At last the duke looked up at Sandry and gave her a thin smile, patting one of her hands. "Must you do this with Pasco?" he inquired. "The boy is nice enough, but he doesn't seem very reliable."
Sandry glanced at Lark. "We did talk about another way, but—," She swallowed. "Truly, Uncle, I prefer this."
The duke frowned. "What is this other way that you find so distasteful?"
Lark sighed. "We discussed shaping the unmagic as a web, rather than a net, and blanketing the inner keep with it, like a spiders web. When the assassins come, they'll touch it and—well, they won't stick to it, exactly. The nothingness in them would become part of the web."
"Then I could take the web and unravel it, maybe even spin it into one cord," Sandry explained. "The problem is, Uncle, I couldn't save the parts of them that are still real. If I had to do it that way, I'd kill them—if it even worked."
"We know the net-spell will do the job," Lark assured the duke. "And if Pasco calls these people to the net, we can make sure no innocents will be trapped. We'll meet the Dihanurs on our terms, not theirs."
"Have you spoken to Pasco?" asked the duke wearily.
"No," replied Sandry. "I wanted to work it all out be fore I talked to him."
"He'll refuse," Erdogun said tartly. "If he has a whit of sense, he'll refuse."
“I could help catch rats?" Pasco demanded, eyes alight. It was the next morning, at Yazmin's school. "By dancing?
"That's the idea," Sandry told him.
Pasco jumped up gleefully. "That will show them!" he cried. "Tippy-feet indeed!"
Sandry looked at her hands and smiled. She had thought Pasco might see it that way. "We're not sure we can do it," she warned. "I still have to make the net."
"But you will, and I’ll dance it, and we'll have rats in it. A nice day's fishing for a Toren and an Acalon, don't you think?"
Sandry grinned at him. "I do think."
Pasco carefully lowered himself into a split, wincing as he completed it. "We can do it," he told her, his face serious. "You can do anything."
"We'll see," she replied. "It may come to nothing if I can't work that stuff into a proper net. Now settle down. Let's try meditation."
He did a little better today. Sandry could see his magic did not stray so far from him. It also didn't flicker as much as it had, which told her that his attention wandered less. Maybe he just needs something useful to do, she thought as the city's clocks chimed the hour. Some thing his family thinks is useful, anyway.
As she took up her ward and Pasco stretched his legs, Yazmнn walked in. "You said when you got here that you've something important to discuss?" she asked Sandry.
"We're going to make a net-dance for rat-trapping," Pasco told her cheerfully. "And I'm going to dance it."
"It's a way to catch these killers," explained Sandry. "If you don't mind, we'd like your help with creating the dance, and getting Pasco ready for it. Everything has to be planned to the inch. One wrong step—if he so much as brushes the unmagic—," Sandry gulped. "I think the net would devour him."
"Never fear," Yazmнn said cheerfully. "I can get him so he'll be able to hit a dot on the floor, blindfolded, every time. A small dot." Pasco sat with his left leg straight out in front of him as he tried to grip his foot and touch his forehead to his knee. Yazmнn pressed down on his left knee with one hand as she pulled back on his toes, forcing him to stretch an extra inch. He whimpered, then touched his forehead to his knee and held the position to a count of ten.
Sandry watched them solemnly. "If you've any doubt he'll be able to do it, I have to know right now," she told Yazmнn quietly.
The dancer looked at her and smiled. "You're using that dance he showed me the other day as the basic, right?"
Sandry nodded.
"How long till you're ready to go?"
"I want another look at the net he used for the fishing spell," Sandry replied. "I'll do that today, and I'm to help Behazin and Ulrina—the harrier-mages—distill the rest of the unmagic out of what Master Wulf—," a lump rose in her throat. She coughed to clear it, blinked rapidly until her eyes didn't sting any more, and went on—, "out of what was gathered yesterday. Tonight I'll sketch a rough net for us to look at in the morning. We'll work on the dance while everything else is being made ready at Winding Circle—two more days, I think. And you can work with Pasco some more while I spin and make the net. Will that be enough time? Three or four days?"
''I'll spend every waking minute with our friend, here," Yazmнn said with a wink to Sandry. "I'll give him all the personal attention he can stand."
Pasco, sitting to stretch his right leg, muttered, “I'm doomed."
Do they really understand how serious this is? Sandry wondered as she set about creating a permanent warding on a room for Pasco and Yazmнn to work in. Do they understand that if he touches this net he can't even see, the power of his dance combined with the net will eat him up? Should I talk to them about it some more?
She was still wondering as she told Yazmнn how to activate the wards on the room without a mage present. Yazmнn tried it a couple of times, raising and lowering the protections that would keep Pasco's magic from spilling out. Then she rested a hand on Sandry's arm.
"I know you're worried about precision," she said quietly in her odd, cracked voice. "But really, take my word for it—enough practice with an accurate drawing of the net, and he'll hit his marks every time. He's got body memory, better maybe than mine. I don't know if that's because he'll be a fine dancer or if the magic helps him. Either way, you won't be taking a foolish risk, using him."
A bit of Sandry's worry evaporated. "Thank you, Yazmнn."
The dancer flapped a hand—no thanks necessary—then entered the warded room with Pasco. "Come on," she cried gleefully. "I've got you all to myself. We'll do some real work now!"
"That's what I'm afraid of," muttered Pasco.
Sandry's visit to the fishing village turned out better than she had hoped. Grandmother Netmender was quite willing to let her examine the net that Pasco had used to dance for fish. Able to inspect every inch of it, Sandry found that some of the net's power lay in the unusual knots that held the rope squares in place. The old lady taught her how to tie them, making her practice until Sandry could do each of the three different knots perfectly. Sandry could see that when she tied these with unmagic and combined them in her net, she would double her spell's power.
From the fishing village she rode to the Market Square coop, where Wulfric's office and workroom had been. There she talked to Behazin and Ulrina, who promised to distill the unmagic from the silk they had gathered at Rokat House the day before. She also looked at the stuff collected earlier, which was kept in spelled glass bottles. Since there was no weight to the nothingness, there was no way to tell how much they had, but Sandry was sure that with the unmagic from Rokat House, she would have enough for her net.
When they finished, they tidied up and went to the temple of Harrier the Clawed for Wulfric's last rites. Harrier's worshippers saw no point to burial or to preservation of a body for several days while mourners came to view it. They expected to join their god the day after their deaths. With the other mourners at the temple, Sandry made an offering of feathers and incense in Wulfric's name. A priest called for testimony of his ser vice to the god. Then the lady provost Behazin, even two dedicates from Winding Circle—Monstream, the dedicate who ruled the temple city, and Crane, head of the Air temple and a friend of Wulfrics—all spoke about his honors and the work he had done on behalf of Summersea.