He couldn’t say how he knew the mage was a man, but he did. Moreover, the fiery brightness of the original spell and its complexity, even if he didn’t know how it was made, told him that they faced a very powerful mage, even a great mage. It was as bright as any work done by the four’s teachers.
To keep her asleep longer and deeper than the spell on us, I bet, thought Briar, recognizing some of the signs written into the original spell. To keep her out for days, not a day. And it woulda seeped into her power slow, so she’d never feel it coming over her. She’d be halfway across Namorn before she’d wake.
As soon as we get the rest of the household up and on her trail, we’ll destroy this and wake her up. Won’t that be a fine surprise for whoever’s got her? He smiled thinly and placed the parchment on the frame of the bed. Mage kit in hand, he went to Daja’s room. She slept as soundly as the others. Once more, Briar uncorked his wake-up potion and put the vial under her nose. She gasped, choked, and opened her eyes. Coughing, she swung a fist out to clip Briar’s head. Expecting it—the potion had that effect on many people—he dodged the blow.
“Kill me later,” Briar told her as she scrambled to get at him. “Some belbun nicked Sandry, and he’s got a serious mage in his pocket. If he isn’t the mage himself.”
Daja rubbed her eyes. “What’s in that poison?”
“Just the biggest wake-up weeds I know, spelled to crunch through any sleep spell. That’s how they got us in Gyongxe, sleep spells.”
Daja pulled a sack out of her mage kit and began to put items in it. She wore only her medallion, a breast band secured with a tie looped around her neck, and a loincloth. Her lack of clothing didn’t seem to concern her. “One of these days you’re going to have to tell me about what happened in Gyongxe,” she said, turning a spool of fine wire over in her hand before she stuffed it into the bag. “And not that ‘It was just a war’ pavao.” She straightened. “Let’s go smelt this down and see what floats.”
19
Briar suddenly realized he was very glad it was Daja with him. She was solid in spirit and heart—he’d forgotten that. She didn’t have Tris’s temper, vexing even with its most dangerous aspects held under rigid control, and she wasn’t inclined to the kind of noble arrogance that Sandry kept displaying. Of course he wouldn’t tell Daja that, but it was good to be reminded.
They trotted downstairs. The inn’s staff was asleep in a private parlor. It looked as if they’d told themselves they’d just put their heads down for a moment, then fallen asleep at one table. The four other guests had not returned from the horse fair.
I bet Zhegorz was right. Maybe they were soldiers, but now they’re in the pay of whichever imperial favorite tricked us this time, thought Briar. Maybe they had charms to hold off the sleep spell, but old Zhegorz scared them into the woods to wait till we were snoring, instead of being all nice and snug in here. Briar spat on the tiles in disgust. Tris was right to send him, and I was a bleater.
Daja went outside and quickly came back. “Asleep, all of them.”
“Stables are through the kitchen,” Briar said, pointing. “They’ll have needed horses to take Sandry.”
Daja nodded grimly. They walked through the kitchen door together into a force that felt like hard jelly. It wrapped around them in an eyeblink, then pulled them apart, leaving a yard of space between them.
One man was still awake. Quen lounged at the cook’s big table, fiddling with pieces of chopped turnips and carrots obviously meant for soup tomorrow. “I’ll wager you’ve never walked into anything like that before, have you?” he asked casually, his brown eyes gleaming in triumph. “Don’t worry, you can breathe. In fact, inside that working, you can stay alive for weeks. I tested it on a criminal scheduled for execution. After three months, Her Imperial Majesty lost patience and had him executed anyway.” He yawned. “I can’t leave this inn and still hold you two like this, but I’ve had worse situations. I wish you could tell me how you broke my sleep spell. No one was supposed to wake from that for three days. And I shaped it so that it couldn’t be broken once you were asleep.” He scratched the side of his mouth. “You’ll tell me when I free you, perhaps. Or I could let the glove of air down enough to free your mouths, if you swear to behave. Or not. I suppose you’re a little more powerful than I expected.” He smirked. “So, what shall I talk about?”
Daja and Briar reached out at the same moment along their magical connection, withered as it was. It sprang to life as Daja said, He’ll bore us to death if he keeps talking.
It seems like that, Briar answered. While he natters, we still don’t know about Sandry.
Sandry! cried Daja, grabbing for their bond. Sandry!
I couldn’t reach her before, Briar said. At the same time, he added his call to hers. They still found no trace of their friend.
“I suppose you’re running through all the spell-breaking charms you know,” Quen observed. “But that’s the beauty of it, don’t you see? They’re layered shield spells, but some of them are reversed. My own design. No single charm possessed by any mage will work on this glove spell. Well, Isha broke out, but she’s even more powerful than I am. She just blasted it. She said I need to stay humble. She even thought she might not be the only one who could do it, but really, outside noble courts, or the universities and the Living Circle schools, you’re not likely to find that many great mages. People tend to dislike us. They think we’re conceited and high-handed. They never think that perhaps we just spend so much time trying to wrestle our magic into behaving that it makes us short-tempered with the everyday world. So we hide.”
Quen ate a chunk of carrot, his eyes alert as he watched them. “Frustrating, isn’t it? I had to spend plenty of time at Lightsbridge breaking out of trap spells as part of my specialization. Maybe you could do a double working that would get you out eventually, but that’s why I pulled you apart.” He studied his nails. “You really should consider employment with Berenene. She takes good care of her people. I’ll even teach you some tricks once Shan and Sandry are wed. Not this one, of course. But you’ll see I’m a decent enough fellow after that.”
He is starting to annoy me, complained Daja.
Let’s shut him up, then. Briar and Daja thrust at the spells with their own spells for destruction, Briar’s for decay and the destruction of parasites, Daja’s for rust. Nothing worked. Each suggested charms and tricks they had learned in the last three years, creating variations within their own specialties. These, too, failed. The glove spells slid around them, jelly-like, making Daja’s knees weak with distaste. Quen took a fiddle from the bench and played it, which made Briar crazy. He hated being laughed at.
Should we yell for Tris? Briar finally asked.
There’s a way we can do this, Daja said stubbornly. On our own, without Tris and her book learning. Besides, she’s probably still weak as a kitten.
Something caught Briar’s attention then. Tris. Book learning.
Daja waited to hear his thought.
When Briar worked it out, he was both jubilant and ashamed for not seeing it sooner. The solution lay in his own experience and his own teacher. Rosethorn had engaged in a constant battle with university-trained mages, over the difference between academic magic and ambient magic.
Stop playing his game and start playing ours! he said. He tapped into his shakkan and the plants around him, drawing their power through himself and turning it into vines. These he sent through the spells of the glove. Like all vines, they found each and every chink and opening, spaces no human being used, weaving their tendrils through to break into open air. Reaching Daja’s prison, they did the same thing all over again, finding the openings between the spells. At last they broke through to twine themselves around her, growing until they cupped her entire body.