The Wellspring Read online

  “I think I’m glad you ignored my inquiries,” Yule told him, anger overriding her prior trepidation. “I used to think you were arrogant, but at least inclined toward personal generosity when it came to worthwhile causes even if just to make yourself look good to the public. I hoped to get your support for the Reclamation Project, even if it was just for some small word of advice, or a single image to promote it, but now I see how ridiculous it was of me to have such an idea.”

  “You’ve seen through my façade of philanthropy, have you?”

  Yule was too angry to hear the hint of humor in his cultured voice. “As a matter-of-fact I have. The arrogance isn’t an affectation, the philanthropy if the act. You’ve tricked the masses into believing you’re a good person at heart, who’s just been misunderstood, or maybe a little jaded by his title. But they fell for your act, just like I did.”

  “But not anymore.”

  “Not anymore,” she bitterly agreed. “You’re like every other Magus—power and title are all that matter to you.”

  “Prosser said nothing in his defense to that, driving in silence until they passed a large white sign with a reflective, violet circle in its center, the universal symbol for spell-casters that they’d entered a zone cleared for vehicular wind travel.

  Yule shivered as they passed the sign, not out of remorse or fear for her tirade against the driver, but because she felt power swirl about the car as the man at the wheel summoned the wind and the highway vanished.

  Of course, it wasn’t the highway that vanished, it was the car and its passengers. The stillness of that travelling place called the wind by spell-casters continued when the car emerged at—but Yule didn’t know where, darkness surrounded the stopped car that Prosser put into park before shutting off the engine and slowly turning to look at his stowaway.

  She drew back from the penetrating hazel gaze that turned on her as the austere, aristocratic face came into view. She didn’t appreciate his silent, encompassing appraisal of her, and although it was bad manners for someone of decelerated magic to behave aggressively toward more powerful spell-casters, she glared defiantly at him—a tactic which failed utterly to change his stormy countenance.

  Yule finally opened her mouth to express her outrage at her current circumstances, but he seemed to take that as a sign, suddenly exiting the car, opening the rear door and extending a hand to her with an overtly imperious flourish, clearly wanting her to understand that freedom was his to take or grant.

  “Is this a bus stop or police station?” she forced bravado as she began to get out of the car, ignoring his hand.

  “Neither,” he replied, his hand closing firmly, but not painfully, around her right wrist.

  She looked around and realized the darkness was incomplete. Tiki torches flickered around the circular driveway crowded on all sides by tropical plant life. The middle of this circle was occupied by a large fountain where marble mermaids splashed each other and dolphins sported in the pool surrounding their trailing tail fins. In another moment Yule picked out a break in the line of lush plant life where more tiki flames indicated a path. She briefly wondered at the fire hazard the noted a small golden aura surrounding each flame. Unlike the flickering firelight these auras held steady, identifying them to her as protective spells, probably placed by a magically-inclined gardener.

  “Where are we?” she demanded.

  “I thought I made that abundantly clear when we started,” he replied, releasing her wrist then retrieving his suitcase.

  “We didn’t start anything,” she argued. “I told you I don’t know how—where are you going?” she exclaimed as he walked away from her and the car.

  “To check in,” he replied, voice fading as he vanished into the shadows of the path footsteps absorbed by the sand footing. Yule’s composure failed her when he disappeared. Not only was she alone in a dark parking lot, she hadn’t a clue where she was, and Prosser might have vanished on the wind, not simply along the path.

  “Wait!” she exclaimed, blundering into the foliage-crowded path. “I don’t know where I am!” Since he’d used the wind for a portion of the trip he might have moved them to the opposite side of the world. The curves of the path were serpentine, nearly blind, and she gave a tiny shrill when she almost collided with the man, who’d stopped.

  “No need for all that,” his tone almost scolding, brought her back from panic to ire. “I haven’t abandoned you.”

  “I wouldn’t care if you did,” she replied acridly. “But at least do me the courtesy of telling me where I am.”

  “I’ve told you, a bed-and-breakfast by the bay.” He continued along the path. “Registry is this way.”

  Yule followed, glaring at his back. “That isn’t what I mean and you know it. I want to call for a cab and I need to know where to have it pick me up. I don’t know why you brought me here at all.”

  “Presumptuous of you, isn’t it?” he asked. “You got into my car.”

  “I explained—”

  “I’d say that means you invited yourself,” he interrupted without looking back.

  Yule scowled as she followed him up a short flight of stairs, across a wide, covered porch and into the bright bed-and-breakfast beach house foyer. She was too upset to fully appreciate the bleached plank floors and subtle, sea foam-softened color scheme, but subconsciously she appreciated the lack of tacky beach junk littering the place, as some decorators tended to favor.

  Rather than approach the weather-washed welcome podium supporting a large, open registration book, he only waved a hand at it as he led the way to the pale, plank staircase. Yule looked at the book and saw Prosser’s name appear, in gold leaf, on an empty line.

  “I’ll wait here for the receptionist,” Yule announced as she stopped at the foot of the staircase.

  “You’ll be waiting until morning. Staff doesn’t man the desk at night. It isn’t that kind of business.”

  She could tell by his phrasing that he meant this was not a normal owned and operated business, but one managed by spell-casters and therefore spells to handle assorted, mundane tasks abounded. The registry book could check people in and out by itself and the seemingly vulnerable, unguarded office likely had protective spells or even hidden security imps. Such imps ranged from mischievous to deadly and she looked around nervously, hastening after Prosser, who hadn’t paused in his ascension—further annoying her.

  “I don’t know who you think you are,” Yule began, fidgeting behind him at a door he paused to unlock with a crystal.

  “Magus Teomond,” he told her, as if he thought she sought a reply. The door dissolved at the touch of the crystal and he entered the room. “Come in,” he invited in a way that made Yule certain he’d simply spell her inside if she failed to accept the invitation.

  She stepped into the room, distractedly noticing the vintage-chic beach house décor, but far more interested in finding something imprinted with the B-and-B’s address, or at least its name. No obvious stationary lay on the small table or writing desk (she wondered if people actually wrote these days) nor were there destination leaflets touting this or that local interesting sight to see or activity in which to indulge.

  “Yule took out her cell phone. “I still can’t get a signal,” she informed the man who was laying his suitcase on the cottage-style, waist high bureau.

  “I know.”

  “You’re blocking my phone?” she angrily accused.

  “Not here. The proprietors encourage a relaxed, nostalgic atmosphere that discourages cell phone and computer use.”

  “Do they,” she remarked tersely, looking around the room. She spotted a large, retro phone on the right night table by the bed and stalked purposefully over to it, lifting the receiver.

  “You’re an odd young woman,” he remarked as she determined how to get an outside line. “You go to all this trouble to get me alone then leave?”

  Yule stopped pushing buttons and turned to him, jaw slightly slack in surprise. “Excuse me? Who
the hell do you think you are?”

  “Magus Teomond,” he replied casually. “The man you wanted to convince to come out in favor of Marc Woodmont’s Reclamation Project, or has that changed?”

  “Of all the arrogant!” She slammed the receiver back into its cradle, call for a cab forgotten. “You ignore all of my attempts to contact you, and drag me out to this remote location then have the audacity to act as if you’re doing me a favor by noticing me!”

  Prosser seemed bemused. “Obviously, I did notice. Rather difficult not to when you stow away in my back seat.”

  Yule’s full lips set in a grim line. “For the last time; I didn’t stow away in your back seat. I have no idea how I got in your damn car!”

  Prosser appraised her. “I think you’re serious,” he remarked with the attitude of someone making a clever deduction.

  “Of course I’m serious!” she snapped irritably. “Why would you think I wasn’t?”

  “To be brutally honest, being stalked by lovely, enthusiastic women hoping to get my attention is a common, not entirely unpleasant occupational nuisance for me.”

  Yule flushed warmly at that, not so annoyed that she missed the compliment. “I assure you, the attention I’ve been seeking is entirely charitable!” His undisguised amusement at her choice of words made her cheeks fairly blaze with embarrassment. “The charity being the Reclamation Project, of course,” she added.

  “Of course,” he concurred. “Which begs a very serious question, now that I truly understand the circumstances—how did you come to be in the back of my car, and why?”

  “And I keep telling you—”

  “That you don’t know,” he interrupted, looking thoughtful. “But why don’t you know?”

  “I—don’t think I understand your question,” she admitted.

  “What were you doing just before you found yourself in my car?”

  Yule faced having to reveal her skulking. “I was out,” she generically explained. “I paused to examine some ornamental landscaping and the next thing I knew I was opening my eyes in your car.”

  “If you weren’t drugged—”

  “Oh, no. There’s no possibility of that,” she assured him, relieved that she’d managed to avoid specifying exactly where she’d been out.

  “Then it must have been a spell.”

  Yule flinched as if stung. “A spell? Why does it have to be a spell?”

  “What else?” he asked. “Does your head hurt as if you’d been hit?”

  “No,” she told him, reaching up to gingerly touch the back of her head, just to be certain.

  “It must be a spell.”

  “But why in the world would someone do it?” she exclaimed. “What does it accomplish other than embarrassing the hell out of me?”

  “That could be it.”

  “Who’d want to embarrass me?” she wondered aloud, Brenna’s aloof image springing to mind, but she dismissed that notion. Brenna might delight in embarrassing her, but this machination required too much time and effort the privileged young woman would rather spend shopping or socializing.

  “Not you, me,” he corrected her. “What if this situation had spiraled out of control for one reason or another? If you had jumped from my car, or called the police claiming I’d kidnapped you?”

  “The latter is still up for debate,” she reminded him.

  He smiled at that and became the familiar, media-admired persona she recognized. “Granted, now that I’m aware of the actual circumstances. Imagine the media frenzy, the negative impact to my career.” The smile faded, sunlight removed by a storm cloud’s shadow and Yule repressed a shiver, reminded again that a Magus was not a spell-caster with whom to trifle.

  “This was sabotage,” he observed coldly.

  Chapter Two

  “The difficulty is trying to buy all of the old Groves if a developer takes an interest,” Yule was still leaning forward, dark eyes alive with earnestness. “We can’t compete with their kind of capital and spell-casters are becoming apathetic about old, powered-down Groves.”

  “Today’s young people have no patience for the past. Your cause has fallen prey to the scourge of disposability,” he observed, not without compassion, she thought.

  After a flurry of angry spell-calls which set his personal security force scrambling to track down the source of the predicament in which they found themselves, Magus Teomond invited Yule to have a glass of wine with him and tell him about her reason for trying to arrange a meeting. She began tentatively, uncertain of how he’d react, but as time passed and he actually seemed to listen, she allowed her passion for the subject matter to animate her discourse.

  “No one seems to be able to generate the right spark to kindle a flame of interest.”

  She thought the corners of his lips twitched upward. “How poetic,” he teased. “Are those your words or Mr. Woodmont’s?”

  Yule felt her cheeks grow hot. “Well, I might have heard him say something along those lines,” she admitted. “But believe me, it’s how I feel.”

  “Of that I’m very sure,” his teasing manner continued.

  “This is important to me, Magus,” she defended. “And personal,” she added reluctantly.

  “Oh?” His teasing demeanor faded.

  Yule nodded. “Yes, you see my Family Grove is one of those diminished-power spots and I—am the end of that Line.”

  “Yes, I thought I sensed a—faint hint of power, but I didn’t want to be rude and ask,” he spoke gently, as if to someone wounded beyond healing. Yule wasn’t sure if his attitude made her feel better or worse.

  “I’m fine,” she said, as if to convince them both. “But I feel particularly connected to the Grove, perhaps because we’re both in the same condition.” She managed a wan smile at this.

  “Is that how you feel, Miss Fiore? Set apart, forgotten and powerless?” He seemed genuinely concerned and Yule felt terribly embarrassed.

  “I just meant that we both seem to be powered down,” she clarified.

  “Oh, I see,” his tone was apologetic. “I didn’t mean to be presumptuous.”

  “That’s all right, Magus.”

  His eyes softened at the corners. “You might want to call me, Prosser.”

  She smiled at his invitation. “And I suppose you may call me, Yule.”

  “Thank you, and now that we’re on less formal terms, may I ask you an impertinent question?”

  “Impertinent in what way?” she asked.

  “The answer really isn’t any of my business, but I’m curious.”

  “Mysterious,” she remarked. “Go ahead.”

  “It’s about the Project, the old Groves; how invested in this cause are you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Take your Grove, for instance, is it so terrible to let it go, now that it’s just a stand of trees again? Groves that have exhausted their power and lie so far removed from the cities—wouldn’t it be simpler, and sensible, to adopt younger Groves planted closer in?”

  “But it’s our heritage, our lineage. Surely you don’t advocate abandoning them?”

  “Heritage and lineage, no, but those are conceptions, ideas. We can’t lose them the way we lose keys, not even if all the Groves in the world were gone.”

  Yule’s expression closed, swiftly fortifying against another perceived attack in the offing. She restrained herself from angrily snapping what would only sound like rhetoric, that the Groves were living testimonials to their ancestors, to the Families who’d passed or were passing. Like me, she thought bitterly. You can’t wait for us to be gone.

  “Reminders aren’t always welcome, are they?” she asked quietly. “It’s not lineage, heritage, or remembering. Forgetting is what spell-casters want.”

  “Forgetting?” he echoed, surprised by the cold, controlled tenor of her voice.

  “Powerless Groves, powerless Families, powerless spell-casters are all reminders that the world is still changing. The magic of this world was banished t
o a place where it expected to flourish, and when that failed we returned in the hopes that, because this world was the original source of our power, it would return. But magic continues to fade and no magic worker cares for reminders.”

  “You think of yourself as an unwanted reminder?"

  "Don’t patronize me,” she retorted. “I’m neither blind nor deaf. I see the disapproval and I hear the whispers. Apparently I am possessed of limitless gall, socializing with spell-casters as if I might consider myself one of them,” her fury was evident in her quiet voice, like low thunder. “The general consensus seems to be that I should restrict my relationships to the average, non-magical humans.”

  Magus Teomond spoke deliberately. “This will probably seem unlikely to you, but I have some acquaintance with the same attitude.”

  “I cautioned you against patronizing me.” She bridled under what she thought was mild mockery.

  “Not at all,” his reply was not defensive in tone. “I didn’t become Magus by shaking hands and kissing the cheeks or curly-haired toddlers,” he advised her. “That came after.” The last was spoken with wry humor.

  “Oh,” Yule remarked with small chagrin. “I didn’t think to compare—not that our positions are comparable, but it didn’t occur to me that you may have experienced the same kind of,” she put a hand over her mouth to stop her nervous prattle.

  This action elicited a vague smile from Prosser. “If I promise not to wind you off to some remote Incan ruin will it help to calm your nerves?”

  “What about a Mayan ruin?” she asked, removing her hand from her mouth.

  His smile was more apparent. “Quite right, there are any number of remote locales to which I might spirit you.”

  “Or even a quaint bed-and-breakfast,” she ventured, rewarded with a chuckle.

  “I see why the intrepid Marc Woodmont sent you to solicit my support, you’re unexpectedly disarming.”

  Unfamiliar with what felt like flirtation, Yule was relatively certain her cheeks grew pink. “I don’t think that was his reasoning at all,” she protested. “We chose our own projects, you see, and I picked you.”