Disclaimer: I do not own anything, Tamora Pierce owns all.
A/N: It's getting closer to war time and you will start to see the pressure build.
Chapter 17 – Antimere Magic
The warding spell went up without a hitch. The six friends headed back toward the palace with a nervous silence between them. Numair was muttering information to himself trying to figure out what was going on. Daine walked a comfortable pace behind him with Alanna right beside her. The more Numair muttered, in his own little world, the more George started to snigger from the rear. Daine looked back at him and smiled. He caught up to the two ladies. "Does that ever both'r ye', Daine?" he asked in a quiet voice.
She stifled a giggle and shook her head. "Lindhall asked me the same thing a couple days ago. I told him it's kinda' dear. Plus you learn lots if you listen in." Alanna began to giggle and stuffed a fist in her mouth. "I've heard him talk in his sleep sometimes when we camp too. I s'pose with a brain like his it just spills over." George lost his battle to laugh quietly then. Numair looked back at them confused. Ahead of him, Jon and Thayet turned back to see what the commotion was too.
Daine shot George a dirty look and said to Numair, "You don't wanna' know." Numair returned to his thoughts and Jon wrapped his arm around Thayet and the two resumed their pace. So the six walked in silence a few more paces before Daine asked loudly, "Has it been two hours, Numair?"
He stopped and said, "Close but not quite."
"So could we still map this?"
"Yes," he answered. "If you wish, but we will need to hurry."
"I'll race ya'," she said, taking off at a run. Glancing over her shoulder she saw him shrug to Alanna and George and break into a run behind her.
"With those short legs," he shouted from behind her, "You'll only win if you cheat."
From behind them, she heard Jon call, "When you children decide the victor, come to my study."
Numair could run quite fast when he wanted to. His long legs soon carried him ahead of her. He was leaning against her door when she got there. He was winded but tried to look relaxed. "I can't believe you actually ran," he said. "I was sure you'd shift."
"I'm getting tired of putting my clothes back on," she said as she opened the door. "But what I want to know is how you stay in shape when you've always got your nose in a book."
"Running to catch up for classes I've nearly missed by having my nose in a book, of course," he teased from the doorway. He never walked in the room but stayed respectfully outside the door. Daine grabbed the cartography kit and joined him outside. "Magelet, I don't think I said thank you."
"You don't have to. We look after each other, remember?"
He smiled and reached as if to brush her cheek, but pulled his hand back. "We should join the others." The two walked to Jon's study where Jon, Thayet, Alanna, George, Tkaa and Kitten were already gathered to discuss what they had seen.
"Daine, Numair," Jon greeted when they arrived. "I asked Tkaa by to try to sort this out."
"Good idea," Numair said. "We retrieved Daine's cartography set. She wants to map the area before it's gone from her mind."
"Ohh, is that what the race was about." Jon looked like he was trying to be too dignified to laugh. He did slide over and offer Daine the use of his desk.
The two unrolled a sheet of parchment and Numair pulled out a little vial of powder. "Depolnate powder," he instructed and shook a little into her palm. "Rub it into both hands and put a dot right there." He had indicated a spot on her forehead centered between her eyes.
"Numair, it's blue," she said skeptically.
"Yes, Magelet, I know that. It will fade to invisible when your two hours are up. So you should hurry." She did as she was told. "Now pick an implement and the black ink." The black is normal ink but works with the depolnate for your outline."
She picked the stylus with the finest tip and dipped it carefully in the ink. When she touched the tip to the parchment, she almost couldn't believe how quickly her own hand sketched a perfect outline of the area, even placing a dotted line for the stream and the road. She turned to Numair. "Should I use black for the pit too?"
"Yes. Since we don't know what it is, we'll have to just treat it as a normal crevasse for now."
She drew the pit onto the map and stepped back to look. Then she turned to grin at Numair and realized they'd drawn an audience.
"Your blue spot is fading. Let's finish up," Numair said. He handed her the blue ink. "This is water. When you draw it in, make sure you use it with the natural flow of the stream." She picked up a clean stylus and dipped it in the blue ink. When the stream was drawn in, she could swear she heard water as well as watching what looked like a moving stream on the parchment.
"Hills," he said next, handing her a light brown ink. When she smoothed it in with a brush, it appeared raised as if the parchment were no longer just two dimensional. "Trees," Numair directed handing her another bottle and a fresh implement. She dotted in trees without having to really think about where they should be. Again, they seemed to rise up out of the paper, although they didn't look much like trees.
"This is amazing," Jon said. "We have not had a map of the forest this accurate before."
"You have an ink for wild life herds," Numair held up a bottle that looked burgundy. "An ink for tides to show ebb and rip," he held up a blue-green. "Enemy troupes," he held up an orange bottle. "Friendly troups," he held up a purple bottle. "Immortal camps," this ink looked gold. "And these are regular inks for sand, swamp land, rock ledges, and buildings," these bottles were taupe, olive, grey and silver, respectively. "You also have a removal potion," he said holding out a brightly colored bottle, "and several regular mapping tools including a strait edge and protractor." He lifted each one to show her. "If you look in the mirror you will see that your blue spot is gone, although you could just look at your hands." It was an automatic reaction, even though she believed him.
Daine presented the map to Jon, who took it like a cherished treasure. She beamed at Numair. "This is the most wondrous gift you've ever given me, and you've given me lots of wondrous gifts." Numair rewarded her with a smile that made her knees feel watery. She looked up and saw Thayet, Alanna and George grinning too.
Kit was tired of being ignored and came over and chattered curiously. "You stay out of the ink, young lady," Numair admonished, shaking a finger at the dragon and smiling. She treated him to a chain of affronted clicks. He listened to her patiently and sarcastically responded, "I love you too."
"That's not what she said," Tkaa informed him, drawing a roar of laughter from the others in the room. Numair just nodded and Kit whistled something. "But she says she does love you."
"Awww," Thayet said, drawing giggles from all the women in the room.
"Now to the matter at hand," Jon reminded. He was wearing a smirk but trying valiantly not to show his amusement.
Daine washed out her tools and returned to discuss the chasm with the others. She sat down and pulled Kit onto her lap. It felt strange to think that Kit might be really attached to Numair. She wondered if he was that fond of Kit. It seemed like he might somehow think of her as a child rather than a dragon. He always gave Kit birthday and midwinter gifts just like Daine did. It occurred to her that Kit might think of Numair as her Da since he had always been there. It was Numair who found the Dragon Codex to help Daine raise her properly, and Numair had given her one of her first bottles of milk when she was still tiny. Daine looked up at Numair and realized that he was looking at Kit with a strange expression. She wondered if he might be thinking the same thing. Then she realized she was missing the conversation.
"…was the only one who didn't seem effected by it," Jon was saying.
Tkaa nodded contemplatively. The tall basilisk had seated himself gracefully in a chair with his tail tucked discreetly through the armrest. He turned to Daine and asked, "What did it feel like to your magic?"
"It made my stomach turn. But I never felt like I was in danger. When it tried to pull Numair in, I felt like he was in danger. I can't explain that really. It was almost as if it wanted to swallow him."
"Does it – did it seem to you to have consciousness?" Numair asked. "Did it feel anything like an immortal or animal?"
"No. It seemed like a magic– no, that's not right. It seemed like an unmagic – like everything the opposite. Does that make sense?"
"More than you might realize," Tkaa answered. He seemed to be struggling to remember something.
Numair looked at him and asked, "Antimere mage?" Tkaa nodded. Numair turned and stared directly at Jon. "I think we need to bring Harailt into this."
"I'm sure that will be fine but might I ask what an antimere mage is?" Jon said.
"In the universe there are things which are antonymous; good versus evil, spectral colors of red and green, or up as opposed to down," Tkaa answered. Antimere mages are rare opposites of what you are. Their magic destroys other magic. It might very well feel opposite to someone who had not encountered it before."
"It is a form of gift but it destroys magic and anyone who holds it. It's not the kind of magic that can be learned. You must be born with the ability, rather like seers or healers," Numair explained. "But I think it nearly always destroys the mage who possesses it which is why antimere mages are so rare. Harailt wrote a study on it when he attended the City of the Gods. He had a relative who possessed it. I read the study, but he's the expert."
Jon sent a speaking spell to summon Harailt.
"If this was cast by an antimere mage, do you think we can remove it from the forest?" Alanna asked.
"I'm not sure. We could look for spells, but it's hard to say at this juncture. The aspect that concerns me most is that it shouldn't be so well hidden even if it is the creation of an antimere mage. To someone like me, it should still be visible. I see magic of all types. It's why I will always know which animal is Daine, even if she's a sparrow hiding in a flock of other sparrows." Numair continued. "This should be no different. Somehow this is more complex than anything we have previously encountered."
"If this is antimere magic, what is that pit?" Daine asked as she patted Kit's head.
"The simplest example I can provide is that it is a pocket," Tkaa answered. "But I cannot guess what it is designed to hold."
"And if it eats magic – it does right?"
"More or less," Numair answered.
"So why doesn't it affect my magic?" Daine asked.
"Yours is not Gift, Magelet. Wild magic is raw power in nature itself," Numair answered.
"But I can get used up. I get tired just like you do."
"It isn't the same," Tkaa answered before Numair could. "The human part of you succumbs to exhaustion and your magic cannot be controlled then. But it still exists. Also, I think this should affect you unless you aren't fully mortal."
"We're back to this again," Alanna said, tugging at her short copper locks. "Daine, do you remember when we met Cearl and we were all amazed at the likenesses? You said then that you thought you might know who your father was."
Daine shifted uncomfortably. "It's weird. When I died in Carthak I had a vision of my ma with someone. I don't know if it's real though so –"
"Might you be God born?" Jon asked gently.
"Maybe – but it might just be wishful thinking too. I never had a da to claim me. And I don't think I should say it unless I know it to be true. But the Badger knows who my da is." She looked over at Numair and saw a strange look on his face. He stood and went to the window and she wondered if maybe he didn't like the idea that she might be God born. She couldn't lose him over something she couldn't confirm. "Really, I don't know. He was probably somebody who just didn't want me."
"Don't ye' go thinkin' like that, youngling. What man would'na been proud ta' call ye' their daughter?" George remarked. Daine saw Alanna smile at him and pat his knee.
"George is right, Daine," Thayet said. "You are a wonderful girl and any man would be pleased to claim you."
Daine smiled at her friends, but stole glances at Numair, who remained facing the window. "That's sweet and all, but I have trouble keepin' swains. My da might not like my four-legger friends any more than they do."
"It's not the same relationship, Daine," Alanna said. "But you will find someone someday who doesn't mind your animal friends. I promise."
Daine looked up at Numair who had turned toward her but remained silent.
"Look at it like this, Daine. If ye' ask a feller if he'd mind sharin' a bed with you and two wolverines an' he don't run, he's the one for ye'," George said. Almost everybody laughed at that. But Daine did see Alanna shoot George a warning look.
Numair spoke up softly, "The day Daine shares a bed with two wolverines, I'll be worried. They don't even like each other when they're mating." Daine laughed and nodded.
Thayet, who had been watching all of this with great focus suddenly asked, "You died in Carthak?" It was then that Harailt knocked on the door.