Name Magic

2. Clean-1

2

CLEAN

Wash her clean, get her demon free, feed her, find a place to sleep tonight, keep her safe, teach her about magic…Lar's mind ran the list frantically. These ideas didn't come in any particular order, but he knew that he would not get to sleep at the inn that night. He needed to get Ingri away from Halfway. Where could he go to meet these needs?

As a Wise One of the Land, Lar had many powers and skills, but removing demons was not one of them. The one who could best deal with demons was Dayo, King of Music, who had a gift for enchanting demons. Dayo's home was far away in the icy north and too far away for Lar to transport himself, let alone Ingri that far. No, stop thinking of that as her name, he reminded himself. It's dangerous to think of her name.

Lar recalled the fateful night he wandered into a tomb under a mountain on the border of Demion. There he encountered a waiting ghost of a long-forgotten warrior who died trying to get past the Seal that had once protected the Land from any human entering. The man had been crushed by a falling tree and his companions had buried him at the base of the unforgiving mountain. The ghost sat on a stone as if he had been waiting specifically for that day for the King of the Dead to arrive. “What are you doing here?” Lar had asked.

“Waiting for you,” the ghost replied with a weary tone. “I have a message and then I may move on.”

Lar had surveyed the ghost critically, judging the strange clothing, the foreign accent, the caved-in chest cavity, and broken legs. Usually, the dead wanted to relay a message to far-flung family members, not to him. However, they too often were tied to where they had passed and could not move on until that need was realized.

“What have you got to say to me?” Lar had asked.

“I’m to give you a name. If I give you this name, I will finally pass the Seal and can be laid to rest in the one place I have not conquered.”

Lar had swallowed his excitement. The name the ghost would give him would tell him who would be the next Wise One and his fate would be tied to that woman forever. But this ghost also demanded the services of the King of the Dead so he must not let his eagerness cloud the moment.

“You wanted to enter the Land? You know, the Seal has been broken for many years, and now any who wish can come to the Land freely if they do not bring the magic with them.”

“Yes, I know,” the ghost replied. “But when I died, I would rather dash myself against the Seal than surrender. Now I have done my duty. You have her name: Ingri. Here is the Heart Stone. Give it to her when you find her. Now, will you gather my bones and bring me into the Land?”

The ghost had held out to Lar the glowing Heart Stone that Ingri had found years later in his bag and had just curiously dropped into her ash bucket.

Now, sitting on the floor in the inn, holding this tortured woman, keeping the demonic flames under control, Lar felt suddenly closer to his goal, but also completely out of his depth. Who could help him?

With little idea of what he would do, Lar struggled to his feet, lifting the pathetic drudge with him. He looked around at the scattered and singed furniture and the two men brave enough to face his dilemma. With a grim nod, he tightened his grip around Ingri, nodded to the constable and innkeeper, and then found a quiet place in the prison a few blocks away. It was where they would have thrown Ingri if she had not gone raving mad. Fortunately, several men had died in this cell, so Lar could magically move there, drawn by the restless past. He felt Ingri's trembling body tight against his chest and shifted, disappearing in an instant and probably leaving the two men at the inn with some fascinating tales to tell throughout the winter but little true information.

The dark of the cell did not disturb Lar; he had grown used to caves and tombs in the last twelve years Seeking. Indeed, this looked more pleasant than some other places he had been trapped. At least it had a cot. Lar set the wretched drudge down, conjured a blanket, and draped it over her. She still trembled but wasn't humming and rocking now that they had arrived at someplace where it was quiet. Now she could rest, and he could concentrate. With a relatively safe location to work, Lar could reach toward Dayo. He had experience dealing with demons and could help.

Lar used his imagination to stretch his magical mind toward the north, past the mountains to the edge of the spindly forest where cold and icy winds mitigated the thrumming music of Dayo. The chill made Lar's bones ache, but he could imagine being dead would be colder, so he tapped into that realization and the cold did not disturb him. However, Lar found that his call to his fellow King was drifting south again and east.

Ah, toward Tanzaa. Well, that made sense and Tanzaa's Garden was far closer than Dayo home, and infinitely warmer. Tanzaa was Queen of Storms and Dayo's wife, kept her garden summer and balmy; a perfect place to winter over if he had the option, Lar thought. Perhaps, between the three of them, they could figure out how to help Ingri.

Stop that, Lar warned himself. What was he to call this dirty little drudge until she found a safe name? A magician's name must be held sacred lest it is used against them. Lar should not even think of her name. His mind might be tapped by a sorcerer, or he may let down his shields at an inopportune time, and an enemy would learn that name from his mind.

And no matter how miserable she looked, this drudge was magical in her own right, not just because the demons called her home. Indeed, these invaders probably had been attracted to her because of her innate magic in the first place, like moths to a flame. And she had lived at least ten years this way? Tormented and silent, bitten and stung constantly by this fiery demon? She must be amazingly powerful to endure it, Lar thought, but then shook himself to action once again. He must not be distracted.

“Dayo?” Lar called magically. “Can you hear me?”

“Huh” came the garbled reply. “Who is it?” Even half asleep and hundreds of miles away, Dayo's mind voice was exquisite, the gift of being magically musical. Lar had forgotten that it was quite late, later than even Halfway.

“It's me, Lar. I've found her.”

That got Dayo to wake. “Your lady? How can I help?”

Lar felt rattled and his next words proved it. “I'm lost about this. She's possessed by a demon of some kind and has been for years. She’s feral. She doesn't speak…”

Dayo interrupted him. “Slow down man, you're frantic. Can you bring her here to Tanzaa's Garden? We can deal with her here better than wherever you've found her.”

“I can if there's someone nearby who has died. Let me check…yes, a soldier from Watch died on patrol in an avalanche on the southern rim.”

It still surprised Lar sometimes that he could see the end of everyone who ever walked the Land. That element of his gift as King of Death still chilled him. Who would have thought that the dead could have so many gifts for him?

“I'll be on this ridge in a few moments if you can let us in,” and he projected an image to his friend of a mountain top, with trees bowed low under a load of ice and snow.

“Tanzaa says she knows the place and will meet you there,” Dayo assured him and broke the contact.

That left Lar with a goal, but now he wondered if he were doing this the right way. He looked at Ingri, now sleeping fitfully on the cot, and decided he couldn't stay here in a jailhouse forever. He wove a silent spell over Ingri to keep her asleep and then used magic to wrap them both in rich furs against the winter atop the mountain. Then he scooped her up again in his arms, drew on the death of the fallen soldier like it was a lodestone, and stepped toward it.

If he thought it was cold out on the plains, it was nothing compared to the side of the mountain. He gasped at the shock and Ingri moaned in her sleep despite the warm furs he had conjured. Lar looked around at the night vistas of peaks as far as he could see under the bitterly cold stars. He knew there was a garden here though the illusion over it was formidable. Only Tanzaa could escort someone across the unseen barrier she had created.

Thankfully, they didn't have long to wait or both Lar and Ingri would have joined the fallen soldier in death. Tanzaa, the Queen of Storms, wrapped in luxurious white furs emerged from her illusion. Her legs bare underneath the furs, she stepped out into the deep snow. Her blonde hair and silver eyes flashed in the wind. She wordlessly drew Lar through the barrier and into the warmth.

On the other side of the illusion Lar saw the same stars, still twinkling in the icy sky but the balmy and humid flush of a jungle forest made the furs immediately too warm. Lar allowed the coats to disappear back into the earth from which he had conjured them. Then he abruptly regretted it. He looked down at Ingri in his arms and saw her messy rags and ash-covered face. Her dirt had spread to him, but fortunately, he was wearing black. Tanzaa looked at Ingri with interest, touching her dirty face and the matted mass of hair.

“Still in her cocoon.” Tanzaa’s comment remained unexplained, but Lar was accustomed to Tanzaa’s vague language.

“I don't know what to call her,” Lar commented lamely, for something in Tanzaa's luminous eyes demanded an explanation.

“She must come out first,” the Queen of Storms added.

Very well, he would wait to give Ingri a new name. Instead, Lar looked pointedly into the garden, and they began walking down into the jungle. The paths, choked with hyacinth and fragrant herbs, grew wild and almost overgrown. Tanzaa moved faster than Lar could carry his burden but at least he knew the palace was at the bottom of the mountainside. Finally, when the terrain began to flatten out and rivers and streams blocked his way, Lar saw the shining white of a columned palace glowing like the moon in the night. No one had ever died here, Lar remembered, although he had been brought in several times in the past. He felt almost empty, with no spirit promptings to guide him.

Tanzaa stood at the entry of her home, an open set of columns with walls barely there, shifting and blowing with gauze, even though there was no wind. Beside her stood her husband Dayo, also wearing white in sharp contrast to the night above them. Lar felt a sudden sense of relief. Surely between the three of them as Wise Ones, magicians dedicated to protecting the Land, they could discover help the poor wretched drudge he had rescued. Yes, focus on that. You prevented Ingri from becoming a murderer tonight. Now you can work to bring her back, in a manner, from the dead.

Wordlessly Lar laid his burden on a pallet in a two-walled room open to the garden. He then stepped back. The three Wise Ones looked with trepidation at what Lar had brought. Dayo applied his truth spell and saw for himself the demon fireflies that surrounded her, and underneath that, barely visible, the amazing vision of a human being completely enveloped in fire within the demon.

“Where did you find her?” Dayo asked curiously, reaching out and attempting to touch one of the demon lights as he spoke.

“An inn at Halfway. She was the ash drudge there. She has never spoken, as far as the innkeeper knows, so I suppose she's been possessed for a long time. She attacked him when he tried to have her arrested for stealing the Heart Stone from me. I only sensed her as magic when she touched the Heart Stone. Then she erupted.”

“So, you don't know for sure if she's the one,” Dayo confirmed.

Lar disagreed. “She reacted when I spoke the name to her. Up close you can see her through the demon, that she's a Wise One. Queen of Fire. She has to be the one.”