I wove more magic around them using subtle movements of my hands so I didn't draw attention. I glanced beyond them to the hole in The Edge. I measured the steps in my mind -- steps for me, steps for them. I nudged them a little. They went one step and didn't seem to notice.
"You come with us, over to the other side," the lead troll said.
"No, thank you." I tried to sound light and happy. "I don't think I'd like to join you for dinner. How did you get here?"
I had asked to keep them thinking about things other than killing me. I hadn't really expected an answer.
"Don't know, don't know," the answer came from a couple of them. "Sleeping. Tired . . . scent of elf."
I almost lost my hold on the magic. Did I read the answer right? They'd gone to sleep, maybe not of their own accord, and some elf -- fae -- came along, scooped them up and pushed them through?
No. It was probably more flux in the field, which made everything odd on both sides. They'd come through about the time as the wave of magic. Who knows what happened on the other side of The Edge.
I nudged them another step, and another. The hole stood at their backs.
The leader glanced towards it, growling. "No. Not go. Not without dinner!"
He swiped huge claws at me. I leapt away and almost lost my hold on them. I used a surge of magic to shove one through but had to counter the flux of magic from The Edge. The last two broke loose. I would have to do something quickly.
Sleep?
I didn't have the power to do a real sleep spell. At best I could get people drowsy -- but I didn't want more, in fact. If they fell over asleep, I'd never get them moved through without even more magic, and I didn't want to dare more. But drowsy --
I called magic to me and the pretty power danced in the air. I had never seen magic so manifest and lovely.
The trolls must have thought I intended to kill them, which made them manic. They began to use their primitive magic, but the spell brought a surge of fire from The Edge. I dropped my spell to knock the power away, saving the two trolls and myself.
The troll leader swept his big clawed hand down on my arm. The nails cut into my skin. I hissed in pain and surprise -- sounding, I thought dimly, far too much like Cato just then.
The grass around us had burnt, filling the area with scent of burning pine needles. I coughed, ignoring the pain in my arm. I wanted to have this done quickly. If the battle went on, they would best of me.
I nearly panicked, but the spell came easier the second time. The troll on the right swayed a little and went to his knees. The leader -- having an unfortunately clear view of the magic -- avoided the spell. He growled and charged.
I moved aside and the creature bashed his head against a pine tree. Huge horns raked lines down the trunk and needles rained down all around us.
Any single fae would have had a hard fight to win against a group of trolls. I don't know what made me think I could do beat them. This was impossible for me. Trolls are big, strong, and mean. They like to eat us.
I didn't want to be dinner tonight. I wanted to go meet David tomorrow, have a lovely day in the mountains, wandering around taking pictures and thinking about writing a whole book with him.
"I am not going to be killed." I stared straight into the trolls face. "I have things to do. I am a guardian. Do you understand? Do you know what happens when you kill a guardian?"
"Nothing if not catch us."
He had a point. It wasn't as though it hadn't happened before.
I lifted my hand, sending a wave of magic into the air and heading to the city. "There. Now they will know about you. You want to take the chance?"
He watched the magic move away into the night, shaped into the semblance of a glowing blue bird. He scowled as he looked at me.
"Don't care."
"Yeah, I kind of thought that would be your answer."
The magic bird circled around and hit him in the back of the head with the sleep spell. He fell down to his knees, yawning, his big eyes blinking as he tried to fight the compulsion to nap. I didn't want him to fall over asleep just yet, so I grabbed his arm, adding a compulsion to do my bidding. Dangerous work because I drew his attention to me. I danced away when he growled and crawled forward reaching for my leg. I backed up farther. By little steps, I lead him to the hole. His companion followed, stumbling along, both of them angry, but unable to do anything other than obey me when I said they wanted to go through the hole to sleep on the other side.
They shuffled forward, though the leader stopped before he went through and tried to make one more grab at me. I kept out of range.
"Hungry! Don't want to sleep!"
"Go on through. You'll have better hunting there."
He snarled, but he finally stepped through and his companion followed.
I leapt forward, grabbing one edge of the barrier and yanking the pliable substance over the hole. I could see a troll hand reaching through. I slapped the hand with a snap of magic more powerful than I had expected. The troll howled as the hand retreated and he didn't try again.
Pulling the hole shut was not easy. Red and greens blurred as they tried to pull apart before I realized I needed to get colors to line up and I sealed the breach with a last whisper of magic.
I slid down to the ground, caught my bleeding arm, and moaned. I never would have believed I could survive an encounter with angry trolls. And I did it mostly by talking, for the love of all the gods. I must have been insane. I should have used magic to kill them all, even if the spell killed me, too. Trolls loose on this side would have been a disaster.
But I'd succeeded. I had sent them back.
I put my head in my hands, willing a little magic down through my arm to heal most of the wound. Nothing fancy, but even so, magic sparked out from The Edge. I wanted to go home, but first I would have to check the rest of The Edge to make sure there no other problems.
Suddenly I didn't want this job. My little nowhere place on the map of magical hot spots had become far more dangerous than I ever expected this place to be. I loved the area, but I didn't feel competent to do a job which included fighting trolls. Even if I managed once, the thought of trying again set me trembling.
And then I realized I hadn't seen Cato since the battle began. I scrambled to my feet, afraid I would find his mangled body. I didn't want to think I brought him here to --
"Cato!"
"I'm up here," Cato said.
I found a spot of orange fur far up in the branches of the pine tree. He stared down, eyes blinking in the glow of the light.
"A lot of help you were," I answered, trying not to show how incredibly happy I was to see him safe.
"Hey, I gave you the warning and got out of the way before they trampled me. When you started talking about not being dinner, I figured I didn't want to be the cat sampler before the fae main course."
I laughed despite myself. I felt a lot better knowing he was safe. He watched The Edge, his tail twitching from side-to-side, like a little orange snake.
"You want to come down?" I asked.
"Yeah, sure. You know, I love climbing, but I hate trying to get down. It's always so undignified." He began to maneuver himself along the branch.
I still felt half ill. I watched ripples and pulses along The Edge while the magic in the air made my skin crawl. Before long my hair would even stand on end -- not a pretty sight.
We needed to finish the work and go home to rest. Tomorrow would be better. No trolls. Any day without trolls talking about having you for dinner was bound to be a better day.
Though I needed to deal with Aletta and for a moment I found myself weighing her against the trolls. It was a toss-up over which one I thought might be more annoying.
Home sounded very good. I thought Cato would agree. But he had paused at a lower branch and appeared quite content to stay there.
"Come on Cato," I said, waving him down. "We have some patrolling to do. I get the feeling the trolls didn't make the hole. Maybe somethin
g else came through and sort of dragged the trolls along. They didn't know how they got here."
Cato leaned over and peered at me, about three feet above my head. Why do cats need to be higher than humans? "Are you telling me there is something else out there? Something even worse than the trolls?"
"It's possible," I said, a quick glance left and right at the thought.
"Maybe I'll stay here." He settled back on the branch.
I wondered if I dared to use a little magic to knock him down. Then I thought of a better way to get him to come along.
"Yeah, good idea. I'll be back this way in about an hour. Just yell if anything else comes through. I'm not sure the hole is really sealed well."
As I turned, I heard a rather loud plop as several pounds of yellow fur landed at my feet. Cato looked at me, his eyes slightly narrowed.
"Oh, are you going along after all?" I asked.
"You did that on purpose," he accused.
I worked hard to hide my smile. "I told you nothing but the truth."
"Yeah, well. Next time I could say 'I think there might be something by the tree' rather than look out!" He moved ahead of me with his tail fluffed and ears back.
"Well, I did intend to give you half a can of tuna when we get home," I said, following after him.
"No lie?" he said. His ears came up and his tail made the funny little question mark shape cats get when they're really happy.
"I never lie to cats. Let's get this done so we can get home."
"Great idea."
I think Cato would have gone bounding down line of The Edge without me, if he thought it would get him the tuna any faster. I hurried, but we didn't rush. I wanted to make certain the place wouldn't erupt in trolls and draw me back again tonight. By tomorrow, I intended to have some real help here. My father would send a few fae once he heard about the trolls because everyone knew I didn't have the kind of magic to deal with trouble on this level.
Except I had dealt with the kind of big problem others even had trouble handling. When had I started thinking I couldn't handle magic-related problems? I had adapted to living in the human world, where magic didn't matter. My family never outwardly judged me, but we all knew my lack of magical ability played into the kind of jobs I got. I wasn't even the only one who didn't have strong magic. We all did our own work according to our best abilities.
This time I think I exceeded expectations. I grinned, even though my arm ached.
We found a couple more weak spots on The Edge so I reinforced them. Even Cato pointed out some of the darker, discolored sections where the wall bulged a little.
I'd been lucky when I sealed the big hole closed. The magic hadn't backfired on me, which could have happened in rather spectacular ways. I could have as easily made an opening twice the size of the one I sealed.
The realization of how close I came to another disaster sent a chill through me and dampened the good mood of moments before. I'd spent years training for this post. I knew all the real tricks of magic, even if I couldn't handle some of the fancier stuff. Settling wild magic is hard for me and the work probably took me twice as long as any of my cousins would have taken, but I could do it. I didn't want to leave The Edge weak anywhere along the line. Half done work would mean more work later.
So I paused everywhere the glowing light appeared weak or dark, despite Cato's attempts to urge me on more quickly. At one point I found The Edge so thin I thought I could have pushed through and gone over to fae. I could get more help there.
But I didn't need the help. I had managed the work so far tonight, though I did get annoyed when I found dozens of small hand-sized holes at the far end. I thought -- hoped -- these might be stress rips caused by the larger one when the trolls came through. I set about fixing them.
The work took longer than I wanted. We got to the end where the ground sloped down into a ravine and The Edge stuck out in midair for about a foot, but looked fine. I walked back, while I reinforced a couple spots along the way. Cato fell silent on the last round, though he twitched whenever something moved in the woods. It always turned out to be something natural to this world -- foxes, raccoons and other small animals sometimes let their curiosity get the better of them.
"Getting late," Cato said when we reached the far end of The Edge. "Do you intend to walk back and forth along here all night? Because if you do, I think I'll go climb a pine tree and get some sleep."
"I think everything is solid," I said, glancing down the line. "I thought about staying, but it's almost dawn. You're right; we need to get home. I have an appointment with David this morning."
"Yeah," Cato said. He trotted along at my feet, his paws crunching needles.
We headed away from The Edge and walked a few feet. When I stopped, so did he.
"I think there's something more going on, Cato," I admitted. "I think something pushed those trolls through on purpose, which means a lot of trouble for us."
"Why would someone do that?" he asked. He sat down and cleaned a paw, looking thoughtful.
"I don't know and I'm worried. Maybe pixies were playing games. They have no sense of the trouble they can create when they do stuff. Think of nuthatches with magic."
"Ugh. What an unpleasant thought," he said. He rubbed against my leg. "Can we go home now?"
"We're going to fly you know."
"I know. I just want to get back to our nice, quiet house."
"The one with the cans of tuna."
"That would be the one," he agreed.
He made me laugh. I forced myself to move down the hillside, out of direct view of The Edge. We needed to get some distance before I did more magic, or who knew what might happen. I'd tempted fate a few too many times already.
We surprised some elk and they took off in a run -- though not as much as they startled Cato, who leapt, fluffed, hissed and spat at the disappearing animals.
"Yeah, you're going to scare them," I said with a laugh this time.
"They ran, didn't they?" he said, daring me to tell him it was not because of his bravery.
"Good point. I think about another half mile should be good enough." I glanced back and could still see a glint of the light.
Cato didn't argue. Of course he would pretty much agree to anything for half a can of tuna. I don't want to suggest he's easy to bribe, but if you know his price. . . .
We trudged on through another stand of pine with lines of snow in the shadows. Cato cursed under his breath as he bounded through one pile of the dreaded white stuff.
I had reached the point where I thought I would be safe to use magic when something came flapping through the trees at us. Remembering the nuthatches' fear of 'big wings' brought magic to my fingertips, but a great horned owl landed in the tree before me. The lighter feathers on his chest and wings caught the faint moonlight making them appear silvery, while the brown circles of his face seemed darker in the night. His golden eyes shown as his ears twisted back and forth.
"Who is it?" he demanded staring into the night. "Who is it?"
Only I realized he wasn't looking at me.
I spun and found the ethereal shape of a man on horseback a few yards behind us. He glowed, and not from the moonlight, but rather from pure magic. I could almost see a face in the shape of light --
As the ghostly figured moved closer, I could feel the cold, empty hunger this creature brought into the world. It wanted something . . . and I thought that might be life.
Cato fluffed up, but he didn't hiss this time. He dropped lower to the ground, trying not to draw attention -- wise cat. This wasn't something you wanted to see you. I didn't know quite what stood there before me -- not a ghost, at least in the conventional sense. This thing held fae power in the glowing nimbus of magic surrounding him.
I did know this creature did not belong here anymore than the trolls. Neither horse nor rider should have been wandering the woods. They most certainly should not have been following me.
"Who are you?" I asked aloud, sounding f
ar too much like the owl.
Cato made a little shushing sound, as though I shouldn't be talking to this creature. I wanted some answers, though. This wasn't akin to the trolls: Sleep would not work on a specter, and I had the distinct feeling I wasn't going to talk this one into crossing over into fae, either.
Purpose. I felt it even above the hunger. This thing possessed purpose.
The horse took quick two steps closer to me. The owl lifted and flew off, drawing the attention of horse and rider, which told me two important things: First, it really was here in this world, not merely a shadow from the other side. Second, the apparition had trouble concentrating. The creature should never have taken his eyes from me.
I lifted my hand and almost let lose a bolt of magic which should have shattered the ephemeral bonds of the shape he held. However, the rider noticed and hastily pulled the horse to the side. My magic swept past, shattering against a tree in a sparkle of blue and green stars.
I created another bolt, but the horse and rider rushed into the shadowy woods. I couldn't let the creature go. I raced after it.
Maybe not wise. . . .
Fae can run easily in the woods, which is a gift of being magical. We are closer to the innate magic of nature.
They seemed to have trouble navigating between the trees so they mostly followed the elk trails to a brook and across, making the slightest of sound as horse touched water. Cato howled as we splashed through, racing to keep up with me. I thought about grabbing him, but the rider slowed a little, and I hoped maybe his reserves were running low. I dared not pause.
"I have to get him!" I said, panting a little as we jogged on.
"Yeah," Cato answered, more out of breath than me.
We startled more than elk during the mad dash through the woods. I think we even passed a couple bears. I sent out a little pulse of power to make certain nothing came charging after us and grabbed Cato who wasn't lagging far behind. Surprising a bear or moose is never a good idea; they'll sometimes charge you out of pure frustration, I think.
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