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crumpling going on inside there, too; it was possible Mutex had a whole miniature
ecosystem inside, filled with poisonous frogs.
Finch, still on four legs, tried to retreat from the frogs, clearly recognizing them for
what they were—tiny hopping biohazards. Deadly poison with legs.
“Look out!” Rondeau called, but it was too late. Finch’s rear left leg came down on top
of a frog, and he roared, lifting his paw and shaking it, stumbling in the process and
brushing against several more of the frogs. He gave a nearly human scream, and did an
ineffectual hop of his own, as if trying to jump clear of the widening pool of frogs, but
he only landed on more of them.
Rondeau started forward, but Marla laid a restraining hand on his arm. The frogs were
spreading out throughout the whole clearing now, scores of them, spotting the grass and
churned dirt like yellow wildflowers, and Finch was surrounded. Rondeau and Marla
couldn’t help him. The frogs were like mobile land mines. Finch stumbled about,
swiping at the frogs, but his strikes grew slower and slower, his movements more
sluggish. Even his magically enhanced bear’s constitution failed to stand up to the frogs
for more than a few seconds, and Marla thought about the welts that had risen up on
Lao Tsung’s dead body—just how poisonous were these creatures? Marla felt a pang
for Finch—he’d been a bastard, true, but she’d respected his power, and, ultimately,
he’d acknowledged hers. That was as close to friendship as most sorcerers could afford
to come.
Mutex watched Finch lurch about and die by degrees. The skinny sorcerer nodded
thoughtfully, as if he were attending a lecture on fiscal policy or civic planning. Marla
drew her non-magical, workaday dagger and held it by the blade between her thumb and
forefinger. The knife wasn’t weighted for throwing, but at this distance, with sufficient
force, she could probably wound Mutex grievously in the throat. She drew back her arm
and, in a smooth motion that would have pleased Lao Tsung, let the dagger fly.
Before the knife went a foot, it struck a hummingbird. The animal had intercepted the
blade in a blur of ruby wings, moving faster than Marla’s eyes could follow. The knife
bounced back and gouged a divot in the ground at Marla’s feet. The bird hovered for a
moment, unharmed, and looked at her with tiny black eyes, then flashed away to rejoin
the flock that was slowly but steadily carrying the Cornerstone away.
Marla looked to Mutex, who waved farewell and turned away. Finch was now an
unmoving heap of brown fur, sprawled on his side among the frogs. The Cornerstone
drifted after Mutex, into the trees.
“Want me to Curse?” Rondeau said, but Marla shook her head. It was too dangerous,
too unpredictable, especially with so many lethal creatures nearby. The frogs still
hopped, some of them jumping on Finch’s dead bear-body. Marla looked after Mutex,
but he’d vanished. The birds were gone, too, and the stone with them, all hidden by the
folded space around the island. She couldn’t follow them, either. The frogs made the
clearing impassable, and if she went into the trees to skirt around them, she’d just be
wrapped up in folded space herself, and might even wind up farther away from Mutex
than she was now. When things got non-Euclidean, there was little hope of hot pursuit.