The Way Into Magic: Book Two of The Great Way

by Harry Connolly

  Kinz had that mischievous smirk again. “He said he would return quickly with his master.”

  They retreated to the bench. Cazia was so tired. “That might not be the last time this happens. I hate to admit it, but we might get the same treatment every time we meet someone, from the royal family to the kitchen help.”

  “We are both too dark for the Indrega,” Kinz said simply. “But there is no disguising that you are from Peradain. It’s not just your brown hair and skin; unless we can find you the long wig or the pretend husband, there is no hiding that hair.”

  Cazia ran her fingers through it. Of course it was a mess; she’d just spent months in the wilderness. “What does having a husband have to do with my hair? I need a comb, not a suitor.”

  Kinz gave her a sly look. “You cut it. You have probably cut it your entire life. Among my people--and the princess’s--girls do not cut their hair until the morning after their wedding.”

  “Oh. I thought you and Ivy just liked it that way.”

  “We do. For now.”

  Cazia would have laughed, but Kinz suddenly got a faraway look in her eye. Who would have cut her hair after her wedding? Her mother? Her aunts? Who did she have to cut it now? “Maybe I should just find a hat.”

  Kinz looked dubious. “No matter what, it will be difficult to travel far together in Indrega. We may have to make pretend to be servants to the princess just to smooth things over. For her and for us.”

  What she said made sense. Once they made it into Ergoll territory, Ivy could demand they be treated with respect, but until then, they risked a lash from everyone they met. As much as Cazia wished it would be otherwise, she…they were surrounded by Enemies. Again. Discretion would be wise.

  Cazia had never been called wise. “Fire take that idea,” she said. “If I’m going to walk down this side of the Straim, I’m going to do it as a free citizen.”

  Kinz gave a one-shoulder shrug, and they fell silent after that, listening to the double gong of the alarm and the splashing from the next room. Cazia had nothing to distract her from the pain in her hand.

  Ivy finished mere minutes before someone tried the door, so she was there to respond to the angry complaint that came from the hall. She and Kinz unbarred the door, allowing Goherzma to enter with another man close behind.

  He couldn’t have been more than thirty, tall and slender, with a pale, mournful face and straight black hair braided like Kinz’s. The left side of his neck and shoulder--what showed through his tunic, at least--was dimpled and yellow-white. A burn scar? His white uniform was crisp, clean, and perfect.

  Ivy called out a string of nonsense syllables that might have been his name, and he shouted, “Vilavivianna!” at which the two of them fell into overlapping chatter in Ergoll. Kinz looked as if she was about to try to translate it, but Cazia shook her head slightly. She didn’t need to know what Ivy said to her family.

  After some time, Ivy came over beside Cazia and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Cazia Freewell, this is my cousin, Belterzhimi of Shadow Valley, the Warden of the Western Frontier.” Cazia stood and gave a polite little curtsey. How funny. It had been so long since she’d last curtseyed, and yet here she was doing it without a moment’s hesitation.

  “It is my great pleasure to meet you,” Belterzhimi said. “I am told you promised the princess that you would return her safely home.”

  “I did,” Cazia said. He stared at her very intently, as though there was no one else in the room. It gave her goose bumps. “We’re almost there.”

  “I would be pleased to accompany you. Is it true that you are of royal blood?”

  She almost said, I was the prince’s cousin. “Cousin to the prince,” she said, a little inelegantly. “But that does not matter very much among my people.”

  “It matters here,” the young man answered, then he bowed a little. “How is my Peradaini?”

  “Very good!” she answered a little too enthusiastically. He smiled gratefully at her. Cazia felt herself blush. The smile didn’t seem to suit his face, although she was still glad to see it. “I wish I spoke Ergoll that well.”

  “Thank you. I have been practicing among the refugees from East Ford. When you come to Goldgrass Hill with us, we will reunite you with your people. I am sure they will be pleased to share news.” He turned to Kinz. “My man tells me that when he confronted you, you both stepped in front of the princess to shield her. Yes?”

  Kinz answered him in Toal. Cazia noticed with some dismay that he gave the older girl the same intense look he’d just given her. Was he this way with everyone or was Kinz--older, taller, and more beautiful--that much more enticing?

  Cazia suddenly felt extraordinarily tired but didn’t want to insult Ivy’s cousin by sitting. “Big sister,” Ivy said, “are you all right?”

  It was just a wound to her hand. Cazia hated to admit it, but it really was tiring. “I’m fine.”

  “I am cutting my visit short,” Belterzhimi said, “obviously. My cousin has been found safe! We will head south in the morning. Do you have any packing?”

  Ivy tugged at the blanket she was wearing. “We could use some fresh clothes. And the commander took two iron artifacts from Kinz. They are proof of the adventures we have had! Can you see to it they are returned?”

  “I will speak to him. We will purchase clothes in the market as we leave. The Ergoll have been fortunate these last few months, but never more so than this night. Let me finish my duties with the commander this evening, smooth things over with the alarm, and we depart at dawn. Sleep, cousin. Sleep, friends.”

  Ivy dragged Kinz to the tub, despite the older girl’s protests. Goherzma rushed from the room and returned shortly after with the commander. There was a lot of talk after that, another visit from the doctor, a change of bandages, a stack of new sleeping clothes for the girls, and a sincere apology from the great big archery target. Ivy’s response was haughty, while Kinz--her hair freshly washed and unbraided--and Cazia hung back to let her handle it.

  Belterzhimi insisted they were to have their own room. “You understand, I hope, why I can not host you,” he said in Peradaini while he looked at Cazia’s head. “I mean no insult or disrespect.” Ivy nodded and led Kinz and Cazia to an empty room at the far end of the corridor.

  “He couldn’t host us?” Cazia asked. “Is that because of my hair?”

  “Of course!” Ivy answered. “You are a foreigner, so it does not matter to you, naturally, but an unmarried girl with short hair would scandalize my people. When I first came to Peradain and saw eight-year-olds on the street with bobbed hair, I thought your entire civilization was depraved!”

  Kinz cleared her throat. “Do you think it will be made hard for her?”

  “That is a good point,” Ivy said. “We could get you a widow’s wig for the trip. I’m sure my cousin would not mind.”

  A disguise. Cazia knew it was a sensible idea, but she rebelled against it anyway. She was Peradaini, and Surgish, and quite close to the prince of the Italgas. She knew their songs and their magic. She was herself and she was not ashamed.

  “No wig,” she said. It was mostly pride that made her refuse. Whatever common sense there might be in one argument or another, she did not want to hide among Enemies.

  They slept comfortably on a frame bed stretched with downy-soft boq skins, until a soft-voiced servant called outside their door at dawn. The three of them were loaded onto a cart with four okshim rigged to the front, and they waited patiently for Ivy’s cousin and his man as they finished whatever business they had with the commander in the last moments before first light.

  Cazia did not expect to be traveling with a cohort of soldiers. There were a dozen archers and thirty spears--spearmen, Ivy insisted, even the ones who were women. Also, at the very perimeter of the group, there were serpents.

  They looked strange in the daylight. The dead ones she’d seen in the demolished camp had been dull-colored, but alive, they were as bright and colorful as polished jewels.
Their scales shone like rainbows and their long snouts moved slowly from one human to the next, tongue flicking in and out.

  “Beautiful, are they not?” Ivy asked. The way she was smiling, Cazia might have thought she’d painted them personally, but she and Kinz couldn’t help but smile back.

  “But deadly,” Kinz added. She seemed a little tense.

  “Oh, yes. They are very powerful allies.”

  Could they talk? They circled the camp like well-trained guard dogs, but Cazia had decided she was not going to underestimate the beasts of Kal-Maddum any more. Sometime soon, when she had a safe, secret place of her own, she would make a translation stone and spy on them a little. Ivy had asked for one, but Cazia needed to satisfy her curiosity.

  Outside the gate was the market. It looked like every other market Cazia had ever seen, except the canvas tents had all been dyed white. She wanted to wander out among the stalls—how long had it been since she’d been among crowds of ordinary citizens?—but despite all her brave talk, she was nervous about the way she’d be treated.

  Not that she was given the choice. Ivy and Goherzma both requested that she stay in the back of the cart among the supplies. She was a little embarrassed at the gratitude she felt toward them both.

  The cart picked up its pace again, moving through town—if muddy paths and log cabins could be called a “town,” no matter how much it sprawled—then into the forest. Cazia, Ivy, and Kinz were given clean white clothes like the others wore. They changed under the tarp on the jolting cart, and Kinz helped Cazia without being asked. They really had put their conflicts behind them. The Little Spinner never slows.

  The clothes were surprisingly comfortable, and Cazia was happy to receive a wide-brimmed hat that allowed her to tuck up her hair. Great Way, it wasn’t even particularly short.

  The road started due west at first, and they came within sight of the Straim for the first time.

  “This is not the riverhead,” Ivy explained, pointing out at the churning lake that filled the space beside the Toal fort, the town, and the mountain range. “The Straim actually begins somewhere in the Sweeps, running beneath the land. Here is where it emerges into the sunlight on its path to the sea.”

  “The river is underground?” Kinz said, astonished at the idea.

  Cazia had never even heard of such a thing. She thought about powerful currents pulling her down into darkness and she shuddered.

  “It is!” Ivy seemed proud, as though it was her personal accomplishment. She loves her home.

  The lake was not large, but the southern end had collapsed into a long, rocky slope. The slope ran for nearly a thousand feet, then widened into the broad, deep river itself. The girls leaned against the rail, watching the water crash and flow. The cart turned away from the sight too soon, moving deeper into the deep green forest.

  Belterzhimi and Goherzma joined them in the cart shortly after, and they pulled the tarp overhead to block out the rain. Cazia told him the story of their escape from Peradain. She even talked about the Festival, the portal, and the fact that it was long shut and wouldn’t open again for a generation. She talked about saving the prince, saving Ivy, about Pagesh being left behind, and about the time they spent regrouping in Samsit. She told him about the death of her brother, about the quest the prince undertook for a spell powerful enough to defeat the grunts, about the way they changed, and about rescuing Ivy from the fort.

  She told it all, except that she made herself seem like little more than baggage. It was the other scholars who fought from the flying cart over Peradain. It was an archer who shot and killed her own brother, transformed into The Blessing.

  When she reached the point where they met the Ozzhuacks, Ivy interrupted. “The rest is for Mother and Father. I hope you understand.”

  “Unfair!” he cried in a playful way. “It is not fair to tell a man half an adventure.”

  “Think how fun it will be to pause at this exciting moment.”

  “I hate waiting.” He gave Cazia a measuring look.

  “Cousin,” Ivy said carefully, “since you have not returned the iron artifacts that were taken from Kinz…”

  “Ah yes,” he said, and it was clear from his expression that they were gone. “Already melted down and traded away. The metal was astonishingly pure and strong, even higher in quality than the metals we take from the Peradaini.” He bowed his head to Kinz. “The Toal owe you a debt.”

  “I will collect it,” she said.

  “We had a boy come through here a few months ago,” Belterzhimi continued. “He said he had left the princess with two companions, and that one of them was a Peradaini scholar.”

  Of course he did. “That’s not us,” Cazia said with a shrug. “The Toal commander tested us several times.”

  “Did he?”

  Kinz lay back and stared at the sky. “I wish I was the scholar. I would make cook fires with the wave of my hand, cover the muddy road ahead of me with smooth stone, and trick every chieftain I met into giving me their okshim.”

  “You would also live as an honored guest of the people of Goldgrass Hill, sharing a home almost as luxurious as the princess’s. You would not even have to wave a hand to light a fire; you would simply command your woman to do it.”

  Cazia stared at the turning wheel, but she watched Belterzhimi out of the corner of her eye. He had been looking at her when he’d last spoke. Not intently, as he had before, but looking just the same. She pretended not to notice.

  “I do not think I would make to enjoy that,” Kinz said vaguely. “It might be nice for the short while, but I would miss the outdoors, traveling on the backs of the herd, chasing the children.”

  “That does you credit, I think. May I make a confession? I have a fascination with the flying carts. How are they flown?”

  Kinz shrugged. “Magic,” Ivy said.

  “How else could people fly but by magic?” Belterzhimi asked reasonably. “But how do they work? Must the occupants will themselves off the ground? Is a blood sacrifice required?”

  “Their scholars did it merely by thought,” Ivy said. “Did you know that many scholars learn only a few spells?”

  Her cousin nodded. “The Toal learned this just recently.”

  “When we escaped Peradain, the cart was flown by a scholar who seemed to have been specially trained. The other scholars with us didn’t know the trick.”

  The color orange--a bright orange. The feeling of stepping into a deep puddle unexpectedly with your left foot. A square where the right side breaks midline and collapses into an isosceles triangle. Cazia had heard the “trick” once and she would never forget it. Not that there was any reason to admit that now. “The scholars were very secretive,” she said, “even among their own people.”

  “I see. Miss Cazia Freewell, have you been looking after your hand?”

  Cazia was startled by the change of topic. “I-- Yes. I keep the bandages clean.”

  “That is good but it is not enough. You should also be moving your fingers as much as possible. It is necessary for you to regain the full use of your hand.”

  Was this some sort of trick? “Is that possible? I didn’t think it was.”

  “Perhaps not the full use of your hand, I must admit, but if the wound stays clean and does not turn into an unmoving claw, you will only have some weakness there. Maybe stiffness, too. When you are old, it may ache with bad weather. But you must remind your hand that it is meant for work. Only then will you be tying knots and carrying staves at the end of summer.”

  I could cast spells again. The idea that Cazia hadn’t lost her magic flooded her with joy and relief. Suddenly, the pain didn’t seem so terrible.

  She was about to lunge forward and hug the man when Belterzhimi sighed. “Girls, I must ask for your forbearance. I was up all night finishing my business at the fort, and I must get a little sleep before we make camp tonight.”

  “Of course!” Ivy hopped out of the cart; Kinz and Cazia followed. Belterzhimi bowed his he
ad to them, then laid a blanket over his eyes. His man did the same. Within moments, they were very still and breathing deeply.

  The three girls walked behind the cart through the afternoon, Cazia flexing and unflexing her fingers as best she could. It hurt. It hurt quite a bit, actually, but she didn’t stop. She could get her magic back, and all it would cost her was pain.

  Still, she was vaguely embarrassed by her urge to throw her arms around Ivy’s cousin. First of all, she barely knew him. Second, they were both reclining in the cart in full view of everyone. Third... Honestly, she wasn’t sure what the third one was, but it probably involved the shock and revulsion he would certainly feel if she tried it, and the horrendously polite way he would be forced to push her away.

  Why had he asked so many questions about the flying cart?

  “Ivy”--Cazia kept her voice low so they wouldn’t disturb the sleeping men--“why does your cousin look so sad?”

  Ivy’s eyes widened with surprise. “Ooooo! Cazia has a crush on Belterzhimi!”

  She and Kinz teased Cazia for a little while but seemed to get the hint when it became too much. They walked the rest of the afternoon in silence, surrounded by stone-faced spearmen and women with unstrung bows who gave Cazia murderous looks. There were servants, too, and others whose roles were hard to define. No one spoke a language she could understand, so she spent the whole day trying to decide if she was making her hand better or worse by flexing it. It didn’t matter how it felt. She trusted Belterzhimi’s advice implicitly, and of course she did not have a crush on him. That was ridiculous.

  Near the end of the day, a huge spatter of mud struck her back. No one knew who had thrown it, and while camp was being arranged, she had to scrub her jacket one-handed. She was determined to keep her clothes as neat and white as everyone else’s.

  On the second day, the harassment became cruel.

  Chapter 23

  No matter how much Cazia scrubbed, she had not been able to remove the shadow of the mud stain on her jacket, and of course, the princess had noticed as soon as they started walking in the morning. The last thing Cazia wanted was for the insult to receive royal attention, but now it was too late.