SummerDanse (4 page)

I let out a gasp of surprise. The stick was at least an inch thick and had been quite sturdy as he’d handled it; now, it bent as if it were a vine. He set it exactly in place, and I felt his fingers against my skin as he seemed to shape the thing. A moment later, he stepped back and admired his handiwork.

“Yes, that will do nicely. Now, there’s a pail in the corner there, and clean straw in the stalls. Clean up that mess you made.”

I rose from the stool and went to the dark corner he’d indicated. With my back turned, I reach up and fingered the wood that loosely encircled my neck. How had he bent it so easily? I shuddered. Then I picked up the pail, hoping no spiders or other crawlies were hiding in it. I almost asked for water, but decided that, assuming I would be spending the night in the cage again, I didn’t fancy having damp wood beneath me.

I picked up a large handful of straw and went to the cage. Using the straw like a rag, I swept the waste into the pail, then used a fresh handful to wipe the area dry. When I’d got it as clean as I could, I stepped away.

Anazian stood up and, using a foot so as not to have to touch it, he slid the pail over to the door. “Ruination of a perfectly good bucket, more’s the pity,” he muttered loud enough that I could hear. “Still, I don’t suppose it could be helped, after all. And it doesn’t really matter.” He took something from a shelf on the wall next to the door. “Change into this.” He threw it at me, and I caught it. A plain, white shift. “Now!” he shouted when I didn’t move fast enough.

To my intense embarrassment, he didn’t allow me any privacy while I changed. I turned my back to him and tried to be as discreet as I could. Whether he actually watched me or not, I never knew, choosing not to look and see what he was doing.

“Back inside,” he said.

I wondered for a split second if I could make myself follow his order, but when he reached toward me, I pulled myself together and climbed back on my own.

Shivering as he “closed” the opening again, I tried not to cry.

He picked up my clothes and the lantern and left without another word.

It worked. It was hard to do, harder than anything I’ve ever done before, but it worked! Long I sought the knowledge, and acquiring it was costly in both gold and energy. But it was worth the expense and more. I long to share this knowledge with my father. I am very sure it will help us accomplish our great task.

It is unfortunate, of course, that the spell takes a full day to prepare for and a day and a night to recover from. And it cannot take one as far as one might wish.

Ah, but when it is needful, what a wonder it is to move instantly from one place to another!

When I tried to sleep, I couldn’t get comfortable and instead simply tossed and turned. When my hand touched the wood around my neck, I sat up.

I examined it the only way I could in the dark: with my fingers. It wasn’t at all tight, though not loose enough to take off. It was a perfect circle and, strangest of all, had no beginning or end. How could Anazian do such a thing? I passed it endlessly through my hands, even dragging a fingernail along it, but could find not chink nor seam.

The night grew chill. I sat shivering for awhile, still fingering the wood collar. My maejic hadn’t worked the night before, but there was no reason not to try it again. After all, maybe it had just been the shock of everything that had happened. First, Grey getting stabbed and maybe—no, probably—dying. Surely Anazian knew exactly where to strike so that there would be no hope that his victim could survive.

Then there had been transporting instantly from one place to another. Now it occurred to me that perhaps that’s what had weakened the mage the night before. Hadn’t he said something to that effect? Maybe he hadn’t been ignoring the horses and me; maybe he’d been asleep or meditating, recovering from spending so much power.

Finally, there had been the shock and indignity of being put into a cage. I hadn’t even thought to meditate. I might not have candles, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t go through the routine.

Clear my thoughts. Breathe deeply. Find my calm center. Open my inner senses.

Closing my eyes again, I took a calming breath and, concentrating hard, I drew on my power.

A searing pain shot into my head, as if knives were stabbing my brain. Lights flashed riotously, and a roar filled my ears. Pressing my hands against my skull, hoping pressure might relieve even a little of the pain, I collapsed back into a heap on the floor of my cage.

At least this night I slept. Pushed past the point of exhaustion, my mind finally lost itself in oblivion. At least for a few hours.

I awoke to the sound of the stable door opening. Anazian pushed a loaf of bread and a full skin of water through the bars of the cage. I wolfed down the loaf, wishing there were more, then drank my fill of water.

In the meantime, my captor fed the horses, and while they ate, he let me out.

“Help me load supplies,” he said. “We need to be on the road within the hour.”

For the next little while, I helped him. The cage took up about half the space in the wagon. We now filled the rest of it with stacks of crates and bundles.

“Where are we going?” I asked, surprising both of us. I hadn’t meant to voice my thoughts aloud.

Anazian didn’t answer. Instead, he tied the end of a rope to one of the iron loops bolted to the wagon and handed the rope to me. “Hold this taut.” He didn’t speak as together we tied the pile down securely.

“We will go outside now, and you will do your business there. I will not tolerate another mess. Do you understand?”

I nodded, hoping I looked more submissive than I felt. As if it had been my fault!

Outside, the air was fresh and cool. A blue sky overhead promised a pleasant day—for someone with the freedom to enjoy it, I thought bitterly.

I did what I’d been allowed out for, and a few moments later was back in the hateful cage.

Anazian opened a huge door along one side of the stable and hitched up the horses. He disappeared again. Maybe fifteen minutes later he reappeared, dressed in traveling clothes with sturdy boots.

He led the horses out, stopped them once we were clear of the door so that he could close and lock it, and then we were under way.

It felt good to be outside despite everything. Anazian walked alongside the horses, which I thought a little odd, but the path we followed was rough, and the horses couldn’t have gone faster than Anazian walked anyway. As the wheels rolled over the uneven ground, I pitched from side to side. I felt every bump and dip. Before long, my back and neck ached from the abuse.

I staved off thoughts of Grey and whether he was still alive by concentrating as much as I could on my surroundings. The trees were not particularly tall, but their trunks were vast and black. The path cut between them, but they gave up the space grudgingly, and their branches intertwined overhead, their dark green leaves obscuring most of the light. Hatred flowed off them—and one didn’t have to use maejic to feel it—and I wondered how much of the dimness was caused by that.

Almost by reflex, I found myself fingering the wooden collar again. It was quickly becoming a habit. Did this wood come from one of these trees? And what about the bars of the cage? And why was everything so silent? I could scarcely imagine it was possible for a forest to be entirely devoid of animal life, but I’d not yet heard the song of a bird or the skittering of rodents or even the tap-tap-tap of a woodpecker. All was stillness and silence, except for the noise we intruders made.

We went over an especially big bump, and I bit my tongue painfully. I hoped it wouldn’t be long before we reached a proper road, where the wagon could travel more easily. Maybe we’d be able to go faster then, too. I had no idea where we were or where we were gong, but the sooner this journey was over, the better.

A few hours later, at what I guessed might be midday, we stopped. Anazian took some things out of a bundle. Without saying a word, he gave me a small bit of dried meat—for which I didn’t thank him—and a cup of water. So far, it didn’t look as if he planned to starve me. He set the brakes on the front wheels, then walked off into the trees. I stared after him long after I’d lost sight of him in the shadows.

Then something occurred to me that, once thought of, made me feel a bit thick for not having thought of it sooner. Anazian clearly wasn’t planning on letting me die. If that were his objective—as it had been once before—he would’ve been done with it already. He wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of caging me and taking me somewhere. No, he would’ve killed me instead of Grey.

And the admission that Grey must certainly be dead settled like a heavy cloud on my thoughts and didn’t let go for a very long time. Would they bury him, or would they burn him on a pyre? Which would he prefer? What kind of friend was I not to know the answer to that question? And yet, why should I ever have asked it? Whenever my mind returned to its hopeful imaginings that the others had found him in time, had saved him, I told myself to stop being stupid. Accepting the truth now would make it easier to bear later.

Anazian reappeared with a spring in his step that had been absent before. He even had a smile on his face. When he caught sight of me, he stopped mid-stride. What now? I wondered. After giving me a confused frown, he came to the side of the cage. I held my ground, quelling the urge to back away.

“Come here,” he said. “Come closer.”

I approached cautiously, unsure of what he wanted. He put a hand through the bars, which quivered at his touch, and stroked a thumb across my left cheek. A shiver went down my spine. Of course: the mark Rennirt had given me. In the past two days I hadn’t thought of it once; now consciousness of it came sweeping back.

“What is this?” he asked in a quiet, bemused voice. “Fascinating.”

I didn’t flinch from his scrutiny, but I didn’t look at him either; instead, I kept my eyes fixed on the trees behind him.

“Well,” he said, finally taking his hand away from my face, “I see there’s a story to tell here.”

Much to my relief, he didn’t ask me to tell it then and there. He released the brakes, took his place next to the horse on the left, and made a clucking sound.

As soon as we were moving again, my muscles began to complain; I’d just got used to the comfortable stillness, and now it was back to jolting along.

I lay down on my back for awhile. It was impossible to sleep, but I closed my eyes and tried to empty my mind of thoughts of Grey and Anazian and this tiresome journey, which was little more than half a day old yet.

After awhile, I noticed a change in our surroundings. First, the leaves overhead began to thin, and the light coming through took on a green cast rather than grey. The high-pitched call of a bird pierced the air, and it was answered by another, farther off but still clear and musical.

The air itself felt easier to breathe, as if it were free of the resentment that had been keeping it bound. It was exactly like the change of season from Winter to Spring, and it happened over the course of just an hour.

I sat up, though my back and neck protested, and looked around to find we’d left the black woods behind. Now I recognized the trees surrounding us: oaks, birches, and pines. A movement caught my eye, and I got a glimpse of the bushy tail of a squirrel just before it disappeared.

Unfortunately for me, the condition of the path didn’t improve, but my hopes rose for better things ahead.

We traveled on until almost nightfall. Anazian led the horses onto a grassy verge, then set the brakes, took a waterskin, and started to walk away. His feet shuffled now, as if he were tired, and he stumbled over a raised tree root. Odd, I thought. Surely if he were that tired, he could’ve driven the horses instead of walking with them.

When he came back, he shoved the waterskin, dripping but full, through the bars of my cage. “Drink your fill,” he said, his voice drained of all vitality. I did, watching him as he unhitched the horses and hobbled them, allowing them to graze freely.

Then, finally, he released me from the cage. For the next half hour, I did most of the work setting up camp: gathering firewood, unloading a few of the bundles, and cooking the evening meal. With that, at least, Anazian was generous; at any rate, he let me eat my fill. When we were done, I, of course, had to do the washing up, too. The whole time, Anazian did little more than direct me as he sat very close to the fire. That seemed strange, for I wasn’t cold despite wearing only a thin shift, while he, dressed in buckskin and boots, sat shivering occasionally.

Once all the work was done, he finally stirred himself. Full dark had settled by now. He opened one of the bundles he’d had me unload from the wagon and rummaged in it. I caught my breath in surprise when he took out meditation candles and holders. Surely he wasn’t going to let me meditate, was he?

No, of course not. He, too, was a mage, so naturally it was part of his own routine to meditate. He’d studied, many years ago, with Yallick—been his apprentice, even. And he’d become a master. His being a traitor didn’t change any of that.

“I need to ...” He didn’t finish the sentence. His voice still sounded tired, as if he hadn’t been strengthened at all by the food. He pushed himself to his feet and walked to a nearby tree, from which drooped a tangle of vines. Speaking in a quiet voice, he tore away some of the vines, then came back to the fire.