02 - The Barbed Rose (44 page)

She wanted the magic to flow between all of them, not just Kallista to Obed, Kallista to Joh, but Obed to Joh, and Viyelle to Aisse, and Aisse to Joh and Fox and Stone and Torchay. She wanted a web of magic, not a starburst.

Could she do it? It was a thing that had so far happened only at a wedding, whether in a legal ceremony or not. She’d never tried it on her own, but she above all others knew that meant less than nothing.

She gathered up the strands of magic again, delighting in its eager, joyous response, in the gasps and groans of her iliasti as she slid it from them. Again, she blended it so the parts could not be picked out of the whole, and she poured it into the man closest to her. Torchay, she thought, when he shouted as the magic hit him.

She wrapped her legs around him, drawing him in, and took a breath. This was the new part. Kallista clutched the magic tight and tumbled out of Torchay into her next ilias—Fox. She took a moment to bind him into the magic and blundered on, into Viyelle who screamed as the magic hit her, not in pain.

This wasn’t new, Kallista realized. She had done this before, but frantically, half-panicked in the overpowering surge of long-dormant magic. It was easier now she didn’t have to rush. She wove Viyelle into the web and found Stone on Viyelle’s other side. As she understood what she did, she began to do it faster, the magic changing from tiny trickle to tumbling stream.

Stone to Aisse down by their feet, and Aisse to Joh. Joh to Obed and from Obed back home again. Kallista spilled magic from one to the next, finding the channels connecting each of them to each of the others. She pushed the magic through until the glow of the shining web nearly blinded her. They were connected, bound by bodies and magic.

She felt them all, plunging inside her, against her, taking her in, urging her on. She poured more magic into the stream until it became a flood, a storm of magic beating against their fragile selves. Still she whipped it higher until one of them screamed and the storm broke over them because she could not hold it back any longer.

Someone poured his seed down her throat—but it wasn’t her throat. Still it made her writhe and cry out, and they all writhed, all cried out, and that started it yet again and again. Climax crashed through them, each one triggering the others, endlessly, violently, ecstatically, until nothing was left and they lay tangled together, drained and filled to overflowing.

“Dear sweet Goddess in heaven.” Many, many long, long moments later, Viyelle’s voice floated up from somewhere in the middle of the sticky, sweaty pile, not in cursing, but in obvious supplication. “We won’t last a week. The demons won’t have to kill us. We’ll do ourselves in.”

“How can you talk?” Stone mumbled. “M’mouf won’t work.”

“You’re talking now, aren’t you?” Fox’s careful enunciation betrayed his state.

“Shut up the lot of you,” Torchay said. “I’m sleeping here.”

“Not till you get off me, you’re not.” Kallista managed to poke him with a finger. The rest of her hand wouldn’t move.

“Oh. Right.” He slid to one side, squeezing in next to Fox.

“Is everyone still with us?” She could feel all the links lying silent, deep inside her, but nothing more.

“I’m not,” Joh said from beyond Aisse. “I am definitely no longer among the living. Can’t possibly be.”

Aisse giggled, nothing more, but Kallista decided a giggle was enough of a sign she’d survived. That left—

“Obed?” With a sigh, she struggled to roll over and spoon herself against the broad back beside her. She kissed his shoulder. “Obed, it’s all right.”

“Yes.” His voice sounded odd. Strained.

He jerked as if startled, and Kallista looked down their bodies to see Aisse stroking Obed’s ankle. After a moment, Torchay reached across Kallista and laid his hand on Obed’s arm, tentatively at first, as if afraid it might be thrown off. When it wasn’t, Torchay relaxed, letting the weight of his hand settle in.

“Can I—?” Obed hesitated. “I want to move.”

Where?
What had gone wrong now?

“I want to sleep in the middle.” He sat up, looked at Kallista with red-rimmed eyes. “I am ilias. I want in the middle.”

Torchay swore. “You expect me to move? After that?”

“Don’t move, if you cannot. I will.” Obed crawled over Kallista, over Torchay and squirmed his way between him and Fox.

If Kallista had the energy, she would have been shocked. Obed was not in the least attracted to men. She’d sensed his emotions enough to know. So his move had nothing at all to do with sex and everything to do with…what?

She crawled over Torchay, rolling him toward the edge so she could fit next to Obed.

“Saints,” Torchay grumbled. “Next thing you’ll be shoving me on the floor.”

“You know better.” She accompanied her scold with a kiss. “Go to sleep.”

“I’m
trying
.” He turned his back with a grumpy bounce.

Kallista turned the other way and tucked herself into Obed’s back once more. “What is it, love? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Well then, what’s right?” Exasperated, she had to struggle to keep her voice quiet.

Obed sighed and rolled onto his back, shoving a bit to fit his shoulders into the tight space. “You love me. I expected—
hoped
for that. But I never expected—I have always been on the outside. Always. Apart from family, not a part of one. Until now. I do not have just you. I have them, too. I am tired of living on the outside. I want to be in the middle.”

Kallista kissed him. A kiss that was interrupted by Aisse crawling up to insert herself between them.

“He always was yours, but not mine,” she announced. “Now I have him, too.”

“Well, I’m not sleeping by myself down here.” Joh shoved his way in between Kallista and Aisse so energetically that only Kallista’s quick action kept Torchay off the floor.

He swore, long and creatively. “Are we through now? Everybody where they’re by damn going to stay?”

After a chorus of agreement and a false snore from Stone, Torchay gave Kallista a hearty push, moving everyone over and Stone nearly to the floor on the far side.

“Now,” Torchay grumbled as the laughter subsided and eyes closed. “Go to sleep. No more change-your-partner. Sleep. Or I’ll be forced to take measures.”

“Oh, no,” Kallista muttered. “Not
measures
.”

“Watch your mouth, woman. I know where you sleep.”

On Thirdday after the wedding on Graceday last, as the midsummer month of Norenda was almost done, Kallista gathered up her household, babies and all, collected the troop of soldiers assigned to the valley, and rode for the western coast. They skirted the northern edge of the Empty Lands until they reached Korvell, where they took ship.

The sail south along the coast took just over a week, saving them endless days in the saddle and allowing Aisse to rest and recover further. In Sarit, a merchant’s caravan attached themselves to their party for the trip into the Shieldbacks and Arikon. Kallista didn’t object.

She was in no hurry to abandon the illusion that their ilian was anything out of the ordinary. Duty would still be there, no matter how swiftly or slowly they traveled. She wanted to indulge herself in family life just a little longer. But the illusion got harder and harder to maintain.

Only two days out of Sarit, the feeling of oppression, of being weighted down, became so strong, Kallista threw up a veiling, hiding their magic. With all of them together, it was nearly as effortless as breathing, especially since the oppressive atmosphere eased as soon as she did it. Joh surmised that the demons were either trying to keep naitani away from Arikon, or to weaken those already present. Kallista thought he was probably right, and the possibility that the demons could cast their power so wide increased her unease.

Nor was magic the only threat. The nights were filled with alarms that had the soldiers endlessly chasing from one end of the caravan to the other so that they rode the next day sagging from lack of sleep. Kallista finally ordered them to ignore any threats to mere property. They got a single night’s sleep before the first merchant’s throat was cut.

The rebels obviously couldn’t match their force or they would have attacked openly, but the sneak attacks from darkness or under cover were taking too great a toll. The caravan was a week away from Sarit and almost that distance to Arikon when Kallista made her decision.

“We ride for the capital without stopping at night.” She looked at the gathered merchants, the soldiers, at her family, trying to convey the seriousness of her words.

“If you merchants can’t keep up, we will not wait for you. If you turn back, the rebels may leave you be—I think they only intend to stop travel to Arikon. But I do not know for certain.”

“What if
you
cannot keep up?” one of the merchants demanded. “You’re traveling with infants, with invalids.”

“I am no invalid,” Aisse protested.

“I think he meant Merinda,” Fox murmured to soothe her. Merinda had suffered terribly from sea sickness and still had not recovered.

“We are ilian,” Kallista said. “We will carry our own as needed. But we
must
reach Arikon. If you ride with us, then ride. Don’t complain.”

“When do we go?” another asked.

“Now.”

The gathering burst into a flurry of activity that increased with Kallista’s refusal to listen to arguments or pleas. The babies were fed, cleaned, placed in carriers. Packs were loaded, remounts collected, horses saddled, and within the hour, they were off.

At least four of the merchants joined them. Two more were still frantically harnessing their heavy wagons. Kallista walled off her heart as they left the stragglers behind. The merchants riding with them had abandoned wagons of their own, ranking lives more important than trade goods. The greedy might survive, if they turned back.

She summoned the veiling, both physical and magical, and threw it over the entire caravan. She hadn’t intended to veil the merchants until it occurred to her that if the rebels could see the merchants, they could track her ilian with them.

That first day, while everyone was rested, they pushed the pace to a canter a time or two, stopping only as the babies needed tending. Fox took Merinda up with him early in the day, which meant switching horses more often, but they had plenty of the sturdy Korbin beasts. In the night, more of them shared mounts, one sleeping while the other held on. The babies rode in the pack carriers Stone had devised during the trip north, slumbering blissfully to the sway of the horses.

That first night, Kallista thought she heard screams and the sound of clashing steel, and worried about the merchants left behind. But when she spoke of it, Obed, riding with her, had heard nothing. She might have thought him lying to ease her conscience, but none of the others had heard anything either. She marked it down to guilty dreams while she dozed and let herself drift off again, secure in Obed’s tattooed hands.

Between the magic and the relentless pace, they halved the time expected for traveling the remaining distance. It was early on the third and last Fifthday in Vendra, summer almost gone with the waning of the month, when they blundered into the rebels camped along the road just out of musket range of Arikon.

Everything began with Kallista. She should have expected the rebel presence, but she was stupid with exhaustion and she startled when the brown-cloaked rebel stood, appearing without warning from the brush where he’d been hidden. She lost her grip on the veiling, and the entire party flashed into view.

The sudden appearance of armed and mounted travelers surprised the rebels. They shouted. They let cocked crossbow bolts fly. Muskets went off. Horses reared. They bucked. Babies wailed. Men bellowed. Women screamed. Including Kallista, though her screams were supposed to be orders.

Soldiers were down, their saddles empty. Some were wounded, some fighting on foot. From the corner of her eye, Kallista saw Torchay’s twin swords flash. Babies and Merinda were safe with Joh and Aisse at the front of the caravan. For now. Kallista didn’t have time for more understanding. She needed to act.

She thought about calling magic and it was there, almost anticipating her call. She didn’t want to kill the rebels. They were Adarans. What if they’d been deceived, like Joh? What if they could learn better? Could the magic
teach
them?

Quickly she shaped it, willing it both to stop and teach. She didn’t know exactly what to have it teach them, but since the magic came from the One, she thought she could leave that up to the magic. “’Ware!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

T
he soldiers followed Torchay’s example, flattening themselves in the saddle or on the ground. Kallista didn’t think they needed to avoid the magic, but she didn’t want them killing someone by accident when the magic stopped the rebels. The instant her people dropped, she let her magic fly.

Some of the rebels stopped motionless, as if frozen in place. Others fell. Still others stood as if stunned by a blow to the head, weapons falling from limp fingers. Obed stopped his saber’s swing inches from a motionless rebel—he hadn’t ducked at her warning, but he didn’t kill the rebel, either.

“Leave them,” she ordered. “Ride for the gate before any more of them show up.”

“It’s locked tight,” one of the merchants cried.

“They’ll open it for us.” But would they know who was wanting in?

Aisse was already clattering down the winding road toward the Mountain Gate, Joh hard on her heels bearing Merinda and their third child with him. Kallista tossed her reins to Viyelle, nearest her. “Make sure my horse gets through the gate. I’m going to see if I can get word through that we’re coming.”

Viyelle tossed the reins back and slid from her own mount to Kallista’s, reaching around to gather them up again. “I’d rather make sure
you
get through the gate, and not just your horse. Call your sister.”

Oh. That might be easier than broadcasting to anyone in Arikon that could hear. Kallista gathered magic and sent out the mind-to-mind call. A shout, since Karyl was who knew where on the Eastern Plains.