The Gypsy Morph

TWENTY-ONE

K IRISIN WALKED AWAY from his captivity as if there were nothing to it, as free as the night air, although inwardly he was still grappling with how quickly things had turned around. He followed Logan Tom through the darkness, filled with a mix of relief and gratitude that exceeded anything he could remember. He had been certain of his fate when the skrails had caught him trying to escape, his hopes dashed, his courage gone. He had told himself that Simralin would come for him, but he’d had no real expectation that she would.

No real expectation that anyone would.

But here was Logan Tom, come out of nowhere, finding him when Kirisin knew in his heart that no one could. It was a genuine miracle, and he was so grateful for it that he almost cried.

Logan kept him moving, steadying him as they walked until at last he was able to continue unaided. Some distance farther on, just inside the screen of a grove of withered trees, the Knight of the Word turned aside to retrieve the clothing he had shed earlier. Kirisin stood silently nearby, watching him dress. He took his time, in no apparent hurry, using sleeves torn from his shirt to wipe himself clean of the camouflage paint before slipping back into his clothes. He said nothing to the boy the whole time. When he was finished dressing, he bent down to retrieve his black staff from where it was lying on the ground.

It took a moment for Kirisin to realize what that meant, and when he did, he was stunned.

Logan Tom had gone into the skrail camp without his magic to protect him! He had left his staff behind!

The Knight of the Word caught him staring and turned away quickly. “Let’s go, Kirisin.”

They started out again. “Is Sim all right?” the boy asked him. “Has there been any sign of her? Of any of them?”

The other shrugged. “Can’t tell yet. It’s too early to know. Don’t talk. Not until we’re farther away.”

They continued for perhaps another quarter mile before reaching the Ventra 5000, its bulky shape unmistakable even in the darkness. Logan Tom released the locks and alarms, and they climbed inside. Once settled, the Knight of the Word sat staring out into the darkness. Kirisin waited in silence for a moment before speaking.

“How did you find me?” he asked.

“A little bird told me.” Logan looked at him. “You want to know why I didn’t take my staff with me when I came to rescue you.”

He made it a statement of fact. Kirisin started to say that it wasn’t his business, but then simply nodded. Logan stared at him for a moment longer. The joy he had displayed earlier had leached away; all that remained was resignation and weariness. “Maybe later,” he said.

He turned away, started the engine, retracted the wheel locks, put the AV in gear, and slowly pulled away into the night.

They drove for a long time in silence. Kirisin tried not to look at Logan, not to do anything that might upset him. He should have kept his curiosity to himself. Logan Tom had saved his life. He didn’t deserve to be questioned about how he had done it. Certainly not by the boy he had saved. What sort of gratitude was that? Kirisin ground his teeth. He still had not learned when to keep things to himself.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally, unable to stand it any longer. “I shouldn’t have looked at you like that.”

Logan Tom glanced over, then shrugged. “Did the skrails hurt you? Are you all right?” He seemed anxious to change the subject. “You look a little dazed.”

“They knocked me around a bit at first,” the boy answered. “But then the one who controls the skrails conjured up a specter or wraith out of the flames of a fire, and there was this old man. He had eyes …” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen eyes like that. So cold. He just stared at me, and I knew he could kill me just by looking at me, if he wanted.”

Logan Tom was suddenly interested. “Did he wear a gray cloak and slouch hat?”

“That’s right. Do you know him?”

Logan hesitated. “A little. What did he do?”

“Asked some questions. He wasn’t happy that I didn’t have the Loden with me.” He paused. “Is it safe? Did Praxia find it?”

“She had it with her when she came to find me after the skrails had flown off with you. She wanted to come along to help rescue you, but I told her she couldn’t do that. I told her that the Loden was her responsibility now, at least until you returned.”

Kirisin pictured Praxia’s reaction and smiled despite himself. “I’d guess she didn’t like hearing that very much, did she?”

“She understood.”

“That old man,” Kirisin continued. “He did something to me. Without even being there, he was able to hurt me. He just looked at me from out of the flames and made me answer his questions about the Loden. I didn’t tell him where it was, only that I lost it. But I think he knew I wasn’t telling him everything. Then he hurt me so badly I thought I was going to scream from the pain. Just by looking at me, from somewhere else entirely, he could do that.”

Logan looked off into the night, his eyes on the landscape ahead. “He’s a very powerful demon. The leader of all of the demons, maybe. I saw him once, years ago, when I was still a boy. He led the attack that killed my family. He looked at me, too. In a different way. But I remember those eyes. I won’t ever forget them.”

“Will he come after us?” Kirisin asked.

“Like a wolf hunting sheep.”

“Maybe we can outrun him.”

Logan Tom didn’t answer.

They drove on in silence for a time, putting miles between themselves and the skrails, watching the eastern sky lighten with dawn’s approach as the stars faded. Kirisin was thinking of the old man, remembering how he had been made to do whatever the other wanted, how humiliated and helpless he had been made to feel. It was bad enough that he had almost lost the Loden to the skrails. But to know how easy it was for the demon to take it away from him if he should catch him with it another time was terrifying. He didn’t think anyone could survive an encounter with such a creature–not even a Knight of the Word. He didn’t think magic was enough–not Elfstones and not a Knight’s black staff. This demon was much more powerful than the ones he had encountered. If he caught up to them, it would take something special to escape.

It might take something that none of them had.

The new day began. It was midmorning when Logan finally pulled the AV over to the side of the road and let them get out to stretch their legs and eat something. Even then, he kept his eyes on the horizon of the country they had fled and his staff cradled in the crook of his arm. There was a fresh intensity to his look that Kirisin found scary—a concentration that was dark and private and suggested Logan Tom would not respond well to interruptions. The boy took it to heart and left him alone.

But as they were finishing, Kirisin already looking ahead to moving on, the Knight of the Word began to speak. “Do you know how old I am, Kirisin?” he asked. He didn’t wait for a response. “Twenty–eight. Twice your age, but in my heart I don’t feel that old. In my heart, I’m still a boy of fourteen or fifteen. Isn’t that odd?”

He straightened his legs and rubbed his knees. “My body feels older, though. My body feels twice my age. Years of running and fighting after leaving the compound with Michael. Years of battles I just barely survived, injuries and sickness, wounds and poisons. You can’t absorb all that and walk away unchanged. But it seems odd anyway, my body feeling so old, while my heart feels …”

He trailed off. His eyes fixed on the boy. “Here’s what I want you to understand. The magic is dangerous. Even when it feels good using it, even when it makes you feel invincible, it’s still dangerous. You’re going to find that out. You’re the keeper of those Elfstones, and their magic is yours to employ. You will use it again, probably soon. You might think you have a choice in the matter, that it was a onetime thing, using the magic to destroy that demon in the ice caves. But that’s not the way it works. Once you’ve used the magic, you’ve committed yourself. It’s a responsibility you can’t give up.”

Kirisin nodded. “I guess I know that.”

Logan smiled. “Well, you might think you do, but you don’t. Not yet. Not really. And you won’t right away. You have to have the power in your care for more than a few weeks or even a few months. You have to have it in your care for years. You have to live with it awhile. Then you’ll begin to see what I mean.”

He gestured absently. “The danger comes from both using it and not using it. It comes just from having it, from possessing it, from being a part of it. It becomes the defining factor of your existence, the single most important truth you possess. It influences everything you do; it determines the nature of your character and it shapes your thinking.”

He paused. “It’s a two–edged sword, Kirisin. If you fail to use it at the right times in the right ways, people will die. Some of them might be people you know, but even if you don’t, they are still people for whom you have become responsible simply because you possess the means of helping them and you have failed to do so. You’ve made a choice, and you have to live with that choice. Sometimes the choices you are given are bad ones, no matter which way you go. And therefore the consequences are bad ones, as well.

“But the consequences of using the magic in the very best way you can, in a way that helps people and saves lives, doesn’t mean that things will work out any better. Using the magic in a way that works is just as dangerous. Not to them, you see, but to you. Because every time you use the magic, it eats away at you. It erodes the defenses you create to keep it from overwhelming you, from stealing away your soul. Do you think I exaggerate? Think again. Magic can do that. It does do that. By the very nature of what it is. It is an addictive, corrupting influence, and the more you use it, the more it makes you want to use it. Because it makes you feel so good when you do. It makes you feel invincible. It banishes all your insecurities and fears. It fills you up like liquid iron, hardening you against everything that might harm you. It dominates you in a way that nothing else can. It’s a drug. An addiction, like I said. You find you want it, you need it, you have to have it. And the only way that can happen is if you allow yourself to find a use for it. Any use.”

Kirisin was horrified. “It isn’t that way with you. I don’t see that with you, Logan.”

The Knight of the Word smiled. “You don’t see a lot of what I am. I keep it hidden pretty well. I keep my demons penned up. More to the point, I live my life alone. There’s only me and this.” He held out the black staff. “Me and my magic. We share a life that doesn’t allow for intrusion or for sharing.”

He shook his head. “I was like you when I first became a Knight of the Word. That’s why I am telling you all this now. Not to frighten you, but to warn you. I had no one to warn me. I had to find it all out for myself. But I can pass it on to you, what I’ve learned, and maybe it will make a difference somewhere down the road. Maybe it will make your life a little easier to bear. Maybe you can do something more than I’ve done to keep yourself safe from what having the use of the magic will mean.”

“But you said it yourself,” Kirisin pointed out. “I have to use the Elfstones. So if I have to use them, maybe more than once, maybe a bunch of times, I’m at risk no matter what, aren’t I? I can’t avoid these consequences you’re warning me about.”

“You can’t avoid your fate, no. None of us can. You’ve been given a responsibility, just as I was.

You’ve been given the use of magic, and you can’t take it back. But you can be aware of its dangers. You can appreciate that it has its darker side. Just knowing that that part of it exists and recognizing how it makes you feel might be enough to help you.”

He looked down at his feet. “I’ve done some things …” He trailed off. “I’ve forgotten to remember the danger, sometimes. I haven’t been careful enough. I’ve been reckless because either the situation called for it or I’ve allowed my emotions to rule my thinking. Bad choices, both. And don’t be fooled. They were choices I made. I just wasn’t controlled enough to avoid making them. I can’t excuse what I’ve done. I can’t excuse any of it. I have to live with my regrets.”

He looked up again and gave Kirisin a quick smile. “But maybe you won’t have to live with as many of those regrets as I do. Not if you’re aware that they’re out there.”

They were silent for a moment, and then Kirisin said, “In a world like this one, where everything either has been destroyed or is in the process of being destroyed, maybe you have to be content with knowing that you’re doing the best you can. Maybe you shouldn’t spend too much time blaming yourself for what didn’t work out. You do the best you can, don’t you?”

Logan Tom nodded slowly. “Of course. And I’m sure you will, too. But that won’t change things. It won’t change the way the magic works or the effect it has on you. It won’t change the bad choices. It won’t absolve you of your guilt. In the end, you still have to live with yourself. But it might be easier to do so if you understand why sometimes you feel so terrible about who you are. I’m just telling you how it will be. I’m just doing what I can to pass along what I know.”

Kirisin nodded. “I guess I understand.”

“You make me remember what I was like at your age. I was a little older when I was given the magic, but I knew less about it than you do. I wasn’t raised in a culture where magic existed. I was bitter and angry about what had been done to me. All I wanted was revenge. Especially against that old man. He took everything from me. My family. My life. I haven’t forgiven or forgotten any of it. Every time I use the magic, I see his face. It’s not a good thing. I know this. Rationally, I can say I know it. But it doesn’t change how I feel. Even now.”

He took a deep breath. “But your sister …”

“Sim?” Kirisin prodded, when he failed to continue.

Logan Tom nodded. “When I look at her, I can see what I’ve given up by being a Knight of the Word. It seemed the right thing until now. But she made me realize that my whole life is going by, and I don’t have anything to show for it but the magic. And my promise to myself that I would hunt down and kill that demon.”

The boy stared. “You’re in love with her.”

It sounded so naive, so foolish, that he regretted the words the moment they left his mouth. But Logan

Tom just shrugged. “I don’t know anything about being in love. I just know she made me question what I wanted out of life, and I haven’t done enough of that. I was burned out when I came to find the gypsy morph, but I thought it was just because I needed something new, a change from what I’d been doing.” He hesitated, as if considering what that something was. “Now I’m not so sure. I think it’s more complicated.”

“I think she likes you,” Kirisin said impulsively, wanting to do something to help. “In fact, I’m sure she does.”

Logan shook his head. “Maybe she ought to think twice about it.” He rose abruptly. “Well, I’ve said what I wanted to say. That’s enough about it. Time to be going.”

They climbed back into the AV and set out once more. Kirisin sat in silence, mulling over what Logan Tom had told him. He found that he believed almost all of it. He had known from the first moment he had used the blue Elfstones and felt the power of the magic surging through him that nothing was ever going to be the same for him again. Nor did he dispute that use of the magic was dangerous–not just in a physical way, but in an emotional way, as well. He understood what the other was saying about the ways in which using power could subvert you. He understood that he would always be at risk, that he would always need to be cautious. That was the price you paid. And while he hadn’t asked for that use, he had willingly embraced it. He had wanted to help the Ellcrys as a member of the Chosen, and had pledged on more than one occasion to do whatever was needed to see that she was protected.

So he couldn’t very well complain now about the consequences of having made that commitment. He couldn’t complain about not having fully understood what that meant.

On the other hand, he had somehow convinced himself that the commitment was only temporary; that once the Elves and their city were safely delivered to their destination and released back into the world, it would all be over. Things would go back to the way they had been with his life. He would continue as a Chosen in service to the tree until his time was up, and then he would enter the ranks of the Home Guard.

How naive, he realized.

Because it wouldn’t be so simple. What was he going to do with the Elfstones? Not just the Loden, the use of which might be ended for his lifetime, at least, but the blue Elfstones, the seeking-Stones. What did he think he was going to do about them? Give them up? To whom? Who could he trust to see that they were used in the right way? He could give them to the King, but Arissen Belloruus wasn’t the most dependable person with whom to entrust such a powerful magic.

Changed or not, he was still a volatile personality. And if not to the King of the Elves, then to whom?

He couldn’t give them to anyone.

Because Pancea Rolt Gotrin had given them to him and sworn him to the task of finding a way to convince the Elves that the magic that was their heritage must be recovered and put to use. In the rushed frenzy of everything that had happened since her shade had bestowed the blue Elfstones on him, he had forgotten his promise. But it recalled itself now in chilling detail, and he realized that nothing of this matter would ever be over for him. He had committed himself to a lifetime of service to a cause, an undertaking he must somehow resurrect from its thousand–year dormancy, that he must breathe fresh life into, that he must fully embrace.

If he did not …

He brushed the rest of that thought aside. He did not care to speculate about what would happen if he did not. At best, he would be haunted for the remainder of his life by the breaking of the promise he had given. Some promises you could break and live with yourself after doing so, but not this one.

He was brooding on the consequences of having made that promise when Logan suddenly said, “You asked me why I didn’t take the staff with me when I came to rescue you, Kirisin. Do you still want to know?”

It caught the boy off guard. He looked over at Logan, but the Knight of the Word had his eyes fixed on the road, maneuvering the AV through the obstacle course of debris and potholes.

“If you want to tell me,” he said.

Logan nodded. “When I was living with Michael, after he saved me from the compound, we used to go hunting. We would strip down, paint ourselves with camouflage, arm ourselves with nothing but K-Bar Classics, and go after the militias that were always hunting us. Hunting the hunters, we called it. A game we played to scare them off. We’d go out, find a patrol, kill a few, and then disappear. Leave no footprints behind, no trace of who we were. Just the dead men. It was a warning to them. But it was something more to us.”

He paused. “That all stopped a dozen years ago, when Michael stopped being Michael and became someone else.”

He glanced over at Kirisin, and the boy found himself wondering–not for the first time–who Michael was. But Logan pressed on with no explanation. “Last night I found myself wanting to do that again. To strip down and go after those skrails with nothing but a hunting knife. It was a dangerous impulse, a foolish idea, and I knew it. It risked everything if I failed. It was selfish, too. I had been lucky enough to find you, to catch up to your captors, and now I was thinking about throwing it all away on a whim. I knew this. I recognized it right away.”

He shook his head. “But I did it anyway.” He went silent, eyes on the road. “I did it,” he continued finally, “because I needed to do something to save myself.”

His gaze shifted momentarily to Kirisin and then back again to the road. “Michael said once that automatic weapons were our best defense against the militias and the rogue armies and all the rest, but that you shouldn’t let yourself rely on them too heavily. Sooner or later, one of them would fail. If that was all you had, you were dead. He said that we hunted to be sure we had more to work with than guns and armored vehicles. He said that sooner or later a time would come when you had only yourself, so you’d better be ready for when that time came around.”

He gave a quick, hard laugh. “Even that wasn’t enough to save him in the end. He thought it would be, but it wasn’t.”

“Michael was your teacher?” Kirisin asked, wanting now to know something more about Michael, unwilling to let it slide further.

Logan Tom nodded. “That, and much more. My surrogate father. My best friend. My only family.” He took a deep breath and exhaled sharply. “Everything, once.”

His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “When I went into the skrail camp to rescue you, I was doing something for myself, too. I was proving to myself that there was more to me than the staff’s magic, that I was more than a Knight of the Word. I had to reassure myself. Michael had warned about relying too heavily on automatic weapons. It’s the same with magic. It’s wrong to rely too much on anything.”

“Like you were telling me earlier,” Kirisin said. “The magic can be dangerous in more ways than you might think. It can undermine you in lots of unexpected ways.”

“The magic hasn’t been too reliable lately,” the other continued. “I thought it was time to make sure I could still get along without it. I needed to test myself. Going in after you in the old way, the way I used to with Michael, was what I thought I needed to do.”

“Well, if you thought it was important, then it probably was,” the boy offered, at the same time wondering if that was really so.

“Maybe. I’m still not sure. You make a choice and it works out and you think it was the right one. But maybe you just got lucky. If you made that choice a second time, you might end up dead.”

There was nothing Kirisin cared to say about that. He decided to leave the matter there, and he turned back to face down the road, looking off into space, seeing things that hadn’t happened yet, but that one day would.

Neither said anything further.

Midday CAME AND WENT, and in the lengthening shadows of the Cintra the afternoon crawled toward another lank, gray evening. Findo Gask stood at the edge of the skrail encampment and watched the sun slide toward the wall of the mountains west. Fifty of his once–men were engaged in cleaning up the mess behind him, diligent servants under the whip and blade of a pair of his newly promoted demon lieutenants. With Delloreen dead and the Klee still in search of the gypsy morph, he had need of new subordinates, of creatures anxious to move up in the pecking order, to take the place of those he had favored before. They lasted only a short while, for the most part, and then they were gone and there were others. They all had the same ambitions, the same central goal–to fawn for his favor while they schemed to replace him. They all wanted the same thing–his power, his status, his rule.

Except for the Klee–which wanted nothing but the opportunities he provided for it–they were all alike.

He thought momentarily of Delloreen. Unlike most of the others, he genuinely regretted losing her. Certainly, he would have had to kill her before much longer in any event, but he had admired her grit and determination. He had enjoyed their verbal sparring; staying alert to her endless machinations had helped keep him sharp. There was no one among the present crop who could scheme as she did and be prepared to back it up with savagery and cruelty, which even he had trouble matching.

The demon called Dariogue wandered over, slouching in that peculiar way it had developed, one leg shorter than the other, neck twice broken and reset, face all smashed in. Findo Gask didn’t like Dariogue much and didn’t trust him at all, but he was the most capable of the bunch.

“It’s done, Master,” his subordinate offered, gesturing vaguely.

“All of them?”

“All, Master.”

“Do we know anything more than we did before about what happened to the boy?”

“No, Master, nothing.”

Findo Gask was not pleased. Not that he had expected Dariogue to be any more successful than himself at finding out how the Elf boy had escaped. Not that he didn’t already have a pretty good idea.

“Let’s have a look, then.”

They started off toward the grove of skeletal trees north of the clearing. Findo Gask was already thinking ahead to his pursuit of the Elf boy. It didn’t matter how he had escaped–or with whom. The end result would be the same. He would track the boy, find him, and extract from him the truth about the whereabouts of the Loden. The boy would have it near him or know where it was; he would have to if he expected to save his people. Culph had been quite clear about how the Elfstone worked. His ideas of manipulating the user remained valuable even though he himself was dead and gone.

Gask frowned on thinking of the deaths of his spies–the old man and the Tracker. How had the boy managed to kill not one, but two demons? He must have access to a magic Findo Gask did not yet know of; he would have to be cautious. The boy was capable of more than any of them had believed. The boy was dangerous.

“Here, Master,” Dariogue advised, breaking into his musings.

He looked to where the other was pointing. The broken bodies of the minder and twenty–five skrails dangled from the limbs of the trees to which they had been nailed. They looked vaguely like bats. Or strange decorations for a pagan celebration.

The old man studied them with his cold, empty eyes, and was satisfied. Failure of the sort that had occurred here would not be tolerated.

“We’re leaving,” he said to Dariogue. “Send me something that can track the boy. Blood soaks or huntrys should do. Then bring up the rest of the army. March them by these trees so that they can see what happens when I am disappointed.”

An object lesson, he thought as he brushed the other off with a wave of his hand. But it was nothing compared with the lesson he intended to teach the Elf boy.