Magic Steps tco-1 Page 4

  Fast as a snake, she whirled and swung overhand at Reha. The girl blocked her strike with her baton, almost as quick as Zahra herself. With her attention on that descending baton, Reha did not see Zahra reach out with a booted leg and hook the girl's feet from under her. Down Reha went, still remembering to keep her own baton between her and any attack from overhead.

  "Well enough," Zahra said with approval. "But look at the weapon just long enough to tell its direction. Your main attention should have been on my chest. My body's movement there would have warned you of my kick."

  "Fat chance," muttered Reha.

  Zahra grinned evilly at her. "Perhaps not." She swept their small group with her eyes. "The point of all this is to make sure you come home from your watch alive. To do that you have to pay attention. Live the moment you're in. Stay open to all the things around you, be they smell, sound, or sight—,"

  Her baton flashed up and to the side. This time Pasco was ready—he'd seen the muscles in Zahra's legs, out lined by her breeches, shift. He blocked her with his baton and grabbed her wrist with his free hand. Twisting it, he dragged her down and across his body. Once she was facedown on the ground, he shoved the arm he had captured up behind her back. Half-kneeling, he pressed one knee into his mother's spine.

  "I could've fought the takedown, boy," she said, her voice muffled by the bricks of the courtyard.

  Pasco released her. "I know, Mama." When she struggled to rise, he offered her a hand. She took it and in a heartbeat he went flying.

  Tucking himself into a ball, he unfolded and struck feet first, skidding to a halt before he smacked into the columned gallery that ran around the edge of the court yard. Rising on tiptoe, he gave her his fools bow, the one that was much too deep. Straightening, he rose to the very top of his toes, stumbled forward as if he were out of control, then flipped in the air and came back to his feet, arms spread.

  Zahra glared at him. "Was that meant to charm your way out of a drubbing?" she wanted to know.

  Pasco bowed his head. "I live to be drubbed," he said meekly.

  She could only be cross with him for so long. "Get your baton. All of you, line up. We'll do the patterned strike-and-block combinations until time for midday."

  Pasco shook his black hair out of his eyes and took the baton Reha held out to him. "Say, Mama, did you ever hear of magic dancing? Well, mages that dance, and the dancing is a spell."

  "Ridiculous," Zahra said flatly. "Take your place in line, now"

  Pasco did as ordered. As his mother called off the movements of the combinations, he concentrated on that, at least until the midday bell rang.

  As the young people washed up before eating, Pasco's cousin Haidaycie elbowed him. "When are you going to grow up?" she demanded. "Dancing magic, Pasco, of all things! What's next? Dancing a fortune into our pockets?"

  "Come on, Haiday. He'll say anything to get the family to let him play tippy-feet with half-naked dancing girls," jeered one of his older male cousins, Vani. "It beats working for his supper."

  "The sooner you face facts, the happier you'll be," Reha informed Pasco with all the wisdom of her sixteen years. "You're an Acalon and a Qais. Harrying is your life."

  "There's plenty of Acalons and Qaises who aren't harriers!" argued Pasco.

  They all looked at him as if to say, Don't waste our time.

  "If you ever want a say in the family, you'll go for harrier," Haiday informed him as she dried her hands.

  "She's right," said Reha. "Besides, you're Macarin's and Zahra's only son. You have to harry." She followed Haiday inside.

  "Tippy-feet," jeered Vani. He flicked his drying-cloth at Pasco hard, lashing the younger boy's cheek.

  Pasco yelped. Holding the weal left by the cloth, he glared at Vani as the older boy ambled into the house. Someday, Pasco told himself, he would make Vani pay for all his towel-flicking.

  * * *

  The duke emerged from his parlor, looking better, and joined Sandry and Baron Erdogun for lunch. After that, they all applied themselves to the affairs of Duke's Citadel and the realm. In the weeks after the duke's heart attack, when he had rested all afternoon, Erdogun and Sandry fell into the habit of meeting in a nearby study to deal with the work that built up. In the quiet afternoon hours, Sandry took the household accounts over from Erdogun, with his blessing. It gave her something useful to do and gave him less work

  Once the duke grew well enough for Healer Comfrey to agree that a little business would not tax him, he joined Sandry and Erdogun for an hour, then two, then three. When it was judged that he was strong enough to leave the second floor and go downstairs, they set up a workroom there. The baron labored over heaps of documents while the duke read reports and Sandry attended to the running of a large castle. Often the duke and Erdogun discussed matters involving Emelan and met with various officials. Many times they asked Sandry's opinion. They explained it as wanting the views of a mage or another noble, but Sandry wondered if the duke wanted to see how her mind worked. She couldn't imagine why he might want her ideas on the proper scale of punishments for theft, but she respected as well as loved him and answered him as seriously as she could.

  The afternoon that followed Jamar Rokat's murder sped by. All too soon it was time for Sandry to meet Pasco at the fishing village. Oama and Kwaben awaited her with her mare, Russet, when she emerged from the residence. Riding through the city in mid-afternoon was a slower matter than at dawn. There were horses and wagons to be got around, stray animals, and all kinds of people. The talk on every corner seemed to be about the merchant's very messy death.

  She had meant to be early for the fishers' return, but to her surprise most of the boats were home and in the process of unloading their contents. Each crew had brought in as much fish as their boats might carry. The entire village had turned out to help load baskets of fish into carts that would take them to the city for sale.

  Pasco Acalon stood on the beach, his jaw hanging open.

  Sandry drew rein beside him. "Now do you believe you have magic?" she asked.

  He started with surprise—he had not heard her ride up—and bowed hastily. "Lady, my mother has never heard of dancing mages. She was once a captain of the Provost's Guard. If she never heard of a thing, then how can it exist? This, this was just luck, pure and simple. It had to turn sometime. Whatever drove the fish off—,"

  A burly man in fisherman's clothes strode toward them, a grin on his dark face. He grabbed Pasco's hands and folded them around a leather pouch. "Well, lad, you did the trick." He looked at the boats, shaking his head. "This day's work puts food on our plates through Death's Night, once it's smoked. And Gran says the charm holds till the next full moon—enough to make up what we've lost this year." He thumped Pasco on the shoulder, bowed quickly to Sandry, then strode back toward the workers.

  The boy poured the contents of the bag into his palm and gasped. "Five silver crescents!" he cried. "Master Netmender, you said only one crescent!"

  "It's bad luck to underpay a mage," the fisherman called back over his shoulder. "Just don't get greedy next year! Hi, Osa, be careful with that basket!"

  "Mage?" whispered Pasco. "Next year?"

  "Well?" Sandry asked the boy, nudging him with a booted foot as he continued to stare at the boats. "I know magic when I see it. So do these people. You need proper training, before your power starts breaking out in ways you don't want it to. And it will. Power's funny that way."

  "Power or none, it don't matter, lady," Pasco said gloomily. "You don't know my family, begging your pardon. If I was a harrier-mage, that would please them no end—but even if there is such a thing as dancing magic, it's still dancing, get it? The moon'll drop plumb out of the sky afore my family lets me dance for my supper."

  "Explain it to them," Sandry told him firmly, trying to keep her growing impatience hidden. She supposed he'd been through a lot today, but surely he could see what was right under his nose. He acted as if he were to ignore his power long enough, it would go away.
"Surely they must have noticed something odd about you by now."

  "Other than me not having the sense of a butterfly?" Pasco inquired, meeting her eyes. The curl of his mouth was bitter. "They've noticed that, right enough. But no one's said anything to me of magic. I never saw pictures in the fire or made things dance in the air when I was a babe, like all the mages do—,"

  "I didn't," Sandry told him flatly. "Any more than my friends did." Pasco winced and she sighed. Where had people gotten this silly notion that Briar, Daja, and Tris were to be feared? "Not all magic shows itself like that," she went on.

  He looked from her to the boats, black eyes wide with panic, then shook his head and clapped his hands to his ears. Still covering them, he bowed and walked away, toward Summersea's east gate.

  "Shall I fetch him back, my lady?" asked Oama. "Knock sense into that head?"

  "No, please don't," Sandry replied. "He's frightened, that's all. Besides, I'll be able to find him when I need to." Thinking it over, she knew she was in over her head. She hadn't the first notion of what to do next, but she knew who would.

  "I have to go to Winding Circle," she told her guards.

  * * *

  Once inside the curtain wall that sheltered the temple city of Winding Circle, Sandry told Oama and Kwaben to ride to the east gate stables, where they and their mounts would be made comfortable until Sandry was ready to go home. They insisted on remaining with her until she had dismounted in front of the small cottage that lay behind the Earth temple. Only then did they take her mare's reins and leave.

  The cottage known as Discipline was set back from the temple's spiral road and framed in gardens. For a moment Sandry remained outside the gate, looking around her. She had left in a hurry, hoping to be back in a day or two. Now she felt like a stranger. She had not helped to whitewash the cottage, weatherproofing it against the winter storms. She had not helped to put a fresh layer of thatch on the roof, or to bring in the last fruits and veg etables. The shutters on her room and the rooms of her three friends were tightly shut, as they had almost never been when the four were there.

  Lark must be so lonely with no one at home, Sandry thought sadly. That spring Tris, Briar, and Daja had left Winding Circle with their teachers, who had decided they needed to see more of the world and of the magics used outside the temple city. Sandry and Lark had rattled about the empty cottage all summer, until word had come of the duke's heart attack. It had been just like Lark to urge Sandry to go and stay with her great-uncle for as long as was necessary.

  Sandry shook her head. She had seen Lark since the duke's illness, but always at the citadel. This was her first trip home, and she felt as if she'd lost something. She missed open shutters, the sight of Briar's miniature pine in his window, the lamps burning in the workshops built onto the sides of the cottage. Something else was missing, too.

  Opening the gate, she realized what it was. Once any visitor would be hailed by canine shrieks and then bowled over, if they were not careful, by the wolfhound-sized dog who lived here—Little Bear was enthusiastic in his greetings. He belonged to all four of the young people. That spring, when Tris's teacher Niko wanted to take her south, Tris had been so heartbroken at leaving that they had talked her into taking the dog. The three of them would be south of the Pebbled Sea by now, and were not due to return until next summer.

  The front door was closed against the night's growing chill. Sandry, feeling unsure, knocked.

  She heard footsteps, then the door opened. The |woman who stood there was four inches taller than Sandry, with bronze-colored skin and wide brown eyes set over sharp cheekbones. Lark was dressed in a long habit of the dark green shade worn by those who dedicated themselves to the gods of the earth. She smiled warmly and hugged Sandry. "What a wonderful surprise!" she exclaimed. "I wasn't expecting to see you till next week! How is his grace? Come in, and we'll have tea."

  Sandry hugged Lark fiercely, then walked into her home.

  Once she had brewed some tea, Lark made Sandry and eat. As she did, Sandry asked after the other residents of Winding Circle. "I have to stay with Uncle a while more," she said, though Lark hadn't asked when she would be coming home. "Till I'm sure he'll be all right. He was so tired this morning, and he doesn't know how to be careful."

  Lark smiled at her. "It's comforting to know you're with him," she said, offering Sandry an apple. "He really does listen to you—he has ever since we took that trip north with him, the year when you first came to us. He told us then he thought you had a head on your shoulders. And everyone knows he works much too hard."

  Looking at her made Sandry feel as if she'd been walking through a gale and had stepped through a door into a warm house. "I miss you so much," she said. "I wish you were there with me."

  Lark shook her head. "I have so much to do here. Besides, Duke's Citadel is too big and drafty for an ex-tumbler turned stitch witch," she teased. "And Dedicate Vetiver says one of the novices who came this summer shows some odd flashes that could be magic. I don't think Daja will mind if this boy turns out to need her old room. Vetiver says he's terribly shy and can hardly speak, even to other novices."

  Sandry nodded. Just-discovered mages who had trouble fitting in at Winding Circle were often turned over to Lark and Rosethorn. The two women had taught a number of mages over the years, though none so unusual as Sandry, Briar, Daja, and Tris. "Can you manage without Rosethorn here?" asked Sandry.

  Lark chuckled. "It might even be easier, at least for the first few months. Never tell Rosie I said that."

  Sandry grinned. Dedicate Rosethorn was a terror.

  The Hub clock chimed the hour. It was getting late, and there was the ride back to Dukes Citadel to be thought of. "Lark, this boy I found…" She told her teacher about Pasco. "His magic's as plain as the nose on my face," she said when she had finished. "I'm just not sure of what to do. Should I leave him to his own devices? We were always told that if a mage doesn't get proper training, sooner or later his magic starts to run wild, like Tris's used to." Her friend Tris had left a wake of frightened people and ruined property before she had come to Discipline.

  Lark sat back in her chair, brows knit in thought. "A dance-mage," she murmured. "How very odd."

  "I figured you'd know if there were any," Sandry pointed out. "All the places you've been."

  Lark rubbed her temples. "I've seen a few, but it was far and away. The shamans of the Qidao people dance their magic. So do the shamans of Ugurulz—it's between the Sea of Grass and Yanjing, in the north."

  "He won't go all that way to learn from a shaman if he doesn't even want his magic here," Sandry remarked. "What about those Qidao people?"

  "More thousands of miles," Lark replied. "They're in southern Yanjing. Even if he wanted to journey so far, we couldn't allow it. First he must learn basic control over his power. There's no telling what kind of mischief he could set in motion with a step here, and a step there."

  "I don't think he's strong enough to do serious damage," Sandry told her.

  "It doesn't matter if he is or he isn't," Lark said. "Dances are patterns. You know what patterns can do."

  "Placing magic in a pattern makes the magic stronger," Sandry replied; it was a lesson she knew as well as her own name. She smiled. "That's why you and I have to be careful when we weave. So you're saying that Pasco can extend his power through dance patterns."

  "Easily." Lark toyed with her teacup. "And the stronger the pattern, the more things can go wrong. What if this Pasco had not followed the net so faithfully? A wrong step that broke the net magic might have driven all the fish from the sea for miles. What if he'd thought of pretty girls as he danced? He could have called all the girls of Summersea to him, whether they wished to be called or not. You're absolutely right. Pasco must be taught."

  "So I'll bring him to the school here." Sandry felt better immediately: a decision had been reached.

  Lark shook her head. "It's not that simple. Temple and university mages follow laws and guidelines, s
ome of which you know. On the subject of new mages, the law is set. If no teacher with the same power is available, the discovering mage has to teach the newcomer the basics."

  Sandry laughed. "But the discovering mage is me."

  Lark nodded gravely.

  "I'm just a kid myself," Sandry pointed out, using street slang for child. "I can’t teach him. I have to keep an eye on Uncle."

  "You can and you must teach," said Lark firmly. "The Winding Circle Initiate Council or the mage council at the university in Lightsbridge enact penalties on a mage who shirks her responsibility."

  Sandry sat bolt upright in her chair. "And if I do not recognize their authority?" she demanded, offended by the idea that these strangers might try to control her life.

  Lark laid a hand over hers. "If you did not follow the rules, then as a great mage of the Winding Circle Initiate Council it would be my task to teach you your duty."

  Sandry blinked at her. She knew that Lark—and Rosethorn, when she was home—often attended what they always referred to as "council meetings." She had always assumed they were meetings of the Dedicate Council that governed the temple city, not a council of temple mages.

  "Mages without law are dangerous," Lark said. "What if there were no Duke to rule in Emelan? If he just vanished, with no heir appointed?"

  "Someone else would take his position," replied Sandry hesitantly. It hurt her heart to think of it.

  "After bloodshed," Lark pointed out. "After civil war. Councils ensure that our people have someone to answer to, as Emelan answers to his grace. Other parts of the world have their own ways to hinder rogue mages."

  "I don't know how to teach," complained Sandry.

  "It hasn't been that long since you learned the basics," Lark said firmly. "Start with those. Go through your uncle's library. Talk to merchants and nobles—see if any of them have ever heard of dance-mages. And he'll need a dance teacher. If he's from a lower-class family, he'll know jigs, country dances, and wedding dances, but little else. Learning new dances will help to keep him out of mischief, and create a direction for his power." Bending down, she picked her workbasket up from the floor. It was filled with clothes—she dumped them on the table. "If you'll take the stitching out, I'll cut these into patches for a quilt," she told Sandry. "One of the East District families wants the father to have a quilt made of their old things when he takes ship in the spring."