Dirt screamed as the roaring wind tore him from the treetops and threw him high into the air. He rotated to see the ground, but the constant stream of air was so fierce that it brutalized his eyes and forced them closed.

  He blindly felt the acceleration, which he recognized from Socks jumping thousands of times, but there was no fur to hold on to. Nothing but a powerful cushion of wind and empty air.

  Dirt panicked as his worst nightmare came true. He was going to be tossed into whatever the sky was made of and fall upward forever. The ground below him would fade to nothing and it would be like the Void all over again, except this time he’d starve to death and his body would never come back down.

  He strengthened his eyes with mana and tried to keep them open. The mana kept them from being harmed, but the ferocity of the wind pushed them out of shape and made them water so terribly that all he could see was an indistinct field of green down below, and featureless blue above. He couldn’t even tell how high up he was, since he couldn’t get them to focus on anything.

  The wind didn’t carry him in any sort of smooth flight, either. It tossed him like a leaf, first one direction, then the next. It flipped and spun him before suddenly letting him drop a hundred paces, then blew him in a different direction. Each time it dropped him, Dirt was sure it was the last and he was about to fall.

  Dirt wanted to scream, but if he opened his mouth toward the wind the air rushed in so hard he was sure he swallowed some. The roaring air in his ears was so loud he couldn’t hear any screams anyway. He tried to compose himself and turn again to his mana body, but his physical one was so discombobulated that it was impossible to focus.

  The wind rushed merrily along, playing with him like a child kicking a ball. It tossed him high again, straight upward, higher than thunderclouds or birds. At least it felt that high. It hadn’t been summer-warm to begin with and it got colder very quickly, which surprised him. He thought it would be warmer where the sun was.

  It blew him ever higher, then higher again, and the rushing air slowly faded into nothing, leaving him floating for the briefest instant. He could see properly again and found himself impossibly high above the trees. The air was frigid and bit his fingers and toes and burned his nostrils. He had just long enough to wonder if the trees kept themselves warm all year before he started falling again. The roar again filled his ears, and the wind pressed his eyes shut.

  Dirt looked out with his mind sight, since that took less concentration, and found the elemental’s mind no longer remaining constantly nearby, choosing instead to race the great distances she covered in her vastness, returning her attention only briefly to check on him. He saw himself in her perception, a tiny speck in a space otherwise unhindered by obstacle or restraint. He saw thoughts form in her mind in the shape of magic as she tried to speak with him, but he couldn’t respond, and off she went again.

  He rolled to his back again and held his arms out wide, and the force of the wind doubled and doubled again as it pushed to lift him, keeping him out of the reach of the trees and an almost certain fall to his death.

  Despite the panic flooding his veins, as the initial shock wore off, he was able to gather his thoughts. He could guess what had happened. He’d told her ‘freedom from restraint’ in a way that made her think this was what he wanted, and until he said otherwise she might just keep tossing him around. So now what? What magical sigils for ‘stop’ could he remember and reproduce? And what was the likelihood they would simply get him dropped the long, long distance to the black soil beneath the trees? If he was lucky and didn’t hit a branch or two on the way down. The trees might catch him, but he couldn’t be certain.

  He kept his eyes closed and looked only with his mind sight so he could gauge what she intended, but he found no plans in the vastness of her mind. All her thoughts were either mere observation of shapes and sounds and whatever else she encountered, or magic. All her mind and world were magic, and it was still beyond him.

  “Hello?” he shouted aloud, and the word made only the tiniest ripple in her awareness. It seemed to become part of her memory without ever touching her consciousness.

  Although, now that he’d had a moment to calm down, was it really so bad? Yes it was, he decided. It might be tolerable if he could see, but the wind couldn’t carry him as easily as a pup could. It had to blow harder than he thought possible just to keep him aloft.

  He put both hands over his eyes, trying to block some of the wind. It worked but only partially; he had to keep his fingers tightly together because a small crack turned the air into a knife. But if he did that and reinforced his eyes with mana, he was finally able to see. The cold made his eyes water terribly no matter how much he blinked, and wind got to them no matter where he put his hands, but he could finally see.

  It did nothing to calm his terror. The wind was carrying him over the edge of the forest, and his heart sank. Nothing could catch him now if the wind dropped him.

  Below was the vast grassland he’d crossed early in the summer, and from so high up, the river cut a long, curving line across the landscape. And there, the basin. It was a lot closer than he expected, at least from this perspective. No wonder Father had thought him capable of making his own way back.

  The grasslands hid other ruins he’d never known about. Just shapes now, walls and roads, probably. A few stones still standing, likely too short to find amongst all that tall grass. And regardless, that was a concern for another time. He needed to land somewhere safer than that.

  So far, the wind was showing no signs of dropping him. He was freezing so badly his bones ached in places there wasn’t enough flesh on them, like his hands. He flexed them, but they were getting stiff. So were his feet.

  It occurred to him that he might truly freeze to death. The middle of the sky was no place for a human. No warming ember would help him here. Maybe he should have started the day dressed after all, but how could he have expected this? The trees probably hadn’t thought of it either, or they would have warned him.

  If he were to survive the fall with all his bones intact, getting back to the forest would only be a short run, now that he could run with mana. So how much would the grass cushion his fall? He knew from experience with Socks that there was a limit to how much damage he could prevent.

  Dirt closed his eyes again and focused on his mana body. Only desperation helped him find the necessary calm. He was under a genuine threat of death, but it was not the first time. He’d kept his wits in front of the Mother and Father of Wolves. He could discipline himself now.

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  He forced his mind to calmness and clarity the rest of his body refused, but it was enough. Time to tell her to put him down. He’d have to do his best with the sigils he knew, so which ones? The two best were ‘diminishing’, which the primer had included as part of a spell for simple fire to make sure it didn’t burn out of control, and ‘termination at the end of a process’, which was part of a spell to lift heavy objects. He could work with that.

  Dirt watched the elemental’s mind and waited until she turned her attention to him again. He saw her speak into the world of magic, drawing complex sigils to manifest into reality. It was as easy for her as flexing his toes.

  He sent her a mental image of gratitude, just the feeling of warmth and appreciation, to make sure he had her attention. Once he was sure he did, he drew the signs as carefully as he could. He connected ‘diminishing,’ with the simple sigil for ‘wind’, and closed them both with ‘terminating at the completion of a process.’

  Once he’d drawn those, just to make sure she got the idea, he sent a mental image of himself as that little spot in the sky slowly descending. ‘Diminishing,’ he repeated. His heart begged her to understand and not simply drop him.

  She drew another sign over his, a new one that tugged at his memory until he recognized it as ‘slowly’. Right. Avitus had known that one, too. He mirrored it back to her. ‘Slowly.’

  Then, in preparation for catastrophic failure, he filled himself with mana and reinforced his insides and outside as much as he could. He held his hands before his eyes again to better see the ground.

  Thank Grace, the elemental didn’t drop him. Instead, she simply didn’t lift him up as high on the next bounce. He descended slowly, although still moving forward at high speed. She tugged him along with her in the direction she’d been going anyway, no longer tossing him playfully about. Just enough force to keep him bobbing along, lower each time.

  They crossed over the river and Dirt watched with increasing worry as the trees grew smaller and smaller in the distance. The further they got from the forest, the faster the wind was at ground level. When he was only a few dozen paces up, he saw it pressing the grass down in great waves that stretched farther than he could see.

  Her mind stayed nearer him now and she kept trying to speak to him in words of magic that he hardly understood. His frozen skin made it so he could only barely feel them in the first place, one sense overwriting the other. When he didn’t reply, she’d switch to something else, usually too fast for him to even grasp the entirety of the previous thing.

  Dirt sent her a mental puff of gratitude, unable to focus enough for anything else. He was getting closer and closer to the ground now. Any moment, the wind would release him and he would fall and hit the ground moving forward as fast as Socks could run. He’d have to roll and control it the best he could.

  He was glad they were over the plains instead of in the forest, because if he hit a tree going this fast he’d leave nothing but a bloody splotch on the bark. Lower and lower he drooped, watching the speeding grass approach him. He wasn’t sure if Socks had ever run this fast. This was probably going to hurt.

  Dirt slipped beneath the grasp of the wind and fell. The tufts atop the grass whipped him painfully and just a bit lower, he hit the stalks and skipped back up into the air like a stone. The second time he came down, he crashed and left a trail of swaying, damaged grass twenty paces long.

  He lay for a moment, stunned, and felt the mana sizzling in his skin. His extremities were numb from the cold and all the rest of him stung, but he lifted his hands and they looked fine. He flexed his fingers, which were stiff, but they moved. He shifted his legs and felt nothing broken.

  Dirt grinned as the liquid terror in his blood seeped out his pores. Thank Grace, he was alive! And in one piece. He relaxed into the ground like a puddle and waited for the relief in his soul to make its way to the rest of his body while he panted, heart pounding against his sternum.

  How insane that had been! He needed to find a way to meet new creatures that didn’t involve mortal peril. He summoned four lights with a snap of his fingers, changed them all into embers, and curled up to let them bake him like a lump of dough.

  He watched for the elemental’s mind to return, but she never did. He spotted a few small, distant ones that might have been her children, but they never came near. A gentle breeze slowly moved the grasses, waving their dry tufts back and forth. He felt the aftereffects of motion as he lay there, a phantom dizziness that rolled through him as his body imagined itself zipping this way and that.

  Fortunately, his fingers and toes seemed fine after they warmed back up, although his face felt a bit sunburned, along with several other spots down his sides. All of him felt raw, and he was ready for some food and water. Rising to his feet, he jumped high enough to see where the forest was, and it wasn’t hard to spot. It sure wasn’t close, though. Farther than the basin had been, so long ago.

  Dirt stretched. Last time it had taken well over a day to get back, but not this time. Not after running with a wolf. And after what he’d just survived, the task seemed pleasant in comparison.

  He inhaled mana, fed it to his legs, and ran with one arm forward to keep the grass from whipping his face. He went faster and faster, faster than he strictly should with no visibility, and realized he wasn’t done being scared yet. That flight had been harrowing. He wished Socks was around, because a few licks and some nice warm fur to snuggle in would surely help.

  Mostly, Dirt wanted to get back where he could rest and feel truly safe. He wanted the reassuring presence of the dryads while he recovered. He paused to check, and he was still going in the right direction. He’d be there soon enough, so he slowed, in part to force his mind to let go of a little more lingering fear.

  In fact, now that he thought about it, the worst possible thing had happened and he’d survived. If she did it again, he could survive again. He had nothing to be afraid of anymore. He would only improve from here until, hopefully, she was as much his friend as the trees or wolves were.

  Were there other kinds of elementals? Stone or water or fire or lightning? How many kinds were there? And how bad of an idea was it to try to talk to them? Air didn’t seem that dangerous, but look what’d happened to him.

  With no idea how long until he was returned to Socks, he needed to make sure to optimize his time. He wanted to read more, and he should continue practicing talking to the elementals. It might be wise to start organizing all that treasure, too. And he wanted to ask the dryads how they’d made the cloth they were wearing, so he could replicate it; all his prior efforts had failed. Callius had promised to demonstrate, so maybe that should happen soon.

  What else did he want to do? Perhaps the most important thing was to learn how he’d broken the world. The dryads had mentioned once that there was a skin over everything in the world of Law, and that it had been damaged. Somewhere in all that preserved text should be clues about it. Prisca might have some writings about what had happened, if he could find them. He might even find things he’d written himself, amongst all that jumbled mess of a library.

  When he got to the river, he jumped right in, thinking it would be refreshing, and immediately regretted it. The frigid water shocked his system so bad he feared he might drown. But his flailing limbs dragged him to shore, where he rolled onto the cold mud and jumped up in a hurry. He stood there shivering and tried to rub the water off.

  That was not fair at all! Who knew water could change temperature like that? It was supposed to be warm, and he had a whole summer’s worth of experience to prove it. When he finally stopped shivering, he knelt gingerly on the bank and used his cupped hands to drink his fill, not daring to dunk his face like usual.

  He paused and scanned the area for minds, looking for anything unusual. This was a big river, so did it have its own elemental? He found plenty of mice, and a vast sea of grass minds. Some bugs nearby, close enough for him to find their tiny pinpricks of light. Some odd things that took him a moment to recognize as fish, swimming down there in the river. But no elementals. Nothing big or complicated. Not any goblins, either.

  Dirt stood and made a running leap across the river, strengthening his legs with mana. He almost didn’t make it, since the mud slowed him down just a bit.

  No sooner had he landed on the far side and resumed running than he felt himself yanked with root travel, blind to the world for an instant until the bright autumn field was replaced by the somber greens and dim lighting of the forest floor. Twenty dryad faces crowded him, all anxious.

  “Hello, everyone. Somehow, I’m fine,” he said.