Rogue Magic, Free Novel, Chapter 41

*Sorry this is so late.  There is carpentry going on six feet from my desk, and it has required my assistance so doors don’t crush the Mathematician.  Long story.  Anyway, it’s done now.  And I know Musketeer’s Inheritance isn’t up yet, my editor caught death-flu.  And I haven’t finished entering changes in Witchfinder, but it really SHOULD be in subscriber’s hands this weekend (and up by the end of the month, G-d willing.)*

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

The Maiden Alone

 

Helen Blythe, sister of the Earl of Savage

 

I didn’t know when Mister Merrit disappeared.  Between a word and another, he was gone, as though swallowed by the air.  Around me, it all remained crisp and clear, as I walked a path among what seemed to be flowering apple orchards, their scent heavenly in the soft, warm air.

I remembered the fairytales nanny used to tell me, and had a moment of surprise that anyone – frankly – would tell such stories to children.  But I remembered liking them, yes, even the ogres that ate children who disobeyed quite arbitrary rules.

But the thing was when you were a child, even a child in a world such as Avalon, where you knew that fairyland was a place, you never really expected to go there.

But now, I was there.  And while terrible things happening to people you don’t know far away are interesting and fun, terrible things happening to you right now and right here are not.

I remembered all the injunctions about not leaving the path and about helping strangers, and also unlikely tales of maidens made to cook up an entire menagerie of animals, or a lake full of fish. I certainly wasn’t about to spin any straw into gold.  I’s seen a spinning wheel once, and it seemed quite likely to me that Sleeping Beauty hadn’t so much been cursed as faked sleep for a hundred years to avoid the painfully drudgery of spinning and the cuts people must get from winding the thread through their fingers.  I’d have done it.

Or I’d have run away to become a pirate.  I felt a fleeting sense of guilt.  Fleeting because, while my original notion might be misguided, certainly I hadn’t asked for any of the further adventures, including having to resist the importune advances of the fish king.

But I did feel some guilt, still, over involving Mister Merrit in these affairs.  If I hadn’t taken such a hasty step as to try to escape to sea and become a pirate, he would not have needed to come after me.

For the first time it occurred to me how odd it was that of all the people in my brother’s house, the superintendent of manufacturies had come to rescue me.  Not my brother, not my mother, not even one of my horribly prim little sisters, but one of my brother’s servants.  Or at least one of his deputies.  I wasn’t sure one would call someone with as much power as Mister Wolfe Merrit a servant.  Not exactly.

On that two thoughts entered my mind, the first being that he was certainly not much to look at, and the second not quite a thought with words, but the memory of all we’d been through together and that he’d tried to protect me.  Which brought with it a strong wave of gratitude, but I gave myself a little shake.  Yes, being romantically interested in my brother’s … adjutant would be highly improper.  I was very sure that Mr. Merrit was not a person of quality.  Yes, it would make mama faint.  But besides that it had nothing to recommend itself to me.  After all, I wasn’t a fool, or at least not a complete one.  I shouldn’t think I had more in common with Mr. Merrit, whom I vaguely remembered was a cottagers son than I’d had with the fish king.  And there was the fact that, unless he – and I – was much mistaken, he was already married.  And that he had a son.  And that he’d been in fairyland before.

It occurred to me that perhaps my family didn’t have the best possible hiring practices.

None of which made me feel better about either having led him into danger or where he might now be, in some thicket of magic, in this very strange and very dangerous land.

Just as I thought this, I heard his voice call from somewhere to my right “Oh, help me, the horror.”

I started to pivot that direction, then stopped.  They said when you walked in fairyland, you should never leave the path.  You were safe on the path, but not away from it.

How this tallied with helping three people on your journey, I didn’t know, but unless the three people were kind enough to stay on the path and to let me stay on the path, it was all very well, I wasn’t going to leave it.

I knew the magic logic of fairyland, which was the same lotic you used with nefarious creatures such as vampires.  Not that I’d ever met a vampire, though mama said in her day there had been a duke who was a Vampire and who was a great rake and very dashing and all the young women were languishing for him.

It seemed to me a great deal of nonsense, particularly as mama seemed to think the most wonderful thing about him was how he sparkled in the sun.

But what I mean is that vampires cannot do things to you unless you enable them by breaking the rules, by which I mean inviting them in through your door.

I suspected it was the same in fairyland.  If I stepped out of this path, I’d give them permission to do what they wanted with me.  And that, I’m sorry, after my adventures, I wasn’t about to do.  As well have stayed and let the fish king marry me.  Or the monkey king.

And while at that, why were all these creatures interested in marrying me?  Never had a belle in her glittering first season been so sought.  Mama would have been quite happy had I been offered for by a viscount.  She’d swoon at a god.  Or maybe not.  At any rate I wasn’t having any, and if Hermes offered I wouldn’t have him either.  It would be like marrying Jonathan.

I confess part of the reason for my disordered thoughts was to avoid the screams which continued, in a piteous voice which couldn’t possibly be Mr. Merrit’s.  For one, he’d never beg abjectly to all and sundry for rescue.  And besides, there was something false in the tone of the voice, as though … as though it were his voice being imitated by an inexperience mimic.

No.

I’d not leave the path.

At that moment, as though out of nowhere, I realized there was a young child walking beside me.  A pretty young child, with curly dark hair and bright green eyes, dressed like a ragamuffin.  But when he spoke, his words were hesitant but cultured.  “Please, Miss,” he said.  “If you please, will you show me the way home?”