Estranged as she is, my daughter Suliya has kept in touch with her younger sister, who now informs me there has been no contact from her of late, beyond any expected delay from the current crisis. Given the uncertain state of things, I would appreciate any word of her you might be able to provide. Enclosed also is a private letter for Suliya; among other things it expresses our wishes that she return home until Camolen stabilizes—a wish I reiterate to you and hope you will respect despite whatever employment agreement you have with Suliya.
"Like father, like daughter," she muttered, fingering the smaller packet and setting it aside. Suliya, a SpellForge child, struggling to be ordinary and yet still shaped by her foundation.
It explained a lot.
Given the uncertain state of things, I would appreciate any word of her you might be able to provide.
Jaime gave a short shake of her head. "I don't think so," she murmured.
Let someone else tell the board member of Camolen's most influential spell corporation that his daughter was off on another world, and that Jaime hadn't been able to contact that world despite her best efforts.
She gave a wistful glance at the message board she'd brought down from Arlen's quarters and hung beside the map, using magicked sticky tape that released at a touch and would have been snapped up on Earth and turned into an industry bigger than Post-It notes.
Her last message had been desperate and to the point. Can you hear me? Normally the messages disappeared once they were sent. This one waited, sad and scratchy-looking . . . and backwards. Bounced back at her.
Not enough power behind it, with all the disturbance within Camolen?
She hoped that was all it was.
Arlen. Carey, Dayna, and Jess . . .
So much hope, bundled up inside her, making her heart rush off into racing little dances when she least expected it.
"Please be right," she whispered to her heart, and set Suliya's unopened letter aside.
Dayna felt the magic even as Mark broke speed limits on rural Prospect-Mt. Vernon Road to reach the Dancing Equine. "Hurry," she told him, clutching the seatbelt that crossed her chest and all but bouncing on the truck's bench seat. The only thing that stopped her was that Suliya was already doing just that in the middle of the seat, a living example of just how annoying it could be.
Mark slewed the truck into the Dancing Equine's gravel driveway and Dayna shoved the door open, reaching for that very long step to the ground. "Stay here," she said.
"Not gonna happen," Mark told her, setting the parking brake and jumping out of the driver's side.
"Then stay behind ," Dayna threw over her shoulder, already heading for the barn. "You may be the guy, but I'm the wizard."
She was sure she heard him mutter, " In training," but he did indeed hang back, and kept Suliya with him.
Dayna went to the end of the barn and yanked on the closed door—and succeeded in doing nothing but twinging something in her shoulder. How could it be locked from the inside? This was the only— "Go around," Carey called from inside.
He didn't sound right. Strained. She exchanged a glance with Mark to see if he heard the same, and saw her own wariness reflected in his warm brown eyes. Eyes that weren't meant to be wary, but were born to be just what they were—goof-off guy eyes with a soft heart lurking beneath.
They went around. Through the central, people-size door into the tack room and beyond to the main aisle of the long facility, where they simultaneously stopped short at the sight of the hay bales haphazardly thrown about the aisle and the very obvious passage into Ramble's hidden area.
Dayna motioned for Mark to stay back, and when he hesitated she hissed, "I mean it ." It took a renewed glare—and Suliya's hand on his arm—to get a nod from him.
She eased up to the hay bales, several storage stones in hand, and where Mark would have had to push his way through the gap, she slid through without so much as the whisper of hay against the flowered pattern of her shirt.
Jess was the first one she saw, and she regarded Dayna with such restrained tension that Dayna readied herself, bringing to mind the barrier spell she'd decided upon during the drive from town—going on the assumption that if everyone here had a shieldstone, a barrier spell was the only way to avoid physical confrontation. Her gaze skipped right over Carey, registering something not quite right but not hesitating there, and when she found the man slightly apart from them both, standing in the shadow of the closed doors, she knew she'd been right to prepare. Bland and attractive, like the woman in the New Age shop.
Camolen clothing that at first glance passed for contemporary American style. Blood all over one arm; hell, blood tracking the walls and floor.
She didn't know why Jess and Carey were just standing there. She didn't have any idea where the terrible smell came from, and only a faint awareness of the strange blob against the wall by her side.
Those were all things to figure out later. Now, without hesitation, with only the quick lip-biting expression of concentration she'd developed in the last year, she tapped the storage stones and threw the barrier around the stranger.
He flinched at the feel of magic, was visibly taken aback at the appearance of the barrier—not quite the same magic as the shields she'd so recently employed, but similar visuals. Enough so he'd know it was there. To the others she said sharply, "Do you still have your shieldstones?" and hoped the answer would be yes, or she'd have to come up with an inverted shield on top of the barrier.
Carey shook his head, glancing darkly at the stranger. But Jess, after a glance into the stall to check Ramble, nodded. Just one of them to protect, then. Dayna put the inverted shield spell uppermost in her thoughts and stepped into the blocked area, allowing Mark his first good view of the scene—and his first double take. Unlike Dayna, he zeroed right in on the blobby area.
"You guys have Salvatore Dali in to redecorate while we were out?" he asked, utterly bemused.
But Dayna, getting her first good look at it, felt the blood drain from her face. "That's the same meltdown effect we found in Camolen. Where the Council died," she said for Mark's benefit, and what little humor he had instantly faded.
"There was another man here," Jess said, her dark eyes flashing briefly at the blond man behind the barrier—he hadn't moved, he hadn't said anything, but by his stiffened posture he knew quite well what Dayna had done. "He tried to go home."
Suliya crowded up behind Mark and made a noise of utter disgust. "Ay, what's this ?"
Dayna eyed the mess, suddenly and regretfully able to pick out several fingers clutching at air. "Guides," she said. "He must have hit a bad spot going in. I knew there was more to this than one incident. I knew it." She gave her prisoner a quick, angry eye. "I'll bet you know it, too."
"He's not talking about what he knows," Carey said. "Jaime did try to warn us, but it didn't come through well."
Dayna couldn't take her eyes away from the puddle of human and landscape melted right into the wall and floor; she barely heard Mark offer a quick explanation of the action in Starland. Her own inner words came much more loudly. What happens when we try to return? And on the heels of that thought, the sharpest pang of homesickness she'd ever felt. I want to go home. Camolen. Home. Still a home with many unexplored aspects; a home in which she was a virtual stranger.
But home .
She gave herself an internal shake. She'd figure it out. They'd augment the spells with storage stones . . . they'd send something on ahead to make sure the way was clear. She'd figure it out.
At the moment, she had to get a better idea of what was happening here and now. A glance at Jess gave her no clues; she stood between Carey and Ramble's stall like a stiff thing, all her natural grace gone, her expression deadened to everything except some secret internal conflict she didn't seem likely to share.
Not with the way she didn't quite look at any of them.
Carey, on the other hand, was far from stiff. Rubber-kneed, she would have said. Bemused somehow.
That left the man behind the shield, with his collarless casual exec shirt and exquisitely tailored trousers of tough, spelled material. Dayna narrowed her eyes, suddenly realizing that those trousers reminded her of nothing more than a stylish version of something a martial artist on this world would wear. Waist pleats along with the sharply pressed front leg creases, topping ankle boots of fine, soft leather that would make for the lightest of feet. "Who are you?" she said. "Your friend in the New Age store didn't have much of a chance to answer questions before she left."
Suliya eased through the gap in the hay, and Mark frowned at it. "Gotta fix that," he said, kicking the bottom hay bale into place and stepping over it to retrieve the rest. "Never mind me. I can hear." Dayna nodded, but no one else even seemed to notice. Not Jess with her inner struggle and Carey with his detachment or Suliya, who frowned thoughtfully as she moved closer to the prisoner, walking the border of the barrier to view him from all angles and then pressing her lips together to regard him with hands on hips.
"Like I said," Carey told Dayna. "He's not talking—other than to say his name is Wheeler. I think it's clear enough someone on the other side decided we're a threat, which means they believe Ramble knows something—"
Dayna scowled at no one in particular. "How would anyone even know the possibility existed?"
Absently, nibbling a fingernail as she stared at Wheeler, Suliya said, "Gossip. News. We knew he was the only survivor before we went to Second Siccawei, didn't we?"
"But no one even knew the Council was dead!"
She gave Dayna an impatient look. "Of course they did. We knew. Anyone at a Council wizard's hold knew. The Secondary Council knew. The landers found out next, you can be sure . . . and from there it probably went official. What juicier little bit to add along with it could you have? 'The only survivor was a horse'!"
Carey said, "That sounds like the voice of experience."
Suliya waved a negligent hand. "I know how secrets get out, if that's what you mean. Seen plenty of it."
Abruptly, she pointed directly at Wheeler. "You. You've done work for SpellForge through FreeCast."
Wheeler gave her the barest of smiles. He'd tucked the hand of his wounded arm into his belt, and seemed not much discomfitted by his tenuous situation. "I'm surprised you remember. Then again, I'm surprised to see you here. I can assure you the SpellForge board has no idea you're involved."
"I don't answer to them," Suliya said, annoyed. "I never did. That was Papa's problem, wasn't it?"
"I think he considered his problem to be the fact that you're a spoiled brat," Wheeler said. "It's open to individual interpretation, of course."
"Poot," she snarled at him, after just enough hesitation to reveal that his words had struck home. She turned her back on him and said in an offhand way, "There's a consortium of spell corps who like to push the limits; SpellForge is in it. They call themselves FreeCast. FreeCast maintains teams of what they like to call fieldworkers. Wizards, fistmen . . . they convince people not to make a loud fuss when something happens to go wrong. You'd be surprised what the Council doesn't know about." She jabbed a thumb at Wheeler over her shoulder. "He's done some bodyguard work for my family through FreeCast."
Dayna gave Wheeler a careful look, surprised to find him as casual as before—not angered by Suliya's words, and possibly even amused by her. Despite herself, Dayna was impressed. She, too, had been captured by what amounted to the enemy—or at the least, faced such opposition in desperate straits.
She knew how she reacted.
Not like this.
"Tsk," he said. "Your father would be disappointed."
Suliya cast the most dismissive of glances over her shoulder. "I'm doing exactly what he wanted—standing up for something other than myself. For something I believe in. It just doesn't happen to be what he believes in."
Carey gave her a strange look—partly wary, Dayna thought . . . and partly disbelief. "Suliya, just who is your father?"
She waved him off. "He's on the board. It doesn't matter." But her mouth twisted in an embarrassed expression, and she said, "I never thought I'd be ashamed of him. I've always been proud of where I came from . . ."
Jess said suddenly, "You don't know he is part of this."
Suliya glanced at Wheeler; her face had gone a little sad. "I think I do."
Wheeler quite studiously didn't respond. Instead he looked at Dayna and said, "Where the hells did you come from, anyway? My recon calls you a 'second-year student who lacks the discipline to stay away from raw magic'—and you took out Argre in this world without magic."
"She started it," Dayna said, stung by the discipline remark. She held out her hand, showed him the stones. "I stored up some magic and I used it on her." Yeah, maybe it hadn't been quite that simple. "And you don't know squat about magic, do you? Your people are afraid of raw magic because it's harder to use, not easier. I just didn't happen to grow up with people telling me it was impossible, so I do it."
"You stored—" He stared at the stones, shook his head. "I've never heard of anyone even considering such a thing."
She shrugged. "So I like to color outside the lines."
But Carey, all too practical, said, "It's a brilliant idea . . . but not one Camolen wizards have any reason to come up with. I'm not surprised they didn't anticipate it."
"I'll bet Argre was," Wheeler said. "But then, she always went for the offensive magic too quickly.
Foolish."
"Just like your pal who wanted to kill us instead of reason with us?" Carey said, absently rubbing his knuckles in a small circle against his chest. "And you wonder why we don't trust your word that we'd be safe if you took us back?"
For the first time, Wheeler lost his composure; his face darkened. "If I'd taken you back on my word, I would have seen to your safety."
"Excuse us if we don't care to test you on that," Dayna said. She glanced at Carey, a significant look that he didn't miss. "The question is, what do we do with you now ?"
Jess didn't care what they did with Wheeler. "I want to go home," she said, using her low voice, glancing up from beneath a quietly lowered brow because she'd been staring at the ground and didn't bother to raise her head all the way. Interrupting, completely, Dayna's train of thought. Carey looked away; he'd known this was coming.
She'd warned him, after all.
She said, "We know what Ramble couldn't tell us. We know FreeCast has something to do with the static and the meltdowns. People in Camolen need to know . . . the message board isn't working right.
And I want to go home. Ramble wants to go home. He needs to be a horse again."
"But—" Mark turned from shoving the last hay bale back into place, turning to Jess in shock, looking from her to Carey.
"I want to go back," she said firmly.
"Jess, we don't even know if we can go back," Dayna said, as surprised as Mark. "And we need more time to pry information from this guy. Wheeler."
Jess looked at Wheeler; he returned her regard with the perfectly pleasant expression of someone unintimidated in spite of his situation. And she looked at Carey again, who'd turned back to her with a subtle plea in his face.
It tore her, made a clenched spot at the bottom of her throat that wanted to cry out loud. But she knew . . .
If she didn't do this for Ramble now, if she didn't do it for herself, respect her own feelings enough to act on them . . .
Either way, something ineffable would change. Something ineffable already had .
"You stay here then," she said. "I will not. I promised Ramble."
Tentatively, Mark said, "We could send something ahead, make sure the landing spot was safe. It'd be a different spot than the, um . . . than that guy used, wouldn't it?"
Wheeler sounded like a man who didn't want to remind anyone he was there. "The spell came from your wizard's records . . . but our people tweaked it for return location. You've g
ot a chance."
"Hay," Jess said with finality. "Send hay. Then send us. We can have a good meal before we journey back to Anfeald." The original travel spell had dumped them a good day's journey from Anfeald the first and only time they'd used it.
"A whole travel spell for hay," Dayna said—but she was just being Dayna, and not truly objecting at all.
From her resigned expression, she'd already thought of sending something ahead . . . and simply hadn't mentioned it, holding back with the hope that Jess herself wouldn't come up with it, and therefore wouldn't go.
Glancing between Carey and Jess, Mark said, "Jay does need to know what we've learned. All of Camolen needs to know it. Maybe you can turbocharge the spell with stored magic, like you did at Starland."
"I still can't guarantee it'll get through," Dayna told him, her expression speaking as loud as her words.
Whose side are you on? "But you think it will," Jess said. She knew Dayna that well. "Will you do it? Ramble and I can use his spellstone to send the hay first, and mine to get there, but . . ."
"But having a little turbocharge would be nice," Mark finished for her, having failed to shrink before Dayna's irritation as usual, his implacable expression making it quite clear he wasn't interested in taking sides one way or the other.
Dayna nodded at Wheeler, a jerk of her head. Angry. "And what about him ? I can't do everything at once."
Wheeler leaned against the big aluminum door with his barrier. "You don't really need to worry about me. We know where my travel spell leads." He cast a regretful look at what was left of his former partner, then settled his frown on Suliya, long enough that she shifted uncomfortably. "Your father . . ." he said—stopped, shook his head, and started again—"I have the idea that SpellForge and FreeCast went dogleg on me with this one—told me to bring you all back and told the other two agents to . . ." he hesitated " . . . clean up."
Stricken, Suliya would look at no one. But Carey said, "Why would they?"
Wheeler shrugged. He'd been trapped long enough, still long enough, that Jess found he was not so bland as he'd first looked. That like Jaime, his nose showed signs of having once been broken, if not badly. That he had a scar through one eyebrow, and one on his chin—faint ones. Character marks. He said, "Because that's how I work, and they wouldn't have gotten me on the job otherwise."
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