The Changespell Saga

by Doranna Durgin

  And Arlen, who’d trudged over to the livery ring from the overcrowded hotel, picking the best path through the crusty, well-used snow that ought to have been cleared but wasn’t, looked out the big front window of the livery ring office with several different kinds of surprise.

  The main road should have been speckled with people going about their business with casual purpose. Instead they walked in clumps, their conversation full of emphatic gestures, their postures full of frustration.

  Word travels fast.

  People were starting to understand the magnitude of the disruption. Stranded travelers noticed the restaurant menus thinning; road inns were doubling up on their rooms, putting strangers with strangers.

  “Mohi said,” the man said, recapturing Arlen’s attention and making his exaggerated patience as plain as the awkward features of his face, “that you were a big help on the road yesterday.”

  Word travels fast.

  Even if it wasn’t what he wanted people talking about. He needed to be a boring traveler, not a wizard.

  The man shrugged narrow shoulders. “So I held this one back for you, if you want him. But it’s going to be a while before the road crews clear the road for the alternate route.”

  “Oh, I’ll take him,” Arlen said. “But I’d be glad to return the horse at the next livery ring instead of buying him outright.”

  The man laughed, a barking sound. “Didn’t I just tell you to look around? The coachers’re lucky they’ve held onto their teams. That horse won’t make it back to me no matter what... so I’m selling him, and when all this is over people’ll be dumping horses cheap. I’ll stock up again easy enough.”

  So Arlen had his horse, complete with sale document, rough gaits, placid temperament, and distinctly gassy nature.

  And as he looped the reins over the animal’s head and considered the narrow streets of this river community, he realized the blunt little man at the livery ring had the right of it—people already gave the horse furtive, covetous glances.

  The close-set buildings loomed over him. Long and narrow, they clung to the riverbank, each claiming a precious spot at the water’s edge. The water-line marked warehouses on the opposite side of the street squatted together just as tightly.

  If he’d been told right, this road led to an inn with a room or two left. He hoped so. He didn’t want to venture further into the city.

  The people of a precinct city such as this were accustomed to magic, to its uses... and to its users. Best to stay on the working edges of the city, even if his horse drew the envious eye of every stranded traveler here.

  Including those now pacing alongside him. One man to his left, one to his right, easing closer to him. Between their hats, scarves, and hair, Arlen could see little of their faces, and nothing of their expressions.

  But he saw people getting out of their way.

  “The horse,” he said casually—if plenty loud enough to be heard—”is spelled. Unless you want to be as gelded as he is, you won’t try to take him from me.”

  One of the men snorted. “Never heard that one before.”

  “Bootin’ nice try, though,” his partner said from the other side, but closer than he’d been just an instant before. “We’ll take him all the same, I think.”

  Their skepticism came as no surprise. Arlen, precinct wizard, Council member, and the most powerful remaining wizard in Camolen, had never heard of any such spell.

  But if pressed, he thought he could come up with it.

  He stopped, held out the hand through which he’d looped the reins. An offering. “You’ll bleed badly, so be prepared.”

  They glanced at one another in wary surprise. Arlen could see their faces now—rough men, taking advantage of a crisis. As if the crisis itself wasn’t enough for everyone to deal with. And while he could take care of himself if he had to...

  Grim temper, habitually slow to rise, made its way toward the surface. He gestured with the outstretched hand and its rein. Impatient. They hesitated only a moment.

  The inertia spell was a marvelous thing.

  Just a subtle twitch of it. Enough to use their own movement to send certain body parts opposite the direction of the rest of them.

  Enough to hurt.

  It got their attention.

  They froze, horrified—afraid to move even to look down at themselves, as if they could see under all their winter layers.

  “Back up,” Arlen suggested gently, as if talking to idiots. At the moment, they probably were. “Back up, and go away.”

  Slowly, they did so. Carefully. One step, a pause, then another—until after three steps they simultaneously broke and ran.

  Arlen walked briskly for the livery, knowing the story would probably reach it before he did. Already he spotted a well-bundled child sprinting along the building shadows, and a tense pedestrian eased away to avoid walking near the horse.

  No doubt using the tiny spell use had been a mistake.

  No doubt someone on this street knew the lanky traveler with no business in this section of the city had created the magic on the spot, and not simply been standing next to a triggered spell. No doubt he should have simply surrendered the horse.

  Except he had to get to Anfeald. He had to reach Jaime; he had to reach the safety of his own hold, of his workroom and his trusted dispatch crew and his only chance to protect the people he loved while he figured out what had happened to the Council.

  What was happening to Camolen itself.

  Moments later, with the horse tucked away and the livery ring owner’s honesty secured by a combination of bribe and threat, he stopped short in front of the road inn. At first caught up in distaste at the scrawled placard that declared common room lodgings only, he noted only in passing that the street news carrier had climbed her short pedestal at the street corner.

  This girl, her coat flapping open and her expression too bright, didn’t wait for a customer to approach her with precinct scrip, and didn’t relay her news in discreet murmurs to select ears. Her voice, flung to the street, cracked in her effort to project... or maybe just with emotion. “Breaking news!”

  Like everyone else, Arlen turned, drawn by her urgency.

  “Breaking news!” she said again, and for a moment Arlen thought she would burst into tears. Finally she blurted, “The Council of Wizards is dead!” Her voice steadied slightly, lowering as her audience moved in closer. “The Council of Wizards is dead!”

  Arlen thought she went on to mention the Secondary Council, to say that the services would be restored as quickly as possible, to mouth obviously crafted phrases of reassurance from the Secondary Council itself, to say that no one had survived the mysterious attack other than a palomino stallion.

  He couldn’t truly have said for sure just what she relayed. For as much as he’d known from within that the Council had met with disaster, he’d been unprepared to hear it confirmed; he closed his eyes and turned away, twisting inside with the enormity of the loss. Sherra. Tyrla. Darius. How many years had they worked together?

  And Camolen’s loss... the intensity of effort it would take to recover, the very real potential that the Secondary Council couldn’t.

  The chance that Camolen could collapse into panic and violence.

  And while the other members of the gathering crowd clamored at the news, Arlen realized anew that Camolen had to do more than survive this loss.

  They had to survive that which had caused it.

  Melting, bubbling, distorted landscape. Distorted reality.

  Oh, yes. He had to get to Anfeald.

  ~~~~~

  Jaime stared out the huge window of Arlen’s asymmetrical office, soaking in all the things about the room that spoke of him without turning her head from the snow-covered fields visible through the window.

  The faint bitter odor of inadvertently burned potpourri, the scatter of his scribbled notes, the blank stones waiting for spells, the tall, carved stool that suited his lanky build... the very structure of the
five-walled symmetry around her.

  But now his project cabinet—covered with tooled and dyed leather, stuffed with notes and papers and the occasional whimsical feather—had been moved to make way for the apprentices’ cabinet. His desk had been half-cleared.

  Jaime turned away from the workbench and the view beyond, clenching her jaw in sudden anger. It was too soon to move on, dammit! This had been Arlen’s private sanctuary!

  That’s it. Get mad. Stay mad.

  Then maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much.

  Kesna’s timid voice came from the doorway. “Jaime?”

  “What?” Jaime snapped, deep from her exploration of mad. She looked up just in time to see Kesna flinch, and gave herself a mental kick. “Never mind, Kesna, it’s just... a bad moment. What can I do for you?”

  Still timid, Kesna flipped her thin blond ponytail over her shoulder. “There’re two people here to see you,” she said. “They say they’re here on behalf of Chesba—” the primary lander of Sallatier Precinct—”and they want to talk to you.”

  “But... ?” Jaime said, voicing the doubt when Kesna did not.

  Kesna frowned, shaking her head. “It’s reasonable that Chesba might reach out for advice; his precinct wizard is dead, and Anfeald is a much more active hold.”

  “But.” This time Jaime said it with more certainty.

  With a frown, Kesna said, “They just don’t seem like Chesba’s type.”

  Jaime rolled this little nugget over in her thoughts; it didn’t seem like much, although Chesba was easy to characterize—a charismatic older gentleman who didn’t hesitate to do what he considered right, and who had been imminently sensible the summer before when dealing with the changespell rogues.

  “I’ll meet them in null room,” she said, after an indecisive moment during which her heart fought to stay trapped in foggy grief. At least in the null room, they couldn’t generate magic—although magic generated elsewhere in the hold worked perfectly well. “Have whatever refreshments you think are appropriate sent up. And I should change, don’t you think?”

  Kesna eyed Jaime’s breeches and hay-flecked barn sweater and shook her head. “I think it’s good to remind them that you’re pitching in. That you care what happens to Anfeald.”

  Jaime blinked, taken by surprise... wondering briefly why anyone would expect else of her—she had, after all, been involved in several adventures nearly the equivalent of dark ops, and gone far out of her way to testify about them. And then, just as briefly, she wondered why it mattered to anyone else if she was pitching in, with so much else at stake around them.

  Kesna’s understanding came with a flash of surprising pity. “Jaime, the Precincts are assigned to Council wizards—one council member per precinct. New Council members have the option of using the existing hold.”

  It hadn’t occurred to her. Arlen hadn’t done so, after all; he’d built this place from scratch. Now she found her mouth suddenly dry, her mind reeling. Now she understood Kesna all too well.

  She needed to show she had a place in this world, because she might well end up depending on the kindness of strangers.

  Not a thought that had been anywhere near her mind when she’d made the decision to stay here.

  “Ohh-kay,” she said. And then she brushed her hands over her hair and straightened the slump that had crept into her normally straight back. “Send them on up, and as I said, the refreshment. And I think it would be good to remind them that along with pitching in, I’m also a special guest of Arlen’s—one with the status to make decisions. Make sure I get one of the magically colored fancy glasses, will you? And have it already filled with ice water. And... you know how to listen in, don’t you? Would you do that?”

  Kesna allowed herself a small smile. “Gladly.”

  Jaime settled herself in the null room. Mural-like stenciling decorated the wall and ceiling juncture, looking bright under new lighting. Padded chairs lined the long table, and pencil and paper waited by the head chair... the one she took. Without warning, a tray with pitcher, glasses, and Jaime’s requested ice water appeared in the middle of the table.

  As Jaime took her glass—etched in delicate iridescent colors only magic could provide—a man and a woman reached the doorway, hesitating there.

  “Come in, landers,” Jaime said, using the term she’d learned was the polite gender-neutral equivalent of gentlemen in Ohio—even when the people being addressed weren’t land-owners at all. They glanced at the room, hesitating; she said, “It’s a null room. I couldn’t imagine you’d have any objections.”

  “No, of course not,” the woman agreed without sincerity as they stepped inside. Both wore pricey business longsuits—fine-sheened trousers and long-tailed coats buttoned from the breastbone up to a high, collarless neck and decorative triangles of silk hanging on fine chains. “You must be Jaime Cabot.”

  Jaime gestured at the chairs in invitation. “Yes, I am—and I hope you’ll excuse the delay. I wasn’t expecting visitors, and as you know... things are a little chaotic right now.”

  “Please,” said the man. “We’re the ones who should be apologizing. Unfortunately, it’s hard to send notice of intent to visit these days.”

  “Unfortunately,” Jaime said wryly as they flipped their coat tails out behind them and sat in what might have been an orchestrated movement. Both man and woman were of medium build and medium height and neutral coloring. Utterly unremarkable. Remarkably unremarkable.

  She suddenly understood Kesna’s wariness.

  She gave the tray a slight nudge, another invitation. “Now that you’re here... how can I help you?”

  In words so light and smooth Jaime almost missed their import, the woman replied, “You can tell us where to find Arlen.”

  At first she just blinked at them—and then her anger rose. “Have you come all this way just to be cruel? Because you can just go right back to Chesba with the news that I kicked you out on your—”

  The man raised a hand, glancing at his companion. “Of course we know of the recent dispatch news regarding the Council.” He poured himself a glass of the bitter spice-bark tea common to business functions. “The truth of the matter is that Chesba isn’t sure it is the truth of the matter.”

  “What makes you think I would know?” Jaime said, not as graciously as she might have. She rubbed the side of her slightly crooked nose—a reminder of ruthless wizardly politics. Until her first arrival in Camolen, it had been straight. Straight and high-bridged and as Gallic as her name.

  But now she knew what people could do to each other, the things they could justify if they even bothered to justify them at all. So... yes. She was less gracious than she might have been, and quite probably more suspicious than she should have been.

  That they took it in stride bothered her as much as anything.

  “Who more than you?” said the man, somewhat apologetically.

  “When it comes to Council business, Arlen is just as discreet as he’s supposed to be,” Jaime said.

  “Perhaps we could speak to Carey,” the woman said.

  Jaime shook her head. “If the Council’s not dead, they surely have a good reason for their actions.” She couldn’t think of one, but a little voice in her head sang at the thought that someone else thought Arlen might be alive. “If Chesba wants to pursue his suspicions, he’ll have to do it somewhere other than Anfeald.”

  The woman regarded her coldly; the man less so. Good cop, bad cop. Except they weren’t cops at all. Then what, exactly? The Camolen version of the CIA? A sly meddling lander faction? She didn’t know enough about how things worked here to hazard a guess.

  The man ran a hand over hair that didn’t need rearranging. “We know someone’s been working magic here. Magic well beyond Arlen’s apprentices.”

  Caught flatly astonished for the second time in this conversation, Jaime nonetheless recovered quickly. Dayna’s world-travel spell. She hadn’t realized her friend’s quirky brilliance had brought her so far, that the
spell had been beyond Natt and Kesna.

  She somehow managed to do nothing more than shrug. “If it had been Arlen, you would have recognized his touch.” But not necessarily Dayna’s.

  The man said calmly, “Signatures have been distorted before. We learned that last summer, as I know you’re aware.”

  She couldn’t help but laugh. “You think Arlen would take mage lure? The most powerful wizard in Camolen?”

  “It might depend,” the woman said, unaffected by Jaime’s reaction, “on what he thought he was up against.”

  Jaime leaned her chin on her fist and regarded them for a long moment. “You know,” she said, “I’ve got things to do. I’ll have someone escort you out.”

  No doubt it was the ultimate rudeness to fail to offer them a night’s lodging. Jaime found herself not caring—and doubting more than ever that the pair had come from Chesba. Especially when they only smiled grimly and allowed themselves to be led away.

  Kesna joined Jaime in the room a few moments later, a frown marring her forehead. “I don’t know what this was about. But... one of the grooms just told me that someone’s rifled through the job room. Nothing obvious was missing, but—”

  “But our courier assignments are pretty much there for the world to see,” Jaime said. “So they distracted us up here while someone had a look around. Dammit!” She took a breath. “Well, so they know who we’ve got out on the road.”

  “They asked for Carey,” Kesna said. “Well, there’s enough information in that room for them to learn he’s not here... and we don’t expect him to be here any time soon.”

  Nor Jess, if it came to that. Jaime breathed another frustrated curse. “Can anyone tell,” she asked, not at all sure she wanted the answer, “just what kind of magic Dayna cast?”

  Kesna gave her head a quick shake, toying with the ends of her ponytail. “No one can pinpoint an exact spell that way, but they can identify the complexity and power involved. And there are only so many spells at the level of the world-travel spell.”