the bar. An expressionless servitor gave her another glass of the wormwood-flavored brandy. She gulped it down with reckless speed.
“Have a care, there,” Lurcanio said from behind her. “Will I need to carry you up the stairs to your bedchamber tonight?” An eyebrow quirked. “I do not think I need to make you pass out drunk to have my way with you.”
“No.” Melancholy and insight were not natural to Krasta. Ingenious lubricity was. She ran her tongue over her lips, tilted a hip and gazed saucily up at the Algar-vian officer. “But would you enjoy it that way?”
He considered. Slowly, he smiled. “Once, perhaps. Everything is interesting once.” Krasta needed to hear no more. She turned back to the bar and began to drink in earnest.
Three
Pekka was beginning to hate knocks on her office door. They always seemed to come in the middle of important calculations. And the last thing she wanted was to discover Ilmarinen, or even some other theoretical sorcerer, standing on his head in the hallway, as she had once before. Maybe it would be a Kajaani City College student. She could, she hoped, get rid of a student in a hurry.
She got up and opened the door. That done, she had to fight back a gasp of dismay. The smile that appeared on her face was an excellent job of conjuring. “Professor Heikki!” she exclaimed, for all the world as if she were delighted to have her department chairman visit her at that moment. “Won’t you come in?”
Maybe Heikki would say no. Maybe knowing Pekka was here and working would satisfy her. But she said, “Aye, I thank you,” and strolled in as if it were her office and Pekka the visitor. Pekka, in fact, waited for her to sit down behind the desk. But Heikki planted her rather broad bottom in the chair in front of it.
Retreating--and it felt like a retreat--to her own chair, Pekka brushed a strand of coarse black hair away from her narrow eyes and asked, “What can I do for you this afternoon?”
Whatever Heikki wanted, Pekka was sure it had nothing to do with the project that had engrossed her for so long. Heikki had got to be the chairman of the Department of Sorcery more for her bureaucratic talents than for her magecraft. Her specialty was veterinary sorcery. In unkind moments, Pekka thought she’d chosen it to make sure she knew more than her patients.
“I am disturbed,” Heikki said now.
“In what way?” Pekka asked. By the chairman’s expression, it might have been dyspepsia. Pekka knew she would get herself in trouble if she suggested stomach bitters. Knowing just made the temptation harder to resist.
“I am disturbed,” Heikki repeated. “I am disturbed at the amount of time you are spending in the laboratory of late and at the expense of your recent experiments. Surely theoretical sorcery, being, uh, theoretical, requires less experimentation than other forms of the art.”
In lieu of picking up a vase and smashing it over the department chairman’s head, Pekka replied, “Professor, sometimes theory and experiment have to go hand in hand. Sometimes theory proceeds from experiment.”
“I am more concerned about our budget,” Heikki said primly. “Suppose you tell me what the nature of your experiments are, so that I may judge whether they are worth the time and money you are expending on them.”
Pekka had not told her about the assault on the relationship between the laws of similarity and contagion. No one without the most urgent need to know heard anything about that project. All the theoretical sorcerers working on it agreed that was too dangerous. And so, doing her best to look regretful, Pekka murmured, “I’m very sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“What?” Heikki leaned forward. Had the matter been less important, she might have succeeded in intimidating Pekka. As things were, Pekka had to fight hard not to giggle. The department chairman spoke in portentous tones: “When I ask a simple question, I expect an answer.”
“What?” Heikki said again. “How dare you refuse?” Though her skin, like Pekka’s, was golden rather than pink, a flush darkened her cheeks. Pekka said nothing more, which seemed to disturb the chairman further. “If that is your attitude, your laboratory privileges are hereby revoked. And I shall bring your insubordination to the attention of the academic council.” She got to her feet and made a stately exit.
That vase sprang into Pekka’s mind again. But chasing Heikki down the hall and braining the department chairman would only get her talked about. A different revenge, more vicious if less bloody, occurred to her. A distant ancestor might have smiled that smile just before he sneaked into an enemy clan’s camp to slit a warrior’s throat. Pekka activated her crystal, spoke briefly, and then went back to work.
She had not been working long when another
