The Desert Spear

But Rojer laughed out loud. “You don’t even see it!” he cried. “An endless line of weapons and wards comes from your hut, the sick and injured cured with a wave of your hand. All I can do is play my fiddle, and I can’t even save a life when I do. You and the Painted Man have become giants while I spend months teaching my apprentices, and all they’re good for is getting folk to dance.”

“Don’t belittle the joy you and your apprentices have brought to a town fraught with hardship,” Leesha said.

Rojer shrugged. “I do nothing a keg of ale can’t do on its own.”

Leesha took his hands in hers. “That’s ridiculous. Your magic is as strong as Arlen’s or mine. The fact that you have such trouble teaching it is just proof of how special you are.”

She laughed mirthlessly. “Besides, however big I grow, I’ll always have my mum to cut me back down.”

It was a moonless night, and where Leesha and Rojer walked, far from the glow of the greatward, the darkness was near complete. Leesha walked with a tall staff, the end of which held a flask of chemics that glowed fiercely, casting light for them to make their way by. The flask and staff were etched with wards of unsight; corelings could see the light, but they could no more find the source than they could find the two of them in their warded cloaks.

“Don’t see why he couldn’t meet us in town,” Rojer muttered. “He might not feel the cold, but I do.”

“Some things are best said in private,” Leesha said, “and he tends to draw a crowd.”

The Painted Man was waiting for them on the warded path leading to Leesha’s cottage. Twilight Dancer, his enormous black stallion, was in full barding and horns, nearly invisible in the darkness. The Painted Man himself wore only a loincloth, his tattooed skin bare to the cold.

“You’re late,” the Painted Man said.

“Had some problems at the hospit,” Leesha said. “An accident while we were charging glass. Why aren’t you wearing your cloak?” She tried to make the question seem casual, but it hurt her that for all the hours she spent on it, Leesha had never seen him wear the garment apart from the one time she threw it across his shoulders to check the fit.

“It’s in my saddlebag,” the Painted Man said. “Not looking to hide from corelings. They want to come at me, let them. World could do with a few less.”

They tied Twilight Dancer to a hitching post in the yard and went inside. Leesha took a match from her apron and lit the fire, filling a kettle and hanging it over the blaze.

“How are the fiddle wizards coming along?” the Painted Man asked Rojer.

“More fiddle than wizard, I’m afraid,” Rojer said. “They’re not ready.”

The Painted Man frowned. “Cutter patrols would be stronger with a fiddler who can manipulate the demons’ emotions.”

“I can patrol with them,” Rojer said. “I have my cloak to keep me safe.”

The Painted Man shook his head. “Need you teaching.”

Rojer, blew out a breath, glancing at Leesha. “I’ll do what I can.”

“And the Hollow?” the Painted Man asked when Leesha joined them at the table.

“Expanding quickly,” Leesha said. “Already we have twice as many people as we had before the flux last year, and more come in daily. We planned the new town to accommodate growth, but not at this rate.”

The Painted Man nodded. “We can have the Cutters clear more land and plot another greatward.”

“We need the lumber, anyway,” Leesha agreed. “We haven’t sent a shipment to Duke Rhinebeck in over a year.”

“Had to rebuild the entire village,” the Painted Man said.

Leesha shrugged. “Perhaps you’d like to explain that to the duke. He sent another Messenger, requesting an audience. They fear you, and your plans for the Hollow.”

The Painted Man shook his head. “Ent got any plans, beyond making the Hollow secure from corelings. When that’s done, I’ll be on my way.”

“But what about the Great War on demonkind?” Rojer asked. “You have to lead the people to it.”

“Corespawn it, boy, I’m not the ripping Deliverer!” the Painted Man growled. “This isn’t some fantasy from a Tender’s Canon, and I wasn’t sent from Heaven to unite mankind. I’m just Arlen Bales of Tibbet’s Brook, a stupid boy with more luck than he deserved, most of it bad.”

“But there’s no one else!” Rojer said. “If you don’t lead the war, who will?”

The Painted Man shrugged. “Not my problem. I won’t force war on anyone. All I aim to do is make sure that anyone who wants to fight, can. Once that boulder shifts, I mean to get out of the way.”

“But why?” Rojer asked.

“Because he doesn’t think he’s human,” Leesha said, reproach clear in her tone. “He thinks he’s so tainted by coreling magic that he’s as much a danger to us as they are, even though there’s not a shred of proof.”

The Painted Man glared, but Leesha glared right back. “There’s proof,” he said finally.

“What?” Leesha asked, her voice softening but still skeptical.

The Painted Man looked at Rojer, who shrank back under the glare. “What I say stays in this cottage,” he warned. “If I hear even a hint of it in a song or tale…”

Rojer held his hands up. “Swear by the sun as it shines. Not a whisper.”

The Painted Man eyed him, finally nodding. His eyes dropped as he spoke. “It’s…uncomfortable for me, in the forbidding.”

Rojer’s eyes went wide, and Leesha inhaled a sharp breath, holding it as her mind raced. Finally, she forced herself to exhale. She had sworn to find a cure for the Painted Man, or at least the details of his condition, and she meant to keep that vow. He’d saved her life, and that of everyone in the Hollow. She owed him that much and more.

“What are the symptoms?” she asked. “What happens when you step onto the ward?”

“There’s…resistance,” the Painted Man said. “Like I’m walking against a strong gust of wind. I feel the ward warming beneath my feet, and myself getting cold. When I walk through the town, it’s like wading through hip-deep water. I pretend otherwise, and no one seems to notice, but I know.”

He turned to Leesha, his eyes sad. “The forbiddance wants to expel me, Leesha, as it would any demon. It knows I don’t belong among men any longer.”

Leesha shook her head. “Nonsense. The ward’s siphon is just drawing away some of the magic you’ve absorbed.”

“It’s not just that,” the Painted Man said. “The Cloaks of Unsight make me dizzy, and I can feel warded blades warm and sharpen at my touch. I fear I become more demon every day.”

Leesha took one of the warded glass vials from her apron pocket and handed it to him. “Crush it.”

The Painted Man shrugged, squeezing as hard as he could. Stronger than ten men, he could easily shatter glass, but the vial resisted even his grip.

“Painted glass,” the Painted Man said, examining the vial. “So what? I taught you that trick myself.”

“That wasn’t charged till you touched it,” Leesha said. The Painted Man’s eyes widened.