SummerDanse by Terie Garrison Page B

in my ear that that just made it worse.
    A fire crackled nearby. A fire? Nearby? That startled me fully awake. No longer in my cage, I now lay in the center of the camp. What had happened? Feeling a little queasy, I sat up just as Anazian walked out of a tent carrying a wooden crate.
    “Ah, awake at last, I see,” he said as he took the crate to the wagon. He came back and handed me a waterskin. “Here, drink your fill. It’ll make you feel better.”
    The water tasted wonderful and eased my thirst enough to make me aware of my hunger. Well, that would have to wait a bit.
    Anazian made several more trips between the tent and the wagon, and now I saw that he’d accumulated a good-sized pile of things. Some of the boxes and bundles didn’t look like ones we’d started out with.
    He came over to the fire and sat down with a sigh, flexing his fingers as if his hands were tired. “Well, I must honestly say you gave me quite a scare. Thought I’d killed you.”
    “What happened?” I asked in a croaking voice.
    “Have some more to drink,” he said. “Idiots. Thinking they can steal from a mage with impunity.” He shook his head. “I suppose they’ve learned their lesson now.”
    “Did ... did you kill them?”
    “Oh, some of them will probably die. Maybe all of them. But you and I will be long gone by then. How are you feeling?”
    Confused, mainly, though I didn’t tell him that. “Hungry. But my stomach is a bit upset.”
    “Hmm. Yes. Side effect of the spell. Better that you not eat for awhile yet. Just keep drinking.”
    “But what did you do?”
    “Followed them. Sent them all into a long hard sleep. And now I’m recovering my goods. All of them.” He raised his eyebrows meaningfully at me.
    So that’s what I was—one of his goods.
    “You just sit there and rest. I’ll load the wagon and get everything ready to go.”
    This plan was fine by me. I was certain I couldn’t be of much use anyway. My body, especially my knees, ached, and I wasn’t sure whether I’d be able to walk, much less lift things. I fell into a waking dream of a comfortable bed, a warm room, and my friends all around me.
    “All right, time to go,” Anazian called, startling me out of sleep. I’d actually managed to doze off sitting up.
    I pushed myself to my feet and limped over to the wagon. The mage didn’t help me into the cage, but he didn’t rush me, either. Once he shut up the bars of the cage, he got the waterskin I’d left behind and slipped it to me. Then he actually mounted the wagon and drove it the usual way.
    “We won’t go far tonight, but we need to get at least a few miles from this place.” He clucked to the horses. “Slowly now, my beauties.”
    As I lay in the back, trying to ignore the bumps from the path, I thought about how he was acting. Typical bully: it was all right for him to abuse me, but no one else better try. I thought, too, about my own mixed feelings. Who knows what else those people might’ve done if they’d had the chance, but for a few hours, I’d longed to be one of them. I hoped they’d live.

    I had days and days to ponder these apparent paradoxes. We left the forest behind a day later than expected, but leave it we did, and then our routine changed. Although Anazian still let me out of the cage morning and evening to eat and help with the work of setting up and breaking camp, he now required me to sleep in the cage.
    Not that I much noticed or cared. There was little difference between the hard floor of the wagon and that of the ground. And in the cage, I didn’t have to have my wrists bound together, so all in all, I found it preferable.
    With no cover from the trees, the days turned very hot and very long. From its rising to its setting, the sun shone down on me, and there was no shade in which I could hide from it. My skin reddened and burned.
    The folding spell took a lot from Anazian now, and we had to stop twice each day, instead of once as previously, for him to