The Magician's Woman, Chapter 2
When Tesni’s eyes had become used to the dim light of the house’s interior, she found herself in a small, close kitchen, the ceiling hung with smoked and salted meats, herbs, and rows of gently and sinisterly gleaming pots and pans. As her eyes adjusted further, she saw that many of the pots and pans were glazed in thick layers of gray dust. Indeed, the whole place was apparently so suffused with dust that it settled on everything, given a moment to do so; not only did it rest on the meats and herbs, but it swirled in the air from the movement of the door and was now settling on her shoulders and sticking to her sweaty hair. Tesni brushed herself down automatically, although the muddiness of her clothes made it a slightly ridiculous gesture.
The man who had grabbed her arm-the magician, obviously-had already released her and was nowhere in the room, but a noise of rustling and slammed drawers came from the room adjacent. Tesni was in no small way frightened by this man and his dreary, ominous habitat, and her fear all but quashed any feeling of triumph she might have had. Nevertheless, she followed the noise to the next room (ducking the many grayed ceiling ornaments) and was rewarded by an even stranger sight than the dark and dusty kitchen.
The room she entered appeared to be a library of some kind, just as the kitchen, and although presumably much bigger than the kitchen, was even closer and more cluttered. The very build of it contributed to this, so that it could not have been made an open and breathable space by even the most ambitious cleaning. The place was high-ceilinged, but wound about with a second level that overlooked the ground floor with a rickety rail between. As she stepped forward a few paces, she could see that what might still have been a relatively open space was twice bisected by walkways that crossed from one side’s balcony level to the other. Short, twisted staircases branched from these walkways, allowing passage to the second level, and further off she could glimpse a straight staircase embedded in the wall. Then in addition to the level above, there was also a half-level beneath-a series of sunken alcoves in the walls, some the size of small rooms themselves, which were a few steps down from the ground level.
And filling every level, every alcove and walkway and winding corner of the library, were books. Tall shelves made a labyrinth of the main level, and lined at least one side of each overhead walkway. Where there were not shelves, there were ornately carved desks full of drawers and stacked high with books. Where there were neither shelves nor desks, there were books stacked by themselves, against walls, in the middle of paths or on the stairs, even balanced on the thin rails lining the balcony levels. Some of the books were simply sheaves of rough-cut paper sewn or tied together, but some were grandly bound in colored leather. Tesni reached tentatively out and brushed away the hoary fur of dust on the spine of one, and it shone with a gilt title and leafy gilt embellishments.
The magician thundered down the twisted staircase nearest her, knocking more dust from books nearby with the force of his footsteps. He was flipping impatiently through a worn-looking book as he descended; Tesni had no time for concern over the peril of his neck before he reached the bottom and, apparently, the passage he sought. His lips moved quickly and silently as he read. Then his head snapped up and his eyes focused immediately on Tesni, as though he had just remembered her presence. Tesni wasn’t fooled-his grim expression and accusing eyes made it hard to believe he was anything but horribly, dangerously aware of her presence in his house. Tesni quailed, all her previous courage forgotten, and she was suddenly absolutely certain that the book he held contained the magic for putting a gruesome curse upon her. He opened his mouth to speak. Tesni flinched visibly, and it was terror freezing her throat rather than bravery making her bite her tongue that prevented her from crying out.
“Tell me what this magic is worth to you,” the magician said curtly.
Tesni opened her eyes and regarded him with confusion, but did not relax.
“The… the village has some money, but it’s not much,” she stammered.
“I didn’t say anything about money. I said to tell me what it’s worth to you. Tell me why you want me to do it.”
Tesni stared a little. “My village, it’s under attack! Bandits are coming to attack us!”
“And if every building in it burns to the ground it will be because you couldn’t follow instructions,” he snapped. “Tell me what it’s worth to you. Tell me what’s at stake that made you run all this way. Money. Time. Convenience.”
“Lives,” she gasped, shocked. “Lives are at stake. There are families, children. The people there are my neighbors! That village is my home!” She clutched her hands together and pressed them to her chest to quell its tightening. “My home is at stake.”
The magician hissed and flipped madly through his book.
“I don’t want sermonizing,” he retorted, not looking up from its pages. “I want the truth. I’ll tell no one if your reason is less than noble. It’s all the better if you’re shallow. Tell me exactly why you want me to save your village. Tell me the real truth. The magic can’t be done without honesty. Few magics can.”
“I am honest,” she insisted, but the way he’d worded the last part-the magic can’t be done without honesty-took the sob from her voice and made her straighten her spine a little more. “This magic is worth to me home and human life,” she declared in a tone of resolution she did not know she possessed. That made the magician look up from his book. To Tesni’s surprise, his lips curled in a bitter sneer.
“Oh, you know all the right words, I see.” He hissed again in apparent frustration and slammed the book closed with one hand. Dust puffed from its pages and made Tesni cough.
“Fine,” said the magician. He straightened as she had and faced Tesni head on; he was several inches taller than she. “You say it is worth to you home and life to save your village. Is it worth enough that you would give up these things to save it?”
The question made her stomach lurch, and Tesni hesitated for just a fraction of a moment. But it was perfectly clear that an answer of “no” would make him turn her out that kitchen door, and gladly. She thought of her neighbors, fighting with thrown stones, firewood axes, and long-unused family swords against the onslaught of a well-armed bandit clan-what they had been preparing to do when she had left, what they might be doing at this very moment. Tesni looked up into the magician’s cold, dust-gray eyes.
“Yes,” she said. “I would give up these things to save it.”
Tesni thought she saw him wince. Then he looked away from her, past her shoulder. Tesni followed his gaze and saw that he was looking at what must have been the door, although its lower half was partially obscured by a bookcase while the balcony level had seemingly been built directly across its upper half. Tesni was thinking somewhat dazedly that it was no wonder the magician never opened it, when he quite unexpectedly reached forward and seized her left arm.
It was not her upper arm that he took hold of as he had before. Instead his hand shot up under the sleeve of her dress and grabbed her forearm just past the wrist. Tesni whipped her head back around to look at the magician, shocked; but she was not nearly as shocked as when the man’s grip warmed on her skin with a warmth greater than a human hand. The warmth grew until it became not just warmth, but heat, and then heat as great as that of a cooking stove, but which somehow did not burn her arm.
The magician remained looking over her shoulder at the door, and Tesni was too taken aback to do anything but watch him watch that unknown point just beyond its pinewood planks. His expression was stony, his entire being completely still. Murky light struggled down from a slotlike window in the roof above, and it filtered through his tangled hair and set each speck of dust in it alight like a star in a the dark sky of the library. The heat in her arm was immese.
Then the magician released her arm, as abruptly as he had taken hold of it. Tesni reeled a little, looking down at her arm, as something inside her head seemed to speed up to catch up with the world around her. The time from when the magician had taken her arm to when he had let it go, she realized once she had regained her internal balance, had been just a beat, no more than the barest instant. Indeed, it immediately seemed strange that she should have thought it had been longer. But she retained the memory in her eyes of that stretched out moment, and the memory in her skin of the heat of the magician’s hand. It was gone, now, the air not even feeling cooler than it might have been, but she thought her skin tingled. She reached up into her sleeve and rubbed the place absently. Only then did she finally think to blush at the contact.
The blush in turn prompted her to look back up at the magician, if only that she might therefore be better able to look modestly back down. But what she saw in his face made Tesni not dare to look away. He still stared at the door, but the magician’s expression was now so thick with bitterness and fury that she had to gasp.
“It is done,” said the magician, like one reporting a sentence of death. Tesni blinked rapidly and trembled in spite of herself.
“The - the magic?” she said. “It worked, then?”
He looked down at her and all but snarled. “Yes, it worked,” he snapped. “Magic doesn’t usually to wait to be asked twice. That tends to be most of the problem with it.”
Even in the face of the man’s seething wrath, Tesni found herself relaxing.
“It worked!” she echoed, and she could not keep in a little breathless laugh of relief. But then as she thought to wonder about the details, she tensed again. “How did it work?” she asked. “What happened? What’s happening there now?”
“I’m no more clairvoyant than you,” he replied tersely. “All I can say is that the enemies you feared are no longer a threat, and the things you wished to protect are safe.” He turned from her and began to walk away through the maze of shelves.
The things you wished to protect. In his words, Tesni heard the words that she had said only a minute before.
I would give up these things to save it. Home.
“I can’t…” she began in a small voice. He didn’t turn around, and she began again, louder. “I can’t… go back, can I? I can’t go back home.”
He did not turn back around, or even pause. She heard him give a short laugh.
“Pretty and clever,” he murmured sarcastically, and disappeared behind a shelf. Tesni hurried to catch up with him, though she was too afraid to say the next question on her lips. She followed him amid the stacks of books, around the spiral staircases and desks and through slippery puddles of loose papers.
Not until she was about to follow him up the straight staircase in the back of the library did she finally find her tongue.
“And… life?” she said in a voice that was more brave than she felt herself. “I… I also agreed to give that up.” He stopped then, turning around halfway up the steps and looking back at her where she stood at the bottom. She thought she heard him sigh, and the anger in his face was deadened a little to defeat.
“Don’t stand there and… tremble and pale at me,” he said wearily, making a tired, dismissive gesture. “Your home wasn’t destroyed, it’s just not yours anymore,” the magician pointed out. “It’s the same.” He turned back around and continued up the stairs.
His attempt to leave again distressed Tesni more than it should have, as though she feared he would find some way to escape her forever and leave her questions unanswered for all time.
“But-!” Tesni cried out, as one might cry out “Wait, stop!” to a rider on a swiftly departing horse. He stopped, one step from the top of the stairs, and with a granite solidarity that seemed to make the question not whether he would escape her, but whether he would ever find it in himself to move again. He did not turn around.
“But, she repeated in a meeker tone, “If my life no longer belongs to me… then to whom does it belong?”
“To the magic forces of this world with which you made your trade,” the magician droned. Tesni was taken by the somewhat discomfiting feeling that it was not the man who was speaking, but the books around them that were speaking for him. “You are bound to its service by way of that of the will which magicked for your sake.” Neither said anything for what felt like a moment too long.
“Me,” said the magician abruptly.
“All that Tesni found she could think about was how she wished she could see his face.
“Your life,” said the magician to the ceiling, “belongs to me.”
The man who had grabbed her arm-the magician, obviously-had already released her and was nowhere in the room, but a noise of rustling and slammed drawers came from the room adjacent. Tesni was in no small way frightened by this man and his dreary, ominous habitat, and her fear all but quashed any feeling of triumph she might have had. Nevertheless, she followed the noise to the next room (ducking the many grayed ceiling ornaments) and was rewarded by an even stranger sight than the dark and dusty kitchen.
The room she entered appeared to be a library of some kind, just as the kitchen, and although presumably much bigger than the kitchen, was even closer and more cluttered. The very build of it contributed to this, so that it could not have been made an open and breathable space by even the most ambitious cleaning. The place was high-ceilinged, but wound about with a second level that overlooked the ground floor with a rickety rail between. As she stepped forward a few paces, she could see that what might still have been a relatively open space was twice bisected by walkways that crossed from one side’s balcony level to the other. Short, twisted staircases branched from these walkways, allowing passage to the second level, and further off she could glimpse a straight staircase embedded in the wall. Then in addition to the level above, there was also a half-level beneath-a series of sunken alcoves in the walls, some the size of small rooms themselves, which were a few steps down from the ground level.
And filling every level, every alcove and walkway and winding corner of the library, were books. Tall shelves made a labyrinth of the main level, and lined at least one side of each overhead walkway. Where there were not shelves, there were ornately carved desks full of drawers and stacked high with books. Where there were neither shelves nor desks, there were books stacked by themselves, against walls, in the middle of paths or on the stairs, even balanced on the thin rails lining the balcony levels. Some of the books were simply sheaves of rough-cut paper sewn or tied together, but some were grandly bound in colored leather. Tesni reached tentatively out and brushed away the hoary fur of dust on the spine of one, and it shone with a gilt title and leafy gilt embellishments.
The magician thundered down the twisted staircase nearest her, knocking more dust from books nearby with the force of his footsteps. He was flipping impatiently through a worn-looking book as he descended; Tesni had no time for concern over the peril of his neck before he reached the bottom and, apparently, the passage he sought. His lips moved quickly and silently as he read. Then his head snapped up and his eyes focused immediately on Tesni, as though he had just remembered her presence. Tesni wasn’t fooled-his grim expression and accusing eyes made it hard to believe he was anything but horribly, dangerously aware of her presence in his house. Tesni quailed, all her previous courage forgotten, and she was suddenly absolutely certain that the book he held contained the magic for putting a gruesome curse upon her. He opened his mouth to speak. Tesni flinched visibly, and it was terror freezing her throat rather than bravery making her bite her tongue that prevented her from crying out.
“Tell me what this magic is worth to you,” the magician said curtly.
Tesni opened her eyes and regarded him with confusion, but did not relax.
“The… the village has some money, but it’s not much,” she stammered.
“I didn’t say anything about money. I said to tell me what it’s worth to you. Tell me why you want me to do it.”
Tesni stared a little. “My village, it’s under attack! Bandits are coming to attack us!”
“And if every building in it burns to the ground it will be because you couldn’t follow instructions,” he snapped. “Tell me what it’s worth to you. Tell me what’s at stake that made you run all this way. Money. Time. Convenience.”
“Lives,” she gasped, shocked. “Lives are at stake. There are families, children. The people there are my neighbors! That village is my home!” She clutched her hands together and pressed them to her chest to quell its tightening. “My home is at stake.”
The magician hissed and flipped madly through his book.
“I don’t want sermonizing,” he retorted, not looking up from its pages. “I want the truth. I’ll tell no one if your reason is less than noble. It’s all the better if you’re shallow. Tell me exactly why you want me to save your village. Tell me the real truth. The magic can’t be done without honesty. Few magics can.”
“I am honest,” she insisted, but the way he’d worded the last part-the magic can’t be done without honesty-took the sob from her voice and made her straighten her spine a little more. “This magic is worth to me home and human life,” she declared in a tone of resolution she did not know she possessed. That made the magician look up from his book. To Tesni’s surprise, his lips curled in a bitter sneer.
“Oh, you know all the right words, I see.” He hissed again in apparent frustration and slammed the book closed with one hand. Dust puffed from its pages and made Tesni cough.
“Fine,” said the magician. He straightened as she had and faced Tesni head on; he was several inches taller than she. “You say it is worth to you home and life to save your village. Is it worth enough that you would give up these things to save it?”
The question made her stomach lurch, and Tesni hesitated for just a fraction of a moment. But it was perfectly clear that an answer of “no” would make him turn her out that kitchen door, and gladly. She thought of her neighbors, fighting with thrown stones, firewood axes, and long-unused family swords against the onslaught of a well-armed bandit clan-what they had been preparing to do when she had left, what they might be doing at this very moment. Tesni looked up into the magician’s cold, dust-gray eyes.
“Yes,” she said. “I would give up these things to save it.”
Tesni thought she saw him wince. Then he looked away from her, past her shoulder. Tesni followed his gaze and saw that he was looking at what must have been the door, although its lower half was partially obscured by a bookcase while the balcony level had seemingly been built directly across its upper half. Tesni was thinking somewhat dazedly that it was no wonder the magician never opened it, when he quite unexpectedly reached forward and seized her left arm.
It was not her upper arm that he took hold of as he had before. Instead his hand shot up under the sleeve of her dress and grabbed her forearm just past the wrist. Tesni whipped her head back around to look at the magician, shocked; but she was not nearly as shocked as when the man’s grip warmed on her skin with a warmth greater than a human hand. The warmth grew until it became not just warmth, but heat, and then heat as great as that of a cooking stove, but which somehow did not burn her arm.
The magician remained looking over her shoulder at the door, and Tesni was too taken aback to do anything but watch him watch that unknown point just beyond its pinewood planks. His expression was stony, his entire being completely still. Murky light struggled down from a slotlike window in the roof above, and it filtered through his tangled hair and set each speck of dust in it alight like a star in a the dark sky of the library. The heat in her arm was immese.
Then the magician released her arm, as abruptly as he had taken hold of it. Tesni reeled a little, looking down at her arm, as something inside her head seemed to speed up to catch up with the world around her. The time from when the magician had taken her arm to when he had let it go, she realized once she had regained her internal balance, had been just a beat, no more than the barest instant. Indeed, it immediately seemed strange that she should have thought it had been longer. But she retained the memory in her eyes of that stretched out moment, and the memory in her skin of the heat of the magician’s hand. It was gone, now, the air not even feeling cooler than it might have been, but she thought her skin tingled. She reached up into her sleeve and rubbed the place absently. Only then did she finally think to blush at the contact.
The blush in turn prompted her to look back up at the magician, if only that she might therefore be better able to look modestly back down. But what she saw in his face made Tesni not dare to look away. He still stared at the door, but the magician’s expression was now so thick with bitterness and fury that she had to gasp.
“It is done,” said the magician, like one reporting a sentence of death. Tesni blinked rapidly and trembled in spite of herself.
“The - the magic?” she said. “It worked, then?”
He looked down at her and all but snarled. “Yes, it worked,” he snapped. “Magic doesn’t usually to wait to be asked twice. That tends to be most of the problem with it.”
Even in the face of the man’s seething wrath, Tesni found herself relaxing.
“It worked!” she echoed, and she could not keep in a little breathless laugh of relief. But then as she thought to wonder about the details, she tensed again. “How did it work?” she asked. “What happened? What’s happening there now?”
“I’m no more clairvoyant than you,” he replied tersely. “All I can say is that the enemies you feared are no longer a threat, and the things you wished to protect are safe.” He turned from her and began to walk away through the maze of shelves.
The things you wished to protect. In his words, Tesni heard the words that she had said only a minute before.
I would give up these things to save it. Home.
“I can’t…” she began in a small voice. He didn’t turn around, and she began again, louder. “I can’t… go back, can I? I can’t go back home.”
He did not turn back around, or even pause. She heard him give a short laugh.
“Pretty and clever,” he murmured sarcastically, and disappeared behind a shelf. Tesni hurried to catch up with him, though she was too afraid to say the next question on her lips. She followed him amid the stacks of books, around the spiral staircases and desks and through slippery puddles of loose papers.
Not until she was about to follow him up the straight staircase in the back of the library did she finally find her tongue.
“And… life?” she said in a voice that was more brave than she felt herself. “I… I also agreed to give that up.” He stopped then, turning around halfway up the steps and looking back at her where she stood at the bottom. She thought she heard him sigh, and the anger in his face was deadened a little to defeat.
“Don’t stand there and… tremble and pale at me,” he said wearily, making a tired, dismissive gesture. “Your home wasn’t destroyed, it’s just not yours anymore,” the magician pointed out. “It’s the same.” He turned back around and continued up the stairs.
His attempt to leave again distressed Tesni more than it should have, as though she feared he would find some way to escape her forever and leave her questions unanswered for all time.
“But-!” Tesni cried out, as one might cry out “Wait, stop!” to a rider on a swiftly departing horse. He stopped, one step from the top of the stairs, and with a granite solidarity that seemed to make the question not whether he would escape her, but whether he would ever find it in himself to move again. He did not turn around.
“But, she repeated in a meeker tone, “If my life no longer belongs to me… then to whom does it belong?”
“To the magic forces of this world with which you made your trade,” the magician droned. Tesni was taken by the somewhat discomfiting feeling that it was not the man who was speaking, but the books around them that were speaking for him. “You are bound to its service by way of that of the will which magicked for your sake.” Neither said anything for what felt like a moment too long.
“Me,” said the magician abruptly.
“All that Tesni found she could think about was how she wished she could see his face.
“Your life,” said the magician to the ceiling, “belongs to me.”