jumped in his jaw. His throat grew paralyzed. Haught’s grip burned him, numbed
him; and there was no sound in all the world but the roar of the fire and no
sight in the world but Haught laying a cautionary finger to his lips and drawing
him away, quietly.
Back and back into the tangle of silks and drapes and shadow that was that over
small room he shared with Haught.
And in this privacy Haught seized his shoulders and put his back to the wall, in
the slithery touch of the silken hangings. Haught’s eyes held his like a
serpent’s.
“Let me go,” Stilcho said. The voice came through jaws that tried to freeze,
that tried to turn to the cold unburied meat and bone that they were without Her
influence. No pain, no agony. Just a dreadful cold as if something very solid
had come between him and his life-source. “L-let me g-g-go. She s-said-” You
weren’t to touch me with magic-that was the part that stuck behind his teeth.
There were just the eyes.
“Hear it?” Haught asked. “Feel it, dead man? She’s worried. She’s unweaving her
magics. Souls are winging back to hell tonight. Do you feel yours slipping?”
“Get your ha-hands from me.”
Haught’s hands slid up his shoulders and held there. “She’s forgotten you
tonight. I haven’t. I’m holding you, Stilcho. /. And I can peel you like an
onion. Or save your wretched soul. Do you feel it now?”
“Ish-“
Haught’s grip tightened, that of his hands and that on his soul. The paralysis
grew, and Haught’s voice sank deeper and deeper, so that it was not sound at
all, only the dazzle of winter cold, was snowflakes falling on dark wind.