She turned to smile at him. “And you don’t want to do that because . . .”
“I . . .” He stopped, frowned. And straightened, his eyes going distant. “Oh.” He stood very still. Inhumanly so. After a long moment he said, “That’s not good.”
“What is it?”
“A bit of my old home just showed up here, and it’s . . . damn. Molly, we have to go.”
Her eyes widened. “Immediately? There’s a node—”
But he was shaking his head. “I should have said I have to go. You—”
“Now you’re just being stupid.”
A smile, but fleeting. “I have to go, but I don’t have to go quickly. We’ll take the boat.”
TEN
Dragonhome
LI Lei walked on rough ground beside an enormous wolf, led by a former demon with an abundance of pockets in her clothing and a tie to one of the most powerful artifacts ever created.
Her joints hurt. Her feet hurt. Her eyes were gritty from lack of sleep. The spell she’d used to stay awake last night cleared the brain, but it did not banish tiredness, only sleep. It was very tempting to turn tiger. The tiger’s bones would not hurt. The tiger did not age.
Not that it mattered. Sometimes—rarely—the tiger called her. More often, she called the tiger. When the tiger called her, it took no time, no magic, and no effort to slide into her powerful body. When she called the tiger, it took time, pain, and a great deal of magic to do so.
The tiger was not calling her now, and she had but little power after last night.
She had taken a risk, using that healing cantrip on Rule. It was a brownie spell that worked only on those of the Blood, feeding power into the pattern their innate healing held for their bodies. Lupi healing was, to her sensing, very like that of brownies, so she had thought it would work . . . but while brownies could use that cantrip safely on other magical races, she was not a brownie. Her power was very different from theirs. Very different from Rule’s, too, and it had been her power the cantrip fed into his healing. There had been a possibility she would damage his healing instead of boosting it.
But Rule had been in bad shape. Despite his assertion that he would not die, he had been sliding in that direction.
She had taken a chance. Not, however, a blind chance. She could not sense his body directly as a healer would, but she could sense the magic that sustained it and read the pattern in its song. That had assured her the cantrip was working as it should, and so she had continued to employ it throughout the night.
And he had clearly been better this morning. Far from healed, but several steps along in that direction, no longer sliding backward. That made it worth the power she had spent, a wild squandering she would not have dared in a less magic-rich environment. She had no affinity for body magic. What a healer could do with ready efficiency, she spent much power and time to accomplish.
Ah, time. Like gravity, its constraints molded everything, imposing costs, curtailing choice. There was magic enough here to replenish what she’d lost, but that replenishment would take time. She did not dare draw directly from a node or ley line. Both could be monitored. That required a high order of spellcasting, but she did not assume her enemies lacked skill. Decency, yes. Compassion and integrity, yes. But not skill.
“This way,” Gan called, and scrambled down into a ravine. “We follow this east for a couple miles. Easier walking.”
Li Lei advanced to the edge and paused, eyeing the steep side of the ravine with displeasure. “And if it rains, we swim.”
Gan rolled her eyes. “If it rains, we’ll climb out.”
Her left knee did not like going down. Most actions did not trouble it, but going down hurt. “Can you manage this?” she asked the wolf beside her.
In answer he started down the slope. She huffed and followed. Perhaps it was as well she was depleted. She might otherwise be too tempted to change forms, and it was best she did not. There was a reason for the tiger’s agelessness.
The walking was, indeed, easier at the bottom of the ravine. The ground was firm and mostly lacked vegetation. Perhaps it flooded too often for plants to grow.
“How come you let him do this?” Gan piped up. “I mean, I’m glad we’re going to the village, even if I will have to stay dashtu a lot. There’s nothing good to eat out here. But you said it was a bad idea. That he was too hurt.”
“Yes. And he said that I could not stop him.”
Gan snorted. “He’s not thinking very well right now.”
“This is true.”
The wolf beside her snorted, too. She looked down at him . . . not, admittedly, very far down.
The weight Rule had lost was not obvious in this form, and walking on three legs instead of four did not slow him greatly. The gut wound did. The pain must be fierce despite the boost she had given his healing.
He had woken this morning ten or fifteen pounds lighter than before he’d been wounded, but without a fever. This had given him too high an opinion of his plan. If he survived until tonight, he would be feverish again. And Gan was right. She could have stopped him. He could have been sound asleep right now instead of forcing his wounded body to move. “He has a connection to an Old One. Perhaps his Lady is speaking to him without words and we truly must leave now. Perhaps he is mad and will die. We will find out.”
“But why did you let him?”
“Because I do not make his choices. Only my own.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That is obvious.” The corners of her mouth tucked up slyly. “I also permitted it because we will not walk the whole way.”
Gan turned to face her, walking backward now. “Are you going to make him float? Can you do that?”
“No. There will be farms as we draw closer to the river. You saw them. We will stop at one and I will ask questions.”
Rule grunted. It sounded like an objection.
She looked at him. “Do not mistake my identification of this realm for familiarity. What little I know of this place will be as helpful as scholarly knowledge of prehistoric America would be to a visitor to the modern United States. We go to a town strange to us. I may look like the people here. Gan thinks I do. I know nothing of their customs, laws, money, culture, or even what language they speak. And you will stand out. In either form, you will startle them. We need a way to explain our oddities. We also need a cart.”
“Oh, a cart,” Gan said, disappointed, and faced forward again.
Rule, of course, did not argue. That was one advantage to his being four-footed.