If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body
Porlo hurried into the Sterling Tavern out of the cold evening air. A few of the other students from the Academy came down this night each week, so he liked to show up and socialise. 'Socialise'. As he sauntered in he smiled and nodded to some of the guys clustered near the entrance. He got nods back from a couple of people he only knew by faces and more languid acknowledgement from those he was more closely acquainted with. Well, whatever, it was something. He'd fit in after a while. He went over to the bar, ordered the local cider, then scanned the room for a likely seat. He felt a blush rise as he looked around and saw a lot of backs turned to him and few open tables, whilst he stood in the centre of the room like a chump. Then he noticed one table in the corner of the room that had a single occupant; a girl in a black velvet dress. It seemed almost like people had avoided her, but he couldn't guess why. She looked nice. Well, she looked pretty. But she was probably nice too. And she looked lonely, sat there by herself. Porlo's spirits rose slightly; maybe he'd have a good night after all.
“Excuse me?” the student asked, mooning around by the opposite chair. The girl looked up vacantly.
“Do you mind if I...”
“No,” said the girl, flatly.
“Oh, ok then,” said Porlo, and started to turn away, cheeks prickling.
“No, I do not mind,” clarified the girl.
“Oh!” said Porlo. “Oh, that's good. Thanks. Thanks.” He sat down hurriedly and sloshed cider over his fingers. “I'm Porlo,” he said.
“Hello,” said the girl.
“Hi. So. Ah... Are you a student?”
The girl's eyes twitched to one side for a moment, and she looked thoughtful.
“Not in the sense you mean,” she said.
“Oh, right. I get you. But yeah, I'm one, up at the academy. I just wondered, because you seemed about the right age. But I guess, you can be a student without going to the Academy, right?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah... So what do you 'study' then?” He winced. “Sorry, that sounded patronising, I didn't-”
“Many things,” said the girl, who apparently hadn't been offended. Porlo told himself to take heart in this, and show a bit of confidence. He downed several mouthfuls of cider, but it was pretty weak.
“Oh yeah? That's good. I think people who have a lot of interests are, you know, interesting people.”
“Mm.”
“So, any particular favourites? Subjects, I mean?”
There was a long pause. The girl's expression didn't change. Then:
“Lepidoptery.”
“Lepidoptery? Like... Moths and stuff, right?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I... Can't say I've ever really looked into that. That's neat though. Quirky. You're into that, then?”
The girl tilted her head down slightly and squinted through Porlo's ribcage, her expression as if trying to locate an elusive memory.
“Yes. I recall it being quite compelling.”
“So, what's it like, then? Tell me about it.”
“It's about moths,” said the girl.
“Yeah...” said Porlo. “I gathered that.”
The conversation continued into the night, punctuated by quite a lot of long silences in which the pair kept their own counsel and Porlo pretended to be fascinated by his drinks. Still, he thought he was doing ok. She hadn't shown any sign of being uncomfortable, and they were sort of chatting. About eighty minutes and four drinks in, the daydream ticking over in the back of Porlo's mind briefly attained a critical mass of credibility, and Porlo opened his mouth.
“So, have you- Are you seeing anybody?” He prickled for a moment in amazement at his own words. “I mean-”
“You are young...” murmured the girl.
“I'm twenty-three!” rejoined the boy. “I'd guess I've probably got a couple of years on you.”
“There are more than a couple of years on me,” the girl stated idly. Porlo coughed.
“Oh, well, sorry. I thought you looked younger... I mean, a teenager... Nineteen maybe? What are you then, twenty? Twenty-two?”
The girl was staring down at the well-scratched table top, but her eyes weren't tracing the patterns. She showed no sign she was even remotely attentive. Porlo started to feel a bit uncomfortable. He tried a joke.
“Or, ha ha, you could be two hundred? Hey? You're not a vampire, are you?” he grinned dopily and felt like a berk. The girl looked up, however, and met his eyes. Her own danced with a rheumy amusement. The corner of her mouth twitched.
“No,” she said, and smiled right through him. Porlo became aware that she wasn't smiling at his minor wit. It was more like she was gazing straight into or beyond him, scrying onto some comedic scene from another time. He scratched his head and slumped his shoulders, resigned.
“Well, look, I don't want to spoil your evening. Would you like me to leave?”
To his surprise, the girl shook her head once.
“No. I don't mind.”
Well, Porlo thought. Maybe he was doing better than he'd realised.
“Oh, well, good. In that case might I buy you a drink?”
“No,” said the girl, and Porlo's stomach flip-flopped once again. But then she added, “...Thank you. I don't drink.”
“Ah, I see,” said Porlo. “Well, that's probably wise and all. I hear that some of the alchemists at the academy have got research that shows how too much booze actually rots your brain or something of the sort. Clean living, I guess, that's the key to longevity. That your thing?”
“No...” said the girl again. Porlo was learning to come to terms with that response now. It didn't seem to be as problematic as it was with most girls. “Alcohol is a preservative, you know?”
She'd asked him a question! That was progress, right?
“Oh, erm, yes, I did know that actually. But I think I probably just overheard it somewhere, you know. I'm not that good at the physiks really. But, that's funny, heh, now you point it out. If it's a preservative, it can't be that bad for you, can it? Hahah.” He managed a slightly less forced smile this time around, and the pretty lass looked up into his face innocently, as if she was going to return it. But she didn't. She just sort of stared at him beatifically. Porlo wasn't sure if that was good or not.
“Uh...” he managed, and then the door burst open.
A man and a woman staggered in, dressed in cheap, tough, soil-caked clothing. Farmers, then. The woman was cradling a bundle. From Porlo's table it couldn't be made out, but the way she held it left no doubt that it was a child. The man ran straight to the bar, the barkeeper hurrying over to him in some alarm. Clearly they were acquainted.
“Bordon, it's Jamie! You gotta help us! You gotta help!” The man – father, no doubt – was seeping sweat and in a state of near hysterics. The bartender, a burly, well-aged sort of man with a drooping moustache, strode out from behind the oak top and leaned over the bundled child (still invisible to Porlo and the girl). He put a warm, weighty arm around the woman. She was quieter than her panicking husband, but clearly the worse hit. She looked barely able to stand, as if stress had physically weakened her to the strength of thick paper.
“Alright, Mary, alright. Y'alright. Dervan, you calm down, alright? You calm down and you take down that bottle of Allwinter up there, y'see it? Alright. And then we'll pull up some chairs and ye can tell me everything that's going on.” He craned his neck to peer about the room until he caught the gaze of a young table maid. “Audrey, you take the bar.” The girl nodded and slipped into the bartender's role with surprising competence, given her young, meek appearance. The bartender pulled up some chairs as he'd said and seated the three of them next to the bar, in a corner of the room given over to storing crates. On the far side of the room, Porlo and the girl watched, but the student's interest waned fast now they'd gone out of easy listening range. The girl, though, was watching impassively, at once showing no great interest, and yet seeming to clearly observe the group.
“He's so quiet... So quiet...” the man Dervan was saying. He was rocking slightly, but essentially calmer for the hefty mouthful of Allwinter brandy that Bordon had cajoled down his throat. Bordon had lifted the babe from Mary's arms (not least because he feared she might drop him at any moment) and laid him gently upon the table, opening up a torch on the nearest bracket to better look at him. He had to admit (though not to the parents, ye gods...) that Dervan was right. The bairn Jamie was grave-quiet and tomb-still. He was still breathing though, just about. Bordon waved a candle flame around his eye line, and he thought he saw a couple of flickers of movement, but it was hard to tell. And other than that, the child was unresponsive. He feared the worst...
“Formald is a preservative,” said the girl. Porlo started.
“Sorry, what?”
“Formald. It is a preservative. But it also causes the tumourous death.” She stopped and stared at him, patiently. He blinked. “So preservatives are not neccesarily good for you... I mean,” she added.
“Oh. Oh! Right, right, yes. Ok, I'm with you now.” said Porlo, nodding like a simpleton. He wasn't sure whether this sudden return to conversation – and one couched in pointing out his mistakes – was a good thing or a bad thing. He decided that on balance, the fact that the enigmatic girl wanted to continue their conversation was probably in his favour. He tried not to drop the ball.
“Well, like I say, I don't really know physicianing... I'm an arcane scholar, actually. You know, like, tomes and such.”
“A mage...” said the girl, and Porlo thought she was narrowing her eyes at him.
“No! No!” exclaimed Porlo, although he wasn't sure why he felt the need to so vehemently deny it. “Just a scholar. I research the history of the order and other movements. Hedge witch cultures. Grimoires. I just do the theory. I don't actually practise any of it. Some people think that sounds a little pointless, but arcanologists – that's the fancy term for us – we believe that it's important that there are non magic-users who still understand magic, you see?” Porlo finished hesitantly. As he'd been speaking the barkeeper had poured a vial of some red water into the baby's mouth across the room, and the child had given one short, riven cry of infantile misery before falling completely silent again. It was, admittedly, quite an eery outburst, and the girl's head had swung gently through ninety degrees to peer across the bar again. Now she turned back.
“Yes,” she said. Porlo opened his mouth and fumbled. “I see.”
“Oh, well, good-”
“And I agree,” the girl – the fascinating enigma, Porlo was beginning to think of her as – added.
“Oh, really? Well, that's great! I knew you were a smart one! So many people just sort of laugh at us. The joke is that when you're burning in a fire, the arcanologist is the one who can tell you exactly what brand of fireball it is that's killing you.” He grinned. The girl put her head slightly to one side.
“Whilst burning? Your pain tolerance must be... Oh, I see. It was a joke.” She inclined her head slightly, and Porlo got the notion she was embarrassed.
“Hahah, yes. It's not a very good one, though. So, ah, anyway. That's enough about me,” he flinched inwardly at the trite line, “What is it that you do? If you don't mind me saying so, a young girl of your age to be out in taverns and towns at night alone is quite unusual, and I thought that maybe, what with your dress and such, you might be some sort of noble-affiliated kind? Not, well, I mean, I'm not saying you're a spy, of course. But I know the nobles also sometimes employ skilled types very young for other jobs, like specialist things. You know... Witch hunting, and the like...” He said it quickly. “I mean, because, the young are particularly sensitive. And I mean, if I've got that wrong, please don't take offense. I mean, I'm not making any kind of judgment. I think, maybe my perspective is a bit skewed because arcanologists often get that kind of job, so I'm thinking about it a lot, and, uh...”
Somewhere in his babbling the girl had turned her head again. She didn't seem offended though. She didn't really seem to be aware of him at the moment.
She stood.
“I must go over there now,” she said, and walked away. Porlo stared at her back for a moment.
“Well damn,” he said.
The girl drifted across the room, her wispy black dress floating out gently behind her. She settled at the shoulder of one of the local villagers, who had formed a loose crowd around the table, just far enough away to pretend like they weren't being intrusive. Porlo finished his drink and went to hover nearby.
The landlord was rubbing his big hairy chin in what was almost a comical fashion, except the look in his eyes admitted no humour. The babe's chest was rising and falling somewhat more noticeably now, which was probably a good sign, but its eyes were glazed over and it was still unresponsive. The mother simply sat and stared at the shelves behind the bar. The father raised a weary look to Bordon.
“You know what it is, right?”
Bordon nodded.
“Is it bad?”
Bordon waved a hand.
“Don't cut in, Dervan. You need to be calm. Just listen, alright? It's Myrdon's Catatonia, is what it is. What housewives call 'The Still'. Silly damned name. Means your bairn – and you have to stay calm, now – means he's badly poisoned in the brain.”
There was gasping from the crowd, whose pretence of respectful distance was fast collapsing. The three around the table were too preoccupied to care.
“The Still, the Still!” cried an old toothless crone that Porlo found slightly frightening, in the way that old strange people were. “The Still can only be cured by the bessings of the ghosts! Your lad is dead!”
“Shut your damned foolish hag mouth, Mawdryn Deerie!” barked Bordon. He turned to Mary, who had let out a weak moan at the woman's outburst. “Ignore her, Mary. It's prime bullshit, is what that is. Your lad needs a steeping of kettle herbs, and then a night of prayer. That's the cure, and a genuine cure it is. No stupid hag nonsense,” he spat at Mrs Deerie.
Mary finally spoke up, her voice reedy brittle.
“What are his... Chances, Will?”
Bordon bowed his head.
“They aren't good, Mary. They aren't good and I'm sorry. But there still is a chance, so don't you go lamenting just yet. You keep your strength up for young Jamie, 'cause he might just make it. Alright?”
She nodded pathetically. Porlo could see she didn't mean it. Poor woman. For a moment he wished he could give her a hug. Then his attention was caught by the young girl, who had silently but firmly strode forward, and somehow passed to the front of the crowd. She knelt before the table.
“Apologies,” she said. “I may help. Please?”
Dervan, Mary and Bordon exchanged looks. Before any of them responded, the girl was already reaching out an arm for the child.
“Now hang on a moment!” Bordon cried, and grabbed for her hand. The girl's other arm came up and she caught his sleeve. Later Porlo would consider the unlikely strength she would need to resist Bordon's might.
“Please,” she said again. Porlo thought there was something almost plaintive about it. The girl was a mystery. (But then they all were to Porlo.)
Bordon was staring into the girl's eyes, and she was staring back. The barkeeper looked somewhat bemused. Dervan was hesitating at the edge of the table, but he seemed to trust Bordon to make the right call.
“And what're you going to do, Missy?” asked the barkeep.
“I will not touch. Just a passing,” said the girl.
“A passinggg...?”
“Yes,” nodded the girl, and then she waved her hand, palm down, over the child. Porlo squinted. He could have sworn the girl had made a Charlatan's Drop. There'd been a gold coin pressed to her palm by her thumb, and then it had vanished. Why would she be doing conjuring tricks?
The child gurgled, and sighed gently.
Oh. Not a conjuring trick. Porlo sidled closer to watch the remarkable girl.
The mother smiled for the first time that night. Weak, but a smile nonetheless. The child's eyes searched the room again. Dervan made a wet little squeaky noise. Bordon cleared his throat and raised an eyebrow. They continued to watch the girl carefully, but didn't move to interfere as she slid a few small stones and strings from her dress and placed them around the child. One of the trinkets caught Porlo's eye. He leaned closer.
“Hang on,” he said. The villagers turned to look at him. Some of them pulled irritable expressions at this boy who was butting in so blithely. Embarrassed, Porlo mumbled on quickly. “Isn't that a Red-Clay Stone?”
The girl turned on him and gave him another long stare. This time Porlo had no trouble reading it. Now she was not impressed. He panicked. He wasn't sure what he'd said. His mind suggested a hundred and one possible mistakes he might have made. His voice offered up a solution to none of them. It babbled.
“Sorry, just, I've never seen one before. I mean, they're all in museums now. Except that one, apparently, hahah! I mean, I just, oh, I suppose... Sorry, now I've told everyone you have it... I guess you think you might be robbed, huh? I really didn't think of that. But honestly we're a really good bunch here. I mean, I don't know everyone, but... Erm... Oh, nevermind. I'm sorry, I really shouldn't have mentioned it.”
Bordon rocked back on his heels, his brow set curiously.
“Why're they all in museums?” he asked, gently, his eye roaming between Porlo and the girl. Bent low over the child so her long black hair hid her face, the girl started to move about her work quickly and quietly, not looking up at the surrounding villagers. Porlo wasn't sure if Bordon was actually expecting a reply, so he mumbled one out and tried to make it sound sort of offhand.
“Well, nobody has made them in several centuries.”
The room had gone silent. Dervan and Mary were staring wide eyed at the girl. Bordon leaned forward and, so, so gently, touched two fingers to the sleeve of her dress. She froze.
“Why not...?” Bordon asked, lethally calm, fixing Porlo with a cold, interrogative stare.
“Uhm. Because... They're for working Taghlan's family of charms... Almost exclusively. And werthian, the weed required for those charms went... Extinct... Uhm...” Everyone was staring at him or the girl. A few people were making small, concealed movements. “But, there are... Inferior... Components... You could still use...” His brain finally dredged up the terrible fact from his studies which every uneducated man and woman in the room had already intuited. “Oh. But they're all...” He coughed.
“...Well, necromantic.”
Bordon seized the girl's arms and brought them behind her back, swinging her through the air and slamming her against the countertop. A gaunt, rat-faced looking villager lurched forward swinging a little steel-and-glass talisman on a chain. It was a Corpse Light. Popular in superstitious parts because it would glow when in the presence of necromantic energies. Sure enough, as the little lantern swung in front of the girl's face, a weak yellow flame flickered in the glass chamber. The villager smashed the charm viciously into the girl's forehead. Some Corpse Lights, Porlo knew, contained distilled and sanctified alchemical mixtures that were anathema to a necromancer. Others just contained water, but it seemed that whoever had traded this one away was legitimate, because as the liquid trickled across the girl's face it seared painful blistering lines of skin and she shrieked and thrashed.
“Quickly!” the gaunt man was crying. “Before she focuses, a knife, someone!”
“Niall!” called another man, proffering a blade from the ruins of a steak further down the counter, but the old 'hag' woman, Mawdryn, snatched it away before it could get to Niall. She strode toward the girl with an unpleasant sense of purpose. Porlo fidgeted. He couldn't help but feel sorry for her. Perhaps she was just misunderstood. Vulnerable... Or perhaps she was a monster, and he was just falling for another pretty girl, like always. Still, he winced as Mrs Deerie slammed the blade – still sticky with gristle and gravy – between the girl's shoulderblades. She arched and seized as the crone began to carve an old folkloric ward into her back.
“Don't touch her flesh!” someone cried. “They can drain your soul out by touch!”
“I know that, ye stupid fool!” cried Deerie, as the blade slashed free of the girl's skin, leaving an irregular, twice bifurcated star pattern traced in scarlet between tattered black velvet and glimpses of alabaster skin. Porlo pondered for a second that maybe it was a little unfair that someone who was willing to believe as much superstitious lore as Mrs Deerie had somehow become the leader of, well... This mob. But then he reminded himself that the girl was a necromancer. He wondered why he didn't feel more afraid.
Held down by Bordon, Dervan and several others, the pathetic female was writhing and thrashing, howling an airy, unpleasant scream. Her naked fingers curled back towards one of the villagers' arms and he stumbled backward into his neighbour, terrified of her touch. For a split second, the girl got her arm free and desperately, savagely, rent a huge clump of her own hair from her scalp. Someone cried out, but it was too late. The hair sizzled to nothing, catalysed by foul magics, and a huge blast of grave-cold air slammed everyone to the sides of the room. For a moment there was a chaos of falling bodies and spinning ceilings, then Porlo's head collided hard with a table. For a split-second, his curiosity was piqued by a tiny detail of his final, bleary vision, and then he lost consciousness.
***
The moon was high in the sky and full. It cast a silver glow over the village which was probably beautiful. It was also unfortunate, but tolerable. Tatula made her way from shadow to shadow, trying not to linger in the darkest corners or to flit too noticeably. The movements of a thief or assassin could be discerned by the paranoid or forewarned more easily than someone just walking in the dark. Besides, she was not truly capable of balletics now. The scars in her back had seized badly, almost pulling her shoulders back, and the sigil burned constantly across her spine. Her face had healed – Corpse Light chemicals were usually made for a temporary shock, not prolongued inhibition – but her scalp was raw and distracting. Pain was a rare experience for Tatula. Usually it was a sensation she could divorce, but the old woman's mark had left her in strict bondage to her flesh. As she made her way into the small hamlet she forced her senses out into the present surroundings, to feel out the magical lattice of trapwires and triggers that laced back into the sanctified charms around her. At the same time her mind went back, gliding into other dark times, past times, when she had been forced to walk other gauntlets set with holy deathtraps meant to exterminate her. She walked all of those paths again, her mind following threads of thought and recognition from one to another, until...
Her consciousness was snapped back to the present by a searing, agonising pain. A crossways charm on a silver wire and she hadn't seen it! A split second longer and she would have been immolated. As it was she staggered back, and had to stifle another scream from a voice that most times barely whispered. Magnesium flames scorched up her right arm, filled with the pain of hatred. A pain calculated to destroy her, coldly set against her nature. It was a pain that reminded her of the very old times. Times she was glad were long gone. Mustering all her will she marshalled her own magic to nullify the fire, and collapsed weakly onto a hitching post. She gathered her senses and her chest heaved a few times in sympathetic response. At least, she realised as she recovered, the trap did not appear to have set off any further warnings. She was safe. She would continue to be safe as long as she remained careful. She glanced down the streets into the heart of the village. She would have to remain careful.
The moon was lower and larger over the fields as Tatula walked back up the hill out of the town. The night's danger now lay nestled in the darkness behind her, and she walked more freely; her goal had been accomplished. Had an assassin been waiting in the barn beside the road, he would have at least got another dagger between her shoulders that night before she killed him. It was not an assassin, however.
“You went back for the child,” said Porlo.
Tatula turned in a stride and faced him with blank apprehension.
“I mean, you went back to heal it.” He narrowed his eyes. “Didn't you?”
Tatula nodded stiffly.
“I thought so. You must have known how dangerous it was.” He indicated her arm. “Looks like you nearly had trouble.”
Her face was empty.
“I just wanted to say... Well, sorry. I mean, I'm sorry I... I didn't mean to...” He sighed. “I'm sorry they drove you out.”
Tatula nodded at him. Porlo ran a hand over his face.
“And, erm. I didn't tell them... About... Well, I mean, how old... Those charms... Those... Old war charms... I, uh...” He took a breath. “You're a liche, aren't you?” he said, abruptly. His eyes flicked up to her face.
Tatula's expression filled with ice and stone. She took a step forward. Porlo bowed his head and stared at the ground.
“Only, the thing is, the thing... I mean... Now I get it... In the tavern. I realise, I can't possibly understand... What you must have seen... I can't, can't judge you, or anything... I don't want to... But I know you must be... Slipping... And maybe you're, I mean, ok with... Maybe you've allowed that... but I just want to say, I just. Because I never... I...” A speck of moisture caught the moonlight on his cheek. He took a faltering breath then stood up and faced the dark mage. “I just wanted to tell you... Not to forget how to... Not be alone.”
Tatula stopped. She stared at him once again. Porlo stared back. Tatula began to step toward him again. The scholar flinched despite his best efforts, but only a little. Then the woman raised a hand and cupped the air a hair's breadth from his damp cheek. Porlo's mouth opened, shock ran across his face, followed by subtler, rarer emotions. He took a breadth, and with his fingertips, pressed her own to his face.
On physical contact Tatula's glamer failed. Porlo didn't look away. He surrendered his own mental defences and her magic returned. Then he kissed her, briefly. It was enough; she didn't need to exchange any words. She left then, and Porlo spent the walk home happy that he had been able to reach her, to comfort her, and perhaps most of all to encourage her. He thought about how she truly was a vulnerable, troubled girl, and how perhaps their love for one night had made a difference. Later, he thought how tragic it was that he would never know her name.
Tatula spent the walk home content that she had made the curious youth feel needed, for a while. She weighed it in her mind, and decided it was an adequate recompense for being one of the few who did not try to exterminate her. Later, she thought about moths.
“Excuse me?” the student asked, mooning around by the opposite chair. The girl looked up vacantly.
“Do you mind if I...”
“No,” said the girl, flatly.
“Oh, ok then,” said Porlo, and started to turn away, cheeks prickling.
“No, I do not mind,” clarified the girl.
“Oh!” said Porlo. “Oh, that's good. Thanks. Thanks.” He sat down hurriedly and sloshed cider over his fingers. “I'm Porlo,” he said.
“Hello,” said the girl.
“Hi. So. Ah... Are you a student?”
The girl's eyes twitched to one side for a moment, and she looked thoughtful.
“Not in the sense you mean,” she said.
“Oh, right. I get you. But yeah, I'm one, up at the academy. I just wondered, because you seemed about the right age. But I guess, you can be a student without going to the Academy, right?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah... So what do you 'study' then?” He winced. “Sorry, that sounded patronising, I didn't-”
“Many things,” said the girl, who apparently hadn't been offended. Porlo told himself to take heart in this, and show a bit of confidence. He downed several mouthfuls of cider, but it was pretty weak.
“Oh yeah? That's good. I think people who have a lot of interests are, you know, interesting people.”
“Mm.”
“So, any particular favourites? Subjects, I mean?”
There was a long pause. The girl's expression didn't change. Then:
“Lepidoptery.”
“Lepidoptery? Like... Moths and stuff, right?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I... Can't say I've ever really looked into that. That's neat though. Quirky. You're into that, then?”
The girl tilted her head down slightly and squinted through Porlo's ribcage, her expression as if trying to locate an elusive memory.
“Yes. I recall it being quite compelling.”
“So, what's it like, then? Tell me about it.”
“It's about moths,” said the girl.
“Yeah...” said Porlo. “I gathered that.”
The conversation continued into the night, punctuated by quite a lot of long silences in which the pair kept their own counsel and Porlo pretended to be fascinated by his drinks. Still, he thought he was doing ok. She hadn't shown any sign of being uncomfortable, and they were sort of chatting. About eighty minutes and four drinks in, the daydream ticking over in the back of Porlo's mind briefly attained a critical mass of credibility, and Porlo opened his mouth.
“So, have you- Are you seeing anybody?” He prickled for a moment in amazement at his own words. “I mean-”
“You are young...” murmured the girl.
“I'm twenty-three!” rejoined the boy. “I'd guess I've probably got a couple of years on you.”
“There are more than a couple of years on me,” the girl stated idly. Porlo coughed.
“Oh, well, sorry. I thought you looked younger... I mean, a teenager... Nineteen maybe? What are you then, twenty? Twenty-two?”
The girl was staring down at the well-scratched table top, but her eyes weren't tracing the patterns. She showed no sign she was even remotely attentive. Porlo started to feel a bit uncomfortable. He tried a joke.
“Or, ha ha, you could be two hundred? Hey? You're not a vampire, are you?” he grinned dopily and felt like a berk. The girl looked up, however, and met his eyes. Her own danced with a rheumy amusement. The corner of her mouth twitched.
“No,” she said, and smiled right through him. Porlo became aware that she wasn't smiling at his minor wit. It was more like she was gazing straight into or beyond him, scrying onto some comedic scene from another time. He scratched his head and slumped his shoulders, resigned.
“Well, look, I don't want to spoil your evening. Would you like me to leave?”
To his surprise, the girl shook her head once.
“No. I don't mind.”
Well, Porlo thought. Maybe he was doing better than he'd realised.
“Oh, well, good. In that case might I buy you a drink?”
“No,” said the girl, and Porlo's stomach flip-flopped once again. But then she added, “...Thank you. I don't drink.”
“Ah, I see,” said Porlo. “Well, that's probably wise and all. I hear that some of the alchemists at the academy have got research that shows how too much booze actually rots your brain or something of the sort. Clean living, I guess, that's the key to longevity. That your thing?”
“No...” said the girl again. Porlo was learning to come to terms with that response now. It didn't seem to be as problematic as it was with most girls. “Alcohol is a preservative, you know?”
She'd asked him a question! That was progress, right?
“Oh, erm, yes, I did know that actually. But I think I probably just overheard it somewhere, you know. I'm not that good at the physiks really. But, that's funny, heh, now you point it out. If it's a preservative, it can't be that bad for you, can it? Hahah.” He managed a slightly less forced smile this time around, and the pretty lass looked up into his face innocently, as if she was going to return it. But she didn't. She just sort of stared at him beatifically. Porlo wasn't sure if that was good or not.
“Uh...” he managed, and then the door burst open.
A man and a woman staggered in, dressed in cheap, tough, soil-caked clothing. Farmers, then. The woman was cradling a bundle. From Porlo's table it couldn't be made out, but the way she held it left no doubt that it was a child. The man ran straight to the bar, the barkeeper hurrying over to him in some alarm. Clearly they were acquainted.
“Bordon, it's Jamie! You gotta help us! You gotta help!” The man – father, no doubt – was seeping sweat and in a state of near hysterics. The bartender, a burly, well-aged sort of man with a drooping moustache, strode out from behind the oak top and leaned over the bundled child (still invisible to Porlo and the girl). He put a warm, weighty arm around the woman. She was quieter than her panicking husband, but clearly the worse hit. She looked barely able to stand, as if stress had physically weakened her to the strength of thick paper.
“Alright, Mary, alright. Y'alright. Dervan, you calm down, alright? You calm down and you take down that bottle of Allwinter up there, y'see it? Alright. And then we'll pull up some chairs and ye can tell me everything that's going on.” He craned his neck to peer about the room until he caught the gaze of a young table maid. “Audrey, you take the bar.” The girl nodded and slipped into the bartender's role with surprising competence, given her young, meek appearance. The bartender pulled up some chairs as he'd said and seated the three of them next to the bar, in a corner of the room given over to storing crates. On the far side of the room, Porlo and the girl watched, but the student's interest waned fast now they'd gone out of easy listening range. The girl, though, was watching impassively, at once showing no great interest, and yet seeming to clearly observe the group.
“He's so quiet... So quiet...” the man Dervan was saying. He was rocking slightly, but essentially calmer for the hefty mouthful of Allwinter brandy that Bordon had cajoled down his throat. Bordon had lifted the babe from Mary's arms (not least because he feared she might drop him at any moment) and laid him gently upon the table, opening up a torch on the nearest bracket to better look at him. He had to admit (though not to the parents, ye gods...) that Dervan was right. The bairn Jamie was grave-quiet and tomb-still. He was still breathing though, just about. Bordon waved a candle flame around his eye line, and he thought he saw a couple of flickers of movement, but it was hard to tell. And other than that, the child was unresponsive. He feared the worst...
“Formald is a preservative,” said the girl. Porlo started.
“Sorry, what?”
“Formald. It is a preservative. But it also causes the tumourous death.” She stopped and stared at him, patiently. He blinked. “So preservatives are not neccesarily good for you... I mean,” she added.
“Oh. Oh! Right, right, yes. Ok, I'm with you now.” said Porlo, nodding like a simpleton. He wasn't sure whether this sudden return to conversation – and one couched in pointing out his mistakes – was a good thing or a bad thing. He decided that on balance, the fact that the enigmatic girl wanted to continue their conversation was probably in his favour. He tried not to drop the ball.
“Well, like I say, I don't really know physicianing... I'm an arcane scholar, actually. You know, like, tomes and such.”
“A mage...” said the girl, and Porlo thought she was narrowing her eyes at him.
“No! No!” exclaimed Porlo, although he wasn't sure why he felt the need to so vehemently deny it. “Just a scholar. I research the history of the order and other movements. Hedge witch cultures. Grimoires. I just do the theory. I don't actually practise any of it. Some people think that sounds a little pointless, but arcanologists – that's the fancy term for us – we believe that it's important that there are non magic-users who still understand magic, you see?” Porlo finished hesitantly. As he'd been speaking the barkeeper had poured a vial of some red water into the baby's mouth across the room, and the child had given one short, riven cry of infantile misery before falling completely silent again. It was, admittedly, quite an eery outburst, and the girl's head had swung gently through ninety degrees to peer across the bar again. Now she turned back.
“Yes,” she said. Porlo opened his mouth and fumbled. “I see.”
“Oh, well, good-”
“And I agree,” the girl – the fascinating enigma, Porlo was beginning to think of her as – added.
“Oh, really? Well, that's great! I knew you were a smart one! So many people just sort of laugh at us. The joke is that when you're burning in a fire, the arcanologist is the one who can tell you exactly what brand of fireball it is that's killing you.” He grinned. The girl put her head slightly to one side.
“Whilst burning? Your pain tolerance must be... Oh, I see. It was a joke.” She inclined her head slightly, and Porlo got the notion she was embarrassed.
“Hahah, yes. It's not a very good one, though. So, ah, anyway. That's enough about me,” he flinched inwardly at the trite line, “What is it that you do? If you don't mind me saying so, a young girl of your age to be out in taverns and towns at night alone is quite unusual, and I thought that maybe, what with your dress and such, you might be some sort of noble-affiliated kind? Not, well, I mean, I'm not saying you're a spy, of course. But I know the nobles also sometimes employ skilled types very young for other jobs, like specialist things. You know... Witch hunting, and the like...” He said it quickly. “I mean, because, the young are particularly sensitive. And I mean, if I've got that wrong, please don't take offense. I mean, I'm not making any kind of judgment. I think, maybe my perspective is a bit skewed because arcanologists often get that kind of job, so I'm thinking about it a lot, and, uh...”
Somewhere in his babbling the girl had turned her head again. She didn't seem offended though. She didn't really seem to be aware of him at the moment.
She stood.
“I must go over there now,” she said, and walked away. Porlo stared at her back for a moment.
“Well damn,” he said.
The girl drifted across the room, her wispy black dress floating out gently behind her. She settled at the shoulder of one of the local villagers, who had formed a loose crowd around the table, just far enough away to pretend like they weren't being intrusive. Porlo finished his drink and went to hover nearby.
The landlord was rubbing his big hairy chin in what was almost a comical fashion, except the look in his eyes admitted no humour. The babe's chest was rising and falling somewhat more noticeably now, which was probably a good sign, but its eyes were glazed over and it was still unresponsive. The mother simply sat and stared at the shelves behind the bar. The father raised a weary look to Bordon.
“You know what it is, right?”
Bordon nodded.
“Is it bad?”
Bordon waved a hand.
“Don't cut in, Dervan. You need to be calm. Just listen, alright? It's Myrdon's Catatonia, is what it is. What housewives call 'The Still'. Silly damned name. Means your bairn – and you have to stay calm, now – means he's badly poisoned in the brain.”
There was gasping from the crowd, whose pretence of respectful distance was fast collapsing. The three around the table were too preoccupied to care.
“The Still, the Still!” cried an old toothless crone that Porlo found slightly frightening, in the way that old strange people were. “The Still can only be cured by the bessings of the ghosts! Your lad is dead!”
“Shut your damned foolish hag mouth, Mawdryn Deerie!” barked Bordon. He turned to Mary, who had let out a weak moan at the woman's outburst. “Ignore her, Mary. It's prime bullshit, is what that is. Your lad needs a steeping of kettle herbs, and then a night of prayer. That's the cure, and a genuine cure it is. No stupid hag nonsense,” he spat at Mrs Deerie.
Mary finally spoke up, her voice reedy brittle.
“What are his... Chances, Will?”
Bordon bowed his head.
“They aren't good, Mary. They aren't good and I'm sorry. But there still is a chance, so don't you go lamenting just yet. You keep your strength up for young Jamie, 'cause he might just make it. Alright?”
She nodded pathetically. Porlo could see she didn't mean it. Poor woman. For a moment he wished he could give her a hug. Then his attention was caught by the young girl, who had silently but firmly strode forward, and somehow passed to the front of the crowd. She knelt before the table.
“Apologies,” she said. “I may help. Please?”
Dervan, Mary and Bordon exchanged looks. Before any of them responded, the girl was already reaching out an arm for the child.
“Now hang on a moment!” Bordon cried, and grabbed for her hand. The girl's other arm came up and she caught his sleeve. Later Porlo would consider the unlikely strength she would need to resist Bordon's might.
“Please,” she said again. Porlo thought there was something almost plaintive about it. The girl was a mystery. (But then they all were to Porlo.)
Bordon was staring into the girl's eyes, and she was staring back. The barkeeper looked somewhat bemused. Dervan was hesitating at the edge of the table, but he seemed to trust Bordon to make the right call.
“And what're you going to do, Missy?” asked the barkeep.
“I will not touch. Just a passing,” said the girl.
“A passinggg...?”
“Yes,” nodded the girl, and then she waved her hand, palm down, over the child. Porlo squinted. He could have sworn the girl had made a Charlatan's Drop. There'd been a gold coin pressed to her palm by her thumb, and then it had vanished. Why would she be doing conjuring tricks?
The child gurgled, and sighed gently.
Oh. Not a conjuring trick. Porlo sidled closer to watch the remarkable girl.
The mother smiled for the first time that night. Weak, but a smile nonetheless. The child's eyes searched the room again. Dervan made a wet little squeaky noise. Bordon cleared his throat and raised an eyebrow. They continued to watch the girl carefully, but didn't move to interfere as she slid a few small stones and strings from her dress and placed them around the child. One of the trinkets caught Porlo's eye. He leaned closer.
“Hang on,” he said. The villagers turned to look at him. Some of them pulled irritable expressions at this boy who was butting in so blithely. Embarrassed, Porlo mumbled on quickly. “Isn't that a Red-Clay Stone?”
The girl turned on him and gave him another long stare. This time Porlo had no trouble reading it. Now she was not impressed. He panicked. He wasn't sure what he'd said. His mind suggested a hundred and one possible mistakes he might have made. His voice offered up a solution to none of them. It babbled.
“Sorry, just, I've never seen one before. I mean, they're all in museums now. Except that one, apparently, hahah! I mean, I just, oh, I suppose... Sorry, now I've told everyone you have it... I guess you think you might be robbed, huh? I really didn't think of that. But honestly we're a really good bunch here. I mean, I don't know everyone, but... Erm... Oh, nevermind. I'm sorry, I really shouldn't have mentioned it.”
Bordon rocked back on his heels, his brow set curiously.
“Why're they all in museums?” he asked, gently, his eye roaming between Porlo and the girl. Bent low over the child so her long black hair hid her face, the girl started to move about her work quickly and quietly, not looking up at the surrounding villagers. Porlo wasn't sure if Bordon was actually expecting a reply, so he mumbled one out and tried to make it sound sort of offhand.
“Well, nobody has made them in several centuries.”
The room had gone silent. Dervan and Mary were staring wide eyed at the girl. Bordon leaned forward and, so, so gently, touched two fingers to the sleeve of her dress. She froze.
“Why not...?” Bordon asked, lethally calm, fixing Porlo with a cold, interrogative stare.
“Uhm. Because... They're for working Taghlan's family of charms... Almost exclusively. And werthian, the weed required for those charms went... Extinct... Uhm...” Everyone was staring at him or the girl. A few people were making small, concealed movements. “But, there are... Inferior... Components... You could still use...” His brain finally dredged up the terrible fact from his studies which every uneducated man and woman in the room had already intuited. “Oh. But they're all...” He coughed.
“...Well, necromantic.”
Bordon seized the girl's arms and brought them behind her back, swinging her through the air and slamming her against the countertop. A gaunt, rat-faced looking villager lurched forward swinging a little steel-and-glass talisman on a chain. It was a Corpse Light. Popular in superstitious parts because it would glow when in the presence of necromantic energies. Sure enough, as the little lantern swung in front of the girl's face, a weak yellow flame flickered in the glass chamber. The villager smashed the charm viciously into the girl's forehead. Some Corpse Lights, Porlo knew, contained distilled and sanctified alchemical mixtures that were anathema to a necromancer. Others just contained water, but it seemed that whoever had traded this one away was legitimate, because as the liquid trickled across the girl's face it seared painful blistering lines of skin and she shrieked and thrashed.
“Quickly!” the gaunt man was crying. “Before she focuses, a knife, someone!”
“Niall!” called another man, proffering a blade from the ruins of a steak further down the counter, but the old 'hag' woman, Mawdryn, snatched it away before it could get to Niall. She strode toward the girl with an unpleasant sense of purpose. Porlo fidgeted. He couldn't help but feel sorry for her. Perhaps she was just misunderstood. Vulnerable... Or perhaps she was a monster, and he was just falling for another pretty girl, like always. Still, he winced as Mrs Deerie slammed the blade – still sticky with gristle and gravy – between the girl's shoulderblades. She arched and seized as the crone began to carve an old folkloric ward into her back.
“Don't touch her flesh!” someone cried. “They can drain your soul out by touch!”
“I know that, ye stupid fool!” cried Deerie, as the blade slashed free of the girl's skin, leaving an irregular, twice bifurcated star pattern traced in scarlet between tattered black velvet and glimpses of alabaster skin. Porlo pondered for a second that maybe it was a little unfair that someone who was willing to believe as much superstitious lore as Mrs Deerie had somehow become the leader of, well... This mob. But then he reminded himself that the girl was a necromancer. He wondered why he didn't feel more afraid.
Held down by Bordon, Dervan and several others, the pathetic female was writhing and thrashing, howling an airy, unpleasant scream. Her naked fingers curled back towards one of the villagers' arms and he stumbled backward into his neighbour, terrified of her touch. For a split second, the girl got her arm free and desperately, savagely, rent a huge clump of her own hair from her scalp. Someone cried out, but it was too late. The hair sizzled to nothing, catalysed by foul magics, and a huge blast of grave-cold air slammed everyone to the sides of the room. For a moment there was a chaos of falling bodies and spinning ceilings, then Porlo's head collided hard with a table. For a split-second, his curiosity was piqued by a tiny detail of his final, bleary vision, and then he lost consciousness.
***
The moon was high in the sky and full. It cast a silver glow over the village which was probably beautiful. It was also unfortunate, but tolerable. Tatula made her way from shadow to shadow, trying not to linger in the darkest corners or to flit too noticeably. The movements of a thief or assassin could be discerned by the paranoid or forewarned more easily than someone just walking in the dark. Besides, she was not truly capable of balletics now. The scars in her back had seized badly, almost pulling her shoulders back, and the sigil burned constantly across her spine. Her face had healed – Corpse Light chemicals were usually made for a temporary shock, not prolongued inhibition – but her scalp was raw and distracting. Pain was a rare experience for Tatula. Usually it was a sensation she could divorce, but the old woman's mark had left her in strict bondage to her flesh. As she made her way into the small hamlet she forced her senses out into the present surroundings, to feel out the magical lattice of trapwires and triggers that laced back into the sanctified charms around her. At the same time her mind went back, gliding into other dark times, past times, when she had been forced to walk other gauntlets set with holy deathtraps meant to exterminate her. She walked all of those paths again, her mind following threads of thought and recognition from one to another, until...
Her consciousness was snapped back to the present by a searing, agonising pain. A crossways charm on a silver wire and she hadn't seen it! A split second longer and she would have been immolated. As it was she staggered back, and had to stifle another scream from a voice that most times barely whispered. Magnesium flames scorched up her right arm, filled with the pain of hatred. A pain calculated to destroy her, coldly set against her nature. It was a pain that reminded her of the very old times. Times she was glad were long gone. Mustering all her will she marshalled her own magic to nullify the fire, and collapsed weakly onto a hitching post. She gathered her senses and her chest heaved a few times in sympathetic response. At least, she realised as she recovered, the trap did not appear to have set off any further warnings. She was safe. She would continue to be safe as long as she remained careful. She glanced down the streets into the heart of the village. She would have to remain careful.
The moon was lower and larger over the fields as Tatula walked back up the hill out of the town. The night's danger now lay nestled in the darkness behind her, and she walked more freely; her goal had been accomplished. Had an assassin been waiting in the barn beside the road, he would have at least got another dagger between her shoulders that night before she killed him. It was not an assassin, however.
“You went back for the child,” said Porlo.
Tatula turned in a stride and faced him with blank apprehension.
“I mean, you went back to heal it.” He narrowed his eyes. “Didn't you?”
Tatula nodded stiffly.
“I thought so. You must have known how dangerous it was.” He indicated her arm. “Looks like you nearly had trouble.”
Her face was empty.
“I just wanted to say... Well, sorry. I mean, I'm sorry I... I didn't mean to...” He sighed. “I'm sorry they drove you out.”
Tatula nodded at him. Porlo ran a hand over his face.
“And, erm. I didn't tell them... About... Well, I mean, how old... Those charms... Those... Old war charms... I, uh...” He took a breath. “You're a liche, aren't you?” he said, abruptly. His eyes flicked up to her face.
Tatula's expression filled with ice and stone. She took a step forward. Porlo bowed his head and stared at the ground.
“Only, the thing is, the thing... I mean... Now I get it... In the tavern. I realise, I can't possibly understand... What you must have seen... I can't, can't judge you, or anything... I don't want to... But I know you must be... Slipping... And maybe you're, I mean, ok with... Maybe you've allowed that... but I just want to say, I just. Because I never... I...” A speck of moisture caught the moonlight on his cheek. He took a faltering breath then stood up and faced the dark mage. “I just wanted to tell you... Not to forget how to... Not be alone.”
Tatula stopped. She stared at him once again. Porlo stared back. Tatula began to step toward him again. The scholar flinched despite his best efforts, but only a little. Then the woman raised a hand and cupped the air a hair's breadth from his damp cheek. Porlo's mouth opened, shock ran across his face, followed by subtler, rarer emotions. He took a breadth, and with his fingertips, pressed her own to his face.
On physical contact Tatula's glamer failed. Porlo didn't look away. He surrendered his own mental defences and her magic returned. Then he kissed her, briefly. It was enough; she didn't need to exchange any words. She left then, and Porlo spent the walk home happy that he had been able to reach her, to comfort her, and perhaps most of all to encourage her. He thought about how she truly was a vulnerable, troubled girl, and how perhaps their love for one night had made a difference. Later, he thought how tragic it was that he would never know her name.
Tatula spent the walk home content that she had made the curious youth feel needed, for a while. She weighed it in her mind, and decided it was an adequate recompense for being one of the few who did not try to exterminate her. Later, she thought about moths.
