I felt for the line of power that was supposed to be under the cracked granite post. I didn’t sense anything. I let my magic sink through the stones beneath it. There was some power in them that fizzed, but nothing big. There had been strength beyond the normal in those dull bits of stone. The quartz there clinked with an echo of it, but it was just an echo.
I let my magic run deeper and deeper. I sensed a hum, way down. It reminded me of how my own magic had once felt. It called to me. It was like a kid, wanting me to come and play. I kept reaching out, trying to grab that fizzing sense of being alive…
Then I fell off my horse.
It’s not as if it never happened before. I start to chase some fire or crackle in my magical senses, and my body forgets to hold the reins, or to keep my feet in the stirrups. My horse doesn’t know what’s going on because I’m not telling it anything, so it does what the other horses do. This time, the other horses had stopped in a clearing of dead trees around a dead pond. My horse did, too, only suddenly, because it almost walked into Fusspot’s horse. Fusspot’s horse objected to mine coming so close. It turned its head and snapped. My horse backed up and stamped—that’s what Jayat said, when he stopped laughing. The stamp jarred me enough that I slid down my horse’s side.
At least my body knew what to do, even if my attention was somewhere else. I tucked and rolled like a Yanjing acrobat.
Rosethorn grabbed me before I landed in the pond. This time my collar ripped. I was about to argue when she pointed at the water.
Dead fish floated there. Dead animals lay at the water’s edge. The skin of the fishes was eaten away.
“Acid.” Fusspot looked absolutely miserable. “This water has turned to acid.”
“These plants and trees have been poisoned by it.” Rosethorn dragged me to my feet, away from the water. I didn’t complain, not after a look at those fish. I didn’t want my shoes burned off my feet. “There, now, Myrrhtide. It’s not sewage, as you thought.”
“Not here, anyway. It might be sewage in the water table elsewhere.”
Myrrhtide never knows when to give up.
“Evumeimei?” Somehow Luvo had stayed on the horse even while I fell off. “You are all right?”
“I’m fine. Just my dignity hurt. Jayat, listen, nobody could have drawn earth power here.” I got up. Rosethorn let me go, once she knew I wouldn’t stumble into that nasty-looking brown pond, with its scum of dead things. “The stones were touched by something great, but not lately. They fizz, but it’s all leftovers. Maybe you and your Tahar Catwalker were chewing funny leaves. The shamans of Qidao do that, to imagine they can talk to the sky and horse gods.”
“We didn’t teach you how to be rude.” Rosethorn was using her this-is-your-only-warning voice.
I’d been rude? I was impatient. How was I rude if I was just honest and wanted a straight answer?
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” Either Jayat didn’t agree I’d been rude, or he was really easygoing. “We used to be able to call up the deep power with the right spells. Mages here have done it for centuries. The veins along these trails are so accustomed to this use, they almost offer the power at a touch. But at least close to Moharrin and the lake, it’s all gone out of reach. And if I can’t reach it, my master can’t—I’m stronger than she is, even if I don’t know a quarter as much. Further up the trail, there are more bad places. In one of them, there’s a spot where the power is too close to the surface, and there’s too much of it.”
Myrrhtide frowned. “What do you mean, too much? You’re a mage, you need to learn to be more precise in your reports. ‘Too much’ is hardly definitive.”
Maybe I was wrong about Jayat’s patience. He did scowl at Fusspot. “Master Tahar was called to help a woman who was having a difficult childbirth. She lives out by that place I mentioned. It’s a power spot Tahar has used since she was my age. She was going to save this woman and her baby, with spells she’s worked all her life. That time, when she set the spells to channel the power, it swamped her magic and her control. It was, was…” He shook his head. “It was a river, an ocean. Tahar would have killed them both if she’d used it. Instead she turned it back through herself. They died anyway. Master Tahar couldn’t leave her bed for two weeks. She couldn’t work magic for a month.”
“What would make it do that?” I asked Rosethorn.
She shook her head. “There are all kinds of reasons. The earth lines are part of nature. They aren’t an easy source of power for academic mages who need a bit extra. Too many things can go wrong.” She frowned at Jayat.
He shrugged. “You’re a dedicate initiate of Winding Circle temple. You can say that. I bet you’ve never had to call on sources outside yourself for help in your life.”
“You’re wrong about that,” Rosethorn said. “I draw from the green world all the time.”
“Because the green world is you, and you are it,” replied Jayat. “Master Tahar and I aren’t so lucky. Our people depend on us to help them live, Dedicate Rosethorn. You and Dedicate Initiate Myrrhtide here will leave when you’ve solved our problem.”
“Of course.” Myrrhtide sniffed, as if Jayat smelled bad, not the water with the dead things in it. “You could hardly expect us to remain here. We have other demands on our time and skills.”