the points enter into his skin and begin to suck at the thread binding him to
life, his mortification marshaled his talents: he cleared his vision, forced his
eyes to obey his mind’s command. Though he was a great sorcerer, he was not
omnipotent: he could not manage to make his lips frame a curse to cast upon her,
just watched the free agent Cime- who had slipped, disguised, into so many
mages’ beds of late-sip the life from him relish-ingly. So slow she was about it
he had time to be thankful she did not take him through his eyes. The song she
sings has cost her much to learn, and the death she staves off will not be so
kind as his. Could he have spoken, then, resigned to it, he would have thanked
her: it is no shame to be brought down by an opponent so worthy. They paid their
prices to the same host. He set about composing his exit, seeking his meadow,
star-shaped and ever green, where he did his work when meditation whisked him
into finer awarenesses than flesh could ever share. If he could seat himself
there, in his established place of power, then his death was nothing, his flesh
a fingernail, overlong and ready to be pared.
He did manage that. Cime saw to it that he had the time. It does not do to anger
certain kinds of powers, the sort which, having dispensed with names, dispense
with discorporation. Some awful day, she would face this one, and others whom
she had guided out of life, in an afterlife which she had helped populate.
Shades tended to be unforgiving.
When his chest neither rose nor fell, she slid off him and ceased singing. She