Georges DeBoeuf was barely able to suppress a shudder at the gnarled, red-and-purple knots of scar tissue that covered half the face of the apothecary. Although the light in the little shop was kept low, it did little to blunt the horror Georges felt at the sight of the man’s...deformity? Injury? Rather, it emphasized the situation for him: he, a nobleman, heir to the Count DeBoeuf, his elegant silks and satins muffled beneath a nondescript black cloak, the handsome, patrician features that made him so sought on Court Society dance floors shadowed under a broad-brimmed slouch hat, inside a cramped, dingy shop dealing with this unwholesome purveyor of drugs, herbs, and stranger goods.
But it was necessary, he thought. For his enemy was alchemy. His childless uncle, Count Reginald, had taken up the study in earnest, and everyone knew how magicians could extend their lifespans through their mystic arts. Too, alchemists had recently invented a test that could detect the presence of “inheritance powder,” arsenic, denying the use of that long-standing blessing to ambitious young men with heavy debts.
So here Georges was, for the second time, facing this twisted man. If his uncle would only die decently, it wouldn’t be necessary for him to descend into these noxious shadows!
“Good evening, sir.”
His voice was raspy, as charred and broken as his face, but somehow there was still a hint of a sneer in it. Georges picked his way through delicate-looking shelves set with strangely-shaped bottles with stranger contents, perhaps magical reagents.
“You said my order w-would be ready by tonight,” he replied, hating himself for his stammer.
“And so it is, so it is.” The man stooped, reaching beneath his counter, and came up with a wooden box, about seven inches by three by four. He slid back the lid, revealing a round-bellied flask in which a violet fluid seemed to twist and swirl, lights sparkling in it as they drifted to and fro. “Tincture of Wyrdbane. When the glass is shattered, the essence mixes with air to form a deathly cloud that rapidly fills the room or other area. Simply hurl it, swiftly close the door, and your work is assured well-done. Alchemists, as everyone knows, are always tinkering with dangerously explosive or caustic or toxic reagents. A terrible tragedy how so many are vulnerable to accidents.”
He smiled at Georges. The man’s horrific scarring made the expression even more grotesque than the simple emotion of joking about a man’s murder did on its own. Swallowing convulsively, Georges reached for the box.
The apothecary slid it back, just out of reach, and Georges’s fingers closed on empty air.
“Now, now,” he said. He waggled a chiding finger at Georges, but since this required him to release the box, he brought his other hand up to cover it. The sight made the nobleman’s gorge rise; the apothecary’s right hand was as scarred as his face, the last two fingers missing entirely and the remaining flesh fused into a rigid, immobile claw by the twisted, livid knots.
The smile widened a bit. Just enough to let Georges know that the shopkeeper had seen his disgust and that it pleased him to be able to provoke such a reaction in the noble.
“Your money.” It was always money with tradesmen, no matter the trade.
Georges’s own hand dipped under his cloak and came up with a heavy purse. He counted gold out piece by piece until he had reached the agreed-upon sum, the second half of the payment. The apothecary made no move to take it.
“Another ten royals, I believe.”
“What? But we agreed—“
“This was a difficult work,” he said, stroking the box tenderly with the fingers of his good hand. “It took time and care, and the mandragorae used were very expensive to obtain. And ten royals is not so much to ask, not for an estate worth—“
“All right!” Georges barked, sickened by the wheedling tone in the hideous, broken voice. He added another ten coins to the pile on the countertop. “There’s your money. Take it!”
“Of course, sir.”
He scooped up the coins while nudging the box over to Georges with his scarred hand. The nobleman snatched up the box and whirled, dashing out of the shop.
The night air, even tainted as it was by the smell of the river, was still crisp and clear compared to the disgusting impression of that nauseating little storefront. That man! The things he said! They were so foul! Georges wasn’t...he loved his uncle! This wasn’t some filthy murder for gain that he contemplated. It...it was only that the Count’s tampering with the natural order set everything on its end, that was all. If it hadn’t been necessary he would never—
A cat’s yowl made Georges jerk his head up. It was about ten feet ahead of him, black as pitch. By all the saints, another bad omen!
Worse than he knew, for in the next moment the cat stood up onto its hind legs, the shock of it preventing him from noticing running footsteps from his right side. The cat pointed to him with its paw, there was a sudden flash of light, and then just as another hand closed over the wooden box, darkness.
Margarita Surprise deftly took the box out of DeBoeuf’s nerveless fingers even as the man slumped to the hard-packed earth of the unpaved street. Such boxes were generally padded against accident, she knew, but there was no reason to take chances. She opened the box and frowned at what it contained, a toxic alchemical potion that poisoned a person’s magical capacity rather than their body. A skilled magician like Margarita would probably survive; an ordinary person or a dabbler like Count DeBoeuf would stand no chance.
She considered doing something about the would-be murderer, but after a moment decided not to bother. It wasn’t her place to wreak private vengeance on random criminals, and under the circumstances she could hardly go and file a report with the Ligere City Watch. The sleeping spell would last for two or three hours and luck or Providence would determine how much the wharf rats, literal and human, would leave of him.
Margarita had business of her own.
She strode towards the apothecary’s shop, stopping just outside the door, and drew her dagger from her belt. Black-hilted with an amethyst pommelstone, the weapon was an athame, a ritual knife used in pre-Rune magic; she used it as a magic wand to sketch Runes. Somehow it seemed more appropriate to her than a wooden stick, all things considered.
Most athame were blunt-tipped and –edged, the “cutting” they did wholly symbolic; the twenty-three-year-old magician’s was razor-sharp. That wasn’t “appropriate”; it was just practical.
With a series of quick strokes she traced a pattern in the air. Softly glowing green lines trailed in the blade’s wake, forming a minor Rune. It pulsed softly, then vanished. There were no pre-set Runes in the storefront area, although there were others some distance back, probably to protect a workroom or sleeping area. Margarita gestured with her empty hand and went inside.
“Another visitor so soon? A busy eve—“ The rasping voice froze, and a look of horror came into the scarred man’s eyes.
“Graham Beck,” she said calmly. “It was harder to track you down than I expected. Of course, you’re calling yourself Lodi now, and you’ve changed since you were Marco Dogajolo in Triamelle, but still in the same business as you were when you were an alchemist and procurer of reagents for the late Archmage.”
She knew it was her appearance that had caused his reaction. She looked ordinary enough, if a bit one-note fashionwise: the boots, baggy trousers tucked into them, loose-fitting shirt, and stiff leather overtunic that fell to mid-thigh, flowing like a skirt for freedom of movement, were all colored a dull black—her version of business wear. Her auburn hair was worn in the same short pageboy cut she’d had since she’d entered the Silver Star Tower nearly seven years ago, and gold-rimmed pince-nez were balanced on her nose. Not a scary or threatening appearance, nothing to scream “horror.” Beck’s scars would raise considerably more notice from strangers than anything about Margarita.
Then again, she’d given him those scars, in a blast of fiery breath from a dragon under her control. Sometimes context was everything.
She held up the flask she’d taken from DeBoeuf.
“You really should have changed your ways, Beck. You got a second chance when I missed you in Triamelle. Not many people get one of those. And instead you go right back to selling things like this. I’d better give it back, since it really shouldn’t be in the hands of that kind of customer.” Margarita set the flask on the very edge of one of the shelves nearest the door, then began to advance towards Beck, flicking her hand in a beckoning gesture.
His momentary paralysis was broken when she moved towards him. He bolted for the door into the back room, from where she’d detected Runes—protective wards, perhaps, or trap spells pre-set to instantly conjure bound familiars he could send against an attacker. He couldn’t litter his storefront with defensive magic and risk customers blundering into it, but that didn’t mean he was without protection.
It was, however, already too late. Two fairies, two-foot-high women in backless green shifts, flying on insect wings, zipped through the door. They both carried bows and fired as one, glittering arrows striking the doorjamb just in front of Beck before vanishing. He froze at once, recognizing that the elf-shot had cut off his route of escape instead of cutting him off on purpose.
“If he tries to run again, shoot his legs out from under him,” Margarita told the fairies.
“Okay, fine,” one said offhandedly.
Slowly, Beck turned back towards Margarita, who now faced him across the counter. A sheen of perspiration covered the unscarred side of his face.
“What—“ he began, his voice a whisper, then licked his lips and started again, “What do you want from me, Margarita? You have to want something, right? Else you’d have finished what you started two years ago, right?” he babbled like a litany. “Anything—anything in my store. It’s yours—just ask! Or...or...I know things!” His eyes lit up as he fastened on an idea. “I’m not the only one of the Archmage’s followers living in this town! Lemon’s here, too—I can tell you where, under what name! He’s the one that recruited you, right, so you must want him more than—“
The tip of her athame pressing against his Adam’s apple cut off his stream of babble.
“I already know about Lemon,” she hissed at him.
“T-then what is it you what?”
“You deal in black-market reagents as well as acting as an unlicensed hedge-wizard. The kind of thing used in ritual sorcery that the law forbids selling.”
“I didn’t—“ he choked out.
“Do you know how I found you, Beck?” she said quietly. “I found a grave-robber who’d sold you the fat rendered from the bodies of three executed murderers.”
Beck gulped.
“I’m a much better sorcerer than you are,” she continued. “I know what that is used for. The question is, have you sold it in the two days it’s been since the grave-robber delivered it to you?”
“I...”
Margarita sighed. She really didn’t understand why Beck was bothering to lie or protest. He ought to know better. Obviously he hated her for what she’d done to him and perhaps even for why she’d tried to kill him. When the Archmage Calvaros had been defeated by Gammel Dore, not all of his followers had been captured. Some fled into hiding, content to live out their lives, but others had gathered into a kind of cabal, plotting to free their master’s spirit and return the Archmage to power.
Margarita had once been one of them, a young girl whose native talents for magic would have led to her being burnt at the stake by her conservative village. To her family, witchcraft meant devil-worship, its only cure to be burnt out of a soul by cleansing flames. Calvaros’s remnants had taught her that her gifts were nothing of the sort, that magic was only a power that she could use for good or evil as she chose. They’d taught her to control that power so as to not give herself away, and very likely saved her life in doing so. And they’d sent her as their agent to the Silver Star Tower, the Archmage’s former stronghold, where Gammel had founded his Magic Academy.
She’d found the Archmage’s soul container, all right—but had nearly been killed in the doing. Lillet Blan had saved her life, and gone on to end the Archmage’s threat forever. While it was true that the superstitious bigots who hated magic and hunted witches were hate-filled people who harmed innocents, Calvaros was no savior. He’d sold his soul to the arch-devil Grimlet, and by the end had been nothing but a power-mad, cruel monster. And the plain truth was, too many of his followers were as well. Evil magicians who needed to be stopped from claiming any more victims.
Margarita had known a great deal about the group. She could have told what she knew to Professor Gammel and the Royal House of Magic would have attended to things, hunting down the remnants. She could have done so just as a matter of protection, as more than once the more dedicated or just bloody-minded of the remnants had sought revenge on her for her “betrayal.” She could have, but she didn’t. Because for every murdering sorcerer there was a misguided idealist who dreamed of a kingdom where magic was openly accepted, a respectable practice. For every power-mad rebel, a person who just wanted a peaceful life. Only, in the eyes of too many in the government, they were all traitors, magicians who had turned on the Crown. Margarita couldn’t consign the innocent to the rope alongside the guilty. Yet she couldn’t just shut her eyes, either, to the fact that there were evil magicians actually doing devil’s work.
So she’d taken the duty of hunting them down on herself.
It was only natural that someone like Beck, with all of the Archmage’s cruelty and viciousness but little of his power, would despise Margarita, for his own sake and, perhaps, even for his comrades’. But she couldn’t understand why he would let that feeling overwhelm his fear of her. Or was it, she wondered, just that his instinct to lie and weasel his way away from trouble was so strong it operated by reflex?
Whichever it was, she didn’t have the time to deal with it.
“Now, Beck. Either you did or you didn’t. Or are you going to make me defeat all the wards and defensive Runes you layered on your storeroom? We both know that nothing you could have worked up can stop me, so all you’d get out of it is the satisfaction of making me sweat through it and search the storeroom. And would be all that satisfying if I had to then come back and take out my frustration on you? Look what happened to you last time, and then I just wanted you dead. Do you want to find out what it means if I want you to hurt first?”
She wondered what it said about herself that the threat made a man like Beck shudder. Had she really fallen so far?
“Last chance.” Margarita dug the dagger point in deeper, drawing a drop of blood from the alchemist’s throat. When he didn’t respond, she shrugged. “Your choice. You two, keep an eye on this refuse. If he moves an inch or tries to interfere, blind him.”
The fairies raised their bows.
“Is this going to take a long time?” one pouted.
“If it gets too boring, you can make him squeal a bit. Around here, his neighbors won’t interfere—though they’ll probably be happy he’s getting what’s coming to him anyway.”
She pulled him away from the door and pushed him into a corner. She was about to turn away when she thought she saw a glint of something in his eyes. Margarita slipped the athame under his collar and yanked downward, slicing open his shirt to reveal a brass amulet worn against his skin on a thin chain.
“That would stop a couple of low-power magical attacks, if I remember my charm-work. Were you planning to wait until my back was turned, then bolt for the door?”
Margarita grabbed the amulet and yanked it off Beck’s neck, breaking the clasp. She then turned and headed back towards the storeroom door, leaving him under fairy guard.
“W-wait! I’ll tell you about it, I will.”\
She turned back to him.
“Oh?”
“I did sell...what you were talking about,” Beck said. Apparently the habit of caution against convicting himself out of his own mouth was so strong that even now he reflexively avoided identifying the product. “It was a special order. The customer knew I could get it for him, so I talked to my contacts and filled the order.”
“So whom did you sell it to?”
“I don’t know.”
She stared at him.
“I don’t know, I tell you! You think the kind of people who buy from me tell me their names? Especially when they buy something like that, which could end up as a burning offense?”
Margarita sighed heavily.
“Are you actually trying to make this as painful as possible for yourself, Beck? Is it just about annoying me as much as you can as some kind of last-gasp revenge? Or are you just so much of a liar that you can’t help yourself even when telling the complete truth is the only way you have left to make things easier for you?”
Beck trembled.
“I don’t know—“
“Yes, but I do know. I know how you operate. I know that you would never enter into an illegal transaction for reagents to be used in ritual sorcery if you didn’t know whom it was you were selling to and probably why. It’s your insurance against clients who figure that the best way to cover their tracks is to murder their supplier, and I’m sure there’s some whom you figure might be willing to pay a little extra after the fact to keep their dirty laundry from being hung out on the line. Where are you hiding it these days?”
He didn’t even try to conceal it.
“The record’s under the floorboards. I tell them there’s extra copies, to be sent to the law if something happens to me, but I don’t bother setting it up unless I’m genuinely afraid the threat’s not enough.”
“And you weren’t afraid of this one?”
Beck shook his head and laughed mockingly.
“Him? No way. He wasn’t smart or evil; he was just crazy. Another amateur who turns up an old book and thinks it makes them a magician.”
“Those can be the worst kind,” Margarita said. “They can’t control what they’re doing and the devils start using them.”
Beck shrugged. “That’s what they get for messing with forces they don’t understand.”
Margarita scowled at his callousness. She didn’t really disagree with him as far as the sorcerers themselves went, but the collateral damage, random lives lost, was a different matter. A couple of months ago the broadsheets had been full of how Lillet had stopped such a series of killings in the capital caused by an amateur sorcerer; she did not want to see such a thing happen here in Ligere. She gestured with the athame.
“Come on; get out those records.”
“Why? I’ll tell you—“
“Because I don’t trust you to tell me the truth,” she told him bluntly. Beck didn’t protest that; perhaps be figured that it was self-evident. The fairies watched him closely as he opened a hidden panel in the floorboards. As Margarita had anticipated, he disarmed a trap to do it; very likely some nasty alchemist’s potion set to go off in the face of anyone who tampered. Beck took out a thick octavo volume bound in red leather and set it on the counter. He opened it near to the end, thumbed through a couple of pages, and stopped.
“Here it is.” He tapped an entry with his forefinger. Margarita came over and read the entry.
“Tybalt Zonin. 49 Farston Road. Former tanner, ousted from the local guild seven months ago. Not a licensed magician—which isn’t surprising, if he’s dabbling in ritual sorcery.” She read over the details of his purchases, which included several other items, some innocuous and some not, besides the grisly remains of human cadavers. Margarita couldn’t identify exactly what they were for, but then her sorcery was the kind that used proper Runes, not nauseating rituals and sacrifices. She used her athame to slit the page from the book in case she needed it as a reference later for some reason. She couldn’t think why she would, but it never hurt to be prepared.
“That should be everything I need,” she decided. “Goodbye, Beck.”
Margarita spun on her heel and walked towards the door. The fairies followed her, flying backwards so as to keep their arrows trained on the burnt man. They went out after her, and she glanced back into the shop at Beck.
Then she slammed the door.
A moment later there was the sharp tinkle of glass breaking, the vial she’d replaced having toppled off its precarious perch on the shelf. The shop windows filled with swirling purple vapors as the killing cloud expanded inside the room.
Dismissing her summoned familiars, Margarita walked into the night.
