Dayna stood with her back to the late afternoon light of the workroom window and watched Chiara, wondering if her notions about the friends and enemies of this world had been correct. Carey was confined in a first-floor room—a comfortable enough place, but there was no mistaking that it was a jail, for the spell Gacy had set at the threshold let others wander in and out, but kept Carey within. Furthermore, Sherra had appropriated his spellstones. Both actions seemed insulting and not a little callous, and they set Dayna to thinking about how no one had gone after Arlen, how they were willing to sacrifice Jaime, how they hadn't really looked into the confusion that was Dun Lady's Jess.
So the day after Jaime's abduction, Mark was out pretending nothing was wrong, that as soon as the wizards who had managed to gather here had hashed out their plans, someone would go and fetch Jaime, just like that. And Carey was sleeping, had been almost the entire time, repairing the stresses of an overworked body. Dayna had knocked and poked her head in his room before she'd come upstairs, just to make sure he hadn't changed his mind—and half hoping he had—but hadn't tried to wake him. If he really meant to go through with his kamikaze plan, he'd need all the rest he could get. It was that plan that put her here, designated thief and spy instead of unwilling student.
"You're awfully quiet," Chiara said, looking up from the leather-bound notebook she was carefully inscribing. Dayna had been amazed at the way magic was insinuated into this society, making what at first had seemed a rude and unrefined existence into lives that were at least as comfortable and secure as her own. There were spells for keeping teeth clean, there were spells for cramps, there were spells to repel mice and vermin. Not everyone could afford them all, of course, but then, there were plenty of places in Ohio where people lived with mice—including Jaime's old farmhouse. "No complaints today?" She frowned at her neat writing as Dayna slid away from the window and along the wall to the cabinet behind Chiara's back. "Do you remember what that woman said she needed? Was it a weather forecast for one day or one week?" she asked suddenly.
Dayna froze with her hand on the cupboard door and forced an indifferent reply. "I don't know," she said honestly. "I was looking at some of the crystals she had for sale." Crystals she had strung together in an approximation of Carey's necklace, to forestall discovery of the theft, and that she was just about to—a quick glance to see that Chiara still puzzled over her list—switch. Nary a rattle of stone against stone escaped the muffling flannel cloth she used to handle the necklaces, and Dayna was stuffing the contraband into the deep pocket of her shift.
"You talked to Carey lately?" Chiara asked unexpectedly.
"No," Dayna squeaked, then cleared her throat. "Not since yesterday. Why?"
Her tutor turned and gave Dayna a quizzical eye. "Are you catching a cold? No? Because I was wondering if he's accepted things, or if he's just sitting in there getting angrier."
"He's been sleeping," Dayna said, managing to inject a note of sensibility into her voice. "Besides, it sounded to me like Arlen and Jaime have a better chance if Sherra decides it's time to get them, than if Carey goes blundering about." There, a little disinformation planted—and hopefully not overdone.
"I'm surprised you feel that way," Chiara said, and looked it. "I thought Jaime was a good friend of yours."
"She is," Dayna said stoutly. "Which is why I wish you people weren't taking such a damn long time to make up your minds."
"If Jaime's really headed for Arlen's hold, she won't get there till sometime tomorrow," Chiara assured her, pushing the notebook aside. "Theo's is on the other side of the village, half a day further away from Arlen's than we are. And even if a courier can make it here from Arlen's in one day, not everyone can—and Gacy said there were two men plus the wizard woman, and one horse for each. That means Jaime is riding double with one of them."
"How does he know that?" Dayna blurted. Carey certainly didn't.
Chiara wrinkled her nose. "Uh . . . I'm not sure I was supposed to let that slip." She hesitated and allowed, "Gacy ran a spell on the place while Carey was recovering from the blast he took. You can get certain details from a location, not like clear pictures, but clear enough. The wizard was a woman, and she had two men with her—the ones who actually killed Theo." Her expression turned grim. "They were a little rough, but Gacy said it seemed Jaime'd be safe enough during the trip to Arlen's."
"And no one told us?" Dayna asked incredulously.
Chiara's response was a sensible one that made Dayna all the more angry. "Why? It wouldn't really have eased your mind, would it? And Carey's been so . . . strange since he came back to Camolen. Unpredictable."
Dayna didn't know about that. She felt pretty sure she could predict exactly what Carey was going to do. And she was just as sure that she'd be in on it.
Dayna broke away from Chiara easily, when the woman had put away her list and sat down to review her brief notes about Dun Lady's Jess. She wasted no time in locating Mark, who was learning to fletch arrows, and gave him the nod which meant she'd been successful. He made a more or less graceful exit from his group and together they hurried to Carey's cell, a pleasant little room that was a luxury compared to the courier's quarters he'd occupied before.
"You got them," he said with satisfaction the minute he saw them. They easily stepped through the barrier that was keyed only to him, and he closed the door on their secrets. Dayna answered his greeting by pulling her hand out of the pocket it almost convulsively occupied, and let the stones and chain trickle through her fingers and into his grasp.
"I got something else, too," she told him. "Chiara told me Gacy ran some kind of spell at Theo's. He knows there were three of them, and three horses—so Jaime's riding double with one of them. They," and she nodded at the ceiling, indicating the upper rooms where the wizards and students worked, "figure it'll be tomorrow before they get to Arlen's place."
Carey nodded absently, his eyes narrowed as he worked out the distances for himself. "I'd have to agree with that," he said after a minute. "Good. If we get out of here tonight . . . riding in darkness, keeping the speed down for you guys . . . we can make it to a good base midday after tomorrow, and I'll trigger the recall from there."
"I don't get it," Mark muttered, shaking his head. He looked at Carey and said, "I still can't understand why they took Jaime in the first place."
Dayna looked at him, hesitating. She'd heard enough discussion of the latest development in the workrooms to understand any courier was at risk, a possible source of information. She also had come to understand that Carey's line of dun horses was well known within the sphere of his travel. Mark, bless his soul, had as usual been immersed in the bits and pieces of everyday life, assuming with a certain naivete that the rest of the world was as straightforward as he was. The circuitous reasoning that took everyone else to the conclusion that Jaime was a bargaining chip had escaped him, and for once she thought maybe his way was the best. "I can't understand it either," she said firmly, startling Carey—with whom she'd already discussed the possible dangers that might await Jaime. She gave him a quick, hard look, and he hid his surprise behind a shrug that said he, too, was at a loss to explain the abduction.
Not quite as naive as all that, Mark narrowed his eyes, giving her a doubting look that might have actually led to confessions of the truth if there hadn't been a knock at the door. Carey dropped the spellstones around his neck and tucked them out of sight, nodding to Dayna to open the door.
Sherra was waiting for her on the other side, her fine, thick hair in the kind of disarray that meant she'd been pushing it around during deep discussion. "All three of you," she said, as Dayna gulped inside, certain that her theft had been discovered. "Well, that makes things a little less complicated. Would you like to talk in the great room?"
"What?" Carey snorted. "And trust me not to try anything stupid?"
Irritation flickered across her face, but she mastered it and said, "If you're going to come along, you'll have to stop sulking—or don't you want to know what's been happening, and what will probably happen?"
"I want to know," Mark volunteered. "I want to know if anybody's going to help Jaime."
"Then come along. I don't have much time, and my throat is dry." She gave the flicker of the door spell a dismissive gesture and it faded to allow Carey freedom as she turned and led the way down the hall. Dutifully they followed; they found the great room hollowly empty of its usual bustle and Dayna looked around in distrust.
"Most of them are out making preparations," Sherra said, helping herself to a tumbler of water from a half-full pitcher, and sitting down at the closest bench. She stared at the water in a moment of concentration and the tumbler frosted up. Dayna's unexpected flicker of envy at the ease with which the wizard had cooled her drink made her blink, but she easily put it aside to concentrate on the conversation at hand—even if her gaze did return to that frosted tumbler a time or two.
Carey rounded the end of the table to sit opposite Sherra and then leaned over the wood, weight on his elbows, impatience on his face. "So things are happening," he said. "Are you going to tease us, or tell us about it?"
"For one thing, we've decided it's not safe for the other wizards to be out on their own," Sherra said without preamble. "Theo wasn't the only wizard with trouble over these past few days, though no one else was killed. We're not even risking couriers to spread the news. Those that can handle mage travel are already arriving, and have been in conference with me for some time now. The others will be met by armed escort. This little hold was never meant to be a fortress, but it'll be protecting many frightened souls by tonight." She took a sip of water and met Carey's gaze, an even, hazel stare of judgement.
"You kept me here so I wouldn't stir up trouble for everyone else while I was going after Arlen," he said. "And now you've got the trouble anyway, and Arlen is still a prisoner."
"That's right," Sherra said. "It was the decision that seemed most prudent at the time. I'm not going to second-guess it."
"There's more to this," Mark said suddenly. "You didn't bring us in here to tell us it was going to get crowded around here."
"No, I didn't." Sherra took a deep breath and smoothed back some of her ruffled hair with one hand. "As Carey said, we've got the trouble anyway. There's no longer any point in delaying a physical approach to Arlen's hold. There are already Anfeald men and women gathering—the ones that haven't been overwhelmed by Calandre's people—and we're coordinating our movements with the Lander Guard. We'll be joining them all late evening, two days from now, by mage travel—it'll take that long before they're ready, unfortunately, and we do have an amazing number of spellstones to set up, never mind arranging formation travel. Early the next morning, we'll . . . well, for want of a better word, we'll attack."
"We?" Carey said pointedly.
"We, the wizards that can be spared from the work here," Sherra said, once more meeting his accusing stare with unruffled calm. "Wizards who are capable of mage travel," she defined further. "We won't be carrying any baggage with us, Carey—that's the way it's got to be."
"This baggage happens to know Arlen's domain better than anyone else you can get," Carey responded heatedly. "If you're going to go after Calandre, you're going to need what I know."
"We're not going after Calandre."
"You're not?" Mark blurted in surprise. "Then you've confused the hell out of me."
"There's no point in going after her. She'll have plenty of advance warning—we have to assume she's intercepting at least half of the messages we've got flying around, despite our precautions—and she'll have a retreat set up. We would need many more wizards than we'll have if we wanted to try a quarantine spell."
Dayna frowned. "Then . . ."
"You're just going after Arlen," Carey said, relief showing in his eyes as he closed them and leaned back. "Even if you're doing it just to try to keep the spell from her, you're finally going to get him out of there."
Sherra's expression started out as stern and faded to sad. "I'm sorry we've given you cause to think like that," she said, taking inventory of Mark and Dayna's accord and shaking her head. "I've already told you that she may very well have that world-travel spell already, and is simply trying to expand the time she has to wield it. She's risked everything for this, you realize. We may not actually get our hands on her before we finish cleaning up her mess, but she'll be an outcast, nonetheless, and eventually, she will come to justice. But if she's been able to use this time to run amok in other worlds, she just may get her hands on something that we can't deal with—and then, she'll have us. If our motivation was simply Calandre, it's still much to our advantage to stay here and work on the checkspell."
"You're going after Arlen," Dayna murmured to herself; it was meant to be to herself, they all looked at her.
"Yes. We no longer have any reason not to try."
"Then let me come," Carey said fiercely. He reached over and intercepted her hand on its way to the cool tumbler, and captured her fingers in a grasp that made her wince. "I can get in there and back out again before any of her guards even know someone's there. Hell, I can use that special recall—" She was shaking her head and his tone grew desperate. "Sherra, what have you got to lose? I can get him out!"
"I, too, know my way around that hold, Carey," Sherra said, gently disentangling her fingers. "And I can protect myself against the magic she's likely to throw my way. I can even protect Arlen. But I can't guarantee I can protect all three of us."
"I'm not asking for guarantees!" Carey cried, and slapped his hand down on the table in frustration, turning abruptly away from all of them.
Sherra's obvious sympathy did nothing to melt the resolve in her voice. "I've told you our plans because I thought it would ease your mind. You'll have to return to the room for another day, until it's too late for you to rush in on horseback—a horse you'd have to steal, by the way—and then you can join the rest of the local people, who are already preparing for any physical attacks that might come this way—not an unlikely prospect, given the wizards that will still be here." She shoved her tumbler into the middle of the table and stood, gesturing to the other end of the room, where Gacy had unobtrusively joined them. "Now, I have plenty of work to get done. Gacy will escort you back to the room and reset the spell when you're ready. Wish us luck."
"You'd better believe it," Mark said fervently. He waited only until she was across the room, then gave Carey a little frown of puzzlement. "If it's too hard to magic along people who can help, and they won't get there any sooner anyway, why don't they just ride to Arlen's?"
Carey gave a snort of laughter. "Because so few of them can ride!"
Dayna nodded. "That makes sense. If they're good enough to mage travel, they probably don't bother going long distances any other way."
"They sure don't," Carey agreed. "It's going to be a real surprise when they find out I've gotten there first."
"Do you still think we should do it?" Dayna frowned.
"Hell, yes," Carey responded without hesitation. "Whatever magic Sherra has, she can't duplicate that recall spell. Calandre's sure to have magical barriers in place, and Sherra's only option will be to try to chip a hole in them. The recall isn't going to have to batter its way through, because its origin is within the hold." His confidence faltered, and he scowled faintly. "If I understand it right, that is."
When he looked to Dayna for confirmation, she could only shrug. "I certainly haven't gotten into anything like that," she said. "Ask me for different colors of glow balls, why don't you."
"Well," he said, with renewed determination that dared them to gainsay him, "All I can do is get us set up, and then try it. But if we're going to make it, we've got to go tonight."
"You're forgetting the threshold spell," Dayna reminded him pointedly.
"The stone that keeps magic from acting on me will probably do the trick—it's a handy little stone. And if it doesn't," he smiled, a trifle too airily for her comfort, and she knew what was coming next—"that's where you come in. That spell has an on-off switch—you've seen it work. Surely you can figure out how to flip the switch."
She wondered if he would have spoken so offhandedly about on-off switches if he hadn't spent time on her own world. "Right," she said sourly. Dayna, the unwilling wizard. The thing was, he was right. She had absorbed at least that much.
He shrugged. "The details plan themselves after that. We sneak into the stable, saddle up the horses I've already got picked out, and ride out."
"The gate," Mark reminded him.
"I don't think we'll have any problem," Carey asserted. "I doubt the guard's been alerted to stop people who are going out, especially since Sherra thinks I'll be safely tucked away in that room. Otherwise, well . . . we'll have to handle it." He picked up Sherra's tumbler and sipped the cool water, pensive but apparently satisfied—much more satisfied than Dayna herself, as she stared at the strong lines of Carey's lean face and his deep-set eyes, less shadowed than usual in this airy eating hall.
"And then we ride for—how long? A day?"
"Day and a half, probably."
"A day and a half, until we reach some nice little spot that you think is a good defensible camp for us to wait in while you zap into Arlen's place and snatch up Arlen and Jaime."
His gaze moved back to her, a certain amount of amusement held therein. "Dayna, relax. I know just where the nice little spot is—and Calandre's people just aren't familiar with the area. It'll be a safe place to get our breath and decide our next move. That's going to depend on how much trouble Sherra's forces have stirred up—they'll probably be in the area soon after I get into the hold. We may even be able to count on them for help."
"May," Dayna snorted skeptically. As Carey briefly rolled his eyes in frustration, she said, "Don't give me that look—being aware of details is my strength, Chiara said so."
"Children," Mark murmured reprovingly, a comment so out of character that it did indeed shut them both up. Then Carey shrugged.
"We'll make most of it up as we go along, I'm afraid, Dayna. There's nothing I can do about that—except maybe get some more sleep so I'll be ready for whatever comes our way." He stood up, and nodded to Gacy when the other came to attention. "At least she stuck me in a room with a good bed," he added wryly, and strode to meet Gacy, his shoulders set with such determination that they would have clearly given him away, had Sherra been there to see.
It must be broken, Jaime decided, not for the first time, as her fingers hovered above the bridge of her nose. She'd been breathing through her mouth for the past three days, barely able to eat the rough rations she was given because of her tender mouth and lips. But for all their disregard for her injuries, the wizard woman and her two cohorts had not offered to hurt her any more, either. At first Jaime had hoped the woman, Willand, would provide sympathetic support, given the way she'd stopped the beating at the cabin, but she soon realized the woman's motives had had nothing to do with her. Everything the woman did centered around whether it would improve her status in Calandre's eyes, and she had offered Jaime no favors, no conversation, and no hope. Jaime did her best to keep her end of any conversation to nods and one-word responses, trying hard to conceal that she came from Marion, Ohio. She had the feeling that information would give her much more attention than she wanted.
The travelers had broken camp extra early this morning, and Jaime had gathered that they expected to make Arlen's place by late afternoon. She squinted as they broke out of a thick stretch of woods and into hot bright sunlight, and then, warned only by the shift of Willand's weight, she grabbed the scant security of the saddle cantle just as their horse shifted into a canter. Jaime had never ridden double before this trip—at least not in the back seat—and she'd discovered it was an entirely different experience, one that often left her mounted only by determination. Willand never bothered to tell her before a gait transition, or when the changeable terrain presented them with dips or fallen trees. Since her pride wouldn't allow her to clutch Willand's waist, Jaime had only the back of the saddle to cling to, and it wasn't always enough.
The prolonged canter took them first by well-tended vegetable gardens, and then a small group of livestock pens, while a craggy hill jutted up in the background and looked over it all. Not until they were slowing down in front of the abrupt hill did Jaime see the straight, man-made lines of Arlen's hold, a structure that melded with the rock that supported it and was clearly inside the hill as much as it was on top of it. Behind the hill, the landscape was a green panorama of similar miniature mountains thrusting up through tended pasturelands.
"Off," Willand said shortly, even as she stopped the horse. "And don't be stupid enough to run. You won't get far."
Jaime slid right off the horse's rump, preferring it to the clumsy process of trying to dismount without bumping into Willand. Don't be stupid enough to run, indeed, she sniffed internally, and indulged in an uncharacteristic daydream of a shrieking Willand on her runaway horse. As long as she was this close to Arlen, Jaime certainly wasn't going to run without trying to take him along. Especially not while Whiskers—whose real name she refused to remember—was still mounted.
Willand conferred briefly with her companions while Jaime tried for a nonchalant attitude, then dismounted to leave her horse with the men and take Jaime's arm in a peremptory grip, steering her toward a dark spot at the base of the hill that turned out to be a cavelike doorway. Once they entered, Jaime managed to shake her off, and Willand accepted the change by not acknowledging it. The rough walls of the entrance corridor soon turned smooth, and coolness enclosed them along with heavy stone. Willand led her briskly up a brief, single flight of steps, then down a hallway, and then up a series of short flights that wound around themselves, with hallways branching off at each turn.
At the top of the steps was an unshuttered window, and Jaime got a glimpse of the gardens as they hurried by. This hall was short and ended in a guarded door. Willand took her to the only other room off that hall, striding through the doorway with only the barest of pauses to knock.
"Ah, you've returned. What have you discovered?" The question came from a woman who was not facing them and did not bother to turn around. She was of unimposing stature, a reed-thin woman whose robe fell unimpeded by curves of any sort. Her dark hair, thick and curly to the point of frizziness, was tied back at the base of her neck with a thong that looked like it was losing its battle. Jaime was singularly unimpressed and had to remind herself that this was a woman who had the whole of Camolen swaying with the breeze of her whims.
"Nothing on the spell," Willand admitted without hesitation. "A few scribbled pages that looked like checkspell material, but I'm not sure it's worth much. I did bring back something else you might find useful."
At that Calandre turned, still holding the small book she'd been consulting, revealing herself to be a woman of about Jaime's age, and someone whose carriage was totally at odds with the cheerfully asymmetrical room. Her eyebrows, fine and set above angular features, rose at the sight of Jaime, and she said, "Yes?"
"One of Arlen's couriers. She was on a run to Theo's, stumbled right into us. When we saw she was on one of Carey's duns, I thought she might be of some use in persuading Arlen."
"It looks like someone has already done some persuading," Calandre said dryly, eyeing Jaime's face.
"She tried to run," Willand said simply.
Calandre set the book down and carefully marked her place before closing it. Jaime eyed her warily as the woman approached in a stalk that was all the more intimidating because it was obviously uncalculated. "What's your name?" she asked abruptly.
"Jaime," Jaime said in her best I'm-not-impressed voice, still trying to figure out the best strategy for staying alive.
"Well, Jaime, did you learn anything?"
"Only that I should have kicked Whiskers' balls up to his throat before I ran," Jaime said perversely, knowing better. But Calandre seemed amused rather than annoyed, and Jaime gathered that she simply wasn't worth the effort of anger.
"So," she said. "You were one of the ones who got away. And now you're back again, finally to be of some use to us."
Jaime suddenly realized that Arlen certainly wouldn't have been the only person caught in Calandre's attack. "What happened to the others?" she asked warily.
"You mean the ones who had the courage to stay and fight? They died, of course. Very unfortunate; we really could have used the leverage you're going to give us before this—in fact, we've been looking for someone like you."
"I wasn't here when you attacked," Jaime said in a low voice, stinging over the implications in Calandre's comment, as false as they were.
"Whatever," Calandre replied, obviously not believing her and not caring, either. "Let's not waste any more time."
"Do you want her cleaned up before Arlen sees her?" Willand asked.
Calandre eyed Jaime's face and shook her head decisively. "A little dried blood will make our threat more immediate."
Jaime scowled; she'd tried to wash her face off in a stream the day before—though she had the feeling several of the cuts had opened again, and it was true she'd had another nosebleed.
"Try to maintain that expression, if you can," Calandre said lightly. "It will certainly have a good effect on Arlen." Her face, all angles and hollow cheeks, held amusement, and Jaime closed her eyes and took a deep breath, reminding herself that this was unlike any situation she'd ever been in, and that it was as real and as serious as anything she'd ever done. It was real, and she was no longer Jaime Cabot, accomplished equestrian with her own sort of following, but Jaime Cabot, prisoner of some crazed wizard woman. A powerful crazed wizard woman.
"Come along," Willand said in irritation, and Jaime opened her eyes to discover that Calandre had already gone out into the hall. She gave Willand a haughty look—she dared that much—and preceded her out of the room.
She'd wondered if there would be another disorienting trek through the innards of the stone structure, but Calandre was merely waiting for them at the guarded door. The guard stared curiously at Jaime, but looked quickly away when Calandre glanced at him. She pushed open the door and swept into the room, calling Arlen's name with the air of a long-awaited guest.
The room within was considerably more homey than the workroom, well-lit by the afternoon sun streaming in the window. Although the furnishings were simple and well-used, they had the look of comfortable things that had been cherished. There were faded but still thick rugs on the floor, books scattered about with bookmarks trailing out of them, and one chair that seemed entirely devoted to working embroidery, the accoutrements of which were spread out on the arms of the chair and the worn leather stool in front of it. A flash of movement caught her eye, and Jaime caught the tip of a cat's white tail as it disappeared under the embroidery chair.
"Still hiding from us?" Calandre asked, and Jaime thought she was talking to the cat until she saw that the woman was looking into a second room, her arms folded in front of her in a mannerism that only pressed the dark material against the boniness of her hips and collarbones. "Well, no matter. I've brought a visitor I think will interest you. You might even feel like talking."
"I doubt that." Arlen's voice was low and without strength, but still managed a matter-of-fact defiance. Calandre beckoned to Jaime, and she reluctantly moved up to stand in the doorway.
Arlen looked at her without recognition, and with the beginnings of a frown. Desperation led Jaime to offer, "I'm riding for Sherra now. Carey brought me there, and loaned me Lady."
Arlen's expression shifted rapidly through a maze of emotions and slid into deadpan even as Calandre lashed out and slapped Jaime resoundingly across the cheek. Jaime gasped as the blow rekindled all the sharp pains in her nose, and couldn't help the few tears that followed, fatigue and pain and fright bundled up into two trails of salt water.
Calandre said coldly, "When I want to hear from you, it'll be screams of pain to make this annoying old wizard talk. Until then, keep your helpful little comments to yourself."
Willand offered tentatively, "At least we've confirmed it, Carey is back. So they really do have something to build the checkspell on."
Calandre seemed to relax out of her anger. "True enough, little Willand. It seems you brought me back more than you thought. I'll have to remember to question her before she's beyond speech. Unless, of course," she added, turning to Arlen with brows upraised, "you want to skip the torture and give me the spell now?"
Jaime stared at the man, knowing her life hinged on what he might say next, this man who had never met her and could not possibly care about her. He stared back, appraising her, warm brown eyes beneath disheveled long hair and gaunt, unshaven cheeks that were at obvious odds with the mustache that had been cultivated above a slight overbite. Despite Calandre's words, he was certainly not old, or even past his mid-forties. She wondered if she really saw the tiny nod or only imagined it, and if that was really recognition of a sort in his gaze.
"Come now, Arlen," Calandre said with a definite trace of irritation. "You're already losing, bit by bit—you've even lost the outer room, and you're stuck in your own bathroom." For the first time, Jaime realized it was a wooden toilet that Arlen perched on with such aplomb, and that there was a washbasin next to him, and that the brown thing peeking out into her field of view was a fancy wooden tub. "What next, you'll be stuck only on the toilet? Or perhaps you'll try to convert the spell to a personal shield. Very risky in your condition. And of course by then, your courier will be . . ." she glanced at Jaime, "a very unhappy woman."
"I can see that," Arlen replied acerbically. "You've obviously started in on her already."
Calandre laughed. "Oh, no. I assure you, when my people use someone as leverage, there is no mistaking the results. This is just the side effect of her capture—I told you our little skirmish is spreading out beyond this ugly little stone den of yours."
"You're a disturbed woman, Calandre, you know that?" Arlen said in a curiously detached voice.
"I like this place," Jaime dared to mutter.
"Yes, dear, you're very loyal," Calandre said, infuriatingly patronizing. She was holding her elbows again, regarding Arlen with complete composure. "I might even give you the night to yourself; you can spend the hours looking forward to tomorrow."
Bitch. Jaime gave her an even stare, a complete bluff.
"You might not need it," Arlen said. "Give me a few minutes with her. Give me time to see what's been happening. I may decide there's no point in keeping the spell from you anymore."
"Very good. You said that with a straight face."
Arlen shrugged. "What can you lose, Calandre? If you're in luck she'll spend the time pleading with me to help her—as you can see, she's certainly not going to do that while you're here."
"Not today, anyway. However . . ." She glanced first at Willand and then over her shoulder at the guard. "You searched her for weapons or spellstones?"
Willand nodded with satisfaction. "She had a protection stone, that's all. And a small knife, of course, but Gerrant has that now."
"Well, then." Calandre gave Jaime another hard look. "Beg well, Jaime. Your future depends on it." She turned her back on them and marched out of the room, followed by Willand, who could not help a few doubting, backward glances.
Jaime couldn't believe it. "Just like that?" she asked incredulously.
"Nothing is ever 'just like that,' " Arlen said. "Now, tell me the things you think I most need to know."
Jaime hesitated. "What if she listens?"
"She can't, not in these rooms. Quickly now, don't waste what little time we may have!" His tired voice slid into the command mode she was sure he was used to assuming and, though it made her prickle a little, she balked no longer.
"I met Carey on a different world, my world. It's—well, it's too complicated to go into, but we ended up back here—Eric dead, the three of us, and Carey and Jess. Carey gave Sherra the spell, and she's got everyone working on a check for it. I've been riding with her couriers to coordinate the whole thing, and I was on a run when Willand and her pals got me." She thought a moment and added reluctantly, "Carey wanted to come get you—he said something about a special recall—but Sherra wouldn't let him. She didn't want to set Calandre off. It looks like Calandre's out causing trouble anyway, now."
"Jess?" Arlen murmured, taking her news about the lack of forthcoming rescue with a thoughtful nod.
"Lady. The magic turned her into a woman on my world. She's a horse again, though—that's who I was riding. I sent her back to Sherra's, so they should be able to figure out I didn't just lose my way. Not that they'll do anything about it."
"Sent her back to Sherra's, hmm. I suppose that's how you got those battle scars. Willand and her errand boys wouldn't have liked that."
Jaime scowled, even though it hurt. "Willand. That woman belongs in a bad beach movie, damn perky little nose of hers. I wish it could feel like mine does right now."
"Yes, well . . . I'm afraid, my dear, that your nose may be the least of it before this is over."
"Is this where I'm supposed to beg?" Jaime asked, suddenly realizing how sick her stomach felt. "I've never done that before, but I think I could get real good at it."
Slowly, reluctantly, he shook his head. "I can be of no help to you. This is more important than either of us, although it must seem particularly unfair to you. At least I got myself into this mess. And you must know by now that there is very little chance of rescue from Sherra—not that I blame her. It's the right decision."
Right. "What . . . what do you think they'll do to me?" Jaime asked in a low voice. Something graphic, no doubt, something that looked bad for Arlen to see. Her imagination took over and ran, presenting her with scenes of torture that came straight from the Inquisition.
"Jaime, don't," Arlen said. "Listen to me. This won't go on for long—it may not happen at all. I haven't eaten in . . . well, a couple of days now. I moved preserved rations up here the same day I sent Carey out, but I didn't plan on being closed in this long. I don't get much sleep because the guards all have orders to rouse me regularly. Calandre is right when she says I won't be able to keep this up much longer."
"At least you chose the right room to close yourself into," Jaime commented, trying very hard for a lighter atmosphere.
Arlen smiled, a weary looking expression almost hidden in his scruffy beard. "When it first became obvious that no one was going to be able to help me—for Sherra did try at first, and Calandre was delighted to tell me Sherra couldn't get through the shields she'd set up—I tied a second spell in with my shield spell. When the shield finally fails, I will die."
"But—" Jaime said, startled; then her protest died unvoiced, as she realized his genuine acceptance of the idea. "I keep hearing about Ninth Level this and Ninth Level that, but no one's said anything about God. Do you have a god to pray to, Arlen?"
Arlen shook his head, brow creased, and Jaime suddenly realized that the word god had come out in English. "How can you have heaven without—"
"You didn't change his mind, did you?" Calandre said from just inside the big room. "I didn't think you would—but I can be as indulgent as the next person, when I feel like it."
Jaime gave Arlen a searching look, trying to find that which had sustained him through his harrowing imprisonment—something that she could use for herself. He gave her a sad smile, and she said, "I don't think I'll be very good at this, Arlen. Don't hold it against me if I do try to change your mind, later."
"No," he said simply. "I won't."
The sudden three-tiered call of a morning owl brought Carey out of his thoughts and he glanced back through the deep grey light of dawn to the indistinct figures who followed him through the lightly wooded area. They were breathing hard after the ascent up the steep shale hill that loomed over the dry riverbed, but no one's saddle was sneaking backwards, and the horses still looked good.
At first he'd chafed at the way Mark and Dayna slowed him, resenting every extra moment between this one and the one in which he planned to trigger the special recall, but as the miles passed and neither of his neophyte riders ventured a complaint, the uncharitable thoughts faded. They were doing their best, and he'd be foolish to push them so hard that they had nothing left when he needed backup in the little hollow he'd chosen for their camp.
Their departure had been straightforward, if not as simple as Carey had hoped. With most of the cabin hold's folk in the village, and many of the volunteer and regular foot soldiers out escorting slow-moving wizards around, the barn had been quiet in the late evening hours during which, casually and without ceremony, he had simply walked through the threshold spell that was supposed to keep him in the room. The three conspirators had armed themselves with food pilfered from the kitchen and walked quietly to the barn. The horses were snorting and curious about the late night activity, but it wasn't unusual enough to start a fuss; they'd left the barn with nary a wayward whinny, and with three of Sherra's precious horses and Lady.
It was the gate that had almost tripped them up. The guard had turned out to be a man new enough to the post that he was still looking for excuses to use his authority, such as it was, and he seemed almost eager for them to create a disturbance.
Katrie had appeared to ease the way for them. Katrie, whom Jaime had first fought, and then gained as a friend—and who knew who Carey was, and where he should have been. Out and about on her own business, she was drawn to the commotion in front of the closed gate. In a brightly stitched, suspiciously rumpled tunic, still hand in hand with a man who was obviously smitten by her, she told the troublesome guard that Carey, his two friends, and his extra horse were known to her and were classed as good folk, not to be harassed. She held Carey's eye while the disgruntled man went to open the heavy gate, and said evenly, "Just bring her back."
For her role in the evening's activities, Carey had no doubt there would be some kind of price, and that she would face it head on. It was a gift he accepted without guilt or hesitation, and now he wondered if he should have asked her to join them, despite the delay it would have caused. Instead, he had two earnest but outclassed and tired friends from another world.
A chorus of trilling birds had joined the morning owl, and Carey gave another look over his shoulder. This was their second dawn of summer-heat travel and about time to call it quits for a few hours, so they would be well rested—or as close to it as they could get—for the final approach to the hollow. Dayna was right behind him on the little smooth-gaited bay Mark had quickly labeled Fahrvegnügen, a name that seemed to amuse Mark and made Dayna give him one of her grow up looks. Mark was on a rangy, cold-backed grey who would cheerfully ignore the banging his rider might inflict upon him, while just as cheerfully barging through, past and over any obstacles in his path. Carey rode the big black horse he'd come to know fairly well and, following him on a loose lead line was Dun Lady's Jess, the mare who'd already taken the stairway in the hold. He was counting on her to lead the double-loaded gelding past the sensible fear that would stop him at the head of those stairs.
A shift of his weight and the gelding stopped, patiently mouthing the bit while Carey waited for the others to draw abreast. "We'll hit some thicker woods in half an hour or so," he said, prompting them both to check their watches. "As soon as we do, we'll eat a bite and grab some sleep. After that, it's only another couple hours to the hollow I was talking about. You two going to hold up all right?"
Mark groaned expressively in response, but Dayna had the same look she'd kept during their interminable run from the pickup truck toward Sherra's—drawn, tired, and not about to admit it. Well, a couple hours' sleep would do her some good—and after he'd invoked the recall, she'd have all the time it took him to return to the hollow by horseback. It would have to be enough. He touched the gelding with his calves and turned toward the distant hollow.
"You want me to what?" Jaime stared at Willand, a blunt and defiant expression.
Willand studied her long fingernails in a posture of boredom. "I'm quite certain you heard me the first time, but I'll repeat it anyway. Take off your clothes."
Jaime looked at Arlen, a request for guidance. He returned a grave countenance, one that told her there would be no easy answers here. They'd had a virtually sleepless night during which they exchanged bits and pieces of their lives with one another, for Calandre had returned only long enough to tell them they would have the benefit of one another's company for the duration—a more convenient arrangement than ferrying Jaime from place to place. The guard's replacement had carried up a breakfast meal that was so good Jaime knew it had to have been solely for Arlen's benefit. She'd tried to refuse it, but he wouldn't let her, and she hadn't argued with him; it would have been a pointless gesture to go hungry.
Now she was suddenly afraid that the breakfast would stage a reappearance. She vowed she would at least wait until Willand was within range, and clamped her jaw on the taste of bile that etched at the back of her tongue.
"You know," Willand said suddenly, shooting her a dangerous look, there and then gone again as she continued to contemplate her manicure, "this can be a lot worse than I had planned. It's up to you."
Jaime's hands strayed to her tunic, and ended up nervously smoothing the closely woven material, running over the belt loops of her culturally alien breeches beneath. Another glance at Arlen showed he'd deliberately turned his back. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and shrugged the tunic over her head, dropping it on top of the knee-high riding boots she'd removed the evening before. Her thin linen camisole offered little coverage, but suddenly she felt very attached to it.
"Oh, be reasonable, Arlen. We knew you'd try this, the 'I'm not watching' ploy. Do you think you can not listen as well? You'd better be listening now, because I'm telling you that if you don't pay proper attention, we'll just kill her right now."
Blonde beach bimbo, Jaime thought in amazement, wondering how such a thoroughly depraved person could be hidden behind that face, and how she ever could have missed it.
"You're going to kill her anyway, in the end," Arlen said heavily, still facing away from them. Jaime's hands hesitated by the snap of her breeches, and Willand made an imperious gesture that commanded her to wait until this little discussion was over.
"Maybe we'll kill her, maybe we won't. The point is, unless you participate in this, I'll just have it done right now. After all, as long as she's alive, there's some chance you might be able to save her—now, that's worth playing the game, don't you think?"
"I don't play games, Willand, especially not the kind of games Calandre is fond of. But . . . Jaime, it's up to you." He turned his head ever so slightly, just enough to let her know he was waiting for a reply. "If it helps, you should know that this is no idle threat. They won't bother to keep you alive if you're of no use to them." His voice sounded tired, the weariness of someone who has already seen too much.
Great choice, Jaime thought. Die now, or endure torture and then probably die later anyway. Her trembling hands fingered the snap at her waist and she said, "I'm sorry, Arlen, but I'm not ready to give up yet." I'm sorry, but you're going to have to watch this.
He turned around as the breeches slid past her hips and down to the floor. She stepped out of them and deliberately laid them on top of the tunic, her eyes on Arlen's, finding that if she had that compassionate dark gaze to look into, she had the strength to pull the soft linen undershirt over her head, and to wiggle out of her briefs as well. And then she just stood there, looking at him, gratified to discover there was approval there—not in what she was, the sturdy, well-shaped rider's body she had revealed, but in who she was, and in who she'd just chosen to be.
Willand relaxed noticeably, in complete control of them again. In swift, graceful gestures, she touched Jaime's wrists, biceps and ankles, and Jaime's already racing pulse edged into panic as invisible manacles closed around her limbs, trapping her upright at the edge of the thick worn rug; she put her weight against the restraints at her wrists and felt no give at all; she would stand whether she chose to or not. This was happening, it was real, it was—
Agony. Willand's light touch, tracing lines of fire from the notch of her throat down between her breasts and all the way past her navel. Jaime wrenched away from her, screaming as much from surprise as the pain. Willand's finger lost contact, the pain faded, and Jaime found she was choking on breakfast, gasping and spitting, trying to clear her mouth so she could breathe. She had only enough time for the far too brief satisfaction of seeing Willand's fouled dress before that neat, ladylike finger touched her again, and the world disappeared into vision greyed by the force of her screaming as lines of fire traced intimate routes across her body.
"Jaime."
She became aware of herself again, of the slightly rough fabric against her hypersensitive skin. Delicate puffs of breath against her eyelids made her start, and the couch stirred with light footfalls of some creature running away. She was, she realized, still unclothed, but at the moment it didn't seem to matter much.
"Jaime." A quiet voice. Tired. Concerned.
Her mouth was dry and tasted vile. "That bitch," she muttered, words that barely made it into actual sound.
Relief and some amusement touched the voice that responded. "So you told her, and more than once."
She was on the couch, that's where, and that meant her clothes were on the floor next to her dangling arm. She groped for them, the arm strangely lifeless, her eyes not quite yet willing to open and face what might be waiting for her. Ah, that felt like her underwear, all right.
"She's gone. I don't think she'll be back for a while. From what I could gather, there are forces moving in around the hold—still some distance out, but obviously readying for some sort of approach."
"And suddenly I'm not that important anymore," Jaime said resentfully, finally opening her eyes as she sat up and slowly, like a creaky old woman, fumbled to get her underwear over her feet. There was no separate ache or pain to plague her, but a general malaise that gripped each and every part of her body, echoes of the torment Willand had visited upon her. Jaime got herself dressed as far as the tunic, and then just sat there, worn and directionless, trying to evade the forever crystalline memories of her torture.
"Would you like a drink?" Arlen asked.
She glanced at him. He was sitting again, resting his chin in his palm, and she searched his expression for any taint of judgement or censure at the way she'd reacted to Willand's games. She didn't think she saw any, unless it was a reflection of her own disappointment in herself. She hadn't thought she'd buckle so easily, that she wouldn't have any resistance at all.
"It's a good thing I didn't have any secrets they wanted," she said bitterly, in self-reproach.
"Oh, Jaime, don't start down that road," Arlen said in gentle admonishment. "Why do you think I've locked myself in my own bathroom? It's because I know better than to think I could endure what you've been through and not tell every secret I ever knew. Now, how about that water?"
Water. It suddenly had a blissful sound to it. "You have some I could get to?" she asked hopefully, looking at the faint spell-shimmer around the edges of the bathroom door.
"Rainwater," he said. "It hasn't been strained, but it hasn't killed the cat yet—or me. Check out the window."
That's what had been so delicately sniffing at her face. "A cat," she said. "I probably scared it worse than it scared me."
"If she wasn't a spooky little thing, she'd never have lived through Calandre's invasion," Arlen said. "She'll be back."
Jaime stood on wooden feet, not particularly concerned about her nearly naked lower half. Being watched during torture was a quick road to intimacy, that was for sure. She made it to the window and leaned out. There, on the wide ledge that blended into the rock on the side of the hill, was the cat, a little black and white creature who stared at her with wide eyes, poised to dart away at any sudden move. On the other side of the cat was a small catch basin, with a tile pipe that snaked down from the top of the hill, perched to deliver the rain. Outside the bathroom there was a similar arrangement, except the tile ran right into the room.
"Excuse me, kitty," she said with perfect sincerity, expecting the creature to bolt at her voice. But the cat stood and primly raised its tail, stalking away from the basin as though Jaime had said something rude. Jaime reached for the dipper that hung off the side of the basin and, with only a rudimentary check for dead bugs, drank her fill. It was warm, it had a funny taste of minerals, and it was the most wonderful water in the world. She splashed another dipper on her face and carefully scrubbed her hands over it, removing what she could of dried tears and other residue from the day's activity. Then she turned around and leaned back against the windowsill, groaning, "Oh, I'm so glad that was there."
"So am I," Arlen said as she paced back to the couch and retrieved her breeches. After she had wiggled into them, she took another look at her boots and decided to put them on. If Willand came back, it would take all the longer to undress again. With deliberate movements, she worked the calf-snugging field boots onto each foot, so absorbed in the simple task that when Arlen spoke again, it startled her. "Tell me, Jaime, does your world have people such as Calandre?"
After a moment, she said, "Too many of them. Of course, they don't have magic to play with. They have to make do with guns and bombs and blind political fervor." Jaime returned to the window, this time looking past the ledge. The view was that of the road she'd come in on, with the bright green spots of garden punctuating dusty paddocks and light green pastures, and she stared at it for quite some while as late afternoon slid into early evening. She thought of the comfortable old farmhouse, and of Keg, who was waiting for them to return, and of a barnful of horses that needed to be fed and exercised, and she forced her thoughts in new directions to wonder at how she'd fit so easily into Camolen life. And finally, when she realized her few moments at the window had turned into many more, she turned back to Arlen and asked, "How can so many things be the same, Arlen? How can you have people, and horses, and carrots and tomatoes, along with the Calandres?"
"That," he responded, coming to the limits of his shield so he could look out at her, "is something I'd hoped to be able to look into myself."
Jaime returned to him and found she had to look up to find his eyes. She said, "Tell me it's worth it, Arlen. Tell me that all of Carey's effort, and Jess' heartbreak, and Eric's death, and my—" And she couldn't go on then, had to look down and work out the tremendous lump that filled her throat. Arlen's voice, as strong and intent as if he hadn't spent the last months in isolation, brought her gaze back up again.
"I would obliterate the existence of that spell in a moment, if I could," he said. "I would undo the scores of small decisions that led Calandre down her path, and Carey down the one that led to you. But even magic doesn't have that power . . . and the only magic I have left is the spell that will trigger my death."
Jaime shuddered. She wished she could reach through his barrier and hold him, just because they both needed it so badly. And because her friend Jess had taught her to act on such impulses when they hit, and not shove them away under the veneer of propriety. Unable to breach the shield, she merely hugged herself, which was more of a retreat than a comfort.
"Jaime," he said, and there was such an odd note in his voice that she instantly feared his shield was failing, and that he, therefore, was about to die, but his eyes were focused beyond her, and she jerked around to see what he was looking at.
Nothing. A quick glance showed her his attention had not faltered, and she gave it another try. Then, somewhere between one blink and the next, the empty space in the middle of the chairs was full of dun and black movement, pungent horseflesh, and the startled cry and rush of the guard. The needlework and its chair went tumbling backward, driven by the same flashing black leg that collided with the astonished guard and smashed him back against the wall.
Carey—recall—don't just stand here gawking and Jaime rushed in to take Lady's reins, pulling her out of the melee so Carey could concentrate on the panicked gelding, ending up next to the guard whom she unceremoniously kicked in the stomach with her booted foot, turning his efforts to rise into retching instead. She wrenched his short curved sword away as Lady dragged her backwards, and managed to position herself and the snorting dun in the doorway, where the guard could not get past them to run for help—although he was still panting on the floor, and Jaime was amazed how her surge of hope had given her the strength for that kick, pushing her past the aftereffects of Willand's sadism.
The black's hooves beat a nervous tattoo on the floor when Carey finally coerced him into standing in one spot, and the courier turned his attention on the guard and his efforts to crawl inconspicuously away. He put his foot firmly between the man's shoulder blades and shoved him back to the floor. "Stay put," Carey commanded. "We don't want you and we don't care about you—but if we have to worry about you, that'll change."
"She'll kill me," the man groaned indistinctly, his words distorted by the hard stone against his cheek.
"She probably will," Carey agreed coldly. "You'll have your chance to run in a few minutes. Jaime—" He looked at her for the first time, and stopped short, staring at her face; it took obvious effort to refocus his attention. "Where's Arlen?"
"On the toilet," she said without thinking, and then blurted, "I mean—"
A laugh from the small enspelled room cut her off, and Carey turned with relief to the source. "Arlen—stand still!" The last was to the gelding, who'd taken advantage of Carey's inattention to jerk him around; Carey gave the reins a retaliatory yank and said, "C'mon, Arlen, we've got to get started. I thought this gelding would be all right for the stairs but I also think I blew his puny mind with the recall." Then he craned his neck to try to see his friend and added, "Are you all right? Can you manage?"
"I'll manage," Arlen assured him, although Jaime thought the strength in his voice was a ruse. "But there's the small matter of a death spell that's linked to the shielding on this room. It'll take a minute or two to get it untangled so I can get out of here without triggering my own demise."
Carey rolled his eyes. "Hurry," he urged, and turned immediately to Jaime. "Here's the plan, Jay," he told her, talking fast. "Lady's been down these stairs before, and I think the gelding will follow, if he can find his brain before Arlen gets out of the bathroom. We're counting on surprise—they may know someone jumped in here, but they won't be expecting two horses on the top floor of the hold. We're going to do our best to just plow through them. Sherra's got forces gathering a mile or so out, and if they're enough of a distraction, we may just be able to keep on plowing, all the way out. Oh, yeah—this may help." He reached into the black's saddlebags, a bobbing target riding on restless haunches, and stretched to hand her a gun while the gelding pulled him the other way.
A gun. For a moment Jaime just stared, remembering the things Carey had said about keeping the knowledge of such things from this world. Then she took it, a little ashamed of the relief she felt when its cool metal filled her hand.
"There are five bullets," Carey said evenly, catching her eye to make sure she was really hearing him. "Don't use them unless they can do some good."
She thrust the gun into the deep pocket of her tunic, and then divested the guard of his sword sheath and belt, which she had to wrap twice around her own waist before she could stow the weapon. When she looked up, Arlen was in the room, leaning against the back of the one chair that was still standing.
"Let's go," he said simply.
Carey had only one hand free; he used it to grip Arlen's upper arm in a tight contact that lasted only a second, his face filled with the expression of a thousand words that wouldn't quite make it to his tongue.
"I know, Carey," Arlen said. "I know."
Carey cleared his throat and said, "Mount up. I'll be behind you in a moment; don't worry about handling the horse."
Jaime gathered Lady's reins and swung up into the saddle, feeling a definite wrongness in being on horseback in this room, at the uppermost level of a stone hold. The stirrups were adjusted for Carey and too long for her; she slung them crossways in front of her to keep them from banging around and looked to Carey. He was just settling himself behind Arlen on the gelding, a much stouter horse than Lady even if he had left his brains somewhere else, as evidenced by his continued capers. Carey reached around Arlen to take the reins, supporting his friend with the cage of his arms.
Then there were voices and footsteps in the stairwell, and Carey nodded to her. "Plow through 'em," he repeated grimly.
Desperately wishing for the feel of the gun but not daring to trust only one hand to the reins, Jaime gave Lady a firm and sudden squeeze that sent the dun into a startled bold trot down the hall. A strong, double half-halt to gather the dun's haunches beneath her, to take her into the turn of the stairs well balanced and paying absolute attention, and they were doing it, they were lurching and slithering down stairs too narrow for hooves to find good purchase, making 180 degree turns in virtual pirouettes while the black followed, sloppily, with much snorted objection and Carey's blistering commentary— "That was my knee, burn you!"—a commotion loud enough that it almost overwhelmed the startled oath of the young wizard coming to check on Carey's magical shout of arrival.
"Guards!" the man cried down the stairwell, as he frantically tried to get out of the way. Jaime rode him down without a second thought, feeling the slight stumble of Lady's step over his legs, thinking only of the fact that there were others below him. With a raw shout of encouragement, she urged the dun mare downward, trying not to think about what would meet them when they got there.
Lady felt the soft flesh beneath her hooves and quailed inside, ever fearful of uneven footing. She remembered the stairs, but she remembered them at a much slower pace, and the speed to which Jaime urged her on brought out the sweat of fear on her neck, lathered with the rub of the reins. "Come, Lady," Jaime said, a firm encouragement not at all like Carey's wooing tone. But Lady gathered herself to it, and ignored the slips and twists of her feet against carved stone until they were finally on level ground.
The black surged ahead of her then, clearing the way with his bulk and scattering men and women like poorly stacked wood. Jaime abandoned her tightly controlled riding and turned Lady's head loose, offering one solid thump of her legs to release the speed that waited. Lady knew the way from here, knew how the hall opened up into the stable that was built at the bottom of the hill, and crowded up against the black's hindquarters, ignoring the tightly tucked tail of his protest.
Behind them the shouting grew, and a wild arrow clattered against the ceiling above them, scaring Jaime and Lady both so that their balance of togetherness was lost and Lady's leg skidded out in front of her; Jaime clutched mane and left the reins alone and Lady caught herself, feeling the wrongness in her leg and forgetting it just as quickly as they came to the closed stable door and she slid right into the gelding. Her head knocked Carey out of the saddle and he grabbed it, using her to steady his fall. He landed on his feet, lurching for the door and slamming it aside to leave nothing before them but an empty road. The black wasted no time, bounding forward like a racer at the start while Arlen clutched his mane and fumbled for the reins, an insignificant passenger on the back of power and fear.
"Carey!" Jaime shouted, extending her hand, sticking her foot out while she pulled hard at Lady's mane to keep her seat. Carey grabbed her hand and used the foot for a step, settling down on Lady's loins.
"Go," he shouted, as sharp fire raked across Lady's thigh, an arrow skimming through her flesh. She bolted forward, trying to adjust herself to the extra weight and floundering awkwardly while missiles flew around them and two pairs of legs tried to steady her and urge her on. Then she caught her stride, and the shouts fell away behind them along with the arrows.
The black should have been too far ahead to catch, but he loomed suddenly in her vision, and Jaime's hands quivered their uncertainty through to the bit as the three men blocking their way became clear. With great effort Lady abandoned her speed, and when Carey slid off to the side of her rump, she stopped short, confused. He stood beside her, his feet planted wide and his hands out straight in front of him, holding an acrid smell that suddenly exploded.
Lady exploded, too, rearing and coming out of it ready to bolt; Jaime caught her with a rein that doubled her back in a tight circle, a circle she rabbited around while Carey stood steadily, his arms jerking up in synchronization with his noise. Then he ran for the gelding, who stood trembling and riveted, refusing to move even after Carey was up and kicking. Jaime released the rein and Lady shot out in front of them, waking the gelding and leading him away from the bedlam at her top speed.
After a moment Jaime steadied her to a more deliberate pace, and the gelding drew aside them. Carey motioned for Jaime to follow and took the gelding off the road, guiding them first through plowed garden land and then into sparse woods, where they hit a path Lady knew. She followed its contours with confidence, losing some of her alarm and running now for Carey and Jaime, and running because she could and her spirit swelled when she was asked to do so, even when it was along a path that was meant for an even trot, even as her muscles took the fire from her lungs and held it into themselves. In front of her, the gelding floundered, unfamiliar with the path and burdened by two. Jaime shouted ahead and Carey only shook his head, moving as close to the edge of the path as he could get, and yelling back over his shoulder, "Run, Lady!"
Her ears flicked up and Lady took the lead in the failing daylight, guiding them over deadfalls, splashing shallow creek water high with her passage, settling into a steady pace, her sense of self-preservation lost to her courage. When she topped the shallow rise and found two men with shiny blades blocking the way to the tiny clearing in the rock-walled basin beyond, Lady never faltered, but charged by them, ignoring Jaime's cry and thundering down between rock formations to the hollow, where she fought with Jaime over stopping.
People rushed at them; Lady vaguely recognized Dayna and Mark and ignored their fuss and holler of greeting, the way they bumped her as Jaime slid off her back to embrace them, her own stumble as she suddenly felt her lameness. She struggled to make sense of this wrongness in her front leg; it mixed with anger at being hampered and she tried to jerk the reins away from Jaime, utterly unappeased by the soothing noises everyone was suddenly making at her.
"Down, Lady," Carey said, one of her Words but not one she was willing to obey, not now, and it didn't even create hesitation as she thrashed at the end of the reins, finding in the mindless struggle a relief from the stresses that had driven her there, too full of the run to react any other way. Dragging Jaime with her, she careened off one of the jutting rock formations, landing wrong on the leg that suddenly betrayed her, taking her down with its failure.
Instantly, Carey was on her, sitting on her neck up close to her head; so encumbered, she was helpless to rise. She flailed angrily about, her legs scrabbling for purchase they couldn't find while the fulcrum of her neck was immobilized. Carey stayed with her, murmuring desperate pleas until at last she needed breath and lay still, her lungs heaving, her body momentarily stilled, and her brain reaching for that small numb corner that lured her with its understanding of things human.
"By all the hells," Carey said wearily, kneeling warily on Lady's neck. "Horses can be so stupid sometimes."
"It's just the same spirit that got her here," Jaime snapped. She rubbed the stinging on her thigh and looked down, astonished, when her hand smeared across warm slickness. That last man with his sword, she realized in amazement, and had a brief disagreement with her body about fainting when she saw the surgically neat edges of the shallow wound—and just as quickly decided it was a hundred times better than Willand's way.
"Back off!" Mark yelled suddenly, staring up at one of the schist outcrops that surrounded them. "Be patient, why don't you? We're not going anywhere!" The audacity of the demand either struck a chord or was simply confusing; the blond head that had crept up to survey them withdrew, but Mark stepped back next to one of the hollow's few trees to stand watch, leaving the refugees to Dayna. "They showed up right after you left, Carey. They've been harassing us ever since—figured we were up to something, I guess."
"They can see most of this hollow and you'll never know it," Carey told him, rubbing his face against the fabric of his sleeve, clearing the sweat that dripped despite the chill of advancing darkness. As one, they looked around the level-floored basin, a refuge that had suddenly become a stage. Except for the few trees that had somehow found a roothold in the rocky ground, there was no cover, and the vertical rock walls, though varied in length and filled with insignificant nooks and crannies, offered no quiet escapes. Carey nodded at the indented finger of space behind him, a niche that might have been a cave if the angled overhang of rock hadn't found ground so quickly. "Most of this hollow, that is, except for this back corner, where I am. To see this, they have to come out on that point, where they're just as vulnerable as we are."
In unspoken accord, Jaime, Arlen, and Dayna moved in behind him, out of sight, cautious of Lady's apparent acquiescence. Arlen sat down on the rocky ground with a sudden thump, and looked as dazed and half-crazed as the mare.
"What now?" Dayna asked impatiently. "I told you we'd get to these little details sooner or later."
"I don't know," Carey admitted candidly. "I'd hoped to run across some sign of Sherra's people by now. I don't even know what direction they might be in."
"I don't know, either, but they're here," Jaime offered. "Arlen said—Arlen!"
Arlen was tipping, tipping over, and Jaime lunged for him just in time to soften his landing. "He needs something to eat," she said with worry.
"We brought—" Dayna started, then flattened herself against the rock wall behind them, eyes wide at the reemergence of Lady's spirit. The small pocket they stood in seemed suddenly like a trap as Lady fought Carey's weight on her neck, throwing him off and into the other three, bringing them all tumbling down. Jaime helped push Carey to his feet and he dove in after the reins even as Lady was on her way up; they battled each other, and Jaime tried to protect Arlen, cringing each time Lady's injured leg hit stone.
"She'll ruin herself!" Jaime shouted at him, harsh and desperate, thinking of the racehorse Ruffian and her tragic death, and then thinking only of the dark looming bulk of Lady as the struggle grew precariously close.
"Stop it!" Dayna screamed at them, shoved up against the rock. Eyes closed tight, hands clenched into fists at her sides, she shouted it again. "Stop it! You're not a stupid horse, you're Jess! You're Jess!"
Omigod, Jaime thought, feeling the stir of magic. She knew, suddenly, what Dayna was trying to do, and she knew she should stop it, knew it was too much magic for the unwilling neophyte wizard to handle, and that Arlen, although he was stirring, was not focused enough to be of help.
But the part of her that longed for Jess' safety kept her still, crouched over Arlen, eyes riveted on Lady as she flung Carey into a tree and then had to battle the leverage he gained by taking a half-wrap of the reins around its trunk. It was a strange montage of flying hooves and whipping mane, of the thick feel of magic, of Carey's shouted protests and equine grunts of effort and anger that suddenly turned into a human cry of fear and pain. Carey flew backwards, the empty bridle smacking him on the chest as he landed hard. Unmindful of the impact, he immediately got to his knees and crawled to the dazed creature before him: Jess, tangled in a dun horse's gear, disoriented and bewildered, whimpering quietly in the sudden silence.
Magic still swirled thick in the air, poised to strike if Dayna lost control, but it was a danger Jaime shoved far back in her mind as she watched Carey take Jess into his arms and whisper reassurance into the tangled fall of hair that covered most of her face. For that moment the world was still, letting them focus on the return of one lost. And then its dangers closed back around them, fast and furious.
One look at Dayna and Jaime's hand clutched Arlen's bony shoulder, shaking him a little as she directed his attention to Dayna and said fiercely, "Never mind the fainting, Arlen—help Dayna let go of the magic!" And then she left him, knowing that if the magic backlashed, it backlashed, and there was nothing more she could do about it. She headed for the open, and the saddles of the two horses that stood hobbled in the center of the hollow. They weren't far, and those blankets would be much drier than the one Lady had been wearing until a moment before. Single-minded in purpose, Jaime jumped at Mark's cry of warning, heard the twang of his bowstring, and ran, snatching the blanket up with such speed that she was halfway back to the safe area before she heard the sickening thump of deadweight meat and bone hitting the ground behind her.
"You dumb son of a bitch!" Mark hollered, half to the dead man and half to his quickly retreating friend. "Leave us alone!"
"Come out where I can see you, then," the remaining fighter yelled back. "I won't hurt you. I just want to keep an eye on you!"
"Go fry!" Mark fired back, a mild curse he'd picked up since his arrival in Camolen.
By then Jaime was back in the pocket, where the magic swirled its thickest but seemed, she thought, less than it had been. She handed the blanket to Carey—dropped it on him, actually, and then dropped herself to the ground as well, suddenly feeling dazed and light-headed, and thinking in abrupt revelation that her baby brother had just killed a man. She sat with her head between her knees for the moments that the magic took to fade away, and then reached a little further inside herself, finding somehow the strength for practicalities. Arlen's loud and relieved sigh was, for the moment, the only sound in the magic-shocked air.
Jaime lifted her head and found that the late evening light had finished slipping away, and that Carey's eyes were completely shadowed; she could gain no clues from them. "How is she?" she asked, taking a quick look around to see that Dayna and Arlen sat quietly against the rock wall behind them, and finding the flash of Mark's wristwatch in the moonlight out in the center of the hollow. The black gelding had joined the two tied horses, and waited with his head hanging, the reins trailing, for someone to care for him.
"All right, I think," Carey responded. "Confused. Worn out and shook up, like the rest of us. I don't know about that leg—arm—yet."
The dark huddle of blanket stirred, and with characteristic candidness, Jess said, "My arm hurts and I'm sitting on a stone. But I don't want Carey to stop holding me."
Carey gave a short laugh, one that was tinged with emotion, the disbelieving relief of someone who can't really comprehend they've gotten something they wanted so very badly. "Jess, braveheart, I've got a stone under my butt as well. If I promise you can spend the entire night in these tired arms, can we move?"
Jaime didn't hear a reply, but there must have been one; Carey kissed the disheveled hair that covered Jess' forehead and slowly unkinked his body to stand, carefully helping Jess to her feet and tucking the blanket around her when it threatened to slide off her shoulders.
"Clothes," Jaime said. "You need something to wear." Gruesomely, her mind latched on to the thought of the dead man, and then wouldn't let go. "I'll get something," she offered, and pulled herself to her feet, suddenly beset by all the pains her body owed her, the slashed thigh and the worn muscles and even the incredible ache from the afternoon's session with Willand. She stifled a useless groan and moved off to the distasteful task of disrobing a corpse, hoping at least some of the clothes would fit.
"Details," Dayna said, a still small figure against the lighter colored rock. "Food. The horses. And then there's the small matter of getting out of here before that guy gets reinforcements."
"Run away," Mark's voice agreed, softly but wholeheartedly.
Jaime was struggling with the man's shirt, trying to work uncooperative arms through the sleeves as she pulled it over his head; she finally realized it was the arrow that pinned the material to one of the arms, and she almost broke it off before it occurred to her that they might need all the ammunition they could get in order to make it out of the hollow, and she gave it a pull, surprised by the resistance. In the end she had to brace her feet against the limb and put her weight into it, and the arm finally let go of the arrow with a wet sound. By then Dayna was up and moving slowly among the horses, tying the black gelding, pulling off his saddle and letting it lay where it fell as she sloshed water into her hand for him. They finished their separate tasks and met in the middle of the hollow, Jaime's arms as full of clothes as Dayna's were with saddlebags, and together they stumbled back to the small sanctuary against the rock. Mark, moving quietly, met them there.
"I don't think he'll bother with us until daylight," he said. "Hell, he'll see us if we try to leave." Then his teeth flashed a brief smile against the darkness. "Hey, Jess, welcome back."
"Yes," she said.
Wordlessly, Jaime handed Mark his arrow. Then she turned to Jess, who had moved, with Carey, to the back of the pocket. "C'mon, Jess, let's see what we can do with these."
Jess dropped the blanket and stepped forward; Carey groaned and put his hand over his eyes, while Dayna said, "Jess, I thought we told you about that—"
"Oh," she said, looking down at herself. "That's right. No breasts. Well, don't look, then."
Arlen snorted, a tired but amused sound. "So this is the woman you found inside The Dun's daughter. Beguiling."
"How—" Carey started, then said, "Ah. Jaime told you. You were together long enough for that, then. You'll have to tell me what you two've been up to, Arlen."
Jaime stopped short, a cold feeling freezing her hands as they shook out the shirt for Jess. "Nothing, Carey. We had a few minutes to chat, that's all. Can you get your sore arm through this, Jess?" Carefully, she threaded the sleeves over Jess' upstretched arms and pulled the shirt, a long, unhemmed, coarsely woven garment, down into place. "No underwear, I'm afraid," she said brusquely, holding out the trousers for Jess to step into, "and though I managed to get the boots off, I don't think they'll fit. Of course, you never were much of one for footwear."
Awkward silence followed Jaime's abruptness and she filled it with activity, taking the laces of the baggy trousers from Jess' one-handed fumbling and tying them tightly over the curve of her hip. But Jaime's thoughts were far from the task, and all she cared about was what Arlen might say next.
"I've only been completely out of food for a day," Arlen said, "but it's been lean for a lot longer. Do you think we could get at some of that food? I, for one, will think better on a full stomach."
"Who wants to think?" Dayna nearly cried. "Give that black horse a minute to rest and then Mark said it best—run away."
"How?" Carey said, his voice ragged with honesty. "We've got three tired horses and six people, at least one of whom doesn't have the strength to even mount up. The roads will be crawling with Calandre's people—we can't outrun them or outfight them. But they're not familiar with this area—aside from that guy up there, no one knows this little place exists. Hell, he doesn't even have any idea who we are—just that we don't belong. And if he could call for reinforcements, he'd have done it by now. You'd have felt that, Dayna."
There was a long silence. "Details," Dayna said heavily. She set the saddlebags down next to Arlen, and her voice turned resolute. "Don't eat too much, you'll only throw up. Do you think we could have a fire, Carey? If we're really out of sight here?"
"It'll make it harder to move around out there," Carey said readily, but he was looking at Jaime, and even without seeing his face clearly she knew he hadn't been sidetracked. He would make his request of Arlen again, now that he recognized Jaime's evasiveness; eventually, he would learn about the torture . . . but maybe by then Jaime would be ready to handle talking about it. Maybe.
"I, for one, could use a cheerful little fire," Mark said. "We can always put it out if we feel like taking a walk. Anyone got a match?"
Carey snorted. "Magic, Mark. Even I know this one."
"You sure can call up a lot of spells for a courier who doesn't know anything about magic," Mark said.
"It's not calling up the magic that's so hard," Arlen said. "It's controlling it."
"Amen," Dayna said wearily. "Make us a fire, Carey, and let's eat."
The others slept, except for Mark, who was doing his best to keep watch, although even the still slightly befuddled Jess could see that he was hardly less fatigued than the others. The blue-cast moon had set and the hollow had settled into a darkness deep enough to hide everything but the darker bits of blackness that were the horses against rock. Jess thought about the moon, and how tonight was the first time she'd seen it with eyes that had appreciated the subtleties of color in the icy light it cast.
But as usual, the thoughts she was trying to follow to conclusion—thoughts that would decipher events since her return to the equine shape she had both treasured and feared, that would make sense of Eric's death, that would fit together the pieces of where they were and where they were trying to get—were disrupted into irrecoverable fragments by the pain in her arm.
She remembered the first step when she'd known it was wrong, way back on the stairs. And then all she could remember was the running, and the strength and speed that were hers—and that she'd refused to give up when the leg gave out here in the hollow. She knew it had been dangerous to fight like she had, but she also still felt a deep little piece of that fight left in her, an anger at events that were none of her doing.
She hadn't thanked Dayna for bringing her back, not only from her first and natural form, but from the dark corner of her mind where the human part of her had been coaxed into hiding. She remembered being soothed into that corner, and then all her memories were of a distinctly equine cast, and she shuddered to think that perhaps this Jess part of her could have been lost forever.
"You're awake?" Carey asked softly, one arm moving up to touch her where she lay curled up against his chest.
"Did Jaime ever tell you about Ruffian?" Jess said by way of reply, not moving, still savoring the feel of human touch against human senses—no, of Carey's touch—and not willing to pull away to look up at him. She could feel the frown of his body language.
"No," he said. "A horse?"
"A great runner. She hurt her leg, just like me. And she didn't want to quit. . . ."
"Like you," Carey supplied.
"And they killed her," Jess said finally. "Because she was only hurting herself. She was making it worse." She waited a long moment, her mind filled with the effort of that struggle, and the human hindsight that told her she had, indeed, only worsened her injury. Then she said hesitantly, "Would you have—"
"No!" Carey recoiled from her, and grabbed her upper arms, pulling her upright, his face only inches from hers, while she stared at him with widened eyes. "No, Jess, never! You're not just some racehorse. You're not just Lady anymore. Don't ever doubt that, just because I was too stupid to see it when I first . . . met you."
Something about the way he looked at her, the intensity in his voice, satisfied that deep longing within her that had started in Marion, Ohio, and lay cocooned within Lady ever since. "Damn straight," she whispered. She settled back down against his shoulder, and it seemed ever so natural to nuzzle his neck in an equine flirt, nipping gently at the angle of his jaw. He shivered as he closed his arm around her, holding her tightly against him. Very tight. And for the moment, whatever else was happening around them, Jess found she was completely content.
Satisfaction brought her sleep, but she was drawn back into awareness by a sound so slight it woke no one else. Puzzled, she listened, searching the breeze in the trees for the other noise that hadn't quite belonged to the sounds of the night. There, by the horses, a definite snuffle. Protecting her arm, Jess slid away from Carey and moved hesitantly into the darkness. She stopped with her hand on the rump of the little bay and said, "Jaime."
A short muffled laugh, no humor in it. "How'd you know it was me?"
"Who else would come to the horses?" Jess asked simply. She hitched at the pants that were bagged around her hips again, and moved to where Jaime sat at the horses' heads, by the small cluster of trees that served as pickets. "Jaime, why are you crying? Are you scared?"
"No," Jaime said. "Well, I am scared, but . . . no."
"I want to make it better," Jess said, thinking that in all the difficult times she'd spent with Jaime, the only tears she'd seen had been quiet and few. This, however, seemed to have been quite a sincere cry.
"Oh, Jess," Jaime said, with a sigh that signaled her shaking head, "I wish you could." After a pause, she asked, "How's your arm? I think that you—Lady—blew something in your knee, so it must be your wrist, now."
Even Jess could recognize an evasion that bald. "It hurts like hell, I think Carey would say. Won't you talk to me?"
"Talking isn't going to make this go away," Jaime said bitterly. "I was just thinking. About Eric, for one."
Jess tried once again to make sense of the jumbled memories that surrounded the return to Camolen, and the change from Jess to Lady. "I know . . . he is dead. Not why."
"He's dead because Derrick's slick friend is trigger-happy," Jaime said, more bitterness. "And . . . because of who he was. Do you remember going for that slimeball? Right before Carey invoked the stone?"
"No," Jess said, shaking her head in the darkness. "I remember fighting Derrick. I remember . . . killing him."
"After that, that guy Ernie had us in a pretty bad spot. And things got confusing, everybody was moving, and Eric pulled you back out of the way when Ernie would have shot you. And," she swallowed audibly, "Ernie shot him. Damn, I wish I'd let Carey shoot that bastard. I wish Carey had let Dayna kill him with the magic—even if it had backlashed on us all!"
Jess was stunned. "Eric was killed because he helped me?"
"Eric was killed," Jaime corrected her fiercely, "because Ernie is an egg-sucking son of a bitch who probably pisses in his own Cheerios every morning."
Jess blinked.
"It's funny," Jaime continued unprompted. "There's been so much that's happened since that night. We thought we'd lost you, for one thing. And I've been so worried about what's happening at home. I mean, surely one of my boarders realized we'd gone missing before the horses missed too many meals. Surely . . ."
"Yes," Jess said firmly.
"And up until now, I've handled it all just fine. Which is to say I haven't handled it at all, but sometimes you've got to put that kind of stuff aside, until there's a better time to deal with it."
Jess allowed, "I have a hard time doing that."
"But suddenly I can't get away from it. I was so happy to see you, and then suddenly I was so sad about everything else . . . I just . . . couldn't . . . ."
Jess found Jaime's hand in the darkness, but it pulled out of her grasp.
"No," Jaime said, fighting for control. "If you comfort me I'll lose it. I'll wake everyone up, and then they'll want explanations and Arlen will tell them—" she cut herself off, leaving palpable, empty silence between them.
"Tell them what," Jess asked, suddenly aware that this unspoken thing was the key. "Jaime, I will yell so loud everyone here will come running."
"Jess—"
"No."
There was a big sigh from the darkness, the sound of Jaime shifting position on the hard ground. One of the horses lowered its head to whuff softly at Jess' head, and then at the still damp clamminess of the dead man's blood on her shirt, but Jess ignored it. And waited.
"Something happened to me today," Jaime said, finally, reluctantly, her voice very far away even though it came from a spot not two feet from Jess' ears. "Willand—that's the blonde-haired wizard that was at the cabin I chased you away from—"
"I remember."
"Willand didn't treat me very well. She . . . she hurt me. She was trying to force Arlen into giving up the spell. She hurt me a lot."
Jess couldn't think of anything to say. The concept of such behavior had never occurred to her, but with understanding came a cold, cold anger. "Sometimes you—everyone, I mean—treat me like I have to be protected," she said. "Like you think I won't understand the answers to the questions I ask, and that you have to watch out for me. But the next time I see Willand, it will not be me who needs protection."
A hesitation, and Jaime said, "I believe you, Jess. But it won't help me if you turn into another Eric: good-hearted and dead. Nothing can help, I think, except maybe time."
They sat for a moment in the darkness, while Jess thought about this woman who was her friend, and with whom she'd shared all her human hours—and many more under saddle. "I liked it when you taught me dressage," she said suddenly. "I wish . . . I wish this part of me had been there, too. Someday, Jaime, will you teach me more? If the Lady part of me and the Jess part of me are ever in the same place at the same time?"
"Yes, Jess," Jaime choked. "Yes, I'll teach you dressage. But . . . this is between you and me, Jess, okay? When I'm ready for the others to know, I'll tell them. But I have to deal with it before I can deal with them dealing with it."
"That was a little confusing," Jess replied. "But I won't tell anyone." Stiffly, she got to her feet and walked away, her bare feet feeling out ground grown chill with the night. She found Carey without too much trouble and sat as close as she could without touching him, unwilling to disturb his sleep again. She dozed through the remaining hours of the night, until the earliest dawn when Mark woke from his valiant but failed effort at night watch and crept among the others, quietly waking them. In a few moments they were gathered together in the haven of the rock formations, all a little chilled, all a lot sore.
Jess was no exception. The sharp pain just below her knee reminded her that an arrow had raked across dun flesh in Arlen's stable. Her wrist throbbed unceasingly, and she held it carefully against her stomach, trying to shield it from the occasional shiver that ran up her stiff frame. Arlen actually looked better than he had the night before, not surprising considering he'd probably just had his best night's sleep for some while. Jaime looked plainly awful, her eyes reddened, surrounded by the black circles from her broken nose. The slash in her breeches was crusted with dried blood, and accented by her awkward limp.
Carey looked at them all and said, "It's time to make some decisions."
"It doesn't look to me like there's much to decide," Dayna said glumly. "Unless we somehow just walk right past that guy up there."
"There's a lot more involved here than just that guy up there," Carey said. "Believe me, if we wanted to, we'd find a way past him. Things are no different than last night—we can't travel as a group, not with Calandre's people looking for us, and stirred up because of Sherra. I'd really hoped to find Sherra's people more of a presence—one we could count on."
"Just like last night," Jaime said. "We're safer here."
"Unless someone misses him and starts looking," Mark said dryly, nodding up at the rocky point.
Arlen nodded agreement and said, "Tell me, Carey, where does Sherra stand?"
"They don't have a checkspell yet, not unless they came up with it in the last day or so. She was working with the other wizards on it, not making a play for you because she didn't want to stir Calandre up."
"Quite right," Arlen said.
"I can't believe you really feel that way," Dayna said, almost a challenge.
"I've certainly had plenty of time to think about it," Arlen said in gentle reproof. "It was much wiser for Sherra to put all her efforts into creating the checkspell than to start trouble by mounting a physical attempt to rescue me once her magical ones failed." He looked around the little group and a mildly startled expression crossed his face. "I think introductions might be in order, Carey."
Carey gave a short laugh as the others, also, realized they'd never really met Arlen, nor he them, even though their lives had been tied together for months now. "I think we might have time for that. This is Mark, Jaime's brother. He's been training with the archers and fighters since we got back. You can depend on him in a pinch, Arlen." Mark looked a little surprised but lifted a hand for a waggle of a hello wave. "This is Dayna—she's from the other world, too. She started using magic almost the moment we got here. One of Sherra's students has been working with her."
Arlen lifted an eyebrow. "You've just started and you were fooling with the kind of magic I helped you calm last night?"
Dayna looked at the ground, seeming as small as she ever did, but then her head came up and there was no apology in her eyes. "I'd do it again."
Arlen nodded. "All right," he said. "As long as you realize the danger you created, and the risk you took on for your friends, as well."
"We had a little brush with backlash already," Carey said ruefully. "And I, for one, am grateful for the chance she took this time."
"For me," Jess said. She looked at Arlen, finding it satisfying to view him from her human eyes. He was as tall as she, and didn't look nearly as old as he had in her brief glimpse of him the evening before. Although he was still gaunt, she nonetheless found the arched nose from her early memories, and the warm, honest eyes. She thought his hint of an overbite was kind of cute. "Dun Lady's Jess," she named herself.
"Yes," he said. "And the most magical thing to come of this whole adventure. I owe my life to your bravery last night, Jess. I'm sorry you were hurt."
"I was not the only one," Jess said, and Jaime gave her a sharp look, but no one else saw anything amiss. Their scars were all clearly visible, from Jaime's sword cut to Mark's saddle-sore gait. "And do not leave out Eric, Carey."
"You mentioned that name," Arlen said to Jaime.
Dayna looked away, but she was the one who spoke. "A friend," she said. "One of Calandre's little goons came to Ohio with Carey, and he caused enough trouble that one of us was killed."
"Eric was the first to believe me," Jess said, and grief prickled at her eyes. Another misery to carry along with her wrist.
Carey took a deep breath and filled the pained silence. "We can't just sit here. Right now there's only one man up there, but that probably won't last long. This is our best chance to make a move."
In puzzled protest, Jaime said, "But we've already agreed—"
"Not all of us," Carey said, and held up his hand to forestall further objection. "I've been thinking about this all night, on and off. Listen. As far as that guy knows, there are five of us and four horses. They must have felt the magic—that's probably what our dead friend over there was trying to check on—but they couldn't see anything. If all of us but Jess were out in the open, our guy would think he was watching all of us. He'd feel pretty secure."
"Yeah, but there's still only one way out of here, and it's past him," Mark said.
"But if we had him distracted," Jaime started slowly.
Dayna shifted, and said hesitantly, "There's that thing I did in the woods. . . ."
Mark winced. "I'm not sure that's a good idea, Dayna."
"No," Carey said. "It's a great idea."
"Magic," Arlen said. "Maybe you'd better let me in on it. But first, I need to make something clear—you can't count on me for any spells. For one thing, Calandre knows my touch and can locate us through any magic I do. For another—well, I simply haven't got it in me."
"I was afraid of that," Carey said heavily. He leaned back against the rocky wall and gave Arlen a succinct explanation of Dayna's first successful spell. "Of course, this would have to be something much more subtle. About the level of a glowspell, where there just isn't enough magic gathered to create a backlash."
"It wouldn't be enough to keep him away," Arlen said. "But as a distraction I think it would be perfect. A go-away spell. Why didn't I ever think of that one?"
"It takes desperation," Dayna said, but she responded shyly to Arlen's approval.
"There's our distraction, then," Carey said, and looked at Jess. "That puts a lot on Jess."
"Me?" Jess said in surprise, having failed to anticipate Carey's plan.
He nodded reluctantly. "If you're willing to do it," he said. "Here's the way I see it, start to finish: we need to eat what food is left and take care of ourselves a little. There's a spring back under the rocks, not a fast-flowing one, but it ought to do if we're careful. Jaime, especially, needs to clean out that cut, and the horses need to be watered. We may not get the chance to take care of those things once we start trouble—" and he nodded his head at the exit. "And Arlen, if you can, Jess will need a finder. Something like the maplight," he explained to Jaime, glancing at Mark and Dayna to see that they understood the reference, "only tuned in to a person—this time Sherra—instead of a place. And then it gets simple. While Dayna hits that guy with her go-away, with all of us in plain sight, Jess makes a run for it. She should take him completely by surprise, be past him before he even figures out he should try to stop her."
"I can do that," Jess said, believing it.
"Might not be that easy, braveheart," Carey told her. "There will be others out there, besides our one little fighter. You may have to get by them."
"I can manage the finder," Arlen said, "but it's a risk."
Carey looked grim. "Just as dangerous to have someone blundering around out there with no direction. Run into the wrong side, or get backtracked, and we're all caught—unless you can send Sherra a quick call for help, directly?"
"That would blaze a trail so bright Calandre would have to be blind to miss it. If Sherra's not in a position to respond immediately . . . well, let's just get a start on the business of eating and taking care of ourselves. We can make final decisions when we get there."
"That means you have to stay back here," Carey warned Jess.
"But I have to go to the bathroom," she responded plaintively, looking at the other end of the hollow, which had been honored as the latrine location.
"Hurry then," Carey said with a smile. "It's amazing all the little practical things that get in the way of a good plan," he bemoaned to no one in particular as Jess scurried out of the sheltered pocket into the monotone light of dawn, and someone else chimed in with next dibs.
When Jess returned, Carey was attending to the tedious business of watering the horses, filling one of their water skins at the spring and trickling water into Dayna's cupped hands while the thirsty animals noisily sucked it up. Arlen was nibbling at a hunk of bread, very stale if the amount of chewing he was doing was any measure. Jaime sat quietly and let Mark tend to her leg; he was giving her suspicious little glances when he thought she wasn't looking and Jess knew he suspected she was holding out on something.
Jess joined Arlen next to the saddlebags and poked through them, finally discovering a peach that hadn't been too badly bruised. She nibbled at it as Arlen gnawed his bread, and then almost shyly offered him a bite.
"No," he said. "I left it for you. You're the one who's going to need the strength. All we have to do is sit around and wait."
"You hope," Jess said with her usual perspicaciousness. "I think we are lucky it was so close to dark when we got here last night. Otherwise that man's friend would have gone for help instead of trying to spy on us. And maybe others will come for him, anyway."
"Maybe they will," Arlen allowed. Then he reached out and touched a length of her dun hair, retreating almost immediately despite her lack of protest. She looked at him curiously.
"You're a first, that's all," he said. "More than one wizard has fooled around with shape shifting, from human to bird or dog or something more exotic—and usually to their own woe. But no one has ever thought of finding the human potential in an animal."
She stared at him with a little frown. "Is that good, or bad?"
"Why, neither, I suppose, although once word of this gets around we'll probably have to create some sort of checkspell so innocent animals aren't torn from their natural shapes for the sake of experimentation. I imagine it was quite a traumatic experience."
"It was hard," she admitted. "But my friends helped me, even before they believed me. Now I can help them."
"It seems to me you've already paid your dues in this little drama," Arlen said. He took a gulp from a waterskin and dribbled water down his tunic on the way. "Never could use these things," he grumbled. Then, "Eat, Jess. Here comes Carey, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was ready to move. Full day is almost here, and I don't think we can afford to waste any more time."
"I did not think this was a waste of time," Jess said with another frown. "I think it is good to meet the man whose stable I have lived in all my life."
Arlen smiled. "Maybe so," he said, and stepped out just far enough that he could be seen from the point.
Carey stopped in front of Jess and said, "We need to wrap your arm before you go out. You about ready?"
"Yes," she said, looking at the dead man's boots as he dropped them on the ground. A strip of material trailed from his hand, the same color as Dayna's overlong tunic. He sat next to her and held the boot up next to her arm for measure, then applied his knife to it.
"I want you to take the grey," he told her, his phrasing awkward as he muscled the knife through thick leather uppers. "He's the best rested, and he's strong, and he's got heart. Either that or he's too stupid to be afraid of the things he should be; I haven't decided yet."
Jess scraped the last of the peach flesh from the stone pit with her teeth, and set it on the ground next to her, holding out her arm when Carey gestured for it. He carefully laid the leather against the swollen and bruised limb, but she gasped with surprise and pain when he wrapped the tunic strip tightly around it.
"I'm sorry," he said, looking it but not backing off. "You can't be worrying about banging it around when you're on this run. We've got to protect it."
She nodded, blinking hard and fast.
He finished the chore, looking almost as relieved as she felt that it was over, and ran an apologetic hand down her shoulder. "Let's hope that was the worst part of the whole run. Now, if Arlen will produce a finder for you, I'll get Dayna started on her spell—if nothing else, maybe the magics will mingle and hide your trace," he said to Arlen. He squeezed Jess' arm and told her, "The finder will take you to Sherra if you follow it, and it won't fade until you get there. Just get her back here, any way you can. I don't think she'll be hard to convince—just be Jess. Oh—and here." He removed his chain of spellstones and lowered them over Jess' head. "There's only one there that's important now—the shieldstone. It'll keep anyone from directly working magic on you. Don't get cocky, though, because a quick-witted wizard will still find ways to hurt you."
Jess nodded; it seemed simple enough and, looking at her newly inflexible wrist, she was suddenly ready to go.
"Finder," Arlen said. He caught Dayna's eye. The small woman was sitting cross-legged in front of Mark, looking fragile and uncertain, but when she finally nodded, there was determination in her face. Arlen waited for Carey to join them and start a conversation that was far too loud and unnatural—here we all are, out in the open, not up to anything at all—but one that easily created a rustle of notice up on the point. Then he closed his eyes, holding one hand out palm up; moments later he opened them again, just as a gentle greenish light bloomed into existence. With the other hand he touched Jess on the shoulder, and the light left him to hover several yards in front of her.
"Oh, the auto club'd love this one," Mark said, interrupting an inane conversation on horse-training ethics that he'd obviously not been following in the first place.
"Right," Jaime teased gently. "No more men refusing to admit they're lost."
Mark grinned. "Good riding, Jess," he said, dropping a hand on Dayna's shoulder. Dayna opened her eyes and shrugged; but in her eyes was a dawning of wonder at what she'd been able to do. The rustle of the guard was conspicuously gone. Carey strode over to the saddled grey to hold him while Jess mounted, an unnecessary gesture she allowed him without completely understanding. When she was settled, he closed his hand around hers on the reins.
"Come back to me, Jess," he said. "Be careful enough that you can come back to me."
"Damn straight," she said positively, pointed the horse at the rock-walled corridor, and startled him with her heels.
Their departure rated zero for form; the grey flung his head up and lit out in a stiff, angry canter turned gallop, topping the final rise at high speed and encountering nothing more than the angry shouts of belated discovery. Crouched over the whipping salt and pepper mane, her arms following the exaggerated motion of the grey's effort, Jess suddenly wondered about the consequences of her escape to those in the hollow. A ringing gunshot followed her thoughts, barely heard above the hoofbeats of her run; she abruptly sat back, pulled the grey up, turned him back the way they'd come and then halted, sitting in indecision, wanting to go back and ride down the man who was threatening her own but not daring to do it.
The grey pranced in angry impatience, throwing in a borderline buck. She ran a hand down his tense neck and quietly turned him away from the hollow again, still reluctant but in the end willing to do as she'd been asked. If she went back to help them and failed, their one chance would have been wasted for nothing. When the grey relaxed enough to lower his head and snort in frustrated acceptance of his situation, she again asked him for a canter.
She knew these trails. She'd been on them as soon as she was old enough to pony lead along with her mother, following Carey on short, quiet trips while she learned her first lessons, her first Words. And though the little finder glow moved along beside her in a mute, frustrated attempt to get her to turn right, she ignored the first two opportunities, going on instead to a main intersection further ahead. There, she had five different paths to choose from, and she was able to pick the one that most closely matched the glow's indication.
Carey had said there would be people trying to stop her, so she wasn't surprised when the grey, during one of their breathers, pricked his ears and sent out an almost inaudible greeting, his neck stretched high and his body quivering with the forced exhalation of his call. She startled him out of the next, inevitably louder effort by jumping off his back and hauling him back around, swapping ends so she could run him back in behind the best cover she could find, a barely adequate combination of brush and tree. She clamped her hand over his nose, and had only just noticed that the glow was still out in the middle of the trail when the increasing noise of multiple hoofbeats made a change of position impossible; a dozen cantering riders plowed right by it, swallowing it in their midst and then spitting it out again in the dust of their passage. They never even glanced her way; Jess had only enough time to see they were battle worn, sporting blood and bandages and a trophy stringer of armbands. The trophy colors, she realized, were from Sherra's people. She stared after the group and wondered if the woman with the calm voice and pleasant hands had fallen to Calandre's people already.
It was only a moment's dilemma, another tug at her desire to go back and help her friends. Then she led the grey onto the trail and mounted, and the glow moved out before her, encouraging her onward. Two more furtive dashes into the woods kept her clear of similar self-involved fighters, but it was during a lull, a quiet canter along a relatively uncomplicated section of travel, that she encountered her first real opposition.
The woman seemed to come from the trees, landing on the trail in front of Jess and startling her so there was no time for thought, only the instinctive effort to stop before she ran the challenger over. And while Jess' eyes were still wide with surprise, the woman had a bow raised and aimed at her.
"What's your business here?" she asked—calmly, but it was clearly a demand.
Jess merely stared, caught in a tangle of thoughts, trying to judge which side this woman was on.
"Snappy comebacks will get you nowhere," the woman said with a humorless smile. "Off the horse then. Whatever you want, you're not cleared for this area, and you'll get no further." Then, when Jess still hesitated, the leftover smile vanished. "Do it now, or die. You don't seem particularly well-suited to this game, girl, so quit trying to play it."
"But I can't tell who you're with!" Jess blurted.
"It doesn't really matter, does it?" the woman responded, looking not at all strained as she continued to hold the bowstring taut, her humorless smile back. "Get off the horse. Maybe I'll give you a few answers."
Run, Jess thought, but realized she had little chance of surviving any sudden move. Slowly, she dismounted, feeling awkward under the scrutiny of this woman. "I need to see Sherra," she offered, standing beside the grey. "If you're an enemy, try to kill me. If you are not, let me go on. My friends need help."
The woman grunted. "Plenty of people need help." She lowered the bow with this apparent declaration of alliance. "I'm not here to kill you, but that doesn't mean you can go on. You'll be coming with me, to a place where you'll be out of the way until we're ready to deal with you."
Jess tossed her head with an impatient snort. "I have to talk to—"
"Listen," the woman said impatiently. "There are a score of others just like you, and you all need to see Sherra now. Everybody thinks their problems are worse than anybody else's, and if you all got through to the main position, the important work would never get done. You're not going to see her, and you're not going to ride off on your own. So walk that hell-fried creature in front of me—unless you want to end up like that fellow."
She nodded at the woods beside her, and for the first time Jess noticed the limp-looking pair of raggedly shod feet poking out of the undergrowth. She looked back at the woman's bow, where an arrow still rested loosely against string and stave, and the sentry gave a short laugh. "He was on the other side, as it happens, but I'm in no mood to fool around with you, so don't push it. And just so you know—you go further than this without escort and you'll be shot without warning by the next sentry. That finder isn't going to get you anywhere but the hells."
Momentarily out of alternatives, Jess tilted her head in the human laying-back-of-ears and walked in front of the woman, taking the newly worn path through the woods with the grey beside her, and the finder glow futilely trying to catch her attention from the other side of the grey. She could wait where she was told and hope someone would listen to her, or she could break away and try to reach Sherra—or she could return to Carey.
She didn't think she would make it to Sherra—none of them had counted on heavy security around the wizard. And she didn't have the feeling anyone was going to listen to her. Carey.
They quickly reached an area where the trees thinned a little, leaving room for a narrow and shallow river. All the underbrush was trampled down, and the air was thick with the spicy smell of crushed vegetation. There was only one other horse, being watered by a tall, thin man at the river; a disgruntled looking group, men all, were more or less sitting around a fire and its large hanging cook pot of something that smelled good. Jess' stomach growled, telling her the peach had not been enough, although she was far too angry to put food in her stomach.
"Go get yourself something to eat, then. Someone'll take your horse—can't have you getting ideas about making a run for it—and listen to your story. You may even make it to Sherra."
Jess' fingers tightened around the reins. She could not let them have the horse, not let them take away her chance to get back to Carey if she failed here. "I can't wait for someone else to listen. You listen. I am here from Carey and Arlen, and I need to get help for them."
"What, you think I came into this world yesterday? Arlen's hold is under siege and he's trapped inside. Now tie your horse, and eat or not as you please, but quit wasting my time." She turned to go.
"No," Jess insisted, "Arlen is free of the hold. Carey and I got him out. He said to tell you I am Dun Lady's Jess, and you would believe me."
"Dun Lady's Jess," the woman repeated blankly, as the others stirred with interest at the fuss Jess was creating.
"His horse. I—"
But the woman had slapped her forehead in an exaggerated gesture and said, "Heavens abandon me, I've snagged a crazy." Then she pointed, a distinctly commanding gesture, at the fire. "Get over there. And give me those reins—and shut up." This last as Jess opened her mouth in protest, and then came an outstretched hand, ready for the reins.
Jess stared at the woman, caught in indecision, her head lifted as she again laid back her mental ears—a sign that would have kept the woman from crowding had she been familiar with it. But she wasn't, and she did crowd Jess, and Jess' vacillation lost out to deeply ingrained reaction. Her leg flashed a fierce kick that sent the woman tumbling, astonished and unable to take the weight on her leg when she tried to rise. Jess was already mounting, pulling herself up with an arm that erupted in pain, charging through the low-ceilinged path with her body held tight against the horse. There were shouts behind her, and a brief flurry of cheers from the other captives. Jess rode hard, retracing her path back to the rock hollow, until she nearly ran up on the heels of a rough looking pair on the wrong side; then she dropped back into caution and a slow jog, taking the first turning she could.
And that was when the man caught up with her.
As soon as Carey heard the enemy's angry shout, he knew Jess was out and away, and he started for their protected corner, hauling Dayna along with him while Mark and Jaime quickly followed. It was only heartbeats before an arrow struck at the edge of the pocket, and then Carey saw the man where he was bellying up on the point of rock which gave him access to the otherwise protected area. He pulled the awkward bulk of the automatic from the top of his boot and used its last bullet, a miss that nonetheless scared—no, terrified—the man into backing off.
"He's not likely to come back after that," Mark said with satisfaction.
"No, but he's not going to leave, either," Carey said. "And now there's someone else on Calandre's side who's seen the gun and is alive to tell about it."
"It was still a good choice," Jaime said firmly. "Mark wouldn't have gotten to his bow before that guy had a chance to take good aim on us. Anyway, he wasn't close enough to really see anything—"
"And neither were those first men Dayna chased away," Mark said. "They'll just think it was some kind of loud spell."
"A very loud spell," Dayna added, putting a finger inside her ear to pop it.
"And one which I would like to see," Arlen said.
As one, they realized he was not privy to all the secrets Carey had warned them to keep from this world. And suddenly things were awkward, and Carey, looking at the gun in his hand, pulled up his tunic to shove the thing in his pants, neatly covering it again until he could find some place to stash it. "I'm sorry," he said, sincere at the surprised look on Arlen's face. "There are things no one here should know about. And they won't, not if I can help it. We've got enough trouble with people like Calandre without giving her more to work with."
"Well," Arlen said into the awkwardness, "that's certainly true enough. I'll just have to accept your judgement on this one, Carey."
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 puppets!"
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.
Jess moved carefully away from her cover and toward the two women, trying hard to acquire a sneak that was not in her body's vocabulary. She still felt their magic, not as intense but still active, and she heard Arlen's shout carry up from the hollow, a cry of alarm that sounded very much like Carey's name. She crept toward her goal, a difficult, silent stalk that struggled against both her equine run from danger and an angry mare's desire to trample the ones who threatened her own. She was closing in on them, gathering herself for a rush, when a new feel of magic flooded the air, and Jess dropped to the ground as both women whirled to look behind her, at the spot where Gacy stood.
"Shield, Willand!" Calandre snapped, and yet a third taste of magic washed the air as the faint sparkling expanded from Calandre's body to wall the point and the hollow—with Jess included.
"Too late," Gacy said, making no attempt to get any closer. "I just called Sherra—she'll be here any minute."
"Any minute will be too late for Carey," Calandre said mockingly, a comment that grabbed at Jess' ears and held them hostage. "And there's nothing to keep me here when I feel them coming, is there?" She looked back down into the hollow. "Meanwhile, you still have a chance to save this man, Arlen."
Save Carey. Avenge Jaime. The thoughts crowded Jess' common sense, urging her to action; she twitched with the impatience of it, and suddenly Calandre was focusing on her.
"What is this?" she asked, frowning, flipping a stray bit of magic at Jess that slid past without touching her. "She's protected!"
"That's the one that got away," the man said, straightening unwillingly from his observer's slouch. "I'll take care of her."
Jess rose to a crouch, a coiled, ready spring. She tried to center her thoughts, to make them sensible, to stop the heat of anger; in failure, she exploded into motion, a sprint with such speed it took the man completely by surprise and barely left Willand time to realize it was she who was under attack, and not her mistress. Jess slammed the blonde woman down against the roots of a tree, and the shield instantly dissolved. Dazed, Willand tried to claw her way right up Jess, and Jess grabbed her, using Willand's own momentum to hurl her into Calandre. Next to her, a stone exploded, showering her with fragments.
A larger rock blew up in front of her, and Jess ducked behind her own arms, but only until the air was clear enough for her to dive through; she landed on Calandre's thin frame and fastened both hands around the woman's neck, so close to that angular countenance that the wild disarray of Calandre's dark crinkly hair mixed with Jess' coarse dun strands. A small sharp-edged rock bounced off her shoulder and her injured wrist screamed at the effort, but those were distant pains, not to be heeded.
"Let Carey go," Jess hissed at Calandre, staring into black eyes and flexing her hands over a neck so thin-skinned she could feel the rings of cartilage there. Calandre's fingers tore at Jess' wrists, then clawed at her face, her concentration too shattered to engender magical assault—though there was magic flowing all around them, uncontrolled magic, dangerous magic.
"I can't stop the spell if you're choking me," Calandre gasped hoarsely. Then, in the blink of hesitation she'd created, she snatched at Jess' oversized tunic, ripping the chain of spellstones away. She smiled, a ghastly expression on a face turning dark, and though her words were choked, they were still deadly. "I can't stop the spell anyway, pathetic child. Join Carey in death!" And she turned the wild magic at Jess.
Jess gasped at the onslaught, unprepared for the way it called to the Lady in her. She reeled between the divided comprehensions of two different creatures, vaguely aware that Calandre was prying her hands away, that Willand was screaming and tugging at her shoulders, that Carey was dying and the woman responsible was about to get away.
And something within her hardened, and what she could not do for her own sake, she found she could do out of fury and passion for another. I am Jess, she told herself, the thought choking through the chaos inside her. Squeezing her eyes closed against the confusing input, she thought hard about the form of her clever human hands, the things they could feel and the strength they held. Base animal instinct, kill or be killed, joined with outrage and centered in on retribution; Jess lost track of what was happening around her, focusing only on keeping herself where she was, who she was.
Then, suddenly, she felt there was no ground beneath her knees, no Calandre between them. Her hands were empty—but they were still hands—and the breeze on her face meant she was moving. Only then did she feel the grip under her arms and her knees, and realized she was being carried, by whom and to where unknown. Her eyes snapped open and she jerked against the hands that held her, nearly wrenching herself free.
"Deep-fried hells, woman, I almost dropped you!" snapped a voice in her ear as the hands grappled to reestablish their hold.
"Where—" she started, twisting again, but this time only to look about herself. It was a strange perspective, but she managed to recognize the path into the hollow. "Put me down!"
"I don't think so," he said, as she tilted her head to look back at him, a view of an unfamiliar, upside-down face. "We've been told to carry you down here and that's what we're going to do—you can do as you please once you're out of our care."
She did not fight them; as confused as she was about just what had happened and was happening, she sensed no harm in these two, and this was where she wanted to go anyway. She endured the undignified journey with impatience, until they gained the hollow and gently tipped her up to her feet, making sure she was steady before they actually released her.
She gave them not another thought, but stumbled hastily to the back pocket of the hollow where everyone else was congregated, and where she somehow knew Carey must be. Mark limped out from the huddle activity and caught her shoulders, spinning her around with her momentum, putting her back to the congregation. "Jess . . ." he said, warning and regret, not even letting her turn to look for Carey.
"Let me go to him," she said, words that wavered between a demand and a request for reassurance.
"They don't know if they can save him," he told her, brutal truth. "They've got specialized healers here, and they got the process stopped, but there was a lot of damage done."
This was nonsense to Jess, who had never seen Calandre's spell in process. The extra people, she assumed, were Sherra's, and that they were trying to help was enough to know for now—never mind when they arrived, or how long they'd been here. She tugged away from Mark, and pushed through the people gathered in the rocky niche where she and Arlen had shared a meal only that morning. "Carey," she said breathlessly, looking for him, searching a crowded scene of strangers and friends. She was surprised to see Calandre, alive, lying on a horse blanket and looking like little more than a fragile collection of limbs. Her gaze skipped from the defeated wizard to Jaime's sudden realization that she was there, to Arlen's bent, concerned visage to—"Oh," she said, a small sound with no force behind it.
Step by slow step she walked to the spot where Carey lay, Sherra at his head and a stranger by his feet, both deep in concentration. Magic was flowing strongly throughout the hollow, small, myriad voices of controlled and gentle force, but it grew more concentrated as she went to Carey, kneeling next to him in a peculiar, slow motion fashion that kept what she saw from being quite as real.
Livid bruises etched pathways in Carey's skin, and his body twitched and trembled in odd jerky motions; blood trickled from his mouth and nose, and filled the whites of his eyes. She did not think he could see, but she leaned over him anyway, and her hair fell forward to brush across his chin.
"Jess?" he said, barely intelligible, more hopeful than educated in the guess.
"Yes," she whispered, her hand hovering above his at his side, but afraid to touch him, afraid that she would hurt him more.
"Good Job, Jess," he said, words that faded in and out, jerking along with his body. "Good Job."
Jess sat back on her heels, eyes closed, head bowed, fully aware of all the things he was trying to cram into the two Words that were so familiar to the both of them. A touch on her shoulder drew her gaze upward, into Arlen's.
"Come, Jess," he said. "Let these two do their work."
Slowly she got to her feet, following him away with more than one backward glance. And when they had reached the picket line, she found that she, too, had been followed, that Jaime, Dayna—still clutching the saddlebags—and Mark were hesitating at a polite distance, waiting for an invitation. Arlen lifted his head, only half a nod, but all that it took.
"Someone please tell me what is happening. Has happened," she stumbled, and then gave up and demanded, "Tell me!" looking at Arlen, and then around at the bustle that had filled the hollow in the few moments—it had been only a few moments, hadn't it?—since she'd confronted Calandre on the point. She looked at her hands, which still had the feel of Calandre's throat beneath them, and gave Arlen a frown that conveyed all her disorientation and confusion.
"I'm not sure any one person has all the details figured out yet," Arlen said, "but I'll try. Help arrived while you were dealing with Calandre. A significant amount of help, actually. They pulled you off of Calandre and brought her down here with Carey, where the mage-medics have been working on both of them."
"Why?" Jess said bluntly. "Why stop me? Why heal her?"
Arlen shook his head. "Because that is who we are," he said. "Just because she has not earned such mercy doesn't mean we won't give it to her. She'll receive all the punishment she's earned, but death is not part of that judgement."
Jess looked at her bare feet. "You think I was wrong."
Arlen laughed right out loud, a short sound with genuine humor. "Jess! You were fighting for your life—our lives! You destroyed Willand's shield, you kept Calandre so busy she couldn't launch her wizard war when Sherra answered Gacy's call. No one is suggesting you made the wrong choice."
"Killing was right for her," Jess murmured, mostly meant to be heard, raising her head the same way Lady would have fought an unnecessary tug on the halter. "She teaches people to be cruel."
"She won't have the opportunity any longer," Arlen said with satisfaction. "The mage-medics have stopped the swelling in her throat that threatened her life, but they seem to think there's been serious damage to her voice, damage they have neither the time nor inclination to fix right now. She won't be teaching anyone—and she'll never be permitted to work magic again."
"And Willand?" Jess asked, looking at Jaime. Jaime steadily met her gaze, but neither Mark nor Dayna reacted. They didn't know yet.
"Willand will be presented to the Council, which will pass judgement on her." He looked at Jaime. "We might need witnesses."
"I'm sure you'll find them ready when the time comes," Jaime said, neatly ending further conversation on the subject.
Jess said, not to be denied, "Tell me what has happened to Carey. Why is he so sick?"
"Because breaking my bones wasn't enough entertainment for her," Mark said bitterly, a tone Jess was not used to hearing in his voice. She looked at him, her eyes widening, but found no obvious injuries—although he had been limping. He gave her a halfhearted grin and said, "Arlen stuck me back together as soon as Sherra's people pulled you off Calandre."
"Bones are the easiest," Arlen said. "Although as Mark would readily tell you, he has some healing left to do on his own. There wasn't time to do a thorough job."
"I'm not complaining," Mark said.
"Carey," Jess insisted.
Silence greeted her request, until Jaime said, "Calandre used a spell on him, Jess, an awful spell."
"She said she couldn't stop it," Jess recalled in alarm, then looked at Mark. "But you said it was stopped—"
"She lied," Arlen said flatly. "Any wizard as skilled as Calandre knows how to stop what she's started. She was just trying to upset you, so she could get away from you."
"But if the spell is stopped, why isn't Carey all right?" Why was he lying between two wizards, fighting for his life?
Arlen shook his head, weariness and sorrow suddenly settling in his eyes. "The spell did a lot of damage. It's a race to see if they can patch him together before it kills him. Frankly, Jess, I'm surprised he's still alive. I think you need to be prepared—"
"No!" Jess said, surprising even herself with her vehemence. She suddenly realized how much she still depended on Carey; he was the one link that tied together her different lives, the person who had loved her before and come to love her after. Without him as her focus, she wasn't sure she could handle the upheaval of yet another new life—here in Camolen—without his steady and familiar hand to guide her.
Life as a horse, at least, was something she knew, and something she did well. Something she could continue to do well even without Carey. Dun Lady's Jess would eventually grow accustomed to a new rider, but she thought that Jess the woman would always feel the same sharp grief she felt right now, looking at the pain in Arlen's face.
"Arlen," she blurted, "if Carey dies I want you to change me back to Lady."
"What?" Mark said, as Dayna's lips thinned and Jaime just stared at her.
"I wouldn't want that on my conscience, Jess," Arlen told her gently. "I know how much Carey means to you—no, I take that back. I only know what a good courier team you made, and . . . what I saw of you together last night. I've also seen how courageous you are. You can do this, Jess. No matter what happens to Carey."
Jaime's reaction had built into anger. "I can't believe I heard you say that," she told Jess. "You are your own woman, Jess, and don't need Carey to hold your hand in order to make it through life."
"But I want him to hold my hand," Jess said, flaring into her own anger at the resistance; up went her head again. "I have always been Lady, and Lady never hurt like this! I want Arlen to change me back if Carey dies."
Arlen reached into the pocket of his tunic and withdrew the broken chain of Carey's spellstones. "I can't do that for you, Jess. Or, rather, I won't. There are enough heavy things on my shoulders right now. But I can put a spell on the stone that used to hold the world-travel spell. It should do the trick for you—but it won't work if you have any doubts about changing back. Magic requires a certain sincerity of belief and intent."
"Arlen, no!" Jaime said angrily, before Jess could accept the offer. "You can't give her the means to carry out a decision based in grief!"
"It's her choice, Jaime," Arlen said flatly. "And it won't work unless even the deepest part of her wants it to."
"Please do that," Jess said. "Put the spell in the stone. I can make it work." Do it now, before you change your mind.
Arlen suddenly looked as tired as he had the evening before, when he'd passed out beside a raging dun mare. "No interruptions, please," he cautioned.
"No problem," Jaime said, her anger still blazing. "I'm not going to stay here and watch you do this to her."
Dayna added coldly, "I'm learning more about magic all the time," and followed Jaime away. Mark looked between Arlen and Jess and shrugged, not happy, not passing judgement.
"There are a lot of people who'd miss you, Jess," he said. "And no way for you to tell anyone if you wanted to come out again."
Jess looked at the cluster of people that hid the wounded from her. "I know," she said sadly. In the silence that fell after her acknowledgement, Arlen slid one of the stones off the chain and cradled it in his palm. Jess felt a brief surge of magic, and then he held it out to her. That easy? After a blink of hesitation, she took it, feeling the leftover warmth of Arlen's hand as though it were that hand she held and not the stone. She had not expected it to be so comforting to hold the thing, but now she had it and would keep it with her. She thought she could scavenge some leather thong from one of the saddle ties and, with a last look at Arlen, she went to do so.
Jess braced her back against the saddle and the little bay called Fahrvegnügen halted, giving her a perfect view of Arlen's hold—a spot that had taken almost an hour to reach at a reasonable pace, unlike the run of the evening before. The area was not secured yet, and the air was full of magic, muffled by distance. There were physical skirmishes as well, as Sherra's forces ferreted out the last of Calandre's people, fighters who were unaware of their leader's defeat. The fighting meant the area wasn't a safe one, but Jess felt far removed from their struggles and unthreatened by them.
She was standing in the same place where Carey had shot three men, scaring her other self into the hottest version of Lady. Hot and ready to run, never mind that her knee was no longer whole. She looked down at her encased wrist—for it was a minor injury in the eyes of the overtaxed mage-medics, and something that could be tended later—and suddenly wondered what would happen to Lady if she changed back with the injury. She still remembered the anger and panic she'd felt at that disability, but it had been at the end of an exhilarating and frightening run. Maybe she would be able to handle it better now.
On impulse she dismounted and flipped the reins over Fahrvegnügen's head, feeling the sudden urge of a good run in her legs, here by the pastures in which she'd so often gamboled. With Fahrvegnügen's reins clutched unnoticed in her hand and the horse's hoofbeats filling the void where her own should have been, Jess ran. Her bare feet pounded against the hard dirt road, feeling out ground that was so familiar she raised her head and half closed her eyes, drinking in the wind of her run and exulting in the way it whipped through her thick dun . . . mane. Gulping breath, strong flexing muscles, nostrils wide to the wind—this is what she'd been bred to do.
Jess and the mildly confused bay mare flashed through the gate of the fall pasture, which ranged out into the rolling hills behind Arlen's hold, encompassing a creek and a small stand of trees; the dirt path beneath her feet turned to the prickle of newly cut hay, evidence of everyday life going on despite Calandre. She had the pasture to herself, and she ran to the trees without slowing, ignoring the growing ache of muscles that had been overused the day before. This was her pasture, her life—her world.
At the trees she stopped and whirled back around, her chest heaving, as she looked out on an intimately familiar vista she'd never seen through these eyes. She looked at the ground at her feet, the dust that was all that would grow here after so many years of being trodden on and packed down by horses seeking shade and a good roll. A good roll. She took an instant to pull the bay's bridle off so she could pick grass, and dropped to the ground to wiggle in the dirt, concentrating on first one shoulder blade and then the other, and finally lying with her arms and legs sprawled out and all the itches in her back satisfied, still panting, still filled with the run. Not the best roll she'd ever had but not bad for a human.
Magic murmured around her, leftover efforts of the skirmishes not far away. She ignored it. Staring into the interlaced branches above her head, Jess tried to bring her thoughts to the reason she'd come here, to the decision of Lady vs. Jess. Instead her inner eye was commandeered by flashes of memory. A foal's memory, her first trip out to this place and, a short time later, being sequestered here during the process of weaning, having the growth of the first cutting hay grass all to herself. She had weathered that occasion with no ill effects, and was annoyed when a stray thought suggested she could wean herself from Carey just as well. I don't want to, she told herself stubbornly. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be what I really am.
But you like Jess, the little thought suggested, and she sat up with a frown. She knew, and had to admit to herself, that this was true. But it was just as true that she wasn't sure if this being human was worth it. There was so much pain involved, and she was exhausted by the whole thing. In her mind's eye a strong young yearling chased another adolescent horse away from the creek as he rudely crowded her, and then turned the moment into a romp. She felt again the power in her limbs, the swell of equine delight at her own invincibility—the run and sliding stop, pivot and chase, rear to tower over the ground, her head shaking in mock menace and eyes flashing white.
A hand descended on her shoulder, a touch that should have startled her but somehow slid into her awareness so gently that she came back to herself quietly, undisturbed.
"Jess."
A hoarse but wonderfully familiar voice. She stiffened, trembling a little.
A hand, not too steady, brushed against her back. "Been rolling again, I see."
"Yes," she managed, and slowly turned around to the reception of Carey's somewhat rueful grin. His face was pale, his eyes still terribly shot with blood, his skin still marked with just slightly less livid bruising. "Are you . . . all right?"
He sat down beside her, his movements that of an aged and aching man. "If you mean am I well—no." He nodded to the side and she discovered Arlen standing by Fahrvegnügen, waiting with no sign of impatience. He smiled at her, and she looked back to Carey. "If you mean am I going to die—well, hopefully the answer to that is no, too. I bullied my way here—but I didn't take the long way, like you did. They were against even that, but . . . I had to talk to you." He took her hand, and they sat together for a moment. Then he said, "I understand you're not sure you want to stay with us."
"I—" she started, until she caught his eye, and found all her concentration going into her hand as it reached up to touch his cheek, ever so carefully in case it might hurt him. "No," she said. "I'm not sure. I mean, I'm not sure, if I don't have you."
He shook his head. "Not good, Jess. Everybody's got their own life. You can't build yours around mine."
"I thought you—I thought—" she withdrew her hand, and frowned at it.
"That's not what this is about. This is about you."
"Arlen gave me a spell," she said, distracted and wrestling with his words, wondering if she'd misinterpreted his human actions along the path of this very long journey. "He put it on your stone, and gave it to me, so I could make my own decisions about who I want to be." She touched the stone beneath the fabric of the poorly fitting, bloodstained tunic, and pulled it out.
"He what?" Carey said, his tone more puzzled than angered. "Jess, that's the stone that had the world-travel spell on it."
"Yes," she agreed, as puzzled as he by this reaction. She pulled the thong of the stone from her neck, shaking her hair free of it, and held it out for him. He, in turn, held it up to Arlen, who shrugged in a gesture visible even from a distance, then turned it over in his hand. "What's wrong?" she asked.
"Nothing," he said, as though he'd suddenly made up his mind about something. He gave the stone back, to her surprise. In response he said, "It is your choice."
Slowly she looped the stone back around her neck, more convinced than ever that she would never understand unfathomable human ways.
"Jess," he said slowly, "you can't just be some extension of me. Maybe that was okay for you as Lady, but it doesn't work with people, not if they really want to be happy. If you stay here and stay Jess, you're going to have to figure out who you are, apart from me or anyone else."
That made too much sense; she didn't want to listen to it just then. "When you look at me now," Jess said, a sudden spark of challenge in her voice, "who is it you like? Lady, who you know, and who listens to your Words, or Jess, who doesn't?" Because she's her own person, added the surprised little voice.
"Not that simple," he said, and sighed. "Lady and Jess have a lot in common, and it's not easy to separate those things. Why do you think it was so hard for me to accept you in this form? The way I felt about you . . . it didn't seem right to feel that way about a horse."
"You do love me," Jess said, hesitant at first, but in watching his face she grew confident. "Real human love, like in the TV stories."
"No, Jess," he said, smiling. "Those are just pretend. This is real." And he slid his fingers through her dun hair and rested his hand at the back of her neck and tenderly kissed the high point of each cheekbone as she closed her eyes and drank in the thrill it gave her. Lady had never felt just such a thrill. Maybe Jess deserved a little more of a chance.
"Now," he said, resting the side of his face against hers, "I'm not dead but I've been pretty damn close and I think I may pass out. So do you think we can forget about the spellstone and get back to our friends?"
"Damn straight," Jess said. Then, growing more thoughtful as she carefully helped him to his feet, she wondered out loud, "But do you suppose Arlen could let me be Lady every once in a while, just because I want to?"
Carey laughed, a pained sound, and said, "I imagine that can be arranged."
Mark looked out the window—one of the few windows in Arlen's hold—and said, "So what if they don't believe us? They can't prove otherwise and they've got enough things to do that they aren't going to waste their time on us."
Jaime sat in a rocking chair, the cat on her lap, and lightly traced the lines of the bandage beneath her trousers. The mage-medics could have easily cared for the scratch, but had requested that she see their unmagicked counterparts unless the small wound became a problem. She had willingly agreed; it was obvious that they had their hands full of injured parties from both sides of the fighting. They had, at least, healed the break in her nose, although the kind young man who'd done it had apologetically explained to her that the natural healing had started slightly crooked, and that he would have to break it again if she wanted it straight. She had declined without regret.
She regarded Mark without responding to him. He was left to finish healing on his own as well, and still moved carefully, as though he were afraid his bones would give out on him without warning—she couldn't blame him. Carey, too, continued to struggle, and was visited daily by medics both magical and not, who monitored the results and progress of healing from a perverted spell they had not previously encountered.
Dayna sat cross-legged on the bed and it was she who broke the silence. "Don't get your story set in stone," she said. "I'm not sure I'm going back with you."
"You're not?" Mark blurted, and the cat leaped out of Jaime's lap at her start of surprise.
"No . . . I don't think so." She picked at the hem of her trousers, which were slightly too long, as usual. "I don't expect you guys to understand—I'm not sure I do. I mean, at first I hated the whole idea of doing magic. But . . . I guess I've seen it do some good. I guess I've done some good with it. And I think it's something I could be good at. Really good."
"That's the truth," Mark said, putting his back to the window and crossing his arms. "It's not something you'll get the chance to try out back home."
"Right. And . . . if it turns out I hate it, I can always come on home. If you guys are willing to take care of some details with the house, that is."
"Better make a list," Jaime said, somewhat wearily. "And we have to remember to leave you out of our little story—which is thin enough as it is. Kidnapped, taken to Zaleski State Forest in southern Ohio, held for a month or so, during which time Eric is killed, and we escape after killing the bad guys. They'll never find any evidence to back that up, because there isn't any. That's not real life, that's a TV movie of the week."
"There isn't any evidence that we're lying, either," Mark insisted. "Ernie's got a history, I think, and they'll know he's been out of sight. The hardest part will be getting to Zaleski without leaving a trail, and then staggering convincingly out of the woods."
No. The hardest part would be going back to life as usual, and pretending she had not been changed by the things that had happened to her here.
"Besides," Dayna offered, sounding as tired as Jaime of this process, "No one's thought of anything better."
That was the crux of it. No one had.
"When do we leave, then?" Jaime asked. "We could go anytime we wanted, I think. In fact, now that they have the checkspell, I'll bet a lot of wizards are anxious for us to leave before it's actually in place. Afterwards it'll probably take an act of Congress."
"Right," Mark snorted. "It's nice to see bureaucracy is universal, even in wizards' councils."
Jaime carefully placed the cat on the floor and stood. "I'm going to take a walk," she said, suddenly overwhelmed with the actuality of the good-byes that would have to be made. "If I see Arlen, I'll tell him we're ready to go."
"Yeah," Mark agreed, sounding as wistful as she felt. "We're ready to go."
As natural as it was for Jaime to head for horses, she was not surprised to find Carey, a kindred spirit of sorts, trying to organize his thoughts in their company as well. As she wandered toward the currently occupied pasture on the other side of the gardens, she heard sounds of occupancy from the round training pen that was set in the flat ground between the huge garden plots, and she detoured to find Carey riding a dun horse there. This dun was dark, almost brown, and his black points were nearly lost in the depth of his coat, but there was something about the set of his neck and head that reminded her of something—or someone.
Carey caught her staring, and halted next to her. "Jess' brother," he said. "A good steady fellow, but not up to the way Calandre's people treated him. I have a lot of retraining to do." He stared grimly off into nowhere and said, "He's better off than his—and Jess'—half-sister. They rode her to death."
It was his first reference to the destruction Calandre's people had wrought. As far as Jaime knew, he had not yet dealt with the massive loss of his friends and comrades, the couriers he had managed for Arlen. She opened her mouth to say something about them, but hesitated, and instead said, "I'm sorry. Are you up to this yet?"
He gave her a sharp look, but it faded into a rueful shrug that admitted the question was a valid one. "Not just yet." He moved the horse into a walk, and rode figure eights as he talked with her, gentle, concentrated movements at a good working pace. "Trying to get his confidence back," he told her.
Jaime forbore from mentioning it didn't look like he could handle anything more than a walk, anyway. His movements still had the look of effort about them, and from afar she would have guessed he was an old man with arthritic joints and aching muscles.
"We're gearing up to leave," she said suddenly, plunging into the subject without getting her toes wet first. "We think we have the kidnap story worked out pretty well."
"I still don't quite understand that angle," Carey said, his voice slightly distant as he took the horse through the change of rein from one circle to the other. "People are kidnapped here, too, but it's usually for money, or at least lust."
Jaime shrugged. "A lot of people think if you've got valuable horses, you've got money. The truth is, you've spent your money on the valuable horses. Anyway, it's the best we could come up with. Nothing less is going to explain my disappearance, not with a barnful of those valuable horses left on their own." She leaned against the rails of the round pen. "If you've got any better ideas, I'm open to them."
"Don't go back," Carey said simply.
"No," Jaime responded without hesitation. She'd already been through this discussion with herself. "My life is there, Carey. There have been a lot of things I've enjoyed about your world, but it's not who and what I want to be. You've got Dayna, though, I think. I just hope . . . I hope we can visit. I hope this doesn't have to be good-bye forever."
"No such luck," Carey said, and brought the dark gelding to a halt again, asking him to bring his nose around to touch each booted foot in a final exercise of flexion and obedience and then dismounting, slowly, creakily. "I'm sure Arlen will be doing research on your world in person—and there'll be judgements to testify at. It's not all that hard to suspend the checkspell—it's getting the whole Council to make up their minds to do it that takes so long."
Jaime found her expression going cold at the thought of Willand, at the realization that her struggles with what the woman had wrought were really just beginning—and she wasn't going to be able to run away from them. She forced her attention back to Carey and discovered he was staring at her, aware of her reaction and wanting to know—to help, even. But what she had told Jess was still true—she wasn't prepared to share her experience until she had come to terms with it. She heaved an inner sigh of relief when he spoke again, and realized he was deliberately changing the subject.
"Jess has been pestering Arlen," he said with a grin. "She really does want to visit you and ride dressage under you and me. Arlen told her that because the magic originates on this world, she can pull an occasional switch between Jess and Lady, but on Earth she has to choose between one or the other. I don't think she's quite come to terms with that." He sobered a little. "She's had three offers of work, good positions—two as couriers and one as a trainer for one of the outfits in Camolen City that run public courier stables. Don't ask me how they heard about her way up there."
"She's unique," Jaime said. "Word's bound to get around. What's she going to do?"
Carey loosened the gelding's girth and ran the stirrups up on his saddle, the same slightly odd type of saddle that still sat in Jaime's tack room. "I don't know," he said, and she heard a little wistfulness in his voice. "I told her she had to be her own person, and live her own life, that just staying with me wasn't enough for her. Now I'm a little worried that she listened to me."
"Wherever she goes, her heart will always be with you," Jaime said, and then grinned. "Wasn't that the hokiest thing you've ever heard?"
Carey snorted an agreement, but she thought she saw gratitude in his expression. "Anyway, she'll be here for Arlen until he—I—can get his fleet up and running again. We've only found one of my couriers who survived, and she's so full of guilt over it that she's not really functioning yet. We've got one of Sherra's people on loan, but Jess is taking the brunt of it."
And thriving, Jaime knew, for she'd seen Jess the evening before, tired but happy, and on her way to see Carey. Her arm was completely healed, done by Sherra herself, who fully understood that the limb had to mend well enough to function as a weight-bearing leg for Lady. "Does she still have that awful spellstone Arlen made for her?" she asked with a frown.
Carey's reaction was completely unexpected: he laughed.
Jaime's frown turned into a suspicious look. "You must know something I don't."
"Like the fact that a stone can't be reused for a different spell?" Carey asked.
"But—what . . . ? He told Jess—"
"I know what he told Jess. But Arlen would never have given her the spell she asked for—though he was wise enough not to waste time arguing with her. He just set a very simple alert spell into the wire around the stone, something that would tell him if she tried to trigger it. If you recall, he did tell her the thing wouldn't work unless she really wanted it to. If she did try to use it, she'd just think its failure was her own fault."
"He might have let me know," Jaime grumbled, not really as annoyed as she let herself sound. What a relief to know Arlen had not actually acceded to Jess' desperate request; she had had to fight a terrible disappointment when she'd believed he had.
She turned around to look at the hold, the top of which was just visible over the very high corn that grew between her and it. There were still too many things she wanted the answers to, like how come the corn here tasted so like the corn at home, and why were there horses and cats and even—she slapped her arm—mosquitoes here. She wanted to get to know Arlen better, when there wasn't a force shield between them and lives at stake.
She realized that they'd been standing together in silence for many moments, and she glanced at Carey to find him in thought as deep as her own. Probably full of his own questions, she thought.
"Come on," he said, catching her glance. "If you don't mind my slow going, I'll walk you back to the hold and we'll go find Arlen. He'll take you home."
In the Midwest America dressage show circuit, the competitors come to know one another and their horses. Jaime Cabot and her horse Sabre are in the thick of it, although there is speculation aplenty over her strange disappearance from competition, a disappearance that lasted nearly half a year when all was said and done. But the real conjecture is over the people who now occasionally travel with Jaime—the tall mustached gentleman who escorts her, and the horse and rider who come to compete in the intermediate levels. The dun mare is of completely unknown lineage and lacks the power of a truly great dressage mount, but she and her rider often take their classes anyway, carrying the hearts of judges and spectators alike with the gestalt of their partnership and the expressive spirit in the eyes of Dun Lady's Jess.