“Bad, then,” Carey agreed.
“Dayna is well,” Jess said suddenly, and smiled—for this particular run had gone to the newly established sub-hold between Siccawei and Anfeald, where Sherra’s young wizards practiced—carefully—the use of raw magic. “She rolls her eyes at the others. Timid, she says.”
Carey snorted. “I think they’re there specifically to slow her down—Sherra’s no dummy. Dayna doesn’t have the advantage of growing up with fear of raw magic.”
“Disadvantage?” Jess said, frowning.
“Advantage,” Carey said firmly. “She’s never been frightened into caution.” He jammed the papers back into the pouch and tucked the tangle of leather under his arm to hold the other hand out to Jess. “C’mon. Natt and Kesna are waiting for these. And Jaime’s coming early tomorrow—you wanted to make sure the housekeeper had things ready, didn’t you?”
Jess stood visibly straighter at the mention of Jaime’s arrival, brushing hay off her sweater as though Jaime would arrive any moment. One hand found her hair; she made a face. “Groom this?”
Carey laughed. “C’mon. You might just talk me into it.” His open hand still waited; he wiggled the fingers.
Jess reached out, and Carey lifted their joined hands to Suliya by way of a parting gesture. She stood in the middle of the aisle with her broom, watching them head for the job room, heads tipping slightly closer as Jess murmured something that made Carey laugh out loud. “Later,” he said easily, as if he’d grown comfortable with the outrageous things Jess could say.
Suliya and her broom and her bitter envy. She could have made that run, she knew it. She could be one of them.
But she needed to make sure they gave her a chance.
~~~~~
In a northern precinct of Camolen, frigid water lapping the edge of a lake suddenly became solid, and then grew tiny, brittle stalagmites that wove together and spired toward the sky. Just over the Lorakans, along an ancient trade road into Solvany, solid rock dribbled down along the side of the craggy mountain, revealing a hibernating burrowdog just long enough for melting rock to merge with it, killing it in its sleep.
South of Anfeald, a road maintenance scout headed for the unexpected mudslide by the dry riverbed and never made it. His partner returned with a babbled story about swirling leaves, melting trees, the hind parts of a ground squirrel sticking out of solid ground—and a man lost to the astonishing explosion of a nearby bush, wood turned to sharp-edged metallic shrapnel.
She bore the wounds to back up her story. Wounds bearing metallic shrapnel made of twisted hazel bush bark.
~~~~~
“He’s not here?” Jaime said, sounding every bit as unhappy as she looked. She peered outside the world travel chamber as if Arlen might just be lurking.
“I’m here,” Jess pointed out. She stood by the door of the dedicated chamber, deep in Arlen’s stone-carved hold and waited for Jaime to give up on finding Arlen.
Jaime looked good—but then Jaime always looked good to Jess. Even when she had an unusual haircut that made her look like she’d just gotten out of bed, short and mussed and almost certainly on purpose since she’d never failed to groom herself before. The first glimmers of grey showed among the dark strands, silver peeking out from her bangs.
“And I’m glad to see you,” Jaime said to Jess, running a hand through her ruffled hair. “But if you were expecting Carey and you got me, you’d be disappointed, too—”
“Teasing,” Jess interrupted, and grinned.
Taken aback, Jaime just looked at her a moment. Then a smile crept in at the corners of her mouth. “You’ve gotten better at that.”
“Yes.” Jess held out her hand to take the overnight bag hanging from Jaime’s grip. “Carey says Arlen has been out doing Council business, and Natt says the Council just called him in for a rush meeting to investigate something strange.”
“They have changed from last year,” Jaime said, giving up the bag and emerging from the booth. “Used to be they’d take reports and consider their options for at least a month or two. Now they’re out on an actual field trip?”
Jess remembered the look on Natt’s rounded face when he’d relayed the news; her amusement at teasing Jaime faded altogether. “Things have not changed all that much.”
Jaime caught her meaning right away. “So this is something pretty alarming.” She followed Jess out into the main hall of the first floor, an asymmetrical floor plan that had never confused Jess as it did everyone else. Carved within a steep rocky hill with the entrance at the bottom and Arlen’s private rooms rising just above the natural surface, the hold was solid, dependable, and just a little bit quirky.
Like Arlen himself, Jess thought.
Carey waited for them by the stairs, close enough to have caught Jaime’s words. “Alarming,” he agreed, “but new enough that no one seems to know anything about it.”
Jaime sighed. “It’s been quiet for a while now. Too much to hope it could last forever.”
Jess petted the deliberate disarray of Jaime’s hair, a soothing gesture from her own days of training. “It is quiet. Dayna has not panicked Sherra for days now. Did you bring new pictures of Sabre? Is Mark happy bossing the barn while you’re gone?”
“Happier than I thought he could be,” Jaime admitted as they headed up the stone-carved stairs. Large windows lit the stairwell with soft skewed shadows, spelled with an invisible barrier to keep the cold out and the clumsy in. “He’s really settled into the role. He’s grown up a lot in the last year... and he’s not that skinny guy anymore, either.”
“Then you should bring pictures of him, too,” Jess said wistfully. It had been a long time since she and Carey traveled to Ohio—to Jaime’s barn on her family’s old dairy farm property, The Dancing Equine. Jaime was the only one with free dispensation to move between worlds, much to the Council’s disgruntlement. Had the Council not owed her so much—and owed Arlen so much—Jess had no doubt they would have told her to choose a world and stick to it.
As it was, Jaime split her time, and Jess could well understand why she was unhappy to find Arlen gone.
“We asked the cook for the black deer venison you like so much,” Carey offered as they topped the last of the stairs and headed down the hall—past the apprentice studies, past Arlen’s five-walled workroom with its giant window overseeing the gardens and pastures of his domain, and on to his personal rooms.
“Quit trying to cheer me up,” Jaime said. “I intend to pout for a while longer. Maybe until Arlen gets back.”
“Oh,” Jess said, disappointed. She led the way into Arlen’s common room, a welcoming place of layered rugs, bookshelves, and a sitting area that often disappeared under his various needlework projects. She left Jaime’s bag by the end of an overstuffed couch and sighed. “Maybe I should go work on my reading, then.”
Carey laughed out loud, and Jaime said gently, “That’s one of those things people say when they don’t want you to quit doing something, Jess. I am sad that Arlen’s not here, but it doesn’t mean I don’t want to spend time with you. How about we try a lesson, after dinner? Is that new covered ring still heated?”
Jess straightened to attention. “Yes! Both things!”
“Good,” Jaime said. “I’m starved, and now that you’ve teased me with that venison—”
“No tease,” Carey said, helping himself to the rocking chair by the window and stretching his bad leg out with a wince.
Jess frowned—but only on the inside, where she’d learned to keep such faces. Winters were hard on him, and she well knew it by the way he accepted warm packs and liniment rubs in the evening.
A sound of astonished delight drew her attention back to Jaime, who peered into the extra little room that now held some of her things—her custom dressage saddle, a wooden wardrobe full of essential clothes so she didn’t have to fully pack each time, a collection of books by Camolen’s riding masters, past and present...
“There’s a light in here!�
�� Jaime said. “It almost looks like a fluorescent bulb!”
Carey absently kneaded his thigh. “You’re one of the few in the hold to have a SpellForge permalight.”
“Permalight,” Jaime mused. “Someone on Earth could have come up with that name.”
“Invoke the thing, and it stays lit—even when the invoker walks away, falls asleep, whatever. Thousands of starter spells in the same stone, too—right there at the base of it.”
“Wow,” Jaime said. “All those hours I put into learning how to keep a glow going when I wasn’t really giving it my full attention.” She sent Carey a wry look. “Or maybe I should say, trying to learn.”
“Oh, the old school wizards are scandalized.” Carey pushed the calico cat from his lap, guiding the demanding creature toward Jess where it repeatedly bumped its head against her leg.
She sat cross-legged on the thick carpets and tugged gently at its tail until it stood foolishly on its head, purring. She said, “They’re jealous.”
Carey snorted. “They think such devices will ruin the next generation of wizards—that children won’t learn the proper discipline to hold those first glow spells, and that’ll spill over to the rest of it. In any event, Arlen thought you’d like it.”
“He would have liked to see your face when you noticed it,” Jess said. “But I saw, and I’ll tell him.”
“I’m sure I can find a way to express my appreciation when I see him.” She tossed her bag inside the bedroom. “One nice thing about spell travel... no need to freshen up. Now, what about that dinner?”
Jess followed them, but couldn’t help a glance back over her shoulder into Arlen’s empty quarters.
The hold seemed just as empty without Arlen, no matter how many people lived here. She would be as glad as Jaime when he returned.
~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter Three
South of Anfeald, midway between Siccawei’s new sub-hold and the dry river bed, the ground heaves like thick molasses going into a boil—and then settles, as solid as it has ever been.
Sherra stands off to the side, looking for the exploding hazel bush.
It has melted into something else.
Tied at a distance, her palomino mount rattles air through its nose; it is as wary as she. It lifts its head to call to the empty woods, a stallion’s cry.
“Hush,” Sherra says absently. She knows only as much of horses as she must, and in this place she has other things on her mind. Keeping an eye on the quiescent earth, she gathers her concentration for the spell that will tag this spot, allowing the Council wizards to transport without a formally established booth.
The horse calls out again, craning his head against the halter lead; this time he sounds less demanding, more welcoming—a lower call, more musical.
Sherra ignores him, finishing her spell, unaware of the subtle creep of earth.
Almost immediately the rest of the Council begins to arrive. Seventeen of them altogether, the very best of Camolen’s best...
Everyone but Arlen, who is too far away to accomplish free transport.
They are all of the wizards who oversee Camolen’s magic—policing their own, protecting everyone else.
None of them have ever seen anything like this growing miasma in northern Siccawei’s woods. None of them know what has caused it. They throw a tentative identifier spell at it to identify it as benign or malignant. They don’t truly expect it to work.
It doesn’t.
But the ground heaves at the offense, and a tree trunk spits out what was once a bird.
They eye each other in alarm.
Sherra invokes the most gentle of healing spells, the most benign of magics. All stumble back in alarm as pebbles spurt up from the muddied, melted patch of woods.
The palomino snorts alarm.
There will be no more magic used here, they decide. They will fetch null wards to contain this spot while they try to understand it.
The palomino nickers; even Sherra recognizes it as a greeting. But they see nothing. No one.
And then they feel the magic.
It is not of their making.
It is raw magic—magic without control, without signature. It brings the disturbed woods to sudden, violent life.
The ground reaches for them—
~~~~~
Chapter Four
Carey shifted his weight, gave his leg a subtle stretch, and leaned over the rails of the indoor ring to watch the growing frustration on Jess’s face—an interesting contrast to Jaime’s patience. Jess chronically expected too much of herself as a rider—expected to understand new things right away, expected to do them right the first time, expected to figure things out before she was told.
Carey knew, and Jaime knew, that even a riding student who started life as a horse had a learning curve. But Jess hadn’t yet accepted that fact.
This end of the long structure held a large viewing area separated from the riding area by wooden fence rails and a wide gate—but the generous viewing space did double duty as storage, with hay overflow, training rails, rakes and shovels and wheelbarrows nibbling away at its edges. Carey wasn’t surprised when the door slid over to admit Suliya, her riotously curly hair spilling free from the ties that bound it back. She rummaged among the manure forks, apparently looking for something special.
Or not. He hadn’t failed to notice that she often turned up during Jaime’s instruction, or that she tended to lurk in his own shadow. He suspected she thought it didn’t show when she disagreed with Jaime, which happened fairly often, or that she’d managed to hide her resentment at her starter position in Anfeald.
Or her resentment when she saw Jess going out on a run, whether or not it had ever been meant for Suliya.
She’d clearly hoped for more when she’d signed on, her expensive wardrobe and entitled demeanor clashing with her desperation for the job—and with her complete failure to understand just how much she didn’t yet know.
Carey hoped that if she kept watching, kept dogging his heels, maybe she’d figure it out. If not, she wouldn’t last much longer.
Now she winced as Jaime walked up to Jess and her green young mount and gently moved Jess’s outside hand. “Give him a little more room to move into that rein,” she said, her voice clear in a ring that had been spelled for clinic acoustics. “Remember how green he is—with a horse like this, on the trail, giving him this room can be the difference between a minor shy and a panicked runaway.”
Carey thought it might be time for Suliya to know she wasn’t as invisible as she seemed to think. “You don’t agree?”
She started slightly, taking a few uneasy steps so she could keep her voice low. “I didn’t say that—”
“Sure you did,” Carey told her. “You didn’t say it out loud, but you said it.”
Not even Suliya’s sepia complexion could obscure her flushed skin—but Carey had seen those flushes, and recognized them for what they were—frustration more than embarrassment. She thought she was right, but didn’t dare say so.
“You’ve never taken a lesson with Jaime, have you?”
“No,” Suliya said, glancing first at Jess and Jaime, and then at the packed dirt floor. “I haven’t been here long enough to earn them.”
Carey gave her a mildly surprised look. “Who told you that?”
“I—” she said, looking startled, then having to think about it. “No one offered them to me. I assumed—”
“I don’t recall that you ever asked.”
“I—” she said again, and even bundled as she was in scarf, thick jacket and bulky gloves, Carey could see the difference in her posture. “May I, then?”
“Maybe not this time,” he said. “She’s scheduled. But I’ll put you on the list for next time. There’s a catch, though—”
Suspicion shuttered her dark brown eyes. Carey swallowed his annoyance. “Relax. You just have to do what she says, whether you agree with it or not. If you have differences, you can consider them later on. Right now,
you do it her way and you do it with good cheer.”
She nodded slowly, thinking hard behind a face she was trying to keep blank. He added more casually, “Even if we can’t tell, the horses can.”
He didn’t add that they, in turn, would be able to tell from the horses. If she didn’t know that, then she had more to learn than he thought.
“I can do that,” she said without hesitation, although he’d have preferred it had she taken a moment to think. “Please... I’d like to be on the list from now on.”
“I’ll see to it,” he said.
“Hold yourself in position even if he does drop on the outside,” Jaime was saying. “He’s an exceptionally shifty little guy—not of your breeding, is he?”
Jess laughed. “Only you would ask that!”
Jaime shrugged, offering a relaxed grin. She looked great this visit—more relaxed. Softer, happier...
And it wasn’t just the haircut.
It was Arlen, and how he’d made her welcome—made Anfeald as much her place as his. Given of himself to her.
Too bad he couldn’t get his butt back here to see her.
Jess corrected herself. “Only you would mean it the way you do. No, he is not of my bloodline. Carey brought him in last fall from Shibaii. I think he’s too... shifty... for courier runs, but we thought to give him another year.”
“He might grow steadier,” Jaime agreed. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t.”
Jess gave the chunky bay gelding a pat. “I wonder what it would be like if I did breed.”
Carey winced.
He wanted children... Jess wanted children. But Jess’s human body had never settled into cycles, even if her Lady self sporadically went into heat. It made for an interesting personal life. But it meant, he thought, that children weren’t likely.
“Do you want to?” Jaime asked Jess in surprise—apparently forgetting about the acoustics spell. “Does Carey want to?”
Hell, yes. Never as a young man, full of goals and battles and a young man’s selfishness. But with Jess in his life... with his eyes newly opened to the pride of the cook when his family grew by yet another child, at the way his own eyes strayed to the few hold children playing outside the gardens...
The Changespell Saga Page 61
