Oh, and if you haven't read T.P. (You BETTER soon, start with "Alanna: The First Adventure"), "the People" refers to animals. Wild magic is where you have magic in a strong connection to animals - healing, talking, and so forth.
Dedication: to Tamora Pierce ... because without her, I wouldn't be writing this and I wouldn't have ... well, I wouldn't have found out a LOT of things! Also I wouldn't be inspired. Thanks!!
Tarnessa moved quietly, effortlessly, swiftly. A normal person would have made sounds echoing all through the forest of crashing in the underbrush, but this was Tarnessa, trained, ready, fast, skilled. Born the daughter of a king, hidden as the daughter of a blacksmith, she was leaving her home to follow the quest that the Great Mother Goddess had set her with.
She stopped, and heard voices and footsteps. She whispered a Word, and instantly she and everything she touched was invisible. She crept back so that the oncomers would not feel her.
"She must be here somewhere," said a deep male voice. "She can't have gotten that far!"
"Who knows, Cor? The Goddess might have helped her along ... Lord Raxley said she said something about a 'fool vision in a dream,'" a thin, oily voice remarked. It sounded - triumphantly confident, Tarnessa decided.
"A vision? I wouldn't mess with it, then," the deep voice replied, a hint of fright in it this time. Tarnessa heard a branch move, and the leaves rustle gently.
"Stop fidgeting," scolded the second voice. "Let's keep going. We have to find her. Remember Lord Raxley's penalty?"
"I remember," the deep voice admitted grudgingly. "Let's keep going."
"I can't believe I was assigned to you," the thin voice muttered, but the deep voice made no reply. Leaves rustled loudly, a twig cracked, and a horse, her rider, and a walking person passed her invisible form by an inch. She shivered, but just a little, and caught her breath instead of letting herself sigh with relief. She whispered the Word she had uttered before, only backwards, and kept going with the protection only of her short dagger and her powerful magic. And the firebird following at a fair distance in the trees.
"The girl's just gone," Yifan Tayner reported. "Just gone. And with magic like that ... she could go anywhere. She's afraid, I suppose. How many have found out she's really the lost Princess?" Hands went up all around. "I supposed as much. She didn't keep it up well, surprising for a girl with as much magic as her. She's got normal magic AND wild magic ..."
"How do you know that?" Duke Naryl of Aidar asked. "Just you and five rejected soldiers, roaming ... how did you stray, anyway?"
"Aiyaliah," Yifan began, with a sigh - she was the first female Knight Commander of the King's Own - "sent me and these five," here he made a gesture toward his companions, "off because we 'weren't doing well' or summat like that. And we were called to help track a lost girl from the village who had magic AND wild magic, and then we started discovering things about the lost Princess from the village records ..." His voice trailed off.
"I see," said Duke Naryl icily. "And you believe there is no reason to send word to anyone. King Tetimus will be half-mad with worry because of you, boy!" The old man's voice shook, just like the rest of his agile body. He was strange to talk to, strange to see, and tedious to listen to. His only problem, the Queen always said, was that he could never get mad properly. The Queen had a nasty temper.
"How were we supposed to send word?" Yifan asked, just as icily. "We looked. The lost Princess's the one with wild magic, not us ... and it's not like the People take too kindly to us anyway. OR the people, for that matter." He grinned in spite of his, and the Duke's, mood.
"But how could she be using it?" the Duke wondered, angry and puzzled. "She hasn't been trained ... there's no way she could be doing anything ... it's just impossible ..."
"Not for her, apparently," Yifan remarked, and shrugged as the Duke glared. "I don't know any more than you do, but we could use your trained magic to help us search."
"First send one of your soldiers to Corus," ordered Naryl. "There's no time to waste!" he added, as Yifan looked apprehensive. "Even though you're runaways ..."
"Rejects," Yifan corrected. "Rejects."
As she ran, Tarnessa tried to remember if she had a brother. She could remember a few of her -
"Mithros, Mynoss, and Shakith!" she whispered. There was a four-feet-wide strip of clear land in the middle of the forest, as if someone had cut it, and she had been about to step in it!
She remembered something a voice of long ago had told her: "Clear spots in a forest is where magic abounds ..."
Tarnessa closed her eyes - she found out that through her eyelids, she could see magic if it was strong enough. Yes, there it was ... the strip was covered in it. So somebody's spelled the forest to find me, she thought, almost smugly. Well, they won't. Blackthorn!
Her last comment was directed at a small firebird beside her. ~I am here~, it replied. ~What do you need me for?~
Could you - Tarnessa hesitated. Could her tiny companion really do it?
~Tell me~, Blackthorn said impatiently. ~Or just keep going. We have no time to waste. The People tell me humans are all around us, waiting.~
Could you burn a path around the strip? It looks like it's spelled to extend across as long as it is tall, but the trees haven't gone yet. They look weak, though.
~I don't understand~, replied Blackthorn. She strutted around uncomfortably. ~I was only a starling until I was enchanted by that mage, you know. It's not like I know everything about magic.~
I know, Tarnessa told her, exasperated. Well ... here's how the spell is set: it's meant to be a huge square, a mile by a mile, I think. But the trees only go away at least nineteen hours after casting ... she gasped, realizing what she'd just said.
~Let's go a different way~, Blackthorn suggested. ~Like I said, the People tell me they're all around us. Or at least -~ Her bird eyes blinked rapidly, as they always did when she was talking to her friends. ~At least around this square~, she continued at last. ~They're closing in on it.~
Then how do we go anywhere? Are they looking for me? What is the square, a locating device like I thought? Force me to walk into the square by surrounding me ... and they must know the People would tell me ... so I'd walk - how could they think I'd be so stupid? - right into the square, and then ... she stopped, realizing that that would depend on their knowing where she was.
"Uh-oh," she whispered aloud, and held Blackthorn as she whispered the Word. She was invisible again, but just to be safe, she whispered another one, and now she made no sound. Quickly, she dashed back through the forest. She'd find a way around the humans. She was sure of it.
A's N: VERY short, I know ... but I wanna see if anybody wants a sequel or not, or what! 'Kay? 'Kay. Good. :)
