Rubbing the back of my neck, I pondered that for a moment. “Well, it tastes like…fish.”
“It’s supposed to, Garth,” she drawled sarcastically.
I couldn’t argue that point. “Most men don’t like fish,” I pointed out.
“Wait a minute, I thought men like to go fishing,” she protested.
“Well, yeah, but we don’t eat it.”
That made her think for a moment. “That’s true. Hm. I wonder if it’s just a male thing.”
It could be. I turned and led the way into Jward with Chatta keeping pace beside me. “So how is Trev’nor?”
“He’s growing like a weed. I swear he’s at least a foot taller than when you saw him last. And it’s getting hard to keep track of him. He keeps disappearing all over the Palace. I finally put a locator spell on him for his parents.” She abruptly snapped her fingers, turning to look up at me from the saddle. “That reminds me, I forgot to warn you. The political situation is looking tense right now between Chahir and Hain.”
My head snapped in her direction. “Explain.”
“Apparently there are more people popping up with magical abilities in Chahir.” Her expression was dark and troubled. “They’ve been crossing over into Hain, like you did, but the last few people that crossed the border claimed that they were chased by Chahiran soldiers most of the way. King Guin is becoming very upset about this. I mean, its bad enough to outlaw magic and put a strict sentence on it—but to actually hunt the people down who are trying to leave Chahir?”
I wish I could say that I was surprised by this, but I wasn’t. “Chatta,” I said softly, “if anyone had suspected that I was a Mage, I would have been hunted down, and killed.”
Her complexion turned deathly pale. “Even if you’re trying to leave the country?” she breathed shakily.
“Yes. There is no leniency in Chahir for magic, no mercy. If you have magical abilities, you die. That’s all there is to it.” My voice was flat, leached of all emotion. I couldn’t soften the truth for her. It was the way that the world worked in Chahir.
“You told me this before, I know, but I still can’t believe it. It’s just not right,” she said with anger simmering in her voice.
“No, it’s not right. But that’s the way it is.”
“Not for much longer,” she refuted firmly. “King Guin is protesting this treatment—loudly. He has already informed Chahir that in a month’s time he will visit them, and they are going to work out some sort of truce for the magically inclined people.”
I blinked at this. “Can he do that?”
“Every Witch, Wizard, and Mage makes a promise before the King to serve him when called upon,” Chatta reminded me patiently. “That includes serving as part of the army if the country ever goes to war. If we ever were to engage in battle with the Chahiran army, they’d lose—badly. If Chahir is wise, they will at least negotiate with King Guin.”
That sounded good on paper, but… “Would he really go to war over this?” I asked her skeptically.
“You haven’t seen him recently,” she told me with a dark frown. “He’s seriously upset. Think about this, Garth. You came out of Chahir, proved to be a powerful Earth Mage, and one of the most loyal magical users to serve the King. How many other people could have been like you, if given the chance, but were caught before they could cross the Hainian border? And that doesn’t even touch on how wrong this is on an ethical level.”
She had a definite point. Two of them, actually. “A month…” I said softly.
“He wants you to go with him,” she continued. “Partly to shove it in their faces that Mages are being born in Chahir, and partly to serve as a guide. You’re going to have to train us all on Chahiran customs, language, and the like before we go.”
I quirked an eyebrow at her. “We?” I parroted. “Are you going too?”
“Oh yes! King Guin was under the distinct impression that you would lynch him if he didn’t let you spend some time with me soon.”
“A perceptive individual,” I noted with a smile in her direction. “Is that why you’re here, then?”
“In part,” she admitted. “But when I heard what you were doing up here, I knew that you’d bitten off more than you can chew, so I came up to help. Besides, if we’re to be ready to leave for Chahir in a month, you’re going to need all the help you can get.”
Unfortunately true.
When I thought of everything that I had left to do to get Jward fixed, I sighed inwardly. Now I had to help prepare everyone to go into Chahir, and once I was in Chahir—well I felt like bashing my head repeatedly against the nearest granite wall. There was just way too much work piling on my head.
“Garth, don’t stress about this,” Chatta advised sympathetically. “We’ll get it all done. We just have to do it one step at a time.”
There was an old Chahiran expression that popped up into my head when she said that, and I muttered it aloud without thinking about it. “A man can not ride ten horses at once.”
She blinked, confused. “What?”
“Old Chahiran expression,” I explained. “A man can not ride ten horses at once. It means that you can’t do more than one thing at a time.”
“I’ll have to remember that one,” she murmured thoughtfully. “In this case, it’s very true. You can’t try and do more than one thing at a time, Garth.”
“I know it,” I sighed. But in the essence of time, I really wished that I could.
~*~
“So…is she a friend, girlfriend, or relative?”
I blinked at this question, turning toward my bedroom doorway. Captain Landis was standing just outside the door to my room, a smile quirking the corners of his mouth.
It was early in the morning, and I wasn’t truly awake yet, so I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. “I’m sorry?”
“Your Witch friend, Chatta,” he clarified patiently. “Is she a friend, girlfriend, or relative?”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to discern from his expression just why he was asking me that question. “Best friend.”
“Ah.” That smile on his face grew, broadening into more mischievous lines. “Then you won’t mind if I…”
“Your intentions better be honorable, Captain,” I growled at him, “Otherwise I’ll bury you so deep they won’t find your body.”
“Protective of her, aren’t you?” He was outright smirking at me by now.
“Yes,” I replied flatly. When you have a friend that is as gorgeous and incredible as Chatta, any male would be protective. “Are you here simply to tease me, or did you have a more practical purpose?”
“Practical, actually.” He sobered slightly, although the ghost of a smile was still lingering over his face. “The first evacuees are ready to move out. I’m taking a squad with me to act as escort. I know that you gave me a map on how to find the place. However, I want you to go with us this first time and put up some sort of marker along the road so that no one can get lost trying to reach this place.”
That was a sound suggestion and I nodded. “I can put up earth markers easily.”
“Good! I’ve already invited your…friend…Chatta to come with us. She’ll help set up the base camp.”
The strange emphasis he put on the word “friend” made me bristle again, but I held my peace—I just knew that if I said anything more, it would be an open invitation for him to really start teasing. I didn’t intend to be an easy target. “Fine, when are we leaving?”
“In about an hour, we’ll meet at the north gate.”
I nodded. As he turned and sauntered off, I made a mental note to myself to keep an eye on him. He seemed nice enough, but…well, I didn’t think he was worthy of my best friend either.
~*~
“I’m hungry,” Chatta complained.
“Nice to meet you, Hungry,” I answered with a straight face. “That certainly is an odd name, why did your parents choose that one?”
“Oh, we are so funny,” she roll
ed her eyes expressively.
Was it my fault that she gave me such a beautiful opening to tease her? I did my best to look innocent, but I don’t think I pulled it off, because she continued to glare at me.
In all fairness, I was pretty hungry myself. We traveled ahead of the main group of evacuees in order to prepare the camp. It took a full day’s riding to get there, so we set up a hasty camp the night before. We had gotten an early start this morning, and we have been working since daybreak; it was now well past noon. Add in the fact that we had been working magic practically the entire time. We had every right to be starving.
Unfortunately, we had nothing handy to snack on so it meant that we had to stop and cook something. See, this is why I like cities—at least in a city I don’t always have to cook, I can just go to a restaurant.
Since we were rather restaurant-less at the moment, I went with the next best option. I quickly touched a finger to the tip of my nose, “So who’s going to cook?”
Chatta whipped around, saw my position and smug smile, and actually growled at me. “I am not cooking!”
I let my smile grow wider.
Obviously she realized that she could continue to argue the point, but that would simply delay the food being cooked and leave us hungry that much longer. With ill grace she gave in. “Oh, fine, but you’re cooking next time!”
That was perfectly acceptable at the moment, so I nodded agreeably. “All right.”
As Chatta started to cook something for lunch, I took a look around the valley. No one would be able to recognize the place again. Chatta and I divided the area up into twenty large sections that were meant to be neighborhoods. I put up streets connecting those twenty sections by simply putting the dirt under enough pressure that it turned into solid stone.
While I was doing that, Chatta put markers all over the place. Each place had a name card, and was marked with a distinct color, so that it would be easier to direct people to certain places. Once the streets were in place, I put in a ton of fire pits, and then diverted the stream in a few places. Now people wouldn’t have to walk so far to draw water.
Really, we had done very good work. The place was ready for people, now. I nodded in satisfaction, and then because I felt a little guilty about tricking her into cooking, I turned to help Chatta.
~*~
It was late that afternoon when the first wave of evacuees arrived. As soon as they were near, Chatta rode out to meet the people and started to direct them to different areas.
While she was polite, cheerful, and completely charming, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind on who was in charge.
I sat nearby and just watched her, intrigued by this new aspect of my friend that I had never seen before. I hadn’t known that she was good at organizing people like this. I knew that Chatta was from an aristocratic family, but she was so comfortable camping out of doors, or doing hard work, that I sometimes forgot her upbringing; at least I did until she did something like this and reminded me of it.
When people were heading in the right direction, Captain Landis rode up and gave us both a friendly nod of greeting. “Witch Delheart, Magus, everything looks perfect.”
“We did our best,” Chatta answered with a winning smile. “Were there any problems with the road as you came in?”
“None,” Landis answered immediately. “We had a very easy time coming in, actually. Just before I left, I received a report that the next group of evacuees should be ready to leave in a day or so.”
He had received that report two days ago, so they were probably ready to leave right now. “Are you the only one bringing people out here?”
“No, I have several lieutenants that are in charge of certain sections of the city. They’ll bring their people out when ready to do so. The first few sections you’ve prepared look excellent, but are all of the other sections this well prepared?”
Ah, now I saw what he was getting at. “Yes, they are.”
A look of relief passed over his face. “Good.”
After the teasing that the man had subjected me to three days ago about Chatta, I had expected him to start in again now that he had the opportunity to do so. I was wrong, however, as he politely excused himself and went off to oversee everyone.
“He seems like a nice man,” Chatta observed.
I nodded in agreement, thinking to myself that the Captain’s nice exterior covered a streak of mischief.
“Do we stay the night here or head back?” she asked, changing the subject completely.
I glanced at the sky, estimating that we had about three or four hours of daylight left. “We might as well leave now. We can find some place to camp along the road tonight.” That would put us back in Jward somewhere around noon tomorrow. Normally I would have stayed put for the night, but time was in short supply right now.
Chatta nodded, as if she were thinking along the same lines. “Let’s double check with Landis first to see if he needs us to do anything else for him before we leave.”
That was the polite thing to do, so I agreed. It took only a few minutes to check with the Captain; he didn’t need anything else from us, so we packed up what little we had brought with us and rode out of the valley.
As we left, I took one last glance at the valley behind us. Very soon this empty place would be crawling with people, although at the moment it was hard for me to picture that.
I blew out a breath and turned back around, tapping my heels to Night’s flanks to get him into motion. We still had a lot to do, but we were definitely making progress.
Chapter Nineteen: Moving
I sat on Night’s back, looking over the city of Jward. The city was empty now; there wasn’t a single soul inside of its walls, aside from a rat or two. The hard part, moving everyone to the valley and reinforcing the city, had been done.
Now came the “easy” part.
Well, at least, it was easy in theory. Actually doing it would be another matter entirely.
I had thought long and hard about this before doing anything, and had realized a few days ago that I couldn't expect to just drop a large chunk of land into the ocean without there being some rather significant side effects. It would be like dropping a large stone into a bucket of water and not expecting the water to splash over the rim. So I took about an hour and built up the walls near the coastline as high as I could, trying to prevent any flooding to the mainland. I went down about, oh, fifteen miles in either direction. There would probably still be some flooding after that point, but nothing too major. And I honestly couldn't spare more magic to extend my walls any further out than that.
Chatta rode up at a brisk canter, reigning to a stop beside me. She had gone briefly to make absolutely sure that there was no one within a five mile radius of the city. I didn’t want anyone closer than that when I started, literally, to tear the earth apart. In fact, I wasn’t very easy about having Night or Chatta nearby when I started working, but when I had dared to suggest that they wait for me with everyone else, I had been met with twin glares of disgust. It had been fairly obvious that I wasn’t going to win that argument, so I had just given up.
“Ready?” she asked me with pensive eyes.
No. “Yes.”
I slid off Night’s back, gesturing for her to do the same. “You want to be as flat on the ground as possible when I start,” I warned grimly.
She slid off the back of her mare immediately, and her eyes on me were distinctly worried. “Garth, this isn’t…dangerous, is it?”
I was going to purposefully break the ground under us. What part of that was safe? I didn’t want to worry her more than I already was, so I didn’t say that. “You’re going to get pretty shook up.”
“I know that,” she burst out in frustration, running a rough hand over her hair. “What I want to know is if it’s safe for you to be doing this!”
“I’m not in danger,” I assured her quietly. And I wasn’t, really. This was just going to be exhausting in the extreme, and I had to do ever
ything exactly right. I had to hit the right spot, with exactly the right force, at precisely the right moment. If I was off, even a little, I risked causing damage that I didn’t intend. That might result in opening up a large fissure down the middle of the city.
Not exactly a reassuring thought.
“Garth,” she growled, her expression as black as a thundercloud. “Why do I get the feeling that there is something that you’re not telling me?!”
Sometimes I really wished that Chatta was less perceptive and intuitive. I sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Chatta, if I don’t do this precisely right, I risk damaging or destroying the city entirely.”
Her eyes went wide. “Oh. That’s…not good.”
I think “not good” is an understatement ranked right up there with saying that a beaver might have a little trouble building a dam in the middle of a typhoon. “This is going to be very taxing,” I continued in a quiet voice that hid my own anxieties. “And I’m going to need absolute concentration so I don’t do something stupid.”
“I’ll be as quiet as a mouse,” she promised fervently.
As nervous as I was, I still appreciated that she was there. If anything did go wrong, she probably couldn’t do much to stop it, but she might be able to dampen the effects. I knew that this was going to drain me badly, so it was comforting for me to know that I could collapse afterwards, and that Chatta would be there to help me.
I sat on the ground, crossed my legs comfortably to help keep me more stable. I glanced up at Night, then Chatta, and nodded firmly. “Here goes.”
“Good luck,” Night offered.
I was going to need it. I closed my eyes, shutting out the outside world and putting my mind firmly into the ground underneath me. I had been doing this fairly regularly for nearly four weeks now, but it was still somewhat of a surprise to look at it. Something about the sheer violence of what was brewing in front of my eyes made a shiver of panic run up my spine.
This was not a good place just to throw power around. And guessing definitely wasn’t an option. If I guessed wrong, and hammered a spike in the wrong place, a crack could form and spread right through the city. That would be bad, very bad.
Jaunten (Advent Mage Cycle) Page 24