The Spell of Rosette - Kim Falconer [73]
She glanced up to the rafters and saw Drayco licking his lips. Scylla hissed, then chortled, then hissed again.
Terrific! ‘Sounds real fun,’ she said under her breath. She lowered her eyes and stared at her bowl. There wasn’t much left, but she suddenly felt full. ‘How long will we be away?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘Will we be on foot or horseback?’
‘Haven’t decided.’
‘Why are we…’
The Sword Master cut her off with a wave of his hand. ‘I can’t tell you anything else about the journey, Rosette de Santo. Stop asking.’
‘What can you tell me?’
‘Nothing, except that it will involve stealth and deception, and you’ll need to be fit. Very fit. How do you go in the cold?’
‘I hate it.’
‘We’ll get you a new sheepskin coat.’
‘Thanks.’ She was silent for a moment. ‘Can I just ask one other thing?’
He crossed his arms in front of his chest and ripples of fear ran down her spine.
‘My apologies, Sword Master.’ She bowed her head. ‘No more questions.’
Well, no more aloud, anyway. He couldn’t control what bounced around in her mind. What could he possibly be up to? Los Loma offered no easy crossing, and though she had never been near the summit, she had some knowledge of what might be found on the other side: the greater mountains of Prieta. One didn’t go there without a good reason. Kreshkali had a stronghold underground, or so she’d heard.
‘Just the four of us?’ she asked, her voice seeming thin and high to her own ears. She didn’t want to anger him further, but if she was going to risk her life, she had a right to know.
Shaking his head with a half grin, An’ Lawrence replied, ‘That’s all for tonight, Rosette. Go and rest. We’ll begin training at dawn. I want you fighting fit in two weeks.’
‘I thought I had three?’
‘Two. We need the final week for something else.’
She pushed back from the table. Summoning her courage, she spoke again: ‘Please tell me this means I’m in line for apprenticeship?’
He looked her up and down. ‘It’s being considered.’
She nodded. ‘Getting ready in two weeks—that’s going to take some magic.’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘I thought that was taboo, especially for an unassigned initiate,’ she probed, emphasising the last two words as she cleared her place.
‘I plan on using what’s necessary, and so will you. Go get some rest, and take your familiar with you.’
Rosette looked up to the rafters. Scylla had her companion backed into a corner, though she was purring like a waterfall.
She likes me, Drayco sent.
‘Are you sure?’ Rosette asked, smiling.
It’s unnerving. How peculiar does this feel? I don’t know what she’s up to.
‘It’s like that, Dray—it’s like that.’
‘What’s like that?’ the Sword Master queried.
She shook her head and nodded towards the ceiling. ‘Just something between them.’
Drayco jumped lightly to the stone floor and stretched before the Sword Master. Rosette was surprised. She didn’t remember him showing such respect to anyone else besides Nell, no matter what their standing in the human order of things.
An’ Lawrence seemed momentarily stunned. Then he smiled and Rosette suspected he’d gotten a message from Scylla, who still hovered amongst the rafters overhead, watching.
The Sword Master roughed Drayco’s neck. ‘Some of us will get along, it seems,’ he said, and showed them to the door.
Nell communicated with the Watcher whenever she felt the need. She used whichever portal was nearest, and today it was in the ruins of Temple Dumarka, half a day’s walk from her cottage, less as the crow flies. All she had to do to link with the Watcher was to touch the field of energy, an undulating electromagnetic pulse that was obvious to any witch of her calibre. She could go there physically—in her body—or simply through the astral space in meditation. Either way, the Watcher’s voice bypassed her empirical senses, communicating on a sub-cellular level. That is, when it chose to communicate at all.
She called it the Sphinx, a being, or composite of beings, who answered her questions with a complexity of riddles, more cryptic than clear. Still she would ask, when the need drove her,