"What were you thinking you'd do with me?" Lici asked him. "After we found the baskets, I mean. Were you going to kill me? That's what the others told you to do, isn't it? They sent you to kill me."
"No, they didn't," Besh said, closing his eyes to keep from growing any dizzier. He understood immediately that this wouldn't work, that with his eyes closed he felt even more light-headed. He opened them again, blinking to clear his vision. Doing so, he braced himself against the ground with his hand. Dirt. Earth. Power. "They merely sent me to stop you from killing anyone else," he said. "They were concerned about you. We all were."
One hand on the earth and the other gripping his bloodied shoulder. How to switch without Lici noticing?
"That's a lie," she said. "They want me dead. If they didn't before, they will now, to punish me for what I've done."
He let the bloodstained hand drop to his lap, and then began to slide it toward the ground.
"Stop," Lici said. She shifted the spear point so that it hovered like a hornet just before Besh's eyes. "If you move that hand anymore, I'll kill you."
"That's what you plan to do anyway, isn't it?"
"Perhaps not," she said, coy again. "You still think I'm beautiful, don't you?"
Besh shuddered. He couldn't help himself. "Of course," he said.
She laughed, harsh and high-pitched. "Liar. But that was good. You almost sounded like you meant it."
"What do you want from me, Lici? Do you want to go back to Kirayde? Do you want me to plead for your life before the eldest and the rest of the council? I can…"
He trailed off. She was laughing again, though her eyes held nothing but rage.
"Why would I go back there? To be taunted again by the children of fools? To be looked down upon by people whom I hold in contempt?" She shook her head. "No, I don't want you to plead for my life. But before this day is through, I'll hear you plead for your own."
"Then what?" Besh asked, his voice sounding weak and thin to his own ears. How long could a man his age endure torture? "You don't want to go back? You don't care about finding the merchant anymore? What's left?"
"I could make more baskets," she said softly. "I could start again. There are more Y'Qatt, you know."
Besh shook his head. "You don't want that. You sold all your baskets. I know you did, because you told me so. And I think you did it because you were tired. You don't want to go hack to that."
It was a guess on his part, and nothing more. But he could see by the way her brow creased and her eyes strayed off to the side, that he was right. Once more he began to ease his hand toward the earth.
The spearhead flashed past his eye so quickly that he had no time to react. Only when the blood began to flow down his face did he understand that she had cut him high on his cheek.
"I told you not to move that hand. Next time you lose an eye." She regarded him briefly, then examined the weapon she held, nodding her approval. "It's a good spear, don't you think? I've come to realize that I'm very good at conjuring. Better even than I am at making baskets." She grinned. "You're right," she went on a moment later. "I don't want to go back to baskets and the Y'Qatt."
"How did you create this pestilence, Lici?"
"It doesn't matter. It can't be undone, if that's what you're thinking. There's no spell you could make that would defeat it."
Besh didn't want to believe her. So much of what Lici said could be dismissed as nonsense or false pride or pure vitriol. But he sensed that she was telling him the truth about this, and he despaired. It struck him as odd that the harm she had done to so many nameless white-hairs should disturb him more than his own impending death.
"But it occurs to me," the woman said, "that I could create a similar plague for the Mettai."
He felt himself growing cold. "Why would you do such a thing?"
"Why wouldn't I?" she asked. "It would have to be a bit different from this one: a plague of the blood rather than the mind. But in other ways it would be much the same."
"If you're doing this to torment me, there are other ways. Cut me again. Hit me, burn me. But don't harm our people."
"The trick would be to keep myself from being afflicted as I spread it to others. But I'm certain there's a way. With magic, there's always a way."
"Sylpa would be angry with you," he said. "She wouldn't want you to speak of it, much less do it."
Her eyes flashed dangerously, her attention fully on him once more. "What do you know about Sylpa?"
"I know how much she cared about you. But I also know that she loved our village and our people. She devoted her life to leading us. How do you think she'd feel about this magic you're talking about?"
It was a gamble, he knew. Sylpa had been like a mother to Lici, taking her in when she was just a girl, only a turn or two removed from the death of Lici's entire family. But Lici guarded her memories of the woman; the one other time Besh had even mentioned Sylpa's name to her, Lici hadn't reacted well. He hadn't dared reveal to her that he carried Sylpa's daybook with them. He had discovered it in Lici's but after she left Kirayde, and he had read through a good portion of it, trying to learn what he could of Lici's past.
"Sylpa's been dead a long time," Lici said. "There's much that she doesn't know, that she couldn't possibly understand."
"Like what?"
But she shook her head. "That won't work." She squatted and picked up a handful of dirt, all the while keeping the spear point level with his eyes. Then she scratched at the back of her hand again. Once more blood began to flow from the marks there. "What would it take?" she asked, seemingly speaking to herself. "How would I make this curse?"
"What are you doing?"
"I've told you. I'm making a new spell. I have you here; I can see what works and what doesn't."
Besh reached for the ground with his bloody hand.
"Stop it!" Lici said, smacking the side of his face with the flat of the spearhead.
Besh glared up at her, but he kept his hand moving.
"Stop!"
He ignored her. She could hurt him all she wanted, but he wasn't going to allow her to use him to make a Mettai plague.
He placed his hand on the ground and wrapped his fist around a clod of dirt. "Blood to earth, life to power," he started to chant.
"No!" she screamed.
And raising the spear shaft over her head, she stabbed down on his hand, the point piercing flesh and bone and flesh again, before digging into the ground.
Besh howled, the agony in his hand nearly robbing him of consciousness. His stomach heaved and he vomited down the front of his shirt. But even through the haze of anguish that enveloped him, he was aware of the blood running from his hand into the ground. He didn't have to make a fist-he couldn't have had he tried-but the magic was there. He wouldn't have much control over it, not in this state. But the time for that had passed. Any hopes he had for Lici and what she could do for them were gone. He cared now only for his family and his village, and yes, here at the end, for his own survival.
"Power to thought," he gasped, finishing the spell he had begun. "Magic to magic!"
He couldn't throw the magic at her. He didn't have to. It shot up the shaft of the spear like a bolt of crimson fire, crashing into Lici's chest and knocking her backward as if she were but a child's doll. She sprawled to the ground, her eyes still open wide, but she didn't move again and smoke rose from a blackened spot over her heart.
Besh took hold of the spear shaft and tried to pull it free of his hand, but all he managed to do was grind the base of the metal tip against the shattered bones in his hand. His vision swam and he fell back into darkness.
Besh?"
The voice reached him first-Sirj's voice-but immediately he became aware of the blazing agony in his hand.