He reached out and touched her energy. Silently she acknowledged his presence and granted him access. Another time he would have been tempted to explore the riches of her mind and spirit, at least until she clamped down her shields and expelled him, but now he had more important work.
Widening his perception, he felt Dee’s energy in the manor house. The old man’s pattern was a structure of immense complexity with a blazing mind at the core. The servants were sparks of light, each unique if one chose to study it closely. He did not so choose, not tonight.
He tuned himself to the earth and the ancient force that resided there. Isabel was right, this was a place of great magic. When he was fully oriented, he flung his consciousness high into the sky, soaring toward the sun like a giant hawk. The circle, the two human figures, the coast and the rolling seas—all dropped away below at a dizzying speed. With Isabel’s power to fuel his flight, he soared higher and higher until his awareness stretched east across the channel, north to Scotland, south to France, west as far as Ireland.
The day before, Isabel had scried the English sending fireships into the Armada. Little damage was done, but only because the Spanish ships had cut their anchors to escape swiftly. Though doing so had saved them from burning, without good anchors the ships were vulnerable when close to shore.
Yes, that was the answer. The Armada was now boxed between the harrying English and the sandbanks off the Dutch province of Zeeland. If he could force the ships onto the shoals many would break up, but the shallow waters and nearby mainland would minimize the cost in lives. He would find no better location to fulfill his mission.
He cast the net of his mind outward to gather the winds, and discovered why Dee’s chart had been equivocal about this time. Throughout the British Isles and the Narrow Seas the airs were light, giving him little to work with.
But there was always weather, even when times were mild. He narrowed his vision to identify wind patterns strong enough to shape to his purpose. Over Holland he found a choppy, gusting breeze. He gathered it in and added a series of light winds from Scotland and Northern England. Then he captured an energetic sea breeze from the coast of Cornwall. On the edge of his awareness he sensed a storm over Bavaria, but it was too distant for summoning.
Each of the elements had its own essence, qualities that made him think of rainbows and musical notes, though in his mind there was neither sound nor color. Painstakingly he wove the winds together into a single powerful chord. Then he shaped them into a northwest wind that hammered inexorably against the ships of the Armada.
As he drove the ships eastward, he sensed sailors frantically trying to beat against the wind while priests knelt to invoke God’s help in avoiding the waiting shoals. The water beneath the hulls changed color and the waves turned choppy as the seas became shallower and shallower.
Dimly he recognized pounding pain in his temples and trembling in his limbs. The first ships were minutes from striking, but could he maintain his control over the increasingly rebellious winds he had assembled? He reached for Isabel again. Maddeningly, he could channel only a small part of her power. But surely he was strong enough to finish the job he had begun.
The Cornish gust, the strongest and most rebellious element of his coalition, cracked its way loose, weakening the whole. Savagely he worked to force it back into his pattern. Almost, he succeeded.
Then the Scottish winds, notoriously chancy, broke away. His painstakingly constructed northwest wind disintegrated like splintered glass. Desperately he reached again for Isabel, but he couldn’t find the key to unlock the deepest reservoirs of her power. It stayed tantalizingly beyond his grasp.
Gasping for breath, he tried again to exert his mastery over the winds bucking against his grasp. As he stretched his mind to keep them in line, his power thinned to the snapping point. Only a few moments more, only a few….
Clashing like silent thunder, the spell shattered with a violence that pulsed through his skull. He cried out in agony and fell to his knees.
The last thing he saw before falling into blackness was Spanish ships turning sharply to port as they sought the safety of deeper water.
Macrae’s collapse slashed Isabel’s mind as viciously as a sword lacerated flesh. After an instant of paralysis, she reached out mentally to steady his convulsing spirit even as she raced across the circle to his sprawling body.
She dropped on her knees beside him. His face was corpse-white and he wasn’t breathing. Moved by sheer instinct, she inhaled deeply and bent over to share her breath with him. Placing her mouth on his, she forced air into his lungs. He was a master of wind and air, surely all he needed was more breath.
Once, twice, thrice…. She was growing dizzy with exertion when he coughed and twisted under her hands. But finally he was drawing great ragged breaths on his own, God be thanked.
Dee joined her, panting. “I felt the spell go awry. How is he?”
“Breathing now. Beyond that…” She shrugged helplessly.
Dee frowned as he rested his hand on Macrae’s forehead. “He’s burning with fever. Pray God he has not destroyed himself with his efforts.”
Getting to his feet with effort, the old man signaled to the pair of male servants who had followed him from the house. Carefully the servants lifted Macrae onto the battered pine door they had brought, struggling with the Scotsman’s dead weight. Then they set off toward the house.
Isabel started to follow, but Dee stayed her with a gesture. When the servants were out of earshot, he asked quietly, “What happened, child? Why didn’t you save him from such a disaster?”
“I tried!” Tried desperately, and been seared by the backlash when his power and concentration failed. “He tried also, but we could not fully connect. Our energies are too unlike. Too clashing.”
“That clashing can be a source of strength, not conflict.”
She rubbed her temples, too drained to understand. “What do you mean?”
“Think of your astrological studies—opposite signs are both natural enemies and natural complements. Men and women are opposites, and sometimes conflict between them is attraction that will not admit itself. Yet if opposites find balance in each other, they can create a whole greater than the sum of their individual powers.”
She thought back to Dee’s lessons, when he had poured rivers of information into her eager mind. “Is this the alchemical marriage you once spoke of?”
“The alchemical marriage is a philosophical principle and it can be seen on many levels. One is male and female.” He eyed her speculatively, then shook his head. “The point is moot. Macrae may be out of his senses for days. Or…worse. Do you know what has happened with the Armada?”
She had been too upset to even wonder. Wearily she drew out her scrying glass and conjured the scene. “The Spanish ships are escaping the Zeeland shoals and heading north. The English pursue, but they are still outnumbered. Once the Spaniards regroup, they will be able to resume their plans for invasion.”
