“I think both statements are true,” I said with mangled dignity.
“True has nothing to do with what is,” he said blithely. “Sit down, Never. Drink your coffee and eat an apple. Let us discuss our lives with one another.”
“Let’s not,” I said succinctly, but I took an apple and the mug from the table and moved my chair to join him by the stove. “What really brings you to visit me?” I asked after my first sip.
“Renegade,” he said, and laughed at his own feeble joke. Then he cleared his throat. “I don’t know, Never. I just had an impulse. Do you ever get impulses like that? You suddenly feel like you ought to do a thing without knowing why?”
“Not really,” I said.
“Really?” he asked conversationally. “Let me rephrase that. Have you ever done something impulsively, and suddenly felt that your careless words or passing touch would have far greater significance than you’d intended?”
A creeping dread invaded my bones. “No, I don’t think so.”
“I see. So you never attempted to enlist at a small courier station? And as you left, you never departed with a quote from the Holy Writ? Something like, ‘As you have seen to the needs of the stranger, so may your own wants be met in your time of need?’”
I sat very still, looking at him. He smiled mirthlessly. “I range a bit. Sometimes I go a bit beyond the scouting missions I’m sent on. Sometimes I’ve a mission of my own. Such as when I’m sent out to set something to rights after someone else has unbalanced it.”
“Do you do that often?” I managed to ask. The apple sat round, smooth-skinned, and untasted in my hand. I could smell its end-of-summer fragrance. It spoke of sweet juice and tart flesh just under the red-streaked skin.
“Not before you came along.” He shifted in his chair, stretching his stockinged feet closer to the fire. “Things are pretty strange at that courier station, Never, my lad. Think about it. I’m guessing you wanted food and they sent you away empty-handed. They remember you quite well, by the way. It was the day after you passed through that the first supply wagon arrived empty. No one had any explanation. The wagon pulled in, the troopies came out to unload, and the crates were empty.”
“Bizarre,” I managed to say. A stillness was growing inside me.
“Once would be bizarre. The second supply wagon never arrived. Nor the third. Well, let me make the tale short. In an incredible string of bad luck and odd mishaps and inexplicable events, that particular courier stop has gone unsupplied since you—or someone very like you—passed through and cursed it. At least, that’s how the tale is being told.” He paused for a moment and then added, “They’re not starving, exactly. They can go out and hunt for themselves. But it’s been very disruptive. A lot of people have heard about it and are paying attention to it. That could be bad for you, Never.”
He was no longer asking if I’d done it, and I saw no point in denying it. “The words just came out of my mouth,” I said. “I just meant to be sarcastic. Not to curse them.”
He sank a bit deeper into his chair. “Speck magic has a life of its own, Never. You might think you’re using it, but it’s always using you. Always. I warned you to be careful of it.”
“That happened before I ever met you,” I retorted, and then felt childish for needing to make the excuse. I took a bite out of the apple. The taste of it overwhelmed me for a few moments. My head reeled with sweet and sour, with the crisp texture of the flesh and the sturdy flap of apple skin that I ground between my teeth.
“There he goes again,” Hitch muttered to himself. “You don’t listen to a word I say. The more you use it, the more power it has over you. There. Is that plain enough for you? The magic isn’t yours, Nevare. You belong to it. And the more you use it, the more hold it has on you.”
“Like the ‘keep fast’ charm,” I said slowly. “Only it doesn’t seem to work anymore.”
He shot me a look. “Yes. I was coming to that. You do seem to get around, and to do a lot of damage in the process.”
Uneasiness ran over me with cold, wet little feet. “I don’t believe that you’ve gone as far as the Dancing Spindle on a scouting expedition.”
“Me personally? No. But there were witnesses. And information like that travels. If a person wants to hear about it, he only has to listen. And some people very much wanted to hear what had suddenly impacted the whole system of Plains magic. You’re fair on your way to being a legend in your own time, Never.”
