Irresistible Forces

by Catherine Asaro

  “Are you all weather mages?”

  “Power comes in many forms, and weather mastery is rare.” He smiled wryly. “Specific abilities don’t manifest until a child approaches maturity. My first sign of weather work was blowing the roof off a cowshed. My father was not pleased.”

  She hadn’t seen him smile before and was surprised at how attractive his craggy, bearded face was when he wasn’t scowling. “How long have the Guardians existed?”

  “No one really knows—certainly since before the Romans came to Britain. In ancient times the great mages engaged in a struggle for power that nearly destroyed us all. The survivors met in council and agreed that we must use our abilities for peace and protection.” He gazed out to sea, his expression haunted. “We do our best, but the struggle is unending.”

  So the name Guardian was literal. How strange and beautiful that these people of power pledged themselves to serve and protect. What would it be like to come from such a family? “You must all be saints if you can agree on what is best.”

  “I didn’t say we always agreed, but we try to do the right thing. We…don’t always succeed.” He bent to pick a wildflower. “I wish my mother was here so I could discuss this undertaking with her. She has the clearest mind of any mage I know.”

  “Women are accepted as equals in your councils?” she said, startled.

  “Of course—some of the most powerful mages in Britain are female.”

  “What a wonder!”

  “Your family is not like that?”

  “A few of my de Cortes ancestors had minor gifts, but there has never been one like me.” Her parents despaired of her. They had wanted a pleasant, submissive daughter who would marry within their circle. Instead they had birthed a child too strange, too independent, for normal life. “When I began showing signs of unusual power, my father engaged Master Dee to be my teacher so I would learn to control my abilities. He has been my salvation. I never once heard of your Guardians.”

  “Master Dee has suffered because of his public reputation as a conjuror and astrologer. The abuse heaped on him illustrates why we prefer to stay in the background.” He raised his head and gazed out to sea, as if scenting the wind. “The fleets are skirmishing near the Dutch shore. Men are dying just out of sight and sound.”

  The reminder of their mission destroyed her pleasure in the perfect summer day. “You can see that without scrying?”

  “I hear their cries on the wind.”

  She pulled out her scrying glass, which was always with her. In the smoky depths, she watched the vicious recoil of cannon as two ships blasted silently away at each other, sending smoke and flames billowing. It was a scene from hell. “The English squadron is well-commanded and sea-worthy but vastly outnumbered. The danger is great. We must act quickly.”

  “No doubt you are right, yet it is hard to undertake a working that will cost so many lives if I am successful.”

  Her lips thinned. “You do not seem wholly committed to our cause, Macrae. Has your detestation for the English blinded you to the probability that the Spanish will murder your own mother?”

  His head whipped around, his eyes sparking dangerously. “How do you know what I saw in your glass?”

  “As your gift is weather, mine is clear-seeing. After you looked into your future, I was able to see the images you had invoked.” She shook her head. “Passion fuels power. You need more anger, Macrae. This is not a game, but a life and death struggle. What will make you truly wish to destroy our enemies?”

  “If I have too little anger, you have too much, Mistress. Your loathing of the Spanish is like a burning brand. Surely Master Dee taught you that hatred is dangerous for those with power. You run the risk of destroying not only your enemies but yourself. In this case you are hating those of your own blood.”

  “These Spaniards are not my blood!” Her anger flared, not only at the Spanish but at Macrae for reading her so easily. “It has been almost a hundred years since my people left Spain. We were tortured, murdered, robbed, and exiled forever from the land that we had served loyally. They called us marranos, swine. I care nothing for what happens to me, as long as we prevent those Spanish beasts from invading England.”

  He studied her face, his hazel eyes golden in the afternoon sun. “So you are a Jew. I have heard that a few Jewish families took refuge in England after they were expelled from Spain and Portugal. Did your family for-swear the Catholicism they were forced to embrace and return to the faith of their fathers?”

  “We are good Protestants now, but our memories are long.” And if some Jewish practices lingered still in the privacy of their homes, well, that was no one else’s business. They did what was necessary to survive, and to keep the Covenant in their hearts. “You accuse me of hating, yet you hate Elizabeth. Why? She is a just and fair-minded ruler. Her wisdom in balancing Catholics and Protestants has kept Englishmen from spilling one another’s blood. Why do you despise her?”

  “She executed my queen. For that, I cannot forgive her.”

  “Mary Stuart, a Scot raised at the French court, who spun plots from her prison and sought to have Elizabeth assassinated,” Isabel snapped. “Even a Scotsman as loyal as you cannot deny Mary’s treachery.”

  His jaw tightened. Stubborn man. Knowing they would never agree about politics, she said, “Master Dee tells me you have given your word to conjure a tempest, so let us begin. There is no time to waste.” She started to turn back to the house.

  He caught her wrist. They both froze as energy surged between them. She felt as if all her breath had been blasted from her body. So this was passion—uncomfortable, inappropriate, undeniable. He felt the same—she could see it in his eyes.

  He released her wrist, his breath roughened. “The preparations are complex, and Dee must cast a chart for the best time to proceed. If we don’t harness every available wisp of power, there will be no chance of success.”

  She retreated a step, not wanting to meet his gaze. “Very well, do what you must, but be quick about it, before it’s too late.”

  “As you wish, Mistress Witch,” he said with heavy irony. “Perhaps I can conjure a swift squall to end the fighting for the moment, so the English will be able to regroup.”

  “If you can do that, why haven’t you?” she asked with exasperation.

  “Because I fear the cost to my soul. But you’re right. I cannot hold back any longer, no matter how much I dislike this task.” He turned and rested his hands on the largest stone, the one closest to the sea. As he concentrated his energies on the task, he became absolutely still except for the movement of his lips chanting soundlessly.

  Keeping her distance from the vortex of power swirling around him, Isabel used her glass to monitor the battle. Skies darkened, vicious rain swept through the warring fleets, and the fighting broke up. The Spanish fell back, and one of their damaged warships foundered and sank.

  While Isabel whispered a soft prayer of thanks, Macrae expelled a long, rattling breath and released his spell. His face was gaunt, drained of its usual vitality.

  Knowing how demanding weather work was, she silently asked the obsidian what would become of Macrae. The battle images dissolved into swirling fog.

  What about her fate? She cleared her mind and tried to draw her own image from the glass.

  Still nothing.

  She felt chilled, even though the inability to scry could mean many things. Most likely she couldn’t see because she was too closely involved in what was about to happen to have the necessary clarity. But it was also possible that the demands of stopping the Armada would be so great that neither of them would survive.

  Concealing her foreboding, Isabel said, “Well done. You succeeded in ending the battle before the English fleet could be badly damaged. I begin to believe you can produce the great storm we need.”

  His eyes opened, and he turned to lean against the stone, folding his arms across his chest. “I was fortunate. There was the beginning of a summer squall near the
ships, so all I had to do was strengthen it. The spell required for that was to a great tempest as a barn cat is to a tiger.” His mouth twisted. “Surely you know that magic always has a price, and the one I pay will be high. Are you also willing to pay the cost of this conjuring?”

  She thought of the clouded obsidian. “I am willing.”

  Even if the price demanded all that she had.

  3

  Calling the winds…

  The air tingled with power as Macrae and Mistress de Cortes took their places in the ancient stone circle. Man and woman, ever opposite but complementary. Dee was not present, since he would be unable to help and he feared his presence would be a distraction. The old man had cast a chart for the best time, but his face had been somber when he studied the planetary positions. It hadn’t been necessary for him to say that the chart did not guarantee success.

  But it was the best time available without waiting for days, so Macrae must make of it what he could. Despite his initial reluctance to undertake this task, the images of Dunrath and Edinburgh haunted him. Now he was as determined as the woman who faced him across the circle.

  He inclined his head to his companion. “Mistress, let us begin.”

  “As you will, Macrae.” Her demeanor was reserved, though nothing could diminish the snap of her black eyes or the allure of her lush female figure.

  He began by casting a circle of protection, using the familiar ritual to focus his mind. As his concentration increased, his inner vision recognized the essences around him. Isabel de Cortes was the most vivid. Deep and intense, she was a beacon of power.

  He reached out and touched her energy. Silently, she acknowledged his presence and granted him access. Another time he would have been tempted to explore the riches of her mind and spirit, at least until she clamped down her shields and expelled him, but now he had more important work.

  Widening his perception, he felt Dee’s energy in the manor house. The old man’s pattern was a structure of immense complexity with a blazing mind at the core. The servants were sparks of light, each unique if one chose to study it closely. He did not so choose, not tonight.

  He tuned himself to the earth and the ancient force that resided there. Isabel was right, this was a place of great magic. When he was fully oriented, he flung his consciousness high into the sky, soaring toward the sun like a giant hawk. The circle, the two human figures, the coast, and the rolling seas—all dropped away below at a dizzying speed. With Isabel’s power to fuel his flight, he soared higher and higher until his awareness stretched east across the Channel, north to Scotland, south to France, west as far as Ireland.

  The day before, Isabel had scryed the English sending fire ships into the Armada. Little damage was done, but only because the Spanish ships had cut their anchors to escape swiftly. Though doing so had saved them from burning, without good anchors the ships were vulnerable when close to shore.

  Yes, that was the answer. The Armada was now boxed between the harrying English and the sandbanks off the Dutch province of Zeeland. If he could force the ships onto the shoals, many would break up, but the shallow waters and nearby mainland would minimize the cost in lives. He would find no better location to fulfill his mission.

  He cast the net of his mind outward to gather the winds and discovered why Dee’s chart had been equivocal about this time. Throughout the British Isles and the Narrow Seas the airs were light, giving him little to work with.

  But there was always weather, even when times were mild. He narrowed his vision to identify wind patterns strong enough to shape to his purpose. Over Holland he found a choppy, gusting breeze. He gathered it in and added a series of light winds from Scotland and northern England. Then he captured an energetic sea breeze from the coast of Cornwall. On the edge of his awareness he sensed a storm over Bavaria, but it was too distant for summoning.

  Each of the elements had its own essence, qualities that made him think of rainbows and musical notes, though in his mind there was neither sound nor color. Meticulously, he wove the winds together into a single powerful chord. Then he shaped them into a northwest wind that hammered inexorably against the ships of the Armada.

  As he drove the ships eastward, he sensed sailors frantically trying to beat against the wind while priests knelt to invoke God’s help in avoiding the waiting shoals. The water beneath the hulls changed color, and the waves turned choppy as the seas became shallower and shallower.

  He dimly recognized pounding pain in his temples and trembling in his limbs. The first ships were minutes from striking, but could he maintain his control over the increasingly rebellious winds he had assembled? He reached for Isabel again. Maddeningly, he could channel only a small part of her power. But surely he was strong enough to finish the job he had begun.

  The Cornish gust, the strongest and most rebellious element of his coalition, cracked its way loose, weakening the whole. Savagely, he worked to force it back into his pattern. He almost succeeded.

  Then the Scottish winds, notoriously chancy, broke away. His painstakingly constructed northwest wind disintegrated like splintered glass. Desperately, he reached again for Isabel, but he couldn’t find the key to unlock the deepest reservoirs of her power. It stayed tantalizingly beyond his grasp.

  Gasping for breath, he tried again to exert his mastery over the winds bucking against his grasp. As he stretched his mind to keep them in line, his power thinned to the snapping point. Only a few moments more, only a few…

  Clashing like silent thunder, the spell shattered with a violence that pulsed through his skull. He cried out in agony and fell to his knees.

  The last thing he saw before falling into blackness was Spanish ships turning sharply to port as they sought the safety of deeper water.

  Macrae’s collapse slashed Isabel’s mind as viciously as a sword lacerated flesh. After an instant of paralysis, she reached out mentally to steady his convulsing spirit even as she raced across the circle to his sprawling body.

  She dropped on her knees beside him. His face was corpse-white, and he wasn’t breathing. Moved by sheer instinct, she inhaled deeply and bent over to share her breath with him. Placing her mouth on his, she forced air into his lungs. He was a master of wind and air, surely all he needed was more breath.

  Once, twice, thrice…She was growing dizzy with exertion when he coughed and twisted under her hands. Finally he was drawing great ragged breaths on his own, God be thanked.

  Dee joined her, panting. “I felt the spell go awry. How is he?”

  “Breathing now. Beyond that…” She shrugged helplessly.

  Dee frowned as he rested his hand on Macrae’s forehead. “He’s burning with fever. Pray God he has not destroyed himself with his exertions.”

  Getting to his feet with effort, the old man signaled to the pair of male servants who had followed him from the house. Carefully, the servants lifted Macrae onto the battered pine door they had brought, struggling with the Scotsman’s deadweight. Then they set off toward the house.

  Isabel started to follow, but Dee stayed her with a gesture. When the servants were out of earshot, he asked quietly, “What happened, child? Why didn’t you save him from such a disaster?”

  “I tried!” Tried desperately, and had been seared by the backlash when his power and concentration failed. “He tried also, but we could not fully connect. Our energies are too unlike. Too clashing.”

  “That clashing can be a source of strength, not conflict.”

  She rubbed her temples, too drained to understand. “What do you mean?”

  “Think of your astrological studies—opposite signs are both natural enemies and natural complements. Men and women are opposites, and sometimes conflict between them is attraction that will not admit itself. Yet if opposites find balance in each other, they can create a whole greater than the sum of their individual powers.”

  She thought back to Dee’s lessons, when he had poured rivers of information into her eager mind. “Is this the alchemical marri
age you once spoke of?”

  “The alchemical marriage is a philosophical principle, and it can be seen on many levels. One is male and female.” He eyed her speculatively, then shook his head. “The point is moot. Macrae may be out of his senses for days. Or…worse. Do you know what has happened with the Armada?”

  She had been too upset to even wonder. Wearily, she drew out her scrying glass and conjured the scene. “The Spanish ships are escaping the Zeeland shoals and heading north. The English pursue, but they are still outnumbered. Once the Spaniards regroup, they will be able to resume their plans for invasion.”

  Dee’s face tightened, adding ten years to his age. “I must go to London and report to the queen.”

  “Perhaps Macrae will recover and try again,” she suggested without much hope.

  “He will be lucky to escape with his life and his sanity,” Dee said bluntly. “Even if he survives, today’s work may have destroyed his magic forever.”

  Having felt the cataclysmic collapse of Macrae’s power, she knew that Dee spoke no less than the truth. “I will stay here and care for him. My housekeeper is experienced at nursing. God willing, we will save at least his life.”

  “He may not thank you for it if he survives deprived of his deepest self.” Dee raised his gaze to the restless sea, where Spanish ships were sailing north around Britain. “I once had great power. Not so much as you, but enough to make me a true sorcerer. In my arrogance and lust for knowledge, I pushed my abilities too far and nearly died of it. Since then, I have had to content myself with small magics and scholarship.”

  The naked longing in his face made Isabel look away uneasily. What would it be like to lose her power? Though her abilities made a normal woman’s life impossible for her, the exercise of magic was also the purest delight and satisfaction she had ever known. To be deprived of it would be like losing her limbs. Macrae had been bound in iron for more than a year. Now, after only a few days restored to his full self, he had risked his life and his power to stave off the Spaniards.