Doranna Durgin - Changespell Legacy

Changespell Legacy

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Changespell Legacy

by Doranna Durgin

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any

resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

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A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN: 0-7434-3544-3

Cover art by Carol Heyer

First printing, June 2002

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Production by Windhaven Press

Printed in the United States of America

To Alan—our Bookhound—and

all the people who loved him.

Many thanks to suspects usual and new: to Barbara Gampt for things Ohio, to Judith, who always

catches the things no one else does, to Jennifer for the missing scene, to the SFF gang who cheered me

on, and to Jenni McPhail for trusting me with Phoenix Fire—who believes she should have her own book

but finally, after many food bribes, accepted that I couldn't change Lady from a courier-bred dun to a

grey Arabian in the middle of a series.

(And you may blame this book on Lucienne, who quite wickedly said "What if . . . ?")

WHOA!

With the trail juncture in sight and full of milling horses, Dun Lady's Jess broke into a startled canter.

"O-oh no," Arlen said, his teeth clicking as he bounced; he yanked on her mane, the only thing at hand.

"Whoa!"

And then Lady caught wind ofothers in the woods around them, closing in on them. With the sudden

downwind rustle of brush, a figure emerged from camouflage of leaves and dull brush almost at her feet.

"Whoa!" Arlen cried again, completely unaware of thoseothers , clenching her barrel with his long legs

and hauling on her mane. Metal slashed at them, gleamed dully along an astonishingly long blade—and

quite abruptly Lady did just as she'd been told, tucking her butt and dropping her head so Arlen flew

neatly over her withers, rolling onward and out of reach. The blade flashed down to score her shoulder

and she kicked out wildly. Ramble screamed, a stallion's challenge, and knocked her aside, knocked her

down —

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She wrenched herself away, trying to avoid Arlen's sprawling figure, well aware that more agents

converged upon them.

Armed men and women, ready to turn the hunt into a kill.

BAEN BOOKS by Doranna Durgin

Dun Lady's Jess

Changespell

Changespell Legacy

Barrenlands

Touched by Magic

Wolf Justice

Wolverine's Daughter

Seer's Blood

A Feral Darkness

Other Books

Star Trek: The Next Generation—Tooth and Claw

Earth: Final Conflict—Heritage

Chapter 1

Arlen meant to be home before now.

With the Lorakan Mountains looming on the western skyline to remind him just how much land lay

between here and Anfeald, he calculated the distance to the nearest travel booth versus the time before

Jaime's next visit.

He wasn't going to make it.

From one world to another she would come, from Ohio on Earth to Anfeald in Camolen, and she'd find

him . . .

Absent.

Not that anyone would be able to tell her why—not Carey, his close friend and head courier, who

thought Arlen attended the special field calling of the Council of Wizards in Siccawei. Not his two

apprentices, who thought the same. Not the Council itself, with a renewed emphasis on confidentiality

after the events of the previous summer, the rogue wizards and their mage lure-enhanced powers run

amok in Camolen with far too many people chatting about the particulars.

They'd overcome that trial—Arlen and Jaime, Carey and Jess, and Dayna, ever twiddling with her

forbidden raw magic on the sly. It had been more the others than Arlen himself, who'd first been

hampered by Council strictures and then by recovery from a long-distance blow dealt by an enhanced

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and vengeful wizard.

The thought of it made him wince. Without the mage lure, Willand would never have been able to touch

him. And even knowing she'd had it . . .

Well, he'd underestimated her.

But his friends—armed more with determination and wits than conventional magic—had taught the

Council a lesson about acting instead of reacting. About shaking off the strictures of their endless debates

to chooseaction —even to the point of taking to a trail in Siccawei without him.

So here Arlen stood, gazing at the moonrise over the mountains with three layers of heartland jackets

over his Jaime-gifted silken long underwear and OSU sweatshirt, and a blanket from the road inn

wrapped tightly around his shoulders on top of it, his breath frosting the air and riming his thick grey-shot

mustache. A porch board creaked under his foot, reminding him of the need for quiet with an inn full of

grouchy winter travelers at his back.

He could send Jaime a spell message through the Mage Dispatch service, but that would only reveal his

location to the alert and nervous mage lure-runners he'd come here to thwart. They had reason for their

nerves—the old border guard spells against them had worked once, and with the study he'd done this

past week, the spells'd soon work again.

But not until he made it home. Back to warmer Anfeald in south-central Camolen, to the winter-burnt

pastures and hills, the turned-over garden fields, the deep-honed respect for his wizard's power from

Anfeald's landers and the casual irreverence from Carey in spite of it. And Jaime. Commuting between

worlds, rearranging her life to spend nearly half her time here with him. In another day she'd be sitting in

the rocker by the thick-silled open window of his personal rooms, one spell heating the room and another

keeping the heat from escaping. She'd have the old black and white cat on her lap while the young calico

male tried to impress her with his antics and headstands.

But she'd be waiting forhim . Wondering, perhaps worrying, probably annoyed on top of it all.

Like most powerful wizards, Arlen rarely pulled himself up into a saddle. Town coaches, shoe leather,

mage travel with transfer booths . . . they all came more easily. Even so . . . in the morning, he'd see

about securing a horse, one to get him to the nearest transfer booth three townlets down the road in

Amses.

Jaime would be waiting. And for once, Camolen rested quietly around him.

Branches warp and ooze, merging into one another. Winter-flattened ground cover of fall leaves

compresses into a blanket over the earth and melts into the roots of the tree, swirling old golds and dulled

crimsons into silvery bark to obscure the small den-hole there.

An uneasy ground squirrel bolts for that hole.

Half the squirrel makes it home. Rich brown fur merges into the red-gold-silver patch where its life ends,

following twisted eddies of matter.

Hoofbeats sound in the cold winter air. Dun mare, deep buckskin with black points, a black line down

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her spine, and wiser eyes than most. Alone, unhindered save for the padded leather girth and chest band

holding a courier's pouch over her withers, she prances to a stop, sampling the air with widened nostrils

and the raised neck of a wary posture, alert for movement, for scent, for something on which to pin her

attention. To define thewrongness she feels here.

After a moment, she snorts and moves on, her equine vision unable to perceive the frozen patch of

distortion by the side of the trail. Too still, too close for her to see out of that eye at that angle.

With a flick of her tail, Dun Lady's Jess leaves the birth of death and destruction behind her, never

knowing it's there at all.

Chapter 2

Suliya swept the main aisle of Anfeald Stables, spending more energy on resentment than she did on the

chore itself. She should have been out on a courier run today, burn it all, and here she was doing

clean-up chores instead. Inspecting stalls, rewrapping bandages, mixing a warm winter mash . . . and

sweeping up the inevitable clots of mud, melting ice chunks, and wasted hay. Half the day's horses were

still out, slowed by the roads despite seasonal spells meant to clear them. No doubt their riders were

wind-chilled and stiff and more than ready to return home, but Suliya longed to have been one of them.

The only rider making fewer runs out of Anfeald than she was Carey—and everyone knew he had to

keep his schedule light because of the wizard-inflicted damage he'd taken a year and a half earlier.

Suliya was the last of the couriers hired to rebuild the stable after that summer, and initially she'd counted

it a rare opportunity. Anfeald's reputation was spotless, their horses impeccably bred and trained.

Working here meant the opportunity to watch Jaime Cabot apply her unique Earth riding theory—and to

watch others take lessons under her, a bonus earned by the top-performing couriers. Working here

meant being in Arlen's hold, and Arlen's reputation as a man of power had risen considerably these past

few years. Working here meant being one of the best.

If she ever got the chance.

Her father hadn't believed she would . . . that she could. "Try one of the smaller barns," he'd advised her,

even upon showing her the trail. "Someplace they might tolerate your lack of discipline." She hadn't

believed it of him—that he'd truly reach the end of his patience. That he'd truly withdraw his support. Not

the SpellForge head chair, so full of his public image.

At three years old, she'd wandered his giant work suite unchecked. At ten, she sat in on meetings, met

her tutor's requirements, took riding lessons, and charmed everyone she met. By sixteen she was bored

and jaded and knew that the best way to reclaim her family's distant attention was to push boundaries in

all ways.

And at nineteen her father overrode her mother's wishes and did what she'd never believed possible.

He kicked her out.

Not without money in her pocket, but without direction, without—other than the ability to

ride—discernible worldly skills.

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But with a goal. She'd show him he was wrong. She could find her own success, make her own way.If

she ever got the chance. If Carey ever took her seriously.

She shoved the broom over the cobbled floors—spelled so the horses wouldn't slip, just as spells kept

the under-mountain stables supplied with constantly circulating air and made sure the cistern-stored water

stayed fresh—and considered the reason she was sweeping and not riding. Sweeping and not proving

her worth to Anfeald and Carey.

Carey's girlfriend, that was why.

Carey's girlfriend, who'd decided to move from Kymmet Stables to Anfeald, arriving only a moon's span

after Suliya herself and yet automatically slotted as a senior rider, with authority over Suliya and almost

everyone else there. If it weren't for Jess, Suliya was certain she'd have been moved up from her starter

position to something more meaningful, maybe even to a junior courier. But Jess had arrived, taking on

the training of the young horses, taking on the occasional run, making Suliya more of a backup rider than

anything else.

And leaving her sweeping the aisles.

The sound of raucous laughter echoed down the hall from the job room at the back of the stall aisle; four

of the couriers were back for the day, drinking hot tea and warming themselves over exaggerations of

their past exploits. Envy tugged at Suliya, but she couldn't blame them for her situation. They'd all been

here before her, some of them since the summer Carey was hurt and everyone else had been killed.

Still . . .

She wished she didn't feel so left out. Or that she even knew how to join in.

At that choice moment, one of the massive front doors eased open, making way before the rising night

wind. "Ay!" Suliya exclaimed, jumping to get her broom placed over the pile of sweepings—but not

quickly enough. As a dun mare walked into the stable, the swept hay scattered along the length of the

aisle and settled back into the corners from which it had come. A lone dun mare, elegant even in her

winter coat, ice on her whiskers and fetlocks, ice weighting the end of her tail, and a unique harness

carrying a bulging courier's pouch just behind her withers.

Carey's girlfriend.

Suliya glared at the mare unnoticed as she ran to shut the door, securing it with its own weight behind the

slight bump in the floor. The dun—Lady, they called her, when she was her horse self—stopped in the

middle of the aisle, shook vigorously, and lifted her head with perked ears to scent the air.

"He's not here," Suliya said brusquely, taking a hank of the dun's mane up behind her ears and giving a

slight tug. Lady's spellstones clinked dully there, sewn into several braids. With them, she could return to

the woman Jess, but not here in the middle of the aisle. There was a special stall set aside, where Jess

kept a change of clothes and which Anfeald used as a mid-aisle storage stall.

Lady hesitated—not surprisingly, since they'd moved the stall only days earlier, swapping it out with

another to separate two horses who'd taken to kicking at each other. But Suliya tugged again, perhaps

not as gently as she might have, and Lady followed her—right into the wrong stall.

Suliya realized it immediately. But something wicked spoke within her, something tied to her resentments

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and envy. She slid the stall door closed without latching it and went back to her sweeping. Let Lady

change to Jess and ask for clothing—when Suliya brought it, maybe Jess would notice that Suliya existed

in the first place.

After a moment, Lady sorted out the situation—wrong stall, no clothing waiting here—and gave a short,

sharp snort of annoyed objection. In another moment, she changed. Suliya couldn't feel the magic—few

of the couriers had that kind of sensitivity—but she heard a difference in the way the stall bedding rustled,

and knew it had been done. She dumped her recaptured hay sweepings into the waste bin, listening,

ready to grab up some clothes.

After a long, considering silence, the door slid open; Suliya turned to see Jess step out into the aisle

without a stitch of clothing, the courier harness dangling from one hand. Barefooted on the cold cobbles,

she gave no sign of discomfort—or embarrassment—as she headed for the correct door, two stalls

down. She appeared not to notice Suliya's near-gaping consternation, nor the appearance and startled

reaction of two grooms from a stall at the far end where they'd been releveling the floor.

She carried herself with absent dignity, and she was beautiful—long lean legs and flanks, erect carriage,

masses of dark sand hair spilling down her back with a strikingly black centerline the longest section of all

and echoed in a faint dark line down her spine. Suliya was struck by the feeling that this was the first time

she'd actually—truly—seen the woman. Seen that she was so human . . . and so obviously not.

As Suliya stood frozen with the broom in her hands, she heard Carey's cheerfully teasing call to the two

grooms—coming from within the hold, he could see nothing but their stupefied expressions. He walked

around the corner into the aisle just in time to see Jess disappear into her stall. Even from the middle of

the aisle, Suliya could see his eyebrows shoot up to disappear behind the uncontrolled fall of his dark

blond forelock. Without hesitation, he came on.

For a moment, Suliya held out the hope that he'd aimed himself for Jess . . . but a few strides told her

otherwise. Slightly uneven strides, another leftover from the summer that had torn through these stables,

but otherwise the perfect image of a courier rider. Tall enough and substantial enough to hold the strength

for rough, long rides, lean enough to keep unnecessary weight off the horses' backs. And experienced

enough to run Anfeald Stables in spite of his relative youth—Morley, head of the Siccawei Stables, was

nearly fifty. Carey struck Suliya as a hard thirty.

Suliya, at just under twenty, intended to be running her own stable by his age as well. Or earlier.

But as he approached, she winced inside; thinking of his reputation, the things that had gained him this

post several years earlier. Uncompromising standards. An eye for detail. And the willingness to do what

had to be done, no matter what it was, to accomplish the job before him—be it delivering a message or

saving Arlen's life.

He wasn't likely to offer quarter to the lowliest of his couriers.

Then again, she'd only made a mistake.

"What," he said, bemused as he nodded at Jess's stall, "was that all about?"

Poot! Fess up. Fess upnow."I must have put Lady in the wrong stall. We just changed them—"

He gave her a look, one that expressed his protective annoyance—but he didn't berate her for leaving

Jess to walk naked from one stall to another. Then again, he knew Jess best. Maybehe would have

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anticipated her decision to stroll from one stall to the other. Suliya certainly hadn't.

Carey turned for the stall, but stopped as Jess emerged from it, clothed from head to toe in winter

layers—a deep green tall-neck weave under a brilliant turquoise, magic-hued sweater, the color offsetting

the natural permanently tanned shade of her skin to perfection. Her hair was still wind-tossed, her cheeks

still flushed, and the courier harness now settled over her shoulder like a natural extension of her clothes.

She stopped once to wriggle a foot more comfortably into its ankle boot; she often fussed with her shoes,

and just as often went barefoot within the warmth of the hold itself.

"What happened to that famous horse's memory of yours?" Carey said, his voice teasing as he held out a

hand for the harness. "And how was the run?"

Jess shrugged the harness off her shoulder and handed it to him. "This is my first time since the stalls

changed," she said, glancing at Suliya with larger-than-normal walnut brown eyes. More perceptive than

normal, too, it seemed to Suliya at that moment. She tossed her head in a minute gesture, one Suliya had

seen often in the mares at paddock. "You," she said, "will not take advantage of my nature as Lady."

"I don't understand," Suliya said, afraid that she did. She abruptly and sincerely regretted the wicked

impulse that had allowed her to close the wrong stall door and walk away, for she wasn't accustomed to

any of it—the envy, the bitterness, the impulses—if she had been, she'd have had a quick covering

comment at the ready.

Suliya didn't. For Suliya was simply too accustomed to doing as she pleased without being called on

it—or caring if she was.

"Youdo understand," Jess said. Despite almost two years of human experience, she still handled the

junction of vowel and consonant with an awkwardness of tongue—never quite stumbling over the words,

but often giving the impression she might. "Going to the stall may have been a mistake. Closing the door

wasn't. If I had been human, I could have hesitated at the stall without breaking rules. I could have

refused to go in. I could have pushed my way out before you closed the door. When I am a horse,

Carey's people trust me to do none of those things. And I trust them to treat me honestly." Her eye

flashed annoyance. "If you cannot do that, you will not handle me as Lady again."

Carey's hands paused at the courier pouch fastener. "Braveheart—it was a mistake."

Jess didn't reply . . . but she didn't remove her gaze from Suliya's.

It wasn't a gaze Suliya could hold, not when she realized she'd done more with her simple impulse than

put a woman in the position of asking for her clothes. She'd broken a trust. And from a horse's point of

view, trust was everything. She dropped her gaze to the gleam of the cobbles. "I'll make sure it never

happens again," she said, struggling with unfamiliar capitulation.

In response, Jess merely said, "Yes," and somehow managed to encompass a plethora of unsaid words.

Carey cleared his throat, taking Jess's unwavering gaze from Suliya; Suliya couldn't stop a sigh of relief.

"And how," Carey said, "was the run?"

Jess said, "You are changing the subject."

He grinned, unrepentant; he had a lean face and a long jaw, prone to intensity and sternness of

expression; the grin turned it light, turned him from someone who often intimidated Suliya into the man

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with whom she often saw the other couriers joking. "I'm changing the subject," he agreed, his words no

more repentant than his grin.

Jess lifted a shoulder, dropped it in the slightest shrug. "Siccawei was right—part of the riverbank caved

in. I couldn't have made it with a rider on my back."Neither could any other horse , she meant.

Burnin' poot wrong.Suliya clamped her mouth down on the words. Ifshe'd been the rider—and she

would have been, had Jess not intervened—she was certain she could have made it. The run to Siccawei

was a tough one in bad weather, but most of the couriers made more of it than it was. And in this case,

the run had been to a small new sub-hold that Sherra had established to let some of her apprentices

explore—carefully—the use of raw magic. Out between Siccawei Hold and Anfeald, making the run

shorter than normal; easier than normal. Carey often used it as a drop-off for less time-dependent

documents.

"That bad?" Carey said, flipping through the papers from the pouch. He glanced at Suliya and she pulled

her thoughts from her face.

"Bad," Jess said. "Arlen should tell Sherra we can't make any more runs until a road team fixes it."

"Bad, then," Carey agreed.

"If a road team goes out there, maybe they can do something spellin' about the whole thing," Suliya said,

referring to the dangerous part of the dry riverbank, where it narrowed to a rough path skirting the river.

"Some kind of bridge or something, so we don't have to go around."

Jess looked at her with honest shock. "That would take away the fun of it!"

"Fun?" Carey said, and grinned again. "Don't know that I'd call itthat , Jess. Not for the rest of us. But

there is a certain . . . challenge. A nice change of pace."

Suliya looked away, wishing she'd just kept silent . . . and thinking it still seemed like a good idea.

"Dayna is well," Jess said suddenly, and smiled. "She is rolling her eyes about how timid the others are."

Carey snorted. "I think they're just there to slow her down—Sherra's no dummy. Dayna doesn't have

the advantage of growing up with her parents whispering the horrors of raw magic in her ears."

"Disadvantage?" Jess said, frowning.

"Advantage," Carey said firmly. "She's never been frightened away from using it." He jammed the papers

back into the pouch and tucked the tangle of leather under his arm to hold the other hand out to Jess.

"C'mon. Natt and Cesna are waiting for these, as little as they'll be able to do with them until Arlen gets

back from the Council gathering. And Jaime's coming early tomorrow—you wanted to make sure the

housekeeper had things set to rights in Arlen's rooms, didn't you?"

Jess stood visibly straighter at the mention of Jaime's arrival, brushing hay off her sweater as though

Jaime were arriving any moment. One hand found her hair; she made a face. "Groom this?"

Carey laughed. "C'mon. You might just talk me into it." His open hand still waited; he wiggled the

fingers.

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Jess took the hand, and bumped her hip against his in a teasing way—but gently, as if ever aware of his

old injuries. Carey lifted their joined hands to Suliya by way of a parting gesture, and she stood in the

middle of the aisle with her broom, watching them head for the job room, heads tipping slightly closer as

Jess murmured something that made Carey laugh out loud. "Later," he said, as if he'd grown used to and

easy with some of the outrageous things Jess could say.

Suliya and her burnin' broom and her bitter envy. She could have made that run, she knew it; she was

rife with knowing it. She could be one of them. But she wasn't sure they'd ever give her the chance.

In a northern precinct of Camolen, frigid water lapping the edge of a lake suddenly becomes solid, and

then grows tiny, brittle stalagmites that weave together and spire toward the sky. Just over the Lorakans,

along an ancient trade road into Solvany, solid rock dribbles down along the side of the craggy mountain,

revealing a hibernating burrowdog just long enough for melting rock above to impale and merge with it,

killing it in its sleep.

South of Anfeald, a road team scout heads for the unexpected mud slide by the dry riverbed and never

makes it. His partner returns with a babbled story about swirling leaves, melting trees, the hind parts of a

ground squirrel sticking out of solid once-dirt, and of a man lost to the astonishing explosion of a nearby

bush, wood turned to sharp-edged metallic shrapnel.

She bears the wounds to back up her story. Wounds with shrapnel made of twisted metal hazel bush

bark.

"He's nothere ?" Jaime said, sounding every bit as unhappy as she looked, as well as slightly disoriented

after her distinctly magical journey from one world to another.

"I'mhere," Jess pointed out. She stood by the door of the special world transfer chamber in the lower

level of Arlen's stone-carved hold. Jaime looked good to her eyes, but then Jaime always looked good to

her eyes, even when she had an unusual haircut that made her look like she'd just gotten out of bed, short

and mussed and almost certainly on purpose, since she'd never failed to groom herself before. The first

glimmers of grey showed among the dark strands, silver peeking out from her bangs.

Jess had never known Jaime's age . . . the oldest of the friends she had met in her first days as a woman,

all of them from the same small area on Earth. Older than Dayna, younger than Arlen—whom she'd

always known, if not always as a woman. And Arlen's hair was older than the rest of him, greyed like a

grey horse, starting early and heading steadily for silver-white. Jess had always thought it a shame that the

wizard lacked dapples.

"And I'm glad to see you," Jaime said to Jess, running a hand through her hair, ruffling it even more. "But

if you were expecting Carey and you gotme , you'd be disappointed, too—"

"Teasing," Jess interrupted, and grinned.

Taken aback, Jaime just looked at her a moment. Then a smile crept in at the corners of her mouth.

"You've gotten better at that."

"Yes." Jess, her grin down to an amused twist of mouth, held out her hand to take the overnight bag

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Doranna Durgin - Changespell Legacy

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