“When you consider how helpless we were against Tua power, maybe you can better understand the resentment of ordinary humans and shifters againstmages.”
Iannis frowned. “It is not at all the same. We are not congenitally capricious andamoral—”
I raised an eyebrow. “In some cases, it isexactlyalike, especially from the victims’ point ofview.”
Iannis was silent for a while, but the frownlingered.
“Besides, not all Tua are evil like Ta’sradala, no matter how powerful they are compared to us,” I continued on, mollifying my accusation a bit. “The younger ones I met were a lot more reasonable and actually helped me survive. I think you were just unlucky to get stuck with Ta’sradala as yourancestor.”
“Very likely,” Iannis admitted. “Kidnapping my grandfather was rather outrageous, even for herrace.”
“In any case, I’m very glad you found me, even if we are stuck in this place,” I said, squeezing his hand. “Now we just have to figure out how to get out ofhere.”
He brightened at that. “Once we can get back to Recca, we can use my gulaya to go straight home,” Iannis said. “But we need to figure out how to ensure the dimension spell takes us there rather than somewhere else. We got lucky last time, landing in a world with breathable air and food, but we may not the next timearound.”
“I wish I could transmit the dimension walking spell, the way the Tua did to me,” I said. “There are…technical aspects that I don’t understand, and I’m not sure I even have the words to put them into human language. I feel like if we could just figure out the formula behind the magic, we could direct the spell to where we want it togo.”
Iannis frowned. “The only way I know of doing that is the knowledgetransfer.”
I bit my lip at that. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do a knowledge transfer—I knew how the spell worked, thanks to Fenris’s knowledge, and it could only be done once. If the transfer was successful, Iannis would have access to my entire lifetime of memories. Fenris was incredibly brave and selfless to give me access to his past—if I scoured them thoroughly enough, I could access his most intimate secrets, his most humiliating moments, recollections of all the stupid things he had said and done over the long decades of his life. I did not want to know all that about Iannis, and would have refused if he’d offered. Was I really willing to give Iannis that same power over me? I trusted him with my life, but could our upcoming marriage survive if I exposed myself so completely to him? I would have to live with him afterward, knowing that he had intimate knowledge of everything about me, that I had no secretsleft.
“I’m not sure that I’m ready to do that,” I said cautiously. “Not unless there really is no otheroption.”
Iannis nodded. “I don’t blame you. It is a big step, andirrevocable.”
We spent another two days and nights out on that prairie as we tried to figure out the solution. This time we hunted down one of the quasis, knowing the meat would last us much longer than a deer. The herd of giant bovines were unafraid when we approached in human form, telling us that they had never been hunted by our kind, but the moment I changed into a panther and sprang for the weakest among them, an older quasi with a marked limp, they scattered. Between my hunting prowess and Iannis’s magic, we were able to bring down the lame quasi easily enough, and we enjoyed its meat even as the novelty of our surroundings began to wearoff.
On the third morning, as I sipped a weak tea we’d brewed from some prairie flowers that Iannis had determined were safe to ingest, I sorted through the knowledge the Tua had given me for what seemed like the millionth time. On a whim, I gathered it all together, then repacked it into the shining trunk it had come in, conjuring it again in my mind’s eye from wherever it had disappearedto.
I wonder if I can replicate the trunk in my mind,I thought as I drummed my fingers against my thigh. I held the knowledge in my mind’s eye and concentrated, willing a duplication to form. To my delight, the trunk blurred, then split apart into two separateones.
“Iannis,” I called. “Come here asecond!”
“What is it?” he asked, moving away from the fire he’d been tending. He crouched down beside me, his brow furrowed in curiosity. “Have you foundsomething?”
“I think so,” I said, pressing two fingers against that furrowed brow. I felt the knowledge pass between my mind and into Iannis’s, and he gasped, his violet eyes goingwide.
“Did it work?” I asked, breathless with excitement. “Can you see the spellnow?”
“I believe I can,” Iannis said wonderingly. He sat down with athumpin the grass next to me and stared off into the distance, unseeing. “Yes, I can see what you meant about the technical aspects of this spell. This is going to take some time for me to puzzleout.”
“But youcanpuzzle it out, right?” I asked eagerly. Was this it? Were we finally going to be able to gethome?
“Yes,” he said impatiently as he pulled out a leather-bound book and a pen from his magical sleeve. His eyes gleamed, alight with the joy of a difficult challenge as he opened the book and began to scribble. “No wonder you had trouble with the technical part …” he murmured after a minute. “It would seem the Tua use an entirely different system of mathematics than wedo.”
“Do you think you can crack it?” I askedeagerly.
“I certainly hope so.” He didn’t even look up at me. “Now give me some peace and quiet. I have work todo.”
19
Iannis spentthe rest of the day scribbling down formulas in his notebook, then scratching them out. I busied myself making things out of the parts of the quasi we had saved—Fenris’s outdoorsman knowledge included instructions on how to magically tan hides and use the leather to make clothing and bedding, how to craft weapons and tools from the horns and bones, and even ways to use the hair and sinew to make thread, headdresses, and ornaments. Fenris had culled some of the spells from the antique memoirs of mage explorers and pioneers who had first traversed and settled the area of the Federation, and since he remembered everything he ever read, I spent some time revisiting those old accounts. By the time lunch came around, I’d successfully turned the quasi horns into a set of spear handles and had several large pieces of hardleather.
Not exactly useful, but it kept my mind off my impatience to go home, so I could give Iannis space towork.
“I think I am getting closer with each iteration,” Iannis said as we wolfed down a quasi-bison stew I’d made using some herbs and tubers I’d found while foraging in the woods the previous day. “If I am able to figure this out, what we have been given is going to revolutionize both physics and mathematics. And as for the practical applications…” His eyes shone with the possibilities despite his frustration, and I had tosmile.
“I’m sure you and Elnos will be holed up in your study for days, once we finally get home,” I said. “The two of you are going to become mad scientiststogether.”
