Changespell Legacy (48 page)

Except eventually it stopped, or at least died away to near completion, with little roiling meltdowns still active in the main body of the destruction around them. She'd run out of scream; she crouched panting by Ramble, her face up against his golden coat; when he groaned she felt it through the skin of her cheek.

Stop it
, she told herself when she realized her teeth were chattering.

They didn't.

She looked anyway . . . she found they'd all gone down, all but the horses, although Lady, too, was on her knees. Dayna's horse was gone; Wheeler's stood crowded up against the edge of the bubble with Grunt and the others, crouched and quivering, ready to explode into flight at the first excuse. Wheeler himself had fallen off and lay twisted on the ground at Ramble's head, the knife jutting obscenely into the air from his chest. Suliya, her wet cheeks marked with fear, crawled toward him. Arlen raised his head, still wearing his ridiculous floppy hat; he'd thrown himself over Dayna, as if it would have done any good had the shield failed.

And behind Jaime was the woman agent, the one Lady had recognized. She'd dropped her weapon along the way, but she'd somehow made it into the bubble of safety before the meltdown rolled over them.

Still on her knees, Lady saw the woman, gave a startled huff. An offended huff. Her ears flattened; she heaved herself to all fours and as the woman looked up, as dazed as any of them, she still knew well enough to be alarmed.

"Lady,
no
," Suliya said, her voice full of impatience, the reprimand of human to horse; she held Wheeler's hand, and she glanced at Lady in only a peremptory way.

"Don't do that," Jaime said sharply. "None of you. I don't know what happened between you all in Ohio, but I know what I saw when she finally made it back to Anfeald. She's not the same—not as Jess
or
Lady."

Dayna said nothing. Dayna knew what had happened. And so did Suliya, to judge by her face.

"She may not know all of our words, she may not think like us . . . but you'd best speak to her as though she does. She's got opinions and rights. Give her the courtesy you'd give anyone else."

"It worked for me," Arlen said. "But then, I talk to Grunt the same way. Which, come to think of it, didn't work nearly as well. Poor old Grunt."

And Lady's ears had come up. She ignored the woman; she came to Jaime instead, snuffling her face, running her whiskers along Jaime's skin and in the end, lipping at her hair, her expression suddenly soft.

"You're welcome," Jaime said quietly. And then, since no one else had done it, she turned to the newcomer, finding her as still and quiet as one substantially sturdy woman could be among the enemy.

"Too late," Jaime told her. "We know you're there. Now come over here and stop this horse from bleeding. I don't care if you use every item of clothing on your body—get it done."

The woman glanced out on the meltdown, and then at the perfectly normal ground beneath them . . . and then at those she had called
enemy
only short moments before.

She began to undress.

She removed her jacket and then the knit fiber plainshirt—as close as Camolen clothing got to the T-shirt—below, replacing the jacket over the underclothes that remained. "It's an action shirt," she said.

"It's got some healing properties. Dunno if they'll work again once we get out of this shield—"

They had better. Jaime didn't know how they handled horses in Camolen who had only three legs. She glanced at Wheeler and then Arlen and then back, finding Lady had taken up a watch over the woman.

Good. Out of her hands for now. But Wheeler . . .

Thanks to Suliya, Wheeler wasn't quite as twisted as he had been, but he was just as dying. Again he caught Jaime's eye; again she found herself snared there, unable to look away until he did, and when he
did
, she followed his gaze. Out to the unsettled meltdown that surrounded them—and then back to her.

She followed his thought just as easily. No magic in here, in the shield . . . but they couldn't afford to drop it, and it would be suicide to take him out of it and attempt a spell in the middle of the biggest meltdown she'd ever seen.

There was nothing they could do for him.

"I'm sorry," Jaime said.

"Me too," he said, barely getting the words out; she moved closer, shoulder to shoulder with Suliya, who still held his hand.

She said fiercely, "I'll make sure my father knows it was
you
who saved Arlen."

Faint as it was, his grin held dark amusement. "All I could ask for," he said, not much in the way of sound behind his words.

Jaime closed her eyes a moment, overwhelmed, and when she opened them, Wheeler's sharply perceptive gaze had gone distant and still. Suliya placed his hand on his chest, but continued to stroke his hair, confusion laced into her somber expression. He'd been her enemy, her father's tool . . . and he'd ended up a hero.

Nothing Jaime could do.

But there, finally getting up to his knees,
still
wearing that hat, was Arlen. Someone she wanted
in
her hands, and badly. Someone she'd never quite believed to be dead even if events and circumstances and the people around her had hammered her with the fact over and over and over again. "Arlen," she said, and he gave her a grin. Somewhat chagrined, a little embarrassed, and a lot more little boy delight than she'd seen in a long time.

At that she couldn't stop herself. "Arlen!" she said, and launched herself behind Suliya's back with such zeal that they both tumbled back to the ground, where she kissed him with enough enthusiasm that Dayna eventually started clapping, her droll tone somehow coming through in the calculated timing of the clap . . . clap . . . clap.

"Shut up!" Jaime said, tearing herself away for just an instant. "I'm not through!"

"She's not
through
," Arlen said with mock irritation.

"But—what happened to your face?" Jaime asked, suddenly aware of his reddened skin. "And where's your mustache? And where'd you get that
hat
?"

Arlen propped himself up on his elbows, giving Dayna a sorrowful look. "You let her get distracted. I'll remember that."

"I'll
never
be distracted," Jaime said. "You came
back
. Every time someone walked through the workroom door, I expected it to be you. Every time I heard a footstep in the hall, I thought it would be
you
. I
knew
—"

"And you were right." He pulled her in for a satisfied kiss, but she pulled right back away.

"You don't understand." She shook her head, put a hand over the empty spot that had lurked inside her since she'd started her very first vigil for someone who could
never
come back. An empty spot . . . empty no more. "
You came back
."

"I'll show you what I understand," he said.

After a moment, Dayna started clapping again, and when they both turned to glare at her, she said, "Ahem. Meltdowns? Light spells? Peacekeepers?"

"We can't all make it to the peacekeepers," Suliya said, still staring down at Wheeler. "Not Ramble . . . and we're missing your horse."

With utmost reluctance, Jaime put a few more inches between Arlen and herself. She said, "You're right.

We need to get Ramble back to the hold—and whoever goes to handle him will need a wizard along for the shielding."

"Look!" Dayna said, pointing at the ground. She moved the shield boundary a few inches, out onto warped ground with arrow-sharp crystals extruding sideways from what might have been rock. Within the shield, the crystals crumbled into the finest dust, a confectioner's powder of metallic earth.

"Reclamation!"

"That's a start," Jaime said, smiling at Dayna's excitement.

"I'll go back," Suliya said abruptly.

They all looked at her, all but Arlen, who'd taken to gazing at the destruction around them. The peacekeeper run was the glory mission, not taking wounded heros home.

She shrugged. "Arlen should be with the peacekeeper group. If I go with him, then Jaime's got to take Ramble with Dayna. Doesn't seem too bootin' right, does it? Splitting you two up again so soon. Don't suppose I'd impress
anyone
if I insisted on that."

Jaime gave her an uncontrollably big grin. "No," she said, reaching out for Arlen's hand.

But the glance he gave her was distracted, and an instant later he was looking out at the meltdown again.

"I keep seeing what it looked like, when it rolled over us," he said. "The last thing the rest of the Council—"

"Don't think of it," she said fiercely.

He gave her a look of mild surprise. "I'll always think of it."

I
mpatience welled up inside Lady, pushing her into movement—an uneasy shift of her weight, an unnecessary flicking of her ears; she raised her head from her scrutiny of Ramble's care and inspected the meltdown around them, switching her attention from one spot to another with jerky exaggeration. The smell faded, but the remaining strength of it still triggered all her instincts to run. Strong smells meant large predators, no matter what she knew to the contrary; the smell of Ramble's blood and Wheeler's death did nothing to dissuade her instinctive urges. Not when she had the protection of her yet unapparent offspring to consider.

But neither instinct nor fear created her impatience. The people around her did that, slowly recovering from the attack and the meltdown, checking each other over, speaking in tones that meant relief and accomplishment.

Except they hadn't accomplished anything yet. All they'd done so far was survive.

Carey still waited for healing, healing that couldn't happen until Camolen's magic stabilized. Jaime may have started the stabilization process with Anfeald's couriers, but even Anfeald was only one precinct among many; only the peacekeepers had the authority to go to the source of the problem.

Peacekeepers!

She thought it loudly on the inside and snorted her emphasis on the outside, gaining the startled attention of everyone within the bubble. She pawed the ground, making it as clear as she could that the snort was no random thing. That her agitation was of significance.

"She's right," Arlen said. "We need to get moving—the sooner the peacekeepers have this information, the sooner Camolen can begin recovery. The sooner
Carey
can begin recovery, eh Lady?"

Jaime gave him a blank look as Lady stopped her pawing to snort more gently at Arlen, a rolling snort.

"How did you—"

He grinned at her. "I can't suddenly read her mind, Jay. It's a continuation of a conversation we had not so long ago." He started to replace his hat on his head, gave it a second look, and sent it winging into the mangled forest, where it caught on a jagged protrusion and swung. "No more of
that
," he said. "And this shirt—it goes, at the first opportunity."

"You cannot imagine our relief," Dayna told him, checking the cinch on Wheeler's horse. Arlen smiled—but sobered quickly enough as he helped Suliya to her feet on his way past Wheeler, not pausing with the effort; his gaze stayed on Lady and when he stopped before her, she gave his shirt an affectionate nudge.

"You've got a choice," he told her. "You can go back to Anfeald and take the chance to see Carey, or you can help us get to the peacekeepers. If you wait to see Carey . . . you might miss him."

His meaning was clear enough to a horse with Jess in her mind. In an instant, she pricked her ears toward Anfeald.
Carey
. Her life had always been about Carey, one way or the other. She could not abandon him now.

And that meant that despite her yearning, despite her fears, despite her intense need to resolve that which had come between them, she had to go to the peacekeepers. With the rest of the horses shaky and upset, Lady was the one who could lead them swiftly to the peacekeeper hold, finding the shortest detours around meltdowns once they reached the trail again, taking the lead with the confidence to keep the others from faltering.

She knew one thing for certain—it would be Jaime she carried. She loved Arlen dearly, but if he never found his way to her back again it would be too soon for her; the next time, she'd dump him sooner and with much more purpose. She moved the short distance across the crowded bubble to Jaime, carefully stepping over Ramble's tail and hind legs. Jaime watched her uncertainly, a roundly athletic woman with flyaway hair and a few more lines by the edges of her mouth than not so long ago, and when Lady dipped her head, the gesture of a horse politely reaching for her bridle, Jaime said, "Are you sure? I mean, hells
yes
, Lady, I would be honored, but you know . . . he might not be there when we get back."

In the background, Arlen offered, "Simney will go to work as soon as Anfeald stabilizes. And the sooner we reach the peacekeepers—"

Neither Jaime nor Lady responded to him; Lady only dipped her head to Jaime again. Jaime reached out to stroke Lady's arched neck, running her fingers over the spellstones braided into her mane. "I'm supposed to tell you . . ." she said, and hesitated, but in the end got the words out. "He's sorry. Whatever happened . . . he's sorry."

Lady blinked; she ducked her nose and rubbed it along the inside of her front pastern, full of feeling and self-knowledge a horse wasn't meant to have, and wondering if the bittersweet pain of it would hurt any less if horses could cry.

C
arey never got enough air. His heart raced to make it happen, faltered when nothing helped. He sat propped up in his own bed, alternating between utter terror and a more comfortable haze of disbelief, no longer strong enough to do so much as wipe his own chin clean of the blood that came up with every cough and gurgle. Maybe he simply no longer saw the point.

Or maybe he was lost in other things. More important things. Jess, I'm sorry. Jess, I did my best . . . and we both know it wasn't enough.

He wouldn't have said it out loud if he could; he was never alone. Simney or Cesna or even Gertli; someone always sat by his bedside, sometimes in pairs. Sometimes they cried. Sometimes they murmured things they thought would comfort him, and sometimes Simney chanced using a simple pain relief spell—he recognized that one—or other spells, basic things nonetheless risky in Camolen's spell-twisted environment but which seemed to help make the breathing easier. They argued over it when they thought he wasn't listening, so Simney chanced to murmur fiercely, "I
know
it might go wrong and kill him! Do you think I'd do it if he weren't about to—" and then cut off, but her words had been obvious enough.