Free Novel, Rogue Magic, Chapter 45

The prequel to this — Witchfinder — is now up on Amazon.

This novel will get posted here a chapter every Friday or Saturday, or occasionally Sunday.  If you contribute $6 you shall be subscribed for the earc and first clean version in electronic format.  I think it will probably take another three months to finish.  Less, if I can have a weekend to run through and get ahead of the game.  It hasn’t happened yet.

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

Lady Caroline Ainsling, sister of the Duke of Darkwater:

In the Kitchen of the Centaur Queen

I dismounted and Akakios’ mother led us through the narrow street, to a house that looked like one of the nicer cottages in our domains. Not exactly poor or untidy looking – it was two floors, with quite a nice-looking façade, and an ivy trellises climbing over the front door. The way in, too, looked like a nice cottage, or perhaps one of the humbler houses, such as where a parson might live: we went into a tidy garden via a wooden gate set in a low stone wall covered in climbing roses.

We meant Akakios’ mother and myself. Akakios stepped carefully over the wall, and then maneuvered his way to the same path we were taking – a tidy cobblestone path – to the front door.

I understood the reason for the carefully, as his mother said, “Akakios!” in that tone of mothers everywhere.

And Akakios said, in the tone of every boy discovered at fault, “I was careful. I looked where I stepped.”

“Yes, dear,” she said. But you know that rabbits can burrow over night.”

“Oh, mother,” he said, in a tone of great impatience, which nonetheless still sounded like he’d been discovered at fault and knew it. “I haven’t done that since—”

“Since you were twelve and first come into your powers, yes, I know,” she said, and smiled. “But this would be a very unfortunate time to have you laid up with a broken leg. Do be careful.”

He didn’t answer that. I could hear him walking behind us to the front door. He’d once explained to me something about magical horse shoes, which vanished when he shifted. They weren’t made of iron, of course – it would be terrible to do that to a magical being – but they made the same sound when he was in centaur form.

At the door, which was an ordinary door, and I was just wondering how Akakios was going to get through it, his mother turned around and said, “Akakios!” exactly like our cook used to talk to Seraphim or Gabriel when they came to the kitchen and stole cookies.

He sighed, and I was aware of his stepping behind me, and into a little branching path. I looked, and he was trotting towards an outbuilding at the end of the garden. Funny how he could move, in his horse form, in the exact same way that conveyed annoyance of his human form.

I turned to find his mother smiling at me. “He knows better than to come in without changing,” she said.

I looked at the normal size door. “Can he?”

“Oh, assuredly. It’s magical, see. But the centaur form looms in the whole kitchen, and it’s very hard to move around it. Their father does it all the time, but I have very little control over him. Husbands! However, my sons were properly brought up.”

I didn’t ask her if her husband hadn’t been properly brought up. The whole idea of coming in in centaur form being rather like coming in the kitchen with muddy boots had never occurred to me. I began to suspect there were fine points to being married to a centaur that I should learn about. Particularly if Akakios was going to retain his ability to shift in my world.

You see, I’d never thought much about it, because, well, it was supposed that he’d never be able to enter fairyland again and never be able to shift. It seemed like the burden of learning to bridge our ways and to live as it was expected would all be on his side. But now…

I followed my future mother in law into a tidy kitchen. There was a fireplace, but it wasn’t lighted, and there was a rather large, elaborate stove, made of brick, I thought. It had ovens and was clearly set up for finer cooking than the fireplace would have been.

There was also a large, well-scrubbed table, the pine pale and looking like it had been polished by generations of use. And there were four chairs, two rockers by the fireplace, and – curiously – a child’s rocker, upon which a fat marmalade cat slept.

The windows at either end of the kitchen – crosswise from the door and fireplace – were wide open, and through them came soft breezes perfumed with lavender.

The cat looked up as I entered and fixed me with a baleful eye, then sighed, as though its rest had been rudely interrupted, and curled back up to sleep.

The queen of centaurs went up to the table, where she had a spread of dough laid out, and various instruments. She started cutting it, swiftly. “You know,” she said. “I meant no more than to make some treats for the village children, but it chances it’s Akakios’ favorite, and I’ll have them ready in a moment.” She was putting the squares of dough on trays that looked ceramic, and topping them with dollops of jam. “It won’t take a moment,” she said. She had yet more flour on her nose, and a bit on her hair from careless sweeping of her hand up.

“They smell wonderful,” I said. “But I won’t be able to eat them, will I?”

She blinked at me, as she lifted the full tray. “Whyever not?” And then with a smile that reminded me of Akakios making jokes, “We rarely poison our guests.”

“Well, the food of fairyland,” I said. “I was here once before, you see, and your husband…” I hesitated before telling her the full trouble he’d gone through to avoid having me eat the food of fairyland.

“Oh, that,” she said. “It doesn’t apply to the village. You’ll have to take my word for it, but there would be nothing to lying to you – no good coming to me. And I wouldn’t do that, at any rate, your being Akakios’ affianced wife.” She slid the tray into the oven, and closed the door “It doesn’t apply to the village because our food is made of what we grow, and not magicked into being.”

I wondered if that was true. In my visit to fairyland before, I’d learned not to believe anyone. On the other hand, she was Akakios’ mother and my future mother in law. On yet the other hand, would she not want to tie me to fairyland, if she thought it would also tie down her son, whom she’d expected never to see again. And why had she been baking cookies while we were gone.

I thought it might offend her mortally if I didn’t eat her baking. But then again, what was offense to being trapped in this strange place.

Just then I heard Akakios come in. I could tell before turning that the person who’d walked in was Akakios and also that he was in human form. Turning around, I saw him as I’d first seen him in human form. He’d removed the shirt and jacket, and was wearing a sort of Greek Chiton, which left one arm free, and covered him in soft white wool folds to his knees. He had sandals on. And the facilities for changing must include a hair brush, because he’d brushed his hair back and re-tied it, so he looked neat and clean and far more at home in this kitchen than I did.

He came up behind me, silently, and put his hand on my shoulder, while looking at his mother.

“I am making nymph’s sighs,” she said. “They’ll be out of the oven in a moment. I should send for milk to accompany. Or would you prefer coffee?”

He said, with a half laugh. “So you’re worried. Because you can’t have known we were coming, so you were baking to—”

“Calm myself down, yes,” she said, with a sound of great tiredness, dropping on a chair. She looked suddenly very tired and very worried, like she was tired of being worried. “Oh, Akakios, the king– Night Arrow. That poor boy.”