The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic (56 page)

“I am glad of it,” Perin said.

•   •   •

Nora had to promise the ice demon double rations before it would agree not to eat Perin in the night. She was running rapidly through her stock of poems, not to mention Dorneng's small supply of food. It was fortunate that they were so close to Maarikok.

Perin, though, was not so sanguine about their route. The next morning, as they ate a rough gruel made from melted snow and dried-out bread, he suggested that they circle north to avoid Faitoren patrols. He sketched a rough map in the snow.

“So we're not far from Faitoren territory, then,” Nora said, studying it.

“Frankly, I think you are lucky not to have met them already.” The new route, he said, would add perhaps another day to their journey.

“All right.” She sighed. “But I warn you, Dorneng doesn't travel very fast. It will be more like two days.”

Perin frowned and glanced over at the former magician. Dorneng's mouth hung open, a trickle of gruel staining his unshaven chin. He had barely eaten this morning. With each passing day he seemed more shrunken, less responsive.

Perin was no doubt ready to suggest that they leave Dorneng behind. Nora steeled herself to resist, while wondering if she was being incredibly stupid to give a damn about Dorneng's welfare. Instead, Perin said, rising: “We can make better time than you think. There's an ice-bull skeleton nearby—I almost broke my ankle tripping over it last night.”

“A what?” Nora asked, but he had already disappeared into the reeds.

He reappeared dragging two enormous curved things that Nora at first took for staves of weather-bleached wood. Then she saw that they were bones—the ribs of a very large animal. After another trip, he brought back two more. “The skull must be frozen under this ice,” he said. “The tusks would be worth a pretty penny in Semr—if you want to come back after the spring thaw.” He grinned at her.

“This is an ice bull?” A dinosaur seemed more likely, from the size of the bones.

“Why do you think they call it the Ivory Marshes?” Perin said.

With leather ties from his pack, he made a crude sled from the bones. They set Dorneng on it and let the ice demon—still sulky, still muttering about how delicious Perin would taste—ride in his lap. Perin pulled the sled while Nora contributed a mild levitation spell to keep the runners from sticking. They could travel twice as fast as she and Dorneng alone, she found.

At last, she thought, something is going right.

In daylight it was easy enough to recognize Perin as the young man she had met in Semr, even though that encounter felt as though it had happened years ago. Now she remembered not just the red hair, but the ease and openness of his manner. He bore himself as though he were inclined to be pleased with whatever or whomever he encountered. And yet there was nothing naive about him: His shrewd brown eyes, already edged by a few wrinkles, seemed to miss very little. The overall effect, Nora found, was to make you feel determined to live up to the warm opinion that he had already formed of you.

She learned he was a captain in the King's Guard. He was twenty-seven years old, the oldest of nine children. His father had an estate in eastern Muergen, wherever that was. He was unmarried, although his parents had started telling him it was high time to secure a suitable bride. His father also wanted him to obtain a position at court, but Perin was still weighing the idea.

“The king has plenty of flatterers already,” he said. “Not that I am so opposed to flattery, but I've had relatively little practice in it, and the competition in Semr is terrible.”

There were no awkward pauses in conversation with Perin, Nora found. After a little while, it was as though she had known him a long time, and in a way she had—he reminded her of certain young men she'd known in her own world, cheerful, responsible sorts launching themselves in medicine or law or business with energy and optimism. She often found them attractive—they had frank and fearless smiles and well-tended, athletic bodies—but regrettably they were always engaged to longtime girlfriends they'd met in college. She almost forgot her fears for Aruendiel as they went along, it was so refreshing to talk to someone of her own age who talked un-self-consciously about himself but who was even more interested in finding out about Nora. He seemed surprised to learn that some of the rumors he had heard about her in Semr were true.

“You are really from another world?” Nora assured him that she was. But he was not entirely convinced. “You are not very different from someone born here. You speak the same language—you have the right number of eyes, ears, limbs—”

Nora laughed. “Thank you! Although in fact we speak a different language in my world—you heard me recite those poems. I've been told that I speak Ors rather poorly.”

“With a strange accent, but no stranger than other accents I have heard.” Perin smiled and shook his head. “Well, which world do you prefer?”

No one had asked her that before. “Oh, I miss my own world a lot,” she started. “My family, my friends.” He wanted to hear more about them, so she talked about her parents and her sisters until she began to be afraid that she was boring him. “On the other hand,” she said, seeking to change the subject, “there's no magic in my world.” People always seemed to be startled by that notion. Perin was, too, but not quite in the way she had anticipated.

“By the day-blade, you're lucky! This world would be a better place without magic, to my mind. Sorcerers have too much power, nothing happens in this kingdom without their say-so—and yet so much of their magic is useless.”

“I wouldn't say that.”

“Look at why we're here. Wizards at war with other wizards, but in the end it will be decided by swords and men. That's always the way, in all the battles I've ever been in, no matter which wizard we had on our side.”

“Hmm. Aruendiel would say that a good magician—or wizard—can turn a battle, but not just with magic—it takes brains and strategy.” She added: “And of course he'd say that you need good soldiers, too.”

After a moment, Perin said: “For all the ill things I've heard of Lord Aruendiel, I never heard that he was a stupid man or a bad wizard. How was he taken captive?”

“I don't know,” she said unhappily. What had Ilissa found, rummaging through Nora's mind? Nora remembered again that awful last night at the castle, how she and Aruendiel had quarreled over his poisonous regret at being alive. Ilissa traps you with what you want. And if what you want is to die—

She wrenched her attention back to Perin. “I don't know. He's been in worse fixes than this.”

Without hesitation, Perin said: “Then he will certainly get out of this one, too.”

T
he route that Perin had chosen took them along the northern side of a chain of narrow islands that rose from the icy marsh. The high ground provided some shelter from the wind, and also helped screen them from observation from the south and west. There was a deepening smudge of smoke on the southwest horizon—army campfires, Perin said. Twice, late in the afternoon, the wind blew the faint sound of a military horn to them.

The problem was that they could not tell which army was closest. Perin climbed a hill on one island for a better look, but could not make out any standards.

He looked thoughtful, though, as he came down the slope. “It's a sizable force,” he said. “In this climate, an army—at least, a human army—has no reason to put off fighting any longer than it has to. Our forces will attack as soon as they have sufficient strength.”

Nora heard some regret in his voice. “Do you want to join them?” she asked.

“I'll try to make up for my absence by delivering Lord Aruendiel.”

He was always careful to use Aruendiel's title, although Nora never did. It seemed uncharacteristic of Perin to be such a stickler for correctness, like Lady Pusieuv, but perhaps if you were in line to have Lord in front of your name someday—as Perin evidently was—you paid more attention to things like titles.

It might also be, Nora thought, that Perin was the sort of person who found formality more useful in dealing with those he did not consider friends. His pleasant face always looked slightly harder whenever the magician's name came up. She remembered the warning he'd given her in Semr.

His antipathy to the magician was odd, though, since he could be affable even to the ice demon. Gradually, he managed to coax the demon to tell them what it could about its former hunting ground of Maarikok. The castle, they learned, occupied a rocky promontory on one side of the island, and its gates opened to a narrow track, easily defended, carved into the side of a ridge. There was no other entrance.

Nora groaned inwardly at this. If the Faitoren mounted any kind of defense at all, she did not see how she and Perin could get into the castle. She wished that she had learned even one invisibility spell, or a transformation spell advanced enough to work on a human being.

“How did you get into the castle?” Perin asked the ice demon.

It preened slightly. “I went around to the back. They thought they were safe, but when they saw me—oh, they were so afraid, it was a feast.”

“But exactly how did you get in?” he pursued.

“I went up the cliffs. And through the wall.”

“How? Is there another entrance?”

“I made one. I made my hand into water and slipped it into the crack.” The ice demon's single hand swerved back and forth to illustrate. “And then I made my hand hard, and the stones broke apart.”

Perin looked puzzled, but Nora nodded, thinking of how a glass filled with water will crack in the freezer. The ice demon had used some basic kitchen science combined with its own brand of magic. “You can melt yourself at will?” she asked.

“If I wish to. But why should I wish to? People will only lock you up in little glass bottles.” The demon's pink mouth worked savagely.

“I haven't forgotten our bargain,” Nora said soothingly, although she was dreading the moment when she would have to fulfill her promise. It seemed suicidal to give the demon its body back, and she kept wondering if she should renege and refuse to open the glass bottles she carried. And yet the ice demon, so far, had lived up to its side of the agreement—and more, since it had left Perin untouched.

Later, she thought, I'll sort this out later. Let me get into Maarikok first.

They camped that evening on an islet, Maarikok no more than two hours away. Perin at first opposed lighting a campfire so close to the enemy, until Nora showed him that she could build a fire with jet-black flames and smoke that trickled away inconspicuously along the ground. The smoke spell came from Vlonicl; the black flames were her own idea, a variation on one of the spells that Hirizjahkinis had taught her. She was pleased to see that Perin was impressed.

“I was not sure what to think when you told me that you had been learning magic,” he said, watching a tendril of smoke flow across his foot.

“You thought that a woman could not be a magician,” Nora said.

“That's right. But I was more surprised that a person like you—honest and good-hearted—would want to practice magic.”

“I enjoy it,” she said, smiling. “Why don't you like magicians?”

“We don't have much use for wizards in my family. There's more glory to be gained with a good brain and a good sword.”

“But you see magic can be useful,” she said, indicating the fire.

“I don't dispute that. Why do you enjoy practicing magic?”

“Oh.” Nora stared into the fire's shadowy flicker, only a shade lighter than the gathering twilight. Because magic was interesting and because she seemed to be good at it. But that was not the whole answer. She glanced at Perin, and the steady current of his interest emboldened her to try to explain. “Practicing magic takes a kind of awareness that you don't feel ordinarily,” she said haltingly. “You have to really
know
the things around you and make them know you. And when you manage that connection, it's as though the world belongs to you. You feel more at home in it. As though you could do anything.”

More drily she added: “That's when everything goes well, of course. There are a lot of details that you have to get right. That's what I spend most of my time working on.”

“And Lord Aruendiel is your tutor.” It was not a question, but there was a faint note of incredulity in Perin's voice.

“Yes, a very good one.” She told him about working in Aruendiel's study in the afternoons, how he assigned her spells to learn, then watched and critiqued the way she performed them.

“And the rest of the time, what do you do?” Perin asked. She told him. Now he was openly shocked. “You cook and clean and take care of the livestock? Doesn't Lord Aruendiel keep enough servants to spare you such work?”

Nora smiled: Had Perin forgotten how he had taken her for a servant once? “Just the housekeeper and her husband.”

“You surprise me. The great Lord Aruendiel, with only two servants?” With a knowing grin, he added: “I suppose the peasants are afraid to work for him.”

“Possibly,” Nora said. There was truth in Perin's observation, but she was unwilling to say anything that would turn him more strongly against Aruendiel.

“And how large is his garrison?”

“He doesn't have one. I don't think he needs one, being a magician.”

“Perhaps not.” He questioned Nora more about the size of Aruendiel's holdings. Nora regretted that she had brought up Aruendiel's finances—guiltily she remembered the near fiasco of her new boots—but it was difficult to be guarded with Perin. Finally he said, sounding faintly amused: “I didn't know that Lord Aruendiel had such a modest estate. It sounds much smaller than my own father's estate, which—I will be honest with you—is not grand at all. But the rumor in Semr is,” he added, with a shrewd look, “that Lord Aruendiel will soon be much richer.”

“What do you mean?” Nora asked, flabbergasted.

“I've heard that he intends to lay claim to another, much larger estate—Lusul.”

“Oh, I've heard of Lusul. It used to be his.”

“It was his wife's estate. He held it through his marriage.”

“Aruendiel has never said anything about claiming it,” Nora said. Then she frowned. “Wait, his niece, Lady Pusieuv—she mentioned Lusul. She wanted him to claim it. As a dowry for her daughters.” The details came back to her now. “There's an inheritance dispute, right? Lady Pusieuv said that Aruendiel should have kept Lusul all along because—well, his wife was unfaithful.”

“It's a very rich prize, Lusul,” Perin said. “It's no surprise that Lord Aruendiel would want to recover it, especially given his reduced circumstances.”

“But he doesn't want it. He told Lady Pusieuv so.”

“That's hard to believe.”

“It's true.” She shook her head. “If there are rumors going around Semr that Aruendiel plans to claim Lusul, it's because of Lady Pusieuv. She's probably telling people he wants it in hopes he'll change his mind. Although he won't.”

“Why not?”

He would want nothing to do with anything that reminded him of his wife. “Aruendiel's very stubborn,” Nora said. “Once he has said no, he will not shift.” She stood up, uncomfortable—why should she feel so disloyal, talking about Aruendiel with Perin?—and pulled her cloak more tightly around her shoulders. “I should go feed the ice demon.”

By now, she had already fed the monster almost all of the poems she knew. She had a moment's panic when it turned its mouth up to her, a deep well waiting to be filled.

Then a verse came into her head. It was from a long poem, and she didn't know all the lines, but she knew enough. “‘That's my last duchess painted on the wall'—”

When she returned to the fire, she and Perin divided the last of the dried beef from his kit. Chewing the rank, salty strips of meat made her jaws ache. Nora felt disinclined to speak of Aruendiel again—it seemed uncertain ground—so she asked, after finally swallowing a particularly stringy morsel: “If you don't want to take a court position in Semr, what would you rather do?”

Perin laughed, a little ruefully. “I'm happy enough serving in the King's Guard, but my father is right. I can't stay there forever. There's not much chance for promotion or spoils these days, unless this Faitoren rebellion turns into a greater war. All the more reason, my father says, to make a good match.”

“You mean, to marry an heiress.”

Perin said nothing, but in the dimness, Nora made out a half nod. Then he said: “You said in Semr that you had had a cruel husband.”

“Yes.” Nora found that she did not much wish to discuss Raclin with Perin, either. “It was not a real marriage,” she added awkwardly. “I mean, he deceived me—I didn't know what he was really like.”

“This was the Faitoren prince?” So Perin had heard that story in Semr, too. Was he going to press for details? No, he only said: “You deserve a far better husband.” He spoke with surprising warmth.

“I hope so!” Nora said. She laughed, and after a moment Perin laughed with her.

“So you think one ought to know what a husband—or a wife—is like before marriage?” he asked. Nora said yes, very firmly. “It's not so easy, you know,” Perin said. “My family recently began marriage negotiations for me with Lord Denisk of Kaniskl, for his oldest daughter. I have met her just once. If the negotiations are successful and the marriage takes place, I would probably see her four or five more times before the wedding.”

Nora was surprised to register a pang of disappointment. But her instinct had been right: Men like Perin were always engaged. She said: “I think you should get to know her better. How did you like her when you met her?”

“Pretty, very shy. She wouldn't talk at all at first, but I played with her puppy and I think she liked me a little better then. She is thirteen years old.”

“You can't marry a thirteen-year-old!”

“She'd be fourteen or fifteen by the time of the wedding.” Perin sighed, an uncharacteristically gloomy sound. “To be honest, I'd much rather have a wife who is ready to cuddle her own babies, not just a puppy.”

“Then don't marry a child! I think you should find someone closer to your own age to marry, to have children with. If that's what you really want, a family,” Nora added, fumbling a little. “It sounds like it.”

“Oh, yes.” Perin's tone was definite. “Not just to honor my ancestors, either. I like children—preferably a houseful of children, like the one I grew up in.”

Nora had a sudden, vivid mental picture of Perin with his yet-unborn family—roughhousing with the boys, carrying a little girl on his shoulders, holding a wiggling baby with gentle awkwardness. He seemed to cast a circle of light in which everyone was happy and safe; all of them were laughing, including the shadowy woman by the cradle. “You'll be a good father, whoever you marry,” Nora said.

“The negotiations with Lord Denisk were not going well, the last I heard,” Perin said cheerfully.

•   •   •

The next morning they broke camp well before dawn. Nora groped her way over to Dorneng, hoping that it would be easier to rouse him this morning. Yesterday he'd been almost completely inert.

Today, though, as soon as she put her hand on his shoulder, she could feel that Dorneng was gone. His body was rigid, ungiving. She felt both relieved and somber. Every man's death diminishes me.

“He had already departed,” Perin said gently when she showed him.

Nora remembered saying almost the same thing herself, the other time. “It was probably a stupid idea to drag him all this way,” she said. “But I couldn't just leave him.”

“No, I see that,” Perin said. “You are not easily discouraged when you want to help someone.”

“Oh, no, it's not that—” He was giving her too much credit, but his words made her glow. In silence together they weighted Dorneng's corpse with stones, so that he would be buried in the marsh with the first thaw of spring.

By the time the stone towers of Maarikok turned pinkish gold in the first light, Nora and Perin were looking up at the castle from the eastern tip of the island. “Hmm,” said Perin. He was no doubt thinking the same thing that Nora was: Higher than we thought. On the island's northern side, the hill on which the fortress was built reared almost straight out of the marsh.

Perin turned his gaze to the south and took off his helmet. The wind coming across the marshland ruffled his short-cropped hair. Nora admitted to herself that he was better-looking than she'd first thought: well-knit features, a level glance. Watch it, she told herself, recognizing the symptoms: not a crush yet, but a distinct tingle.