Midnight Magic Read online

  "How do you do?" the wizard asked for the third time.

  Vimika blinked, but nothing became any clearer. "I don't know. Where am I? Who are you?"

  This seemed to catch the stranger off guard, and she straightened in a remarkable show of balance and poise that Vimika would have been hard-pressed to replicate without hurting herself.

  Black eyes cast about as if for rescue, but none came. "I... am Aurelai. And this is my home. Which I should probably explain. Ah... that is, do you remember running towards a clearing when you were in the forest?"

  "Sort of. I was aiming for the sun more than anything."

  Aurelai nodded. "Thank you ever so much for coming. Your hat and robe were filthy and had little bits of ice in them. I hope you don't mind my removing them before bringing you inside. I do like to keep things clean."

  Vimika shot a panicked look downward to see that beneath the blanket she was thankfully still in her tunic and flying trousers, even if they weren't much better off than her robe had been.

  "I wasn't about to undress an unconscious person," Aurelai said. "Unless that's acceptable now?"

  Now?

  "It is not."

  Vimika should have been alarmed to the point of some kind of cardiac episode to find herself in the wizard's laboratory. Much like Vimika's own only three times bigger, stocked the way hers was too when she closed her eyes and imagined it really hard. Fortunately, the weight of her envy was enough to tamp down the terror.

  Aurelai had cabinets! With locks on them! Stone countertops that wouldn't hiss or spit when unfortunate things were spilled on them, with rolls of leather ready to be spread out for fine mechanical work. Shelves and shelves of ingredients, perfectly preserved and meticulously labeled. Beakers, vials, jars, every empty round thing made of glass that had a name, there was at least one Vimika could see. All of it spotless.

  Tools were hung on the wall above the workbench in perfect alignment, from smallest to biggest with outlines drawn on the pegboard. Many of them she recognized, some she had never seen before and couldn't begin to guess the purpose of. Saws, hammers, oversized calipers, a sort of wand with metal filament trailing from one end. What was that for? She would need weeks to identify everything, if she ever could.

  There was nothing amateurish or freelance about it. Vimika had wound up in the windowless domain of a professional, and with wizards, that was a word that went hand-in-hand with powerful.

  And Vimika was laid out on a slab in the middle of it.

  "Aurelai…" she said absently. Pieces of her encounter in the forest suddenly cracked across her mind like thunderbolts, the impossibility of what had happened, the skill necessary, the deadness of anyone who could feasibly be responsible. "That's a very old name."

  From before the Purges old. It was a mage's name, not a wizard's. No wizard in their right mind would give their daughter a name like that any more than they would name her Syphilis. Sounds nice, but when you know what it meant…

  "Do you like it? I chose it myself," Aurelai added seemingly without thought, as her eyes immediately took on a cast of regret for having done it. "That is to say... ah... I took it on... But... Vimikathritas! A good, strong name. Traditional too, is it not?"

  "It is," Vimika admitted as she pushed herself up on her elbows with middling success.

  "Did you choose it?" Aurelai asked.

  "What? No, my parents gave it to me… how do you know who I am?" Vimika had never been so well and truly gobsmacked before, but now that her gob was functioning once more, she wasn't entirely sure she would care to repeat the experience.

  "I wouldn't have risked trying to bring you here if I didn't know who you were, would I? Would I have? Would I've? Would've… I?" Aurelai shook her head, the curtain of night framing the glowing moon of her face rippling with the movement. "Doesn't matter. You made it here, albeit only mostly alive, but I should think that it counts just as much in favor of my judgment."

  Ambivalent to the point of splitting in two, Vimika cast about for an elegant way to change the subject, but nothing was biting, leaving her to set the whole lake on fire instead.

  "Are you another illusion? I'm pretty sure you have to tell me if you are. Look, just… dissipate, or turn into something else. If I'm still in the forest, just let me get on with things. If not, then this is a dream, so kindly let me wake up and I'll be on my way. No reward money is worth any of this."

  Aurelai looked about long enough for Vimika to notice how slowly the stranger blinked, as though everything that came to her was a surprise. "You're not in the forest anymore, and I'm... mostly confident this isn't a dream."

  "Oh, good. Then I'm dead. That explains quite a bit. A bit overdone, if I'm honest," Vimika said, casting a look around the meticulously-kept laboratory.

  "Did I say something wrong? I'm sorry. I practiced, too," the wizard standing in the middle of it said, crossing one arm over her chest and holding herself tightly, closing her grip one finger at a time.

  She had to be an illusion, Vimika thought. Surely someone like this couldn't be real, could she? You could cut diamonds on her cheekbones! Her ears were perfect grassblades, eyes nearly black, inviting Vimika to get lost within them. She was breathtaking, and Vimika didn't have that kind of luck. Or patience. Or breath to spare.

  She needed it to blow sharply out her nose. "Tell me then... angel. Demon. Figment, whatever you are... All of that, out there-" she tossed a hand in a direction that probably answered to that description, "did you do that? Did you put me through that nightmare? Which hell is this?"

  Such dark eyes were remarkably expressive when set in such pale skin, making them look even more enormous when they expanded in genuine horror and no little offense. "What? No! Of course not. I didn't know what the forest would do to you, and I'm sorry to have made you face it, but I need the help of a strong mage, and-"

  "Wizard."

  "What?"

  "I'm a wizard."

  "I thought your name was Malakandronon."

  "It is! And I'm a wizard. Like you."

  "I'm not a Wissrd. Could you please just call me Aurelai? There's only two of us, there's no reason to get hung up on such semantics. Yes, I wanted you to come here, Vimika. No, I'm not responsible for the illusions that I should have inquired about first because they've clearly had a profound effect on you and I've done nothing about it as of yet and am now beginning to feel a tremendous amount of guilt concerning..." Aurelai's eyes flicked sideways as a thought seemed to occur to her. "That is to say... I don't know what you saw. I can't. But I imagine whatever it was was most unkind, and you have my apologies. I didn't mean for you to get hurt. I just need your help. Oh, and no, this isn't any hell I am aware of, just to be clear."

  "But it was so powerful! If not you, then who? Is there someone else here?" Vimika asked, her voice rising in panic as it settled in how stupid she'd been to trust that the Aurelai was alone. Distracted by a pretty face so she wouldn't see the knife in the back coming!

  She whipped around, spinning off the slab and backing into the closest wall that didn't have any mystery fluids on it, firing her entire attention at the only door, which remained open and empty.

  Picking up the blanket, she ran the thick wool between her fingers in agitation. It was warm from her body heat and smelled of closet, just like it should. She shook her head in maddened confusion at such normalcy. What if this was an illusion, too? All of it. Where was she?

  But when Aurelai spoke, she was conciliatory. "No. Vimika, I'm all alone, and that's why I need your help. The illusions aren't just for keeping people out."

  "Then how did I get here? If I am here. Wherever this is."

  "I don't know. You're the first and only person to ever make it through. But I give you my word that you're safe. For now."

  Vimika's eyes tried to consume the top half of her face.

  "That... was a lot more ominous than it was when I thought it. Apologies. I meant that I mean you no harm, Vimika. Truly. I need you, hurt
ing you would be... counterproductive. It's just that getting out might be tricky, so I can't guarantee that you will come to no harm while you're here, but I have no reason nor intention to hurt you. In fact, I'd like to feed you and make you comfortable, but now you look even more suspicious and I don't know how to fix this so I'll stop talking."

  Vimika felt her brain trying to crawl out of her ears so she could deal with this on pure instinct rather than have to think, but her instincts weren't entirely opposed to being fed and made comfortable by someone who looked like Aurelai, which meant Vimika had to force it to stay put.

  "Now you're playing on my sympathy, I see. Angry, sad, intrigued, now this? Why? I don't even know what you want!"

  Aurelai's dark eyes shifted. "I… just told you."

  "My help?"

  "Yes. To escape."

  "Escape," Vimika repeated flatly.

  "The illusions have trapped me here," Aurelai said, nodding out the door. "I can't get past them by myself. But you did! All alone!"

  Vimika threw her hands up and pressed her cheeks into her jaw, gnawing on the insides as she thought. Maybe going with the flow would wash her out the other side. What choice did she have? "All right, let's say I believe you. If they trapped you in here, why wouldn't they trap me, as well?"

  "Because they were designed for me," Aurelai said with rising impatience. "I've never gotten past them!"

  Vimika felt an entirely new kind of suspicion oil itself through her, coating her in mistrust and alarm. Illusions that strong and complex had to be both by and for someone equally strong, which meant Aurelai had to be lying. But there was something about her expression, her body language. She was terrified and bordering on desperation in her need to be believed.

  "Then if you're here all alone, as you say, but you didn't cast them, who did?" Vimika with the slow cadence of calm that wasn't so much felt as practiced.

  But at such speed, each syllable was a hammer blow, and cracks show easier on dark surfaces than light. Aurelai's eyes were no different, the perfect onyx wavering under the strain. Her lips quavered as she nibbled on the inside of her cheek, slender eyebrows dancing atop the grave of her composure. "My father. His death triggered all of this, and I can't undo it."

  "Ha! Any wizard that strong would have been killed in the Purges or dead from old age by now! So just how long have you been here, then?" Vimika asked with a mocking lilt.

  Aurelai gathered herself before answering. "The simple answer is: I don't know."

  Heartbreak, sadness, betrayal, it was all wrapped up in three words that managed to also sound somehow akin to a confession. An admission that couldn't hope to hide the corroded, jagged edge that made it sound like her own fault.

  Unless she was lying, Vimika thought as the forest came roaring back, assaulting her once more with her own memories. Of the last time she'd been lured in by a beautiful face that had precious need of her magic...

  One thought too many, she couldn't keep it bottled in.

  "Why should I believe you?" she blurted, vehemence sharpening every word to lethality.

  Aurelai started. "I'm sorry?"

  "You could be a criminal, for all I know. A mage who escaped the Purges, set up her own little exile down here in the middle of nowhere, found some way to extend her life to unnatural lengths... There hasn't been an Aurelai born in hundreds of years!"

  "My father was the criminal, and trapping me here was his last crime. He used his Last Breath to do it, you vexing creature!" Aurelai snapped.

  That would explain a few things, Vimika had to admit. A person's Last Breath was powerful magic, especially a wizard's, but Aurelai was a wizard herself and would know that, too. But it made more sense than anything else Vimika had heard since waking up that morning.

  "Who was your father, then?" she asked indulgently.

  "Azrabaleth Kalinostrafal."

  Words tried and failed to come to Vimika's tongue. Instead they just sat in the back of her throat unsaid, too shocked to risk coming out. Her nose and ears were suddenly cold, all the blood having fled her face to hide in her stomach, given how heavy and squishy it suddenly felt. Breath was a struggle. All she could do was blink, so she did quite a bit of that.

  "You know him?" Aurelai asked, confusion working at every feature in her flawless face.

  "Of course, he perfected mechamagery. But he disappeared during the height of the Purges, conveniently enough... He was hiding down here all along? When did he die?" Vimika added without thinking.

  "A long time ago. If I knew precisely, I would have some better sense of how long I've been here, would I not?"

  Vimika conceded the point with a half-aware nod, her mind racing off in other directions entirely. Azrabaleth Kalinostrafal was a hero to some, and the catalyst for the Purges to others. Vimika was among the latter. If Aurelai was his daughter, she would be very powerful, and very dangerous. But the young(?) woman standing across from Vimika was neither of those things at the moment. In fact, she seemed just the opposite of both.

  There was something to her eyes, beyond how beautifully alien they were. Maybe it was the color that naturally lent them an extra layer of depth, but the more they peered at Vimika, the harder she found it to meet them. As much as Aurelai's eyes were windows, they were also mirrors.

  Vimika glanced out the doorway again, to the sunlight drifting in through the windows beyond.

  Escape.

  That's all Vimika wanted, wasn't it? Only she'd never worked up the courage to ask for help in getting it. Wherever she was exactly, it was in the middle of nowhere, cut off from everything (including time, to look at Aurelai), and Vimika had just stumbled into it on accident. Or had she? The house wizards, if they all worked together, might have been able to construct something a fraction as convincing as all this, but even then, why? Why send her out here? Risk exposing their knowledge of mechamagical animals being sheltered under their noses? Vimika was a miserable drunk living under a tavern, she wasn't worth the level of effort this would have taken. If they were that worried about her, they could have had her killed with a lot less effort and risk of blowback. And if that was true, what did that make Aurelai? A victim of a previous game of theirs, trapping her here in a web of illusions? Then why the cover story?

  Vimika stared at her hands as they trembled, her fingernails ten grimy crescents wavering on the ends of stick-like fingers, every crease and fold in her knuckles caked with forest floor.

  If any of it was an illusion, it was so good she had no hope of uncovering it in her current state. Which meant that, real or not, she was trapped here, just as Aurelai said she was. And Aurelai... was asking for help. She wasn't demanding it or seducing her way into it, she had asked, and whatever Vimika's shortcomings, to refuse someone who seemed genuine in their need for help was not something she could do in good conscience.

  Especially a pretty face, because you're a sucker who never learns...

  Vimika cast her face upward, not, she told herself, as an appeal to the gods to give her the strength to face whatever was about to happen. "You'll have to forgive me. The illusions were... stressful."

  The tension that had been squaring Aurelai's shoulders ebbed, and they rounded off a bit. "It's not your fault. I should have been better prepared for such questions, I suppose. It's not like I've had anything better to do," she said, whether she'd meant to or not.

  "If you'll indulge a few more--" Vimika said to a responding nod. "Why me? I'm just a freelancing nobody. You could have called one of the house wizards around here, or gotten them to send to the capitol for a proper professional. You're dealing with extremely potent magic here."

  Aurelai made a face. "Why would I have done that? You made it, didn't you?"

  "I'm still not sure I did. You never did answer when I asked if you're an illusion."

  "If I am, I'm such a good one that I don't know it, so I may not be of much help in such a circumstance," Aurelai said.

  "Fair enough," Vimika conceded.

&nb
sp; "So if we agree that this conversation is actually happening, will you help me? To escape from this prison?"

  Vimika searched Aurelai's black, bottomless eyes for some hint, some tiny spark of deceit or mischief born from the bored offspring of the immensely powerful, but found only the light of kindled hope. And once again, her own reflection.

  "I'll do what I can. But you should know I've never felt magic that strong before, I wouldn't even know how to begin trying to pull it apart. Just," she said quickly to ward off Aurelai's face falling any farther, "let me get a sense of things first."

  But when Vimika tried to use her Sight, her headache snapped back into place with savage intensity, ricocheting around her head and trying to find escape entirely through her eyeballs. Blinking madly, she cast her gaze about with regular eyesight, but there was nothing to see beyond fading white starbursts. "Ow."

  "As I suspected. You're in magic shock," Aurelai said with almost callous nonchalance. "I'm sorry."

  "What?" Vimika said. Gingerly, she tried to access her magic once more, and was again rebuffed so strongly she fell against the wall, only barely keeping her feet under her as the floor seemed to switch places with the ceiling. "Mother's tits, that hurts! Are you sure magic can be used here?" she asked through her teeth.

  "Yes," Aurelai replied. With a few whispered syllables, a breeze blew up from nowhere, swirling about them and snatching at Vimika's hair playfully before dissipating as quickly as it had come.

  Unable to think clearly, filthy and exhausted, Vimika found herself pawing the top of her head where her hat wasn't. Her unruly brown hair had wasted no time in taking advantage of its freedom, having burst free from its braids to tumble over her shoulders and down her back.

  "Magic shock," Vimika said absently. She'd never experienced it before, but being able to put a name to it made her heart lessen its efforts in trying to tunnel out of her chest. It also hurt a lot more than had ever been mentioned by any of her teachers. Then again, none of her them had ever dealt with magic as strong as Vimika just had.

  "It hasn't happened to you? Even when you tried to escape?"