The Bronze Mage (26 page)

She relaxed against the wall behind her. "Okay."

THIRTY-SEVEN

On Display

As Tabitha opened her eyes the following morning, she heard James saying to her maid: "Send her out when she's ready." Then he left the room. He must have waited in the hallway, because Tabitha remained conscious.

Tabitha dressed quickly, and sat impatiently while her maid arranged her hair. She wanted to ask James about the spell. When he'd put her to sleep last night, it was like he'd triggered an explosion across her brain. It wasn't painful, but shocking. That had never happened before.

However when she opened the door, Tabitha found Melanie standing next to James. It was the first time her sister had been close enough to speak to since Tabitha's return.
 

"It's time to go on display," Melanie sounded bitter. But soon was distracted by something Tabitha couldn't see. Her unfocused eyes grew wide. "It's moving."

James answered, "Yes. We need to eat first."

"It wasn't doing that at Anya's wedding," Melanie could barely tear her eyes away to navigate the halls.

"Not noticeably. No. Dining hall?"

Melanie remembered her mission and hurried them into the dining hall. James insisted they sit to eat. Tabitha noticed he was loading up his own plate, as well as carefully choosing what went on hers.

"Don't get full, you're going to be nervous," he advised. He'd given her some fruit, a biscuit with honey, and juice. For himself he'd taken eggs, sausage, cheese, a biscuit, fruit, coffee and juice.

"So you're not indefatigable, you just stock up before working magic," Tabitha teased.

He flashed a smile. "You're going to be sitting around all day. I have to work."

Melanie regarded the exchange impatiently, but James was an efficient eater. By the time Tabitha had finished, he had, too. As soon as they were done, Melanie hurried them to one of the classrooms. Not a workroom. This had a raised platform at one end and two dozen chairs facing it. Every chair was full with faculty. Students were crowded around the edges of the room.

Tabitha had half-expected to find a vanity, chair and brush on the platform. Only the cushioned stool was there. She seated herself on it facing the windows. She took slow breaths and looked straight ahead, keeping her nerves in check. She had barely gotten used to having everyone watch their own experiments on her. Having them watch James work on his spell felt much more invasive.

He stepped behind her silently, ran his thumb lightly up her spine from between her shoulder blades to the edge of her hair. Then he froze her.

Tabitha inhaled sharply at the familiar sensation, then forced herself to breathe. She wasn't trapped again. Not really. It was a struggle at first to remain calm.

James started working on the spell. Again, there was an explosive release of energy, this time followed by the more familiar electricity.

Tabitha had assumed it would be easier to ignore everyone as her nerves overloaded, but this was an interactive audience.

"Amazing."

"I've never seen anything quite like that."

James explained in a low voice: "The spell looks like a fountain. It draws from me, courses over you, then returns to me. Most spells are static or nearly so. It was a much subtler effect when I wove it."

After a few minutes, James raised his voice to ask in irritation, "What exactly were you using to remove the spell?"

This led into a variety of technical arguments, to which James appeared only half listening, despite having started most of them. Tabitha was losing herself in the weaving, despite the commotion. She closed her eyes, occasionally hearing James mutter about the ineptitude of the other mages under his breath, often loud enough to start another argument.

Some time later, he finished. Tabitha drifted back into herself.

"Is she alright? How did you do that last bit?"

James treated the assembled mages to his usual silence as he wrapped his arm around Tabitha and half lifted her from the chair. "You need some exercise."

Tabitha had a confused vision of him dropping her off with the weapons instructor at Hinlith castle. It must have shown on her face, because he amended, "We won't walk far, but you need to get outside."

He guided her to the dining hall, where lunch had already been prepared. Tabitha wondered how much time had passed. James ate as big of a lunch as he had breakfast. Tabitha picked at the things on her plate, still feeling disoriented.

By the time they left for their walk, Tabitha was moving unaided, albeit tentatively. She noticed her maid following at a discreet distance.

James seemed lost in thought. This was just as well. Since he hadn't offered her his arm, Tabitha was using all of her concentration to walk. The spell was tugging less, but erratically. Then suddenly it wasn't tugging at all.
 

"There." James said with satisfaction.

"What did you do?"

"I've made some adjustments to counter the pull of the affinity. I'm sending you slightly away. It should keep you at the same relative distance from me."

As an experiment, Tabitha tried angling away from then toward James. Either change was possible, but difficult.

Her brow furrowed.

"If you want to walk away, I can give a stronger push."

"How long will the spell pull at me? Is it permanent?"

"No. Mage Crandall was right about the affinity weakening when I use the spell. Once it weakens sufficiently, it won't pull at all." So the two mages had been discussing the Val mage's theory. Tabitha wondered how much of his theory Mage Crandall had explained.

They walked slowly around the grounds. Tabitha was abashed by how quickly she wore out, but too stubborn to mention it. Her body betrayed her as she began to stumble. When she insisted she didn't need help, James allowed the affinity to draw her to him. There was no way for her to fight it when she could barely keep her feet. She took his arm and the pull dissipated, but her fatigue remained. He supported her as they aimed for one of the picnic tables. The familiar smell of him caught in her throat. She remembered when he'd kissed her. She still had questions about that.

"What happened in the hedge maze last fall?"

 
When he turned his head to answer her, she found his lips distressingly close to hers. She forced her gaze up to his eyes, but their silver was equally mesmerizing. Then they reached the table and he sat himself across from her.

"I told you. The spell triggered without my knowledge. It won't happen again."

"That's not the part I'm asking about. It did, though, trigger again unintentionally."

His one raised brow made his curiosity appear more disinterested than she guessed was true.

"When I was in Xentia for Cameron's wedding. Every night I woke walking through the castle. It was like the summons you'd used before, except that after awhile it started to fade. One of my father's guards followed me. He said you were calling me in your sleep." Tabitha felt her cheeks burning and dropped her eyes. She recalled James's harsh dismissal at the end of that trip.

James answered quietly. "It may take a while to weaken the spell to the point that it is safe, predictable." He proceeded to interrogate Tabitha on the details of the nightly summons. By the time he had run out of questions, she was too weary to be embarrassed.

"Let me take you back to your room." He offered. She nodded, accepted the arm he proffered, and concentrated on keeping her feet moving until she reached Melanie's room. Tabitha would have just collapsed onto her bed, if her maid hadn't been there to help her situate herself more effectively.

"Do you want to sleep before dinner?" James asked.

Tabitha couldn't remember later if she'd stayed awake long enough to answer.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Progress

James woke Tabitha a few hours later. He must have used the spell to help her sleep, because her memory held neither dreams nor trees.

He escorted her to the dining room, sat her near her sister, then seated himself at a different table, with the other two court mages. It was considerate of him to seat her first. The adjustments he made to the spell as he moved away from her required her to concentrate on holding still. But he was sitting ten yards away from her now and she felt fine.

The noise of the other diners provided a kind of privacy. This was Tabitha's first opportunity to speak openly with her sister since the failed experiment.

"Melanie, does anyone know what went wrong with the other experiment?"

 
"Everyone knows, but they don't all agree." She made a face. "Most people believe that the main problem is that the affinity is somehow trying to protect the spell, though no one knows how or why. The rest of the arguments are pretty technical. Some say we used the wrong ingredients or used them in the wrong order or in the wrong concentrations. And you never did drink one of the potions because you passed out to soon."

"But at least I didn't throw up."

"Yes, you did. You just don't remember it."

"Oh. Sorry. But that's another thing I don't understand. Everyone who's tried to remove the spell has been using potions and incense and a lot of different things. When James works with it, he doesn't. Wouldn't it make more sense to undo it the same way he did it?"

"Ha! Sure. Good luck finding anyone who can."

Tabitha gave Melanie a quizzical look. Melanie shrugged and explained.

"Only the strongest mages can work with magic directly like Mage James can. Generations go by without anyone having that ability. Honestly, when he froze you at the wedding, I thought I'd just missed whatever powder he'd used. Before I watched him this morning, I was half-convinced those were just legends, that all magic was worked indirectly. That must be what allows him to make such elaborate spells."

"So are the mages ready to admit that the affinity has to weaken, do you know?"

"A few of them. There's pride at stake, as well as curiosity. Most of them know they'll never in their lifetime get to see another case of affinity, or such a display of magic as the spell James has on you. There are a lot of mages who aren't ready to give that up just yet. They want to study it, experiment on it, be the one who solved the puzzle."

"Maybe he can provide them with a different puzzle? How about my necklace?"

"It's not the same Tabitha. The affinity makes your spell reactive, almost alive. It's unique."

The conversation trailed off at that point. Tabitha was restless. She found herself again wishing she had a horse. She excused herself and stood. James was watching her, but she a gave a slight shake of her head. It was time to test her boundaries.

Melanie noticed the exchange and rose to walk with Tabitha. Tabitha felt a slight propulsion and realized James was using the spell to push her along. At first that irritated her, but it wasn't her ability to withstand the pull of the affinity that she was testing. It was her ability to maintain consciousness out of James's presence. Every time he used the spell he was weakening the affinity. Hopefully he had done enough to give her back her independence.

Although James could use his spell to counteract the physical pull of the affinity, Tabitha soon found she was on her own fighting its mental affects. They had progressed out of the dining hall and about halfway to the dormitory before Tabitha began to feel odd. Because the affinity was weaker, she could sense the beginning of it. She stopped. This took a little effort. James was out of sight, so he continued pushing at her. She resisted and tried to analyze what she was feeling.

The world seemed slightly out-of-phase, like it does sometimes at the beginning of an illness or during a severe headache. Tabitha took a few more steps. The sensation increased and she began to feel light-headed.

"I am not going back to those accursed woods." She declared, as if the magic were sentient. She took another step and felt reality begin to flow past her. She threw out her arms. Her sister and her maid pulled her back a few paces toward the dining hall. As soon as her head cleared, Tabitha signaled them to stop. Looking around, Tabitha estimated she was about two hundred feet from James. She clenched her jaw in frustration.

"It's progress," Melanie said. "Just a few days ago, I heard you fainted as he left father's study. Ten feet instead of hundreds."

"Progress" left Tabitha with just a little larger area to roam in than the yard of James's hunting cabin. The barrier was harder to find, but it might as well be the same forest on the other side.

THIRTY-NINE

Compulsion

After a short time, James and the other mages finished their meals and exited the dining hall. He noted Tabitha's progress as he joined her and Melanie on a stroll around the grounds. Tabitha felt her patience going the way of her breath as she wore out. She only half listened to the conversation between the other two. James was asking Melanie for information about some of her instructors, trying to figure out what they were likely to decide. Then James said her name. She looked at him.

"We have one more 'show' to perform, Tabitha," he reminded her. "Mage Edgar was very clear on that. But if we do it, he will see the affinity weaken. It's very noticeable. Edgar will back Crandall's theory, and he has enough influence here to sway most others."

"I can't believe you plan to follow through with that, Tabitha," Melanie objected. "It's a disgrace."

Tabitha blanched. She'd managed to forget that part of the bargain. Still, if it would win over her father... "At least let me enter on my own," she said through gritted teeth.
 

James dropped the compulsion. He met her eyes. "I'm sorry," he said.

Tabitha nodded. "Let's get it over with."

Melanie turned on her heel and left, taking Tabitha's maid with her. This was not a performance either of them wanted the girl to witness.

Mercifully, the classroom was less full this time.

As James walked with Tabitha onto the stage, he invoked the spell. She noticed it herself, but also from the reaction of the audience.