Changespell Legacy

by Doranna Durgin

  He had no idea how many days—weeks—it would take him to reach Anfeald. He only knew he was determined to do it, and determined to stay out of trouble while he was at it—even if, as the only remaining member of an ambushed Council, he had a target of intent tattooed on his skin so deeply that he could all but feel the itch of it between his shoulder blades.

  Even if despite the clues he'd gathered at the distorted, dangerous area his coach had nearly blundered through, he didn't yet know any more about the situation than the average man on the street.

  Well. Perhaps not quite that little. And before he reached Anfeald, he intended to know more. "Come on , Grunt," he muttered in exasperation, reminded once more why he'd never taken to traveling on horseback when Grunt's wandering mind and random decision to stop in the middle of the road nearly yanked Arlen's shoulder out of place. "Quit fooling around and pretend to be heroic. Things will go a lot easier for both of us, I assure you."

  Mostly, he thought, easier for me.

  Then again, there wasn't going to be anything easy about this journey, about what waited for him at the end of it . . . about Camolen's recovery.

  No matter what.

  Jess leaned her forehead against the bars of Ramble's stall—his closed, locked stall—and breathed a sigh of relief.

  She hadn't wanted the others here for this.

  She hadn't told them she intended to ask him today. When they visited, hovering, trying to discern if he were ready for some real communication, she slid back into the easy work, the beginning work. The things Ramble understood but was bored with, so never did very eagerly no matter what.

  And they trusted her. They expected her to let them know when he was ready to talk to them. Jess had moved through the morning in a strange haze of duplicity, knowing her own intent, knowing they expected to be told . . . and not telling. Not even Carey.

  Never had she deliberately hidden anything from them before. From any one. She was by nature the most honest of horses, in her evasions and refusals as much as her willingness to try. She knew it had been one of Carey's favorite things about her as his top courier mount.

  But he no longer rode Lady—not for courier jobs, not for pleasure. Some hidden piece of him had never accepted the horse part of her once he'd taken to the woman part of her.

  It was that hidden piece of him that she no longer trusted. Certainly not to do right by Ramble, a horse already done immeasurable wrong. Carey knew it was wrong, he knew it—and he let it happen because Ramble was a horse. A tool. A member of a species to which Carey had devoted his life's work, becoming one of the best . . . but still an animal to be used, when all was said and done.

  So she protected Ramble from him—from them all —and from the intensity of their questions. They'd push him. They'd upset him. They'd confuse him.

  She wouldn't.

  But somehow in the process she felt forced to betray her own honest nature.

  She gave her forehead an unthinking scratch against the bars, horselike even in that, leaving her bangs in disarray. The rest of her thick, mane-textured hair felt tight against her head; Suliya, bored that morning, had sat Jess down for what she called girl-talk, weaving a complex braid while she was at it. "You hair's perfect for braiding," she said. "It'll hold anything!" She'd gone on to chatter endlessly about some of her early riding experiences, so that Jess decided the whole session was better described as girl-listen ; she had the feeling Suliya was trying to communicate in some complex subtext, but that habit was one of the human things at which Jess had never become good.

  So she went back to dealing with that at which she excelled. Ramble. Betraying him, betraying herself, betraying her friends and Carey, all in subtle little ways that distressed her even when she couldn't quite define them. She reached down to the second latch they'd installed at the base of the door—out of Ramble's reach, though he'd never tried to undo the upper latch, quite content to stay in surroundings that felt familiar and comfortable. He'd been waiting, interested, in the back of the stall as she'd taught him, eager for her arrival.

  If he ever regained his horse form, he'd have much better manners than he'd started with.

  Jess pulled a huge apple from the pocket of Mark's light jacket, buffed it against her stomach, and took a big bite before offering it to him; he accepted it, took a bite and, hesitating, offered it back to her.

  He'd done the same thing the day before. It had been the moment she'd decided it was time to talk to him.

  They ate the apple together, and she used the edge of the jacket sleeve to wipe the glint from his lip and chin. Some horses were like that with apples . . . more spit than there was apple. He let her tend him, nudging her only slightly with his shoulder. She'd been the same, once . . . expecting the humans to handle her. Expecting they had the right, no matter what form she was in.

  "Ramble," she said, sitting cross-legged in the clean shavings of the stall, "I need to ask you some questions."

  He sat beside her, reaching for the end of her braid and twisting it between his fingers. He'd been an exceptionally mouthy horse, and had turned into an exceptionally fidgety man—always touching something, feeling the textures . . . she'd taught him how to tie knots purely for the pleasure he got from it.

  "Ask," he said agreeably.

  "You can ask, too, if you want," she said.

  He fingered her hair, his mobile face twisting somewhat in conflict. He had the questions, she well knew . . . he just wasn't sure how to ask them. Like her, he understood speech much sooner than he was able to generate it.

  "If you want ," she repeated. "You don't have to."

  He nodded, satisfied with that.

  "Not long before we came here, when you were still horse," she said, watching to see that he understood, that he gave the tiny jerk of a nod he'd already acquired the habit of making as he took in information and processed it in his new human way, "you were out on a ride with Sherra."

  "Sherra," he said. "Too . . ." and he made a serious face, a strict face. Trent, Jess was certain, had only laughed at half the things Ramble pulled . . . and Ramble had pulled half of them just to play the game.

  "Yes, Sherra. She rode you, not far, and tied you while she talked to other people who came without horses. Do you remember?"

  "No." He said it flatly; he didn't look at her. Lying.

  Jess sighed and shifted slightly away from him, pretending to go off in her own thoughts. Pretending he wasn't there.

  "Jess," he said, and started to nudge her; she turned a fast and furious look on him and he backed off, dropping her hair to thump against her back. "Jess . . ."

  She didn't look. After a moment he gave a snort of pure exasperation, jerking his chin in a motion that would have been a curse of neck-wringing in his horse form.

  If he'd said he was frightened, if he'd trembled, if he'd been honest in his reluctance . . .

  But he wasn't. So she let him work through the dilemma of being ignored until he came around with honesty, as certain as anyone could be that he would . . . and that in itself spoke more of his recent journey than any of the others would ever understand.

  Finally, he said in a low, half-sullen voice, "I don't want to remember."

  She turned back to him, all her attention given up to him. He tossed his head, this time a precursor to showing off . . . except he knew better than to push it that far. "I'm sorry," she said. "I know it is a hard thing. But . . . an important thing. We need to know so we can try to make that place safe again."

  He frowned; it turned his features harsh. "You . . . no." He looked away from her again, then back; it all but broke her heart to see how he struggled. For her. For her, when she was manipulating him as much as any of them.

  "Tell me," she said softly. "All the things that happened in that place, before you broke away."

  "Don't remember," he said, his chin hard and disapproving, his lower lip tight.

  "You do." She pushed him this time. "You do remember. We always remember." We ,
as in horses. And we , as in the only two horses ever to discuss their situation in human form.

  He still didn't look at her. He didn't fidget or reach out to her. But after a long moment, he said, "They screamed. The trail ate them . . . they screamed. It came to eat me. I ran."

  A long speech. A hard one. "Attaboy," she murmured, remembering Trent's use of the words as he'd come to say good-bye to the horse when she, Dayna, and Suliya left Second Siccawei. He flushed with pleasure and then startled, felt the warmth of his own face, prodding the flesh. But she wasn't done; she had to ask those things Dayna and Carey would ask, or they would only be out here to do it themselves.

  And while she might be manipulating Ramble . . . she did it to make things easier for him. They wouldn't know how much easier. Or Carey would, if he stopped to think . . . but she didn't consider him in a thinking mood of late.

  They wouldn't be here in Ohio if he was.

  "Did you see anyone else?" she asked Ramble. "Besides the wizards. Anyone hidden?"

  He shook his head; she didn't believe it.

  "No one in the woods? Watching? Causing what happened?"

  "Magic happened," he said, a quick burst of matter-of-fact words.

  Dayna had said so, too.

  "You felt the magic?" When he looked up, his surprise matching hers, she said, "Do you always feel magic when it happens?"

  "Always," he agreed. "Not . . . you?"

  She hitched her shoulder up in a shrug. "Usually, yes. Not everyone does, though." She eyed him.

  "Someone made the magic happen. You did see a person in the woods."

  He sighed hugely, letting it vibrate his lips a little. Giving up. "Yes," he said. "A person, a horse."

  Cautiously, watching her for permission, he touched her shoulder, her back. "This much. Stallion. With black mare. Pretty."

  "Good," she said, and this time she thought she had it all. He wouldn't hold back much after that sigh.

  She had it all . . . and it was nothing. Someone had been in the woods; he or she had made magic happen, and the wizards had died screaming in a woods come alive with distorted reality.

  Dayna had felt the magic. Everyone who had seen the spot knew how horribly the wizards had died. All they'd truly gained from their journey here, from Ramble's transformation, was the knowledge that a man had been there, bringing that unfocused magic into play . . . and presumably knowing the results. They now knew it hadn't been an accident.

  But no one had ever truly thought it was.

  Jess forgot where she was. She put her hands over her face and felt like crying, then felt Ramble's tentative touch on her arm. Trying to reach out; trying to follow the rules she'd set for him. It made her laugh, but the sound came out more like a sob. "Stupid," she said. "All for nothing. I told them . . ."

  He made a sharp interrogative noise, as abruptly close to demand as he'd ever been with her. And for the first time responding as though he were a friend instead of a project, even a project she was training for his own protection, she looked at him, at his strong features and bright, beautiful hair, said simply, "They needed to know what you knew. That's why we're here."

  "All for nothing," he repeated—another question.

  She shrugged. "Mostly they already knew it."

  "All for nothing!" His face darkened; this time the words were accusation, and Jess suddenly realized her error. He was a big man, stronger than Jess, stronger than any of them, and just as with a horse, their ability to control him depended on keeping him happy . . . and disillusioned about just which of them was stronger. Angered, endowed with enough intellect and spirit to direct that anger, and they could lose him . . .

  "You can go back," she said. " We can go back." And they could, now that they knew what he knew.

  "All for nothing!" He thumped his chest with his open hand. "This! Not horse !" And he gave a snort of utter disgust that left nothing of his feelings to her imagination. "They did this!"

  "Yes," she said. "They did. What happened . . . many people need to be protected from what happened.

  They— we—needed to know. And now you can go back."

  "Now."

  It took her a moment to realize he wasn't just repeating her words, but was making a demand. Now .

  "Soon," she whispered . . . both a correction and a plea for understanding.

  This time, Ramble was the one to turn his back on her.

  Chapter 17

  Mark took them into Marion, an experience which delighted Suliya and made Dayna feel just plain strange. Looking at the small-town streets with their flat, midwestern flavor—carrying just a little more traffic than they'd been made for, offering a little less parking than needed—she felt like she'd been gone a lifetime. And oddly . . . like she'd never been gone at all.

  They drove down Center Street, under a banner advertising the annual popcorn festival—"Popcorn,"

  Suliya asked, "what's that?"—and past the imposing stone edifice of the courthouse, then city hall and the theater—right through town and almost out the other side, beyond the railroad tracks. Mark turned the truck down an alley with only inches to spare beyond the side-view mirrors, and just as Dayna gave him a skeptical look, the alley opened into a back parking area.

  "Just happened to find this place?" she asked Mark as he took up most of the parking space with the truck.

  He shrugged. "I dated a girl." An instant's unhappiness crossed his face. "She was too . . . interested.

  Asked too many questions. I think . . . I swear, I think she could tell. About Camolen. Just didn't want to deal with that."

  "But you liked her," Suliya said, virtually unfiltered as usual, although in this case not without compassion.

  Mark made a face, then nodded. "She works nights . . . she shouldn't be here." He led them between the buildings—just enough room there for a strip of concrete and a handful of struggling weeds; Mark himself had to turn sideways—and to the front entrance, beneath a fancifully lettered sign in purple and gold with the shop name Starland and a smattering of stars in the background.

  "Mark . . ." Dayna muttered. Touchy-feely New Age, just what a Camolen wizard needed.

  He stopped halfway through the door, leaving Suliya on Dayna's heels, eager to get a look inside.

  Incense-scented air swirled around them and escaped. "Lighten up. You want spellstones, right? This is your best bet, unless you want to hang around for a mineralogist show. I think there's one in a month or so in Columbus."

  "What is this place?" Suliya said. "It looks like the stuff for magic shows. Not real magic, but those bootin' shows where people try to trick you without using it."

  Mark gave her a hard look. "That's just the sort of thing you don't want to say once we get in here," he told her. "You'll insult everyone inside, not to mention drawing a lot of attention to yourself."

  "Lips stitched," Suliya said cheerfully. She reached over Dayna's shoulder to give Mark a little push.

  "You'll let the flies in."

  Inside, the tiny shop was decorated in the same vein as the sign, with plenty of purple velvet drapings and silken gold cords. Scratched glass display cases held jewelry and stones; a rotating rack offered card-mounted runes. Suliya went straight to the clothes lining the back wall—tie-dyed and batik and embroidered, all pretty much straight out of the seventies. Dayna dodged a small round table with a simple black cloth covering; a neatly stacked deck of tarot cards sat just off-center, wrapped in silk.

  With a musical jingle, a woman ducked through the curtain of bells that separated the front of the store from the back. "Hi," she said. "Let me know if you have any questions. I won't pester you." She sat on a stool behind the cash register counter and display case, an incongruous sight among the plethora of New Age items in her jeans and plain polo top. After a moment, another woman emerged from the back, a clipboard in hand and much more the image of a proprietess for a shop named Starland. Short hair—short to the point of a crew cut, were it not for the longer fringes aroun
d her face and neck—jangling earings, and a filmy black top over a long purple skirt.

  "Mark," she said, surprised.

  "Hey, Rita," he responded, easily enough so Dayna figured this wasn't, in fact, the woman he'd dated.

  "Brought some out-of-town friends in. Dayna needs some stuff for a project."

  "Stones," Dayna said. "Hard ones. Maybe some crystals . . . depends what you've got."

  "I'll show you," the jeans-clad woman said, sliding off the stool and weaving expertly through several tight displays to reach the customer side of the counter. "We've got some token stuff up front here, but the best selection is in the back."

  Suliya, having rejected all the clothing besides the black baby-doll T-shirt she clutched, turned sideways to nudge past them in the opposite direction. "Look," she said to Mark, displaying the shirt. "A horse—with a horn ."

  Dayna sighed. And then her gaze fell upon the display case in the back corner, nearly behind the clothes, and she felt a greedy delight. In the background, the woman Rita rang up Suliya's purchase, her voice a little too casual as she said, "From where did you say you were visiting?"

  "She didn't," Mark broke in, firmly.

  "Maybe you'd like a free reading? As one of Mark's friends—"

  "Nosy, Rita," Mark said, a tone of voice that told Dayna he really did know this woman . . . and also that he believed she was capable of discerning more than most. That she wanted to. Dayna looked over her shoulder, annoyed; he should have known better than to let Suliya come, if that were the case.

  Clearly he was operating in pure Mark Mode . . . too laid back to notice things that really did matter.

  Lighten up, Dayna. Mark's imagined voice in her head, his knee-jerk response to her need to control all the details. Of everything. Maybe this time he was right.

  And meanwhile Suliya all but jumped up and down and clapped her hands. "Oh, yes!" she said. For a rich girl, sometimes she seemed astonishingly naive. Even Dayna had to hide a smile when Suliya added, "A reading of what?" in that same eager voice; the woman who'd shown her the stones didn't bother to hide her own amusement.