Magic Steps

"She knows my name!" Pasco whispered as he followed her.

The practice room was large and bare, paneled in golden wood and lit by large windows. The shutters were open, admitting a breeze. Benches were arranged around the walls. Sandry took a seat on one. Oama sat cross-legged on the floor beside her, while Kwaben leaned against the wall. Yazmнn was giving instructions to three young people. When she finished, they nodded and trotted out. The flute player who had been in the corner went with them.

"Sit," Yazmнn ordered Pasco. She pointed to the floor. Pasco obeyed. "Spread your legs as wide as you can. Wider. Here." She sat opposite him and stretched her own legs out until the balls of her feet pressed against the insides of Pasco's legs just above his knees. "Give me your hands," she ordered; Pasco did. She clasped him by the wrists and pulled him steadily forward, forcing his legs open wider. Finally he yelped. "Oh, you baby," chided Yazmнn. "Look at you, not even a decent spread, and you're whimpering. Now hold that position."

"I think I'm stuck in it," Pasco squeaked as Yazmнn eased back from him.

"Soon you'll be able to do this," she said, and swept her legs out farther still, until they formed a straight line with her body.

Pasco gulped.

Sandry heard a smothered noise from Oama, and looked down at her. The guard was chuckling.

"You'll also learn to do this." Keeping her legs apart, Yazmнn lowered her body until she was facedown on the floor, her arms extended before her. "Now you try."

Pasco leaned forward gingerly, stretching out his arms. He rested his elbows on the floor.

Yazmнn stood. She walked around behind Pasco. "Does that hurt?"

He shook his head.

"Well, it should," she informed him, and thrust down on his back with her palms. Pasco dipped several inches closer to the floor with a whimper. Without taking the pressure from his back, Yazmнn leaned down and yelled, "You want to dance? Work for it!" She took her hands away. "Sit up." He obeyed. She thrust him down again. "Dip. Sit up. Dip. Admire the sanding we did on this floor. It's splinter-free. Nice wood grain, don't you think? Sit up. Dip. I want you doing these exercises at home. If you don't, believe me, I'll know. That's enough for now—ten of these stretches at night. Get up."

Pasco winced as he pulled his legs together. "That hurt!”

"Good," Yazmнn said heartlessly. "Stand up. Touch your toes—don't bend your knees. Touch 'em, boy!"

She worked him for an hour, forcing him to bend his body in a number of painful ways. When a girl in pink ran in demanding that Yazmнn come to settle an argument, Yazmнn gave Pasco a corked flask and a drying cloth. "Breathe," she ordered, and left with the girl.

Pasco staggered over to Sandry. "She's a monster," he gasped. He worked the cork out of the flask and drank greedily. "A pretty, tiny, squeaky-voiced monster with muscles like a smith's."

Yazmнn soon returned, a fiddler in tow. "Now, let's see you dance," she told Pasco. He glared at her, then lurched to the center of the floor.

Sandry got up. "Wait," she said. "Any dancing, he's got to be warded. We don't want what he does getting loose." She sent Kwaben and Oama to watch the door as the fiddler sat in the corner. Sandry created a circle big enough that Pasco and Yazmнn could stay inside without having to worry about breaking the protection on the room.

For the next hour they reviewed common dances, ones Sandry had watched all her life without knowing that they had names or meanings. One dance was called "Dodging the Provost," another, "Bird in the Hand," a third, "Gathering Flowers." In that one the dancer skipped in a ring, plucking imaginary flowers from the air. Sandry thought Pasco might use that gesture to pull his runaway power back into himself. She wrote the idea down in the small book she now carried for just such thoughts.

While the boy danced, Yazmнn had her eye on him, as well as her hands. She hovered, straightening his back, forcing an arm into a more graceful curve, putting more thrust into his spins. "Get your feet up!" she yelled. "It's a skip, not a shuffle. Show me air under your toes!"

When the Guildhall clock struck the noon hour, Yazmнn called a halt. Pasco's hair and shirt were soaked in sweat. “I've never worked so hard in my life."

"That's what being a dancer is." Yazmin's dark eyes were kind and firm. "For you it's twice a problem. It isn't just what you do to survive, it's your power. And look at you. You're a fresh youngster, not an old lady like me, but—," She twirled seven times on the ball of one foot, lowered herself into a split, then raised herself again without once bending her knees. She leaned back until she could put her weight on her palms, raised her body into a handstand, then a split, then let her weight fall until she stood again. "I can do all that," she continued, breathing a little hard, "after chasing my lot all morning and getting you to stretch a bit."

Sandry took up her warding, trying not to smile. It really was too bad Yazmнn wasn't a mage. If she had been, Sandry would have turned Pasco over to her without a qualm.

She was just putting her thread away when the lad Wamuko appeared in the door: he seemed to be the school herald. "His grace Duke Vedris," he a

Sandry gri

Yazmнn smiled at him. "If I may have a few minutes to change out of these things, your grace?"

He bowed again. "Please, take all the time you need."

Yazmнn looked at Pasco, then at Sandry. "This meditation study you do before you come to me—if you like, I can save a room for you. That way you don't have to meet someplace, have one lesson, and then come here."

Sandry looked at Pasco. "What do you think?"

"Whatever you say, lady," Pasco replied, subdued.

"Then get here at nine tomorrow. We'll meditate before your dance lesson," Sandry ordered. As Yazmнn and the fiddler left, Sandry added, "Remember to do those exercises tonight, before you get too stiff."

"I'm not stiff at all, lady," Pasco replied. "I'm weak as an overcooked noodle. Pray excuse me while I crawl home."

"A hot bath will help," Sandry pointed out as Pasco bowed first to the duke, then to her.

"Oh, good—a way to drown myself before I have another morning like this one." Pasco lurched out of the classroom.

"A message came for you from Master Wulfric just before I left the Citadel," the duke told Sandry. He gave her a piece of folded paper.

Sandry read it quickly:

Lady Sandrilene, greetings. I have read your note with regard to the unmagic that will be at Jamar Rokat's death scene and that of his brother. I have sent Behazin and Ulrina to cleanse the street where Qasam Rokat was slain, since it is a public place. Keep in mind I ca