Jonas took a long breath of crisp fall air. The shadows were lengthening from the few oak trees they passed; it would be time to make camp soon. The squire patted the side of his horse’s neck and wondered if he should be more concerned about how close they were to Corinth. He was wanted for murder and he did have years of unresolved emotional turmoil pent up in his return, but he had also discovered that morning that Rime had never ridden a horse and was positively terrible at it.
“The horse is going left again,” the mage complained, holding both reins up at nearly her eye level.
“I just don’t get it. You’ve driven a wagon before; that was a whole team of horses. Hell, you’ve even driven a freaking wyvern a time or two.” Jonas chortled.
“I think this horse you bought is defective.” Rime leaned over and shot a murderous glare into the eyes of her placid mare. “Did the man laugh behind his hands as you walked away?”
“No. I know about horses, way more than you do.” The squire assured her again. “There’s nothing wrong with your horse. You’re just weird, and she can sense that you’re uncomfortable. Just relax and ease up on the reins.”
The mage grumbled something but then settled back into the fragmented silence that had been her shield most of the day. She would erupt a few times an hour with complaints, odd questions, or pointed insults, but it was clear that her mind was occupied with their predicament. Jonas had learned to recognize the signs and kept his attention on the road ahead.
They had encountered only a few other travelers during the day. Both Jonas and Rime kept their hoods up, limited conversation to easy pleasantries, and did not linger to speak with the tanner or the family of potters or the absurdly dressed clown with the trumpet. Speed was their main concern, and they would soon be in Corinth where the chance of being recognized increased tenfold—better to stick to the main roads and travel swiftly.
“Why is the horse slowing down again?” Rime sputtered.
Mostly swiftly. Jonas grinned and slowed his gray quarter horse down until he and his companion were traveling side by side. The mage had wanted to start out at a gallop immediately; he was proud of himself for convincing her of the foolishness of that plan. A great horse can gallop for an hour or walk for ten. Most often we are given okay horses that can gallop for ten minutes or walk for two hours. Better to save however much gallop they have for when it is truly needed. The squire felt a hot place behind his eyes. Master’s words. Again. I hear him more and more the closer we get, it’s almost like he’s right next to me.
As plain as pyrite, Jonas saw Sir Pocket riding before him. His giant roan, Pasadena, hooves flashing with the silver- studded horseshoes that his master has insisted upon. The squire had never been sure what he had spent more time on—polishing his master’s gear or brushing Pasadena’s coat and mane. The vision charged ahead, shield slung over his shoulder, gleaming with the three blue swords of Gilead bound in a circle of white.
Held high, the silver sword Hecate burned as bright as moonlight. Jonas blinked and the vision was gone. He brought his horse to a halt and reached out absently to grab Rime’s reins as her white mare kept steadily walking along.
“What? What?” Rime waved an imperial hand at him. “Why are we stopping?”
“I’ve been here before,” Jonas answered, keeping his eyes away, just in case they were wet. “There’s an old campsite over that hill, beneath those three apple trees. I stayed there once with my master. It’s out of the way; we should set up camp.”
The mage shrugged and slid out of her saddle. “Fine, whatever.”
Jonas got out of the saddle as well, taking both horses by the reins to lead them. He followed the mage, who walked unknowing in the hoofprints of the Past.
*
An hour later, Jonas stirred his new cauldron and tried to think of nothing. He had set up camp, tended to the horses, and built the fire; he had even checked the trees for late-season apples, but they were bare. Finally, he had set to making the evening meal without a word. A slight glow of acquisitional pride came over him at the solid little cauldron that he had bought in Zebulon. The man at the stockyards had found it crammed into one of the saddlebags that he was selling the squire, and had shrugged and thrown it in as a bonus. It was nice, thick iron, well cured. The ham shank he’d bought in town, with some flour and water, would turn into a fine stew—with the help of the carrots, potatoes, and fresh green onion he’d snagged from the farmer’s cart. The squire spooned up a generous portion with his new wooden spoon and gave it a frank taste. He abruptly realized two things: being sent unsupervised to shop was enormously fun and he was entirely too good at filling his brain with nothing.
Rime hissed softly from across the fire, where she sat with a bowl containing the three vials of ink they had purchased. With deliberate care she was portioning out small dollops of the black ink and straining her hair through it—first the signature white, then the mundane brown to match. Jonas went back to stirring the stew; it needed just a few more minutes.
“So, why don’t you just change your hair color with magic?”
The mage cursed with customary venom and continued dyeing her hair. “It doesn’t work that way. I can’t permanently affect the properties of an object unless I’m destroying it. I could change the color, but I would need to constantly keep a slow trickle of my magic going to keep the illusion operational. Wasteful use of resources, so the ink.”
The squire scrunched his forehead up in thought. “But why? I’ve heard of plenty of wizards that could do a simple spell like changing the color of something. Or complicated stuff like changing a person into a frog or lead into gold. And I’ve seen you do some really crazy things, really powerful things . . .”
“Look, can we just leave it? You don’t remotely have the vocabulary to understand.” Rime dragged her fingers around the bowl, wanting to use every bit of the ink. “Think of it like this. Most wizards are putting magic into a preexisting shape. That’s all a spell is really, just a shape for magic. It’s like a glass—a glass of water. They coax a tiny trickle of water into the glass, so the water takes the shape of its container. Now, imagine that, instead of a trickle of water, you were trying to fill a glass with a river, with a waterfall, with an entire ocean at once.”
“Oh, it won’t fit in the glass?”
“It breaks the glass.” Rime’s eyes flickered, and the ink in the bowl and on her hands danced free and hung in the air like black pearls. “Stuff like this is about the finest control I have—very small physical interactions. I understand the mechanics of most spells, but my magic just burns them out too fast—I have to really concentrate to keep something complicated together. And that makes me pass out faster. I can make shapes, objects, elements, light. But it all requires my active concentration.”
The mage gestured, and the tiny droplets flew through the air and began to orbit her finger like black moons.
“Maybe your magic just likes showing off,” Jonas suggested as he spooned some stew into a bowl for his companion.
“Maybe,” Rime said, and the ink-moons each took on a different shape: a black sword, a leering face, a rocking chair, a cat’s silhouette, a broken guitar.
“Do you want to talk about the boat?” Jonas heard himself ask, but he kept his eyes down on the simmering cauldron.
“It’s getting worse. My magic. It feels . . . it feels right. It feels wonderful. I think there’s a day coming when I can’t stop. I think I’m going to go insane soon.” Rime’s voice was barely audible over the crackle of the fire.
“What’s in Corinth? Something that can help?” The squire made his hand and voice stay steady as he passed the bowl of stew.
Rime took her bowl and held it in her lap. “I don’t know. The Gray Witch told me. That time, that time we met her in the marsh. She said my answer was in Gilead, at the throne of the king. I have to get in there somehow—someway. It’s that or die out here. Either when that old man’s white sword lops my head off or when everything in my head explodes.”
The mage flung the shifting ink off out into the darkness around the campfire and pressed her knuckles into her eyes. Jonas made himself stay calm, mechanically spooning brown warmth into his mouth. The Gray Witch! He himself had talked to the strange woman—and more times than Rime knew of. She appeared when it suited her to challenge and question him. The Gray Witch was one of the things he was most proud of not thinking about. She spoke in quarter riddles, and the squire was terrified of her. He opened his mouth to speak, but a sudden itch in his lips prevented him. Jonas rubbed the itch hard with his hand as Rime continued, letting her fingers spread across her face and fall quietly into her lap next to the untouched bowl of stew.
“Tactics. Resources. Options.” The ink-haired girl shuddered at the last word. “We are pursued and in great haste. We do not have time to slowly infiltrate the city, gather information, or seek out any sort of allies or aid. Corinth is the home of the Iron Legion. The full might of the army of Gilead stands between the king’s throne and us. Anyone who recognizes you or me will instantly set up an alarm that will result in an armed, well-trained response. Possible outcomes: capture, defeat, death. Easy enough to flee such an encounter, but then all chance of us moving about the city unrestricted is removed permanently from the board.”
Jonas smiled and went back to slurping up stew. He waved his spoon between bites to get his companion’s attention. “Like I said, this is my hometown, I’ve been here before. I do know a couple of ways in and out of the city. Unless things have changed a whole lot, they won’t be interrogating us at the Shield Gates or anything. We can walk right down Providence Road to the gates of the Keep. But the Knights of the Sword at the crossing aren’t going to let us in without introducing ourselves at the very least. Have you thought of a reason why Mistress Rumble and her manservant, Josh, should be admitted to see the king? Immediately?”
Rime raised a finger, eyes light. Then she crooked it in thought. Then her eyebrows fell and she turned her attention to her own spoon and bowl of stew.
The squire coughed a short laugh, but he felt his chest go tight. “Come on, Rime. You’ve been brooding about this all day. I know. I figured out how we get to see the king, so there’s no way you didn’t think of it hours ago. You can say it.”
“Shut your face, Jonas.”
“Mistress Rumble marches right up to the knights on watch and pulls back the hood of her traveling companion. ‘Here he is, Jonas of Gilead. Come to answer for his crimes.’ They’ll swoop right down and take us both inside the castle. I’ll be headed down to the dungeon, but you’ll be taken right to the king’s chambers, to thank you for your service and question you about how you crossed paths with me.” Jonas set to scraping the few tasty remnants in the cauldron into his bowl.
“I don’t want to do that,” Rime said.
“You have to.” The squire eased back to the ground with his refilled bowl. “It’s not just to get you into the throne room, it’s to protect you from Blue Linus and Sideways—I can’t protect you, but the Law of the King can.”
“I don’t want to do that,” Rime repeated, as if convincing herself. “You’ll be put to death, and for some stupid honor-trap that your master put you in.”
“Rime—” Jonas began.
“No. That old man used you. I said so on the boat. There has to be another way. You don’t need to answer to any stupid law.”
“But I want to,” the squire said. “It’s time. I can’t run forever from this, and—”
“Yes, you can! You can in fact run forever,” the mage seethed without much conviction and pushed black hair out of her face.
Jonas tossed his bowl into the cauldron. It would be easy enough to carry together down to the stream along with Rime’s bowl for cleaning later. He stretched both arms, freed his sword from its scabbard, and laid it across his knees. From the nearby satchel he snagged his whetstone and cloth, and for a time the campsite was silent except for the mutter of the fire and the clean scrape of his stone on the blade.
Without looking up from his task, Jonas spoke again. “Neither of us is going to pretend. There are things you do. Things you are. Things you find in your blood. And there’s always a cost and a time you have to pay out for them. Doesn’t matter if you meant it, or if you were born to it, or if you stacked up a pile of good deeds on your platter hoping they’d lessen the bill. Your magic is burning you up. I’ve got white blood on my hands. Tomorrow let’s ride to Corinth and settle up.”
The mage stared at him across the fire as if he were a stranger. Jonas kept his mind empty as he finished his bowl of stew and did not think about his master, or the Gray Witch, or the swift, cold bite of the sword that lay across his knees. There was another sword waiting for him in Corinth, waiting to fall on his neck once and for all. He looked down for a moment, feeling the air of the headsman’s swing—then looked up into Rime’s eyes. She was kneeling down right next to him, her hands on top of his, the blade beneath.
We’ve been holding hands a lot lately. The thought flew by like an arrow.
Rime looked into his eyes, as if choosing a cut of pork at the butcher’s block. She wrinkled her nose and shrugged. “Fine. We’ll do it your way. But once I’ve seen the throne, I’m breaking you out.”
The squire’s mouth dropped. “Rime! No, you can’t do that. You can’t break me out of the king’s dungeon, the Knights of the Scroll would—the Law would, my word as a soldier of Gilead; it’s just wrong!”
Rime stood up and smacked him on the top of the head. “Yeah, yeah, the Law. If all the stories you told are true, there’s no way you can have a worse reputation around here. And just because all the fancy knights in your hometown make you feel a need for some sort of poetic justice out of a bard’s saga doesn’t mean I have to coddle that kind of nonsense. I’m used to you now; I’m not starting over with another guardian. So deal.”
“Nonsense!” Jonas sputtered. “The Knights of Gilead are the greatest heroes this planet has ever known. Do you know how many fell before the Red Wizard? Or battling the Vampire Dread? Or putting down the wyrm Melgatoth?”
The mage considered for a moment. “Reports vary. Between three hundred and fifty and four hundred ten fell during the Dragoon War proper, and a few score more at Korthan Zul’s tower. Thirty-seven were turned by the vampire lord’s touch, but nine were saved by various divine intermediaries—so twenty-eight net were lost. Twelve knights exactly fell fighting the dragon, a thirteenth survived a full month after the battle before succumbing to the beast’s psychic venom at last. Sir Basil, Knight of the Wand.” Jonas groaned. Never argue with a library.
Rime sauntered away to her bedroll and laid down with her back to him. The squire finished sharpening his good steel and watched the campfire whisper itself down to embers. The White Moon was full, the Red Moon a crescent, and the Black Moon all but invisible in the night sky—Jonas covered the white moon with his thumb and then rolled up in his brown cloak for sleep.
We have a plan at least, he told the moons, and his dead master, and the Gray Witch too, if she were listening. “Good night, Rime,” he whispered.
“Call me Rumble,” she said testily.
*
In a garden, she found a well.
The garden was green, but the plants were dead.
In the well there was a bucket and a rope and a crank.
She turned the crank and lowered the rope and heard the splash.
She turned the crank and pulled up the bucket.
There was water in the bucket, but something else.
She reached in and the water was cold, but her hand was hot and the water was cold and her hand closed on the something else.
It beat in her hand, a heart. A heart, a heart, a heart.
She was singing a song and pulling the heart out of the water.
Tears on her face, the song on her lips, the heart in her hand.
The heart beat. The heart beat. The heart beat.
The heart did not. The heart did not. The heart did not.
Her hand was hot, and the heart was cold, and the water was cold, but her hand was hot.
Her hand was hot, and she was singing, and her hand was hot, and she was singing, and her hand was hot, and she was screaming, and she was screaming, and she was screaming, and she was screaming, and she was.