Sea Glass. Maria Snyder V.
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As we set up a makeshift camp in the woods and hidden from the path, I explained my escape.
“Devlen? Why?” Janco asked.
“He said he didn’t want to hurt me again.”
“Ha! He’s been playing the reformed man since we blasted him up on the ice. Don’t believe him, Opal. I’ve seen criminals use it to be released, but most of them are back to their old tricks in no time.”
“What about you? You’re reformed.”
“Not me. I just switched sides. I’m doing the same stuff—lock picking, sneaking around, tricking and spying. Except now I’m doing it for Valek and the Commander. And it has more…meaning. When I was a kid, it was just a challenge. I didn’t steal, but I couldn’t resist a locked door. And I wanted to get caught—just to see if I could escape the holding cells. Drove everyone nuts.” He smiled at the memory. “I even broke into the jail, past five guards with none the wiser.” But then his humor evaporated and he rubbed the scar spanning from his right temple to his ear. “Ended badly. That’s how I have firsthand knowledge that you don’t ever believe the reformed-man act.”
He bustled about our small camp lost in his own thoughts. I yawned and shivered in the predawn air. The horses munched on their grain. I wondered if I could train Quartz to sound an alarm like Leif had trained Rusalka, who was also a Sandseed horse.
“Should we take turns guarding?” I asked.
“No.” Janco checked on Moonlight, running his hand along the sleek coat. “Moonlight will let us know if someone comes too close. Right, boy?”
The horse nickered as if in agreement.
“That’s seems too easy,” I said.
“Not everything in life has to be hard. Horses are prey animals. If they notice anything strange, they’ll alert the herd.”
“And we’re the herd.”
“Yep. Their sense of smell and hearing are far superior to ours. So you can sleep in peace. No worries.”
But what about the old worries?
“Who names a town Ognap?” Janco asked.
“It was probably named for a famous Cloud Mist Clan member.” I tried not to sigh.
After sleeping most of the morning, we had saddled the horses and headed east toward the Emerald Mountains. Ognap was nestled in the foothills.
“Ixia is far simpler,” he said. “Military Districts and Grid Sectors for location names. No weird town names. No bizarre clothing or lack of clothing. We have uniforms, so when you meet someone new, you know exactly who they are and what they do. No guessing if they’re going to zap you with their magic.”
Janco’s homesickness drove me crazy. He had been waxing nostalgic over Ixia the past two hours. The trip to Ognap would take another four days, and I didn’t know if I could stand his mooning that long. If we cut through the Avibian Plains, we could shorten the trip. Being Sandseed horses, Moonlight and Quartz could use their special gust-of-wind gaits, which only worked in the plains, but the Sandseed Clan’s protective magic would convince Janco we were lost and being watched.
I remembered the panic I had felt when I first entered the plains. My sense of direction failed and I knew warriors waited to ambush me. Leif introduced me to the protective magic. Since the Zaltanas were the Sandseed’s distant cousins, Leif and his sister, Yelena, were welcome in the Avibian Plains.
If the protection recognized me, I would be fine, but Janco wouldn’t. No sense risking it for a few days of peace.
“…Clan. Opal, are you listening to me?”
“Sorry. Could you repeat it?”
He slumped his shoulders in an exaggerated gesture of aggravation. “What’s the Cloud Mist Clan like?”
“They have a few small towns along the foothills of the mountains, but most of them prefer to live either up on the mountain or under it.”
“Under?”
“Mines. There are a ton of them. In fact, I’m surprised the whole mountain chain hasn’t collapsed. They mine precious stones, jade, ore and coal, both white and black.” I used the special white coal in my kiln. It burned hot enough to melt sand into glass and was cleaner than the black variety. It also cost more, but it was worth every extra copper.
“No diamonds. Not yet anyway,” I added.
“Pity the only deposits have been found in the northern regions of Ixia,” Janco said. “Otherwise that whole business with Councilor Moon’s sister wouldn’t have happened.”
“That wouldn’t have stopped her. Akako would have just found another way to finance her coup. Selling Gressa’s fake diamonds as real was the fastest way for her to raise money.”
Diamonds were expensive and hard to find in Sitia, and the Commander kept the imports to us to a minimum. Which made sense when I considered his aversion to magic. Diamonds held the unique property of being able to enhance a magician’s power. Enough of them together could provide a significant boost, and since Sitia and Ixia’s relationship remained on unstable ground despite Yelena’s efforts, the Commander wouldn’t want his potential enemy to increase their powers.
I wondered about the diamonds I had created. Would they augment a magician’s magic or not? They didn’t work for me. As my father would say, only one way to find out. The desire to be home, sitting in my father’s laboratory and discussing glass, chewed my heart. Simpler times and simpler problems.
“How about the people? Are they friendly?” Janco asked.
The only Cloud Mist Clan member I knew was Pazia. She was Vasko Cloud Mist’s daughter. Vasko had discovered a bountiful vein of rubies and was one of the richest men in Sitia.
I met Pazia during our first year at the Magician’s Keep. Her powers had been the strongest in our class, and rumors she might become a master-level magician circulated even then. She hated me from the start and I endured four years of torment from the woman. In our fourth year, First Magician Bain Bloodgood assigned her to help with one of my magical-glass experiments. Pazia attacked me with an illusion of lethal Greenblade bees.
Channeling her magic into a glass orb in my hands, I transformed her illusion into glass bees and inadvertently drained Pazia of almost all her power. Despite the fact she aimed every bit of her strength at me, I should have stopped, but I was determined not to let her get the best of me again. My ego and pride had cheated Sitia out of a potential Master Magician. We only had three.
At least the incident hadn’t been a total disaster. Pazia and I settled our differences and now she worked in the Keep’s glass factory, creating intricate vases decorated with precious stones. Wealthy Sitians had been buying them as fast as Pazia could produce them.
“Opal, hello? Where ja go?” Janco waved a hand, snapping me from my reverie.
“Just thinking about the only Cloud Mist I know, and she’s not representative of the entire clan. I’ve heard they’re friendly if you’re staying in one of their towns, but they won’t let anyone visit the mines. The people who live up in the mountains tend to be very insular. They say they know a few routes across the Emerald Mountains. The Sitian Council sent an expedition with a Cloud Mist guide a few years back, but they turned around, claiming it was too cold and too hard to breathe. The high-mountain clan members also claim a vast desert is on the eastern side of the mountains. A waste-land with no end in sight. Has anyone in Ixia climbed over the…what do you call the chain in the north?”
“The Soul Mountains.”
“Interesting military designation.” I teased him. Not everything in Ixia had a number.
Janco frowned. “The mines have the proper codes.” He scratched his goatee as he thought. “The Soul range is thicker