The Last Guardian of Everness (War of the Dreaming 1) by John C. Wright Page A

him and put him over the side. It was the worst thing I had ever done. I thought I should die before I could do such a thing.”
    Raven shuddered, grimacing. He remembered his wife had just said something to Koschei about how she would behave on a lifeboat. Raven told himself Wendy had never been in a lifeboat, that she did not know the cruelty of the world. But he frowned because he knew that she did know but had the type of soul that never let that cruelty touch her . . .
    Raven closed his eyes and continued to speak. “When we were rescued, and we came to safe harbor, I knelt down and kissed the firm ground. It wasso steady, so safe. I had come out of the empty and dead waste of the sea, to what was like home again. I was rescued beyond all hope. And that, that is what my wife is to me. That and more.”
    With his eyes shut, he could feel a warmth, a motion in the air before him. He felt the pressure of wise and ancient eyes, watching him, a supernatural being like a living beam of light. He wondered if he reached out his hand if he would touch her delicate and deerlike muzzle. Raven’s body was trembling.
    “I must tell you, spirit, how we met. There were no friends in New York. I worked as a longshoreman. But I was not in the union, not legal to be allowed to work. The only thing it was legal for me to do in America was starve. So when I was cheated, or when they did not pay my wage, I could not go to anyone to complain. I was strong and quick. I could make men afraid of me. But every man’s hand was against me. Without my wife, the world would be that way again for me. Filled with hate.
    “After the Amnesty Act let me have a green card, I went to find a dream I had. The city was so ugly to me; I wanted to be surrounded by trees. It was like the thirst of a thirsty man. My eye was hungry for beautiful things. Without my wife, I would hunger and thirst like that again, and never be satisfied. Not ever. For there would be no beauty for me in all the world.
    “I took the test to be hired as a park ranger, in the National Forestry Service Police Force. They are a federal body.
    “They gave me a uniform and a gun, and a splendid place to live, way deep in the green. My duties were as nothing. I had to count the trees the loggers took and count the deer the hunters shot, and fill out stack after stack of colored paper forms. Stacks of paper up to your chin, I had to fill out. In triplicate.
    “That is where I met her, you know. I thought she was a
Rusalka,
at first, a swan-maiden or a spirit-woman. Because she was running naked through the woods. She was so young! So full of life! The young, they want so much to be alive . . .”
    Raven opened his eyes and looked at the half-naked young man draped across the table across the room from him.
    He squinted, face troubled, uncertain. Eyes open, he continued to speak:
    “Once and twice I saw her like this. I fill out a form on it, in triplicate. Headquarters say, arrest this woman; she is streaking; she is trespassing. So I hunt her through the forest, where her light footstep has bent the grass, turned over a leaf. I have a keen eye; great patience. I do not like to lose what I am hunting. I did not want to lose her . . .
    “So I hunt her; I catch her. But she is not shy even when she is naked like a bird. She stands with her hands on her hips and tosses her head and makes fun of me and will not come along. She dares me to put the handcuffs on her; even after she is chained up, she makes me wrestle with her. So I am carrying her over my shoulder, and she is trying to kick me. And she is laughing, and she pretends I am a romance-book villain come to ravish her in chains, that she must do as I bid, or she will be taken away. You know, I do not think she was pretending so much. And the paperwork for arrests, all that writing. In triplicate! After the second day she was staying in my cabin, I am thinking, such a bad idea to arrest her after all, you know? Such a bad idea!