“She is being trained,” Rhyalle explained. “She grows more powerful by the day, it seems. She will become harder to catch, and harder to control.”
The words hit Lady Avelyere with the power of truth, and she found herself nodding in agreement.
“And we grow weary of this brown plain,” Rhyalle admitted.
“We?”
“All of us,” said the student. “And yourself as well, I would guess?”
Lady Avelyere found herself smiling at the accusation. She had not trained her students to be mindless pets, after all, cowed into telling her what they thought she would most like to hear. No, far from it. To join the Coven of Avelyere was to pronounce opinions without fear of retribution.
And Lady Avelyere had to admit, in this instance, Rhyalle was right.
“Go to her secret garden,” she instructed the younger woman. “Gather the rest of your peers, even those in pursuit of Ruqiah, and set the traps, as we discussed. It is time for us to bring little Ruqiah into our net. I have seen enough. We know her strengths and her weaknesses.”
Rhyalle bowed and turned to the other two acolytes.
Lady Avelyere went back to her scrying pool and watched the wolf’s progress. Soon enough, as the sun began to set, she saw through the pool the waving white and brown tents of the Desai.
She dismissed the enchantment and prepared her next spell, a teleport, which put her very near to the Desai and very near to Ruqiah. A simple dweomer of invisibility, another to prevent magical detection, and into the camp walked the diviner, cuite pleased with herself.
“What is it?” Rhyalle asked when Lady Avelyere joined her near the Desai child’s secret garden.
Lady Avelyere shook her head and sighed. “Wizards, both,” she replied.
“Both? Ruqiah and …?”
“And both of her parents,” Lady Avelyere explained with a wide grin. She had watched Ruqiah in the tent with her parents. She had expected a quiet night of hugs and kisses, perhaps a comforting story or two. What she had seen instead was a training session in the magical arts as regimented and trying as anything she would inflict on her own, much older students. Ruqiah’s parents, particularly Kavita, the mother, had been instructing the child on “the glory of At’ar the Merciless, the Yellow Goddess, the bringer of light and fire.” Ruqiah could conju;}span.bigI Lord Ulfbinderonre a fan of flames with ease, and the power of her spell was substantial! Clearly this little child of only a few living years was on the verge of casting fireballs.
Fireballs, though she was just a child!
The thought of it took Lady Avelyere’s breath away.
“Her parents practice the Art?” Rhyalle asked. “But they are Bedine. That is forbidden!”
Lady Avelyere waved her hand to silence her student, for the point was moot, wholly irrelevant even. Lady Avelyere was well aware of the fact that the Bedine counted magic-users among their ranks, whatever the edicts of Shade Enclave. It didn’t matter-to Avelyere or to the Netherese rulers-the ban was in place merely to keep these magic-users in the shadows instead of in a leading role among potentially insurgent tribes.
Rhyalle kept talking, but Lady Avelyere waved her hand all the harder, bidding her to silence. The diviner was considering their plans in light of the new information she had just garnered about Ruqiah. She worked through the expected sequence.
Speed would be the key.
Catti-brie, exhausted from her lessons, didn’t return to her garden that night, or until late the next day, when she trotted among the wind-blown rock walls in the guise of a wolf once more. This had become her favored animal form. She felt so light on her … paws! And her senses were so keen, her hearing and smell particularly, that she felt quite safe loping around the plains.
And she liked the way the world looked through the eyes of a canine, with their broader field of vision. While she missed the vibrant colors of her human eyes, the clarity of the “duller” world amazed her in the distinct structures of the grasses and her ability to detect even the slightest movement.
Still, she saw nothing out of place as she trotted into her refuge.
But something was amiss, she realized quickly, as foreign smells tickled her nose. She glanced all around, then reverted to her human form and continued her scan, beginning a spell to detect any magic that might be around.
Before she had hardly begun it, a wave of dispelling energy washed over her, and a voice from behind her said, “No tricks, little one.”
Catti-brie swung around, to see a beautiful woman dressed in flowing purple and blue robes staring back at her.
And others came into view as well, their mass invisibility dismissed, five similarly dressed but younger women floating just above her garden, their arms outstretched.
“Surrender easily, young one,” a seventh woman said, coming into view beside the oldest of the group, who began to murmur, as if in spellcasting.
Catti-brie’s eyes went wide in the realization that the dreaded Netherese had found her once again.
“We wish to speak with you, Ruqiah,” the newest of the seven said sweetly-too sweetly, and Catti-brie felt the weight of magical suggestion behind the voice. “We are not enemies to you.”
She wanted to believe it-she almost believed it! — but she realized that was the point of the magical enhancement, of course.
Seven against one-seven waiting for her. She could not fight here.
Catti-brie became a bird and flew away.
Or tried to sure what to make oeverythingon, for she came to understand the hard way that the floating five wizards were actually anchor points. The oldest of the group released her spell and the expanse between those five filled with webbing, just as Catti-brie started to fly through it.
She slammed in to the web, quickly entangled. She thought of her mother’s lesson, and knew that fire was her only chance-although she would surely get singed in the effort. Before she could launch any spells, though, she saw sparks all around her, as the five floating wizards ignited their hands, burning free of the web, which now, without anchors, fell to the ground, taking Catti-brie down with it.
She landed hard and felt the breath blown out of her, and in the stunning impact, reverted to her human form, though she found herself no less entangled.
But then the webbing was gone, only a moment later, and a trio of young women rushed over to her.
She became a bear, thinking to tear them apart-or she tried to, for even as she began her enchantment, several waves of dispelling magic assailed her.
Then came a more insidious spell, striking at her mind, numbing her body to the calls of her thoughts, holding her in place. She battled it, and even managed to keep herself somewhat free of its paralyzing grasp. The distraction cost her, though. She felt her hands yanked behind her, magical bindings immediately applied.
She cried out and struggled, but she had only recently turned six and so was no physical match for the older women. A hood went over her head and she was thrown to the ground, and she felt a thick sack being pulled down over her. She kicked out, and took some pleasure in hearing one of the sorceresses yelp in pain. She was already caught, however, and too far into the sack. The others stuffed her legs in behind her, and the drawstring tightly closed.
She struggled, and got kicked hard. Stunningly hard, brutally hard, and then again when she moved some more.
“Speak not and move not!” said the same woman who had first addressed her. “For every word and every shift will bring a beating to you, I promise.”
Stubborn Catti-brie started to protest, and promptly got kicked again. Then someone sat on her, crushing her down, holding her still.
“Kimmuriel is a drow of his word,” Draygo Quick informed Parise Ulfbinder through their crystal ball connection. “He studies with the illithids, and they are very aware that something is indeed transpiring.”