The Changespell Saga

by Doranna Durgin

  A woman ducked through the curtain of bells that separated the front of the store from the back. “Hi,” she said over the jingle. “Let me know if you have any questions. I won’t pester you.” She sat on a stool behind the counter, an incongruous sight in her jeans and plain polo top.

  Another woman followed her out, a clipboard in hand and looking much more in tune with the shop—punk-short hair would have been a crew-cut if not for the longer fringes at her face and neck, jangling earrings, and a filmy black top over a long purple skirt.

  “Mark,” she said, surprised.

  “Hey, Rita,” he responded, easily enough so Dayna figured this wasn’t, in fact, the woman he’d dated. “Brought some out-of-town friends in. Dayna needs some stuff for a project.”

  “Stones,” Dayna said. “Hard ones. Maybe some crystals... depends what you’ve got.”

  “I’ll show you,” the jeans-clad woman said, sliding off the stool and weaving expertly through crowded displays to reach the customer side of the counter. “We’ve got some token stuff up front here, but the best selection is in the back.”

  Suliya, having rejected all the clothing besides the black baby-doll T-shirt she clutched, turned sideways to nudge past them in the opposite direction. “Look,” she said to Mark with delight, displaying the shirt. “A horse with a horn.”

  Dayna couldn’t help it; she rolled her eyes. And then her gaze fell upon the display case tucked away in the back corner and she lost herself to greedy delight, going over to poke through them with eager assurance.

  Rita rang up Suliya’s purchase, her voice a little too casual. “From where did you say you were visiting?”

  “She didn’t,” Mark told her.

  “Maybe you’d like a free reading? As one of Mark’s friends—”

  “Nosy, Rita,” Mark said, a tone of voice that told Dayna he really did know this woman... and also that he believed she was capable of discerning more than most.

  And that she wanted to.

  Dayna looked over her shoulder, annoyed; he should have known better than to let Suliya come, then. Clearly he was operating in pure Mark Mode... too laid back to notice the things that really did matter.

  “A reading of what?” Suliya said, brightening.

  Dayna turned to the stones. Cut crystals, polished ovals... minerals and gems and a few that looked purely artificial. Satisfaction. She pushed her forefinger through the stones; touching them. Trying to get a feel for them, as she’d be able to do on Camolen, and finding the response so faint she couldn’t be sure.

  So faint...

  Faint enough so she felt sudden doubt—even a sudden twitch of panic. What if it doesn’t work at all?

  ~~~~~

  Jess left Ramble with another apple and a few slices of melon, and returned to the farmhouse. Saddened, distracted... she almost missed the new whiteboard message.

  Like the last, this one was full of what Dayna had eventually termed “static;” like the last, it was terse and to the point.

  Visitors -ooking fo- Arlen b-cause of world tra—l s-ell detectio-. Now think t-ey follo—-ou. B- c-reful.

  Staticky, but not unreadable.

  Visitors looking for Arlen because of world travel spell detection.

  So someone thought Arlen was alive because they’d felt the spell—and very few people knew Dayna was willing to attempt magic of that complexity, or that because of her ability to mix raw and conventional magic, she could actually do it.

  Now think they followed you. Be careful.

  She had to blink at that. Why would anyone follow?

  To stop us.

  Of course. But how could anyone have known? And who would want to stop them in the first place?

  She couldn’t think it through, not with the unhappy taste of Ramble’s reaction clogging her mind.

  No one else was here to see the message, with Dayna, Mark, and Suliya in town and Carey asleep since then—unused to the medicine Mark had given him, although Mark assured them it was commonly used and quite safe. She went to find him.

  Yes, still asleep. On the bed for which Mark had apologized, since all of the farmhouse’s extra beds were the narrow kind. She watched him in silence—his back to her, tipped over to the wall. Even in his sleep he favored his sore leg, keeping it gingerly bent and one hand resting on the thigh; even in the warm spring day, he’d flipped the worn navy bedspread over himself, rumpling the covers into an impossible mess.

  Jess eased into the bed, stretching out behind him and doing her best not to disturb him. Just considering him. Watching him, reaching out to touch his hair only when the urge became irresistible.

  It woke him, but just barely. “It’s me,” she said, close enough to his ear for a bare murmur. “I’m thinking.”

  “Is everything—?”

  “Fine.” And it was, for the moment. Long enough for her to watch him and touch him and consider... things. His hair was so unlike her own coarse mane—brown near the roots and the nape of his neck where he had it cut short, and mixed ashy browns and deep blond on top, where he’d let it grow longer and the forelock often fell over his brow. Very human, all in all. “I need to think.”

  “And it helps to do that to me?” He was awake enough to put humor in his voice, and she knew exactly what she was doing to him, although for once that was not her intent.

  “Yes,” she said. “To be with you.”

  He gave her a wordless grumble and fell silent; she thought he dozed, though sometimes he leaned into her hand.

  Very human. And he loved her. She had no doubt of it... day in and day out, just like any two humans. She traced a finger down his shoulder, found a knot of tension, and gently worked it out.

  He loved her.

  But there were things he hadn’t faced. Hadn’t accepted. If he were truly at ease with Lady, he wouldn’t avoid riding her. He even changed the subject when she mentioned it.

  He rolled back, half-trapping her, and looked over his shoulder. “Jess,” he said, “you’re killing me.”

  “I just needed—”

  “To think. I know.” Still sleepy-sounding, his voice laced with affection, he said, “You keep doing that, and I’m going to give you something to think about, all right.”

  She smiled, but it felt small and sad. She said, “Ramble doesn’t know anything. And Jaime thinks someone followed us here.”

  “Waitaminute, waitaminute.” He twisted around in the narrow space, ending up propped on one elbow and facing her. Carey. So human. So driven... but not so driven he no longer failed to understand the consequences.

  This time, he’d accepted them for someone else. For Ramble.

  He said, “You talked to him? Really talked to him?”

  She nodded, still half-lost in her thoughts. His was a face that could have come from a horse. Not a rough-edged Ramble type of horse, but something finely bred. Although he had not quite the nose for it; not enough expression in his nostrils, and too much in his forehead. She reached to smooth one of the lines she’d just created there, and he gently but firmly caught her hand.

  “Why didn’t you wait? What did he say? What exactly did he say?”

  Best not to answer that first question, not when the answer was I needed to protect him from you. “He says a man was there, and he felt magic from the man. Then he ran. That’s all.”

  “That’s something.” But he didn’t truly look convinced.

  Jess sank back down against the pillow, looking up at him. “Not new. Dayna felt the magic... that means someone had to have been there. We already knew.”

  He ran a hand over his face, still looking tired, and absently rotated the shoulder on which he wasn’t leaning. “That can’t be everything. He’ll remember more, if we keep asking—”

  “No,” Jess said flatly. It was, she realized from the surprise on his face, a command. “He has said what he knows.”

  “Jess—”

  She sat up suddenly; there wasn’t enough room on the bed for both of
them that way, so she slid off and knelt there. “No. He won’t talk to you. Carey,” she said slowly, watching the surprise linger in his eyes, and close enough to mark the mix of brown and green of them, “if you try, I will take him away.”

  That shocked him; he flinched, though she doubted he knew it. Mingled with the shock came a sudden pain, and the draw of his brow against it.

  “Yes,” she said softly, and with perfect understanding. “It hurts. I know.”

  She was beginning to think this was what being human was all about. Being capable to hurt the people about whom you cared the most.

  He drew a deep breath, pushing himself upright and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, making a half-hearted effort to pat the covers back into place. “All right,” he said. “We’ll talk about it later.”

  “We just talked about it.” She sat back on her heels, not giving ground. Not this time. She could handle Ramble away from the barn; she was the only one. She had a spellstone to get back home; she would use it.

  “And we may well talk about it again!” His voice rose, came out nearly as a shout, not a tone he’d ever used with her before.

  She looked steadily back at him.

  He threw his hands in the air. “What about this message from Jaime?”

  She frowned, but... sometimes with horses it was best to back off and let things be a while. She would do that for him, too. “I left it on the board.”

  He rolled off the bed, found his feet, and headed out the door. Jess followed more slowly, and found him contemplating Jaime’s poorly transported words with a frown. “I don’t get it. Who would follow us here? Damn, I wish we could talk to her.”

  “Someone wants to stop us,” Jess said. “I don’t know why.”

  He gave her a wry look, his mouth twisted in a self-deprecating way. “Even if you think we’re wrong.”

  “I think you’re wrong,” Jess said readily. “But I know you did it to help.”

  He didn’t respond right away; she thought maybe he couldn’t. “I can’t put it together,” he said eventually. “Let’s leave it here, see if the others have any glowbursts about it.” He gave a sudden glance around the kitchen, the worn honey-pine cabinets and table and its markedly empty silence. No television in the background, no leftover snacks on the kitchen counter. “This isn’t a good time to be separated. If someone’s here and they came prepared, they could have finder spellstones.”

  “Mark took Dayna to look for spellstones,” Jess told him. “Empty ones, for Dayna. She found out magic doesn’t work from scratch here. She said something about doubling spellstones.”

  Carey winced.

  “Is that bad?” Jess asked.

  He said, “Not if it works.”

  ~~~~~

  Another small town, barely big enough for its private livery. Arlen gave a sigh of relief as he spotted its sign, and then another when the woman wielding a stall fork was amiably willing to take on the gelding—now named Grunt—for the night.

  The smaller towns were used to being bypassed by the rest of Camolen, and he’d found them less disturbed by the disruptions. No one ever mentioned the kind of destruction Arlen had seen on the road... even this very day. He spent some time studying the patch of oddness, but when he gave it a subtle prod of magic—just a dollop—it twisted itself inside out, doubled while he blinked, and drove him to retreat.

  At least it had given him something to think about until the next time he found one. He no longer doubted that he would.

  “Wantin’ grain for the horse?” the woman said. “I’m about to start feeding, but yours ought not get any for a while... I’ll put it in a bucket here if you want, and start him on some hay.”

  “I’d be grateful,” Arlen said, unloading the canvas packing bags and stripping the saddle from the gelding’s back, letting the blanket sit there a while longer while the animal cooled.

  Carey would be surprised at how much he’d learned about horses.

  “Damn well better be impressed,” Arlen muttered, earning a glance from the woman as she moved down the puddled, dirt-packed lane in front of the stall row. He shrugged, hauling his gear to the stall she’d pointed out.

  Grunt needed grooming, but Arlen wanted nothing more than to sit numbly and not move, here in his ugly-clothes persona and his upper lip that so keenly felt the cold. Just sit and... sit. Exhausted in body and mind.

  He found a wooden feed bucket with a broken handle, flipped it over, and plunked his cold posterior upon it.

  And, he thought suddenly, to hunt for Jaime.

  He’d never reached for her this early in the day... always at night, when he was tired and presumably so was she. Elbows on knees, face in hands, he went looking. So easy, after all these nights, to fall right into it... Jaime, I’m here. I’m alive. I’m coming. Over and over again, never expecting an answer from someone with so little ability with magic, but hoping at least to feel the connection. Jaime, I’m here. I’m alive. I—

  He startled at the suddenness of it. The brief clarity of Jaime, the shock of contact—

  A voice of satisfaction, far too close to his ear. “Been looking for you, wizard. Should have kept your magic to yourself.”

  ~~~~~

  Jaime lifted her head from the message she penned to Chesba, a thank you for his cooperation and quick reply in confirming the two representatives who had visited her were none of his. On the stack of outgoing messages beside her elbow was another to the local peacekeeper station, asking about the two.

  But her pen—a nib pen, beautifully appointed and fit to the human hand, but a nib pen nonetheless—dripped a large blot of ink, unheeded. The evening ague? Now? Now?

  It nibbled at her, swelling; she closed her eyes against it, unprepared.

  But as it swelled, heading for unbearable—not pain so much as pressure—it popped, clearing for an instant of—

  “Arlen?” she whispered.

  ~~~~~

  Arlen jumped to his feet, stumbled over the bucket, and ended up standing with it in hand, feeling foolish on all counts.

  Should have kept the magic to yourself, wizard.

  Even, apparently, the small spells. Spells that should have easily disappeared under the weight of daily magic use in Camolen without the application of intense scrutiny.

  I’ve been looking for you.

  Arlen eyed the man, found him far too close for comfort. Not a wizard... muscle.

  Hulking and obvious muscle, with shoulders contained in a coat twice as wide as Arlen’s that still didn’t close properly. And he’d be fast—at this distance, faster than a complicated spell. Faster than almost any spell, if the man was trained to interfere with a wizard’s concentration.

  Arlen was betting this particular man was trained in any number of things... none of them pleasant.

  “You must have been looking for some time, then,” he said. You must have known to look in the first place. “You had someone there when the Council died? You knew I wasn’t with them.” He cocked his head, still going after puzzles. “Who are you with? What’s this all about?”

  “I don’t think you need to know that.”

  Damn. Not an obliging villain, then. Someone with a job... who intended to do it.

  “Get your horse,” the man said, looking every bit like he was capable of doing this particular job. His flat nose attested to his experience; the knuckles of his leather gloves were thickened... weighted. “You’re about to have an accident on the road.”

  Anything but back in that saddle. Arlen gave him a disbelieving stare. “You’re not serious.”

  The man couldn’t be. Once in the saddle, he could put enough space between them to use magic.

  The man raised a finger as if in sudden discovery, using a voice that let Arlen know he’d been played with. “Ay, right,” he said. He held out his hand, and within his meaty palm lay a small vial. “Drink this first.”

  Arlen gave the vial a dubious look.

  “I can kill you here,” t
he man suggested, and he was close enough to do just that—Arlen had no illusions about his own physical prowess. “I don’t want to—the manure heap behind this place isn’t big enough to hide a body just for starters. Drink, and you can convince yourself you’ve bought time to escape me.”

  That made a certain amount of uncomfortable sense. “No doubt it’s one of those mind-muddling doses meant to keep me from working magic.”

  “No doubt it’s spelled to take effect immediately, too. Now take it, before I get bored and that manure heap starts looking bigger.”

  I am, Arlen thought, more than my magic.

  At least, he hoped he was.

  Cautiously, he held his hand out; the man tipped the vial into it. Arlen thumbed off the cap and poured the thick, honey-colored liquid onto his tongue. It tasted of honey as well... and by the time he’d swallowed, he felt his ability to concentrate fly away like so many bees. He gave the vial a respectful glance—what he suspected looked like a stupidly vapid respectful glance—and returned it to the man.

  “Now get your horse. Saddle him first.” The man crossed his arms and spoke as though to a particularly dim three year-old.

  Arlen couldn’t blame him. A particularly dim three year-old probably had an edge over his current thought process.

  But physically, he was fine. No stumbling; no staggering. Nothing to draw anyone’s attention. Run? He was headed in the right direction... away...

  He thought the man could probably run just as well. Probably better. And that he’d only continue to follow Arlen.

  “Get the horse,” the man reminded him, patiently enough.

  Arlen discovered he’d stopped halfway there. Make that a particularly dim two-year-old.

  So stop trying to think.

  Do.

  He reached Grunt’s stall, only a few doors down the equipment-littered aisle. Grunt gave him an eager greeting, stretching his coarse, winter-whiskered head over the door in obvious expectation. Puzzled, Arlen followed the horse’s gaze.

  The bucket. He still had the bucket, hanging limply from his grasp. Most carefully, he set it down beside the stall and reached for Grunt’s halter.