Elemental Magic: All-New Tales of the Elemental Masters (13 page)

“We’ll start first with an undine,” Siwan said. “Command it to your presence; bind it to your will.”

Myfanwy reached out with her power and her thoughts, requesting an undine’s presence. Her heart fluttered when she saw the surface of the slow-moving river ripple, then churn, followed by a sleek, laughing, finned woman undulating out of the water.

She winked at Myfanwy, clearly apprised of the situation.

Myfanwy told it to do what Siwan told her to tell it, and it did, and then finally Siwan said, “Now. The river-horse.”

The churning was more pronounced this time, a roiling white foam, and then it leaped out of the water, suddenly
there
, drops of water spattering over Myfanwy (though not over Siwan, who had wisely stood farther back).

The river-horse was magnificent and terrifying. Myfanwy had ridden normal horses, but this was more beautiful and more powerful and potentially more dangerous. His front end was that of a horse, but his hindquarters ended in a large flat tail.

The undines and naiads and nymphs seemed to have had a network through which they had all been apprised of Myfanwy’s secret trials.

The river-horse was another matter. Did it know? Would it resist when she outwardly, as a performance for Siwan, tried to bind it—or would it drag her down to her death?

“My cousins have told me much about you, Water Magician
,” it said in a voice just for her, one Siwan couldn’t hear. “
You will always be safe with me, so long as you respect us all
.”

Myfanwy held her back straight, not succumbing to the desire to wilt from relief. She did everything Siwan told her to do, and the river-horse—with perhaps a small sense of amusement, it was hard to tell—performed as she bade it.

The connection she found with it was exhilarating, and she felt humbled.

She couldn’t wait to tell Glyn. But first, that evening, she dined with Siwan in the banqueting hall with its huge arched window and massive fireplace over which was painted St. Lucius.

Siwan expressed her rare pleasure at Myfanwy’s accomplishments, and it was an opportunity, Myfanwy realized, to ask Siwan about her plans.

“When will I be able to work with the canals, do you think?” she asked. “Will I be of use to our cousin, the Marquess?”

Perhaps it was Siwan’s belief in Myfanwy’s control of the Water Elements, that Myfanwy showed an affinity for the darker magics—or perhaps it was Siwan’s rare indulgence in a glass of wine—that loosened her tongue.

“Our cousin!” she scoffed. “He hasn’t a fraction of the business sense of his father. He’s far more interested in religion and architecture—” and here she waved a hand at the Gothic grandeur of Castell Coch “—this place, and his own home. Coal is the future of our country, Myfanwy, and he will lose it all, as surely as if he crumbled it in his hand and let it sift through his fingers.”

She leaned forward, a spark of flame flickering on her own fingertips in her passion. “The mines need a strong hand to guide them, and the canals are the way to do that. If we can do this, Myfanwy, then we will be rich and powerful beyond our wildest dreams.”

Myfanwy was certain of several things. One was that the riches and power were well within Siwan’s wildest dreams. And the other was that those riches and power wouldn’t be shared with herself. She was a tool, and she would be used, and when she was no longer useful, she would be discarded . . . or worse.

She squared her shoulders. She would tell Glyn that night. She would tell him of her triumph and of Siwan’s plans, and beg him to take her away with him, wherever that might be. Away from the tower, away from Siwan.

It was time to live her life.

*   *   *

The rain—her very Element—had other plans.

The storms had started up again during supper, and as Myfanwy stared out her window at the water sheeting down, she knew Glyn wouldn’t visit her tonight.

So with Rhian’s help she prepared for bed, although she lay awake, her mind racing and her body tingling with the memory of the river-horse, the knowledge of Siwan’s plans, and her ready desire to be away from this place, this beautiful fantasy castle that was her prison.

Thus she was awake when the sylph came.

The sinuous, pale blue creature seemed ragged in the lamplight, as if the rain had torn bits of it away. Air and Water weren’t in opposition, but they couldn’t exactly coexist, either.

Its mere presence was an omen. Myfanwy shot to her feet. “Glyn—”

The sylph wasted no time with pleasantries. “
The mine is flooding. Glyn needs your help. You must come
.”

She saw in her mind’s eye which mine the sylph meant. She was grateful for that, because she could get nothing further from the sylph. It dipped and darted through the air, agitated, unwilling to leave through the rain but unhappy to be trapped, just as she was.

Myfanwy swiftly drew on the set of men’s clothes Glyn had brought her. Boning and bustles and overskirts meant restricted movement, and these garments were for an emergency—which was now.

In the time since she had met Glyn, her hair had grown to the floor again, and Siwan had just yesterday sheared off the braid. Myfanwy had placed it in the trunk herself, not wanting Siwan to see how the other braids were tied together into a rope.

Now, Myfanwy feverishly sewed the newest extension to the golden rope . . . praying it would be long enough.

As she had so many times before, she affixed one end to the window latch, and threw the rest out the window. It tumbled down into the sodden darkness.

She couldn’t see how close to the ground it came.

She couldn’t even see the ground, although she knew, from the many hours and days she’d gazed from the window, just how far below it lay.

And it terrified her.

Panic flooded her as she gripped the wooden frame. A glance over her shoulder confirmed that the sylph was gone—whether it had fled or dissipated, she didn’t know.

All she knew was the ringing in her ears, the shaking of her limbs, and the knowledge of what she had to do: the thing she feared the most.

But she would do it, for Glyn.

It took every ounce of strength she had to lift one leg and straddle the sill. Her stomach lurched and roiled, and dizziness threatened to consume her, but she battled it back. It was hard to breathe, but she sucked in what air she could, girded her loins, and twisted her body as she slid her other foot out the window.

She was slimmer than Glyn, thankfully, and the narrow space didn’t confine her. She poised, half-in and half-out, her booted toes clutching for purchase on the sandstone bricks.

Now or never. All or nothing. She slid backward, out into the darkness and the rain.

She couldn’t see the ground, and yet that didn’t ease her fear. Instead, she focused on one moment at a time, one movement at a time: grip the braid, slide one foot and then the other down, lower her body, and repeat.

She trembled, not just from the fear but from the strain. Her arms and hands ached. But letting go was far more terrifying than anything, and she crept lower, and lower still.

Until she reached the end of the braid.

Myfanwy felt beneath her with one foot, but the ground didn’t meet her. She looked down. There was no light; she couldn’t see if she was inches from the grass, or feet, or yards, or more. She hung there, her mind a blank, no hint what to do.

She realized that in a few moments, her straining arms would give way; her fingers would no longer be able to grasp.

She didn’t want the choice to be taken away from her. She released both feet from where they touched the wall, stretched down as far as she could—and let go.

And fell.

She would have screamed, but she swallowed the sound.

Then, something caught her. Not an abrupt stop, but a slowing down, an easing of speed, something cradling her.

Her feet touched the ground.

Then her knees, and hands, and she didn’t care that her trousers were getting soaked, just that she was on solid earth again.

Hurry
, said the sylph—the same one, or another, or many?—and then it was gone.

She stumbled toward the river, blinded by the rain and darkness, using her Water-magic instinct to guide her in the right direction. She toppled down the bank, skidding in the mud.

For the second time that day, she called into her presence the river-horse.

She might have a terror of heights, but she had no fear of water, despite the fact that she hadn’t a clue how to swim. (You couldn’t learn to swim when you’d never been in a body of water larger than a bathing tub.)

Most importantly, she trusted the river-horse to keep her safe.

“Hold tight
,” it told her, “
and don’t give in to panic when we go below. You’ll not drown
.”

Still, when they plunged beneath the surface, she tensed. It wasn’t natural for a person to be below the depths, and not only was the water icy cold, but it was dark—oh, so dark.

She didn’t know whether her talent for Water made her able to breathe within it, or whether the river-horse (or a sylph?) had created an air bubble around her. She knew only that when she couldn’t hold her breath a second longer, when her burning lungs forced her to gasp, she didn’t choke on water.

She buried her face in the river-horse’s watery mane, and kept in her mind the vision of the mine the sylph had given her, sharing it with the river-horse.

At some point they left the Taff, joined a canal; she wasn’t sure how. All she knew was that eventually she was deposited, half-frozen and shivering so hard she thought she’d come apart, on the bank near the entrance to the mine.

There were a few men with lamps near the entrance to the main shaft. They didn’t notice as she crept close to them, intent as they were.

“—can’t lower the cage, it just ends up in water—”

“—must be a flood—”

“—told them not to dig that canal so close to the mine—”

“—that woman insisted—”

Myfanwy dropped to her knees and pressed her hands against the ground. Although she had no rapport with Earth Elementals—indeed, they were the opposite of Air, not compatible with—she asked only for passage, for a route below.

Perhaps because the ground was so sodden from rain, or perhaps because the gnomes were sympathetic to her plight, she found herself able to connect with and visualize the scene below.

The men were right: The canal had been dug too close to the end of a tunnel, and while it hadn’t completely collapsed through, it had started to seep through, aided by the rain soaking the ground, and now bigger holes had appeared and the water ran faster, sluicing and slipping its way down the tunnel, rising, rising . . .

Myfanwy could move water—in small quantities, and for short distances. She couldn’t shove all this water back the way it came, back through the holes, back against the wall of the canal.

Although she tried, she couldn’t even shove it all the way back past the shaft where the cage hung, high above. She could get some of it past, but the pressure from the other end fought her. More water was flowing in, too strong for her to resist.

If she didn’t hurry, it would fill the area where the men—where Glyn—were trapped.

If she didn’t figure out a solution, they would drown.

In her mind’s eye, she called up the plans for this mine. Siwan had insisted she study the plans for all the mines in Glamorgan, along with the existing canals, the railways, the rivers.

Just before the shaft, there was another tunnel.

The encroaching water had bypassed it, however, because it ran uphill.

She might not be able to push the water back far, but if she could push it back to that junction, and then divert it . . .

Myfanwy called to all the undines and naiads and nymphs, to the river-horses if they could come, and with humility and kindness, asked them for their help. Never commanded, never controlled. Simply requested, if they would be so kind.

And they were. For her, they came.

Their strength lent itself to hers. She imagined she pushed the water back with her hands, with a large scoop, pressing against the weight of it until she moved it, inch by excruciating inch. When she reached the juncture, she erected a barrier, leaving the water no place to go but up in the incline.

Her back and arms and legs trembled from the effort, already weak from her precarious climb down the tower.

“Tell him it’s safe
,” she said to a sylph that hovered under a nearby overhang. “
Tell him to come to the shaft and call for the cage
.

“Tell him to hurry. I can’t hold the water back for much longer
.”

She waited in the darkness, in the night, in the driving rain, all of which seemed to go on forever as she struggled to hold the water to its course. But then, through the hammering of the raindrops, she thought she heard a bell.

Yes!

And then the men atop were shouting and lowering the cage, and the cage was rising, and miners were coming out, and the cage was going down again, and she knew Glyn wouldn’t leave until the last miner was saved.

He would be in the last trip of the cage.

She had to hold on until then.

But although she’d been trained, she hadn’t been tried, and there was still one more group of men—Glyn among them, she knew—to rise when her control faltered, and the water slipped and started to fill the main tunnel again.

No!
she thought.
“No!”
she screamed silently, and then something within her split open, something she didn’t understand, but it filled her with light and heat and brought her to tears, and she wept from the joy and the struggle and the pain and exhaustion.

But tears were Water, tears were her Element, and they leached through the soil and into the mine, and like the Elemental creatures who aided her, they gave strength to her barrier against the water. They gave her one last surge of energy to bind the water back, divert its course, let the final cage descend, fill . . . and ascend, rise to the surface.

Then, only then, did she collapse, releasing the water to flow where it may, releasing the Water Elementals from their task with the deepest gratitude she could muster.