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Chapter 17

Mark took them into Marion, an experience which delighted Suliya and made Dayna feel just plain strange. Looking at the small-town streets with their flat, midwestern flavor—carrying just a little more traffic than they'd been made for, offering a little less parking than needed—she felt like she'd been gone a lifetime. And oddly . . . like she'd never been gone at all.

They drove down Center Street, under a banner advertising the annual popcorn festival—"Popcorn," Suliya asked, "what's that?"—and past the imposing stone edifice of the courthouse, then city hall and the theater—right through town and almost out the other side, beyond the railroad tracks. Mark turned the truck down an alley with only inches to spare beyond the side-view mirrors, and just as Dayna gave him a skeptical look, the alley opened into a back parking area.

"Just happened to find this place?" she asked Mark as he took up most of the parking space with the truck.

He shrugged. "I dated a girl." An instant's unhappiness crossed his face. "She was too . . . interested. Asked too many questions. I think . . . I swear, I think she could tell. About Camolen. Just didn't want to deal with that."

"But you liked her," Suliya said, virtually unfiltered as usual, although in this case not without compassion.

Mark made a face, then nodded. "She works nights . . . she shouldn't be here." He led them between the buildings—just enough room there for a strip of concrete and a handful of struggling weeds; Mark himself had to turn sideways—and to the front entrance, beneath a fancifully lettered sign in purple and gold with the shop name Starland and a smattering of stars in the background.

"Mark . . ." Dayna muttered. Touchy-feely New Age, just what a Camolen wizard needed.

He stopped halfway through the door, leaving Suliya on Dayna's heels, eager to get a look inside. Incense-scented air swirled around them and escaped. "Lighten up. You want spellstones, right? This is your best bet, unless you want to hang around for a mineralogist show. I think there's one in a month or so in Columbus."

"What is this place?" Suliya said. "It looks like the stuff for magic shows. Not real magic, but those bootin' shows where people try to trick you without using it."

Mark gave her a hard look. "That's just the sort of thing you don't want to say once we get in here," he told her. "You'll insult everyone inside, not to mention drawing a lot of attention to yourself."

"Lips stitched," Suliya said cheerfully. She reached over Dayna's shoulder to give Mark a little push. "You'll let the flies in."

Inside, the tiny shop was decorated in the same vein as the sign, with plenty of purple velvet drapings and silken gold cords. Scratched glass display cases held jewelry and stones; a rotating rack offered card-mounted runes. Suliya went straight to the clothes lining the back wall—tie-dyed and batik and embroidered, all pretty much straight out of the seventies. Dayna dodged a small round table with a simple black cloth covering; a neatly stacked deck of tarot cards sat just off-center, wrapped in silk.

With a musical jingle, a woman ducked through the curtain of bells that separated the front of the store from the back. "Hi," she said. "Let me know if you have any questions. I won't pester you." She sat on a stool behind the cash register counter and display case, an incongruous sight among the plethora of New Age items in her jeans and plain polo top. After a moment, another woman emerged from the back, a clipboard in hand and much more the image of a proprietess for a shop named Starland. Short hair—short to the point of a crew cut, were it not for the longer fringes around her face and neck—jangling earings, and a filmy black top over a long purple skirt.

"Mark," she said, surprised.

"Hey, Rita," he responded, easily enough so Dayna figured this wasn't, in fact, the woman he'd dated. "Brought some out-of-town friends in. Dayna needs some stuff for a project."

"Stones," Dayna said. "Hard ones. Maybe some crystals . . . depends what you've got."

"I'll show you," the jeans-clad woman said, sliding off the stool and weaving expertly through several tight displays to reach the customer side of the counter. "We've got some token stuff up front here, but the best selection is in the back."

Suliya, having rejected all the clothing besides the black baby-doll T-shirt she clutched, turned sideways to nudge past them in the opposite direction. "Look," she said to Mark, displaying the shirt. "A horse—with a horn."

Dayna sighed. And then her gaze fell upon the display case in the back corner, nearly behind the clothes, and she felt a greedy delight. In the background, the woman Rita rang up Suliya's purchase, her voice a little too casual as she said, "From where did you say you were visiting?"

"She didn't," Mark broke in, firmly.

"Maybe you'd like a free reading? As one of Mark's friends—"

"Nosy, Rita," Mark said, a tone of voice that told Dayna he really did know this woman . . . and also that he believed she was capable of discerning more than most. That she wanted to. Dayna looked over her shoulder, annoyed; he should have known better than to let Suliya come, if that were the case.

Clearly he was operating in pure Mark Mode . . . too laid back to notice things that really did matter.

Lighten up, Dayna. Mark's imagined voice in her head, his knee-jerk response to her need to control all the details. Of everything. Maybe this time he was right.

And meanwhile Suliya all but jumped up and down and clapped her hands. "Oh, yes!" she said. For a rich girl, sometimes she seemed astonishingly naive. Even Dayna had to hide a smile when Suliya added, "A reading of what?" in that same eager voice; the woman who'd shown her the stones didn't bother to hide her own amusement.

Dayna turned to the stones. Cut crystals, polished ovals . . . minerals and gems and a few that looked purely artificial. Satisfaction. It might take some hunting, the stones might not be quite right, but she'd find what she needed here. She hunted for the first pick, pushing her forefinger through the stones; touching them. Trying to get a feel for them, as she'd be able to do on Camolen and finding the power so faint she couldn't be sure.

Dayna couldn't help herself—looking at the plethora of stones before her, feeling her own spellstones in the pocket of her jeans . . . and wondering. A test, just a small test, just to see if it was worth buying the stones at all.

Saddened, Jess left Ramble with another apple and a few slices of melon; like her, he preferred many small meals instead of fewer large ones. And saddened, she almost missed the fact that there was a new message on the white board, even though they'd taken to leaving the pantry door open as they waited for Jaime's delayed reply.

Like the last, this one was full of what Dayna had eventually termed "static"; like the last, it was terse and to the point, even with the requested repetition. Ha- visitors -ooking fo- Arlen b-cause of world-tra—l s-ell detectio-. Now think t-ey follo— -ou. B- c-reful. 

Staticky, but not unreadable. Had visitors looking for Arlen because of world-travel spell detection. That made more sense than the first time, then . . . very few people knew Dayna was willing to attempt magic of that complexity, or that because of her ability to mix raw magic and conventional magic, she could actually accomplish such spells.

Now think they followed you. Be careful.

She had to blink at that. Followed them? Why?

To stop us. Of course. But how could anyone understand enough of their goals here to want to stop them? And who would want to in the first place?

She couldn't think it through, not with the unhappy taste of Ramble's reaction clogging her mind.

Dayna was gone, in town with Mark and Suliya; Jess had come in earlier to get Ramble's apple as they were preparing to leave. Carey had been asleep then—unused to the medicine Mark had given him, although Mark assured them it was commonly used and quite safe, this ibuprofen—and as far as she knew, he hadn't yet woken. She brushed hay and wood shavings off her clothes while she was still in the kitchen, and went to find him.

Yes, still asleep. On a bed for which Mark had apologized; all of the farmhouse's extra beds were narrow single-person beds, even the one that was Jaime's own. It didn't matter to Jess; hers was in the same room with Carey and she slept in either.

Now she watched him a moment, his back to her, crowded up against the wall as if it was all that kept him from tipping over. Even in his sleep he favored his sore leg, keeping it gingerly bent. Although the spring day was warm enough to keep Jess in a T-shirt, he'd drawn the worn navy bedspread over his arms, rumpling the covers into an impossible mess.

Jess eased into the bed, stretching out behind him, doing her best not to disturb him. Just considering him. Watching him, reaching out to touch his hair only when the urge became irresistible.

It woke him, but just barely. "It's me," she said, close enough to his ear to use the barest of murmurs. "I'm thinking."

"Is everything—"

"Fine." And it was, for the moment. Long enough for her to watch him and touch him and consider . . . things. His hair was so unlike hers, so fine in comparison—if not nearly as fine as Jaime's or Dayna's. Blond, but nothing like the palomino's . . . darkest gold, almost brown near the roots and the nape of his neck where he had it cut short. Mixed strands of ashy browns and deep blond on top, where he'd let it grow longer and the forelock often fell over his brow. Very human, all in all. "I need to think."

"And it helps to do that to me?" He was awake enough to put humor in his voice, and she knew exactly what she was doing to him, although for once that was not her intent.

"Yes," she said. "To be with you."

He gave her a wordless grumble and fell silent; she thought he dozed, though sometimes he leaned into her hand.

Very human. And he loved her. She had no doubt of it . . . day in and day out, just like any two humans. She sometimes caught him just looking at her . . . smiling. Or he touched her arm in the middle of a conversation about something else altogether, or ran his hand down her back, just the way she now traced a finger down his shoulder, found a knot of tension, and gently worked it out.

He loved her.

But there were things he hadn't faced, hadn't accepted. If he were truly at ease with the Lady part of her, he wouldn't avoid riding her. And he hadn't—not since he'd known her as Jess. He'd even changed the subject when she mentioned it.

Of late, she was beginning to believe he couldn't reconcile the fact that he felt one way about humans and another about horses. She wasn't even sure it was so wrong, intellectually . . . but it hurt her nonetheless. And now, when she saw what he'd been willing to do to Ramble—for nothing—it bothered her all the more.

He rolled back, half trapping her, and looked over his shoulder. "Jess," he said, half in amusement and half all-serious, "you're killing me."

"I just needed—"

"To think. I know." Still sleepy sounding, his voice laced with affection, he said, "You keep doing that, and I'm going to give you something to think about, all right."

She smiled, but it felt small and sad. She said, "Ramble doesn't know anything. Nothing to help us, I mean." He knew well enough why he'd been brought here, and how useless it had been. "And Jaime thinks someone followed us here."

"Waitaminute, waitaminute." He twisted around in the narrow space she'd left him, ending up propped on one elbow and facing her. Carey. So human. So driven . . . but not so driven he no longer failed to understand the consequences.

This time, he'd accepted them for someone else. For Ramble.

He said, "You talked to him? Really talked to him?"

She nodded, watching him, still half lost in her thoughts. His was a face that could have come from a horse. Not a rough-edged Ramble type of horse, but something finely bred. Although he had not quite the nose for it; not enough expression in his nostrils, and too much in his forehead. She reached to smooth one of the lines she'd just created there, and he gently but firmly caught her hand.

"Why didn't you wait? What did he say? What exactly did he say?"

Best not to answer that first question, not when the answer was I needed to protect him from you. "He says a man was there. He only saw a little. And he felt magic from the man. Then he ran. That's all."

"That's something," Carey said . . . but he frowned.

Jess sank back down on the bed, looking up at him. "Not new. Not if you believed Dayna. She felt the magic . . . that means someone had to have been there. We knew. We didn't have to bring Ramble here."

Gently—more gently than she wanted, she could tell that by his preoccupied frown—he said, "We couldn't know without trying." He ran a hand over his face, still looking tired, and absently rotated the shoulder on which he wasn't leaning. "That can't be everything. He'll remember more, if we keep asking—"

"No," Jess said flatly. It was, she realized from the surprise on his face, a command. "He has said what he knows."

"Jess—"

She sat up suddenly; there wasn't enough room on the bed for both of them that way, so she slid off and stayed kneeling there where he could see her, could understand how serious she was. "No. He won't talk to you . . . he understands why he is here and he knows he can tell us nothing of worth. Carey," she said slowly, watching the surprise linger in his eyes, and close enough to mark the mixed brown and green of them, "if you try, I will take him away."

That shocked him; he flinched, though she doubted he knew it. Mingled with the shock was a sudden pain, and the draw of his brow against it.

"Yes," she said softly, and with perfect understanding. "It hurts. I know." She was beginning to think this was what being human was all about. Being capable of hurting the people about whom you cared the most.

He drew a deep breath, pushing himself upright and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, making a half-hearted effort to pat the covers back into place. "All right," he said. "We'll talk about it later."

"We just talked about it." She sat back on her heels, not giving ground. Not this time. She could handle Ramble away from the barn; she was the only one. She had a spellstone to get back home; she would use it.

"And we may well talk about it again!" His voice rose, came out nearly as a shout, not a tone he'd ever used with her before.

She looked steadily back at him.

He threw his hands up. "We've got enough to deal with right now without getting stuck on this, all right? What about this message from Jaime?"

She frowned at him, not satisfied with the way he'd left things about Ramble . . . but realized she'd pushed hard, decided to give him the time to deal with it. "I left it on the board."

He didn't hesitate. He got to his feet and headed out the door. Jess followed more slowly, and found him contemplating Jaime's poorly transported words, frowning. As she came up beside him he shook his head. "Damn, I wish we could talk to her."

"Someone wants to stop us," Jess said. "I don't know why. You and Dayna did this to help."

He gave her a wry look, his mouth twisted in a self-deprecating way. "Even if you think we're wrong."

"I think you're wrong," Jess said readily. "But I know you did it to try to help."

"For someone to want to stop us, they'd have to know what we were doing. Or think they knew." Carey shook his head again. "I can't put it together. Let's leave it here, see if the others have any glowbursts about it." He gave a sudden glance around the kitchen, the worn honey-pine cabinets and table and its markedly empty silence. No television in the background, no leftover snacks on the kitchen counter. "This isn't a good time to be separated. If someone's here and they came prepared, they could have finder spellstones."

"Mark took Dayna to look for spellstones," Jess told him. "Empty ones, for Dayna. She found out magic doesn't work from scratch here. She said something about doubling spellstones."

Carey winced.

"Is that bad?" Jess asked.

He said, "Not if it works."

Payys. Another small town, barely big enough for the livery. Arlen gave a sigh of relief as he spotted its sign, and then another when the woman wielding a stall fork was amiably willing to take on Grunt for the night.

The smaller towns. They were used to being bypassed by the rest of Camolen . . . and therefore much less disturbed by the disruptions that had everyone else scrambling to maintain themselves, running short on supplies anyway, and in general not behaving as the civilized folk of Camolen ought to. Not that life in the small towns seemed normal—people were worried, and conveniences had been unsettled. But for all of that, they seemed to go on with day-to-day life, wary and waiting for someone to tell them what was going on.

No one ever mentioned the kind of destruction Arlen had seen on the road . . . and seen again this very day, the smallest patch of oddness just off the road. He'd spent some time studying it, but when he'd given it a subtle prod of magic—just a dollop, not directed toward any kind of spell—it twisted itself inside out, doubled while he blinked, and drove him to retreat.

At least it had given him something to think about until the next time he found one—and he had no doubt that he would.

"Wantin' grain for the horse?" the woman said, barely pausing in her work with the fork. "I'm about to start feeding, but yours ought not get any for a while . . . I'll put it in a bucket here if you want, and start him on some hay."

"I'd be grateful," Arlen said, unloading the pack sacks and stripping the saddle from the gelding's back, letting the blanket sit there a while longer while the animal cooled.

Carey would be surprised at how much he'd learned about horses.

"Damn well better have the chance to tell him," Arlen muttered, earning a glance from the woman as she shoved her full wheelbarrow down the puddled, dirt-packed lane in front of the stall row. He gave her an embarrassed shrug and lugged his gear to the empty stall she'd pointed out to him. Grunt needed grooming, and then he'd need his grain—but Arlen wanted nothing more than to sit numbly and not move, here in his ugly-clothes persona and his upper lip that so keenly felt the cold . . . even his nose seemed colder without the mustache. Just sit and . . . sit. Exhausted in body and mind.

He found a wooden feed bucket with a broken handle, flipped it over, and plunked his cold posterior upon it. Just to sit.

And, he thought suddenly, to hunt for Jaime. He'd never reached for her at this time of day . . . always at night, when he was tired and presumably so was she. Elbows on knees, face in hands, he went looking. So easy, after all these nights, to fall right into it . . . Jaime, I'm here. I'm alive. I'm coming. Over and over again, never expecting an answer from someone with so little ability with magic, but hoping at least to feel the connection. Jaime, I'm here. I'm alive. I— 

He startled at the suddenness of it. The brief clarity of Jaime, the shock of contact—

A voice of satisfaction, far too close to his ear. "Been looking for you, wizard. Should have kept your magic to yourself."

Jaime lifted her head from the message she penned to Chesba, gratitude for his cooperation and quick reply in confirming that the two representatives who had visited her were none of his, after all. On the stack of outgoing messages beside her elbow was another to the local peacekeeper station, asking about the two. But her pen—a nib pen, beautifully appointed and fit to the human hand, but a nib pen nonetheless—dripped a large blot of ink on the message, unheeded. The evening ague? Now? Now? It nibbled at her, swelling; she closed her eyes against it, unprepared.

But as it swelled, heading for unbearable—not pain so much as pressure—it popped, clearing for an instant of—

"Arlen?" she whispered.

Arlen jumped to his feet, stumbled over the bucket, and ended up standing there with it in his hand, feeling foolish on all counts. Should have kept the magic to yourself, wizard.

Even, apparently, the small spells. Spells that should have disappeared under the weight of daily magic use in Camolen without the application of intense scrutiny.

I've been looking for you.

Arlen eyed the man, found him far too close for comfort. Not a wizard—muscle. Hulking and obvious muscle, with shoulders that took a coat twice as wide as Arlen's and still it didn't close properly. He'd be highly protected from personal damage spells, then. No easy inertia spells, no spells that acted directly against him at all. And he'd be fast—at this distance, faster than a complicated spell. Faster than almost any spell, if the man was trained to the signs of a wizard's concentration.

Arlen would bet this particular man was trained in any number of things . . . none of them pleasant. "You must have been looking for some time, then," he said. You must have known to look in the first place. "The Council deaths were no accident. You had someone there. You knew I was still alive." He cocked his head, still thinking like a wizard going after puzzles. "Who are you with? What's this all about?"

"I don't think you need to know that."

Damn. Not an obliging villain, then. Not someone with an ego who could be prodded into verbosity. Someone with a job . . . who intended to do it.

"Get your horse," the man said, looking every bit like he was capable of doing this particular job. His flat nose attested to his experience; Arlen imagined he'd find scarred knuckles beneath the man's worn black leather gloves. The knuckles of those gloves were thickened, weighted. "You're about to have an accident on the road."

Arlen gave him a disbelieving stare. "You're not serious."

The man couldn't be. One more step toward Grunt and he'd be out of reach, and out of reach was far enough to accomplish whatever spell he wanted.

The man raised a finger as if in sudden discovery and, using a voice that let Arlen know he'd been played with, said, "Ay, right." He held out his hand, opened it . . . within his meaty palm lay a small vial. "Drink this first."

Arlen gave the vial a dubious look.

"I can kill you here," the man suggested. "I don't want to . . . the manure heap behind this place isn't big enough to hide a body. If you drink it, then you can delude yourself into believing you've bought yourself enough time to escape me somehow."

That made a certain amount of uncomfortable sense. "No doubt it's one of those mind-muddling doses meant to keep me from working magic."

"No doubt it's spelled to take effect immediately, too. Now take it, before I get bored and that manure heap starts looking bigger."

I am, Arlen thought, more than my magic. 

At least, he hoped he was.

Cautiously, he held his hand out; the man tipped the vial into it. Arlen thumbed off the cap and poured the thick, honey-colored liquid onto his tongue. It tasted of honey as well . . . and by the time he'd swallowed, he felt his ability to concentrate fly away like so many bees. He gave the vial a respectful glance—what he suspected looked like a stupidly vapid respectful glance—and inanely returned it to the man.

"Now get your horse. Bring him here and saddle him." The man crossed his arms and spoke as though to a particularly dim three-year-old.

Arlen couldn't blame him. A dim three-year-old probably had quite an edge over him at the moment.

But physically, he was fine. No stumbling; no staggering. Nothing to draw anyone's attention. Run? He was headed in the right direction . . . away . . . 

He thought the man could probably run just as well. Probably better. And that he'd only continue to follow Arlen.

"Get the horse," the man reminded him, patiently enough.

Arlen discovered he'd stopped halfway there. "Sorry," he mumbled without thinking.

Make that a dim two-year-old.

So stop trying to think. 

Do.

He reached Grunt's stall, only a few doors down the equipment-littered aisle. Grunt gave him an eager greeting, stretching his coarse, winter-whiskered head over the door—no stall bars for this small establishment, although the stall sidewalls went to the low, slanting ceiling—in obvious expectation. Puzzled, Arlen followed the horse's gaze.

The bucket. He still had the bucket, hanging limply from his grasp. Most carefully, he set it down beside the stall and reached for Grunt's halter and lead rope.

Grunt gave him a look of utter disbelief and fled to the back of the stall.

"Grunt," Arlen said in disappointment. "It's not a very big stall. Even I can see the inevitable outcome here, and I can't put two thoughts together." He opened the stall door; it swung out, effectively blocking the aisle leading outside and to escape. No, no running. But when he went into the stall after Grunt, he looked again at the blocked aisle, and several thoughts tried very hard to rub together and come up with an idea.

Stop trying to think. 

Do.

Arlen whirled the end of the lead rope in a short circle and cracked it sharply against Grunt's haunches. Grunt quivered in astonished offense, not quite believing Arlen meant it.

"Put the halter on him and bring him here," the man said, not quite as patiently, unable to see through the sidewalls.

"Trying," Arlen said, even as he wound up for another smack.

Grunt saw it coming.

Grunt believed.

He dug his hind feet through the cheap straw bedding and into the dirt below, and he bolted from the stall in the only direction he could.

"Idiot!" the man exclaimed, high alarm building in his voice. "Whoa, whoa!"

He was a big man; Arlen looked out the stall to find him standing with his arms outstretched, enough to intimidate poor agreeable Grunt to a dancing halt.

Couldn't have that.

Don't try to think. 

Do.

Arlen grabbed up the bucket, rolled it under Grunt's jigging feet, and charged down the aisle with a whoop, swinging the lead rope fast enough to make it sing through the air.

Grunt danced insanely atop the bucket for the merest instant before he broke, trampling over the man who would kill Arlen and leaving in his wake first a heartfelt curse of alarm and then involuntary cries of pain. As Arlen had long suspected, Grunt was not one of those nimble creatures who might have successfully avoided soft squishy things underfoot in tight spaces.

The liverykeep came charging out of the feed room, a metal scoop in one hand, a bucket in the other. "What the rootin'—" she started, but then words apparently failed her.

Words were failing Arlen, too, who had just enough presence of mind to note that Grunt had well and truly stopped at the other end of the stall row and that perhaps whoever had prepared the vial had overestimated Arlen's weight. Or had known his weight . . . but not the fact that he'd lost some of it while traveling. He swayed over the man, he with the unfortunate iron-shod hoofprint in the middle of his bleeding face, and said with much import, "He tried to take my horse."

"Guides damn him," the woman said, irritated, nudging the man's foot with her own and not even eliciting a groan. "Another one to haul to the poor-healers." She gave Arlen a narrow-eyed look. "You don't look so good. You got a problem, get to the healers before I have to drag you, too."

"Drugged me," Arlen announced importantly. "So I'd be too stupid to stop him. Ha. Too stupid not to . . ."

She waved irritably at him. "Then get to the road inn and sleep it off. I'll deal with the horse. Stupid fool." This to the badly injured man on the muddy, mucky floor. "I'm going to have to install a friend-foe detector with that new SpellForge perma-feature. Damned if that won't cost me some shine. Hey—you hear me? Get yourself to that road inn or—"

Arlen smiled, most beatifically, as the world spun a long, slow circle around him. Not at all alarming. That, too, had to be . . . the . . . "Too late," he told her, and slowly deflated into a remarkably boneless heap, his last thought that of what it would be like to be dragged all the way to the road inn.

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Framed

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Chapter 17

Mark took them into Marion, an experience which delighted Suliya and made Dayna feel just plain strange. Looking at the small-town streets with their flat, midwestern flavor—carrying just a little more traffic than they'd been made for, offering a little less parking than needed—she felt like she'd been gone a lifetime. And oddly . . . like she'd never been gone at all.

They drove down Center Street, under a banner advertising the annual popcorn festival—"Popcorn," Suliya asked, "what's that?"—and past the imposing stone edifice of the courthouse, then city hall and the theater—right through town and almost out the other side, beyond the railroad tracks. Mark turned the truck down an alley with only inches to spare beyond the side-view mirrors, and just as Dayna gave him a skeptical look, the alley opened into a back parking area.

"Just happened to find this place?" she asked Mark as he took up most of the parking space with the truck.

He shrugged. "I dated a girl." An instant's unhappiness crossed his face. "She was too . . . interested. Asked too many questions. I think . . . I swear, I think she could tell. About Camolen. Just didn't want to deal with that."

"But you liked her," Suliya said, virtually unfiltered as usual, although in this case not without compassion.

Mark made a face, then nodded. "She works nights . . . she shouldn't be here." He led them between the buildings—just enough room there for a strip of concrete and a handful of struggling weeds; Mark himself had to turn sideways—and to the front entrance, beneath a fancifully lettered sign in purple and gold with the shop name Starland and a smattering of stars in the background.

"Mark . . ." Dayna muttered. Touchy-feely New Age, just what a Camolen wizard needed.

He stopped halfway through the door, leaving Suliya on Dayna's heels, eager to get a look inside. Incense-scented air swirled around them and escaped. "Lighten up. You want spellstones, right? This is your best bet, unless you want to hang around for a mineralogist show. I think there's one in a month or so in Columbus."

"What is this place?" Suliya said. "It looks like the stuff for magic shows. Not real magic, but those bootin' shows where people try to trick you without using it."

Mark gave her a hard look. "That's just the sort of thing you don't want to say once we get in here," he told her. "You'll insult everyone inside, not to mention drawing a lot of attention to yourself."

"Lips stitched," Suliya said cheerfully. She reached over Dayna's shoulder to give Mark a little push. "You'll let the flies in."

Inside, the tiny shop was decorated in the same vein as the sign, with plenty of purple velvet drapings and silken gold cords. Scratched glass display cases held jewelry and stones; a rotating rack offered card-mounted runes. Suliya went straight to the clothes lining the back wall—tie-dyed and batik and embroidered, all pretty much straight out of the seventies. Dayna dodged a small round table with a simple black cloth covering; a neatly stacked deck of tarot cards sat just off-center, wrapped in silk.

With a musical jingle, a woman ducked through the curtain of bells that separated the front of the store from the back. "Hi," she said. "Let me know if you have any questions. I won't pester you." She sat on a stool behind the cash register counter and display case, an incongruous sight among the plethora of New Age items in her jeans and plain polo top. After a moment, another woman emerged from the back, a clipboard in hand and much more the image of a proprietess for a shop named Starland. Short hair—short to the point of a crew cut, were it not for the longer fringes around her face and neck—jangling earings, and a filmy black top over a long purple skirt.

"Mark," she said, surprised.

"Hey, Rita," he responded, easily enough so Dayna figured this wasn't, in fact, the woman he'd dated. "Brought some out-of-town friends in. Dayna needs some stuff for a project."

"Stones," Dayna said. "Hard ones. Maybe some crystals . . . depends what you've got."

"I'll show you," the jeans-clad woman said, sliding off the stool and weaving expertly through several tight displays to reach the customer side of the counter. "We've got some token stuff up front here, but the best selection is in the back."

Suliya, having rejected all the clothing besides the black baby-doll T-shirt she clutched, turned sideways to nudge past them in the opposite direction. "Look," she said to Mark, displaying the shirt. "A horse—with a horn."

Dayna sighed. And then her gaze fell upon the display case in the back corner, nearly behind the clothes, and she felt a greedy delight. In the background, the woman Rita rang up Suliya's purchase, her voice a little too casual as she said, "From where did you say you were visiting?"

"She didn't," Mark broke in, firmly.

"Maybe you'd like a free reading? As one of Mark's friends—"

"Nosy, Rita," Mark said, a tone of voice that told Dayna he really did know this woman . . . and also that he believed she was capable of discerning more than most. That she wanted to. Dayna looked over her shoulder, annoyed; he should have known better than to let Suliya come, if that were the case.

Clearly he was operating in pure Mark Mode . . . too laid back to notice things that really did matter.

Lighten up, Dayna. Mark's imagined voice in her head, his knee-jerk response to her need to control all the details. Of everything. Maybe this time he was right.

And meanwhile Suliya all but jumped up and down and clapped her hands. "Oh, yes!" she said. For a rich girl, sometimes she seemed astonishingly naive. Even Dayna had to hide a smile when Suliya added, "A reading of what?" in that same eager voice; the woman who'd shown her the stones didn't bother to hide her own amusement.

Dayna turned to the stones. Cut crystals, polished ovals . . . minerals and gems and a few that looked purely artificial. Satisfaction. It might take some hunting, the stones might not be quite right, but she'd find what she needed here. She hunted for the first pick, pushing her forefinger through the stones; touching them. Trying to get a feel for them, as she'd be able to do on Camolen and finding the power so faint she couldn't be sure.

Dayna couldn't help herself—looking at the plethora of stones before her, feeling her own spellstones in the pocket of her jeans . . . and wondering. A test, just a small test, just to see if it was worth buying the stones at all.

Saddened, Jess left Ramble with another apple and a few slices of melon; like her, he preferred many small meals instead of fewer large ones. And saddened, she almost missed the fact that there was a new message on the white board, even though they'd taken to leaving the pantry door open as they waited for Jaime's delayed reply.

Like the last, this one was full of what Dayna had eventually termed "static"; like the last, it was terse and to the point, even with the requested repetition. Ha- visitors -ooking fo- Arlen b-cause of world-tra—l s-ell detectio-. Now think t-ey follo— -ou. B- c-reful. 

Staticky, but not unreadable. Had visitors looking for Arlen because of world-travel spell detection. That made more sense than the first time, then . . . very few people knew Dayna was willing to attempt magic of that complexity, or that because of her ability to mix raw magic and conventional magic, she could actually accomplish such spells.

Now think they followed you. Be careful.

She had to blink at that. Followed them? Why?

To stop us. Of course. But how could anyone understand enough of their goals here to want to stop them? And who would want to in the first place?

She couldn't think it through, not with the unhappy taste of Ramble's reaction clogging her mind.

Dayna was gone, in town with Mark and Suliya; Jess had come in earlier to get Ramble's apple as they were preparing to leave. Carey had been asleep then—unused to the medicine Mark had given him, although Mark assured them it was commonly used and quite safe, this ibuprofen—and as far as she knew, he hadn't yet woken. She brushed hay and wood shavings off her clothes while she was still in the kitchen, and went to find him.

Yes, still asleep. On a bed for which Mark had apologized; all of the farmhouse's extra beds were narrow single-person beds, even the one that was Jaime's own. It didn't matter to Jess; hers was in the same room with Carey and she slept in either.

Now she watched him a moment, his back to her, crowded up against the wall as if it was all that kept him from tipping over. Even in his sleep he favored his sore leg, keeping it gingerly bent. Although the spring day was warm enough to keep Jess in a T-shirt, he'd drawn the worn navy bedspread over his arms, rumpling the covers into an impossible mess.

Jess eased into the bed, stretching out behind him, doing her best not to disturb him. Just considering him. Watching him, reaching out to touch his hair only when the urge became irresistible.

It woke him, but just barely. "It's me," she said, close enough to his ear to use the barest of murmurs. "I'm thinking."

"Is everything—"

"Fine." And it was, for the moment. Long enough for her to watch him and touch him and consider . . . things. His hair was so unlike hers, so fine in comparison—if not nearly as fine as Jaime's or Dayna's. Blond, but nothing like the palomino's . . . darkest gold, almost brown near the roots and the nape of his neck where he had it cut short. Mixed strands of ashy browns and deep blond on top, where he'd let it grow longer and the forelock often fell over his brow. Very human, all in all. "I need to think."

"And it helps to do that to me?" He was awake enough to put humor in his voice, and she knew exactly what she was doing to him, although for once that was not her intent.

"Yes," she said. "To be with you."

He gave her a wordless grumble and fell silent; she thought he dozed, though sometimes he leaned into her hand.

Very human. And he loved her. She had no doubt of it . . . day in and day out, just like any two humans. She sometimes caught him just looking at her . . . smiling. Or he touched her arm in the middle of a conversation about something else altogether, or ran his hand down her back, just the way she now traced a finger down his shoulder, found a knot of tension, and gently worked it out.

He loved her.

But there were things he hadn't faced, hadn't accepted. If he were truly at ease with the Lady part of her, he wouldn't avoid riding her. And he hadn't—not since he'd known her as Jess. He'd even changed the subject when she mentioned it.

Of late, she was beginning to believe he couldn't reconcile the fact that he felt one way about humans and another about horses. She wasn't even sure it was so wrong, intellectually . . . but it hurt her nonetheless. And now, when she saw what he'd been willing to do to Ramble—for nothing—it bothered her all the more.

He rolled back, half trapping her, and looked over his shoulder. "Jess," he said, half in amusement and half all-serious, "you're killing me."

"I just needed—"

"To think. I know." Still sleepy sounding, his voice laced with affection, he said, "You keep doing that, and I'm going to give you something to think about, all right."

She smiled, but it felt small and sad. She said, "Ramble doesn't know anything. Nothing to help us, I mean." He knew well enough why he'd been brought here, and how useless it had been. "And Jaime thinks someone followed us here."

"Waitaminute, waitaminute." He twisted around in the narrow space she'd left him, ending up propped on one elbow and facing her. Carey. So human. So driven . . . but not so driven he no longer failed to understand the consequences.

This time, he'd accepted them for someone else. For Ramble.

He said, "You talked to him? Really talked to him?"

She nodded, watching him, still half lost in her thoughts. His was a face that could have come from a horse. Not a rough-edged Ramble type of horse, but something finely bred. Although he had not quite the nose for it; not enough expression in his nostrils, and too much in his forehead. She reached to smooth one of the lines she'd just created there, and he gently but firmly caught her hand.

"Why didn't you wait? What did he say? What exactly did he say?"

Best not to answer that first question, not when the answer was I needed to protect him from you. "He says a man was there. He only saw a little. And he felt magic from the man. Then he ran. That's all."

"That's something," Carey said . . . but he frowned.

Jess sank back down on the bed, looking up at him. "Not new. Not if you believed Dayna. She felt the magic . . . that means someone had to have been there. We knew. We didn't have to bring Ramble here."

Gently—more gently than she wanted, she could tell that by his preoccupied frown—he said, "We couldn't know without trying." He ran a hand over his face, still looking tired, and absently rotated the shoulder on which he wasn't leaning. "That can't be everything. He'll remember more, if we keep asking—"

"No," Jess said flatly. It was, she realized from the surprise on his face, a command. "He has said what he knows."

"Jess—"

She sat up suddenly; there wasn't enough room on the bed for both of them that way, so she slid off and stayed kneeling there where he could see her, could understand how serious she was. "No. He won't talk to you . . . he understands why he is here and he knows he can tell us nothing of worth. Carey," she said slowly, watching the surprise linger in his eyes, and close enough to mark the mixed brown and green of them, "if you try, I will take him away."

That shocked him; he flinched, though she doubted he knew it. Mingled with the shock was a sudden pain, and the draw of his brow against it.

"Yes," she said softly, and with perfect understanding. "It hurts. I know." She was beginning to think this was what being human was all about. Being capable of hurting the people about whom you cared the most.

He drew a deep breath, pushing himself upright and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, making a half-hearted effort to pat the covers back into place. "All right," he said. "We'll talk about it later."

"We just talked about it." She sat back on her heels, not giving ground. Not this time. She could handle Ramble away from the barn; she was the only one. She had a spellstone to get back home; she would use it.

"And we may well talk about it again!" His voice rose, came out nearly as a shout, not a tone he'd ever used with her before.

She looked steadily back at him.

He threw his hands up. "We've got enough to deal with right now without getting stuck on this, all right? What about this message from Jaime?"

She frowned at him, not satisfied with the way he'd left things about Ramble . . . but realized she'd pushed hard, decided to give him the time to deal with it. "I left it on the board."

He didn't hesitate. He got to his feet and headed out the door. Jess followed more slowly, and found him contemplating Jaime's poorly transported words, frowning. As she came up beside him he shook his head. "Damn, I wish we could talk to her."

"Someone wants to stop us," Jess said. "I don't know why. You and Dayna did this to help."

He gave her a wry look, his mouth twisted in a self-deprecating way. "Even if you think we're wrong."

"I think you're wrong," Jess said readily. "But I know you did it to try to help."

"For someone to want to stop us, they'd have to know what we were doing. Or think they knew." Carey shook his head again. "I can't put it together. Let's leave it here, see if the others have any glowbursts about it." He gave a sudden glance around the kitchen, the worn honey-pine cabinets and table and its markedly empty silence. No television in the background, no leftover snacks on the kitchen counter. "This isn't a good time to be separated. If someone's here and they came prepared, they could have finder spellstones."

"Mark took Dayna to look for spellstones," Jess told him. "Empty ones, for Dayna. She found out magic doesn't work from scratch here. She said something about doubling spellstones."

Carey winced.

"Is that bad?" Jess asked.

He said, "Not if it works."

Payys. Another small town, barely big enough for the livery. Arlen gave a sigh of relief as he spotted its sign, and then another when the woman wielding a stall fork was amiably willing to take on Grunt for the night.

The smaller towns. They were used to being bypassed by the rest of Camolen . . . and therefore much less disturbed by the disruptions that had everyone else scrambling to maintain themselves, running short on supplies anyway, and in general not behaving as the civilized folk of Camolen ought to. Not that life in the small towns seemed normal—people were worried, and conveniences had been unsettled. But for all of that, they seemed to go on with day-to-day life, wary and waiting for someone to tell them what was going on.

No one ever mentioned the kind of destruction Arlen had seen on the road . . . and seen again this very day, the smallest patch of oddness just off the road. He'd spent some time studying it, but when he'd given it a subtle prod of magic—just a dollop, not directed toward any kind of spell—it twisted itself inside out, doubled while he blinked, and drove him to retreat.

At least it had given him something to think about until the next time he found one—and he had no doubt that he would.

"Wantin' grain for the horse?" the woman said, barely pausing in her work with the fork. "I'm about to start feeding, but yours ought not get any for a while . . . I'll put it in a bucket here if you want, and start him on some hay."

"I'd be grateful," Arlen said, unloading the pack sacks and stripping the saddle from the gelding's back, letting the blanket sit there a while longer while the animal cooled.

Carey would be surprised at how much he'd learned about horses.

"Damn well better have the chance to tell him," Arlen muttered, earning a glance from the woman as she shoved her full wheelbarrow down the puddled, dirt-packed lane in front of the stall row. He gave her an embarrassed shrug and lugged his gear to the empty stall she'd pointed out to him. Grunt needed grooming, and then he'd need his grain—but Arlen wanted nothing more than to sit numbly and not move, here in his ugly-clothes persona and his upper lip that so keenly felt the cold . . . even his nose seemed colder without the mustache. Just sit and . . . sit. Exhausted in body and mind.

He found a wooden feed bucket with a broken handle, flipped it over, and plunked his cold posterior upon it. Just to sit.

And, he thought suddenly, to hunt for Jaime. He'd never reached for her at this time of day . . . always at night, when he was tired and presumably so was she. Elbows on knees, face in hands, he went looking. So easy, after all these nights, to fall right into it . . . Jaime, I'm here. I'm alive. I'm coming. Over and over again, never expecting an answer from someone with so little ability with magic, but hoping at least to feel the connection. Jaime, I'm here. I'm alive. I— 

He startled at the suddenness of it. The brief clarity of Jaime, the shock of contact—

A voice of satisfaction, far too close to his ear. "Been looking for you, wizard. Should have kept your magic to yourself."

Jaime lifted her head from the message she penned to Chesba, gratitude for his cooperation and quick reply in confirming that the two representatives who had visited her were none of his, after all. On the stack of outgoing messages beside her elbow was another to the local peacekeeper station, asking about the two. But her pen—a nib pen, beautifully appointed and fit to the human hand, but a nib pen nonetheless—dripped a large blot of ink on the message, unheeded. The evening ague? Now? Now? It nibbled at her, swelling; she closed her eyes against it, unprepared.

But as it swelled, heading for unbearable—not pain so much as pressure—it popped, clearing for an instant of—

"Arlen?" she whispered.

Arlen jumped to his feet, stumbled over the bucket, and ended up standing there with it in his hand, feeling foolish on all counts. Should have kept the magic to yourself, wizard.

Even, apparently, the small spells. Spells that should have disappeared under the weight of daily magic use in Camolen without the application of intense scrutiny.

I've been looking for you.

Arlen eyed the man, found him far too close for comfort. Not a wizard—muscle. Hulking and obvious muscle, with shoulders that took a coat twice as wide as Arlen's and still it didn't close properly. He'd be highly protected from personal damage spells, then. No easy inertia spells, no spells that acted directly against him at all. And he'd be fast—at this distance, faster than a complicated spell. Faster than almost any spell, if the man was trained to the signs of a wizard's concentration.

Arlen would bet this particular man was trained in any number of things . . . none of them pleasant. "You must have been looking for some time, then," he said. You must have known to look in the first place. "The Council deaths were no accident. You had someone there. You knew I was still alive." He cocked his head, still thinking like a wizard going after puzzles. "Who are you with? What's this all about?"

"I don't think you need to know that."

Damn. Not an obliging villain, then. Not someone with an ego who could be prodded into verbosity. Someone with a job . . . who intended to do it.

"Get your horse," the man said, looking every bit like he was capable of doing this particular job. His flat nose attested to his experience; Arlen imagined he'd find scarred knuckles beneath the man's worn black leather gloves. The knuckles of those gloves were thickened, weighted. "You're about to have an accident on the road."

Arlen gave him a disbelieving stare. "You're not serious."

The man couldn't be. One more step toward Grunt and he'd be out of reach, and out of reach was far enough to accomplish whatever spell he wanted.

The man raised a finger as if in sudden discovery and, using a voice that let Arlen know he'd been played with, said, "Ay, right." He held out his hand, opened it . . . within his meaty palm lay a small vial. "Drink this first."

Arlen gave the vial a dubious look.

"I can kill you here," the man suggested. "I don't want to . . . the manure heap behind this place isn't big enough to hide a body. If you drink it, then you can delude yourself into believing you've bought yourself enough time to escape me somehow."

That made a certain amount of uncomfortable sense. "No doubt it's one of those mind-muddling doses meant to keep me from working magic."

"No doubt it's spelled to take effect immediately, too. Now take it, before I get bored and that manure heap starts looking bigger."

I am, Arlen thought, more than my magic. 

At least, he hoped he was.

Cautiously, he held his hand out; the man tipped the vial into it. Arlen thumbed off the cap and poured the thick, honey-colored liquid onto his tongue. It tasted of honey as well . . . and by the time he'd swallowed, he felt his ability to concentrate fly away like so many bees. He gave the vial a respectful glance—what he suspected looked like a stupidly vapid respectful glance—and inanely returned it to the man.

"Now get your horse. Bring him here and saddle him." The man crossed his arms and spoke as though to a particularly dim three-year-old.

Arlen couldn't blame him. A dim three-year-old probably had quite an edge over him at the moment.

But physically, he was fine. No stumbling; no staggering. Nothing to draw anyone's attention. Run? He was headed in the right direction . . . away . . . 

He thought the man could probably run just as well. Probably better. And that he'd only continue to follow Arlen.

"Get the horse," the man reminded him, patiently enough.

Arlen discovered he'd stopped halfway there. "Sorry," he mumbled without thinking.

Make that a dim two-year-old.

So stop trying to think. 

Do.

He reached Grunt's stall, only a few doors down the equipment-littered aisle. Grunt gave him an eager greeting, stretching his coarse, winter-whiskered head over the door—no stall bars for this small establishment, although the stall sidewalls went to the low, slanting ceiling—in obvious expectation. Puzzled, Arlen followed the horse's gaze.

The bucket. He still had the bucket, hanging limply from his grasp. Most carefully, he set it down beside the stall and reached for Grunt's halter and lead rope.

Grunt gave him a look of utter disbelief and fled to the back of the stall.

"Grunt," Arlen said in disappointment. "It's not a very big stall. Even I can see the inevitable outcome here, and I can't put two thoughts together." He opened the stall door; it swung out, effectively blocking the aisle leading outside and to escape. No, no running. But when he went into the stall after Grunt, he looked again at the blocked aisle, and several thoughts tried very hard to rub together and come up with an idea.

Stop trying to think. 

Do.

Arlen whirled the end of the lead rope in a short circle and cracked it sharply against Grunt's haunches. Grunt quivered in astonished offense, not quite believing Arlen meant it.

"Put the halter on him and bring him here," the man said, not quite as patiently, unable to see through the sidewalls.

"Trying," Arlen said, even as he wound up for another smack.

Grunt saw it coming.

Grunt believed.

He dug his hind feet through the cheap straw bedding and into the dirt below, and he bolted from the stall in the only direction he could.

"Idiot!" the man exclaimed, high alarm building in his voice. "Whoa, whoa!"

He was a big man; Arlen looked out the stall to find him standing with his arms outstretched, enough to intimidate poor agreeable Grunt to a dancing halt.

Couldn't have that.

Don't try to think. 

Do.

Arlen grabbed up the bucket, rolled it under Grunt's jigging feet, and charged down the aisle with a whoop, swinging the lead rope fast enough to make it sing through the air.

Grunt danced insanely atop the bucket for the merest instant before he broke, trampling over the man who would kill Arlen and leaving in his wake first a heartfelt curse of alarm and then involuntary cries of pain. As Arlen had long suspected, Grunt was not one of those nimble creatures who might have successfully avoided soft squishy things underfoot in tight spaces.

The liverykeep came charging out of the feed room, a metal scoop in one hand, a bucket in the other. "What the rootin'—" she started, but then words apparently failed her.

Words were failing Arlen, too, who had just enough presence of mind to note that Grunt had well and truly stopped at the other end of the stall row and that perhaps whoever had prepared the vial had overestimated Arlen's weight. Or had known his weight . . . but not the fact that he'd lost some of it while traveling. He swayed over the man, he with the unfortunate iron-shod hoofprint in the middle of his bleeding face, and said with much import, "He tried to take my horse."

"Guides damn him," the woman said, irritated, nudging the man's foot with her own and not even eliciting a groan. "Another one to haul to the poor-healers." She gave Arlen a narrow-eyed look. "You don't look so good. You got a problem, get to the healers before I have to drag you, too."

"Drugged me," Arlen announced importantly. "So I'd be too stupid to stop him. Ha. Too stupid not to . . ."

She waved irritably at him. "Then get to the road inn and sleep it off. I'll deal with the horse. Stupid fool." This to the badly injured man on the muddy, mucky floor. "I'm going to have to install a friend-foe detector with that new SpellForge perma-feature. Damned if that won't cost me some shine. Hey—you hear me? Get yourself to that road inn or—"

Arlen smiled, most beatifically, as the world spun a long, slow circle around him. Not at all alarming. That, too, had to be . . . the . . . "Too late," he told her, and slowly deflated into a remarkably boneless heap, his last thought that of what it would be like to be dragged all the way to the road inn.

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