Arlen, it seemed, had been quite busy.
And so had Jess.
Maybe Arlen would have brought his influence to bear without Jess’s request; maybe not. Either way, although Jaime would travel with Arlen to Kymmet City for the supplicant’s hearing, she would not be forced to testify in Willand’s presence.
And Jess...
Jess was his again. For this short while, she would ride again for Anfeald... for Carey. He smothered a grin at the thought—or tried to.
It been quite satisfying to stroll into the couriers’ quarters on the second floor and inform the disagreeable job rider that he could grab himself some breakfast and go.
And now he fully expected to find Jess in the stable area, where he could hand over Shammel’s ride for the day and know it would get done quickly and properly, without offended recipients on the receiving end.
The only thing that could possibly make this day better would be to discover the weather-sighting wizards were wrong, and that their dry spring would finally see summer rain.
Then he hit the bottom of the stairwell to find Ander lingering in the doorway, exchanging comments with Klia, one of the young grooms.
All right. There was indeed one thing that would improve this day—but Ander seemed likely to be here as long as Jess was, and Carey had already resigned himself to it.
He stopped just before the doorway, meaning only to stay long enough for the meaningful look he gave Klia—but movement down by the tack room made him stop and stiffen. Ander followed his gaze, reacting likewise.
Shammel wasn’t quite gone.
Jess exited the tack room with a bridle in her hand, holding it out to untangle its straps. She saw Shammel in plenty of time to step aside—a move made necessary by the fact that he was carrying saddle, bridle, and saddlebags, and doing it in such a way as to take up nearly the whole aisle.
But he didn’t simply pass her by. He stopped, and he crowded her, turning on her in a movement precisely timed to startle her. Carey couldn’t hear what he said—Shammel’s voice was low and meant for privacy—but it surely wasn’t pleasant.
“Ninth Level damnation,” Ander growled, and started off to intervene.
Carey’s hand landed on his arm—not gently—stopping Ander short. Klia scurried away to her duties as Ander turned on him. “What’s your problem?”
But he couldn’t keep his gaze from Jess and Shammel, where Jess responded to the job-rider without any attempt to keep it private. “You were rude. It’s your own fault.”
“Leave her be,” Carey told Ander, his voice low. “She can handle this.”
“She shouldn’t have to!” Ander shot back, as surprised as he was angry. At the end of the hall, Shammel crowded Jess even closer, and his low words came back at her fast and hard, no doubt unpleasant.
“It is my business,” she told him, her back against the stone wall and the bridle down at her side, her fingers clenched around it. “You were making trouble for Carey.”
Carey put himself between Ander and the confrontation. “She needs to learn she can,” he said intently. “If you protect her from everything, what’s she going to do when she runs up against someone like this and you’re not there?”
Ander hesitated. “Fine,” he said. “She’s dealing with him. Now can we go put a stop to it?”
“Leave her be,” Carey said, making a wall with his presence. Behind him, Jess’s anger grew.
“You have no words for me,” she told Shammel, in the arch tone that meant she knew she was perfectly right. “You don’t even know your own human rules. Leave me alone.”
What she did then, Carey didn’t know. Shammel’s muffled oath made its effectiveness clear enough.
Ander’s gaze flicked back to Carey for a moment. “She’s not your horse anymore,” he said, anger in his low voice, sparking in those bright blue eyes. “She doesn’t belong to you.”
Carey glanced over his shoulder. Jess stood alone at the end of the hall. Her hair, as often, was coming loose from its ponytail; her chin was up and her eyes, their expression dark and fastened on Carey, seemed to hold some edge of hurt. She hefted the bridle and abruptly turned away from them, heading down for the barn aisle.
She was all right, then. Disturbed, as she ever was at this sort of conflict, but all right.
Carey turned back to Ander and said softly, “She doesn’t belong to you, either.”
~~~~~
Jaime thought she should feel better than she did.
Because Willand’s supplicant’s hearing was over. Just like that.
No more ordeal; no more anxious anticipation. Jaime’s testimony had gone smoothly; Willand’s had gone badly.
And now Jaime was back in Anfeald, giving Jess a riding lesson in the large covered arena behind the hold.
She hadn’t even had to face Willand directly. Arlen’s doing.
She had no idea why she felt so empty about it.
It’s over, she told herself, again. Willand wouldn’t be allowed another hearing for three years.
But Jaime had been able to see Willand through a wizard’s version of one-way glass. To see her fury and resentment, and far too much determination.
It doesn’t feel over.
“Jess,” she said, wrenching her thoughts back to the lesson, “you need to maintain a deeper seat. You’re losing him right before you try the flying change, because you’re lightening your seat in anticipation. Give him the support he needs.”
Jess’s only response was to nod; she seldom came out of her concentration to say anything during a lesson. She’d only ridden this horse for the first time the day before, and while it wasn’t her first go at flying lead changes, the gelding was clearly uncertain about the whole affair.
“I’m beginning to think we should go back to simple changes for another day,” Jaime called as Jess cantered toward center ring and the gelding’s expression grew anxious. “He’s not as ready for this as I thought he was.”
Without comment, Jess dropped the horse back into trot for three strides, then picked up the canter on the opposite leading leg. She cantered once around the ring—Carey’s biggest training ring—then quietly brought the horse down to a walk and let him have a long rein. After a few moments, she halted beside Jaime at the long side of the ring. “He was too tense.”
“I agree,” Jaime said. “No point in pushing him so hard he decides lead changes are a bad thing.” She leaned against the fence, wishing she’d carried out some water. Even though they’d started this lesson early in the day, it seemed far too warm to be standing around the dry and dusty ring in the sun. “Maybe you should take him on one of the trails, let him cool off.”
Jess made a face. “Deerflies,” she said, and that was enough. Even though they weren’t exactly the same kind of deerflies Jaime dealt with in Ohio, they were just as nasty.
“Just walk him out here, then, I guess.” It was hard to give lessons on someone else’s turf. You never knew when you might be interfering with established regimen.
But Jess sat on the gelding with her eyes focused well behind Jaime, her posture alert, and Jaime twisted around.
Arlen?
They were a quarter mile from the hold, and sequestered behind an irrigated garden. Tall bean trellises, rows of something Jaime couldn’t help but call corn—from here, all you could see was the very top of the hold hill, and the road that passed it on the way out of the grounds. Pasture rolled out opposite of them, brittle grass that the horses had spurned to rest under scattered shade trees.
And yet here was Arlen, in a black outfit Jaime would have called a martial arts uniform if she’d been at home. “What’s up?” she called to him, hearing the doubt in her own voice.
He lifted a hand in greeting, waiting for conversation until he grew closer. And then Jess made a little noise, and Jaime knew enough to follow her attention. In short order, one of Carey’s duns came into view, with Carey sitting relaxed and easy in the saddle—but he was cantering in the hea
t, and he was cantering toward the barn, and he wouldn’t have done either without reason.
Jaime found trepidation tightening around her as Arlen reached them. “Something’s happened.”
“Yes,” Jess agreed, dismounting behind Jaime and running up the stirrups, loosening the girth. The lesson was over, even the cool-down.
Arlen arrived with an unhurried smile of greeting—but Jaime wasn’t so sure she found his casual demeanor convincing, and was about to say so when Carey pulled up in front of them, creating little whirlwinds of dust.
“What’s up? It’s been a while since you did the old summoning trick.” He flashed his hand open in a gesture that meant nothing to Jaime until she remembered that Arlen could call Carey through the ring there, creating an insistent tingle that wouldn’t go away until he was in Arlen’s presence.
Jaime turned a no-nonsense stare on the tall wizard. “Yes, what’s up, Arlen?” Behind her, the training ring fence creaked as Jess leaned against it, no doubt echoing the question with all her body language.
Arlen abandoned some of that amiable cheer. “It’s not good, as you’ve probably guessed.”
“You’ve never been much good at this sort of thing,” Carey said, as his horse shifted and snorted beneath him. “Just tell us. It’s kinder.”
Arlen opened his mouth, hesitated, shrugged, and said, “Willand has escaped.”
Darkness crowded around Jaime like a tunnel, closing out the noise and colors of the world. Then Jess’s strong hands grasped her shoulders from behind in a comforting grip, and Arlen’s hands enclosed hers.
“I’m not sure telling her straight out was such a good idea,” he said distantly, his voice a wry mutter. “Are you all right, Jaime?”
Jess behind her, Arlen before her... she was, at least, not going to fall down.
She opened her mouth in question, but couldn’t voice the words before Carey did—and he did it with no uncertain fury. “Burning damnation, Arlen, how? That little bitch was closed up in a null-magic facility!”
“In a minute, Carey,” Arlen snapped—snapped, which Jaime had never heard before. “Jaime,” he said gently, “Are you all right?”
“I really don’t know, Arlen,” she said, her voice much more calm and reasonable than she ever would have expected, especially given her still vague vision. “She... escaped?”
He nodded, a grim gesture. “She did. Dayna’s being told right now, and I don’t envy Sherra the task. You and Carey and Jess—we’re the only other ones with a direct role in bringing her to justice.”
Thank goodness Mark was still at home. At least one of them was safe.
“Maybe she won’t come after us,” Jaime said, hearing her own voice; it sounded dull and unconvinced. Willand had threatened retribution often enough, during the trial.
And Willand enjoyed retribution.
“Arlen,” Carey grated.
Jess’s voice spoke up from behind Jaime, low, and the words a little thicker than usual. “How, Arlen? Tell us how.”
Arlen released Jaime’s hands for her shoulders and drew her in, his eyes worried. Jaime let herself rest against his lean solidity, staring at the shirt’s fancy stitching over his collarbone, black on black. “I wish we knew,” he said, and with the words, his chest hummed against Jaime’s ear. “Carey’s right. The wards should have held her, and easily. To say the Council is in an uproar is an understatement.”
“That’s it?” Carey demanded. “No one knows anything?”
Arlen shook his head. “Not quite true, but even that isn’t good news. At the time of her escape, we—every single one of us on the Council, and who knows how many other wizards besides—felt the magic that did it. It was powerful—and it was unfamiliar.”
“The same magic I heard about?” Jess asked.
Arlen said flatly, “No.”
“Deep-fried Hells,” Carey said.
“Yes,” Arlen said. “Well and concisely put.”
Jaime pulled away from him, and looked directly up at him. “I want to go home,” she said. “I’m not doing this again. I want to go home now.”
Arlen looked down at her and hesitated, just long enough for Jaime to understand the answer. Her fear flared into temper. “Why not? Arlen, I came here to testify for your Council, and now I want to go home! Getting me away from that sadistic little valley girl is the least they can do!”
“Jaime,” Arlen said gently, “there’s no way they’re going to lift the checkspell on the world travel spell while Willand is on the loose.”
“What about Calandre?” Carey asked, sounding like he didn’t really want to know the answer. “Is she... ?”
“Safe and sound in her own little confinement area,” Arlen said. “She’s isolated except for approved visitors—and her health is failing. She’s no threat to us.”
“Let me get this straight, Arlen.” Jaime struggled with a wash of fear and loathing—and a surprising dose of fury. “You’re saying I can’t go home until Willand is back in custody. However long that takes.”
Arlen hesitated again; he obviously didn’t want to say it at all. But finally, after Jess’s gelding had snorted a great belly snort and shook until the reins flapped against his neck, after Carey had nailed the big green horsefly that was plaguing his mount, after the tickling trickle of sweat had run down Jaime’s chest between her breasts, Arlen nodded.
“That’s what it looks like,” he said. “And this isn’t just Willand. There are at least two others out there, and now we know they’re not interested in playing by the rules. We’ve got a mess—and once again, you’re right in the middle of it. You and Jess and Carey... and me.”
“Then,” Jess announced, as if it was obvious and she didn’t understand why no one else had said it yet, “we will have to find Willand, and her friends. We have to stop them.”
Jaime turned to look at her—they all looked at her—and found only what she’d been expecting.
The same sort of determination that had carried Jess through her change from horse to woman, and helped to save a world while she was at it.
~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter Eight
Jess sponged the gelding with cool water and turned him out into the pasture; Carey did the same with his dun mount. They worked side-by-side in silence, filled with the grim reality of Arlen’s news.
Find Willand. It had to be done.
How was something else entirely, and if the Council couldn’t do it, Jess wasn’t sure how one horse, practicing to be human, could help.
But she and Carey walked back from the pasture together, and he offered her his hand, and somehow that made things a little better.
At least, until she saw Arlen and Jaime emerging from the stable entrance to wait for them, standing in the scant noon shade offered by the open stable door in the base of the hill. Jess tightened her hand on Carey’s, and took heart from his returning squeeze.
Ander wandered out to join them as Jess stopped short of the entry, feeling wary. “What?”
“What else?” Carey added.
“We need Jess’s expertise again, I’m afraid,” Arlen said.
Jess felt a small cold fist of dread. “There’s another changed animal,” she said.
“West of us, just over the line into Forret’s Sallatier Precinct,” Arlen said. “One of the Sallatier landers has her, a man named Chesba. And it turns out that we’re the only changespell experts in Camolen.”
“Experts,” Carey snorted. “Right. We’re making it up as we go along.”
Jaime gave Arlen a look that said she was prepared for battle if necessary. “I’m going with you.”
“Good idea,” Arlen said, offering no hint of resistance. “I don’t want to leave you alone right now.”
“Hold on,” Ander said, looking a little startled, turning to Carey. “What do you mean, what else? What’s happened? Besides this?”
“In a moment,” Arlen said—not without understanding, but holding his focus. “Carey, my apprentice
s will be able to reach me at any time, should the need arise; I’d like you here to be eyes for them. If you had another run planned for today, give it to someone else. I don’t want you out today.” He paused, and gave Ander a patient but quelling look. “Feel free to let Ander know the details about Willand. He may want to return to Kymmet.”
“We’re going now?” Jess asked.
Arlen looked briefly at her dirt-smudged breeches and boots. “I think it best. But if you’d like to change, there’s time.”
Jess thought about the feeling within her, her distress at the thought of another changed animal. Freshening up just meant she’d have to wait that much longer to discover what had happened in Sallatier.
“No,” she said. “I want to go now.”
Arlen didn’t even take them to the travel booth—unlike most wizards, he didn’t have to. He gave them a mere nod of warning, waited for Carey to pull Ander out of their circle, and lifted his hands.
Jess felt only a slight shift in the air around her, couldn’t help but blink—and opened her eyes in a travel room with walls of pale wood. “We’re here,” she said, sounding surprised even to her own ears.
Jaime, who had traveled to Kymmet by similar means just the day before, nodded as if she was an old hand at the procedure. “We’re here.”
“And lucky that this small town has an established public booth at all.” Arlen stepped out of the little room. Jess followed him, and discovered they were at the back of a coach station. “I could have brought us to Chesba’s lander home directly, but he admitted himself understandably wary at the prospect of incoming traffic. This coach station booth isn’t far from his home, according to Forret.”
They stepped out into the coach station, a well-used facility with the particular smell of a place that saw many people through its doors, and often. At the moment it was nearly empty, aside from a young boy who detached himself from his distracted mother and watched them emerge, eyes wide.
Not many people used the booths. Only those of importance, or those who had to travel extensive distances, paid for the privilege—otherwise, people used personal coaches, horses, foot, and the coach stations with their luxury vehicles.
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