“Well, who wouldn’t dream of such a life?” Hitch asked with false enthusiasm.

“You can mock me if you like,” I replied grumpily. “It wasn’t a bad dream. If I’d been posted to the right regiment, I’d have had a chance for adventure and glory. And I don’t see anything wrong with looking forward to a well-bred wife, and quiet waters and a snug home at the end of one’s days. What do I have to look forward to now? If I get really good at burying bodies, perhaps I’ll earn a corporal’s stripes. And when I’m too old to dig graves, what then? What then?”

“You can’t really believe that you’re stuck here the rest of your life?”

“Well, I don’t really see what else there is for me!” I retorted. Saying it aloud made it more real. Maybe I’d be promoted. Maybe I’d get a few stripes on my sleeve, but I’d still be fat and alone and digging graves. And when I couldn’t do that anymore, when my body gave out under the strain of carrying all this extra flesh, then I’d be one of those ex-soldier beggars in some dingy town. I sat back in my chair. I couldn’t catch my breath.

“Take it easy, Never. You’ve got all this magic running through you. And you’re worried that you’ll have a boring life. Actually, you should be praying for that. Boredom is vastly underrated. Boredom means that nothing is trying to kill you every day.” He smiled grimly at his own wit.

“I almost wish—” I began, but stopped at a sharp motion from Hitch.

“You, of all people, should be very careful what you wish for. If you haven’t heard a word I’ve said all evening, then listen to me now. Your wishes have an uncanny habit of coming true. Be careful where you bend your will. Magic seems to go with it.”

“Perhaps once or twice,” I began, but again he cut me off impatiently.

“You wished to enlist here. And because it served the magic’s purpose, you were allowed to. This duty you’ve been given—do you think this was a random choice by our colonel? I venture to say there is Speckish benefit somewhere here.”

“How could my guarding the cemetery be of any benefit to the Specks?”

“I don’t know,” he finally retorted in a low voice. “But it’s something you’d best think about, Never. Why would they want you here? What do they want you to do?”

“I don’t know. But whatever it is, I won’t do it. I won’t betray my people.” I thought I knew what he feared. “I won’t be lax at my guardianship. I won’t allow them to mock and desecrate our dead.”

“Mocking the dead would be very un-Speck-like.” Hitch said quietly. “They show their own dead vast respect. They claim that wisdom gained never passes away, not even with death. Did you know that?”

I shook my head. “This part of me that is here and speaks to you knows very little about the Specks. But there is another part of me that I fear knows too much and too well.”

He allowed himself a smile. “That you know that part exists and that you admit it to me shows me that you are gaining wisdom, Never.” He heaved a sudden sigh and stood up. “It’s late. I’m going back to town. There’s a new whore at Sarla Moggam’s brothel. I plan to sample her before she’s worn out.”

“But you said you had a Speck woman.”

He lifted one shoulder and gave a smile both sheepish and defiant. “Once in a while, a man likes to be in charge of things. Speck women don’t give you much chance of that. They do things their own way and expect you to follow meekly along.”

For some reason, that put me in mind of Amzil. “You’ve reminded me. I’ve still got Amzil’s carry sack. Next time you go by Dead Town, would you take it back for me?”

“I could,” he conceded. “If you think you must. Nevare, it’s just a rucksack. Don’t put too much importance on it.”

“I promised her that I’d return it. My promise is worth more to me than the rucksack. Besides, I’ve put in a few gifts. For the children.”

He shook his head at me. “I’ve warned you, old son. Amzil’s a hard nut to crack. I don’t think you’ll get to her through the children. Save your time and effort. Come to Sarla Moggam’s with me.”

The invitation was more tempting that I wanted to admit. “Another time,” I said regretfully. “When I’ve got more money. Will you take the carry sack to Amzil?”

“I said I would,” he agreed. “And will you be more careful in how you spend your magic?”

“I would if I knew how. I wish I could undo what I did to the men at the courier station. It was only their sergeant who was so hard-hearted to me. I’d no wish to curse them all.”

“All the more reason for you to be careful. If that’s what you do when you don’t mean to harm anyone, what would happen if you really intended it?”

It was a sobering thought. “I’d undo it if I could. I don’t know how.”

He was standing by the door, the laden rucksack in his hand. “That’s a feeble excuse, Never, and you know it. You said you did it without knowing how. If I were you, I’d be trying to undo it.” He shook his head at my expression. “Don’t be stubborn. This isn’t something you want connected to you. You’re a dangerous man, Never. The fewer people who know that, the safer you are. Good night.”

And so he left me to what was not a good night at all. I didn’t like that he thought I was “dangerous,” and I liked it even less that, on consideration, I concluded that I was. I was like a foolish boy with a loaded gun. It didn’t matter if I knew how the gun worked; I’d fired it, and someone had suffered the consequences. Was I so different from the two young fools on the riverboat who had felled a wind wizard with iron shot? They’d probably had no real notion of the harm iron could do him. I’d despised them for it. But here I was, spraying magic out just as carelessly. According to Hitch.

I lay in my bed and stared up at my shadowed ceiling. I wanted so desperately to be able to go back to where magic was the stuff of tales, not something that affected my life every day. I didn’t want it to be a power I had, with no concept of how it worked or was controlled. The light danced with the flames in my hearth and I decided I should try to undo whatever I had done to the courier station. It wasn’t easy. In the moment I’d said those words, I’d wholeheartedly desired that they suffer exactly as I did from their lack of charity. There was still a hard part of me that thought they deserved what had happened. I discovered that I would need to forgive them before I could truly wish to undo what I had done to them. That forgiveness was an easy thing to say, but a harder thing to feel in my heart.

I groped toward an understanding of the magic I had done. It had gone beyond what I’d said to what I’d felt toward them. Feelings, I discovered, did not yield to logic or even to ethics. Why should everyone at the relay station suffer because their sergeant had been so stiff-necked? Why should any of them suffer at all, at my say-so? Who was I to judge them?

I chased my morality in circles that night, trying to find it. When it came to actually living as an upright man, I discovered that I was no more truly tolerant and forgiving than any worshipper of the old gods.

The moment that I realized I was no better than the men who had turned me away when I begged their help, I was able to forgive. I felt something move through me, a prickling in my blood, followed by a stillness and a sense of effort expended. Had I worked magic? I couldn’t tell. I had no way of knowing, no way of proving that I had or had not. Perhaps all of this was a silly illusion, a game that Hitch and I played, pretending to powers that didn’t exist.

My refusal to surrender and completely believe in magic was my final defense that enabled me to live in a world that made sense to me. The early morning was a pearly darkness of falling snow. I burrowed deeper into my blankets and finally slept.