Spellbinders Collection

by Molly Cochran

  Padric waited, summoned by guards who knew better than to let anyone approach the keep unnoticed and un-met. The master falconer took the peregrine gently on his arm and smiled as if the bird was his, the training of it was his, the pride of mastery was his. Sometimes Padric stepped above his station. Dougal didn't think he was a harsh master, but he insisted that humans know their place.

  "She missed one stoop on the pheasant, and was slow to come back for the second. Have you been feeding her too much?" The accusations were half-true, at best, but they would serve to remind Padric of who ruled the keep and mews.

  Padric's smile vanished. "No, master. Only the standard working ration." He quickly ran experienced fingers over her legs, her crop, through her flight feathers, down her back and tail. If she had a flaw or injury, those fingers would know. The peregrine studied him in return, as if she questioned his fitness for the hunt.

  "And how is the woman doing?"

  "Not well, master. She wastes away. She loses weight much faster than she should."

  Dougal nodded. "That's her magic wrestling with mine. Make sure she gets no meat, no fats, no sweets--nothing with energy or blood in it, nothing to feed her powers. You've only given her the skimmed-milk cheese?" Starvation was a two-pronged weapon in his strategy, weakening both her will and the power flowing in her veins.

  "Exactly as you said."

  "Good. And the rest?"

  "She mutters. She talks to people who are not there, sees things that are not there. Now that we've unchained her, she sits and rocks back and forth, staring at the walls. The last time I checked on her, she didn't even see me. Her eyes were open, but her mind was far away."

  "Good."

  "I was happier when she tried to hit me." Padric raised one hand to his cheek, to one scab among the many on his face. Something lit in his eyes then, as if her defiance meant hope for him. Then sorrow followed, the thought of where the woman was now bound, and what was planned for her. Padric's eyes dodged Dougal's.

  Ah, Dougal thought. It starts with pity and grows into admiration, just like with the cats and falcons. You've lost your heart to our prisoner. I can let you love Shadow or the hounds, but we can't have that with the mistress of the keep. Such a powerful witch, she is. She's spelled you away from fealty, without you knowing--without even her knowing what she's doing. So great she'll be, once I've trained her.

  He reached out with the Power, running fingers over Padric's emotions as he had soothed the peregrine with his touch. Padric was a valuable tool. Dougal couldn't afford to lose him yet. Not quite yet.

  He felt the loyalty build, the warmth, the trust. He felt Padric break loose from the thin net of Maureen's weaving, felt the ragged bindings of obedience grow strong again.

  Dougal wrapped his control in steel and set a watch on it. He shook his head in wonder. The signs had been there to read, and he had nearly missed them. Now he would be on guard.

  "Remember, she must believe. If she thinks you're acting, the moment will pass. I would be most displeased."

  "She won't break. She'll try to claw your eyes out when you come to rescue her, just like she did two nights ago."

  Padric's eyes still glistened with unshed tears. Dougal scowled at the sight. "Shadow tried to claw both of us during the training. Now he serves me gladly. The peregrine bated until she nearly died from exhaustion. Those were only stages we had to pass. Keep to the plan."

  "Master, if we keep this up much longer, she will die."

  "No. She'll give up. No bird or beast or woman can stand against my skill."

  Padric swallowed something bitter. "Remember Ghost."

  Dougal remembered. Shadow's littermate, a female, black on black and a slimmer, deadlier grace: Ghost. She'd fought. When Dougal came to her cage, she'd throw herself against the bars--clawing toward him rather than away. She'd known why she was caged. She'd known who had caged her.

  "True. Some animals can't be tamed," Dougal murmured. "Ghost preferred to die rather than obey." He shook his head. "Fiona isn't that strong."

  "This isn't Fiona."

  Dougal blinked at the reminder. Sometimes he confused the two women, the captive he held in his dungeon and the one he wished he held. But Maureen would be better: stronger and more beautiful. Maureen wouldn't haunt his nights with dread and failure and mockery. Maureen would help him destroy Fiona, destroy the fear and the acid laughter.

  "No, she isn't Fiona. And because she isn't, she has no training in her power, no understanding of what she does. That is why my way must tame her, turn her to my will. That is why she'll surrender. My Blood is stronger."

  Maureen would be the most powerful witch in the Summer Country. Dougal would control her. That was his revenge, revenge on all the Fionas of the world.

  "My Blood is stronger," he repeated.

  "Why don't you take more part in taming her, if your powers would make such a difference?"

  "The woman isn't a hawk. She has a memory. Shadow is our smartest beast, and even he remembers poorly. We want this woman to love me, rather than just obey me. Everything that she hates must come from you, not me. I must be her rescuer. If she learns to hate me, it could slumber like banked coals and rekindle moons from now."

  Padric stood, holding the hawk and thinking. Dougal read his face. Pain sat there, and confusion, and fear. Yes, my slave, he whispered to himself. You are building hatred in the heart of a powerful witch. You, personally. Think about what that means. Just don't think too much.

  "Do exactly what I told you. This will be the final stroke. She hates and fears all men. You will strike to the heart of that fear, and push her straight into my arms."

  Dougal read obedience in the slump of Padric's shoulders. The human turned away, carrying the peregrine back to the mews, carrying his own burdens back to the dungeon and the last act of Maureen's training. Dougal smiled and shook his head.

  The dragon had been rare and beautiful. Humans were not rare at all, and few of them were beautiful. Padric was worth far less than the dragon. His value had been part of the balance from the very start.

  Dougal waved those thoughts away and considered dragons, planning his approach to Liu Chen. For the moment, Maureen sat lower on his priorities.

  Padric must do what needed doing until the final scene.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  "David!"

  Jo stumbled to her feet, twisting around to look for his familiar form. He'd sounded close.

  "David?"

  No David. Not down in the sinkhole, not silhouetted against the afternoon sky, not poking his head out of the dark secret frightening cave that swallowed the stream. No rescuer. No rescue. She was still stuck in this fucking hole.

  She slumped back on her favorite rock, inhaled the smell of damp stone and rotting leaves and a faint cinnamon trace from the ferns, and sighed. Nothing had changed. It even sounded the same, the ceaseless thin hiss and burble of water cascading down on rock.

  Only the rope was new, and the lump with one arm draped over the rim high overhead. She'd never even known his name. She felt unreal, looking up at him, the sort of dissociation from her actions that psychos were supposed to feel.

  And she'd thought Maureen was the homicidal maniac.

  Schizoid or not, Little Sister had never killed anybody. Here Jo went, shooting a total stranger who might be her only way out of this goddamn pit. And she'd complained to Momma about a little round of talking to the trees?

  Maureen. The whole mess was her fault. She’d come here with that mocking shadow, made this place real with her schizoid delusions. She'd dragged Jo after her, and Brian and David, dragged all of them into danger. Jo felt like strangling the little twit. All this bat-guano was her fault.

  "David?" She whispered his name again, almost praying.

  Her only answer was the hiss of falling water, like an AM radio tuned to a station so weak it was just a voiceless pulse in the static. It formed vowels and consonants and even syllables at times but never a coherent wo
rd. She shivered.

  The passing rage had left her cold as well as hollow. She pulled Maureen's damp jacket tight around her and huddled closer to the dying fire. The waterfall muttered behind her back, and she quit trying to force words into its voice. It wasn't David.

  The stranger had said David was a blood sacrifice, not dead but dying in some obscene gift to the land. The thought turned her knees to jelly and left a throbbing knife-sharp headache in its wake. She couldn't do a damn thing about it, trapped in the bottom of a fucking hole.

  Damn Maureen!

  She closed her eyes, tired of forever seeing the same rocks and clumps of moss, the same rough dark circle cutting off her vision overhead. She had to relax and recharge and make one last try at climbing out. Maybe she could loop the rope over a protruding lump of limestone, or tie a rock on the end and see if she could snag it somewhere up above like a grappling hook.

  Just relax. She had to let her mind ride on the pulsing hiss of falling water. Forget about Maureen, forget about David, forget about the lump with the dangling arm. She let her empty mind search for the mystic's center, calm in the heart of storm.

  Relax.

  Listen to the water.

  {Touchhh} formed out of the water's song.

  {Ssssomething} followed, a hissing tumble of syllables.

  {Livinggg} echoed with a sigh.

  The voice of the water sounded like David, like his whispered thoughts at three in the morning when they both hovered on the edge of sex-drained sleep. Their words would tiptoe around the edges of telepathy, single thoughts or words or half-formed noises completed in the other's brain.

  She opened her eyes, and the sound became falling water once more. Touch something living, it had said. She sat on bare dry rock. The wet moss glowed faintly in the light from overhead. Crimson and gold edges drew fine lines around the fronds of the ferns, as if they shone with an inner light that leaked out into a static corona.

  It had to be refraction in the mist, an underground rainbow from the afternoon sun. Her vision buzzed like she had just downed three cups of coffee.

  Touch something living. Her hand reached out, tentatively, to a clump of ferns, as if her body had given up on impossibility and the rational forebrain that sneered at such foolishness. Next thing, she'd be reading fiery letters carved in tablets of stone, hearing voices from the burning bush. It was time to call for the men in white coats--maybe they'd pull her out of here.

  Her fingers tingled.

  {Jo.}

  The word jolted her like an electric shock. Concentrating, she reached out again, felt the tingling again.

  "David?"

  {We are here.}

  Her hand jerked away. We?

  She gritted her teeth, touched the ferns a third time, and closed her eyes. Something brushed her mind like butterfly wings and then left the memory of a kiss on her forehead.

  {Muirneach.}

  Beloved. He'd scrounged half of his scanty Gaelic vocabulary out of songs, a dozen dialects from the Shetlands to Cape Breton. You'd think the man would take lessons or at least buy a language tape if he hoped to make a living as a Celtic musician . . . .

  "Where are you?"

  The signal dissolved into hiss again, spurting out scattered words. { . . . all around . . . everything . . . alive . . .}

  Terror knotted deep in her belly. This voice spoke with Maureen's madness and the strange fire that had burned through Jo's hands into the gun. She didn't dare look in the water of the pool. She'd see insanity looking back.

  {Do not be afraid.}

  Sure. That was what the voices in the Bible always said. Jo whimpered and then managed to form her fear into words.

  "What's happening to me?"

  {. . . already know . . . of magic . . . you . . . power . . . blood . . . bend land to your will . . .}

  "Bullshit. If that was true, I wouldn't be sitting in the bottom of a hole."

  {. . . fall because you expect to fall . . .} came through a break in the static.

  Yeah, she thought, piecing things together.

  And the gun and lighter worked because she expected them to work. And she caught fish because she expected to catch fish, but there were only five because that was the most she could believe in.

  "Why are you speaking with David's voice?"

  The signal strengthened, as if David-ness needed to think of her to pull itself together. {We are David. We are his blood, his breath, his thoughts. The land is David, and David is the land.}

  Ghost fingers walked down her spine and touched her twitch-spot, the freaky bundle of nerves that caused a jerk she couldn't control. David sometimes played with it to tease her, and that was one of his less loveable habits.

  "Cut that out, you bastard!"

  {You did not believe that we were David.}

  "Why do you fade in and out?"

  {. . . scattered . . . lose focus . . . distraction . . .}

  "So now you've got somebody to talk to as you die," she muttered, half to herself. "Sometimes. Big help."

  {Climb . . . waterfall.}

  She'd avoided the rocks next to the waterfall. Coated with wet moss and lichen and the same slick green algae that had greased her drop into this hellhole, they were treacherous.

  Remember the rope. She grabbed one end of the rope and hauled it in, forming a loose loop between her left elbow and hand. The stupid thing looked like some kind of gaudy shoelace, a purple and orange woven sheath of synthetic yarn. It felt soft, dead limp, and pliable, and it gave a little like a stiff rubber band when she snagged it on some rocks, before she jerked it free.

  It was a specialized climbing rope. She'd seen them described on that TV sports show about competitive rock-climbing. Frigging synthetic climbing rope designed to absorb the impact load of falls. The bastard had conjured it out of thin air.

  Great. Now that she had it, what the hell was she going to do with it? Throw? What she needed now was a nice thick pole across the sinkhole, a fallen spruce or something like it. Then she could loop the rope over it and climb out, hand over hand.

  Thirty feet of pull-ups, she reminded herself. She was the girl with no biceps.

  Besides, there wasn't any pole, and she couldn't see anything else to hook a rope on. If that slimeball had just tied the damn thing off before throwing it down . . . .

  The right side of the waterfall seemed to carry more of that eerie glow than the left. A sign from David? She slung the rope across her body and clambered over to that side.

  She reminded herself to test each hold before she trusted her life to it, to lodge her feet behind the boulders so she couldn't slip off the greasy tops. One thing she'd learned from the last few days: keep her weight over her feet. If she leaned forward, the angle would force them to slide. Up, up, five feet, ten feet, past the easy stuff, she stepped gently and gripped the rounded cold knobby slimy handholds.

  She tried to split the difference between dry bare rock and the pounding shower of the stream, climbing in the cold mist but not getting soaked and blinded. Looking up and squinting through the spray, she saw something she'd never noticed before. The stream had carved a notch in the rim, cut the overhang back into the rump-busting slide that had first caught her. The water actually curved, spiraling down into the sinkhole, and the notch was hidden from the floor.

  {. . . left . . .} came crackling through the static. Left moved her further into the wet, into ice-water splattering on her head and sluicing down her neck.

  The water had carved buckets in the limestone, leaving fluted honeycomb shapes like ice melted out from under a dripping downspout. Her feet felt sure, her hands strong and deft, her balance serene and relaxed. She'd found a rhythm to her climb.

  "Where the hell were you when I was climbing before?"

  {. . . lost . . . found anger . . . focused . . .}

  So the slime was alive enough for David to whisper through its life. She paused in a secure stance and scouted her route. She guessed she had about ten feet to go,
closer to the rim than she'd ever climbed before. A rounded lip crowned her view, a smooth humped sheet of water with an undercut below it and then a ledge that must have been harder stone.

  She couldn't see beyond the lip. Jo shrugged; whatever was up there couldn't be any worse. "Famous last words," she muttered under her breath.

  Shut up and climb. She quit worrying about a fall. From this height, she'd either hit the pool like the first time, or smash her head. Each of her moves found a hold, each gentle probe with fingers or toes. She felt like she was floating up the wet rock, even making love to it, instead of fighting it.

  Her right hand reached the ledge, then her left. She had to hoist a knee up on it because there were no higher handholds below the rim. Slowly, delicately, in perfect balance, she brought her final boot up and moved her weight to it and stood up. Her head rose above the rim.

  Shit.

  Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!

  The rim came just below her breasts. The rim was the bottom of a funnel. Now she knew what an ant lion saw, lying in wait at the bottom of his cone of sand. A trap. Jo stared up a wet sheet of rock, smooth and sloped and coated green with algae and slick as a TV game-show host.

  She tried pressing her palms down on the slope, and they slipped right back to her sides. Her boots had perfect footing. She could stand here all day, she could even lie down and take a frigging nap using the frigging rope as a frigging pillow, but there wasn't another hold within ten feet of her.

  The edge of the stream flowed across her belly and trickled down her legs, cold and indifferent. It had a way out. She scooted carefully sideways, away from the water, and her right toe found empty space. End of the ledge, end of the road. She shuffled back again. If she went in the other direction, the stream would wash her right off the ledge. No thanks.

  Twenty feet away, trees crept up to the edge of the slick green limestone. It might as well have been a mile. Lumps of rock poked through the dirt and tangled roots, ranging from beautiful hand and foot holds up to boulders big enough to moor the Queen Mary. Beyond them, dirt and forest stretched away to level ground and safety. Jo felt tears running down her cheeks.