Magic Steps

"Whenever that may be," grumbled the baron.

"Uncle?" Sandry asked. She was afraid of what she would hear, but she had to know. "The—the mans head? Fariji Rokat’s?"

The duke knew exactly what she meant. "Fountain Square," he replied quietly. “It was left on top of the memorial sundial."

The healer examined Alzena's wound carefully, her watery eyes nervous. "Very clean," she said, drawing vials from her bag. "No splinters, any dirt washed out by blood. No sense taking a chance, of course."

She drew the cork from a thin glass vial and tapped a measure of powder first onto the wound in the left side of Alzena's calf, then the right. The powder foamed and hissed as Alzena's head jerked. She bit down hard on the leather strap in her mouth, smothering a scream.

"Well, that will do its work." The healer took a roll of linen from her kit and began to wrap Alzena's calf, keeping a watchful eye on Nurhar. She could not see the mage, hidden by his spells in the corner, but something was making her nervous. "All done," said the healer, tying the bandage off. "Give the medicine five days, then remove the bandage. I'll have my fee now—three gold majas, you promised."

Alzena clenched her hands in the bedclothes. The woman knew they were illegal, and had demanded a price to match it.

Nurhar tapped Alzenas shoulder. "Is it well?" he asked. He could be asking about her leg, though he was not. She gave her head a tiny shake, and tugged the leather moneybag from her pocket. Her sword lay just under the blanket at her side like a promise.

Nurhar upended the bag in the healer's palm and fifteen gold astrels dropped out. "Count it," he advised. "You brought someone as guard?" The healer nodded. "There's a gold astrel in it for the guard if you can help us to Fortunate Wharf."

"Call him up. The man in green with the red cap," said the healer, too intent on the gold in her hand to use common sense.

Nurhar summoned him. The man hesitated at the doorstep, but entered when he saw Alzena facedown on the bed, the healer counting a heap of gold coins, and the gold coin that Nurhar offered him.

Nurhar was fast, nearly as fast as Alzena. The guard was dead in the moment between the closing of the door and his taking the coin. The healer started to turn when she heard him drop. Alzena flung the blanket aside as she rolled, brought out her sword, and beheaded the woman. She felt nothing but mild disgust now they would have to wash the coins.

"Get rid of them," Nurhar told the mage, who came out of the shelter of his spells. "Someplace where they won't be found."

"Salt," whispered the mage. His olive skin was ashen; he trembled. "I need a dose. My head's all woozy."

"Get rid of them"

ordered Nurhar. He went to sit by Alzena as the mage began to chant.

"Boots," whispered Alzena. The pain in her leg was fading. The healer's powder was doing its work. Her groping hand found one boot: she tugged it onto her good leg.

Nurhar reached for the other and dragged it to him. "What's this?" he asked, frowning. A dark stain ran down the leather into the crack where sole met upper. He glanced at Alzena, at her bootless foot. "Not blood?" he whispered. "You bled outside your boot?"

"So?" she demanded.

"So?"

he cried, lurching to his feet. "Have you lost your mind? You left blood somewhere! They'll track us!"

Somehow it hadn't seemed important. It still didn't. "They have to find it first," she said, yanking the boot on.

The air in the room flexed, making her stomach lurch. They looked at the bodies, to find them gone. Only the blood of their victims remained, and the gold. "You have to get us out of here," Nurhar told the mage, sweat gleaming on his forehead. "She left tracks in her own blood for the harriers to find."

"If they find them," Alzena murmured.

"You promised salt," whispered the mage. He turned his gaze on Alzena. When had all the white vanished from his eyes? Now it was like staring into two vast pits. She turned dizzy, as if she might fall, when she met his gaze. Slowly she turned her head away.

"You'll have a dose when we get somewhere else, mage," Nurhar barked. He frantically stuffed their belongings into packs.

"I don't know the town," the mage objected. "I don't know what's safe. I've only been to a few places, and I need salt.

Alzena reached into a pocket and produced a tiny silk bag. She waved it, letting the drug's pungent scent drift into his nose. "There's a safe place," she told him. "And you get this the moment you take us there, I swear on my family's honor."

The mage licked his lips, "Tell me," he whispered. Alzena did.

Nurhar gave the packs to her, and hoisted the carry-frame on one shoulder. He dumped the contents of two oil lamps on the bed and struck a spark with flint and steel. The oil caught, and, started to burn. "Now," he said, coming to stand beside the mage.

In her dream she was back at the corner of Tapestry Lane and Silver Street. The pool of unmagic—But we gathered it all, didn't we? her dreaming mind wondered—had grown, spilling into the lane. She needed to soak it up…

She tripped. Down she fell, into that pool of nothing ness. When she struggled to her feet, the dark stuff clung to her.

The pool was far deeper than she remembered, up to her waist. She fought, trying to wade out, but in this dream the shadowy mess was thick and gooey, like syrup. It embraced her, pulling her back into its depths.

She flailed and sank. It rose to chest level—no, to her neck—no, her chin. Her fight to keep her head up seemed to go on forever, until weariness made her body ache. Suddenly Uncle was at the pools edge. He waded knee-deep into the unmagic, straining to reach her. She opened her mouth to warn him, and the nothingness flooded over her tongue; it poured down her throat. Sandry gasped and choked. She couldn't breathe. Unmagic flooded her nose. She gagged, and felt it roll into her lungs…

Sandry woke. The nothingness loomed on every side to swallow her bed.

She seized her crystal night lamp from the table, holding it against her chest as she panted. The light turned shadows into bed curtains. The dark at the foot of her bed was the coverlet, turned back for this warm Barley-month night. Her hands and nightgown showed pale, not dark. Sandry bowed her head over her lamp and waited for her nerves to calm.

When she felt more in control of herself, she got out of bed. Her small treasure chest was on a table by the window. She padded over to it, silently undoing the magic that locked it.

The item she sought lay at the bottom of the chest, under some ribbons, a few seashells, and what jewelry she kept with her. To most eyes the thing she lifted out of the box was only a circle of thread with four lumps spaced equally apart. To those who could see magic, the circle blazed with power, each lump showing a different color for each of four friends. To anyone who knew the laws of magic, it represented an achievement so great that it was already legend. Trapped underground with her friends during an earthquake, knowing they would die unless they could be made stronger together than they were singly, Sandry had taken their magics and spun them into one. This thread circle was the result of that, and the symbol of friends who were closer than family.

I wish you were here, she thought passionately, touching the lumps that represented Briar, Daja, and Tris. In those hard rounds of thread she could feel their powerful spirits. If we were together, we could stop these monsters. Instead it's just me, and I can't even talk to you. However am I going to deal with this unmagic?

She put the circle away and redid her locking spells. I don't have to manage the unmagic, she told herself firmly, settling into the window seat. The provosts mages will do that. All I have to do is teach a silly boy to keep a thought in his head longer than a sneeze.