Wizard and Glass

“Yes?'

'Will thee take care of me?'

'Yes.'

'I can't go to him when the time comes. I can bear his touching, and his little thefts—if I have you, I can—but I can't go to him on Reap Night. I don't know if I've forgotten the face of my father or not, but I cannot go lo Hart Thorin's bed. There are ways the loss of a girl's virginity can be concealed, I think, but I won't use them. I simply cannot go to his bed.'

'All right,' he said, 'good.' And then, as her eyes widened in startlement, he looked around. No one was there. He looked back at Susan, fully awake now. 'What? What is it?'

'I might already be carrying your child,' she said. 'Has thee thought of that?'

He hadn't. Now he did. A child. Another link in the chain stretching hack into the dimness where Arthur Eld had led his gunslingers into battle with the great sword Excalibur raised above his head and the crown of All- World on his brow. But never mind that; what would his father think? Ur Gabrielle, to know she had become a grandmother?

A little smile had formed at the comers of his mouth, but the thought of his mother drove it away. He thought of the mark on her neck. When his mother came to his mind these days, he always thought of the mark he'd seen on her neck when he came unexpected into her apartment. And the small, rueful smile on her face.

'If you carry my child, such is my good fortune,' he said.

'And mine.' It was her turn to smile, but it had a sad look to it all the same, that smile. 'We're too young, I suppose. Little more than kiddies ourselves.'

He rolled onto his back and looked up at the blue sky. What she said might be true, but it didn't matter. Truth was sometimes not the same as reality—this was one of the certainties that lived in the hollow, cavey place at the center of his divided nature. That he could rise above both and willingly embrace the insanity of romance was a gift from his mother. All else in his nature was humorless . . . and, perhaps more important, without metaphor. That they were too young to be parents? What of that? If he had planted a seed, it would grow.

'Whatever comes, we'll do as we must. And I'll always love you, no matter what comes.'

She smiled. He said it as a man would state any dry fact: sky is up, earth is down, water flows south.

'Roland, how old are you?' She was sometimes troubled by the idea that, young as she herself was, Roland was even younger. When he was concentrating on something, he could look so hard he frightened her. When he smiled, he looked not like a lover but a kid brother.

'Older than I was when I came here,' he said. 'Older by far. And if I have to stay in sight of Jonas and his men another six months, I'll be hobbling and needing a boost in the arse to get aboard my horse.'

She grinned at that, and he kissed her nose.

'And thee'll take care of me?'

'Aye,' he said, and grinned back at her. Susan nodded, then also turned on her back. They lay that way, hip to hip, looking up at the sky. She took his hand and placed it on her breast. As he stroked the nipple with his thumb, it raised its head, grew hard, and began to tingle. This sensation slipped quickly down her body to the place that was still throbbing between her legs. She squeezed her thighs together and was both delighted and dismayed to find that doing so only made matters worse.

'Ye must take care of me,' she said in a low voice. 'I've pinned everything on you. All else is cast aside.'

'I'll do my best,' he said. 'Never doubt it. But for now, Susan, you must go on as you have been. There's more time yet to pass; I know that because Depape is back and will have told his tale, but they still haven't moved in any way against us. Whatever he found out, Jonas still thinks it's in his interest to wait. That's apt to make him more dangerous when he does move, but for now it's still Castles.'

'But after the Reaping Bonfire—Thorin—'

'You'll never go to his bed. That you can count on. I set my warrant on it.'

A little shocked at her own boldness, she reached below his waist. 'Here's a warrant ye can set on me, if ye would,' she said.

He would. Could. And did.

When it was over (for Roland it had been even sweeter than the first time, if that was possible), he asked her: 'That feeling you had out at Citgo, Susan—of being watched. Did you have it this time?'

She looked at him long and thoughtfully. 'I don't know. My mind was in other places, ye ken.' She touched him gently, then laughed as he jumped—the nerves in the half-hard, half-soft place where her palm stroked were still very lively, it seemed.

She took her hand away and looked up at the circle of sky above the grove. 'So beautiful here,' she murmured, and her eyes drifted closed.

Roland also felt himself drifting. It was ironic, he thought. This time she hadn't had that sensation of being watched … but the second time, he had. Yet he would have sworn there was no one near this grove.

No matter. The feeling, megrim or reality, was gone now. He took Susan's hand, and felt her fingers slip naturally through his, entwining.

He closed his eyes.

9

All of this Rhea saw in the glass, and wery interesting viewing it made, aye, wery interesting, indeed. But she'd seen shagging before—sometimes with three or four or even more doing it all at the same time (sometimes with partners who were not precisely alive)—and the hokey-pokey wasn't very interesting to her at her advanced age. What she was interested in was what would come after the hokey-pokey.

Is our business done? the girl had asked.

Mayhap there's one more little thing, Rhea had responded, and then she told the impudent trull what to do.

Aye, she'd given the girl very clear instructions as the two of them stood in the hut doorway, the Kissing Moon shining down on them as Susan Delgado slept the strange sleep and Rhea stroked her braid and whispered instructions in her ear. Now would come the fulfillment of that interlude . . . and that was what she wanted to see, not two babbies shagging each other like they were the first two on earth to discover how 'twas done.

Twice they did it with hardly a pause to natter in between (she would have given a good deal to hear that natter, too). Rhea wasn't surprised; at his young age, she supposed the brat had enough spunkum in his sack to give her a week's worth of doubles, and from the way the little slut acted, that might be to her taste. Some of them discovered it and never wanted aught else; this was one, Rhea thought.

But let's see how sexy you feel in a few minutes, you snippy bitch, she thought, and leaned deeper into the pulsing pink light thrown from the glass. She could sometimes feel that light aching in the very bones of her face . . . but it was a good ache. Aye, wery good indeed.

They were at last done … for the time being, at least. They clasped hands and drifted off to sleep.

'Now,' Rhea murmured. 'Now, my little one. Be a good girl and do as ye were told.'

As if hearing her, Susan's eyes opened—but there was nothing in them. They woke and slept at the same time. Rhea saw her gently pull her hand free of the boy's. She sat up, bare breasts against bare thighs, and looked around. She got to her feet—

That was when Musty, the six-legged cat, jumped into Rhea's lap, waowing for either food or affection. The old woman shrieked with surprise, and the wizard's glass at once went dark—puffed out like a candle-flame in a gust of wind.

Rhea shrieked again, this time with rage, and seized the cat before it could flee. She hurled it across the room, into the fireplace. That was as dead a hole as only a summer fireplace can be, but when Rhea cast a bony, misshapen hand at it, a yellow gust of flame rose from the single half-charred log lying in there. Musty screamed