Free Sorceress Found by Lisa Blackwood Page B

dead-tree-poles swayed in the wind. He angled away from
the odd road and whatever might travel upon it.
    Below him the land changed. A long narrow lake,
ringed with white ice, now cut across the landscape. The lake’s dark center
rippled with its own drama. Cries of panic and the splash of
water caught his attention. He glided lower until he skimmed above the
snow-covered trees skirting the lake. The sounds of struggle grew weaker. Above
those sounds, a desperate chant rose up from below.
    Out in the water, a small boy clung to a sheet
of ice. On shore a young woman worked on the body of a girl, trying to push
water from dead lungs. Voice hoarse with grief, the woman chanted a healing song.
The song resonated in his soul, familiar. But she sang it wrong, and this land
lacked the magic required to perform such a spell. Besides, the tether holding
the girl’s soul to her body had already faded away, breaking the link of flesh
and spirit.
    Landing at the edge of the lake, he summoned
shadows for concealment. This small, mortal drama didn’t need more panic.
Shifting the Sorceress, he took the strain off his injured shoulder, and then
looked around, seeking shelter from the cold. He approached a stand of
evergreens when a pale figure glided into his midst and looked straight at him.
His magic didn’t work against the dead, and the ghost of a young girl watched
him with sad eyes. She looked from him to the lakeshore and back again.
    The ghost’s pale skin and dark hair reminded him
of the child he held. It could have been the Sorceress wanting to say good-bye
to him, dead before they had even gifted each other with names in this life.
    Shuddering, he mantled his wings to shroud
himself from the ghost’s sad gaze. He glanced down at the warm, living child in
his arms. Reluctantly, he placed her on the ground, sheltered by the branches
of an evergreen. When he looked back to the ghost, she tilted her head to one
side and gave him a questioning look.
    He nodded.
    A beautiful smile crossed the ghost’s face and
she glided out of the trees, leading him back to her grieving family.
    He skirted around the younger woman, her eyes
still vacant as she rocked the girl’s body in her arms. The ghost’s mother?
There was nothing he could do for the woman—he feared her mind was broken.
    At the edge of the winter-locked water, an old
woman continued to cast a long rope out across the frozen surface. She chanted
a spell with each toss, her face serene with concentration. The boy made a
frantic grab at the rope and lost his grip on the ice. He slipped into the
water.
    Exhaustion beat at him. His wounds continued to
seep life-blood and magic, weakening him until even his wings quivered, but he
dropped to all fours, and loped into the frigid water. The cold tore a growl
from his throat.
    He swam to the spot he’d last seen the boy, and
then he dove, beating his wings to reach the bottom of the lake. Underneath the
surface it was as dark as a moonless night, but he sensed the heat from the
boy’s body and swam toward it. He gripped the slight body in his arms, and then
pushed off from the bottom, kicking and swishing his tail until he broke the
surface.
    He snorted water. Hot breath clouded in front of
his face. After he tossed the boy’s body on to the ice, he scrambled at the
slick surface with his claws until he hauled himself out of the water. His legs
shook and lungs burned, but he clamped his teeth into the boy’s hood and
dragged him off the ice.
    The youngling’s chest no longer rose or fell,
but his heart still fluttered feebly. He fed more of his waning gargoyle magic
into the boy, urging his heart to beat while he pushed water from small lungs.
    A racking cough and a deep breath, followed by
more retching told him he’d succeeded. He barely noticed. His skin was
hardening—not from the cold—but from the need to sleep and heal before death
claimed him. He forced himself to walk to where he’d left the Sorceress.
    She