Heroes at Odds

by Moira J. Moore

  She seemed in far better spirits than she had been the day she’d arrived. A day to rest? Relief in having given me the bad news and therefore passing on the responsibility?

  I hated that I resented my mother for being calm while I was a bundle of nerves. That wasn’t her fault. She probably assumed I was always as calm as a Shield was supposed to be, and therefore accepting the bad news with grace and equanimity.

  “Lee, is that any way to dress when people will see you?” Mother complained.

  I looked down at myself. I was wearing a beige shirt of rough cotton and dark brown linen trousers with my sturdiest boots. “It’s perfectly sensible wear for an extended walk over uneven terrain.”

  “You’re not on uneven terrain now, are you?” Mother pointed out. “As Taro said, you have a duty to look your best when you’re to appear before other people.”

  Everyone was staring down at their plates, everyone except Mika. He was watching me with curiosity.

  I put some bread and cheese on a plate and brought that and my coffee to the table. “It is my custom to change after breakfast.” I sat down and began to eat.

  It was unkind and, I thought, unlike her to behave this way in front of others.

  “I can’t see how you ladies can be so hungry,” Taro commented, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “I know you stop at the miller’s and stuff yourself with freshly baked bread.”

  “Early morning walks are excellent for increasing the appetite,” said Fiona.

  “Surely it would be safer to do it later in the day,” said Mother. “When there are more people about.”

  “I have never felt unsafe,” Fiona said, sipping at some mint tea. “And there is something special about that time of day, just before to just after sunrise. Quiet and new. I feel I can sense the power of the land, breathe it in, wear it on my skin.”

  A year before, I would have dismissed Fiona’s words as nothing more than sentiment. A poetic way of describing her feelings. Soil didn’t have power. Titleholders didn’t have profound connections to the land. It was all just fancy and emotion.

  I had learned a lot in the past year. I had learned that the casting of spells was real, not merely a means of conning people out of their money. I had had a spell cast on me. I had cast spells myself. I had seen a man suss out emotional vibrations from rooms with a bowl of water. Radia could feel when the wind was coming. Maybe there were other forms of power of which I hadn’t yet heard.

  Was Fiona’s walking about the land at a specific time of day some kind of ritual, some kind of spell? Spells came in all sorts of forms, and not all of them required rhymes. But Fiona had said she couldn’t cast spells, that she had tried and failed.

  Maybe I was looking for proof of casting where none existed. That was a drastic shift in attitude. I generally felt uneasy with such shifts. They could be kind of painful.

  “What have you planned to do today?” Fiona asked my mother. “You’re welcome to my horses. I can have one of the servants show you the grounds.”

  “That is most kind of you,” said my mother. “But we’d prefer to stay close to the manor for a few days.”

  Were we going to tell them who was coming and why? That would be embarrassing and aggravating. Everyone would probably treat the whole thing as a form of entertainment. But I didn’t know how we could hide it. The fact that the Prides hadn’t sent me a letter suggested to me that they wanted to surprise me. They probably wanted me to be off balance. And they wanted me to feel pressured into fulfilling the contract. The best way to do that was to make it all very public.

  “Are you all in good health?” Fiona asked.

  “Certainly, but we haven’t seen Lee or Shintaro for a good long while, and we would like to catch up.”

  I sort of thought we already had. That was what all the talking the day they’d arrived had been about, wasn’t it? Was there more terrible news waiting for me?

  So, what would be worse than being told you’re expected to marry a stranger? Being told you were going to lose a limb? Being told you were expected to move to Seventh Year and actually work in the family business you knew nothing about? Being told you couldn’t be a Shield anymore?

  And then my mood slid down into the black cavern below my feet. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want the food on my plate. I just wanted to go back to the suite and fume about it all in private. Though that wouldn’t do anyone any good.

  I would feel better once the Prides got there. They would make their complaint, I would say no, and everyone could go home. I could then focus on things that actually mattered.

  Chapter Four

  After breakfast, I went to the suite and no one followed me. My mood must have been clearly written on my face, which was something to be ashamed of, but I didn’t care. It was nice to be alone. Now, I just needed something to distract me. And I knew what could do that.

  The overmantel of the fireplace in our bedchamber had a false front. Fiona had shown it to me. In that overmantel I had hidden books. Books of spells. Originally, those tools of casting had been concealed in the overmantel while the Imperial Guards had been searching for those very articles. But then, I started reading the books myself.

  I had learned that I could perform spells. The law didn’t recognize the existence of spells. The law said spells were things people only pretended to cast, for the purpose of charlatanry. So pretending to cast spells was illegal while, in theory, actually performing spells was not.

  Sometimes the law really didn’t make sense.

  I was embarrassed by how fascinated I was with the whole subject. There was something about it that seemed lazy and childish to me, as it was a form of wish fulfillment in an attempt to avoid working for what one wanted. And yet, now that I knew spells worked, the nature of them entranced me. Why did words spoken in a spell have more power than when they were spoken in ordinary conversation? So many of the powders and liquids used in spells were nothing more than baking ingredients or healing elixirs. Why did they have power only when combined in a spell? Why could spells be successfully cast in some places but not in others? Why could some people cast spells while others couldn’t?

  I could cast spells. Fiona said she couldn’t. I had no idea whether Taro could. To my knowledge, he hadn’t even tried. He didn’t really seem interested, which was unfathomable to me. The things that could be accomplished with spells were incredible. And I would wager he would be good at it. He was Shintaro Karish. He could do anything.

  I pulled out a book. It had been written one hundred and thirty years before. I couldn’t understand the motive behind it being written, as, from what I understood, casting hadn’t really worked back then. According to what I had been told and what I had read, after the First Landed had come to our world with their machines, mechanical wonders that could fly and communicate and dig up soil, the magic inherent in the world had blinked out, and had started returning only a couple of generations ago. So why would anyone write a book about spells when no spells worked was beyond me.

  But I was glad that the writer, a Lisbe Hut, had been motivated to do so, for her book was interesting. It was about taking shortcuts while casting spells, finding ways to decrease the number of tools and ingredients. Which was brilliant. The biggest liability with casting was all the paraphernalia it required. That was cumbersome, and I could easily imagine situations where a person would find herself without all the necessary tools. Or taking so long to perform the spells that the ability to do any good had passed before the spell was completed.

  Not everyone could use the shortcuts, Hut warned. The principal purpose of spells, of assembling the ingredients and speaking the words, was to bring the mind into focus. Not everyone had the required mental discipline to skip the steps and bring the mind to a pinpoint of concentration.

  I figured I had as good a chance as anyone. Being a Shield required a lot of discipline and focus. And despite some mishaps, I’d picked up casting pretty quickly.

  Not quickly
enough, though. Fiona’s husband, Dane, had been out whaling during dangerously strong winds. Knowing I had been experimenting with casting, Fiona had pleaded with me to calm the wind. I had tried to calm it and had been completely unsuccessful, resulting in the death of Dane and two other whalers. In time, I had been able to make the spell work, but too late to be any use to Fiona or Dane.

  I regretted that intensely. I had liked Dane. He had been a friendly, uncomplicated man dedicated to the best interests of his wife and child. It wasn’t fair that he had died.

  I never wanted to be caught so useless again. That meant reading, studying, practicing.

  All right. Relax. Long breath in, long breath out, long breath in, long breath out. That was it. Let it all go. It would all be sorted.

  After concentrating on nothing but my own breathing for a while, the whirling in my mind eased and I could think more clearly. I picked up the book again. I turned the page and found two versions of the same spell.

  It was a levitation spell. That could be interesting. And useful. The list of components was rather lengthy considering what the spell was meant to accomplish, but that wasn’t unusual. Some casts meant to do little required a long list of ingredients and steps, while some meant to accomplish something significant were simple. Casting didn’t always make sense.

  I pulled out all of my supplies and sat down on the floor. I always preferred to be on the floor when I cast. It made me feel more stable and connected to my environment.

  Lemon juice to rub on the inside of the wrists, mint for under the tongue, resin powder to rub at my throat, red nut oil to be mixed with mustard seed and black pepper in which to dip each of my middle fingers. Once everything had been rubbed and mixed and dabbed as required, I looked at the candle I had laid on the floor. “Candle be air, rise beyond care, fly up above, as wings of a dove.” I clenched my hands on my knees to keep from moving them. Gestures mattered while casting. “Rise beyond care. Rise beyond care.” I felt a little pull in my mind and a jittery sensation in my stomach. That latter sensation meant casting was being done. I stared at the candle, telling it to rise.

  The candle drifted up and hung in the air. Huh. Managed it first time. I let the candle drift down to the floor.

  I washed off all the powders, then resumed my position on the floor. I put another mint leaf and some of the resin powder under my tongue. The resin powder tasted foul and I longed to spit it out, but this was the shortcut. “Candle be air, rise above care, fly up above, as wings of a dove.”

  I felt the same tug in my mind, only harder. Nothing happened. I concentrated on the foul taste in my mouth, letting its sensation soak into my mind. I stared at the candle, stared at it hard, until everything that was not the candle went black. “Rise beyond care.”

  The candle floated up. I sighed in satisfaction. The candle dropped to the floor. The shortcut required much more intense concentration, but that made sense to me. Fewer tools meant a stronger mental component.

  I turned back to the book. There were other spells, and I tried those for which I had the supplies. I was able to perform all the shortcuts, but when it gave me a headache I decided to give them a rest and just read through the rest of the book, noticing several more spells I would like to try.

  Suddenly, I felt something through my bond to Taro, from wherever he was. I felt the mental shields that protected his mind come down. That meant a natural disaster, probably an earthquake, was threatening Flown Raven. He needed to open his mind to the forces that made up the earthquake, so he could direct them somewhere harmless and drain the earthquake of its power. But the forces of the earthquake were not the only forces swirling about. My job was to protect Taro’s mind from the forces he was not channeling, to calm his mind and heart and blood against the strain channeling put on them.

  When we first bonded, I had had no difficulty Shielding Taro, but since then circumstances had seemed to conspire to make channeling difficult for us. At one point, a rogue Source had learned how to cause disasters, rather than calm them, and those events had been difficult to channel. At another point, I’d been ill. The most recent source of trouble had been our transfer to Flown Raven. Taro had been born in Flown Raven. It was the policy of the Triple S that Sources were never posted at their place of birth. They tended to have trouble channeling.

  And we had had trouble. The forces had rushed through Taro so quickly and so hard that Taro had barely been able to control them, and I had been barely able to Shield him. I had been close to admitting to the Triple S that we needed to be transferred, something Taro, for some reason, hadn’t wanted done.

  Fiona owned a book that had been printed by the First Landed, those people from another world who had landed on our world to build some kind of colony. Most of what they’d brought to our world had been destroyed and buried by natural disasters, but this book had been discovered on Fiona’s land after an earthquake. It was a book of spells, mostly designed to deal with weather as well as natural disasters. Academic Reid, who had translated the book, had guessed that the spells hadn’t worked for the First Landed. And perhaps they hadn’t. But they worked for me, provided I used them through Taro. When he opened his mind to the forces, it gave me access to them that I didn’t have on my own. When I cast the spells then, they worked.

  I kept the necessary ingredients in my purse at all times. I was never without my purse. I pulled the purse off my belt, sat on the floor, and dumped all the ingredients.

  I rubbed dark orange hannan powder on my left inner wrist. “Soil to obey me,” I said. I rubbed white icin powder into the hannan. “Air to subdue soil.” From a vial I poured whale oil on the powders. “Water shape soil.” I picked up a red handled knife. “I call to you all.” Very carefully, I made a shallow cut on my wrist. “Bide by me.” I sprinkled dirt into my palm and made a fist. “I hold the soil still. Soil trembles no more. Bide by me.”

  Through Taro I could feel the forces rushing about, straining his heart, pushing at his mind. It was invigorating, and it could be frightening. The forces could get too strong. They had the power to kill a Source. If the Source died, so did the Shield, and the natural disaster would be free to wreak destruction.

  As I spoke the words of the spell, I felt something moving within me, something slow and soothing. It flowed from me and through our bond into Taro, calming and slowing the forces. The power of the forces thinned and stretched out, making them easier to handle. It meant it took longer than usual to channel the event, but at least no one’s brains were in danger of exploding.

  With the use of the spell, the channeling went as channeling was supposed to. The forces flowed through Taro. His blood and mind and heart suffered only the usual amount of strain. I had no fear of being forced to lower my Shields. It was all good, and not a single tremor touched the ground. Job done, we each allowed our Shields to slide back into their natural states.

  And then something hit the window with a thud that made me jump. “Son of a—” I stood and moved to the window. The wind was sounding pretty brutal out there. I listened for Radia’s horn but couldn’t hear it.

  When the wind got strong enough, the Wind Watcher—Radia—was to blow a horn called a fischen to warn everyone in Flown Raven. She wasn’t quite capable of it right then, and Tarce had volunteered to take care of that duty. I now saw the flaw in that arrangement. What if Tarce wasn’t close to Radia, didn’t receive a message in time?

  I cleaned up my casting tools and went to Radia’s room. She was sitting in a chair by the window, reading what looked like a novel. She smiled as I entered. “Shield Mallorough! Good afternoon.”

  I suddenly felt bad that I wasn’t there to visit her, and that I hadn’t been visiting her often enough at all. I sat down. “I’m just wondering, do you think the fischen needs to be blown? Because I’ll do it if it does.”

  “No, no. The wind is not so strong.”

  “It sounds strong.”

  She smiled again. “Trust me.”

  Ah, yes.
Sometimes I could be arrogant, such as challenging someone else’s ability to do their job. “Are your needs being seen to?”

  She looked rueful then. “Lord Tarce is a frequent visitor. I have more than enough of . . . everything.”

  “Including his company?”

  “I would never say such a thing.”

  “But you would feel it?”

  She just gave me a look. She was more mature than I.

  “Did Dias annoy you?” I asked.

  She smiled. “He’s charming.”

  “He isn’t free, you know.”

  “Shield Mallorough, we were only talking.”

  “I know.” I was a simple person. I didn’t really comprehend the practice of flirting with no intention of seeking a romantic attachment. What was the point?

  Though Taro seemed to like it.

  Radia smiled again. “You’re so very serious.”

  It was entertaining that she, in particular, accused me of that crime. She’d always struck me as a fairly somber person. “Then I am in good company.”

  She didn’t dispute it.

  She looked down and plucked at a loose thread on the arm of her chair. “I understand you can cast spells.”

  I did not like to hear that. “Do you?”

  She didn’t pause at my chilly tone. “Normally, I wouldn’t discuss such . . . delicate matters. But it’s the wind rock. No one can lift it into the arch. No one knows how it was done the first time.”

  The wind rock was the outward sign that the wind was too strong. A massive slab of stone suspended in an arch of the same material, if the wind could move it, the fischen must be blown.

  Many also considered it a talisman of good luck. No one had been able to tell me why, merely that it was a belief created through many generations.

  The wind rock had been knocked down by the same rock slide that had destroyed Radia’s home. “There are no records?” That was shocking. The post of Wind Watcher was so important. Vital. How could there be no records?

  “There are, but nothing that addressed the creation of the rock. Too far back, I suppose.”