Patricia Wrede - Thirteenth Child

Mr. Harrison didn’t take long catching up, and of course he had plenty more to say. First he wanted Wash to cast the protective spells for traveling right then, even though we were still on the Rationalists’ land. Then he wanted us to stick to the areas that had been cleared and planted, so as to be able to see any wildlife at a good long distance, even though that would have meant going far out of our way. He kept on complaining about this and that until William told him that if he didn’t shut up his mouth, he, William, was going to test out some of the silencing spells Lan had been telling him about.

Wash already knew where Papa and Lan had gone from the discussion in the morning, and he was familiar enough with that part of the territory to know the quickest route there. He thought that since we were in long-settled territory and moving fast, it’d be safe enough to travel without protection spells, even though Mr. Harrison objected bitterly. We alternated galloping and walking the horses—Mr. Harrison complained about that, too—so it only took us a couple of hours to cover the distance. By late afternoon, we came over the last hill to within sight of the settlement.

We pulled our horses to a halt and stared. A huge, sparkling cloud of mirror bugs hid the hilltop where the settlement was supposed to be. Some of the bugs were flying, but most of them were heaped up over the walls and the top of the settlement in a huge pile. They looked as if someone had taken an enormous ball and stuck mirrors all over it. The sun glittered and flashed on their wings as they flew and crawled, making it seem like the air was on fire and the ground around the settlement was moving.

Then I realized that the ground really was moving. Or rather, thousands of dark green beetles were crawling across it toward the settlement and the shiny pile of mirror bugs. If you looked in the right place, you could see little flashes of light as the crawling beetles popped into mirror bugs and joined the swarm around the settlement. It would have been real pretty, if I hadn’t known there were a lot of people inside somewhere, and Papa and Lan among them.

Mr. Harrison turned white as a sun-bleached sheet. Wash’s face went all stony and grim. William’s eyes widened. “Where’d they all come from?”

“Anywhere near,” Wash said. He nodded toward the ground, and we all looked down. There were beetles crawling past our horses’ hooves toward the settlement. We were far enough away that they didn’t make a solid layer over the ground, but there were still plenty of them. Mr. Harrison jerked, pulling his reins, and his horse danced sideways.

“There’s no point in going farther,” he said when he got his horse under control. “There’s nothing we can do here.”

He’d been saying things like that since before we left Oak River, but looking at the moving carpet of beetles I wondered for a minute if he was right. But William shook his head. “We have to try something. If we don’t, what’ll happen to the people inside the settlement?”

“It’s just a lot of bugs!” Mr. Harrison shouted. “It’s not as if they’ll eat everyone!”

“No,” Wash said. “They’ll absorb all the magic from the settlement spells—which I’m near certain are currently being held by a double-seventh son—and then they’ll spread farther east. Toward the Great Barrier.”

William’s head whipped around to stare at Wash, and I’m sure I looked just as bug-eyed as he did. I hadn’t ever thought of that, but now that Wash had said it, it was obvious. If the beetles could absorb enough magic to make the settlement spells collapse, enough of them might do the same to the Great Barrier Spell. And looking at the mass of beetles around this one settlement, I had to think there’d be enough, sooner or later.

“Nonsense,” Mr. Harrison said, but he sounded more scared than certain. “They’re just bugs!”

A line of beetles a foot wide suddenly popped into mirror bugs, starting at the edge of the pile and heading straight as an arrow for us. It petered out halfway across the dead fields, but I still felt a tug, much stronger than I had at Oak River. This close, I could tell it for one of Lan’s spells, only the beetles were soaking up most of it before it could get to me. “Lan’s trying to do something,” I said. “I have to get closer.”

I kicked my horse into motion and headed down the hill toward the settlement. I kept trying to think of something I could do. My horse squashed beetles with every step, but with so many around and more on the way, the few he killed were nothing like enough to make a difference. Burning them might work, but I couldn’t see how to get them away from the settlement first. And anything magic, they’d just soak up.

I was getting too worried to think straight, and I knew it. So I took a deep breath, then another, and started counting out the Hijero–Cathayan concentration technique. Mr. Harrison’s whining faded into the drone of insect wings, and my mind settled some. I still didn’t have any idea what to do, but I just knew there had to be something, if I could only figure out the right way to look at the problem. The beetles and the mirror bugs absorbed magic. The magic turned the beetles into mirror bugs, but what happened to the power the mirror bugs absorbed?

My horse slowed and shook his mane uneasily. We had almost reached the cloud of mirror bugs. Sunlight flashed on their wings as they darted in and out of the center, making my horse even more nervous. He pranced sideways, trying to run. As I brought him under control, I felt a surge of magic from the direction of the settlement.

It was Lan, trying again to reach me. Mirror bugs exploded into the air from around my horse’s hooves as the crawling beetles absorbed the magic and changed. My horse reared, and I slid sideways. I had just enough presence of mind to kick my feet free of the stirrups before I fell completely off.

I landed in a pile of beetles and my horse ripped the reins from my hands and bolted. The fall and the beetles had broken that brief contact with Lan’s spell. I didn’t think he could get through the beetles, and I knew I couldn’t reach him myself. I didn’t have his power, and anyway my spells always went wrong.

A dark green beetle crawled over my boot. I didn’t even have the energy to squash it. Behind me, I heard Mr. Harrison shouting for someone to come back at once. A second later, William pulled his horse up next to me and flung himself out of the saddle. “Eff! Are you all right?”

“It almost worked,” I told him. “Whatever Lan was trying to do, it almost worked. But not quite.”

“Come on,” he said, dragging me to my feet. “We have to get away.”

“Away?” I said, puzzled, and then I looked at him properly. His face was pale and he was sweating. Around his feet, several beetles popped into mirror bugs, and he swayed slightly. “The beetles!” I said. “They’re absorbing your magic!”

“Yes, I know; now come on ,” he repeated.

“But they’re not bothering me,” I said. “And Lan—”

“We can’t get in,” he said doggedly. “And I can’t think this close. Come on, Eff.”

“Leave the da—dratted girl and get out of there!” Mr. Harrison yelled, and suddenly I was furious.

This time, though, the anger didn’t go pouring out the way it had with Uncle Earn, and it didn’t settle back down the way it had earlier at the Oak River settlement. It buzzed all through me like the sound the mirror bugs made, clearing my head. I turned toward the settlement, and the charm Wash gave me swung on its leather cord and thumped gently against my chest.

A familiar floaty feeling came over me, very like the combination of the Hijero–Cathayan technique and the Aphrikan world-sensing that I’d felt the night I’d tried to study the spells on the charm. Only this time, I wasn’t sensing the spells on the charm. This time, I was feeling the beetles and the mirror bugs and the settlement spells.