Trickster's Girl (The Raven Duet)

by Hilari Bell

  She struggled away from the prickly hay bale, and then crawled up to sit on it. "Did you make that man see what he expected to?"

  She wasn't sure if the thought of Raven controlling human minds was reassuring or creepy.

  "It was a woman." Raven rose to his knees, then sat on another bale, facing her. "And I didn't have time. I told you humans often see what they expect without any help at all."

  Kelsa could tell by the sudden feeling of stability when the trailer stopped hovering and moved forward, but it felt odd to travel without looking out the window. Of course, if she couldn't see out the bikers couldn't see in. Thank goodness she didn't get glide sick.

  "We're about fifty miles from the border," Kelsa said. "Tell me about these enemies of yours. Why don't they want the leys to be healed?"

  Light from the narrow windows above lit Raven's grimace. "I knew you were going to ask that. We'll have less than an hour before we face the inspectors. Shouldn't we make plans?"

  "We'll hide behind the hay when the inspectors look in. Then I'll scramble up on the horse—and I really hope he doesn't mind—and blend my body mass with his. It might even work."

  In fact, she was pretty sure it would fool the scanners. She'd seen pictures, on d-vid broadcasts, of the fuzzy red blobs and string of chemical readings that were a scanner's interpretation of a human body. A horse would be a really big red blob, with very similar readings. Hiding from the visual inspection would either work or it wouldn't.

  Kelsa preferred not to wonder what the legal penalty for trying to run an international border was.

  "Why don't your enemies want to heal the ley?" she repeated firmly. "Are they ... are they some kind of bioterrorists too?"

  Raven snorted, but then his expression grew thoughtful. "You know, I think they are. On a big scale. The thing is ... I wasn't supposed to tell you this, but since any human you told would think you were crazy, I guess it doesn't matter. The reason everyone cares so much about the leys is that they exist in both your world and mine."

  Kelsa stared. "Your world?"

  His smile held some of the old cockiness. "You think shapeshifters belong here? Though world isn't quite the word. Your scientists' theories about dimensions are actually pretty close. But world sounds better. Anyway, the leys not only exist in both worlds, they make a big difference in the health, the stability of ours. I don't know if I can explain that to you, but clean powerful leys are as important to our survival as clean abundant water and air are to yours."

  The chill that ran over Kelsa's skin had nothing to do with the cool breeze coming through the window slits.

  "And what we did, ERB-1, things like that, it weakened the leys."

  His changeable face was now very serious. "The tree plague was the final straw. We'd been arguing for years, for decades, what to do about the damage you were causing. When the tree plague came ... The others didn't understand! They hadn't looked in on you for so long, they couldn't see that you were finally beginning to turn it around. To become the stewards to this planet that you could be."

  "You stood up for us?" Gratitude bloomed in her heart.

  "Not really. What you'd done was pretty indefensible. Your world and mine aren't the only ones affected by the leys, either."

  A wondrous vision of dozens of dimensions, with a great river of healing power flowing through all of them, lurked in the back of Kelsa's mind. But more important...

  "If you'd only told us about the leys, taught us to use them, maybe we could have reversed the damage a long time ago."

  "Maybe. But more likely you'd have drained them to the dregs, like you did with your oil. And your climate. And—"

  "That's no excuse." But it almost was. "That's still no excuse for letting us all die. Which we could, if the tree plague spreads everywhere. Nothing could excuse that."

  "Not even the fact that if you don't start doing better you could threaten our survival? That's what the others were saying. That this is our chance to be rid of you, once and for all. But if we did let the plague wipe you out, as I had to admit you've deserved, it would do significant damage to our world. Others as well. Cutting off your nose to spite your face, in the old phrase. I didn't care if you survived. I mean, of course I wanted humans to survive," he added hastily, catching sight of her expression. "But the others, most of them, they said you'd brought it on yourselves. That in the long run, it would be worth putting up with the damage the ravaging of your planetary environment would do to the leys just to be rid of you. That we could heal the leys ourselves once you were gone. And we weren't the ones who started the tree plague, after all."

  They weren't. Humans had done that all by themselves. "Your enemies. The bikers they control. They'd really be willing to kill me?"

  "In a heartbeat, most of them. Though there are a few others who've seen that you're changing, doing better. And it's stupid to accept a massive catastrophe if you don't have to! There are a lot more, the neutrals, who aren't convinced you're changing, but who do want to heal the leys if that's possible. So"—he drew a deep breath—"they told me that if I could persuade the humans to heal the damage they'd done, they'd accept that I was right and leave you alone. But it has to be humans, working their own magic to do the healing. All of it."

  "And that's where all those rules come from. They're not some sort of natural-magical laws. They're ... political."

  This new fear wasn't as immediate, as visceral, as the fear the bikers had evoked. This was a slow, icy dread that encompassed the whole world. Now, Kelsa thought, she knew how her ancestors had felt during the mad, brief period of the nuclear arms race.

  "That's right," Raven said. "And those rules cut both ways. Just as I can only use the tools of this world to heal the leys, they can only use the tools of this world to stop us. If those bikers can be delayed looking for you on this side of the border, it will give us more time to reach the next nexus."

  Was she just a tool? Or part of "us"?

  Kelsa decided not to ask. He might be stupid enough to tell her the truth, and she wasn't sure she could deal with it.

  "So, can you control the minds of the border inspectors?"

  ***

  It seemed he couldn't, unless he had at least ten minutes to study them and slowly insert his will into their thoughts. Raven and Kelsa spent the rest of the ride to the border arranging better concealment. Even Kelsa had to admit that the pile of chests, buckets, and folded saddle blankets behind the hay bales shouldn't look like two people were hiding beneath them.

  On Raven's instructions, she passed through the narrow slot that gave access between the stalls and made friends with the horse, feeding him a handful of oats. He was intimidatingly big, but his muzzle was soft and he lipped the grain out of her palm quite delicately.

  When the trailer began to slow, Kelsa looked out the window slit and saw they'd reached their destination.

  The long row of scanner tunnels proclaimed an international border, something she'd never crossed before. Were these scanners different, better, stronger than the ones on state borders? The lines of traffic in front of them looked the same.

  "It'll take them a while to get to us." Raven stood beside her, peering out. "But we should probably hide now, just to be sure."

  They had plenty of time for Kelsa to lie down behind the bales and for Raven to make sure she was well concealed before he disarranged everything by joining her.

  The warm strong body lying so close to her still felt human, but Kelsa would sooner have been turned on by a crocodile. The being inside that body wasn't human. His careless comments about wiping out her species had proved that. Still, he was on humanity's side, and he had rescued her from the bikers. And if he was using her only to save his own world, then she would use him, his knowledge of the leys and their workings, to save hers.

  The cut hay stalks were sharp against her bare arms. They smelled dusty. Kelsa resigned herself to a long wait, and she wasn't disappointed. She didn't know exactly how much time passed, b
ut her hip was numb where it rested on the wooden floor. More important, Raven kept shifting his position. The stack of buckets that concealed their feet was rocking from his last movement when the latch that closed the trailer door clanked.

  Kelsa's instinct was to freeze, but those wobbling buckets would give them away. Trying not to move the folded blankets, she shot one hand down to steady the buckets then froze, not even breathing, as someone entered the trailer ... paused for a moment ... and then left.

  The trailer's back panel rattled down, and the latch clicked closed.

  Raven was moving before she dared, struggling out from under the blankets and boxes. The buckets would have fallen if Kelsa hadn't been holding them.

  "What were you doing with all that wiggling?" she whispered. "You almost got us caught."

  Raven crawled over her onto the bales, planting an elbow in her ribs on the way.

  "Tarnation, this form can be uncomfortable! Every muscle I've got is cramping."

  Kelsa's own body was stiff as she levered herself out of the narrow slot and onto the bales beside him. "I'm cramping too, but I didn't twitch like a—"

  The trailer slid into motion, silencing both of them. Kelsa shot to her feet.

  "We're heading for the scanners. Now! You've got to shift into something small, and I've got to get on that horse!"

  "We'll both join the horse," Raven said. "I've shifted half a dozen times today. I can't change quickly. And if I'm still shifting when we go through, those scanners might pick up the energy."

  Now that Kelsa thought about it, his last few changes had seemed to take longer. But she had no time to pursue the subject.

  Raven slipped into the horse's side of the trailer, pausing to murmur and stroke his neck. Then he grasped a handful of mane and swung onto the horse's back in a fluid leap that Kelsa had thought only stuntmen on d-vid could do.

  He reached down a hand to help her. "Come on. We don't have much time."

  The horse looked much bigger than he had a few minutes ago. Kelsa took the offered hand and tried to duplicate Raven's leap. With perfect comedic timing, the horse stepped aside, and Kelsa slid down his body and back to the floor despite Raven's strong grip. No one had ever warned her that horses are slippery, and there are no handholds.

  "Oh, for Pete's sake! We're almost at the scanner!" Raven slid neatly off the horse, grasped her hips, and boosted her upward. "Throw your leg over. That's right. Good!"

  Kelsa straddled the horse. It felt a lot more precarious than it looked on d-vid. She grabbed a big handful of mane, and the horse didn't seem to mind. She was only vaguely aware of the dimming light as they pulled into the scanner tunnel, most of her attention taken up by the large animal she was sitting on.

  Raven swung up behind her, pushed her body down against the horse's neck, and then flattened his body on top of hers.

  Kelsa didn't think the scanner was set to detect sound, but neither of them spoke as the trailer moved slowly through the tunnel. The body beneath her was certainly warm enough to mask her heat signature, and probably Raven's too. Horses came in different sizes, didn't they? Some were even bigger than this one. Surely the security data wasn't so detailed that the computer would flag the fact that this horse massed about three hundred pounds more than it had when it crossed the border before. Surely—

  The light through the window slits brightened.

  Raven sat up cautiously. The truck that pulled the trailer stopped for a few seconds at the final barrier, then when it lifted, the truck accelerated into Canada.

  Raven dismounted, and Kelsa managed to slide down the big body without embarrassing herself.

  "Thank you." She stroked the horse's neck as she'd seen Raven do. The horse heaved a sigh and sniffed his empty manger.

  "We're through!" Raven's voice held the same incredulous relief Kelsa felt.

  "You sound surprised. Weren't you the one who came up with this plan?"

  "That doesn't mean I liked the idea of breaking you out of a Canadian jail. This is much better. I promise you."

  "Until someone runs my PID card, and some security computer flags the fact that I appear to be in Canada without ever having entered Canada."

  "We'll worry about that later," Raven told her. "For now, I'm more concerned about getting you out of this box without the owner seeing you."

  After some debate, they couldn't come up with any better idea than to wing it—literally. Raven shifted into his feathered form once more. It took a lot longer than usual, but as Raven flippantly observed, every jailbreak needs someone on the outside. He squirmed through one of the narrow windows when the trailer stopped at a traffic light in the first town they passed after crossing the border.

  Then the trailer ran over curving mountain roads and down winding river valleys for several hours, while Kelsa wondered helplessly if he'd be able to keep up. Finally, it pulled into a charge station.

  Standing out of reach of the lowering light that came through the small slit, Kelsa watched the driver—it was a woman with short curly hair—climb out and stretch. She connected the charge plug and headed off to the flash station, no doubt to use the facilities. Kelsa would have liked to do that herself. And then eat. It felt as if a lifetime had passed since lunch, and despite all the trauma, she was hungry.

  Would the woman check on her horse when she returned? What if—

  The clang of the latch sent her spinning around as the door rattled up to reveal Raven, nude.

  He scrambled into the trailer and grabbed his pants. "Get your bike out. It's nothing short of a miracle no one saw me, and we may not have much time."

  Kelsa was already rolling her bike out from under the manger. Raven dressed and tossed the gear they'd removed back into the compartment, willy-nilly, while Kelsa backed the bike out of the trailer. He was out and pulling down the gate by the time she'd looped back for him. As soon as the latch closed, he turned and flung himself onto the bike behind her. They whipped out of the charge station and onto the road.

  Kelsa's heart was pounding, but no outraged shouts followed them. No sirens. No flashing lights. She checked her speed to be certain she wouldn't trip any sensors and rode on into Canada, free and clear, with Raven's arms around her.

  This time his shirt was completely unbuttoned, and he had no shoes on.

  Rain began to patter down.

  CHAPTER 8

  RAVEN SHARED HER TENT THAT night. By the time Kelsa found an open meadow near the river, where several blackened stone rings told her camping was permitted, and then inflated her tent and rolled out her bedding, Raven's teeth were chattering so hard he could barely speak.

  Her thermal pants and jacket were too small for him, but she bullied him into them anyway and set the controls on high.

  The air foam pad was big enough for two. After a while he peeled off the jacket and gave it back to her, so they both slept warm, even though she gave him only one of the blankets and kept the other for herself.

  He fell asleep as soon as he stopped shivering. The drizzle was beginning to let up, and even at nine thirty on a cloudy night enough light came through the canvas for Kelsa to see the dark circles under his eyes.

  How many times had he changed shape on this long crazy day? She'd lost count, but clearly it was too many. She had no fear of the bikers' finding her tonight. Those horrible moments in the Woodland Café seemed as if they'd happened days ago, instead of just this morning.

  She was in Canada now, and safe, for a while at least.

  Still, Kelsa stared out into the dripping twilight of the northern night for a long time before she slept.

  ***

  Raven was gone when she awoke, and an uneasiness that was almost fear swept over her before she heard the crackle of the fire.

  Kelsa dressed and visited the bushes before joining him beside the dancing blaze. She wondered where he'd found dry wood. Or had he dried it with magic, as he'd dried her clothing back at Flathead Lake?

  He'd figured out how to work the
self-heating can, but he still held it tentatively, as if he expected it to explode in his hand.

  Kelsa was about to tell him that it wouldn't, and that all its components were biodegradable within five years, but Raven spoke first.

  "You said the bikers carry illegal drugs with them. How can they get past those scanners? Isn't the border station there to stop people like that?"

  "It's mostly to stop the kind of people who started the tree plague," Kelsa told him. "But the scanners detect illegal drugs too. What the drug gangs do, according to the newscasts, is ride a couple of days off-road, into the wild country along the border. That's why their bikes have tires like mine. They'll hide the drugs, mark their coordinates, then go through the border station carrying nothing that's illegal. Once they're in the country legally, all they have to do is ride back and collect their stash from the other side."

  Raven looked puzzled. "If it's that easy to get around them, why didn't you just ride your bike across the border?"

  "There are patrols," Kelsa told him. "And cameras at most of the easy crossing points, and the patrols move other cameras around. That's the main reason biker gangs make the effort to tap into the security nets, so they can know which areas are being monitored."

  "Then why do you have these border stations at all?"

  "They were built to prevent terrorists from smuggling bombs and bioweapons into the country," Kelsa said. "And across state lines. Catching drug smugglers is a side benefit."

  "Don't terrorists just go around it, the same way smugglers do?"

  "No. The border stations caught a few of them at first, but now terrorists just go to the place they want to destroy and construct their weapon there. But it's easier to do that than it is to distribute illegal drugs without getting picked up on the camera net, which is why most crime takes place off the grid. Outside of cities and towns," she added.