Magic Steps tco-1

by Тамора Пирс

  "Its beautiful," commented Yazmнn, leaning over Pasco's shoulder to look at it. "They do nice work at the temple." Her brown eyes met Sandry's. "This is it, right? You have to start."

  Sandry nodded. She wrapped her spindle in canvas and tied the package up again. "I should be ready for Pasco tomorrow." If nothing goes wrong, she thought nervously. If I don't mess things up.

  "Well, then, Pasco, come on—enough loafing." Yazmнn rapped the boy's head with her knuckles and moved out to the corner of the ribbon net. "I want to see that jump again, and you'd better hit the mark clean this time."

  "You turned me over to a monster," Pasco grumbled to Sandry as he got up.

  Sandry patted his bare feet. "But she's doing you so much good," she told her student in her cheeriest warm-and-supportive voice.

  By now Pasco knew her well enough to know she was teasing. He sneered at her and walked up to the ribbon set. Sandry got to her own feet again, and left them to their practice.

  * * *

  The duke rode with her to the ridge that night. She had argued fiercely against it—rain had already begun to fall, drumming on roof tiles, cobbles and on the canvas hood of the cart that held the bottles of unmagic—but in the end she had to admit defeat. Duke Vedris had decided to keep watch with Lark as Sandry did her dangerous work, and there was nothing Sandry could say that would make him remain at home.

  They rode in silence beside the cart, which was driven by Kwaben. Oama sat beside him. When Sandry saw them on the driver's bench, cloaked and hatted against the rain, she tried to protest that as well. The look they gave her, as if they dared her to comment on two of the most elite unit of the Duke's Guard serving as common wagoners, convinced her that she would be as successful at talking them out of it as she had been with her great-uncle.

  If the truth were to be told, she took a great deal of comfort from their presence and the duke's during the long, wet ride through Summersea and the Mire. The squad of the Duke's Guard behind and on either side of them was also welcome. It's not as if I've never been terrified out of my wits before, she thought as they began to climb up the road between Summersea and Winding Circle. Even before the year of disasters—earthquake, pirate attack, forest fires, and plague—that cemented her bond with her three friends, she had known trouble. Her parents had died in another plague almost exactly five years ago. As travelers her family had survived gales at sea, ice storms, pirates, and robbers. Sandry knew fear and disaster well.

  But this is the first time I've ever grabbed danger with both hands and hugged it close, she thought, craning to see through the veils of rain ahead. "There." she said, pointing at a line of lamps, off the road to their left.

  "I see them,” Kwaben replied evenly. His big hands were steady on the reins.

  “It isn't raining that hard, my dear," added the duke.

  Sandry looked at him, and shook her head. Even, in, a broad-brimmed hat to shed the wet he looked dignified, even solid. It was hard to think he would let anything go wrong — except, of course, it wasn't up to him.. It was up to her.

  "You couldn't ask for a better night," Oama commented drily. She turned to look at Sandry. "Pity your mate Tris isn't here. She'd whisk all this damp off like a maid with a feather duster."

  Sandry had to smile. She'd seen Tris do exactly that, with the same cross expression on her face that she wore when dusting. "She might disappoint you," Sandry told Gama. "These days she worries a lot about not interfering with the natural order of things."

  "Exactly as I suspected," remarked the duke. "Too much education does ruin a perfectly good mind."

  Sandry giggled as Kwaben clucked to the mules and turned them onto the path marked by the lanterns. She and the duke followed. When the cart drew to a halt, Sandry dismounted from Russet, taking the canvas package with her spindle out of her saddlebag. Robed and hatted dedicates came to take charge of the spindle and of the bottles in the cart while Sandry viewed the newest part of Winding Circle's contribution to her working.

  It was a large tent with a smaller one attached to it as a lobby. They were anchored to a single flat slab of the rock that shaped Wehen Ridge, a barrier between Winding Circle and the slums of the Mire. The bonds that held the tents to the rock glowed silver in Sandry's vision, as did the tents themselves. They had been spelled so powerfully for protection that once more Sandry had to shape a magical veil to protect her sight.

  “Sandry welcome," said a cloaked and hooded figure. It was Lark. She looked startled when she realized who come to stand next to the girl. "Your grace, you—you shouldn't—“

  The duke looked at her mildly.

  "Oh, what was I thinking—of course you would come," Lark said with a rueful smile. "But you'll have to part company here."

  "I know it," replied Vedris. He wrapped Sundry in a tight, warm embrace. "If you get yourself killed, I shall be very disappointed in you," he said quietly, for her ears alone, and kissed her forehead.

  Sandry attempted to smile, and gave it up when she felt her mouth wobble. "You know I try never to disappoint you, Uncle." She turned to Lark. "Shall we start?"

  Lark led her to the smaller tent and kissed her cheek. "Don't worry about his grace," she told Sandry quietly. "Those of us who are standing guard have a snug shelter right behind this tent. We'll try to send him home, of course, but at least he'll be warm and dry until then."

  "Thank you so much," Sandry replied as she stepped into the tent. "That is good to know."

  "Hand out your clothes," Lark said as she closed the opening. "And gods bless."

  This tent was divided in two: half was the kind of rough shower used by those who worked with the sick and wanted no taint of disease to cling to them. Sandry pulled the flap shut, then hurriedly stripped off her clothes and undid her braids. Her teeth were chattering by the time she finished.

  "Lark?" she called.

  Hands came through the opening in the flat. Sandry filled them with her clothes and shoes. Lark took them away.

  Putting it off won't make me any warmer, Sandry thought, shivering, as she stared at the rope pull that would start the shower. I have to be cleansed.

  Drawing the gods-circle on her chest, she gave the pull a hard tug. Slats on the wooden platform that roofed this tent opened. She was doused not with buckets of water, as she had expected, but with tubs of it. She sighed in gratitude: the water was just hot enough for comfort, and warmed her nicely. It had been mixed with yarrow, agrimony, willow, and elder for cleansing and magical protection. From the way it shone even through her closed eyes, Sandry guessed that Lark had taken the herbs from stores laid up by Briar and Rosethorn before they had left. It was like being home at Discipline again, and comforted her just as much as it warmed her.

  The slats overhead closed and Sandry waited for the tubs to be filled again. Everyone had agreed that two rinses would serve to get all outside influences from her skin. Looking around, she saw that the tent was floored in more cloth. Like everything else around her, it was spelled to keep bad influences out, and any stray magic she did in.

  No wonder the temple-mages had needed three days to prepare—they were leaving no room for mistakes, and no chance that the unmagic would escape Sandry. That made her feel better, too. Working alone, she might have forgotten something. Instead, all she had to worry about was her spinning and the net. She prayed she could do it quickly, she wouldn't be able to eat, drink, or leave the larger tent until her finished work was safely packed in the box that had been made for it.

  "Ready again," a voice called. Sandry yanked the rope pull, bringing the next flood of water down.

  Once that was done, she opened the flap that divided the small tent in two. In the dry half, a long, sleeveless robe of undyed cotton was draped over a stand. She put that on and. walked through into the large tent.

  It was floored in cloth and secured to the rock plat form with no openings but the one she had just used. At the center was a chair and a stool on which a large, shallow iron dish was
set. The bottles of unmagic were placed by the dish. Beside, the chair was a wooden stand with sockets into which six long spools had been fitted. She also saw the box that would hold her net: it was ebony and spelled like everything else for protection.

  Placed at regular intervals around the tent were round crystal globes: that threw off both light and warmth. Seeing them, was like feeling Rosethorn and Briar in the shower herbs. Those globes had been Tris's and Daja's work all last winter, as Tris supplied the light in the crystal and Daja the warmth. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to make this place homelike. On impulse Sandry reached with her magic to touch the cloth of the tent and its floor. It had been woven by Lark; the signs and oils that coated the fabric and kept out the damp were hers.

  "Thank you, Lark," Sandry whispered.

  Resting a hand on the flap that covered the opening to the smaller tent, she voiced the word "Secure." Winding Circle's mages had set the wards for her as she had done for Pasco and Yazmнn, putting more strength into their guardian spells than Sandry could spare just then. Once she spoke the key word, Secure, the flap merged with the cloth walls and the wards blazed into life. She needed to draw yet another magical veil over her vision to keep from being half-blinded.

  "Now comes the hard part," she murmured, but somehow the prospect wasn't as scary as it had been earlier that day. Rosethorn, Briar, Tris, and Daja were all around her; Lark was in the tent and holding vigil out side with the duke. Winding Circles mages had done their best to shape this place for complex magics. In putting forth so much time, effort, and power, they had as much as told Sandry that they believed in her.

  Don't make a muddle of this, she told herself now, picking up a bottle. There are fifteen children in the inner keep at Duke's Citadel. Whatever their parents and uncles and second cousins have done, they don't deserve to die for it, and you won't let them. You'll do this right, that's all there is to it.

  She broke the wax seal on the bottle and pulled out the stopper, then upended it over the iron dish. Out flowed darkness like syrupy ink. One bottle filled the dish.

  Earlier Sandry had prepared her spindle with a length of undyed, purified cotton thread. It was called the leader, and it anchored the new thread as it was spun. Now she took the spindle and held the leader in one hand.

  "Gods bless me.” she whispered, and dipped into the black contents of the iron bowl. The unmagic was eager to stick to her purified skin. It crawled over her hand, seeking an opening. Sandry shuddered.

  Taking a deep breath, ordering herself not to think about how bad it felt, she pinched thumb and forefinger together and drew them out of the nothingness. With them came a strand like thin cord. Overlapping it with her cotton leader, Sandry gave both an experienced twist. They wound together. On her next twist, she set the spindle going, letting it whirl around and around. The twist in the joined cotton and unmagic traveled up the dark cord, twirling it, making it stronger and thicker.

  In one way the spinning was easy. She never had to worry about the dark cord breaking; one bit of unmagic was always determined to join the rest. She never had to stop as she put darkness to be spun against the end of what she'd already worked, as she did with real fiber. As long as that shadowy pool lay in the iron dish, the nothingness streamed through her hand. Once the dish was empty, she took the finished cord from her spindle, wound it onto a spool, and put the spool in its holder. Then she would empty the next bottle into the dish, remove a strand, and begin to spin again.

  That was the easy part.

  The unrnagic wanted her. It tested her skin and the cracks under her nails. It tried to creep out of her hands and up her chest, seeking her face. She felt as if she wore gloves of it, cool and slimy. As the night wore on she thought, or the nothingness made her think, of letting go, lying back and resting without a thought for tomorrow. It offered no more worries about her uncle, about teaching Pasco, about distant friends. What did people matter, when shadows would have them in the end? It wanted her to think all she had to do was give in.

  She caught herself drifting, and shook off the listless-ness that had seeped into her bones. Whipping her magic to a white heat, she sent it coursing through her body, its fire driving the shadows back. She spun harder, winding the darkness so tight that it had nothing left over to pry at her with.

  The wind howled. The tent walls flapped, fighting the magical bonds that held them to the rock platform. Despite the globes that warmed the tent, drafts crept in to make her shiver.

  What if it leaked? she wondered in sudden panic. What if this stuff oozed through the rock, bleeding into the ground below? It would spread. The desperate poor of the Mire would give up and starve to death, not caring enough to feed themselves. She could almost see it: babies cried unattended in their cradles; old people called feebly, and no one came to help. Houses burned, no one came to put out the fires. And unmagic crept up to Winding Circle, trickling past the walls, seeping into the water…

  Oh, get serious, Duchess! She could hear Briar as clearly as if he stood before her. Is this real, or is it just what the goo wants you to think?

  What it wants me to think, replied Sandry, and woke up. Her spindle dropped to the floor. While she had sunk into visions of disaster, her spindle had reversed direction, unspinning all she had done with the unmagic from the current bottle. She growled and thrust the dark smears that crawled up her arm back into the iron dish. Taking a few deep breaths, she pulled herself together and began again.

  The rain beat down on the tent. The walls brightened somewhat. It was after dawn, but on a day when she could have used some sunshine, it was going to keep raining. Sandry finished another bottle. One more to go.

  As she started the last bowlful, the waking dreams began. Duke Vedris was blue-lipped and gray-faced, clutching his left arm as if it pained him. He collapsed in his study, or at the supper table, or fell from his horse. Lark was abed, coughing and coughing, with bright red blood on the handkerchief she held to her lips. Tris burned alive, encased in solid lightning, her skin turning black in the heat. Daja's teacher, Frostpine, turned from an anvil and bashed Dajas head in with his hammer. Vines with thorns as long as a man’s hand snaked around Briar and Rosethorn, ripping them to pieces like claws. She smelled blood and rot, dung, urine, and bad things she couldn't name.

  She walked into the inner keep, where she had been only twice before. The rooms where they'd put the four Rokat families dripped with blood. Everyone had been chopped to pieces, even the children's pets.

  No,

  thought Sandry fiercely. No. She tightened her grip on the nothingness, and used the white heat of her magic to banish it from her mind and heart. It is going to turn out as I mean it to, without hopelessness or despair, thank you very much!

  Suddenly her clean fingertips met—she was out of darkness. Instantly she grabbed for her spindle as it fell.

  A roll of finished unrnagic cord wrapped around her spindle's stern. Confused, she looked at the dish. It was empty. No drop of shadow clung to the spelled iron. She checked the bottles. They, too, were empty. She had spun it all.

  Sandry wound the cord onto the last spool, and put it away. For the first time since she had dismounted from Russet, she sat. Her feet were swollen and sore; her knees and hands stiff, She let her head fall back for a moment, then looked at that rack of spools. The unmagic on them was tamed, at least for the moment,

  Now to fashion her net.

  * * *

  With Alzena's latest wound, everything seemed to go awry. No healer would attend someone they didn't know—they'd all heard about the one who was killed. She and Nurhar should have been able to take the mage's nameless path to the Battle Islands, where healers asked no questions. They should have, but the mage said that after their escape from House Rokat, he could open those paths no longer. It took more strength than he could summon.

  Nurhar could have hidden in the mages spells and kidnapped a healer, but he had been foolish while Alzena was at Duke's Citadel. He ha
d given the mage a dose of dragonsalt. Now the mage could only hum nursery songs. He would be useless until the drug was gone from his body, Alzena wanted to kick Nurhar for his folly, but even the idea of it was tiring.

  She suspected that Nurhar wanted to say she had bungled the Citadel exploration, but he, too, seemed not to care. She had made lesser mistakes in their years together and he had screamed at her for them. Now all he wanted to do was huddle by the fire once he had treated her wound.

  Alzena joined him there. When meals came, they made themselves eat. They also forced the mage to eat. Left to himself, he would have starved, forgetting every thing but the happiness he found in dragonsalt.

  He should have asked for more after a day, but he didn't. Three days passed before Alzena figured out why. Somehow the mage had gotten Nurhars dragonsalt pouch and was dosing himself.

  There were Rokats to kill. She still cared about that, so she made herself get moving. She took the drugs from the mage. Then she had a thought: dragonsalt gave strength to those not gifted with magic. She poured a measure of the drug into a cup, mixing it with ale. She drank that down, then fixed another cup for Nurhar. He refused at first, but when she would not let him be, he drank it to silence her. Within half an hour they were changing their filthy clothes, combing out their hair, and cleaning the place up. As they worked, they laid plans. There had to be a way to get at those Rokats.

  "Let's try the roof," Nurhar suggested. "Hooks and rope we have in plenty. We go to the palace, get on its roof, then climb to the roof of the inner keep. If it's separate, we swing across on the ropes. We'll go in that way. I bet they don't have so many guards up above. We can avoid the ones they have. Enough sitting around. Let's move."

  "What about him?" Alzena demanded, gesturing at the mage. He was huddled into a ball, furious at losing his dragonsalt, hurting after just an hour without it.