Another Fine Myth by Robert Asprin

I thought about it… hard. It might work, but… I noticed they were tossing the nooses over a lower limb of the tree.

“Aahz! I can’t do it. I can’t levitate us both. I’m not that good yet.”

“Not both of us, kid. Just you. Don’t worry about me.”

“But… Aahz….”

“Keep my disguise up, though. If they figure out I’m a demon they’ll burn the bodies … both of them.”

“But Aahz….”

We were out of time. Rough hands shoved us forward and started fitting the nooses over our heads.

I realized with a start I had no time to think about Aahz. I’d need all my concentration to save myself, if there was even time for that!

I closed my eyes and sought desperately for a force line in the air. There was one there… faint, but there. I began to focus on it.

The noose tightened around my neck and I felt my feet leave the ground. I felt panic rising in me and forced it down.

Actually it was better this way. They should feel weight on the rope as they raised me. I concentrated on the force line again . . . focus . . . draw the energies . . . redirect them.

I felt a slight loosening of the noose. Remembering Aahz’s lectures on control, I held the energies right there and tried an experimental breath. I could get air! Not much, it was true, but enough to survive.

What else did I have to do? Oh yes, I had to twitch. I thought back to how a squirrel-badger acted when caught in a snare.

I kicked my legs slightly and tried an experimental tremor. It had the overall effect of tightening the noose. I decided to try another tactic. I let my head loll to one side and extended my tongue out of the corner of my mouth.