Saloona inhaled sharply, then turned back to the stove. Paytim was correct: this was more emotion than Saloona had displayed, or felt, in decades.
The realization unnerved her. And her dismay was not assuaged by the thought that this unaccustomed flicker of sensation had manifested itself after Paytim had uttered aloud the names of the harmonic spell that was, for the moment, contained by the Velvet Bolt.
Saloona shook the saucepan with more vigor than necessary. Since that moment in the tower, she continued to hear a low, tuneless humming in her ears, so soft she might have mistaken it for the song of bees, or the night wind stirring the firs outside her bedroom window.
But it was only late afternoon. There was no wind. There were no bees, which were unnecessary to propagate mushrooms and other fungi.
Yet the noise persisted. Saloona almost imagined that the humming grew more urgent, almost minatory.
“Do you hear that?” she asked Paytim. “A sound like hornets in the eaves?”
The fire witch cast her a look of such disdain that Saloona turned back to her stove.
Too late: the ramps were scorched. Hastily she dumped everything onto a single pewter dish and set it on the twig table.
“This—charm.” Saloona pulled a stool alongside Paytim and began to eat. “Its potency seems great. I don’t understand why you have need of my feeble powers to implement it at the Crimson Messuage.”
Paytim regarded the mushrooms with distaste. “Your false modesty is unbecoming, Saloona. Also, I need your ship.” She glanced out the window to where a maroon glow marked the onset of dawn. “The Crimson Messuage is gravely suspicious of me, as you well know, but that’s never stopped them from wanting me to join their retinue as Court Incendiary. In addition, I have a torturous history with this particular Paeolina. He made disagreeable suggestions to me many years ago, and, when rebuffed, grew surly and resentful. I am certain that his invitation will lead me into a trap.”
“Why didn’t you refuse it, then?”
“It would merely have been tendered at another time. Or else he might have attempted to take me by force. I tire of their game, Saloona. I would like to end it now, and devote myself to more pleasurable activities. My basilisk.” She dabbed at a sizzling tear. “And my cooking…”
A sideways glance at Saloona became a more meaningful look directed at the blackened saucepan. Saloona swallowed a mouthful of tricholomas.
“I still don’t—”
Paytim banged her fist against the table. “You will be my Velvet Bolt! I need you to sow clouds of unknowing, of rapture, forgetfulness, desire, what-have-you—whatever you wish, whatever distractions you can conjure from this—”
She stormed across the cottage to the window, and pointed at the ranks of neatly tended mushroom beds, flushed with the first rays of morning. “Disarm the Paeolinas and their subordinates, so that we enter the court unaccosted, and with the Black Peal intact. During the evening’s entertainment, I will enact the spelclass="underline" their corrupt dynasty will fall at last!”
Saloona looked doubtful. “What is to keep us from succumbing as well?”
“That too will be your doing.” The fire witch cast a sly glance at the pharmacopoeia bag hanging at Saloona’s waist. “You possess the Ubiquitous Antidote, do you not?”
Saloona ran her fingers across the leather pouch, and felt the familiar outline of the crystal vial inside it. “I do. But very little remains of last year’s tincture, and I must wait another month before I can harvest the spores to infuse more.”
Paytim sniffed.
Saloona finished the last of the mushrooms and pushed aside her platter. The faint pricklings of emotion had not subsided when her stomach was filled. If anything, she now felt even more distressed, and ever more reluctant to commit to this hapless venture. Paytim’s must be a very powerful spell, to so quickly undo decades of restraint and self-containment. It would be dangerous if the fire witch were aware of Saloona’s sudden lability.
“You require the use of my prism ship and my fungal electuaries. I remain uncertain of the benefits to myself.”
“Ungrateful slut! I saved your life!”
“After you attempted to wrest it from me!”
Paytim tapped distractedly at the windowpane. The glass grew molten beneath her fingertips, then congealed again, so that the view outside blurred. “The robust holdings of the Crimson Messuage will be ours.”
“I am content here.”
“The Crimson Court has a legendary kitchen. Too long have you languished here among your toadstools and toxic chanterells, Saloona Morn! At great danger to myself, I have secured you an invitation so that you may sample the Paeolinas’ nettlefish froth and their fine baked viands, also a cellar known throughout the Metarin Mountains for vintages as rare as they are temulent. Still you remain skeptical of my motivations.”
Saloona rose and went to stand beside the fire witch. Small flaws now flecked the window, like tiny craters or starbursts. The scents of sauteed mushrooms and burnt ramps faded into those of ozone and hot sand. Her hair rose slightly, tingling as with electricity. If she were to refuse the fire witch, Paytim was likely to exact a disagreeable vindication.
“I will do what I can.” Saloona pressed a palm against the glass. “I have heard that the Paeolinas’ kitchen is extensive and the chef’s repertoire noteworthy if idiosyncratic. But if I fail…”
“If you fail, you will die knowing that you have tasted nettlefish froth, a liqueur more captivating than locust jelly. And you will have heard the Seventeenth Iteration of Blase’s ‘Azoic Notturno.’ Some have claimed that death is a small price to pay for such a serenade.”
“I have never been a music lover.”
“Nor I,” said Paytim. She laid her hand upon Saloona’s shoulder. “Come now. Time for a proper breakfast.”
By the morning of the after-ball, Saloona had devised a half-dozen charms and nostrums of varying power. The fire witch wanted nothing to interfere with her deployment of the Black Peaclass="underline" her plan, therefore, was to sow the air with sores and spells that would discourage or retard any effort to restrain her once inside the court. The most severe was a spell of Impulsive Corrosion, caused by spores of panther caps, pink mycenas, and fragile elf cups infused with azalea honey and caladium. The rest made ample use of fungi that caused convulsions, temporary paralysis, hallucinations, reverse metamorphosis, spasms, twitches, and mental confusions.
Saloona refused to create any charm that might induce fatality. Still, for many years a favored entertainment had been researching the means by which her crop could depopulate large areas of the surrounding mountains. She grew poisonous mushrooms alongside their benign and sometimes all-but-indistinguishable relatives, and took pride in recognizing the subtle differences between, say, the devil’s bolete and its honey-scented cousin, the summer bolete. Her longtime sangfroid had made this a macabre but innocent pleasure. It had never crossed her mind that she might someday harvest spores and stems and caps from this toxic wonderland.
She took no delight now in concocting her poisons. More alarmingly, she did feel guilt. This too she associated with the long echo of the Black Peal. It must be a most powerful charm, to overcome the emotional inoculation she had experienced from handling so many psychotropic substances for so long.
“It seems inappropriate to sow such tumult among innocent guests,” she observed to the fire witch.
“I assure you, no one within the Crimson Messuage is innocent.”
“I am innocent!”
Paytim held up a deadly gaelerina, a fatal mushroom which Saloona claimed tasted exquisite. “A dubious statement. Innocent? You use that word too often and inappropriately. ‘Naive’ would be more accurate. Or ‘hypocritical.’”