Changespell Legacy

by Doranna Durgin

  He didn't let the introduction last long; he swung his head in posturing threat and pushed at her, teeth bared. Jess wheeled and kicked him in the chest. The stallion flung his head back in dramatic alarm, lunging away from her. Jess glanced up at Dayna in embarrassment. "I still forget," she said, chagrined. "I do it the horse way." She looked at the halter hanging on her arm, lifting it slightly. "The human way," she said, "for a horse as rude as this one. I don't think he grew up with mares the way he should have. They would have taught him better than this."

  Even as she spoke she had the horse haltered, the chain shank of the lead threaded around the noseband. "You shouldn't need this," she said sternly to the horse, and although Dayna was no horsewoman, she could see that Jess unconsciously matched every body movement the stallion made, all the small gestures he used to claim her body space. When he bobbed his head and snorted in wet disgust, she could only assume that Jess had stood her ground. The stallion made one last halfhearted attempt to close his teeth on Jess's shoulder and she rattled the chain lightly in warning; he turned away, sulking. "Here," Jess said, handing the lead to Dayna through the barely open door. "Hold him. Has anyone checked him since he came without Sherra?"

  "Trent rode him back out again," Dayna said, gingerly holding the lead. The stallion eyed her and she knew right then that it had her number. "He likes this horse—don't ask me why—so I figured the horse was okay."

  But Jess ran her hands across his back and quarters and then down each leg, following the line of his sloping shoulders across his chest and up his neck. Touching as well as looking, and eventually ruffling her hands through his long pale mane. "Handsome," she said. "And strong. Too big for a courier's horse, but . . . nice."

  Dayna snorted. "Says who, Jess or Lady?"

  Jess gave her a sly glimmer of a look. "Both of us." But then she frowned, moving around toward the back of the horse. In another moment she'd dug out a small pocket knife, but Dayna didn't see why; she was too busy giving the horse her best evil eye as he opened his mouth in what he must have thought was a cunning manner, his lips twitching toward her hand.

  "Stop it," Dayna hissed at him. "You brat." She shoved his head away and he carefully watched something in the corner of the stall a moment, but his lips twitched again, betraying his intent.

  Tucking the knife away and preoccupied by whatever she'd gathered, Jess nonetheless gave him a pinch on the neck. He flared his nostrils and flattened his ears and refused to look at either of them.

  "Your face is going to freeze that way," Dayna informed him.

  "I . . . bit him," Jess said. "He's sulking." She came out of the stall, slid the halter off one-handed, and replaced it on the door. She held out her other hand. "Look."

  "Big chunk of horsetail hair," Dayna said. "Trent won't thank you for that."

  Suliya returned, alone but hauling an overwhelming armful of blankets. "Couldn't find anyone," she said loudly from the other end of the barn. "But I've got the coolers."

  "Good," Jess said, and nothing else, to which Suliya frowned and went to work in the stalls. But Jess was looking at the horsehair, holding it out again to Dayna. "More than hair," she said. "Hair and . . . I think a leaf, but part of it is metal and part of it is . . ." She shook her head sharply, at a loss for words.

  Dayna saw it, then. A leaf, transformed and tangled in the horsehair—no, made part of the horsehair. A simple leaf, caught in the tail of a fleeing horse and damaging only hair with its final distorted spasm. She took in a deep breath of air, let it out slowly. Very slowly.

  "We saw this spot," Jess said. "We cut through the woods to go around it. This is what killed the Council, isn't it? Not this leaf, but . . . this strangeness."

  "Yes," Dayna said. "But we don't know what it is, or why it happened." And they weren't likely to find out, not while those in power refused to listen to those who had been there. She frowned, and waved Jess's head-tilted response away. "Not you," she said, letting the frown turn into something more weary and more determined at the same time. "Let's talk inside, where it's warm."

  "Ay," Suliya said from the other end of the barn, faint petulance in her voice as she startled Dayna with the southern Camolen colloquialism. "I could use some help down here."

  Jess rolled her eyes, a very human expression Dayna hadn't seen her use before, and she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing out loud for Suliya's sake. But then Jess was just as much horse as human again, with the little toss of her head that meant irritation. She said, "Go be warm, Dayna. Suliya and I will come when the horses are settled."

  "No real rush," Dayna said, still amused. "You can't start home until tomorrow, anyway."

  Jess gave her a somber look. "Anfeald without Arlen," she said, "isn't really home."

  Arlen accepted a fine glass goblet from his host and raised it in a gesture of appreciation he was too distracted to truly feel—too full of frustration, chafing to find himself still here at all.

  Guides dammit, anyway. Jaime. Anfeald. The Council. He still had no idea what had happened. What was happening —without him.

  Instead, he waited out his second day in Amses, long enough to find this small family restaurant tucked away at the edge of the town's residential area. Beautifully presented tables, privacy, and personal service—all a stiff contrast to his first meal in the town, and all of which he noted in only the most absent way. Amses was a mining town—small, family mines delving not only for silver, but for the rarer specialty spellstone material, the ones that could hold the most complex of spells.

  Ironically, Arlen the wizard had done quite a bit of business with some of these mines. But Arlen the traveler didn't purport to know anything about them—for Arlen, uncertain of events, had gone as incognito as an eccentric wizard could get.

  Probably not far enough. And it was nothing with which he'd had any experience.

  He abruptly realized that his host—and chef—still hovered by the table. "It was a truly excellent meal," he told the man, someone who obviously knew how to fling a number of spells himself—although in an establishment of this quality, he no doubt had his own spellcook to handle the details of preserving food, heating cooking tops, and sanitizing the dishes. "Only the ability to digest it in my own house this evening could possibly improve the experience."

  An understatement of the most severe nature.

  The server, a young man whose resemblance to the chef left no doubt about family ties, gave him a sympathetic look. "We have several business travelers caught here in Amses until the travel system is working again."

  "I haven't been able to get any news at all," Arlen said, lacing it with the amount of complaint he thought appropriate for a businessman who was used to the best. Burning hells, he was a wizard used to the best; there couldn't be much difference. "No public dispatch at all, and the news pedestals are empty. Have you heard anything about how long things will be down?" He took a sip of the wine—definitely a good vintage—and glanced from his small, round table to see that no one else was paying attention to the conversation. It was simply his turn to speak with the chef.

  "Nothing," the young man said. "No word about what's happened, either. It had to have been pretty big, to have affected all of Camolen—"

  The chef cleared his throat. "Plenty of warnings not to panic being distributed," he said. "No good can come of panic. We've enough service wizards to keep Amses going for a few days. The break from dispatch news might even do us all a little good."

  "Sit back and enjoy the sunsets while you can," Arlen suggested, trying not to think of the fact that the break from dispatch news had been caused by the deaths of people he cared about. I should have been there, should have tried to stop it— And then you'd be dead, too.

  "Exactly," the chef said, entirely unaware of Arlen's inner struggle. "I hope your meal here has helped to make your stay pleasant whether you intended to be here or not."

  "It's gone a long way," Arlen said, meaning it. "If you could direct me to an equally ple
asant overnighter, I'd be grateful."

  That, they were glad to do, although the chef returned to his kitchen and left the younger man doling out directions. Arlen paid for the meal with Anfeald scrip—all he had, and worth a remark from the server.

  He'd hardly been prepared to keep himself inconspicuous. And, arriving in his newly assigned rooms at the recommended establishment, he thought again that doing so was his only course of action. Until he found out what happened to the Council. Until he found out why he was the only one left. For while he hadn't been able to confirm anything—hadn't been able to reach anyone at all, either on the Council or the Secondary Council—there was a deep part of him that knew the others were dead—all of them. And of anyone in Camolen, he knew only a tragedy of that magnitude would provoke the service shutdown he was witnessing.

  Do something.

  Anything.

  Make it better.

  He was a senior wizard. The only surviving wizard. If anyone could do something, it was him.

  But not from here. Not without more information. Not without something to act against .

  Meanwhile, if the other Council members had been killed, then he, too, was a likely target. No one knew he was here . . . but if someone were looking for him . . .

  He tossed his bags on the bed, a solid creation of beautifully worked stripewood head and footboard, and peered out one of the room's two windows; the overnighter held only four customer rooms, and this one looked out onto the property's vast back lot. Snow-covered arbors, walkways, and benches hinted of summertime beauty. For now, it lay abandoned, and offered him the privacy he wanted. As did most overnighters, this one offered breakfast; it would be midday before he needed to venture forth. Enough time, he hoped, to get over the surprise of arriving to a non-functional travel booth and finding his travel time expanded from a day to— He didn't even know. He'd never traveled a distance such as this without the benefit of wizardry. Coach travel would probably be the most efficient . . . perhaps interspersed with rental horses to cross coach lines and make himself less predictable.

  He glanced into the bathroom—all of the usual fixtures there, along with soap and towels and a discreet basket of potpourri, all of which he'd paid extra for; the other rooms in the oversized house shared a common bath. Along the wall next to the bathroom was a full-length mirror set into a burnished metal frame with a local-artist look to it. Here, he hesitated, realizing for the first time the extent of his folly.

  The man he looked at was Arlen the wizard. Who else wore such a thing as a university sweatshirt given to him by his lover? Beyond such eccentric items, his wardrobe held habitual dark blues and blacks, fine materials magicked so as never to fade, their sheen never dulled by pilling or fuzz.

  Dump it all at a secondhand store and take up new clothes in trade.

  There was nothing he could do about his height . . . taller than most was taller than most, on horseback or trying to fold his legs inside a coach. But his hair was as distinctive as the rest of him—full and shaggy and never much attended.

  Cut it. Dye the steel grey to a darker color.

  The mustache. He ran a finger across the brushy abundance of it, watching himself do it in the mirror.

  He'd had this mustache all his adult life, and he couldn't imagine anyone would immediately recognize him without it—especially once the pale skin beneath it colored up a little.

  Shave the mustache.

  Nothing he could do about the overbite . . . something that should have been attended to in his youth and had not. But it wasn't a bad one, not bad at all—not enough so people would remember him just because of it . . .

  At least, he didn't think so. He hadn't had a good look at it since the mustache first grew in.

  "The problem is," he told his reflection, "you are so blatantly . . . you."

  Arlen the wizard. Mild until circumstances called for otherwise, good with a needle, full of hidden humor.

  Easy enough to say he was usually absorbed in work. Of late, often absorbed in Jaime.

  Jaime.

  She was here, now, and had been. Who knows what she thought of his absence. The general impression he'd left was that he'd gone off on Council business— She'd think him dead.

  Jaime. She was the one person he might manage to contact. She had no skill with magic, but she had what everyone in the Council lacked . . . his love. She had his intimate trust. And of late, she did indeed respond to casual direct communication within the hold, the kind of magic that held only a whisper of a signature, closer to raw magic than anything else a wizard might do.

  He took a deep breath, still watching himself in the mirror. The mustache removal could wait, he decided. It was evening, and quiet; a time Jaime often used to read. She'd be the most receptive now.

  Then the mustache, and tomorrow the clothes. "Good-bye, you," he told his image, and turned away from it. Tomorrow he would become someone else.

  Tonight, he reached for Jaime. And tomorrow night, and the night after . . . until he was close enough to touch her.

  Carey rubbed his fingers across both eyes, trying and failing to wipe out the gritty feel of fatigue at the end of a day that wasn't even over yet. Lowering himself onto Arlen's couch next to Jaime's suddenly and miserably curled-up form, he hunted for words— Are you all right? Do you feel any better? Can I do anything? —and couldn't find any to which the answers weren't resoundingly obvious. No, no, and no .

  He settled for resting a hand on her arm, but even that made her wince. He sat back against the far-too-comfortable pillow softening the arm of the couch and took a deep breath, trying to put things in perspective, trying not to worry too much about this one more thing. It was a winter illness, probably; everyone got them.

  Except there wasn't anything going around right now.

  Just plain grief and stress, then, giving her a sick headache that the hold's healer hadn't yet been able to touch.

  Except she'd never reacted this way to grief and stress before . . . and the guides knew they'd seen each other through plenty of it.

  Arlen dead, the Council gone, Camolen shut down, his couriers riding way too many miles a day, his horses starting to show the strain, and the ache of missing Jess after only a day so strong he felt it in his very bones . . .

  Do something.

  Anything.

  Make it better.

  Arlen had always counted on him to fill that role, to be the one who acted when acting became necessary.

  But this time, he didn't know what to fight for. He didn't know how to win, or what it meant accomplishing . . . or if given their losses, it was even possible to win at all.

  Chapter 7

  Jess sat cross-legged in Second Siccawei's first-floor window seat, staying out of the flurry of hold activity while she waited for Suliya to present herself as ready to go and for Dayna to be sure she'd said all she wanted to say in the letter she was sending back to Anfeald. Unlike yesterday, the rest of the hold bustled in preparation for the arrival of several new Council members—wizards who were skilled enough to use the new anchor point positioned by Second Siccawei's advanced apprentices to spell themselves here.

  In fact, from the general tenor of conversation in those who rushed through this main sitting room, Jess thought they'd recently arrived. Upstairs somewhere. She wasn't concerned with them and she was sure they weren't concerned with her. She was just a courier, even if she happened to be one who counted slain Council members among her close friends.

  She twisted around to watch the yard as another courier left, trotting out at a smart pace with bags bulging. She'd be surprised if they had any more horses left to go out, though she hadn't seen Garvin, the head rider, leave yet. She'd be just as glad not to encounter him again; they'd met him last night over the dinner meal and he'd been brusque and unpleasant, a bandy-legged and barrel-bodied older man that Dayna admitted had been the only adequately experienced person available after the sudden demand for couriers.

  From her s
eat Jess could watch not only the yard, but the stairs to the second level that ran along the side wall; even as her gaze lingered on the departing rider, she caught movement from the corner of her eye and found Suliya descending the steps, her corkscrew hair caught back in two tight braids and her winter gear and saddlebags slung over her arm. She looked decently refreshed after the night's sleep; Jess herself had been up early, unable to rest and equally unable to find anything on which to act; normally drawn to the stable, she hadn't found solace in the thought of sharing space with Garvin.

  Breakfast turned out to be a grab-it-yourself occasion full of eggs and chunky pepper sauce and thinly sliced salted steaks, none of which Jess had ever been inclined to eat. She'd found one of last fall's apples and gotten the cook to remove the preservation on it, but now her stomach growled in hollow resentment.

  "Nice place," Suliya said, encompassing in her praise the room they'd shared the night before, the breakfast-scented sitting room and, Jess thought, the cook who had been so accommodating to her requests for more thoroughly warmed eggs. She shrugged on her thin silken underjacket and said, "Ready to go?" although Jess hadn't made any move to get up.

  "I'm waiting for Dayna," Jess said.

  "She still wants to ride out as far as the, er . . . problem spot?" Suliya said, and at Jess's nod, frowned slightly. "Are you sure you want to wait? They might need us at Anfeald."

  Jess didn't hide her surprise. "Dayna is a wizard," she said. "She asked to ride out with us. We wait."

  Suliya shrugged, a large gesture. "You've got the say."

  "Yes," Jess said, looking steadily at her, not sure but that some human behavior of Suliya's eluded her.

  After all that, the wait was short; Dayna came pounding down the stairs, still pulling on a dark brown sweater that only made her look grim in nature.

  Or maybe, Jess thought with a second look at her face, she was grim all on her own.