Excerpt: The Taste of Magic

Chapter One

I always answer the door when someone knocks at night. Mostly people pound hard enough to wake the whole lodging house, and shout too. This was a businesslike rap.

I woke up anyway. I'm a light sleeper. "I'll be right there," I called, jerking out of a dream of chasing deer.

The dream clung to me as I staggered out of bed, so that I promptly fell as I tried to walk on all fours. That woke me fully. I muttered a very bad word and dragged my nightgown off.

My healer's robes hung over the back of the room's one chair. I pulled the pale blue under-robe on first, then the sleeveless black over-robe. I didn't bother with shoes; it was warm out. In under a minute, I was awake, dressed, and ready to save lives.

I opened the door. The hallway outside was dim, lit only by a small ball of magelight at the top of the stairs. It seemed even dimmer because the two humans standing in front of me blocked most of the light. There was no other word for it: they loomed.

"Analefa Miradwen?" one said. He had dark gold hair--about the color of mine--and wore it short. He managed my tongue-twister name fairly well, but I knew he hadn't memorized it because his eyes flicked to the plaque fixed next to the doorway. Analefa Miradwen, Healer, Licensed by the King.

"Ana," I said. "Which of you is hurt?"

"We need you to come help a friend. He's been in a fight."

The two looked like more than simple brawlers. I nodded and followed the gold-haired one downstairs, with the dark-haired one behind me. They both wore leather and carried serious weapons. I guessed they were someone's bodyguards.

It was cooler out than I expected. The wind was up, blowing dead leaves and scraps of paper down the cobbled street. I was living in a run-down area of Carafell currently, where the buildings all crowded close together and the people crowded closer, but tonight the street was deserted except for a black coach waiting for us. The two horses were black too, and the driver wore a black cloak and hood.

The gold-haired man opened the coach door and helped me up, and sat down beside me. The other man spoke to the driver for a moment--I could just hear his voice rumbling--and then he joined us inside. The coach rocked a little on its springs as he sat down on the bench seat facing me. Neither of the men seemed worried about their friend or in any hurry, which I thought was odd. If their friend wasn't very badly hurt, why summon a healer at two in the morning? And why send two men to fetch me when one would do?

The coach started forward, the horses' hooves clopping. The two humans didn't seem inclined to talk, so I looked out the window.

Or tried to. It was painted black.

I felt a jump of alarm. I hesitated a moment, then said, "Why--?" I pointed at the window.

The gold-haired man said, "Our master uses this coach for assignations."

"Hasn't he heard of curtains?"

The man didn't answer, just stared ahead as though contemplating a difficult math problem. I reminded myself that no one in Carafell harms a healer. I was safe, and I'd do my job, and then I'd come home again.

The coach trundled along, turning corner after corner. It almost felt as though we were going in circles. After five minutes I said, "I'm happy to help your friend, but there must be a healer closer to where we're going."

"We couldn't rouse anyone."

That was the extent of the conversation. Another five minutes and the coach slowed, made one last turn, and stopped.

The gold-haired man turned to me and said, "You must wear a blindfold now. Our friend was mixed up with a nasty group of people. If you don't know where you are, you can't accidentally tell anyone where our friend is."

"I won't be blindfolded," I said firmly. I held the man's gaze. No way was I going anywhere blindfolded with two strange men. No one harmed healers in Carafell--but I didn't want to be the exception.

The other man spoke for the first time. "He's hurt real bad. He might die. We only want to protect him."

His voice sounded flat despite his words, as though he was repeating something he'd memorized. I glanced at the gold-haired man--I felt almost chummy with him by now, since we'd almost had two conversations--and he said, "You'll be safe, we promise. It's our master's idea; he gets fancies, but there's no harm in him."

He sounded more believable. I chewed my lower lip and wished I was still dreaming of deer. A few more minutes in my dream and I would have brought one down.

But I make it a point never to refuse anyone who asks for help, and at least I'd see payment from this pair. Probably a decent amount, too, if their master was involved. The rent was due next week.

I nodded, against my better judgment.

I'd never tried to walk in a blindfold. It was surprisingly hard to do. I crept along, feeling for each step; one of the men took me by the arm and guided me, which helped a little. He didn't say anything--of course--but I could all but feel his impatience. "This was your idea, not mine," I muttered, and stubbed my toe on something hard.

"Stairs up," the man said.

"Oh, is that what that was? Thanks for the warning," I snapped.

We reached the top of the steps and I heard a door open. From the different feel of the air around me, I guessed we'd entered a room. It smelled musty, but my feet felt much better now that we were walking on carpet.

I heard a man say, "Bring her here, Jonnis," and my blindfold was pulled off. I glanced up, squinting a little in lamplight; Jonnis was the gold-haired man.

I looked around at the small room. Sheet-shrouded furniture made me think of ghosts; a dark splotch in the patterned carpet underfoot proved the roof leaked. A big window to my left was shuttered, and the half-drawn curtains showed evidence of moths.

An abandoned house--just the place to get a girl alone. I really, really wanted to get out of there.

The man who'd spoken seemed to have disappeared, but I saw an open doorway across the room where he must have gone. Jonnis and I waited--we had shed Jonnis's buddy somewhere on our way in. I guessed he was guarding the house's entrance.

Then I heard the squeak of small wheels and an elf pushed a gurney into the room. I drew a sharp breath. Even in the meager lamplight, the young man on the gurney had clearly been on the receiving end of someone's knife. Blood had soaked into the gurney's thin mattress and into the cloth of the boy's cotton trousers.

I stepped up to the gurney. "I need more light," I said, bending over the boy. He was older than I'd first thought, maybe twenty, and he was unconscious, his black hair tangled across his face and his mouth open slightly. I saw the tips of fangs almost hidden by his lips, and the tips of pointed ears almost hidden by his hair. He was an elf-vampire cross-breed, then, called a colt.

"That's all the light we have," the elf said to me. He didn't sound sorry. "Please do your best for the boy."

I didn't really need the light. I just wanted the creepy to stop. My robe's long sleeves were already tied back to keep them out of my way, so I rested my hands on the colt's blood-smeared chest.

I didn't need to touch him to know he was badly hurt--I could see a lengthways wound across his belly that looked like he'd nearly been gutted by a sword slash. But as I spread my healing senses out within him, I realized that he hadn't been in a fight. Someone had tortured him.

I couldn't quite hide a shudder. Someone had cut the colt open--probably after warming up with all those shallower cuts on the rest of his body--and had played around inside him with something sharp. Healers aren't squeamish, but I felt a little sick at the damage.

At least I could fix him. I focused on his perforated gut first, and released a wash of energy. It flowed through my hands into the colt's body, and I directed it to the wounds in his intestines and stomach.

Healers are catalysts. We can't do anything the body can't do itself, given enough time, but we speed it all up to an enormous degree. It takes energy--lots of energy. Half my apprenticeship had been learning how to control the flow of my energies, how to augment a patient's own energies with my own, how to generate energy, how to store it and keep it back and release it only when I needed it.

The wounds in the colt's gut healed under my direction, and I turned my focus to other wounds. I healed him from the inside out, pouring my own energy into him to spare as much as I could of his. He felt exhausted to me, and as I healed him I caught unpleasant echoes of other recent injuries that had been healed by someone with less skill than me.

I had to move my hands to heal the gash in his belly. I put my hands into the wound first and pulled layers of muscles together. I finished with the skin, and did a careful job getting the edges of the wound to match up properly. The colt was handsome--colts and fillies usually are; they seem to take the best properties of both elves and vampires. It would be a real pity to mar his beauty just because I wanted to go home a few minutes sooner.

He was awake now, I was glad to see, but he wasn't looking at me. He was staring at someone behind me with a look of dread on his face.

Jonnis was behind me, I thought. I resisted the impulse to make sure. Instead I healed the smaller wounds on the colt's body.

That finished with the injuries, but he was showing signs of shock, and there was every probability that he'd end up with secondary infections where his wounds had polluted the body cavity. I should have insisted on scrubbing my own hands clean and cleaning the colt's insides before I healed him--but hells, they wouldn't even let me have a second light. I doubted my requests for sterile cotton rags and boiled water would have been any use.

"He's going to end up with complications if he's not brought to a clinic," I said. "And he needs lots of fluids, lots of rest, and keep him warm."

The elf said, "Thank you, we'll take good care of him."

I glanced up at the elf. I usually like elves--my father was an elf, and so was my father's long-suffering wife, who raised me as her own--but I didn't like this man at all. I said, "Why don't I take him back to my clinic?" My clinic was just my room in the cheap lodging house, but I had all the supplies I needed there. "I can finish his healing and you'll know he's in good shape."

Another man spoke from behind me, and it wasn't Jonnis. "That won't be necessary, thank you," he said. His voice was deep and smooth. "You've done an admirable job, but I'm sure you'd like to go home and get some sleep."

I knew that voice. Lord Byrattin. I sent a quick prayer up to any gods listening that Byrattin wouldn't recognize me. It had been ten years, but that wasn't long for a vampire. I said, "Yes, I would like to go home," and managed to keep my voice neutral.

Never show weakness in front of a vampire. They'll see you as prey.

I felt him step up close behind me. "Your blindfold, then," he said, and settled the strip of black cloth over my eyes. "I trust you understand how important it is that no one find the poor boy again."

"Yes, of course," I said. I fumbled a handkerchief out of my pocket and wiped my bloodstained hands with it while Byrattin tied the blindfold. He was careful and didn't tie it too tightly, and he tugged a few strands of hair out of the knot when he was done. He'd always been gentle with me--but he'd also killed someone I loved.

And from the smell on his hands as he caressed the side of my face, that wasn't all he'd done. His fingers were cool, recently washed; underneath the scent of expensive soap, I smelled blood. The colt's blood. I didn't have much confidence that it had gotten there innocently.

Byrattin's fingers slid over my throat and brushed the two dimpled scars there. He'd made those scars, ten years before--five months of his fangs opening the same wounds over and over, every two or three weeks. I shuddered at the touch.

"Frightened?" Byrattin said. He sounded amused. "Here is payment for your trouble."

I heard the clink of coins and my pocket felt heavier. I didn't care if he'd just given me copper pennies. I wanted away from him before he looked too closely at me.

Then, to my relief, Byrattin said, "See that she gets home safely," and someone else took my arm--Jonnis, from the faint creak of leather as he moved. I walked faster this time, trusting Jonnis to keep me from falling. I heard the door open again, and Jonnis murmured, "Steps down."

Smart guy--he'd said it before I reached the stairs this time.

I'd just felt for and taken the first step when I heard Byrattin say suddenly, "Jonnis! Bring her back!" His voice was sharp with excitement.

I jerked my arm away from Jonnis and tore off my blindfold, and bounded down the steps just ahead of him. He would have caught me except that I hit a step wrong and slid down half the stairs on my rear. I'd be bruised, but it gave me a head start. Or a tail start, I guess.

I scrambled to my feet and pelted across a tiled entryway. It was so dark here that I almost felt I still had the blindfold on. I wrenched the front door open, revealing the welcome sight of moonlight on a weedy driveway. Trees lined the drive, and behind them I saw a tall metal fence twined with ivy.

The dark-haired guard was talking to the coachman and didn't immediately see me. Jonnis shouted, "Catch her, Lim!"

I still had a short lead, but both humans were almost a foot taller than me. I hitched my robes up around my knees and ran, my bare feet slapping on the flagstone walk. Then I was in the grass next to the drive, only a stride or so ahead of Jonnis and Lim.

I made it through the open gate and to the street. I recognized where I was then--scarcely half a mile from my lodging house.

I felt Jonnis, or maybe Lim, grab at my sleeve. I leaped like a deer.

I couldn't spare breath to scream, and the street was empty except for a figure strolling away from us in the distance. Then I put my foot into a hole where a cobble should have been. I yelped as my ankle wrenched.

Lim overshot me as I fell, but Jonnis stopped in time. He grabbed me around the waist and hauled me to my feet, with one hand clapped over my mouth.

I heaved for breath, not helped by that hand. Jonnis leaned close to my ear and whispered, "Damn you, girl, he's not going to kill you. Calm down."

Easy for him to say. I jabbed my elbow into his ribs, but he didn't even flinch. Lim came trotting back to us.

"Master's got good taste," he said, looking me up and down. I kicked at him and he grinned.

"Shut up, Lim," Jonnis said. He started hauling me back the way we'd come. I resisted as much as I could, although my left ankle hurt too badly for my efforts to do much good. Jonnis's arm was like an iron band around me.

I heard footsteps approaching fast then, and heard a man shout, "Hoi! City guard--release her!"

I never thought I'd be happy to see a city guard. Jonnis stopped and half-turned to look behind us, just as the guard reached us. He had his sword out. The yellow stripes on his jerkin shone almost as brightly as his blade.

Lim drew his sword too, and pulled a dagger with his off hand. I heard three sharp clangs as the two men's swords met. Then Lim twisted around and his dagger shot out. The guard gasped. Lim pulled the dagger out of his belly; the guard fell.

Jonnis's hand muffled my scream. He jerked his body around to hide the guard from view, but not before I saw Lim kneel down to cut the man's throat. I felt the life go out of him.

I didn't resist after that. I didn't want to give Lim the excuse to hurt me or anyone else. I let Jonnis pull me back into the abandoned house--I'd passed it almost every day for the last year without really noticing it, and without realizing anyone was living there. Lord Byrattin met us at the door.

"Good. Very good, both of you." He was almost purring. "Take her to--no, I'll take her."

Jonnis made sure we were inside with the door shut, and Lim standing in front of the door, before he released me. I barely had time to sag away from him, gasping a little, when Byrattin grabbed my arm.

"How long has it been?" he said to me. "Ten years? I didn't know you were a healer--no wonder I couldn't find you." He touched my throat. "Your dealer should have taken my offer."

"He wasn't--" I bit my words back. There was no point in arguing, and I didn't want to think about Felix right now.

"He wasn't your dealer? Your lover, then." Byrattin smiled, showing his fangs. "What did you do with the money I paid him?"

I met Byrattin's dark eyes. Never show weakness, never show fear. "I bought the best healer's robes in Carafell," I said, and resisted the urge to spit at him. I didn't think it would help me.

"Glad to be of service," he said. "And now I have you anyway, without paying another penny." He shifted his grip from my arm to around my shoulders, and crushed me tight to his side. He was wearing a midnight blue robe, and its silver embroidery felt rough under my cheek. "You have no idea how important you are," he murmured.

I didn't like hearing that.

Byrattin walked me through an open doorway into an empty parlor, and across to another door. It had magical locks that he opened with a whispered word. Beyond was a bedroom, to my surprise, although the furniture looked mismatched, as though it had been carried in from other parts of the house.

Byrattin relocked the doors and let me go. I could sense the magical barriers strung across all the exits--the first door and a second that must lead deeper into the house, and two windows with their drapes closed.

There was no point trying to escape. I was a good healer, but I didn't know any magic. No magic at all.