He shouted, hoping to distract the killer, but the man ignored him.
As Alaire rushed at the assassin, the man lunged, piercing Kai in the abdomen. The boy screamed in pain and fell back into the snow.
The killer looked up, apparently satisfied with his work, then ran off.
Alaire scrambled to Kai's side; he was lying face up in the snow, still waving his sword and moaning.
Alaire gently deflected the weapon with his own and took it from his hand.
He knelt over Kai, calling his name.
But the boy just stared blankly, his skin now the color of the snow around him. A red stain spread over his tunic and shirt, but Alaire saw no wound. He pulled the slick fabric of his shirt up, revealing a neat puncture next to Kai's navel. The wound bled a thin, pulsing river. A gut wound. The worst.
He's going to die.
Kai opened his mouth to speak, but he was already too weak to say anything. He was going to die.
Unles No! his mind screamed. Without really thinking, he began looking for his harp. He ran, staggering, back to where he thought it would be. Where is it? Did some- one take it? he thought, just as his eyes fell on the instrument. He grabbed the canvas bag and rushed back to Kai.
Alaire ripped the bag open, with stiff fingers; his heart pounding frantically. Kai's eyes glazed; the thin plume of breath over his nostrils lessening with every moment. Hot tears coursed down Alaire's cheeks. He fought the urge to scream, curse, moan in helplessnes Don't think of that. Don't think of anything. Just the magic.. .just the power...
He took a deep breath, steadied himself, and started to play.
The strings were out of tune, the music sour, his fin- gers cold and numb. But he played anyway, ignoring the one broken string. He reached for the only song he knew that might work, a short tune Naitachal had composed when one of their favorite horses had suf- fered an attack from a pack of wolves. The horse had been near deat Like Ka Bardic Magic had healed it, had saved its life.
As Alaire played the tune from memory, his fingers loosened up, and the notes came easier. He ran through the song once, looked down at Kai. He remained still, even peaceful, in the. snow. Then, with one spastic motion, the boy exhaled a single breath.
Then nothing.
The Magic had failed.
"No!" Alaire screamed. Tears streamed down his face, blurring his vision. He felt an empty space form in the center of his chest, and as he stared at Kai's life- less face, the space grew larger. He choked back a sob.
Snow began to collect on Kai's face, instead of melt- ing, as it had only moments before.
Alaire wept, unable to help himself, unable to stop.
He held the harp loosely, until it was ready to slip out of his hands. Then, suddenly, his Master's words ech- oed in his The essence of Bardic Magic is the ability to make, and unmake.
To unmake Death -- and make Life?
He reached deeper, into his soul, for the power.
Willing his arms and hands to move, he began to play the song over a fourth time, automatically, but this time his mind and heart focused on something else altogether.
His mind's eye followed tendrils of life-source downwards, to the ground. Here he found vast pools of untapped power, seldom used in this land, just beneath the surface. Yearning to be released. He imagined Kai's wound, closing itself, healing the injury the assassins blade had rendered; the tiny folds of tis- sue, reassembling, knitting, binding, sealing the blood vessels, cauterizing them with light. Then the new blood, slowly filling his veins, restoring what had been lost. At some point, he stopped playing Naitachal's tune and began a new one of his own, one that seemed to fit the magic he was weaving, that complimented the interplay of power and Power....
When Alaire opened his eyes, he found himsel Kai enveloped in a cloud of bright stars, points of light that were pulsating with the harp's music. The untuned strings played a haunting melody that echoed in the drifts of light, of green, blue, red, weaving a spell of life.