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you're watching me
But Carolinus had anticipated the rest of the message, and Jim was at once
back in the Solar, with Carolinus still looking at him with no expression on
his face at all, while Angie was running towards him, arms reaching out to him
and his featherweight burden.
"Jim! she said. "Are you all right? Give Hob to me!"
"No," said Jim. "The spears are still in him! I don't want to jar him,
passing him about. Where can we lay him down?"
"On the bed," said Angie.
"Blood " said Jim.
"Cold water takes it out! Put him down there!"
Jim lowered Hob to the bed.
"You could give me a hand!" snarled Jim at Carolinus over his shoulder.
"These spears "
"Look," said Carolinus calmly. Jim looked back at Hob and saw that both
spears and wounds had vanished.
"I don't know how much blood he's lost. I think I hope that's mainly goblin
blood all over him," said Jim. "Have you got any way of telling how much he's
lost? Knowing that'd give me time to find out what else needs to be done keep
his heart going or whatever "
He broke off, suddenly having trouble getting air into his own lungs to speak
with. He felt the helpless, almost panicky, feeling he had felt the first time
he had experienced the out-of-control magick he had earned at theLoathlyTower
. It had been only a few months after that fight, and the magickal energy he
had unknowingly earned there had started changing him into dragon shape,
whether he wanted that to happen or not.
Abruptly, without warning, he was whirled down and away into unconsciousness.
Chapter Forty-One
Jim blinked his eyes open almost immediately, it seemed to him.
But he had been undressed and put under the covers of their bed in the Solar.
Looking further, he saw a wintry morning light flooding in through his
familiar windowpanes.
"M'lady! M'lady!" a familiar, excited, high-pitched voice was calling out,
only inches away from his ear, at the edge of the bed. He turned his head to
see what he had already guessed. It was Hob, all right.
"Hob," he croaked, with dry vocal chords, staring at the pointed little face,
"you're all right?'
"Oh yes, m'lord. How is m'lord?"
"I'm all right, of course!" In fact, Jim did feel all right. Just very rested
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and becoming more awake by the minute. "What am I doing in bed here? I've got
to get up!"
"No, you don't!" Angie was suddenly beside the bed. "You stay right where you
are."
"Why should I stay right where I am? It's a fine day. I couldn't feel
better."
"You stay where you are, because you've had another relapse or lapse, or
whatever it is from overdoing the magick. I warned you. Everybody's been
warning you, to take it easy, and instead you go right into the middle of a
battle, and for all I know, hacked right and left "
"Never a hack! I don't think I even drew my sword& well, maybe I did, but
just to scare off the goblins."
"Well, the point is, you managed to get yourself all worked up, or this
wouldn't have happened."
"What did I do, then, sleep all last night through?"
"You slept three days!"
"Three " Jim stared at her " days?"
"That's right. You've lain there like a& well, you've just lain there, not
moving. I was thinking we'd have to turn you over every four hours so you
wouldn't get bed sores!"
"Bed sores? Don't be ridiculous! In fact, this whole business what're you so
worried about anyway? Three days "
"Now calm down."
"I am calmed down. I'm cool as a cucumber "
Carolinus suddenly loomed up beside Angie, looking very stern and tall.
"Jim!" said Carolinus. "You have to start taking this matter seriously,
that's all there is to it. Every time you push yourself into collapse, as
you've just done once more, you're weakened, and likely to do it again, that
much sooner, the next time you let yourself get exited. Stay calm, as Angie
says. Rest when necessary, and you'll get over it. It's your magickal energy
kicking back at you. You've been told that. You have to train it out of that
habit, so that it finally forgets how to do it. It'll take time."
"But " Jim was beginning.
"No buts!Magick accomplished is NOT reversible. You know that it's in the
copy of theEncyclopedic NecromanticI had you swallow! You somehow stole raw
magick from the continuum to get everybody out of Tiverton. Now it's done and
you're stuck with paying off the cost of it! It'll take patience and time."
"How much time?"
"Who knows?" snapped Carolinus. "A year maybe four? Though the more often you
can use your magick without pushing yourself into this sort of collapse, the
more you'll strengthen. But do exactly the opposite, and you'll weaken it's
that simple."
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"How'm I supposed to know far I can use my magick "
"I don't know! Never had it myself, though I've seen others with it.
Everyone's different. The only thing you can do is err on the side of caution,
and try not to get sensitive about things."
"I'm never sensitive!" said Jim.
"He's one of the most sensitive people alive!" said Angie to Carolinus.
"People don't know it, but he is."
"People including himself, apparently."
"I am not, repeat, not sensitive any more than any other man."
"Now there you're wrong," said Carolinus. "Angie's right. In any case,
sensitivity is necessary to the use of magick, and in my experience you're
definitely sensitive. You won't be able to change that. You'll just have to
live with the capacity, and try to keep it under control."
"Inthisworld?" said Jim, before he could stop himself.
Carolinus seemed to swell and stand even taller.
"No doubt it's a far, far better world where you come from!" he said. "No
doubt everyone there is as sensitive as you are, and you're used to being
handled with soft silk gloves. Well, this isn't your world, and no doubt this
one's not a patch on what you're used to. But it's the world we live and die
in, and we like it as it is! I'm sorry it can't be changed to suit "
"I didn't mean that at all!" cried Jim.
" your own particular wishes and feelings. It's a different world, a hard
world in many ways, and if you want to live here, you've got to take its hard
parts like everyone else and adjust to them, not expecting it and everyone in
it to adjust to you!"
"That isn't what I meant, Carolinus Mage!" Jim almost shouted.
"Carolinus, nowyou'regetting him worked up," said Angie.
Carolinus lowered his voice. "I suppose so."
Jim lowered his. "I know," he said earnestly, "that it's up to me to do the
adjusting I've known from the start. I think your world is one hell of a fine
world. It's just that people, Naturals and animals all think differently here.
I'm trying to fit in. I'll keep trying. And I'll do my best to keep my " he
winced internally at the word " sensitivity under control, if that's what it's
got to be."
"Believe me, it is." Carolinus turned away and paced up and down the Solar a
couple of times. When he came back to Jim, he was almost smiling.
"Well," he said, "I think maybe you ought to get up, now that you clearly
understand. No point in keeping him in bed, Angie. He'll never recover lying
there and stewing. He's got to get up and go out around other people to test
his limits with them."
"Good!" said Jim, throwing off his covers and standing up. He had been in
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Carolinus' world long enough to pick up some of the general indifference about
casual nakedness and to understand its balancing concern with being dressed
exactly right for certain necessary occasions. He looked down at Hob,
cross-legged on the floor by his bed, then at Carolinus. "Hob's really all
right, then?"
"And there you go, first crack out of the box!" said Angie.
"Oh, I think concern like that's not dangerous, Angie," said Carolinus. "It's
normal up to a certain point. Watch Brian, Jim. He takes everything in stride,
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