Magic Steps

by Tamora Pierce

  Lark shook her head. “It’s not that simple. Temple and university mages follow laws and guidelines, some of which you know. On the subject of new mages, the law is set. If no teacher with the same power is available, the discovering mage has to teach the newcomer the basics.”

  Sandry laughed. “But the discovering mage is me.”

  Lark nodded gravely.

  “I’m just a kid myself,” Sandry pointed out, using street slang for child. “I can’t teach him. I have to keep an eye on Uncle.”

  “You can and you must teach,” said Lark firmly. “The Winding Circle Initiate Council or the mage council at the university in Lightsbridge enact penalties on a mage who shirks her responsibility.”

  Sandry sat bolt upright in her chair. “And if I do not recognize their authority?” she demanded, offended by the idea that these strangers might try to control her life.

  Lark laid a hand over hers. “If you did not follow the rules, then as a great mage of the Winding Circle Initiate Council it would be my task to teach you your duty.”

  Sandry blinked at her. She knew that Lark — and Rosethorn, when she was home — often attended what they always referred to as “council meetings.” She had always assumed they were meetings of the Dedicate Council that governed the temple city, not a council of temple mages.

  “Mages without law are dangerous,” Lark said. “What if there were no duke to rule in Emelan? If he just vanished, with no heir appointed?”

  “Someone else would take his position,” replied Sandry hesitantly. It hurt her heart to think of it.

  “After bloodshed,” Lark pointed out. “After civil war. Mage councils ensure that our people have someone to answer to, as Emelan answers to his grace. Other parts of the world have their own ways to hinder rogue mages.”

  “I don’t know how to teach,” complained Sandry.

  “It hasn’t been that long since you learned the basics,” Lark said firmly. “Start with those. Go through your uncle’s library. Talk to merchants and nobles — see if any of them have ever heard of dance-mages. And he’ll need a dance teacher. If he’s from a lower-class family, he’ll know jigs, country dances, and wedding dances, but little else. Learning new dances will help to keep him out of mischief, and create a direction for his power.” Bending down, she picked her workbasket up from the floor. It was filled with clothes — she dumped them on the table. “If you’ll take the stitching out, I’ll cut these into patches for a quilt,” she told Sandry. “One of the East District families wants the father to have a quilt made of their old things when he takes ship in the spring.”

  “That’s sweet,” remarked Sandry, pulling a tattered shirt toward her. Turning it inside out, she laid her fingers along one of the seams and called to the thread that held it closed. The thread began to wriggle free, twining around her index finger like a vine. Watching it slither out of the cloth, Sandry remembered the most vexatious part of her conversations with Pasco.

  “He seems to think his family won’t let him learn magic,” she pointed out to Lark, drawing out the threads that tacked the cuffs to the shirt. “He says it would be different if he had a talent for provost’s magic, but his family won’t hear of dancing magic — as if it’s a toy that Pasco might pick up. I don’t understand it.”

  “You see this in a lot of guild families and in the noble houses,” Lark replied, cutting a worn skirt into squares. “And from what I heard of the Acalons when I lived in the Mire, they’ve served the provost for generations. They’re practical people. Still, they aren’t fools. Once they realize Pasco is a genuine mage, they’ll know he must be taught.” She put her scissors down and gazed at Sandry. “Of course, they may take it better if they hear it from you.”

  The girl sighed. The last thread came out of the collar, leaving the shirt in pieces on the table before her. She stacked them up and put them aside, drawing a pair of breeches out of the pile. “I really think he should be the one to tell them. He might as well get in the habit of owning up to his magic, after all.” Once she had turned the breeches inside out, she saw these were better made than the shirt, with the ends of the thread all hidden inside the hems. She glared at the cloth. All the sewing-threads jumped out of the material in a hundred pieces, flying across the room.

  Lark hid a smile behind her hand and remarked quietly, “That seems like a dreadful waste of thread.”

  Sandry nodded wryly, and lifted her hands. It took several calls to get the scattered pieces to return. Once she had them, she scooped them into a mound on the table. She petted them gently for a moment until they ceased to tremble. When the bits of thread were calm, she sent her power cautiously through each fiber. As the mound wriggled and shifted, she confessed, “I don’t know how I’m going to get him to like the idea of magic.”

  “Of course you do,” Lark said, picking up a square of cloth in one hand and her scissors in the other. “It sounds like your Pasco is dying to dance. Lure him in by telling him he gets to learn new dances to use with his power. Of course, he’ll have to practice a great deal — but I’ll wager he wants to practice dancing. You just need to weave the two lessons into one, and I know you can do that.”

  Sandry looked up at her teacher and grinned. She had a feeling Lark was exactly right. “Are you sure someone else can’t teach him?” she asked, though she was fairly certain of the answer.

  Lark grinned back at her. “It seems to me that teaching will be a very good discipline for you, too,” she replied, mock-serious. “Mila knows it was good for me.”

  “Was it hard, teaching magic?” Sandry wanted to know.

  Lark nodded. “But I was older than you, and much more set in my ways,” she pointed out. “And I was so new to my own magic, coming to it late as I did, that I was convinced I was leaving out something important. I’ll tell you what Vetiver told me: don’t forget that Winding Circle is nearby. If you get stuck, ask questions.” She gathered up her scraps and put them aside. “Personally,” she added, “I think Pasco is very lucky to have you for a teacher. I think you’re going to be very good at it.”

  “I only hope I’m as good as you one day,” Sandry remarked softly. “You were so patient with me.”

  Lark shook her head. “You give me too much credit. It was very easy to be patient with you, and an absolute joy to teach you.”

  Sandry looked down, blushing with pleasure. Hearing that from Lark meant a great deal to her. Lark was pleasant, but she also didn’t believe in compliments unless they were earned.

  When Sandry checked the heap of thread-bits, she saw they had woven themselves into one strand. Now they arranged themselves in a polite coil, as if they wanted to show Sandry they could behave. “Thank you,” she told them. “You did that very nicely, and I’m sorry I frightened you before.”

  She didn’t notice Lark’s smile. She was thinking, Thread minds me — why can’t Pasco? That wasn’t entirely fair, and she knew it. This thread came from sheep, who were docile enough if you kept after them. Silk thread would have been harder to control, since the caterpillars that spun silk worked only for themselves.

  Remembering her friend Briar at Pasco’s age, Sandry wondered if he’d been as deliberately ignorant as Pasco was this afternoon. Briar hadn’t been. He could be infuriating, and difficult, and independent, but he was also a realist. He would never argue when someone had pointed out something obvious, like his magic. That made her wonder, was it Briar who’d been unusual for his age, or the boy she had met today?

  “Pasco seems so young,” she complained. “But that’s impossible. He’s two years older than any of us were at the start of our studies.”

  “But by then you in particular were no longer young,” Lark told her quietly.

  Sandry looked down. She knew what Lark meant. Two weeks locked in a cellar in a country gone mad, with her parents and nursemaid dead and no hope of Sandry’s ever being found, had worked a change on her ten-year-old self. The weeks she had spent afterward, staring at a ceiling and not wa
nting to leave her bed, had done still more to age her past her years.

  “Give me a day or two,” Lark suggested. “I’ll ask some of the dancers I know to recommend a teacher — someone who won’t be unnerved if Pasco’s control over his power slips.” Lark still kept the performer friends she’d made in her youth, before she took her vows. “In the meantime, begin his lessons in meditation as soon as possible. And be prepared to talk to his parents.”

  Sandry nodded gloomily. She didn’t feel at all confident about teaching.

  Lark came over and gave her a hug. “The wheel turns,” she told Sandry. “The student becomes the teacher. And you’ll do me credit — just you wait and see.”

  Sandry chuckled and returned the hug. “If I can do half as well as you, I’ll count myself lucky.”

  5

  Once baton practice started, it was a good idea to think about only baton practice, not about full nets or Lady Sandrilene. Pasco’s mother Zahra was feeling brisk: she made them all step lively that morning. The cousins’ feet slapped the courtyard tiles as if they were step dancers all doing the same measures.

  When a maid told Zahra someone had come to see her, Zahra ordered them to pair up and practice the latest drill. The moment she was gone, Pasco and a couple of the others sat down to rest.

  A baton thumped Pasco’s crown. “You heard your mama, tippy-feet,” his cousin Vani said, jeering. “Come prance around with me a bit.”

  Pasco replied with a rude suggestion.

  Vani growled, and rapped Pasco’s head again. Pasco saw stars.

  “Stop it, Vani,” Reha protested. “You’d be cleaning chamberpots for weeks if Aunt Zahra saw that.”

  “She won’t catch me, though, and you won’t tell if you’re wise.” Glaring at Pasco, Vani added, “Guess who got stuck hauling wood this morning while somebody took his sweet time coming back from market? Wha’d you do, Pasco? Stop and goggle at them Capchen dancers practicing in the yard at Wainwright’s inn?” Vani banged Pasco’s knees, then his shins, with his baton.

  Pasco surged to his feet and lunged at Vani, baton out. His cousin backed away, swung his weapon and knocked Pasco’s from his grip. He surveyed Pasco with narrowed eyes. “I got to teach you not to stick me with all the hot sweaty work.”

  Pasco trembled. Vani was going to hurt him again. Even if one of the girls fetched help, sooner or later Vani would get his revenge. For some reason Pasco brought out the worst of Vani’s mean streak. Now he shrank back, raising his hands to guard his face as his bigger cousin drew close.

  A bit of flute music threaded through his mind. The Capchens had danced to it.…

  Humming the tune, Pasco took three quick steps to the right, his arms in the air, palm-to-palm overhead.

  Vani halted and rolled his eyes. “Now what?” he demanded.

  Pasco took another three quick steps to the left. He lowered his arms halfway, holding them like wings out from his sides. He arched his chest, head high. Long step next, then leap at Vani, one leg bent, the other trailing straight behind him.

  Vani, Haiday, and the youth behind them flew up and back as if thrown. Pasco landed on the ground and waited for them to do the same.

  They didn’t. All three stayed in the air, four feet above the tiles. They hung, and they hung, and they hung.

  “Pasco, what did you do?” breathed Reha, who was earthbound. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

  “No,” he said quickly.

  The three hanging Acalons flailed without shifting their bodies an inch. “Let me down!” yelled Vani. “Right now, you puling, puking little rat turd!”

  Pasco licked his lips. Time. He needed time to think. “Promise you won’t beat me up,” he retorted, his voice squeaking.

  “I’ll mince you is what I’ll do! Get me down!”

  Reha left the courtyard and returned with a tall stool. She thrust it under Haiday, as if she just needed a step down. Haiday struggled, but the air held her fast. Reha tried the stool on the other two, without result.

  Vani kicked it over when she put it under him. “Pasco, get me down or you’re hog food!”

  “Promise,” whispered Pasco, mind racing like a panicked mouse. All he could think was that Vani would need to hurry to beat Mama to killing him.

  A sharp voice demanded, “What is going on out here? You children know very well Great-grandmother rests at this hour!” Gran’ther Edoar walked out of his quarter of the house, as cross as a bear. Leaning on his walking stick, the tall old man went up to the three hanging Acalons and tugged Haiday’s leg. She remained in the air.

  Pasco fell to his knees with a whimper.

  Gran’ther walked around the three, looking them over, pulling first an arm, then a leg. Pasco’s mind had stopped running, frozen around the thought that he would never be allowed out of the house again.

  Once his inspection was complete, Gran’ther halted and looked at the cousins who stood on the ground. “How did this come about?” he inquired mildly. “Surely you have not learned to fly, or someone would have mentioned it at supper.”

  “It’s all Pasco’s fault!” snapped Vani. He thrashed as if he thought he could swim through the air to claw at his young cousin. “He did this!”

  Gran’ther’s tufted eyebrows rose. “Did he indeed?”

  “I didn’t mean it,” babbled Pasco. “I — I was scared, and he’s going to beat me up again—”

  “Beat you up?” Gran’ther looked at Vani and then at Pasco. “Again?”

  “He’s lying to get himself out of trouble,” growled Vani, but the girls were shaking their heads.

  “He’s beaten Pasco before,” Gran’ther repeated, to confirm it.

  “Yes, sir,” replied Haiday, shamefaced.

  “And you, future harriers all, you said nothing? You allowed him to do it?” Gran’ther asked it as if he were simply confirming a report. Now all of the cousins but Vani and Pasco nodded, staring at their feet.

  “Well,” the old man said at last. “Once we have solved the matter at hand, we must talk about this. We cannot turn a bully harrier loose on the people of Summersea. They deserve better care.” To Pasco he said, “Can you bring them down?”

  Pasco looked at the three captives. Raising, then lowering his arms, he tried to feel magical. Nothing happened. He then hummed the tune, and raised and lowered his arms. That didn’t work, either. He was afraid to try dancing — he’d probably just make it worse.

  “There’s — I have to …” he stammered. Gran’ther scowled, and Pasco tried to get his voice under control. “There’s someone I need to get,” he said. “She — she knows what’s wrong with me.” If she’ll come, he thought, shivering. What if she refused?

  “Then fetch her at once,” Gran’ther ordered.

  Pasco hesitated. “I have to go a ways. I’ll be a while.”

  Gran’ther sat on a bench, folding his hands over the grip on his cane. “No one’s going anywhere.” When Pasco still hesitated, the old man’s heavy brows snapped together. “Now, boy!” he said sharply.

  Pasco fled.

  It was late when Sandry had returned the night before, and fretting over Pasco had kept her awake long after midnight. As a result, when she woke in the morning, it was nearly ten. She dressed hurriedly and went in search of the duke. She found him in the workroom with Baron Erdogun.

  “Uncle, I’m sorry about last night,” she said, kissing his cheek before she took a chair. “I had to talk to Lark. I didn’t get home until late. And why didn’t you wake me for your ride this morning?”

  “I am aware you came back late, and before you scold, I heard it this morning. I was abed when you returned.” He smiled at her and offered her a plate of muffins. The baron yanked the bell pull. “When you didn’t come this morning, I assumed you were still asleep,” the duke continued. “Since you’re usually up early, I thought you must need your rest. As for my ride, instead of having to make excuses to my taskmaster”—he reached over and tugged one of her braids, which she had
left hanging down her back that morning—“I confined my explorations to the Arsenal.”

  A servant arrived and took breakfast instructions from Erdogun while Sandry grinned at the duke. The Arsenal dockyards — where Emelan’s navy was built, housed, and repaired — was large, but it was nearby. A visit there would not have lasted as long as their ride of the previous morning had.

  He must have been tired, to go to bed early and to stick to the Arsenal today, she thought, breaking up a muffin. So he’s listening to the healers after all, maybe.

  “I trust you found Dedicate Lark in good spirits?” asked Erdogun.

  Sandry nodded, her mouth full. When she finished her first muffin, she began on her second. Looking up as she buttered it, she saw that both men were watching her. It seemed they were curious about what had taken her up to Winding Circle, but they were too polite to ask her outright.

  She giggled, then told them about the success of Pasco’s net-spell, and Lark’s advice. As she talked, servants brought in a small table and set her breakfast out on it. Once they were gone, she continued as she ate.

  When she finished, the duke chuckled. “I’m sure teaching will be an eye-opening experience,” he said, picking up the sheaf of papers he’d been reading when she came in. “It always was for me.”

  “Oh, splendid,” Sandry told him drily. “Was there any news about Jamar Rokat?”

  “Not a word,” said the duke. “It’s as if they appeared in that room, did their work, then vanished.” He leafed through the papers until he found three, and passed them to her. Sandry read them quickly. Captain Qais was as stiff in writing as he was in person, but the facts were clear. So far the bodyguards refused to admit to helping the killers enter the countinghouse. She understood that: if they did, they would be executed as accomplices. The Provost’s Mages were still picking apart the spells of protection and detection on Rokat House, with nothing to report. Everyone who worked in the building was being questioned by the Guard. The dead man’s brother was making a nuisance of himself, hovering over Captain Qais and demanding results.