I have remote meetings today: UK and Sweden, so it's going to be a tiring day without me feeling like I've actually done anything. The worst kind of day, really.
A broken spell Elizabeth stood outside the Whitechapel tenement and looked up. The sky was patchily blue, with grey-white clouds slowly gathering. There was a heaviness in the air, a changing pressure that made her think that rain might be on the way. Two policemen stood a little way away from her, hands clasped behind their backs and their eyes ranging over the people who lived and worked here as they kept their distance. She didn't want the policemen -- she definitely didn't want the attention that they brought -- but Arthur had been adamant that if she was going back to the tenement it wasn't safe to go alone. He'd arranged the policemen, when she thought he'd just meant that he wanted to go with her. She started up the steps, rough stone blocks that were chipped and scarred through long and careless use, but stopped when one of the policemen spoke. "What do you want us to do, ma'am?" His voice was reedy, much higher and thinner than she would have expected, for he was stockily built and, if she'd been asked to guess his profession, she would have thought he was a butcher. "Oh," she said. "I... ah, stay out here and let no-one in, please." "Thank-you, ma'am." She was halfway up the first flight of stairs inside before it occurred to her that the dangers Arthur had been alluding to might be inside the tenement, and not coming from the streets outside. She paused, one foot in midair, reaching for the next step, and then pushed her doubts aside. Lord Vileburn had confidence in her, so she could have confidence in herself. That thought lasted her all the way to the rooms where the spell had happened and a woman had been murdered before it crumbled to dust and she found herself so nervous that she had to walk around the empty room, her fingertips dragging across each wall, to convince herself that it was really empty. Then, after a moment of indecision, she closed the door and discovered that there was a bored-out hole where the lock should have been. Then, as she tried to compose herself, she had to walk to the window and look out and check that she could see her police escort stood on the street below, looking solid, dependable, and far away.
It took an effort of will to move to the centre of the room and calm herself, using a simple slow inhale and exhale to the count of four each, but finally she started to feel like she was in control. Alone, but in control. She reached for the Power and felt it around her, tenuous, filament-like, dormant. Normally she would gather it up, draw it in and concentrate it, bring it ready for use, but this time she touched it as lightly as she could. She had spent the previous evening reading and re-reading the post-Labdaris notes on chained-magic, pushing away the inevitable questions of how some of this theory had been conceived, but this kind of magic was novel for her. There were some parts of it that reminded her of demonology, which improved her confidence, but there was a lot she didn't know. "A short, maybe two-week, summer conference course would have been nice," she muttered. As she sifted the filaments, tugging and flexing to learn where they lay and how, the shape of the broken spell started to form in her mind. A strange kink here suggested that there had been a focus to bend the power, and if that was so, then there would be a distortion... and these might be the fragments of that breaking under sudden stress. Very slowly, the spell-shape came together until she had a framework and threads laced within it held in her mind. Pushing away an oncoming headache she forced herself to study it, memorizing it, looking at it like a weaver considers a moth-damaged tapestry in need of repair. She released the power, barely feeling it because her hold on it was so light, and then staggered as though punched. She felt achey, headachey, and stiff as though she'd been stood outside in the cold for hours. The room seemed different, though she couldn't put her finger on it until she went to the window and looked out. All the clouds were gone, and the sky was as blue as a cornflower.
Greg - yeah, sounds about right. I hope that they went well at least!
Ooh. Impressed with how much tension you bring to this scene without making much of it obvious. And that ending... ooh. Where (or when) has Elizabeth gone to?
3 comments:
I have remote meetings today: UK and Sweden, so it's going to be a tiring day without me feeling like I've actually done anything. The worst kind of day, really.
A broken spell
Elizabeth stood outside the Whitechapel tenement and looked up. The sky was patchily blue, with grey-white clouds slowly gathering. There was a heaviness in the air, a changing pressure that made her think that rain might be on the way. Two policemen stood a little way away from her, hands clasped behind their backs and their eyes ranging over the people who lived and worked here as they kept their distance. She didn't want the policemen -- she definitely didn't want the attention that they brought -- but Arthur had been adamant that if she was going back to the tenement it wasn't safe to go alone. He'd arranged the policemen, when she thought he'd just meant that he wanted to go with her.
She started up the steps, rough stone blocks that were chipped and scarred through long and careless use, but stopped when one of the policemen spoke.
"What do you want us to do, ma'am?" His voice was reedy, much higher and thinner than she would have expected, for he was stockily built and, if she'd been asked to guess his profession, she would have thought he was a butcher.
"Oh," she said. "I... ah, stay out here and let no-one in, please."
"Thank-you, ma'am."
She was halfway up the first flight of stairs inside before it occurred to her that the dangers Arthur had been alluding to might be inside the tenement, and not coming from the streets outside. She paused, one foot in midair, reaching for the next step, and then pushed her doubts aside. Lord Vileburn had confidence in her, so she could have confidence in herself.
That thought lasted her all the way to the rooms where the spell had happened and a woman had been murdered before it crumbled to dust and she found herself so nervous that she had to walk around the empty room, her fingertips dragging across each wall, to convince herself that it was really empty. Then, after a moment of indecision, she closed the door and discovered that there was a bored-out hole where the lock should have been. Then, as she tried to compose herself, she had to walk to the window and look out and check that she could see her police escort stood on the street below, looking solid, dependable, and far away.
It took an effort of will to move to the centre of the room and calm herself, using a simple slow inhale and exhale to the count of four each, but finally she started to feel like she was in control. Alone, but in control.
She reached for the Power and felt it around her, tenuous, filament-like, dormant. Normally she would gather it up, draw it in and concentrate it, bring it ready for use, but this time she touched it as lightly as she could. She had spent the previous evening reading and re-reading the post-Labdaris notes on chained-magic, pushing away the inevitable questions of how some of this theory had been conceived, but this kind of magic was novel for her. There were some parts of it that reminded her of demonology, which improved her confidence, but there was a lot she didn't know.
"A short, maybe two-week, summer conference course would have been nice," she muttered.
As she sifted the filaments, tugging and flexing to learn where they lay and how, the shape of the broken spell started to form in her mind. A strange kink here suggested that there had been a focus to bend the power, and if that was so, then there would be a distortion... and these might be the fragments of that breaking under sudden stress.
Very slowly, the spell-shape came together until she had a framework and threads laced within it held in her mind. Pushing away an oncoming headache she forced herself to study it, memorizing it, looking at it like a weaver considers a moth-damaged tapestry in need of repair.
She released the power, barely feeling it because her hold on it was so light, and then staggered as though punched. She felt achey, headachey, and stiff as though she'd been stood outside in the cold for hours. The room seemed different, though she couldn't put her finger on it until she went to the window and looked out. All the clouds were gone, and the sky was as blue as a cornflower.
Greg - yeah, sounds about right. I hope that they went well at least!
Ooh. Impressed with how much tension you bring to this scene without making much of it obvious. And that ending... ooh. Where (or when) has Elizabeth gone to?
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