If I followed the path toward the south it’d cross the spell-line, I figured, and then I’d follow that, instead, until I found my locus magicalicus. It’d only take a day or two, as Nevery’d said.
I crawled out from under the bush, rolled up the blanket, strapped it to the pack, and put the pack-straps over my shoulder and set off. I’d walk for a bit, and then stop to eat some breakfast. I kept Benet’s scarf wrapped warmly around my neck.
I’d seen maps—Rowan had shown them to me. Wellmet was far away from most of the other Peninsular Duchies, the other cities of the land. Right outside Wellmet to the north were fields and pastures; here, to the south, were forests. I’d been out of the city before, when I’d gone to Desh to meet Arhionvar. That muddy road had led through gray, dead forest.
The forest here felt more alive. Winter had begun, and in the morning sunshine the air stayed cold, but the frost sparkled like thousands of jewels on the ground and bare tree branches. Ahead of me I felt the spell-line; if I closed my eyes, it was a silver thread in the darkness, leading from the warm glow that was the magic of Wellmet off into a darker distance.
I walked faster to catch up to it.
At midmorning I stopped to eat. Next to the path was a flat gray rock the size of a door. I climbed up and opened the knapsack to see what Benet had packed for me. Brown-paper-wrapped packages of food, a small canteen full of water, a toothbrush wrapped up in a washcloth, and a flat wooden box with a sheaf of thin paper and three pencils in it. For writing letters.
And a small book that Nevery must’ve put in, covered with cracked brown leather, a little larger than my hand. An Advanced Spell Practicum, it was called. I opened it. The pages were yellow, with black mold spots on them. On the first page was a list of chapters, each one for a different kind of spell.
Transformative
Simulative
Refractoratory
Luminative
Directive
I flipped through the pages to “Simulative.” There it was, the remirrimer, the spell Nevery had used to make the shadow-me to distract the guards at the academicos.
I went back to the beginning of the book, and reading the introduction, I ate a biscuit and bacon and some dried apple. When I was done I sat for a minute with my eyes closed. The spell-line was very close. I felt it humming, calling to me.
I packed everything back into the knapsack, hopped off the rock, and headed down the path. Overhead, the sky was bright blue and cloudless. Even though the pack was heavy, and even though the thought of Arhionvar lurked in the back of my head, I felt lighter than a spark given off by a pyrotechnic spell. With a locus stone, I’d be a wizard again, and able to talk to the magic and help protect it, and the duchess and Captain Kerrn and the magisters would see that I belonged in Wellmet and shouldn’t be exiled. I’d get to live in the rebuilt Heartsease with Nevery and Benet, where I belonged.
Up ahead, the path curved ’round the base of a low hill covered with bare-branched trees. I followed the path, the tingling from the spell-line getting stronger. Then I saw it.
The finding spell had burned a wide line over the hill, cutting trees in half, leaving branches hanging in tangles. The line rolled down off the hill and, ahead, went across the path. There, three black birds, like black lumps, perched in a tree, watching.
The knapsack bumping on my back, I ran along the path until I reached the spell-line. The black birds flew up squawking. I slung my pack on the ground and crouched down to look.
The spell-line was about as wide as my two arms spread apart, and it’d scorched the ground black like burnt toast. I looked along where it led. Into the forest, away from the path, burning through brown-leafed bushes and trees and snaky vines hanging down. Wide enough for me to walk along.
Testing, I rested my hand on the spell-line.
It was like putting my hand into the river after a heavy rainfall. The line pulled at me and shot tingles of excitement up my arm and into my head. I tugged out my hand and the spell dripped off of it like silver water, shining in the sunlight. I blinked the brights from my eyes and got to my feet.
I looked up into the sparkling blue sky, then into the forest where the spell-line led. “All right, locus stone,” I said. “I’m coming.”
I picked up my knapsack and got ready to step onto the spell-line.
Then, from behind me, around the low hill, came the jingle-clop sound of horses and voices talking.
Someone was coming.
* * *
Rowan Forestal
Very early this morning I went to the guardroom to see Captain Kerrn.
You must be very happy, I said to her. You’ve been waiting to get rid of Conn. You’ve always hated him.
Captain Kerrn looked troubled and said, I do not hate him. Not at all. But he is a danger to the city.
I do not understand this. Captain Kerrn was with us in Desh, she went to the sorcerer-king’s fortress, and she knows about Conn’s fight with the dread magic. She must know that we need Conn here in Wellmet to help fight against Arhionvar. Swords alone cannot defend us against magic, and the magisters are no help—Captain Kerrn knows that very well.
She had no answer for this.
My mother will not listen, either; she has been miserably ill for the past few days. She is convinced that Conn is dangerous.
Perhaps he is. He has certainly caused enough trouble to be thought dangerous. But he’s faced danger, too, to protect Wellmet. We will need him in the city, when Arhionvar arrives. If we do not defend ourselves against Arhionvar, the dread magic will destroy our magic and, with it, our city.
I have decided what I must do.
* * *
CHAPTER 11
Better to hide than meet somebody I didn’t want to see. I ducked behind a clump of bushes and a fallen log. One of the black birds spiraled down and perched on a tree branch right over my head.
“Go away,” I whispered.
Awk, it said.
The sound of horses came closer, the clop-clop of hooves on the path and the jingle of bridles. I kept still.
A deep voice said something. Then it said, “I do not know, my lady.”
I knew that voice. Drats. And I knew who it was talking to.
I stood up and stepped out from behind the bush. At the same moment, the bird hopped off its branch and flapped in a circle just over my head, squawking.
Rowan reined in her horse and looked down at me from the saddle. She wore a sword in a scabbard on a belt around her waist and had two other horses tethered to her saddle. “Hello, Connwaer,” she said. She didn’t give me her usual smile. “I thought we’d find you along here somewhere.” Her horse shook its head, and she patted its neck.
Argent brought his horse up beside Rowan’s. “You don’t jump out at horses like that, boy,” he said, looking down his long nose at me and curling his lip. He looked like a horse himself, doing that.
“Hello, Ro,” I said. I glanced at the other two horses. One of them had a saddle on it, and the other was loaded with sacks and leather bags. So they were going on a journey.
Rowan pointed at the spell-line. “Is that what I think it is?” she asked.
“Probably,” I said.
“Your finding spell?” she asked. “The one you were talking about with Magister Nevery?”
I nodded.
She climbed down out of the saddle and, holding her horse’s reins, stepped up to the spell-line. “It just looks like a burnt path.”
“There’s magic here, too. It’s calling me.” I pointed down the burnt trail. “The spell is leading to my locus magicalicus, Ro. That’s where I’m going.”
“All right.” She glanced aside at Argent. “We’re coming with you.”
CHAPTER 12
I stood in the middle of the spell-line and felt it pulling at me like a river current, bright and shining and icy cold. It was the call of my locus magicalicus, wanting me to come and fetch it. For its call to be this strong, my locus stone had to be clos
e. I took another step along the spell-line.
Night was coming on. But we could walk at night, couldn’t we? I needed to get my stone and get back to Wellmet.
Behind me, Rowan said something, but I didn’t hear her. All I could hear was the call in my head.
I felt a rough hand on my shoulder, and then Argent spun me around and grabbed my arm. “Lady Rowan said we must stop,” he said.
I squirmed out of his grip. “Just a little farther,” I said, and headed down the trail again. They could stop for dinner and then catch up.
“It’s the spell-trail, Argent!” Rowan called from behind me. “Pull him off the spell or he’ll never stop!”
Again the strong hand on my arm, and Argent jerked me off the spell-line and into a prickly bush. It felt like being pulled from a pot of honey; the spell-line held me, and then I popped out of it. The magic dripped and sparked off of me.
“Lady Rowan told you to stop,” Argent said to me with a disgusted shake of his head, then turned and walked back to Rowan.
Off to the west, behind the trees, the sun was going down. A cold mist floated low among the trees.
Right. We needed to stop.
I made my way back to Rowan and Argent and the horses. They’d stopped at a clearing covered with damp leaves and wiry yellow grass. A good place to camp for the night. Three black birds perched in a tree at the clearing’s edge. Rowan was tying the horses’ reins to rope strung between two trees, and Argent was unloading the packs.
“Go find some firewood,” he said, without looking at me.
Right, firewood. I headed back into the forest, picking up twigs, stomping on dead branches to break them into pieces.
Somehow I found myself at the edge of the trail again.
Darkness had crept in among the trees; the spell-line rolled out into the night like a wide, black ribbon.
I dropped my armful of wood. I closed my eyes. The spell-line sang in my head. I’d go just a little farther. Rowan and Argent could catch up to me in the morning.
As I stepped into the spell, the night lit up around me. The spell-line glowed like a bright tunnel through the night-dark forest; the call of my locus magicalicus thrummed through my bones and tingled in my fingers.
I’m coming, I told it.
A moment later I felt a hand on my arm and found myself standing in a bush beside the spell-line with magic dripping off me. I blinked the spell-brights out of my eyes. “Idiot,” Argent said, panting. “If the trail is pulling at you, then you have to stay off it when we stop for the night.” He scowled down at me. “And we are stopping for the night.”
We made camp and had dinner and tea, and I read in The Advanced Spell Practicum about transformative spells while Rowan did swordcraft drills with Argent, and then we rolled out our blankets to sleep. The fire died down to glowing red embers. The evening mist had faded away, and the night was cool and clear.
I lay in my blanket and looked up at the sky, full of stars like diamonds against black velvet. The sky was never this dark in Wellmet. Off to my left, the spell-line sang to me.
I sat up and pushed my blanket off me.
“Stay off the trail, Connwaer,” Rowan said from the darkness, her voice sleepy.
Right. She was right.
The night had gotten colder. I huddled my blanket around me and edged up to the fire, where I threw on another pile of sticks. The embers flared. Beside the firepit, Argent was a long, dark lump with a tousle of blond hair, dead asleep.
Not far away, Rowan sat up from her blankets, rubbing her eyes. “Can’t sleep?” she asked quietly.
I shook my head. “The spell is singing to me.”
She yawned. Then, clutching her blankets around her, she came and sat beside me.
We were quiet for a while. In the forest, the leaves rustled, and I heard the scurryings of little animals in the underbrush.
“What is it like?” Rowan asked softly. She pointed behind us, at the spell-line.
Hard to explain. “It’s very strong,” I said.
She gave me her sideways slant-look. “Clearly. Does that mean we’ll find your locus stone soon?”
“I hope so,” I said, and held my hands up to the fire to warm them.
She moved a little closer, to lean against my shoulder. “I hope so, too.”
We sat staring into the fire.
“Conn, there’s something else I have to tell you about,” Rowan said at last.
I looked over at her.
Rowan used to have short hair, but it had grown out, and she wore it in a stubby horse tail tied at the back of her neck. Some of the hair was still short, though, and got out of the tail to hang down in her face. She pulled on one of the hair ends and nibbled on it.
“Are you listening?” she said.
I nodded.
She sighed. “The magisters and my mother and her council know that you were responsible for the finding spell.”
Brumbee had seen me at the academicos after the spell. Of course they knew.
“You’re in trouble for it,” she said.
Well, that was no surprise. I was always in trouble with the magisters, and with the duchess. “How much trouble?”
Rowan blew out a breath. “A lot. The magisters and my mother have sentenced you to death if you return to Wellmet.”
Oh. That would make things complicated when I went back to the city. I thought about it a bit more. “Ro, d’you know if your mother knows you came after me?”
“What do you think, Connwaer?”
I thought the duchess didn’t know. That might make things complicated, too.
“I came after you so that when you go back to Wellmet you’ll be with me,” Rowan said. “You’ll be under my protection. I think that will make things all right.”
Maybe it would.
We sat for a bit longer. Then Rowan said she had to sleep, so she woke Argent, tied one end of a rope around his ankle and tied the other end to mine. She understood how the spell-line worked; she knew that if I stepped onto it I wouldn’t stop until I reached my locus stone.
Argent wasn’t happy about being woken up in the middle of the night. He snorted around like a big yellow horse, then lay down again with his rope-tied ankle sticking out the end of his blankets.
“I’m a light sleeper,” he said. He pointed at the rope. “You’d better not wake me up.”
I didn’t. But I didn’t sleep, either. Rowan was worried about the death sentence, and she was right to be. But when I found my locus stone I would go back to Wellmet, no matter what. I would never abandon the magic. Never.
CHAPTER 13
The next day, Rowan said I’d have to ride a horse. So I wouldn’t get too tired from walking, she said.
And she wanted to get me off the spell-line, I figured. Going along the trail might be easier if I was high up on the back of a horse instead of right in the pulling river of the spell.
Rowan handed me the horse’s reins and told me to get acquainted with it while she finished packing a saddlebag.
My horse was a plain mud-brown color with a mud-brown mane and a splash of white across its nose, like paint. What I knew about horses was that you stayed away from the back end so you didn’t get kicked. If you were holding the reins you tried to stay away from the front end so you didn’t get bit. The mud-brown horse shook its head, making its bridle jingle. I backed away, and it clopped forward, following me.
“Stop it, horse,” I said.
“Mount up,” Argent said, swinging onto his tall black horse. I put my foot in the stirrup the way Rowan had shown me, and climbed up into Mud-brown’s saddle. Then we set off along the trail.
The blackened spell-line was a long way down from where I sat, sloshing around in the saddle, gripping the horse’s mane and the reins so I wouldn’t fall off.
Argent rode just behind me. “Sit up straight, boy,” he said.
I slouched a bit.
“Keep your elbows in,” he said.
Shut up, stupid
Argent.
“You ride like a sack of potatoes,” Argent said.
I glared at him over my shoulder.
“With wings.” He flapped his elbows.
Right, elbows in.
We rode all the morning, stopping for lunch and to rest the horses. When I got down from Mud-brown’s saddle my legs felt stiff, but not too bad. We started off again after lunch.
After a little while, Mud-brown stopped in the middle of the trail. Rowan and Argent were ahead, and they kept going.
“Go, horse,” I said.
The horse bent its head and snatched at a clump of brown grass at the side of the burnt trail.
“Rowan!” I called. “This horse is done walking!”
“Just give her a little kick with your heels!” Rowan shouted back.
“Go,” I said again, and gave it a little kick.
Mud-brown shook its head but didn’t go.
I climbed down out of the saddle. As soon as my feet touched the burnt-black ground, the spell swirled up over my ankles and started pulling at me. I brought the reins over the horse’s head, then pulled on them to get it to move. It locked its knees and leaned backward.
I pulled harder, the spell pulling at me. “Come on, horse.”
It took a quick step forward and pushed me with its nose. I stumbled back, then fell onto the spell-line. The magic washed over me like a shining wave.
I got to my feet. Never mind the stupid horse. It could catch up by itself. Ahead, Rowan and Argent had ridden on. I walked fast.
As I walked past them, Rowan looked down at me from her horse’s saddle. “Conn?” She glanced over her shoulder. “You left your horse!”
That horse was too slow.
Rowan said something to Argent, and he turned his horse and headed back along the spell-line. I kept going.
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