The Changespell Saga

by Doranna Durgin

  Dayna snorted. “Says who, Jess or Lady?”

  Jess gave her a sly glimmer of a look. “Both of us.” But then she frowned, moving toward the back of the horse and digging into a pocket for her knife. Dayna missed what followed; she was too busy giving the horse her best evil eye as he reached for her—mouth open in what he must have thought was a cunning manner, his lips twitching toward her hand.

  Dayna pretended to be as confident as Jess. “Stop that!” She shoved his head away and he took on that same false air of innocence, his lips still twitching wistfully in her direction.

  Tucking the knife away and preoccupied by whatever she’d gathered, Jess nonetheless gave him a poke on the neck. He flared his nostrils and flattened his ears and refused to look at either of them.

  “Your face is going to freeze that way,” Dayna informed him.

  “I bit him,” Jess said. “He’s sulking.” She came out of the stall, slid the halter off one-handed, and replaced it on the door. She held out her other hand, displaying her bounty. “Look.”

  “Big chunk of horse tail,” Dayna said. “Trent won’t thank you for that.”

  Suliya returned, alone but hauling an armful of folded wool blankets. “Couldn’t find anyone,” she said, loudly from the other end of the barn. “But I’ve got the coolers.”

  “Good,” Jess said, and nothing else, to which Suliya frowned and went to work in the stalls.

  Jess held out the horse hair again. “More than just tail,” she said. “Tail and... I think a leaf, but part of it is metal and part of it is...” she shook her head sharply, at a loss for words.

  Dayna saw it, then. A leaf, transformed and tangled in the horse hair—no, made part of the horse hair.

  A simple leaf, caught in the tail of a fleeing horse with its final distorted spasm. She took in a deep breath of air, let it out slowly. Very slowly.

  “We saw the spot,” Jess said. “We cut through the woods to go around it. This is what killed the Council, isn’t it? This strangeness.”

  “Yes,” Dayna said. “But we don’t know what it is, or why it is.” And they weren’t likely to find out, not while the Secondary Council walled everyone up and refused to listen to the first response team.

  “Dayna?”

  Dayna waved away the query. “Not frowning at you,” she said, letting the expression turn into something more weary and more determined at the same time. “Let’s talk inside, where it’s warm.”

  “Ay,” Suliya said from the other end of the barn, faint petulance in her voice, southern Camolen coming through in her words. “I could use some help down here.”

  Jess rolled her eyes, a very human expression. But then, Jess was just as much horse as human, with that little toss of her head that meant irritation. She said, “Go be warm, Dayna. Suliya and I will come when the horses are settled.”

  “No real rush,” Dayna said, still amused. “You can’t start home until tomorrow, anyway.”

  Jess gave her a somber look. “Anfeald without Arlen,” she said, “isn’t really home.”

  ~~~~~

  Arlen accepted a fine glass goblet from his host and raised it in a gesture of appreciation he was too distracted to truly feel—too full of frustration, chafing to find himself still here at all.

  Guides dammit, anyway.

  Jaime. Anfeald. The Council. He still had no idea what had happened. What was happening—and all without him.

  Instead, he waited in the modest townlet of Amses—where he’d found this excellent little family restaurant. Amses served as a complex little hub for the local family mines—and since those mines delved not only for silver, but also for the rarer specialty spell stone materials that could hold the most complex of spells, it had more amenities than most.

  Arlen the wizard had done quite a bit of business with some of these mines. But Arlen the traveler didn’t purport to know anything about them.

  For Arlen had gone as underground as an eccentric wizard could get.

  “It was a truly excellent meal,” he told the chef, a man who obviously knew how to fling his own spells. “Only the ability to sleep on it in my own home could possibly improve the experience.”

  An understatement of the most severe nature.

  The server, a young man with a distinct resemblance to the chef, gave him a sympathetic look. “We have several business travelers caught here until the travel system is working again.”

  “I haven’t been able to get any news at all,” Arlen said, lacing it with the amount of complaint he thought appropriate for an inconvenienced businessman. “Have you heard how long things will be down?”

  “Nothing,” the young man said. “Whatever happened must have been pretty bad, to have affected all of Camolen—”

  The chef cleared his throat in an admonishing sound. “We’ve enough service wizards to keep Amses going for a few good days yet. The break from Dispatch news might even do us all a little good.”

  “Sit back and enjoy the sunsets while you can?” Arlen suggested, trying not to think about the deaths of people he had cared about. I should have been there, should have tried to stop it—

  And then you’d be dead, too.

  “Exactly,” the chef said, entirely unaware of Arlen’s inner struggle. “I hope your meal has helped to make your stay pleasant.”

  “It’s gone a long way,” Arlen said. “If you could direct me to an equally pleasant overnighter, I’d be grateful.”

  That, they were glad to do. Arlen paid for the meal with scrip from distant Anfeald—the only scrip he had, and worth a remark from the server.

  Arlen thought again that he’d hardly been prepared to keep a low profile.

  And, arriving in his rooms at the recommended establishment, he knew it was still his best course of action. Until he found out what happened to the Council. Until he found out why he was the only one left.

  Do something.

  Anything.

  Make it better.

  He was a senior wizard. The only surviving Council wizard. If anyone could do something...

  But not from here. Not without more information. Not without something to act against. Not until he knew who and what he was hiding from.

  He tossed his bags on the bed and peered out one of the room’s two windows. The overnighter—a private business unassociated with the Camolen’s regulated road inns—held only four customer rooms. This one looked out onto the property’s vast back lot, where snow-covered arbors, walkways, and benches all hinted of summertime beauty.

  For now it sat abandoned, offering him privacy. As did most overnighters, this one offered breakfast; it would be mid-day before he needed to venture forth. Enough time, he hoped, to make plans for getting home.

  He didn’t even know how long the trip would take. He’d use coach, for the most part... perhaps interspersed with rental horses to make himself less predictable. Until I know what happened...

  He glanced into the private bathroom, for which he’d paid extra; the other rooms shared a common bath. This one held soap and towels and frippery, none of which he cared about. Just the privacy.

  Along the wall beside the bathroom hung a full-length mirror set into a burnished metal frame with a local-artist look to it. Here, he hesitated, realizing for the first time the extent of his folly.

  For the man he looked at was nothing less than a wizard.

  Who else wore such a thing as an off-world university sweatshirt? Or, beneath, habitual dark blues and blacks in fine materials magicked so as never to fade or fuzz or pill up?

  Dump it all at a secondhand store.

  There was nothing he could do about his height... taller than most was taller than most, on horseback or trying to fold his legs inside a coach. But his hair was as habitual as the rest of him—full and shaggy and never much tended.

  Cut it. Dye the steel grey to a darker color.

  The mustache. He ran a finger across the brushy abundance of it, watching himself in the mirror. He’d had this mustach
e all his adult life.

  Shave it.

  Nothing he could do about the faint overbite. But it wasn’t a bad one, not bad at all—not enough so people would remember him just because of it...

  At least, he didn’t think so. He hadn’t had a good look at it since the mustache first grew in.

  “The problem is,” he told his reflection, “you are so blatantly... you.”

  Arlen of Anfeald. Mild until circumstances called for otherwise; ready to act when necessary, if perhaps not always quite soon enough. Easy enough to say he was usually absorbed in work. Of late, often absorbed in Jaime.

  Jaime.

  Who knew what she thought of his absence. Dead. She thinks I’m dead with the rest of them.

  Jaime...

  She was the one person he might be able to contact.

  She had no skill with magic, but she had what everyone in the Council lacked—she had his love. She had his intimate trust.

  And of late, she did indeed respond to casual direct communication within the hold—the kind of magic that held only a whisper of a signature, closer to raw magic than anything else a wizard might do.

  He took a deep breath, still watching himself in the mirror. It was evening, and quiet; a time Jaime often used to read. She’d be the most receptive now.

  “Good-bye, you,” he told his image, and turned away from it. Tomorrow he would become someone else. Tonight, he reached for Jaime.

  And tomorrow night, and the night after... until he was close enough to touch her.

  ~~~~~

  Carey rubbed his fingers across his eyes, trying and failing to wipe out the gritty feel of fatigue at the end of a day that wasn’t nearly over yet.

  He lowered himself onto Arlen’s couch next to Jaime, who curled around herself in sudden miserable illness, and hunted for words.

  Are you all right? Do you feel any better? Can I do anything?

  But he didn’t voice any of that. Not when the answers were resoundingly obvious. No, no, and no.

  He settled for resting a hand on her arm, but even that made her wince. He sat back against the couch arm and took a deep breath, trying to put things in perspective, trying not to worry too much about this one more thing. It was a winter illness, probably; everyone got them.

  Except there wasn’t anything going around right now.

  Just plain grief and stress, then, giving her a sick headache that the hold’s healer hadn’t yet been able to touch.

  Except she’d never reacted this way to grief and stress before... and the Guides knew they’d seen each other through plenty of it.

  Do something.

  Anything.

  Make it better.

  Arlen had always counted on him to fill that role, to be the one who would act when acting became necessary.

  But this time, he didn’t know what to fight for. He didn’t know how to win, or what it meant accomplishing... or if given their losses, it was even possible to win at all.

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  Chapter Eight

  Jess sat cross-legged in Second Siccawei’s first floor window seat, hiding from the flurry of activity while she waited for Suliya to arrive and for Dayna to finish her letter to Anfeald.

  The rest of the hold bustled in preparation for the arrival of the new Council members—wizards who were skilled enough to travel using the new anchor established by Second Siccawei’s advanced apprentices.

  From the general tenor of conversation between those who rushed through this main sitting room, Jess thought they might even be here already. She wasn’t concerned with them and she was sure they weren’t concerned with her.

  She was just a courier, even if she happened to be one who counted slain Council members among her close friends.

  She watched the yard as another courier left, trotting out at a smart pace with bags bulging. She’d be surprised if they had any more horses left—though she hadn’t seen Garvin, the head rider, leave yet.

  She’d be just as glad not to encounter him again; they’d met him last night over the dinner meal and he’d been brusque and unpleasant—a bandy-legged and barrel-bodied older man, the only adequately experienced person available to Second Siccawei after the sudden demand for couriers.

  From her seat Jess watched not only the yard, but the stairs to the second level; even as her gaze lingered on the departing rider, she caught movement at the corner of her eye.

  Suliya descended the steps, her mahogany corkscrew hair caught back in two tight braids and her winter gear and saddlebags slung over her arm. She looked decently refreshed after the night’s sleep, her skin glowing and a bounce in her step.

  Jess herself had been up early, unable to rest and equally unable to find anything to do. Breakfast turned out to be a grab-it-yourself occasion full of eggs and chunky pepper sauce and thinly sliced salted steaks, none of which Jess had ever been inclined to eat.

  She’d found one of last fall’s apples and gotten the cook to remove the preservation on it, but now her stomach growled in hollow resentment.

  “Nice place,” Suliya said, encompassing in her praise the room they’d shared the night before, the breakfast-scented sitting room, and the cook who had been so accommodating to her requests for more thoroughly warmed eggs. She shrugged on her thin silken under-jacket. “Ready to go?”

  “I’m waiting for Dayna,” Jess said, sliding out of the window seat.

  “She still wants to ride out as far as the, er... problem spot?” Suliya said, and at Jess’s nod, frowned slightly. “Are you sure you want to wait for her? They might need us at Anfeald.”

  Jess didn’t hide her surprise. “Dayna is a wizard,” she said. “She asked to ride out with us. We wait.”

  Suliya shrugged, a large gesture. “You’ve got the say.”

  “Yes,” Jess said, looking steadily at her, not sure but that some human behavior of Suliya’s eluded her. “I do.”

  Dayna came pounding down the stairs in short order, still pulling on a dark brown sweater that only made her look more grim. “Damned wizards.”

  Suliya raised an eyebrow at Jess, who ignored it. “What?” she asked Dayna.

  “They don’t believe me,” Dayna said, spitting the words. “I thought maybe to my face they’d at least be more polite about it, but no. They don’t believe me. They think that spot in the woods is the direct result of a specific spell, and they intend to figure out what it was and who cast it. Idiots.”

  Jess tried to understand what was wrong with that way of thinking. “And you think... what you felt...”

  “It’s a reaction, not a result,” Dayna snapped. She closed her eyes, took a visibly deep breath, and started again, more calmly. “I felt the raw magic sweep through here; I know it wasn’t directed. But there was no backlash, so the energy had to go somewhere. If whatever happened in the woods reacted to that magic, it may well have sucked it up. Voila, no backlash, because there’s no loose energy whipping around.”

  “That would mean there was no one out there casting spells to find,” Suliya said. “But that doesn’t make sense. Do you think it’s coincidence that the entire Council was wiped out?”

  “I think,” Dayna said, narrowing her eyes in a particularly dangerous expression, “that the Council could have been attacked one way as well as the other, if the person behind the magic knew what the reaction would be. I think,” and she added dark weight to her tone, making Suliya wince, “that the new Council won’t be able to figure out who did what if they aren’t starting at the right place.”

  “But you’re the only one here who knows the feel of raw magic so well,” Jess said. “Why won’t they—”

  “Don’t ask that one, Jess,” Dayna interrupted. “The answer isn’t something I should say out loud.”

  Silence fell between them, with Suliya looking like she might want to offer an apology but afraid to open her mouth, and Jess thinking through what Dayna had said. Finally, looking at the jacket in Dayna’s hand, Jess asked, “Do you still want to
come with us as far as the... spot?”

  “Are you kidding?” Dayna snorted. “I’m coming with you, period.”

  “Ay, what?” Suliya said, as though it had been startled out of her despite an effort to keep silent, but Jess only nodded.

  Dayna glanced hard at Suliya, but kept her reply reasonably mild. “They’ve made it clear they’re not interested in my help. If I’m at Anfeald, Carey will find some way to make me useful. Kesna is still in shock, from what I hear; I can at least take over her duties. And we’ll be together.”

  Together... Jaime and Dayna. The two outsiders. And Jess and Carey, who had always taken Dayna seriously. Jess understood that much unspoken, even as she knew Dayna would beg trouble to leave here unbidden.

  “It’s so stupid,” Dayna said, jamming her arms into the coat sleeves. “No one knows what happened, and they’re not going to figure it out as long as they keep ignoring what I’ve told them. “

  Jess tilted her head, an inquisitive equine gesture about something that didn’t make sense. “But...” she said, waiting for Dayna’s attention, for the look in her eye that meant she was truly listening, “Ramble was there. He knows.”

  Understanding turned to impatience. “He can hardly tell us, can he?”

  Suliya stiffened, staring out the window—a movement that had nothing at all to do with the conversation, and one to which Jess felt an immediate start of alarm. “Ay!” she said. “Our horses! They’re taking our horses!”

  Jess whirled to the window, puzzled, but Dayna understood immediately, snarling, “Garvin!” and making the name into a curse. “He’s sent couriers out on your horses!”

  Jess stuffed her bare feet into her padded winter riding boots without tightening the side laces, bolting out to the barn without her coat. The palomino—the only remaining horse—snorted with interest at her sudden arrival.

  Garvin looked up from the wheelbarrow he’d positioned in front of an empty stall. Human words escaped her; Jess let her body language speak for her, tall and offended, chin lifted to lay back her phantom equine ears and her glare dark and steady upon him.