Since Carys was fond, as ever, of keeping things to himself, Tasmin and William knew nothing of the missing woman.
It was driving Tasmin crazy, not doing anything, not being able to find new clues, so, remembering what Carys said about perhaps the spell being done outside of town, they packed their bags and headed out of town, to Dalmaca.
“Have you been to it before?”
William nodded. “A couple of times. As I said, it is a place where merchants stop along the way to the Capital. The inns are cheaper, the warehouses less damp…” He smiled at her. “And a merchant who does not try to save himself a coin or two is no merchant at all.”
She smiled a little then, “I don’t much care for the idea that Olonah and her crew are involved. They seem fairly nice, really.”
“I don’t know if the fact they decided to spend some of the winter in Dalmaca is really enough to condemn them,” William said. “After all, they pulled up stakes and came to Azin, just a little later. Perhaps they had an emergency.”
“True enough. But the troupe I traveled with would never have stayed far away from a steady income for so long. Especially one like Olonah’s. They are quite diverse, the income from private shows at parties, fortune telling, even going to taverns must be quite good. Why would they geld themselves by staying somewhere so out of the way?”
William shifted in his saddle. They had borrowed two horses from the stables. William had offered a cart, and Tasmin had rolled her eyes and assured him that she was fine. She was only slightly regretting it now. In a cart she could have wrapped herself in blankets.
“At least we also have Cherise’s sister to go and visit. It will be good, to get it all over in one trip,” Tasmin said. According to the map, Dert—what a lovely name—was only a little bit further.
“Have you convinced Magda to see if anyone knows any Pandrazzi mages?”
“Well…” She adjusted her skirt. “She said she would, but I have a feeling that if she does not wish to do something, she won’t.”
He seemed amused by this. “You don’t seem to care for her overmuch.”
“I don’t really dislike her per se, ’tis just that she’s prickly, and I am prickly enough all by myself without having someone try to out-do me.”
“I would not call you prickly.”
She smiled. “I see.”
“Of course, being that you are the woman of my dreams you are absolutely perfect in every way.”
“I am sure.”
“Flawless, patient…”
“Oh, do continue…”
“And absolutely able to tell us what we are looking for when we get to the town.”
“That,” Tasmin sighed, “I am not quite so sure of.”
The town was much as William had described it. Large buildings dominated the right, some inns, a couple of general supply stores and some other buildings squeezed in on the left. William went to the warehouses. His job was to determine if any of them had space where a spell could be laid with no one knowing or disturbing it. Fairly straightforward. His secondary job was to see if the elementalists had rented any of them.
Her job was less straightforward.
The inn she entered was not the nicest one she had ever seen, but while it looked worn, it also looked clean. A woman was scrubbing some of the tables, so Tasmin crossed over the floor, waving a little in greeting as she approached.
“Can I help you, Miss?”
“Aye, I am trying to track someone down. My sister ran away with a troupe of elementalists, and I wonder if they have been through here?”
The woman nodded. “We had a group come through. They stayed on a bit. Six of their wagon axles broke. Six. Can you believe it?”
“All at once?” Tasmin asked.
The woman nodded, drying the table and carrying both rags towards the back. “They only had enough spares to replace four, so they had to wait until they could make suitable replacements. Can you believe it? They looked for magic but didn’t find any traces.”
Tasmin followed her. “How utterly bizarre!”
The hotel worker stood in the doorway to the kitchen and tossed the rags lightly into the sink, then turned, wiping her hands on her apron. “It was. The head of them…goodness, what was her name…oh, she was fit to be tied. But we didn’t mind. People from Dert came to get tended by the leader, who seems to have some Wise Woman skills.”
“I thought they had a Wise Woman, up in Dert?”
She leaned against the door frame and shrugged. “No, not for years. Azin Shore is just far enough to be inconvenient for most folk. There’s a decent Doctor at the end of town, or wait for someone traveling through.”
“What were they like, the elementalists?” Tasmin probed.
“Nice enough group. Kept to themselves. The bard and his lady, they were a hoot. She doesn’t have any magic, but she can sing pretty. What did your sister look like?”
Tasmin described Magda for the heck of it, but the woman shrugged again. “Didn’t see her in the group. I’m sorry.”
She thought it all over. The fact that the bard’s woman didn’t have magic was vaguely interesting but not worrisome, many elementalists groups included non-mages with other talents, and often those non-mages were exceptional at sleight of hand. “Do you recall where they said they were going?”
“They headed towards Azin, I think. They stayed in the woods at the edge of town, so I don’t really know.”
“Not in a warehouse, to keep warm?”
She shook her head. “They seemed alright. Put their horses up at a local farm. Prices the warehouse owners charge, you’d run out of your life savings before the end of winter.”
Tasmin parted ways from the young woman amiably. She was the best source, and even though Tasmin had been lucky enough to get a great deal of information, she still had to work her way down the street. The woman at the general store had quite the crush on the Fire Elementalist, and so spent more time talking about his part of the act than anything Tasmin needed to hear. In the next store, the man and woman in charge plainly hated the elementalists so nothing that was said could be held as useful. Tasmin ventured into Wise Woman territory, though. “I hear that there is no Wise Woman around here. What do you do when you need one?”
“Mistress Cherise comes, sometimes.”
“Really? I heard she…” she substituted her words, noting that Cherise was too timid to travel, “I had heard that she did not much like to travel.”
“You heard wrong, Mistress!” the woman said. “She’s always going up to help out her people in Dert.”
“We see her more often than weever saw Mistress Anne. Personally, I just think Azin Shore is too small for two women like that,” her husband added.
Tasmin blinked, and said, slowly, “Like what, may I ask?”
“Headstrong. I wouldn’t get in either of their way, not for all the money in the world.”
Which, of course, didn’t sound like Cherise at all, which was exactly what she told William, when she caught up with him.
“Well, that is interesting. And completely at odds with what the other people had to say.” He looked down the street, but his eyes were distant as he considered. “We may need to go look for their campsite. I’ve been through the buildings, and the warehouses are all either too crowded, or entirely abandoned. I got into one that was abandoned on the pretext that perhaps my father might wish to buy it.” He pointed over to a warehouse in roughly the middle of the row. “’Tis not a particularly bad place. The beams seem solid, it has some nice dividers, and the roof seems sound.”
“But?” Tasmin prompted.
“Dust an inch thick. No one’s been inside it for ages. I scuffed the floor, to see if anyone had written anything on the boards, but it seems quite unlikely.”
She nodded, taking his arm. “They kept their horses at a farm. I’d wager it wasn’t far from where they camped.”
“The woods at the edge of town it is, then.”
The people who defined the elementalists’ campsite as at the “woods at the edge of town” had a poor idea of what ‘edge of town’ meant. They trudged out through the woods, seeing nothing, the ground too rough and narrow for them to ride over. They finally found a track and remounted their horses, but there was no evidence of broken ground or camp fires.
“We’re getting into cleared land,” Tasmin said after a while.
“Aye, the farm must be up ahead. Shall we go and see what they have to say?”
She followed, but she had to admit she was starting to get cold, and a bit cranky, as they approached the farm house.
“Shall we look at the barn, then?” she asked, dismounting. William slid down and gave her the reins again, and she held onto them as he walked around the farm house.
“Sealed up tight. It doesn’t look like anyone has messed with it. I thought I saw some water damage. The roof may be gone.”
Tasmin peered in as best as she could. “You are right. I see a beam hanging down, I think. Hard to tell in the gloom, though.”
“The fields don’t look as if they have been worked recently, from what I can see. A bit over grown.”
He took the reins, and they headed for the barn. “Look, do you see? Wear marks, from ropes.” He walked closer to the barn, and pointed out the marks along the beams. “The grass is well destroyed, here, and it looks as if someone hung an awning.”
They tied the horses to the railing. “The paddock looks well cropped, too.” She crossed to the barn door, eager to see what was inside.
Clearly, the elementalists had lived there. The dirt floor still showed signs of living, from where people had shoved or dragged tables and such from their vardos. She looked around. “There wouldn’t be any room for a magnifying spell. It’s just one big space, but people were living in it. Not exactly conducive to magic work, especially if they wanted to hide it.” She searched the dirt for marks, as William worked his way along the stalls.
“There’s something on the wall, here.”
Tasmin took a small note book from her reticule as she joined him. “That is strange,” she said, looking at it. It had been partly erased, made with sharp blue chalk against the aged, slightly damp wood. “I’ve never seen anything like that in our magic.” She sketched it carefully, trying to copy the exact lines and curves, making sure the spacing was right. “It looks somewhat similar to some of the symbols Magda used…”
William tilted his head, studying the symbol and her own work. “I always thought that magic was a more universal language.”
“People do,” she agreed. “But the people who created the symbols that are used in casting came from different cultures. Spoke in different languages. Pandrazzi magic is particularly hard because the empire took over so many different little countries. There is a strong undercurrent against magic there, so it’s not clearly defined.”
He nodded, and helped her over the sunken threshold of a stable. “They might be putting more of their money and effort into technology, but they are very interested in anything at all that will give them an edge.”
“True enough.” She turned slowly, looking at the space. It did not look like a comfortable place to live. While it was true that where they lived now didn’t really look much better, there was something dreary about it. Maybe it was warmer, when they were here with their fires.
They had certainly cleaned it up fairly well, which she approved of.
“We didn’t really gain much, did we?” she asked quietly.
“We know more than we did,” William reassured her. And that was about as good as they were able to make of it.
“’Tis too far to make for Dert tonight,” she said, looking at the setting sun.
He nodded. “We will stay in town the night, then head for Dert on the morrow, if that suits.”
She allowed her husband to lift her up into the saddle. “Perfectly, my love. Shall we see what kind of cuisine this fine town offers?”
With a name like Dert, it was almost impossible to have high expectations. It took much longer than expected to get there, thanks to a landslide that blocked the road. The men shoveling the dirt aside to create a path refused William’s help, so they ate their lunch and tried not to go mad from boredom. By the time Tasmin, sore and tired enough that she pretty much fell into William’s arms rather than getting off the horse with any real decorum, arrived there, all she could think of was a hot bath and a bed.
“I’ll brush them down, sir, and give them a good mash to warm them up after their travels, get them ready to go again,” the head of the stable was saying to William as Tasmin hobbled out towards the town, travel bag in hand. She stretched her shoulders carefully as she studied the town in the sunset.
“We will be staying here tonight,” William objected.
“As you say, sir,” The owner of the stable said, doubtfully.
The gloom of the oncoming snow storm did not do the town any favors. But at least we made it before the snow did. I would not want to have ridden in that nonsense. Everything about the town was clean but slightly worn. She could see where new paint was needed here, or a little repair on the woodwork on a door frame or window was needed there. The town was a little too far off the merchant route to the Capital to be prosperous, but surviving.
“Not the sight to lift one’s spirits, is it?” William said quietly to her.
“Not at all,” she agreed. “I had hoped to begin accomplishing something when we got here, but I am simply too tired. All I can think of is food, bath, bed.”
He offered his arm, and she took it gladly, leaning on it a little. “If I remember correctly there is an inn just ahead that can provide us with just that. Would you like me to take your bag?”
Tasmin shook her head. “You have your own.”
“I can carry both, I am quite sure.”
She pressed her face against his sleeve, briefly. “I can carry my own bag, sweetheart. You have enough carrying me.”
Already boys were out, taking the covers off the torches that lined the main street. After they removed the covers, they climbed up again, and lit the wide basins.
“That’s unusual,” William said as the smell of coal smoke filled the air. “I haven’t seen a street lamp that was part coal in years.”
And it was unusual. Mostly people used special stones that were heated and raked over a hot fire during the day, then added to the torch basins to provide light at night.
“They are poor, here,” Tasmin said, understanding the implication.
As they approached the inn, they saw something that had once been quite opulent. A wide stair case led to a columned porch. A dark brick face was covered in white framed windows, and someone was even now lighting candles in each one. William opened the door. The latch was unpainted iron, which made her eyes fall to the floor. Between the sides of the door frame, bisecting the floor completely, was a bar or iron. The old threshold had been ripped out, and the bar had been implanted so that no one would trip over it, but it was quite obviously a newer addition, and sloppily done.
A lady smiled at them from the hotel’s reception desk. “One moment…” she said. The wall behind the desk had pigeon holes with keys in them, and a mirror hung from a nail in the middle of them. She checked herself out in the mirror, patting her blondish-red bun, looking this way and that before turning and giving them a very genuine smile. “How may I help you?”
“How long have you been worried about Fae sickness?” Tasmin asked.
“I have no idea what you mean. Fae sickness? What is that?”
“You checked to see if we were real,” Tasmin pointed out. “That’s why you looked in the mirror. And the iron bar at the threshold, that’s to deter the Fae from coming in, right? Is there iron, then, at every window, every chimney, too? Do you leave out offerings at the town square?”
The woman blinked at her for a moment. “Do you wish a room for the night?” she said, as if she hadn’t heard Tasmin’s questions.
“Yes, please,” William said. “May we request a bath?”
Tasmin wanted to point out that this, in no way answered her questions, but William shook his head very slightly, worry pinching his eye brows as the attendant turned to fetch a pair of iron keys.
She held out her hand for payment, and studied the coins he laid in her hand a long moment before she nodded and pocketed them. “This place used to have a large hot spring, so we have a bathing room in the back, near the kitchens. Follow the red carpet. Your room is on the second floor, towards the river, the number is on the key. Make sure to lock yourself in the bathing room and in your bedroom at all times.” She leaned in and looked at Tasmin. “People have been known to disappear,” she announced in a stage whisper.
“I see,” Tasmin said archly.
“Mostly from here. Which is doubtless why the Stable Master suggested that you consider moving on once your horses are rested?”
William held up the key. “We’ve paid for the night.”
She held the coins out again, expressionless. “’Tis not like I’ve had time to spend it.”
The woman had one hand on the counter, Tasmin reached over and placed her hand on the wrist, feeling how slender it was, how fragile the bones felt, how cold the skin. “Who did you lose?”
The woman pulled away, pocketing the coins again. “Shall I have your bags taken to your room, then? Dinner is in an hour, we can have a tray made up for you if you prefer.”
“We shall take our things to the bath. No sense going up only to come back down, eh?” William shot the door a longing look. If there were anywhere else to go, Tasmin had a feeling that he would be on his way.
“You may send a tray up, if you would be so kind.” Tasmin said.
The woman inclined her head and turned away. To her retreating back, Tasmin added. “I am a Wise Woman, if you need any help.” The other woman did not seem to hear.
William and Tasmin exchanged a look. “This way, I believe she said.” He took both their bags, and followed the red carpet to the bathing room. The tarnished beauty of Dert now made sense. The place had once been an elegant place for travelers to come and immerse themselves in the hot springs. When the springs failed, they used the plumbing that was in place. The large marble pools had been blocked up with much less elegant wood and stone to create “tubs” on the shallow end, but one could fill them with the simple, delightful ease of turning a handle, so Tasmin thought they were wonderful.
William filled the time with stories of a bath house he had been able to visit a few times when he was at sea.
“And the mosaics were really made of gold and fine jewels?”
“Aye.” He said over the noise of the pipes as he reached in and tested the water. “They had guards in every room. You could leave your clothes and valuables on the benches, no one dared to even consider theft in that place.”
“Hmm. I see.” She looked at the windows to satisfy her curiosity. Yes. Bars of iron were inserted into the seal. They made a mash of it, chipping away at the marble. “This place must have been nearly as lovely.” She finished undressing, leaving her clothes folded on a chair.
The main color in the room was a veined white marble, the expanse broken with large mosaics of flowers every so often.
“Would you like me to wash your hair?” William asked.
“Would you?” She was delighted at the prospect of the treat, but not so much that she did not watch the door with half an eye. That was why she was able to catch it when the latch turned, stopped because the door was locked, and was slowly let go.
When they were in their room, fed a decent enough meal by a quiet young man who smiled shyly when they complimented the food, William wedged a chair against the door while Tasmin tested to see if both windows were locked. “Locked and nailed shut,” she whispered to him. “Iron nails, of course.”
“So what, exactly, is Fae sickness?”
“A bit like ghost sickness. People fall sick, they don’t understand why because it is not like a real sickness. No physical symptoms. They just…the person they were just shuts down and they walk around without any real life. They say the Fae kidnap them and take them away to their world, but they leave the body because they no longer need it.”
“They spoke of missing people. I wonder what sort of people are missing?”
Tasmin looked at the chair and shuddered.
“It’s wedged tight,” William assured her as he sat on the edge of the bed and took off his boots. “But I could move a dresser in front of it instead, if you like.”
She shook her head. “But I am torn between wanting to be comfortable when I sleep and ready to run.”
He hung his sword off the head board on his side. “Indeed.”
It was almost disappointing that the next dawn came with no mishap. They broke their fasts and William went left and Tasmin went right.
It took some time, to track down any information.
A seamstress who also ran an odds and ends shop was the first to give a glimmer. “Cherise and Agnes grew up with their Aunt,” the lady said, sewing on Tasmin’s cloak. The hem had been coming a bit loose, and so Tasmin borrowed William’s knife, and like magic, a repair job needed to be done. “Tragic story. Not sure I should be telling you this, I wouldn’t want to hurt Cherise’s standing.”
“I promise, you won’t. She mentioned not getting along with her sister, and I was curious. I hate to pry, but…”
Tasmin had measured the other woman right. “Well, it never hurts, and I’m just relaying what everyone knows.” She paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts, her needle moving swiftly to repair the hem. Tasmin could have repaired it almost as well, and she hated to spend the funds on something she could do easily, but it had seemed like the best idea to get information at the time. “They were a tragic family. The father left, the mother died in childbirth. The Wise Woman could only get the spell to work for one of the little girls.”
Tasmin was taken aback. “I don’t know that I ever heard of that.” It was true, she never had, and she wondered if there was a record somewhere, why the spell wouldn’t take effect. She pushed the idea aside, determined to gather everything she could.
“Oh, yes. They tried it several times, with different Wise Women. They always said that Cherise was the one, though Agnes always was certain that they were lying. Cherise’s intended lived on a farm just outside of town, so they ran into each other.”
“Jared?” Tasmin asked, hoping to add to the idea that she and Cherise were confidants and keep her going.
“Yes. Did she tell you what happened to him?”
She shook her head.
“Not a surprise. He ran away to sea, instead of marrying right away.”
“I know how that is,” Tasmin muttered.
Fortunately, the seamstress hadn’t heard. “When he came back he wasn’t really right.” She didn’t say anything else, seemed to be concentrating too much on knotting the end of the thread.
“I am sorry to hear that. Cherise seemed very fond of him.”
“She loved him. They both did. She visits him, you know, out at the farm. She was here just the other day.”
Tasmin carefully shelved that. “Do they know what happened?”
She shook her head and handed the cloak back. Tasmin, in turn, handed her a few coins. “I know she comes up and acts as Wise Woman, sometimes.”
“She does. Becoming a Wise Woman did her a world of good, I think.” She stood up. “Well, I have some other projects to attend to. Thank you for the company.”
Tasmin took her leave as suggested.
William was waiting outside. “Did you learn anything while I was spending perfectly good funds on a task I am perfectly suited to do?” she asked him.
“It was not a waste if you found out something of use,” he assured her. “I have found little save that Cherise has no living family outside her twin, except for a cousin no one wants to talk about. Her Aunt passed away a few years back,” he shrugged. “The local Magistrate is about as forthcoming as our innkeeper. I asked him about the disappearances she mentioned, he made out as if it were idle talk.”
“Perhaps Master Carys can get more out of him?”
William nodded. “If he wants to. I shall ask.”
They stood together for a moment, observing the odd town. Finally, Tasmin broke the silence. “I would like to visit a farm at the edge of town. Do you think this farm will be any closer to the actual edge of town than the last one we visited, or should we pack a week’s rations?”
“It was not that bad. We didn’t starve to death, after all. Now, fill me in on what else you learned.”
Dert’s idea of where the edge of town lay was much more accurate than Dalmaca’s, but then it’s possible that was because the farm in question was not that large. It was quiet. A vacant-eyed man was listlessly sweeping the porch as a woman, thin and tall, came out to meet them.
“Can I help you?” she asked in a soft, deep voice at odds with her frame.
“We’re looking for Cherise. Have you seen her? We’re told that she came to visit your son, but she had not returned to her home.”
Tasmin was studied by the vacant-eyed man, the woman gave him a little push and he turned in another direction, sweeping as he went.
“She’s not here.” She tipped her chin up, as if daring them to say anything else.
“Thank you,” William said. “We are sorry that we troubled you.” William gently took Tasmin’s elbow, and she took the hint, dissatisfied.
When they were a decent distance away, she asked, “Are you sure we couldn’t get anything else out of her?”
“I think we got what we needed.” He did not look happy.
“Pray do not keep me is suspense.”
“I am thinking. When you are at sea, you hear all sorts of things. It is, outside of running the ship, all you have to do, really, talk. Play games, read if you can, and talk. When you are at port, you gather more things to talk about. You don’t know what is truth or what has been blown out of proportion for the sake of something to talk about.”
“Alright,” Tasmin encouraged.
“Sometimes, if a ghost storm is sent away soon enough, people survive. Some of them survive completely, others, well, it’s as if the soul was sucked right out of them, but the body remained alive.”
Tasmin stumbled, William steadied her. “You are saying that he’s ghost-sick.”
William nodded, once.
“Oh dear. But, that said, how was the ghost storm chased away?”
“The Pandrazzi, apparently. If they encounter it, they do something to counter it. It is never really known what, just that if you see a ghost storm and a Pandrazzi vessel, you don’t attack. And it is also known that they will help anyone if they are in the clutches of the storm, let them go on their way instead of attacking.”
“That is uncommonly kind of them, considering the Pandrazzi reputation.”
He was looking up at the sky, considering.
“Do you think there is enough light to get us home?” she asked.
“No, but there is enough for a good start.”