Inconvenient Magic 01 - Potatoes, Come Forth! Page 25

  “This is all that I could find.”

  “I don’t feel like eating,” he grumped.

  She smiled slightly as she put the tray beside the lamp. “You might later.”

  She shooed him over and as soon as he had wiggled across to make room, she settled on the bed with care, then took up the washcloth, dampened it and began to tenderly wash his face.

  “I wish that you would just let me go back to sleep.”

  She ignored him, finished cleaning the dried blood from his face, unbuttoned his shirt, and started to wash his neck and chest.

  “All this isn’t necessary,” he complained again.

  “Of course it is,” she contradicted, and, apparently satisfied with the state of his toilet, dropped the soiled cloth onto the table as she stood up again.

  “I promised you festivities, Everett, and, frankly, I’m in the mood for some myself.”

  She dropped the robe. She wore nothing underneath.

  He stopped her as she moved to rejoin him on the bed. “Wait. One thing I need to know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Did you use magic when we first met to make me … interested in you?”

  Laughing quietly as she sank down beside him, she shook her head. “No, Everett, you’re a man. A woman doesn’t need magic to interest a man.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  The basal thud of the first explosion shook Everett awake. He had only seconds to try to gather his wits when the bells of the Residence watchtower began a frantic pealing.

  Now also awakened, Sarah shifted slightly and began, “Everett, what’s --?”

  The second explosion smashed through the house, crumpling walls, overturning the bed, and dumping the two of them to the floor in a tangle of limbs and bedclothes. The third made the floor heave and buckle and showered them with plaster and splinters.

  “Give me strength!” Everett shouted, surging to his feet as a fourth explosion collapsed the room around them. He bowed his back and spread his arms to protect Sarah as snapped roof beams, sections of roof tile, masonry blocks, and other massive debris rained down. He felt jarring blows as the rubble struck but suffered no harm.

  After a pause of no more than ten seconds, other explosions continued, but occurred beyond the wreckage of the house, the staccato booms moving off toward the south. Within seconds, the remains of the house had settled into a snarled mass around them and become still.

  He shrugged his shoulders and straightened, throwing off broken wood and brick and forcing open a clear space around Sarah. Burgeoning fires lit the ruins with yellow, flickering light.

  “Are you hurt?” he demanded as she stood shakily, pulling a sheet from under the remains of the bed and wrapping it around herself as an abbreviated dress that left arms and legs bare.

  “No, I’m all right. I don’t know how the Republicans were able to get close enough to the city to shell it, but we must return to the Residence immediately.”

  “It’s not artillery,” he countered. “Listen.”

  Sarah cocked an ear. High above in the distance, the fluttering sound of oil fueled engines was unmistakable. “The air carriage!”

  Using the denuded lathe and decapitated studs of a section of canted wall for handholds, she scrambled up onto a sagging segment of roof for a better view. After taking the practical precaution of digging around to find his trousers, shirt, and boots and pulling them on, he followed her up to her perch into the open.

  Fires and damaged buildings stretched out in a line for half a mile across the hill and down into the lower part of the city, cutting across streets and neighborhoods like a furrow. A few lights had begun to appear in various places, but most of the remainder of Kleinsvench remained dark and at rest. The sinister sounds of crackling wood drew his eyes around. Behind them, toward the front of the house, one of the blazes had begun to spread. The house would be engulfed in moments. He swung back toward the sound of the motors.

  The dark mass of the air carriage could be made out easily against the star filled sky. No light shown from it, but occasional glints of the fires left in its wake reflected from its windows. It flew fairly low over the city, perhaps no more than two thousand feet, and as they watched, it started a ponderous turn.

  “It’s coming back,” he warned. “We had better get out of here.”

  “No! Transport us up there, Everett! It’s attacking the city and we need to stop it!”

  He did not bother trying to argue; in any event, they could not stay here. He caught her around the waist as she hugged him tight, selected a locus on the barely perceived Observation Deck, and cast in rapid succession, “Give me strength! Take ye flight! Beautiful Woman, come forth!”

  In pitch darkness, they appeared on the air carriage floating slightly above the deck. A chair, knocked aside by their arrival, clattered noisily across the flooring. In front of them toward the bow rail, a wedge of weak light flared at the sound and a vague figure began shouting as it rushed at them, its light jumping and jerking irregularly.

  Everett released Sarah and braced to receive the attack.

  “Good night and sweet dreams!” Sarah hissed.

  Their would-be assailant dropped instantly and skidded a few feet from the force of his momentum. The light, clearly some sort of mechanism, bounced and rolled against the starboard rail kick plate, but did not go out. Everett swiftly knelt by the awkwardly sprawled, gently snoring man, rolled him over, and then pried a wicked looking boarding cutlass from his grip. Running his hands along a cartridge belt at the man’s waist, he also found a pistol in a holster and quickly appropriated it while Sarah retrieved the light, a fat cylinder of glass and copper with shutters blocking three sides, and brought it close.

  “Esatis.” She condemned disgustedly when the red of the man’s jacket became clear. She looked at the pistol and sword in Everett’s hands. “What do you intend to do with those?”

  He shrugged. Aside from hunting with long guns as a youth, he had had little experience with firearms. Reloading a standard, single shot pistol such as this with any speed required a good deal of practice. Likewise, he doubted that his only possible technique with the sword -- swinging it haphazardly like a machete -- could possibly be effective.

  “I’m not sure. Can you put the entire air carriage to sleep like you did to the Alarsarians in Eriis?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll try.” A look of concentration settled across her face. “Good night dear Zherians and sweet dreams!”

  Nothing from below could be heard above the drone of the engines and the wind. “Did it work?” he asked her.

  She frowned. “I don’t think so, or not entirely. There was a gap in the actuation, or at least that’s what it felt like, toward the bow. They must have heard the sentry and activated one of the magic canceling mechanisms.”

  “What’s their range?”

  “Six feet or so.”

  “If we get close to that, we’ll be helpless.”

  “I know that much better than you.”

  He ignored her pique. “Is the effect persistent?”

  “No, they seem to have some sort of charge -- not an electric battery though -- and expire. The Esatis replaced the ones on my cage exactly on the half hour. From what the guards said, I had the impression that they were in short supply.”

  “Still, they're bound to have others aboard, so simply waiting it out wouldn't work.”

  “No. But we have to capture the air carriage or destroy it. Everett, we can’t allow the Esatis to drop any more explosives on Kleinsvench. A lot of the buildings are vacant, but a good many are not, and none of them could withstand this sort of attack, even the Residence.”

  Everett did not respond immediately. This event had not been revealed by his exhaustive casting of his now revoked fifteenth spell. Clearly, some major element had changed and the future visions that he had sifted through were no longer valid. There was also no doubt that his and Sarah’s magic could be easily and devastatingly nullified by
the Zherian mechanisms. He could draw only a single conclusion from these facts: all of his preparations may have been for naught. Sarah was undoubtedly once more threatened.

  And, with equal clarity, he realized that her presence on the air carriage placed her in immediate mortal danger.

  He could not have that. He must send her to a place where absolutely no harm could come to her.

  He strode abruptly to the rail, identified a locus on the easily recognizable dark mass of the castle off to the north, and then pivoted right away to face Sarah.

  “Stay with your family. I’ll take care of the air carriage.”

  Her brow lowered. “Everett, what are you --”

  “Beautiful Woman, come forth!”

  She vanished before her anger could fully blossom. The lamp vanished with her, throwing the Observation Deck once more into obscure shadow. Grunting at the oversight, he felt his way to the incapacitated Esati, stripped the cartridge belt from him, buckled it about his own waist, and dropped the pistol in the holster. The cutlass he gripped in his right hand, inexpertly or not, as he peered at the closed hatchway leading down into the air carriage.

  He shied from the idea of simply destroying the vessel outright; it was still the crowning achievement of technology and probably remained unique. Moreover, in the hands of the Grand Alliance, it would provide an invaluable advantage, if only in its ability to provide intelligence of enemy movements. It could prove to be the key element in the defeat of the Republic.

  The option of dropping through the hatch into the midst of a potential unpleasant reception from the air carriage’s crew immediately declared itself a bad idea. He went back to the port rail and looked over the side. All of the small windows along that side remained dark. The hatch was only a few feet down. He tucked the cutlass through the cartridge belt and vaulted the side, keeping a hold on the rail. “Take ye flight!”

  Slightly anxious, he cast the spell continually as he eased himself down within reach of the latch, at last hanging by one hand from the platted rattan kick plate. Hovering while buffeted by the wind and keenly conscious of the blurrily spinning engine vane only ten feet aft, he tried the handle. As expected, it was locked.

  “Give me strength!”

  Trying to make as little noise as possible, he pried open the lip of the hatch with his free hand. The lightweight bolt twisted from the jamb and as soon as the hatch popped open, he slipped inside, pulling it closed behind him. The corridor was dark, but apparently empty. The twisted frame of the hatch kept it from sealing and the sound of the air coming through the gap was surprisingly loud. Afraid that he had already given himself away, he stalked toward the bow, drawing the cutlass. Though some weak light came through the portholes, the pools of wane illumination provided only indistinct points of reference and he felt compelled to use his free hand as a guide along the outer wall.

  At the first cross-corridor, he encountered another Esati, slumped against the base of the crosswise bulkhead; Sarah’s spell had been at least partially effective. He stepped over the slumbering man and continued. He made it to the second cross-corridor without mishap, paused a moment, and continued. He paused again as he approached the control compartment and listened forward. Over the normal sounds of the vessel, he heard nothing.

  Might Sarah have been wrong and her spell have taken effect on the entire crew?

  He eased forward into the control compartment.

  A knife switch closed with an arc flash and all of the lights came on, their intensity overloading his vision for a moment.

  Mitchell, outfitted in full Esati uniform, charged at him from the right, his own cutlass slashing down.

  Everett threw up his sword, managed to block the mechanic’s first blow with a jarring clang!, but could not intercept the second, which bit deeply into his left bicep.

  “Give me strength!” he cried.

  No surge of power came as Mitchell continued to hack at him with unswerving intensity. Parrying desperately, Everett caught sight of one of the magic canceling mechanisms hanging from a snap on the breast of the young Esati’s jacket.

  “We expected you to attack the air carriage,” Edwin announced, making his presence known. The chemist had leveraged his bulk into a swivel chair that had been added beside the control consol, a good dozen feet across the compartment. Rather than the bright red Esati uniform, Edwin wore a smartly cut tunic and trousers in midnight black that was surprisingly devoid of badge or insignia. He did, however, also have a canceling mechanism attached with a piece of cord to a large brass button on his left breast pocket.

  “In fact,” Edwin continued breezily while Everett gave way before Mitchell’s attack and found himself pinned against the exterior bulkhead, “since we could not be certain of your exact location in the city and because it seemed likely that magic would prevent any of the bombs from exploding near enough to kill you, we depended upon the predictability of your reaction to the raid in order to make your verifiable elimination possible.”

  An instant late with a parry, Everett took a slight cut to his left cheek and drew back in pain. With a predatory grin, Mitchell disengaged, took two steps away, made a flourishing salute with his blade, and then shifted his feet en garde in preparation for a lunge.

  “Now,” the chemist insisted. “If you would be so good as to expire without delay.”

  Left handed, Everett drew his pistol and fired from the hip, aiming for the mechanism hanging from Mitchell’s chest.

  The bullet pierced the mechanism dead center, but did not strike Mitchell squarely. Nevertheless, the blow spun the mechanic around and he dropped his cutlass and fell to his knees, clutching at blood welling from a hole in his jacket over his left ribs. As his face went white, he groaned and fell over.

  “Now, Everett,” Edwin disapproved. “That would have to qualify as cheating.” Without pause, the chemist jumped to his feet and flung a jar at the magicker.

  “Give me strength!”

  The glass of the jar was paper-thin and it shattered into fragments when it struck Everett’s chest. A thick, translucent fluid splattered all over him and onto the wall and floor next to him. Where the fluid landed on the wood and metal, smoke and a burning smell immediately rose.

  Where the fluid struck him, however, there was no effect whatsoever. It simply slithered and dribbled down his shirt, over the leather and metal of the cartridge belt and pistol, and along the cotton of his trousers without leaving any mark or stain. The draining fluid leaked onto the floor and instantaneously eroded holes in the thin metal. Electrical flashes and water spurted out the holes.

  “Ah, of course the acid would not affect you,” Edwin realized. “By default, your strength spell must give you invulnerability. How else would your bones and flesh endure the stress of the tremendous physical forces?” The chemist brought up a pistol. “Just for fun, let us see if this functions, shall we?”

  Click!

  Everett froze at the sound, but when no bullet roared from the gun, he realized a key detail: the magic canceling mechanisms must only prevent the actuation of a spell and therefore would have no effect on his two persistent spells.

  Edwin laughed. “Apparently, in the current circumstances, we have an impasse. You're protected by your magic and I'm protected by my technology.” Edwin tapped the canceling mechanism for emphasis.

  Not taking his eyes off the chemist and moving slowly so as not to fumble, Everett broke the breech of his pistol, fished a cartridge from his belt, and reloaded.

  Edwin frowned. “And then again, perhaps not.”

  With a speed that belied his size, the chemist whirled around and slapped at levers on the console. The engines changed pitch suddenly and the air carriage yawed in a violent surge, throwing Everett off balance and causing his finger to constrict on the trigger. The weapon discharged and a hole starred the forward window beyond the chemist’s right shoulder.

  Edwin leapt toward Mitchell’s cutlass.

  He never made it across the
compartment. In the next instant, the bow nosed down and the entire structure shook and began to warp and scream under strain. Seams in the floor plating split and water sloshed through from below. Everett caught the edge of a vertical hull strut and kept his feet as the deck angled but Edwin lost his footing and fell back. The lights flickered and then went out completely as shorts arced across the battery board. Flames flared from the wooden scales of the bulkhead behind it and roiled across the ceiling plates and girders, flooding the compartment with smoke.

  THIRTY

  Everett was choking within seconds. He punched a hole through the hull, broke out scales to widen it, hauled his head and shoulders through to gasp at the rushing air, and then heaved himself outward free of the air carriage.

  “Take ye flight!”

  He fell perhaps a hundred feet before the magic evinced. Dragging in deep breaths to clear his lungs, he swam around to look back up at the air carriage. Slowing as the engines sputtered and died, the stricken vessel had gained only thirty yards from him. Already, a yellow-green inferno engulfed the entire forward end; evidently, the shellac coated wooden scales of the hull were highly flammable. As he watched, soot topped greasy spurts of fire began to lick the underside of the vapor bags above the Observation Deck.

  Dreading what was to come next, he threw a quick glance downward to gauge his altitude. He was at least a comfortable fifteen hundred feet above the buildings below. When his flight expired, he did not immediately recast it, knowing that he wanted to be as far as possible from the air carriage.

  Three seconds later, the vapor bags began to explode and the conflagration spread faster than an eye blink to involve the entire vessel. A blast wave of heated air tumbled him into a spin.

  “Give me strength!”

  As flaming debris rocketed passed him tailing expanding lines of stinking smoke, he righted himself and once more looked down. The city and one unlit tile-roofed structure in particular hurtled towards him at an amazing rate. Counting, he had only reached four when he plunged through the building, caving in the roof and bursting through floors, finally coming to rest driven up to his elbows through the ground floor and into the soil beneath. Wasting no time, he dug himself out, recast his Potent spells and bounded up through the gaping hole that his passage had made.