Puzzled, Arlen followed the horse's gaze.
The bucket. He still had the bucket, hanging limply from his grasp. Most carefully, he set it down beside the stall and reached for Grunt's halter and lead rope.
Grunt gave him a look of utter disbelief and fled to the back of the stall.
"Grunt," Arlen said in disappointment. "It's not a very big stall. Even I can see the inevitable outcome here, and I can't put two thoughts together." He opened the stall door; it swung out, effectively blocking the aisle leading outside and to escape. No, no running. But when he went into the stall after Grunt, he looked again at the blocked aisle, and several thoughts tried very hard to rub together and come up with an idea.
Stop trying to think.
Do.
Arlen whirled the end of the lead rope in a short circle and cracked it sharply against Grunt's haunches.
Grunt quivered in astonished offense, not quite believing Arlen meant it.
"Put the halter on him and bring him here," the man said, not quite as patiently, unable to see through the sidewalls.
"Trying," Arlen said, even as he wound up for another smack.
Grunt saw it coming.
Grunt believed.
He dug his hind feet through the cheap straw bedding and into the dirt below, and he bolted from the stall in the only direction he could.
"Idiot!" the man exclaimed, high alarm building in his voice. "Whoa, whoa!"
He was a big man; Arlen looked out the stall to find him standing with his arms outstretched, enough to intimidate poor agreeable Grunt to a dancing halt.
Couldn't have that.
Don't try to think.
Do.
Arlen grabbed up the bucket, rolled it under Grunt's jigging feet, and charged down the aisle with a whoop, swinging the lead rope fast enough to make it sing through the air.
Grunt danced insanely atop the bucket for the merest instant before he broke, trampling over the man who would kill Arlen and leaving in his wake first a heartfelt curse of alarm and then involuntary cries of pain. As Arlen had long suspected, Grunt was not one of those nimble creatures who might have successfully avoided soft squishy things underfoot in tight spaces.
The liverykeep came charging out of the feed room, a metal scoop in one hand, a bucket in the other.
"What the rootin'—" she started, but then words apparently failed her.
Words were failing Arlen, too, who had just enough presence of mind to note that Grunt had well and truly stopped at the other end of the stall row and that perhaps whoever had prepared the vial had overestimated Arlen's weight. Or had known his weight . . . but not the fact that he'd lost some of it while traveling. He swayed over the man, he with the unfortunate iron-shod hoofprint in the middle of his bleeding face, and said with much import, "He tried to take my horse."
"Guides damn him," the woman said, irritated, nudging the man's foot with her own and not even eliciting a groan. "Another one to haul to the poor-healers." She gave Arlen a narrow-eyed look. "You don't look so good. You got a problem, get to the healers before I have to drag you , too."
"Drugged me," Arlen announced importantly. "So I'd be too stupid to stop him. Ha. Too stupid not to . . ."
She waved irritably at him. "Then get to the road inn and sleep it off. I'll deal with the horse. Stupid fool."
This to the badly injured man on the muddy, mucky floor. "I'm going to have to install a friend-foe detector with that new SpellForge perma-feature. Damned if that won't cost me some shine. Hey—you hear me? Get yourself to that road inn or—"
Arlen smiled, most beatifically, as the world spun a long, slow circle around him. Not at all alarming.
That, too, had to be . . . the . . . "Too late," he told her, and slowly deflated into a remarkably boneless heap, his last thought that of what it would be like to be dragged all the way to the road inn.
Chapter 18
Carey hesitated at the screen door off the kitchen, staring out at the barn, glancing back over his shoulder to the kitchen. Empty now, although it bore signs of his lunch, a pan soaking in the sink from his rewarmed sloppy joes.
Sloppy joes. He could only imagine that Jaime, in coming to Camolen, had encountered food with equally idiosyncratic names. He looked into the living room where Jess read one of Jaime's old books, something about a black stallion. He supposed that to Jess and Ramble, the two worlds weren't so different. Both equally strange, and full of the strange ways that humans named and built and handled things.
Ramble. He needed to talk to Ramble. To see for himself that there was no little detail, no question Jess might have neglected to ask simply because she did look at the world through equine-tinted eyes. From the sound of it, Ramble had only glimpsed the culprit . . . but what if that glimpse revealed a piece of clothing—a boot such as couriers often wore, the hooded half-cape favored over winter clothing by those in the northern regions of Camolen? When they had so little to work with, the details mattered . . .
But Jess . . .
She hadn't been bluffing. Short of physically restraining her—and keeping her that way—he wouldn't be able to stop her from taking Ramble away. From taking herself away.
Carey leaned his forehead against the worn white paint of the screen door frame, feeling the unaccustomed weight of this world settle around him. On him. A bone-deep fatigue he had no healer here to counteract, an awareness of his own unsoundness that brought back vivid memories of the days after he'd been hurt, when no one was sure just how well he'd recover from the spell Calandre had used on him—or even, for a while, if he'd recover at all.
Settling on top of that came Jaime's words. He didn't understand how or why someone would come after them, but he trusted that the threat was a real one . . . and that anyone with the resources and wherewithal to track them down would be smart enough to prepare finder spellstones. They wouldn't have to know this world; they wouldn't even have to know that Jaime's farm was called the Dancing Equine.
Although if it came down to it, he wasn't betting against that last. Plenty of people knew just a little bit about Jaime—Arlen's companion, the horsewoman from another world, and she who had spoken against both Calandre and Willand in a very public venue. Certainly anyone who took lessons from her at Anfeald knew the name of her farm.
They'd had a string of quiet days here. An opportunity to acclimate Ramble, to try to uncover his answers. Days in which they had no idea what was happening in Camolen, and during which their failing message system proved inadequate for true communication. It was only ever meant for quick notes, not full manuscripts. Thick, block letters, not fine script. And even at that, it faltered . . . the newest words had come through even more faintly than the previous ones.
For the first time he wondered if they could get back at all.
Any way he looked at it, the quiet days were over. As soon as Dayna finished with her spellstone hunt, they'd gather their things and go.
He lifted his head, looked at the barn. Last chance, it said to him. Once he's back in Camolen with you, he's a horse again.
Carey pushed the door open.
In Starland, in the wake of Dayna's surreptitious magic, the shop clerk's head jerked up, pinning Dayna with an astonished, dark-eyed stare. " What—" she started, and stopped, open-mouthed. Behind the counter, engrossed in some sort of reading with Suliya that had involved the flipping of cards, Rita gasped out loud.
Dayna came back from the concentration of doubling the lightest spellstone she carried—the friend-or-foe spell—and looked at the jeans-clad woman before her with a surprised embarrassment.
The stones nestled snugly in her palm, one agate from Ohio with a typical cut-crystal shape, long and narrow and faceted. The other agate from Camolen—also long and narrow, but with unevenly rounded edges and a satin polish. Similar stones from different worlds, black with delicate white-lace patterns.
Both now carrying the friend-or-foe spell.
She'd done it. She'd drawn Camolen's falterin
g energy through the existing spellstone to double it on the Ohio stone.
She just hadn't expected anyone to feel her do it.
"What," Rita said firmly, leaning over the counter with a deck of large cards in one hand, "are you doing?"
"Uh . . ." Dayna said, hunting for inspiration, still caught in her flush of success and very much caught out in the effort, "I—"
Mark leaned back against the cash register and raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms and suddenly, somehow, looking like the substantial and responsible one of the two of them. "What are you doing?" he asked. "Of all the places . . ."
"I didn't know anyone would feel it," Dayna blurted, now hunting for composure. Stupid, of course . . . there were plenty of people on this world who could no doubt detect and even manipulate magic, just as Dayna herself had been able. But she'd never realized her sensitivity before she'd reached Camolen, and it never occurred to her . . .
Of all the places. But that didn't mean she had to explain herself, or that she couldn't pretend she hadn't already effectively admitted she'd done anything at all. "Let me finish looking through these stones, and we can go."
"But did it work?" Suliya asked. "Weren't you going to—"
In unison, Mark and Dayna said, "Shut up, Suliya," except Dayna said it through her teeth. Mark only gave her a patient but implacable look.
"Burnin' poot," Suliya muttered. Dayna quickly picked out a tourmaline, a malachite, another agate, several nice onyx stones, and for kicks, a man-made deep blue egg of varying satin tones that the sales clerk muttered was fiber-optic material. Nothing here approaching the hard gems she'd have liked to use for the energy storage she had in mind, but then again even the gold they'd brought would only go so far.
Rita put the cards aside with a gesture of finality. "I'm afraid the energy here is too disrupted to focus on the reading any longer. Where did you say you were from?"
Again in unison, Mark and Dayna said, "She didn't." Then exchanged a wary glance, entirely unused to being of one mind.
The bells to the shop door jangled, and a fresh breeze blew through the incense-thick air.
"New deck of tarot cards," the new arrival said, as if they'd all been in whatever conversation he'd been carrying on in his own head. Dayna gave him no more than a glance—a medium-sized, duck-footed man with a shining dome of a forehead and the bright chip of an earring somehow out of place beside his soft features.
"Your third this week," Rita said, even as the woman with Dayna gave the man a look and sighed.
"The others just aren't right ," he said. "They don't feel right. I was doing a reading for a friend last night, you know, and we both agreed. We don't think the—"
He's going to say "vibes," Dayna thought, and made herself look quickly at the shadowed industrial tan linoleum tiles at her feet, unable to stop her amusement. She'd never heard anyone in Camolen say vibes .
"—vibes are right."
Vibes. Not even the proprietors of little roadside healer shacks, offering fixes conventional healers could not with slick infomercial-like patter, said vibes .
"As they never will be, if you don't give them a chance," Rita said with some asperity, blissfully ignorant of Dayna's thoughts. "Not that I'm not glad to sell you another deck—"
The door was yanked open again, having never settled to a fully closed position. Busy little place, Dayna decided as the sales clerk moved to greet the new arrival; Dayna got only a glimpse of the tall, willowy woman who entered. Nondescript, aside from her bearing, with mousy coloring and mousy clothing.
Although those clothes— Mark cut off her view, dragging Suliya by the hand. "You almost done here?"
"Almost," Dayna said, adding to Suliya, "here, hold these," even as she dumped her cache of stones into Suliya's free hand.
"If this is your idea of shopping, I don't think much of it," Suliya grumbled, tilting her hand to shift and examine the stones.
Dayna gave an absent shake of her head. "No, this is hit and run."
"More like errands than shopping," Mark offered, pulling out his billfold, eyeing the price sign and estimating the cost to tug out a few fives.
"Wow, you must like crystals." The tarot-deck man edged in behind Dayna. Dismayed, she caught Mark's eye; he gave a tiny one-shoulder shrug. She knew the sound of someone wanting to make conversation so they could eventually talk about themselves. The man liked crystals. He liked the feel of them. He liked their . . .
Vibes.
Suliya got an impish look on her face, one Dayna didn't like at all, and said, "They're spellstones."
The brat. Dayna hastily scooped up a few more stones. "I'm done," she announced, and caught Rita's eye. "There's fifteen here in all."
With a clatter of keys on the old cash register, Rita rang them up; Mark eased through the clutter of the store to pay for them.
But Dayna was right; the man wanted to talk about himself, not listen to Suliya's answer—to the point that he seemed not to notice she had . "I put them around the house, you know?" he said. "It makes a nice healing zone, you know? All my friends say so. That when you walk into the house, you can just feel the vi—"
Suliya said, "Here. Look at this one."
Guides. "Dammit, Suliya—"
And Suliya's glance said it all, written right there on the perfect sepia tones of her face. The face of a young woman used to having influence, who'd had enough of Suliya do this and Suliya do that and especially Suliya, shut up . As the man's finger reflexively touched the stone Suliya held out—the crystal-cut agate Dayna had doubled—Suliya triggered it. Both women from the shop jerked at the feel of magic, Rita's eyes narrowing as she dumped change in Mark's hand, her sales clerk pivoting around from the rune she showed the other customer— Friend or foe. A blue aura surrounded the man, glowing far too brightly to have been mistaken for any trick of the light; he looked at his own hands, astonished and utterly wordless for perhaps the first time in a decade. Blue light surrounded Rita and the sales clerk as well, both of them clearly holding their breath, eyes wide and caught between wonder and fear.
"Oh," Suliya said, not looking at all pleased despite the perfect results of her prank. "Oh poot. Dayna—"
And Dayna looked where Suliya was staring. At the woman customer.
The woman customer limned in orange light. Fading now, but still unmistakable, as was the suddenly satisfied expression on her face as she gently pushed the sales clerk aside. "You made that so easy," she said.
Her clothes—mousy, but passing for funky post-hippie . . . and equally at home in Camolen as casual wear.
Dayna clutched her original friend-foe spellstone in one hand, her remaining selection of fresh stones in the other. Suliya gave her a panicked, apologetic glance, and Dayna gave a sharp shake of her head. "I don't know how she followed us here, but you didn't do it. She must have had a finder spellstone. Or known about—" The Dancing Equine. Carey and Jess and Ramble . . . "The Dancing Equine. Yes. It's already being taken care of," the woman said. Annoyance crossed her face and she moved to the center of the store, stopping short when Mark straightened from the counter, stuffing his wallet back in his pocket and looking far more imposing than Dayna had ever expected of him. Mark, grown up at last . The woman touched her tunic just below the notch of her collarbone; no doubt the series of lumps there were her spellstones. She'd come prepared. She said, "You and your friends have a distressing habit of ignoring the rules and running off to do good."
Mark flexed his hands slightly, looking both ready and wary. "And the people who try to stop us have a convenient habit of failing."
"But why try to stop us?" Suliya blurted. "Maybe we're not supposed to be here, but we're only trying to find out what's gone wrong at home—"
" What's gone wrong is being attended. No one needs to know the details—"
"Get burnt," Dayna snarled at her. "The Council is dead. And I was right . A single tragic incident, my lovely ass. You know about the static, I'll bet. Whoever you are. And you do
n't want to accept responsibility—"
Behind the counter, Rita stealthily reached for the phone—911, that's all they'd need. "No!" Mark told her. "Rita, don't."
"Don't, my lovely ass." Rita glared at him, but drew her hand back. "I want you all out of here, right now ."
"Exactly my intent," the woman said. "More or less."
Mark rolled his eyes, very much a here we go again expression.
Very low, Dayna said, "Get her spellstones."
The woman gave her a disapproving look as Mark hesitated, too aware of the woman's ability to invoke the stones as long as they touched her skin. "Don't ask me how you even made it this far," the woman said, and magic flared around them, strong magic. Rita and her sales clerk cried out; the clerk scrambled away, darting back behind the counter to leave Mark and Suliya and Dayna on the cluttered sales floor with the duck-footed man inching back to disappear between the hanging items of clothing.
Strong magic. Complicated magic. Enough to take them back to Camolen or imprison them for interrogation or simply turn them to ashes on the spot. Whatever she had on those spellstones . . .
But only what she had on those spellstones, whereas Dayna stood with all the magic of Camolen at her disposal if she could but somehow pause a spellstone in progress and draw on the connection.
Dangerous. Untried. Do it.
She flashed Mark a look, a warning. Closed her eyes, knowing he'd move to protect her if needed—if he could. And invoked the friend-foe spellstone, wishing she had something more complex, something that wouldn't be over so quickly— She pounced. With the precision of a surgeon, she pounced. The invoked spell, released from the stone and still connected to it, stopped in mid-process, and hung there, the pressure of the magic beating within her like deep emotions threatening to explode.
And they would, if she couldn't control them. If she didn't guide them.
The obvious—a shield. They all carried shieldstones, but those were simple stones triggered by the use of magic against the wearer—not, say, against the building which could then fall upon the wearer.
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