“You stored—” he stared at the stones, shook his head. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
She shrugged. “So I like to color outside the lines.”
Carey straightened for the first time, his voice holding a protective note she hadn’t anticipated. “It’s brilliant. And it’s not something Camolen wizards have any reason to consider. I’m not surprised they didn’t anticipate it here.”
“I’ll bet Argre was,” Gifferd said. “But then, she always went for the offensive magic too quickly. Foolish.”
“Just like your pal wanted to kill us instead of reason with us?” Carey absently rubbed his knuckles in a small circle against his chest. “And you wonder why we don’t trust that we’d be safe if you took us back?”
For the first time, Gifferd lost his composure; his face darkened. “If I’d taken you back on my word, I would have seen to your safety.”
“Excuse us if we don’t care to test that,” Dayna said. She glanced at Carey, a significant look that he didn’t miss. “The question is, what do we do with you now?”
The question is, what do we do with us?
~~~~~
Jess didn’t care what they did with Gifferd.
“I want to go home,” she said, glancing up from beneath a quietly lowered brow because she’d been staring at the ground. Interrupting, completely, Dayna’s train of thought. Carey looked away; he’d known this was coming.
She’d warned him, after all.
She said, “We know what Ramble saw. We know FreeCast has something to do with the static and the mangles. We will learn no more here—and those are things Camolen needs to know. But the message board isn’t working right.” She looked straight at Carey. “I want to go home. Now. Ramble wants to go home. He needs to be a horse again.”
“But—” Mark turned from shoving the last hay bale back into place, turning to Jess in surprise and looking from her to Carey.
“I want to go back,” she said firmly.
“Jess, we don’t even know if we can go back,” Dayna said, as surprised as Mark. “And we need more time to talk to this guy.”
Jess looked at Gifferd; he returned her regard with a perfectly pleasant expression, unconcerned. And she looked at Carey again, who’d turned back to her with a subtle plea in his face.
It tore her, make a clenched spot at the bottom of her throat that wanted to cry out loud. But she knew...
If she didn’t do this for Ramble now, if she didn’t do it for herself, respect her own feelings enough to act on them...
Either way, something ineffable would change. Something ineffable already had.
“You stay here then,” she said. “I will not. I promised Ramble.”
Tentatively, Mark said, “We could send something ahead, make sure the landing spot was safe. It’d be a different spot than the, um... than that guy used, wouldn’t it?”
Gifferd said, “The spell came from Arlen’s records... but our people tweaked it for return location. You’ve got a chance.”
“Hay,” Jess said with finality. “Send hay. Then send us.”
“A whole travel spell for hay,” Dayna said—but she was just being Dayna, and not truly objecting at all. Given that little nod of hers, she’d likely already thought of sending something ahead... and simply hadn’t mentioned it, holding back with the hope that Jess herself wouldn’t come up with it, and therefore wouldn’t go.
Glancing between Carey and Jess, Mark said, “Jay does need to know what we’ve learned. All of Camolen needs to know it. Maybe you can turbo-charge the spell with stored magic, like you did at the shop.”
“I still can’t guarantee it’ll get through,” Dayna told him, her irritated expression speaking as loud as her words. Whose side are you on?
“But you think it will,” Jess said, knowing Dayna just that well. “Will you do it? Ramble and I can use his spellstone to send the hay first, and mine to get there together, but...”
“But having a little turbo-charge would be nice,” Mark finished for her, having failed, as usual, to quail before Dayna’s irritation.
Dayna nodded at Gifferd, a jerk of her head. Angry. “And what about him? Who’ll keep him contained? I can’t do everything at once.”
Gifferd leaned against the big aluminum door with his barrier. “You don’t need to worry about me. We know where my travel spell leads.”
He cast a regretful look at what was left of his former partner, then settled his frown on Suliya, long enough that she shifted uncomfortably. “Your father...” he said—and stopped, his expression not quite inscrutable enough to hide his ire. “I think FreeCast went dogleg on me with this one—told me to bring you all back, but told the other two agents to...” and he hesitated “... clean up.”
Stricken, Suliya would look at no one. But Carey said, “Why would they?”
Gifferd shrugged. He’d been trapped long enough, still long enough, that Jess found he was not so bland as he’d first looked. That like Jaime, his nose showed signs of having once been broken, if not badly. That he had a scar through one eyebrow, and one on his chin—faint ones. He said, “Because they wouldn’t have gotten me on the job otherwise.”
“And they wanted you because you’re the best,” Carey said flatly.
“If there wasn’t something weakening the magic, you’d have good reason to know it.” Gifferd shrugged. “But if they broke faith... you’ve nothing to worry about from me. You tell me more about what’s going on, you might even find I can be of help. Because right now, I’m wondering how much else they didn’t tell me.”
Dayna snorted, planting her hands on petite hips. “So we just let you go, even after what you’ve done here. What you tried to do.”
“I’m not sure you have much choice,” he said, without concern. “I don’t think you’ll kill me in cold blood. And I guarantee that conventional means won’t hold me.”
Carey scrubbed a hand through the short hair at the back of his neck, suddenly looking tired of the whole thing. “He’s got a point.”
Dayna gave him a furious glare. “You didn’t learn enough from Ernie? You let him go, and boy, didn’t that come back to haunt us!”
Jess understood Dayna’s fear. She understood what it was like to feel like the world was making decisions around her, and in spite of her. But she said, “This man is not Ernie.”
“Guides, just use a burnin’ spellstone on him,” Suliya said, her voice thin and a little thready. Your father, Gifferd had started to say to her. Not the SpellForge board or FreeCast. With a faint noise of despair, she turned against the hay bales and hid her face.
Jess felt a tug of compassion, an impulse to go rub the young woman’s back and tell her easy. But she didn’t. If she was going to feel for someone right now, it had to be Ramble.
And herself.
“That’s a good idea,” Mark said, giving Dayna a hopeful look. “You can do that, can’t you?”
“Of course I can—but these storage stones aren’t endless.”
Jess understood that for what it was. I can’t do everything. Don’t count on me for it.
But Dayna sighed, and tossed him the stone she’d just emptied; he snatched it out of midair to give it a thoughtful look—and to ask Dayna again—a silent, persistent question.
“Yes,” she sighed. “We can do that.”
“Good,” Jess said. “Then you can go back to thinking about sending Ramble back. With me.”
“I think you should wait.” Dayna gave Gifferd a pointed glance. “We might have a better understanding of what’s going on.”
Gifferd smiled, something sardonic. “It’s more stupid than it is complicated. Some idiot spied on the Counsel by using raw magic for an illusion spell, and it made a mess. No one was meant to die, never mind Camolen’s entire Council of Wizards.” His underlying anger might have been feigned, but Jess didn’t think so. “SpellForge needed time to clean things up, so I was told to restrain you.”
Suliya jerked away from the ha
y, her face flushed and crumpled with emotion. “I’ll be spelled if that’s all! You know something about my father—you as much as said it! You know things he’s done!”
“I might,” Gifferd told her, surprisingly gentle. “But nothing relevant to this conversation. I have no reason to breach that faith.”
“Tell me,” she demanded, roughly wiping hay from her damp cheek. “Tell me!”
Her reaction brought Ramble to the front of the stall; he watched with a curious tilt to his head, ears fully perked. Or they would have been.
They would be again, soon. When he was back in Camolen. A horse again. “You see?” Jess asked Dayna, as Mark put an arm around Suliya. “There is nothing to wait for.”
Carey started, stricken. “You want to go now?”
“Now,” she said.
Mark looked over Suliya’s head and its trembling curls. “Look, I hear you, but... Dayna’s already pulled off some serious magic today. And we should try again to contact Jaime—even if we can’t get through, it’ll give us some sense of how things are working there. You should know what you’re going back to.”
Jess tried to ignore Carey’s palpable relief at the excuses to detain her, the way he leaned back against the wall—the deep, trying-to-be-surreptitious breath he took.
Dayna, too, had sagged a little, as if she’d let some of the air out of herself. “Mark’s right,” she said. “I’ve done too much already. And this isn’t exactly a spell we want going wrong...”
Jess felt the flare of her own nostrils, irritation made manifest. But she glanced at Ramble, who nodded at her—fully understanding, and agreeing. “Tomorrow,” she said. “But not beyond. Because today is already too late.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter Twenty-Two
Suliya sat cross-legged on her bed. Jaime’s simple taste and style were nothing like her own; it lacked the expensive class to which Suliya had long been accustomed.
She stroked the arm of her shirt. It was cut perfectly to her measurements and well-spelled against wear and tear, and she could have worn it to clean the barn and back if she’d wanted.
But she’d brought it more for the comfort of having it than for the intent of wearing it. In truth, she couldn’t wear it here—not with the magical sheen of it. Smooth, slick material slid past her fingertips. Gorgeous. Sensuous. A deep teal that turned stunning against her dark skin, a gift from her sister.
Now it only reminded her of family wealth and influence... and her sudden new insights to how those advantages had likely been acquired.
Out in the kitchen, Mark laughed at something Dayna said. Those two pretended to quarrel more often than not, but beneath their words lay the easy byplay of long acquaintance—and a trust Suliya had never felt given to her.
Too much of her father, showing through? Or some other flaw?
She had no idea of how the others viewed her. She knew only how she’d viewed herself, and suddenly that didn’t seem like a reliable measure.
Mark laughed again; dishes clattered. They must be cleaning up after the evening meal. Normally Mark would be gone off to his night shift—at a small road inn, Suliya was given to understand—but he’d called in sick after the events of the day.
Suliya didn’t blame him. She’d felt too sick to eat herself.
The pantry door squeaked open, and Dayna reported, “Nothing!” loud enough to be heard throughout the house—here to Suliya, and to Carey and Jess in their own room.
Unfamiliar tones followed Dayna’s announcement—Gifferd, asking a question Suliya couldn’t make out. She’d be burnt if he hadn’t passed Dayna’s friend or foe test with bootin’ ease—meaning his aura blazed a mix of blue and orange light, just as reflected in his words. They might not trust him, they could trust what he said.
They’d just better ask all the right questions at the right time, Suliya thought darkly, still angered that the man had said enough to cast doubt on everything she’d thought she’d known about her father, then refused to address the questions he’d raised in her.
Well, maybe they’d go home soon. Maybe Suliya could just ask those questions herself. She’d already gotten herself kicked out... what more could her father do to her?
With that determination, she quite abruptly snatched the shirt up and shoved it into her carrysack. For good measure, she kicked the sack under the bed and headed out into the hall for the kitchen. Maybe she could pry a hint or two from Gifferd after all.
But she didn’t get that far. Jess’s voice from behind the closed bedroom door distracted her, full of sad frustration; she eased toward the door, never mind that this was most certainly a private conversation.
“I trust Dayna,” Jess said. “She won’t send us unless it’s safe.”
“Dayna makes things up,” Carey responded. Also sad... but as persistent as Suliya knew him to be.
“She has inner feelings of what she believes is right, you mean,” Jess said. Suliya drifted closer, all but putting her ear to the door. “She proves over and over that her inner feelings are to be trusted.”
“She almost killed us with raw magic backlash!”
“Before she even knew what it was,” Jess said, evidently unmoved. “I have inner feelings of what I think is right, too. Right for Ramble... and right for me. I told you so. I told you over and over.” Her voice got huskier than usual, her words a little clumsier. “Tomorrow Dayna will be rested... Jaime’s message board will still be blank. I will take her the information about SpellForge, and Ramble will be himself again.”
Carey’s response took a moment, and Suliya almost crept away before it came. Not quite. “You’re really going,” he said. And then Suliya held her breath, hearing the catch in his voice. Bold Carey. Do-what-it-takes Carey. Head courier, suddenly sounding like someone else altogether.
Someone grieving and torn and full of sorrow... someone who’d brought the situation on himself and suddenly knew it. “Jess,” he said. “Jess, I—”
“I know,” Jess said, sounding just as broken. “But Carey, you put me where I have no choice. Not unless I spurn who I am, and then neither of us would like me.”
That wrung a groan from him, but no protest. “For someone who never used words until a few years ago, you have a way with them.”
There was a pause, during which Suliya suddenly realized just how blatantly she eavesdropped. She glanced to the kitchen—there wasn’t so much as a skip in the rhythm of the conversation, which seemed to be Mark tweaking Dayna about email versus the wizard dispatch.
Jess spoke again, full of grief. “You never ride me as Lady anymore. You won’t even talk about it.”
Carey’s silent scowl filled the air; Suliya might as well have been in there with them, seeing it. But it faded, and when he spoke again his voice was rough with something other than sorrow, and breathless as well. “This,” he said, “is what I want you to think about right now. The way I love you. This is what I want you to take back to Camolen from me.”
And Jess murmured a response, but Suliya didn’t catch it—and she was suddenly just as sure that neither had Carey, and that it was bootin’ right timing to move away from the door.
~~~~~
Arlen woke.
For the moment, that was significant enough.
Then his awareness widened—to horse calling horse outside, the lumpy bed under his back, the bite of chill air against his nose and cheeks, and the truly wretched taste in his mouth. He finally put it all together.
The man. The road-inn. Poor frightened Grunt. And the drug.
Surely a miscalculated dose; his would-be abductor had wanted him pliable and unable to work magic, not dosed to insensibility. He worked his tongue around inside his mouth and found it not only failed to improve the situation, but that his mouth tasted equally bad in all parts.
It might, then, be time to open his eyes.
He did so cautiously, wincing at the alarming swirl of the canted ceiling—
No, wait. That was some previous
generation’s idea of style, not his perception. Offended but heartened, he lifted his head and discovered a tiny room with barely enough head room to stand. An attic room. His gear sat in an undignified pile by the door, clashing with the foil effect of the flower-dotted wallpaper; light streamed in a small round window with bright fuchsia drapings, and the bed covers someone had twitched over his clothed body were an astonishing yellow.
Arlen dropped his head back, put his arm over his eyes, and muttered, “An exceptionally cruel awakening.”
On the other hand, he was lucky to have woken at all. And the sooner he got out of this bed, the sooner he could get out of this room.
The thought spurred him on. He rolled out of bed, finding himself stiff and gawky but in working condition. When he finally found the road inn proprietor—bodily needs cared for, stomach full of the entry sideboard breakfast of vegetable bread and jams—he didn’t ask about the circumstances of his arrival and the woman didn’t mention them. He paid his bill and he headed for the livery.
Grunt greeted him with suspicious surprise—I know who threw that bucket—and went back to his morning hay. Arlen found the rest of his gear where he’d left it, and settled on the newly cracked bucket to study his map and rub his upper lip.
They’d found him once—and they were looking. Things had to change.
No more skipping between small but substantial towns and their road inns, with their friendly but disinterested people. It was time for side roads, nights in barns, and zig-zagging the small trails that made up rural-most Camolen—varying his heading without varying his destination.
And no more reaching out to Jaime, no matter how subtle the magic—I had her, burn it, I know I had her.
And they’d almost had him. Whoever they were.
At least the passing days and passing territory had brought with them slightly warmer weather, although that in turn promised to bring on mud.
The Changespell Saga Page 78
