Changespell 01 Dunn Lady's Jess

by Doranna Durgin

  It was Mark who captured her outstretched hand and used it to pull her into another hug, a slow, cradling hug, resting his cheek on the top of her head. "C'mon, Jay," he said. "Let's find that shade."

  * * *

  When Carey, armed with three cool herbal teas, arrived back at the spreading shade tree that was a central part of Sherra's backyard, he was ready to get down to business. The part of him that had been so raw and open as he confronted Lady exorcised of Jess was now closed tightly away, leaving that cold and determined courier who was capable of risking an entire barnful of someone else's horses in order to obtain his goal. A courier who could not take the time to deal with Jess, or even with the horrifying news of his six assistant riders, every one of whom had been killed.

  "Mark's told me what happened with Dayna," Jaime greeted him from the carved wooden bench on which she and her brother sat, and accepted the ceramic tumbler he offered her. Carey gave another to Mark and took the bench opposite them, no longer really interested in the past, but reluctantly accepting that Jaime would need to understand what he and Mark already knew. "I can't believe she can manipulate magic so well," she continued. "I certainly haven't the faintest idea how to go about it."

  "Neither does she," Carey said wryly. "Or none of us would have spent a day sleeping off the effect of the backlash." But that was not really a response to Jaime's unspoken question, so he sighed and told her what he himself had only recently learned. "Chiara—that's Sherra's most advanced student—asked me a lot about her—what kind of person she was, what kind of habits she had. . . ."

  "I told her, 'inflexible,' " Mark put in, adding a quick but fleeting grin to show it wasn't meant to be a criticism. "You know how she is about keeping her own little self-imposed schedules."

  "And you were the one person she could never get to pay the least bit of attention to them," Jaime said. "Oil and water, that's you two. But I think I understand what you're getting at . . . she's got a lot of self-discipline. What we might see as inflexibility can also be called . . ." and she wrinkled her nose in quick thought, "an ability to channel her energies in an orderly way."

  Carey blinked. Damn good thinking there. "Right," he said. "But without the schooling, she put us all in a lot of danger. Of course she got the worst of it, and she was in pretty bad shape to begin with. But she'll probably be out and about before this evening."

  "I think you're making light of the whole thing," Jaime said evenly. "Sherra was with you for an awfully long time, and went straight off to rest. But she took care of my head injury and didn't seem the least bit fazed."

  "An . . . overdose of magic like that, pure magical energy . . . it disrupts the entire body," Carey said, and allowed himself a brief smile as he added, using the benefit of his time in front of the Cabot television set, "sort of like a phaser on heavy stun. It was damn hard work for her to take three of us and put us to rights again, and I won't lie to you—for Dayna it was a close thing. But she really is all right, and there's no point in dwelling on it."

  "Okay," Jaime said, letting go of the topic if not the worry that settled between her brows. "Then tell me what's going on here. Did you find out anything about Arlen? And what about the checkspell—do they have one yet?"

  It was then he recognized something of himself in her. No one on this world would be interested in restoring three people to Marion, Ohio, until the local crisis had passed. She had herself set on that goal, just as he had aimed himself at returning here, and right now that meant putting aside her feelings about Eric, Jess and all the strangeness that surrounded her. He glanced at Mark and wondered what was hidden behind the face that seemed to be interested in studying the bits of herbs still floating in the tea.

  "No," he said, finally answering Jaime's question. "I dictated the spell to Chiara, but until then, no one here but Arlen had a complete version of it."

  "Then he's still alive."

  "As far as anybody knows." Carey's hand drifted to the spellstones that rested on his chest. "There's a lot of supposition going on."

  "Why don't you just tell us everything you've learned?" Jaime suggested firmly. "Just start at the beginning and give us the whole thing."

  Carey shook his head, not in dissent, but rather at the uselessness of it all. "And then what? You think you're going to step in and solve all our problems?"

  She stared at him a moment and said, icily, "I deserve better than that, Carey. We're here because you fell into a park in Ohio, and because we took you into our lives. We rate an explanation, dammit! The only thing that's going to make all this bearable is if we know, somehow, that in the end it was all worth it."

  Remorse nudged at the walls he had set in place, the tunnel-vision walls he had just seen echoed in Jaime. His quick response was self-protective, an effort to leave the walls standing. "All right, all right." He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, trying to organize all that he had learned just recently himself. Mark, too, had heard some of it, but for the most part had been preoccupied with Dayna's condition while Carey had been busy grilling Chiara.

  "All right," he started again. "About the same time Derrick went after me, Calandre used a stolen recall spell to get into Arlen's stronghold. He would have been warned, though, that the person who showed up in his recall room was unauthorized—he must have been, or he wouldn't have been able to blast a warning to Sherra. Calandre cut him off, of course, but at least we know he probably had time to erect the security walls—uh, magic walls of force that would keep her out of his private quarters. So it's possible he's simply waiting out the siege—and she's got a surplus of armed men holding the grounds to keep away any chance of rescue—not to mention the forces that are wandering around, indiscriminately making trouble in her name."

  "He has food and water to last all this time?"

  Carey's inward frown was bigger than the one he let show. "Water, yes, since it's spring and rainy, and he can collect it. Food . . . I doubt it."

  "And magic can't create something from nothing, can it," Jaime said. "Or, at least, you were always saying about Jess that magic couldn't change the essential nature of what she was."

  But I was wrong about Jess. "Magic affects things. It reveals things. It doesn't create them, or change nonliving matter into living matter."

  "All of which is a roundabout way to say that Jay is right," Mark said dryly, looking up from his tea. "Which also means that Arlen's probably pretty hungry by now."

  "And he's not going to be able to keep the security walls up forever," Carey muttered. "Not once he weakens." He flopped back against the bench, his head tilted back so he looked up at the fluffy white clouds above them. Damn, damn, damn. This gets worse and worse. Jaime and Mark were quiet, giving him his thoughts.

  "I've got a way to get to him," Carey said finally, abruptly. "It's foolhardy, and it'll probably get us both killed, but I do have a way."

  "How can you get in there if Calandre can't?" Mark asked reasonably.

  "Because I've got the only recall that can also be triggered to his private quarters." But you had to know it was there. You had to know how to use it. Carey fingered the stones again, remembering the day he'd been taught the extra nudge of triggering that would take him to Arlen's quarters instead of the stable receiving room—when Arlen had chosen him as head courier. I'm not a healer, Carey, he'd confessed, but you're going to risk your life for me on a fairly regular basis. If something should happen . . . well, you use this. I'll do all I can for you. He'd even used it once before, the day he lost Lady's half-brother. What had he been carrying? Something for Calandre, before she got so ambitious. It hadn't even been all that important, but some burning little wizardlet had thought it would be the key to his own success. Arlen had played the healer well enough on that day.

  "Carey?" Jaime prompted. "I think you've wandered off without us."

  "Sorry," Carey said absently, thinking about the guns stowed beneath his bed. "Nothing important. Just wondering how long it'll take me to get
this rescue launched."

  * * *

  "Absolutely not," Sherra said. Her hand, poised over a platter of sliced venison, withdrew and momentarily tightened into a fist beside her plate. But if she was torn over her decision, there was no other sign. Carey's responsive bristling was anything but subordinate, and Jaime wondered if they were going to get into a brawl over lunch. Sherra's husband, Trent, eyed them watchfully from a few seats down.

  After a moment, when Carey's attitude made it obvious he had every intention of charging off on his own despite her verdict, Sherra collected herself and said, "Our first priority—the same as Arlen's first priority, were he here to tell us—is to find a checkspell."

  "That doesn't have anything to do with me," Carey said, not a whit less determined. "You do your job, and I'll do mine. I work for Arlen, if you'll remember."

  "It has everything to do with you." Sherra sighed, and reached for the meat she had abandoned, bringing the conversation back down to a less confrontational mode. Jaime found herself relaxing a little, and lifted the tumbler of the herbal tea for which she was beginning to acquire a taste. Her eyes never left Carey and Sherra, who sat opposite one another at the long table—although in her peripheral vision, Mark continued his meal without slacking. He always could eat through anything.

  Carey was shaking his head. "Don't stop there, Sherra, not if you're trying to get me to change my mind."

  "I'm thinking," she snapped. "I have to say this just right to have any chance at getting through your thick skull."

  Jaime coughed, covering laughter, and avoided Carey's gaze as it turned suspiciously on her.

  "I'm missing something here," Mark said. "Carey told me about your Wizard's Council and the precinct justice sessions. Why didn't anyone in Erowah manage to warn you guys about Calandre?"

  "I've wondered the same thing." Jaime looked over her tumbler and caught Sherra's gaze, raising her eyebrow. "No one noticed she was amassing manpower? Magic power?"

  "I watched your television news," Carey said. "Plenty of little governmental overthrows going on. Calandre stays secluded from the rest of the precinct. Making alliances with other, lesser wizards wouldn't be all that difficult to accomplish quietly, as long as she didn't make waves in other ways. And she hasn't recently—until now." He glared at Sherra and came down hard on his next words. "And I want to know what you're going to do about it."

  All right," Sherra nodded, apparently having arrived at her strategy. "Given: we're going to need all of the high-caliber wizards at work on a checkspell, and we cannot afford to be distracted. After all, there is a time limit here—as soon as Arlen can no longer keep up his security, Calandre's people will be on him. He's not going to have any resistance left, and she will get the spell from him." She nodded to herself, her thick hair stirring with the motion, her eyes on her internal scenario. Then she looked back at Carey and said simply, "Anyway, given that, we cannot afford to have you stirring Calandre up."

  "Why?" Mark asked, somehow managing to time an empty mouth with the right moment to insert the question.

  "Why?" she repeated, eyebrows raised in surprise. "Carey can tell you that one, if he thinks about it."

  Carey scowled. "She's got more than ground forces—she's got a cadre of former students. If she throws a temper tantrum, and uses her magic against some of the innocent people between us and her, it's going to take magic to counteract them."

  "Skilled magic," Sherra asserted. "There are plenty of useful spells around that can be subverted to do harm. Counteracting them would take away from our crucial efforts to get that checkspell."

  "But if you rescue Arlen, you won't need to race Calandre for the checkspell," Jaime said, puzzled.

  "I know it doesn't seem clear-cut," Sherra admitted. "But our priority has to be the checkspell. Even if Calandre already has the spell—even if she's already used it, for there's plenty of magic going on in that big stone hold of Arlen's—we've still got to get a checkspell in place. It might seem like whipping a horse after the race is over, but we can do our best to keep the damage to a minimum. If we anger Calandre, we're back where we started in this conversation—diverted from our essential goal."

  "So," Mark said, "even though you can't be sure it's not the right thing, the consequences of having it be the wrong thing are too great to risk going after Arlen."

  "Pay attention to him," Sherra said to Carey, faint humor in her voice. "You could learn from a sensible young man like this."

  Carey did not take the gentle reproof well; it struck sparks in his hazel eyes. "Sensible is not what Arlen needs! He needs help, and I don't know that I'm going to sit around here wiggling my toes when I'm the one that can give it to him!"

  "Oh, you won't have the time to sit around wiggling your toes," Sherra responded with satisfaction. "I need couriers aplenty to help me coordinate this checkspell business. There's no way, of course, that we're going to spellspeak our information—and there's far too much riding for the people and horses I have left. Even the addition of your mare will be of great help to us."

  "Bring the others here," Carey suggested without sympathy.

  "And draw us all together in one big target? I don't think so." Sherra shook her head with a wry smile.

  "Could you use another rider?" Jaime heard herself saying.

  "Jaime, no!" Carey said sharply. "It's too dangerous. Ask Sherra why she's so short on horses and riders in the first place!"

  But Sherra was eyeing Jaime with a thoughtful look on her face. "No, it might work, Carey. It's true that I'm short because my people have been injured, but she can take the rides that are close to home, the ones to the less prestigious wizards. We can easily give her a maplight." She paused a moment in thought and then said, "That would certainly free up some of our own riders for the longer runs—the ones out of Siccawei."

  Carey looked completely unconvinced. "There's no reason to put her in more danger than she's already been through."

  "It's my decision, Carey," Jaime said, an edge in her voice.

  "And mine," Sherra asserted. "And I think we'll try it, Jaime, with much gratitude. If you feel differently after a few runs, you can always change your mind. We'll still be that much further ahead."

  Mark said cheerfully, "I can't ride like Jay can. But I clean a mean stall."

  Sherra smiled. "We've no shortage of people qualified for that job. But I don't doubt we'll find something to keep you occupied."

  The conversation stalled while Carey picked over his food and Sherra's attention was commandeered by a harried-looking man with a crowded page of notes. When he left, Carey looked up from the meal he had been pushing around his plate; his expression had lost its defiance, if none of its determination.

  "There's something else," he said. "Another friend of mine needs help."

  "That would be Jess?" Sherra asked.

  He snorted. "I should have known you'd have heard about that."

  "Morley," Sherra provided. "I have no answers for you, Carey. Before Hanni was forced to take action, I could have been more reassuring, but now . . . Once we get past some of the details of getting the other wizards here, and have started work on the checkspell, Chiara will try to find some time to investigate the situation."

  Jaime half expected another argument, but instead Carey nodded. "It's more than I expected," he said. "Thank you."

  "Don't bother—not until Chiara's managed to find that time. There's no predicting what's ahead of us, Carey. Assuming that our world will fall back into place just as it's always been is a mistake." Sherra got up from the bench seat and gathered her dishes, looking at Jaime and Mark. "I'm glad we had the chance to lunch together. If I don't have the time to speak with you at length in the near future, please don't take it amiss."

  "Of course not," Jaime said, as Mark chimed in with, "Heck, no." Jaime watched as Sherra took her utensils to the washtub and cleaned them, and suddenly realized how much she admired this woman, who seemed to be as expert with people as she was wit
h magic.

  Carey had given up the pretense of eating; he clicked his tongue, luring one of the several rangy dogs that wandered the room. The animal cleaned his plate with big eager swipes of his tongue while Mark and Jaime kept their silence, letting Carey choose the path of their conversation.

  "Hey, guys." The voice behind her was quiet, a little uncertain, a little embarrassed.

  "Dayna!" Mark and Jaime chorused, twisting to see her. She was dressed in a simply cut shift that reached to midcalf, a deep sky blue that echoed the color of her eyes and contrasted with black lines of piping along the seams and hems. Like her own borrowed clothing, Jaime thought—simple but not without style. Dayna herself looked drawn but steady on her feet, if somewhat unsure of her reception.

  Jaime and Mark wasted no time scooting away from one another, leaving room for Dayna in an unspoken invitation to sit. Unencumbered by food, she climbed over the bench and sat, quietly offering, "I already ate upstairs."

  "Are you all right? You look pretty good. In fact, you look too much like a certain Dayna I know who doesn't believe in magic," Jaime teased.

  "Just because it's here doesn't mean I have to like it," Dayna said, her fine brows drawn together.

  "Ow." Jaime winced.

  Dayna twisted the material of a long sweeping sleeve, and muttered, "Sorry. It's not you I'm mad at."

  "Who are you mad at?" Mark asked.

  Dayna looked like she was about to burst with anger and frustration, and it took her a moment to get her words together. "They say I have to learn magic!"

  "Who says?" Mark rejoined immediately, glancing at Carey, who shrugged.

  "Sherra. Her students. All the wizards here. I told them I didn't want anything to do with it."

  Carey replaced his well-licked plate on the table and scrutinized Dayna. "Backlash or no, what you did saved us," he said, and when she shook her head in automatic denial, he insisted, "Yes, it did. Maybe we'd have gotten out of the situation anyway—but maybe not. The ability to channel strong magic is a rare thing, Dayna. You should explore it while you have the chance."