Stories by Elizabeth Bear Part 29

Mary bustled down the hallway to take Garrett's coat, clucking over the mess.

The bruise on Garrett's thigh ached, and more than anything she wanted to be left alone. She wove unsteadily on her feet. "So you came to check on me when darkness fell. Thoughtful."

Sebastien ignored the dig. "We need to talk in private."

Garrett bit her lip and nodded acquiescence, leading him up the stairs. "I'd bet a guinea the Mayor's somehow behind this," she said. "He's got a sorcerer dancing attendance-black mark, not red, so he could have graduated from any little backwater college of magics and I have no way of knowing what his ethics are. Furthermore, I've learned that the man who vanished yesterday was working for the Duke on the sly."

"Interesting. Was there another dismemberment, or merely the disappearance?"

Mike ran at their heels, determined not to be left behind. Abruptly, Garrett stopped and crouched, offering her hand to the patchwork dog. "I'm sorry, boy. I should have said h.e.l.lo when I came in." He wriggled adoringly, and she tousled his head before she straightened. Don Sebastien caught her arm to keep her afoot. "Disappearances. A whole household again, which sent me to the library for the balance of the day. I can think of only one reason for attacking entire households."

"And what is that?" They attained the landing; Sebastien opened her chamber door. Mike gamboled past him, having decided that wampyr made acceptable houseguests after all.

"Fear," she said. "To engender rear."

"I keep asking myself," Sebastien commented, "what was different about the boy? Why did he need to die so terribly, when the others just ... softly and silently, vanished away."

Garrett staggered again. "I need to lie down."

"Of course you do. A sleepless night, and the blood you gave to me ... on top of the work of the past two days. Forgive me." He scooped her into his arms like a child-like a doll-and carried her to bed. Mary had made it, tidied the counterpane, placed a new candle on the bedside table to replace the one burned out the night before.

Blackness like an undertow, Garrett tried to remember the last thing. She yawned jawcrackingly. "Sebastien. You said...."

"Ah, yes," he answered. "The missing maidservant. I haven't found her yet, but I have her name. Forester. Maeve Forester."

Sleep sucking her under, Garrett knew to a certainty that there was something enormously important about that name, but she was d.a.m.ned if she could remember what it was.

A chill awakened her in the small hours of the morning. Sebastien lay curled beside her, but his body offered no warmth, and her heart hammered in her chest as if she awakened from nightmare. Mike whined by her feet, huddling into the covers.

"Sebastien?"

"I feel it," he said. "Like last night."

But it wasn't. Similar. But colder and stronger, and it froze her to the bone. The curtains on the cas.e.m.e.nt windows fluttered- odd, she thought, those should be tight shut. And she could see that they were, see the gla.s.s reflecting the gaslights from the city below. Where is the draft coming from? Teeth chattering, Garrett reached for her wand and struck a light.

The temperature dropped sharply. Garrett clutched her wand to her chest. Mike growled his terrier's growl, voice of a much larger dog in a little dog's throat. Meanwhile, Sebastien swung his long legs out of the four poster and stood. When he spoke, even his cool breath frosted in the icy air. "Ghost?" he asked.

"Sebastien!"

Garrett threw herself across the bed, away from the nightstand, jumping up with her back against the far wall, the coverlet dimpling under her feet. Mike scrabbled toward her, crowded her ankles growling, all sharp teeth and powderpuff defiance. Slowly, Sebastien turned....

The candle on the nightstand ascended into the air and was joined and circled by others that materialized out of the darkness. A vast, lumpy darkness, clawing with enormous hands like annealed black clots of wax, a ring of candles blazing on the gnarled stump that might have been its head.

Garrett screamed as the thing reached for her. She leveled her wand at it and spoke a word. A spark flashed between them, did nothing. Mike snarled and would have lunged after the threat, and Garrett swept her leg aside, knocking her indomitable companion from the bed. He yelped, and she flinched, but for a second he was safe from the squelching abomination that examined her face with familiar pale eyes.

It grabbed for her and she twisted away, falling half into the crevice between bed and wall. In a moment, those slick, sucking hands would touch her flesh. "Sebastien! The candles!"

Sebastien hesitated, hands half outreached as if to grab the monstrosity and haul it away. Candlewax dripped from its crown, spattering the tile floor; droplets that touched its black hide vanished without a trace.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't touch it! The candles! Put them out!"

Mike growled low in his throat as he found his feet again, eyes gleaming in the flickering brilliance. Something moved through the blackness, flaring light.

Candlewax dripped, spattered, ran.

The thing lurched closer, stepping onto the bed. Sebastien glanced about wildly, caught up a rug from the floor, and swung just as Garrett, half-pinned, shouted a word of magic and hurled her wand like a throwing knife.

The rug came down on the dark thing's crown, das.h.i.+ng candles out. Garrett's wand vanished into its breast, silver tip first. The thing wailed, spinning wildly, reaching for Sebastien with groping, malformed paws. He skittered aside like a toreador, swinging the rug again, smas.h.i.+ng the thing in the face. A final candle fluttered out as it fell forward, keening, clutching Sebastien's s.h.i.+rtfront, and Garrett saw the horror in his eyes as it started to enfold him in devouring blackness.

And then it sagged to its knees, slid downward, cloth tearing in the grasp of its suddenly human hands. It fell, curled inwards, and buried its face in its knees, dappled moonlight shaking in short red curls.

Duke Richard waited for her in her parlor, flanked by city Guards. The early afternoon light crept in through white eyelet lace, gilding his hair. He had his hat in his hand, as if he did not intend to linger, but Mike sat on his shoes, tongue lolling.

When she entered, he dismissed the Guards.

"Richard," she said, when the door was closed.

"Investigator Garrett."

She came a few steps closer, and did not let her hurt show in her face. "I'm glad to see you, your Highness."

His jaw worked, and the hat tumbled from his hands as he came to her, pulling her close, all but crus.h.i.+ng her in his arms. "Abby Irene." His voice broke.

She leaned into the embrace for a long, quiet moment, listening to the pounding of his heart. When he finally let her step back, she did. "I'm safe."

"But barely. And I wasn't there to protect you."

"Sebastien was," she said, and regretted it immediately. "What's to become of Officer Forester?" He'd been taken away in chains before sunup.

"He's cooperated. Named his accomplice. Or his handler, more like-the Lord Mayor's pet sorcerer."

"Neither one implicated the Mayor?"

"Stayed silent as the grave. To hear Forester tell it, LaMarque-the sorcerer-offered him revenge against the lad who ruined Forester's sister. Forester took him up on it, not knowing the price. And then LaMarque-and Peter Eliot, of course, but neither one of them has or will admit that-used that consent, once granted, to enslave him. From what he said, he killed the Carlson family first, consumed them ... and then chased the lad out into the street to deal with him more messily."

Garrett shuddered. "What about the splintered door?"

"Misdirection. A smart lad. He'll hang, of course."

"Of course." The door was shut; the curtains were drawn. She laid a hand on his shoulder, leaned her face against his sleeve. "They must have thought I was close."

"You were." He put his arm around her shoulder. "I would have been next, no doubt."

She nodded. This is wrong. And yet... what else can we do? "It is a pity that we cannot arrange a search of the Lord Mayor's domicile. I feel certain that we would find a rifle which I could match to the bullet fired at me."

He let the silence hang for a moment before he continued. "What I don't understand is how Forester got admittance to the houses. I know there are rules of consent and so forth, for these dark things to do their will." He looked away. And he's not mentioning Sebastien, although it's costing him something not to.

"Each of the houses invaded had apparently received a surprising bargain on candles recently. And an action can provide consent as easily as a word."

"I am afraid I'm not following you, Abby Irene."

Garrett counted breaths before she answered, pressing her face to his arm. "Consent must be offered," she said. "Express or implied. But think. You awaken, cold and alone. In darkness with a banked fire. You feel a presence looming over you. What is the first thing you do?"

"Reach for my pistol."

"After that."

"Strike a light. Oh!"

"Strike a light, yes. And reach for the candle by your bed."

The Cold Blacksmith "Old man, old man, do you tinker?"

Weyland Smith raised up his head from his anvil, the heat rolling beads of sweat across his face and his spa.r.s.ely forested scalp, but he never stopped swinging his hammer. The ropy muscles of his chest knotted and released with every blow, and the clamor of steel on steel echoed from the trees. The hammer looked to weigh as much as the Smith, but he handled it like a bit of cork on a twig. He worked in a glade, out of doors, by a deep cold well, just right for quenching and full of magic fish. Whoever had spoken was still under the shade of the trees, only a shadow to one who squinted through the glare of the sun.

"Happen I'm a blacksmith, Miss," he said.

As if he could be anything else, in his leather ap.r.o.n, sweating over forge and anvil in the noonday sun, limping on a lamed leg.

"Do you take mending, old man?" she asked, stepping forth into the light.

He thought the girl might be pretty enough in a country manner, her features a plump-cheeked outline under the black silk veil pinned to the corners of her hat. Not a patch on his own long-lost swan-maiden Olrun, though Olrun had left him after seven years to go with her two sisters, and his two brothers had gone with them as well, leaving Weyland alone.

But Weyland kept her ring and with it her promise. And for seven times seven years to the seventh times, he'd kept it, seduced it back when it was stolen away, held it to his heart in fair weather and foul. Olrun's promisering. Olrun's promise to return.

Olrun who had been fair as ice, with shoulders like a blacksmith, shoulders like a giantess.

This girl could not be less like her. Her hair was black and it wasn't pinned, all those gleaming curls a-tumble across the shoulders of a dress that matched her hair and veil and hat. A little linen sack in her left hand was just the natural color, and something in it chimed when she s.h.i.+fted. Something not too big. He heard it despite the tolling of the hammer that never stopped.

"I'll do what I'm paid to." He let his hammer rest, and s.h.i.+fted his grip on the tongs. His wife's ring slid on its chain around his neck, catching on chest hair. He couldn't wear it on his hand when he hammered. "And if'n 'tis mending I'm paid for, I'll mend what's flawed."

She came across the knotty turf in little quick steps like a hobbled horse-as if it was her lamed, and not him-and while he turned to thrust the bent metal that would soon be a steel horse-collar into the coals again she pa.s.sed her hand over his bench beside the anvil.

He couldn't release the bellows until the coals glowed red as currant jelly, but there was a clink and when her hand withdrew it left behind two golden coins. Two coins for two hands, for two pockets, for two eyes.

Wiping his hands on his matted beard, he turned from the forge, then lifted a coin to his mouth. It dented under his teeth, and he weighed its heaviness in his hand. "A lot for a bit of tinkering."

"Worth it if you get it done," she said, and upended her sack upon his bench.

A dozen or so curved transparent shards tumbled red as forge-coals into the hot noon light, jingling and tinkling. Gingerly, he reached out and prodded one with a forefinger, surprised by the warmth.

"My heart," the woman said. " 'Tis broken. Fix it for me."

He drew his hand back. "I don't know nowt about women's hearts, broken or t'otherwise."

"You're the Weyland Smith, aren't you?"

"Aye, Miss." The collar would need more heating. He turned away, to pump the bellows again.

"You took my gold." She planted her fists on her hips. "You can't refuse a task, Weyland Smith. Once you've taken money for it. It's your geas."

"Keep tha coin," he said, and pushed them at her with a fingertip. "I'm a smith. Not never a matchmaker, nor a gla.s.sblower."

"They say you made jewels from dead men's eyes, once. And it was a blacksmith broke my heart. It's only right one should mend it, too."

He leaned on the bellows, pumping hard.

She turned away, in a whisper of black satin as her skirts swung heavy by her shoes. "You took my coin," she said, before she walked back into the shadows. "So fix my heart."

Firstly, he began with a crucible, and heating the shards in his forge. The heart melted, all right, though hotter than he would have guessed. He scooped the gla.s.s on a bit of rod stock and rolled it on his anvil, then sc.r.a.ped the gather off with a flat-edged blade and shaped it into a smooth ruby-bright oval the size of his fist.

The heart crazed as it cooled. It fell to pieces when he touched it with his glove, and he was left with only a mound of s.h.i.+vered gla.s.s.

That was unfortunate. There had been the chance that the geas would grant some mysterious a.s.sistance, that he would guess correctly and whatever he tried first would work. An off chance, but stranger things happened with magic and his magic was making.

Not this time. Whether it was because he was a blacksmith and not a matchmaker or because he was a blacksmith and not a gla.s.sblower, he was not sure. But hearts, gla.s.s hearts, were outside his idiom and outside his magic.

He would have to see the witch.

The witch must have known he was coming, as she always seemed to know. She awaited him in the doorway of her pleasant cottage by the wildflower meadow, more wildflowers-daisies and b.u.t.tercups-waving among the long gra.s.ses of the turfed roof. A nanny goat grazed beside the chimney, her long coat as white as the milk that stretched her udder pink and s.h.i.+ny. He saw no kid.

The witch was as dark as the goat was white, her black, black hair shot with silver and braided back in a wrist-thick queue. Her skirts were kilted up over her green kirtle, and she handed Weyland a pottery cup before he ever entered her door. It smelled of hops and honey and spices, and steam curled from the top; spiced heated ale.

"I have to see to the milking," she said. "Would you fetch my stool while I coax Heidrun off the roof?"

"She's shrunk," Weyland said, but he balanced his cup in one hand and limped inside the door to haul the stool out, for the witch's convenience.

The witch clucked. "Haven't we all?"

By the time Weyland emerged, the goat was down in the dooryard, munching a reward of bruised apples, and the witch had found her bucket and was waiting for the stool. Weyland set the cup on the ledge of the open window and seated the witch with a little bit of ceremony, helping her with her skirts. She smiled and patted his arm, and bent to the milking while he went to retrieve his ale.

Once upon a time, what rang on the bottom of the empty pail would have been mead, sweet honeyed liquor fit for G.o.ds. But times had changed, were always changing, and the streams that stung from between the witch's strong fingers were rich and creamy white.

"So what have you come for, Weyland Smith?" she asked, when the pail was a quarter full and the milk hissed in the pail rather than sang.

"I'm wanting a spell as'll mend a broken heart," he said.

Her braid slid over her shoulder, hanging down. She flipped it back without lifting her head. "I hadn't thought you had it in you to fall in love again," she said, her voice lilting with the tease.

" 'Tisn't my heart as is broken."

That did raise her chin, and her fingers stilled on Heidrun's udder. Her gaze met his; her eyebrows lifted across the fine-lined arch of her forehead. "Tricky," she said. "A heart's a wheel," she said. "Bent is bent. It can't be mended. And even worse-" She smiled, and tossed the fugitive braid back again. "-if it's not your heart you're after fixing."

"Din't I know it?" he said, and sipped the ale, his wife's ring-worn now-clicking on the cup as his fingers tightened.

Heidrun had finished her apples. She tossed her head, long ivory horns brus.h.i.+ng the pale silken floss of her back, and the witch laughed and remembered to milk again. "What will you give me if I help?"