Robert Asprin: The Dead of Winter

"And food for Snapper, too, Mistress? Nice food-red, still twitching?" The fiend clutched at the air and smacked his narrow lips, his eyes glazing.

Gilla watched him and shuddered, reminding herself not to trust his apparent affability.

"Snapper, be still!" Roxane flickered her fingers casually and the fiend froze, watching her with rolling eyes.

"Great One, please let me go home," Gilla whispered, bowing her head to keep Roxane from seeing her eyes.

"Oh, you don't want to go home," Roxane smiled prettily. "Your home is going to become very damp and uncomfortable very soon. Believe me, Ilsig sow, you will be much safer here with me. Do you hear the rain?" She paused a moment and Gilla heard its soft, steady patter outside.

"You'll hear more rain soon. But don't worry, my wards will keep the water away from here-the rest of Sanctuary is not going to be so fortunate. Water is coming. A great deal of water is coming!" Roxane lifted her arms with a ripple of silken sleeves. "Oh, they will be sorry, when the flood sweeps their fine temples and palaces away! I will bring the great waters down from the north in such a deluge as this place has never seen!"

Gilla grew very still. If there was a flood her children would be in danger. She had to think of a way out of here! But she had always done her best thinking when she was working; her gaze fell on the broom that had come with her through the void.

"If I am to stay, Mistress, then let me keep busy working for you." She tried to simulate humility. It did not sound convincing to her, but she suspected that the Nisibisi sorceress had spent too much time studying men and other beings to know much about how her own sex behaved.

"I'm a very good worker," Gilla went on. "Would you like me to clean?"

Roxane giggled. "Housecleaning? Oh yes-I with my waters and you with your broom will clean up Sanctuary!" Still laughing, she nodded to Snapper Jo. "You let her clean then, do you understand?" Bright skirts swirled as she turned, and she was gone as swiftly as she had come.

For a long moment Gilla stood utterly still. Then she seized the broom that was all she had left of home and began to sweep furiously.

And Roxane, in her witching room, set her Nisibisi Globe of Power spinning in the air before her so that the jewels inset into its High Peaks' clay gathered up the light from the candles that circled her and sent it shimmering into the bowl of water on the stand below.

Through air and water she drew the secret sigils; inhaled deeply the incense that smouldered in the corners of the room and breathed the charged air into the water until it steamed. Then she began to whisper in a language that no one in Sanctuary except Niko or Randal would have recognized.

The light grew aquaeous and dim; the voice of the sorceress deepened. The Globe that spun before her focused her awareness, heightened and transformed it and channeled it into that plane of the Otherworld where the Water Demons had their home. By their secret names she compelled them, and the water in her silver basin misted away.

But over the plains north of Sanctuary great cumulus clouds began to move, at first reluctantly, and then more swiftly, as if they sensed the waiting sea. And when they met the warmer air of the seacoast they released their heavy loads of rain, and the voice of the White Foal River began to change.

"Look-there are laws that govern magic," repeated Randal. "If you understand them you have control. Visualize! You know how to do that, surely-when you plan a picture don't you see it in your mind before you even take the brush in your hand? Use symbols, whatever you need to focus your consciousness on the part of the Otherworld you're working with, and then do your magic!"

Lalo nodded. He could almost see the sense of it, but it was so hard to concentrate when wind rattled the window-frames and rain beat against the slubbed glass. It had been raining hard since the afternoon before.

"If you visualize a shield around you that only lets . specific things out, or in, then you can control what you paint, right?" the Tysian mage went on. He sat back and looked at Lalo expectantly.

The limner nodded. "I think I understand. I don't know if I can do it, but I appreciate your effort to teach me. Worry makes me a poor student. When are we going against Roxane?"

"We're not ready yet-you're not ready. Limner, she would swat you like a fly! Even I-" He broke off, and Lalo was just beginning to wonder if even the mage feared this sorceress, when a heavy tread shook the tower stairs. The door crashed open and they saw Straton, the Stepsons' commander, standing there.

"Vashanka's rod, man, here you are, Randal! You've led me hell's own chase, that's for sure!" Somehow he managed to look even more formidable than usual with his hair plastered to his skull and water from wet steel and soggy leather pooling on the floor.

"Trouble?" The mage stood up, freckles suddenly dark against his pallor.

Straton spat. "Do you use those flapping ears of yours just for balance, or what? Can't you hear the rain? The river's overflowed into the Swamp of Night Secrets, and the whole southeastern promontory will be flooded soon. There's reports that the upper ford is turning into a lake and Goat Creek is over its banks already.

"The Beysa's sticking-hell, her apartments are on the second floor-but rest of the Fish-folk are heading for their ships in schools! There's nothing much we can do about the barracks or Downwind, but if we don't act fast we'll lose the main town too. I've set all the men I've got to building dykes above the bridge, but I need more!"

"Can anyone get a message to Zip?" asked Randal swiftly. "Tell him if we channel the flood maybe it'll sweep the Fish-eyes out to sea-that should persuade him! Use the same argument on Jubal."

Straton's mouth opened as if he were going to object, then it slowly closed again. For a moment he almost smiled. "It would solve a few problems," he said wistfully. Then he shook himself and glared at the mage.

"Fine! I appreciate the advice! But what I want from you, Witchy-Ears, is some wizard's work. You get yourself and your spells out there and do something about those clouds!"

Randal raised one eyebrow. "I will if I can. You know I'm not allowed to alter the balances if this is a natural storm."

"And if it isn't? Have you considered that possibility?"

The mage was still frowning as Straton turned and clattered back down the stairs. He sighed and grasped the knob of the balcony door.

Just a touch on the handle was enough to release it. The door banged back against the wall and a gust of damp wind swirled papers around the room. Ignoring the upset, Randal stepped outside and Lalo followed him.

The wind was coming from the northeast. Ranked banks of cloud rolled steadily seaward as if pushed by inexorable hands. Randal closed his eyes and faced into the wind, then murmured something and traced a Sign upon the air. Lalo shifted focus as the mage had taught him and glimpsed lines of violet fire that wavered a moment and then were torn apart by the wind. Then his vision was sucked upward into the clouds themselves, and he saw as he had Seen in the country of the gods.

Something moved there with, but not of, the clouds- shapes that were subtly wrong, spirits that took a malicious pleasure in manipulating the elements. Oblivious to his presence, they played-it would have taken a more compelling personality than Lalo's to disturb them. But were they demonic? Lalo had never seen storm elementals before. He knew only that he did not like these.

With a wrench, Lalo pulled back into his normal perceptions-Randal's training had done this much for him-and looked quickly at the mage. Randal's eyes were still closed, his face set in a snarl; his hands moved, but it was clear that whatever he was doing was not enough. After a few moments he, also, shuddered and sagged back.