No, it was magic! It was Fire magic, the complement and perfect partner to Air—Fire magic being directed by the sure hand of someone who, if she was not yet a Master, would certainly one day become one!
Before he could wonder where she had suddenly gotten that skill, a set of shields grew up around both of them; slowly, so slowly that at first he thought the perimeter of warming around him was some side-effect of the magic she was working on him. The he realized that she was building shields—not as he would have expected out of a Fire Mage, with a showy rush of upwelling, vibrant power, but slowly, as if beginning from the barest, glowing coals and building a fire by patiently feeding those coals a little air, a little fuel, straw by straw.
By that time he was no longer shaking; though his head still ached and he felt sick, his mind was clear again. Not that he wasn't afraid— and so was she, he sensed it in the rigidity of her body where it lay wedged against his, and the way she was trembling—but fear was no longer paralyzing him.
I need to help her—and it has to be just as subtle, so that we don't alert Alison to what we're doing.
First he needed to help her with those shields. Then—could he call a Sylph and sent it for help? Would one even come so near the poisonous, dark Earth power that Alison was raising?
He had to try; the nearest help was Lady Virginia, and the only way to get word to her was via an Air Elemental.
But it would be the first time he had called one since the crash. Would they even come to him anymore?
He's awake! That was more than Eleanor had hoped for; she hadn't even cared that he was shaking hard enough to rattle both of them. She'd been hearing bits about this "shellshock" business from Sarah, and it didn't surprise her at all that Reggie suffered from it—fine, so he was overwhelmed by fear. Well, she had the counter to fear, the weapon to drive it back. Fear couldn't stand against the fire of passion.
But one thing did surprise her. Before, it had been as if he was surrounded by an impenetrable wall that allowed nothing arcane to get in at him—but which was also opaque to his senses so that he never knew that she was a Fire Mage. Now—now he was open.
Open enough that she responded to his fear completely on instinct. She put her hand over his heart, and willed her power into him.
Fire—
Passion. Courage. Heart. Fire was all of these things and more, but these were the ones that were important now, to shore up his crumbling emotions and give him strength to find his feet again. She sensed it, she knew it; that was all he needed, just a little help—he wanted to fight his own fear, but he was so worn by it that he hadn't the strength. Very well; he should have some of hers.
And when she sensed he was no longer shaking, she went to work building shields around the two of them, starting with the merest trace of power, layering them up slowly, so that—she hoped—Alison wouldn't notice what was happening until it was too late.
It was after the first three or four layers had been constructed that she sensed another power joining hers.
She had never felt Air magic before, but even if her inner sight hadn't shown her the soft blue glow of it, she had no doubt of what it was; there was a lightness to it, the coolness of intellect, and a liveliness. Even as he layered in his own subtle shields, interleaving them with hers, she felt his magic feeding hers, Fire and Air mingling until the blending was far more powerful than the mere sum of both. And at that moment she felt her own courage rise.
She was terribly glad that he had joined her in creating the shields that surrounded them both, because when she finally threw off the blanket they had bundled her in and sat up, trusting that by this time Alison was so deeply involved in her own magics that she wouldn't notice anything else going on, what she saw made her lose her hard-won courage for a moment.
The very stones of this Neolithic monument were glowing a muddy, ugly yellow with Alison's newly raised power. Oh, not glowing to ordinary sight, but to the trained Inner Eye of a magician there was no mistake, none at all. This was an old, old power, and it answered to Alison slowly, but it was answering. And it was as dark a power as Alison could have wished.
She pulled the blanket off Reggie's head and tugged at his shoulder; as he sat up, much more slowly than she had, she didn't have to direct his attention to the stones. He saw it on his own.
He pulled her head towards his face, and put his mouth right up to her ear to whisper, "That's not good."
She nodded.
"We have to get out of here now," he continued, urgently. "Can help me get to my feet?"
She nodded harder.
She got to her feet—slowly, and with a great care for making sure she didn't break a twig or dislodge any rattling stones. But there was one thing that she she knew she had to do if they were going to walk out of here.
She had to find him some sort of support, a stick he could use as a cane. His knee could not possibly be in good shape right now.
Except, of course, that she couldn't actually see in the shadow-shrouded woodlot, in the dark of night, to find any such thing.
All right. I need someone—or something—that can see.
With infinite care, she pushed out the shields on the forest-side of their protections, until they extended well into the undergrowth. Then she called a Salamander.
She stipulated that it was to be a very, very small Salamander, the kind that had first come to her, scarcely bigger than a tiny kitten. Alison hadn't noticed the little creatures when they were under her own roof; with luck, she wouldn't notice one now.
She had no fire for it, and this was far, far too close to inimical power. She wasn't sure any Fire Elemental would answer her here.
But her heart leapt when, without so much as a spark of real fire to feed from—it still camel It wreathed apprehensively around her wrists and through her fingers, every movement of it telling her that it was not happy to be near so much dark power. She soothed it as best she could, and tried to impress on its mind what she needed—a good, stout stick, sound and strong, and not too short.
It hesitated for a moment, regarding her with glowing yellow eyes, then darted off into the brush, coursing back and forth like a beagle on a scent, but staying within the protection of the shields. She knew when it had found what she had asked for by the way that it darted out of the brush towards her, then back in again. It wasn't going to talk to her, not here. Wise. Alison might well hear such a thing.
She followed it, treading very carefully, never putting her full weight on her foot until she knew there was nothing beneath it to make a sound that would betray them. For the first time, she was glad of her worn shoes; the soles were so thin she could easily feel what was under her feet. Pushing carefully through the undergrowth, she found the Salamander running up and down the length of the stick, which was a bit longer than the canes Reggie normally used—more like a quarterstaff. Well, that was not such a bad thing. It might make a better weapon at need, and the longer it was, the less likely it would be that Reggie would need to lean on her.