The Alchemist by Paolo Bacigalupi Page A

trying to hide my daughter’s fatal hue. But it was useless. Farmers on the road saw and gasped and dashed away, and even as we hurried forward, we heard cries behind. People who sought to profit from turning in a user of magic.
    “We aren’t going to make it,” Pila said.
    “Run then!”
    And we did, galloping and stumbling. I panted at the unaccustomed exercise. I was not meant to run. Not after years in prison. In a minute, I was gasping. In two, spots swam before my vision and I was staggering. And still we ran, now with Jiala on her own, tugging at me, dragging me forward. Healthier by far than I.
    Behind us, the shouts of guardsmen echoed. They gained.
    Ahead, black bramble shadows rose.
    “Halt! In the name of Khaim and the Mayor!”
    On the run, Pila fired her balanthast. Lit its prime. Prepared to plunge it into the ground at the bracken root.
    “No!” I gasped. “Not like that.” I lifted the device so it pointed into the guts of the bracken. “Don’t hurt the roots. Just the branches.”
    Pila glanced at me, puzzled, then nodded sharply. The balanthast roared. Blue flame lanced from the nozzle, igniting the branches. Bramble writhed and vaporized, opening a deep narrow corridor of smoking writhing vines. We plunged into the gap. Another shout came from behind.
    “Halt!”
    An arrow thudded into a bramble branch. Another creased my ear. I grabbed Jiala and forced her low as Pila fired the balanthast again.
    Behind us, the guardsmen were stumbling across the tilled fields, splashing through irrigated trenches. Their swords gleamed in the moonlight.
    Blue flame speared the night again, and a writhing bramble path opened before us.
    I pulled out the spell book of Majister Arun. “A match, daughter.”
    I struck the flame and handed it to Jiala. In its flickering unsteady light, I read spidering text by the hand of that long dead majister. A spell for sweeping.
    A dust devil formed in the bracken, swirling. I waved my hand and sent it spinning down the narrow way behind us. A simple spell. A bit of household magic for a servant or a child. Nothing in comparison to the great works of Jhandpara.
    But to the bramble all around, that tiny spell was like meat tossed before a tiger. The vines shivered at magic’s scent and clutched after my sweeping whirlwind. I cast more small spells as Pila opened a way ahead. Bramble closed in behind, starving for the magic that I scattered like breadcrumbs, ravenous for the nurturing flavors of magic cast so close to its roots. Vines erupted from the earth, filling the path and locking us in the belly of the bramble forest.
    Behind us, the guards’ shouts faded and became indistinct. A few more arrows plunged into the bramble, ricocheting and clattering, but already the vines were thick and tangled behind us. We might as well have been behind a wall of oak.
    Pila fired the balanthast again and we moved deeper into the malevolent forest.
    “We won’t have long before they follow us,” she said.
    I shook my head. “No. We have time. Scacz’s balanthasts will not work. I crippled them all before I left, when Scacz thought I was improving them. Only the one I used for my demonstration worked, and I made sure to shatter it.”
    “Where are we going, Papa?” Jiala asked.
    I pulled Jiala close as I whispered another spell of dust and tidying. The little whirlwind whisked its way into the darkness, baiting bramble, closing the path behind us. When I was done, I smiled at my daughter and touched her under her chin. “Have I ever told you of the copper mines of Kesh?”
    “No, Papa.”
    “They are truly wondrous. Not a bit of bramble populates the land, no matter how much magic is used. An island in a sea of bramble.”
    The blue fire of Pila’s balanthast again lit the night, sending bramble writhing away from us, opening a corridor of flight. I picked up Jiala, amazed at how heavy she had become in my years away, but unwilling to let her leave my side even for a moment,