Carousel Sun (27 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Low Tide 1:58
P.M.
EDT

According to Mr. Ignat’, there are three basic levels of spellcraft: intuitive, which is to say, no crafting involved. Black Dogs, willie wisps, and other vermin fall into this category, as does Side-Sight, the ability to speak Words of Power, and people who just happen to be born with
jikinap
as part of their biological makeup—Ulme being a case in point.

The second level is your basic magecraft: an individual who may willfully and mindfully manipulate
jikinap
, weaving spells to answer a specific purpose, which may last for some time, absent operator oversight.

The third level is group-work, which is just what it sounds like: several Ozali get together, pool their power, submit their will to the group vision and create something that any single one of them could never build, no matter how powerful or well-versed in spellcraft they are. And that working, once built, takes on a solidity, a purpose, and a
reality
of its own. Once created, it needs nothing more from its creators; it is—complete.

The Wise’s authorized World Gates are just such workings,
real
across the strange and not necessarily compatible interfaces of six separate worlds. Mr. Ignat’ says—and I have no reason to doubt him—that the World Gates exist not in any one world, but in all six simultaneously. Being a toddler in the realm of spellcraft, I can’t even begin to figure out how the makers did that.

However it was done, though, I was willing to believe it had required a hell of a lot of very sharp coding.

Happily, I wasn’t here to take down a World Gate. A straight world-to-world Gate was a far simpler thing. Or so I theorized. All I had to do, in theory, was dismantle the Gate on my side and the rest of the working should simply unravel.

I knelt on the lip of land over the apron beach, and laid my tools on the grass before me.

Gauntlets, shabby, faded, and stained.

Knife, slim and deadly.

A fist-sized chunk of stone from the base of Heath Hill, sharp-edged and gritty.

I also had, on call, the three defensive and three offensive spells that I’d built with such effort two weeks ago. Frankly, I didn’t think today’s work would end in a duel, but it was best to be prepared.

So, then. The tide was as out as it was going to go, and I was due at the carousel in a little less than two hours.

Time to get busy.

I slipped off my sneakers, tucked my socks inside them; rolled my jeans to the knee; slipped the sheathed knife away; pulled the work gauntlets on; and picked up the rock.

The land whined anxiously, and I paused a moment to rub its ears, and assure it that I would be perfectly fine. Which, in theory, I should be. The land whined again, sounding resigned.

“Back before you miss me,” I told it.

Then I got to my feet, rock in hand, swung over the edge, and dropped to the beach below.

I landed flat-footed, knees flexed, the rock held before me like a candle. Straight ahead, knee-deep in the pool, was a blue heron—possibly the same blue heron from my previous visit. It spared me a single weary and incurious glance before bending its attention once more to the water. Lunch must go on, I guess.

I put the rock carefully on the sand by my feet, straightened and stepped Sideways.

The twelve rainbow pillars snapped into being along the edge of the sandy apron. I glanced at my own hands, and the gauntlets I wore. Neither shabby nor stained, in Side-Sight I wore the battle gauntlets of an Ozali warrior, palms and fingers sheathed in supple crimson leather, wide night-blue cuffs richly embroidered with flames; gemstones winking cunningly among the threads—citrine, or yellow diamond, or some other precious stone that exists only in the Land of the Flowers.

Carefully, I approached the red bar that had kicked my ass on my last visit; I extended one gauntleted hand, and wrapped my fingers around it.

The bar felt gratifyingly solid; the gauntlet gave me the kind of purchase I needed without bringing a stranger’s
jikinap
into the equation. I grabbed on with my other hand, braced myself . . . and tried to pull the bar up and out of the land.

I had a sense of shifting . . . a very
slight
shifting, but noticeable. Possibly, I thought, loosing the bar and stepping back to consider the matter . . . possibly the Gate was Changing. That, in fact, the bars might eventually just . . . fall over, breaking the pattern and the spell, without any encouragement from me.

I considered that idea; that I just let nature take its course . . .

. . . and reluctantly decided against,
eventually
being as fluid as it was.

So far as I knew, there wasn’t anything like an established decay rate for change, and even if there had been, I had no idea how long the wild gate had been in position.

I wondered if there was a way to learn at least that much. I wrapped my fingers around the red bar one more time, and opened myself, like I did when searching for dead zones, only not so far.

It seemed as if I stood there a long time, listening with all of me. I heard the breakers, soft and distant; I heard gulls, swearing overhead, and a prop plane, which may have been the cause.

I heard someone crying—the wrenching sobs of heartbreaking loss—I saw a flicker, as if of wings, and a glissade of color, like a rainbow . . .

Nothing else.

I took a breath, opened my eyes, and nodded.

Best get this over with.

From time to time Mr. Ignat’ has had reason to remonstrate with me for a certain lack of . . . elegance and subtlety in my spellcraft. In my defense, I also tend to program in a straightforward and frank manner. I’m good, and I’m original, but elegant . . . not so much.

Physically dismantling the wild gate had been my first preference, but even the work gloves weren’t going to give me the edge I needed for that.

Which left me with my Plan B—blow the thing up.

I released the red bar, and crossed the beach, pausing to pick up the rock I’d left in the sand. This, I carried to the front of the apron, to the spot where, if I had been intending to complete the magical circuit that would open the gate and send me to wherever the other side was, I would place the white rod.

The white rod would have contained a locator spell, which would focus the energy gathered from the other twelve rods, and open the gate onto the correct world. The energy would then dissipate, flowing through the gate at the opposite end.

With the stone—the very essence of Archers Beach—closing the circuit, the energy would try to open the side of the gate it was already on, which would create a feedback loop, which would melt the circuits.

I was pretty certain of my theory, but, still, I was glad that my unknown Ozali had chosen such an out-of-the-way place to build his or her gate. I wouldn’t have wanted to try this up in the populated areas of town. In fact, I did pause, and rerun the scenario, just by way of settling my stomach, before I stepped through the gap in the circle, which put me off the beach and in water almost up to my knees.

Safely outside the overload zone, I bent and placed the rock.

Then I stood back and held my breath.

The air began to buzz, ratcheting up from contented honey bee to angry hive in less than thirty seconds. The bars of light began to flash, deliberately, in order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, synchronized down both sides of the beach. The flashes grew quicker as the buzzing became angrier, until all I could see, mundane sight, or Side-Sight, were two blurred rainbows, locked on either side of the beach.

That was when the rock screamed.

My throat caught. I hadn’t planned on the rock cracking under the strain.

And what will happen, Kate
, I asked myself kindly,
if the rock
does
break
?

It was a good question, and one for the research files, because even as I raised my power to do . . .
some
thing . . .

The rainbows expanded, until the whole area of the beach marked out by the light bars was full of racing, buzzing light, and there was no room for any of it to go—

Except up.

Which is where it went—up into the blue daylight sky, blossoming like flowers, each petal limned with power, before melting into glowing droplets, and raining down upon the sea and the land.

The apron beach was empty. Quiet. Directly before me, half-buried in feather-soft white sand, was a sundered rock, the broken faces fused like glass.

Carefully, I stepped out of the water, onto the soft white sand.

The land barked, loud with joy, and leapt up, knocking me to my knees.

It was a good night at the carousel; busy enough that all of the animals got the love—even the stupid rooster. The crowd started to thin around quarter to ten, and by the time the closing whistle sounded, with the exception of a few stragglers, the park was empty.

I waved good-night to Anna when she came to the window to bring in the condiments and napkins. She waved back and yanked down the metal shutter, the sign proclaiming Lee’s Great Chinese Food snapping off in the same instant.

A couple seconds later, Summer’s Wheel went dark, and I took that as definitive.

I’d turned off the big sign on the carousel’s roof, and was heading for the storm gates, when the land muttered irritably.

Pulling a defense spell into ready position, I turned.

The guy who had stepped under the carousel’s roof, raised his hands and shook his head.

“Just me, Kate. Artie. Got something for you.”

Really? Now that was a surprise. I put the defense spell away.

“Help me close the storm walls,” I said, and saw by his posture that I’d surprised him.

“Sure,” he said, and walked toward the back, angling right.

I continued on to the left, grabbed the loop and hauled. For a minute, the rumble of moving metal filled my head, then Artie and I met in the middle with a crash and a clash.

“’Preciate it,” I told him, giving him a civil nod. “What can I do for you?”

“Couple things, as it happens,” he said, sounding . . . unsure in a way he hadn’t sounded, up at the Enterprise.

From the back pocket of his jeans, he produced a flat booklet about five-by-three, with longer, folded, papers tucked between the covers, and held it out to me.

I raised my eyebrows.

Artie had the grace to blush.

“Naw, now; it ain’t what you’re thinkin’. It’s just—it come in like it does, and I thought I’d better bring it direct.” He paused, lips pursed, then shook his head. “Might should’ve taken it up the Wood, but it’s around that your gran’s not feelin’ herself and shouldn’t get stressed. I go up there, you bet she’ll get stressed. So, anyway . . .”

He shook the folder and papers a little. I tucked my hands into my back pockets.

“What is it?” I asked.

Artie pushed his cap back with the hand not holding the papers, maybe so I could see his frown better.

“Papers, for Nessa.”

“Really?” I said, letting my voice echo disbelief, even though the land assured me Artie was telling the truth. “Where’d you get papers for Nessa, if you don’t mind my asking.”

“They come in,” he repeated, and sighed sharp and hard. “On the land itself, Kate, I don’t know where they come from. Wha’dya think, I order ’em outta some catalog?”

“Well, but I don’t know the system, and after the rooster, you’ll see where I want to be a little careful, especially where it concerns my family.”

“Oh,
hell
yes, who wouldn’t wanna be careful, with the Enterprise in it? But—hey, the rooster. I heard at Midsummer Eve you was worried, an’ your gran, too. Shouldn’a done it, prolly, not with what’s between Bonnie an’ me, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. Just some mischief, that’s all; fool the Guardian, that’s good for some free beers, yanno? Truth of it, you near weren’t tricked, and then you ’bout skinned me when I pushed it.”

He took a breath, and gave me a nod.

“It wasn’t right. I might’ve been a little set up by what you come lookin’ for, but I coulda handled it better. That rooster—ain’t no harm in it that I could see.”

“And you weren’t after anything more than earning points?” I asked. The land was letting me know that Artie was telling the truth. He’d tried to trick me because he was
trenvay
, and
trenvay
trick people. Tricking the Guardian? Definitely bragging rights, there.

“Just stretching my muscles, in a manner of speaking,” Artie agreed, and shook the papers again. “This here, now . . . birth certificate, driver’s license, Social Security card, United States passport . . .” He rolled his eyes and I could read the thought,
like she’s gonna need
that
.

“That’s all. That’s
every
thing. Nothin’ to upset your gran, once she gets over it comin’ in. Just
did
come in, not twenty minutes ago. Found it sitting on my desk chair when I come back from getting a cup o’Jack.”

I slipped a hand out of a back pocket, but I didn’t take the papers yet. Not quite yet.

“What’s between you and Gran?” I asked.