The Changespell Saga

by Doranna Durgin

  They had, of course—as had the others. One of them raised his hand in a self-confident wave, acknowledging the spell—and reached for an arrow to fit into his bow. Carey raised the automatic and rested it against the side of a tree trunk. Sighting along the barrel, he found the three figures and picked one, waiting just a few more moments while Dayna hesitated beside him and Mark waited to back him up.

  Squeeze.

  The gunshot created an unfathomable assault of sound on a world that had never seen gunpowder. His target faltered and fell, and the other two froze in place, unable to discern the manner of attack. All too quickly they realized there had been no feel of magic and dove for cover; Carey’s precious second bullet buried itself in an innocent tree.

  “Nice trick,” one of them called as their injured comrade struggled to crawl for cover. “But there are more of us coming, and eventually we’ll get to you.”

  Carey turned his back to them, leaning against the same tree that had steadied his hand, his head back, his eyes closed. “If they do get to us,” he said, “and we somehow still have bullets left, promise me you’ll empty the guns into the ground. Maybe someone’ll be able to figure the things out without the powder or bullets, but it’ll take them a lot longer.” Then he opened his eyes to assess them: Mark, looking unusually grim and determined, no sign of buckling despite an adventure that had started with a kidnapping, encompassed murder, and ended up on a different world. Carey had not realized there was that much strength beneath that easygoing exterior.

  But Dayna looked back at him with frightened, red-rimmed blue eyes that clearly showed she had already given all she had—which was more than Carey had expected from her small frame, despite what he’d said when he’d agreed to Eric’s burial. She asked, “You think they’re telling the truth?”

  “Yes,” Carey said without hesitation. “They wouldn’t stick around if they weren’t, not when we’ve demonstrated how easily we can kill them. And keep your head down—I saw at least one bow, and an arrow can reach us as easily as a bullet can reach them. If they hadn’t been so cocky, they’d have had arrows strung before they got within range.”

  Mark slid behind a tree to the left of Carey, and Dayna sat at Mark’s feet, her arms wrapped around her knees, her gun dangling loosely from her hand. Carey exchanged a worried glance with Mark as she began rocking slightly, her eyes closed. They couldn’t afford to have her break down, not here, not now.

  Then he realized she was muttering to herself, words he divined more by watching her lips than listening to her words. Goawaygoawaygoway, she mouthed in a near silent chant. Goawaygoaway.

  Even though he felt the magic, he didn’t really comprehend until it was too late—until the magic flowed steadily through a small tired body with indomitable will. He snapped around to peer beyond his tree.

  They were going away.

  He sent Dayna an incredulous glance, but couldn’t take his eyes off the enemy for long. He couldn’t see their faces, couldn’t discern their expressions, but they were leaving—at first backing away, supporting the injured man between them, and then turning around to depart with even, unresisting strides. Going away. Carey looked at Dayna again, and could feel the incredulity on his face, knew he looked like an idiot as Mark stared at the men in confusion.

  Carey didn’t dare try to explain. Dayna’s unremitting concentration was the only thing keeping them safe; he couldn’t risk interrupting her. But sooner or later, she was going to run out of concentration—and she didn’t know the rules. Burning Hells, he didn’t know the rules, not for magic as pure as this. He watched her silently for what seemed a very long time. Mark followed his lead, crouching silently between Dayna and the tree, still looking out into the woods every few minutes to assure himself the others were gone.

  Finally, Carey felt it had gone on long enough—that it was better to ease the magic down before she simply lost her grasp on it. “They’re gone,” he said quietly. “You did it, Dayna—they’re gone.”

  Her eyes flew open in surprise, and he knew then that she’d had no idea what she was doing, but had simply been herself at the end of her rope. “What?” she asked, as the flow of magic snapped off. Carey winced; he’d been hoping it wouldn’t be that sudden, because of the—

  Backlash!

  Mark yipped short-lived astonishment as a flash flood of magic snapped through the woods, flung them to the ground, and left them there, three battered victims of its violent passage.

  ~~~~~

  Jaime had a lengthy chat over Sherra’s tea during which Sherra’s stout, pleasant husband joined them, and was then shown to a small but breezy room with a narrow rope featherbed where she agreed to rest despite her convictions that worry would keep her staring fretfully at the herb-hung ceiling.

  When she woke, she decided there must have been something soporific in the tea—or maybe it came of being healed from a mortal head injury. She peered out the window in search of the sun, and eventually decided the diffuse light meant it was early evening. When she turned back to the interior of the room, she discovered that someone had left her a lightweight tunic and a pair of slacks to replace the distinctly aromatic breeches and polo shirt she still wore. She had to cuff the legs of the pants so they wouldn’t drag, but otherwise someone had done an admirable job of sizing them for her. And they were flattering, a bright berry tunic over cream trousers—winter colors that always made her hair look darker and brought out her brown eyes.

  My eyes. My contacts. She’d be in a fuzzy neverland when she took them out—she shouldn’t have slept in them in the first place. She went over to the small mirror that rested above a delicately rose-tinted pitcher and washbasin, and peered to see how red her eyes were.

  They weren’t.

  She took the mirror over to the window and tilted it to catch the light; her dark brown eyes stared solemnly back at her, unsullied by the creeping red veins that always accompanied an inadvertent nap with the contacts. She examined her eyes with her peripheral vision, the find the contacts game. She blinked, she squinted, and she frowned, but to no avail. Okay, maybe she’d lost them in the fall. That wouldn’t be unusual.

  Or it wouldn’t be if she didn’t still have clear distance vision.

  Jaime placed the heels of her hands over her eyes for a moment and then deliberately opened them again, gazing across the courtyard to the trees beyond.

  She could see the leaves. The individual leaves, which should have been a blur of muddled greens. This world has magic, she chided herself, and wondered how many times she would have to learn that lesson.

  Putting it out of her mind—or pretending to—Jaime wandered into the hall and picked one of the several sets of stairs. She ended up in the kitchen, surprising the workers there as much as she surprised herself. It was an odd kitchen, with one big stove that seemed to be wood, and one that seemed to be simply a stone counter with dyed squares on it—although she discovered for herself, by nearly burning a finger, that there was plenty of reason for the big pot there to be boiling.

  A moment’s observation in this curious, bustling place revealed the person in charge, an aged man called the spellcook. She realized for the first time how deeply Camolen had integrated magic into its society. There were preservation spells, heating spells, baking spells, cleaning spells...and off in the corner she discovered ice forming in stacks of ceramic trays that looked absurdly familiar. Just like Sherra’s medicine, it was technology—from pragmatic to sublime—in a different form.

  Lesson Number Two. This world has magic, she repeated to herself, a chant that was to become familiar of the next few days, even if the world did not.

  Finally, she thanked them all for letting her blunder in amongst them and asked to be pointed at the courier barn. They all seemed to know just who she was and were eager to be helpful; each man and woman gave her their own version of the directions she supposed would have been simple enough if she’d only heard them once. She thanked them profusely and wandered out into t
he yard with absolutely no idea which way to turn—until she heard Lady’s call.

  It was an anxious neigh, and it peeled out several times in succession. Although she had to go around a busy blacksmith’s shack and a chicken cook, Jaime arrived at the barn only moments after Lady began another round of summons. She circumvented the large barn and found the dun in one of several small paddocks that backed up against the stout perimeter wall.

  “Lady,” she said quietly, and the mare snorted at the sight of her, not hesitating in pacing that had already worn a visible path along the border of the paddock. Jaime saw that her right shoulder was indeed scraped and bruised, but her stride was long and even and unaffected. “You were lucky,” she said wryly, and ducked through the rails of the fence to stand in Lady’s path, interrupting the fixated movement.

  Lady didn’t appreciate the interference and said so with a loud wet snort as she stopped scant inches away from Jaime, bobbing her head.

  “Oh, stop,” Jaime said in a don’t be stupid tone, wiping her cheek. “He’ll get here when he gets here.”

  “Oh, he’s here, all right.”

  The voice startled her and she whirled, putting her back up against Lady, who snorted again—this time aggressively, protectively.

  The woman held up her hand, and winced. “Don’t worry,” she said, rubbing her shoulder appreciatively. I’m not here to make trouble.”

  Jaime took in the tall, blond figure and had no trouble placing her. “You were on the path,” she said, almost an accusation. “You could have told me you were Sherra’s people—it would have saved us both a lot of trouble.”

  The woman shrugged. “We had the armbands on. It didn’t occur to us someone might not know what they meant—all of Siccawei knows what they mean.”

  “Did you say Carey’s here?”

  “Him and two others. They from your...place, too?” The woman came up to the paddock fence and leaned on the top rail, frowning at Lady when the dun snaked her neck out and snapped in a deliberately rude threat.

  Jaime closed her mouth on astonishment and instead gave Lady a reassuring pat. “I’m sorry,” she said. “She’s been through a lot today.”

  The woman shrugged, but her expression made it clear she still waited for an answer.

  “Yes, we came together. The guy is my brother, Mark, and the woman is a friend, Dayna. My name is Jaime,” she added as an afterthought, and wished she could have been introducing Eric as well.

  “Katrie,” the woman said. “It’s really true there’s no magic on your world?” She sounded as though she didn’t believe it.

  Jaime laughed. “You know, that’s about the same look I had on my face when Carey tried to convince me there is magic on yours. But it’s true—there’s no magic there.”

  “Huh,” Katrie said skeptically.

  Jaime couldn’t keep the hope from her voice. “Can you take me to Carey?”

  She wasn’t prepared for Katrie’s decisive shake of her head. “We brought him in a fist ago—” she started, stopping at Jaime’s expression. “What?”

  “A fist?”

  “Of course, a fist.” Katrie planted one fist on top of another until she pointed directly overhead. “Midday. That’s nine fists. Scholars have their tricky clocks for keeping time, but out away from the cities we do it our own way. It’s been about one fist since we brought Carey in—and that wasn’t any easy chore, I’ll tell you.”

  Jaime’s hand stilled against Lady’s neck, and she had the uncanny feeling that the dun was suddenly listening, too. It was enough to keep Katrie talking. “Three of them and three of us, and we had to carry them all the way. Sherra’s with them, now.” Another shrug, this time of dismissal; her job was done.

  “Carry them? Are they—what—?” The hand gripped and tangled in black strands of mane. Not all of them. Not them, too.

  “My guess is magic. There wasn’t a mark on them—and we’d never have found them if Neron hadn’t felt the magic coming from that way. It had to have been big, because he’s no sensitive,” Katrie said, matter-of-fact.

  Lady lifted her head and called out again as Jaime turned away from the woman, suddenly aware that her own nonchalance since crashing the gate was all a cover. How could anyone be nonchalant in a society as alien as this one, when threat and death seemed to be all around her? She wrapped her arms around Lady’s dun neck, and the vibrations of the anguished whinnying shook her.

  “Here, now.” The light touch on her shoulder startled her; she hadn’t expected any gentleness from the tough-looking woman who’d stood before her. “Sherra’ll put them right.”

  “It’s not just...it’s...” Jaime faltered, talking into Lady’s neck, overwhelmed by the prospect of finding just a few words to convey everything that needed to be said. Finally she settled for, “We already lost one friend today.” Maybe two, she thought, as she felt Lady’s soft black nose nuzzle gently at her shoulder.

  Surprise evident, Katrie said, “What happened?”

  Jaime wiped her eyes on the sleeve of the bright tunic and glanced up at the taller woman, receiving her own surprise at the new respect she thought she saw there. Jaime surprised herself again with her blunt question. “Why?”

  After a moment, Katrie shrugged. “We’re all involved in this story, too. It started here and it’s going to end here. And while maybe you’ll find a way back home, we’ll still be here, living with the results of this mess.”

  Jaime, too, thought a moment, looking at Katrie with her peculiarly acute vision, and seeing a blunt, tough woman who had the depth to come up with that answer.

  “Supper’ll be on,” Katrie said. “I’ll show you how it’s done here, and you’ll have plenty of time to tell me your side of things.”

  Jaime didn’t have to think any longer. “Thanks.” She briefly rested her hand on the thick black stripe that traversed Lady’s spine. The dun’s attention was already elsewhere, and her neck vibrated with a barely voiced call.

  “She must have seen them come in.” Jaime climbed out through the fence. “She knows he’s here somewhere.”

  “I’ve seen her here on regular courier runs. She never seemed to care so much then.”

  “That,” said Jaime, “is part of the story.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jaime had quite an audience at the meal, a huge buffet complete with hot soapy water in which to wash the copper-veneered wooden platters and utensils—although Jaime now knew they’d be magically cleansed in the kitchen as well, so this was more like rinsing the dishes before they went in the dishwasher. People wandered in and out, keeping the noise level at a loud but pleasant hum, and the food slowly disappeared as Jaime told a tableful of people how she’d met Carey. She did not, however, speak of Jess’s involvement, even if it was part of the story. Somehow it was too personal and, she decided, not really her story, anyway. She simply told Katrie and her friends that Dayna had run into Carey at the hotel. She put Dayna in Jess’s place at the YMCA, and did not mention that Carey had memorized the spell—or even that he’d inadvertently destroyed it in the first place. But she told the scrupulous truth when it came to Eric, and the caring person he’d been, and that his death had been stupid and unnecessary. And she told about meeting Katrie on the road, and turned it into a Keystone Cops adventure that even had Katrie smiling.

  But she didn’t learn the things she wanted to know. No one could tell her if her friends would be all right; the best she could do was discover that Sherra had left them in the hands of her students while she recovered from the work she’d done. No one cared to venture a guess about the injuries or the prognosis—although they seemed to think it wouldn’t be unusual if Jaime had to wait another day to find out.

  Jaime sensed they had some idea of what had gone on, but were simply too discreet to discuss it. They wouldn’t even tell her about Arlen, or what Calandre had been up to in Carey’s absence—someone always managed to change the subject, or she got a table full of s
hrugs, and eventually she quit asking. While she quietly fumed over that, she eventually realized they had done no more than she, with her altered version of Carey’s adventures, and had to respect them for it.

  When the talkfest adjourned, she was told the little room in which she’d napped was hers for the duration, and she returned to it, tried one more time to find her contacts—this time by candlelight, although the halls had been lit with strange spherical glows—and crawled into the soft bed. There she fretted for all of five minutes before sleep kidnapped her thoughts and turned them into a night full of frustrating dreams.

  ~~~~~

  As darkness fell, Sherra’s head courier brought Lady into the barn, where she ceased her calling. He stayed with her for a while and offered her some of the choicest hay she’d ever seen, but her mouth was not for eating tonight. And though she knew and liked the dark-skinned man, she did not respond to his gentle words or his grooming. Eventually he left her alone with her thoughts.

  For Lady had thoughts. She didn’t understand them and she didn’t like them, but she had them. She was aware that something of great magnitude had happened to her; every moment of her time as a woman was etched into her excellent equine memory—as memories she couldn’t comprehend. Far too many words bounced around in her mind, both the place and object names that she could deal with and the more abstract facets of language that she couldn’t. It made her mad, and it frightened her, and more than anything she wanted Carey to return to her and make it stop.

  But the very thought of the man who could—who always had—soothed her merely created more torment. She had memories of feelings she didn’t understand, and couldn’t translate to her equine make-up, and they made her want to crash through the door of her stall and even through the thick wood gate, and to run her fastest through the woods, galloping until her tortured heart gave out.