1 The Outstretched Shadow.3 (15 page)

 It had to be a cat—though the Light help him if it turned out to be a white squirrel, or a monkey, or a ferret, or some other form of outlandish pet. A cat he could probably coax down; with an exotic, he'd probably wind up with a handful of sharp teeth.

 "Hush now, don't cry." Kellen rummaged inside his tunic for a clean handkerchief—reasonably clean, anyway—and handed it to the girl. "Blow your nose and dry your eyes. I'm sure we can do something about your problem."

 He approached her; she wasn't going to run now. "Can you show me where she is?"

 The girl stood beside him and pointed up into the tree. Kellen looked in the direction she indicated, squinting against the last rays of the setting sun. High in the tree, perched on one of the topmost branches, he could barely make out a small grey fuzzy kitten, its fur nearly the same color as the slippery bark of the tree. It edged back and forth on its branch, which shifted dangerously with every move it made.

 Kellen sighed, just a little. Still, he couldn't leave the little thing up there to get all three of them in trouble. And he couldn't just leave the poor little girl here to try to coax it down. Kittens had the bad habit of climbing into inaccessible places, then being too frightened to get down by themselves.

 He glanced over his shoulder. A high hedge of ornamental shrubbery screened the bottom of the garden from the view of the house, and at this chime, the inhabitants would be dressing for dinner and the staff would be preparing it. For a little while, at least, it wasn't likely that they'd be found here. He thought hard, coming up with a plan.

 He patted her clumsily; she didn't seem to mind. "Now look here, I'll see if I can't help you out. I'll climb up and get your kitten down. If anyone comes while I'm up there, you must scream as loud as you can, and point up at me. Don't say anything, just scream. Do you understand?" Kellen asked.

 The little girl looked puzzled. "But why?"

 Kellen smiled ruefully. "Well as to that, sweeting, I think you're far too pretty to be whipped for wanting to save your kitten. If you make a lot of noise, they'll all think you came out in the garden chasing me, and you'll be a great heroine."

 "But what about you?" she asked. She might not be very old, but she was evidently wise enough in the ways of her household to know that if she acted as if he were an interloper rather than someone who'd come to help her, he would be in serious trouble.

 Then again, anyone who had spoken so casually of being whipped knew plenty about punishment.

 "Oh, I'll think of something," he said airily. And thought: I just hope I don't have to.

 And keeping that thought in mind, Kellen turned away from her, put foot and hand to the trunk of the tree, and began to climb.

 The lower branches were easy, though the fine-grained bark was as slick as polished wood. The flowers had an overpowering sweet and slightly unpleasant scent as if they were just on the wrong side of decay, even in the cool of the evening, and he dared not get any of their fleshy, greasy petals between his hands and the bark. Once he was higher in the tree he could hear the kitten mewing—hoarsely, as if it had been doing it for some time—but with the leaves in his face Kellen could no longer see it. He did know it was still somewhere above him.

 "Here, kitty-kitty-kitty," Kellen muttered, mostly to himself, for he doubted that the cat could hear him over its own plaintive cries. As a matter of fact, at the moment he felt like making a few plaintive cries of his own…

 The tree was very tall. He looked out once, and found himself on a level with the third-floor windows of whatever Mage-house's gardens he was trespassing in, and fought down his vertigo with an effort. After that, he kept his eyes firmly focused on the trunk of the tree and the branches in front of his face.

 Then, at last, the cries were near at hand. He moved aside a branch while clinging desperately with his other hand, and there it was.

 And it was not at all happy to see him. Rather than regard him as a rescuer, it apparently thought he was there to eat it. He reached toward it—and it backed away, then scrambled off down a side branch, forcing him to leave the trunk and follow.

 Then began a pursuit that would have been comical if Kellen hadn't been so petrified of falling. Several times he was almost within reach of the kitten. Each time it regarded Kellen's outstretched hand in pop-eyed horror and retreated out of reach, either around the trunk or out along a limb. Several times it fell, slipping to a lower branch to glare at him in affronted indignation before bouncing off—just out of reach—to resume its piteous cries for rescue.

 You stupid lint-brained furball! Can't you see I'm trying to rescue you? Kellen thought with something more than irritation.

 Finally, he'd gone as high as he could go without falling himself. The tree trunk itself swayed slowly with his weight, a slow sickening motion that would surely give away his presence here if anyone bothered to look. The kitten was just above him, on an even narrower branch.

 And for one brief moment, all its featherbrained feline attention was devoted to keeping its balance. Kellen lunged, grabbed it around its middle, tore it loose from its perch, and stuffed it down into his tunic as deep as he could, wrapping one arm around himself to keep it from struggling free.

 Kittens, Kellen discovered at that very moment, might be small and helpless-looking, but they had a very large number of very sharp claws. The claws weren't big, but they made up for their lack of size in degree of sharpness. He was being lacerated by needles. He clamped his mouth shut on a yell, which would only have attracted unwanted attention.

 Gritting his teeth and trying to concentrate, he turned toward the trunk, feeling with his foot for the branch below.

 And slipped.

 His descent from the tree was much faster and far less comfortable than his ascent. Kellen grabbed one-handed at everything he could to slow his fall, but his weight and the speed of his fall tore the branches from his fingers almost as soon as he grasped them.

 At last he stopped.

 Abruptly. On his back.

 He struggled to breathe for a moment, and his vision greyed out, then returned as he managed to gasp in a breath.

 Kellen lay on the ground, panting, taking in huge gulps of air, looking up at the tree. He was dimly aware of something struggling free of his tunic and worming its way out through the neck-hole.

 I've broken my back. Father will have a fit.

 A healing-Mage could mend a broken back of course, and it wasn't as if Lycaelon couldn't afford the best there was—but oh, what he'd have to say about it!

 He twitched feet and hands experimentally, then moved arms and legs. They all worked, and no movements produced any stabbing pains…

 Oh, good. I haven't broken my back. Or anything else, I guess.

 Groggily he sat up, shaking his head. Leaves, flower petals, and bits of twig rained down on him from his hair and from the hole he'd left through the branches as he fell.

 He looked up at the little kitchen maid. She was clutching the kitten beneath her chin and beaming at him, her tears forgotten. The kitten was purring loudly and looking smug. Wretched little monster. For a brief moment Kellen could see why someone would be tempted to drown it.

 Maybe I should have left it up there…

 But—no. The tear streaks remaining on the child's face reminded Kellen of why he really didn't mean that last thought.

 "Are you all right?" the girl asked anxiously.

 "I think so," Kellen said, though he really didn't think anything of the sort. He shifted, and heard something crackle beneath him as he moved. For a moment, he was afraid it was his spine after all.

 But if his spine had made a noise like that, he wouldn't have been able to move. Kellen got to his knees, pulling the object out from beneath him.

 A bird's nest. A big one, the size of a soup plate, woven of sticks, and full of… junk?

 "A jackdaw's nest," Kellen said aloud, identifying the item. "I must have knocked it free when I fell."

 Jackdaws were notorious thieves, attracted to anything that was colorful or shiny. Curious, he began to pick through the jackdaw's trove.

 Bits of tinsel and glass. Faded hair ribbons. Pieces of painted tin, relics of the last Festival day. Among the junk, a real treasure—a gold and emerald chain.

 "That belongs to Mistress!" the little girl gasped, staring at it. "She was looking everywhere for it!"

 "Here," Kellen said, tucking it into a pocket in the girl's smock. "Tell her you found it somewhere. Urn—tell her that you saw the jackdaw carrying it off and you threw stones at the nest until it came down. That will explain this mess, and it should save you and Milady from a few whippings in the future."

 There was one more thing at the bottom of the nest: a key.

 Kellen's key.

 When he held it in his hand, .all his unease at the Wild Magic and the geas its spell had cast upon him came rushing back. "All magic has a price," it had said in The Book of Sun. Kellen had thought his blood was the price of the magick, but he'd been wrong. That was only the price of the spell. Rescuing the kitten had been the price for finding the key, because if he hadn't rescued the kitten, he'd never have found the key.

 But I chose to rescue the kitten, didn't I? Kellen wondered uneasily. Magick didn't make me do it.

 He'd thought the Wild Magic was just like the High Magick, just with fewer rules: you did the spell and you got the result. But it wasn't. The spell had only brought him here. If he hadn't cared about the girl and her kitten, he'd never have found the key. It was what was in him, what he was, that made the magick work the way it did—as if, when he looked into the Books of the Wild Magic, somehow the Wild Magic was also looking into him, and judging him.

 I Don't like this, Kellen thought apprehensively. What if I weren't me? How would the magick work then?

 He got to his feet, putting the key into his pocket.

 "I've got to go now," he said, feeling uncomfortable. "Could you show me where the garden door is?"

 He hated to involve the girl in any more trouble, but the way he was feeling right now, another climb over the wall was the last thing he could manage.

 "It's right over here. No one will see you. And… thank you, goodsir."

 "Thank you, gentle miss. I learned a lot here today," Kellen said honestly. More than I wanted to learn, if the truth be told.

 She led him across the garden—Kellen limping along behind her— and when the door had closed behind him, he wasn't really surprised to see he was in an alley he recognized, only a few turnings from home.

 IT was full dark—first Night Bells had rung—by the time Kellen reached his own garden door once more, for he had been moving rather slowly as he'd left that garden gate. He was lucky not to have any broken bones or bad sprains from his fall, but by tomorrow morning he'd have a rainbow of bruises, and he felt stiff all over. He was thinking longingly of sneaking down to the laundry for a long soak in one of the spell-heated washtubs as he crossed the garden—there'd be nobody there at this time of night, and the water in the washing vats was always hot—and he wished he could soak out the memory of the Wild Magic as easily as he could soak out the stiffness of his bruises.

 Why did it work the way it did? How could it work the way it did? If it worked like this for a simple Finding Spell, what would happen if he dared to cast one of the greater spells described in the Books? What sort of price might the Wild Magic ask then?

 Kellen was so engrossed in his own thoughts on his way to his room to pick up fresh clothes for after his bath that he failed to see his father on the stairs leading to his suite. And unfortunately, Lycaelon saw him. Apparently Lycaelon had gotten home early for once—and had been looking for him.

 "Kellen!"

 Kellen froze where he was, stunned. It had never occurred to him that he'd run into his father now—Lycaelon was rarely home before midnight, and sometimes not before dawn, if he was participating in a Greater Working, not just a Council session. Kellen wished suddenly that he was a Mage out of the wondertales—one who could stop time, turn himself invisible, or simply teleport himself away with no more than a thought. But Mages like that only existed in stories, not real life.

 Lycaelon reached the top of the stairs, a ball of blue Magelight hovering behind his left shoulder. As its cerulean radiance reached Kellen, the boy saw his father's expression change from one of irritation to actual anger.

 "I see. What have you to say for yourself?" Lycaelon said.

 He always starts arguments in the middle and expects me to play catch-up! Kellen thought, becoming angry in turn. He sees what, exactly? He felt his mouth settle into a sullen line, and said nothing. What was there to say, when he didn't even know what he was being accused of. Except it's always the same thing, isn't it —not being him, not being the kind of son that would be happy to be a mindless little copy of him? A model of exemplary behavior to be held up to every other Mage who has a son?

 "Undermage Anigrel told me you'd shirked your lessons today to go off and wander around the City again like an out-of-work laborer—and from the look of you, you've spent that day rolling around under hedges. Mend your ways, or you will be dead weight, Kellen, dead weight—and the City has no place for dead weight!" Lycaelon thundered.