Changespell 01 Dunn Lady's Jess

by Doranna Durgin

  At the trees she stopped and whirled back around, her chest heaving, as she looked out on an intimately familiar vista she'd never seen through these eyes. She looked at the ground at her feet, the dust that was all that would grow here after so many years of being trodden on and packed down by horses seeking shade and a good roll. A good roll. She took an instant to pull the bay's bridle off so she could pick grass, and dropped to the ground to wiggle in the dirt, concentrating on first one shoulder blade and then the other, and finally lying with her arms and legs sprawled out and all the itches in her back satisfied, still panting, still filled with the run. Not the best roll she'd ever had but not bad for a human.

  Magic murmured around her, leftover efforts of the skirmishes not far away. She ignored it. Staring into the interlaced branches above her head, Jess tried to bring her thoughts to the reason she'd come here, to the decision of Lady vs. Jess. Instead her inner eye was commandeered by flashes of memory. A foal's memory, her first trip out to this place and, a short time later, being sequestered here during the process of weaning, having the growth of the first cutting hay grass all to herself. She had weathered that occasion with no ill effects, and was annoyed when a stray thought suggested she could wean herself from Carey just as well. I don't want to, she told herself stubbornly. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be what I really am.

  But you like Jess, the little thought suggested, and she sat up with a frown. She knew, and had to admit to herself, that this was true. But it was just as true that she wasn't sure if this being human was worth it. There was so much pain involved, and she was exhausted by the whole thing. In her mind's eye a strong young yearling chased another adolescent horse away from the creek as he rudely crowded her, and then turned the moment into a romp. She felt again the power in her limbs, the swell of equine delight at her own invincibility—the run and sliding stop, pivot and chase, rear to tower over the ground, her head shaking in mock menace and eyes flashing white.

  A hand descended on her shoulder, a touch that should have startled her but somehow slid into her awareness so gently that she came back to herself quietly, undisturbed.

  "Jess."

  A hoarse but wonderfully familiar voice. She stiffened, trembling a little.

  A hand, not too steady, brushed against her back. "Been rolling again, I see."

  "Yes," she managed, and slowly turned around to the reception of Carey's somewhat rueful grin. His face was pale, his eyes still terribly shot with blood, his skin still marked with just slightly less livid bruising. "Are you . . . all right?"

  He sat down beside her, his movements that of an aged and aching man. "If you mean am I well—no." He nodded to the side and she discovered Arlen standing by Fahrvegnügen, waiting with no sign of impatience. He smiled at her, and she looked back to Carey. "If you mean am I going to die—well, hopefully the answer to that is no, too. I bullied my way here—but I didn't take the long way, like you did. They were against even that, but . . . I had to talk to you." He took her hand, and they sat together for a moment. Then he said, "I understand you're not sure you want to stay with us."

  "I—" she started, until she caught his eye, and found all her concentration going into her hand as it reached up to touch his cheek, ever so carefully in case it might hurt him. "No," she said. "I'm not sure. I mean, I'm not sure, if I don't have you."

  He shook his head. "Not good, Jess. Everybody's got their own life. You can't build yours around mine."

  "I thought you—I thought—" she withdrew her hand, and frowned at it.

  "That's not what this is about. This is about you."

  "Arlen gave me a spell," she said, distracted and wrestling with his words, wondering if she'd misinterpreted his human actions along the path of this very long journey. "He put it on your stone, and gave it to me, so I could make my own decisions about who I want to be." She touched the stone beneath the fabric of the poorly fitting, bloodstained tunic, and pulled it out.

  "He what?" Carey said, his tone more puzzled than angered. "Jess, that's the stone that had the world-travel spell on it."

  "Yes," she agreed, as puzzled as he by this reaction. She pulled the thong of the stone from her neck, shaking her hair free of it, and held it out for him. He, in turn, held it up to Arlen, who shrugged in a gesture visible even from a distance, then turned it over in his hand. "What's wrong?" she asked.

  "Nothing," he said, as though he'd suddenly made up his mind about something. He gave the stone back, to her surprise. In response he said, "It is your choice."

  Slowly she looped the stone back around her neck, more convinced than ever that she would never understand unfathomable human ways.

  "Jess," he said slowly, "you can't just be some extension of me. Maybe that was okay for you as Lady, but it doesn't work with people, not if they really want to be happy. If you stay here and stay Jess, you're going to have to figure out who you are, apart from me or anyone else."

  That made too much sense; she didn't want to listen to it just then. "When you look at me now," Jess said, a sudden spark of challenge in her voice, "who is it you like? Lady, who you know, and who listens to your Words, or Jess, who doesn't?" Because she's her own person, added the surprised little voice.

  "Not that simple," he said, and sighed. "Lady and Jess have a lot in common, and it's not easy to separate those things. Why do you think it was so hard for me to accept you in this form? The way I felt about you . . . it didn't seem right to feel that way about a horse."

  "You do love me," Jess said, hesitant at first, but in watching his face she grew confident. "Real human love, like in the TV stories."

  "No, Jess," he said, smiling. "Those are just pretend. This is real." And he slid his fingers through her dun hair and rested his hand at the back of her neck and tenderly kissed the high point of each cheekbone as she closed her eyes and drank in the thrill it gave her. Lady had never felt just such a thrill. Maybe Jess deserved a little more of a chance.

  "Now," he said, resting the side of his face against hers, "I'm not dead but I've been pretty damn close and I think I may pass out. So do you think we can forget about the spellstone and get back to our friends?"

  "Damn straight," Jess said. Then, growing more thoughtful as she carefully helped him to his feet, she wondered out loud, "But do you suppose Arlen could let me be Lady every once in a while, just because I want to?"

  Carey laughed, a pained sound, and said, "I imagine that can be arranged."

  * * *

  Mark looked out the window—one of the few windows in Arlen's hold—and said, "So what if they don't believe us? They can't prove otherwise and they've got enough things to do that they aren't going to waste their time on us."

  Jaime sat in a rocking chair, the cat on her lap, and lightly traced the lines of the bandage beneath her trousers. The mage-medics could have easily cared for the scratch, but had requested that she see their unmagicked counterparts unless the small wound became a problem. She had willingly agreed; it was obvious that they had their hands full of injured parties from both sides of the fighting. They had, at least, healed the break in her nose, although the kind young man who'd done it had apologetically explained to her that the natural healing had started slightly crooked, and that he would have to break it again if she wanted it straight. She had declined without regret.

  She regarded Mark without responding to him. He was left to finish healing on his own as well, and still moved carefully, as though he were afraid his bones would give out on him without warning—she couldn't blame him. Carey, too, continued to struggle, and was visited daily by medics both magical and not, who monitored the results and progress of healing from a perverted spell they had not previously encountered.

  Dayna sat cross-legged on the bed and it was she who broke the silence. "Don't get your story set in stone," she said. "I'm not sure I'm going back with you."

  "You're not?" Mark blurted, and the cat leaped out of Jaime's lap at her start of surprise.

  "No . .
. I don't think so." She picked at the hem of her trousers, which were slightly too long, as usual. "I don't expect you guys to understand—I'm not sure I do. I mean, at first I hated the whole idea of doing magic. But . . . I guess I've seen it do some good. I guess I've done some good with it. And I think it's something I could be good at. Really good."

  "That's the truth," Mark said, putting his back to the window and crossing his arms. "It's not something you'll get the chance to try out back home."

  "Right. And . . . if it turns out I hate it, I can always come on home. If you guys are willing to take care of some details with the house, that is."

  "Better make a list," Jaime said, somewhat wearily. "And we have to remember to leave you out of our little story—which is thin enough as it is. Kidnapped, taken to Zaleski State Forest in southern Ohio, held for a month or so, during which time Eric is killed, and we escape after killing the bad guys. They'll never find any evidence to back that up, because there isn't any. That's not real life, that's a TV movie of the week."

  "There isn't any evidence that we're lying, either," Mark insisted. "Ernie's got a history, I think, and they'll know he's been out of sight. The hardest part will be getting to Zaleski without leaving a trail, and then staggering convincingly out of the woods."

  No. The hardest part would be going back to life as usual, and pretending she had not been changed by the things that had happened to her here.

  "Besides," Dayna offered, sounding as tired as Jaime of this process, "No one's thought of anything better."

  That was the crux of it. No one had.

  "When do we leave, then?" Jaime asked. "We could go anytime we wanted, I think. In fact, now that they have the checkspell, I'll bet a lot of wizards are anxious for us to leave before it's actually in place. Afterwards it'll probably take an act of Congress."

  "Right," Mark snorted. "It's nice to see bureaucracy is universal, even in wizards' councils."

  Jaime carefully placed the cat on the floor and stood. "I'm going to take a walk," she said, suddenly overwhelmed with the actuality of the good-byes that would have to be made. "If I see Arlen, I'll tell him we're ready to go."

  "Yeah," Mark agreed, sounding as wistful as she felt. "We're ready to go."

  * * *

  As natural as it was for Jaime to head for horses, she was not surprised to find Carey, a kindred spirit of sorts, trying to organize his thoughts in their company as well. As she wandered toward the currently occupied pasture on the other side of the gardens, she heard sounds of occupancy from the round training pen that was set in the flat ground between the huge garden plots, and she detoured to find Carey riding a dun horse there. This dun was dark, almost brown, and his black points were nearly lost in the depth of his coat, but there was something about the set of his neck and head that reminded her of something—or someone.

  Carey caught her staring, and halted next to her. "Jess' brother," he said. "A good steady fellow, but not up to the way Calandre's people treated him. I have a lot of retraining to do." He stared grimly off into nowhere and said, "He's better off than his—and Jess'—half-sister. They rode her to death."

  It was his first reference to the destruction Calandre's people had wrought. As far as Jaime knew, he had not yet dealt with the massive loss of his friends and comrades, the couriers he had managed for Arlen. She opened her mouth to say something about them, but hesitated, and instead said, "I'm sorry. Are you up to this yet?"

  He gave her a sharp look, but it faded into a rueful shrug that admitted the question was a valid one. "Not just yet." He moved the horse into a walk, and rode figure eights as he talked with her, gentle, concentrated movements at a good working pace. "Trying to get his confidence back," he told her.

  Jaime forbore from mentioning it didn't look like he could handle anything more than a walk, anyway. His movements still had the look of effort about them, and from afar she would have guessed he was an old man with arthritic joints and aching muscles.

  "We're gearing up to leave," she said suddenly, plunging into the subject without getting her toes wet first. "We think we have the kidnap story worked out pretty well."

  "I still don't quite understand that angle," Carey said, his voice slightly distant as he took the horse through the change of rein from one circle to the other. "People are kidnapped here, too, but it's usually for money, or at least lust."

  Jaime shrugged. "A lot of people think if you've got valuable horses, you've got money. The truth is, you've spent your money on the valuable horses. Anyway, it's the best we could come up with. Nothing less is going to explain my disappearance, not with a barnful of those valuable horses left on their own." She leaned against the rails of the round pen. "If you've got any better ideas, I'm open to them."

  "Don't go back," Carey said simply.

  "No," Jaime responded without hesitation. She'd already been through this discussion with herself. "My life is there, Carey. There have been a lot of things I've enjoyed about your world, but it's not who and what I want to be. You've got Dayna, though, I think. I just hope . . . I hope we can visit. I hope this doesn't have to be good-bye forever."

  "No such luck," Carey said, and brought the dark gelding to a halt again, asking him to bring his nose around to touch each booted foot in a final exercise of flexion and obedience and then dismounting, slowly, creakily. "I'm sure Arlen will be doing research on your world in person—and there'll be judgements to testify at. It's not all that hard to suspend the checkspell—it's getting the whole Council to make up their minds to do it that takes so long."

  Jaime found her expression going cold at the thought of Willand, at the realization that her struggles with what the woman had wrought were really just beginning—and she wasn't going to be able to run away from them. She forced her attention back to Carey and discovered he was staring at her, aware of her reaction and wanting to know—to help, even. But what she had told Jess was still true—she wasn't prepared to share her experience until she had come to terms with it. She heaved an inner sigh of relief when he spoke again, and realized he was deliberately changing the subject.

  "Jess has been pestering Arlen," he said with a grin. "She really does want to visit you and ride dressage under you and me. Arlen told her that because the magic originates on this world, she can pull an occasional switch between Jess and Lady, but on Earth she has to choose between one or the other. I don't think she's quite come to terms with that." He sobered a little. "She's had three offers of work, good positions—two as couriers and one as a trainer for one of the outfits in Camolen City that run public courier stables. Don't ask me how they heard about her way up there."

  "She's unique," Jaime said. "Word's bound to get around. What's she going to do?"

  Carey loosened the gelding's girth and ran the stirrups up on his saddle, the same slightly odd type of saddle that still sat in Jaime's tack room. "I don't know," he said, and she heard a little wistfulness in his voice. "I told her she had to be her own person, and live her own life, that just staying with me wasn't enough for her. Now I'm a little worried that she listened to me."

  "Wherever she goes, her heart will always be with you," Jaime said, and then grinned. "Wasn't that the hokiest thing you've ever heard?"

  Carey snorted an agreement, but she thought she saw gratitude in his expression. "Anyway, she'll be here for Arlen until he—I—can get his fleet up and running again. We've only found one of my couriers who survived, and she's so full of guilt over it that she's not really functioning yet. We've got one of Sherra's people on loan, but Jess is taking the brunt of it."

  And thriving, Jaime knew, for she'd seen Jess the evening before, tired but happy, and on her way to see Carey. Her arm was completely healed, done by Sherra herself, who fully understood that the limb had to mend well enough to function as a weight-bearing leg for Lady. "Does she still have that awful spellstone Arlen made for her?" she asked with a frown.

  Carey's reaction was completely unexpected: he laughed.

 
; Jaime's frown turned into a suspicious look. "You must know something I don't."

  "Like the fact that a stone can't be reused for a different spell?" Carey asked.

  "But—what . . . ? He told Jess—"

  "I know what he told Jess. But Arlen would never have given her the spell she asked for—though he was wise enough not to waste time arguing with her. He just set a very simple alert spell into the wire around the stone, something that would tell him if she tried to trigger it. If you recall, he did tell her the thing wouldn't work unless she really wanted it to. If she did try to use it, she'd just think its failure was her own fault."

  "He might have let me know," Jaime grumbled, not really as annoyed as she let herself sound. What a relief to know Arlen had not actually acceded to Jess' desperate request; she had had to fight a terrible disappointment when she'd believed he had.

  She turned around to look at the hold, the top of which was just visible over the very high corn that grew between her and it. There were still too many things she wanted the answers to, like how come the corn here tasted so like the corn at home, and why were there horses and cats and even—she slapped her arm—mosquitoes here. She wanted to get to know Arlen better, when there wasn't a force shield between them and lives at stake.

  She realized that they'd been standing together in silence for many moments, and she glanced at Carey to find him in thought as deep as her own. Probably full of his own questions, she thought.

  "Come on," he said, catching her glance. "If you don't mind my slow going, I'll walk you back to the hold and we'll go find Arlen. He'll take you home."

  * * *

  In the Midwest America dressage show circuit, the competitors come to know one another and their horses. Jaime Cabot and her horse Sabre are in the thick of it, although there is speculation aplenty over her strange disappearance from competition, a disappearance that lasted nearly half a year when all was said and done. But the real conjecture is over the people who now occasionally travel with Jaime—the tall mustached gentleman who escorts her, and the horse and rider who come to compete in the intermediate levels. The dun mare is of completely unknown lineage and lacks the power of a truly great dressage mount, but she and her rider often take their classes anyway, carrying the hearts of judges and spectators alike with the gestalt of their partnership and the expressive spirit in the eyes of Dun Lady's Jess.