The Magister (Earthkeep) (4 page)

"Relax," she mentally sent, trying desperately to find the center of the storm that surrounded her.  "Donal!  Breathe!  Breathe deep!"  The chaos abated somewhat, replaced by confusion, embarrassment.  "Donal!  Can you understand me?"

"Yes!"  The thought attacked her.

"You are trying too hard!  Invite it, invite the ether to carry your intent!  It's not a barrier.  Do you understand?"

Immediately the turbulence subsided.  In her hardself, Jez could hear Donal rein in his breath.  An uneasy calm replaced the frenzy.

"Jezebel," Donal sent. "Jezebel, is that you?"

Hardly believing she was doing so, Jez sent back an affirmation.  Then, "How long have you known you can mindstretch?"

"Only recently.  I was trying to find Ola, my pledgemate," he answered.  "She sometimes can receive me.  When we hold each other."  The energy stirred again into potential disarray.

"Relax!" Jez mentally shouted, relieved to hear her command obeyed.  A glimmer of hope teased her consciousness.

"If I could reach her," he went on, still sending, "she could get spooners to us right away.  Jezebel, I. . ."

"You might, Donal," Jez sent.  "Or we might." 

She held Dicken's hand, still lying supine several feet from Donal, unwilling to disrupt this magic with physical movement.  She spoke again to his mind. 

"Can you picture Ola, Donal?  Good.  Draw her in detail.  Place her in a setting — the bed, her workroom, wherever you believe she is right now."  She sensed his growing focus.  "Now center upon something close to her, something she's touching.  A sheet, some clothing."  Into her own mind sprang the image of a large polished seed, held by a woven string.  It rested on a lovely bosom. 

"Donal, you have to visit with that necklace, do you hear?  And repeat her name.  Then, when you feel she is strong in your mind, you begin easing out the energy.  Easing it, Donal.  Not throwing it.  Ask the air to carry it."  She felt his assent.  "I will add whatever I can to this link.  And together," she smiled ruefully in disbelief, "together we might cover the miles to Ola."

And so they worked.  Donal would hold the image of Ola's polished seed, silently chant her name, quietly press his energy toward her.  Jez would circle his sendings with her own, setting up rhythmic undulations of relaxed surges.  But when Donal increased his force, their link would shatter and again his untamed energy would belt forth, bouncing wildly about them, sending them both into abrupt withdrawal.  At maximum exertion, they could reach what they felt must be the top of the cliff, but there their efforts would dissipate.  Donal would raise more force, and immediately the wild explosions would rock them again. 

He's a toggle switch, Jez thought, either on or off.  No control in between. 

Jez did not tell Donal Jain that she had mindreached with only a few people in her life, and never with a man.  Nor did she tell him that his psychic gifts outstripped in their potential many of the witches she had known.  He had to learn to discipline that power.  He would have to study with Dorothea.  She caught herself.  What was she thinking?  Helping a man to learn the Craft?  Get a grip, Jezebel.

They tried again.  And again.  Far into the dark night.  Jez worked every combination of sendings and addressed every node, every windbreak, every mother tree, every strain of mica shimmering within the mountains, every potential source of help that her tiring mind could discover.  But never could their message sail beyond the cliff. 

She was readying herself for yet another attempt when her focus was disrupted by intense physical sounds.  She dropped from her trance back into their dark mountainside den and felt, like sharp knives, the heartbreaking sobs of Donal Jain.  Just beyond her feet, the waves of his everlasting despair slammed at her shieldless body. She reworked her shields and crawled to his side.

"Donal," she whispered. "Donal!" 

His cries intensified.  He flung his arms wide, striking her chest, flailing at the bushes around him. 

Ola probably hears this, Jez thought.  She physically forced his arms downward and pulled him to her, holding him against her as they struggled like street fighters in the darkness.  At last she muscled his flailing body beneath her.  Drawing from her doth strength for every ounce of power, she willed Donal into a supine position under her own weight.  She lay upon him, pinning his arms to his sides.  He raged against her, shrieking his protest, his despair. 

She moved her head beside his and held him rigid for an instant, while his body convulsed.  He screamed, then collapsed beneath her, giving himself over completely into her custody. 

Jez smoothed his hair and allowed him to weep.  Moving slowly, she shifted them both to their sides and slipped her arm beneath his neck.  Holding him firmly, she rocked a little and hummed snatches of a sleep-chant.  She assured him that they would try the mindreaching again after some sleep.  Donal shuddered into silence.

Jezebel Stronglaces, disbeliever of any man's sensitivity, and warrior against the male of her species, held a man in one arm while searching the darkness for her lover with the other.  Fortunately, in their struggle they had ended up close beside Dicken. 

By the Sacred Yarn, Jez whispered to herself as she eased her free arm under her lover.  This is more than I believe.

How long they remained in that blessed peace, Jez did not know.  She was simply grateful that Donal was at last quiet.

They slept, the three of them.

It wasn't Carnaval.  But there was a piñata.  And scores of youngs besides herself.  Jez was deafened by their shrieks, their laughter.  A small girl nudged her.  "Come on, Donal!  It's your turn!"  Jez shook her head.  Someone tried to put a blindfold over her eyes.  She snatched it off, amid yells of Shame! and He won't play!  The girl pushed her, knocking her off balance to the floor.  Then her tormentor put on the blindfold herself and began trying to hit the elusive papier-mâché star with her swinging bat.  The others screamed their delight.

Jez, still sprawled on the floor, felt sick.  Her head was spinning.  Tears were running down her cheeks.  She saw the large woman looming over her, urging a bat into her hand.  "Donal, don't you want to break the star?"  Jez pulled herself away from the woman and scrambled toward the wall.  She watched with an awful howling inside her as, one after the other, the party of youngs tried to hit the piñata.

At last one child caught it with an oblique blow that broke one point off the star.  With a whoop, fifteen or so small bodies assaulted the piñata with their bats.  Jez rocked with each blow.  She covered her head with her arms, pushing her body into the corner.  She sobbed.

When the piñata broke, sending the candies and favors splashing all over the room, Jez first felt the howl of pain rise from her throat, then become drowned by laughter and shrieks.  Suddenly they were all gone, adults and youngs with their candies, all shouting and pushing their way outside.  Only the shattered papier-mâché star remained, lying in silence on the floor.  

Slowly, with a sadness that hindered her every move, she crawled toward the wreckage of the piñata and began tenderly piecing it back together.

Other fragments.  Flashes.  Refusing to cut cucumbers. . .punishment for swallowing her food whole. . .smoothing out a crumpled sheet of paper, her tears splashing down on it. . .Donal is a cryyy-babyyy. . . 

Jez hit the baseball far out into the trees but could not run, so horrified was she at the pain she had given the ball.  "Donal, run!  Donal!"  A friend was beside her, frantically pulling her along the baseline, making her touch first base.  Then she did run, straight past first base and toward the trees, running to find the ball she had hit before the fielders got to it, running to find the ball and apologize. . .running. . .Tears. . .pain. . .a lifetime of jeers, ridicule.  And pity. . . .  Then the love of an old woman, her worn hands and gravelly voice soothing, healing.  Some understanding, balance.

Something balanced in Jez's own softself at that moment.  And she dreamed on, in the companionship of Donal Jain, walking, running, swimming, through the years-long night.  She learned more than she had strength to carry.  She faltered, recovered, and then shouldered the load with increasing ease.

Jezebel awoke to the same sheltered den on the same dangerous mountainside with the same stranded companions breathing with her the same hard, cold air.  Yet her world had changed so vastly that she could not measure or name it.  She lay immobile in the dim dawn light that seeped into their haven, unable to deny the night's journey and yet unwilling to act upon its knowledge.  Then a gracious clarity stunned her.

Jez closed her eyes, trying to subdue the clarity.  It persisted.  She succumbed.  She knew what she had to do.

Beside her, Dicken still breathed shallowly.  She had not moved.  In the course of their sleeping, Jez and Donal had shifted for warmth.  Their three bodies were huddled now in the semblance of a spoon and a half: her arm around Dicken's nearly supine body, Donal curled behind her, his arm around her waist.  Before she could turn to Donal, she heard his voice just behind her head.

"Jezebel."

"I'm awake."

"Jezebel, we have dreamwalked."

"Yes."

A silence.

"Is Dicken all right?"

Jez hugged Dicken's immobile body as tightly as she dared and then began slowly to sit up.  Donal's eyes were barely visible in the dimness.

"She's going to be fine.  But she will need more help before noon of this day.  There's a healer at Chimney Corner?"

"One of the finest.  But Jezebel-"

Jez stopped him with her words. 

"Donal Jain."  She took a deep breath. 

"Donal Jain, you and I are going to make a flying spoon, just as you dared to suggest we might."

She could just see Donal's eyes grow large.

"We are going to carry Dicken in front of us and then between us, up from and over this firebroom brush and north again over the hills on our original path."

Donal started to speak.

Jez placed her fingers over his lips. 

"I know that we can do this, you and I. 
How
it will be accomplished I don't yet fully understand, but I don't doubt we can do it." 

She was on her knees, sitting back on her feet. 

"You will hold Dicken before you and open your mind to mine, just as you did in trying to reach Ola.  I will teach you the incantation."  She almost smiled.  "A new incantation," she added. 

She put her hand on his shoulder. 

"Then, Donal, we shall fly."

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

The sun was fully risen when the clinging firebroom bushes reluctantly let go of the three figures they had so recently captured.  High above them, the spooners slipped the inert form between them into a carrying position.  The flight bubble faltered only a moment before it stabilized and sailed to the north. 

2 – Chimney Corner – [2008 C.E.]

Turn this way, we are many.

Turn another, we are one.

Fish swim, a school of beauties.

Fish turn, a burst of sun.

Song Of The Lumari

Chimney Corner did not nestle in the Black Hills.  Rather, it clung to two mountain faces that met around a fertile narrow valley.  As if to apologize to the inhabitants for arriving so late each day, the winter sun lingered each evening.

In the still hardy rays of that sunlight, filtered through wide windows, Bess Dicken sat upright against a brace of pillows, her head back, her eyes closed.  Jezebel and three other women circled her bed with songs and clapping, weaving impromptu harmonies and rhythms around ancient chants, popular tunes, rounds, lullabies, ballads — whatever the patient requested.  Dicken smiled weakly as a bright melody showered its final notes over her weary body.

Jez led the low laughter that followed the effort.  "Is that enough, you song-greedy soul?"  She sat on the low stool and took Dicken's hand.

Dicken's voice was a whisper.  "I have wore you to a frazzle."  She smiled, trying to raise her head.  Gently, Jez pushed her back into the pillows.  "The music makes it better," she said, closing her eyes again and waving one hand at the women.  "Thank you," said her lips.  Jez lowered her into a flat position and tucked the bedclothes around her.

As the women were tiptoeing out, Ola, Donal's pledgemate, stayed behind. "Dicken," she said softly, touching Jez’s shoulder as she spoke, "several of the youngs you came to see would like to meet you.  Do you feel up to that?"

Dicken interrupted what was about to be Jez’s objection.  "Yes.  I'd like to meet them."  She turned to Jez.  "As my momah would say, 'If it do not kill me outright, it will serve to make me stronger.'"  She smiled wanly.  "Then I will sleep."

Jez rose in astonishment as three girls entered the room, one of them about four years old, the other two between ten and twelve.  Polite but curious, the youngs approached Dicken's bedside.  They were ordinary children, Jez noted, except for one startling aspect of their appearance: Their hair was as white as new-fallen snow.

"Jezebel and Dicken," said Ola, "these are Luisa Maniboz, Taína Renananda Ko and Jida Wood Dancer.  Luisa, Taína and Jid, these are Calica Jezebel Stronglaces and Calica Bess Dicken." Jez knelt by the bed and reached across to touch the hands that stretched out to hers.  All three of those bright faces were excited and smiling; their touch was a shade past courtesy, full of what Jez could only term fervor.  When they turned to Dicken, their energies were even livelier.  Jid and Taína knelt by the narrow bed and held Dicken's arm.  Luisa, the smallest of the three, consulted Ola with a non-oral question and then sat on the bed by Dicken, laying her head on the patient's chest. 

"Calica Bess," Jid said, "I'm so sorry."

"You got hurt coming to see us," Taína added.

Dicken did her best to rise to the occasion.  "Naw, it was my own foolishness," she whispered, "not your fault."  She patted them, hushing their apologies. 

With kindly touches, Ola began suggesting that the children leave.  "Calica Bess has to rest.  But Jezebel, will you talk with them now?"