Magic Steps

Looking at the mage, Sandry realized why she had thought he was sunk into a pool of unmagic that day at Rokat House. He had no legs. His coarse breeches were folded and pi

He's Pasco's age, thought Sandry in horror. She hadn't realized that at their first meeting.

"Show yourself." growled the other standing adult. "I know there are mages here." It was a woman, big-hipped, black-haired, dressed in the same anonymous clothing as the man. Her back was to Sandry. Now she turned, revealing the fourth member of the group. "Too bad your kitchen sentry couldn't keep his hands off the cake."

She held Pasco easily. She had wrapped an arm around his neck, the crook of her elbow under his chin. Now she yanked, pulling the back of Pasco's head, against her shoulder. Her free hand held, a dagger to the boy's unprotected throat. There was a wild look in her black eyes; her grin bared all of her yellowing teeth… She looked like a furious mule.

'"'Oh, Pasco," whispered Sandry. She picked up the spindle that she'd been keeping on her lap and stood, shedding the magical veil that had made her corner of the room seem empty.

"You?" the man asked scornfully. "You're barely more than a child yourself! What have you to do with this?"

He and the woman struggled to yank free of the net's clinging strands, without success. It held them in place as firmly as if they were glued there.

Sandry knew better than to tell them Pasco was her student. That would simply give them more power over her than they already had. "Did these people cut off your legs?" she asked the boy on the floor, keeping her voice gentle.

He looked up at her, and Sandry took a step back. There were not whites to his eyes, no pupils or irises—just nothingness. Unmagic riddled his entire body. Very few spots left were untainted. He was draining into the cords of her net.

"Pirates done my legs," he said lazily, his voice slurred with dragonsalt. "Alzena 'n Nurhar're my frien's. They give me this." He hoisted the drug pouch and frowned. "But they keep takin' it away. They want my magic like the pirates done.”

"I'll bet they do," whispered Sandry. She turned her eyes on the adults—Alzena and Nurhar, the boy mage had called them. "Surrender," she told them.

"I think not," Alzena said, drawing the knife-point down Pasco's neck. A thin line of blood followed it as Pasco whimpered. "I can make this killing last." She shifted her grip on Pasco to hold him more firmly still. "This net here is your doing? You let us go, and he'll live."

Sandry watched Alzena and Nurhar. Both were striped with unmagic. They had worn the spells too long without being cleansed, if they had even known cleansing was necessary. Before long the shadow would devour them as it had this boy.

If she let them go to save Pasco, who else might they kill before they stopped existing? Would they even keep their word not to kill him? They had to like what they did, surely, to do so much of it.

Her palms were damp. "I beg you, let him go. He's nothing to you."

"Sure enough," replied Alzena with that teeth-baring grin. "But he's something to you, isn't he? Free us." Again the dagger trailed down Pasco's throat, leaving a second cut to ooze blood. Pasco screamed and thrashed against her imprisoning arm. The cry was strangled; she had jerked against his chin, closing his mouth.

"We don't want the guards to hear our little talk. And they're about, aren't they?" Alzena wanted to know. "Not in earshot, or they'd hear us now, but upstairs, maybe? Downstairs? Free us. We'll loose the boy once we're out the gate, and run like lightning."

Coldness settled in Sandry's mind. Everything was very still and clear. Will you really? she thought, weighing their deeds against Alzena's words. Or will you just keep taking hostages until someone puts an arrow through you? How many will you slaughter before an archer gets a killing shot?

Pasco's eyes met hers, pleading. Blood trickled in two streams down his neck. He was her student. She should have known he would try to stay behind and watch.

"I have to take up the pegs at the corners," Sandry replied. She didn't have to pretend to be frightened, her fear was close enough to grasp and use. "Once that's done, I can roll up the net. Just—please, don't hurt Pasco. Please don't." If she pleaded, she knew, they would think her weak.

"Don't beg, wench," Alzena told her. "It just makes me angry. Get your pox-rotted pegs." The dagger flicked along the line of Pasco's jaw, opening a third cut.

That chilled Sandry to the bone. She went clockwise around the edges of the net, removing the pegs from their sockets with her free hand. The other hand, the one on the side turned away from the captives, held her spindle.

"This net's pretty," the boy mage remarked when she was at the south peg. "I never tried making things with unmagic. No one ever taught me."

"Little is known about your magic," Sandry replied, nearing the last—the north—peg.

There was a muffled squeal from Pasco. This time Alzena had cut straight across his chest, and not a thin scratch, "Don't talk!" she ordered. "Just free us!"

Passing the door to the front hall and the window, Sandry discovered they were not alone. The guards up stairs and someone downstairs must have heard voices talking. People were looking into the dining room, trying to think of ways to stop this. She knew they were asking themselves if they could take the Dihanurs before they hurt Pasco any more, and she knew they could not. Alzena was too fast with her knife.

Putting the north peg aside, Sandry looked at her student. All he wants is to dance and have fun, she thought.

Days ago—was it only days? — she had taken a strand of his magic from him and kept it inside her, so she could always find him at need. Now she grasped that thread and sent a rush of her own magic through it making it rope-strong.

"Just one more thing, and you'll be free," she told her captives, "I have to unspin the magic that's in my net, otherwise it will keep hold of you." Picking up the edge of the net, she broke the cord and tacked one end of it to the leader on her spindle.

"No tricks,” Alzena growled, her voice barely human. "I would be so happy to gut this boy of yours,"

"No tricks," agreed Sandry meekly. "I just have to gather the net on the spindle to make it release you. You've seen how they work." Thrusting her power into the spindle, she gave it a quick, hard twirl. It whirled faster than she could hold; she dropped it from a hand that blistered immediately. The knots in the unmagic were falling apart, the force of the spindle twining the net into a single thick rope. It would also spin every single drop of unmagic that was touching the net.

Sandry watched Alzena. She saw the woman's eyes widen when she felt the first gentle tug. Before the woman knew she'd been tricked, Sandry yanked hard on the rope that bound her to Pasco. It pulled him out of Alzena's grip and threw him into the wall. He staggered to his feet, his cuts bleeding.

The boy mage felt it first. He began to giggle, spreading his arms as the spindle drew on all the nothingness in him, puling him into the net and winding him up like thread.

Now Alzena and Nurhar realized they were in trouble. Their still-living flesh, unlike the mage's, was only veined with nothingness. What was left of their real bodies was being pulled apart. The spindle whirled, its tip smoking against the tiled floor. Now the Dihanurs were dragged across the room, their flesh battling the magic's pull. It bulged between the strands of darkness that were being drawn from them; the unmagic cut into them like silk threads as it twined onto the spindle.