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CHAPTER NINE

Over the next several days, as they voyaged through the convolutions that carried them deeper and deeper into the mountain range, Slicewind bucked against erratic air currents made visible as the hosts of restless wisps of cloud. Eventually, they had to expand their duty watches to include three people: one at the wheel, one handling the lines, if necessary, and one up in the crow’s nest. Only Grunwold was able to handle the ship on his own, but even he appreciated someone aloft, keeping watch for storm clusters. As the wind currents became more erratic, Vereez, who had a sixth sense for weather, took over high guard full-time.

They heard their destination—or rather the beginning of its defenses—well before they saw it: a strange, metallic vibration that drove every bird from the sky and set even the humans’ teeth on edge. The shrieking wail came from the depths of a thick bank of mist that permitted no glimpse of the source.

Although the sound made the humans uncomfortable, the young people, each of whom were blessed—or in this case cursed—with more acute hearing, were miserable. Heru didn’t make the situation any better by adding his own honks of protest to the din.

Peg shaped the four young people earplugs from soft wax. These helped for a time, but Slicewind had barely cut into the outermost edge of the mists before first Grunwold, with his large deer’s ears, followed soon after by Vereez and Kaj, fled belowdecks. Xerak coped longer by using a charm that dulled his hearing, but eventually an odor he claimed was nauseating—but which the humans could detect only as a vague, rotten unpleasantness—bent him double with retching, and forced him to retreat below with the rest.

Peg matter-of-factly took Slicewind’s wheel. Meg carefully climbed up the mast to the crow’s nest, binoculars slung around her neck, while Teg stood ready to reef or loose the sails if Peg so commanded. Heru soared around them, restless and uneasy, until Peg, in her capacity as captain pro tem, ordered the xuxu belowdecks.

“That sound may be warning us away,” Peg shouted, one hand on a spoke of the wheel, another hovering over the elevation levers, “but the winds—I feel a strange spiral current. I think it’s meant to drive ships away, but if we can surf on that . . .”

Peg worked the controls with expert concentration, aware of eddies that to Teg were only bumps. Intently focused, yelling semi-intelligible bits of surfer slang, Peg fought until Slicewind was riding the swirling vortex through the clouds, each rotation taking them a miniscule amount closer to whatever lay concealed within the mist. The mainsail belled out, and the lines hummed as if Slicewind was singing her victory over the winds that had so violently buffeted her a short while before.

As Slicewind cut through the muffling layers of fog and mist, the strange sound grew louder and more shrill. Teg thought about stuffing her own ears with wax, but didn’t want to sacrifice her ability to hear Peg or Meg. She was still debating whether she should give in and use earplugs when the ship cut through the last of the shrouding clouds.

Suddenly they were under a blue sky, their destination revealed as a mesa-like formation, sheer at the sides. The flatness of the formation’s top made it stand out among the surrounding peaks. Unlike these, which were snow and ice capped, the plateau was bare, without even scrub growth: just dirt or sand. As Slicewind swirled closer, a series of slender columns or pillars jutting from the top of the mesa were revealed as the source of the maddening shrieks.

From her perch in the crow’s nest, Meg had the clearest view. Waiting until Slicewind’s around and around progress had made it possible for her to view the object from all sides, she called down her report.

“It’s a series of slim, silvery-grey columns. Their bases are buried in the dirt. They aren’t supporting anything and there’s something odd about their tops.” Meg raised the binoculars to her eyes and inspected the formation again. “It’s possible that what I’d taken for painted accents or ornamental carvings may actually be holes. These ‘columns’ may be more akin to gigantic pipes than to columns.”

“Pipes?” Teg asked, then understood. “Oh, not for smoking. Like for carrying water or chimneys.”

“Or a pipe organ,” Peg added. “That would explain the noise: the wind rushing through or over the pipes—sort of a tubular take on an Aeolian harp. Like when you blow on a beer bottle or over the top of a syrinx—panpipes, you know.”

“The pipes look metallic,” Meg began, then stopped herself. “No. That’s not quite right. Plastic? But they don’t have plastic here. Whatever the pipes are made from has been severely battered. And . . . Wait! No. Yes. Yes!”

Meg was hardly ever so inarticulate. Teg was about to risk leaving her place to take a look for herself when Meg resumed.

“It’s moving! Yes! Definitely. The array of pipes is moving. Not very fast, but it’s shifting—perhaps so as to use the wind more effectively.”

Teg looked over the side in time to see the pipes in motion. Something about the gait reminded her of a centipede, as if the pipes moved on multiple sets of short legs rather than relying on only a few, longer limbs. After making a few fussy adjustments, the pipes stopped, angled slightly and the shrill sound changed, causing Teg to shake her head hard.

Peg cursed, then added, “And to think I was so proud that, unlike a lot of my hippie buddies, my hearing somehow managed to escape damage from speaker stacks. So that’s where the noise is coming from. Any idea what caused the stink that chased Xerak below? It’s getting worse.”

“No idea,” Meg replied. “We’re still far enough out that fecal matter or the like would be hard for me to spot, even with the binoculars.”

A shrill scream of—Rage? Protest? Warning?—cut her off.

“We’re going to need to deal with that shrilling before we can venture closer,” Peg decided. “I have an idea. Teg, go and check the water barrels. Waste, too, while you’re at it.”

Teg did so, reporting back. “Water’s still mostly full. We tanked up only yesterday. Waste not so much. We purged at the same time.”

Peg nodded. “Well, as much as I’d love to give that thing shit, that’s probably not the best idea. Here’s my plan. It’s going to take pinpoint coordination, but I think we can pull it off.”

Some minutes later, Teg was standing by the levers that would release the water stored in barrels strategically positioned around the ship where they served as ballast, as well as providing water for the crew. Since—as with hot air balloons—it was sometimes advantageous for the ship to be able to rise suddenly, the ballast was rigged for quick release. A side benefit was that this enabled the water to be completely dumped before restocking, thereby reducing the contamination that had plagued oceangoing vessels in olden times.

At a shout from Meg, Peg pulled Slicewind out of the vortex current, cutting directly across the top of the plateau. The screaming grew unbearable: loud and shrill enough that Teg had to resist an urge to sink to her knees and bury her head in her arms.

“Now, Teg!” Meg yelled. “Now!”

Teg pulled hard on the release lever, hoping that Meg had remembered to allow for the time needed for the hatch to open. Otherwise, their tormentor might only get splashed. Since Slicewind carried a finite amount of water, this attack could only be used a limited number of times.

She needn’t have worried. The shrilling became a gurgle, then a sort of choked bubbling. Slicewind started to rise straight up, but Peg shoved the elevation controls with one hand, then hauled at the wheel with the other, bringing the sailing ship around so hard that the sails began to flap until they caught the wind again.

Thudding footsteps from below announced that the three inquisitors and Kaj had noticed the change. When they came up from below, Teg noticed that all of them wore scarves over their noses and smelled very strongly of something heady and floral.

To Grunwold’s eternal credit, he didn’t shove Peg from the wheel of his beloved ship, but instead tended to the sails. Vereez ran forward, taking charge of the small sail, while Kaj and Xerak grabbed the lines for the mainsail.

“Coming around for a second pass,” Peg yelled. “Ready, ladies?”

“Ready!” came simultaneous replies.

“Now!” yelled Meg, and what remained of the whistling, whining, shrilling complaint ebbed into short fizzing burbles.

“Grunwold!” Peg called. “We’re going to need to get down there and deal with that whatever it is before it clears the water from its pipes. Take the wheel!”

Grunwold loped over, managing to give Peg a one-armed hug as he grasped for the wheel. Peg hugged him back, then ran for the rail. Teg was already there, trying to figure out what the walking pipe organ was doing, but Slicewind’s erratic progress was such that she only could grab patchwork glimpses that were more confusing than edifying.

Meg made her way down from the mast to join them. Her pink-and-white complexion was flushed, and her blue eyes were snapping with excitement.

“Wonderful! Elegant! Perfect!”

“Not bad for three old ladies, eh?” Peg said with assumed nonchalance.

“I’m not quite ready for ‘old,’” Teg mock protested, but she realized that until this trip she had been. Menopause had hit her hard, and so had the retirement of people she’d known for years.

Gradually, she was realizing that there was something to that trite saying “You’re only as old as you feel.” Sure, she couldn’t do anything about hot flashes, needing reading glasses, getting tired after a day digging where once, after a brief rest, she’d have been ready to go hiking before bed. But she could stop selling herself short. Rather than thinking about what she couldn’t do, she needed to think more about what she could.

Grunwold was shouting complicated directions about sail settings to Kaj, Xerak, and Vereez. He brought Slicewind around, heeling the vessel as tightly as if she were a race car. In the process, he also gave up some altitude, although he didn’t bring the ship all the way down, but kept her hovering with her hull about ten feet above the surface.

Teg, Meg, and Peg crowded to where they could get a clear look at their—at least for the moment—vanquished opponent. The series of pipes were spitting out water, reminding Teg for all the world of a failed attempt at an avant-garde fountain. Water gushed out of both the tops of the pipes and from smaller holes along their sides. Apparently, the creature possessed some ability to breathe, so it wasn’t completely reliant on the wind to make those horrible noises.

Any desire Teg had felt about figuring out just how the thing functioned was banished when she realized that it was moving—not with the centipede-like wriggle she’d glimpsed before, but with a rising and falling motion, as if it was doing a series of deep knee bends.

Then, with a mighty effort that flung clods of dirt every which way, the creature broke through the surface, revealing an ovoid body, something like that of a crab, but without a crab’s long legs. The pipes that had so tormented the sky sailors were set along the creature’s back shell, which was a similar silver-grey to the tubes, although with an underlying shimmer of blue the pipes lacked. Teg estimated that the creature was at least five meters from end to end, and perhaps three meters at its widest point.

As if the pipes were not weapon enough, the creature possessed not one, but two massive sets of claws—one set at each end of its body, the second claw replacing what would be the back fin on a crab. It was with its claws, rather than its legs—which were indeed centipede short and centipede numerous—that the creature had hefted the body from where it had “swum” below the sandy soil of the plateau. Clearly, this thing’s joints were a great deal more flexible than those of a crab.

Like those of a crab, the creature’s four eyes were on long stalks that were clearly capable of independent motion. One eye stalk darted back and forth, inspecting its immediate surroundings, while another gazed up at the floating ship. Another set seemed to handle directing the course of the creature’s numerous feet.

With a discordant brrapp the creature shot forth water from several pipes, releasing at the same time quantities of noxious-smelling material, opaque and the color of spoiled custard. Teg felt her gut wrench. Perfumed bandanas notwithstanding, the young people gagged audibly. Kaj just managed to reach the side before he vomited.

“We’ve got to take that thing out of action,” Xerak managed, sounding as if he were trying to speak without breathing. He began to make the now-familiar motions that led up to one of his fire spells.

“Wait!” Peg said, grabbing his arm with the hand that wasn’t pinching her nose shut. “I think that thing has been hurt. Look! Some of the pipes have been jammed, the rest are partially shut. I bet that accounts for the horrible noise—and the stink.”

“The stink?” Kaj, returning and wiping his mouth, looked both puzzled and interested.

“You can’t have wiped as many snotty noses as I have,” Peg said, “without being able to recognize a sinus infection. Somehow that thing has gotten its pipes clogged. I’d bet it’s so sick it’s gone crazy. If you can restrain it, I could maybe . . .”

In the wash of inarticulate protests that followed, two voices won through.

Meg said, “Peg, as much as I admire your desire to enact Androcles and the Lion, perhaps this is not the best time for mercy.”

And Grunwold bellowed, “Restrain, that?”

But Vereez nodded. When she spoke, her words came in short gasps.

“Until it broke through . . . I didn’t recognize it. . . . That’s an oothynn . . . In the tropics they’re . . . kept as pets. They’re smart as draft lizards . . . create beautiful music. Though the . . . ones I’ve seen are a lot smaller.”

Peg smiled at Vereez. “Will you help me, then?”

Vereez nodded. Grunwold gave a gusty sigh, and tightened his bandana.

Slicewind doesn’t need me at the helm if we’re just hovering. I’ll go with you so I can pull you out when you get yourselves in trouble.”

Perhaps determined not to be outdone, Kaj wordlessly moved to join him.

Xerak rolled his eyes. “Well, this is my inquisition. I can’t hang back.”

Peg patted the lion-headed youth approvingly on one arm. “Now, my dears, here’s what I want each of you to do.”


Peg’s plan called for two teams—Vereez and Grunwold, Xerak and Kaj—to approach the oothynn from opposite ends, rush in, shroud the claws with sail canvas, then use some of Slicewind’s ample supply of rope to bind the claws: “Like lobsters at the grocery store.”

Once the claws were rendered ineffective, each team was to hold on and keep the oothynn from getting away. After the creature had been restrained, Peg and Meg would climb up on the shell and start clearing out the pipes.

“What about me?” Teg asked. “Am I on claw-binding or snot-clearing duty?”

“Neither,” Peg said firmly. “Meg and I are mothers. We’ve dealt with worse stuff than that. You might blow your cookies.”

“But . . .”

“Teg, you’ll stay on Slicewind, where you will be above the action. You and Heru will stand watch. If something goes wrong, you can provide a distraction with your sun spider amulet.”

“Peg, this is crazy. So much could go wrong! Let’s just put the thing out of its misery.”

Peg shook her head. “I can’t. Even before Vereez told us these things are kept as pets, I had my suspicions. Look at the tops of the pipes. See those bands?”

Teg did. “What about them? Part of the shell.”

“No. I don’t think so. I think they’re ornamental. My guess is that this thing was someone’s pet. They put those on it, went away, almost certainly planning to return. But they didn’t and, well, if this oothynn is like a crustacean, it grows by molting. It’s managed, but just barely, and over time the rings have tightened.”

Teg felt an unwilling pang of sympathy. She knew all too well the pain of a swollen finger caught in a ring. Water retention seriously sucked.

Xerak, who had proofed himself with a nose-plugging charm, borrowed a pair of binoculars and took a closer look.

“Peg’s right. Those bands are artificial. They’ve been so scuffed and tarnished, I can’t tell for certain, but they were probably enchanted to stretch, but even enchantment can only do so much. I wonder . . .”

He gagged as the oothynn sneezed out more slime. Apparently, the charm muffled, but did not eliminate his sense of smell entirely. The oothynn was starting to make noises—squeak toys to its earlier shrill screams, but a threat of what was to come.

“Later,” Peg commanded. “If we’re going to do it, let’s do it!”

Had the oothynn possessed typical binocular vision, Peg’s plan would have worked more smoothly, but the oothynn could turn its eyes in any direction. Again, had the young people not been sickened from the stench, Peg’s plan would have worked more smoothly, but . . .

Teg looked on, acutely worried as Grunwold was buffeted back by one claw, flying through the air and landing on his tail. Vereez dropped her piece of sail canvas to come to his aid. Drawing her twin swords, she ran to cover Grunwold. She crossed her blades into an X just in time to catch the descending claw, but the force rocked her back. Grunwold struggled to his feet, ran to her, then managed to brace Vereez’s arms with his own so the X didn’t break.

Heru soared down, honking and snapping at the oothynn, distracting it sufficiently that Vereez and Grunwold were able to regroup.

On the other side, Xerak and Kaj had managed to get sail canvas over their designated claws, but neither had a firm enough grip to let go long enough to get the rope around the pincher. Kaj was attempting a sort of horseman’s mount over the section of the claw directly behind the pincher, but since the claws opened up and down, not sideways, he wasn’t going to be able to hold them shut even with those muscular thighs.

And if he makes even a little mistake, Brunni isn’t going to have any little brothers or sisters. Teg clenched her fingers around the sun spider amulet. I wish the spider silk was strong enough to bind those claws, but that’s out.

She had a fleeting memory of Xerak saying that it was possible that the sun spider amulet might be used to summon real sun spiders.

But I don’t think I could do that, and even if I did, how am I to know if they’d be big enough to deal with a cross between a pipe organ and a crab? What if I summoned sun spiders and they attacked us? No . . . There’s got to be something else.

The idea that came to her was of a sort that she was familiar with from her work, a flash of inspiration that seemed unconnected with anything else, although later, she might be able to figure out the links.

If the oothynn couldn’t see, then . . .

Teg didn’t let herself think about everything that could go wrong. Instead, grasping the sun spider amulet in what frequent practice had made a familiar grip, Teg concentrated, first on focusing her energies as Xerak had taught her, then on envisioning the sun spider shooting forth a gob of silk to cover one of the eyes on its long stalk. Breathing in through her mouth, she forced her breath out in a pursed-lipped gust that left her lightheaded.

Now!

She could have sworn she heard little giggles from the amulet, as if it was amused by the idea of incapacitating the much larger creature.

One eye! Two! Three! Now for the last! Teg’s head swam, but she gripped the side of the ship until the woozy feeling passed.

The oothynn forgot its attackers, trying instead to pluck away the spider silk without damaging its own eyes. Kaj and Xerak, each of whom already had canvas in place, used the distraction to get ropes over the claws and bind them shut. Then each sat astride their captive claw and exchanged spontaneous palm slaps.

Vereez and Grunwold had to run to reach their assigned claws before the oothynn could clear its eyes. Their job was made more difficult because the oothynn was trying to use those claws to clear its eyestalks, but between Grunwold’s muscle and Vereez’s agility, they managed to rope first one, then the other, and get them closed. When this had been done, the oothynn collapsed, overwhelmed and—at least for the moment—defeated.

A pathetic wail, like that of a disappointed kitten, made Teg suddenly feel sorry for it.

“I’m getting this gunk off its eyes,” Teg said. “After all we went through to save it, I don’t want to risk it being permanently blinded.”

“We’ll get to work on clearing its pipes,” Peg said. “You kids did great, but you’d better back off. This is going to be a smelly job.”

There was no protest and, after making sure that the ropes that held the claws were tight, most of young people went belowdecks. Grunwold alone stayed above, standing at Slicewind’s wheel.

After she’d cleared the spider silk from the oothynn’s eyes, which, like those of a crab, seemed to be protected by a transparent bit of shell, Teg took a look at the bands that constricted the pipes.

“These bands look as if they have a seam. In fact, in a couple of cases, the band has actually broken, but the oothynn’s chitinous shell has grown around them. I think I can manage to pry these loose. Could someone get me my dig kit?”

Ostentatiously holding his nose, Grunwold did so. Teg climbed up the rough shell and got to work. As she did so, she could have sworn she felt the oothynn purring.

Poor thing. If it was someone’s pet, it must have been really confused. It must have a good heart, to trust strangers, rather than try and toss them off.

Only when she was done did Teg realize she was exhausted. She let herself be doused with water to remove most of the stink, then collapsed into a deep and thankfully dreamless sleep.


Teg awoke to the sound of a woman singing “Amazing Grace.”

“You’re awake?”

The voice was Kaj’s. She felt strong hands lift her head and torso, then a cup of something was put to her lips. She drank thirstily. The lightly salted broth tasted wonderful.

“Enough for now,” Kaj said, taking the drinking bowl away. “Do you want to lie down again or sit up?”

“Sit.”

Teg felt herself propped against something soft but firm. Probably more of the sail cloth. Until this voyage, she’d never realized how often sails needed to be mended or replaced. Kaj’s arm pulled away, and Teg relaxed, listening to the music. As an afterthought, she realized she could probably open her eyes.

When she did, she discovered that she was on the ground. Slicewind hovered at anchor, providing shade for an impromptu camp. She wondered why they weren’t on the ship, then she saw Peg and understood.

Peg was standing on the oothynn’s upper shell, singing. The oothynn’s claws were still shrouded in canvas and rope, but it held them crossed in an “at rest” position. The creature’s outer shell had been thoroughly cleaned, and the surrounding area was perfectly dry. Teg wondered how long she’d been out, then she realized that the oothynn had been convinced to move away from the putrefied area. That was still damp, but fresh sand had been dug and thrown over the worst of the snot and slime—Teg suspected by the creature itself, since it would take even a team of skilled diggers at least a day to do the job.

The oothynn’s four eyes were focused on Peg with what Teg recognized as pure adoration. When Peg sang a passage to it, it strove to imitate. When it failed—probably because its pipes were still bent from having been bound for so long—it would give a dissatisfied honk that reminded Teg of seals at the zoo, then try again.

“The oothynn is capable of using different pipes to make the same sound,” Meg spoke from one side. Teg glanced over and saw that Meg was sitting on a campstool, a bowl of tea in her right hand, her notebook balanced on one knee. “Rather as a violinist can duplicate the same note with different fingering on different strings. Peg said she wanted to show it that it’s going to be okay, that it can go back to singing.”

“Seems to be working.” Vereez padded over and crouched down next to Teg. “How do you feel? You saved the day, first with the blinding, then getting those bonds off the pipes. It really calmed down when the last of those dropped off. Peg’s singing is doing the rest.”

Peg had noticed that Teg was awake. After singing a quick line of notes that sounded vaguely familiar, she patted the nearest pipe, then jumped down off the oothynn’s shell to come hurrying over.

“How do you feel?”

“I feel a mega headache coming on,” Teg admitted. “If someone would grab my pack, I have some aspirin there.” As Vereez hopped up and scrabbled up the ladder into the ship, Teg continued, “So, Peg, have you turned Disney Princess now? Singing to monsters?”

“Well, music does have charms to sooth the savage beast,” Peg said.

“The actual quotation is ‘savage breast,’” Meg commented mildly.

“Maybe, but Grace is definitely a beast, and not a mammal, so ‘breast’ is completely wrong.”

“Grace?” Teg asked.

“For Grace Slick,” Peg said cheerfully. “At her best, she had the ability to make her voice sound like instrumental music. I think when this Grace is well, she’s going to be able to make music that will sound like words.”

“Grace Slick?” Teg frowned, then nodded. “I remember. Jefferson Airplane. That song about the white rabbit. And wanting someone to love.”

“Yeah, my old rival,” Peg said reminiscently. “Well, she may have beaten me out for the place in the band, and gotten Paul Kantner, but I did have my thing with Marty Balin. She never managed that, though we did both have our times with Jim Morrison.”

She smiled, looking so sexy and wicked that Kaj, coming to bring Teg fresh broth, halted in midmotion. Peg didn’t notice. Or at least she pretended not to notice, but her grin became a little wider.

“I also wanted a name that would translate completely. After poor Grace’s horrible sinus infection, Grace Slick seemed, well, appropriate in so many, many ways.”

“Peg, you are one wicked woman,” Teg said, downing two aspirin, and nodding thanks to Vereez, who was staring at Kaj, clearly puzzled. Teg wondered idly if Kaj smelled like a blush or something.

She fell asleep soon after, and when she awoke it was the next morning. The mountains visible over the mist surrounding them might have been rimed in snow and ice, but the plateau was comfortable—not warm, precisely, but somewhere in the midseventies.

More proof that this world doesn’t follow the rules I know. Teg sat up and looked to where Peg was teaching Grace Slick to play “The Sound of Music” from the eponymous musical. As if I needed a reminder.

Xerak came over, saw Teg was definitely awake, and, without being asked, poured her a bowl of poffee.

Teg thanked him and, after taking a satisfying slurp, asked, “I was too out of it last night to ask, but why are we camping down here, not sleeping on Slicewind?”

“After your brilliant attack on Grace, over there”—Teg’s ear heard that he had spoken the name in English, so apparently the translation spell was continuing to not translate names—“Grunwold worried we would run short of water. Peg didn’t want to leave Grace, so we set up camp. Then Vereez, Grunwold, and Kaj sailed to where they could siphon up a fresh supply from a mountain lake.”

Teg chuckled. “Oh, that must have been a fun voyage. Do you think Vereez is going to make a play for Kaj? Or will she realize that he’s not interested—or if he is, it’s for the wrong reasons?”

Xerak shook his head. “I have no idea. Vereez isn’t confiding in me. I thought she might have said something to you.”

“Not to this point. I think she figures we’re all rooting for Grunwold.”

“You’re not?”

“I’m not rooting for anyone but Vereez. That young woman needs to get it through her pointy-eared head that she’s her own person first, not who she is because she has caught some guy. Kaj messed her up big time by screwing her when she was just a kid. I’m not saying I blame him for not realizing how young and vulnerable she was—he was a kid himself—but I’d like Vereez to realize that she’s got to be able to live without a man . . . or a woman . . . or whatever. In the end, the only person who won’t leave you is you.”

Xerak blinked. “That’s bitter. Were you left?”

Teg forced a laugh. “Not really. If I have a problem, it’s the reverse. I’m what my culture calls ‘commitment shy.’ I’ve never found anyone who I trusted enough, I guess. And the experiences of most of my friends—including Meg and Peg—well, they don’t exactly scream ‘Try this.’”

Heath Morton’s smiling face flashed into her memory, but she shrugged it away.

“Meg seems to have liked her husband,” Xerak said cautiously.

“I think she did, but it was a very”—Teg brought her hand down in a cutting gesture—“partitioned marriage. Meg’s from a time when, in our culture, a woman’s role and a man’s role—even to the sort of jobs they could hold—were clearly designated. Peg’s generation shook that up big time. Mine? Mine’s still dealing with the fallout. Or that’s what I tell myself. I wanted to go into archeology. It’s a physically demanding professions, so I had to prove myself as good as any man—and be able to boss them. I wasn’t the first to do that but, the older I got, more and more of the women who’d started in archeology when I did dropped out to raise families, take a job with less travel, because they didn’t want to leave their husbands and kids, stuff like that. I found an easy way to avoid that.”

“No husband,” Xerak replied, nodding. “No family. You know, Teg, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk so much about yourself at one time.”

This time Teg’s laugh was genuine. “Maybe I’m talking because each of you inquisitors has been forced to tell your story. Maybe I’m realizing that, in my own way, I’m a holdback, too. It’s a scary thought, especially at my age.”

“Because you didn’t find a partner?”

“No. Because of why I didn’t find a partner. Does that make sense?”

“I think so . . .” Xerak reached for the poffee, refilled Teg’s bowl, and, after waiting to see if she was going to say more, asked, “How are you feeling this morning? Up to trying more magic?”

Teg ran a mental inventory of herself. “I feel fine. Actually, I feel great. Headache is gone and I don’t have any of that hangover feeling I’ve had after doing a magical working. I guess I got enough sleep.”

“That, and since this plateau is a vortex of lines of energy, it also helps wizards to regain spent energy. Now, my dear apprentice”—Xerak’s ears quirked a half smile—“Slicewind has taken on replacement water. You and Vereez are ready. I’d like to try the spell this morning.”

“Absolutely,” Teg said. She drained her bowl of poffee, then got to her feet, extending her arms in a joint-popping stretch after she did so. “Give me time for a shower and to eat something more substantial than broth, then I’ll be ready, teacher.”


When Teg came up on deck, clean, dressed in a set of her “real world” clothes, Peg was coming back aboard. In the near distance, Grace—her claws now unbound—was doing a very convincing series of bird calls, doubtless meant to lure prey.

“Xerak’s waiting for you and Vereez down off the prow,” Peg said. “He didn’t want to try the summons up here on the ship, just in case magical fields interfere with each other, or something like that.”

“Your buddy”—Teg gestured with her head toward Grace—“seems a whole lot better.”

Peg beamed. “She is. After a molt or two, most of the damage should be healed, and that will finish the cure. I wonder if we’ll ever know how she came here?”

“Maybe someday,” Teg said. “I’d better go join Xerak. Is Vereez ashore already?”

“She just went down. Grunwold, Meg, Kaj, and I are to stand by to sail Slicewind through whatever opening you create, if possible. If not, we’ll grab supplies”—she gestured to neatly arrayed packs set on the deck—“and beat feet through.”

Teg nodded. She could think of dozens of problems with that plan, but she was also certain the others had discussed them—probably while she was sleeping off her mana crash—and that this was the best plan they could come up with. She’d just need to trust them. Peg, in particular, was showing how her lifetime as “mother of many” had made her into something of a tactical genius.

When Teg reached her assigned post, Xerak had just finished using his spear staff to draw a grid of various-sized rectangles on the sand. Vereez held the letter map in her hand and was apparently double-checking some detail.

“The locks we undid at Zisurru University,” Xerak said, explaining before Teg could ask, “were relatively simple compared to this. I’ve drawn a grid to help me keep track of the various glyphs and their relation to each other. An added bonus is that those aboard Slicewind will be able to estimate our progress.”

“Sort of a visual checklist,” Teg said. “Good idea.”

“When I start the incantation,” Xerak continued, “I want you and Vereez to stand behind me and put a hand on the side of my neck. Slide your hand up under my mane, where you’ll have skin contact. Then give me what mana you can spare, but don’t overdo. If I feel you getting unfocused or weaker, that will distract me, which would be a far bigger problem than my lacking mana. Got it?”

Remembering the destructive potential of the glyphs, Teg nodded.

Vereez stretched up on tiptoe to press her nose leather to Xerak’s in a sort of friendly kiss. “Absolutely! Let’s do this thing. I can’t wait to finally meet this master of yours.”

Xerak looked momentarily worried, as if wondering just what the feisty young woman might say to the long-absent Uten Kekui, then managed a quick whisker twitch of a smile. He turned, faced his grid, then, raising his spear staff, began to sketch the first glyphs. Teg knew she had achieved concentration when the sound of Grace’s whistling faded, and she saw the building spell as clearly as if she were looking directly at it, instead of into the tangle of Xerak’s mane.

Teg could feel Vereez’s presence as well, a rush like a driving wind, while Xerak was flame mingled with something pepperminty and focused that reminded her, oddly enough, of Meg.

Is that the scholar in him, the element that has balanced his passion?

Teg wondered what she felt like to the others. Heard a soft voice—Vereez?—whisper: “Stone cold, stone hot.” And Xerak’s wordless agreement, linked with an irritated match-strike reminder that they must focus. Teg did, soon seeing only the spell, feeling only Xerak’s workings, Vereez’s careful trickle of energy, a trickle that met with Teg’s own, intertwined, then fed into Xerak’s much greater flow.

As the spell built, character by character, glyph by glyph, Teg understood its complexity, as she had understood what the various instruments contributed to a complicated piece of music, an understanding that did not mean she would be able to duplicate the working, only to appreciate it as something other than intricate “noise.”

Xerak filled the first line of his grid. Moved to the second. The third. Colors washed and danced, brighter than the eye could bear, improbably vivid. To the new sense that Teg was learning to use, these “colors” were beautiful, compelling, enticing. Teg had never wanted to study painting or drawing, but seeing these colors she craved the ability to manipulate them as her child-self had craved the crayon box with 120 colors and the built-in sharpener that promised infinite rejuvenation.

As Xerak entered the final line of the grid, Teg was aware of being tired, but didn’t think she was in danger of collapse. That is until, as if sensing completion, the various parts of the spell began to reach for each other, interweaving, tapping power far beyond what any of them—even Xerak—had to give.

She felt Xerak’s dismay. The spell was not supposed to begin to draw power until the final character had been worked, the one that would enable the spell to tap into the crisscrossing ley lines and use them to find the destination indicated in the spell.

Apparently, they had not provided enough mana. Rather than falling apart, the spell—like a plant questing after water—had sought an additional source. However, without the destination indicated, it was reaching every which way—and trying to take them with it.

Xerak struggled to lift his spear staff, to slice the tip through the glyphs he’d drawn and so break the spell—although Teg was aware of his fear that the spell would not break, but would take him over, using his staff as a conduit. Complex spells were like that, possessed of an impulse to “be” that made them like living things—close kin to annual flowers, which grow with no less vitality for all that their lives will be bounded by a few short months.

Teg felt Xerak try to shove out from under his connection to herself and to Vereez, determined that if he was going to be consumed, they would not be as well. She was equally determined to hold on, to send more mana, to strengthen him.

You can do it! she thought, throwing all her passion as a mentor into the assertion. We can do it! Don’t break the spell. Take back control.

She thought that last with the force of an order. Then, riding on the heels of that command, she opened herself to the ley line, attempting to channel more of the area’s passive mana. She felt Vereez’s own blast of determination, but knew that neither of their offerings were going to be enough to enable Xerak to wrest back the distracted spell.

Suddenly, a new element entered the contest. A rush of energy, fresh and powerful. If Vereez felt like wind and Xerak like fire, this was not merely water, but flood. It came to them wrapped around Vereez’s line and Teg recognized it as Kaj. Somehow, he’d managed to exploit his connection to Vereez, to the baby she’d carried that had mingled both of their bloods, then used it to bring his barely tutored but undeniable power into the matrix.

With that, the balance changed. Xerak grabbed onto Kaj’s newly offered mana, used it to direct the spell before it could go further astray. He squeezed the mana it had stolen back into the glyphs, then set about drawing the final characters.

Teg pulled back her additional contribution, knowing that it would be catastrophic for Xerak if she were to collapse. She sensed the same awareness from Vereez, but Kaj only intensified his contribution. There was a wild delight in his new connection to a part of himself that he had long suspected, but never been sure of, that made Teg wonder, fleetingly, just what it would be like to fuck—there really was no other word for it, for love had nothing to do with the craving—this young man.

No wonder Vereez is obsessed, she thought, tamping the thought with every bit of her will, concentrating until her associates were nothing but streams of raw mana, mana enough to reshape time, to resculpt space, until a door was ripped into the web work of reality as she knew it, forcing it to become reality as Xerak desired it to be.

The recalcitrant glyphs fell into place, as eager to obey now as they had been to break free. They rippled through the air in front of Xerak, linked to the ley lines, created an elongated diamond that pulsed invitation.

That’s going to be big enough to sail the ship through, Teg thought gratefully. Then she collapsed onto her hands and knees, and thought nothing more.


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Framed