Mind of the Magic (Arhel Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

servant.
    It was pleasant having Witte as healthy, happy company—and Faia realized, listening to him talking and laughing with Kirtha out in the garden, how she longed for the sound of a man’s voice in the house. Witte’s presence was comforting after her solitary years in Omwimmee Trade.
    Rejected suitors notwithstanding, I’ve been alone too long. I need to find someone I can care about.
    She slid the bread in the oven and began cleaning the fish, enjoying the simple physical pleasures of cooking and preparing a meal without magic. Lost in her own thoughts, she didn’t realize the garden had grown quiet until Kirtha’s screams shattered the silence—screams of pure terror.
    Faia charged out of the kitchen, her heart in her throat to find Kirtha crouched behind the
b’dabba
, the Hoos plains hut that Medwind Song had left behind when she moved away, while in front of her, Witte fended off a tiny grey swallow that belched spurts of fire at him. The little man beat the air with his arms, but the bird refused to break off its attack. Already Witte’s hair and eyebrows were singed.
    By the Lady! Faia thought. She had never seen such a bird.
    Then Hrogner launched himself out of the garden tree to chase the swallow, sporting a brand-new pair of very functional wings.
    The swallow saw its attacker, made a tight loop in the air, and took off over the roof. Then it curved back and caught the pursuing cat full in the face with a tiny, bright blue stream of flame. The cat yowled and veered away; the swallow darted after him, singed his tail, and simultaneously caught the thatching of the roof on fire.
    Faia suffered only an instant’s hesitation. Then she pulled the energy of sun and earth around her and created a raincloud above the little tongues of flame that licked along the thatch. She no longer needed to search for ley lines—in the last few months, they had come to overlie everything in Omwimmee Trade. She merely willed water out of the air and there it was. Rain poured onto the roof and put the fire out, leaving the thatch smoking and hissing.
    She stopped the swallow in midflight, magically looked inside of it, and discovered the changes that had allowed the bird to breathe fire; they were clumsy, childish changes that would have proven quickly fatal to the tiny creature. Faia returned the swallow to its normal state, and with a peremptory mental suggestion, sent it on its way before the cat realized the bird was once again harmless.
    Then she turned her attention to the cat. “Hrogner,” she said, “come here.”
    Hrogner, no longer pursued by the vicious swallow, had landed on the roof, where he sat licking his singed fur. He wore the air of one who has taken an unfair and totally unwarranted blow from life.
    “Hrogner!” Faia called again. “Come here. Here, kitty, kitty. Come here, cat!”
    Witte came to stand beside her and said, “You brought me back to health and drew rain from the sky; you are not unskilled at magic. Why do you not make the cat come?”
    Faia said, “You haven’t had much experience with cats, have you? No one can make them do anything. They are immune to magic.” She turned to Kirtha and said, “Bring me a handful of chud jerky from the pantry. I want to get Hrogner off the roof.”
    Kirtha, wide-eyed, nodded and ran into the house.
    Witte stared at the cat, puzzled. “Immune to magic? Then how do you explain the creature’s hands… or its wings?”
    “I did not say that well.” Faia turned to Witte. “Cats are not immune to all magic—they only ignore the magic that doesn’t interest them or, in their self-interested little minds, offer some benefit for them. The only reason my little monster still has hands is because I can do nothing to change them back to paws.”
    Kirtha returned, carrying a handful of very smelly dried brown flakes. “Here, Mama. For Hrogner-cat.”
    Faia took them and held her hand up. “Here, kitty, kitty. Come here. Come get the tasty