No I didn’t. That was the one thing I was sure of. For Epiny to come here, at risk to herself, was the only thing that could have made me feel worse. Bad enough that helping Caulder had condemned me to disgrace. I could die, and my shame would die with me. She would have to live with her dishonor, as would my uncle. A lingering memory of myself as I was in that other world wafted through my mind, like half-recalled perfume. I was suddenly certain that whatever Tree Woman was, I did not want Epiny near her.
She was staring at me, round-eyed. I saw then that she was not well. Little crusts were starting at the corners of her eyes. I should have known from her cracked lips and her red cheeks. She already burned with the fever of the plague. Dr. Amicas had been right again.
She reached timorously to touch my head, and then jerked back her fingers as if scalded. “It comes and goes,” she whispered. “It shimmers around you, weak and then strong. Now it glows above your head. Like flame shows through a sheet of paper before it bursts through and consumes it.”
As she spoke those words, I could feel him. The other self had grown strong. I suddenly saw with his eyes. Epiny was a sorceress, a mistress of the iron magic. He looked at her and gloated, for powerful as she was, she was doomed. As clearly as I could see Epiny herself, I saw the tie of green vine that bound her wrist to Spink’s. I recognized Tree Woman’s “keep fast” charm.
As my true self, I mustered my will. I reached for Epiny’s free wrist and seized it. I pulled on her as she pulled back from me with a little squeak of alarm. “I have to free you!” I whispered hoarsely. “Before it’s too late.” With my other hand, I tried to make the “loose” sign over the twist of vine that bound her. Once the making of that sign had been my betrayal of my people. Now it would free Epiny. But my other self was too strong for me. I could lift my hand, but my fingers would not move as I commanded. He laughed with my mouth, cracking my dry lips.
“Nevare! Let me go! You’re hurting me!”
At Epiny’s cry, Spink took an uneven gasp of air. Then he sighed it out. Distracted, Epiny turned to him. “Spink? Spink!”
I waited. The moments ticked past. He made no indrawn breath. Then, as he gave a final sigh, I heard the death rattle in Spink’s throat. Epiny sank to her knees on the floor between our beds. I still gripped her wrist. She didn’t seem to notice. “No,” she said quietly. “Oh, please, Spink, no! Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.”
He is on the bridge now,I thought faintly. My mouth was no longer mine to speak with. My other self had that now. I wanted to call to Epiny for help. Now that his taking of my body was real, I would have claimed help from anyone who could offer it.
But Epiny did not even look at me. She had begun to rock back and forth, her free hand cupped over her mouth. Her keening still escaped between her fingers. Tears flowed down her face and over her fingers.
I knew when Spink’s spirit left his body. I did not see it go. But I saw Epiny suddenly sit up straight and look at her free hand. I saw the vine tighten on her wrist. Then, as the vine disappeared as if pulled through an invisible wall, Epiny went white. Her mouth gaped and did not close. Linked to Spink by Tree Woman’s “keep fast” charm, her spirit was being pulled into death along with his.
Slowly she collapsed to the floor and became still.
I fought my other self then. Fought him, as I had not before, with fury and hatred and disgust for all he had made me. I tried over and over to make the “loose” sign over their bodies. He kept me from it. To the nurses running toward us, I must have appeared a madman, holding tight to Epiny’s wrist as if I could hold her back from death, all the while grunting and shaking my free hand in the air as I tried to force my fingers to move as I wished them to.
I suddenly recalled the scout’s bluff, all those many years ago. I let my control of the hand go lax, as if surrendering. And when my other self lowered his guard against me, I made a sign over my own grip on Epiny’s wrist. Not “loose.”
“Keep fast!” I managed to say through my cracked lips. And then my body, too, crumpled to the floor as Epiny’s departing spirit pulled me after her.
Closing my eyes in this world was opening them to the bridge and its moving morass of the dying. Spink was on the bridge and had nearly completed his crossing. Epiny floated above him like a tethered bird. She was terrified, and she fought the bond that joined them. Spink did not even notice her. He moved forward, a step at a time.
The bond that linked me to Epiny was thinner and more tenuous. My charm did not have the strength of Tree Woman’s spell. Here, at least, my actions were my own. “Loose!” I said, and made the sign. I found myself free of Epiny, but dead all the same. I was suddenly on the bridge myself. The gathered crowd hemmed me in and blocked my progress. It edged forward, a slow step at a time. I fought the stolid detachment that wished to take me, fought the magic of the disease that had wasted my body. I had come here to do something. Unlike these others, I had willed myself here. I elbowed and shoved my way through the clustering souls.