Magic Steps

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 Yazmín 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 Yazmín how to activate the wards on the room without a mage present. Yazmín 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, Yazmín.”

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 Wulfric s—all spoke about his honors and the work he had done on behalf of Summersea.

The duke spoke last, and simply. “Murderers have taken the best harrier-mage I have ever known,” he said, his voice ringing from the temples stone walls. “They shall, pay for It.”

Sandry fought tears all through the ceremony. Tears would just make her weak, she thought, and she had to be strong for the work ahead. They came anyway, as the acolyte set Wulfric’s funeral pyre ablaze. Sandry hadn’t realized the duke and Baron Erdogun had come to stand with her until Vedris put his arm around her. She leaned against her great-uncle for a moment, then straightened, and.

blew her nose. Watching the flames rise around Wulfric’s body, Sandry made him a promise: she would snap the trap on the killers and their mage.

That night she dreamed she drowned in unmagic, trying to scream when it flooded her mouth. She got out of bed and worked on her plans for the net until dawn.

She rode with the duke, took breakfast with him and Erdogun, then went straight to Yazmin’s. There she sketched the dimensions of the net on the workroom floor, using a measuring cord and chalk to lay out the design. Once it was perfect, she took a roll of scarlet ribbon and laid it over the chalked lines, then smoothed it down with her magic. Pasco, ever curious, tried to peel the ribbon off the floor, without success. He couldn’t even get a corner free of the wood.

“I’ll take it up again, after,” Sandry promised Yazmín.

“I don’t know,” the dancer said, raising the wards on the room so they could get to work. “It’s a bit of pretty.”

They meditated first—to Sandry’s surprise, Yazmín had been trained in it. Then Yazmín and Pasco showed her what they had done on the net dance. The three worked on shaping it, crafting each step. They stopped to eat their midday and then returned. With the dance itself set, Yazmín went to work on Pasco. This was the time for him to learn precision. If he so much as brushed the edge of a ribbon square, Yazmín was on him like a tiny wild cat, scolding furiously and positioning his feet and body with rough hands.

That night Sandry dreamed again of the lake of dark ness swallowing her. This time she sat up, walked around the room, splashed her face with water, then tried to go back to sleep. Twice more she dreamed of unmagic, waking in the dark as she gasped for air. She fell asleep again near dawn and slept for several hours, dreamless at last, Her attempts to scold the servants, Erdogun, and her uncle for letting her sleep late were ignored. When she got to Yazmin’s, she discovered that the dancer and Pasco had already meditated in the protected room and were working on the dance-spell.