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Chapter 24 - The Demon



Pierrette's Journal

The Law of the Conservation of Good and Evil

There is Good and there is Evil, just as there are warmth and cold, light and darkness. The shepherd on his far hill knows this, though he forget speech and bleat and grumble like his sheep. He needs no priest or scholar to weigh the long brilliance of summer against the darkness of winter: as he sweats, so shall he shiver.
Were the sun to linger all night, or the days to remain long in winter, his sheep would graze until they bloated, and no greening autumn rains would tell him it was time to return to the world of men. The shepherd knows that summer is not good and winter evil, but priests and theologians have forgotten.
Aam's folk were simpler than the shepherd; they had no word for good, none for evil. They rejoiced without thanks, grieved without blame, having no gods or devils to attribute joy and sorrow to. Just so, they did not call roasted meat good, and the pain of dying evil.
Aam's language had no subjunctive mood, no if and then, no should or might, to divide cause and effect. Their paintings did not cause prey to come, but aided them in becoming what they sought. When they killed, they suffered, as did I, the agonies of death.
We stand between Aam's age and the dark time. Logical men draw lines between Good and Evil, dividing the universe between God and his counterpart. Scholars who explain how evil can exist in a world created by a good God are pouring oil from one jar into another; naming one "Good" and the other "Evil," they are making them so. Yet the sum remains the same. As they define ever smaller aches, pains, and transgressions as Evil, does Good diminish? Is that the meaning of the Dark Time—when everything good has been written away, and uncaring wraiths drift through dead cities, beneath a sunless sky?

Pierrette laid her half-reasoned ideas out as if Gustave could understand. "Mani's heresy created Satan," she told him, "explaining Evil with a second creator to create it. Augustine refuted Mani, but his logic was so dense that few really understood."

Gustave snorted.

"You're right," Pierrette said. "That's why `heresies' keep arising, because evil doesn't exist by itself. When P'er Otho's bishop declares old Pan Satan in disguise, and people believe it, they abandon the poor old god to be eaten, like Cernunnos."

Men renamed old gods as devils or saints. They named Ma's lovers serpents, trod on them, and drove them from the garden. They cut down sacred groves and built chapels of their wood. Virgin Diana became Virgin Mary. The logical religions, goodness all gathered and evil thrust outside, drive the world not toward salvation, but toward that dark moment at the end of time.

Their logic shaped old magics into one overweening spell, one vast chant that reshaped nymphs, harvest gods, and quiet spirits into saints and demons, all dancing to one tune.

"But what can I do?" she asked the donkey. "The world can never go back to Aam's simpler time. What's to stop learned men from refining goodness until it's so pure that all the rest of creation is in evil's jar?"

Gustave plodded on, contemplating the oats in the sack, wondering if Pierrette remembered her promise to feed him.

There was still hope, Pierrette told herself as she crossed the final divide, where the blue glow of illogic was the final transition from Citharista's pagan flame to abbess Sophia's pure Christian light. There were still high mountain ranges, and vast oceans, and beyond them lands where no priests had gone, where no wandering ibn Sauls had observed and written and destroyed the magics.

Was Father Otho right? Was this voyage one of many? What far lands, strange magics, and unimaginable gods still flourished over the next range of hills, the mountains beyond?

She shrugged. Below were the roofs of Massalia. Soon she would see Saint Victor's, and the towering ruins across the long harbor. Soon, she would be arranging transport east to the little town she had seen through a magpie's eyes.

* * *

Shortly after dark, Sister Agathe responded to the gateside bell. As if Mother Sophia had never rescinded the order commanding her to silence, she held up a finger for Pierrette to wait while she struggled with a heavy oaken bar.

"She lives," Agathe said. "Mother will tell you." Her lip curled as if with great distaste. What was wrong? Marie, in her weak condition, could have done nothing to offend the taciturn nun.

By the light of a smoky candle, Agathe led her to a windowless room with a straw pallet on the floor, a crucifix on the far wall. "Mother prays," she said. "Rest now."

"Sister? May I have a light? There's no window." Agathe set the candle on the floor, then fumbled down the dark stone stairs toward the moonlit courtyard.

The pallet was less uncomfortable than the stones of the high country. The drafts were less chilly than night winds. She slept. The candle guttered out. She awakened in darkness total and stifling. Where was the door? She whispered old, magical words terribly out of place in that Christian warren, and held her fingers up, as if to catch the light . . . but there was no light.

Darkness pressed like wet crow feathers. She groped for the door, but her hands met rough, unpolished stone. Moving sideways, she found a corner, then edged along from it, muttering the useless spell.

Her hand struck something. Light flooded the room. She was facing away from the door: the object she had encountered was the crucifix. The light was more than the glow of understanding—real, perceptible light emanated not from the remains of the candle, or from her fingertips, but from the tiny statue.

The cross was two splits of firewood pegged with trunnels. The hanged man slumped with arms outstretched, rudely carved, his face a caricature—splintery nose, eye holes bored with a red-hot awl, a slash of a mouth, whittled arms thrust into holes. His hands were flattened paddles. Char ringed the pegs that pierced them.

Pierrette drew back from the glowing apparition. Her near panic, awakening in featureless darkness, transmuted into anger.

The spell was hers! This effigy, hacked by some unskilled hand, had been relegated to the dark cell because it was too ugly to hang in a public place. How had it usurped her spell, and drawn the light to itself?

Pierrette wrinkled her nose at dribbles of gaudy red paint on tiny feet, and the crimson streak on the left side.

When she heard the clatter of sandaled feet in the hallway outside, she began to understand the magic of this place. The first time she had called for light had been at the holy woman's request, its purpose not at odds with Christian charity—to diagnose Marie's ailment. The second time, also at Mother Sophia's bidding, had been in the sun-flooded shrine of the Virgin.

"Ah, thank you, child," said the abbess. "My sleeve brushed my lamp, and put it out. Until I saw the glow of yours . . ." The abbess abruptly realized that no candle lit the room, and she gazed with awe upon the crucifix.

"Thank Him, Mother," Pierrette said acidly, nodding toward the effigy. The spell did not work properly, because its axioms had changed. Here, light did not emanate from the sourceless substance of the world, like the nighttime warmth of a rock heated by the day's sun. Here it sprang from a Christian artifact, focused, not diffuse. It was only one small spell, but what would she have to learn, to command it? Would she ever learn enough to dare a greater spell, in this Christian land?

She would never utter the Parting of the Veil of Years here. What did these people understand of time? Would she trap herself without a skeptical donkey to pull her back? What vast libraries of Christian thought weighted the scale against her? How many books would she have to read to define the postulates of a spell like the Veil?

She was not here to learn Christian sorcery, but to take Marie to the two Marys, her namesakes, who wielded it. Must the beggar know how to make bread rise, how to bake it, to gnaw his dry crust?

She sighed. "Thank Him, for in this place even a poor effigy commands the light."

Sophia Maria smiled. "It's a poor likeness, but a treasure—made by an imprisoned saint, to comfort himself in the days before his martyrdom by Wambo, the Wisigoth king." Pierrette nodded. Here nothing could be assumed. Here her eyes and her experience were useless.

"Come," the abbess said, laying a hand on Pierrette's arm. "Let's visit your sister."

"Is something wrong, Mother?" Pierrette asked. "Sister Agathe would not say, but . . ."

"But you sensed her disapproval? Come. Marie has been moved to a . . . a safer place."

Had Marie contracted some foul disease? Pierrette remembered the pox her spell had given Jerome.

"How sick is she, Mother?" Pierrette asked. "Will she be able to travel?"

"Oh, child!" said the old woman. "She has no fleshly illness." She squeezed Pierrette's arm, and Pierrette felt her hand tremble. "You must see . . . She is greatly changed."

The abbess stood in front of a door with iron straps and clenched nails. The oak bar was no less massive than the one on the front gate. "She escaped, a month ago. We only just found her."

"Did she try to go home?"

The abbess shook her head sadly. "We found her in . . . a house of women. She didn't want to leave."

Wasn't this a house of women?

"A whorehouse," the old woman said harshly. "Where women are paid to lie with men."

"Had she . . . been there long?" Pierrette's heart sank.

"Almost a week. She's been angry with us, since we brought her back."

Pierrette was stunned. Her Marie, in a whorehouse? Pierrette would have thought such a place her worst nightmare. Was she truly mad?

"Be careful," the old one said. "She knocked Sister Martha down last night."

At first, Pierrette's attention was drawn to the barred windows. She realized how seriously the nuns took her sister's condition. Marie was sitting on a bed, the only furniture. There was not even a crucifix.

"Hello, sister," Marie said from behind tousled strands of dirty hair. "Have you come to take me home to Jerome?" She was unclothed beneath the white linen sheet.

"I'll wait outside," said the abbess.

"Don't forget to bar the door, `Mother,' " said Marie, investing the title with bitter irony.

"Oh, Marie, what's happened to you?" Pierrette cried, flinging herself to her knees beside the bed.

"Happened? I'm a prisoner. Ask them what they did with my jewels and clothes."

"You don't own jewels."

"I did! Emeralds and tourmalines. A ruby ring! Gold coins too—gifts from my lovers, hidden beneath a tile. Will you get them for me, sister? Please?" Marie's tone was sickeningly sweet.

"I don't know. I'll ask. Oh, Marie . . ."

" `Oh, Marie! Oh, Marie!' " Is that all you can say? Does Jerome miss me?" Marie's eyes glowed with hard light.

Didn't she want to know how Father was? Why Jerome? Does she, in her madness, think she married the Burgundian? "The knight is ill," Pierrette said. "Father Otho says he—"

"Otho! That mewling snit! That gelded ninny! Don't speak of him!"

"Then shall I tell you about Father? You haven't asked . . ."

"Has the old fool swallowed his last tooth? I hope he choked on it. Tell me he did."

Tears blurred Pierrette's vision. "We missed you. We prayed for you. At least Father did . . ."

"Prayers soil me. Get out of here. Tell Jerome I want him."

"I . . . I can't do that. It's not you saying that. It is . . ."

Marie threw off the sheet. "Tell him you saw this!" she spat, spreading her legs. She cradled her ample breasts in her palms. "He'll come."

Pierrette stumbled to the door. "Mother! Let me out!"

"Pierrette!" That sounded like the "real" Marie. "I'm sorry! Don't go. I don't know what came over me."

Pierrette hesitated. She heard the bolt being lifted. "I . . . I'll come back." She slipped out.

"Tell the hag to give me my hairbrush!" Marie squalled, her familiar self gone. Mother Sophia Maria lowered the bolt in place.

"Can she have the brush?" Pierrette asked. "Her hair . . ."

"I'm sorry, child," the abbess said. "She only wants the handle, to . . . to . . . She calls it `Jerome.' " She put both arms around Pierrette, and held her until she could weep no more.

* * *

-

* * *

Pierrette's Journal

Augustine called them "demons of the air." In Christian lands they occupy the void between heaven and earth.
Marie said that a raven brought her memories back. Raven or demon? Before our horrible reunion, I did not believe in demons—only gods, some kinder than others. Demons are the most frightening entities in Christian lands. Were they once gods of the paganorum, weakened like poor John and Guihen, then consumed? In a way, I hoped so, for then there was still hope for Marie. Hope—but not in that Christian place. The Camargue beckoned; there she could be freed—if it was possible at all.

* * *

-

* * *

Lovi led Pierrette to his master's courtyard, where the scholar awaited. Even seated, Muhammad abd' Ullah ibn Saul's eyes met hers on a level plane.

"Master scholar," she greeted him. "The magus Anselm sends his regrets that he is not able to be here himself."

Ibn Saul smiled broadly. His long, narrow face creased into deep grooves beside his beaky nose, prominent even by the standards of Provence. "He regrets that he can't drink my wine."

Pierrette sprang to Anselm's defense. "He has more on his mind than wine. He cannot—yet—come this far from his keep, and . . ."

"Easy, boy. Anselm and I are old friends. I was teasing you as I would him." His black, bright eyes were framed with crinkly lines of laughter that belied sinister, shrouded eyelids. "Tell me why you're here."

Pierrette did so, leaving out nothing. Her listener remained still, hands folded atop jutting, bony knees. Her tale consumed an hour. Ibn Saul rang for a servant to bring fruit and wine, instructing him in a harsh, staccato tongue. "That's the speech of the high steppes, beyond the Oxus," he said.

"Is it your native language, Master ibn Saul?"

He laughed indulgently. "I puzzle you, do I?"

"Yes Master Muhammad, worshipper of Allah, yet of the house of Saul—a Jew? Your name contradicts itself."

Again, he chuckled. "Such confusion aids my travels. Few hinder me, not knowing what ruler—or god—they might offend. I, believing in no gods, am welcome in mosque and synagogue, ashram and cathedral . . . though not always in the same towns. I'm known differently in different places."

"I read of a lizard that changes color as it crawls across dark rock or bright sand. . . ."

"A chameleon? Exactly so. I am all things to all men—yet kin to none. But it's your need we must address." Again, he rang his tiny handbell, and commanded his servant.

"I have sent for two people who know the route you must take," he told Pierrette. "Now let's give proper attention to these lovely pears. . . ."

For the half of an hour, they enjoyed crisp, succulent fruit in silence. Then two short people were ushered in.

"This is Cullain, a salt merchant," said the scholar, introducing a dark man with teeth worse than Gilles's and—as Pierrette was to discover—breath that would befuddle an ox. "Cullain knows every dry path through the Camargue, and Mother Ars"—he nodded to an even smaller woman—"knows every old story. She also knows medicines, and the means of making them. She may remember a spell or two, passed down from a grandmother." He departed the courtyard.

The woman, Ars, remained silent while Pierrette and Cullain drew maps on the cobbles with fingers wetted in the fountain, maps that evaporated soon after they were drawn. He recommended the route by boat across the lagoon to half-ruined Ugium.

"Follow the salt," he recommended. "Salt is life. From the salin by Ugium, sail to the mouth of the Fossa, Marius's canal. Leave the boat short of Arelate, where first you see the River Rhodanus on your left." He named boatmen and fishermen, praising or criticizing their knowledge of the waters and the conditions of their vessels. If Pierrette could remember all he had told her, she would have no trouble reaching remote Saints Maries.

She turned her attention to Ars, and spoke quiet phrases in her mother's ancient tongue. Ars grinned. "Few folk know Ma's speech," she said. "How did you know I did?"

"When you greeted me, I heard familiar intonations."

"Then I have no fear of speaking truth with you. Well-wishes in the old speech are a magical spell—as are all words."

From Ars, Pierrette learned of the saltwater tamarisk, the three kinds of reeds, and the tiny telltale flowers that marked solid places in the deceptive sea of tall grass, the Camargue. She learned also of what she most wanted to hear. . . .

"Old incantations still have power there," Ars said. "Fadrad meh sor . . ." she began.

"Penan mo ser," Pierrette continued, then stopped. "Is it the same? Does it repel flies and mites?"

"Anything that stings," Ars replied. "You can tell when you're near a salin, when you get bitten."

"A salt-drying pond? Why?" Pierrette asked. "Are bugs attracted to salt?"

"I don't know. But I can tell a salin is nearby before I smell it."

Pierrette had only to speak the first words of a spell for Ars to chime in with those that followed. She was delighted; the magical country was all that she hoped. Those spells had done nothing in Citharista, yet Ars had used them to good effect.

"Master ibn Saul said you know old stories," Pierrette remarked.

"Stories! That's what he calls them. I enjoy his hospitality. I would not speak ill of him, but . . ."

"But?"

"He's a pragmatist. That's to say, he's blinded by what he believes, and what he does not. He doesn't believe anything that defies explanation, so he won't bother writing my `stories' in his books." That, thought Pierrette, was all to the good. He had "explained" the Wendish rite, and look what happened.

"Will you tell me a story?" asked Pierrette.

"What do you want to hear? There are many."

Pierrette explained how tales heard from Christian tellers were subtly changed from older versions. "I want a story that Christians tell one way, but that you know differently."

"Tell me one you know, and I'll let you know what's wrong with it," said Ars.

"Very well," Pierrette replied. "A hundred years ago, a man named Giles was touched by God. He gave away all he owned, and departed his native Greece on a raft and, like the three Marys, was borne to Camargue's shore. He was dying of thirst, but a hind showed him a hidden spring of sweet water . . ."

Ars was agitated. "What is it?" Pierrette asked.

"No, you go on. I'll have my say when you've finished. It's all wrong, the way you tell it."

Pierrette continued. "A noble hunter shot an arrow at the hind, and Giles snatched it from the air. The hunter was so impressed with Giles's feat—and his holiness—that he commissioned a shrine of stone over the hidden pool.

"Another tale of Giles," Pierrette said, "recounts how he was given two carved doors by the Holy Father in Rome. He threw them in the Tiber River, and they floated all the way to Camargue, and washed up near his chapel. I think that story has been confused with the one about the raft, and with the boat without sails that conveyed the apostoli. Only one may be a proper account. I don't know which."

"Bah!" said Ars. "The tale of the hind is also told about Saint Godfric, in the North, and the one about the doors is elsewhere attributed to other saints. Neither is Giles's true tale."

"Then tell me what is true," Pierrette urged . . .

* * *

When the Wisigoths conquered Arelate, said Ars, Giles, the bishop, would have nothing to do with the Arian heretics. He walked westward on the Roman road, then into the trackless Camargue, and dwelt in a hovel of leaves and branches. He lived on wild berries and drank sweet water from a hidden spring. The thickets were home to tusked sangliers—wild boars—and roe deer.

One evening, as the birds became silent, he heard rustling in the underbrush, and saw two great yellow eyes. Terrified, he hid, sure he had seen a full-grown boar, not a young pig. Ha! The animal that emerged to drink was a shy doe with white stockings. "I've gone mad from solitude!" he cried, "to take a graceful biche for a sanglier."

He had spoken aloud. The frightened doe ran away. "Don't go!" he called after, suddenly aware of how lonely he had been—but she was gone. Only the calls of wood owls and the hoots of great round-eyed hiboux filled the night.

In the days that followed, Giles got little joy from his solitude. He tried to remember what the deer had looked like. Brown or beige? Skinny or plump? Every night at dusk he waited quietly behind a tree, hoping to see her.

A month passed, and at last he heard the rustle of brush. The doe! He crept hesitantly toward her as she bent to drink. Ah! She was so beautiful. Her tapered legs were white from knee to shiny hoof, and her curved neck bent with the grace of a windblown vine. Her eyes were so warm Giles could crawl right in them.

The hermit remained still until she had finished drinking, his silence broken only by the beating of his lonely heart. At last, the doe departed. Would she come back?

Giles cut tender, fragrant leaves, and left them by the still pool, on the rock where the doe had placed her forefeet while she drank. She soon came to drink and feed almost every evening, as the birds' last songs faded. One night Giles did not lay the fragrant herbs on the stone. When the sweet creature had drunk, he held out the delicacies, and slowly approached her. "Don't fear, little one," he murmured, a man addressing a shy lover. The doe stretched out her neck, and took his offering. . . .

"From then on," said Ars, "the doe and the old fou had an understanding. He fed her, and spoke to her as to a friend. She listened, and the regard of her soft, brown eyes was more welcome than words."

Man and doe lived thus, he feeding her, she easing his loneliness, and both were content. Neither pondered the doings of men in the lands beyond—but that did not mean nothing was happening. Wambo, the Wisigoth, and his chiefs and sons, were not content to lounge about the fountains of Arelate, with fawning servants to bring them wine and fruit. They were forest men who loved to hunt with their great, rangy hounds.

One morning, the ground beneath Giles's hut trembled with the impact of hooves. The silence was shredded by howls of the pack and cries of hunters. The hermit's beloved companion fled. The forest resonated with tramping feet, stamping iron-shod hooves, and shouted orders. Giles covered his ears and shut his eyes.

When he opened them, he saw the doe at the edge of the clearing. She staggered toward the spring, her neck wet with fresh blood. She fell. Giles dragged her to the pool, and washed her terrible wound.

"The biche is ours!" shouted a young chief, pushing through the brush.

The old hermit stood his ground. "She is neither mine nor yours, but merely honors us with her presence."

Several Wisigoths laughed. "You old fool! Get out of the way and let us finish her off." One horseman struck him a blow that sent him reeling into the thicket. "Call the dogs! Set the hounds on both of them."

When the dogs burst from the woods, they ceased howling, and came as one to a sudden stop. As if terrified, they stared at Giles, who had regained his place by the doe. She lay licking her wounds. Bellies against the ground, the dogs crept forward. They surrounded man and doe, then turned outward, and allowed no warrior to approach.

Astounded, the Wisigoths sheathed their weapons. "Sorcery!" one said. "We must tell the king." In a thunder of hooves, they rode away. The hounds followed.

Near dawn, Giles and the doe were awakened by hooves and cries. Wambo had come in person to see the madman—or sorcerer—and the doe. He peered into the hut, and stood looking for a long time. Then he turned his mount and rode off, followed by his horde.

* * *

"And that," said Ars, "is the story of Giles, as the folk of the villages tell it. There is an addition to the tale, in which Wambo was baptized in the spring. When Giles died, the king commissioned a shrine and a tomb. Thousands of pilgrims visit there." The old woman's features crinkled like a dried olive. "There's no carved sarcophagus for the doe, in that shrine."

Pierrette's disappointment showed. "What's wrong?" Ars asked.

"It's a splendid tale, but the one recounting doesn't greatly differ from the other. Nobleman or Wisigoth, it's the same story."

"Ah," sighed Ars. "You're wise. How did you know there was yet another tale?"

"Because hidden within the one you told me is a love story," Pierrette replied, thinking of a stag and a doe in another forest, of love that remained unconsummated, and ended in tragedy—the tragedy she had made of it, with the spear. Yes, Ars's second tale was indeed a romance, but an impossible one, the way she had told it.

"Then tell it properly," said Ars, "and I'll listen."

* * *

When the Emperor Constantine issued his edict that all Rome was to worship the Christian God, old spirits trembled, that he had dared utter such a terrible spell. But the empire was large, and Constantine a lesser sorcerer than . . . than Minho of Thera . . . and folk did not everywhere take him seriously. The poor older gods lingered.

Gaul, once the heart of the empire, was far from the new center in Byzantium. Old gods and new coexisted, but when the Wisigoths came, people blamed pagans and heretics for the invasion, wrongly believing their sympathies lay with the conquerors.

He who wore stag's horns departed into the Camargue and made his home beside a spring sacred to Ma. There he dwelt for many years, but he was lonely, having no worshippers and no companion to celebrate the rites.

From where came the biche who sipped at his spring? Was she a virgin child of Arelate, or the daughter of a farmer who kept the old ways? Perhaps she was sired by a stag and nursed by a doe, and only took human form when she drank from the sacred pool. He whom we call Giles was content—for a while.

When Wambo's sons hunted sangliers, they did not disdain to take what other prey was driven before them, to wound deer, aurochs, or even wild horses and track them until they weakened and made their hopeless stand—flanks heaving, froth-mouthed, bled until they had no strength to run or fight.

When the hounds tracked Giles's companion to his pool, they found not a doe, but a wounded girl, wild-haired and naked. Did she wear antlers upon her head? I don't know what the hounds saw, or what Wambo did when he came to see. I do know that Wisigoth, Gaul, and Celt all spoke the ancient tongue before they divided into tribes, and worshipped the same gods. Wambo knew Cernunnos and his mate, and left them in peace. No doubt he sent gifts, and Goths made pilgrimage to the sacred spring. Some clever bishop put a stone shrine and sarcophagus there, but Cernunnos is not in it, nor a saint. And that, my new friend, is the story heretofore untold.

* * *

Old Ars emerged from the spell Pierrette's story had cast. Tears streaked her cheeks. "The Christians renamed the god `Saint Giles.' " She sighed breathily. "The monks built the shrine not to honor the real Giles, but to keep him out."

"They built it to fix their story in stone," Pierrette replied. "They claimed the magic of the spring for their own, and they wrote their Christian tale so no men would believe otherwise."

There was no more to be said—or rather, there were too many stories, and no time to tell them. The old woman was tired, and dusk had fallen.

The nuns would be anxious if Pierrette did not return soon. Besides, with all she had learned from Ars and Cullain, she found herself eager to be gone from the city. The Camargue beckoned, and she was eager to put her new knowledge to the test. . . .

A silent servant with eyes like shelled almonds accompanied the ancient woman to the door. Ibn Saul bade Pierrette stay.

"Assuming that your premise is valid," he said, "you may free your sister of her affliction. But if she catches word of your plot before it is too late for her . . ."

Pierrette thought of a long-ago hunt, of silent stalking with a care for the direction of the wind and the brittleness of twigs underfoot. "Once we have crossed the final divide," she said, "Marie can only run deeper into the trap of my choosing."

Ibn Saul wished her good fortune. "If you succeed—or even if not—perhaps you'd consider joining me. Though my present apprentice is competent enough . . ."

"My sister's fate isn't the last of my challenges," Pierrette replied, thinking of Anselm's precarious existence, and more generally the fate of magic in the world. "Perhaps when other issues have been addressed . . ."

"Or perhaps in the course of addressing them?" he rejoined. "I sense that the thread of our common interests does not end here." Pierrette too felt that she was not seeing the scholar for the last time—or perhaps it was only wishful thinking. But now was not the time.

* * *

Again, Pierrette heard the heavy bolt drop into place behind her. Marie lay draped in white linen, as if with the red silk of a whore. "I missed you, sister," she said, in a little girl's petulant voice. "I thought you had gone away."

"I considered it," Pierrette lied. "Before I return to Citharista, there is another place I must go, and I'm not sure I can trust you to come with me, without your running away."

"I've seen nothing of the world. I'll go with you, wherever it is."

"It's by the sea, east of here. I'm afraid, because I must pass through a pagan swamp where old gods reign unfettered by Christian goodness." Pierrette kept her voice neutral. She wanted her sister's tormentor to come willingly, thinking that it was Pierrette herself who was deceived.

Did Marie's eyes brighten? "I won't complain," she said. "And I won't run away. After all, you're my sister. I have no one else."

"We'll leave tomorrow," Pierrette said, her cheerfulness unfeigned, though the one who looked out from Marie's eyes would have been dismayed at its source. The trap was set. Marie circled the bait, sniffing. Soon the jaws would close.

But plans had a habit of going awry, and things magical were unpredictable. If only remnants lingered in the Camargue, and the Christian demon had consumed the rest, then nothing could prevail against it.

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