Carey nodded gratefully but the incident had given him something to think about. While they would all certainly do their best to remain alive and free, he knew it was likely that their guard already had reinforcements looking for him, and that it was indeed possible this ragged little group would be killed before Jess came back with help—if she managed to come back with help at all. He had to make sure the guns would not be found.
For what seemed like hours, he scoured their small retreat, and finally found a place he deemed secure. On his belly, inched into the very back of the low overhang behind the spring, he found a crevice in which to tuck the guns. The one without bullets was of no use to them anymore, and he left it there. When he crawled out, covered with moss and streaked with slimy mud, he said to Dayna, "Whatever happens, Calandre can't get her hands on these—she can't even know they exist—and that means we can't risk using them against her. If anything happens to me, I want you to take the other guns to the back of this cave and shove them down the crack in the rock there. You'll fit most easily. After you, it's up to Jaime, and then Mark, though it'll be a squeeze."
"Gotcha," Mark mumbled unhappily, as reluctant as any of them to admit that things might come to the point where the chore was left to him.
Jaime shushed them suddenly, rudely enough to prickle sibling rivalry, and Mark opened his mouth for what would probably have been an equally rude response. But Arlen came up beside Jaime and looked, as she did, up at the unchanging point of rock which could hold the only threat to them, and Mark subsided into quiet attention.
"Magic," he told her. "You didn't hear anything, you felt it. Calandre's magic." He glanced back at Carey, who had gone stiff and still, momentarily captured by dread. "I warned you this could happen, especially with Calandre scouring the area for any sign of me."
"Maybe," Dayna said hesitantly, "maybe Sherra felt it, too, then."
"If Calandre's smart, which she is, she's trying to maintain the illusion that I'm still at the hold, and is defending it against any physical or magical attack Sherra might launch. And that's certainly what Sherra's doing—putting all her effort into breaking down that resistance. Not keeping her wizardly ears open for such small ripples as creating a finder might cause."
"She's here, then," Jaime said, barely audible. "And she probably has Willand with her."
"We'll do our best to keep things from coming to that," Arlen told her, a cryptic response, and Carey exchanged a look with Mark, both aware that there was more to the story of Jaime's capture than they knew.
Even as Carey came to the further conclusion that it was a subject for another time, a figure stalked to the end of the point and stood, arrogantly confident, staring down at them. It was a reed-thin woman in a dark ankle-length shift, and her equally dark hair fell around her shoulders like a crinkly cloud. Around her, the air seemed to crinkle as well.
Carey felt a brief wash of Arlen's magic and recognized the slight optical effect of the wizard's own shielding. Arlen gave him a grim look. "I don't have the strength to protect you all. I have to keep—"
"The spell away from her. We know," Jaime finished for him, looking like she'd been there before. Mark was raising his bow, but he took a second look at the shielding effects, and at the slight shake of Carey's head, and lowered it again with a resigned expression.
"Get the guns, Dayna," Carey said quietly through his teeth, wishing he'd had the nerve to dispose of them all when he'd had the chance. But no, he'd had to hang on to that one chance of survival. "I can't do it, she'll be watching me. Get them and shove them so far down that crack they'll never come out."
"All right," Dayna said, her voice quavering slightly despite her obvious effort to sound calm. "Diversion would be nice."
"Calandre," Arlen said, stepping forward. "I hadn't expected the pleasure of seeing you again so soon."
She made a rude noise. "Nonsense. Although it was considerate of you to put a signpost out for me. A little stupid, actually."
"It still seems to have taken you quite a while to get here," Arlen said. "That spell means, incidentally, that help is on its way."
Behind them, Dayna had picked up the saddlebags and was on her way to the spring, quietly and deliberately.
"Nice of you to mention it," Calandre said. "And you, little person, you can stop right where you are. I don't know what you're up to but I'm sure I don't want it to happen."
Carey closed his eyes in despair. So far his decisions hadn't done them much good. This hollow as a place to hole up, the finder spell for Jess, keeping the guns for what small advantage they might create. His next decisions had better be the right ones because he was running out of room to bumble around in.
When he opened his eyes he discovered Calandre was no longer alone. Another woman stood beside her, a nicely figured woman whose features edged too close to cuteness for her to ever be called beautiful. Her blonde hair was bound in some intricate manner, and when she looked down on them, her face held more triumph—or anticipation?—than even Calandre's.
"Willand," Jaime groaned.
"I expect you know what I want," Calandre said, crossing her arms in front of her stomach as she shifted into a hip-shot stance that did more than anything to show just how little she regarded them as a threat. "And you know the lengths I'll go to get it."
"No doubt," Arlen said. "You must be getting pretty desperate by now. All your cards are on the table, and you'll never be a free woman again, not after your behavior—not unless you can get some advantage with that spell. Your little schemes are falling down around you, woman. It's only a matter of time, now."
Nettled, she straightened to glare down at him, nostrils flared, hands on hips. And then she gave a sudden laugh, shook back her hair, and said, "Nice try, Arlen. What you said has some truth to it, but I have no intention of tilting things the wrong way with misplaced temper. Let me see if I can sum up the situation here." She took a dramatic pause, one finger resting on her chin. "You're down there, and we're up here, and you're not likely to invite us down, at least not until you run out of arrows. Of course, I can arrange for that to happen fairly quickly, if I've a mind to. On the other hand, Arlen, you obviously haven't had enough time to gain the strength to shield this hollow—or even the small area it would take to cover the five of you. While I, of course, am well rested and just brimming with magic."
"I doubt that," Arlen said dryly. "Not if you're maintaining a shield on my hold, as well."
"I am," she told him coolly, "but I have plenty of help. Willand is not my only promising student."
"I'm going to learn quite a bit today, I think," Willand said with a lazy smile that she targeted on Jaime.
"I don't know how," Carey muttered. "When you're that full of yourself, there isn't room for anything else." He hadn't intended for her to hear, but suspected from her sudden sour look that she had.
"Are we all through hissing and spitting at one another?" Calandre asked. "Because I really do want that spell. And I can make things quite miserable for your friends until I get it."
"Can she?" Mark asked Arlen.
"Let's just hope Jess gets back here soon," Arlen said tightly. "Very soon."
Carey knew that tone, that expression. His mouth went one swallow drier, his stomach a gulp sicker.
"Let me show you," Calandre offered to Mark. "I don't want you thinking about going for your bow, anyway."
The dull snapping sounds were clearly audible, perhaps even amplified for effect. Mark yelped, a sound of surprise more than distress, as his leg went out from under him. But his groan of, "Oh, shit," as he clutched his arm and bent over that leg was nothing but pain.
"Mark," Jaime breathed, her own obvious fears abandoned as she dashed to her brother's side.
"Broken," he told her. "Both of them. Damn."
Crouching next to him with one hand on his shoulder, she looked up at Calandre and shouted, "You coward! You wouldn't even dare stand that close if you didn't think you could play with us like pu
ppets!"
Calandre merely sat where she had stood, peering over the point, seemingly unaffected by Jaime or her anger. "Do you understand yet? I can't get at Arlen, but I can reach you. Makes you wonder, doesn't it, how long he can stand to watch this?" Her finger moved up to her chin again, this time to tap it in a show of contemplation. "I'm going to let you think about this for a minute," she said. "But not much longer. Playing with puppets gets boring after a while."
"Arlen!" Dayna hissed, running to glare up at him, the saddlebags forgotten in her hand. "How can she do something like that? Why isn't there a checkspell on this kind of magic?"
"Yeah, Arlen," Mark said through gritted teeth, "why the hell isn't there a checkspell on this kind of magic?"
"Because 'this kind of magic' is the most elemental form of kinetic magic," Arlen said grimly. "It doesn't even take much effort. It's used every day for a host of mundane things—just like everything else she twists to use against others."
"Yes, but you've got to have a good imagination," Calandre protested from above. "Those without a truly creative spirit would never think of this one, for instance—unless you want to spoil my fun and give up that spell now?"
For a moment Carey wondered if that simply wouldn't be the easiest thing. Surely Sherra's people were close to a checkspell, if they hadn't arrived at it yet. Surely there wasn't enough time for Calandre to really cause any trouble with the world-travel spell. Such tempting thoughts, just give her the spell and then walk away from this hollow unharmed—
Except that no matter what they did, Arlen was too much of a threat to her to simply be allowed to go his own way. And, by default, Carey and the others were doomed as well.
"No takers, hmm? Well, I can't say I'm surprised. So, let's see—Willand, dear, keep an eye on things for me. This is going to take a bit of concentration. I enjoy the fine detail work, don't you, Arlen?" She sat down, cross-legged, and closed her eyes, while the four of them looked at one another in dread and wondered who it would be this time—or if it would be all of them.
In another moment Carey felt the fine tinglings of threshold pain run along his arms and shoulders, flowing down to encase his torso, running along the lines of his bones to thigh and shin. He held out his hand and looked at it, but there was no outward sign of whatever she was doing to him. He looked up at her and found he was being watched, and him alone. None of the others, then. Good.
"A little closer to home, Arlen," Calandre said. "Let's up the stakes a little."
"Carey?" Arlen asked, sending a swift look of alarm and concern.
"I don't know what it is," he said, and then shuddered as the tingling turned to the burn of an overworked muscle. "Except that it's going to hurt."
"Quite a lot, I should think, depending on how good my control was," Calandre said. "If I got clumsy, he won't last as long. The idea is to keep the major organs out of the process for as long as possible."
"Arlen . . ." Carey said, finding that his legs would no longer hold him up through the inner flames that engulfed them. "Arlen . . ."
"Carey!" Arlen shouted, concern and anger all at once as he just missed breaking Carey's mostly gentle collapse to the ground. "Damn you to every Level, Calandre! What kind of spell is this?"
"Something fiendishly clever, I assure you," she replied, a bit of gloating in her voice. "A variation on the spell used to make compost."
"What!" Dayna and Jaime cried in tandem. Jaime still seemed to be by Mark, but Dayna was at Carey's feet, holding his ankles against the quivering in his legs. "Arlen, what does that mean?" she demanded. "She's not . . . not turning him into . . . into—"
"No." Arlen said heavily. "We have a common little household spell that's used to speed the breakdown of garbage material. It acts on the smallest units in the material, destroying their structure—"
"She's breaking down every cell in his body?" Dayna asked in horror.
"Major organs last," Calandre called down to them. "I want to give Arlen at least a little time to think about this. I'm not sure how reversible this spell is—the healing arts are obviously not my specialty—but I can stop the process, if I've a reason."
No, Carey thought. Arlen couldn't give up the spell, not when it would be for nothing. She was going to kill them all in the end. He tried to say it out loud, and all that came out was a gurgling sort of groan that didn't even make sense to him.
* * *
Jess stared hard at the man who rode up behind her, thinking she knew him from some place, some place other than the little detention area they'd both just left. She said, irritated for both herself and his horse, "If you let him drink too much before you came after me, he's going to colic," and tossed her head as she turned forward again, asking for a little more energy in the grey's trot. The man didn't have any apparent weapons, and she had no intention of stopping now; they were nearly to the five-road intersection.
He didn't respond, other than to keep pace with her, moving up so he nearly drew even with her, mumbling to himself and then giving her an annoyed stare. "Now that should have worked," he muttered, then addressed her directly, "Listen here, woman, I want to talk to you. Slow down a little, will you? I can barely ride when I'm not trying to make intelligent conversation."
She took another look at him and saw this was certainly true. Good. A nudge and the grey snorted, pushing his nose out a little as he put another notch of effort into the gait, one that she easily posted and one that bounced the man mercilessly.
"You're Jess, aren't you?" he said, his voice bouncing along with his bottom, and punctuated with an "Ouch!" as he came down on the saddle wrong. His horse's tail was lashing in annoyance and Jess had the impression the tall man was about to get dumped. It had been her intention, but . . .
"Jess. Yes," she said, not quite ready to slow the pace. "I told that woman so."
"There aren't very many of us who know Carey personally," the man said desperately. "There are fewer who know his dun mare has also been a woman."
Cautiously, Jess slowed to a walk, moving as far away from him as she could—but she needn't have worried. The man was too involved in regaining his precarious seat and easing his saddle sores to even think about making a grab for her. "But you do," she said. "Know about me, I mean."
"I do. And I was there when we discovered Jaime had been taken," he said. "My name is Gacy."
Another moment's scrutiny brought her the memory. "I saw you at Sherra's when I came back without Jaime," she said. "You were getting ready to ride out."
"Right," he said ruefully, "and I wasn't any better at it then, either."
"My friends are trapped by one of Calandre's men," Jess said. "Arlen is with them. He has used magic—"
"For this poor pitiful finder that's trying to get you to turn around?" Gacy asked, and Jess twisted to find the glow trailing her, faithfully pointing out the direction to Sherra.
"Yes. He said Calandre might find him from it. I was supposed to bring back help. Carey said they would believe me."
"He couldn't have known about the security problems we've run into," Gacy said, shaking his head. "We've been extremely careful with Sherra. After Arlen, she's our best chance of getting through this mess, and we couldn't chance that Calandre would send some unmagical threat her way."
"I don't care about the reasons. I want help for my friends," Jess said. "And now I think I'm the only help they're going to get." Briefly, she wished for her own swift legs instead of those of this stolid grey. She gathered the reins, preparing to canter, and he hastened to do the same.
"Don't lose me, Jess. Once we're there I can send for help. It might draw Calandre but I can hold her off for a little while." His mumbled "I think" was, she decided, not meant to be heard.
Gacy did his best to keep the pace she set, a fast pace that was not kind to either the riders or their horses. He always fell behind when she was trotting, though, and as the distance to the hollow decreased, so did Jess' patience. They were midway between the big intersection
and the hollow when Gacy, at that point barely within hearing distance, called her with a breathless shout. With much irritation, she stopped the big grey, who was finally reaching his limits. She turned in the saddle to demand why the wizard had stopped her, when she felt it, too.
It was a sensation similar to those that hit her when she was changing from Lady to Jess, but this time it didn't snatch her, it buffeted mildly around her. When Gacy was close enough to hear her normal speaking voice, she asked, "What is that? Is it magic?"
"It's magic, all right, of a hefty sort," he said. "And it's Calandre's. If I had to guess, Jess—"
"She's already there!" Jess cried in alarm, pushing the gelding into a canter before she'd even finished speaking.
"Jess, no!" Gacy yelled after her, hopelessly outridden. "Don't just run up on her! Jess!" he hollered impotently, growing fainter. "Be careful!"
She'd be careful, all right. There was no point in running headlong into the hollow and joining those who needed to be rescued. She nursed the idea of running headlong into Calandre instead, but in the end, prompted by the fast-fading grey, she dismounted a quarter mile from the hollow. She tied the horse by the side of the trail, a message of sorts to Gacy, and walked quietly up to the hollow entrance, her phantom tail twitching, her feet a little confused by the impulse to prance nervously.
Jess crouched behind a thick, waxy-leafed shrub and looked out onto the point, the only weak spot for the protective little pocket in the rock-walled basin. Their guard was there, leaning against a tree off to the side, a tired posture that conveyed his relief at handing the reins over to his superior. On the point sat a relaxed-looking woman whom Jess did not recognize, and who she thought was Calandre. And standing next to her—
Willand. She instantly recalled the way this same figure had stood in the doorway of the wizard's cabin, and she remembered, too, the things this woman had done to Jaime. Her head went up, ears back. Both women were close enough to the edge of the point that she easily saw herself—an internal image that had four legs—pushing them over the edge. She also saw herself going with them, but the landing wouldn't be too hard if she used Willand as a pillow. She relished the image a moment and set it aside, and even though no others came immediately to mind, she couldn't bring herself to just sit behind the protective shrub.
Changespell 01 Dunn Lady's Jess Page 30