Eric Flint - This Rough Magic

Let there be water, cool and clean and refreshing as the water in the temple had been that first time she'd gone to pray for Umberto. Water, oh blessed Jesu, let there, of all things, be water!

She felt the power answer to her will; where it came from she did not know, but she launched it as she had launched a thousand rocks at the enemy, as she had launched herself into this voyage, as she had launched Alessia into life-

By the hotness of her anger at wrongness of all this, by the love she held for all of them, let them BE.

And… they were.

The earth-smell, that had been so strange to her when she first came to the forest, tickled her nose with its lush scent. Sunlight welled around the dead stick, coming from everywhere and nowhere. And there was a mist, curling, lush with water, around the remains of the last bride's tree. And suddenly, the hall seemed very small to contain such richness.

He actually laughed. "I'm grateful you left me some hall! Come, let us plant this tree, and see to your need."

They walked forward into the sunlight, off the cold flags and onto the loamy earth. Using their free hands they dug a hole into it, and then put the seedling into the soil. The rootlets actually started reaching through their fingers and pushed hungrily into the earth. It was growing, growing even as they formed the soil around it.

"It will be the finest tree I have had here in many millennia." There was respect there; interest, too. Still holding her hand, he turned to point earthy fingers at the shadows. The yellow dog was howling there. "Let us see what happens with the half-jackal first-the cursed one. In a way it is protected from me. It cannot die."

In the shadows Maria saw the creature now for what it was: No dog. One removed from the dog-line. A cross between gray wolf and golden jackal, a howling half-domesticated creature from the wet northern forests that could have been the father of humankind's four-footed loyal companion.

Could have been. It had once fawned and guarded, and pretended loyalty. And when the man and the woman had left it to guard their most precious thing, it had eaten the child. The one they had trusted was cursed, cursed to live until it had been forgiven for the betrayal that was now long forgotten by men. But the memory and the shame were with all dogs-whose ancestors were cousins to it-and man's other ally, the horse, forever. The hyena they would hunt and hurt as often as possible. They could hurt it, even if they couldn't kill it.

There was also a shadowy person in there. Someone who had taken the cursed creature's name. The shaman had taken the form and with it the curse. He thought not being able to die a good thing, and cared nothing for the rest.

"How do we deal with it?"

The lord of the dead shrugged. "We protect your babe, and that is all we need do, for now. The great Goddess is dealing with it already, as She does with all those who work magics here. This is the place of the great Goddess. You know what the earth of Corfu does to foreign magic. The greater the magic-the faster it will draw that power. The creature relies on magic for its being. It would have been dead millennia ago if nature were to have run its course. The magics it uses now would kill it-were it not unkillable for magical reasons. The more it does, the more the earth of Corfu will draw that power that sustains it."

She understood now. The Goddess was absorbing anything worth having from the creature, and the longer it remained, the more She would take. Even the curse that kept it alive would be affected.

It was diminishing itself.

Still-this was that passive defense again, and that was not enough. "Surely there is something I can do," she said, feeling her anger welling again.

The God shrugged, very much amused. "You are She. And my power is yours. Take it up, my bride."

And she did.

The shaman paused, as a wave of weakness came over him. Just a few more lines and Jagiellon himself would arrive here. He could rest then. He started to scratch symbols again. He shook himself, trying to focus his tired old eyes.

And then it came to him. He did not ever feel tired. Not in this body. And as for the ill-effects of age… the curse that had been laid on the yellow wolf-jackal had stopped the creature knowing those.

At last the shaman understood the nature of Mindaug's trap, and Mindaug's treachery. The shimmering half-materialized form of the master felt it too. Now the shaman knew why he had found the stink of magic everywhere. This place was a fertility temple. A mumi-place. The whole damned island was that. And the shaman, who was old past the reckoning of most men, knew that new life was a cyclic thing. It needed death. Life and death were one big wheel. The very soil here was sucking him dry, rotting him away like decomposing leaves in winter, to fuel new birth. The more magic he used in trying to fight it, the faster it was happening. It was swallowing him, and it would have swallowed the master… because their own magic was the fuel used.

A trap! He could sense his master's shriek, and his own thoughts shrieked in answer. All of it-a trap. Laid by the traitor Mindaug to supplant Jagiellon, working with his ally the Hungarian witch-countess.

But Chernobog had not yet fully materialized. The demon could still-barely-withdraw from the closing jaws. The shaman felt him fading away, leaving his servant behind. Behind, and alone, and sucked nearly dry of magic.

The arthritic, near-toothless, rheumy old wolf-jackal dragged and swayed his way to the cave mouth. It was a long way down, and the sight of the hagfish had brought people, and knights in armor and on horseback.

The wolf-jackal didn't care. Even pain was better than death. By the time it had dragged itself to the water, hounded over the wall and attacked afresh by the Croat horses, it was yowling and shrieking with agony.

The curse assured that the wolf-jackal wouldn't die, although the pain was not ameliorated. The magic of Corfu meant that each time his body repaired itself he was closer to the real death. Every spell, every twist of enchantment he controlled was drawing it out of him. He abandoned what magics he could. The shaman knew Jagiellon would not help. He must have suffered too, and wouldn't dare use magic to help the shaman.

Falling into the water and assuming the shape of the hagfish kept the shaman alive, but did nothing for the pain. And it was not the great beast it had been, oh no-it was a little, little thing, a wraith of the monster it had been, struggling feebly toward the deeper water-

– and two hawks hit the hagfish in the shallows, gouging at it beak and claw in their new-freed fury. Had they been creatures of the earth, not sky, the island of Corfu would have freed them long ago.

They were goshawks, torn from their native forests, forced to fly over water, stranded here. Their fury knew no bounds.

But behind that fury was Another, who lent speed to their wings and strength to their talons and beaks and when the shaman tried to strike them, knocked it back into the water, yet would not let it escape. The hawks savaged the hagfish with rage-the rage of goshawks protecting their young, for that Other told them, deep in their half-made hearts, that this thing-this outrage-had menaced young, had eaten young. They were going to avenge every young thing it had ever taken in its long, long life.

And so they did, as the Other hauled it back from the depths and protected them from its ever-more-feeble assaults. They tore at it and tore at it, until there was nothing left to tear. Nothing, but blood slicking the water like oil, and shreds of flesh, and the taste of its vileness in their mouths.

Then, that Other gave them some strength as their own began to fail. Lifted them, lofted them back to the land. And showed them a place-forest. Not like theirs, but like enough. And it soothed them with the promise of game to hunt and sweet water to drink and no one to disturb them, ever again.