![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Flying South Chapter 10
FLYING SOUTH
Chapter 10
Guide us, Lord of hunt and forest
By the powers of fire and air
As we come once more to worship
Keep us, Witch Lord, in your care.
Invocation to Pan
Author Unknown
Humans do look very large and fearsome from the point of view of a rat.
After I Changed myself, I sat on the windowsill, my nose twitching – such a long and pointy nose, with its fine spread of whiskers – and watched Catri, standing in front of the startled children, blur and dwindle into slim brown rodent form. She leaped lithely up beside me and we slipped out of the open window and down the wall of the inn. We reached the courtyard within moments and paused in the shadows at the foot of the wall. It wasn’t possible for us to speak in this form, but we did retain our minds. Temporarily at any rate; one of Mariel’s shapechanging horror stories involves a sorceress who spent too much time as a cow and ended up as one of her local lord’s finest milch herd.
One difficulty of being a rat is that of distinguishing one human from another. With the scents so confused and masked by animal scents, dung and sweat, there wasn’t that much to separate one huge booming-voiced creature from another. There were several people in the courtyard, together with a carriage and some horses, but working out who was who six inches from the ground wasn’t easy. We couldn’t go closer until we were sure there wasn’t an Inquisitor about.
Two horses were led past us and I thought I recognised Isa’s stableboy. The carriage was now resting in a corner of the yard and more humans thumped past us to the front door of the inn; great dark monstrous beings who stank abominably and whose voices hurt our delicate ears. Beside me, Catri-rat trembled and made a slight squeak. I tried to concentrate on those at the door. Rat-sight is poor, but rat-hearing is excellent, if I could only distinguish words among the echoing roar of those voices.
Someone – a man, I thought – was saying something about bad roads and apologising for the late hour of arrival. One of the others was ushering a couple of cloaked figures within. Ladies? They smelled strongly of perfumes. Another giant followed inside and the door was shut on everyone. Ordinary guests, then? I hadn’t picked up any sign of an Inquisitor and they wouldn’t travel in mixed parties. The courtyard grew quiet and I ventured out, running in brief bursts until I reached the edge of the road, a vast highway beside an immense stone wall. Catri bumped into me and both of us squeaked.
More giants walked by on the far side of the road but they did not approach us. From further away I could hear horses and wondered whether they were more guests for the inn. Isa probably wouldn’t be that pleased; too much of a good thing and all. Aside from the giants, there was no night noise here, no birds or little creatures apart from ourselves. Perhaps the riders were local people, heading home after a journey somewhere? I sniffed, but got only the salt wind from the coast and the rank whiffs of the passing giants.
A stronger odour insinuated itself, right behind us, and we turned. We had not seen or smelled him; the wind had favoured him. He was perhaps half again our size with greyish-brown fur, scarred and built like a warrior. One ear was ripped in a battle and the nose which sniffed towards us was blunt. He was a bruiser among rats and he thought he was hot stuff.
Catri reacted first. She squeaked and ran and I was right after her, catching up as we pelted across the road. He followed us, not put off by this maidenly modesty, but we were faster and motivated by a panic our suitor couldn’t possibly have understood. I ran past Catri to climb what I thought was a fence and plummeted down again into a vegetable garden, landing upon a pumpkin as horses’ hooves clattered behind on the road. Good, that would frighten rat-thug away and he’d probably forget all about us, though we might have to run fast to get past him if he went back to the inn. Rows of young beans clung to trellises either side of me, wet with light rain or perhaps only night dew. I crouched atop the pumpkin, trying to sniff out or hear Catri somewhere in the jungle of plants. She’d come up the side of the fence with me, I was sure she had, but I couldn’t smell her rat-form now.
The horses halted, their strong animal musk overpowering all other scents. A man spoke, sharp and suspicious, and a higher voice replied. Abruptly I slipped off the pumpkin, though I hadn’t meant to move. My gut wrenched in nauseating pain and my arms flew wide, striking the bean trellises. The pumpkin was now a small hard shape underneath me and my entire body – human body - ached like fire.
I had been thrown out of rat-shape completely without warning, but lay frozen despite the discomfort and the wet ground. I had my gown but nothing else. Human voices, now reduced to their usual blandness, came from a few paces away on the road. One, a clear male baritone, overrode the rest. “Don’t try to deny it, girl. We saw you change from beast to human form. Where are the rest of you?”
The sharp question was followed by a slap, or maybe a whip crack, and I heard Catri cry out. The sound sparked me into motion. I had to get out of there or they would realise she wasn’t alone, they would know I was there somehow.
I began crawling through the vegetable garden, trying to see the house ahead of me, a gray stony shape. There’d be a path somewhere. On hands and knees, still scuttling like a rat, I scrambled onwards, leaving the Inquisitors behind me . . . and abandoning Catri.
There was nothing I could do. My magic was as null as hers within the range of their influence. Whatever fate they dealt to her, they would deal also to me. I had to run, to keep free, to do something, warn Mariel. Somehow. Sharp pains cut into my hands and knees, probably stones, but I didn’t pause to check for injuries. Another cry rang out and then I heard Catri’s voice, swift and panicked and even a little indignant, but couldn’t make out what she was saying. They hadn’t come over the wall after me, so she had not betrayed me. I scuttled between the stone wall and the house, a narrow path barely wide enough for me. Once I got to the road on the other side, I’d get up and run. Make some distance, then hide somewhere until they’d gone on. I was gasping, must be making an awful noise, but I couldn’t seem to stop. If only I knew this village a little better, but all I knew was the Ship’s Rat and the road by which we’d entered Gartree from the west.
There was the road, badly lit but still clearly visible running past the row of cottages I’d come through. Open ground lay to my left, probably the market grounds. To the right, the road ran into a network of lanes and houses where I could lose myself and better yet, I couldn’t see anyone on the road. I stood up, creating a whole new set of pains in my back and limbs, but it felt so good to stretch, even if I was still very cold. I took stock. No shoes. No cloak or shawl, only the brown woollen dress. I did not look like any local girl, even if such would have been out alone so late. No helping it, though; I strode forward and turned right to the nearest lane as though I knew where I was going.
“Hello, Amber.”
I could have screeched and run, if I’d had my wits about me. There was time enough for that. But instead I just stood there and watched a man step out from behind the nearby tree where he had concealed himself. Then a second man appeared from a little further away and he too said, “Hello, Amber.”
“Nick,” I said feebly. “Lord Geofrey.”
The trap had closed.
Catri’s self-sacrifice was wasted. Geofrey and Nick were with those others, they couldn’t let me get away. I wondered whether I would be able to stand torture.
Geofrey, who had spoken to me first, closed the distance between us. “Listen, don’t talk,” he said to me. “We have very little time. I have spoken to Mariel and she has given me the briefest of versions of your story.” I opened my mouth to ask the first question that occurred to me and he said sharply, “No. Listen! My fellows have caught Catri, there is nothing I can do to help her at the moment. You must go with Nick to the Throne City at once. Yes, this may result in your capture, but if you are identified before you can reach the Queen, you will never have a chance to speak with her or her advisers and you must do this. To deal with one such as this Asherley, the Inquisition must be enlisted. We think she may listen to Nicholas if not to you.”
He was winter-fierce and cold but I did not fear him, not as I feared the unseen men who had hurt and captured my friend. I wanted to say something about my bare feet and how cold I was, but didn’t. None of that mattered any more. There wasn’t any time, but I had to ask him something I’d never really been able to ask anyone.
“Lord Geofrey, is it really black magic, what Asherley and the other wizard lords did?”
Such a question from a sorceress to an inquisitor wasn’t the wisest move. But if I had to stick my neck into the trap, maybe even the noose, I wanted to know this. All I knew of Asherley’s power was the spell which had drawn hundreds of ravens to my little town. It seemed to me this was only the kind of spell Mariel and Audryn and even I could do, writ large.
“The power is the power,” Geofrey said, so quietly that I didn’t think even Nicholas, approaching us, had heard him. “What those men did with it was the evil. Think on what such a one as Asherley, who delighted in the havoc and confusion of the ravens, would have done had he control of a dragon.”
“The magic itself isn’t evil?” I wanted to be sure I had it down.
Geofrey was patient, even now. “Magic is a force, a mindless energy, like the energy of a fire,” he said. “The evil lay in the usage, not in the spell itself. The evil of these particular mages lay in their greed and their disregard for anyone outside their own group.” He hesitated, glancing around and then back to me. “This time is very bad, I know how it must seem to you. You owe us no favours. But to help us now I think will help you, in the end. I’m sorry, I can give you no more comfort than that.”
Nicholas walked up beside us, silent, but Geofrey seemed glad of the interruption.
“Go through the lanes,” Geofrey said to us. “Bear ever south, that will bring you out of the village at Peter’s Lane and then to the high road south-east to the Throne City.” He stopped as we heard voices and the clatter of walking horses, then added, “Go,” and strode unhurriedly in their direction. Nick’s hand, large and cold, grasped mine and tugged me after him towards the warren of lanes where I had believed safety would lie. Everything was unfamiliar and I could only hope that Nicholas had the directions down, because I did not.
We walked for hours in the darkness while a light rain fell upon us, further chilling my spirits. The arrival of dawn did not cheer me. We hardly spoke as we left Gartree village, though we walked hand in hand like the sweethearts we’d been. It was more, I thought, Nick’s way of making sure I kept up and didn’t try to run away.
Catri might be dead by now. I faced that thought head on. She was a sorceress and had been caught doing sorcery; the fact that she was only fifteen would be no protection.
Geofrey’s ability to protect her was very limited and even Mariel was helpless so long as she had Erlina and Kieran with her. I was desperate to know how she’d spoken to Geofrey and whether the children were still with her; not because the answers were of any use but because I am who I am. Finally I said, “Nick?”
“Mm?”
“How did you find Mariel?”
“Stabling horses at the inn. There were some late guests, she said.” He glanced sideways at me, then back at the muddy road ahead of us.
“Oh,” I said. “I thought that was the stableboy.”
Nicholas choked. “I don’t think I want to know,” he said. “Amber, we had about two minutes to speak to her. Ralf, the leader of our group, had gone to the door to speak to the inn-keeper, but she said they were full up, to try the Green Dragon on the other side of the village. Then Ralf came back to us and we were away.”
Did they know about the children? I was not at all sure I should say anything, if they didn’t, and if they were aware, they didn’t need me to confirm it. Nicholas watched me a little oddly as these thoughts passed through my mind.
“Mariel told Geofrey there was a traitor, the same who had cursed your home town with a plague of ravens,” he said. “When she said the name, Geofrey swore he would find some way to get word to the Queen.”
“Why couldn’t he take it?”
“There is the question of how he came to learn of it. It involves the use of black magic by you two in Dampenrook and the fact that this use was not reported at the time,” Nicholas said softly. “You are going into great danger, Amber, I think you know this, but do you see that it is for you to do?”
“The ravens come home to roost,” I said softly. “Did Mariel – ah – know I wasn’t inside the inn?”
“She didn’t know about Catri yet – this was just before Ralf spotted her,” Nicholas admitted. “Ralf sent Geofrey and I around the other side; he was sure he had seen two rats scale the fence, which he thought was an unusual thing for them to do with horsemen approaching, though only one rat fell back into human form at our approach. I don’t see how Mariel could have known you’d left the room but the last thing she said to Geofrey was a little odd.”
“What?”
“If he should happen to spot you, to remind you not to do anything silly between here and Netone."
Foresight. It was a cold spell, somehow still hanging between us, unspoken. Mariel had looked at both of us that night before she went down to help with the guests and had known. It was no power I wanted. I hugged myself and wished desperately for warm clothing and a fire to sit beside.
“So what did she mean?” Nicholas asked. “More shapechanging?”
"No," I said sourly, finding that I couldn't look at him. "She meant not to drag you behind a hedge or let you drag me. As though I don't have anything better to do."
Nick chuckled but I didn’t think it was funny. I wasn’t sure I’d ever find anything funny again. I felt as though I’d run out on my friends again, left them in danger, walking away when I should have been walking to. Now that was foolish. Mariel was a more experienced sorceress than I was; surely she could conceal them, even if she couldn't turn the evil-sent dreams aside. Besides, I’d been ordered to go.
"Amber? Come on, look at me. I am sorry I laughed; it was because of what Mariel said, not you."
I reluctantly looked. Nicholas definitely wasn't the vision of fashion he'd been when I saw him at summer festival last year, that red and green hose, the white lawn shirt and half cloak of light red satin. Now he was clad in the gray robe of the Inquisition and I started every now and then as though he was a hostile stranger. When I looked at him properly, I seemed to see a sort of double vision; part Nicholas as he was now, part an image that wasn't human at all, that reared up, sharp-eared head, fangs showing in wolf-warning. We had run as wolves before ever we met in the flesh, meeting in dreams while I was trying to master shapechanging magic.
My Goddess (or his God) was reminding me of that now, but what did that reminder mean? My head still felt fuzzy every now and then, especially when I tried to remember things that had happened. Nothing felt quite real even now and I had to keep looking down at my legs to see that they were human and I hadn't slipped into some other shape without noticing. The high road was a busy one and we had to keep getting into the ditch to allow carts, carriages and ridden horses past us. The flood of traffic had begun with first light and the sun was now high enough to indicate the passage of at least three hours. After I had stumbled once too many times, I suppose, Nicholas said we should rest and we turned aside from the road.
Chapter 10
Guide us, Lord of hunt and forest
By the powers of fire and air
As we come once more to worship
Keep us, Witch Lord, in your care.
Invocation to Pan
Author Unknown
Humans do look very large and fearsome from the point of view of a rat.
After I Changed myself, I sat on the windowsill, my nose twitching – such a long and pointy nose, with its fine spread of whiskers – and watched Catri, standing in front of the startled children, blur and dwindle into slim brown rodent form. She leaped lithely up beside me and we slipped out of the open window and down the wall of the inn. We reached the courtyard within moments and paused in the shadows at the foot of the wall. It wasn’t possible for us to speak in this form, but we did retain our minds. Temporarily at any rate; one of Mariel’s shapechanging horror stories involves a sorceress who spent too much time as a cow and ended up as one of her local lord’s finest milch herd.
One difficulty of being a rat is that of distinguishing one human from another. With the scents so confused and masked by animal scents, dung and sweat, there wasn’t that much to separate one huge booming-voiced creature from another. There were several people in the courtyard, together with a carriage and some horses, but working out who was who six inches from the ground wasn’t easy. We couldn’t go closer until we were sure there wasn’t an Inquisitor about.
Two horses were led past us and I thought I recognised Isa’s stableboy. The carriage was now resting in a corner of the yard and more humans thumped past us to the front door of the inn; great dark monstrous beings who stank abominably and whose voices hurt our delicate ears. Beside me, Catri-rat trembled and made a slight squeak. I tried to concentrate on those at the door. Rat-sight is poor, but rat-hearing is excellent, if I could only distinguish words among the echoing roar of those voices.
Someone – a man, I thought – was saying something about bad roads and apologising for the late hour of arrival. One of the others was ushering a couple of cloaked figures within. Ladies? They smelled strongly of perfumes. Another giant followed inside and the door was shut on everyone. Ordinary guests, then? I hadn’t picked up any sign of an Inquisitor and they wouldn’t travel in mixed parties. The courtyard grew quiet and I ventured out, running in brief bursts until I reached the edge of the road, a vast highway beside an immense stone wall. Catri bumped into me and both of us squeaked.
More giants walked by on the far side of the road but they did not approach us. From further away I could hear horses and wondered whether they were more guests for the inn. Isa probably wouldn’t be that pleased; too much of a good thing and all. Aside from the giants, there was no night noise here, no birds or little creatures apart from ourselves. Perhaps the riders were local people, heading home after a journey somewhere? I sniffed, but got only the salt wind from the coast and the rank whiffs of the passing giants.
A stronger odour insinuated itself, right behind us, and we turned. We had not seen or smelled him; the wind had favoured him. He was perhaps half again our size with greyish-brown fur, scarred and built like a warrior. One ear was ripped in a battle and the nose which sniffed towards us was blunt. He was a bruiser among rats and he thought he was hot stuff.
Catri reacted first. She squeaked and ran and I was right after her, catching up as we pelted across the road. He followed us, not put off by this maidenly modesty, but we were faster and motivated by a panic our suitor couldn’t possibly have understood. I ran past Catri to climb what I thought was a fence and plummeted down again into a vegetable garden, landing upon a pumpkin as horses’ hooves clattered behind on the road. Good, that would frighten rat-thug away and he’d probably forget all about us, though we might have to run fast to get past him if he went back to the inn. Rows of young beans clung to trellises either side of me, wet with light rain or perhaps only night dew. I crouched atop the pumpkin, trying to sniff out or hear Catri somewhere in the jungle of plants. She’d come up the side of the fence with me, I was sure she had, but I couldn’t smell her rat-form now.
The horses halted, their strong animal musk overpowering all other scents. A man spoke, sharp and suspicious, and a higher voice replied. Abruptly I slipped off the pumpkin, though I hadn’t meant to move. My gut wrenched in nauseating pain and my arms flew wide, striking the bean trellises. The pumpkin was now a small hard shape underneath me and my entire body – human body - ached like fire.
I had been thrown out of rat-shape completely without warning, but lay frozen despite the discomfort and the wet ground. I had my gown but nothing else. Human voices, now reduced to their usual blandness, came from a few paces away on the road. One, a clear male baritone, overrode the rest. “Don’t try to deny it, girl. We saw you change from beast to human form. Where are the rest of you?”
The sharp question was followed by a slap, or maybe a whip crack, and I heard Catri cry out. The sound sparked me into motion. I had to get out of there or they would realise she wasn’t alone, they would know I was there somehow.
I began crawling through the vegetable garden, trying to see the house ahead of me, a gray stony shape. There’d be a path somewhere. On hands and knees, still scuttling like a rat, I scrambled onwards, leaving the Inquisitors behind me . . . and abandoning Catri.
There was nothing I could do. My magic was as null as hers within the range of their influence. Whatever fate they dealt to her, they would deal also to me. I had to run, to keep free, to do something, warn Mariel. Somehow. Sharp pains cut into my hands and knees, probably stones, but I didn’t pause to check for injuries. Another cry rang out and then I heard Catri’s voice, swift and panicked and even a little indignant, but couldn’t make out what she was saying. They hadn’t come over the wall after me, so she had not betrayed me. I scuttled between the stone wall and the house, a narrow path barely wide enough for me. Once I got to the road on the other side, I’d get up and run. Make some distance, then hide somewhere until they’d gone on. I was gasping, must be making an awful noise, but I couldn’t seem to stop. If only I knew this village a little better, but all I knew was the Ship’s Rat and the road by which we’d entered Gartree from the west.
There was the road, badly lit but still clearly visible running past the row of cottages I’d come through. Open ground lay to my left, probably the market grounds. To the right, the road ran into a network of lanes and houses where I could lose myself and better yet, I couldn’t see anyone on the road. I stood up, creating a whole new set of pains in my back and limbs, but it felt so good to stretch, even if I was still very cold. I took stock. No shoes. No cloak or shawl, only the brown woollen dress. I did not look like any local girl, even if such would have been out alone so late. No helping it, though; I strode forward and turned right to the nearest lane as though I knew where I was going.
“Hello, Amber.”
I could have screeched and run, if I’d had my wits about me. There was time enough for that. But instead I just stood there and watched a man step out from behind the nearby tree where he had concealed himself. Then a second man appeared from a little further away and he too said, “Hello, Amber.”
“Nick,” I said feebly. “Lord Geofrey.”
The trap had closed.
Catri’s self-sacrifice was wasted. Geofrey and Nick were with those others, they couldn’t let me get away. I wondered whether I would be able to stand torture.
Geofrey, who had spoken to me first, closed the distance between us. “Listen, don’t talk,” he said to me. “We have very little time. I have spoken to Mariel and she has given me the briefest of versions of your story.” I opened my mouth to ask the first question that occurred to me and he said sharply, “No. Listen! My fellows have caught Catri, there is nothing I can do to help her at the moment. You must go with Nick to the Throne City at once. Yes, this may result in your capture, but if you are identified before you can reach the Queen, you will never have a chance to speak with her or her advisers and you must do this. To deal with one such as this Asherley, the Inquisition must be enlisted. We think she may listen to Nicholas if not to you.”
He was winter-fierce and cold but I did not fear him, not as I feared the unseen men who had hurt and captured my friend. I wanted to say something about my bare feet and how cold I was, but didn’t. None of that mattered any more. There wasn’t any time, but I had to ask him something I’d never really been able to ask anyone.
“Lord Geofrey, is it really black magic, what Asherley and the other wizard lords did?”
Such a question from a sorceress to an inquisitor wasn’t the wisest move. But if I had to stick my neck into the trap, maybe even the noose, I wanted to know this. All I knew of Asherley’s power was the spell which had drawn hundreds of ravens to my little town. It seemed to me this was only the kind of spell Mariel and Audryn and even I could do, writ large.
“The power is the power,” Geofrey said, so quietly that I didn’t think even Nicholas, approaching us, had heard him. “What those men did with it was the evil. Think on what such a one as Asherley, who delighted in the havoc and confusion of the ravens, would have done had he control of a dragon.”
“The magic itself isn’t evil?” I wanted to be sure I had it down.
Geofrey was patient, even now. “Magic is a force, a mindless energy, like the energy of a fire,” he said. “The evil lay in the usage, not in the spell itself. The evil of these particular mages lay in their greed and their disregard for anyone outside their own group.” He hesitated, glancing around and then back to me. “This time is very bad, I know how it must seem to you. You owe us no favours. But to help us now I think will help you, in the end. I’m sorry, I can give you no more comfort than that.”
Nicholas walked up beside us, silent, but Geofrey seemed glad of the interruption.
“Go through the lanes,” Geofrey said to us. “Bear ever south, that will bring you out of the village at Peter’s Lane and then to the high road south-east to the Throne City.” He stopped as we heard voices and the clatter of walking horses, then added, “Go,” and strode unhurriedly in their direction. Nick’s hand, large and cold, grasped mine and tugged me after him towards the warren of lanes where I had believed safety would lie. Everything was unfamiliar and I could only hope that Nicholas had the directions down, because I did not.
We walked for hours in the darkness while a light rain fell upon us, further chilling my spirits. The arrival of dawn did not cheer me. We hardly spoke as we left Gartree village, though we walked hand in hand like the sweethearts we’d been. It was more, I thought, Nick’s way of making sure I kept up and didn’t try to run away.
Catri might be dead by now. I faced that thought head on. She was a sorceress and had been caught doing sorcery; the fact that she was only fifteen would be no protection.
Geofrey’s ability to protect her was very limited and even Mariel was helpless so long as she had Erlina and Kieran with her. I was desperate to know how she’d spoken to Geofrey and whether the children were still with her; not because the answers were of any use but because I am who I am. Finally I said, “Nick?”
“Mm?”
“How did you find Mariel?”
“Stabling horses at the inn. There were some late guests, she said.” He glanced sideways at me, then back at the muddy road ahead of us.
“Oh,” I said. “I thought that was the stableboy.”
Nicholas choked. “I don’t think I want to know,” he said. “Amber, we had about two minutes to speak to her. Ralf, the leader of our group, had gone to the door to speak to the inn-keeper, but she said they were full up, to try the Green Dragon on the other side of the village. Then Ralf came back to us and we were away.”
Did they know about the children? I was not at all sure I should say anything, if they didn’t, and if they were aware, they didn’t need me to confirm it. Nicholas watched me a little oddly as these thoughts passed through my mind.
“Mariel told Geofrey there was a traitor, the same who had cursed your home town with a plague of ravens,” he said. “When she said the name, Geofrey swore he would find some way to get word to the Queen.”
“Why couldn’t he take it?”
“There is the question of how he came to learn of it. It involves the use of black magic by you two in Dampenrook and the fact that this use was not reported at the time,” Nicholas said softly. “You are going into great danger, Amber, I think you know this, but do you see that it is for you to do?”
“The ravens come home to roost,” I said softly. “Did Mariel – ah – know I wasn’t inside the inn?”
“She didn’t know about Catri yet – this was just before Ralf spotted her,” Nicholas admitted. “Ralf sent Geofrey and I around the other side; he was sure he had seen two rats scale the fence, which he thought was an unusual thing for them to do with horsemen approaching, though only one rat fell back into human form at our approach. I don’t see how Mariel could have known you’d left the room but the last thing she said to Geofrey was a little odd.”
“What?”
“If he should happen to spot you, to remind you not to do anything silly between here and Netone."
Foresight. It was a cold spell, somehow still hanging between us, unspoken. Mariel had looked at both of us that night before she went down to help with the guests and had known. It was no power I wanted. I hugged myself and wished desperately for warm clothing and a fire to sit beside.
“So what did she mean?” Nicholas asked. “More shapechanging?”
"No," I said sourly, finding that I couldn't look at him. "She meant not to drag you behind a hedge or let you drag me. As though I don't have anything better to do."
Nick chuckled but I didn’t think it was funny. I wasn’t sure I’d ever find anything funny again. I felt as though I’d run out on my friends again, left them in danger, walking away when I should have been walking to. Now that was foolish. Mariel was a more experienced sorceress than I was; surely she could conceal them, even if she couldn't turn the evil-sent dreams aside. Besides, I’d been ordered to go.
"Amber? Come on, look at me. I am sorry I laughed; it was because of what Mariel said, not you."
I reluctantly looked. Nicholas definitely wasn't the vision of fashion he'd been when I saw him at summer festival last year, that red and green hose, the white lawn shirt and half cloak of light red satin. Now he was clad in the gray robe of the Inquisition and I started every now and then as though he was a hostile stranger. When I looked at him properly, I seemed to see a sort of double vision; part Nicholas as he was now, part an image that wasn't human at all, that reared up, sharp-eared head, fangs showing in wolf-warning. We had run as wolves before ever we met in the flesh, meeting in dreams while I was trying to master shapechanging magic.
My Goddess (or his God) was reminding me of that now, but what did that reminder mean? My head still felt fuzzy every now and then, especially when I tried to remember things that had happened. Nothing felt quite real even now and I had to keep looking down at my legs to see that they were human and I hadn't slipped into some other shape without noticing. The high road was a busy one and we had to keep getting into the ditch to allow carts, carriages and ridden horses past us. The flood of traffic had begun with first light and the sun was now high enough to indicate the passage of at least three hours. After I had stumbled once too many times, I suppose, Nicholas said we should rest and we turned aside from the road.
no subject
I need to catch up on this.
I've let my reading of it lapse due to all the other stuff (NaNoWriMo, then fixing the crappy novel I wrote during NaNoWriMo, while trying to catch up on the gazillion things I ignored while I was doing NaNoWriMo).