Changespell Legacy

by Doranna Durgin

  "And they wanted you because you're the best," Carey said flatly.

  Wheeler gave a faint grin. "If there wasn't something weakening the magic, you'd have good reason to know it." He shrugged. "My mistake. But it doesn't matter. If they broke faith . . . you've nothing to worry about from me. You tell me more about what's going on, you might even find me on your side . . . because I have to wonder how much else they didn't tell me."

  Dayna snorted, planting her hands on boyish hips. "Very convenient for you. So we just let you go, even after what you've done here. What you tried to do."

  "I'm not sure you have much choice," he said. "You don't seem like the sort to kill in cold blood. None of you. And I guarantee you that conventional means won't hold me."

  Carey scrubbed a hand through the short hair at the back of his neck, suddenly looking tired of the whole thing. "He's got a point, Dayna."

  She gave him a furious glare. "You didn't learn enough from Ernie? You let him go . . . and boy, didn't that come back to haunt us!"

  Jess understood Dayna's fear. She understood what it was like to watch the world making decisions around her, and in spite of her. But she said, "This man is not Ernie."

  "Guides, just use a burnin' spellstone on him," Suliya said, her voice thin and a little thready. Your father , Wheeler had started to say to her. Not the SpellForge board or FreeCast —and if Jess understood that, so did Suliya. Whatever was happening, her father had a direct role. "It'll tell you where he stands, won't it? Or use a liar spell. Just quit biting at each other about it!" And she whirled to stomp off—and couldn't.

  Not with the aisle once more blocked by a wall of hay, and Wheeler himself behind a barrier against the double doors. With a faint noise of despair, she turned against the hay bales and hid her face, removing herself from the space in the only way she could.

  Jess felt a tug of compassion, an impulse to go rub the young woman's back and tell her easy . . . but she stayed where she was. If she was going to feel for someone right now, it had to be Ramble.

  And herself.

  "That's a good idea," Mark said, giving Dayna a hopeful look. "You can do that, can't you?"

  "Of course I can—but these storage stones aren't endless." Unexpectedly, she tossed him the one she'd just used, muttering in the most sardonic of tones, "Eat all you want. We'll make more." And almost immediately waved off Wheeler's frown, Carey's raised eyebrow, Jess's tilt of head. "Forget it. Old television commercial. Yes, I can do that. Yes, it's a good idea."

  "Good," Jess said. "Then you can go back to thinking about sending Ramble back. With me."

  "I think you should wait," Dayna said bluntly, although she hesitated as someone drove up to the barn—car door closing, tack room door opening and closing, a few moments of casual bumping around in the tack room itself, and then someone came into the aisle, evidently thinking herself alone to judge by her pointed comment about the odor she encountered.

  "That's Caitlin," Mark said. "Her horse is at the other end of the aisle. Keep it down and we'll be fine."

  "If you wait," Dayna persisted, barely seeming to notice the interruption, "I can be more certain of the magic, and take us all back at once. And we might have more information to give to Jaime."

  Wheeler smiled. "I wouldn't count on that. I don't have details. I know someone went out to contain a situation with the Council and it went very wrong—the idiot used raw magic for an illusion spell, and triggered a mess. I know the initial problem involves magic—can't imagine you hadn't guessed that. I believe it somehow involves a SpellForge product, but that's common sense when you put the facts together. And I was told you were interfering—making the situation for SpellForge worse than it had to be, and that my job was to get you out of the way so SpellForge could handle things its own way."

  Suliya jerked away from the hay, her face flushed and crumpled with emotion. "I'll be spelled if that's all!

  You know something about my father—you know things he's done. You as much as said it!"

  "I might," Wheeler told her, surprisingly gentle. "But it's irrelevant to this conversation, and I have no reason to breach that faith."

  "Tell me," she demanded, roughly wiping hay from her damp cheek. " Tell me!"

  Her reaction brought Ramble to the front of the stall; he watched with a curious tilt to his head, ears fully perked. Or they would have been.

  They would be again, soon. When he was back in Camolen. A horse again. Jess let Mark go to Suliya, playing a role somewhere between big brother and friend; she stayed in the conversation with Dayna.

  "You see. Nothing to wait for."

  Carey started, stricken. "You want to go now ?"

  "Now," she said.

  From over Suliya's head and its trembling curls, Mark said, "Look, I'm with you, Jess, but I think it's worth an overnight. Dayna's already pulled off some pretty serious magic today. And we should make one last try to contact Jaime—even if we can't get all this information through to her, maybe we can get some sense of what's happening there . Try to prepare you for it."

  Jess looked at Dayna, trying to ignore Carey's palpable relief, the way he leaned back against the wall, the deep, trying-to-be-surreptitious breath he took. Dayna, too, had sagged a little, as if she'd let some of the air out of herself. "He's right about that," she said. "I've done too much already. And this isn't exactly a spell we want to go wrong . . ."

  Jess felt the flare of her own nostrils, irritation made manifest. But she glanced at Ramble, who said, "Tomorrow," and nodded, and she gave a slight nod herself. "Tomorrow," she repeated. "But not beyond. Because today is already too late."

  Chapter 20

  Suliya sat cross-legged on the bed she'd come to call hers but in truth was borrowed space in a borrowed room that quite clearly belonged to someone else. Jaime's simple taste and style were nothing like her own; pleasant enough to the eye, it nonetheless lacked the expensive class to which Suliya had long been accustomed.

  She stroked one of the shirts she'd brought. One of her favorites, cut perfectly to her measurements and well spelled against wear and tear; she could have worn it to clean the barn if she'd wanted.

  She hadn't worn it at all. She'd brought it more for the comfort of having it than for the intent of wearing it. In truth, she couldn't wear it here, not without drawing attention—not with its Camolen cut, a very feminine version of Wheeler's professional attire, and the magical sheen of it. Smooth, slick material slid past her fingertips, and then the texture of color-on-color, satin-stitch embroidery. Gorgeous. Sensuous.

  A deep teal that was stunning against her dark skin, and usually reminded her of the sister who had given it to her.

  Now it just reminded her of the family wealth and influence . . . and her sudden new insights into how those advantages had been acquired.

  Out in the kitchen, Mark gave a low laugh at something Dayna said; those two pretended to quarrel more often than not, but beneath their words lay the easy byplay of long acquaintance . . . and a trust Suliya had never felt anyone offer to her.

  Too much of her father, showing through? Or some other flaw?

  She abruptly realized she had no idea of how the others viewed her. She knew only how she'd viewed herself, and suddenly that didn't seem like a reliable measure.

  Mark laughed again; dishes clattered. They must be cleaning up after the evening meal. Normally Mark would be gone off to his night shift—at a small road inn, Suliya was given to understand—but he'd called in sick after the events of the day.

  Suliya didn't blame him. She'd felt too sick to eat herself.

  The pantry door squeaked open, and Dayna reported, "Nothing!" loud enough to be heard throughout the house—for Jess and Carey had retreated to their room immediately after the meal, but were no less anxious to hear a response from Jaime than anyone else.

  Unfamiliar tones followed Dayna's announcement—Wheeler, asking a question Suliya couldn't make out. She'd be burnt if he hadn't passed Dayna's friend-or-foe test
with bootin' ease—meaning his aura blazed just about the same mix of blue and orange light as his words would indicate, and that therefore he'd represented himself accurately enough that while they might not trust him, they could trust what he told them.

  They'd just better ask all the right questions at the right time, Suliya thought darkly, still angered that while the man had said enough to cast doubt on everything she'd thought she'd known about her father, Wheeler then sealed his mouth against the questions he'd raised in her.

  Well, maybe they'd go home soon. Maybe Suliya could just ask those questions herself. She'd already been shoved out to take the world on her own to prove herself . . . what more could he do?

  With that intention determined, she quite abruptly snatched the shirt up and shoved it into her carrysack, not heeding the careless crumple of the material and pretending not to realize that the gesture was an empty one—this particular shirt could never wrinkle. For good measure, she kicked the carryall under the bed and headed for the hall and then the kitchen. If she couldn't pry any more information from Wheeler, maybe she could flirt with Mark. She liked the grin he gave her when she did, as if the two of them were sharing a secret joke of some sort . . . a joke on Dayna or just on the world in general, she wasn't sure, but right now it would be a rife distraction.

  She didn't get that far. Jess's voice from behind the closed bedroom door distracted her, firm and yet carrying that sad note she'd had lately. Sad or frustrated . . . and as little as Suliya had known her before they'd come on this trip, she knew neither sad nor frustrated were words she'd have used to describe Jess with Carey.

  "I trust Dayna," Jess said. "She won't send us unless it's safe."

  "Dayna makes her trails as she goes along," Carey said. Also sad . . . working an argument he knew he was going to lose, but not willing to give it up. "She goes more on gut than experience."

  "Inner feelings of what she believes is right, you mean," Jess said, the slightest hesitation there. Suliya drifted toward the door, all but putting her ear to the crack between door and wall. Even so, she couldn't hear Carey's response clearly, though he obviously confirmed the intent of his comment for Jess. She said, "She proves over and over that her inner feelings are to be trusted."

  "She almost killed us with raw magic backlash," Carey said, more loudly this time. Frustrated, like Jess.

  "Before she even knew what it was," Jess said, evidently unmoved. "I have inner feelings of what I think is right, too. Right for Ramble . . . and right for me . I told you so . . . over and over." Her voice got huskier than usual, her words a little clumsier. "No one listened. Even I didn't listen—until now I see I'm the only one left who can. Tomorrow Dayna will be rested . . . Jaime's message board will still be blank.

  I will take her the information about SpellForge, and Ramble will be himself again."

  "You're really going," Carey said. Suliya held her breath, hearing the catch in his voice. Bold Carey.

  Do-what-it-takes Carey. Head courier, suddenly sounding like someone else altogether. Someone grieving and torn and full of sorrow . . . someone who's brought it upon himself and knows it, and maybe just a touch of surprise to realize so. "Jess," he said. "Jess, I—"

  "I know," Jess said, sounding just the same—but not. No surprise. Just regret and sorrow. "Carey, you put me where I have no choice. Not unless I spurn who I am, and then neither of us would like me."

  That wrung a groan from him, but no protest. "I can't argue that," he said. "For someone who never used words until a few years ago, you have a way with them."

  There was a pause, during which Suliya suddenly realized just how blatantly she'd eavesdropped, and how bad it would look if someone came this way to use the bathroom. She glanced around; not so much as a shadow darkening the hall entrance, or a skip in the rhythm of the conversation in the kitchen, which seemed to be about Mark's favorite tweak on Dayna right now—email versus the wizard dispatch.

  Jess spoke again; she'd moved within the room, from one side to the other. Close to Carey, now.

  Sounding sadder than ever. "You never ride me as Lady anymore. You won't even talk about it."

  Carey's silent scowl filled the air; Suliya might as well have been in there with them, seeing it. But it faded, and he said simply, "No. I don't." An answer to both statements . . . and to neither. There was another pause, one that puzzled her—until he spoke again, and this time his voice was rough with something other than sorrow, and slightly breathless as well. "This," he said, "is what I want you to think about right now. The way I love you. This is what I want you to take back with you when you're in Camolen without me."

  And Jess murmured a response, but Suliya didn't catch it—and she was suddenly just as sure that neither had Carey, and that it was bootin' right timing to move away from the door.

  Arlen woke.

  For the moment, that was significant enough.

  After his infringing awareness moved through dull perception of self to recognition of horse calling horse outside, the lumpy bed under his back, the bite of too-chill air against his nose and cheeks, and the truly wretched taste in his mouth, he finally put it all together.

  The man. The road inn. Poor frightened Grunt. And the drug. Surely a miscalculated dose; his would-be abductor had wanted him pliable and unable to work magic, not dosed to insensibility. With a grimace, he worked his tongue around inside his mouth, and found not only did it fail to improve the situation, but that his mouth tasted equally bad in all parts of it.

  It might, then, be time to open his eyes.

  He did so cautiously, wincing at the alarming swirl of the canted ceiling— No, wait. That was some previous generation's idea of style in textured ceiling presentation, not his perception. Offended but heartened, he lifted his head and discovered a tiny room with barely enough head room to stand. An attic room. His gear sat in an undignified pile by the door, clashing with the foil effect of the flower-dotted wallpaper; light streamed in a small round window with bright fuchsia drapings, and the bed covers someone had twitched over his clothed body were an astonishing yellow.

  Arlen closed his eyes, put his arm over them, and muttered, "An exceptionally cruel awakening."

  On the other hand, he was lucky to have woken up at all. And the sooner he forced his eyes open and got out of this bed, the sooner he could get out of this room. The sooner he would reach home .

  The thought spurred him on, and he rolled out of bed, finding his limbs stiff and gawky but in working condition. After several attempts he draped his saddlebags and satchel over his person and stumbled out in desperate need of a bathroom.

  When he finally found the road inn proprietor—bodily needs cared for, stomach full of the sideboard breakfast of vegetable bread and jams from the lobby—he didn't ask about the circumstances of his arrival and the woman didn't mention them; he paid his bill and he headed for the livery, hoping to find Grunt in at least as good a condition as himself.

  Grunt greeted him with suspicious surprise— I know who threw that bucket—and went back to eating what was left of his morning hay. Skirting the dark bloodstains on the dirt floor, Arlen found the rest of his gear where he'd left it and settled down on an upturned bucket—the same bucket, cracked and worse for wear—to study his map and rub his upper lip in absent search for the still-missing mustache.

  He'd been doing this the easy way. Small but substantial towns, skip-hopping his way back to Anfeald.

  Getting closer. Always a road inn to be found, usually space in the livery rings, and people had been friendly without either nosiness or suspicion.

  Things would have to change.

  No more magic outside of life-and-death circumstances; someone had found him once, and they could do it again. No more reaching out to Jaime, no matter how subtle the magic— I had her, burn it, I know I had her —no more foot-warming spells, not unless he purchased them.

  At least the passing days and passing territory had brought with them slightly warmer weather, altho
ugh that in turn promised to bring on mud—and with his newly planned, deliberately obscure route and the disturbed service system within Camolen, he doubted the road crews would be as vigilant as usual.

  For whoever last night's assailant had been, the people behind him could easily conclude Arlen was headed for home. And since he was —and unwilling to change that goal—his only option was to get there by the least likely route possible.

  Side roads. Nights in barns. Zigzagging the small trails and paths that made up ruralmost Camolen, varying his heading without varying his destination. "This," he told the map in complete disgruntlement, "is one of the reasons I became a wizard in the first place. To avoid such situations."

  It wasn't entirely true. He was a wizard because he could hardly be else; he'd been spelling since he'd first learned how to lift his cousin's skirt in public at the age of three. Not, incidentally, when he also first learned that older and wiser minds could discern from just where a spell originated.

  With a sigh, he folded the map and stuck it in the outermost pocket of his saddlebags, pried Grunt away from the faint wisps of remaining hay, and tacked the horse up, settling the bill as he led the horse out of the stable. He also paused to politely ask the attendant—not the same woman from the night before and thank the guides for that—where he might find Lilton Trail, after which he waited for the lad to duck back inside, and promptly headed in the opposite direction.

  Walking fast.

  By midday he found himself sitting on a rock—a dry rock, for which he counted himself lucky—staring at darkening slate clouds with the gloomy suspicion that they would bring not snow, but cold rain. He cut a round slab of spiced trail sausage from the long hunk he'd purchased at the edge of town, and when Grunt quit pawing the slush to uncover slumped winter grass to offer an inquiring huff, he let the horse take a good sniff.