Name Magic E-Book

Lisa Lowell

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Possessed by manipulating demons, Ingri knows nothing of magic until Lar discovers her. He is the King of the Dead: the latest Wise One, gifted with strange and frightening powers.

With Ingri, he uses those powers to banish her demons and teach her the mysteries of being a human. Soon, she must face her inner demons, fight to master the fire that burns within her, and rescue Lar in return.

She can help in his Seeking, but only if they navigate a mysterious ring of stones, the Land of the Dead, and the Name Magic that will guide them.

A riveting fantasy adventure, Name Magic is the fifth novel in Lisa Lowell's The Wise Ones series.

Leseprobe

NAME MAGIC

THE WISE ONES BOOK 5

LISA LOWELL

CONTENTS

Map

1. The Drudge

2. Clean

3. Learning to be Human

4. Magic Lessons

5. On the Way to Too

6. Griffin’s Gate

7. Lists and Lust

8. Hidden

9. Hard Lessons

10. Apology

11. Splinter and Gone

12. Seeking

13. Discussion with a Demon

14. The Council

15. Other

16. Returned

17. Study

18. Ghost Mind

Epilog

Next in the Series

Glossery Of Character Names

About the Author

Copyright (C) 2022 Lisa Lowell

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter

Published 2022 by Next Chapter

Edited by Graham (Fading Street Services)

Cover art by Paula Litchfield Fine Art

Cover design by CoverMint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

1

THE DRUDGE

Lar waded through drifts of snow and into the sleepy village with several goals in mind. First, a roaring fire so he might defrost his icy fingers. They felt dead, despite the lined gloves he had conjured for himself. Next, he hoped for a good meal. He wasn't much of a cook and eating out on the bare, windblown prairie, deep in the snow one more night had absolutely no appeal. A warm bed also might be third on his list, but that depended on how his other goals turned out. The real reason he had come to Halfway across this desolate wintery plain, had been the magic.

Something mysterious had attracted him here, and it must be in this hibernating town that huddled under the biggest tree in the entire Land. He crept under the broad, winter-bare branches and saw the lights of an entire village glowing warmly. He scented within the only inn the town boasted. Lar didn't fight its direction. Yes, warmth, food, and magic, in that order.

Someone there was about to die.

As Lar opened the heavy door, he could barely see in the smoky room, crowded with locals. Very few travelers like himself had also come in off the plains at this miserable time of year. Few were insane enough to be out in this blizzard. After Lar’s eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, he could identify traders, locals, barmaids, a few dirty drudges, and the proprietor of the establishment, all crowded in for comfort and warmth.

Four huge hearths, all blazing away with half a tree’s worth of wood on each one filled the space with wondrous heat and light. One of the pretty barmaids spied him and pulled him out of the doorway, divested him of several layers of furs, and had him at a table near one fire before he could say a word. At least Lar could tell she wasn't the source of the magical pinging nor the one about to die. He gratefully ordered a bowl of whatever warm meal was being served and while she went to get his supper, Lar looked around more closely for the magic hidden here.

His sense of someone dying drifted from the left, behind the bar from the portly proprietor or the cook washing the dishes.

The source of the magic signal came from the farthest hearth directly across from the door. Since the one probably caused the other, Lar took the bowl of stew he had been served and began to move across the room toward the magic, weaving among the crowded tables and past gambling games to draw near. He sat in the dark corner beside the hearth at an isolated table to eat his supper and test these magical waters.

As the King of Death, Lar had several years of experience now and while he was better at tasting death than preventing it, the magic actually drew him in, not the death. Long ago he had learned that he could not and should not prevent all death, just the unjust or supernatural kind. If someone like the proprietor were going to be murdered, Lar could prevent it, especially if magic did the murder, but he could not stop a disease or an accident. There were simply too many people dying at any one time and so instead, he concentrated on the magic deaths to confront.

This magic was strange, Lar realized, muddled, hazy, and shifting. He looked for someone who moved around the room the way his sense of the magic did, but he could identify no one who drifted with it. Lar closed his eyes with concentration, tasting the sorcery in the air. It carried a bitter tang, a little like a demon, but oddly this shifted, then was briefly absorbed back again in a sudden flash of light, leaving behind the pleasant scent of rain on the stone after a long drought. He had never traced magic like this, and he could not account for it.

“Oy there,” someone shouted, and Lar's dark eyes drew to the disturbance. The owner of the inn came from behind the bar, growling, stomping across the room. At first, Lar thought the huge man came to confront him, but the innkeeper’s further comment redirected that thought.

“I saw you take the gentleman's things. You are a thief!”

The innkeeper barreled down on a huddled pile of rags squatting right behind Lar. He had barely recognized this drudge as human, for he or she crouched next to the hearth and hadn’t moved. The instant Lar concentrated on the figure, he perceived this was the source of the scrambled magic. Before he could react, however, the innkeeper fetched the figure a slap across the head. The drudge didn't utter a sound at the blow, but Lar spied a clutched hand, dirty and scratched, grasping a bag…Lar’s bag. He instinctively felt for the leather satchel where he kept his money and Heart Stone, the key to his magic. The drudge had picked his pocket. Lar rose immediately to intervene, but the innkeeper had already slapped the slave again.

“Sir,” Lar spoke up in protest, putting his hand on the proprietor's raised arm. “The bag is mine, but I won't have you beating your drudge.”

“She's a thief,” the innkeeper countered. “If you want your things, take them, but I'll do with my staff as I see fit. I can't have a thief in my establishment. I'll call for the constable.”

“You do that,” Lar replied, and the innkeeper turned away to find a lawman. Meanwhile, Lar knelt down to look more closely at the silent drudge who still sat crouched, face to the stone hearth, and was still rifling through the satchel. Lar couldn't identify the gender of the creature, but by the fine lean fingers, and despite chipped nails and dirt to the point no skin actually was visible, Lar guessed female as the innkeeper had claimed. The rags covered her face from view, and the ash bucket over one arm attested to her duties at the inn. Her quick hands removed item after item from the bag, putting the coins with gentle clinks into her empty ash bucket. Then he heard a thud as one of the Heart Stones, the magical key that made him a magician, followed into the container.

Curiosity, not unlike the drudge's inquisitiveness over his things, urged Lar to explore what was happening with this creature. She was definitely the source of the power, but he could not quantify what he was sensing, so he brought his own power to bear on the dirty thing. He crafted a spell of truth and cast it over the drudge so that only he would be able to see her true nature.

The spell took hold and Lar scrambled back in surprise at what he saw. Instead of a huddled drudge, a towering swarm of fiery red lights swirled like a hive, filling the corner where she crouched. Demon flies, like sparks, buzzed angrily and occasionally zipped away across the room, bit someone, and fled back to the hive that was the drudge. These must have been the bitter tang Lar had first sensed.

They had been traversing the room and then returning to their home demon. Lar peered more closely through the fog of lights, trying to see the human inside the cloud of the demon. He could only vaguely make out the silhouette of a woman, tall and straight, but he could see nothing else.

Lar's fascination with the demonic spectacle distracted him from what was actually happening in the non-magical plane, and he did not realize that the drudge had retrieved another Heart Stone from his bag and now grasped the magical orb as if her life depended on it.

The contact with this second Heart Stone changed the silhouette within the demon cloud. To his amazement, the figure under his spell erupted in fire, burning, and yet was not consumed. Lar stood up now and with wonder dropped his truth spell. The drudge changed back in his eyes, into the dirty cowering servant who greedily took out his utensils and an extra shirt.

The dirty woman still huddled and remained miserably silent. Wordlessly, Lar reached out and took her bucket from her. He half expected a screech of protest, but the poor creature finally turned to see who had stolen from the thief. Lar was confronted by boldly bright golden human eyes. Lar knew immediately she was an innocent. The demon inside her made her steal his things. He wondered at the golden glare that stabbed him in the heart.

The innkeeper, accompanied by the constable who must have been dining somewhere nearby, interrupted Lar's frozen amazement.

“That's the one. She stole from this gentleman. I've caught her at it before. I won't have it. Take her away.”

Lar began to protest, but the constable didn't listen. The lawman roughly plucked the drudge up by the arm and began dragging her out of the inn.

“I don't want to press charges,” Lar argued, but the innkeeper only turned away with a harrumph of satisfaction.

Suddenly the demon within the drudge erupted. She began scratching, shrieking, kicking, and clawing like a wild animal in a trap. The constable dropped her arm in surprise, and she bolted away through the tables and chairs rushing at the innkeeper. She raised her hands like talons, and they flared in a fire as she reacted with murderous rage. The innkeeper stumbled backward as diners scrambled away and out the door. Lar saw it happening and reacted as quickly as he could. He leaped at the drudge, pinning her arms down and dampening the fire within a magical bubble of airless silence, the silence of the tomb.

His magical shields prevented him from being harmed by her fire. However, the pain of the fire still licked at him, and the demon swarm continued biting at him. He also sensed the pain of the burning of the girl underneath his arms. She ached in a furious rage. It rippled, alien to him, and flashed through them both. Without thinking about it, Lar swallowed up her magic in a cavern of dark death, smothering her flames. Lack of air did the trick. The drudge calmed in his arms and the fire of her hands dampened.

The frightened innkeeper had flattened himself against the far wall and the customers had all fled out of the common room, terrified by the insane attack. Such magic here in the Land was almost unknown. Lar sat on the floor, holding the drudge bound as if that were the most important thing in the world. Then he looked up at the innkeeper.

“What's her name?” Lar asked. The pathetic drudge seemed incapable of speaking for herself at this point. She had begun rocking and humming in Lar’s restraining arms, but unless the demon was reacting, he doubted that she was able to answer.

“I never knew. She doesn't speak.” The innkeeper sighed, finally straightening up, lifting an overturned chair, and sitting at least arm's length away from them. “She has been here longer than me. I bought the inn ten years ago and not once did I hear her make a sound until tonight. She knows how to remove ashes from the hearths and that's all she can or will do.”

“What do you want me to do?” asked the constable who still remained in the otherwise empty room. Even the barmaids had fled, unwilling to return to clean up the chaos. “I'm not sure throwing her in our cell will…will contain her.”

“It probably won't, but I won't have her back here,” the proprietor grumbled. Then his frank eyes looked down at Lar. “Sir, how are you…doing…the fire…she’s…”

“She's mad,” Lar confirmed, “but she doesn't know what she's doing. It wasn't her doing the stealing. She’s possessed by a demon.”

“Stealing!” barked the constable. “It's the fire that would concern me. I don't want her to set my cell afire. She could char the whole town to the ground.”

“Sir?” the innkeeper turned to Lar desperately.

“You seem to have a gift for calming her. Can you take her? I can't have my establishment burned, customers frightened…or robbed. I don't want to turn her out on a night like this. She'll be dead by midnight, but… Can you…?”

Well, this was why he had come to Halfway, Lar reminded himself.

Reluctantly he turned the drudge's face toward his with a firm grip on her chin. She still hummed and rocked with her eyes scrunched closed as if she didn't dare look anyone. With more care, he reinforced his personal shields, kept the bubble of airlessness around her, and then reapplied the truth spell, all without his audience able to see his work. He had to know the person beneath the demon swarm.

In his arms, within the angry red glow of the demon, he saw a beautiful woman, dressed in fiery red silk, with gold embroidery. She boasted red hair in long, luxurious waves. Her eyes, wide with wonder, looked back at him with a barely contained anger. She knew nothing but pain and harassment from her torturing demon, so it was no wonder she didn't speak. With magically reinforced privacy, he leaned in close to this woman's ear and mentally whispered one word to her.

“Ingri?”

The drudge started squirming in his arms, fighting him violently, but the reaction was what he wanted. It was the sign he needed. He had found the most important person in the world to him.

He looked up at the men and nodded. “Yes, I'll take her.”

2

CLEAN

Wash her clean, get her demon free, feed her, find a place to sleep tonight, keep her safe, teach her about magic…Lar's mind ran the list frantically. These ideas didn't come in any particular order, but he knew that he would not get to sleep at the inn that night. He needed to get Ingri away from Halfway. Where could he go to meet these needs?

As a Wise One of the Land, Lar had many powers and skills, but removing demons was not one of them. The one who could best deal with demons was Dayo, King of Music, who had a gift for enchanting demons. Dayo's home was far away in the icy north and too far away for Lar to transport himself, let alone Ingri that far. No, stop thinking of that as her name, he reminded himself. It's dangerous to think of her name.

Lar recalled the fateful night he wandered into a tomb under a mountain on the border of Demion. There he encountered a waiting ghost of a long-forgotten warrior who died trying to get past the Seal that had once protected the Land from any human entering. The man had been crushed by a falling tree and his companions had buried him at the base of the unforgiving mountain. The ghost sat on a stone as if he had been waiting specifically for that day for the King of the Dead to arrive. “What are you doing here?” Lar had asked.

“Waiting for you,” the ghost replied with a weary tone. “I have a message and then I may move on.”

Lar had surveyed the ghost critically, judging the strange clothing, the foreign accent, the caved-in chest cavity, and broken legs. Usually, the dead wanted to relay a message to far-flung family members, not to him. However, they too often were tied to where they had passed and could not move on until that need was realized.

“What have you got to say to me?” Lar had asked.

“I’m to give you a name. If I give you this name, I will finally pass the Seal and can be laid to rest in the one place I have not conquered.”

Lar had swallowed his excitement. The name the ghost would give him would tell him who would be the next Wise One and his fate would be tied to that woman forever. But this ghost also demanded the services of the King of the Dead so he must not let his eagerness cloud the moment.

“You wanted to enter the Land? You know, the Seal has been broken for many years, and now any who wish can come to the Land freely if they do not bring the magic with them.”

“Yes, I know,” the ghost replied. “But when I died, I would rather dash myself against the Seal than surrender. Now I have done my duty. You have her name: Ingri. Here is the Heart Stone. Give it to her when you find her. Now, will you gather my bones and bring me into the Land?”

The ghost had held out to Lar the glowing Heart Stone that Ingri had found years later in his bag and had just curiously dropped into her ash bucket.

Now, sitting on the floor in the inn, holding this tortured woman, keeping the demonic flames under control, Lar felt suddenly closer to his goal, but also completely out of his depth. Who could help him?

With little idea of what he would do, Lar struggled to his feet, lifting the pathetic drudge with him. He looked around at the scattered and singed furniture and the two men brave enough to face his dilemma. With a grim nod, he tightened his grip around Ingri, nodded to the constable and innkeeper, and then found a quiet place in the prison a few blocks away. It was where they would have thrown Ingri if she had not gone raving mad. Fortunately, several men had died in this cell, so Lar could magically move there, drawn by the restless past. He felt Ingri's trembling body tight against his chest and shifted, disappearing in an instant and probably leaving the two men at the inn with some fascinating tales to tell throughout the winter but little true information.

The dark of the cell did not disturb Lar; he had grown used to caves and tombs in the last twelve years Seeking. Indeed, this looked more pleasant than some other places he had been trapped. At least it had a cot. Lar set the wretched drudge down, conjured a blanket, and draped it over her. She still trembled but wasn't humming and rocking now that they had arrived at someplace where it was quiet. Now she could rest, and he could concentrate. With a relatively safe location to work, Lar could reach toward Dayo. He had experience dealing with demons and could help.

Lar used his imagination to stretch his magical mind toward the north, past the mountains to the edge of the spindly forest where cold and icy winds mitigated the thrumming music of Dayo. The chill made Lar's bones ache, but he could imagine being dead would be colder, so he tapped into that realization and the cold did not disturb him. However, Lar found that his call to his fellow King was drifting south again and east.

Ah, toward Tanzaa. Well, that made sense and Tanzaa's Garden was far closer than Dayo home, and infinitely warmer. Tanzaa was Queen of Storms and Dayo's wife, kept her garden summer and balmy; a perfect place to winter over if he had the option, Lar thought. Perhaps, between the three of them, they could figure out how to help Ingri.

Stop that, Lar warned himself. What was he to call this dirty little drudge until she found a safe name? A magician's name must be held sacred lest it is used against them. Lar should not even think of her name. His mind might be tapped by a sorcerer, or he may let down his shields at an inopportune time, and an enemy would learn that name from his mind.

And no matter how miserable she looked, this drudge was magical in her own right, not just because the demons called her home. Indeed, these invaders probably had been attracted to her because of her innate magic in the first place, like moths to a flame. And she had lived at least ten years this way? Tormented and silent, bitten and stung constantly by this fiery demon? She must be amazingly powerful to endure it, Lar thought, but then shook himself to action once again. He must not be distracted.

“Dayo?” Lar called magically. “Can you hear me?”

“Huh” came the garbled reply. “Who is it?” Even half asleep and hundreds of miles away, Dayo's mind voice was exquisite, the gift of being magically musical. Lar had forgotten that it was quite late, later than even Halfway.

“It's me, Lar. I've found her.”

That got Dayo to wake. “Your lady? How can I help?”

Lar felt rattled and his next words proved it. “I'm lost about this. She's possessed by a demon of some kind and has been for years. She’s feral. She doesn't speak…”

Dayo interrupted him. “Slow down man, you're frantic. Can you bring her here to Tanzaa's Garden? We can deal with her here better than wherever you've found her.”

“I can if there's someone nearby who has died. Let me check…yes, a soldier from Watch died on patrol in an avalanche on the southern rim.”

It still surprised Lar sometimes that he could see the end of everyone who ever walked the Land. That element of his gift as King of Death still chilled him. Who would have thought that the dead could have so many gifts for him?

“I'll be on this ridge in a few moments if you can let us in,” and he projected an image to his friend of a mountain top, with trees bowed low under a load of ice and snow.

“Tanzaa says she knows the place and will meet you there,” Dayo assured him and broke the contact.

That left Lar with a goal, but now he wondered if he were doing this the right way. He looked at Ingri, now sleeping fitfully on the cot, and decided he couldn't stay here in a jailhouse forever. He wove a silent spell over Ingri to keep her asleep and then used magic to wrap them both in rich furs against the winter atop the mountain. Then he scooped her up again in his arms, drew on the death of the fallen soldier like it was a lodestone, and stepped toward it.

If he thought it was cold out on the plains, it was nothing compared to the side of the mountain. He gasped at the shock and Ingri moaned in her sleep despite the warm furs he had conjured. Lar looked around at the night vistas of peaks as far as he could see under the bitterly cold stars. He knew there was a garden here though the illusion over it was formidable. Only Tanzaa could escort someone across the unseen barrier she had created.

Thankfully, they didn't have long to wait or both Lar and Ingri would have joined the fallen soldier in death. Tanzaa, the Queen of Storms, wrapped in luxurious white furs emerged from her illusion. Her legs bare underneath the furs, she stepped out into the deep snow. Her blonde hair and silver eyes flashed in the wind. She wordlessly drew Lar through the barrier and into the warmth.

On the other side of the illusion Lar saw the same stars, still twinkling in the icy sky but the balmy and humid flush of a jungle forest made the furs immediately too warm. Lar allowed the coats to disappear back into the earth from which he had conjured them. Then he abruptly regretted it. He looked down at Ingri in his arms and saw her messy rags and ash-covered face. Her dirt had spread to him, but fortunately, he was wearing black. Tanzaa looked at Ingri with interest, touching her dirty face and the matted mass of hair.

“Still in her cocoon.” Tanzaa’s comment remained unexplained, but Lar was accustomed to Tanzaa’s vague language.

“I don't know what to call her,” Lar commented lamely, for something in Tanzaa's luminous eyes demanded an explanation.

“She must come out first,” the Queen of Storms added.

Very well, he would wait to give Ingri a new name. Instead, Lar looked pointedly into the garden, and they began walking down into the jungle. The paths, choked with hyacinth and fragrant herbs, grew wild and almost overgrown. Tanzaa moved faster than Lar could carry his burden but at least he knew the palace was at the bottom of the mountainside. Finally, when the terrain began to flatten out and rivers and streams blocked his way, Lar saw the shining white of a columned palace glowing like the moon in the night. No one had ever died here, Lar remembered, although he had been brought in several times in the past. He felt almost empty, with no spirit promptings to guide him.

Tanzaa stood at the entry of her home, an open set of columns with walls barely there, shifting and blowing with gauze, even though there was no wind. Beside her stood her husband Dayo, also wearing white in sharp contrast to the night above them. Lar felt a sudden sense of relief. Surely between the three of them as Wise Ones, magicians dedicated to protecting the Land, they could discover help the poor wretched drudge he had rescued. Yes, focus on that. You prevented Ingri from becoming a murderer tonight. Now you can work to bring her back, in a manner, from the dead.

Wordlessly Lar laid his burden on a pallet in a two-walled room open to the garden. He then stepped back. The three Wise Ones looked with trepidation at what Lar had brought. Dayo applied his truth spell and saw for himself the demon fireflies that surrounded her, and underneath that, barely visible, the amazing vision of a human being completely enveloped in fire within the demon.

“Where did you find her?” Dayo asked curiously, reaching out and attempting to touch one of the demon lights as he spoke.

“An inn at Halfway. She was the ash drudge there. She has never spoken, as far as the innkeeper knows, so I suppose she's been possessed for a long time. She attacked him when he tried to have her arrested for stealing the Heart Stone from me. I only sensed her as magic when she touched the Heart Stone. Then she erupted.”

“So, you don't know for sure if she's the one,” Dayo confirmed.

Lar disagreed. “She reacted when I spoke the name to her. Up close you can see her through the demon, that she's a Wise One. Queen of Fire. She has to be the one.”

Dayo rose from his examination of the demon and let the truth spell fade. “Then we better free her from the possession immediately. Now that she's touched the Heart Stone, the demon will feed on her magic and only grow stronger if we don't remove it quickly. That’s the easy part. Caging the demon will be the trick. Tanzaa, will you get her cleaned up while we work on a trap for the demon?”

While the two men were speaking, Tanzaa knelt beside the pallet and gently touched the ash-smeared face. Then she rose again and said one word “Pa∂a.”

Dayo translated without being asked. “It's a name for her…probably Patha in our language. It means ‘drudge’ in Demian. She's suggesting a name for her since you shouldn't use her real one.”

“Patha?” Lar considered. “Well, it's something, until we know more about her.”

With that Tanzaa lifted her hand in a graceful move and Patha's body magically floated away from the pallet and began to drift out into the garden. Hot springs a little beyond the garden verge fit the need. Hopefully, the dirty creature would come back cleaner and recognizable as human.

Meanwhile, Dayo led Lar deeper into the house, to the library where Tanzaa kept her charts and worktables for tracing the weather she managed and manipulated. As he followed, Lar didn't want to admit how tired he was, for he would not delay Patha's cure. Yet it felt like days since he'd had a decent night's rest. As they entered the library, he looked at the books and charts with dread.

“Have you done any work with demon capture?” Dayo asked Lar.

Lar shook his head. Up to this time as a Seeking King, trying to find his gift, master it, and Seeking the Talismans of his power had prevented him from taking the time to actively study magic for magic's sake. In the twelve years since Tanzaa had found him, giving him his Heart Stone to activate his magic, Lar had wandered half the Land with few comforts, let alone the luxury of time to study. Unlike most of the Wise Ones, when first discovered, he at least could read. His grandfather's collections of books were still accessible, but that modest library contained nothing about magic, let alone the rare specifics of demon mastery.

Dayo nodded his understanding. Being a Seeking Wise One meant constant transitions.

“Fortunately, I've been working on just this subject, though I've never seen this particular breed of demon.”

With that Dayo closed his eyes and reached out to his home in the far north where he kept his notes and books. Within a single breath, a stack of scrolls and several large books landed with a thud on the table that stood in the middle of the book-lined walls. Dayo began perusing the stacks when he caught Lar trying to cover up a yawn.

“It will take me a while to locate what I'm looking for. There's a couch over there. Why don't you get some sleep and I'll wake you when I've found something?”

Lar gazed longingly at the proffered couch and then back at the reading. He decided on the former. It had taken him twelve years to find Ingri; she could wait a few more hours.

Meanwhile, Tanzaa let her visitor soak in the hot springs, still asleep under Lar's spell. She kept an eye on Patha, so she didn't sink in the water, and let the warm water work into the grime of years. Once the outer layers had soaked long enough, Tanzaa magically made the rags the poor woman wore disappear. Then Tanzaa climbed into the hot springs herself to wash the soot, tangled knots, and oils from Patha's hair. The color of her hair, a fiery brilliant red surprised Tanzaa. She never encountered someone with that shade in her homeland and it was rare enough here in the Land, though not unheard of. Next Tanzaa conjured herself a scrub brush and began attacking Patha’s limbs, hands, and feet with abandon. While she could have simply magically made this woman clean, someday this stranger would need to learn to bathe without magic. Of course, Patha was asleep and probably had no idea this was all happening to her, but some sliver of her unconscious mind would recall the luxury of a true bath.

And this woman probably had not bathed in years, Tanzaa thought. Her long limbs, pale and unmarked, bespoke her past. When was the last time Patha had enjoyed the sun? Such paleness was rarely seen in the Land. Also, Patha had not been whipped, for there were no such scars. She bore only bruises on her arms and shins like she often had jostled around unforgiving furniture. Perhaps food must have been a battle, for there was not much to her though she was very tall.

Tanzaa was not only the Queen of Storms, but also Dance and had an eye for body style. Patha would have made a fine dancer, but her muscle tone was pathetic. She should have been strong and graceful, almost elegant. What had she been doing to be covered in dirt, underfed and sunless, and yet had grown so tall?

Curiously, Tanzaa tried to tap into Patha's past. She tried carefully to move beneath the shield of drones that protected Path’s mind from observation, but Tanzaa only got lost in the burning haze of the buzzing demon. The Queen of Storms battled that swarm only briefly. Now was not the correct time to try breaking through. Tanzaa gave up and instead attacked Patha's hands with the brush once again, struggling to get the inset grime out of cracked, calloused fingers.

Finally, when she was satisfied, Tanzaa magically lifted Patha free from the hot springs and dried her with conjured towels. Now Tanzaa got to dress Patha and even without knowing the woman, she knew that her preferences would not suffice for Patha. Their coloring was vastly different, not to mention their past, so Tanzaa elected to go with something more typical to the Land rather than the draped tunics and gauze she preferred.

Experimentally she lifted one closed eyelid to see Patha’s eye color and was startled as much as Lar had been. Golden, as gold as Tanzaa's eyes were silver. So maybe they did have something in common after all. Tanzaa put Patha in a conjured satin robe the brilliant color of her eyes. Then she floated her charge back to the room where they had first set her.

With that duty completed, Tanzaa traced Dayo's thoughts to the library and went to see how the demon cage was progressing. When she arrived at the library, Tanzaa saw that Lar was sound asleep on the couch nearby. Without thinking, Tanzaa conjured a blanket that she draped over Lar’s figure. Then she gave went to Dayo and gave him a grateful kiss as he studied his books on Demons.

“Lar dives deep,” Tanzaa commented.

When she had first found Lar as the final part of her own Seeking, she had been concerned for the young man. Being King of Death could not be a comfortable talent. Music, Mountains, Plants, Plains, Weather, Dance, those things brought majesty and worked well within the Wise One ethos. The magic they mastered was meant to benefit all the citizens of the Land. But Death? How did you make that seem kindly or helpful for the people they protected?

“Yes,” Dayo agreed. “He seems to have made a great deal of progress. Death can’t be easy, and he never seems comfortable with people, but he is, as you say, ‘diving deep’ to try to make Death an advantage.”

Tanzaa nodded, appreciating that Dayo understood what she had meant with her observation. She had always been sparing with her words. Dayo knew she thought of Lar as her son after a fashion even though both of them had ceased aging. Lar probably was technically frozen at an older age than her. However, in the world of the Wise Ones, Lar had less experience and so she worried about him like a son.

Tanzza began to study the diagram and notes Dayo had prepared for dealing with Path’s demon. He had envisioned a kind of ball of metal netting, which would enlarge or collapse based on the relative size of the demon inside. There would be a flexible film of magic like a diaphragm between each diamond-shaped opening. Tanzaa made a few brief changes to the drawing he had crafted to his cage idea.

Dayo looked at what she added and then asked, “What are you thinking with putting the jewels at the joints?”

Tanzaa would never explain in so many words. Instead, she added a justification with a visual demonstration. She pressed a vivid image into Dayo’s mind. The rubies sparkled at the joints of the expanding ball trap, reflecting back the light and fire the demon seemed to enjoy. It would not only attract the greedy demon but make it comfortable with the fire of its brightness.

“With them on the inside of the net as well, the creature might be more at home, and it may make the net stronger. I like it,” Dayo complimented his wife. “Will you conjure what you see? I think we need a separate surrounding net for all those little sparks. I’m calling this a spark demon. The queen bee must not be allowed access to her drones. A ball inside for her and an outer one to trap the sparks.”

And with that, the two of them began the magic of crafting a cage to catch a demon. They would not wake Lar until it was ready at dawn. Dayo woke Lar with a gentle shake and then showed him the crystal-encrusted cage they had crafted.

As Lar hastily ate breakfast, Dayo explained what he had planned to do about Patha’s demon. “You cannot destroy or kill demons, just trap them in something other than a human. We only hope to eventually banish them to wherever they came from.”

“They cannot die?” Lar gulped. “I’m the King of the Dead. What good will that do if we cannot kill them? That little cage won’t hold what I saw in the Truth Spell.”

Tanzaa took up the two-layered cage that glittered in the morning sun streaming through her palace. She then tossed it into the air where it floated and then began to expand, growing so wide that Lar had to step back or be pushed back.

“One orb for the queen, another for the swarm,” Tanzaa said.

Before he could ask more, Dayo passed Lar the notes he had made last night. “I can put a music spell on the queen only once she has her attention on me. I doubt that I can get in to do that. Instead, I think you should go into Patha’s mind, speak with the demon, and convince it to come out. You must use your connection with your lady. Then we can trap it.”

“Me?” Lar shuffled through the papers, reading rapidly. “I’ve barely discovered her…and I’ve never done this before.”

“Pull your arms in,” declared Tanzaa.

Dayo smiled as he translated his wife’s cryptic comment. “She means you can pull in on the connection you have with your lady. In dance, that means it will be a stronger, faster spin. You have a powerful tie to her. It will be strong enough to pull her out, stronger even than our Wise One gifts. It will be enough to lure the demon out if you believing you are interacting with Patha, not the demon.”

Lar nodded his gratefulness for their help and then studied the papers as the three of them walked back through the tapestries and columns of Tanzaa’s home. He studied again the cage and wasn't exactly paying attention when they walked into the room where Patha lay still asleep. Then he looked up and caught the first sight of her. He wasn't prepared. He dropped the diagram and distractedly had to grope to pick it up. Lar couldn't pull his eyes from the dramatic change in the woman he had rescued.

Patha lay like the dead, wearing a golden satin robe, with her glorious red hair draped all down the bed. It nearly winded Lar. Patha’s silky skin no longer hid under a thick layer of ashes. Her pale face reminded him of the dead he visited. He had never seen anything more beautiful. Immediately, Lar acknowledged the tie of magic in his heart that Dayo had explained. The bond was indeed strong. Here was a woman he would die for. How could that be? He didn't question that the allure was real.

Since the moment Tanzaa had given him his Heart Stone, such magic had dictated his life and he had willingly followed its demands, but never did he think that it would manipulate him so skillfully into loving a perfect stranger so swiftly, effortlessly. He looked over at Dayo and Tanzaa, both smiling at his reaction, and felt himself blush with embarrassment. Was it that obvious?