Spirit Formed, page 14
Since an answer wasn’t forthcoming from the earth, Shasta headed for a barrel and popped the lid off. Inside was grain. She put the lid back on, being careful to fully secure it. Cord took the next barrel, and it too contained grain. Shasta went to the third barrel while Cord opened the fourth. Still grain. They opened the last two barrels more for the sake of being thorough. Like the others, they held grain.
Staring into the last barrel, Cord sighed. “I’d really hoped for more.”
“Me too.” She patted his shoulder and turned toward the door. The shadow in the corner behind the door was uneven. She squinted, but couldn’t make out what it was. “Cord, do you see anything behind the door?”
He peered over her shoulder. “There’s something there.”
Shasta pushed the door closer to the wall until it was flush. Enough light spilled in to reveal a shelf two feet above three five-gallon buckets stacked one on top of the other. On the shelf was a pair of mugs. Shasta picked one up and held it in the light. It had the same shape and weight as the ones in their house, and the bottom even had the same distinctive etching of a tree. This mug had come from the village.
Cord pried the lid off the top bucket. He whistled softly. “You need to see this.”
Shasta leaned past him. At first, she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. Then, the stacks of ash gray wooden disks made sense. It was a bucket of spent charms. Likely the very charms that had been used to spell the deer in the meadow. “There must be hundreds of them.”
Cord set the bucket on the ground and pried open the next one. Like the first, it was full of used charms. “Have you ever seen this many used charms in one place?”
She watched him open the last bucket, not surprised when it too revealed spent charms. “No. Mom has us incinerate them if they can’t be revitalized.”
“Did this person use magic because elves wouldn’t have a defense?” Cord resealed and restacked the buckets of charms.
“Our arrival must have thrown quite a wrench in their plan.” After all, the magic component of the attack had become less useful once the two of them had arrived, backed by charms and her own—admittedly limited— magical abilities.
Cord snorted. “I might have a good sword and be able to use charms, but your abilities complicated things much more than mine.”
“If my magic was helping us that much, we would have this case solved and be back home already.” Shasta scooped up the two mugs and left Cord in the shed.
She had some magic, but it wasn’t much. In a situation like this, where they had numerous creatures and an area coated with magic, she couldn’t fix it. She couldn’t remove the magic from the deer, and until that was done, they had to stay here.
Not only was it against the law to introduce new magical species into the wild, but it was downright irresponsible. These deer wouldn’t have any natural predators. Bears, coyotes, bobcats, anything that preyed upon them before wouldn’t be able to kill them. It would unbalance the entire area.
That was without including the issue of the meadow itself. Between the fencing and the magic infused into it, she couldn’t put this entire place back the way it belonged. That would require several mediocre mages or her mom or brother to show up. Even for them, the knot of charms would be frustrating, and with the amount of power going into the spells, they couldn’t simply drain all of it into the earth without risking natural mutations of local wildlife.
“I’m sorry I touched a nerve,” Cord said from behind her. “I didn’t mean to.”
Shasta didn’t turn around. “When we get back, I’ll call my mom. I can’t fix these deer or the spells on the fence. I might be able to change the parameters of the fence so that whoever has been using them to attack the town can’t get in. But that would really be stretching my abilities.”
“No one—not your mom, your dad, your brother, or myself—think it’s a fault of yours that you don’t have more magical ability.” Cord let out a breath, as if he couldn’t quite find the words and didn’t want to risk saying the wrong thing. “It can be hard for your mom to know what your abilities are because they don’t work quite the same way as hers or most witches. Magic or no magic, I would feel the same about you, and I know your family would too.”
“I know, but I also feel like I should never have been sent on this job. The town doesn’t need someone with a little magic; they need a competent witch.” She slowly turned to him, trying not to look at the deer in the field. “Right now, all I see are my shortcomings; the creatures I can’t help, the spells I can’t undo.”
Cord pursed his lips. “I see someone who can do so much she doesn’t yet understand her own abilities.”
She held up the cups. “I might be able to track these back to who last used them. Everything else here? That’s never going to be within my capabilities.”
“I don’t think you understand.” Cord shook his head. “You’re the first elf in thousands of years to have magic. Don’t you know what that means?”
Shasta shrugged. “Elves don’t have magic. That’s common knowledge.”
“Did your parents ever tell you how elves and witches came to be what they are today?” Cord tipped his head to the side as he watched her.
“They often told me if an elf or witch ever said something mean to me, I should go tell them right away. They told me no matter what anyone said, I was perfect just the way I am.” Shasta looked down at the ground. “The earth said the same thing before it pushed me into this world.”
“I thought you knew.” Cord’s voice rose with every word. He took a deep breath. “I thought you’d been told our history.”
Shasta looked at him blankly. It certainly seemed like he knew something she didn’t.
Cord swore and paced a small circle before stopping to look her straight in the eyes. “If I’d realized, I would have told you years ago. But you deserve to know now, even if it is rather late information.”
“Please just tell me.”
He took a deep breath. “A long time ago, I’m not sure how long, elves were part of the fey and had magic. They broke from the fey and traded their magic for a stronger connection with nature. Witches were once part of the fey, though they lost much of their connection with nature in trade for their magic. The elven, fey, and, to a lesser extent, witch communities were rocked by the news of your origin, mixed bloodline, and magic.
“You and your brother brought nearly forgotten history into the spotlight. No one knows what this means for our future. Will the elves, fey, and witches reunite? We don’t know. And most of us are very happy being what we are. Some members of all three races don’t like you because they’re afraid you’ll force change they don’t want.”
Shasta blinked, but Cord was still looking at her with the same sincere and slightly nervous expression. “Nobody mentioned this? Nobody thought it was important? And you choose now?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I thought your parents would have told you.”
She couldn’t seem to land on a single feeling. Some of what she felt was outrage, coupled with a bit of disbelief, and some good old-fashioned anger. She clutched the mugs more tightly as a reminder that she needed them intact if she was going to track their perpetrator. “All this time, all of you knew … and said nothing? Why? Oh, I know your reason, but what possible excuse do my parents have?”
Cord opened his mouth.
“Don’t repeat yourself,” Shasta snapped. “You told me this now because—what? You think it scared whoever else was behind these attacks when an elf with magic showed up? Newsflash, I don’t have enough magic to counter all of this. I’m barely more useful than a regular elf. And if the earth has any plans of merging fey, elves, and witches back into one set of people, it hasn’t mentioned that to me. I’m not that in the know.”
He took a step back.
Out of the corner of her eye, Shasta could see the deer moving farther away, but she was too angry to care. “If everyone was so concerned, why didn’t I hear about it before, when there were protests or something? My brother and I made the news, I remember that much. It’s not common for two kids with no known connection to claim they’re siblings, have genetic testing prove that, and also prove to be a theoretically impossible hybrid.”
Cord hunched his shoulders. “There were. Your parents worked damn hard to keep the two of you out of the news. It’s part of the reason there aren’t pictures of you on the company website. It keeps both of you relatively anonymous. Your mom was able to deal with the witches, but the fey and elves aren’t centralized that way. There’s still some who wish you and your brother had never been created by the earth.”
Chapter Ten
Shasta sat down hard, all the anger taken right out of her. The earth was silent beneath her, not giving a hum or hint of warmth. She could see now why they’d kept the secret. If they’d told her, she would have asked questions; ones they couldn’t answer without telling her more truth than any child deserved to hear.
Cord plucked the two mugs from her and set them down by the shed. He settled on the ground next to her and held out a hand.
She slid her fingers across his, before clutching his hand tightly. “I had no idea.”
“It was part of why I was around so much after you were settled in with Michelle and Elron. We were trying so hard to protect you, and on several occasions, people broke through the lodge’s protections.” Cord shook his head.
“But we stayed with elves when I was young. We spent time with them, and I learned from them.” Shasta looked at him with moist eyes. “How did they make that work?”
“There are a few groups that have been friends with Michelle and Elron for years. They didn’t see things the way some of the other elves did.” He squeezed her hand and flashed a reassuring smile. “Even the ones who were unsure about you and your brother’s abilities wanted to guide you toward being better people, not blame you for being born.”
“Well, that’s something,” she said dryly. As much as she wanted to call her parents and demand answers, who would want their child to grow up knowing people hated her?
As she sat there with Cord, her thoughts slowly began to clear. She remembered the times her parents had hurried her away from things or the looks she’d received on occasion. The older she’d gotten, the less it had happened. Likely because people were focused on the one picture of her that had been published during her childhood and didn’t look for those features in a teen or adult.
This brought her back to the current case. “You think the elf behind this is scared. This elf believes I have amazing powers of magic and somehow will be the doom for all elves.”
Cord rolled his eyes dramatically. “You got it partly right. Some elves assume you have as much magic as a witch, or even more. Since you and your brother have such different abilities, everyone assumes both of you have the same capabilities and choose which ones to use. In this case, they believe you have enough magic to just fix all of this in the blink of an eye. Whoever is behind all of this is scared of you.”
Shasta picked up a ladybug crawling on a blade of grass and watched it walk across the back of her hand. “Nobody here seems like they’re scared of me.”
He shrugged. “Maybe they hide it well. Maybe I’m wrong, but I doubt our perpetrator is ignorant of your background and our history. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have added more magic to the deer.”
Shasta leaned across Cord to grab the mugs. “Shall we find out who created this mess?” She grinned.
Cord got to his feet and offered her a hand. “I think that is an excellent idea.”
Shasta accepted the help getting to her feet. “Let’s put out some more hay and grain. That should keep them fed if we don’t get back for a few days.”
He smiled. “I like the way you think.”
It didn’t take them long to set out the bales of hay and divide a barrel of grain among the various troughs. While Cord closed up the shed, Shasta headed for the fence. The deer should be fine for several days, and hopefully by then, the situation would be settled enough that regular care could resume.
When she reached the gate, she placed the cups and her bow on the ground. She studied the fence and formulated a plan. Ideally, all of the spells with the same purpose would be merged into one, and then it would be easy enough to change the directive of that spell. However, given her last experience, that was beyond her abilities.
Instead of fighting what was already there, Shasta was going to add another layer. Her spell would specify that no one could enter and no commands could be sent through the barrier. She chewed on her lip as she eyed the length of the fence. It was a big undertaking, and while she was reasonably sure she could enforce the no entry, the no commands spell would be much trickier.
Shasta lowered her shields and touched the fence post. Spell upon spell vied for her attention, threatening to overwhelm her. Gritting her teeth, she narrowed her focus—not to a single spell, but to the magic flowing through the fence. The spells fought her, wanting to be noticed. She pushed each one of them back until all she could see was the flow of magic.
With that much accomplished, she took a steadying breath. Now it was time to insert the first of her changes. “Once we leave, no one in or out.” She repeated the words as she formed a strand of magic around them, weaving the spell until it only had that thought. Then she pushed it into the magic flowing through the fence.
Her spell wavered, the edges of its shape going fuzzy. Shasta clenched the fence post until her hands were white-knuckled. If she hadn’t constructed the command properly, it would be overpowered by the mass of spells. But as she watched, instead of shattering into nothing, it seemed to take a little bit of what every spell gave it and in return, passed its message along. In a matter of seconds, the entire fence knew the command.
Hoping the same tactic would work for a more complicated directive, she repeated the process of forming her desire into a spell. “Let no commands pass through to the deer.” This was tricky because more than the spoken word, commands could be transmitted through magic, or directly from the mind of the elf who controlled the spells into the minds of the deer. When she’d constructed the kernel of the spell as tightly and purposefully as she could, she added it to the flow of magic through the fence.
It settled into the magic more easily than her previous one had, but she didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. As she watched, it didn’t communicate with the other spells and transmit its message. Instead, it started drawing upon the ambient magic in the fence. It consumed more and more magic and swelled, growing in size and power.
Shasta wasn’t sure if she should attempt to intervene. The original spell hadn’t been constructed with the idea that it would grow, and it couldn’t handle this much power.
The spell burst in a flash of white light. She shielded her eyes, but that didn’t stop her from seeing spots through her eyelids. They slowly faded from bright spots that obliterated her entire vision to smaller ones. Even without being able to see the spells, Shasta could feel that it had changed but couldn’t detect it in the spells on the fence.
She glanced around. The deer were grazing as though nothing had happened, and perhaps to their senses, nothing had. Cord was zipping something into his pack, and the only person who seemed to have been affected by the magic was her. She turned her attention to the fence. At first, it looked like her spell had exploded without imparting its directives to the remaining portions of the fence. But as she studied it, she spotted a new layer in the network of spells. There were type nodes of the same spell repeating throughout the fence. They were connected to themselves with a network of spider silk-thin threads.
Shasta extended a delicate probe and poked one of the nodes.
No commands may cross this line. It sent the message to her through the probe.
She grinned and pulled back her probe before closing her shields. It had worked.
“Success?” Cord asked.
Shasta pried her hands away from the fence. “Yes! The deer are as safe as they can be. Once we leave, someone will have to break the magic to get back in, and in theory, the commands will be blocked from getting to them as well.”
“Excellent.” He reached back and patted his pack. “I grabbed a few of the charms. I thought we might be able to use them to help track down their source. Maybe they can tell us who’s been buying all of them.”
“Good thinking.” Shasta dug a tracking charm out of her pack before settling both the pack and the bow on her shoulders. She picked up the two mugs but fumbled trying to open the gate without dropping them.
“I can carry one.” Cord held out his hand.
Shasta passed one of the mugs back to Cord. “Thanks.” She opened the gate and motioned for him to go through.
He moved around her and headed through the gate. He was in midstep when Shasta felt a spell on the cup react to crossing the fence line and all of its magic. The cup shattered and blackened shards fell to the ground.
Cord jumped, dropping the mug handle as he summoned his sword and whirled around to face the threshold. “What the …”
Shasta carefully set the remaining mug down well inside the fence. She crouched next to the shards of the broken mug, holding her hand above them as she pushed the probe out. In the process of destroying the mug, the spell had destroyed itself. All of its energy had gone into first shattering and then scorching the ceramic. Between those two processes, any connection to the owner had been broken. They wouldn’t be able to use the remains of this mug to track anything.
“With all the charms that went into the fence, there’s this feeling of magic in the air. I completely missed the spell on the mug.”
“If the other mug has the same spell, will you be able to remove it so we can use it?” Cord dismissed his sword.
