Numbly, she did.
No longer bleeding quite so freely, he crouched by his partner, fished around at the darker man’s neck, and pulled out a chain of spellstones, quickly sorting through them to find the one he wanted before lifting the injured man’s unresisting hand and pressing the stone into it, closing dark fingers around it. “Trigger the burning thing when I move out of range, get yourself back. Have them send Lubri out. Not Mohi, you hear? You’ve seen where brute force is going to get us.”
“Go root yourself,” his partner said, not bothering to insert any malice, although Jess wasn’t sure he had the energy to do so anyway. When the lighter man stepped back—ending up between Carey and Jess and not, Jess thought, by any accident—his partner triggered the stone, sending a wash of magic over the aisle. The air rippled, turned briefly harsh, and cleared.
“Reinforcements on the way.” The man took another step or two back so he could look at both Carey and Jess at the same time. “I understand your concerns, but you’ll be safe if you come back with me. You’ll be released once you can no longer interfere.”
“Dead people don’t interfere,” Carey said dryly. He sat back on his heels, looking better—as if it were a decision to stay down, and not a necessity. He cleared his throat with a strange and puzzled expression, a flush coming high on his cheeks to replace the utter paleness of shock.
Jess looked at the man from beneath a lowered brow and said, “What did you do to him?”
“I—”
A sudden blast of magic took the conversation away, surprising the man as much as Jess and Carey; they scrambled away, giving it space.
“What?” Ramble demanded from the stall. “What?”
And then the magic faded and Jess understood. Although she had seen the Siccawei mangle from equine eyes, she had no trouble recognizing the effect.
Here. In the aisle of Jaime’s barn.
What had once been the man’s partner was now a lump of skin, jagged bloody bones, pulped and strangely extruded muscles mingled and entwined with what might have once been painted flagstone.
And the smell...
Jess hadn’t known there would be a smell when the corrupted magic was fresh. Not this smell... not so much of it.
Ramble made a choking noise and fled to the corner. Carey turned his head away, muttering a single faint curse.
The intruder walked a few steps closer, eyeing that which had been his partner. He leaned down, broke off a piece of the unnaturally brittle flagstone, and studied it briefly before flicking it away to shatter against the wall.
When he faced them again, he dusted his fingers against his pants, for the first time favoring the arm Jess had cut. “My name is Gifferd,” he said with a strange finality. “I think we’re going to get to know each other a lot better than we expected.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter Twenty-One
Arlen. She’d felt him earlier in the day... Jaime was sure of it.
Sure of it, or wishful thinking?
Total denial, Jaime told herself with finality. Stuck in limbo too long, no proof of his death other than a melted landscape where he might have been standing... too many other things going on to accept the grief.
Arlen.
The hope hurt.
Here it was well into evening, and she felt fine. No hint of the evening ague, long past any time she’d grown to expect it.
Although she had her dosing vial on hand. Close on hand.
Arlen, do it again. Reach me. Make me certain.
The hope... was a wonderful pain.
Jaime dropped a courier report onto Carey’s desk, letting it settle atop the others. Mangle central, that’s what they should call this place—here where she mapped reports of the burgeoning dangers of the landscape, in defiance of the Council’s wishes.
Not just Anfeald, either—not since word spread about her undertaking. Now all of Camolen’s couriers passed along sightings from their own precincts, creating a bemused sort of underground movement to deal with the dangers.
Jaime glanced at the country map tacked to the wall—the precincts, from west-most Therand and Solvany to a few remote, sparsely populated eastern precincts whose assigned wizards hadn’t even been on the Council.
She took no comfort in the paucity of sightings in those areas; very little information came in and out, and the rugged mountains made for plenty of territory where mangles would go unnoticed. Beyond them, Therand and Solvany were all but cut off from the rest of Camolen. Without travel booths, the Lorakan mountain range reduced travel to whatever made it through the two mountain passes.
This time of year, that wasn’t much.
It didn’t matter. There was enough red splotted over the main of Camolen to indicate the quick spread of the mangles. And the more detailed map of Anfeald beside the job board, where the couriers could check their routes for danger spots, was rife with notes and question marks.
And still none of them had any idea what was going on.
She’d heard murmurings among the couriers, warnings to avoid invoking magic near a mangle, as it seemed to enlarge them. It made sense... Linton had had had his narrow call after invoking a light.
Whatever else he’d wanted to say to her that evening had been lost. And though she’d had Arlen’s workroom thoroughly inspected after their unexpected visitors, the results had been maddeningly nebulous. Yes, the apprentices thought things had been disturbed. No, they couldn’t be sure... right now, things were disturbed as a matter of course.
Jaime gave a gurgle of frustration and turned back to her paperwork. Topmost on the pile sat a pale blue trifold addressed to Carey, and it carried a logo of magically stamped gold and bright turquoise. SpellForge Industries.
Say what?
She fumbled to trigger the release of the general delivery seal. Jaime Cabot, not meant for magic. Consort of a wizard.
Maybe. If she’d been right about what she’d heard. Felt. Touched.
Arlen.
Finally the wax softened under her fingertips, and she was able to peel it off, ball it up, and toss it out. SpellForge would probably come up with a reusable sealer spell one of these days.
The paper spilled open, releasing a smaller packet even as it rebounded to its original flat, uncreased shape. Fancy. The embossed lettering at the top identified it as being from an executive at SpellForge; the exact nature of the man’s position escaped her. Board member?
I regret to bother you in this time of need and confusion, but find it necessary to make contact over a purely personal matter. Understanding that my estranged daughter may well have chosen not to inform Anfeald of her family affiliation, I ask you to keep this missive in closest confidence—for which reason it will disintegrate for your convenience, once you trigger the spell embedded at the bottom of the page.
Estranged as she is, my daughter Suliya has kept in touch with her younger sister, who now informs me there has been no contact from her beyond any expected delay from the current crisis. Given the uncertain state of things, I would appreciate any word of her you might be able to provide. Enclosed also is a private letter for Suliya; among other things it expresses our wishes that she return home until Camolen stabilizes—a wish I reiterate to you and hope you will respect despite whatever employment agreement you have with Suliya.
“Like father, like daughter,” she muttered, fingering the smaller packet and setting it aside. Entitled. Expecting. Suliya, a SpellForge child.
It explained a lot.
Given the uncertain state of things, I would appreciate any word of her...
Jaime laughed under her breath, no humor to it. Let someone else tell the board member of Camolen’s most influential spell corporation that his estranged daughter was off on another world, and that Jaime had lost contact with that world. She didn’t have time for executive tantrums.
She gave a wistful glance at the world message board she’d hung beside the map, where her last message had been desperate and to the point. C
an you hear me?
Normally the messages disappeared once they were sent. This one waited, sad and scratchy-looking... and backward. Bounced back at her.
Not enough power behind it, with all the disturbance within Camolen?
She hoped it was no more than that.
Arlen. Carey, Dayna, and Jess...
So much hope, bundled up inside her, making her heart rush off into racing little dances when she least expected it.
“Please be right,” she whispered to her heart, and set Suliya’s unopened letter aside.
~~~~~
Dayna felt the magic even as Mark broke rural speed limits to reach the Dancing Equine. “Hurry,” she told him, clutching the seatbelt and all but bouncing on the truck’s bench seat. The only thing that stopped her was that Suliya was already doing so beside her, a living example of just how annoying it could be.
Mark slewed the truck into the Dancing’s gravel driveway and Dayna shoved the door open, reaching for that very long step to the ground. “Stay here.”
“Not gonna happen,” Mark told her, setting the parking brake and jumping out of the driver’s side.
“Then stay behind,” Dayna threw over her shoulder, already heading for the barn. “You may be the guy, but I’m the wizard.”
She was sure she heard him mutter “In training,” but he did indeed hang back, and kept Suliya with him.
Dayna ran to the end of the barn and yanked on the closed door—and only succeeded in twinging something in her shoulder. How could it be locked from the inside?
“Go around,” Carey called from inside.
He didn’t sound right. Strained. She exchanged a glance with Mark to see if he heard the same, and saw her own wariness reflected in his warm brown eyes.
They went around.
They pushed through the central people-size door into the tack room, and beyond to the main aisle of the long facility—where they stopped short at the sight of the hay bales thrown haphazardly about the aisle, and the very obvious passage into Ramble’s hidden area.
Dayna motioned for Mark to stay back, and when he hesitated she hissed, “I mean it.” Suliya put a hand on his arm, and he cursed under his breath and stepped back.
She eased up to the hay bales, stones in hand, and slid through the narrow opening without so much as the whisper of hay against the flowered pattern of her shirt.
Jess and Carey and blood all over the place... and him. A Camolen stranger. And the smell—!
Jess regarded Dayna with such restrained tension that Dayna readied herself, bringing to mind the barrier shield spell. Her gaze skipped right over Carey, registering something not quite right but not hesitating there, and focused on the stranger who stood in the shadow of the closed doors.
Bland and attractive, like the woman in the new age shop. Camolen clothing that at first glance passed for contemporary American style. Blood all over one arm—his blood, tracking the walls and floor.
With only a quick lip-biting expression of concentration, she tapped the storage stones and threw the barrier around the stranger.
He flinched at the feel of magic, was visibly taken aback at the appearance of the barrier—not quite the same magic as the shields she’d so recently employed, but similar visuals. Enough so he’d know it was there. She threw a sharp look at Carey and Jess. “Do you still have your shieldstones?”
Carey shook his head, dammit, glancing darkly at the stranger. But Jess glanced at Ramble and nodded. Just one of them to protect, then.
Dayna left the inverted shield spell uppermost in her thoughts and stepped out from between the hay bales, allowing Mark to come through behind her.
He saw what she hadn’t.
“You guys have Salvatore Dali in to redecorate while we were out?” he asked, puzzled.
But Dayna, seeing for the first time the blob on the floor, felt the blood drain from her face. “That’s the same mangle effect from Camolen!”
“There was another man here,” Jess said, her dark eyes flashing briefly at the stranger—he hadn’t moved, he hadn’t said anything, but by his stiffened posture he understood quite well what Dayna had done to him with her inverted shield. “He tried to go home.”
Suliya crowded up behind Mark and made a noise of utter disgust. “Ay, what’s this?”
Dayna eyed the mess, suddenly and regretfully able to pick out a desperate hand, clutching at air. “Guides dammit, he must have hit a bad spot going in. I knew there was more to this than one incident. I knew it.” She gave her prisoner a quick, angry eye. “I’ll bet you know it, too.”
“He’s not talking about what he knows,” Carey said. “Jess felt magic before these two ever came along—what happened with you?”
Dayna couldn’t take her eyes away from the puddle of human and landscape melted right into the wall and floor; she barely heard Mark offer a quick explanation of their encounter—of what Dayna had done.
What happens when we try to return?
And on the heels of that fear came the sharpest pang of homesickness she’d ever felt. I want to go home.
Camolen. Home. Still a home with many unexplored aspects; a home in which she was a virtual stranger. But home.
She steeled herself. She’d figure it out. They’d augment the spells with storage stones... they’d send something on ahead to make sure the way was clear. Something.
Jess still stood stiffly between Carey and Ramble’s stall, all her natural grace gone, her expression deadened to everything except some secret conflict she didn’t seem likely to share. Not with the way she didn’t quite look at any of them.
Carey, on the other hand, was far from stiff. Rubber-kneed, she would have said. Bemused somehow. That left the man behind the shield, with his collarless casual exec shirt and exquisitely tailored trousers of tough, spelled material.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “Your friend in the new age store didn’t have much of a chance to answer questions before she left. Although unlike this guy, I’m pretty sure she actually made it back.” In what condition, she had no idea.
Suliya eased through the gap in the hay, and Mark immediately kicked the bottom hay bale into place, stepping over it to retrieve the rest and mend their barrier.
Suliya frowned as she moved closer to the prisoner, pacing to view him from all angles and then pressing her lips together to regard him with hands on hips—understanding something that Dayna didn’t, to judge from that expression.
“Like I said,” Carey told Dayna. “He’s not talking—other than to say his name is Gifferd. It’s clear enough someone on the other side decided we’re a threat, which means they believe Ramble actually knows something—”
Dayna scowled at no one in particular. “Who even knew that possibility exists?”
Absently, now nibbling a fingernail as she stared at Gifferd, Suliya said, “Whoever was there knew.” She let that sink in, and added, “Anyone at a Council wizard’s hold knew what happened; the Secondary Council knew. The landers found out next, you can be sure... and from there it probably went wide. The juicy tidbits always go right along—and it doesn’t get any juicier than the only survivor was a horse!”
Carey said, “That sounds like the voice of experience.”
She waved a negligent hand. “I know how secrets get out, if that’s what you mean.” Abruptly, she pointed directly at Gifferd. “You. You’ve done work for SpellForge.”
Gifferd gave her the barest of smiles. He tucked the hand of his wounded arm into his belt, and seemed not much discomfited by his tenuous situation. “I’m surprised you remember. Then again, I’m just as surprised to see you here. I can assure you the SpellForge board has no idea you’re involved.”
“I don’t answer to them,” Suliya said, annoyed. “I never did. That was always Papa’s problem, wasn’t it? To think that I did?”
“I think he considers his problem to be that his daughter is a spoiled brat,” Gifferd said. “It’s open to individual interpretation, of course.”
Dayna was surprised to find Gifferd largely unaffected by Suliya’s words, and possibly even amused by her. Despite herself, she was impressed. She, too, had once been captured by the enemy. It sucked.
“Tsk,” Gifferd said. “Your father would be disappointed.”
She cast him the most dismissive of glances. “I’m doing exactly what he wanted—standing up for something other than myself. For something I believe in. It just doesn’t happen to be what he believes in.”
Carey gave her a strange look. “Suliya, just who is your father?”
She waved him off. “He’s on the board. It doesn’t matter.” But her mouth twisted in an embarrassed expression, and she said, “I never thought I’d be ashamed of him. I’ve always been proud of where I came from...”
Jess said, “You don’t know he is part of this.”
Suliya glanced at Gifferd; her face had gone a little sad. “I think I do.”
Gifferd quite studiously didn’t respond. Instead he looked at Dayna. “You’re the real surprise. My recon labels you a second year student who lacks the discipline to stay away from raw magic—and yet you defeated Argre... and in a world without native magic.”
“She started it,” Dayna said, stung by his assessment. She held out her hand, showed him the stones. “I used stored magic.” Yeah, maybe it hadn’t been quite that simple. “And you don’t know squat, do you? Your people are afraid of raw magic because it’s harder to use, not easier. I just didn’t happen to grow up with people telling me it was impossible, so I do it.”
The Changespell Saga Page 77
