys didn’t sound bitter, just matter-of-fact. “I came home, settled down, had children—thank Kitane my injury didn’t interfere with that—and went into business teaching young wizards the four spell languages, with some basic transform work on the side. Mostly the decorative arts, altering colors for women redecorating their homes, that sort of thing.”
“I haven’t thought about what I’ll do after our scrapping days are over.”
“Based on this, you have a solid grounding in all four spell languages. You could teach. Or… actually, you have more transforms than I ever did, so that’s another option.”
“I love transforms. I wouldn’t mind helping people with bad vision or hearing—I’ve done that before.”
“Yes, that’s better and cheaper than a divine healing, if less permanent. Or you might find there’s something you want to do that has nothing to do with wizardry.”
That seemed unlikely to Sienne, but she’d learned never to assume she knew the future. “It will depend on what Alaric wants to do, too.”
“So your relationship is permanent.”
“It is.”
“I hope it lasts, then. Linus and I had wonderful sex, but we didn’t have anything but scrapping in common. I’m not happy he died—in fact, I mourned him desperately for a long time—but in the long run, it’s better I married Mercario. So I wish you and your young man the best.”
“Thank you.” Sienne drained her coffee cup and set it back on the tray.
“So.” Carys put down her own cup and folded her hands in her lap. “What did you intend when you came here?”
“I was hoping you had spells I could purchase, or trade if you prefer. But Ghrita didn’t tell me anything but that you used to be a scrapper, so I’m not sure what I have that you want.”
“You’re right. Much of what you have is useless to me, so trading is not an option.” Carys propped her chin on one hand. “And, to be honest, I don’t really need money. But…well. Can you bear it if I tell you an old scrapper’s story?”
“I’d hoped you would, but I didn’t like to ask.”
Carys smiled. “Back in the day—this would have been, oh, forty or forty-five years ago—dueling wasn’t illegal. No, that’s not true, it was illegal, but the queen didn’t crack down on it. Those old Fiorus monarchs were lazy and self-serving, and bestirring themselves to stop wizards dueling was too much like work. I understand King Derekian is nothing like them.”
“He’s not.”
“This—really?” Carys’s eyes gleamed. “You speak as though you know him.”
“We’ve met. He doesn’t like me and my team much. I think he sees us as a recurring impediment.”
“That’s a story I’d like to hear later, if you don’t mind. But I was talking about dueling. Wizards fought over the slightest provocation, on the off chance of incapacitating their opponent long enough to steal a spell or three. I admit, I was hotheaded, and I entered my share of duels. Won, mostly, and my team was always there to protect me if an enemy wizard came a little too close to doing serious damage.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“That’s why I liked it. But there was one time…I was twenty-two, I’d been a scrapper for three years, and I thought I was at the top of my game. We were staying at an inn and there was a man there, a wizard, maybe ten years older than I and…oh, the most disreputable sort you can imagine.”
“And you dueled?”
“He didn’t want to. I thought that meant he was weak. At the very least, afraid of me. But I finally goaded him into going out back, where we wouldn’t be disturbed. And it took him less than ten seconds to knock out my entire team and paralyze me. I think I might have singed him with scorch, but that was all. I thought we were all dead. He—I remember this so clearly—he sat on a log on the frost-rimed grass and stared at me for twenty minutes until shout wore off, playing with this long knife that gleamed like silver in the moonlight.”
Her calm voice combined with the vivid details of the story made Sienne shiver. She wanted to ask a dozen questions, but kept silent, fearing to interrupt.
Carys smiled. “When I finally started to twitch, he sat me up and took out his spellbook. ‘You’re brash, and stupid,’ he said, ‘and I used to be like you. I ought to take your book and make you start over. But I think you’ll remember this better if I use a carrot instead of a stick.’ And he told me he’d give me any three spells from his own book, no conditions attached. It was the last time I ever dueled.”
“Amazing,” Sienne breathed. “He didn’t ask anything from you?”
“No. Not even a promise to stop dueling.” Carys used her hands to shift her body slightly. “There have been three—no, four scrappers before you who’ve come looking for a trade or a sale. Two of them I sent away with nothing. The other two, I let them take what they wanted. I’ll offer you what I gave them: anything you think will help you, you can have, no restrictions. I want to see you and your companions succeed, and it sounds as though you’re already a solid team. This might give you a bit of an edge.”
Sienne let out the breath she was holding. “That’s…incredibly generous. But you already said you didn’t think you had anything I’d want.”
“I said I don’t know what I can do for you,” Carys said with a smile. “But you’re clever. I think it’s a question of what you’d make of what I have.” She pulled on a bell rope hanging near the fireplace, and a few seconds later, Milo entered in a way that suggested he’d been listening at the door. “Milo, bring me my spellbook,” she said.
Milo nodded. He cast a quick glance at Sienne before going to the bookcases and pulling out a book fatter than its neighbors. “Thank you,” Carys said when he handed it to her. “Please clear the tray.”
When Milo had once again left, Carys handed the spellbook to Sienne. It was bound in flexible red wood the same color as the mantel with a couple of black ravens painted on it. “Fashions have come back around,” Carys said when Sienne traced the outline of the ravens. “We neither of us suffered through that awful craze for embellishing spellbooks with bones or gems that only fall off or get broken.”
Sienne nodded and opened the spellbook. Carys’s spells were arranged at random, which meant she’d likely put them in as she got them. It was how Sienne did it, and she’d always felt it marked a true wizard not to waste time organizing and reorganizing spells as you added more powerful ones. She turned a few pages. Carys had specialized in transforms early on, basic spells like sharpen and break, moving up to cat’s eye and gills—nothing Sienne didn’t have.
She turned a few more pages. Confusions, a few summonings, an evocation or two. She closed her eyes briefly and tried to remember the spell she’d just read, but found the memory slipping away from her. So, did that mean she still had to have a spell written in her own blood to be able to truly memorize it, or was it the act of writing that turned muscle memory into true memory? She read on. More powerful spells… “All the wall spells,” she said. “Two barriers. And—you do have transport!”
“I do,” Carys said. “Is your team small enough to use it?”
“Yes, just.” She turned another page. “I’ve never heard of rainbow. It’s not a confusion?”
“Oh, you’ll want that one. I’ll teach you to use it. It was always one of my favorites.”
“You must have had the most interesting life.” She gasped. “Dear Averran. You have seeming!”
“I take it you know that spell?”
“We had it sort of used against us once.”
“I find few people really understand how powerful a weapon a confusion can be. But you’re Stravanus trained, so it doesn’t surprise me that you do.”
Sienne closed the book. “This is a tremendous gift you’ve given me. Thank you.”
“Just remember this. You’ll be in a position to pass the favor along someday. I hope you’ll use it wisely.”
Sienne’s brain buzzed with the spells she’d read. “Will you demonstrate rainbow?”
