Magic Steps

Sandry curtsied to the man Zahra had called "Gran'ther." "Actually, I'm honored to be the mage who discovered Pasco's talent," she remarked solemnly. "Not everyone gets to find unusual magics." Perhaps a white lie on her part would make Pasco feel better, and get his family to think of this as an opportunity, not an embarrassment. "I look forward to being his teacher."

"Teacher!" barked the old man. "Since when does the nobility teach?"

"My lady, this is my husband's father, Edoar Acalon," Zahra said quietly. "He is the head of our house."

Sandry walked over to the three who hung in the air. Halting beside the old man she answered him. "Since she is the mage who discovered his talent, and there no dance-mages at Winding Circle."

With a nod, she turned her back on Edoar Acalon, making it impossible for him to argue with her. Focusing on the captives, Sandry walked around them, thinking hard.

"I don't think I've seen anything like this before," she remarked slowly. She had Pasco's measure by now. He was capable of forgetting his scare the moment his cousins were earthbound again. She had to reinforce his fright, or he would be skipping lessons before she could say "Duke's Citadel." "None of us ever hung anyone in midair."

Pasco gulped, she could hear him. "You can't fix it?" he cried. "But you have to! I don't know how to get them down!"

She wanted to take pity on him, but something warned her not to let him relax just yet. It's not what I would have chosen for his first lesson, she admitted to herself, but it's what we have—and maybe it'll stick longer this way

Sandry shook out her skirts, letting Pasco stew a little more. His mother Zahra stood at parade rest, her eyes never leaving Sandry's face, while the old man leaned on his cane.

"If you didn't know how to get them down, you shouldn't have put them, up there," Sandry remarked at last.

"It was an accident!" cried Pasco. "I told you how it happened!"

"It's all right if you don't know you're a mage," a girl pointed out.

"Don't help, Reha," muttered Pasco.

"But he does know," replied Zahra woodenly. "Lady Sandrilene told him. He was supposed to tell us, and take lessons with her."

"Of course he knew," Sandry added, her voice cool. "You had to dance, didn't you? You had to think of a tune and hum."

"I want him arrested!" cried Vani, pointing at Pasco. "He knows magic and he did it to me, and that's against the law! I want him harried!"

"You will be silent, Vanido Acalon." Gran'ther Edoar's voice was splinters of ice. "You have said more than enough today."

"Please get them down," Pasco begged Sandry. "I'll do whatever you say. I'll take lessons, whatever you want. Please"

Sandry looked at Zahra. "Have you a private room we can use?" she asked.

The woman nodded, and led them back into the house. Sandry followed, towing Pasco. When Zahra showed them into a small chamber just off the gallery, Sandry thanked her and closed the door.

"Sit," she ordered Pasco. "Take some deep breaths. It's just you and me here. Calm down."

Pasco nodded and sat on the floor, inhaling and exhaling loudly. Sandry looked around. From the scent of Incense and the statues of gods in wall-niches, she guessed they were in the family chapel. She recognized most of the gods: Larks own patroness, Mila of the Grain, the earth goddess, and her consort the Green Man; Ya

"That's Harrier the Clawed," Pasco informed her. His voice was steadier. "The god of provosts, guards, and thief-takers. He takes apart secrets and puts them away against the starving time. There're shrines to him in every coop—every guardhouse. And here."

Sandry turned to look at Pasco. "First things first," she said. "You need to learn to meditate. Or at least, you need to be able to clear your mind if you're handling magic. Now's as good a time as any to start."

"But Vani and them," he objected.

"They've been up this long, a bit longer won't hurt," Sandry replied firmly.

Pasco rubbed his face with hands that trembled. "Why did this happen?" he whispered. "All I want is to dance. Not to be a mage, no, nor a harrier neither. Just a dancer. Now I can't even do that without something going awry."

"The quicker you learn to control your magic, the sooner you can dance and not worry," she pointed out. "So calm down, and we'll start." He swallowed hard and nodded, looking at his hands.

She was about to teach him the proper way to breathe when she realized that she had almost forgotten some thing very important. "I need to ward us," she said tersely, silently cursing herself. How could she not remember that meditation with an untrained mage would cause his magic to spill all over? Her teachers had been careful to ward her and her friends when they first began their studies.

She dragged her red thread from her belt purse. I'm not ready to teach anyone, she thought as she pulled away the loose end. What else am I going to forget?

"What's a ward?" asked the boy.

"It's like a fence that keeps magic in. Or other things out if that's what you set your wards against. Now hush." thrust her irritation with herself out of her mind and began to lay her thread down in a circle that would enclose both her and Pasco. Once it was complete and she had stepped inside, it took but a touch of power to break the thread from the spool, then join the ends to close her circle. Shutting her eyes, she raised her power until it formed a bowl that enclosed them completely.

Once that was done, she settled on the floor next to Pasco, arranging her skirts. "Until you control your power, meditation will make it spill all over," she told him. "Don't meditate without an older mage present until I say you can."

"Oh, splendid," he grumbled. "Another thing I can't do now without a nursemaid."

Sandry shook her head. If he was in the glooms, nothing she could say would improve his mood. It was better to get on with the lesson.

As if he could hear Sandry's thoughts, the boy gri

Sandry giggled. "Chufflebrain—my friend Briar says that. Now. On to serious matters. Close your eyes, and don't think about anything but what I tell you."

She taught him how to breathe: inhale to a count of seven, hold for a count of seven, exhale to the same count. Getting him to empty his mind was another matter. He shifted on his haunches; his fingers tapped out a drumroll before she stopped him. From the way his eyes shuttled behind his lids, he was thinking of something with movement to it—not what she wanted.

When she sensed that his body at least was more relaxed than it had been when they started, she said, "Now, think a moment. How can you undo what you've done out there?"

He looked at her, startled. "'Undo'? Why—that means doing what I did, only backward."

She smiled at him. "It does, doesn't it?" Reaching over, she touched her thread circle. It broke; she felt the power in her ward draining back into her. A nudge of her finger, and the thread rolled itself up. She then reattached it to the spool in her belt-purse. Glancing up, she saw that Pasco was staring at her. "Surely you knew I was a stitch witch," she remarked, amused by his wondering look.