The Bronze Mage (23 page)

 
They were surprised at the end of the meal to suddenly appear in their father's office. Mage Crandall was slumped in one of the chairs. Their mother and brother had just entered.

Her father hugged them both, then said, "Tabitha, you look pale and thin. You've only been there a week. Was she like this when she arrived, Melanie? What's going on over there?"

After they greeted the rest of their family, the girls repeated in detail everything that had happened or been discussed since Tabitha's arrival at the college. Then Melanie prompted her father, "Mage Crandall wrote a few weeks ago that you and he had been talking about the spell."

"He had some theories," The king's gaze on the exhausted mage was disapproving. "We discussed them. But there was no strong evidence behind them."

"Father, he told me you two had found a solution," Melanie contradicted.

"Did he?" The king's glance at Mage Crandall was not pleased. "He was wrong."

The girls waited, still hoping to discover what the mysterious rejected plan had been. Their father looked from one to the other. Finally, his gaze rested on his youngest.

"You want to know what he suggested."

Tabitha nodded.

"According to Mage Edgar there are only two documented cases of affinity. One was removed months after it had been set by a group of mages at the college. The other was never removed."

"Why not?"

"The affinity wasn't diagnosed for years. The mage had set a preference spell on her husband after she had caught him flirting in a tavern. She managed to keep him out of sight of other mages. Eventually, she grew tired of him and left him." Her father growled this last sentence. Then paused to collect himself. Melanie interjected.

"That's why preference spells are mainly used by spies rather than sold as 'love potions'. In the long term most people don't really like being around someone who never disagrees."

Their father glared at Melanie. She quickly amended, "It doesn't excuse her behavior. It was particularly cruel if she didn't lift the spell before leaving him."

"She did not. In his jealousy, he killed both her and her new lover. A mage was brought in during the trial. He immediately recognized the spell and attempted to remove it. He could not. Within a few weeks, the effects of the spell coupled with his guilt drove the man mad. He killed himself.

"Because the outside mage arrived only days after the murders, he documented the course of the affinity. When he arrived, he described the spell as a standard preference pattern, set like a headband that was partially obscured by his hair."

"Wait. He'd had the spell for years and it was still so small? How can that be? Tabitha..." The king raised a hand to silence his older daughter.

"Within days it grew wider, eventually fully encasing the man."

Tabitha looked at Melanie, waiting for her to puzzle out an explanation. Her forehead was creased with concentration. "But the apprentice with the invisibility spell, they didn't mention anything like this happening with him."

"His spell had already encased him before he reached the Mage College," Mage Crandall supplied. "Since he had not been around mages or magic sensers between that time and the death of the mage, there is no way to know when it happened or how quickly."

"What does this mean for me?" Tabitha asked. "Melanie said the spell already looks like a cocoon. Ja...Mage James isn't dead."

"Exactly." Her father agreed. "That's one of the reasons I don't believe we need to take such an extreme measure as Mage Crandall suggests."

The king again glared at his mage. Mage Crandall appeared to be taking a nap, but he opened his eyes and looked at Tabitha.
 

"When did you start feeling better?" he asked.

"After talking to James."

The court mage closed his eyes again.

"Mage Crandall," King Rhys growled, "believes that the presence of the mage who laid the spell somehow dilutes the strength of the affinity."

Mage Crandall interjected. "Possibly. However, I don't see how his presence alone could have that affect. It seems more likely that he would need to use the spell to weaken the affinity."

Melanie nodded. "That would explain the events of this last week. And my observations surrounding our trip to Xentia for Cameron's wedding."

"Did Mage Edgar say it was weakened after Jam...Mage James's visit last fall?" Tabitha inquired. "Did he explain what caused the pain? Or why the two of them seemed so unhappy with whatever was happening while I was healing?"

"Quite the opposite," Mage Crandall pulled himself into a more upright position to answer. "Edgar said that when he heard you were sick and that Mage James had visited your room, he came himself the next day. He said the spell had undergone a precipitous growth. He suspected Mage James had re-ensorcelled you, but was unable to find out what he had done. The mage left almost immediately."

"What about after Tabitha returned from Xentia's Autumn Ball?" Melanie asked Mage Crandall. "You wrote me at school that the spell seemed to be weaker then. Tabitha didn't even see Mage James on that trip. Did she, Father?"

Tabitha sighed. She related who had actually escorted her safely to her inn on her journey home from the ball and how he had located her.

Her father threw up his hands. "Has he ever been near you and refrained from using it?" Turning to his court mage, the king demanded, "What is your opinion of this?"

"Honestly, Sire, I fear that we cannot know for certain. But nearly every time she's with him, it seems to weaken."

"Except the one time it 'grew precipitously'. You expect me to just hand my daughter back over to that..." Here Tabitha was shocked by the extent of her father's familiarity with profanity. He so seldom swore that she wouldn't have guessed he knew a fraction of the words that now passed his lips. "And hope that it helps her? What if it doesn't? We'll have lost all control of the situation. He'll have her. Again."

"Unfortunately, Sire, I believe we have never had control of this situation." It was good that Mage Crandall sounded grieved by the admission.

The king drew a slow breath and released it. "Is it by any chance possible for some more trustworthy mage to trigger the spell? That way we can know whether or not we even need Mage James."

Tabitha felt the color drain from her face. She had always assumed that only James could use his spell. If any mage anywhere could do so...

"I'm sorry, Sire. Mage James has keyed this spell to himself so strongly that none of us could even see what it was meant to do. Hi-jacking the spell would be more difficult than breaking it."

Tabitha relaxed. One mage pulling her around like a marionette was plenty.

"Hand me over...?" she inquired.

"Mage Crandall," her father growled, "believes the only way to protect you from that mage's spell is for you to stay near him. He has suggested that I give in to King Fenril's ludicrous proposal and force a marriage between you and his recalcitrant court mage."

The suggestion triggered a variety of emotions in Tabitha. The strongest was dismay. A forced marriage? That was not what she wanted. Not if he didn't want her. Besides, what kind of a marriage would it be if he had to keep using the compulsion spell?

Her father was watching her reaction. Melanie was assuring him that the mages at the college would come up with a better solution. He nodded, but didn't seem to hear her. Tabitha realized he must be feeling worse about this than she was. She at least trusted James, liked him. Her father simply saw him as an enemy.

"It'll be alright, either way," Tabitha told him. "If I marry Mage James, we'd be in Salbren right under King Fenril's eye. Princess Anya and Crown Prince Cameron are there, too." Hoping this wouldn't entirely discredit her judgement in her parents' eyes, she added, "I don't believe he'd intentionally hurt me."

"I should've melted that statue," her father replied.

"Mother said that there would have been civil war if you had. Too many people were still enamored by him."

Her father stepped closer and hugged her.

"I never thought keeping it in the garden would cost me my daughter."

THIRTY-THREE

The Mages' Solution

The sisters spent the rest of that night at home. Melanie sent a letter to Mage Edgar's office at the college and transported another to the hallway outside the door of her own room, so no one would worry. Their mother came into their bedroom and they talked most of the night. She kept looking at Tabitha as if she had a question for her, but she never asked it.

Mage Crandall returned them to the college separately: Melanie, the next evening; Tabitha, a day later. The obvious toll these transfers took on the mage gave some credence to the words of the Xentian guard Tabitha had met the morning after the Autumn Ball. James must have been worried to transfer himself, his mount, and at least one guard cross-country for her sake.

It took less than two weeks for the mages to agree on the most likely course of action. Mage Edgar endorsed it. Even Mage Crandall, who'd been kept apprised of the situation via letters, was not adamantly opposed to it.

So, with more trepidation than hope, Tabitha returned to the workroom just before lunch. She had been fasting since dinner the night before, on orders of the physician. They wanted the potions to absorb into her system as quickly as possible, so that if she did get sick, they might still work.

This time the whole room had been cleared, except for the workbench against the wall. The floor was covered by a complicated pattern of chalk markings. The workbench had a series of ingredients carefully arranged along it.

The kind-faced professor who had greeted her on her first day again came forward to coax Tabitha into the room. She stepped gingerly across the floor, so as not to damage the designs. "If you'll come over here...a little further...perfect. Now, sit right there."

 
The entire process, which involved three kinds of incense, several magical candles, four poultices and two potions, would take hours. The kind-faced professor stayed inside the design with Tabitha. Tabitha noticed a silver knife in her belt.

"What's that for?" she asked.

"Nothing to worry about. The poultices are much more concentrated if they are applied to a small wound."

Tabitha nodded, throat tight. She was beginning to wonder what she was getting herself into, and how to get back out.

The mage handed her the first potion. The apprentices set out the candles and incense, lighting a few of them. Tabitha drank the potion. The experiment had started.

 
The others kept watch for changes in the magic. When there was a change, they'd light another candle or snuff one out. There didn't seem to be much consensus as time wore on. Either the spell wasn't changing enough or not in the way they'd expected. Something in the smoke was making Tabitha see double.

The first time the mage cut her arm, Tabitha was expecting it. She'd asked Tabitha to hold her arm out, palm up, and to please make a fist. The knife barely nicked her vein where it showed inside her elbow. The mage bound the poultice over it.

If "more concentrated" meant "faster acting", then the mage had been correct. The world took a violent step sidewise, and Tabitha was back among the trees. Whatever they did to her after that, she wouldn't know. She was content to wait. This was undoubtably more pleasant than reality.

After a while, James showed up. She thought she ought to be embarrassed to see him, since he didn't approve of what the mages were doing, but she was glad of the company.

"You're back." He raised an eyebrow in inquiry.

Tabitha nodded. "And I probably have time to talk. They're in the middle of a long experiment."

"You're letting them experiment on you again and this time you're not even concerned that you're here and can't wake up." To say he didn't approve would be like saying her father didn't care for him. "Do you want them to kill you?"

Then she was lying on the workroom floor, equanimity gone. Her head was throbbing, her stomach cramping. The smoke was choking her. A sharp pain in her arm was followed by the burn of something caustic pressed against it. She reflexively tried to swat it away, but her arms felt like lead. She slid back into the forest.

The sun filtered through the trees and the temperature was comfortable. It was nice to spend time here, especially knowing what reality held, but she was restless. Tabitha wandered. Eventually she grew bored. She decided to see if the forest was static or variable. Making marks on the dirt and noting the differences in the bark patterns on the tree trunks, she attempted to map a section of the forest. It was no good. Her markings disappeared as soon as she turned away from them. The trees themselves seemed to shift, but that wasn't the only odd thing. The bark patterns repeated, as if there were really only half a dozen trees and the rest were copies. Maybe they were all copies: memories of a patch of forest in the real world.
 

Once she'd decided she wasn't actually going anywhere, Tabitha lost interest in wandering, but she couldn't hold still. The restlessness grew. She paced. The light hadn't changed. Tabitha wondered if time passed normally here. Despite her misgivings about what she'd be returning to, she felt she ought to head back.
 

And where was James? She'd thought he might have shown up by now. Was he angry with her? Probably. She brooded about that for awhile, arguing with him in her mind. What did he expect her to do? He didn't offer solutions, just criticism. Was he really concerned about her, or just worried that the mages might succeed?

Tabitha had worked herself into a pique by the time James finally arrived. If he made any disparaging remarks..., but he didn't say a thing. He just frowned and pushed her back into reality.

She hurt! Like if they'd been skinning her in strips while she was gone. Tabitha opened her eyes, afraid to see what state she might be in, but couldn't focus in the bright haze. Smoke burned her eyes. She closed them. The throbbing in her head was making her ears ring. She cried out, but wasn't sure if it was audible. Her throat and lips were dry and sore, and she couldn't get enough air. The floor tilted beneath her and she fell back to the forest floor.