Renegade's Magic
He didn’t twitch. But it was not for him that I said my farewell, but for myself. I knew that. And the pulling string of magic tugged me again and I was off, down a long stretch of moonlit road, past Dead Town, and Amzil’s old house swayed to one side from last year’s snowload, and on until I saw the lights and smelled the smoke of Gettys. Again I slowed my pace. It was hard to do. The failing magic pulled at me like a hook in my chest.
My body was using up the last of its resources. I needed to get there while it still lived, but even more, I needed to see the faces of those I loved. I found their house and I danced up to their door. Silent as a wraith, I flowed through plank walls and into a room where Spink and Epiny shared a bed, their child nestled between them. Epiny looked almost corpselike, her face waxy with dark circles under her eyes. Spink’s hair looked dried and brittle, like a starved dog’s fur. Even the baby looked thin; her little cheeks were flat rather than fat. “Don’t give up,” I begged them. “Help is coming. Sergeant Duril is on his way here.” I dragged my fading fingertips across their sleeping faces, softening the lines there, but I lacked the strength to break into Epiny’s dreams.
The pull of the fading magic was pain now. Somewhere, my abused heart was flopping unevenly in my chest. Still, I stayed for a last indulgence. I dared myself to find the woman who once had saved me. My lips brushed Amzil’s bony cheek; she slept huddled with her children in the same bed, and all their faces were as thin as when first I had met them. “Farewell,” I breathed at her, softer than a whisper. “Know you were loved.” I tried to believe I had not failed them as I was swept away from them yet again.
“Let him go.” Kinrove’s voice I recognized. “Follow him, but do not interfere. It is his time and he knows it.”
As the last hours of the night dissipated, my shuffle grew slower, my step ever smaller, and the drag of my other foot ever heavier. The ground began to rise. At some point, I went to my knees and then my hands and knees. I crawled on. More than once, I heard them call for fresh torches, and torches were brought, for them to kindle from the stubs, but they never left my side. Their weeping died away to hoarse breathing. By the time I was dragging myself on my belly, they were silent. “The torch is nearly gone,” I heard Likari say and, “No matter,” Olikea replied. “The sun is rising. And he cannot see anymore anyway.”
She was right.
I crawled past her broken stump. It was hard. Her fallen branches littered the ground all along her old trunk. I did not think I could drag my bulk past their tangle, but I did. And then I had to drag my body up, up to where the small tree sprouted at the end of the fallen trunk.