Wild Magic by Angus Wells

Author:Angus Wells [Wells, Angus]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-57540-1
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 1993-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

THE night descended into the absolute absence of light that precedes dawn. The forest was utterly still. Then the sky was filled with grey opalescence, birds began to chorus, announcing the ascension of the sun, and the blank etiolation was transformed. The heavens paled, grey replaced with soft pink, brightening to silvery gold, hints of azure. Cennaire heard the searchers long before Calandryll, and thought again of leaving him. Dismissed the thought as she felt his weight against her, and went on, toward the sounds. She felt suddenly very weary, leeched of judgment, indecisive,. even careless of her fate. What came would come: she would see Calandryll safe, and that would be enough.

Suddenly, bright as the radiance that filled the sky, she experienced a kind of freedom. She thought no longer of herself, but only of him. She smiled and asked, “Do you hear? We come to the road. To safety.”

Calandryll frowned, head cocked, listening, then nodded and grinned: “Aye, I hear them now.”

Then figures came through the trees, Bracht and Katya, Ochen, Chazali, kotu-zen. Cennaire called, “Here,” and she was surrounded, passing her limping burden to the Kern and the kiriwashen, the wazir and the warrior woman either side of her, questions clammering until she shook her head and trod wearily toward the road.

Pyres burned there, consuming the slain, the survivors of the battle moving farther off, upwind, to where more welcoming fires blazed, giving off the smell of roasting meat and tea. Ochen caught Cennaire’s eye and smiled wanly, she answering in kind, helplessly, allowing herself to be carried along, seeing Calandryll settled on a spread blanket, against a saddle, Ochen kneeling to massage his damaged leg, murmuring softly, his sorcery healing.

Katya said, “We feared you slain,” her grey eyes wondering.

Bracht looked up from over Ochen’s shoulder and said, “What happened? Where were you?”

Calandryll said, “She saved me. Dera, but had she not come …” and then halted, staring, puzzled, at the Kand woman, dawn’s early light, the company of comrades, reawakening all the questions the night and relief at living still had stifled.

Ochen said, “Do we take tea, and speak? I think the time has come that certain truths be told.”

Cennaire glanced round, thinking that she might, even now, flee. Might burst through the ring of curious watchers and escape into the woods. She had fought with uwagi, had lived through occult assault—these mere men could hardly withstand her. Then she met Ochen’s gaze, and saw a question in his narrow eyes, and a measure of hope, and she shrugged, filled with careless exhaustion, a lassitude that leeched her of purpose, leaving behind only a numb fatalism, and nodded, seating herself.

Calandryll, looking hard into her eyes, said, “Had Cennaire not come, I should be dead now. Rhythamun set his snares well, and without her aid, he’d have slain me.”

His voice was firm, but she saw a question in his eyes and wondered if he did not dredge that authority from a sense of loyalty, from the attraction she sensed he held.

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