Тамора Пирс - Magic Steps

Drawing the gods-circle on her chest, she gave the pull a hard tug. Slats on the wooden platform that roofed this tent opened. She was doused not with buckets of water, as she had expected, but with tubs of it. She sighed in gratitude: the water was just hot enough for comfort, and warmed her nicely. It had been mixed with yarrow, agrimony, willow, and elder for cleansing and magical protection. From the way it shone even through her closed eyes, Sandry guessed that Lark had taken the herbs from stores laid up by Briar and Rosethorn before they had left. It was like being home at Discipline again, and comforted her just as much as it warmed her.

The slats overhead closed and Sandry waited for the tubs to be filled again. Everyone had agreed that two rinses would serve to get all outside influences from her skin. Looking around, she saw that the tent was floored in more cloth. Like everything else around her, it was spelled to keep bad influences out, and any stray magic she did in.

No wonder the temple-mages had needed three days to prepare—they were leaving no room for mistakes, and no chance that the unmagic would escape Sandry. That made her feel better, too. Working alone, she might have forgotten something. Instead, all she had to worry about was her spinning and the net. She prayed she could do it quickly, she wouldn't be able to eat, drink, or leave the larger tent until her finished work was safely packed in the box that had been made for it.

"Ready again," a voice called. Sandry yanked the rope pull, bringing the next flood of water down.

Once that was done, she opened the flap that divided the small tent in two. In the dry half, a long, sleeveless robe of undyed cotton was draped over a stand. She put that on and. walked through into the large tent.

It was floored in cloth and secured to the rock plat form with no openings but the one she had just used. At the center was a chair and a stool on which a large, shallow iron dish was set. The bottles of unmagic were placed by the dish. Beside, the chair was a wooden stand with sockets into which six long spools had been fitted. She also saw the box that would hold her net: it was ebony and spelled like everything else for protection.

Placed at regular intervals around the tent were round crystal globes: that threw off both light and warmth. Seeing them, was like feeling Rosethorn and Briar in the shower herbs. Those globes had been Tris's and Daja's work all last winter, as Tris supplied the light in the crystal and Daja the warmth. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to make this place homelike. On impulse Sandry reached with her magic to touch the cloth of the tent and its floor. It had been woven by Lark; the signs and oils that coated the fabric and kept out the damp were hers.

"Thank you, Lark," Sandry whispered.

Resting a hand on the flap that covered the opening to the smaller tent, she voiced the word "Secure." Winding Circle's mages had set the wards for her as she had done for Pasco and Yazmнn, putting more strength into their guardian spells than Sandry could spare just then. Once she spoke the key word, Secure, the flap merged with the cloth walls and the wards blazed into life. She needed to draw yet another magical veil over her vision to keep from being half-blinded.

"Now comes the hard part," she murmured, but somehow the prospect wasn't as scary as it had been earlier that day. Rosethorn, Briar, Tris, and Daja were all around her; Lark was in the tent and holding vigil out side with the duke. Winding Circles mages had done their best to shape this place for complex magics. In putting forth so much time, effort, and power, they had as much as told Sandry that they believed in her.

Don't make a muddle of this, she told herself now, picking up a bottle. There are fifteen children in the inner keep at Duke's Citadel. Whatever their parents and uncles and second cousins have done, they don't deserve to die for it, and you won't let them. You'll do this right, that's all there is to it.

She broke the wax seal on the bottle and pulled out the stopper, then upended it over the iron dish. Out flowed darkness like syrupy ink. One bottle filled the dish.

Earlier Sandry had prepared her spindle with a length of undyed, purified cotton thread. It was called the leader, and it anchored the new thread as it was spun. Now she took the spindle and held the leader in one hand.

"Gods bless me.” she whispered, and dipped into the black contents of the iron bowl. The unmagic was eager to stick to her purified skin. It crawled over her hand, seeking an opening. Sandry shuddered.

Taking a deep breath, ordering herself not to think about how bad it felt, she pinched thumb and forefinger together and drew them out of the nothingness. With them came a strand like thin cord. Overlapping it with her cotton leader, Sandry gave both an experienced twist. They wound together. On her next twist, she set the spindle going, letting it whirl around and around. The twist in the joined cotton and unmagic traveled up the dark cord, twirling it, making it stronger and thicker.

In one way the spinning was easy. She never had to worry about the dark cord breaking; one bit of unmagic was always determined to join the rest. She never had to stop as she put darkness to be spun against the end of what she'd already worked, as she did with real fiber. As long as that shadowy pool lay in the iron dish, the nothingness streamed through her hand. Once the dish was empty, she took the finished cord from her spindle, wound it onto a spool, and put the spool in its holder. Then she would empty the next bottle into the dish, remove a strand, and begin to spin again.

That was the easy part.

The unrnagic wanted her. It tested her skin and the cracks under her nails. It tried to creep out of her hands and up her chest, seeking her face. She felt as if she wore gloves of it, cool and slimy. As the night wore on she thought, or the nothingness made her think, of letting go, lying back and resting without a thought for tomorrow. It offered no more worries about her uncle, about teaching Pasco, about distant friends. What did people matter, when shadows would have them in the end? It wanted her to think all she had to do was give in.

She caught herself drifting, and shook off the listless-ness that had seeped into her bones. Whipping her magic to a white heat, she sent it coursing through her body, its fire driving the shadows back. She spun harder, winding the darkness so tight that it had nothing left over to pry at her with.

The wind howled. The tent walls flapped, fighting the magical bonds that held them to the rock platform. Despite the globes that warmed the tent, drafts crept in to make her shiver.

What if it leaked? she wondered in sudden panic. What if this stuff oozed through the rock, bleeding into the ground below? It would spread. The desperate poor of the Mire would give up and starve to death, not caring enough to feed themselves. She could almost see it: babies cried unattended in their cradles; old people called feebly, and no one came to help. Houses burned, no one came to put out the fires. And unmagic crept up to Winding Circle, trickling past the walls, seeping into the water…

Oh, get serious, Duchess! She could hear Briar as clearly as if he stood before her. Is this real, or is it just what the goo wants you to think?

What it wants me to think, replied Sandry, and woke up. Her spindle dropped to the floor. While she had sunk into visions of disaster, her spindle had reversed direction, unspinning all she had done with the unmagic from the current bottle. She growled and thrust the dark smears that crawled up her arm back into the iron dish. Taking a few deep breaths, she pulled herself together and began again.

The rain beat down on the tent. The walls brightened somewhat. It was after dawn, but on a day when she could have used some sunshine, it was going to keep raining. Sandry finished another bottle. One more to go.