( RIPOSTE ][ A Watchergirls Archive )

__The Bird Bone Flute__part 15
By Blackmare

Giles stretched out gratefully on the narrow bed, relieved that his legs had been willing to make it all the way from Joseph's room to this one. In deference to the wolf, he left the door open just wide enough for her to slip out. He slid over close to the wall to give her room on the narrow bed beside him. There wasn't enough space for her to curl up, so she settled in Anubis position, her nose on her forelegs and her eyes glinting in the low light. Giles propped himself on his side and reached over to stroke her, the strange calm from Amos's brew mingling with the familiar sweetness of her close company. In spite of all that had happened, he felt safe. Joseph's confidence in him was reassuring, though it was the warm breath of the wolf on his face that really made him believe this might be possible after all.

In those moments during the past week when the wolf had stirred his buried magic it had felt so bright and clean that he hadn't recognized it as his own. It wasn't the fierce, burning imperative he remembered from his teens, a force so strident and demanding that it drove him far out beyond borders he would never have challenged otherwise. That dark hunger had made him a bitter hunter, never knowing what he needed so desperately to satisfy that ache.

When he was with her, his golden-green power had a definite direction, a purpose and a place to belong. Not tame, but orderly; available, but not wickedly seductive. Giles did not entirely trust it yet, remembering too well the storms that once consumed him; the random, thrashing surges of violence, frustration, and fury. Grounded here where it was made, he sensed his magic was more powerful than it had ever been before. The potential to abuse it was still there, but it was so much less alluring than the novel possibility of using it for what it had actually been created to do. His magic wanted work; it wanted service; it wanted to protect these quiet green hills, the scattered woodlands, the beautiful fabric woven of large and small lives native to this place, and by extension, to the wider world.

Giles knew from all his training that the on-going war against those who would unmake this world rarely appeared as sweeping, epic battles; it was fought in tiny, isolated confrontations. Every hour, single lives and simple choices defended the borders. It was a guardians war, and could never be wholly won. They held their ground and secured their future not with legions, but with vigilance, persistence, and acts of individual courage. It had been easy, in the end, to accept his duty as a protector, but he chafed at the assignment that placed him so far from the frontier, even knowing that analytic support was essential to those out on the line.

Now Giles knew why, as much as he loved the research, it had never been enough: he'd inherited a great and ancient weapon with a powerful agenda of its own that did not belong in the dim aisles of the archives. Uprooted and unrecognized, it had mutated into a carnivorous compulsion, its frustration fitting so exactly into his own youthful resentments. Both of them so hungry and lost, it longing to serve and he longing to wield it, no wonder they had abused each other so terribly. When the Eyghon emergency finally forced him to rein in their rampage, he'd buried the power utterly, without considering the consequences.

Now he understood that he'd severed an essential part of himself in doing it. And, remembering a tainted wind stirring dust along the dry riverbed, he knew he had drained the life out of that other place he'd been given to protect: the holy gift of his own soul. He'd driven away the horses, scattered the bright birds, choked the sap in the trees and poisoned the very sky. No more new growth, no blossoming, no tender young things, no maturing fruit. His desperate attempt at control had arrested all of that. His soul withered in a barren stasis, no longer a source of strength to him or a place of refuge. Giles wondered how long he could really last in any battle with the dark if he was himself so hollow and defeated. Heartlame-that was the word she'd used. But now that she had shown him what was possible, he knew with a clear and honest certainty that he wanted the river's power flowing freely through him again.

Reaching over to stroke a finger up the wolf's elegant nose to the rise of her forehead, he nodded once, then reached up to the table and extinguished the lamp. Settling into the cool dark, Rupert Giles relaxed his inner vigilance, and shyly opened, petal by petal, to the wildfire, to her blue gift, and the dangerous dreaming journey to find and claim himself.

* * * * *

A mouthful of grit. Giles raises his head, snorts dust from his nose and rubs sand off his abraded cheek. He feels stunned but unhurt in spite of lying scrunched against a pile of rubble. Above him he hears laughter, cutting and sarcastic. Blinking, he sits up and recognizes the dry, sandy bowl that once held the source of his river. The stone that Ripper had heaved down at him lies nearby. Looking up, he sees Ripper perched on the rock pile framed by the sickly sky. The hot air smells scorched, and the brooding yellow-gray light suggests violent weather is coming.

"So th' ponce came back," Ripper snarls at him. Giles stands, realizes he is naked. Ripper rises, too, the wind raking him where he stands high on the rocks. It flips his open flannel shirt around, flattens his t-shirt against his narrow flanks.

So thin, Giles thinks, I was so hungry all the time and I wouldn't eat.

He'd been a lanky adolescent, getting his final growth rather late and never really adjusting to the length of his arms and legs until street fighting severely punished his clumsiness. Studying Ripper now, he is shocked to see how gaunt he had really been, how sharply the bones of his face framed his eyes. He'd always worn extra-large shirts to cover his broad shoulders, but that clothing hung down Ripper's body limp and vacant. Giles had been back at the Council compound for over a year before his ribs and hipbones stopped showing. It had taken him that long to learn to feed himself enough; first he couldn't keep it down, and then he couldn't bear the way a full meal made him feel. Ripper had used hunger to keep himself alert, edgy for magic and more responsive to drink and drugs. Giles used hunger as penance. It was his fencing master who finally convinced him that, if he wanted to perform like an athlete, he had to eat correctly. His growing prowess with weapons finally let him be calm enough to do it.

"Yes," he answers Ripper quietly, "I came back." Ripper tilts his head and snorts in contempt. Giles looks closer, past the cocky, starved body to the deep core of his younger self. And Giles realizes abruptly that Ripper had been dying then: he had not known, then or now. If the catastrophe with Eyghon hadn't lanced the festering wound of his unhomed magic, he wouldn't have lasted even another year. An autopsy would have found only the superficial reasons, but never the profoundly sick spirit that Giles sees before him here. That he is alive to look back on himself at all is no small wonder.

"Yer too late, ya nancy sod. I killed it." Ripper starts downward, slinking over the steep, uneven stones carefully, never taking his eyes off Giles. Ripper's lithe grace over the challenging terrain actually emphasizes the fury smoldering in every movement. He is an elegant, thoroughly dangerous predator.

I suppose that's what you get when you torture a gifted natural warrior, Giles thinks, watching him. He waits until Ripper reaches the far side of the sand.

"It's still alive," Giles says. "And it's time to let it loose again. I think it'll take both of us to do it."

"Y'want t'do what?" Ripper hisses, incredulous. "I've spent soddin' years keepin' this bleedin' thing down!" He steps toward Giles, sliding into fighting stance. Giles moves forward to meet him.

"I know. But now we need to let it out."

"Yer fuckin' mental!" Ripper snarls, then lunges at Giles.

Ripper had always enjoyed the advantages of his long reach and his unusual speed, both very useful in street fighting, particularly with knives. In fact, he'd so rarely met opponents who could really challenge him that, beyond a certain clever nastiness, his combat skills were rather elementary. He'd never schooled his balance, or broadened his range of strikes and kicks beyond a few successful combinations, and while he had been a good judge of an opponent's strengths he was a poor judge of weaknesses and no strategist. Ripper fights like a blunt instrument, crude and effective but is no match for the warrior Giles had become in the intervening decade. Years of daily training and the gradual returnof the Thorne magic mean that, even naked and weaponless, Giles is in no danger from his younger self.

Giles leaps lightly away from his attacker. He hopes to keep this an entirely defensive fight on his part. To his astonishment, he bears this skinny cockerel no grudge now that he understands what drove him so far into darkness and destruction. This, then, is the beginning of acceptance, he muses, flickering back to elude Ripper's roundhouse kick. Giles idly reaches out and nudges the passing leg into a different trajectory, neatly flipping the airborne Ripper right over onto the sand. Ripper isn't expecting this at all. He bounds up, then freezes when he sees that Giles isn't pursuing his advantage. Ripper takes a moment to reassess his opponent.

Ripper sees for the first time how well his older frame holds muscle, how fit he is, and poised. There is no slack in that stance, yet even in wariness there is centered ease. The large hands wear calluses from weapons work, and he notes the longer nails on the right hand, so he knows music still moves in that older heart. Shaking his head slightly, he swears under his breath, but his contempt is fading. Giles cocks an inquiring eyebrow at him.

"Yer not what I was expectin'," Ripper says. "Figger'd ya'd go all poofter after givin' in t'the bleedin' bastards." He puts his fists on his hips under the loose flannel shirt and starts circling Giles slowly, drawing nearer to appraise him. Giles turns with him, watching and waiting. He is quite ready when Ripper strikes again, easily deflecting the short knife in his left hand and actually dislodging the longer knife in his right. Ripper had always carried those two blades in holsters on the back of his belt. The younger man skitters back, glaring at him. Giles casually leans down, picks up the long knife and flips it high out of the bowl toward the abandoned riverbed.

"Damn frustrating when your opponent already knows all your best moves as well as you do," Giles says quietly. Ripper sneers at him and starts circling again. Giles expects to be tested; Ripper never accepted anything without substantial proof that it would be to his benefit to do so. Giles' younger self begins a series of quick feints, side-to-side and in-and-back, his work boots light on the sand. Giles remembers this trick, too, and waits it out, knowing that Ripper will strike after going suddenly very still, something his opponent wouldn't usually expect. And he does. This time Giles doesn't just deflect the lunge, he amplifies it, adding some lifting leverage so Ripper finds himself spinning fast in the air before he slams hard onto the sand.

Again, Ripper bounces up, but this time he charges full on, closing tightly, hitting hard and fast. Not one blow lands, and Giles never needs to shift his feet. After almost a minute of calmly deflecting Ripper's punches, Giles decides that he'd really rather be moving rocks to free a river, with or without help. He sends his right fist neatly through the maelstrom and thumps Ripper hard on the sternum. It could have been a killing blow but he pulls the punch a bit. It is still enough to drop Ripper instantly, his heart stunned by the impact. Giles steps back and settles himself against a nearby boulder, his arms crossed loosely.

"Had enough?" Giles asks. Ripper kneels there, gasping. Recovering from that kind of strike takes several minutes at least. Giles knows there are little black dots dancing across Ripper's vision.

"Bloody 'ell, bastard, yer coulda killed me," he finally manages to wheeze out.

"If I'd wanted to kill you, you'd be dead by now," Giles replies. Ripper looks sidelong up at him, his glare starting to carry more complex qualities, like grudging respect and even a bit of curiosity, though both are still thoroughly colored by anger.

"Guess they didn't lop off yer 'nads after all." Ripper coughs and spits onto the sand, rocking back on his heels.

"Not for lack of trying."

"What, couldn't th' old man hold yer down for 'em?"

"Dad died just after I got back. Mum went first, and the heart just went out of him. Vampire got him during a training exercise. It was so careless of him that I expect he did it on purpose."

"No fuckin' way. Mum died?" For the first time Giles hears real pain in that voice.

"Yes. Nothing they tried could stop the cancer. She went down fast and it took some doing from dad to get them to let me go and see her. She was in a coma by then, and died two days later."

Ripper pulls his legs in tight and wraps his arms around his knees. Shock drains the anger from his eyes, leaving bleakness that Giles knows will mutate quickly into rage again, rage at the Council, at his father, but mostly at himself. He figures he might as well get through the rest of it.

"Rod got taken out by an IRA bomb a few weeks after he brought me back."

"What!?"

"I never got the chance to thank him. I didn't even know how much I owed him until a few days ago."

"Yeah, he was nice enough, I guess. Really good to Mum," Ripper says.

"It's more than that. He knew all about what happened, but he steered the investigation away from us. Do you know he spent almost three years looking for you?"

"Why the 'ell'd 'e do that?"

"He knew what was wrong and knew how to fix it."

"Weren't nothin' wrong wit' me that enough shit and shaggin' and spell work couldn't ease."

"You know that's not true," Giles says. "Or is there some other reason why you're a weedy, homeless git with so much blood on your hands?"

"What, like yer some fuckin' mighty righteous Watcher now, t'tell me how it is, then?" Ripper's glare scalds him, the grief there warring with something Giles can't quite name.

"No, I'm not."

"Not a Watcher? What-not yet, or not ever? Did yer balls that up, too, then?"

"Not a Watcher yet, and perhaps not ever," Giles replies, surprised at how calm his voice is. Ripper notices this, and his eyes narrow, studying him more closely. Giles stands quietly under that fiery scrutiny, and that very stillness conveys to Ripper more than words ever could.

"Th' bastards are fuckin' you over, aren't they?" Ripper asks, his voice gentler. "An' yer takin' it because ya just can't give up that yen for a Slayer, can ya?"

"Yes, they are," Giles says, "and no, I can't. But at least now I now why." Ripper raises an eyebrow at this.

"Look, it's rather a long story and I'd like to carry on with releasing this river, which, although that isn't my primary reason for doing it, will nevertheless make the Council really furious. Sure you don't want to help?"

Ripper snorts at him, contempt flowing back into every line of his body where he sits on the sand.

"You're a soddin' fuckwit, y'know that?"

"You wouldn't be the first to call me that, and you won't be the last. Still, I wonder what your particular criteria are. Just curious." His tone is neutral, and clearly Ripper had expected at least a small rise out of him. The younger man shakes his head, swears again and rises to pace, very deliberately keeping some distance between them.

"Lemme count the ways," he starts, then halts and Giles sees his fists clench as he reins his temper in sharply. "Let's begin wit' th' myth o' Sisyphus, shall we mate? Wit' a huge bloody helping of exile? And maybe a bit o' gelding in there?"

"If you recall, Sisyphus deserved his fate," Giles answers thoughtfully.

"You think all this fuckin' futility is good for the soul?" Ripper yells at him, "Well take a good look around, ya soddin' ponce-does this soul look ruddy thrivin' to you? It's been dyin' since the day ya sent me here!"

"That's not a coincidence." The younger man stands on the far side of the sand with his back to Giles, and even at that distance Giles can see him shaking with rage and frustration.

"D'you 'ave any bleedin' idea what it's like to 'ave to watch it shrivel all up, ev'ry livin' thing fleein', birds fallin' dead outta th' sky right at my feet? It was so beautiful here, so alive, and you made me torture it t' death, ev'ry day a little more gone 'til I'm the only damn thing 'ere." Ripper's voice cracks, and Giles has to strain to hear him over the sound of distant thunder.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Giles asks gently. The sudden shift of subject and the kindness in his voice startle Ripper. He is silent for a long moment.

"Choosin' not to run wit' Ethan," he says so softly that Giles must strain to hear him. "Turnin' back into th' fight. Then suddenly I came crashin' down into this damn river. When I finally made it outta th' water I had this unbe-fuckin'-lievable compulsion to kill th' thing. Couldn't resist, hadta do it. Three days 'n three nights I worked, turnin' the power back onta itself. It got harder 'n harder 'cause the less the river flowed th' weaker I was 'til finally I could only shift th' smaller stones, th' ones I could move withou' magic." His voice breaks then, and he pauses. Giles does not press him. After some time Ripper shrugs, turns partly around and says, "In th' end I bollocked this up, too. It's always leakin', seepin' outta the cracks, sneakin' away, just enough to set off th' pain but never enough to drink... never enough." Tears streak his dusty face now and Giles realizes suddenly what he's saying.

"Oh God, that thirst. You've felt that this whole time?"

Ripper looks fully up at him now, the anguish in his eyes utterly naked through the tears. Giles sees his answer in the bone-deep hollowness of that face, in the taut lines of the body, nothing left but sinew and despair and anger, and even those are failing now. Giles takes a step toward him, and another, caution warring with compassion.

"Oh God," he breathes, "I am so sorry. I would never wish that on anyone." Ripper throws his head back, defiant.

"No, I reckon ya wouldn't. But I'm not 'anyone', I'm you, and ya had no qualms t'all 'bout doin' this t'yerself." Giles stands silent on the sand, unable suddenly to move, the grief in his heart is so great.

Lightning flashes and the following thunder barks directly overhead. Giles knows they are running out of time. He knows, without a doubt, that if he does not succeed in this task he will die in this dream, and will not wake in the morning beside the one who chose him, beside the one who--wonder of wonders--loves him, and is trying so hard to teach him to at least respect himself. The thought of failing her, of losing her, twists sharply in his heart. Finally he answers Ripper.

"I didn't know what else to do. Eyghon had killed Thomas, and was about to rape Deirdre to death. So I fought him. And while I was hacking off his head he surrendered Randall. It was Randall's body I was taking apart in the end."

"Bloody 'ell," Ripper croaks.

"Oh yes, it certainly was." They are both silent for a while.

"What 'appened then?" Ripper asks eventually.

"Philip and I burned down the building. I sent them to hospital and I started walking south to the sea," he looks up at Ripper, "Three days and three nights. And when I got there the ocean wouldn't even take me I was so vile. It threw me back out. So I called Rod to come take me back to the Council."

"You figured they'd willingly do what the water wouldn't, eh?"

"Yes."

"But they didn't."

"Well, for some reason they just didn't kill me outright."

"Dad?" Ripper asks. Giles reflects on that for a moment.

"Perhaps. But not because he'd asked them. More because they thought they might be able to salvage something they'd tried to make. And maybe also to set an example."

"What'd they tried t' make, exactly?"

"Me. I don't think they quite expected you, though."

"I'm not followin' ya."

"Dad and Mum - an arranged marriage, the reliable old Giles line outcrossed to the Thorne line in the hopes of getting some of its wild magic but in a more tractable form."

"Yer shittin' me. Mum loved Dad, an' in his stilted, uptight way he loved her."

"Yeah, they definitely did love each other, but that doesn't rule out Council manipulation getting them together in the first place."

"So the Council reckoned you-we-were kinda their property, then?"

"Probably more an unfinished experiment, really. They've certainly done this sort of thing before, just not very recently. I don't think they'd known about the Thorne magic until a couple of generations ago."

"So wha' is it?"

"It's a warrior-magic, a gift given to Mum's line about two thousand years ago by an ancient guardian, a Slayer, though not the way we know them."

"Slayers don't breed."

"This one did. And she's still alive."

"What? How?"

"She's not human. I don't actually know how old she is. Bronze Age, at least," he pauses and Ripper catches the smile that flickers over his face.

"You've met 'er, haven't you?" he says, his voice touched with curiosity.

"Yes. She's amazing. Wonderful. She's why I'm here to release the river. In this place, that's how the Thorne magic appears."

"So why th' fuck didja have me bury it, then?"

"It was killing people, including us. It's tied to the place it was made to guard, and we were taken away from there so it went horribly wrong. That's what Rod knew, and that's why he tried so hard to find you: there was another, better way to feed that hunger, one that didn't use drugs and sex and violence."

Ripper just stares at him, incredulous. Giles sees the rage stirring deep in those eyes again.

"I know, a bit late to tell you that," Giles says.

"Way, way too fuckin' late," Ripper hisses, stepping back toward Giles.

"Hey, we had no way to know about this. I think the Council didn't even know and when we were sent off to school, away from Mum and Rod, there was no way they could've seen what was happening before it was too late."

"Mum knew?"

"Both she and Rod had the same magic--less of it, but enough."

"So why didn't they say anythin'?"

"They didn't know if we actually had it, too. The magic doesn't manifest until the late teens, and by then we were too far from home for them to see that it had happened."

Ripper's stance eases a bit as he turns his stare to the sand, taking this all in. Giles waits, watching the lightening slice the sky like a spray of flechettes. The thunder is almost continuous now. He shifts his weight slightly, and the movement snatches Ripper's attention. They regard one another for several moments, green into green.

"So why free it now?" Ripper asks finally.

"Because it's ours. Because it's changed. Because it's needed."

"And because it'll brass off the Council?" Ripper adds with a small smile.

"Without a doubt. But it'll do more than that: it scares them. And you know how dangerous frightened things are."

"Yeah," the smile is larger now, "it really scares 'em, huh? It's that strong?"

"Yes. You should know, you're the one it was eating alive; the one who hasn't been able to keep it down all this time. And you're the one who has felt all along what the loss of it did to us."

"True 'nuff," he cocks his head and asks bluntly, "but what can it do? What's it mean to have warrior magic?"

"I don't really know yet. Can't know until I have it back, and then I expect she'll teach me." Ripper hears the affection running under that last remark.

"Yer doin' this 'cause she asked you, aren't ya?"

"I couldn't do it without her. And if I don't do it, it'll probably kill me in the near future, either directly or indirectly."

"And ya expec' me t' care?"

"No, not really." Giles says.

"Yer a fuckin' piece a work, y'know? Comin' back 'ere after all this time t' tell me it was all for nothin'."

"It wasn't for nothing. I think you probably saved us both, shutting it down when you did."

"Saved us for what? The bleedin' Council?" Ripper says venomously.

"No, not for them. For something greater. For another chance to fight the good fight, but on better terms this time."

"Yer askin' me t' trust ya on this." It is not a question.

"Yes. I truly don't know what will happen once the magic's loose again. But it's the only chance I have-we have-and I want to take it." Lightning strikes a tree on the ridge above them, exploding the dry wood and setting all the surrounding brush alight. They stand there, watching it burn.

"I don't think we have much time," Giles says.

"Nah, I reckon not."

Giles looks away from Ripper to study the structure of the rock pile. The outer layer is small stones, melon sized and a bit larger. The movement of water has rounded most of them, but many have wickedly sharp edges where they have broken from falling against one another.

"So you started with big stuff and just kept piling?" he asks.

"Yeah. A huge fuckin' boulder wedged in th' main crevice, then others around it," Ripper looks sidelong at him. "How's this s'posed t' go then? Yer never gonna shift this lot withou' magic." Giles doesn't answer him right away. There is a pattern to the pile, a section made mostly of smaller stones that looks like Ripper has been adding to it for some time with only the rubble he could physically lift.

"That where the seepage is?" Giles asks, pointing to the area.

"Yeah. Couldn't ever get it t' quit completely. Running outta rocks now, though."

"Let's start there, then. The sooner we get to the water, the easier this will be," Giles answers, moving to the flank of the stack. He is acutely aware of his nakedness now, particularly the vulnerability of his bare feet. This is going to cost some skin, at the very least. He leans down, wraps his hands around the first stone, and begins.

For some time Giles works while Ripper watches him. Giles lifts carefully, using the considerable strength in his thighs and shoulders to protect his back. He carries these smaller stones several yards away across the basin before dropping them onto the sand. He expects to use all the available space here, and knows that he won't be able to shift the bigger stones very far from the pile.

By the time he's moved the top layer from this section, his hands are raw and he's had several scrotum-tightening moments when his grip on a stone faltered and it slipped down his belly toward his groin. The hot, dry wind laps his sweat up instantly from his face and back, but it does not take the moisture trapped between his palms and the stones so he must remember to swipe his hands on his flanks before turning back to lift another. Thirst arrives, sudden and insistent. He knows it will grow worse very quickly. Lightning skitters from cloud to cloud, backlighting the sickly sky with irregular strobes. Now and then Giles glances up to assess the storm, though it is increasingly difficult to see through the diffusing smoke from the brushfire on the hillside above. He squats, lifts, and walks, gasping a bit each time he drops a stone far away from the pile. Ripper turns completely away from him, hunches on the sand, his forearms resting on his knees. The gusty wind snatches at his loose shirttail and dusty hair, but he is extremely still.

Giles reaches a layer with larger rocks. Now he must paw them carefully out of their niches, position them exactly and leap away as they roll down the flank of the pile, striking flakes from one another as they fall. When they hit the sand, he crouches down and lifts only enough to start them rolling, then maneuvers them across the basin. It is slow work. The pads of his fingers are starting to bleed. He continues, pausing only to stretch his lower back and shoulders, hoping to stave off the inevitable fatigue of a tall man who must work so close to the ground.

He reaches a stone he cannot roll from its resting place on the sand. Ripper has not moved, so Giles positions several fist-sized rocks within reach and starts to rock the stone away from its fellows, knocking the smaller stones down between the large one and its resting place whenever he can so it cannot fall back. After a time it finally tilts up out of its hollow and onto level sand. He heaves it over and rolls it away. By the time he returns, the sand where it had been is moist. Giles crouches to rest his stinging palms on the coolness. An unexpected tingle travels through him when the blood on his skin touches the seeping water. He smiles, rises, and starts levering the next stone away from the pile.

By the time he has moved three more large stones and several smaller ones the water-darkened section of sand is much larger. He takes a moment to stand on the wet sand and wiggle his toes into it, although the fizz of the river against his soles tickles slightly. He climbs the pile carefully and rolls down several smaller stones so he can get at the layer below. There is a rhythm to this: five or six he can lift, three or four he must roll, and then one or two he has to really argue with before they will budge. So far he hasn't smashed any toes or fingers, a true blessing, but his flanks and thighs are streaked with blood where he has wiped his palms dry. Ripper's forehead rests on his arms now.

Returning to the pile after shifting a foundation stone, Giles sees a place on the sand actually glisten with moisture. He kneels and starts to dig there, scooping with his battered palms that tingle through the sting. Water seeps into the bottom of the hollow and he scoops faster. When the hole is as deep as his biceps he stretches out on his belly so he can lean into the cavity and sweep sand up and out. The water comes in faster and his wet palms sing with it. He pauses, watching it fill. Swiping the sand from his hands he leans down and cups the clear water then rises very carefully, cherishing what he holds, hardly daring to breathe lest he lose any.

Giles walks across the sand and kneels beside Ripper, offering the water. Startled, Ripper looks up and their eyes lock, green into green, grief into grief, the scent of the water rising between them into the parched wind. For a long time they are still.

"Who are you?" Ripper asks, finally, his voice faltering.

"You," Giles answers. He holds the water closer to Ripper. "I am you." Ripper's head twitches to deny this, but he cannot turn away from the water in those hands. "And I am the man who turned away from Ethan," Giles says, "Drink now." Ripper's whole body ripples with tension and longing, the anguish of his thirst apparent in every sinewy line. His eyes mirror the storm above them, disbelief thrashing against possibility, curiosity flickering through the ashes left when rage burns itself out. He turns toward the water slightly, his nostrils flaring with the scent of it, and raises a hand. Giles does not know if that hand will accept or strike away this offering. He stays very still, willing to wait as long as he must.

Then, hesitantly, Ripper slides his hand under Giles's and pulls the water closer. He leans down and drinks, one hesitant sip then desperate gulps until it is gone and he sits back gasping. Giles runs his wet hands gently across Ripper's forehead and down his face, stroking away the dusty tear tracks. He allows himself to flop down on the sand, releasing his own tension and letting himself rest a bit.

"So sweet," Ripper's voice breaks, "'ow can it be so sweet?"

"Wasn't it always?" Giles asks, surprised.

"No," Ripper says, "Bitter. Worse than rue."

"You could have dug it up at any time, but you couldn't drink it, could you?" Ripper nods and looks away. Giles thinks about this.

"It's where it belongs now, with the one who gave it to our line." Ripper looks back to him, his eyes appraising the man sitting beside him on the sand, dust-covered and blood-smeared, resting from hard labor. Ripper's assessment isn't the calculating evaluation of a fighter sizing up an opponent. He is looking deeper, seeing what is really there.

"S'more 'n tha'. It's you tha' came an' found it. You tha' offered it." It is Giles' turn to shift in denial. He looks down at his hands, startled to see that they are no longer bleeding. He examines his palms more closely, sees that the abrasions have closed and the injuries look almost healed. Ripper notices this, too.

"See? It's you. It seems t' like ya."

"I, um...." Giles doesn't quite know what to say. He's quiet for a bit, then "I think it's her, actually. She knew who I was, and called me to her."

"Where'd she call ya to?" Giles looks up at this, suddenly realizing that Ripper has no idea where Giles is in the physical world.

"I'm up near the western borderlands, not far from Kieling Forest. Mum's family came from this village. That's the land she guards, where she fights," he sees Ripper's questioning eyebrow. "There's a portal there, shifty and irregular but it's been dumping nasty things into the area for thousands of years. She keeps them contained. And a long time ago she joined the local tribe and had a daughter. That's how her gift came into our line. She needs us to help her there."

"So how'd we end up in Bath?"

"I don't know the details, but there was a family tiff, and grandfather left. Mum and Rod both had a bit of the gift, enough to know that it would be a problem for me if I had it, too, and was far from the ancestral lands. That's why Rod tried so hard to find you, because apparently we have it in spades and it goes pretty wild when it can't focus on what it was meant to do."

"So tha's what 'appened, then?"

"Yes. A friend who knows about this said it was like a huge jolt of electricity looking for someplace to ground. Not an easy thing to handle." Ripper digests this for a while.

"Yeah, I get tha'. It was always longin' fer somethin', screamin' with 'unger, and I din't know wha' t'feed it."

"I think that's why Ethan loved it so much, not just the force of it, but the volatility." Ripper nods.

"Yeah, 'e did. But 'e wanted it fer its own sake, never min' wha' got damaged at th' time."

"Or who got hurt, or killed." They are both quiet for several minutes.

"I couldn't jus' run then, couldn't let tha' fucker take th' others and none o' them worth a damn 'n a fight. He'd 'ave slaughtered the lot of 'em an' then started on London."

"Yes." Another long pause.

"An' Ethan din't give a flyin' fuck. Thought 't was entertainin' fer chrissake." Ripper looks up and meets Giles' eyes, his own haunted with remembered loss and self-recrimination. "Why was I surprised? I fuckin' knew the man. Trusted 'im to keep my back inna brawl, but then when 'e leaves th' others ta get shredded-" Ripper clenches himself together tightly, his face bleak. "I am such a bleedin' idiot. 'Course 'e would, tha's 'ho 'e is, a fuckin' wimp. It's jus'..." his voice trails off.

"We loved him," Giles shrugs slightly. "But not that part of him, I think. The wildness, the magic, the brains, all his schemes and tricks-"

"Gave great 'ead."

"Yeah, that too." Giles sighs, the old grief stronger than it has been in years. "But everything, in the end, was always for him. Even love. Maybe especially love. And he didn't want to leave you to Eyghon. You chose to stay. You chose a different kind of love. A harder, more dangerous kind." Giles watches Ripper struggle with this. "That took courage, y'know." He reaches over and lays a hand on Ripper's corded forearm so he will look up.

"Thank you," Giles says. Ripper looks stunned. Whatever he was expecting, it was never this. Green into green, past into present, and Giles sees the moment when Ripper realizes that no future he had ever imagined had included the man sitting with him now. A man he can respect. In a quiet voice he says:

"Let's turn this river loose inta the world, then, eh?" Giles grins through the dust on his face and they stand, stretch, and head for the rock pile. Giles gestures to the water in the tiny well.

"You should drink more. It's been a dry season." Ripper whoops, diving onto the sand, scooping up the coolness in his cupped palms and slurping it down, barely stopping to breathe. He splashes his face and neck, runs dripping hands through his hair, and rises laughing. Giles sees the well refilling quickly, then he flops down to do the same, noticing that his hands are completely healed now, and the water no longer tingles against his skin. They stand together and survey the situation.

"I think if we can make a place where I can stand in the water, I might be able to do some minor levitation," Giles says.

"Worth a try," Ripper answers. His booted feet scramble more quickly up the harsh surface than Giles could do in his bare feet. "Stan' back. I'll roll 'em down and ya can roll 'em away."

They work quickly, moving easily together since they approach the problem in exactly the same way. There is little need for words. Within a fraction of the time it took Giles to move the first section, they have doubled the size of the cleared space and Giles waves a halt, standing on the saturated sand. They kneel together and dig. The water is much closer to the surface now, as if it has been rising to meet them. In a few minutes, they have a wide puddle ankle-deep on Giles. He stands quietly in it, centers himself, and reaches inward for his bright fire.

It surges up in him, stronger than ever before, flickering and restless, craving purpose. Giles flexes himself around it, welcoming and calm, and then turns his attention outward to let his awareness flow over and among the stones. The magic recognizes them. He selects one, encompasses it, and asks it to rise. It is very difficult and he has to concentrate, focus utterly on this simple thing. He hears Ripper clambering back up the pile, then quickly scramble back down, accompanied by the occasional click or rattle of stone on stone. Opening his eyes, he sees Ripper guiding a stone down the final steps of the pile, nudging it along where it floats an inch or so above the others. At the end of the pile it drops to hover just above the sand, and Ripper happily dribbles it across the basin like a football, tapping it lightly with his feet and calves. He's grinning like an idiot by the time he turns and nods to Giles to release the stone. Giles grins back, closes his eyes, and selects another stone as the water slowly rises higher above his ankles.

The work goes very quickly now. By the time Giles has lifted all the smaller rocks on the upper layers the water has risen to mid-calf on him and his flame burns brighter still. When they reach the bigger stones, he is ready. After stopping to take a long drink and shake the tension from his neck and shoulders, he begins on the next layer. There are so many, and it is very hard work, but Ripper is whistling now, the tune from a very dirty song that Giles has to force himself to ignore for the moment.

The next layer down consists of stones much larger than they could have shifted with physical strength alone. Giles is tiring and indicates that he needs to rest a while before they begin. He stretches out belly-down on the cool sand and scoops the well wider. Ripper props himself up on the flank of a huge black boulder they have just partially uncovered.

"This is th' big 'un," he says, slapping it with his palm.

"We're that close?"

"Yeah, but it's gonna get harder from 'ere. The magic's still mostly on the wrong side of th' door we're tryin' t' open." Giles stands, stroking the sand from his chest, belly, and legs.

"What if we work together?" Ripper's eyebrows rise skeptically.

"D'ya think it'll want t' 'ave anythin' t'do wit' me?"

"Yeah, I think it might. No harm in trying, anyway."

Ripper cocks his head, nods, and strips off his boots and socks. He joins Giles in the small pool, wiggling his toes on the bottom and stirring up the sand. This is the first time Giles has seen him smile without bitterness.

"Kinda tickles, don't it?"

"Yeah, I noticed that, too." Giles holds out his left arm and Ripper takes it, gripping wrist to wrist.

"Ya probably oughta be the one leadin' this dance," Ripper says quietly.

"Okay then. Center yourself. Reach in and down. You'll find it-" Ripper inhales sharply, his head snaps back and Giles can feel him trembling.

"Tha's fuckin' amazin'!" he gasps, "god, it was never like this!" He is breathing rapidly, making small sounds of pleasure and surprise.

"Um, could you focus a bit, please? We do have work to do here," Giles says gently, humor warming his voice. Ripper acknowledges him with a shift in his grasp and the trembling subsides. A few moments later he opens his eyes and says, incredulous:

"She gave that to us?" Giles nods.

"She's a helluva lay, right?" Giles chokes on his own spit and has to cough several times before he can answer.

"Ah, no, wrong species, actually."

"Yer shittin' me! Wha' is she, then?"

"A wolf. Really big, like a dire wolf." Ripper is by turns flabbergasted and disappointed.

"Well, she can't always 'ave been. She 'ad a 'uman kid, right?"

"Yes. But that was two thousand years ago, give or take," Giles says.

"Damn."

"I guess I never thought about it that way. Didn't occur to me."

"Ya ever ask 'er 'bout it?"

"No, I'm not sure there's really a way to broach the subject. She doesn't talk, y'know. Mostly we communicate in dreams." Ripper's skeptical eyebrow is up again.

"An' you've never even wondered, like?"

"Not really."

"Ya love 'er though."

"Oh yes," Giles smiles, "yes, I do. What's completely astonishing to me is that she seems to be rather fond of me, in spite of knowing me better than anyone else ever has."

"Everythin'? She knows about--?"

"Yes. She went right inside my head the night we met and got every bloody detail."

"That must'a stung."

"Much worse than 'stung'. Actually, it was pretty devastating." Ripper acknowledges this with a nod.

"So, like, there's no chance she'll, y'know, change?"

"I have no idea. Like I said, I haven't given it much thought." Ripper studies him a moment.

"The Council may not've nipped off yer 'nads, but you 'aven't had a shag in a fuckin' long time, 'ave you?"

"No. Not since that night."

"Bloody 'ell," Ripper breathes out. He narrows his eyes, looking harder at Giles. "Yer doin' the fuckin' penance thing, ain't ya? Or the 'no fuckin' penance thing, anyway."

"Yeah, I suppose I am."

"Well ya gotta get over that, then, ya stupid sod." Giles feels anger shift in him, but he contains it.

"Maybe. It's just that everything got so mixed up together there in the end. I guess I just banished the lot of it and it's been easier to keep it that way."

"Not anymore, it won't be," Ripper said softly. "You let this river loose and yer gonna 'ave ta sort all that shit out 'cause it ain't gonna lie in ya quietly."

"You're probably right. I'll deal with it when it happens, I suppose."

"Reckon ya will. Just think real 'ard before ya throw certain things away." Ripper holds Giles' eyes sternly, a bit of entreaty in his voice. "One day ya may meet someone who wants a taste of yer sweet water, mate. Don' deny 'em that. Don' deny yerself, either."

Giles takes this in, astonished. All he can do is nod his assent. Ripper nods back.

"Righ' then, let's shift this shit. Ya lead, I'll follow," and they both look toward the pile. Giles selects a stone, falls easily inward, and they begin.

Giles doesn't feel the time passing, just the steady ebb and flow of magic between them as they enfold the rocks, ease them up, and glide them silently away to the far side of the basin. They hoist one particularly difficult stone and feel the ground shift under them as the central boulder settles slightly into the new emptiness. Moments later the space where the stone has been fills with water, rising faster now, lively and playful, swirling brightly around their legs where they stand. The pool starts to spread across the sand. By the time it reaches their knees they have cleared everything away from the giant basalt boulder blocking the main mouth of the spring. It is tens of times larger than anything else they've moved, but Ripper had had the power of the entire river at his disposal when he'd put it there. This is going to be very difficult. Giles sets about learning the shape of the thing, finding its balance, the way it rests on the earth. When he thinks he has what he needs, he tries to grasp it.

It doesn't work. Giles can find no purchase on the great stone, his probing awareness glances off of it and slips awkwardly away, grating like the metaphysical equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. Ripper's head twitches and he snarls a string of urban expletives oddly spiced with bits of ancient Greek. They tighten their hold on one another and try again, and again, but the boulder will not yield. Finally, Giles changes tactics. Force is not the answer here. He lightens his grip on Ripper's hands, eases his stance, takes several deep, settling breaths and surrenders to the stone: to the stillness of it, the solidity, the timelessness, the simple, pure power of being there.

Together he and his feral companion dissolve into the matrix of the basalt boulder, a fragment of the earth's foundation brought up in fire when the crust shifted, allowing the deep, hot mantle to rise, blossoming under the sun. Ancient, coherent, dark and stable-no, he could never have shifted this bit of the world with his tiny will. But the chilly water swirling around their thighs now suggests another way of asking. Stone and water; bones and blood of the earth; the holder and the held; ancient, bonded kin: for the sake of the one, he asks the other if it might yield. He goes deeper, farther and smaller to the very grains of the mineral, crystal locked in crystal, an exquisite geometry. What can he offer in exchange for the loss of so elegant a structure? Nothing of his own, certainly, can match it.

The water captive below him twitches and the river within him responds with a surge of pure, erotic longing: come, join me now, it whispers, let us be a greater whole. Giles shudders with it; he feels Ripper tremble and knows that he, too, is painfully hard as their bodies rise to answer that oldest hunger, that most basic invitation. Poised within the rigid scaffold of the stone Giles opens himself completely to the river's promise, and realizes suddenly what he can bring to this bargain.

Once, the river ran down to the sea. If it could flow again it could bear in its bright body each grain of the stone from this shattered hillside to the white-shouldered rapids, to the languorous sunlit coils, fish-filled and murmuring, to the wide, windblown reed beds of the estuary and the slow, blending motion where the sweet meet the salty and the river gives itself in service to a great power of the world. Giles offers the motion of the water to the stillness of the stone; he offers the stability of the stone to the restless water. One to another, need gifting need, he asks the stone to consider this possibility and he asks the river to deliver it. There is a slight shift in time, not even a moment yet longer, and the stone agrees. Giles feels everything click open.

The boulder explodes beside them into a rising geyser of glittering black sand as the water erupts through the sundered stone. The force of it tears Giles' hands from Ripper's and tosses the two of them like chaff on the roaring, wild flume of the water as it surges up out of the darkness where they had imprisoned it for so long. In scant seconds the bowl becomes a roiling cauldron, then the water shoves over the brim of the basin and arches out under the storm-sickened sky in a huge wave that crashes down hard in the empty channel, slinging up sheets of gravel and sand as it blasts its way downhill, tumbling and exhalant as it becomes, after years of captivity, the river it is meant to be.

Giles closes himself into a ball and surrenders to the water as he had to the stone, letting it toss him violently along the wind-scoured trough like any other piece of dry flotsam. Now and then he snatches a foamy breath, coughing and trying to keep himself from tangling with the other debris carried on the rolling front of the flood. The water holds him high enough to spare him most encounters with the stony bottom and banks, but he cannot steer clear of all of them and soon his blood flows freely downstream alongside him. In spite of the painful abrasions and the difficulty breathing, Giles rejoices to feel the river moving through him as well as around him, as if he is both part of it, and wearing it like a sleek and rippling skin. At one point the river encounters a barrier stretching from bank to bank like a concrete weir, something completely artificial and utterly unwelcome in this pure, wild place. Without considering why such a thing is here, Giles flexes the river like a muscle and slams it joyfully against this alien artifact. The dam disintegrates instantly, the rubble is quickly reduced to unremarkable gravel by the rolling water and swept across the newly sculpted terrain of the riverbed.

Moments later Giles thrashes back to the surface to breathe and hears the sharp crack of thunder. Then the rain begins. Male rain: torrential, unrelenting, violent. It makes it just as difficult to breathe with his head above water as below it, but Giles welcomes the downpour with gasping laughter and whoops of joy. Apparently he has freed more than just the river, and now this storm slams its cleansing tantrum across the entire land, sweeping the last remnants of drought from the high ground, sluicing dust from the trees, stomping out the scattered brush fires, and summoning back the lithe tributaries to fill their narrow paths from the far fields to the resurrected river. Lightning laces the wet earth and the clouds together, and Giles realizes that there are other dangers to being in the water than just the turbulent current.

By now the leading edge of the flood is far away downstream and he finds that he can actually swim, if only obliquely, toward the bank. It is hard work, and there are two more smashing encounters with boulders, but he manages to pull himself out of the main channel and into the calmer water of a backwash, then from there to the crumbling bank. He grabs hanging roots and scrabbles out of the water, hampered now by the weight of sodden clothing. When he finally drags himself up onto the muddy turf the incongruity of it strikes him: he had been naked before and now he is wearing a t-shirt and jeans, both torn in several places by his journey, and sporting bloody streaks. Without the clothes, he would have lost a lot more skin. He settles back on his knees and feels around his body, finds two empty holsters where his fighting knives once were.

Ripper's knives. Ripper's clothes. He flops sideways on the wet grass, his body suddenly feeling everything that this work has cost him. Ripper is gone, yet somehow with him still. His magic surges all around him, power flowing back over and into the land so long bereft. Below him the river rolls forward, around him the rain falls hard, and everywhere the land shifts loosely under this sudden return of water. In the midst of all this motion he feels utterly still. Not locked in place as the stone had been, but quiet. At rest, completely. Giles has come, after so many years away, home to himself.

He feels her then, moving near him, and raises his head to see her coming down the slope in the stormy twilight. She sits next to him and he curls close to her, drawing her scent in through the warm rain. She lifts his head and settles it in her lap, her fingers stroking his wet hair back from his forehead and tracing the runnels of water along the side of his neck. Here is another incongruity, he thinks, his awareness of the place faltering. Something about her, something different, yet somehow the same-he can't quite hold it long enough to understand.

* * * * *

Although the waning moon no longer shone through the narrow window into the chilly, monastic cell, the room glowed softly, the ancient stones gilded by another kind of light. It shifted on the surfaces, glinted among the hackle hairs of the wolf watching over the sleeping man, spread across the slate floor to pool here and there. A flickering tendril glided silently out the door and along the corridor like the lilting pattern of sun on rippling water. Giles slept on, the wolf keeping vigil beside him, her wild heart welcoming home the magic she'd given this place so long ago. As the light flowed off of her companion she released her own blue flame to join and guide his birthright, to show it where and how it belonged here.

The liquid, golden-green net washed quickly down the hallway, swirling under doors, around the kitchen, and finally out into the garden behind the dormitory. As soon as it touched the earth it rose up as a low mist to drift among the plants, clinging here and there and sparkling briefly wherever it encountered a tiny life: a foraging dormouse, a grasshopper, a fritillary pupa, an orb spider perched beside its dew-struck web waiting for some night flier to make an unfortunate navigational choice. Back in his room, Giles stirred the moment his magic contacted the soil.

In the stillness of sleep, a new awareness rose, too diffuse to be memory, more concrete than a dream, and far beyond the boundaries of all his other senses. The scope and complexity of it would have shocked him awake, screaming, had her quiet confidence not braced him against this sudden comprehensive perception. Layer upon layer, space laced through time, strands rising and falling from the foreground to the background. Everywhere was here. Any time was now. He could not discern discrete boundaries but only the subtle change in light or movement where the weave was one life or another.

Energy followed the pathways, sometimes converging on a single strand for a brief, bright moment before scattering outward along dozens of others at the next intricate junction. Gently she coaxed him to accompany her here and there, showing him how to contact the pattern just so, open himself to it, and come away with the knowledge of an oak seedling, the tart potency of rose hips, the pulse of salmon in the still water below the rapids. He followed her through a badger set, among sleeping swallows, and along the erratic flight path of a hunting bat. They found broken places and interruptions, too: a rabbit burst on the pavement beyond the village, a dying doe, a hedgerow shattered by heavy construction equipment. Hour after hour she showed him what she loved, the shimmering, fluid order she had been given to guard. Her joy and her responsibility were woven so tightly together he could perceive no distinction between them. The stars fell toward the west and she drew him back toward his physical form, through the scented shadows of the herb garden and into the stone geometry of the abbey. She helped him collect himself from all the different threads he had followed until they were nearly back within the bounds of their bodies.

They were almost there when Giles stopped to touch three glimmering tangles within the stillness of the stone. One, much stronger than the other three, contained within it a strange distortion, like a tiny whirlpool drawing energy from the rest of the system and returning nothing in exchange. Giles could see where the edges of the hunger were gradually spreading outward. It felt wrong to him. He asked and she answered that, while she was not allowed to change anything, he could, if he wanted to try. She suggested how he might stop the energy drain, encapsulate the error, and weave the pattern soundly around it so the distortion could no longer interfere with the larger pattern. He made it so. The second tangle glowed an astonishing color for which Giles had no word, and it had a very extensive network of delicate outbound connections, most of them directed toward the garden. But the pattern was collapsing into itself, rapidly condensing to the point where it would be unable to flex. Already there were places so stiffened that the threads around them were strained and breaking. Giles reached carefully into the weave and stroked the tension away, teasing the coils into a freer configuration, reminding them of suppleness and flow.

The dire condition of the third tangle frightened him and he looked to her for guidance but she could offer little. The light had nearly left large sections of the pattern; several places flickered intermittently and the intervals of darkness were getting longer. Connections between the core and the periphery had frayed, and strange debris clogged the fabric so it could barely breathe. In spite of its present fragility, Giles could admire the elegance of the original weaving, its strength and order. There were parts of the pattern unlike any he had seen elsewhere in their journey and their beauty moved him. Very gently, he cleared away the clutter and was delighted to see the light strengthen in response. He traced the weakened paths until he found where they were failing, then he carefully wove new connections to bridge the faulty places. One by one, the tentative, shadowed regions flared back to life, sputtering at first and then burning steadily, bright and clean. Satisfied, Giles withdrew. His companion showed him how to fit himself back into his own mind and then released him into sleep.

Shortly after sunrise the cell door eased silently open and James peered around it into the room. Joseph's face appeared immediately below his, and Amos, by far the shortest, appeared at the bottom. The wolf acknowledged them with her ears then offered them a huge, tongue-curling, ear-flattening, eye-squinching yawn before settling her long muzzle back on Giles' shoulder. The three faces withdrew, and as she dozed she heard their quiet voices drift down the hallway.

"He did it, din't 'e?" Amos said.

"Yes, I think he did," Joseph answered. "I feel the need to sing a mass in the chapel. Maybe more than one."

"Only if you'll use your wheelchair, Joe," James said gently.

"You are such an old hen," Joseph chuckled.

"And you haven't been up and walking for three months, my most annoying chick. I don't want you pushing yourself."

"It'd be a righ' shame t' waste a healin' miracle on a hasty fool," Amos added.

"Oh, all right," Joseph conceded, "but I get to stand to sing."

* * *