A throwing knife blossomed in Cytherea’s side. She shrieked and staggered.
Jessa saw Gregoor coming forward, another knife in his hand. She fell slowly to her knees in the snow.
Gregoor screamed, “Jessa!”
Cytherea had regained her control. She gestured and sorcery flared in her hands. Blue flame enveloped Gregoor.
There was a crackling thunder and the earth elemental burst free of the ice. Then it was suddenly running, shaking the ground as it came. Cytherea was forced to turn her attention to the earth-giant.
Gregoor fell face down into the snow, unmoving.
Blue light and ice crawled over the earth elemental. Jessa felt it scream through the frozen ground. She began to crawl toward Cytherea, naked sword dragging over the snow.
Cytherea was bathed in blue flame; she crackled and seemed to glow. Jessa was almost close enough to touch her skirts. Stray bits of power crawled along Jessa’s skin, burning with cold fire. She staggered to her feet, sword held two-handed for an upward thrust.
The ice elemental hissed, “Behind you, mistress.”
It was too late. The steel bit into Cytherea’s back; the blue fire shredded and vanished. Jessa shoved the blade upward, seeking her heart. Cytherea shrieked, but she would not die. She put a hand on the emerald necklace and Jessa felt the power begin to grow.
Jessa screamed, “Die, damn you, die!”
The earth elemental leaned over them, one massive hand reaching. Cytherea yelled, “No, the necklace is mine! You can’t have it!” The earth elemental stood, the broken chain dangling from his massive fingers. Earth-magic poured out of the broken enchantment, free at last. Magic that swelled and flowed and carried Jessa with it until she thought she would explode with the power. It rushed over and through her, a magically visible green fire.
Jessa drew her sword free. Bloody, but still alive, Cytherea turned and began another spell. Jessa’s blade crawled with emerald fire. The silver-green blade sliced outward. The sorceress’s head spun off into the snow. The body toppled into the crimson-washed snow.
Jessa dropped to the ground, unsure of how to cope with so much power. Gregoor was huddled against the earth, staring wide-eyed. Green grass showed in the snow. Summer warmth beat down. Earth-magic pulsed and spread from the earth elemental as it grasped the emerald necklace in one massive hand.
The ice elemental had fled. The demon bowed to Jessa. “Earth-witch, I am most impressed.” As he faded from sight, he said, “Perhaps we will meet again, some winter’s night.”
Gregoor crawled to her. “I can’t stand up. The earth pulses like a great heartbeat.”
Jessa could not speak past the magic. She could feel it racing over the ravaged land, healing, awakening, reviving.
Finally, she said, “Begone, earthling, back to the depths from which you came. Thank you for aid.” The elemental melted into the earth, taking the necklace with it. Cytherea’s body lay in a circle of black fresh-turned earth.
Jessa crawled to the dead sorceress and looked down on her. The face was blank as any dead man’s. “Peace at last, mother, peace at last.”
Gregoor was scratching his face. “You did it.”
“We did it, Gregoor.”
He grinned, then grimaced as he tore his coat to get to new itches.
Jessa smiled. “Perhaps the village of Bardou boasts a curse-maker.”
He looked at her, a hopeful light in his eyes. “Oh, that would be a blessing indeed.”
“Come, they should be grateful enough to remove a couple of curses.” Jessa paused, staring at a pale hand; the ring of curses was still on the left hand. It was a slim band of iron, empty now, but waiting. Jessa slipped the ring from Cytherea’s finger.
“It’s expensive to get something like that re-enchanted,” Gregoor said.
She slipped the ring into her pouch. “But well worth it, don’t you think?”
“I can think of a few uses for it.”
Jessa reached out and touched him and green fire flowed from her across his skin. He gasped, then forced a grin.
“Extraordinary,” he whispered.
They helped each other to stand and began to limp toward the village.
There was a strong scent of roses on the air, almost choking in its sweetness. Jessa turned.
There in the earth was a fresh rosebush, blossoms flared to the new sun. The roses were yellow, the color of Cytherea’s hair.
Jessa called softly, “Mother.” A breeze began to blow gently against them. The earth-fire began to melt into the ground. Jessa found herself crying. She walked alone to the roses, on unsteady legs. The flowers moved, stretching toward her hands, without aid of wind. One small blossom rubbed against her hand.
Gregoor asked, “What is it?”
“I think I am being forgiven.”
“Forgiven for what?”
Jessa did not answer; for some things there were no words. And some things were not meant to be shared.
STEALING SOULS
This is the first story I ever sold. It’s the one I sent to Marion Zimmer Bradley after she rejected “A Token for Celandine.” This story is also the one I edited after going through my one and only writing workshop. The writers who taught it were Emma Bull, Will Shetterly, and Stephan Gould. All working, selling writers, which is what you should look for in a workshop. They didn’t teach me how to be a better writer, but they did teach me how to be a better editor of my own work. I also met the beginnings of my writing group, The Alternate Historians, there. Only two of the original members are still left, me and Deborah Millitello. But we’ve existed as a group for over ten years now. The seven of us have over forty books, and untold short stories, published. All but one of us had never sold a thing before joining the group. Not a bad track record. This story is the first appearance of Sidra and Leech, who would later appear in “The Curse-Maker.”
STEALING souls was hard; stealing them back was harder. Sebastiane had spent fifteen years learning just how hard.
The Red Goat Tavern was full of people. They swirled, laughing, round Sebastiane’s table but did not touch her. For she was the mercenary Sidra Ironfist. And she had passed through many lands as Sidra until she had more stories told about her under that name than her own. She towered over most of the people in the room. The two swords at her waist, one long and one short, looked well cared for and much used. Scars decorated her arms and hands like spider tracings. Her cool gray eyes had a way of staring through a person, as if nothing was hidden.
She had been Sidra so long that sometimes she wondered where Sebastiane had gone. But fighting was not her true occupation. It was more an avocation that allowed her entrance to places her occupation would have closed to her. Most people did not welcome a thief. Especially a thief who had no intention of sharing her prize with the local thieves’ guild. Sidra had traveled half a continent and bartered a piece of her soul to be here. She would share with no one.
But then the local thieves’ guild did not traffic in souls. And that was the goal this time. There would be jewels and magic items to bring out, but like every good thief, she did not allow baubles to distract her from the main goal.
The herb-witch had said that the bones she sought would be in two earthenware pots. They would be bound with black and green braided cord and suspended from a thin branch made up of some white wood. They would be hung high up in the room where the wizard performed his magic.
The souls in question belonged to Sebastiane’s older sisters. They had vanished when she was ten. No one knew what had happened to them, but there were rumors. Rumors of a wizard that had needed twin girls for a forbidden spell done only twice before in all history. A spell to bring great power to a mere herb-witch. Enough power to allow the wizard to taste other magics.
The spell was forbidden because not only did the girls have to die but their souls were imprisoned. Imprisoning souls was a very serious offense if you never intended to let them go.
Sebastiane, the child, had been an apprentice thief and had little hope of confronting such a powerful wizard. But Sidra Ironfist, mercenary and master thief, had a chance.
The little girl of long ago had vowed to Magnus of the Red Hand, god of assassins and god of vengeance. The vow had held firm for fifteen years until she sat only an hour’s ride from the wizard who had murdered her sisters.
The hatred of him was gone, killed in the years of surviving. Her sisters’ faces were distant things that she couldn’t always see clearly. But the vow remained. Sebastiane had come for the bones of her sisters.