12. Chaos Magic

It was another week before I could stand unassisted. The pain persisted, but with some dedicated effort and a far richer diet than I had known in months, I slowly gained my strength. Whenever my body failed me—and in those days it failed me often—I bent my attention to training my mind instead. I worked through my mental exercises again and again, until I could take on the second sight in the space of a breath. I wasted days trying to speed my healing with magical will, trying to imagine myself stronger. But order magic works on expectation, and I felt my weakness far too dearly to believe it gone.

Whenever I faltered, whenever my legs could not quite hold me, I thought back on the spell Archus had used to march me like a puppet across the Academy grounds. He'd woven armor of solid air, and I often thought a trick like that could serve me well. But I didn't know the first thing about that manner of working, and whatever clumsy efforts I made at it ended in failure.

There was another temptation in the magic, though. Even as I tried to understand how to will reality so air was hard as steel, I could see the power of that air in my second sight. I could see the energy in a breath of wind like a thread, long and thin and infinitely pliable. It seemed like it would be so easy to reach out and grasp the thread itself, to wrap it around my arm like a string, but I knew that—even more than Archus's clever working—was well beyond my grasp. That was sorcery, the manipulation of pure elemental energy, and Claighan had said even the greatest wizards could not do that.

So I settled for my little tricks—a glowing light, a flaring fire, a breeze to freshen the air in the close little shelter—and mostly focused on strengthening my body. I still could not go far, but soon enough I could feed myself. And then prepare my food. And then the fisherman's too. Soon I was working for Joseph, scaling and gutting, packing and sorting, while he brought in the catch.

There was much work to do. For weeks he had neglected his business, neglected himself in his dedication to my recovery. Now I did everything I could to return the favor. He went out with the rising sun and came back at dusk with a healthy haul. Then while he slept I worked, preparing the catch for him to take out with him the following morning.

So he could start each day with a trip to the nearest market, two leagues south along the coast, and sell fillets direct to the meat market there. And then while he was gone I'd rest. I'd rise. I'd clean the shack or scour the shore for firewood. I'd walk and walk until my legs gave out, then rest and walk back home.

Those first days I barely made a mile, and then eventually two, and it was a great victory to me when I judged I'd gone fully three miles before giving up. A victory. But I remembered days on Jemminor's farm when I had grazed the sheep out across dozens of miles of rolling hills without ever feeling the strain. That thought always killed my joy.

But then one afternoon I found the stone the fisherman had placed. I was five miles from home, the sun well past its peak and drifting out to sea, and I knew I'd have to turn around soon or I wouldn't make it back before Joseph did. Then my right knee buckled, and I barely caught myself short of falling, and I knew that if I went any farther I might not make it back at all. I turned to go—

I spotted the stone among the crashing waves. It was out of place, polished black and smooth, nearly a pace across and just as tall. It was a wonder a man could even lift it.

But clearly someone had. It stood among the surf as a monument, and as I moved closer I felt a deep sense of familiarity. I knew this place. It was where I had washed ashore. I reached back for the memory of Joseph's story, watching me fall and searching north along the coast until he found the spot. I stared up at the sky. I stared out to sea. And slowly I nodded.

The fisherman had brought this here as a monument. Perhaps as a memorial. I watched the mighty waves rolling, crashing in the distance, and I nodded slowly. I blinked my eyes and fell into the second sight, and I forced myself to look upon the deadly crushing power that had swallowed me whole. This was where I should have died. I hadn't.

Weak though I was, fragile though I was, this stone was a testament to my power. To the dragon's power within me. I took a deep breath and let it out. I shook my head. It was from the dragon, yes, but the power was mine. It had served me, not the beast. It had preserved me when the beast wanted me dead.

I sat against the stone and ate my lunch—a carrot, an apple, and dried beef that Joseph had brought back from town—and then when I was done I started back toward the cabin. Just five miles and it would tax me to the bone, but I had power. I smiled, I set my jaw, and made my way back home.

Two weeks later I went along with him, down to the little town, and I watched while he negotiated his trades. There was more to it than I'd have guessed—haggling prices, settling terms—but the man worked through it all with an easy familiarity and before noon he had my arms loaded with bundles of goods to take back to the boat.

It was a respectable little fishing boat, single-mast and open-hulled but large enough for three or four if Joseph had had any kind of crew, and outfitted with block and tackle to run a deep dredging net. He never dragged between the town and his cabin—one of the terms of his trade—but there was open water north and west and he never had any difficulty filling his nets.

Now he headed back north, ferrying me home, but there were no perishables among the goods we'd purchased. "Take me out," I said. He looked at me, frowning, and I waved out to the west. "Take me out. I'd like to see a catch."

"Sure you're up to it?" he asked.

"I'm certain of it," I said. "And I'm itching to know what it's like."

"Boring, mostly," he said. "Lots of work. But I could use the help."

So we went, chasing schools and hauling in nets full of flopping fish. I helped him at first, but he'd understated it strongly. Even with the assistance of the pulleys, it took main strength to heave a laden net up, and I soon understood where the fisherman got his strength.

By midafternoon I found a place out of the way toward the stern and curled up to rest. I caught him smiling indulgently down at me, but he never complained. And when I woke an hour later I helped him pull in another little catch before he finally headed home for the night.

I went out with him often, and in that more than anything else I began to rebuild my strength. Two weeks saw me standing beside him, hour after hour, hauling in the nets. Three weeks saw me casting my own over the other side, and soon Joseph was bringing home a greater catch than he had ever managed before.

Then one night when the azurefin were running, we chased along above them by the light of a starry sky. We had almost as much as our boat could carry, but azurefin brought a fine price and Joseph wanted to fill her up. For my part, I'd worked a full day and into the night without the least complaint, and I wanted to see how far I could go. So we agreed and chased the azurefin north along the coast.

And then the rain began to fall, pelting down hot and hard despite the clear sky overhead. We had no other warning as the clouds raced in, but that was enough for Joseph. He dumped the nets and dropped the rigging and had the sails down before I even knew what was happening. He moved mechanically, but I could see the touch of fear in his eyes and a tremble in his hands as darkness fell upon us, and the rain came harder down.

"What's wrong?" I asked, and his lips twisted in a frown.

"Got greedy," he said, without looking up at the storm. He tossed me a length of rope. "Better batten down. Will be bad."

I swallowed against my fear. Waves sloshed the boat now, but they weren't yet much worse than the ones we dealt with every day. Rain came down, but it wasn't a deluge yet. But I knew Joseph. I knew his manners. And I'd never met a more able boatman. If he was afraid....

I followed his example and sank down into the hold, and even as I did the waves grew larger. One splashed across the bow and caught me open-mouthed, and I had to cough and sputter and duck my head before another one washed over me. The rain came harder now, and I saw the flash a breath before a long, low, grinding crack of thunder rolled over the sea. And another behind it. And another.

The boat washed violently to one side and I reached out to steady myself. And as I did, from habit more than reason, I slipped into my second sight and glanced across the powers that surrounded us.

My blood went cold with fear.

It was the sea as I had seen it before—as I had always seen it—deep and strong and deadly. But it was wild now, stirred with wind and fire, and the power of the storm came not in threads but in sheets. They flashed across the surface, they twisted in the deeps, they flicked and flared and roared in senseless fury. And there among them, like a leaf within a gale, bobbed our tiny little boat, two sparks of life within it easily snuffed out.

A wave tore over us and I saw the sheet of it scream up and slash down. It fell like the blanket of air Lareth had once used to bind me to the floor, and as I saw it coming I almost expected it to crush in the same way. But this was merely water. As it fell it tore across the sturdy bow and broke around the mast. It hit me hard enough to knock me down, but then its force was spent. It spilled into the bottom of the boat and it was done.

But there were more. Thousands more. Millions of the waves churning, boiling up in their frenzy, and with every heartbeat that passed they grew more powerful. Another soared high and crashed almost straight down, and the force of it drove the breath from me and shattered the ship's heavy mast to splinters. And that wave held enough power still to flash away, dragging back out to sea. If Joseph hadn't caught my hand the wave would have dragged me out with it.

And though he pulled me back in, there was no relief in his eyes. There was only dread acceptance. He turned his eyes up into the storm then, and I saw a wave flashing toward us that could shatter the boat as easily as the last had done the mast. And behind it another one greater still. I saw the great sheets of living water thrown up, stretching, folding over us—

Fear flooded through me, and I reached out on pure instinct. I did as I had wanted to do when the dragon dropped me, as I had wanted to do when I could not support my own weight, and I touched the threads themselves with my mind. I didn't bother constructing a visualization, building a reality small enough that I could believe in it but large enough to save our lives. That kind of magic was beyond my grasp.

But the power of the storm was right there. In easy reach. It required no force of will, no fancy tricks of the mind, just the simple physical effort of bending and shaping. I flexed muscles I didn't really have, stretched out my fingers to touch the reality beneath reality, and took the fabric of the storm into my hands. I snapped it out around us, as though I were throwing a cloak across my shoulders or spreading a blanket over my bed, and whipped the wave itself out in a dome above our heads.

It roared, wild waters still churning, but it did not fall. It made a shell above us that denied nature and reason, but I held it there by force of will. In my mind's eye I could see through it, and I watched as a larger wave came crashing down, but it spilled against the fabric of my wave and washed into the sea all around us. I felt the wind dance across the waters—threads still, but thick as my arm—and I pulled one down beneath my wave and slammed its end against the stern of our boat.

A jet of wind and water stabbed up out of the sea beneath, and even without a mast the gust hurled us forward. Above us the wave stretched out, curled and crashing and roaring still as though it might fall in the next heartbeat. I grabbed another rope of wind and bent that one, too, and with two of them behind us the little fishing boat flew across the waves like a skipping stone. I carried the wave with us, stretched out and protecting us from above, and we sped toward the shore.

I felt my heart hammering, louder even than the storm in my ears. I felt the ocean's fury slamming against the wave above as though it pounded on my shoulders, and every blow threatened to rip the fabric from my grip. The winds, too, twisted and writhed, and whenever one escaped me our little boat settled to a fitful stop. I found more, though. Another to replace the one that had gotten away, and as another wave crashed down and I felt the water above me slipping from my grasp, I grabbed another thread of wind, and then a fourth, and threw them all into getting us to safety.

With my attention so focused on the elements I had no eye for our position. I threw us east without guidance or care. I had one breath to hear Joseph's frantic scream, to see the terror in his eyes, and then the ship slammed to a sudden, violent stop. Momentum tore me from my place on the stern and heaved me through the air, and the force of the winds I'd summoned flung me further. Joseph tumbled out, too. He held on to the rope secured to the shattered mast just long enough to slow him, so he stretched out long across the sand and tumbled in a low roll while I flew through the air.

The wind never died. It raged against the stern of the boat, even run aground, and flung it up into the air like a catapult's shot. I crashed to earth and stars flashed in my eyes. Darkness rushed at me—all too familiar—but I forced it away as I saw the boat arcing back down to earth. Even if it didn't hit me it would crush Joseph.

So I released the winds within my grasp, and the wave above, and focused all my attention upon the earth. The slow and steady earth. It appeared to my second sight as neither thread nor sheet, but pebbles. Tiny, useless pebbles of energy, but I remembered the huge weight of the mountain built out of these impossibly tiny stones.

I rolled to my feet and threw myself into a long dive. I landed beside Joseph and reached out with the magic of my mind to grab up the energy of the sand. I flung it up in a handful above me and the earth around us exploded up in a great puff. Then the sand fell back down, burying us side-by-side in a shallow grave, and when the boat crashed down above us it scraped on past.

And then the wave drove down behind it. That hurt worse, deadly force delayed but not decreased, and it pounded straight down into the shore along a quarter-mile stretch. I didn't hold the earth above us as I'd done the wave. I didn't have the strength. So the wave splashed down through to soak us again, and then it dragged much of the sand away with it, so Joseph and I both heaved back up out of a shallow pool of mud and sand and sea water, coughing and spluttering. Alive.

---

It took some time to gather our wits. Then Joseph went to the wreckage of his ship. It was still intact, but nothing close to seaworthy. I watched him from a distance, respecting the privacy of his grief, but after he'd made his assessment he turned back to me without any strong emotion in his eyes. I cocked my head.

"Is she ruined?'

"Ruined," he said, his voice matter-of-fact. "But we're alive." He fixed me with a gaze that demanded acknowledgment, and after a moment I nodded. He nodded back. "And now I understand." He turned back, looking north along the beach, and I knew he was looking in the direction of the stone he'd placed. "Magic."

"No," I said, shaking my head. "I didn't...I just now...." I couldn't put to words what I had done. What I had done was impossible. It was more than magic. It was separate.

The fisherman turned back to me and raised an eyebrow. "Can you get us home?" He made a gesture with his hand, a little arch, and I recognized the shape of a summoned portal. I considered it for a heartbeat, but I had no idea how.

"I don't think so," I said. I reached out with my second sight again, and grabbed at threads of air, but these were not the trunk-thick ropes that had propelled our ship along. That storm was far away, now, and drifting up the coast. The air here was little more than a breeze. I tried wrapping it around Joseph and lifting him into the air, but it only flapped at the folds of his sodden clothes, and he shivered.

I shook my head. "I'm sorry. I don't know how."

He shrugged one shoulder and started down the shore. "Better start walking, then," he said. "Get some boys from town up here tomorrow to see what we can salvage."

I fell into step beside him, numb. I had touched the wind and rain. I had bent elemental power to my will. I remembered the strength of the wave stretched out above me, the battering energy of more waves crushing against it. I remembered tempest winds twisting in my grasp.

I reached out again, testing, and bent a thread of air toward me. I felt only a breath of air over my cheek. A puff against my ear. With the boat I'd used more, though, so I stole a thread of air up off the sea, and another high above. I reached for a breeze that made waves in the grasses higher inland. I gathered them together into a bunch, four little breaths, and combined they were enough to blow a modest wind against us. I remembered the air magic that had been used against me before and wrapped those threads in a cuff tight around my ankle.

But when I strained against it I was able to pull free, as easily as though I were forcing forward against a strong wind. I reached for more threads from the air around me, thinner, spidersilk threads of still air, but these added very little to the strength of my spell, and after the fifth thread the others began to twist free of my control. I reached for a sixth and lost control of two.

And while I tried to catch them back another one twisted free. I grunted, frustrated, head throbbing, and let them all go. Another three paces down I let the second sight fade, too, and settled for the strength left in my legs. It got me home. I fell into my bed, and Joseph into his, and we slept the good sleep of the quiet dead.

---

It had something to do with power. I figured that. Order magic—Academy magic—took its strength from the will of the worker, but order magic would have been hard pressed to do what I did within the storm. The magic I'd done was different. I gave it shape, gave it direction, but the strength was all its own. I'd done amazing things with the strength of a blustering storm, but I could barely shift a stone with the quiet energy of an environment at rest.

Not a large stone, anyway. Certainly not a boulder. Not a tree. Not something larger like, say, a battered old fishing boat. The thought was strong in my mind the following afternoon as I stood outside a circle of local fishermen examining the wreckage of Joseph's ship. They'd noticed quickly how little I knew of the business at hand, so they paid me little mind as they discussed the options and guessed how much might be salvaged.

Their guesses were grim. I eavesdropped, heart sinking, but Joseph just nodded as though they confirmed what he already knew. Nothing much rattled him. I listened and waited and wondered how I might help. I'd done this, in a way.

I was working on a plan to carve a channel across a hundred paces of beach with the strength of little breakers, when one of the villagers shook his head and said, "Strange days. Dark days everywhere. Dragons in the sky, storms that'll do this, and kingsmen fighting rebels on the plains above Tirah."

That last snapped me out of my thoughts. I pushed through the circle and up to the speaker. He was a little man, and he shrank away from the intensity of my gaze. But I held his eyes. "What about Tirah?"

He shrugged. "The King's Guard's fighting for the baronies out west," he said. "Ain't you heard? The rebels have the heartlands—"

"I know," I said. "I know. But you mentioned Tirah."

Joseph dropped a hand on my shoulder to calm me. "Tirah's old news," he said. "Guard took it three months ago. Didn't realize you'd want to know."

I shrugged one shoulder. "I'd hoped to join the Guard," I said without thinking. "Take up the amnesty."

A look passed around among the fishermen, and I winced. Joseph didn't even bat an eye, and that eased my soul a bit. And none of the others spoke up. There were plenty of ways a man might go afoul of the king's justice, not all of them unfamiliar in territories like this.

Joseph did offer me a look of regret, though. "Amnesty's done," he said. "King put together thirty thousand men. Thirty thousand men on the Ardain proper." He shook his head, astonished, and I felt the same emotion.

"And they still haven't won?"

One of the other fishermen scowled and said, "Brant won't commit his men. They harass and harry, and then they run and hide. The king's men have all the strongholds—"

"But the rebels have the countryside," another of them said. The same one I'd first accosted. He met my eyes. "It'll be different when the king arrives. He'll put an end to it."

"The king himself?" I said, and I felt the blood drain from my face. I'd forgotten. It had been five months ago, a passing reference, and still I'd felt the flash of significance at the name of the town. But now I remembered Lareth's sun-dark face in the Masters' tower. I remembered him bragging to a helpless student. I remembered him promising to end the rebellion when the king came to Tirah.

"He'll go there?" I said, suddenly frantic. "To Tirah?"

"On his way now," Joseph said. He met my eyes and spoke clearly, as though he sensed how important the information was to me. He couldn't have known why, but he must have heard the frenzy in my voice. "Whole fleet sailed straight down the coast from the Isle. Passed by a week ago. You were gutting fish, but I saw them on the horizon."

The little guy nodded. "I was out there in their path. A galleon full of Green Eagles swept up on me and a full Commander threatened to sink my ship if I didn't tack off to shore. Wrecked my afternoon's take, but it was quite a sight."

I wasn't really listening. I looked down, thinking frantically. I asked Joseph, "Where were they going?"

The little guy answered. "Cara," he said. "Way south. Whitefalls is closer, but they're with Brant."

"And well secured," Joseph said. "King probably made Cara yesterday morning."

I swallowed. "How fast could I get there?"

"Take more than a week by sea, with any ship you'd find near here. Over land, most of a month."

"No good," the little guy said. "Not if it's the king you want to see. He would be long gone by then." I cursed, and he gave me a conciliatory smile. "That's how it is. He was anxious to get this over with. He'll be on the road to Tirah already."

Joseph caught my eye. "Cut overland," he said. "Straight to Tirah. Even on foot, could probably beat him there."

I felt my heart pounding. I didn't know this land. I didn't know my way. Tirah crouched at the heart of the Ardain, and I'd seen enough on the dragon's flight to know that put it southeast of me, but it was a journey of a hundred miles easy. Probably twice that, if not more.

I didn't want to go. I liked it here. I liked Joseph. I couldn't see myself ending up a fisherman, but I certainly wasn't yet ready for war. I still needed a few more weeks to recover, a few more months maybe, and this would have been a pleasant place to do it.

And my eyes touched on the ruined boat, on the pricey azurefins rotting under the afternoon sun. I thought of Joseph's livelihood ruined by my magic, and the good I could do him if I were here. But Lareth had a plan to kill the king, a plan only I knew about. And I had a chance to stop it. I had a chance to end this rebellion, perhaps, if I could get there in time. I could save lives. I could save the nation.

I knew what I had to do. I didn't want to go, but I had to. And as I raised my eyes back to Joseph's, I saw understanding in them. He nodded and clapped me on the shoulder. "Seems important."

"It is," I said. "Someone plans to kill the king."

His lips quirked up a smile. "During a rebellion? Big surprise."

I laughed in surprise. And then I laughed in earnest, and he gave me an earnest smile as reward. "Dauk's three leagues due east. End of the road. Farms all around it. Road leads straight to Tirah."

I nodded. My gaze dragged back toward the wreckage of the boat, but I saw him shake his head. "King won't spend long on southern roads. Get a move on. Could be in Dauk by sunset."

"I should," I said. I felt the eyes of all the other fishermen on me. They couldn't have known much about what was going on, but they could tell it was significant. I felt awkward beneath their gaze, but I could hardly go without saying a proper good-bye.

"Thank you, Joseph. I'm so sorry about your boat—"

He shrugged one shoulder and gave that half-smile again. He tipped his head to me in a nod. "Saved my life."

"Only after you saved mine," I said. I hesitated, thinking maybe I should hug him. It had been easier with Sherrim. He saw the uncertainty in my eyes and offered me a hand. I took it solemnly.

"Be safe," he said. "Save the king."

The little fisherman nodded. "Save the country." There was laughter in his eyes. It didn't look like mockery, just astonishment that we were even talking about this. Joseph saw it, and he grinned.

"Kid's a wizard," he told the others. "Sure as rain."

I saw their eyes widen then, all around the circle. I felt a blush rise in my cheeks. I looked at the wrecked boat, glanced back toward the fisherman's cabin, but I didn't have anything to take with me. The dragon had left me with nothing.

I met Joseph's eyes one last time, nodded to him, then turned and headed east toward the distant hills. The little ring of villagers broke to let me by, and I felt them fall closed again behind me. I felt their murmurs rise up, too, and at first I was sure they were talking about me.

But then a little breeze carried snippets of their conversation to my ear, and I realized they were back to making plans to salvage the boat. I was already forgotten. I made it fifteen paces before my will broke and I glanced back.

Joseph stood taller than the rest of them, in the middle of the circle, and he stared past them all, gaze fixed on me. He met my eyes. He offered me a smile. And he waved one short, simple gesture of good-bye. I returned it, tears stinging in my eyes. Then he turned back to the conversation at hand, and I left them all behind.

---

As I moved up the long beach, the sand slowly gave way to a tough, short grass, but the earth scarcely became more stable. The land was a marsh, soft and wet, and it sucked at every step. I'd never bothered to learn much about the terrain down on the Continent, but I'd seen enough maps while studying at the Academy to have some idea where I was.

There was a space of about twenty miles where the western coastline became swampy lowlands before rising up to the mountains of the southwest coast that stretched all the way to the Fausse. The squelching of mud under my boots and thick smell in the air placed me almost due west of Pollix, some forty miles north of Whitefalls.

I was nearly a hundred and fifty miles from Tirah.

The distance did not daunt me, though it should have. I was still weak, and now alone in a land torn by war, but my thoughts were all on saving the king. I walked for three or four hours while the sun rose high in the sky, stumbling more than walking and covering little more than a couple miles an hour. A thin layer of water and muck concealed the ground from sight, making footing treacherous and tiring. I still felt drained from the excitement the night before, and every other step brought a stab of pain from a bruise on my left hip. Before long I felt warm in spite of the chill in the air.

For several hours I pressed through the marsh, and afternoon was stretching toward evening when I saw a hill rising before me. I felt a flush of relief, bright and hot, at the thought of solid ground. I took another step toward it, and then my blood ran cold.

A shadow flashed across the horizon, right to left, dancing up and down above the broken line of the distant hills. I watched it for half a minute; it dipped lower still, and it was lost to sight. For a long time I stood there, legs aching, heart pounding, staring at the shadows of distant hills. Alone.

That thought stabbed claws of fear into my chest. There was probably not another human being for a dozen miles in any direction. I forced myself to take another step, but my legs felt heavy as stone. I closed my eyes, took a slow breath, and then managed another step. I got moving again. My heart still pounded, my breath came too shallow, and my head ached from the strain with which I stared at the distant hills. But I made half a mile more across the marsh.

And then I saw it again. Far to the south, now, something flashed across my vision. It could have been the shadow of a cloud scudding across the ground, but the angle was wrong. I turned, frozen in fear again, and saw it a moment later. Closer now. A black shadow, swift as lightning, danced in and out among the low foothills.

Then, without warning, it shot straight into the sky. I recognized it instantly. The dragon. Not just a dragon, but the same black beast that had thrown me into the sea. It was all teeth and claws and muscles, and it moved faster than anything that large should be able to.

And the other one moved just as fast. It was larger still, mottled in the color of leaves—dark green along its back and wings, autumn brown along its neck and underbelly. The black dragon arced high in the air and the green flew after it. It screamed its fury and blew a burst of fire that stabbed at the black. The smaller dragon never slowed but whipped its long neck around to breathe a gout of flame of its own in answer.

The green dodged it, light as a butterfly, and closed in. The smaller dragon's tail lashed, vicious, but then the green sank its claws into the other's haunches, and I heard a bellowing roar that seemed to echo, deep inside my head. I could imagine the beast's pain and rage, and I felt my lips curl into a snarl as the black dragon abandoned its flight to turn its own talons on the beast fighting it. They fell from sight, crashing among the hills to the south and east, but still I heard them fighting.

Something inside me pulled me forward. I started moving again, toward the hills, and it quickly became a shambling run that sent water splashing everywhere. After two or three steps I realized I was running straight toward the deadly monsters, and I made myself stop. The hair on my neck stood up, and my fingers itched. I had to fight an instinct to start running again, toward the danger.

Muddy water dripped from my nose and eyelashes. I tried to blink it away. I threw a look back over my shoulder, toward the coast, but it was too far. I took another step toward the hills, and then another. It took all my concentration to keep my feet from turning south toward the fray among the hills, but I made myself keep due east as Joseph had sent me. The dragons were busy. I'd pass miles to the north of them. They would have no reason to notice me...and I certainly had no reason to go closer.

My heart raced, but I pressed on. It took me another twenty minutes to reach the first of the hills, but as soon as I was a little way up its slope, I felt solid, dry ground beneath my feet. I sank down to my knees. My body felt heavy as stone. I thought that perhaps I could rest here, regain some strength before pressing on. I climbed until I found a little patch of scrub, hearty bushes growing on the rocky hillside, and I stretched myself out beneath their shadow. I lay on the hard ground and shivered, trying to ignore the pain of fatigue in all my muscles.

Evening stretched toward night, orange and violet staining the clear sky, but I could not sleep. It took me some time to realize why, but when I did, I sat bolt upright.

The dragons had gone silent.

I had heard no sound from them for some time. The noise of their battle had been a terrible thing, but it had at least let me know where they were. Now I scanned the sky overhead, but I saw nothing. I pushed myself to my feet, biting down groans of protest. I crouched low and scurried up to the top of the hill. My legs and back complained, but I felt too exposed to move slowly up that open slope.

At the top of the hill I found a little dip down and then another rise beyond. There were more hills, left and right, all low and rolling but enough of a climb to slow me down. I strained my eyes to north and south, but I saw no sign of the dragons. I fell into my second sight, and it showed me the pulse of the earth beneath me, the dance of the wind and the threat of a little rain come midnight. I saw no dragons, though.

I forced myself to slow and steady breathing. I thought about my choices. I thought about the climb I had ahead. How many months had I spent still on Joseph's sad little sickbed? Too many. And too few days since then had I been working. When I'd toiled on Jemminor's farm this path through the hills might have been an easy stroll, but those days were far in my past.

I eased my crouch down lower, eyes barely raised above the top of the hill, and kept on scanning. My arms shook from holding me up, and my left ankle was just beginning to do the same. I dropped flat on the earth. I stretched an arm up to support my chin, and found myself tucking my head down into the crook of my elbow.

I was too tired. I was too weak to make this trek. Closer to the town now than to Joseph's cabin, but with peaks and valleys still ahead. I hadn't the strength. It was an impossible hope. A moment later a dragon's hunting cry confirmed it.

It was far off to my south, and even as I turned I saw a shadow flick from sight down among the hills. I didn't breathe. For several long seconds I scanned the horizon, but I saw nothing.

A jittery, nauseating energy clawed its way into my weary muscles, then, and I found myself moving without even thinking. Not toward the dragons this time—it was no supernatural urge that drove me—but over the crest of this hill and down the next. Pain lanced through my weary legs and I stumbled going down the hill, too tired to plant my feet properly, but I couldn't slow myself either. Gravity pulled me into a sprint, and I tumbled my way to the bottom of the hill and scrabbled my way up the next.

Shadows flitted over the land. I felt them, to the north and south. And as I made my way east the hills behind me cut off the sun, throwing me into darkness while the sun still stained the sky. I had little hope that darkness would hamper a dragon's hunt, but it made my flight more fearsome. I heard another cry, halfway up the third or fourth hill, and it froze me like a hawk can freeze a rabbit on the ground. I fell into my second sight again, desperately searching the sky, and I saw nothing. Then another cry set me running again, and I made my way to the top of a hill just before the sun set in earnest behind me.

The final red rays spilled down before me, showing a smaller hill yet to scale, and beyond that nothing worthy of the name. Rolling grasslands. Tended fields. In the middle distance I saw the glow of a town like a smudge of brown against the violet night. I felt a flash of hope, shoulders trembling, and threw myself down this slope, too. I ran the sun from the sky. I bloodied my hands and tore my clothes and burned my fear for sustenance.

It was well and truly dark when I finally stumbled into the town. I hadn't a penny to my name, but cold and wet and tired as I was, and shaken by the monsters in the marshland, I felt the need for some company. So I trotted on past dark farmhouses and quiet shapes that reminded me of the green in Sachaerrich. I passed the blacksmith's cold forge and a stable sealed up tight. At the stable, I used stale water from a trough to wash the worst of the blood and mud from my face and arms.

And then I found the inn. It was a small place, one floor with maybe half a dozen rooms to let, but from two blocks away I could see the light spilling out onto the street and hear the rattle of voices in good cheer.

As soon as I stepped through the door that cheer faded, the conversations dwindled, and two dozen gazes swept to me. I saw apprehension in most of their eyes and open hostility in some. A little panic flared up in my chest, but I pushed it aside, remembering the shadows passing without. I forced myself to take another step into the room, hands out at my side and open, empty.

A burly man with a bald head and sharp, pale eyes heaved himself out of a booth on one wall. I saw the motion, but he had two rows of tables to pass, and I had a clear path to the bar. I kept my pace, kept my eyes locked ahead, but I heard the scrape of chairs moving to let him pass off my right shoulder. A handful of men who had been leaning casually against the bar pushed away and moved forward to block my path.

I didn't have much choice but to stop. A moment later the big bald man stepped up, exchanged a grateful look with one of them, and then positioned himself right in front of me. He came too close, towering tall over me, and gave a rumbling growl.

"Who're you then?"

"I'm Daven Carrickson," I said. "From the Academy at Pollix."

He snorted at that, big and dramatic, and rolled his eyes for the rest of the crowd. He raised a meaty hand to finger the tattered collar of my shirt, old rags that Joseph had handed down to me. "A wizard, huh? You don't look much like a gentleman's son to me."

I felt my lip curl. "I'm no gentleman at all," I said.

He chuckled at that, then rolled his gaze around the room again. Some of them joined in his ridicule, offering up throaty chuckles or jeering catcalls. Most of them still looked afraid.

I was a little afraid myself. I could tell what this guy was up to. He saw me as a threat—everyone did—and he was trying to protect his townsfolk. Trying to drive me away before I started begging on the streets. Or robbing. Or worse.

I sighed. I nodded. "The rebels," I said. "The war." Times being what they were, he probably wouldn't let me go with a warning. He'd want to teach me a lesson. I glanced over my shoulder and found it a long way back to the outer door. I met his eyes again. "You've had soldiers passing through here?"

"You're no soldier either," the bully said. "We've had plenty of cutthroats and thieves through here, though, and we know how to deal with them." He glanced over his shoulder to the handful of men still gathered between him and the bar. "Don't we, fellas?"

I had to swallow against a lump of fear. I ducked my head. "I assure you, I'm neither cutthroat nor thief," I said. "Just a weary traveler." I turned my shoulder toward him, trying to break the confrontation, and gestured across the room. "Just grant me an hour by your fire—"

He slammed a palm hard against the front of my shoulder, spinning me back to face him, and the patrons nearest us scraped away. Behind the bully, his fellas took a step closer, ready to help.

I threw a look around the room, hoping to find an innkeeper to come to my aid. The closest I could find was a bartender, and he met my gaze with one as level and hateful as any in the room. No one in the whole common room met my eye with anything other than defiance. I found myself falling onto other habits, scanning the room now as terrain, noting the obstacles I'd have to fight around.

As soon as I caught myself doing that I took a long step back and raised my hands, open, palms out. I had no strength for a fight, and I didn't want to hurt any of these people. I didn't much want to get hurt, either, and that was the more likely outcome. "I'll go," I said. "I'm sorry. I was only looking for some warmth and light. There are dark things out in the night."

"That there are," the bully said, stalking after me even as I withdrew. His fellas fell in behind him. "And we've seen enough of them."

One of his fellas slapped him on the shoulder and pointed at my still-raised arm. "What's that there?" he asked.

The bully peered closer, and I realized he was staring at the pale white scars upon my left wrist, peeking out the end of my tattered sleeve. "You branded?" the bully demanded. "You a renegade from the king's justice?"

That struck too close to home. I stopped suddenly and he stepped too close again. I met his gaze and shoved back my sleeve to reveal more of the wicked scar that snaked all the way to my shoulder. I heard someone gasp in the watching crowd and saw the confusion pass over the bully's eyes.

"That's no brand," I growled at him. "That's the mark of a living dragon. I faced it, and I survived."

A flash of memory took hold of me then—of the black dragon that had nearly destroyed me, and of the dark shapes passing in the night outside—and fear held me in place. Fear gave me courage. There were worse things out there than this bully and his half-drunk friends.

He opened his mouth to sneer more contempt at me, but I shook my head once. "I brought no threat," I said. "I gave no offense." The words came out low, almost shaking with a quiet fury. "All I ever hoped was an hour at your fire."

As I said it I fell into my second sight. The fire flickered and flared on a broad stone hearth. I saw it as a dozen dancing flames, and in my mind's eye I reached a hand across the room and plunged it painlessly into the fire. I knotted that invisible hand in the twisting flames, gripped them tight, then pulled them back to me.

The susurrus of fear that had held the room since my arrival burst into a many-throated scream of true terror. Chairs clattered and tables crashed as the inn's patrons scrambled away from me. To their eyes the fire itself stretched out in a long streamer, flowing like a jet of water from its bed of embers to my outstretched left hand.

I transferred my gaze to the bully, still standing above me. He was frozen in perfect terror, and I felt no pity. I held the hearthfire in a ball between my hands, close to his belly. The living fire struggled to escape, fighting to be free, but I bound it with my will. Every errant flame I bent back into the fire's core, until it blazed like an inferno between us.

"I never hurt you," I said, resuming my rant, "and yet you greeted me with hostility. I—"

I saw him tremble then. I saw tears in the big man's eyes. His fellas had fled him, cowering with everyone else in the room against the cold stone walls. I could taste their fear, thick in the air, and it sapped my strength. It sapped my anger. I lowered my gaze, extended one hand, and sent the fire flowing back into its bed. I saw the bully catch a breath, and it escaped him almost instantly in a shrill little sob. I turned my back on him and left the inn.