“Ah.” Clair nodded. She stared out, her brow faintly puckered, then said, “Tell me if I’m wrong, but is not electricity run along wires?”
“I think so. Radio isn’t, though. At least, all the teenagers listen to their rock’n’roll on transistor radios, and those don’t have wires.”
“No, but there are machines making the radio sounds that do,” Clair murmured. “Never mind. I think I know what to do. At least, I can’t make sounds connect, but I can written words.” She flew up, and I followed her to the magic chambers.
“Now?” I asked in surprise. “I mean, shouldn’t we wait for tomorrow?”
Clair looked over her shoulder at me in surprise. “Why?”
I opened my mouth, and then closed it. Of course! No one was going to yell at either of us for being up past bedtime!
For answer I just hugged myself and snickered, and Clair threw up her hands, shook her head, and then began running a finger along her shelves.
Soon we were busy at work experimenting.
And this time I discovered that I actually followed a lot of what she was doing as she tried one thing, then another, and then another, each time writing down her exact steps in her current practice book — and the results, bad or good. It was a lot like doing math. Fractions, say. Except in math you worked and worked and at the end you got nothing except an answer that might be right and might be wrong. If you were right, you just had to do more math. With magic, you went through all these meticulous steps, but at the end, if you were right, the spell snapped into place — and held!
When she at last settled on enchanting a desk blotter, and got it to work, she wrote out the series of spells in green ink rather than black. I’d been kind of lazy about keeping track of my own learning in my practice book (it was more fun writing up records) but once I saw her doing it, I resolved to do a better job with mine. You thus could see past mistakes and not make them again, as well as see your successful spells.
At last she had it.
“See, not paper,” she said, smiling in excitement. “It won’t last. But the blotter lies under paper, it won’t get in the way, but when we use these quills — ” She paused, murmured magic over a quill. You could almost see sparks, not physically, but in your mind, sort of. Then she touched the dry quill on the blotter, and a line appeared. “See? It’s fast. Much faster than having to find ink, and mend the tip, which might be fatal in a real emergency. We just have to remember to keep the spells renewed.”
“I’ll take charge of making sure of that in the Junky,” I promised. (And I may as well say here that I never did forget, and have it over with. At first I was anxious to keep my promise, and then, gradually, it turned into habit.)
“But we can still put paper on the blotter and write the regular way.” She showed me. “What do you think?”
“It’s perfect!”
“Then I’ll make one for here, and one for the throne room, in case I’m in there doing interview time.”
And that’s what we did. I took the first one down to the Junky, and put it on the desk where I’ve written all these records, and there it’s been ever since. The girls accepted it, of course, and relied on me to come up with a nickname. After running through several things I opted, as usual, for the short: MP, for Magic Pen.
So there we were, settling in, everyone getting used to things, everyone getting along.
It was just about time for disaster.
ELEVEN — Capture
The rain pounded down, a steady hiss through leaves. It gathered in puddles then spilled along the sodden ground to chuckle and splash into streams. I loved watching it happen. There weren’t any streams or rivers where I’d come from. Just cement gutters, full of disgusting stuff the few times it rained.
Bands of gray washed through Mearsies Heili, making the leaves soggy, the ground muddy, the air cold. In the mornings you could see your breath, and patrolling was no fun. We ended up cutting the patrols rather short, only cruising back and forth a time or two along the northwest, on the lookout for invaders from Glotulae’s. We saw no sign of them, either. Not surprising.
I kept on with magic studies. I had some definite goals in mind now, and having seen Clair’s experimentation methods I adopted them for my own.
One week the clouds were especially thick, and on mornings the ground crackled underfoot. Even I had to give up barefooting, and wear shoes. Not the blackweave party shoes I’d ordered, not after a single wearing, when I slipped and slid miserably. Diana — who had utterly no interest in clothing, and loathed shoes as much as I did — took me to a shoemaker whose specialty was forest mocs. (‘Moccasins’ is actually a Native American name, but that’s the word I heard in my mind for the Mearsiean nickname, so I still use it.) These were made out of that weave stuff, but it was thinner, more supple, and lined with wool. Even if your feet got wet, they stayed warm.
But still, learning how to move when the ground was alternately a bog or frozen was a real grundge of a job, and some of the other girls grumped and whined about their turns, so Diana and Dhana and Seshe tended to make most of the patrols, in trade for other chores. Sherry was a surprisingly good cook, so she took over Seshe’s kitchen job, and Irene’s clever needle took over mending that Diana and Dhana loathed passionately, and so on.
Upstairs, Clair was oddly restless. I took to staying up in the white palace to keep her company. We read history and talked about how kids could change things (or couldn’t), or talked about magic, and sometimes I could make her laugh, but too often I saw her frowning out the window at the weather.
For two days that went on. Since Clair never complained, we decided she hated the weather, felt confined, and thought no more of it. After all, the clouds were low, and dark gray, and the air cold and getting colder.
It wasn’t until Seshe had gone on a super-long patrol that the girls sensed that something else might be wrong.
When night closed in, and still no Seshe, Faline transferred up, her usually merry face drawn and serious.
“Clair — CJ — Seshe hasn’t come back,” she reported.
Clair went almost as pale as her hair. “Let’s go down and search.”
“Shall we go spy out the Squashed Wedding Cake, just in case?”
“Tomorrow.” Clair’s voice was flat. “If we don’t find her.”
This time there were no complaints about the weather, even though it was night, and the thin rain almost sleet. We all bundled into thick-woven jackets with hoods, and went out to search, each with a shaded glowglobe in hand.
My partner was Sherry. We toiled down the pathways to our designated portion of the woodland, and for a time neither of us spoke as we crisscrossed back and forth. The forest, so beautiful in the light of day, looked cold and blue and so spooky it was almost alien. A lot of the leaves had fallen, drifting on the ground into mushy piles. I was not seeing the beloved place at its best — but I still loved it, even as I watched my breath cloud, pale blue in the steady light of the glowglobe.
We circled around, sliding over icy mud patches, until Sherry whispered, “What if it was Kwenz?”
So far I’d had no experience of the Chwahir directly.
I couldn’t think of an answer.
We were silent all the way back.
Nobody wanted hot chocolate, or games, that night. Soon’s we got back we all decided to sleep, the better to be out searching soon as the sun came up. I tumbled into my cozy hammock in the Junky, and fell asleep listening to the sounds of the other girls’ breathing, and tangled in wild dream-laced plans for raiding Glotulae’s prisons.
Now I’m going to skip back a few hours.
Seshe had been walking briskly on her extra patrol, trying to get rid of that stuffed feeling from having eaten too many buttered muffins. The rain had abated a little, briefly clearing. So she threw back the hood on her cloak and walked along, smiling at the scenery. For she saw what we hadn’t yet, that the leaves were about to turn, and subtle edgings of autumn color paint
ed leaves.
She expected to be alone, and so was considerably startled when there was a brief glitter and paff of air of magic transfer. There stood a girl her age. This girl was short, with pale skin and dark hair. She was dressed in crimson, with lots of gold bangles and beads.
“You are pretty,” the girl observed in accented Mearsiean “Much prettier than I am now. Papa was right.”
Seshe didn’t even have a chance to get What? past her lips. The girl sprang forward, her fingers closed on Seshe’s unresisting wrist, and magic whirled them away.
When the transfer dazzle cleared away, Seshe was astounded to find herself under a bright, deep blue sky, so deep a blue it was the blue of high mountains or of clear winter air. She blinked around, dazzled again — not by magic, but by the intense blue of the sky, and by the soft white of cloud extending beyond a tile landing not far from her feet. She could easily see the heavy gray cotton-wool clouds below, stretching from horizon to horizon.
“I could push you off right now,” said the girl.
Seshe brought her attention back. “You are Yxubarecs?”
“Yes.” The girl crossed her arms, her mouth turning up in triumph. “Aren’t you afraid?”
“No.”
“You should be.”
Seshe spread her hands.
The girl frowned. “Why not? This is where we push people off. You know there’s nothing but air beyond the edge there.” She pointed to the end of the tile landing.
“I know.” Seshe thought of the medallion hanging inside her dress, but of course she wasn’t going to say anything about it. So she smiled instead, not a smug smile — she was never smug — but one of those Seshe smiles that are somehow earnest and honest and give just a hint of hidden laughter. “If my life is to end, I don’t want to spend the last bits being afraid.”
The girl stuck out her lower lip, and then whirled around. “Come inside,” she commanded.
Seshe was led into view of a city not unlike the one on the cloud top where Clair lived. No white palace, though. The foremost house was much like the others — two stories, shutters, window boxes — but large. Lots of garden-bordered terraces just like in Mearsies Heili.
Inside were several people, all different, and all beautiful in feature and form. Of course.
The girl clamped her hand on Seshe’s wrist, a possessive gesture rather than one of threat, Seshe suspected.
She knew it when they entered a wide, pleasing bedroom with its own walled and garden-bordered terrace, and the girl slammed the door shut. “Now.” She stood facing Seshe.
Seshe watched as the girl’s face seemed to melt, altering in coloration, and her body shimmered then stretched, her clothing with it. When the shimmer of magic receded, there Seshe stood, facing a replica of her own self.
“Let’s see!” The girl grabbed her arm and shoved her round so that they stood side by side, facing a full length mirror.
To Seshe her own self was just a self, and in that sense invisible because of its familiarity. To have a double was kind of dizzying, so she didn’t really notice details.
Thus she was completely taken aback when the girl raised her fists and exclaimed, “It’s still wrong!”
“What is?” Seshe asked, perplexed.
“You’re still prettier. It’s been just the same with the last, oh, at least three faces I took. I wonder if some enemy has put a spell on me,” she grumped, flinging herself down onto the bed.
“That must be your imagination,” Seshe said, kind as usual. “I think we look alike as two people can.”
“No.” The girl whirled off the bed in a flurry of embroidered draperies. “You’re interesting! I do like it when they’re afraid, and beg, but only for a short time. I don’t like it when they cry. I don’t know why Papa does. I just can’t see how it’s funny. What’s your name, anyway?”
“Seshe.”
“I’m not supposed to ask names,” the girl confided. “But I’ve disobeyed other rules, too.” She sidled a look Seshe’s way. “I don’t always push them off.” She admitted it like she felt guilty, which disturbed Seshe more than anything so far.
She went on to describe a couple girls from other countries who had diverted her, and who she had decided to save, simply setting them down far from their homes. It was an adventure to this weird girl, Seshe realized — she didn’t seem to see any kind of obligation to save innocent lives. “If they’re not mean, or nasty, I sometimes take them down, especially if we’re wind-wandering, for how would anyone know?” she finished.
Seshe smiled. “I admire you for that.”
The girl jumped up, and smiled, and looked at the two smiles in the mirror. “See? See?” She pointed. “Your smile looks much prettier.”
Seshe’s was gone, of course, by then. She studied the two faces, still feeling a weird sort of vertigo from the unexpectedness of her capture, and from the horrible veering between evil (the unseen ‘Papa’ who found crying victims funny) and the normalcy of this girl’s puzzlement.
Seshe sighed. “I don’t see any difference. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” The girl looked surprised, and then frowned. “And so you should be, if there’s some secret you’re keeping. Papa hates that girl queen you have down there. It was he who saw you, and picked you for me, since his viewing-glass can’t see inside buildings here. Some stupid magic, he says.”
“Not stupid for the people inside the buildings, who might object to being pushed off a cloud,” Seshe pointed out.
A reluctant grin was the answer, and then a frown. “You’re much prettier than my last face.”
“Do you have to be pretty?” Seshe asked, still standing.
“Of course! I have to be the prettiest. I’m Moniheya, the princess. Papa has to be the handsomest, and I have to be the prettiest.”
“Well, you have a pretty name,” Seshe observed.
“Yes,” the girl agreed. “You think so too?”
“I do indeed.”
“Sit down. Talk to me.” Moniheya said, pointing to a chair.
Seshe did. “What would you like to know?”
Moniheya promptly got up and prowled around the room. “If there is a secret. I supposed you can’t say, at least, not unless I offer you something better than that girl does. What would you like? We can get gold, if you want it. Lots. Or we can take you places, though we might have to fool Papa — but that would be fun, for a time. Him thinking you are me, and then I am me. Except we’d have to be careful.”
“Do you ever spend time down below?” Seshe asked.
“Sometimes. I love taking the place of a new face, and fooling everyone,” Moniheya admitted, grinning. “We all try it from time to time. But Papa always cuts it short.”
“Why?”
“Because if we get involved, then we might end up like them.” She pointed below.
“As in the Mearsieans?” Seshe asked, surprised.
“Yes. Why do you think we speak the same language? They lost their abilities generations ago! But not their self-righteousness, that’s what Papa says. That’s probably why he hates them so much. He says they gave it up, like it was something terrible. Just like cutting off your hands, and throwing them away!” She smacked her wrists, and the gold bands on them jangled. “Maybe that’s it?” She frowned down at her arms. “Do you think you look the prettier because your clothes are so plain? It’s, um, contrast? We’re supposed to look better with fine clothes, but I do get bored with them. Here. Try this on.” She flung across the room into a wardrobe, rooted about, and then returned, dumping into Seshe’s lap a bundle of blue and green and violet cloth with gold embroidery and gemstones winking and twinkling.
Seshe said, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“It means agreement.”
“I never heard it before, and we all have the Language Spell, so we can understand all the other tongues.” Moniheya frowned with challenge.
“Comes from another world,” Seshe explained, feeling a li
ttle unsettled by Moniheya’s lightning changes of mood. “That’s all I know.”
Moniheya shrugged, dismissing other worlds.
Nothing was said while Seshe changed. Moniheya watched, and Seshe forbore asking for a screen to retire behind, suspecting that Moniheya would suspect something and then notice her necklace. Seeing how much gold the girl already wore, Seshe hoped that her medallion, simple as it was, would go unremarked, and she was right. At first.
“What if the gown doesn’t fit?” she asked, pulling it over her head. “You were shorter than I before.”
“Our clothes always fit,” Moniheya declared, surprised that Seshe didn’t know that.
“But if they alter by magic, it must be part of your own shape-changing magic, and that’s something I haven’t got.”
“The magic might stay in the clothes,” Moniheya said, shrugging. “They always fit after I put them on, even if I have one face and form when I take them off, and another when I return to that gown.”
“Oh.” Seshe tried to imagine how that would work, then quickly shrugged aside the question. She didn’t know enough about magic — and she also remembered Clair saying, the single time she talked about the ancient Mearsieans, that they might have come from another world. Seshe knew that magic could work different on different worlds, and this kind sounded like a blend of real and illusion.
“So you never have to have fittings, then?” Seshe asked, finding that, yes, the gown settled around her as if it had been made for her.
“Fittings?” Moniheya repeated. “What is that?”
“When the gown is sewn to your size.”
“I can’t even imagine that.” Moniheya waved a hand so her bracelets tinkled. “Since I can’t imagine being a single size. How awful! What happens when you waken one morning, and you’re quite sick of being tall?”
Seshe laughed. “It’s never happened.”
Moniheya laughed too, and then frowned. Her gaze had continued to veer between mirror and Seshe. “No, you’re still prettier, and that’s my prettiest gown.”