The Charmed Sphere

by Catherine Asaro

  Iris looked at Chime and Jarid. “Ready?”

  Jarid squinted at his wife. “What do we do?”

  “Make mood spells,” Iris said.

  “I’ve never deliberately made one for more than one person,” Chime said. “Though sometimes I pick up more.”

  “It is the same for me,” Iris admitted.

  “I may have made such spells,” Jarid said. “I’ve never analyzed it.”

  An idea came to Chime. “We could imagine links to one another while we make the spell. Some quality to remind us of the other two people in the link.”

  Excitement flushed Iris’s cheeks. “Let’s try.”

  Holding her ball in both hands, Chime bent her head and closed her eyes. The orb focused her power well, with the right number of sides for her greatest reach but not too many to cause strain. She thought of the forests, hills, and meadows that had awakened Iris’s latent gifts. So, too, did nature rather than human constructs seem to reach Jarid. Chime imagined the queen and king in a forest lush with foliage, leaves fluttering and grass rustling.

  As her spell built, she became aware of Iris, an arch of color over the land. Beyond the queen, Jarid loomed, a force at the edge of Chime’s mind. But when Chime reached for them, her spell faltered. She tried to focus and the spell skittered away.

  Dismay touched Chime. She couldn’t do this. She would let them down. Taking a deep breath, she made a simpler spell, one as yellow as the sun, this time soothing herself. As her agitation calmed, her previous spell recovered. Chime became the countryside; the queen became sky and sun. They existed in a charmed landscape.

  A magescape.

  Her sense of Iris deepened. Chime had never known that before coming to Suncroft, Iris had felt as if she belonged nowhere. Emptiness had frozen her life; no one offered her affection. It saddened Chime, whose childhood had been filled with the love of a close-knit family. Instinctively she offered Iris a spell of warmth.

  Power swept the magescape, bracing and wild. Jarid. Chime felt him holding back, for fear his spell would disrupt the tenuous balance Iris and Chime had managed. Even with that caution, he came in like a huge wind, or a flood that filled an ocean, or an uncounted number of stars pouring silver light everywhere.

  Hai, Chime thought, impressed.

  Aye. Iris’s answer was sunlight.

  North, Jarid thought.

  Chime imagined mountains rising against a blue sky. She had never been north, though, so she had no idea how the range should appear.

  Here. Iris sharpened the peaks, making them harsh and magnificent, rearing up into a darker sky. The Tallwalks.

  They flew through the peaks, heading for a pass that cut sharp lines in the range.

  There. That came from Jarid.

  Chime’s focus dipped into the pass. Yes! She saw it. Jarid had been right; an army was coming through the pass.

  They will soon arrive. Jarid’s thought resonated. He went farther north, rising in the mountains. The forests dwindled to nothing, leaving bare peaks streaked with snow. The Boxer-Mages, he thought.

  Chime suddenly realized Jarid could only guess at the appearance of the mountains he had called home. Although he had never seen them, he had caught images from Unbent’s mind. Incredibly, he longed for that harsh, unrelenting beauty. He missed the simplicity of his life there, so different from the complications he lived now.

  Again they rushed toward a pass, but when they plunged into this one, they found nothing but snow and barren rock. Chime had been right; no army was coming through that pass.

  Her head began to ache. The magescape wavered, but when she tried to refocus, pain stabbed her temples.

  Succor washed out from Iris. Let it go.

  With an exhale, Chime released her spell. As it faded, the pain in her head receded. She opened her eyes to see Iris watching her. Jarid still seemed in a trance, his eyelashes dark against his cheeks.

  “Are you all right?” Iris asked.

  “Yes.” Her spirits lifted. “That was incredible.”

  “Aye.” Iris glanced at Jarid, who hadn’t stirred.

  “Both Jarid and I were right,” Chime said. “An army comes through the Tallwalks, but not the Boxer-Mage Pass.”

  Jarid opened his eyes and looked straight at her, his pupils so large, his eyes were black with only a ring of violet. “I saw no second army, either.”

  “Perhaps he sent only one,” Iris said.

  It was then that comprehension came to Chime, making her feel ill. “Varqelle does have two armies, but only one comes through the mountains. The other goes to Suncroft. That way, no matter what we decide, we will be wrong.”

  Jarid swore. “It cannot be.”

  “He tricked you!” Chime said. “The Harsdown mage knew he couldn’t hide the armies, so he made you think both were here. What if you had brought your entire army north?” Belatedly, Chime realized she had just insulted the king. Hastily she added, “You are a most potent mage, Your Majesty. Of course the trick didn’t work.”

  Jarid spoke wryly. “It worked well enough.” He rubbed his eyes. “I did have a sense, at the edges of our spell, of movement in the Barrens.”

  “We could try another spell.” Chime tried to ignore the ache in her temples.

  “I don’t think tonight,” Jarid said. “We must rest.”

  Chime agreed; they would solve nothing if they injured themselves.

  But later, in her tent, she couldn’t sleep. She lay on her back listening to the sentries pace outside, their chain mail clinking. What if Muller and his men met the Harsdown army before they could rendezvous with reinforcements? From what she sensed, the Harsdown forces greatly outnumbered Muller’s Hexagons.

  It could be a slaughter—and Muller would die.

  31

  The Covetous Spell

  The nightmare never ended.

  Muller trudged along a bar of land in the swamp he and his men had reached late this morning. Mist hung above the stagnant water, giving the bog an otherworldly quality. Its stench had worsened as the day passed. But none of it mattered. Compared to the walking nightmare he had lived these past days, the swamp was nothing. The foreboding that had plagued his dreams never left him now, waking or sleeping. He felt lightheaded, unfocused, nauseous.

  Arkandy trudged next to him, stabbing his staff into the ground to make sure they didn’t step into mud. “Vile place,” he muttered.

  “Aye.” Muller drew himself up straighter and set his chin. He refused to give in to whom—or to what—plagued him with these waking dark dreams.

  Up ahead, a murky figure formed out of the mist. It was Archer, waiting.

  “Do you recognize the path?” Muller asked. He had taken the short cut through the swamp only because Archer knew this area, having grown up in a nearby village.

  “Aye.” Archer indicated a branch of the land-bar they were following. “We go through there. It gets slippery, though. We should pass the word on to the others that they should take extra care.”

  Muller nodded wearily. He sent Arkandy back to warn the men, then plodded on, following Archer’s indistinct form.

  Gradually Muller became aware of an oddity. Silence. He had stopped hearing the murmurs, coughs, and squelching tread of his men. Puzzled, he stopped and called out to the figure he was following. “Archer?”

  The figure dimmed, vaguer, almost gone.

  “Archer, stop!” Muller started after him, but his foot slipped on the wet hexagrass, and he barely stopped himself from falling into the water.

  No one was in front of him now.

  Muller swung around, his fear surging. “Arkandy!”

  No answer.

  Saints almighty. How had he lost his men? They had been together. He had followed Archer and the men behind him should have followed him. If he had taken a wrong turn, so would have everyone else.

  He headed back, peering at the ground. His footprints showed here and there in the mud, but he couldn’t find tracks in the slick hexagrass.
As he continued, the tracks faded until they vanished completely.

  Muller stopped, his heart beating hard. He was lost. He couldn’t see more than a few feet in any direction. The swamp was alive and malignant. Alarmed now, he looked around, searching for broken shapes. The hexagrass might do, with its elongated, six-sided blades, but it provided only small, two-dimensional forms. He had disks on his sword belt, but he had chosen the ornamentation carefully, every form perfect. Nor would the hardened metal be easy to bend.

  Then he remembered Drummer’s gift. The ring hung on a leather cord around his neck. He pulled it out, closing his hand around the talisman. Forgive me, Drummer, he thought. Then he squeezed the ring, pushing in on its soft metal until it dented, creating a flaw.

  His gift sparked.

  Power gathered around Muller. With his eyes closed, he strained, using a green spell to search for his men. He didn’t know if their moods would lead him to them, but it was better than nothing.

  Reaching.

  Contact.

  No! Muller recoiled. He had no idea what he had found, but it sure as blazes wasn’t his men. His twisted spell had thrown him into a darkness so complete, it remained even when he opened his eyes. Frantic now, blind and lost, he struggled to wrench free of the contact. The link held him like a vise, using his own spell to trap him.

  The dark dreams touched him.

  They descended like ice, a night without stars, the wings of a giant crow. The ring dropped from his suddenly cold hand. The chill pierced his inner self, the place where he drew on his power. Dimly he heard someone scream.

  Himself.

  Terrified, he grappled with the dark dreams, straining to free his mind, but he couldn’t break the spell, his own spell. It should have dissolved when he lost the ring, but whatever had caught him refused to let go. Another mage was adding fuel to this spell. It came from far away, too far, a spell of emotional soothing, but reversed, turned inside out, corrupted, made hideous. Instead of comfort, waves of revulsion surged over Muller.

  “Saints, no.” The words tore out of him. He dropped to his knees and groped in the mud, unable to see anything in the crushing darkness.

  Then his hand closed around the ring. He clenched it so hard, its edges cut his skin. As pain lanced through his palm, the dark spell weakened. He concentrated, trying to regain control. His mind echoed with pain. But he kept on, his teeth clenched, his jaw aching.

  The darkness lightened. But rather than the light of day filtering through mist, an emerald sphere surrounded him, glistening, drawn by his spell, his mind, his dented ring from Drummer. Leaning forward, Muller braced his fists on the ground, his head hanging down, surrounded by the beautiful emerald light. He thought of Chime.

  “Commander!” The shout came out of the mist.

  Muller gulped in a breath and nearly choked on the foul air. “Here!”

  They called back and forth until he heard the tramp of boots. Then, suddenly, Arkandy was there, putting a strong hand under his forearm, helping him to his feet. “Good graces, Mull, you’re as pale as the fog.”

  He took a shaky breath. “Where did you all go?”

  “I thought you were ahead of me.” He shook his head. “I could have sworn I never lost sight of you. But it was so foggy. When I tried to catch up to you, the man I was following—” He stopped, his face reddening.

  Muller was aware of his men gathering around them in the mist. Quietly he said, “The figure dissipated.”

  “Yes.” Arkandy cleared his throat. “I know it sounds strange.”

  “It happened to me, also.” Muller pushed at his hair, which hung in lank, wet strands around his face. He couldn’t speak of how the Harsdown mage had used his own spell to strike at him, but he needed to warn his men.

  “This dark mage attacks with spells.” He lifted his hand and uncurled his fist. The bent ring lay in his palm, which was bleeding where it had cut him. “Any shape can draw his power, even the thought of one. I lost this and I couldn’t see, but still he attacked.”

  Arkandy spoke harshly. “What mage would do such?”

  “One with too much strength and too few morals.” Muller clapped him on the shoulder. “But nothing we can’t handle, eh?”

  Arkandy didn’t smile. But he did say, “Aye.”

  Muller glanced at Archer, who had come up behind Arkandy. “How much farther?”

  “Not much, Your Highness.” Archer wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, which was beaded with moisture, either from his exertion or the dank fog. “About another half hour.”

  “Well, let’s go, then.”

  As they set off, trudging in single file along the bar of land, they passed Muller’s warning back along the line, that they shouldn’t even think of perfect shapes. He listened to their voices, muted in the heavy air, and wondered what was happening to Aronsdale, that even their thoughts were no longer safe.

  The overcast sky matched Chime’s mood. They had ridden for hours in a drizzle. She had used oil to waterproof her cloak, but the rain eventually soaked through even the heavy, treated cloth.

  She thought of Muller, trapped in darkness, fighting for his life. The image disturbed her. Nowhere felt safe. In the two days since she had blended spells with Iris and Jarid, they had managed it twice more, always searching. They hadn’t located Muller’s unit, the Hexagons, but they had no trouble sensing the Harsdown army in the Tallwalk Mountains. Jarid had also located the second army heading through the Barrens. That both he and Chime had been right gratified neither of them.

  Chime also sensed the Pentagon Unit, only days away now. Jarid sent scouts ahead to contact them, while the rest of the Heptagons trudged in the rain. The dread that had pressed Chime since before they left Suncroft never left her now, as if her nightmares invaded her waking hours. She touched the sphere that hung around her neck. In some ways, it worked better than the larger ball of green marble she had packed in her saddlebags. Although this smaller orb couldn’t focus as much of her power, its size helped her fine-tune the spells.

  Chime formed a yellow spell, imagining light to push away her melancholy. An answering spell stirred…outside of her.

  The spell swept down like a hawk that had spotted prey and plunged straight for her. Someone settled behind Chime on the horse. Her body suddenly felt leaden. Before she could react, the presence behind her reached around her waist, grasping. She tried to push him away, but her limbs had become too heavy. She couldn’t move, couldn’t cry out, couldn’t even open her eyes. He groped her sides, then moved higher and fondled her breasts. Chime tried to shout, but she could neither speak nor hear.

  He moved his hands to her legs and slid them under her thighs. Furious and terrified, Chime strained to break their connection. His spell formed a blanket of power, smothering the light. No, not his spell; he had used her spell, turning around the yellow one meant to soothe her agitation. To escape this nightmare she had to regain control of her spell.

  A memory came to her, the incantation she had spoken in her sleep: Allar nellari remalla. Sphere-inside-out. Della claimed it didn’t work. Perhaps it only worked for a sphere mage. But it was a reversal. Could it work against a sphere mage?

  Allar nellari remalla. Chime thought.

  The sensation of hands fondling her faded. Then it came back again, redoubled, accompanied by a surge of anger. In desperation, she bit hard on the inside of her cheek. Pain flared, disrupting her focus, and an echo of pain came from the dark mage who invaded her spell.

  Allar nellari remalla. Sphere-inside-out.

  Her attacker’s fury surged—

  And he was gone.

  Chime gasped, her sight returning, leaving her in painful brightness. She could see the Heptagons again, hear the clank of mail, the snorts of horses, the rustle of leaves on the trees.

  “No!” Chime shook from the aftershocks of the twisted spell.

  “What is it?” Iris drew her horse closer.

  “Iris—no.” Chime felt clammy, c
old, icy.

  Jarid was making his way back among the warriors, headed straight for Chime. The wind whipped his dark hair around his face, uncovering the scar on his neck. Chime sat up straighter on her horse, trying to regain her composure, but she couldn’t stop shaking.

  Iris drew Chime’s horse to a stop. The queen jumped off her mare and handed the reins to one of the men. After Chime slid down to the ground, Iris led her to a tree at one side of trail. The entire unit was stopping, seven sets of seven men, forty-nine total, and fifty archers, plus Jarid and Cube-General Fieldson. It mortified Chime to think she had caused this disruption.

  “What is it?” Iris said her. “What happened?”

  “A spell.” Chime choked on the words. “But reversed. Instead of healing, it injured.”

  Concern creased Isis’s face “Are you hurt?”

  Her anger sparked. “He touched me. I bit him.” It served him right, but nausea surged within her anyway. She had done harm with her spell. No wonder Jarid loathed the incantation. She felt the cold more than before, inside herself as well as without.

  “Who is ‘him’?” Iris asked.

  “The dark mage, I think.” Chime shivered and pulled her cloak tighter. “He touched me places. If I hadn’t broken his spell, I think he could have done whatever he wanted.”

  Iris’s forehead furrowed. “But no one was there.”

  “He was there.” The rough voice came from behind them.

  Chime turned with a start. Jarid stood a few paces away, stiff in his posture. Iris glanced at Chime, a question in her gaze. When Chime nodded, Iris beckoned to her husband. Jarid came forward, walking slowly, as if Chime were a wild doe he feared might bolt.

  The army stretched out along the trail, the horses stamping and shifting, the men talking to one another. No one disturbed Chime, Iris, and Jarid, though the men glanced their way every now and then. She wondered if they felt the oppressive aura, or if they just thought her flighty, unable to endure the rigors of the ride.