"Stay on deck I'll go talk to Jestia," Tarius said. As she walked away she called on the night, magic couldn't be used against the Katabull so it made sense that if Jestia was worried she might be just casting random spells that Tarius should give herself her best protection.
She found Ufalla outside the door, obviously guarding.
"What's going on?"
"Well we were sword fighting and . . . " Ufalla told her the whole story. Tarius nodded and looked past her into the room where Jestia was sitting in the very middle of the floor a circle drawn in chalk around her looking at books.
"What's the circle for?" Tarius asked.
"She says it's to protect us from her magic." Ufalla frowned. "At first . . . well I thought it was just Jestia being Jestia but she keeps leafing threw books and muttering stuff, and I'm starting to get really worried. Do you think . . . Well could she hurt herself?"
"I don't think so," Tarius said thoughtfully. "I'll talk to her and see if I can calm her down."
"You think she's just excited over nothing?" Ufalla asked hopefully.
"All the witches and wizards I've ever known . . . They never cast an evil thing. The way I understand it to do so takes a great deal from the caster and eventually turns them into something . . . Well less than human. I don't think you can just cast something harmful like what she's afraid of without going out of your way to do so. I certainly don't think it's going to happen from her random thoughts, I mean Jestia can be a royal pain in the ass but there isn't an evil bone in her body. I'll tell her that and maybe she'll calm down."
"Thanks Tarius," Ufalla said, and seemed to relax a little.
Tarius smiled,
They're all grown up but they're still cubs. When things happen that are beyond them they're more than happy to have the help of one of their elders which is good because I still need them to need me on occasion.
She walked into the room and Jestia, not looking up from the book said, "Get out, Ufalla."
"I'm not Ufalla."
Jestia turned to look at her and it was obvious that the girl was distraught. "Tarius, don't come inside the circle. I've cast a wall around myself so I can't hurt anyone."
"But I am the Katabull," Tarius said and walked into the circle. She felt the strange stirring of the magic field but nothing worse than a little tingling at the base of her skull. "Jestia, you must calm down."
"I can't Tarius. I'm trying," Jestia said then in a whisper, no doubt for Ufalla's benefit. "I may have to go into the woods and live like a hermit." She was near tears.
Tarius nodded solemnly and looked at the books at her feet. She hunkered down and picked one up. Then holding it towards Jestia said, "So . . . have you actually looked at any of these?"
"I've looked at all of them twice."
"Don't you have a spell for finding things in books?" Tarius asked.
"Yes of course," Jestia said, slapping herself in the forehead with her palm.
"And yet you've been looking and looking?" Tarius said with a smile.
"Yes?"
"And the spell didn't cast itself," Tarius said. "With you so distraught and thinking of becoming a hermit you're just looking and looking through books."
"And my mind didn't just automatically cast the spell," Jestia said, realizing what Tarius was saying with a sudden smile.
"Jestia, maybe you didn't actually cast a spell before, maybe your woman and her brother just think themselves so good that they forget that every fighter has a good day. I have always said on his best day the worst fighter can take the best and on their worst day the best fighter will fall to the worst. Even if you did cast some fighting or speed spell without trying, that doesn't have to be a bad thing; it might be a very good one. Look in your books for thought casters and see what it says about them. I'm sure you won't find anything that says they got mad at their lover and accidently turned them into a toad. Until you figure out what's happened and why and whether it's good or not, calm down. You've got poor Ufalla chewing her nails to the bone with worry."
Jestia nodded. "Thanks Tarius."
"You're more than welcome." She stood back up. "I'll stay like this. If you feel like you really can't control your magic then you send Ufalla for me and together we'll get it under control, but I think, my non-blood kin, that you are worrying about nothing."
"Tarius . . . am I . . . am I really part of your pack?"
Tarius smiled down at the girl. "Jestia even if you weren't Ufalla's mate . . . You saved my son's life . . . "
"I didn't . . . "
"You did, but even if you didn't . . . Jestia the minute I had them slap you into Marching Night armor and saw you walking in it, I knew you were part of my pack. So, when I tell you not to worry and that we will handle this together whatever this might be then know that I mean to do it. You will not be a hermit. Think it a blessing or a curse, but you'll never be alone again."
Jestia nodded and a tear ran down her cheek. She sniffed and went back to her books. This time one lifted out of the pile and the pages started turning. She smiled. "I had to work on it."
"Then there you go." Tarius stood up, turned on her heel, walked out of the circle and out of the room. She took Ufalla's arm and led her down the hall a bit. "The fight was it . . . Well are you sure it was magic?"
"Yes, I'm sure of it. Tarius, it was like she was there one minute and then she just wasn't and then she was somewhere else," Ufalla said. Then added a bit insulted, "Tarius I wouldn't let her think there was something wrong with her if all she'd done was best me at sword."
"I didn't think you would, Ufalla, but sometimes the best of us see one thing and think another. I was just checking," Tarius said. "I know I don't have to tell you this, but stay close. If she does need help you come get me. I'll be in my cabin. I don't think this is the problem she thinks it is, but she has grown very powerful, very quickly and it's better to be safe than sorry."
Ufalla nodded and Tarius started to walk away. She felt the girl's hand on her shoulder and turned. "Thanks Tarius, and thanks for saying what you did about her being part of us now. I know it means a lot to her even if she didn't say so."
"People don't have to speak to say things, Ufalla. Jestia as you know speaks more with her deeds than her words. Hestia's a good person, my friend, but she's not a good mother. She knows this but doesn't know how to fix it because her heart has never been full. Jestia doesn't have that problem; I don't think she ever has. That's why she was so miserable as a child. She's not like them, she never belonged with them, she belongs with us, with you."
Ufalla hugged her and Tarius hugged her back, when they parted she went to her cabin. With all the excitement she wanted a nap, "Old age bites," she grumbled.
* * *
Jestia read the passage titled "Thought Casters in the Royal Line of the Kartiks" twice. There had apparently been two very powerful witches among her ancestors, but the references to Dorcus the Great were the ones that most intrigued her because she was the one who was known to be a thought caster. Further it said that she was able to cast certain spells without even trying.
One story said that whenever she sat down in her garden a pot of tea and a cup would appear and then the tea would pour into the cup and the cup would go into her hand. When a friend asked her why she didn't simply have the cup of tea appear in her hand she explained that she never really cast the spell. That she liked to have tea in her garden and it just always happened that way.
It was wildly interesting and some amusing but the main problem with thought casters was that there had been so few of them that there just wasn't much in the books that Jezel hadn't already taught her. The only reference to thought casters casting without their will was Dorcus the Great's magic tea pot.
But maybe that's good. I mean if Dorcus had accidently conjured great beasts that ate people that would be in the books. Maybe it's as simple as I wanted to win and so it just happened.
"Can I come in now?" Ufalla asked.
"Yes," Jestia said. Ufalla walked up to the edge of the circle, and Jestia looked up at her and smiled. "You can come in the circle, too. I think I'm safe."
Ufalla crossed the circle knelt and started gathering the books up for Jestia.
"I never had any doubt," Ufalla said and kissed Jestia on the cheek. "Come on, let's put these up, I heard someone say the evening meal is ready and I'm starved."
"I'm going to have to learn to cook because you are always hungry," Jestia said, taking the books from Ufalla and putting them back into her bag.
"I'm sure you will learn to do it as quickly and as well as you do all things. However I do know how to cook."
"Then you can teach me."
Jestia followed Ufalla to the galley where they sat down at the table. On the ship they had to eat in shifts as the galley was small. Still she was glad to see Tarius.
"You can go back to human form if you want, I think I'm fine. Seems I actually had an ancestor who did the same thing and it never caused any real problems."
Tarius nodded but was in no hurry to change.
Lobster, they were having lobster, she loved lobster and . . . Where the hell did that tea pot and cup come from?
Persius had been meeting with several of his advisors concerning the Amalite menace. He now looked at the Kartik man standing before him. The man was still out of breath from what Persius assumed was a dash from his horse to the throne room, probably with Persius's own stupid herald and half a dozen others chasing after him telling him he couldn't just see the king, that he was breaking protocol.
"A message," he said in heavily accented Jethrikian, trying to catch his breath, "from my Sovereign Queen," he caught his breath again, "Hestia, Ruler of the whole Kartik. To be delivered into the hand of the King of the Jethrik." He handed Persius a roll of parchment with the queen's wax seal prominent on it.
"Concerning what?" Persius's herald asked and the Kartik soldier—who had in the herald's
opinion broken about every rule of protocol that could be broken—looked at him like he was nothing more than a piece of irritating fluff. Persius could not have agreed more.
"Concerning the Amalite scum," he spit on the throne room floor before continuing, "that have been raiding your territory and your country."
Persius smiled looking at the spit on his floor which had the herald and most of his advisors all puffed up with irritation. Then he opened the parchment carefully and was pleased to see that the Kartik Queen actually knew Jethrikian.
"Read it aloud so that we all may know her words." He held it out toward his herald who wasted several seconds not understanding that Persius was talking to him. When he realized all eyes were on him he stepped forward nervously and took the parchment from Persius's hand. "Do you just never pay any attention unless things of no importance are annoying you?" Persius asked, glaring down at the herald.
"Sorry sire," he said, bowing.
"Look at this man, out of breath and red in the face from hurrying to serve his queen. Why can I not command such respect, such competency from my own subjects?"
"I don't know sire," the herald said.
"Just read the missive dammit!"
"From Queen Hestia, Ruler of all the Kartik, Herald of the Dawn, Daughter of the Moon . . . "
"Skip the nonsense and read the message!" Persius was thinking more and more that this guy didn't need his head since he never seemed to use it any way.
"Tarius and I have met and are in agreement that we must send troops to help you kill the Amalite horde that threatens all our peace, for Tarius has seen that there are a great multitude of them. For my part I am sending five hundred men and one hundres horses which have made berth at Port Sagal.
"When did you dock?" Persius asked the man.
He held up four fingers which was good because he then said, "six days ago and five horses changed." And then he held up three fingers. He obviously had mixed up his Jethrikian numbers.
Persius waited for the herald to start reading again which he didn't until Persius screamed, "Dammit man, are you just trying to see how much you can get away with before I have your head removed from your shoulders? Read on!" At Persius's shoulder Hellibolt chuckled and Persius ignored him.
"Tarius the Black, the Great Leader of the Katabull people, will dock there a day or two after our forces with two hundred fifty men and fifty horses. Most of the Marching Night plus one hundred twenty other Katabull. She will be commanding all of our troops in the territories. She wishes to meet with you at Port Sagal and discuss strategy.
"I have met your daughter, Kasiria. She's a lovely girl and seems to have healed well after her ordeal, thanks in no small part to Tarius's impeccable timing and my own daughter's aid . . . "
"Wait, wait," Persius held up his hand and worked at coming to terms with what he'd just learned. Hestia was a shrewd woman. She no doubt told him this to make him more pliable to what she and Tarius wanted, and maybe to hint at the possibility of a ransom of sorts with them returning Kasiria safe only if he agreed to their terms regarding the impending battle. Of course 'til she'd told him in her letter Persius had no idea Kasiria was even hurt, no doubt because everyone who worked for him was an incompetent fool, which Hestia would have no way of knowing. "You imbeciles, you got the messages wrong, Kasiria was the one that was hurt not some Katabull. They rushed to the Kartik with Kasiria because she was injured. Did you know this Hellibolt?"
"I had my suspicions," Hellibolt said simply.
"And yet you said nothing."
"What would have been the point, sire? Kasiria was already in the Kartik when we got the information that she had gone there. What could you have done? Gone to the Kartik? By the time you got there and if you could find her she would have already either been healed or dead." He was right of course. What could Persius have really done? He could worry but that never really helped anything and there was nothing constructive he could have done. Hellibolt continued. "Besides she was in good hands. Tarius would never let anything happen to the girl if she could help it."