Legacies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,30

them off. By the time he’d been at Oakhurst a year, he’d had a sweet arrangement going with the kids in Radial. Everything from clothes and magazines to downloaded MP3s went out, and anything Oakhurst didn’t want them to have came in: extra chocolate, extra soda, mail that hadn’t been censored . . .

The handoff place was an old boxcar out in the middle of nowhere, about halfway between Oakhurst and Radial. There were a bunch of them scattered all over the place out here; the locals used them to store feed hay in for the cows stranded in the winter blizzards. They were never all the way full. He’d leave his stuff when he could, and go back when he could and pick up what the townies left. He’d never gotten burned, and he’d never actually worried about it. Hey, it wasn’t like he was playing with his own money.

But in the words of Master Yoda: “It’s all good until somebody loses an eye.”

No deal was sweet enough to risk your ass for.

He hadn’t been sure at first. He still wasn’t entirely sure. Even at a school full of magicians, the idea that people really were trying to kill you because you did magic was just too weird. He was uneasy enough about it now, though, that he’d decided leaving Oakhurst was a really good idea. It would be a lot easier to hide what he was when he wasn’t sitting in the middle of nowhere surrounded by other people with targets taped to their backs.

It would be nice if he had one of the bigger, flashier Mage Gifts. But even a minor Earth Gift meant he’d always know when magic was around him. And this way might be safer. Nobody’d ever actually said so outright, but Seth suspected that the more power you had, the easier it was for Them to find you.

He stopped, looking back at the school. The whole place was still lit up. He was too smart to wait until after curfew to leave, or to go too early. Half an hour before curfew, if nobody saw him in the lounge or the library they’d just figure he was in his room. And if he wasn’t in any of the online chatrooms, people’d figure he’d either turned in early, or was even (shock) studying. They wouldn’t miss him until morning. He figured he could make it to Radial tonight—it was about ten miles, a long hike, and a cold one, but possible—and find some truck to hide in the back of. Once he was far enough away from Radial, it’d be safe to hitchhike until he got to a big city. And then—?

He didn’t know.

Better than here, though.

An hour later, Seth was most of the way to the boxcar. It was a good thing he was a Pathfinder: there was no moon tonight and he wasn’t stupid enough to use his flashlight out here. But having Pathfinder Gift meant you couldn’t get lost: he could find his way to any place he’d ever been—and for that matter, to any place he’d never been. And that was a good thing, because he’d never actually been to Radial. Being sure where he was going didn’t keep it from being creepy out here, though. Seth had grown up in San Francisco’s East Bay; he was a city kid, and all this open country without a shopping mall or a freeway or a skate park anywhere in sight was just unnatural. He’d never even seen snow until he’d come to Oakhurst, and it had been great—for the first month. Then it was depressing: too cold, too white, and too much of it. Then it was a stone drag and he wished it would go away. Which it hadn’t, not for another three months.

It was too quiet out here, and too loud, both at the same time. He stopped, thinking he’d heard voices, but it was only something howling off in the distance. Wolves or coyotes, whatever they had out here. He stuffed his hands deeper into his blazer pockets and kept walking. He had a coat stashed for his getaway, but it was at the boxcar; he hadn’t dared leave tonight looking as if he was going anywhere, in case somebody saw him. He’d be there soon. Another hour, tops. It was almost eleven, and once—before Oakhurst, back when he’d still had parents—that wouldn’t have seemed late, but being out here where streetlights (and streets) were an optional extra