Taming Fire (32 page)

He turned to go, looked back at me, shook his head. "Can't believe you're still alive."

I shrugged one shoulder. "Magic," I said. I made my voice lighter than I felt, and he chuckled back at me.

"Magic. Hah." He pulled the door closed behind him, and the room grew dark again. I tried the bread—one idle bite—and the taste of it woke a hunger in me that I had almost forgotten. I devoured the little bit of crust and longed to call to the fisherman for more. But I restrained myself. Everything in its time.

The light through the slatted walls faded, and after a while the fire from the cabin's other room flickered down to coals, and I lay in deep darkness, thinking. For the first time in months, I could think. I remembered the fisherman's words—first heart, then bones, then sight—but as I lay there I thought probably this fever had given me more than my vision back. I had clarity. I could think.

And I did. I stepped back through the fisherman's story, counting out the days again. Eighty days. Eight weeks on this miserable little bed. Broth could not have kept me alive that long. And no matter what I'd told him, it wasn't magic either.

I thought of the dragon. It came to me in flashes of memory. I saw myself strung up in the air, the immensity of the beast flowing by me on the wing before it struck at Archus. I thought of it reared to its full height, towering over the arrogant apprentice as he called down lightning. I thought of the beast's immense head blocking the mouth of the cave I'd used for refuge. And I thought of the shadow high above me, dwindling with distance, a thin trace of red dancing through its shadow.

Blood. I trembled at the thought but refused to shy away. Blood magic. They'd spoken of it at the Academy. There's power in earth and stone, power in wind and sky, but there's a special magic in living blood. In spilling blood. I'd given some to the dragon, and it had given some to me, however unwillingly.

Something had happened then. I remembered the dragon's confusion as it raged within my mind.
What have you done to me
? it had asked. Nothing of my own intent, but after what I'd seen—after what I'd survived—I suspected there was something in the trading of our powers.

The blackness of it mattered. The emptiness. The magic of man is order. It's power built on reason, understanding, focused will. Dragons, though...dragons are primal creatures. Theirs is the magic of chaos, the underlying powers. It was not the trade of blood that had mattered. Not on a physical level. It was the exchange of
power
, alien power, conflicting powers mingled together.

I hadn't learned a single spell in my time at the Academy, but I had learned boatloads of theory. I nodded slowly to myself. I would not have believed a description of it, but I had experienced it firsthand. No one should have survived what I'd gone through, warrior, wizard, or king. No one. But I had faced a dragon and lived!

And then I blinked, a new memory bubbling up. I had worked a spell, hadn't I? I remembered the cave, the close blackness so like the terrible closet Seriphenes had locked me in. But there in the darkness I had summoned a light. And even as I'd fallen to my death I had managed
some
working of air. It hadn't been strong enough, soon enough, but perhaps it had kept me from dying outright.

I closed my eyes and tried again. There was pain still, an ache as familiar as my own smell, but it was dull and distant now. I stepped through the exercises Antinus had taught me and opened my eyes. And then I licked my lips, suddenly nervous.

Because it was there. Reality laid bare. I could see the fisherman's pathetic little shack, battered and broken upon the shore, a frail speck beneath the maelstrom of energies around us. The ocean churned, deep and bitter and wholly unpredictable. I could feel its power as a threat, a promise of destruction, straining against the leash and pounding its frustration with the collapse of every froth-tipped wave.

I narrowed my focus, drew down my eye, and suddenly I looked down on myself from less than a pace away. I could see the power in me, the weary ebb and flow of my lifeblood, but it lay in heavy contrast against a bed of perfect black. Shadow spread out beneath me and wrapped around the edges, and I trembled. The dragon's presence stained me.

I pushed the thought away and looked more closely. I became aware of old bandages and clumsy stitches and in several places splints fashioned of driftwood and twine. There had been a time when that was all that held my shattered bones in place, but I could feel the truth of the fisherman's tale. I could feel bones grown whole again, and in my second sight I could see the flashing shadow that bound the broken edges like mortar.

I stared down at myself for a while, life energy dancing like a kitchen fire, and then I cast out my awareness until I found the fisherman sleeping beneath a threadbare blanket in the outer room. He burned strong, clean, with the strength of his arms and the sturdy power of hard labor. He roared like a bonfire, strong enough to shape his world without a touch of magic, and I felt sadness settle over me when I turned my eyes back to the shadowy, fitful glow of my own survival.

I needed to be stronger. I raised up on an elbow as I'd done before. I tried to heave myself upright, but the strain across my abdomen sent a stabbing pain into my right hip and I fell back. I shook my head and tried again, and once again I fell back panting.

Bodily strength would have to wait. Still, I was pleased with the second sight, and I reached out again as I had done in the cave and found the fragile memory of sunbeams and firelight. I remade my vision of the room, drawing out the light, building it until it shone, and then I spoke a soft word and opened my eyes to find my room as bright as day.

I smiled, but my head throbbed with the effort of it. I found myself straining to hold the image, fighting against the reality I knew was there, and after four hastening heartbeats I let it go, and darkness fell again. Still, I knew that I could do it. I could work magic by my own will. I would have given much to show that skill to Seriphenes.

Seriphenes. The dark wizard's face swam before my vision, and I remembered him as I had seen him last, sweeping through a portal to lead dozens of students against the dragon that had tried to kill me. What had become of them? I held precious little fear for the master wizard who had defied Claighan's every warning, but what had become of the students? What had become of Themmichus?

I imagined the worst and hoped for the best, and through it all I poured my hate on Seriphenes. On Leotus, who had so happily gone along with the scheme. On Archus, who had dragged me away from all the others and offered me up as bait. On the rebel Lareth, who had made that necessary.

I thought of Lareth for the first time since I had left Seriphenes's office, and my mouth twisted in a frown. I owed him more venom than Seriphenes. He was my enemy, true and deep, and I would have given much to face him in vengeance.

But not now. Not like this. I had the second sight, but the extent of my magic was a pathetic little flare of light, and my body was weak as a newborn lamb's. I took up the water bottle the fisherman had left me, drank it to the bottom, then curled onto my side and looked for sleep. There would be work to do at dawn.

It was another week before I could stand unassisted. The pain persisted, but with some dedicated effort and a far richer diet than I had known in months, I slowly gained my strength. Whenever my body failed me—and in those days it failed me often—I bent my attention to training my mind instead. I worked through my mental exercises again and again, until I could take on the second sight in the space of a breath. I wasted days trying to speed my healing with magical will, trying to imagine myself stronger. But order magic works on expectation, and I felt my weakness far too dearly to believe it gone.

Whenever I faltered, whenever my legs could not quite hold me, I thought back on the spell Archus had used to march me like a puppet across the Academy grounds. He'd woven armor of solid air, and I often thought a trick like that could serve me well. But I didn't know the first thing about that manner of working, and whatever clumsy efforts I made at it ended in failure.

There was another temptation in the magic, though. Even as I tried to understand how to
will
reality so air was hard as steel, I could see the power of that air in my second sight. I could see the energy in a breath of wind like a thread, long and thin and infinitely pliable. It seemed like it would be so easy to reach out and grasp the thread itself, to wrap it around my arm like a string, but I knew that—even more than Archus's clever working—was well beyond my grasp. That was sorcery, the manipulation of pure elemental energy, and Claighan had said even the greatest wizards could not do that.

So I settled for my little tricks—a glowing light, a flaring fire, a breeze to freshen the air in the close little shelter—and mostly focused on strengthening my body. I still could not go far, but soon enough I could feed myself. And then prepare my food. And then the fisherman's too. Soon I was working for Joseph, scaling and gutting, packing and sorting, while he brought in the catch.

There was much work to do. For weeks he had neglected his business, neglected himself in his dedication to my recovery. Now I did everything I could to return the favor. He went out with the rising sun and came back at dusk with a healthy haul. Then while he slept I worked, preparing the catch for him to take out with him the following morning.

So he could start each day with a trip to the nearest market, two leagues south along the coast, and sell fillets direct to the meat market there. And then while he was gone I'd rest. I'd rise. I'd clean the shack or scour the shore for firewood. I'd walk and walk until my legs gave out, then rest and walk back home.

Those first days I barely made a mile, and then eventually two, and it was a great victory to me when I judged I'd gone fully three miles before giving up. A victory. But I remembered days on Jemminor's farm when I had grazed the sheep out across dozens of miles of rolling hills without ever feeling the strain. That thought always killed my joy.

But then one afternoon I found the stone the fisherman had placed. I was five miles from home, the sun well past its peak and drifting out to sea, and I knew I'd have to turn around soon or I wouldn't make it back before Joseph did. Then my right knee buckled, and I barely caught myself short of falling, and I knew that if I went any farther I might not make it back at all. I turned to go—

I spotted the stone among the crashing waves. It was out of place, polished black and smooth, nearly a pace across and just as tall. It was a wonder a man could even lift it.

But clearly someone had. It stood among the surf as a monument, and as I moved closer I felt a deep sense of familiarity. I knew this place. It was where I had washed ashore. I reached back for the memory of Joseph's story, watching me fall and searching north along the coast until he found the spot. I stared up at the sky. I stared out to sea. And slowly I nodded.

The fisherman had brought this here as a monument. Perhaps as a memorial. I watched the mighty waves rolling, crashing in the distance, and I nodded slowly. I blinked my eyes and fell into the second sight, and I forced myself to look upon the deadly crushing power that had swallowed me whole. This was where I should have died. I hadn't.

Weak though I was, fragile though I was, this stone was a testament to my power. To the dragon's power within me. I took a deep breath and let it out. I shook my head. It was from the dragon, yes, but the power was mine. It had served me, not the beast. It had preserved me when the beast wanted me dead.

I sat against the stone and ate my lunch—a carrot, an apple, and dried beef that Joseph had brought back from town—and then when I was done I started back toward the cabin. Just five miles and it would tax me to the bone, but I had
power
. I smiled, I set my jaw, and made my way back home.

Two weeks later I went along with him, down to the little town, and I watched while he negotiated his trades. There was more to it than I'd have guessed—haggling prices, settling terms—but the man worked through it all with an easy familiarity and before noon he had my arms loaded with bundles of goods to take back to the boat.

It was a respectable little fishing boat, single-mast and open-hulled but large enough for three or four if Joseph had had any kind of crew, and outfitted with block and tackle to run a deep dredging net. He never dragged between the town and his cabin—one of the terms of his trade—but there was open water north and west and he never had any difficulty filling his nets.

Now he headed back north, ferrying me home, but there were no perishables among the goods we'd purchased. "Take me out," I said. He looked at me, frowning, and I waved out to the west. "Take me out. I'd like to see a catch."

"Sure you're up to it?" he asked.

"I'm certain of it," I said. "And I'm itching to know what it's like."

"Boring, mostly," he said. "Lots of work. But I could use the help."

So we went, chasing schools and hauling in nets full of flopping fish. I helped him at first, but he'd understated it strongly. Even with the assistance of the pulleys, it took main strength to heave a laden net up, and I soon understood where the fisherman got his strength.

By midafternoon I found a place out of the way toward the stern and curled up to rest. I caught him smiling indulgently down at me, but he never complained. And when I woke an hour later I helped him pull in another little catch before he finally headed home for the night.