Elementals small magick, p.14
Elementals: Small Magick, page 14
He sucked at her mouth and she felt her strength wane. Her Power drained into him with each exhalation.
She awakened to find herself retching, with pounding heart and clenched fists, shivering in a sweat.
Was her dream accurate? Was Kelsh a Leech? She reviewed their last conversation in light of this possibility.
An icy chill crawled across her skin as she remembered his words. He had said for the rest of your life and not our lives. There was indeed a very good chance that Kelsh was a Leech and that he only wanted to marry her to consume her Power.
That prospect staggered her, for she had never thought of herself as anyone special. After years of being considered a weak mage, she had always viewed herself as a nobody, an imposter among the accomplished women of her family. Mayhap Kelsh was playing on those insecurities.
By his own admission, she commanded much more Power than did he. Were he a Leech, that would indeed be true, for she had read that Leeches have little or no Power of their own. Through her ability to both gather and create Power, she suspected she commanded much more Power than most mages. In marrying her, he would be able to feed off her Power for years.
What had she done?
*
In the morning, she determined she would learn the truth. She packed her bag and left it tucked under one of the worktables. If her dream was accurate, she could remain under his roof no longer.
Kelsh met her as she crossed the yard. “Good morn, sweet Drey. I asked Rose to bring us our tea outside, here in the sunshine.” He gestured toward the edge of the herb garden, where several chairs surrounded a small table.
She eyed him closely. Nothing about him suggested he was other than what he purported to be: a powerful mage in his own right. She searched for signs that he might be a murderer or a Leech.
He looked no different. His expression was pleasant, his demeanor appropriate for one greeting a partner or a friend. When he took her hand to lead her to the bricked area, she felt no out-rush of her Power where they touched.
“I had wondered what these were for, if they were mayhap going into storage.” She sat and tucked her skirts close around her.
“Nay, the chairs are here for my pleasure. I spend more time sitting here in the winter, when no one visits, enjoying the quiet, dark evenings, than I do in the warm months.” He pulled his chair closer to hers and settled in. “My life is too busy to sit idle during the long days.”
“That sounds as though we shall not be idle while we break our fast.”
He laughed, the sun glinting in his dark eyes. “You are quick. I thought we might discuss a journey. I’d like to take you to meet the king.”
“The king?” Drey frowned. “Why should he be interested in me?”
“I work for him, as you may have heard. I know there are no secrets in villages such as this. If you are working with me, you should be known to him.”
“I still don’t understand why I should attract his attention. How long might we be gone? How far is it? What would I say to him?” Her mind raced.
“Ah, my Mildread. You are unique. Another woman would be concerned about what she might wear, but not you. You press right to the heart of the matter.”
She didn’t like the assessing look in his eye.
He stood and took her hand, lifting her to her feet. “I’d like it best if you were to tell him that you’re my wife.” He pulled her closer.
“I doubt that will happen.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it at all. Mayhap not this trip, but eventually.”
She placed her hand flat on his chest, fingers splayed. “I thought you’d not ask me to share your bed.”
He met her eyes squarely. He was bold, she had to give him that. “Aye, but I said nothing about trying to persuade you. I never said I wouldn’t kiss you.” He bent his head. His breath fanned her cheek. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since you first sat across from me in the tavern.”
He touched his lips to hers and she felt it. The faintest of tingles, a tiny trickle of Power as it left her. Into his kiss.
“No!” She pushed him away. “What are you doing to me?”
Rose stopped, tray poised to set on the table, mouth agape. Kelsh dismissed her with a jerk of his head. The tray clattered to the table and she fled back to the kitchen.
Drey faced him over the table. Both of them were breathing hard.
“I was kissing you.”
Her hands tightened into fists. She worked to control her anger. “That’s not what I mean and you know it.”
The tense lines of his face softened. “I want you to marry me. I wanted to show you how I can please you.”
“Then what were you doing with my Power?”
His jaw clenched. “Drey, I need you. I can make you happy. We can do great things together.”
“That’s not the whole truth. You mean you can do great things with my Power, don’t you?”
In two quick steps, he had her in his arms again. “It’s not like that.”
“Then how is it? Explain it to me!” She stopped fighting him, made herself stand still.
“I need your Power to sustain me. Trust me. I don’t need much. You have more than you need, more than enough for both of us.”
Words failed her. She had no wish for a confrontation, not if she could avoid it. She wrenched free, heading for the outbuilding that housed her mule.
He followed. “Drey, you said you’d stay until winter!”
When she didn’t answer, he reached out and grabbed her wrist. Before she knew what was happening, he’d pulled her against him. Looking in his eyes, she began to fear him. Her belly tightened in an unpleasant fashion.
“I would rather this hadn’t happened.” His voice held genuine regret as he bent his head and kissed her.
Unlike her dream, there was no transformation of his appearance, no palpable change as he held her. Trapped in his embrace, arms pinned to her sides, she could do nothing but scream in her mind while he wrested her Power from her. A steady stream flowed out of her with a twisting pain.
At last he raised his head. Satisfaction shone in his dark eyes. “You’ve begun to pay your debt. We could have lived in harmony for years but you chose not to share. Give me more. Give me all of it.”
She found the strength to scream in earnest, kicking at his heavy boots, writhing in his arms. He made a low, unpleasant sound that raised the hairs on her neck.
The wind struck in a blast of fury.
Between the buildings it came, tumbling the two of them off their feet. They came down hard on the stones bordering the path, the impact separating them. She sprawled against the back wall of the cottage, her senses reeling.
The vortex continued on without her, whirling Kelsh along. The blur of his cloak disappeared in a cloud of dust and leaves. Over the bridge it went, along the road away from the village.
Drey shook her head to clear it. Cyrus had helped her! Staggering to her feet, she went to the work shed and found her bag. She stumbled on her way out. The ties came undone and half her clothing spilled out. She stuffed her spare shift in and secured the bundle.
She found and quickly saddled her mule. Fastening the bag behind, she hauled herself up and dug her heels into the animal’s flank. Without a backward glance, she sent the beast homeward at a jog.
The breeze accompanied her, lifting her hair from time to time. She repeated, “Thank you, my love, thank you, my love,” until the words ran into a single sound and no longer made sense to her.
When she reached her cottage, she quickly shut the mule in the shed. Gathering up her bag, she fled inside and bolted the door behind her. It wasn’t until she lay across her bed, sobbing, that her panic began to subside.
That had been a close call. Without Cyrus’s intervention, she would have died right there. Even now, alone here in her own home, she did not feel safe. She needed protection.
Pulling herself to her feet, she wiped the hair off her face. She needed to ward her cottage. Wards might not keep Kelsh out but they would give her a warning should he pursue her.
She found the tools she needed and began by the door. When she clicked the athame against the sigil she’d drawn on the doorjamb, nothing happened.
It should have glowed for an instant.
With a sinking heart, she realized she had felt nothing. No tingle of Power, no indication she was doing anything other than sketching a pretty picture and tapping it with a butter knife.
Mayhap the silver pipes would help her. They practically summoned magick on their own. They weren’t in the pocket where she kept them. She turned the bag inside out, dumping the contents and spreading them out on the floor.
The pipes weren’t there.
Her Power was gone completely.
Her tears began again. She gathered her tools and fled up the mountain. Alone. Mousie was nowhere around.
The meadow stretched before her in the morning light, comforting in its familiarity and its evidence of the Power she’d found in the past. Surely here she could recover that ability. She knew her magick was made of sunlight and warm breezes, not the stuff of gathering dusk and all it cloaked in shadows.
Quickly she crossed to the stone, laying out her tools of Power on the altar. A little salt was all that remained in the tiny cauldron; she couldn’t remember spilling it or using it but mayhap she had in her hasty climb up the uneven path. She struck her flint to light the candles before bracing her hands on the altar and taking a deep calming breath.
Looking out over the valley, she cleared her mind of its turmoil. Her fears of Kelsh were banished. No regrets for leaving behind the silver pipes were allowed. No pining for Cyrus and his optimism—or for his touch.
The familiar motions of casting the circle soothed her jagged nerves. As she moved through the ritual, she directed her senses outward to detect Power.
Nothing.
When she finished the circle, there was no sign she’d done anything more than walk around the clearing, speaking meaningless words. She felt no snap when she closed the circle, no sensation of anything beyond the usual slight breeze and birdsong.
Had Kelsh stolen her Power? Had he absorbed all of her Talent, leaving her empty and lost?
She searched within herself, for anything indicating she still had potential.
She found nothing. No tingle, no glow, not even a trickle.
Sinking to her knees, she groaned in agony. Could she live like this? Could she tolerate spending every waking hour without the prospect of ever feeling the tingle of Power? Knowing that she’d never again be able to wield even the small magicks she was accustomed to? Losing the grand abilities the pipes gave her was one thing, for she’d only recently had that Power at her fingertips, but to lose it all was beyond her comprehension.
She’d thought she’d give anything to have Cyrus back but this void inside her was like being struck blind or losing part of her soul.
She sat with her head in her arms and wept.
Some time later she became aware of rumbling beside her. Mousie had come, rubbing against her back and knees. “Oh, Mousie, you’re here!” His purr grew louder. When he patted her head with his paw, she sat up and stretched out a hand.
“You’re my best friend. Even if I have nothing else, I still have you.” He arched up, butting his forehead against her palm. She gathered him close and spoke into his fur. “Will it be enough? Can your love carry me through the rest of my life?”
When she ran her hand down his flank in a light caress, he gave a sharp yowl and flinched. She reached again and he dodged her. Without thinking, she closed her eyes and visualized his body, searching for an injury. In her mind, the image of the big cat glowed with health, except for a little pinprick of darkness where she’d touched him. He’d caught a thorn in his flesh, from somewhere, possibly on his climb up the hillside.
Her eyes flew open. “I could see you!”
She closed her eyes and searched inside herself again. This time, she found the glow, the tiny spark she’d missed before.
Her Power wasn’t gone. Kelsh hadn’t drained her beyond recovery.
Mousie danced away from her outstretched hand before he turned and made a great show of extracting the thorn. After he spit it out and returned to rub around her, she realized what he’d done.
“Mousie, I do love you. I don’t care if you never catch a mouse or kill a cricket. Another cat could never replace you in my heart.” She bent over, took his head between her hands and looked into his eyes. “You saved me from my own despair. If you hadn’t made me use it without worrying about whether I could, I might never have realized that at least I do still have my small magick.”
She relaxed into the grass, beginning the series of exercises Kelsh had taught her to replenish her strength. How ironic that he who had drained her had also given her the key to survive it.
She might never again know the great Power she’d felt while playing the silver pipes Cyrus had given her but she could, and would, practice whatever small magick she had. Never again would she complain about her abilities. Limited she might be, but she did have Talent and Power within her.
Shadows were gathering among the bushes, spreading out from the hillside when she sat up. She squinted up at the rim of the sun still visible atop the mountain. She still had time. She took up the wand and began again to cast the circle.
This time she could feel the rightness of it, the Power in the words she spoke and the intent of her motions. When she closed the circle, she once again felt the snap.
With the same joy she’d felt bubbling up within her when she first cast the circle here, in her secret meadow, she began a ritual of thanksgiving. Power thrummed through her, surging up from the mountain below and down from the dome of sky above. She could feel the immense bulk of the earth beneath her. Within that bulk, she was aware of water flowing through deep caverns and tunnels.
She hummed with it, in unison with the world around her. It wasn’t until she released the Power she’d raised, back into the earth and sky, that she realized she was not alone.
Kelsh stepped forward from the dark shadows, holding something out to her, something that glinted in the fading light. Her silver pipes!
His clothing was disheveled, his hair askew. “You left so fast that you forgot these,” he said. “I know how much they mean to you, so I brought them.”
She feared touching him again. “Lay them on the stone.” She pointed to the altar.
“No. You must come and get them.”
Under his dark regard, she shifted with indecision. She’d recovered once from his draining grasp; could she do so a second time? Or would he succeed in draining her so completely that she would never regain her grasp on the Power she prized?
The pipes were a parting gift from Cyrus and she could not resist their lure. She stepped forward.
In a sudden movement, Kelsh pulled her to him, letting her have the pipes but imprisoning her within his embrace. She ceased to struggle and brought the pipes to her lips.
She played a wild melody, filled with her love for Cyrus and her love for even the smallest magick. Power spread through the clearing, thickening the air about them and pressing close. It sang beneath her skin, crackled along her spine and lifted her hair out about her head.
As the magick gathered, she felt it begin to flow from her into Kelsh, through his hands where he gripped her arms.
Let him have what he wants, she thought. Let him have as much as he can take.
She closed her eyes and pictured him as an empty wineskin. She envisioned the Power filling her, overflowing and draining into him, first as a trickle and then in a stream. When it reached a torrent, he began to strain to contain it. She continued to play, drawing far more Power than she’d ever raised before.
The Power was gathering faster than he could absorb it. She kept pushing the flow into him, gathering it from the mountain beneath them and the air about them. The pipes summoned it, found it and molded it into a form she could use.
Finally, he could hold no more. In her mind’s eye, she saw him fill and expand, his being stretching to contain it, growing thinner and thinner until he burst.
The explosion blew them apart, sending them both aloft, him falling back onto the grass and her flying toward the cliff.
She felt the backlash as an explosion, filling her vision with blinding light and lifting her off the ground once more. With a sickening lurch, the ground dropped away beneath her and she realized she had cleared the edge of the cliff. Rocks and scree fell around her as she plunged off the mountain.
A scream tore out of her, lost in the rush of the wind in her ears.
Then strong arms wrapped around her and her fall slowed. “Be still, sweetling,” came a familiar voice.
Cyrus bore her up, into the remaining sunlight far above the meadow. She turned in his arms, weeping in reaction and relief.
“Hush, hush, my dearest love, you are safe,” he crooned.
She hiccupped and managed a smile. Then she realized they were passing by a low cloud and looked down.
The bird’s-eye view she had imagined was nothing like the reality of hovering far above solid earth. She couldn’t keep her eyes open. Her heart slipped into her throat and she choked, tightening her grip on his shoulders.
“I have you,” he assured her. “You are in no danger. You may not have this chance again, so take a good look.” He turned around with her, sweeping one hand across the panorama below them. “This is my view of your world.”
She shivered and clung to him but she did dare to tilt her head down and open her eyes.
Everything was so small. Her hillside meadow was barely visible, a smudge in the shadow of the mountain. The patchwork of fields surrounding the village might have been a plate sitting on a table that was the valley. Beyond the valley, she traced the line of the river, down to where it flowed into the sea. Oh, the sea was an immense glimmering, shifting, silver pool, stretching away as far as she could see.
She hadn’t looked her fill before they were sinking down, into the shadows of evening, back to the meadow, where Cyrus set her gently on the grass by the altar.
