Dust billowed upwards from below, but didn’t quite reach her. It obscured the throbbing ball of witchlight.
And then Gwynn of the North Steppe appeared amidst the cloud of dust, coughing and beating at his clothes. He stopped and recaptured his witchlight, absorbing it into the palm of his hand as he looked upwards. “Ruella?” He wiped dust from his face and eyes, then squinted upwards again. “Ruella! Come down from there!”
He shook his head, dried his palms on the seat of his pants, and climbed a newly tumbled boulder. When he braced one foot against the far wall of the chimney, she panicked.
She raised her gaze upwards into the dark above her and put everything she had into climbing that chimney. I have to get out of here! I have to get out of here! There had to be an opening at the top. She made it a chant, gasping in one more breath with every “out” and shoving with all her might on every “here!”
The amber light from the stone glowed through her heavy winter clothing, cast its warm light on her face, and arrowed into a beacon that pointed straight where she was looking, upwards. She refused to look down to see if he was following her. But she could hear scrapes and whispers between grunts and curses.
I have to get out of here!
The billowing haze of stone dust from below caught up with her, dispersing the amber light, hazing everything. Her eye was focused on the point of light she could see at the end of the amber beam, and her whole mind narrowed to that one consideration—out!
She thrust upwards once, twice, three more times, and knew she was out of strength. Her body knew she was going to fall. But her mind gave one more thrust upwards. I have to get out of here!
In a dizzy amber whirl, she was suddenly seated on damp grass, crisp and brown with winter. In the far distance, across the valley the sun was rising. A few hundred strides below her the old fort stood staunch guardian of the road.
To her left, the road down from the pass wound around the last of the boulders and cut across the late fall meadow to the Fort. The Guardhouse on the other side of the road from the Fort stood empty and moldering in these peaceful times. Smoke curled lazily up from the Fort’s kitchen chimney. The smell of baking bread wafted on the zephyr breeze reached her as a chevron of migrating geese passed overhead.
Behind her and all around the mountainside was steep but smooth—not a sign of an opening from a rock chimney anywhere. But far to her right there was an outcropping that might mark the mining tunnel exit she’d been yearning to reach.
The air was crystal clear, cold through which the pale shafts of fall sunshine made delightful warm spots. It was all so vividly real, indisputably and obviously real telling her she’d wakened from a very bad dream.
It was a nightmare. None of it really happened. But how did I get here?
Gradually she became aware of the warmth in her bosom. She dug out the amber stone. It was even more beautiful in the rosy sunlight. And if it was real, everything else was real.
“But what happened?” she heard herself ask out loud.
In that same moment, there was an inaudible pop—not a sound really—a displacement of the senses somehow.
And beside her, likewise seated with knees bent and feet flexed as if to brace against the wall of the chimney, was Gwynn of the North Steppe.
“Good Gods of the Talisman, woman, I didn’t know you could do that!”
Ruella scrambled away and rolled to her feet running for the fort.
Three steps later she was on the ground, face down, with him on top of her.
He rolled off before the moment she felt his full weight—as if trying to avoid hurting her.
“Will you stop running!” he scolded.
“What did you do to me!” she demanded, forgetting she was handling a madman. “How did you send me here!”
“I didn’t do anything to you. You teleported yourself and dragged me with you when I reached your exit point—you left it open behind you!” He glared as if offended by her carelessness.
She fisted her hands on her hips and yelled, “I couldn’t possibly teleport anything! I have no Talent worth measuring, you nitwit! You’re the sorcerer! You did something to me!”
“I did not!”
They glared at each other as the sun rose and the Fort began to stir to life.
Finally, he folded his arms over his considerable chest and eyed the glowing amber light at her bosom. “If you didn’t teleport us out of there, then why is that focus-stone glowing?”
She fished it out of her cleavage saying, “It’s not a focus-stone, it’s just a piece of obsidian I found to ….”
The lump of stone lay in her palm as if created to be there. She had seen a focus-stone once. It had looked something like this.
“Ruella, you made that focus-stone the way every Sorcerer makes their first one—out of an ordinary piece of stone. You made it because you needed it. I made you need it so you would make it. I didn’t expect you to cut loose and run away. I didn’t expect you to get trapped and teleport out. Teleporting is supposed to be the last of the twenty-two lessons in Sorcery, not the first. You are a very highly Talented Sorcerer.”
“No.” But she had no reasoned arguments to back up her claim. “What do you mean, you made me make it? What have you done to me?”
“I only tied you up like that so you’d feel trapped and desperate enough to access your Talent. I haven’t done anything to you—believe me I learned my lesson with the King’s soldiers.”
What? “You tied me up to make me feel.... Why! Why would you attack a Royal Courier? How could you? You shouldn’t be able—”
“I didn’t attack you!”
She felt her eyebrows rise, cracking the dust caked to her forehead and showering it into her eyes. “You shot at me, you prevented me from getting through the pass, you chased me into the cave, you grabbed me and tied me up, then chased me up a rock chimney. But you didn’t attack a Royal Courier?”
“Look, I’m cold, and we’re both tired and hungry. Let’s go get some breakfast at the Fort and send your dispatch case on with another Royal Courier so I can get you back to the Enclave for training.
“I’ll also have to send someone to close that rift you left. I can’t spare the time. I have to get you under Oathbinding as soon as possible. It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s the law, Ruella, for a very good reason, not just that you might abuse your power, but that you don’t actually know how to use it safely.” He cast a worried glance back at the mountain behind them as if he knew exactly where the rock chimney was.
She still couldn’t take it all in. “You’re not trying to steal my dispatch case? You really weren’t trying to kill a Royal Courier? To bring the Kingdom down?”
He threw his head back and laughed, a hearty, full throated laugh radiating honest affection and admiration. “Ruella! Is that what you thought? No wonder you were so desperate to get away that you teleported! But that just proves your loyalty to King Gorland. You are absolutely perfect.”
“You weren’t reading my mind?”
“Well, not after you made the focus-stone anyway. You developed a very effective shield using that stone.”
“It isn’t a focus-stone. I’m not a Sorcerer.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No it isn’t.” Yes, it is and I don’t know who I am any more. I don’t know who he is. “Why did you shoot at me? Why did you do this to me?”
“The King’s orders, how else? I am Oathsworn after all. He needs eight new Royal Sorcerers on the North Steppe within the year to secure Forsin’s lands. So he needs to discover adult sorcerers. Children just won’t do. These Sorcerers have to have tested and true loyalty. Where else but the Royal Couriers would I find such? You, Ruella, are number four of the eight that I have induced to possess their native Talent. Now, unless you plan to materialize me a hot breakfast right here, you’d better come along.”
He turned and walked toward the Fort leaving her to follow on her own—as if there were no question she
would. As if she were already Oathsworn and had to follow his orders because he was her appointed teacher.
All night she had feared this monster. Now suddenly in the light of day, he was just a man—well, a Sorcerer of some considerable power and standing among the Oathsworn, not just a man—who practiced an infuriating arrogance. She no longer feared him. But she knew she would never, ever like him.
I’ll bet he killed my horse just to set me up for this. If he did, he’ll pay for it if it takes me ten years.
She settled her backpack and trudged after him toward the fort, warmth, and food, mentally plotting revenge.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jacqueline Lichtenberg is a life member of Science Fiction Writers of America. She is the creator of the Sime~Gen Universe with a vibrant fan following (www.simegen.com), primary author of the Bantam paperback, Star Trek Lives! (which blew the lid on Star Trek fandom), founder of the Star Trek Welcommittee, creator of the genre term Intimate Adventure, winner of the Galaxy Award for Spirituality in Science Fiction with her second novel, Unto Zeor, Forever, and the first Romantic Times Awards for Best Science Fiction Novel with her later book, Dushau, now in Kindle. Her fiction has been in audio-dramatization on XM Satellite Radio. She has been the SF/F reviewer for a professional magazine since 1993. She teaches science fiction and fantasy writing online while turning to her first love, screenwriting, focused on selling to the feature film market. She can be found at her website,
www.jacquelinelichtenberg.com
And can be followed on...
twitter.com/jlichtenberg
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Science Is Magic Spelled Backwards and Other Stories Page 17
