Read Flux for Free Online Page B

so sad. I expect she was hoping I’d say something to her, but how could I?
    “The last time I saw my mother was at my trial. She had to stand there along with my wife and my father and everybody else…everybody who had known me, loved me. She had to hear what I’d done and what was to become of me. It was the only time I saw her cry. Just silent tears falling down her cheeks, and her face set like stone. And then she turned away.”
    Miner was crying now and he couldn’t go on speaking. He buried his face in Ennek’s hair and sent the gods another useless plea, this time hoping that his mother had found peace after his disgrace, that his family had recovered, that Eudoxia had found a man who could give her the love she deserved, that Marsa had grown up strong and happy. That wasn’t so much to ask for, was it?
    His sobbing had died out when something made him freeze. He couldn’t have said exactly what. He hadn’t heard anything other than the birds and the eternal sloshing of the ocean. But he had an odd feeling as if…as if someone were watching him. Cautiously, he lifted his head.
    There was nobody there. A gull was wheeling overhead, circling silently as if it wondered whether he and Ennek might be something good to eat. Perhaps it was the bird’s scrutiny he’d sensed. Or maybe it was simply the fever, which was raging worse than ever, making his skin feel hot and tight and his head feel muzzy.
    The gull whirled and called out once, then dove down to land on the pebbled beach only a few yards away. It regarded them in that unblinking way birds had and Miner could almost imagine a sharp intelligence behind its pale yellow eyes.
    “We’re not carrion yet,” he said. “You’ll have to wait a while longer.”
    It hopped over to his little fire, which had nearly died out, and poked among the discarded mussel shells. There was nothing edible left, and after a moment or two it gave up and resumed staring at the men. It was unsettling. “Go away,” Miner said, but the dispassionate words had no impact on the gull which, in fact, hopped a few feet closer.
    Miner sat up dizzily and tried to drape himself protectively over Ennek. “You can’t have him.”
    The bird opened its mouth and Miner expected it to call again—that slightly haunting sound that had been a backdrop to his existence in Praesidium.
    Instead, it spoke.
    It had a woman’s voice, highly accented in some exotic way but intelligible. “Which of you is the wizard?” it asked.
    Miner could only gape. He hadn’t realized his fever had reached the delirium stage.
    The bird fluttered its wings impatiently. “Which is the wizard?” it repeated, more loudly this time.
    “I…. But...but you’re….”
    The gull clicked its beak at him. “I have sensed the presence of a new wizard here. Are you the wizard or is it your companion?”
    “I’m not…I’m not a wizard,” Miner managed to say.
    The bird cocked its head. “Then it is he. Are you his slave?”
    Miner had been Ennek’s slave but Ennek had never truly treated him as one. “No,” Miner replied as boldly as his ridiculous situation permitted. “I’m his lover. But…who are you?”
    “I am a wizard as well, of course.”
    “You’re a seagull!”
    Somehow, the bird managed to look angry. “I am not. This bird is only my messenger. I am far from you, many miles inland.”
    “You’re human?”
    “Naturally!”
    Miner was not especially reassured to learn that he was speaking with a person. With the exception of Ennek, his experiences with wizards had not been good ones. He would almost have preferred a conversation with a sentient bird. But he had so few options remaining to him now. “Can you help him?” he asked.
    “What is wrong with him?”
    “I’m…I’m not certain. He used too much magic, I expect.”
    The bird rose into the air and flew to the jolly boat. It landed on the gunwale. “Were you shipwrecked?”
    “Yes.” It wasn’t exactly a falsehood.
    “And