Step by slow step she walked to the spot where Carey lay, Sherra at his head and a stranger by his feet, both deep in concentration. Magic flowed strongly throughout the hollow in small, myriad voices of controlled and gentle force, but it grew more concentrated as she went to Carey, kneeling next to him in a peculiar, slow motion fashion that kept what she saw from being quite as real.
Livid bruises etched pathways in his skin; his body twitched and trembled in odd jerky motions. Blood trickled from his mouth and nose and filled the whites of his eyes. She did not think he could see but she leaned over him anyway, and her hair fell forward to brush across his chin.
“Jess?” he said, barely intelligible, more hopeful than educated in the guess.
“Yes,” she whispered, her hand hovering above his, but afraid to touch him, afraid that she would hurt him more.
“Good job, Jess,” he said, words that faded in and out, jerking along with his body. “Good job.”
Jess sat back on her heels, eyes closed, head bowed, fully aware of all the things he was trying to cram into the two Words that were so familiar to the both of them. A touch on her shoulder drew her gaze upward, into Arlen’s.
“Come, Jess,” he said. “Let these two do their work.”
Slowly she got to her feet, following him away with more than one backward glance. And when they had reached the picket line, she found that she, too, had been followed, that Jaime, Dayna—still clutching the saddlebags—and Mark hesitated at a polite distance, waiting for an invitation. Arlen lifted his head, only half a nod, but all that it took.
“Someone please tell me what is happening. Has happened,” she stumbled, and then gave up and demanded, “Tell me,” looking at Arlen, and then around at the bustle that had filled the hollow in the few moments—it had been only a few moments, hadn’t it?—since she’d confronted Calandre on the point. She looked at her hands, which still had the feel of Calandre’s throat beneath them, and gave Arlen a frown that conveyed all her disorientation and confusion.
“I’m not sure any one person has all the details figured out yet,” Arlen said, “but I’ll try. Help arrived while you were dealing with Calandre. A significant amount of help, actually. They pulled you off of Calandre and brought her down here with Carey, where the mage-medics have been working on both of them.”
“Why?” Jess said bluntly. “Why stop me? Why heal her?”
Arlen shook his head. “Because that is who we are,” he said. “Just because she has not earned such mercy doesn’t mean we won’t give it to her. She’ll receive all the punishment she’s earned, but death is not part of that judgment.”
Jess looked at her bare feet. “You think I was wrong.”
Arlen laughed right out loud, a short sound with genuine humor. “Jess! You were fighting for your life—our lives! You destroyed Willand’s shield, you kept Calandre so busy she couldn’t launch her wizard war when Sherra answered Gacy’s call. No one is suggesting you made the wrong choice.”
“Killing was right for her,” Jess murmured, mostly meant to be heard, raising her head the same way Lady would have fought an unnecessary tug on the halter. “She teaches people to be cruel.”
“She won’t have the opportunity any longer,” Arlen said with satisfaction. “The mage-medics have stopped the swelling in her throat, but they seem to think there’s been serious damage to her voice. She won’t be teaching anyone—and she’ll never be permitted to work magic again.”
“And Willand?” Jess asked, looking at Jaime. Jaime steadily met her gaze, but neither Mark nor Dayna reacted. They don’t know yet.
“Willand will be presented to the Council, which will pass judgment on her.” He looked at Jaime. “We might need witnesses.”
“I’m sure you’ll find them ready when the time comes,” Jaime said, neatly ending further conversation on the subject.
Jess asked, not to be denied, “Why is Carey so sick?”
“Because breaking my bones wasn’t enough entertainment for her,” Mark said bitterly, a tone Jess was not used to hearing in his voice. She looked at him, her eyes widening, but found no obvious injuries—although he had been limping. He gave her a half-hearted grin. “Arlen stuck me back together as soon as Sherra’s people pulled you off Calandre.”
“Bones are the easiest,” Arlen said. “Although as Mark would readily tell you, he has some healing left to do on his own. There wasn’t time to do a thorough job.”
“I’m not complaining,” Mark said.
“Carey,” Jess insisted.
Silence greeted her request, until Jaime said, “Calandre used a spell on him, Jess, an awful spell.”
“She said she couldn’t stop it,” Jess recalled in alarm, then looked at Mark. “But you said it was stopped—”
“She lied,” Arlen said flatly. “Any wizard as skilled as Calandre knows how to stop what she’s started. She was just trying to upset you so she could get away from you.”
“But if the spell is stopped, why isn’t Carey all right?” Why was he lying between two wizards, fighting for his life?
Arlen shook his head, weariness and sorrow suddenly settling in his eyes. “The spell did a lot of damage. It’s a race to see if they can patch him together before it kills him. Frankly, Jess, I’m surprised he’s still alive. I think you need to be prepared—”
“No!” Jess said, surprising even herself with her vehemence. Carey was the one link that tied together her different lives, the person who had loved her before and come to love her after. She wasn’t sure she could handle the upheaval of a yet another new life—human here in Camolen—without his steady and familiar hand to guide her.
Life as a horse, at least, was something she knew, and something she did well. Something she could continue to do well even without Carey. Dun Lady’s Jess would eventually grow accustomed to a new rider, but she thought that Jess the woman would always feel the same sharp grief she felt right now. “Arlen,” she blurted, “if Carey dies I want you to change me back to Lady.”
“What?” Mark jerked to attention; Dayna’s lips thinned and Jaime just stared at her.
“I wouldn’t want that on my conscience, Jess,” Arlen told her gently. “I know how much Carey means to you—no, I take that back. I only know what a good team you make, and...what I saw of you together last night. But I’ve also seen how courageous you are. You can do this, Jess. On your own.”
Jaime’s reaction had built into anger. “I can’t believe I heard you say that,” she told Jess. “You are your own woman—you don’t need Carey holding your hand.”
“But I want him to hold my hand,” Jess said, flaring into her own anger; up went her head again. “I have always been Lady, and Lady never hurt like this! I want Arlen to change me back if Carey dies.”
Arlen reached into the pocket of his tunic and withdrew the broken chain of Carey’s spell stones. “I can’t do that for you, Jess. Or, rather, I won’t. There are enough heavy things on my shoulders right now. But I can put a spell on the stone that once held the world travel spell. It should do the trick—but it won’t work if you have any doubts about changing back. Magic requires a certain sincerity of belief and intent.”
“Arlen, no!” Jaime said angrily, before Jess could accept the offer. “You can’t give her the means—not when she’s grieving!”
“It’s her choice, Jaime,” Arlen said flatly. “And it won’t work unless even the deepest part of her wants it to.”
“Do that,” Jess said. “Put the spell in the stone. I can make it work.” Do it now, before you change your mind.
Arlen suddenly looked as tired as he had the evening before, when he’d passed out beside a raging dun mare. “No interruptions, please,” he cautioned.
“No problem,” Jaime said, her anger still blazing. “I’m not going to watch you do this to her.”
Dayna gave him a cold look. “I’m learning more about magic all the time.” She followed Jaime away. Mark looked between Arlen and Jess...not happy, not
passing judgment. “There are a lot of people who’d miss you, Jess,” he said. “And no way for you to tell anyone if you wanted to come out again.”
Jess looked at the cluster of people that hid the wounded from her. “I know,” she said sadly. In the silence that fell after those words, Arlen slid one of the stones off the chain and cradled it in his palm. Jess felt a brief surge of magic, and then he held it out to her. That easy? After a blink of a hesitation, she took it, feeling the leftover warmth of Arlen’s hand as though it were that hand she held and not the stone. She had not expected it to be so comforting to hold the thing.
But it was. And now she had her escape, and she would keep it with her until she knew if Carey would live or die...until she knew if this part of her would die with him.
~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jess braced her back against the saddle and the little bay called Fahrvegnügan halted, giving her a perfect view of Arlen’s hold—a spot that had taken almost an hour to reach at a reasonable pace, unlike their frantic escape of the evening before. The area wasn’t secured yet and the air was full of magic, muffled by distance. There were physical skirmishes as well, as Sherra’s forces ferreted out the last of Calandre’s people. The fighting meant the area wasn’t a safe one, but Jess felt far removed from their struggles, and unthreatened by them.
She stood in the very same place where Carey had shot three men, scaring her other self into the hottest version of Lady. Hot and ready to run, never mind that her knee was no longer whole. She looked down at her encased wrist—for it was a minor injury in the eyes of the overtaxed mage-medics, something that could be tended later—and suddenly wondered what would happen to Lady if she changed back with the injury. She still remembered the anger and panic she’d felt at that disability, but it had been at the end of an exhilarating and frightening run. Maybe she would be able to handle it better now.
On impulse she dismounted and flipped the reins over Fahrvegnügan’s head, feeling the sudden urge of a good run in her legs, here by the pastures in which she’d so often gamboled. With Fahrvegnügan’s reins clutched unnoticed in her hand and the horse’s hoof beats filling the void where her own should have been, Jess ran. Her bare feet pounded against the hard dirt road, feeling out ground that was so familiar she raised her head and half closed her eyes, drinking in the wind of her run and exulting in the way it whipped through her thick dun...mane. Gulping breath, strong flexing muscles, nostrils wide to the wind—this is what she’d been born to do.
Jess and the mildly confused bay mare flashed through the gate of the fall pasture at full speed. The pasture ranged out into the rolling hills behind Arlen’s hold, encompassing a creek and a small stand of trees; the dirt path beneath her feet turned to the prickle of newly cut hay, evidence of everyday life going on despite Calandre. She ran to the trees without slowing, ignoring the growing ache of muscles that had been overused the day before. This was her pasture, her life.
Her world.
At the trees she stopped and whirled back around, her chest heaving; she looked out on an intimately familiar vista she’d never seen through these eyes. She looked at the ground at her feet, the permanent dust hollow from so many years of being trodden on and packed down by horses seeking shade and a good roll.
A good roll. She pulled 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 turn her thoughts to the reason she’d come here, to the decision of Lady versus 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’ve always been. 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; she was exhausted by the whole thing. In her mind’s eye a strong young dun yearling chased another rudely crowding adolescent horse away from the creek, 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 eye 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, I’m afraid not.” He nodded to the side and she discovered Arlen standing by Fahrvegnügan, waiting with no sign of impatience. She looked back to Carey and he added, “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, without 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, not like Jaime’s at all. “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. Jess frowned at them both. “What’s wrong?”
“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?”
The Changespell Saga Page 32