Charm School

“Lady, do not enter that door.”

Brigid, returning from a long, tiring night of study in the library, stopped her hand from raising the latch to her door and looked down at the speaker, a tan and salmon striped cat who stood several feet down the corridor. “And why not?” she replied.

“A lady and her pack who have no love for cats set sorcery within.”

Brigid closed her eyes and extended her perception into the room, finding nothing. She said so to the cat.

“They have spelled it against your knowing, but not to a cat’s, and this one smells sorcery of a dark intent.”

“Do you, now: do all cats smell sorcery as you do?”

The cat merely looked at Brigid quizzically, as if to say “You didn’t know?”

At that Brigid crouched to the floor and began the process of shifting her shape and size into her favored shape of a sleek black cat. When she had finished, she sniffed at the door. Sure enough, there was a strange, electric smell coming from the door that had the tang of Soraya’s magick, overlaid with something else faintly but unpleasantly familiar. It seemed to be coming from a point just above the doorway, directly inside the room.

“How typically unimaginative: the sorcerous equivalent of a bucket over the doorway,” muttered Brigid to herself as she resumed her human form.

Brigid reached into a pocket and flipped the cat a treat. “My thanks, cat-friend: whom shall I say helped me, when I speak of this to the Lord of Cats in this place?”

“Tell her Lightfoot was pleased to aid the Lady of the Kindly Ones when she could not herself.” With that, the cat turned gracefully and stalked silently down the corridor into the darkness. Brigid grinned in dismay at the cat’s directness and chutzpah.

Brigid walked to the end of the corridor, where she opened the windows and leaned out. She could feel the warm breeze from the desert in her face, and grinned and nodded to herself. Stepping up on the windowsill, she stretched her arms out wide, breathed deeply, then began the longer process of assuming a less familiar shape, but one she could imagine very easily, a draconian form she had been experimenting with.

Her body shrunk slightly, and webs of skin grew down from her arms. When she had finished, she pushed off from the window, catching the thermals from the desert sands under her wings and using it to glide aloft. Just for pleasure, she took a few turns around the castle, startling a few astronomers observing the heavens atop a high tower, before she arrived outside the window of her room. Catching the bottom of the window with her clawed feet, she slipped a long fingernail through the crack in the center of the window and slid the latch open, grinning in remembrance at her old mentor’s lessons in security systems. Throwing the windows open wide, she leapt inside over her desk to stand in the center of the room.

It was the work of only a few moments to restore her shape again: her stomach growled at the expense that two shiftings in such a short time had cost her, and she was seriously tempted to raid the kitchen even at this time of night, but resigned herself to waiting until morning, as the kitchen staff were not used to such hearty appetites as an Amberite coming at all hours, and that of a shapeshifter on top of that, and certainly would not be prepared as the cooks of Castle Amber would be.

Instead, she glanced up above the doorway. The sorcery was still invisible to her mind, but now she could see a large, irregular, smelly brown mass hanging in mid air. She shook her head ruefully, and wondered what to do with it. She assumed it was bound to the door, and would fall on anyone who opened it and walked in.

She pondered the situation for a long moment, but she was interrupted by a knock at her door and the worried voice of Star, who said “Brigid? Are you all right? L’shaya saw something enter your room through the window. Brigid?” The latch raised and the door began to open.

Brigid leaped across the room, touching her armband as she did so, and intercepted the smelly brown mass as it plummeted down on top of Star. The two fell into a jumble just inside the door.

L’shaya, standing just behind Star, wrinkled her nose at the smell. Star held her noise in obvious disgust and looked at the mess streaming down from Brigid’s head and shoulders, then began laughing. Brigid gazed at Star in shock, then realized that she must certainly be ridiculous-looking, and began laughing, too.

Star started to help Brigid up, but Brigid waved her aside and stood on her own. The mess was beginning to drip onto the stone floor, and Star and L’shaya watched in amazement as Brigid calmly wiped the rest from her face and hair, leaving nothing behind. Seeing their wondering expressions, Brigid touched her finger to her chest. “A wardspell, very strong: very little can touch me when I don’t want it to.

“Now, as for that,” she continued,

L’shaya moved forward and said simply “Please.” Brigid stepped aside, glancing in curiosity towards her. L’shaya breathed between her clasped hands, then spread them downwards to the floor. The sweet scent of pine rose in the room, and the mess gradually disappeared, until the floor was spotlessly clean and the air cleansed of the smell.

“One of the first spells a healer learns is one to cleanse the area,” said Star absently in explanation. “L’shaya’s certainly used that for me, many a time.”

“Well, I’m certainly glad she used it on my behalf,” replied Brigid.

L’shaya looked back frankly. “You protected Star,” she said. She held her hand up, palm out. “We share a bond, now.”

Brigid met L’shaya’s hand, palm to palm. “A bond, indeed. And, my thanks.”

Share
The short URL of the present article is: http://www.terryobrien.me/Byy39

Page 4 of 9
First | Prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Next | Last
View All