SummerDanse (5 page)

“Put out your hands,” he said. “I can’t be having you loose while I can’t attend to you.”

Grateful that he wasn’t making me get back into the cage, I did exactly as he wished. And tried not to despise myself for my compliance.

He used the length of vine to tie my wrists together in a complicated and very secure way.

“There. If you cause me any trouble tonight, next time I’ll tie them behind you. And leave you in the cage, too.”

I had no doubt he meant it, but his words had little force behind them. He picked up the candles and disappeared into the trees again.

I sat for awhile, simply staring into the fire. The faces of my friends seemed to dance in the flames.

Traz, who’d helped me save my brother and who wanted to be a mage, only to find when we were on Stychs that he had a powerful magic unknown in our world: the danse.

Yallick, the master mage to whom I’d apprenticed myself. He often seemed grim and unhappy, but I’d come to realize that he really did care for me and wanted most of all for me to grow strong in my maejic.

Oleeda, another master mage. She was kind and understanding, though sometimes hard to predict. At any rate, she was less a cipher than Yallick was.

Breyard, my older brother, whom, ironically, I always seemed to be looking after. He was a prankster and practical joker, but he, too, had maejic power. And something had happened to him during his own time on Stychs that had settled him down a little, made him more steady. I hadn’t yet learned what that was.

Mama and Papa. They were exactly what parents should be: bossy and annoying and full of love and unexpected kindness. Papa, I’d figured out recently, was maejic, too, although he’d hidden this fact all our lives. Why? And why had dragonmasters kidnapped him and Mama?

Grey. I tried to steer my thoughts away from him, but the memory of my last sight of him repeated itself over and over, leaving me, yet again, in tears.

I lay on the ground near the fire and fell asleep. I came partly awake when Anazian returned. When his footsteps came near, I closed my eyes, not wanting him to know I was awake. To my great surprise, he lay a thin blanket over me. I almost thanked him but cut off the words. More sure now than ever that he didn’t intend to kill me, I fell back to sleep.

But it wasn’t a restful night. Although only my hands were tied, I still couldn’t move naturally or get comfortable. My joints were stiff from having spent several days in that cage, and my flesh felt battered from the single day’s rough journey.

And to make matters worse, my arms began to itch. Not severely, the way they would if I’d broken out in a rash, but here and there in tiny bursts, as if bugs were crawling on me. The bothersome sensation woke me up several times and even penetrated my dreams. It spread to the rest of my body: my legs, my back, my neck. But something kept me from being able to scratch. It was like a dream where you need to run away only to find your feet won’t move. A presence was there, threatening and watching and preventing me from moving. Slowly, something crept like a snake all around my body. I writhed around, thin tendrils tickling my skin and getting up my nose and into my mouth.

I finally forced myself awake, only to find that much of my dream was reality. I couldn’t move. Something covered my face, preventing me from seeing anything. I could still breathe, but barely. Unable to help myself, I screamed.

Anazian laughed in reply.

“My, my. What do we have here?”

He moved aside that which obstructed my vision, and I saw that morning had arrived. I also saw that I was encased, head to foot, in vines. They’d grown from the ones he’d used to bind my wrists. Overnight, they’d completely covered me.

Anazian helped me to a sitting position but didn’t remove the vines. For some reason, the whole thing amused him, and he kept looking at me and laughing. Each time, my face burned hotter with embarrassment and rage.

He cooked porridge for his breakfast, watching me while he ate. Then he took his candles off for morning meditation, leaving me to sit, unable to move as the growing vines covered my face again.

I try to concentrate on the danse, but it’s impossible. How can everyone just sit around as if nothing is wrong? It’s making me crazy. Lini says not to worry, but she doesn’t know Donavah like I do. She’s out there somewhere, alone, without any of us to help her. I just wish I knew what happened to her and Grey, why she was taken and he was stabbed and left behind.

Oh, how I wish I could speak to the dragons. I’m sure I could convince one to fly away with me to find her. But as it is, I’m stuck here with nothing to do but practice danse.

Well, all right, let’s be fair. That’s pretty good and I shouldn’t complain. Already I can feel the power grow in me when I move. It’s also pretty great to learn all about Etos. I still can’t believe my staff was made of wood from his tree!

But when I’m not studying danse, all there is to do is work. And not easy work, either, trying to build houses and stuff. I’d rather work in the kitchens, but they say there are too many other things I can do that the real cooks can’t.

And the thing I do most is worry about Donavah.

I knew Anazian would be back before long, but my anger boiled all the same. He would just laugh at me again. Well, perhaps I could turn the tables on him and kill his precious plant.

Closing my eyes, I turned my thoughts deep inside myself and summoned my maejic, determined to free myself, at least this once, at least for a little while.

As had happened last time I tried, pain ripped through my head. I drew up my knees and rested my forehead on them. I tried to take slow breaths, hoping that calming myself down would help. Eventually the pain subsided, and I sat exactly as I was, wondering what was going on. Why couldn’t I used my maejic?

When Anazian returned, I said nothing as he pulled the leaves and restricting vines from me. Then he pulled me to my feet, his eyes dancing although he refrained from laughing out loud.

Now that my hands were free, I rubbed my temples.

“Ah,” Anazian said in a scoffing tone.

“What?” I snapped, then waited for him to turn on me.

He just laughed again with a condescending expression on his face.

It didn’t take long to get ready to leave. Anazian hitched up the horses while I packed up the bundles we’d used and made sure they were secure. Once everything needful was done, Anazian made me get back into the cage, and another day of flesh-pounding misery began.

I’d never imagined how uncomfortable and downright painful riding in a wagon could be. I felt every bit of unevenness in the road: in my muscles, in my bones, even in my teeth.

This day went on much as the first, except that, unlike yesterday morning, the woods around us were bright and full of life. We stopped again at midday, and Anazian went off into the trees again. This time, I saw that he took meditation candles with him. Meditating three times a day? That seemed strange. I’d never heard of anyone doing that before.

Then on we went through the afternoon. By the time we stopped for the night, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get out of the cage when Anazian released me. It took an effort of will, and I scraped my shin badly in the process.

The mage was in a strange mood that evening. Once again he sat close to the fire while I did all the work. He kept muttering under his breath.

As I put a bit of dried meat and herbs into the pot to cook, he said, “I forgot to tell you, didn’t I?”

By now I’d grown tired of having to listen to one-sided conversations, so speaking as meekly as I could, I said, “Tell me what?”

“Ha! I knew I’d forgotten something. So I’ll tell you now.”

And I waited for him to do so. Time stretched out. I stirred the pot. Just about the time I decided to ask, he spoke again.

“The woods back there.”

I glanced over my shoulder.

“No, no. Back there.” He waved an arm toward the road in the direction from which we’d traveled. “Those are nasty trees. Did you notice?”

I nodded, my curiosity growing.

He whispered his next words, and I had to strain to hear them. “They hate magic.” Then he nodded as if he’d revealed a great secret.

I could well believe that what he said was true, but why was he telling me this? The whole time we’d been together he’d spoken to me only to give instructions or to mock, or both simultaneously. Why now did he seem to want to carry on a normal conversation?

“And yet I tamed them,” he went on while I stared at him. “I worked them, and they submitted. To me. I bent them to my will, and then—” He broke off and started giggling. “I bent them, oh yes, indeed I did.”

I was quickly beginning to wish that he’d return to his old conversation habits. His childish behavior unsettled me.

He sat up straight and gave me a serious look. “The black trees, they are black straight to their hearts. They hate the magic that men do, and they reflect it back. There are few of them left in the world. That wood back there might be the very last of them. Most folk today believe them to have been wiped out completely. But I felt them; I knew they were there, and I sought them out.”

Probably because your heart is as black as theirs, I thought as I gave the pot another stir.

Then he scooted around the fire and came close to me. He put one arm around my shoulders and lifted the other toward my neck. I jerked my head aside, but all he did was touch the wood collar.

He whispered again, his face close enough to mine that I felt his breath on my cheek. “Have you not guessed?” And in that instant, I did. “This wood, and the box in which I keep you safe. Both are made of the black wood. And that is why you can’t do any of your little maejic tricks. The wood simply reflects the power back onto you. Now, give me something to eat.”

I shrugged away from him, got a bowl, and filled it with stew, then served myself and moved as far from him as I dared.

Well, I mused, that explained the headaches. And why I couldn’t feel the life vibrations. But how strange that something as inanimate as wood could hate magic so. Yet, when I thought about it more, wood wasn’t really inanimate. It was a living and growing thing. On Stychs, I had met Etos, the spirit of a tree whose “body” was little more than a stump but whose soul lived on in mighty power.

I touched the collar again. Now this wood, this wood that hated my power and probably hated me, too, this wood was my unceasing companion. By now I knew I couldn’t take it off, not by myself, not without any tools.

When he finished eating, Anazian got another length of vine and came over to me. I slurped down the last of my meal before he bound my wrists together again.

“I have told them to behave themselves tonight,” he said, as if I should be grateful, then went off for his meditation.

Returning to the fire, I found a blanket and, curling up beneath it, I fell asleep. This time, I slept right through the night, and in the morning found that the vines had obeyed Anazian.

And so the journey went for the next few days. Anazian would be harsh, almost brutal, in the morning. He’d grow weaker during the day, and in the evenings, before meditating, his tongue would be loose. It was a disconcerting pattern, but at least I recognized it and knew what to expect.

Three nights after his explanation of the wood, he sat giggling as I cooked. My exasperation reached new heights.

“You really haven’t figured it out yet, have you?” he asked, sounding much like an arrogant child.

“No,” I growled, wondering what he could possibly be talking about. “I haven’t. Why don’t you tell me?”

“All right, I will.”

I waited, keeping my attention on the food I was preparing.

“I’m taking you to Penwick,” he finally said.

“What?” I exclaimed. “The capital city?”

“The very same.”

My heart sank, and I blinked back the tears that rose to my eyes. Every bit of my body ached, no matter how hard I tried to ignore it. While I might not know our exact location, I was sure we were still in the eastern forests, hundreds of miles from the capital. I would never survive a journey that long.

“Ah, but don’t despair. There is more you don’t know—probably haven’t guessed, probably couldn’t guess.”

I didn’t reply, sure that if I tried to say a word, I would burst into tears. He came closer and patted my shoulder. I shrank away.

“It won’t take long to get there.”

I looked at him sharply. Was he suggesting that we would be using the Royal Guard’s network of messenger horses? That was the only way to travel faster than we already were. Unless he meant dragons? But no, that couldn’t be. Other than the red dragons, the only ones in Alloway were those kept by the king for the fighting pits. Held by magic against their will, I could scarcely imagine that even the dragonmasters had enough power to control one out in the open for long.

With a mischievous smile, Anazian asked, “Want me to tell you?” His voice held an immature note of pride. “I’m folding the land!” And he laughed as if this were the greatest joke in the world.

“Doing what?”

“There, you see. Your great master hasn’t taught you everything.”

Well, no, of course he hadn’t. I’d only been studying with him for a few short months. Anazian knew that. I wasn’t sure which I wanted to understand more: what he was talking about or why he acted so strangely every night.

“I’ve been folding the land,” he repeated. “Making it so that each step we take moves us farther than normal. It doesn’t make much difference in the forest, for land on which many trees grow is difficult to fold. But you wait until tomorrow when we get free of the woods. Then you shall really see it at work.”

And now I understood the answer to both questions, for using that much power all day would certainly leave one weak, requiring both physical and spiritual refilling of one’s stores. It also explained the three meditation sessions each day.

That night, I tried to sort through what I’d learned. Why was Anazian taking me to Penwick? Maybe it was to turn me over to the king. The dragonmasters had been after the mages ever since Breyard and Xyla had escaped from them right under their noses. Maybe Anazian was trying to gain favor with King Erno by giving him me in my brother’s stead. Not a comforting thought, but it certainly explained why the mage would go to so much trouble to capture me and keep me alive.

And why would time matter? Why expend so much power to shorten the journey? Was there perhaps a bounty on my head that would expire soon?

All these questions and more kept my thoughts spinning long after Anazian had returned from his meditation and gone to sleep himself.

And now I thought of something else. When he was weak and acting strangely, that was when he divulged things to me. I wondered whether he even remembered what he’d told me once he strengthened himself. For he never mentioned in the morning what he’d told me the night before. I would have to take advantage of this, see what more information I could get from him.

I finally dropped off in the deepest, quietest hour of the night.