WinterMaejic Read online

  He stopped speaking and just looked into my eyes. His own eyes had regained some of their brightness, and I fancied that I saw them sparkle in the firelight. Then I realized it was tears.

  Yallick weeping for me? I almost felt like laughing. He liked nothing better than to make me miserable. He taught me many things, that was true, but it wasn’t because it was what he wanted to do. No, he felt under some compulsion, some duty. But as I watched him watching me, I couldn’t deny that he cared. What a strange idea. I tried to reconcile it with the ill-tempered mage who drilled his lessons into me.

  I heard someone enter the cave. Yallick quickly wiped his eyes. I felt the twinge of a smile, the first in forever, it seemed.

  “Someone is coming toward the camp!” Oleeda said.

  Instantly, my heart began to race. They’d found us! They would attack again, and this time, we were all trapped. They would capture Xyla, make her fight in the pits. Everything that had happened would be for nothing, absolutely nothing.

  Yallick stood up. “Who?”

  “The watch is not sure yet. Janel said it looked like just one person. I feel no fear from the forest. Perhaps it is another mage.”

  Yallick nodded. “It could be.” I could see some of the tension in his body relax. So he’d been as frightened as I. “Word does indeed seem to be getting out. More rejoin us every day.”

  Then I heard voices—happy voices—shouting outside the cave. Yallick must be right. It must be one of the missing mages. More people came into the cave. I turned my head slightly to try to see. The excitement in the air was palpable, even to me.

  Yallick’s face lit up in pleasure, and he dashed away from my side.

  “It is you!” he almost shouted. “I had thought you surely lost, man. Not a single bird brought back word of you.”

  “I was not lost, my old friend, only misplaced.” His booming laugh bounced off the cave walls.

  Anazian.

  More mages arrive every day. Perhaps our losses are not so dire as I first believed. As our number increases, so does our power.

  It has been weeks since the last attack. Have we escaped? It is said that no news is good news, and there has been no news. All is quiet for many miles around.

  But I grieve for Donavah. She lingers away. Would death be better than this lethargy that smothers her spirit? I dare not meddle further.

  That night, when everyone was finally asleep, I sat up. My muscles felt like mush. How long had I lain there unmoving? It seemed like it had been only minutes, yet it also seemed like it had been forever.

  Slowly, carefully, so as not to make any noise, I slid my feet to the ground. I tried to stand, but my knees shook and I had to sit back down.

  Closing my eyes, I forced myself to concentrate. I took a few shuddering breaths before my lungs seemed to get used to the idea, then I breathed deeply, trying to draw vitality from the air. After a few moments, my strength seemed to return.

  I rose, and though my movements were awkward from inactivity, it didn’t feel as if I would collapse with the next step.

  Expecting one of the others to wake up at any moment, I crept to the rear of the cave. Since Yallick and Oleeda always went back there to meditate, I hoped to find some meditation candles.

  Sure enough, in the dim light from the fire, I found a large, neat stack of tapers in every color. Concentrating on moving deliberately and quietly, I managed to pick up two candles between my fists, white and turquoise. Then I went outside, where I paused to get my bearings. A full moon shed silver light on the snow-covered ground, broken here and there with tall shrubs and small boulders. Not far away, the woods began in earnest. A faint path of trodden-down snow was the only evidence that humans resided here.

  I took a deep breath of the crisp, fresh air. And that’s when I noticed that I wasn’t cold. Strange, but no time to think about it now. Next to the mouth of the cave was a flat spot, clear of brush and boulders that would suit just fine. I set the candles on the ground and went back inside for more.

  When I got to the back of the cave, Traz stood there, arms crossed and lips pursed. He didn’t say a word, but his annoyance spoke loud enough almost to wake a sleeping dragon.

  I gave him a pleading look that I hoped he could see in the dim light, then moved to the stack of candles and stooped to pick up more. The first one slipped and clattered to the floor, seeming loud in the stillness. I held my breath and looked back toward the place where the others slept. Nothing.

  Traz touched my shoulder and whispered, “Let me help.” Grateful for the offer, I nodded. He picked up as many as he could carry in both hands, and I followed him outside. He shivered in the cold breeze as he set them on the ground next to the others, then he dashed back inside.

  The moonlight was bright enough for me to see clearly, and I was pleased to find that there was at least one candle of every color. I began to arrange them in a circle. I chose the colors randomly, but my movements felt far more sure of themselves than they should have.

  Just as I finished my circle, Traz reappeared and went around the circle and made sure each candle stood perfectly upright, packing its base in snow. When he was done, he lit them for me. The breeze died when he lit the first one.

  He came over to me, stood on tiptoe to give me a quick kiss on the cheek, then went back inside, still shivering from the cold. Which I didn’t feel.

  I stepped into my circle and stood unmoving. Then I closed my eyes tightly and tried to find my calm center. At first it was hard. My mind kept wandering back to what had happened, what Anazian had done to me. Earlier in the evening, when Yallick had brought him to my bedside, he’d said nothing but only looked at me with an unreadable expression on his face. That look had sent chills down my spine and convinced me that I had to take responsibility for my own healing. I tried not to think about how arrogant this was, trying to do something that Yallick and Oleeda together, with all their power, had failed to do. I returned my thoughts to Anazian. He had left me once before to die a horrible death, and although he’d failed, I saw now that he’d done something even worse: he’d turned fear into my way of life.

  Anger flowed through me. I had no idea of his plans, but I was the only one who could stop him.

  And the fear fell from me as I finally, after such a long time, found my calm center. All other thoughts fled, and my mind felt blank. No, not blank, but free.

  I breathed. In, out, in, out. Air, the primary sustenance of life. Cleansing, pure, restorative. Filling not just my lungs, but my entire being.

  I raised my hands over my head and began to turn in place. With my movements, I created rhythm. Or did I move in the rhythm of the air, the forest, the world? I swayed a little, as if using motion to draw power to myself.

  The dance of the universe. Within the bounds of my circle of candlelight, I joined in. A strand of elemental life brushed my cheek, and I brought my hands down to try to capture it.

  A thrill of power, almost but not quite painful, ignited inside my head. It set up a pulse in counterpoint to my movements. I held my breath for a moment but continued to move, allowing the forces at play to establish a new flow within me.

  Then I stopped and stood quite still. Power sparked in the air all around me. I wanted to reach out and pull it into myself, but I couldn’t. I’d been stripped of my maejic. No! I cut off that line of thought. I must simply imagine I could make the maejic work.

  In my mind’s eye, I wove strands of power into a rope, a lifeline. I allowed myself to sink deep into an unreal world where my hands and voice were again at my command. Where fear held no sway over me. And where my life was my own to live as I chose.

  The stars began to sing, and I stretched my hands out to catch the music on my fingertips. The melody coursed through my blood. I sang in harmony.

  “You don’t really think it’s that easy, do
you?” The spell broke as Anazian laughed at me.

  I fell to the ground in a heap to find that the candles had burned down to nothing more than puddles of colored wax in the snow. Fear blossomed in my heart and stole the air from my lungs. Then I noticed my hands splayed in front of me. Flat, not balled into fists. I sucked in a breath. Pushing myself up, I rose to my feet to face my adversary. I didn’t know how much Yallick had told him, but had to assume it was everything. Very well. Let Anazian think I was still afflicted with his curse.

  I stood within my circle, breathing hard and staring at the mage.

  “Well,” he said, a sneer in his voice. “Finding you here was certainly an unwelcome surprise.” He took several steps closer to me. I willed myself not to back away. “You thought you had so much power. The way you flaunted it made me sick to my stomach. You can’t imagine how much pleasure it brought me to strip you of it. And it was so easy.” He laughed again, loudly. My eyes flicked to the cave opening, willing Yallick, Oleeda, even Traz, to come out.

  Anazian noticed. “Oh, you think that your master will save you this time? Yallick!” he shouted. “Come out and save your weak, little pet.” He looked at the cave and waited. “Oh!” He turned back to me. “Wait. They’re not going to wake any time soon. If at all. No, probably not at all. I’m better than that, you see. Even if I did somehow fail to kill you.”

  He walked around the circle several times. I stared straight ahead and didn’t move. He stopped behind me. “Turn and face me.”

  Instead, I walked out of the circle and into the cave. Yallick, Traz, and Oleeda all lay still on their pallets near the fire. I could scarcely see their chests rising and falling. Anazian was right behind me.

  “I do not like being disobeyed, girl. Perhaps I should teach you a lesson in obedience.” Then his voice took on a gentle tone that was, if anything, even more sinister than his anger. “But I will allow you this sop, to say goodbye to your useless friends.”

  I felt Traz’s face. It was cold, almost as cold as death. And suddenly I felt as if a fire were burning inside me. Traz was a ten-year-old boy. He’d done nothing to earn Anazian’s hatred. He was just an innocent bystander. I spotted his staff next to his pallet. With an unexpected strength, I grabbed it and turned on Anazian, my only thought to beat his head to a pulp.

  He wasn’t expecting my sudden attack, but even so, he was able to raise an arm in time to deflect the blow.

  There seemed to be a hum in the air, intensifying my concentration. It was as if something else were in control of my body. Thrust, parry, thrust again. Anazian had no weapon except maejic, but that was still an effective shield.

  He backed away from my wrath, watching the staff in my hands as I tried to bring it down on his head. With first one hand and then the other, he drew power from the air to protect himself as he backed away from my onslaught.

  Then we were outside. The staff quickened in my hands, as if the fresh air gave it new vigor. But Anazian, too, seemed to be able to draw on the energy flow all around us. I paused and glanced around. The last thing I needed now was to stumble on the unfamiliar ground.

  But that pause was enough for my opponent. He raised his hands over his head, grasping at nothing that I could see. He shouted an incantation and threw a ball of blue cosmic flame at me.

  Instinctively, I raised the staff. The flame hit it and the force of the impact knocked me back several steps. The staff absorbed the flame and began to vibrate. I tried to drop it before it shook my bones free of my flesh, but I couldn’t let go.

  A loud crack rent the air, and the staff seemed to explode in my hands. Red lightning flew from its tip, following the arc of the flame, right back to Anazian. In the red flash, I saw a look of terror on his face, then I had to look away from the bright light. My hands felt as if they were on fire, and this time when I let go, the staff fell sizzling into the snow. When I could see again, there was no sign of Anazian. Anywhere.

  For all my counsel to the contrary, I grow impatient. Such foolishness! What are a few weeks, compared to a plan five hundred years in the making?

  The king calls for me now, and I must attend. Having lost one dragon, he fears that our power dwindles. Imbecile! Truly he is unworthy of his title “Absolute Monarch.” And yet, maybe I should not be so quick to fault him. He himself has no power and cannot comprehend how it works. I shudder to think what he would be like if he did have power.

  Perhaps I shall distract him with a game of Talisman and Queen. Perhaps I shall even let him win.

  Ipicked up the staff and rose to my feet, wary for Anazian’s reappearance. I closed my eyes and opened my internal senses. There. The life vibration of the forest flowed through me, welcoming me as a long-lost friend. And without a trace of negative energy. The joy of once again experiencing the maejic almost hurt. I could even feel the subtle consciousness of the sleeping dragon. How would I ever be able to explain everything to Yallick?

  Yallick! Oleeda and Traz! I whirled around and ran back into the cave. I dropped Traz’s staff and pushed it aside with my foot, then scooped up an armful of wood and threw it onto the fire. I examined all three of them and found them wan and grey. Their breathing grew more shallow every minute. Time was running out.

  I tried to think. How could I ever hope to counter another of Anazian’s spells? Frustration threatened yet again to overwhelm me.

  Yallick’s head moved ever so slightly, and he let out a long ragged breath. And didn’t take another.

  I couldn’t just let them die! It was unthinkable that Anazian should have the last word.

  Herbs. There had to be something that would help. A large sack lay next to Oleeda’s pallet. I wrestled for only a second with the propriety of rummaging through her things without permission. Inside, I found packet after packet of dried herbs—some for strengthening, some for healing, some for calming, and many I couldn’t even identify. Which ones to use?

  All of them. In my haste to get to the fire, I tripped over the staff. Kicking it aside, I dumped the contents of the bag onto the fire, not worrying about the paper wrappers. They’d burn off quick enough.

  Within seconds, the air filled with pungent fumes. I moved back to where the others lay. Oleeda and Traz were still taking intermittent breaths. Yallick lay unmoving.

  My mind froze as I tried to force it to think of something, anything. I saw that Traz’s staff had fallen across Yallick’s knees. Feeling a little guilty, I grabbed it to move it away, and as soon as my fingers touched it, Yallick’s entire body heaved upward.

  I let out a cry of surprise. Yallick’s eyes flew open as he sucked in a great gasp of air. I stared at the staff, wanting and yet not daring to drop it again.

  Now sitting up, Yallick let out a groan, then started coughing in the herb-laden atmosphere. I finally managed to uproot myself. I moved first to Oleeda and then to Traz, touching them each with the staff, while Yallick watched in wide-eyed astonishment. Soon, Oleeda and Traz were sitting up, moving for all the world like people awakened from bad dreams.

  “What . . . what happened?” Yallick asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

  “You all almost died.”’ My voice, so long unused, rasped.

  Yallick and Oleeda gazed at me with identical expressions of wonder on their faces. Oleeda tried to rise, but fell back as if in exhaustion. Even Xyla stirred in her sleep, though she didn’t wake.

  “Well, give us the bare bones, at least, and then I think we shall sleep again.”

  Traz still hadn’t spoken, although he watched my every move with staring eyes. He seemed to like the suggestion of sleeping again, and he snuggled back under the covers.

  I sighed. What to tell them? I didn’t feel sure of anything myself. “Let me make you some tea first,” I said, stalling for time. Yallick nodded in agreement.

  By now, the air had started to clear. I found a small
cooking pot next to the fire, but no water. Well, that was easily solved. There was plenty of clean snow outside.

  This time when I stepped out of the cavern, the full cold of the winter night smote me, and I gasped. I looked around for Anazian again, but neither saw nor felt any disturbance in the surrounding woods. The sharp air seemed to burn my lungs, and having got what I was after, I hurried back inside.

  As the water heated, I looked around for the rest of the cooking gear. I finally found it on a natural shelf in the rock wall of the cave. Cups, plates, eating utensils, mostly the things we’d carried here with us. That they’d carried here. A lump rose unexpectedly in my throat at the thought of my pack. Ridiculous, really, to get worked up over it after all this time. It wasn’t as if I’d been carrying anything of real significance. It’s just that it seemed to represent lost innocence in some way. I sighed.

  I found a large packet of herbs and returned to the fire. As the tea steeped, I breathed a simple incantation over the cups, one to speed both sleep and healing.

  Traz weakly batted at my hand, but I insisted that he drink. In the end, I had to pull the furs off him, and that spurred him into gulping the stuff down. He was practically snoring before I finished covering him again.

  Oleeda and Yallick took the cups I offered them and drank without speaking. It felt very strange to have switched places so suddenly.

  Then there was nothing left to do, and I still hadn’t figured out how to explain everything.

  “So tell us what happened,” Yallick said, scarcely finishing the sentence before yawning. Oleeda had already lain back down, her eyes beginning to droop.

  I cleared my throat. Maybe to start with the least complicated part. “Well, the time just seemed right to try to do something for myself. I woke up.” I paused and bit my lower lip, then corrected myself. “I was still awake after the rest of you fell asleep. I built the circle of meditation candles . . .” Yallick’s soft snore cut me off. In that short time, he and Oleeda had both fallen asleep. I raised my eyebrows in mild surprise. I hadn’t expected my incantation to work so quickly.