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Kinrove put down his glass. He didn’t smile at Soldier’s Boy, but there was a sort of acceptance in his face now. “You start to see, don’t you? It is how the magic has always spoken to me. I have said it before, but few understand. I am the dance; it is me and I am a part of it. And when I summon the dancers and they come, they join me and become a part of me. I dance, Soldier’s Boy. Not, perhaps, in as lively a fashion as I did when I first became a Great Man. But since the magic woke in me, there is not a movement that I have made that was not a part of my dance.”

Kinrove gestured at a server to fill his glass again. As she stepped forward, the Great Man shifted his own posture slightly, in a way that echoed and yet opposed the feeder’s movement. For the moments that she poured his wine, she was his unwitting dance partner. As she stepped away, his hand moved toward the glass. For a fleeting second, Soldier’s Boy could see the invisible lines of force that Kinrove’s dance created. It all made perfect sense, for that instant. And then the comprehension faded from his mind, and though he could see how gracefully Kinrove lifted his cup and drank from it, he could no longer perceive the magic.Advertisement

“You will have to be prepared,” Kinrove announced, as if he were continuing a conversation. “There are, of course, foods that will raise your awareness. But the preparation is more than a matter of merely eating what is put before you. You will dance until you become the dance. It will be strenuous, and you have never in your life trained for such a thing. You may not be capable of what the dance demands of you in order to make the magic work.”

Soldier’s Boy was offended. He slapped a hand to his ample chest. “This body has marched for hours at a time, ridden a horse for days over many miles of different terrain. This body has dug a hundred graves, and it—”

“Still has never endured the rigors of a dancer. But it will have to. Do you understand that you may not survive this dance?”

“I must survive, to be made one. I must survive so that the magic can work through me, to drive the intruders away. What, will you kill me with your magic to be rid of me, and then tell everyone that it was my own fault?”

Kinrove was silent for a moment. His face assumed grave lines, and that, too, Soldier’s Boy fleetingly glimpsed, was a part of his endless dance. “You can either let go of your resistance now, or you can dance it away,” he observed mildly. “I suggest that, if you can, you banish your distrust and accept what I tell you. The magic is like a river when it carries you to the dance. Be you mud or be you stone, still it will flow, and it will cut its way through whatever resistance you put before it. It will be easier for you if you clear the resistance from yourself rather than make the magic slice through it.”

“Let me worry about controlling my resistance to your magic,” Soldier’s Boy replied stiffly. “Whatever must be done to make me ready, then let us do it.”

“My magic?” Kinrove asked almost condescendingly. “That you name it ‘your magic’ when you speak to me rather than ‘the magic’ shows that you will resist it. Very well. There is no way I can help you with that. Perhaps by the time you are ready to let the dance have you, you will have heard my counsel.”

Kinrove turned his attention away from Soldier’s Boy. He summoned, not one, but three of his feeders. As his hand flowed through the triple beckoning gesture, Soldier’s Boy again had a tiny image of Kinrove drawing strings of magic toward him, like an arcane puppeteer. The feeders approached him and waited.

“We will need a quantity of the food that we make each day for the dancers. But it will need to be made of a greater strength. There must be much sweetness in it, and twice as much hallera bark. The root of the wild raspberry must be dug, and the youngest parts of it ground and added. Prepare also a large roast of meat, and water soured with the leaves of the atra bush. I will have other dishes that you will need to prepare, but that will be enough for now. One other task you must do for me. Use bear grease and the tallow of a doe, and strong mint and crimsberry leaves and willow tips. Make a rub for Soldier’s Boy, and a very hot bath. We must loosen his joints and muscles. Prepare wraps, too, for binding his feet and legs to protect them, and a wide wrap for his belly, to support it. All these things, make ready by the evening. Go now to do these things. And send a feeder to his table, to help him fill himself with whatever he desires.”

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The command for food had been welcomed, but the mentions of the bath and the wraps sounded more ominous. “Don’t do this,” I whispered to him. “Stop it now. Take Olikea and Likari and go. You can’t trust Kinrove. Neither of us have any idea of what will become of us if he tries to reunite us as one. Leave now.” pqdm.com