He felt her nod. It rubbed wetness against his neck. He sighed and pulled her in close again.
“That’s all you remember of it. You don’t remember the rules she was given,” She probed hopelessly.
“Not really.” So long ago, and it had seemed like a pointless little story at the time. Her breath caught raggedly as he admitted his lack of memory. Could it have been that important to her?
“They were all about giving and taking,” he hedged. “She couldn’t take what she wanted most because it wasn’t offered to her.”
“Until it was freely offered. Not that it makes any difference now.”
“And she couldn’t offer anything…”
“She could offer…” Cassie hissed angrily.
“Right,” he amended. “She could offer, but she couldn’t give, because…”
“Because no one wanted it.” She pushed away from him abruptly, but he caught at her wrist and dragged her back down to his side.
“Because someone was too stupid to know what was being offered. And too scared to accept it. And too afraid of what might come of it if he did; afraid of himself.”
Her eyes met his, stubbornly hurt. Refusing all comfort that he offered now, too late.
“Cassie,” he said brokenly. “I never meant to refuse what you offered. I didn’t realize it. Or maybe I did, I suppose, but it was forbidden to me. I don’t do—”
“Yes, you do!” she replied fiercely. “You just refuse to enjoy it. Or to do it with me!”
“It’s not safe to be with me.”
“Nothing is safe anymore. And me time is gone.” She began untangling herself from him. The finality of her words slapped him. The feel of Cassie moving away from him was more grievous than the departure of his magic. As she rose, he clutched at her hand.
“Cassie. Come back.”
She turned to his words, her face strangely uncertain. Wistful. She looked down at him. “You don’t remember the garden at all,” she said sadly.
He was confused. “Not the whole story, but—”
“Never mind,” she said abruptly. For a long moment she stood stiffly apart from him. Colder than frozen. Then she turned to look at him, and a sudden smile flooded her face. A decision had been reached in her mind and her face mirrored it. She came back to him and he rose to take her in his arms.
She was trembling.
“Are you scared?” he asked her.
“Not as scared as you are. And it’s not you I’m scared of.”
She was right. He held her and as she put her arms around him, he felt her magic wrap them both like a mantle. Within that shelter, all was safe and right. Her breathing became slow and steady as the sea swells, calming them both. He closed his eyes. This was right.
And more than right, her magic promised. It was the pathway back to where a touching was not a hurting. It was the missing arc of the circle that took him back to an unspoiled beginning. To a garden on a summer day, with bees buzzing in honeysuckle on the garden wall.
“Cassie?” he asked, the last of his uncertainty in his voice.
“I’m right here.” she whispered. “I’ve always been right here.”
He journeyed to the heart of woman’s magic, and found it was the journey home.
THE RAINY STREETS shone under the streetlamps. The squall had passed, leaving wily an icy wind wandering the streets and alleys. He heard the final click of Cassie’s door as it closed behind him. He turned back to it, but it was already gone, fading into darkness. She had left him alone to face it, turned him out like a stray cat to take his chances with me street dogs.
He knew that she’d had to. But the night still seemed the colder after Cassie’s warmth.
At least mere was nothing about. Whatever gray Mir was, it wasn’t bold enough to strike on Cassie’s doorstep. He shivered and began to walk. He sensed the city around him, the living entity of each building he passed, me vacant windows that nonetheless watched him. He had not felt it so alive since the night Cassie had come for him through the snowstorm. Nor so ominous. It was as if he walked through a maze of spectators come to witness his execution. “Bring on the hatchetman,” he muttered to himself. He had screwed his courage to the pitch of being able to go forth and meet Mir. But he didn’t know how long it would stand up to the tension of having to seek Mir out. That wasn’t something he had prepared for.
His socks soaked up the rain water like wicks. The hem of his wizard robe and cloak dragged slightly. Soon they had absorbed a weight of mud and water that slapped unpleasantly against his ankles. He squelched along, feeling uncomfortable and slightly foolish- It was either very late or very early. Traffic was less than sparse, and the vehicles that did pass did not slow at the sight of him. He settled his wizard’s hat more firmly onto his head.
Cassie’s words replayed endlessly in his mind. and he fancied for an instant that he could still feel the warmth of her touch on his skin. She had left her scent upon him, like the colors of a high-born lady on her knight-errant. There had been a few precious moments when be had fancied himself in the garden she had mentioned. He had felt the grass and fragrant leaf mold under his palms, and a summer sun warmed his naked back. Her mouth had smiled beneath his. Never had he felt so full of a woman.
Or so clear in his mind of what he must face now. He was going to his death, Cassie’s certainty of his magic notwithstanding. He wished he had been able to make her understand before he left her. He could tell her what he had done and felt, but he couldn’t make her feel what he had. Did she think he hadn’t tried to reclaim his magic? Could she imagine that he didn’t ache for it? Gone and beyond him now. Despite her calm certainty, he was sure he knew more of Mir than she did. Mir had touched him; had already bent him to its will. He shuddered with the knowledge. It had touched him as intimately as she had. It would again.
“But when?” he asked aloud of the watching city, flinging the challenge to the night. Nothing answered it. He passed gray parking meters with empty faces, reviewing the cold and passionless troops of the streets. Faces in the brick alleys and the black storefront windows changed and stretched as he passed them, peered after him until he was out of their sight. He felt no heaviness of evil in the air. Where was Mir hiding? The wind kept the night clear of the gray fog he had come to associate with its wickedness. A reckless boldness settled on him. So he was going to defeat, was he? Gray Mir wasn’t making it easy for him to meet his fate. He shrugged his shoulders and drew his cloak more closely around himself. It was warmer. than he expected it to be, and for an instant he imagined he felt a rippling of power through it. But it was only the wind tugging at me blue cloth- He paced on.
He could always run away. He tempted himself with possibilities. He could hide from il, could leave the city on foot and take to the woods. It would have to come and hunt him down. He shook his head. He had been hunted before and remembered it only too well. He would meet it face to face in the night, not be dragged out from behind some dumpster in an alley.
He had been walking without thinking, but his feet had led him well. He stood at the mouth of his old alley. It was. littered with charred rubbish from the fire. Well, why not here? Me had felt it here more often than any other place. He ventured into the alley and turned his eyes up to his fire escape. There was a terrible smell here, of wet charred wood and melted plastics. It was the burned odor of ruin and decay. No heat remained of the fire that had gutted the upper stories of the building. All was silent and dark. More than hours had passed since the fire. A day and most of a night, he guessed. That would fit in with the lightheaded weariness he felt. He was running on nerves and adrenalin, his reserve energy long spent.
He wouldn’t last much longer. It seemed to him that his strength had been slowly leeching away from him since the day Estrella had warned him. When Mir chose to attack, it would find him no adversary at all, crushable as a dried-out eggshell.
“Where are you?” he called out bravely into the darkness, but the alley swallowed his challenge without an echo.
He crouched beneath his fire escape, tensing himself for me spring. Then he straightened slowly and shook his head. Not up there, on charred floorboards, if any remained at all. Not before the burned specter of a foodocker, if it had survived.
No. He would not be hunted, but he would not be lured into ambush either. He turned soundlessly and let his body do what it had been clamoring to do. He opened it to the night. His senses expanded and he walked as one with the darkness. No magic this; a skill learned in a night that had shrilled with insect noises and screamed with sudden silences. An easy awareness spread out around him, searching as any light of flare. It had guided him alive through trees and vines and grasses. Could brick and steel and glass be any worse? He moved with slow grace, in no hurry at all. Let it come to him.
He could not have told what made him turn and look up.
There might have been a rustle of cloth, some scuff of skin against metal. He was in time to see the figure leave the fire escape, see it silhouetted, however briefly, against the far lights of the King Dome. It landed lightly, its legs bending nearly double to take up the shock. He pivoted slowly and silently to meet it- He had not expected a human form, but he sensed it an electric prickling along the edges of his perimeter. A chill of readiness ran over him. He smiled in the dark, and when he felt it looking at him, he gave a slow nod of acknowledgment. Mir.
0h, there you are!“ she cried and rushed at him, her arms held wide. In the next instant she had engulfed him and was covering his face with wet, panting kisses. ”My god, I am so glad you’re safe! I saw it in the papers this morning, and it said signs of recent habitation, but no remains discovered yet, and when I read the address I just about collapsed. The first thing that hit me, was, oh, god, he did it on purpose because we didn’t make it last night! and I felt like I had killed you myself. I had to sit down and the boss asked if I was taking my break now, and I couldn’t even talk, all I could do was point at the paper and shake. I guess I really looked bad, because he told me to take a day off, sick time. So I did and I looked for you everywhere. I musta fed those stupid pigeons ten pounds of popcorn, hoping you’d show up, and everyone kept walking by and staring at me; I guess I looked pretty stupid, sitting on a park bench feeding the pigeons and bawling.
I am so glad you’re safe.“
As she talked, she kissed, hugged, and shook him at intervals. He could conjure no emotional reaction to her greeting.
It reminded him of the noisy greetings of a sheepdog he had known in his childhood, complete with wet tongue and cold nose. He knew he had to feel something for her, but all he could find was a quiet acceptance of her. This was what she was. No more man that, but certainly no less.
“Lynda!” he told her firmly. He put his hands on her shoulders and moved her out to arm’s length. She waggled happily in his arms and tried to move into his embrace, but he held her back. After an instant of struggle, she calmed and looked at him. He tried to catch her eyes, to peer past the dumb devotion and electric lust to see what else might be lurking there. But she focused on his doming instead and gave a squawk of dismay.
“Have you been running around dressed tike that all day?
It’s a wonder they didn’t lock you up! Look at your feet! Poor baby! Come on, you’re going home with me.“