Changespell Legacy

by Doranna Durgin

  "I don't think she does," Carey said. "The only time anyone used the first version of the spell was for the first travel here and back, and that first time out . . ." He trailed off, lost in the memories of the wild courier ride, the fall from the dry riverbed trail that had made him trigger the spell in the first place, wounded and already leaving Lady's saddle. No wonder he recalled little of his arrival here.

  Dayna followed his thoughts. "Well, you were hardly in any shape to remember the details."

  He gave her a look of exaggerated surprise at her understanding. "Better watch it. You're getting easy."

  She rolled her eyes, entirely Dayna-like. "I'll have you know that phrase means something entirely different here, so I'll thank you not to use it when anyone else is around."

  But Carey barely listened to her—focusing instead on the sound of tires crunching gravel. Mark .

  And—he fervently hoped— Jess. He headed for the open barn doors, wincing at the unusual complaint of his body at the sudden movement after standing too long, and the sudden realization that neither Ohio nor world travel had been kind to his permanently damaged body.

  But after a few steps his movement smoothed out. And the important thing—yes, as he came around the corner of the barn to the curving horseshoe driveway, he spotted Mark's car—and two people inside.

  He broke into a jog, and when Jess spilled out the door of the passenger side, he was ready to catch her.

  "Ramble," she said, at first making as if to barge past him and then looking from the barn to the house, uncertain which to head for. She gave him an anxious look, her hair in her face like a wild child and eyes to match. "Where is he? Did he calm? Did you all make it here all right? Is he well? I want to see him—"

  He'd never seen her like this. Never.

  "Jess," he said, barely garnering her attention before losing her again, her gaze going from house to barn to Carey himself, her hands gripping his arms with increasing urgency. He put his hands up, pushing her hair back and capturing her face in the same gesture—and holding her. " Jess."

  She fastened her gaze on him, looking from one eye to the other. Searching. For what, he didn't know.

  Firmly, he said, "Ramble is sleeping. He's fine. We're all fine. Suliya is sleeping. Dayna is in the barn watching Ramble. We're all safe, Jess—including you."

  She whispered, "I thought they were going to take me away."

  He hadn't known. He hadn't realized what he would put her through, bringing her back under these conditions.

  No. He had. He just hadn't wanted to admit it.

  He pulled her in close, wrapping his arms around her, rubbing her back. Ninth Level fool. And still he wasn't so sure he wouldn't do it again. Jaime was right, he thought, to withhold from him that last bit of trust. "Easy, Jess," he said, automatically falling back to her words. "Easy, braveheart. We've got you now, and you're not going anywhere."

  He wasn't sure which of them he was trying to comfort.

  By the time Ramble began to emerge from his drugged sleep, Jess was yawning herself awake from a short nap and Suliya had introduced herself to the wonders of the microwave while Mark flirted outrageously with her.

  Dayna took the first chance to poke him in the arm, while Suliya retreated to the room she and Dayna shared to rummage through her bag for a lighter-weight shirt. "She's young enough to be your—"

  "Kid sister?" Mark suggested. "I'm not exactly an old man, Dayna. You haven't been gone that long."

  "Long enough," Dayna said, hearing the usual tones of asperity Mark brought out in her, even if—as Jaime had said—he'd grown into himself since she'd seen him nearly two years earlier. Sturdier, a little brawnier, holding down his responsibilities here at the Dancing Equine as well as part-timing at the LK hotel where they'd once worked together. "And she's young enough. If not in years, in mind."

  "You used to say the same about me," he told her, as blithely untroubled by her comments as ever.

  "If you don't watch it, she'll get a terrible crush on you and it'll just be a giant syrupy mess when we leave."

  "Naw," Mark said. "Suliya's in this for Suliya. I can't give her anything worth a giant syrupy mess, and meanwhile, a good flirt is a helluva lot of fun. You're just ticked because I'm not flirting with you ."

  And then he grinned at her, irrepressibly Mark, until Dayna buried her face in her hands and groaned.

  When she looked up, Jess stood in the arched opening between the kitchen and the living room, giving her a curious look—but all in all looking more like the woman she'd grown into, and not like Jess fresh from being a horse all her life. Dayna removed her hands and gave Jess a wan smile, making eyes at Mark—enough of an explanation for Jess, who no doubt took this kind of byplay between Mark and Dayna for granted. She switched her gaze to Mark and said, "Do you have soda? With bubbles?"

  "For you," he said, " extra bubbles."

  The slightest of wrinkles appeared between her eyes as she looked at him, the vaguely puzzled curiosity of someone not quite awake. Mark explained, "That's the new, improved, flirtier me."

  "I liked you fine before," Jess said, but she thought about it a moment longer—watching Mark grab a glass from an upper cupboard, fill it with ice from the automatic ice dispenser in the refrigerator door, and pop the top on a cold Mountain Dew—and added, "This is nice, too."

  He gave Dayna a triumphant grin, whereupon she threw up her hands, just as glad for the interruption when Carey came in from the barn, spotting Jess with relief.

  "Jess," he said, stopping an arm's length away with an odd awkwardness as Jess took her first sip of soda and made her inevitable scrunchily pleased face at the carbonation. "Are you feeling better?"

  She nodded. "Not right, but . . . not like my thoughts are flying apart anymore."

  He gave what Dayna thought was a quiet sigh of relief. She wasn't sure; she couldn't tell what was going on in his head anymore. She'd always thought of him as the kind of guy who would do what was necessary, when it was necessary, and not look back . . . but it seemed to her that he was already looking back—and they hadn't even finished going forward yet.

  Now he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder back in the direction of the barn. "He's just starting to move around. I thought you might like to be there when he wakes—what's that?" His gaze shifted from Jess's face to over her shoulder and beyond, where Mark emerged from a pantry with soda cans to restock the fridge. Dayna twisted around to see what had caught his attention, and found a wipe-off board on the back of the open door.

  Mark didn't hesitate as he opened the refrigerator and shoved the new six-pack in place. "Jaime's message board."

  "From Camolen?" Carey asked, moving a step behind Dayna as she headed for the board.

  "Yep, that's the one." Mark straightened. "Looks just like a regular one, doesn't it? I've got a few spellstones left if you need to send anything her way."

  "We brought more with us," Dayna said, giving the poorly cleaned board a critical eye. —ame lo-king for Arle— it said, as if written by a marker going dry or a message cleared with a single careless swipe of the hand.

  "Came looking for Arlen?" Carey said from behind her. "When did she send that?"

  "What?" Mark joined them, frowning at the board. "Wow, that looks bad. They usually come through a lot clearer than that."

  "It's new , you mean?" Dayna looked from the board to Mark, and caught his absent nod.

  "Strange one, too. Doesn't make a lot of sense. Why would she use a spellstone to tell us someone came looking for Arlen?"

  Jess hiccuped over her carbonation, a desperately muffled sound, and followed it with a very practical, "Because she thought it was important."

  Someone came looking for Arlen. Dayna frowned, caught Carey doing the same. He said, "I think we have to assume that it is important. Some aspect of it. There may be a lot more to the message than we see."

  Quite matter-of-factly from her spot on the border of the conversation, Jess said, "It's not working
right.

  That's why the travel was so hard, and my change. The magic's not well."

  Dayna felt a little frisson of the rightness of it, and gave a sharp shake of her head anyway. "That's ridiculous."

  "Dayna," Mark said, a reproving tone with an immediate effect on her. Startling enough in its own right, never mind that he'd done it at all, but when she saw the hurt on Jess's face she knew why.

  It took a deep breath, a chance to get perspective, and then she was able to say, "I didn't mean you were ridiculous, Jess, it's just that magic is . . . magic."

  "Not to mention," Carey added softly, "that we're in real trouble if she's right. Camolen is in real trouble."

  "We knew that," Dayna said. "It's why we're here in the first place. But I don't think we should jump to conclusions based on two incomplete pieces of information."

  "Three," Mark said, giving the board a long look before wiping it clean with the edge of his hand. "We could ask her to repeat."

  "I think we'd better," Carey agreed.

  "Better what?" Suliya said from, to judge by the sound of it, halfway down the hall and coming toward them. "It doesn't sound good by your voice."

  "Just a garbled message from Jaime," Dayna said, not ready to alarm Suliya along with the rest of them.

  "I'm going to Ramble," Jess said. "He shouldn't be alone."

  Carey half-turned, looking back at the board with obvious reluctance.

  "Go," Mark said. "Both of you. I'll be out when I'm done."

  "He's awake?" Suliya said, appearing in the doorway as she fastened her impossibly lively hair back with a fashionable latching comb from Camolen.

  "Getting there," Carey said shortly. "Come on, then."

  Jess left her half-finished soda on the counter and headed for the barn with long strides Dayna couldn't hope to match; she gave up and trailed behind, squinting in the bright sunlight as they passed briefly into the sunshine between house and barn. Carey paced her, apparently in no hurry . . . or, even with his longer legs, not willing to keep up with Jess? Dayna gave him a scrutinizing glance; she thought his misinterpretation of it was deliberate.

  "She's worried," he said, nodding to where Jess had found and now peered between the bars of Ramble's assigned home. After a hesitation, he added, "I'm not sure she's not right to be. He's not doing well with the change so far."

  "Don't wuss out on me now," Dayna muttered. Suliya, uncharacteristically wise, remained silent.

  "Too late for that, isn't it?" Carey said dryly, easing to a stop just within sight of the stall—Dayna thought he could probably see the changed palomino over the height of the barred half-door, but she certainly couldn't. She started to move closer, but he put out a hand, shaking his head. "Give them some room.

  And no, I'm not wussing , to use your silly-sounding word. But I'd be foolish if I didn't have concerns after the way we had to drug him. This could take a lot longer than any of us counted on—and if we're right that something big is happening on Camolen, then that time could make a big difference."

  "We'll do better with him than we did with Jess," Dayna muttered. "We know he's a horse . . . she didn't have that advantage, not until she'd practically become one of us. And we didn't have Jess ."

  Carey lifted his chin, a quiet gesture to draw her attention to Jess herself, who had opened the door and slipped into the stall. With a great floundering stumble, Ramble came to his feet, finally visible to Dayna.

  Even so, she drew closer, and this time Carey came with her.

  Jess waited inside the door. She didn't look directly at the palomino; she didn't even face him. She kept her body turned slightly while Ramble lifted his head, nostrils flaring, body stiff and tense.

  He would clean up nicely, Dayna thought, realizing it for the first time. He'd been so difficult, so full of struggle . . . and then so crumpled by the drug—that she hadn't seen it. He wasn't her type, not with that hard look about him—head to toe, rugged and not quite crossing the line to coarse. But the hair alone would do it. Strikingly, stunningly blond.

  Hair that was at the moment in his face. He shook his head in annoyance, and made a snorting noise, relaxing.

  "That's what she was waiting for," Carey said, while Suliya nodded understanding. "An invitation."

  If he said so.

  He must have been right, for Jess moved slowly forward, keeping herself at an angle, hesitating once and receiving some invisible-to-Dayna signal that encouraged her to continue even as Ramble seemed to draw himself up into something bigger than he'd been, something more eloquent of line even with his rangy physique, his attention riveted on Jess.

  It was a focus she returned, Dayna realized, noting Carey's sudden tension beside her. Not worried for Jess . Not with that look on his face, the glower in his eyes and that muscle twitching in his jaw. Jealous .

  Guides, he's jealous . Jess eased right up to the palomino, and just when Dayna expected her to stop— she certainly wouldn't have gotten any closer to a man she didn't know—Jess moved up until their faces were only a breath apart—and stayed there.

  "What?" Dayna whispered.

  Tersely, Carey said, "All horses greet new herd members this way. You've seen it. They take in each other's breath. It just looks . . . different when human faces try it."

  "I'll say," Dayna muttered, taking a sideways glance from him that silenced further words.

  Ramble gave an unexpected bob of his head, startling Jess into lifting hers—an expression Dayna did know . . . Jess uncertain, Jess tilting back ears that wouldn't tilt in this form. And somehow he grew even taller, and—Dayna glanced away in embarrassment—obviously aroused. He did something then—she wasn't sure what, whether it was another bob of his head or if he actually nudged her with his shoulder, but it made Jess stagger back slightly, either in surprise or from the nudge itself. In an instant she whirled, ears definitely back with that tilt of her head, and let go a kick that missed completely.

  Was meant to miss, Dayna realized, although Ramble started back wildly just the same as if he'd been hit, recovering to a much more subdued posture. Jess didn't hesitate; she walked away, right out of the stall and down the aisle to stand at the barn doorway, looking out.

  Dayna would have followed her, but Carey clamped a hand on her arm. "No," he said, releasing her only when she acquiesced. He slid home the latch Jess had left undone and said, "Give her a moment."

  And after a moment, Jess gave herself a little shake and returned to them, a more casual walk than the brusque strides that had taken her away. She looked at Carey, and then she looked into the stall where Ramble tugged at his clothing, doing a slow and unself-conscious examination of his own body, his expression of such exaggerated puzzlement that Dayna felt her first stirrings of compassion, if not doubt.

  Jess gave her head a little toss, a restless gesture left over from Lady. "He is as I said. He hasn't been brought up well. He's been stall-kept, not pasture-kept with mares, or even pasture-grown. He doesn't know his manners even when he's not trying to be rude. It's not his fault. But . . ." She trailed off, shrugged.

  "But he'll be hard to deal with," Carey finished for her. "Suggestions?"

  She didn't take her eyes from Ramble. "He needs to understand what has happened to him. He needs to know how to communicate. We need to understand his Words and Rules, so we can give him the support he is used to." She hesitated. "If he is like me . . . then he has been hearing language all his life.

  Some of it is there in his thoughts, waiting . . . now that he is human, it will begin to make sense."

  "It didn't take you very long to get your meaning across," Dayna said, remembering the morning after Jess had arrived in her house and her first faltering attempts to tell her new friends that she was in fact a horse. That they hadn't understood or believed had been their failing, not hers.

  Jess turned a dark look on her. "I was brought up to turn to humans for help. And I thought I could get what I needed from you."

  Carey. Right from
the start, she'd only wanted to be reunited with Carey; with all their misunderstandings, that had always been clear from the start. Dayna, too, turned her attention to Ramble; he was halfway out of his loose tunic and not the least bit interested in his audience. "I guess we'll have to find something he wants. Some incentive to learn."

  "We have something he wants," Jess said bitterly. "To be a horse again. It will be his first thought once he understands why he no longer has whiskers, or ears to point and a tail to flick. When he tries to run and can barely stir the breeze. And when he understands, he will hate you for what you've done."

  Carey flinched. But as Dayna scowled at him, he gathered himself and said, "We'll just have to hope his desire to be a horse again is stronger than his hatred. Because cooperating with us is his only chance for that to happen."

  Even Suliya looked unhappy, as if suddenly realizing in what she'd become involved. "It's not so bad, being human," she said in a low voice, not quite looking at Jess. "You spend most of your time that way now."

  "Not so bad," Jess said. "Because I have a choice ."

  Carey rubbed the heel of his hand against the side of his thigh, his expression masked by fatigue. "Just see what you can do to help him along." The words sounded dragged out of him; Dayna realized anew that he hadn't rested after the rough transition between worlds. She'd haul him into the guest room to rest if she had to; they needed to be in top form to get through this. All of them. Ready for anything.

  Jess answered by reentering the stall; the palomino instantly stopped his struggle with the tunic, letting it settle back into place. Having been chastised once, he didn't quite puff himself up as before, but watched her from the back of the stall with a certain wariness, clearly working up to redisplaying his magnificence for her.

  She changed the angle of her head, turned, and lifted her leg just enough so only her toes touched the bedding. Instantly sulky, he subsided.

  "Burnin' poot," Suliya said, wonder-struck tones entirely at odds with her youthful slang. "It's just like watching two horses, clear as anything."