Company of Strangers, #1

by Melissa McShane

  “We’re being paid to retrieve the distance-viewing artifact, and we can keep anything else we find,” Alaric said. Sienne looked at him sharply. He’d sounded unusually eager just then, as if he were more interested in the “anything else.” But hadn’t he said they weren’t interested in salvage? She was sure there was something he wasn’t telling them.

  “What else might there be?” she asked.

  Alaric glanced over his shoulder at her. “The ancients created magical artifacts as readily as breathing. It’s impossible to say what they might have created. But even broken artifacts have a market.”

  And now he sounded too casual. Sienne couldn’t think of a way to call him on it when she had no clue what he might be hiding. She resolved to watch him carefully when they reached the ruin. If he intended to cheat the rest of them by concealing whatever artifact he was after…but he hadn’t struck her as the duplicitous type, so what else might he want out of this journey?

  The trees continued sparser than Sienne was accustomed to, giving the five plenty of room to spread out. Sienne was able to pretend she was alone in the wilderness, which made her uncomfortable. She hated being alone, but the company of these people…all right, she was just in a bad mood because of what Alaric had said to her when they set out. They were all, with one notable exception, probably nice people. More to the point, they were her companions, and she would depend on them for her survival. Making friends was the smart course of action.

  But as the hours passed, no friend-making opportunities presented themselves. The sun slid down the sky and disappeared behind the trees, leaving behind a welcome coolness that dried the sweat rolling down Sienne’s back and neck. Her legs were limp and her feet burned with fatigue, and she had a blister on the little toe of her left foot where the poorly-fitted boot rubbed it. She kept putting one foot in front of the other out of sheer willpower and the ardent desire not to give Alaric the satisfaction. She wasn’t weak and she wasn’t going to make him carry her.

  Someone stepped in front of her. “Sienne,” Dianthe said, “you can stop. We’re pitching camp here.”

  Sienne looked around. It didn’t look like an ideal campsite, more like a spot where the trees grew less closely together than an actual clearing, but Alaric was clearing ground for a campfire and Dianthe had turned away to unload the donkey, whose name had turned out to be Button. “You can help me pitch tents, if you like,” Dianthe added, and Sienne shed her burdens and went to join her.

  She hadn’t realized how heavy her gear was until she wasn’t carrying it anymore. Her whole body was going to ache come the morning. The tents, on the other hand, were surprisingly light. Dianthe showed her how to erect the poles and hammer stakes into the ground, and between the two of them they got the first tent up before Alaric had finished lighting the fire. Sienne, still annoyed at his condescension, thought about striking a spark to start the fire before his efforts with flint and steel could bear fruit. But pitching tents was more important, and Sienne didn’t want their animosity to degrade into childishness. She, at least, could be mature.

  Perrin was gathering wood for the fire Alaric had started. Kalanath had disappeared. “Where did Kalanath go?” she asked Dianthe.

  “Hunting,” Alaric said. “Setting snares, I think. We try to live off the land so we don’t have to carry much food.” He made it sound like something she should have known, and she flushed red with irritation.

  She helped Dianthe with the second tent, which was only a little larger than the first. If the three men intended to share it, they’d find it tight quarters. She spread her bedroll in the smaller tent and arranged her pack at its foot. It looked so…official. The reality of her situation struck her as it hadn’t before. She was a real scrapper. Her parents would be appalled. Good.

  She emerged from the tent to find Dianthe setting out cookware, a heavy pot and frying pan. “We need to find water,” Dianthe told Alaric. “I think the stream we passed about five minutes ago is the closest source. We probably should have camped nearer it.”

  “There wasn’t anywhere good nearer it.” Alaric hefted the pot. “I’ll be back.”

  “Wait,” Sienne said. “You don’t have to go anywhere. I can create water.”

  Alaric shook his head. “Not necessary.”

  “It will be fresh and pure, not mucky like the stream.”

  “I said, that’s not necessary. I don’t want to put you to the trouble.”

  Like that’s the reason. “It’s no trouble. Give me the pot.”

  Alaric said nothing.

  “Give her the pot, Alaric,” Dianthe said. “It saves time and she’s right, it’s probably better water.”

  His lips thinned, but he handed over the pot. Sienne set it on the ground at her feet and concentrated. A head-sized glob of water appeared in the air above the pot, hovered for half a breath, then fell neatly into it, splashing a few drops on the ground. Dianthe picked up the pot and sniffed deeply.

  “It smells like spring water,” she said. “Is that what it is?”

  “It comes out of whatever’s in the atmosphere,” Sienne said, “but stripped of impurities. It tastes a little bland, I’m afraid, because it lacks minerals, but it’s clean and good.”

  Dianthe smiled broadly. “That’s amazing. Don’t you think that’s amazing?”

  Alaric grunted and turned away, ducking to enter the larger tent. “Sorry,” Dianthe said in a low voice. “I warned you—”

  “He doesn’t like wizards, I know. Why not?” It was prying, but Sienne was exhausted and frustrated and annoyed at being so thoroughly dismissed by the big man.

  The smile fell away from Dianthe’s face. “That’s not my story to tell. Sorry. He’ll get used to you.” She didn’t look very sanguine about the possibility.

  Kalanath returned after another ten minutes with a brace of rabbits, big ones, dangling from his hand. They’d been cleaned and skinned already, and he offered them to Dianthe, who cut the meat neatly from the bone and into bite-sized pieces. Sienne’s water was already boiling, and Alaric had chopped carrots and potatoes into it with a handful of aromatic herbs. Dianthe added the rabbit meat, and the soup began to smell very good.

  While they were waiting for it to cook, Sienne summoned more water for washing up. Alaric continued to scowl, but washed his hands like the rest of them. “Very civilized,” was all he said. Sienne gritted her teeth and said nothing.

  They ate rabbit soup, with hard biscuits—not stone biscuits, thankfully—to dunk in the broth, and drank more of Sienne’s water, all but Perrin, who had a flask he took swigs from. Sienne was having trouble not feeling critical of him, and never mind what he’d said about Averran. How could he possibly be effective if he was that drunk? She drained her bowl and mopped up the drops with the last of her biscuit. It was hard not to think of it as her business, given that his condition might well mean the difference between life and death for her. But she couldn’t think of any way to broach the topic without sounding judgmental.

  The sun had just set when the last of the soup was eaten. Alaric rose to his full height and stretched. “Since you seem equipped for it, why don’t you wash up tonight,” he told Sienne. “We take turns watching once it gets dark so none of us are exhausted come the morning.”

  “Sienne helped cook,” Dianthe said.

  “No, I don’t mind,” Sienne said. In fact, she was pleased Alaric wasn’t going to coddle her—and that he’d accepted her magic at least as far as washing dishes went. She gathered the cook pot and the bowls and took them to the edge of the campsite, where she made a couple of floating lights to illuminate her work. She was awkward at washing up, having little experience with cooking or cleaning, but the work soothed her nerves, as did the pleasure of summoning water in globs of different sizes and heating them just enough to be comfortable. Finally, she scrubbed the last of the spoons and dumped them all in the pot to carry back. The others were settled in around the fire, silently staring at the flames, though Dianthe
smiled at her when she returned.

  Sienne put the dishes near the fire, where they’d dry before morning, and asked, “Do we…should the fire burn all night?”

  “It depends on where we are,” Dianthe said. “Some places, you want a fire to ward off animals. Others, you don’t want to draw human attention. Tonight we’ll bank it before we go to bed. We don’t need it for warmth, after all.”

  Sienne took a seat near her and as far from Alaric as she could manage, which put her next to Kalanath. She drew her legs up and hugged her knees and let her eyes go unfocused as the warmth of the flames eased her aching muscles. She’d survived her first day as a scrapper, and it hadn’t been too bad. Someday, she’d do this with real companions, and the end of the day would mean talking and laughing around the fire, not this morose silence.

  Kalanath stirred. “What can you do?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry?”

  He waved a hand. “Your magic. What can you do?”

  “Oh. Lots of things. Summon water, start a fire, make light. Then I know about a dozen spells.”

  “I do not know what is the difference. In Omeira we have no wizards.”

  “No wizards?”

  He shrugged. “It is not our way.”

  That didn’t make sense. Surely Omeirans weren’t so different from the Rafellish or even Ansorjans that they didn’t have people born with magical talent? “Well…wizards are born with the ability to do small magics. You just think it and it happens, more or less. But stronger magic, wizardry, requires spells, and for that you need a spellbook.” Sienne pulled her book out of her vest and offered it to Kalanath.

  He leaned away from her. “I should not touch.”

  “No, there’s no magic in it, it can’t hurt you. Well, that’s not entirely true. I mean, no, it can’t hurt you, but it does have magic on it. It’s been treated with invulnerability so it can’t be destroyed.” She opened the cover and flexed it back and forth. “Invulnerability makes thin wood pliable and unbreakable, and it makes paper rigid like metal. Go ahead, hold it.”

  Kalanath gingerly took the spellbook from her and turned the pages. “It is as you say. Like metal. And these lines…they are not Fellic.”

  “No, they’re in the four magic languages.”

  “May I?” Perrin took the book from Kalanath and turned it over, tracing the letters burned into the cover. “And any wizard knows these languages.”

  “Yes, but only I can cast the spells in my spellbook.”

  “Why is that?” Dianthe asked.

  “Because I wrote them myself. In…my own blood, actually.” She braced herself for a rude comment from Alaric, but he was silent, eyeing the spellbook as if it were a live snake. “I can copy a spell from someone else’s book, but I can’t just, well, steal some other wizard’s spellbook and use it. Wizards need the connection their blood gives them.”

  “Pity,” Alaric said. “I’d love to see Conn Giorda’s face if we snatched his precious spellbook.”

  Dianthe reached across Alaric for the spellbook and turned its pages. “These look like different alphabets, even.”

  “They are. The alphabets give form to the language. That is, a transform spell like fit—the shrinking spell—is round and flowing, and the script matches that.” She accepted the spellbook from Dianthe and ran her fingers down its smooth, warm spine.

  “If it’s invulnerable, how do you write spells in it?” Dianthe asked. “Wouldn’t the ink…the blood…slide right off?”

  “I write the spell before I make the page invulnerable. It—here.” Sienne worked the complicated clasp at the base of the spine, and the back cover popped open. She slid the last page free and waved it. It made a whopwhopwhop sound as it flopped back and forth, just like a thin sheet of metal. “It’s made to expand. When I gain a new spell, I write it on paper, put the invulnerability on it, and add it to the book. Some wizards arrange their spells by language, or by difficulty, but I find it easier to remember where they all are if I just put them in as I get them.” She returned the page to the book, careful not to cut herself on the sharp edge, and latched it shut.

  “Can you cast a spell now?” Perrin said. “I find myself quite curious about your capabilities.”

  Sienne glanced swiftly at Alaric. He looked irritated, but he’d looked that way from the moment she sat down, so it was unlikely she could make him more annoyed. “All right,” she said. She pressed her fingertips to the page edges and willed the book open. Cast, that would be dramatic and not frightening. She let the polysyllables of the confusion spell roll off her tongue, blinked away the haloes they left around the dancing flames, and felt the back of her throat tingle. She closed the book and said, “Listen.”

  “Listen,” her voice said again, this time coming from behind Alaric. He jumped and half-turned in his seat. “I can cast my voice anywhere I like,” she said without moving her lips, making it sound as if the flames were speaking. “It’s a fun party trick,” she said in Kalanath’s ear, “and some wizards,” high in the trees behind the tents, “make a good living at it, entertaining the wealthy,” echoing from inside the cook pot.

  Dianthe laughed in delight. Perrin slowly applauded. “Marvelous,” he said, “though I admit the usefulness seems limited.”

  “Fooling your enemy,” Alaric said. “Giving yourself invisible allies.”

  “Exactly,” Sienne said, surprised that Alaric had seen the potential in something he despised. Though he’d come up with the idea of blinding someone using the sharpen spell…for someone who hated wizards, he’d have made a good one. She decided against saying this.

  Perrin yawned. “I’m for bed,” he said, “unless you wish me to watch first.”

  “I do,” Alaric said. “If you’re like the other priests we’ve worked with, you’ll rise early to make your prayers.”

  “Actually, Averran tends not to respond to prayers made before dawn. But I will take whatever watch you desire.”

  “Then you’ll go first.” Alaric stood and stretched again. “Then Kalanath, me, Dianthe, and Sienne will take the last watch.”

  Sienne nodded, though by the look on Dianthe’s face there was something wrong with her taking the final watch. It would give her a good night’s sleep, and maybe that was the problem—maybe it was just another way in which Alaric assumed she was weak, that she’d need a good night’s sleep. But that was an assumption she couldn’t call him on, so she simply went to her bedroll and removed her boots and vest. Sleeping in her clothes wouldn’t be comfortable, but she’d known going into this that comfort wasn’t important to scrappers.

  The firelight dimmed as someone banked the hot coals. She heard people moving around outside and in the neighboring tent. Footsteps sounded outside her own tent, then low voices. “…not weak…” she could barely hear Dianthe say. “…last watch is…”

  Alaric’s rumbling voice said, “…exhausted…could use the rest…”

  “…treat her…companion…”

  “I said I would, didn’t I?” Alaric’s voice came through clearly, tinged with impatience, and Dianthe shushed him. “She’s doing better than I thought.”

  “Told you…good idea.”

  “…right…” Alaric murmured, and Dianthe laughed. Then the tent flap parted, and Dianthe entered, dropping heavily onto her bedroll and pulling off her boots.

  “You don’t snore, do you?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so. No one’s ever complained.” Sienne wished she hadn’t said that. For one thing, most ordinary people grew up sharing a bedroom with siblings, and for another, she’d only ever had one lover, even though she’d just implied she had plenty of experience. If she had it to do all over again, she’d have stayed a virgin.

  “Well, I do, so I apologize in advance.” Dianthe set her boots just inside the tent flap and lay back on her bedroll. “Still glad you came along?”

  “Absolutely,” Sienne said with a fervor that surprised her.

  Dianthe chuckled. “Don�
��t worry about starting breakfast at the end of your watch. You didn’t seem experienced at cooking, if you’ll pardon me saying, and porridge is harder than it looks.”

  “Maybe you could teach me.”

  “Sure. Wake me at dawn. I never sleep well after a pre-dawn watch, anyway. Good night.”

  “Good night,” Sienne said, lying down and stretching out her legs. They already ached from all the walking. Well, she wasn’t going to complain and give Alaric something to criticize her for. Though…he’d said she was doing better than he’d thought, so maybe he wasn’t as critical as she believed. Even so, she didn’t want to be a burden.

  At night, in the darkness of the tent, the forest noises were louder than they’d been when the five of them had been tramping through the undergrowth. The high-pitched chirruping of crickets and the rushing of the wind in the leaves made a steady background against which Sienne heard the distant hooting of owls on the hunt and, even farther away, the cries of an animal she didn’t recognize. Someone, probably Perrin, walked past, his footsteps rustling the dry grass. Beside her, Dianthe let out a gentle snore. Sienne smiled. She’d never felt so at peace.

  Between one thought and the next, she drifted into sleep.

  7

  She woke to Dianthe’s gentle hand on her shoulder, shaking her. “Time to watch,” she whispered. “Wake me when it’s bright enough to see, and we’ll wake the others when the food’s ready.”

  Sienne nodded, then added, “All right,” when she realized it was too dark for Dianthe to see the motion. Sitting up reminded her of all the walking she’d done the day before. Every muscle ached, especially her calves and thighs, and her shoulders were stiff from carrying that load. She gritted her teeth against a moan of pain. She wasn’t going to complain, even to Dianthe, who would probably be sympathetic. She pulled on her boots, but left her vest lying where it was.

  The night was cool, but not chilly, and high, thin clouds obscured the stars in the moonless sky. The banked fire glowed red, and she crouched to feel the heat radiating from it. Then she made a circuit of the camp, listening for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing but the crickets, who went silent as she neared and took up their shrill song again once she’d passed.