Read Online Doubleborn by Toby Forward - Free Book Online

His arm was dead with cold.
    She stepped between him and the shocked assembly.
    The room was level now, restored. The faces of the family were clothed with anger and disappointment.
    Flaxfold, small and stout again, smiled at them.
    “You’re very lucky,” she said.
    The girl’s father began to protest and complain that the Finishing had been badly done, spoiled. Sam flexed his fingers to bring life and warmth back to them.
    “Hush,” said Flaxfold, taking the father’s arm and sitting him down. “Hush. It’s all right. It’s good. Sometimes, with a young one, with a special child, the Finished World is as glad to receive her as we are sad to lose her. The depth of your sorrow is balanced by the surplus of their joy. When that happens…” She shrugged. “Well, you saw how it was.”
    Sam knew they had seen nothing, of course. People never did. Just shadows and flashes.
    Flaxfold stayed longer than she would have done, creating confidence, rebuilding the family for each other. She heard their memories, encouraged plans, shared their food and helped them to be ready for the next day, and the next.
    Sam was impatient to leave, to talk, to explain and to ask questions. He had to wait. He ate a little and went outdoors and looked up at Starback, circling the sky. The dragon had been unsettled by the event. Sam closed his eyes and circled with him, looking down at the house until Flaxfold waved goodbye.
    Rejoining her he waited until they were on the road.
    “I thought it was Tamrin,” he said. “Dead, I mean.”
    “Yes. I saw that. You were upset.”
    “And then the woman. What happened?”
    “Something,” said Flaxfold, “that changes everything. There’s dangerous work ahead. Now. For all of us. But mostly for you.”
    “Tell me,” said Sam.
    “It’s like this,” she began. “Your old master, Flaxfield, died because he was wounded. Long ago. His magic was tested and torn.”
    Sam trudged along next to her. The day was closing and they still had a long way to go.
    “A weak, greedy wizard tried to steal magic from a young girl, his apprentice,” she said. “It went wrong and magic was distorted, infected. The wizard changed, grew younger and stronger, and new magic ripped through into the world. Flaxfield was the only one who could tame it.”
    She looked at the darkening sky. Starback flew overhead, leading the way, effortlessly riding the air. Sam waited for her to continue. He knew stories took their own time. They’re not dogs to call to heel.
    Flaxfold’s face was sad. She was living the events again in her mind.
    “It damaged him very much,” she said. “It never showed. He had many apprentices afterwards, and only one of them knew what he had endured. But it changed him. And, in the end, weakened him to his early death last year. He wasn’t supposed to die. He was supposed to stay until your apprenticeship was complete.”
    “I still don’t know why he had to die,” Sam complained.
    Twilight contracted the world. Trees were closer, the road more narrow. The moon rode low in the sky.
    “Tell me about the woman,” said Flaxfold. “The one who tried to come from the Finished World.”
    “You haven’t finished your story yet,” said Sam. “Let’s hear the end of that first.”
    “It’s the same story,” said Flaxfold. “Tell me about her.”
    Sam had known this all along. He had known without knowing that these two tales would cross.
    “Last year,” he said, “at a different Finishing, in the mines, she was the one who appeared then, and tried to pull me into the Finished World.”
    “And this time,” said Flaxfold, “she tried to use you to get out. That’s bad.”
    “Who is she?” asked Sam.
    Flaxfold stopped and looked at him.
    “She’s the wizard that Flaxfield fought and defeated,” she said. “He put her in prison. He had her sealed tight, together with her assistant. And now she’s found you, and she thinks she can break out through the Finished