Black Coven (Daniel Black Book 2) (21 page)

Her magic was a warm presence that flowed through the rigid precision of my enchantment, seeking the proper place to do its work. I assembled the water level sensor and it swirled curiously through my awareness, before delicately applying a tiny thread of power to assist me.

It was almost like dancing. She followed my lead, weaving a trace of herself into my enchantment, following along with me as I worked. I’d expected joint casting to be a tricky bit of coordination, but she was remarkably good at compensating for my relative clumsiness.

Then we came to the actual conjuration, and I stumbled as I reached the edge of my sorcery. Our powers mingled, and for a moment I was intensely aware of the soft femininity of her magic.

Wow. Was that what coven rituals felt like?

I pulled away, and tried to signal Elin to take the lead. Her magic sort of fluttered uncertainly for a moment, before she delicately wove a bridge from the trigger point of the sensor spell. I lent a fraction of power to her efforts, helping to bind it to the structure we’d built together. Then she was off, racing through an elegant little vortex of magic while I did my best to keep up.

She finished quickly, and I opened my eyes to find her looking up at me with bright eyes and rosy cheeks. Well, apparently she wasn’t mad at me for the magical equivalent of accidentally copping a feel.

“I think it worked,” she said excitedly. She gestured, and a stream of water rose from the cistern to form a large blob floating in the air. Sure enough, the cistern immediately began to refill.

“Good job. Now I just need to put a lid on this thing to keep debris out and we’ll be all set.”

It was just in time, too. The population of my stronghold was rising quickly with all the recruiting we were doing, and with most of the harbor waters melted it was getting harder for the men to collect ice and snow. I wasn’t about to let anyone drink water from a medieval harbor - god only knows what all was draining into it from the city.

              My work was also attracting attention, as Mara noted on her next visit.

              “I swear, Adept Tova is going to sneak into your bed any day now and try to seduce your secrets out of you,” she told me.

              I laughed. “She’s not bad, but Cerise has her beat.”

              “Yeah, well, Cerise isn’t an enchantress with forty years of experience and twin daughters that are half succubus. Seriously, Daniel, that woman would be a High Adept if her magic could handle golems or crowds. Watch out for her.”

              “I bet I’ve got more succubus in me than her girls do,” Cerise purred. I looked up to find her posing in the doorway of the little sitting room, with a bit of her aura leaking out.

              Mara licked her lips. “Seriously?”

              “Mmm hmmm. If she tries it I’ll tame these little girls of hers, and Daniel will make her beg for mercy. You wouldn’t believe the things he can do to a woman.”

              “Yes, well, I also try not to be overconfident,” I interrupted. “Thanks for the warning, Mara. I’ll keep an eye out for her. Cerise, how about dialing it back a bit?”

              “Okaaay,” Cerise said theatrically. “Sorry, Mara. My aura can get away from me when I get worked up. But you’re not going to freak out on me if I relax my disguise a little, are you?”

              “Hardly. So that isn’t really what you look like?”

              Cerise let her disguise spell unravel, and strutted across the room to drape herself across my lap. I wasn’t quite sure why she was putting on the show, but after a moment of hesitation I decided to roll with it. She was actually a pretty good judge of people, so she was bound to have a reason.

              Mara studied her horns with surprised interest. “You didn’t get those by playing with some little succubus, Cerise. What are you?”

              She grinned. “Promise not to tell? I’m a death witch.”

              Mara’s eyebrows shot up. “I see. I guess Daniel bound you, then?”

              “Not exactly,” I temporized.

              “I got into a tight spot where I had to absorb way more demonic power than I could handle,” Cerise admitted. “Damned priests wanted to use me as a giant-killing weapon. Daniel here figured out how to bind me to be myself. That’s how I know I can trust him, no matter what. I was so far gone he could have done anything to me, but he didn’t.”

              Mara frowned in confusion. “Why? That seems like a hell of a risk to take, Daniel. The Church would come down on you hard if they knew.”

              I shrugged. “The church can blow me. Cerise and I have been through a lot together, and I’m not going to screw her over. Besides, real loyalty is stronger than any magic.”

              “True,” she agreed. “Bindings can be broken. I’m not sure why you’re trusting me with this, though. I mean, I’m not going to turn you in, but how could you know that?”

              Cerise shrugged. “I don’t like hiding what I am from my friends. Besides, I can tell you’re not exactly normal either. I don’t expect you to tell me your secrets, but I want you to know you don’t have to worry that we’ll go running to the Church if you let something slip.”

              “Not normal?” Mara said carefully.

              “You didn’t get that giant well of magic from a human parent,” Cerise pointed out. “I’m betting there’s an efreet or dragon or something pretty close to you in the family tree.”

              Mara hesitated.

              “Something like that,” she finally admitted. “I guess you figured Carl and I aren’t full siblings? Mom was the one who raised me, and she’s… well, I didn’t exactly have a normal human childhood. But I really don’t want to talk about that. I’m trying to put it behind me.”

              “Fair enough,” I said. “So what do you want to talk about?”

              “You. No one has ever heard of you before, and they’re going crazy trying to figure out why. A wizard as strong as you should have been famous.”

              “I’m not actually from Europe,” I told her.

              “You don’t look like someone from the East, either,” she said skeptically.

              Cerise stretched out across my lap, and chuckled. “He can look like whatever he wants to look like.”

              “Pretty much,” I agreed.

              “Ah, you’re a shapeshifter,” Mara mused. “That would explain it. I guess you’re using some foreign style of magic, too. So that’s why everyone is scratching their heads trying to figure you out.”

              Not really, but it was as close to the truth as I was going to get at this point.

              We chatted for a bit longer, about the state of the city and the Conclave’s plans. Mara seemed pretty knowledgeable about what was happening in Kozalin, even though I gathered that she’d only been living here for a few weeks. She was also dying of curiosity about how I’d managed some of my recent feats, but she was polite enough not to badger me about it.

              Then Cerise took her down to the firing range to show off her gun, and I went back to work. I had a meeting with Oskar about some improvements to the battlements that he wanted, and another weapon project to start on, and a million other things to do. Mara joined us for lunch, and I was vaguely aware that she’d hung around afterward. But I was busy, so I didn’t realize where that had led until I came back for dinner.

              I found Avilla peeking into the sitting room with a huge smile on her face. She glanced up as I passed by, put a finger to her lips and then beckoned me over.

              Mystified, I crept quietly up behind her and looked through the crack.

              To my shock, Mara and Cerise were entwined on the couch. Cerise was bare from the waist up, and Mara had her trapped against the back of the couch with her arms pinned above her head. But my demon girl was hardly objecting. Mara was kissing her fiercely, while Cerise squirmed in her embrace and whimpered. As I watched Mara came up for air, panting.

              “How do you feel so good?” She demanded.

              “Succubus aura,” Cerise gasped. “Told you… you’d enjoy being on top.”

              Golden sparks gathered in Mara’s free hand, and she ran it lightly up Cerise’s side. The demon girl gasped, and jerked like she’d been electrocuted. But there was nothing but heat in her eyes.

              “Ooh fuck. Mara! What are you d-doing?”

              Mara grinned triumphantly. “Passion flame.”

              Cerise moaned loudly, completely overcome by sensation. Her tail curled around Mara’s thigh, and crept up under her dress. Knowing the effect that appendage had on Avilla, I expected Mara to moan and collapse any second. But instead she gasped, and jerked away.

“No!”

She released Cerise so she could cover herself, and smacked the tail away.

“Ow!” Cerise complained. “Oh, shit. I’m sorry, Mara. I wasn’t thinking.”

“I… no… I’m not mad,” Mara said uncertainly. “I just… I don’t know. This was a bad idea.”

“I’m sorry, Mara. I just wanted you to feel good too,” Cerise said contritely. Then she looked over Mara’s shoulder at us, and blinked twice.

Avilla looked up at me, and made a shooing motion.

I carefully took a step back, and then tiptoed away. Just as well. I wasn’t comfortable spying on something like that, especially when getting caught could have all sorts of nasty fallout.

When we were back in the kitchen Avilla sighed. “That’s too bad. I was hoping Mara would go for it.”

“What happened to taking it slow?” I asked.

Avilla smiled ruefully. “Cerise isn’t good at restraint.”

Cerise admitted as much after Mara left, which didn’t take long.

“Hey, she was asking curious questions about what I do with Avilla!” She protested. “I could tell she was interested, so I offered to show her a few things. It totally could have worked. I just wasn’t expecting that passion flame thing. You know my tail gets grabby when I’m really worked up.”

“I know, kitten,” Avilla said indulgently. “I just hope you haven’t scared her off.”

Cerise shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I think she just broke out of the moment, and got really confused about why she was getting so worked up over a girl. Give her a few days to get used to the idea, and she’ll come back to give me another shot. I’m just going to have to be careful to be a total sub for her at first, until she feels like she can trust me. But that’s alright, it can be fun to play that way sometimes.”

I sighed. “What if she doesn’t? You told her some dangerous secrets today.”

“She’s not human, Daniel. I can smell it, and you can bet the Conclave doesn’t know or they’d be treating her like they did Elin. Trust me, she’s not going to turn down the chance to have a place where she can be accepted.”

“Mara doesn’t want a safe refuge, Miss Cerise,” Elin said from the doorway.

“What? What do you mean?” Cerise asked.

“You want a place where you can be accepted for what you are,” Elin explained. “But not everyone is the same. Mara is busy looking for revenge.”

“Against who?” I asked.

“I don’t know, sir. I’m not sure she knows. But whoever it is, they’re going to burn. The rage in her heart terrifies me, and I’m a monster.”

There was a moment of awkward silence.

“Aren’t you a water faerie?” Cerise asked. “Are you sure it’s not just the opposing elements thing talking?”

Elin hung her head. “Maybe. I hope so.”

              My plans to spend the next day working up something that could serve as artillery were interrupted by an early visit from Prince Caspar.

              Fortunately I was getting used to waking up not long after sunrise, and for once none of the girls had decided to ambush me in bed that morning. So I was actually having breakfast with Avilla and Cerise when Gudrin dashed into the room.

              “Boss! The prince is on his way here!”

              “What?” Cerise grumbled, only half awake.

              “I was up on the roof, and I saw his party starting down the dock. They’ll be here in a few minutes!”

              “Oh dear,” Avilla fretted. “I’m not ready to have royal visitors. The receiving room doesn’t even have furniture yet, let alone proper decorations. He’ll think we’re a bunch of backwoods barbarians.”

              I shook my head. “No, the Conclave wasn’t doing any fancy ceremonies for him. We’ll follow their lead. Gudrin, run downstairs and tell the gate guards to be a little ceremonial about things. Ask who goes there, then open the main gates for the prince and welcome him to the keep. Try to get Captain Rain down there in time to greet them, he’ll know how to handle that kind of thing. Hurry.”

              “Got it,” she chirped, and sprinted away.

              “Cerise, I need you to play elevator operator. Offer to give the prince a lift up to the ‘wizard’s sanctum’, and bring him here.”

              “Here?!” Avilla squeaked.

              I nodded. “If I meet him in the atrium it makes it look like I’m either an overeager brown-noser, or I’ve got something to hide. At the Conclave he just walked into the meeting room where High Adept Steelbinder was working and started talking to him, so that’s what we’ll do here. This isn’t a high society event, so just be polite and let me handle him.”

              “Alright, Daniel. But I have to have something ready to offer him.”

              She scurried off to the kitchen, and Cerise gulped down the last of her porridge and rushed to the elevator. By the time she was out the door a gaggle of maids had descended on the room to tidy up.

              Gronir and Daria showed up moments later, wondering what was up. By the time I’d brought them up to speed Oskar wandered in, and I had to tell the story again. Avilla was just bringing out a fresh round of fruit, flatbread and morning wine when the prince arrived.

              I’d wondered if the elevator ride would shake him up, but he seemed undisturbed as he strode boldly through the door behind Cerise. Captain Rain had followed him up, as had several of his retainers.

              “Good morning, Adept Black!” He boomed. “This is a hell of a keep you’ve thrown up here. Magical heating, and succubus attendants?”

              Cerise laughed, and I noticed that her horns were wavering in and out of visibility. The prince was wearing a whole assortment of enchanted objects, and one of them was apparently designed to reveal illusions.

              “I told him I’m you’re apprentice, Master Black, but I don’t think he believed me,” she explained.

              “Yes, well, the only thing you’re missing is the wings,” I pointed out. “Good morning, Your Highness. I wasn’t expecting to see you all the way out here.”

              “Can I get you anything, Your Highness?” Avilla asked breathlessly.

              Prince Caspar glanced at her, did a double take, and then devoted his full attention to a leisurely inspection of her figure. Avilla’s cheeks pinked, and she looked rather pleased at the attention.

              “Ahem. This is my other apprentice, Avilla.”

              She curtsied prettily, incidentally giving the prince a good look down her cleavage. Wait, had she unbuttoned a couple of buttons? Yeah, she had.

After a moment he managed to tear his gaze away. “A succubus and a nymph? You keep dangerous company, Adept Black. This reminds me of those stories where travelers who partake of the faerie’s feast are trapped in their realm forever. Is it safe for a mortal man to partake of your bounty, fair lady?”

              She bit her lip the way she always did when she was thinking of something naughty, and gave him a sultry look. “Should a woman’s bounty be safe, Your Highness?”

              He laughed. “I’ve dined already, lady nymph, though a cup of wine wouldn’t be amiss.”              He turned back to me, and went on. “You must have your hands full with these two.”

              “Indeed I do,” I agreed.

              Behind his back Cerise frowned balefully at Avilla, and dragged her off into the kitchen. Good. It would cause all kinds of trouble if I threw this smooth-talking bastard off my tower. What the hell was she playing at, anyway?

Well, one thing at a time. “So what brings you to my not-so-humble abode?”

              “Straight to business, then? Fair enough. I need to know what you can do about housing these refugees. My men have done all they can to pack them into houses and keep fires burning, but we’re running low on fuel and every night we have more deaths from exposure. I didn’t lose good men rescuing all these people from the monsters just so they could freeze to death a week later. Do all your buildings heat themselves like this one?”

              “They can,” I answered. “It doesn’t happen automatically, but it’s a relatively simple enchantment to add to a building. You’re thinking of shelters?”

              “Exactly. Can you do it?”

              “One building, yes. Enough for thousands of refugees? Maybe. Is there any open land inside the walls for me to build on?”

              He nodded. “Yes, but it’s going to take a lot of shuffling people around. We’ve cleared a plaza where you can put the first building. Once that’s up we’ll move the refugees that are camped in the eastern drill field, and you can build on that. Fill it with barracks and we can move the troops that are quartered in another assembly area, and so on. We may have to resort to knocking down buildings before we’re done, but if you build tall I think it will work.”

              “Sounds like it’s going to be a pain in the ass,” I commented. “But I can do it. Probably a couple of hours for each building, assuming I just make a bunch of big empty rooms with warmth enchantments. Once we’ve got everyone out of the weather there will be time to worry about other details. Although I should probably connect them to the city sewer system if that’s feasible, just to keep our risk of disease under control.”

              He clapped me on the shoulder. “Good man. I thought you’d see the importance of it. What do you want for the work? I hear you’re already supplying the city with iron, so I expect you’ve little need of gold.”

              “It never hurts,” I pointed out. “But you’re right, the important things often can’t be bought. I notice the Griffon Knights are out scouting a lot, and I’m sure the Conclave does regular divinations. Is there someone in charge of collecting all their reports and keeping up with what’s going on outside the walls?”

              “Yes, there’s a map in the war room that my staff keeps up to date. You want updates?”

              “Yes,” I said. “If I know what threats are approaching I’ll be able to prepare for them better. There’s no sense in spending my time making something to kill giants if it’s dragons we have to worry about.”

              “I think the Conclave has the dragon angle covered. That’s fine, though. I’ll arrange to have one of your people cleared to visit the war room and take notes. Mind you pick a fighting man for that duty, and not one of your uncanny wenches. There’s always some tension between the Conclave and the nobility, and to most men a wizard is a wizard. What else?”

              “My next problem is going to be food,” I mused.

              “You and everyone else. But since you’ve been so accommodating, I can set you up with a military buyer’s medallion. That will let you buy from the grain factors at the military rate, which is only about double the normal prices right now. I expect that will hold up for four months or so, until things get really desperate.”

              “By then it may be a moot point,” I commented. I decided not to mention my own plans for growing food. There was no way I’d be able to supply the whole city, so it would be best to keep it quiet for now. “Alright, then. I can start this morning, if your men have that plaza ready?”

              They did, so half an hour later I found myself down in the Trade Quarter preparing for another construction project. There was a platoon or so of town guards diverting traffic around the plaza, and a nervous delegation from the city council on hand to supervise the project.

              “Try not to block traffic too badly,” one of them instructed. “Or the well, that’s the main water supply for a two-block radius.”

              “I’ll keep that in mind,” I replied mildly. “Are there any sewer lines running under this place? The refugees are going to need a place to dump waste, and if the pipes are shallow I also need to be careful not to put too much weight on them.”

              Fortunately someone had been smart enough to call in one of the city engineers, and we were able to put our heads together and work out the details. It helped that I could use earth magic to locate underground voids, once I had a general idea of where to look.

              This was a bit different from the fortifications I’d been building. The sides of the plaza were lined with businesses, the owners of which were obviously worried that they were about to get blocked off. Between that, the well and five different streets there was surprisingly little space to work with. I was tempted to just blow off the concerns of the locals, and fill the square with a big box of stone. I was pretty sure that’s what the prince expected, and it would certainly get the job done.

              But I could do better than that.

              I started by digging up the cobblestones covering the square and replacing them with a single mass of solid rock four feet thick, to serve as a foundation for the shelter.  Given the need to maximize available space I used a metal skeleton for this building. A simple square framework of heavy nickel-iron pillars, and horizontal I-beams connecting them. Knowing I didn’t have a reliable way to calculate their strength I compensated by making them several times bigger than was probably needed, on top of the structural reinforcement enchantment. Floors were formed by laying a sheet of nickel-iron on top of the beams, although I stuck with stone for the exterior wall.

              I figured the warmth spell would keep thermal expansion from being a problem, since it regulated the temperature of the building to remain stable within a few degrees. But I did add a rustproofing effect provided by my earth sorcery, since otherwise I wasn’t sure how fast corrosion would become a problem.

              I left a decent-size street around the edge of the plaza, giving access to the shops and allowing travel between the various streets that opened onto it. The shelter occupied the rest of the space, although I ran a wide covered walkway all the way through it to give access to the well. Sanitary facilities, entrance halls with two pairs of doors each, kitchen space and wide stairways going up took up a good bit of the ground floor.

              But I built six more stories above that, each of them just a big empty space with windows around the outside. Mindful of ventilation problems I mounted sliding panes of thick quartz in the windows, and didn’t bother trying to make them especially weatherproof. I also built two stairways leading from the ground floor all the way up to the roof, where I set up a cistern system to collect melted snow as a secondary water supply.

              Finally, I gave the place a minimal degree of defensibility by putting heavy iron doors on the entrances and at the top of each stairway. If enemies got into the city at some point the inhabitants could just bar the doors and wait for the fighting to be over.

              By the time I was done with all that more troops had shown up with a huddled mass of shivering refugees in tow, and the moment I gave the all clear they started herding them into the building. I was just getting directions to the next site when I spotted a column of smoke rising from the east end of town.

              I stopped, and looked at it for a moment. Some of the soldiers followed my gaze, and a sergeant cursed.

              “That’s coming from the Military District,” he growled.

              I frowned. “I’m going to go take a look.”

              I bounced up three stories on a burst of force magic, touched down momentarily on a roof and pushed up again. As I sailed high into the air I caught sight of the source of the fire. A complex of large, barn-like buildings were on fire. But there were men in armor running around, and… were those griffons on the ground?

              I still hadn’t figured out stable flight, but I was getting decent at pushing myself around with force magic. I threw myself across the sky, lurching and bouncing as I went and counting on my healing amulet to keep me from getting nauseous. I could easily travel as fast as a car this way, and the city wasn’t that big.

              As I approached it became apparent that this was indeed the griffon stable, and something was seriously wrong. One stable was an inferno, ablaze from floor to rafters, and a whole row of buildings next to it had all caught fire. The high-pitched shrieks of panicked griffons filled the air as their handlers fought to get them to safety. A group of knights and men-at-arms were forming a bucket brigade, but it obviously wasn’t going to be enough.