Carousel Sun

by Sharon Lee

  “You weren’t there for the carnage part,” I said, and sighed. “I feel like such a pushover.”

  “I think, when you’ve had a chance to examine the information you obtained from the exchange of jikinap, that you were up against someone who has quite a bit of training and control. He seems a splendid tactician. To manage all that, with minimal loss of life—of course, he knew he wouldn’t be able to harm you, Katie, since your powers were entwined, but—”

  “Wait.” I held up a hand. “Wait.”

  Mr. Ignat’ raised his eyebrows and sipped more coffee.

  “When I have a chance to examine his information,” I repeated slowly. “How do I do that, exactly?”

  “That’s a very good question. All you need to do is open yourself to your power, as you open yourself to the land. You already have the Varothi’s information; you only need to bring it into consciousness.”

  Or, I thought, I have the file; all I have to do is open it.

  I leaned forward and put my mug on the coffee table.

  “Will you watch for me?” I asked.

  He smiled gently. “Of course, Katie.”

  I closed my eyes, and asked the land to be very, very quiet. Then I centered myself, and tried to clear my mind.

  Nothing happened.

  I considered the possibility that the Varothi had found a way to withhold his information, to lock the file, in essence, in order to protect Jaron, if for no other reason—and only see how well I had protected Jaron! Taken by my enemies, and locked away, his life reduced to a single function—leash. My leash, by which my master would ensure that I come to heel . . .

  Mr. Ignat’ had made a second pot of coffee. When I opened my eyes, he was at the counter, sawing bagels in half. Sun was flooding through the French doors.

  “Hello, Katie. Breakfast?”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Breakfast would be good.”

  I stood, carefully, and stretched, then I walked out onto the summer porch and stared over the dunes, to the sea.

  Pretty day, I thought, going to be a hot one, too.

  I felt a slight disturbance in the air, and knew that Mr. Ignat’ had joined me.

  “The Varothi imprisoned in the carousel—Jaron—was set up,” I said. “He was taken and imprisoned to ensure his lover’s cooperation with a certain political faction. My Varothi . . .” I smiled slightly. “My Varothi is Prince Aesgyr. He’s old and he’s sneaky, and I no longer feel like a doofus before him. He’d give you a run for your money.”

  “If I were so foolish as to put myself in his way,” Mr. Ignat’ murmured.

  I laughed. “In other news, the wild gate was his; he used it to enter the Changing Land. He’d originally thought to use it as his escape route, too, but then I went and closed it. And he hadn’t anticipated the problems connected with figuring out which prisoner was who. Also . . .”

  I sighed.

  “Also, they—Aesgyr and Jaron—they didn’t go back to Varoth.” I turned to look at Mr. Ignat’. He met my eyes with a smile.

  “They went to Daknowyth. Aesgyr intends to place Jaron under the protection of the Opal of Dawn.”

  “A splendid tactician,” Mr. Ignat’ said, with clear approval.

  “If he can keep the jailbreak quiet,” I said. “He’s only good for so long as the guys holding his leash believe that Jaron’s still fastened to the other end.”

  “Ah.”

  “I’d been wondering,” I said, “if I should call the Wise. All of their prisoners gone; they’re not going to like that. When they get around to noticing. But now I’m thinking that the Wise aren’t wholly above little things like politics and extortion.”

  “It might be so; they’re wise, not infallible.”

  I nodded, looking out over the water. There were a couple of kayaks out, just beyond the breaker line, paddling upcoast, toward Surfside.

  “Not infallible,” I said, nodding. “And it’s really none of my business what they do in their spare time. When it becomes my business is when they use the land of which I’m Guardian—and the business that’s been in our family for years—to do their dirty work. We didn’t ask to be the jailers for the Six Worlds. And I reject the proposition that we have to sully our honor and endanger our people on the whim of the Wise.”

  There was a small silence. The guys in the kayaks were making good time; at this rate, assuming they were following the coast, they’d be in Cape Elizabeth in time for a late lunch.

  “Will you be calling the Wise, then, Katie, and giving them your decision?” Mr. Ignat’ sounded only politely interested.

  I turned my head and smiled at him.

  “No. And I won’t be telling them that the prisoners are gone, either.” And I won’t spoil Aesgyr’s surprise, I added silently. He’d trusted me with his secret; he’d trusted me, so I gathered from his information, to be a woman of honor.

  Well. At least I was a woman who knew how to keep her mouth shut.

  “The Wise,” I told Mr. Ignat’ out loud, “can go fish.”

  Mr. Ignat’ laughed, and wrapped me in a downright exuberant hug.

  “Excellent!” he said. “Oh, excellent, Pirate Kate!”