Meet the Character

Posted on September 8, 2014September 8, 2014 by Sarah A. Hoyt

*The lovely and talented Jagi Lamplighter tagged me for a “meet the character” blog tour. Her own can be found here.

So you can either blame her or thank her for what follows:*

Meet His Grace, Seraphim Ainsling, the Duke of Darkwater, main character of Witchfinder.

The duke comes into his study wearily. He’s not at all sure about this strange person who wants to interview him, after all. It’s all very well to say she is the author, but the Duke of Darkwater is a proper Christian, raised as such, and really, he doesn’t believe in this whole thing about the Author being a woman sitting in another parallel world.

It’s not that Seraphim Ainsling, Duke of Darkwater disbelieves in other worlds. He’s a magic user, after all. What’s more, since his father’s shameful and still unexplained suicide, he’s been reading his father’s diaries.

He has discovered that his father was the King’s Witchfinder, which means the man in charge of a service that traveled to other worlds where magic was forbidden to rescue magic practitioners or, often, shape shifters, most of them children, most of them condemned to death.

And Seraphim, with the help of his half-brother, Gabriel Penn, has been doing the same work.

So he knows without being told that the woman slouching on one of his straight-backed chairs, wearing really quite indecent breeches and a far too molding shirt is from the world he and Gabriel nicknamed The Madhouse. It’s a barbarous place without magic, which, in its place has developed a lot of machinery, most of it bewildering.

The Duke comes in and bows, very correctly, and the wretched woman has the decency to stand, if not to curtsey. On the other hand, he wouldn’t like to see her attempt a curtsey. She looks rather… unbalanced, as is.

“Ah,” he says. “Lady Sarah Hoyt?”

She pushes her spectacles up her nose and tries to frown at him, but really looks like a cat about to cough up a hairball. “Not lady. Mrs. I’m an American. We don’t have titles of nobility, and I rather like it that way.”

He has time to do no more than say “Ah!” in a tone he hopes is interpreted as “Who let you in my study without knowing the most rudimentary mode of interaction between human beings,” before she explains, “Of course, I understand it’s different in your world, Avalon, where the land is bound to people by magic, and magic makes everything different. It’s strange, you know, because on Earth we tend to think of magic as an easy way to get things. But magic is really duty in your case, isn’t it.”

He inclines his head. Duty about covers everything he does, from trying to restore his house’s financial fortunes which his father quite squandered in wine and women and more wine and more women and occasionally even women and wine. There are the younger children – Caroline and Michael – to provide for. And something must be done about Gabriel, who had to leave the university over that unfortunate scandal involving the necromancer.

“So,” Mrs.-not-lady Hoyt says, smiling dementedly at him and waving around a notebook and something that looks like a stylus. “So, what would you say is your personal goal?”

“To try to bring my family through financial ruin and the implications of my father’s dangerous doings unscathed,” he says.

“But what about your illegal rescue missions? Didn’t the king forbid travel to other worlds? And don’t you and your half-brother do just that? What if they discover you?”

“Oh, you know about that?” He sighed. “If they discover us, attainder and perhaps death follow. At least imprisonment.”

“Then why do it?”

“Because we aren’t put in the world – any world – Mrs. Hoyt, to please ourselves and ignore our duty to other human beings.”

“Isn’t that a problem, though, approaching life as nothing but duty?”

The Duke’s green eyes look world-weary, suddenly, “The only thing—”

“Yes?”

“The only thing I resent is having to marry Honoria Blythe. But if I understand my father’s notes correctly that was his plan to restore our fortunes. And Blythe’s Blessings is a huge magic house. If only I were sure it wasn’t tied in to the Others.”

“The Others?”

“People who seem to be … ah… involved in shady financial and magical dealings in low magic worlds. We… they’ve attempted against Gabriel and I more than once, including setting traps.”

“I see.”

“Well, Mrs. Hoyt, I’m glad you do because I don’t.” He rustles some papers on his desk, “If you excuse me, Madam, I am extremely busy.” If only he were sure that Gabriel’s half-elf origins weren’t part of the problem.

He looks up to see if the intruder has left, but his office is quite empty and suddenly he isn’t sure why he thought he was talking to the Author. At any rate, surely if his lifestory were a book, surely it would be written by someone with more aplomb than a middle aged woman with neither style nor manners.

He stands up to ring his bell and summon Gabriel to his study for a discussion.

But pinned to the bellpull is a card. It says Witchfinder – in which Seraphim Ainsling, Duke of Darkwater discovers there is more to life than duty, and that his family can often rescue itself.

He frowns at the card, then drops it, fluttering, to the floor, and rings the bell.

WHOM TO TAG:

Being myself, which is a bit of a liability, I got busy writing and herding cats or in this case family members, and forgot to give people I wanted to tag a heads up.

Given all that, I got lucky three had responded by tonight. If others respond tomorrow, I’ll add them here as the day goes on.

The three that answered are:

Amanda Green –

I’m older than 20 and younger than death and that’s all you’ll get from me about my age. After all, it’s not polite to ask a woman how old she is. I’m a mother, a daughter and was a wife. I’ve spent most of my life in the South and love to travel. The only problem with that is my dog always thinks I’ve abandoned him when I do and it takes weeks to reassure the poor thing and my cat resents the fact I came back before he could figure out a way to kill the dog and hide the body. My house is haunted – it is, really. I swear it. What else explains the table that plays music and the light that comes on by itself? – but it’s mine and I love it. Okay, I’m a little strange. But that makes life interesting.

When it comes to writing, I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember. It’s something I can’t not do. Nor, it seems, can I stick with one genre. I have books out that are urban fantasy, romantic suspense, paranormal romance and military science fiction. I will soon be releasing in episodic form an historical fantasy set at the turn of the 20th Century. There never seems to be a dearth of ideas, only a severe lack of time to write them all.

Amanda blogs at Nocturnal Lives.

Dave Freer:

Dave Freer lives on Flinders Island in the Bass Strait, off Australia, being about as far into the remote backwoods as he could put himself or be put (let’s not ask which). There he lives a sort of chaotic experiment in self-sufficiency, involving a lot time at sea in small boats, doing remarkably silly things with spears and nets in water cold enough to freeze an impure though solid. His real talent is the fine art of making one vegetable grow, sort-of, where fifty plants flourished before. He’s the author of a slew of books (19?), a few of which blundered onto bestseller lists, until thrown out by respectable literature. He’s a disgrace, really. You can read of his misadventures at Flinders Freers.

Doug Dandrige:

Doug Dandridge was born in Venice Florida in 1957, the son of a Florida native and a Mother of French Canadian descent. An avid reader from an early age, Doug has read most of the classic novels and shorts of Science Fiction and Fantasy, as well as multiple hundreds of historical works. Doug has military experience including Marine Corps JROTC, Active Duty Army, and the Florida National Guard. He attended Florida State University, studying Biology, Geology, Physics, and Chemistry, and receiving a BS in Psychology. Doug then studied Clinical Psychology at the University of Alabama, with specific interests in Neuropsychology and Child Psychology, completing a Masters and all course work required for a PhD. He has worked in Psychiatric Hospitals, Mental Health Centers, a Prison, a Juvenile Residential Facility, and for the past five years for the Florida Department of Children and Families. Doug has been writing on and off for fifteen years. He concentrates on intelligent science fiction and fantasy in which there is always hope, no matter how hard the situation. No area of the fantastic is outside his scope, as he has completed works in near and far future Science Fiction, Urban and High Fantasy, Horror, and Alternate History.

You can find him here.

UPDATE: Jody Lynn Nye has also answered in the affirmative:

Jody Lynn Nye lists her main career activity as ‘spoiling cats.’ When not engaged upon this worthy occupation, she writes fantasy and science fiction books and short stories. You can find her here.

Free Novel Witchfinder, chapter 26

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Sarah A. Hoyt

For those completely lost by this I’m posting an extra chapter on Sunday because the last chapter was SO skimpy. For that chapter, look here

*This is the Fantasy novel I’m posting here for free, one chapter every Friday. If your conscience troubles you getting something for free, do hit the donate button on the right side. Anyone donating more than $6 will get a non-drm electronic copy of Witchfinder in its final version, when it’s published.
There is a compilation of previous chapters here all in one big lump, which makes it easier to read and I will compile each new chapter there, a week after I post. When the novel is completed and about to be edited the compilation page will probably be deleted.

Oh, this is in pre-arc format, meaning you’ll find the occasional spelling mistake and sentence that makes no sense. It’s not exactly first draft, but it’s not at the level I’d send to a publisher, yet. *

For previous chapters, look here: https://accordingtohoyt.com/witchfinder/

Mystery On Mystery

“What do you mean?” Seraphim asked. “You came from Avalon?” He remembered the pyramid world and the feeling that she was a citizen of Avalon who had learned her magic in some far off and desolate place.

She blinked at him. “No,” she said. “No. I simply knew I came from somewhere other than Earth.” She turned around and paced towards the window, and looked out of it at the farm outside. He’d caught a glimpse of it when he was walking from the bathroom and had a vague idea of a broad plane drenched in sun with mountains in the distance. He had tried, of course, to place those mountains in his own world. Landscapes that existed in one place existed – after all – in the other and this was often a good way to guess where in this world corresponded with his own world. But the mountains were wholly unfamiliar to him. Yet, since Miss Felix and her Grandmother spoke English, he had to assume they were somewhere in the North American colonies. But he could not place it in any of the English speaking portion of them. Not that it should matter. Sometimes different peoples occupied different places in alternate worlds, but it bothered him all the same.

“What would make you think you weren’t from Earth?” Seraphim said, then cleared his throat. “Did you have a memory from another world? Or is the knowledge of other worlds that well known in this one?” There were a few worlds, he knew, where knowledge of magic and of magical alternates to the world they lived in were quite normal and in fact subjects anyone might discuss. But in the Madhouse, where magic seemed not to be used at all?

“No. I think I was brought over as a newborn or very little more,” she said. “And no, belief in other worlds is not widespread. It’s just that…”

She turned away from the window and towards him. He was struck by how beautiful she looked. And he shouldn’t have found her beautiful at all, not in her outlandish clothes. In Avalon clothes she had struck him as comely enough, but not extraordinarily good looking. But here in her native – or not her native – world, in those blue breeches that molded her figure, in a shirt so light and plain that a lady from Avalon would consider it too light for underwear, she looked magnificent.

He thought it might be that he was weak and therefore susceptible. Then he thought no. It was that her small, delicate features, her dark hair, all of it lent itself to far simpler styles than anyone in Avalon would dream of wearing. He shifted in bed, lest his attraction should become obvious. But she was looking into his eyes.

“A little more than twenty five years ago,” she said. “My parents were childless and … well… very upset about that state. They wanted children, but there seemed no hope of conceiving one. Adoption in our world, in our region is, for various reasons, a complex and difficult process, or a costly one. You can’t have one without the other. Also, father’s income was irregular as he was a classical musician, and… No, never mind that, it would take forever to explain. They finally managed to conceive, but the baby was still borne. As a way of bringing mother out of a very deep depression, father took her to Paris when he went there to play.

“They were walking outside the convent of Holy Grace, in Paris, when they saw a basket appear on the steps. The basket contained a girl: me.” She gave him a brief, brittle smile. “One of my father’s friends knew a doctor in Paris, and they arranged to have it claimed mother had given birth to me, and for me to have a birth certificate, which allowed them to bring me home at the end of father’s engagement in Paris six months later.”

He tried to make sense of her story. “But surely,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that you are from another world. I mean, if your parents didn’t believe in other worlds, surely–”

“No, listen, when they found me, they saw me appear on the steps.”

“But–”

“They were walking under a steady rain, with an umbrella, you know? That’s why there was no one around. But, and my wraps, were no more wet than if we’d been under the rain for only one second. And that, you see, is why they thought I’d come from elsewhere. They didn’t quite put it at another world, but the idea of parallel worlds is not completely alien here, and there are stories of people appearing or disappearing out of nowhere.”

“I see. So you thought you might have come from elsewhere, and you wanted to find out from where?”

“They didn’t even tell me I was adopted,” she said. “Not till I was fourteen, and then they didn’t tell me. Only they died in an accident, driving to a new job with a philarmonic in Kansas. I’d stayed behind, with grandma, to finish out my school year. Anyway… When they died grandma told me. As you’ve found out she has some magic, and she’d taught me some magic. It is of the sort that peasants do in Avalon, you know, healing minor ailments and such. I took what she gave me, and I built on it, and of course, my magic is much stronger–”

“Strong enough for a noble woman in Avalon.”

She flashed him a smile. “Yes, my landlady in Avalon has the persistent idea I’m some nobleman’s byblow.” And then quickly, as he felt his cheeks heat. “Oh, I beg your pardon, I’m back on Earth, see, where no man would find it embarrassing to hear that, not even from a woman’s lips. Anyway, her illusions amused me because surely… but never mind that. I don’t even know if I come from Avalon. I might come from another world more magical than Avalon, where a peasant has as much power as a nobleman in Avalon does. No. But yes, I had more power, and after a while, grandmother thought, perhaps my origins explained it and so she told me. Therefore, I was … primed you might say, the first year I was living away from home and working at my first job when Antoine appeared in front of me, on a deserted street. And I was prepared to learn magic from him and to…” She blushed. “And to accept his invitation to go and see the other worlds. He said it would be fun,” she said, wistfully. “And it was for a time. Gloriously fun.”

Seraphim guessed at what she didn’t say and didn’t think much of the Antoine fellow. Even if he hadn’t tried to kill Seraphim himself, and if his corpse hadn’t been the reason that Seraphim found himself in these straits, Seraphim didn’t hold with the sort of fellow who gave a respectable girl a slip on the shoulder.

And despite the odd clothes, and what he was sure was a very odd society, Seraphim would have put hands in the fire that Nell Felix was or had been a respectable woman. He chided himself on the had been. It was different in Avalon. If a girl lived with a man as lovers, and it became known, the doors of society would close to her, and she would cease being treated as a respectable girl. But he wasn’t sure at al this truth held here. In fact, just as a feeling, he had a sense it didn’t. So, she was still a respectable woman. And Antoine had lured her away. He was sure of it. But he wouldn’t say it. Instead, he played with the edge of the blanket, and Nell, perhaps noticing no answer was forthcoming, said, “I know I was a fool, you don’t need to tell me, but I… well… was very young. And I’ve been prattling on, and making you tired. You’re not well yet. Sleep. Tomorrow, if you’re feeling better, I’ll show you around the farm.”

But it wasn’t till the next day that she showed him around the farm. Frankly showing him around the kitchen had been a near fatal shock. He started to understand why these people had no servants. Who needed servants, when machines kept food cold, when stoves lit at the flick of a button, when machines even washed dishes?

After a while, he’d asked for pen and paper and started making notes. “For my brother Michael,” he said. He sat at the broad, golden oak kitchen table and drew schematics on his paper, and made notes. “We can’t hope to harness this electricity you speak of, or at least not fast enough to–”

“It’s not that,” she’d interrupted. “It’s more that electricity interferes with magic. Even mine is not as powerful as it is in Avalon. I think, generationally if you introduced electricity in your world now, you’d be devoid of magic in a hundred years. Or have it only at that low level Earth has it.”

He nodded. “I suspected there was something like that,” he said. “Some worlds have less magic naturally, but I didn’t feel this as being true on Earth. And so I don’t propose to introduce electricity to Avalon, something for which I doubt Ainsling’s Arcana has enough capital, and that’s supposing something terrible hasn’t happened to my estates. I have a feeling…” He shrugged. “At any rate, my brother Michael is very inventive and gifted at designing magical machinery. I’m sketching the ideas for him, and hopefully he can design them to run by magic.”

She tilted her head sideways, which he’d learned meant that she was thinking something she was afraid of saying out loud, for fear it would pain someone. He’d seen her look like that when her grandmother had said something about Nell now staying home where she belonged.

He understood what she wouldn’t say and said, “I know, I know. You mean that Michael has been stolen away to fairyland and that he might never come back. But… never fear. We will find him and rescue him.” He’d looked at her, his eyebrows arched. “I keep getting the sense that there is something very bad afoot in Avalon, that I was got out of the way so something could be done to my family. Today I had a feeling Gabriel was trying to find me. I dreamed…” He made a face. “If I weren’t still so weak and my power weren’t still so impaired, I’d scry to see what is happening there, and study where we can return.”

“As to that,” Nell said. “I can scry though the power is limited here, if you–”

At that moment her grandmother came into the kitchen, from the door to the basement stairs, “Nell, I was wondering if Mr. Ainsling, since you say he’s been in so many worlds, would be able to tell us where the basket and fabric you were found in came from.”

Seraphim submitted in good part to being shown a wicker basket – of fine manufacture, but nothing special, and two unexceptionable blue blankets. Wool, and fine wool at that, but it meant nothing. “It’s very little to go on,” he said. “Unless I scry. She wasn’t wearing any particular clothes, I gather?”

“Only a diaper,” her grandmother said. “Linen, but no marks on it.”

“Then I’m afraid there’s nothing to tell me. It could be any of a dozen worlds,” he said. “I think she’s from Avalon, of course, but I would perhaps think that.”

The two women exchanged a look. Her grandmother sighed. “Well,” she said. “When my daughter in law pulled the blankets off Nell, something fell off. We don’t know how it came to be there, but … When Nell was young she made up stories about her mother putting it there to recognize her by, but it makes no sense, since every other identifying detail seems to have been removed.”

“Something?”

Nell ran up the stairs, to her room which Seraphim had learned was next to his. She came back moments later with her right hand tightly closed. When she opened it, a gold medallion shone in it.

Seraphim’s heart skipped a beat and his breath caught. But he didn’t say anything till he picked the medallion in his palm, and saw upon it, on one side, a figure of a crowned lion, and on the other a stylized apple tree. He tried to speak several times before he managed it. At last, after clearing his throat, he managed, in a thread of voice, to start in the most irrelevant place, “I bet this pendant managed to find its way into your clothes no matter where you left it, until you were about ten.”

“How did you know?” Nell said. “I ended up wearing it on a chain because I could not get rid of it.”

“Until you reach the age of reason, it’s spelled to accompany you everywhere, in case you get lost, so you can be identified without doubt. I suspect someone thought they’d neutralized that spell, or perhaps didn’t know about it. You have to be related to know, I think…”

“We’re related?” she said, sounding shocked.

He let out a bark of laughter which shocked him, because he didn’t feel in the least amused. This added a complication he wasn’t ready to contemplate. “Very distantly, your highness,” he said at last. “I believe I’m your sixth cousin.”

“Your–” she said, and blanched.

“Yes, Nell, I’m very sorry, but I believe you’re the lost princess of Avalon.”

Free Novel — Witchfinder, chatper 13

Posted on December 16, 2011December 24, 2011 by Sarah A. Hoyt

UPDATE: A SLIGHTLY EDITED AND PRETTIED UP COMPILATION OF ALL CHAPTERS UP TO A WEEK OLD IS HERE

*This is the Fantasy novel I’m posting here for free, one chapter every Friday. I’ve been posting director’s commentary at the end of chapters, but I think it detracts from the experience, so I’ll do that on Sunday, instead, for the previous chapter. If your conscience troubles you getting something for free, do hit the donate button on the right side and down. Anyone donating more than $6 will get a non-drm electronic copy of Witchfinder in its final version, when it’s published. And, oh, yeah, the cover sucks, but I haven’t had time for a new one.

Oh, this is in pre-earc format, meaning you’ll find the occasional spelling mistake and sentence that makes no sense. It’s not exactly first draft, but it’s not at the level I’d send to a publisher, yet.*

For first chapter, look here

For 12th chapter, look here

Changeling

Nell clutched the blanket tightly around herself and wondered what madness she’d fallen into. The entire night – indeed, the entire time since her interview with Sydell had acquired a feeling of unreality.

She had to be dreaming. Antoine could not be dead, lying cold and pale on the floor, on that makeshift pallet, staring at the ceiling with unseeing eyes. Antoine had been…

In her mind she remembered the first time she’d seen him, dressed in jeans and a pale blue t-shirt and looking very much like a twenty something year old computer repairman. Which was what he’d said he was, that first time he’d taken her out for coffee. But then there had come the hints that not all was as it seemed, you have great power he’d told her, and, by the time he’d shown her how to open a portal, by the time he’d given her a glimpse of other worlds, it had become obvious to her that he didn’t mean this as a metaphor.

Perhaps the dream started then, she thought. Perhaps if she closed her eyes and believed really hard, she’d wake up back at her desk, in front of a computer running some routine.

“Caroline,” Darkwater said. He spoke very softly, his voice all the more terrifying for seeming so unnaturally calm. “What do you mean by a changeling?”

Nell didn’t want to know what he’d been doing, or what had been happening in this household since she was last year. It was clear to her that though Seraphim had recovered from his near-brush with death – or at least this time Gabriel Penn didn’t seem to be making desperate attempts at reviving his half-brother, he still looked near death. He was pale, his green eyes surrounded by dark circles, his lips looking dry and colorless. And the aura of magic around him looked faded.

This was all the more puzzling since Nell gathered that more than a day had passed since she’d been here. His power should have recovered more, unless–

Unless something else had happened to make him lose strength. She remembered the talk by the lake, about how someone had attempted against Seraphim’s life.

The gardeners, the under-gardeners, and for all she knew the stable boys, all those men who had been on those boats, in the lake, had been – if what she understood of their talk was right – trying to record the event, so that Seraphim would not be condemned for murder. But that meant that he had been attacked by Antoine. Or at least he thought he had.

She felt vaguely sick. She didn’t know when she’d stopped being in love with Antoine, but she’d never suspected him– No, that was not true, either, over the last months she’d suspected him of perfidy often enough. She simply had never been sure enough of it to consider doing anything that would endanger his life. It seemed like a very foolish thing to condemn a man to death simply because he might not have been straightforward with her, or because he had deceived her by telling her he loved her.

But she had suspected he had lied to her, and more. First, because it seemed very unlikely that he’d come to Earth in search of her power, her aura of power, as he called it, guided through different worlds by the call of it. Since she’d been in Avallonis, Nell had gathered that her power was indeed strong, and indeed large. But to call someone between worlds? That didn’t even make sense. Even the stronger magicians, even with scrying powers, had to be looking for something specific before they homed in on a pattern among universes. Simply having a strong pattern didn’t call anyone.

Second because she’d seen for herself that Antoine was strong and accomplished, and knew his way across the multi universe. And if that was true, how could he be so foolish as to transport into Avallonis without a care, and let himself be caught in Sydell’s trap.

No, there was more there than he’d told Nell. He had come here for some reason, and if it hadn’t been to fall into the trap, still it had to be for some reason more important than that he found the world fascinating and wanted to show it to Nell.

But still– But still Nell didn’t think that Antoine deserved to die, and now, she couldn’t think or believe that Antoine was an assassin. Myriad ideas combated in her mind. What if this weren’t real Antoine, but a clever simulacrum? What if this was all designed to make her break and tell all to Darkwater?

Except Darkwater wasn’t even looking at her, but at the intense dark haired young woman, who looked so much like the Dowager Duchess. “How do you know it’s a changeling, Caroline, and not simply Michael in a trance?”

The girl they called Caroline shook her head. Her hands pleated nervously at the skirt of her robe. “It’s not Michael,” she said. “It can’t be. Even in a trance he would wake up when I came in. He would react to my magic. Seraphim, he is all pale and his eyes are blank, and he looks… well, he looks more perfect than any normal human can look. And … And…” Her voice rose in a wail of distress. “Mama says it is a changeling.”

After her outburst, she took a deep breath and exhaled forcefully, and thrust her head and chest a little forward, as though she expected her brother to challenge her. Darkwater didn’t challenge her. He opened his mouth then closed it, then opened it again to say, in a voice that was little more than a whisper, “Mama?” He looked up and to the side, to where Gabriel Penn stood beside the sofa, seemingly keeping guard over his wounded master. The two men exchanged a glance that contained in it volumes of information Nell would give something to acquire. Both of them looked grave, and whatever wordless communication between them, it didn’t dispel their fears, as both looked even more worried after it.

“One moment, Caroline,” Seraphim said. “I will come with you, in a moment.” He glared over his shoulder at Gabriel’s exclamation, and Nell could see Gabriel making an effort to prevent himself from further outburst.

Darwater turned away from his half-brother, and to the two men with the pallet on which Antoine lay. “Take him to the cold room,” he said. “We must notify the coroner of the death. Send Jem, on a fast horse. Tell him I will be available for interviewing no later than tomorrow afternoon.” He looked back at his sister, “And now, Caroline, I shall come with you.”

“Your grace,” Gabriel said. “You are not well enough to–”

“There are duties,” Seraphim said, ostensibly talking to no one in particular. “Which one cannot delegate, no matter how tired or ill one is.” He made an attempt to rise, supporting himself on his cane, then turned to look at Gabriel. “Give me your arm, Penn. I believe my strength is not equal to what I’d like it to be.”

His strength was not in fact equal to much of anything, Nell said, as she noticed how Gabriel Penn not only allowed the Duke to hold onto his arm to rise, but put his arm around the Duke’s waist to support him. How ill was the duke, and why? Had he really sent the killing bolt that killed Antoine? She shivered at the idea, and, as the gentlemen who’d brought Antoine’s corpse in prepared to take him out again, she realized she’d been forgotten.

The Duke and Penn were following Caroline Darkwater out of the room and Nell thought she could stay here, until Darkwater had solved whatever problem had now visited his house, and came back to his room, and remembered Nell existed. Or she could go with Antoine’s body and keep up some sort of vigil in the cold room – perhaps try to discover if that truly was Antoine’s corpse or some contrivance that looked like it. Or… Or she could follow Darkwater and Gabriel Penn and find out what had happened to the Duke’s younger brother and what else might be behind the turmoil in this household.

She pulled her blanket tighter about herself. It truly didn’t make her any warmer, because her hair was dripping wet. But it made her feel somehow more protected. And then she started behind the Duke and his half-brother, as though she had every right to follow them.

The gardeners were waiting, with Antoine’s body, but she thought that the maids, stationed on either side of the door might stop her. So she threw her head back and looked very haughty indeed as she went by them.

The maids didn’t move. They didn’t even look at her as she walked past. She’d have suspected magic, only she’d learned in Avallonis the value of a good pretense and a good display of arrogance surpassed all logic.

The maids didn’t even follow as she walked after the Darkwaters and Penn down a long, marble-paved hallway. Really, the one thing about this world that kept astonishing her was how the houses of the noblemen looked more magnificent than anything she’d ever seen on Earth. Take the way the hallway ceiling arched above, painted a deep blue and sprinkled with gold stars. It was like something out a theatrical set, rather than something you’d find in real life.

It would testify in favor of this being a dream, except that in dreams one’s feet didn’t ache with cold and slosh in shoes that felt like they’d fall apart every time she took a step. And in dreams it was very rare for one’s hair to drip down ones back in a disconsolate, icy dribble.

They walked down the hallway, then up a curving staircase, then down another hallway. As Nell tried to orient herself, she realized they were going towards the southern wing of the house, and, from what she remembered of the house’s exterior – which wasn’t much as she’d only ever seen it from the back, while approaching it, the other two times she’d magically transported into and out of it – to a little tower that protruded out of it at that corner.

She knew she was right when, ignoring the hallway to the southern wing, Seraphim, instead, opened the door to the tower.

The Darkwaters, followed by the quite disregarded Nell, entered a huge, circular room. The tower might look small from the outside, but that was, Nell judged, because it was dwarfed by the other elements of the massive Darkwater house. Inside, the tower was one vast room. Vast enough that on Earth it could have passed as the lobby of a very large hotel. Its architecture too resembled something one might find in a hotel lobby, being largely unimpeded: just one vast circular space, going up far more than one story to–

For a moment Nell looked up, disbelieving because it seemed to her as though the tower had no roof, but, instead, were open to velvety dark summer night sky, with naught but a golden spider web of some sort, between them and the night. Then she realized the golden spider web was a framework for glass, and that the tower was one vast observatory or perhaps some sort of conservatory. And that roof had to be held together with magic, because with the technology of this world there was no way to keep that much glass up with so little metal.

Then she looked down and realized that there was more magic at work here than the roof. The space might be free of architectural abstractions, but it was filled with machines, and … contraptions, for which Nell had no name.

In the way of this world, these machines, no matter how utilitarian they tried to look, were made of polished brass and leather and wood, and their rounded shapes couldn’t help but looking pleasing. And they were animated. Arms moved, gears turned. Something that looked like a giant telescope pointed at the ceiling, gyrated slowly on a frame, clicking gently in a steady rhythm, while a mechanical arm attached to it wrote steadily with a quill on paper.

In the middle of all this, perched on what looked remarkably like a high barstool made of brass, sat a young man, probably Caroline’s age or a little younger. He was so young, one might still be able to call him pretty without offending too badly. He looked like a version of Darkwater, or perhaps of Gabriel Penn, made of clay that had yet to harden, or like a sketch of one of them done hastily and left too smooth and soft.

He didn’t turn to look as the party approached. The Dowager Duchess, who stood next to him, looking at him, intently, as though he were an object that must be puzzled out, did turn to look at them. “Seraphim!” she said. Then she hastened towards them, hands extended. “You shouldn’t have come. Indeed, you look very ill. And there is nothing you can do here, you see. Michael has been taken. They’ve left this in his place.”

“Mama, are you sure–” Seraphim said, and stopped.

Nell was sure he had stopped because, like her, if he unfocused his eyes and brought his mage sight to bear, he could see that the thing on the stool was not and had never been a human adolescent. It was more akin to an animated sculpture made of ice, or perhaps intersecting nodes of light and power. Something that could only impersonate a human for those with no mage-sight.

Changeling. That was a thing the elves did, wasn’t it? Was this creature an elf then? Or merely a construct the elves had left behind?

Witchfinder, Free Novel — Chapter 7 and some “director’s commentary.”

Posted on November 4, 2011December 24, 2011 by Sarah A. Hoyt

UPDATE: A SLIGHTLY EDITED AND PRETTIED UP COMPILATION OF ALL CHAPTERS UP TO A WEEK OLD IS HERE

*I’m posting this novel here, free, one chapter at a time. I reserve the right to put in more than one chapter, as I did this time.This is being posted as I write it, so it’s in pre-earc (for those from Baen) or in close-to (but not quite) -first draft state. Once it’s finished it will undergo editing and then it will be published in some form. I’m going to put this up with its own category so you can find it. For those interested in throwing something in the storytellers bowl, there is a donate button on the right hand side of the site. Anyone contributing $6 or more will get an electronic (non DRM) version of the novel upon completion. Of course, donating is not mandatory, nor even required in any way. I hope you enjoy the chapters. Today’s installment is closer to first draft than normal, and I’m still not sure how much of it will stay in on final pass. For Director’s Commentary of sorts, look at the bottom of the chapter. I don’t feel like dealing with the cover just now, so it will wait till tomorrow morning (I’m scheduling this at eleven pm).*
For first chapter, look here

For chapters five and six, look here

The Coils of Duplicity

Of all the ridiculous situations to be caught in, Gabriel Penn thought. And then he wanted to laugh at the idea that he would call what just happened – Seraphim almost getting killed, a strange woman in the room, a dragon shifter under Seraphim’s book table ridiculous.

It was too mild a word and too inappropriate. It was like when, at some grand affair, the most ridiculous things would run through his mind while he leaned against the wall, all but invisible to the company. If he said half the things he thought, he would be … No, he wouldn’t be turned out of the house. The dowager would never do that, and neither would Seraphim. But they might very well shut him up in the attics to which gothic novels would relegate insane relatives.

The situation was disastrous. The more so, as he saw the Dowager Duchess’s expression grow grave, her eyes pinch, and her expression acquire that hint of dismay that used to accompany her looks at the husband she doted on, and who was never faithful to her. She looked at the bed, intently. Then back at Gabriel. “Gabriel,” she said. Unlike Seraphim, unlike what anyone else would have done, she never called him by his surname. She never treated him as a servant. She treated him… Not as her son, exactly, but not much different. “Gabriel. You will tell me what has happened to my son.”

Gabriel opened his mouth, then closed it. The words had been more than a demand, a certainty. For a moment, the world shifted under Gabriel’s feet. He couldn’t remember what he’d told the Duchess before, to excuse Seraphim’s using a transport spell, right in front of his mother. He didn’t know how to justify Seraphim’s near-mortal wounds or the presence of Miss Helena Felix.

And then he thought again how much like his father’s imbroglios this was, and how if this had been the old lord, the reason would be something like he had to run out for an assignation with a married woman, whose husband in turn had challenged him for a duel and who–

And Gabriel had found his feet. When caught in something unlawful, you knew better than to try to make himself sound completely innocent. Unlike Seraphim, he’d had to learn to lie very early and lie very well. In this house, he, like Seraphim, had been told to speak only the truth. But in the years before the Duke had found him and brought him home, he’d learned well enough to survive by any means necessary. The advantage of not being legitimate, of not being the heir, is that you were to an extent free of the constricting bands of honor that imprisoned those of the lawful world.

“Forgive me, your Grace,” he said, and let his nervousness leak through, and his exhaustion. He intended to let the Duchess know exactly how gravely her son had been hurt. That way the best of care could be contrived. And Seraphim was going to need the best of care. Gabriel would risk both their honors and their reputations rather than his half-brother’s life. “You will remember I told you that Seraphim had to go to London with all possible speed, to… to take care of a matter of business, and that he would be back upon the instant.”

“You told me he had to go on a matter of gambling.”

“It comes to the same for Seraphim, whose gambling is a debt of honor and who–”

“Cease. I know the excuses. But how come he–” the Duchess took a step to the bed, and stared at Miss Felix. If Gabriel hadn’t stepped in front of her, she would have approached the bed.

“Well, it turned out the betting… well… it went wrong.”

“You will not tell me that my son cheated.”

“No, Your Grace. But the man he bested thought so. And challenged Seraphim to a duel, which– His oponent used a spelled knife and– and a magic gun.”

The Lady Barbara reeled. She stepped backward, taking her hand to her lips, in a gesture of fear, then walked around Gabriel and to the bed. Now, Gabriel let her. He would have spared her the pain of realizing how close to death Seraphim had come, but he must not. The Darkwaters were all magical talents, at least as good as his own and perhaps better. And it would take all of their talent to get him through this.

He turned around and watched as the Duchess took her son’s hand in hers. She looked, Gabriel thought, perfectly composed, serene. It was something he envied Seraphim. A mother who, without being cold, could be controlled.

Her magic working – which Gabriel was sure she was doing – did not show, nor could he read it by more than a feeling of magic in the air, a sensation on the edge of sound that energy had been sent forth and absorbed.

The Lady Barbara looked up. “Which of you?” she said, and looked from the young woman to Gabriel, then again. “Which of you used the resurection spells? Three times?”

“Mister Penn did, Madam,” Miss Felix said, with such disarming honesty that Gabriel didn’t know whether to respect her for it, or to hate her for making his life yet more complicated. She must be gentry, he thought. And legitimate too. Only someone raised in the strictest bonds of respectability could be so stupidly honorable.

“Gabriel?”

He looked down and let go the will power keeping his immense tiredness hidden. “I had to, Your Grace. I couldn’t let him die.”

“No,” the Duchess said. “But you could have called me. I have…” She looked pensive. “Some experience in saving the lives of the foolish men close to me.” And, before Gabriel could ask her what she meant, she looked at Miss Felix, “And you are?”

And here, Gabriel consigned his soul to perdition once and for all. He knew that if the young lady spoke, she would say something disastrous, such as that Seraphim had saved her from the Pyramid world. Or worse, that Seraphim had saved her and a young lion shifter. If she was in the habit of uttering the truth with no regard for the circumstances, likely she’d tell it now. And Gabriel could not allow that. Not even if it called for the most outrageous lie of his untruthful career.

His voice shook with the sheer enormity of it, but probably made it all the more convincing, as he said, “Miss Felix, Your Grace, is… a personal friend of mine. With– With the ball in the house, we’d expected to have privacy, you see, and … and we expected to be able to talk undisturbed.”

The expression of shock in the Duchess’s eyes, as she turned back to look at Gabriel was only half that in the eyes of Helena Felix, and Gabriel felt unaccountably gratified that he had managed to pay her back for the position she’d put him in. He gave her the hint of a restrained smile. If he was going to burn in hell for eternity, he’d amuse himself while he could.

The Duchess looked at him a long time. After the shock, a flicker of something in her eyes gave Gabriel the uneasy impression that she knew all too well all that was likely to have happened was literally talk, but then she cleared her throat and said, in a shaking voice, “Well… Well… I’m sure that… That is, you wouldn’t bring a woman of ill repute into the house, so you and Miss Felix shall let me know when I am to wish you joy.” She gave him the once over, and there was the hint of incredulity in her eyes again. Or was Gabriel imagining it? He did tend to think that he was glass front and everyone could see right through him. “You’ve been very sly and kept it all from us, but I’m glad that Miss Felix was here, to help you save Seraphim’s life.” Her look at both of them told them she didn’t believe a word of it.

“Now,” she said, taking off the long gloves that had protected her hands and forearms during the ball. “If you and Miss Felix will leave, I will look after my son. Tell Martin to send for Doctor Wilson. And–”

And Gabriel, in a sweat of apprehension, thinking of the boy shifter under the table, and of Miss Felix, who, for all he knew, had nowhere to go in this world, plunged madly into the breach, armed with nothing but his knowledge of etiquette and his experience of living so many years amid the truthful and the honorable. “Your Grace cannot stay here,” he said. “I beg your pardon,” he added, to Lady Barbara’s shocked expression. “But Your Grace cannot. Your Grace must see that if your grace were to disappear now, with the guests not having left yet, this would become the most astonishing rumor of the season, and no one would cease talking about it… oh, for a year perhaps. Particularly since the Duke didn’t announce his engagement as everyone expected.”

Lady Barbara favored him with a darkling look. It was not quite a look of reproach, it certainly wasn’t a look of dislike, but it was the look that told him she knew very well he was manipulating her behavior for her own good, and that she didn’t enjoy it. “Whenever you start larding your speech with Your Graces, Gabriel,” she said with the disarming frankness she had passed on to her son, “it is a sure thing you’re trying to fool me. I have not forgotten the forcing house incident.” She pressed her lips together, if at the memory of the most spectacular mishap of his and Seraphim’s childhood or at the present situation, Gabriel couldn’t guess. “But much more the worse is that you’re true. I cannot gratify my feelings by staying here, and thus risk humiliating Lady Honoria, who will be humiliated enough that Seraphim has as good as jilted her in our own ballroom.” She sighed. “I shall say Seraphim is indisposed. They will understand he’s drunk enough to be well and truly disguised, quite out of his mind. And no one will doubt it, considering the way he smelled and acted in the ballroom.” She sighed heavily, and leaned over her son on the bed. Touching her lips to his forehead, she sighed again, then straightened. “Don’t trouble yourself with sending for the doctor, Gabriel. I shall do so myself. Stay by Seraphim’s side, until Doctor Wilson arrives.”

She was out the door before he could get over the feeling she knew very well what manner of lies he’d imposed upon her.

“The forcing house incident?” Miss Felix asked.

“Oh.” He took a deep breath and wondered if he could find the strength to talk. He was so tired that he felt as though this must be what it felt like to be ninety. Not that he expected to ever make it to that age. “I was … Nine? Perhaps ten. I’m not… precisely sure of my own age, only that I’m older than Sera– His Grace. Probably a year or so older, and conventionally we consider my birthday the same as his only a year before. That was Sera– His Grace’s idea.” He saw she was looking at him in confusion, and tried to call all his strength to him and order his thoughts. “I arrived on his birthday, you see, and he wanted to share the party, which when you consider that I came into a dining room full of the children of the nobility in the rags in which… in which the old duke had found me–” He saw her eyes widen and decided he was going to far. No need to tell this stranger from another world about Seraphim’s longing for a brother close to his age, or how he’d decided that Gabriel would be that brother, even when they were both too young to realize they were related by blood. “Never mind that. His Grace was kind and generous even as a child. At any rate, he said it was to be my party too, and therefore it was decided my birthday was the same as his. And I was allowed to have a piece of the cake and the celebration… After the housekeeper gave me the most thorough bath of my life, before or since.” He caught himself up again, knowing he was saying too much. Curse his weakness and his depleted magic. “I had lived here about a year, or maybe a little more than a year, when Seraphim and I decided to practice a growing spell we’d seen one of the farmers perform on the strawberries in the forcing house. We were both, you see, inordinately fond of strawberries, and it was March and the plants just set in the soil.”

“And it worked?”

“After a fashion, Miss,” he said. “We did grow strawberries, but we must have got something wrong, because they grew to astonishing size.” Her gaze was interested. “And exploded. And we had to clean the inside of the glass with rags. For five days. But not for lack of my making up an elaborate story involving robbers. Her Grace was indulgent, because, I suppose, she feels sorry for me.” And, plunging as quickly as he could away from that, he said, “But none of this matters, Miss. What matters now is to find you a place to stay before the doctor arrives.”

She looked surprised. “I don’t need a place to stay,” she said. “I need a minute’s calm to put togehter a transport spell.”

“Miss?” Was she not aware that she’d been brought to a different world.

She blushed, from the neck up, till she looked the rough color of a turnip. “I beg your pardon,” she said. “I suppose you assumed I was from that horrible desert world, with the pyramids? Well, I was not. My magic simply got entangled with the Duke’s and it pulled me into that world and… It was why I was so distraught and half out of my mind. I went out of the world and back into it again in less than a few minutes. And, as you know, magical entanglements are painful and confusing for both people. It cannot have helped his Grace’s reactions, either.”

“What didn’t help His Grace’s reactions,” Gabriel said, aware that his voice colored the honorific in irony. “Is that he’d already lost too much blood and was in a considerable amount of pain besides.” Which was the only reason that Gabriel could think of why Seraphim hadn’t realized that his magic had become entangled. But it made no sense. “The thing is, Miss, that entanglements don’t happen, unless– ”

A knock at the door and a voice called out, “Doctor Wilson is here, Mr. Penn.” It was the voice of the housekeeper. “He’s coming up the stairs.”

Gabriel felt both relief and annoyance. Relief that he could now get the young shifter out of the room and into the capable hands of Gabriel’s Godmother, and annoyance that he would not be able to question this young woman till after the doctor left. But there was no time to lose. He lifted the table covering, and offered the boy his hand, which the boy took, allowing Gabriel to lead him to the door.

The housekeeper, a kind woman of middle years, who still treated Gabriel as though he, himself, had been an urchin, looked from him to the boy when he opened door. “I thought there was as good a chance as any that there was someone,” she said. “If the Duke is took ill.” She looked at the boy. “I shall put a damping spell on his shifting, shall I, until he learns to control it. And the poor boy as naked as the day he was born. No worry. I’ll get him into the blue room and bring him clothes.”

Since the blue room was right next door, the empty room reserved for the wife Seraphim would eventually take, Gabriel knew it was safe enough. The relief of it must have made him weak, because he leaned against the door frame to recover his breath.

When he opened his eyes again, Doctor Wilson was saying, “And what have you been doing with yourself, Penn? Don’t tell me it is nothing, because you look in need of my services, though it was the Duke I was called for.”

Gabriel managed a weak laugh. “It is nothing, compared to His Grace’s wounds, sir,” he said. And as he led the doctor into the room, he realized that Miss Felix was no longer there. He felt vexed he’d not prevented her transport spell, which she’d told him she would use, then relieved she was no longer there, and he didn’t have to worry about what she might say. It didn’t matter if she’d gone somewhere. He wasn’t fooled into thinking her presence acccidental.

And there were always ways of finding out who she really was and where she’d come from. Many of those ways would have to wait until Seraphim recovered consciousness. But they would work. And he and Seraphim would discover who this woman was who took so much interest in the Duke of Darkwater.
***************************************************************

Director’s commentary —
It is clear to me now that Gabriel Penn is not all he seems to be. Weirdly, I have the impression that the story of his being the son of a cottager’s daughter whom the Duchess sought out and brought to be raised with her own children is not his cover story. Though it is a cover story. What I can’t understand is how anyone would believe the story even though he came to the estate at eight or nine. One the one hand I’m tempted to think that it is something I’ll have to go back and fix in rewrite. On the other hand I’m almost sure that this really is a cover story and that people do believe it. If magic is at work, I wonder whose? Perhaps the old Duke’s. Unresolved is how come the Duchess brought Gabriel in, and not any of the old Duke’s other illegitimate children, of which I’m sure there are many. I’m also curious about Gabriel’s origins. I have some inkling of what his mother’s position in life is — sorry, not revealing that, because it is more than a spoiler — and it doesn’t square with his being in rags. Um… However, those parts feel right and I’m sure will stay in the chapter even after revision. It’s just that my annoying subconscious is not sharing the details there. In fact, it’s acting downright smug.

I’m less certain on the whole story of the strawberries. First, because I’m sure that there’s more to it than we have been told, but also because I’m not sure Gabriel would have launched into that story instead of interrogating Nell. Now, it’s barely possible he would do so, because he’s tired and magic-stressed, but I don’t like giving my characters that kind of excuse. In fact, most of the week was consumed with fixing something like that in A Few Good Men, where I’d allowed a character to do something silly on the first pass, on account of his being out of his mind with worry and grief. But while something stupid is allowable, something silly is not. Not while dealing with a character I suspect (and partly know from what I’ve outlined) is closer to tragic than comic. I’m not particularly happy with the strawberries, in fact. BUT for the moment and for a first draft it will do. Chances are, however, I’ll deal with them in rewrite. Unless they are the one comic incident that is referred to throughout to alleviate the tension. This one, I think, I’ll have to let time and sober reflection tell me.

Witchfinder, Free Novel — Chapters 5 and 6

Posted on October 27, 2011December 24, 2011 by Sarah A. Hoyt

UPDATE: A SLIGHTLY EDITED AND PRETTIED UP COMPILATION OF ALL CHAPTERS UP TO A WEEK OLD IS HERE

*I’m posting this novel here, free, one chapter at a time. I reserve the right to put in more than one chapter, as I did this time.This is being posted as I write it, so it’s in pre-earc (for those from Baen) or in close-to (but not quite) -first draft state. Once it’s finished it will undergo editing and then it will be published in some form. I’m going to put this up with its own category so you can find it. For those interested in throwing something in the storytellers bowl, there is a donate button on the right hand side of the site. Anyone contributing $6 or more will get an electronic (non DRM) version of the novel upon completion. Of course, donating is not mandatory, nor even required in any way. I hope you enjoy the chapters. (And sorry if there are typos. I’m having trouble staying focused today.)*

For first chapter, look here: here

For chapter four, look here
For chapter seven, look here

The Trouble With Heros

Seraphim Darkwater could feel the spell assemble behind him, tendril by tendril. The woman’s magic was odd. Avallonis in origin. He’d swear to that. He’d known enough power from other worlds to identify the markers of Avallonis. But the magic had odd overlays, as though she’d learned it in some barbarous, ignorant place and had reinvented the whole discipline from the ground up.

A part of him, the part that had been a studious young man, rivaling the knowledge of many of his professors at Cambridge when it came to history and theory of magic, wanted to turn around and watch the strands of magic being woven in the air. But he could not. Seraphim had been trained – born – to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. And right now, he was the only one in possession of a mage-charged stick.

He shot at a soldier running towards him from behind a rock. Then he shot again. And again until he hit the man, who screamed and fell, spasming a little as the magic charge hit him.

The soldier wouldn’t die. Seraphim never charged his mage sticks a lethal amount, mostly because he never knew when the people he might defend himself against might not be the agents of his majesty the king, enforcing the just laws of Great Britain in his native world. A lot could be forgiven a high born and high spirited young man, even minor assault on an officer of the Empire. But, should he let those high spirits carry him so far as to commit murder, that would be a trespass too far.

As the man fell, twitching and spasming, Seraphim stepped back. And all at once he realized two things. The man had been a decoy, likely a volunteer sent to run at his mage stick and keep him fully occupied as a party of guardsmen sneaked behind and around the rocks to his left. Now he caught a glimpse of golden braid in the gaudy uniforms, and realized they were too near, and there were two many of them. And one of them was pointing a magical gun at them, of the type that could disable witches and warlocks, but could kill shifters. The boy-shifter. Seraphim must protect him.

He turned around. There were too many of them for his stick to be an effective defense, so he must take himself and his charges out of here, and take them out fast.

The woman behind him had set up almost the entire spell. Only the capstone lacked, and the coordinates. Perhaps she couldn’t have set the coordinates from his arrival. Perhaps her odd learning hadn’t taught her that. Or perhaps it was all part of a plan to trap him. Seraphim didn’t know, and, right then, he couldn’t care. Instead, he poured his own magic into the working, and set the capstone on it, with the coordinates of his bedroom, coordinates as familiar to him as the back of his own hand, or the sound of his own voice.

The portal opened, gaping, and Seraphim, realizing the impossibility of throwing a lion through it, poured more of his magic at the young shifter to make him shift back into human, out of the lion form. The child shifted and twisted, writhing and moaning in the pain of changing bones and flesh, all at a speed that would never happen naturally.

Barely had his form stabilized, and Seraphim was grabbing his skinny arms and throwing him, bodily through the portal. Seraphim knew, in doing so he was hurting his own shoulder and arm, but he couldn’t feel pain. Or anything but the urgency of getting them all through the portal and onto safe territory. Through the portal he could glimpse Gabriel and hear faint echoes of his talking to the boy.

Seraphim reached for the woman. She stepped back from him. “No,” she said. “You go first.”

“They have magic guns,” Seraphim said, keeping his voice restrained, but letting urgency leak through. “They are near-lethal. You go, then I after you.”

But she shied away from him, tried to step in between him and the moving ambush. Stupid on her part. She wasn’t armed. He took a deep breath and mentally apologized to his mother and to his nanny who had taught him that a woman’s body was sacred and not to be touched without permission. Then he grabbed her by the waist and, deftly avoiding her kicking feet and ignoring her voice saying, “Let me go,” he tossed her into the portal and – as far as he could see through his sweat-stung eyes, more or less on top of Gabriel.

The portal wouldn’t stay open much longer. But it didn’t need to. Seraphim took a step towards it.

The ray of the magic gun hit him in the shoulder. Pain shot through his body, seized his mind. His body shuddered, one long shudder, as his heart seemed to lose the rhythm of its accustomed beats. He heard a hoarse scream, and was sure it was his.

The fall across the treshold of the portal, one half on either side, jarred his shoulder further. He gritted his teeth against the chattering that threatened to bite his tongue in half. He forced his shivering, shuddering body to obey him. He ignored the pain that coursed through his veins like fire and bit at his nerves like the edge of a well-sharpened sword.

The portal was going to close. He must get into one world or the other, or his body would get sliced in half and end up one half in each reality. He must crawl across the portal and to the safety of his room.

For long moments, his body did not obey him. His hands made frantic motions, but failed to push against the ground, his knees wouldn’t stay under him. it took a superhuman effort to get them under control, to get them to pull him along the floor. He pulled himself forward one step. Two.

He felt hands at his ankles, and heard a triumphant scream from behind. He didn’t turn to look. He could feel the portal starting to close. He keened with frustration and told himself he would not cry. He would die like a man.

From the fog clouding his senses, somewhere ahead of him, he heard a woman’s voice say, “Oh, please, you must help him.”

And he heard Gabriel’s familiar voice say, “Damn you Duke,” then. “Here, take this mage stick. Lay into them at will.”

Seraphim tried to reach for the mage stick, but he couldn’t even see it, and his hand would not obey him, and he could feel the mage-field of the portal pressing against his middle.

Then strong, warm hands grabbed his hands and pulled. Seraphim screamed as the pain to his shoulder increased a hundred fold.

Then darkness engulfed him.

The Price of Heroism

Nell hated heroes. Years ago, when he’d first rescued her from Earth, Antoine had told her that he despised heroes who were men who would give themselves airs, and throw themselves in the breach with great pomp and circumstance, for the pleasure of pinning medals on themselves, no matter how many people died for their glory.

Her fury and surprise at Seraphim’s taking the spell from her and putting his own capstone on it was nothing compared to her fury at his insisting on her stepping through first and on protecting her with his body. Her entire upbringing on Earth rebelled against letting a man, any man protect her. And her months in Avallonis, chafing against the arrogance of noblemen and gentry, made her want to scream at his assumed gallantry.

None of this was improved by his throwing her bodily across the portal and on top of a tall man in neat, understated attire. Disentangling herself from the man who was blushing furiously and who looked past her at the portal with an horrified expression, she didn’t see Seraphim get hit.

But when she turned around, there was no doubt he’d been hit by a magic gun.

She’d never seen one of these in action. They were illegal in Avallonis, and of course, of no use at all on Earth. Or at least not that anyone knew. But she’d heard of them, and Sydell had once shown her a confiscated cache of them and described their effects. She could still hear him in her mind as he told her how the gun’s discharge would kill a shifter at the barest touch, but was survivable to a mage, provided he or she was in good shape and got treatment immediately.

Only Seraphim wasn’t getting treatment. He was fallen half across the portal, whose shifting light indicated it was about to close. Around his body shimmered the blue-yellow lights of a disturbed magical pattern, as clearly visible to her mage-sight as his outstretched hands scrabbling in vain at the oaken floorboards.

He made inhuman grunts as he did so, grunts that seemed like the result of effort beyond his capacity. All the while – and it seemed forever to Nell – the man on whom she’d fallen, was standing there, his arms akimbo, staring, his mouth open, at the duke about to get sliced in half by a portal.

Seraphim’s hands found purchase at last, and he pulled himself, a minute amount into the room, and then the men on the other side reached him, grabbed his ankles, and pulled him back far more than he’d pulled himself forward. She had heard of those step pyramids in that world. She’d heard they performed sacrifices there. And besides, they’d shot him.

She found her hands were beating frantically at the impassive arm of the motionless man near her, “Oh, help him. You must save him.”

As though her words had rushed him to action, he stared at the scene before him, and said in a tone of true rancor, “Damn you, Duke.”

When he reached into his vest and pulled out a mage stick, Nell had a moment of frozen certainty that he was going to shoot Darkwater. But the man handed her the stick instead, and said, even as he bent down to grasp Seraphim’s hands, “Lay it into them, good and hard.”

She obeyed, almost without thinking, mowing down the soldiers grabbing Seraphim’s ankles and feet, while the stranger pulled the duke into the room by his hands. A guardsman from the other world tried to plunge in just behind him, but Nell shot him with a bolt of magic, and he fell back twitching. None too soon, as her mage stick was spent. And the portal closed.

She let it drop from a nerveless hand and turned– To see the stranger taking a knife to the Duke. The sound of his voice saying “Damn you Duke,” came to her. She didn’t pause to think or to consider the consequences of her actions. She raised a foot, high, and only slightly hampered by the dress and under dress, kicked with all her might at the knife wielding hand. The knife went flying, and Nell dropped back, hands raised, ready to grab furniture or books or something to defend herself. Or to send a magic spell against the man, when he came after her.

He didn’t come after her. He didn’t even seem to notice her at all, though he looked dismayed when the knife went flying from his hand, and he shook his hand, once, twice, as though to rid himself of pain.

But then the took his hands to the duke’s coat, and pulled. The coat tore down the front, to reveal a shirt all covered in blood. And Nell realized the man had been about to cut Seraphim’s clothes away from him, so he could minister to the duke. At the same time, the realization hit that this stranger looked a great deal like the duke and might very well be one of his brothers, though Nell had believed his brothers were all much younger.

She walked to where the knife had fallen, by a blue-velvet covered table stacked high with books, and noted without giving it much thought, that the covering was a little lifted and anxious eyes were peeping from under it. The eyes were familiar. It was the boy-lion.

Without a word to him, she retrieved the knife and walked back to the man kneeling by the duke and now trying, ineffectually, to tear the blood soaked shirt. She handed the knife to him, handle first, and he said, “Thank you, Miss,” as though this were an every day occurrence. She watched him cut the shirt to reveal, beneath it, a chest criss-crossed in blood-saturated ligatures. The man said, under his breath, “Oh, the damn fool,” and Nell found herself agreeing. Only a fool or a madman would take it upon himself to go into another world and get into a fight when he had suffered what appeared to be very serious injuries. And most injuries were serious in Avalloni, whose magic could at the same time perform healing feats that would startle Earth, and be totally ineffective against infections. People might regrow an amputated limb, but they would surely die of the infection, if the amputating instrument hadn’t been properly sterilized. And she doubted the implement had been properly sterilized before it had made those gashes, now revealed on the Duke’s chest and shoulder, as the stranger cut his ligatures off.

“I… Is there anything–” she was about to ask if there was anything she could do, and then she realized that the stranger was muttering under his breath, a steady stream of arcane words. As those assembled in her mind, she realized what they were. A resurrection spell.

Her eyes opened wide, as she stared at the duke with her mage sight. He wasn’t dead. But the force of life around his body had ebbed so low it was like a flame that a careless breath might extinguish. Used in these circumstances the resurrection spell, forbidden otherwise, as after death it only brought life to a soulless body, was much like the paddles with which, on Earth, people tried to stimulate a failing heart. Except that it took a massive amount of life-force from the one administering the spell. And she could do nothing but stand there, clutching her skirts, and watching as the stranger poured a not inconsiderable amount of magic into Seraphim Darkwater, in a desperate effort to save his life.

The stranger himself must be a considerable magician. Either that or he would end up in almost as bad a shape as Seraphim.

One time the spell was said. Twice. Its force flared and fizzled, pale blue against the dying flames of Seraphim’s life which had ebbed down to a dirty sort of orange, like flames that have fed on oil and are almost spent.

Once more, and the force surrounded Seraphim’s body, and it looked for a moment as though it would re-light the force of his life. But it died down yet again. The stranger’s face grew stern, his features seeming to become all sharp planes and angles. He looked more than ever like Darkwater, a Darkwater determined to be brave and strong against all costs. Yet another damned hero, Nell thought, and it seemed to her she heard Antoine’s derisive tone in her thoughts. And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to dislike or despise this man who was pouring his magic and his strength so unstintingly into the dying body of … his master? His brother?

The stranger raised the spell yet a fourth time, and Nell told herself she’d take it next, rather than let the man commit suicide through generosity.

But this time, as the blue flare went out and surrounded the duke, the orange, dying flame of Seraphims life, caught and sparked, then grew into a pale yellow-white flame. Not quite healthy life, but abundant, reigniting his vitality fully.

In the dead quiet of the room, she heard the Duke take one breath, then another. And then his rescuer took a breath, which curled upon itself in a sob, which, in turn, quieted abruptly, as if – hearing himself show a sign of weakness – the man had cut it off.

He lowered his head and shook, still taking painfully loud breaths, like a man at the end of miles of running, and Nell found that she, herself, had not breathed in too long a time, and took a gasping breath. Then she thought that the man looked very ill, waxen-pale and shaking, with the effort and reaction of a resurrection spell so oft repeated.

It wasn’t even that it took a lot of magic, a lot of power, a lot of strength. No. It was more than that. When using such a spell there was always the danger that between sending it forth, and its hitting the target the target might die. And if such a thing happened, then the mage’s duty was to kill his creation immediately. In fact, in Avallonis not to do so was punishable with death, though she’d heard that the law was rarely enforced. But it was certainly punished with exclusion from all society and magical association.

The stranger shook, and his dark hair was pasted to his head with sweat, and Nell surmised that he would not want her to see him in this state. Men were proud everywhere, but in this world more than anywhere else – particularly the gentry, which this man might very well be, as much as he looked like the Duke.

She fell back on the expected role of women in this time and place. Going to the wash basin set in a corner, she was relieved to find that it was supplied with an ever-filled ewer, the water magicked in – probably from the well of the estate – as soon as it was emptied, and kept warm in the container, by means of a spell.

She poured it into the basin, and grabbed a bar of soap and a pile of the folded linen towels left by it. With the towels under her arm and the soap caught her under chin, she walked back carrying the delicate porcelain basin, with the pink and blue roses painted around the edge, and set them on the floor next to Seraphim, who still looked dead, but who was breathing regularly.

She dipped a towel in the water and, very gently, started swabbing at the Duke’s blood-covered chest. She was relieved to find that he was not nearly as torn apart as it looked from the blood. His wounds were, in the main, two, one in his chest and one on his arm. Not that it mattered. In Avallonis, you could die of a scratch if it were not sterilized in time. And the Duke’s wounds were no scratch.

“Thank you, Miss,” the strange man said, in the tremulous, breaking voice of a man pushed beyond physical limits.

She didn’t look up. Instead, she smiled a little, while wiping the blood from Seraphim, and noting those wounds had once been sewn together, though the stitches had now been torn out. “My name,” she said. “Is Helena Felix,” she said.

“Miss Felix,” he said.

“But no,” she said. “You must call me Nell.” And sensing, even without looking up, his shock at being invited to call her not just by her first name but by a nickname, she smiled again. “We have fought together. You would not call a comrade in arms by his last name would you?”

His breath skipped showing an hesitancy. She looked up to see him open his mouth, then snap it closed. “I might,” he said. “If he were well born. You see, I don’t know what you– That is, you must know my name is Gabriel Penn, and I’m his Grace’s of Darkwater’s valet.”

It was Nell’s turn to be shocked. She fought having her mouth drop open in surprise, and instead managed to say in a creditable show of composure. “I see.” But the truth was that she didn’t see at all. Not only was the man an enormously powerful magician – she herself doubted she’d have the stamina to do the resurrection spell four times in a row – but he was undoubtedly trained. And while there was all chance of byblows, men being what they were, and therefore of a servant having some form of magical power, bastards never – at least in Nell’s experience – had as much power as this man had. And those who did were never taught. At least not the riskier spells.

Who were the Darkwaters? Seraphim went looking for fights in worlds where he had no business, in direct contravention of his majesty’s laws, and this other man who looked so much like Seraphim, but who was a servant, used spells no one but a Gentleman could have been taught to wield. Or have the power to manage.

“I see,” she said again, and cleared her throat. “I shall call you Gabriel then.”

He opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it, and got up to go to the drawer in the dressing table. When he returned, he carried a box which, when set by the side of the Duke’s unconscious form and opened revealed needle and thread and what looked like a complete surgeon’s kit.

“You might want to look away,” Gabriel said. “Miss.”

“No, I don’t believe so,” she said. “I’ve seen blood before. You’ll want to disinfect the wound first, though,” she said. And realized he’d already laid hold of brandy and was pouring it over the Duke’s wounds. She was about to tell him pure alcohol was better for that, when she decided the man knew his business as well, if not better than, her.

Instead, she watched as Gabriel sewed the first of the Duke’s wounds closed, then started to slather it with a thick grey ointment that seemed to be infused with healing magic. “Give me the ointment,” she said, firmly. “I will do that while you sew his chest wound.”

He inclined his head, saying nothing. “You’ll pardon me,” Nell said at last. “But what business had he to go about like that when he was this seriously wounded?”

The man made a sound that might have been an hiccup, the beginning of a laugh, or a smothered sob. “None,” he said. “But no use trying to prevent him. When he thinks something is his duty– A great one for duty is the Duke. If you knew how many times– Oh, never mind.”

But Nell had caught both the exasperated affection and the mingled admiration and anger in Gabriel’s voice, and realized it was the feeling of an older brother for a younger brother who was inclined to biting off more than he could chew. The Darkwaters were unusual indeed. Clearly Gabriel knew these spells because he had been educated in magic. And given the aplomb with which he used them, he must have been educated in Cambridge, alongside his legitimate brother.

Because she knew better – had learned better over her time in this forsaken world – than to question legitimacy or the bond of blood between men of two such different classes, she said, instead, as she slathered the newly-sewn wound, and Gabriel finished cleaning the duke – or as much as he could clean him given the inability to submerge him in water, “The young man who came in with us is under the table there.”

Gabriel nodded. “Good. I hope he’ll stay out of the way till I can call the housekeeper to get him clothes and, hopefully, to take him to her cousin’s cottage for a spell.”

Nell hesitated. “He… That is, he is a lion shifter.”

Gabriel nodded again. “A lot of the rescues are from that world. Seraphim usually pays their way into a shifter seminar in Bath. There are two, one for young ladies, and one for young gentlemen. All the teachers are shifted and therefore equipped to train the young people in the ways of control of their magic, and in the ability to shift at will. But I understand they teach them other trades, usually as clerks or secretaries or the like.”

Nell shook her head at the idea of a shifter secretary. Back in the day when she’d worked in computers, their group’s administrative assistant had looked much like a weasel, but she supposed here it would be more obvious.

“And the housekeeper knows about this?” Truly the conspiracy to breach the sovereign shields of other worlds was extensive. And law said all of them were due death. She couldn’t imagine denouncing Seraphim or Gabriel and seeing them beheaded and hung respectively. No. She had seen Seraphim almost die. But if she lied on her report and they found out, surely they would hurt Antoine?

“She’s my godmother,” Gabriel said, as though that meant something. “Now, Miss, if you’d step aside.”

Miss stepped aside, wishing in an annoyed sort of way that the proper Gabriel would call her Nell, a feeling that was dissolved into shock as that man who had just done four resurrection spells, lifted Seraphim in his arms and carried him to the bed.

Oh, the bed was only three steps away, and Gabriel did totter under the weight of the duke, but that he could lift him at all – when both were well-matched for weight and height – much less after the ordeal Gabriel had inflicted on himself, was near-unbelievable.

Yes, the Darkwaters were an odd family. And they might be made of more-than-human stuff.

Gabriel laid the duke down, and waved his hand at the mage light on the bedside bringing its glow down. “And now we wait,” he said. “And pray if we remember how.”

But if there was anyone listening to prayers at that moment, they must have turned away, because – before Nell could answer – the door to the room jiggled, then flung open. Framed in the doorway stood a small, dark woman old enough to be the duke’s mother. It seemed to Nell that was exactly what the woman was, in fact. Nell had memories of seeing portraits.

But unlike the portraits, the woman wasn’t smiling. She had her opulent dress clutched in either hand, lifting it away from the legs as women of this world did, when they must move swiftly. And she was saying, “Seraphim, I demand that you explain…” The words died, as she looked towards the bed and Seraphim, sprawled on it, unconscious. And then she said, “Oh.”

Witchfinder — Free Novel — Chapter 4

Posted on October 21, 2011December 24, 2011 by Sarah A. Hoyt

UPDATE: A SLIGHTLY EDITED AND PRETTIED UP COMPILATION OF ALL CHAPTERS UP TO A WEEK OLD IS HERE

Sorry, posted this with wrong title, first.

It’s chapter four. For first, look here

For Third, look here

For chapters five and six, look here

For chapters five and six look here

For chapter three look here

Witchfinder — Free Novel — Chapter 4

*As a few of you know I’m posting a free novel here, a chapter at a time. Because the chapter happens to be relatively short this week, I would normally post two, but I haven’t had time to revise/clean up further than this. I promise a longer snippet next week. There is a donation button down on the right side. You don’t have to hit it, but if you do and donate more than $6, you’ll get a free electronic copy of the book once it’s finished and edited. Thank you to everyone who has donated.*

The Lion, The Witch and The Pyramids

Seraphim looked at his watch, and then at his crystal ball. They were not both strictly necessary. It was possibly to use one or the other. But the one thing his father’s diaries had taught him was that it was never a good idea to rely only on one method. And Seraphim, rushing to the last alarm, had found that relying only on the watch might be the last thing he did.

The Others were perhaps no more cunning than himself, but they were infinitely better armed, and there were more of them and they would have more magicians who could fake better alarms. And that was without counting with the legitimate agents of his majesty, whose job it was to enforce laws forbidding citizens of Avalonis from traveling abroad and who had once or twice come close to catching papa. They too must be looking for Seraphim.

Seraphim got the coordinates of the talent at risk from the watch he’d inherited from his father, then tried to raise an image in his crystal ball to corroborate it, but all he could see was the shadow of his valet, standing determinedly between the light and the crystal ball. He obscured the light magic could use to form images.

“Penny, for the love of God–” Seraphim said, half in exasperation.

“No. You are in no fit state. You should not be standing up, much less going on a rescue mission where you might get stabbed again.” Penny squeezed his lips into a thin line. “Or worse.”

Seraphim clenched his lips tight. He wanted very much to answer, but he tried to avoid being rude to Penny. Penny could not answer in kind, and that made it churlish of him to abuse Penny. “We were not put in this world… in any world,” he said. “To take our ease while innocents die.” Realizing he’d just repeated something his father had written in his diary, and that shortly before his father had committed suicide, Seraphim suppressed a shudder.

“There is a dire difference, Seraphim, between taking your ease and risking yourself foolishly. I beg you to consider what will become of your mother, your sister and your brothers should you–”

Before he could finish a scratching at the door was followed by Lady Barbara’s voice. “Seraphim? I would have a word with you if I might.”

Seraphim looked at the basin filled with bloody water, the discarded, blood soaked garments, the evidence of his injury strewn around the room, then his eyes met Penny’s, and he realized that Penny’s thoughts had followed the same trend. “No,” Penny’s lips formed, though he didn’t say it aloud. “I will make your excuses.”

The valet went to the door and opened it. Seraphim heard him speak in a low voice, and could imagine what he was saying. His Grace is indisposed and other such rot designed to make Mama think that Seraphim was passed out, drunk, within. He heard Mama say once, impatiently, “Penn, he can’t be that–” followed by a renewed flood of Penny’s words in a sensible, persuasive tone.

What Seraphim should be doing was clearing the room of evidence of his injury and then attending to his Mama. But there was someone in need. He looked at his watch. It was very definite about someone in need of his help on Pyramids, someone with a very high magical talent and too ignorant to shield it. He didn’t know how the watch worked. It had been created by his papa, possibly before Seraphim’s birth. But he did know that it was rarely wrong. And that The Pyramids was a horrible world to have magical talent in. They put to death anyone who revealed talent or shape shifting ability as soon as it was detected, and their thaumaturgic police was ruthlessly efficient.

But sometimes the alarms had a safety margin built in. Even in Pyramids, a few hours, a few days might pass before the new talent was spotted, and a couple of hours would give him enough time to go to the ball, announce his engagement, plead fatigue, and return to his room. Then he could go to Pyramids at his leisure.

He looked at the crystal ball, taking advantage of Penny not being there to obscure it, and he concentrated all his attention on it and on seeing the person at risk.

A breath, two, his eyes crossed and the lights and shadows arranged themselves into coherent images: a young boy running, pursued by … Royal Thaumaturgic guards in their dark green uniforms. They carried magic sticks, the discharge from which would severely wound or maim anyone with magical talent.

Seraphim cursed under his breath. Then, with Penny’s murmurs growing more urgent by the door, he started to say the transport spell that would take him to Pyramids, hurriedly as he must perforce do, if he was going to be out of here before his mother forced her way in the door, or before Penny realized what was happening.

Just as he said the capstone word that closed the spell and activated it, he felt some other magic touch his.

With the awful feeling that this was yet another trap, he tried to unsay the last word, but its echoes in the air could not be called back.

He heard Penny scream, “Seraphim, you bloody fool!” and his mother gasp, “Seraphim” and then he was hurtling through cold and burning hot, and landing on his face in hot sand.

Breath was knocked out of his body. He blinked, hard, at the bright light of sun on sand, and thought that at least this looked and felt like Pyramids.

And then someone fell on him.

She must have knocked him unconscious. At least, later, he would think that, because all he remembered was the horrible pain to his chest and arm, as a heavy body fell on him, and then – some undefinable time later – being aware of soft feminine hands pulling at his arms. It renewed the infernal pain in his injured shoulder and arm, but he concentrated on her face, which was small, dark and panicked.

“Oh, please, don’t tell me I killed you,” she was saying.

Pain and dizziness warred in him. He felt as though he would throw up, but controlled it with all his might, and managed to say in something that passed for a creditably steady voice, “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not that easy to kill.” And then, somewhat more sharply, “Please stop shaking me.”

“You must move,” she said. She glanced over her shoulder. “Or the lion will get us.”

“Lion?” he said. The surprise carried him into sitting up and looking in the same direction she’d glanced. And there was a lion. A young lion, whose huge paws and skinny sides betrayed it was nowhere fully grown. But the tawny eyes looking out at Seraphim betrayed intelligence and fear no lion had ever known. And the light around the animal’s head was the magical glow of a magical creature. The boy, Seraphim realized. He was not a witch, but a shape shifter. Of course, those were even more feared.

“It’s not a lion,” he said. “Merely a boy in lion shape.” And standing up, he extended a hand, hoping the child was enough in control of his feelings not to act like the wild animal whose shape he’d taken. He spoke, clearly, loudly. “I am here to rescue you. I mean you no harm.”

In the tawny eyes confusion and fear played out against a strange sort of hope. The lion lowered its head and looked poised to walk toward Seraphim, when a voice called out, “Stop in the name of the king. You are harboring a dangerous fugitive and our instruments indicate you are practitioners of illegal magics yourselves. Surrender now and we will be merciful.”

Seraphim barely had the time to jump out of the way as the boy dove to hide behind Seraphim. As for the woman, she tried to take a step in front of Seraphim, even though her eyes showed panic fear. “Who are they,” she said, as Seraphim gently pushed her out of the way. “What do they want?”

“What passes for law in this miserable land,” he said, pulling from the pocket his own magical, charmed stick. “And they want to kill us.”

“What? Why–”

“No time to explain,” he said. He looked around. They were on a parched red plane, strewn with boulders and intercut by pyramids. The pyramids, built in steps, were temples to the gods that forbid magic, the same guards to whom magic users were sacrified. The soldiers’ promise of clemency was a hollow one. Whether they were shot multiple times with the painful magic-blighting weapons of the soldiers, or the soldiers captured them and bound them hand and foot to take them to the pyramid and sacrifice, there was no way to avoid pain. Except, perhaps… “Can you say the transport spell?” he asked. “Have you enough power on your own, without attaching to mine?” He glanced quickly over his shoulder at her. “Yes, I can see that you have. Start saying the spell for Avalonis, and center on the point I departed from. Include me and the child-shifter.”

As he heard her say the first words of the spell, he looked around, and found – by the magical brilliance – a soldier hidden behind a nearby boulder. He shot towards it, then towards another one near it. The magical power found its mark, once, causing a man to scream. As long as he had charge, he could keep them at bay.

He wished the stranger would hurry up with the spell. And that she wouldn’t betray him and take him to captivity.

At the last moment he wondered for whom she was working. Hitching on his spell had been no accident, that much was sure. But was she an agent of the Others? Or of his majesty the king?

Witchfinder — Free Novel — Three

Posted on October 14, 2011December 24, 2011 by Sarah A. Hoyt

UPDATE: A SLIGHTLY EDITED AND PRETTIED UP COMPILATION OF ALL CHAPTERS UP TO A WEEK OLD IS HERE

*I’m posting a novel here, a chapter a week on Fridays. This is being posted as I write it, so it’s in pre-earc (for those from Baen) or in close-to (but not quite) -first draft state. Once it’s finished it will undergo editing and then it will be published in some form. I’m going to put this up with its own category so you can find it. Those who donate $6 or more WILL get this, revised, when it comes out. Yes, those of you who are in Baen Diner have seen two chapters of this before. The difference is, this time I finish it “in public” which is a bit of a window to you on how things work out. Oh, yeah, this is a fantasy set in the same universe as the Magical British Empire, but not in the same world (at least to begin with.)*

Witchfinder — by Sarah A. Hoyt

Third installment. For second chapter look here

For first, look here

The Agent
There had to be worse things that could happen to a girl than dropping head first into a Regency novel. Nell Felix had no idea what they could be though. A Regency novel with magic, at that. A world where she must mind her manners, curb her tongue, behave like a proper lady and, oh, yeah, perform magic, too.

If you’d told her, back when she was a very junior programer at Prince Management Systems – she could never make her bosses understand what was wrong with that acronym, either – that her way of fixing computers by wishing them fixed would attract the attention of an interplanetary spy and that, for his sake, she would end up living in another world where everyone still behaved as if the regency had never passed, and where America was just the colonies of dear old mother England, she would never have believed it.

But it was true nonetheless. As it was true that she’d fallen in love with Antoine, somewhere between his telling her about other worlds and teaching her magic. And that now she couldn’t leave this particular world until Antoine was released. Which meant she had to satisfy Siddel’s demands first. It had already been a year. How much longer would she have to work to ransom her lover?

The real Earth, or what she thought of the real Earth was so long ago and far away, and sometimes she didn’t know if it felt like a weird dream, or if her current circumstances did.

“Miss, Miss,” the cracked voice of the landlady called from outside the door to Nell’s lodging.

It was not so much cracked as wavering, breaking on the high pitches and making an awful descant to the pounding of the landlady’s impatient fist on the door.

Like cats mating inside drums, Nell thought, and her little, dark face, which was rather like a cat’s itself, twisted in an expression of distaste, as she put her long-fingered hands over her ears. Or like a car engine seriously out of tune.

She repressed a longing for cars – and for flush toilets – and leaned forward toward the complex chalk drawings on her floor and the bowl of water placed in the middle of them. Lord Siddel had told her to find what Seraphim Ainsling was up to. But he must be using some magical protection, because it was easier said than done. So far the bowl had shown her no more than a murky fog with occasional glimpses of blood and cut flesh. And while this didn’t reassure her that his Grace of Darkwater was on the right side of the law, it was hardly an indictment.

“Miss Felix. Miss!” The pounding and the voice, each competing – and somehow managing – to be louder than the other penetrated the ineffective barrier of her hands and shattered her concentration. The wavering image she’d been able to conjure in the water – of a green jacket seemingly bobbing about mid-air – vanished all together, leaving nothing but water and cheap china. Cracked cheap china, Nell thought, noticing the chip out of the side and the wandering crack that descended like a yellow scribble towards the center of the bowl. “Yes, Mrs. Sharyl,” she said. “I am coming.”

The screaming did stop, but the pounding continued, if more subdued now, a tap, tap, tap, as though to remind Nell the landlady was waiting. Not that I’m likely to forget, Nell thought, as she got up and strode across the room to the door, being careful not to step on any of the chalk lines. On her Earth, she might get a peeved letter, but no landlady would actually be pounding on her door. Here, everything was so much more personal.

She was careful too to make sure her body obscured Mrs. Stope’s view of the floor. Not that witchcraft was illegal or even uncommon – though more uncommon in the lower classes, of course – in Avalloni, but the landlady was the type of person to worry about the chalk on the floorboards.

Mrs. Stope stood squarely in the middle of the landing outside Nell’s room. It would have been difficult to stand any other way, since the landing was hardly large enough to contain her. Not that she was fat. No, she was square. A short, blockish woman, with the sort of build that led one to believe that in a past life she had been a clock. The way she clicked her tongue also sounded much like a clock ticking.

She turned her watery-blue eyes up to Nell, then gave her a careful once over, from head to toe, doubtless taking in the well-tailored skirt and the irreproachable black jacket. “Dressed to go out, are you miss?” she said. “And I hope you’re not intending to go for weeks, and the rent already overdue?”

“No,” Nell said. “I meant to go out for a moment only.” She regretted not for the first time that she couldn’t tell the truth: places to go, people to kill. If she said that in this world, it wouldn’t even be a reference joke. It was still true. And it kept Antoine safe. Antoine… She swallowed and kept her mind from going down that path. The problem with loving someone is that it made it easy for people to hold him hostage and make you do what they wanted. “On some… errands. But I will have your rent for you when I return.” I’d better have it, at least Sidell is not so dumb as to forget it is unadvisable to delay paying your secret operatives. even your unwilling secret operatives.

Mrs. Stope bent her head, momentarily, under the weight of this promise, but rattled back into it, game as a pebble, “Only last time you said that, you left for three weeks and then I–“

“I always pay,” Nell said, pressing her lips together and allowing her face to show the mingled impatience and annoyance she felt.

“Yes, miss, but as I own the rooms, I need to have the pay regular, else how can I meet my own bills?”

“I will do my best,” Nell said, putting on the airs she had learned tended to bring these tirades to an abrupt conclusion. And then, to reinforce the idea, “I was about to go see my father.”

“Oh,” The landlady said, and her face showed a cunning sort of curiosity. “His lordship is in town, then?”

Nell only nodded, preserving the sort of distance and secret that the landlady would doubtless expect if Nell were in fact the byblow of a nobleman. Which she very much doubted she was, since Earth had very few noblemen and few of them were unlikely to give even an ilegitimate child up for adoption. But she was adopted, and so she couldn’t say her parents weren’t noble. Heck, it was weird enough she had magical power. She suspected most people back on what she thought of as Earth had had magic bred out of them. Since it didn’t work on Earth, it wouldn’t confer any advantage. So maybe her parents were noblemen from some other world. She couldn’t swear they weren’t.
Besides, Mrs. Stope had once seen Nell with Mr. Sidell and assumed he was Nell’s father and their relationship a great secret. It always shocked Nell how little it was necessary to tell people lies. They much preferred to tell lies to themselves. Particularly in this world, where so much of society depended on convention and secrets.

She didn’t exactly despise Mrs. Stope for assuming that Nell was of noble blood – she despised her for the reasons she gave for assuming so: That she’d seen Nell with Mr. Sidell, who was obviously a gentleman, and also that Nell’s features were delicately formed, her hands and feet small and her ankles elegant. In many worlds, Nell had seen just those features in dirt-poor peasants. And if I had a sovereign for every fat, blobby princess I’ve known, she thought. I’d be wealthier than the king. But there would never be a way of convincing the Mrs. Stopes of that fact.

“Well, if you’re seeing your father, Miss…” the landlady said, with the sort of sigh more rooted on her despairing of knowing more than in her fear of not getting paid.

“Indeed I am,” Nell said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me and give me some time, I must write a letter to take with me.” For some reason, in this world, writing a letter was accorded the same sort of privacy that the real Earth gave calls of nature. Perhaps because writing with a quill pen was one of the most undignified businesses in any world.

She added ballpoint pens to the list of things she missed.

Before the woman could say A letter, Miss? And try to figure out what the letter would say and to whom it would be addressed, a query that Nell saw all too plainly in her eyes, Nell shut the door in her face, and returned to her work.

Perhaps I drew the right-reverse spiral too wobbly, she thought, doubtfully, as she stared at the drawing on the floor. She twirled her fingers in her hair, rendering it what Mrs. Stope would doubtlessly consider a completely inappropriate coiffure for a gently reared female.

Kneeling down, she erased part of the spiral, then drew it again, slightly diffferently. Then she picked the bowl and stared, again, at the vague picture of a green jacket floating middair.

She had to see clearly. She made passes middair and tried to concentrate. Seraphim Ainsling. What was the foolish man doing? He worried Siddel far too much for it to be innocent. Siddel had a second sense about these things.

Seraphim Ainsling. She remembered his haughty expression, his aquiline profile from a party at which he had resolutely looked through her.

Her fingers ran through her hair again. Right. The Duke of Darkwater. I am beneath his notice. If town rumor was right, he was getting engaged to Lady Honoria Blythe of Blythe Blessings. An Earl’s daughter.

His profile was now firmly in her mind, the green eyes looking at her intently, and she stared at the water bowl again and saw him clearly, wearing the green jacket, and a pocket watch, and saying the final words of a magical formula.

Too late, she realized what the formula was. A transport spell. Far too late, she realized she’d let her mind get enmeshed in it and in his magic.

There was a flash; a magical blast that hit her like a punch midbody. And then she felt the transport spell pull her through the betweener and into a destination not of her choosing.

Her bowl of water fell and cracked apart, erasing all her careful chalk markings.

Witchfinder — Free Novel — Two

Posted on October 7, 2011December 24, 2011 by Sarah A. Hoyt

UPDATE: A SLIGHTLY EDITED AND PRETTIED UP COMPILATION OF ALL CHAPTERS UP TO A WEEK OLD IS HERE

*I’m posting a novel here, a chapter a week on Fridays. This is being posted as I write it, so it’s in pre-earc (for those from Baen) or in close-to (but not quite) -first draft state. Once it’s finished it will undergo editing and then it will be published in some form. I’m going to put this up with its own category so you can find it. And yes, I’m going to put up a donate button eventually — as soon as I figure out how to do it. Yeah, I know, what can I say? I AM pathetic — and those who donate $6 or more WILL get this, revised, when it comes out. Yes, those of you who are in Baen Diner have seen two chapters of this before. The difference is, this time I finish it “in public” which is a bit of a window to you on how things work out. Oh, yeah, this is a fantasy set in the same universe as the Magical British Empire, but not in the same world (at least to begin with.)

Witchfinder — by Sarah A. Hoyt

Second installment. For first chapter look here

For chapter 3 look here

Two Brothers

Darkwater lay sprawled across a low chaise in his dressing room. By the wavering light of two mage globes fixed on either side of the mirror above his dressing table, he looked like the picture of debauch. With his coat – tailored to a nicety to fit his broad shoulders and narrow waist like a second skin – unbuttoned; his curls – in wild disarray – framing his pale, sweaty face, he looked like he’d spent the night in wild orgies.

No one who saw him now would doubt the rumours that he’d been drinking heavily before the ball at which his engagement to Lady Honoria Blythe was to be announced. And no one would doubt that this was the reason the announcement had not, in fact been made. And by morning the tongues would spread everywhere the story that one or the other of them meant to cry off.

Right then, the Duke was thinking nothing about the rumors, or how he looked. His mind was dark, his breath coming in fast gasps, his brow creased with a pain he had not allowed anyone in the ballroom to suspect.

When he spoke to his attendant, who was rummaging through the drawers of the dressing table, his voice was little more than a croak, animated by no more energy than could be provided by extreme pain. “Penny, curse you. Can you not set about it?”

The valet spared him a look over his shoulder, gracing Darkwater with a frown that was much like the Duke’s own. In fact, Gabriel Penn – whom only His Grace dared call Penny – was well known to be a byblow of his Grace the former duke, born a full year to the day before Seraphim’s birth.

That the two had been brought up together almost as brothers, and that Gabriel was now the trusted confidant and closest servant to his grace showed Lady Barbara’s forbearance and her unusual turn of mind. Or perhaps, some said, it just showed that she knew a high magical power, like Gabriel’s, when she saw it, and thought it best not to have him run wild and untrained amid tenants and farmers.

“I’m shifting as fast as I can Duke,” he threw impatiently in Seraphim’s direction. Though in public he called him His Grace and showed him every respect, in private he took liberties no one who knew Seraphim’s stiff-necked propriety would believe. He called Darkwater Duke or Seraphim, or occasionally, you damned fool. Right then he said the first as if he meant the last, and added, “Because if you think that coat is coming off without being slit, you’re a fool. And more of a fool for having squeezed yourself into it and gone out there to the ball, instead of calling me to you first.”

Seraphim gave a gurgle that might have been an attempt at laughing. “I couldn’t disappoint Honoria or humiliate her that way.”

“What I think of your Honoria…” Gabriel said, turning with a sharp razor in his hand, and setting about cutting the sleeve of Seraphim’s coat with a skill that showed he’d often done it.

“No one has asked you,” Seraphim said, in the blighting tone that never worked on Gabriel.

This time, though, Gabriel did not answer him, as his cutting away of the coat, revealed not only a blood soaked sleeve, but a mass of ill-wrapped bandages – all of them equally tinted blood-red.

The stain, as he pulled away the remnants of the coat and tossed them, showed itself to continue all across the Duke’s shoulder and to over-spread his chest.

“Seraphim!” Gabriel said, as he cut away the shirt and the bandages, to reveal two jagged, irregular cuts, one extending all the way up the arm, almost to the shoulder, deep enough to show the glimmering whiteness of bones in its depths, and the other starting at the shoulder and stopping just short of the heart.

“My ribs deflected it,” Seraphim said. “It was my heart the villain was aiming for. Spelled dagger.”

Gabriel set his lips tight, in something that might be anger or concern. His countenance, always white like Seraphim’s, had gone two shades paler, so that even his lips appeared to be glaring white under the mage lights. He swallowed and nodded, as if he were swallowing the reproaches he would normally have made. His concern showed in his creased forehead and in the depths of the green eyes both of them had inherited from their common father.

Turning, he rummaged in the drawers again. A quick question of “I suppose you couldn’t close it magically?”

“No,” Seraphim said. His voice had devolved into a whisper. His good hand clenched the arm of the chair so hard that its knuckles shone white. “I told you it was a magical dagger.”

Gabriel nodded and set on the dressing table certain articles that even the duke’s mother would be very surprised to know were always kept in its drawers: needle; catgut thread; ligatures and lint.

From a smaller table nearby, where it sat next to the annotated volume of Plato’s republic which Darkwater had been reading before the alarm had called him away, he grabbed the bottle of brandy and, as if as an afterthought, a large glass.

He splashed the brandy liberally into the glass and handed it to the Duke, saying with unwonted force, “Drink.”

“After all the champagne I had in there, my dear Penny?” Darkwater rasped. “I shall be sodden drunk.”

“Good,” Gabriel said.

Darkwater raised his eyebrows, but tossed back the brandy without further comment. Gabriel had kept the bottle of brandy uncapped, and now set the top down on the table. Possessing himself of Darkwater’s hand, he stretched the duke’s arm, leaving his wound exposed and up turned.

“Must you?”

“If it’s a magical wound,” Gabriel said. “Magic won’t close it or disinfect it. We don’t need you being carried off in a fever. You take care not to alarm the house.”

“Have no fear,” Darkwater said, turning his head away.

Indeed, as Gabriel poured the caustic liquid along the open wound, then splashed a like amount into the chest wound, only a very faint complaint escaped his Grace’s mouth. This was probably because he had taken the care of muffling any possible screams with his good arm. And, as Gabriel returned the now half-emtpy bottle to its stand, only the red marks of Darkwater’s own teeth on his wrist showed what effort it had taken.

Gabriel said nothing, as he set about threading the needle.

Only as he started to sew the ragged edges of the wounds together, did he speak. “I can,” he said. “Put a pain reducing spell on it. As soon as I’m done. Not before, or it will retard the healing.”

Seraphim nodded, then spoke, in a bewildered tone. “It was a trap. There were, according to my…” He swallowed. “My foreseeing showed a boy and a girl, about six years of age, first coming into magical powers, and being condemned to death for them. I tried to… intercept… but there was a trap. And no children.”

“What world?” Gabriel asked.

“Oh, the pyramids,” Seraphim said and tried to shrug, before letting out a faint moan. “But I ended up in Betweener.”

The pyramids was, if Gabriel remembered, the world where they sacrificed children with magical powers to their barbarous blood-gods. He didn’t remember what the cartographers of their own world called it. Possibly something inspired like 435-65-A.

Most the Earths, spread out along the magical continuum of several universes, blocked from each other only by the thinnest of energy veils, called themselves Earth. And most of them thought they were quite unique – the only Earth in the only universe, inhabited by the only humans. Avalloni, their own Earth, knowing there were many had given itself that name. Legend maintained that it was the oldest of the Earths, the one from which all the earths had fractured away, when Merlin had been captured and imprisoned. The occluding of his world-encompassing power had caused magic itself to fracture and the Earth to copy itself over and over – most of the copies retaining no magic, and those that did retain it often undertaking to forbid it.

Avalloni citizens were not allowed to travel to other worlds. King Arthur XXVII had confirmed the prohibition first instituted centuries ago. Even the kidnapping of the princess Royal — the only child of the king — out of her cradle, when Seraphim himself was a nurseling, though it was presumed to have been a plot from another world, hadn’t lifted the prohibition.

And because the cartographers’ designations didn’t suit his mind, Seraphim gave these worlds to which he travelled routinely in an attempt to save from death as many magicians and witches as possible, names of his own coining. There was Pyramids and Swamp – which was not one, but a foetid world mired in superstition and covered in vermin – Slum and Desert and – for a particularly noxious world – Madhouse.

Gabriel frowned. “”An ambush! They know of you then!”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I suspect they don’t know who I am, nor where I came from. I suspect they were simply trying to stop the rescues…”

“Enough to set a trap? And interfere with your foreseeing? Take care Duke.”

Seraphim made a noncommital sound, in the back of his throat and, seeing that Gabriel had finished sewing his wounds, he sat up straighter. “Give me a shirt and a coat… the… green one,” he said.

Gabriel cast a doubtful eye at him. “You can’t mean to go back to the ball.”

“Of course I can. I must. An announcement must be made by midnight.”

Gabriel cast a curious look over the Duke. He looked pale but composed, but– Almost without thinking, he raised his hand, and cast a pain-dimming spell over Darkwater. He could see Seraphim’s features relax almost immediately and the duke looked easier, as he stood.

“At least let me help you wash,” Gabriel said. “You reek of brandy.”

Darwater chuckled. “So long as they think I’m such a desperate drunk as to come to my apartments for brandy before resuming the ball, they won’t suspect what I’m really doing.”

Gabriel clicked his tongue, as he wrapped Seraphim’s arm and shoulder in a thin layer of bandages. “Take care Seraphim. One day you’ll go a bridge too far.”

But he helped Seraphim into his shirt and coat, and removed his watch and accoutrements from the pocket of his ruined coat.

As he passed them to the duke, Darkwater’s pocket watch emitted a loud whine, which almost caused Gabriel to drop it.

Darkwater reached for it, swiftly, with his good hand, and flicked it open. He swore under his breath. “Swamp. Give me my crystal ball, Penny.”

“Your Grace,” Gabriel said, using both the title and the tone of deference he rarely used except in public, and continuing, in tight-lipped, scolding tones. “You cannot mean to go rescuing anyone right now. You could barely rescue yourself!”

“My crystal ball, Penn, and do me the favor of being quiet.”

Witchfinder — Free novel — One

Posted on September 30, 2011December 24, 2011 by Sarah A. Hoyt

UPDATE: A SLIGHTLY EDITED AND PRETTIED UP COMPILATION OF ALL CHAPTERS UP TO A WEEK OLD IS HERE

*I’m going to start posting a novel here, a chapter a week. This is being posted as I write it, so it’s in pre-earc (for those from Baen) or in close-to (but not quite) -first draft state. Once it’s finished it will undergo editing and then it will be published in some form. I’m going to put this up with its own category so you can find it. And yes,there is a donate button on the side of the blog, to your right– those who donate $6 WILL get this, revised, when it comes out. I’m also going to have another cover for this soonish. Until then, bear with me. Yes, those of you who are in Baen Diner have seen two chapters of this before. The difference is, this time I finish it “in public” which is a bit of a window to you on how things work out. Oh, yeah, this is a fantasy set in the same universe as the Magical British Empire, but not in the same world (at least to begin with.) And it uses a Scarlet Pimpernel archetype, which I ALWAYS wanted to do.*

UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers. Yes, this is a serialized novel. No, it’s not quite final and depending on the day you will find a few typos. If you wish to come back, I’ll post a chapter every day on Friday (except this week when I thought Thursday was Friday. I was in Writer Time or something. Two things before I get out of your way and let you read 1)Yes, the cover is horrible. It’s a place holder while I find or draw a better one. 2)donations aren’t necessary, I’ll continue the story whether or not the writer’s bowl is full, but they are (needless to say) appreciated, since baby needs med school books. (And shoes. Size 16 shoes!) Oh, a third thing (Nobody expects the writer inquisition) the novel is sort of what would happen if Heyer fell into Diana Wynne Jones at meteoric impact force.

Witchfinder

Sarah A. Hoyt

Flash And Fire

Seraphim knew it had all gone wrong as soon as he emerged from the mage-portal.

He hadn’t been sure where the alarm had sent him, but he knew it had indicated several children in distress. And that meant there had to be a world on the other end.

There was no world. Only the grey, empty nothingness that mages called Betweener.

For a moment, in a panic, he wondered if he’d done something wrong, if perhaps his casting and his spelling had gone wrong, if he’d lost himself through his own stupidity.

His heart beating painfully in his chest, his throat dry, he tried to go over in his mind the coordinates the alarm had shown, the coordinates of his spells and his foreseeing and casting of parameters.

Three children. In danger of death. And it was supposed to be 185 by 240 by… No, he’d done that.

His lungs were going to burst. The Betweener looked like a foggy morning, the fog so dense and white you saw nothing behind it. But it didn’t contain much that you could breathe. Stay there many minutes and you died.

As his brain grew cloudy, he tried to reach for his coordinates again and cast his spell. 185 by 240, by…

There was nothing there he could grasp at to open the gate forward. But the gate back was not completely closed. He’d go home and regroup.

He reached back and tried to open the mostly closed portal that had brought him here. Magic was never two-way, and going back was harder than coming here.

He had to use his whole will-power, his whole concentration, and his head was starting to pound with a headache that told him he didn’t have enough oxygen.

By the powers he thought. This was a trap. It was always a trap. Those coordinates were never reachable.

And then the portal behind sprang open.

At that moment, as though called by that magic, a dagger appeared out of the blind fog. Seraphim spun. It should have hit his heart, but instead, it buried itself in his shoulder. As he struggled to keep the portal open and dispel the dagger, it cut a vicious path down his body.

He shoved through the portal, then commanded the dagger to drop.

Standing in his dressing room, his grace Seraphim Ainsling, Duke of Darkwater, realized that his suit was not only torn, so was his body. Blood was seeping through the superfine cloth, dripping from his hand onto the floor.

And he was late for his own engagement party.
His Grace

Chapter One

If anyone were looking closely at the gentleman as he approached the double doors of the ballroom, they would have noticed he held himself somewhat stiffly. Not as though he were injured or embarrassed, but more as though he were excessively careful of all his movements.

The two uniformed footmen exchanged a look before opening the doors. His grace, the look said, had clearly been out drinking. Which explained his being so late to the ball.

Neither of them would have dared say it was just like His Grace, and – if it came to that – a lot like His Grace’s deceased father, but it was plain that they both thought it.

As his Grace, Seraphim Ainsling, Duke of Darkwater paused in the doorway, in the full glare of the brilliant magelights positioned all around the walls, all eyes turned his way.

This was not because of the exquisite tailoring of his green evening attire, that showed off his muscular body to great advantage, or his commanding height and stately bearing. That he was possibly the handsomest man in the room, with his thick, raven black hair, aquiline features, and dazzling emerald eyes, was a part of it, as well as the fact that he was His Grace, Seraphim Ainsling, Duke of Darkwater, one of the oldest and most prestigious magical houses in the kingdom, not to say in the world.

No. The real reason his entrance gained the attention of all in the room was because this party was being held in his honour, and he was unfashionably late. His mother had almost given up all hope of his appearance, as had his betrothed, Lady Honoria Blythe.

The betrothal had as yet to be formalized but everyone present expected the announcement to be made sometime approaching midnight. Whispers that he planned to cry off had already traversed the room.

After a pause that was so silent it was almost as if the orchestra had stopped playing – which it certainly hadn’t — the conversation and dancing resumed.

Darkwater walked into the room, still moving with exaggerated care, reached for a glass from a tray held high by a passing footman, and tossed the champagne back in one swift move.

From across the room, his mother saw it and flinched. The Dowager Duchess of Darkwater was a petite woman. Her mother had been French, and Lady Barbara showed it in her small oval face, her dark eyes, her clearly marked, arched eyebrows, and in a certain air which showed a quick temper, quickly tamped down.

She approached her errant son, maintaining every appearance of outward calm, even if her gaze couldn’t help but reproach his lateness and his state.

“Really Seraphim!” she said as soon as she could be sure of not being heard by other people. “After I have gone to such trouble putting on this ball for you, the least you could do is arrive in a timely manner. Dearest Honoria has withstood it all without a crack in her perfect demeanour, but I have been ready to faint from anxiety.”

Darkwater glanced across the room to where Lady Honoria stood, the picture of poise and elegance. She smiled at him, a calm smile that showed no emotion at all, neither anger nor relief, neither disdain nor caring. He sent her a stilted bow and a smile that gave as little away as her own. “She is to be commended for her good sense,” he replied. “And you, Mama, are to be commended for not fainting. That would have set the tabbies’ tongues wagging.”

His mother clutched his arm and he winced and reeled a little, as though the force of her small hand clasping his sleeve were enough to unsettle his carefully guarded poise. “Seraphim – tell me you are happy with this match. If you are not, you should not go through with it. There is time to back out now, without injuring Honoria or the Darkwater pride.”

“Back out?” he asked as he stepped away from her. “Why should I want to do that?”

“Because you are not in love with her. I have always wanted a love match for you, not to see you give yourself up to increase the family fortune. Our magic is still strong, and with your brother’s new inventions, our fortunes will rally.”

“Father expected otherwise,” said Darkwater curtly. “An alliance between Ainsling’s Arcana and Blythe Blessings was the old Duke’s greatest dream.” He reached for a sparkling crystal glass from another passing tray. “Love is a fairy story, at any rate.”

“So instead you drink yourself blind?” asked his mother. “You are making a good job of hiding it, but I can see you are unsteady on your feet.”

“Hardly, Mother. Please do not fret.” Almost reeling, he managed to visibly exert utmost control upon his rebellious body, bowed politely to his mother, and turned to cross the room. “If you will excuse me, I believe Honoria is entitled to at least one dance with me.”

Seeing him bow to Honoria and offer his hand to be enveloped in her cool, gloved little one, his mother could but clench her two hands together. What she had endured from her husband – his careless disregard for her and her position – only she knew. She had exerted her discretion, her pride, the very last shreds of the love that had once drawn her into an unadvisable marriage, to keep her husband’s missteps secret.

His debts at the gaming tables, she’d covered without a word, his frequent inebriation, she’d hid by talking of his “complaint”, his mistresses he’d paid off, his byblows, she’d taken care to set in the way of good positions, his children she’d borne without complaint.

And all that time, her one consolation had been that neither Seraphim, nor his ten-year younger brother, Michael, nor even her single surviving daughter, Caroline, Michael’s twin, showed the slightest tendency to imitate their father. Michael was perhaps the steadiest of them all – his mind given very early over to the perfecting of magic and the creation of magical engines to improve daily life.

But Seraphim, though a rather more spirited boy, forever climbing trees and riding out on horses that were too impetuous for any other rider, had shown early enough a tendency to assume responsibility for the family, and to respect the worth and importance of his title and position.

Only in the last ten years, it had all fallen apart. Rumors of his wild gaming and wenching, his uphazard living, his pride in his riding and shooting prowess – a prowess no one else could see a shred of – had reached even the ears of his mother.

No one had asked her to settle his debts. Yet. No one had laughed openly about his mistaken pride in his physical abilities. Yet. No light skirt or edge born baby had sought her protection. Yet.

But in that ballroom, watching her son hold himself too stiffly and carefully, Lady Barbara Ainsling, Dowager Duchess of Darkwater felt much like syssiphus, who, having pushed the rock up the slope sees it rolling back again.

Seraphim, his early character not withstanding, was turning into a copy of his father.

For the next chapter look here

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Witchfinder — by Sarah A. Hoyt

Witchfinder — by Sarah A. Hoyt

Witchfinder

Sarah A. Hoyt

Flash And Fire

And he was late for his own engagement party. His Grace

And he was late for his own engagement party.
His Grace