The Far West (10 page)

I was standing at one end of a large, darkened room. The floor was covered with a thick wool carpet with a complicated pattern in dark red and brown and deep green, but there weren’t any chairs or tables or lamps. The wall to my left was covered with built-in bookcases, floor to ceiling. Most of the bookshelves were full of books, but there were a couple that held little gadgets and mechanical toys, and in the dream, I knew what each of them did and what most of the books were about, even though I hadn’t read them all yet.

I looked to my right. The wall on that side was paneled in a hundred different kinds of wood that made an even more complicated pattern than the one in the carpet. Every so often, the woods shifted into a new design, almost like something living. At intervals in the pattern, there were hooks holding pots of plants. Some were vines that trailed almost to the ground, and some were cooking herbs that we grew in the garden, and some were odd shapes and colors that I’d never seen before.

Directly in front of me, at the far end of the room, was a set of heavy, midnight blue curtains that covered the whole wall. I hesitated. I looked at the wall of books, and then at the wall of plants. Finally, I walked slowly down to the end of the room and pulled the curtains aside.

Light spilled into the room, blindingly bright. I raised my hand to block it out, and the movement woke me. I sat up, shivering in the darkness, and pulled at the comforter to wrap it more closely around my shoulders. The little wooden pendant that I always wore thumped against my chest, and I shivered again.

The dreams and the cold had something to do with the pendant, I’d figured out that much, but I didn’t know what. Wash knew, I was sure, but he wouldn’t tell me. I’d meant to ask Professor Ochiba, because whatever the pendant was doing, it pretty much had to be Aphrikan magic, but thanks to Mama’s dinners, I hadn’t gotten the chance to ask in person when she was visiting, and it didn’t seem the sort of thing that would be a good idea to put in a letter.

After a bit, I stopped shivering. I tucked the pendant away and lay back down. I knew I didn’t have to worry about waking up like that again; I only ever had one of
those
dreams in a night. It still took me a long time to fall back asleep. Right before I did, I remembered what I’d seen through the blinding light at the very end of my dream.

Mountains.

In the morning, I woke up feeling pretty good in spite of not having had as much sleep as I should have, but I was still almost late to breakfast on account of taking extra time to write down the dream. Professor Jeffries and Professor Torgeson were already there, and the six Cathayans arrived a moment later.

While we ate, Professor Jeffries gave a summary of how we’d found out about the medusa lizards and what we’d learned about them from studying the dead one. It took the whole meal, because he had to keep pausing so Miss Bizen could translate. Every once in a while one of the Cathayans had a question, and that would have to be translated back and forth, too. I noticed that the master adept and her chief assistant were paying careful attention to Professor Jeffries while he talked, and I wondered whether they understood more English than they’d let on.

Once we finished eating, Professor Jeffries showed the Cathayans around the study center, and then we walked out to the supply building where the medusa lizard hatchlings were kept. They’d grown a lot in just the few weeks since I’d first
seen them; they were nearly three feet long now, nose to tail, and we’d had to enlarge the pen we kept them in. They still got excited and ran to Professor Jeffries whenever they saw him. They didn’t pay any attention to me, even though I was the one who’d been feeding them every day since Professor Torgeson and I had arrived.

We’d cleared the supplies out of the whole back half of the building to make plenty of room for the Cathayans in front of the pens. Master Adept Farawase looked around and gave a small, wintry smile of approval. Then she turned, gave a formal nod to Professor Jeffries, and said something in Cathayan.

Miss Bizen bowed to the adept, then to Professor Jeffries, and said, “Master Adept Farawase requests that you allow her to perform some close examinations of these creatures. Is this acceptable?”

One of the marshals stepped forward, frowning slightly. “What sort of close examination? If you please,” he added.

It turned out the master adept wanted to get right in the pen with the lizards, which the marshals didn’t think was safe. They ended up with a very polite three-way argument, and finally compromised on taking one of the lizards out of the pen for her to handle.

Professor Jeffries and I went in to get it. All three lizards ran to him and began jumping like overexcited childings on Christmas morning. I managed to distract Stheno and Euryale with a bucket of kitchen scraps, just long enough for the professor to grab Fred and get out of the pen. I followed a minute later, in time to watch him hand the baby lizard to the master adept.

Either Master Adept Farawase knew a lot about animals, or else even a medusa lizard knew better than to make a fuss in front of a Cathayan master adept. Fred didn’t kick or wiggle or try to get away while she looked him over — and she looked him over very thoroughly. Every so often, as she inspected his claws and legs and tail, she made an observation in Cathayan. Adept Alikaket wrote down everything she said, the silver dragon scale glittering as he nodded, while Miss Bizen translated for me and the professors.

Finally, the adept set Fred on the floor and stepped back. She looked at her aides and nodded. All five of them bowed. The translator looked over at Professor Jeffries and said, “Master Adept Farawase wishes to perform some magical tests, if that is acceptable.”

Professor Jeffries nodded. “We would like to observe, of course.”

Miss Bizen checked with Master Adept Farawase. “You may observe. Please step back to be out of the field.”

The professors and I moved back as near to the wall as we could get. The five aides lined up a few feet behind the adept, whose attention had been fixed on the medusa lizard the whole time. The creature hadn’t moved, not even when Professor Jeffries moved away.

Master Adept Farawase raised her left hand, and all five of the aides began to move.

I leaned forward, fascinated. It was the first time I’d ever seen a Cathayan spell working, and it wasn’t at all what I’d expected. The Cathayans, all except the master adept, looked like they were doing a slow, precise dance. At first, all five of
them made the same flowing movements — side step, turn, bend, reach forward, turn, straighten up, step to the other side, and repeat, over and over. As they did, I saw a pale haze form around each of them. To my Aphrikan world-sensing, it felt like a warm halo around each of the Cathayans.

The haze got warmer and brighter and thicker as the five of them repeated the moves, and as it brightened, it changed color until each person was hidden in a colored bubble of fog. The color was different for each of them — one was a pale red, one was a deep green, one an equally deep blue, and one a light yellow-orange. Only the haze around Adept Alikaket stayed the same foggy gray.

I glanced at Professor Torgeson and asked in a low voice, “What is that foggy stuff?”

Professor Torgeson frowned. “Foggy stuff?”

I looked at the puzzled expressions she and Professor Jeffries were wearing, and realized that they weren’t seeing anything unusual. I shook my head and went back to watching the Cathayans. The haze was so thick that I could barely make out what each of them looked like or what they were doing any longer. The only one who looked normal was the adept herself.

On impulse, I stopped doing the world-sensing. I’d gotten so used to doing it all the time that I had to think about letting it drop. It was like snuffing a candle; as soon as I stopped world-sensing, the haze around the Cathayans vanished.

I stared, bewildered. I’d been doing Aphrikan world-sensing for years, and I’d used it on a lot of different spells, but I’d always
felt
what they were like — cold or hot or sharp or wet, or some other sensation. I’d never
seen
anything before. Miss
Ochiba and Wash had never even hinted that seeing magic was possible.

Master Adept Farawase stretched out her hand and the Cathayans flowed into a new set of movements. Hastily, I started the world-sensing again. I’d have time later to think about what was going on, but if I missed seeing any of this spell, I didn’t think I’d get another chance. The haze sprang up around them, and I saw that it had changed. Each blob of colored fog had stretched out a long wiggly piece like the body of a snake, right to the adept’s raised hand. The adept’s fingers were working, stretching and twisting and weaving the five individual magics into a bright white beam; apart from that, Master Adept Farawase didn’t move.

The white beam reached out from the adept’s hand and surrounded the medusa lizard. I saw it hesitate as it touched Fred’s skin, but Master Adept Farawase twitched her fingers and the magic sank into the lizard like water sinking into garden soil.

After a few minutes, the adept called out a single word. Smoothly, the five aides changed their movements again. They were still slow and deliberate, moving smoothly and continuously from one direction to another, but each person was doing something different instead of everyone making the same movements. It still looked like a dance, but like one with different parts that fit together instead of like one where everyone did the same thing.

The colors of some of the fog bubbles changed. The red got darker and the green and blue got paler; the gray-white one lightened and the yellow-orange one brightened. The adept’s
fingers worked again, and another white beam poured from her upraised hand to the medusa lizard.

It went on like that for a long, long time. Master Adept Farawase would call out something, the pattern of her aides’ movements would change, and she would weave the strands into a new spell. After the first two changes, I noticed that the adept seemed to be getting hazy, even though she wasn’t moving. To begin with, the haze was mostly green, but every time the dance changed, a new color or two showed up, until the adept was completely hidden by a bubble of swirling colors.

Finally, she said a long string of syllables, and a moment later lowered her hand. The foggy bubbles around each of the Cathayans shrank as their movements became slower and slower. When they stopped at last, the fog was gone, except around Master Adept Farawase herself and around the medusa lizard.

I blinked in surprise. I’d been so busy watching the Cathayans that I hadn’t paid much attention to the lizard, but it was glowing nearly as bright as the adept. It twitched, then skittered away from the Cathayans. Professor Jeffries jumped forward to catch it before it disappeared into the crates of supplies that were stacked around the edges of the room.

“Professor Jeffries?” I said. “Fred sucked up an awful lot of magic. Do you think that draining spell Professor Ochiba came up with would work on a live lizard? Because this might be a good time to test it.” I didn’t add that most of the magicians who’d studied the dead lizard thought that absorbing magic from outside was one of the things that let the lizards petrify animals, and we only
thought
the baby lizards were still
too young to do that. Professor Jeffries knew as well as I did how dangerous the medusa lizards could be.

Miss Bizen turned to look at me, and so did Adept Alikaket. Professor Jeffries raised his eyebrows, but all he said was, “Hijero-Cathayan magic has a reputation for being powerful. Perhaps it would be best. Professor?”

He and Professor Torgeson and I stood around Fred and cast the draining spell, one after another. Slowly, the glow around the medusa lizard dimmed and went out. Professor Jeffries’s eyebrows rose even higher when he felt the amount of magic coming off the lizard. “I believe you were right about that, Eff,” he said. “All done now?”

“I think so,” I said. “It looks like it’s back to normal, anyway.”

“Excuse me, please.”

We turned to find Miss Bizen, the translator, straightening up from a bow. Her face had a sheen of perspiration, and she looked tired from the long dance. “If you would not mind, Master Adept Farawase is wondering what the spell is that you have been doing.”

Professor Jeffries nodded and started explaining about the dead medusa lizard absorbing magic and needing to be drained after every magical examination, and that I’d suggested doing the same thing to the live one. The adept and her aides listened intently, and it took a while to answer all their questions. A couple of times, Professor Jeffries and Professor Torgeson had to go over things two or three times before they figured out a way to say something that would translate right. I listened as hard as the Cathayans did. Since the college built the class
room building and Papa moved his classes out of our front parlor, I hadn’t had much chance to hear any discussions of advanced spells.

I thought they were just about finished talking, when Master Adept Farawase looked straight at me and said something. “You were the one to suggest working this spell?” Miss Bizen asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said after a second of being too startled to speak. “Because of how much magic Fred soaked up while you were all working.”

Miss Bizen’s eyes widened. “You can sense our spells?”

“Not exactly. I, um, have a little training in Aphrikan magic, and I could tell with the world-sensing.”

Miss Bizen turned to the adept and they had a brief, rapid discussion. Then Master Adept Farawase gave me a small smile and spoke a few words. “Aphrikan magic requires much patience, and it has more heart than head,” Miss Bizen translated. “It is an interesting choice for one of Avrupan descent. May you do well with it.”

“Thank you,” I said, and gave a little bow to the adept because that was what all her aides seemed to do when they talked to her. The adept’s smile widened, and she nodded to me, then went back to talking with the professors.

Master Adept Farawase didn’t do any more magic that day. Over lunch, she finished up her discussion with the professors, then she and her aides went to one of the labs to look at the stone birds and animals that we’d brought back from Daybat Creek. They spent the whole afternoon there, though they didn’t cast any more spells.

The next day, the adept and her aides asked to see the lizards again. When we got to the supply shed, Professor Jeffries took one look at the lizards and forgot everything else. Fred had grown, just enough to notice. As soon as I saw the look on the professor’s face, I went for the observation notebook; by the time I got back, he was on his knees in the middle of the lizard pen with the measuring tape in one hand and the medusa lizard in the other.

The Cathayans talked excitedly among themselves while Professor Jeffries called out measurements and observations and I wrote them down. While we worked, Master Adept Farawase and Professor Torgeson talked, and when we finished, Professor Torgeson pointed at Stheno. “Grab that one, Samuel; that will leave us one as a control.”

Professor Jeffries picked up the smaller lizard, which butted his arm like a cat and then opened and shut its beak a few times. “Yes, yes, I’ll feed you,” the professor told it. He looked back at Professor Torgeson. “Has Master Adept Farawase indicated what spells she’ll be using today?”

“We would like to repeat the first sequence only, with minor changes,” Miss Bizen said. She turned to me. “Miss Rothmer, we would be most grateful if you would note for us how much magic this lizard has absorbed after each spell.”

I stared at her. “I’d be pleased to help, Miss Bizen, but I’m not sure … that is, I don’t exactly have a way to measure.”

The Cathayans started talking rapidly among themselves. The short man with the mustache waved his arms to emphasize something, and the round-faced man bowed, while
the tall one gave them both a disapproving look. We stood there awkwardly, not wanting to interrupt, until Master Adept Farawase said something sharply and everyone else fell silent. The adept turned to Miss Bizen, who nodded and asked, “We would like to know if this lizard is the only one that is …” She paused, hunting for a word. “That can ‘soak up magic,’ as you said it.”

Professor Torgeson’s eyebrows drew together. “It appears to be an ability of the species. Over a dozen have been shot, and all of them have been able to do it. And as you can see, even the young ones have the capacity.”