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“Like a nun’s habit?” Rondeau said.
“No, no, I mean a routine, an action that’s been repeated so often that it’s left an
impression in the air. I can feel it, like the memory of a movement, I think
it’s…like…this.” He kicked the lower right-hand corner of the door, and as his foot
moved Marla noticed the discoloration on that portion of the door, a spot kicked a
thousand times, and when B’s foot connected, the door swung inward, revealing a
rectangle of darkness that even Marla’s better-than-ordinary eyes could barely
penetrate.
“Stairs,” B said. “Metal, spiraling down.”
“Come on, Rondeau,” Marla said. “I’ll lead, B in the middle, Rondeau gets the rear
guard.” She sighed. “I wish there was an intercom or something. I don’t mind barging
into sorcerers’ lairs, but I hope she doesn’t think I’m coming in heavy for war or
something.”
“You could take her,” Rondeau said loyally.
“I don’t want to,” Marla said. “I want her to help me take Mutex.”
“Oh,” Rondeau said. “Right. Lead on, fearless diplomat.”
“Fiat lux,” Marla said, pausing to pass her hand over Rondeau’s and B’s eyes. Now she
could see into the dark, though the view was grainy and oddly saturated, like a digital
photograph given too much contrast. B and Rondeau could see better, too (though B
probably didn’t need it), but there was no external light source, no hovering ball of light
to reveal their position or create deeper shadows around them. Marla’s light spell only
affected the vision of the chosen recipients, stepping up the receptivity of the lightsensing
apparatus in the eye, tweaking the brain’s ability to interpret visual information.
Langford the biomancer had helped her devise this spell. Marla hated the tinkerbell
lights, floating balls of fire, illuminated auras, and all the other conventional lightproducing
magics most sorcerers used. This was a bit like having night-vision goggles
on inside her eyes, but without the greenish tinge.
“Wicked,” Rondeau said, peering around.
“Huh,” B said. “Very nice.”
Marla started down the tight spiral stairs, which descended through a space the size of
an elevator shaft. The stairs were metal—copper, actually—and had almost certainly
been specially made, probably as a sort of magical nightingale floor, the metal
conducting physical information about the intruders down into the sorcerer’s lair below.
So much for worrying about showing up unannounced. If Bethany was down there, she
was probably aware that she had visitors. Marla admired the craftsmanship, the nautilus
whorl of the stairs spiraling down, the railing of delicately curved copper pipe, the steps
embossed with raised starburst shapes to provide a surer tread. Marla didn’t know any
details about Bethany, but she could infer a few things. Bethany’s magic would likely
be chthonic, aligned with dark places underground, and thus entangled with the