Warrior and Witch (35 page)

Mirei glanced at Ashin. The other woman shrugged. She was as far from a theorist as it was possible to get.

“Together, I think,” Mirei said. “I’d rather pull her through with me than go flinging her around without a chaperone.”

They stationed themselves at one end of the long room, and Mirei took Ashin’s hands. “You sure you want to do this?” she asked in a low voice.

Ashin gave her a strangely blissful smile, and Mirei realized with a jolt of fear that she’d seen that look before. When she was Miryo and Mirage, and Ashin told them she was confident they’d find an answer to the problem of doppelgangers.

It was the look of faith that was perhaps a little
too
trusting.

Goddess
, Mirei prayed,
Warrior, whose Void we‘re about to go dancing through
—please
let me not be about to kill her
.

Then she looked down at their hands.
Okay, first hurdle. How do I do the movements while holding on to her? I’m pretty sure I want to hold on
.

Maybe those bizarre exercises with the doppelgangers and witch-students would be good for something after all.

“Let’s try it like the girls do in practice,” Mirei said to the Key. “I need to move to cast this, and I don’t want to lose contact with you, so give me your hands. I’ll push or pull to show you where to go. Okay?”

Ashin nodded.

Mirei closed her eyes and centered herself, then began.

She did it more slowly than normal; tempo wasn’t a factor in spells. They could be rattled out in mere heartbeats when under attack, or stretched out into ritual choruses with long, sustained notes. What mattered was the flow, the relative durations of the notes, the way the parts compared to each other. She wanted to be sure she did this right, and so she sang slowly.

And moved slowly, guiding Ashin as she did, the two of them performing an odd, improvised dance at one end of the long room, with the power building around them, a blend of all five Elements, but most of it Void power that Ashin couldn’t even feel—

The spell ended, and they were pulled into the Void.

It was as if Mirei’s ears had popped, as if she’d been deaf and then suddenly could hear again. One minute, the concluding note of her spell; the next, Ashin’s screams.

The Key’s hands pulled free of hers before she could stop them, but it was all right; they were back in the room, at the far end, and Ashin looked like she was in one piece, even if she had crumpled into a huddle on the floor, hands clutching her head.

But she kept screaming.

There was a generalized stampede in their direction, theory witches racing over to offer help or ask technical questions, depending on their bent. But Satomi must have begun moving to that end of the room before the spell was even done, because she was there before anyone else.

She took Ashin in her arms, a rare gesture, and began soothing her. “It’s all right, it’s all right—you’ve felt it before. It’s all right. I wondered if this would happen.”

The words penetrated the headache and dizziness that had overtaken Mirei with the conclusion of the spell. “If
what
would happen?”

From where she knelt on the floor, holding the slowly calming Ashin, Satomi looked up at Mirei. “Do you remember your test?”

Vividly; it had ended in the most excruciating pain she’d ever experienced, far surpassing even the times when she had died. “I don’t see the connection.”

“The trial of Void,” Hyoka said, having arrived at their sides. Understanding was dawning in her eyes. “We all scream like this.”

“Not
this
badly,” Mirei said, still unsettled. Ashin had stopped screaming, but her breath was still coming in heaving gasps.

Satomi shook her head. “You weren’t this bad. And neither was I. I should have known your doppelganger was alive, just from that—but I didn’t make the connection.”

Mirei finally saw what the more metaphysically inclined witches had already figured out. “Wholeness of self. That’s what the Void trial tests. What you put us through isn’t
actually
the Void—”

“But it mimics it,” Satomi said. “I wondered if this would have a similar effect. Do you enjoy translocating?”

“Not exactly. But it’s not
bad
.”

“Since you are complete. It’s harder on Ashin, it seems. As it would be for the rest of us.”

The various observing witches suddenly looked less interested in this entire experiment, as if afraid they’d be asked to experience it firsthand.

Cousins might do
better,
then
, Mirei thought.
Those who weren’t born witches weren’t ever split. I think I’m glad I tried it with Ashin. Better to find this out now then when we showed up in Kalistyi
.

Ashin had recovered enough to join the conversation. “This is worse than the test,” she said raggedly, pulling back from Satomi to meet her gaze. Her eyes glittered from the depths of her high-boned face. “I remember it well enough. What you use there is an imitation of the Void. This is the real thing. It’s worse.”

Mirei began calculating whether or not to mention her Cousin theory. She wasn’t sure she wanted them as backup—if she couldn’t have more magic on her side, she’d rather not worry about other people at all—but if Satomi would only let her go if she had company, then it was worth suggesting Cousins.

But Ashin was rising to her feet, refusing all helping hands. She wasn’t quite steady, but she made it. Satomi rose with her. “How bad?” the Void Prime asked.

Ashin didn’t try to quantify the awfulness; she answered the question Satomi was really asking. “I’ll go,” she said. “I may need recovery time on the other side, but we’re jumping to Lyonakh, not directly to Tungral. I can do it.”

Mirei almost asked if she was sure, but if it had been her in Ashin’s place, she would have been insulted by the question. So instead she looked at Satomi. “Aken, I’d like to leave as soon as possible.”

Only the three Primes were there to see them off.

Koika looked the two women over and finally nodded, looking impressed. “You told the truth about the disguises.”

With the help of tea leaves, Ashin’s hair had darkened to a brown that looked more appropriate to her dark eyes. Not that anyone could see much of it; it was braided tightly to her scalp and mostly covered by an embroidered kerchief Mirei had commandeered from an elderly witch who had spent most of her active years in Kalistyi. Carefully applied cosmetics downplayed Ashin’s bone structure and gave her a sallow, pinched look.

Mirei’s hair was also brown, but its length had posed a problem. There were no good wigs at Starfall—nothing she would trust to withstand even a minute’s encounter with anyone—and short hair on a woman was rarely found outside of Hunters, mercenaries, and guards.

So she’d decided to be a man instead. She wasn’t a very
large
man, but her tough build helped sell the image, and her breasts were small enough to bind flat easily. Men’s clothing was in shorter supply in Starfall, but Mirei had decided they would be vagrants looking for work; some practical clothing from the Cousins, strategically frayed and rubbed with dirt, suited the image. And vagrants were expected to look patched and makeshift; the lack of properly Kalistyin styles wouldn’t be noticeable.

Mirei didn’t like having her weapons stuffed into a bundle of oddments and rags, inaccessible if she should happen to need them, but the disguise would keep them safer than her blades would. The main lack was horses. Not for the Ladyship of an entire domain would she attempt translocating
those
with them, not to mention that vagrants rich enough to ride would look odd.

“I don’t think I need to give you specific instructions,” Satomi said. “You know the situation as well as we do, and you know what we want to accomplish and avoid. As for how you’ll carry it out, you’ll have to decide that as it happens.” She smiled at both of them, but especially at Mirei. “Fortunately, you’re well-qualified for that kind of responsibility. So I’ll merely remind you to be cautious, and promise that we will pray for your success.”

“Thank you, Aken,” the two chorused, and repeated their thanks as Koika and Rana added their own well-wishes.

Ashin shouldered the bundle; Mirei didn’t want to try to work the spell movements with it getting in the way. Straightening from picking it up, Ashin caught her eye and grinned. “No, I’m not reconsidering. Cast the spell.”

Mirei swallowed the question unasked, grinned back, and did.

Chapter Fifteen

Once Mirei and Ashin were gone, Satomi went to her office and tried to get work done. Her mind kept wandering, though, ricocheting endlessly between the problem of Eikyo and the question of what was happening in Kalistyi. Two days yet, before Mirei and Ashin were supposed to meet Kekkai. She had to be patient. What was she going to do about Eikyo and the Cousins if they’d discovered her ruse? Soon a message appeared on one of her many sheets of enchanted paper: Falya’s description of Lyonakh was good, and Mirei and Ashin had arrived safely. Satomi exhaled a sigh of relief, and tried to make herself concentrate on other things.

The question she and Koika had debated privately was, why did Kekkai want to leave? And why so abruptly? Koika pointed to that as a sign that this
was
a trap; Satomi wasn’t so sure. It might be that Kekkai had asked Arinei or Shimi about Tari’s assassination, and that the response she had received had so appalled her that she felt the need to leave. Or that asking had led to a confrontation that made her fear that
her
life was in danger. It had to be something extreme; less than a day had passed between their secret conversation and the arrival of the note.