by Lisa Lowell
She wouldn't be so angry, he realized, if she were not trying to drive him away for his own sake. All the arguments they had endured in their marriage these last few years had primarily been over this issue, and he only now recognized that she was trying to push him away so he would not have to see her growing withered and less than desirable in his eyes.
Well, it wouldn't work, he acknowledged. Paget's attraction to him had little to do with her earlier luminous eyes and ebony hair, but more her bold mind, comforting presence and sharp wit. Those wouldn't fade for a long while, if ever, and he cherished them. She was like one of the jewels he often found in the deep roots of the mountains; hard and brilliant. Perhaps she had been more sparkly and polished earlier in their married life, but that didn't mean, with the clouding of her appearance, that she wasn't still a diamond in his hands. He remembered the facets and the purity.
“I do not need you for that, my love. I need you to be…my comfort, my reminder that I am human. With the evil I face… I need to know there is good in the world still.” Then, despite her resistance, he pulled her into an embrace and held her there, as he slowly danced to music only he could still hear.
Chapter 9 – Well Magic
Gailin's body ached and with her newly minted understanding of the human body, she did not doubt that the tendons in her feet would be enflamed by the time they walked the sun into the ground. She looked over the empty grasslands with a bleak eye. This was not her favorite place, she decided. It felt too exposed, especially with only Drake as a companion. He could murder her here in the grass and no one would ever find her body. She would molder and sink into the ground or be ripped to shreds by wild animals and no trace would be found.
Rather than dwell on these morbid thoughts, she decided it was time to try and engage her companion in a conversation. “Is it safe to talk now?” she began tentatively. “The villagers never come out this far onto the plains. We won't be seen….” She shouldn't have said that but now it was too late. Chiding herself for pointing out the obvious to him, she quickly continued. “I mean, we can talk about magic now, can we? You said you have a gift and so do I. What did you mean?”
Drake hadn't said a word as they had walked for the past three hours but her questions must have reminded him that she was with him, for he seemed startled. “The ropes. You broke them with magic. I saw that.”
“That was the first time I had ever done magic,” she said honestly. “I didn't think it would work, and it worked too well.”
“It was impressive,” Drake commented blandly. “But that was not why they thought you were a witch even before you escaped. Why were they hanging you?”
Gailin couldn't lie, even if she wanted to, so she admitted it. “I have a gift for healing that the villagers assumed was magical, so they accused me of being a witch when I couldn't save someone. I suppose the healing is magic, but I have had it all my life and was never trained….until now. Thank you for helping me learn.” And she meant it, after a fashion. His hideous lessons in anatomy had helped her, and she knew Vamilion would never willingly teach her this way; face to face with open questions. Now she just had to use that knowledge of her magic against Drake. It would soon come time to start exploring the hunter's mind. She just had to draw him a little farther away from his link to the ley lines. Another day or two of walking?
“So, what kind of magical gifts do you have?” she asked innocently enough, hoping that her sharing would be enough to get him talking at last.
Drake looked at the setting sun and then stopped walking. “I have enough to know that this is as good as any a place to stop. If we're going to come out here, we'd better set up a camp of some kind. Then I can show you.”
They cleared the dry grasses and Gailin twisted the gathered stems into sticks to burn in a fire, though she doubted they would last long enough to cook much. Drake used the knife he had put in his gear to dig a trough around a fire bed, but with only straw and grass as fuel, it seemed futile to Gailin. She watched him work at cutting his fire circle from the surrounding earth presumably to keep it from spreading into a grass fire. Then he stood back and rubbed his hands together. “This works better farther south,” he commented and then placed his hand, palm down, firmly in the dirt he had cleared bare. He closed his eyes, concentrated and then began chanting an arcane spell. Gailin couldn't comprehend the language, for which she was grateful. The muttered words sent a shiver down her spine and she was grateful Vamilion had never required her to recite any mystical spells to do her magic.
Abruptly the dirt they had cleared erupted in flames. Drake pulled his hand back before he was burned, but Gailin rocked back with surprise. “That's amazing,” she whispered, fascinated. His fire burned without fuel and when she tossed her manufactured sticks on the flames, the fire gobbled them up with little trouble and continued burning merrily along without growing any stronger.
“You'll be able to cook anything on that,” Drake announced proudly. “The hard part out here will be getting water. We should have stayed close to the river. We might have to hunt as well, and there will be nothing out here so far away from the rivers.”
“I can do water,” Gailin supplied before she had even thought it through. She opened up her blanket-bag and pulled out the pot she had been cooking in since her childhood. It had come from Malornia with her grandmother and bore the fine quality that smiths here in the Land could not manage yet in their limited resources. Now she would use it as a magical reservoir. She set it on the fire and conjured water into it. “Soup for supper?” she asked with a smile, hoping the charm she doled out would distract him from curiosity about where her magic originated.
“Impressive,” he commented with a strange look to his eye. “Have you done something other than water?”
Gailin knew she dare not reveal much. “I made the stylus I use to write in my book, but little else. Like I said, my gift has mostly been in healing; keeping my grandmother alive, gardening and breaking those ropes. Most of the training was in the medical areas and I've never met another magician before.” All these things were meant to mislead him even though technically, they weren't lies. She had not 'met' Vamilion, and while he had trained her only a little, her instincts and own experimentation provided the bulk of her magical efforts. “I would love to learn more,” she added, hoping to drive the conversation toward his revealing more about himself.
Drake sat beside his fire, concentrating on it, or fascinated by the flickering of the light as Gailin began adding ingredients from the food that they had brought from her house. She carefully let him see everything she did, easing any suspicion of her conjuring more than water. Best stay with elemental things like fire, water, wind and earth so that he would not realize she could have brought far more complex things into being. Was he feeling weakened already by the distance from the ley line that ran along the river? Should she make it seem that she too had to strain to tap into magic?
“Just keep him talking about his sorcery,” rumbled a voice through her head. Owailion again? If so, she could relax this evening. He would warn her of anywhere she might misstep.
“What is there to learn besides herbs to heal, ropes to break or water to wash?” she asked frankly, hoping to break Drake's fire hypnosis.
“Can you listen into others' thoughts?” Drake commented.
Gailin's private mind smiled. “Is that possible?” Although she knew it for a true skill, she also needed the practice and working against Drake practically made her hungry to try.
Drake nodded, unaware of how she had not answered the question, but skillfully she avoided saying that yes, she could. Instead he replied, “And you'll need to learn to block thoughts as well. The two go hand in hand.”
“Can you teach me?” she asked breathlessly.
Drake looked longingly at the soup as it bubbled away, full of the wonderful smells she could create with a few of her spices though the thin gruel only boasted a bit of onion and a potato. He seemed mesmerized by her han
ds stirring the soup and she realized he must be truly tired. Ley lines already? Her heart quickened at the thought. “Let's eat,” she commented almost enticingly. “Then you can teach me.”
“Good girl,” Owailion rumbled through her mind.
Drake didn't reply but gladly took the bowl she served him and began eating greedily. Gailin had a difficult time keeping her speculative delight to herself. So he was already feeling the strain and needed to eat this way to keep up his energy. Sucking the life force off her wasn't enough if he were drawn far from the source of his magic. Despite the meal Drake still seemed lethargic and went to sleep almost as soon as the sun sank beyond the perfectly flat horizon.
Gailin, for her part remained awake and thanks to the full moon was able to write a few of her thoughts in the book. The plan is working, she wrote. Drake was obviously weakened and dependent on her. Then she asked how Vamilion was faring with her grandmother and finally she too went to sleep, although her mind was far too excited to settle until the stars had wheeled around and the almost wind finally stilled.
Deep in the night the moon had set and despite full summer, she felt a chill before she realized, with horror, Drake was touching her. His cold hand had wrapped around her throat. He wasn't squeezing, but the weight of his arm across her chest and the clammy grip made her shudder. She managed not to react or even gasp, but wondered how long he had been there draped across her. Slowly she turned her head to look at him and found him sprawled next to her, still asleep, completely unaware of the contact he had initiated. Was he more vulnerable this way? It didn't seem like he was even conscious. Perhaps his mind was open and unshielded now.
Greatly daring, Gailin reached toward Drake's mind as lightly as she could. Unlike Vamilion's thoughts which seemed strong and stable, Drake's felt like a labyrinth. She remembered the dream of wandering with Grandma through an oozing cesspool of evil, but this was different. He had the wall, like Vamilion, but it was a wall within a maze, crumbling and covered in moss and moisture. Even as she explored, the walls sank to the point she could see easily over them and she became aware of Drake's thoughts and dreams.
“She feeds me, feeds me. I don't have to kill her to feed. The others are not needed. The voices can stop. How can I keep her with me? If I feed on her, will they come and take her from me? No, I will not harm her. I will absorb her forever. She will be safe. She is mine. She feeds me. I'm so hungry.”
The others? Gailin recalled all the souls she had found at the base of his mind and realized that the dream had shown her a truth. While that dream had been completely without tapping into Drake's thoughts, it had given her the path to go in and rescue the souls he had trapped inside himself. She realized he felt tormented by the voices of all the souls he had absorbed. Could she release them while he remained in this state? Something drove her to consider it. Was this the Wise One compulsion to help, urging her to take the risk of dipping deeper into the maze of Drake's mind? If so, she could only hope this worked.
And with Owailion's subtle, wordless encouragement, she decided to act. Taking a shallow breath, lest she wake him or move his hand off her neck, Gailin dove into the labyrinth. The walls still moldered and sagged. Sometimes she came across whole fallen walls and had to clamber over them. The path she had taken with Grandma corresponded almost exactly with the one she traveled now, though the environment wasn't so organic and literal like during the dream. She preferred moss and rock walls to veins and brain matter. And the light from the stars overhead remained her guide in this experience, but she could still feel Drake's cold hand, unflinchingly latched onto her neck. Chilled, she tried not to think of that.
Finally she came to the part of the path where the well of souls awaited her in the brain dream. However, here it appeared as a crumbling arch but the room beyond the walls seemed like a black void. No light passed in and while she could see over the walls on either side of the gateway, the void could not be observed unless she looked directly through the arch. She dare not enter in; why be foolish, ignoring her instincts. She had come to this dangerous place in his mind to release the souls. Again she sensed Owailion's encouragement and knew she needed to act. Would Drake be aware of her manipulation, awaken and attack her? She didn't feel like he would kill her, but he certainly would not appreciate her invasion.
Well, she had to do something. Carefully she conjured a metaphorical knife and reached toward the void, thinking of the darkness as a membrane similar to the one she had witnessed in the dream, stretched taut by the souls within straining to be free. She didn't want to touch it, but used the tip of the blade to reach out until she made contact with the darkness within the arch. Alarmingly the black film tore away with the least touch and a gray mist escaped, drifting away into the night sky.
The hand on her throat tightened, and Gailin withdrew her mind hurriedly.
“What did you do?” Drake gasped, his hand still on her throat, but he lifted his head, glaring at her with dark eyes. “You…”
She had a ready answer; hopefully one she would not get killed giving. “I was curious why you were touching me.” It was an honest question. That she already knew and now understood more, that he was absorbing his life force from her didn't need to be said.
Drake rolled away from her, taking his offending hand with him and looked up into the sky. For the longest time he didn't say anything, just let the silence creep along the ground like a mist in a swamp. Gailin didn't interrupt his thoughts or tap in to hear what now she could sense from him with just a nudge. Instead she let him share what he was willing to reveal.
“I need you,” he admitted. “I'm too far away from the ley lines.”
“Ley lines?” she asked, implying she didn't know what he was talking about and perpetuating the falsehood that she was untrained.
“Where magic flows. It's strange, but you don't seem to be affected. I wonder why that is. Magic flows almost like rivers. And just like I need water, I need to be nearer it or I will get weakened magically. You, you're like a well, bringing the magic to the surface and I can walk here, far from the ley lines as long as you are near. I don't know why this works but it does.”
“Where are these ley lines? Can you see them?”
“No, they aren't visible, but sorcerers can sense them. It's one of the major things I am doing here in the Land: mapping the lines for others to come. Other magicians will want to know and then I can sell that information to them in trade for something I need.” His eyes flicked to his cloak where presumably he had the map he had built. He wasn't ready to share it with her though he was easily teaching her about ley lines nonetheless. And the walls of his mind had strengthened accordingly. This was a secret he wanted to keep close; valuable to him like buried jewels.
“What would happen if the lines went away?” she asked curiously, hiding her fear of what that map would do to the Land.
“It's impossible. They are like rivers. The magic must flow. You would have to break the ground open and have magic fall back to the center of the earth to make the ley lines fade.”
“So why can you still do magic even out here, far away from ley lines that I cannot even sense?” she asked innocently.
Drake sighed wistfully. “I don't know. I simply tap into you and…Your magic is different. You block naturally. You can draw water up and you can heal, both of which are great examples of magical power, but rare. Can you read minds?”
“I think that's what I was doing, trying to find out why you were touching me. You were thinking you were hungry.”
Drake looked over at her and smiled for the first time since they had met. “Hungry? I suppose I am hungry; magically hungry that is. I usually tap into the ley lines through the people who live near them, but with you, I can go other places, even far from people. If the lines are rivers, you are drawing from a well, tapping into the magic that is deeper than the river. Maybe you broke your ropes at the hanging with such spectacular results because you didn't use the ley lines at all, but the wel
l magic.”
“Well magic?” she speculated. “Is it more powerful than ley lines, or just different?”
Drake looked back at the stars with curiosity. “Again, I don't know, I've never met a magician who used it, but it's an interesting concept. I'd like to see how it works because until now I've never been able to tap into someone else's magic this way. I seem to be able to use magic with you as the conduit. We should look into it. I need you….out here I would die without being able to use the ley lines.”
“Die? Aren't you able to live without magic? You are human, right? I went almost all my life without magic and no one ever questioned what I needed to live.”
“Ah, but you were born and lived near the ley lines. You tapped into them without even thinking about it,” he qualified. “You don't know what it's like to live away from them.”
“I'm living away from them now and I don't feel any different,” she commented and then privately chided herself for ever revealing this.
“You will,” he promised. “You will indeed feel different. Now, do you have anything for a headache? I've got a terrible throbbing in my head and it's almost dawn.”
Chapter 10 - Pressure
Vamilion spent a week at home, settling Grandma and apologizing to Paget, but he felt guilty for ignoring his magical duties the entire time. The compulsion to protect his future wife as well as do his half of the plan was at work and he had a niggling sense that the Land was in eminent danger. Owailion had the watch over Gailin, so that left Vamilion with the protection of the Land, or at least the most likely approaches. With magicians on the way, he could not remain at peace, even at home. And home was hardly peaceful. While she never said anything, Paget's cleaning and hovering over Grandma nagged him wordlessly. Paget wouldn't speak of her disquiet but she had told him she didn't need him with her actions. He was left in his work room chiseling away at a lump of stone and felt useless.