Hours later, he still sat curled up in the stone corner. His legs and arms were numb, his back felt like one huge cramp, but it was nothing compared to what was going on inside his head.
All right Briar, he thought to himself firmly, though this had done no good so far. Stop panicking. It's not the first time you've been without magic, after all.
But the last time had been years ago. He had been what? Eleven, twelve? He, Daja and Tris had given their magic to Sandry so that she could map the way their power had been inexplicably entwined by her spell during the earthquakes in Emelan. He remembered the way they had done it: just meditation, and then he had made a vine of his magic, and passed it to Sandry. It had felt like a gentle tug, and then for a few days he couldn't mind-call, or talk to plants, or use his power.
This was different. This hurt, with every fibre of his being, he felt the agony of loss, what had been there for so long was now missing. His ties to the plant world, his ties to the girls. It was a part of him. It was like losing all his limbs, or his sight, or hearing, of all of them all of a sudden.
And more than that, he had lost his only hope of any way out of here. He needed magic.
He shook his head and forced himself to think. He had survived without magic the first ten or so years of his life, right? He had survived worse than this on his wits, his clever fingers and his knives. None of that was going to be much use here, though. He still had his boot knives, but they were too big to fit the keyhole in the stone door. He couldn't cut through rock.
Where's Evvy when you need her? he thought ruefully.
They would have to feed him, he thought, if they meant to keep him alive. The man - Raymus - had taken his magic, and it would only work as long as Briar was alive, surely. He struggled to remember what he had learned about such things from Niko, in the early years of his training. He could remember about two hundred herbs, their properties, where they could be found, and what poultices and potions they were good in, but magical theory tended to go in one ear and out the other. He was almost sure they had to keep him alive. Which meant they would have to feed him. Which meant someone was bound to come in, sooner or later.
He stretched his legs out, wincing as feeling came back to them in the form of vicious pins and needles. He unsheathed a boot knife, his hand brushing the boot as he did so. Normally he would have felt the strengthening and cleaning spells Sandry had woven into them, but now they just felt like plain old leather.
He turned the knife over in his fingers. Whoever came through that door, he decided, was going to get a face full of the old Roach, since he wasn't exactly Briar Moss, Green Mage, anymore.
The only problem was, he wasn't sure if this plan would work. The last time he had seen Raymus, a terrible paralysing fear had come over him, and all he had been able to do was cower. Could that happen again? The more he thought about it, the more he was sure it would. The red-eyed monster would come back and he would be helpless. The - Briar thought a particularly vicious Sotaten expletive - man would probably take his knives, too. He tucked the blade back into his boot. Better to save his resources.
~*-BBB-*~
~*-BBB-*~
He thought he slept, but the stone floor was hard and, well, stone. What he wouldn't give for a soft bed of moss, now. He wondered what the girls were doing. Were they worried about him? They would have noticed by now that he hadn't returned from the mind-healer. It must be gone midnight, maybe even morning. It was hard to tell time passing in the dark room.
He was roused by a noise outside the door. Warily he sat up, rubbing life back into his hands and feet. There was a muffled sound, like something falling, then a muttered curse, and then something clicked in the lock.
The man came in, backwards, hauling a mattress through a space that was too small for it. He glanced over his shoulder, once, but otherwise paid Briar hardly any attention.
Briar frowned. He didn't feel afraid. In fact, he felt more sure of his own mind than he had in hours, except for being really bloody angry. He scrambled up to his feet. "Hey," he said sharply.
The wispy-haired man looked up at him, surprised, and Briar felt more confused than ever. The man was looking at him as though he hadn't expected him to be there. Or maybe he had been expecting someone else. There was no hint of red in those greyish-green eyes now. Really familiar eyes, Briar thought, not for the first time.
"Who are you?" Briar demanded. "Why are you keeping me here - why did you take my magic?"
"Me?" the man seemed to relax a little. "You mistake me."
Briar felt an odd suspicion come over him. "Who are you?" he repeated.
"My name is Euan. I remember you, you were… in the market, the day before yesterday."
Briar frowned. He remembered how the man he had chased after hadn't seemed to recognise him at all. And now he came to think about it, this man had a kinder face than the one who had put the fear spell on him.
"Yes, I was," he said shortly. "Are you telling me you had no idea you were going to kidnap me when you saw me?"
"I didn't kidnap you," the man sighed. "You've met my brother, Raymus. I'm sorry about that."
"You're sorry?" Briar said incredulously. "He took my magic! What is he using it for? How did he take it?"
"I don't know," Euan said. "I know very little about magic."
Briar hesitated. He couldn't tell now, of course, but he remembered the man from the market had not had a scrap of magic that he could see. Suddenly it seemed to make perfect sense that there were two separate men.
"He told me he caught a mage," Euan explained, sheepishly. "But I expected a man. You're hardly more than a boy."
Briar glared at him. "Thank you," he said in his most viciously polite voice.
"No offence meant. I really am sorry about this, you know, but my brother was very adamant that we need you." He gestured to the mattress, which at least looked clean. "I brought you this, I thought you should at least be comfortable."
Briar wanted to strangle this dumb blond bleater, but he kept his calm. "Why does he need me?" he asked.
Euan sighed again. He sighed in such a way that he deflated, so that Briar thought a decent gust of wind might push him over. "My brother is very ill," he explained. "He needs your magic to keep him alive."
Briar frowned. "That's nonsense," he said. "There's no such illness that would be healed by green magic."
"Raymus was very sure," the man said. "We've been looking for you a long time."
"Me?" Briar was more confused than ever now. "Why me?"
"I told you I know very little about magic. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be talking to you." He turned and started for the door, but Briar was quicker. In an instant he had drawn a boot knife and thrown himself at the man, slamming him face first against the stone wall. He held the knife close to Euan's throat, just touching, so that the man could feel the cold steel against his skin.
"Now," said Briar. "You're going to tell me where I am. And then, you're going to tell me where Raymus is, and then," he said, putting enough pressure on the knife that the man whimpered. "Then, I'm going to get my magic back."