Finally, I settled myself. The river had shifted. I could see the former bed. It was marked with dried slime and dead creatures who had not been able to follow it. Rocks along the original banks had tumbled from their places. The old stones were cross. They were used to water sliding over them. They did not care for this new life in the sun.
“Luck of the circle, lads,” I told them. “One day you’re under water, the next you’re not.”
“You talk like a dedicate,” Oswin said. I jumped. I hadn’t even heard him ride up. “Are you a novice?”
“What are you doing? Are you following me?” I asked.
“Absolutely.” Oswin swung down from his swaybacked horse and took off the saddle, like I’d removed Spark’s. “You looked like you were going to do something magelike. One more of those times when I might learn something useful. Your Rosethorn is badgering people to get packed and get their carts in line. Word got out that Luvo said we might have a few more days, so our people act as if they have forever. I’ve done all I can for the moment, so I followed you.”
I didn’t feel like arguing. He’d get bored fast enough. People always do. “Don’t make any noise, then. I need to find the new line of strength and draw all of it I can.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because I might need it,” I said, testy. “I’m not restocked from yesterday, all right? Because I’m a squirrel who stores up nuts of power for the winter. Why.” I closed my eyes and sent my quivery magical self down into the ground. I searched out the fizzing rocks that showed me where the old line of power had been. Then I spread out and down, seeking the new one. Just as I thought, it was under the changed riverbed, a seam in the granite that shot straight down. It blazed white-hot with the earth’s pure strength.
I soaked it up like the rays of the sun after a long winter. I bathed in it, drank it, filled my skin with it. The more I gathered, the more was offered to me. Streams of it poured through me to those things I was connected to, my stone alphabet and my mage kit. We brimmed over with power.
I let myself follow the big fault where the power flowed away from the mountain. It ran along the Makray. It made the river’s bed. I flew in my magical body down to the place where the river met the sea. There I fell deeper into the earth to get away from the salt water. Down I moved through sand and basalt. The ocean’s floor rose high over me. Far from Starns, fire warmed my body. I had found a vein of magma that rose into the ocean floor. It carried power with it. I followed it, curious to see where this thin pipe of molten rock and magic went. It opened into a hole in the ocean floor, at the bottom of a small crater. All around me strange, goggle-eyed creatures with rippling flaps of skin raced away. They were used to lava, it seemed, but not to magical people popping out along with it. The touch of the water made me shiver. It didn’t like me. I darted back into the small lava pipe.
Back I swam into the vent and along the fault. I found other cracks like the one that opened into the crater—like the one Luvo had shown me, that day we reached Starns. There were tiny volcanoes, some no bigger than my head, all around the Battle Islands. And the faults in the sea, big ones and little ones, were roads under the skin of the earth. They could lead me to other islands, or even the shores that surrounded the Pebbled Sea. It was amazing! I could travel back to Emelan this way. I was so fast in magical form, not weighed down by my meat body and a need for a ship. No more dealing with people, no more being hungry or cold…
I was drifting, dreaming of freedom, when all the world—or at least my part of it—shuddered. The seam where I traveled squeezed. Volcano spirits from deep within the heart of the world roared. Heat rose to press my skin. Magma was moving up into the fault. If I didn’t leave, it might catch me. I didn’t want to be there, far below the sea, when that happened. I didn’t think I could survive it.
I raced back to my body, covering dozens of miles under the earth, skidding between layers of basalt. Up I flew from under the sea, plunging into the fault that led under the Makray River with relief.
I tried to slip into my body, and stopped. It was too small! My magical self was bigger than usual, built up with all the power I had taken from the earth. I had trained myself to hold my magic in a certain way. All that romping under the sea had interfered with my control over it. Kanzan and Mohun, couldn’t anything ever be simple?
I ordered myself, Evvy, stop—calm down. Be steady, drag yourself together. You’re a tight little ball of you.
I pulled myself inward. I didn’t want to lose any of the power I gathered, but I needed to concentrate it. When I was packed together as tightly as I could manage, I tried once more to slip into my real skin. This time it worked.
I opened my eyes. It was trying to straighten my legs that made me groan. I was horribly stiff. Oswin offered me kibbeh patties. I grabbed one and bit down. The beef and wheat were greasy, but good, though someone had overdone the cinnamon. “Nory cooked these?” I asked.
Oswin grinned. “She always puts in too much cinnamon. Tell her, if you want your nose bitten off. She likes cinnamon.” He gave me a flask. It held good, cool mint tea. I looked at him as I drank. He had made himself comfortable while I was away. He’d brought his saddlebags over. One was open. There was a pad of paper sheets stitched together, an ink brush, and an ink bottle. He must have been writing. I sniffed food in the other cloth bundles I could see in the bag. I also spotted books around the food bundles. Oswin used the other saddlebag as a backrest.