by Sharon Lee
In the center of the Rock, there’s a hump, but instead of showing edges like the back of a stegosaurus, it’s smooth and slick as a bottle. Anyone stupid enough to try to scale it was likely to fall off—right into a field of wicked stone blades.
Up I went, proving once again that as a race the Archers have more hair than brains, and knelt on the glassy knoll, my right palm flat on the surface.
The Rock was hot; it always is. The filthiest deep winter snowstorm lacks the power to freeze it. Which would, of course, be the Ozaliflame bound into the heart of the thing, giving out his heat.
Borgan knelt across from me and put his left hand next to mine, palm against the Rock.
“It’ll prolly go easier if I show you the way,” he said slowly, and raised his head to look into my eyes. “I’m saying, show you, Kate.”
Meaning, no submission necessary. I gave him a grin and a nod, relief flooding through me like sea water.
“You’re definitely the elder of we-who-are-about-to-be-incinerated,” I said. “You were here when this thing was built and you invested your power into the work.” I took a breath. “Tell me what to do.”
He smiled. “First thing you’ll be wanting to do is raise your magic.”
I closed my eyes and concentrated. A sense of disorienting power began to grow at the base of my spine, washing up my backbone with the inevitability of the tide. Heat licked along my nerve endings, and my palm warmed of its own, giving the Rock heat for heat.
The jikinap rose, ravening and shapeless. I enclosed it, focused it, and looked into the Rock.
Living flame danced across my vision, throwing heat shadows along the jagged interior. I focused more tightly, trying to see past the flames, to identify the source—but they were everywhere, sourceless, disorienting . . .
“Kate?”
“Got it,” I managed. “How long I can keep it is another question.”
“Doing fine,” he said. “Now. Hold out your left hand. I’m going to link us.”
Dazzled by flame, I held my hand out. Calloused fingers closed around mine. Through the flames, or in them, I saw a warrior, tall and supple, confident in his powers, steady in his regard, his leathers white as moonlight. A loon nested on the ground at his feet, ruby red eyes sapient and alert.
“Look close at that binding,” the warrior said in Borgan’s voice. “What do you see now?”
I drew back until I was focused above the flames, almost, but not quite on the surface of the Rock. I saw the interwoven lines of force, shimmering, turning, becoming something else even as I watched them.
Becoming—a door.
A sea-battered wooden hatch, that was its seeming, secured with a massive iron padlock. I tried to touch it, but it slid away from the power I had raised.
“I see it,” I thought or said. “A sea hatch. It’s padlocked.”
“That’s right.” The warrior looked down at the loon. “Find the key,” he said, “and bring it here.”
The bird shifted and was gone in a blur of unexpected motion. Hand in hand, the warrior and I waited, while the sweet agony of power seared the surface of my soul and filled me with dreadful hunger. It would be so easy to widen the channel of power that linked us and drink of that warrior’s life force. So easy . . .
I pressed my hand onto the surface of the Rock, relishing the heat, directing my attention again to the fiery interior, finding as before that my senses were confused and confounded.
At last, the loon returned. It laid something at the warrior’s feet, and nestled again into the grass.
The warrior raised the object, allowing me to see . . .
A key. Just an old-fashioned padlock key, slightly rusty with age. Pardon me—half of a key. As the door was a melding of magics, so the key would also be a melding. All I had to do was complete the pattern.
I considered it carefully, noting the loose ends, comparing fragment against function.
High Magic is a system of protocol and function—a lot like programming, really. Define the need, then design—or in most cases tweak a design already in place—a solution. Since I didn’t have the code book, I’d have to work out my own solution—which was fine. I’d always been good at hacking.
It was the work of moments to examine the key and understand its logic. When I had it—its structure and its intent, I reached out, but not for the jikinap burning in my blood.
I reached out to the land.
There was a frisson, a spark, and a whole key spun in the space between the warrior and myself, wet and gritty with rust.
“Good,” Borgan said approvingly. “Now, let’s get this business done.”
“One . . .” he said or I did, as we reached forth with one will and heart “. . . two . . .” The key slid into the lock.
“. . . three . . .”
There was an instant of resistance, as if the insubstantial lock had rusted shut, then the key turned, the shackle sprung, and the door unraveled.
Jikinap and land magic streamed past us in a spark-ridden gale. There came a fearful rumbling from the depths of the Rock, setting waves dancing in the tidal pools and putting small lives in danger.
I slipped on the glassy knoll, and Borgan grabbed my arm, holding me steady as fire blossomed above us—red, silver, azure, and green. Burning streamers touched the sea, hissing into extinction, explosions boomed, echoing back from the inland hills. Dark wings swept past on the tumultuous air—a bat, perhaps—and then all was dark and still around us. Even the sea seemed to be holding back its next waves, waiting . . .
Cautiously, I stepped Sideways, searching—but the only jikinap I sensed was the bonfire which was Ramendysis, on the shore, and a few scattered threads of what had been the binding spell, dispersing as I watched.
I re-entered my body, opened my eyes, and looked around at a changed landscape.
There was no fell-fire dancing over the surface of Googin Rock; there was no hiss of steam when the retreating waves struck the far ledge, nor any suggestion of intelligent malice. Littered about the dark surface were all manner of objects, glowing with internal luminescence: a casket carved of precious woods; a silver bowl heaped with pearls; glittering lapis bottles of rare perfume; silken pillows; leather-bound books, jeweled chessmen, and other such things as might amuse or comfort a prince . . .
But of the Ozaliflame, who had been bound in full sight of Ozali and trenvay more than a hundred years ago, there was no sign.
THIRTY-THREE
Wednesday, April 26
“Very well, Princess Kaederon,” Ramendysis said. “You have had your joke. I advise you now to speedily produce either the Ozaliflame or that which I seek. If you produce the thing itself, I shall overlook the fact that you and your land are forsworn and in forfeit. If you produce the Ozaliflame, the fates of you, your land, and the various earth spirits will hang upon the tale he chooses to tell me.”
I staggered as I came off the Rock onto the sand. Borgan caught me under the elbow and more or less walked me six paces up the slope, until I was as close to Ramendysis as I could bear without throwing up.
“No joke,” I said, hearing my voice shake. I was having a hard time focusing, Ramendysis kept flipping back and forth between an urbane and elegant Ozali and a seething black vortex through which thick worms of jikinap burrowed. I raised a hand, and pointed shakily at the Rock.
“It seemed to me that there was an awful lot of power loosed when we released the bindings. Are you sure that none of those treasures is your lost toy?”
“Treasures!” Ramendysis spat. “Trinkets! As for the power, as you care to style it, which was loosed—misdirection and noise, only. The Ozaliflame has long been absent from his prison. If, indeed, he was ever bound there.”
“Your Lordship was present,” Nerazi said from her place in the circle, “and witnessed the event himself.”
“The details of your dishonor are of no interest to me,” Ramendysis stated. “I await the return of my property.”
“I
f you don’t tell me what it is, how can I return it?” I asked tiredly. “And as far as the Ozaliflame goes—you’re right. It looks like he flew the coop and isn’t available to answer questions. There’s nothing else you can do about it.”
“There, Princess Kaederon,” Ramendysis purred, “you are in error.” I felt his jikinap ooze over me, calling up unclean memories, and shivered, reaching for the comfort and the strength of the land. It was hard, my will was sluggish, and the touch, when I finally managed it, was tentative and wavery.
“What I can do is take you hostage to your land’s honor. While you repose as my guest in the Land of the Flowers, these your minions will search for and recover that which is mine. When it is returned to me, you will be returned to them.” He smiled, and I wanted to scream, but I didn’t have enough willpower. “If you so choose.”
Okay, this was bad. I concentrated, trying to get a firm connection with the land, but his jikinap was coating me now, a viscous membrane slowly filling my ears, my eyes, leaching my will. Enclosed, I struggled—which was exactly what he wanted me to do. If I fought and lost, he’d absorb me—jikinap, voysin, soul, and whatever might be left of the intelligence that called herself Kate Archer . . .
“Hostage!” Borgan yelled indignantly, and stepped between us, the better to get in Ramendysis’ face. “How’s that s’posed to work, exactly? You expect us bunch of earth spirits and low fae to be able to find your missing ticky-toy? If anybody here can find it, it’ll be Kate—but not if you go hauling her off to Flower Land!” He snorted derisively. “Exactly the kind of harebrained idea you’d expect from a man who lets his magic do his heavy lifting for him.”
“Why, you insolent—” Ramendysis was breathless—and madder’n hell, which I knew because his jikinap receded, like the tide going out, called back to drive whatever horrible thing he was about to do to Borgan.
Leaving me at liberty.
I threw my will into the land, and the land leapt to do my bidding, simultaneously serving warning to the gathered trenvay. They vanished between one eyeblink and the next, with the notable exception of Borgan, who stayed right where he was, watching interestedly as a sinkhole opened beneath Ramendysis’ feet, and he was abruptly neck deep in sand.
“Behave yourself while you’re on my land, damn you!” Brave words—unfortunately marred by the chattering of my teeth. I’d blindsided Ramendysis, hit him from an unexpected direction while his attention was focused elsewhere. I wouldn’t be able to surprise him a second time. And if he decided to expend just a tithe of his power right now, the beach would be fused into glass, and I would be dead. If I was lucky.
For one of the longest minutes of my life, it hung in the balance. The air sparked with unexpended jikinap, and the land crouched, ready and eager to finish what it had begun. Borgan was poised on the balls of his feet, the sea breeze fingering his braid.
To my enormous astonishment and unbounded relief, Ramendysis blinked first. The air became less . . . electric. The sense of impending doom lessened. He inclined his head with a fair imitation of graciousness, despite his position.
“Very well, Princess Kaederon. You make your point eloquently. I will, indeed, behave myself while I am on your land. Pray, loosen my restraints.”
I didn’t want to. I wanted the land to swallow him so deep there’d be no getting him out, ever again.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t. Burying Ramendysis would be like burying an atomic bomb. All that jikinap. It made me sick to my stomach just thinking about the harm . . .
Hating it, I asked the land to release its hold. With visible reluctance, the sand around Ramendysis shifted, grains roiling, and little by little he rose, until he was once again standing on the beach, his fine robes rumpled and gritty.
He looked down at himself, flicked his fingers as if brushing a speck of dust off his sleeve—and his robes were pristine and fresh once more.
“Prince Borgan’s point is also well made,” he said. “It would indeed be folly to remove from the search the one person best suited to locate that which is mine. You may stay in this benighted land, and search, Princess. I do regret that such influence as I may have had over my associates here on your land is . . . not as firm as you might wish, as a result of this morning’s work.” He smiled, and bowed slightly.
“When you locate that which I seek, you will deliver it to me—and receive your token in return.”
“Token?” I eyed him. “What token?”
“Merely a ritual assurance of your good faith—it need not be anything of consequence, really . . .” He looked about him, making a show of it, like he couldn’t see behind his head and through stone if he wanted to, just by calling up a little power.
His eye lighted on Borgan, and my chest squeezed so tight I thought my heart would burst.
“Ah,” he said. “Prince Borgan’s jacket will do nicely, I think.”
“No,” I said flatly, and in the same breath Borgan said, “All right.”
I grabbed his arm. “Borgan—no. Trust me, you do not want to do this.”
“But he has already given his word,” Ramendysis purred. “Surely, Princess, you would not wish him to be forsworn.”
As if what I wanted mattered; Borgan was already taking off his jacket.
Far too late, he hesitated, like he’d come to his senses at last. He tipped his head and considered Ramendysis.
“You’ll take this here instead of Kate, will you?”
Ramendysis smiled. “It will be my very great pleasure to take that there instead of Kate.”
“Borgan . . .” My voice was shaking. He threw me a look over his shoulder.
“It’s all right, Kate. Just a formality, like the man says.”
I shook my head, dumb with horror.
Without his skin, Borgan woudn’t be able to shift into seal form.
But that wasn’t the worst of it.
A selkie’s skin is his nature—his soul.
And I knew too well what Ramendysis did with souls.
“Here you go, then,” Borgan said, and tossed the jacket, none-too-gently. Ramendysis caught it against his chest.
“You take good care of that skin, hear me? I’m wicked fond of it.”
“Be assured that I will lavish upon it all the attention it deserves.” Ramendysis inclined his head, courtly and elegant. “Princess Kaederon. I will await delivery at my primary dwelling. You will remember it as House Aeronymous.” He smiled once more, which was about all my nerves could stand. “Search quickly. I know you wouldn’t wish me to become . . . bored.”
With that, he was gone, leaving behind an acid spatter of rain and the boom of distant thunder.
My legs gave way and I was kneeling on the sand, retching, arms wrapped around my middle, the land whining and nuzzling me.
“Kate?” The land showed me Borgan settling onto his heels, to the right and facing me. “You all right?”
“All right?” I raised my head and stared at him. He looked like he always did; radiating calm upon the land. “Borgan, Ramendysis has your skin. You gave it to him willingly.”
“That’s right,” he said, like it mattered not one bit.
I took a breath, decided I wasn’t going to be sick right then, and sat back on my heels. “Dammit—don’t you know what he’ll do? He can call you to him wherever he is—destroy you on whim—make you, make you—”
“Kate, it’s all right.”
I shook my head, hard enough that my hair whipped my face. “You had to have known!”
“Well, I knew there was a risk, though not as much as letting Mr. Wonderful take you off to Flower Land.” He shrugged. “I can get another jacket easier than Archers Beach can get another Guardian.”
“Another jacket . . .” I repeated. “Can you get another nature?”
Silence. Borgan glanced away, over toward Googin Rock, sitting dark and quiescent in the rising tide.
“He’s going to force you,” I said, panic rising again, despite the land’s minis
trations. “You saw what he did to Gaby. He’ll use your skin—”
He looked back to me, shaking his head so that the braid snaked along his shoulder. “No, now see, that’s where you’re wrong. He won’t—or he might, but not the way you’re thinking.” He sighed. “Kate, I’m not a selkie.”
“Not a selkie,” I repeated, just to make sure I’d heard it right. “When we went off the Pier,” I said, very carefully, “you turned into a seal.”
He nodded. “You got me there. I did turn into a seal. But see—you seemed to have your heart set on a selkie, and I don’t like to disappoint a pretty lady.”
Right. “So, what are you, if you’re not a selkie?”
He laughed, deep in his chest. “Here you’re a Guardian of the land and it never occurred to you that there’re those of us with the same tie to the seas?”
“Did you . . .” I heard Gran’s voice just as plain as if she sat on the sand beside me. “Did you pay your respects to the sea?”
I thought Gran’d told me everything about the pleasures and perils of Guardianship. Maybe she’d figured to let me settle first, and heal the deep hurts. Of course I was drawn to Borgan, and him to me.
The land and the sea . . . that’s an old, old alliance.
“The whole Atlantic Ocean?” I asked, and his laugh this time was right out loud.
“Mercy, woman! Gulf of Maine’s enough trouble for me.”
Cape Cod to Halifax is a considerable swath of living water. And he’d counted himself equal to Nerazi, which was very likely understating himself by a bushel or six.
“Ramendysis is still going to use your jacket to entrap you.”
Borgan gave me the grace of a nod. “Well, he’s welcome to try,” he said, “though I don’t say I’d rather he didn’t. I’d count it a favor if you’d find Mr. Wonderful’s shiny thing for him before he starts in to experimenting.”