SPELL OF FIDELITY

Lee Lady

Monday morning. Early Monday morning. The city of Bourgin. The Street of Skulls.

Bayli the wizard is on his way to work, walking briskly but carefully, avoiding sometimes still sticky bloodstains and bits of gore from last night's carnage. The corpses have already been dragged away.

Keeping on eye peeled to see if that curly red-headed bastard Ribaldo is still blighting the street scene. Not that it matters. Always someone to take his place.

Bayli's cape has a rip big enough to put a hand through. Damn that Madelina! Can't even be bothered to put in a few simple stiches. The tunic's dirty too. Not a single clean thing in the house to start a new week with.

The cape should have been replaced a year ago anyway. Always the same problem: money, money, money. Never enough, and they all complain about his fees. They think that because Bayli's in the business, he's got a never-ending supply on tap. Just simmer the books for a couple of hours over a low flame. As if they'd never heard of auditors. As if he could stay in business another month once he started that kind of thing.

Madelina. That's where the money goes. Two hundred a month to Greenleaf and now the fucking spell's getting fritzy. What's the matter with that damned wizard? He was always so reliable.

The Street of Skulls is quiet in the mornings. The sell-swords are all packed away in brothels sleeping it off -- except for those whose corpses are piled up outside the city. A few cookshops are open for breakfast. Fortune-telling shops not yet open. Clothiers, chandlers, herb shops likewise.

Going to have to go back to using herbs on Madelina unless Greenleaf can pay a little more attention to the servicing on his spells. For two hundred a month, one should get at least good service. Herbs will never be a good substitute. No herb made will keep the lid on Madelina's libido.

Shutters still intact on Bayli's shop. No rotten fruit plastered against it this morning. In front: somebody huge wearing a sword, pacing back and forth, wearing warboots; not a guardian. Hugo. Hugo the barbarian. Dumb, but nice, unless you cross him. What the hell can he want with Bayli?

They all want wizardry. To rescue their ass from their crappy swordsmanship. But Hugo never uses magic, he's scared to death of it. And in any case, that sort of thing is not Bayli's specialty. His talent is double-entry bookkeeping. Not much help against a sharp sword.

Get Hugo inside. Sit him down at the table. Can't talk business staring up from the level of the giant's chest.

Hugo lowers himself carefully into the chair. Nice guy, despite everything, careful of the furniture. But the chair's strong enough for two of him in any case. Never pays to skimp on making clients comfortable.

Bayli doesn't wait for a connection to be made between Hugo's mouth and his brain, but says right away, ``Taxes.'' That's got to be it, after all. What else could a mercenary want from an accountant?

Hugo's lower lip trembles, his eyes get wet, the face is starting to go out of control.

Can't let the guy start crying, tear ducts are probably big as wine skins.

``It's never as bad as it looks,'' Bayli says reassuringly. ``That's what I'm in business for, to tangle these things out.'' Somehow those words didn't come out quite right, but Hugo doesn't seem to notice. ``When you try to work your own wizardry, you're in the same fix as if I tried to do my own swordplay,'' Bayli says with the apologetic little smile designed for clients in trouble.

``I gotta go to court Wednesday,'' Hugo says, voice quavering a little. He pulls out a small scroll from under his breastplate.

``It can't be any worse than facing a dozen Amazons with poison sabres,'' Bayli says reassuringly, with a little chuckle. Reads down the scroll, almost drops it. What the hell has the guy done, made a raid on the Duke's treasury?

``I paid taxes on everything,'' Hugo says.

``What about tips?'' Bayli already knows the answer.

Hugo's face gets stubborn. ``That's presents.''

Why do they always expect to get away with it?

``What's gonna happen?'' Hugo looks scared again.

Bayli sighs, shrugs, holds the palms of his hands up. ``They can fine you treble what you owe plus not less than 500 zoyles . For practical purposes, the upper limit might as well be infinity. And you could get from two to ten years in the dungeons if the court really doesn't like you.''

If looks could kill, Hugo would be committing suicide.

``You don't need a wizard of accounting at this point. You need a shyster.''

``Where do I find one of those?''

``You don't. Not in Bourgin, anyway.'' Not since the wizard Peri ended up as a secondary victim in one of his murder cases a few years ago.

Hugo is half-way out of his seat, leaning across the desk, face looming over Bayli's.

``I can't do it for you,'' Bayli says, nervous, scared. Only professional training keeps him from pushing his chair back away from the barbarian's reach. ``The best a shyster could do would be to cast a spell of eloquence for you and hope you could talk yourself into some mercy. I don't have the talent for that sort of thing.''

Hugo's not giving up. His eyes are saying there's going to be blood on the floor.

``You have to understand how wizardry works,'' Bayli says. Keep the eyes calm, keep the voice steady. ``Double-entry bookkeeping can't make you eloquent in court anymore than a spell of eloquence would protect against a poisoned knife. It's as if ... as if ...'' He can't think of an analogy Hugo would understand.

Hugo slumps back into the chair. Hurt, crushed, eyes bewildered.

``Look,'' Bayli says (shut up, shut up, forget it, there's nothing you can do for him) , ``I'll talk to the wizard Greenleaf on your behalf. He's not a shyster, but he's a wizard of many talents and he's good'' (except for the spell on Madelina the past few days).

``Greenleaf's gone,'' Hugo says glumly.

``Gone?'' Bayli says stupidly, unbelieving. ``Gone, like how? And where?''

And when? Without even a word to his clients? The spell on Madelina was paid up for another six months, damn it!

``I dunno where.'' Hugo looks amazed that someone would expect him to have information. ``Nobody seems to know. He's gone since last week.''

Bayli manages to get Hugo to leave the office, promising to talk to him again that afternoon.

It's total disaster if he can't get servicing for the spell of fidelity. What's the point of being married to the eleventh most beautiful woman in Bourgin in every fop in the city can have a go at her?

Noon. Not a cloud in the sky, Bayli's eyes suffering from the sun's glare, tunic sopping with sweat under the cape. Walking from tavern to cookshop, cookshop to tavern, seeking news of Greenleaf.

Heads turn and stare, some sneer, some merely curious.

``What's the Cape doing in here? If he's got a spell to change a jackass to a pig, he could use it on the barkeep.''

``Hey, you want ferlin? Straight out of Crannec, all good shit, ask anybody. Use it myself. For you, a special rate.''

``Hey Bayli, saw your wife a day or two ago.'' The malicious tone foreshadows the message. ``With the pretty-faced red-headed creep. Funny as a crutch. First she sticks her elbow in his eye and then he jabs her right in the boobs with his forearm and still they don't give up. They try to get their faces together but she winds up with his nose in her mouth.''

O.K., that's all to the good. But they should never have been able to get that close to each other at all. And that was days ago. By now, the spell may have pooped out completely.

Something about this situation definitely smells. Nobody knows shit about Greenleaf. Nobody, meaning nobody. It's not that they won't talk.

They just don't know.

Who the hell?

Save it for the tourists, sweetheart. By Crysaik, as soon as the sun goes down she'll be torn apart by urchins half her age. Let it be, she's not even pretty. Happens every day, you can't feed every stray cat meowing at the door.

``I don't know what gave you the idea that you could survive on the Street, but get that out of your head right away.'' Put it in language that will get through to her. ``You're going to be running into kids who've been selling their ass since they were five years old. They're where they belong and they're not about to welcome somebody like you. You don't even know any better than to approach a Cape. How old are you anyway?''

``Nineteen, sir.'' Not likely. Looks a lot closer to fourteen. Bright black eyes are desperate, little angular face framed by scraggly black hair. ``I know I'm not pretty, sir, but I'll do anything.''

Anything. She doesn't have a clue.

``Look, find somebody that needs a servant, even an inn that needs help. Hell,'' as if there weren't enough things to do already, ``I'll take you to my shop. Later this afternoon we'll tour the Street, try to find a merchant who can use you. Where have you worked before?''

``Scurlan's house. The magician's.''

``What happened?'' As if he needed to ask. Master of the house must have felt the need for new flesh. ``I saw something I wasn't supposed to, sir.''

It takes a while to get it all out of her. Her name's Alura. Scurlan's got somebody stowed away in his house and it sounds like a Cape. Fortunately for Alura, she'd managed to convince him that she'd seen less than she had.

It's got to be Greenleaf. Nobody else is conspicuously missing. Bayli takes her back to the shop and starts making plans.

Bayli: ``You're sure Scurlan's not here?''

Alura: Shrugs.

Hugo: ``I doan like wizards.''

Bayli's look is grim. As for him, he wouldn't in the least mind having another wizard with them right now. What they're going to need tonight isn't taught in accounting school.

Have to hope that Hugo can basically hack his way in. Hugo to hack, Alura to show the way, Bayli to hold Hugo's hand. Hoping Hugo doesn't figure out that he's for the high jump whether they rescue Greenleaf or not.

There are wards on the doors and windows that will set up a loud wailing if broached, audible for blocks away. Standard prophylactic against burglars and not hard to disarm if you know how. Bayli doesn't know how. But Alura knows a basement window where you can get past the ward if you're careful. Then you only have to face Scurlan's giant three-headed snake Cerebellum.

``I doan like snakes.'' Figures. Out of all the possible barbarians, Bayli has to wind up with a scaredy-cat. Not that Bayli is that keen on snakes himself. But according to Alura, if this one has eaten in the past few days he may be pretty sluggish.

Black dark. Now all three are in the basement. Should have let Hugo face the snake alone. Even for the eleventh-most beautiful woman in Bourgin, it's not worth it. Sex-crazy bitch.

Bayli produces a small beam of light, the sort of wizardy even an accountant can manage. Points it here and there. Little shapes in the shadows turn out to be nothing. The three of them move forward. Bayli's leading the way, how the hell did that happen?

In the silence of the basement, every footstep is an audible squish. Something red dropping from overhead just misses Bayli's shoulder. A spider, big one, but just as afraid of them as they are of it.

Stairs straight ahead. A door at the top that Hugo will have to hack through. If the snake isn't awake by then, that will wake him up for sure.

Hand brushes against something cold. What in Crysaik? Hanging from the ceiling, long, metal. Bayli shines his light. Strips of copper. Copper is used a lot in advanced magic, good conductor.

On toward the stairs. Bayli's foot lands on something round, long. It moves under him, he lands sprawled in a heap.

The snake is as big around as Bayli's thigh and he's lying almost on top of it. Hugo rushes forward, yelling for light, all but stepping on Bayli's head.

Bayli manages a lightball, appearing dazzlingly in front of Hugo's face, blinding him. Fortunately, the snake draws back from it a moment. Bayli puts the light behind Hugo's head, until he sees the snake preparing to strike at it, then moves it off to the side as a decoy. Hugo's sword is in action. Got to strike where the three heads come together, that's where the single brain is.

Alura's caught in the tail. Bayli grabs the twising body, hangs on, stabs with his dagger, is thrown off.

Hugo is hacking at the heads.

Bayli starts a witch-fire, running along the beams above them. Doesn't scare the snake but at least they can see. Bayli scrambles for his dagger, starts stabbing again. The snake writhing wildly.

Blood spurting out near the snake's heads. Then it's over. Hugo's unscathed. Alura mostly O.K, but probably bruised to hell and her clothes ripped half off. One breast is just not going to stay covered and she looks embarrassed. And this is the woman who only a few hours before was offering her body for sale.

Bayli stands up, trembling violently, almost collapsing again.

The last of the witch-fire flickers above. They look at each other silently. Hugo sees the group of shallow wounds in the snake's side, looks at Bayli's dagger, forebears saying anything.

``Are you all right?'' Alura asks.

Bayli nods. Producing all that light has nearly exhausted him. Been operating on sheer adrenalin.

Once out of the basement, visibility is better. Alura strikes a light to a lantern, turns it down low. Bayli gathers up some pieces of parchment with figures on them. Then upstairs to find Greenleaf.

Alura shows him the room. Protected by a spell, of course. Looks empty.

Bayli heads in, comes back out again. ``He may have been here once, but there's no trace now.''

``You never even got inside,'' Alura tells him. ``You just stood in the doorway. I wish I remembered the time I went in.'' She steps to the threshhold, stands, twists back and forth, stretches out her hand to touch invisible objects, finally turns and takes a step back toward Hugo and Bayli, looks at them questionningly.

Bayli shakes his head. Alura's expression droops.

At least now they're fairly sure Greenleaf is in there.

``I'll climb up to the window,'' Hugo offers.

It's an idea. ``Do you know how to turn of the wards from inside?'' Bayli asks Alura. She shakes her head.

Bayli can probably figure it out if he looks around a little. Turn off the wards, then hope that Hugo can make the climb. And if the window is spelled the same as the door, he'll probably fall and break his neck.

``Scurlan's only a magician, not a wizard,'' Bayli says. ``Holding a wizard captive will already take most of his strength. He won't have much to spare for other spells. So let's assume the spell in the doorway is mostly cleverness, rather than power.''

The other two nod. Willing to assume anything if Bayli says it's true.

``It should be a matter of intent. I intend to go into the room, but the doorway transforms my intent into illusion. Let's try something.''

Bayli stands in the doorway, Hugo and Alura push from behind. Bayli finds the same empty room.

``It's so strong,'' Alura says. ``We couldn't push you in at all.''

``The spell itself has no physical strength,'' Bayli says. ``It resists you by tapping my strength and produces the illusion of great effort on your part.''

Hugo and Bayli try pushing Alura but can't budge her. Bayli is sweating profusely.

``Try me,'' Hugo says.

It makes no sense. Hugo's strength would be working against them instead of in their favor. Hugo insists.

He's like a stone wall. Bayli pushes with strength he never knew he had, almost fainting from the effort. Suddenly, an immense feeling of release and Hugo steps forward. Alura and Bayli tumble into the room behind him.

Inside, somebody blond, pudgy, sitting at a desk and holding a quill in an enormous meaty hand. Greenleaf.

Bayli scrambles to his feet, attempts a smile. ``I'm Bayli, ninth-degree wizard specializing in accounting. You have spell of fidelity on my wife, but it's getting fritzy.''

Greenleaf looks utterly dumbfounded, then begins to laugh. Uncontrollably, convulsively laughing, bending over, all but falling off his chair.

Bayli grins sheepishly. The laughing fit goes on and on.

Greenleaf finally runs out of breath, chokes a little. Bayli continues with introductions. ``I'm sure you recognize Hugo the Barbarian. Alura used to be a servant here.''

Greenleaf examines Alura more closely. ``This beats any wild card I'd ever imagined. How'd you get through the doorway?''

Bayli looks blank, turns to Hugo.

The barbarian shrugs. ``Bayli said we couldn't get through 'cause we wanted to. So I just stopped wanting.''

Greenleaf raises his eyebrows. ``Only a wizard in a hundred is capable of something like that,'' he says to Hugo. ``What in Crysnaim are you people doing here, anyway?''

Alura, arms crossed to cover the bare breast, says, ``We came to rescue you.''

``You gotta witch the court about my taxes,'' Hugo says.

``He needs a spell of eloquence,'' Bayli explains.

Greenleaf shakes his head in wonder. ``I'd believe that somebody had cast a spell of confusion over you three, except that if that were true, I'd detect it on you.''

``You have to do some maintainance on the spell of fidelity on Madelina,'' Bayli says. ``She's much too beautiful for me to keep her without the spell.''

To Alura, Greenleaf says, ``And I suppose you want a cure for pimples.''

Alura looks bewildered, wondering if she has any, which she doesn't.

``All right,'' Greenleaf says. ``Primum, I'm not a shyster and any spell of eloquence cast by me would be more likely to get you hanged than anything else. Secundum: A sizeable portion of my income comes from maintaining spells of fidelity on almost all the married women on Bourgin's Top Forty list, so I'm not about to neglect those spells.

``But just between the four of us,'' he continues, ``if I had a beautiful daughter I'd take a dagger and rip several deep scars in her face, just to save her from that kind of spell. Half the husbands who use spells of fidelity scarcely touch their wives themselves one a month. And then they complain about how bitchy they are. A few flowers once in a while, occasionally taking her to a cookshop for dinner, would serve the same purpose as a spell in most cases, and much more cheaply. Fortunately for me, the general public is an idiot.

``Finally,'' to Alura, ``a girl with a breast like yours doesn't need to hide it. Why don't you tear the dress some more and let us see the other one too?''

Alura doesn't lower her arms, looks scared but also angry. ``I don't understand this. Don't you want to be rescued?''

``I suppose I don't have much choice about it at this point, after the mess I'm sure you created getting in here. It does seem a waste, after I expended so much ingenuity in getting taken in the first place.''

``I thought it was rather odd,'' Bayli says, ``that a mere magician could be holding a wizard captive.''

Greenleaf grins. ``Only a ninth-degree wizard could be such a snob. It never occurs to those of you in the lower ranks that someone might have reasons other than incompetance for not wanting to qualify for a cape.

``Scurlan is a very competant magician, enough to be heading a vast bootleg magic operation centered in Bourgin. He gets incidental help from all sorts of people, such as ferlin smugglers -- not to mention a lot of poor wives tortured by that spell of fidelity you're so concerned with. I don't know whether even I am better than he is, but fortunately I and the Board of Wizards have developed some good intelligence sources that make our position much stronger than he thinks. If I didn't know the technical specifications of the spell he's using to keep me here, I'm not sure I could break it.''

``What about the court?'' Hugo wants to know. ``You gonna let them put me in the dungeons?''

``Are you guilty?''

``I paid what I ought to have.''

``He's guilty,'' Bayli says.

``In that case, hex the evidence.''

Bayli's jaw drops. So this is the way they play in the big leagues.

``The only trouble with that approach,'' Greenleaf goes on, ``is that you can't do it. Legal evidence is strongly guarded against magic. You only have a clear shot at it when it's presented in court, and you don't have time then to create a spell. And nobody with a prefabricated spell of vanishing or confusion would ever get past the doorkeeper.''

Alura says, ``We should kidnap the judge.''

Greenleaf grins. ``You have a sense of style, my dear, in more ways than one. Truly a prince among women. As you live longer, you may learn to couple it with a sense of the practical.''

``Hide him in a room with spell, like this one.''

``Let's talk about the whole thing later. The point is that we don't want our barbarian friend to be locked up somewhere or to have to flee to some distant city. But right now we need to get out of here before Scurlan gets back.''

Downstairs, they carry out a brief search, taking away anything Greenleaf thinks may be useful. Behind them, the villa is a shambles, wards turned off, doors wide open.

Bayli can't believe he's been a part of it all. The sun will be rising soon. He's headed home, one hand cupped over Alura's breast, an enormous shit-eating grin on his face.

Hugo, Bayli, and -- surprise -- Madelina.

Bayli looks beat. He's spent a day trying to make sense of the figures he found in Scurlan's villa. Now he's got to bring off something very tricky, with no second chance.

Hugo's case is called. Bayli is concentrating fiercely and yet trying to be inconspicuous. He's got to get this absolutely right.

The prosecutor hands the documents in the case to the judge, who drops them. The clerk and bailiff rush forward to help pick them up, foreheads bump, scrolls roll one way and another. Spectators laugh.

Madelina turns to a pot-bellied, bald-headed man sitting next to her and, to his enormous surprise, thrusts her tongue deep into his mouth, runs her hands down his body.

Court is recessed. Bayli leaves carrying half the evidence in Hugo's case. Nobody stops him. Nobody can locate the other half.

Outside, Greenleaf claps him on the shoulder. ``I knew you could do it. They've have suspected something for sure if I'd tried to go in.''

``I was so afraid it wouldn't work.''

``The spell of fidelity's very strong. It has to be, considering the urges it overcomes. Nobody but you will be able to get close to any of those documents for weeks now.''

``I'll burn the ones I have.''

Greenleaf points to Madelina, who's running down the Street of Skulls kissing every man she encounters. ``You could still get her back, you know.''

Bayli stands bemused, just watching, until the eleventh most beautiful woman in Bourgin disappears around a corner.

``I hope she'll be okay,'' he says.

Alura's waiting for him at home.