Witchcraft

Usually, I stay in my little house deep in the woods, alone with my books and my cats and the herbs I gather in the forest. But every once in a while, I forget that I don’t like people very much, and that’s when the trouble begins.

It started out, this time, with a boy--he would have called himself a young man, but he was a boy--found half dead in the forest and brought to my home. This happens occasionally; the forest is a dangerous place for adventurers and poachers and other fools who don’t know what they’re doing. Usually it’s alright. I fix them up, let them stay until they’re better, or I can’t stand them anymore, and send them on their way to continue poaching or adventuring, or, if they have any sense, to go home.

Jakon was more sensible than most, and also worse off than most. As a result, he stayed in my cottage for a while. He never told me what he’d been doing in the forest, and I never asked. Our conversations consisted of me telling him to drink this or lie still while I set a bone or changed a bandage. The only somewhat social interaction I had with him was when he asked what I was reading and I showed him the cover of the book. What can I say, I’m not really a people-person. Jakon was okay, though. He didn’t yatter nonstop and he liked my cats. He recovered better than I would have expected, though he had a limp. He understood that it was something of a miracle, that he’d recovered as well as he had, and was duly grateful. So he went home, and my life continued as normal. For a few months, at least.

And then there was a knock at my door. I ignored it. The knocking continued, and I continued to ignore it. But a few hours later, I opened the door to go outside, and nearly tripped over Jakon, who was sitting on my doorstep.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded.

“Vayran, I need your help.” Even when he’d been at death’s door, he’d never sounded so desperate. I should have known better than to get involved.

But I have to admit, I was rather fond of the boy, so I didn’t tell him to go to hell. At first, I was just going to hear his story before sending him away. But somehow, that wasn’t how it worked out.

“It’s Celidh. My sister. She’s been accused of witchcraft.”

“Why did you come to me? What do you think I can do?”

Jakon looked away. “You’re the only one there is.”

“Is there a reason she’s accused of witchcraft?”

“No, they’re accusing everyone. Doesn’t make her any less likely to die, though.”

Great, I thought. Not only am I considering going into an area occupied by crowds of people, but it’s one in which there’s a witch scare. I knew I was a fool for even considering it. If anyone would be though to be a witch, it was me.

As you may have guessed, I went.

The town was far enough that had I stayed home, I wouldn’t have been sought out; the journey long enough to give me time to regret my decision. With every step I took I berated myself for my idiocy, but I didn’t turn back.

I’d thought to do a simple jailbreak, but when we arrived in the town, a small crowd was gathered around a fountain. At the fountain, two men appeared to be trying to drown a girl. By Jakon’s expression, I could tell it was his sister.

“Hey!” I yelled. People turned to stare at me. I had some vague idea in mind of either convincing the people what idiots they were--that never works, and I usually know it-- or creating a distraction. What happened was that, when everyone had turned to look at me, someone cried, “Witch!” and everyone took up the cry.

As I said, trying to convince people how stupid they are never works, but I was angry, so I wasn‘t being particularly sensible. “You’re fools,” I screamed. “If I was a witch, do you really think you’d be able to do anything against me? You’re farmers.”

“Get her!” someone screamed, and they rushed towards me. I like people even less than I normally do when they’ve formed into a mob, and even less than that when the mob is trying to grab me.

So I was too angry to think straight, and I called up as much force as I could muster and shoved it around. I’m not really a very murderous person, so nothing happened to the mob, but all the buildings in the town began to go up in flames.

The people stared at me. I don’t know why they were so surprised; they’d known I was a witch, hadn’t they?

I don’t know whether they would have came after me as they’d planned or backed away in horror, but they didn’t get the chance to do either. In the distraction, Jakon had managed to sneak up to the fountain and grab Ceilidh. The three of us ran. Not fast, Jakon couldn’t with his limp, and Kelia was still half-drowned, but we ran. I didn’t even stop to put out the flames. Let them have something more to deal with than torturing innocent people.

Jakon and Ceilidh stayed with me for a few weeks, long enough to be sure no one was coming after us, before leaving to find a new home. Ceilidh came back a few days later. Jakon had gotten a job as a printer--apparently that was what he did, though why a printer had gotten half-killed wandering in the woods I have no idea--and it payed enough for him to rent a small house, and Ceilidh could have stayed with him for a while…. But what she really wanted was to learn magic, and wouldn’t I please teach her?

I told her I’d think about it, and after doing so, against my better judgment, agreed. So I went back to my peaceful--if somewhat less solitary--life. Somewhat less peaceful, now that I think about it, what with Ceilidh accidentally blowing things up and such, but I did the same, when I was first learning, and at least no angry mobs are involved.

Wards

This story has been deleted because I am now writing a novel based on it. I will post an update in this blog when it is available.

The Goat

This is a story my friend Jade and I co-wrote a while ago. I started writing something today, but I just got home from a trip and I'm tired, and that story will take longer than I want to stay up for. So yeah, here's this.

I am loath to part with the body and spirit of my beloved grandfather. Tragically, I am forced to choose between him and my dear, dear husband. You see, my grandfather is the spirit of a man trapped in the body of a goat. When he was a young lad, my grandfather was apprenticed to a great Shaman. It was a great honor, for the Shaman was the most powerful within a month’s travelling by foot, or even by ox-cart, or at least so my grandfather has told me. My grandfather, Olaf [Oo-lahf], studied hard and gained must of his master’s knowledge. He loved the life set out for him. However, as he grew into a young man, he began to love something else even more—a beautiful young woman of his village, Ingelill. He asked for her hand in marriage, and when she agreed, asked the Shaman for his blessing.

But the Shaman refused, saying that he would be a fool to give up the power he could have for a woman. As much as it pained him to defy his master, Olaf loved Ingelill, and they were married. For a short time they lived in marital bliss, and a son was born to them.

Soon after their son’s birth, the Shaman found their happy little home. In his fury, he turned Olaf into a goat. Ingelill begged him to restore her husband, but to no avail, and the Shaman left without a word.

But the situation was not as dire as it first seemed. Olaf retained his powers of speech, and the family lived happily for many years. Olaf gave his small son goatty back rides and watched as he grew into a man. Eventually, his son found a wife of his own, and they soon had a young daughter.

But then, tragedy struck. Olaf’s son’s beautiful bride was struck by lightning, and passed away. In his grief, her husband stopped eating, and he too was soon lost forever from this world. Their daughter, or rather, I, was raised by Olaf and Ingelill. Despite his… unusual form, I have always loved Olaf as a father.

Eventually, I met and fell in love with an American man. Olaf disapproved, as my soon-to-be husband had no knowledge of our language or culture, and though he had initially had nothing against the man, he thought he was unworthy of me and was corrupting me away from my family. But I loved and still love my dear Bob, and we eloped.

When my grandfather heard, he was furious. He ran around the house bleating in rage, until he suddenly keeled over.

My grandmother was distraught. She could not bear to part with him, so she brought him to a taxidermist. As an apprentice Shaman, my grandfather had learned enough that his spirit was able to remain with him. My grandmother kept him by her side for the rest of her life.

Tragically, she too soon passed away. My grandfather was passed on to me. I brought him into my home and made a place for him next to the umbrella stand. I was happy to have the only remaining member of my family, the grandfather I had loved so much, with me again. Although my grandfather had become quieter since his death, his mere presence was a comfort.

But soon, odd things began to happen. First, my husband’s clothes began to disintegrate. Then, the writing in his important books and papers would disappear. At first, we didn’t understand what was happening. But when I spoke of my worries to my grandfather, a familiar chuckle emerged from his now-silent throat. I realized that he was causing the disturbances.

If it had only been these small nuisances, I could have tolerated it—after all, he is my family. But one day, my husband felt an odd pull in the night. He was dragged from his bed. The next morning I found him unconscious at the base of the stairs with a broken leg and a fractured wrist. He gave me an ultimatum: my grandfather goes, or he does.

It will be my grandfather that goes. I hope to find him a loving family who will respect him as the great man he is. He is a kind, friendly man, and is unlikely to cause harm to any but the man he considers to have stolen me away. I mean to list him for sale on ebay.

Into the Fire

It was very cold out. It was very cold in, too, since the power was out, so my heater was useless. I was staying in a cabin in the mountains, and I’d never used the fireplace—the bookshelf was above it, and I didn’t want them to be hurt by the smoke—but I had to have some heat source. The roads were iced over, so I wasn’t going to go all the way to town to buy wood or a battery operated heater or anything, so I bundled up, went outside, and gathered as much firewood as I could. I didn’t chop down trees or anything, just picked up whatever branches were on the ground.

They were mostly a bit wet, so it was hard to start a fire, but I eventually managed to get the wood to burn. Pretty soon, the room was comfortably warm, and I sat on the couch in front of the fire with a nice warm cup of cocoa. The wind was howling outside, by I was warm and cozy.

Suddenly, a gust of wind shook the cabin. My sketchbook, every page but the last filled with my drawings, tumbled off the shelf and straight into the fire. “No!” I cried, leaping for it. I reached into the fire and managed to grab the sketchbook.

I realized what I’d done and jerked my hands out of the fire. I dropped the book on the hearth, but my left hand felt as if something in the fire was grabbing it. It must be caught on something, I thought, terrified at the prospect of such major burns. I didn’t feel any pain, or even any more heat than was comfortable. It must be a really bad burn, the kind where it’s so numb you can’t even feel it, I panicked as I tried with all my strength to break free. Slowly, difficultly I managed to draw my hand out of the fire.

Something else, or someone else, came with it.

It, or rather, he, was a man, about my age. He was well dressed and had rumpled black hair. I will admit he was rather handsome, but not as quickly as he would. I felt rather faint. Not, I quickly add, at his looks, but at the fact that I had just pulled him out of my fire. I had no idea how to react. I was scared, and curious, and disbelieving, and I couldn’t even begin to know what to say. I’m afraid I merely stared at him, openmouthed.

He looked around the room, giving me as much attention as the furnishings, then started for the door.

“Wait,” I called after him. “Where are you going?”

“Elizhebinbab.”

“Where?” I asked incredulously.

He looked at me scornfully. “Even a backwoods peasant knows of the capital city of the great empire.”

“You’re insane,” I started to tell him. Then I remembered I’d pulled him through my fire, and after that, him being from some unknown empire was almost to be expected. “You do know you’re in America?”

He looked at me with puzzlement. “And where is America, in relationship to Elizhebinbab?”

“Um, I don’t think there is any relation. America’s a country, and I’ve never heard of Eizh… that place. But I pulled you out of my fire, are you sure you’re in the same…” I hesitated, because it sounded like something out of a fantasy book, but then, so did the rest, so I finished, “world?”

He shook his head slowly. “I should have known he wouldn’t make it that easy.”

“Who? What happened?”

He sighed, and fiddled with his hair. “I’m in the business of acquisitions. Unpaid acquisitions. My name is Aleoz of Phiqueom, you may have heard of me, except that seeing as you’re from another world you probably haven’t. I tried to, erm, acquire—”

“Steal,” I interrupted.

“If you want to put it that way, yes. I tried to steal something from a certain sorcerer. I’m very good at what I do, you know. It’s not as if I can’t detect wards; I disarmed or avoided plenty of them, but this one was subtler than the rest. Just as I was fiddling with the lock on his treasury, there was a blinding flash of light, and I was a log. Though I admit my father often said I was a log, when I was a boy, but I never thought to be a literal piece of wood. Next thing I knew, you were pulling me out of the fire.”

“How do you get back?”

“I suppose I’d have to go through a portal.”

“A portal?”

“That’s not so complicated to do. Normally you’d put one in a clump of very thick magic, but I suppose a fire would do.

We built up the fire as high as possible. Aleoz stood in front of it, waved his arms in complex patterns, and said a strange word, and suddenly a shimmery rectangle stood in the middle of the fire.

“It will only stay open for a few seconds, so I must leave immediately. It was a pleasure to meet you, miss,” he said with a small bow, then stepped through the rectangle was vanished.

It began to close, the two edges of the rectangle drawing in towards the center, and before I could think what I was doing, I grabbed my sketchbook and dashed through as if I were getting on a subway at the last moment.

I don’t know why I did it. I guess it was mostly that this was the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me, and I didn’t want it to be over so soon. And maybe I somehow knew that I belonged in that world.

I was standing in the middle of a beautiful green meadow, full of wildflowers. Butterflies flew around, and I saw a faery riding on one. The air was warm, and I thought it was probably late summer here. Aleoz was standing a few feet in front of me.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I… I guess I just wanted to see this place.”

“Well, I’d be happy to show you around.”

I stayed in that world. I don’t mean I’ve never been back, because as Aleoz said, portals are easy to make. I could travel between the worlds as easily as going from one room to the next, and I took full advantage of it. But I loved living in a world of magic, and eventually, I realized that I loved Aleoz as well. So I made that world my permanent home, and though I still go back to the land I was born in often, this is my home now.

The Crown

"What happened, Malexandra?” Anonymous demanded, rushing across the lawn to the dark corner she was standing in. “Don't tell me nothing- something happened, something huge and horrible- I can still feel it."

"Of course something happened, and I wouldn't tell you otherwise, but this is hardly the place. Come with me." Without giving him a chance to respond, she hooked arms with him and began to walk, saying loudly, "I know some people think the Jaelic style is more elegant, but you know how I prefer actual aesthetic beauty over whatever happens to be the style of the hour, surely you agree?" Some of the elegantly dressed people sipping drinks turned to look as they walked past, but there was nothing unusual in her manner. She was speaking in the exact way she did when she really was drunk- she did such a perfect imitation of her intoxicated self that he began to wonder if she really had been under the influence any of the times he'd thought she had been. He wouldn't really be surprised if those times were as fake as this, knowing her.

"I don't give a toss about that kind of thing!" he replied loudly, slurring his words.

"No, but surely even a philistine like you can't find anything to appreciate in it. Even if you don't like the one, anyone must agree that the other is even more undesirable-" They were past the people now, and she abruptly cut off her sentence, let go of his arm, and led him up into the tower.

They climbed the stairs in silence. It was not until she'd led him into the room at the top of the tower, barred the door, and checked under the bed for good measure that she finally returned to their true topic of conversation. "Yes. Something's happened."

He waited just a moment, then said, "I knew that."
"Yes. I'm just not sure how to say it."

That surprised him- he'd never seen her at a loss for words, and could hardly imagine it.

“He used the crown.”

Anonymous paled. “He wouldn’t! And even if for some reason he felt he had to, he’d consult with me first! Malexandra, whatever you think of him, Skyler is a good king and he would not unleash that if it weren’t utterly necessary. And anyway, he couldn’t have used it, he’s on the way to my party!”

Malexandra was unfazed. “What else could have done that, then?”

“Any number of things. The crown’s not the only thing with that much power. It hasn’t been used since Skyler’s great-grandfather’s time, Malexandra, and then only during the worst war the world’s ever seen. We aren’t even at war now. Why would he s use it?”

“Let’s go ask him,” said Malexandra, gesturing towards the window. Anonymous looked out and saw the king approaching the party.

“I will do the talking,” Anonymous told Malexandra firmly as they climbed down the tower stairs. “I have no wish to see you executed.” He knew Malexandra too well to take her silence for consent, but he’d warned her, and he’d try to stop her from saying anything treasonous.

They met King Skyler on the lawn. He was about twenty five, and looked the part of king. Anonymous introduced Malexandra to him. She did not curtsey or bow, but didn’t say anything rude either, which was about as much as Anonymous could hope for.

“I’m pleased to finally meet you in person,” King Skyler said to Malexandra. “Anonymous, how did you do it with the floating lights? It’s a great effect, I might copy it sometime if you don’t mind.”

“We are not here to talk about the decorations,” Malexandra snapped coldly.

“Something’s happened,” Anonymous told the king before he could react to Malexandra.

“He knows,” said Malexandra. To the king, she demanded, “What the hell were you thinking?”

Skyler blinked several times. “I beg your pardon?”

Malexandra merely stared at him, waiting for an explanation.

“It’s about the crown,” Anonymous began, but broke off when Skyler’s expression changed to one of utter shock.

“How did you know?” the king whispered.

“How did we know? How did we know?” Malexandra said angrily. “How can you have expected anyone not to know? Did you really think that you could use that much power and nobody would know?”

Skyler’s expression grew even more shocked. “You mean… you mean it was used?”

“You didn’t know,” Malexandra stated. “But what else could it be? You didn’t use the crown, the Talisman was destroyed, the Locket of Amir is… safe. There isn’t anything else with that much power.”

But Skyler was shaking his head. “I didn’t use the crown. Someone else must have. It was stolen.”

“When?” Anonymous asked him.

“Last week. I was keeping it quiet. I assumed it had been stolen for the jewels; I never thought anyone would use it. Do you have any idea of the destruction it can cause?”

“I was there last time it was used,” Malexandra said.

“But that was a hundred years ago!”

“Yes,” she agreed matter-of-factly. “Have you tried scrying for it?”

“It can’t be scried for,” Anonymous told her. “That way a king can wear it and not be found by enemy magics.”

“Ah. How unscryable is it?”

“We did some experiments a few years ago. It’s beyond my power to find it, or anyone wearing it.”

“Past, present, and future?”

“Um… I only tried finding it in the present. But the past would be no help, and even ordinarily it’s hard to see into the future.”

Malexandra ignored that. “We’ll have to go back to my place, then; there’s too much going on here to do such a delicate spell.”

“I’ve never been to the Magiary,” King Skyler said with interest.

“And you never will,” Malexandra told him.

“I could make you let me in.”

“You could try.”

“You’re right, I couldn’t make you,” he admitted.

“Won’t you need him as a focus?” Anonymous asked.

“Yes,” Malexandra admitted grudgingly, after consideration. “I’ll just get the supplies from home, and find somewhere else to do it.”

“Wouldn’t it just be easier to let me in?” the king asked.

“Yes. Look, I’m sure you’re aware that some of the people there are on the wrong side of your laws.”

“Of course. I won’t do anything about it, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Malexandra studied him closely, then nodded, and suddenly they were standing in the room at the top of her tower. As Anonymous and the king got their bearings, she took out a large ceramic bowl and some vials. She poured a shimmery silver liquid into the bowl, then a dark blue liquid that floated above the other. She stirred them together, muttered something over the bowl, and stared into it. After a minute she shook her head and took out a pin. She held it in a lit candle, then handed it to the king.

“A drop of your blood.”

Skyler looked at Anonymous, who nodded. He pricked his finger and allowed a drop of blood to fall into the bowl. Malexandra stared into it again.

Just then, the door opened and a head peaked in. “Malexandra, have you seen—oh.” Aniya stared at the king. She started to duck back out of the room, but Skyler grabbed the door and opened it all the way.

“Aniya,” he said quietly. “It’s been a long time. It’s good to see you again.”

“It would be better to see you again if you hadn’t ordered me killed,” Aniya replied.

Malexandra looked up. “Remember your promise,” she warned Skyler.

“I know. Aniya, I don’t want you dead. We used to be friends, remember?”

“Until you signed a warrant for my execution.”

“No, until you destroyed Majardea’s chance for peace and prosperity!”

“Stop it,” Malexandra ordered. “If I’m going to find something that’s impossible to find, I need to concentrate.”

“What are you looking for?” Aniya asked.

“The crown. It was stolen. And someone used it.”

“Why are you telling her? She’d probably just go and destroy that too!”

Aniya ignored him. “But it’s unscryable.”

“I know! That’s the problem. But really, didn’t you feel that earlier? Anything that unleashes that much energy has to leave some kind of mark. At least if I can find out what’s been destroyed, or will be destroyed I can trace it.”

Aniya frowned. “But you’re not having any luck?”

“I think if I make the spell strong enough, and look into the future rather than the present—”

Aniya interrupted her. “Do you remember the woman who was her for a few days, maybe three weeks ago? Who wanted to learn about getting past magical obstacles?” Malexandra nodded. “Well, she was telling me that her friend had the Mirror of Azerbjingardolinderia… that would be able to find the crown, maybe he’d let us borrow it.”

Anonymous drew in a sharp breath. “That would probably have the capabilities to find it,” he admitted.

“Do you know where to find… what’s her name, Rakayl? Or her friend?” Malexandra asked Aniya.

She nodded. “I’ll go ask them,” Aniya said, and left.

Malexandra tried scrying for it a few more times, then emptied the bowl and put it away. “If Aniya can’t borrow the mirror, we’ll have to get it through nonmagical methods.”

Anonymous and King Skyler agreed, and then the three of them stood around awkwardly. However, by the time Aniya returned three hours later, Malexandra and the king were in the midst of a heated debate, with Anonymous making occasional comments.

They dropped the conversation when Aniya returned, carrying a sack. Out of it she pulled the crown, and handed it to Skyler. “See, I didn’t destroy it,” she said.

“So you were able to scry it and get it back?” Anonymous asked curiously.

“Yes, that is exactly what happened,” Aniya told him, not meeting his gaze.

“Who stole it? And what had it been used to destroy?”

“Just a plantation in Balirmind. It was stolen by a former slave who wanted revenge. You don’t have to worry about it happening again.”

“That’s going to be a lovely diplomatic mess to smooth over,” groaned the king.

“You’ll manage,” Malexandra told him. Once he and Anonymous were gone, she asked Aniya, “What really happened?”

“Well, they didn’t actually need to scry it,” Aniya admitted. “But Rakayl was done with it, so they gave it back to me. Besides for that, it happened exactly as I said.”

Chaos

This story is a sequel to Entropy. If you haven't read that, you should read it first.

I could not have been more surprised than I was at seeing Elizabeth wandering around the camp in confusion. This was the last possible place I would ever have expected to see her, and she was the last person I would ever have expected to see here. The first thought that ran through my head was that she was here to kill me in revenge for killing her husband. I squashed the thought instantly. Elizabeth was not a vengeful person, and even if she hated me now, we’d grown up together and been best friends for most of our lives.

To my surprise, it did not seem that she hated me. She spun around in fear when I tapped her on the shoulder, but at seeing it was me her expression of worry changed to one of delight. “Lazulia!” she cried, embracing me. “I can’t tell you how I’ve missed you!”

I wondered if she’d gotten my letter at all. Even if she hadn’t, someone would have told her. But if she knew… at best, she’d somehow manage to forgive me, eventually. More likely, she’d hate me forever.

“I’ve missed you too,” I told her. I wasn’t sure how to ask whether she knew. Luckily, I didn’t have to.

“I got your letter,” she told me. “I’m afraid you mixed up your congratulations and condolences.”

“What do you mean?”

“Is there somewhere more private where we can talk?” Because we were standing in the middle of the crowded camp with beings of every possible description going about their business around us. I’m sure it intimidated Elizabeth; even I’d been intimidated when I arrived.

I led her along a path down the cliffs to the beach. It wasn’t empty, of course; the docks were full of pirates and other mariners, and there were merpeople in the sea, and here, as everywhere around the camp, huge black butterflies flew overhead. There were a few beings on the rocky beach, but the rock Elizabeth and I sat on was far enough to allow private conversation.

We were both unsure of what to say. Finally, Elizabeth told me, “I tried to write to you, but I just ended up crumpling up all my attempts. I suppose some things are better told in person. So I kept wanting to come here to visit you, but I couldn’t work up the courage.”

“I guess you did, eventually.”

She shook her head. “No, it wasn’t courage but fear that brought me here. I’ll get to that later, though.”

“What did you mean, about me mixing up congratulations and condolences?”

“You sent me your condolences on the death of my husband. You would have been better served by sending congratulations on his death, and condolences on the marriage in the first place.”

“You weren’t happy with him?”

“No. Oh, I wish you had been able to tell me what happened with him, the day you left. I suppose I wouldn’t have listened anyway. I know I wouldn’t have. Caldow was quite good-looking, you remember. So I went home that day babbling about how I’d met… gods, I believe I actually used the phrase ‘the man of my dreams.’ Lazulia, I was shocked to hear you say you’d been a fool; no, the fool was always me.”

“That’s not true,” I said. “Or at most we were both fools.”

“I don’t know. Your dream ended up coming true, didn’t it?”

“In a rather twisted way, but yes,” I admitted. “Isn’t that funny? My dream was impossible, and it came true, and yours was almost guaranteed, and… well, you sound like it didn’t.”

“I don’t know if it didn’t come true, or if it was just the wrong dream. Anyway, upon hearing that Caldow was a man of suitable rank, wealth, and profession, my father called upon him the next day and arranged the match. I was overjoyed. We had a beautiful wedding, and then he had to leave on campaign right afterwards. I missed him, or the idea of him, but I liked living in his huge manor and being wealthy. It wasn’t until he came back that… well, that things went wrong.”

She paused, so I asked gently, “He was abusive?”

“Yeah. He was away a lot, but when he wasn’t… it was bad. And then after….” After what? I wondered when she broke off that chain of thought, but I didn’t interrupt. “I… I don’t want to admit it, but I… hoped he wouldn’t come back. Every time he left. And then finally he didn’t. And when they told me it was you who’d killed him... it was like you were protecting me from him, even from a distance, even without knowing any of it.”

I had to laugh. “When I found out he was your husband, I felt like I’d betrayed you.”

“That’s how everyone else back home feels, and assume I feel.” She looked around absently, then focused on a large black shape just over our heads. “You know these are omens of doom and destruction?”

“We’re the forces of chaos. We like doom and destruction.”

Elizabeth laughed, then asked, “Really?”

“No. But they seem to like it here, and they seem to fit, somehow. And they don’t hurt anything.”

“I suppose, but they seem so… ominous.”

“Like I said, they fit in here. They follow us in battle, even. Quite spooky for the enemy, I’m sure.”

“I can imagine. Weird, spooky things do fit in here, I guess.”

“Oh, thanks,” I pretended to be insulted.

“It’s just so… you described it in your letter, but actually seeing it… and then I was trying to find you, wandering around between all those strange, terrifying people.”

“They can be overwhelming, but most of them aren’t really like that when you get to know them.”

“I know. It’s just… I doubt I could ever fit in here.”

“Any more than I could back in civilization.”

“I know,” Elizabeth said sadly. “I was just hoping… I don’t know where to go. I know this must make me a horrible friend, ignoring you until I needed you, but Lazulia, I really need your help.”

“Anything,” I promised.

“I inherited Caldow’s money, quite a lot of it. His family dislikes and mistrusts me, and is quite unhappy with the arrangement. And now they have my daughter and will try to use her to manipulate me.”

My jaw dropped. “Your daughter?”

“Emily. She’s three.”

She had been going to say, “And then after Emily was born,” I realized. But the thought was overshadowed by the fact that Elizabeth was a mother. She’d had a baby. Elizabeth had had a baby. I could still remember when we were three years old, and now she had a daughter that age.

And she’d been taken from her mother and was being used as a pawn.

“What are we going to do?” I asked her.

“I don’t know! I hoped you could think of a plan, you’re the one whose good at tactics and strategy and all that. Caldow’s father is the highest placed, richest man in town; the law won’t help me against him.”

“I know you’re didn’t come to me for the law to help you, Elizabeth. Don’t worry, I’ll come up with a plan. Tell me more about where they have her.”

“Well, they live in the big mansion on the hill… you know which one I’m talking about?”

“The one that’s exactly the opposite of a haunted house?”

“Yes! I’d forgotten about that. From what I’ve been able to find out, she’s there being taken care of by the servants. Taken care of well, not mistreated or anything, but she’s my daughter!”

“The best thing,” I mused, “would be to sneak in and grab her. Is she under guard?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’d assume she would be. And the house would certainly be guarded. Damn not being good at invisibility. I’ll have to get help, I think, if that’s all right with you.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then the other question is what you’ll do once you have her. They don’t sound like the type of folks to give up so easily.”

“No. I was thinking maybe I could come here, but now that I’m here… this isn’t the place for me.”

“We’ll rescue Emily, and the two of you can come back here and stay while you figure out what to do next. Right now, let’s go find Tewlan. And maybe one of the Starthans, it would be useful to have someone less than six inches tall… but on second thought, probably more trouble than it’s worth. So Tewlan it is.”

“Who,” I heard the unspoken, And what?, “ is Tewlan?”

“He’s a friend of mine, and he can go so invisible you can’t even see him.”

“Um, isn’t that what invisible means?” Elizabeth asked as we walked back up the cliffs.

“Sure, but it’s really, really hard. Most people can’t get that invisible, at least not in bright light. See, this is the best I can do,” I went invisible, which, for me, only meant that my color faded to a sort of translucent version. “But I’m really bad at it.”

“About your friend… is he human?”

“As far as I know.”

We found Tewlan bent over an injured kitten, for he specializes in using his magic for healing, and heals humanoids and other animals without discriminating. Once he’d finished with the kitten, I made the introductions.

“Lazulia has said so much about you. It’s great to finally meet you,” Tewlan said to Elizabeth.

“You too. I mean, I haven’t talked to Lazulia for years so she hasn’t said much about you, but it’s great to meet you too.” Elizabeth blushed.

I raised a mental eyebrow. Elizabeth and Tewlan? That would be an interesting couple… though they’d be good for each other, I thought. And they were both my friends…. Wouldn’t that be interesting.

I explained the problem, and the plan, or as much of a plan as there was, and asked Tewlan if he was in. “I’d be happy to help you,” he told Elizabeth.

We rode to Elizabeth’s town, the town I’d grown up in. It was strange being back. Things were the same, except where they were different, small differences, but that only made it stranger. The house next door to the house I’d grown up in had been green, and now was blue. A tree Elizabeth and I had sat in had been chopped down. And of course, I was so very different from when I’d left.

We snuck up to the manor house Emily was being kept in. The plan was for Tewlan and Elizabeth to sneak in, invisible, and bring Emily out, while I made a diversion. I am good at creating diversions; you might say it’s one of my specialties.

We separated, and I went around to the front of the house, hid in a bush, and started making banshee-like screams. When someone popped out of the house to see what was going on, I started a fire. It was floating in the air, so it’s not like it would have caused any damage, but it seemed to upset people pretty well anyway. The person who’d first came out of the house—on closer inspection I could see it was a butler—went back in and came out with more people who ran around in a panic. They tried to swat at the fire with cloths to put it out, but it was higher than they could reach. At that point I summoned a whole swarm of the huge black butterflies. This freaked the people out even more, and soon there was a whole great crowd of frantic people, most of whom had come out of the mansion, though a few had been walking by. I directed the butterflies in great swirling dances. The people, except for me, were not entertained.

Finally, I felt a tap on my shoulder and looked around to see nothing behind me. “Is that you?” I whispered.

“Yes,” I heard Tewlan and Elizabeth’s voices.

“Do you have Emily?”

“Yes.”

“Can you make me invisible, so we can get out of here?”

A pause, during which Tewlan must have been nodding or shaking his head, then, “Nope. Even three people is taxing, I couldn’t do four. Just wait, they’ll go away eventually.”

“It might help if you put the fire out and got rid of the butterflies,” Elizabeth suggested.

I put out the fire and sent the butterflies back to where they’d come from, and soon enough, the people disappeared back into the house. We snuck away, then ran as quickly as we could to where we’d left the horses, and rode away.

Tewlan had dropped the invisibility while we were riding, and now I had the chance to look at Emily. She was adorable, and looked just as Elizabeth had at that age. She didn’t freak out at being taken away on horseback as Elizabeth would have though,

She liked the camp as well. Its bright colors and interesting people provided endless amusement for her, and there were a few other children around her age who she quickly became friends with. Elizabeth grew more comfortable with the camp than she had been, thanks partly to her daughter’s influence and partly to Tewlan.

Elizabeth and Emily stayed at the camp for a few weeks. Then they stayed for a few more weeks. And then a few more. Eventually, everyone realized they weren’t going anywhere. A little bit later, Elizabeth realized it and announced that they were staying. She told me it wasn’t because of Tewlan, but Elizabeth had always been a bad liar.

Execution

I’ve been here for a few months now, and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. Here—I’m not sure what to call it. Someone called it a menagerie of mages, a Magiary, and the name seems to have stuck somewhat, but since it was meant as an insult, those of us who stay here are torn between rejecting the name and trying to reclaim it.

The Magiary is a large house with lots of towers, and is intimidating from the outside but a friendly, cozy place inside, for the most part. The house is not inside the city, but the main doorway is set into the city wall, which is only a few feet high there.

It’s a school, sort-of, and probably several other things as well. People come here to learn magic, and Malexandra and whatever other magic-users happen to be around teach it. There’s nothing official about the Magiary. It’s in Majardea, but everyone knows the king has no control over it. There aren’t many rules here--most of the normal things such as don’t kill or steal are assumed to be obvious. Besides for that, it pretty much amounts to everyone here being expected to not do anything cruel or utterly idiotic. The king’s laws don’t apply here, and so problems are dealt with by Malexandra—you can imagine how relieved I was very when I heard that, considering there’s a warrant out for my execution. But official laws are highly frowned on, and I don’t worry about anyone here turning me in. On the same note, we’re not allowed to go watch executions or other public punishments.

You wouldn’t think that last one would be a big deal. I’ve never had any urge to go watch someone being killed, and the fact that it could easily happen to me has made the idea even less enticing. And it’s not like my friends would want to, either. Devrin’s a bit squeamish, and while Quaos is the last person in the world I’d call squeamish, seeing people die isn’t entertainment for her either.

But we were walking around the city, just for the fun of it. It had been raining for a week, and now that it was bright and sunny we wanted to get out. At first we thought the crowds were just other people who felt the same. But they were all headed in the same direction, and a cheerful woman with a small child on her shoulders told us that we should hurry, because all the best places to see the execution from would be taken.

“Oh no, we won’t be able to get a good view of someone being killed! Whatever shall we do?” Devrin was being even more sarcastic than usual, which is saying a lot.

“We should go,” I said.

“Back home, you mean? This does rather ruin the beauty of the day.”

“No, to the execution.”

Quaos and Devrin both stared at me. “Because your idea of fun is watching people die?” Devrin asked.

“No, because it could have been me.”

“And it could still be you, Aniya, if anyone recognizes you,” Quaos said sharply. “I’ve had friends in line for execution before, I’d prefer not to repeat the experience.”

“I’m not just going to go home and pretending nothing’s going on,” I said stubbornly. “You can, if you want.”

They didn’t, of course.

Executions took place on a stage in a large, beautified square. The square was packed, and we stood far from the stage and right next to the path leading to it which the accused was marched down. The path was empty; everyone knew it was bad luck to stand on it, and most people tried to stay as far away from it as possible.

The path stretched all the way to the prison, and was relatively straight, so we could see the guards marching the prisoner towards us from a long way off, and they marched very slowly. As they drew closer, we saw a scowling woman in chains, held on each side by a uniformed guard.

That could be me. The thought repeated in my mind over and over. I could feel myself in her place, barefoot, wearing only a thin prison shift and thick chains, marching to my death. It could be me.

“We should stop it.” The words popped out of my mouth before I could think them through, but I had no desire to take them back.

“It’s not that easy,” Quaos objected.

“We could do it, though. Just, grab her when she comes by, and we know enough magic by now we could probably get away.”

“What if she’s a murderer?” protested Devrin.

“Well, then, that would make two of us,” Quaos reminded him.

“Same goes for treason,” I added. “So you’re in?” I asked Quaos.

“I’m always up for stopping executions!” Quaos said with a crazy grin. “At least I won’t have to kill a king this time. Hey, the worst that can happen is that we end up on the block next to her.”

“So it’s not like anything really bad could happen to us.” Sarcasm, of course, but Devrin had said ‘us.’

“So, our plan is really just to grab her and run?” Quaos asked rather incredulously.

“Um… we improvise after that,” I said. I was very nervous, even terrified, and maybe beginning to have second thoughts about the whole thing, but I had just to glance at the woman to see myself in her shoes, and my second thoughts disappeared.

And then, they were next to us. The guards had swords; I, stupidly, hadn’t thought about that. Still, they didn’t have them out, and were holding the woman’s chains. So I let myself kind of stumble into the guard closest to me, and when she was off her guard, so to speak, grabbed the chain from her hands. She hadn’t been expecting it, but she reacted quickly and grabbed it back, and we were playing tug-o-war. Devrin, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, had grabbed her sword from its sheath, though he wasn’t doing anything with it. I took a deep breath and used a bit of magic to heat the chain. It hurt the prisoner as well as the guard, but it only lasted long enough for me to jerk the chain from the guard. Quaos, I saw, had the other guard on his knees, holding his head in his hands.

We ran.

It wasn’t just the guards behind us; the crowd wanted their entertainment. The prisoner, still chained and now burned under the chains on her waist and left ankle, was not fast. This was the part we hadn’t planned for, and the dangerous part—if they got us now, we were all dead.

Devrin, who had been at the Magiary the longest and was the most studious, did something magical that seemed to slow down everyone else, as though they were moving through thick syrup. We got a bit of a head start, but he only managed to keep it up for a few seconds, and the use of so much energy tired him. We began to slow, and the crowd was upon us, the people at the front just reaching out to grab us—

And suddenly, I felt a large jolt and the four of us were in Malexandra’s tower. I felt rather nauseous.

“That was quite impressive,” Malexandra said. “I haven’t seen a rescue like that since I was- well, in a long time.

The woman who was to have been executed finally spoke. “Who are you? I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but who are you and what the hell is going on?”

We introduced ourselves. Somehow, our names didn’t seem to lessen her confusion.

“Okay, it’s nice to meet you and all, but where are we, how the hell did we get here, and why?”

“You’re in my tower. I was alerted to the unusual occurrence by a friend and brought you here in order to keep you from the bloodthirsty mob and bloodthirstier, if rather inept, guards. Now who are you, and why were you about to be executed?”

“Smuggling. I’m a smuggler. I was a smuggler, I guess, I don’t think I’ll be going back to it. My name is Wrayli.”

“Pleased to meet you. I’m worn out from transporting all four of you, but if you give me a few minutes I’ll do something about those chains, and your burns.”

“Sorry about that,” I said.

Wrayli shrugged. “Better than being dead.”

We all stood around awkwardly for a minute. Suddenly, Devrin laughed loudly. We all looked at him.

“Um, you know how we’re not supposed to go to executions? Well, we rescued the condemned prisoner, so we weren’t actually at an execution, since nobody was killed.”

“Well, I’m so glad you’re not in trouble,” Wrayli said, but she laughed.

Forsworn

I swore an oath to keep that secret until my dying day. I lied.

No, I didn’t. I meant every word of my vow. But I was a fool who knew nothing of the ways of the world, of desperation, of the trickery that is practiced on the desperate.

She would have died. If he hadn’t healed her, Cythilia would have died. That doesn’t change anything. Her life doesn’t make up for all that suffering and death. But it’s true, and it’s why I did what I did.

I didn’t know it was a trap, you see. I thought he was what he seemed. A decent enough person, even if he cared just a little more about knowledge than people. Cythilia and I had stayed with him for a week. He was quite an interesting person, and knew more about the most arcane aspects of magic than anyone I’d ever met, even if he was a bit secretive about it. We enjoyed our time with him, the long hours spent discussing theoretical workings and near-impossible feats we had, in fact, accomplished. I mentioned nothing of my secret, of course, though I was often reminded of it in our conversations. But I did not reveal it, or even its existence.

It didn’t matter. He must have known, though for a long time I didn’t even realize it was a trap. We were returning home, along the labyrinthine paths that twisted through the jungle, when it happened. I don’t know now if it was a real snake he’d somehow conjured, or an illusion and a magical attack. At the time, of course, I thought it was a real snake, and not out of place in those parts. It bit her. She collapsed. I could do nothing; I have no power to heal. But I could tell that she would die, and soon, if untreated.

I managed to transport us back to him. I know, I know, I should have brought her somewhere else. I know healers who could have saved her, maybe. But it was close, and I knew he could heal, and he’d even mentioned something about working on certain magical antidotes to the venom of local fauna.

We appeared right in his workshop. He was working on something delicate, and was, or so I thought, not happy to be interrupted. I told him what had happened; begged him to help her.

“I’m quite sorry, and at any other time I’d be happy to, but I happen to be in the middle of a complex, unrepeatable experiment that could shed a little light on some of the great secrets of life.”

“I don’t care!” I screamed, tears running down my face. “You have to save her!”

“As fond as I am of Cythilia, the benefits of this knowledge to the greater part of humanity far outweigh-”

I should have known, by his refusal, that he couldn’t be trusted. But I wasn’t thinking, and the part of me that was knew knowledge was the only thing he valued, and I saw him as wanting it for his own sake. I admit now that I was fatally mistaken, that I committed a betrayal so terrible I will never forgive myself. But I did it. I blurted, “Cure her, and I’ll tell you the secret of alchemy!”

So I told him. I made him promise never to use the knowledge, first. And he promised. And I was such a stupid, naive, little fool that I thought it meant something. So I told him, every gruesome detail; the specifics of how the children had to be tortured, exactly how to distill the unicorn’s blood, every terrible detail of how to make the precious material that could preserve life and create gold.

I knew, even as I told him, that I was doing great evil, but I also knew there was no choice. That’s not true. There was a choice. I just wasn’t strong enough to make it.

He did keep up his end of the bargain, in healing Cythilia, I mean. She was as healthy as ever by the next day, thanks to his magic. He transported us all the way back to Majardea, as well, an indication of how powerful he was—I never would have had the strength.

He did not, however, keep his promise. I didn’t find out until after it was all over, after he’d done those terrible deeds, after he’d been discovered, after he’d been destroyed. It was too late for me to do anything, except make my atonement. I considered throwing myself off a cliff, but I knew I could never again allow myself to be so weak as that. Instead, I will live out the rest of my days with the knowledge of what I have done. And I will do everything in my power to make up for it.

The events in this story are closely related to the events in Alchemy.
I would like to add that the narrator here is neither Malexandra nor Anonymous. There were three people who knew the secret of Alchemy. This narrator is one of the other two.

No More

This is a guest story written by my amazingly awesome mom.

Wrath was consuming me and hope was not even a distant memory. I was on my fourteenth hour straight working in the diamond mine. I was only nine. I was sore and tired, so hungry, and it would be hours until dawn when my shift would finally end. My arms ached; sweat poured down my back; I was numb with exhaustion.

I wondered if the person whose fingers the diamond would grace knew that my entire village had been enslaved to decorate her. I wondered if she even cared.

With dogged determination, I chiseled into rock, my hands covered with blood and blisters. Something sparkled. It was a small diamond, yet even uncut and unpolished I could see how magnificent it was.

Staring into the sparkling stone, I felt a shift in my very spirit. The fury faded and a deep love consumed me. I breathed slowly. The diamond seemed to come alive, a kaleidoscope of moving colors swirling faster and faster. My spirit soared! My bloody hands were transformed into wings! With great joy, I spread my arms and flew up and out of the mine. I soared; I was a bird. No, I was much too large to be any bird. I soared far above the mines over a field of flowers, to a river. I swooped down, grabbing a fish to quiet my growling stomach. I whooped with joy, and a stream of fire escaped my lips. I was no bird. I was a magnificent dragon, strong and powerful.

I wanted to fly forever away from my life. Yet my family and friends were still in the mines, still forced to work like slaves for a pittance so small they could barely survive. I roared fire for hundreds of yards. No more. I wheeled around. Back towards the mines. My rage and determination as focused as a laser.

No more of this nightmare, for any of us. No more.

Deal

The night was dark, so dark I could not even see the blade at my throat, but I wasn’t afraid. “Do you mean to kill me?” I inquired.

“Only if you refuse to tell me where it is,” my attacker answered in a gruff voice.

I smiled sweetly, though he couldn’t see it, and answered, “Sorry, Vak, but you’re going to need to offer more than that.”

“You don’t seem to understand me, Rakayl,” he sounded frustrated. “I’m offering you your life. If you tell me, I’ll go away and leave you be. If not, I’ll slit your throat.”

“You seem to be under the impression that you have the upper hand here. You don’t. I have something you want, but you don’t have anything I want. You’re going to have to raise the price.”

“Your life!”

“Like I said, you don’t have anything I want.”

He finally got it. He sheathed his dagger, and for a moment I thought he was about to leave, but he didn’t. We sat silently in the dark, until he finally muttered something and all the candles in the room flared up. For the first time in years, I saw his face, and he saw mine.

He hadn’t changed much, if at all. Same voice, same face, same beard, same twinkling eyes, same attitude. I knew I’d changed, been aged by years of toil and misery and hopelessness. And I’d meant it, that my life meant nothing to me. Back then, sure, I was a daredevil, took stupid risks that could get me killed, but I’d loved being alive.

I looked away to avoid seeing pity in his eyes. He knew what I’d been once, and to see me reduced to this…. I still had my pride, and one other thing as well.

“Fine,” he gave in. “What do you want?”

“Nothing you can give me.”

“Then why shouldn’t I just kill you and be done with it?”

“I won’t be able to tell you anything once I’m dead.”

“And you’re not telling me anything alive. Why shouldn’t I just kill you and save myself the bother of trying to talk it out of you?”

I shrugged. “No reason.”

He was growing irritated. “Damn it, isn’t there anything I can do to get you to tell me?”

“Like I said, there’s nothing you have that I want.”

“What do you want?”

“Freedom.”

He smiled. “So if I get you out of here, you’ll tell me?”

“No.” He started to glare at me, but I continued, “If you get me out of here, and take me with you, as a partner, then I’ll tell you.”

“I’ve no problem agreeing with that… but are you sure you’re still up to it?”

In a flash, I grabbed his knife from his side and had it at his throat. That was enough of a reply, so I said nothing.

“Fine, fine,” he said, holding up his hands. “I take back the question. We have a deal?”

I tucked the dagger into my waistband, and we shook on it. “My knife wasn’t part of the deal,” he complained.

“No, it wasn’t,” I agreed, but did not return it. “So do you have a plan? Because I assure you, I haven’t stayed here for four years because I like the scenery.”

“You know me, I play things by ear. So should we trick our way out, or fight our way out?”

I’d forgotten that. My style had been to plan everything out to the last detail beforehand, with a multitude of backup plans for everything that could possibly go wrong. Vak had tended to come up with mad ideas and, with no planning whatsoever, act on them, improvising whenever anything went wrong. But it worked for him. After all, I’d been caught, convicted, and sold into slavery, and he was free.

I thought about his question, and grinned. “Fight our way out, of course. If you think you’re up to it.”

“It would help if you gave me my dagger back.”

I smirked. “I guess you do have more need of it.” I offered it to him.

“I don’t need a bit of metal to fight with any more than you do,” he protested, so I put it away.

I had nothing to take with me and no reason to linger, so we left. He’d already picked the locks to get into the room, so we crept out into the darkness.

“Steal a pair of horses?” Vak suggested.

“Just two?” I led the way to the stables. They were guarded, but the guards, not really expecting any trouble, weren’t as alert as they should have been. I was on the first guard before he even noticed us, and by then it was too late; I left him bleeding out into the dust. He’d had time to let out part of a scream, but it didn’t matter. The only one around to hear was the corpse of the other guard, who Vak had dealt with while I was killing the first one. We saddled the two best horses, and quickly released all the others—a distraction, sure, but I mainly did it out of spite. The loss of a few horses, and even a few guards, was hardly enough revenge, but it’s better than nothing.

We dispatched the two guards at the gate as easily as their fellows, but the magic was more difficult. That was how I was caught the last time I tried to escape. I’d thought I’d neutralized it, and started to climb over, and realized it was stronger than I’d thought when I was stuck to the gate for the rest of the night, until the next round of guards came and caught me.

But Vak was with me this time, and as loath as I am to admit it, he knew more magic than I did. So after a rather tense half hour of sitting on my horse in the cold, watching Vak mutter to himself, we were through, and all we had to do was stay out of sight.

“Where to now?” Vak asked me.

“A ship would be best. You up for a spot of piracy?” He was, of course, and if the small craft we took couldn’t exactly be called a ship, it was quite capable of taking us to Port Endra, in Majardea.

“So is that where it is, then?” Vak finally asked me, on the second day of our voyage. “Majardea, or nearby?”

“Well, it was. But it’s too late now. Did you really think they wouldn’t have gotten that out of me a long time ago?”

He stared at me. I put my hand on the dagger, in case he tried anything, but after a while he just laughed. “I should have known. So what happened to it?”

“Well, that bastard wasn’t about to go off on a quest for it, so I guess he must have sold the information or something. A while back I heard some hero went after it, and she found it, but…. I’m not exactly clear on the details, but I heard them complaining about what a waste that was, because I guess she fed it to a goat. Good riddance, in my opinion, you know what I thought about it.”

Vak shook his head. “A goat. The most powerful artifact known to man, and she fed it to a goat.” He looked at me accusingly. “You owe me.”

“I know.” But I didn’t much care.

Alchemy

“To what do I owe the pleasure of being interrupted in my studies?” Anonymous demanded sourly. He clearly had been engrossed in whatever he’d been doing—his robes looked as though they’d been slept in, or more likely, fallen asleep in a chair in, and he had several days worth of stubble.

“Don’t be like that; I can assure you this will be far more interesting,” Malexandra told him. “When was the last time you ate?”

“Yesterday? Maybe. I was busy.”

“You don’t want to do blood magic on an empty stomach; I’ll have someone get you something.”

“If you’re already fortifying your magic with blood, I fail to comprehend why you need a confederate.”

“I’ll explain once you’ve eaten.” She drew a circle in the air with her finger, which, once closed, became a shimmery window looking into the kitchen. She stuck her head through, and Anonymous could hear her talking to someone. After a moment she withdrew, and a platter containing a bowl of rice and vegetables and a mug of tea was handed through. “Thanks, Devrin,” Malexandra said through the window. “When you see Aniya, can you tell her to go through the wards when she comes up?” She received a reply, and pinched the edges of the window together, closing it.


Anonymous asked between bites, “So, what is it that we are doing?”

“You’re eating. I’m sitting here waiting for you to finish.”

“You know what I mean. You said we’re doing blood magic,” he prompted her.

She nodded. “In more ways than one.”

“Which cryptic phrase means ever so much to me,” he said sarcastically.

“To put it plainly, we’re going to be undoing a work of alchemy.”

His fork clattered to the table at the word. “Alchemy??? But that’s.... The secret of alchemy has been lost for centuries.”

“That’s never been true,” Malexandra replied solemnly. “Such a thing is very hard to lose. It can be forgotten, yes, but then at some point someone turns it up and no one has any idea what to do about it. So there are people who guard that secret, in case something like this happens.”

“Then why isn’t one of them doing—oh.” He gave her a long look. “You know alchemy.” He said it half-disbelievingly.

She nodded. “Me, and two others in the world. But you understand, none of us would ever do such a thing.”

“But someone did?”

“Are you done eating?”

He nodded, and she reopened the magical window, shoved his dishes into it and closed it. She then opened her door, hung a sign that said, “Do Not Disturb on pain of very bad things,” and put up a ward around the room. Once finished, she took a small, ornate glass vial out of her desk and poured it into a small bowl.

Anonymous leaned closer to look at it. “Don’t touch it,” she warned him.

“I’m hardly an idiot,” he answered sharply, probing at it with his magic. He shuddered and sat back. “Gods,” he said under his breath.

“You see what it is?”

“Pure power, created through pure evil. I knew the fundamentals of the concept of alchemy, but I never realized how… much so.”

“You understand what I’m trusting you with then, in asking for your help?”

He did. Alchemy was the ultimate temptation, the ability to create infinite wealth and eternal life. Such a thing has, of course, an even greater cost.

“Malexandra?” he asked tentatively. “They say that you’re immortal…”

She gave him her very coldest glare. “If I thought you believed I would do such things, we would no longer be friends,” she told him. “They’re wrong. I’m long-lived, yes, but I come by it naturally, as you should well know.”

“I do,” he assured her. “I was only speaking of your reputation. Has it never been suggested that you’ve employed alchemy?”

“Considering that even you thought the knowledge lost, it has not occurred to the gossips that speculate on such things. And I would appreciate if that remains so. Now back to what I was saying before, can I trust you with this?”

“Of course; I would no more commit such acts that you would.”

“And you will tell no one what you know, or even that you know it? Not even your friend?” She put a slightly sarcastic emphasis on the last word.

“If by my friend you mean the king—”

“Do you have other friends?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. I was under the impression we were friends, as well as—”

“We are, but I don’t refer to myself in third person. And I was going to say, do you have other friends who I won’t call by name?”

He rolled his eyes. “He’s really not such a terrible person, you know. And he’s the best king we’ve had in the last two hundred years.”

“We have better things to do than argue politics, dear, especially as we won’t change each other’s opinions. Do you mean to tell him about this?”

“I hadn’t thought about it. Do you want me not to?”

“Of course I want you not to! Kings are the very worst people for wanting eternal life and gold, and the very best at justifying doing anything to get it. After all, it could help their kingdom, what does torturing a few children to death matter?” Her last sentence was, of course, sarcastic.

“Gods, is that what it takes?” Anonymous murmured, the sight of the liquid now making him feel slightly queasy. “He’s not like that, though, Malexandra. But I won’t reveal this to him, or anyone else. You have my word on that. Now what must we do?”

“I could destroy this by burning it or dissolving it in acid. But that wouldn’t tell us anything that could help us find the maker. We need to—”

She was interrupted by a young woman suddenly appearing in the beginning of the room. “Ah, Aniya. I was just telling Anonymous how we’re going to go about this. I’m going to need you to take charge of the timer again.”

Anonymous looked at the woman suspiciously. “Isn’t there a warrant out for-”

Malexandra gave him her most intimidating look. “Aniya will assist us with this. Now, what we need to do is take the spells that make this up apart strand by strand, looking for any traces of its creator’s magic. With something as powerful as this, it will be difficult, so we will take turns adding drops of blood to the spell.” She paused, then continued, “I should warn you, this could be… emotionally difficult as well.”

“I am prepared to proceed whenever you are.”

She lit a candle, pulled out two pins, and held them in the flame to sterilize them. She handed one to Anonymous, then took out a sheet of paper, saturated it with her magic, and held the candle to it. As the paper caught fire, Malexandra dropped it onto a plate and blew out the candle. “Aniya will tap the table every thirty seconds, at which time we’ll take turns adding a drop of blood.”

“I’ll tap once when it’s Malexandra’s turn and twice when it’s your turn,” Aniya told him. She was without doubt who he thought she was, but he let that matter rest and agreed.

Aniya tapped the table once and Malexandra pricked her finger with the pin and allowed a drop of blood to fall onto the paper, which was burning with unnatural slowness. Anonymous felt a surge of magic, and the two of them sent their magic into the fluid.

Malexandra had been right; it was emotionally difficult. Hatred and fear pushed into his magic, and it took more strength than he would have guessed to keep it out. He began to prod at the strands of magic making up the liquid, untangling them. He habitually took apart spells to study them, so it was not difficult. He examined the first strand he’d separated for anything that could lead back to the alchemist—and heard two taps. He plunged the pin into his finger and shook the drop of blood into the fire, then continued his examination of the magic.

It was just after his second drop of blood that he felt something, a sense of magic not part of the spell. He wrapped it in his own magic to isolate it, and began to test its properties. Two taps on the desk, he added another drop of blood to the flames, and was suddenly aware that he was doing most of the work. Malexandra’s magic was no longer picking at the spell. Anonymous felt its presence, but not its activity. He glanced up at her, but she was in deep concentration, so he shrugged it off and continued with the thread of magical energy he was examining. He cautiously sent a bit of his magic down it—

And a surge of fire and hate surged down the thread and engulfed him. A scream flew from his throat, and now he could feel Malexandra’s magic, just for a moment, because then he was unconscious.

He opened his eyes. The ceiling was that of the room he’d been in, though darker—hours had passed. “Malexandra?” It came out as barely more than a croak, but as he managed to look up, she was there.

“I guess I should have warned you about that.” He couldn’t tell whether she was kidding or she really had expected it. Knowing her, probably both.

“What happened?”

“You found the alchemist. He found you right back.”

“I knew that much, Malexandra. I am quite aware that I didn’t lose consciousness due to your sense of humor. Probably. But what happened?”?

“He’s dead.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Her tone allowed no argument.

“How?”

“Does it matter?” she asked, and he knew she’d killed him.

“You have no doubt?” he asked, just to be sure.

“Yes, Anonymous, I have no doubt,” she said with less exasperation than she would have shown had he been able to sit upright. “I am completely sure. I would show you whatever bits of ash are left of the body if I knew where they are, but I don’t, and I hardly care enough to try to find them.”

“What about me?” He only meant to ask what his condition was, but before he could clarify she warned, “This’ll hurt,” and it did, so much so that he couldn’t pay attention to what she was doing, but when the wave of pain passed he felt almost normal.

“Thank you,” he told her, though less graciously than he would have had it not been her fault in the first place. “I’ll just leave now.”

“No. I already have one of the rooms set up for you. I know you well enough to not trust that you’d actually get sleep, if you went home.”

He glared at her.

“Anonymous, remember that you’re one of only four living people who know the secret of alchemy. Surely that’s worth it to you.”

It was, of course, but he’d never admit it to her.

They Burn Witches Here

“You might not want to stay around here too long,” the man in the shop warned the woman at the counter. “They burn witches here.”

“I’m not a witch,” she said calmly.

“Try telling them that when they have you tied up to a stake and doused with oil.”

“What, you people burn everyone who passes through town? I can’t imagine that helps your economy.”

“Not everyone. It’s just, your reputation precedes you.”

She rolled her eyes. “So you burn everyone interesting who passes through town.”

“Yep. Look, I’m not saying I agree with it, which is why I’m warning you.”

“Well, I thank you for that. I’ll be gone as soon as I finish what I came here to do.”

He didn’t ask her what that was, just handed her her change and watched her walk out of the store.

Mindful of his warning, she eschewed the main roads, taking a more circumspect route through unsavory alleys that grew even less savory as she reached the poorer part of the town. Finally, she came to a ramshackle tenement. She circled around to the front and climbed up the rickety stairs to the topmost apartment, the cheapest due to the long climb and extreme danger in the case of a fire. She knocked three times on the door.

It was opened by a middle aged man who crossed his arms and stared at her suspiciously.

“Yes?” he demanded.

“I’m here about your daughter. May I come in?”

The suspicion did not leave his face, but he let her inside. The room was small and shabby, and had no furniture but for a large bed and a wood stove. A woman and a girl of perhaps ten were sitting on the floor in the far corner, next to the window that was the only source of light, sewing.
“What does she want?” the woman asked without looking up from her sewing.

“She says she’s here about Kayli.” He turned to their visitor. “I’d offer you a seat, but as you can see, we don’t have any.”

“That’s not a problem,” she replied with a smile, and gracefully seated herself on the floor next to the child. “Are you Kayli?”

The girl nodded but said nothing. The visitor turned back to her parents. “I hear they burn witches here.”

“So?” the man demanded.

“So if someone from here were to have magical ability, it would be wisest for them to study away from home.”

“What are you saying?” demanded the man as the woman told her daughter, “Kayli, go play outside.”

The girl wordlessly left the room, and the visitor had to suppress a smile as the finding spell she had used to get here told her that Kayli was right outside the door listening at the keyhole.

“Surely you’ve noticed.”

“Noticed what? What are you going on about?” Kayli’s father demanded, but the girl’s mother ignored him and said quietly to their visitor, “Yes.”

“You can’t really think she’s safe here.”

“As safe here as anywhere,” Kayli’s mother said bitterly.

“Riantha, what’s going on? What are you talking about?”

Riantha ignored her husband. “You see? If her own father doesn’t know, it’s hardly likely anyone else will.”

Their visitor shook her head. “For now, maybe. But when she starts levitating things or causing explosions or turning people into rats? There’s too much magic in her to stay quiet for long.”

They both stared at her. Finally, Riantha demanded, “So are you saying she’s doomed?”

“Only if she stays here.”

“Are you saying my daughter’s a witch?” Kayli’s father demanded.

“No. Witches, and most magicians, are merely people who know how to use magic. Kayli has magic in her blood.”

“So you’re saying my daughter’s worse than a witch?” he demanded furiously. Without giving her time to answer, he bellowed, “Then you don’t have to worry about her staying here! I won’t have a witch under my roof!”

“Wait,” Riantha pleaded. “Maybe she can be cured, exorcised, something…”

Their visitor shook her head. “It’s not like that. She can learn to control it, of course, but she’ll always have magic. It’s not some kind of disease; it’s part of who she is.”

Riantha began to cry. “So she really is doomed,” she said. “She really is doomed.”

The visitor looked at them sadly. “If that’s how you want to see it.” She turned towards the door. “Kayli, do you want to come with me?”

The door opened slowly. Kayli’s eyes were red and wet with tears, but she nodded. The woman took her hand and looked back towards her parents, but neither protested.

“I promise she’ll be safe,” she told them anyway, just before she and Kayli disappeared.

A Sacrifice

You’re never so alone as when you’re in a crowd of people who hate you, except when you’re in a crowd of people who don’t know you exist. And that is the position I found myself in on that fateful day. It was summer, hot and bright, a beautiful blue sky above and throngs of happy people all around me. Their pleasant smiles and cheerful laughter opened an emptiness in my heart.

My loneliness was so intense that I was almost glad when Liana and the others showed up. Almost, but not quite. Loneliness is awful, but pain and humiliation can be worse.

It went exactly as I expected, exactly as it always did whenever I see them now. They used to be… well, we were never friends, but we were all cordial to each other. I guess now they feel they need to make it very clear that they hate me as much or more than anyone else, so they won’t be tarred with the same brush. Not that that excuses them.

They started off making fun of me, then moved on to vicious accusations, and finally started hitting me, knocking me down, kicking me, spitting on me. Tears ran down my face, and I screamed out in pain.

“HEY!” a female voice yelled out, and they stopped, probably more in surprise than anything. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Leave her be and run off before I call the guards!”

“Like they’d care about that piece of trash,” Liana muttered, but they slunk off.

The woman who’d chased them away helped me to my feet. “Are you alright?” she asked.

I nodded. “It hadn’t gotten too serious yet. Thank you.”

“I’m glad I could help. I’m Crisabella.”

“I’m Aniya.”

“Ohh,” she said in sudden understanding as the friendliness left her face, and she hurried away.

“I did the right thing!” I called after her, but she didn’t look back, and no one else looked my way.

That’s when you’re the very most alone—when you’re in a crowd of people who don’t know you exist, but if they did, they’d hate you.

It wasn’t always this way. Back when, I was… not famous, but well-known, well-liked. It was an honor to be chosen to go on the quest. I’d have been a hero if I’d succeeded. And I did succeed. Then, I ruined it all by doing the right thing.

Not that I regret it. Not really. Not that part, anyway. I regret finding the damn thing. I regret agreeing to go in the first place—agreeing, I would have killed to go. Sometimes I regret being born. But I don’t regret what I did.

What happens in stories, what’s supposed to happen, is that a hero goes on a quest, succeeds, brings back the fruits of their victories, the kingdom is restored to health and prosperity, and they all live happily ever after. What happened in real life is that I went on the quest, I succeeded in finding the Talisman, I brought it back, and I destroyed it. We got attacked from two sides and the kingdom barely survived the war, the crops failed, the economy collapsed, there’s been political dissent and the crime rate has gone up. It’s all my fault, of course.

I will freely admit that had I delivered the Talisman to the king as I had been expected to, as I had originally intended, none of that would have happened. We would have lived in peace and prosperity, or in prosperity, anyway, for surely if he’d had something that made his kingdom undefeatable, he’d take advantage of it. And it would have taken advantage of him, and of everyone around. It would have sucked up happiness and hope and replaced it with greed and malice. I held it in my palm for only a few moments, but it was enough. I know its nature as surely as I know anything, and it was pure evil.

It wasn’t hard to destroy. I smashed it between two rocks and it shattered into a million pieces. I fed the pieces to a goat. Goats will eat anything. I will note that the goat suffered no ill effects. Evil has no hold over goats.

It’s rather a miracle that I wasn’t executed. I don’t know why I wasn’t. I once heard it said of the king that he was a good king, as kings go, meaning he usually had some kind of reason before torturing people to death. But I’d given him plenty of reason, and never even been arrested. Maybe he figured a lynch mob would’ve done his job for him by this point.

But the most recent attempt at vigilante justice hadn’t done me any serious harm, thanks to my regretful rescuer, so I went home, moped around for a while, and eventually went to bed. I fell asleep crying, “I did the right thing,” over and over into my pillow.

I was awakened by a pounding on my door. I shot up in terror. Was it Liana and her gang, come to finish what they’d started? Or the king’s men, with a warrant for my execution? Did it much matter?’

I decided it was better to get it over with, whatever it was, so I went to open the door.

It was no one I had expected, no one I knew. A tall woman in a dark green cloak was standing at my door. “I’m quite sorry for the noise,” she said when I opened it. “You didn’t wake up when I first knocked, and it would have been rude of me to come in uninvited.”

“I keep my door locked, anyway.” I was still to half-asleep to make intelligent conversation.

“There’s that too,” she said with a smile that made me think the only reason she hadn’t come inside, locked door or no, was politeness.

“Anyway, you managed to wake me, you might as well come inside.” I belatedly realized how rude I sounded- I had been jolted from my sleep in the middle of the night. “Would you like some tea?” I offered as I locked the door behind us.

“If you’re having some. You could use it, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

I nodded. As I began brewing the tea, I explained, “I thought you had to be either guards with a warrant for my arrest or a mob with torches and pitchforks.”

“I’m very sorry.” I could tell she meant it. “My name is Malexandra. Do you know of me?”

I did, everyone did. Lady Malexandra was some kind of sorceress, and had a sort of school or something just outside of the city. Her politics were anarchistic, but the king mostly left her alone, as had his father and grandfather before him—it was debated whether she was immortal, I remembered, as the woman standing before me didn’t look more than thirty-five. She was, now that I think of it, the one who’d made the comment about the king not torturing people to death without a reason.

“Yes. And you know who I am, I assume?”

“Of course. I don’t wake complete strangers in the middle of the night for no reason.”

I waited until the tea was done, and we were each sitting on my sofa with a mug of it, before asking, “So why are you here?”

She took a sip of tea before answering. “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. I came across the information that the king has ordered your arrest for treason.”

I shouldn’t have been shocked, and guess I wasn’t, but there’s a difference between worrying that you’ll be killed and knowing that you’re to be tortured to death, and her words hit me harder than the fists of the morning’s attackers. “When?” I managed to ask.

She looked at me sympathetically, but her voice was matter-of-fact. “Perhaps an hour ago. You should have a few more hours before they come for you.”

“I have a few hours before I’m arrested, and we’re sitting here drinking tea?” I asked, but my voice held no emotion, and I found I really didn’t care. It all seemed so far away, the king’s guards and Malexandra and my hand holding the mug of tea.

“Aniya,” Malexandra’s voice was stern. “Listen to me. I understand this is very difficult, but you can’t go into shock right now.”

“Why not? I haven’t anything better to do for the remainder of my life.” But I knew she was right, and took a sip of tea and tried to force my mind back into place.

“Nonsense, you need to go pack whatever’s important to you.”

“I don’t have anywhere to go.”

She gave me a look that said to stop being stupid. “You’re coming back with me.”

“I am?” For nearly a year, nobody would speak a civil word to me, and now I was being offered a place to stay. “Why are you recuing me?”

“Because you need it, for one thing, and I dislike executions.” As I got up to pack my things, she added, “And because you did the right thing, destroying the Talisman. Someone as brave as that should get at least a few breaks.”

I spun to look at her. “So you don’t hate me for it?”

“Gods no. Could you imagine the king, or anyone, with that much power?”

“Yes.”

“Right. Well, you’ll fit right in at my place.”

And I did.

Truth and Lunacy

“Is there anything more you can tell me about the strange case you mentioned?”

“Oh, yes, I spent the afternoon with her. Quite mad, she’s to be shut up in Sarrow’s,” Tomathon replied.

“That’s hardly unusual, what’s so different about her?” I asked.

“It’s not so much that she’s very different from most…. It’s, well, she’s quite lucid. Delusional, but very coherent delusions. If it wasn’t completely impossible, I’d believe she was telling the truth.”

My heart nearly stopped for a moment, though I told myself that it was premature to fear—there were many things a person could have coherent yet impossible delusions on, there was no reason for me to jump to conclusions. I told myself this, yet I know my voice held something more than curiosity when I pressed, “Delusions of what?”

“She claims to be from another world, a quite odd one in which people sit in boxes that move about on their own power and many other such fantastical things.”

“It’s not possible she’s from some remote country in which magic is used for such trifles?” Though of course I knew better than that.

“She claims there’s no magic there- though even by her own account, that would be untrue- and it’s not merely a country she speaks of but a whole world. She claims to have flown from continent to continent, and that there have been men on their moon; she claims all manner of lunacy, I can’t say I listened to much of it.”

“I would speak with her.”

He looked at me curiously. “You? But you are the king’s own physician. And her case is really nothing so extraordinary, I merely mentioned it as a curiousity.”

“The king is in perfect health; he shan’t miss me, and I must insist on speaking with her.”

He shrugged. “It’s your call. Shall I have her brought here?”

“If you would be so kind.”

And so it was that a trembling teenage girl, in chains, was dragged into my office by two thugs- erm, guards- from Sarrow’s. “Has she been found to be dangerous,” I demanded sharply of one of the men.

“No, but it’s standard procedure to subdue all patients on such events as this,” he replied in a tone that suggested even I couldn’t possibly dream of breaking standard procedure.

“Do I look like I give a fig about standard procedure? Unchain her.”

He shrugged. “It’s your lookout if anything happens,” he told me as he undid the chains. “We’re just here to deliver her, we don’t stand guard for you.”

“Thank the gods,” I said. He shot me a nasty look, and slammed the door as the two men left.

“I am Dr. Panthea Rosestone, the king’s physician,” I told the girl. “Please, have a seat.”

She did, grudgingly. “So you think I’m crazy?” she asked warily.

“Not having heard your story, I’m in no place to judge.”

“But that’s why they brought me here, isn’t it?”

“They brought you here because I told them to. Now, what is your name?”

“Clary,” she told me grudgingly.

“Pleased to meet you, Clary. Now I’m sure this is getting quite tiring, but would you mind telling me your story?”

She told me much what I expected to hear. She was an ordinary person, currently in her second year of university, from a world that she considered ordinary but no one here did. She described it in great detail- countries, cities, inventions, historical figures. And then one day, she had been walking in the park, and had very nearly been hit by a bike- “That’s a, well a machine with two wheels and you press the pedals with your feet to turn the wheels and make it go.” And then, suddenly, there had been no bike, no park. It was not daytime, and there were two moons in the sky. She’d wandered around in confusion for a bit before coming to the attention of the authorities, who wanted to lock her away. “And you think I’m crazy,” she concluded.

“No. I believe you,” I told her. Perhaps I should have told her more, but there were truths I had concealed for near twenty years, and even now they did not come easily to the tongue.

I served her some tea and allowed her to wait in my office, suggesting that she could pass the time with my books, and I went out to find Tomathon.

He lived not far from the castle, and was at home. He invited me in, we sat down, and I began without preamble, “She’s not mad.”

He knew who I was speaking of, of course. “Surely you don’t believe she made the whole thing up? She seemed far too emotional for that.”

“I didn’t say that. She’s not mad, and she’s not lying. She’s speaking the literal truth.”

“But… That’s impossible,” he protested.

“Do you remember how you first met me, Tomathon?”

“Of course. You were brought to me by a man who had found you half unconscious in the snow. You didn’t have a memory in your head. You never did recover it, did you?”

I took a deep breath and told him, “I never did lose it.”

“But…” he was confused, naturally.

“I faked it quite well, of course. I was a psychiatrist in that world—that’s a kind of doctor who deals with diseases of the mind, like you do. When I figured out what had happened, I knew I’d never be believed. Amnesia was so much simpler.”

“In that world… Are you saying you’re from the same place as Clary?”

I nodded.

“And you’ve never tried to go back?”

“I’ve never wanted to. I wasn’t very happy there, and here… I’m the physician to the king, magic is real, I have friends…”

“So she really is from another world? If you were anyone else I’d think you’d gone mad. Gods, after finding you’ve been lying to me for twenty years I don’t know why I trust you. No, that’s unfair, you acted quite rationally. I wouldn’t have believed you then, of course, any more than I believed that girl yesterday, and I suppose since then there’s never been any reason to tell me. I prefer to think that than that you don’t trust me.”

“I do trust you. It’s just… By the time I knew I could tell you it didn’t matter anymore. That’s not my life now.”

He nodded. “So what should we do about my patient?”

“If you could arrange for her to be released into my custody?”

“I’ll start on the paperwork right away. And Panthea… I hope this doesn’t change anything between us. We’re still friends?”

I sighed with relief, for he was the one who might have wanted to end our friendship. “Always.”

When I returned to my office, Clary was deeply engrossed in a book. “You’ve been released into my custody,” I told her.

“So what, you’re going to try to cure me now?”

I shook my head. “I told you, I believe you—no, I know you’re telling the truth.” And I told her my story.

When I was done, she shook her head in disbelief. “So that’s why—well, I guess it explains a lot.

You’ve never tried to go back?”

“I never wanted to,” I told her.

“I guess I can see why,” she held up the book she’d been reading, a treatise on fire magic. “So this stuff really works here?”

“Oh yes.” I remembered the first time I’d seen a display of magic, and realized it was real.

“I guess I’ve wrecked my reputation here already, if I stay? I mean, I don’t have the faintest clue how to get home, and I don’t really think I want to, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in an asylum…”

I shook my head. “You’re unlikely to see anyone from Sarrow’s again, and besides for them, the only people who know are Tomathon and I, and I explained it to him.”

“So nobody thinks I’m crazy?”

“Nope. You’ve got a blank slate of a reputation.”

“Okay then, do you know how I’d go about learning magic?”

“Actually, I have a friend who’s a mage who happens to be looking for an apprentice. I’ll introduce you.”