Then I saw it, and it wasn’t even complicated. A child would have known it. Manon was gone, but I had said no, I could get her back if I was clever enough and willing to suffer. I had tried to do the same damn thing when Bett, my first little girl, was dying, but it had helped nobody.
I wanted it to be different with Manon. The book had let me think it could be.
I felt something warm inside me tear loose and drop into the earth. I muttered, “Yes. I agree.”
“Fine,” Harik said. “You have certainly been an aggravation over this book business.”
I still clenched the book tight in its pouch. “Where should I take it?”
“Oh, just drop it anywhere.” Harik gazed up at the lantern. “Someone will come along.”
“Harik . . . can I use the book one more time to say goodbye?”
“If you wish.” Harik flicked something off the sleeve of his robe. “That is, if you can do it in nineteen seconds.”
I bit my lip and tasted blood. I’d need more than nineteen seconds of staring at that damned black square before Manon appeared.
Harik dropped me back into my body with such ease that I didn’t even stagger. I let go of the miner’s shirt, and he fell on his butt, begging not to die. I sprinted across the road, pulling the book out of its pouch as I went.
A tall stone stood beside the cliff’s edge, and I leaned against it while I weighed the book in my hand. I traced the mark on the cover with my finger and lowered it to my knee. Then I opened my hand, and the book fell out. It dropped, bounced over the cliff’s edge, and was gone.
I sat on the stone for a time, pretending to think wise sorcerer thoughts, or at least pretending to remember Manon. I didn’t think about anything, really, apart from occasional images so out of place they might have gotten separated from their herd.
Pil came and sat on the ground at my feet. She was wise enough not to say a damn word, but she leaned her head against my knee once in a while.
THIRTY-FOUR
People generally aggravate me. They cling to foolish, whimsical notions, and they get offended if others don’t cling to them just as hard. They pick out their neighbors’ bad behavior with an unerring eye while doing the same damn thing at the same time. They treat useful strangers politely and are mean to the people they love. They are far less brave than they believe, and no matter what they tell themselves, just about everything they do is for their own safety and comfort. Damn them all three times.
Of course, I possess every one of these same traits. I rarely admit it, because disliking other people who share your failings is easier and more enjoyable.
I wondered which of my reckless and stupid actions Pil was condemning in her head as we rode up the mountain path. I also wondered how she’d feel when she did those same things one day, if she lived.
I had dropped Harik’s book at sunset. After a time, Pil and I made camp. We didn’t converse while building the fire, eating, or switching guard duty. We were at a high elevation, and a cold rain came in the night. We both put on every garment we owned.
The next day, weather shifted back and forth from drizzle to pelting drops that hurt, but the rain never lifted entirely. The dark, ragged clouds seemed to hang just fifty feet above our heads. The trees had given up on such rocky soil, and only bent, wobbly bushes remained. The path grew narrower all day until it wasn’t much more than a game track.
The nasty weather discouraged talk, and neither of us made the effort. But during a spot of afternoon drizzle, when we stopped to rest the horses, I glanced at her and then back at the saddle I was checking. “Why did you come back? I’m happy you did, but at the docks, you seemed awfully determined not to let me get you killed.”
“I’m still determined, you can believe me about that. It’s just that I received some new knowledge about this whole set of crazy events, and it seems that I’m equally likely to get killed these next few days no matter what I do. If that’s true, and I think it must be, then I might as well help you with this dumb thing you’re doing. At least saving kids is nice, assuming we can do it.” She raised her voice. “And where the hell is everybody else?”
“Harik ran them off.” I waved my hand. “It’s a long story. Why do you think you’re about to die?”
She pursed her lips. “Maybe I shouldn’t say. It might change the course of events. Of history, even.”
“So, Fingit told you.”
Pil glared at me. “Yes. You pig’s butt. Don’t think you’re too smart, though.”
I examined the clouds and even reached up as if I could touch one. “Let’s see. Memweck’s hooligans are stealing kids all around the kingdom and are murdering anybody who shows some spine. That would be you. No ships are sailing south through the spring storms. Memweck might even start searching for sorcerers to either serve him or get ripped to bits. I doubt you want that. How am I doing?”
“Harik told you all this.”
I started to say it was all logic and pure living, but instead I said, “He can be helpful once a year or so. Why two bows?”
Pil had shown up with two bows. She carried the hexed one on her back. The new one was pale, not as long, and tapered instead of square. She had used the new one to poke an arrow into that bandit’s head. Now she held up the new bow and waggled it. “I enchanted this before I started up
