Magical traps were being set around the estate: underwater, on the beach, the cliff faces and steep slopes up the hills, the bluff itself and, of course, the house, though Jenni thought that the lady was ready to sacrifice that building.
And magical shields were being erected to hide any increased activity from humans. There were no roads to the place, not even close, and the only way to the beach was by hiking along it from towns many miles away. But the Eight were being careful.
The Air King, Cloudsylph, had arrived to get the lay of the land and consult with Diamantina. Both approved the large flat area covered with the dry grass of winter with the hint of greenness and tiny spring wildflowers low to the ground.
Jenni was given permission to balance the land, which she did with all the proper Mistweaver rituals, and it went very smoothly. When she stepped from the mist, she saw respect in Cloudsylph’s eyes. Later that day, Jenni was led to the main tunnel from the house to the beach by Diamantina’s companion naiad, who continued to give Jenni the notion that she was being weighed and found wanting. She’d already found the door down to the beach on her wandering, but hadn’t opened it without permission.
This was the way she’d take on the morning of the spring equinox, while the Eight and the great Lightfolk gathered to do their ritual. On the beach, she’d wait for the last bubble to rise from the ocean. The beach was where she’d step into the interdimension to sense its energies, balance what she could in the bubble and the moment it burst, equalize all the energies in the area so the Lightfolk would have the greatest amount of magic to work with to direct the creativity of the bubble.
There were elemental energies around the door, a trap, and she disarmed it by pulling some fire energy and flicking it at the spell, smiling from under half-lidded eyes at the naiad. Jenni gestured with her flashlight, she didn’t want to use magic when tech was good enough. “I’m afraid that I can’t reset the trap, and if I have to walk through a tunnel loaded with traps, I’ll have to disarm them all. So, if you can take them down for the time that I’m on the beach, it would be better.” Jenni brightened her smile. “You should have plenty of balanced energy to call on.”
The naiad scowled, she’d still refused to be formally introduced to Jenni, so Jenni didn’t know her name, not even a nickname that she was called. The woman muttered liquid syllables and Jenni felt pressure beyond the door release as the traps were removed.
Jenni nodded. “Thank you, and you might want to remind everyone in the household that if something happens to me before the bubble event on the way to the beach, the Eight will be displeased.”
With a green sharp-toothed smile, the naiad replied, “We won’t put the shields and traps up on the tunnel until after you’re down on the beach on the day of the dancing circle.” She looked down her nose, the nostrils of which were thin membranes that fluttered when she was upset, like now. “One of the lesser naiads will do so then. I will be dancing at my lady’s side.”
Of course they’d arm the traps behind Jenni, cutting off retreat if the Darkfolk attacked and she didn’t have enough energy to disarm the traps.
“Mmm-hmm,” Jenni said. “See ya later.” She opened the door and went through. She should reach the beach a half hour before low tide.
This tunnel wasn’t as pleasant as the Earth Palace ones she’d traveled through. All the walls and the floor glistened with wet, and since Jenni was living mostly in her magical nature of djinn—fire—the caves were disagreeable. She worried about slipping.
There was the scent of the ocean, and the throbbing pound of it, that almost made up for the wet…the Earth Palace had always had an underscent, and taste on the back of her tongue, of sulphur. Sea salt now lingered there and she liked the change.
The angle down to the beach was steep and the solid rock floor turned to rocky grit, then silty sand, and she considered each step carefully. When she reached the bottom, there wasn’t much space and she swung her flashlight around to see a small bulb of a room of dark stone draped with seaweed. Narrowing her eyes, she called up her magical sight and found the doorway outlined in blue-green-violet where water and air energy seeped through.
She could feel the great sheets of water energy from the Pacific Ocean restlessly shifting. Additional air energies rose from the foam of the waves where sky met sea. Around her was the rock and earth magic.
Jenni blinked and frowned at the cave door, wondering how much magical strength it would take to open it, and if she had enough natural energy within herself to handle it. The merfem was a greater Lightfolk, all the naiads and naiaders minor Waterfolk but completely magical. It was a good bet that there’d be no physical way to open the cave and it would be camouflaged outside from any humans who managed to hike up the coast to this beach.
Stepping up to the rock wall, she put her hand on the door, and pushed with all her magical strength. Nothing happened. She wasn’t accustomed to trying to influence physical objects with magical energy. Entering the gray mist wouldn’t solve this problem in the real world. With a huff of breath, she took a pace back, considered all the lessons she had and the few magical things she could do outside of the interdimension.
She could push and pull air. Though she felt more djinn than elf, her father had been half-elf and she could use that part of her nature with a little more difficulty than her fire side. Pulling air toward her, against the cave door, should move it, she thought.
Or she could ask for help. But if she did that, she wouldn’t know whether she could move the door if she had to.
This door was the least of the major tests that would demand all her strengths.
CHAPTER 26
PUSH AIR TO OPEN THE DOOR. RIGHT. SCUFFING sand and grit out of the way, she turned off her flash light and darkness pressed upon her. No light, no fire. Absence of all light.
Darkness could be a blessing, she knew that. It could be a soft comfort. Breathe and breathe again, listen to the ocean. The human and air portions of her nature loved the steady sound of ocean surf, the fire not so much. There was no storm outside to whisk her away, the beach would be fine at low tide.
Her heartbeat had slowed to regular and she tucked the fire bit of herself that still flickered uneasily deep into a corner inside her, set her feet, gathered all her own personal power and pushed. Air sucked out of her lungs, whistled through the tunnel, ground the door open a half inch. Sweating, she panted and wiped an arm across her forehead, dredged up more and pushed again—and fell into the darkness of unconsciousness. Mistake.
She wasn’t out long and woke to a bright glow of Cloudsylph’s white-violet light. Aric and Diamantina were with the king. Some of the other naiads and naiaders might be behind them, but Jenni figured that humiliating herself before those three was enough.
Aric must have informed them when he’d sensed her consciousness fade through their bond.
The elf king stooped. “Stand aside,” he said to Aric and Aric moved. Even though the touch of the elf sparkled across her senses and he held her as if her weight was nothing, she wished it was Aric. Tilting his head, the king stared at the heavy rounded rock door that was cracked an embarrassing tiny amount. “This door—”
“Is not defective! Especially if Dark ones come.” Diamantina’s voice was as shrill as the screeching of a shark.
“No, not defective,” the king said. “But obviously too difficult for Jindesfarne, and she must have easy access.” He tapped it with his toe and it swung open as if a soft breeze had blown against it. The rush of sunlight and sea scent and the deep thunder of the ocean flowed in. On the release of a breath that barely moved his chest, he lilted a few elvish words and the rock door swung back and forth. Envy surged through Jenni and burnt away the last of her weakness.
“I’m fine now, and I’d like to walk on the beach to study where I should stand for the ritual.”
She felt the lightest feather-brushes of his great power against her as he verified her health, then he set her on her feet. Discreetly
watching each step and trying to appear like she wasn’t hurrying away from them, she strode out onto the beach.
To her dismay the others followed—Aric with solid sturdy steps that set footprints in the sand, the Air King and the merfem gliding along and leaving no trace of their passage.
“Do you sense anything of the bubble energies?” the merfem asked. Jenni thought the woman had just battered Cloudsylph with the same question.
Jenni would have been happier to explore the beach and extend her magic without company, even Aric. Too late now. She’d botched that.
“I’ll check.” Pacing, she studied the water, sending all her magical senses toward the depths of the ocean, where she thought the bubble would rise, walking the tide line until she felt a tiny fluttering that might precede bubble energies. There she stopped and turned to look inland. Of course it was where the cliff had risen up to make the bluff.
Everyone watched her, and again she turned and scrutinized the sea, more with her other sight than with her eyes. She didn’t think that the bubble would come more than a couple of hundred yards out in the ocean, easy enough for her to see—for everyone to see. For the Dark ones to be interested in the house on the bluff and the Eight’s great ritual dance. And Jenni on the beach.
“Will it be there?” the merfem asked.
Jenni glanced at her to see the slightest wrinkle of her brow, the shift of her gaze toward the south. Ah. Maybe she’d been thinking the bubble would rise directly under her own water home.
Rolling her shoulders, she spread her hands. “I think so. Maybe you can tell if there’s a shifting of water energy? Or you, King Cloudsylph, if there is a hint of air?”
All three of them joined her, Aric standing a few more handspans away than the two greater Lightfolk. Jenni took the pace to come close to him, put her arm around his waist, connected with him mind to mind. There, in the direction of that last spur of cloud ahead.
He smiled easily and answered, Asking a Treeman, even a California coastal Treeman, about sensing strange things in the Pacific Ocean is useless. He smoothed his hand over her wind-tossed hair.
“Nothing.” Diamantina pouted. She glanced at the ocean as if she wanted to check herself, hesitated, then inclined her torso toward Cloudsylph. “Do you sense anything, my lord?”
But the king was shaking his head. “Not underwater.”
Again his gaze lingered on Jenni and she felt it. “I doubt that the Emberdrakes would sense any fire energy, though it is a quake zone.” The tiniest lift and fall of his shoulders, too small to be called a shrug. “The dwarven royals or the Greendepths might be as perspicacious as Jindesfarne.”
“You’re sure you felt something?” Diamantina persisted.
What if she hadn’t? What if she was wrong? No reason to try to save her pride. It had already been shattered. The back of her neck tingled in continued embarrassment. “Yes. Very faint, but…yes.”
“But you can’t tell us how fast it is rising or when it will appear?” Diamantina said.
“No.” Frowning, Jenni wondered if she’d really be able to keep track of the progress of the energy sphere, how fast it rose. Would it be like Yellowstone’s or move faster? Not that she recalled much of anything at Yellowstone except that the bubble was there and about to break. Maybe she’d be able to give the Eight warning, maybe not. “Surely you who know the land and are more powerful magically will sense it better than I when it’s rising.” Them doing a lot of the work would be good.
“Of course,” Diamantina said.
Jenni studied the rocky angle of the earth up to the merfem’s estate. “I can see the area where your dancing ritual will take place. Good job, Aric.” She squeezed his waist. “I’ll be able to keep an eye on the bubble and the Eight’s ritual. When I’m out of the interdimension you can watch me and the bubble.” Sounded good to her.
“Yes,” Diamantina said. Her smile was sharply smug and Jenni realized why when a cold wave lapped over her feet. She yelped and slogged in toward the cliff.
“Do you know what the tide will be at the time of your ritual during the spring equinox?”
Diamantina raised her brows with another implied of course. “Currently the ritual is set for the precise time of the equinox, which is 10:32 a.m. human time. The tide will be ebbing, but not at the lowest. The moon will be waxing but the tides will not be high,” she ended sweetly.
Jenni flexed her jaw. Why hadn’t she checked the details out on her pocket computer? It would have taken a few strokes of her finger. Then she forced a smile. “Thank you, that’s good to know.”
“And we should return to planning the influx of the Eight and our retinues and the ritual,” Cloudsylph said, offering his arm to the merfem. She took it and beamed at Jenni and Aric, beamed down on them as the Air King floated them up to the house. “I will need your input, Aric,” the king said.
Aric turned and enveloped Jenni in a hug. “Everything will go well,” he said. His mouth came down on hers and she was kissed quick and hard. Then he was loping to the nearest tree in the fold of the earth, then gone.
He was being optimistic again. As for her, if she thought things would go well, she was a damn fool.
The whole household ignored Jenni that afternoon, and she was fine with that. For a couple of hours, she just lay on her bed and stared at the shells encrusted in the ceiling and let the elemental energies wash around and through her. Now and then she would close her eyes and visualize the areas she needed to know.
Earlier on the beach she’d been tempted to enter the interdimension, but decided to limit her time there. The spring equinox was in two weeks. Before that, she’d be balancing the land under the dancing circle, the beach and the house. If she balanced the area, would the sphere itself be drawn in this direction? Another shudder passed through her. She needed to ask her father’s friend, the elf scholar, wondered if he would be welcome here. She was sure he didn’t have a cell phone…though now that she considered it, cell phones would be natural to Airfolk. Of course the merfem Diamantina would have a crystal ball.
And Jenni had to consider that she’d be spending time in the gray mist for however long it took for the bubble to rise. That was a lot of mist walking.
Everything might not end well, but she was trying her hardest to shape events for a good result, and that included being very responsible.
So she let energy come to her.
The thick “sheets” of the ocean ebbed and flowed like the tide, soothing. There was more fire energy than she expected, but she’d never been in an active earthquake zone and this was close to the Mendocino triple junction where three of the great tectonic plates of the earth’s mantle collided together. The magical elemental energies reflected that: shifting and mixing and separating more than she was accustomed to. Those energies were more changeable under the ocean than here on the hill.
Flickering streaks of fire magic rose from the earth’s core upward to the ocean, then into the air. Faintly, faintly, she thought she sensed the unique encapsulated energies that might be a hint of the next bubble and shivered. She definitely wasn’t ready for that and, looking back on the Yellowstone bubble event, was glad she hadn’t been there alone—or even with just Aric—when it had burst. All five of them had formed that creative energy, shaped the force of it and sent it to accomplish different things. She wasn’t too proud to admit that controlling the energies within that bubble would have been beyond her. Balancing them with other energies for a while when the bubble popped, yes, she could do that, did do that, but imprinting the creativity with a purpose…no.
She was glad that the Eight and their dancing circle would be here to forge the power in the direction they pleased. She gave a few minutes’ thought to the spell they were preparing…but their minds, too, were beyond hers. She wouldn’t presume to understand what beings who’d lived for centuries might do with bubble energy.
If she continued to sense the bubble energy, she’d be fine. But she worried that tiny indicat
ion would vanish under the influx of all the great elemental energies of the Lightfolk who would be arriving. So after everyone had left her alone on the beach, she’d drawn a pillar of flame energy toward her, and attempted to “affix” it to a spot where immense water energy met earth energy and air was churned up. Even in the real world, she should be able to feel the fire energy pillar and know that was the location on land just east of where the bubble might rise from the sea. That’s where she would stand to balance the energies as the bubble broke.
But right now there was blessed peace and quiet.
The warm afternoon enveloped her and she drifted off and her thoughts were drawn to her brother Rothly. He, also, seemed to be drifting, alone in a quiet, cold, dark house. She felt his loneliness, his grief, his depression. His longing for contact and anger at himself for lashing out at others…and his need to punish himself for his failure at the portal so long ago.
I forgive myself, Jenni said to him, not quite knowing if she was dreaming or not.
Of course you do, he sneered.
Not dreaming, then, just in that half-awake state where almost anything could happen. But his words couldn’t hurt her. I forgive you, too.
You have nothing to forgive me for!
For not standing by me. For not sharing our grief. Since she was in that mellow state it was easy to let harsh words that might have come to her tongue melt away. She didn’t remind him that the basic tenets of their family were loving, generosity, forgiveness. She hadn’t allowed herself to remember that for a long time. Her parents would have been grieved at what their children had done to each other and themselves.
No reply snapped from Rothly and Jenni absently decided that was good. You are too alone, she said. Time to enter the real world. I know that.
He waved his healed arm. The “real” world. The only world I have now that the interdimension is closed to me. But his bitterness seemed halfhearted.
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