Rogue Magic, Free Novel, Chapter 36

*Sorry this is so late.  WordPress crashed three times while I was trying to put this up, and it necessitated a whole reboot.*

The prequel to this — Witchfinder — has been removed.  I do promise to go through the copyedits as soon as humanly possible and send the advance copies to those who pre-ordered.  You’ll know when that’s eminent because I’ll remove scattered chapters from this blog.  I do hope to manage it next week, but I’m not promising as I’m still finishing a novel under contract to Baen. Meanwhile, if you donate $6 and note it in the field, you’ll get advance-subscribed to this novel.  I do, however, understand it can be a long time to wait, and if you want to, do so.  I will continue to post chapters here, roughly one a week.

NOTICE: For those unsure about copyright law and because there was a particularly weird case, just because I’m making the pre-first draft of my novel available to blog readers, it doesn’t mean that this isn’t copyrighted to me.  Rogue Magic as all the contents of this blog is © Sarah A. Hoyt 2013.  Do not copy, alter, distribute or resell without permission.  Exceptions made for ATTRIBUTED quotes as critique or linking to this blog. Credit for the cover image is © Ateliersommerland | Dreamstime.com

Miss Caroline Ainsling, sister of the Duke of Darkwater:

It didn’t take long.  You see, Michael – my brother Michael – is a mathematical and mechanical genius, which in turn makes him a magical genius.  The fact that his share of power is higher than Seraphim’s and almost as high as Gabriel’s , which should be impossible without elven blood, but never mind.  When I asked, he started showing me the equations for sympathetic magic and contagion of power, and I thought about exactly how I’d set up the gardens of my home when I married Akakios.  We’d have an orangery and an apple grove, because he was fond of the trees, and for the scent too.

But that had been months ago.  I rarely asked Michael to explain anything, and when I did, it was never very long before my eyes glazed and I went inward to my happy land.

I’m fairly sure I’m not more stupid than I need to be.  Well, except perhaps about social occasions, when my fellow students were always telling me, “Caroline, don’t be more stupid than you need to be.”  But that was the result of being raised so isolated and so oddly, so that I was almost mama’s confidant, and a play fellow to Michael, as well as following Seraphim and Gabriel around.  It was not any deficiency of my understanding.

And yet, when I tried to grasp the higher mathematical truths of magic, my mind slid away from them, like they were made of ice, and I couldn’t follow what Michael assured me was the simplest of reasonings.

Which was why I didn’t even try, that evening, in Seraphim’s office, after Sydell had arrived, and after the fountain had exploded.

It was funny in a way.  Look, I remember being about three and there was a fire in a wing of our home, and everyone ran out of their beds and downstairs in their underclothes.  I’d discovered things I’d never seen before, and could not have guessed about people.  For instance, our dignified buttler wore a wig in his day work.  In the middle of the night, he was bald, except for a fringe of white hair around his head.  And the parlor maid slept in something embroidered and lavish that would have suited mama, except mama said it was highly improper, and after that mama had said something about no one wearing that to bed when they sleep alone, and a few months later, the first parlor maid was married to our head gardener.  Which I thought was a lot to come off frilly nightgowns in gosshammer muslin and edged with lace, but mama seemed very sure.

Of course, that night in Seraphim’s office, no one was in their underwear, but in a way I got the same feeling that I was seeing everyone undressed.  Seraphim kept raking his hand back through his hair, his eyes were red rimmed, and he looked distraught.  And Sydell kept pacing back and forth and muttering the occasional word that made no sense to anyone else.

Michael in turn, looked almost spell-bound, his eyes fixed as though on some distant landscape, and looking so much like when he’d been a captive of the late king of fairyland that my heart wrenched.

I looked away from him, and that’s when he asked Seraphim, “The statue, outside?  What happened to it?”

Seraphim stopped raking his hand through his hair and barked out.  “Jonathan.  Jonathan Blythe.”

And Michael nodded, as though no more explanation was needed; as though the earl of Savage were a known exploder of statues.

Then Sydell stopped and more or less growled, “I have to go in and see if I can save him.  I have to.  And it’s no use at all you telling me what risks I’ll run.  I know them well enough.  But if anyone can bring him back I can.”

Seraphim started to open his mouth, snapped it shut so hard I swear I could hear his teeth clashing together, opened it again and barked out, “Right.  Then why are you telling me this.  You could have gone from your own estate surely?  It is no part of my job to help a man commit suicide.”

Sydell laughed.  It wasn’t an ironical laugh.  It really was a laugh, as though Seraphim had told a joke.  “No, thank you, I don’t need help.  What I need is a legal document.”

Seraphim’s eyebrows shot up.  “What?”

“My son… well, at any rate my heir.  If I go, he is left unprotected, and frankly if anyone probes too closely his paternity will be doubted too.  And if he’s an award of the crown… well, you know…”

Seraphim didn’t say anything to that.  I didn’t either.  Awards of the crown got “sold” in marriage at the most outrageous prices and with total disregard for their happiness.  It was something I’d heard Seraphim and Nell discuss.  Nell didn’t like it, but this was tied up in such a net of rights, duties and ancient traditions it would take centuries to fix.

And even I knew that Sydell’s supposed son was actually his half brother and the son of his father.  If anyone probed into that, the legitimacy of the child would be questioned, and I was sure Sydell had legitimate relatives enough – if distant – eager to get their hands on the property.

Seraphim opened his hands wide.  “What do you want me to do about that?”

“I want to leave you in charge of him.  I want you to make him your personal award.”  There was a pause.  “Please?  I owe the child a duty.  I don’t want him in a home for magical orphans, which is where he’d end if he becomes a court award.  I grew up in one.”

Seraphim had then called a legal clerk – it must be nice to have legal clerks you can call at any hour of the night, though the man did look like he’d been asleep and I later found out he’d slept in a truckle bed at the back, as did many others on other beds, of course, on duty as long as Seraphim remained in the office.

The clerk started drafting a document, and then Michael stepped forward and touched Sydell’s shoulder, making him jump about a foot off the ground, and then said, “If you’re going in, have you considered a Arrar maneuver?”

“What?  That would be foolhardy.”

And that’s when I stopped understanding anything.  Numbers flew, and Michael got a paper off Seraphim’s desk and started drawing figures on it, and Sydell corrected the figures, and Seraphim must have been as exasperated by it all as I was because he finally must have caught something – he said, “Here, what is this?  Michael can’t go with you!”

And Michael looked up and said, “I can.  Indeed I must.”

“But having been—”

“A changeling means I’m immune from most of it.  It’s like … it’s like having caught the small pox once.  Seraphim, let go of the paper, and do you not have a pen that’s not in dire need of trimming?”

And then the numbers and figures returned, and Seraphim must have understood some of it, because he leaned over the paper to tell them they were out of their minds if they thought he’d let them do that.

Akakios leaned over me, and touched me on the shoulder.

Looking up, I saw he looked concerned and grave, as he made a head motion towards the outer corridor.

It’s amazing how silent his hoof-fall can be when he wants it to.  We crept out of the office unnoticed.

Out in the hallway, he leaned close and said, “I can go back to fairyland.  I was listening to what they were saying, and I can go.  I can use one of those entry points.  I think I have to, Caroline.  I’m sworn liege to Night Arrow, and he must be brought to reason… be brought alive again.”

I nodded.  “If you go, I go with you.”

“Caroline!”

“No.  Look.  Our betrothal is, I’m told, as binding as marriage, and if it is, wherever you go, I go.”

 

“But… it will be very dangerous.”

“So will be staying here if you fail.” I got hold of his hand in both of mine.  “Akakios, if you die, I’d rather be by your side than here, and not knowing what happened.”

His eyes misted.  He’d deny it, mind, but I saw them glitter.  “Very well,” he said.

It is very awkward to have a centaur help you mount his horse-half, but we managed.  We tiptoed out of the office.  Fortunately, the guards outside were still too busy with the fountain to pay much heed.  Outside the plaza, Akakios did something that opened the magical path to fairyland, and we charged along it.