The Changespell Saga

by Doranna Durgin

  Like herself.

  She snorted and flipped back her long dun forelock. Just like the long length of her thick, dark sand hair, it held a streak of black down the centerline; it fell coarse and wild when not tied back. The centerline echoed down her spine, a dark mark against caramel skin—just as her brown irises were a little larger than anyone else’s, and her bare feet ran tough over almost any ground.

  Dun Lady’s Jess. Buckskin dun mare with black points and a thick black line along her back, built to athletic lines and endurance and heart.

  Not quite ordinary human at that.

  ~~~~~

  Jess took another bite of her buttered, honeyed bread and caught the overflow of honey with a quick tongue. Something darted past the corner of her eye; her head came up, her jaw stopped in mid-chew.

  “Relax,” Mia said easily, reaching across the rustic outdoor table to nab a cube of cheese. “Just Aashan’s annoying little dog.” She bumped Jess’s elbow with her hand. “Bay is so fast! He’ll be all right to go out this evening, don’t you think? Aashan will want me to carry word about that that warning spell in the Lorakans.”

  Jess shook her head, giving the dog one last look out of the corner of her eye. “Lorakans?”

  “The mountains that isolate those old coastal precincts,” Mia said. “Something triggered an old border spell warning—no one knows what it is.”

  Jess wasn’t sure of Aashan’s magical specialty; she received so many private courier messages from the city that Jess wondered if she didn’t, somehow, specialize in gossip.

  Then she’d decided that was nonsense, since no one could ever make a nice hold like this by trafficking in silly bits of news.

  She licked dripping honey from her wrist. “Why don’t they know?”

  “Oh, it’s old,” Mia said dismissively, reaching for the water pitcher to replenish both their glasses. “The people there use a different kind of magic—it’s clan magic or something. I don’t really understand it.”

  “But the warning..?”

  “Who knows? The Council members are falling all over themselves to figure it out, and it’s an excuse to take Bay out.” Mia grinned and leaned forward, lowering her voice. “The really interesting stuff is happening right here, in the middle of Camolen.”

  “Here in Kymmet Precinct?” Jess asked, not yet familiar enough with the precinct to understand its nature—what might and might not happen here.

  For where once she had lived at Arlen’s wizard hold in Anfeald, hunting speed as a courier horse beneath the man who’d bred and raised her, now she rode in this human form for the Kymmet stables. Here, away from what she’d been, so she maybe could discover who—and what—she was now.

  But she missed Anfeald. She missed Arlen. And most of all, she missed Carey.

  She sighed and picked a browning apple slice from the small ceramic bowl between them. Mmm, small, tart apple. Just the thing for a horse turned human who could navigate a rugged trail more easily than she could this conversation.

  “Maybe in Kymmet,” Mia said, her confidential tone laced with satisfaction—not at the news, Jess realized, but because she knew it to tell. “It’s hard to tell. It’s strong magic, and not one of the Council members recognized the signature.”

  Jess frowned. “I thought the wizards who work strong magic are all...” she searched for the word, “registered with the Council.”

  “They are,” Mia said, sitting back on the bench with satisfaction on her face. “And not only that—now the magic’s being shielded.”

  Jess just looked at her.

  Unlike most of Kymmet Stable’s customers, Mia never gave Jess strange looks because of her speech pattern, when her words grew halting or thickened where vowel met consonant, or when she didn’t understand human implications. She understood horses, and she understood when and why Jess reacted with a horse’s instincts.

  Other people tended to think she was either stupid or rude. Jess knew she was neither.

  Unless she meant to be.

  “No one should be able to shield magic use from a council member,” Mia told her now. “No one. They’re all desperate to figure out who it is.” She grew suddenly casual, playing with an apple stem. “They’re also, uh, a little concerned that if people knew, they’d overreact. So don’t tell anyone, huh?”

  “You’re telling me,” Jess said, making sure she had it right, “but I’m not supposed to let other people know.” She frowned, and pushed her very Ohio sunglasses up on her nose. “Why is it all right to tell me?”

  Mia grinned. “Because you’re my friend. And sometimes you just gotta tell someone.”

  Jess sighed. She’d ask Ander about this new rule. He was good at explaining human vagaries. And she’d see him late this afternoon, when they evaluated the latest courier applicant.

  Not that the applicant would realize he’d be tested by two couriers—the one who watched him, and the one he rode.

  “Bay?” Mia prompted her.

  “He’s fit,” Jess told her. “But he will offer you speed when you should rate him in this heat. Don’t let him make that decision.”

  Mia scoffed, which Jess took to mean that of course she wouldn’t, and noted her distraction. “Gotta get back, huh?”

  “Ander needs help with a rider test.” Jess stood and picked up the tangle of leather beside the table bench, looking down at the remains of the food. “Thank you. My favorites.”

  “I figured as much,” Mia said, looking pleased—and then, “Oh, no, Jess—you should do that in the barn.”

  Jess’s hands hesitated at the snap to her breeches—another gift from Jaime, although she’d also advised Jess to wear a long, covering tunic in this world otherwise without stretch fabrics. At Jess’s query, Jaime muttered something about good conformation and left it at that. Apparently the clothes rule applied even in this quiet courtyard.

  “All right,” Jess said. “The barn.”

  At the barn, Mia politely stood outside the stall and accepted Jess’s clothing piece by piece, giving Jess privacy for the change that felt infinitely more intimate than simple nudity while she packed the clothes away.

  Jess loosed the thick fall of her hair, shaking her head to settle it. Just behind her ear, next to the spot where Arlen’s brand sat like a dark tattoo, hung the long, thin braid with her collection of tiny sapphire and onyx changespells. The sapphire to change her to Lady, and the onyx to change her back.

  With the wood shavings of the stall crunchy against her tough bare soles, Jess folded her hand around one of the sapphires, closing her eyes to find the proper little niche in her mind—the one that whispered LadyLadyLady the entire time she was Jess.

  She opened herself to the sensations of the ground beneath hard, sturdy hooves, of the scents of grain and hay and the inevitably musty corners of the barn, of sounds that caught in her finely shaped ears... of her tail whisking against sensitive skin.

  Most of all, she released the well-ordered thoughts that dominated Jess, and gave way to the loss of awareness that came with being Lady. No sensible sentences in her head, no thoughts strung neatly one upon another. No realization, no flashes of sudden understanding that came from putting separate bits of knowledge together.

  No, Lady’s world was made up of Rules and Carey’s special Words, of sensations flooding her brain and leading to immediate, unthinking reaction. Jess’s intent became Lady’s simple directives—Run to a Hold or Do You Like This Rider? Or as now, a straightforward Run Home.

  In the stall, a dun mare snorted, shaking herself with a decisive flap of long mane. Behind her ear, a tangle of spellstones clinked together; one of them was newly dulled. Under her mane, along the upper curve of her fine, arched neck, Arlen’s old brand traced his name in her dark dun hide.

  She snorted again, and nudged the stall door open.

  “All set, then?” Mia asked. Lady ducked her head and Mia dropped her courier harness down to well-sloped shoulders. The pouch with Jess’s clothes and ret
urn messages settled into place high behind her withers, and Mia snugged a supple girth into place behind Lady’s elbows, running her fingers along the breast collar. A finely tooled and dyed leather circle held the Kymmet insignia to identify Lady as someone with a purpose—though she still had to evade the well-meaning citizens who occasionally tried to catch her.

  Mia gave her a gentle pat on the neck. “You’re all set,” she said, and stepped aside.

  With confident strides, Lady trotted out of the barn and out the open gate, and picked her way down the path to the stables of Kymmet.

  ~~~~~

  Dayna shoved her study notes across her desk, frowning her way into a truly impressive scowl.

  If only they’d let me work with magic the way I did when I first came here.

  Unschooled, unsuspecting, she’d immediately tapped into unstructured magic. Raw magic, Carey had called it, and warned her off it.

  Fine by her—she’d wanted no part of the magic, and no part of this world. At least, not until she’d realized how rare her talent was, and just how good she could be... if she tried.

  So here she was, trying. Starting over again at age thirty-two. Staring at the papers scattered across a scarred wooden desk illuminated by her very own magelight and surrounded by the noises of Sherra’s hold—the children, the goats, and especially the damn rooster who thought it was dawn all day long.

  She wasn’t supposed to know about the rogue magic that now distracted her—but they’d all felt it. The other students chattered on as if this was some exciting opportunity to discover a great new talent, but...

  Dayna knew better.

  For Dayna had seen just how destructive a rogue wizard could be. She knew that any wizard who shielded so thoroughly had nothing good to offer Camolen.

  She knew any wizard who could shield so thoroughly was a threat to Camolen.

  And she knew checkspells were nothing to a devious mind bent on exacting damage. What if a rogue applied the same infinitely thin protective tooth barrier to someone’s nose and mouth? What if that rogue took the simple spell for plugging plumbing leaks and used it in someone’s heart?

  Such things didn’t happen in Camolen, at least not often. And that was because even triggered spellstones left the known signatures of their originating wizards. Usually.

  But not this time. And an unknown wizard who could maintain a shield against the Council could do whatever he or she wanted without detection.

  Dayna leaned back in her chair, stretching. It was, she decided, time to go ask questions.

  Let the other students make up their romantic fantasies about the new magic. Dayna wanted the truth.

  Someone had to prepare.

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  Chapter Two

  Lady’s tail swished in annoyance—a sharp, constant rhythm that her rider would have done well to heed. The young man on her back didn’t know when to leave well enough alone, and Lady, though obedient, had never been one to suffer fools.

  She circled the far end of the covered riding ring, one ear cocked to Ander in the center, her back stiff and her movement stiffer.

  Ander had interfered during the saddling, when the saddle was placed so far forward it would have pinched her shoulders. He had not interfered when the young man had jerked the girth tight so abruptly, or when he had failed to lift Lady’s tangled forelock from beneath the browband of her bridle, where the hair caught and twisted unpleasantly.

  No, he had not stopped any of it. He merely stood in the arena and called out simple directives, things like, “I’d like to see you trot now.”

  Bump, bump, bump. The applicant’s heels banged her sides at every one of her ground-eating strides. There was never any change in Ander’s voice—no surprise, no dismay... but Lady knew well enough that this young man was not up to riding her. She snorted sharply and began to creep in on the circle, closing in on Ander.

  “She’ll do better than that for you,” Ander said mildly, no doubt referring to the way Lady’s nose lifted as she hollowed her back, making the gait less than comfortable for her rider. Another few feet closer to Ander on the circle and she could find some excuse to stop... .

  She stumbled as her rider noticed her path and yanked her head to the outside.

  That was it. She wanted him off her back and she wanted it now. She wanted to be Jess, who could yell at this oaf in ways Lady couldn’t.

  The spellstone, the spellstone... she increased speed as the man jabbed her sides with his heels, setting her jaw against the reins as he pulled, trying to get a headset and soft jaw from front to back instead of feeding her energy from back to front. The spellstone. Jess could trigger it. Lady had only some vague notion of how it worked, and had never gotten further than wanting it. Wanting it now.

  “Try a canter,” Ander said. “She’s got quite a nice one.”

  Canter? No.

  If she couldn’t turn into Jess, if she couldn’t break the Rules and rid herself of this clumsy rider, then she’d do the opposite.

  She’d do just exactly what he told her.

  At that moment, he told her a muddled combination of things, with his legs thumping indiscriminately against her sides and his seat shoving at her back in some indecipherable cue. She set her ears back and put energy into her trot—creating her own breeze.

  “C’mon, canter,” he muttered, from behind teeth that sounded clenched.

  And canter she would—just as soon as he cued her properly.

  She ducked behind the reins, her neck arched in a caricature of the noble headset he’d failed to support. She rushed on, her equine thoughts falling into a rut—The spellstone. Jess. The spellstone—

  Smack!

  Lady leapt forward, mortified. The oaf had a crop! She’d forgotten he had a crop! And he’d hit her with it! She found herself cantering, startled into it; she could almost feel his satisfaction.

  But this spacious arena offered plenty of room for an agile horse to have a good angry gallop.

  She bolted, feeling him jerk back in the saddle, his balance a thing of the past. Soft dirt clods flew into the air behind her, kicked up by pounding hooves. Her neck arched, ducking behind the bit and offering him no contact or control with the reins. Nor would she listen to his seat—assuming he ever found it again, instead of clutching her mane and sliding around in the saddle.

  “Lady!” Ander shouted—as if Lady was going to hear him now. He’d had his chance to stop this.

  She made two complete circuits of the arena at top speed, and then slowed with a series of jerky bounces until she hit the perfect bucking speed.

  She wished he’d stayed on more than two jumps.

  But the instant he left the saddle, she stopped and dropped her head, barely breathing hard, her face a study of stupid innocence and the reins laying so far up her neck they looped around her ear and crossed over her forehead.

  Ander ran up to where the young man rose to his hands and knees, spitting the carefully raked arena dirt from his mouth. Hands low on his on hips, Ander looked down and said, “Subtle cues. I told you, all our horses take subtle cues.”

  Lady stretched her neck to get a better look at the young man’s face—and then snorted in it, the wettest snort she could muster.

  Ander, she could see, was hiding a grin—but he might as well not. She hadn’t even started with him yet.

  ~~~~~

  “You knew!” Jess shouted toward the door of the stall. She jammed her head into the tunic and found the neck of it through brute force. “You knew he’d be like that! And you let him ride me!”

  No wonder Ander hadn’t triggered the changespell when she’d returned from Aashan’s hold in the early afternoon. No wonder he’d kept her out grazing until just before saddling time. He hadn’t wanted her to spot their applicant lurking around the stables.

  I would have known.

  Jess ran her tongue over her sore gums and rubbed her still-stinging hip. Then she jerked on the rest of her clothes and stormed out of the
stall to face Ander.

  The barn aisle stretched out behind him, only half of Kymmet’s impressive facilities. A wide, short aisle led to an identical row of stalls parallel to these, and the high-ceilinged structure echoed with the clop of hooves and the metallic ring of stall latches shoving home—the grooms were bringing the horses in for the evening feed.

  Ander sat on the sturdy tack box that held Kymmet Stable’s first aid supplies, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle. Broad shouldered, lean hipped—he was like Jess, bigger than most of the couriers. But he was a consummate rider and trainer, and he’d gotten the job at Kymmet’s prestigious stables despite his size. Also like Jess.

  But unlike Jess, he was fully human. And he was male.

  Sometimes Jess thought humans should come with the instruction books she’d learned to read—especially the men. For although Ander looked a bit embarrassed, he did not look truly chastised or abashed. In fact, she’d have to say he looked satisfied beneath that little shrug and grin of his.

  She barely stopped before she reached him. Crowding him, just like she’d crowd another horse in the pasture. But no other horse would calmly put his hands on her waist and move her to the side—and she was not sure Ander should be doing it, either. She tossed her head in annoyance.

  “Relax,” Ander said. “I didn’t have any choice. The fellow was nephew to the senior man on the Kymmet Lander Council—and just because Koje’s a Council wizard doesn’t mean she can ignore politics. There’s no way she could turn him away without the ridden interview.” He couldn’t hide his grin, then. “Besides, I knew I could count on you to respond in some appropriately spectacular manner.”

  Jess made a noise deep in her throat—certainly not agreement. “You should have told me.”

  “I thought it would work out better if you reacted naturally.” Unperturbed, he picked a wood shaving out of her hair.

  Jess tilted her head back, more annoyed than ever; she stepped out of his reach. He was making decisions for her again.

  Unlike Carey, who was in his early thirties, Ander was nearer to Jess’ estimated human age of mid-twenty. He was also her first friend here at Kymmet, the largest public breeding and training courier stables in central Camolen.