Mercedes Lackey - This Rough Magic

It was said that a goshawk with a threatened nest would attack anything short of an elephant. Mindaug had the distinct impression that these two would not hesitate at the elephant, with or without a nest under threat. Most birds of prey killed only enough to feed on; goshawks and their kin sometimes went into killing frenzies if the opportunity presented itself. Mindaug sensed that this pair would create the opportunity if one didn't already exist.

"Feel them, master. Feel them with your power."

Jagiellon looked hard at the birds. "Hmm. It is there. But very, very light. Just a hold."

"Just their names, master. But I can see through their eyes."

Jagiellon turned to the count. "You served me well with this one, Mindaug. I am pleased."

The Count bowed, his fingernails digging into his palms. The shaman was a very valuable tool to give up to his master. But the Count had one thing that the Grand Duke did not have.

He had the shaman's own name of power.

Mindaug wasn't too sure how he'd use that, yet. But treachery was, after all, the core value of his world. His researches into magical creatures had stretched a wide net away from the Polish-Lithuanian power base that was his master's realm. He'd looked far, far back. What he'd found was this old one. The shaman was not entirely human any more himself.

But then, in the Ionian islands was something far, far older; quiescent, but far from dead. Jagiellon knew it had been a powerful place once, but actually he knew very little that was verifiable about the island once referred to as Nausicaa, an island which was settled before Etruscans came to the Venetian lagoon. Mindaug wondered if this was, at long last, the moment that the Grand Duke had overreached himself.

It was bitterly cold down here in the water chapel below St. Raphaella. Marco felt it, even through the thick coat and fur collar. Brother Mascoli still wore his simple light-colored habit. The fringe of gray hair about his ears was, if anything, thinner than it had been when Marco first met him. Old people were usually touched more by the cold than the young, but the priest's faith seemed to keep him warm.

Warmer than Marco, anyway. He shivered.

"You are afraid, Marco," said the Hypatian Sibling gently. "Don't be. God's will is God's will."

"I know. But I still question the rightness of what I am doing. I do it for someone I love especially and dearly. This is not just a deed done out of love for my fellow man, or to serve a greater cause." Marco shook his head. "Kat and her grandfather must have been praying for the return of her father for years, and if it is God's will that he not return, so be it. All I want to do is find out where he is. If at least they knew what had happened to him, and where he is—or was—it might give them . . . not comfort, exactly, but . . ."

He groped after the concept that he wanted, but he might have known that a Sibling would know very well what he was getting at.

"I understand," Brother Mascoli said, soothingly. "Remember, Marco, there is nothing un Christian about asking creatures that are not human for their help, just as it is not unChristian to help them when they come to us for healing." He smiled. "Of course, no evil creature would ever approach us for help; their very natures would prevent them coming anywhere near here. And since you helped to heal one undine, all of the unhuman creatures are kindly inclined to you."

Mascoli put a hand on Marco's shoulder. "If a stranger had asked this of you, you would have tried?"

Marco nodded.

Mascoli smiled. "It is not right to deny the same help to those one loves dearly. That, too, would be a sin. He who judges these things knows the intents of the innermost heart, and He is not fooled by the shallow and their pretences. In the presence of men it may sometimes be wise not to show favor to an especially loved one. In the presence of God . . . well, He knows already. And since He is Love incarnate, He will always look kindly upon a deed done out of unselfish love."

It didn't seem quite so cold down here any more. Marco took a deep breath, and began to ask the blessing of the four great archangels.

The warded corners glowed. Heaven would forfend any attempt to venture evil here. Remembering Brother Mascoli's instructions, he intoned, "In nomine Patri, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, fiat pace."

Standing now within the veil of light lying weightlessly on the chapel walls, Marco dipped the wine cup into the cold, murky canal water. Discipline and concentration were called for, here. Marco held the wine cup until the water was mirror-still.

He began scrying, building up an image in his mind, calling by their true names, the triton Androcles and his mate Althea.

The images and response came quickly. Wait. We come .

An image of winter waves curling and foam-lines danced across the wine cup . . .

* * *

And a brief moment of a circular suckerlike mouth full of long needle-sharp teeth. And a terrible roaring.

The wards flared to an incandescent brightness, briefly, and there was a sense that something had impacted against them. Hard.

The tall candles were now merely burning wicks in a dripping pool of wax.

Marco nearly dropped the wine cup. He turned to Brother Mascoli. "What happened?" he asked, afraid and angry at the same time. "What was that ?"

The Hypatian Sibling was already kneeling, ignoring the fact that the stones were wet. "Join me," he said hastily. "We need to strengthen the wards. Now."

One thing Marco had learned: when a magician said "now" in that tone of voice, it was no time to ask questions.

"What happened? Are Androcles and Althea all right?" Marco asked as soon as Brother Mascoli had finished leading the invocation. Marco's heart was in his mouth.

"Describe exactly what you saw," the Sibling said, his usual calm considerably thinner.

Marco did.

Brother Mascoli nodded. "Yes." He let out a gusty sigh. "In my opinion, your merfolk are probably all right. In fact, they're probably completely unaware that anything happened. They were not the target of what you encountered."

He blinked. "They weren't?"

Brother Mascoli shook his head, and looked very grave indeed. "It is clear to me, Marco, that we need to work on your focus, and your defenses. You are very vulnerable when you are scrying like that, and I fear that this time only your bond with the Lion saved you. Part of you was outside the wards—and your ability stretches the window of vision. It is rare that one person can do that sort of scrying alone and unaided. As a consequence, you can see much more than, say, I can. Unfortunately, it also means you are then visible to anything lurking, waiting for the sign of your magic. You are at your most vulnerable under such circumstances."

"And something attacked me."

The information that he, and not the merfolk, had been the object of an attack made him feel a moment of relief. At least he had not been the cause of two innocents getting in harm's way.

Brother Mascoli made the sign of the cross. "Something is definitely out there," he said quietly. "Something that dares not venture within the ancient boundaries of our current Venice, but knows what Marco Valdosta's mage-work feels like. Something that is so evil that the wards were called on to guard your very soul."

Marco's relief evaporated, and he felt as if he had been doused in iced water. And now that he came to think about it . . .

There'd been something very recognizable about that image, a feeling that he'd met it when they'd fought Chernobog's minions. He could almost taste the magic, foul beyond measure and polluted, yet with an edge of seductive sweetness—seductive, at least, if you were not aware that it was the sweetness of corruption.