The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [50]
“Ah,” said Awa. “That’s it. You’re not really letting me go, you’re just going away for some reason, and someday you’ll come back and put me back under your thumb.”
“Must you always think the worst of me?” The necromancer scowled, clearly put out. “Here, I’ve got some presents for you.”
“Presents?” Awa took a step back. “I really don’t want—”
“Are you sure?” asked the necromancer, and Awa was no longer.
“What I meant,” she said carefully, “is that I don’t need—”
“Need’s a funny, fleeting thing,” he clucked, opening his bear and rooting around until he found a small chest. Setting it on the table, he gave her a strange smile and opened it up. Awa looked around to see where his concubine had slithered off to, suspecting a trick, but then he beckoned her around the table. “Put that hoof of yours on my chair.”
Awa obliged, and he took a thin, shimmering black rope from the box. He wrapped it twice around her ankle where goat fur met skin and tied it in a bow. Nothing happened. She looked up at him, and he grinned and nodded, pointing back down. Returning her gaze to her hoof, she stumbled backwards, nearly tipping his chair. Her hoof was gone and her old foot was in its place, the black twine bowed around her ankle.
“I don’t want this,” Awa said. “I liked it!”
“It’s still there,” the necromancer said huffily, hurt, or something like. “I just hid it so you won’t be burned at the stake by the first peasant you run across. The rest of the world isn’t so understanding of our talents.”
“Oh,” said Awa, and tapping her heel on the floor she felt her hoof clatter instead of a too-soft sole.
“You still see the string?”
“Yes,” said Awa. “Shouldn’t I?”
“It’s only visible to you, so you can take it off if you like, and even with it on you’re liable as not to leave cloven hoofprints, so be mindful of mud when you’re walking about muddy villages.” He rooted through the chest for something else as Awa held her foot up and tried to wiggle her illusory toes.
“What is it made of ?” she asked.
“A braid from my tutor’s beard,” said the necromancer, making Awa lose some of her excitement over the gift. “And here’s his skull.”
Awa looked up and saw him holding out a small, hexagonal piece of bone with a circle punched through its center. She took it and peered closely at the burnished band. “His skull?”
“The hardest part of it, expertly carved and crafted.” He tapped his head. “That beard string of his will work fine for a foot or a hand but isn’t good for much else, though I once tied it around an adder’s throat to make it look like a grass snake.”
“But this piece of skull?”
“A ring,” said the necromancer, and, taking it back from her, he slipped it onto one of his fingers. Nothing happened. “Well, look away!”
Awa glanced to the bear and back to her tutor. Omorose stood before her, alive and radiant and smiling from ear to ear. Awa looked away again. “Take it off. Not funny.”
“No?” He dropped the ring onto the table and reached back into the box. “You can look any way you like when it’s on, and more than that, it disguises the sound of your voice and even your smell—useful if dogs are after you. For you I’d recommend the visage of a burly Spaniard fellow, lessen your chance of trouble on the roads. Not much respect for women or Moors these days. Ah, here they are!”
He placed a familiar hawthorn box on the table. “Best way to start a fire in even the wettest weather, though you’ll need to get them out of the kindling quick once it’s lit—if they stay with the fuel they might hatch. Hardly a salamander left in all the world, so if you lose these don’t count on finding another. You recall how to ignite them?”
“I tell them the word for fire, like their mother would.” Awa opened the box and removed one of the half-dozen petrified eggs.
“You have to focus on one at a time, though, which is nice—keeps you from setting your bag on fire when you’ve got one in the tinder