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Authors: Megan Lindholm

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And once he observed, ‘This has been the longest night of my life,' to which she replied, ‘The dawn is wise enough to wait some struggles out.'

The sea splashed and heaved beneath the public docks. Wizard stared down at the lacy tops of the waves. ‘Is it deep enough here?' Cassie worried.

‘I don't think it will stop at the bottom,' he assured her. Together they swung it, once, twice, three times and away.
There was no splash, no rising of bubbles. It was gone. The sea wind made streamers of their clothing.

Beside him, Cassie fussed with the silver tassels of the cloak. They came undone in her fingers and she slipped from its shelter. Bruises were shadows on her white skin, revealed by her own torn clothes. Wizard winced. She draped the cloak over his arm, but when he tried to put it again about her shoulders, she stepped away from him. ‘I've borrowed your strength long enough. Take it again, and give back to me what is mine.'

Puzzled, he slung the cloak around his shoulders. The warmth of her body clung to it still, and he had to smile sadly as he met her eyes. Then he felt the slow peeling away of something, like a tight garment being drawn off his body. For an instant he felt naked and chilled, and then his own power rose to protect him again.

‘I've been using your magic tonight,' he said, finally grasping it. She nodded, looking down at the rough wood of the dock.

‘I put it upon you when I held you, knowing it was forbidden, but too fond of you to let you go unsheltered. If I had known the strength of the greyness, I would not have had the courage to do so. But I did not. I thought I was wise. I set my own trap for it, never guessing how easily it could overpower me once I had lent my strength to you. I did not guess the hold it had on you.' She paused suddenly, shaking her head violently. ‘You had hidden your torment too well. You were right, you know. It was within you as well as without, just as real in both places. And when I saw it upon you, saw you transformed in it…I thought I would go mad with horror. I fled. Even now, when I think of how easily it
hunted me down using you…But it is done. You are free now.'

She was giving him the pieces faster than he could fit them together. ‘It was your power I used, then, when I faced it down?'

She shook her head, not looking at him. ‘You used mine upon the knife; did not you guess that ferocity was woman's magic? The soaring rush you felt afterward; that was seduction of the greyness. I saw you swept away from me. But when you cloaked me in your protection and sent me away, I took my magic with me as well. I needed it, to find and rouse your pigeons, and call them to you. Then, when I returned…I know you felt me join you.'

The spice scent. He nodded slowly, beginning to understand as Cassie fitted the pieces together for him. But Cassie never explained anything. Something was terribly wrong. He reached and turned her face up to his. Moonlight and streetlights touched her tears.

‘Why are you crying?' Her tears hurt him as nothing else had.

‘Because I am hurt!' She cried out. She pulled gently free of him, wrapping herself tightly in her arms. She stood so alone. ‘Why do you think the rules are given us, if not to keep us from hurting ourselves. But the decision was mine. I took it upon myself, to give you what you would not ask for. My magic. To call for you the allies you had prepared so well for this battle. I unbalanced my magic. But I could have done nothing else. Could I have watched you destroyed, knowing that for all the times and tomorrows that might ever come, never again would our paths cross? Shall I be sorry for what I did? But it hurts. Yes. All the old scars have come unhealed.
I had forgotten it could hurt this bad. All the old pains are new again.'

He nodded stiffly, knowing what she meant. The pains that came out of the past and haunted, hurting past toleration. A pain that made you explode at a touch. He could not reach after her as she walked to the edge of the dock. The full moon was over the sea, sending a wrinkling silver path across the waves to them. Cassie gave him one anguished look and then stepped down onto that path. He hurried to the edge of the dock and stood looking after her. She walked steadily away, her small feet leaving no impression on the ocean's salty face. Her silhouette grew small against the moon.

‘I'll see you later!' he cried after her.

She never answered.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

‘Seen Cassie?' asked Rasputin.

Wizard shook his head slowly. It had become a ritual greeting among them. Always one asked, and one denied silently. Nothing more than this was ever said about her. Wizard had all the memories now, and he clung to them. He had given up trying not to hope.

‘So what you want me for, I-Don't-Know Wizard?'

It was June again, and Rasputin shone in the pleasant weather. Enamelled red hoops glittered in his earlobes, and his bare chest was decked in successions of bright red seed necklaces. They rattled when he danced, and even when he was still, they clicked softly against one another, maintaining the secret rhythm of his endless dance. A light wind rustled the leaves of the trees in Occidental Square.

‘See her?' Wizard nodded at a bench across the way from them. He flung another handful of popcorn from the withered bag on the seat beside him. Pigeons fluttered and scrabbled around their feet. Rasputin nudged them away from his bare toes and scowled.

‘See who?'

‘On the left end of the bench. Move your eyes just a little, to catch her at an angle. See her now?'

‘I don't see nothing but an empty bench. You getting snaky on us, Wizard?'

Wizard made an impatient motion of his head and caught up one of his pigeons. He whispered to it for an instant and then flung it aloft. It fluttered frantically, made altitude, then wheeled and came sliding down to light on the empty bench.

‘A chameleon!' Rasputin gasped.

Her startlement had betrayed her. When she moved, she was visible. But as soon as she was still again, she began to blend back into her surroundings. Subtle ripplings of colour crossed her. In a moment, she was invisible again.

‘I'll be damned!' Rasputin whistled low. ‘Looks like maybe you found one. You talked to her yet?'

Wizard shook his head. ‘I've been watching her for about a week. She's completely unaware of what she is doing. I thought I'd get your opinion before I approached her.'

Rasputin shrugged. ‘Ain't my department. You go talk to her, take her around a little. Run her past Euripides and see if she Knows him. The usual stuff. If she pans out, bring her by me. I'll give her the rules.'

Two wizards leaned back on their park bench. The blue robes of one fluttered against his bare feet. The other's fingers twitched in his endless dance. No one gave them a second glance. It was a fine June day in the Emerald City.

THE END

About the Author
Wizard of the Pigeons

Megan Lindholm was born in California in 1952 and majored in Communications at Denver University, Colorado. She has been shortlisted for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards and wrote a number of successful fantasy novels, including
Cloven Hooves
, T
HE
W
INDSINGER
T
RILOGY
and
Wizard of the Pigeons
before starting to write as Robin Hobb.
Assassin's Apprentice
was Robin Hobb's first novel, and was followed by the equally successful
Royal Assassin
and
Assassin's Quest
, which together comprise T
HE
F
ARSEER
T
RILOGY.
Robin Hobb's second trilogy, T
HE
L
IVESHIP
T
RADERS
(
Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship
and
Ship of Destiny
) is set in the same world. She lives in Tacoma, Washington.

By the Same Author

As Robin Hobb

THE FARSEER TRILOGY

Assassin's Apprentice

Royal Assassin

Assassin's Quest

THE LIVESHIP TRADERS

Ship of Magic

The Mad Ship

Ship of Destiny

THE TAWNY MAN

Fool's Errand

The Golden Fool

Fool's Fate

THE SOLDIER SON

Shaman's Crossing

Forest Mage

Renegade's Magic

THE RAIN WILD CHRONICLES

The Dragon Keeper

Dragon Haven

As Megan Lindholm

The Reindeer People

Wolf's Brother

Harpy's Flight

The Windsingers

The Limbreth Gate

Luck of the Wheels

Cloven Hooves

Alien Earth

The Gypsy
(with Steven Brust)

Copyright

Voyager

An Imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers

77-85 Fulham Palace Road,

Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

This paperback edition 2002

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

First published in Great Britain by Corgi Books, an imprint of Transworld Publishers Ltd 1987

Copyright © Megan Lindholm Ogden 1986

The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition © MAY 2010 ISBN: 978-0-007-38748-9

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

About The Publisher

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United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
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London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk

United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
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New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com

BOOK: Wizard of the Pigeons
12.92Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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