The Will of the Empress - By Tamora Pierce Page 0,161

a thin magical voice filtered through the spell that still lay on Sandry's skin like a film. Can you hear? Daja asked. It's taken hours for the workings to wear off enough for me to find you. We've been trying since dawn. Why do those charms even have magic still?

Maybe he bought them from someone else, Briar put in. We undid all his spells to keep us all under wraps, but it didn't touch the extra charms he used.

I'm waking up, Sandry replied. Yes, there's still a bit of power in these charms.

Shan let Sandry drop into another man's arms. This captor placed her gently on a patch of grass. Don't worry about me, she told Daja. The charms are on my outside, but I've all my magic still, and the pig-swiving bleat-brain tied the charms to me with ribbons. I suppose it didn't occur to him ribbons are made of cloth. I'll come to you when I'm done. Quen did all this magic?

Our little friend Quenaill, Briar said with contempt. He spelled us asleep. If I hadn't been wary, thanks to Zhegorz . . . We owe old Zhegorz a big apology. He tried to warn us, and just because he talked crazy, we didn't listen. He paused for a moment, then asked gruffly, Do you need our help? We know you like Shan—

Used to, Sandry interrupted, I used to like him. She sank into her magic, and spoke a word of command. The knots that tied those carved-stone charms to her clothes and body came undone at once. They slid to the ground with a soft series of clinks.

She waited for a moment until she knew that she had the strength to stand, then did so, lashing out with her power. The six men and one woman lingering on the riverbank dropped whatever they held as their sleeves flew together and fused, binding their arms from wrist to elbows. Before they could do more than blink, their riding breeches did the same thing, the thread of each leg weaving itself with the opposite from knee to lower calf. They fell forward helplessly.

The woman and one of the men began to mutter. Silvery tendrils rose from their bodies.

Magic, Sandry thought disdainfully. Try mine.

Threads shot from the mages' collars and jackets, darting into their wearers' open mouths. Their upper garments continued to unravel into their mouths until they couldn't even close their jaws. Sandry relented at the last minute, making sure that the thread inside their mouths simply wove itself into a tight ball rather than choke them. It then attached itself to a strap wound around the mages' heads. She didn't want to kill them. She just wanted them silent and out of her way. A hard gag would do the task.

Sandry heard a thud. Shan was fighting to get to the knife in his belt. A twist of her will sent his sleeves down over his hands and into the fabric of his breeches, weaving them together.

Sandry gathered up a blanket of her power and flung it over them all. It separated as it draped over each person, trickling down into that man's or that woman's clothes. Threads in their garments broke free and linked themselves together. With her magic to shape them, the fibres sped as garments unraveled and rewove. She was so angry that her will did not falter once, even when the people on the ground began to spin in place. Seeing that her cocoons were coming along nicely, Sandry looked for appropriate places to display them.

I have to be careful with the trees, she reminded herself. I don't want a bough to drop someone on the head. And Briar would never forgive me if I hurt a tree. But I do want to make them the laughingstock of the empire when I'm done.

She chose her trees, and her display place for Shan, then checked the progress of her spinning. The two mages were done first, their shoulders and heads bare, the rest of them completely embraced in thread. Sandry called the man's cocoon to her first, holding out her hand for the rope that trailed below his feet. Once she had it in her grip, she threw it at a solid oak's branch. It whirled up and over the bough, drawing its human burden up until the man dangled several feet above the ground. She directed the rope to wind itself around the branch five times. Then she rewove the loose end into the