“You think hard,” she said. “You go on thinking, thinking’s a counterspell,
you’ve come here all armed with thinking, and yet it’s such a heavy load-aren’t
you tired, Strat, don’t you get tired, bearing all the weight for fools, being
always in the shadow, isn’t it worth it, once, to be what you are? Let’s go to
bed.”
“What’s going on in town?” He got the question out. It wandered out, slurred and
half-crazed and half-independent of his wits. “What have you got your hand into,
Ischade? What game are you using us for-“
“Bed,” she whispered. “You afraid, Strat? You never run from what scares you.
You don’t know how.”
4
“I don’t know,” Stilcho said, limping along through the streets in Haught’s
company. Haught took long strides and the dead Stepson made what speed he could,
panting. A waterskin sloshed in time to his steps. “I don’t know how to make
contact with him-he’s here, that’s all-“
“If he’s dead,” Haught said, “I’d think you had an edge. I don’t think you’re
trying.”
“I can’t,” Stilcho gasped. Twilight showed Haught’s elegance, his supercilious
gaze, and Stilcho, about to clutch at him, held back his hand. “I-“
“She says that you will. She says that you’ll be quite adequate. I really
wouldn’t want to prove less than that, would you?”
The thought ran through Stilcho like icewater. They were near the bridge, near
the running-water barrier, and while it did not stop him (he was truly alive in
some senses) it made him weak in the knees. There was a checkpoint the other
side of the bridgehead, that was a line of no color; and few meddled with that