“May I… touch you too?”
“Please,” he breathed.
It might be mere mimicry, but it was a start, and once started, acquired its own momentum. She kissed her way down and up his body, and arrived back at the middle.
Her first tentative touch made him jerk and catch his breath, and she shied back.
“No, it’s all right, go on,” he huffed. “I’m a little, um, sensitized just at the moment. It’s good. Almost anything you can do is good.”
“Sensitized. Is that what you call it?” Her lips curled up.
“I’m trying to be polite, Spark.”
She tried various touches, strokes, and grips, wondering if she was doing this right. Her hands felt clumsy and rather too small. The occasional catches of his breath were not very informative, she thought, though once in a while his hand covered hers to squeeze some silent suggestion. Was that gasp pleasure or pain? His apparent endurance for pain was a bit frightening, when she thought about it. “Can I try your oil on my hands?”
“Certainly! Although… this may be over rather quickly if you do.”
She hesitated. “Couldn’t we… do it again? Sometime?”
“Oh yes. I’m very renewable. Just not very fast. Not”—he sighed—“as quick as when I was younger, anyway. Though that’s mostly been to my advantage, tonight.”
And mine. His patience humbled her. “Well, then…”
The oil made her hands slip and slide in ways that intrigued her and seemed to please him, too. She grew more daring. That, for example, made him jerk, no, convulse, much as he’d done to her a while ago.
“Brave Spark!” he gasped.
“Is that good?”
“Yes…”
“Figured if you thought it would please me, it might be something that pleased you, too.”
“Clever girl,” he crooned, his eyes closing again.
She chilled. “Please don’t make fun of me.”
His eyes opened, and his brows drew in; he raised his head from the pillow and frowned down over his torso at her. “Wasn’t. You have one of the hungriest minds it’s ever been my pleasure to meet. You may have been starved of information, but your wits are as sharp as a blade.”
She caught her breath, lest it escape as a sudden surprised sob. His words could not be true, but oh they sounded so nice to hear!
At her shocked look, he added a little impatiently, “Come, child, you can’t be that bright and not know it.”
“Papa said I must be a fool to ask so many questions all the time.”
“Never that.” His head tilted, and his eyes took on that uncanny inward look. “There’s a deep, dark place in your ground just there. Major fissure and blockage. I… it’s not going to be the work of an hour to find the bottom of that one, I’m afraid.”
She gulped. “Then let’s set it aside with the rest of the stones, for now. It’ll wait.” She bent her head. “I’m neglecting you.”
“I won’t argue with that…”
Tongues, she discovered, worked like fingers on fellows quite as well, if differently, as they worked on ladies. Well, then. What would happen if she did this and also this and that at the same time…
She found out. It was fascinating to watch. Even from the oblique angle of view down here she could see his expression grow so inward it might have been a trance. For a moment, she wondered if levitation were a Lakewalker magical skill, for he seemed about to rise off the bed.
“Are you all right?” she asked anxiously, when his body stopped shuddering. “Your forehead got all wrinkled up funny there for a minute, when your, um, back curved up like that.”
His hand waved while he regained his breath; his eyes stayed squeezed shut, but finally opened again. “Sorry, what? Sorry. Was waiting for all those white sparks on the insides of my eyelids to finish exploding. That wasn’t something to miss.”
“Does that often happen?”
“No. No, indeed.”
“Are you all right?” she repeated.
His grin lit his face like a streak of fire. “All right? I think I’m downright astounding.” From an angle of attack that would seem to allow, at best, a wallow, he lunged up and wrapped both arms around her, and dragged her back down to his chest, heedless of the mess they’d made. It was his turn to kiss her face all over. Laughter turned to accidental touching, to—
“Dag, you’re ticklish.”
“No, I’m not. Or only in certain aiee!” When he got his breath back, he added, “You’re fiendish, Spark. I like that in a woman. Gods. I haven’t laughed this much in… I can’t remember.”
“I like how you giggle.”
“I was not giggling. That would be undignified in a man of my years.”
“What was that noise, then?”
“Chortling. Yes, definitely. Chortling.”
“Well,” she decided, “it looks good on you. Everything looks good on you.” She sat up on her elbow and let her gaze travel the long route down his body and back. “Nothing looks good on you, too. It’s most unfair.”
“Oh, as if you aren’t sitting there looking, looking…”
“What?” she breathed, sinking back into his grip.
“Naked. Edible. Beautiful. Like spring rain and star fire.”
He drew her in again; their kisses grew longer, lazier. Sleepier. He made a great effort, and reached out and turned off the lamp. Soft summer-night air stirred the curtains. He flung the sheet up and let it settle over them. She cuddled into his arm, pressing her ear to his chest, and closed her eyes.
To the ends of the world, she thought, melting into deeper darkness.
Chapter 12
Dag spent the radiant summer dawn proving beyond doubt to Fawn that her last night’s first-in-a-lifetime experience needn’t be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. When they woke from the ensuing sated nap, it was midmorning. Dag seriously considered the merits of lying low till the patrols had taken their planned departure, but unexpectedly sharp hunger drove both him and Fawn to rise, wash, dress, and go see if breakfast was still to be had downstairs.
Fawn entered the staircase ahead of Dag and turned sideways to let Utau, clumping up to collect more gear to load, pass her by. Dag smiled brightly at his sometime-linker. Utau’s head cranked over his shoulder in astonishment, and he walked into the far wall with a muffled thud, righted himself, and wheeled to stare. Prudently deciding to ignore that, Dag followed Fawn before Utau could speak. Dag suspected he needed to get better control of his stretching mouth, as well as of his sparking ground. A responsible, mature, respected patroller should not walk about grinning and glowing like some dementedly carved pumpkin. It was like to frighten the horses.
Mari’s patrol was slated to ride north and pick up their pattern again where it had been broken off almost two weeks ago by the call for aid. With his patrol’s purse newly topped off by the Glassforgers, Chato planned to continue on his mission to purchase horses from the limestone country south of the Grace. He would be slowed on the first leg by a wagon to carry Saun and Reela, neither quite ready to ride yet; the pair were to finish convalescing at a Lakewalker camp that controlled a ferry crossing down on the river, and be picked up again on the return journey. Both patrols had planned their removals for the crack of noon, a merciful hour. Dag sensed Chato’s moderating influence at work. Mari was perfectly capable of ordering a dawn departure after a bow-down, then concealing her evil hilarity behind a rod-straight face as her bleary troop stumbled out. Mari was far and away Dag’s favorite relative, but that was a pretty low fence to get over, and he prayed to the absent gods that he might avoid her altogether this morning.
After breakfast Dag helped lug the last of Saun’s gear to the wagon, and turned to find his prayers, as usual, unanswered. Mari stood holding the reins of her horse, staring at him in mute exasperation.
He let his eyebrows rise, trying desperately not to smile. Or worse, chortle. “What?”
She drew a long breath, but then just let it out. ?
??Besotted fool. There’s no more use trying to talk to you this morning than to those twittering wrens in that elm across the yard. I said my piece. I’ll see you back in camp in a few weeks. Maybe the novelty will have worn off by then, and you’ll have your wits back, I don’t know. You can do your own blighted explaining to Fairbolt, is all I can say.”
Dag’s back straightened. “That I will.”
“Eh!” She turned to gather her reins, but then turned back, seriousness replacing the aggravation in her eyes. “Be careful of yourself in farmer country, Dag.”
He would have preferred a tart dressing-down to this true concern, against which he had no defense. “I’m always careful.”
“Not so’s I ever noticed,” she said dryly. Silently, Dag offered her a leg up, which she accepted with a nod, settling in her saddle with a tired sigh. She was growing thinner, he thought, these last couple of years. He gave her a smile of farewell, but it only made her lean on her pommel and lower her voice to him. “I’ve seen you in a score of moods, including foul. I’ve never before seen you so plain happy. Enough to make an old woman weep, you are… Take care of that little girl, too, then.”
“I plan to.”
“Huh. Do you, now.” She shook her head and clucked her horse forward, and Dag belatedly recalled his last statement to her on the subject of plans.
But he could almost watch himself being displaced in her head with the hundred details a patrol leader on duty must track—as well he remembered. Her gaze turned to sweep over the rest of her charges, checking their gear, their horses, their faces; judging their readiness, finding it enough to go on with. This day. Again.
Fawn had been helping Reela, apparently one of the several dozen people, or so it seemed to Dag, that Fawn had managed to make friends of in this past week. The two young women bade each other cheery good-byes, and Fawn popped down off the wagon to come stand with him as he watched his patrol form up and trot out through the gateway. At least as many riders gave a parting wave to her as to him. In a few minutes, Chato’s patrol too mounted up and wheeled out, at a slower pace for the rumbling wagon. Saun waved as enthusiastic a farewell as his injuries permitted. Silence settled in the stable yard.
Dag sighed, caught as usual between relief to be rid of the whole maddening lot of them, and the disconcerting loneliness that always set in when he was parted from his people. He told himself that it made no sense to be shaken by both feelings simultaneously. Anyway, there were more practical reasons to be wary when one was the only Lakewalker in a townful of farmers, and he struggled to wrap his usual guarded courtesy back about himself. Except now with Fawn also inside.
The horse boys disbanded toward the tack room or the back door to the kitchen, walking slowly in the humidity and chatting with each other.
“Your patrollers weren’t so bad,” said Fawn, staring thoughtfully out the gate. “I didn’t think they’d accept me, but they did.”
“This is patrol. Camp is different,” said Dag absently.
“How?”
“Eh…” Weak platitudes rose to his mind, Time will tell, Don’t borrow trouble. “You’ll see.” He felt curiously loath to explain to her, on this bright morning, why his personal war on malices wasn’t the sole reason that he volunteered for more extra duty than any other patroller in Hickory Lake Camp. His record had been seventeen straight months in the field without returning there, though he’d had to switch patrols several times to do it.
“Must we leave today, too?” asked Fawn.
Dag came to himself with a start and wrapped his arm around her, snugging her to his hip. “No, in fact. It’s a two-day hard ride to Lumpton from here, but we’ve no need to ride hard. We can make an easy start tomorrow, take it in gentle stages.” Or even later, the seductive thought occurred.
“I was wondering if I ought to give my room back to the hotel. Since I’m not really a patroller and all.”
“What? No! That room is yours for as long as you want it, Spark!” Dag said indignantly.
“Um, well, that’s sort of the point, I thought.” She bit her lip, but her eyes, he realized, were sparkling. “I was wondering if I could sleep in with you? For… frugality.”
“Of course, frugality! Yes, that’s the thing. You are a thoughtful girl, Spark.”
She cast him a merry smirk. She flashed an entrancing dimple when she smirked, which made his heart melt like a block of butter left in the summer sun. She said, “I’ll go move my things.”
He followed, feeling as utterly scatter-witted as Mari had accused him of being. He could not, could not run up and down the streets of Glassforge, leaping and shouting to the blue sky and the entire population, She says I make her eyes happy!
He really wanted to, though.
They did not leave the next day, for it was raining. Nor the next either, for rain threatened then, too. On the following morning, Dag declared Fawn too sore from the previous night’s successfully concluded bed experiments to ride comfortably, although by midafternoon she was hopping around as happily as a flea and he was limping as the pulled muscle in his back seized up. Which provided the next day’s excuse for lingering, as well. He pictured the conversation with Fairbolt, Why are you late, Dag? Sorry, sir, I crippled myself making passionate love to a farmer girl. Yeah, that’d go over well.
Watching Fawn discover the delights that her own body could provide her was an enchantment to Dag as endlessly beguiling as water lilies. He had to cast his mind far back for comparisons, as he’d made those discoveries at a much younger age. He could indeed remember being a little crazed with it all for a while. He found he really didn’t need to rack his brains to provide variety in his lovemaking, for she was still overwhelmed by the marvel of repeatability. So he probably hadn’t created anything he couldn’t handle, quite.
Dag also discovered in himself a previously unsuspected weakness for foot rubs. If ever Fawn wanted to fix him in one place, she didn’t need to hog-tie him with ropes; when her small firm hands worked their way down past his ankles, he slumped like a man poleaxed and just lay there paralyzed, trying not to drool too unattractively into his pillow. In those moments, never getting out of bed again for the rest of his life seemed the very definition of paradise. As long as Spark was in the bed with him.
The short summer nights filled themselves, but Dag was unsettled by how swiftly the long days also slipped by. A gentle ride out for Fawn to try her new mare and riding trousers, with a picnic by the river, turned into an afternoon under a curtaining willow tree that lasted till sundown. Sassa the Horseford kinsman popped up again, and Dag found in Fawn an apparently bottomless appetite for tours of Glassforge crafters. Her endless curiosity and passion for questions was by no means limited to patrollers and sex, flattering as that had been, but seemed to extend to the whole wide world. Sassa’s willing, nay, proud escort and array of family connections guided them through the complex back premises of a brick burner, a silversmith, a saddler, three kinds of mills, a potter—Fawn cast a simple pot under the woman’s enthusiastic tutelage, becoming cheerfully muddied—and a repeat of the visit to Sassa’s own glassworks, because Dag had missed it before on account of being up to his waist in swamp.
Dag at first mustered a mere polite interest—he seldom paid close attention anymore to the details of anything he wasn’t being asked to track and slay—but found himself drawn in along the trail of Fawn’s fascination. With studied and sweating intensity, the glass workers brought together sand and fire and meticulous timing to effect transformations of the very ground of their materials into fragile, frozen brilliance. This is farmer magic, and they don’t even realize it, Dag thought, completely taken by their system of blowing glass into molds to make rapid, reliable replicas. Sassa gave to Fawn a bowl that she had seen being made the other day, now annealed, and she determined to take it home to her mother. Dag was doubtful about getting it to West Blue intact in a saddlebag, but Sassa provided a slat box padded with straw and hope. Which was going to be bulky and awkwa
rd; Dag steeled himself to deal with it.
Later, Fawn unpacked the bowl to set on the table beside their bed to catch the evening light. Dag sat on the bed and stared with nearly equal interest at the way the patterns pressed into it made wavering rainbows.
“All things have grounds, except where a malice has drained them,” he commented. “The grounds of living things are always moving and changing, but even rocks have a sort of low, steady hum. When Sassa made that batch of glass and cast it, it was almost as if its ground came alive, it transformed so. Now it’s become still again, but changed. It’s like it”—his hand reached out as if grasping for the right word—“sings a brighter tune.”
Fawn stood back with her hands on her hips and gave him a slightly frustrated look; as if, for all her questions, he walked in a place she could not follow.
“So,” she said slowly, “if things move their grounds, can pushing on grounds move things?”
Dag blinked in faint shock. Was it chance or keen logic that brought her question so close to the heart of Lakewalker secrets? He hesitated. “That’s the theory,” he said at last. “But would you like to see how a Lakewalker would move the ground in that bowl from one side of the table to the other?”
Her eyes widened. “Show me!”
Gravely, he leaned over, reached out with his hand, and shoved the bowl about six inches.
“Dag!” Fawn wailed in exasperation. “I thought you were going to show me magic.”
He grinned briefly, although mostly because he could scarcely look at her and not smile. “Trying to move anything through its ground is like pushing on the short end of a long lever. It’s always easier to do it by hand. Although it’s said…” He hesitated again. “It’s said the old sorcerer-lords linked together in groups to do their greater magics. Like matching grounds for healing, or a lovers’ groundlock, only with some lost difference.”