Terry Brooks - The Gypsy Morph

They walked through the remainder of the day, the sun drifting slowly west behind them, the light dimming, and finally, after far too long, Logan Tom found himself alone with Simralin.

“Your little brother doesn’t want to let you out of his sight,” he said, having just sent the boy to the rear of the caravan, ostensibly to make certain that everyone was keeping up.

“Little brothers are like that,” she replied, moving close to him and linking her arm in his.

They walked on for a time without speaking further, content just to be close, their eyes shifting from the ground to the land ahead, where night was creeping into view.

“What you did back there …,” he said finally.

“Was necessary.”

“Was incredibly brave. You couldn’t have known you could make the Elfstones work. You took a terrible risk.”

“Some risks you have to take. I had to take this one. I had to try to help you.”

He shook his head. “You didn’t listen to anything I said about waiting, did you? You were right behind me the whole time.”

She was silent a moment. “I kept thinking of all those I left behind in the Cintra, all those who died and I will never see again. Friends and family, people I cared about.” She shrugged without looking at him. “You know how important you are to me, Logan. I wasn’t going to lose you, too. I am bound to you in so many ways. Not by words or writing, but by how I feel. If I lose you, I lose myself.”

“You won’t lose me,” he said.

“At the time, I wasn’t so sure.”

He gave her a small, weary smile. “I told you that you might be able to use the Elfstones, even if it didn’t seem so when you tried before. Didn’t I? Didn’t I say you just had to give yourself a chance?”

“You did. It seemed so easy this time. Perhaps it was because I was so determined that it would work; because I wanted it so badly. I just called the magic up the way I’d seen Kirisin do it, and there it was. You were right.”

“But I could have been wrong. You could have been killed.”

“You could have been killed, too.”

“I love you,” he said impulsively.

She squeezed his arm. “I love you, too.”

“I didn’t think this would ever happen to me.” He was feeling giddy, light–headed. “Meeting someone like you. Falling in love like this.”

“But it did. Despite everything.”

“I can hardly believe it. Even now. It feels so strange. Like I don’t deserve it. Like it isn’t real.”

She laughed. “You’ll get used to it.”

He exhaled sharply, filled with wonder. “Good thing you didn’t listen to me when I told you not to come after me. If you’d listened, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

She didn’t say anything, her face suddenly serious. He touched her dirt–streaked cheek. “You saved my life.”

She shook her head slowly. “No, Logan.” She leaned into him, kissing his cheek once more. “I saved my own.”

IT WAS LATE IN the AFTERNOON, the sun sinking toward the horizon, when Panther finally caught up to her. With Cheney’s help, he had been tracking her since sunrise, the shaggy wolf dog setting a steady pace, big head swinging from side to side, muzzle lowered to the ground. At times, Panther wasn’t so sure that he had the scent. But he knew better than to doubt the dog’s ability, and besides, Cheney was all he had. Without him, he wouldn’t have stood a chance of finding her.

“There she is,” he whispered, almost to himself.

Catalya was walking just far enough ahead that until a few moments ago, she had been lost in the deepening shadows of a rapidly descending twilight. But he could see her clearly enough now to be certain of who she was, a small, cloaked figure outlined against the graying sky.

“C’mon, Cheney,” Panther urged, and picked up the pace.

He caught up to her quickly, pressing hard to close the gap, determined not to lose her to the darkness. She didn’t hear his approach until he was almost on top of her, when the sound of his footsteps or his breathing caught her attention and brought her about. She stood where she was, staring at him with Rabbit crouched guardedly at her feet. The look on her face told him right away that she was not happy he was there.

“So the going got too rough for you back there?” he snapped, deciding to be aggressive about this.

She stood her ground. “Go back, Panther. I don’t want you here.”

“You got a serious attitude problem, little Kitty Cat, you know that?”

“You’re the one with the serious problem. Your ears aren’t working. Didn’t Owl tell you not to come after me?”

“She said.” He gave her a shrug. “I decided maybe you didn’t really mean it. Maybe you was confused about who your real friends were.”

She waved him off, turned around, and started walking again. Panther fell into step beside her with Cheney following. Rabbit hopped along to one side, indifferent to all of them.

“See, Owl told me what was wrong. She told me everything. She laid it right out there, no beating around. You ain’t got to be alone in this, Cat. Some of us want to be there with you. We don’t abandon our friends just because they got a problem.”

He waited for her response, but she stayed silent, moving steadily forward, as if by doing so she might somehow leave him behind. It made him all the more determined.

“Why don’t you want to talk to me about this?” he snapped. “I come all this way to find you, you won’t even talk to me? Bird‑Man, he even let me bring Cheney to help find you. That wasn’t something he had to do, but he did it anyway. Shows you something, don’t you think?”

“I don’t think you get it, Panther,” she said wearily.

“Well, why don’t you explain it to me then. I got nothing better to do than listen to you.”

She stopped and stared at him. “Well, you maybe ought to find something better to do and go somewhere else while you’re doing it. How much clearer do I have to be about this?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

She glared at him, but he didn’t move. In frustration she pulled up one sleeve of her shirt. Her arm, once mostly clear of the infection that was apparent elsewhere, was a mass of scaly patches, rough and gray–hued. She thrust it at him as if by doing so he might change his mind about staying, but he refused to move.

“So?” he said.

She dropped her sleeve over her arm. “So, Panther, it’s happening all over my body. Just like that, it started up again. I thought it had stopped. I thought that it might be in remission. No such luck. It‘s come back, and it’s changing me faster than it did earlier. You know what that means, don’t you? You and your street smarts, your vast knowledge of Freaks. ”

He almost said something sharp in return, especially when she used the word Freaks as if it were an accusation. But he held his tongue and nodded. “Guess I had that coming. But it doesn’t change things.”

She laughed, bitter and sharp. “Of course it changes things. It changes everything! Within weeks, maybe less, I’ll be one of them. One of the Freaks! I’ll be a Lizard, and when that happens no one who’s still human is going to want to have anything to do with me! Especially you!” She was shaking with rage. “So don’t pretend that what’s happening doesn’t change things! You know it does! I’ve seen what it does, over and over while living with the Senator. If you aren’t human, you aren’t fit to be with humans! That’s just the way it is with people.”

She snatched up Rabbit, turned, and stalked away, but he quickly caught up. “Maybe where you used to live, people was like that. Ain’t so with the Ghosts. You can tell yourself it’s no different, but that don’t make it so. You know that.”