Blue Magic

“There’s one thing I regret, Todich, that’s forcing Amortis on the Finger Vales. Burning their priests. I spit on these torchers, those stinking bloody brainless Servants with their Whore God. I spit on myself for letting it be done, Todich, done in my name. Amortis! Forty. Mortal Hells, I didn’t think even a god would be that stupid, but I NEED her, Todich. A hundred years, I thought I was buying a hundred years so I could set my changes so deeply no man could uproot them. Haaa yaa yaa, I need them but I won’t get them, that greedy bitch has ruined me. HAH! Ruined or not, I’m going to fight, let the Hellhag come, I’m a skin filled with rancor and I’m waiting.”

He stopped in the center of the south side and stood looking out across the Notoea Tha. Todichi Yahzi dropped into a squat behind a merlon and waited with stone patience for Maksim to start talking again.

The ariels came blowing out of the east, swirled in a confusing flutter about him, whispering their reports in their soughing voices, voices that were winds whistling in Todichi Yahzi’s ears, nothing more. “… the woman… alive… Jiva Marish… Ahzurdan… wards… Kukurul…”

Maksim cursed bitterly, using his lowest register, the words tearing from his throat. Leaving Todichi Yahzi to make his own way down, he snapped to his sanctuary deep within the earth, warm dark earth around him, elementals sleeping coiled about him, protecting him, ready to wake if he called them. Lights came on automatically as he materialized there and he strode toward the storage shelves, dragging the skewer from his braid, shaking it down, pulling his robe closed and doing up the fastenings. He thrust his arms into the loose over-robe he wore for working; sleeveless, heavy and soft, it hung about him like woven darkness as he carried the mirror case to his work table. He kneed the chair aside, set the case down and stood with his hands on the double hinged lid, thumbs tapping lightly at the wood as he calmed himself into a proper state to use the mirror. “Little Danny Blue,” he murmured, “Ahzurdan. I wonder how you got tangled in this mess.” His mouth curled into a tight smile. “Tangjii, old meddler, that you sticking your thumbs in?”

He maneuvered the chair back and dropped into it with an impatient grunt, opened the case, took out the black obsidian mirror and the piece of suede he used to polish it. “I know your little tricks, Blue Dan, I know you, Danny Boy.” He wiped gently at the face of the mirror, breathed on it, wiped again. “Did you think of this, Danny Blue? I don’t know her. I can’t reach her.

I found her through the boy the first time, now I’ve got you to guide my sight, is that a piece of luck, Baby Dan, or is that a piece of luck. Haaaa! I’ve GOT you, Blue, nowhere you can hide from me.” He set aside the leather and slid the mirror into its frame. “Ahzurdan in Kukurul,” he intoned and touched the stone oval with a long forefinger.

The stone surface shimmered, then he saw the side of a rambling inn and small sparkles of light writing patterns over a window on the third floor. “Sooo sooo, how much have you learned since you ran off, Ser Ahzurdan? Mmm, interesting, I wonder where you picked that up? Looks like something Proster Xan was playing with a few years back. That’s a clever twist, now how do I untie it? This… this… ah! cute, touch that one and I’m smoke. Sooo sooo, how do I get round that… here? No, I don’t think so, tempting but… let’s fiddle this loop out a little. Ah, ah ah, now this. Riiight. And now it comes neatly apart. Don’t try fooling your old teacher, boy. Let’s put this aside so we can tie it up again if we want and take a look at what’s happening in there. Mmmmh mmh. So that’s our Drinker of Souls.” He leaned closer, frowning. “That mushhead swore he put the pagamacher in your heart, I suppose he missed his hit. You’re hard to kill, lady. Mmm. No more tigermen… what have I got… mmmmm… what have I got…” The woman was sitting in a chair with her feet up on a hassock; her body was relaxed but her brilliant green eyes followed Ahzurdan with a concentrated intensity as he walked about the comfortable room, his hands moving restlessly, opening and closing, tapping on surfaces, fondling small objects, while he talked in spurts and silences. “Gabble gabble, Danny Blue, you haven’t changed a hair… hmm.” Two children were curled up on the bed, sleeping; he had a vague idea that they were attached to the woman and were a bit more than children. He watched them a moment, became convinced they weren’t breathing. “Dipped in the reality pond, did you, lady? And pulled you out a pair of… of what? Complications, mmm, if I wait until you’re, alone and see you out, saying I can do it this time, those children would be left and what would I have coming at me? I went too fast the first time and missed my hit and unless I mistake me badly. I’ve done myself a mischief by it. Sooo sooo, this time I’ll watch a while. A while? A day or two. Or three. Or more. Until I’m ready, lady.” With a rumbling chuckle, he shoved the chair back and started to stand, stopped in the middle of the move and flattened his hands on the table. “Oh Maksi old fool, senility is setting in, next thing you know, you’ll be drooling in your mush. Sooo sooo.” He reassembled the ward and set it in place outside the window. When he was done, he pushed onto his feet, leaving the mirror focused on the Inn. “Dream your little dreams, Danny Blue, I’ll be with you soon as I finish some cursed clamoring business…” He stretched, groaned as muscle pulled against muscle, pulled off the overrobe and tossed it onto the chair. “AAAH! WHY WHY WHY can’t they SEE? It’s so simple.” He twitched the linen robe straight and with a few quick flowing passes rid it of its wrinkles. “Dignity, give a man his dignity and you’ve increased his value and the land’s value with it.” He rubbed his feet on the pavingstones. “Be damned if I cramp my toes for that son of a diseased toad, that high-nosed high priest of my whore god, that posturing potentate of ignorance, HAH!” He glamoured sandals over his feet, grinned and added tiny grimacing caricatures of Vasshaka Bulan Servant of the Servants of Amortis to the seeming straps of white leather. A touch to the Stone snugged beneath his robe, a twisted tight smile as he felt a tingle in his fingertips, then he snapped to the reception chamber at the top of the west tower, a gilded ornate room that he detested. He knew the effect of his size and the chamber’s barbaric splendor (and the long laborious climb to reach it) and used them when he had to deal with folks like Vasshaka Bulan who needed a good deal of intimidation to keep their ambitions in hand. A desk the size of a small room and a massive carved chair sat on a shallow dais that raised both just enough to give visitors an ache in the neck and a general sense of their own unworthiness. He settled himself in the chair, gave a quick rub to the emerald on his right thumb. “Let the charade proceed,” he muttered. The only object in the vast plateau of polished kedron was a dainty bell of unadorned white porcelain. He rang it twice, replaced it and sat back in the chair, his arms along its arms, his hands curved loosely abOut their finials.