Jessamine felt her mother's magic pulse through the wild growth. An earth-witch's touches stayed with the plot of land. Mother would not have minded that an orange-flowered trumpet vine strangled her garden or that wild grass grew where she had tended her strawberries.
The thought that her mother's body could still be there, hidden in the green growth, came suddenly. She caught her breath, eyes darting for a glimpse of white bone amidst the wilding strawberries. But there was nothing left of her mother save the roses and the cherry tree. Scavengers had long since picked apart the bones. Twelve years was a long time this close to the forest.
"What happened here, Jessa?"
She jumped, startled, and turned. Gregoor leaned against a soft green mound that had once been a part of the kitchen. "I'm sorry, my thoughts were elsewhere."
He snorted. "I could see that." He gestured, arms wide. "What destroyed this place?"
"Old age, an act of the gods."
He frowned and crossed arms tight over his chest. "Are you going to tell me the story behind this place or not? You drag me out to the wilderness. Tell me nothing. You accept a job without consulting me and then tell me I don't have to come along." He pushed a hand through his short brown hair. "Jessa, we've been swordmates for a year. Don't I deserve some type of explanation?"
She smiled at that and walked over to stand against the leaf-covered wall, beside him. Her hazel eyes looked at a place somewhere over his head, while her strong, small hands stroked his hair. "In Zairde there are no peasants, only the poor. We were poor, but I didn't know that as a child. We had food, shelter, toys, love. I did not think we were poor, but we were not rich. My mother was the village earth-witch. She never used her magic for personal gain or to harm, unless attacked. Even then she was squeamish of the kill. She wouldn't understand my entombing people in living rock."
"You've only done so twice, and both times it saved our lives."
She smiled down at him. "Yes, there is that. But I stand here with my mother's magic still strong in the earth and I shield myself."
"Why?"
"I'm afraid, Gregoor." The summer wind stirred her dark hair. "I promised my mother I would never use my power for evil. I have broken that promise many times."
"You're afraid her disapproving ghost will haunt you."
"Yes."
"Jessa." He hugged her to him. "Please tell me what happened here."
"One day an old sorcerer and his son came to spend the night. I had never seen a truly old sorcerer, for they can live a thousand years. But this one was old. His son was young and strong and handsome; the village girls watched him out the corners of their eyes. During the night the old sorcerer died." Jessamine's hands stopped moving. She stood absolutely still. "The son accused us of poisoning his father. He destroyed our village with fire and lightning, storm and earthquake. My father and my brothers were all killed. When it was over, only my mother and I crawled away."
Jessa took a deep, shaky breath. "My mother, as the village earth-witch, took our grievance to the Zairdian courts. They did nothing. Two days after they declared the sorcerer's son innocent of wrongdoing, an assassin killed my mother." She looked down at him, meeting his eyes.
His brown eyes were wide, astonished, pain-filled. "Jessa."
She placed fingertips over his lips. "It was a very long time ago, Gregoor. A very long time ago."
He gripped her hand. "What happened to the sorcerer who destroyed this village?"
"He died." She smiled down at him. It was a smile he had seen before--a slow, tight spreading of lips that filled her eyes with a dark light. He called it her killing smile. "He was the first wizard I ever killed."
"And that is why we specialize in assassinating wizards?"
"That is why I do. I do not know why you do it."
He stood eye to eye, no taller, no shorter than she. "I do it because you do it."
"Ah," she said and gave him what no one else had received from her in twelve years--a smile full of love.
"You took this job so you could come home, then?"
"I took this job because the sorcerer I slew had a mother, as I had a mother. It seems she has gone mad. The entire province wants her dead. The sorceress is Cytherea of Cheladon."
"You have sent us to kill Cytherea the Mad, Jessa..."
She stopped him with a gesture. "She seeks her son's killer, Gregoor, and has killed hundreds seeking me. I think it is time she found me."
THEY came to the first town at dusk. A gibbet had been erected in front of the town gates. Three corpses dangled from it, moving gently in the summer wind. They had been hung up by their wrists, and there was no mark of ordinary violence upon them. No hangman's knot, no knife, no axe had killed the three.
Gregoor hissed, "Mother Peace preserve us. I have never seen anything like that."
Jessa could only nod. The corpses, one man and two women, had been drained of life, magic of the blackest sort. The flesh was a leathered brown, like dried apples. Their eyes had shriveled in their heads. They were brown skeletons. The women's hair floated around their faces that were cracked with horror, mouths agape in one last silent scream.
Jessa shook her head: that was nonsense. The dead did not retain the last look of horror. The jaws had simply broken and gaped open, nothing more.
"Come, Gregoor, let us get inside."
He was still gazing at the dead. "This is Cytherea's work?"
"Yes."
"And you have set us the task of killing her?"
"It would seem so."
Gregoor pushed his horse against hers and grabbed her arm. "Jessa, I am not a coward, but this...Cytherea drained their lives like you or I would squeeze an orange dry."
Jessa stared at him until he loosened her arm. "We have killed sorceresses before."
"None that could do this."
Jessa nodded. "She took their lives when she took their magic, Gregoor."
He caught his breath. "I am only an herb-witch. I can't tell. Did she steal their souls?"
Jessa shivered. Though she shielded her magic, protected herself, she could still feel the answer. She understood now why she had thought the corpses were screaming silently. "No. Their souls are still there, trapped in their bodies."
"Verm take that pale bitch."
Jessa nodded. "That is the plan, Gregoor, that is the plan."
They were challenged at the town gates. A woman called down, "What do you want here, soldiers?"
Jessa answered. "A room for the night, food if you have it to spare, and stabling for the horses."
"Don't you know that you ride into a town that is cursed?"
Jessa kept the surprise from her face. "Cursed? What do you mean?"
The woman gave a rude snort of bitter laughter. "Did you not see the gibbet and its burden?"
"I saw three corpses."
"They are the mark of our curse. You would do better to ride on, soldiers."
Jessa licked her lips and eased back to speak with Gregoor. "I don't feel a curse, except on the corpses, but I am shielding myself."
He looked surprised. "You've been wasting energy shielding yourself, for how long?"
"Since we entered the edge of Cytherea's blight."
"Blight. What are you talking about?"
It was her turn to be surprised. "Look around you. Look at the plants."
The summer trees hung with limp black leaves. The grass was winter dead at the side of the road, crumbling and brown. It was utterly silent.
"Where are the little birds, the brownkins? There are always brownkins."
"Not here, not anymore." Jessa wanted to ask him how he had not noticed, but she knew the answer. He was an herb-witch, a maker of potions; his magic was a thing of incantations and ritual. Her magic was tied to the earth and what sprang from it. This desolation wounded her in a very private way. This was blasphemy. And Gregoor had seen nothing in the summer twilight.
"If you will distract the guard, I will spy out the curse, and see if
it is safe to enter."
He nodded. "They might not be happy to see more spell casters after Cytherea."
"Yes, I would rather not be advertised as an earth-witch."
He rode over to the gate. "What has happened to your land?"
Jessa turned inward and did not hear the rest. She listened to the rhythm of her own body, blood flowing, heart pumping, breathing, pulsing. She came to the silence deep in her own body where everything was still. Jessa released her shield and swayed in her saddle. It took all she had not to cry out. The land wailed around her. Death. The land was wounded, dying. It was not just the witches on their scaffold that Cytherea had drained, but the earth itself. She had taken some of the life-force of the summer land. It would not recover. The town was doomed. It could not survive where no crops would grow. There were no brownkins because the birds had fled this place; everything that could had fled this place. Everything but the people. And they would leave soon enough. When autumn came and there were no crops, they would leave.
The destruction was so complete that it masked everything else. Jessa was forced to turn the horse so she could look at the town, concentrate on it, and see if it was indeed cursed. Her eyes passed the corpses and three sparks of life fluttered in the corpses, bright and clean. The souls wavered and struggled. Jessa turned away and stared at the walled town.
She stretched her magic outward, no longer flinching from the earth-death around her. The town was just a town. There was no curse. A curse would be redundant after what Cytherea had done to the land.
Jessa rode up beside Gregoor. She whispered, "There is no curse on the town. We can enter safely."
The guardswoman called down, "What was your lady friend doing so long?"
Jessa answered, "I was praying."
The woman was silent a moment. "Prayers are a good thing. Enter, strangers, and be welcome to what is left of Titos."
There was one small tavern in the town, and they were the only strangers. The windows were shuttered, though the summer night was mild. An elderly woman muttered in her sleep, dreaming before an unnecessary fire. Jessa wondered if they thought fire and light would keep out the evil, like a child crying in the night. The place stank of stale beer and the sweat of fear. The tavernkeeper himself came to take their orders. He was a large beefy man, but his eyes were red-rimmed as if from tears.
The tavern sign had said simply, "Esteban's Tavern." Jessa took a chance. "You are Esteban?"
He looked at her, eyes not quite focused, as if he were only half-listening. "Yes, I am he. Do you wish to eat?"
"Yes. But more than food we would like information."
She had his attention now. His dark eyes stared at her, full of anger, and a fine and burning hatred, like the sun burning through glass. "What kind of information?"
Gregoor brushed her hand, a warning not to press this man. But Jessa felt a magic in the room, untapped but there. It was not coming from the tavernkeeper. "A gibbet stands outside your town gates. How did it come to be there?"
Large hands knotted the rag he had stuck in his belt. His voice was a dark whisper. "Get out."
"Excuse me, tavernkeep, I meant no offense, but such a sight is uncommon."
"Get...out." He looked up at her as he spoke and there was death in his eyes, death born of grief.
Jessa knew about such grief and how it ate you from the inside out until there was nothing left until you died or satisfied your vengeance. She spoke, low and clear, "Where is your wife, tavernkeep?"
He threw back his head and screamed, then flung their table to the side and advanced on Jessa. She kept out of his reach, a knife in her hand, but she did not want to harm him. The magic she had felt flared and crept along her skin: sorcery.
The old woman by the fire was standing now, leaning on her walking stick. One hand was clawlike in the air before her. "Enough of this." Power rode her voice, a lash of obedience. The big man stood unsure, arms drooping at his sides, tears sliding down his cheeks.
Jessa sheathed her knife, unable to do anything else. Very few people could have forced an obedience spell upon Jessa.
The old woman turned angry eyes on her. "Did you have to hurt him?"
"You would not show yourself."
"Well, I am here now, girl. What do you want? And I warn you, if it is not something worthy of the pain you have caused, you will be punished for your rudeness."
Jessa bowed, never taking her eyes from the woman. She felt Gregoor close at her side and caught the glint of steel in his hand. So the obedience spell had affected only Jessa and the man. That was something to remember. "I seek the death of Cytherea the Mad."
The woman stared at Jessa for the space of heartbeats. Jessa knew she was being weighed and measured, tested. The old woman laughed then, an unexpectedly young sound, but the body remained old. "An assassin. Two assassins."
Jessa and Gregoor shifted uncomfortably, for there was nothing that should have given them away. "We are not..."
The old woman said, "Do not lie, whoever you are. I have the gift of trueseeing."
Jessa swallowed. It was a rare talent, and one that was proof against all lies, magical or mundane. "We did not enter this town under false pretenses. If you are a truthseer, then you know I mean what I say. I am here to kill Cytherea."
The woman's face was solemn as she studied them. "You believe what you say, that much is true. But saying you will kill her and doing so are not the same thing."
"That is true. We seek information to aid us in our task."
Esteban said, "Can you kill her?"
Jessa looked at him. His eyes were grief-filled wounds. "Yes. I am Wizardsbane, and this will not be the first, or even the tenth, wizard I have slain."
The old woman said, "And you, who follow her like a shadow, who are you?"
Gregoor sheathed his blade. "I am Gregoor Steelsinger, also known as Deathbringer."
"Such auspicious names, young ones. But can you live up to them?"
Jessa said, "We are willing to risk our lives to prove worthy of our names. Are you willing to help us destroy the madwoman who has raped your village?"
"I will tell you what I can, Jessamine Wizardsbane, but it is precious little. I am Teodora Truthseer."
Esteban brought food out to them, then sat to listen. Jessa would have protested, but Teodora said, "His wife and daughter hang on the gibbet outside our town. Surely he deserves a seat at this table."
Jessa nodded.
"The first we knew of trouble was a snowstorm from a clear summer sky. It was a storm driven by an ice elemental, cold as the netherhells. Cytherea came out of that storm, an ice demon at her side. She told us her terms for saving our town." Teodora paused and took a drink. "I fought Cytherea when she arrived at our gates. I challenged her to win safety for my town." Teodora smiled and looked at her age-gnarled hands. "I lost. But I did not lose through sorcery. There I could have matched her. She wore a ring on her left hand, an enchanted ring. I walked out the town gates a woman of thirty and was carried back in a woman of sixty."
Jessa and Gregoor exchanged glances. "What sort of ring could age a woman like that?" Gregoor asked.
"Cytherea did not age me, so much as curse me with old age. She wears a ring of curses."
Gregoor gave a low whistle. "That is an expensive item."
Jessa said, "Is that how she bound..."
Teodora interrupted her. "Esteban, could you please refill my glass?"
The man looked suspicious, but got up to do as the sorceress asked.
Teodora spoke low to them. "You were asking if the ring is how Cytherea bound the souls to the bodies."
"Yes."
"Esteban does not know his wife and daughter are still in torment. I think it would be unwise to mention it in front of him."
Gregoor asked, "Is it what she used?"
"Yes."
Esteban set the mug down and Teodora said, "Thank you, Esteban."
Jessa asked, "How did she take the earth-witches' magic a
nd the land's magic as well?"
Teodora stared at her full mug, brown-spotted hands tight gripped. "She wears a necklace, a square-cut emerald set in gold. It is a unique enchantment. It is attuned to earth-magic and steals only that."
"So this necklace contains all the earth-magic she has stolen?"
Teodora nodded.
"You are a truthseer. Is there a way to release the magics or to destroy the enchantments?"
"The ring of curses is not unlimited in power. It has so many curses in it just like a human curse-maker. If the ring is used up, empty before being re-enchanted, then all the curses the ring caused this time will be undone."
"You would be young again?"
"Yes." Teodora studied the food on her plate and talked without looking at anyone. "The necklace is different. It has perhaps an unlimited ability to absorb power. The only way to release the magic is to destroy it."
Gregoor asked, "And how do we do that?"
"You might give it back to the earth from which it came."
"The exact earth," Jessa asked, "or metaphysically speaking, so any earth would do?"
"Any earth will do."
Jessa smiled.
Gregoor said, "You've thought of a plan, haven't you?"
"I've thought of a possibility."
Teodora asked, "How can we help?"
"Gregoor will need some herbs to make a potion. And I was wondering if your town can boast a curse-maker."
Esteban and Teodora exchanged glances. "Why, yes, but he is old and not powerful enough to curse Cytherea."
"I don't want him to curse Cytherea, I want him to curse me."
TWO days later they rode out of Titos, a new potion at their belts and a curse for each of them.
Gregoor grunted and twisted in his saddle, trying to scratch the middle of his back.
"It will only be worse if you claw at it."
He looked at Jessa through red, inflamed eyes, nearly swollen shut. "You said pick a curse, so I did. How was I to know the Verm-cursed rash would get this bad?"
Jessa sighed. "I suggested a curse that would have been serious enough, but would not have hampered your fighting skills."
He clawed at his hand. "You wanted me rendered impotent. No, thank you."
She almost laughed. "I am childless until my curse is removed."