Experimentally, I played a few notes on the bone flute from High-Flying Jack. Gently, the sky gathered me up into its cool arms. And in no time at all, I was flying south over fields and forest, as true as an assassin's arrow.

The river fought like a snake that could smell the sweetness in his blood. It wrapped thick coils hawser-tight around him and tried to throw him down the current. He twisted, slipped through and beat up into light bright as the sun over his head. He had it. Three fingertips above the silt, the hand still whole and safe below.