Magic Steps (11 page)

She sighed and drooped against the heavy door. I am not a teacher, she told herself for the dozenth time. I am much too young. And it’s so hard!

“Excuse me, my lady.” It was one of the maids. “You’ve guests. I took the liberty of putting them in the rose sitting room.”

Sandry thanked the woman. Who might have come to see her? When she entered the room the maid had spoken of, she found Lark and a stranger.

Lark beamed at her. “Sandry, Lady Sandrilene fa Toren, this is Yazmin Hebet.”

Yazmin curtsied deeply.

Sandry almost goggled, but caught herself in time it was unladylike. Instead she returned the curtsy. Yazmin Hebet was the most famous dancer around the Pebbled Sea, where the troupes she belonged to had toured for years. Because she danced in public festivals as well as in the castles of the rich, she was popular with all classes of people. Everyone talked of the great Yazmin, from the clothes she wore to the men she was supposed to be in involved with.

“This is an honor,” Sandry told her. To Lark she said reproachfully, “I didn’t know you were friends with the dancer Yazmin. All you ever said was you had a friend with that name.”

Lark grinned. “I assumed you knew most of my friends outside the temple are performers.”

Yazmin smiled. She was pretty, with a tiny nose, large brown eyes, and a small, pointed chin. A mole on one smooth cheek accented a broad mouth with a full lower lip. She wore her tumbled mass of brown hair pinned up, with artful curls left to frame her face. When she spoke, her voice squeaked a little, as if she’d spent years raising it. “I’m honored,” she told Sandry. “Larks told me so much about you. She says you’re the only mage she’s ever known who can spin magic.”

Sandry blushed. “It was spin magic or die, the first time I tried it,” she explained. “I was just lucky I figured out how in time. Please, sit down. What can I do for you?”

“Lark says you have a student who’s a dance-mage,” replied Yazmín, arranging her skirts as she sat. “He needs a teacher?”

Sandry looked from Lark to Yazmín. Was help for Pasco in sight? “You know a dance-mage?” she asked.

“I’ve never even heard of one,” said Yazmín. “I’ve seen shamans work dance spells, just as Lark has, but that isn’t the only way they do their magic.”

Sandry told herself she should have known she hadn’t gotten that lucky. “Then you can recommend a teacher for his dancing? I’ll pay his fees,” she assured Yazm í n. “I can’t teach him myself—I know very few dances, and I’m not any good at them.”

Yazm í n folded her hands in her lap. They were covered with designs in henna, Sandry noticed, and henna had been used to put red tones in the dancer’s hair.

She painted her face, too, using kohl to line her eyes and a red coloring on her mouth.

“Actually, I hoped to teach him myself,” Yazmín explained. “You see, I retired this year. I’ve been a traveling dancer for—,”

“Twenty-three years,” murmured Lark.

Yazmín wrinkled her nose. “You had to remind me. I would have been content with just ‘a long time.’”

Sandry giggled, and Yazmín smiled at her. “You aren’t like most nobles I’ve met,” she commented. “Lark said you weren’t.” She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “This summer I opened a school on Festival Street. It’s an old warehouse, not fancy, but it’s a place where dancers and acrobats can stay and train during the winter. And I’ve tried to learn the local dances everywhere I’ve ever been. Your boy could study with me. Between you, me, and Lark, we can craft the kind of spells your boy could do.”

“I think you’re the answer to my prayers.” replied Sandry with relief. “The longer I know him, the more of a handful he is.”

“Tell me,” Yazm í n ordered.

Sandry did, starting with what she had seen on the beach of the fishing village only two short mornings ago, and going straight on through the foul-up that had set

three people hanging in midair. She had finished de scribing her conversation with Pasco’s formidable mother at the end of her visit to House Acalon when the door opened and the duke came in.

“My dear, I heard Dedicate Lark was with you and came to say hello,” Vedris explained as they all got to their feet.

Lark bowed slightly—temple dedicates were not ex pected to show great courtesies to nobility. “It’s very good to see your grace,” she told him with a smile.

“You’re looking well this morning.”

The duke smiled back at her. “The loan of my great-niece has much to do with that, I believe.”

“It’s good to know she’s valued as she ought to be,” replied Lark. “Your grace, may I present my friend Yazm í n Hebet?”

Yazm ? n curtsied deeply, so graceful that Sandry was envious: while she could curtsy well, she was always afraid her knees might creak. When the dancer rose, she offered a hand. The duke bowed and kissed it, then re leased her. “I am a very great admirer of yours,” he con fessed. “I’ve seen you dance on many occasions.”

Yazm í n smiled at him. “I have seen your grace at quite a few of my local performances,” she remarked. “I’m honored that I was able to entertain you.”

“Shall I have the pleasure of seeing you perform this winter?” asked the duke.

“I have been considering

opening this place up and entertaining a bit, if Sandry would like to be my hostess.”

“Yazm í n was just saying that she has retired. Uncle,” Sandry pointed out.

“Oh, well, I don’t plan to give it all up,” protested Yazm í n. “Certainly Yd be delighted to dance for your grace.”

“Then I must arrange something.” Vedris motioned for the women to sit, and took a chair himself. “Dare I hope you’re here to advise my niece regarding her new student?”

Sandry explained as Lark and Yazmín added details. The duke had a few suggestions for spells they could try in dances, in part because: he had seen much more of Yazmín’s repertoire than had Sandry, and in part be cause he had dealt with mages all his life. Twice Yazmín made him laugh, something that Sandry observed with interest.

When, the maid who’d directed Sandry to the room came with a, tray of refreshments, she took one look at the gathering and disappeared again. She came back with all that would be needed to serve four instead of three. Once she had set out the food and filled their cups, she left the room. She soon, returned, plainly unhappy, curtsied to the duke, and said, “My apologies, your grace, but that mage my lady provost keeps has been, worriting the footmen—,”

“If you’d just told his grace I was here, I wouldn’t have ‘worrited’ anyone, would I?” inquired Wulfric Snaptrap, coming in on the girls heels. “I told you I needed his grace and my lady right away.” His sharp eyes swept the room and returned to Lark. “Though actually I wouldn’t mind getting Dedicate Lark’s opinion, either. It’s news that should go back to the temple in any case.”

Yazmín got to her feet. “Perhaps I should go,” she said politely. “My lady, you and your boy can stop by my school whenever you like.”

“I see no reason for you to leave, if we may be assured of your discretion,”

said the duke. “Unless you have pressing errands elsewhere?”

Yazmín resumed her seat. “None, your grace. You have my word that nothing said here will ever be repeated by me,” She touched an index finger to her lips and kissed it in promise of silence. The duke smiled.

Sandry raised her eyebrows. Was Yazmín flirting? She glanced at Lark, who winked at her. Now, here’s an idea, Sandry thought as Wulfric pulled up a chair and the maid left them. Uncle needs someone who can make him laugh. Maybe a romance would do him good. It’s been years since his wife died. I know he’s lonely.

You aren’t even sure Yazmín is interested, she told herself.

“Is anyone eating these?” asked Wulfric, eyeing the pastries. The duke told him to help himself and he did.

Soon the maid had returned with another tray and a glass for the provost’s mage.

Once she was gone, Wulfric looked at the duke and said, “I experimented with the magic Lady Sandrilene took off your Guardsmen. We’ve a problem and a half. The half is dragonsalt. The mage who cast that dark magic is an addict.”

“How do you know that?” Sandry asked, fascinated.

Wulfric smiled. “At Lightsbridge, where harrier-mages train, they teach all manner of spells to detect things. I’ve only performed the dragonsalt cantrip twice before, but I’d a hunch it might work.”

“Wulfric,” the duke said, quietly amused, “if we may continue with your report?

You and my niece may talk of magical practice another time.”

“My report. Oh, right.” Wulfric buttered a scone. “Well, if our mage is a dragonsalt addict, it could be his supplier is in Summersea. My lady provost has the street Guards looking for a ‘salt peddler. My guess is, whoever brought the mage brought the drug. The locals won’t sell it, not with your grace’s penalties.”

“Dragonsalt is the most vile drug brewed. I won’t have it here,” the duke said firmly. “You claim a problem and a half, Wulfric. If dragonsalt is the half, what is the whole?”

“We’ve a mage who deals in—,” Wulfric hesitated. “Unmagic’ is the best term.

Its—nothingness.”

“The absence of all else—of light, magic, existence,” Lark said, her eyes troubled. “You’re certain, Master Snap trap?”

I’ve been at this for thirty years, Dedicate,” Wulfric informed her tardy. “I’m not likely to mistake something that marked.”

“My apologies,” replied Lark. “It’s just so rare

“

“You never mentioned it,” remarked Sandry, puzzled. “None of you mentioned it to us.” She meant herself and her three friends.

“There was no reason to,” Lark replied. “None of you showed the least aptitude for it, Mila and Green Man be praised. Unmagic is so rare we never thought you’d encounter it.”

“It’s a blight as much as magic,” Wulfric muttered.

“What can you do with it?” Sandry asked.

“Murder people in plain view, it would seem,” remarked the duke, grim-faced.

“Walk past human guards and protective spells with no one to suspect you’re there.”

“People also use it to collapse distances and walk between places, if they can bear it,” Lark added. “One man who jumped from Lightsbridge to Nidra through unmagic lay in a fever for a year, raving. Later he wrote that his senses all went dead; he was trapped inside his own mind.”

“Can you find who’s using it, now that you know what it is?’ inquired Yazmín.

“If no one minds my asking,” she added when they all looked at her.

“It’s not that simple,” Wulfric replied.

Lark nodded. “It’s an absence more than anything. It’s hard to track nothing down. I’ll bring it before our mage council, but I don’t believe there’s any way to pick it out, because it isn’t really here.”

Yazmín shivered, “It sounds like you’d have to be crazy to use: it.”

“That’s the one thing we can be sure of,” replied Wulfric. “The poor bleater that’s using it is going mad. That’s the nature of it, don’t you see. When you have magic, you have life itself. That’s what it’s made of But this nothingness, it’s the absence of life, isn’t it?’”

“The absence of hope, feeling,” continued Lark, “The more it’s used, the greater its hold, on, the mage. And if he’s taking dragonsalt to manage it, that just makes it worse. The’ gods help anyone who gets close. His mad-ness will spread, infecting those around him.”

‘“Me, I handle it with gloves and glass instruments,” said Wulfric, his eyes bleak. “‘I don’t want it getting under my skin.”

.Lark, got to her feet with a, sigh, “You were right, Master Snaptrap, I need to let the mage council know as soon, as possible.”

She returned to Winding Circle, but the rest of them stayed, and Baron Erdogun joined, them. Sandry heard then that those Rokats still in Summersea were being placed under increased guard, one that even killers spelled to be nothing would have to be wary of.

They were getting clever, Alzena thought as she watched the house on Tapestry Lane. It was the home of Fariji Rokat, one of the Rokat House clerks. In their inspec tion the previous night, she and Nurhar had sensed watchers. Two large beggars dozed near the corner of Yanjing Street, in a neighborhood where servants quickly sent riffraff on their way. The maids who opened the doors and shutters on the houses facing Rokats were very muscular. They didn’t look like civilians at all, but like guards out of uniform. Archers patroled the rooftops along the street. A trip through Cod Alley behind the house showed gardeners and menservants who played dominoes with hands that were blue-knuckled and callused from fighting.

It was to be expected after the first two murders. Alzena and Nurhar had provided for it. This Rokat’s protectors were no more imaginative than the Rokat guards in Bihan and Janaal had been.

They had not thought to put more than one disguised guard in front of the stable on Cod Alley that served the Tapestry Lane houses. They had not thought that Nurhar could pass the guard unseen, to leave a small keg of the very flammable jelly called batdefire in the hayloft.

They had not thought that the bunch of rough types—draymen,’ coal carriers, and the like—that came roister ing down Tapestry Lane now, after a night of spending Nurhur’s coin in a nearby wineshop, might have an argu ment not far from Rokat’s house. Hiring the rough folk had been the trickiest part: unless watched, they would drink up their fee before they were needed. Nurhar had stayed with them until half an hour ago, doling out coins one at a time, buying food to make sure a few heads would be clear enough to remember their orders, Alzena stepped onto a window ledge on Rokat’s neighbors house. Her target’s roof was less than a story below. Scouting the areas around some of the less wealthy Rokats’ homes had been a task she and Nurhar had done before they went near Jamar. This location had been the: best; they had saved it 1 for when Duke Vedris decided to give protection to the Rokat scum. Before dawn Alzena had.

walked across roofs; to get here, unseen and unsuspected, by the ‘archers,’ and had entered her cur rent place: through the rooftop door. The house’s occu pants were up and around, but Alzena ignored them. Her sanctuary ‘was their 1 unused nur&ry. No one had en tered it yet that morning, which saved her the trouble of killing them. From here: it was a, four-foot leap to her tar get’s flat roof.