The Way Into Magic: Book Two of The Great Way (23 page)

Mother widened her wings and slowed herself, dropping down onto a patch of dry ground bristling with clumps of tall grass. As soon as she touched down, Ivy and Kinz fell off of her legs and rolled away; the older girl kept silent but Ivy let out a moan of relief.
 

When Auntie did the same, Cazia unwrapped her legs before they even touched the ground. She had to drop a few feet because Auntie had no intention of actually landing. As determined as she was to stand upright, her legs buckled.
 

Both of the birds turned westward into the wind and began flapping hard, gaining altitude quickly. One let out a piercing cry that seemed to echo off the Southern Barrier, but Cazia couldn’t tell whether it was a note of annoyance or a friendly “Until next time!”
 

None of the girls wanted to be the last one on her feet, so they all stumbled out of the darkness toward each other. The moon had just begun to rise.
 

“If we had made any sense, we would have waited until morning,” Kinz said. “I wish I had thought of it myself, but I did not. Normally, we would be made safe in the tree or in the cleft of the rock. But it is too late to camp now.”

Ivy waved toward the glowing torches to the south. “I would rather sleep in a bed tonight. If we start now—and do not fall into a hole or something—we might reach the gate before the midnight. Do we really want to sleep on the ground without even a cloth to lie on?”

No, in fact, they did not. The girls started their trek across the uneven terrain. It quickly became apparent that only the flat little hills actually offered dry footing; everything in between was full of squelching, boot-clutching mud.
 

They traveled by hopping from one relatively solid bit of land to another; Cazia was the first to slip and fall in the mud, but her embarrassment evaporated when Kinz did the same not long after, then Ivy, then Cazia, then Kinz, and after that, she no longer kept track. It was dark and the ground was treacherous.
 

Their progress was slowed by Kinz’s insistence that they stop often to check for predators. There were almost certainly eagles out there who hadn’t gotten word of a truce yet, and grass lions, while they usually hunted during the day, had been known to take prey at night.
 

Cazia wished Kinz had been able to bring her pointed stick off the top of the cliff. The only protection they had was her spells, which would be useless in an ambush. Worse, she had no iron darts. The only spell she could fight with was her fire spell, which would be clearly visible for miles in this flat, open landscape.

“Cazia,” Ivy said, interrupting her thoughts, “I wonder if you would let me borrow that little gem of yours.”
 

The question caught her by surprise and her answer was sharper than she intended. “Why?”
 

The little girl didn’t seem to notice her tone. “For more than fifty years, the people of Indrega have had an arrangement with the serpents of the northeast, but we have always dealt with them through crude sign language. We can not set treaty terms, can not negotiate borders, and we can not easily explain our laws. It has led to complications, as I am sure you can guess. A serpent nest on private farmland. Pets devoured without compensation. That sort of thing.”
 

“Make to keep your voices low,” Kinz scolded.

Ivy spoke in a whisper. “If my family had a gem like yours, we could simplify things.”

“And it would strengthen your family’s status in the Alliance.”

“Indeed it would.”
 

“Is that safe?”
 

Cazia’s question seemed to flummox her. “What do you mean? How could it not be safe?”
 

Together, they looked over at the fires of the watchtowers. They were farther than Cazia had thought at first, but they were making progress toward them. “A whole bunch of okshim is one thing, but… How sturdy is your Alliance? The three of us trust each other a little bit--maybe things are not great between Kinz and me, but she saved my life and maybe I saved hers, too; I can’t remember.”
 

“You did,” Kinz whispered. The moonlight lit her silhouette, but her expression was hidden in shadow.

“Oh, good. So, we have our conflicts but when things get rough, we mostly trust each other, as long as I don’t overuse my magic. When Mother spoke to me--”

The half moon showed enough light to see Ivy tilt her head. “Mother?”

“Didn’t I say that out loud to you? Those two birds were Mother--the one with the nest--and Auntie. They never told me their real names, assuming they have names. Anyway, when Mother spoke to me, you couldn’t understand anything she said, but you trusted me to look after all of our interests.”
 

“Ah!” Ivy’s exclamation brought a sharp hiss from Kinz, but she quickly lowered her voice. “I should have thought of that. I haven not lived among my people for more than a year, but as a member of the royal family, I should have considered this. The Winzoll have always been jealous of Ergoll power--in fact, the Winzoll king tried to offer the daughter to the Italgas in my place, but she vomited on his emissary. I hear she took a purgative right before she met him. I wish I had thought of that. Not that I, you know--”

“I know,” Cazia said. “I know very well.”

“And the Toal,” the princess continued. “My uncle used to say that they like to think of themselves as eldest brother to the other nations of the Alliance. My own people... I hope you understand why I say this, but my own people are in some ways the weakest member of the Alliance. Our lands are in the west, you see, and while warriors come from all over to fend off Peradaini incursions, it is our lands where most of the fighting is done. We are a hard people, but not numerous.”

“What then?” Kinz asked. She crouched beside them. “Will you make five gems?”

Ivy gasped as though she was about to declare that a wonderful idea, but Cazia broke in. “What would happen to me if the Alliance found out I was a scholar?”
Wizard.
She wasn’t a scholar any more. She was a wizard. She just didn’t like to say the word aloud.
 

“They would celebrate you,” Ivy answered. “They would feast you, then give you a comfortable house and a guard to win your favor.”

Kinz shook her head. “You would be the prisoner. Maybe you would live in one of their houses, maybe it would be the cell, but you would never be permitted to cross the Straim again. This watch post is commanded by the Toal. They would spirit you away, and Ivy would be sent south to her people. Maybe I would be allowed to accompany her, but I would certainly not be allowed to help you.”
 

“We would keep it a secret,” Ivy said, “until we reached my father. I would never allow you to be taken prisoner. I do not treat my friends in that way.”

Cazia didn’t doubt her sincerity. What she doubted was Ivy’s ability to impose her will on her elders. As capable as she’d proven herself to be, she was still only a twelve-year-old girl. “What story do we tell about our trip into Qorr?”
 

Kinz spoke up. “We do not tell them that Cazia can make magic. The tunnel we climbed up the cliff was already there, made by the Peradaini scholar sometime last winter. We saw the bug people but did not make to fight or speak to them.”
 

“Oh! But I shot one with my bow.”

Kinz laid her hand on Ivy’s shoulder. “You killed one, but only one. We found the Door in the Mountain but the bugs captured us. We escaped the same way we actually escaped, found the stone towers but not the magic lever, scaled the cliffs, and climbed back down the same tunnel.”

Cazia nodded. “We leave out anything we learned from Chik or Mother. We leave out the spell that the Tilkilit Queen wanted me to cast.”

“We leave out the name of the Tilkilit.”
 

“Yes. Exactly.” Cazia took a deep breath. “What about Alga?”

Kinz’s younger brother Alga had accompanied them northward across the Sweeps, but the girls had sent him away before they started up the cliff. If he’d done as his sister told him, he would have already passed through these watchtowers; who knew what stories he might have told?
 

“Gah,” Kinz said. “If he came this way, he might have told them you are one of the Cursed.”
 

Cazia had forgotten about that pleasant little term. The herder people thought all magic was a curse.
 

“You should simply lie,” Ivy said. “Say that he pinched your bottom and you punched him. We will say that you knocked him into the mud and he was furious about it. If he is there, I will mock him in front of the other warriors. He will be discredited. Definitely.”
 

I can’t go into Indrega.
Cazia couldn’t deny it any longer. Those fires atop the watchtowers meant cooked food, soft beds, and clean clothes, but she would be enjoying none of it.

They’d gone into Qorr to find out whether the eagles were part of a coordinated attack with The Blessing, and the answer had been unclear and confusing. Mother said they’d been tricked by the gods into coming here. Obviously, they weren’t part of a coordinated assault on Kal-Maddum, but had they been driven here as part of a more subtle plot?
 

Mother and Auntie would have fluttered their wings at the suggestion that they were someone else’s pawns in an invasion, but that was how it seemed to Cazia.
 

What’s more, there was something at the back of Cazia’s mind that she knew she was missing—something important—but what was it? She tried to remember everything Mother, Chik, and the Tilkilit queen had said, but whatever was there, tickling her subconscious, she could not identify it.
 

Still, Ivy and Kinz could bring the news of the Qorr to the Indregai people. She couldn’t risk passing through those gates and never emerging again. There would still be tyrs out in the empire who needed to know what she knew.
 

Tyrs like her father. Tyrs like Tejohn Treygar.
 

They stood and began moving toward the watchtowers again, hopping from dry place to dry place. “However,” Ivy said, “you should be aware of some differences between my culture and yours. People will make fun of you.”
 

“I have met Indregai before,” Kinz said sourly.
 

“It is our way to establish dominance through wit. Anyone who mocks you is trying to put themselves above you. As foreigners, you are excused from these contests by custom, but it doesn’t always work that way. Depending on the situation, that might be something you simply have to endure--my father the king has the right to mock any of his subjects—or that you have to challenge immediately. Sometimes, you can tease your superiors to show that you have some fire in you, but it is usually a bad idea to best them. However, I think that, as my companions, you will be treated with special deference.”

The princess was speaking with a self-satisfied preciousness that Cazia had never seen from her before. They were about to venture into her world now, and she clearly planned to make sure they would be impressed.
 

As they walked, they found surer footing, in no small part because they were heading slightly uphill. What had been mud before was now an easily avoided streambed or pond. Ivy continued to talk more boldly as they came nearer the firelight, cataloging the various sorts of jokes and teasing they could expect, and what it all meant.
 

It was all very complicated and Cazia was only half paying attention, but she was amazed once again by the amount of information the kid retained. No tutor Cazia had ever studied under could convince her to learn little details--except Doctor Twofin, of course--but Ivy had learned enough from her uncle in just a few years to become a tutor herself. Really, it was astonishing.

Cazia didn’t intend to stay long enough to trade barbs with anyone. All she needed from the Toal were supplies. Water she could create, but she couldn’t do the same with food. A bedroll would also have been welcome, and so would another of those wide-brimmed hats that were waxed against the rain. She definitely needed a new knife and would not have turned down an actual spear.
 

All of those things would be available on the other side of the gate ahead, but once Cazia was through, she couldn’t see a way to get back out with them. In the Sweeps, she was free to do as she pleased. Inside the wall was Alliance territory, where Ivy was Princess Vilavivianna. If the little girl wanted Cazia to stay close to her, she could probably make it happen.
   

There was still a bit of dried fish wrapped up in the cloth across Kinz’s back. All she needed to do was wait. Ivy would tell the guards who she was, the gate would open, and Cazia would ask for the last of their supplies then make her goodbyes.
 

Of course, she’d tried to leave the princess behind once before. Cazia hadn’t intended to bring the girl into Qorr, but there had been little choice. That’s why it was important to wait for the gates to swing open. Mahz and her clan had no interest in forcing Ivy into safety, but Alliance soldiers certainly would. Besides, Cazia was pretty sure she could convince Kinz to carry Ivy inside if it came to that.
 

She half hoped Kinz would come with her. It was silly to think so, since the older girl clearly didn’t like her and would probably be anxious to find her brother down in the peninsula, no matter how tense their last parting. Still, Kinz was more familiar with the Sweeps than Cazia was, even if it was just a matter of pointing out edible weeds.
 

As she was working her way up a somewhat steep hill, she felt Kinz’s hand on her shoulder. For a moment, it felt as though the older girl was rapping on her bone with a hard knuckle, but there was an immediate sensation of having something torn away from her.
Anti-magic stone.
Cazia lost her balance and fell halfway down the slope, bruising her hip on a jutting stone.
 

“I am sorry!” Kinz said, hurrying toward her. “Did you not hear me say it was time?”