Sorcerer's Spin

by Anise Rae

  He eyed the silvery energy encasing the boat. That amount of power…it was a bit of overkill. A waste of energy and effort. He glanced at the man as if he might actually ask him why he’d used so much.

  Daegan stared blindly up the river, thoughtful and worried, as if Gregor’s story had rattled him. Or perhaps he was finally concerned for Mara.

  Good.

  Mara was a silhouette, frail and alone, heading west as the sun dawned and the eastern sky turned to fire. Gregor paced to the helm of the boat, getting as close to her as possible.

  He was an excellent swimmer, and if it had been any body of water except the Mississippi, he would have jumped in, but he had no defenses against the river monsters. They’d eat him alive. What the hell had she been thinking getting on that boat?

  “You’re like a rabid dog whose bone is floating away. Why do you care about her?” Daegan asked. “She’s a pretty form, I suppose.” The fairy shrugged. “A steady paycheck. I’ve heard you mage men are turning into slouches, relying on your women to provide for you.”

  Not him. And not anyone he knew. Although now, with his power scarred and damaged, he had no official paycheck coming in for the first time since he’d left the monks. But he’d sure as hell figure it out.

  He reached into his invisible pocket—a spell that Lincoln had cast for him in private upon his departure, a gift from one wayward to another. He pulled out his gun and holstered it with a spell at his side. It would be faster to draw it from there.

  “What’s that supposed to do? Show me you’re tough?” Daegan shook his head. “You can’t shoot me. If you try to cross the river without me, the maidens will devour your bones. Their queen leads your witch across now.” He nodded toward the river. “They’re hungry.”

  Long, sleek shadows darted through the water, from the edge of Daegan’s boat all the way to Mara’s.

  The fairy nodded at the gun. “You can’t stop a glister’s power with that. But I can tell you how you can stop it.”

  Right. He didn’t believe for a second that the fairy would tell him.

  He studied the boat’s spells. He swallowed hard, his throat dry with fear. Sound spells worked oddly over water, and the Mississippi was probably a thousand times worse. But what choice did he have?

  He formed the chant in his mouth and let it into the world, silent to his own ears. Every cell in his body vibrated with its energy. His vibes morphed into a sharp blade and sliced the gray spells that anchored the boat to the land. The boat started to drift. He heaved a sigh, relieved.

  Daegan gave a cruel laugh. “Impressive, monk.” With a single bound, he leaped aboard. “No mage has ever broken my spell before. More than a few have tried. You don’t need the gun. You’ve convinced me. Even though I hate mages.”

  Gregor adjusted his position so that both Mara and the fairy were in his sight. “And I hate fairies.” As he watched, she looked back, biting her lip as if she felt bad about leaving him.

  He hoped she did.

  How had she managed to survive her dozen trips to the West if she made decisions like this?

  The ferry cut through the water. As the wind danced past him, the distance between the two boats lengthened. “The creature is speeding up,” Gregor said over the sound of the wind. Daegan’s boat would never catch her.

  “I don’t think the river maiden queen likes you.”

  “The feeling’s mutual.” Nerves danced across Gregor’s shoulders at being so close to a damn fairy. “Why didn’t you take Mara across when she asked you?”

  “Because I didn’t want her to go.” Daegan looked over. “Relax. It’s unlikely the river queen will eat her.”

  His gut turned to lead. He felt for his gun. His hand against it, he soundlessly chanted a waterproof spell over it. If the queen moved against Mara, he’d go into the damn river after her. Surely if he cast an impenetrable spell over his body it would last a few minutes in the water. “Can this piece of shit go faster?”

  The fairy ignored his question. “Guard the quest of the one who spins. Seek her truth and healing begins,” Daegan quoted.

  Gregor clenched his teeth so hard they rattled. “How did you know that?”

  “Do you actually believe it is your destiny to go West because an old woman croaked out a black cloud of sticky shit?”

  “You have a spy in the High Councilor’s court.” Who was the snitch? As the river smacked against the sides of the boat, he wondered…did he even care? He pulled in a slow breath. He cared if it impacted Mara.

  “You should know that prophecies can change,” the fairy said. His gray power spread around the bottom of the boat, fluctuating in silvery shimmers of energy visible to Gregor’s mage sense.

  “Don’t get hung up on this one,” Daegan continued. “You can be replaced.”

  Gregor put his hands on the boat’s railing and squeezed. “No one is replacing me. Mara is mine to guard.”

  Daegan shook his head. “And the game plays on.”

  She was now sixty yards distant. Between her boat and this one, a river maiden raised her head and called out, the sound like static to his damaged hearing. The power in her song lifted the hair on his neck with a painful tingle.

  If one of them made a move, he’d throw every vibe he had at her and pray it would be enough.

  He caught Daegan eyeing the water. Was that desperation on his sweaty brow?

  “Are you worried about her?” He wondered if the arguing and the insults were just a big show. “She told me she had a friend who was a fairy…a glister. For her sake, I hope she wasn’t talking about you. You’re a shit friend.”

  Daegan gave an icy laugh. “Fairies do not like anyone, witch.”

  He wasn’t buying it, not considering the fairy’s clenched fists and tight brow as he stood at the helm. “You’ve escorted her across the river multiple times. Why put up a fuss today? What do you know?” He would have shaken it out of him if the man had been a mage. As it was, he was afraid to look him in the eye. He fingered the gun at his side.

  “Done some research on her, have you?” Daegan asked.

  “As you have researched me, apparently. Where I was born, my schooling, that I have no door?” He squinted. “What the hell does that mean?” And what else did he know?

  “You want to know how I learned your fascinating facts?” The gray man took a breath. “Sueytei wiesi.”

  The words blew against Gregor with a power that chilled deep inside his skull. Like the blessing the fairy had whispered, he knew their meaning. Somehow, his mind understood.

  Luck whispers.

  He wanted to chalk it up to his years-long apprenticeship under the monks—learning languages, speaking in tongues, chanting, singing the Goddess’s songs.

  But no mage had anything to do with the god, Luck. The former consort to the mages’ Goddess was loathed for the harm he’d caused their beloved Lady.

  Daegan looked over his shoulder at him. “You are Luck’s man more than you are the Republic’s. You are consort-marked.”

  He pulled his gun, keeping it at his side. “The fuck I am!” Rage renewed its boil. “No mage would ever be Luck’s man.”

  “Two pricks in the neck with Luck’s needle. You could not be more clearly marked. Deal with it. If you are to guard the quest of the one who spins, then you must let go of your anger and your fear.” His soft voice was a taunt. “Poor simple monk boy. You’ve been kicked off your pinnacle of superiority, and now you’re floundering in some dark sea that you think is your doom. You should relax. Go for a swim. You might like that dark sea.”

  He hated that dark sea. It was filled with rage and fear and pain. Swim in it? He did everything he could to avoid it.

  Daegan nodded toward the sorceress, so far ahead of them now. “You are not worthy of her. None of you witches are.”

  “Mages, not witches.” His tone was absent, his mind focused on the blackness.

  Ahead, the river maiden’s boat bumped against the shore. Mara tossed her pac
k to the small dock and hopped off. The creature bobbed up, her head and shoulders above the water and she bowed, long and slow. Mara bowed back.

  “Thank the Goddess,” he breathed.

  She gave him a wave and his heart lurched. She lingered for a moment, but the train whistled and she dashed up the hill and into the wild, unclaimed land that thrived on chaos and tumult.

  He wasn’t surprised. She had a mission to complete in order to return to her sorceresses. But he’d caught her hesitation and he clung to it. He patted the small tracker still in his pocket, the one Cecilia had given him. He hadn’t planned to use it, but neither had he tossed it away.

  Daegan shot in front of him, a streak of silver lightning. That was all it took. Gregor was caught. The silver swirl sucked him in. He couldn’t move. His mind screamed. A soul deep fright shook him to the marrow of his bones. The cackle of the fairy’s laugh brought an instant sweat over his skin.

  “Warrior, you want to flee from my grip? You can. I’ll tell you how, secrets only my people know.” He poked at Gregor’s scarred neck. “Luck has changed your magic.” He touched Gregor’s temple. “I can change your mind.”

  A low growl burst from his throat, helpless rage. His power was harnessed like a slave to the fairy. His gun hung useless at his side.

  “You are not unique. Did you know that?” Daegan’s smooth, low tone circled around him. “They tried the needle on another soldier…three decades back. He is marked by Luck, too.”

  Gregor’s body and power might not have been under his control, but his mind still was. A wave of hope washed through him.

  “Don’t get excited. He did not fare well. He can’t help you, monkey.” Daegan tipped his head as if he could see into his mind. “It remains to be seen if the god’s gift can overcome the prejudices of your mage mind. I wonder, will you harness it, monkey?”

  Gregor tried again to shake off his grip, but he couldn’t move.

  “If you quit fighting, it won’t be so hard.”

  Quit fighting? No way in hell. He reached for his power, but all that happened was the gun fell to the floor. “Is this how Luck overcomes prejudices?” Gregor found his voice, but his tongue flopped like rubber and his words slurred. His heart pounded, slow and hard, as if it needed to race faster but the fairy held it hypnotized too. His chest ached from it.

  “It is not Luck with whom you should be angry. Nor are the glister to blame. She betrayed you, monk. The old bitch. She knew it didn’t work. Her first victim was Major Stanford Madding. Know of him?”

  “The leader of the Black Skulls?” His surprise powered the words out of him.

  “The Mad Prophet himself. And yet she tried it again on you.” He tilted his head. “Is that evil’s clutch at work or just stupidity?”

  Gregor’s chest rose and fell as if he’d sprinted miles around the raft. “The gray. You’re the evil ones.”

  “We do not subscribe to evil. Did she tell you our king is missing? That without his magic to anchor them all, my people grow restless and dangerous? Did she tell you about the outlaws brimming forth? That the Mad Prophet leads his men east and plays for control of the Wild West?” He leaned into Gregor’s face, his power pulling him deeper. “And yet she sends Mara into their clutches. The crone will blame her for everything that goes wrong.” He leaned closer. “And so many things will go wrong.”

  The boat bumped against the shore hard enough to knock Gregor over, but Daegan’s hold kept him on his feet.

  “Let me go,” he seethed. He shook so hard trying to free himself that his vision was blurred.

  “First, I must tell you how to defeat a fairy’s power. Don’t you want to know?”

  Fairies were damn hard to kill—even with a gun. They were impervious to mage spells, had quick healing powers, and were impossible to detect. They were as blank as Nons until they turned on their energy. The species had few weaknesses.

  As quickly as he’d caught Gregor, he let him go.

  Gregor grabbed the gun from the floor and pulled the trigger. Once. Twice. Three times.

  Just as fast, a wall of water formed high between them—muddy and solid and obliterating everything. It collapsed in a huge wave. Three bullets lay on the wooden deck.

  The fairy stared. “I’m your only ally.”

  “I will never be a fairy’s ally. And don’t you ever fucking hypnotize me again, asshole.” He grabbed his pack and hopped over to the dock.

  “You may not know this, but we don’t call ourselves that.” Daegan mocked him. “We are not fairies or the gray. We are the glister.” He said the words as if it were a grand pronouncement.

  “Glister. Right. ‘All that glisters is not gold.’” He quoted the old play as he took the first steps of the hill. No, the fairies weren’t gold. They were silver.

  “He was one of ours, you know. Shakespeare.”

  Gregor stopped to face the man. “Shakespeare was a mage. He was not a Goddess damned fairy.” Offense boiled through him as if he’d known the bard personally. He sure as hell knew his writings. It was one of the two books in his pack at the moment.

  “More fool you, but that is a topic for another day,” Daegan said. “The Republic is creeping ever closer to bleeding power through its borders, its energy streaming forth like a mortal wound flooding the wild lands. Even I am not sure why that is happening. You can be sure that the glister do not want the Republic to fall. We do not want their kind here.”

  He didn’t believe him. Fairies, like sorceresses, were synonymous with lies and secrets and cunning.

  A train whistle shot through the air again and Gregor ran up another two steps before Daegan spoke again.

  “Wait. Don’t you want the secret to stopping glister power? You already have the first part, the mark that changed you. The second part? It’s the simplest and most deadly of weapons. It’s the unsung song of hearts.”

  12

  Daegan’s wish for Luck shining down on her wasn’t working. Mara wandered through her third train car seeking a vacant seat. So far, she’d found only one. No matter her exhaustion, she was not sitting beside the man with three chickens shoved into a cage built for one.

  She continued down the skinny aisle, fighting to keep her heavy pack balanced on her shoulders and fighting equally hard not to think about Gregor. She didn’t have the energy to feel guilty about leaving him. Again. She fingered his calling card in her pants pocket, wanting to connect the spell, to check in, but too many Nons surrounded her. Mage power was painful to them. They’d turn on her in an instant.

  She paced through the car. An opened newspaper, held high by its seated owner, caught her eye and then stole her breath. Her face smiled back at her from the image spell printed on the front page. Sorceress’s fabric cures mage ills with fairy power. The subheading read Federal government confiscates spinning wheels.

  That last part was Harry’s work, but someone else had spilled the vibes about her gray repose spider fabric, most likely one of the ladies in the High Councilor’s receiving room.

  Lovely.

  She’d be lucky if she wasn’t lynched when she crossed back over the border.

  A hard punch of what-have-I-done? slammed into her gut.

  She should have kept her head down and her spectacles concealed instead of testing the waters with such a high-profile client like Lady Casteel. Too late now.

  The train lurched forward with a dull boom, starting its two-hundred-mile journey to the Wild West City of Kansas without Gregor.

  She bit her lip, her mind rattling in her skull as if it wanted to reach out to him. She’d connect the calling card spell the minute she was alone in her room in the city.

  Reaching for the seatbacks to steady herself, she headed for the next car. There had to be a seat somewhere onboard.

  A sharp smack to her pack tossed her forward. She fell. Her hands shot out in time to save her nose from breaking against the floor. The hard length of her long spindle jammed into her thigh, the dawn of a new bruise. Tw
isting slowly through the remnants of the jolt, she looked up to see someone jump over her.

  A dark-haired woman, petite and ragged, looked back, tears in her eyes, dirt smudging her cheeks. Utter fear lined her face. Without a word, she turned away and raced out the door at the back of the train, slamming it shut.

  The man with the newspaper leaned out, frowned, and then returned to his paper.

  Welcome to the Wild West where every man is an island.

  She straightened her specs, lumbered to her feet, and brushed herself off. Her palms were scraped and blood dotted both of them. She didn’t expect anyone to inquire if she was all right. Everyone here was assumed guilty of something…Non-mages fleeing their sponsors; mages accused of crimes and running from their sentences or debts; fairies too dangerous to glance at. A smart woman on her own knew that if anyone talked to her, they probably wanted something she didn’t want to give.

  The door at the front of the car clicked opened and the roar of the train engine rushed in. Mara looked back, hoping it was someone vacating his or her seat. Instead, a brawny man entered the train car. He was so large he took up the entire aisle—side to side, top to bottom.

  A lightning bolt badge was pinned to his chest.

  Bounty hunter.

  Mara’s throat went dry. The train spun around her as ghosts of the past twirled through her mind.

  Please. Not me. Not again.

  Gregor would never know what happened to her. No one would.

  The bounty hunter held up a picture that looked like a mug shot. “Ladies and gentlemen, has anyone seen this woman?” he hollered. His audience obeyed his call and turned toward him. In the picture, the woman was pale, her eyes half-closed, her lips bracketed with heavy lines. It was the woman who just ran through the train car. “She’s a dangerous sorceress.”

  Perhaps. But only because a cornered creature, no matter how powerless, could be dangerous if fighting for her life.

  Suspicion flooded through the car as the passengers looked around at each other, ready to accuse their seat-mates of wrongdoing.