I



"It's today, isn't it."  It wasn't a question.  Janine stirred beside me, tugged on a ring of my hair.  She smiled, but there were worry-lines around her eyes.
My stomach tightened.  It was too early for this.  Past her, Utu sent His light through the window.   Outside a marjingale sang.  A pleasant hot smell rose from the dirt floor.  I looked back at her and saw her clearly in the morning light, her brown eyes still puffy from sleep, her short black hair, frizzy by nature, sticking out around her head.  I caressed her cheek.  "I'm not going.  I don't need the Masters' Council's training."   
She studied my face for a moment and then lowered her eyes.  "And what will we do next time the Basquan come?  Or the time after that?"  She ran her fingers across my chest, a soft tingling.
I rubbed my face with my hand.  "Hells, I don't know.  We've been all through this.  Astapha can import some of those tech weapons his people have, and we'll learn how to use them."
"You'd trust our lives to technology?"
I caught her fingers.  "You'd trust my life to the Masters' Council?"
"You make it sound like I'm forcing you to go."
"Sometimes I think you want me to," I said.  I let her fingers go.  I didn’t want to start the day with a fight.
"I've never said you should go.  That's one choice.  Or you can trust Astapha's technological weapons.  Or we can move back to Blackstone and not have to worry about Hafar."
"I know, I know."  None of the choices satisfied me.  They each had unacceptable consequences.  "I don't know.  It won't matter anyway if the Council doesn't send someone after me.  It's too far to the Academy for me to get before midnight."  I could send them a message, of course, saying I was ready for them to come and get me, but I wasn't ready. 
"That's letting them choose for you."
I looked down at the floor.  "Well, what do you want me to do?"
She raised herself on one elbow and said, "I want you to decide, so we can plan for our family.  You don't want to leave Hafar, you don't trust the Masters' Council to give you a fair Trial, and you don't want Astapha's people's technology to replace your magic.  I wouldn't mind moving, but not if it's going to make you miserable.  I want you alive and happy, and I want our baby.  We've put this off for years..."
"I know!"  For the last four years especially, since we'd settled in Hafar, she'd wanted children.  But the magetest Trial—my magetest Trial—hung over us like a stormcloud.  I sighed.  "I'm sorry.  But I don't have to decide before I'm even awake."  Though by now I was wide awake.
She stiffened.  "No, you don't.  But if you let the Masters' Council make the decision by not sending someone to get you your question will change from 'Will I go?' to 'Would I have gone?'  Your life will still be ruled by the Masters' Council and the Academy."  
She was right.  She was facing the situation straight-on, as she always did.  I swallowed.  It was Balzarad's choice:  the efriti on one hand and the Hells on the other.
"All right.  I'll make a choice before the Masters' Council sends someone.  If they do.  And I'll stick to it."
She looked out the window.  The marjingale sang loud welcome to Utu as He rose and shared His light.  Down the street were voices, whose I wasn't sure.  Men.  Farther off, out in the fields, sheep bleated and a dog barked.  I wondered what Janine saw, what would end up in her glass sculptures.  She often sat this way for hours, listening and watching, her eyes moving to follow people and animals. 
"I'll make breakfast," she said at last.  "Scoot, before your plants dry out."  
I touched her shoulder.  "It'll be all right."
She took my hand and kissed my finger.  "Go on, now."  
I slipped out of the hammock and dug my toes into the dirt floor, luxuriating in the heat.  Utu had been up for an hour already.  I was late.  
"Did I tell you Astapha's building me some kind of music box?  He's sweet."  
"Yes, very good with his hands.  Got eyes for my wife, too."  I pulled on trousers and a short-sleeved tunic and tied on my sandals.  
"Do I hear a touch of jealousy?"  
"Not a bit.  I'll just go over and turn him into a lizard, then I'll be back for breakfast."  I escaped through the beaded curtain covering the doorway of our room before she had the chance to reply.  My hat hung by the back door, a battered straw wide-brim I had picked up in Blackstone twenty years ago, when I was fourteen.  It was the only thing I saved from my time at the Academy.  A minor spell kept it from falling apart.  I put it on and went out.  
Utu was shining fierce orange, but His heat felt good.  The light seemed sharp, the air crisper than usual.  Our house was on the north side of the slope that Hafar was built on, and I could see out across the valley where most of the people lived and farmed.  Fields criss-crossed the valley, separated by rows of fruit and nut trees and irrigation ditches.  The wind shifted for a moment and I caught a rank whiff of Rasham's pigs, even though they were half a mile away.  The smell was atrocious, but I loved ham, especially salted.  
The mist had burned off the fields by now, and shimmers of heat were already rising.  The round, mud farmhouses wavered like mirages.  People worked in the fields drawing water, hoeing, mending walls.  The yapping of dogs was louder.  I could never get up an hour or more before Utu rose, as these people did every day.  
In the town buildings around me people were slower to rise.  The smells of wood smoke and cooking mutton and eggs were heavy in the air, and my stomach rumbled.  Metal rang on metal:  Kandabar must have risen early to get his forge heated up.  Luseedra shouted for her children to come in and eat before they went to help their father.  Hakim's dogs were raising Hells, as always, and Astapha shouted at him to shut them up before he shot them.  It was a morning ritual.
I'd helped bring this prosperity about.  This was my place, where I felt needed, wanted, useful.  How could I even think of leaving it and going back to Blackstone?
After taking deep lungfuls of air I turned to my garden.  It was rectangular, twenty feet by fifteen, modest by local standards, but the townsfolk gave us so much food that we didn't need any more.  I could grow crops for my own enjoyment.  My melons weren't much bigger than a fist, but they were sweet and full of juice.  I could trade a small melon for two or three scrolls from the caravan or get a book for two melons.  And the oranges, of course, could be traded for nearly anything I wanted, since I had the only oranges outside Blackstone, and the city's oranges were imported and not even fresh.  The caravan master, Usmin, brought us wine, rare books, unusual-colored glass for Janine to work with, and other special gifts to trade for a small bag of oranges.  He had a fondness for them.
I checked my two orange trees, imported all the way from Luricania.  Their leaves were dark green.  The spells were still strong.  I hoped someday they'd be able to grow without magic, but for now I was satisfied that they grew at all.  Though they bore fruit year-round, none of the little globes were ripe.  I'd have to wait.
Astapha's pump sat between the trees, a squat thing made to look like a bronze toad with a handle sticking out of the back of its head, sitting on a stone pedestal fashioned into a lily pad.  I had dug the well with the help of a little water-djinni, and he'd put the pump in. 
I worked the handle and watched water pour out and bubble into the little ditches.  It softened the dirt, smoothing out the cracks and bringing another day's life to the plants.  This was just an early watering to allow the plants to survive the daytime heat.  I'd have to water again at night.  
A bee hovered by my nose, a fat worker from Munahad's hives.  I let it go by.  Mud splashed up onto my legs and cooled my skin.  I dabbed lines of it on my face like a Basquan raider.  Zahid the Fierce, Conqueror of Hafar.  Hell, Overthrower of Seligar and the dšck‡lf legions.  I grinned as fiercely as I could, watching for the dšck‡lf Arch Mage to show himself.
It occurred to me that my neighbors could see me over the low wall.  What was I doing?  I was too old for this silliness.
"Breakfast!"  
After a fast wash-off at the pump I headed into the house and hung up my hat.  Janine had a loaf of hot bread and a pot of honey ready, with fresh goat's milk to drink.  There were eggs scrambled with vegetables, and dates.  We ate quietly and talked about oranges and Astapha's music box.  The boy had only been in Hafar for a year, and already he received as much respect for his mechanical skills as I did for my magic.  He had designed the water screws the valley farmers used for irrigation, much more efficient than the revolving bucket-wheels they had been using, and he'd had Kandabar build them.  He'd also worked with the smith on making more pumps like the one in my garden to pull fresh water for drinking out of the ground instead of using the same water that was used for irrigation.  I liked his energy and his enthusiasm for helping the valley people, but I didn't much care for how willing they were to accept his technology as a substitute for my magic.  Of course, if I had more power I could use more magic again...  I pushed the thought away.
Janine got up to get herself some water.  She was subdued, and I tried to think of something funny to say to make her smile, but I wasn't in a funny mood and nothing occurred to me.  As she dipped water from the basin next to the window she said, "Dogs."
I looked out through the door.  Two of Sanso's little dogs were chasing each other by his house, barking.  A toddler wobbled out of the house and watched them for a moment and then shouted something.  The dogs stopped chasing each other and licked her, their tails wagging.  One of them knocked her back, and she retreated into the house, shouting at them to stop.  
We both laughed.  It was a relief to hear her pleased with something.  
We finished breakfast in that comfortable feeling.

After breakfast I ferreted out weeds with the hoe, tearing them out of the ground and tossing them onto the compost pile.  The problem wasn't the way I used my power so much as that I'd grown comfortable, and a comfortable Wizard isn't storing special memories for spells.  I'd been using more and more bases for my spells over the past few years, since it took less energy to create a sword from a steel rod or a banquet from a plate of food than to create something from nothing, but soon it wouldn't matter.  Once I ran out of stored memories all the bases in the world would be useless.
If I took my magetest the masters would teach me to make the most of my energies.  With that training a minor spat over dishes could be used to create a powerful shield or a sheet of flame to incinerate half a dozen raiders.  As it was, my wizard training allowed me to do basic magics, but it took a great deal of energy to do all but the most minor spells.  Energy came from anxiety, fear, terror, anger, pain, lust, falling in love.  Most of those were absent from my life, replaced by occasional nervousness, annoyance, and a lot of satisfaction.  Hardly fuel for powerful spells.  The only excitement we ever got now was when the Basquan tribesmen raided us.  
I smiled at the irony.  Most of the energy I used to repel the raiders came from the terror and rage their raids roused in me.
Of course, if I took the magetest I might die.  Or I could stay here and run out of power.
My thoughts turned round and round like spiral-chimes in a breeze.  By the time I worked up and down all the rows it was mid-morning, and Utu was becoming unbearably hot.  
Something glittering caught my eye, gliding between the orange trees.  As I turned to see it it slid through the air to land on the pump.  A golden butterfly.  It sat a moment, fluttering its wings, its body sparkling with maroon tints.  For long seconds we looked at each other.  
I grounded the hoe to steady myself and from long habit smashed the experience into a memory I could use for magic:
Dear Utu, they sent you.  Of course.  Who else would they send?  Someone else would have been easier to resist.  Where have you been stirring up trouble the last four years?
I sent the memory into my Memory Sea, where it sank.
The butterfly burst into a shower of silver sparks and boyish laughter.  "Beware, human!"  He streaked past me and raced around the pump.  My clothes flapped from the breeze as he passed.  I caught a glimpse of violet eyes.  
"Kalan—"
"Uh-uh, Zahid.  Watch skies!"  He still moved too fast for my eyes to follow, so I looked upward instead.  And gasped.  A huge purple butterfly rose skyward from the roof of my house, slowly changing as it flew.  It became a dragon of rippling fire.  It flew around Utu and breathed showers of tiny gems onto Hafar.  I heard shouts from the closest houses.  The beast raised a leg and sprayed silver coins all over the town, and I heard people laughing and chasing coins.  I admired the mastery, but I knew what the dragon meant and couldn't enjoy its antics.  I turned my gaze back to the earth.  Kalan stood next to the pump.
"Hello, Kalan."  The fields behind him seemed to shimmer as if they were illusions.  How was he doing?  How would I ever tell him I wasn't going?  
"Hi, Zahid.  Nice hat.  Same one?"  He bowed grandly.  He was dressed in dšck‡lf travelling gear: a snug black kaftan with flowing sleeves and a tight belt, a swirling cloak with a deep hood and silver threads here and there to catch the sun.  He carried no weapons, but of course he didn't need any.  His black leather button-up shoes weren't dusty, so he hadn't travelled conventionally.  His skin was blue-black, beautiful, and his slanted eyes were sharp violet.  His face was thinner and more delicate than any human face.  Dark hair fell down into his eyes.  He hadn't aged a day since I had seen him last.  As I gazed at him pleasure swelled in me, and I stored the moment with its embedded emotions:
Gods, Kalan, you look just the same.  What have you been up to?  I can't wait to hear these stories—Damn, it's good to see you!  
I dropped it into my Memory Sea.
Behind me the doorflap rustled, and I turned my head.  Janine had come outside to see what the disturbance was.  
"Janine!  Lovely!"  He took her hand and kissed it. 
She smiled.  "We've been wondering when you'd visit.  Have you come to take Zahid away for more adventures?"  She seemed amused, but I could hear the fear behind the question.
He opened his arms.  "Not taking him.  Visiting!"  Clucking, he shook his head.  "Losing manners!"  He closed one hand and opened it again.  A dark green dress sprang out of it.  He held it toward her.  "Please."  
The moment he said "Not taking him," I knew he'd come to offer me the last chance to take my magetest.  
Janine stared at the dress for a long moment.  It was an exact duplicate of the dress she had worn the first time we'd gone to dinner together, ten years ago.  She accepted it gingerly, as though it might fade away.  "Thank you.  It's lovely."  
I stored my conflicting thoughts and feelings:
I should send him away—before I've heard him out?  Maybe the Academy's changed, and the Trial won't be so bad.  Right.  
Kalan opened his arms to her and grinned.  A breeze blew his hair about, hiding his eyes.  Janine returned his hug.  "It's good to see you, too.  You'll have to stay for dinner and tell us where you've been."  
He nodded.
I felt relieved, but I saw that the tension wasn't gone from her face.  I knew I could put her at ease if I would make a decision.  I looked away.  
"Do you want to come in?" she asked.
"No, talk Zahid while first."
She nodded.  "All right."  Slowly she turned and walked back into the house.  I resolved to not leave her alone long to worry.  
"Nice town," Kalan commented, watching our neighbors who were still staring at the sky.  
"The Masters' Council sent you."
"Spent week in Decadurinian pleasure palace storing energy for dragon spell."
"Thank you, Kalan, it really was a beautiful spell.  Did you hear what I said?"
"Show town."  He hopped the low wall that kept the dogs out of my garden and walked around the house, heading for the center of Hafar.  I sighed and jumped the wall.
"Hard to find," he said.  "Moved."  It seemed to be an accusation, and I felt stung.  It wasn't as if I had tried to run from him.
"Well, I was tired of the city, and Janine was ready to try someplace quieter.  Her youngest sister married, and she felt taking care of the family was finally over."  I spread my arms to take in the town.  "We've been here four years, and I like it better all the time.  No other wizards stirring things up, no—none of your people."
We walked around the house and up the street.  As people saw Kalan they stopped what they were doing and stared.  Several ugly looks were directed at me.  Then, carefully, adults pulled children inside and shut the doors.  Even Astapha, who liked to shoot off at the mouth, slowly closed his shutter when he saw us.  Even here, where no dšck‡lf had come for as long as people could remember, everyone knew that most of humanity was completely under their domination.  What could they think, seeing me walk with him?  I longed to shout that it was all right, Kalan was a friend.  What was happening to the trust I'd built with these people?  
I took a deep breath.  Well, I'd have the chance to restore their trust after he left.  
Kalan spoke so quietly I almost didn't hear.  "Dšck‡lfs not my people.  Don't want any more."  He suddenly pointed at the pumps which dotted the yards.  "Pumps.   Unusual."  
I wondered if he didn't want his people, or they him.  He never spoke of home.  "Got a Tekkie here, kid by the name of Astapha.  He constantly fiddles with his machines.  He came about two years ago and fell in love with Janine, and now he's here to stay."
"Kill him?"  
That startled me, and I glanced at him.  His face was expressionless.  "Of course not.  The Ubintal girls down the street there"—I pointed at a large house a few hundred yards south of my house—"are getting to marrying age.  Two of them are after him, and I'll lay good gold one of them gets him.  He just doesn't know it yet."  I had to chuckle.  For a moment it felt like the old days, riding around looking for trouble, Kalan and I—I snapped myself back to the moment.
"Kalan, I—"
"More," he said, and we walked on.
Kandabar stayed at his forge, under a roof held up by stilts to allow breezes to cool him, as we approached.  He was a burly, hairy man, wearing only a loincloth as most men of his profession did.  As we walked past he looked up from under his brow and kept pounding on the red-hot hoe he was working on.  Sweat rolled down his face and body, shining on his skin.  His expression was blank.
"Insolent," Kalan growled, and instantly I tensed.  How much was he going to make of it?  "Friend?" he asked.
"Yes," I said more loudly than I meant to.  "These people are all my friends, Kalan."
"Hmph."  He walked on.
I slowly let out my breath.  I'd forgotten his temper.  "When I got here the main fountain was dry.  A groundshaker had cut off all the water.  I sent a water-djinni down the old shaft to open the fountain."  I laughed at a memory that bubbled up for the first time in years.  "It wasn't like the air-djinni you got to put out the fire in Barabba.  That thing was huge!  Remember?"  I shook my head.  The djinni had been gigantic, a hundred feet high or more, shaped like a tornado.  It had swept in over the ocean, picked up water, and dumped it on the fire.   
He nodded.  "Little trouble, though."  He made a motion like a scythe slashing through wheat.  "Piers all flooded, warehouses blown down."  He laughed.  
"Well, at least it didn't kill anyone.  Hells, it didn't even destroy any houses.  Sure made a mess out of the wharf area, though."  I laughed with him.  We'd travelled for two years, roaming the Human Kingdoms for adventure and money, after we'd graduated from the Academy.  
There was a conspicuous lack of noise; Kandabar had finished the hoe.
I said, "Well, this djinni was a lot smaller than that one.  It bored a new hole to the water and got the well going again.  The townspeople built us the house for payment.  Second biggest in town, seven rooms.  Two stories, I'm sure you noticed.  I whitewashed it, and Janine put in the shutters and the terrazzo in the kitchen.  Since then I've been the valley wizard, helping where I can."  Even as the words came out of my mouth I realized how much I'd adapted to this place, to its slow rhythms and its quiet people. 
We stopped next to the fountain.  "We had some Basquan raiders about six months ago, just a small band, but they were well armed and managed to get into the square here before we could muster up resistance."  I rubbed the brass square set into the fountain and looked up at him.  His face was blank.  "They're nomads.  Humans."  I tapped the plaque.  "The names of my neighbors who died in that battle are carved into this plaque.  Eight of them, Kalan, good people.  You've seen the butchery the desert tribes call fighting.  See Cerry Faoul, near the bottom?  She was six.  Two of them hacked her to bits before I could stop them."  Kalan dutifully inspected the names.  I remembered:
I'm in the doorway of our house, behind an overturned desk.  A huge Basquan with a scimitar is riding up behind Astapha—
"Astapha!  Behind you!"  
He ducks, and the Basquan just misses taking his head off.  Astapha unleashes a hail of bullets from his tech weapon and hits the man and his horse.  They fall.  Two more raider's horses stumble over the fallen one, and he shoots them, too.  Chargers scream and kick, Rhaun falls with his head kicked in—
A horse thunders past.  Someone's screaming.  Vernar is cut down by a raider with a crossbow.  Zak and Tosh shoot her in the chest with their bows.  
Someone—Aris?—screaming for her girl.  "Cerry?  Cerry!"  
Where's the girl?  "No!" I shout.  Two of them chasing her, not even Basquan would—
Something punches my belly.  "Whoof."  I fall to my knees, grab my belly.  When I lift my hands away they're bloody.  
A Basquan man runs toward me, a brown blur in Utu's heat.  
He falls, gurgling, a shaft in his chest just under his throat.  Who—?  Janine.  She drops her crossbow and kneels next to me.
"It's not bad," she says, pulling my candis open.  "Flesh wound.  You'll be fine."  
I feel her tugging at the cloth.  I'm getting chilly.  Can't pass out yet.  Have to reach deep and make sure these butchers don't get away.  I capture the feelings:
"Butchers!  Utu, she's a baby!  Stop!  Stop—"  The scimitars rise and fall and rise again, red drops flying from them.  
I hold onto the memory instead of letting it go into my Memory Sea.  My hands are shaking.  Pain radiates from my belly.  That's what I feel, and that's what they'll feel.  I shatter the memory.  Rage and grief and pain move through me.  I turn the emotion to magic and channel it into the three Basquan.  I take the pain from my belly and amplify it, impale them with it.  I'll hurt them so they'll never stop hurting.  
They drop their scimitars and clap their hands to their guts, screaming.  One draws a dagger and stabs himself with it.  His face is twisted, and he screams—
I squeeze my eyes shut.  I can't do this.  I crush their hearts and let them die.
"Many Basquan?" Kalan asked.
I pushed back the painful memory.  "Not really.  Every year or so a small band will be harassing a caravan and get too close to town for comfort, or a band will get it in their heads to kill a wizard and sack Hafar.  I've tried to teach these people to defend themselves.  You know how easy it is to get dependent on spells to do your work for you.  The townspeople used to pay the Basquan not to raid.  At least now they can keep their food for themselves."  It would be time for another raid in a few more months, during the dry season, when they got hungry.
"Seems like they get tougher each time.  A lot of them have chargers now, and some have tech weapons.  They're driving bargains with the Ceretesians, I bet.  I wonder sometimes how these little border towns ever survive."
He looked up at me, his fingers resting on the names of the dead, an expression of calm certainty on his face.  "Stored memories almost gone."  
I stared, speechless.  How did he know?  Finally I asked, "Why do you say that?"
"Had townspeople fight Basquan."  He waved toward the fields.  "Machines for water.  Tekkie here.  Do own menial labor."
I watched tiny figures in a far-off field working a water-screw.  There was no point in lying.  "I'm running somewhat low on the powerful memories, yes, but I'm far from out."
"Need new experiences."  He waved at the town.  "Love place.  Love people.  Shows in voice, walk.  Basquan eventually kill everyone, burn town.  Need power."
"How do you know what I need?  You've never stayed in one place for more than a week, and even then you've been free to do whatever you wanted to whoever you pleased.  I've got a good thing here, and I'm not about to go and die.  These people need me.  Janine needs me.  Maybe I can't summon up an efriti lord or a windstorm, but I have enough memories stored to keep the Basquan at bay."  I didn't have to take the magetest.  There were other ways to protect the town.
He looked amused.  "Afraid."
"Damned right I'm afraid!  I've seen decent wizards come out of their Trials as drooling idiots.  And not just wizards.  You remember Linim?  Killed the first day!  And Ranhammon—Is this sinking in?  There's nothing there for me to gain, only to lose!"  I was shaking, and my voice had risen to a shout.  
Steady pounding rang from Kandabar's anvil.
Of course, I had a great deal to gain from going on the magetest, but I could lose my life.
Kalan thought for a moment.  "All right.  Understand.  Tired.  Rest?"
I felt drained.  He wasn't going to push any harder than this?  I nodded.  "Of course.  We'll feed you, give you a place to sleep, whatever you need.  I want to know where you've been the last few years.  You're not disowned, for Utu's sake.  Come on, let's get out of the heat."  We headed back.  He'd be leaving soon, of course, or in the morning at latest.  He never stayed more than one night.   
Janine didn't come to greet us as we entered, and from her workroom I heard glass crunching.  I hung my hat on its peg.
"Still make glass sculptures?" Kalan asked, looking up the stairs.
"Yes.  She trades some of them to the caravan master and keeps some.  She collects glass from some ruins a few miles southeast of here and grinds the pieces up and melts them.  She's grinding now."
He nodded and began looking around.  
"No one knew where you'd gone to or what you were doing," I said quickly.  If he was bored there was no telling what he would do to make excitement.  I'd hoped he'd come in and go to sleep and give Janine and me a chance to talk, but it didn't look like he was going to cooperate.
"Travelling," he said and grinned.  "With actors!  Played dšck‡lf."  He laughed until he had to stop to catch his breath.  
His laughter was contagious, it was so delighted, and I laughed with him.  I tossed him a pillow and knelt on another.  "You were an actor?"  
"Yes.  Eighteen human actors, me.  Never treated bad."  
"I'll bet."  One glance, and any human in his right mind would bow and scrape.  Or hide.  "Where?"
He waved dismissively.  "Decadurinis, Quan Tan Eb, Varin...  Not Balon.  Nasty.  Saw palaces, satraps, viziers, masters, mages, healers, sheiks.  Important people.  Fun."
I laughed.  "Remember the sheik in—"
"Tired now," he said and flopped down on the divan.
I was startled and said nothing for a moment.  Damn, his moods changed quickly.  "There's a guest room upstairs."
"Fine here," he said.  He rolled onto his side, facing away from me, and, as if struck by an afterthought, reached down and took his shoes off and dropped them on the floor.  
I went into the kitchen for some water.  There were no dogs playing in the yard now, only an empty town.  Waiting for Kalan to leave.  Waiting for me to decide.  
"He looks so innocent when he sleeps," Janine said quietly behind me.  I gasped and almost dropped the dipper.
She stepped up to me, put her arms around my waist and laid her head on my shoulder.  "He brings out that boy in you who likes to run around and play wizard," she said.
"He's been travelling with actors," I said.  "I'll bet he has great stories."
"I'm sure he does."  She squeezed me tightly.  "I'm afraid."
I turned and kissed her forehead.  I felt like picking her up and running over the hills into the deep desert or to Blackstone, anywhere.  "So am I.  I wish I knew what was best."
She was silent.
I stroked her hair.  "You've waited a long time, I know.  I'm sorry.  If any of the choices were even a little palatable I'd already have chosen.  But they're all hideous."
I felt her sigh.  Then she stepped back.  "Come upstairs," she said with a mischievous look.
"What?"
"Come on, while he's sleeping."  
I followed her upstairs to her workroom.  The air was filled with fine particles of dust from her grinding, giving the room an odd tangy smell that I liked because it was a smell that I'd only known here, in her place.  I could see the little glass pieces, Kandabar and a hummbird and a house and the beginnings of two dogs chasing each other in a circle, all carefully set on cloth.  
She closed the door and put her arms around me, looking at my face.  I could see worry and something else—  
"Ummm," I said as I realized what the something else was.  "I'm not at all in the—"
"Shhh," she said.  She kissed me.
I felt a faint, pleasant stirring, but it hardly seemed the time.  "Kalan's down there," I said.  "I don't know what's going to happen.  I—"  
She slipped her candis over her head and pressed against me, kissing my neck.  Her skin was flushed and faintly scented.  
I grinned.  "You're determined, aren't you?"  Utu shone through the skylight.  She didn't like making love in the heat, but I did.  She was doing this the way I liked.  As she moved I saw her breasts shifting and the sweet curves of her hips.  I pulled my candis off and tossed it aside.  The loincloth followed.  She stepped up to me, and I put my hands on her hips, loosening her waistcloth.  It fell away.  I could feel the smoothness of her skin pressed against mine, her firm body.  I nibbled her ear, and she laughed. 
Then she pushed away a little, and her face was serious.  "If you go you might never come back," she said, and she put a finger to my mouth as I started to protest.  "You know I'm right.  If you don't come back I want at least our baby.  If you stay we're just starting what we both want."  She hesitated.
"Yes, it's what I want," I said.  I pulled her against me.  
She tickled my thigh with her fingers, and I stopped talking.

Later we lay together out of the light.  I felt pleased and satisfied with her and myself and whatever was ahead.  
She patted my exhausted member.  "One little squirt for you, one big step for our family," she said with a grin, and I burst out laughing.  
She smiled.  "I'm glad you can laugh," she said.  "It's been a long time since I've heard you  laugh."  Then she snuggled close, and I held her.  Her familiar smell and the feel of her comforted me deep into the afternoon.

When we went down Kalan was still asleep.
"I'm going to start dinner," Janine said.  "It'll take a while for the lamb to cook.  Help me?"
"Of course," I said.   
"I'll need vegetables to go with the lamb.  A melon would be nice for desert."  She left, headed to one of the shepherd's to barter for the lamb.   
I dug up potatoes, carrots, onions.  Since I didn't know whether I'd get back to the garden that evening I gave my plants their evening watering.  Finally I plucked a fat melon off its vine.  
By the time I went in Janine was back.  I set the melon in a bucket of fresh-drawn water so it would be cold by the time we ate it.  She chopped the lamb into hunks, and I cleaned the vegetables.  While the stew cooked we sat in silence.  The strain was back.  
Just as the stew was done Kalan came into the kitchen.  "Smells good," he said, and he licked his lips.  "Long time since lamb."
"There's a basin over there," Janine said.  He washed up and went to the table.  I ladled bowlfuls of stew.  Kalan was right:  the smell was strong, rich.  My mouth watered.  Chunks of meat floated with the vegetables.  Flecks of pepper floated in the broth, and I'd seen her sprinkle in precious salt several times.  Janine had spared nothing.  Of course.  It could be my last meal with her—I strangled the thought.
"Wine?" she asked Kalan.
"Please."  
She poured Varinian Red, also cooled in cold water.  "Be back in a minute."  She went through the living room toward our room.  I set the stew on the table and proudly pointed out my contribution.  
"The carrots were the hardest to grow since they have the deepest roots.  The ground was hard, and I had to work sand and manure into it.  You'd be surprised how long it takes to work it in a foot or two."
"Hmm.  Could collate with layering spell." 
"We do most of our work with our own hands, Kalan."  Janine sat down.  She had slipped on the dress he had given her, and he whistled appreciatively.  I remembered the first time she had worn that dress, in Blackstone.  Candlelit dinner, a young wizard amusing us with spells, Decadurinian Blue wine.  The dress was a good imitation.
"Remens greets," Kalan said.  "Wonders if coming."
"Me, too," I said, trying to make it a joke, but neither of them laughed.  Inwardly I winced.  
He looked at us both for a moment and then laughed.  "Stiff!" he said.  "Like Satrap in Esqibo, when played Amailico."
"What?" Janine asked.  She sat facing slightly away from us, and I knew she was anxious and distracted.  
"Was in play for Satrap of Esqibo, with actors," he said.  "Played Amailico, dšck‡lf master, fighting human wizards at First Academy.  Old play."
I vaguely remembered the play.  "Didn't the human masters win that fight?"
He shrugged.  "Six against one.  Anyway, Satrap slob.  Food all over, garbage in palace.  Pet dog kept interrupting play."  He took a sip of wine and started eating again.
"So?" Janine prompted.  She'd stopped eating and was waiting for him to go on with the tale.  
He hadn't lost his touch for storytelling.
"So...conjured on pipes, and dogs came.  All dogs, whole city."  He grinned.  "Were in big hall, marble, nobles everywhere, servants...  Dogs ran through palace, jumped on guests, chased Satrap, ate food, barked, and pissed on drapes!"  Now he laughed, and Janine and I joined him.  I pictured hundreds of dogs running amok in a palace, jumping up on tables and spreading fleas to noble guests, with Kalan presiding over the whole mess.  I supposed the acting troupe had left that city quickly.
We finished dinner and sat back, Kalan telling us stories from his travels with the actors and reminding me of events and people I'd forgotten.  
"There was the time you let the djinni loose in Shelby's class, remember that?" I asked.
"Ha!  Chased Alibul all over!  Broke Meejad's sulphur gas bottle!"  He turned to Janine.  "Conjured little djinni..."
Utu sank faster than I expected, and I relaxed.  In a few more hours it would all be over.  It might be over already.  It would take an hour or more to get to the Academy even by magic, and once we were there it would take time for the Masters' Council to decide what our Trial would be and prepare us.  But it didn't matter.  I wasn't going back to the Academy.  Not for Kalan, not for anything.  Our love-making had sealed my decision.  We'd find other ways to defend the town.
"Adventure any more?" he asked me.  
“No.  Things are quiet here.  I got enough adventuring during our two years.” 
"Last chance replenish stored memories, last fun..."  He smiled.  "Excitement!  Efrit, djinn, Satraps, dogs, gold, diamonds, emeralds!"
"Wild women,” Janine added.  
"Yes!  And wine!"
"And song," I said.  I pictured it, an adventure like the old days, in a foreign land with new customs where two wizards could find some excitement—But this was a Trial, not an adventure.  There was no telling what they'd ask us to do.
He laughed.  "Week, maybe two.  Then no more Basquan problems.  Town safe."
"It’s safe now," I said.
He rested his head on his hands and yawned.  "Then why no babies?"  
Janine stiffened and then speared a carrot slice and ate it.  "We've been waiting," she said.  "Waiting until this Trial date was over and we knew nothing would happen to Zahid."
"Who will defend town?" he pressed.
"The technocrat," I said.  "And the villagers."
"Boy," he snorted.  "Saw in window.  Trust boy with babies?"
The resolve I'd found faded.  Astapha was only eighteen.  He could leave as easily as he'd come, with the next caravan, leaving us no way to get tech weapons or learn to use them.  We'd be defenseless.  Damn Kalan for picking up on my doubts!  Damn this decision!  I glanced outside at the stars.  They shone clear above the valley.  It didn't matter.  Even if we left now, it was too late.  I'd made my choice by refusing to make it.  We'd have to take our chances here, and to Hells with the Academy, the Masters' Council and the magetest.  
I felt suddenly tense.  This was a poor way to make such an important decision.  "It doesn't matter," I said.  "We don't have enough time to get to the Academy and be prepared for the Trial, even if we fly."
"So boy will defend town?"
"We'll work it out," I said, but I felt uneasy.  I stored the rush of emotion:
A vision of Cerry flashes through my mind, her six-year-old body hacked almost beyond recognition, and I shudder.  What am I doing?  Dear Utu, am I letting these people's future be determined by the whims of a boy technocrat?  
I drove the memory deep into my Memory Sea.  
"He could leave," Kalan said.
"It'll work out!" I shouted, half-rising out of my seat.  
Janine didn't move.  "What are you up to, Kalan?" she asked.
"It's all right," I said to her.  "It's too late."
"Not too late," Kalan said.  
I stiffened.  It was over.  Over!
"See."  He closed his eyes and clapped his hands together.  I felt dizzy for a moment, and I heard the sound of glass shattering far away.  Suddenly there was more light, as if Utu had only just set.  As if there were hours left to this day.
"Illusion," Kalan said.  "Made night seem fall faster.  Plenty time.  New memories, new spells.  Protect town.  Protect wife.  Have babies.  Go!  Now!"
I captured:
"Janine, I—Kalan..."  I start to laugh but choke instead.  Hafar and Janine and the tekkie and Kalan; the Masters' Council, magetest, more power, Cerry's body.  Janine, our baby—all the babies in Hafar, and families like the one we want—They depend on me.
I saved the precious energy.
Staring at the table, I swallowed.  My voice was strangled.  "If I stay, I'll—"  I cleared my throat.  "I'll know I had this chance to replenish myself and didn't take it.  Every time the Basquan kill somebody the valley people will blame me, and I'll blame myself.  I won't run back to Blackstone.  I can't let the safety of these people, of our family, ride on a boy, a technocrat."  I could barely speak. 
Kalan howled triumph.  He jumped out of the chair and headed out the door.  
Janine's face was composed, but the corners of her mouth twitched.  "You're not leaving until we talk," she said.
I nodded.
"I remember how Kalan is with his flashy spells and his kill-them-before-they-kill-you attitude.  I don't know what the Masters' Council will do to you, but I know it'll be bad."
"Janine—"
"No.  Listen."  She went into our room and returned with my turban, with its bright fire opal mounted to the front.  For a moment she stared at the gem, biting her lip, and then she handed it to me.  "I know you'll be careful.  I know you aren't leaving for good.  The only reason I'm not giving you all kinds of Hells right now is because of that last raid.  The next one might be worse.  More people will die like Cerry.  I don't want our children killed like that.  Please be careful."
"I will."  I put on the turban.  I wore it often to impress the valley people, but this time it felt different.  When the Basquan came I was confident that we'd drive them back.  This time I might actually need the protection powers of the opal.  For a moment I wavered, leaning forward to kiss her, praying she'd ask me to stay—
"He's waiting," she said.  She kissed me and stepped back.  
"Love you," I said.  I dragged one rooted foot forward, then the other.
"Love you, too," she said.
I went outside.    


II



Kalan stood on the hill to the west of the house, smiling tightly.  "Watch."  He pulled two incense sticks out of deep pockets in his candis and lit them by pointing at them.  They smelled of pine needles, which I had smelled twice in my life.  He chanted something quickly and stuck the incense into the hill.  A slight breeze rustled grass and shrubs and brought valley smells:  crops, cooking fires, brackish irrigation water, sheep dung.  Then the air started to crackle.  Tingles ran up and down my back.  Kalan made slow whooshing sounds.  From the hills at the edge of the deep desert came the pounding of hooves.  The sounds became louder, and I could make out three different cadences.  But I saw nothing.  
"Kalan, I hear—"
"Shhh," he said, eyes closed.  He whispered words in High Cerelian, the dšck‡lf tongue.  
The hoofbeats were in the town now, but still I saw no dust and no animals.  What was he summoning?  No one was throwing open windows, though, and I wondered if anyone else could hear the sounds.  
Sand flew up, and I jumped back.  "What in Utu's—"  The air in front of me shimmered like a heat-mirage.  A creature slowly formed from wisps of mist.  Standing before me was a horse, milky white and so insubstantial that I saw Kalan through it.  Another stood next to him.  When the one next to me looked at me I saw that it was more than a beast.  Its yellow eyes were alert, focused intently.
"Mist horses, Zahid.  Djinn-folk.  Good connections, remember?"  He didn't wait for an answer and vaulted onto one of the creatures.  As soon as he was settled a third beast appeared, this one with a rider which was also insubstantial.  It looked something like a man, but taller and thinner, stretched out, as if it was from the sky and not the earth.  It was wrapped in mist-cloth like a dead body is wrapped in the south lands, and over these wrappings it wore a hooded travelling cloak.  Its eyes were hidden.
It pointed at Kalan, then me.  Its voice was a wheeze I could barely understand.  "Standard fee for you, Mage Korin-Kalan.  Extra for having to take a human through the mist lands."
"Understand, Lord Huurhizzzwee.  Soon."
"What—"  I stopped myself.  Did I really want to know what the standard payment was?  Even the djinn-folk, friendly to humans, could exact strange prices for their help, service and slavery among them.  I started to pull myself up the side of my mount, and it sank to its knees and allowed me to mount easily.  I grabbed hold of its mane and gasped at the coldness of its hair.  
"Thank you," I told it.  It whinnied and rose.  The leader's mount turned and raced east, toward Blackstone, and Kalan's beast followed.  Mine waited for me to adjust my weight.  It was like balancing on a huge pillow.  
Our house was dark, and I couldn't see Janine at the doorway or the windows.  I looked around for the other two horses, which had faded away.  Did they enter some other land when they rode?  I looked back at the house.  Janine would be fine.  And Kalan was right:  the magetest would only take a week, maybe two.  It wasn't that long.  Finally I felt ready, and I tightened my legs against its body.  "Ready," I said.  It pranced to one side, and I laughed.  Then it trotted after its kin.  In moments it started galloping and snorting long jets of steam.  
Air rushed past my face, chilling my ears and nose.  I hunched closer to the beast, but that was no help since its body was colder than the air.  The land moved past quickly and seemed to be fading as if thick mist was covering everything. 
I had never ridden before, though I had seen nobles riding chargers when I was a boy.  This beast was larger than any horse I had ever seen.  Its hooves made pounding sounds, but I couldn't feel the shocks.  Wind raced past.  I stored the experience:
The wind pulls tears from my eyes.  These creatures are fast!  Muscles ripple under my legs, bunch up—It leaps a churning whirlwind.  My jaws gnash as we hit.  Utu, these are creatures fit to pull you across the sky!  
I dropped it into my Memory Sea.  
Now the mist was so thick I saw nothing beyond two or three feet.  The beasts had slid into their own plane.  What would happen if I fell off?  Would I be stranded in this place?  Better not to find out.  
My mount slowly caught up to the others and pulled alongside Kalan's.
"I could get used to this!" I shouted.
He grinned and stroked his mount's ears.  Strands of mist or hair trailed off the horse.  "Fun!"  He turned to the horseman and yelled something.  That creature turned toward us and spoke.  I heard its voice, like pieces of paper sliding together, perfectly well.
"An hour of your time, a bit more.  Entertain me, and we shall go faster.  Otherwise my mind may wander..."
Kalan smiled.  "Know bribe when hear one."  He turned to me.  "Entertain?"
"All right.  My stock of tales from Hafar is pretty dull, though, standard desert yarns.  How about an actual memory?"
The wind-lord nodded and wheezed, "Yes.  Mage Korin-Kalan often entertains me with such.  It fascinates me that a human man and a dšck‡lf can flourish together.  Show me how you met."
I smiled at "flourish together."  Where was this creature from?  "That's on old memory.  It may be a little hazy."
It waved one hand, which I took to mean it didn't mind.
"Help?" Kalan asked.
"No, I've got it."  I swam carefully through my Memory Sea, seeking the old memory.  It wasn't specially stored, since that event had taken place before I'd had my wizard training.  It took long minutes to find it.  
My hands shaped a picture-sphere so that they could see what I was remembering.  "You can hear my thoughts of the time as whispers—"
"I know how such magic works, Wizard Zahid."
"This is it, then."  Focus, get the picture clear...
We're packed into the big auditorium like fleas on a camel, and there're no chairs.  There must be two or three hundred kids here, all talking and moving around.  Who are all these people?  There can't be this many people wanting to be wizards.  I don't see anyone I know.  This place is big!  There's so much glass in these windows, it must have taken magic to make them.  It smells funny in here, like wood that's old and dry.  Stinky, too. 
I can't see anything, darn it.  The kid in front of me is too tall.  He's got to be twelve or thirteen.  I poke him on the butt.  "Move, okay?"
He turns around.  He looks mad.  "What's the matter with you, kid?"
I didn't do anything bad!  "I can't see."  
"Oh, sorry."  He moves a little.  "Hey.  I'm Linim Shelen, from Decadurinis."  He puts his hand out.  What's that supposed to mean?  
"Uh, hi.  Zahid Irsinmantal.  From here in Atlan, from Satrap Buranzal's palace."  I put my fist out, I don't know what else to do.  He's looking at me funny.
"Oh, got you.  What's your dad, a warrior?"  He closes his hand and hits me on top of my fist.  I hit his back, and he grins.  "Nope, you've got it wrong for warrior, sure do.  Warriors try to bust each other's hand, none of this baby stuff."  He smacks his fist into his palm, hard.  A couple of other kids see him and move away.  Wow!
"The Satrap always meets people like that, so I just kind of thought—"
"Got you, yeah.  You must be from way out there.  Huh."  He shakes his head like I'm kind of stupid.
"You're going to be a wizard?"  That was dumb.  Why else would he be here?
"Sure.  Looks easy, you know?  My dad's paying for everything.  Then I'll go back home and be the family wizard.  Who you serving?"
"Satrap Buranzal," I say and feel warm all over.  "He's paying for me.  When I finish I'm going to go back to the Eastern Reach and be the wizard there.  I'll have my own room and get to tell fortunes and tell the Satrap what to do!"  
He laughs.  "Right.  Well, you're still little..."
You're making fun of me.  I don't like you at all.
"Hey, don't worry about it.  I didn't mean anything.  I'll bet you make a great wizard.  Funny they sent you so young, though.  How old are you?"
"Eight.  I'm not that little." 
"Huh.  Only a couple kids here your age.  Why'd your folks send you so early?"
I look around.  He's right, there aren't too many other kids my age.  Weird.  "I don't have parents.  I did, but they died when I was four.  A lot of people did.  Everyone was sick.  It was really bad."  My stomach starts hurting.  "The Satrap's wizard said I have something in me that would make me a good wizard, so the Satrap sent me here.  He was kind of my Dad after my real Dad died.  He told me it was real important to study hard and come home as soon as I could."  I feel warm again.
"Yeah, I'll bet."  He looks like he ate something sour.  What's wrong with him?
"Hey, look over there."  He points toward the front, where some steps go up to a platform.  Someone's put a speaking-box up there, but no one's near it.    
"So what?  It's an old box."
"No, sitting in front of the podium.  A dšck‡lf.  Too short, huh?  Here."  He picks me up by my waist and holds me high.  
"I don't see any—Oh, there it is."  A dšck‡lf!  But it's just a kid.  I never thought of a dšck‡lf kid before.  "Is it a boy or a girl?  I can't tell."
" 'Course not.  They all look alike to us humans.  What color's its hair, can you tell?"
"I can't see that good—wait, it's looking at me—uh, black."  It's walking back and forth like Fury when he's caged.  "Let me down, Linim, I don't like the way it's staring at me."    
He drops me down real fast.  "Black hair, that's a boy.  Silver or white's a girl.  That's how you tell them apart.  When they're kids, anyway.  It's easier when they're older."  He grins.  
What's that supposed to mean?  
"Never mind, you're too young.  Come on, let's get up there and talk to him."
"What?  He'll fry you or something!  Let's stay back here and see what he does."
"And let someone else make friends with him first?  Didn't you ever want to meet a dšck‡lf?  Never get a better chance than now."   
"Dšck‡lfs are dangerous.  The Satrap's the bravest man I know, and he's scared of them."
"Come on, don't be a loser."  He heads toward the stage.
"I'm not a loser!"  I head after him. 
He walks right up to the dšck‡lf.  "Hey, how you doing?  I'm Linim, and this is Zahid.  He's a good kid.  What's your name?"  He puts a fist out.
The dšck‡lf's eyes are slanted like that girl the Satrap keeps hidden in the palace.  But he isn't wearing armor and stuff like the dšck‡lfs who came to see the Satrap.  Wonder what that means?  Nobody else is close to him.  Everybody's staring at us.
He looks at Linim.  "Human scum.  Move or die."  He looks away from us.  
I step back.  Linim stands there for a second, and then he looks real mad.  
"Linim, he doesn't want to talk.  Let's go talk to somebody else." 
Linim puts his hand down and shakes his head.  "We're the two guys who're going to make things happen, you hear?  That's a bad way to make friends, don't you know."  
"Said move.  Obey."  The dšck‡lf lifts a finger toward Linim.  Something shoots out of it and knocks Linim back into me.  He's hollering and thrashing all over, and other kids are looking— 
"You goat!  What did you do?"  The dšck‡lf ignores me.  I help Linim up.  His belly's bleeding like someone rubbed sand all over it for a long time, and his candis is ripped up.  He's madder than a djinni in a rusted lamp, and crying like a baby.  
"It's okay, Linim, are you all right?  Linim?  Somebody help him!  Where are you all going?"  Everybody is moving away from us.
Linim wipes his eyes on his sleeve.  "Come on, Zahid, let's get out of here."  We move away  from the dšck‡lf.
"You okay?"
"Yeah.  It felt like wasps.  See all the little bites?"  He rubs his eyes.  "Gotta stop this stupid crying before all these kids think—You think I'm a loser?"
"What?  No!  You took that spell like a real wizard.  I've never seen anything like that before.  Why do you suppose he's here if he can already do spells?"  
"ATTENTION, POTENTIAL STUDENTS."  We both jump.  Some man is at the podium, all dressed in bright colors.  He must be an important wizard to have so many colors on at once.  I hope he doesn't see me.  All the noise stops. 
"Excellent.  You know why you are here.  If you have doubts, this is the time to leave.  For many of you there will be no turning back by the time I am finished."  
Everybody stays really still.
"Very well.  I am Instructor Ranhammon.  That is the name you will address me by.  Failure will result in a painful reminder to watch your manners.  The other Instructors feel the same, so I suggest you learn names and titles quickly.  My title is Master Efritologist."
"Hey, Linim, why's his mouth twisted down like that?"  
He hits me with his elbow, and I shut up.  What'd I say?
"During the next ten to fifteen years you are expected to learn all you can and to survive that learning process.  You will be taught the theories and principles of magic, its laws and properties, and its practical uses.  At every major juncture you will be tested to ensure that only the competent pass on.  Those who survive their failures may relearn their lessons and try again."  He looks back and forth at us.  "There are one hundred and seventy of you here.  Fewer than eighty will graduate."  
A girl tries to push closer to the stage, and he stares at her until she stands still and puts her head down.  Why did he do that?  She didn't do anything bad.
"Later in your lives you may return to the Academy for further training and earn the titles of Mage and perhaps Master.  Very few wizards ever achieve Master ranking.  
"You are class 2104, starting instruction in the year 20,450 Since Creation.  If you use any other calendar, relearn your time increments."
"Linim, what did he mean before, 'if' we survive the tests?"
"Shhh.  Listen."
"This class has been honored by the Seligari Mage Guild with one of their Potentials who has come to learn magic the human way.  Potential Korin-Kalan, please stand."
The dšck‡lf stands and glares at all of us.  His hands are fists.  What's wrong with him?
"You will address Potential Korin-Kalan as Majester Korin, which is his title and family name. He already has some training, as some of you have learned."  
He's looking at us!  I didn't do anything, it was Linim's stupid idea.  I didn't mean that, Linim!
"In a moment you will be taken to your quarters and assigned rooms.  From there you will go to an introductory class.  Then you will be released to move your personal belongings to your rooms.  Instruction begins tomorrow.  Questions?"
I'm not saying anything!  No one moves.  Good, let's go.  I don't like this man.
"Excellent.  Since there are no questions, here is your first test."  He raises his arms and chants something.  What's he doing?  
The room is spinning—I see fire on the roof—We're all falling—
"No, stop this!  I want out of here!"   Can't stay on my feet—
Something is pounding my head.
"Too late, too late..."  "Sweetmeats..."  "Some boy-flesh would be nice..."  
"Who is that?  Who's talking?"
"Only us, boy, just the efrit.  Time to die, boy, you'll never make wizard..." 
Can't see anything someone is screaming kids are falling all over the place Instructor Ranhammon is chanting so loud it sounds like thunder—Wings I see wings "Stop hitting my head!"
	
The floor is black with little green flecks in it like the bathroom at the palace.  My head hurts so bad I can't move.  
Help me up, somebody help me up!  Why are you doing this to us?  I can't even whisper.  Are you all right, Linim?  Hey, I can't see you breathing.  Linim?
"This one's dead too, Ranhammon.  Looks like your efrit got seven souls so far."
"Excellent.  What about this one, the one the dšck‡lf got to?"
"Gone.  Poor child.  What an expression.  That's eight...  I'm lodging a complaint with the Masters' Council.  These initiation rites are unnecessarily brutal."
"You'd rather have weaklings learn the arts?  You know what happens when insufficient wills attempt to control efrit.  If we don't cull the weak psyches before they get that training, there would constantly be incidents."
"There has to be a more humane way to test them than this."
"You can't see a weak mind, Remens.  You know that.  You can only hit these potentials hard and see who bounces back."  
Someone pokes me with a sandal.  I want to get up and run away, but I can't move.
"What about this one?"
Don't feed me to the efrit, I'm okay.  I just can't move!  
Someone bends over me.  "He made it.  Looks like he'll be paralyzed a while, though.  I'll have him taken to a room."  
Get away from me, I want to go home.  Send me home!
"Let me see him."
Someone lifts me and shoves me into the Instructor's face.  He's ugly like a snake, like someone beat him with a club when he was a kid.  You're ugly, I hate you!  He must be Ceretesian.  They're all efrit-lovers, the Satrap says.  I shut my eyes.  
"He won't last long.  He doesn't look healthy.  Put him with the dšck‡lf.  Perhaps that will amuse him for a while."
Whoever is holding me whistles, and someone else comes and takes me.  
Put me down!  What are you doing?  Don't put me with that crazy dšck‡lf!  
"Don't squirm, kid, or we won't make it all the way to the quarters, hear me?  There's a lot of things can happen to new meat before it checks in.  Now stay still."
This is a bad place.  I hate this place.  I want to go home.
Whoever is carrying me throws me over one shoulder like a sack of dates so all I can see is his blue candis.  People are laughing at us.  I must look like a real loser.
I start crying.  What happened to you, Linim?  The efrit didn't take your soul, did they?
We go into a big building full of shouting kids.  He takes me down the hall.  I can wiggle my fingers, but I'm not moving a muscle till he tells me to. 
"Good luck."  He laughs and throws me into a hammock and leaves.  I manage to turn my head.  The dšck‡lf is watching me, smiling.  He looks like Fury, the Satrap's hunting dog, with his teeth showing like that.  
"Never make it, human."
Satrap Buranzalllllll—!
The memory faded.  My chest constricted as I remembered Linim.  The efrit did get his soul, and the souls of all the children who died in the initiation rites.  How many over the years?  
Kalan laughed.  "Scared!"
"It wasn't funny at the time.  I thought you were going to kill me.  Those first weeks were rough."
The wind-lord made a sound like a sneeze.  "Hmm.  Forgive my intrusion, Mage Korin-Kalan, but why did you spare this human?"
"Don't know."  He shrugged.  "Too harmless."
"Fortunately for me."
"Yes."  He laughed again.
"And do you now serve the Satrap Buranzal?" the wind-lord asked me.
Again the pain in my chest.  "No.  He was assassinated during my last year at the Academy.  The Great Council appointed another Satrap."
"And you did not owe allegiance to the new Satrap?"
"No.  The scribes found that Buranzal was paying my way out of private funds, so technically I didn't owe allegiance to the new Satrap.  He made me an offer to serve him, but I couldn't accept.  I couldn't bear going back to the Eastern Reach after Buranzal was killed."
"Wouldn't want to anyway," Kalan said.  "Deep desert boring."
I smiled.  Some things seemed immune to change.  Kalan was always looking for action.
During the time I'd been showing the memory we'd come out of the mist-plane into our world.  We raced past buildings and over short stretches of grass, cutting through Blackstone to reach the Academy a few miles to the east of the city.  Our mounts grew tattered around the edges, and I could no longer see their breath.  I noticed that my horse had warmed up during our run, and I was no longer shivering.  The beast smelled faintly of musk and sweat, pleasant smells that made me sleepy.  
The wind-lord said, "Thank you for the history."
"You're welcome.  Thank you for carrying us."  
The beasts slowed down, and we found ourselves among the hulking silhouettes of the Academy buildings.  Kalan leapt off his horse.  Mine knelt, and I slid off.  It nuzzled my neck and snorted in my ear, and I laughed at the tickling.
The mist-horses faded, and we were left standing on grass.  Somewhere close by a bird chirped, disturbed by our arrival.  What did it think, seeing the two of us ride in on what must look to it like clouds?  
"Which building?" I asked.
"New one."  He pointed toward a dimly-lit building of black glass a hundred yards away. 
"It's ugly."
We walked over in silence.  I remembered ceremonies, parties, other students who I hadn't seen in ten years.  There was the Efritology building where Master Ranhammon spent his time coming up with ways for ruining lives.  We walked through the quad that had been our classroom on pleasant spring and summer days.  Over there was the Hall of Physiological Studies, where Remens delved into the energies derived from joy in the body.  I expected nostalgia, a slightly lost feeling, but it didn't surface.  I'd never felt at home here.  It had always seemed temporary.  It was only a place.
Were the same masters still teaching?  I hoped we'd meet Remens before the Trial.  He'd been my teacher, father and friend during my schooling.  I still applied his teachings to my life.  What had happened during the time I'd been away?  The campus hadn't changed much that I could see, maybe not at all.  Who was on the Masters' Council now?  I realized the time we'd spent riding on the mist-horses could have been put to better use than remembering old events.  But, then, Kalan was always close with information.  He probably wouldn't have told me anything.  
The stars were bright little points overhead, and I could still pick out the Rabbit, Shebayan's Hand, Fadrian's Spear—Fadrian's Prick we called it when we were fourteen, when having a big one seemed important.  I smiled again.
A young voice drifted across the quad, from a dorm I assumed.  "What's the fourth S?"
I almost said, "Shatter the memory to release its energy."  That was a young one, still learning the five S's:  Smash an experience into a special memory, Store it in the Memory Sea, Search for it when you need it, Shatter it to release its energy, and Shape its energy into magic. 
For a moment I felt dizzy, as if nothing had changed and no time had passed.  All the hours of reading, writing, researching in the library, doing projects, travelling, came flooding back in a wave that engulfed me for a moment.  Was Janine in Hafar, waiting, or were Kalan and I preparing to travel together for two years?  Or was I just arriving at the Academy for the first time?  My heart pounded.  I remembered learning the five S's and so much more.  Where were our classmates now?  Probably spread throughout the human kingdoms, serving nobles, working independently.  
If being here was having any effect on Kalan he didn't mention it.  Of course, he'd have come and gone since we graduated, so it wasn't affecting him as much.
A shadowy man stepped from the larger shadow of the building as we approached.  He was swathed in jet tunic and trousers, peasant-style but much richer, and wore soft black boots stitched with yellow threads in elaborate geometric patterns.  
"Remens," I said.  I felt my muscles relax and realized I'd been tense since I'd left home only a little more than an hour before.  I stuck my fist toward him.
He hit it, and I struck his in return.  "Mage Korin-Kalan, we're expecting you.  Wizard Zahid, an unexpected pleasure.  I wish we could talk, but it will take time for the Masters' Council to prepare you.  Please, if you'll come this way."  He turned and strode rapidly into the ugly building.  We followed.  
The building was glass, too dark to see through.  I loathed it.  This was a place where lives were decided.  Inside the doorway I hesitated.  Once I entered I wouldn't back out.  Hells, it was already too late.  It had been too late when Kalan came.  Remens glanced back and motioned for me to hurry.  Kalan took off after him, making faces at the mirrors.  I looked back at the damp grass and trees one more time and entered.  The doorway disappeared.  My palms started sweating.  Ah, Utu, if only I didn't have to do this thing—But I did have to. 
The hall was mirrored with smoky glass that made it look as if we were walking with ghosts.  All surfaces—walls, ceiling, and floor—were glass.  Light shone from behind certain panels and diffused the hall.  I didn't see any doors.  I half-ran and caught up to Kalan and Remens at the end of the hall, where a short flight of stairs went down.  Kalan leaped and flipped, landing like a cat at the bottom.  Neither of us paid him any attention.
"All our testing happens here now, instead of at each specialty building.  Saves a lot of wear and tear on individual departments and frees up room for other projects.  You noticed the lack of doors?  To enter a room for testing you have to be let in by a master.  We seem to think of security a lot these days.  When the test is over, the participant is let or carried out by that same master.  Much more efficient this way."
"I'm sure."  I paused for a moment, trying to phrase my question carefully.  How had he changed since I'd left?  "Why did the Council send you in to bring us in?"  
"They didn't send me.  I volunteered.  Ranhammon wanted to meet you, but I thought it would be less of a shock if I was your reintroduction to the Masters' Council.  Besides, I have a personal interest in your Trial."
"What would that be?"
A disgusted look flashed over his face.  "Council rules don't allow me to discuss that with you."
His formality made me more nervous.  We turned a corner, and I sucked in my breath.  Along the walls of the corridor were shelves lined with memory spheres, glass bubbles about a handspan across, each of which had been imprinted with a particular memory.  Each sphere glowed as it displayed whatever event filled it.  Anyone walking down the hall could find a scene and view the memory it contained.  
"Amazing," I said, wishing there was time to peer into all of them.  Which had been selected for this place?  Whose memories were they?
"Ah, you like the Hall of Memories.  Headmaster Alhambad's idea.  There are three hundred memories here."  He hastened down a second flight of steps.  
I wished I had time to gaze at the memories, but we had to hurry on.  
The stairway was a narrow spiral hacked out of the rock and descended fifty or sixty feet and ended at a small room.  I blinked rapidly and let my eyes focus.  The room was chilly and was dimly lit by flames from two shining brass braziers.  It was about thirty feet to a side and twelve feet high.  All the surfaces were bare rock, rough-cut, the chisel marks showing.  Kalan and Remens had stopped in front of me and were facing forward to where four masters sat on a high bench made of wood—teak, I think—like a judge's bench.  The wood gave off a faint smell that helped calm me.  
"I bring before the Masters' Council Mage Korin-Kalan and Wizard Zahid Irsinmantal," Remens said.  He turned to us.  "Thank you for coming, Wizard Zahid."  He left us to climb two stairs and assume his seat on the left side of the bench.  Then he pulled his hood up so we couldn't see his face.
I swallowed.  They were going to get rough.
The bench bore silver placards in front of each master, giving their names and titles.
Remens' read, "Master Remens," and, under that, "Master of Physiology."
Next to him sat a woman who I did not know.  She was a stately woman in her mid-thirties with short, black hair and piercing brown eyes.  Her skin was a creamy tan like coffee with milk in it.  Around her throat was a short necklace of rough turquoise, pale blue against her skin.  Her eyes went from me to Kalan and came back to me.  She reminded me of a jaguar, sleek and strong and sure of herself, and I was certain she was every bit as dangerous as she looked.  Her robes were dark blue with three yellow slashes on each sleeve, which meant honors had been conferred her by the Masters' Council before she'd become a member.  I didn't know what kind of honors or how she'd gotten them.  Her placard read, "Master Coronta, Master of Storms."  A weather-witch.  What kind of Trial would she want to send us on?
In the center sat the head of the Council, Master Alhambad of Tropin, an arrow of a man in black and red robes.  His face and scalp were smooth-shaven, his face narrow.  His skin was stretched tight, highlighting his sixty-plus years.  His eyeglasses, rectangular lenses set in thin steel frames, made him look even more severe.  He touched his fingertips together and looked at us without expression.  In all the years at the Academy I'd only seen him once or twice.  His title was "Master of Enchantment."  I bowed almost in spite of myself.  The art of capturing minds is especially difficult and dangerous.  He would be setting the tone for the Trial.  Who was he?  What motivated him?  I hoped Kalan knew more about these people than I did.
On his other side was Master Dermallion, Master of Elements.  That meant she had control over air, earth, wind and fire and the djinn and efrit representing those elements.  I didn't know her, either.  She was a small, thin woman who would have fit into any crowd, not particularly noticeable, with straight black hair trailing down her back.  Gold triangle earrings, very small, dangled from her ears.  Her candis was straw-colored, and she had the hood pulled partway up.  The only striking thing about her was her hands, for her fingers were long and thin like Janine's, beautiful.
Why was her hood partly up?  Was it some sort of protest?  What was about to happen that she and Remens didn't want to be part of?  Goose bumps broke out on my arms. 
The final member of the Council was Ranhammon.  I didn't need to see his placard to know his title:  Master of Efritology.  His short, curly hair was almost all white now, and there were new ritual scars on his face that meant he was working his way up in the esteem of the efrit-folk he counted on for his power.  His jet eyes matched his skin.  He sat with his arms folded in front of him, regarding us coolly.  His self-assurance made me nervous.  It couldn't mean anything good.  During my fourteen years here he had caused the deaths of thirty-seven of my classmates and had maimed dozens more.  To him those were "acceptable losses," worthwhile if they weeded out the slow and the unlucky.  If I ever had a chance, I would send him to the pits of the Hells he so loved. 
Alhambad cleared his throat.  "Wizard Zahid."  His voice was smooth and soothing.  I could understand how that voice held people while his enchantments stole their minds and made them his puppets.  He levelled his gaze at me and was silent.  
I shifted my weight but managed to hold eye contact.  I felt as if some part of me were straining to lean forward, falling out of myself toward him—I glanced at Kalan, who was grinning at Ranhammon.  Alhambad's effect was broken as soon as I looked away.  I nearly laughed.  Was this why Kalan had come back to the Academy, to intimidate Ranhammon?
"Frankly, I am surprised that you came," Alhambad said.  "Mage Korin-Kalan advised us that you would not wish to return."  
"I didn't intend to.  But Kalan's...very persuasive."  If they noted my use of Kalan's personal name they showed no surprise.
"Yes.  Well, then.  What we need is simple enough.  We desire to decide on a Trial which will test the limits of your potential.  I need to search through your memories—with your permission, of course—and find the most challenging incident you have ever faced.  I will display the incident to the Council in a memory sphere as you re-live it in your mind.  I understand you once survived the attack of a rakshasa."
I shivered violently, remembering the rakshasa's mouth full of pointed teeth.  A tiger-spirit that walked like a man, a rakshasa was magically strong enough to kill most human masters.  The efritologists said they weren't efrit and that the efrit feared them, and the djinn simply wouldn't discuss them.  I shivered again.
"He got lucky," Coronta said, watching me with the corners of her mouth turned down.  I didn't like her tone, but I agreed with her conclusion.
"There is no such thing as luck," Remens said.  "We make our luck."
Ranhammon snorted.  "I am not convinced he ever saw a rakshasa, much less survived one's attack."
"Please," Alhambad said, glancing aside at them.  "Let his memory speak for him."  He looked back at me.  "Now, it seems reasonable that by re-experiencing that incident we can learn what combination of factors allowed you to survive that encounter.  Once we understand that we can design a Trial tailored to your unique abilities.  After that we would like to view your memory of the Efrit's Run so we can gauge how you and Mage Korin-Kalan work as a team.  Questions?"
His manner of speaking, as if he were reading out of an encyclopedia, was hard to follow, but the gist of what they wanted was clear enough.  I wondered how they were going to view Kalan's memories and what events they were going to choose from him.  Was he going to let them poke through his dšck‡lf mind?  They had to be salivating over that chance.  There had never been a dšck‡lf at the Academy, and no one knew how their minds worked.  The masters were no doubt hoping to learn something that would increase their power.
"I have a question," I said.  "Why view the Efrit's Run?  Kalan and I travelled for two years after we graduated.  Why not view one of those more recent memories?"
"Good," Remens said, and I could tell he was smiling inside his hood.  "You haven't let your mind grow dull in that little town."
I felt pleased and was a little surprised that he could still affect me that way.   
Alhambad explained.  "The Efrit's Run was under our control, so the only element we don't know is your perspective.  Since we know your opponent's strengths and weaknesses we can judge how well you reacted to them.  In your memories of your travels we have no way to reliably gauge your opponents, so we don't know whether you survived by getting lucky"—he turned slightly toward Coronta, who said nothing—"or by effectively gauging your opponents and handling them appropriately." 
I saw the sense in that.  "I see." 
"Good," he said.  "If you have no more questions then we will begin."
I nodded.
"Please look into my eyes.  Yes, watch my eyessss..."  
I started to feel dizzy and for a moment struggled against the invasion.  I quelled panic and let the spell overcome me.  Alhambad's face was detached and vague, his eyes swirling grey storms.  Everything spun around him.  There was a feeling of others watching me, and then we plunged into the memory of Janine and me going to the Bearded Djinni in Blackstone, shortly after I returned from my travels with Kalan.  She was twenty-two, and I was twenty-four.


III



There's more trash along these streets than a few blocks back.  We're right on the edge of the Tangle.  Maybe I should have suggested somewhere else.
"It's a big place," she says, holding my shoulder for balance and leaning back to stare up at the Bearded Djinni's brass dome.  It's still two blocks away, and it's already the biggest thing on the horizon.  Her green dress shines and ripples when she moves.  It fits her snugly, and warm waves wash slowly through me every time it pulls tight to her body.  She's caught me looking more than once on the way here, and, though I quickly turn my attention to interesting trash in the gutter, I've seen her smile.  
Night's falling, and Utu's last rays burn shades of copper and gold.  Reflected light bounces off and makes the cobbles ripple.  A gull flies over.  The hot wind carries the ocean smell and the spicy smell of Janine's skin.  I smash the moment and save it:
Utu, it's good to be back.  Thank you for bringing me to this woman.  I hope this day never ends.
I become aware of Janine watching me, and I drop my gaze back to the ground.  
"Is this place really fancy?" she asks.  I can't read her tone.  Is she nervous?
"No, not that fancy.  It's a little pricey, but it's nothing like the places on the Promenade.  Those—" I whistle.
We enter the building.  The reception area is floored with smooth black stone.  Pillars of dark wood hold up an ornately-plastered domed roof set with stained glass.  Brass incense burners hang from the ceiling and fill the air with faint sandalwood.
A delicate Pamandarian woman with bound-up black hair greets us, bowing to both of us for luck, and leads us to the dining room.  She's pretty, and I watch her take long, sure strides.  I thought no one ever left Pamandari, with such a good economy and almost no dšck‡lfs.  I wonder what stories she could tell.  
The dining room ceiling is coved and covered with mosaic patterns, and the walls are panelled with cedar.  The floors are the same dark stone, and the pillars are also cedar.  I can faintly smell the pleasant wood.  Candles on each table give the room a soft, friendly glow.  Most of the hundred or more tables are occupied.  There's a buzz of conversation, and, though I can't pick out individual words, the inflections tell me that many languages are being spoken.  
Our hostess offers a table near the wall where we can see much of the room.  
"Here?" I ask Janine, and she nods.  We sit.
The hostess smiles and hands us menus.  The cover is a painting of a towering djinni with a pillar of smoke instead of legs, its muscular arms foldered over its chest grinning in a friendly way.  It's bald, with a thick, black beard going down to its arms.   
"Your waiter will be with you in a moment," she says, and she leaves.  I avoid watching her go.
Janine leans over the table toward me.  "This place is beautiful.  Thank you."
"I'm glad you like it."  Good choice!
The menu's in High Akkadian, of course.  Oh, gods.  I hope the food's easier to swallow than these prices.  Let's see:  Desert Dragon Steak, Cul–e, Deep Sea Snapper, Giant Squid...  
Janine's biting her lip and staring at her menu.  What?  She notices me watching and blushes. 
"What?"
"I can't read it," she says in a low voice.  "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have let you bring me here and I can't even read—"
"Is that all?"  I let my breath out and smile.  "It's High Akkadian.  It's supposed to make people feel intimidated, so they don't mind paying—"
"It is important," she says.  Her eyes mist.
My mouth falls open.  What's going on?  What's the matter?
"You bring me to this nice place, and I can't even read the menu."  She looks down at the table and pulls her arms in close.  "I'm sorry I ever thought a wizard could be interested in a shop-keeper's daughter."  
I reach across the table to touch her arm.  Her skin is soft.  The people next to us are watching—To Hells with them.  "I don't judge people on whether or not they can read!  Come on, relax.  Please."  Utu!  I didn't think.  Of course she doesn't read High Akkadian.
"You're staring at me," she says quietly, and I'm shaken from my thoughts.  
"Sorry.  Hells, you ought to meet my friend, the one I was travelling with.  He knows about twenty languages.  Picks them up like I don't know what.  I only know four."
"I only know Trade," she says.
Get off this subject!  "Look, I'll read the menu to you.  There are only a few items on it anyway.  Sound good?"
She nods and flashes a quick smile, and warmth flows through me.  She's beautiful... 
Suddenly the memory became foggy, and I felt as if I was floating out of a drug stupor.  I heard faint voices.
"He was falling in love," a woman said.  Dermallion?  "Powerful motivator."  
"I think this is enough," Alhambad said.  "We have all been in this situation and know how it progresses.  We can skip until someone else enters the memory and then slow again to see how that affects him."
"Yes," Ranhammon said.  I hated that tone, the knife-like one.  "It must be uncomfortable for you to see these young people falling in love, Alhambad.  Please, go forward."
For a moment I was confused.  Then I remembered that Alhambad's wife had died some years back.  She had been young.  Ranhammon was a worm, a nasty, little slug.  
"Shhhh, Wizard Zahid," Alhambad said.  "Still those busy thoughts.  Shhhhhh..."
The Blue is nearly gone, and I pour the last of it for her.  She looks sleepy.    
"Well, my father and I and Irsmi raised the little ones," she said, "but they both had to work to support us, so I ended up doing most of the raising.  Now most of my brothers and sisters are out on their own, so there're only two left at home.  I've got a little room at the temple while I look for a better place.  It's nothing to brag about, but it's mine.  It's nice to have quiet time just for me.  I'm still making glassware for the Academy, but I want to get away from that.  They destroy everything I make."
"Bases get used up when you cast spells."  Six brothers and sisters?  I can't imagine what that was like.
The jugglers finally leave.  What a relief!  All that movement was making me dizzy.
A young wizard-in-training steps out of a curtained booth across the room.  What's this?  I never heard of the masters letting any wizards-in-training do public displays.  He walks toward a family sitting a few tables off.  The fattest boy snarls something and waves him away.  Neither parent says anything to him.  How does a family like that get along?  
Janine laughs.  "We see who wears the turban in that crew."
The wizard-in-training smiles and walks over.  "Magic for your pleasure?"  His voice breaks.  How old is he, fifteen?  Sixteen, maybe? 
"Show us something," Janine says, putting her fist under her chin in a mock-critical pose.
"Ah, you will be astounded."  He looks at her dress.
Watch it, boy.  I sit up a little straighter.  For a moment everything turns fuzzy.  I'll have to walk slowly going home.
"Pretty," he says.  "But wouldn't buff look better?"  Janine looks at her dress, falling for his distraction.  The boy manages to keep his eyes open, but the strain of shaping the energy is plain in his frown and locked jaw.  
"I don't—"  Janine says, and her dress changes.  Light yellow washes across the cloth, replacing the green.  Janine gasps.  The boy bows.  
I hand him a dackmar.  "Excellent control," I tell him, and he smiles.  Behind him I see a middle-aged man in a grey silk candis sitting and watching the boy.  The man's fingers twitch as if he's shaping a spell.  Is he a wizard?  What the Hells is he up to?  I search for a stored memory and barely find one.  Too much wine.  I shatter the memory, but my mind is too fuzzy to see what it is.  Anger and fear from the burst memory flow through me.  I shape them into a shield around the boy.  
Violet flares erupt around him, shooting off my shield and scorching our table.  He's trying to incinerate the boy!  The boy's eyes widen, but he doesn't jump.  He looks at me and lifts his arms and pretends the fire is his.  Clever.
I hold my shield and watch the man.  He leans forward, fingers spread on the table top.  My shield wavers.  He's a master!  Damned good thing shields are my specialty—He stops, and the flames die.  My shield crumples.  He turns toward me, eyes blazing.  A shiver runs down my back.  Just made an enemy.  
Suddenly he stands and stalks to the rear of the restaurant, disappearing into the kitchen.  What in Hells was that all about?
"When will my dress change back?" Janine asks.  
I give my attention back to her.  She didn't realize what just happened.  Good.  The boy snaps his fingers, returning the dress to its original green.  She fishes out another dackmar, and he bows again.  "I have to go.  Enjoy your meal, and thank you."  He half-runs toward another table where a large party awaits him.  
"He's good," Janine says.  
"For his years he's very good," I admit.  He certainly did better than I was doing at that age. "I hope he survives his training."  
"Of course he will."    
A dšck‡lf strides into the room, his purple cloak flowing over the tables and chairs and never tangling.  Just once I'd like to see a dšck‡lf's cloak get caught and pull its owner up short.  He's a guard captain, an important one by all the silver trim.  His bright aqua eyes lock on mine.   Please, Utu, no trouble.  I don't want to bow and scrape to a dšck‡lf tonight.  
"Wizard!"  My heart stops.  Janine jumps.  The room becomes silent, and everyone turns to watch.  "Have you been casting spells this night?"
I can't breathe.  He's going to kill me or drag me off for a slave—Janine!  He'll drag her off, too!  Tell him the truth, and maybe he'll only take me.  "Yes, I cast a shield a moment ago."
"Protection?"  His eyes narrow.  Sweat trickles down my face.  "Against what?"
"A man—"  My voice squeezes off.  "The one who left—"  Please leave her alone.  
"A middle-aged man, sitting there."  Janine turns toward where the man had been sitting. "He left a moment ago, in a hurry.  He seemed worked up about something.  Is he dangerous?"  Her voice trembles, and that draws the dšck‡lf's attention away from me.
"None of your business."  He glares at her, and she looks away.  "I thought the men did the talking in human society."  
I know better than to say anything.
Two more dšck‡lfs burst into the dining area.  "Captain!"  He turns, making the cloak swish, and leaves.  I manage to keep calm long enough for everyone to turn back to their meals, but then I begin shaking.  Janine leans over and lays her hand on mine.  I hold on tightly.
"That man cast a spell on the boy, and you shielded him?" she asks.
"Yes."  Whoever he is, at least three dšck‡lfs are after him.  I feel nasty, as if I had sicced hounds on a fox.
"Done now," she says, and I nod and wipe sweat from my face.  That could have been ugly.   
"I'm sorry."  I don't pull my hand back.  "I don't handle these situations too well."  It sounds pathetic to me, so I can imagine what it sounds like to her.  People are glancing at us.  Must be wondering what the dšck‡lf wanted.
"I saw a dšck‡lf disintegrate a man once.  I thought you were very steady."  She draws my hand to her lips and kisses me on my first finger, a quirky, sweet thing to do, and the event is melted.  I don't care what the other patrons think. 
"Your reckoning, sir," our waiter says and places a clay tablet in front of us.  I pay the bill, which takes almost everything I have.  
We slip out the back to avoid the stares of the other patrons.
We're in the Tangle.  Something stinks, and I don't look too closely at the gutters.  Urchins watch us from the shadows, their dark eyes hungry, their hands claws.  Regulars, waiting for leftovers?   
"Come on," I say, taking her elbow.  "Around the block, and we're back in the Merchant's Quarter." 
We only get a little way when three young men step from an alley.  I hear others behind us.  
"Who the Hells do you think you are?"  Janine snaps, starting to walk toward the tallest.  He laughs and shoves her back.  
"If you don't leave, we'll call the guards," I say, trying to sound confident and not slurred.  My mind is fuzzy.  I can't find any memories.  Someone pushes me from behind.  
The tallest bares his teeth and draws a knife. "Hey, wizard, what's the matter?  Too drunk for spells, aren't you?  I've heard no warrior is a match for a wizard."  His eyes are sharp, strange.  "What about a drunk wizard?"  He pokes me with the knife, not hard enough to cut.  Another thief presses the handle of a knife into my palm and jumps back.
"Come on, wizard," the leader says.  
Something wrong here, but I can't put my finger on it.  Thinking is so hard.  I drop the knife and open my hands.  I don't know the first thing about knife-fighting.
"Better pick it up."  The new voice is a quiet hiss from the alley.  Someone steps between two thieves.  It's the man from the inn.  His eyes are shadowed, but I see their sparkling.  "You've made a mistake, wizard, coming here defenseless.  Now, pick up the knife."  He steps back.  Janine cries, "Run!" and kicks him in the stomach.  He doesn't fall or even lose his breath.  His lips recede from a mouthful of pointed teeth.  He points at Janine and clenches his hand into a fist.  She freezes.  Paralysis spell.
The voice snarls, "Pick it up, wizard."  The thieves begin to move.  I need my magic.  I stare at Janine standing helpless and suddenly know what to do.  Slowly I bend and pick up the knife, stepping closer to her as I do so.  
"Think to protect her?"  His voice changes, deepens, and blood soaks his candis as if his skin is tearing in a thousand places.  
Hells!  Hells!  Some kind of efriti!  I look away at Janine and hear wet ripping and then the smack of meat hitting the cobbles.  It was wearing some poor soul's skin.  Its laugh sounds like growling now, a big cat over a kill.  I raise the knife.  Behind me the leader of the thieves moves toward me.  I stab myself in the arm.
"Utu!"  Everything stands out razor-sharp.  My mind is clear.  
I scrabble for a stored memory and find one from when I was fourteen.  Kalan and I were sneaking over to the girls' quarters at the Academy.  It was my first time.  He knew the way.  
Kalan waves me to a window.  Can't get caught!   I see three girls sitting in the baths.  Steam, dim lights.  It's hard to see—Long brown hair.  Must be Yori, the pretty healer.  I'd sure like to touch her.  A glowing, purple butterfly appears in Kalan's hand.  He sends it through the window and over the girls.  They stand and reach for it, and it flies toward us. "What—"  He slaps a hand over my mouth and brings the butterfly closer.  The girls climb out of the water.  Suds slide down Yori's breasts, down her belly.  Her skin looks so smooth.  "Wow!"  I feel my thing rise.  Footsteps behind us—Caught! "Kalan!"  He runs.  I glance back, down her belly, little dark triangle—The butterfly is gone.  I run.  "You there!  Stop!"  We'll be expelled!
I smile in spite of myself as I shatter the memory.  Excitement and fear pour forth, and I shape them and let them go as a wave of nausea and exhaustion.  The thieves collapse.  Their leader is the last to fall, dropping his knife as he sinks to the ground.  I look past him.  The man from the Bearded Djinni is gone, and in his place is what looks like a tiger standing on its hind legs, six feet tall, blood all over its fur.  There are short claws on its paws, and it has a mouth full of canines.  It catches my eye and smiles. 
The strength flows out of me.  A rakshasa.  Great Utu, we're dead.  Sorry, Janine.
I smash and store the moment.
"I shall feast on your soul this night, wizard."  It stabs one finger at me.  
My magical opal sparkles, and the rakshasa wails.  "Foul!  It shields your soul!"
Thank you, Academy!  I find and burst a stored memory so fast I don't see what's inside and shape the energy into a fire shield around Janine and me.  She groans and stretches.  The rakshasa must have released her to concentrate on me.  Tendrils of energy writhe from the rakshasa's claws and curl around the shield.  Tendrils and shield are destroyed.  I dig for another stored memory.  Janine drops and pulls me down with her.
  A sheet of red and black fire flashes over us and wraps around the rakshasa.  It screams and throws its arms wide.  The flames go out.  A gust of wind blasts up dust, hiding the creature.  
Who sent the fire?  I glance up the street and see the dšck‡lf Captain from the restaurant.  Four other dšck‡lfs surround him, shielding him with their lives.  The rakshasa sends a ball of lightning toward them.  It skips and bounces, blasting paving bricks into splinters of stone.  The Captain makes a fist, and the ball explodes.  Chips of stone and adobe pelt us, stinging.
"You all right?"  I ask Janine.  She looks dazed but nods.
We're knocked across the cobbles by a blast of wind that rolls us, spinning and bouncing, toward the inn.  My head cracks on the cobbles hard enough to make me see stars.  My arm hits Janine.  We stop moving at the feet of the wizard-in-training from the inn.  He's pale, obviously exhausted.  He must have cast the wind spell.  Janine catches him before he falls.  We carry him to the inn's back door and bang on it until a cook opens it.  We drag the boy inside, past startled cooks and busboys.
The memory faded.
Alhambad looked sympathetic.  "Very impressive.  Twenty-four, and you survived an encounter with a rakshasa.  Very few of us can make such a claim.  Of course it must have only recently entered our world and was still tired from its journey, or you would have not have been so fortunate."  
Coronta laughed.  "As I said, his success was a series of fortunes.  He was fortunate that the dšck‡lf was too rushed to get unpleasant in his questioning, fortunate that the young wizard-in-training helped them, fortunate that he had the opal—given him by the Academy—to shield his soul when the rakshasa tried to take it.  I see an unusually lucky wizard, not an unusually skilled one."
Her scornful tone shamed me, and I looked at the floor.  She was taking pains to discredit everything I did, but I couldn't really defend myself.  Luck had played more part than skill in that incident.
"Luck?" Remens said, sounding amused.  "I suppose you could say he is lucky, but not as you define it."
"And how would you define it?" she challenged.
"He has an extraordinary instinct for choosing friends and allies.  Janine, now his wife, kicked the rakshasa.  Kicked it!"  He laughed his loud, pleasant laugh, and I smiled as I thought about it.  "She also diverted the dšck‡lf’s attention from him while he recovered himself.  The wizard-in-training helped them because Wizard Zahid helped him in the restaurant.  If you look at other incidents in his past—"
"Stay with the incident we've seen," Coronta said.  "You know the rules."
I felt a stab of anger.  Everything about her was sharp and denying.  
Remens continued, "He has a generous heart and gives without asking for return, and so others want to help him.  It's a way of living we would do well to remember."
I found myself flushing at the compliment.
Alhambad said, "Tell me, have you used the memory you saved when you thought the rakshasa would kill you?" 
"No," I said.  "I'm saving it for a life-or-death situation."
"I was under the impression your life now does not hold those risks."
The tonelessness of his questions was unnerving.  It was easier to handle Coronta's attacks than this bloodless probing.  "Not usually.  Then again, I never planned on running into a rakshasa."  
"Well said.  Now, if you don't mind, we need to move on to the Efrit’s Run."  
I glanced at Kalan.  He was sneering at Ranhammon.  His impudence gave me confidence.  
"Are you ready?" Alhambad asked.
"Yes." 
"Good.  By the way, you might be interested in knowing that the young wizard-in-training who saved your life that evening never graduated.  He died during an efritology special assignment."
I had just enough time to see Master Ranhammon smile.  
Alhambad was so gentle that I was barely aware of slipping back to when I was fifteen:  
The whole class is sitting in the ampitheatre at the south edge of the Academy field.  It's weird to see all one hundred and six of us together at once.  Utu, so many have died. 
"The Efrit's Run tests how well you have mastered your basic lessons," Instructor Ranhammon says, his black eyes glittering in Utu's morning light.  He paces in front of us.  Kalan's hand grips my shoulder hard enough to cut off the blood.  He's humming.  He's so eager to get going!  I'd rather go back to bed.
"There are fifteen efrit in the Academy field.”  Ranhammon sweeps his hand to indicate behind him.  “They will kill as many of you as they can before you reach the other side of the field.  They are minor efrit, weak enough for you to fend off if you have studied well and are strong-willed.  Otherwise..."  He stops and faces us, deadpan.  
I start sweating.  This is going to be bad.
"At the end of the course you choose your wizard names, which are yours for the rest of your lives.  From that point your training truly begins.  Questions?"
Alibul, the masochist who lives across the hall, raises a hand.  "Instructor Ranhammon, is this a test of individual skills, or can we team up and help each other?"  
Instructor Ranhammon looks pleased.  "Yes, you can team up.  Of course, so can the efrit.  Is that all?"  
There are no more.  If we could fly this would be simple.  But we don't know those spells yet.  
Kalan speaks quickly in High Cerelian, and I have to concentrate to follow him.  "Easy.  You watch rear, I'll blaze trail."  His eyes have that familiar sparkle.  
"Maybe we won't run into anything, and we won't have to fight."  I hope.
He snickers.  "Huh.  Reach finish without excitement, blast nearest efriti."  He mimes the finger moves for lightning, adding flourishes and finishing with a rude gesture toward Instructor Ranhammon.  
If Instructor Ranhammon notices he doesn't do anything about it.  Instead he makes a few passes in the air with one hand, crossing his chest with the other in a protective sign.  
"He's summoning something!" I cry.  We watch as a tiny red flame appears in his hand.  With a pop the creature launches itself, leaving a trail of fire.  Alibul screams when it burns across his face.  Some kind of imp.  Not tough, but dangerous.  It shoots a jet of flame at a boy I don't know, and his candis ignites.  
Kalan grabs me.  "Started!"
"Wait."   I search and find a memory of watching Kalan exercise in the gym:
He twists from ring to ring, spinning.  "Don't let go with both hands—"  He twists and catches the ring.  "Nice!"  Wish I could do that.  Why can dšck‡lfs do more than we can?  It's not fair.  He looks like a hummbird darting back and forth between those rings.  It must be wonderful.
I shatter it and shape the energy into mist to wrap around the burning boy.  The flames go out.  He stops screaming and staggers off with two friends.  The imp dives at the mist and sizzles when it touches it.  Alibul makes a globe of water around the imp, and it fizzles to nothing.  
"Killed it!" he shouts.  His face is horrible, blood all over.
Kalan hauls me away.  "Come on.  This way!"  He sets off east into underbrush.  
Other students are running north.  So far no other efrit have shown themselves.
"Where in the Hells are you dragging us, Kalan?  The finish line's north."   He waves, and everything falls silent.  Silence spell.  He frowns and signs:
'Kalan-silent.  Zahid [his symbol for me is two fingers stumbling]-human-noisy.  Many-people-north.  We-go-around.'  
I nod.  Most of the efrit will go after the main group.  Good plan.
It's hot.  Utu's fierce, and there's no cover in this scrub.  I'm thirsty.  Clouds of choking dust fly up as we move through.  This is nasty.  Rock piles stick up here and there.  To the north are low hills covered with trees and dry grass.  Kalan’s heading for a big rockpile to the east.  What's he want there?  "Kalan—" I start to say, but the sound stops at my lips.  I bend to pick up a pebble to toss at him.  
An efriti bursts from a bush and leaps at him.  It looks like a tiny, fat man who's been in Utu's light too long.  I try to scream, but nothing comes out—Little bastard's going for his throat!  
Kalan spins, mongoose after cobra.  How did he know?  The efriti snags his candis and swipes.  Bright crimson slashes stand out against his neck.  He makes blue fire in his left hand.  The efriti scrabbles—Kalan blasts it away.  It isn't hurt.  Immune to fire!  Damn!  It leaps—He forms a cage around it and stops it in mid-air.  His fingers glow with energy, and his eyes roll back.  What spell is this?  I run over and add my fingers to his and dive into my Memory Sea, grabbing for anything.  I find a memory I saved when I was eleven:
It's a long way down to the trampoline...  I swallow and jump off the board. The cloth stretches—Don't break!  It throws me way up in the air.  My stomach rolls over.  "Yahooo!"  Kalan's down there, and everybody.  Falling again—  
I shatter the memory and let exhilaration flow.  Magic cage, how does the spell go?  We start shrinking the cage.  Crush you, you little bastard.
The efriti pisses at us, and most of it gets on Kalan's robe.  Whoo!  What a stink!  Like rotten eggs.  It spits, and a glob lands on my hand.  "Utu!"  I scream, but nothing comes out.  I jerk my hands away from Kalan's.  I'm bleeding—Oh, my gods!—Calm down!  Come on!  I suck deep breaths and wipe my hand on my candis.  It's not bad, just an acid-burn.  Kalan needs help!  I smash my excitement into a memory:
The efriti's bending the bars of our cage.  It'll get out!  
Kalan hasn't stopped fighting.  His lips curl down.  He looks dangerous.  I put my hands on his and use the last of the trampoline energy to help shrink the cage to the size of a walnut.  The efriti's eyes bulge.  It explodes in a little fireball.  
"Yeah!"  I shout, but there's no sound.  I helped cast an important spell!
Kalan waves the magic silence away.  "Did it!" he yells.  "Killed little shit!"  He laughs and pounds me on the back.  "Not bad for human.  Be wizard yet, Zahid."  He glances at the scorched ground where the efriti exploded. "Easy."
Blood oozes from his neck, and my hand swells.  I hope we're not infected. 
Thunder rolls from the north.  
"Stupid," Kalan snaps.  He's right.  That noise will attract efriti.  A second later comes a scream, quickly cut off.  Utu, who just died?  
"Serves idiot right.  Come on.  Summon elementals on top rock pile, carry us finish line."   He starts running toward the rock pile.
I race after him.  "Look at the clouds!"  Dark thunderheads are piling up.  So fast!  Must be an instructor calling them.  Shadows fall over the field, and Utu's heat fades.  Kalan glances up.
"Rain'll make harder reach finish."  We race to the rocks.  Kalan jumps as he runs, hurling himself forward in long leaps.  I lean forward and hold my candis close, tearing through waist-high grass.  The grass sounds like a marching army rattling and crunching.  Kalan slows down and then launches into the air, sailing on a long, graceful glide.  He looks like a bird searching for bugs in the grass.  He comes down at the base of the rock pile and starts climbing.  
I could glide, too, but I don't want to use up memories.  I stumble over a thistle and almost fall into it.  Scrub brush is thick around the rocks and scratches my legs.  I hope there aren't any scorpions.  I shove little branches away, but they slap back.  Sweat stings my eyes.  
 Something rustles behind me.  Not another efriti!  I grab on to the lowest boulder and pull myself up.  The field is lit by lightning, and thunder crackles.  It's getting dark.  A few fat drops splatter on the rock.  More drops fall.  Twice I lose my grip.
I stop to catch my breath and look down.  A huge efriti is at the foot of the rock pile, staring up at me.  It looks like a spider with a man growing out of it.  It has green eyes like a fly's.  Shiny eyes.  Shiny...green...
"Look away!"  Kalan slaps me on the side of my head as the spider-efriti tests its footing.  It carefully hoists itself onto the rock, never looking away from me.  But the spell is broken, and I look up.  Kalan's angry.
"Stupid!  Humans shouldn't look efriti’s eyes, know that.  Get caught."  He hauls me up.  I hear the spider-efriti scrambling up.  Goose bumps break out on my skin.  Kalan pulls a half-dozen small cones of incense out of his pocket, and a piece of green chalk.  
"Keep efriti down.  Need time."  
"What do you expect me to do?"  
He ignores me and lights the incense cones with a word and sets them in a hexagon.  Then he starts drawing symbols around them with the chalk. 
The efriti's halfway up the rockpile.  Do something!  Search...  This time I find a memory right away, from when I was thirteen:
The bottle tumbles—I can't catch it in time.  "Look out!  Poison!"  Everything is moving so slow.  Don't hit, don't break!  It shatters.  Spores fly.  "Wizard-in-training Zahid, what in the Hells is going on?"  Instructor Madar jerks me away.  Someone yells. "Dropped—"  " I see that!  Get back!"  He throws me away, into a desk.  "Ow!"  My shin—An energy bubble surrounds the spores.  Then the bubble and the spores disappear.  "Next time you drop a poison mold culture I'll leave you to learn your lesson."  I'm shaking all over.  It wasn't like I tried to drop it.  Someone could have been killed, and it would have been my fault.
I shatter the bubble.  Fear and shame flow, and I shape them into magic.  Feel the energy, it wants out, it's cold.  It feels as if my arm has gone to sleep.  What will hurt this thing?  Fire?  Electricity?   
The efriti's having a hard time climbing.  Guess it can't use its spider-legs too well.  Thank Utu!
It won't expect cold in such a hot place.  I let the energy flow.  Frost grows on my fingers, and I pack it into a ball.  I let loose more energy, more frost, and pack it.  It's colder than any snow I've ever felt.  It's harder than ice, turning black, got to get rid if it!  Can't feel my fingers.  The energy stops.  The efriti's only ten or fifteen feet away, balanced on an outcropping.  Its spider-legs are hairy and black, its human torso and arms and head are dark-skinned.  It's bald.  I smash down the experience:
I've got to get it now!  I throw the snowball.  The spider-efriti shrieks and tries to move but slips and gets hit right in the face.  You're dead!  Frost grows over its whole body.  It tears at the crystals.  Ice freezes its legs to the rock.  It worked!  I froze you to death!  I beat you!  You're not so tough!  I'm not even a dšck‡lf!
"Kalan, did you see?  I froze it!"   I turn to him.  He's staring out over the field from the center of his magic circle.  His lips are moving, but I don't hear anything.  Does he know I'm here?  
I turn back to laugh at the efriti.  It's wiping the frost off its face.  It's not hurt at all!  I only slowed it down!  I blew it big this time.  
The efriti brings one hand up and points its fingers toward me, tips together.  It’s going to shoot a beam!  I search for the last memory I saved and find it right away:
I've got to get it now!  I throw the snowball.  The spider-efriti shrieks and tries to move but slips and gets hit right in the face.  You're dead!  Frost grows over its whole body.  It tears at the crystals.  Ice freezes its legs to the rock.  It worked!  I froze you to death!  I beat you!  You're not so tough!  I'm not even a dšck‡lf!
I shatter the memory and shape the exhilaration into a deflecting shield to send the beam off in some other direction.  The spider-efriti opens its fingers, and a little ball of fire hurtles at me.  
I made the wrong kind of shield!
The ball bounces off my deflector and explodes above me.  Fire licks down, lights my candis and hair, scorches my face, sears my arms, millions of needles sticking me.  "Utu!"  I drop and roll, screaming.  The flames go out.
It hurts!  Utu, please make it stop hurting.  I start crying.  The efriti’s  going to get me— 
I smash the terror into a memory and hurl it into my Memory Sea.  
A bolt of lightning flashes down a few hundred feet away, blasting a pile of rocks.  Rain starts pounding down.  There's a strange gurgling noise.
The spider-efriti's laughing!  That's why it hasn't finished me off.  It was laughing at me. 
It raises one hand again, fingertips together like before, and hisses.  Its mouth is a lamprey's inside, a ring of teeth to suck blood.
"Zahid, jump!  Djinn catch!"  
The efriti hears him and looks at him. 
I jump.  Rocks rush up.  
A strong wind hoists me into the sky.  I twist around to see Kalan facing the efriti.  "Kalan, you idiot!  Jump!  Djinn, take me back!"  They don't respond.  Kalan blasts the efriti with the blue fire spell, his best.  The efriti turns its face.  Uninjured.  
"Damn it, Kalan, jump!"  Please jump!  You're my best friend!  I don't want you to die—
It slams its palm into his face, knocking him to the rock.  Sparks crawl over him, some sort of electrical spell.  He falls and doesn't move.  
"Djinn, will you help him?"  
They whisper in my ears, but I don't understand their language.  
The efriti puts a leg on his back, lifts its face to the sky, and shrieks victory.  My skin crawls.  It'll take his soul!  "No!  Utu!  I won't let it!"
Another flash of lightning not far over my head.  I search for the last memory I made and shatter it:  
The efriti puts a leg on his back, lifts its face to the sky, and shrieks victory.  My skin crawls.  It'll take his soul!  "No!  Utu!  I won't let it!"
Energy flows.  I shape it, keep it in me.  Our attack spells didn't hurt it.  Need to do something else.  If I could knock it off the rockpile it would fall sixty or seventy feet.  I point at the boulder the spider-efriti is standing on and release the energy all at once.  It sears out of me through my hand, burning—
A wide shield appears under the efriti, shaped like a warrior’s shield.  The efriti's legs scramble, and I tilt the shield up.  My hand's burnt it's burnt it's burnt really bad—
The efriti falls off the rock and bounces, shrieking, all the way down.  It hits hard.  Its body bursts into flames. 
“Nailed you!  Djinn, get Kalan!  Get us out of here!"  My head's pounding.  Blood runs from my nose.  I took on too much.  The wind is cold.  Kalan's scooped into the air—

I wake up to hear myself panting like a dog.  Utu, it burns.  It hurts.  My skin's raw and hot and burns.  
"Awake?"  Kalan.
I open my eyes.  He stands over me at the finish point, face blank.  Thin burns criss-cross his skin from the efriti's electrical spell.  There are a dozen students standing around, but they're keeping away.  Past Kalan I see the sky, Utu, a white sign with black letters saying FINISH POINT.  We made it.  Need a healer.
"Get up?"  
"I'll try."  My legs won't respond.  My face hurts.  I can't feel my left arm.  I manage to roll over, but I can't do more than that.  I can't.  One hand is still bleeding from the acid-spit, the other is burnt.  I can't make them work.  I'm sorry, Kalan.  I'm making us look bad.
"I can't get up.”  It's like someone sticking me with hot pins, rubbing my skin with sandpaper.  Heat like sitting in Utu's light way too long.  I feel tears coming.  
He kneels down and touches my face.  "Burnt.  Need healing.  Yuck."
"What's wrong?  Can't take the pain?"  Instructor Ranhammon.  
Don't let him take me!
"Hurt.  Be okay."   
Thank you, Kalan!
"Get him out of here.  There are mages and masters here looking for assistants.  He makes the Academy look bad."  Pause.  "Never mind, I'll have him taken care of."  
I go cold all over.  I don't want to be "taken care of." 
"I'm all right, I'll get up, just give me time."  I can barely hear myself.  
"No.  Got him."  Kalan's voice is sharp.  I've heard him like that a few times, right before someone gets hurt.  He lifts me to my feet.  I can't even raise my head.
"This human"—Kalan spits the word out—"saved life today.  Doesn't need your help.  Worth ten masters.  Angering me, Instructor Ranhammon."  He walks toward the man, hauling me.  Instructor Ranhammon steps aside.
"Your race won't always get you through.  Remember that."
The other students part, looking away from Kalan.  My head spins.  Kalan's talking in High Cerelian:  "Brothers now."
"I don't understand.  I—"  Pain cuts off my air.  His hands on my raw skin are agony.  
Instructor Remens sits in a chair with a big book in front of him.  "Wizard names?"  
Kalan shakes me a little.
"Zahid," I blurt.  I have to breathe in little pants.  
"Korin-Kalan," Kalan says.
"No, your wizard names," he says carefully.  
"Know," Kalan snaps.  "Own names."  
Instructor Remens nods and writes in the class register.  Kalan helps me toward the healer's quarters.
"Alibul the Bloody," someone says behind us.  Kalan snorts.
The memory faded.  Alhambad stroked his chin and waited while the other masters conferred.  They whispered among themselves, nodding and glancing at us.  I felt naked and exposed, waiting for the knife.
"You were recovering for nearly three weeks after that incident," Alhambad said. 
I nodded.  "I still have scars."  I held up my right hand to show the scar tissue that passed for skin on my palm, where I'd been burnt making the shield.  There was no longer any feeling there.
"For a dšck‡lf."  
Was it contempt in his voice?  Was he testing me?  "For my friend."  I couldn't read this man at all, and I didn't like it.  He was the key to what sort of Trial they were going to put us through.
Master Coronta raised her hand, and the others fell quiet.
"The Isle of Dreams," she said to Alhambad.  
What!  They're mad!  "I protest," I said, feeling as if I should shout it at them.
Alhambad tilted his head toward me and clasped his hands on the bench.  "Your objection?"
"The Isle of Dreams test is only used for masters.  No one has ever come back from the Isle."  I wasn't going.  A fair Trial was one thing.  Suicide was another.  I looked over to Kalan.  His fore-fingers twitched as if he would hurl a spell at them.  I half-hoped he'd start something.    
Alhambad cleared his throat.  "Your concern is understandable."  He glanced at the other masters and then looked back at us, seeming satisfied at something that I hadn't seen take place.  What—Of course, he heard thoughts.  "We all know the Isle is cursed.  There is reason to believe that, while no human masters have ever survived the Isle of Dreams Trial, dšck‡lf mages and masters have.  What they may have found is not known to us, of course.  It is the hope of the Masters' Council that the two of you, with your unique friendship and the virtue of Mage Korin-Kalan's heritage, will be able to survive the Trial."  
"I can't believe this," I said.  "Neither of us are masters.  Whole groups of masters have disappeared there.  It's a death sentence!"  I was breathing hard, and my voice was rising.  Were they out of their minds?
Alhambad started to reply, but Remens cut him off.  "I believe you can do it.  I would never allow—"
"No personal involvement," Ranhammon said loudly.  They were all silent for a moment.  Coronta seemed amused, Ranhammon pleased.  Bastards.
What had that been about?  I wished I could see Remens' face.  Obviously the others weren't going to let him say anything more.
Dermallion, the element-master, cleared her throat, and I realized she had hardly spoken.  "We've arranged to have a healer sent along to aid you in your Trial.  She was of your class, I believe.  Yori Ustafasaad.  You know her?"
"You know I know her."  I'd think about her later.  We were supposed to accept their word that maybe some dšck‡lfs had survived on the Isle of Dreams?  "And if the dšck‡lfs have already stripped the Isle?  What if we go and find nothing?"
Alhambad said, "Your Trial will be to journey to the Isle of Dreams, find the source of the curse, and return with whatever you discover.  The Academy will provide you with the necessities for the trip.  If the dšck‡lfs have taken everything of value and left nothing, you will have fulfilled the terms of the Trial, and we will train you to the mage's craft.  In effect you will receive free training in return for taking the chance of taking risks."  
Coronta added, "Your remaining memories would last you a very long time with such training, Wizard Zahid."
I was breathing hard.  They were serious.  "You're asking me to risk my life on something that may or may not be true to receive training that others receive for much less difficult Trials.  I want a Trial that's matched to our abilities."  I looked at Kalan, who was studying his fingernails.  His calm confused me.  Wasn't he going to say anything?
"Aren't you curious about what might be on the Isle?" Coronta asked, looking curious herself.
"Of course," I said.  "But not curious enough to take the risk to find out."
Great Utu, they wanted this.  Kalan was the first dšck‡lf who had ever come to the Academy, and they wouldn't let their chance go.  They hadn't debated our Trial for a moment.  Maybe they planned this years ago, before Kalan and I had graduated.
Alhambad spoke before I could refuse.  "You still hesitate.  We understand your dilemma.  You are concerned for the risk to your life in light of your hopes for a family.  But consider.  You may well get to the Isle and find nothing.  You will have been in no danger and gained mage training in return.  And if you do go you will have the advantage of travelling with Mage Korin-Kalan.  If you insist on a different Trial, we of course would feel obliged to give it to you."
I laughed.  How generous!
For the first time his composure broke, and he flushed.  "Contrary to what you may think, we are not sadistic butchers.  We have offered you a great deal in return for your risk.  Mage Korin-Kalan has indicated to us that he will go on this Trial with or without you, but he hopes you will decide to accompany him.  And Healer Ustafasaad is going.  It is in our interests for you to accompany them, as the three of you together would have greater chances of surviving than two, and we do wish to know what is happening on the Isle of Dreams.  I suggest you discuss this with them, and in the morning we will accept your decision."  
The floor seems to disappear under me.  Kalan's going anyway?  He's already indicated—?  When?  Without me?  Did he know this was going to happen?  They've tricked me, Kalan and the Masters' Council both—
I smashed the moment into a memory and stored it.  It was as if Kalan had scooped my heart out.  Several moments passed before I could go on.  "Assuming I go," I said, forcing the words out, "How long would you estimate I'd be gone?"
"No more than twelve or fourteen days, including travel."
Two weeks.  No more than two weeks.  "Swear, Headmaster.  Swear that everything you've told me is true."
"What would that serve?"
"Don't play games with me," I half-shouted.  "You people are bound to follow your word because of your pacts with the djinn and efrit folk.  You aren't afraid of me, but you won't swear on them and go back on your word.  Swear."
He considered.  "Very well," he said.  "Everything I have said is true to the best of my knowledge.  We will keep our word where we have given it.  I swear this on the powers which sustain me as Headmaster.  Does that satisfy you?"
"No, but it's all I have.  As for the rest, I'll let you know in the morning."  
"Reasonable.  Now you should rest."  
Kalan stood, and I joined him.  We followed the steps back up, and at the end of the first corridor the glass door reappeared and opened.  We were silent until we were outside.
"What the Hells was that?" 
"Don't yell," he said, glaring at me.
"Don't yell?  They had this planned, and you knew about it.  That's why you didn't say anything in there."  Again I had the wrenching sensation of falling.
He walked on.  I grasped his shoulder.
Something slammed me in the chest and knocked me down.  I landed on my back, the wind knocked out of me.  
As I gasped Kalan shouted, "Yes, knew!  Have to go!  Sorry about trick!  Wanted you want to come!"  
I managed to get a little air into my lungs but couldn't say anything.
"Going," he said.  "Need help.  Please come."  
"I—"  I sucked a little more air.  
He leaned down and helped me sit.  "Sorry," he said, sounding miserable.
"Why.  Didn't.  You.  Say.  Anything?"  I gasped for several minutes.  Gods, I'd forgotten how he got when he was angry.  My chest was going to hurt for a while.
"Afraid wouldn't come."
I shook my head.  "I thought it was their idea.  You didn't tell me you'd already made a deal with them.  That makes everything different.  Why is Yori going?"  
He shrugged.
Suddenly I was terribly weary.  I needed to go to bed and try to decide what next.  I was being roped into this.  I could demand another Trial.  And Kalan and Yori would try it on their own, and when they died, and they would die, whose fault would that be?  No.  That wasn't right.  It wasn't, but that was what it would feel like, and that was all that counted.
Kalan offered me a hand up.  I refused and got up on my own. 
We checked into the visitor's quarters, a little annex of the Administration building, and found that we had a room reserved.  It was simple and neat, with two hammocks and two desks.  Two leather packs leaned against one wall.  Kalan started digging through one immediately.
"Hmmph.  Blanket, dry food, water skin, rope.  Rope?  Tinderbox, lamp, oil, flatware.  Stupid choices."  He tossed the items onto the floor as he talked, separating them into "save" and "toss" piles.  He saved almost nothing.
I explored the other pack.  In addition to the gear Kalan had already found, I discovered several candles, a spare candis, a pair of sandals, toiletries and a silver shaving mirror in a leather case.  I carefully repacked, keeping everything, and we went to bed.  He fell asleep instantly, as he always had.
Even with a cool breeze wafting through our room I couldn't sleep.  The hammock seemed constricting and alien, though it was a faithful copy of the one I'd slept in during my years here.  The air was cold, and I couldn't stop shivering.  I felt as I had before the Efrit's Run, knowing there was a good chance of dying and that there was nothing to be done about it except try to sleep and then do the best I could.  
It was Janine's dancing night, when she and some of her friends got together and danced.  I hoped she'd go.  It would help her put her worries aside.  
Of course she'd go.  I didn't need to worry about her.  She'd take care of herself.  
I was leaving with Kalan, of course.  I'd assumed from the start that Kalan and I would take our Trial together.  Of course we could take separate Trials, but the possibility hadn't ever seemed real.  We'd taken the Efrit's Run together.  We always did our magic together.  Even after this betrayal it was impossible to think of going off without him.  If he'd only told me, it wouldn't have been such a shock.  And the Masters' Council said dšck‡lfs had survived on the Isle of Dreams.  We might go and find nothing, and all this would be over in a few days.  
How did Yori come into this?  Why was she going?  How was she?  I saw her face:  the delicate nose and brown eyes, the little beauty mark under her left eye that was darker than her mocha skin.  She was lithe, her muscles strong from hours of swimming, walking and climbing.  Of course there'd be some changes, maybe a little extra weight if she'd had a child, or softer muscles if she didn't swim anymore.  
We'd been lovers for four years, from the time she healed me after the Efrit's run until I was nineteen.  But something hadn't worked, and we drifted apart.  I remembered our last meeting:
No one stops me at the gate to the healer's quarters.  I guess the initiates have gotten used to seeing me.  I could do this later.  No one says I have to come now.  She must know.  Why hasn't she come to see me instead?  But, then, who's walking away?
I keep moving, but my feet are stone.  She said meet her by the fountain.  There are a dozen fountains, but I know the one.  The Golden Djinni.  I can see the knoll the statue stands on, but Yori isn't in sight.  I head down a path of crushed stone, trying to decide how to tell her.
"Yori, I have to talk to you..."  She already knows that.
"Yori..."  I stop and pluck a mint leaf off a low bush and crush it between my fingers.  Its scent hangs heavy.  She used mint when she first healed me, mint mixed with ointment to soothe the burns from the Efrit's Run.  What do I have to soothe this pain?  
It's hotter than Hells today, but that doesn't stop a chill running up my legs when I come to the end of the trail.  The Golden Djinni is bronze, the largest statue here.  It stands almost five yards high.  Its wings spread half again that wide.  Water bubbles in the pool at its sandaled feet.  The statue's eyes look down, as if it's sad.  Its mouth is taut.  It looks like it's surrendering.  Why would such a powerful djinni give up?  I bet Master Ranhammon would know.
"Zahid."  Yori steps from amongst yellow-flowered bushes.  There are half a dozen feet between us.  She doesn't move closer.  Her candis is amber.  She wore it when we went dancing last.
"Yori, I came to tell you that..."   Something pushes up from inside, hot in my throat, and I can't speak.  I don't know why it's not working out, but it's not.
Her shoulders sink.  "That you're leaving."
I nod slowly. "How'd you know?"  
"We've both felt it, haven't we?  How long has it been since we went to the beach?  Or dancing?  Less and less for the last year."  She steps into the shadow of the Golden Djinn.
"Look.  It's not like I don't still care about you.  I do.  You have to believe that."  
She nods and sits down at the edge of the pool, away from me.  I walk up behind her and put my hands on her shoulders.  She puts one hand up onto mine and says, very quietly, "I know you care.  I still love you, do you know that?"
"I do—"  My voice cracks.  I swallow.  How can I be saying this?  "I don't want to hurt you, Yori.  I really don't.  It's not like I don't care."  I have a flash of after the Efrit's Run, floating in and out of myself, Yori leaning over me.  "How's my wizard this morning?  It'll be a few days before you can get outside, but you're doing well."
I don't know what to say.  Wish I could make you not hurt.  "I'm sorry.  You and I are doing the same old things, over and over, and we don't even do them that often.  I feel like I'm slipping into a pattern I'll never end.  I mean, the Satrap's been—killed—and now I won't be going back.  I have my future all to myself.  I've never seen anything...  Does this make any sense?" 
"Yes."  She pulls me down to sit next to her.  Her cheeks are wet.  Her eyes are so big.  "I know.  You've lived here most of your life.  You want to leave.  I have to stay.  My family..."  She wipes her eyes.
"I know, they want you to have advanced training."  But that's not really it.  Her parents want her to marry a Decadurinian noble, not some orphan with no ties to anyone important.  They'd never let us get married.  I feel like I had when I looked back from the caravan train at the Satrap.  I want to go back to the way things were.  
"Will you see me any more?"  She looks right at my eyes. 
"Of course I will.  We're still friends, aren't we?"  Aren't we?
She looks startled. "Yes.  Friends."  
I feel cut.  "I didn't mean—"
"I know what you mean."  
I can hardly keep looking at her.  I hate this.  I'm hurting her, and I don't even understand what's going on.  I lean forward and seal my decision the only way I can.  
The kiss is so light I hardly feel it.
My throat was tight, and I had to swallow to get past the constriction.  I hadn't smashed and stored any of that experience, though I'd been tempted to.  It would have been cheating, somehow, to burn it up in some spell.  Yori had been accepted for advanced training and disappeared into the depths of the healer's quarters.  She was finishing her training when Kalan and I came back from our travelling, and we'd remained friends.   
I got up and walked onto the balcony to look at the Academy.  A warm salt breeze blew my hair back.  To the south I heard waves breaking against the cliffs.  Palm fronds rustled a few yards away.  The Academy was still, no students allowed out at this hour.  Overhead the stars shone.  The buildings seemed to be lumps of silvered stone rising from the dark lawn.   
Not long after we came back she had to go home to Decadurinis.  Her father, a major landowner, was sick, and she wanted to heal him.  She sent a letter saying he was better, but it was so carefully worded I knew her family didn't want her communicating with me at all.  I'd never returned it, though that felt like betraying our friendship.  There was no point causing her trouble with her family.
We'd said we'd stay friends.  
I stood for a long time as the knots in my muscles slowly loosened.  The Academy hadn't been all bad.  There had been days away, playing on the beach, exploring Blackstone's streets and back alleys, travelling up the coast.  Some of the training had been deadly, but most of it was spent in quiet concentration, trying to master not only the energies but myself.  Kalan had taught me his people's finger-language and High Cerelian during still afternoons.  I showed him how the golden butterfly's chrysalis turned transparent just before the insect broke out.  He had made the butterfly his symbol and used it ever since.  Yori and I fell in love, and we flourished for a long time, and then we went our ways.  And I met Janine there.  
"Utu, please watch out for her while I'm gone."  
I went back inside, pausing to look at Kalan.  He was turned toward the wall, and I couldn't see his face.  I didn't go too close.  When his sleep was disturbed he often woke up attacking.   
There were writing supplies in the desk, and I wrote Janine a brief note.  It took three tries to say what I wanted and nothing else:
My love,
Kalan and I arrived at the Academy and went before the Masters' Council.  We are supposed to discover the source of a curse and report back to the Council.  The Trial will be difficult, though we should be returning within two weeks at the most.  Unpleasant, but brief.  We may finish sooner.  
Thoughts of you shall sustain me.  
	Always yours,
I signed it and sealed it in an envelope which I left on the desk.  It would get to her, probably magically.  The Masters' Council would see to it.  They had their peculiar honor.
To the outside of the door I tacked a note for the masters:  "I will go." 
I slipped into my hammock and pushed against the wall with my foot, falling asleep to slow rocking.


IV



"Students young," Kalan frowned, watching a dozen wizards-in-training practice shaping and casting techniques on the lawn in front of the Administration building.  I couldn't tell who the Instructor was.  We were sitting at a marble table, surrounded by flower beds, finishing a city style breakfast, sweet bread with honey, ripe melon and coffee.  The meal was excellent, but I wasn't interested.  I felt as if I was eight again, leaving home and maybe never coming back.  
The note had been gone from the door, so I assumed the Masters' Council was making whatever preparations were necessary to send us on our way.  
Kalan hadn't said anything about why he was going to the Isle of Dreams, and I knew he wouldn't tell me before he was ready.
"Have you heard anything about Yori?"
He didn't answer for a long moment.  "Little," he said.
"Such as—?"
"Married."
"I expected that."  
"You left."  There was resentment in his tone.
"Yes."  What the Hells was that about?  
He didn't say anything else.  
Yes, I'd been the one who'd left, but she'd agreed to it. 
I glanced at my plate.  The melon had been too ripe.  The masters could at least have seen that we had a good breakfast before we left.
A woman approached from our left, coming across the green.  
"She's coming," I said.  
Kalan nodded and kept watching the students. 
She wore a heavy grey candis, embroidered above the left breast with the healer's rainbow.  She kept her gaze on the pebbled path.  Something was wrong.  Where were her bright colors?  The candis was wrong.  Yori liked gauzy clothes that didn't restrict her movement.  Her shoulders carried none of the assurance that I remembered, and her steps were short and unsteady.  She seemed old and tired.  
"Kalan, what's happened?  She's cut her hair!"  A Decadurinian woman always wore long hair.  Never once in our four years together had she cut it short.  Now it barely touched her shoulders, hacked away from her ears and forehead.  Grey stood out among the black.  Her eyes were half-lidded.  There was no sign of the young woman I had known. 
For a moment I was nineteen again.  I caused this—I threw off the thought.  "Yori.  It's good to see you."  I stood and hugged her.  She had lost a lot of weight.  She couldn't have weighed a hundred pounds.  What had happened to her?  
Her return grasp was weak.  "Hello, Zahid."  
There was no life in her voice.  I backed up a step, half-expecting some sickly joke by Ranhammon, but she didn't fade or turn into an imp.  I realized I was staring and looked away.
"I—uh—heard you got married."
"He died."  
"Oh.  I'm sorry."  No wonder she looked so worn.  I looked to Kalan, who glanced back and forth at us.  I couldn't think of a time when I'd seen him so nervous.  Now what?  "How long ago?"
"Eighteen months."
I wasn't sure what to say.  I wanted to reassure her, do something for her.  It was hard to imagine her so miserable for such a long time.
Kalan looked like he was going to run, and I wondered what the Hells was wrong with him.  He suddenly stepped forward.  "Yori!  Older!  Grey hairs."  He tugged her hair.  "Look distinguished!"  With a grand flourish he caused a flood of magical swallowtails to appear on the flowers and fly over us, dropping sprinkles of pale fire.  Yori attempted a smile, and Kalan's own smile widened.  
He took her hands and turned them over.  "Too many?  One special, then."  He turned her palm up and stroked it.  A purple butterfly with orange dots on its wings appeared in her palm, fluttering its wings.  It crawled up her wrist and stuck out its tiny tongue to lap the salt from her skin.  For a moment I saw her eyes sparkle.  Then they faded again.
Obviously she was ill.  Were they really sending her with us?  
Kalan looked at me anxiously.  He was making me nervous, and I started signing to him over Yori's back.  He saw my fingers move and quickly looked at Yori.  
Why had he ignored me?  I wanted to ask him what was wrong with him, but I knew he wouldn't tell me.  Time for mysteries later.  "I've never heard of a healer going to the Isle of Dreams, or a dšck‡lf.  Did they tell you anything specific, Yori?"  
She said, "I was told I'd be going with Kalan and maybe you to the Isle of Dreams.  I'm supposed to keep you in combat shape."
"That's all they told you?"  
"Yes."  Her tone was dull, as if she was exhausted.  Had her husband died in a particularly horrible way?
"That isn't much to go on.  I feel like the Efrit's Run all over again, running blind."
Kalan shook his head.  "Not blind.  Went library.  Isle of Dreams dangerous.  Best masters couldn't solve curse.  Go and never come back.  Hmmph.  Useless child tales.  Library in RŽAmora much better."  His eyes unfocused for a moment, and then his face hardened.  He never said much about the dšck‡lf capital.  "Powerful people, legends.  Ourak.  Valier.  Even Luritsuran.  Competent.  Deadly.  Lost."  
That he had gone to the library startled me for a moment.  It had always surprised me how still Kalan could be when he was studying, especially stories or histories.  He would curl up with books for hours, suddenly hurling them away when he was ready for action again.  
We spent the morning on the green, coming up with nothing that gave us insight into what the Council had in mind.  Yori said little and didn't sit until Kalan pulled her onto a bench.  I couldn't accept that this silent creature had been the young woman whose healing energy had drawn me to her.  I wanted to shake her and wake her up, but I feared she would simply look at me as if I were an unusual bug.  The thought made me shiver.  Why was the Council sending her?  She needed to be resting somewhere, not going on Trial.
"Battle not appropriate?"  Kalan mused.  "All combat masters so far.  Maybe why us?"
"Maybe.  My best spells are defensive.  Yori's are restorative."  
She tilted her head a little.  I took that to mean she was listening.
"And your favorites are blast-'em-fast spells, Kalan.  The masters said they'd heard of dšck‡lfs surviving there.  But most dšck‡lfs use combat magic, so that doesn't make sense." 
A young wizard strode up and bowed.  "The masters have asked me to inform you that you are to report to the roof of the Administration complex immediately, Wizard Zahid, Mage Korin-Kalan and Healer Ustafasaad.  Would you follow me, please?"  He set off at a fast walk.  Kalan snickered and trotted behind him, puffing his chest out and pointing at himself with his thumb.  Several students saw him and laughed, but the wizard took no notice.  I reached to pull Yori to her feet, but she rose on her own and shuffled after the retreating young man.  I trailed her.  Suddenly Kalan peeled off and ran back.
"He'll be right along," I told the stuffy lad when he turned and arched an eyebrow.  He scowled and walked on.  Kalan cut across the lawn, leapt the flower gardens with a series of tumbles, and interrupted the class.  He said something to the girl he had been watching.  Then he touched her hands and ran back to us.  I couldn't see what he had done, but I caught a flash of purple from between her fingers.  
Kalan signed to me:  'Gift.  Maybe-use-magic-good-purposes.'  He shrugged.
I stared at him.  He once torched a whitewashed mud farmhouse in Luricania because the farmer wouldn't put us up for the night.  I remembered chickens squawking and flying away as the family ran out of their home, crying and wringing their hands, running to escape the flames and Kalan, who had already lost interest.  
A new student at the Academy, no older than six or seven, was literally scared mindless by Kalan's prank monster in her room.  It took the healers months to restore her.
Why did he give the girl a gift?  Why did he care about some people but not most?  Why were his choices so random?
I made the sign for 'I hope.'  He turned back to mocking the young wizard.  The lad took us through the maze of the Administration building and into an elevator which carried us up to the roof.  I complimented the smoothness of the ride, and he looked pleased.
"We had Technocrats install this counterweight transferral system a year ago.  It replaced the old staircase and cut the time for moving between floors to a third of what it used to take."
I laughed at his stuffiness.  "You mean this elevator?"  Astapha had taught me some tech-terms.
"Uh, yes.  Elevator."  He looked annoyed and ignored us for the brief ride up.  Kalan grinned at him.  
As we rose I glanced at Yori.  She stared at the floor, eyes wide, her hands folded in front of her.  Gently I patted her shoulder.  She looked up and smiled a wavering smile.
When we arrived at the roof the three of us stepped out.  The lad bowed and excused himself, pulling a lever to go back down.  Beyond the sheds and pipes and cisterns I could see the entire Academy, all nine major buildings and dozens of annexes, the fields with their rock piles, the sea glistening.  Utu was hot but not unbearably so.  I thought of taking a nap in the hammock slung between the orange trees in my garden back home and sighed.  I hoped we finished quickly.
"Good day solve mysteries."  Kalan rocked back and forth on his heels at the edge of the roof.  
Alhambad's voice rang out.  "We hope you do solve some mysteries, Mage Korin-Kalan."  He and Ranhammon walked around a cistern.  
"Where are the other members of the Masters' Council?" I asked.  I'd hoped that Remens would come to see us off.
Ranhammon answered.  "Master Dermallion declined to come.  Master Remens was excused, and Master Coronta is taking care of Council business."  He seemed pleased.
Dermallion hadn't come?  She had been quiet the day before, also.  Was she new on the Council, or simply uncertain of her influence?  
"What do you mean, Remens was excused?"
"For his conduct yesterday," Alhambad said.  "Revealing his personal feelings as to your chances of success during the Trial is expressly against Council rules.  He was not allowed to come and possibly cause more disruption.  Are you ready to begin?"
"Not afraid dreams," Kalan said.
I was disappointed and irritated that Remens would not be there.  "I'm not ready," I said.  "I want to ask a few final questions."
Ranhammon stiffened.  "What sort—"
"I'd prefer to talk to Master Alhambad," I said.  I could hardly stand being this close to the son-of-a-bitch.  
He glowered, but Alhambad cut him off.  "He is the one on Trial.  We can indulge him.  I believe I know what you wish to discuss.  Over here, if you will."  We walked behind a chimney.  "You heard that Healer Ustafaad's husband died?"  
I nodded.
"The healers say she is not recovering from her grief in a normal cycle and is in danger of losing herself if she does not accept his death.  They have tried to aid her, but she refuses their arts.  Without willing reception there can be little healing.  The healers' recommendation is to send her into danger in the presence of friends, hoping that she will move through her pain to respond to their needs."  He studied me for several seconds, and I realized he was debating telling me something else.
"And—?"  I prompted.
He studied me for a moment.  "As you know, no one can be forced to go on Trial.  She has agreed to go.  Any more you will have to find out from her."
I started to protest, but he held up his hands.  
"Keep in mind that we are sending her with you not so much for her healing arts as for the healing you may do for her.  I trust that is explanation enough?"  
They were doing it for her benefit?  He had to be joking.  "No, it's not.  What about her family?  They could take care of her."
"My understanding is that her family felt this risk was worth running.  Naturally, they wish her restored to herself."  
"I don't like this.  Sending her into danger might not help her.  When things get hot we won't be able to look after her."  I glared at him, trying to will him into capitulating and keeping her at the Academy.  Damn it, who were these masters to make us—me—responsible for her?  His oddly liquid eyes wavered, and I was surprised enough to stop arguing.  I saved:
Alhambad unsure!  
He regained himself so quickly I wasn't certain I had seen hesitation.  "If you are successful in reaching her you will not have to look after her.  If you are not successful she will be removed from her pain forever."
"That won't happen," I said.  He was such a cold bastard!
"That is our wish also."  He walked back to the others.  I wandered over, taking my time to show my displeasure.  The others had walked across the roof to a large carpet.  
A flying carpet?  I'd only ridden once before.  It was big, twelve feet across and twenty feet long.  Three packs sat on it, Kalan's and mine and a smaller one I assumed belonged to Yori.  
"Nothing as fancy as mist-horses, I'm afraid," Alhambad said.  "We wish you luck."  
As we stepped onto the rug, Ranhammon touched Yori's shoulder.  "I thought it unwise to put you with Wizard Zahid, in view of your history, but the Council was adamant."  He smiled like a Basquan.
Yori looked at him blankly until he removed his hand.  She turned away from him and shuffled onto the rug.
Ranhammon looked puzzled at her lack of reaction.  I felt sick.  
Kalan said softly, "Should not trouble dšck‡lf's friends, Master Ranhammon.  People disappear.  Be careful, avoid nasty accidents."    
Ranhammon's face darkened.  
A tiny smile played at the corners of Alhambad's mouth.  "Wise advice, I'm sure, Mage Korin-Kalan."  He did a curious half-turn and disappeared.  Ranhammon shot us a disgusted look and headed for the elevator.
"What was that all about?" I asked Kalan.  There'd always been bad blood between them, but Kalan didn't usually use his race's superiority so blatantly.  There'd been new twists.
"Giving him trouble for while now.  Maybe disappear some night."
"They'll bring you to inquiry," Yori said without concern.
"Hmmph.  Never prove."
Yori sat down on what appeared to be the front of the carpet.  I sat next to her.  Kalan stood in the center and spoke in High Cerelian, urging the carpet to move.  It lifted slowly, rustling, and then rippled forward.  I had a sudden urge to step off and go home, to return to the warmth and comfort and safety of Hafar.  We were really going to the Isle of Dreams.  
I studied the carpet, marvelling at the durable material.  I had seen magic carpets before, of course, but this was the first time I had been entrusted with one.  The other time I had ridden one had also been with Kalan and Yori, during my final year at the Academy.  Remens had loaned it to us for an evening, and we went up and down the coast.  My memories of that night were dull, though; I had absorbed their energy for spells long ago.  I felt a tweak of regret at the many moments that now were dull.  Some old masters said they could hardly remember their lives, they'd so thoroughly drained their memories.  
I didn't want to think too much about that.  One of the reasons I was running low on power was that I refused to turn many of my experiences into stored memories for spells.  
The ride was smooth.  Kalan settled into a comfortable position, lying on the back end with his face and arms hanging over the sides.  
I turned my attention back to the rug, poking the cloth.  My finger sank in up to the second knuckle.  Hitting it felt like hitting a sponge.  Yet it was firm and supporting.  I couldn't tell what it was made of, animal hair or plant fibers or something else.  It looked rough but felt smooth.  I didn't puzzle over it long.  Magic comes in many forms, and trying to figure out another wizard's tricks can drive one mad.  
The rug was bordered with alternating maroon and gray tassels, and from each a line of the same color ran into the rug.  The lines passed over and under each other, turned impossible corners, and seemed to shift as I watched.  Small animals were woven in between the lines as if they were playing in some geometric wonderland.  There were towers and castles and temples behind the lines and animals.  The intricacy was beyond human skills; it had to be a dšck‡lf item.  Dšck‡lfs and humans were depicted walking between the buildings and hunting the animals and each other.  There were wizards, warriors, healers.  A thief slyly cut a warrior's purse.  Humans attacked a dšck‡lf citadel (the humans were losing, of course).  Two young human lovers coupled next to a waterfall, a large dog guarding their backs.  An efriti tore the heart from a man chained to an altar as a dšck‡lf priestess watched.  There were hundreds of scenes, tiny and clear.  It must have taken years to weave this rug.  
I wondered if the rug was somehow alive.  It would suit dšck‡lfs to trap some creature's or person's soul in a rug.  But it was easy to command, and, I suspected, merely enchanted.  A soul would have fought being told what to do.
The dšck‡lfs were a constant puzzle to me.  A dšck‡lf might spend years making something, only to destroy it or give it away when finished.  From what Kalan had told me, the culture was in constant conflict.  Priestess worked against wizard.  Noble houses owned all assets that weren't owned by the church and constantly squabbled over their properties.  Efrit-worship permeated the society.  Yet in the midst of the political chaos of RŽAmora's social life, the dšck‡lfs found time to control the human kingdoms and devote years to creating objects of stunning craft such as this rug.  What sort of gods had created them?
The day was fine for flying, bright and clear and pleasantly hot.  Even though I could faintly hear wind rushing past, only a breeze reached us.  Blackstone spread out for miles behind us, spires and towers and tiled roofs.  The gold domes of the minarets burned in Utu's light.  I could smell the fish markets.  To the east I imagined I could make out the edge of the desert where we lived.  Janine would get my note today.  I hoped it would please her more than it would upset her.  It seemed unbelievable that I'd been gone less than a day. 
The rug slithered north over Atlan's fields to the ocean—perhaps ten miles over the isthmus—in less than an hour.  Once over the water we brought the rug down to a few yards above the waves to avoid unwanted attention from roc-mounted dšck‡lfs or renegade wizards.  I couldn't see Kalan's face, but I heard whoops and cries of encouragement every time a blue-winged flying fish broke from the waves and shot upwards.  
After an hour or more had passed I looked at Yori.  She hadn't moved since first sitting on the rug, except to occasionally shift her legs.  I had the sensation of ants crawling on my skin.  After the last Basquan raid two people in Hafar had withdrawn like this, and it had taken months for them to rejoin us.  But we didn't have months.  Alhambad said she'd been withdrawn for eighteen months already.  That seemed like a long time to be so grieved.  How had her husband died?  
Maybe the healers were right to send her with us.  She had always felt strongest when she was helping others.  I had to help her before we got to the Isle.  She needed to be strong by then, or she'd be easy prey for whatever was there.
"Yori, what was your husband like?  Anyone I knew?"
She stared over the side.
"Did you have children?"
A slight frown passed over her face and disappeared.
"How many?"
No response.  
I asked her other questions, told her jokes, told her a little about Hafar.  None of it got any more response than the one slight frown.  For a while I sat silent.  Then I gently shook her.  She lolled.  What would happen if I tried to push her over the side?  I decided not to try, since she might not respond.  Finally I gave up and looked into the sea with her.
The water was light green and smooth, almost glassy.  Flying fish broke surface, their blue wing-fins gleaming, sailing ten or twenty feet and slicing back into the water almost without a ripple.  Larger shapes moved under the surface, none large enough to be a whale.  I'd never seen a whale and vaguely hoped one would surface.  
"His name was Wrin."  Her monotone startled me from my thoughts.  
Should I urge her to go on?  I decided to stay quiet and looked down at the water.  Long minutes passed.  
"Your husband's name was Wren?" I prodded at last.
"Wrin.  Wrin Sabzawar."
I'd heard that name.  Where?  
She went on, "We met at a party six months after I went home.  He was so handsome...  He walked all the way across the ballroom to me and didn't look at anyone else, not even Hinna."
Hinna was her older sister, who Yori always called "the beautiful one in the family."  As if she herself were ugly.  That had always irritated me.  
"He gave me a rose and asked if he could visit me.  A yellow rose.  We—what?"  She pointed at Kalan, who was dropping chunks of his rations into the water.  Was he feeding the flying fish?
I had a sudden fantasy of dying of starvation after succeeding in our Trial.  "Kalan, don't waste food."
"Human food not food.  Brought dšck‡lf food.  This fish food."  He kept crumbling dried rations and dropping them overboard.
"Well, save it for us then."    
"Brought extra.  Conjure more if need.  Let alone."
His stubborn waste annoyed me, but I didn't want to argue with him and ignore Yori.    
"I started seeing him.  He brought me things, a necklace"—she felt her bare throat—"beautiful things.  He read constantly, like you, and we would talk for hours about all sorts of things.  Argue, sometimes.  He loved to debate.  And he danced like a djinni, light as air."  Her voice was heavy, and I knew she was having a hard time saying these things.
"We were married a year after we met.  Then we had a son.  Corolon.  He's six now.  Look."   She pointed down at an angle.  A few miles away a huge dšck‡lf warship broke the waves.  Its maroon and dun sails were clearly visible even from here.  The ship rode forty feet or more above the waves, a triple-deck vessel.  Every few yards on the deck sat a scorpion, a giant crossbow made for ship-to-ship combat.  I was glad for the rug.  They probably wouldn't see us up here.  Dšck‡lfs recognized no special rights for human wizards.  I wasn't sure where Kalan stood, since he never talked about his own people.  It was better to avoid them.  
The ship sailed south.  How many slaves on board?  They would never leave, never see anything but the view from a porthole.  If I had the power I'd smash the ships and let the slaves go.  Atlan didn't allow slavery, but most of the Human Kingdoms did.  And the dšck‡lfs had tens of thousands of slaves.  Tens of thousands living, without hope.  Those of us who weren't their slaves lived in fear of them.
Kalan was still hanging over the side of the rug.  He hadn't said a word and wasn't moving.  I wondered again why he was separated from his people.
"Corolon lives with Hinna since Wrin—"  Then, much softer, she said, "I couldn't even take care of my boy."  She put her head on her arms and pulled up her knees.  I leaned over and put my arm around her shoulders, trying to think of something to say.
"Down!"  Kalan shrieked.  Something huge slashed past, and I caught a glimpse of black fins and grey skin.  It smacked my left arm and knocked me over.  Kalan cursed and gestured wildly.  Bursts of light shot from his fingers to impale the creature that had flown up after his scraps.  I saw something huge with wings, like a flying fish but four or five yards long, sparkling with salt water.  Kumadin?  I hadn't seen a flying shark in years.
It dove into the ocean.  I watched the ripples widen.  Everything moved slowly, strangely.
"Zahid, you're hurt."  Yori's voice rose a little, and she opened her eyes fully for the first time.  She put her hand on my cheek.  "Don't look.  What do you feel?" 
"What?"  Was I hurt?  I concentrated.  "My arm stings.  Nothing serious."  It was starting to burn a little.  It didn't hurt, though.  I felt blood flow down my skin and heard it drip onto the rug.  It was loud.  I could barely hear anything else.  Drip.  Drip.  It seemed hard to breathe.  Was the air getting thicker?  "What's wrong?"   
"Take the rug up higher," Yori urged Kalan. 
Why was she so upset?
The rug shot upward.  
She peeled cloth away from my arm and ran her fingers over it.  They tickled like feathers.  
"Wow, chunk gone!"  
"What?"  I felt vague alarm and tried to sit up.  
"Kalan, be quiet."  She pushed me down and said firmly, "It's all right, Zahid."  She put her hands on either side of my face and looked straight into my eyes.  "You're okay, but you're in shock.  Lie down and close your eyes."  She touched my arm again.  The pain dulled, and I didn't hear the drip-drip anymore.  I had forgotten how fast healing magic started.
You're there, Yori, I see you in there.  I missed you.  
She gently massaged above the wound.  Her magic felt warm, like Utu smiling.  The pain faded.  "Kalan, get a blanket."
Kalan mumbled something and ran his hands through his hair.  It stuck up all crazy, and I laughed.
"You what?  Get Zahid's blanket then.  Cover him with it."  
He pulled some things out of my pack and tossed them down.  Something rolled off the rug.  
"Kalan, it fell—"  I tried to point.
Yori shushed me and eased my arm back down.  "It wasn't important."  
I sighed.  If she said so...
Kalan found the blanket and snapped it open.  It fell over me.  
Yori took out her Utu-symbol and lay it on the wound.  Her face was tense.  What was wrong?  
"It'll be all right," she crooned.  Her fingers tickled my arm.  "This might hurt.  Trust me?"    
I nodded.  Yes, of course.  My arm felt cold.  My whole body felt cold.  "It's okay, it doesn't hurt at all," I said.  But they ignored me.  Why were they ignoring me?
She took things out of her pack and did something to them—I couldn't tell what—and touched me again.  Warmth flowed through my arm again.  Then cold.  Then warm.  
"Not con...  Not consis..." I said.  
Sweat gleamed on Yori's face.  She panted.  Her fingers moved back and forth, massaging—
Searing heat in my arm.
"Hot!"  I shouted.  Kalan moved over and held my shoulders down. 
Yori moaned.  "I can't—It's too much—I can't—"
"Be okay," Kalan said.  To her or me?  "Be okay."
"Not steady," I tried to say.  The healing wasn't steady.  Why wasn't she listening?
Yori let go and slumped.  The heat went away.  "Wrin,,, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.  The magic burns... I can't keep it steady... Zahid, I'm trying—"  Her voice was hoarse.
"Not done!" Kalan said.  "See?  Still a mess."  
She touched my arm again.  Warmth flowed.  Her eyes rolled up, and her mouth tightened.
There was a feeling of suction.  She was taking the heat, pulling from my arms and legs, into my chest, into my head.  The heat was leaving, she was sucking it to my arm—
"Stop, you're taking all my heat..."  My arm was on fire.  
She mumbled.  The heat kept flowing to my arm.  
"Okay," Kalan said.  "Okay.  Okay."  His fingers touched my face.  
"Can't see," I said, but he didn't move his fingers.
My hurt arm was hot, burning, all the heat was going to my hurt.  "Very hot!"  My arm burned, it twitched and jerked and pulled.  Something wrong.  Healing was taking too long, it was too hot—
"Flow no flow all jagged," Yori gasped.  Her fingers dug in and my arm exploded—
"No!"
	
When I awoke I was on my back, covered with my blanket, a pack under my head.  The stars were old friends sparkling in the dark sky.  The rug was cool, and the breeze that blew over the carpet was chilly.  I recognized the red star on the tip of Fadrian's Spear.  The gauzy white between the stars was clear here.  Even the few lights of Hafar drowned it out, back home.
I felt as if I'd been running for hours.  I tried to get up to see how Yori was doing and was pounded by waves of darkness which forced me to be still.  I wiggled my fingers, and my arm spiked pain.  But my fingers worked.  I turned to see the damage.  A jagged scar formed the outline of a big oval on my bicep.  The kumadin must have taken half a pound of me with it.  Yori had had to rebuild the tissue as well as keeping me from losing too much blood.  No wonder I was so tired.  I shivered.  If she hadn't been here I might have bled to death.  I would have at least been maimed. 
Two hours out of the Academy, and I'd already been hurt.  I hoped it wasn't an omen.  Of course, if Kalan hadn't been dropping food over the side—Well, I hadn't really tried to stop him, either.  And, anyway, what were the chances of something like the kumadin swimming by as he dropped crumbs?  It wasn't his fault.  
Kalan sat with his back to me, at my feet.  I didn't see Yori.  She had to be sleeping behind me.
"Better?" he asked.
"A lot better.  She's all right?"
He nodded.  "Ate and ate and then passed out.  Stretched her out in light."
It took me a moment to get that.  Yori's healing came from Utu, from His light and heat entering her.  She'd regain strength faster if she was facing Utu.  Kalan had moved her so Utu would shine onto her with all His strength.  
"Looked funny."  He mimed her stuffing food into her mouth and then falling over, and I chuckled.  
"Out of practice," he said.  "But healed arm."  He shifted.  "Cried...  Cared about husband."
"Yes, of course she did."
He didn't say anything.
"I don't really know how to explain, Kalan.  It's one of the differences between your race and mine.  You've got a lot of time, and we don't.  We take our mates more seriously."  
"Hurts."
"Yori?"
"Feel her hurt.  Don't like, Zahid.  Not good for dšck‡lf."
I laughed.  "It might do you some good, if you can stand it for a while."
"Janine stays with you.  Why?"
The sudden turn puzzled me.  Why all this interest in human relationships?  "Well, we love each other.  It makes our lives better to be together."  A dull ache started in my chest, thinking about her. 
He started rocking back and forth, keeping his gaze over the side of the rug.  "Janine, Zahid, Yori.  Human people.  I have no people, don't fit.  Don't fit."
"You fit here, with us.  You think I've got thousands of friends?  Janine and I live in a town so small it's not even on the map.  We get along, but most of the people don't take pains to be friendly.  The tekkie kid gets more attention than we do, and he can have it.  We have a few friends, and that's enough.  You fit where you want to.  You're always welcome in Hafar, Kalan." 
He gave a quick nod and looked down.  I felt frustrated.  What did he want?  Talking with him was like working a Pamandarian box-puzzle, sliding the little wooden blocks around in their settings until they went in place and the box opened to reveal its prize.  
"Listen to me.  Yori needs our help, and I need your help.  We can't lose our concentration, or we're good as finished.  Okay?"  
He nodded.  "Course.  Watch now.  Tired."  
"Have you been up all night?"
"No, got up check rug."  He closed his eyes and dozed off quickly, as always.
 I still didn't know why he was so anxious with Yori.  Could he be unhappy for her that her husband died?  Or was there something else?  I could ask him—No, that wouldn't help.  He'd only evade and get angry, and that would make things worse.  
From where I lay I could see over the side.  We were about a hundred yards above land, the southern bulk of Perdia.  There were no people in this area.  They had attempted communion with efrit too powerful to control, and the efrit had taken all the people for hundreds of miles.  Now the land was a waste, the remaining people degenerate.  The dšck‡lfs took their tribute and left them alone.  Were the Basquan descended from that stock?  It was possible.  Perdia was Atlan's northern neighbor.  A military unit could have come south years ago and settled...  I smiled.  It made a good story.
Other than faint rustling from the carpet there was no sound.  The ground was shadowy in starlight.  It was desert as far as I could tell, true desert.  Below were dunes and long stretches of salt flats.   
  I wished we could travel more swiftly over these harsh lands.  But our carpet wasn't one of the legendary ones that flew hundreds of miles in an hour.  Ours travelled perhaps ten miles each hour when we didn't specify a speed and fifteen miles each hour when we told it to go quickly.  A healthy horse could easily outrun our carpet—for a while.  But the carpet didn't have to rest or eat, it wasn't stopped by canyons or mountains or the sea, and it kept going until told to stop.  
My friends were relaxed in sleep, their breathing soft.  I felt pleased to be with them again, but the tension between them made me anxious.  Why couldn't we come together as we had been, friends?  Weren't we still the same people, only older?  It didn't seem too much to ask that we would come together and be glad of each other's company as in the old days.
  The sea smell made me think of those days of hot sand and Utu's light, diving off the rockpiles on the Academy's beaches.  There were permanent spells in place to keep the sharks and other sea predators away, and we could swim, catch fish, hunt for clams and lobsters and crabs, or pretend we were looking for shipwrecks.  Those days seemed forever ago.
I remembered an afternoon we spent together at the beach when I was seventeen:  
I kick a few times to get all the way to the bottom.  My ears hurt.  Twenty feet is too deep to go without earplugs.  Next time I'll remember.  It's pretty down here, with white lines wavering all over the sand and the reef from Utu's light moving on the waves, but it's noisy.  There are fish breaking shells, rocks hitting together, and all sorts of clicks and chirps and grinding.
I look all over the reddish-brown reef rock, trying to spot waving tentacles or claws.  There are shrimp and anemones and bright fish, but that's it.  I glance at the white sand in case one's walking around, but the sand's clear.  No lobsters here.  
I look over the reef to Yori.  Her skin's dark green with little white lines wiggling over it.  Her hair's tied back, but it floats up behind her like seaweed.  I like this new bathing suit.  It's so small it's almost not there at all.  She doesn't look like she sees any, either.   
Kalan taps my shoulder, and I turn.  His goggles make him look like some sea-person, and I sort of laugh but stop right away because that makes my chest hurt.  Even with the water breathing spell it's hard on my lungs to breathe water in and out.  
He swims between Yori and me and points down.  It looks like more reef to me.  I don't see—Oh, Utu.  Two long antennae stick out of a hole in the rock.  It's got to be a twenty-pounder.  Kalan swims further down the reef and points again, and Yori follows him and stays where he shows her, crouching on the sand.  That's one exit covered.  He swims to another spot in the reef.  Its other exit.  They always have two.  I glance at Yori, and she nods.  All right...
I swim down and fake-grab at it.  It'll go shooting backwards through one of its exits, and—
It zooms straight out at me.  
Utu, it's huge!  Those claws could cut metal!  It hits me right in the chest—It'll claw me!  Kalan!  Help!
I smash down the experience and save it.  
There's a funny sound, and I take my hand away from my face.  Kalan's floating in the water, sort of doubled up, pointing at me and laughing.  
It's not very funny.  What if it had grabbed my face or something?  It had big claws!
There's thrashing on the side of my vision, and I turn and see Yori fighting with it.  It must have hit me and went backwards right into her, and she grabbed it.  The lobster's got hold of stray strands of her hair with one claw.  She's got the other claw with her hand, holding it shut.  Kalan and I kick over and help her.  He grabs its body, and I pry the claw loose from her hair.  Its shell is hard as metal and covered with sharp little spikes that jab into my fingers.  Next time we go for smooth-shells!  
Kalan unwraps strings from his wrist and ties its claws shut and tries to take it, but Yori shakes her head no.  She's right.  She caught it.  He looks angry but lets go.  
We head for shore.  It's the biggest lobster we've ever caught, easily.  We can get Shamar to cook it, maybe, and have it for dinner.  We've got a lobster-tank just offshore, and Yori opens the little door and pushes it in.  It barely fits.  
We stand up, half out of the water.  Utu's heat rolls over me, and I have to shut my eyes from His light.  What a furnace of an afternoon!  I pull the goggles off and bend over to clear my lungs.  Warm, salty water rushes out my mouth and nose and makes me gag.  Blech!  This is the worst thing about the spell.  My mouth tastes like salt.  I sneeze out water.
Yori's got this down, and the water comes out of her mouth in a steady steam that doesn't make her gag.  How does she do that?  Kalan's noisy as he can be, of course, staggering around and choking and snorting water out his nose and mouth. 
When we get to shore I flop down on my mat.  I'm not going anywhere for a while.
"Come on," Yori says.  "Wouldn't you like to go diving?"  
I look up at her.  "Now?"
"Warships leaving Blackstone today," Kalan says.  "Go back and watch."  
"But Utu'll only be up for another hour," Yori says.  "Who knows when we'll get back here?  Come on, we can see warships another day."
His mouth sets.  "Swim all time.  Go back, Shamar cook lobster, watch ships."  He rolls up his mat and looks toward the Academy.  It's a half-hour to walk back.
"Well," I say,  "I'd kind of like—" 
"It's only one afternoon," Yori says in that tone that pulls on me to do what she wants.  "You wanted to go lobstering in the first place.  Can't we do what I want to do now?"
"You caught lobster," he said.  "Now I want watch ships."
"Why does it matter who caught it?  It could have been you just as easily.  We—"
"Why can't we just stay here and rest?" I say.  I hate this.  Why do they have to fight?   
"Well, go ahead and rest," Yori says.  She sits on her mat and looks out at the sea.
Kalan turns around and folds his arms.  
I feel pushed and pulled at the same time.  "We can walk back now and give the lobster to Shamar and go diving for a half hour by the Academy," I say.  "Then we can go see the ships as they leave the harbor."  I'm tired, but it'll be worth it if they'll stop fighting.
Kalan laughs.  "Good plan."
"All right," Yori says.  
We roll up our mats and head back.
I just wanted us to be friends.  What was so hard about everyone giving a little?  
Exhausted, I went back to sleep. 

When I awoke Utu had just come up, but we were moving under thick clouds, and I hoped it would stay cool.  I still felt as if I'd just finished a long run, but I could move without feeling I was about to pass out.  After a few minutes I looked at Yori.  She was asleep with her pack under her head and her blanket tucked around her.  Kalan had taken care of her.  I was glad for his concern and that he'd done what for me would have been major chores.  
We'd be flying over the Skyhammer Sea most of this day.  The Skyhammer had struck in Ceretesia and buried itself in Perdia's desert thousands of years ago, before the human kingdoms were even kingdoms, but stories survived.  The Skyhammer had come from outside the world, like the little meteorites which sometimes fall from the sky, but it must have been gigantic, the size of a city, to create the Sea.  It brought a strange sickness which wasted the land and killed hundreds of thousands of people.  Stories said Perdia and Ceretesia had been farmlands, but the Skyhammer's coming had changed the weather and turned those countries to deserts.  It also brought the fungi of which the dšck‡lfs were so fond.
As we came closer to the Sea I realized the clouds were lowering and that it must be covered by fog.  It would be best to get above it so we could see where the rug was going.  Gritting my teeth, I crawled to the center of the rug.  My body trembled, and I grunted with every motion.  My hurt arm burned, and it was so stiff I could hardly use it.  The patterns in the rug seemed to move as I stared at them, concentrating on moving first my arms and then my legs.  My muscles were sore and aching.  When I finally got to the middle of the rug I collapsed.  It had taken me five minutes to crawl ten feet.  
I laughed.  We were supposed to go to the Isle if Dreams and unravel its curse, but on the second day of our journey I was so weak I could be killed by a child.  I hoped the rest of the Trial would go better than these first few days.
I managed to sit and commanded the rug to rise.  It lifted several thousand feet, but the clouds rose still higher and went as far east and west as I could see.  I brought the carpet back down to a hundred yards above the ground.
What the Hells was this?  I'd never read anything about a permanent cloud over this area.  The masters hadn't told us about fog over the Skyhammer Sea.  Was it seasonal?  We'd have to travel slowly to avoid flying creatures in the fog, if there were any.  It meant we'd be travelling more slowly than the first day.  The Trial would take longer.  Was this Utu's way of saying we needed to take more time to arrive at the Isle?  That thought eased my frustration.  I commanded the rug to slow.
The clouds were grey but not dark, not storm clouds.  That I was thankful for.  Remens had told me once about being on a flying carpet during a storm, how wind had knocked the carpet around and lifted and dropped it and how he and two other masters got sick and had to land.  We couldn't land in the Sea.  
Kalan woke up before we entered the fog bank.  He stretched and yawned and looked around.  "Slowed rug down," he said, sounding puzzled.
"Yes," I said.  "I don't want to run into anything."
"Nothing run into."  He concentrated and commanded:  "Fast."  The rug surged forward.
"No, we can't see where we're going," I said.  "I don't want to run into a roc."
"No rocs near Skyhammer Sea," he said confidently.  
"Well, there might be something in the area."  
He opened his pack.  "Peaches?" he asked.  
"No, I don't—"  My stomach rumbled.  "Well, that sounds good.  But the rug has to go slow."
"Into fog, see what happens."
Why was he being so difficult?  "What if something's flying around in there and we hit it and fall into the water?  Seems like a stupid way for our Trial to end."
He took out two plump peaches and handed one to me.  "Won't stay fresh long," he said.  "Eat now."
"Thank you."  I decided to slow the carpet when his concentration was absorbed elsewhere.  The peach wasn't quite ripe but was good nonetheless.  After a took the first bite I realized I was starving and devoured it.  Yori's healing had taken a lot of my strength.
When we finished the peaches Kalan took dried meat from his pack, and we gnawed that.  I took an apple from my pack and ate that, too, and more meat.  Our travelling rations had fresh food for the first two days, and the rest was dried and preserved.  The rations seemed pitifully small.  I was eating into future meals, but it seemed best to eat a lot now, when I was weak from the healing, or I'd never get my strength back.  
As we ate the carpet entered the fog.  Immediately the temperature dropped several degrees, and Utu's light dimmed.  "Hard to see," Kalan commented.
"Yes, it is.  Maybe we should slow the rug down."
He shook his head.  
I wanted to tell him that we were slowing the carpet, but then I thought about the extra time it would take to get to the Isle if we did.  Maybe it would be better to keep going the same speed and get there sooner.  It wasn't worth fighting over.  He was probably right.  
The fog grew thicker, and the light became a greyish-yellow glow.  I could see Kalan and Yori and the rug but nothing else.  I finished the peach, and Kalan asked for the seed back.
"Why?" I asked, handing it over.
"Make new peaches tomorrow."  
"Ah.  Right."  It had been a long time since I'd travelled.  A simple spell reconstituted new food from the remains of old food.  A peach pit could be made into a new peach, chicken bones would become a chicken wing, and so on.  That way our food would stretch longer, and we could eat more with each meal.  "Good idea," I told him, and he nodded.
Our voices sounded strange in the fog, amplified and muffled at the same time.  It was like talking loudly into a large ball of cotton.  Words echoed in a way that made me nervous.  
Kalan must have noticed, too, because he stood up in the middle of the rug and shouted, "Hey!"  The sound echoed on the carpet and died all at once.  
"Kalan!" I said sharply.  "Yori needs to sleep."
He glanced at her and frowned.    
I heard a sound far off, a clicking.  Instantly I tensed.  "What's that?"
Kalan stilled.  He was turned away, and I couldn't see his face.  "Bird," he said finally.
"What kind of bird clicks?"
He shrugged.  "Different birds here."
The fog made it impossible to tell what direction the sound was coming from, but it was getting louder.  That meant closer.  It was a wet clicking, like a tongue would make.  My skin prickled.  What was out there?  
He frowned.  "Ready," he said.  His fingers twitched.
My heartbeat seemed to echo in the fog.  I remembered something about the Skyhammer Sea and clicking, but I couldn't make the connection.  The clicking sounded nearer now, still headed toward us.  Whatever it was, it wasn't coming quickly.
"Blow away fog," he said.  "See."
"And it'll see us," I whispered loudly.  
Finally I could see a dark shape in the fog, and from the way Kalan stiffened I knew he was seeing it, too.  It was larger than our rug, and round. 
"Spore-bag!" I shouted. 
Flame roared next to the rug, a bubble of orange and red fire that blinded me.  I looked away.  I couldn't feel any heat.  He must have made the kind where all the heat radiates into the bubble.  Something exploded.  
"Don't breathe!" I yelled.  I dropped and put my sleeve over Yori's mouth.  I held my other hand over my nose and mouth.  My heart raced.  Spores grew in the lungs and caused slow suffocation.  Finally Kalan's spell burned out, and I took my sleeve away.  She hadn't stirred.  
"Floating fungus," I said.  "Remember, Theriot's class?"
He looked blank.  
It came back to me, a few minutes of a class that was weird and interesting.  "In the spring some of the fungi make floating spore-bags that drift and scatter spores.  The clicking's from a gas valve that keeps it from going too high.  Remember?"
He laughed.  "Killed spore-bag?"
"It wouldn't have been funny if we'd breathed the spores," I said, but it did seem funny, using a powerful spell to fry a flying mushroom.  "Utu, there must be thousands of those things floating around out here."  
He stared at me for a moment and then commanded, "Rug, slow.  Down."  It slowed and sank toward the Sea.  When we could see the water a few yards below he leveled it off.  Now none of the fungi could float up from under us.  They didn't live in the water, as far as I knew.
After that he sat on the front of the carpet and I on the back to listen for clicking sounds and watch for approaching shapes that didn't make noises.  The clicking sounds went on all day, mostly far off, though a few times they were closer, and once the clicking got so loud it vibrated the rug, and the fog above us darkened as a huge bag drifted by for five or ten minutes.  It had to be hundreds of feet in diameter.  Several times we moved the rug upward to let smaller bags drift underneath us.  Yori slept through it all.  It was tiring to sit and listen for hours, following every noise as it got louder or softer, and I found myself longing for Utu's company again.  
During the afternoon there was a stretch of silence, and my thoughts turned to the Masters' Council.  Arrogant bastards.  They sat on their high bench and sent us on a mission that much stronger wizards hadn't been able to handle.  What were we to them?  A wizard with some skill at shield spells, a dšck‡lf who would be less trouble dead, and a healer who was in so much pain she couldn't care.  That's what they saw.  
Had they had set us up not to come back?  Alhambad had sworn everything they said was true.  "To the best of my knowledge," he had said.  That left room for half-truths.  What purpose could it serve for us to die?     
Instinctively I wanted to blame everything on Ranhammon.  He hated Kalan and despised me.  From our first day at the Academy he'd singled us out for abuse.  He denied us passes away from the Academy, gave us special assignments.  Once he forced us to watch him summon a djinni to torment.  She had never broken, killing herself to stop him from wresting her secrets from her.  She had bitten her tongue off, blood spattering down her chest, sobbing as he stabbed her psychically again and again.  I was ten.  
I wished him a slow, painful death.
But Ranhammon wasn't the voice of the Academy.  He was a senior faculty member, but he didn't decide policy.  He couldn't have commanded the others to agree with him and send us to our deaths.  Besides, if he wanted Kalan that much he could send a major efriti after him some night.  Kalan was powerful, but I had no doubt he would succumb to master-class magic.  Ranhammon could get in touch with very rough efrit.  
Alhambad was Headmaster.  But he had no goals or prejudices that I knew of.  He wasn't friendly, but he didn't seem malicious.  Cold and distant, yes.  As a student I'd only seen him once, at graduation.  Whatever agenda he followed was known only to him.  
None of us were trouble to them on any scale above the personal.  What would the masters get if we died?  Satisfaction, for Ranhammon.  What about the others?
Dermallion seemed easy.  She was uncertain of her position or herself or both.  She didn't like what was happening but didn't feel strong enough to stop it.  I wondered how she'd gotten onto the Council.  Money?  She certainly didn't seem to have the power.
Coronta...  She didn't care about us one way or the other.  She only seemed interested in power and rules.  I shivered.  How did someone come to see people as pawns or tools?  But did we have to die for her to get what she wanted?  Or did she hope we would come back from the Isle with knowledge or some item that would increase her power or the power of the Council?  Was that really what the Council wanted?  
Too many questions, no answers.  Secrets were our enemies.  
I imagined Alhambad saying, "Heavy is the leader's turban, Zahid."  
Was I the leader?  I didn't feel like one.  I felt powerless and frustrated.  I spat over the side of the rug.  That's what I had for the Masters' Council and their Trial.  
Remens had known what sort of Trial was planned for us.  He came to greet us and wouldn't meet my eyes.  He had his hood up to protest the decision the Council had already made.  But he broke the Council's rules—a dangerous action, politically if not physically—to urge us to go and to give us his support.  What kind of stakes would convince him to do that?  More than three lives, I was willing to bet.  Were dšck‡lfs involved?  If he thought we could do it then maybe we could, but that didn't mean it would be easy.  
He'd been a member of the Council for years.  What did he think of as "acceptable losses" these days?  I shook off the thought.  In my fourteen years at the Academy he'd never betrayed me.  He'd been the instructor I'd looked up to.  I'd trusted him from the first time I'd seen him, when he'd explained the basics of magic to us.
This is sure a tiny classroom.  Why'd they break us up into such little groups?  
The side door opens, and a man in a black candis with yellow patterns on it walks to the desk in the front of the room.  He's big, with hard muscles and really dark skin.  His hair is curly.  Why's he dressed in black?  Did somebody die?  He sets down a cup and looks us over.  
"My name is Instructor Remens.  I teach physiological stimuli for magic, among other things.  Most of the students call me the master of sex.  You will not address me by that title to my face or where I can hear about it.  Is that understood?"
"Yes."  Everybody nods.  He sure has a loud voice! 
"Good.  I'm going to give you some basics of magic this morning to clear up the garbage you might have heard.  I'm also going to show you some ways you can apply magic, though you won't be performing any magic yourselves today.  Or for several years, for that matter."  
"Awww."  I wish Limin was here.  He'd be a great wizard.  When can we go outside?
"Spell casting is broken down into five steps, which you can remember by five S's:  Smashing, Storing, Searching, Shattering, and Shaping.  Each step will be taught to you in detail in later courses, but for now I want you to get the main ideas."  He picks up a piece of chalk and writes the five steps, one under another, on the blackboard.  
"All magic works from the power of emotions.  It doesn't matter whether these are emotions such as love and pleasure or emotions such as hate or lust."  Under the five steps he writes LOVE, PLEASURE, HATE and LUST.  "Say that I am stabbed by a man in an alley.  I feel a shock of fear, and anger that this person has attacked me.  These emotions are the raw stuff of spells.  
"You there!" he shouts, and everybody jumps.  Who's he yelling at?  "Did you notice how startled you were just now?  You will learn to capture emotions you are feeling at moments like that by smashing those experiences into little knots of energy.  You still feel the emotions at the time, but you save some of the energy for later.  This process is the first S, Smashing."
I write down on my paper, "1)  Smash experiences into knots for spells."
"Most emotions lose their power quickly, often within a minute or two, so they have to be stored—that's the second S, Store—as quickly as possible.  You store these special memories in a place inside your mind called your Memory Sea.  You'll receive training in how to do that later.  For now, remember that powerful emotional experiences can be stored."  He drew circles around LOVE, HATE, PLEASURE and LUST.
I remember when Fury bit my hand, and the Satrap said that's what I got for trying to pet a hunting dog, and I felt really stupid, but I didn't cry in front of the Satrap.  I write down, "2)  Store things like getting bit by dogs."
"At some point you will want to cast a spell, and you will need to recall one of those memories full of emotional energy.  A moment ago I mentioned the Memory Sea.  That's important, so remember it."
I write down, "3)  Memory Sea."  Then I draw an arrow back to 2), since it's not really 3) but part of 2).  Maybe I should have done something else, because my paper's messy.  
Instructor Remens taps his head with the chalk and leaves a little white mark.  Somebody snickers.  "Most people remember some things and forget some things.  That's not good enough for a wizard, since your power comes from your experiences and how well you remember them.  You'll receive training to help your memory.  Think of the Memory Sea as an ocean.  If you drop things into it you'll have a hard time finding them.  So the third S, Search, stands for the way you find stored memories among all the usual memories you have in there.  It sounds hard, but you'll learn to do it very quickly by the time you graduate."
I write down, "4)" and cross it out.  Then I write, "3)  Search for things like Fury biting me so I can make spells for blowing up pirates and robbers."
"To use a stored memory for magic you have to break it open and release the energy.  That's the fourth S, Shattering the stored memory.  When you do that you lose the experience.  You still remember it, but the memory loses its emotional content because you use that energy for spells.  So it's like remembering something that doesn't mean much to you anymore.  Now, remember when I was saying what if I got stabbed in an alley?"
"Uh-huh."  Everybody nods or says yes.
I hurry and write, "4)  Shatter the memory-thing to make a fire to burn up robbers."
Instructor Remens takes a drink from his cup.  "Excellent.  Now let's say that a healer comes along and heals me, and I want to give her a present because she helped me."
"What about a dress?" a girl says.
"All right, I want to give her a dress.  I'm not carrying a dress, so I want to make a magic one.  I search my Memory Sea and find the memory I saved when the thief stabbed me.  I break open the memory, and the energy pours out.  In the process of shaping"—he taps SHAPING on the board—"I convert the emotional energy into magic.  I can't begin now to explain how this works.  Trust me when I say that it does."
I write down, "5)  Shape the dog into a dress to give to the Healer."  Are we ever going to go outside?
"Now, it helps if you cast spells on something that's already there.  Say you want a piece of apple pie.  If you have a piece of mincemeat pie in front of you, you can turn the mincemeat to apple.  You could turn a turnip or even a fork into a piece of pie, but that takes more energy.  If you make something out of thin air it takes a lot of energy and usually isn't worth it.  So to make a dress for the healer I might touch whatever she's wearing and turn it into a silk dress.  Or I might take a piece of my candis and make it into a dress.  When you use an object to help you cast a spell, that object is called a base.
"In the last step, Shaping, I take the energy from the thief stabbing me, shape it into magic, and make the cloth into a pretty dress for her.  Is all that clear?"
"Yeah..." I say, and someone else says, "Uh-huh."  
He stops talking and takes a long swallow from the cup.  "Now I'll give you a demonstration."  We all look at each other.  What's he going to do?  Korin-Kalan's staring at the wall.  Wonder what he's thinking about?  
"This morning I swam in the ocean, and I smashed and saved the good feelings I got from doing that."  He closes his eyes.  "Now I search for the stored memory of those good feelings in my Memory Sea...  There it is.  I shatter the memory and shape the power."  He opens his eyes.  "Now, the fruits of my labors."  He holds one hand up, and a blue flame pops up on it.  The flame gets bigger, a couple feet high, and starts twisting.  Wow, that's pretty!
"Swordsman!" somebody yells, and I can see him in the fire, a swordsman getting solider and solider.  He stabs and spins and whirs around just like in the plays.  He's got armor on, and high boots, and a cloth tied to his head like a pirate.  This is great!
All of a sudden he gets real big like a real person and jumps onto the floor.  He's all blue, and he's fuzzy so you can tell he's really made out of fire.  "Fool!"
He talks!
"You've given me life, and now you'll pay!"  He swings at Master Remens—
"No!" everybody yells.
Master Remens ducks, and the fire-sword swishes over his head.  A sword appears in his hand all of a sudden, some kind of glowing sword that's all red.  
"Get him!" Korin-Kalan yells, and somebody shouts, "Yeah!"
"Be careful!" I yell.
The pirate stabs straight forward, and Master Remens parries.  They go back and forth, swinging, and everyone tries to stay out of the way, and I can feel the heat from the pirate.  Korin-Kalan spits on him, and he sizzles.  
Master Remens moves to one side and stabs the pirate right through the chest!   The pirate disappears in a big flash.  
"Yahooo!"  
Instructor Remens smiles like a kid with a big piece of honey bread.  "Now let's go outside and take a break."
There was no way to tell how deeply involved he was in the Council's games, but I felt I could trust him.  He'd risked himself to encourage us.  He'd always helped Kalan and me.  
And I needed to believe someone was on our side.

In the evening we quietly ate dried rations and listened for spore-bags.  We decided to take shifts through the night, Kalan first.  I fell asleep as soon as I lay down. 

V



  When I awoke I was startled to find it was late morning.  The sky was clear and blue, Utu blazing.  Kalan was humming to himself.  Cautiously I stretched.  Most of the aches were gone.  In another day the only pain would be in my arm, which was still stiff and sore.
"Morning," Kalan said.  
"Good morning.  What happened?"  
"Came out fog middle of shift, so went sleep."
"You what?"  I felt dizzy.  "What if some bags had floated out of the fog bank?  They would have hit us and filled us with spores—"
"No clicks in long time," he said with a touch of anger.  "Besides, no bags outside fog."  
I couldn't remember whether or not the spore-bags needed the fog or not, but I didn't see why they couldn't drift outside it.  "Next time you decide to go to sleep on shift at least wake me up, all right?  We can put a djinni on watch."
He nodded.  I didn't feel reassured.  
Using my sore arm I dug out two small coconuts, the last of the fresh food.  Every little movement made the muscles quiver and hurt, but I kept at it until I had the fruit.  I'd need both arms on the Isle.  
Kalan cracked the coconuts with a minor spell, and we drank their juice and ate the sweet, white flesh.  It would be days before we had anything else fresh.  Kalan took out a peach pit and held it, concentrating.  When he opened his hand the peach was reconstituted.  He ate it and spat the pit over the side.  
After breakfast we went over our map.  There was only one more stretch of land to cross, and then it was water all the way to the Isle.  We'd make the turn to the northeast the next morning, when we were in the channel separating Ceretesia and Irsmin.  
As I watched Kalan ponder the map I wondered again why he was coming on this Trial.  He'd made his deal with the Council on his own and hadn't volunteered anything, which meant he wasn't going to tell me.  Did he want more power?  He didn't need it.  Maybe he just wanted excitement, and this seemed like a good way to go adventuring with old friends.  That seemed likely.
He glanced at Yori and frowned, and I felt anxious.  What had happened between them?  I wanted to ask, but it didn't seem likely they would tell me.  There was time to find out.  No need to force them.
I thought of Janine going about her chores and mine, playing runes with Astapha or walking to the ruins for raw glass for her work.  Was she finished with the two dogs chasing each other?  I remembered the shape of her face and the feel of her, the sound of her voice and her scent, and I felt pulled toward her and Hafar.  She visited her family in Blackstone for six weeks each year, and I missed her then, but the route to the city was as safe as living in Hafar, and I didn't worry about her.  What if the Basquan attacked while I was away?  It wasn't the dry season, but they might.  
But I was the one in danger, not her.  At least I had the advantage of knowing where I was and how I was doing.  For her there would be no word until I came back or the Academy sent a letter or messenger saying I wasn't coming back.  Damn it, why hadn't I specialized in communication magic?  I knew a few minor spells for sending messages several miles, but not across hundreds.  I could summon a little djinni, but even the small ones charged high prices.  I wasn't about to give up our first-born just to send Janine a message saying I was worried but fine.  
Around noon we crossed into Ceretesia.  This was the oldest human empire, where half-men/half-efrit ruled.  Their land was a waste, the people barbaric.  The Skyhammer and centuries of war over the remaining fertile land and food had destroyed their civilization and left roving bands of nomads and cities full of half-cannibalistic savages.  Even the dšck‡lfs didn't want anything to do with them, taking their tribute and leaving them alone.  The sand was blood-red, rich with iron (Kalan said) but poor in life.  We saw no birds.  Though we flew close to the ground, no insects buzzed us.  Even cacti were rare.  The Skyhammer's sickness killed nearly everything.  It seemed sad that the people of this nation, who had devised writing, metallurgy, and the laws of magic, had sunk so low.  Before the Skyhammer had struck this had been a beautiful kingdom, according to legend. 
Yori awoke as we flew over a caravan of Ceretesians, a quarter-mile-long train of rag-tag carts, wagons, and war-carriages pulled by camels and sturdy desert horses and strewn with wildly-colored banners, flags, military symbols, and such bizarre decorations on the wagons as skulls, corpses and a dozen or more painted exoskeletons from thurbizzz-type efrit, attended by hundreds of sweating, cursing men and half-efrit who shuffled along in the dust, taking unfortunate goods—slaves and other foodstuffs—to some gods-forsaken city to sacrifice to Ceretesia's patron efrit.  Several three-pointed Stars of Hannomar made me think of the whispered Forsike campaign in Thalarar, where survivors said a thousand villagers were skinned alive.  These slaves were probably the children of slaves.  Why did Utu let these abominations go on?  
From our aerial view the procession was silent and eerie.  Janine and I were fortunate to live in a prosperous land.  The Basquan were an annoyance compared to this. 
"I'm hungry," Yori said, she sat up and rubbed her eyes.  She looked tired, but her color was better than it had been, and her hands were steady.
Kalan took a peach pit from his pack and made a fist around it.  When he opened his hand there was a peach in his palm.  He tossed it to her.  "Morning," he said.
I wondered why he'd spat the pit from his peach over the side when he'd finished it, but then I remembered that ensorcelled food could only be reconstituted from remains of real food once.  After that something vital was used up.  He must have brought a bag of scraps and seeds to turn into meals.  I didn't want to eat much conjured food if I could help it.  Created food lacks something that real food has.  After a few days a person living on magic food begins to wither and eventually dies of starvation, no matter how much created food he consumes.  
Yori turned the peach over in her hands, staring at it.  She sank to the carpet and lowered her face, hair hanging forlornly.  The peach fell from her hands.  She put one hand to her face and sobbed. 
Kalan looked at me in surprise, then her.  "Good, Yori, good food."
"What's wrong?"  I knelt, hand on her shoulder, and strained to hear her.
"Presents," she whispered.  "He's giving me presents."  
"Yes, he gave me some, too," I said.  "I don't understand why you're upset."
"Apple instead?"  Kalan offered, rummaging through his pack.
Through the sobs burst a laugh.  "No, I don't want an apple."  Her face seemed caught between emotions.  Had she given Wrin a peach the day he left?
"Yori?" 
"I'm fine, fine.  I just couldn't believe...  And he means it."  She looked as if she were about to start crying again.  Looking at Kalan she said, "You make things so hard."
He turned away from her, looking I supposed for an apple seed, and didn't respond.
"What's hard?"  I was bewildered.  Kalan's action had hurt her deeply, and for some reason she was going to pass it off.  
The clatter of objects stopped as Kalan finished rummaging.  He gave me a frightened look.
Before I could respond, Yori said, "Looks the same as yesterday.  Caravan's new, though." 
Damn it!  She wouldn't say more.  If I pried she'd retreat further.  For a moment I felt I was trapped in a madhouse with two insane people.
Kalan said, "No, not same as two days ago.  Today Ceretesia."  
As he said "Ceretesia" her face went slack.
I said loudly, "It'll be hotter today.  As if we don't smell bad enough already."  Empty talk, trying to hold her—She closed her eyes and sighed, opened her mouth, closed it again.  Her shoulders drooped.  When she spoke, her voice was back to monotone.  
"Doesn't matter."  She kept her eyes closed.
"Yori!"  I hit the carpet, and it cracked like a snapped towel.  
She looked slowly up at me.  "It's hot," she said.  She picked up the peach and ate it.
I stared.  I'd thought it was over, she'd come back to us.  I'd hoped that healing my arm would have reawakened her.  I tried to get her to talk, rubbing her shoulders and humming some of the songs we had sung for each other.  Once she smiled a little.  Nothing came of it.  Finally I gave up and sat quiet next to her.
After the Basquan had gone, after Hafar had burned its dead, Cerry's father, Yousef, had refused to eat or to acknowledge his family.  Everyone had become so frustrated with trying to reach him that we let him be, and he came back as he was able to.  Yori had been in her melancholy for eighteen months.  When she healed my arm she'd cried over losing Wrin.  Maybe her own healing had finally begun.  I'd have to try to be patient.
By afternoon the heat was fierce.  Kalan used a spell to make my blanket as stiff as a board and levitated it a few feet above the carpet.  We spent hours lying still, panting, sweat trickling down our faces and soaking our clothes.  Finally the heat lessened as Utu sank.  Slowly standing, I stretched and walked to the edge of the carpet.  
A vast ruin lay below us, mostly covered by sand but still displaying foundations and partial walls.  This place must have been one of the Ceretesians' ancient cities.  As we passed over we saw entire blocks covered so that their outlines barely showed.  Notch-toothed towers rose out of the sand, and Kalan eyed these every time we passed one.  Finally he said it.
"Stop."
"It's not a good idea." 
"Tired sitting.  Do something."  He stood and pushed his hands downward.  "Down!"  The carpet sank.  I stood next to him and raised my hands and commanded the carpet to rise.  It bucked.  Kalan snarled and pushed down harder.
"Kalan!  We don't know what's down there.  There could be bandits or efrit or nothing but a waste of time.  None of them would be good.  Come on, let's keep going."  Actually I wanted to land and exercise as badly as he did, but landing in a ruined city seemed reckless.
"Set down.  Walk around.  Get off damned carpet while."
"Let's go past the city and land."
"Nothing explore past city.  All water until Isle."
The carpet pitched as we imposed our wills on it.  Yori dug her hands into the thick carpet fibers and hung on.  Our packs knocked together and slid toward the edge.  I stopped trying to control the carpet and grabbed for them.  The carpet plummeted.  Both packs flew over the side.  I fell and rolled off, hollering, trying to grab anything to keep me up.  With my good hand I snagged the tassels on the border of the carpet and hung for several moments, kicking air.  The ground rushed at me.  My stomach flip-flopped.  When my feet hit sand I yelped and let go by reflex, lurching backward as I tried to keep my balance.  
Kalan landed the carpet a few yards away and leapt off to kick up plumes of sand.  "Better!" he shouted.
"There's no point to this," I said.  
"Have to run!"  He looked wild.  "Run, get off carpet while."  
I forced myself to slowly retrieve the packs with my sore arm and tossed them on to the carpet.  I could put him to sleep or knock him out before he could defend himself.  He was used to attacking me, not the other way around.  I started searching for a memory.
A crafty look stole over his face.  He pointed to Yori, who was still sitting on the carpet.  "Change scenery might help."
I looked at Yori's drawn face.  She was staring into the distance.  He had a point.  Down here the sand was hot, the wind sharp, the light fierce.  Maybe the monotony of flying only helped her stay withdrawn.  The environment here might encourage her to react.  I stopped searching.
I wasn't ready to give up caution, though.  "There could be trouble here.  It's been dead a long time, so anything left must be nasty enough that it shouldn't be found.  I agree that we should stretch our legs and take a break, but exploring isn't a good idea."  
He responded by pulling a candle from his pack and stuffing it into a pocket on his candis.  Yori stood up, half-stumbling as she stretched her legs.
"Where are we?" she asked dully.
"Almost to the northern ocean.  We're about two days from the Isle, I'd guess.  We're stopping to walk a while."
"Oh."  She sat back down.  
"Up," Kalan enjoined her.  "Walk."  He tugged on her arm until she stood.
I looked around.  We had come down near a group of slim towers, worn down to stubs by sand-laden wind, so weathered that there weren't even any tiles or marks left on them.  As far as I could see they were alike.  They probably belonged to one huge building, completely buried.  Under us lay hundreds of rooms where people had slept and loved and died.  Torturers had broken people here.  Diplomats and court ladies and commoners had come to worship patron efrit.  Had they asked too much and been destroyed?  Had there been fire and rain, or was the end filled with efrit in the streets, carrying everyone off?  Was this place killed by the Skyhammer?  Or had trade routes simply shifted, leaving the city to wither and die?  
Whatever had happened, the people had gone.  Food rotted, and wood slowly fell apart.  Utu baked paint from the temples.  Dunes swept over the buildings.  Maybe bandits had come and gone, terrified by half-whispered legends, but they quit coming after a while.  Now only the wind came here.  I shuddered.  I wanted no part of this place.
"Why don't we walk around this building?" I said.  "That should stretch our muscles.  We can rest in the shade when we're done, so we can avoid Utu's heat for this afternoon."  I saw Kalan's jaw set as I spoke and knew he wasn't leaving until he had some action.  I thought of taking Yori back to the carpet and leaving him.  
My legs felt as if I'd slept badly, tingling and sending sharp pains up my spine.  At first all I could manage were short steps like an old person.  I'd paced on the carpet at times, of course, but that hadn't helped much.  Kalan didn't laugh, which surprised me.  He and Yori were both hobbling as much as I was.  He'd been right.  We'd needed to get off the carpet for a while. 
I laughed.  "We look like three doddering fools lost in the desert."
"Not funny," Kalan said, grimacing as he took a long step.  
Yori was silent, but she was blinking rapidly.  I guessed the pain in her legs was forcing her to focus on them, and she preferred not to.  Taking her arm, I increased my strides and gritted my teeth against the pain.  By the time we'd gone a few hundred yards the aches had lessened, and I was pleased that we'd landed.  Yori was trying to drag us to a halt, which also pleased me.  At least some part of her was with us.  
Kalan let go of her arm and started walking away.
"Where are you going?" I asked.  
He looked at the nub of a tower not far off.  Its top was gone, and its sides rose six feet or so above the dunes.  "Down."
"It'll be filled with sand."
"Think so?"  He strode to the tower, grasped hold of the rim over his head, and started pulling himself up.  
"Watch it, there might be snakes."
He dropped back down and concentrated for a second.  A flame crackled in one hand, and he threw it over the wall.  Fire roared out of the tower and was replaced by wisps of smoke.
"No more snakes."  He pulled himself up again and peered over.  "Full sand."
"They'll all be like that."
"See."  He looked for the next closest tower and headed toward it.  
I walked to the one he'd just left and pulled myself up.  The sand within was only a few feet lower than the sand outside.  There were no stairs going down to the building below.  If we were lucky they would all be full.  I let myself back down.
Yori sat in the shade of the nub and watched Kalan stalk from tower to tower, getting angrier as he found them all full of sand.  She sighed when he leveled one.  "He's so intense," she said.
"He always was."
She nodded.  I was disappointed.  I'd hoped she'd say more.  
He blasted another tower, and it crumbled into blocks of stone, raising a dust cloud.  He headed for the last tower, several hundred yards from us.  
"He has so much power."
"Yes," I prompted.  What was she thinking about?  
She looked down.  "He's already broken...  I hope he never gains more."  
I groped to follow her.  What had he broken?  "He's going on this Trial for his master training.  They'll teach him spells that'll make what he has now look like a wizard-in-training's first pyrotechnic."
She drew up her knees and rested her chin on them as if protecting herself.  Against Kalan?
I waited for her to go on, but she didn't.  Her eyes glazed.
"Yori?"  I waved my hand in front of her eyes.
She blinked.  "When he learns those spells, what will stop him from wiping out whole towns instead of a few people at a time?"  Her tone suggested she was thinking of something in particular.
"Well, I don't exactly see him running around blowing up—"
"He thought he could help," she said.  
"What?"  Talking with her was harder than talking to Kalan.  Was she giving me bits and pieces of a larger picture or sharing random thoughts?  "Who could help?  Kalan?  Help who?"
"He was so good with words.  He always knew what to say."
I tried to stay with her.  "Wrin?"  I found myself leaning toward her, urging her to go on.
She nodded.  "I thought he could help.  It wouldn't take—I didn't know—"
"What didn't you know?"  She was blinking fast, and I knew she'd retreat if I pushed even a little too hard.  I had to keep going.  The Isle would chew her up if she couldn't defend herself. 
She drew her mouth in a firm line.  "Dšck‡lfs." 
"What about them?"  If the dšck‡lfs had something to do with Wrin's death, no wonder being around Kalan upset her.  
"They didn't want him to help the Ceretesians."
It took me a moment to understand that.  She'd said Wrin was an ambassador, and I'd heard about riots in the Ceretesian capital.  "He went to try to stop the riots?"
She didn't respond, and I repeated my question.  She nodded a little.  "He was going to try to help, and they—"  She swallowed.
"They killed him."
She nodded.
Some of the tension and frustration left me.  No wonder she was so upset around Kalan.  "Was he the ambassador to Ceretesia?  Why did he go?"
She pulled her legs up tight and started rocking.  Finally she whispered, "He was the ambassador to Decadurinis.  I asked him to go to Ceretesia."
I felt relieved as the mystery between her and Kalan became clear to me.  Wrin had gone to unfamiliar territory to try to quell an uprising which the dšck‡lfs hadn't wanted quelled.  He didn't have to go.  He went because Yori asked him to, and the dšck‡lfs killed him.  And now she was punishing herself.  
Seeing Kalan was a constant reminder of his death.  It was amazing they were getting along at all.  Why had she agreed to come on this Trial with him?  I touched her arm.  "He went of his own will, didn't he?"  
"I asked him to."  She trailed off, her limbs slack.  
"Well, he had a choice," I said.  "You're being pretty cruel to yourself."
She didn't respond.  
"Yori!"  I shook her, but she stared past me.  Her eyes were tired.  "Damn!"  
Well, I knew more than before.  It was small comfort.  In two days we'd be to the Isle.  I didn't see how she could be ready to take care of herself in that short a time.
 Her lips were taut.  There was strength there, sleeping.  The face of the girl I had known seemed to be behind the mask she wore.  
Utu's heat reached us even in the shade and brought a burnt-flint smell from the sand.  Breezes played with our candis hems and hair.  
Finally I sat back.  "I hope you find your way back to us soon, because we need you out here."
She nodded and kept staring into Utu's bright light.  That nod encouraged me.  
I tried spotting Kalan, but the rising heat blocked our view, and I soon gave up looking.  This place seemed dead, oblivious, harmless.  I lay down, stretching and wiggling my toes in Utu's radiance before pulling them back into shadow.  I supposed I should have brought boots, but I wasn't used to them, and I didn't want to put up with the inevitable blisters that a new pair would cause.  The flinty tang of the sand and the cool shade lulled me into a half-doze.

With a start I rose on my elbows.  I'd slept for over an hour.  Utu was low in the sky, and Kalan was still gone.  Chances were he was wasting his time digging in one of the towers, but he might have gone off to explore—  I sat up and watched, trying to see through the dusty haze.  In a few minutes he became visible a hundred yards away.  He walked slowly, as if he was tired.  
"Dšck‡lf spells..."  Yori murmured.
He came close enough to see clearly.  He was covered with sand and grit, his eyebrows coated, his hair full.  Dust fell from his body as he moved.  He stopped a few feet away from me and sat on my left, playing with something, but since Utu was going to rest for the night and His slanting light shone in my eyes I couldn't see what he had.  I shielded my eyes with one hand.  It was an urn or bottle of some sort, narrow-necked and plain.  He peered at the stopper.
Instantly I was alert.  Kalan never found anything harmless, and anything he found here would be especially dangerous.  "Ummm," I mused loudly.  "Where did you find that?"
"Elemental found."  
"Elemental?"  Why had he summoned one of the little djinn?
"Blew sand out tower, uncovered stairs.  Good idea."  He showed me his prize, keeping it out of reach.  "From downstairs."
The bottle was plain, black ceramic with grooves carved in it from blowing sand.  Kalan's elemental had not treated it gently.  Its stopper was sealed stone, carved with tiny cuneiforms, hundreds of them, wedge-shaped letters which looked forbidding even though they were tiny.  Some I recognized as protection symbols, but I couldn't puzzle out what they were supposed to protect.  This bottle had been here as long as the temple, that I was sure of.  I wanted to grab it and throw it far away, but I knew Kalan would retrieve it again.  I didn't like these little symbols that were disturbingly similar to Ranhammon's necromantic symbols.   
I reached for it.  He pulled it back.  "Give it here, Kalan.  Let me see.  What's down there?"  
He shrugged and offered it to me.  "Temple, mostly full sand.  This in sanctuary."  He shook his head and tsked.  "Cuneiforms sand-blasted, too.  Sloppy elemental blew too hard."
"Is this a magic bottle?"  It didn't look fancy enough.
"Don't think so."  He added, "Maybe wrong.  Maybe dangerous."   
"Are you thinking about opening it?"  I held onto it tightly.  
He opened his hand, and the bottle disappeared from my hand to reappear in his.  He studied the stopper.  "Better now than on carpet."
Again I had the urge to put him to sleep.  Instead I said, "Why don't you have an elemental open it?  That way if it explodes or releases an efriti, we have time to get away."
"Hmmph.  Elementals friends.  Don't make friends open efriti bottles."
"But elementals are good for hard labor?"
"Like move dirt, makes feel strong."  He worked the stopper.  A flake broke off the lip and fell glittering to the ground.  I froze.  One of the cuneiforms lit up faint yellow and faded.  A second lit and faded.
A chill soaked up from the sand.  I shuddered.  "Kalan, open that away from here."
"Afraid?"  He rocked back on his heels and held the bottle before him.  
"Didn't you feel power just now?  A wave of cold?  Those cuneiforms are still working.  If something pops out of there, what will Yori do?  Will you run away and let her get killed, or will you try to carry her and get both of you killed?"  Inside I quivered.  What did he want?  For me to discipline him, tell him no?  Why couldn't he ever be reasonable?  
He glanced at Yori.  "Anything in bottle?" he asked finally, stepping toward her and sticking it in front of her face.  
She stared at it with a slight frown and then slowly pushed it away.  "Not right now..."
"Feel anything?"  He held the bottle closer and acted relaxed, but he'd stiffened.  
"I don't really want to right now."  Her voice quavered.
"Don't want to?  Not reason."  He pulled the bottle back and studied its stopper.
"They were your people," she whispered, staring at her feet.
Kalan clutched the bottle tightly.  "No, was human city," he said.  
She started to weep.  "You know what I mean.  Not this place.  Why did we stop?  Wrin—"  She dug her fingers into the sand.  "Wrin died somewhere in this country.  How close, Kalan?  Was it over those dunes?  Was it a mile from here, a thousand feet?  Why did we stop here?"  
I felt cold, shocked by the unfairness of her attack.  Just because Kalan was a dšck‡lf was no reason to hold him responsible.  "Yori—"
Kalan's face tightened.  "Stopped to exercise, break."  
Yori laughed bitterly.  "We stopped because you wanted to stop.  Will we always do things because you want to do them?"  She looked to me with misery in her eyes.  "Will we?"
I felt a pang of conscience, remembering how I hadn't wanted to stop in the city but gave in to Kalan.  Why did they have to fight?  "This isn't fair to Kalan, Yori."  
"Gods," she said, looking back at her feet.  "Do dšck‡lfs always do whatever they want?"
"Not dšck‡lf.  Korin-Kalan.  Traitor House.  Not dšck‡lf.  Didn't mean—"  He whirled and threw the bottle.  It plopped onto a crest and rolled behind a dune.  He thrust his fist over his head and cursed:  "Yrtkovask."  It was an oath I had never heard before.
Sudden wind whipped up dust, and I could barely see him, only a few yards away.  I pulled my hood up and faced away from the gusts.  Sand drove through my candis.  My legs itched with it.  It stung my face and gouged my toes.  "Kalan!  Stop it!  Stop the wind!"  He must have called a djinni.  Already the sand was etching my skin.  I staggered toward where he'd been standing, trying to find him, and fell over Yori.  Her hood had blown over her face, but she hadn't moved.  A small dune was forming against her.
"Stand!"  I pulled her up.  
"Let go," she said and pushed weakly against me.  
"Walk!  We've got to find the carpet before it's buried!"  I spat sand out of my mouth.
We trudged toward the carpet.  
Thunder clapped close to us, slamming us to our knees and knocking us away from each other.  Sand whipped across my face.  The ground shook.  There were sounds behind the wind, crackling of electricity and dull thuds like technological explosives or lightning.  My skin tingled.  What the Hells?  Fighting.  
Something caught hold of my hurt arm and yanked.  I shouted at the agony and lashed out with my fist and hit flesh.  Yori.  She let go and bumped into me.  I caught her sleeve.
A dim shape pushed toward us from my left.  Kalan!  It was impossible to see.  I shouted to attract his attention.  He hesitated for a second, trying to follow my voice, and then pushed toward me.  The ground shook as he stepped.  Not Kalan.
"Oh, Hells," I mumbled, and got more sand in my mouth.  Whatever it was, it was huge and headed for us.  "Run!"  I pushed Yori.  She disappeared into the storm.  Something thudded behind me, causing another thunderclap to knock me flat.  I closed my eyes and scrabbled on all fours.  What was it?  Couldn't let it get me—A tentacle wrapped around my waist, and I screamed.  It hauled me off the ground and spun me around.  My heart constricted.  Not here, Utu, what a stupid place to die—The tentacle squeezed.  I hit it, but it didn't let go.  What had Kalan done?  His bottle had opened and spilled out this thing.  
The tentacle stopped squeezing and shook me like a rag doll.  "BOTTLE."  The voice was a screeching wail slashing my nerves.  Its breath smelled like burnt dung, and I gagged.
I dove deep into my Memory Sea and found the memory I had made when the rakshasa attacked Janine and me, and shattered it:
The strength flows out of me.  A rakshasa.  Great Utu, we're dead.  Sorry, Janine.
An image of the Rakshasa's face spattered with blood, its teeth gleaming, flooded my mind.  Terror and shock poured from the memory, and I shaped the feelings into magic.  I hadn't felt this much power in years.  What would harm this efriti?  Kalan's lightning had been useless.  
The tentacle tightened.  "BOTTLE."  
I peeked through slitted eyelids and saw a vast shape only a few yards away.  A worm?  Not exactly.  I closed my eyes.  Better not to see some efrit.  The power in me burned.  Flame?  Frost?  If Kalan hadn't hurt it, my meager attack spells would be useless.
Wind eroded me with sand, and I felt blood on my face.  The tentacle was so tight I could hardly breathe.
Stinging, the magic festered and began eating into me.  I had to get away before this efriti broke my back, but which spell—
"WHERE?"  The creature shook me until I saw stars.  Muscles strained.  My legs hit the sand and went numb.
Power flowed, out of control.  I tried to shape a suit of armor but lost most of the energy.    The waste made me sick.
Then I understood.  It sought the bottle.  I quit forming armor and sent the remaining energy questing for the bottle.  
"WIZARD."  Dung-breath washed over me.  The tentacle tightened and cut off my air.  I lost the spell.  Yellow stars shot past my eyes.  
Utu, take care of Janine—
The sandstorm died.  
The efriti tossed me aside, and I thudded to the sand.  Burnt flint smell.  Hot.  I opened my eyes but could barely focus.  Yori faced the efriti, straining.  Light shone from her fist, from an Utu-symbol there.  The efriti had clusters of red eyes and bubbly grey flesh.  Its body was like a bloated worm, twenty feet long and eight or ten feet thick, covered with twisting grey tentacles and ooze.  It was so repulsive that I stared, fascinated.
Suddenly it was surrounded by a cloud of darkness.  What—?  It was afraid of Utu's light. 
"Power granted me...Utu...efrit."  What was she saying?
"BOTTLE!" the efriti roared, its breath washing over me.
I struggled to my knees.  Darkness battered me.  My ribs felt broken.  Breathing was like inhaling fire.
"WHERE?"  It lashed the sand with a tentacle.  Thunder cracked.  The ground shook.  
I fell over.  Again darkness pounded my head.   
I felt Utu on my back and cheek, felt His strength.  Life-Giver.  Utu sustained.  I stood.  My knees wobbled, but I stayed on my feet.  Tentacles whipped back and forth out of the darkness.  We stayed well back.  Yori's words were familiar, ancient.  They offered hope.
I staggered next to her and put my hand on her shoulder.  "...deepest Hells to hold abominations from Sky, darkness to hide Hannommar's minions from Utu's face..."  My voice was feeble, but I could hear it.
Yori nodded, sweat running down her cheeks.  Before her she held the tiny gold image of Utu.  She leaned forward.  "Five seals did Utu fix to keep the efrit bound..."
The efriti lashed at her but kept away from the blazing symbol.  Its tentacles fell short.
"The First Seal bears stars, little watchers, ever-vigilant for Hannommar's plotting while Utu sleeps..."
The efriti roared, all but drowning our voices.  Yori began the second verse, and I joined her.  "The Second Seal bears Sky, the dome of the world, Utu's home, from whence He sees all..."
"LIES!"  Tentacles lashed the ground, hurling clouds of sand into our faces.  
We faced the ground and continued as the clouds swept over us:  "The Third Seal bears the sand, poured over the damned spirits to hide their shame from Utu's face..."
"WE SHOULD HAVE RULED!  WE WERE CHOSEN!"  Anguish tore its terrible voice.
"The Fourth Seal bears light, Utu's love, for Hannomar was still loved..."
"WE WERE CAST DOWN," the efriti wailed.  Its tentacles flopped.
I couldn't believe it wasn't destroying us.  There were no circles, no blood rings.  We had made no sacrifice.  All the Academy's conventions were ignored.  And I felt instinctively that this was an ancient efriti, maybe even one of the lithaden, the twenty Chosen that Utu cast into the Hells with Hannommar.  I knew healers had power over efrit, but this was stunning.
"The Fifth Seal bears Utu, the Maker..."  Yori faltered and drew a shuddering breath.  The tentacles raised.  Frightened, I finished:  "...First and Last, whose compassion offers Hannomar and the Chosen hope to regain their rightful place."
The efriti stopped fighting.  I felt the glare of its eyes, but mercifully it stayed in its darkness. 
Yori took her other hand out of her candis.  In it was the bottle Kalan had found.  How in the Hells had she found it?  Her hands were shaking.  "You guard this?"
"YES!"  Its breath was ghastly.
Yori coughed and choked out, "Why?"
"BECAUSE."
"You don't know."
Silence.
"If I unstop it?"
"PAIN."
"To you, or me?"
"ALL."
Yori considered.  She stood with feet apart, shoulders back, Utu's symbol held before her.  Her face was strained but fierce.  Holding this thing back was taking everything she had.  I stored the experience:
So strong, Yori, you look so strong.  Mouth taut.  Eyes slitted.  Utu shines from you.  
"Truth, or Utu take you."  Ancient words.  The symbol in her hand blazed and threatened to disperse the efrit's cocoon of night.
It wailed.  "SPIRIT OF THE PRIESTESS IN THE BOTTLE."
"What the Hells does that mean?" I muttered.
"One nasty fight, if we let her out."  Yori tossed the bottle in front of the tentacles.  "Take it, and return to your vigil.  We understand you to be an honomir, a guardian efriti.  Discharge your duty."
A tentacle snatched the bottle and disappeared into the darkness.  The dark blot slid across the sand, growing smaller, until it came to the far tower, where it wavered for a second and disappeared.  The tower crumbled.
I knelt, head aching, legs sore from the efriti's thrashing.  My ribs hurt.  "Where's Kalan?"  When we found him I'd knock him out and tie him up for the rest of the trip.
Yori put the Utu-symbol away.  Her eyes were shadowed with weariness.  Her shoulders drooped, and the lines had deepened in her face.  "I haven't seen him," she mumbled.  
I scanned around us, but there was no sign of him.  The sandstorm had rearranged the dunes and removed our tracks.  We started walking.  Every breath was an effort.  
I laughed.  I'd nearly recovered from the kumadin's attack, and then this happened.
"Why did he steal a temple treasure?" Yori asked wearily.  "Did he understand what was in that bottle?"
"No," I said to her last question.  "He only knew he'd found a new toy."  Where was he?
"It held a priestess' soul.  She'd be some sort of shade by now."
"I don't know what a shade is."    
"Like ghosts, but meaner.  They're dangerous...hungry."
We stumbled up a dune.  He was nowhere in sight.  
"Kalan!" I shouted.  We waited, but there was no return cry.  "Where is he?"
I started to fall, but she caught me by the shoulders and struggled to help me stand.  We leaned on each other.
"Stay still a minute."  She gently felt my ribs and arms where the efriti had held me.  I sucked in breath.  "Nothing cracked or broken.  You're lucky."   
I felt like running and shouting his name.  "Where is he?  We have to find him."  
Her eyes unfocused.  "He called the honomir.  I saw him pull on the stopper."  
While I wanted to strangle him I also wanted to defend him.  Justifications died on my lips.  He knew to stay out of trouble.  He'd have to explain in his own way.  I felt I was betraying him.  But he'd endangered our lives—I backed away from the feeling.  "We have to find him!"  I pulled her arm.  
She bit her lip and looked away.  
"Come on!  What's the matter?" 
"He—"  A sob escaped her, then another, until she was weeping.  
"What?"  Utterly helpless, I circled her in my arms.  "He's not dead, we don't know that.  What's happening between you two?  It's not right to shun him just because he's a dšck‡lf."
"No!  The masters showed me, in a magic mirror.  It was him.  Him!"
I felt suddenly plunged into deep, freezing water.  No.  Was she saying he had killed Wrin?  He was acting guilty—No!  He was hurt because she was upset with him.  "You know better than to trust the masters!" I said to her.  "They're trying to break us apart!"  They wanted us dead, it was so clear, they'd do anything to weaken us.  Utu damn them!  
She held me and wept, saying nothing.  I felt as if I was going mad.  She needed me, and I wanted to comfort her, but where was Kalan?  Dying, maybe.  I took her hands and pressed them to my chest.  "I know you hurt, but we have to search.  Please!"  
She nodded and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.  
I wanted to rush out headlong and dig into every dune, run until I found him hiding behind a tower, laughing at our fright.  Utu was leaving.  Soon it would be dark, and we'd have to search by torchlight, assuming we could find the rug and get a torch.  Assuming either of us could stay on our feet that long.  
"There," she said, pointing.  Her voice was faint.  A scrap of cloth sticking out of a dune had caught her eye.  "His candis."
We rushed over and fell to our knees to dig.  Tattered clothing appeared under our grasping fingers.
"He's buried," I said.  "He couldn't have been able to breathe under all this."  He couldn't breathe.  He couldn't breathe—
"Dig," Yori said.  She shoved handfuls of sand away.  
We climbed Mount Diasar together.  We survived everything crazy old Ranhammon and the Academy threw at us.  This couldn't be.  I clenched my teeth and dug as fast as I could, until we came to a boot.  I stared at it, a leather boot with iron nubs on the sole.  This wasn't him.  I let my breath out.  "He wasn't wearing boots.  He had button-up shoes."
I touched the boot.  It was cracked by years in the hot sand and full of holes worn by winds when it had been exposed.  Grey bones shone through in places.
"Who?" she asked.
"Not Kalan.  Come on."  Standing, I looked around in panic.  "He's got to be here."  
"Need help," Yori said.
"I can't call even a little elemental.  My nerves are raw from fighting the honomir." 
"I know."  She took the Utu symbol out, clasped it between her hands, raised them over her head, and turned toward the fading rays where Utu was disappearing behind the mountains.  "Utu, Father of All, we need your light.  Without you our friend may die.  Please aid us."
I'd never seen a healer call on Utu directly.  As she spoke I felt her love of Utu and the things under Him.  Warmth and light and life filled her voice.  I prayed to Utu to help us.  She repeated her invocation, and we waited.  Nothing happened.  
She lowered her hands.  "Sometimes He does not hear.  It is His will, then."  She dropped the symbol in her pocket.
"Kalan!"  I shouted.  I knew him too well.  He was just hiding.  He was going to come out now and call us stupid for worrying so much, or maybe he'd send one of those butterflies he liked.  But he'd do something.  He'd do something.  "Kalan!"
A shaft of light, a single, thin ray, shone over the dunes and fell upon a spot in the distance.


VI



We ran.  Sand dragged our feet, and we kicked up plumes of red dust in our haste.  My strength quickly ran out, and I stumbled along.  Yori tumbled as a crest collapsed under her.  I stopped.
From the ground she waved me on.  "Find him before Utu leaves."  
I went on, my mouth dry.  The sand was an enemy pulling my sandals, trying to keep me from reaching him.  I fell to my knees but managed to stand and stagger on.  My legs barely supported me.  I forced them to move up and down, sandals pounding, steps growing increasingly shorter and more ragged.  "Kalan," I muttered.  I saw a tattered shape lying on the side of a dune and clawed my way up the slope.  How in Hells had he gotten all the way over here?  Sand cascaded behind me, hissing.  I dug my hands in and climbed.  
Utu's ray faded.  I knelt for a long moment, too tired to move, terrified he was dead.  I smashed and stored the experience:
He's on his belly, caked with blood and sand, his hood over his face.  He's part of me, he can't die.  I shove sand off him, pull the hood away and lean close.  He's barely breathing.  His candis has been shredded by the wind-storm.  Utu, please don't take him.
Yori staggered up, out of breath, and immediately pressed fingers to his neck.  "Psychic duel?"  She opened his candis and gasped.  Blue-black bruises and red welts covered him.  
I touched my fingers to his temples, feeling for the black energy spikes of possession.  "I don't think his mind or soul's been taken."  
"Okay.  Help me.  I've got to be able to touch him wherever he's hurt.  You know."  She took mint leaves from a pouch on her belt, crushed them and dropped the fragments over him.  "Works better with hot water, but no time or water."  We pulled his candis off.  His wounds looked worse when we could see them all.  The honomir had lashed him all over, and the wind had stung on top of those wounds.  
Chanting, she ran her fingers lightly over him.  It was a basic meditation chant, one she'd used for me after the Efrit's Run and other times.  I remembered evenings in her room in the healer's quarters, my head in her lap as we talked.  Her chiding after I'd swum too much one day and pulled muscles.  A strange afternoon full of visions of dancing animals and flashing lights when we tried some mushrooms which were supposed to ease pain.  She'd chanted all afternoon, until she was hoarse, and I'd laughed until I was unable to laugh anymore.  The mushrooms worked just fine. 
Those were moments I had never saved for spells, experiences I wanted never to burn up.  
"I can't find anything internally wrong, thank Utu."  
Fear gave me strength.  "What can I do?"  
"Find the carpet."  She looked around wearily.  "I don't want to be here when it's fully dark."
"All right."  The tower where we'd left the carpet looked miles away.  I trudged toward it.  Behind me Kalan yelped, and Yori groaned.  Her healing was still rough, painful.  I walked faster.  
By the time I'd gone a few hundred yards I was weary and had to slow to a shuffle.  My feet dragged.  My eyes closed again and again in stupor.  Left foot, right foot, left, right.  Half-sobbing with the effort to keep moving, I fell to my knees and crawled the rest of the way.  I dropped to my elbows and got up once, twice, too many times to keep track.  
The air cooled and spurred me on with its bite.  I began to see things crawling in the sand, bugs or my fingers, I couldn't tell which.  Not far away a boisterous merchant argued with an angry woman, but I couldn't lift my head to see.  Horses trotted just outside my sight.  A whip cracked.  Dimly I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't figure out what.  I shook my head and kept crawling.  They went away.
The sand was looped and swirled like water...like skating on water...red and shadowed and warm, nice and warm to sleep on, with little valleys and crests and shadows, grains going on and on and on, blowing, hissing...
My head whacked stone.  "Damn!"  It was the tower where we had landed.  I rose to my knees and looked around.  The honomir's storm had smoothed the sand for a hundred yards around the tower.  The carpet could have blown away or been buried or blown away and then been buried.  I started searching with my hands.  Utu couldn't mean us to die here after showing Kalan to us, could He?
It was becoming too dark to see, so I stuck my fingers into the sand, forgetting scorpions and snakes, and tried to find cloth.  Nothing.  Thrust.  Nothing.  Again.  Again.  I kept on, jabbing fifty times, a hundred times.  Finally I was too exhausted to go on.  I rose to my knees for one last look and cracked a smile.  The packs formed lumps ten yards to my left.  I thanked Utu and dragged myself to the nearest lump.  Would the carpet take off with sand all over it?   
"Up."  It rose and vibrated rapidly.  Sand poured off.  "Forward.  Fast."  The carpet shot ahead, and in moments I had set down next to Yori and Kalan.  Kalan was unconscious, breathing heavily.  Yori had fainted.
I concentrated on getting the carpet to move.  "Left.  Left.  Left."  It inched along the ground until it was under them.  "Up twenty feet."  The carpet rose.  I checked the stars to find our direction, turned the carpet to the northeast, and told it, "Forward.  Slow."  I collapsed.
	
Utu was high in the afternoon sky when I woke to feel salt air on my face.  
The rug was only a few yards over the crests.  It had kept us moving twenty feet above the ground, crossing from land over ocean again.  I sat up and grimaced as my muscles protested.  Sand and dust fell from my hair and turban.  My ribs were tender, but I wasn't as sore as I'd been after the kumadin bit me.  The sleep had helped.  
I crawled to the side of the rug.  Clouds of dust rose as I moved.  Sand covered the carpet, heaped in piles which dropped streamers over the sides every time one of us moved.  I didn't think we'd ever see the patterns in the cloth again.  
I had the carpet rise, to get my bearings.  There was land to the north and the east.  We were in the channel that ran northeast to the Isle, and I turned the carpet to go straight down that waterway.  "Fast," I told it.  "As fast as you can go."  The rug shot forward.  
For no conscious reason I wanted to be closer to the water and lowered the carpet until it floated three or four feet above the waves.  The ocean was light blue, not too deep.  I pushed a pile of sand off the side and heard it hiss as it fell into the water.  Then the grains disappeared, swallowed, sunk as if they had never been.  I thought of the Isle absorbing swarms of wizards and having infinite capacity for more.  
Yori and Kalan were still asleep and hadn't moved from the day before.  Kalan was naked, his limbs flung wide.  Dried blood and dust coated his body.  A broad welt, purple and green, circled his neck where the honomir must have snapped him up and flung him to the dune where we found him.  He was lucky to be alive.  Bruises puffed his face.  His eyelids were swollen from the wind and grit, his lips cracked and blood-crusted.  Red grit streaked his hair.  
He'd almost gotten us killed.  My throat tightened in anger.  I'd told him to get rid of the bottle.  Since we started the trip he'd gotten us attacked twice.  Twice!  I'd have to do something, I didn't know what.  Reasoning with him didn't work.  It never had.  The only one he listened to was himself.  If I tried to curb his curiosity and arrogance he would only get angry, and we'd get nowhere.  Thinking about it made me anxious—I couldn't let that stop me.  Maybe next time we wouldn't be so fortunate.  
I turned to Yori.  She still had her candis, but it was torn in places and so packed with grit that it was pink.  Her hands were chafed from the wind, and her face was cut and bloodied like Kalan's.  Grains of sand trickled from her hair.  I leaned over her and listened to her breathe.   She was in a natural sleep.  Utu's light on her face would probably wake her up in a couple hours.  The fight with the honomir had drawn her out, if only for a short time.  The healers' advice, to put her in dangerous situations where she was needed, seemed to be working.  Healing us was drawing her out, forcing her to go through her hurt to help us.  Would she be with us when she woke up?
I didn't move for a long time, enjoying the quiet.  Utu's gentle heat soaked into my body, easing my muscles.  My candis was sandy, so I peeled it off, sucking in when I pulled it away from places where blood had glued the cloth to cuts.  I reeked of old sweat and blood and felt nastier than I had in years.  Wondering what my face looked like, I fished the little mirror out of my pack and blew powder off its case.  I winced when I saw myself.  Blood caked my skin, and dust ringed my eyes and mouth.  My lips were as broken as Kalan's, and as I looked at them they started to hurt.  Sand packed the bindings of my turban, and the fire opal was coated with a layer of dust, its fires obscured and shadowy.
I took the opal off my turban and brushed it off with my fingers, admiring the way it scattered Utu's light across the orange and black flecks within itself.  The scratch that ran all the way across was from a magical arrow fired at me in a Basquan raid three and a half years ago.  The chip in the worn silver setting was knocked out by a knife thrown by the Tyrant of Shoimar, when Kalan and I were travelling.  
The stone was the Academy's graduation gift, their way of saying "good job."  Gems were never replaced.  I pressed the stone to my lips, and its cool smoothness soothed them.  I looked at it again, at its fires, and shook my head.  Its purpose was to protect my soul, and it was so well-ensorcelled it was nearly indestructible.  It was magicked to be thief-proof, too, and would burn anyone else who tried to take it off my turban.  If someone managed to get it more than a mile from me it would explode in a fireball large enough to engulf a small town.  There were many stories about wizards and their gems, so I never lost any sleep worrying about thieves.
As I rubbed the stone I realized I hadn't seen Kalan's star sapphire since graduation.  Of course, he didn't have to wear it; it could be in a pocket or on a necklace and protect him just as well as if it was on a turban.  I hadn't come across it when we took his candis off, and I wondered if he kept it in his pack or had gotten rid of it sometime in the past.  Maybe he'd purposely destroyed it.  More than one wizard had left their gem behind, fleeing past the one-mile limit and triggering its defenses.  It was a spectacular way to stop an army or destroy a powerful efriti or djinni.  Four hundred years ago Master Retvaliar dropped her black pearl into Lake Rimfire and fled, causing a poisoning effect that still made the lake unfit for life.
Kalan had never told me what his sapphire protected him against or what it would do if its defenses were activated.  
I sat my turban next to my stinking candis and lay down on the edge of the carpet, rested my chin on my knuckles, and watched the water sparkle.  By the next evening we'd be to the Isle of Dreams.  I was sore all over, beaten and aching in my legs and ribs and back.  My arms complained every time I moved them, tingling from the magic I had held too long fighting the honomir.  The wild magic had burnt my nerves a little, and I couldn't safely cast any spells until they recovered.  That would take a would take a day or two at least.  I sighed and pushed sand off the rug into the ocean.  It sounded like rain falling on the roof when storms visited Hafar.  
The water slid by.  I thought of Janine digging in the ruins by Hafar and smiling as she turned up a rare piece of indigo glass to use in her sculptures.  She'd gotten my note by now.  A little over a week, and I'd be home.  It wasn't long.  
Two days before the Trial we'd climbed all the way up Old Baldy, a hill overlooking Hafar:
"So, what would her name be?"
"Hassan?"  I keep going.  Utu's almost down, and the light's stretching across the valley below us.  I want to see Him disappear into the desert.  The sky's pink and red and orange, swirled together.
"Hassan?"  She feigns surprise.  "Odd name for a girl.  Citrina.  That's a pretty name."
I reach the top in time to see a tiny sliver of Utu floating over the sand of the Deep Desert.  "Hurry or you'll miss this."
She joins me, and I put my arm around her shoulder.  As Utu sinks the sky changes to amber and purple.  
"Are you going back to the Academy?" she asks at last.
My guts tighten.  "I haven't decided."
She stiffens.  
"I'm sorry," I say and look at her.  She's angry and frightened.  "I want that little boy, too."
"Girl," she says and nudges my ribs.  I laugh and kiss her.
We stand a little longer as the stars begin to come out.
Dear Utu, this Trial was so stupidly dangerous.
Yori stirred, so I put my extra candis on and spread the other on my end of the carpet.  By now we had each claimed an area:  Kalan the front, where he could see what was coming, Yori the middle, where the view was poorest, since she didn't care, and I the rear, where I could have quiet.  The packs—her small leather case and our large frames—were on either side of Yori's area, since she didn't move much.  I stomped my candis a few times, trying to knock any extra dust out, but all I ended up doing was grinding in more grit from the carpet.  I gave up.  Utu would have to bake the smell out.  I wasn't about to use up energy just for cleaning.
"Where are we?" she asked.
I sighed.  She was back to the dull tone, but at least she was curious.  "About a day and a half away from the Isle, I think."
She sat up, rubbed her eyes, and yawned.  "Huh," she said, and stared at Utu.
I had learned years ago that her eyes weren't hurt when she did that.  Her healer's power was so connected to Him that no amount of exposure would burn her skin or damage her eyes.  She had tried to explain the way she turned Utu's love into energy, but I could no more grasp it than she could understand how I shaped emotion into magic.  Even her storing process was different.  She told me she kept the energy in her skin, not her mind, so less time and effort were required to liberate her power.  I appreciated the speed but couldn't understand the process. 
We dug out pack rations, semi-dried oranges and jerkied meat.  Before we ate, Yori touched the food and put energy into it so that the meager rations would nourish us like a full meal.  We'd eaten a lot after the kumadin's attack, and we'd have to stretch the rest. 
As she ate I watched her face.  She'd recovered some of her color, and she was attentive to her food.  The lines in her face had eased. 
I decided to see if she would talk.  "About Kalan."  
I felt her recede, her spirit fleeing from those two words.  "Later, then."
She nodded again.
I sat and watched the water, the Isle of Dreams looming in my mind.  No two accounts were the same.  Some groups reported jungle, some desert, some plains.  One group found a dead city covering the entire Isle.  No group had ever survived more than four days.  Urvintal's group, the four-day survivors, were attacked by a large group of what appeared to be old friends on the third day but managed to fight free of them.  Urvintal had seemed to figure out something then, but he hadn't told the others what he'd discovered, and he and the others had disappeared the next day.  Everything we knew about the Isle came from those who had quit their Trials and returned in disgrace.  The intelligent ones.  
General agreement was that the Isle was cursed, but by whom or what?  Was the Isle the home of the First Academy, where humans first began to dabble in magic?  When magic was young, humans had no spells of their own and had bartered for them with efrit and djinn and others.  Our ancestors gave their lives and souls to summon creatures far more powerful than those we could control today.  Most wizards would give years from their lives for even one of those spells.  So we kept coming to the Isle, hoping to regain that power.  Madness.
By the time Kalan awoke Utu was blazing.  I was on my back, my pack under my head, watching clouds scud along the horizon.  It was surprisingly comfortable to lie like that.  
Kalan groaned and cursed and finally sat up and looked around.  "Hot," he said.  
"Not like it was an hour ago.  How you feeling?"  
Moving slowly, he tried to rise to his feet.  "Unnh.  Hurt all over.  Especially neck."  Fingering the welt there, he winced.  "Yori?"
"If you mean, did she heal you, yes.  If you mean, how is she, she's resting."  We both watched her staring into Utu's light.  "She's getting used to healing again."  I told him about the fight with the honomir, her standing strong with Utu's light pouring from the symbol in her hand.  "You should have seen her."
Wincing, he rolled onto his hands and knees and crossed the short distance to her.  
"Friend," he said and kissed her cheek.  He stood up and stiffly walked around, half-heartedly kicking small piles of sand.  Clouds of dust flew overboard.  I closed my eyes against the sprays.
"Mess," he said.
"You, me, Yori and the carpet, all." 
"Hmph."  He kicked another pile of sand.
I wanted to say something to him about getting us into trouble, that he needed to think first and act later.  I hesitated.  Did I really want an argument right away in the morning?  I could wait.  We had over a day yet before we got to the Isle.  
Something wet spattered against my leg.  "What're you up to now?"  Another drop hit me, then a third.  I opened my eyes and saw a thundercloud above the carpet.  Lightning arced from one side of the cloud to the other, followed by a roll of thunder.  Rain began falling in earnest.  I noticed suds on my arms, tiny bubbles that slid down my skin and soaked my candis.  The warm water smelled faintly of lilacs, a pleasant break from the sour people-smells.  
"What's this?"
"Soap cloud,"  he chortled, and another thunderclap blasted us.  My ears rang.
He laughed and caused the air to darken so that we could barely see each other.  Then he slid his loincloth off and slowly stretched toward the clouds.  I took my candis off and rubbed my skin hard, wincing at the pain.  Layers of dust washed away with sweat and caked blood.  Water ran down my legs and off the carpet.  I scratched my head, pulling ringlets of hair and letting them snap back.  My skin tingled from the vigorous rubbing, and I wished Janine was there to exchange massages.  
The water turned warmer and lost its soap as the lightning and thunder increased, so I opened my mouth and let it fill.  I sloshed water around to dislodge sand stuck between my teeth and spat it over the side. 
"One hundred bottles of wine on the wall, one hundred bottles of wine..."  Kalan crooned at the top of his voice.  His enthusiasm was contagious, and after a moment I joined him,
"...and if one of those bottles should happen to fall..."  
We ended the stanza together.  "...ninety-nine bottles of wine on the wall."  We started counting down as the rain drove down and washed away the ground-in soil from our packs and heaps of soggy sand and grit from the carpet.  I felt silly, standing naked in a cloud of half-darkness with rain splashing me, singing travelling songs, but Kalan's exuberance overcame me.  As we counted down the eighties Yori stood, using her pack to help her rise, and slid out of her candis.  I noticed the bubbles again as Kalan brought the soap back for her.  Quietly she cleaned herself up.  I could hear her humming some song I didn't know.  
Kalan and I went on.  "...seventy-four bottles of wine on the wall..."
We must have looked mad, the three of us, floating along and singing in the midst of the thunderstorm that hovered over our carpet.  Kalan occasionally howled or threw out light darts to raise plumes in the ocean beneath us, and Yori once added the touch of tiny shafts of light breaking through the clouds to dance over us.  I clapped.  It felt like the best times at the Academy.  That thought brought a bittersweet feeling that the years had somehow slid past without my noticing and had changed the friendships of my youth—not uncomplicated but at least honest and open—to the tensions we had with each other now.
I clapped and counted all the way down to zero, but I was no longer involved.  The gulf of years between the Academy and this shower was too wide.  With the Isle of Dreams so close, memories of the past dissipated with Kalan's rain cloud, and the future bore in on me.  Before the cloud was gone I put my candis back on and sat down, enjoying the clinging, warm wetness of it.  Yori did the same, sitting on her little pack and staring out to sea, while Kalan fished his spare candis out and put it on.  The darkness broke up and disappeared with the thundercloud, and Utu gave us warmth.  We stayed silent, each in our own thoughts and aches.  It was a pleasant afternoon.

Yori fell asleep as Utu was sinking.  Her color was better than it had been at any time since we started the trip, and I felt encouraged.  If we were fortunate she would be with us when she woke up.  If not, Kalan and I would have to watch over her until she could care for herself.  It seemed best to put the choices like that.  She came back or she didn't, we had to watch her or we didn't.  I didn't want to think about how hard it would be if we had to watch her and take care of ourselves.  
As I watched Yori's side rise and fall I remembered what she'd said about Kalan when she was weeping in the ruin.  I swallowed, and cold waves lapped through me.  She said the masters had shown her.  In the Mirror of Truth?  The Mirror couldn't lie.  Could Kalan have done something like that?  He could kill easily.  But, Yori's husband?  
I found myself shivering.  This would destroy us, break our triangle forever, unless it wasn't true.  If the masters had shown her in a mirror-pool or in some other way, they could have created some macabre story to weaken us for the Trial.  That bastard Ranhammon would love to pit old friends against each other.  
I had to know the truth. 
Kalan was sitting on the front of the carpet, where he'd settled after the shower.  I supposed he was looking for flying fish again or any other interesting creatures.  His right side was yellow in Utu's fading light, while his left was shadowed.  I started to get up to go talk to him and found my body unwilling to move.  What if the Council had shown Yori the truth?  
Slowly I stood.  Utu was setting, leaving almost no color in the sky.  It seemed like I could see forever over Ceretesia's desert to the west and Irsmin's isles to the east.  
I walked to the front of the rug and sat down next to Kalan.  He didn't seem to notice me.
I breathed several times to calm my pounding heart.  "Kalan.  You and Yori have acted strangely toward each other since this trip started.  What's going on?"
"Yori upset," he said.
I waited, but that was it.  "Well, yes, I know that.  But why?"
He shrugged.  
Maybe he really didn't know.  Maybe he was reacting to Yori.  That had to be it.  The masters had filled her with lies—I stopped myself.  My stomach churned.  His answer wasn't good enough.  There was more to his anxiety than just reacting to Yori.  What would happen to us on the Isle if we got there and couldn't depend on each other?  We would die.  
I looked down at the rug.  I didn't want to do this.  But if I didn't, how would I get home?  My life depended on Yori and Kalan.  I had to know.  I looked toward Utu, but He had disappeared behind the World's Spine Mountains.  
"Yori said the masters told her dšck‡lfs killed Wrin."  I held my breath.  It could still be that she was taking her pain out on Kalan for being a dšck‡lf.
"Maybe lied."
"I don't think she'd lie, Kalan."
"No, masters."  He shifted.
I nodded.  "Maybe they did."
He was silent.
"She said they showed her, and it was dšck‡lfs."
He shrugged.  
We could play this game all night.  I summoned my courage and said, "She says the masters showed her Wrin's death, and you were the one that killed him.  Now tell me the truth.  Did you or didn't you?"  I stopped, surprised at myself.  I'd said it.  "If the masters are lying we can—"
"Killed husband."
I felt cold and oddly calm.  "Damn you, Kalan," I said.  I smashed the experience and saved it:
This isn't happening.  It's a joke, a bad Kalan joke.  He could never—Yes, he could.  He just said he did.  He murdered Yori's husband.
His face blurs, and I put my hands on the carpet to steady myself.  My body is ice.  "I can't—I—Why?" I whisper.  
"Got in way."  He pulled his legs up toward his chest.  His eyes glazed.  He was disappearing inside himself, like Yori.  I kicked his foot and stood up too fast.  My head spun, and I fell onto my back.  Pain shot through my ribs.  
Kalan crouched, lips curled.  His fingers shook.  "Could kill.  Have killed."  
His voice was too high.  I raised my hands, palms out.  My whole body tensed.  I wanted a shield, but that would be provocation.  "I know you have.  I've seen.  What happened?"  
I felt as if I'd entered a nightmare.  He'd killed Yori's husband and was feeling guilty, and she knew he'd done it.  Great Utu, no wonder she was having so much trouble coming back.  When she did she would have to face him.  
He looked away.
Slowly I sat up.  "Was it an accident, or did you do it on purpose?"
He said nothing.
My whole body felt leaden.  "You did it on purpose, didn't you?"  I'd depended on him for this Trial.  Now how could I depend on him for anything?  We had to turn back.  We wouldn't get trained, but we'd live—  
"Made me," he hissed, clenching his fists.
What?  "Who made you?"
He looked at the sea and relaxed his fists.  When he looked back his eyes were weary and sad.  He lifted his hands toward me.  I leaned away.  
"Show," he said.  "Share memory."  His eyes were wide, pleading.
I glanced at Yori.  The strain on her—her husband dead, being separated from her son, Kalan being the one who killed Wrin—was almost beyond endurance.  It was amazing she was doing as well as she was.  She had to be fighting like Hells to make the efforts she'd already made for us.  "Why do you want to show me this?"
"Understand," he said.  I'd never heard him so miserable.  
"You'll show me who made you kill him?"
"Yes."  He reached, and I knelt in front of him.  He touched his fingers to my temples.  Instantly I shared his memory:
Utu shines down on a temple on top of a hill.  Its grey stone facades are carved with the likenesses of hundreds of efrit leering and tearing at each other and sacrificial humans.  He walks toward two huge iron doors covered with images of a goddess.  Anxiety eats at him.  She has called, and he must come.  The doors swing open.
Startled by the strength of the vision, I jerked away.  "What is this place?"
His mouth twisted in disgust, as if he loathed what he was showing me.  "Shhh."  He touched my temples again, and I let him show me.


VII



Seri-Anar stands in front of a twenty-foot-high idol of a plump female dšck‡lf with exaggerated breasts.  She bends over a bowl in front of the idol and does something with her hands.  Soft humming reaches Kalan's ears.  His heart starts pounding, and he stands straight.  Her movements are graceful, fluid.  She wears a suit of dress chain armor made of black metal and silvered at the edges, tight on her body.  A flail hangs from her belt and rattles quietly against her leg.  Leather boots flare up around her calves.  Her hair is silver, falling to her shoulders in waves, with blue nightshade woven through the strands.  
She sways slowly back and forth.  The skin of her arms and legs is smooth and blue-black, shining with oils.  He can smell her from here, faint and enticing.  Every muscle twitch is waiting to be turned into action.  She is a warrior, this priestess.
Kalan takes a half-step forward, wanting to touch.  Then the nightshade drifts a little heavier.  He growls and looks to the incense burners, to the ceiling, anywhere else.  He can still hear her, though, humming and chanting softly. 
I felt myself getting excited and shifted uncomfortably.  Kalan was sweating.   Who in the Hells was this woman?  
"Here, Seri-Anar."  The words feel dirty on his lips, and he fights an urge to spit.  He drops to a bent knee ten feet behind her and looks at the floor.   Her curves are a lie, the enticing scents cheese in the mousetrap.  An image of lighting her hair on fire flickers in his mind and fades to another where she holds him to her and he feels her body.  His hands clench.  
Jumbled memories:  Looking at a roc's feathered back as he flew fast and high toward Mount Glass in Seligar, the dšck‡lf homeland, escaping the capital of RŽAmora where Kalan's family lives.  Something bad's about to happen, Father worried, Kalan sent away, leaving Family behind—
A burning palace of blue stone, butchered bodies in a heap by a gate, this same priestess standing in the entry hall of the blue palace with her finger pointed at Father, warning him that his refusal will cost Family Korin dearly and permanently—
Memories dying, burning out, fading—
Want to go home, home!
What was all this?  The memories were tumbled, confused, tied together in some way I wasn't familiar with.  The memories were fuzzed.  He'd been very young.  In a moment the onslaught was over.
She stops chanting.  "You have disturbed me, male.  Very dangerous."  Her voice is strong and clear.
"Here, Majestrix."  
"You have already said that, male."  She walks to him slowly, taking her time, looking slightly to one side.  Firelight gleams on her armor and the oils on her skin.  Her breasts are small rises in the armor.
Kalan's teeth grind.  Faces flash in his mind, dšck‡lf boys and men, dead because of her.  But when she is close like this, close enough to touch, she is overpowering.  She is full of vitality, like him.  She is of his race.  She's close.  She smells like a jungle after a rain.  He wants to see her in battle swinging her flail, or dancing.  He longs for her to hold him and take the pain away—
He loathes himself.  He pictures her dead, her face crushed, brains and blood spattered.  He half-remembers a hunt, Hells-hounds chasing him.  She sent them.  Gouge the soft flesh, rake out her eyes, shove a sword between her breasts, let the carrion birds feast on her as they did on Father—
Part of him screams.   
"Look ahead.  What do you see?"
He lifts his eyes to look straight ahead.  She has lowered a thin wrist to eye level, a few inches from his face.  Blood trickles from a tiny incision in the artery, pulsing with each heart-beat.  He looks past the drops of bright blood to the armor covering her thighs.  The light shifts, and the silver trim sparkles.  Her smell tantalizes and teases him, begs him to touch her, urges him to take her.  He catches himself leaning toward her.  
Something behind her moves, a hazy current above the braziers.  It's a smoke-efriti, barely visible in the incense haze of the inner sanctum.  Kalan shivers.  Ors.  
It glides forward, stopping behind Seri-Anar with its massive arms crossed.  It's a parody of a djinni, the hazy outline of a big man from the waist up and its lower body smoke.  It has shimmering black oases of dust for eyes.  Its breath rasps.  
Kalan shivers and looks away from its eyes, focusing on Seri-Anar's wrist and the red drops forming and falling.  "See blood," he says.
"Clever, Kalan.  Or do you still call yourself Korin-Kalan?  Poor, stupid male."  She shakes her head.  "It is suicide to go by that family name now.  You realize that, don't you?"  
Kalan says nothing.
"Speak, male."
Kalan remains silent.
"Ors, he is recalcitrant.  Encourage him."
Chuckling, snorting inky smoke rings, the efriti glides around her.  Its body solidifies, and it picks Kalan up with one monstrous set of claws.  Its hand is the size of Kalan's head.  Ors tears Kalan's candis open and draws a claw down his chest.  
Kalan smashes and saves the experience.  His lips tremble, but he doesn't cry out.  Ors growls and punches him in the gut.  Kalan squeezes his eyes shut.  He can't breathe—
"Speak."  Ors' voice is so low Kalan barely hears it.  It makes him tremble.
"Lost your voice?" Seri-Anar asks lightly.
Kalan says nothing.
"Castrate him, Ors."
Ors shreds Kalan's loincloth off with its claws and begins digging its claws into Kalan's genitals.  
Pain shoots up from Kalan's groin, and he whimpers.  The temple swims in his vision.
Seri-Anar's voice:  "I was asking why you insist on using your family name, Korin-Kalan.  If you could remember it would save you much agony."
He can't get away, this efriti is too strong—He wheezes, "Family name all have left, Majestrix."  
"Is that all?  You have nothing else to say?  Pitiful."  She rocks on her heels for a moment.   "Put him down, Ors."  
It drops him.  He huddles on the floor and clutches his torn candis closed.  There's blood on the cloth. 
Ors returns to loom behind Seri-Anar.
"Very well, then, I shall call you by your family name, Korin-Kalan, while you are here.  This will be the only time you will ever hear your family name spoken by another dšck‡lf."
"Will be Korins again."
"You will not entertain such thoughts with me," she snaps.  "I will not punish you for your indiscretion...this time."  She pauses.  "Thank me."
"Thank you, Majestrix."   He longs to put his fingers around that throat and squeeze or slam her against a wall and gouge her eyes out with his thumbs. 
"I have sacrificed to the goddess today, Korin-Kalan.  Now I hurt."  He glances at her cut.  "Do you like that?  Does my suffering please you?"
"No, Majestrix."  Inwardly he laughs.  He saves that, too.
Ors stretches its hands over its head, cracking its knuckles like breaking sticks.  
Majestrix Seri-Anar looks annoyed but keeps her gaze on Kalan. "You lie.  Lick my wound, Korin-Kalan.  Make me stop hurting."
"Cannot heal, Majestrix."  He feels his teeth on her throat, crushing cartilage, opening arteries, a mouthful of hot copper—
"That's right, I forgot.  You have no healing.  You are male.  You are worthless.  The Mother laughs at your family.  Do you agree with her mirth, Korin-Kalan?"
"It is just, Majestrix."  He smashes and saves his rage.  Every insult helps, every barb increases his power.
"Your hate excites me.  Would you like to hurt me, Korin-Kalan?  Or do you desire me?"  She presses against him.  Her warmth, her smell, stirs his body.  There is no one for him, no one loves Kalan—Desire and disgust twist in him.  Blood rushes in his head.  She laughs.  
"I thought as much.  How pathetically dependent on that little bit of flesh between your legs you are.  How sad."  
He looks closely at her face.  She is young-old.  Her cheeks are intricately painted with silver patterns.  Her face is a young woman's, but she gazes with the assurance of age.  
She lightly traces her fingertip down from his hair onto his cheek.  She toys with his chest, drawing her finger across Ors' cuts, then she puts the finger in her mouth and sucks on it.  Kalan's breath stops.  Her cheeks hollow and fill, hollow and fill...  She takes the finger out of her mouth and touches it to his lips.  He kisses it before he can stop himself.  Self-loathing sears him.  He smashes the moment and saves it.  If only he could cling to her—He pictures himself smashing her with spells, pounding her body to pieces.  The rage gives him strength.
"I am bored with you now," she says.  She draws away from him.  "I need your talents for a minor task."
"Again, Majestrix?"  He tries to sound amused, but bitterness underlies his humor.
She looks at him sharply.  "Do not use that tone with me, male.  I use you as I see fit, until such time as you have no use left in you.  Listen, and live."
"Yes, Majestrix."  He bites his lip and sucks on the blood. 
"There is a human diplomat going to Skee, in Ceretesia, a fortnight from today.  It is not in my interest that he and his entourage survive their trip.  You may go kill him for me. Wait in the quest quarters for the others."  Behind her, Ors gazes at him expressionlessly.
Kalan flees the temple, Seri-Anar's voice following.  "Good luck, male.  If you survive, you are free to go on your way.  I will call when I need you."
The memory faded.  Kalan let his hands fall and gasped for air.  His fists were clenched.  
I felt soiled.  Who was she?  Why did she torture him?  Utu!  It was disgusting.  And that efriti—huge!
"Who was that?"  I asked.  "When did this happen?"  
He began concentrating again.  
"You can't do it again.  You're worn out."  I reached to stop him, but he growled and swatted my arm down.
Yori stirred, and I glanced at her.  In sleep the lines of her face were not as severe.  But her emaciation was made plain by the way her candis lay over her ribs and by the thinness of her wrists and ankles.  I winced.  Somehow I would help her get through her pain.  
I looked back to Kalan.  What had happened to his family?  Why couldn't I experience any of the memories he was saving?
He touched my temples again.  "Week later," he grunted.
Desert.  Stars are dots against cool black sky.  He moves quickly and stays low.  Sand in his boots irritates his blistered feet.  It's cold, desert night cold, and his breath puffs out.  He tucks his hands into his sleeves to keep them warm.  When was something going to happen?  
He sign-talks to a shadowy dšck‡lf off to his right:  'Move-away.'
The shade slides a little farther away.
Kalan signs approval to the shadow, which hails him back:  'All-male-group.  Maggot-food-for-Majestrix.'   
Kalan signs 'Yes.'  He pictures a savage dšck‡lf face surrounded by a fur-lined hood.  His cousin, Asth-Bhan, has watery green eyes and a shock of red hair among his white.  Scars cover his cheeks in criss-cross patterns.  In Kalan's memory he carries a garrote in his right hand, spinning it around like a toy.  There is a bond between them, formed by blood and fostered by mutual suffering, that cannot be broken.  Kalan feels Asth-Bhan, feels his life and hopes and dreams and fears.  There is power in the sharing.  
He remembers being in the kitchen with Bhan a long time ago, tossing a knife in the air and catching it by the tip.  Highest number of catches without getting cut wins.  Kalan first.  One, two, three...  Bhan is talking.  "If I develop assassin skills I work for myself like Tamban-Sirio did, instead of for the Guild. That way I can travel."  Kalan shrugs.  He doesn't want to be an assassin.  Bhan smiles, breaking the lines of his face.  "Maybe I'll end up in Thalarar, putting down rebellions.  They're always fighting there."  A dreamy expression steals over his face, and he plays as if he had a sword to wave at Kalan.  "I'll be a good assassin."  He plunges the imaginary blade into the table and lets go.  Kalan snickers.
He remembers House Asth in flames and carrion birds circling.  Soldiers everywhere.  He hides in bushes when a patrol passes, their chainmail clinking in the dark.  The elegant facade of House Asth crumbles.  Aunt Erisa runs toward him, trying to be quiet.  Too late.  A soldier hears, spins (Nonononono—), fires her crossbow.  The bolt hits Erisa in the back.  She falls ten yards away, her face twisted in pain.  
Everyone dead.  Nowhere to go.  He's tired and terrified.  Father!  Come back!  Please, tired and scared, didn't do anything, come back, please, Father, please, Kalan be good now, please—
The memories swirl together and dissipate.  Asth-Bhan had been in Thalarar when Seri-Anar had the Family killed.  He is Kalan's only surviving male relative.  Seri-Anar hunted the rest down.  
The hate, thick fire, gels in Kalan.  There will be a reckoning, and the smoke-efriti won't be able to save her then.  
He glances back and spots a hint of movement half a dozen yards behind him.  Whoever it is is so graceful that Kalan has a hard time tracking him.  He met this one, Intmi-CorosopŽ, for the first time in the temple.  This dšck‡lf is cold, efficient and merciless.  He is the oldest, the leader for this task.  His face is narrow and bony, his hands delicate as a girl's.  He licks his thin lips so often that they are cracked and bleed constantly.  A feeling clings to him, like that around Ranhammon but stronger.  Ranhammon is trying to become what this one is.  Kalan wants to get away from him.  He hisses at Asth-Bhan to get his attention and signs.
'What-rank?'  
'Red-master,' was the reply.  Fear prickles Kalan's skin.  This is an important wizard.  What hold does Seri-Anar have on him?  If she controls one this strong, how would Kalan ever—  He stops the thought.
Intmi-CorosopŽ was a real sorcerer, not a human-trained weakling.  Kalan grinds a small cactus into the sand, pleased at the slight resistance it gives.  Stupid plant shouldn't have gotten in his way.  
They pass another dune and find tracks from the caravan.  Someone dropped food scraps.  Sloppy.  Stupid.  Seri-Anar said thirty-two humans:  fifteen riflemen, two machine gunners, five crossbowmen, five scimitarsmen, a secretary, two camp helpers, the diplomat and a tekkie.  No wizard.  Stupid!  
 Kalan snorted.  The technological weapons were dangerous, but there were spells to hold them off.   Their power was laughable compared to dšck‡lf magic.  This entire task was child's play.  Seri-Anar showing her contempt of male power.
Asth-Bhan catches Kalan's attention by sailing a throwing star past him.  
'What?' Kalan signs.
Asth-Bhan points to a fourth shadow.  'Don't-like.'
Kalan sweeps his view fifty yards back to the left and finds the final member of the group, Shom-Vadran.  He met Shom-Vadran at the temple also.  That one is fat and soft and tells jokes constantly.  He's a blademan, a professional swordfighter.  He carries a twenty-inch Livesword in each hand.  The swords whisper to each other, harsh rasping sounds, and Shom-Vadran whispers back.  The swords hush.   
Kalan holds up his hands.  He doesn't care about Shom-Vadran one way or the other, but a good swordfight might be fun to watch.  He signs to Asth-Bhan:  'Liveswords-hungry.'   
Asth-Bahn signs, 'Hope-see-good-fight.'
The group moves in a diamond pattern for ten or fifteen minutes, each watching his quarter for giant scorpions and other desert-dwellers.  They make no sound and could easily be mistaken for shifting shadows.  They come across wagon tracks.  Kalan's heart quickens.  Intmi-CorosopŽ signs for the group to slow.
A palm tree waving in a breeze that doesn't reach the ground marks the oasis where the humans have stopped.  Campfires send plumes of heat into the cold sky.  The stars are sharp.  Kalan remembers the Academy's beach and Yori fanning him with a palm frond for fun.  They took turns with the fan.  He looks at the palm tree and shivers again.  Now he was killing humans.  Fanning, killing...  He shakes off the strange mood.  The tree sways.  Dšck‡lf shadows break out of their formation and spread out to form a straight line.  They look to Intmi-CorosopŽ.
'Asth-Bhan-first.  Clear way.'  Asth-Bhan glides over to him, and Intmi-CorosopŽ puts his hands on the assassin’s shoulders.  A sparkling shield surrounds Asth-Bhan, who hesitantly touches it.  Then he lopes toward the human camp.  
Intmi-CorosopŽ sinks down, and the others follow suit.  Asth-Bahn's specialty is silence.  He'll kill any sentries.  
Shom-Vadran's swords whisper eagerly.  
Kalan sighs.  The Liveswords make constant noise, and he's tired of it.  He hates this place and wants to go home, but there is no home.  He looks down at his boots.  A dung beetle crawls by, rolling a ball of camel droppings.  The ball is much larger than the beetle and keeps rolling back, frustrating the creature.  It pushes, slips, loses ground, and starts again.  Kalan laughs.  He toes the dung ball over the wagon track and watches the beetle scramble after it.  In a few moments it runs into another track and slips again.  He loses interest.
He looks back at the fronds and taps his fingers on his leg.  When will they get going?  He plugs his ears with his fingers to shut out the Livesword babble.
Asth-Bhan is ripped apart in a red-orange explosion which slams Kalan over and knocks his breath away.  Thunder rolls.  Kalan feels his cousin's death, shrapnel gouging and tearing, legs shattering, chest torn open—Dead.
Less than a second.
He screams.  His Memory Sea, hot with stored memories, boils over.  Dead!  Memories shatter from the strain.  He bleeds energy from every pore.  He points his fingers into the sand and fires off power, fusing sand to glass.  His skin burns with escaping energy.  Sweat boils off him.  He dives deep into himself.
There is another layer to his Memory Sea.  Family.  No stored memories here, only free-flowing memories, jumbled together.  They are ragged and cold.  Everything is gray.  Memories interlock and form a tight net, all dead.  
He plunges through this part of himself, past the lifeless memories.  Then he is at the end.  A last few warm memories lie here.  These memories are Asth-Bhan's.  Playing with a skull-and-bones snake from Balon—The smell of warm human blood from a throat wound—Spasmodic jerking from a man dying from his garrote/Yielding to the embrace of a dšck‡lf woman who smells like apples and cinnamon—  
This was beyond belief.  All these dead memories were other dšck‡lfs'.  There were thousands of them.  Did he somehow take memories from other dšck‡lfs?  "What are these memories?"  
"Family memories," he whispered.  "Shared.  All gone.  All dead."
"But—"
He groaned.
"All right, damn it, go on!"
We plunged back in.
Asth-Bhan's memories fade until they are as dark and lifeless as the others.  No Family power left.
Kalan raises empty hands over his head.  "Alone!" he howls, staring at the endless dead memories.  The noise echoes through this empty place, shaking the dry memories like palm fronds.  There is no Family now.  None at all.  
Seri-Anar.  Kalan sees her here, in his sacred place, his Family place, laughing at his pain.  He knows his mind is tricking him.  He doesn't care.  He rides a pillar of flaming hate up, out of the dead place, into his own Memory Sea.  Hot memories bounce off him.  He reaches forth and shatters one.  Fear and anger and pain pour out.  He shapes them into a shield.  It wraps around him, a few inches from his skin.  
That was one I taught him!  My best.  It would stop everything for a minute or so.
Explosions bring him out of his half-daze.  His vision is red from the after-image of the blast.  The other two dšck‡lfs rush over the blasted dune into a cloud of smoke and cinders.  
He stands and starts running.  Puffs of sand fly up in his face.  He bends down to see what they are.  Something whines past his ear.  Bullets.  Balls of flame flash.  A lightning bolt sizzles ahead of him.  Thunder follows, blowing his hair back.  A camel bursts into flame and flees, screeching.  The Liveswords howl ahead.  Bullets strike his shield and bounce back.  Each impact slows him down for several steps.  Thick smoke, reeking of technology, chokes everything.   
A man rushes past to his left, wrapped in smoke.  He has no weapon.  He's fleeing.
"Human!"  
The man turns, hands open in front of him.
Kalan shatters a memory and feels the burst of fear it contains.  He shapes it and points at the man.  Light lashes from his fingers through the man's chest.  The man falls, bubbling.
Kalan runs, seeking the fight.  The hair on the back of his neck tingles.  Someone is casting a major spell nearby.  Bursts of gunfire rip from the shore of the oasis.  A palm tree across the camp explodes.  Kalan nearly runs into a burnt wagon and slows down.  Two camels run past, their tethers burnt through.  Their eyes are wild.  He moves warily forward and stumbles over a dead man who has a surprised look on his face.  His body is desiccated, his skin taut over his bones.  Even with his chainmail he can't weigh more than fifty pounds.  Liveswords fed here.  A scimitar rests near the man's left hand.  There are two slashes on the corpse, one on either side of its neck.  He admires the precise cuts.  The man wears a sky blue shield emblem on his chest with black embroidery in the center.  Meaningless.  
  Where are the humans?  Humans killed his cousin, his last relative.  Humans will pay.  He runs—
—out of the smoke.  Five wagons burn next to the oasis.  Two more have been spared.  Most of the camels are fleeing the oasis, apparently let go by their masters.  A few lie dead.  Shom-Vadran and his Liveswords are only twenty yards in front of Kalan, fighting two men with scimitars.  Metal rings on metal as they slash, parry, thrust.  Someone grunts.  Shom-Vadren is quick for being so fat, his Liveswords flashes of silver in his hands.
Several corpses lie at his feet.  They crunch under his boots as he spins and defends himself.  One guard misses a parry.  A Livesword hits him on the arm.  The man drops dead, drying like the one Kalan passed. The sword's gleeful burbling rises above the other noise.  
A wounded man crawls out of the smoke.  "Stupid human!"  Kalan shouts.  He runs over and kicks the man's face in and staggers on.  Family gone.  Faces:  a stern male with white hair, a smiling female with silver in her black hair.  Babies, children, young males.  Gone.  No more warm memories from other males.  No home.  No Family.  How will he defeat the bitch?  He smashes his grief and drops it into his Memory Sea.  
Two guards, Decadurinian women, step from behind a shattered wagon.  They are short, chocolate-skinned, severe.  Their long hair is bound behind their heads.  They stand apart, scimitars ready, one left-handed, the other right.  The Decadurinian flag, yellow and blue, on each chest.  
"Well, sister, what have we here?"  one asks.
Kalan reaches and finds a stored memory.  He shatters it and shapes the terror it contains.
The other woman smirks.  "A dead dšck‡lf?"
He opens clenched fingers.  The sand at their feet rises into a huge cobra with fiery eyes which strikes twice.  The sisters fall like stone, and the cobra crumbles.
Kalan laughs.  Fools!  Pay for Asth-Bahn— 
Intmi-CorosopŽ strides through the hulls of the burning wagons, searching.  The flames do not hurt him.  Here is the source of the spell which put Kalan's teeth on edge a moment ago.  
He paralyzes a wounded man with a gesture and lays his hand on the man's chest.  Kalan shudders.  Even from here the spell feels like worms crawling on his skin. The man convulses, but Intmi-CorosopŽ maintains his touch.  The man finds his voice and shrieks, flopping about madly in an attempt to escape.  A thin rope of spittle escapes his mouth.  His flailings weaken and stop.  His arched back sinks to the ground.  His limbs fall flat.  Intmi-CorosopŽ smiles and runs his hand over the man's body.  The guard disintegrates into a heap of dust.  
"No!"  I shouted, pushing myself away from Kalan.  Cool night-breeze shocked me back to the carpet.  That man!  Intmi-CorosopŽ took his soul.  Damp with sweat, I shook.  He was awake and knew he was not losing merely his life but his soul and was unable to save himself.  I managed to get to the edge of the carpet before throwing up.  Each time I thought of his convulsions horror swept through me.  
"Waiting," Kalan said.  His face was drawn, and he looked sad and vulnerable.  Utu!  How could anyone hurt so much and keep going?
"Starting again."  
I let him touch my temples.
A lone guard wades through the fog and smoke toward Kalan.  He's a big man, huge muscles moving under his chain armor.  The scimitar he holds must weigh twenty pounds.  He sees Kalan and stops.  "Your blademan, he is good," he rumbles in High Cerelian.  "I myself think he still lives.  I myself do not strike when someone is down."
Kalan doesn't answer.  How does this man know High Cerelian?  
"Come, dšck‡lf, you yourself must have a thing to say to me."  He closes to within a few yards of Kalan and lifts his scimitar.  "Have you yourself a proper weapon?"
Kalan says nothing.  He doesn't want to talk to these humans.
"You yourself are a wizard?"
"Yes."  He shatters a handy memory, pouring forth aching lust.  He begins shaping. 
"Utu Himself rest your spirit, dšck‡lf.  His rays ever shine on you."
Kalan turns cold.  The spell in him dies.  He thinks of me for a moment, taller than I really am, with a slightly stupid expression on my face.  Intense warmth flows with the recollection.  He cannot tell his memory of me from this man for a moment.  The feelings frighten him.
The man lashes.  Kalan leaps back, not fast enough.  His chest is sliced.  Cold shock spikes into his legs and arms.  He staggers and falls to his knees.  The man closes and kicks his face.  His nose cracks, and he drops onto his back.
The man swims in Kalan's vision, a floating face against wavering red light from the burning wagon.  Blood flows into Kalan's mouth.  He spits.  He tries to get up but collapses.
The big man is speaking, but Kalan hears only bits and pieces.  His heartbeat is too loud in his ears.  "Sorry, little dšck‡lf...myself...allow wizard...live.  Too dangerous."  The scimitar floats away from Kalan's face and drifts back.  The big man looks sad.
Kalan can't find his Memory Sea.  It's lost beneath the ice shooting up from his chest.  His body is cold.  His mind is freezing.  There's light.  He smiles.  Just head for the light—
The big man gasps and falls to his knees.  Behind him, the Liveswords screech victory.  Shom-Vadran looms, his Liveswords in the man's back.
"Well, friend, you should have finished me when you had the chance."  His tone is light, almost amused.  He's cut and bloody all over.  Kalan can't understand how he's still standing.
The big man's losing weight.  The Liveswords begin giggling.  Kalan's sight blurs.
"I...go to...eternal sand," the big man chokes.  He drops his weapon.  "No...more...war."  He falls onto his face and twists onto his side.  
Cold overpowers Kalan's mind.

"Get up."  Shom-Vadran props Kalan up to a sitting position.  "Fight."  The blademan seems to be healed of his wounds.  Kalan feels the cut on his chest as a dull pain.
"Healer?"  He's amazed.
"Hah.  For me, and my friends, Liveswords give back some of what they take from these."  He sweeps the blades outward to indicate the battlefield.  "Life.  For me.  For you."  He smiles amiably.  "Come on, now, get up.  Fighting to do."  He offers his hand.
Kalan accepts.  The blademan's hand is soft and sweaty.  Shom-Vadren pulls him to his feet.  He aches all over.  The big man's body rests a few feet away, shrivelled like all the Liveswords' victims.
"Different—" Kalan starts, then he stops himself.  Just another stupid—No!  Different!  He stands, unable to move.
"Hmm, yes.  More life than most.  Enough to heal you."  Shom-Vadran puts the flat of a Livesword against his cheek and rubs it against his skin.  The other weapon mutters angrily.  "Shush," the blademan murmurs.  It purrs.
"More fighting?"  Kalan is repelled by Shom-Vadran, a feeling not there an hour ago.  Something about the big man—
"One wagon left.  Strong defenders."  He stretches and looks bored.  "Intmi-CorosopŽ toys with them."  He heads off toward the oasis.  
Kalan looks at the big man again, feeling lost.  "Have Family?"  He takes a step away, returns.  He bends down and closes the man's eyes.  "Utu rest."  He runs after Shom-Vadran.
The surviving wagon is a dozen feet wide and twice that long.  It's a huge wooden platform on wheels, with high sides and a tent roof.  Two poles hold the canvas up like a circus tent, and on the forward of these flies a light blue flag with black lettering.  
It was the same as the coat of arms the guardsmen were wearing, and I recognized it once I got a good look at it.  It was the flag of Atlan, my nation.  That was Wrin's wagon.
The tent's flap is closed.  This wagon is separate from the others, closer to the oasis.  Boxes and barrels and crates surround it, kicked out by whoever is within.  Farther away, Intmi-CorosopŽ stands behind the wreckage of another wagon and works on a complex spell.
Shom-Vadren and Kalan run low to the ground until they reach a heap of barrels they can use as cover.  They are south of Wrin's wagon, and Intmi-CorosopŽ is to the west.  
Shom-Vadran sighs disappointedly.  "Looks like the fighting is done.  Sit and wait for him to finish, then go home."  His Liveswords mutter as he lowers them.  "There, there," he soothes.
"Hmmph," Kalan grunts.  He wants to blast the Liveswords and their muttering.
Intmi-CorosopŽ steeples his fingers toward the wagon.  A cloud of yellow-grey gas condenses from the smoke above the oasis and sinks onto the wagon.
Pulses of light flash through the cloud, haloed by the gas.  One hits Intmi-CorosopŽ's wagon, then a volley of pulses chews into the wagon.  Intmi-CorosopŽ shields himself.
"Earth Mother!" Shom-Vadran curses.  He drops to his belly.  "The technocrat!"
Kalan finds and shatters a memory.  He shapes the rage that comes out of it and sits up so he can see over the barrels.  Intmi-CorosopŽ's poison gas covers the wagon.  Something moves behind the burning tent flap.  Kalan releases light-darts.  Tiny meteors fly from his fingers into the rear of the wagon.  He drops back down and flattens against the sand.
Something heavy smashes through the side of the wagon.  Technological weapons hum, and some of the barrels Kalan and Shom-Vadren crouch behind explode.  Chunks of flaming wood and pickles and juice and salted meat fall onto him.  He throws sand on the wood and stays down.  Half their cover is gone.
"Kalan!" Shom-Vadran wheezes.  His Liveswords chirp and fret.  "Intmi-CorosopŽ—"
Kalan glances over at their leader, whose fingers are moving.  'Hold-off.'
Kalan signs assent.
"Damned fool!"  The blademan's eyes are big, his lips trembling.  His knuckles are white on the Liveswords.  "How can we 'hold' that technocrat?"
Kalan seizes a stored memory.  A crimson pulse melts a foot-long furrow of glowing sand next to him.  He shatters the memory and shapes a shimmering wall between them and the technocrat.  Light hits the wall and flashes.  The wall stands.  There are no more pulses.  
Kalan cautiously peers around the barrels.  The poison gas has sunk down to the water, leaving the wagon clear.  The technocrat stands at a hole in the side of the wagon, encased in a suit of armor which shines like brass.  Over its right arm is a complicated arrangement of machinery.  The suit's entire back is a large metal pack.  A dark visor hides the face.  The visor is turned toward Kalan.  
"Uh-oh," he mutters.  No wonder the gas didn't work.
A column of fire rises high into the sky from a flaming wagon, thinning as it shoots upward.  A second tendril lifts from another burning wagon behind Kalan and Shom-Vadran.  The two twine into a serpent which pauses above the oasis.  Kalan sees the control Intmi-CorosopŽ is exercising and feels deep admiration.  
Shom-Vadran snorts.  "He has to incinerate what he can't fight face-to-face.  I wonder if that armor is a match for these."  He shakes his weapons, which growl.
The technocrat looks up and sees the forming fire tentacles.  He (she?) lashes out and tears a large hole in the side of the wagon, grabs an unsuited man, and leaps.  The fiery serpents lash around the wagon and encase it in writhing fire.  Flames shoot from the tent.  In seconds the wagon is reduced to ash.                     
Intmi-CorosopŽ curses.  His flame-tentacles burn out. 
 The technocrat closes the distance to Kalan's shield in a single leap, holding the man in the suit's arms, and crouches behind the shield.  Kalan lets it dissolve.  The technocrat drops the man and raises the complex machine on the suit's arm to point at Intmi-CorosopŽ's wagon.  The man crouches behind the technocrat.  He is thin, with an aquamarine turban and a bright blue silk candis.    
Wrin.  
He pulls a mask off his face and drops it in the sand.  Did it have something to do with Intmi-CorosopŽ's gas?  Standing straight, he surveys the wreckage around him.  The look on his face says he knows he is going to die.  
"Wait!"  Intmi-CorosopŽ shouts.  He surrounds himself with a powerful body-shield and steps from behind his cover.  
The technocrat follows him with the machine on the suit's arm.  "Dšck‡lf," the technocrat snarls.  It is a woman's voice, distorted by the armor.  
Intmi-CorosopŽ bows, flourishing his cloak.  "Your technocrat intrigues me.  I wish to challenge her," he calls to Wrin.  His voice booms.  
The machine clicks.  A red light glows on a thin rod pointing at Intmi-CorosopŽ.  Wrin says something.  She holds her fire.
Holding himself erect, Wrin steps from behind her to face Intmi-CorosopŽ.  He looks a little like Remens in a contemplative mood.  "I am your target?"  His voice is level and reasonable.  
"You are."
"This is an assassination."
"It is."
There is a long silence.  Wrin shifts while Intmi-CorosopŽ stands relaxed.  
"Can you tell me why?"  Wrin asks at last.  
"We are ordered to ensure you and your entourage never reach Skee.  A leader of the temple deems this necessary to maintain the insurrection in Ceretesia.  Your entourage is taken care of.  You remain."
Wrin nods.  "I see.  That would allow the priestess ruling Skee to continue using military force against the people.  Which feeds anguish and fear to the priestesses, increasing their power.  You are working for that faction?"
Intmi-CorosopŽ smiles, a ghastly expression.
"Does your patron believe I will be so effective in stopping the riots?  I'm flattered."
Kalan notices Wrin's fingers are shaking and wishes he was home.  Anger rises.  Why is Intmi-CorosopŽ talking?  Kill these stupid humans and leave.
"She wishes not to take the chance."  Intmi-CorosopŽ sighs.  "We must be on our way..."
"My bodyguard is competent."
"I am better."
The woman fires.  Light pulses blaze against Intmi-CorosopŽ's body-shield, causing sparks to fly off onto the sand.  He concentrates on a spell.  The technocrat advances toward him, firing.  His shield buckles.
Shom-Vadran leaps up and sprints toward Wrin.  His Liveswords chant.  He races past the technocrat and leaps, Liveswords high.
Kalan remembers Liveswords chuckling as they sucked the big man dry.  "No!"  he cries and shatters a memory.  He shapes a spell and lets the energy go.  Violet darts bite Shom-Vadran's back.  The blademan falls and thrashes.
"No more Liveswords,"  Kalan shouts.  "No more!"  Trembling with rage and grief, confused, he is sorry for the big man and angry and wants everything to be over and to go back the way things were and knows they can't and wants to die—
Intmi-CorosopŽ raises his hands in front of him.  The powersuit topples back.  He points a finger, and dark energy slices at the armor.  The metal creases but does not give.  He raises one hand toward the sky, and lightning flickers in the clouds.
The technocrat turns over, fast, and leaps aside as a bolt of lightning arcs down.  Thunder blasts sand into Kalan's face, and he brushes his eyes clear.  
Liveswords wail.  Shom-Vadran grasps for one.  Wrin reaches to push it out of reach and makes a horrified face when it slides into his hand.  He flings it away.  The other Livesword laughs.  Wrin scrambles back.
Intmi-CorosopŽ puts his hands together as if clapping and then strains to pull them.  He grits his teeth and breathes hard.  Metal shrieks.  The powersuit bursts open in front.  Its visor shatters.  Sparks fall from the tear in the metal.  The smell of burnt meat reaches Kalan.
The technocrat falls to her knees, swivels the arm-weapon around to Intmi-CorosopŽ, points.  Nothing happens.
Intmi-CorosopŽ bows and draws his short sword and strides forward.
A pistol cracks.  Intmi-CorosopŽ grimaces.  Wrin, kneeling, holds the weapon.  
Intmi-CorosopŽ turns to Wrin.  Blood soaks into his candis from a wound in his belly; he grimaces and makes a fist.  Wrin is jerked to his feet and cries out.  With his other hand Intmi-CorosopŽ points at the pistol.  It tears out of Wrin's hand and flies into the oasis.
The technocrat stumbles to Intmi-CorosopŽ.  Sparks fall from her armor.  
His candis is red with blood.  He concentrates, too late—
She scrabbles, grabs his arm, squeezes.  Intmi-CorosopŽ gasps.  She sinks to the ground, dragging him with her, and rolls onto him.  Something snaps loudly.  She turns to face Kalan.
He dives into the place beneath his Memory Sea, his Family place.  He finds a blazing memory that is loose, floating:
Half a hundred severed dšck‡lf heads impaled on the spikes of a massive iron gate.  Some boys, others men.  A few are old.  Family.  Crows pick at them, tearing their flesh, pulling off bits of skin.  Maggots crawl on them.  One's tongue lolls out, and a crow has been at it.  The eyes of a white-haired dšck‡lf in the center of the gate reflect a haggard boy, Kalan, hanging onto the bars below the spikes and staring into those grey eyes.  "Please, Father, come down, come down, please, Kalan be good, come down—"
Kalan shapes his grief and releases it as a thin black beam, Shelven's Razor.
The technocrat lurches to her feet.
The spell slices through the hole in the armor's chest.  The technocrat falls onto her back, gouting sparks and blood.  
"Saba!"  Wrin drops to his knees next to her and holds her headpiece.  
Rage floods Kalan.  Damn humans love each other get in way not Kalan's fault Seri-Anar makes him doesn't matter no Family anyway Asth-Bahn dead all dead— 
Wrin looks up.  He seems weary.
Kalan snatches and shatters a stored memory full of joy.
The powersuit crackles.  Sparks fountain.  Wrin glances down, surprised.  
Kalan unleashes light-darts shaped like butterflies, wings swept back, slashing through Wrin.  Wrin's body sinks onto the technocrat.
The technocrat's armor flashes into a tiny sun, whooshing.  Intmi-CorosopŽ and Wrin disappear, their bodies outlined through their clothes an instant before they are consumed.  Shom-Vadran is devoured by flames.  His Liveswords keen and die.  Kalan, ten yards away, shields his face.  Heat sears his body and raises blisters and is gone. 
He falls onto his face.  Pain inside, pain outside—
The breeze rustles the palm fronds.
Fires crackle.


VIII



The memory dissipated.  Kalan collapsed backward off the rug, and if I had been any farther away I would have missed him.  I struggled with his weight for several moments, trying to hold him, trying to sort my thoughts.  He dangled.  
"You killed him, Kalan."  I shook him as if he would answer and nearly let him drop.  Instead I hauled him back up.  He was unconscious, exhausted.  What had he looked like after that attack on the caravan?  All I had felt at the end was pain, his and mine.  I felt winded, as if I'd fallen onto my back and lost my breath.
I dumped him next to Yori.  
He could have put Wrin to sleep.  Or paralyzed him.  But he killed—He killed.  And destroyed.  I had seen him cause an old woman's lungs to fill with molten gold for trying to steal his coin purse.  He once exploded a man's heart for failing to use his proper name.  In Ambian he poisoned the birds for the noise they were making when they woke him one morning.  I remembered waking up and hearing nothing but the murmurs of confused people.  When I looked outside they were carrying dead chickens, roosters and marjingales, looking sad and angry and confused.  
I looked down at him shivering and felt like kicking him over the side. 
But in Erthoos he killed a rogue wizard to save a baby from being frozen alive.  When ground-shakers started fires in RŸrdal, he summoned djinn to put out the flames and search through rubble for survivors until he was so weary he collapsed.  In Cirsmar, he—
I was wrenched to tears.  I couldn't take this.   
"Kalan..."  I remembered butterflies flying through Wrin.  "I can't keep caring.  I can't."  I longed to be home with Janine.  These people were taking too much from me.
The carpet slowed, feeling my desire to go home.  I was trapped with a zombie and a crazy dšck‡lf.  I heard a sob from my own throat, oddly distant.  
"Forward.  Fast."  The carpet slithered on.
"Simple for you, isn't it?  Go, stop, forward, back, slow, fast...  Why?  You don't know, don't care."  I picked at a loose thread.  "I can't just sit here with him—"  My throat closed, and I ached all over.  Again I saw Wrin falling, blood spattering as the light-darts tore his life from him.  
"Damn you, Kalan," I whispered. 
What of his hesitation with the big man and killing Shom-Vadren when the blademan tried to kill Wrin with the Liveswords?  His actions were based on whim, what he felt at the moment.  Obviously the Priestess had some hold on him, but he could hide, or run away or something.  He didn't have to kill.  
He'd been with me...the Efrit's Run, Ranhammon, everything, before Janine.  I remembered his grin when he summoned his first masked efriti and tore its mind apart in psychic duel.  He'd never told me his family was dead.  I'd always thought he was on loan from the Mageguild, studying human magic.  He'd been carrying that agony for years, telling no one.  I couldn't imagine what it would have been like to have his family butchered like that, and when he was so young—And he felt himself become more powerless with every death.  What was that Priestess doing to him?
The butterflies shot into Wrin, and he fell onto the technocrat—
I escaped in sleep.

When I woke I had a headache.  It was still dark, and the stars were in nearly the same positions.  I was aware of Kalan and Yori sleeping nearby.    
It was cold.  I crawled over and pulled my blanket out of my pack.  When I came back, Kalan had rolled to the edge of the rug and taken Yori's blanket with him.  She was curled in a shivering ball.  I lay next to her and covered both of us.  Kalan wouldn't fall off.  He was too lucky.  Yori felt my heat and snuggled into me.  I draped my arm over her carefully; she felt as if too much weight in any one place would break something.  
I lay awake for a while, so weary sleep wouldn't come.  My head throbbed.  I listened to Yori's breathing, slow and steady.  Slow...and...steady...  So much happening...  I was supposed to keep it all going...  I wasn't a leader and never cared to be one...leader...  We were—what?  Expendable pieces?  None of us was expendable.  People aren't things to throw away.
Yori shifted.  She smelled very faintly of cinnamon, and her warmth and smell woke thoughts of Janine curled up alone in Hafar.  I wanted to see her and feel her in my arms.  She was clever with her hands, easing aches out of my muscles at the end of the day with a massage which might last an hour if I was lucky.  And I, in turn, would crush mint leaves in my fingers and rub them on her skin...  She loved that smell.  Over her shoulders and down her back, up her belly, cupping her breasts and circling her nipples...  She would capture my hands and kiss my fingers.  Slowly, we always went slowly...  Well, usually...  And when I got home we'd finally be able to have our children...
I half-awoke with a flare of alarm.  This Trial was idiocy.  There was so little to gain and so much to lose.  There was no need to risk myself for this stupidity.  I could turn the rug around and take us home, away from danger.  
But what when the Basquan attacked, and I needed more energy than I had?  An image of Janine hacked up like they hacked up Cerry Faoul forced itself into my mind.  I shuddered.  I needed energy and mage training.   
And if I died?  Astapha would see that Janine got to her family in Blackstone if I didn't return.  Hells, he was probably already coming around and asking where I was.  She had our money, what was left from magic I'd done for nobles from time to time.  It wasn't a great deal, but it would get her to Blackstone and see to her comfort until she got going there.  And her family would help.  My heart ached at the thought of her moving our things out of our house, saying good-bye to our friends, and going back to the city. 
I prayed to Utu to let me return and pulled the edges of the blanket snug around my neck.  Sleep came slowly.
Somebody's on the rug.  I open my eyes cautiously in case it's a flying dšck‡lf just looking us over, but it's not.  It's a man.  
"Who are you?" I ask.  I can't sit up.  He's holding me down with a spell.
"Shhh," he says.  Remens.
"What's going on?  How did you get here?"
"You don't know what's happening—"
"I've figured that out."  
"Be still and listen.  The masters—"
"Master Remens!  Is this dream?"  Kalan sits up and yawns.  He pokes the rug with one finger, hard.  "Very real."
Remens looks over his shoulder and curses.  "They're coming.  Find the truth.  Truth!"  He disappears.  
"What?"  I sit up and rub my eyes.  He disappeared without leaving anything.  What made me think he would leave something?  
"Stupid dream," Kalan grunts and flops back down.  I look around, and the edges of the rug turn fuzzy.  The dream's unraveling already.  I go back to sleep and forget the whole thing.
Utu hadn't yet risen when I woke, but the western sky was glowing.  He would be up soon.  Kalan was awake but had no breakfast waiting this time.  He was subdued and offered me little green apples from gods-knew-where.  Probably conjured.  I was glad for the fruit and took two, but I felt uncomfortable accepting his gift.  Gods, no wonder Yori hadn't wanted his peach that morning.  The same hand giving me the apples had killed Wrin.  I thanked him and sat down.  He had a grapefruit.
"Yori asleep," he said, nodding toward her.
She had overextended herself to heal me.  I looked back to Utu.  She drew from His strength.  The more skin she had exposed to Him the quicker she'd regain her strength.  Even unconscious she would absorb His light and heat.  "Here, hold these."  He took the apples back.
I hesitated.  Should I?  It would help.  Modesty was secondary.  I stretched her flat and opened her candis to her waist, letting Utu's light shine on her.  Looking at her, I winced.  Her candis had been loose enough to hide how thin she really was.  Her ribs were clearly visible under her skin.  Her breasts were shrunken, her belly concave.  Her skin, usually mocha, was grey.  I turned her over gingerly, exposing her back to the light.  She was dead weight, and it was a struggle to move her.  I felt embarrassed, touching her so intimately.  
When I was finished he handed me the apples, sliced and cored, on a little plate.  "Thanks.  So, are you going to tell me about that memory?"
"Eat."  He bit into a section of grapefruit and sucked the juice from it.  "Talk after."
I sat and ate the apples, mashing the pulp into semi-liquid to swallow.  They had to be conjured.  They were too fresh to have been with us in Utu's heat for four days.  At the moment I didn't care.  They were delicious.  
When I was through I wanted to clean the plate, but Kalan intervened.
"Here," he said helpfully and tossed it over the side of the rug.  "Make more tomorrow."  He stood up, nibbling his grapefruit and watching Utu awaken and rise.  "Lazy human god," he said.  "Woke up late."  He looked down at the rug, then at Yori, then over at the packs.  
I hesitated.  I could still pretend that our friendship was unchanged, that we could go on the same as before.  Once opened, this door could never be closed.  I got up and pulled some fatty, salted bacon from my rations, moving slowly to give myself a minute.  We'd always been a team, as in the Efrit's Run, him supplying the power and me guarding his back.  If I pursued this, who'd keep him from getting himself killed?  I'd always overlooked, forgiven, forgotten his dangerous side.  But Yori's husband?  How was I going to forget that?  I chewed the salty bacon.  
His family—I wasn't responsible for what had happened to them.  Gods, if he'd only told me years ago, I could have asked some healer to help him.  It wasn't entirely his fault. The priestess—Whose fault was it?  Wrin was dead.  Kalan cast the spell.  
Why was it my job to straighten out this mess?  Why had he shown me that damned memory?  What did he want, me to absolve him?  I couldn't.  That was up to Utu, not me.
It was already too late to go on as we'd always done.  Our old friendship was over, and I opened the door.  "There are parts of that memory I don't understand.  Did you alter it?"
"No," he said sharply.  "No changing.  What?"
"For one thing, there were no efrit and no spells to kill groups."  I decided to start with the easy parts.  "Seems to me Intmi-CorosopŽ could have stopped a dune or two away and used his noxious cloud or a firestorm or lightning to blast the camp to bits."  Remembering the Liveswords shrieking over the explosions and fighting, I felt ill.  "Even a few summoned efrit would have been more—efficient.  But the group went for close combat.  Why?"
He snorted.  "Intmi-CorosopŽ wanted souls for self, not give to efrit.  Shom-Vadran wanted food for Liveswords.  Efrit take everything, leave nothing for us."
That made sense, in a brutal way.
"Didn't know," he said quietly.  He waved one hand uselessly.
 "You didn't know what, that the man was Wrin?"  Heat rose in my face.  A wave of the hand was supposed to excuse ambushing and murdering all those people?  
"Didn't know Yori's husband.  Didn't want kill him," he said, clenching his fists.  Power surged and subsided.  
"But you did.  Want to or not, you did."
"Wasn't fault."  He crossed his arms.
I could barely keep from grabbing and shaking him.  How could I depend on him now?  Whatever else happened, he wasn't going to evade having done what he'd done.  "Whose fault was it?  Intmi-CorosopŽ's?  You shot the butterflies, damn it!"
"Forced."   
"Forced?  You mean the Priestess?"
He sucked in his breath and snapped in High Cerelian, "Xervol ." 
I grinned in spite of myself.  The word meant, loosely translated, "Child of a eunuch pariah-dog."  Dšck‡lf curses don't translate well.  
"Bitch priestess wanted hurt mother for not becoming priestess, commanded father sleep with her."  His fists clenched.  "Father refused.  Thought being in Mageguild protection enough."  He shook his head and hit the rug with his fist.  "Seri-Anar very powerful.  Declared family Korin traitors, had males killed.  Forced mother into priestesshood."  He shuddered, stared blankly at the carpet and then picked at the pattern.  I knew he was seeing something that had happened long ago.  "Was only twenty-six—"  He cleared his throat.  "Little."  He held a hand about three feet off the carpet.  "Hounds chased to ocean.  Long run.  Days."  He smacked his fist into his open hand.  "Surrounded on beach.  Called shark take me Human Kingdoms.  Seri-Anar let go.  Too small, no trouble.  Wandered.  Made up story about Mageguild, got into Academy.  How could masters check story?  Met you."  He shrugged.  
I was scarcely hearing him.  "She had your entire family killed because your father wouldn't sleep with her?  All to humiliate your mother?  She could do that?"  He had to be playing up her power so he'd have an excuse for his actions.  But I didn't know anything about dšck‡lf women.  I'd never seen a female dšck‡lf, only males.  The men were so powerful it was hard to believe the women had power over them.  There had to be more to it than that.  Then I remembered Kalan bowing and scraping at Seri-Anar's feet and shivered.  She'd enjoyed humiliating him.  Maybe she was simply sadistic.
Kalan laughed bitterly.  "Priestesses do anything want.  Individual males no power, only Mageguild.  Not enough.  Seri-Anar too strong."
I waited for further elaboration, but he was silent.  Finally I burst, "Then why?  If she's such a monster, why did you go on her expedition?"
He slumped.  "She called.  Sent Ors.  Disappear if don't help."
Disappear like Ranhammon might disappear?  She'd send Ors one night, and he'd be gone.  Why hadn't he ever told me?  I touched his shoulder.  "I wish you'd—"
He shook me off.  "Help her, she leaves alone while."
Utu, how could I hold him responsible for what happened to Wrin?  She could crush him in an instant.  But he was her weapon.  "That won't work forever.  She'll eventually have you killed anyway.  In the meantime she'll have you out there killing other people like Wrin."  
"Wouldn't have."
"If you'd known he was Yori's husband?  Camel dung.  You've killed dozens of people."
"Kill me like—"  He snapped his fingers.
"So that takes away your responsibility?"  Anger and pity and the desire to get him out of this, to get him away from that priestess, roiled in me.
"Expect what?  Go away, Seri-Anar?  Go away, Ors?"  He made shooing motions.
"Quit being childish.  Of course you can't do that.  But you can go away, far away.  I know you can use teleport spells.  You can get out of her reach.  You could leave the Human Kingdoms entirely."  Was it possible to run from a smoke efriti?
"Hmmph.  Go where?  Only friends here."
I felt as if I were offering to stop an encroaching desert with a shovel.  "So what will you do?  You don't want to be her toy anymore, but you don't want to do what it takes to get away, either.  And in the meantime she sends you out to kill people.  People, Kalan!  How long are you going to go on dreaming you can kill her and end this mess neatly?" 
He glared, but I didn't look away.  Finally he smiled.  "Isn't helping."
He was right, I wasn't helping him or me.  Damn it, why was I the one who felt guilty?  "Look.  Can't you trick her into thinking you're dead or something like that?
He shook his head.  "Old.  Knows tricks."  Seeing my frown, he added, "Youth spells."
That made sense.  Suddenly I felt angry at myself.  She was crushing him, and all I offered were accusations.  I could at least try to help.  "Does she always send Ors when she needs you?"
"Yes."
I nodded.  That explained why he didn't resist Seri-Anar openly.  I doubted even Ranhammon could handle a smoke efriti.  
"Will come day have power blow Ors into smoke-rings and kill Seri-Anar.  Then go home."  
There was such yearning in that.  All the wild escapades and midnight raids, the forays to the girls' quarters, sneaking into Efritology to watch Ranhammon summon a masked efriti—all under a shadow.  He'd never been free.  Thousands of miles away, in a temple in RŽAmora, Seri-Anar could summon him any time she liked and use him to whatever end she pleased.  I remembered times when he'd disappeared for several days.  No one said anything, and the masters didn't inquire.  He always returned, sometimes in rough shape, but he returned.  
"Yori should know.  She knows you killed Wrin, but she doesn't know any of the reasons why.  It would help her—"  I stopped, because he was shaking his head.
I took a deep breath and let it out.  "I think it would help her, put her mind to rest.  A little."
"Didn't kill.  Seri-Anar made me."
I felt like throttling him.  "Kalan—"  
"No more," he said, his face set, and I stopped.  There was nothing to do but stare at him in anger and frustration.  He wouldn't face up to what he'd done, wouldn't even act to ease Yori's heart.  Damn him, he wouldn't even bend that far.  
But if I didn't try to help, who ever would?  No one else understood him the way I did.  No one else even knew the terrible position he was in.
"Kalan—" I said, reaching toward him.  If my ideas were useless at least I could offer him a comforting touch.
He turned away.  
"Please let me help," I whispered.  He didn't turn back.  After several long minutes I went back to my part of the rug.
If he hadn't been able to get away from Seri-Anar by now, I didn't see any way I could do anything.  Even with the loss of his family he had more power than I ever would, and all of that wasn't enough to get him free.  He had to be going to the Isle to gain power, but in what form?  Even if he got master training, that seemed a joke compared to the power Seri-Anar had.  
All that day I saw shapes of dšck‡lf assassins in the clouds, waiting to pounce and kill.  There were technocrats in powersuits in the waves far below us and swaying palms in floating seaweed.  When I studied the people woven into the carpet I saw the big man who had blessed Kalan before trying to kill him.  I remembered Kalan's Razor spell slicing through Wrin's bodyguard, the butterflies that took Wrin's life, blood-spattered Shom-Vadren hacking men with his Liveswords.  Through these disturbing daydreams wandered Intmi-CorosopŽ, looking for people to drain of their souls.
The air was dry and burning.  Kalan levitated my blanket again.  We huddled under it, panting, keeping our eyes closed against the glare.  We sweated and barely moved.  None of us had the energy or desire to dig out anything for lunch.  We took a nap during the afternoon and woke up sticky and stinking.  Neither of us wanted to expend memories to refresh ourselves.  
Finally, though, Utu sank into the sea and let us alone, taking first his excess heat and then all heat.  Once again the carpet cooled.  I cursed the Academy's lack of foresight, having forgotten to give us heavier clothing against the night air.  I had to make do with my blanket.  It was colder than the previous night, and I checked Yori to make sure she would be warm enough.  She was resting easily, and I expected that by the next day she would be rested from her healing.  Her color had recovered remarkably just in one day, almost back to normal.  Exposing her to Utu's light and heat had been a good move.
Kalan created a set of mugs for the two of us and filled them with hot soup.  How many miniature sets of crockery did he have in that pack?  We sipped the refreshing liquid for a few minutes before he blurted, "Get Wrin back."
Feeling wary, I looked at him over my mug.  "What?"
"Bring Wrin back."
I took a long drink and let the hot liquid trickle down my throat.  My hands shook.  He didn't mean—  "No healer I've ever heard of could back the dead.  Besides, he's not just dead.  He's gone, vaporized when the suit exploded."  I wanted to end this discussion.  The dead should be allowed to rest.
"Isle of Dreams, anything possible.  Maybe bring Wrin life."  He spoke intensely, poking his fingers at my chest.
I found myself slowly shaking my head.  "What do you mean?"  
He stood and paced back and forth, talking rapidly.  "Travis the Mad record, before goes for Trial.  Thought Isle makes dreams true.  Theorizes, dream good things with bad.  Thought could use Isle restore lost friends and create wealth."
I thought that over.  Was the Isle of Dreams literally the Isle of Dreams, or was that metaphor?  "So Travis thought he could manipulate the Isle to give him things he wanted?"
Kalan nodded vigorously.  "Yes.  Came along try same thing."
"You want to see if the Isle can bring Wrin back."
Again he nodded.  Raising the dead, bringing Wrin back...  It was wrong, horribly wrong.  What would someone raised that way be like?  Would his soul be present, or would it have been lost?
"It's unnatural.  Can you imagine what it would do to Yori if she saw him come back?  I know what the stories say about healers sometimes raising dead people, that they come back normal and happy, but that assumes a body exists for the healers to call the soul back to.  Wrin's body is gone.  You'd be making a magic creature, a shell.  It would be like conjured food."
He stopped pacing and looked angry.  "Get Wrin back, whole.  Yori happy, no more like dead person looking for grave.  Misses Wrin.  Can get back.  Why standing in way?"
"Who gave you this idea, Ranhammon?  It must have been.  He's the only one crafty enough to think of an angle that twisted.  So this is why you came?  You want to get Yori's husband back?"  
In that moment I knew why Yori was coming with us.  She said the masters had told her Kalan killed Wrin.  They must have suggested to her that the Isle could bring him back, and in her grief and guilt she agreed to come.  I felt anger at them and pity for her.  Dear Utu, had they no hearts at all?
His anger gave way to a tense look that made me uneasy.  So, getting Wrin back wasn't it, or wasn't all of it.  What else would he use the Isle for?  Raising the dead—No.  The scale was too grand, even for Kalan.  
"This isn't just about Wrin or Yori, is it?  Maybe the Isle can bring your family back."
He looked cautious.  "Might, yes."
My heart boomed in my ears, and I put one hand flat on the carpet to steady myself.  "And with all of them back and looking for vengeance, you'd be able to kill Seri-Anar.  Great Utu.  No wonder you wanted this Trial."  Recreating how many dead—fifty?  A hundred?  Utu would never allow this.
"Want to help.  Make right.  Can't heal, so maybe can bring husband back.  Stop this."  He thumped his chest.  "Accident, Wrin.  Didn't mean—"
"I don't want to hear that any more."  He had the idea in his head and intended to go through with it no matter what Yori wanted.
"Can fix."
"Kalan, you can't fix death."   
"Didn't mean to kill!"
"Hells you didn't!"  I'd heard that too many times.  "You killed him without any more thought than I'd kill a bug!"
He shook now, his face tightened into a mask.  "Seri-Anar forced."  
"You cast the spell.  Wrin's death is bothering you?  Why?  He was only one among many.  Those kids in the market square don't seem to bother you.  That old woman in Trise doesn't haunt you, does she?  Wrin's the only one you even remember.  Hells!  He didn't mean a thing to you.  The only reason you give a damn is because he turned out to be your friend's husband."  
"Didn't know—"
I smacked my fist into the carpet.  "You've said that.  It's a litany.  You didn't know it was Wrin.  Seri-Anar made you.  What the Hells difference does it make who it was or who sent you?  The spell was yours.  It left your fingers, you directed it.  If it hadn't been Wrin it would have been someone else."  My voice quavered.  Everything was going to Hells.  If we didn't get through this soon, it would come to violence.
Instead, Yori woke and stared at us through bleary eyes.  "Everything okay?" she asked.
I jumped, and Kalan's eyes widened.  "Okay," he said after a moment.
"Yes," I said.
"All right."  She noticed that her candis was open and laced it up.  We kept silent while she stretched and went back to sleep.  
"Look," I said quietly.  "You've killed as many people for annoying you as for attacking you.  That big man, me, Janine, Yori, Wrin, even the thieves in the market square—we're all the same.  There isn't a difference.  Don't you understand?  We're all humans.  You can't pick and choose who lives and who dies by your mood."  
He looked horrified, like a child realizing he had done something terribly wrong but completely unsure what it might have been.  The look wrenched my heart. 
Like a child.  Of course.  
He was fifty-six years old, barely twelve in human terms.  He was a child.  For the first time since he had come to get me in Hafar I saw him with adult eyes instead of through memory.  If someone hurt him, he hurt that person back.  If someone bothered him, he made that person go away.  When someone was kind to him, he responded with gifts and kindness in return.  His actions made perfect sense. 
I had a flash of memory from when I was nine, a year into my life in the Academy:
I walk into our room without knocking.  Familiar things:  books, the smell of ink and parchment, a painting of an efriti being summoned by a mage wearing a dark blue candis, our desks pushed into alcoves so Kalan can dance.  My worn-out sandals, all I have left from home.  A drawing of a crystal airship attacking a flying efriti.  
Kalan rocks in his hammock, drawn into a ball, crying.  He's turned toward the wall.
What?  Dšck‡lfs don't cry, they don't feel pain.  "Kalan—?"  I should leave.
He jerks a little, and he whispers, "Will live forever, Zahid.  You dead and dust in eye-blink.  Miss you." 
I don't know what to say, Kalan.  I don't understand you...  "I'm not dead yet, for Utu's sake.  You're making me nervous.  Besides, dšck‡lfs don't live forever, just a couple of hundred years."  I rub his shoulders, like when he has bad dreams.  "Come on, let's go play king of the rock pile.  It's nice out."     
He nods and sniffs, then he bursts into laughter.  "Sound like stupid human, whining every little thing.  Go see girls."  He hops out of the hammock and runs for the door, shoving me aside.  "Hurry, too slow."  
My emotions warred.  Child or not, he had the power of a human master, if not the wisdom to use it.  He had to learn restraint.  Every year the bodies piled up.
"Didn't mean," Kalan said, his anger giving way to pleading.  His fingers twitched nervously, and he looked down.  "Making feel bad."
His pitiful tone pulled my heart, and I nearly forgave him.  But if I did he would continue to explain away his role in Wrin's death.  What could I do?  If I comforted him the killing would continue.  If I didn't, what would happen to our friendship?  The priestess was crushing him.  But, Utu, he was killing people, dozens of people—There was nothing I could do to get him away from Seri-Anar, but maybe I could make him realize what he was doing.  Maybe if he was horrified enough he would find a way to break away from her instead of doing what she wanted.  He wasn't even trying to escape.
Where was he going to go?  I didn't know.  Where could Ors not go?  I didn't know. 
My heart was tearing into pieces.  I owed Kalan my life.  He was my friend in the Academy, when life had been Hells.  But what about people?  Human people?  
I hesitated, hoping Utu might give me some clue what to do, but there was nothing but pain.  Couldn't I still care about Kalan and disapprove of what he was doing?  Would he understand that?  I couldn't comfort him and let him think what he was doing.  I couldn't. 
Slowly I turned away from him and lay down, my back toward him.
"Zahid?" he asked in a very low voice, barely a whisper.  
Every instinct told me to turn around and help him.  I prayed he wouldn't touch me.  Then I thought of the people he'd killed and the pain their families and friends suffered.  I stayed still.
"Please," he said, and I felt a feather-touch at my waist.  
I pretended I was asleep.  
"Kalan not bad, not like other dšck‡lfs," he whispered, and his voice broke.  "Not like that.  Didn't mean hurt.  Be okay, Yori."  He started to cry, and I felt my own eyes mist.  "Sorry, Zahid.  Please, sorry."  He touched my shoulder.
I shifted a little, and he removed his fingers.  My eyes burned.  My body felt leaden.  We'd always helped each other through the rough spots.  Wasn't I abandoning him when he needed me more than ever?  How could he understand?  Poor child.  Poor, lost child.  What right did I have to judge him?  In his own race's terms he was barely able to use his powers, much less answer for them.  But he wasn't home now.  His whims destroyed human people.  
None of my reasoning made me feel any better.  My life seemed to be leaking from a hole in my chest.  If Kalan blew people up, wasn't that his business?  
"Zahid?  Can't go home.  Don't leave, please don't leave."
I listened.  I wouldn't completely withdraw.  We'd always helped each other.  
"Father, father, miss you, want to go home, no home, alone now, Seri-Anar hunts, always hunts, make Wrin better, sorry..."  His voice faded. 
I felt his hand on my back, lightly, trembling.  A lump rose in my throat, and I choked.  His hand withdrew.
"Please...  Can fix, make better.  Not dšck‡lf, don't want to be dšck‡lf any more.  Please, Zahid."  He shook my shoulder gently and sobbed.  
I didn't move.  My fingers twitched.  
"Stupid human!  Stupid Zahid!"  
I felt the wave of angry power and shattered a memory as the air sizzled.  Too fast to see what experience I was losing, I formed a shield tight to my skin.  Kalan snarled.  Electricity crawled over me like a great hand, jagged fingers feeling for an opening.  Air snapped and crackled.  The carpet charred.  My skin began to tingle.
"The carpet's burning," I said as calmly as I could.  Sweat rolled down my forehead.  A spark broke through my failing shield and jumped to my ankle.  I stifled a yelp.  
The lightning ceased.  "Don't deserve friends with dšck‡lf.  With... dšck‡lf..."  He started crying again.  "Want big man come back...  Didn't see...  Sorry didn't help, didn't know how...  Sorry, please...  Not always bad, helped in Solpool, made shark not eat people anymore..."  He choked.  "Want to go home, please...  Zahid..."
I started to move and forced myself to stay.  
Even now, even now he'd laugh it off in the morning if I comforted him.  I couldn't.  Tears rolled down my cheeks.  I didn't want to hear this.  Who was going to lead now?  The gap between us yawned.  I remembered his fear of that gap when we were at the Academy.  He'd  been right.  I would grow old and die while he was still young.  He'd be alone again.  I prayed to Utu to help him get home.  Somewhere in RŽAmora he would find friends who could grow with him.
Sobbing, he finally went to sleep.  I waited a while, and then I got up and covered him with half of my blanket.  There were new lines in his face, standing out clearly against the smoothness of his features.  I hoped they represented wisdom he'd gained.  Maybe he would change for the first time since I had known him.  What would be lost in the process?  
Yori was still fast asleep, looking much less troubled than Kalan.  In that moment she looked like the girl I had known, and for an instant I remembered our painful parting.  We could have been—No, that was another dream.  We were.  We were good, too, while we lasted.  
The Masters' Council had chosen their Trial well.  I felt as if I'd been through a hundred tests already, and we were still a half-day away from the Isle.  

I awoke to find Kalan up.  He had fixed breakfast:  goat steaks, scrambled-up eggs, some sort of milk, strips of bacon, grapefruit, and juice squeezed from tomatoes.  It was all served on simple stoneware with wooden utensils, cedar by the smell.  
"Eat," he said, pushing the plate across the carpet toward me.  
"After I check Yori," I said.  Carefully I stretched and was pleased to find my body was sore but didn't hurt nearly as much as it had the day before.  If I breathed in deeply or touched my ribs they hurt, but otherwise they were only sore.  
Hurriedly I glanced around.  My body hadn't been so free of pain since we'd left the Academy.  Where was the roc to sweep down from the clouds and maul me with its beak or the giant squid to reach up from the water and drag me down?  
Kalan was frowning at me, and I told him, "I'm expecting to be attacked.  It's been peaceful for almost two days."
He nodded and looked out at the water, and I felt suddenly alone.  Was this his response to what had happened the night before?  Was this what he had felt, left alone?  Only for him it must have been much worse.  
With an effort I turned away and checked Yori.  She was sleeping lightly, the blanket pulled tight around her.  Her face and hands were still chafed from fighting the honomir, but Utu's light shone on her, and I knew she'd heal faster than Kalan and me from the honomir's wounds.  Her color was strong, and her cheeks had filled out some since we'd left.  Did that mean she was healing her spirit as well?
I turned back to Kalan.  His skin was still covered with bruises, but they had faded in the past few days, and if they hurt he never mentioned it.  Did he even notice those wounds, with all the pain he carried within him?
He ignored me as I ate, and I kept wanting to apologize for making him suffer more after all he'd already suffered.  Who was I to judge him?  I wasn't in that priestess' power, my family dead, cut off from my people.  Utu, how did he keep going?  He was so isolated.  He needed me—What the Hells else could I have done?  So many people were dead by his hands, and yet he went on blaming Seri-Anar and fate for his part in their deaths.  Was there no way to encourage him and discourage his actions at the same time?  I knew he didn't understand.  His ignoring me while we ate said that.  He couldn't separate himself from his actions.  Wrin's death wasn't all his fault, but—I stopped the thoughts.  They only went in a circle, like a dog chasing its tail.  
I gave my attention to the food he'd made for us.  The tomato juice was refreshingly thick, and I drained the mug.  I wondered how many food bases he had left.  He was making a lot of food for us, and I'd seen him eating dšck‡lf food—dried mushrooms and stranger things—frequently.  I still had four or five day's worth of food if I was careful, more if Yori used her magic on it.  
When I finished I dumped the dishes over the side and said my prayers to Utu.  Finally I cleared my throat.  "About that memory—"
"Don't want talk about."  He pursed his lips and looked away.
The look on his face almost made me laugh.  "You can pout all you want, but I'm still trying to figure out whatever mess the Masters' Council has set up for us.  I need your help."
"What."
The distance between us no longer seemed as wide, and I continued.  "There were a few things about your memory that I still don't understand."  
He looked at me suspiciously.  Then he nodded.  
"That memory you used for the Razor, the one of the gate with the dead—people—on it, it wasn't stored in any way I recognized.  What was that?"
Pain flashed across his face and disappeared.  He took a bite from his grapefruit and slowly chewed.  "Dšck‡lf magic no stored memories," he said at last.
"What?  But you use stored memories—"
"Some.  Minor.  Little spells."  He took a bite of his grapefruit.  "Dšck‡lf magic use memories over and over and only lose little power each time.  Not like human stored memories, use once and lose."
The implications stunned me.  No wonder they had so much power.  "Were those memories under your Memory Sea the dšck‡lf-stored memories, then?" 
"Yes.  Store major experiences dšck‡lf way, little experiences human way."
"Why not store them all the dšck‡lf way?  You'd have more power."
His jaw muscles clenched.  "Not enough dšck‡lf training store little experiences right way."
Not enough training because his father had been killed, and the other males in his family.  His isolation seemed physical, like a cloak wrapped around him.  "But there were other memories, too.  Some seemed like memories from other dšck‡lfs."
He looked wary, and I knew he wouldn't say anything else.  This was enough.  Gods.  The Masters' Council had no idea how insignificant our abilities were compared to the dšck‡lfs'.  They were magnitudes of power beyond us, at least in saving and storing techniques.
"Family memories," he said suddenly, startling me.  "Wizard males (not all males wizards), born with connections."  He groped for words.  "Connections all males, some females, in Family.  When relative has powerful experience, wizard shares.  Except when relative dies.  Then take memories with, and wizard can't use anymore.  Much power from Family."
I felt the color drain from my face.  He had to be joking.  Not only did wizards use their memories over and over, but they had access to other dšck‡lf's memories?  And Kalan's family memories were grey because his family was dead.  I strained to keep pity from my voice.  "You said some females.  Why not all?"
"Many females priestesses or work with priestesses.  Training kills connections.  Priestesses keep power and not share with males."
I thought of Seri-Anar and the power she radiated.  In Kalan's memory Wrin had said something about priestesses gaining power from the suffering of others.  "Then how do priestesses get their energy for spells?"
"Use emotions given them."  
"I don't understand."
He frowned as if I weren't particularly bright.  "Get power from people feeling about.  Someone loves priestess, she gets energy.  Someone hates her, she gets energy.  Kind of feeling doesn't matter, only that she is focus.  Priestesses like mobs, crowds.  Can become powerful in short time."
I struggled to keep a sense of perspective.  If a priestess had a whole mob angry at her, how much power would she gain?  "More powerful than wizards?  What about Intmi-CorosopŽ's soul-stealing spell?  If that's a common spell—"
"No.  Have to trade own soul to efriti to learn spell.  Not many use."  He pointed to the fire opal on my turban.  "Did you know, turban gem turn that spell back?"  He grinned.  
"What?  What do you mean my opal will turn that spell back?  I thought it only protected!"  I reached up and stroked it, feeling its smoothness under my fingers.  
He shrugged. 
"What would happen if it turned the spell back?  What spells will it turn back?  How did you hear this?"  I wanted to pull it off my turban but refrained; it was ridiculous to begin fearing the gem when it had protected me for over ten years.
He laughed, and I saw he was striking back at me for what he'd been through.  I felt blood rush to my face.
"Heard Remens and Ranhammon talk, long time ago.  Forgot mention.  You know gem protects from soul-steal.  If you cast soul-steal spell, backfires."  He frowned.  "Not right.  Implodes.  Burns up your soul."  He tapped his chest and made a whooshing sound.  
I stared, horrified, and then I gingerly felt the gem.  Of course it didn't feel any different.  I pictured Master Thurcass handing me my gem and felt a stab of anger.  "Why the Hells did the masters give it a power like that?"
"Side effect?  Gem protects from necromancy.  You cast soul-steal spell, protects from you.  Loop.  Destroys self."
I pulled the opal off my turban and stared at it.  Was nothing they gave pure?
"They never told me."  I briefly wondered what Remens' moonstone and Ranhammon's yellow diamond protected them against and what would happen if they cast the wrong spell.  
I put the gem back and rubbed it one last time.  Was it a little warm?  I forced my attention back to Kalan.    
He looked over the carpet.  "Almost there," he said.
I sighed.  That was the end of our talk.  I'd learned what I could for now.  He'd completely turned the conversation by telling me about the opal.  I was glad to know about it, even if I was a little nervous about wearing it, and I now knew more about dšck‡lf magic than probably any other human alive.  And I knew why he wanted to go to the Isle.  Would he really try to raise the dead?  When?  What would happen to Yori and me if he brought back all those human-hating dšck‡lfs?  We wouldn't last long.  Maybe after the Trial was over he could try to bring back his family, after Yori and I left the Isle.
I watched him leaning over the side, intent on the water.  If he'd been telling me the truth, and I felt he had, he didn't have a fraction of the power she did.  He was between the hammer and the anvil.  If he got his family back, could they kill Seri-Anar?  And if he couldn't get them back, what would happen to him?  There was nowhere for him to go.  I made myself stop thinking about it. 
Yori awoke late in the morning and slowly stood up.
"Better?" Kalan asked.
"Much," she said, but her voice was tired.  With stiff, jerky steps she walked to the other end of the rug, my end, and returned.  "When do we get there?"
"Today.  This afternoon."  I wanted to add, "Are you ready?" but I could see she wasn't.  At least she was out of her trance and not completely defenseless.  Part of me rejoiced to have her back, but that victory felt like killing an imp as a smoke efriti appeared behind it.  
She took rations, a bit of jerky and dried fruit, from her pack and sat next to me, on the other side from Kalan.  Then she cast her food spell on the meager pieces and ate them.  
I sat between them, feeling as if I was a thin, glass rod connecting them.  I wanted to say something to bring them together, but the glass was too brittle for words, and I stayed silent.   

In the afternoon we got our first sight of our destination.  Ahead was a vast storm, centered over an island we knew to be fifty miles at its widest and twice that long, Que-Ar in the tongue of the dšck‡lfs and the Isle of Dreams in human speech.  Thunderheads piled over the Isle's center but grew ragged over the sea, and we hoped that any wind would be manageable until we got as far as we could inland.  The clouds were ominous.  No lightning shot through them, and no thunder rumbled.  None of the dark buildup moved.  It looked as though the entire storm had been painted onto the sky.  There were no trees or forests, no rippling grain, no Isle-spanning city.  Everything was dark and barren, as if the Isle had recently burned.  As we came closer we found that the carpet fought being told to rise or drop, as if its magic was being interfered with. 
We had waited until we got to this point to make a plan, since we wanted to see what we were up against, and now we discussed how we would approach.  We were coming in from the southwest.  It seemed best to go north a few miles and come from the west, since there was a large bay on the west side.  Those who quit their Trials had said their carpets slowly sank to the ground and refused to fly anymore after they started flying over the land.  If we flew in over the bay we would get a few more miles toward the central Isle.  Then we would slowly continue inland, close to the ground, though no one else had ever reported a carpet suddenly dropping.  Beyond that we would have to see what happened.  
"Ugly," Yori said as we turned north.
"No one's ever described the Isle looking like this," I said.  I disliked it for its deviation from anything anyone else had found.  If there had been something the same, something expected, perhaps it would have soothed my fears.  
It seemed only to take a moment to fly halfway up the west side, and we turned the rug directly toward the shore.  We stood on the front of the carpet and watched the Isle loom larger and larger.  When we slid under the shadow of the great storm Utu disappeared.  Cool air rolled over the carpet.  I shivered.  We wouldn't see Utu again until we were finished with this gods-forsaken land, unless we turned back now.  I thought of dogs barking in Hafar and Astapha shouting at them to shut up and the smell of baking bread and Janine's flushed face after she'd danced, and I wanted to turn the carpet around and send it slithering home.  But it was too late.   
I looked back at the roiling clouds, trying to catch even a faint glimpse of Utu, but He was completely obscured.  It felt as if the Isle had already claimed one of us.  


IX

The cool breeze became a cold wind.  My candis was still wet and flapped against me, and I prayed it would dry out fast.  After a few minutes my teeth started to chatter.  Yori's candis cracked and snapped, and her hair blew back.  I kept blinking to clear water from my eyes.  Something was bothering me, but I couldn't put my finger on it.  Kalan sat in the center of the carpet to guide it in, since he was best at controlling it.  Yori sat well back from the edge.  That sign of self-interest helped fill the emptiness from Utu's passing.
When another gust hit me I realized what was bothering me.  The carpet's ensorcellments were supposed to break the wind and allow only breezes to blow across it, and now those spells had failed.
 I leaned over the edge to look below us.  Whitecaps tossed.  The water seethed as if alive, one huge, gray organism surrounding the Isle.  I shuddered.  That ocean looked cold and unfriendly, and I didn't want to end up in it.  The shore was only a thousand feet away now, maybe, but it was so shadowed that I gave up trying to see detail.  The carpet suddenly bucked, and my heart froze. 
I went next to Kalan, sat, crossed my legs, closed my eyes and reached my mind to the simple awareness of the carpet.  Some outside force was hauling it down, and it was fighting Kalan to try to land itself.  I gave Kalan my support immediately, and we levelled off.  "Forward.  Fast."  We surged ahead.  As if to punish us, a blast of wind hit us and slewed us sideways, rolling my stomach.  I heard Yori cry out but didn't dare open my eyes for fear of losing control of the carpet.  Another gust punched us from above, knocking me over and breaking my concentration.  We dropped sickeningly.  I lay still and grabbed the carpet with my mind, not worrying about my uncomfortable position.  Falling would be worse.  The carpet rose a little, and we exerted our wills into keeping it going forward.  
Time stretched, grew thinner, longer.  Sweat formed on my forehead and was swept back by the wind.  My skin was numb.  My body slipped away.  I felt the carpet, merged...became the carpet.  I was being pulled down by something, something strong and focused.  My threads stretched and creaked, fibers parted, tassels tore.  My patterns bent, lost definition...  
Something shook me, far away.  "Zahid?  Zahid?"  For a moment I felt myself tearing, and I opened my mouth to scream.  Then I broke free and found myself in my body.
Yori was shaking me.  
I grasped her arm.  "Something's trying to pull us down.  Damn it, no one else was ever attacked like this!"  The indignation helped me fight my fear.
"Oh," she said and stopped shaking me.  I could see the fight on her face between staying with us or going back into her trance.
"Yori, we need your help!  Watch for the shore!"  I pushed her toward the front of the carpet.
Kalan groaned.  How had he stayed conscious?  I immediately helped him.  "Up.  Up!  Forward!  Fast!"
The wind wasn't strong enough to tear our carpet apart.  It wasn't even as strong as the gusts the honomir had used against us.  The real threat was the other force that was trying to haul us down.  I felt it pulling the carpet, commanding it to drop, but it wasn't as strong as the sharp steel of Kalan's will.  What in Hells was it?  It was more like an ambiance than a focused force.  
"Almost to shore!" Yori cried.  
A gust tailended us and flipped the carpet over.  
I spun—Pack, one strap loose and flapping—Kalan's button-up shoe—  
I hit the water on my back and was knocked half-senseless.  Sinking, I couldn't move, couldn't breathe—Which way up?  I tried to breathe but coughed instead.  Salt.  Something wriggled in my mouth.  I gagged and spat it out.  Kicking, I tried to propel myself.  My feet drove into cold.  I smashed and stored the moment:  
It's deep here.  I could sink and never be found.  What things live under me?  So dark, no light at all.  Air—  
Deadman's float.  Wait, patient.  
Water invaded my nose, ears.  My lungs burned and seemed to push at my throat to force my mouth open.  Air!  Something brushed my leg.  I screamed and choked.  
Water pressed against my eyes, my mouth, trying to get in, pushing—
My head broke surface.  I coughed and managed to gasp a breath.  I swiped my eyes clear and opened them.  Shore was a dark beach fifty yards away.  I kicked and started for it.  Something swept under my belly, and cold water surged around me.  A wave carried me upward.  I imagined a hulking shape below me, a mouth full of teeth.  Inhuman.  Hungry.
I froze.  Kalan had told me something about sharks.  Couldn't they smell fear?  My foot was hit hard by something, and I felt a wake.  
I searched my Memory Sea for a stored memory, knowing the—thing—was rising.  My nerves were still raw from fighting the honomir.  Casting a spell could do permanent damage.  Better to get eaten?  I seized a memory. 
  Ranhammon:  "The rewentar efriti has a four-jointed mouth, like a shark.  Observe."  He's drawn a blood circle on the floor.  Thick incense-smoke wreathes him.  Red light from the braziers makes him glow like a fire-efriti.  The shadows are wrong, twisted inside out, holding knives.  Taromar the Bold whimpers.  Something in the circle:  a toad?  It shrieks like a dog being stabbed.  It's all teeth!  Ranhammon's straining, Kalan's eyes are bright, I want to get away from here.  It bumps against the circle, burns, shrieks again.  Bulging black eyes, no white, no pupil.  Alibul throws a rabbit into its mouth.  Impaled.
"No!"  I screamed.  Of all the damned memories to find! 
Something jerked me hard, and I burst out of the water and tumbled in air again.  My arm and leg hit each other and numbed both.  I fell heavily in an explosion of black fluff.  Ash flew everywhere.  Safe...no teeth.  I lay on my side, looking out at the water, expecting a fin cutting back and forth in frustration.  I thought a wave rose as something passed under the surface.  
I lowered my head to the ground.  Safe.  Ten feet of land between me and the water.
Ash stuck to my face, and I wiped it away.  I pushed myself away from the water and backed into something and froze.
"Okay, okay, Zahid."  Kalan patted my back.  I choked out a sob.  It had been so close, touching me, trying to find me.  Kalan tried to soothe me, but I didn't hear.
"It almost had me," I said.  
"Nothing there, nothing there." 
"There was something.  A rewentar, something—"
"No.  In head.  In mind."  He tapped his head.  "Pulled you out with telekinesis spell."  
I shuddered.  Nothing?  Was he mad?  "How about you?  Are you all right?"
"Tried catch carpet, but wind swept away.  Flew shore."  
"Yori?"  Was she still out there?
"Down beach."  He tried to grin, but the bruises on his face made the smile a grimace.  "Water-walked shore.  Smart.  Find packs now.  Rest."  He set off, kicking up ash.  
I shielded my face and waited until he was gone.  So Kalan flew to land, and Yori walked.  I'd be glad when my nerves were healed enough to use magic again.
Kalan was hurt worse than I, and he could control his magic enough to cast a spell in mid-fall and fly to shore.  Damned dšck‡lfs.
I smashed the moment down and sent the little memory into my Memory Sea.
When the ash settled I took my hand away from my eyes.  I was lying in fine black soot, a foot deep or more, blown away where I had hit, and it coated me from head to toe.  I tried to wipe it off and smeared it around before giving up.
The ash might actually work to our benefit, since it would be harder to surprise us on a plain of ash than in a city or jungle.  I didn't like the way it coated my nose and mouth when I breathed, though, and I held a hand to my face when I walked. 
With one last glance at the water I stood up and looked for Kalan.  He was already a few hundred yards down the shore, fishing a pack out of the ocean.  He was using magic to bring the pack to shore.  Maybe he wasn't as sure as he said about nothing being out there.  Yori was nowhere to be seen.  I set off toward him, staying well away from the water.  
There was no grass or trees, nothing alive.  No animals bounded away.  No insects buzzed my skin or tried to crawl in my ears.  The storm pasted above didn't send even the mildest breeze to the ground, leaving the air dead.  Waves smoothed before touching shore.  My footfalls were silenced by ash.  When I was a dozen yards away from him, Kalan set down the pack and laughed.
"Look like dšck‡lf!"  He didn't have any ash on him; he'd used a minor spell to remove it. 
"Where's Yori?" I growled. 
"There."  He pointed farther along the shore to where Yori sat cross-legged in the ash.  She held her Utu symbol toward the sky and seemed deep in prayer.  
"Trying to talk to Utu?"
"Hmmph.  Says probably won't answer, after help at ruin."  He looked around.  "Made it."
"Yes.  I don't much like this place, though.  It's too quiet."
He laughed.  "Not like too jumping, either."
I smiled.  "You're right, I wouldn't like it any way we found it.  Wonder why ashes?  Think anything lives in this?"  I kicked the ash into a billowing cloud that drifted around us.  We stepped back to let it settle.
"No.  Dead for us."  
"I don't know.  There was something in the water, so there could be something in the ash.  Some kind of adapted thing like a snake, maybe."
"Maybe."  He didn't believe it.
I remembered the feeling of something swimming under me.  I didn't care to think about things living in the ash.  "Find our other pack yet?"  
"No.  And lost carpet."  He looked glum.
"We'll be walking, then."  
"Walking," he said without enthusiasm.
I checked the pack he'd fished out and found it was mine.  Everything inside was dry, due to the waterproofing spell the masters had provided, but the provisions were woefully low to feed two.  Or three, if Yori didn't have her pack.  I didn't want to eat much more created food.
"Food problem." 
Kalan shrugged.  "Not here long.  In and out."  He slapped the pack.  "Yours, you carry."
"We'll switch off," I said firmly.  He looked annoyed but didn't argue.  I was mildly surprised.  I shouldered the pack and grunted, hoping it would lose weight when it dried.  It only weighed thirty pounds, but I wasn't used to carrying weight, and it seemed very heavy.
Yori finished her prayer and stood, picked up her pack (at least she had hers), and trudged toward us.  Like me, she was covered head to toe with ashes, though the ash on her was drying and flaking off.  Her face was coated with greyish-black flecks which shifted as she spoke.  The effect was like bugs crawling all over her skin.  
"He doesn't answer," she said in a tired tone.
"Don't need anyway," Kalan said and looked inland.  "No carpet.  Walk."  
She nodded and stared at the ground.   
"What if we try to summon djinn?" I asked.  "Maybe they could carry us inland."
"Won't come.  Tried.  Tried fly inland, too, but wind pushed down."  
Had I been in the water that long?  Or had he tried emergency summonings, without the protective circles?  Dangerous...    
"How are you?"  I asked Yori to keep her attention.
Her eyes focused.  "Sore."  She rubbed her arms.  "Tired.  But I can walk."  Her voice was weary, but her mouth was set.  "What do you think we'll find?"  
I wasn't sure if she was talking to Kalan or me, but I replied.  "I don't know.  Those other wizards...  No one knows for sure they're dead.  It's assumed.  Maybe they found so much they decided not to come back."  Did the masters hope we'd find something to bring back to them?  "Or maybe there's nothing here except a mass grave for the foolish."  
She frowned, and ash flaked off her forehead.  "It's not helpful to think like that.  What if we tried to far-see into the interior?"
Kalan snorted.  "Others tried.  Never worked.  Stop talking, get going."  He set off.  Yori trailed at his left flank, a half-dozen yards behind him.  I fell back to his right.  I was willing to let him lead.  As long as we got away from the water.
We learned to walk slowly and not shuffle or the ash would fly up in such dense clouds we had to stop breathing until it settled.  It varied from a few inches to several feet deep, and we constantly stumbled over the rough rock underneath.  The absence of life disturbed me.  I longed for dragonflies or beetles or even mosquitoes.  After we had gone perhaps a quarter mile we climbed to the top of a hill which overlooked a large plain in front of us.  There was nothing growing, no grass or trees.  I couldn't see a bird anywhere, not even a tiny speck far off in the distance.  We navigated by choosing points on the unmoving storm above, hoping it didn't subtly change between checks.  
The hours passed slowly.  We hardly spoke, disliking opening our mouths and letting the ash in.  I enjoyed the movement, the chance to get off the carpet and stay off for a while.  My body ached from the thrashing the honomir had inflicted, but the ache wasn't painful.  I felt as if I'd worked hard all day and was pleasantly weary and sore.  Yori didn't stumble and seemed aware of her surroundings.  I hoped that meant she was close to settling her internal struggle.  We'd need her, I was sure of that.  
The ash was warm, as if it had burned only shortly before our arrival, and after we had gone a mile inland or so I felt as if I was in a hothouse.  My candis had barely dried to the point that the ash started falling off when I was sweating enough to re-moisten it, and new ash clung.  The flakes trapped my body heat and made me sweat more.  The pack's straps, soaked with salt water, rubbed into my shoulders, tightening my muscles and straining my back.  I made Kalan carry it for a while, but it so obviously burdened him that I took it back.  After we'd eaten some of the food I'd see to it he carried it.  
What had looked like a plain was actually a series of very low, rolling hills, their crowns barely coated with ash and the valleys between them full of it.  We stayed on the ridges as much as possible to go faster.  In the valleys we pulled our hoods over our faces and plowed forward.  When we had forced our way through thigh- or waist-high ash and gotten back to ankle depth we dropped the hoods again.  Sometimes it took half an hour to cross a twenty yard wide gully.  
Climbing over a knoll we came upon a patch of rock free of ash where half a dozen skeletons lay tangled together as if the owners had died and fallen on top of one another.  There was no sign of what they had been fighting.
"Dear Utu," Yori breathed, drawing His circle on her chest.  
"Looks like they died fighting in a circle," I said.  "Followed their training to the end."
Yori knelt and gingerly touched a skull, and I wondered at her reticence.  She'd seen all sorts of death and dying as a healer.
"You're so cautious," I said, turning over a rib cage with my toes.  It bore weapon marks and was charred.
She nodded and stared past the bones. 
"Well," I said forcefully. "We won't join them."
"No," she said and pulled her hand away from the skull.  I prayed we would run into something not too strong that would bring her completely to us.  It seemed she was right under the surface of her blank face, but my words weren't bringing her out.  
I studied the bones.  Many of them were scored as if they had been hacked by sharp weapons, and a few were broken.  All were partly blackened and crumbled.  Their gear was with them, charred and half-melted, ruined by flames.  That seemed to confirm my idea that the Isle had recently burned.
Yori frowned.  "They didn't make it very far."  
"Humans," Kalan said as if that explained everything.  He dropped a long bone, wiped his hand on his candis and headed inland again.  Yori walked around the remains to join him.
I lingered.  These people had only gotten a mile and a half inland.  How far would we get before we met whatever had done them in?  
One of the finger bones Kalan had disturbed fell from the heap and tumbled to a stop at my foot.  The hair on my neck stood up.  The air seemed thicker than a moment before.  I glanced around.  All of the skulls were facing me, six sets of blank sockets accusing me of living.  One of the hands shifted.  I smelled hot candles and blood.  I stepped back, stumbled over a pothole, and fell hard enough to see stars.  Something dry rolled toward me, rattling on the rock.  A skull, its jaw missing, stopped a few inches from my face.  
More bones shifted, too many.  
A jaw snapped closed.  
Fist bones crackled.  
The skull next to me exhaled through its nose and blew a fine cloud of ash into my face.  
I leaped to my feet.  "Stop!"  I cried.  A savage kick to the skull shattered it.  Blood pounded in my ears.  Opening and closing my fists, I forced myself to breathe more easily.  "It'll be harder than this to take me," I snarled to whatever was listening.  I hastened to catch up to my retreating friends, who had been too far away to hear what had happened.  
Behind me something rustled.

As the light faded we met one of the Isle's residents.  It formed from the ash, raising itself in a column of black and grey flecks that writhed into shape as we watched, open-mouthed, wondering whether to attack it then or wait until it did something.  It drew more ash into itself and rose to a height of over two yards.  
"Now," Kalan said and raised his fingers.  
I grabbed his hand.  "Wait."  What in Hells was it?  "It's not attacking."
He glared at me and backed away from the figure as it completed its growth.  It was an unusually tall man with a candis of grit and a goatee that dribbled stray flakes.  It seemed to have difficulty forming. 
"You are?"  It spoke in a wispy, slurred voice.  Startled, I jumped and bumped Yori.  She touched my shoulder with one hand and slid the other into one of her many pockets.  Looking for her Utu-symbol?
Kalan answered.  "Wizard Zahid, Mage Korin-Kalan, Healer Yori."  He let a spark twist its way around his fingers like a worm.  "You?" he asked.
"Luritsuran, in life."  A puff of breeze tore a hole through its chest, but the gap closed.
My mouth dried.  Luritsuran?  The Great Master?  If he'd died here, what hope did we have?  
"I cannot stay.  Leave now, while you still have your souls.  Or stay here forever with the rest of the host.  We are all absorbed, here."  The haunt's face contorted and lost form for a moment. 
"What do you mean, absorbed?"  I didn't like that.
The haunt looked at me, and in its grainy eyes I saw not ash but some sort of Hells, seas of boiling water where Utu never shone.  They writhed there, masters and servants, dšck‡lfs and humans, floating together, screaming, struggling to move.  Some were completely underwater and looked to the air with bulging eyes.  Huge spheres bobbed among them, red-hot, searing those they touched—
With a cry, I broke free.  "Is that what happens to people who die here?"  
The haunt smiled painfully.
Kalan snorted.  "Pfah.  Not afraid."  
It bowed its head and started dissolving.  "Then you enter the lies."
"Find the truth.  The truth!"   The words rose from somewhere in my mind, but I had no idea where I had heard them.  Something in what this thing said reminded me of—what?  A bit of conversation, a reference from a book, a dream?  I couldn't remember.
Kalan kicked at the ash as the haunt sank back to the ground.  "Not impressed."
"If you'd looked in its eyes—"  
"Trick, Zahid.  Saw hot ocean, people.  Trick.  Scare us."
For a moment I was tempted to tell them about the bones, but he'd say the same thing, tricks to scare me.  Well, they'd done a damn good job.  And what in the Hells had killed Luritsuran?
"I think we'd better stick close," I said.  "That way the Isle has to take all three of us at once.  Agreed?"
Kalan shrugged.
"I said, agreed?"  
He nodded yes, and Yori faintly said, "Yes."
"All right."  I wondered if it would all be like this, little frights one after the other, until we finally broke down.  Well, I was on to that pattern.  
"Good thing you didn't attack, Kalan.  Haunts can take your life."  Yori pulled the Utu-symbol  from her pocket.  "Sometimes I can overpower them with this..."  She trailed off.
I pressed her.  "What did it say when it was falling apart?"
"I don't know, something about entering the lies."
"Dreams, lies.  Knew that," Kalan said.  He pointed to the basin where the haunt had appeared.  "Camp here.  Spooks already come and gone, maybe rest peace now."
"Who'll rest better, us or them?" I asked.  He didn't answer.  
The basin was a shallow valley between hills with no cover or protection against attackers.  There was nothing better to be had.  
"We'll have to scoop it out before we can camp," I said, pushing away some of the ash with my foot.  It came up to my knees.
Kalan nodded, closed his eyes, and chanted.  "IllmŸnte, ereid apol ryo–a, deuren..."
The frozen storm rumbled. 
"Kalan, what—" I started. 
He lifted his hands chest-high, palms down, cracking his voice like a whip on the accents.  Sheet lightning flickered through the clouds, thunder booming after, and a knob formed underneath the thunderheads.  
The knob stretched down to touch the ground a few yards away from us.  My candis snapped in the wind.  Ash exploded into my face, swirled furiously around me, and was sucked into the funnel.  I jumped back as Yori leapt aside with a cry.  The tornado tugged a stream of ash around my legs, drawing it all into itself, leaving bare stone.   
Then it was gone.  
Kalan sat down and stretched out, tucking his hands under his head.
Yori spoke before I could.  "Why, Kalan?"  Her voice shook, her body quivered.  She sat down across the clear spot from him, her small pack in front of her, knees drawn up against her chest, arms locked around her legs.  "Why do you do things like that without telling us?"
"No one hurt."  
"No one hurt?  What if that thing hadn't worked right?  Why don't you ever ask us what we think?"  She faltered.  
I'd prayed for an event to bring her completely to herself.  Could I help her now?  If I pushed her and Kalan hard, maybe they'd start talking with each other.  They'd probably fight.  I had to go on.  There was no more time for her to be withdrawn and the two of them anxious with each other.  "She's right, Kalan," I said, sitting to face them both.  
"Suck up ash," he said.  "Clear spot."
"We needed to be warned.  It scared the Hells out of me when that thing hit.  I didn't know what it would do."  
"Didn't hurt anybody."  He looked sullen.
"That's not the point.  The point is, your tornado scared us.  There's enough fear here without adding to it.  Next time please warn us before you do something like that."
He set his jaw.  Damn him! 
Yori rocked back and forth.  I knew that stance.  She was working herself up to saying how angry she was.  
Kalan reached toward me.  "Pack."
I scowled.  "Ask."
He waved his hand, and the pack appeared under his head.  He leaned back and grinned at me.
"It's like back in the ruin, when he set the carpet down," Yori said to me.  "He does what he wants and doesn't think about us."  
Why was she telling me?  
"Think about you, too."  He glared at her.  Had he tensed?
"You need to think more before you act," I said to him.  
He rummaged through his pockets.  
I felt like shaking him.  "Do you hear me?" I growled.  
"Yes," he said.  He didn't look at me.  
I sat back.  What now?
For long moments no one said anything.  Kalan started humming a funeral dirge to himself.  I almost laughed.  Here?
"Will you stop that?"  Yori's voice was strained.
"It's better than sitting here in the quiet," I said.  "The silence gets on my nerves."  
"Why do you always defend him?"  she asked.
"I don't always defend him," I snapped.  She flushed.  "Look, I'm sorry—"
"And now you're defending me.  I don't want help.  I can take care of myself."  She kept her eyes on her pack, but her voice was firm.
Her statement almost seemed a bizarre joke, but I seized on the confidence in her tone.  "I know you can.  I saw that back in the ruin."  
"So start taking care self," Kalan said, resentment in his voice.  "Always gone away."
"You're going to tell me to start taking care of myself?"  Yori said.  "You know why I'm 'always gone away.' "  
"Haven't done anything," he said instantly, sitting up and crossing his arms.
I knew what was about to happen and opened my mouth to try to head it off.  I stopped myself.  Wasn't this what I'd wanted?  Who did I have to protect?  I felt anxious but said nothing.
"He hasn't done anything," Yori repeated to me.
"Yori—"  My stomach knotted. 
"Why angry?" 
"Because you don't think of anyone's welfare but your own.  You do things without thinking, and you hurt people.  Like me."  
"Don't try hurt."
"You've already done the damage.  You've already done it, don't you understand?"  
"Haven't done anything!"
She hugged her pack.   
I ventured, "Yori, this isn't helping anything."  Did they have to go this far?
"How do you know what's helping?  You aren't saying anything."  
"Because we aren't going to solve anything here, in this place.  It feeds off anger and fear." 
"There won't be any anger if we say what's on our minds."
"Maybe the Isle is waiting for something to happen, to take advantage of us."
"Listen to yourself!  You're so nervous you're grasping at straws!"  She looked at me, her mouth set.
A retort died on my lips.  She was right.  I was still playing the role I had at the Academy, trying to keep everything calm between us.  What was I so afraid of?  
Suddenly I remembered an incident with Ranhammon, when I was eleven:
"There's no difference between you and me, boy, remember that as you finish cleaning these cages and go back to your room to tell the dšck‡lf what a bastard I am," Instructor Ranhammon says, standing behind me.  
Go away, I hate you.
"You know hate and anger, as I do.  But I use them, and you hide them away.  I could teach you efritology, make you a master.  You could be like me."
No!  I'll run away or tell Kalan to kill you or break your magic circle when you're summoning an efriti and let it get you—  
"I'll never be like you, Instructor Ranhammon.  I'll never be so angry all the time.  I won't."
"Hah!  Boy, you're already learning!  What do you feel right now?  Finish cleaning those cages, then go back to your thrice-damned friend.  You make me sick with your whining."  He walks away.  
I start to cry.  "I won't.  I won't—"
Heat rose in my face.  There had been hundreds of run-ins, dozens of "special assignments."  But they'd backfired.  I hadn't learned to hate.  I'd learned to fear anger.  I'd learned to run from anger to prevent myself from becoming like him.  Even now I found myself shaking.  
Damn Kalan.  Why wouldn't he grow up?  Then he could take the lead again.  He was leaving me in charge, and I didn't want it.  What was going to happen now?  It was too late to go back to the way things had been.  The Isle was feeding.  It was feeding on what wasn't being said.  I knew what I had to do.  
"Yori, why did you come to the Isle?  Why are you here?"  
Her mouth opened in shock, and she shook her head.  "I can't—He's—What are you doing?"   
"Please answer me.  Why did you come here?"  
Her fingers dug into her pack.  She blinked.  I wanted to apologize for putting her through this, for making her take the first step.  
"I'm here—I'm here—"  Tears.  "I'm trying to get Wrin—"  She sobbed and put her head down on her pack.  "I'm trying to get Wrin—"
"What!"  Kalan cried.  "What?"
She rocked back and forth and said haltingly.  "I'm going...to wish...Wrin...back."  
"No!  Trying make things better!" 
"You want to make it better now?"  She choked.  "You've done enough already."
"Haven't done anything!"  he shouted, shaking his head.  
Her voice dropped and became angry.  "I've seen the whole thing, Kalan.  You killed Wrin!"  
I searched for memories.  I'd need my most powerful shields if he erupted.  
He looked at his hands and whispered,  "Made me."  
"You killed him, not someone else.  You did."  She glared at him and then dropped her gaze.  Her voice became a whisper.  "Utu, I've hated you.  A healer can't live on hate for so long.  It's eaten me up.  Eaten..."  She put her hands to her face and cried.  Her sobs became great gasps, and she buried her face in her blanket.
I found myself holding my breath.  My heart pounded.
"Made me, she made me, didn't want kill humans any more."  His voice wavered, and he turned toward me, desperate.  "Didn't mean to, sorry, please, sorry."
I thought of his pleading on the carpet, asking forgiveness, begging me, and I'd turned my back.  Even now it was hard not to reach out and comfort him.  But he would think of forgiveness as excusing his killing.  I sat still and felt as if a rod had been driven through my heart.  
At the same time Yori was completely with us.  For good?
Kalan sidled over to Yori, sat in front of her pack and reached to stroke her hair.  
She pulled back.  "Don't touch me."   
He waved at nothing.  "Can bring back."
She shivered.  "And if we do, what will we get?  A zombie?  A shade?  Leave me alone."
"Will bring back."
"Not if I don't want you to, you won't.  You hear me?"  She glared at him the same way she'd faced down the honomir, and he winced.  "I'm the one who decides.  Not you.  I came here to see if I could wish him back, but now I'm not sure I even want to try.  This place is wrong for that kind of magic."  
"I killed.  I can bring back."  Sullen.
"That's the last time I'll hear about it, Kalan.  If I decide to try, I'll do it.  Otherwise, it will not be done.  Understand?"
No answer.
"Understand?"
He thrust his lower jaw forward.
I grasped a memory—
Her voice hardened.  "Understand?"  
I held my breath.  I'd never heard her take such a direct, angry tone with him before.  Surely she wouldn't be slipping back into herself now.
He blinked and looked down.  Nodded yes.  He went back to his place, reached over and tore a piece from my blanket and conjured himself a blanket from it.  Without looking at us he curled up in it, and in a few moments he was asleep.
Yori leaned her head against her pack and cried, deep-chested sobs reaching back over the months.   "Three efrit-worshippers were going to buy a melon...  Your favorite joke.  Utu, I'm sorry, I'm sorry—He's so far away.  Can't even send him a wizard message, and I'm surrounded by wizards.  Your clothes are ready.  Don't get them too dirty, or I'll have to throw them away...  Utu, how long do I have to be here?"  
It took me a moment to realize she was talking to Wrin, and that the "he" must be their son.  I fumbled with the straps on my sandals.  This wasn't for me to hear.  When I got up to walk toward her she shook her head.  "Not now," she mumbled.
"All right."  I turned away and walked to the top of the nearest knoll to give her privacy.  Ash was as deep as my ankles.  The unmoving storm was lit by the same lightning streaks we had seen when we arrived on the Isle, and its dark masses of clouds blocked the stars as effectively as they had Utu's light.  Except for faint sounds of Yori's grief, the hilltop was silent.  I faced the interior of the Isle, searching the dim horizon for movement.  There was none.
At the sound of my voice I jumped.  "I wish I could send you a message, but I'm afraid it would never leave this cursed place.  Never leave..."  I scanned the endless ash.  She'd be asleep by now, curled up in our hammock.  I smiled.  "We're the only things here, I think, except for ghosts and secret memories.  I understand our Trial now.  Just the three of us wandering around, our feelings chewing at us until we're at each other's throats.  Three friends adding each other's bones to this place."  
The air was cold and biting.  Kicking the ash aside until there was a reasonably clear spot, I sat facing away from the camp and closed my eyes.  "I think the worst secrets are out in the open, now.  That may save our lives."  Speaking out loud helped me clarify my thoughts.  I picked up a handful of ash and let it trickle through my fingers.  The flecks shimmered as they fell straight down.  Where were the wolves on the far hills, howling in frustration?  Instead there was only the silence.  Waiting.  
A breeze picked up, blowing ash.  Flakes brushed the skin of my face and hands.  I sat for a long time.
"Are you lonely?  Staying busy?  Two weeks doesn't sound very long, does it?  Two weeks, two years, two lifetimes...  Those oranges are good, aren't they?"  I felt a quick stab of envy.  She'd better not eat all of them!  
The smell of oranges seemed to rise from the ash.  I breathed deeply, and my mouth watered.  "So, Isle, you can be used for some good."  
My smile faded.  What would happen when Kalan wished his family back?  
Cold voices swept in over the knolls, chilling me:
"Can't find my way out, lost—"
"No, not another wave—"
"Here!  Back to back!  Arsim, watch your left.  That big one'll be the leader.  We—"  Gurgling and the fall of a body.
"Fahd!"  Bone crunching.
"C'nz fillaellie, sine.  DŠce, tysur somanar—"  High Cerelian, something about calling on the elements for help.  I guess it never came.  
Such lonely voices...  They all went down fighting.  We would do no less. 
"I wish I was with you now," I said to Janine.  "If Utu can hear me in this place, I hope He can remind you I love you.  I will come home.  I will."  
The voices laughed.  "They all think that." 
"Yes, I suppose they do.  But we'll do it."
The voices laughed again, harsher this time, and stilled one by one. 
"That was well said," Yori said quietly.  
I yelped and turned.  She stood behind me, hands to her sides.  Her eyes were puffy.
"Kalan's still sleeping."  She sat in front of me so we faced each other.  She looked tired.  "Good timing, asking me why I came.  If you'd asked earlier I would have fled inside for the rest of the Trial.  If you hadn't asked Kalan would have tried to bring Wrin back on his own.  We needed to have that talk.  That was healer understanding."
I started to protest, but she put a finger over my mouth.  "I know.  You went on intuition.  The best healing always happens that way, like the best wizardry."  
She took her hand away.  "Now, will you tell me something?  Why did you come?  I know you too well to believe you're here to please the masters."
I agreed with a tilt of my head.  "I just want to keep my friends and family alive.  There are nomadic people, the Basquan, living in the desert outside Hafar.  They've been raiding the border towns for decades, stealing crops and sometimes taking slaves.  Lately they've been getting stronger and bolder.  During the last raid they killed people.  One was a little girl named Cerry...
Would the Isle create Cerry's body if I thought about her too long?  I hurried on.  "I need power.  I want shields strong enough to protect the entire town.  Next time they come I'll smash them so badly they'll never come back."  My hands shook, and I clapped them onto my knees.  I wouldn't allow any more killing.  Unless, of course, it was me doing it—Was this how masters started down the road to wiping out villages instead of individuals?  If I really wanted to stop the Basquan, shouldn't I find their homes and destroy them there, instead of waiting for them to come to Hafar?  If I killed their babies there wouldn't be any adults in a while.  The best intentions pave the road to the Hells.
It occurred to me in that moment that I knew very little about the Basquan.  I knew they were nomadic raiders who didn't farm.  Because they didn't want to?  Because they didn't have the land?  How could I have lived on the edge of the desert all these years and not have gone beyond the most cursory attempts to talk with those people?  I'd always thought of them as "The Basquan," a faceless mass.  Who were they?  Matters for later, when I was home.
"Janine and I want a child.  I need the spells that'll come with mage rank and the memories I've been picking up on this Trial to make sure our baby doesn't end up dead.  There won't be any more dead children!"  My stomach was cold, my mouth dry as the ashes.  
Yori was quiet.  
"That's why I came."  
"I hope you get what you're after," she said.  She looked off to the horizon and then back at me.  "You're lucky.  You want to keep what you have.  Kalan and I want to get back what we've lost."
I heard sorrow in her voice.  "It may be all right to raise the dead here."
"It might," she said, but she didn't sound as if she believed it.
After a while we walked back down to the camp and put our sleeping gear together.  She lay on her side, and I draped one arm over her.  She took my hand.  
"It's going to be all right," I said.
"Yes."

I awoke only once and saw Kalan amusing himself with spirit-lights.  The ghostly flames shimmered about him, tinkling like glass rods in a breeze.  He made the lights shimmy up his arm and dance on his fingertips and then jump back and forth between the bits of silver on his clothes.  He laughed softly as the lights leaped and played.  Then Yori quietly moaned.  Immediately he dimmed the lights and stopped moving.  He leaned over and let the lights slide from his fingers to cover her.  As he hummed a dšck‡lf lullaby the spirit-lights became tiny dancers that flickered and spun in her hair.  At high notes the little imps and cherubim kicked and turned cartwheels, and at low notes they quavered and fell over as if swooning.  When his tune ended the dancers faded into a golden glow around her.  Kalan curled up in a ball facing away from her.  The lights faded, and it seemed that Yori rested easier.  
I closed my eyes.  Maybe our chances had improved. 

 When I awoke I was pleased to find that most of my aches and pains were gone, though the place on my arm where the kumadin bit it was still tender, and my ribs still hurt when I probed them firmly.  Kalan's bruises were in the final stages of greenish-purple, and he and Yori both moved more easily than they had the day before.  After we'd all stretched and walked around a bit I said my morning prayers to Utu and hoped He would hear them.  
Breakfast was quiet.  Even with Yori's spell to stretch our food we ate half of what I had, which left us with another meal's worth from my pack and some snacks in Yori's.  We saved the scraps to enchant food from.  After breakfast I shouldered our pack. 
"How far is it, do you think?"  I asked them.  My travel senses are poor.
"Day fast pace," Kalan said decisively. 
Yori slowly shook her head.  "At least two days of steady travel, if we're careful.  We've gone about five miles, so we've got at least ten miles to go.  And travelling through this ash is slow."
"One day," Kalan said, glancing up to the unchanging storm and then facing inland.
"Ten miles," I mused.  "Two days cautious travel.  One long day moving fast.  We'll be out of food by tomorrow.  I think it's best if we try to get to the center today.  It'll be easier for the Isle to influence us if we're hungry."
She frowned and then shrugged.  "Makes sense."
We set off.  In some places the grey powder went over our knees, forcing us to wade through it as if it were sluggish water.  In other spots it had been blown off the underlying rock, and we could move quickly.  We found more fragments of bone here and there, some entire skeletons.  Kalan tried to raise spirits of these dead to tell us what had happened, but the spell didn't work.  
As we drew steadily closer to the center of the Isle more of the rock was bare of ash, and we moved faster.  Kalan took a lead of twenty yards or so, with me in the middle and Yori five or six yards behind me.  I turned back frequently to make sure she was there.  It seemed a very real danger that she would disappear, be swallowed up or separated from us.  I wanted us closer together, but neither Kalan nor Yori seemed to want to be close to each other.  Forcing that situation could only create more bad feeling.  
Around noon Yori caught up to me.  We walked together for a quarter mile or more before she said, "I dreamed last night."
I waited, but she lapsed into silence.  For a heartbeat I feared she'd fallen back into her melancholy, but then she continued.  
"I dreamed I was with Wrin's caravan."  
"What happened?"  Was the Isle starting to chip away at us in our dreams, too?  I didn't like that thought.  It was hard enough to put up with the feeling of being watched all day.
"I can't remember much, other than a lot of fire and some kind of shrieking swords.  Those swords..."  She shuddered.
"Shom-Vadren's Liveswords," I said, remembering the big man they'd devoured.
"Liveswords?  That's what they're called?  They were horrid."  She shook her head.  "Kalan was there and you."
"Yes?"
"He killed you.  With light-darts, shaped like—"
"—butterflies."
"Yes."  Her forehead and upper lip were glazed with sweat.  "Just like Wrin."
Obviously the Isle wanted to drive further the wedges between us.  "What do you think of all that?" I asked.
"Mmmm.  I don't trust this place.  It reeks of old magic gone bad, like the Efritology building or the sludge-dump in the Academy fields.  I don't like feeling watched all the time or that there's some macabre joke going on that we're the butt of."  She coughed and waved away a puff of the ash Kalan was kicking up for amusement.  "I don't trust the dreams I have here."
"I feel those eyes, too.  I think the Isle's trying to get a hold on our minds.  I'm sure that's what it did to the others.  It made them distrust each other a little at a time.  When they didn't have any trust left, it got them."
"Hmm.  There may be more than that.  If there is a ruin, maybe something lives there.  By the time people reach it they're so exhausted they're easy prey.  Or it could be...  I don't know.  Guessing isn't any good.  We'll have to see for ourselves."  
"Yes."  
We ploughed through a valley of ash that came up to my chest and nearly to Kalan's and Yori's necks.  I took the lead, pulling my hood down over my face and bowing my head.  Kalan followed, holding my pack for guidance, and Yori held onto the back of his candis.  I had to poke in front of myself with an extended foot for holes or pits into which I might sink beyond reach.  Hot and clinging, ash stuck to my clothes and hands, flew around my face, and clogged the cloth of my hood where I breathed through it.  Sweat covered me.  The straps on my pack cut into my shoulders as Kalan tugged it.   I poked, stepped, tested my footing, and shoved forward, pulling Kalan with me.  Poke, step, test, shove.  I didn't know if we were going straight and didn't stop to look because a cloud of ash billowed around us.  Poke, step, test, shove.  The heat stifled.  My candis stuck to my skin.  I could hardly breathe through my clotted hood.  Fifty-three steps.  Poke, step, test, shove.  Fifty-four.  The ground rose, so the ash was only to my waist. 
"Get away!"  Yori shrieked.  I was jerked back as she pulled Kalan's candis and he in turn pulled my pack.  Ash flew.
"Yori, what's wrong?"  
"In the ash!" 
I shuddered, remembering the thing in the water. 
"No.  In head.  Angry, not afraid.  Kick!"
"There's something here, Kalan!  It's grabbing at my feet!"
"No!  Kick!  Go away!"
"Get the Hells away!"  Yori yelled.  
Something slid across my sandal, and I yelled.  Lashing out, I lost my balance and staggered forward.  Kalan stumbled into me and nearly knocked me down.
"Don't leave me!"  Yori cried.  
I whirled and grabbed for Kalan.  He was gone in the ash-cloud.  "Kalan!"  I stepped back but had lost my sense of direction.  "Damn this ash!  Where are you?" 
"Kick, Yori, kick!  Nothing there.  Like Zahid's shark."
"It has my leg!  My leg!  Help me!"
"This way!" I shouted, straining to see them.
Cool, strong flesh wrapped around my ankle and squeezed.  It was going to haul me down into the ash and rip me to bits, or dash my head in—I screamed.
"Utu!" I smashed and shattered the experience and I shaped the terror, sighing with the feel of the power.  This was my first magic since the fight with the honomir.  The joy of feeling the energy flow added power to my spell.
I opened my arms as wide as I could spread them.  The ash flowed apart, leaving a clear path in front of and behind me.
I turned and could make out Kalan standing on my path, pulling Yori's arms.  Her legs disappeared into the ash.
"Nothing, Yori, nothing there!"
"Get it off me, get it off, it's got suckers, it's taking me away—"
"Look at me!"
She looked.  Kalan whispered something.  With a sudden cry she heaved free of the ash.  Her candis was torn.  A rope of grey flesh encircled her calf.  She tore it off, exposing bloody sucker marks on her skin, and hurled it far out over the valley.  It disappeared with a puff of ash.
I waved at them.  "Come on!  I don't know how long this path will last!"  
Kalan helped her stand and test her leg.  She nodded.  They ran.
"What spell did you cast on me?"  Yori yelled at Kalan.
"Strength."
"How strong am I?"
"Like giant."
"Whoof."
We raced along the path to its end five yards from the hill we had been going toward.  "The spell didn't work right," I gasped as we stopped.  "Supposed to go all the way to the hill.  Have to run through ash."  I had a strong urge to piss.  What else was out there?
Yori sucked in her breath.  "All right."
"Nothing there."
"Those marks on Yori's—"
"In mind.  Nothing there."
"I don't have your faith."
"Then run fast."  He sprinted into the ash, and we followed.  It was up to my knees.
When we were beyond the path it collapsed.  Ash billowed up around us.  We staggered on.  
A tentacle wrapped around my ankle and jerked hard enough to pull me onto my knees.
Kalan opened his arms.  A blast of wind exploded the ash away.  A tentacle sprang out of the rock.  "No monster.  Fear!"  
Yori grabbed the tentacle and squeezed until it let go of my ankle.  There were sucker welts on my skin.  Then she tore it from the rock and threw it.  She grinned.  "I like this spell!"  
"Move!"  Kalan snapped.  In moments we had climbed high enough on the hill to be out of the ash.  We doubled over, hands on our knees, breathing hard for several minutes.
We were near the base of the biggest hill we had yet come to, which rose above us at least a hundred feet.  We couldn't see what lay over the hill.  I guessed we were only four or five miles from the center of the Isle.  
Behind us there was only the ash, a sea of it, which now seemed dangerous where before it had been only annoying.  The thought of wading back into it sent a chill through me.
"Isle knows you're afraid," Kalan said.  "I'm not.  Not real."
Yori stroked the marks on her leg until they stopped bleeding.  "What do you call these?  There's something out there."
"Yes.  Mindsharks, fear-tentacles.  Things that scare."
"Well, they scare me," I said.  "If creatures don't scare you, what does?  It'll be handy to know, if the Isle starts in on you next."
He looked at me angrily for a moment and then looked down.  
"What?"  He had mumbled something.  
"Alone," he said quietly.  "Being all alone."
"Not much danger of that," Yori said.  "As long as we're alive, we're together."
"As long as alive, yes."
"No point thinking that way," I said, and Yori nodded.
We decided to eat while we had the chance.  Yori shared sticks of jerkied meat and scraps of dried peach which she enchanted to nourish us as a complete meal.  The break gave us time to rest before we started up the hill.  
There was little ash, but we were tired and climbed slowly.  Kalan took a long lead, so Yori and I were only three-quarters of the way up when he crested the hill.  I waited for a reaction of some kind, but he simply stood and looked.  
"Kalan, what's up there?"  Yori called.
Slowly he turned around.  "Town," he said.
We scrambled up the slope.


X



Below us, in a valley, was a village of adobe houses with grey slate roofs and open windows, clustered around the only water source we had seen on the island, a stone fountain much like the one in Hafar.  That disturbed me.  Why the imitation?  No wall surrounded the town, and we couldn't see any guards.  Children and dogs played at the outer edges of the village.  The houses and cultivated land continued down the valley away from us.  I couldn't tell if there were more buildings that way or not.  There were dozens of people working in the fields, and Kalan pointed out a market plaza off to one side of the fountain.  There had to be a few hundred people in the village.
Taking a deep breath, Yori said, "Smell."
I did.  Baked bread.  Steamed beans.  Goat steaks.  My mouth watered.  
"Trick," Kalan said.
"Probably," I agreed.  
"It's going to work pretty soon, too," Yori said, "if I get much hungrier."
We were still miles from the center.  This village couldn't be what we were looking for.  "I don't think this is what we're after," I said, "but I have to admit I'm curious.  We can skirt it or try to sneak down and steal some food and then go past it."
"Steal and leave," Kalan said.
"Yori?"
"You know," she said, "some of the buildings down there look familiar."
I nodded.  "I know what you mean.  The fountain and square are like the ones in Hafar."
Now that I was looking for similarities, more buildings seemed familiar, from the Satrap's palace and the Academy.  As I stared down at the village, the hairs on the back of my neck rose.  "Kalan, anything down there look familiar?"
He was silent.  
"Kalan?  Anything—"
"Yes, yes.  Fields, peasant houses.  Like when boy."
"What?"  Startled, I turned to him.  "I thought you grew up in RŽAmora."
He laughed harshly.  "No.  Father's estate outside city.  Much land.  Fields.  Beautiful."
My fountain and some buildings, Kalan's fields...
"Yori, which buildings, exactly, are the ones you recognize?"
"Well...  The row of houses over there is like the block where my sister lived when I was a little girl."  She chewed her lip.  "You remember, she married the guard captain."  
Kalan and I knew, of course.  Her sister Ariya was the rebel of the family, content to live in a merchant-class neighborhood with her captain when she could have married higher.
"So it's some from each of us.  Maybe there'll be people like ones we know."
Yori frowned.  "Why?  Why not be completely different?"
"Catch off-guard," Kalan said.
I stroked the stubble on my chin and watched the people moving below.  "But it won't catch us off guard, since we're sitting here thinking it out now.  We're low on food.  If we're careful we should be able to go down there, resupply, and get out if things get dangerous."
"Why go down at all?" Yori asked.  "We can go around."
"Through the ash?" I said.
"Steal food and go," Kalan said as if it were settled.
As we talked the light slowly failed.  Since we couldn't travel around the valley, and we didn't want to risk going down the hillside in the dark, we decided to stay where we were until the next morning.  We ate the last bites of Yori's rations with distaste, tortured by the smell of fresh food, and watched the village.  The people went indoors, and all movement stopped.  
I offered to take first watch.  
"Second," Kalan said.  He immediately set out his blanket and lay down.
"Last," Yori said, "but one of you gets last shift tomorrow night."  Then she added, "If there is another night."
"There will be," I said.  
"I hope so, too."  She wrapped herself in her blanket.
We had set up camp on the side of the hill away from the valley, though I could see over the hill from my vantage point.  Soft lights glowed from the windows and doorways of the houses, and fields rustled in a breeze.  From time to time I heard laughter, children's squeals, and the yapping of dogs, but I knew I could be imagining the sounds.  I wanted to walk down and forget this mad Trial.  Why in Hells was I here?  Janine and I could move back to Blackstone—and leave everyone?  This was the best choice.  The breeze seemed to carry the tech-boy's chatter, Janine's soft "Sweet dreams" and the cracking of our house as it cooled.  To smell the dry, hot air again and tear open an orange...
Janine wouldn't be down there.  I'd never believe she was, and the Isle wouldn't use something unbelievable.  The similarity of the village to Hafar made me nervous.  A trap, Kalan said.  Certainly, but what sort?   
Kalan knew the fields from when he was a boy.  Yori recognized buildings from when she was young, and so did I.  A common feature?  Places from childhood had more excitement to them, more mystery.  But some of the houses were from Hafar, as was the fountain.  So all were places that had deep meaning for us.  That seemed a better thread.  Each of the buildings meant something to us.  All of them were emotionally significant.  
"What if—"  I burst, and then I quieted myself.  What if the Isle couldn't distinguish fine shades of emotion?  The Academy was important to me as I matured, and Hafar was important to me now.  Could the Isle separate the feelings?  Maybe it simply threw important places together in one setting as bait. 
My mind raced.  That would explain why the others had found such varied terrain when they got here.  The Isle took a little from each of them, trying to create an environment each of them would find emotionally powerful.  But why this town for us?  
There was, of course, only one way to find out for certain.  

Kalan didn't waken for his watch easily, and finally I tossed the pack on him from a safe distance.  When he finally opened his eyes he looked frightened.  
"Are you all right?" 
"Dreams."  He looked as if he'd expected to see someone else.
"What kind of dreams?"
"Bad."
"Yori told me she dreamed about Wrin's caravan and that you killed me in her dream.  Was it like that?"
He looked puzzled.  "No.  Home, talking father on gate."
"Talking to your father?  I don't understand."
"Head on gate.  Said, 'Second chance, Kalan, second chance.' "  His eyes were wide, and he wove his fingers around each other.
"Second chance for what?"
He shook his head.  "Time for watch?"
"Yes."  I put a hand on his shoulder.  "You all right?  That was a cruel dream."
"Fine."  He didn't sound like he meant it.
"Yori thinks the Isle is trying to make our sleep miserable so we won't be able to think straight.  Maybe there's more to it than that, but I agree that the Isle is attacking us through our dreams.  Try not to take it to heart."
"Hmmph.  Not real."
"Exactly."
Though my blanket was warm, sleep did not come.  What nightmares would I have?  I thought about the village and the Isle and listened to Kalan humming to himself.  He seemed more energetic than he had all day, agitated.  Why had he dreamed of his father's head talking to him?  Second chance for what?  Was Yori dreaming of Wrin at Kalan's mercy?  Why did...How...I blurred into sleep.
 "Daddy, Daddy, do you see the Warrior?  There, over there!  I see it, can you?  Can you?"  She pulls on my hand and points eagerly to the bright constellation.  The Warrior strains forward, scimitar raised, and confronts the Snake.  A falling star flares from the Snake's mouth, and she squeals.  
"The Snake's spitting fire, Daddy, it's spitting fire!"
Who's this child?  Mine?
"Put me up on your shoulders."
"All right.  Hang on."  I put her up, and she digs her fingers into my hair.  
Where's my turban?
"What's that over there?" she asks.
"Where, honey?"
"Under Twinklestar."
I strain.  Twinklestar's a small red sparkler named Clurasa, but when she had been learning the stars she wanted one of her own.  The stars above the hills are dim, as if wispy clouds are blocking their light.  Clouds...or rising dust from rider's hooves? 
My stomach tightens, and my hair tingles.  Wait, don't jump before you know.  Check.  I find and shatter a stored memory:
"Your turn to rock her."
When is this kid going to start sleeping all night?  "I did last time."
She elbows my ribs.  "No, you didn't.  Go."
Closing my eyes, I shape the energy and send my sight into the hills.  Nothing...Nothing...Horses.  Men hugging their backs.  I snap my eyes open.  "Basquan!  Damn them!"  
"What's wrong, Daddy?  What's wrong?"
Instantly I regret my outburst.  "It'll be all right, honey, but we've got to get home fast, okay?"  Reaching up, I pull her off my shoulders and hold her to my chest.  "Ready?  We're going to fly home now."
"Okay," she says in a small voice.  
		
I throw open the door and set her down.  Janine sticks her head out of her work room and looks down the stairs at me.  "What's wrong? 
"Basquan."
Glancing at Citrina, she nods at me and comes down to take her hand.  "Come on, honey."
"What's wrong, Mommy?"
Janine pulls her up the stairs.  "The Basquan people don't live like we do, and sometimes they cause trouble."
"Like Uncle Kalan in Daddy's stories?"
My mouth dries.  
"No, not like Uncle Kalan.  The desert people don't have magic.  Now, you have to stay upstairs—"
I run out to the fountain.  Shouting's no good; I need everyone up and moving fast.
I find and shatter a memory too fast to experience it.  I shape the energy and clap my hands.  A thunderclap blasts through Hafar, tearing open doors and shutters, blowing shingles off roofs, kicking up dust.  I stagger back.  
"Up!  Hafar, wake up!"   		

 A crossbow bolt thunks into the doorway next to me; I drop and cautiously peer out the doorway.  A dozen hastily-set lanterns sit in the square, good for seeing the Basquan and a danger to horse's hooves.  Horses neigh close by.  Astapha's rifle cracks from across the square.  
What's going on?  I could have stopped them before they got to town—
Janine stands next to the window, crossbow ready.  Jahar and Sheren pull a wire taut, tripping several horses.  One falls onto a lantern, breaking it.  Its hair ignites, and it runs, screaming, through the square.  It kicks another lantern, spraying flaming oil, and disappears down the street.  Riders fall.  The young couple rush out of their doorway with knives, falling upon the downed Basquan before they can rise.  Jahir hauls a man's head back by the hair and slashes.  Blood squirts over his hand.  The man's face twists, goes slack.  
Jahir throws up.  They're so young—  
Crouching in the fountain, Yousef fires bolt after bolt.  "Butchers!  Murderers!"
Rhelem's not moving.  That throat wound must have killed him.  I smash down my rage:
The Basquan are killing people right under my nose!  Damn them!  
From the other end of town comes the sound of a lightning bolt and shattering stone.
"They've got a wizard with them," I say to Janine.  
"I've heard pistols, too.  Where'd they get the tech?  And what kind of wizard—Never mind."
A group of Basquan run into the square.
I nod grimly.  "The Basquan must have promised a lot of silver."
"Or souls."
"Or souls."  I search my Memory Sea.  No wizard's getting the souls of these people.
I shatter the memory I just made.  I need to get all of them at once.  I shape the energy into a burst of light above the square.  Horses squeal and bolt.  Men curse, covering their eyes. 
Janine's crossbow string hums.  The bolt flashes out her window and tears the leader's arm.  His pistol drops.  Moshint's boy scrambles up out of a cellar for it.  A raider rides him down.
I reach for memories.  My Memory Sea is dark.  Empty.  
Ring of scimitar on stone.
"Wizard, where's your magic?  We need help!"
Twang of a crossbow, a cry.
Dumb, I stare.  Horses and men plunge, break into doorways, fire crossbows through windows.  Bodies are strewn across the square.  Ours, theirs.    
A young raider crawls toward the fountain, behind Yousef, knife in hand.  
"Yousef!"  I shout.  "Behind you!"  
He spins and fires his crossbow into the boy's face.  
Light-darts streak across the square and spear Yousef.  He slides into the water.  
"No!"  I strain to see their wizard, but he (she?) isn't in sight. 
A raider pops up on the other side of the fountain and fires a pistol at our building.
Janine crumples.  Her crossbow clatters and fires into the wall.
"Janine!"  Dear Utu, what if she's—
I smash and store the moment automatically.  There's the whoosh of an expanding ball of fire, and my vision flares orange.  Flame shoots through Janine's window.  The front of our house is on fire.  I scramble across the floor.
Burning wood chips fall from the shutters.  
"Janine!"  I turn her head.  Blood.  She can't be dead, she can't—
Triumphant shouts in the square.
She has no pulse.  "Janine."  Cradling her head in my arms, I rock back and forth.  My sight blurs.  "If Yori were here, she could heal you—"
"No, I can't help you." 
My head snaps toward the doorway.  Yori steps in and kneels.  
"Yori?"  I shake my head.  "What do you mean?  Heal her!"
"Why weren't you using your magic?"
"I ran out of memories."
"Well, whose fault is that?" 
"What?"  Why is she attacking me?
"You quit the Trial, remember?  Now you're paying."
"But we never—"
"You abandoned us.  Bastard."
"I didn't—That never happened."  I let go of Janine's head and grab at Yori, but my hands find nothing.  She laughs.
"I'm dead, Zahid.  You ran out on me.  Again."
"That's not true!  I never quit the Trial.  This isn't real."
Dream!  This is a dream!
"How convenient.  That would let you off, wouldn't it?  Now you haven't the energy to save her or yourself, either.  He's coming.  He knows you left us."
"Lies!"  
"Tell him it was a lie."  Smirking, she fades.
I can't be kept in this dream, Isle.  I won't allow it.
"Wh—wh—"
"Janine!"  My heart leaps. 
"What is it?  Stay still, just—"
"How?"  She licks her lips.  "How could you leave them there?"
"It was a lie.  She was a ghost.  Rest now, you'll be all right."
"You let them die.  I can't stay.  I'm going because of you."  
"No!"  I shake her.  "Do you hear me?  No!"
Her head lolls.
"Long time."  Kalan, coming in the doorway.
I shatter the memory I made moments ago:
Janine crumples.  Her crossbow clatters and fires into the wall.
"Janine!"  Dear Utu, what if she's—
My strongest shield wraps skin-tight around me.
His hands are fists.  There's something horribly wrong with his shape, as if he's been flattened. 
"Left us."  
I slide Janine to the floor and stand.  "This can't be happening."
That's the spirit!
"Took our souls, Zahid.  Now can never be free."  He opens his fists.
I'm hit by sledgehammer-force and fly straight back.  Wood explodes around me, stars tumble by, sand, a flash of garden, the garden wall—I fall to the ground.  
Woozy.  I stagger to my feet.  My shield's destroyed.  Garden's fuzzy, fire everywhere, all the buildings are burning, a child's screaming, Citrina's upstairs, have to fly up and get her—  
"Zahid, come back."  Carried by magic, his whisper pierces my ear.
Waist-high garden wall, rock.  I fall onto it and slide over.  Light-darts shatter the top stones.  Chips of granite fall on me.  I crawl.
"Janine."  My head hurts.  "Help..."
"Help here."  Kalan floats down next to me.  His eyes are swirling black, like the haunt's, back on the Isle.  The Isle looks out of his eyes.
He touches my shoulder.  I can't move.  Dear Utu, his eyes.
"Permanent help."  He touches my chest with his fingertips.  "Isle sends greetings, Zahid.  Can't run out on old friends.  Isle needs something yours."  
Fuzz grows.  Icy screws turn into me, sap out the heat...  I feel my body twisting, jumping, far away, but I don't hurt.    
"M-m-my soul—"  
"Daughter next," he says, looking back at the house.
No!  I try to move and can't.  So cold—If I had my turban, would he get a surprise.
My opal appears in my hand.  Kalan screams.
"Dream,"  I slur.  "Utu, this is only a—"
"—dream."  I jarred out of sleep.  Sweat covered me.  A light dusting of ash flew into my face.  I squeezed my eyes shut.  
"Are you all right?"  Yori, seated next to me, put a hand on my forehead.
"Dreams."  I shuddered.
She nodded.  "Mine were worse this time.  You and Kalan both attacked Wrin.  There was nothing I could do."
"Yori..."
"We have to get out of here soon," she said.  "I'm tired to start with, and these dreams are wearing me down.  Kalan's tossing a lot, so I guess he's having them, too."
I felt Janine in my arms, remembered Kalan's eyes.  "So real.  I barely knew I was dreaming.  In the end Kalan was taking my soul, and I thought of my turban."  
"It fell off from your thrashing around, so I put it back on."
A chill ran down my back.  "That's why the opal appeared at the end.  If you hadn't put it on, I don't know what would have happened.  I was that close to going out."  Was this it, then?  The Isle couldn't take us directly, so it would get us like this?  "You're right.  One way or another, we have to reach the center soon."
Another puff of ash blew up into my face.
"Wind.  When did it start?"
"A while ago.  And look."  She pointed up.  The thunderheads and lightning which had been frozen in the same positions since we came to the Isle were now boiling.  Lightning flickered and stabbed through the dark mass.  Clouds collided and broke apart like suds in a stream.  After the first few flashes I realized there was no thunder.  
"I decided to wait and see what would happen before waking you up, since we all needed sleep."  
I nodded, unsure whether she could see me.  I looked down into the valley where only a few lights shone.  We could go around, through the ash and tentacles, but after we got around it where would we go?  Without the frozen storm there was no way to navigate.  There were spells for checking directions, but with the way the Isle twisted magic we couldn't trust those.  
I explained that to Yori, adding, "We're going to have to go down there."
"I know.  Let's get through it as fast as we can."
"Yes."
Kalan snarled and pushed out with both hands as if forcing something away.  
"Time to get him up," she said.  She took a small jar out of her pack.
"Anything important?  You might not get it back."
"No, it's empty."  She tossed it onto him.  
He rose so quickly Yori gasped, seizing the jar as it rolled off him and melting it in his hands.  Red liquid glass sizzled on the rock.  He shook the glowing droplets off and relaxed, but his breathing was ragged.
I swallowed.  "Kalan, it's us.  It's us."
His eyes were wide and unfocused.  "Father," he whispered.
I stepped over to him and put my hand on his shoulder.  "It's all right," I said.  "We're here."
"Want go home," he said.  
"So do I," I said.  Yori nodded.
We watched the storm, waiting for light to break through, hoping it would.  I turned back to look over the plain we had crossed to get where we were.  Wind swept it, churning up a cloud of ash that went on as far as I could see.  Here and there a hilltop, higher than the ash, stuck out of the boiling cloud.  Then a wave of blackness gushed over it, and it was lost for several minutes.  I wondered how long the ash would fly before it would all be swept out to sea or deposited in the deepest valleys and sheltered places.  Several days at least.  
After a long time more lights appeared in the settlement, and shadowy figures walked toward the fields.  The wind didn't seem to reach into the valley, for which I was grateful—another hook to draw us down.  
Kalan tucked his blanket into the pack and snugged the pack over his shoulders.  
"Go."  He started down the steep hillside.
Yori and I put away our gear and followed.  Kalan led and for once walked slowly, carefully.  He seemed subdued.  
Above there was no gradual growth of color where Utu was rising, only a slight increase in the overall light.  Sounds of earth being hoed grew louder as we came into the valley.  
"How do we want to do this?" I asked.
"Right down middle," Kalan said.
"Let's see what happens," Yori suggested.  "I want to get through there as fast as I can, too, but if they start attacking right away we're going to be in trouble."
"I don't think they'll attack," I said.  "We're expecting something like that, and this town is too elaborate for brute force.  I think.  All right.  I'm for going straight through, too, if we can."
The village stretched across the valley, giving us no way to skirt it.  We came down in a field of waist-high grain, walking side by side, me in the middle and Kalan to my right.  Yori was closest to the villagers and kept watch in that direction.  I had never seen that grain before, a variety that grew in several inches of water like rice, but with black seeds.  We moved slowly, feeling the way ahead as we had in the ash, our feet making sucking sounds.  The smell of the fields was reassuringly alive after two days of breathing ash.  Leaning over, I brushed my fingers over several stalks.  
How was my garden doing?  The orange trees were all right, but what about the vegetables?   
On impulse I pulled up several of the plants, roots and all, and stuck them in the pack, the tassels hanging out.  There was no telling how long they'd stay fresh, but, if the rest of the Isle was as dead as what we had already crossed, I would be thankful for this reminder of life even after they dried. 
"People ahead," Yori said.
Several figures worked with pitchforks a hundred yards in front of us, making piles of the grain that others had scythed.  They wore drab field clothes.  In the dim light it was impossible to tell anything more.  Each stroke swished through stalks.  The sound made me nervous.  I could see the gleaming metal of their tools.  We walked slowly, watching them, keeping the field between us.  One of them gestured toward us with a pitchfork.
"We can't avoid people all the way," Yori said.
"Probably not, but there's no reason to approach them before we have to."
"Ready."  Kalan cracked his knuckles.
"Hold off as long as you can.  Maybe they're not—"
Stench so strong I gagged.  Holding my sleeve over my face, I blinked and looked for the source of the smell.  
From the knot of farmers I heard a grinding stone against a pitchfork tine and a nasty laugh.
"What is it?"  Yori asked, muffled, her mouth and nose pressed into her sleeve.
I shrugged and pushed grain aside with my foot.  Something rotting.  We pushed through the grain, trying to pass the source of the stink, but it seemed to grow stronger with every step.
Kalan grunted, and we sloshed to his side.  A bloated human body lay mired in the mud.  It had been stabbed countless times.  The grey skin was torn.  Maggots twitched.  
Sickened, I looked up from the body into the eyes of my friends.  Had it been a wizard?  Yori swallowed.  Kalan's lips were curled back.  His fingers were forming the sequence for a sphere of flame.  
"Don't," I warned.  "Not yet."   
He twisted his fingers in and out.
"Save the energy.  We'll need it later, I'm sure."
"One move, gone."  He thrust his hands into pockets and stared at the farmers.  
I was so surprised I blinked.  When had this started, his listening to what I said?
The farmers raised their forks and started walking slowly toward us, muttering to themselves.  Their hands were gloved, their faces hidden in cowls.  Were they people?
"Let's keep moving."
Kalan slowed as if preparing to attack.   
I stared at the farmers, searching for some sign of humanity.  They were too far away, and there wasn't enough light.  Catching Kalan's arm, I tugged him.  He jerked his arm away.  
"No challenge," he said, but he looked over his shoulder as we crossed more fields.  
There were farmers in each field, dressed as those behind us, using hoes and scythes to dig weeds and cut grain.  As we passed they stopped working, raised their tools, and started toward us.  We couldn't see their faces, and the plants hid their legs.  Their sleeves covered their hands.  They muttered to one another as they formed a line eight or ten abreast and then fell silent.  We hurried past them, splashing through knee-deep water in an irrigation ditch.  
"Look," Kalan said.  
Yori and I looked up.  Ahead of us a small knot of farmers were moving toward the ditch, scythes in hand.
"They'll get in front of us!" Yori gasped.  
"Can stop," Kalan said.  
"Move!"  I did my best to run, but the mud made it impossible, and I slipped and fell.  They helped me up as I wiped water off my face.  
"Can't you do any spells?" Yori asked.
"Kalan tried to fly when we first got to the Isle, and it didn't work," I said.  
I glance at the farmers.  Those scythes could take our heads off.  
I shuddered and smashed down the moment.  Then I shattered the memory and channeled the energy, letting it burn in my hands, changing it.  
"What spell?" Kalan asked.
"Sleep," I said and let the magic go.  The energy felt like mist leaving my fingers to wrap around them.  
They kept walking.  "Didn't work.  Either the Isle interfered, or they don't sleep."
We ran.  Water splashed up onto our arms and faces.  Kalan had to stop and pull his shoe out of the mud.  I stumbled again and cursed.  The 'farmers' were closing on the ditch.  
"Try something else," Yori said, voice strained.
I tried to think of spells that would move us faster.
"Keep going," Kalan said.  He stopped, concentrated and stuck his hand into the water.  With our next steps our feet found traction on the water, and we raced across its surface.  I glanced back to see Kalan right behind us and far behind him the line of grim figures moving toward us.  No retreat.  
The group of farmers was only a few yards from the ditch now, but they were slowed by the plants.  They began scything the grain, clearing a yard in a single sweep.  
The water-path was slick as snow, but we somehow managed to stay on our feet.  
A reaper got to our ditch and raised its scythe sideways to slash through our chests.
"It'll kill us!"  Yori shouted.  She tried to slow but skidded and had to keep running.  
Two more reapers joined the line.
"Down!"  Kalan cried, falling onto his belly.  I dropped, too, knocking Yori down.
We slide past, warm mud-water gushing over my arms.  Yori and I are tangled, Kalan's leg's under me—
Scythes slash—  
Steel glints.  
They stink like a peat-bog.
"Utu!" Don't let me die—
A scythe chops across my hood and jerks my shoulders.  
We slide another ten yards.  Made it.  "Run!"
The spell ended, and we were dumped into the ditch.  "Brilliant, Kalan,"  I gasped, struggling to get up.  They'd been ready to chop us in half, and we'd slid under their scythes before they could turn them to slash downward.  The last one damn near got me anyway.  
I thought he flushed with pleasure, but his face was muddy and it was hard to tell.  We got to our feet, soaked.  
"Look like wet rat," Kalan laughed, pointing at me.  
"You don't look so regal yourself," I said.  
Yori spat brown water.  "They're coming."  
Kalan led as we forced through the water and crossed from the fields onto dry land.  The dirt was hard-packed but rich, mixed with compost.  How long had this place been here? 
I turned back and immediately tensed.  There were forty or fifty of the shadowy figures.
We entered the town.


XI



The town was as quiet as the mob behind.  There were no people in sight.  Buildings were built in the Decadurinian style, two and three stories high with shops on the ground floor and apartments above, made of adobe, their facades decorated with djinn and efrit paintings.  The doorways and windows were surrounded by elaborate woodwork, and over many doorways signs hung.  The one closest to us, painted in bright red letters with a white scimitar beneath, announced, "Nuno's Imports."  Further along was one that hung at a crazy angle.  The streets were narrow, alleys common.  An army could hide there.  Strong smells:  cooking meat, unwashed bodies, urine.  Flies looped and buzzed everywhere, clustering in quivering patches on the walls.  I didn't like that.  Open windows faced us, but no one watched from them. 
"Where to?"  I asked.  I didn't recognize any of these buildings.  Had they changed since we came into the valley?
"Find food," Kalan said.
Yori nodded.  "Most of these buildings I recognize, but they weren't together like this in reality."  She laughed.  "Reality."
I wasn't in the mood.  "Any bakeries or markets?"
She glanced around.  
"Farmers coming," Kalan said.  "Can't stay."
"No," she said.  "None that I recognize, anyway."
"All right, we'll have to search for food."  Setting off at a trot, I led.  We passed the first buildings, puzzling at the open doorways where rotting curtains hung.  
Kalan jerked his head to one side, eyes narrowed.  "Moved," he hissed.  "Gone now."
"Tricks," I said.  "For the love of the gods don't attack anything that doesn't attack us first."
At the first major intersection we looked as far as we could down the cross streets.  I recognized a low, squat building as a part of the healer's quarters that I had never been in.  When I pointed it out, Yori gave it one glance and looked away.
"What?"  More mysteries?  I felt anxious, exposed.  
"Mercy Quarters," she said.  "Where the ones beyond healing are brought for last rites."
" 'Beyond healing,' "  I repeated.  "Let's give that a wide berth."
We gazed into little shops, but there was no one behind the counters and nothing to eat.  A swarm of flies circled the door of one large building, and we avoided the place.  The street led to a small, rotting plaza.  Cotton awnings over the wooden stalls were ragged, coated with grime.  Some stalls had fallen over completely, spilling broken pottery and dried fruit into the courtyard.  The fountain in the center barely flowed, releasing a trickle that dribbled from the top of a small statue of a palm tree down its leaves and into a basin.  
My mouth felt gravelly, and I took a step forward.
Laughter and talking burst out around me.  Yelping, I leaped back and looked around for the people making the noise.  Yori and Kalan were apparently as bewildered as I.  No one had entered the square.  I walked toward the fountain again.  This time nothing happened.  A rat scurried over my sandal, its claws scraping my skin, and I shook my foot to hurry it.  Kalan watched it flee with a disgusted look.  
"You shouldn't drink," Yori said.  
"I know, but I want to touch it, see if it's real.  It's been the first clear water we've found since we've been here.  I'm sick of drinking magical water and that stuff from my water skin."
"Sounds like you're thinking of taking a sip," she said, shaking her head.
Sighing, I looked into the water.  "No, but—"  I jerked back and looked over my shoulder, searching for the swarthy face I had seen reflected next to mine.  No one was there.  
"Where are the people, do you suppose?"  Yori watched me carefully.
"Here," Kalan said from across the fountain.  He was looking down at something.  A body?
"Is it another—"  Yori started.
He shook his head.  "No.  Pin."  He leaned down and picked up a jagged piece of shiny steel shaped like a many-pointed star, holding it up so I could see it.  "Remember?"  
"No."
"Knew place familiar.  Rogues, remember?" 
The memory came back, Kalan burning down the young thieves, and I felt cold all over.  They had each been wearing a little star, some sort of group insignia.
"It's the place," I said.  "It's the same place."
"What place?"  Yori asked.  "What happened here—there?"
"About six months into our travels we were in a town, Sirinus.  Some street boys were making trouble, and Kalan—"
"Stopped trouble," he said.  
"—killed them," I finished, letting out my breath.  Their screams!  Gods, I saw them running, wrapped in fire, and heard them for weeks after that, every time I closed my eyes.  Skin and clothes melted together—
"Flame purifies," Kalan said, turning the pin in his fingers.
"You burned them to death?"  She stared at him in horror.  "What were they doing?"  Before he could answer, she said, "They were human, weren't they?  Like Wrin?"
"Yori, this isn't the place—"
"You saw that?  And here you are, calmly remembering it all?"
"Not calmly.  My heart still beats faster.  But they weren't simply 'causing trouble.'  They had weapons and were hurting people."
"So that justifies—"
"No!"  I snapped and caught myself.  The plaza was spooking me.  "Look.  Bickering is what the Isle wants.  It doesn't help us."
From one of the alleys came the sound of whispered laughter.  I ignored it.
"Couldn't you have found some other way to make them stop?" she asked Kalan.
He dropped the star.  "Don't have to justify."
Her face paled with anger.  Then she nodded.  "You're right, Kalan, you don't."  She looked pained and weary.  "You don't.  Let's get going.  This place feels shut in."  She walked around the fountain, careful not to disturb anything, and started toward the main street leading out of the plaza.
I dipped my hand into the fountain and was rewarded with cool water washing the ash and grime away.  The temptation to drink was stronger, and, with that, the certainty that I didn't want to because it was so enticing.  I shook my hand, wiped it on my candis and joined Yori and Kalan.  I watched the street we had entered by, fearful of seeing the apparitions from the fields, but if they had started searching the town they hadn't come this far.
A dog staggered out of a side alley and yapped at us.  Black ooze dripped from its front feet as it stumbled toward us.  
"Yori, that dog—"
"No," she said, her voice strained.  
"It is."  
I remembered when I was seventeen, and Yori and I were walking in the Academy field.  She'd gotten a little ahead of me.  
"Zahid, it's a dog, but it's sick..."
"Don't touch it, wait until I get up there."  I head up the hill.  She's bent over a small furry thing which heaves and coughs.  Utu shines around her, outlining her hair tumbling down.  I want to put my arms around her waist and hold her.
-kack- -hough-
"Zahid, hurry up.  It's really sick."
"I'm hurrying."  I head over.  It's a little dog, white and grey with floppy ears.  Its paws are coated in black goop, and it's frothing at the mouth.
"What's wrong?"  
Hells.  "It's sick, Yori, really sick.  That black stuff is from an Efritology experiment.  They dump efrit blood in a pit about a quarter-mile that way"—I point—"but I guess this poor little guy got through the fence somehow."
-kaff- -kaff-
"Well, what can we do?"  
"It's poison.  Even healers can't do anything for that.  It's going to die."  The little fellow hears our voices at last and looks up at Yori, wagging its tail feebly.  Her eyes mist.  
"Look, why don't you go back to the Academy, and I'll be along in a minute."  I start searching for a memory.
"You're not going to kill it, are you?"  She looks at me, her eyes uncannily like the dog's.  I look away.
"If we leave it it'll die slowly.  The healers can't help it, and we couldn't risk carrying it anyway.  One of us might get—"
"We could make a sling or something out of your shirt."
"Yori, no one can help it."
-hough-  Blood flecks its mouth.
"All right then," she says, tears in her eyes.  "We can't let it suffer."  
"Maybe you should wait."
"No, I don't want it to think we're doing this because we hate it."  She kneels and pats the dog's head, and it wags again.  I close my eyes to concentrate and find a memory:
"And you, boy, what is your name?  Get over here."  Instructor Ranhammon!  What'd I do now?
I shatter it.  Fear flows.  This is getting easy!  I shape the magic and open my eyes.
The dog looks up and tries to bark at me but gags foam.  Its eyes beg me to help, please help, I wandered into a Bad Place.
"Utu."  The feeling of power is gone.  The whole world is hopeful brown eyes.
Light-darts make a distinctive sound.  
The animal sat in the middle of the street and bayed, sending chills through my body.
"Stop!"  Kalan shouted.  The dog cocked its head to one side and looked at him.  
Kalan raised his fingers.
A gust blasted through the plaza, flapping the awnings and raising a cloud of dust.  When I opened my eyes the dog was gone.  
"Look," Yori said quietly.  
Following her gaze, I picked out a rotting arm sticking out from under a fallen awning.  A thick gold chain on its wrist told me instantly who it was, the woman from Samat.  Kalan had wanted to try out a new lightning spell, and he cast it at her.  It killed her instantly.  He said he hadn't thought it would reach that far, he just wanted to see what it looked like—My scalp tingled.  How many were there?
Kalan scuffed at the awning.  Ashes and bits of charred bone were revealed.
"Leave it, Kalan.  There's no need."  I didn't want him to uncover the rest.
"All here," he said tonelessly.  "All."
"Let's get the Hells out of here," Yori said.  She was staring at Kalan through narrowed eyes.  Then she turned away and started off again. 
The wind kicked up again, more fiercely this time, and I ran over and grabbed his arm.  "Come on."  I shoved him toward Yori.  He slipped from my grasp and ran past her.  I followed, avoiding looking at the ground.  There would be many more bodies.
We walked close together into the street, warily scanning the buildings.  This part of the town was silent also, though there were more flies.  Bodies lay everywhere, leaning in doorways, propped in windows, slumped in a parody of rest on steps, wearing the three-pointed hats of Decadurinis, farming boots of Luricania, silk shirts and pantaloons from Varin.  Some were blistered and charred, others stripped of their skins.  One had no head.  Clouds of flies swarmed over them all.  Some rippled.  Puzzled, I stepped closer to one of these, a young woman who was mercifully sprawled on her face.  The rippling was masses of maggots under her skin.  
Heaving, I caught up to my friends.  "It's a place for the damned," I gasped to Yori.  
"Yes, our damned."  Her expression was set, firm.  
Kalan's fingers twitched as he looked around the plaza.
We hurried up a side street, away from the bodies, and through an empty plaza.    
"I smell bread," Yori said. 
"I'm not hungry," I said, thinking of the rippling corpses, but the smell of the bread was close and strong.  Immediately I felt weak all over.  We hadn't eaten a fresh meal in days.  I thought I heard Janine humming as she pulled bread from the oven, and I ached to be with her.  A few more days, and I'd be back.  Somehow.  If I could hold on a few more days.
"Here," Kalan said eagerly, his nose up as he followed the smell into a small shop fronted with bricks.  He went in before we could join him.  Yori gave me a resigned look and entered.  
The shop was dark, since the shutters were over the windows, but we had found the right place.  Fresh loaves of rye and wheat bread cooled on the countertops, and, behind them, on a rack fresh out of one of the earth-ovens, were muffins and biscuits.  There were no bodies here as far as I could tell, though I couldn't see behind the counter or into the back room.  Kalan was already tearing off the end of a loaf of bread with his teeth.  Yori opened the shutters, and light flooded the shop.  It was clean and tidy, recently whitewashed.  She looked out, and then she turned and helped herself to one of the muffins.  I tensed.  The water in the plaza had felt dangerous, a temptation.  But this shop felt wholesome, not deathly like the plaza.  A more subtle trap?  It didn't feel like it. 
With a grimace she nibbled, chewed, swallowed.  She paused, and I held my breath.
"Delicious," she said and devoured the muffin.  
I tore a loaf in half.  A cloud of steam rose from it, and I inhaled.  The smell set my mouth watering, and I took a bite.  It had a light, nutty taste, like oat bread, and was still oven-hot.  I devoured it. 
Why was this here?  The Isle certainly had no reason to feed us.  If anything it should be starving us so we would be weaker and more helpless.  Why, then—
"The frost-wizard!" I burst, spraying out flecks of bread.  
"What?"  Yori asked.  
"Kalan, remember the frost-wizard in Ashby?  One of the stores there was a bakery like this one.  That's why there're no bodies here, and why there's good bread."   
"What are you talking about?" Yori asked.
"Kalan and I stumbled onto this little town in Pamandari.  There was a master there, a rogue who was using weather magic to freeze the place.  He was sacrificing villagers to a frost efriti in return for power.  Same old story.  I wanted to leave as fast as we could because he was a master, and I didn't think we had a prayer of winning.  I figured we could report him to the Academy.  Anyway, Kalan used some of his flame elemental friends with that fire magic he's so good at to—"
"—solve problem," Kalan said.  He smiled radiantly.
"Yes.  The villagers put us up while we healed.  This bakery is like one in that village."  I looked around the simple shop.  "I think the Isle can't discriminate between emotions.  It tosses in bits and pieces of all sorts of emotional experiences."
Yori frowned.  "So you think this place might not recreate only the negatives?  Maybe this"—she waved to indicate the bakery—"is patterned from something positive?"
"Yes."
"All the buildings I recognize are places where something painful has happened," she said.  "No friendly places."
We were silent, eating.  Why hadn't I seen any buildings from my past, once we came into the town?  It was as if the areas I had seen had faded away or changed to areas familiar to Yori and Kalan.  These were all places where Kalan had killed and Yori had been hurt. 
Maybe the town wasn't testing me, but them.  It had to be trying to play them against each other.  They were having trouble getting along as it was, and the Isle was putting even more strain on them, hoping one or both of them would break. 
I glanced at Yori, who was watching Kalan with a sad expression on her face, and then at Kalan, who was eating the last of the muffins with a gusto that made him oblivious to us.  She had stepped back from him, emotionally.  She would work with him, but she wouldn't try to force him to cooperate.  And he—he was itching for trouble and wouldn't be happy until he blew something to bits. 
"Yori..."  The voice was a child's, pleading.  I looked behind me, to the doorway.
"Great Utu!"  
There was a crowd of people, two in the doorway and more in the street outside, children and old people, some in rags and others in silk, shattered bones poking from their arms and legs, wounds bloody and raw, one reeking of gangrene.  How had they crept up on us?  
An old man with oozing sores propped himself against the window and reached in, trying to touch Yori's face, but she stepped back toward Kalan.  The two children in the doorway looked like brother and sister.  The little girl was blistered and smoking and made little noises like a cat mewling.  The boy was worse, blood seeping through cracked skin and trickling down his face and chest.  His arms were whole, unburned, but his hands were so charred that bone showed through.  His breathing was short, each breath a grunt.  I could hear his skin crackle as he reached forward.
"Please, Yori, help us.  We don't want to go to the Mercy Quarters."  
The girl whined and tapped the boy's back.  Skin cracked.  Blood dribbled from her mouth.
"Who?  Who are they?"  I backed away.  Kalan held one hand in front of him.  
I put my hands over his.  "Careful," I whispered.  
"Don't."  He pulled away.  I was suddenly sad, as melancholy as I had felt when I thought of Janine.  He was going to do as he wished, mindless of the consequences.    
Careful to keep several feet away, Yori bent down and faced the children.  I imagined she was smiling or trying to.  The boy looked down at the floor.  His grunting speeded up, sounding like he was saying "eh-eh-eh."
"It's okay, Salim.  The healers at Mercy Quarters are very good, very helpful.  They'll make the pain stop."
The boy glanced at his sister and looked at the floor again.  His arm lowered to his side.  
"They'll make us die, all of us—eh-eh—We came here because you can make us live again.  Please.—eh-eh-eh—I want to grow up and be a warrior like my father.  Cheribe wants to go to Atlan and be a scribe.  It's not fair if we die now!"  
The crowd was leaning forward, waiting.  Something ugly went through them.  The boy's plea seemed menacing.  I felt Kalan next to me, his muscles taut.  Stepping closer to Yori, I found the memory of her facing down the honomir.  I took a deep breath and relaxed.  An expanding shield was powerful magic.  I'd need it to handle a crowd.
"Utu is calling, Salim, and you need to go.  The pain will go away, and you'll be in a better place.  There are others there, friendly people who will help you.  People you know.  They're waiting for you."  Her voice was soothing.
Salim looked up again, his brown eyes full of tears.  "You're telling us to die.—eh-eh—How can a healer do that?"
"There's nothing I can do for you, Salim, or for your sister, or any of these people.  The Mercy Quarters is the only place that can help you now.  Utu doesn't want you to live in such pain, Salim.  He loves you.  He'll take it all away, if you let Him."
"Utu isn't there.  Only healers are there.—eh-eh—They decide, not Utu.  If Utu wanted us he'd take us.  Healers kill and say Utu wants them to.  Killer."  He jumped at her, blackened flesh sloughing away from his hand to reveal a stinger—  
He crumpled like a sheet of paper and flew out the door, surrounded by a cloud of blood drops.  His sister rushed us, hands sprouting claws, and was blown back by a geyser of flame.  
Kalan howled triumph.  
My head hurt from his magic surging past.  
The crowd roared and pushed forward.  A dozen torn and bloody arms groped through the window and doorway.  
"Back!  There has to be a way out!"  Yori spun and pushed at me, shoving me into Kalan.  We headed for the back room, where the ovens were.
Kalan raised his hands over his head and stopped moving.  I recognized the position for the spell he was about to cast.
"No!"  I shoved him to ruin his concentration.  A flame storm would kill us in this tiny place.
I shattered my memory and channeled power:
So strong, Yori, you look so strong.  Mouth taut.  Eyes slitted.  Utu shines from you.  
Circling Kalan and Yori with my arms, I shaped the power and let it burst free.
The shop exploded.  Wood and brick erupted outward, shattered into smaller chunks, streamed dust.  Thick beams creaked and burst as the shield expanded through the roof.  Debris fell down the sides of the shield, burying the mob.  Bodies were crushed by the onrushing energy.  The magic jangled my nerves.  So much, released so fast!  My legs buckled.  Kalan and Yori caught me.  An old man with one leg tried to hop away and was overtaken, knocked down, pulped against the wall across the street.
I gasped for air.  Spots of light floated before my eyes.
The spell ceased.  Dust floated down, smelling of rock and aged wood.  
"Have to...run," I panted and started to fall.  I was drained.  Again.
Yori grabbed me.  "Kalan, get him under the arm.  Yes.  Run!"
Jerking, they heaved me forward.  Bricks turned red, then back to orange.  Sharp pain in my foot—I saw red again.  Rubble formed a perfect circle.  
"I did this."  My head lolled forward.  I saw several moving things, black.  "Something's still moving."  Everything spun for a moment, and my stomach heaved.  
A beetle crawled next to Kalan's foot.  It was orange and black, beautiful.  It was trying to get around his foot.  He staggered with my weight and smashed it.  
"Too heavy," he growled, and shifted me—The ground rushed up.

Sizzling, close but quiet.  Hot.  Dust smell.  Heat, glorious heat, wrapped my body like a soft blanket.  It seeped into my aching muscles and leached away some of the pain.  In a moment I realized I was covered with a thick layer of sand that was heated somehow, and that's where the warmth came from.  Opening my eyes, I saw I was under a shelter rigged from our blankets and pieces of wood that must have come from the town.  A breeze blew grains of sand against the blankets, making the sizzling sound.  It was early evening.
I felt as if I had run for miles.  My legs were sore, arms leaden, chest so tight it was painful to breathe.  No more expanding shields this Trial.  Turning my head, I could see Kalan and Yori building a fire a few yards away.  Were they talking?  I couldn't hear them over the sand blowing against the shelter.  I tried to rise, but the effort made me woozy, and I had to lie still. 
They were talking quietly and seldom looked at each other.  Kalan started the fire with a wave of his hand and fed it from wood scraps piled beyond my view.  The sky was lit by sheets of lightning.  Faint thunder followed the flashes.  Would that noise grow louder as we got closer to the center?  We had to be close now, no more than a couple miles away.
Yori opened her pack, took out her water skin, poured a little water and offered it to Kalan, who took a swallow.  She put it away, and they sat quietly.  
That small sign of care relieved me.  The Isle hadn't succeeded entirely in pitting them against each other.  I dozed.

"Zahid?"  Gentle fingers brushed sand off my face.  
I opened my eyes.  There was faint light, so it was still early evening.  There was movement at my side.  I turned my head to see Yori. 
"Feeling better?"
"Ugh.  Feels like my bones are lead.  Like the hot sand, though.  Thanks.  Where are we?"
"Other side of the town.  It's desert.  Looks like we made it through the ash."  She'd brought my water skin in.  She dribbled water into her hand and wetted my lips with it.
"Good," I gasped.  Then, "Kalan dropped me."
She let a few drops fall onto my lips.  "A little at a time."  She put the water skin down.  "He dropped you once.  He picked you right back up, and we got out of there.  Those ghouls or whatever they were stopped at the edge of town.  We brought you as far as we could before we set up this shelter.  Kalan went back for firewood.  I heard fire roaring in town, so I guess some of them caught up with him."    
I remembered the sickly people clustered around the bakery in more detail than I liked.  "I killed all those people..."
She stroked my forehead.  "Not people.  Haunts or ghouls, I don't know what.  But they aren't people.  They look like people, but their eyes are different.  I wasn't close enough to tell for sure until Salim attacked me.  They aren't people.  I don't know if there are any real people here."
I thought of the way the boy had looked at the floor while talking.  "Who were they?"
"The hopeless ones.  I worked at the Mercy Quarters, off and on.  It's draining work.  The hopeless ones come there, and we do what we can to ease their pain.  If they want, we send them on."  She gave me another sip of water.  "Those things in the bakery all looked like people I had helped pass on.  I suppose the Isle sensed how sorry I felt for them and wanted to hurt me."    
Cradling my head in one arm, she dribbled water onto my face and washed me with a rag she must have torn from my candis.  Her touch was careful.  Her face was drawn, but there was life in her eyes.  That eased me as much as the heat.
"Kalan cast some spell to keep you hot all night.  The sand will relax your body while you rest."  She squeezed water into my mouth.  "Your shield was incredible.  I was terrified until I realized it was supposed to do that.  Kalan was shaken up, too.  I think that was more than he thought you could do."  She smiled mischievously.  "I'd make mint tea, but I think I'd better save the mint for later.  I'm afraid things are going to get worse."
I knew what she meant.  The breeze brought a faint smell of something rotting.  
"We should talk about Kalan and how we're going to go on," she said.  
A wave of nausea passed through me, and I spit up the water. 
"It might be better if you rested a while before we talk.  Why don't I come back in the morning, at the end of my watch?  We'll talk then.  Good night."
" 'Night," I mumbled.  
What remained to be said about Kalan?  As long as they could stand one another well enough to help each other stay alive, why did she want to discuss Kalan with me?  There was no way we three would ever be friends again in the way we had been, I knew that from the look on her face in the plaza.  She'd seen a side of him that she'd only heard of before, and it had been too much for her, especially since he'd killed Wrin.  
We were tearing apart when we needed each other most.  I had to keep us together.  There was no other way.
I gave myself to the hot sand and slept.

—scratch, scratch—
Something tugged my candis, over my left knee.
"Yori?"  I whispered.
Something moves, a small shape, a little closer to my head.  What in the Hells is this?
I dropped the memory into my Memory Sea.
The animal paused as if hearing my thoughts, then inched closer.  It was fat and had hair and tiny paws.  A rat.
Relieved, I laughed.  "This is my bed.  Get out of here."
It wiggled its nose at me and then scurried away.  I laughed.  It was harmless, but I still preferred it outside my shelter.  How had it gotten so fat?  There had been no rat-signs in the bread store.  Maybe it fed somewhere else.  Hadn't I smelled something rotting earlier?  What was out there?

At first I thought another rat was nudging me, pushing at my shoulder.  Before I could open my mouth Yori whispered for me to wake up.  
I struggled against the blanket of sand and managed to rise to a half-sitting position.  The air was warm, almost hot.  Kalan's spell still held.  Soft, blue light—a simple spell—radiated from her palm.
"How do you feel?"
"Well, I'm tired, but—What's that?"
Cries arose close to the shelter, screeches and croakings that sounded like carrion-birds.  "How long has that been going on?"
"Started when I came on watch.  It's from ahead of us.  I think it's a clue to what we'll find."
I thought of the rat.  "More bodies."
"Maybe.  More trouble, certainly."
We listened to the cries.  
"We're only a couple of miles from the center, I think," I said.
She nodded.  "Doesn't sound too hard, does it?"
"No," I said.  "A quick jaunt and—boom! find the source of the curse.  Then we discover a way back and go home.  Done by noon."  
We both laughed, and then she sobered.  "Kalan."  
I sighed.  She didn't have to say any more.  I knew what was on her mind.  "Yori, you don't have to explain.  Back in that plaza you saw Kalan the dšck‡lf, surrounded by dead people.  You gave up on him, it was all over your face.  I understand that.  You save lives."
She looked thoughtful.
I went on, "It must have been hard to see the killing side of him.  But he was the one who helped me get through the Efrit's Run in one piece, the one who listened to me and taught me and"—I hesitated—"loved me when no one else did.  I can't give up on him.  I can't step aside and let him fall.  He's still a child.  I can't stand back and make him entirely responsible for his own fate."  
A long pause elapsed.  Yori looked at me, the shadows on her face shifting with the flickering light.  She said, "I've watched you protect him this entire trip, trying to keep him from getting himself hurt.  You've taken care of me, too.  I needed that for a while.  Thank you."
"You're welcome." 
Her face became serious.  "Don't you think I know you love him, and that he's a child?  I was at the Academy, remember?  I know dšck‡lfs live longer than we do and mature more slowly.  If he wasn't so destructive none of this would be a problem.  Wait—"  She held up her hand to stop my reply.  "Remember when he used the tornado to clear a spot for us to camp?  He didn't ask, and he didn't wait.  It almost got out of hand."
"But it didn't," I said.  "You're talking as if the only things he does are destructive, but they aren't.  If he hadn't been along we would never have made it this far.  He got me out of the water when the carpet fell, or I would have been eaten before I ever got to shore.  He blew up the spore-bag in the fog before it hit us, or we'd have died right there.  It was his water-walking spell that got us past those ghouls with scythes, and he was the one who got that tentacle off you in the ash.  Hells, he saved your life in the bakery!"  Why was she pushing against him so hard?  Because he'd killed Wrin?
  "I know he did!" she said.  "But just as often he's the biggest threat we're facing.  That kumadin never would have attacked you if not for him.  He summoned the honomir through sheer stubbornness, and it almost killed us."  Her expression was more frustrated than angry, and I knew she was feeling forced to take a stand she didn't like.  
I felt torn between the two of them, forced to make a choice.  Wasn't there a middle ground?  "If he hadn't summoned the honomir you never would have had to fight it off, and you wouldn't have come out of your melancholy.  He's endangered us, but he's also helped.  Aren't you grateful at all?"
She jerked as if I'd slapped her.  "Yes, I'm grateful for his help!  Gods, you talk as if I'm trying to push him off a cliff!  I'm willing to work with him when he's making an effort to work with us.  But when he isn't I'm not going to support him."  She spread her hands.  "That's all I'm saying."
I glanced at the sand, the shadowy blanket/shelter, the darkness outside.  How could I answer?  My only argument came from the heart.  "He's been my friend since I came to the Academy, the only one I had there except for you.  He's been changing, being more responsive toward us."
She shook her head.  "In little ways, not big ones.  He's still wild, liable to explode at any moment.  I saw you stop him from casting that spell in the bakery.  How badly would that have hurt us?"
"What do you want me to do, drive him off?  I can't, you know, I'm not strong enough.  Let him die?  I know what he's done to your life, but you're being vicious!"  My heart beat wildly, and I was breathing hard.  What was I supposed to do, abandon him?
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.  "I'm not telling you to do anything.  Damn it, do you think I like this?  I know he's hurting, and I know he needs our help.  All I'm asking is for you not to excuse him when he's being dangerous.  Don't let him get away with things.  I don't want to give up on him, but he won't listen to us, and he's going to get us killed."  She opened her eyes and looked at me.  Her expression was pained.  "No, don't say anything.  Please, think about it."  The flickering in her palm went out.  "Good night."  She backed out of the shelter, and I heard her walk back to her bedroll.  
Was Kalan as dangerous as she said?  I didn't have to think long to answer that.  
Yes, his life had been hard—almost impossible.  Yes, he was still a child.  And yes, I loved him.  How much forgiveness could I afford to give him?
Never had the days at the Academy seemed so easy, so rich.  I could smell the clover and crushed grass and hear the surf pounding on the beach.  We talked about pirate ships, famous wizards and masters of old, of graduating and having the world at our feet.  I remembered Kalan with a long piece of grass stuck between his teeth like a Luricanian farmer, curled up with an old history scroll, reading aloud so quickly he seemed to be reciting events he'd seen.  One misty Night of the Dead we crept to the little graveyard behind the Academy fields, by the waste site, and communed with spirits.  Pale reflections, they wafted above the graves, held by Kalan's magic as we spoke with them, asking about the old stories.  They were forgetful, and Kalan grew bored quickly.  I remembered Linim, killed the first day.
I lifted my arm free of the sand and plucked the gem off my turban.  Even in the dark it shone with its orange fire.  I stroked it, feeling the scratches in its smooth surface, until I fell asleep.

By the next morning I was strong enough to travel and struggled out of the sand.  The wind had died, but the storm was angrier than ever.  Peals of thunder rumbled on and on.  It was cold enough to make me shiver. 
Kalan and Yori slept next to a heap of ashes.  A violent shiver went through me.  Who had been on watch?  Crows hopped around the campsite, some pecking half-heartedly at our packs.  As I approached they rose, screeching and cackling.  My friends didn't stir, and for a moment I feared something had killed them in their sleep.  Then Kalan growled, and I breathed again.  Yori's eyes were circled with dark, and Kalan's face was creased with exhaustion.  How much sleep had they had after dragging me all the way out here and setting up the shelter, Kalan's returning to the town for wood, and their building the fire?  No wonder they'd fallen asleep.  The anger leaked away.  Well, we were safe.  But we'd have to be more careful than this.
Kalan rested uneasily, his body twisted around the pack like a child around a pet.  What would happen when I woke him?  What would he see written in my face?  Something seemed to have been removed from him as he'd slept, some of the fierceness I had always seen in him.  He looked lost.  Had he heard Yori and me talking?  She'd said he'd been surprised by my expanding shield.  The memory of the spell made me grin.  I'd never tried it before, and I was proud that I had handled the magic.  
I felt a sudden twinge of guilt.  How had Kalan interpreted that spell?  Did he think I didn't need him anymore?  He had to know better than that.  
"Kalan, wake up."  I touched his shoulder with my sandal and jumped back.  Instantly he awoke and focused on me.
"Look better," he said.
I nodded.  "Feel a lot better, too.  Thanks for helping Yori keep me in one piece."
"Welcome."  He looked away suddenly and fumbled with the pack.  
Yori was slow waking and moved as if dazed.  
"Today better be the end of this Trial," she grumbled, yawning and stretching.  "I won't be able to stand my stink in another day."  She peeled her candis away from her skin and made a face.  "And you"—she pointed at me—"you should see yourself."  
"I don't want to, thanks.  I can already smell myself, and that's bad enough."
"Wake dead," Kalan said, grinning.  
"Not funny," I said.  
Breakfast was the last of our food.  We hadn't had time to grab any bread.
"What do you suppose is ahead?"  Yori asked.
"Trouble," Kalan said.
"All these birds..."  I added.
"Dreams," she said with surprise.  "I didn't have any nightmares last night.  Did anyone else?"
"No," I said.  Kalan nodded.  
"That has to mean something," she said, frowning.  "Why did the Isle suddenly let us get a good rest?  When I was on watch last night I got this feeling, as in the bakery, that it was all right to go to sleep."  
That made me feel better about her falling asleep on watch.  "Maybe the Isle was using energy for something else, preparing some new..."  Trap.  I didn't care to think about that.       
"Need new carpet," Kalan said.
"What?"  Yori looked at him, and he glanced away.  
"Lost carpet.  Find new one or can't leave."
"You think we're going to stumble across one in the ash?"  She laughed.
He didn't answer.
He was nervous, changing the subject so quickly.  Did he have an idea what was ahead?  I didn't see how he could.  "First we finish this Trial.  Then we worry about leaving.  Maybe our carpet has washed ashore by now."
Neither of them responded.  
I took down the shelter, rolled up my blanket and gave Kalan his.  He put it away.  We shouldered our packs—I took the one Kalan and I shared—and set off.  As we topped the first dune I looked back.  The town was still there, which vaguely surprised me.  For some reason I'd expected it to disappear as soon as we passed through it.  Perhaps the Isle expected we would be back.  Solitary crows flew over the town, some diving between the buildings and some hanging overhead, wings motionless.  I wanted to torch the place to consume its rottenness.  Kalan had said, "Flame purifies."  He was right.
Streaks of dirt, rich river-loam, lay over the dunes in wider and wider belts and finally replaced the sand entirely.  Pale plants grew in thicker patches of soil.  I stopped to touch them, watch their stalks spring back, see dew shine on their leaves.  I felt as if I'd never seen a plant before.  The grain stalks I'd taken from the fields were gone, maybe stolen by rats.  
"Come on.  Once we get the Hells out of here you'll have all the time you want to play with plants," Yori said as she climbed toward the top of the large hill we were scaling.  Kalan pulled up one of the plants, squinting at it as if it might attack him.
"What is it?" I asked him.
"Sieda," he said in High Cerelian.  "Common Seligar."  He dropped the plant and looked at me as if he could not quite figure out who I was.  "Home..."
Cold swept through me.  I knew.  Without having to join Yori as she neared the top of the hill, without Kalan having to say another word, I knew what we would find in the next valley.  
"Let's get going," I said to him, taking his arm.  "It'll be all right."  Even as I said the words my heart beat faster.  
"Great Utu!"  Yori cried from the top of the hill.  She'd halted once she could see over.  Kalan and I came up the slope, our feet sinking into the loam.  It smelled of plantings and just enough rain and plenty of light.  Isolated stalks of grass infiltrated the little plants, taking more and more of the hillside until at the top the grass was the victor.  I longed to rest and forget the Trial, but my feet kept moving.  If we got lucky, if we found a way off the Isle, if we survived, it would all be over soon. 
We joined Yori.


XII



Nothing in Kalan's reminiscences prepared me for the manor below.  It wasn't that its size was amazing.  Actually it was about the same size as the Satrap's palace.  But the architecture was more intricate than anything I had seen in human lands.  This building was one great work, its many towers seeming to grow toward the sky like live things.  The bulk of the building was low, only two or three stories high.  From this solid rectangle rose towers, some thin and high like needles, others fat and only a few stories higher than the main building.  Waterfalls poured from some of the fat towers, plummeting thirty or forty feet into rooftop pools and lily-ponds.  
Sections of the roof were covered entirely with shrubs and trees, bright flowers and pools surrounded by sand.  The stone of the building was deep blue, ingrained with some sparkling material, and shone like water.  Vines grew up the walls and girdled the towers.  Red tiles covered the roofs and radiated waves of heat that made the entire building look like a mirage.  Hundreds of windows graced the outer walls and towers, and stained glass skylights dotted the roof.  What a rainbow must have been inside! 
Falcons and hawks floated above the tiles.  Swallows swooped among the plants.  The place looked closer than it was, and I saw tiny bursts of color among the blossoms that could only be hummbirds and butterflies.  
Surrounding the palace were fields gleaming with irrigation canals of the same blue stone and thick with fruit trees and vegetables.  Petals blew across the floor of the valley, piling up against the bases of the trees. 
"Incredible," I breathed, shaking my head slowly.   
"Not even in Decadurinis are there palazzos like this," Yori said.
It was beautiful and peaceful, and, of course, it was a death trap.
"Is that what we're here for?"  Yori asked at last.
"No," I said.  "I think we have a few miles to go to the center.  This is like the town, a decoy."
"We can go around," she said.  There was a hint of regret in her voice.
"Home," Kalan whispered.
"This—?"  Yori said, stretching one arm toward the palace in disbelief.  
"Korin Selor," he said.  "Gone now.  Phantom."  His voice was choked.  
Yori looked at me, confused.
I spoke quietly.  "It was razed, most of his family killed.  His father was killed."  
She nodded and watched him with a slight frown.
He gave no sign of having heard us.  "There."  He pointed to a small metal door to the left of the main doors.  "Hounds.  Father took slaving."  He smiled.  "My rooms there, in tower."  He pointed to one of the slender towers.  Then his smile faded.  "Sent Kalan away.  Knew bad things happening.  Sorry, father, Kalan's sorry...  Should have been good."  He rubbed his eyes.  
Yori started to speak and then closed her mouth.  
"All dead.  Burning, burning..."  He pointed vaguely at the rooftop gardens.  "Swam with Asth-Bahn.  Burned now.  Why?  Remens says, 'Politics.'  Not reason, Zahid.  Not reason."  His shoulders sagged.  "Ran and ran and ran.  See?  Always running..."
Yori shook her head.  She walked to him and put her hand on his arm.  "We understand," she said.  "We understand."  She opened her arms, and he turned like a marionette to her, slowly circling her waist with his arms.  She glanced at me over his shoulder, her eyes wide and sad.  
"It's not your fault," she soothed, stroking his hair.  "If your father couldn't stop what happened, one little boy couldn't have helped."
"Could have been there," he said.  "Was bad—"  He tried to take a step around her.
She held him.  "No, you weren't.  You've done the best you could."  In the taut lines of her face I could see what those words cost her.  Healer or widow?  He killed Wrin.  He was a child in pain.  I started to approach, but a look stopped me.  She shut her eyes.  
"Oh, Kalan.  It's hard," she whispered.  "For both of us.  But we'll make it."
I bowed my head, looking at the ground, hearing Kalan's sobs and Yori's quiet assurances.  For a moment I remembered the first time I had seen her, her face above me as I lay battered in the healer's quarters, asking how I felt and telling me I would be leaving in a few days.  The words weren't as important as the gentle certainty in her tone, the confidence.  There had been such comfort in her voice that I believed then, and I believed now.  We were going to survive.
"Where belong," Kalan mumbled.  
Yori said firmly, "It is not.  You belong with us."
I glanced back at the palace, seeing details I had missed earlier.  A fence of thin iron bars surrounded the place, each bar topped by a spike.  Carrion birds fluttered around the gates, above a dark pile swarming with rats.  The males of House Korin.  If there were heads on the spikes, the birds hid them.  Had the bodies and the fence appeared only now? 
"Let's walk around," I said.  Something was in the air, in the waving of the trees and the rustling of the grass.  It was as if the air itself strained at us, tried to pull us to the gate.  "Back down this hill and around the valley.  Now."  Turning, I started down the hill.  Yori started to move.  Kalan resisted to take one last look.
"Come on," I said.  
He stiffened.  Yori said something too low for me to hear and tried to push him toward me, but he shoved her away and leaned toward the palace.  
"Come on!" I shouted.  We could still make it— 
He spun and looked at me, eyes wild.  "Look!"  He pointed at the gate.  "Father!  Came back!"
"Kalan!"  I grabbed for him.  Utu, I was losing—  "You don't have to go.  Please!"  
Side-stepping Yori, he sprinted down the hill toward the palace.  
I leapt forward.
Yori caught my arm.  "You'll never catch him."  She let go.
I looked at his retreating back.  She was right.  "Kalan!"
"Come on, Kalan, don't give in," Yori said, straining toward him.  "It's not too late."  
My heart seemed to collapse.  I drew ragged breaths.  A small figure, he raced across the orchard, cloak snapping.  Behind him the grass browned and turned to ash.  At the gate he paused and faced the heap of bodies.  I smashed and saved:
"Dead, damn it all to Hells, they’re dead and hacked to pieces, leave it alone!  Damn you for leaving me in this gods-forsaken place!"
The wind died.  Ash settled on my face.  I seized the memory.  Expanding shield, flame sphere, light-darts, reflectors, absorbers, deflectors—He could overpower anything I could do.
"I'm not running away!  How dare you run away?"
The memory sizzled into my Memory Sea.  
I ran half a dozen steps toward the keep.  "Come back!"  
They stood, the ones on the outside of the pile first, and raised their arms, welcoming.
My body starts to shake, and I blink back tears.  I feel sick.  "No, no, Kalan, please—"
Another memory.  This wasn't the power I wanted!
"You don't have to go to them!" Yori called, her voice breaking.  
He held his hands out to them, and they led him toward the keep.  The doors opened.  
"No.  Please.  Kalan."  
He entered.  The doors shut. 
There was a silence.
"He could come out," Yori said.  
"We'll wait."  
We sat and watched the castle.  It started to shimmer.  
"What's happening?" Yori shouted.
"Oh, no.  No."  
It was gone all at once, vanishing like a mirage.  
I heard a shriek.
	
"Zahid, we have to go.  We can't stay here.  It’s not coming back."
I was lying on my side where I had fallen.  Yori leaned over me.  I managed to get to my knees and looked down at the blowing ash where the building had been.  "We could have hauled him out," I said.
"You know better."
"We should have done something."  I glared at her.  
"Like what?"
"Something!"
"Now you sound like him, about his father."  Pain flashed across her face.  "I wish he'd come back, too.  But he didn’t.  We have to go."    
"What do you want from me?" I snapped.
"Your help."
"I'm no help.  I've never been any help.  What good are shield spells when they can't protect people you love?"
"You've done a good job so far."
I felt too weary even to breathe.  We'd been friends for twenty-six years.  He couldn't be gone.  "You’re saying that because you want me to keep going."
"And what do you want?"
"I want you to leave me the Hells alone."  She wanted him dead anyway.  She was a healer, she could have done something—I shook the thought away.
"You want to sit here and sulk?"  
"Yes."  We had stood and let him go.  We had stood.  And let—I let him go.  It was me.  Me.  I should have been the one who died—
"Do you know what I want, Zahid?"
"Surprise me, Yori.  What do you want?"
Her face tightened.  "I want to live.  I want to get off this rock.  Wrin's gone, and I know the Isle won't give him back.  And it won't give Kalan back, either.  But we're alive, and we can go on." 
I vividly remembered the bodies rising and welcoming him, and I shuddered.  "I'm supposed to accept that the Isle swallowed him up?  That he's over and done?"  
"Yes!  He had a choice, and, Utu help him, he made it.  This place can only offer enticing traps.  You have to step into them yourself."  
"He could come back!  Maybe he's fighting somewhere!”  I was shaking.  She was right.  I looked past her.  “Kalan!  Kalan!  Come back here this instant!  Do you hear me?  Do you...hear me?  Utu, no.  Yori, I—"  I reached for her. 
She pulled me to her, holding my head against her shoulder. 
I nodded, throat tight.  "Why didn't he come back?  Why did he go?"
"I don't know," she said.  "Maybe he couldn’t be alone any more.  Or maybe he wouldn’t come back because we’re human and they looked like dšck‡lfs."  There was a hint of anger in her voice.
"That's not it.  You know better than that."
She nodded.  "How he lasted this long, never talking about all that guilt...  All he did was survive, as his father wanted."  Her voice softened.  "That's the irony, isn't it?"  
I thought of the Masters' Council and their lies about dšck‡lfs surviving on the Isle of Dreams.  "We'll make it," I said, clenching a fist.  "I want to get back and have at those sons-of-bitches.  There are others who want the Academy changed.  I'll find them.  We'll rebuild the Academy.  We can drive Ranhammon off or kill him.  We can make the Academy a place where children are loved instead of used and battered and discarded."  The anger snuffed out like a blown candle.  
"I'm sorry," Yori said.  "I wish he hadn't gone.  I wish it could have worked some other way.  But we have to keep going."  She started walking backwards, looking at me.  
"I don't have to go yet."  I'd wait.  He'd be back, he'd fight his way back.  Dark waves lapped my mind.  Fight his way from where?  The whole place was gone.  My heart felt like a mallet against my chest.  I needed Janine, a need that was an ache as heavy as Kalan's absence.  Dear Utu, he couldn't be, not really, dead.  
"He's not coming back."
"He might."  If my heart stopped beating I'd not have to go on and it wouldn't even be my fault.
She turned away.  
"I could stay here!  I could wait just a little while.  It couldn't hurt." 
Kalan's in the middle of the library's big room, flipping pages of an atlas.  It's raining, and the light coming through the dome is weak.  It smells like wet dirt outside and mildew and old books in here.  It's a good smell.
"Decadurinis.  Yori.  Atlan.  You."  He thrust his finger at the rainbow pages, thumping capitals and tracing political boundaries.  Flipping back through the pages, he said, "Seligar.  Kalan."
The island is black, its cities drops of red without names.  Humans are not allowed to speak, or even to know, the names of dšck‡lf cities.  The dšck‡lfs kill any human who utters a word of their tongue.  
He points to a blood-red triangle at the bottom of the island, where one of the ruling families lives.  
"Korin Selor.  Home."  He smiles wickedly.  "Class time, Zahid.  Korin Selor.  Say."
"Korin Selor."
I shut my eyes and blinked, breathing hard.  If I opened my eyes, would the ground be gone?  I felt as if I stood at the edge of a cliff.  I opened my eyes and found myself slowly walking toward where the keep had been. 
Slowly I turned and trailed after Yori.  I was always following.  
The grass and trees turned back into ash, and we had to cover our mouths as we kicked ash up with our steps.  I walked slowly, stepping into holes and stubbing my toes on rocks.  The pain hardly reached me.  It was sheer fortune that I didn't break an ankle.  Once I thought Kalan called me, but I knew he hadn't.  
How were we ever going to survive now?  We didn't have a chance.  Kalan was—had been—our strongest member.  Without him we'd crumple like paper in a wind storm.
Finally I kicked a hidden rock hard enough to make me cry out, and we stopped while Yori looked to see if my toes were broken.  
“Well, they’re all right,” she said.  “You’re going to lose that nail.  Either walk more carefully or go slower.” 
I walked slower, but my feet still stumbled.  I didn’t care.  Yori stayed beside me, so close I could feel her and hear her breath.  From my other side, silence.  I strained to hear him:  cloak snapping, restless movements, curses.  I felt lopsided, half my support gone.  I smashed and saved the pain:
"I'm not sure I want to go on," I say.  The hollow fills me.
"I know," Yori said.  "But we will."
She didn't care.  She was glad he died.  "Why didn't you stop him?  You knew what he was feeling."
"Stop him how?" she said softly.  "He could overcome all my spells.  All I could do was watch him go and hope he would come back."
The hurt in her voice cut my frustration.  "I'm sorry.  I'm just—Damn it all to Hells."
Clearing her throat, she said, "He was my friend, too.  I loved those butterflies."  She reached a hand toward me, and I took it.  We walked in silence, remembering.   
"The first time I saw you I was with him," I said later, thinking of our midnight foray to the baths, of Yori and her friends playing in the hot water.  That memory was used, but what remained was enough to remind me how excited I'd been.  And there was Kalan, eyes shining at my discomfort.  "And he asked the healers to have you tend me after the Efrit's Run."
"Oh, I know," she laughed.  "He was so pleased about getting us together."  She gave my hand a quick squeeze.  
I wanted to cling to her, disappear to some safe place.  "He taught me so much..."
"You mean he got you into so much trouble."  She smiled.
I managed a grin.  "Same thing, for him."
"He would come over to the healer's quarters sometimes and raise all sorts of Hells," she said.  "One of the old healers, Otan Theriot, had been in the Secession Wars, fighting for the Secessionists."  She yawned, and that set me to yawning.  My weary muscles complained, dragging me to a near-halt.  As I slowed I felt heavier, and I knew that if I halted I wouldn't go again.  It seemed like my heart had died when the palace disappeared, and if I were to stop my body would die also.  Yori kept walking.  I forced myself to keep up.
"They argued whether the Secessionists really won or whether they lost by gaining a swamp full of efrit and screamers.  Theriot said the Secessionists won, and Kalan played efriti's advocate and said no, the Secessionists lost because most of them died.  Their arguments went on until Otan would give up and go into the Sanctuary, where Kalan couldn't follow."
I didn't remember the Secession Wars, but I could picture Kalan delighting in overheating the old man's blood.  I laughed, and some of the exhaustion and hurt slipped off.  "What else did he do when he wasn't with us?  It's a wonder there's any Academy left at all."
Then the pain swept back, and I reached for her.  

"I was blaming him," Yori said.
We were climbing more hills.  The ash gave way to fine powder and then bare rock.  The rock was glassy, fused as if some tremendous fire had seared the valley.  We felt this was finally the true Isle and not a mirage to toy with our minds.  The storm seemed to thin, and we saw little lightning.  I thought I saw glowing gray patches of cloud that might have been glimmers of Utu straining through the storm, but I was so hungry for light that I may have imagined the glow. 
There was nothing on my mind except Kalan and Janine and how I longed to get home.  That's all Kalan had wanted, to go home.
"Mm?" I said.
"Wrin and Kalan.  What's sad is that I can only see it now.  I'm so tired and confused..."  
So was I.  "You were blaming who?"
"Kalan.  I blamed it all on him.  He only made it fast.  He did Wrin a favor, in a way.  More than I—Gods, I've acted so badly."  She put her hand over her face.
"Stop," I said.  I touched her arm, and she lowered her hand.  Lines were around her mouth, lines that had faded the past few days.  She wanted to go home.  So did I.  Home pulled us on.  
"Wrin was sick," she said.  "His body ate itself—"  She faltered.  "I dumped it all on Kalan, as if everything was his fault, the disease and everything.  I never even asked him his side of the story.  I..."  She stopped.  "Friends all those years, and I couldn't even give him the benefit of the doubt.  It hurt so much, seeing him."  
"Shhhh," I soothed.  "How could you expect yourself to be impartial?"  My own ambivalence toward Kalan seemed to have dissolved.  I wasn't going to bear him anger now.  I decided I would tell Yori his side of the story, but not here.  Later, when we were safely away. 
She was silent in a way that discouraged me from saying anything else.  When she was ready she would speak.  We climbed another hill, and another, and at every crest I held my breath and feared what we would find beyond.  Each time it was another hill.  
Where was Kalan's body?  Underground?  Absorbed?  
Ahead loomed the largest hill we had yet climbed.  "Can you climb it?"  I wasn't sure I could.
"I'll be all right.  I want to finish and be done with this place.  The temptation to bring Wrin back is so strong..."
I hadn't thought of that.  The Isle could bring Kalan back—As what, a ghoul?  A zombie?  Even if he was normal, did I want to bring him right back into Seri-Anar's reach?  I shook my head.
"No, I'm not going to try.  But, when I think of him laughing or sitting in his study working on treaties and declarations, or his gentle hands, the scent of him, I think maybe this place could be put to some good.  And then, gods help me, I want to try."  She shut her eyes.  "There was nothing I could do.  You have no idea what it is to be a healer who can't heal.  His body ate itself.  There was no disease, nothing broken.  All I could do was take away a little of the pain.  I felt so useless."  She shook violently.  "I would take his hands, feeling the pain under his skin, and cry to Utu to help, and magic flowed, and all that would happen would be that he would be able to get up and creep to the water closet to pass more blood and pain."  
She took the Utu-symbol from her pocket, holding it for me to see.  
"And Utu!  Where was Utu when Wrin was dying?  Where was Utu when I turned over the altar in the garden?  I stayed in the house and kept the curtains closed.  Bastard god, I called Him."  She lowered her head, her face grey, and put the bit of gold away.
"Utu has obviously forgiven—"    
"I told myself over and over that I was a healer, that I had seen death before, that I should be giving comfort and not feeling sorry for myself.  But who was there to comfort me?  The Academy was far away, and my friends in Decadurinis couldn't understand.  I sent Corolon to stay with Hinna, because he kept getting sick.  It was horrible for him to see his daddy dying.  I just couldn't do it, care for him and Wrin both—Wrin was sinking, and I was following him down."    
"I'm sure he appreciated your care.  He must have known you were suffering."  Clumsy words, but they were all I had.
"He did."  She waved one hand feebly.  "We both forgave and forgave, and he grew more and more ill.  Then the riots started in Ceretesia.  He thought about going while things could still be calmed down, but he was afraid to leave me because he might not come back.  I asked him to go, even though I knew he was so weak.  He had the chance to help so many people.  He wanted to, and I couldn't stand to see any more pain."  Her chest heaved, and she made little panting sounds like the boy in the bakery.  
"It was a brave thing to do, for both of you."  
She laughed bitterly.  "Brave?  It was necessary.  Neither of us could take another day.  So he went.  He knew it was almost hopeless.  But if he succeeded he would save so many lives.  Even if he failed Atlan would benefit.  The Atlanian Great Council had sent an ambassador to try to make peace in an impossible situation.  A grand and noble gesture."  She looked at me, her eyes wet.  "What is it about that desert that you and he both love—loved—so?  The last time I saw him he was being carried out to his wagon.  He turned and waved."  
She began to weep.  "I hadn't the heart to wave back.  I couldn't even make that tiny gesture." 
"Stop punishing yourself," I said.  "You know he understood."  
"The masters said there was hope, the Isle might be able to bring him back.  I clung to that."  She gasped and then mumbled, "I wouldn’t want anything this place gave."
"The Trial's helped you heal.  That much good has come of it."
"No thanks to the Masters' Council.  They're rabbits, terrified someone will come along and challenge them.  They hope we'll die, but they also hope we'll survive and bring back something they can exploit."  
She fell silent, and we walked on.  "It was brutal, the way the masters took advantage of our needs.  Brutal the way—"
"The way Wrin died?"  As I said it I thought of Kalan going to the ghouls outside the gate and the palace disappearing.  Dead.  I concentrated on what Yori was saying.
"Yes," she whispered.  "So much pain.  His joints were so stiff he could hardly move.  Massage made him feel better, and I would make him herbals, but nothing helped for long.  He hurt all the time.  In the evenings we would sit in the garden, and I would read to him.  He loved the political philosophers.  Tuthy, Valien, Maajafed.  Half the time I didn't understand what I read."  She tried to laugh but wept instead.  
"He loved politics.  You should have seen the way his eyes lit up when he was going before the Great Council.  He would stand on the floor of the Council Chamber talking borders, treaties, precedents, news from other countries—I think he would have talked about the weather if he thought he could get away with it.  He loved the talk almost as much as getting things done."  
This time she managed to laugh.  "He would practice speeches in the upstairs study until I made him stop.  He was gone a lot.  I wish we had had more time...  I was out a lot, too.  There was a flood of refugees from Thalarar..."  Her voice faded.  "My father wouldn't let me take Corolon back after Wrin died.  He said I was a wreck."  She made a choking sound like an aborted laugh.  "I knew he was right.  I was too tired...  So I went to the healer's quarters at the Academy."  Her voice rose.  "I have to get home to my boy."
"You will," I said as strongly as I could.  "We'll get home."
In a while she was ready to go on.  We crept up the hill.  

The light faded.  We went on, determined to see whatever we could from the top of the hill in the last of it.  As we neared the top the stone became slick and steep.  We had to crawl.  Even then we slid back time and again, searing our hands and knees.  
Once lightning crackled through the clouds, and thunder echoed.  Startled, I lost my grip and slid back a dozen feet, clenching my teeth as the sleeves of my candis tore and my elbows scraped across the rock.  My foot found a projection and kept me from sliding any further.  
"Okay?"
"Friction burns on my elbows.  I can't climb any more hills."  
"Maybe we won’t have to.  Come on, we're almost to the top."
I crept back up, trying not to notice the skin-and-blood streaks on the rock.  More lightning blasted above us.  The clouds were darker than before.
"It's going to break loose," I said.
She nodded.  
Ash began to fall.  The flakes were fine, then coarser, falling like snow.  They tickled our nostrils and made us sneeze.  If they fell more densely we'd have a problem breathing.  Lightning struck the hills, lashing back and forth.  We could see for miles behind us, all the way back to the ocean.  The reminder that the Isle wasn't endless lifted my heart a little.
Yori pointed at the lightning.  Whatever she said was lost.  Wind whipped her hair into her face and snapped our clothes. 
I shouted, "I'll shield us!"  
She nodded.  I snorted to get ash out of my nose and mouth.  No more talking for a while.  I hunted until I found a memory I was glad to be rid of.  Shuddering, I remembered the farmers outside the town with their scythes, and Kalan's slide:
We slide past, warm mud-water gushing over my arms.  Yori and I are tangled, Kalan's leg's under me—
Scythes slash—  
Steel glints.  
They stink like a peat-bog.
"Utu!" Don’t let me die—
A scythe chops across my hood and jerks my shoulders.  
We slide another ten yards.  Made it.  "Run!"
I shattered the memory and let the energy flow through me.  Sweat trickled down my sides and forehead.  The energy seemed endless, and I realized I was feeding grief into the fear from the memory and that the mix was a powerful alloy.  It felt like more power than I had ever used, but it was easy to control.  The restlessness of the magic seemed puny compared to the downward pull on my heart.  Finally I raised my fists over my head, toward the lightning, and flicked my fingers open.  I felt the energy spread, but there was nothing to see.  I had to trust it would deflect any lightning that struck at us.
I grabbed for the next fingerhold, then the next toe-off, creeping toward the crest.  Yori moved closer to my left.  
"Can't see anything!" she shouted over the wind.
"Invisible!"
"It worked?"
"Hope so!"
The climbing became easier at the top, where other lightning strikes had shattered the stone.  "Doesn't last long!" I shouted.  "Run!"
We ran.  Light seared my eyes—  
Thunder blasted.

My face felt as if I'd been staring at Utu too long.  I hurt all over.  We'd been hit by lightning, or nearly hit.  My muscles twitched and trembled.  I smelled burnt skin and cloth.  Something heavy lay on my legs.  
"Yori?"  My lips cracked.  My throat felt seared.  My eyelids were burnt nearly shut.  I could only open my eyes to slits.  
We lay at the bottom of the other side of the hill.  The lightning had stopped, and I could see only a few feet in the faint light.  Yori was the heavy thing across my legs.  Beyond her there were no more hills.  I didn't care.
"Yori?"  Pain made me wheeze.  
She made a small sound and lifted her head.  Blood dribbled from her nose.  Her face was blistered, her eyelids swollen.
"—you see?" she said.
"What?"  
"Ligh—ligh—"
I nodded.  My shoulders slumped.  I tried to move my leg.  Pain slammed my mind—
"Zahid?  Help please, help, sorry, wanted help father..."
"Kalan?"  I open swollen eyelids.  He's bloody, and his skin has been clawed.  
"Cold," he says.  "Cold and dark here.  Why didn't help?  Why let die?  Please help now.  Be good.  Please, want come back, alive better, Isle hurts and hurts—"
I woke with a start, breathing fast.  My heart thudded.  Damn the Isle and its dreams!  My face and hands were hot, but they didn't hurt anymore. 
"Better?"  
I nodded.  Dead.  He went to them, and he was gone.  Burnt flesh whiffed into my nostrils, and I gagged.
"Try to move.  I healed us a little."  She nudged my side.  "Move something."
I remembered lightning.  It destroyed my shield.  All the power I'd felt, and the lightning had destroyed the shield anyway.  The Isle had tried to annihilate us on that hilltop, a full assault.  Was it worried we were getting too close?
I took a deep breath and moved my legs.  The candis chafing on them felt like wire bristles.  I winced when I opened my seared eyelids.  Yori knelt next to me.
A blue light in her palm lit her face.  Her skin was red, but the blisters were gone.  Her eyelids were no longer swollen.  Her hair was burnt in places.  Holes still smoked in her candis.  She saw me looking.
"You look the same.  I went ahead.  Lot of sand."
"Sand?"  I squinted, but the light barely illuminated our faces.
"And trees.  Palm trees."  She sounded weary.  "An oasis."
"...oasis," I repeated.  What did that mean?
"Are you all right?"
"Sorry.  Sleep.  That would help."  I closed my eyes.  Palm trees?  Oasis? 
"Wrin.  The oasis where Wrin was ambushed."
My mind cleared.  I sat up.  Yori's face fuzzed. 
She smiled wanly and winced as her lips cracked.  "Hard at first."
"We can't go on like this."
"I wish we could rest, but without food we'll only get weaker."    
My body felt as if I'd been rubbed with sandpaper.  Every little movement made me suck in my breath.  How far did we have left, a mile?  A few hours.  Then home.  "All right," I said.  "But let's rest a little first."  
The wind had dropped to a faint breeze.  In sudden fear I felt for my turban.  It was there, and my opal.  I let my breath out.  It wasn't the opal that was lost, it was Kalan.  Would this Trial never end?
"Why did your shield fail?"   
It took me a moment to hear her and respond.  "It didn't."  
"It didn't?"
"No.  It was a deflecting shield.  It was supposed to divert lightning to the valley."  I shook my head.  "I think there was so much energy in that lightning that it overpowered the shield.  But it deflected most of the lightning, or we'd be dead."
"The Isle must have stored up energy, waiting for us."  
"I think the lightning was like the ash-tentacles, direct attack," I said.  "It mixes those with places like the town and the keep, that we have to enter ourselves.  So next it'll be Wrin's oasis."
Her face hardened.  "There must be some way to turn the tables.  If we know what's going to happen, can't we change the course of events?"  
"Maybe.  If they happen the same way.  Maybe we can break the sequence.  Wrin's oasis...  Oh, gods.  Will Kalan be in this?  Will he be a ghoul or the real Kalan?"      
"This is my test," Yori said.  "Like the keep was Kalan's.  To lure me into getting killed."
"Yes."  
"Well, it's not getting me.  Are you ready?"  She stood shakily and surveyed herself.  "What a mess."  Her torn, burnt candis was packed with grit and ash.  Her hands shook.   
"It'll be good to get a bath.  Hot water and big, soft sponges..."  I sighed.  How long since I'd had a bath?  I didn't want to think.  I could hear hot water pouring into the basin.
"Come on," Yori said, pulling my arm.  "You can rest when we get back."  
I slowly got to my feet, knees quaking.  I thought I was going to be sick, but the vertigo passed.  My hands shook like Yori's.  "This'll make spells harder," I said.  
She shrugged.  "Maybe the trembling will stop when the action starts."
"And come back twice as bad afterward." 
"What else can we do?"  


XIII



We started toward the palm trees.  Ahead, nothing moved.  I bent down as we crossed from ash to sand to scoop up a handful of red grains and let them run between my fingers.  Grass and black river dirt would have been better, but sand beat ash.  A hundred feet back there hadn’t been enough light to see our own bodies, and here we could see a hundred yards.  Except behind us.  When I looked back the sand ended at a curtain of darkness.  Our footprints faded as I watched, as if sand flowed into the holes.  The skin on my arms prickled.  
We struggled over a few low dunes, hurting.  My burns chafed.  If Yori hadn’t healed us we wouldn’t have been able to walk at all.  Time blurred.  
We rested more than we walked, dropping to our knees or flopping onto our backs and gasping, summoning the strength to climb another dune.  The temperature dropped.  I could hear Yori’s teeth chatter.  And mine.
After what seemed like hours we saw flickering orange light ahead.  Fires from the caravan.
I heard a light step behind me and turned.  "Kalan?"  Of course not.  Damn it.  I glanced down at our disappearing footprints.  Two sets.  What had I expected?  I wanted to dig into the sand like a lizard, be swallowed up, buried, to rest peacefully.
"What?"  Yori asked and sank to her knees.  She took several deep breaths.  "Kalan's not here.  Rest.  Surprised nothing's happened."
"Mmmm."  I closed my eyes and dozed instantly.  
I sit in a lotus, hands in my lap, looking straight ahead.  The wind blasts ash around me so it's dark as night, even though the heat says day.  It's not going into my eyes or nose or mouth but is enveloping me like a second skin.  I think I'm on a hilltop.  I don't know why I think that.
"Isle!  I want him back!  This time I make the dream!"  I remember Kalan:  small face, violet eyes, grin, cloak, long fingers, his laugh.  "This time I make his dream!" I shout into the wind.
Voices laugh around me, a children's choir, beautiful young voices blending together in a chord that makes me shiver.  "Now you know, Zahid Irsinmantal.  Now you understand the power.  Dream, wizard, mage, master!  Dream!"  
"No tricks," I say.  "You'll try to trick me into doing too much, trying too much.  I know you, Isle.  Just Kalan.  As he was before."
"Yes..." the voices sigh.  "Yes.  As he was before."
Ash collects at my feet, forms a shape, twists and writhes.  My heart is loud in my ears.  "Yes!  Now!"  
"As you wish," the voices say, pleasure in their tone.
Organs form from the ash, blood leaking onto the rock as bones solidify and are covered by ligaments, tendons, red muscle, snaking arteries and veins.  The skull forms slowly, small, thin, delicate, and the jawbone is there.  Skin stretches over muscle, vocal cords form in the cartilage of his throat, eyes swell in empty sockets and the whole twitches and jerks and makes wet smacking sounds against the rock—
The storm breaks and is gone as Utu's light shines upon us, upon the wet shape in front of me, covered in fluid and blood, gasping, crying, saying, "Zahid?  Back now, back from nasty place, back—"
Yori shook me.  She was standing, bent over with one hand on my chest.
"No!" I cried and pushed her away.  I could do it, raise him from the dead—
"Dreams," she said.  "The Isle's sending you dreams."  She stood and offered a hand.  "You were muttering about Kalan."
Taking her hand, I pulled myself up.  My cheeks were wet.  "We—The Isle—"  The hollow feeling was back.  "The Isle was offering..."
She nodded.  "I know."  
We staggered halfway up the next dune and then crawled.  There were camel dung fires nearby, from the caravan.  We stopped to rest.
"Climbing!"  Yori shook her head.  "When I get back"—she gasped—"I'm moving to the Averg–on Plains."
I wheezed.  "I'll talk Janine into it.  We'll join you."
We made it to the crest and peered over.  The perspective was strange.  There were half a dozen wagons close to the water and men walking around them, but they were on the far side of the oasis.  In Kalan's memory they had been on the near side.  
"Same place, different angle," I said.  "The dšck‡lfs will come from the far side and we from this side."  
"Well, we don't have to do what the Isle wants.  Let's go around."
I nodded.  "Try, anyway."  We slid back down the dune.  I shuddered.
"What’s wrong?"
"They act like people.  They talk with each other.  Some are smoking."
"Didn't notice.  Looking for Wrin."
"Oh.  See him?"
"No."
I felt relieved.  This was like Kalan's palace.  We had to go in to be caught.  The Isle wanted Yori to face its version of Wrin, and maybe it had a "Kalan" for me.  It was best to avoid those ghouls if we could.
We walked.  Our breath came out in puffs.  I shivered, but not much.  I was too tired.  My eyes felt gritty and raw, and I stumbled on with them closed.
"Those people," she said.  
"What?"  It was hard to concentrate.  Left, right, left, right, left.  I wished I could stop dragging my feet, since that made me more tired, but it was too hard to lift them.  
Yori said something.
"Hmmm?"
"I said, that 'boy' in the bakery.  He didn't know."  
"Know what?"
"That he was a ghoul."
"Huh."  He had seemed surprised when his hand turned into a stinger.
"He thought he was a boy.  They don't know what they are."
"Hands away from your sides, and shut up!"  
We froze.  I jerked toward the sound.  At the top of the dune to our left stood two men in leather armor, the blue-and-black of Atlan across their chests.  The older man carried a rifle, the younger a scimitar in one hand and a torch in the other.  The rifle was pointed at us.
"I said, hands away from your sides!" the older one shouted.  "Move apart.  No talking!"  
Now I was wide awake.  The young man walked down the dune with his scimitar ready, watching us.  He was gangly, his arms too long for his body.  The corners of his mouth turned down.  His hair was black, tightly curled, military-cut.  
Holding her hands out from her sides, Yori stepped away from me.  The young man looked her over as he approached, thrusting the torch closer.
"Shit, Corp, she's skin and bones," he called.  "Looks like she's been wandering out here for years."  He stopped a few feet away from her, glanced at me and poked his scimitar at her.
"You a ghost or something?  Huh?  Answer me."
"Are you a ghost?"  
"Hah, hah, very funny.  Where do you and bag-of-bones"—he jabbed toward me—"think you're going?"
Yori said something as I gave my attention to the other man.  I could put them to sleep...  Or I could cast a shield in front of the rifle, or around it, or both.  
Put them to sleep?  I watched the young man again as he questioned Yori.  Steam came from her mouth, but when he spoke there was none.  And the spell I'd tried to put the "farmers" to sleep with had failed.
My knees wobbled, and I nearly fell.  We had to get this over.
These things looked like people, but they weren't.  What in Hells were they?  
"You shall know the truth..."  The memory tickled me.  Something Remens told me once about  how seeing the truth turned one loose or something.  I needed to know the truth about these "people."  But I couldn't remember the spell.  Was there one?  If I wasn't so tired—
White light flared over the dune and drowned the campfire glow.  The older guardsman was outlined.  The young man came into sharp focus.  I blinked and looked at the ground.
A distorted voice boomed, "Something the matter, Corporal?  You've stood a while with that rifle ready."
I remembered that voice:  the technocrat with the power suit.  Damn!  There was no way I could handle that armor.  Was this the Isle's way of forcing us to get involved?  I thought we had to choose suicide.
The corporal turned his head.  "Something unusual, Cap'n.  Two people.  One male, one female, early thirties, look like they've been out in the desert a long time.  Riis is talking to them.  Could be any damn thing, here."
I burst out laughing.  That was too funny, coming from these haunts.  They were worried about our being unnatural!  I was cold from standing still so long, though, and the laughter immediately turned into a dry cough.  My head swam.  Their words faded in and out as the pulse of blood in my head became louder than everything else.
"One of them is coughing?"
"Yes." 
"Efrit and ghosts don't cough.  Bring them to the oasis.  I want a look at people who can last in this desert."
"You heard her," the young one snapped.  He reached for Yori, who drew back and started up the dune.  
He put the scimitar to her back.  "I'm going to be right on your ass.  If you do anything weird I'll run you through.  Got that?  I'd like to spit an efriti."
She kept walking.  
"Easy, Riis," the corporal said.  "No cause for running anybody through."  
Yori stumbled to her knees partway up the dune, and I was shaking by the time I had taken ten steps.  My head throbbed.
"Riis!  Help them up the dune.  Can’t you see they're exhausted?  They look like they haven't eaten in days."  
"We haven't," Yori said.  "And we've had a lot of trouble."
"Save the whining," Riis said.  "No one's impressed.  We've had our load of shit, too, and now you’re part of it."  He dropped the torch and grabbed a handful of Yori's candis and heaved her to her feet.  
"Sticks and bones," he grunted.  "Can't get both of them."
"So put your scimitar away."
"Hells with that!  Be defenseless?"
"I've got them covered."
The light grew stronger, as did humming, whirring sounds.  The technocrat topped the dune.  
 Kalan’s memory didn’t do the suit justice.  It was huge, a foot and a half taller than the rifleman, light streaming out of the head-piece.  I squinted.  
The light went out.  All I saw were green and red spots.  
"Quit bickering and hurry up.  Private Riis, sheathe the scimitar and help them."
He grumbled but complied.  He hauled me by the arm, jerking me forward onto my knees.
"Come on," he growled.  "Walk."
My head drooped.  How was I staying awake?  "I'm not going to make it," I mumbled.  To Hells with the boy and his scimitar.  
"Here," the man with the rifle said, walking down the dune to slide his arm under mine to support me.  "Light and heat!  How long have you been out there?"
He caught my weight as I fell against him.  I let him have me. 
I was dragged, seeing things, unable to piece them together any more:  green leaves, big ones, and water—it lapped—and fires.  Fireflies? No, fires.  Shadows moving.  Wagons, men in scale armor, flags—blue and black...  "Kalan—"  Why wasn't he there?  Boots, sandy boots, moving, scuffed black boots.  "—off, Cap'n.  Looks like—"   "Dump 'em here and let the desert have—"   Could the Satrap see me?  His little boy did him proud.  I was a wizard—   
"Healer's quarters, Zahid, get better now."  Kalan smiles.  No, it wasn't better.  Why had he gone?
"Find the truth."  "You're a dream, Remens, just a dream..." 
They set me by a fire, too close. 
Alhambad shakes his head.  "Ready?  We have to see who you really are."
Zahid I'm Zahid I'm Zahid.  No wizard name, just Zahid.
Ranhammon laughs, a mouth full of sharp teeth.  He was going to turn into teeth...  That ate Kalan.  Ate Kalan.  Teeth that ate Kalan.
"Great gods.  Yori.  What's happened?"  
Wrin.

Wind cracked against my back.  My breath hissed.  Cold, smooth stone beneath my bare feet.  My candis was gone.  Where the Hells was I?  Was this another of the Isle's dreams?
I stood shivering on an endless plane of black marble.  My body wouldn't move.  A statue.
Dark sky, stars tiny and white, soft.  Moving, spinning, jiggling like...something.   
Waiting.
I drifted from myself and saw my back, the curve of the spine.  Light brown skin.  Cold-bumps.  Dark hair, tight curls jostled by the wind.
"You're dying, Zahid.  Soon you'll be dead."
Remens' voice.
(Where are you?) I wondered.
"Not 'where.'  The Isle makes its dreams here.  I can't say more."  The "can't" was firm.
My drifting-self had no form.  I couldn't turn.  
"I've helped as I could."
(When?  Some help.  How are you hearing my thoughts?)
"That is a property of this place.  I'm sorry I haven't helped more.  It has been difficult."
(Kalan's dead.)  The fact felt far away.  
"I know.  I'm sorry."
I remembered him growing smaller and smaller, running to the gates, to the bodies...  Wind swept tears back from my body's eyes.   
(Why am I here?  Is this what it's like to die?)
"It is, here."
He walked up and stood in front of me.  Muscles moved under his skin as he walked.  His black skin glowed beautifully.  He too was naked, his body shining with life.  He glowed like Yori healing.  Years of walking, running, swimming, riding, flying...  His eyes were frightened.
(I can't move.  So tired—)
"Your life is ebbing.  If I were to hit this"—he rested his hand on my shoulder, but I felt nothing—"it would shatter.  The Isle has nearly finished you."  
The wind picked up, and liquid bubbled over the edges of the plane, far away.  
(Utu!)
(What?)
He touched himself on the arms, chest.  Like a man going to the gallows.
(Remens, I'm tired.  You don't make sense.)
"Take it," he said and held his arm toward me. 
The liquid gurgled and flowed like lava.  Touched my toes.  Freezing.  
"It steals the heat," Remens whispered.  "I've felt it.  Damn it, take it.  Swiftly!"
(I don't—)
"The life, my life, it's all I have to lend.  Everything else is forbidden.  There's too much riding on this to let you take all the risks anymore."  He looked determined.  "Now!"
(I don't understand—)  
My frozen body thawed and seized his arm.  Heat!  Blessed warmth flowed from him to me.
I saw a puff of steam flow from my mouth.  Heat...  The heaviness lifted.  
Sucked back into my body, I felt sliding muscles, my heart thudding, cold feet, fear surging through me.  I arched my back and shouted for the joy of being back in my flesh.
Next to me stood a statue, face frozen in fear.  
(You must succeed, Zahid.  Souls hang in the balance.  Utu help me—)
"Succeed at what?  I don't even know what it is we're supposed to find.  We've got no way home—"
"You have to keep going!  Keep—"

"See!  I told you!  Great efrit in Hells!"  
Metal clanged on metal above me.  I hadn't felt so strong for days.
Opening my eyes, I saw faces looking down in amazement.  The boy's scimitar strained against the barrel of the corporal’s rifle above my throat.  I coughed.
"Back off, Riis.  Back off."  The older man's voice wavered.  
"It's all right,” I said.  "I'm a healer.  It's all right."
"Healer, see," the older man said.  "Now get back, Riisy, or you'll be up on charges when we get home."  He lifted his rifle, and the boy slid the scimitar away.
"That's camelshit, Corp.  Healer, my ass.  He's an efrit.  He's probably draining off our life-stuff.  That's why he's healing!"  
"That's enough, private," a woman's voice commanded from behind me.  "Report to your wagon and get some sleep.  You're overwrought.  Dismissed!"  
Eyes wide, Riis stumbled back.  He touched his fingers to his forehead in salute and fled.
"Corporal, see to him.  He's going to make trouble with his stories."
"Aye."  The corporal hesitated, licked his lips.  Sweat stood out on his forehead.  He sucked in a breath, started to speak, thought better of it and left abruptly.
Aches had disappeared, scrapes and burns and scratches had healed, the numbness in my body had gone.  I sat up and stared at my smooth hands, marvelling at the lack of pain.  I laughed.
"Healer, are you?  Thought we'd already found the healer."  
I turned around.  The suit knelt on the other side of the fire, gleaming in the fire-glow.  Its surfaces were scored by fights and sandstorms.  A huge metal pack covered its back.  Its knees sank deep into the sand.  Over the right arm was a smooth casing from which jutted a short tube.  I remembered Kalan's memory of the energy pulses coming out of that tube.  
I glanced around, seeking Yori.  A dozen yards behind me was a covered wagon, familiar from Kalan's dream.  The command wagon.  Wrin was in that one.  Light shone through the heavy cloth.  Someone murmured inside.  I'd heard his voice before I passed out.  Was she there now, with him—it—in the tent?  How was I going to get to her?  She could take care of herself.  I had to do something with the technocrat.
"A healer can't heal himself when he’s unconscious."  The technocrat had turned off some device so her voice sounded human. 
Remen's face flicked through my mind.  My life was almost gone, traded for his.  I was living on borrowed energy.
"I can't explain.  I don't understand, myself."  
"Start with simple things and work your way up.  Who are you?"
"Zahid Irsinmantal."  Stalling.  The Isle was stalling so the dšck‡lfs had time to get there.  "Listen, there isn't time for this nonsense.  You're about to be attacked by dšck‡lfs, and if we don't come up with something quickly none of us will survive."
Silence.
"Yori must be telling Wrin the same thing right now.  We have information that—"
"Where did you hear that name?"
I ignored her.  "I foresaw the future, and we came to warn you, to help you.  You need proof?  What would satisfy you?"
Silence stretched on unbearably.  Could she detect my lies with her suit?  Did it matter?  If the Isle wasn't going to allow me to change the course of events, this creature wouldn't believe anything I said, and we'd never had a prayer.  How autonomous were the Isle's pawns?
Finally she asked, "How many?"
"Four, but before the attack begins one steps on something that explodes.  Three after that."
"You know a great deal."
"Every second we waste lets the future I foresaw come closer."
Another pause.  I was ready to scream.  
"It can't do the caravan any damage to be battle-alert."  She raised her right arm and fired a dozen bright pulses at the top of the nearest palm tree.  It burst into flame.  Shouts rose, and men, weapons in hand, started running to the edges of the camp.  "For now I'll assume you're who you say.  Tell me about these dšck‡lfs."
 
I sweated as I huddled against the wagon.  Could we handle the dšck‡lfs?  Shom-Vadren's Liveswords?  
Once she was convinced, the technocrat had moved rapidly.  She spread her men out and had them erect hasty barricades of scrap and supplies.  More fires were built for light.  The men knew what direction the dšck‡lfs would come from, how many there were, how they would attack.  I prayed the preparations would make a difference.
They wouldn't let me see Yori.  She was talking with Wrin, the technocrat said, and refused to be disturbed.  I hoped she was all right. 
A clap of thunder, Kalan's cousin stepping on the mine, drowned out my thoughts.  Rifles started cracking all around me, a noise like fast drummers playing their quickest.  
A small comet sizzled past, exploding one of the wagons.  There were no men in it.  Everyone was out on the sand.  
  The technocrat crouched with me.  In a few moments Intmi-CorosopŽ would come this way, and we'd ambush the bastard.  I clenched my fists and savored the life Remens had lent me.  
How deep was that liquid around him now?  I shoved the ugly thought away.  A shadow moved over the dunes toward us.  The dšck‡lfs were entering the camp.  If I attacked now I'd give myself away.  Some of the riflemen saw it and shot at it, but I couldn't see if it was hit.  Who was it?
The burning camel staggered across the oasis and crumpled to the sand.  Exactly as Kalan remembered.  Good.  The Isle was following the memory Kalan had shown me.  I felt relief for a moment and then more tension than before.  Could we change the course of events?  If the technocrat and I stopped the death-mage the entire battle would be re-written.  
"There's one, Riisy!"  Several shots rang.  "Nail the son-of-a—"  
Flaming wind swirled down from the clouds and incinerated the corporal.  
Kalan!  Sweat broke out all over my body.  How powerful would the Isle's "Kalan" be?  Could I look it in the face?  Destroy it?  
"Towers!" the technocrat hissed.  
The big man lumbered past, scimitar in hand.  He glanced at us, shrugged.  Accepting.  I looked away.  He was headed for Kalan and the Liveswords.
"—there, bastard's crouched right there, can't you—"  A guard dropped to his knees, threw rifle to shoulder, shot after shot, body bucking.  Night-bullets glowed like fireflies, following a racing shadow.  
Butterflies flew into him.  Blood exploded from his chest, brains burst—
"Kalan!" I cried before I could stop myself.  In a moment he'd be on me, and I'd have to destroy him—it.  It!
Lightning exploded the ammunition wagon.  The canvas tarp rode an orange and smoke cloud into the sky.  The oasis was brilliant with fire-light.
I heard the chitter and wail of feasting Liveswords.
A thunderbolt whumped.  The ground shuddered.  Men screamed on and on—
"We're being slaughtered!" I raged.  Rifles like crickets in the night, in vain.
My scalp tingled.  The death-mage was casting his soul-stealing spell.  I licked my lips.  He was the strongest of the dšck‡lfs.  We could beat the others if we could handle this one.
Our wagon erupted in flame, and pieces slid off the skin-tight shield I'd created for myself earlier.  Intmi-CorosopŽ was coming.    
A bullet ricocheted off the technocrat's armor and whined past.
Metal rang on metal.
Stillness.
Our wagon burned.  Wood popped and hissed.  Ash floated down.  
Where was he?  He should have been there. 
A shot and a cry, babbling Liveswords—
"You said one of them would come this way," the technocrat whispered.  "My men are dying."
Where was Intmi-CorosopŽ?  Gone around?  Damn the Isle!  I had to see if he was near our wagon, but I didn't dare stick my head up.  Far-sight spells were out of the question.  He would sense my magic instantly.  I had to see around a corner...
I tore off my pack and sifted through sand, ashes, dirt.  Where in Hells did I put it?  I untied the side pocket and fished out the little mirror and held it up.  Bodies, flaming wagons, a burning camel.  I turned it.
"Great Utu!"  He was stepping into the fire now, crossing through the burning wagon.  I jerked my hand down and dropped the mirror into a pocket in my candis.  Had he seen my movements?
The technocrat leaped into the flames.  Intmi-CorosopŽ raised his arms.  The technocrat grabbed his wrists as I'd asked.  I stepped into the flames, protected by my shield.
His lips formed a circle.
Something slammed my chest and knocked me down.  I shook my head and gasped.  The technocrat was on her back, a smoking hole in her chest armor.  Sparks.  What spell had Intmi-CorosopŽ cast?  I managed to suck in a breath.
His lips formed a circle.
I jumped up and grabbed his hand.  My opal flashed like a rainbow.  Fire seared my brain.  I was paralyzed as if I were being electrocuted—

Waking was painful.  My head felt as if someone had hit me with a board.  I was sprawled on the ground where I'd fallen after—whatever had happened.  
"Free!  Free!  Lords of Life, free!"  A young voice shouted above me.
Slowly I looked up, and gasped.
The person in front of me was light-skinned like my mother.  Stubble on his chin.  Twenty-five?  Tears coursed down his cheeks.  He pulled me to my feet and embraced me.
I pushed him away.  What in the Hells was he?
"Bless you!  You've freed me!  Gods, I've been forever in this Hell."  He staggered back.  His face turned to pain.  "Of course," he said.  "Of course.  The flesh is borrowed..."  
Before I could move his body turned to ash and was blown apart by the wind from the burning wagon.  
"What's happening?" I shouted at the ashes.  My vision went dark, and I sat down hard.  
The death-mage had been in my grasp.  My turban opal had turned his soul-sucking spell on itself.  Who was the young man?  Where was Intmi-CorosopŽ's body?  
The technocrat was gone.  I glanced around, but there was no motion.  The Isle, through Intmi-CorosopŽ, had tried to take my soul and had turned into the young man.  Because of my opal?  But that made no sense.  It should have destroyed him, not turned him into someone else.  What did that mean?
I ran my fingers over the gem.  It wasn't even warm.  The masters had rewarded me well for surviving their Academy.
I remembered the black plane, cold liquid around my ankles, the stars.  If I'd understood Remens that plane was a place where the Isle took its victims' lives, maybe their souls.  Did it keep the stolen souls?  What did it do with them?
Thunder crackled by the water.  
Yori.  I stood shakily.  In a few steps my head cleared, and I broke into a trot.  Bodies lay cut and burnt.  Shom-Vadren’s corpse, blasted and soaked in blood, lay next to a pile of shriveled guardsmen.  Its head was gone, and the Liveswords were half-melted.  The technocrat, I assumed.  So the Isle's pawns would even fight each other to sustain the fantasies it created.
The command wagon was intact, and I ran around it.  
The technocrat lay broken on the sand.  Sparks showered from her armor, white and blue sizzling up to a man’s height.  Metal was peeled away from her chest, her ribs exploded and insides trailing.  Blood spotted the command tent.  There was a burnt meat smell.  I went past.
"Zahid?"  The sharp tone in her voice made me move slowly and carefully.
Yori stood at the edge of the oasis, held at the shoulder by a tall, thin man with black hair and a goatee.  I guessed his age around forty, but his eyes were unusually sharp, and there were lines in his face that belonged to a much older person.  His skin was light like that of the young man who had appeared when I used the opal on Intmi-CorosopŽ.  He wore a plain brown candis.  I vaguely remembered his face but couldn’t place him.  Who was he?  Was he holding Yori prisoner, or was he helping her?
I stepped toward them and stopped.  Was this Yori?  It had been hours since I'd seen her.  "What happened?"  My headache throbbed.  The situation was changing too quickly.
There was a surge of magic from the tall man.   "I apologize," he said in a deep voice that haunted me with familiarity.  "But there are many tricks here.  I had to know if you are who you seem to be.  Please, join us."  He helped Yori step closer, and they sat.  
"If you'll allow me to check," I said.  He nodded. 
"Of course," Yori said.
Were they shades?  I thought of the look of the eyes, swirling ash behind the pupils.  Like a child playing a looking game I made a circle of my thumb and forefinger.  "Hold still," I said and burst a minor memory:
"Your turn for dishes."  She sets the towel on the table and heads upstairs.
"I did them last night."
She says over her shoulder, "You and Mestaf spent last night arguing."
"I thought that was night before last."  Damn, there's a mountain of dishes.  Janine goes into her workroom.  I pick up the sponge.
I channeled the power into my fingers, shaping and focusing it as a lens.  Gods, to be home arguing over dishes!  There seemed to be more power than such a minor memory would warrant, and I wondered what was happening.  It had seemed the same when I cast the shield to protect us from the lightning.  I was better able to use the power, and so it seemed like more. 
Suddenly Yori's eye was huge, larger than if I were next to her.  She blinked, but I could see her black pupil.  Next I turned it to the tall man, staring hard.  Black.  I didn't know if the spell worked properly, but it was all I could think of.  
"All right," I said,  "I'm satisfied.  We have to get moving.  We can talk as we go."  How long would Remens last?  I had to finish this and get his life back to him.  I walked past them to set a fast pace.  
They started walking slowly, as if they were both sore and weary, and I wondered what had happened to Yori since I'd seen her.  Who was the tall man?
"Why the rush?" Yori asked.  "We need to rest."
"We can't afford it."  Swiftly I told them about Remens loaning me his life.
"He is still on the black plane?" the tall man asked.  His voice was sharp.
"Yes, and I don't think he'll last long.  I was almost dead when he loaned me his life."
He nodded and started walking faster.  Yori strained to keep up.  
"Kalan didn't attack?" she asked.
"No.  Some of the spells were his, but he never appeared."  
"This is the friend—?"  the tall man asked Yori.
"Yes."  
"Perhaps the Isle was concerned you would find a way to release the soul of your friend, and it forbore."
"Makes sense," I agreed slowly.  I didn't want to fight Kalan's shade, but I relished the idea of using the opal to release his soul, if that would somehow work.  Was the Isle afraid I could?  Was that why some Kalan-ghoul hadn't attacked?
The tall man interrupted my thoughts.  "Your spell to check for the Isle's people takes too long," he said.  "You see them more quickly if you look at auras."
"I'm only a wizard," I said.  
His look of astonishment swiftly melted into a scowl.  "Barbarians!  Sending a wizard here for his magetest.  What were they thinking?  Animals!"  
"I agree..."
The scowl quickly faded.  "I forget my manners.  Luritsuran," he said.  At first the name meant nothing because of his pronunciation.  Then I realized who he was.  
"The Great Master?  How—?"
"This is your friend's tale."  
"Wait," I said.  "First, what happened to the technocrat?  She abandoned me in the fighting."
"She attacked us," Yori said.  "We came out of the wagon, and she topped that crest"—she pointed—"and fired.  Luritsuran did that."  She waved toward the mess behind me.
"A difficult spell to do while I shielded us.  The technologist was surprised, I expect, and not ready for a fight.  Otherwise the battle would have taken longer."
I glanced back at the armor.  The sparks had died down, casting flickering light.  He'd done that and shielded them?  Only a few masters could do two spells at once.  
The technocrat must have thought I was killed when I grabbed the death-mage, and she'd come to finish Yori.  She'd waited until the last moment before turning on us.  
"When you collapsed,"  Yori began, and I gave my attention to her, "that one"—she nodded her head toward the body of the technocrat—"kept me away.  I thought you were dead or dying.  The one who looked like Wrin insisted I come with him.  I looked at the guns and scimitars and decided to go."  She shrugged.  "I thought it was over, the Isle had won.  The one that looked like Wrin asked me why I had come, who you were, why we were here, more and more questions."
"Wasting time, waiting for me to die."  I wanted to shove them, anything to make them move faster.
"I think so.  He seemed so real.  Every detail was perfect.  He walked like Wrin, talked like Wrin.  He was so close I could smell him.  Even that was right.  I knew the Isle was laying a trap for me, like Kalan.  So I watched.  After a time I saw the difference in the eyes.  Took a while.  It sat in the shadows and didn't look at me."  
"The Isle knows we're onto the difference."  
"Sorry to interrupt," Luritsuran said. "But can healers not see auras either?"
Yori frowned.  "Not at my rank.  I'd need more experience."
Luritsuran looked troubled.  "There have been changes since my day," he said.  "Please, continue." 
They were slowing down, and I started walking faster.  We had to hurry!  They managed to keep up, and I struggled to keep from shouting at them to run.
"There was noise outside," she went on, "but it wouldn't let me look.  I was trying to come up with a plan to get to you, anything.  I hadn't enough energy to destroy a shade.  We talked and talked, and I heard the technocrat leave.
"That's when it asked me to stay with it.  I knew it was about to attack.  I had to do something, so I grabbed its hand and—well, I healed it."
I gaped.  "You healed it?  Why?"
She shook her head.  "I thought the Isle couldn't be making people from nothing.  Maybe it was using stolen souls and somehow making them forget themselves.  So I decided I'd try to make the Wrin-ghoul remember itself.  The idea was crazy, but there was nothing else to try."  She swallowed hard.  "Its face melted, and it kicked and shrieked.  I held on and healed.  I gave it everything until I blacked out.  When I came to it had turned into Luritsuran."  
"And I was worried about you being alone with one of those creatures," I said.  "You must have given the Isle a shock."
Past her I could see the water of the oasis covered with ashes, bits of cloth, bodies of "guards" who had tried to douse their burning bodies and drowned or died of their wounds.  I looked away.  Their slow steps were agony to me.  Obviously they were tired, but Remens couldn't wait.
"I can't believe we made it," she said.  "This was the closest one yet."
"What will the next one be?" I wondered aloud.  "Healing the shade was brilliant, Yori."
Luritsuran bowed his head to her.  "This Isle has had my soul prisoner for longer than I care to remember, since my own Trial...  I cannot tell you how grateful I am."  He winced.  "I am afraid this body will not last, though.  The Isle will reclaim its own."
"You mean you're going to die?" I asked.  What sort of Trial had he been on here?  Wasn't he already a Great Master?
"Something like that."  He smiled thinly.  "If this body fades while I am still here I will be reabsorbed by the Isle.  I already tried to leave but could not.  Perhaps you can find something at the center that will set me free."
"Perhaps I—?"
Yori stretched, and I noticed the dark circles under her eyes and her slumped shoulders.  For her there had been no rest, and no one had loaned her any life.  She was exhausted and starving, and she'd healed Luritsuran as well. 
"You need to rest, but I have to go."  My voice faded as fear rose in me.  "Remens can't wait." 
She nodded wearily.  "We were through when we reached the caravan.  Neither of us could have gone another step.  Remens saved your life, and we had some good ideas and a little luck.  But I can't go on."
"We will follow you as swiftly as we can," Luritsuran said.  "I don't dare hurry.  This body will only last a few hours, less if I use energy."  He looked pained. 
I swallowed.  "This is futile," I said.  One man going into the heart of this place?
"Nothing is hopeless," Luritsuran snapped.  The anger in his voice was a slap across my face. 
"I'd come if I could," Yori said heavily.  
"I know."  They were right.  There was nothing else to do.  I longed for Janine, for her quiet strength.  How would I get home if I didn't go forward?
"All right," I said.  She was right, we'd been virtually dead when we reached the caravan.  Remens' loan and our ideas had given us a little longer.  "All right," I repeated.  I kissed her cheek and hoped I would see her again.
"Soon," she said.  
"Yes."
"Here," Luritsuran said, stretching a long arm toward me.  He opened his palm, and a glowing memory-bubble sat there.  I was amazed.  I knew masters could externalize memories for others to use, but I'd never seen it done.  "It's powerful," he said.  "Be ready when you use it.  I've no doubt you'll need it."  He dropped it into my palm, and it fell into my Memory Sea.
"Thank you."  I stood.  Yori smiled bravely.  
Luritsuran looked across the oasis.  "Faith and good fortune," he said.


XIV



We'd walked around the water, and I set off as fast as I could.  My legs were wood.  Kalan was dead.  Remens was dying.  How long until Luritsuran faded back to ash and Yori was left alone and helpless?  She'd been stronger and steadier the further inland we’d trekked.  For the first time on this idiot-quest there was no one beside me.  Kalan was dead.  His absence howled empty.  
Kalan and I sit meditation-style in our room, studying for a history test.  Gods, ten more years of this until we graduate!  He has cul–e, and I'm hungry.  It's pouring rain and chilly out. Not a bad day to study, I guess.
"No," he says.  "11,376 S.C.  Lord Elvale IV attacked Academy with Ceretesian half-efrit mercenaries.  Burnt Great Library.  Partly, anyway.  Study!"
"Yeah, yeah.  Let's see...  When did the Western Desert tribes rise to power in Atlan?"
"Not fair.  Local history."
"It's still history."  
His mouth turns into a straight line.  "Don't have to answer."
"Good!  Then I get one of your mushrooms."  I reach toward the plate on his lap.
A spark jumps from his fingers.  
"Hey!  That's not fair!  You don't know the answer!"
"Don't have to.  Winner writes history."  He shoves the last two mushrooms into his mouth, and the juice from the stuffing runs down his chin.  He grins.
"Cheater, Kalan."  Heaviness pushed my lungs and cut my breath into short gasps.  "Cheater."  Something ahead moved, and I looked up.  Was it a flash of cloak?  Of course not.  More tricks.  
I'd never been so completely on my own before.  So many people depended on me.  Could I do this?  What would Janine do?  Kalan?  What would I do?  
As I plodded on my mind fuzzed.  
Rocking in my hammock, I hear Janine's light steps coming up the path, the brush-brush of her leather house shoes on the stones.  She stops beside me.
"Are you going to stay here all day, or are you going to come inside and play runes with me?"
I open one eye.  "Mmmm.  Well..."  Her head blocks Utu’s heat.  A breeze moves my hammock.  Branches rub above me.  If it wasn't so much energy I'd stretch up and kiss her.
"Perhaps Astapha would like a game," she suggests. 
"He might.  I hear technocrats like number games."
"We'll see."  She straightens and walks into the house.
I close my eye and listen to a fly buzz past.  Aaaahhh...
I chuckled.  When I got back, I wouldn't be going anywhere for a long, long time.  There would be plenty of time for runes and resting.
There were hints of light in the clouds, but what served for dawn was still an hour off.  By then I would be at the center of the Isle. 
The sand was level and had a crust over it as if it had rained recently.  The crunching was pleasant.  I recognized the central hills that Yori and I had climbed yesterday, now surrounding me.  Thin sticks jutted toward the sky not far ahead.  It was impossible to tell what they were. 
Was Remens alive or dead?  Who could ever take his place?  As long as he was still there the Academy had some heart.  There was the time when I was  twelve or thirteen, and he did the candle trick... 
"What do you think he’s going to do with the candle?"  It's beautiful, pink and amber and green, tall and thin.
"Trick."  Kalan’s bored, looking for trouble.  
I glance outside.  Cloudy.  Cold, too, I'll bet.  "Well, I hope it's more interesting than this class.  Who cares when the Academy was built or who built it?"
He isn't listening.  
"Study the scrolls I handed out.  You'll see this on a test, I guarantee you."  He looks at the candle.  "Beautiful, isn't it?"  He picks it up and holds it high.  The wick lights.  "There isn't another like it anywhere.  It's unique."
"So what," Kalan whispers, rolling his eyes. 
Instructor Remens glares at him, and he gulps.  
"He heard you!"
"Shut up."
He sets it back on the desk.  "A wizard is an incredible person.  He—or she—starts training as a young person and through years of practice and training learns to shape magic.  And at the same time a wizard-in-training has to learn how to deal with instructors, learn discipline in studying and learn to take days at the beach when he gets tired.  Many of you have started to notice each other in ways you hadn't thought about before."
"Means—"  Kalan started.
"I know," I said.  What does he think I am, stupid?
"How many of you come from Luricania?  Wizard-in-training Melzagar.  What are your brothers and sisters doing right now?"
Melzagar, a thin kid with long, straggly hair, laughs.  "Well, Dalus and TrŽat are sharpening scythes for harvest, or fixing the mill-wheel or talking instead of working.  Lina's helping my mother make clothes or feed the chickens or clean up.  They're sure not doing anything important, like studying to be wizards!"
"Aren't those activities helping your family and community?"
Melzagar squirms, and Reed laughs.  He's such a bully.  "I guess so."
"Thank you, wizard-in-training Melzagar.  We need to keep in mind that everyone is doing something that is important to them and to others.  Think of all the people who make our lives possible here at the Academy:  the farmers in Luricania who raise the food we eat, the merchants who trade for silk and cotton and flax and the spinners and weavers who make it into cloth, the cooks, cleaners, gardeners, masons, carpenters, guards and all the others.  The difference between them and you is not that you're better then they.  The difference is that you may be fortunate enough one day to be wizards, and it's a simpler matter for a wizard to take life than it is for others.  Some of you look forward to that."  He picks up the candle again.
"I never thought about all those people," I whisper to Kalan.  He shrugs.  
"Like this candle, every person is unique.  A life taken can never be given back, not even by the most powerful healers."  
He turns the candle upside down and smashes it onto the desk, snuffing the flame, breaking it apart. 
"No!"  I jump up.
He smiles and motions toward my desk.  "Something bothers you, wizard-in-training Zahid?  Won’t you please sit back down and say what it is?"
Everyone laughs.  Kalan, too.  My face burns.  "Sorry."  I sit and try to be small.
"You have an objection to the demonstration?"
"No."
"But something about it bothers you?"  He leans forward, squinting at me.
"It’s not right."  Why’s he looking at me like that?  I haven’t done anything.
"What isn't right?"
I look at my desk.  "It's not important.  Sorry."
The bell!  Everyone scrambles.
"Come on, Kalan, let's get out of here."  We grab our books and head for the door before everyone gets there and slows us down.  Why does Instructor Remens look so disappointed?  What did I do wrong now?
I never forgot the lesson, though I was too frightened to say anything then.  I never forgot.
I walked as swiftly as I could.  Remens was waiting, dying...  
Kalan hadn't been impressed with the candle trick.  What would he think of it now?  Other than Yori and Janine and me, and maybe Remens, he'd seen human people as moving furniture.  
The heavy feeling returned.  I remembered a market somewhere in Luricania, one of the countries we visited during our travels.  I was 23.
This is such a small square.  I bet ten of these could fit into one good-sized market in Blackstone.  Lot of people already, though.  Must be fifty or sixty here.  Wish they would wash once in a while.  What's that man selling, baranno fruit?  No.  Gods, it's still yellow!  
"Kalan, look!  Yellow baranno!"  We run over to the stall, to a whole pile of baranno.  Even the Academy didn't have yellow barannos, only red ones.  I pick up one that's a little bigger than my hand, a fat, smooth oval with thin yellow skin.  It's soft.  It smells sweet and earthy.  
"Like?" the man in the stall asks.  He's old, in his forties, and kind of ugly.  I'd hate to have warts on my face.  Maybe he's younger.  I guess these people age fast, living so hard.
"Yes," Kalan says and tears one open.  The seeds fall all over the other ones, and the man swats them away.  Kalan digs out a handful of the squishy flesh and stuffs it in his mouth so his cheeks look like a squirrel's, and I laugh.  
"Goo!" he says.  A glob of yellow pulp slides down his chin.  He wipes it away.  
"What?"  He looks ridiculous.
He swallows.  "Good!" 
I tear open a fruit and dig some out and taste it.  The flesh is stringy and soft.  It leaves a sweet taste in my mouth so strong I can taste it in my nose.
"Delicious!  How much?" I ask.  
"Gift," Kalan says.  "Right?"
"For you, free," the man says and smiles.  But I can see in his eyes he's angry.
I look at the dirt.  I hate it when he does this.  These people aren't rich.  "Well, how much would you charge other people?" I ask.  
"Six panas," the man says with a big smile.  He must be joking.  That's nothing!
"Not today," Kalan says and tugs my arm.  "Come on, walnuts."  He points to another stall.
"Here's twenty panas, because they're really good."  I dig out coins and hand them over.
"Thank you, you are too kind, thank you."  He puts them in his pocket.  But his eyes still look angry.  We're not like that, like other wizards!  Kalan's just sort of unthinking.
"Look, jurah bird," Kalan says.  He puts his fingers to his mouth and whistles.  The bird, a big one with bright yellow and green feathers and a huge orange bill, flies over the square a few times and then flies away.  Two boys yell and chase after it.  
I glance back.  The fruit seller's watching us with an angry look on his face.
Kalan tugs, and we head for the walnut stall.  
The weight became heavier, and I had to fight to keep walking.  
I'd helped him.  Every time he did something like that and I didn't say anything, and paid for him, and apologized for him, and shielded him when he shouldn't have attacked in the first place, it was encouraging him to keep doing the same things.  How was he supposed to learn any better when I never put anything very firmly and always forgave him right away?   
I thought of the fruit filling his cheeks and laughed a hiccupy laugh.  He'd needed a parent, not a friend who let him get away with everything.  Remens must have tried, but Kalan never felt about him as I did.  Or not that Kalan ever said.  
He went into that palace partly because of me.  He was so used to me backing him up—What had he felt when I wouldn't comfort him that night after he showed me his memory of killing Wrin?  I'd been the only one who told him he was all right, and then I stopped, too.  He'd already been so lonely.  Gods, he must have thought he was dying.  When the chance came he'd gone because he thought those dead dšck‡lf things might love him when I'd stopped—
Little sounds came out of my throat, and I couldn't stop them.  How could Utu let little boys wander around without their parents and give them only weaklings for friends?  I'd called him my friend and failed him all along.  
What kind of father would I be for our children?  Why would Janine ever want me back?  
"I married a man, not a god.  I don't expect you to be perfect.  I want you back because I love you."  Her voice was soft in my mind.
"You're not really here," I whispered.  
"You said in your note that thoughts of me would sustain you."  
"They have."  
"So do what you need to do and get your butt home."
I laughed, and that made me feel a little better.  I'd done the best I could.  That was the only defense.  I'd tried to understand him and help him, all the way to the end.  He'd tried too, in his own way.  It just—hadn't been enough.  Not nearly enough, from either of us.
He wasn't coming back.  There was nowhere to fight out of.  He thought the Isle offered him love and he took it, and the Isle took him.  Maybe because he thought he was getting love that's what he felt at the end.  Please, Utu, let that be so.
I wept.  What pitiful little things we were, all of us, weak and frail.

I stumbled on, vaguely surprised the Isle hadn't attacked me while I was absorbed in my grief.  It had to be using energy to prepare what lay ahead.  What would that be?  Every step was like moving through water.  There seemed to be cords tied to me, trailing back to the people I cared for, slowing me with their pull.  What could one man accomplish where hundreds had failed?  There might be nothing at the center.  Whatever the masters thought was there might have long ago crumbled to dust or never existed at all.  
We had known that from the start.  First I had to survive whatever test the Isle had for me.  Then I had to return Remens' life and accept whatever was left of my own.  If anything.  Was there even a way off the Isle?    
I'd depended on Kalan to get us through.  He had the attack spells.  Any decent-sized force would kill me.  There were no townspeople with crossbows to cover me while I created shields or used the few attack spells I knew.  Would the Isle create some tailor-made test for me as it had for Kalan and Yori, or would it simply send a dozen horsemen to ride me into the dust?  
But Yori survived her test.  It could be done.  What was at the center?  
The only sounds were my soft footfalls, breathing, my heartbeat.  
"does he see us?"
"—don't know—"
"gotten so far—"
"—him, stop him, stop—"
Shadows flickered to either side.  Drops of liquid dripped onto the sand behind me.  Urine?  Blood?  Tears?
Grey wisps shoved me, forcing me to slow.  They were hard to see in the vague morning light.
"Stop," I said.
"stop"  "stop"  "he said stop"  "why?"  Chill shades, hungry, they pushed again. 
"why resist?"  "sleep, Zahid"  "rest"  "lie down"  "we'll watch over you"  They swirled about me, cooling my skin.  I walked even slower, barely moving at all.  Maybe a five-minute rest would be good.  Get my strength back.
"you're not Kalan"  "you have no chance"  "they're all dead"  "we have reclaimed them"  "sleep, Zahid"  "sleep"  
My skin numbed.  I could no longer hear my footsteps.  Did I want to keep walking?  When this Trial was over I'd probably be dead.  I never wanted to be a Wizard, only a man.
"—lies dead on the heap of his fathers"  "collecting worms as her husband is"  "—knows you will never come home"
Clinging to me, they whispered in voices of falling sand.  How many?  A dozen?  Fifty?  
I came seeking power to save lives, and we'd lost ours.
Tinkling glass laughter from the spirits:  "yes!"  "all dead!"  "you, too!"
I had to make them go.  I remembered a kite in the shape of a long string of colored paper diamonds rising above the Academy, Yori pulling the string and laughing as the kite rose higher and higher.  "There's hope," I whispered.  
"hope?"  "none!"  "hope?"  "behold hope!"  They flowed from me like water.  
At my feet lay the body of a child, black skin smooth, lips shut, violet eyes staring at the sky,  hair tousled and streaked with sand.  His arms were flung wide.  One shoe was gone.  
I sank to my knees.  
Dead.
"hope"  "light"  "Kalan"  
Touching the opal with one hand, I brushed shaking fingers across his forehead.  His skin was cold.  What had I expected?  
"Kalan..."  He was so small.  He'd always seemed big.  I closed his eyes.  
"goodbye, Zahid"  "rest now"  "rest with him"  "he waits for you"  "he waits"  "he waits"  Their voices blurred.  
"I'm sorry," I told him and stroked his cheek.  "I wish—"  My voice broke.  I squeezed my eyes shut and kept myself from storing any of the experience.  
When I opened my eyes his body had not disappeared.  "It's good to see you," I said, and the truth hurt.  I had loved him and always would.  The Isle's petty tests could never break that.
My chest and throat were too tight to breathe.  The spirits laughed, but I hardly heard them.  I put my hands under him and lifted.  He weighed little.  "Let's go home."  I began to walk.  
The shrieks from the voices froze me.  They were at me, tearing—My opal flashed, and several of them burst into flame.  They fell away.  
"fool!"  "traitor!"  "what right have you!"  "how dare you live when they die!"  
I laughed.  It sounded hollow and grim, but even that feeble effort felt better. 
They soaked into the ground, leaving frost on the sand.  The mist faded with them.
I stood in a replica of Hafar that had been burned.  It was startling—the amount of blood on the streets, the mutilated, bloated corpses—but it wasn't more than I'd been prepared for.  Pieces of bodies crawled with insects.  Skeletons of burnt houses leaned crazily.  There were a few buildings in good shape, including our house.  The soot and bodies' stench gagged me.  
"Is this all?  It lacks imagination."  My voice rang in the ruins.  Carrion birds stopped feeding and squawked, flapping away with a rustle of black feathers.  Rats scurried off.  
I heard, far away, the sound of hooves pounding the sand.
"What do you think?" I asked Kalan.  It was reassuring to hear my voice.  
The hills formed a ring around the town, none closer or further than the others.  This was the center of the Isle of Dreams.  I could see it all by turning my head.  More ashes and ruins.  It seemed the Isle was nothing more than a killing place set in motion by the presence of life and stopped when there was nothing left to kill.
"N-Zahid?"  Janine's broken voice arrested me.  I froze.
"Please," she sobbed.  "After you left Ranhammon came and brought me here.  Zahid, they—"  She choked.
 Buildings, ash, storm clouds:  all stand out clearly.  Ranhammon.  I slowly turn my head toward her.  He wouldn't.  It's not Council business—Of course he would.  If no one knew, who would protest?  I start shaking.  Janine cringes in the dark doorway, her clothes torn and bloody, covering herself with trembling hands.  Bruises cover her face.  Blood runs from a cut in her neck, more between her legs.  She breathes in ragged puffs.  
"Janine."  Cold fire burns through me.  "No!"
I smashed down every bit of the horror.  The memory burned with power, more than I'd ever felt before.
"Please don't let them hurt me again."  She put a hand over her face and cried.  Every word sent chills through me.  "Astapha tried to kill the efrit and it tore his heart out oh my gods blood everywhere the town Ranhammon—"  She stumbled toward me.
My body moved at last.  I reached for her.
Kalan's body shifted in my arms.  It was solid, real.  
"You’re a lie," I mumbled at "Janine."  But if Ranhammon had—It was a ghoul!
"Please!  Don't leave me alone again!"  She wailed and leapt—
I shattered the memory I had just made and released the power.  The Razor spell sliced the ghoul through, shoulder to waist.  Blood sprayed across my body and Kalan's.  "Janine's" upper part hit Kalan and knocked me back.
I fall to my knees.  Oh, gods, I should be home.  What if something happens?  What if I was wrong—I crush Kalan's body to me.  "This is real!"  My heart is hot glass.
It hadn't known.  It thought it was Janine, and the other ones had raped it and beaten it and cut it—  
I forced myself to stop the thoughts.  I couldn't keep the Isle from abusing its poor creatures.  Janine was home, safe.  I had to keep going.  I forced myself to my feet and walked over the mess in front of me.  The sound of approaching hoofbeats was louder.  Dust rose in the hills.
I had to think, to forget everything else and survive.  I took a long breath, and another one.  My heart settled into a rapid beat.  
We came here alone and in groups, seeking the center.  We found ourselves reflected over and over and made our peace or died.  I made peace with Kalan and let him go his own way, and he died.  The Isle couldn't hurt me more than that.
I heard shrieks and horses neighing at the foot of the hills.
I wouldn't fight these "Basquan" and play the Isle's game.  I had to figure out how to end this and get Remens' life back to him.  
I ran into our house and climbed the stairs.  They creaked but held.  The window of my study overlooked the town, though the skeletons of other buildings prevented me from seeing how many "Basquan" the Isle was sending.  I lay Kalan on the floor and sat next to him.  
The Isle was a mirror of our lives.  But we knew that before we came.  Remens had told me seek the truth.  I remembered the Satrap telling me, when I was six, "Always tell the truth, Zahid."  Remens had told me, "Find the truth!"   What was the truth? 
Horses pounded into Hafar.    
I seized and burst a memory of a time when I was eleven and we were finishing Ranhammon's class for the day:
"I don't know, Kalan, I—"  
"Wizard-in-training Zahid," Ranhammon says.  "Stay.  I have a special assignment for you."
My heart freezes.  
"Have fun," Kalan says and flashes out the door.
As I concentrated, all the pain that I had pushed aside settled on me.  I made no attempt to push it away.  In the stillness of Kalan's death and Remens' helplessness and my fear and desire to go home was power which mixed with the fear from the memory and added to my energy.  Was this all that becoming a mage took, accepting life's pain and growing in power from it instead of trying to run?
I spread the power through my body and shaped it.  This was one of Ranhammon's spells, which were hard for me.  I breathed deeply, feeling for the receptacles of the power.  "Rise," I whispered, glad I couldn't see the bodies outside twitching.  As each corpse animated a little of the energy left me, until it was all gone.  "Kill," I ordered, and I knew they were rising, crawling if they had to, to attack the "Basquan."  
"The dead are moving!"  A crossbow string twanged—
"—aren't stopping—"
Horses shrieked.  Men cursed.  A crossbow bolt whizzed through the window and bit into the ceiling.  Did they know I was there?
The Isle was going to overwhelm me with numbers since its tricks had failed.  There was nothing here but a ruined town.  No way home, nothing to use to defend myself, not even a central heart or brain to attack.  How could I get home?  How—I quashed the fears.  
A rock flew through the window, bounced off the ceiling, struck my arm with a sharp pain.
"Shit!"  I rubbed the cut.  "Truth...  What truth, Kalan?  What truth?"  
I wanted to stop the Isle, attack it, make it stop attacking me.  It was a place full of shades, a place that attacked using the memories, fears and hopes we brought with us.  A place that stole souls.  I touched my opal.  If there were a central power, I could attack it with the gem.  
We were being tested, we were on Trial...
Remens had to have been on the Isle to be able to aid me.  Were other masters here?  Where?  
"He's in there.  Burn him out!"  Something thunked against the kitchen wall downstairs and was followed by a barrage of similar sounds.  They'd destroyed the zombies already.  There had to be be a lot of "Basquan" out there.  I knew shields against fire.  That didn't worry me.
The shade that Yori healed remembered itself.  As had the one I attacked with my opal.  The Isle took the souls it stole, clothed them in false flesh, and used them for its own ends.  Those souls could remember themselves if they could be reached.  
I smelled smoke.  
But there were so many "Basquan."  Even with the opal I could reach only one at a time.  
"Kalan, what can I do?"
The floorboards were heating up.  We couldn't stay, but where was there to go?  
"Come out and play, wizard!"  Rough voices laughed.
Kalan's clothing smoldered.  I didn't want his body to burn in this place.  I wanted to take it to Hafar and burn it in Utu's light.  The clasp for his cloak came away easily, and I swept the cloak off. 
"Kalan, we're going to die if I can't come up with something!"  Remens, Yori, Luritsuran, Janine all depended on me.
Smoke billowed up the stairwell.  I crouched as low as I could for air.
"Damn it, I want to live!"  I shook Kalan's body, lost my balance, tumbled forward.  Something in my pocket clinked.  I fished out the mirror and looked at it.  "Ugh."  The Trial had not been kind to my face.  
The floor creaked.
A mirror.  Of course.  I searched for a memory.  
The building pitched and fell.  Grabbing Kalan, I found and shattered the memory I had made when Kalan told me he killed Wrin:
I feel paralyzed.  This isn't happening.  It's a joke, a bad Kalan joke.  He could never—Yes, he could.  He just said he did.  He murdered Yori's husband.
His face blurs, and I put my hands on the carpet to steady myself.  My body is ice.  "I can't—I—Why?" I whisper.  
I shaped a shield around us.  It was a risk:  the spell was designed for one person.  I made it surround both of us, stretching it thin.  
The roof collapsed onto us and broke apart.  Sparks and ash swirled.  Flame roared.  Shadows moved.  Shouts.  Crossbow bolts whizzed past.  Where was the mirror?  I'd dropped it.  
A warrior ran into the fire to hack me with his scimitar and was forced back by the heat.  
I scrabbled with my free hand and found ashes, burning sticks, splintered wood.  No mirror.  "Damn it!"
The "Basquan" watched.  They hefted axes, scimitars, crossbows.  Beyond them I saw the smoldering buildings of dream-Hafar, and, across the square, the fountain.  
A bolt struck me in the chest, and I felt a sting.  My shield was already failing.  I might die, but it wouldn't be by fire—
"Come on," I snarled, hauling Kalan up.  None of the ceiling beams had fallen on us, and I struggled to my feet.  I threw him over my shoulder, plucked the opal from my turban and charged, shouting.  
Stones and bolts turned into a hail, hornet stings on my face, arms, legs, chest, groin.  The "Basquan" fell aside, retreating from the opal.  Two were slow, and I hit them with the gem.  They wailed and fell.  
I ran for the fountain.  I could use the water as the base for a magic mirror like the Mirror of Truth at the Academy, to show these creatures their own souls.
A bolt bit my leg.  I fell and saw:
Remens' face on one of the ones I'd hit with the opal.
"No."  It's impossible to rise.  Too much death, Utu, I'm too heavy.  I can't—
Keep moving!  Go!  
I smashed down and shattered the memory and created a forcewall behind me.  I had to get home.  
Several "Basquan" thudded into the invisible barrier.  I grinned.  They'd figure out in a moment that it stretched only a dozen yards to either side.  
My leg was bleeding.  The bolt had slashed the calf.  At least I wouldn't have to pull it out.  Torn muscle shrieked with every step, but I didn't dare stop to bind it.
This basin was lower and darker than Hafar's.  There was no plaque.  Why the differences?  I laid Kalan's body next to it.  The dark basin made the water appear black.  My reflection was vivid.
"This way!"  A "Basquan" ran around the forcewall.
I touched my fingertips to the water and calmed myself.  Swimming through my Memory Sea I found Luritsuran's special memory blazing with energy. 
A crossbow bolt rang against stone.  
I burst the memory:
Ice cave with pale blue walls and stone floors.  The dragon's head is torn and bloody and burnt, one curved horn broken.  Ninety feet of muscle and bone, it rears its head and lifts a claw.  It's not falling—
Its paw slashes across my face and smashes me into the icewall.  Dull pain in my chest, legs—Breath—Can't—Get up, he'll kill me, get up!  I look up and see teeth, eight-inch crystal razors set in wet red, coming down—"Fahd!  Hel—"
I screamed as Luritsuran's mind blacked.  Energy poured through me, a flood pushing my heart, nerves, veins for release.  My skill was barely adequate to shape and channel it.  A huge sheet of energy appeared between me and the "Basquan" and flickered black like the fountain.  I held back the last of the energy.
No more bolts flew.  The "Basquan" stood, statues, staring at their reflections.  "Do you see?"  I shouted at them.  "Do you remember?"   
My heart thudded, skipped, thumped again.  My arms shook.  I gulped air.  Power surged through me.  I touched my opal and released the last of the energy.  The mirror turned silver.
The air fractured into black lines and crackled like dried paper.  Buildings shattered.
I vomited blood.  


XV



"Well played."
A woman's voice, not Yori's.  But familiar.
My insides seemed to still be inside, though my guts ached.  My whole body twitched.
"How does it feel to win?"  That one I knew.  Ranhammon.  
I opened my eyes and saw sand.  I was lying on my side with my back against the fountain.  I reached a quivering hand to my mouth.  Dried blood coated my chin, my cheeks.  Lifting my head, I saw more sand, scraps of burnt wood, a strip of black cloth.  The "Basquan" were gone.  The buildings were gone.  My heart skipped.  Where was Kalan's body?  Ten or twelve feet away, a pair of boots and two pairs of sandals.  I raised my gaze.
The masters.  They were as clean as they had been at the Academy:  Coronta wearing dark blue with yellow slashes, her eyes bright and body leaning forward, ready for action; Dermallion in emerald with the hood up so I couldn't see her face, rubbing her hands; Ranhammon a step behind the other two, in crimson, faintly smiling.  His arms were spread in welcome.  Remens and Alhambad were missing.
They were here all the time, hidden behind illusions.  They caused all the suffering.  Kalan—
I smashed the memory and dropped it into my Memory Sea.
"Where's Alhambad?"
Ranhammon's smile was replaced by a sneer.  "Would you like to say hello?"  
Dermallion's hands stilled.  
I stopped breathing.  What was he up to now?
He lowered his arms and stepped aside, and my heart thudded.  Behind him, seated with legs crossed, was a charred corpse, bones showing through the destroyed flesh.
I shuddered.  They hadn't—The Headmaster?  Great Utu!  I waited for the flash of magic that would tear my heart out or roast me.  
Ranhammon smiled again.  
"And Remens?"  I couldn't take my eyes off the burnt thing.  Why hadn't they killed me, if they could do this?
"He perished a few hours ago," Ranhammon said.  "His body grew colder, and finally his heart stopped.  I sent the body back.  Pity.  He was a fine instructor.  He knew he was running a  risk of giving you his life instead of loaning it to you."  
I took a deep breath.  I'd never even thanked him for loaning me his life.  I'd thought I'd give it back.  Two friends dead.  
I leapt up and lunged, hands groping for Ranhammon's throat.  It was too much, all this death, too much to ask me to bear with him standing right in front of me—I was knocked to my knees and slammed against the fountain.  
Ranhammon was expressionless as his invisible pressure crushed me.  "Rest," he said.  
The evenness of his tone chilled me, and I checked my fury.  Slowly I sat up.
"Weak, but obviously quite alive."  Coronta, the storm maker, spoke in her crisp, firm voice, the voice I first heard when I'd awakened.  "And that is a problem."  
"Hardly," Ranhammon said.  
I tensed, eyes locked with his.  One little twitch, and I was gone.  "You've been here from the start."  
"Of course," Dermallion said.  Her weary tone matched mine.  "How else could we have monitored the Trial?  How could we have run it, otherwise?"
"Run it..."  It was them, all along.
"We were surprised you didn't realize sooner," Coronta said.  "Especially with Remens choosing your side." 
I seized on that.  That had to be the truth Remens had meant, that the Masters' Council was behind our Trial.  But what were they doing?  There had to be more to this than just testing us for our rank, or the whole Masters' Council wouldn't be involved.  
"Why?"  What could be worth Kalan and Remens and possibly Yori and Luritsuran?
"We—"
"Why!" 
Seizing the memory, I raged against Ranhammon's steady pressure.  One tiny break, one second, and he was dead.
The pressure increased until I couldn't breathe.  My vision fuzzed, and the memory slid away from me.  
"You don't seem to grasp the situation," Ranhammon said.  "You've won.  Go home.  Your woman is waiting.  She, at least, will be pleased to see you alive."
Home?  Was it that easy?  Janine seemed close.  Of course not.  There was no carpet, no ship.  This was taunting.  "No.  Way.  Home," I gasped.
The pressure released, and I gulped air.  "We will send you back," Ranhammon said.
"I don't trust you."
Coronta snorted.  "If you had anything we desired we'd take it.  You've done what we wanted, and we no longer need you.  Your Trial was a test of the Masters' Council.  The time has come, you see, to pick a new Headmaster.  Ah, you were right Ranhammon.  He grasps swiftly.  I'm amazed he is such a mediocre wizard."
"No stomach for it," Ranhammon said.
"Too much heart," Dermallion muttered.
I hardly heard them.  They'd used us as live pawns to decide which of them would become Headmaster.  
Kalan died for a game.  Everything we'd suffered—a game.
I smashed the shock and anger and hurled the memory into my Memory Sea.  For long moments I breathed in and out, forcing myself to calm down.  They could snuff me in a heartbeat, but they were letting me live.  Ranhammon had shown me Alhambad's body so dramatically for a reason.  He wanted to frighten me into leaving.  They hadn’t killed me because they couldn't for some reason.  Then the game was still going on,  and I was still in it.
Coronta ignored the other two.  "Alhambad told us he was stepping down, and he offered the Academy to the most fit.  So we created a contest to see who would be the next Headmaster."
I stared at the corpse.  "Looks like he had a little help stepping down."
Coronta laughed.  "What!  Master killing master?  You know his wife died some years ago?"
I nodded.
"He tried to go to her.  This is what happened."
Dermallion said very quietly, "I think he made it."
Curiosity caught me.  "Why?"  
"He was smiling."
I glanced at the charred body.  I’d look like that if I wasn't very careful.  
"Why did he come here to try reaching her?"
Ranhammon answered before Coronta could.  "To set the Isle in motion, of course.  Only the Headmaster can do that.  He passed on shortly after.  It was fascinating to watch."
I was surprised to find myself pitying Alhambad.  He must have been terribly lonely to try such a thing.  Even the Great Masters hadn't liked to tamper with the walls between living and dead. 
Maybe they really would let me go, but it didn’t matter.  I’d be damned if I was going home without Yori and Luritsuran.  These people were in my way.  The invisible force pinning me to the basin would block my spells, too, I was sure.  I'd have to think my way out of this.  
"What were the rules?" I asked, stalling while I thought.  What would they tell me freely?
"The terms were simple," Coronta said.  "We would take turns attacking you.  An injury was worth points; a death, a great many points.  We'd keep going until you stopped us or one of us clearly won or you all died.  Simple, really."
I forced myself to look away from Alhambad's corpse and focus on her.  "Why throw us away, when human wizards are so few and the dšck‡lfs so powerful?  There had to be other ways to decide."  I felt myself drawing back, growing cold and careful. 
Dermallion laughed, a voice falling down a well.  She was right on the edge.  What was happening to her?
"It was to be a contest," she said.  "With opponents who fought back.  A grand game..."  Her voice faltered.  
"That doesn't answer my question."
"He sees your weakness, Dermallion," Ranhammon said.  
I still found it hard to accept that he wasn't killing me on the spot.  He had to be burning inside, having me so close but not being able to finish me off.  Because I'd made it through the Trial?  What would it take to allow him to go outside the rules and kill me?  I pushed that thought away.  
He continued.  "She found herself unable to kill.  She has no points.  See?"  Her hood swept back.  She glared at him but didn't put it up.
I saw lines in her face, hollows under her eyes.  She had a soft face, one that I guessed had not seen such pain in all her forty-some years.  What had she thought, that she would win the Headmaster position by sacrificing the three of us and then go on to protect a greater number?  And when it came down to it, she'd been paralyzed.
Poor, feeble thing, wanting not to hurt anyone and so helping no one.  
She looked away.
"I took Kalan," Ranhammon said.  "But Coronta did well also.  I, however, am ahead."
"So you win," I said.  Remens had never been with them, and Dermallion wouldn't help them now.  Three out, two left.  What was the game?  
Coronta laughed.  "No!  A surprise ending.  You see, Remens—"
"—offered me the chance to side with him," Dermallion mumbled.  She addressed the ground.  "I didn't think you could do it.  Go ahead and laugh, Ranhammon, but he was right.  The Academy needs to be changed.  We've forgotten our purpose.  I hoped I would be able to..."  Her voice trailed off.  "I don't know what I was thinking."
"Remens bet you would survive," Coronta said.  "He got points when you overcame one of our tests, such as when you got out of the bakery, and when you had an insight into the Trial or yourselves."
"He bet on our survival instead of our deaths."  
"Yes," Coronta said.  Something in her tone seemed too casual.
Ranhammon's force-spell pushed on me.  They wanted me to leave this alone.  Why?  What was the surprise ending Coronta had mentioned?
"Go," Ranhammon said.  The pressure eased.  "Stand up, and I'll send you home.  You can be back in seconds."  
I felt fierce triumph.  If he wanted me gone but couldn't make me go, I had power in this game.  It was time to shake them.  "You can't kill me, Ranhammon, or you would have.  Why not?  You and Coronta got Kalan, but I lived, and Yori lived, and she restored Luritsuran.  Remens must have had quite a few points."  
"He had the most," Dermallion said.
"Fool!" Coronta snapped.  "You didn't have to say anything."  
I absorbed that.  If he had the most points but died, and he bet on us, what happened to us?  
Ranhammon said, "He threw his lot with you, and you lived.  You're free to go."
I was missing something.  They could kill Yori and Luritsuran and settle who would become Headmaster that way.  But they weren't doing that.  Instead they were trying to convince me to leave.  Somehow everything hinged on me.  
This was ludicrous.  I wanted to scream at them, shake them into speech.  "Can Yori and Luritsuran leave with me?"
"No," Coronta said.  
"Why not?" I asked.
"They haven't made it yet," she answered.  
"Leave now," Ranhammon said, "And your friends will die painlessly."
I ignored him.  "All right..." I started, "If Remens won, and I made it, then I—"  I stopped.  "I didn't make it.  I only got here because Remens gave me his life.  So...according to your rules, am I representing Remens?"
Coronta looked away, and Ranhammon's face tightened.  Dermallion nodded.  "Since he gave you his life, you become him as far as the game is concerned.  You now have the most points.  You are Headmaster."
I—Headmaster?  This is madness!
I swept the memory into my Memory Sea and laughed in disbelief.  "What!"  No wonder they wanted me to leave!  "The second I get off the Isle I'm outside the game, aren't I?  And if I'd taken you up on it, you would have killed Yori and Luritsuran and decided which of you became Headmaster that way."  
Coronta said,  "We underestimated you and agreed to Remens' proposal."
Again I laughed.  "I can't believe this drivel."
"You can turn the Academy back to its proper course," Dermallion said quickly.  "You have a strong spirit—"
I waved at her to shut up.  "A mage can't be Headmaster."  I shook my head.  "I'd like to see the Academy put on a more humane course, but I'm not the one to do it."
She seemed to shrink even more upon herself, and I pitied her.  If she were stronger I would hand the position to her gladly, but the others would have her running in circles.  A leader who didn't trust her own voice would be worthless.
"I see you have an admirable grasp of the situation," Ranhammon said.  He walked over and squatted in front of me, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his fists.  He reeked of sweat and ash and blood.  I tried to back away and felt the fountain at my back.  The pressure on me increased, and I started puffing.
His eyes were large and black, inches from mine.  "You realize you cannot accept the position, and the other choice you might prefer is"—he glanced at Dermallion's slack face—"poorly disposed."  His eyes locked on mine, and I forgot the others.  He'd hurt me, he'd feed my soul to efrit, he'd have them skin me alive, he'd done it to others—Kalan!  
"Now, then," he said reasonably.  "Who would you see as Headmaster?"
I swallowed.  He couldn't touch me.  There were rules here—I wasn't a boy anymore—I broke from his gaze, and a cold wave went through me.  "None of you.  There are other masters who could take the position."
"Who?"  Coronta demanded.  "Shelby?  A doddering old man with few years left and little power.  Erustar?  She sees renegade plots everywhere.  Or perhaps you'd prefer a rogue?  Who else, Wizard Zahid?"
Who else, indeed?  Was I up to Headmaster?  What about Janine and the family we wanted?  We were happy in Hafar.  Moving back to Blackstone would be hard. 
Ranhammon rose to his feet, and his pressure abated.  The son-of-a-bitch knew he could intimidate me.  
"What if I don't choose?”
"We'd have to kill you," Coronta said.  "The one who finished you off would take the position."
"We will certainly not kill you," Ranhammon said sharply. "Though we will have to rearrange your memories before you leave.  No one, you see, ever survives the Isle of Dreams Trial."  He smiled again, a slit.  
Coronta's glare was fury.  Could I play them off on one another?  What if I only united them?  Any second I could say the wrong thing and slip outside the rules, and they'd be on me.  
Sweat rolled down my armpits.  I wanted to get away from them, but there was nowhere to go.  The only way out was through.  "Others have survived the Trial?"    
"Of course.  You didn't think you were the only one to overcome fears?" Ranhammon asked.
"I could choose Coronta," I pointed out.
"That would be foolish," he said tightly.
"Why?" I asked, watching Coronta.  She was angry but eager to be included.  
"She lacks subtlety!" he burst, looking at me.  "You said yourself that Headmaster is a delicate position.  You have to—"
Coronta cut in.  "The dšck‡lfs are becoming more and more powerful.  We have to raise a new class of wizard, warriors acting in unison instead of individually, united against the d—"
"This is no good.  You're fighting among yourselves like children.  I apologize for upsetting you."  Keep them off balance.  Go!  "You know I hate this position.  I would gladly see both of you gone, but I don't have that luxury.  That woman"—I flicked a finger toward Coronta—"is correct.  There's no one at the Academy who could turn it in the right direction.  She's also right that the dšck‡lfs are a threat.  Kalan told me things about the Mageguild and their plans for the Academy."
They were clearly startled by the lie.  I barrelled on.  "So I must choose one of you."
I spied Dermallion.  She was watching the others intensely.  I quickly returned my attention to the others.  Had they noticed my glance?  "Coronta, I don't know you.  To be blunt, I don't think a woman could handle the duties of Headmaster.  Why should I appoint you?"
She stiffened.  "That attitude plagues the Academy," she said.  "Judge for yourself how effective my abilities are.  My storm brought your carpet down in the water, and it was my lightning that nearly killed you on the ridgetop two days ago.  If your skills hadn't improved during the course of this Trial that lightning would have had you.  My power has kept Utu's light from shining on this Isle so your healer could not replenish herself and so you would be demoralized."
Part of what she said moved me.  Women were poorly treated at the Academy.  I felt the edge of an idea, but it eluded me.  I had to keep talking, keep moving.  "Those were powerful, I admit.  The sandstorm in the ruins was impressive, also." 
She nodded slowly, then firmly.  "That one was difficult."
She didn't know about the sandstorm.  How could that be?  I remembered the sand whipping around us, the bottle, the honomir.  How could I use that?  
"He knows you're lying," Ranhammon said.  "Remens watched over you for certain shifts.  It was not her storm, whatever you are talking about."
I fixed my eyes on the sand and smashed the triumph:  
There's something they don't know!  
For an instant I slipped and thought of Janine's glass, and her patient hands, heard her voice stumbling over High Akkadian as I taught her that tongue.  What if I lost this game?  No.  I had to concentrate.    
I looked again at Coronta.  Her face was angry and determined, reminding me of Yori's look when she drove off the honomir.  The idea that had escaped me a moment before came back, and I laughed at the simplicity of it.  "Of course."  I rubbed my face with my hand.   
Coronta asked, "What are you babbling about?"   
I grinned at her.  "Yori can run the Academy."
"She's already dead," Ranhammon said.  "We sent an attack party as soon as you left."
"You're lying.  She's not dead.  Luritsuran is one of the Great Masters.  Anything you sent is little pieces on the sand."
"A healer?  Ridiculous!"  Coronta sneered.
"It's never been done, but that doesn't mean it can't be."  A vision of the Academy welded with the healer's quarters, one school instead of two, fired my mind.  It could work.  My own prejudices were all that had kept me from seeing it this long.  
"We won," I said firmly.  "The choice is mine.  I appoint Yori to the position."
Ranhammon:  "She is not in the running."
"But she's in the winning party, so she's eligible.  I've made my choice."
"You are correct in saying that she is not dead," Ranhammon said.  "We sent spirits shortly after you left, and, as you say, Luritsuran sent them back.  Returning him was a clever healer trick that none of us foresaw.  But your healer is not here, so she cannot be nominated.  Since you seem determined to be stubborn on this point, it seems to be up to me to put an end to this nonsense.  Observe the fate of your idea."  He stood back from the others and drew from one of his pockets something small and black.  An obsidian knife.  He made two small incisions, and blood began to flow from the veins of his forearms.  
"No."  I started to rise from the fountain and realized he had released his force-spell.  
Coronta stepped close to me.  "Don't move," she said easily.
Damn it!   Why had I opened my mouth?  "Do you want him to win?" I hissed at Coronta.
"Better than the healer."
Blood ran down Ranhammon's arm, bright red, and he dripped it down his fingers to patter onto the encrusted sand.  He had to cut his veins several times, and I could see that the skin on his forearms was a mass of fine scars.  The little obsidian blade was covered with blood.  As the drops hit the sand they spread and flowed together to form a strip perhaps half an inch wide.  He finished a small circle and started another, larger one.  Finally both circles were completed, and he knelt in the smaller one, which was barely large enough for him.  He took the earrings out of his ears and slid the brass armlet off his left arm.  These he tossed outside the circle.
"Great Utu."  He was summoning a Lower Power.  I had never seen one summoned before.  They were the petty lords of the efrit, third in power after the lithaden Utu had cast down and the smoke-efrit, the lithaden's enforcers.  Anything that could make a sound had to be removed from Ranhammon's body lest it break his concentration and allow the Power to take him.  Could Luritsuran handle a Lowest Power?  He said his body wouldn't last long.  I had to do something.  If Kalan were—But he wasn't.  It was only me.
Ranhammon frowned as he concentrated.  He was silent and still, his eyes tightly shut, hands in front of him as if offering something.  Yori's soul?  
What spell could I cast to stop him?  I needed aid.  Kalan's elementals wouldn't listen to me.
Coronta growled, "Stay put."  
The sand in the large circle sank like an hourglass emptying.  The air around the circles shimmered from the flowing power.
"Who?"  The voice coming from the large circle was pleasing, gentle.  It was impossible to tell if it was male or female, young or old.  
I shuddered.  If Utu were here, the Power wouldn't dare show itself.  Could I dissipate the clouds?  But they were Coronta's clouds.  I couldn't even bend her magic.  My fingers twitched like Kalan's.  If I broke the summoning circles the Power wouldn't be able to enter our world.  And if I was lucky there'd be a backlash that would destroy Ranhammon.  But, how to break the circles?  Light-darts were fast, but Coronta would be quicker.  Yori and Luritsuran were too far away for me to shield, and I couldn't shield from a Lower Power anyway.  There was nothing in my repertoire that would serve. 
"Who calls?" the voice asked. 
"Ranhammon," Ranhammon hissed.  "Ranhammon begs your presence.  There are souls..."
"It is your soul I desire, Ranhammon."  The voice was sad but patient, an exasperated adult talking to a child.
"And you know you shall have it."
"But not today."
"I beg your indulgence."
White light, stronger than the technocrat's, poured from the hole.  I had to squint to see.  The desert seemed to sink around the light, warping like a drumhead pushed by a finger.  Visions slammed my mind.
Maggots twist under a dead boy's skin—
A gaunt man rapes a young girl who's screaming for her daddy—
Priests in colorful feather-candis tear the heart out of a baby—
A thick-bearded smith with a hammer in one hand shrieks, falls, as tendrils of flame stab through him—
A woman with weary black circles under her eyes sits at a window holding a bit of sharp stone as her life drains onto the floor in a parody of Ranhammon, looking into a desert of yellow sand, dreaming of her son's handsome face gone into swirling sand with their farm, their lives, her hope—
Sparkling blood droplets spatter on cool blue ice as a man sheathed in armor of frost lays into his eight-year-old son's back with a whip imbedded with bits of glass—
"Stop!" I wailed, holding my hands over my eyes.
The images ceased.  I panted for air.  
A shape, a slender human shape, rose into the light in the big circle.  Its body looked like Kalan from the waist up, fading to a wisp instead of legs, like a djinni.  It looked at me sadly, its violet eyes—Kalan's eyes—huge and full of pain.
I swallowed hard.  If it turned a fraction of its malice on me I'd be destroyed.  
Everything seemed frozen.  The breeze picked up, and I heard grains of sand hissing against the fountain.
The Power raised its gaze to look in the direction where Yori lay, and I felt its attention leave me as it sought her and Luritsuran.  "A simple task."  Its tone was friendly, unconcerned.
I tensed.  It knew where they were. 
Coronta's face was pale, her eyelids fluttering.  She must be feeling its visions still.
Suddenly I had a desperate idea.  It would take a mighty power to handle this creature and Coronta and Ranhammon, and there was only one I knew that might be able to do it.  I could get the honomir from the ruined city to come, though I couldn't control it when it arrived.  It was too powerful for me to call directly, but if I summoned its bottle it would follow.
  I dove deep to find a memory I'd saved for twelve years:
"Representing Satrap Buranzal of the Eastern Reaches, Zahid Irsinmantal."
Kalan claps and howls—
Remens hands me the grey rocskin scroll.  The ribbon is emerald-cloth, a fortune.
"Thank you."
"Congratulations, Wizard Zahid."  He shakes my hand and smiles.  
I made it!  Free!  To Hells with this place and with you, Ranhammon!
Picturing the bottle, I shattered the memory, shaped the power into a beam of yearning and far-called.  The energy shot forth to seek.  I'd never used this spell for such a long-distance summoning, but I knew it would work.  My skills had increased.
"That's enough!" Dermallion cried.  "No more!"  Light-darts broke the blood circles.  "I can't let you kill anyone else."
"Ah, that is interesting," the Power sighed.   
I stared.  Dermallion's eyes were wide.  Her fingers pointed at the circles.  "I'm sorry," she whispered.
Coronta stared at her.  "You stupid bitch," she said, blinking.  
Ranhammon rolled his eyes toward the sky, his mouth open in a silent laugh or scream.  He disappeared.  The Power's glaring light winked out.  The summoning circles and the Power faded.
In my hand the rune-carved bottle appeared. 
Thunder clapped above Coronta, whose face was a snarl.  A bolt of lightning lashed down at Dermallion.  The air crackled above Dermallion as she summoned a djinni which caught Coronta's lightning and exploded in a thunderblast that knocked them both down.
The thunder cracked my head back against the basin and forward into my knees.  Lights burst in my eyes.  My nose squirted warmth.  Master fighting master?  I had to get the Hells out of there.
"WHERE IS MY BOTTLE?"
Sand ate at me and filled my eyes.  Woozy, I hunkered down and hugged the bottle.  
"BOTTLE!"  
Thunder popped my ears.  The ground bucked, and my back cracked into the fountain again.  Sand stung my skin, tore my hair.  I shielded my eyes with my hands.
The ground rumbled and broke open.  My legs slid into a crevice.  I grabbed the basin with one hand and threw the bottle into the crack.  Let it go down there for its bottle.
Screaming, close.  Coronta.  Cut short.  The honomir got her.  I hoped Dermallion ran.
Clutching the lip of the basin, I crawled around the fountain.  There was no wind on my fingers.  Puzzled, I leaned forward into calm.  The area above the fountain was clear.  I could see blue sky when I looked up.  Pink liquid in the fountain frothed.
What was this?  It had been hidden by illusion to look like water.  Was this liquid the Isle’s heart?  How did the masters use it?
I gasped as something tickled my ankle.  One of the honomir's tentacles.
I plunged my hands into the liquid.  

Cold rimed the sweat on my skin.  Around me sparkled tiny stars.  I hung above the black plane, which was covered by dark fluid.
I willed myself to descend nearly to the placid surface.  
Glowing bubbles broke from the fluid in the center of the plane, where Remens had taken my place.  They floated off toward the stars.  I looked closely at one.  It was one of Remen's memories from his childhood:  playing with friends on a grassy hill. 
Another bubble rose.  I reached toward it, hesitated.  It seemed blasphemous to pry into his memories.  But I wanted to share, not pry.  
I touched it.  He was staring out a window in the Physiology Complex at a group of young adults talking in the field below:
Is it my duty to stay and try to teach these children?  Alhambad is slipping away.  He had fire with Erinar, but the flame went when she did.
Dark eyes, tangle of black hair, brown and maroon patterned pantaloons and a diamond-patterned vest, leaning against the library railing, smiling.
"Aren't you Master Remens?"  
"And you?"
"Erinar Farouel.  Master Erinar.  Alhambad's wife."
Ah.  No wonder our Headmaster is so energetic.
So much life...  But past is past, and the Headmaster is no help now.  I could achieve more with apprentices, but here I touch so many.  Ranhammon'll have me out within the year if he gets any closer to Alhambad.  How did we lose sight of the young ones?
The heaviness I'd pushed aside filled me.  Remens...  Dead.  So much of what I believed came from him.  He gave his life so I could make it this far.  What if my idea failed?  What if the Academy didn't accept Yori as Headmaster?  What if we never got off the Isle?  Had he ever known how much his teachings meant to me?
I thrust my arm into the fluid, seeking him, but the cold drove me back.  My skin was coated with frost.
"Damn this place!"  I smacked the water with impotent fists.  His soul was gone into the Isle, his memories stolen, floating up to the—stars?  I rose above the fluid and entered the starfield.  They were all memories.  I brushed my fingers over the closest ones:  
Green grassy hills, my dumb little brother running toward a copse of trees.  A wildcat jumps on him—"No!  Lazan!  Lazan!  I'm coming!  Get away from my brother!  I'll split your brains!"  I drop the bucket of water and grab a pole and run as the wildcat rakes his skin.  "I said get away!"  The pole thuds and the wildcat snarls and runs—
Remens and Arina lie tangled together, he looking at her face:  her eyes and mouth are wide, warm sandalwood skin, husky sighs.  Do you like it, my little one?  Do you want me?  Here, I know you like this.  I kiss her throat.  Her hands tickle my skin.  I slide into her and rock back on the bed, shuddering, her legs around my body, her eyes close, her smell warm and rich—
I found my own mouth open, and blood rushed to my cheeks.  I touched more bubbles, sharing with the man:
Light shimmers across a pond as I run past, breath steaming, another man close behind and gaining.  He's not close enough, though.  This race is mine—
Lightning flashes down from heaps of black clouds to lash a jagged mountain top—
Dark water rushes over my face and shoulders as I cut through the water, heart thudding in my ears, to smack the pier with a hand and turn around, on the seventy-sixth lap—
Steam rises from pudding as my brothers and sisters and I lick our lips and glance around the table at each other, waiting for a bite.  You're not going to get more than I will, Sarsan—
Ranhammon kneels sweating in a blood-circle on a grey, cobbled floor, a brown-haired dog shuddering out its life in front of him, blood soaking its hair, his body straining forward, hands held together over his head, small muscles taut, dark blood running down his arms, humming a tone over and over—
The feeling of Ranhammon being beautiful in his concentration made me shiver.
I drew deep breaths.  That this man, this incredible man, died for a game of the Masters' Council was another weight added to those I already bore.
The bubbles stretched away in all directions.  The Masters' Council had been using this place to steal the memories of the Isle's victims for centuries.  
Cynical bastards!  None of the Masters' Council will be Headmaster!  So help me Utu, I'll do whatever it takes to give the healers a chance to run the Academy.  Whatever it takes.
I looked at the bubbles.  I could use these memories to defend Hafar.  I came to the Isle for power, and power surrounded me.  Never again would we fear the Basquan.  We could force them to truce.  I gathered bubbles in my hands.  Power... 
They weren't mine.  They were stolen, ripped from their owners.  They weren't mine to take.  I let them go.  
I was torn away, the air sucked out of my lungs.  Memories and black plane disappeared.

The honomir's tentacle had wrapped around my chest and squeezed my breath away.  "BOTTLE!"  It whacked me against the basin.  Something thick snapped.  Agony drove up my leg and impaled me. 
"WHERE?"  It shook me semi-conscious.
"The pit," I whispered.
It hauled me upward.  I glimpsed bone sticking out from my leg.  The fountain grew smaller.  How long was the honomir's tentacle?  It was going to smash me.
Janine frowned in concern.  "Why so sad?" 
I tried to smile to reassure her.  "I love you."
The tentacle tensed.  It would hurl me down—Utu, we came so far and failed.  
I saw the fountain thirty feet below.  It was the source of the Isle's soul-stealing power.  My opal turned that kind of magic back on itself.  What would it do to the fountain?  Maybe I could at least let them go:  Remens, Kalan, all of them.  I pulled my opal from my turban and threw it into the pink liquid.  


XVI



As we walked up to the Administration Building I saw Yori sitting on the top step, watching us approach.
"Hello, Zahid, Janine."  She stood.  "Still hurts, I see."
"Yes, but at least I don't need the brace anymore.  Just these."  I slapped the crutches.
She nodded approvingly.  "I saw you working your knee as you came up.  I'll check it later, but it looks like you're doing fine.  Janine, you're radiant.  No, don't come up the steps.  It's too nice to be inside."
"Utu smiles on you," I told her as she joined us.  She'd regained weight, and the burns and scrapes were long gone.  Her hair had grown long again, and she had it tied back.  She wore the new Headmaster's candis, having retired red and black for her own favorites, russet and cream.  
"And on you.  It's good to see you."  She gave me a hug, careful of the crutches. 
We walked onto the quad.  Flowers had been planted along the walks, and the old flowerbeds had been enlarged.  Sapling acacias grew alongside the buildings.  In a month they would be full of yellow flowers.  I was glad I'd be there to see them.  
Yori walked slowly for me, but her face and body were full of energy.  "How was your trip?"
"Usual," I said.
"Hard," Janine said.  "That wagon jostled constantly, even though they were being careful.  But I will be with my sisters when I have the baby.  Zahid was ready for his mage training anyway." 
"Eight months, is it?"
Janine groaned.  "Feels like eight years.  The baby kicks all the time now.  Zahid's a big help, though, and two of the neighbors come over a couple times a day to fuss.  I think they're interested in whether or not the baby'll have horns.  A wizard's baby is a novelty in Hafar."
Yori laughed.  
Students waved at her as we passed, and she nodded or waved back.  There were more students, more of them female, more of them children.  A man in his early twenties shook a warning finger at a girl of seven or eight, who lifted her hands from another girl with a guilty look.  
Going to try a little spell, there?  "What's this?" I asked, tilting my head toward the young man and the girl.  "We were never allowed to mix with students outside our class."
"We're encouraging older students to find a younger student to teach and act as guide and friend to.  So far the healers-in-training are more enthusiastic than the wizards-in-training, but a few of the older wizards-in-training have volunteered.  Working with the little ones gives the older students a sense for someone else's needs."
I felt a stab of jealousy of the children I saw playing with older students, thinking of the loneliness I endured most of my years at the Academy.  Janine must have felt my reaction, for she squeezed my hand.  I gave her a quick kiss.
"How's Corolon?" I asked.  Yori had said in her letters that she'd brought her son to Blackstone.
She looked troubled.  "He's having a hard time.  He misses his daddy, and it's hard for him to leave everyone he knows to come here."
"I can imagine," Janine said.  
"Is he making any friends?" I asked.  I was around his age when I'd come to the Academy.  
"He's going to the Fajahad School in the city, so there are a lot of other children for him to make friends with.  Says he wants to learn numbers so he can become a technocrat.  He tells me about a friend he's made, so I think it's just a matter of time.  I hope so.  I'd hate to have brought him here to be unhappy."
"I'm sure he'll be all right," Janine said.  "The important thing is that he has you to care for him.  He'll make friends."
"I think so.  Maybe you can meet him while you're in the city."  She waved at a bench.  "Here?"  We sat.  "They'll be serving dinner in the dining hall in an hour or so.  Can you stay, or are you going to visit your family?" She directed this at Janine.
"Dinner would be good.  My sister isn't expecting us until late.  Have you done anything with that awful dining hall?  I hated eating there when I worked for the Academy."
Yori laughed.  "Wait until you see it!  We've put in windows and whitewashed the walls and—  Well, you'll see.  I eat there myself."
We were quiet.  It was pleasant to sit in their company, watching the young man talk to his pupil and listening to the children yell and play.  
"How did the fundraising go?" I asked. 
"I was shameless."  She grinned.  "I went to Wrin's family and the Great Council and all the old nobles my family grew up with.  There should be at least enough new contributions to cover what was lost when the Efritology patrons cut off their money and maybe some to spare.  I think I appealed more by friendship and family ties than by my position, but so far it's working."
"It seems like the children are accepting the changes without much fuss," Janine said.
"The parents are having a harder time than the students.  About two dozen wizards-in-training were withdrawn, and three healers-in-training, but the rest have stayed.  For now.  Everyone's watching to see what happens, what changes I make.  Luritsuran is a big help.  There are healers and masters both who don’t want to see the arts mixed.  A lot of resistance."
"I think you started right," I said, gazing across the quad at the Efritology building.  Two djinn wearing the forms of twenty-five feet tall giants were tearing it apart and loading the stones into wheelbarrows which wheeled themselves to the docks.  Only a few students watched.  I guessed they were used to the sight.  "It's a shame to lose the building, though."
"It was too poisoned.  The stones are being shipped all over, the dirt spread at sea."  She shook her head.  "You wouldn't believe the cost.  But it sends a strong message that we’re serious."
We watched the djinn pull down a wall.  They moved slowly and carefully, breaking each stone before loading it.  Another djinni in the shape of a whirlwind captured the dust and piled it in a wheelbarrow.  Taking no chances.
"But, I've been nothing but the Headmaster since I got back.  You wanted me to check on the baby, didn’t you?  Feel like more walking?"  She stood and extended a hand to Janine, who took it and rose.
"Coming?" Janine asked. 
"No, I'll wait here.  Go on, I'm fine." 
"All right.  See you in a bit."  They set off for the healer's quarters.  
I contentedly watched the students.  The shadows that haunted my class were gone.  These students laughed more, played more, and talked in louder tones than we ever dared.  Did they study, though?  Of course not.  Ours was the only class that had really studied hard...  I laughed at myself, feeling pleasantly old and distant from this place.  The older students said the same thing when we were going through, that their class studied harder, knew more, and was lucky to be leaving before our degenerate, illiterate and ill-mannered class learned enough magic to become a serious nuisance.  
I glanced again at the djinn.  In another year this place would hardly resemble my memories.  I was pleased to see the changes and at the same time felt my childhood slipping farther and farther behind me.  "What do you think, Kalan?  Wouldn't have liked it, would you?  A little dull."  I almost expected a gentle pressure beside me, but of course there was none.  Luritsuran had found his body in Ranhammon's quarters—I didn't think about what he'd been planning to do with it—and sent it to me, and I'd burned it in Hafar.  Sometimes I still woke crying, looking for him.  "I'm ready for a little dull."  The familiar pain rose behind my breastbone.  Every time a butterfly flew through my garden I thought of him.  We knew his soul—all the souls—had escaped from the Isle when my opal destroyed the fountain.  Luritsuran had checked.  That knowledge let me sleep easier.
I'd have to go see the monument Yori had had put up of him and Remens at the edge of the Academy fields.  She'd written me about it, a statue of the two of them together, Remens' hand on Kalan's shoulder, both of them looking at the Academy.  It was to commemorate their sacrifice in bringing the Academy and the healers together and was made of ash-colored basalt.  I'd have to work up to visiting it.  
Kalan... 
"The Headmaster said she was expecting you today.  I'm pleased to find you." 
Gently I pushed the memories away and turned.  Damn, he was tall!  He wore a grey candis with a stiff, high collar that rose behind his head and further increased his height.  He looked severe with a small goatee and short hair.  "Foul weather and strong memories, Luritsuran.  Is that right?"
He smiled.  "May you suffer great joys and sorrows, Wizard Zahid."
"Isn't that a curse?"
"I think it depends on how you interpret 'suffer.'  And you told me you didn't pay attention to history."  He sat down on the bench.  "No one has used those greetings in eight hundred years.  Like this candis.  You should have seen the tailor's reaction.  I will be thrice-damned if I give up all the traditions.  The adjustment to this time is hard enough without having to wear those ridiculous, collarless things you people call clothing."  He sighed.  
"I don't think I could ever adjust to being displaced by eight hundred years," I said, trying to imagine how lost he must feel.
"There are more changes than I would have expected, but those are surface.  People are the same.  The Headmaster told you we are chasing the shadows out of the corners of this place?"
I nodded.
"Has she told you Master Shelby is trying to stir up anger to re-split the schools?"
"She said there's tension."
He laughed.  "Mildly put.  Masters Mahad and Shelby and Mages Abarra and Hondr will probably leave shortly to start their own school or take on apprentices.  They do not wish a fight, but they do not agree with the new policies.  The others I think will stay.  The young mages and masters follow the nature of young people and are excited by change.  The graduating wizards are being offered a chance to teach, and a number are accepting.  Master Orilander resents young ones teaching, though, and she is making things difficult for them.  Others agree with her."
I could only shake my head at the tangle of politics, pleased to be out of it.
"How is your leg?"
"Yori says I'll be walking without crutches in a month, but I don't think I'll ever be the same.  The knee was so damaged..."
"You were fortunate the Headmaster and I got to you when we did, or you would certainly have died."
"I'm not ungrateful.  It's difficult not being able to climb in the hills, but I'm looking forward to plain walking."
We sat for a while.  Utu's heat felt good, especially on my legs.  My knee ached as always, but not much this afternoon.  
Finally he said, "Dermallion is taking on classes this coming year.  She has successfully appealed to her family for a great deal of gold toward the changes.  She works hard and seems to have forgiven herself."
I nodded.  "Good.  If she hadn't broken Ranhammon's circles we all would have died.  I think his Lower Power was a match or better for my honomir.  I'll visit her in a few days.  First I've got to get used to being back here."  I watched the young man scoop up the girl and run toward the djinn, both of them shrieking and laughing.  The djinn kept working.  "What did you do with Coronta's body?"  
"We sent her ashes to her family.  We found Remens' body and cremated it, too.  Arina took the ashes and left.  We have not heard from her since."  After a moment he added, "It was fortunate that you threw your opal in, or we would all have been ashes."
"Hells, I didn't know what would happen.  I thought it was over, and I just wanted to release the souls the Isle had trapped.  I never guessed the pool was keeping the clouds in place.  I believed Coronta when she said it was her doing."  I laughed.  "The honomir got a shock when Utu burst through."
"A permanent shock, if you are lucky.  Otherwise it will remember you for a very long time.  With that in mind, I have something for you.  It is a small gift, but I hope it pleases you."  He closed his hand, and I felt a surge of magic.  When he opened his fingers a fire opal mounted in a plain golden setting gleamed on his open palm.
I took it gently.  There were no scratches on this one.  "It looks very much like the old one."  I rubbed it against my cheek; it was smooth and cool.  I wiggled it back and forth in my fingers.  As light sparkled across its face I smiled.  
"You're pleased?"
"Yes!  It's beautiful.  Thank you.  I've missed mine.  In the old days I would rub it for reassurance.  Does this one shield souls?"
He grinned like a boy.  "And more.  This is a Great gem.  The art seems to have been lost, or there are none here who can accomplish the magic.  It amplifies the magic you cast, so spells are stronger than you can do by yourself.  I can show you how to use it while you are getting your mage training."
"You're serious."  Amplify my power?  With that and the mage training Hafar's safety would be almost assured.  
He frowned.  "Of course.  I learned the art from the dšck‡lfs.  Ah, I keep forgetting that the Academy and the Mageguild are no longer on terms.  No wonder you look so shocked.  The technique takes getting used to at first, so it will be best if we can work together for a few days."
I pinned the gem to my turban.  The slight weight was reassuring.  Having it made me feel complete.
"Here comes your wife and the Headmaster."
Would he ever call her Yori?
"The baby's fine," Janine said as we stood to meet them.  "Healthy and happy.  Yori says another twenty-five days, give or take a day.  I hope it's 'take.' "
I introduced her and Luritsuran.
"Charmed," he said, taking her hand.  He turned her palm up and closed his fist over it.  Janine's mouth opened in surprise as he opened his fingers.  A delicate purple butterfly slowly spread its wings in her hand.  "In honor of a friend," he said, glancing at me.  
I swallowed and nodded.
"It's beautiful," she said.  "It looks almost like glass."  With a small smile she offered it to me.  It hesitated and felt forward with its legs before stepping onto my hand.  The hooks on its claws gently scratched my skin.  
"Go on," I said, holding it up.  "You're free."  It fluttered its wings for a moment and flew above the buildings and into Utu's light.


THE END