Giant’s Fist was in the softer flank of the mountain range.
She was still studying its interlacing branches when she felt someone approach and stand in front of her. She waited and counted her heartbeats-one, two, three-before lowering her head.
Ivor kneeled in front of her, bringing their eyes to a level.
“You said you could open the inside of a man like a lock,” he said.
“I can.”
“How?”
Jandi considered him a moment. “By making my will into a key and reaching inside,” she said.
He smiled, a teasing smile just short of mockery. “Do it to me.”
“What? No!” she exclaimed.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t wish to kill you.”
He rocked back on his heels. “I don’t think you can do it.”
“Then more fool you,” she said tartly.
“You can’t.” His smile was maddening.
“Is that a challenge?”
He bent close. “Yes.”
She looked a long moment into his dark brown eyes, studying his face. Then she reached out and placed the palm of her hand beneath the open ties of his shirt, against the bare skin over his heart. Her hand was cool and his flesh was warm; she could feel the strong, steady beat of his heart.
He didn’t move, still staring into her eyes. It seemed to that her his breath became quick and shallow, and she felt the blood rush to her cheeks again. She dropped her gaze, concentrating on her hand on his heart.
He didn’t move as the sigil on her cheek pulsed once with a green light. Tiny green sparks, bright now in the gathering dusk, danced across her body and down her arm. He felt something insubstantial push through the wall of his chest, between his ribs and through the muscle. His pulse quickened at it.
She raised her eyes to his, and it was as if she held his heart cupped in her hands. He knew she could unlock him, but she wouldn’t-not this way.
Jandi closed her eyes, and he felt that gentle, dangerous touch withdraw. When she removed her hand from his chest, the skin it had covered was suddenly cold.
Her lips were warm when he bent forward and covered her mouth with his.
“Where are you laze-abouts? Come help me with the load!”
Gareth’s voice tore through the moment and Jandi and Ivor pulled apart, the breeze chilling their lips. Jandi glanced over Ivor’s shoulder and saw Gareth, his arms piled high with prickly deadwood, standing by the half- completed fire pit. A log rolled off the top of his burden. He cursed and turned toward them, laughing. The grin froze on his face when he saw them together, and he turned away suddenly. The wood falling on the ground made a sound like the clatter of sticks on a stretched hide being beaten to make soft leather.
Gareth and Jandi stood on top of the Fist while Ivor and the phlegmatic donkey kept watch at the base. Jandi drew her cloak closer around her body and shivered. The autumn wind moaning across the Fist’s flat surface was chilly.
“I didn’t leave Bane’s city to sojourn in Bane’s gravel pit,” she grumbled, kicking a pebble over the side. It bounced several times against the side of the monolith, making a clacking sound every time it hit. Far beneath them, she saw Ivor’s head turn to follow the sound.
“It’ll be a paradise by the time we’re finished with it,” Gareth proclaimed, hopping down from a knot of stone and examining the half-illegible characters carved at its base. “Is there any magic left here, from who-or what-went before? We don’t want any residual Power to clash with your Art.”
As she had done several times on the hike up the stairs that curved between the cone and its parent mountain, she closed her eyes and held out her arms, elbows at her sides and palms up. She inhaled deeply, and Gareth heard a gentle humming, although she didn’t seem to be producing the sound herself.
Jandi opened her eyes. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Possibly an echo in the depths. It’s hard to avoid any trace of magic. Creatures magical by nature pass by, and always leave some kind of trail, no matter how faint. I would be more suspicious of a place completely clean of magic-it takes an effort to burn an area clear. There’s nothing here that would interfere with my overlay.”
“Well, then, what’s stopping you?”
The young mage glared at the grinning ex-pirate and reached into the bag slung across her shoulder. “Nothing,” she said. “But you’ll need to give me the Key.”
Gareth pulled the torque from his upper arm, where it had nested the night before. Jandi had found a spot clear of rocks and sat cross-legged.
Jandi placed the Key cautiously on her lap and took a clean glass vial from her pack. She held it in her right hand and drew her small blade with her left.
“Give me your hand. I’ll need some of your blood. Oh, please!” She laughed as he flinched back. “I know you’ve had worse fighting. You’ve shed more blood while shaving!”
“That was due to ill-intentioned folk, or an accident,” he said. “I’m not accustomed to having those who are supposed to be working for my benefit stabbing me with their little knives.”
Imperiously she gestured with bottle and knife, and he sighed.
“Which hand?” he said.
“The one you would hold a key with, if you were unlocking a door.”
He kneeled and extended his right hand. She held the bottle close alongside while she sliced deeply across the pad of his forefinger. Thick blood welled, and she filled the small bottle quickly.
“Sorry,” she said, giving him a sympathetic smile.
He stood and wrapped the small wound in the tail of his shirt. “It is what it must be,” he said.
She sheathed the knife and took the Key in one hand, the glass vial filled with scarlet in the other. Her eyes closed, and the sigil on her cheek glowed briefly with the strange green light associated with her Art.
He retreated to sit on a nearby rock and reached in his own pack for a skin of ale. He watched as Jandi’s breathing slowed, the time between her inhaling and exhaling uncomfortably long. Minutes stretched to an hour and he finished the skin, wishing he’d brought another and wondering if anything was going to happen.
Then he saw the tiny green sparks hovering around her body like fireflies. Thicker and brighter they grew, coalescing into a ring around her. The circle of green light moved down her form, spreading as it met the rock. It was followed by another, and another. They moved across the surface of the Fist like slow-moving ripples.
On and on it went. As dusk came on, the glow became brighter. He watched, fascinated, and wondered what it looked like to the watchers below.
Down at the base, Ivor watched the Giant’s Fist turn from black to chartreuse, waves of green light drenching it like a strange tide. Although the outside temperature wasn’t particularly cold, he leaned against the donkey’s neck and shivered.
Let me die,
Give, give,
