A terrible foreboding rose in me. I moved the bubbling kettle off the hob and then slowly sat down in my chair again. “Tell me what you did,” I suggested quietly.

He shook his head, his lips pursed sourly. “You already know, don’t you?” He sighed. “I tried to warn you about it. ‘If you resist the magic, then bad things happen to you, things that force you to go the way it wants you to go.’ I told you that. Never say I didn’t. It’s like being a sheep herded by a big mean dog. Run where it wants you to, and you don’t get bit. I’ve been bitten by it a few times. Did I ever tell you that once I had a wife and a little girl? A real wife, I mean, a Gernian wife, one who dressed in ruffles and set a fine table, and played sweet little songs to me on her lap harp. Lalaina. And I loved her, Never. Loved her, and our little golden-haired girl. But that wasn’t what the magic wanted from me. It wanted me out riding the edges and doing its bidding, not sitting home listening to sweet little tunes with a child on my lap. I wouldn’t leave them, though, not for the magic, not for the world. So the magic took them away.

“The plague cut them down, and once my roots were gone, the magic could roll me wherever it wanted me. Kind of like what it done to you. A girl to marry and your mother’s love and a father who respected you? Well, if you’d kept all those things, you wouldn’t be here now, would you? So when you held onto those things too tight, whisk! The magic took them away. See, that’s what I’m telling you. There’s something you’re still holding tight to, isn’t there? If you love it, let go of it. Before the magic destroys it, or finds a way to make you let go.”

“Epiny and Spink, you mean?” Amzil and her children came to my mind also, but not from my lips. Not even then could I admit to Hitch that I cared about them.

“I don’t know who or what you cling to, man. I’m not the magic! All I know is that you stay here when the magic wants you to move on. So it found a way to make you move on. Don’t hate me for this. I’m the messenger. But I came here on my own just as much as because the magic made me. Because, despite everything, I’m still a soldier son, like you. I’ve still got a bit of honor left.” He shook his head ruefully. “Damn me. In a few more minutes, you’re going to hate me, old son. I don’t like the thought of that. But it’s got to be, before I go. So before I make you hate me, I’ll ask you a last good turn. Because I know that if you give me your word, you’ll stick to it, even if you hate me.

“Never, will you do me a favor?”

“What kind of favor?” I asked him, suddenly suspicious.

He gave a croaker bird’s caw of laughter. “There, you see. I shouldn’t have warned you. A couple of minutes ago you’d have agreed first and then asked what it was. Well, it’s something easy, Never. Don’t bury me. That’s all I’m asking. I’m supposed to get a tree. That’s a high honor from the Specks. My own tree. And if they do, if the Specks come and take my body, let them have it. All right? Just let them have it.”

The thought appalled me. I covered it as best I could. “I’m not going to bury you, Hitch, because you aren’t dead.”

He folded his mouth into a stubborn smile and shook his head as if my words amused him. “Just say you won’t bury me, and I’ll do whatever you ask, Never. Because I know you’ll keep your word.”

“Fine. I won’t bury you.” I felt I was indulging a child. “Now do what you said you’d do. Obey me. Go lie down. I’ll bring you more water.”

He rose slowly and when he did, I saw how the sickness had wasted him. His clothing hung on his body. He walked slowly to my bed and sat down on it while I got him water. When I handed it to him, he said, “Good-bye, friend. Good-bye. Because this is the part I do for myself, so I can die knowing that I warned you. So I say good-bye to you one last time as a friend, because in just a few moments, we won’t be friends anymore. Will you shake my hand a last time, Never? Nevare. See, I’ll even call you by your real name. Just shake my hand a last time, and then I’ll tell you. It will make you hate me, but I warned you.”

“Hitch, you’re raving. Just lie back. I’ll be back soon. Well, as soon as I can.” I turned for the door.

He groaned. “Good-bye, my friend. Good-bye.”

I feared he was becoming feverish again. He sounded so strange. My hand was on the door latch when he spoke.

“I killed Fala. I choked her to death with a strap I took from Clove’s harness. And when it was done, I went to Rollo’s Tavern and I got drunk. Good and drunk. Drunk enough to tell everyone that you were a nice enough fellow, really, but you had a bit of a mean streak, and a temper where women were concerned. And I hinted that Fala had laughed at you when you couldn’t do the deed with her. We all had a good laugh about that one, a big porker like you trying to prong a tiny little thing like Fala. Everyone knew she’d never lie still for it. She’d mouth a man, but that was all. Did ’em all fast, that was our Fala. Yes. We had a good laugh. And then I drank some more, and threw up on Rollo’s floor, and passed out and slept it off in the corner. And rode out the next day. And the worst part was that I felt good about all of it. Really good. Because I was doing what the magic wanted me to do. The magic wants you to come to the forest. And if you won’t come because you’re being offered sweet foods and sweeter flesh by Olikea and led that way, then it will drive you with whatever whip or spur it can find. Just like it drove you away from your home. There. I’m done. You hate me now, don’t you?”

“I think I will in a moment,” I said quietly. I was reeling from his revelation. At the same time, all of the pieces were falling into place for me. Hitch had taken me to Sarla Moggam’s brothel. Had he arranged that Fala would volunteer to take me? It wasn’t an unheard of thing, for one man to arrange a whore for a friend, as a favor or as a rough jest. I remembered the missing bit of strap from Clove’s harness, and now I recalled, with a groan, how interested Sergeant Hoster had been in Clove’s harness the last time I’d gone to town.

The three men who had attacked me? That was what they’d been after. Not to steal my horse and wagon, maybe not even to hurt me, but to get Clove’s harness, and show the one new strap amid all the old tack he wore. I’d killed them for that. I wondered where that harness was now. Did Hoster have it? Did anyone else know its significance?

If I didn’t flee Gettys and take to the forest and the Specks, my regiment would hang me for killing Fala. As Hitch had warned me, I had no choices left. Not if I wanted to live.

And Hitch, my friend Hitch, had set me up for all this. He’d framed me neatly. Who wouldn’t believe that a whore would mock a fat man who couldn’t perform with her? Was that a reason to kill her? Enough men would think so. And would they think me stupid enough to have throttled her with a strap from my own horse’s harness? Yes, they would. I looked at the wreck of a man whom I had trusted. I’d saved his life. I’d called him friend. “You’ve ruined me,” I said quietly.

“I know,” he replied as softly. “And as a man and as your friend, I’m sorry about that, Nevare. Sorry beyond anything you can ever know. All I can repeat is that the magic made me do it. Maybe someday you’ll understand what I mean by that, how it forces and lures a man to do what it wants.

“I’ll only say one more thing, and then you can do what you want. Beat me back to death, if it brings you any satisfaction. I’m headed that way anyway. But before I go, let me tell you this. Whatever it is you’re supposed to do, Nevare, you’d better do it. Do it and have done with it, and know that you did what was best for king and country, not to mention yourself. The Specks, they’re determined to have us out of here. The Dust Dance plague and the fear at the end of the road and the despair that rolls out of the forest and fills Gettys: you might think that’s awful magic, but the Specks think it’s sweet persuasion. They were sure it would send us all hightailing out of here. But it hasn’t. And you and I both know that likely it won’t. But if you don’t find a way to make it happen, well, then, all the Specks will say that Kinrove has failed and that it is time to listen to the words of the younger men.”