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Last to Rise(26)

By:Francis Knight




Colour seemed to drain away from his cheeks, leaving him ashen, shaken. “Nothing.”



“Look, you can farsee, perhaps; that’s good. That’s great. But I need you to able to do it again. You need to as well, or you’re going to end up one big ball of frustration.” Not to mention he’d end up in the black, or going kablooie when it all went tits up, as it would.



Pasha, standing where Allit couldn’t see him, got that dreamy look he took on when he was listening in on someone’s thoughts. “You know, first time I heard anyone’s voice in my head, I thought I was going mad. Scared me stupid, so I didn’t want to try again. Or at least I tried, but it wouldn’t come.”



Allit twisted round to look at him. “You were scared?”



I laughed, more at the memory of myself at this point than anything. “We all were, Allit – I had no idea what the hell was going on, all I knew was things kept changing and I knew where people were without knowing how I knew. Made life a real challenge for a while, and then when I tried to do it on purpose, it all went wrong, when it went at all, which it mostly didn’t for a long time. Still don’t know what the hell I’m doing, really. But it’s going to happen sometime, whether you want it to or not. Best if you know how to manage it. Be its master rather than the other way round.”



He took it a damn sight better than I’d taken that little speech from Dendal, way back when: I’d ended up not using my magic unless I really had to, and of course when it came to it I was out of control. Thing was, we were all right to be afraid. When I’d first joined up with Dendal I’d looked at him, slave to his magic, addicted to it like a junkie to Rapture, and thought, I don’t want to end up like that.



I was beginning to think that it was inevitable. We were all slaves to it in one way or another, and I felt a twinge of guilt at bringing Allit into that fold, into that slavery. Yet the choice wasn’t much of a choice – if we didn’t help him, chances were pretty good he’d end up dead of it. Dendal had some really gruesome stories about mages who hadn’t faced up to their magic, ones he used to tell me over and over. I’d started to dream about them too just lately.



The really scary thing is, I was starting to sound like Dendal, always banging on about mastery.



Allit sat for a while, still pale and shaking, but in the end he took a deep breath and gave me a determined nod. Once he started, it seemed like he couldn’t stop till it all came out.



“I saw lots of things, the first time. I found myself in the wrong end of the ’Pit, and, and I got knocked about pretty bad. Still had the last of the bruises when you found me and that was weeks later. And… and when you found me, I already knew who you were. I saw you, before. I saw what you did at the pain factory, with all the Glow. How it all ran, and you were full of it, full of Glow and you seemed to light up, it was running from your hands, from your eyes and there was glass everywhere and you were smiling, Goddess, the most awful smile, like you were Namrat coming to eat me. And then your father, you left him to die. On purpose, I saw you. Not clearly – it was vague and blurry, but I saw, and I saw you bring him up to be tried by Ministry too, and I saw you join him in the factory, and I saw him kill you. All those things, but only one happened. And I saw Pasha all whacked out, like his mind wasn’t his any more, and I knew you were both using magic, and I thought I might be and I didn’t want it. Not if that’s what it was, and when I met you it scared me because I thought that was you, that man with Glow running out of his eyes, and I didn’t want to be one of them. I saw other things too, before, the pain factory, the screaming and… and… later I think… I don’t want to see it any more! Only I was trying because you weren’t that man, you weren’t that scary, or all lit up with Glow. You helped me, that day you found me. You didn’t have to, but you did. I wanted to help you back, I did, I do, but… not the seeing. I don’t want to do the seeing.”



Pasha was quicker off the mark than me when Allit finally came to a stop. A soft hand on his shoulder, and I knew Pasha would be in the boy’s head, talking to him, soothing him. Playing with what was inside there, taking away the fear perhaps. If only he could do that for good.



Pasha was looking at me when he spoke, that little contented smile that he’d got lately just visible. “That’s not a choice we get. This is who we are, what we are. And it’s crap, and I hate it, and I love it too. But if you have it, you need to know how to keep a lid on it, or you’ll be just another mage who fell into the black, whether you mean to use it or not. And to do that, you need to know how it works, how to use it. We’ll be here with you, OK? I’m not going anywhere and neither is Rojan, or Dendal or any of us.”