Daughter of Magic

“I could transform us all into birds so we could fly out,” I suggested half-heartedly. Keep thinking, I told myself. Don’t dwell on the demon downstairs. Don’t think about how evil Vlad is. Think of a plan. “But I couldn’t shape the words of the Hidden Language as a bird, so we’d all have to stay transformed unless another wizard realized who we really were and broke the spell. Or I could transform the rest of you and stay behind, and then when you were all safely through the window break the spell from in here …”

“Leaving us sitting on the roof in the storm?” asked Paul.

“No,” I agreed, “we’d all still be trapped. Maybe all becoming birds is still the best plan. We’ll get away from here and wait somewhere along the road for Elerius-he’s bound to find this castle eventually,” I heard myself babbling. “And when he comes maybe we can spell out a message in birdseed or something …”

“This is the most stupid plan I have ever had assail my ears,” said Justinia, her voice ragged.

Theodora took my arm. “Vlad has not harmed us yet in spite of his threats, and we know we must be close to the children.” At least she didn’t say my plan was stupid.

We huddled together in a corner, my arms around Theodora, Paul again with an arm each around Gwennie and Justinia. A corner of my mind was interested to note how social conventions did not stand up against true danger; this was not a king embracing a foreign princess and his own cook’s daughter, but three people trying to deny their fear by clinging together desperately. Rain pounded above our heads, and the candle flickered as the wind blew in. For a minute the storm seemed to be weakening, but then three lightning flashes in a row cast glaring blue light into the room. Vlad should be occupied for a while yet.

Justinia seemed to be struggling between fury and despair. “I should have been far wiser than to let Kaz- alrhun ever send me into the western kingdoms,” she muttered. “I should have known that I would stand out to the first person who came seeking me, and that the local magic-workers would have no protective spells.”

I declined to mention that if she had let me take the carpet myself she would now be safely home in Yurt.

“Perhaps the path of wisdom is to cast myself from this castle to the rocks below,” she continued determinedly, “so that the Thieves’ Guild will not have a live prisoner with which to pressure my grandfather, and so that I need not submit to the caresses of a dead man!” Paul held her tighter and made soothing sounds-as he would to one of his horses, I thought.

“Is he even alive?” Theodora asked quietly. “And do you know why he captured the children?”

“He’s alive,” I said, “and he’s not using the supernatural power of a demon himself, but that’s all the good I can say about him. I don’t know if capturing the children was his idea or an independent plan of Cyrus’s.”

For a minute I paused, waiting for some sort of reaction from Vlad if he were listening. But weather spells, I thought-as well as maintaining his defenses against fire and light here in the castle-must be taking all his attention not already devoted to keeping the castle invisible. “I think half of his body is made from the flesh of others,” I went on, “and much of the rest from stone. The flesh must rot; I don’t want to think where he gets more…. He is aged beyond reckoning, animated only by spells darker and more subtle than any I know.”

“I remember hearing your tales about him,” said Paul, “years ago, when you and Father came back from the East.” He turned to Justinia with the good-natured assumption that she would want to hear the story too. “They were maneuvered, by wiles that set the eastern kingdoms aflame with war as I recall, to a black obsidian castle. And there lived a princely wizard who had once, a great many years earlier, betrayed my uncle, an uncle who died long before I was born.”

I nodded slowly. “When we met him in the East he already felt injured by the royal family of Yurt, and since then he’s had an especial reason to hate me. He has wanted for years to find Yurt.”

“And it was the will of God that he find it when I was there,” said Justinia gloomily.

We fell silent, listening to the thunder continue to rumble around the ruined castle. Gwennie suddenly spoke up. “Do you remember, Paul,” she said, not bothering with his title, “one time when we were little, and it started to thunder like this, and you put your arm around me like this and told me you’d protect me?”

Justinia looked past the king at the other woman, her eyebrows raised as though in approval. He gave a low chuckle. “I certainly do remember. I was just as scared as you were but I didn’t want to admit it. What would we have been-maybe about five?”

Antonia’s age. And there was no one to comfort her.

Theodora shifted and spoke as though deliberately trying to distract her own mind from Antonia. “So Cyrus, you think, is Vlad’s pupil?”

“He must be. The unliving warriors who attacked the royal castle were made by the same magic. I think now that Cyrus was sent into the West as Vlad’s agent, to find Yurt and to attack the castle for him, and to send word back when he found it. If the warriors-and the spell of madness in their bones-or the wolf succeeded in killing me or the king, all was well; or, if not, Vlad himself would soon arrive. At the time I thought those attacks a little too easy to overcome.”

“What do you mean, easy?” protested Theodora. “You were almost killed!”

“Well, yes, but I did overcome them. I still haven’t found a way to oppose Vlad’s magic directly.” With this depressing thought we all fell silent

Then, over the sound of the storm, I heard approaching steps. Here he comes, I thought, pushing myself to my feet. If I could take him off somewhere for a private conversation, he might not guess who King Paul was, and maybe I could stall until morning or until such time as Elerius ever got here-

But it was not the regular tapping of Vlad’s feet. It was someone running.

He hit the door hard, and then I felt more than heard a sharp crackle. Blue light flared for a second around the doorframe, and I could sense a powerful spell breaking up. I hadn’t known it was even possible to break a magic lock.

“Elerius?” I called with a wild surge of hope.

The bolt shot back and the door swung open. “No, it’s me. Cyrus.”

III

The others pressed into the doorway behind me. “Where,” said Theodora between gritted teeth, “have you taken my daughter?”

“She’s fine,” said Cyrus with an expansive gesture. “You’ll see her very soon. But you have to come with me.”

I spread my arms protectively, keeping the others back. Paul reached for his knife again, but I distracted him with an elbow in his ribs. “We’re not going anywhere with you, Cyrus,” I said defiantly. “You’ve already tried to kill me twice, and you’re working with a demon. You denied it to the bishop, but your ‘miracles’ owe more to the supernatural power of evil than to the saints. And you’d need a demon’s power to break Vlad’s lock.”

He shrugged. “Well, the demon might have helped me there. But he’s not with me-he’s somewhere else,” he added vaguely. “And this is the last spell on which I’ll need his help!”

“Why hast thou come to unlock our door?” said Justinia fiercely. “Didst thou not think we would recognize such a trick?”

“No trick! I am here to save your lives. Vlad wants to kill you all, but I don’t.”

How did he, Vlad’s accomplice, expect us to believe that he would save us from Vlad? The candle light glittered in his dark eyes. He was, I thought, completely mad.

“Dost thou intend instead to obtain all for thyself the reward from the Thieves’ Guild?” demanded Justinia.

Cyrus shook his head. “I know nothing of the Thieves’ Guild. Come at once! All of you! You have to trust me if you want to escape. Do you not wish to preserve your lives?”

“Well, I do,” said Justinia with sudden decision. “I am dead if I stay in Vlad’s captivity.”

“And if you have my daughter,” said Theodora, intense and low, “I don’t care how many demons you’re working with.”

“Then follow me!” said Cyrus and turned to walk briskly down the corridor. Justinia and Theodora followed as