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“Let the local hedgewitch see to it,” Tunstall replied. “We can make more headway tonight.”
“I doubt if any local mage can manage the work,” Farmer called. “This creature—let’s call her Viper, as Cooper does—this Viper likes spells within spells. There’s a spell in this poisoning that will kill any mage who tries to fix it with the usual magics. There is a spell tucked in a level down that, if ignored, will recast the original poisoning spell at the dark of the next moon. And there is the basic viciousness of placing it in a river, which carries it far beyond the original setting point. Every moment we talk, more life dies.”
“Can you fix it?” Sabine asked.
He took too long to reply for my comfort. At last he said, “Yes. Yes, I can, I will, and I must. By the time another mage of sufficient skill got here, it’s possible this poison would reach all the way to the Olorun.” He cocked his head at Tunstall. “Don’t you think the realm has enough problems without letting this one grow?”
Tunstall said sommat in Hurdik under his breath. “We’d best find a place to camp, then. Do you require help?”
Farmer turned to look at the water. Then he strode up the bank to the horse who carried his extra packs. “Cooper, if she doesn’t mind.”
“Beka’s been running all afternoon,” Sabine protested, but I put up my hand.
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Will you look after Achoo?”
“Of course,” Tunstall replied. “We’ll set up watch on the road in case anyone is looking for us. Achoo, tumit.”
Achoo looked at me. “It’s all right, Achoo,” I said. “Go with Tunstall.”
She went, her tail a-wag, the hussy. She knew she could get more meat out of Tunstall than she could me.
“Pounce?” I asked as Tunstall and Sabine prepared to turn their mounts.
I prefer to stay at the camp, the cat said. What Farmer plans to do … it is not painful to me, exactly, but in close proximity to it, I will itch. I prefer not to itch.
“If I could spare Beka, I would,” Farmer said, trudging down to the river with his extra pack over his shoulder. “It is sad that human magic and that of the gods do not mix.”
I am not a god, I heard Pounce say as Tunstall and Sabine rode off.
“He’s a constellation,” I murmured to myself. The night seemed to clamp down as the others left. I hurried to get inside the bowl of light cast by Farmer, but it was the first thing to go. Instead he took my stone lamp and tucked it into the crook of a tree. Then he made me take off my belt and boots, assuring me the poison had not entered the ground under our feet. Together we shook out a large cloth that was in the big pack. Laid out on the riverbank, it showed a glittering circle made in golden embroidery, with written signs for Mithros at the east, the Goddess at the south, Gainel in the west, and the Black God in the north. At its heart was the circle of two halves, Father Universe and Mother Flame.
I gasped when I saw the whole of it. “Your stitchery?” I asked Farmer. He bowed to me with a grin.
Then he opened his shoulder pack. He set three jars, a vial, and four boxes on the ground, then set the pack aside. Next he unwound a roll of ribbon of an ugly shade of green embroidered in white and a second roll of cream-colored ribbon embroidered in pale blue.
I’d barely had a chance to inspect the embroideries when he asked, “Beka, will you get some things from the big pack for me?” I took the bag he’d mentioned from one of the horses and awaited his orders. “I’ll need my mortar and pestle,” he began. “They’re in a pocket by your right hand.” I retrieved them and started to rise, but Farmer said, “No, wait, please. In the flat outer pouch next to that one, you’ll find a map of Tortall in an oiled leather envelope, along with some other envelopes. They’re all maps. I just need Tortall.”
I couldn’t miss the Tortallan map. It flashed silver. I drew it a little ways from the envelope and saw that it was very differently marked from mine. “May I look at this, when there’s a moment?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said. The flash on the map faded, which made me think he’d gotten it to do so in order for me to find it. “Next, in the pack main, you’ll find a fat cloth wallet about as long as my hand. I need that.”
I found the wallet, which glowed silver, as the map had done. The glow vanished when I picked the wallet up. “I have it,” I said.
“Under it is a leather-sheathed box. It’s my sewing kit. I’ll have that, and next to the sewing kit is my everyday mirror in a pouch. I want the pouch only, not the mirror. Leave the mirror where you can see it when we pack everything up. Last item, Beka. There’s a pouch full of nuts right under the kit and the mirror. I’ll take those.”
I stacked everything in my hold and carried it all to Farmer. Piece by piece he lifted everything from me, placing it all inside the circle on the cloth. The bag of nuts he kept in his hands, taking out ten or so. He returned the bag to me. From its weight, it was yet half full.
“Will you keep that near you?” he asked. “I may need it again.”
I agreed, but I don’t believe he was listening. Holding the nuts in his cupped hands, he whispered to them, then rubbed his hands together. The nuts did not fall out of his grip as I expected. Instead, Farmer produced a thin piece of something that looked like rolled dough or paste, which he ate. He stepped onto the cloth and lowered his irreverent arse on the linked symbols for the Father and Mother of the gods.
I looked near the river, where he had left his jars and vials. Had he forgotten them? From what I knew of magic, he would do his great working from within the circle he’d made—or she, if it was my friend Kora. If I had to pass anything to him over the circle, I would break the working as easily as if I had stepped on the powder circle Farmer had made in the garden that morning.
He saw me look. “I don’t need those for this part,” he said, startling me. “This is the part where I reclaim magic from some of my hiding places so I have enough to do all that needs to be done.”
“The magic you’ve—um—drawn from other people, right?” I asked.
“Some is my own,” he replied absently. “Whenever I think it safe, I put away some of my Gift. It grows back.”
“It grows back?” I asked, plumb bum-clappered at the idea.
“Of course it does,” he said calmly. “Otherwise mages could only ever do a few spells and retire.”
Once I’d given it thought, I realized it had to be true. Still, it gave me goose bumps to think of the Gift growing like a vine inside someone.
“Nuts, too,” Farmer told me. “Wonderful storehouses for magic, nuts. Don’t let any wild creatures get them, Beka. They’ll have a considerable surprise if they do.”
He shook out his hair, worked the kinks from his neck with a number of startling popping sounds, then went absolutely still.
The great embroidered circle blazed with light, not slowly, but all at once. One moment Farmer sat on a cloth, the next he was covered by a dome of gold fire. I could not see a thing of what passed inside. Instead I turned outward, keeping my eyes on the road and my ears set for any noise that did not belong to the night. The rush of water beyond the mage was a cruel mockery, tempting any living thing to its death.
At last I heard, “Well, that’s better.” When I turned around, Farmer was rubbing his eyes. The cloth wallet was open for one fold. It showed embroidered ribbons secured to the fabric. Except for all the threadwork, Farmer looked like a big-built man who most likely spent his days behind the plow or mayhap with herds.
I went to help him fold the cloth. “If you’ll put all of these things back?” he asked me with boyish hope in his eyes. Did he expect me to scold him for leaving the fetching, carrying, and packing to me? I waved my hand for him to get to his work and slung the folded cloth over my shoulder. My skin prickled where it touched my neck. I gathered up everything else as he stepped down to the edge of the water.
His voice came from the air by my ear. “You see, the problem’s twofold,” he explained as if we w
ere talking over supper. “The river must be cleansed, and I want to confine that sarden Viper.” He went silent. I looked to be sure he was all right. He was raising his arms.
By the time I’d finished stowing everything as I’d found it, I felt his spell-making. Every hair on my arms and the nape of my neck stood on end. There was not a sound to be heard from the woods. I was willing to bet that any creature that could walk, crawl, slither, or fly had fled or gone to ground. Even the air had gone dead still.
I made myself turn.
Farmer had taken off his boots. He was covered in a sparkling blue sheath of fire from his shaggy hair to his muddy toes. The river itself shone a sickly green in the dark, the green of mold and rot. It was threaded with Farmer’s Gift, the magics he had taken from Ironwood and Orielle, a thick gold thread, and three other colors. They surged back and forth, the green trying to overwhelm all else. Farmer held his hands palms up as he spoke in a strange language. The blue sheath that covered him sent power flowing out over the little river to its opposite bank.
An image formed over the water, bright against the dark and the magic. It was that of a woman in dull olive silk, collapsed onto a floor covered with cushions. She leaned against a hanging-covered wall, pressing the heels of her hands into her temples as if she wanted to crush her own head. She’d managed to shove a veil and round cap off hair that was reddish brown with strands of gray. Her heavy-lidded eyes were a cold blue. She had to be the Viper, and I would remember her for when I found her at last. There was no sign of the other female mage who was supposed to be traveling with the cart.
The mixed-color fires rose from the river and flowed into the image of the Viper, swirling around until they swallowed her, forming an egg-shaped bubble. Farmer was whistling now, a soft, breathless tune. I’d have thought it nonsense, save that it called a rope of white fire up and out of the river and sent it into the image. There it wrapped around the bubble, covering what was already there. Now Farmer called back his own power. Like an obedient snake the glittering blue Gift returned to him and vanished into his skin. The Viper was left with only the white fire cocoon that held her inside it. I saw nothing of Farmer’s stolen magics beneath the white fire.
The Viper’s hands slowly fell from her temples. She breathed in a couple of gasps of air, then started to stand. She was almost on her feet when she fainted.
Farmer waved his hand. The image vanished. Then his own knees buckled and he fell into the river.
I ran down into the water and got him by the arms. I was slipping on the stones of the riverbed when the dozy charm chanter began to scrabble with his legs, getting his feet under him. Even with those signs of wakefulness I did not release my hold, but towed him back and up, onto dry ground. He was coughing and choking. I turned him on his side and thumped his spine to remind him to spit out the water.
“I hope your spells worked, or we’re both dead,” I snapped in his ear.
He flapped an arm as he spit out a mouthful of water and caught his breath. “Of course they worked,” he said. “I’m not some idiot apprentice who can’t do a simple working to clean up foul water. This was just a little bigger.”
“Keep spitting,” I ordered. I got one of his arms under my shoulder and stood him up. “Gods, did you have to eat everything set before you at Queensgrace?”
“I practically starved myself there,” he argued. “I’m just big-boned. If you weren’t such a scrawny scrap of a thing—”
“It’s all muscle, mage, all muscle,” I replied as we walked away from the water. He was starting to shiver. “Will any of those nuts be of use to you now?”
“Almonds, please,” he said. “There’s a pouch of the shelled ones in a pocket on the side of my pack, opposite the maps.”
I risked letting him go to stand on his own. He managed it. I got the bag of shelled almonds and handed it to him. I was about to get the shawls when he said, “Beka, wait a moment.”
I didn’t see it, but I felt it. Warmth wrapped me round like a head-to-toe blanket. When it ended, having lasted but a moment, I was dry. I put a hand on Farmer’s shoulder. He was dry, too.
“I was really drying myself, but I couldn’t control the field as well as usual, so you were caught up in it. Sorry,” the bold-faced liar told me.
“And if you hadn’t said ‘wait a moment,’ mayhap I’d believe you,” I told him. He was still too pale for my liking. “Mind that magicking of me, that’s all I’m saying to you.”
“Yes, Mother,” he replied, all meekness. I was not fooled. I was also warmed as much inside as out to hear us talking as I had with Tunstall over the years, those times when we were in deep and talked to calm down. It was good, in a Hunt so filled with shadows and menace, to have another Hunter that made me feel so comfortable when we were out on our own, far from any kennel.
I got two of his shawls and draped them around him. “Have you sommat to drink that will brighten you up?” I asked.
“The flask on my pack. Seriously, Beka, I’ll be fine with a little rest.”
“I’d as soon we did our resting back with Tunstall and Sabine,” I explained, going to retrieve his shoulder pack, stockings, and boots. “I wouldn’t put it past the Queensgrace Rats to set a hunting party after us tonight.”
“They’ll have to fix the portcullises on the main and the postern gate,” Farmer said, all innocence. “They broke about midday. Strangest thing. Both sets of chains rusted through in several places. Even with the smith working at dead speed, no one’s entering or leaving Queensgrace Castle until tomorrow.”
I stopped to stare at him. Then I couldn’t help it. I laughed until I got the hiccups. In that condition I retrieved my stone lamp as well. By the time that was done, Farmer had donned his socks and boots. I’d stopped laughing and hiccupping both. Farmer’s magicked almonds and brew had restored his strength. I took his shoulder pack and he his larger bag as we followed the road to Tunstall and Sabine. Their camp was easy enough to find, because Achoo and Pounce came out of the dark to lead us. I was roaring hungry by the time we reached them.
Although they were watching the road as we approached, they’d made camp and left the horses behind a wall of rock that extended off into the forest. The wall hid the camp and fire from view. They’d thrown ham, lentils, onions, garlic, and water into a pot and let it cook. The wind was in their favor or they never would have made something so wonderfully scented. The minute I caught a whiff of it, I feared I might actually drool.
I let Farmer tell our partners what he’d done while Achoo and I ate. Pounce came out of the dark to sleep by the fire. Plainly he’d taken care of feeding himself, though he did allow me to give him a bite or two of ham.
“But I don’t understand,” Sabine remarked when Farmer was done. “Did you kill her?”
Farmer looked at his full bowl sadly. “I didn’t kill her. I returned the power of the spells she had set to her,” he said with a sigh. He picked up his spoon.
“So she can use them again?” Tunstall demanded. “What sort of crackbrained notion is that?”
“She doesn’t know she has them,” Farmer said with his mouth full. “No more than she saw us—I made certain of that—or that I twisted them around her.” He swallowed and explained, “She sent her spells out. I sent them back with the power fixed to her. She doesn’t know it yet. She might feel a little warm, a little confined right now. Perhaps not. She may not notice any change at all until she casts her next spell.” He shoveled another spoonful into his mouth and chewed, smiling.
“What happens then?” Sabine wanted to know. “Farmer, it’s not nice to toy with your fellow Hunters!” Tunstall drummed his fingers on his thigh.
Watching Farmer, I thought, He likes it. He likes showing off when he’s been particularly clever. Whatever he did to the Viper, that was special, and he wants to brag a little.
I wanted to laugh again and elbow him in the ribs, like I would one of my friends at home. I felt that much at ease with him, for all that I’d kn
own him for less than a month.
Pounce looked up. Tell us, by the dark between the stars, he ordered. You’re just dying to.
Farmer swallowed and coughed. Sabine handed him a cup of tea. Once he’d taken a big swallow, he bowed to Pounce. “A fellow’s got a right to enjoy his craft, doesn’t he?” he asked. He looked at the rest of us. “The next spell the Viper sends out, it will come back to her. The stronger the spell, the harder it will return. The little ones will go through—if she lights a candle, say, or makes herself look younger. But nothing bigger than that. The poison spells won’t kill her, now.” The smile on his lips and in his eyes went as cold and sharp as a sword. “I want the Crown to do that for her. But deadly spells will hurt her very badly.”
Nobody said anything as Farmer continued to eat. The only sound was the hiss of the fire. When he put down his empty bowl and drained his cup of tea, Tunstall said, “Remind me to stay on your good side.”
