Spellbound statues, p.10
Spellbound Statues, page 10
“Experiments with other magical races, especially with breaking the rules that govern those magical races, are never good,” Sarah said severely. “You should have known better. I would have thought that after what Jake did, you would avoid such things.”
“After what Jake did?” Reg shot back, outraged at the comparison. “He captured and tortured the wolves, drove them insane, and caused Faolan’s death! I rescued a lost soul.”
“A homunculus does not have a soul.”
“This one does,” Reg insisted. “Don’t you talk about him like he doesn’t even exist. Just because he is a creature created by alchemy, that doesn’t mean he’s any less than any other sentient being. And he does have a soul. You think I should just have left him in that forest to wander aimlessly until the end of time? That would have been the ethical thing to do?”
Sarah looked confused. “I don’t… you are playing with forces that you know nothing about. I thought that you had learned your lesson about that before. You can’t just jump into a situation and start… changing things and acting like you know best when you don’t even understand what is going on.”
“I understood just fine. Theodore did not die or disappear when Sma died, and that makes him a separate, independent entity with the same rights as any other sentient, self-aware species. You can’t say I should just have left him by himself for the rest of his life.”
“I don’t know what the right thing was,” Sarah admitted, her cheeks pink. “You should have come to me. So that we could call together a council of elders to discuss it.”
Reg snorted. “And to take ten years to make a decision? Or to decide that he didn’t really exist and shouldn’t be recognized as a person? No way. He needed help. So I helped him.”
“Well, I cannot fault your passion or your instincts. But you don’t understand how these things work and the fact that you can make things worse by dabbling in something you don’t understand. You need to trust other people. To come to them for advice when you run into a situation that is complex and confusing and you don’t know how to handle it.”
Reg shrugged, frustrated. “Theodore just gave you a part of the answer you are looking for. Are you going to follow up on it?”
“Yes, of course I am.” Sarah shook her head. “You are infuriating sometimes, Reg. I have tried to help you and to guide you, and you still…”
“Can’t behave myself?” Reg finished, repeating the refrain she had often heard from foster parents, teachers, and case workers.
“You still won’t trust me,” Sarah corrected. “I want to help you, Reg. I have your best interests at heart. I don’t want to stifle you or to stop you from being yourself. I just want to help you to avoid… painful pitfalls that could be avoided with better choices.”
Reg’s cheeks heated, embarrassed by her landlady’s words. Reg had grown up with every choice and every attempt to be herself resulting in her being punished or shut down, so how could she believe anyone was really willing to help her and let her be herself?
“Okay,” she admitted. “I may have some trust issues.”
“Yes, you do,” Sarah agreed. “And now… we must talk to Corvin.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Reg wasn’t about to let Sarah behind the wheel of the car, so she drove her own car. Sarah glanced at Reg on the way over to Corvin’s house.
“Where did you come up with the name Theodore?”
“Oh. He named himself, actually. I couldn’t just go around calling him ‘hey you’ or ‘the homunculus.’ So, I asked him to come up with a name for himself. I didn’t know what to expect. Some demon name or something foreign and unpronounceable. Or a call number. But Theodore is pretty normal. A little old-fashioned. But normal.”
Sarah nodded. “Do you ever shorten it to Theo?”
Reg shook her head. “He chose Theodore. If he wants me to call him Theo, he can tell me that. I won’t call him something other than what he asked me to. I gave the responsibility to him, so… I need to honor it.”
“I’m sure a nickname would be okay.”
“If Theodore wants.”
Reg was glad that Sarah hadn’t seemed inclined to take Theodore with them over to Corvin’s house but allowed him to return to the garden where he was comfortable. She hoped that Sarah wouldn’t tell Corvin that Reg had a homunculus. Reg didn’t want it widely known. Even magical practitioners, who she would think should know better, didn’t always treat other species and cultures with respect. They saw species different from themselves as inferior or interlopers, even if they had been there just as long or longer. They thought they were stupid or weird or not as skilled, or said they didn’t belong with human society but should be segregated somehow, in their own community or some restricted area.
Reg didn’t want to know how they would treat a homunculus, especially one which, as far as she could tell, didn’t seem to follow the laws of alchemy by which he had been created.
Reg pulled in front of Corvin’s house for the second time in two days. She sighed and tried to relax her muscles. She didn’t know how things would turn out, but she would try to be relaxed through it all. She was mostly just an observer. Sarah was the one with the knowledge, the one who would be asking Corvin to explain himself.
Sarah patted Reg on the knee. “Don’t worry, dear, it will all be okay.”
Reg nodded and climbed out of the car. There were more flyers on Corvin’s porch. She picked them up and handed them to him when he answered the door.
“Are you going to come clean up my porch every day?”
“Why don’t you? Then I wouldn’t have to.”
He grunted. His eyes turned to Sarah. “And to what do I owe the pleasure of your company? I didn’t think you would be coming over.”
“Nor did I,” Sarah admitted. “I don’t normally show up at the wolf’s door.”
“Under the circumstances, I don’t think you can call me the wolf.”
“No,” Sarah chuckled. “I guess not. The fox, perhaps.”
“I like that better,” Corvin agreed, giving Sarah a sideways flirty look. But his lips immediately tightened, the smile disappearing. He stepped back to let the two of them into the house.
Sarah declined a drink from Corvin, and it was clear from her look at Reg that she thought it would be best if she did as well. But Reg wouldn’t be pressured into behaving the way Sarah wanted her to. She wasn’t there as Sarah’s lapdog. When she went to see Corvin by herself, she had a drink. No reason she couldn’t have one when Sarah was there, too.
Corvin nodded his approval, apparently deciding this put Reg on his side. But she wasn’t on anyone’s side. She was her own person. Sarah and Corvin could be enemies—though from what she had seen in the past, they were not really enemies. Sarah just had a healthy respect for what Corvin could do with his powers and understood his nature better than most. They worked together when they had to, and Corvin had done much to strengthen Sarah and preserve her life when the emerald that kept her healthy and young, despite her centuries had been stolen.
“So I ask again, what is this all about?” Corvin demanded. No small talk today.
“I would like to hear what you know about the elementals,” Sarah told him. “The elementals that you and Gideon bound.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Corvin gaped at Sarah. At first, his cheeks flushed a dusky red. Then he turned pale.
“The elementals,” he groaned. He swore. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Tell me what happened. The whole story,” Sarah insisted.
Corvin shook his head and held it between his hands. “I didn’t even think of it. I haven’t thought much about it for years.”
“You have been maintaining whatever spell you used to bind them.”
“Well, yes. But I have been doing that for so long that I was barely even aware of it. I didn’t need to expend much of my own energy to maintain them. The relics and elementals are powerful themselves, and I was able to… use my gifts…”
“Your curse.”
Corvin sighed heavily. “Yes. My curse. The ability to take power from them and feed it back into the binding spells.” He rubbed his forehead. “It didn’t require much effort.”
“You bound them.”
“Someone had to,” Corvin insisted. “I didn’t see you or any other practitioners in the area stepping forward to help at the time.”
“Just you and Gideon? Or were there others?”
Corvin looked away, not answering.
“There were others,” Sarah discerned. “Who else?”
“It isn’t any of your business. What other practitioners decide to do is their own business. You have no authority over others.”
“I want to know if members of my coven were involved.”
Corvin stared back at her. “You don’t have any right to demand that information.”
“If a member of the coven has been breaking magical treaties or causing harm, the others in the group have the right to know it.”
“Causing harm?” Corvin rolled his eyes. “How were we causing harm? We were addressing a threat to the community. Do you remember what it was like before they were bound? Do you have any memory of that time?”
He didn’t say, “Or are you too old to remember?” but Reg heard it insinuated in his tone.
It was Sarah’s turn to flush. “Certainly, I remember. There was a lot of concern about it at the time. But no decision was made by the community to bind the elementals.”
“What exactly are elementals and what kind of trouble were they causing?” Reg asked, feeling lost.
“Elementals are… spirits of a sort. They control the four elements of our world. Each elemental is bound to a certain element and can influence it. Earth, air, fire, and water. Normally… this doesn’t have much effect on our world. They are insignificant. They cause small fluctuations in the weather patterns—a storm here, a drought there, what we would see as normal and natural weather variations or cycles. But sometimes, there are problems. A hurricane, forest fire, earthquake, or long drought…”
Corvin nodded. “Look at the Dust Bowl in the dirty thirties. Hurricane Katrina. The Chicago fire. All can probably be attributed to rogue elementals.”
“But those things are normal,” Reg protested. “You can’t stop bad weather patterns.”
“No,” Sarah agreed. She gave Corvin a look. “You can’t.”
“There are times when it is advisable to take action,” Corvin insisted. “When people are being killed. When there is great danger to all the homes so recently established in this area. Most people were still in tents; there were few permanent structures. Tents that were easily wiped out by a wind or fire.”
“You should have left well enough alone,” Sarah said. “Look at what is happening now. Gideon being petrified. Innocent people attacked. There was a forest fire. You know an out-of-control fire could wipe out this entire town, even if we aren’t still living in tents.”
Corvin spoke to Reg, ignoring Sarah. “What was worse, four elementals, each with an affinity for a different element, were all active. So we weren’t just dealing with fire or just with earth. We were dealing with all of them. And they bounced off of each other. They weren’t working together, not in any organized fashion, but if they were to start working in concert…”
Reg shuddered, thinking of every weather apocalypse movie she had ever watched. She could only imagine the kind of devastation such an alliance could cause. The town would not just have been facing a forest fire, but maybe also an earthquake, hurricane, and other disasters simultaneously. Or combinations of elements… perhaps a storm raining fire and brimstone.
“That doesn’t give you the right to unilaterally decide how to handle the threat,” Sarah told Corvin.
“There is no council in charge of all paranormal happenings in the state. There is no coven in charge of rogue elementals. There is no authority over these things, so you can’t dictate what anyone else does about it.”
“The magical community has historically worked together to come to a solution that—”
“Just because certain groups have agreed to work together does not mean that I am required to work with anyone. And, if you remember, no one wanted me involved in their covens, councils, or communities. You were all quite emphatic about excluding a Hunter from any and all organizations at the time.”
Sarah did not argue this point. Reg knew that things had been different back then, that Corvin and his kind had been pariahs, even worse than now. Now, the world was changing and, suddenly, it was discriminatory to exclude someone just because of a curse they were born with.
She thought that things were better before. At least more practitioners would have been protected from him.
But it would have been a miserable and lonely life for Corvin.
“You did not have the right to take these free spirits, these unembodied intelligences, and to bind them. Such a thing is horrific. Unthinkable. You cannot imprison an entity just because you don’t like its nature. We never imprisoned you.”
“I never caused the havoc that the elementals did. They were dangerous to the town. To the entire state. To ignore that and to allow them to go about causing disaster and death wherever they went was irresponsible. Turning a blind eye to what was happening because you didn’t want to have to deal with it.”
“You cannot bind an elemental. You have to just… give them their time and space. In time, they would have left the area. Gone out to sea, perhaps, or into a volcano. They would have sought out the elements they had an affinity for and gone away, eventually.” She shook her head. “We thought that was what had happened.”
Corvin snorted. “You believed that all four elementals just suddenly drifted out to sea? Or went in four different directions? All the disasters stopped, and you and the other members of the covens were more than happy to forget anything had happened and go on with your lives.”
Sarah opened her mouth.
“Without asking any questions,” Corvin pointed out. “You turned a blind eye. You know that is what happened.”
“How many of you were involved? I can’t believe that I didn’t hear anything about it through the coven. People must have been aware of it.”
Corvin smirked. “You thought that your own coven was the only one in Black Sands or this part of the country?”
“No. The warlock coven, too, of course. It is as ancient as the witch’s coven.”
“They were not the only covens operating in the area. You did not have any control over how others chose to practice. You and your leaders had the right to accept only an elite few into your coven and exclude everyone else. But you have no authority over anyone else. You have no right to dictate who else meets or what they choose to do.”
“An’ it harm none,” Sarah intoned. “That is the core principle of our practice. Did you harm none?”
“I protected all life in Black Sands. I and a few select others were the only ones willing to take action to protect you. So you can put this all on me, but you made a choice with your inaction. And you chose to look the other way at the time and pretend that you didn’t know what was happening.”
“How was anyone outside of your… your shadow coven supposed to know what you were doing? You clearly knew you were doing wrong and did it in secret.”
“We knew that some would look on it with disapproval,” Corvin agreed. “But we had a higher purpose in mind. We were protecting our homes and families. Are you telling me that you would rather have seen your family killed before you even got that house of yours built?”
“I think you exaggerate the dangers. We could have found another way to deal with them if you hadn’t gone off on your own to do something… dishonorable.”
Reg could see both sides, and wasn’t sure why Sarah was so vehement about what seemed like the only viable solution. Maybe it wasn’t what Sarah would have done, and she would have wanted it to be discussed before the coven or some kind of council first. But then what would they do? What were the alternatives?
“So… you and Gideon were both involved in binding these elementals so that they couldn’t do any harm,” Reg summarized, hoping they could move on. There was no point in rehashing ancient history. Sarah wasn’t going to change anything in the past by telling Corvin he had made the wrong choice. “Like when we bound the witch doctor, right?”
Corvin nodded, looking smug. “Exactly.”
“No,” Sarah insisted, “not like binding the witch doctor. Samyr Destine chose to do evil and had done much harm. The elementals… they had no evil intent. No more than the wind and the waves have evil intent. They could be dangerous, but they were not trying to hurt or kill anyone. Binding them is more like… tying a tiger to a stake so that he cannot move. Or putting a dog in a cage too small to turn around in. There are better ways to deal with wild creatures. We could have found a better way to deal with the elementals.”
“Well…” Corvin grimaced. “You’d better start thinking of what that is. Because from your description, two of them have already escaped, and the others will not be far behind. I have no way of maintaining the binding spells in my current condition. The population of Black Sands and of Florida are much higher than they were when I bound them. You will need to find a solution soon.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Reg felt like she had swallowed a bowl full of marbles. Her guts were heavy, tight, and cramped. The marbles rattled around, impossible to ignore, and made her increasingly anxious.
She thought of the living stone statues and the fear she felt from the souls trapped inside them. Whether the earth elemental had intended to hurt and terrify them or not, that was the result. She remembered how startled she had been when she had reached out to the fire to turn it back, and the fire elemental had resisted her, had talked back to her, and had stalked her, making it clear that it was not going to go quietly and behave like a normal fire would, but would do everything within its power to fight against her for survival.
