Footsteps thumped beyond the curtain dividing the room. She heard the faint creak of shutters opening and light illuminated the fabric from behind. The curse came again. Rising, Rielle moved to the closest window and peered through the crack between the shutters. A man was standing outside the wagon. The thin man who had been staring at her the night before. He was looking directly at her, eyes focused beyond the wagon’s walls, his mouth upturned by a smile that wasn’t at all friendly.
The curtain flew open and Lejikh stepped through. He looked angry, but his expression softened as he saw her and he gestured with open palms facing downwards, telling her to stay put and remain calm, she guessed. Moving past to the door, he unlatched and opened it, and stepped outside.
As the door closed she turned back to the shutters and peered through the crack again. The man was gone. Lejikh appeared, turning slowly as he looked around the courtyard. He scowled and strode away.
What is going on? Rielle moved to the opposite window, but could see nothing through the crack between the shutters except the other wagons. If Lejikh is worried then I am worried. After all, if he was powerful enough to move all these people, animals, wagons and their contents from one world to another, then anything he considered a threat was something to be concerned about.
Hearing the curtain move again, Rielle turned to see Ankari step through. The woman began to buzz about the room, putting the bed away, setting up the table, getting Rielle to help her prepare a simple meal, serving and eating it. At her apparent lack of concern, or ability to pretend nothing was wrong, Rielle relaxed a little. But something was going on, or the woman wouldn’t be trying to distract her. Unable to ask what it was, she forced herself to be patient.
A tap at the door made them both freeze.
“It is Baluka,” a familiar voice said.
Rielle sought his mind in vain. Ankari unbolted the door–Rielle could not recall her locking it, but she supposed it had been done with magic when she had been looking away. Baluka was smiling broadly, and said something to Ankari that made her eyes roll in exasperation. Turning to Rielle, he began to speak Fyrian haltingly, prompting her to think of the words he needed.
He pointed to himself. “I am…” He lifted a bowl and hugged it to his chest. “Taking.” He pointed to her. “You…” He paused. Out of the wagon? she thought at him. Into the castle? No? Out of the castle? He nodded then gestured with his hands. Further? Yes… back to the place we arrived? Ah–to the next world!
“To the next world,” he confirmed.
All she knew of the next world was that the Travellers thought it safe enough to leave her there. But what about the rest of the family? Will they be coming? He shook his head. Staying, then. Will I get a chance to say “goodbye”? He nodded. “Lejikh will tell them later,” he told her.
She nodded. “Has this something to do with that man watching us before?”
He looked at his mother, who shrugged and nodded. “Yes. He is a sorcerer. The other chief’s sorcerer. We think he was reading your thoughts. We don’t know why. It would be better to leave without an explanation than stay and discover it means trouble.”
“Wise,” she agreed. “So when do we go?”
He smiled. “Now.”
His hands extended towards her. Just as the Angel’s had, she thought, and the memory of Valhan’s face flashed through her mind. Baluka’s hands were warm, though, not cool. He sucked in a noisy breath.
“Breath,” he said. “Breathe. Between worlds… there is no air.”
Thinking back to her arrival in the desert world, and how she had gasped for breath, she wondered what would have happened if she’d taken longer to get there. Would I have died?
“Yes.” His expression was serious. “Now breathe.”
She sucked in a deep breath and held it. At once the world began to fade. Only Baluka remained clear. And herself. He spoke to her in his thoughts again, but this time it was more like hearing his voice in her mind.
“This is one of the reasons we follow an established path. If you arrive in a place where the environment is dangerous you can move yourself forward, backwards or sideways to somewhere safer, or retreat back to the last world. But if you do not have enough magic or breath to do so, you, and the people you take with you, could die. We stick to established routes to avoid such dangers.”
She shuddered. What happens if you die between worlds? she thought at him.
“Your body will eventually be pulled out into a world by its gravity.” He smiled again. “But you are safe with me. I have plenty of magic and we’ve come this way many times.”
Do others follow this path, too?
He shook his head. “Not regularly. As far as we know, there are no sorcerers in Kezel with the ability or knowledge to travel between worlds, and it is less developed than neighbouring worlds so there are few reasons for outsiders to visit.” The interior of the wagon had faded completely from sight. The sensation of movement stopped and Baluka’s expression became distracted, as if he was concentrating on a faint sound. “Can you feel that?” he asked. “Can you feel the gravity of the next world?”
Closing her eyes, she sought the sensation she had detected when she had moved towards the desert world. A faint pull seemed to draw her in one direction.
“It will grow stronger as we move nearer.”
He was right. Soon the sensation became more tangible, then obvious. I sense it, she told him.
“Concentrate on it. Tell me what you feel.”
They began to move in the direction of the pull. Baluka was propelling them forward.
You’re moving us. Their direction changed subtly. We’re travelling sideways. It changed again. Going back the other way. Their movement sped up and slowed again. Did we just pass through something?
They slowed then reversed direction, and their speed increased and then lessened again. They had passed a place of less resistance. Like before we found the arrival place in the forest, she thought.
“It is a path,” he confirmed. “The first time a sorcerer moves through the space between, he or she must force a way through. It creates a path. It is easier for the next person to follow in their trail, so people tend to use the same path over and over. Between uses the path fills in, like water flowing back where it was displaced, only much slower. This path is not very fresh. That suggests only my family uses it.”
Rielle looked around for clues of what the next world would look like. Not leaving with the rest of the Travellers meant there had been no song to describe their destination. Colour was starting to leach into the whiteness–an overall impression of muddy yellow-green. She would have guessed she was arriving in another forest except the colour was too smoothly spread. A divide between sky and land started to appear as darker areas formed within the green–they were arriving in an area that was mostly open. She could make out trees of many different sizes and shapes. They grew within the arms of a shallow valley, lines of them tracing smooth arcs and curves up and down the gentle slopes.
Another paved circle was appearing below her feet, only this time it was made of many tiny squares arranged in a pattern. A road led from this to a long three-storey building with a courtyard. She had never seen such a big house. Even Inekera’s house had been half as large.
Moist air touched her cheeks. At once her lungs began to expand, but the air was so humid it made her cough. Baluka, to her relief, did the same. Once she had recovered she looked up. The sky was, indeed, green. Unless…
“Is that the sky, or cloud?”
Baluka let her hands go and looked around. She was relieved to find his mind was open and readable again. “It’s both. I’ve never seen anything but a foggy green above, and the weather has always been like this, or raining.” He glanced at her and smiled. “It sounds unappealing, but it’s never cold here, at least.”
She looked down at the house again. This would be where she’d be staying, either for ever or until she learned to travel back to her world. What m
anner of people lived in a building like that?
“Lord Felomar,” Baluka replied. “And his household.”
“He’s the ruler here?” she asked, not sure what to make of the meaning of “Lord” in his mind.
He laughed. “Yes and no. He is a distant cousin of the Emperor, but he has quite a lot of servants and money so I guess you could call him their ruler as much as employer. Hereditary owner of the estate is a more accurate description. We’ve been trading with his family for five generations now.” He turned to face her. “He is also a sorcerer. Before we go down to meet Felomar I am going to give you a few lessons,” Baluka told her. “You need to know how to hide your thoughts, whether you decide to learn how to travel between worlds or not. I can also start teaching you how to travel between worlds, if you wish. Though it’ll be easier if we do it in the other order.”
Rielle nodded, part of her shrinking at the thought of learning more ways to use magic. Baluka frowned, and she saw he was thinking, again, that it would be a waste for her to return to her magically depleted world or remain untrained. He wanted to show her all the wonderful places they visited each cycle. But she can’t stay with us, he reminded himself. And Father says she’ll be safer in her own world. He clearly disagreed.
But he was young, and his father had most likely seen more of the worlds, she reasoned.
“Yes, but there is as much wonder as danger in the worlds,” Baluka told her. “I have always longed to explore beyond those of our cycle, but it is forbidden. Traveller families would grow weak in magical ability if they kept losing their strongest offspring to wanderlust.” Then she caught a deeper kernel of knowledge. They did, occasionally, take in outsiders if it would strengthen their magical bloodlines.
“Let’s keep your options open,” he said. “Perhaps we should start by testing your strength,” he told her. “There’s no point you attempting to learn anything if you don’t have the strength for it.”
She nodded. “By strength you mean how far I can reach to draw in magic, right?” she asked, thinking about how Inekera had urged her to reach to the limit of her world. Baluka’s gaze sharpened with interest.
“Yes. Reach out but don’t take any magic. I will be able to see in your mind how far you manage to stretch.”
Closing her eyes, she extended her will. As she stretched outwards she marvelled at the sheer quantity of magic she was sensing. If her own world had been a desert and magic was water, then this one was more than a jungle. It was an ocean.
“In all the worlds…” Baluka whispered, then let out a tight, short laugh. At the odd noise she looked at him closely, worried that something was wrong. He didn’t meet her eyes.
“Enough?”
“Yes. Plenty.” It’s almost frightening how much strength she has, he was thinking. That only makes it more of a waste if she won’t use it.
“So I’m stronger than you?” she guessed.
He nodded as he met her gaze. “You’re the strongest sorcerer I’ve ever met.” He shrugged. “That I know of, of course. It’s not as if sorcerers compare abilities every time they meet. I could have met someone stronger and not known it.”
Rielle looked away. To be told she was magically strong was like being told she was beautiful. It appeased her vanity in a vague and purposeless way, yet to use either for personal advantage was wrong.
So was returning to her world using it for personal advantage? Of course it was. But if Lejikh was right, if she stayed outside her world she might still need to use magic for her own survival.
How was that different to letting Betzi teach her how to defend herself? So long as she only used magic for self-defence it was not forbidden. If she had to return to her world for her own safety, then that was self-defence.
Baluka was fighting not to smile at her thoughts. She drew in a deep breath. “So what next?”
“Working out how to push yourself into the place between worlds is the hardest part, so we usually start by taking a novice there and letting them work out how to hold themselves in place. So… take a deep breath and some magic and we’ll begin.”
She obeyed, and linked hands with him again. Their surroundings faded a little.
“I’ll stop resisting the pull to this world now,” Baluka told her. “See if you can take over.”
At once she sensed the pull. Baluka had called it gravity. To resist normal gravity she would normally hang on to something. But there was nothing to take hold of. Moist air surrounded her and she realised they had arrived again.
Baluka shook his head. “There is nothing physical, in a normal sense, in the space between. Seek an awareness of the world you are being pulled towards, not the pull itself, and try to push against it.” He smiled. “Ready?”
She took a deep breath and nodded.
He took her a little further out of the world this time. The pulling was weaker. She sought the world they had left, but felt nothing but the pull. Unless… she stretched out as she had when reaching to the limits of magic in a world. A world was a big thing. Something in her mind shifted as her perception changed, and suddenly she understood that the pull was the world.
How to push against it? She could not seize a whole world and still it. The pull was growing stronger as it drew them closer. Whatever she was supposed to do involved magic, but nothing physical. In desperation she sent out magic, but it simply drained out of her, unused. Shadows sharpened into land and the peculiar sky, and she was able to breathe again.
They tried again, and again. When she failed a fifth time, Baluka let go of her hands and paced a little, thinking. “Perhaps this is harder for you because you’ve not learned to use magic at all. Of course! You have hardly ever tried to shape it and you probably didn’t know what you were doing when you did.” He frowned, then returned to her. “Let’s try this one more time. All I can suggest now is just do what feels natural. Work on instinct alone.”
When air pressed around them a short while later she sighed in frustration. Baluka squeezed her hands and smiled.
“Don’t worry. You’ve not grown up among sorcerers travelling between worlds every few days, so many concepts are new to you. Even if you had succeeded today, there is more to learn before you can travel quickly and safely–if there wasn’t we wouldn’t need to find you a teacher. We’ll just have to start by teaching you more of the basics of using magic.”
More? Rielle quashed a sigh. Just how tainted must I become?
“Now?” she asked.
He looked at the distant house and shook his head. “No. My family will be here soon and I am also supposed to start teaching you to hide your thoughts.” His gaze returned to her and he began to chew on his lip. “There are two ways to do this,” he said. “The slow, kind way and the fast, cruel way.”
She frowned. “I’m guessing that you only need to tell someone this if you’re planning to use the fast, cruel way.”
He grimaced in apology. “We are in a bit of a hurry.”
“What is so awful about it, then?”
“I tell you to think of something you don’t want me to see in your mind. Something embarrassing, or that you regret.”
At once a memory rose of the corrupter’s hand on her belly and the pain that followed. She had nearly thought of this a few times since joining the Travellers, but had managed to distract herself in time.
Baluka’s eyes widened and he looked away, but it was too late. He knew. I cannot bear children. But that wasn’t the worst of it, she realised. That act of foolishness had only harmed herself. Would he regard her less warmly if he knew what she’d done to Sa-Gest? No! Don’t think of it. Don’t think! She took a deep breath, fixed her eyes on a nearby tree and made herself observe its strange, twisted limbs.
“I think I understand how that works,” she said.
“I’m afraid that’s not how it’s done,” he replied. “You must do more than distract yourself. You must learn to hide your thoughts. Travellers work out how to do this as children. So does an
yone with magical ability who grows up around sorcerers.”
“So… how do I do it?”
“With magic, but so little you barely notice you’re using it. Reading minds is the same, and we think you weren’t able to do so before because you were in a world with very little magic.” He chuckled. “Unfortunately, it’s impossible for me to show you what I do when I block you from reading my thoughts, because I’ll have blocked you from reading my thoughts. All I can do is force you to learn this instinctively. I’ll tell you when I can no longer see your thoughts. Are you ready?”
She winced. “I suppose—”
“Why did the corrupter do that to you?” he asked.
A flash of memory rose, which she quickly pushed aside. Yet he said it isn’t not thinking. Trouble is, I’m used to stopping myself thinking about it.
“Did you want her to?” he pressed.
Yes. And no. “I was only trying to—”
“Don’t explain. Try to stop me seeing your thoughts.”
But she wanted to explain. She had only been trying to help the priests find the corrupter. And the woman had taught her how to reverse what she had done so she could… No. Don’t let him see that. She gritted her teeth. If she could sense him reading her mind somehow she would have something to resist.
“It’s not like pushing something away,” he told her. It’s like wrapping your head in cloth, he added. “So you tried to undo the damage the corrupter had done?” he asked.
With a jolt her mind returned to the day she had stood in the darkened alley and deliberately stolen magic from the Angels to—Cloth around my head. Cloth around my head. It’s a protection. A shield. She drew in magic and imagined it enveloping her mind, barring any incursion from outside or projection from within. Within she was free to–
“You did it!” Her concentration faltered at his exclamation. She was aware now of how open and vulnerable her mind felt. He smiled. “And now you’ve lost it. But you know what it’s supposed to be like, so you only have to keep doing it until it feels as natural as walking. Do it again.”