If she committed to the tengu, then she might have to fight even Windwolf to keep them safe. I can’t. I can’t.
She pressed trembling hands to her mouth. But if she didn’t protect them, who would? How could she stand aside and let them be killed and do nothing to save them? “I’ll do my best to protect you, but you have to remember to do what I say, or I won’t have the power to stop the elves from killing you all.”
“I promise. You will have obedience of the tengu.”
Her life had so many strings attached that she felt like a puppet.
“Hey! Scarecrow!” Esme called over the ship’s intercom. “We’re getting close to your mark in five minutes!”
Tinker swam back to the bridge, blinking on the salt burning in her eyes.
“Two minutes,” Esme announced.
They waited in tense silence, bathed in the soft earthshine.
“In ten,” Esme said quietly.
Tinker made sure she had her fingers in the correct position.
“We’re in range.”
Tinker brought her hand to her mouth and said the trigger word. Nothing happened. Her heart jolted with the sudden spike of fear. “Daaaaaaae.” Still nothing. She checked her finger positions and carefully announced the trigger word. Zip. “Daaae. Daaaaae. Dae. Daaaaaaae.”
“And we’re out of range,” Esme said.
“Oh, fuck,” Tinker said.
“Just checking — it didn’t work?” Jin asked.
“No.” Tinker rubbed the heels of her hand into her eyes.
“Well, you better think of something else, Scarecrow.” Esme said. “We only have fuel for one more burn.”
“How’s it going?” The tengu Ushi asked. Tinker was finding that while the humans treated her with slight condescension after the initial novelty wore off, the tengu regarded her with odd mix of awe and affection. The ratio of worship versus familial warmth seemed to be dependent on how well they knew her father. Either way, they kept seeking her out, wanting to know if she was comfortable, or needed anything. It was driving her to distraction.
“I’m still thinking.” Thinking she needed to find a hiding place. “We’re at about two hundred miles above Elfhome’s surface, crossing over Spell Stones in Giza around eighteen miles per second. The reach of the Spell Stones are one mei, which is approximately one thousand miles, which means that theoretically we’re within their reach for about a minute and a half.”
“Why are they important?”
“They’re a source of a lot of magic. If I could pull on them, then I could use the magic to trigger the spell.”
She covered her eyes to think. Apparently Ushi took the cue that he was distracting her; when she opened her eyes again, he was gone. Too bad all her problems didn’t solve themselves so neatly.
Why couldn’t she call the spell stones? They were in range, more than a minute, nearly two, and a call took less than one. Something had to be interfering with the call. Was it that there wasn’t enough ambient magic to fuel the initial call? Tinker ran her hand across the wall of the ship, focusing on her magic sense. She could feel the latent magic. It was as strong as a ley line, but with a strange texture. It was like the difference between silk and wool. Magic on Elfhome flowed, smooth and quick. The magic here buzzed with static. If the call was suppose to be resonance of magic across the DNA signature of the domana, then perhaps that chaotic nature of the magic on the ship was creating too much static to that call.
Perhaps if she could filter the background magic to one frequency — oh, gods — how the hell did she do that? She groaned and pulled at her hair. The sekasha had magic stored in the beads woven into their hair which guaranteed that if they were in a magic poor area, they still could trigger their shields and have a few minutes of protection. She never examined them but knew in essence that they were a metal ball, insulated with glass that acted like her power sinks. She believed that storing the magic in a “clean” enough medium would reduce the static. So, she should be able to use a sink just like they used the beads. The problem probably would be eliminating the background magic so only the stored magic was active.
Wait, if she modified the Reinhold’s spell based on Impatience’s theorems, she might be able to trigger magic equivalence to a wide-scale electromagnetic pulse. It would basically clean the slate. The danger would be that it wasn’t only on the magic wavelength, but included the electronics of the ship. She could accidentally kill all the computers maintaining the ship’s life supports. That would be bad.
But if she wiped out the build up, and then used one shielded source to do a call on the Wind Clan Spell stones — would that be enough magic to trigger the jump? It might. Too bad she couldn’t pull from a second set…
Or could she? She had felt the Stone Clan magic. She had watched Forest Moss call on the Stone Clan’s spell stones. Did she remember the hand positions and vocalization? Yes, she was sure.
She was nearly quivering now with possibilities. If she could pull on both stones, at once — wait — at once — that kind of meant at the same moment. Since the vocalization was different she couldn’t do both. She wished she could pace. She thought better pacing. She settled for bouncing between the walls, flying through the air.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Jin suddenly caught her, and brought her to a stand still. “You’re going to hurt yourself doing that.”
“I can’t say two things at once! I considered sampling the resonance, but I suspect that the genetic key equates to vibrations in the quantum nature of magic — not that I know that for sure — and certain I’m at a loss as to how to test that theory. There isn’t time for me to invent a device that can sample how the magic interplays with molecular level, or the equipment we probably need to recreate that resonance. And according to all my last dream, resonance was the key to everything. And if getting home isn’t the full ball of wax —”
“Shhhhhh.” Jin put his finger to his lips.
She frowned at him and then put her finger over his lips. “Do that again.”
“Tinker, listen.”
“No, do the ‘shhh’ thing again.”
“Shhhh.” Jin repeated and then said, with her finger still in place. “We’re picking up the radio from Pittsburgh again. They say that Malice is attacking Oakland.”
“I need to get home. And I think I know how.”
True Flame drew Wolf aside to speak quietly with him. “You and I have the only attack spells that have a hope of hurting Malice. We need to pair off with the Stone Clan. They’ll provide defense while we focus on attack. Which do you want? Forest Moss or Earth Son?”
The mad one or the male that hated him? Both had good cause to see him dead. If they were wise, they would hold their political maneuverings until after the dragon was dead. Where Forest Moss lacked sanity, Earth Son lacked political savvy; Wolf did not think either was rational enough for wisdom. While he trusted Jewel Tears to defend the enclaves, he was not sure he could entrust his safety to her. From True Flame’s perspective, however, Jewel Tears’ youth made her unfit material for the front line, so it was a moot point.
“I rather not stake my life — and the lives of my people — on the Stone Clan.” Wolf spoke the blunt truth.
“I realize that.” True Flame said. “But we will need both hands to our most powerful attack spells, which means no shield.”
“In that case, I don’t want to take Hands into this battle. I do not want to leave them at the mercy of the Stone Clan.”