1
Rules

Evil comes in through the window and goes out through the door.
	After dark, trust no one. If a cat looks at you, don’t look back. Don’t touch silver unless you know whose it is. 
Never, ever tell a stranger your name.
	It begins in the womb. Learning the rules. How to respect the nine-tenths of the world that most of you will never see. If you’re lucky.
	Water is safer than air. Idair is good but she didn’t make everything. Things that should never be trusted include: ice on a river, a light in a dark forest, and a promise from a dark user’s mouth.
	Every child raised in Ideire hears all of these things ten times a day.
	It’s not my fault people don’t listen.

*	*	*	*

	He was painting like a man possessed. But in a good way.
	Nobody had seen the canvas. Nobody would. It wasn’t even his father Keanrih worried about; Nocc had never shown interest in his painting and had no reason to start now. His mother loved everything he showed her, or pretended to, but would never take it on herself to enter his studio uninvited.
	Not that it was really a studio. Just a room in the southeast tower that had good light in the winter and windows that opened. The smell of oil and pounded pigment could become overpowering in a room without a breeze. And since nobody used the southeast tower unless there was company, he could be sure of time alone uninterrupted.
	Which was important, now.
	A month ago he had been happy painting ordinary portraits on squares of board. Now he was facing a canvas the size of his bed, along whose diagonal leapt a vivid arc of flickering color. When he stepped back, the flames took on flesh, coalescing into the body of a man straining in his naked skin up and out of the frame. Yellow hair shaken back against the grass, mouth open in a half cry, eyes vague behind the screen of their lashes, muscular arms thrust out toward the watching eye, their wrists entangled in a flowering vine.
	 Keanrih had never tried to paint him before. Perhaps he had been afraid something like this would happen.
	Nobody would see the canvas. But Taric had seen the painting. How, when, he was never going to know, exactly. Some moment of some afternoon or some evening when at the pitch of his passion he had become transparent as he always did and Taric had seen this image burning inside him. Seen it, and then thrown it back bitterly during one of their battles. Bound to you is right, Keanrih. Eyes no longer vague, mouth wide in anger, hands slashing free through the air. Bound and bleeding and thrown on your bed.
	Because in Keanrih’s mind, the vines had thorns too. He hadn’t wanted to paint them. But since Taric had seen them, he might as well.
	He picked up the brush and dipped it in a smudge of brownish green. Close to the canvas again, he began pulling sharp points out of the tendrils around the wrists. 
	He could be unfair, Taric. Since he had never been in Keanrih’s bed. In life, or in this image, which had always had him drenched in outdoor light on a bed of grass…
	Keanrih’s eyes wandered from the vine to the green blades interleaved with the yellow hair.
	That’s what he’d meant. The land. The land Taric would never, if he lived to be a hundred, really forgive Keanrih for owning.
	Well, a figure had to have a ground.
	But maybe if he could think of something nobody owned.
	He put down the palette he was holding and picked up the other, the one with the reds and yellows and vermilions. Some of them were too pale or delicate to be real flame. But he could make a start with the bolder ones.
	Fire. Another thing he’d never tried to paint.
	Maybe that was a bad sign. Maybe he was possessed by something. Maybe he should ask Theamh about it. Show her the painting, see what she thought.
	The idea died instantly. It’s just an excuse. And you know that.
	An excuse to show her the painting. To make her know, once and for all. To find out what it was like, to have someone know.
	The wistful longing disappeared in the cold twist of fear, and he knew he wouldn’t have the courage. Not soon, at any rate. Certainly not before the paint was dry.

*	*	*	*

	“The shriia is here, Aiv.”
	Nocc looked up at Rince, whose lantern jaws were set in the usual expression of unobtrusive deference.
	“Show her in, Rince.”
	Rince never got the chance. Theamh brushed past him, the wool skirt of her hreapa flapping around her legs as she entered the room with as little grace and poise as if she had been born in the crudest shack on Nocc’s demesne. 
	She stood awkwardly on the other side of the desk, one canvas boot scratching the other, hands stuffed inside her voluminous white sleeves. 
	“What do you need, Nocc?” she said.
	Theamh was an odd woman, even for a shriia. As far as Nocc could tell, being odd was one of the Order’s entrance requirements, along with honesty, poverty, celibacy and all the rest of it. They’d have to be odd, wouldn’t they, to give up any chance of a husband and children, and to give up money and property was odder still. But Theamh was just so much the opposite of what one expected from a shriia. Even apart from her being young enough to be his daughter. 
	“Please, shriia, sit down.” Nocc stood, creakily, motioning her to a chair. She dropped into it before his joints could let him back down into his.
	“The stiffness is still with you, then,” she said.
	She spoke without affection, but with something like concern. Which must have been real, since she had never been able to feign courtesy.
	“It is.”
	“Do you want me to try to get you an appointment with Lilea? She’s busy with the Returns work but she does still do some curing. She was able to help my seanmathi, a little, toward the end.”
	It was like her to bring up mortality in a conversation about an old man’s health. And like her not to have any idea that it was tactless. Morat might have been just as crass at times, but at least she did it on purpose. 
	“Maybe later, if it gets worse,” he said. “But I want to talk about my boy.”
	He saw the look of annoyance that he had expected. “Of course.”
	Theamh and Keanrih had become great friends in the two years she had been taking care of the people in Mablad. He’d been glad to see it, at first; but he was finding now that his son’s resistance to this match seemed to have infected her.
	“You say he’s clean.”
	“I do say he’s clean and I am a shriia.”
	“Shriias tell the truth.” She gave his sally only the most perfunctory of smiles.
	“I could of course be wrong. But I very much doubt I am.”
	“If he’s clean, then why won’t he do this one thing for me?” Nocc said, vexed at how much emotion cracked through his voice.
	One of Theamh’s hands played nervously with a strand of red hair. “It’s not a small thing, Nocc. This is the rest of his life.”
	“It’s a good match and Sioanna is a fine woman.” Theamh dropped her eyes with a sigh. “Don’t you think she’s a fine woman?”
	Theamh looked up at him wearily. “Certainly most men would say she’s beautiful.”
	“So why won’t he join with her?”
	“I don’t really know, Nocc. I have asked.”
	“And what did he say?”
	Theamh shrugged. “He said he didn’t want to, and changed the subject.”
	“And that’s all he said?”
	Theamh stared back at him, her face suddenly set like stone.
	“Morat may or may not have told you this while she was working here,” Theamh said, with a bite to her voice. “But when you imply that a shriia is lying to you, that makes her really, really angry.”
	Morat had never told him that. Morat hadn’t had to. Morat could just look at a person and make him know the contempt in which she held him and all his little human weaknesses. Anyway everyone knew how shriias were about the truth. They were bound to tell it, so they expected everyone else to. A good idea, of course; but it just seemed to make them so unreasonable about some things.
	“How can he not love her?” Nocc protested. “He’s only met her three times!”
	Theamh blinked at him.
	“Your logic is escaping me.”
	“There’s nothing said against her among her family, among her friends. By all accounts they had a grand time when they met during the season at Vinha. Both times she visited she was charming. She comes from a good line and they say she’s intelligent. Why shouldn’t he love her?”
	“It doesn’t work that way, Nocc,” Theamh said.
	Nocc dropped a hand down onto the desktop, stroking his chin with the other.
	“There must be another reason.”
	“I think you’re probably right. But until he feels like telling you what it is, you’ll just have to wonder.”
	He saw her face changing, and he knew she was reading him. Reading the anger, frustration, the bitter and desperate desire he felt to see his son agree to this match. And if she could read him, liking him as little as she did, she could surely read Keanrih much better.
	“You could find out.”
	“He doesn’t want to tell me his reasons. Probably because when he asked me why I was asking I told him.” Nocc sat back, annoyed. “I’m a shriia. You want a spy, go somewhere else.”
	“You could read him.”
	“All I can tell by reading him is that he’ll see himself in hell first. Which you know already.”
	“But if you scoured him,” he said. “You’d know then.”
	“I can’t scour him without his consent.”
	“Why not?”
	“To scour him I’d have to go into his mind. I can’t do that against his consent unless I believe he’s possessed.”
	“But if he is possessed?”
	“He’s not possessed.”
	“Are you sure?”
	“What did I just finish telling you?”
	“Maybe you could scour him anyway,” he said.
	“I beg your pardon?” Theamh demanded.
	“Maybe you could…you know…just go in and take a look? To make sure everything is all right.”
	Suddenly Theamh was on her feet and slamming her hands down on the desk with a clap that made him flinch.
	“Now you tell me straight what you are asking me to do,” she said, her voice low and shaking. “And you listen to yourself say it.”
	He knew he shouldn’t but he did.
	“I want you to find out what’s wrong with him. I want to know what’s in his mind.”
	“And maybe while I’m in his mind you’d like me to change it.”
	“I didn’t ask that!” Nocc shot back.
	He was surprised at how unconvincing that sounded, even to him. Theamh didn’t look any more convinced than he was.
	“You want me to force his mind.”
	“It’s not forcing—“
	Theamh spat out a curse that would have whitened a younger man’s hair.
	“In ten minutes the sun is going to set,” she said. “That means I have to get out of here and go down to your kitchen where some real believers are gathered to hear me read from the Chronicles. So I don’t have time to give you the tirade about how mindforcing is a loss violation and how even if I could do this without betraying Idair and losing my fire I wouldn’t because Keanrih’s mind belongs to him just like mine does to me. But I’ll tell you this. I don’t talk to the Council any more than I have to, but by the Spirit they’re going to hear from me tonight. Idair with you. I’ll find my own way out.”
	Not fast enough for my taste.
	She probably heard him. She was supposed to have one of the strongest minds in the Order. And she did slam the door behind her.

*	*	*	*

	It couldn’t be a dream. You wouldn’t dream about nothing but a pair of hands.
	And that’s all he could see. Two hands moving above a bed of red flame. The hands of a woman, with blunt nails and strong sinews. Dipping sometimes underneath the cuffs of their dark sleeves. Placing an iron kettle over the flame. Casting into it scraps of silver, dark ash, a thick liquid the color of curdled blood.
	Tossing the mixture into the fire. Tracing through, around, above the fire shapes that he knew had to have a meaning he didn’t understand. Reaching into the fire and pulling out something that glinted silver inside its pouch of red flame.
	That was it, that was all.
	It couldn’t be a dream. He always told himself it was and then it wasn’t. Like the first time he’d seen Keanrih. It was a year before he brought himself to say, I was looking for you long before I met you. It was another six months before he told Keanrih what that really meant.
	First, Keanrih took it seriously. It was only after that he made the joke. I’m pleased to know I’m the man of your dreams.
	And the anger Taric felt take his throat had suddenly relaxed its grip. Because looking at the smile curving Keanrih’s lips he’d realized he wanted it to stay there and the longer he looked the more he could hear himself thinking, laugh, yes, look at me like a lover and laugh, make me laugh with you.
	So much he could laugh at, if he chose. Him and the son of a big house bastard. Would his mother have believed it. If he had ever known her. Would his father. Whoever he was. Was that the joke, that Taric was the son of a big house bastard too.
	Him on his own land. Finally. Plenty he knew who would laugh at that. If the farm itself weren’t having the best laugh, breaking his back against its flinty spine.
	Him saying the word love. Him knowing even what that meant. Another laugh.
	But with that vision in his mind there wasn’t a way to laugh.
	Two hands moving above a bed of red flame. He was a man, what did he know from magic. Except that red was the color of the bloodeaters and the fire that comes from the Dark One. The shriias had drilled that much into him, before he ran off.
	The fire shriias made could be a lot of different colors. But it was never pure red. 
	Hreapas were always white and shriias didn’t wear black, ever.
	Dark magic was about to be done. Somewhere, to someone. 
And as usual, he had no idea why Idair was telling him this.

*	*	*	*	*

The sun had just disappeared behind the gray trunks of the stripped trees on the western hill. Which meant she had about five minutes to get her mind right.
Theamh laid one forearm along the cold stone wall and leaned her head against it, closing her eyes. The town leader, and everyone else in Mablad who had come to the reading, had already gone inside the na Polls’ warming kitchen to jostle for room on the floor and wait for her entrance. So nobody would see her out there, breathing the damp smell of the mortar in the chinks of the wall, trying desperately to get to a point where she could enter the room filled with something other than anger.
Her flaring up at Nocc was not surprising. As time continued to go by with no news, Theamh’s short temper was shortening itself rapidly. No, the startling thing was that for once her outburst had been justified. Since Nocc had not spent his life at the bottom of a well, he knew no shriia would agree to force someone’s mind, which was why he had made that feeble attempt to convince her Keanrih might be possessed. But in his heart, he had to have known she’d never fall for it. He’d tried it because he was desperate. The question was whether, now that Theamh had refused to mindforce Keanrih, Nocc was desperate enough to hire someone who would.
No, Theamh. It was her own mind, although she could hear Morat’s voice echoing in it, and maybe Barant’s. The question is, can you do your job, or can’t you.
Because when you walked into a reading your mind wasn’t supposed to be on your still-smoldering anger toward a particularly weak father of a particular friend of yours, nor indeed was it supposed to be following that line irresistibly toward speculations about whether that particularly weak father might be particularly ripe for the plucking by a particular dark user who happened to have ruined your particular life. You weren’t supposed to bring anything in with you but the fire and the words. 
So leave it outside, Theamh. Idair knows it’ll be there when you get out.
She lifted the latch and pushed open the door.
Inside the kitchen it was dark. At least she had finally learned how to feel out the path to the cleared semicircle at the end of the kitchen without stepping on three shins and five different feet. She crouched down on the sanded floor, unrolling the scroll in front of her. 
“Ta se dubh anseo.”
Old Tongue hadn’t come naturally to her at first. But it was easy now, the translation murmuring automatically in the back of her mind. It’s dark in here.
“Ta’n solus ag dorith.” The answer came from everyone gathered on the rest of the ktichen floor and perched on tables and cabinets. The sun has set.
“Thrinnibh an linn,” Theamh answered. Light the fire.
“Ca bhfuil an linn?”
Rote as the response was, Theamh always heard it with awe. It was a question she felt she could spend her entire life trying to answer. What is fire?
She held her hands out above the scroll. The yellow flame filling the space between her hands shone through her spread fingers, casting soft stripes of light rippling across the raised faces of the listeners. Theamh didn’t know whether there would come a time when it didn’t surprise her even a little to see fire springing from her hands, running along her skin, answering to her. 
“Ta se an linn.” 
This is fire. Her fire, bursting from her opened hands up to the ceiling, where it radiated in a star across the plaster, sending flickering yellow runners down the walls and along the floor. There was the usual shifting as people moved out of its path, uttering mild exclamations as they discovered a streamer of pale flame running over a leg or a shoulder. For readings she adjusted the fire so that it was almost all light, and wouldn’t do more than warm anyone it touched; but they were wary of it just the same. 
With the fire flickering in bright lines all over the room, and light dancing where the darkness had been, Theamh closed her hands and dropped them into the lap of her hreapa. She looked up at Mablad’s town leader, who got to her feet, pulling her blue jacket around her shoulders.
“What are you going to read us today, shriia?” the town leader asked.
“I don’t know,” Theamh answered. “What do you want to hear about?”
No one spoke up at first. People were still busy lighting candles at the runners of flame that criscrossed the floor. 
“There’s always the Burning,” someone finally suggested.
“Ah no,” countered a gray-haired woman in a shawl who had been given one of the few chairs. “It’s a winter story and I’ve had it with winter.”
There were noises of agreement from the others. Keanrih had slipped in late, and was standing in the back by the door, watching her with a kind of amused interest. She could see some of the servants from the big house clustered in the middle of the room, surrounded by the farmers, merchants, dealers, and others who had tramped in from outlying holdings to come to this reading. They had all had it with winter, the raw winds and the stubborn snow, chapped skin and watering eyes and meals of roots and preserves.
“Why not choose for us, shriia?” called out the town leader.
“Now don’t make me do all the work, Helte,” Theamh bantered back. 
“We trust you, don’t we?” said Carith, who sat with a candle in one plump fist. She was Nocc’s cook, so it was her kitchen, and she felt entitled to take charge. 
Theamh put her hands over her heart in the formal gesture of gratitude. “I thank you,” she said. “However, I’m not falling for it.” Laughter broke in a wave over her. “It’s your call, friends, and I’ll sit here till you make it. Or if you don’t, I’ll choose the First Instructions, and then you’ll be sorry.”
More laughter. The First Instructions was one of the most important stories in the Chronicles—to shriias. To ordinary people, it was an intensely tedious catalogue of rules they could hardly be expected to care about.
“The coming of the seasons!” someone shouted, with feigned panic.
 “Just as boring,” cried someone else. “How about Sincil and Anron, shriia?”
Oh for thurk’s sake not today.
Theamh was pretty sure she hadn’t actually sent that thought. Nobody was looking shocked, which they usually did when she forgot not to use profanity on the job.
“We’ve had it already this winter,” Keanrih called out. “I’d like something else, if no one objects.”
Keanrih knew that because he was the landowner’s eldest son, his voice would carry a lot of weight with this group of tenants and servants. That was why he hardly ever raised it during readings. Theamh knew he was only speaking because he’d seen something in her face that told him—and, she was forlornly hoping, only him—that the last thing on earth she wanted to do right now was read a love story.
“Sure we don’t, Aivin,” answered one of the farmers.
“Well,” Theamh said, as Keanrih’s participation seemed to have created a lull, “when all else fails, ask the children.” She leaned toward Naisa, a girl of six who was sitting very proud and proper with her younger sister Teala and their mother. “Naisa, what kind of story would like to hear?”
Naisa didn’t care that there were landowners in the room. “Tell one about Idair, shriia!” 
Theamh tried not to laugh, although everyone else was. “I will, Naisa, but you see, an awful lot of these stories are about Idair. Can you be more specific?”
Naisa put her arms protectively around her little sister. Striving hard to sound grown-up, she said, “Tell one about Idair’s mathi.”
Naisa’s mother burst out laughing, along with the others.
“Idair hasn’t got a mathi,” called an older boy, sticking his tongue out at Naisa when he thought Theamh wasn’t looking.
“Oh hasn’t she?” Theamh said. 
When she turned her eyes on the boy, he hid something behind his back in a hurry. Spitballs, his mind told her. 
“That’s very interesting, Gollc—how do you know?”
Gollc didn’t answer immediately.
“Idair has a mother, shriia?” he finally said, chastened.
“I don’t know whether she does or not,” Theamh said. “You don’t either. I’ll tell you what, Naisa,” she said, turning back to the girl. “I’ll tell you a story that’s about Idair, and also about mothers. Will that do?”
Naisa nodded.
“How about it, friends?” Theamh put it to the rest of them.
Enough heads were nodding. Theamh’s hands went to the scroll.
 “So then. From the beginning of the first scroll, the story of Idair’s Coming.”
Unrolling the scroll was a ritual detail; Theamh didn’t need to look at it. She had all the Chronicles memorized.
“For the love of Idair and in the name of the Spirit which we will never know, we begin the story of Idair who made us. And we will tell you how she came to us, and what she taught us, and how she fought the Dark One, and how she returned, and how with her fire we go on.
“And because when we speak of Idair we would speak only the truth, we tell you first the things that we do not know.
“We do not know who she was, before she was Idair.
“We do not know where she was, before she was here.
“We do not know where she went, after she returned.
“We do not know where we will go, after we are gone.
“We do not know why she was not always with us.
 “These things we do not know, and there are many others, and we cannot write them all, for the things we do not know increase daily even as the things we do know. 
“This thing we do know. We needed her, and she came.’”
Theamh glanced out over the audience. So far, they were still with her. 
“On the day Idair came, Sincil was in the forest drawing water from the stream. And she was alone at that time, for she lived in a house in the midst of the trees and if there was a village nearby, she did not know its name or how to find it. And as she was drawing water, and wondering as she often did who had made the water, and why, and whether the stream would always be there, she heard a noise, as if a wild animal were caught in a thicket.
“And Sincil set the pail down by the stream, and listened. The noise she had heard she did not hear again; but as she was lifting the pail, she heard the voice of another woman, and it seemed to be crying out in alarm.
“And although Sincil was frightened, she said to herself, ‘She seems to be in trouble; and if it were myself in trouble, I would want someone to come to me.’ And so she took her pail and walked toward the sound of the voice.
“There was at the top of the hill a great tilu tree whose branches were full of blue-green leaves. Sincil went often to sit under that tree, wondering to herself about this or that. And when she saw that underneath the tree, there was a woman standing, she thought for a moment that perhaps it was herself. But then she thought, ‘it cannot be myself, it must be someone else.’ And so she called out to her, ‘Can I help?’
“The woman turned her face toward Sincil, and Sincil was full of wonder, for it seemed to her as if this woman was very strange, and her hair was fiery red, but her face was very pale, and she was trembling.
“ ‘I do not know,’ said the other woman.
“And Sincil said to her, ‘Perhaps I can help you, if you tell me what it is that you need? I heard you cry out, and you seem frightened.’
“ ‘I am frightened,’ said the woman, although she was no longer trembling.
“And they looked at each other, and finally the other woman said, ‘Can you tell me where I am, and who you are?’
“And if Sincil thought these were strange questions, she said nothing, but simply answered, ‘You are in our country, and I am Sincil.’
“And as the sound of her name seemed to mean something to the other woman, Sincil said, ‘Do I know you?’
“And the other woman answered, ‘You do, and you do not.’
“And before Sincil could ask what she meant, the other woman said, ‘I am sorry; I have had a shock, and my mind is not right. Please do not mind what I say.’
“Sincil nodded, and said to her, ‘Why do you not come with me to my house, for you look as if you need to rest.’
“ ‘Thank you,’ said the other woman. ‘You are kind.’
“And they went back to Sincil’s house, and as they were sitting by the hearth eating Sincil’s bread and drinking water from the stream, she said to Sincil, ‘Do you live here all alone?’
“ ‘Yes,’ said Sincil. ‘I have always lived here all alone.’
“ ‘Always?’ said the woman.
“ ‘As long as I can remember,’ Sincil answered.
“ ‘Where are your parents?’ asked the woman.
“ ‘Parents?’ asked Sincil, for she did not understand.
“ ‘Your father and mother. Where are they?’
“And Sincil frowned, for she was puzzled, and she said, ‘I do not understand. What is a father? What is a mother?’
“And the other woman looked as if she were greatly startled, and she said, ‘You do not remember a man and a woman, who took care of you when you were a child?’
“And Sincil understood at last, and she said, ‘When I was a child, there was a man who went out to hunt, and he brought me food, and made me clothing. I think it was he who built this house. Is that a father?’
“ ‘Yes,’ said the woman, ‘I think that must be who I mean.’
“ ‘He is gone,’ said Sincil. ‘He went hunting one day, and did not return.’
“And the woman seemed saddened to hear this. And Sincil asked, because she was curious, ‘What is a mother?’
“The woman said, ‘You do not remember a woman, who was with your father, and helped him care for you?’
“ ‘I do not,’ said Sincil. ‘Is that a mother?’
“And the woman looked as if she were about to answer, and then she stopped, and thought for a time, and then began the answer again.
“ ‘There are two ways to be a mother,’ said the woman. ‘One way is to give birth to a child, and the other is to bring one up. Often a mother does both things; but sometimes only one or the other.’
“ ‘What does that mean, ‘give birth’?’ asked Sincil.
“And the woman said to her, ‘It is long to explain, but I will try.’
“And after the woman had explained to her what birth was, Sincil was thoughtful, and said, ‘It sounds as if it must be painful.’
“ ‘It is,’ said the woman.
“ ‘Why must it be painful?’
“And the woman paused, as if she were surprised by the question. Then she said, ‘Because it matters; and anything that matters is painful.’
“ ‘Then why do mothers give birth?’ asked Sincil.
“ ‘Some because they must, and others because they wish to,’ the woman answered. 
“ ‘Why do they wish to?’ Sincil went on.
“ ‘Because they would like to have children to care for,’ the woman answered. 
“And Sincil understood this, for she thought that it would be a good thing to have someone to care for. ‘Did I have a mother then?’
“ ‘You must have,’ said the woman.
“ ‘Why do I not know her?’ said Sincil, as she began to feel sad.
“ ‘I am not sure,’ said the woman.
“ ‘Perhaps I never had one, after all?’
“ ‘You must have had one. You must have come from somewhere.’
“And Sincil found that the other woman had become very quiet. And it looked to her as if the other woman was saddened, as if she had done hurt to someone without meaning to. And because she wished to make the woman less sad, Sincil said to her, ‘What should I call you?’
“And the woman looked at her, and Sincil noticed for the first time that her eyes were green, and that fear and sorrow seemed to be melting in them.
“ ‘Call me Idair,’ she answered.
“ ‘It is a strange word,’ Sincil replied. ‘Does it mean something?’
“ ‘Yes,’ said Idair.
“ ‘What does it mean?’ Sincil asked, because she suddenly wanted to know.
“And Idair looked as if she would not like to answer. But then she said, ‘It means that I am the woman who made you.’
“Sincil did not understand what Idair had said. And yet she felt happy. And she smiled at Idair, and said to her, ‘Does that mean you will be a friend to me?’
“And Idair said, ‘Yes. Always.’
“ ‘Thank you,’ said Sincil. ‘I have long wanted one.’
“ ‘I am sorry for that,’ Idair answered. ‘I should have come sooner.’
“And as Sincil wondered what that meant, Idair stood, and said, ‘What is it that you eat for your evening meal? I would like to help you make it.’
“ ‘I will show you,’ said Sincil.
“And they went out together. And there were many things that Sincil did not understand. But she was happy, for she was glad to have a friend.”
Theamh rolled up the scroll. The adults sat quiet, thinking. Naisa had her hand up, and was burning to ask the first question.
“Yes, Naisa?”
“Shriia,” she said. “What happened to Sincil’s mathi?”
“We don’t know,” Theamh answered. “Most people assume she died giving birth. That used to happen often, before Idair’s coming; and it would explain why Sincil doesn’t remember her.”
“Oh,” said Naisa, looking frightened.
“It’s all right, sweet thing,” said Naisa’s mother, patting her shoulder. “Sincil was all right, because she had Idair, wasn’t she, shriia.”
“That’s right,” Theamh answered, feeling a twinge of pain. “Idair took care of her like she takes care of all of us.”
Someone else had a question farther back, where the haze from the candles and flames made it harder to distinguish faces. 
“You know how in the other stories, when Sincil asks Idair what something is, and Idair makes it just pop into the world, bang, just like that?”
“I don’t know about the ‘bang,’ but otherwise, yes,” Theamh said, trying to make out the young man’s face.
“How come that doesn’t happen with this story?”
“Oh, that’s a great question!” Theamh said, betraying an enthusiasm that immediately embarrassed the young man. “No, really. Because that is how it happens, in the later stories. Sincil says, ‘What’s a flower?’ and Idair tells her, and then there the flowers are, like magic.” There was some laughter. “Well, not like magic; it was magic. And you’d think, you know, that it would have happened that way here. Why doesn’t Idair just poof Sincil’s mother into being, like she does with everything else?”
Trying not to think about what Barant would have had to say about her use of ‘poof’ as a verb, Theamh listened for answers. Carith was giving it a try.
“It would be ridiculous,” she said. “A grown woman springing out of nowhere like that.”
The gray-haired woman nodded. “Anyhow, shriia, if the mother died, then that’s it, isn’t it? Idair couldn’t bring the dead back.”
“Yes but anything’s possible,” countered Rince, the house steward.
“Yes but not that, surely,” Carith replied, asserting an authority here that she didn’t have over him during the work day.
“Well,” Theamh said. “Anything is possible, Idair told us that. At the same time, it’s true Idair couldn’t undo death. If Sincil’s mother really was dead, Idair couldn’t bring her back. But…well, that’s one answer. I’ve got a different one, but you don’t have to believe it. It’s a little strange.”
“Try us anyhow, shriia,” said Naisa’s mother. 
Why not. They all knew by now, surely, how strange she was.
“I think it does happen,” Theamh said. “I think Sincil’s mother comes into being while Idair’s talking.”
Carith blinked. A girl of about sixteen sitting next to her gave a little cry of comprehension.
“See, Weroda’s got it,” Theamh said. 
Weroda blushed. Poor Weroda had only been working in the house for a month and was still skittish and shy.
“Well share it with the rest then,” Carith said, nudging her.
“I…you mean that it’s Idair who’s her mother, shriia?”
There was a murmur of appraisal, as if people weren’t sure what they thought of this.
“That’s what I mean,” Theamh said. “She says there are two ways to do it. Well, we know Idair didn’t give birth to anyone. But she certainly does bring Sincil up. Even before Sincil knows who Idair is she’s constantly asking her questions. Sincil’s just all about what and why and how come. Cliath, does that sound familiar?”
Naisa’s mother laughed. “Sounds like a child to me, shriia.”
“Exactly,” Theamh said. “Idair doesn’t maybe know it at first. But Sincil asks her what a mother is, and Idair tells her, and then while she’s telling, she realizes. ‘That’s what I am. If she has a mother, it’s me.’ And by realizing that, she becomes Sincil’s mother. She agrees to take on the job.” 
Theamh was surprised to see some of the other women with children in the crowd nodding as if they understood. She felt she wasn’t being very clear.
“All right, the woman who birthed Sincil is lost. But Idair does for Sincil what a mother would have done. She answers her questions, she takes care of her, she fights for her; and she teaches her how to do right.”
It looked as if she’d convinced Naisa’s mother, at any rate. And Naisa seemed to find this comforting.
 “Does anyone else have a question?” Theamh said, after a pause.
Weroda, emboldened by having been the first to catch on, raised her hand.
“Why do you think she came to Sincil first, shriia?”
Theamh had never thought about this. “I don’t think anyone knows, Weroda, but I’ll give it a shot.”
She made an effort to keep her hands still.
“I think it’s because Sincil is so close to what Idair wants us to be,” Theamh said. “This is the beginning of the story; so Idair’s giving us the rules, right up front.”
Theamh smiled, not sure whether she were more serious or more joking, and began counting them off on her fingers.
“If you’ve got food, share it. If you have shelter, offer it. If you see a stranger, make her a friend. To help someone, find out what she needs. It’s good to have someone to care for.”
Carith was nodding; so were a lot of the others. Gollc was beginning to wonder whether he might now be able to get away with a spitball or two.
“If you want to know something, ask. If you don’t understand, ask again. If someone’s in trouble…go to her.”
Theamh knew that if she was aware of the pain she felt when she said that, so must some of the others be—at least the ones closest to her. And the growing silence did seem to indicate that they were beginning to read her.
“And the hardest one, maybe,” Theamh went on. “Anything that matters is painful.”
Well, she’d killed that discussion in a hurry. 
“And there are some rules in there just for the shriias,” she went on, trying to lighten the mood. “If you’re asked, tell the truth. And if you don’t know the answer, admit that.”
This time the laugh was loud, and almost universal. All shriias followed the first rule; a lot of them had a harder time with the second.
“Well,” said the town leader, standing up. “Have we heard enough to keep us?”
Everyone seemed to agree. 
Theamh stood up and raised her hands. “I have given you my fire. Let me return with yours.”
As they began to sing, she brought the fire back, withdrawing it from across the floor up the walls to the star in the ceiling, pulling it down in a pale yellow stream toward each hand. She left the kitchen, leaving the candles winking in their hands. 
She stepped out into a cold night, with darkness and clouds muffling the stars and a wind beginning to rise. The season was turning; but winter wouldn’t go without a fight.
Theamh was glad that people began streaming out of the kitchen before her own thoughts had time to descend upon her. Cliath came up to her with Teala by one hand and Naisa by the other.
“Naisa has a question for you, shriia,” said Cliath with a smile.
Theamh bent over so she was closer to Naisa’s height. “What is it, Naisa?”
Naisa said, solemnly, “Do you have a mathi, shriia?”
“Yes, I do, Naisa. I have an athi too.”
Naisa seemed immensely relieved. “So you’re all right, shriia?”
Naisa had been close enough to read her, and she knew something was wrong. And she had no idea what it was, but she wanted Theamh to be all right. And she was six years old, so she believed that as long as you had your mathi, you had everything.
“Thank you for asking, Naisa,” Theamh said. “And for helping pick the story.”
Cliath touched her lips and bowed. “Thank you, shriia. Till next time.” 
She led her two children away. Theamh watched them following the others down the hill to where their farms spread out in the valley.
“Are you all right, Theamh?”
Keanrih was the one person in her entire practice who was willing to use Theamh’s name instead of calling her ‘shriia.’ It was something she’d always been grateful for. Just as she was grateful to him now for having stayed behind after the others left, and for asking the question, difficult as it was.
“I had another chat with Nocc before the reading,” Theamh said, bringing her hands together with a clap. She knew he’d notice she wasn’t answering the question; but she knew he’d let it go. “I’d say guess what about, only you’d get it in one.”
“I surely would,” Keanrih groaned. “I’m sorry about him, Theamh—I know you must be sick of having that conversation—“
“Well, every once in a while he does something to make it interesting,” Theamh said. “Today, for instance, he tried to get me to mindforce you.”
Keanrih’s brown eyes widened, and then the lids drooped over them again.
“I’m sure he didn’t expect you to do it,” he said. “You know what he’s like, he blusters. Half the things he says to my mother he apologizes for within five seconds.”
Theamh knew he was right, but found herself wishing all the same that he would take it more seriously. “Well, you may well be right. But I still have to report him to the Council. It’ll probably get back to him, so brace yourself.”
“What do you mean report him?” Keanrih said.
“I mean I have to inform the Council that he asked me to commit an abuse of the fire. Technically speaking it’s not an abuse of the fire, but—“
“But it’s still a loss violation, and he’s still a gleachinai for asking you to do it,” Keanrih said, nodding. “Will they arrest him?”
 “Don’t get your hopes up.” Keanrih laughed. “No, he hasn’t done anything illegal, Keanrih.”
“So what’s the point of reporting him?”
“So in case he hires someone who will force your mind for him—which is illegal—we’ve got this on record.”
Keanrih looked startled.
“He wouldn’t do that to me,” he said, quickly.
Theamh shrugged. “You’d be surprised. Dark users make a lot of money off mindforcing. Anyhow you don’t even need a dark user. Any ordinary person with enough mindstrength and no scruples could do it for him. Course ordinary people can’t do the shields, so they’re visible, so that makes it harder to get close enough to the victim.”
He was beginning to look horrified. Theamh reminded herself that not everyone had spent a winter living in evil’s lap, and some people were not used to these things.
“I’m not saying Nocc’s dealing with the Dark One, Keanrih; I’m just saying he has a real burr up his gleacha about this match, and he’s either going to make you do it, or know the reason why. Might be less trouble for everyone if you just told him whatever it is you’re keeping from him.”
She looked at him hard when she said that. He looked right back. 
“I’m not going to. Ever.”
Well, at least he wasn’t lying to her.
“Ah well,” she said. “Take care of yourself, then, and don’t talk to strangers.”
“All right,” he said, with a smile.
She expected him to make his farewell, but he didn’t. Theamh looked back as he studied her, wondering what he was reading.
Finally, he said, “Still no news of Istria, then.”
“No,” Theamh said, crossing her arms as if against the cold. 
“I’ll hope it for you, Theamh,” he said.
“Thank you,” she answered, trying to mask.
“And I appreciate the warning,” Keanrih answered. “But he’ll get over it—someday. Idair with you.”
“Idair with you,” Theamh said, watching him climb the steps back to the front door of the big house. She was alone now on the bare hillside under the night sky.
And as she had known it would, it all surged back on her. 
The waters gathered as she walked home. Deeper, colder, darker. Drawing her down, away from the here and now, into the black pool where nightmares were born.
If someone’s in trouble, go to her.
Nothing was ever as simple as it was in the Chronicles.

*	*	*	*	*

A knock on the door at this time of night could not mean something good.
Morat had not been asleep. She hadn’t even taken back the fire she’d hung above the bed. She swung her bare feet onto the cold floorboards and threw off the coarse blanket, shivering in her shift. Running one hand through her cropped gray hair she waved at the fire globe with the other, dragging it behind her to the tiny entrance hall.
“Who’s there?”
Her voice sounded to her like the grate of iron on iron. The knocking stopped.
“It’s Theamh ni hUlnach, Aiv.”
It leapt out of her mind unbidden. Is it the end of the world?
“No,” Theamh answered, from the other side of the door. “I just—I said I’d report it tonight and I forgot about the block on my link.”
Morat pulled back the latch and opened the door.
“Report what?” she said, not stepping back or motioning her in.
Theamh was still in hreapa, and smelling faintly of her horse’s sweat and her own. Melted snow pooled around her canvas ropesoled boots. 
“Nocc mac Deira asked me to mindforce Keanrih. I thought the Council should know.” 
Theamh turned to go.
“Excuse me?”
The sound of Morat’s voice brought Theamh up short.
“When did this happen?”
“This afternoon, before the reading.” 
Morat shook her head, startled and not quite sure who to be angry with. 
“Look,” Theamh went on. “Nocc has been on my case for two weeks and more trying to get me to get Keanrih to consent to join with this woman he doesn’t want to join with. I tried to mediate but you know my talents lie elsewhere.”
“They certainly do.”
Theamh swallowed the barb with more grace than usual. “This afternoon he suggested that I scour Keanrih against his consent. I called him on it and he repeated the request.”
“And what exactly did he say?”
“He said, ‘I want you to find out what’s wrong with him. I want to know what’s in his mind.’”
She bit the sentence off. The words dropped flat on the flagstones in the hallway.
“And you told him--?”
“He could go thurk himself. Not in those exact words.”
“With you one can never be sure,” Morat answered dryly.
“Fine,” Theamh snapped. “Insult to injury. What else can I expect. I told him I would report this and now I have. Idair with you, Morat.”
“Theamh.” 
Once again, Theamh swung back to face her, her mood deteriorating palpably.
 Instead of what had been in her mind to say, Morat said, “You’re never going to forgive me, are you?”
This seemed to rattle her.
“Anything’s possible,” Theamh said.
Around Morat—around any member of the Council, with the exception of Lilea and Slythe—Theamh masked so heavily that it felt like forcing to try to read her. So that one brief gust of sorrow cut like a mountain wind.
 “But right now,” Theamh said, as the fissure closed, “it doesn’t seem likely.”
Morat watched her for a moment, weighing things. It was long after sundown. It was a long ride to the Pharc from Theamh’s house in the forest. It had been a long time since Theamh had spoken to her voluntarily. 
Barant’s apartment was down the hall. Barant was on the Council too, and Theamh had been Barant’s apprentice; reporting this to Barant would have satisfied Theamh’s truth duty and made for a far more pleasant conversation. Somehow Barant had managed not to earn Theamh’s hatred, despite having helped commit every one of the wrongs Theamh held against Morat. 
So what was Theamh doing on this doorstep.
She’d knocked on Morat’s door because Mablad was part of Morat’s old practice and Keanrih and his family used to be Morat’s people, and Theamh felt Morat had a right to know. Even though talking to Morat was a hard thing that she didn’t have to do.
It had taken a year and more. But some small, fragile sense of her duty to the Order had begun to push its way through the caked-up sod of Theamh’s obstinacy.
It was a sensitive plant, and Morat knew that so far she hadn’t done a very good job of nurturing it.
“Thank you for coming to me,” Morat said.
Theamh looked startled.
“I could talk to Barant and Grinth about reopening your link to the Council,” she said. “If you want that.”
Theamh shrugged, and said, “I suppose it would make things…” 
Under Morat’s gaze, she broke off, swallowed, and resumed. 
“Yes. I would like that. It has been hard on me.”
“You made it necessary.”
“I know.”
There was a tense silence, while Morat failed to read her.
“I’ll go out there tomorrow,” Morat said. “Whatever you laid on him, he’ll get double that and more.”
Theamh bowed, awkwardly. “Thank you, Aiv.”
“Good rest to you and safe home, Theamh.”
“Idair with you.”
Morat shut the door.
Half the time, looking at Theamh, she could only feel resentment. To be hated so much for having been the one to do what everyone agreed was necessary.
Half the time, she thought Theamh didn’t hate her nearly as much as she deserved.
Idair accepted this. That there could be two truths living side by side in the same human heart. That it could be hard, with the heart, to know the absolute truth. Which had not stopped Morat from searching herself for it, night after night, praying that Idair would forgive her. Easier than Theamh would ever forgive her. Easier than she would forgive herself. Certainly easier than Istria, wherever she was, ever would.

*	*	*	*

I was riding Maerin when the call came from Bric.
	<Nocc’s ready to do business.>
	I looked up at Maerin’s florid, sweating face. Curls of red hair stuck to his damp brow. His eyes were half-closed and his mouth half-open.
	<Fifteen minutes, Bric.>
	<All right.>
	I shut the link and went back to what I was doing. 
Normally I’d have worked him another hour and a half. But the prospect of getting my hooks into Nocc mac Deira na Poll was more interesting.
	I hooked my legs around his waist and drove him down into me.
	Maerin is unused to swift gratification. His shout of pleasure was at least half shock. When I surged up and pushed his shoulders down, he dropped like a sack of pratai. He lay on his back on the stone floor, with me crouching over him. Fit for nothing but to lie there and shudder while I brought him to it.
	We have been doing this every day for six years and he hasn’t figured out yet that it’s a rite.
	I change things from day to day to keep myself entertained. But some things are always the same. He always begins on top and finishes on the bottom. It’s always on a stone floor. And at his climax, it’s always the same four questions.
	I locked my hands around the back of his head and fixed my eyes on his.
	“Who owns you?” I grunted, forcing my hips down on him.
	He roared it, hoarse. “You do.”
	“Who rules you?”
	“You do.”
	“Who do you burn for?”
	“You!”
	“And who am I?”
	“You—are—Lythril.”
	One more long shudder, and he’d spent everything he had. 
	I climbed off him. While he gasped on the flagstones, I picked up my robe and wrapped it around me. Sometimes I take the robe off, sometimes I leave it on. I always wear the boots. And the chain.
	“Meet me in the study,” I said, leaving him there. “We’ve got a new client.”
	The hangings make the study dark. I hung some fire above the table, just enough to give the polished oak surface a ruddy sheen. 
	<Is he ready, Bric?> 
<Mostly.>
<Bleed me through.>
I sat down and put my feet up on the table.
Bric thinks that when I say that I’m telling him to deepen our link, so I can see and hear what he’s seeing and hearing. I don’t need his consent to get deeper into his head. But this is the secret of managing men. They have to believe they’re in charge. 
I could see Nocc sitting in that office of Bric’s, one hand tapping nervously on his bony knee. His eyes roamed along the paneled walls, reassuring him with the richness of the wood and the heaviness of the gilt trim. Bric has taste, but is inclined to overspend. I don’t bother correcting that. It’s his money.
“Nocc mac Deira na Poll,” I said.
My voice came out as Bric’s, of course. But people know when it’s me.
“Yes,” Nocc said, trying not to show fear.
“I am Lythril,” I said. “What do you want?”
“I…” The new ones always have trouble spitting it out. “It’s my son. I want him to be joined and he won’t.”
“And what do you want me to do for you?”
Nocc rubbed his hands back and forth along his worsted trousers. “I haven’t been able to persuade him. My mind’s no stronger than his. I’ve arranged a match for him, the woman is more than willing, I just need to change his mind.”
A disappointing beginning. But he was worth cultivating.
“Mindforcing will run you fifty pieces a day plus travel and the cost of the shield. How long an engagement were you planning?”
I was surprised by the look of dismay. The na Polls owned most of Mablad. He shouldn’t have had any trouble paying the introductory rate.
“You mean it won’t be permanent?”
“You didn’t ask for permanence. You said you wanted him joined. Multiply the number of days between now and the joining by fifty and if you can’t pay it, stop wasting my time.”
<If I may?> Bric put in.
<Go ahead.>
I let Bric take control of his own voice for a moment. 
“I think from what you were telling me, Nocc, that the joining is just part of it. You want him changed, for good. Isn’t that right?”
Nocc nodded gratefully. 
“It isn’t so much that you want to force him into this against his will, as that you want him to want to be joined.”
“Yes, yes, that’s it exactly.” His foolish head bobbed up and down on his neck. “I just want to see him—you know—righted.”
This is why I use Bric. Hardly anyone comes to me prepared to face the fact of what they are about to do. Being a lawyer, Bric is exceptionally good at dressing it up for them. No, this isn’t wrong. No, dark doesn’t mean evil. No, you’re doing the right thing. It’s really for his, her, their own good.
 “You want him to be happy, to have a good marriage and a good family,” Bric continued.
Nocc looked inexpressibly relieved. “Yes. That’s what I want.”
“And for that to happen, he has to be changed. That’s what you’re really asking for.”
Nocc couldn’t agree with him fast enough. “Yes. Exactly. Can…can you do that? Set him right?”
Sure. I can completely transform someone’s basic human nature. It’s easy.
But since new clients hardly ever appreciate sarcasm, what I said was, “That is a very different transaction. One lump sum, half paid in advance and half on completion.”
“What kind of money are we talking about?” Nocc inquired, querulous now that he faced the prospect of parting with gold.
“This kind of service is not cheap,” I said. “I will have to oversee it personally, and there is risk of exposure.”
“And how much does all that cost?” Nocc persisted.
“Nine hundred,” I said. “Gold.”
If he hadn’t been deathly afraid of me Nocc would have said what he was thinking.
“If you weren’t a new client I would ask a thousand.”
“I—I’ll have to think…”
Another thing that tries my patience. If you are going to sell yourself to the Dark One it makes no sense to haggle over the price.
“You may find someone who will do it cheaper,” I said. “But I doubt you’ll be satisfied with the results.”
“Half up front?” Nocc said, rubbing the straggling whiskers on his chin.
“Yes,” I said.
“I think I can cover that in cash,” he said.
I knew he could cover it in cash. I don’t pick these figures out of the air.
“Good. Make the arrangements with Bric.” Nocc nodded. “Now I will need a few things from you. First, I need something personal belonging to your son. Something close to him, that he will be invested in.”
Nocc blinked. “You mean like…what do you mean?”
<Keanrih paints,> Bric suggested, sensing my impatience.
“Your boy paints, I hear?”
Nocc nodded.
“Bring Bric one of his paintings.”
“Very good, Aiv.”
“Second, stop pressuring your son. Tell him you have reconciled yourself to his will and make sure everyone knows that. Whose ears have you been bending about this?”
“Well,” Nocc said. “I’ve talked to my other children—my wife, Minead—the shriia—“
One of Bric’s hands hit the desk. But that was all. I didn’t have his money yet.
“Your shriia is Theamh ni hUlnach.”
“Y-yes, Lythril…” 
“What exactly have you said to her about this? Don’t lie, I’ll know.”
“I…asked her to try to…to find out…why he was refusing. She…misinterpreted.”
<Where do I find them, Bric? From under what rock does the Dark One drag these morons?>
<I wouldn’t presume to fathom his ways,> Bric answered.
It would be all right. I could use this.
“Did she say she would report this to the Council?”
Nocc nodded, timidly.
Morat was on the Council. And Morat had been shriia for Mablad before Theamh took the practice. 
“Very well, Nocc,” I said. “Here’s what I need you to do. And you will do it exactly as I instruct you. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Lythril.”
I always savor the moment. 
Because the darkness in each heart is mixed of different proportions of gall, venom, bile. The watery taste of weakness, the bitter taste of hatred. The sweet odor of corruption. Every heart has a different taste, just as every aura has a different hue. And this moment, the moment at which the dark needle pierces him, is the last time anyone will taste it. 
Everything rotten turns black in the end.

2
Trapped
	I see him on the threshold, across the room from that enormous canvas. I hear him thinking, I won’t look, I won’t look. But he is looking.
	Where did this man come from? Is this Keanrih’s fantasy? Is it a real man, someone maybe Nocc himself has seen, met, spoken to?  Is it—could it be—taken from life? Has Keanrih seen this man stretched out naked in the transports of love? What else has Keanrih seen? What else has he done?
	Nocc doesn’t want to know. He turns away from the image to a smaller group of finished paintings stacked up in a corner, leaning against a wall. He bends his brittle knees and flips through them, furtively, wanting to look over his shoulder but still terrified of the man reaching out for him from that canvas.
	I know why he chooses the one he chooses.
	They are all portraits or still lives. A still life doesn’t seem personal enough to satisfy my requirements. It has to be a portrait. He looks from one to the other and sees that Keanrih has been painting the people closest to him. His mother, his sister, his two younger brothers. 
	He can’t choose one of those. Not if he’s going to give it to me. He doesn’t want to give a dark user power over someone he loves. 
	And to think there are some who doubt that the Dark One has a sense of humor.
	His hands go through the stack, rejecting them, not daring to explain to himself why.
	Until he comes to this one.
	It’s a relief to him to see it. From what I hear, Nocc doesn’t get on with Theamh. That doesn’t surprise me. I can’t understand why anyone gets along with her. I never thought she would last in shri. Apart from her personality problems, it seems to me anyone who talks as much as she does would have to lie at least once.
	Idair protects Theamh like she protects all her favorites, and so there she is, wearing a hreapa and playing shriia. But I’ve left my mark on her. When I scar it goes deep.
	If Theamh knew Nocc had given me a portrait of her—a good one, that really captures her—she would wet herself.
	She won’t know. Not for a long time. I’ll be working on her for a while. I’ll use it against her when and how it will do the most damage. Long after I’ve used it against Keanrih mac Minead.
	I see Nocc lifting it out of the stack, deciding it will do, tucking it inside his jacket. Leaving the room and locking it behind him, as he found it.
	I wasn’t there. I can’t prove it happened this way. 
But it did. 
I know it did because I know how darkness works. I know exactly what’s in his mind, in his heart, as he crosses that doorway with his stolen painting. And what I know is what is. Because he’s mine. And from now on, I make his truth.

*	*	*	*

	Morat was downright rude. Blindsiding him like that without even giving Rince a chance to announce her. Accosting him outside the door to his study, just moments after he had secreted the painting among a pile of legal papers he had set aside for Bric.
	“Step inside, Nocc mac Deira. I have words for you.”
	Nocc had always done exactly as Morat said. Everyone did as Morat said, from the apprentices at the scoil to the shriias on the Council. Inside the steel-gray eyes that matched her bristling gray hair was something so unyielding, so implacable, that most of the time she never had to raise her voice. 
	Meekly, he opened the door and went back into the study. The painting was invisible under the pile of papers. He closed the door behind Morat.
	“Theamh told me what happened here.”
	“Theamh misunderst—“
	“Stop.”
	Nocc stopped.
	“If you thought that because Theamh is new to the job you could push her around, I hope you now realize the gravity of your error.”
	“I do,” he said, with feeling.
	“I am beyond disappointed in you. You may be a weak man in your way, but you’ve never given me reason to believe evil of you. Now I hear that you are trying to badger an inexperienced shriia into violating the mind of your own son,” she went on, riding roughshod over his attempt to speak. “I want you to tell me what is eating you. Because unless that request was a cry for help, I cannot understand it.”
	She had finally given him an opening. Nocc knew what he had to do, but sweat still broke out on his forehead. This was Morat ni hArrloh. And who the hell was he.
	“I—it’s—“ After what he had seen in Keanrih’s studio, Nocc had no trouble producing some emotional distress for Morat to read. “It’s terrible. It’s a terrible shame to the family. I do want to tell you about it, I desperately need your advice, but—“
	“But what?” Morat demanded, not mollified.
	“But—if it got about—“ He felt sick to his stomach as he took the plunge. “I will tell you, but I want you to promise you’ll never reveal what I tell you in this room to anyone.”
	Those were the words Lythril had given him. He tried to pretend that the curdling of his bowels, which Morat surely detected, had to do with the shame he had mentioned.
	“Nocc—“ Morat began.
	“I can’t!” Nocc wailed, terrified that she would refuse. “I can’t speak of it, I can’t, unless I know it will go no further than you!”
	She seemed impressed with the strength of his agony, and concerned for him.
	“All right, Nocc,” she said. “I promise that I will never tell anyone anything you say to me in this room.”
	She had rephrased it.
	He knew he should push for the wording Lythril had given him. But if he pushed her, she might suspect, and not give a promise at all.
	Tell, reveal. How much could it matter?
	A lot, if Lythril got angry.
	“And that you won’t—let anyone know, somehow, even without saying it straight out?” he said.
	“The promise I just gave is the one you get, Nocc,” Morat said. “I’m not binding myself to something that vague. Make up your mind.”
	At least he could say he’d done his best. If he pushed further she would definitely get her guard up.
	“All right.” He sat down in one of the chairs, waving Morat into another.
	Morat sat on the edge of the sofa, not allowing herself to lean back against the overstuffed cushions.
	“Keanrih—I want him joined. I want him joined because—I think he’s—I think he prefers men.”
	Morat’s graveled voice was curt and clipped. “Sexually.”
	He winced a little at the word. “Yes.”
	“What makes you think that?”
	“Oh—just—things I’ve seen.”
	“You may be right,” Morat said. “Some men are taken that way. I understand you would be upset. But if he is, then joining him would not change that.”
	“He’d learn to like it. Everyone does.”
	Morat made a noise of contempt.
	“What?” Nocc demanded, stung.
	“I hear that a lot,” Morat said. “How an arranged match is just like a love match, that the parties come to love each other in time.” The way she said it made it sound vaguely obscene. “It worked for you and Minead. I could name ten other arranged matches where it hasn’t.” Nocc turned away from her disgust. “Lie to yourselves if that makes it easier for you to keep each other rich. But don’t lie to me. Idair wanted people to join where there was love and most of the time no good comes of doing it otherwise.”
	“Well, what am I to do?” Nocc demanded. “If he won’t love a woman, and the Order won’t let him join with a man, what am I to do?”
	“I don’t see how it’s your problem,” Morat replied, coldly. 
	“He’s my son. I want him to be happy.”
	“And you want this so badly you asked Theamh to mindforce him.”
	“Yes!” Nocc shouted, his anger finally breaking the grip of his fear. “Yes, I did that, and I’ll do worse! I already have!” Before Morat could act on that look in her eye, he hurried to spit it out. “I’ve been to Lythril—I’m paying her to—“
	“Bihusht!”
	Morat was on her feet in an instant, one hand flung out at him. His jaw clapped shut. He couldn’t get it open. While she glared at him he struggled in panic, wondering if it was permanent, and how he would eat.
	“That’s the last word you’ll say to me, in this room,” Morat said.
	He could say nothing. He could hardly breathe. He thought, for a moment, that Morat’s anger was liable to be as dangerous as Lythril’s.
	“She told you what to do, and you’ve done it,” Morat said, her voice dry and hard. “You set the trap and I walked into it. Because I wanted to help you.”
	He was determined that nothing she said would make him feel a thing. And he found it didn’t.
	“You think you’re being smart,” she said. She dropped her hand, but his jaw still clove to the rest of his skull. “Binding me to keep the secret. When all you’re doing is spreading yourself out naked for the red teeth of evil.” She swallowed something in her throat. “Don’t think, because you’re paying her, that she won’t make you suffer. And don’t think, because you’re paying her, that she won’t own you body, brain and spirit before she’s done with you. Name of the Spirit!” she shouted, fire snapping from the flint in her eyes. “Your son is as Idair made him, and promise or no promise I will work to find a way to stop you and the Dark One from unmaking him.”
	She tore the door open and flung it shut after her with a bang that shattered his last remaining nerve. His mouth finally opened in a gasp.
	He collapsed onto the cushions, his eyes fluttering shut and his heart hammering. Lythril had been very specific. Reveal. Not say, speak, or tell. Make her say reveal. 
	His mind ran over the promise Morat had given. The word ‘reveal’ appeared nowhere in it.
	It was only a word. It couldn’t be worth his life.

*	*	*

	I’m not going to tell you how it’s done.
	Except for what everyone already knows.
	You have an aura. You will never see it, unless for some reason someone performs an auralysis on you, or unless you are a shriia who is stalking me as a specter and I hit you with showdust so that we can both see you. And since, if you are a shriia, your aura is white at the core, you’ll be extremely visible, especially at night.
	But you’re not a shriia. Are you.
	So. You have an aura. But your aura is not contained by your body. It leaks, it hisses, it hovers around you, gliding ghostly over and into everything you touch. The more often you touch something, the more of you it retains.
	And your aura is ground into everything that matters to you. If you labor days over a square of plain board trying to make something out of it, and you succeed, you succeed because your aura has passed into it and is living in the daubs and scratches and smells of that paint. And if you mixed the paint yourself, ground up the pigments with your own hands, then that painting is redolent of you. It drips and steams and breathes you into my nostrils. It sends you rising in a faint, feeble spiral of light into the sphere of glass between my flaming hands.
	Then I can do what I like with you. I mix you in with some other material—something malleable that will bend to my touch and take the shape I want. 
	Silver works very well.
	And then I have you. Locked inside the charm. Infected with my will and that of the Dark One. And all I have to do is get the charm back to you. 
	And then you’re mine.

*	*	*

	Sioanna hadn’t had plans to go down to the village market, but she had to get out of the house. Of course her father was right; it wasn’t his fault. If Keanrih wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, and how could Nocc force him. It wasn’t, her mother pointed out, that they hadn’t tried. Now she would have to make a choice elsewhere. Find someone who would be more sensible of the honor she was doing him.
	It made Sioanna’s face hot to think about it. Her parents had arranged everything. Her oldest sister, who was a strong woman but plain, would get the land; the middle sister, who was handsome but no more, would get the mill; and Sioanna, who had her father’s looks and her mother’s intelligence, would be match enough with a portion of the family fortune. It had been explained to them all one night under the light tree in the dining hall. Erdrie hadn’t liked hearing her father’s frank assessment of her personal charms or the economic value he had assigned to them; Galthe had just laughed and said something about joining for love or not at all. Their father indulged Galthe that way; he had three daughters, and could afford for one to join with poverty, or with nothing.
	Well, Sioanna had as a good a right as either of them to join where she liked. And she liked Keanrih. When he met her at the theater in Vinha he had been charming—soft-spoken, but well-spoken, with beautifully turned hands and a mouth she had been daydreaming about ever since. He knew everything about the play they were seeing, and when he spoke of it the spark that came to his eyes lit up his whole face so that it became translucent like alabaster. Compared to the other young men who floated through the string of parties that constituted the Vinha season, he stood out like something precious and carved. She knew as soon as she got into the carriage for the ride back to Felchett House that she’d found the one she wanted. Her father had been happy to hear it. The na Polls had been ecstatic. And then for some reason no one could explain, Keanrih refused.
	Sioanna wandered among the stalls, watching her breath smoke in the cold, her gloved hands gently grazing fabrics hung out for inspection or beads dangling from a rack. She wasn’t shopping for anything in particular, other than distraction. 
	“Ah, you’ve a keen eye, Aiv,” said an old woman.
	The vendor who had hailed Sioanna was indistinguishable from the other women who squatted or sat with their wares in the patchy snow that covered the dead grass of the village green. White hair braided and wound around her head; a shapeless bent body bundled up in shawls wrapped over a brown dress with no cut and less style. The only thing about her that stood out was her tray. It was almost empty. She must have sold everything she’d brought with her, except for that single shining brooch tucked into a corner, winking against the background of red cloth.
	Something about it made Sioanna take a closer look.
	“Real silver, Aiv,” said the old woman, her voice taking on the ingratiating caress of someone making a sale. “Solid. Feel the weight of it.”
	Sioanna took off one glove and lifted the brooch in her hand. It was cold to her touch, and heavy. Light followed the curves of the metal as she turned to follow the design. Two hands, clasped lightly together around a silver ball etched all over with crescent moons.
	“Does the design mean something?” she asked, half out of politeness.
	This set the old woman chuckling. “More than you know, Aiv. More than I’d be safe to say, too.”
	Sioanna’s eyes snapped from the brooch up to the woman’s face.
	“What do you mean by that?” she said.
	It sounded like a stupid question, as she put it; but the woman just shook her head with a smile. “Ah, Aiv, don’t believe all you hear,” she said. “The woman who sold it to me threw in a story for free. But I don’t put stock in anything given away.”
	Her fingers traveled over the shape as she tried to peer into the woman’s glittering dark eyes. She couldn’t read her at all. “What story?” she repeated.
	The old woman threw out a hand in a dismissive gesture. “Don’t bother your pretty head over it. Sure a girl like you can have her choice, you wouldn’t need this.”
	Sioanna looked at the two hands, their fingers just touching, interlaced, their curved palms kept delicately apart by the sphere nestled between them.
	“Is it something to do with love?” Sioanna said, trying on a worldly smile.
	The woman seemed pleased with the smile. “Something like. If you believe all you hear about spirits and charms, which a smart one like you wouldn’t.”
	“What did she tell you about this one?” Sioanna said, turning it over to see the sharp pin underneath.
	“Well this is what she told me,” said the old woman, leaning forward and starting to whisper with the delight of a gossip who has just sighted an old friend. “That brooch is older than you, older even than me. That brooch was made in the old times, before the Order, before there was black and white. And she said, nobody knew whether the woman who made this was bright or dark or something in between.” Sioanna smiled indulgently, thinking it would do no harm to let her finish. “But whoever she was, there’s a little spirit trapped inside it, right in here.” She thrust a wrinkled finger at the little round silver ball. “And that little spirit takes care of one thing and one thing only.”
	“Love,” said Sioanna skeptically.
	The old woman sat back with a grunt of satisfaction. “Mm hm. She told me that she had it from a woman who’d used it to make a man fall in love with her. She was crazy for him, but he wouldn’t give her the straw from his stable. So she gave him this.” The old woman’s leathery hand grazed Sioanna’s as she lifted the brooch out of it to make it catch the light. “He pinned it on his breast one day, and joined with her the next.”
	Sioanna shot her what she hoped was a piercing glance. “She told you that to make you pay more.”
	“More?” said the old woman, putting a hand across her heart as if faint. “Child, with a story like that, you pay less. Who knows what mischief it might cause? I’m too old to have men running after me. Not when I can’t run faster.”
	The cackling laugh that seized her as she contemplated her own wit took Sioanna with it. When it stopped, they faced each other in silence for a moment.
	“So why tell me?” Sioanna said. “If it drives the price down.”
	“Out of the goodness of my heart, child,” the woman answered, with an injured look. “I wouldn’t sell it to you if you did make me an offer. Save it for someone who can use it, that’s what I’ll do.”
	“How did the woman who sold it to you come to part with it?” Sioanna asked. “If it really did the job on her man?”
	Now the woman looked a little perturbed. “Ah, sure I don’t know, Aiv, and I’m not sure I’d want to.”
	Something about the discomfort the old woman radiated as she gave her evasive answer intrigued Sioanna.
	“I’ll give you twenty copper for it,” Sioanna said.
	The woman gave a dry laugh that was almost a screech. “Even if the story were true, Aiv, it wouldn’t drive the price down that much.”
	“Twenty-five, then.”
	“The material alone is worth that.”
	Sioanna had done a lot of haggling in a lot of markets and knew that this was a lie. But it glinted brighter in the wrinkled hollow of that woman’s hand. The shape was executed with skill, and she felt she could pay thirty-five for that and not feel cheated.
	“Twenty-eight,” Sioanna said.
	“Now my conscience is pricking me,” the old woman said, her voice suddenly sharp. “Go on to another stall, and don’t tempt an old woman. I’ll sell it to someone else, someone old and withered like me, who’ll do no harm with it.”
	It was as if a wind had blown between them. Through the newly cold air, Sioanna could read her. Well enough to realize that this woman did believe the story she’d told, and was afraid of what she held in her hand.
	Afraid, but not so afraid she wouldn’t part with it if the price was right.
	“Thirty,” Sioanna said.
	“Not for sale,” said the woman, closing her hand on it. “Run along, child.”
	“Thirty-five.”
	Sioanna looked very hard at her as she named her upper limit. The old woman was unmoved.
	“I’ve told you I won’t sell it to you,” she barked. “Go on.”
	“Forty.”
	The old woman hesitated for a moment. Then she said, “Ah, get on with you, I’m a poor old woman and money is a terrible thing to turn down.”
	“Forty-five,” Sioanna said. “And that’s all.”
	The old woman’s eyes narrowed until they almost disappeared behind the wrinkles. Sioanna was sure the old woman was trying to read her. She wouldn’t succeed. When she haggled, she could mask with the best of them.
	“Now do you promise,” said the old woman, “that you won’t give it away? That you’ll wear it yourself, and not give it to your man?”
	“I promise,” said Sioanna.
	“I don’t think I believe you,” said the old woman.
	“Then don’t take my money,” Sioanna answered, turning on her heel.
	“Wait!” Sioanna turned back. “You’ll excuse me, Aiv, I meant no offense. Sure you would know better what to do with a charm than a poor peddling woman like me. Forty-eight, and I’ll trust you with it.”
	“Forty-five,” Sioanna repeated.
	The woman’s mouth pursed, and Sioanna knew she had her.
	“Done,” she said. “Now give the money before I start to regret this.”
	Sioanna counted out the pieces and poured them into the woman’s outstretched hand. The other hand unfolded. Sioanna lifted the brooch out of it.
	“Now you remember, Aiv,” said the old woman. “You do no mischief with it. You keep it to yourself, because the first man it touches, he’s the one.”
	“I’ll remember,” Sioanna said, nodding gravely.
	“Idair with you,” called the old woman, as Sioanna walked away.
	It was probably hogwash. A story she’d made up to charm her into buying it. But all the same. In the tales, there were things like this, trinkets left over from the first kyelran, from Idair’s time, even from before then. Things with strange wonderful powers, that worked on their owners in unpredictable ways. And so many of them were love charms. Why couldn’t it be true? Stranger things happened every day. 
	Sioanna slipped the brooch into a pocket. Her feet moved faster, propelling her out of the market and through the village toward the path to Felchett House. It might be true. And even if it weren’t, Keanrih mac Minead was just the man to appreciate the beauty of a finely crafted piece. With the match already called off she had nothing to lose. So what harm could it do?

*	*	*	*

“Come on, Pertlo. Be a friend.”
	Pertlo put her head to one side with a challenging glance, and ruffled her feathers. Which, in chicken, meant ‘no.’
	“It’s not going to hatch, Pertlo. I’ve explained to you about that.”
	But Pertlo either didn’t understand, or didn’t care. She remained planted in her box, looking up at Theamh and daring her to try it.
	This was what it meant to be a shriia. Pertlo didn’t care that Theamh had fought Lythril, that she still couldn’t go anywhere along the banks of the Ubh without having people chase her down with protestations of undying gratitude, or that she was now known and feared in 12 out of the 98 incorporeal planes of existence. What Pertlo cared about was the fact that Theamh had contracted with her to provide four eggs a week for Theamh’s consumption, and this egg was the fifth. 
	“What do you do with all of these extras, anyhow? Eat them?”
	Properly horrified at the image, Pertlo retracted her neck, squawked, and became, if possible, even more stubborn.
	If she hadn’t been a shriia, Theamh would never have learned how to communicate with animals. She would never have been able to negotiate that contract in the first place. She would have just lifted Pertlo off the box and grabbed the egg like a normal person would. It’s true that if she hadn’t been a shriia, Theamh would have had to buy fuel for the stove; but right now it didn’t seem like much of a compensation. 
	“Look, Pertlo, what do you want from me?”
	Disturbed by the break in her voice as she said this, Theamh sat back and tried to take herself in hand.
	All right, Theamh, you’ve survived Lythril, the bloodeaters, and capturing your vigils. You are not going to be reduced to tears by a thurking chicken.
	<Theamh.>
	It was Barant’s head voice. <Barant?>
	<Can you let me in? I’m outside the shield.>
	Theamh got to her feet and crawled out of the hencoop. Pertlo could have the egg. She wasn’t hungry any more.
	<What brings you out here?> Theamh said, tramping across the sodden snow to the invisible barrier around her clearing.
	<You’re not in trouble,> Barant said.
	That was strange. Well, perhaps Barant had come out there to celebrate that fact. It was certainly a special occasion. 
Theamh leaned on the air between her clearing and the trees, and gave the command.
	The air shimmered. A rectangular doorway about four by six feet appeared in front of her. Theamh’s eyes tried to match the background of winter trees inside the doorway with the trees she could see through the rest of the shield, which as usual made her head hurt. Barant, however, wasn’t there.
	“Barant?” Theamh called.
	She heard Barant’s ropesoled boots sloshing through the snow, and then she appeared in the doorway. “Sorry, Theamh; I forgot where the door was.”
	“Come in,” Theamh said, stepping back.
	Barant walked through. The doorway disappeared.  
	“It’s good to see you, Theamh,” she said. “How have you been?”
	She said it with such genuine concern that Theamh didn’t have the heart to give the sharp answer. “I…well, that’s a long story.”
	Barant nodded. The early morning light flashed over the coils of her yellow hair, piled up on the back of her head in a neat, but not severe, bun.
	“Thanks for coming all the way out here,” Theamh said, leading the way back to the house. “For whatever it is.”
	Standard practice was to summon Theamh to the Raed down in the City, and make her do the traveling. But then usually when the Council wanted to see Theamh it was her own fault. As they saw it.
	“Don’t thank me till you’ve heard me,” Barant said, with a sigh, as Theamh opened the front door.
	“Have a seat,” Theamh said, gesturing awkwardly to the one good chair in the living area. “Do you want anything? I was just about to make some toast. Although I’m out of butter. And I’m afraid I can’t offer you an egg.”
	Barant smiled as she sat down. “Pertlo?” Theamh nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“Ah well.”
“It’s an occupational hazard,” Barant said. “When a farmer donates an animal to the Order, there’s usually something wrong with it.”
“Anyhow,” Theamh said, with a laugh, “at least Pertlo will last. She’d stay alive just to spite me.” 
Barant laughed. “I bet she would.”
Theamh turned to throw some flames into the fireplace. Barant watched with some satisfaction as Theamh adjusted them to a comfortable heat. 
“You’re very handy with it now,” Barant said, drawing herself up to the fire, and stretching out her wet feet. “I told you it would come with practice.”
“Thanks,” Theamh said, with some embarrassment. 
“Sorry,” Barant said, with a smile. “I should stop being a dhiaoc, I know.” 
Theamh thought she would say she didn’t mind, but then she thought maybe she was supposed to mind, so she said nothing.
“Anyhow, Theamh, I’ve had breakfast. You might get me some water, if you’ve got any drawn.”
	“Of course,” Theamh said, heading for the kitchen.
	“And bring a cup for yourself,” Barant called out after her.
	Theamh got two wooden cups off a shelf and filled them at the pail by the sink. She returned, handing one to Barant, and then sat down on the other wooden chair.
	“How’s the house holding up?” Barant inquired.
	“Just fine,” Theamh answered. “Slythe builds to last, apparently.” Barant nodded. “I don’t say this to be rude, diaoc, but…are you going to tell me why you’re here? Because it’s making me nervous wondering.”
	Barant leaned forward and clasped her hands.
	“You’re right,” she said. “I’m stalling, and I shouldn’t.”
	Theamh put her cup down and waited.
	“Dalen came back last night. Alone.”
	It was thoughtful of her, adding that. So Theamh wouldn’t have even a moment to get her hopes up.
	“When is she going back on the hunt?” Theamh asked, carefully.
	Barant sighed.
	“Dalen says the trail is dead,” she said. “She says until we have fresh news of Lythril that puts her in a specific area, there’s no point in hunting for her.”
	“So in other words, until someone else gets hurt, nobody’s going after her.”
	“That’s right.”
	After a silence that felt long, Barant said, “How do you feel?”
	Theamh thought about this for a minute.
	“Like my guts have been replaced with a ball of snakes.”
	Since it was Barant, she didn’t laugh, or take offense, but just nodded.
	“I’m sorry, Theamh. I know you were hoping.”
	“Let me go after her.”
	She shouldn’t have said it. It just came out. Barant’s voice sharpened.
	“Please do not put everyone through this again, Theamh.”
	Hopeless as she knew it was, she was somehow driven to press on. “You made me promise to give Dalen a chance, well, she hasn’t found her. So—“
	“So nothing,” Barant said, sharply. “You are no more ready to go up against Lythril now than you were three years ago.”
	“I am more ready. I’ve got my fire, and I’ve got much more experience—“
	“I’m not talking about your skills, Theamh!”
	Barant hardly ever got really angry. So the sight of her now impressed Theamh enough to send her back into the depths of her chair, silent and a little frightened.
	“Your skills are better than they have any right to be. You’re way past where I was at your age. That’s not the problem.”
	“Well then what’s the problem?”
	Barant’s anger condensed into sorrow. Seeing that only made Theamh feel sicker.
	“The problem is, you wouldn’t be looking for Lythril. You’d be looking for Istria.”
	“Well so was Dalen looking for—“
	“Dalen has been convinced for the past six months that Istria is dead,” Barant said, raising her voice to drown out Theamh’s.
	“She’s wrong,” Theamh said.
	Pretences of cordiality had now been abandoned. Barant was perched on the edge of her chair, throwing her hands out as if she were trying to nail down the words she was saying. “You cannot make it so by believing it. You know and I know—“
	“I don’t know, Barant!” Theamh ran the fingers of one hand through her hair and clenched them there. “You don’t know either!”
	“It’s been almost a year, Theamh. Why would Lythril keep her alive all that time?”
	Theamh didn’t have an answer to this question. Normally she tried to avoid asking it.
	“We don’t know she’s dead,” Theamh repeated.
	Barant made a noise of exasperation.
	“We don’t. No one’s found her body—“
	“Nobody ever does find the body, Theamh!” Barant shouted, springing off the chair to her feet. “You of all the women in the world should know that!”
	Theamh felt tears coming. That made her angry; and being angry made her cry harder. Barant crouched down in front of Theamh, shaking her head, resting her hands on the arms of Theamh’s chair, trying to look into the eyes that avoided hers.
	“I’m sorry, Theamh. That was a horrible thing to say. I’m very sorry.”
	Theamh shook her head, and said nothing.
	“I know how much you miss her—“
	“You don’t!”
	Barant drew back from the force of Theamh’s anger. But she was still crouched in front of the chair, and Theamh couldn’t jump up and go. Instead she wrapped her arms around her knees and turned her head away from Barant.
	“Maybe you think you do but you don’t.”
	Softly, from beyond Theamh’s field of vision, Barant said, “I suppose I don’t.”
	Upset as she was, Theamh could tell Barant was masking. She knew why, too. It was so Theamh wouldn’t hear all the things that must be running through Barant’s head right now. That this was one of the reasons Idair had wanted shriias to be celibate in the first place. That there was, as Morat had put it in the middle of one particularly brutal confrontation, more to celibacy than keeping your hands to yourself. That the grief that was poisoning Theamh’s life was her own fault for trying to bend the rules.
	Still. Barant might have been thinking it, but because she was Barant and not Morat, she wasn’t saying it; and for that she deserved something better than silence.
	“I don’t miss her like you miss a friend,” Theamh said. “I miss her like you miss something that’s been cut from your body.” 
	She heard Barant sliding back to sit on the floor. When Theamh turned around, Barant was watching her, not angry, just waiting to hear.
	“Lilea says when someone loses an arm, or a leg, or something, they can still feel it hurting afterward. It’s like that for me. I still feel her. I feel her suffering.”
	For a long time Theamh sat there, crying, shuddering a little, as Barant tried to take it in.
	“She’s not suffering any more, Theamh,” Barant finally said, covering one of Theamh’s hands with her own.
	Theamh flung her hand aside.
	“She’s gone home,” Barant said, gently. “She’s with Idair. You can let go.”
	“I can’t!” Theamh shouted. 
	Barant’s voice was still soft. “When are you going to be able to, Theamh?”
	A shriia should never say never.
	“When Istria’s found.”
	“And if she’s never—“
	“Then when I’m dead!”
	Barant dropped her hands, and looked for a moment almost like Morat.
	“Are you sure you really mean that, Theamh?”
	Theamh swallowed. Grief sank into her gut. Now she was nothing but angry.
	“Absolutely.”
	Barant stood up, slowly, with a long and weary sigh.
	“I’m sorry, Theamh,” she said. “I know you believe it. I hope you’re wrong.”
	Theamh wiped her eyes with one hand and stood up. She was still crying.
	“I know you want the best for me,” Theamh said, painfully. “I just…I can only be what I am.”
	Barant nodded, sadly.
	“Well,” she said. “I just came out to let you know, so you wouldn’t hear it from someone else.”
	It was a kind thing for her to have done. Certainly Morat would never have bothered. Guilt rose up from Theamh’s gut to mix with everything else.
	“Thank you, diaoc,” she said. “I’m…I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
	Barant seemed alarmed to hear her say it.
	“You don’t disappoint me, Theamh,” she said. “You’re the best apprentice I ever had. I’m sorry for your trouble, is all.”
	Theamh tried to laugh. “Well, I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve given you.”
	Barant laughed, gently, and patted Theamh’s bare shoulder. “Apologize to Morat, she minds it more than I do. Oh, of course you can’t, I know that.” Theamh laughed, wiping her eyes. “I’m sorry about this, but I have to go. Walk me out, will you?”
	Theamh led her back through the door and out past the stable and the hencoop.
	“Shield still in good shape?” Barant inquired, as Theamh opened the doorway.
	“As far as I can tell,” Theamh said. “Slythe was out here last week to check up on it for me. She says it’s sound, and I believe her.”
	“If she says so, it is,” Barant said. “I’m glad you’re doing the maintenance. You’re usually bad with things like that.”
	Theamh shrugged. “I don’t want to die,” she said.
	“I’m glad to hear it.” Barant stepped through the doorway. “Idair with you.”
	The door closed. Barant was now invisible on the other side of it, just as Theamh and the house and the grounds would be invisible to her.
	I’m glad to hear it.
	It hadn’t crossed Theamh’s mind that Barant would be worried about her taking her own life. She had never considered it. She had to stay alive, after all, if she was ever going to find Istria.

*	*	*	*

	Morat started guiltily when she heard the footfall in the doorway.
	“Morat?” said Barant, her brows meeting in puzzlement as her face paled in the light of Morat’s hanging globe. “What are you doing in my office?”
	“You weren’t here,” Morat said, pulling out a drawer. “I need something in a hurry.”
	“What are you looking for?” The edge of Barant’s hreapa trailed across the sanded boards of the floor as she went to the pine cabinets behind the desk. “I probably can find it faster than you can.”
	“Probably,” Morat said.
Barant looked at her searchingly, having realized that something was wrong. Morat sighed, and closed her eyes.
	“I’m looking for the file from Theamh and Istria’s debriefing,” Morat finally said. “I’m sorry I snapped. I’m—I’m not having a good day.”
	Barant had bad days, Morat reflected, but didn’t let them show. It was something Morat had always envied, Barant’s ability to stay honest and keep the truth without becoming the kind of sharp-edged, bristling, uncomfortable thing Morat was. Barant had an inner quiet that made it possible. Morat had known, in her life, certitude, faith, anger, conviction, fear, love, even hatred. But peace and serenity were things she felt she would always be a stranger to.
	“What happened?”
	“If I could tell you, this day wouldn’t be half as bad.”
	“Oh dear.” Barant’s hands hunted quickly among the yellowed covers of old reports. “You gave someone a promise?”
	Morat let out an explosive, and expressive, sigh.
	“Would that have anything to do with this file you’re looking for?”
	“Why do you ask when you know I can’t answer?” Morat snapped.
	Barant straightened up with a thick bound file in one hand, and looked at Morat with, she thought, a kind of affectionate amusement.
	“I’m hoping you’ll answer without answering, of course,” Barant said. “Since if this file does have anything to do with it then Lythril’s involved.” Morat said nothing. “Is there anything you can tell me without breaking the promise?”
	Morat stood sorely tempted.
	“I—no. I can’t talk about it, Barant. I can only do.”
	Barant nodded. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to endanger you.” She handed the file to her. “You go do, and I’ll start puzzling out what it is you got truth-trapped over.”
	“Thank you,” Morat muttered, still very vexed with herself.
“Listen,” Barant said, as she was about to hurry away. “I broke the news to Theamh.”
Morat turned back, her face impassive. “How did she take it?”
Barant paused a moment, and then just said, “Badly.”
“I’m sure she took it better from you than she would have from me,” Morat said.
After a silence, Barant went on. “Well, go on and do, Morat. I hope Idair brings us both a better day tomorrow.”
	“Me too,” Morat answered, and fled.
	Up the stairs to her apartment, berating herself all the way. A grown woman of fifty-five and she had let that bitch catch her with the oldest gambit there was. She had narrowed the sense, and that was lucky. If she had promised not to reveal anything that happened, that scene in Barant’s office would have cost her her fire. Her fire was still there, bobbing ahead of her as she opened her door, so experience was good for something after all. But she was stuck with her silence for as long as Nocc held her to the promise and she knew there was no chance of convincing him to release her. Even if it was for his own good. And for the good of his son.
	Morat slammed the door, yanked out the wooden chair and threw herself into it. The file slapped onto the desktop, sending up a cloud of dust.
	Almost everything they knew about Lythril was in that file. Because with all the stories and rumors and tales that flew through the country about her, almost all the knowledge they could actually substantiate—apart from what Morat knew from her own history—had been gained on that mission three years ago. Morat had thrown that fact at Istria as hard as she could, in their arguments before she left for that second disastrous mission. It wasn’t a failure. You got what we wanted. Information. It’s enough. 
	It was not enough. Not for Istria. It would never have been enough, until Istria brought her down. Morat saw that the day they came back. Her own hatred of Lythril had infected her apprentice. And now it looked as if it had killed her.
	Morat’s hand turned back the pages, carefully, steadily. Steady in the knowledge of her own guilt. Steady as she bore the knife in her gut, the certainty that Istria was never coming back.
	Steady was something Theamh had never been. Not now, certainly; and not then, the day she and Istria sat down in Barant’s office pouring out the nightmare they’d escaped from into the Order’s records.
	if it’s just a one-time thing. For something chronic, a big change, she couldn’t do it that way
	Morat stopped over that page.
	One of the scoili had been in there killing herself trying to take it all down. Changes in speaker were indicated by a dash; but Morat had been there, and she could still hear their voices as she read the words.
	because for mindforcing you have to physically be there. Even they can’t do that from a distance.
	Morat’s eyes flew down the page until she found what she was looking for.
	don’t have any way to actually prove this but
	--I think Theamh’s right, but it’s still just a theory she has
	--that it’s all related to the power of money.
	--What do you mean? What makes you think that?
	--You tell it, Theamh.
	--Well like with charms. She was very cagey about that. But from listening and watching it seemed to me like it’s important that the charm be bought. Like whoever’s going to use it has to buy it and it’s important to get the highest price possible. Like the more the person pays for it, the better it works.
	--And you say you can’t prove this.
	--No I can’t prove
	--Theamh’s left out something we can prove though, at least I think we can prove
	--Right, about the
	--We used to hear her instructing Maerin
	--He had to have everything explained to him
	--One at a time, friends, you’re fuddling the poor scribe.
	Barant’s voice, breaking gently in to slow them down. They talked for hours, that day, as if the faster they talked the farther away it would all become. Rattling on alternately or sometimes together, finishing each other’s sentences, sometimes not finishing them at all until Morat or Barant reminded them that not everyone could hear what was passing back and forth over their link.
	They had made a good team. Morat had known they would.
	--And she did say, and I don’t think she knew we were listening, that he had to make sure that whoever was buying this thing knew what he was buying.
	--Her clients don’t usually know what they’re buying?
	--Her clients do or they think they do but sometimes the charm has to be planted, by someone else. Like if the client was someone the victim didn’t trust, he couldn’t just walk up to him with a silver trinket of unknown provenance and say, ‘Here, let me slap this against your skin’
	--so it has to be sold to someone else, someone the victim does trust
	--but this person has to buy this charm knowing what it’s going to do to him.
	Morat’s eyes ran down the page, but her mind wasn’t really following.
	--Why do you think that is?
	--Corruption
	--yes, that’s it, corruption
	--dark magic is about corruption, it can’t work without corruption
	--you could sing that to a little tune, Istri
	--Please don’t.
	Even at this distance of time Morat could hear her own voice dragging across the conversation like the dull blade of a knife. She couldn’t stand watching Theamh joke about it. If she had been reading Istria she would have seen that Istria needed that. That Theamh was doing this, not because good and evil were a joke to her, but because she was trying to prove to Istria that they were safe. Making her laugh. Something nobody else seemed able to do.
	There were charms for all kinds of things. But most of the uses Theamh and Istria were able to list seemed related to one basic purpose. Making the victim do, be, feel, something you wanted. Against his or her will.
	Say Nocc had paid Lythril to make a charm. She wouldn’t give it to Nocc. Put aside the fact that Keanrih didn’t trust him, there was also the fact that in general, Lythril would not trust a man not to thurk something up if it involved magic.
	Which, Morat admitted, was the one belief that they shared.
	So that was an argument against her trying to get it to his lover, if he had a lover, which was the most reasonable explanation for his refusal to join. Could she find a woman to plant it on him, and who would it be?
	His mother?
	Minead was a farmer’s daughter and she knew better than that. And from what Theamh said, she had never been pushing this match the way Nocc was.
	Sioanna.
	The match had been proposed by her family. Morat remembered her as a typical big house daughter—exacting, thoughtless, assuming privilege as a right, tainted with casual selfishness and a good dose of vanity. Exactly the woman to throw a tantrum if the man she wanted were not available. Maybe spoiled enough to persuade herself that she was entitled to use any means to get her own way. 
	Morat flipped the file shut. The binding, creased and weakened with use, didn’t snap, and the back cover slouched gently back open, taking the last few pages with it. Her eyes ranged over the words.
	--What made you decide you had to end the mission right then?
	--We
	--What is it?
	--Istria? What is it?
	--What she means is
	--Theamh?
	--You can tell us. Whatever it is, Idair’s forgiven you for it or she wouldn’t have given you your fire.
	--It’s not like that.
	--So tell us what it was then, Theamh.
	--We just—it was hard—we got used to—comforting each other—and
	--And?
	--What Istri means is
	--Well what she means is
	--Well obviously it’s a long time now we’ve been in love, but we didn’t know it till that one night
	--And then we knew we had to leave.
	Barant, for once, had been the one to look like she’d swallowed a nettle. Morat hadn’t been surprised. What Theamh had said was perfectly true. It had been a long time, already, that they’d been in love. And it had been obvious. Except to them.
	She had asked Idair so often why she’d done it. Struck both of them blind with love when she had called both of them to the Order. Since Idair had been the one who said, that thousand years ago, that shriias had to be celibate.
	Maybe Idair hadn’t willed it that way. Maybe it was just one of those things that, in spite of Idair’s best intentions, happened.
	And maybe, if Morat stopped licking old wounds and did something about what she knew, Keanrih wouldn’t have to become another one of those things.

*	*	*	*

	Maerin stood among the naked trees and waited.
	The air in front of him buckled. Through the opening doorway he could see, just in that rectangular space, the stone walls and the iron hasp of the great entrance. He stepped through and let the doorway disappear.
	The place was extravagant. Lythril said it was for the clients—when they got important enough to be entertained, they did expect a good show. But the battlements, the dark iron, the towers, the ravens roosting on them, the blasted ground around it that supported its pale and malicious gardens, all of that was to please her own taste too. Not that she would say that to him.
	The entrance swung open, swallowing him up as he passed into the stone-paved hall. He could hear Lythril in the game room, the leather chair creaking as she leaned back in it. She had one boot braced against the table, one knee and one thigh exposed by the drape of her robe. Her dark, smooth hair gleamed in the red light as she bent her head over a book in her lap, one hand running absently along the links in the silver chain around her pallid neck.
	“Did you do it?” she asked, without looking up.
	He took his seat across the table, tossing a bundle of brown rags and a tray onto the floor. “Yes.”
	“Who’d you go as?”
	“The crone. Since it’s a love charm.”
	Lythril shut the book and sat forward, lifting her eyelids to give him the full glare of those blue irises.
	<Show me.>
	He let her go into his mind to find the memory. She watched it happen from start to finish. When she was done she closed the link and leaned back in the chair, considering him.
	Anything could happen now. That was the thing about Lythril. She might dismiss him without deigning to comment. She might fly instantly into red-clawed anger. She might tell him, conversationally and without apparent malice, that the day was coming soon when she would finally kill him. She might reach across the table and drag him forward into a kiss that would drain the blood right out of his body.
	The anticipation worked on his nerves. But he knew too that it worked on his flesh. When fear of her ran quicksilver in his veins desire ran with it.
	“Well, Maerin,” she said. “This calls for a celebration.”
	“Lythril?” he answered, still wary.
	She wouldn’t smile. But something around her mouth seemed to soften.
	“You have done something exactly right.”
	Looking at her red lips and white teeth he knew that to her he was just a dog kept on a leash, to be stroked or kicked or fed depending on what she needed him for. But something in her eyes said different.
	“Did you enjoy it?” she asked.
	“Greatly.”
	She folded her hands on the table.
	“If I were a different woman, I would be almost fond of you right now.”
	Just the suggestion that somehow, in another world, she might possibly allow herself to become even that vulnerable brought him up hard.
	His lap was concealed under the table, but she always knew.
	“Come on then,” she said. “You’ve earned it.”
	He flung himself out of his chair. She stood up slowly, showing him as if he weren’t painfully aware already how helpless he was in the grip of his lust and how effortlessly she mastered her own.
	There was desire in there. Somewhere. She was made of flesh.
	Her shoulders were hard under his grip. But her head tilted back as he crushed his mouth onto hers. Shivers ran through the body he held—tiny, crackling, miniscule fissures that might widen to shatter her if only he could find the way to do it.
	To do this, too, exactly right.
	Buoyed by hope, he forced her onto her back on the stone floor. This time would be different. This time she would stay there, trapped under his shadow, blocked from the light falling from her globe, until he made her know she wanted it too. Until she broke and dissolved like he always had. Until the time came when she was caught and strung on the same thrilling pain that fixed him. And this time, he would ask the questions.

*	*	*	*

	“Who owns you?”
	“You do!”
	“Who rules you?”
	“Agh…ohnh…you do!”
	“Who do you burn for?”
	“You!”
	“And who am I?”
	“You…are…Lythril!”
	I leaned over, looking down into his eyes, watching pleasure, pain and shame melt away into exhaustion.
	“Take the night off, Maerin,” I said. “You’ve done a good day’s work. I’ll get someone else to help with the potions.”
	I left him there on the floor. Giving Maerin time off isn’t necessarily a kindness. He doesn’t know what to do with it. He practices inside his own mind, which makes observing him very dull. Maerin has spent most of his adult life developing the parts of his mind that will allow him to manipulate other people. It makes him as close to happy as he gets, as close to proud as I let him be. Maerin, master of disguise. Master of other people’s minds. Mastered, by me, every day of his life, through the frailty of his body and the weakness of his spirit.
	I will have to kill him. I don’t need foresight to see that coming. But there’s no reason to do it right now. 

3
Gifts

	To say I went white with rage would not really convey the sense of it. I’m always white. I don’t get much sun.
	<All right, Bric, when are you going to see him next?> I demanded.
	<This afternoon I’m meeting with him about Keanrih’s settlement,> he said. <He seems quite confident the match will come off, now.>
	That was just as well, but it didn’t change the problem at hand.
	<Lythril,> Bric said. <You’re not going to hurt him over this. Please.>
	<Not till we have the full fee,> I said. <But he’s got to be taken in hand.>
	<If you tell him I told you he thurked up the trap-- >
	<Why should I tell him you told me when I can let him think I’m omniscient?>
	Bric was amused. <I’ll let you know when I’m with him.>
	<Do that.> I shut the link.
	No craft is perfect. This is part of the bargain. Something will always find a way to go wrong. I realized that even as the anger rose in me. If something had to go wrong, it might as well be this. I’d handled Morat before.

*	*	*	*

	“Sioanna,” Ridac said, knocking on the door of her bedroom. “Sioanna, get up, someone’s here to see you.”
	“Who is it, athi?” she said, sliding out of bed and pulling on her silk dressing gown.
	“It’s Morat ni hArrloh,” said Ridac. “She says she wants to talk to you but she didn’t say why.”
	Sioanna slid her feet into their slippers and shuffled to open the door.
 “Do you know what this is about?” Ridac said, a warning note in his voice.
	He had been called out of sleep too, and was wrapped in a brown velvet duster. He was still handsome, even in the middle of the night after being yanked out of bed; his hair was thick, still brown on the top although it had begun to bleach near the temples.
	“I’ve no idea,” she said. “Where is she?”
	“In the smaller parlor.”
	Sioanna descended the stairs, her robe floating around her, and turned the corner into the parlor. Morat stood in the middle of the room, about equally distant from the low settee, the deep couch, and the bentwood rocking chair pulled up by the fireplace.
	 “Shriia?” Sioanna said, holding the collar of her robe closed with one hand. “Is something wrong?”
	Morat looked older than she had used to. Her face had more lines, or the lines had more droop, and her eyes were tired.
	“I think so,” she answered. “I have to ask you about something, and I need you to tell me the truth. It’s about dark magic, and it may be very, very important.”
	“Of course, shriia. But what have I got to do with dark magic?”
	“Nothing, I hope.”
	Sioanna thought that maybe that was meant to be a joke, but since Morat wasn’t smiling it was hard to say.
	“Sioanna…it’s an odd question but please think carefully and tell me anything you can remember.” Sioanna nodded. “In the past few days…has anyone that’s a stranger to you tried to sell you anything made out of silver? Any kind of an ornament, something designed to be worn on the body?”
	Her heart hammered, once. Fear ran through her.
	“Why on earth do you ask that?”
	Morat looked at her, hard.
	“I can’t tell you why I’m asking. But I need to know.”
	“Well, I haven’t,” Sioanna said, with a little laugh. “I’m sorry.”
	Morat was still looking at her.
	Sioanna was trying to mask. But the question had startled her, and even now she could feel her blood beating. They all said you could never lie to a shriia, that they could detect untruth like it was a bad smell.
	“Think back,” Morat said. “Please. If someone has sold you such a thing, and you don’t tell me, a lot of harm might come of it.”
	Sioanna shook her head. “No, shriia, I’m sorry.”
	“You haven’t bought anything silver in the past week or so from a stranger.”
	“I said I haven’t!” Her voice got harsh. She smiled to make up for it.
	Morat said nothing.
	“You don’t believe me?” Sioanna said, driven somehow to challenge her.
	“I do not,” Morat answered.
	“Well if you think I’m a liar, there’s nothing I can say to convince you,” Sioanna said, giving Morat an injured look. “Although what I’ve done to deserve such mistrust—“
	“Oh stop it!”
	Morat’s voice burst like a cracked stone. Sioanna struggled not to flinch.
	“I think you have bought such a thing, I think you’re lying to me about it because even though you now know that it’s evil you still want to use it.”
	“Athi!” Sioanna shouted. The sound of footsteps became audible on the staircase.
	“Sioanna?” Ridac said, looking into the room. “Everything all right?”
	“The shriia says I’m lying to her,” Sioanna said, bursting into tears.
	Before she hid her watering eyes against her father’s shoulder, she stole a glance at Morat. It was hard to say which was dominant in her expression, anger or disgust.
	“There now, sweet thing,” said Ridac, putting his arms around her and rocking her gently. “I’m sorry she’s hurt your feelings. She must just have made a mistake.”
	Sioanna looked up, her lip quivering in hurt. Ridac turned to Morat helplessly.
	“Shriia, Sioanna tells her little fibs but she’s a good girl,” he said. “If she was fibbing to you I’m sure she didn’t understand that it was something important.”
	Sioanna swallowed and looked furtively at Morat. Her face was granite now, fixed and impassive.
	“What did the shriia ask you, chara?” Ridac said, kissing her on the forehead.
	“She wanted—to know if I’d—bought anything silver lately,” she said.
	“And have you?” Ridac said gently.
	“No!” Sioanna pounded one fist against Ridac’s other shoulder. “I haven’t! I’m not lying!”
	Ridac looked at Morat over the top of his weeping daughter’s head, and gave a half-shrug.
	“She says she hasn’t,” he said, sheepishly.
	“So she does,” Morat replied.
	“Is it important, shriia?”
	Morat sighed.
	“Yes.”
	“Why?”
	“I—“ Morat bit down on her lip, looked at the floor, and raised her eyes again. “I am afraid that if someone did sell her a piece of silver, it was in the hopes that she would use it to do harm.”
	“What harm? To who? Why should she want to harm anyone?” Ridac said, stroking Sioanna’s wheat-blonde hair.
	Morat looked as if she were trying to swallow a stone.
	She turned her gray eyes on Sioanna. I can’t answer him. You can. For Idair’s sake do it.
	“Shriia?” Ridac said, having caught an echo of something but not quite grasped it.
	Sioanna turned away. “I don’t know what she’s talking about, I don’t know why she had to come here to harass me in my own house!”
	“I’m sorry, shriia,” Ridac said. “There’s been some misunderstanding. I’m sorry you wasted your journey, but I think you’d better leave now.”
	There was a heavy silence. Sioanna wondered could you hear time passing, in a silence like that. Or had the sorrow folding itself around Morat somehow made it stop.
	“If you do it,” she said, “it will be misery for you both.”
	She turned around and walked alone, slowly, out to the entrance.
	As soon as the door shut Ridac’s arms dropped to his sides and he stepped suddenly away from her. Sioanna looked up, still tear-streaked.
	“What are you hiding?” he demanded.
	“Nothing! I—you heard me!”
	“She’s not a fool and she’s not a liar. If you’re mixed up in dark magic—“
	“I’m not!” Her voice was ruined now, a shriek, sharp and unmusical. “What do I have to do? I tell you she’s cracked, or she’s just made a mistake or something. Isn’t it enough I’m not going to be joined after all, that I’m going to die an old spinster—“
	“You won’t die a spinster, Sioanna, you’re only eighteen—“
	“I will! I’ll never find another man like him, and now I’m not to have him after all and you wonder why I’m upset when on top of all that Morat comes to badger me—“
	Ridac quailed before the barrage. “All right, Sioanna, all right. I’m sorry she upset you. I forgot you’d still be hurt over Keanrih. That’s probably what she was reading,” he said, sounding as if he might be convinced. “Your being so upset over it, like you might be if you were trying to lie to her.”
	Sioanna snuffled. “That’s all it was, athi—“
	“I know, I know. Go on to bed, chara. I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”
	Sioanna stood up to kiss him on the cheek. “Good rest, athi.”
	“Good rest to you, chara.”
	Back in her room, she went straight to the silk-tasseled pillow. She shoved a hand under the cover and drew out the silver brooch.
	So it was true, after all.
	Her hand went to an inlaid wooden box on her dresser. It had once held some earrings but she’d been given a new jewelry case at the last Burning and now it stood empty. It was just the right size, and it was so pretty, with the tree and its birds done in oak against a ground of tilu wood. Wrapped up in some gold foil, it would be perfect. A gift no one could resist.
	She thrust the brooch into the box and snapped the lid shut.
	Somehow she felt better once it was inside the box. Tucked away, out of sight. Not bothering anyone. A little surprise, waiting to make him happy. That’s all.

*	*	*	*

	Nocc’s watery eyes blinked at me—at Bric’s face, and my eyes—across the cherrywood table in his study. Minead’s taste runs to the rustic. That look can become a terrible embarrassment when overdone, but Minead seems to have a sense for when to stop.
	“Yes, Lythril, of course I followed your instructions to the letter.”
	I didn’t need to read it off him. His voice was shaking and so were the wattles of skin hanging from his jaw.
	“And did she promise not to reveal what you’d said to anyone?”
	He nodded vigorously. “Yes. Yes, she did.”
	“Those words exactly.”
	“Yes, exactly.”
	Bric’s hands folded on the table and his head leaned over them as his mouth bit off my words one by one.
	“Now, this is unfortunate.”
“But Lythril—“
“You see, Nocc, in order to do business with someone, I have to have complete confidence and trust in him. If I find I can’t trust you, I will have to end our business relationship.” Bric’s lips jerked back over his teeth in my best predator’s snarl. “And I only know one way to do that.”
	He didn’t even ask how I knew. Why shouldn’t I know. I was a blood-eating bitch from the dankest pit of the Dark One’s hell, and I could do anything.
He fell into a thousand pieces. “I tried, I did my best, it’s not my fault, she wouldn’t give it the way you wanted it!”
	I let him tremble for another few minutes.
	“It’s not my fault—I did try—“
	“Pull yourself together, little man.” He made his best effort. “You got it half-done and that’s something.”
	“Thank you,” he sniveled.
	“Now Nocc.”
	He worked hard to look attentive.
	“I want you to send Keanrih up to Felchett House on some kind of errand. Give Sioanna a chance to hand him that brooch. He has to touch it for it to work.”
	“Should—“ He wasn’t bawling any more, at least, and the shaking was mostly done with. “Should I tell her that, so she doesn’t—“
	“Who’s doing the magic here, little man?” I snarled.
	“You are, Lythril,” he said, quashed.
	“She knows what she needs to do. You are to say nothing to her about the charm. Don’t meddle with it, don’t look at it, don’t try to get Keanrih to put it on, you’ve never heard of it. Do you understand?”
	“Yes, Lythril.”
	“If all goes according to plan, you should see results almost immediately.”
	“Yes, Lythril.”
	“And then, once the match is made, you will deliver the rest of the gold to Bric.”
	“Of course, Lythril.”
	“Very well. Go do your part.” He nodded. “And Nocc.”
	“Yes, Lythril?” he said, cheered by the friendly note in Bric’s voice.
	“If you find a way to thurk this up,” I said, “I will kill you, and no one will find your body.”
	He gulped.
	“Good rest to you, Nocc mac Deira.”
	I withdrew and closed the link. 
	I turned my head to look at Maerin across the floor. He was still naked, and still limp, but he looked to be on the mend.
	“Nine hundred for this,” I said. “It’s too easy, really.”

*	*	*	*

	“Well, tell Minead it’s a good offer but I’ve made up my mind,” Ridac said. “That colt has become a real pet of Sioanna’s, and she hates giving up something she’s set her heart on.” He laughed. “No offer in the world could make it worth the aggravation.”
	Keanrih wondered what exactly he was supposed to do. Laugh with him and pretend the joke didn’t have a stinger in it? Seize the opportunity to finally bring it out into the open? He began with the first course of action, but found himself pursuing the second before Ridac had stopped laughing.
	“I know Sioanna’s disappointed,” he said, feeling awkwardness descend upon him in a dusty cloud. “I’m sorry for it. All I can say is I never encouraged her.”
	“She tells a different story, but that’s to be expected,” Ridac said. “I’m disappointed too, Keanrih. I would have liked to see it happen.”
	Disappointed, and still angry. Keanrih felt his own anger flaring up at his father for involving him in another mess he had never asked for. 
	“I’m sorry,” Keanrih repeated. “I wish she had made a choice somewhere else. But I would be no good for her.”
	He hoped Ridac wouldn’t pick up any trace of what was behind that statement. But Ridac was preoccupied with his own dudgeon, and merely said, “If your father hasn’t brought you to it there’s no hope I will. But you will see her, at least, before you go.”
	Keanrih had only met Sioanna three times and in his opinion that was about twice too often; but smarting under the burden of obligation he said, “Of course.”
	“I’ll call her,” Ridac said, getting out of his chair. “No, you sit, she’ll be down to you in a moment.”
	Ridac left the room. Keanrih’s eyes roamed restlessly around it, looking for something interesting to play with. But the na Felchetts were as careful with their fashions as they were with their money. No spark of creativity relieved the conservative opulence of this sitting room. 
	“Keanrih mac Minead,” said Sioanna’s lilting voice. “What an agreeable surprise, I didn’t think you’d be visiting so soon.”
	She was needling him; but there was something about her smile as she returned his stiff little bow. He felt as if she were still flirting with him. But he had never had much confidence in his ability to read women.
	“I’m here on an errand for mathi,” he said, then realized what an oafish thing that was to say. “I mean—I’m glad to have the chance to see you. I’m—sorry the match didn’t work out. But I’m sure you’ll do much better, in the end.”
	“Oh, I’m not at all sure,” Sioanna said, with a trilling little laugh. “You broke my heart, and it took me a long time to forgive you for it. But I have made the effort.” 
	Keanrih discovered with vexation that he was blushing.
	“I know you didn’t mean to do it,” Sioanna said. “Maybe that’s why I found you such a charmer. There’s nothing more annoying than a man who’s trying too hard.”
	Wishing desperately that she would shut up and let him make a decent escape, Keanrih said, “I’m sorry if I misled you. I didn’t mean to.”
	“I know. Don’t worry. I had a cry, and I’m over it.” He began daring to hope that this was true. “I just came down here to give you this. I saw it in a market a couple days ago and I bought it, for you, just on impulse. To show you there’s no hard feelings.”
	She held out her hand. On its open palm sat a small box wrapped in gold foil. 
It was the exact gesture he used to offer one of his horses a treat. Place it in the center of your palm, hold it out flat, wait for it to come to you. A good way to start the long process of winning its trust. Perhaps that was why he lifted it gingerly. Something in the back of his mind balking at the idea of being trained.
	“Thank you,” he said. “You shouldn’t have.”
	“Open it,” she answered, with a smile.
	Keanrih peeled back the gold foil. Lifting the lid of the tilu and oak box, he looked inside.
	It was probably a brooch—some men wore pendants, but he never had, and Sioanna was observant about the small things. It was silver, in the shape of two hands holding a silver ball between their palms.
	“It’s lovely,” he said, closing the lid. “Thank you. I’m sorry, I brought nothing for you.”
	“Oh that’s all right,” Sioanna said, although she looked a little disappointed. “Wear it; that’ll be your gift to me.”
	“I will,” he said, thinking now was the time to bow his way out. “Thank you for your gift, Sioanna; you have a generous heart. Idair with you.”
	Unbidden, Ridac’s silent steward appeared to show him through the corridor to the great hall and out the double doors. He stood on the steps, stamping his boots in the cold, and thrust the box and its contents deep into his satchel. Good spirits and bad. It would be hard to get the taste of that interview out of his mouth.
	But he knew just the man to do it.
	Spring returned to his stride as he went down the steps and across the yard to untie Leabra. He lifted the lid of the wicker basket he had slung from his saddle, to make sure its contents hadn’t suffered from the cold. Then he swung himself onto the horse and started off on a long ride toward the worst piece of land in the Vicinity.

*	*	*

	He was worried about Bilash. She was the last of the Mypril Reds, and like the others she appeared not to thrive on hay alone. Other farmers made this work, somehow; on his travels to and from various markets Taric would see sheep in far more outlandish colors standing sturdily out in the pasture munching without a care in the world. Yellow, indigo, even lavender. But Taric had often had cause to repent the ambitious impulse that had driven him to lay out such a percentage of his little store of cash on three sheep who had, within days, begun to fade from scarlet to the color of dried blood. The man who’d sold them to him had assured him they would do very well on grass and hay, but he wouldn’t be the first livestock trader who had, as Keanrih put it, seen him coming.
	Taric scratched Bilash on her drooping, woolly head, and looked up with a sigh at the barn door. Keanrih had suddenly sprouted there.
	“I know you don’t like surprises,” Keanrih said.
	Taric was not a man who spoke much, and he was often grateful for that as he lay on his pallet alone at night. If he were the type to say whatever occurred to him, he would have embarrassments stacked up behind him thick as firewood. So instead of saying, I can look at you any time, or you were the best one I ever had, or some other foolish thing, he straightened up and dusted the hay and sheep dung off the knees of his trousers.
	“But,” Keanrih said, “I’ve got one I think you’ll like.”
	Taric gave Bilash a final pat and stepped out of the barn. Keanrih walked like a boy, his step elastic as greenwood, delighting himself with some private joy. With half his mind, Taric began to dread the scene he could see them heading toward. But with the other half, he was wondering if he could find it in his heart to refuse, this time.
	Leabra was stamping outside, her reins looped around one of the rails in the paddock. Keanrih flung open the lid of a wicker basket and plunged both hands into it.
	“All right,” Keanrih said. “Close your eyes and hold out your arms.”
	“Keanrih—“
	“This time you’ll accept it.”
	“You arrogant son of a—“
	“Yes, I know. Humor me for five seconds before you start the fight, will you?”
	Against his better judgment, Taric held out his arms, heaved a weary sigh, and closed his eyes.
	He found himself instinctively clutching it to him. It was warm, and furry, and wriggling, and had a scratchy tongue that was licking his cheeks. Taric looked down and saw that he was hugging a shaggy, loose-limbed, brown and white puppy, whose spirit was entirely consumed by a battle between his desire to fawn all over Taric and his desire to escape from the constraint of Taric’s embrace.
	“I found him while I was out riding,” Keanrih said. “Something got to his mother. I don’t know what became of the other pups.” Keanrih’s face broke into a smile that made something bright and warm burst like a star in Taric’s chest. “Father unknown, mother a certified mongrel. You could not sell this dog for a copper. A genuine thing of no value.” One of those graceful hands went to rifle nervously through his brown hair. “Do you like him?”
	A grown man should not find his throat pricking him just because another grown man has given him a puppy. Taric knew this. He also knew that for the seven years they’d been together, Keanrih had been trying to work out  a way to give Taric a gift he could accept. It was a relief, a revelation, a sharp and tingling pleasure, to find that Keanrih had finally succeeded.
	“Yes,” Taric said, while the pup began slobbering on his tunic.
	“Thank you,” Keanrih said.
	Taric looked at his face and remembered that first day. How he lay down alone in the stable loft afterward and told himself it wasn’t the red lips, the delicate hands or the rider’s thighs and gleacha. It wasn’t even the memory of the vision that foretold him. It was the kindness that got him, that worked itself into every aspect of Keanrih’s body and into a desire that Taric found impossible to fight.
	“I’ll bed him down in the barn,” Taric said. “Get him used to the sheep.”
	Taric was aware, as they fixed a bed for the pup in a warm corner, that Keanrih was thrilling with happiness. He tried not to take the infection. He had Bilash to look after, the hens, and the horse to water and feed. Keanrih understood. That was why it was inside the rickety stable, after Taric shut the door to Hiinh’s stall and Keanrih hung up the brushes he had been using to comb Bearla on the rack hanging from one wall, that Taric finally stepped up behind him, seized him around the waist, and buried his face in the warm short hair at the back of Keanrih’s neck.
	“Chara,” he whispered into Keanrih’s ear. “Mo fhearr, mo ghra…”
	It was easier to say it in Old Tongue. He didn’t know why. Maybe because Keanrih didn’t understand it very well. He’d learned it formally, from private tutors, and apart from the curses everyone knew, it hadn’t stuck. Whereas for Taric, having been nursed by shriias and brought up around stablehands and tenant farmers, Old Tongue was closer to the bone. Something in which to say things that in the cold light of day you might want to disown. Things which, at the same time, you wanted to say with truth and power. Old Tongue was the language magic was done in, and the language in which he spoke of love to this son of a landlord whose tongue thickened and darted in passion when he heard the words he only half-understood.
	Keanrih didn’t speak at all, except with the sound of his breathing and the motion of his body. But his mind was always moving, wrapping them both in a shifting cocoon of words and images. Taric’s mind drank them as greedily as his body drank Keanrih’s touch, turning them over as they wrestled in the straw. 
starved for you all day long      winter everywhere but here         take take me giving take         love a dog a thing of no value
	The fabric continued to shimmer and wave as they lay curled against each other, dissolving and dissipating while Keanrih’s mind quieted down. Taric closed his eyes and stroked each image as it melted away. Images of himself, of fire and water, of the horses Keanrih loved so much, of the mundane things he had been looking at all day, the puppy and the stripped branches of the winter trees and something silver glinting from the darkness inside a wooden box.
	Taric’s eyes sprang open. He felt Keanrih’s body tense in sympathy with his own.
	“What is it?”
	“I saw something…a few days ago,” Taric said. “And I just…” He sat up, shaking his head. Keanrih sat up too, putting his bare arms around Taric’s broad chest.
	“Keanrih, what was it you were thinking of, a minute ago, the silver thing inside the box?”
	Keanrih laughed, embarrassed again by how much he’d given away. “Oh, that must have been that peace offering of Sioanna’s,” he said. “Painful scene that was.”
	“Sioanna ni hAlanna,” Taric said, his eyes hardening.
	“Oh now look,” Keanrih said. “If you want to be jealous save it for something we can have a good fight over. She gave it to show me she doesn’t hate me. By the spirits I wish she would.”
	“Where is the thing she gave you?” Taric demanded, knowing Keanrih would misread the urgency.
	“It’s in my satchel somewhere. Taric, how many times—“
	Taric crawled out of the straw naked as he was and pulled on the leather gloves he wore at the forge. Then he found Keanrih’s satchel where he had dropped it. Keanrih sighed in resignation as Taric tipped out the contents. He didn’t know if Keanrih would notice the tremor in his hands as he sorted through the jumble of objects, finally lifting the silver brooch out of the straw and dirt where it had fallen from the opened box.
	“It means about as much to me as she does, Taric, which as I’ve told you—“
	“Keanrih,” Taric said, his head snapping around with wide, frightened eyes.
	“What is it?” Keanrih finally said, aware now that it couldn’t just be the jealousy.
	“I had one of those…visions…” 
Keanrih nodded, moving toward him as he always did, to try to make it easier to talk about. Taric held up a hand to stop him. 
“I saw…I saw a dark user making this.”
	Keanrih froze.
	“Are you sure?”
	Taric nodded.
	“Name of the spirit.” Taric’s gloved fist closed around the brooch. “I—I’m sure Sioanna didn’t know.”
	“I don’t know if she did or not, but…” Taric knew he was betraying his fear but he couldn’t do anything about it. “Someone made this for you. That’s why I saw it. Someone is working against you.”
	Keanrih laughed.
	“Don’t laugh at this!” Taric said.
	“I’m not saying you didn’t see what you saw, I just think it must have got to me by mistake. Why would a dark user bother with me?”
	“This is a charm. It’s a—an enchantment. They use them to spell you into doing something…”
	“Oh you’re not suggesting—“
	“Why not?” Taric shouted. “Your father being your father. Why not?”
	Keanrih’s head shook in denial.
	“I may disappoint him but we’re still kin. He wouldn’t do that to me.”
	“You don’t know that.”
	“Yes I do!”
	Keanrih’s voice rang with wrought-up anger. Taric knew what it meant and knew Keanrih was not to be argued away from something he asserted in that desperate pitch.
	“All right,  chara.” Taric’s lack of defensiveness seemed to take Keanrih by surprise. “But all the same, don’t you touch this.”
	Taric got up and pulled on his trousers and tunic. 
	“Where are you going?”
	“To get rid of it.”
	He was halfway to the forge outside by the time Keanrih scrambled into his clothes. He stoked the fire, blew it to white heat, seized the brooch with a pair of tongs and thrust it into the hottest part of the furnace.
	“This is going to be hard to explain to Sioanna,” Keanrih mused.
	“For Idair’s sake!” Taric burst out. “Are you worried about that, after this?”
	“Taric, I do have to live with—“
	“You don’t have to live with them but you do!”
	“Please don’t start this.”
	Taric closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
	“I know,” he said. “How we are is as much my decision as yours. I know.”
	They watched the charm in the fire. So far, it wasn’t molten.
	“Keanrih,” Taric said, after they had watched it continue not to melt.
	“I know.”
	“Your friend the shriia,” Taric said. “You have to tell her about this.”
	Keanrih shook his head.
	“Why not?”
	“It would mean telling her lies or telling her about us. I’m not ready to do either.”
	“Isn’t she supposed to be the woman who one day is going to change my opinion of shriias?” Taric said. 
	“It’s not that,” Keanrih said. “It’s just—well, you know shriias tell the truth.”
“As they see it,” Taric snorted.
“Whatever. Theamh is famous, even among shriias, for being unable to conceal anything. She tells the truth like she does everything—headlong, indiscriminately, and all feet flying. If I tell her, I’m telling everyone who knows her, and that’s including and especially my family.”
	Taric wondered what Keanrih read off him when he said that.
	“Ask her not to tell.”
	“She’d give it away without meaning to. Someday if you would just go to a reading, just once, you’d see what I mean.”
	“I know the stories and I don’t need them to tell me what they mean.”
	“That’s not how it—“
	“Regardless!” Taric saw the tone in his voice shut Keanrih down. It hurt him to see it but he went on. “This is the one damn thing they are useful for. Go to her and tell her what’s happened.”
	Keanrih opened his mouth, closed it, shook his head. “I can’t. I can’t risk it.”
	“Tell me what the worst is that could happen if they found out,” Taric said.
	He knew his voice was cold. He felt cold. It was something that fell between them like sheet rock when it came up, that separated them until one or the other did something violent enough to shatter the barrier.
	“You don’t understand,” Keanrih said.
	No, I don’t, Taric thought. I don’t understand. I never had a mother. Or a father. Or a big house. I have nothing to lose. If I did, though, I would risk it all for you. I would.
	“My father…he dislikes me enough already, this would turn it to hatred. But it’s mathi,” he said, turning those brown eyes on him and hoping he would soften. “I know her hopes for me and this would kill them all. And I just…”
	“They will all die someday,” Taric said. “Unless you do plan to leave me when you decide you need a wife and an heir.”
	“Thurcte bi thu!” Keanrih shouted.
Taric took the violence in his voice without blinking.
“The normal thing to do for a man in my situation is join with the wife and keep the lover. I never even considered that and it’s not just because I know you’d slit your own throat before you’d let it happen!” 
	“Which I surely would,” Taric growled.
	“I don’t want any of that tarbhfnaa. I don’t want the land and the wife and the hypocrite’s heart. I bound myself to you, forever, and if that meant nothing to Idair or the world it means everything to me. I want to love you true and right. You believe that.”
Knowing he did, Taric did not respond.
“Is it disloyal for me also to want my family to love me?”
They weren’t tears of anger, like the ones Taric had seen him shed at this point before. He was crying out of fear. A choking black fear that knocked him stunned and bloody back into childhood. A terror that could not be reasoned with, a nightmare that would shake his child’s heart into ragged tender pieces.
Taric didn’t know whether Keanrih could even tell that he had put his arms around him, if maybe he was so thoroughly annihilated by this sudden apparition that he couldn’t even feel himself held. Nothing had prepared him for an outburst like this cropping up during a fight so familiar even the pain felt rehearsed. What was it that had split him open so that Taric could finally see what it was that kept him silent, kept him scared, kept him hostage to expectations he knew he would fail to fulfill and a society he half pitied and half despised?
Taric didn’t know. Unless it was that in the unthinking heart where truth is really tried, Keanrih had recognized this charm as his father’s malice, and was grieving that. Tasting the bitter knowledge that love is conditional. That the love he was betraying himself for could never come to him from his father.
Not having parents he hadn’t known what it was like to believe that kind of love was possible. But he was no stranger to the need.
“Shhh, chara. It’s not disloyal. Shhh.”
“He’s my father,” Keanrih shouted through the tears. “She’s my mother. I can’t see that in their eyes and live. I can’t.”
“Shhh. It’s all right. I won’t make you.”
Taric knew he was making promises that would come back to haunt them both. But he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t see him struck to bits and not try to hold him together. If Keanrih had to believe in what didn’t exist, if he had to deny what did, if he had to go on shutting his mouth on the truth, then that was what Taric was going to help him do.
“I can’t tell her,” Keanrih cried, clinging to Taric’s arms and rocking in his embrace. “I can’t.”
“Shhh.” Taric stroked his hair. “It’s all right. You don’t have to. I’ll take care of you.”
Keanrih pressed his mouth onto Taric’s in a tear-salted, desperate kiss. 
In the circle of heat cast by the furnace, they came together again, sorrow in the place of joy, two bodies warming each other against the blast of fear.
Inside the forge, two hands with their fingertips lightly touching held between their palms that cryptically inscribed globe. 
The fire had not even made them sweat.

*	*	*

	“Keanrih mac Minead!” Theamh’s voice rang out over the path in the gathering darkness. “What the hell are you doing out here?”
	Keanrih pulled up on Leabra’s reins, stopping her so that Theamh could catch up with them, floating white and dim through the trees.
	“Is that a rhetorical question?” Keanrih called back.
	“First of all,” Theamh said, without pausing to greet him. “You should never be traveling alone at this hour. Second, for future reference, if a figure in white calls your name out in a deserted wood at nightfall, the smart thing to do is run.”
	“Ah, but I knew it was you,” he said.
	“But I could have been a pack of lurers,” Theamh said, falling into step beside the horse. “My point being, I’ll see you back to Mablad. I’m not easy seeing you gallivanting around like this with nothing but the moon between you and the otherworld.”
	“You want to walk all the way to Mablad.”
	“No, of course not. We’ll stop off at home and get Cinhe.”
	“But then you’ll be riding back from Mablad in the dark alone.”
	“Yes, Keanrih, but see, I’m a shriia. If anything messes with me, I can mess with it. You can’t.”
	Fear of the spirits was something Keanrih had only ever had a theoretical grasp of. He did his share of riding around after dark, without fear or worry. Taric was different; he would have chased Keanrih off every night before sundown, if Keanrih let him. Thinking that Taric would want him to take Theamh up on this, he continued to walk Leabra slowly next to her as she tramped through the muddying snow. The globe of fire hanging a little above and in front of her shed pallid yellow light. Leabra shied away from the fire at first, until Theamh hung it higher. Long, narrow, strange shadows lurched around the man, the woman, and the horse as they left the path and picked their way to Theamh’s clearing.
	“You know we’re leaving tracks,” Keanrih observed.
	“Yes, I know. The hope is that if someone or something follows them she or it won’t be able to get through the shield.” She shivered, her bare shoulders prickling in the cold. “I grew up City. I’ll always leave tracks.”
	After another shiver, Theamh brought fire out of both hands, swinging them around as she walked to warm herself. Keanrih tried not to stare.
	“How is everything?” Theamh asked, casually. “Haven’t noticed yourself having memory trouble, or doing things you would never in a million years do?”
	“No,” Keanrih said, having learned that whatever kind of nonsense Theamh might appear to be talking she always explained it eventually. “Out of curiosity, why do you ask?”
	“Those are the main symptoms of mindforcing, is all,” she said, slogging onward. 
	“You’re still worried about that?” Keanrih said.
	“I am,” she answered. 
	“Why?”
	Theamh made a noise of exasperation. “Probably because I’m paranoid, lonely, and depressed, Keanrih. Pay no attention to my ravings.”
	Keanrih walked on in silence, not knowing exactly what to say.
	“Dalen came back without her,” Theamh said, by way of explanation.
	“Ah.”
	“And they won’t let me go look for her,” she went on. “It’s not fair. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to find her. But it’s still my right.”
	There were a lot of questions he had long wanted to ask Theamh about that whole story, but he had never had the nerve. Thinking of them reminded him of his own secrets. And of the two silver hands that were buried under the coals in Taric’s forge.
	“Well, if worrying about me will help distract you, go right ahead,” Keanrih said, trying to sound cheerful.
	Theamh laughed, mournfully. “Thanks, Keanrih. I appreciate it.”
	“So if my father were going to try to get me to do his bidding, is mindforcing the only way to do it? Or are there other things you could stay up nights worrying about him doing to me?”
	She kept walking, both hands still enveloped in roaring flame. “Oh, sure. Loads.”
	“Like what?”
	“Well, probably the first thing a dark user would recommend, if he was looking to change your mind, would be a charm.”
	“What’s a charm?”
	“It’s a bauble or trinket that has a piece of your spirit trapped in it. She takes the little piece of you, mixes it with a piece of her, corrupts it so that it will tell you to do what she wants you to do, and then captures that in the charm. Soon as you touch it with your bare skin the piece of your spirit comes home to your body, and before you know it you’re doing her bidding.”
	Keanrih tried not to show that this information interested him. “Are they dangerous?”
	 “Depends on what the charm’ll make you do. Most of the time the effect’s reversible.”
	“Most of the time?”
	“We don’t really know what-all dark users can and can’t do. I saw Lythril put together some creepy fnaa. She’s a lot better at what she does than most dark users; but I still would hate to give out guarantees.”
	They walked on, until Theamh stopped before what looked to Keanrih like another indistinguishable stand of trees. 
“Here we are,” she said. “Close your eyes.”
	Keanrih closed them. He felt Leabra walk forward as Theamh tugged on the bridle.
	“All right, open them.”
	Keanrih could put some of it down to the dark and its being winter, but even so, Theamh’s clearing struck him as cheerless and bleak. The house itself was sturdy, if small, as was the one-horse stable and one-chicken coop. But the gardens were dead, snow-covered and bedraggled; and the house itself was dark, except for a slight phosphorescence that seemed to leak around the door and through the small square windowpanes.
	“Oh, that,” Theamh said, reading his apprehension. “It’s just the vigils. They glow in the dark.”
	While Keanrih wondered how it was that you could get to be someone who talked about spirits as if they were pets, Theamh said, “Do you want to come in and warm up for a minute? I’m not sure I’ve got anything to offer you…”
	“I’d love to,” Keanrih said quickly. “I’ve never been in a shriia’s house.”
	“It’s not very exciting,” Theamh said, leading Keanrih out toward the stables.
	They put Leabra in with Cinhe, who looked up at him with mild curiosity before going back to her hay. Theamh led the way back out to the front door, which she unlocked and pushed open.
	“Welcome,” she said, ushering him across the threshold. “This is the living area…“
	An orange ball of flame went hurtling from one of her hands into the fireplace, where it crackled happily. Keanrih followed her through the doorway into what turned out to be the kitchen. She was already going through the cupboards.
	“Nope,” she said. “I’m out of everything an ordinary person could be expected to consume. Sorry.” She shut the doors. “It’s my own fault; I don’t budget my allowance well. And I didn’t negotiate a very good contract with my hen…”
	It was spare all right. Better-built and larger than Taric’s shack, but still much different from what Theamh must have gotten used to, growing up at the Craoibh Oir. That house was famous among the fashionable set in the City, and so were Theamh’s parents. Theamh didn’t talk about her parents much. He had the feeling most of the people she worked for assumed that they were dead.
The chairs they passed on their way back through the living area had been made by hand; one had cushions, but one looked as if it would be a great deal less comfortable than sitting on the floor. And the locked door they stood in front of now, at the end of this short hallway, was a simple pine affair with a latch…through whose hole he could see a flickering bluish-green light.
	“Come on in, I want you to meet them,” Theamh said, lifting the latch.
	“Meet wh—“
	The door opened, and Keanrih found he’d lost his voice.
	The room was full of fire. Yellow fire, green fire, blue fire, crackling in blade-bright streams through the windowless darkness within those four walls. It was as if something had exploded, and just never stopped exploding. There was so much light and heat and noise inside there could be no room for anything else. Theamh stepped through the doorway, raising a hand as if in greeting. 
As she walked deeper into the explosion, he could see the flames parting for her. Then he realized they were drawn to her—the yellow fire coiling around her upraised arm, a blue streak leaping out to encircle her waist, something bright and green playing about her shoulders. He realized that the pink haze through which he was watching this spectacle was not an optical illusion.
	“Tabhair styloi, mo sielnai.”
	She spoke without urgency; affectionately, almost teasing. With a careless flick of her arm she sent the yellow fire arching onto a square pedestal that sat in one corner; the blue streak shot across the room and began wrapping itself around another. As the green light stretched out toward another pedestal in a different corner, the haze thickened in rose-pink clouds around the fourth plinth.
	Theamh was still standing in the middle of the room, glancing around as if taking attendance. Then she turned back to him, waving him inside.
	“Come on, Keanrih. They won’t hurt you unless you mean me harm.”
	“I don’t,” he said, his eyes flicking from one fiery creature to the next.
	“Then come on.”
	Keanrih found himself disinclined to move. But he was also disinclined to appear a coward. He took a step.
	It wasn’t that he actually heard them. And yet as he moved into their space he felt as if it were humming, as if he were stepping onto a lit hearth. He could feel his legs trembling. Terror, growing in his bones, his blood, as his poor flesh quailed before the power of the otherworld.
	“These are the vigils,” Theamh was saying. “The yellow one is Jayla. She’s the smartest, which is not saying much. That’s Zott over there,” she went on, gesturing at the blue cyclone that was whipping itself into a frenzy, “and Shaineen’s green, that makes it easy to remember. And of course Phredi. Phredi’s a sweetie.”
	Tendrils of pink fog rose to follow the wave of Theamh’s hand.
	“So,” Theamh said. “Yesterday someone asks me to mindforce you, and today you’re suddenly very interested in charms. Anything I should know about?”
	Keanrih turned his head to answer. Over Theamh’s shoulder he saw Zott’s blue lightning lashing in mad circles in a corner. He had never seen that color blue before. 
That was what he was thinking when he felt his legs give.
	Keanrih shook his head with a start. He was sitting in that chair in Theamh’s living room. He hadn’t been, a moment ago.
	“What—“
	“You’re all right,” Theamh said.
	She was crouched on the floor in front of him, holding up a heptagonal glass bottle that appeared to be empty.
	“Have some of this,” she said, handing him the bottle.
	He peered into it.
	“No, it’s not empty,” Theamh said. “Take a swig, you’ll feel better.”
	He raised the empty bottle to his lips and gulped.
	Warmth spread down his throat and out through his veins. He handed the bottle back to her. She shoved in a cork stopper and put it aside.
	“It’s nothing serious,” she said, in answer to his worried stare. “You fainted, that’s all. Spirits have that effect on some people.”
	Keanrih groaned. “If my father could only have been there.”
	Theamh snorted. “Please. Nocc would flee gibbering in terror if he ever caught sight of even one of them. Your having fainted just means you’re sensitive, Keanrih. Best way to be.”
	For some reason, he felt intensely grateful to her for saying that.
	“You did that to test my sensitivity?” Keanrih said, with a weak laugh.
	Theamh smiled. “I don’t need shri to figure that out, Keanrih. No, I took you in there because I want you to choose one.”
	“I beg your pardon?”
	“Look,” she said. “I’m not stupid. You’re in trouble, that’s obvious. You don’t want to tell me what or why; that’s also obvious. Well, you’re not the first person to make my job harder, but that’s never stopped me from doing it. You need protection. That’s what vigils are for.”
	“Theamh—“ he protested, feeling faint all over again at the thought of them.
	“They’re bound to me, so they protect me all the time. But I can also bind one of them to you, and that way if something happens to you, it’ll let me know.” Keanrih shook his head in disbelief. “So which do you think would scare you least?”
	“None of them,” Keanrih said, emphatically.
	“They’re not dangerous as long as they’re bound to me,” Theamh said, earnestly. “Really. As long as I remember to feed them—“
	“No,” Keanrih broke in, suddenly. “No. I’m sorry, no.”
	“Keanrih—“
	“I can’t. I won’t. I’ll take my chances.”
	Her face told him she knew she’d hit the wall. She gave up.
	“Ah well,” she said, standing up and beginning to hang some lights. “Sit till you’re ready, and then we’ll head home.”
Watching her hands move as she sent globes of fire up to hang near the rafters, Keanrih began to see things in a different light. He was used to seeing shriias make fire. But walking into that room had taught him something. Theamh was moving in worlds he hadn’t really believed in, wielding powers he would never understand. And he was damn lucky that she was on his side.
Taric was right. It was stupid not to let her help. 
On the other hand, she’d told him a hundred times that it was hard for shriias to keep secrets.
	“You still haven’t told me how you’re doing, Theamh,” he said.
	She left the globe of fire in the air by the ceiling beams and sat down in the other chair. “Well it’s a difficult question, Keanrih. I’m not really sure how to answer it.”
	 “I’ve been meaning to ask,” Keanrih said. “Do you have to answer every question someone asks you? Because I could see that getting very annoying.”
	Theamh laughed, drawing her feet up to the edge of the seat. “No, of course it’s not that simple.”
	Trying not to seem overcurious, he said, “Well, how does it work?”
	Once she began expounding she took to it naturally. He found that amusing.
	“All right, see, the first rule, which you can never break, is that whatever you say has to be true. Which means if you answer a question you have to tell the truth, or Idair takes your fire back and you’re not a shriia any more. Going shrimarbh, we call that.”
	Keanrih nodded.
	“On the other hand, not everything has to be said. Which means it’s all right in certain circumstances to hold information back or to give a less than complete answer.”
	“Under what circumstances?” he said, hopefully.
	“There are entire courses given at the scoil on that very topic. But the rules for answering direct questions,” she said, hurrying along as she saw his eyes glaze, “are comparatively straightforward.”
	“And they are?” he prompted, now interested again.
	“Questions fall into four categories. Ordinary, vexed, difficult, and dangerous. Ordinary questions you have to answer right away.”
	“What’s an ordinary question?”
	She smiled. “Anything that doesn’t fall into the other three categories.”
	Keanrih gave his head a little shake. “So what are the other three categories?”
	“Vexed questions are ones where nobody really knows the answer, or where there’s a seemingly infinite number of possible answers. Things like, say, where do we go when we die, or why is the sky blue. Vexed questions we’re not obliged to answer, because who can. We’re allowed to take a stab at them, but when we answer them we have to make it clear that we’re stating a belief or an opinion.”
	Keanrih nodded.
	“Difficult questions are questions where answering them will involve you or someone else in some kind of trouble. Covers things from embarrassing personal questions to things that you know the person who told them to you does not want spread around. The first and the second time someone asks a difficult question, we’re allowed to try to evade. If it’s asked a third time during the course of the same conversation, we’re obligated to answer.”
He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that.
“Dangerous questions,” she went on, “are questions that you can’t answer without putting yourself or someone else in danger. Those we can refuse to answer.”
	Keanrih thought this over. He couldn’t tell which category his particular question would fall under.
	“I’m not sure I’m getting this, Theamh.”
	She laughed. “All right, I’ll do it the way they teach us at scoil. Ask me a question, something trivial or random. First thing that pops into your head.”
	 “Uh…what did you have for breakfast this morning?”
	“Dry toast and water,” Theamh said promptly. “See, that was an ordinary question. Ask me something harder.”
	He thought for a moment.
	“When Istria left on that second mission against Lythril…why didn’t you go with her?”
	“Why do you want to know that?” Theamh demanded, color rising in her cheeks.
	“I—never mind, it’s none of my business,” Keanrih said, chagrined.
	“No, no, no,” Theamh burst out, throwing her hands into the air. “You have to keep pushing it or I won’t answer.”
	Feeling as if he had wandered on stage during a play, he said, “So…why didn’t you go with her?”
	“I’m curious as to why you think that’s a difficult question,” Theamh said.
	“I think it’s a difficult question because you’re trying not to answer,” Keanrih said, starting to feel annoyed.	
	“You’re thurking right it is, Keanrih, and I really don’t feel like getting into it.”
	“But you just told me to—“ Keanrih protested.
	“I know that,” Theamh shot back. “So now you have to decide how badly you want to know. Do you ask me again, and risk making me hate you? Or drop it?”
	Every instinct he had was telling him to back off. But he had to know, as much as he could, about what she was able to hold back.
	“Why didn’t you go with her?” he repeated.
	At first he thought she was going to rip his head off. But all she did was get up and walk away, looking out one of the small windows at the darkness.
	“Something else you should know about all this, Keanrih,” she said, almost conversationally, “is that sometimes questions have compound answers. We don’t have to give the complete answer. For instance, I could just tell you that I didn’t go with her because she wouldn’t let me, and that would satisfy my truth duty.”
	Keanrih waited.
	“But of course that raises the question of why she wouldn’t let me,” Theamh went on, her voice still calm. “You could then ask me that. Three times.”
	Not sure why he was doing it, Keanrih said, “Why wouldn’t she let you?”
	“Don’t you think you’ve got the point by now, Keanrih?” Theamh said, still not looking at him.
	He returned to the attack. “Why wouldn’t she let you?”
	“That’s her business and mine, Keanrih.”
	“Why wouldn’t she let you?”
	Theamh sighed, and turned around.
	“Because she was in love with me,” she said.
	Keanrih felt that he was looking at her from across a great distance. When it should have brought them closer, somehow.
	Theamh walked over and sat in the wooden chair. “Lots of other things you could ask now,” she said, quietly. “How could she stop me, me being as stubborn as I am. I’ll save you the trouble: she got a promise out of me. How did she do that? I had a hard time refusing her things. Is that why I haven’t gone to look for her? No, it’s not; I promised not to go with her, but I wouldn’t promise not to come after her. Then why didn’t I go after her? Because the Council forbade it. Why did the Council forbid it? Because they’re afraid that my emotional investment would lead me to do something stupid that would get me killed. Were they right? Probably.”
	Theamh’s head turned to look up past him at the fire dangling from the rafters.
	“Do you understand, now, about difficult questions?”
	He wanted to believe she could keep it safe. But it didn’t look as if she could.
	He’d try once more. With something as dangerous to her as his secret would be to him.
	“Did you ever have sex with her?”
	“Keanrih!”
	It took her no time at all to achieve violent, trembling anger. Looking at the fire in her eyes he almost lost the nerve. But he had to know how far she could be forced to go.
	“Did you?”
	“Don’t thurking go there, Keanrih. I’m not playing with you.”
	He was quite sure she wasn’t. At the moment he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t rather take his chances with the vigils than with her.
	“Well, did you?”
	“No I didn’t!”
	She sprang out of her chair and bit off a curse, walking away.
	Keanrih shrank into the chair, his heart sinking.
	“Theamh,” he said, in a small voice. “I was…I was hoping it might be a dangerous question.”
	Her hair brushed across her shoulders as she shook her head.
	“I’m sorry,” he said.
	There was a long silence.
	“If I had,” she said, “you wouldn’t see that fire up by the rafters, or in the fireplace. I’d be shrimarbh.”
	 “I thought maybe…you know, before…”
	“We might have done it before we got our fire. But we didn’t.”
	There was a short silence.
	“I—I didn’t think you would have to answer that.”
	She heard the tears in his voice. She turned around, and her anger had melted.
	“So do you know, now?” she said, sadly. “Can you trust me with it?”
	There was not much you could hide from a shriia.
	“Do you hate me now?” Keanrih said.
	She knew he wasn’t going to tell her.
	“No,” Theamh finally said. “You asked, I answered. It’s my job.”
	“So you don’t hate me because you’re a shriia.”
	“I answered because I’m a shriia. I don’t hate you because you’re my friend.”
	She tried to smile at him. He could tell she really wanted to cry.
	“Come on, Keanrih. Let’s get you home.”
	He stood. She began withdrawing the lights. By the time they locked the door behind them, the house was dark. Except for the eerie glow of the vigils.
	She walked ahead of him to the stable. He couldn’t tell her. He was only now beginning to realize how much he had wanted to.
	“Come on, girl,” he heard her calling. “I know it’s late. I’ll make it up to you.”
	Theamh emerged from the stable with one hand on the neck of a dappled gray mare, who shook her head and snorted in the chilly night air. The horse was wearing no bridle or saddle.
	“Thanks, I appreciate it, truly. And up we go.”
	She hoisted herself onto the mare’s bare back with surprising agility. The horse walked up to where Keanrih still sat astride Leabra, stopping so that Theamh could take Leabra’s reins and lead her and Keanrih back through the shield.
	“Mablad, Cinhe,” Theamh said.
	It was a long ride, and he had a lot of time to think. 
They stopped at the top of the hill overlooking the valley in which most of Mablad lay, dark under the night sky. Far away on the hill opposite he could see lights in the windows of his family’s house.
	“I’ll stay here and watch to make sure you get over all right,” Theamh said, holding her breath in tight. “If I come up to the house with you Minead will invite me to stay over and I can’t hack that, Keanrih, I have to be alone.”
	He didn’t know exactly why he was doing it. But he reached across the distance between the two horses and took her hand.
	She looked at him with some alarm, but didn’t withdraw it.
	“You—I know it must—at a time like this it must feel that way,” he said. “But—you’re not alone. Not absolutely.”
	In his ears that sounded like a pitiful and weak kind of consolation.
	“Thank you,” she said, as if it had made a difference.
	He looked back at the one person in the world, aside from Taric, that he knew he could trust with anything. He almost said it.
	But then he couldn’t.
	“Idair with you, Theamh.” 
“Idair with you.”
	He spurred Leabra down the hill. Behind him, if he turned around, he could see the globe winking above her head, and her hreapa glowing white underneath it. He could still see it when he turned on the stair, looking out through the narrow window cut into the fortified stone walls of the na Polls’ ancestral seat. An oblong of darkness and one tiny star, getting smaller now as it floated back toward Theamh’s lonely house.

*	*	*	*
	
The only thing Theamh could find in the cupboard was a jar of preserved carrots.
	She took it out and looked at it for a while.
	It was still there because she hated carrots worse than almost everything. And anyhow, she wasn’t hungry. 
	However. She had a full day of work tomorrow, and she ought to eat something. 
	She sat down at the table, broke the seal, and took out a spoon, sighing.
	All right, Theamh. Pretend it’s something else. Something much better.
	She dug the spoon into the jar and began eating, letting her mind wander over memories of great foods she had known. Candied rongos… sugarbuilts… venison…pietraka.
	Pietraka.
	The spoon stuck into the orange mushy mess and remained there.
	She could still remember the smell. She could still almost taste it. Still almost see Istria’s face as she pushed open the door of that tiny room down in Lythril’s cellar.
	happy Burning, Theamh
	And above them, the noise of the party. Lythril’s Burning party was an annual affair, something she did every cold season to encourage what she called the good clients. Theamh had assumed she held it during the Burning celebrations just to be perverse. Istria had known better. She’d figured out that the Burning was a holiday for Lythril too. Because Lythril believed that the Dark One had won that battle, whatever the Chronicles might say.
	it’s wonderful, Istri
	Not that Theamh had attended the party. Earlier that morning, Lythril had found her at Maerin’s throat, doing her best to bash his head in. Big as he was, Maerin had had to call Lythril for assistance. Lythril, of course, only had to look at her once to make her drop to the floor wincing in pain.
	“You know the rules, Theamh.”
	The first rule being that only Lythril knew all the rules. She made them up, on the spot, and pretended they dated from time immemorial. Including this very new rule, invented just for the day. That only Lythril was allowed to abuse Maerin.
	It wasn’t the only rule Theamh had trouble following. Even though, at the time, she had thought she was doing a pretty good job of pretending to be a dark user’s apprentice, she had never been good at pretending to be obedient.
	“Why are you trying to kill Maerin, Theamh?” Lythril had said, blandly.
	“Do I need a reason?”
	Theamh was still convinced that the only reason Lythril had let her live was that she amused her. Sometimes.
	 “Take her down to the round room and lock her in, Maerin.”
	When the door of the round room was closed, it was completely dark. Theamh couldn’t see her own hand in front of her face. Pain she could stand; but total darkness unnerved her every time. Especially since Lythril never gave her any indication, when she put her in there, of when or whether she would ever let her out.
	There was an enormous and hellishly complicated iron lock on the round room’s heavy stone door. So Istria, being Istria, had secretly devoted hours to learning how to pick the lock. She hadn’t mentioned this to Theamh. She’d been saving it for a surprise.
And so there she’d suddenly been, framed in the dim reddish light from the torches in the corridor, her dark hair floating around her shoulders.
	“What are you doing, Istria, she’ll kill you if she finds out—“
	“She’s busy entertaining the rich and evil. We’ll put you back in before the party’s over. She’ll never know.”
	And she’d let Istria drag her out of that black stone mouth into the little cell that Lythril had alloted them. The smell was all along the corridor. Herbs, eggs, cheese, whipped together and baked into something so far beyond Theamh’s own understanding of cookery that she always thought of it as another kind of magic. When she opened the door, it was sitting golden on a platter on a cloth spread on the floor, with cutlery and napkins clustered around it. Istria must have swiped it all from the party.
	“You like it?” she’d asked, anxiously.
	“It’s wonderful, Istri.”
	“Happy Burning, Theamh.”
	That was the amazing thing. They had been happy. With everything else being as it was. Sitting together sharing Istria’s food and talking about the insanity they were living in, they were happier than either could remember having been.
	“Why did you try to kill him?”
	“I wasn’t trying to kill him.”
	“Hurt him, then.”
	“That baby you were working on in the cold room.”
	 “What about it?”
	It showed what they had gotten used to. The mere fact that Istria had had to harvest the poor thing’s body was no longer noteworthy. No more was it unusual that a pregnant woman had come to the grounds to sell Lythril her afterbirth. They did, from time to time. Maerin tried in his addled and insane way to deliver them; but he was, to put it mildly, not very good at it.
	“I delivered it myself. Alive.”
	Theamh had been given the job of collecting the afterbirth. But she was not allowed in the birthing hut while the babies were being delivered, for fear that she might do some good somehow in spite of him. But Maerin had been away hunting game for the party; and when the woman’s pains started, Theamh had decided that this time, she’d take the risk.  
And after all that poor woman’s struggle, and the bloody miracle of a live birth in the midst of all this filth, it had all ended in the cold room. Thanks to Maerin.
Istria read the whole story just by looking at her. She could do that.
	“So he killed the poor thing out of spite,” Istria said. “Ah Theamh.”
	Hearing Istria use her name like that reminded Theamh to go into the drawer in which she kept her few belongings and pull out a flat square of metal and glass.
	“Here, Istri. Happy Burning.”
	Istria held it up to the light cast by the torch in its sconce.
	Red, green, and yellow. The same colors of glass Lythril used for the bottles in which she dispensed her potions, arranged in the frame to make something else. A red rose with green leaves, against a background of yellow flame. Casting its butterfly light now over Istria’s pale features.
	“You made this, Theamh?”
	“While I was doing the ghilfeicc.”
	Istria propped it up carefully against the rungs of the chair back, and crawled around to where Theamh was sitting.
	“It’s beautiful. Thank you.”
	Istria put her arms around Theamh’s shoulders, watching light shine through the glass.
	“I’ve been up in the kitchens,” Istria went on. “Watching through the door. All that money and power in one place. And Lythril in the middle of it, whoring herself to all of them. And loving it.” Her head nestled against Theamh’s shoulder. “It’s not much fun being us right now. But do you think anything could possibly suck worse than being Lythril?”
	“I don’t know. I think being Maerin would suck pretty bad.”
	And while they were laughing, and Istria’s arms were tightening around her, she’d said, “You know what the weird thing is. I mean weirder than the rest of it.”
	“What, Theamh?”
	“It reminds me of home.”
	“You know what I think of Ulnach, but even I wouldn’t—“
	“No, I just mean…the party, and me hiding from it and from her. We…my parents always gave a big party at the Burning. They’d want me to dress up and go out and play little hostess. I’d do it for a while…and then run away to somewhere off-limits, athi’s study or my bedroom. And I’d hide out with my books, wishing the party was over, or that I had a sister, or a friend, or anyone.”
	She could still remember the look on Istria’s face as she listened to this.
	“On the one hand, Lythril can sure beat my mother for meanness and evil. But on the other hand I’ve got you. I won on the trade, I think.”
“I wish I could have been your sister, Theamh. I’d have had a much happier childhood.”
	And then instead of laughing, they’d been crying, holding onto each other for real now, Istria’s terrified heart beating against her own.
	“Are we going to die?”
	They had started doing this every night, one asking and one answering.
	“No,” Theamh had said.
	“Why not?”
	“Because Idair’s looking out for us.”
	Idair was still looking out for them.
	She had to be. 
	Even if all Theamh was looking at right now was a spoon handle sticking up out of a jar of preserved carrots.
	She couldn’t eat this fnaa.
	Theamh took the spoon out, capped the jar, and put it back in the cupboard. Then she took her light globe upstairs.
	In her more rational moments Theamh realized that the Council had been right to prevent her from looking for Istria. Dalen was better at tracking, more experienced, and better suited to plan what would certainly have to be a complicated and difficult attack on Lythril’s well-defended lair. Theamh had never trained for tracking; she didn’t even have aftersight. All she’d have been able to do was go back to Istria’s last known location and start asking questions. She’d never have been able to find Lythril. The best she could have hoped for would be that Lythril would find her. And she knew well enough what her chances of survival would have been, if that had happened.
	Istria would have seen it the same way. She had tried, several times, to get Theamh to promise not to come after her if something happened. But that didn’t make Theamh feel any better.
	When she had the hreapa on its peg in the closet, she turned to the bed, reaching out wearily to draw back the blanket.
	Barant was wrong.
	Istria was still alive. 
	Captive. Cold. Hungry. In the dark. Suffering all the torments Theamh knew Lythril used plus some others she was sure she couldn’t imagine.
	Nothing she could do about it.
	Except share it. Like they had the first time. Both bearing everything so it wouldn’t kill one of them.
Theamh looked down at the bed. She let go of the blanket.
	She took the light globe back. The room was dark, but not too dark. Theamh sat down, listening to the silence.
	“I don’t care who else lets you go, Istri,” she said, into the darkness. “I won’t.”
	Theamh slid onto the floor, and closed her eyes.	

*	*	*	*

	You know the story. Everyone knows the story. Everyone loves a story about doomed romance, and you can’t get much more doomed than two shriias in love.	It’s a great mystery. Something most of the shriias in the Order would give their eyeteeth to know. What became of her, after she went off on that mission to find me and bring me down. Why she never came back. Why no one can find her now. What happened to her.
	Of course you know, don’t you. What happened to her.
	I happened to her.
	She was going to be one of the brightest shriias in the order. So was Theamh. And then they met me.
	Of course there were things both of them did, while they were with me, that weren’t very bright. Making that gift for Istria, for instance. The glass rose. That wasn’t smart at all.
	Istria had it with her when she came back for me. Shattering it must have been the last thing she did, before it was all over. I didn’t see her do it, in all the confusion. But her hands were bleeding when I bound them.
	Ordinary people misunderstand about these things. They think Idair spoke against possessions because the material world is fleeting, because things are ephemeral and transitory. Shriias know different. Or they’re supposed to.
	Things last. They’re what survives. Any time you make something, you’re engendering consequences that will outlast you. Doing harm you can’t even imagine to people you may never live to know. Theamh should never have made that thing. Not in the heart of my kingdom. Istria should never have carried it back right back into that same black heart. 
	Istria broke the glass because she thought that would make it useless to me. It didn’t. Not quite. Theamh always put so much of herself into whatever she did.
I could use it. But I keep it. To remind myself.
	To remind you.
	A gift is a risk. 
	Theamh shouldn’t have taken that risk. Istria shouldn’t have taken that risk. And you definitely cannot afford to take that risk. 
	Especially not now.

4
Undone
	It will all work out in the end.
	This is why my associates stay alive. I know, no matter what they botch, that in the end darkness will prevail. Maerin’s increasing lunacy, Nocc’s weakness, Sioanna’s self-infatuated vapidity—they’re all part of the Dark One’s bargain. The little defeats for which they are responsible help write the story of our final victory.
	Still. Once a day I have to put my hands behind my back and clench them, hard, because otherwise they would fly out and turn everyone else in the room into a smoking pile of ash. And that would be a waste of good ingredients.
	I have killed associates in the past, and I am sure I’ll do it again. But not more often than I have to. Recruitment and training is time-consuming and I don’t like to lose the investment.
I do make sure that everyone I work with has seen me kill once. They never forget it. I put them to work harvesting the body afterward, so they have plenty of time to reflect.
	Except for the two of them, of course. I knew before I even laid eyes on them they were spies for the Council. I couldn’t let them see me kill until I was sure they were mine. When they ran off they had seen enough to give them nightmares until they died, but too little to use against me in a court of law. The penalty for practicing dark magic is the severest we have; but the laws make it hard to get a conviction. I know from Bric exactly what I can get away with. I also know from Bric that when the two of them returned, the Courts decided not to prosecute right away. They were waiting for them to get their orders so they could testify as shriias. Even so, Bric felt that in the event that I was hauled in, I would have a good chance. 
If it ever does happen, I’ll have a better chance than he knows. 
But it won’t happen. No one is ever going to find me.
	 It came to me during the rites that night that something had gone wrong with the charm. A charm is not living, but it isn’t entirely dead. It has the kind of obsession that a spirit has. It needs to do what it was made to do. If it can’t, it starts complaining. I hear the complaints because I am the closest thing it has to a mother.
	Instead of sitting on Keanrih’s body it was surrounded by flame. Somebody was trying to burn it. Whoever it was didn’t know very much about magic or she—no, probably he—wouldn’t have bothered. That thing was forged in the Dark One’s fire. No pitiful pile of coals was going to scathe it.
	Reading the pulse of that disappointed, rudimentary will, I could work out what had happened. Before the flame, it had been close. It had sensed him there, within reach. But he hadn’t touched it.
	Before that, it had been in the dark. 
	It came to me.
	Fortunately Sioanna was not within my reach. I might not have been able to restrain myself. It’s a hard and fast rule with me. Never kill someone from a big house family. Unless a family member has asked you to do it.

*	*	*	*

 	Taric lay wide-eyed on his pallet under the pile of blankets. He knew it wasn’t the cold keeping him awake. It was because it was still out there. It didn’t seem to have done any harm; Keanrih had called to say he got safe home, and from the way he talked Taric knew he hadn’t been changed. As long as it was in the forge, nobody would be touching it. All the same, something evil was pulsing among the coals of his smithy, and he couldn’t  sleep.
	When he heard the hiss he told himself he was imagining things.
	Then he refused to believe himself, and pulled on his boots.
	He opened the door, peering across the yard. The shed with the forge was near the stables, separated by a stretch of muddied ground from anything that might catch fire. Something dull and red was just winking out in one of the puddles in the ground. 
	Taric searched the darkness for more light. At the edge of the clearing, almost in the trees, he saw some. It was a dull orange glow, about fist-sized, hovering a few feet off the ground and moving away.
	He began moving toward it, slowly.
	In spite of his care, he spooked it. The glow swung suddenly in an erratic arc, and looked as if it might come flying at him. Then it disappeared suddenly into thin air.
	Taric ran to where he had last seen it. There was nothing. He searched the ground, but found only his own footprints. All the way back to the shed he could make out only the oozing mud churned up by his own tracks and Keanrih’s. A wet cinder drowned in the snow it had melted where it dropped out of that fistful of fire. 
	Inside the shed, the forge glowed red. He had banked the coals with ash before going to sleep; the ashes had been knocked off and now the air was feeding the heat in the coals. He picked up the iron poker from its hook on the wall and began stirring them, raking them apart, breaking them into smaller and smaller pieces as he looked for something his gut told him he wouldn’t find.
	It was a while before he let himself give up.
	It was gone. Someone or something had come and taken it. To do Idair knew what with it. Fix it up and come back at him for a second try, maybe.
	Taric began banking the coals again, mechanically, trying to think.
	If your parents died suddenly far from home, as everyone assumed Taric’s had, and someone found you, and nobody could trace your kin, you were turned over to the Order or to the Guardians, depending on the whims of fate. The Guardians placed children with foster families, which was all right when the family decided to take a child out of a desire to love, and much less all right when the family took a child for the free labor. The Order did not put its children to work. It put them to school, which in Taric’s opinion was worse. He had run off at age ten in search of someplace without lessons and without a bunch of bossy old women who secretly despised him for being a boy. Before he ran, he had been forced to absorb a fair amount of knowledge about the spirit world, the Chronicles, magic, and Idair. He had also developed a deep and abiding dislike of shriias, and a corresponding distaste for the written word. He had never learned to read, and had no desire to start. It would give them too much satisfaction.
	They had left their mark on him anyhow. Even as an infant he was stubborn and strong-limbed with lungs to match. Just like a little bull, one of them said; and so they started calling him Taric. When they finally got around to naming him it had stuck, so that became his used name. It had taken them almost two years to find his real name. Since none of them were really his mother.
He had to admit they had done it right, in the end. His real name was a comfort to him, something he used to repeat to himself very late at night when he despaired of ending the brutal round of labor and poverty in which he had been trapped. No one knew who his mother had been or from what line she came. So to everyone but Keanrih, he was just Taric. Bulling his way through life with no prospects, no learning and half a name.
	Idair, though, he got along with. It was a strange intimacy, like that of old friends who don’t need to talk. She every once in a while showed him a momentary vision of the future, which she refused to explain. He, on his part, did very little praying, and yet carried around with him to his daily tasks the sense that she took an interest. That she wished him well, and would look out for him if she could. That she’d given him the gift, maybe, as a way to make it up to him. All right, Taric; you don’t have a mother, you don’t have a father, and it’s taken you fifteen years to work your way up from destitute to scraping by. Here, have the gift of foresight. It’s on me. Oh, and do you want true love? Because I can do that for you too.
	Idair was doing her level best for him. She’d sent him the vision so he could ward off the charm. But Idair said somewhere in the Chronicles that there were only two things in the world that she couldn’t control: the Dark One, and the human heart. The rest, she said, she would take care of as long as they were willing to help. From what Taric could tell, she was doing all right. But a lot was included in those two exceptions.
	Well all right, he thought, leaning against the wall and staring at the remnants of the fire. What do I do? It’ll kill me if he’s hurt. So what do I do?
	He listened, but only heard the wind in the trees and the voiceless silence of a winter night.
	Go back to bed.
	It could have been Idair; it could just as well have been his own mind. But wherever it came from, it was the best advice that he could take under the circumstances.
	He went back to bed. Stopping first in the barn to see how the dog was doing. And then bringing the dog with him back to the house.
	He was just a puppy, and it was a cold night. The dog would do better indoors.

*	*	*	*

	<Maerin.>
	His muscles ached at the sound of her voice. <What is it?>
	<Meet me in the trophy room. Bric’s here.>
	Suddenly he was paying attention. Lythril hardly ever brought Bric out to the castle. She thought it would make it harder for people to trace him to her if they didn’t meet in person. Maerin was pretty sure half the City suspected that Bric was one of her tools. Some because they’d heard gossip from her more loose-lipped clients; others just because Bric was a rich lawyer who would do anything for a fee. It stood to reason a man like him would be in the Dark One’s pocket.
	<What’s wrong?>
	<Don’t ask questions.>
	No, of course not. His feet began climbing the stairs to the tower. Don’t ask. Don’t talk back, don’t argue, don’t show pain fear anger anything, but especially, rule number one, don’t ask. That was only way to survive Lythril.
	He pushed the door open. The trophy room was a round cell at the top of a tower with slitlike windows and a stone floor. The ceiling and walls had been paneled in wood so that Lythril could tack up the hreapas of the shriias she had undone. Istria’s hung from its own brooches on the wall behind Lythril’s chair, bringing the total to six. He knew, not because she’d said it but because it was obvious, that Theamh was going to be the seventh.
	“Maerin!” Bric said, hailing him with a false heartiness that made his gorge rise. “So good to see you. It’s been so long. How have you been?”
	“Bric,” he said, and sat down at the table.
	Bric resumed his seat without showing any rancor. He was used to being snubbed, insulted, abused in public. And like Maerin he knew that when Lythril was in the room, everything else was irrelevant.
	“Well, men,” she said, hanging one black-draped arm across the back of her chair. “We’re going to have to move to Plan B on the na Poll job.”
	Maerin failed to stop himself from crying out in protest.
	Her stare shot through him and pinned him to the wall like a skinned rabbit.
	“But—“ It annoyed him deeply that he was so reluctant to abandon the one morsel of real praise she had doled out to him. “But I thought—“
	“For once in my life, Maerin, you are not the source of the aggravation. This time, Sioanna ni hAlanna enjoys that distinction.”
	“What did she do wrong?” Bric inquired, solicitous.
	Lythril took a short, sharp, and spectacular flight into anger.
	“She wrapped it up,” Lythril snapped, lurching forward over the table. “Maerin told her he had to touch it to make it work and the stupid bitch put it in a gift box anyway because she though it would be prettier.” 
	Bric smiled, for a moment. He remembered immediately. But not fast enough.
	“Dark One take you!” Venom, fire, lightning, hail, it was all hurtling in her voice at Bric’s balding and mottled head. “You thurking City snobs—you all want it gift-wrapped, that’s your problem, if you ever got a good look at yourselves you’d shrivel up and die. Why can’t a single one of you just admit you all have prostrated yourselves quivering before the naked power of gain and thurking deal with it?”
	Maerin watched to see whether Bric had worked out a cleverer way of handling her in this mood. 
	“I don’t know, Lythril,” he said.
Abject capitulation. Same method he used.
“Of course you don’t know. None of you know anything. None of you are even capable of doing a bone-simple thing like following directions!”
Maerin knew that if he pointed out that both of them had, in fact, followed her directions exactly throughout, it would only lead to very bad trouble.
“So,” Lythril went on. Her voice dropped back into the ordinary register, but her eyes were still dangerous. “The charm is no good. I’m not doing another. I’ve had it with go-betweens.” She lavished a long, marrow-curdling glare on each of them. “This next thing I will take care of, myself, and no one else will have the chance to thurk it up for me. There’s only one thing I need from you.”
	Maerin was relieved to see she was looking at Bric.
	“Whatever you ask, Lythril,” Bric said. “I’ll get it done.”
	“You had better.”
	“I always fulfill my contracts,” Bric said, larding it with just a hint of reproach.
	Lythril allowed him to get away with it. “Good.” Bric returned her stare to the best of his ability. “I need you to get me Keanrih’s name.”
	Maerin was conscious, first, of the vital importance of staying hidden. Not moving, not altering his expression, masking. Waiting for Bric to either swallow his tongue, or struggle for a way to remonstrate with her without getting set ablaze.
	“I…I think that might be difficult, Lythril.”
	“Blockwitted son of a marsh toad,” Lythril muttered. “Of course it will be difficult, any creature with the brains the Dark One gave a swamp adder knows better than to give their own child’s name to a bitch like me!”
	Bric looked as if he were both relieved that Lythril had been the one to say it, and desperate not to let her know he had been thinking it.
	“You’re the man with the talk. So talk. Make him give it up.”
	Maerin watched Bric’s Iandar’s apple bob, slowly, in his throat.
	“Yes, Lythril. It may take a few days.”
	“I understand that. Use your discretion. Stall me at your peril.”
	“Yes, Lythril.”
	“You,” she said, finally swinging her electric-blue glare onto Maerin.
	“Yes, Lythril?” he said.
	“I want you to find out who spoiled the charm.”
	“It wasn’t Sioanna?” he said, before he remembered about not asking.
	“Sioanna is the moron who put it in a box so he could carry it without touching it. Someone else, someone who unlike Sioanna and yourself is not a moron, realized what it was and got rid of it before it could take effect. I want you to find that person, and because I would like it done sometime before we all die I’ll give you a hint.”
	“Yes, Lythril,” he said, as submissively as possible.
	“Bric says Nocc thinks the boy has a lover that he’s seeing in secret. Whoever ditched the charm doesn’t seem to have told anyone about it. That tells me it was the lover. He’d be worried about exposure. If it were Minead she would have brought it to Theamh and if she had, we would know. So get the shield and skulk around Mablad and find out who this man is. And do not do a thing to him until I tell you what.”
	“It is a man then,” Maerin said, trying not to make it sound like a question.
	“Yes it’s a man, unless Keanrih is painting that life-size and evidently nicely eithanta male nude as a birthday present for Theamh ni hUlnach which is highly unlikely. Now have I explained your assignment in terms you can understand?”
	“Yes, Lythril,” Maerin said.
	“Good.”
	He watched her compose herself. It took about a minute. But when she stood up from the table, she was as close to stable as Lythril got. Except around the eyes.
	“Thank you for coming out here, Bric. Will you stay for dinner?”
	It gave Maerin pleasure to see Bric twitching on the hook.
	“If it’s convenient for you—“ he stammered.
	“Of course it is, Bric. You’re always welcome here.” 
	Seeing her smile, at times like this, was enough to drive a man out of his mind.
	“I’ll have the minions get dinner on. You like venison, don’t you.” He smiled uncertainly. “Relax, Bric. I’m not going to kill you today.”
	She walked out of the room and down the spiral staircase. Bric remained where he was, his eyes flicking back and forth from hreapa to hreapa, his face not wanting to represent his thoughts.
	Maerin’s stare eventually brought Bric’s eyes back to him. Bric smiled, gave out a weak little laugh, and drew out a folded kerchief with which he began mopping his brow.
	Much as he resented Bric, Maerin couldn’t stop himself from laughing with him.
	“Sweet spirits of hell,” Bric said, as if they had both just been through a battle. “I—what on earth or beyond it has gotten into her?”
	Maerin shrugged. And because he was angry and anger made him imprudent, he said, “She’s probably pregnant.”
	Bric’s eyes bulged in their sockets.
	“You’re joking,” he whispered.
He realized that if she read in Bric’s mind what he had just said, Lythril would kill them both.
	“Of course,” he said.
	Bric’s sigh of relief was explosive. He started out the door. 
Maerin left the room, putting his mask on, tying it carefully into place.

*	*	*	*

	The wooden door swung back into the wall. Morat looked up from the scroll on the table. Nothing advanced into the room, and then nothing slammed the door shut behind it.
	“So?” Morat said.
	The nothing near the door stuttered a little, and then was replaced by Dalen’s gaunt and sinewy form. Sparks dropped from her upraised right hand, sliding off the skirt of her hreapa onto the floor. 
	“You’ve proofed this place and everything in it,” Dalen said, taking it as a given.
	“Of course.”
	“Lucky.” Dalen lowered her flaming hand and tossed a glowing red object onto the table.
	Morat suddenly leaned forward. “This is it?”
	Dalen dumped herself into the chair in the corner. “That’s it.”
	The metal was red-hot, but Morat could still see the shape. Two silver hands, almost touching, kept apart by a silver ball. Starting to soften around the edges.
	“Careful,” Dalen said. “It’s starting to come undone.”
	Morat pulled out a globe of her own fire and enveloped the charm with it. She raised the heat until it turned white. The shape blurred, warped, and began to trickle. A spurt of red flame hissed from the molten silver, darting through the space inside the white globe with the insistence of a trapped animal. It was threaded with something curdled and blue-purple that pulsed sluggish and sick as it rode the flame.
	Morat lifted the ball of fire. The silver puddled on the table, and began to cool.
	Dalen watched as Morat carefully divided the globe in two. It was tricky work to separate them. But finally, in one hand she held a ball of white flame with a red center, and in the other a ball of white flame with a corrupted blue-purple center.
	“Feicainn dubh feicidh tu, isne teir abhaile riu!”
	The red center of the first ball sputtered and went out.
	Morat took the flame back into her hand and turned her attention to the other ball.
	“Linn thrinnait si, linn gheofe tu, teir abhaile slan is nua.”
	White mixed itself in with the slow purplish stream. 
Morat knew that she couldn’t actually see the black smoke rising. That was how it felt, all the same. That the corruption was burning off, leaving behind only a lighter purple, like lavender with dark blue strands woven into it. Until, when it had burnt back to pure in that white crucible, she released it to rejoin the rest of Keanrih’s spirit.
	The fire returned to Morat. Morat fell back into her hard chair. There was no question. She was getting older.
	“You’ve still got it,” Dalen said.
	Other shriias found Morat desperately hard to read, but Dalen had never seemed to have any trouble.
	“Thanks for softening it up for me,” Morat said. “And for finding the thing. Not everyone could do that.”
	Dalen’s large, bony hands rubbed her tired eyes. “Think nothing of it,” she said. “I’m glad I can find something.”
	Morat watched her rub her face wearily, and wondered how you went about comforting a woman like Dalen. If Morat was prickly, Dalen was a sea urchin. Self-contained, silent, more in tune with the wind and the elements than with people. Connected to Morat by an unarticulated and unexamined sympathy. Which had, silently and without either of them acknowledging it, deepened while Dalen had been out hunting for Lythril.
	“It isn’t nothing,” Morat said. “It’s important. It’s—it helps undo a mistake I made. It means a good deal to me, and to the poor intended victim.”
	Besides, there was the sheer difficulty of the task Morat had handed her. It wasn’t every shriia, even among those with aftersight, to whom you could walk up and say, “I need you to find something. I don’t know what it looks like, and I can’t tell you why I’m looking for it.” And instead of saying, “What do you mean, you can’t tell me why?” or, “Who do you think I am, Idair?” Dalen had just looked at her in that inscrutable Dalen way and said, “Do you have a starting point?”
	In twelve hours she’d found it. A small miracle. But of course not the one she had really wanted to accomplish.
	Both of them looked at the silver congealing on the table. It had run into a shape that could, with the application of a little imagination, look like a star.
	“What do we do now?” Morat said, expressionlessly.
	“It’s your department of course,” Dalen said. “But I certainly think the Lythril Committee should meet on this.”
	Morat knew that Dalen could probably feel the surge of gratitude with which she greeted those words.
	“You’ve known all along it was her,” Dalen said, confirming it.
	“I…can’t talk about it.”
	Dalen clucked her tongue in sympathy.
	“You won’t have to,” Dalen said, standing up. “I’ve got a meeting tomorrow morning with Barant, I’ll tell her and she can be the one to call it.” Morat sighed, closing her eyes in relief. “Now Morat.”
	She opened them to see Dalen with one hand on the door, her face stern.
	“Dalen?”
	“You be careful.” Morat waited for her to go on. “I know it kills you to have to sit on what you know. But you think, hard, before you open your mouth in that meeting. That bitch never goes after a single target. She may be casting her net for that boy, but she’s after you too. You make sure she doesn’t pull you in with him.”
	“So you saw him with it,” Morat said.
	“Tall slim boy with brown hair and expensive clothes,” she said. “Rode home to Mablad, so he’s obviously one of your people. Seems a sensitive lad—kind face, delicate in his movements. Sometimes.” Dalen shook her head. “Be glad you don’t have the gift, Morat. There’s a lot you see that you just wish you hadn’t.” She opened the door. “I’ll let you know when the meeting’s to be.” Morat nodded. “Don’t worry. We’re in it with you now, and we’ll take care of him. They’re all our people.”
	Knowing that it was not in her to tell Dalen how much it meant to have an old friend helping carry the burden, Morat said, “Idair with you, Dalen.”
	“With you too,” Dalen said, shutting the door behind her.
	Morat looked at the splatter of silver on the table. It was harmless now. Until someone made it into coins, or something that could be sold for coin, it couldn’t do a thing to her or to anyone. One thing Morat could say she had done right. Or, rather, undone.

*	*	*	*

	It was Bric’s professionalism that attracted me. That’s what attracts most of his clients. He certainly is intelligent, and good at his job. But what people are buying when they pay him is the knowledge that no matter what they ask him to do, he will do it, without letting off the slightest whiff of disgust. It isn’t that he masks. He doesn’t actually feel outrage, shame, remorse, or contempt. He doesn’t feel those things because for him there is only one higher good, and that is to serve the client.
	All lawyers are supposed to feel this way. It is an ideal most of them can never attain. But Bric has responded to the power of money with a submission that is beautiful in its perfection. He doesn’t fully understand that the power of gain is the power of the Dark One. He doesn’t realize that when I took him on I was not recruiting him as a convert. I was recognizing him as a colleague.
	A junior colleague, of course.
	Bric tries to think of me as a business partner. Just someone else that he works with, no different from his clients or his clerks. That’s why I asked him to stay for dinner. It’s useful to let them see what it’s really like.
	For instance. The way his first look at the minions made his eyes bulge and his throat go dry was really rather funny. As soon as he saw the skeleton walking into the dining room with the serving platter rattling in its grip, his mind was seized by a terrible turmoil. He wanted, you see, not to give away the fact that it scared him. That’s part of being a professional. Taking everything in stride.
	“Do you not like your meat rare? I can cook it a little more for you,” I said.
	“No, it’s just right,” Bric answered, trying to carve his slice without letting me see his hands shake.
	Maerin just ate, sullen and silent, taking a malicious pleasure in Bric’s nervousness. He hates Bric. Hates him for a lot of reasons, the main one being jealousy. He wants to be the big man. You would think that my thurking him daily would assuage that craving. But of course thurking a woman, and being thurked by me, are two very different things.
	“Bring in the bread, will you,” I said to the minion who was waiting at the end of the table.
	It turned and clinked its way out of the dining room.
	I give them orders aloud in front of company. It helps keep up the illusion that these things are undead humans, skeletons animated by their supposed-to-be-departed spirits. In fact they’re not undead at all; they’re skeletal remains worked like puppets by spirits that are fabricated for the purpose on the premises. It took a while to work out the technique, but I’m happy with it now. 
The problem with using the dead is that they will rot, and when they rot, they stink. If you strip the flesh off the bones but leave the brain intact—and plug up the crevices and cavities so air doesn’t get in to rot it out—you can plant the guun in the mindspace and have it work what’s left of the body. The brain can’t move the bones on its own, the nerves and muscles being gone. So the guun envelops the bones and moves them mechanically based on the instructions it gets from you through the brain, which, poor thing, still remembers what it was like to be in charge.
	It isn’t surprising, then, that Bric was unnerved. In addition to the bones, there’s the green glow. And the eyeballs. They’re not real; real eyeballs rot. They’re glass eyes that I put in to stop up the cavities. But they do seem to unsettle people.
	A properly made minion will last a year before the brain is rotten. Then I send Maerin out after a replacement. He scavenges. Murder is not worth doing just to find good help. It’s a challenge getting to the bodies before the shriias burn them, but he manages. Within his undeniably limited areas of expertise, Maerin is quite industrious.
	I tried it without the bodies, but the guuns were never able to keep a grip on anything. And the skeletons do lend that bit of atmosphere. Clients expect that.
	I was curious to see whether Bric would find they spoiled his appetite. But he was putting away his venison as if nothing were amiss. That’s what I admire.
	“This venison’s excellent,” Bric said, with real appreciation.
	“Thank Maerin,” I answered, with a smile in his direction. “He’s in charge of the provisions.”
	“It is really good,” Bric said, trying to make a connection with him.
	Bric finds Maerin hard to talk to. He shares this with just about everyone.	“Thanks,” Maerin said, shortly.
	“So Bric,” I said. “Does Keanrih exhibit his work at all, or is it for his own enjoyment?”
	“I don’t think he’s ever tried to sell it. It’s a shame. That little portrait Nocc gave me for you is quite good, I think.”
	I nodded. “You can tell he’s never been properly trained, but that seems to work in his favor.” And, in this instance, against him. “That big canvas Nocc was telling you about. I don’t suppose you could get that away from him.”
	Bric shook his head. “It’s huge. And Nocc said it was unfinished. I doubt that could go missing without Keanrih noticing.”
	“Not worth the risk,” I said. 
	I would have to strike once, with no warning. That was why I needed the name. I usually do without it. But Keanrih had been well protected at birth and had them renewed annually by Cleadd, by Morat, and now by Theamh. Getting in without the name would have been messy and ugly, and would have required several attempts. I didn’t want him running off to Theamh for help. 
Without the name, it’s like breaking into a house. It can be done with skill or without but there’s always a risk the owner will catch you and chase you off before you got what you came for. With the name, it’s like having the key to the front door.
	“If you could get a good look at it,” I said, “and then show it to me, I can show it to Maerin. It’ll help him track.”
	“I’ll find him,” Maerin said. “With or without.”
	“Yes, I’m sure you will,” I answered, putting the purr in my voice.
	He is so easy. And never more transparent than when he’s trying to hide how much he craves my approval.
	“Maerin is a great tracker,” I answered. “And all without aftersight.” 
Bric smiled at him genially.
	“Don’t need it,” Maerin said. “Not if you’re good enough.”
	Bric nodded, wanting the conversation to keep moving along. “It certainly doesn’t seem to be helping Dalen find you,” he said. 
	I snorted. “She’ll never find me. None of them will.”
	Bric nodded. “I’m sure not, Lythril.” He looked at Maerin for confirmation. Maerin looked back at him surlily.
	I lifted my glass. Both of my hands suddenly started tingling. 
Nothing was happening to them. Nothing visible. Just the return of my fire.
	I set down the glass. I drew a long, hissing breath. Then I let it out.
	Maerin and Bric stared at me like frightened deer. It annoyed me further to realize they had read my anger.
	“Excuse me,” I said. “I have something to attend to. Please, continue eating. Maerin will have the staff get you anything else you require.”
	I got up with a smile and left the table.
	On my way down to the round room I began listing all the people whose fault this was. Nocc, for using the wrong wording in the trap. Sioanna, for not making sure she saw him touch it. The nameless lover, for throwing it into the fire. Dalen ni hAodha, for tracking it down. And Morat ni thurking hArrloh, for undoing it. 
And you. 
	I could not kill any of those people. Nocc and Sioanna were too expensive; the nameless lover I couldn’t find; Dalen and Morat I couldn’t reach. Your time hadn’t come. It won’t come for a long, long time.
	I couldn’t even kill Maerin. It wasn’t his fault. But it would give me some satisfaction to undo his work.

*	*	*	*

	“Because you see, when you’re a family lawyer, you find out all sorts of things that they would never tell anyone else. That’s how I found out about Nocc’s trouble. And I did some work for Krenham, because he has concerns in the City…”
	When Maerin was bored, as he frequently was, he entertained himself by playing mind games. One of his favorites was “Fastest Way To Die.” He sat there now, watching Bric ramble on, and listed the various things that he could do that would make Lythril kill him. The game was to determine which would yield the quickest results.	
	He could leap across the table and beat the fnaa out of Bric like he had long been wanting to do.
	He could tell Bric what Lythril was really doing down there in the round room.
He could go down into that round room and put a stop to it.
	His lips parted in a grin. He knew he had the winner.
	Bric, like the fathead he was, smiled back. “How about you, Maerin? How did you come to be working with her?”
	“Long story,” he said.
	“Well, it looks as if we have time,” Bric answered, with another foolish smile.
	“I met her up north,” he answered.
	Maerin enjoyed watching the smile disappear. “Up north? I didn’t know she’d ever been to the Cretid Nation.”
	Fnaa.
	A quick round of Fastest Way To Die later, Maerin decided he was safe. He’d done things that were a lot closer to the top of the list.
	“She hid out there for a while, years ago,” Maerin said. “When Morat was after her. I met her in Cretid City. I was living there already.”
	If Bric was not a complete blockhead, he would piece together the rest for himself. As a lawyer he would know what you had to do to get sentenced with exile. So as a lawyer Bric would know that he was sitting across the table from either a lifetaker or a rapist or both. 
	“She seduced you?” Bric inquired.
	“What do you think?” Maerin answered, sourly.
	Bric suddenly leaned across the table.
	“Look, Maerin,” Bric said. “I know you go way back with her, much farther than I do. So maybe you don’t care. But personally, after this evening’s performance I think it might do us both good to try to get to know each other.”
	Why not. It might make for a more entertaining mind game.
“So has she thurked you yet?” Maerin said, after draining his glass. 
	Bric grimaced as if at a sudden stomach pain.
	“Once,” he said.
	“Did she ask you the questions?”
	“Yes.”
	“You gave the right answers.”
	“Yes.” Bric was looking down at the table, holding the bald crown of his head in both hands.
	“Never again, though,” Maerin said.
	“No.”
	“She does all the men once,” Maerin said. “Not clients. Just the associates, and just the men.”
	“Why?” Bric asked, as if he really wanted to know.
	“Think back on it,” Maerin replied.
	The look on Bric’s face as he did so almost made up for the rest of the evening.
	“And how do you stand doing it again?” Bric asked, dropping his voice.
	Maerin smiled.
	“I’m not like you.”
	The emphasis that underlined Bric’s mental agreement was, Maerin felt, in bad taste. But much as Bric annoyed him, there was something salubrious about having another man around the house. Maybe in time, Bric would be ready to train under him. Once Maerin finally earned his fire.

*	*	*	*
	
For a moment Theamh thought she was back in the round room.
She was on the floor, and she felt like hell. But there was just a little light coming in through the window and under the door. Enough to tell her that she was in her own room, huddled in a heap by the foot of the bed. Stiff as one of the floorboards she’d been trying to sleep on.
It seemed to her that nights were getting longer instead of shorter. Certainly this one was dragging itself along like a wounded deer, refusing to die.
Istria must feel like that all the time.
The thought stretched her out on the floor, hugging the boards, face turned to one side, trying not to let the despair burst out of her.
Get her through it, Idair. She closed her eyes and pressed her hands flat against the cold planks. Make her know she’s not alone. Make her know she’s still got you. That she’s still got me. Get her through it.
Through the walls she could faintly hear the sound of wind in branches.
Get me through it.
How was she going to get through it? The long, dark, featureless waste between now and when she found Istria?
The work.
Theamh rolled over on her back and looked up through the darkness at the ceiling.
So Keanrih had a lover; that was obvious. He had some compelling reason for keeping that a secret from his family. Theamh knew she’d have no prayer of figuring out for herself who it was. She was no good at gossip.
It was all too ambiguous. What proof did she have that Nocc had done anything more than make that one ill-considered request? How did she know anyone was working against Keanrih at all? His questions about charms had certainly seemed suspicious; but for all Theamh knew they were simply an indication that she had infected Keanrih with her own paranoia.
And yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong in that house. Nocc’s wish to see Keanrih joined had crossed the boundary between desire and obsession. And obsessed people were easy prey. 
That was something Theamh had tried to explain, in their debriefing. Contracting with a dark user was not a rational act. Putting yourself at the mercy of something that powerful could not ever be a smart thing to do, no matter how amoral or selfish you might be. To want something badly enough to be willing to use Lythril to get it, a client had to have become obsessed. The relationship often survived the obsession; but only because corruption was so hard to reverse.
Still. The fact that Lythril’s clients had all at one point been obsessed did not prove that all obsessed people became clients of Lythril. After all. Nobody could be more obsessed than Theamh was, by certain things.
It was possible. But until she could determine whether Nocc was really working against Keanrih, it would be impossible to figure out how. 
“All right, Istria,” Theamh said, out loud. “You’re the Amstian. You’ve got the woodscraft. I’m on the hunt. So what do I look for?”
Theamh sat in the silence, thinking.
To track a beast, you follow its spoor.
Dark users don’t leave droppings all over the…
Yes they do.
“The money,” Theamh said, aloud.
Lythril could cover her own tracks. But she had to be paid. The money had to come from somewhere. 
If you were Nocc, and you were going to pay…well, if it were Lythril, it would be at least eight hundred gold for something like a charm. Half up front and half after; so about four hundred. You’d want to hide the transaction. So how would you do it.
You wouldn’t get the money out of land. That was hellishly complicated and bad business; land made money, and if you sold it you could never replace that income. Selling off livestock presented the same problem. And if you’d invested it through one of the City banks, there’d be records when you made the withdrawal. 
It would have to come from the household money.
If the na Polls handled things the way her family did, then Nocc made a certain amount of cash each month available for routine expenses. Minead would be in charge of disbursing it. She’d have her own little bank in the house, with a strongbox full of coin and a ledger showing what was spent how. If Nocc used that money to pay Lythril, then he would have to account for it in the ledger. Otherwise Minead would certainly notice. Four hundred was not nothing, even to the na Polls.
She could get into the box to check. But counting the coin would involve touching it, and touching money was a loss violation.
She would have to get a look at the ledger. 
Theamh tried to imagine the conversation. Minead, I’m trying to find out whether Nocc’s hired Lythril to undo your son. Can I see your household accounts?
You didn’t raise that kind of suspicion in a family unless you were damn sure it was justified. It had a way of never going away.
She’d have to look at the ledger without anyone knowing.
There was a way to do it. But she would definitely need some help.

*	*	*	*
	When I shut the door behind me the darkness became complete. I walked up to the raised stone dais. I had removed the cauldron beforehand, but the deposits that had hissed and congealed around it still stuck to my boots as I advanced to the center.
	I won’t tell you the invocation, of course. Not yet.
	Fire from my hands ran up my arms and radiated around me. It hummed over my body, coiling around my head, finding all right there. It snaked down over my breasts to my abdomen. It knotted itself over my womb, snarling in a red, pulsing tangle.
	My fire had found the thing that was trying to possess me.
	Now all I had to do was cast it out.
	The thing had been coming back more and more often as the years passed. That winter already I had done battle with it once, and the harvest season before that, and twice during the growing season. Every time it fought harder. Out of spite. Nothing in its right mind would want to be born to me. 
	I knew it was the same one because it got better at fighting me.
	I put both hands over my womb, shooting fire directly into it. My own fire doesn’t hurt my own flesh. Not until it hits the demon cramped into the bloody fist that sits inside me like a hot stone.
	The Dark One held me up, as it had before. Kept me standing as I fought the battle inside my womb. As my fire got a purchase on its miserable little wisp of a flame, and pulled it crackling through my flesh into the darkness around me.
	I saw it flicker. A bloody orange that was almost red, spotted with yellow patches that grew on it like a disease.
	“Bi utina speirhanon!”
	You wouldn’t know about utina. 
	When a shriia banishes a spirit she just tells it to go home. I tell it to go there. Utina. Nothing and nowhere. The realm of the undone and nonexistent. Utina is where things go when they are totally and utterly destroyed. It’s not a place that shri will admit exists. The Dark One and I know better. 
	Once a thing goes there it’s never supposed to come back.
	I nailed it with a hot, angry fireball. It fizzled out into nothing.
	I raised a hand. The fire flew back into me. I was grateful for the shot in the arm. Grateful to be able to squat over the pail I’d brought with me and wait in silence for the matter to come out with the blood.
	You had assumed I was barren. Everyone does.
	It’s the opposite of what you’d think. That’s one of the great ironies. Idair made shriias infertile. Most of them probably could conceive, but she won’t let them. I don’t know about the other dark users. But someone, and I don’t know whether it was Idair or the Dark One doing it to me, made me extraordinarily fertile. I conceive four or five times a year.
	Maerin wants a son. He would love to know that I was growing a little man for him. A little Maerin curled up inside my body sucking me dry from within. He can stop dreaming. If I were to bring a child out of my body alive I would make damn sure first that it was female.
	This thing wants to be male. It chooses early. Its first hostile action, after invading me, is to start growing that little man’s body. 
	If I need the ingredients very badly I’ll let it go two months, three, sometimes four. No farther. I can see it in there, drinking my blood, I can feel its spirit sending out its little angry darts, bristling with hatred of me. I feel it snaking its tendrils up into my mind to learn how to hurt me. I walk around all day and all night knowing I am nursing my own worst enemy with my life’s blood. Comes the day I cannot stand to have it in there another second. That I have to get rid of it, on the instant.
	There are easier ways to make a woman miscarry. It’s practically the oldest spell in our book. But the traditional methods are all very unpleasant for the mother. This method at least doesn’t do me any permanent damage.
	Once you get the spirit out, it’s just like a return. I don’t think that at that stage, the fact that it’s been destroyed against its will matters. Maybe it was a mistake, the first time, not to ask its consent. Maybe it would have agreed to go. Anything smart would.
	This thing is not smart. It’s nothing but angry.
	It’s one thing Idair has charge of, the bitch, what spirit goes into which body, and this is the one way she has to torture me. I know that the thing she sends to grow in me is animated solely by lust for my destruction. I cannot keep it out of my womb but I will keep it out of the world. No matter how often I have to squat over that bucket and sacrifice my own flesh and blood to darkness and my safety.

*	*	*	*
	
	“Are you sure this is all right with her?” Bric asked for the tenth time.
	“Yes,” Maerin answered, walking back to the door of the bedroom. “She would want you to stay.” His teeth flashed. “It’s not safe traveling at night.”
	“I’d feel better hearing it from her.”
	Fastest Way To Die.
	“You don’t want to bother her right now, Bric.”
	Something about the way he said it made Bric stop protesting, and turn down the coverlet on the four-poster bed.
	“Good rest to you,” Maerin said, and closed the door.
	Since he was not ready to die, Maerin went into the game room and sat. She probably wouldn’t want him tonight. But she would be glad of his company anyhow. That was the strange thing.
	He changed his mind about it from time to time. But sometimes, he thought that it would have been different, if that first one could have lived.
	It was hard to say whether she had wanted him to find it. He had wondered, later on, why she wouldn’t have burned it immediately. When he first saw it, he hadn’t been able to wonder. He hadn’t been able to do anything but squat down on the floor of the round room and look at the bloody, blue-veined thing lying in the center of the dais.
	It couldn’t have lived. It was the right size, but the wrong shape. Unformed, the hands like flippers and the eyelids transparently failing to enclose huge liquid eyeballs. To find out if it had been a boy he would have had to touch it. He couldn’t bring himself.
	She had never promised him she would carry it. But he saw her growing. He hadn’t dared ask, even then. He had hoped that she had found something in her that wanted it to live and she was simply going to let him sweat until it was time. It made sense to him that she would hold the threat of its death over his head mutely and casually, handling it now and then like a trusted weapon.
	Then one night he had come back from a hunt and she was sitting up in the kitchen, where she never sat, and her shape was different. He looked at her and her eyes dared him to ask. Because she was about three-quarters ready to watch him burn and do nothing but laugh with pleasure.
One-quarter of her was telling him to go away, to stay away until she could look at him without wanting to kill him.
	He went away. He listened until her heavy steps dragged her up to the  bedroom where, at that time, she still slept. Then he went down to the round room and found it.
	He wanted to grieve. But the moment his throat pricked him he became convinced that it was a trap, that she was watching him, and that at the first sign of natural grief that would be the end. He left it there, and went up to the bedroom. 
	She was lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, not blinking. He sat in one of the two armchairs by the fireplace. Neither said anything. They sat through the night and into the dawn. Awake. Conscious of each other. Ignoring each other. Together and separate.
	When morning came she got up and went down the stairs to the round room. She must have burned it then. He never saw it again.
	He was convinced, privately, that it was the fault of the youth potions. They were both aging too slowly. He had no way of knowing what that would do to his seed. Stood to reason, though, that it would make it hard for a child to grow in Lythril.
	Perhaps it was for the best. Nothing coming from him and Lythril could hope not to be a monster. And it would certainly grow up wanting to kill both of them.
	He rocked the chair back, putting his feet on the table in unconscious imitation of her. 
With all that. Still. It was hard to know how things might have gone. If it could have lived.

*	*	*	*

	When I had it out of me and into the pail I went up the back stairs to the pantry.
	The thing itself I slopped into a sustaining jar and put on the shelf next to the live ingredients. The muck that came out with it went into a separate jar. While I was there I checked the levels on the other supplies.
	Maerin was in the game room. He was trying to pretend he hadn’t known where I was.
	“I put Bric to bed upstairs,” he said. “I didn’t know how long you’d be.”
	“Excellent,” I said. “We’re low on blood. Take a jar up and get some.”
	Maerin smiled, and headed into the pantry.
	I sat down and waited for him to come back. Bric wouldn’t miss a jarful. Maerin would do it without waking him, and if he noticed the puncture later, he would have the sense to keep quiet about it. As I said. He’s a professional.
	I was drained and haggard. But that would be gone tomorrow. I had turned the tables. 
	I see things other people don’t. The Dark One lets me.
	Most mothers don’t know, won’t allow themselves to know. What you grow in your womb is your own death. We are animals and we have an animal need for offspring and once it’s fulfilled we have nothing to do but rear it and die. People don’t face it because it would prevent them from going on.
	But a mother grows her own death. That’s nature. Face it or not.
	I do more than face nature. I fight it. 
	I don’t submit. I don’t grow my death. What I give birth to down there in the round room is my life. The flesh and blood it stole from me I get back, with interest.	I can see I’m frightening you.
	Good.
	Shriias have Idair to be their mother when their mortal mothers let them down. Idair hates me, passionately. The Dark One is not maternally inclined. Very well. Since no one else will do the job, I have to. I will be my own mother. And no one else’s.

5
Bargains

	I tell you this story because it’s perfect for you.
	If the Dark One sat down to think up a primer for new users, it couldn’t come up with anything better than this story. It teaches one of the great principles that underlies all of the Dark One’s work.
	All evil starts in the same place. The bargain.
	They give to get. They believe what they’re getting is worth what they give. They tell themselves, you tell yourself, that you have to make the sacrifice, that it will have been worth it. They don’t let themselves know, any more than you let yourself know, that the sacrifice itself is the Dark One’s victory. Once you have betrayed your truth, yourself, the things you love, the spoils are already ours. What happens after that is of moment to the client, and to the victim. It is of absolutely no consequence to the Dark One or to me.  A success will allow me to go to another client and strike another bargain for a higher price.  That’s the only reason I care.
You have already made the mistake. 
You may go on to do more damage. But all the evil you will ever do lies packed inside this bargain you have made, like a tree inside an acorn.
	You smile because you think you’re smarter than I am. I tell you this story to show you that you’re not.
	Of course you’ll never believe me.	

*	*	*	*

	Bric stopped on the steps of the na Poll house, looking up at the enormous oaken door. He lifted the heavy knocker and rapped.
	He could have bought himself a pile like this. He had thought he wanted that. Then when it got within his reach he realized he couldn’t leave the City. More than his business was dependent on density, intrigue, the snarl of intercourse. He had his own apartment in a new building along the wide avenue leading down the middle of the Third. The dilapidated buildings around it had been leveled, so his block of apartments had light and space and a little border of green. Close to country as he wanted to get.
	The door swung inward to reveal Rince wearing his usual just-on-the-mournful-side-of-impassive face. “Good morning, Aiv. Is the man of the house expecting you?”
	“No, Rince. Will you let him know I’m here?”
	“Please wait in the parlor, Aiv,” Rince said, indicating it with an anemic wave of one long-fingered hand.
	Bric sat, wishing Rince had selected a different room.
	Since he was Nocc’s lawyer he knew that all the rooms belonged to both of them and if one predeceased the other would inherit his or her interest in the house. But he still thought of some rooms as belonging to Minead, and some as belonging to Nocc. This one said Minead—in the lightness of the finish on the woods, the linen and muslin draping the windows, the carpet small enough to show off the polish on the stone floor. Noticing her touch made him uneasy.
	Nocc pothered by and took his mind off it. 
“Bric,” he said, stepping in more briskly than his bones wanted to allow, and shutting the door. “I’m glad you’re here, because I have a bone to pick with you.”
	Bric returned to his seat on the couch. “If it’s about Keanrih not showing any change, she’s already working on that.”
	Nocc sat awkwardly in a gingham-covered armchair, slowly pulling one leg across the other. “Is she. Because I certainly don’t see any evidence.”
	“There was a delivery problem with the charm,” Bric said, spreading his hands in the gestures of one reasonable man confident of being understood by another. “Sioanna didn’t perform as expected.”
	Nocc’s tongue snicked against his teeth. “I asked her if I should have—“
	Bric cut him off. “Now that is exactly the kind of thing you cannot do, if you’re going to do business with her.”
	“I’m not to complain when she doesn’t deliver?”
	“You’re not to question her judgment.” Nocc’s mouth pursed. “Of course she’s concerned that you haven’t got your result.”
	“Well, what are you going to do about it?”
	Bric knew that if he introduced the request now he would only provoke horrified refusal. It had to come by a circuitous route and Nocc had to feel it had been his choice.
	“Lythril is weighing a number of different options,” Bric said. “I wanted to put them to you and hear your decision.”
	Nocc folded his arms and sat back.
	“First, she could try again with a different charm.”
	Bric was relieved to see Nocc reject this suggestion. “Not likely. If it didn’t work the first time—“
	“Agreed. I didn’t think much of the idea myself; only it is an option, and I want you to have all the facts.”
	“So what are the other options?”
	“There’s mindforcing. It would be a temporary solution, and the daily charges would pile up. But if it were a short engagement, you could probably get him promised and joined fast enough to make it cheaper. With the four-fifty you’ve already paid, the first nine days would be free. Lythril is willing to waive incidental expenses, given the circumstances.”
	Nocc scratched at the gray stubble on his chin.
	“But once they stopped forcing him?”
	Bric sighed. “I imagine it would be very difficult. But he would be joined.”
	“But what’s to stop him from getting a separation once it wears off?”
	“The pressure of public opinion; the fact that his lover would very likely have deserted him by then, if he really has a lover.”
	Nocc shook his head. “It doesn’t satisfy,” he said. “I want him joined properly. I want grandchildren.”
	“Well,” Bric said, with a sigh. “There is a third option. I don’t like it, but she put it on the table and so I have to present it.”
	“What option is this?” Nocc retorted.
	“She can work a complete change on him. Make him into someone who wants to be joined and will happily provide you with as many grandchildren as Sioanna has the strength to bear.”
	Nocc nodded. Then his eyes narrowed. “You say you don’t like it.”
	“I don’t like it because she hasn’t explained to me how she’s going to do it. I believe she can. But I’m uneasy not knowing the exact mechanics of it.”
	If Nocc could read Bric, which was not likely since Nocc’s mindstrength was not especially good, it would do him no good. Bric always believed what he said when he said it. Besides, it was true. Lythril hadn’t explained it to him. He could guess; anyone with a mind could guess. He wondered if Nocc would allow himself to guess, or simply cling to ignorance like a shield.
	“Do you ever understand what she does?” Nocc said snappishly. “I never got a word of it, all that stuff about the charm. Why should it matter who touches it?”
	Bric laughed. “To tell the truth, Nocc, a lot of it makes no sense to me. Except that I do see the results. What Lythril does works, whether we understand it or not. That’s why people pay her at the rate they do.”
	“Which is high enough,” Nocc complained.
	“I’m not cheap either, Nocc, but I have a reputation for doing it right. So does she.”
	“So that’s your objection? That she won’t tell you how it works?”
	“One of them.”
	“What are the other ones?”
	“Only one, really,” Bric said, with a sigh.
	“So what is it?”
	“In order to change him that way,” Bric said, looking up at him slowly, “she needs to know his name.”
	Nocc’s leg slid off his other knee and his foot hit the floor hard. His face showed the twinge it caused him.
	“His name?”
	“I told you I didn’t like it.” 
	“What does she need it for?”
	“To do what you want done she has to work a powerful change on him, Nocc. She can’t do that without having power over him.”
	“Does she seriously expect me to do that? Do you?”
	“No, Nocc,” Bric said, shaking his head. “I don’t think it would be wise at all. I only raised the possibility so that you can see what you’re asking for. You seem to think it’s a small thing, that she ought to be able to snap her fingers and make it so. You’re asking her to change his nature. That can’t be done in an instant and it can’t be done without some help from you.”
	Bric allowed reproach to tinge the tone of his voice. Nocc looked hurt.
	“I am helping. Haven’t I been cooperating? I did exactly as she asked me to-“
	“You didn’t, Nocc. You failed to set the trap—“
	“That wasn’t my—“
	“Regardless, the first mistake was yours. It’s because of that mistake that the charm and all the labor she put into it were undone. Now if you’re not willing to work with her to rectify that, then we can’t get this done. Either you give her the name, or you have to take one of these other options—the mindforcing, or the second charm.”
	Nocc’s hand went back to his chin, fluttering in consternation. “But I don’t want that, Bric. I want it permanent.”
	“I understand that, Nocc. What I am trying to make you understand is that for a permanent change, she needs Keanrih’s name. Since you are unwilling to give it to her, you must choose one of the less acceptable options.”
	Nocc threw a hand out in vexation. “I should just ask for my money back and forget the whole mess.”
	“I told you this at the beginning,” Bric said. “Once you give money to a dark user, you never see it again.”
Nocc couldn’t argue with that. He merely sat in that ridiculous chair, looking angrier with every passing moment.
Bric had been anxious before the interview started. What he was asking was a monstrous breach of all accepted rules of conduct. But now, he found his anxiety had melted. Nocc was fighting. But he was fighting his own knowledge that in the end, this mattered enough to him. 
The clarity with which that knowledge came to Bric startled him. He wondered how he could know a thing like that. He wondered if he liked knowing things like this. He wondered what other effects his association with Lythril would have on him.
“Well, what does she want to do with it?” Nocc repeated.
“She wants to do the job,” Bric responded.
There was a long silence.
Bric finally broke it. “It’s out of the question, of course, I don’t want you to think I expect you to consider—“
“Would she guarantee that she won’t use it against him later?”
“Of course she would, Nocc.”
She would be happy to give him as many guarantees as he could think to ask for. She would not consider herself bound to honor any of them, and if Nocc thought she could be sued, he was more deluded than Bric had at first realized. 
“Do you trust her?” Nocc said.
Bric smiled.
 “I trust her not to do anything that goes against her own best interest. Since it is in her interest to continue increasing her reputation and therefore her fees, I would trust her to deliver what you have asked her for to the best of her ability, and to confine her interest in your son to performing the task you hired her to perform.”
Nocc nodded. Bric saw that he was comforted. Why shouldn’t he be. Of course he was reassured to hear that Lythril was governed by the logic of gain the same way every other trader or merchant or landlord was. 
Bric appreciated the beauty of that logic just like any other man. At the same time, he had worked for clients who had bound themselves to that logic and then committed some shocking assault on it. Some of his clients had betrayed their own best interests so that they might possess some valueless person or thing, or serve a passion that was unprofitable in the extreme. There were things in the world, inside people, that could exceed the logic of gain in grotesque, perverse, violent ways. 
Lythril understood and served the logic of gain with a clear-eyed rationality that gave him chills. But he knew, fingering the sore spot inside his elbow, that part of the vitality humming in the smooth, solid flesh of her tight body was excess. The ability to do and be things that no logic could contain.
“The thing is,” Nocc said, and stopped.
He was on the verge. Bric felt the hair rising on the backs of his arms. He was waiting for it, scenting it in the distance. Anticipating.
“The thing is,” Nocc repeated. “I don’t know his name.”
“You mean Minead never told you?”
Nocc shook his head.
“Why not?”
“She—that first year after he was born was a hard one. She told me Bilhad’s, and Trebor’s and Tilhu’s when she found them, but she would never tell me Keanrih’s. She always said she wouldn’t trust me with it till I changed toward him.”
Bric hid his frustration.
“If you want this done,” he said calmly, as if it was of no moment to him, “you’ll have to get Minead to give it to you.”
“How in the world am I supposed to do that after all this time?” Nocc demanded.
“Well,” Bric said, “you’d better change toward him.” Nocc shook his head. “You’ve already given up on the match. If you can make Minead believe that you’re coming to terms with the way he is, and if you can make her believe that telling you his name will help, then maybe she’ll do it.” He shrugged. “It would certainly help your relationship with him. That is what this is all about. So you can say that and believe it.”
He’d have to. Everyone knew who had the mindstrength in that marriage.
“I suppose it would,” Nocc mused.
Bric got up from the sofa.
“I’ll leave you to think it over,” Bric said. “It’s a big decision. Let me know—“
Nocc put a hand out toward him. Bric stopped.
“Nocc?”
“I don’t know if I can get it from Minead,” Nocc said.
“Yes?” Bric answered, helpfully.
“You’re sure now, it’s the only way to fix him.”
Bric nodded, solemnly. “I’m afraid it is, Nocc.”
Nocc sighed. 
“I don’t want you knowing it,” Nocc said. “I don’t want to do it through you. I want to give it to her, personally, no intermediaries.”
What a day this was turning out to be.
“You want to meet her,” Bric said, trying to make him reconsider.
“Yes,” Nocc said, drawing himself to his feet. “It’s my child, it’s my duty to see he’s protected. I’ll only give it to her and only on the condition she reveals it to no one.”
“You know, Nocc,” Bric couldn’t help saying. “She’s not a shriia.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Nocc exploded.
Bric realized what a dangerous thing that had been to say. Nocc needed to believe he could trust her promise, and it was Bric’s job to help him believe that. He was surprised at himself.
He could only explain it by reflecting that Nocc was his client, and he had been momentarily impressed with the sense that he wasn’t doing right by him. But he had been straight with him. He’d told him exactly what the risks were, and given him all the available facts. He had argued against something he knew to be against Nocc’s best interest. If Nocc was too weak to refuse this bargain, that was Nocc’s problem. 
“As I said,” Bric answered. “The one thing you can trust is that she’ll look out for herself. She’ll never get another client to do this for her if word gets out she spread your boy’s name around. I doubt she would reveal it to anyone else. It would be unlike her.”
After all. Power was not something Lythril was good at sharing.
“If I give it to her it must be in person and alone,” Nocc repeated.
He was deceiving himself. But he was going to insist upon the deception.
“I’ll see if I can arrange it,” Bric said. He wished his voice sounded less like an echo from the bottom of an empty well.
Nocc nodded. “Then I’ll talk to Minead.”
“Very well,” Bric said, bowing at him. “Let me know when you have news.”
Rince appeared. His presence helped Bric keep his face on as he walked out.
“Safe journey, Aiv,” Rince said, and opened the great hall door.
Bric stepped out into the afternoon light. 
Something seemed to brush past him. Too slight even to be a breeze. A vague disturbance, a barely perceptible change in the feel of the air and the look of the light.
Bric fought the urge to look over his shoulder. But he had the distinct impression that as he passed out of the house, Maerin had taken the opportunity to pass in.
At least he hoped it was Maerin. He could contemplate crossing paths with an invisible, but corporeal Maerin without too much anxiety. Lythril’s equally invisible but far more dangerous specter was another matter.
Nocc wanted to meet Lythril. The only person crazier than Nocc for demanding that was himself, for agreeing to bring it up.
He had only acquiesced because he knew how desperately Lythril wanted to get this job done. To her it was about more than the nine hundred. That worried him.
The one thing Bric had always relied on was her business sense. Lythril had her peculiarities and could be as tyrannical as any other head of a firm. He had seen senior partners thurk the junior ones before; he wasn’t surprised when she thurked him, although he had tried very hard to forget the details. Otherwise, until recently, she had never done anything to make him nervous.
It was hard to get the image of the skeletons and their green ghosts out of his mind. It was harder to ignore the cut on his arm and the bruise around it that had been there when he woke up that morning in Lythril’s guest bedroom. He would joke sometimes with the other private lawyers about clients demanding their share of blood and sweat. But this was taking things a little far.
Far as she was going, however, he knew he would go with her. She wasn’t the only client he had who had let it be known that he would never be allowed to walk away. And he didn’t want to. She was something he desperately needed. More than just something to serve. A force, a power, a will in which he could fully and fervently—if with extreme trepidation—believe.

*	*	*	*

“Well,” Barant began. “Thank you all for coming on such short notice.”
“I can’t stay long,” Grinth said. “I’ve got a meeting with the department heads an hour before noon. Which, come to think of it, includes you,” she added, fixing Dalen with her glittering stare.
“I’ll be there,” Dalen answered. “But this is urgent.”
“Ah well,” Grinth said, settling her short, wizened form in the chair. “I have to say, I never mind postponing a meeting that’s going to involve Kelah.”
Barant was the only one who smiled. Grinth was allowed to make cracks like that about other Council members, but only because she was more than seventy years old and had been the head of the Council for as long as the rest of them had been in the Order. 
“So what’s she up to now?” Grinth asked, turning back to Barant.
“Well, I’ve had this second and third-hand, so I shouldn’t be the one to set it out,” Barant said, folding her hands in front of her on the table. “Morat, you’re—oh, no, that’s right, you can’t talk about it. Dalen, why don’t you.”
“What do you mean, she can’t talk about it?” Grinth demanded.
“She’s been truth-trapped by someone,” Dalen explained.
Grinth looked at Morat.
“Don’t bother trying to make me feel bad,” Morat said, returning the glare. “It’s done.”
“I should think so.”
“It happens,” Barant said. “I’m sure it wasn’t Morat’s fault.”
“Don’t make assumptions, you weren’t there,” Morat replied.
Barant looked hurt by her tone. Morat sighed. She could not allow her own frustration to poison this meeting.
“I’m sorry,” Morat said. “This has all made me very irritable.” And, after a pause, “I mean more than usual.”
Barant looked down at the table to hide her amusement. Dalen started in.
“Yesterday Morat asked me to help her find a charm,” she began. “She hadn’t seen it but she was convinced that one had been purchased by Sioanna ni hAlanna, of the na Felchetts. I introduced myself into Felchett House—“
“I suppose you mean,” Grinth interrupted, “that you put on a shield and crept in there without anyone’s knowledge or consent, and then snooped around invisible for several hours?”
“More or less,” Dalen replied. 
Grinth sighed. “It will be awkward explaining this in court, if it comes to that. I wish you had let me know what you were doing.”
“Morat seemed to think it was urgent,” Dalen answered, unflappable.
“Very well,” Grinth answered. “So what did you see?”
“Generally the most unpleasant memory is the easiest to find. Morat told me she’d confronted Sioanna, and since it’s always unpleasant to be confronted by Morat I started there. I went to the room she had mentioned and found the memory. I followed it forward. After Morat left, and Ridac was done comforting her, Sioanna went straight upstairs, where she dug the charm out of a pillow at the head of her bed.”
Morat groaned.
“Morat?” Grinth inquired.
“Even when you know someone’s lying,” Morat answered, “I find it’s always disappointing to have it confirmed.”
And, although there was no point in saying it, the childishness of Sioanna having stashed it in her pillow made her stomach hurt. It didn’t seem fair that one could fall into evil through sheer immaturity.
“If you knew she was lying—“ Grinth began.
“Truth trap,” Barant and Dalen answered together.
Grinth waved one gnarled hand in the air. “All right, all right. Go on, Dalen.”
“Sioanna put the charm in a box and wrapped it up. The next thing I saw her do with it was give it to a young man who called on her. He opened the box, apparently at her insistence, but didn’t touch the charm itself. He shut the lid and packed it up, and then he rode away.”
Grinth was nodding as Dalen talked, filing it all away. 
“I tracked him to a small farm between Felim and Mablad. When I searched the farm I found the charm in the fire inside the forge in the smithy. I dug it out and brought it back to Morat. Morat undid it.”
“How did it get to the farm? And which farm?” Barant asked.
Dalen paused. Her arms folded in front of her, as if she were bracing herself for resistance.
“I don’t think it’s necessary for you to know that.”
From Barant Morat could feel astonishment; from Grinth there was anger.
“I’ve heard Morat’s excuse. What’s yours?”
Dalen remained unmoved. “A place does not choose what to remember and neither do the people who live there. This gift means that I see things that normally would be kept secret. I believe it’s my responsibility, to the people whose lives are opened to me against their knowledge and in all probability against their will, to keep secrets when it does no harm. How that charm got out there, where that farm is, and who put it into the fire, are things that I’m convinced the victim would not want us to know. I can vouch for the fact that the person who put the charm in the forge was trying to protect its intended victim.”
Morat sat silent. With what she knew she could guess. He had brought it to his lover’s house, and the lover had seen it, recognized it, and thrown it into the fire thinking that might destroy it. Dalen was right; Keanrih certainly would not have wanted any of them to know about any of that. Of course, since Keanrih’s proclivities were one of the things covered in Nocc’s trap, he needn’t worry about her in particular spreading the news.
	Grinth looked at Dalen for a while, her fingers tapping slowly on the table.
	“No one can beat you for boldness,” she finally said. “Not even Theamh ni hUlnach. Speaking of whom. Since Felim is in her practice—“
	“Yes, I’m glad that’s come up,” Barant said, leaning into the conversation. “It’s my impression that Theamh doesn’t know anything about this charm. Is that correct?”
	“So far as I know,” Dalen answered.
	Morat nodded.
	“Last night Morat consulted the Lythril file about this matter. She didn’t actually say this but I’m confident based on her actions that she believes Lythril is involved.”
	“I’ll second that,” Dalen said.
	Grinth looked at Morat, and suddenly Morat thought she saw compassion in there somewhere.
	“And you believe that because whoever lured you into that promise told you that.”
	Morat didn’t answer. Grinth hadn’t phrased it as a question.
	“So granted that this is Lythril’s work,” Barant said. “I…”
	She sat back in her chair. One strand of yellow hair descended from its bun as her face began a journey toward sorrow.
	“I would like to see,” she finally said, “if we can keep Theamh out of it.”
	Morat was relieved when, upon due deliberation, she decided that this was something she could safely discuss.
	“Why?” she demanded. “It’s her practice. The na Felchetts are her people.”
	“And the intended victim,” Grinth interrupted. “Do we know who he is?”
	Dalen nodded. “He’s Keanrih mac Minead, Aiv. The oldest of the na Poll children.”
	Dalen had found it out. Morat was immensely relieved.
	“So the intended victim is also one of her people,” Grinth added. “Explain to me what makes this not her business.”
	“I understand the committee may not agree and of course I’ll accept that,” Barant said, slowly. “But there are four of us here—two of us in Possessions—and whatever Lythril is up to I’m sure we can handle it. Theamh—“
	“—Is a young shriia, and could use the experience,” Grinth interrupted.
	“She’s had enough experience!”
	Barant so infrequently raised her voice that it was a shock to all of them. In the silence it began to seem that it was a shock to Barant too.
	“What I mean is,” Barant said, swallowing embarrassment, “I think Lythril has already done her enough damage. Especially given how bitterly disappointed she was when Dalen returned from the search, she’s not ready to take this on right now. I have good reason to believe that Lythril is cooking this up at least partly to have the chance of doing her more harm. Keeping her out of it is one way of thwarting Lythril.”
	“Have you spoken to her about this since Dalen returned?” Grinth asked.
	Morat was surprised that Grinth appeared to be taking this seriously. It was unlike her to agree to secrecy, as she had just demonstrated on Dalen.
	“Once,” Barant said. “I don’t…I don’t think any of us understand what she’s going through. I’ve never had the feelings for anyone that she had for poor Istria. They are now matched with a hatred of Lythril that goes beyond any limits you might call prudent.” Barant sighed. “If the committee feels differently then bring her in on it. But I have to speak against it.” Her hands rested flat on the table, her clear eyes on Grinth’s as she made her last point. “Theamh has more potential than any other scoilin I’ve dealt with, Aiv. But if we want her to realize that potential we have to give her time to heal. I think it would be a mistake to send her up against Lythril now, when she’s at her most vulnerable.”
	Morat could tell Grinth was impressed with the unwonted frankness of Barant’s appeal. She was impressed herself. But she was still moved to argue.
	“I don’t think keeping this from her is the way to protect her,” Morat said. “We leave her more vulnerable if we believe Lythril is working against her and don’t tell her.”
	“I’m her diaoc, Morat. If I thought this would create more danger for her I wouldn’t suggest it.”
	Morat supposed she had earned the bite in Barant’s voice. But she couldn’t let it go.
	“We have a duty to the truth,” she said. “Compromising that duty has been very painful for me. I’m not excited about being asked to do it again.”
	“Neither am I,” Dalen put in. “Leave aside the fact that if it were my practice and this was going on and no one told me, I would certainly be livid.”
	“Well, Theamh has made us all livid often enough,” Grinth said.
	Morat couldn’t stop herself from letting out a short laugh in agreement.
	“I call the question,” Grinth said, after a moment’s consideration. “All in favor of letting Theamh know about this.”
	Morat and Dalen raised their hands.
	“All in favor of doing what we can to keep her out of it.”
	Barant and Grinth raised their hands.
	“It’s a tie,” Grinth said. “As head, I’m tie breaker. I think Barant is right, at least for now. If we discover a compelling reason to tell her later we can.”
	“If she asks?” Morat said.
	“Of course if she asks, we tell her,” Grinth answered. “I don’t want anyone trapped over this. But I expect you all to try to handle it without involving her.” 
	Barant nodded. “Thank you, Aiv.”
	“It’s not a favor to you,” Grinth replied. “It’s what’s best for her. She wouldn’t agree, of course, but since when is that news. Now. What other steps have you taken?”
	“None, aside from getting Barant to call this meeting,” Dalen answered.
	“The first thing is to work out what that charm was designed to do. Morat knows, obviously, but of course she can’t be saying. However, Morat has seen fit to pass on a report Theamh filed, in which she states that Nocc asked her to mindforce Keanrih mac Minead. She seems to have believed it was connected to a match between him and Sioanna ni hAlanna, who has now been seen handling the Dark One’s silver. Connection?”
	“Be surprised if there wasn’t,” Dalen observed.
	“So Lythril has been hired by someone who wants that match to happen.”
	“It probably isn’t Sioanna,” Barant volunteered. “She’s very young—isn’t she?” Morat nodded. “I doubt she could afford Lythril’s prices.”
	“Ridac probably can,” Dalen answered. “So could Nocc.”
	“It could also be,” Barant put in, “that this charm is intended for some unrelated purpose, and Sioanna has merely been drawn into the web as a tool. We should remember that she isn’t necessarily working for anyone but herself and the Dark One.”
	Grinth nodded.
	“If we can’t get ahead of her, then we stay close behind her,” she said. “Dalen, I hate to do it to you, but I’m going to ask you to go on the hunt again.”
	“Don’t be sorry for it,” Dalen answered. “I could happily spend the rest of my life on that bitch’s track, provided I got her in the end.”
	“You know,” Grinth suddenly snapped, “there are other dark users in the world. What is it about Lythril that gets to you people this way?”
	Dalen retired, embarrassed.
	One of Morat’s hands involuntarily went up to finger the back of her neck.
	“Why do we have a Lythril Committee?” Barant said, quietly.
	Nobody answered.
	“Why did we just close the book on Ydra? Why is Istria lost? Why does Morat have that scar?” 
	Morat dropped her hand self-consciously into her lap.
	“She’s evil,” Barant said. “And she’s stronger and smarter than evil usually gets. That’s why she gets to me.”
	Grinth, apparently repenting her question, went on with the delegation.
	“Morat, I’m going to leave it up to you to try to communicate one way or another any of the information you got trapped over that we don’t already know. So far you seem to be doing a pretty good job.”
	Morat was startled to realize that they had worked out almost everything Nocc had told her. Except for the facts that Nocc was the one who had hired Lythril, and that Keanrih preferred men. The second fact was of no consequence; hopefully it wouldn’t be long before they were all convinced of the first.
	“Barant, keep in touch with Theamh. If something does go wrong with him she’ll probably be the first to see it. You’re the only one of us she can still stand.”
	“All right, Aiv,” Barant said. “It’s something I ought to do anyhow.”
	“So you ought,” Grinth answered. “Watch and wait, and act when you can, and let me know what happens.” She stood up. “We’re going to be late. Come on, Dalen.”
	Dalen and Grinth left. Barant and Morat looked at each other.
	“You don’t agree,” Barant said.
	“I’m still not sure I understand why you think it’s a good idea.”
	Barant shrugged. “That’s your prerogative,” she said. “If it were Istria, and Theamh was lost, would you want her going up against Lythril in that condition?”
	Morat suddenly felt too depressed to answer.
	“I’m sorry,” Barant said, genuinely concerned. “I just—I have to try to do right by her. I know you understand that, even if you disagree.”
	“I do understand,” Morat finally said. “And I do disagree. I think we will all regret having made this decision.”
	“That’s my Morat,” Barant said, with an odd little smile. “I keep hoping that someday, you’ll shock me, and say something cheerful.”
	“Maybe someday,” Morat answered, and left the room.

*	*	*	*

	The smell of paint in the studio was almost overpowering. Keanrih threw the windows open. 
The painting was still wet, especially the flames weaving around the human figure. In the corners the original grassy backdrop was still visible, but he was going to paint it all over. Eventually all there would be on that canvas would be Taric, fire, and that vine with its flowers and thorns.
	He took his palette over to a bench and lost himself in the process of mixing colors. The hard thing was getting them bright enough. In his imagination, everything was always more vibrant than he could make it be.
	When he had something halfway like what he wanted, he lifted his head and walked back to consider the canvas.
	Instead of the flames his eyes went to the central figure.
	It was like falling into a river. He hit the surface with a sting that made his whole skin tingle and felt the waters close over his head as he tumbled in the current of his longing. Taric’s absence became, in an instant, an unbearable torment, exacerbated by the presence of his image on the canvas.
	<Taric.>
	<Keanrih?>
	He was always hesitant over the link, even after more than a year. Keanrih had a feeling it reminded him of the shriias and therefore he refused to trust it.
	<Is anything wrong?> Taric prompted.
	<No…except I miss you. Badly.>
	<Badly?>
	<When can I see you?>
	Taric didn’t answer right away.
	<If you don’t want me to-- > Keanrih began, as disappointed desire began to sicken in him.
	<Come now,> Taric said. 
	Keanrih looked at the painting, and felt his eyes watering.
	<You mean it?>
	<I have been thinking since I got up in the morning,> Taric said. <Pride has eaten enough of my life. Come whenever.>
	<Taric?>
	<What?>
	<Have you had another one?>
	There was a pause.
	<I’ll tell you when you get here.>
	<I’m off to find Leabra.>
	<Safe journey, Keanrih.>
	<It’s twelve miles the way I ride it. It hardly counts as a journey.>
	<Be safe anyhow.>
	Keanrih stopped to put a cloth over the palette. After that, he hardly noticed he was moving until he was opening the side door that led toward the stables.
	“Keanrih.”
It was Minead’s voice. He found her in the little study near the back stairs where she did her accounts.
	It was a small room, and had nothing in it but what was necessary: a desk, a chair, a lamp, a large bookcase full of ledgers and papers, the strongbox for the household money, and an upholstered chair Minead could throw herself into when she wanted to sit and watch the fire. She was sitting in it now, lifting her head to look at her oldest son as he stood in the doorway.
	Keanrih was conscious of the danger of getting close. With what was running through him she would be certain to read things that he would have a very hard time explaining.
	“Going out for a ride, mathi.”
	“When will you be back?”
	“Not sure.”
	“Your father has asked me to make sure you’ll be here for supper,” Minead said.
	Impatient as he was Keanrih was impressed with the strangeness of it. “Why?”
	“I don’t know,” Minead said. “I think…” She looked away, back at the fire.
	“You think what, mathi?” he said, apprehensively.
	“You know as well as I do how infuriating that man can be,” Minead finally said. “But sometimes he does do something you wouldn’t expect, because he’s figured out finally why you want it…” 
	Her eyes wandered to the fire, and Keanrih’s tenuous grip on patience began to waver. He had seen her go to this kind of reverie before, in sadness and perplexity. She was trying to match her own estimation of the man she had, against all bets placed, grown fond of, with the anger and hurt she saw him inflicting on her son. It was a place he could not follow her to.
	“He told me again, today,” Minead said, returning her eyes to Keanrih, “that he’s given up the match, for good. That he’s sorry he fought it this long.” 
	Keanrih found he had no idea what to say to this.
	“I think he wants to talk to you,” Minead finally said. “I think he wants to try to tell you the same thing. I don’t expect him to get it out on the first attempt.”
	She smiled, sadly. Keanrih knew she wanted him to stay and talk to her about this. He also knew that if he didn’t go out that door and get on that horse, soon, something in him would burst wide open.
	“I’ll be back by sundown,” Keanrih said.
	Minead nodded. “I’ll see you then. Take care, chara.”
	He felt bad, moving to the door as quickly as he did. He couldn’t help it. The closer he got to the stables the more he couldn’t stand being without him.
	It did sometimes take him like this. As his hands mechanically began decking Leabra with the riding gear, his mind went to other times when after a day, two days, a week of separation, it rushed on him all at once and overwhelmed him. He would have to drop whatever he was handling and run to someplace private where he could call him without worrying that anyone would see what was in him. Whereupon, like as not, Taric would be obstinate and tell him there wasn’t time, he was going to be out in the wheatfield, he’d see him tomorrow, and depending on what kind of mood Keanrih was in he would either accept this and go on with his day, or start another fight. 
And then Taric would call him one, two, four hours later and say, if you still want to come, you might come now. Which Keanrih would hear as if he had said, “Yes, I too am helpless before this, I fought it but I am overcome, come to me instantly.” 
	Taric would die before he actually, literally said a thing like that. But Keanrih had learned to hear declarations of passion and protestations of love in the most ordinary of words. After learning to hear “You’re here then,” as “Until now, this entire day was a blank void,” or “Stay longer, if you like,” as “My body cries out for you in the dark,” or “Happy Burning, Keanrih,” as “I have made this for you to show you that I will love you forever,” the speech Taric had just made was a shock to his system.
	Keanrih led Leabra out of the stables and leapt onto her back.
	She hardly had to be directed now. She picked her way delicately into the forest, and then at the slightest of urging took off at a canter. Leabra had figured out that whenever Keanrih took the short cut to Felim, he was always in a hurry.
	Come whenever.
	It would not surprise him  to find out that Taric had had a vision of his early death. That was one of the few things he could think of that might explain this.

*	*	*	*

	It would be hard to explain this one to Keanrih. 
	He was hard put to understand the effect it had had on him. It wasn’t a nightmare. It wasn’t of anyone’s death or destruction. It was just a vision of Keanrih, sitting in that studio of his where he did the painting, on a bench near the window, his head turned toward the canvas.
	That was all. Just Keanrih, his paintings and his brushes, and a morning like any other.
	Taric shut the barn door and stood outside looking over his barren fields. He always looked forward to the beginning of the growing season with mixed feelings. The inactivity of the winter was hard on him; but planting season was backbreaking. Days spent in a labor of love infused with hatred, nights lying on that pallet too exhausted even to care whether Keanrih was there or not.
	No, be honest, he thought, watching a breeze ripple the surfaces of the larger puddles. You always care.
	Something about that vision was driving him to rip out all the fences he had put so much work into raising. He didn’t know how he knew that it was time to admit he was beaten. He just knew that there were some things he would no longer have the heart for.
	Hearing the hooves in the distance the old reflex came to him, the desire to busy himself about something so he wouldn’t look like he was waiting on him. But instead Taric stood there, listening to them approach, watching Keanrih bring her to a stop, jump off her back, and tether her.
	Taric thought, what’s the worst that could happen. If instead of standing here like a block, I just ran to him.
	All he could manage, in the end, was to walk forward, slowly, as if he were merely mildly curious to see what had brought him out there.
	It didn’t matter. Keanrih reached him in half a minute. He looked at Taric’s face, and whatever he read there brought him right to Taric’s body, mouth opening onto his, arms drawing his narrower torso hard against Taric’s.
	Twisting his head so he could go deeper into Keanrih’s mouth, Taric wondered why, all those years, it had ever seemed to him like a good idea to tell him to stay away. Why he had inflicted on himself all those empty hours and pointless days. What kind of ridiculous bargain he had been trying to strike, and with what.
	“All right,” Keanrih murmured, drawing back. “Come inside and tell me about it.”
	The vision had come back to him, and the reflection of his own anxiety was dimming Keanrih’s eyes. 
Suddenly Taric knew what was wrong with the picture.
	The studio windows were open.

*	*	*	*
	
	When Slythe got back to her office in in the Raed after that interminable department heads meeting, she was startled to see Theamh perched on the edge of her worktable, looking around at the half-completed projects littering the room. 
Slythe’s heart lifted a little at seeing here there; but her throat constricted in embarrassment at having all that mess walked in on. 
Instead of remarking on the state of the room, Theamh jumped off the table and overwhelmed her with a string of congratulatory exclamations. 
“You got the job! Nobody told me! Nobody tells me anything around here I mean some people tell me some things some of the time but damn! I told you you were the best at what you do! That must be the smartest thing the Council’s done since, well, let me not even finish that sentence. Are you too busy now to teach me how to be invisible?”
	Slythe was too busy to do almost anything. Since she’d become head of Practical Magic, her life had become an endless stream of projects to be done, requests to be fulfilled and crises to be averted. But it was Theamh. So how could she say no?
So an hour later it was Slythe who was perched on the edge of the table, dangling her heels and watching wood shavings and stone chips fly about the workroom. Theamh herself was invisible; but her wake definitely wasn’t.
	“Walk with your hands stretched out,” Slythe suggested. “It’s weird to say, but it’s like being blind. You have to go by things other than sight.”
	“I knew there was a reason I never—“ A thud from the doorjamb interrupted her.
	“You all right?”
	“Well, at least it wasn’t my head this time.”
	Slythe smiled. She was shy about laughing out loud; she didn’t like how it sounded. It wasn’t an infectious, or musical, or bubbling laugh; just a broad, plain, serviceable kind of bark. 
	“Is there any trick to estimating…like…”
	“Where you are relative to…”
	“Other stuff, yeah.”
	Slythe knew she would never be able to explain it. She wasn’t good at that kind of thing.
	“You have to try to feel your feet.”
	“Feel them how?”
	“Feel…just…where they are, on the ground.”
	“All right…” She sounded dubious, but willing to give it a try.
	“And move slower,” Slythe added.
	A hard thing for Theamh to do. Theamh had great trouble with things that were so simple, like making a shield or building a shelf. It surprised Slythe because she knew Theamh was much smarter than she was. Theamh had spent much of her first year at scoil helping Slythe finally pass her language exams. As famous for her impatience and lack of discipline as Theamh seemed to be, Slythe had a hard time squaring that with her own perceptions. If Theamh had drilled her on irregular verbs once she’d done it a thousand times, without ever raising her voice or losing her patience.
	“You’re right, that does help.”
	Theamh’s voice was behind the table now. Slythe turned around in surprise.
	“It’s all right, you don’t have to try to make me feel better—“
	“No, I really—I didn’t notice you going.”
	“Really?”
	“Of course really.”
	Theamh’s voice sounded chagrined. “I know, Slythe, I just—after an hour of walking into stuff it’s hard to believe I’ve finally got it.”
	“Well, try it again before you believe it,” Slythe said.
	The air behind the table laughed, and there was another silence.
	Slythe thought she could just see the shimmer drifting back around the table, over into the corner where she kept the tub for uisce.
	“Careful around water, Theamh. It shows you up.”
	“Dust too,” Theamh answered, as a string of footprints blossomed in a crescent around the tub.
	She moved into the center of the floor, where the boards were cleaner.
	Slythe was so intent on trying to find Theamh that she was startled when someone visible appeared in the doorway.
	“You busy?” Barant called.
	“Sort of,” Slythe answered.
	“Ah, you’re always sort of busy. It’s the price of talent,” Barant said, with a rueful little smile. Slythe blushed. “When you’re done here, can you do something for me?”
	“Sure, Barant,” Slythe answered, nodding. “If it’s important—“
 “Oh, don’t interrupt whatever it is,” Barant said, waving a hand. “I’ll wait my turn. Just drop by my office when you have a minute.” 
She made to go, but stopped in the doorway, staring at a group of empty uisce bottles ranged along one windowsill. 
“Nice shield, Theamh. You make it yourself?”
The air near the window made a noise of disappointment.
“Slythe made it for me,” Theamh said, as one of the bottles teetered on the sill. It stopped teetering, then slid slowly back away from the edge.
“She does good work,” Barant said. “Remember to mask when you do this, Theamh, otherwise people can tell there’s someone else in the room. What are you in training for, anyhow?”
From closer to the corner, Theamh’s voice said, “I need it to test a theory I have.”
“I see,” Barant answered, with a hard look at the part of the room she thought Theamh was standing in. “Try to stay out of trouble, will you?”
“I do usually try,” said Theamh’s voice.
Barant looked skeptical, but declined to push it. 
“You two have fun. Slythe, drop by my office when you get a second.”
Slythe nodded. “Idair with you, Barant.”
Barant disappeared. Theamh sighed.
“You’re making progress, Theamh,” Slythe said. “Try taking it off.”
There was a pause. Nothing appeared.
“I gave it the command, Slythe…”
“Shake your head a little, just gently.”
The top of Theamh’s head appeared. The shield dropped in increments. By the time Theamh’s shoulders were visible she’d lost patience and was trying to peel it off.
“Hold still, or you’ll tear it.”
Gradually the shield slid down to the floor, obscuring Theamh’s feet and the hem of her hreapa, and giving her a floating and apparitional look.
“There’s got to be a way to do that faster.”
“There is, but that’s a whole day’s work.”
“Two days, with me,” Theamh said, gathering up the nothing around her feet and folding it carefully. “I really appreciate it, Slythe. I know you must be busy.”
“If I ever get too busy to help you, then I’ll know I need to resign.”
Theamh looked up at her, one hand still invisible under the folded shield. Slythe wished somehow that she hadn’t let that come out. 
“You helped me,” Slythe said, feeling she needed to explain.
Sensing her discomfort, Theamh broke the silence. “Well, can I give you one piece of advice, by way of repayment for all the time I’ve wasted?”
“If you want,” Slythe answered.
People were always giving her advice. Usually they didn’t ask first.
“When someone asks you to make a promise,” Theamh said, tucking the shield into her carrying bag, “always ask what it is before you say yes.”
Slythe felt herself coloring a little. “It’s just Barant, Theamh. She wouldn’t trap me.”
“Of course not,” Theamh said. “But it’s still a good idea. I mean, a lot of people are going to be asking you to do a lot of things. If you promise to do it all you’ll kill yourself trying.”
She knew enough after this past week to realize Theamh had a point. But she still felt frustrated.
“Well I can’t just tell everyone who comes in here to go boil her head.”
Theamh laughed. “I guess not. But you’ve got a right to say no. Or, I guess maybe it would be better to say ‘not right now.’”
Slythe laughed with her. “All right, Theamh.”
“Thanks for this,” she said, patting the bag. “Idair with you.”
Theamh trotted off. Slythe went to find out what Barant wanted.

*	*	*	*

	Two bodies at the edge of a fallow field, under an overcast sky beginning to darken. A tall, slight man with brown hair. Another man, square-built with powerful limbs and disordered yellow hair, holding out an overcoat for the other man to put on, pulling the lapels snug around his chest as the tall man did up the buttons. The head with the yellow hair, on its bull’s neck, craning upward, joining its shape to that of the other man’s head. A kiss. Long, unhurried. After passion, not before.
	Not much said. The only thing Maerin could hear, from where he was watching near the tethered horse, was the tall man laughing. Then he walked toward the roan mare, and toward Maerin crouching invisible above him in the tree.
	“All right,” the tall man called, turning to look over his shoulder. “I’ll keep them closed. Till I start to suffocate from the fumes.”
	“This isn’t funny, Keanrih,” the other man shouted.
	Keanrih stopped, turned around, and went back.
	Maerin took advantage of the rise in the wind to shift positions. The rustle of the branches was lost in the noise and motion of the trees around him.
	Two bodies, clinging together as if they were trying to share the same breath. Bending and swaying like a tree in danger of toppling.
	“I have to go, I promised mathi.”
	“I know.”
	“Idair with you.”
	The tall one was finally leaving.
	“Keanrih!”
	He stopped again.
	Maerin hoped there wouldn’t be yet another farewell.
	“You think he means it?”
	Keanrih shook his head in defeat.
	“I have no idea,” he said. “I’ll let you know.”
	He finally reached the horse, stroking its neck and head for a few moments before climbing on. Which gave Maerin plenty of time to probe him.
	Keanrih mac Minead. Twenty-six years old. Amateur artist, interested in music and theater, his father’s land steward, lover for the past seven years of the man standing at the edge of that field. Desperately wanting not to leave this place. Desperately trying to hope something good was in store for him at that family dinner he was dreading. Careful not to disappoint the mother he’d given his promise to. Too many weaknesses. Too much love.
	The horse rode into the dusk.
	Maerin descended from the tree, slowly.
	Getting close to Taric was easy. It was like creeping up on a statue. For whole minutes together the man hardly moved. He didn’t seem to have any plans, except to let the night fall around him.
	Taric mac no one. Not sure how old he was, no idea who his people were, thought about that every day. Lover of the man who had just left him on that roan mare. Since him, no other lovers. No other connections. No other loyalties. Everything in him centered on that one man, clutched tight around him like a fist.
	Suffered visions. Foresight, not after.
	Taric shivered, and went back into the barn. Through its open door Maerin could see yellow lantern light leaking, and hear the yelping of a young, happy dog.
	He had more than she’d need.
	Two right things in one week. Who knew what she would do.
	It began to rain.
	Maerin watched Taric and the dog come out of the barn. The rain seemed to confuse and excite the dog, which bounded in circles snapping at it. Taric watched, almost laughing.
	It would be easy to do. Spring on him now, cut his throat before he knew what was at him. Remove the obstacle to the match. Get it all done right here, on his own.
	He moved toward him.
	He was stopped by the sudden constriction of his throat. The first few times this had happened, it made him think that she was really there, choking him with her invisible pale hand. Now, he knew better. However, the sensation did not get any more pleasant just because he knew it was all in his mind.
	<You don’t listen. That’s your problem.>
	<Obviously you do.>
	Maerin waited for the next contraction. He was surprised not to feel it.
	<Come straight back here, Maerin, before I have to get rough with you.>
	She was in a good mood. Must have had good news from Bric.
	Maerin moved into the woods.

*	*	*	*

	It was only infrequently, these days, that Nocc saw all his children around the same table. Tilhu dined with friends most of the time now; in fact that night she was out in the City with some cousins who had given her a standing invitation. Trebor and Bilhad were more rooted in the country, where they could be sure of horses and hunting. But it was unusual for Keanrih to grace them all with his presence. Now that Nocc knew why, it seemed incredible that he had never thought this strange.
	“Wasn’t there something?” Minead was saying, gesturing with a chicken-laden fork at Keanrih. “Something you wanted to ask about Rahill?”
	“Oh, that’s right,” Keanrih said, dabbing at his lips with a napkin. “Athi, Bilhad and I have been arguing about this—“
	“It’s an unnecessary expense and we don’t know it’ll pay off,” Bilhad said.
	“Let me tell him what it is first,” Keanrih answered.
	Nocc watched them square off across the table. They were as unlike as could be. Bilhad’s stockiness was probably the result of Minead’s peasant antecedents. Still, no one would ever wonder who Bilhad’s father was. Whereas Nocc had no idea where Keanrih’s body had come from, or what had attracted that spirit to this family.
	“Rahill has been talking to me about his holding,” Keanrih said, turning his eyes on Nocc. “His yield has been declining. He subscribes to some repeater chain for small farmers, I think it’s based in Kengda—“
	“Not Forty Perches,” Nocc said.
	Keanrih looked surprised. “Yes, I think it is.”
	“Hmph,” Nocc answered.
	Keanrih read his comment as contempt. Nocc was surprised that this made him sad. 
	“Anyhow, on this chain there’s been a lot of talk about crop rotation, and Rahill thinks it might help. He’d like to try ground peas, but it would take capital.”
	“I suppose he’s asking for a rebate,” Nocc said.
	“He says the initial layout will cost a hundred silver,” Keanrih said. “Rahill’s willing to risk fifty. He was suggesting we might knock the other fifty off his rent, over the course of the next year.”
	Bilhad snorted.
	Nocc rubbed his chin.
	The truth was that he also subscribed to Forty Perches, and three other repeater chains devoted to farming. If Keanrih had been more natural, they might have spoken about this already; Nocc could maybe given him a subscription or two, to get him started. They could have talked farming together during the winter evenings. He would have enjoyed it.
	He had tried to get Bilhad interested. Bilhad was not keen. He had never liked to read; apparently he couldn’t be bothered to listen, either.
	“I think it’s worth doing, if only as an experiment,” Keanrih said. 
	“What would we prove?” Bilhad returned. “That we’re soft touches?”
	Keanrih turned on his younger brother. “Rahill isn’t the only tenant who’s worried. A lot of those foothills holdings are starting to grow thinner crops. If this works for Rahill—“
	“We give everyone rebates?” Bilhad demanded.
	“It’s called an incentive, Bilhad,” Keanrih said. 
	“For what? Why? Nobody’s having trouble paying rent except for Glaubart, and he’s hopeless—“
	“That’s not the point.”
	“Well, what is the point?” Nocc interrupted.
	“The point is that the bottom land is doing fine but people on the hills are starting to struggle and I think it’s because the soil is getting exhausted. Some of that land was only cleared twenty years ago, we don’t know how long it can support wheat. If Rahill thinks ground peas will raise his yield then how can it hurt us to let him try it?”
	“By what we lose on the rent.”
	“We’ll get it back.”
	“Only if we raise his rent later and you just froze all their rents for the next three years.”
	Bilhad was holding both his position and his belligerent expression without apparent change. In Keanrih anger had given way to something else. Frustration, but with it a kind of sadness. A wish to be understood, which he was sure would be disappointed.
	“We get it back in the improvement to the land.”
	“Who cares when we can just avoid losing it?”
	“If yields decline we’ll have to lower the rents anyhow,” Keanrih said.
	“No we won’t,” Bilhad answered, taking another drink.
	Keanrih sat back in his chair, looking at Bilhad as if he just beat all.
	“Won’t we,” Keanrih said.
	“We won’t be able to raise them as fast. But people pay rent first. If their yields decline they’ll economize on discretionary expenses.”
	“Oh,” Keanrih said, shortly. “You mean things like clothing and shelter.”
	“You see what I have to put up with?” Bilhad said, appealing to Nocc.
	“It matters to the land,” Keanrih insisted. “It matters whether the soil is rich or poor. Why is that such a radical proposition? For Idair’s sake, isn’t it our thurking land?”
	Suddenly Keanrih seemed deflated and unhappy.
	Nocc found himself jumping in on his side.
	“It is our land,” Nocc said. “And it might be worth trying.” He turned to Minead. “What do you think, chara?”
	Minead wasn’t exactly smiling. But she seemed happy.
	“I agree with Keanrih,” she said.
	“Oh, big surprise,” Bilhad muttered.
	“Bilhad,” Minead said sharply.
	Bilhad began poking at his food.
	“All right,” Trebor broke in. “Let Rahill put in his damn ground peas and talk about something else.”
	Nocc looked around the table. For the first time it occurred to him that of all his children, Keanrih was the only one who took any interest in farming. Bilhad knew just enough not to get cheated by the tenants. Trebor’s only interest was in having a good horse under him during the day and a fine woman under him during the night. Tilhu was young still, but she seemed far more focused on frocks than on farming.
	“Will we?” Keanrih said, to Nocc. “Put in the damn ground peas?”
	Nocc had set this dinner up to show Minead he was changing toward Keanrih. He had been dreading it all evening. Now he realized that at least for the past ten minutes, he had, if he was not mistaken, been enjoying himself.
	“Try it for a year,” Nocc said. “Don’t spread it around. Wait to see if it works.”
	Keanrih smiled. “Thanks, athi.”
	Nocc felt something twist inside him.
	The serving girl came in to clear the plates. Nocc looked away from her awkward hands back to Minead. “That is, since you agree.”
	“Like I said,” Minead answered, as the girl reached for Keanrih’s plate. “I think it’s a good idea. And Bilhad.” 
	Bilhad gave her a surly glare over the remnants of his dinner.
	“If you want to sulk, sulk. But the fact that this was Rahill’s idea doesn’t mean you have to oppose it. It’s important to evaluate something on its own merits, and not assume that every time a tenant speaks he’s trying to put one over on you.”
	“But they do!” Bilhad protested.
	“Yes they do, and we do it right back to them. But once in a kyelran our interests do line up with theirs.”
	Bilhad returned to his drink. The serving girl disappeared through the door to the kitchen.
	Nocc glanced at Minead. He had said nothing, but Minead heard him anyway.
	“She’s new,” Minead said. “I told her that until she gets better at balancing the plates she should make several trips.”
	“How hard can it be?” Bilhad snapped.
	“Now that’s enough,” Minead said, dropping her voice as the girl came back.
	“Has the yield been declining that much?” Nocc said.
	Trebor rolled his eyes.
	“It’s in patches,” Keanrih said. “But I think it is a real concern.”
	“Well,” Nocc said. “I must look into it.”
	He could go round the farms with Keanrih. A few at a time, since his joints were still bothering him. He would like that.
	“So what was the word from Ridac on the colt, Keanrih?” Minead said. 
	“No sale,” Keanrih answered. “It’s a shame. I hope we can get into that line someday. They’re beautiful, and they’re smart.”
	To take his mind off the disappointment that had returned with sharpened barbs, Nocc looked to see if Trebor was taking an interest now that someone had brought up horses.
	Trebor had apparently been taking an interest in the servant girl. She was walking away from him so fast the plates were rattling.
	Minead pushed back her chair and walked around the table to where Trebor was sitting.
	“Ow!”
	Nocc sat up, startled. He knew Minead was reaching the end of her rope with Trebor but he would not have expected her to actually slap him.
	“Trust me, Trebor. She didn’t appreciate that smack on the gleacha any more than you appreciated that smack on the face. Don’t bother women who don’t want you.”
“But mathi—“
“Now go to your room.”
	“Mathi!” 
	“If you can’t act your age then you’re not sitting at my table. Go.”
	Trebor left, muttering. Minead resumed her seat, just as the girl came back with the tray of sweets.
	“I wish you’d talk to him,” Minead said to Nocc. 
“I have talked to him,” Nocc said. “It doesn’t seem to make an impression.”
Minead sighed. She looked at Keanrih with a rueful smile. “Tell you something about having children. You never know what it’ll be like till it happens.”
Nocc was better able now to make sense of the embarrassment with which Keanrih responded to this.
“I suppose you don’t,” Keanrih said.
Bilhad, who had demolished his sweet, pushed back his chair. “I’m going over to Jintan’s.”
“All right, chara,” Minead said, running a hand over his short hair as he stooped to kiss her cheek. “Just don’t wager anything that belongs to us or your brothers.”
“No fear,” he said. “Good rest to everyone.”
“Good luck, Bilhad,” Keanrih said.
“Thanks. See you tomorrow.”
So now it was just the three of them. And Minead was giving him that look.
“Keanrih, I…”
Keanrih looked vaguely apprehensive. Minead looked expectant.
He knew what she wanted him to say but he couldn’t say it.
“If you have time tomorrow, I’d like to talk to you about this problem with the hill farms,” Nocc said. 
“Of course, athi,” Keanrih said. 
Keanrih was looking at him almost as if he was happy. And the strange thing was, so was Minead.
“Morning all right?”
“I’ll look in after I see to the horses.”
“I’ll be in the study.” Nocc stood up. “Good rest to everyone. I’m off to bed.”
“I’ll be there in a minute, chara,” Minead called after him.
She was happy. 
He’d convinced her. Somehow.
Suddenly now he was hopeful. There was good stuff in Keanrih. If Lythril could take care of the rest, then Keanrih might turn out, in the end, to be some kind of a son.

*	*	*	*

The door to the kitchen swung inward. 
Weroda turned, lifting her hands out of the dishtub. She was about to ask Carith where the big platter went, until she realized it was Minead.
Weroda had had one service job before, in an inn back in Peheot. In her experience the aiv never came into the kitchen except to sack someone. So Weroda straightened up, folding her wet hands in front of her coarse woolen skirt. 
When she saw that Minead had fetched in the plates from the sweet course, and was putting them in the tub herself, she was even more frightened.
“I’m not going to sack you,” was the first thing Minead said.
Carith had told her Minead could read people like they were books. Evidently Carith knew what she was talking about.
“Aiv?” Weroda said, wishing her voice wouldn’t tremble.
“I want to apologize for my son’s behavior,” Minead said.
Weroda swallowed, and then said, “Please, Aiv, it was nothing.”
Minead pulled out one of the chairs at the cutting table. “Sit,” she said. “Please.”
Weroda pulled out another chair and sat in it, uncomfortably. Minead rested her elbows among the pratai peelings and tried to meet Weroda’s eyes.
“Weroda, I know you’re unhappy here,” Minead said. “I’m hoping it’s mainly homesickness, and your worrying so much about whether you’re doing well.”
“I…you’ve been very kind,” Weroda said, flushing.
“But you miss your people.”
“Yes, Aiv,” Weroda said.
Minead had somehow brought it to the surface—the anxiety, the loneliness, her frustration with her own awkwardness. 
“This is the first live-in job you’ve had, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Aiv.”
“I gave you your own room because I thought you’d like the privacy. Would you rather I put you in with one of the other girls?”
“I—no, thank you, Aiv, I’m well as I am,” Weroda said.
Minead nodded, still trying to get Weroda’s eyes to stay on hers.
“I can’t do anything about the homesickness. I can say that you’re improving fast. I don’t worry about your being able to do the job. I hope soon you won’t either.”
“Thank you, Aiv,” Weroda said. She was relieved that Minead had noticed improvement. But she was a little frightened to be talking like this. It wasn’t what everyone had led her to expect, an aiv walking into the kitchen and sitting down among the stacked plates to talk to you about how you were feeling. 
“I also want you to know that you don’t have to be afraid of Trebor. If any of my sons interfere with you in any way that bothers you, tell me. Nobody should have to work with that.” Minead stood up. “Ask around. The others will tell you that when I say something I mean it. Good rest to you, Weroda.”
Minead left the kitchen. The door swung gently on its hinges as Carith returned.
“Did you hear that?” Weroda said.
“Of course,” Carith answered. “You know, she comes in here all the time, so you don’t need to swallow your heart when it happens. It’s because her parents were tenants. They used to work one of the valley holdings. Did you not know that?”
“No,” Weroda said.
“Oh yes. She’s big house now, but it wasn’t bred into her, and it shows.”
“So does she mean it?”
Carith reached into the tub for another plate. “She does say what she means. And she means it about Trebor.” Carith picked up a dishtowel and began wiping the plate dry. “And who knows that she won’t cure him, too. She cured Nocc all right.”
“The husband?” Weroda said, surprised.
“The same,” Carith answered. “But I won’t bother you with the story…”
“No,” Weroda said. She groped in the soapy water for the soup bowls. “No, please. Bother me.”
Carith added the plate to the stack, and paused for a moment to give Weroda a smile that seemed somehow to be warmer than before.
“You see,” Carith said. “You can live here. It’s not so bad.”
Weroda sniffled, and then laughed.
“No,” she said, vexed at her own tears. “I guess it’s not.”

*	*	*	*

Minead stood in the doorway looking at him. Nocc was half undressed, sitting on the edge of the feather bed, his trousers dangling from one hand and his shirt spreading its tail behind him. He was staring into the distance, thinking about something.
She could tell it was Keanrih. But he didn’t have the look he usually had when he was thinking about him. Instead, the way he looked made Minead sneak up from the other side of the bed, and put her arms around his thin shoulders.
“Chara,” Nocc said, his hands reaching up to cover hers.
Minead bent her head to give him a kiss on one of his wrinkled cheeks. Then she gave him one on the mouth.
When Nocc’s head drew back he looked both pleased and a little startled. “What was that for?” 
He sounded gruff, the way he always did when he was being fond of her. She rested her chin on his shoulder and smiled.
“For being good to him.” 
His hands brushed along her clasped arms, finally folding over her own joined hands.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish it hadn’t become a special occasion.”
Minead turned his face toward hers, reaching into the eyes that still held the robin’s-egg blue of his younger days.
“Things don’t change in a day,” Minead said. “But a little can do a lot.”
Her throat was pricking. She probably should stop talking. But she went on.
“He wants so much for you to be proud of him,” Minead said. “Even a small thing—like your agreeing with him about the crops—it made him so happy—“
“Oh, now, Minead,” Nocc said, his voice gentle if distressed. “There, now.”
He put his arms around her. She let herself cry.
It felt as if she had been waiting for years to cry about this. 
“I know it seems like he doesn’t care, but he does, chara. It’s only because he wants you to love him that he’s so angry.”
Crying had taken over her whole body. Nocc held onto her, stroking her back.
“Now, chara, of course I love him.”
“ I know that!”
Her voice sounded strained and broken. She lifted her head. Nocc’s eyes were watering.
The sight almost stopped her from crying. For so many years the bare mention of Keanrih’s name had done nothing but turn him to stone.
“It won’t have to be much,” Minead said, lowering her voice. “Little things matter to him. Changes in the light…” She swallowed. “He’s just waiting to have a reason to change toward you. You see that now, don’t you?”
Nocc nodded. His chin was quivering.
“I want it to be different,” Nocc said. “I want—I want to know him better.”
Minead smiled, wiping her eyes with one hand.
“He wants that too. I know I do.”
“I didn’t even know he was talking to Rahill. I feel—like—“ He shifted on the bed, drawing up his naked knees. “We just got put wrong, long ago, and I just—you know me, start me on a path and I follow it—“
“I know,” Minead answered, taking his hands and holding them.
“So much I never knew about him—you always had to buy presents for him, you were the one suggested setting aside a room for him to paint in, I would never even have known he was painting and I suppose I thought it was a waste of time—I suppose I still do—“
Minead couldn’t help laughing.
“But I want to try not to, chara, I want—“ His hands ran up her arms to take her by the shoulders. “I’m sorry to have made things hard. I want it to be different.”
“So do I,” Minead answered. “I don’t blame you for finding him strange, I do too, but he is your son, he is our flesh, you feel that now, don’t you?”
“I do,” he said. His chin shook; his hands fluttered over her shoulders. “I want to start over, before I die…”
“Oh Nocc, you’re in perfectly good health—“
“I don’t want to leave all this mess behind when I go,” Nocc went on, upset. “My oldest son, and from the beginning I was just wrong to him, when I knew I had no reason to be.”
It was the first time Minead had heard him admit it. 
“Why did you say it then?” Minead said, holding herself tense for the answer.
“I—“ Nocc threw out a hand. “I don’t know. I was jealous of—I was angry about your—making me give up other women—“ His head shook on its neck. “I’m not a good man, Minead. I’m sorry I’m not.”
She crawled toward him, settling one leg on either side of his waist, holding his breast against hers.
“You’re good enough, chara,” she said, crying too. 
“As little like me as he is,” Nocc choked out. “I know he’s mine. I’ve always known that.”
Minead tightened her arms. “I know.”
“I suffered for it,” Nocc flung out, angrily. “My own son—to have him look at me like an enemy—not to know his name—“
The sentence disappeared in a burst of angry tears. 
“You wouldn’t tell me,” Nocc cried. “Of course you wouldn’t tell me, me being like I was to you. But it—I think it made a difference—“
“How could I tell you when you were accusing me of that?”
“I know, I know, I know!”
Too much happening too fast. Minead had thought that was all dead and buried. Now here it was, alive and biting, transfigured into something strange. She had trouble reading him now. Trouble even knowing how she felt.
“You were right not to tell me then, I didn’t deserve it then, but chara—“ He broke off, shook his head, and balled his hands into knob-knuckled fists. “If you had told me, later—maybe it would have been different.”
Anger propelled Minead off the bed, across the carpet to the mirror, where she folded her arms across the bodice of the dress she hadn’t had the chance to take off.
“I felt like you were jealous of him,” Nocc said, plaintively. “Like you wanted to know him better than I did. Like that was my punishment.”
Her own face in the mirror looked hollow, scooped out. It was the face of a woman looking at something she didn’t want to see.
“I didn’t treat you right,” Nocc said. “I don’t complain of your punishing me. But I think—it changed how I was to him.”
She was still angry. But she also discovered, with a stab of remorse, that he was right.
“All the things I could never have done anyhow,” Nocc was saying. “Carrying him, birthing him, nursing him, naming him…he would always have been yours first. But…if you had let me share him…maybe…” He threw out a hand in defeat. 
He was right. Of course. Or else why had she never told him the name, even after things got better between them, even after they had found ways of loving each other. She had been holding tight to Keanrih as she held to him that first year, rocking him and telling him mathi would make it all right, while Nocc was storming about her bringing bastards into his line. Some part of her hadn’t wanted to let go, because some part of her couldn’t trust Nocc with him. Or maybe because some part of her had kept alive the wish to hurt him. 
Idair knew Nocc deserved pain for what he’d caused her. But none of that was Keanrih’s fault. And he was the one likely to suffer most from this.
“I’m sorry,” she said, into the mirror.
Nocc stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders. He was still tall, and though his skin was looser now, she still felt his touch with pleasure.
“Do you think it would have mattered? My telling you the name?”
His hands shook a little, and his voice with it.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
With one hand covering one of his, she felt how much it meant to him. He wanted to know the name, very badly. She knew, watching his face change with hers in the mirror, that he believed it would make a difference. That even now she could change things by giving it to him.
And looking at the reflection of his eyes, she knew he wanted things to change. He was ready to end the war.
She turned to face him. His joined hands slipped down her back to clasp her waist. She could smell his shaving lotion, even though the stubble had grown again.
He was in trouble. And in spite of all those old injuries, she was joined to him, and his trouble was hers. Just as his pain was turning now into a lump in her own throat.
“Would it still make a difference?” she said, haltingly. “If you knew it now?”
His hands flew to her head, taking her face in his hands, caressing it in quick, agitated little strokes.
“It would.” His voice was hardly audible, and he was close to tears. “It would, chara. It would change everything.”
Minead felt something rushing out toward the intensity of his longing. It seemed a long time since she had crossed the threshold of that room feeling almost normal. She felt as she had felt so often those first years that things were changing. As if by accident she had dropped onto the back of a galloping horse and now she had to hold on and ride it out or be thrown and trampled.
She clasped her hands behind his neck, and for a few moments she couldn’t stop crying.
Finally, she said, “Promise me.”
“Promise you what, chara?” Nocc said, gently.
She didn’t even know. It was just what she had needed to say.
Her hands went around the back of his head and held it so he was staring at her.
“Promise me you love him,” she burst out.
The waters around him churned faster. “I do love him, chara. He’s my son. I love him. I promise.”
“He’s my firstborn,” Minead said, gripping his head tighter than she meant to. “The first child of my body. When he’s cut I bleed. It’s hard, what you’re asking.”
“I know, chara,” Nocc said, his face twisting in sorrow.
“Promise me you won’t hurt him with it.”
	“I promise, chara,” he said, his voice trembling.
Minead let go of his head. She bent one knee, then the other, till she was kneeling on the floor by the mirror. She reached up and tugged on his hands.
It took him longer. But finally he was on his bare knees on the cold border between the carpet edge and the stone wall, looking at her from the utmost extremity.
Minead put her hands over her heart. Nocc waited. He probably remembered doing this after she’d named the other children, but she could tell he didn’t really understand why it was necessary.
“Don’t speak it,” she said.
“I know.”
She dug past twenty-five years of memory to where she had it buried, like a jewel locked away at the back end of a long, deep drawer.
This was the safest way to do it. Right from heart to heart. No need to get up into the mind at all. Harder to overhear that way.
With the name warm in her heart, Minead lifted one of her hands and put it over Nocc’s heart.
It passed into him. 
He seized her hand with both of his, and pressed it to his lips. He held it there for a long moment, his eyes closed, sighing.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Remember you promised me,” she said.
“I will, chara. I…it’s going to be all right, chara, everything will be all right.”
She looked at him, and she believed him. She believed he believed it, at any rate, and that was good enough.
Minead laughed, and shook the tears off, and got up.
Her hands reached around to undo the back of her skirt. She pulled the bodice over her head. Out of the shift, out of the corset under it. She reached into the wardrobe for the flannel nightgown.
“Chara,” Nocc said.
She turned. He was looking at her from the edge of a deep and troubled pool.
“Do you think…it’s getting warmer, now, and…”
It always surprised her. That he could look at her sagging breasts and stretchmarked belly and still want to keep looking.
She walked toward him, reaching gently to undo the stiff collar of his shirt.
“Chara,” he repeated, agitated. “I do love him, I love you both.”
She drew his head toward hers and kissed him. The strength of his emotion kept her there, unbuttoning his shirt as she began to feel warmth moving through her veins.
“Come to bed,” she murmured, sliding his shirt off his shoulders.
Whenever he looked at her that way, before they began, she could see the gratitude along with the love and the desire. It was the gratitude that reached her heart. Because that was what showed her how far he had changed. He had learned not to expect to take. He had learned how to value a gift given freely. He knew that it could have been much worse, and was grateful to her for showing him another way to be.
“I—I’m sorry, but I have to—do—“
Minead pulled the coverlet up under her chin, and laughed.
“Go void, chara. I’ll wait.”
Nocc opened the door that led down the little passageway to the master bedroom’s privy. He shut it behind him.
She felt warm between the layers of down and flannel. Warm, and happy, in the knowledge that from now on, she could stop being torn.

*	*	*	*

With his free hand, Nocc scrabbled for the door to the cupboard. The sound of his water landing in the pot would cover the sound of him rooting for the false panel.
Bric had advised him to put in the false panel. It was necessary, of course, but it made him feel a fool, prying and poking to get behind it, and always at a moment when any delay was disastrous.
 He finally had it open. There was only one thing back there. A little potbellied bottle made of red glass. Inside which was something that Lythril called ghilfeicc, but which Nocc just called magic potion.
Two good swallows would do it. Resisting the temptation to down another just for luck, he put the bottle back in the cupboard, shoving the false panel back into place.
Blood was already moving. The relief of feeling it move flew to his loins as heat. 
What harm was there in a useful thing like this? What harm in buying something that he only wanted so he could please his wife? Minead, as far as he knew, had never been able to tell he was taking it. So what harm?
And what harm was there in giving Minead a family without war, the pleasure of seeing her son and husband happy, and the hope of a joining and grandchildren? In giving Keanrih a normal life, and ending all that shame and difficulty. He had what he needed; he could give it to Lythril and she would do like Bric said and get the job done, take her four fifty and leave them alone. Everyone would be happy.
When he came back to the bedroom, he could see her there, turned on her side, the coverlet not quite obscuring her breasts.
“All right then, Big House,” she said, with that wicked little smile. “I will have you, just for fun.”
That was how she had accepted his offer of marriage. He couldn’t remember when she had started using it in this context. It was something that crept into their lives when it changed for them. Minead’s way of changing the past along with the present, making it seem as if she had known, when she said yes to the money and the house and the land,  that she had seen in him then the man he would eventually be.
Maybe she had. Who knew what women could know.

*	*	*	*

“It’s the simplest way to do it,” Maerin said.
There are times when I’ll let him argue, because it amuses me. It also amuses me to watch him try to figure out whether or not he is allowed to argue.
“I keep telling you, Maerin,” I said. “Killing someone is not always the most effective way to get a thing done.”
“But sometimes—“ he persisted.
“Murder is expensive.”
“You always say that,” he said, going sullenly back to his glass. “All the same, you talk about killing me like it wouldn’t cost a copper.”
“That’s because it wouldn’t,” I said. 
Maerin allowed the curses he was thinking to make their way to me.
“Let me explain,” I said, leaning across the table and taking one of his hands.
The globe cast its red light on his features, which were composed in an expression almost winsome in its eagerness to learn. 
“Idair believes that all human lives are equally valuable,” I said. “In the perfect little world inside Idair’s fuzzy head, maybe this is true. But we don’t live in that perfect little world. We live on this heap of junk, and on this heap, the value of a human life is determined by the people around it.”
Poor Maerin. Put too many clauses in a sentence and it just doesn’t work for him any more.
“Take you, for instance,” I said. “Where are your parents?”
“Dead,” he answered.
“Brothers and sisters?”
“Never had any.”
“Friends?”
He laughed. 
	“Wife and children?”
You won’t be a wife and you’ve killed all my children.
All he said was, “Don’t have any.”
“And according to the laws of our country, where are you supposed to be?”
“Anywhere but here.”
“So. You have no kin, no friends, and legally speaking you might as well be dead. So if I kill you, who on the blasted earth is going to care? Or even know?”
He thought for a minute.
“Whereas,” I went on. “If you kill Taric—“
“He has no family either.”
“But he does have Keanrih.”
“That’s the point, isn’t it?”
I shook my head. “Right now, Keanrih thinks he can keep things as they are, and that’s the only thing that makes him silent. If you kill Taric, little things like the hatred of his family and friends are going to stop mattering, and the absolute last thing he will wish to do is join with a woman he doesn’t want in order to gain his father’s approval.” 
“How do you know?” said Maerin.
I set down my cup.
“You see, Maerin,” I said, “the great thing about love is that it makes people predictable. It’s like a disease. The symptoms vary from victim to victim but they always run toward the same inevitable outcome. If you had taken the opportunity, while you were working with her, to really observe Theamh instead of just telling her when to hold up the bucket, you might have learned something about that.”
“There wasn’t time,” Maerin said.
I could believe that. A birthing is always chaotic. Or so one hears.
“Take us, by way of contrast. Suppose someone managed to kill me. I have no idea what you’d do. Could be anything from dancing on my dead body to throwing yourself off one of the turrets. But with a pair of lovers, if you take away one, you could win money betting on what that will do to the other. And in Keanrih’s case, it would make everything, from Nocc’s perspective, much worse.”
“Well so why did you want to know who he is?” Maerin demanded, sulkily.
“So I can manage him,” I said. “We’ll have to keep the people who know him far away from him until the change sets. I will take care of Theamh. You will take care of Taric and not that way.” 
“What way then?”
“You say he suffers visions.”
“Yes.”
“Make him suffer one.”
“Of the joining,” Maerin said.
The experience of being pleasantly surprised is one that Maerin seldom provides. 
“Exactly,” I said, with a smile that stirred his blood.
“When?” 
He looked as if he wanted to go right back out there and get started. 
“I’ll let you know.”
Maerin nodded, and began splitting one of the marrowbones.
“Are you going to kill Theamh?” Maerin said.
“No. Sorry.”
“Why not?”
“Dark One’s laughter,” I swore. “Anyone would think you were in love with her too. My entire life does not revolve around some smart-mouthed brat in a hreapa. It’s not about her. It was never about her.”
“What was it about, then?” Maerin said, displaying unaccustomed boldness.
“It was about Ulnach,” I answered. 
He knows the story, or he thinks he does. Don’t ask for it, because I won’t tell it to you. I’m saving that one for a special occasion.
“So what was Istria about?”
I drained my cup and filled it again.
“Istria was about the Project.”
He accepted this in silence. 
“So,” I said. “Tomorrow I need you to suborn me a cat.”
Maerin laid down the half-gnawed bone. “What happened to the last one?”
“Burnt,” I said.
“What do you need it for?”
“Bric called. I’m meeting Nocc tomorrow night. He got the name.”
Maerin looked impressed, and then doubtful.
“You wouldn’t think of using ravens,” he said.
“No,” I snapped. 
“Cats are so obvious. You can suborn ravens too, and they are traditional.”
“A raven’s entire brain is smaller than one of your testicles. They do not have what it takes.”
“Regnatha used them,” he said. 
“And where is Regnatha now?” I inquired.
“Telling fortunes in the Cretid Nation,” he said.
“Do you want your gleacha kicked back over the border?”
“No,” he said.
“Then go suborn me a cat.”
“Yes, Lythril.”
I smiled. But Maerin wasn’t quite done.
“You’re meeting him. You think he’s ready.”
It was almost touching, the concern.
“Oh yes,” I said.
“You know best,” Maerin said.
When he says it it’s not sarcasm. It’s submission. I can tell because he enjoys saying it. Just like he enjoys looking up at me as I prove to him that I do know best.
“Trust me when I say this. I own Nocc mac Deira like a terrier owns a rat.” I stood up from the table. “Whatever he has done to get that name out of Minead, it is a betrayal a thousand times more complete than any adultery he ever committed. Now when a man who has trapped a shriia for you, helped you corrupt an eighteen year old girl, and for your sake been foully false to the wife he loves wants to walk into a dark wood at midnight and tell you the name of his firstborn son…well, the least you can do is meet him there.”
I smiled.
Maerin now wanted me so badly it was causing him physical pain.
“I have something to see to in the cellar,” I said. “I’ll be back in an hour and a half. Amuse yourself till then.”
I could feel his lust following me as I walked down to the stairway.
Don’t waste your pity. Pain is good for him.
You’ll need the pity for yourself.

6
Out

	It didn’t have to be midnight.
	I chose midnight because I wanted Nocc to sweat for a long time. I wanted to know that from the moment he woke to the moment that day ended, he would be thinking about it. Returning to it like dogs go back to their half-digested spew. Chewing it, spitting it out, trotting back to mouth it again.
	Will he do it? Will he go out there to tell me he’s changed his mind? Will he not go out there at all? 
	He’ll wonder for hours. He’ll make a hundred different decisions.
I don’t have to wonder. I know what will happen. 
When the cat brushes against him, he will follow it. When it leads him to me, he will look at me, swallow once, and give me the name. Because he has already made the decision. The hard part is done. This last thing is nothing.
	Well. Nothing to him.

*	*	*	*

	“Thank you, Aiv. You won’t regret it.”
	“I’m sure I won’t, Rahill,” Keanrih said. “It only makes sense.”
	“Ah, that’s what I was saying,” Rahill added, nodding his curly head. “Listen now, as you’ve done me a turn, I’ve got something for you.”
	Keanrih’s eyes darted around the cottage’s little kitchen. He didn’t see anything that looked like a gift, and he was hoping that Rahill wasn’t going to present him with something Rahill actually needed.
	“You were talking to me about starting into the red sheep,” Rahill said, apparently reading Keanrih’s distraction as failure to remember.
	“Oh!” Keanrih hoped he wouldn’t pick up on the surge of interest. “Yes, that’s right, you were telling me about your cousin—“
	Rahill nodded. “Landimon, down in Naucht. They’re all mad about sheep down there. Now he says, there’s reds come from Amst, and there’s reds come from Kengda, and I couldn’t recall which strain—“
	“I was thinking about the Mypril Reds, there’s a dealer I know in Streheel who’s offering them.”
	Rahill laughed. “I know the man you mean, Aiv, and I won’t say he’s not honest, but if it were me, I’d want to put them out in a good rainstorm first, and see if they ran.”
	“Really,” Keanrih said. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
	“It’s a crooked trade that draws crooked men,” Rahill said. “Now the Amstian reds, which is your Mypril reds and your West Country reds, they’re the best for brightness and quality of the fiber.”
	“So they’re more expensive.”
	“To buy, and to keep. They have to be fed on a thistle that you can only find in Amst. You can buy it as cake, they deal it at feed stores. But it costs.”
	So Taric had been had, once again.
	“And the Kengdan reds don’t need special feed?”
	“No, they’re from Kengda, they’ll eat anything.”
	Keanrih laughed with him.
	“But the color’s not as good, Landimon says.”
	Keanrih nodded. “Thank you, Rahill. That’s—thank you, that’s really helpful. I really appreciate your going to all the trouble.”
	The look of surprise on Rahill’s face, Keanrih thought, was probably due to the fact that Rahill could tell he really meant it.
	“It’s no trouble, Aiv,” Rahill said. “Landimon can talk sheep till you’re ready to kill him just to shut him up.”
	“Well, thank him for me,” Keanrih said. “Idair with you, Rahill. Good luck with the ground peas. Let me know what happens.”
	“Will do, Aiv,” he called. “I’ll see you this evening?”
	Keanrih blinked. “This evening?”
	“Did you not hear the rain last night?”
	Hear it, he’d been stuck in it. And yet the significance had failed to impress him.
	“Great heavens, I forgot,” Keanrih cried. “It’s the Turning tonight.”
	Rahill laughed at him, for rather a long time.
	“If you had to be planting, you wouldn’t forget,” Rahill said.
	“I suppose not,” Keanrih answered. He ducked out of the cottage, untethered Leabra, and climbed onto her back. “Whether I see you or not, enjoy yourself.”
	“Safe home, Aiv,” Rahill added, waving after Keanrih and Leabra.
	He had been so worried about the dinner with Nocc that he hadn’t thought about its being rain instead of snow. So he wouldn’t be able to go to Taric’s after all, if he wanted to go to the Turning.
	But why not. Why couldn’t they both go.
	Taric never took fire at the Burning, so there was no reason for him to give it back at the Turning, and with his sour lookout on the Order he wouldn’t go just for the pleasure of it. Unless maybe Keanrih asked him nicely.
	To ask him nicely enough he’d have to do it in person.
	“Come on, Leabra. You know where.”
	He had said come whenever. 
It was already making a difference.
	Maybe Nocc was making a difference too. Because here he was, about to tell Taric what the hell, let’s go, what’s the worst that could happen.
	He knew it was the beginning of the end. That once he said it to himself—what the hell—it would be a matter of time. Before people started to know. Before he had to, one day, go to Minead and tell her why it was he would never be joined.
	So apparently he was getting ready to be ready to do this.
	It scared him. But it also made the wind taste better in his mouth as he leaned eagerly forward over Leabra’s neck.
	Headlong, indiscriminate, and all feet flying. Maybe not such a bad way to live.

*	*	*	*

	Taric let the sheep into the paddock. The snow had been reduced to crusts in corners where the sun didn’t reach, and the fields were wet and glistening. Winter relaxing its grip. Time to go to battle again.
	Bilash was worse. She tugged good-naturedly at the hay as if she were trying to take an interest, but she wasn’t hungry. The other sheep sometimes wandered by to look after her, rubbing their noses against hers or standing on either side of her to warm her. And the dog gamboled about them, already learning his trade.
	The dog was not a proper sheepdog. But Taric had decided he would do. Taric had so few sheep they didn’t really need to be herded, much; but it would cheer the dog up to have a project. Taric could tell he was intelligent.
	Taric shut the paddock gate and, looking off in the direction of Mablad.
	He wondered how he knew Keanrih was coming. Maybe he felt the hoofbeats, somehow, before he was aware of hearing them. Maybe foresight worked in ways he didn’t understand.
	Without even asking in advance.
	Taric had been afraid he wouldn’t like it. But he did.
	Instead of stopping at the edge of he field, Keanrih rode till he reached Taric by the paddock. Leabra was still settling herself when Keanrih leaned down to kiss him. Along with the taste of Keanrih’s mouth and the warmth of his hands Taric could smell the sweat on Leabra’s coat.
	“Come with me,” Keanrih said.
	He was flushed from the ride and a little giddy. Which might explain his talking nonsense.
	“Come with you where?”
	“It’s the Turning. Theamh won’t get to Felim for a few hours. When she gets here will you come with me?”
	Now he got it, but he wasn’t sure he wasn’t dreaming.
	“Keanrih, are you out of your mind?”
	“Maybe. You’d love me anyway, wouldn’t you?”
	“Half the Vicinity and most of the City—“
	“We don’t have to hold hands, we don’t have to be in the same part of the crowd. We’ll talk on the link and no one will know. With so many people who could bother noticing us?”
	“The world’s a small place.”
	“I know it is but today I don’t care. How about it? Will you come with me?”
	“Don’t know what you want to go for,” Taric replied, stepping back from the horse. “It’s just a big fireworks show they do to impress ordinary clods like me.”
	“You say that because you haven’t been to one of these since you ran away. Have you?”
	“What’s it to you whether I—“
	“I thought you hadn’t.” Keanrih hopped down from Leabra. “It’s a celebration, Taric, it’s about things getting better. Isn’t that worth celebrating?”
	Taric looked at him and thought, well you would follow him to hell and through it, I guess you can follow him to this thing.
	“You promise to be careful.”
	“They’ll never know we even know each other.” Keanrih lifted his hands off Taric’s chest and held them in the air to show how harmless they would be. “Promise.”
	“You say it’ll be a while.”
	“She does Felim last because it’s closest to the city. We’ve got till dusk.”
	“And till dusk we do what?”
	“Well,” Keanrih said. “I’ve been talking to one of the farmers about your problem with Bilash.”
	Around Taric, Keanrih had stopped calling them his tenants. He had noticed the change a few years earlier. At the time Taric had not said anything about it, except to observe to himself that Keanrih was finally learning some manners.
	Now his mind was running on all the things that had changed, in seven years, about him and about Keanrih. Weigh it all in all, things were getting better. Seven years ago who would have known he would stand here on his own land looking back at that face and thinking, I have to live here too, and the neighbors will like me no better for knowing I’m with a man and a landlord’s son yet, what can they think but that I’m his whore, but this is what I killed myself to get my own land for, so that I can be what I am and no one can tell me not to, and I would never have known why I wanted this land if you had not ridden up here today with this crazy invitation, and is that not as much as anything what this is all about, you and me.
	Keanrih was smiling now as if he wanted to say something that couldn’t be said.
	“You got all that?” Taric demanded.
	“I love you too,” Keanrih said.
	Taric laughed, and led Keanrih into the barn.

*	*	*	*

	Keanrih wished he hadn’t agreed to ride out alone first. Now he was sitting on the fringes of the crowd as Leabra paced in place, scanning the crowd in Felim’s town square to see if he could find Taric. He was beginning to feel stood up. And on their first date.
	Stood up by Taric and by Theamh, who wasn’t there yet even though it was almost sundown and Felim’s people were gathered on the common. The crowd wasn’t a dense one, because most of them were carrying fire. 
	Some had torches; others had snatched up whatever piece of wood was handiest. But for every family group on the square there was someone holding a brand from which blazed a flame that seemed a little too bright, a little strangely self-contained. Or whatever that subtle thing was that told you that it was shri fire, and not ordinary fire.
	He heard them coming. 
The rumble of the approaching hooves was answered with a rising cheer as the people turned to look up the path from Mablad.
	The shadows were long and the fading light was clear and empty. The first thing he could make out as he looked up the path was a horse, galloping toward him with a fireball on its back.
	It was Theamh. He could see her features and the shape of her body. But the wind that blew her hair back from her face also whipped the bright haze around her into flickering points. Her hreapa billowed white; her head, her neck, her shoulders and the arms he could see through the gaps in her sleeves were glowing bright yellow. She was carrying in her body the fire she had taken back from other towns. And she was already beginning to overflow.
	Behind her clattered a motley assortment of horses bearing a motley assortment of people, from Vinha and Mablad and everywhere else. They kept coming, at their different speeds, filling the square as Theamh cantered into the center, and stopped Cinhe.
	“Well, I’m here,” she called out, her voice ringing into the far corners of the crowd. “And I brought the spring with me.”
	After the cheer died out, a woman in a blue jacket emerged, carrying a lit torch.
	“You’re welcome in Felim,” she said.
	“Thank you, Helte,” Theamh said.
	“And so what brings you here, shriia?”
	Theamh played along, scratching her head and looking as if she were trying to recall something she had forgotten.
	“Well, when I was here on the First Night, I left something with you,” Theamh said, her voice raised so it would carry. “I came to get it back.”
	“And what would that be, now, shriia?” said the town leader.
	People were already starting to laugh, waiting to see how it would go.
	“Don’t torment me, Helte, you know how scatterbrained I am.”
	The laugh after that was sharp, loud, and general. Even in two short years Theamh’s absentmindedness had become legendary. 
	“Could you describe it, shriia, so we’d know what to look for.”
	The joke was that they were all standing there with her fire, or rather Idair’s fire, burning on the ends of their torches, and pretending not to know that that was what she had come for. It always took Theamh longer to do this than she thought it would, because every year there was this byplay at the beginning. Morat and Cleadd had put up with it, but Theamh really got into it, and people seemed to enjoy egging her on.
	“Well,” Theamh said. “It’s hard to describe.”
	“What color was it, shriia?” shouted someone from the crowd.
	“It’s kind of a yellowy…orangey…whitish…”
	“Would you mean Cathala?” called out some smart-mouthed child.
	“No,” Theamh responded over the laugh. “I doubt I could support Cathala in the style to which she is accustomed.”
	<Cathala belongs to Helte.>
	Taric had joined the crowd, and was watching. Keanrih started trying to pick out Taric’s face.
	<She’s the biggest cat you’ve ever seen. She sits on her gleacha in the square all day and never moves. Everyone feeds her. And she is kind of yellowy orangey.>
	There he was. Across the square. Looking over Theamh’s burning head at him.
	Someone else called out another ridiculous question. Keanrih said, <I have never understood why we do this.>
	“What shape was it?” Theamh shouted. “It’s about as shapely as I am, which is to say, not at all.”
	There was another burst of laughter.
	<I do,> Taric answered.
	“Is it bigger than a breadbox?” someone else shouted.
	“Depends on the breadbox,” Theamh shouted back.
	<The fire was a gift,> Taric went on. <She’s here to take back something she gave. That’s always awkward.>
	“What were you carrying it in, shriia, a box or a sack or what?”
	“Just my hands,” Theamh replied, gesturing with them so that the flames danced.
	<They do this to make it seem like a game,> Taric said. <So it’s easier on everyone.> Keanrih watched Theamh scratching her head in mock puzzlement. <It’s a courtesy to her.>
	And, a minute later, <You can see she knows that.>
	“…was it something you might buy at the market, shriia?” Helte was shouting.
	Theamh’s face changed. The crowd changed too, as if they had suddenly noticed what she was burning with, as if they were all suddenly struck by the wonder of it.
	“No,” Theamh said. “This is a thing of no value.”
	That was always the last question, and the last answer. 
Helte said, “Would you mean Idair’s fire.”
	“Yes,” she said. “That’s what I need.”
“We give it as gladly as you gave,” Helte said.
“Thank you.”
Theamh climbed off the horse, holding out her hands in their faint yellow haloes, and began singing in the old tongue.
	Keanrih knew the words to this one. So he was able to sing along with the crowd as they thanked Idair for the gift of the fire, and for the springtime.
	He looked to see if Taric was singing too. He couldn’t tell from so far away.
	By the end of the song, the fire carriers had gathered near Helte. Helte extended her torch toward Theamh. 
Theamh put one hand around the lit end, and lifted the flame off the wood.
	When Helte dropped the torch to her side it gave no sign of having ever been on fire. Theamh held the ball of flame in one hand, rolling it for a moment over her palm. Then she spread her fingers, and the flame sank into her, adding its bit of brightness to her nimbus.
	“All right now,” Theamh called, gesturing with that burning hand for people to come forward. “Hand it over. I haven’t got time to burn.”
	As laughter mingled with groans, people began coming forward.
	Keanrih couldn’t tell what expression was on Taric’s face. He could only tell that as always he held himself apart, making a lonely silhouette on Bearla’s back. Keanrih couldn’t always see Theamh through the crowd, but he could hear her voice.
	“Thanks, Elayn…Whoops! Careful…No, don’t worry about me, I’m inflammable…well, strangely, it can mean either ‘something that can’t be burned’ or ‘something that burns real easy’…yes, I’m both. Two meanings for the price of none…It’s all right, don’t be nervous, I’ve gotten much better at this since last year…please remember, I am a trained professional, don’t try this at home…”
	<So this is Theamh ni hUlnach,> Taric said.
	<It is.>
	Taric refrained from further comment.
	“Hmm.” Theamh looked at her hands and arms as they glowed with the increased burden of flame. “Feels like I’m a couple hearths light. Who’s holding out on me?” 
Nobody responded, except to laugh. It had become obvious that one older woman near the front of the crowd was holding a lit and burning brand behind her back, making a comically ineffective attempt to conceal it.
	“Eberant? What’s that you’re holding?”
	Eberant released one hand from the torch and brought it out to show. “Nothing, shriia.”
	“What’s in your other hand?”
	They laughed while she made the switch, and brought out her second empty hand.
	“Now Eberant,” said Theamh. “Do I look like I was born yesterday?”
	“To someone my age, you sure do,” Eberant countered.
	Over the laugh, Theamh said, “Well, I may only have been alive for twenty-four years, but if I could see fire in the waters of the Ubh I can surely see it behind your back. Come on, let’s have it.”
	Eberant hung back, producing the brand with a great show of reluctance. “Can’t I keep it just a little while? It’s so handy for the cooking.”
	“Talk to Gelshan about that,” Theamh said. The crowd turned its attention to a somewhat abashed, and much younger, woman who stood with a baby in her arms. “Gelshan forgot to bring hers out last spring…and it took you how long to fix the roof?”
	Laughter drowned out the woman’s answer.
“From my hearth or your hands, it makes no difference to Idair but it’ll make a big difference to your thatch. That’s a good woman, it’s kind of you to take pity on my youth and inexperience. All right, who else…oh my stars.”
	The last flame was approaching, at the end of a pole being carried by a girl of six. Theamh leaned over with her hands on her knees to address her. 
	“Look, someone even younger than I am.” She held out one fiery hand toward the child, whose eyes got much bigger but who refused to flinch. “You’re a brave little hedgehog, Adrina. What your parents were thinking is of course a different question—”
	“She’s been at us since First Night to let her give it back,” called her mother. “Till you have a daughter you don’t know the power of persistence.”
	“Well, now,” Theamh said. “I’m grateful for all your help, Adrina. Put it there.” She turned her hand palm upward. “Don’t you worry, you won’t burn me.”
	The girl brought the burning end of her pole slowly down to touch Theamh’s hand. Theamh grabbed the flame off the end of it. The child looked very relieved to be rid of it. But she stood where she was, fascinated, while Theamh absorbed it.
	“Now Adrina,” Theamh said, crouching down to address her eye to eye. “Your parents have explained, haven’t they, about not playing with fire.”
	The crowd laughed. Adrina nodded.
	“Nobody but shriias is supposed to play with fire.” Adrina nodded. “That’s one of the few perks that comes with this job.”
	“Yes, shriia,” Adrina said.
	“So be very, very careful with fire, because it’s very, very dangerous.” 
Adrina nodded solemnly. “Yes, shriia.” 
	“Well, thank you for my fire, and good luck to you.”
	Adrina took the cue and scurried back to her mother.
	“Do I have everyone’s,” Theamh said, raising her hands.
	“Yes!” came the shout from all directions.
	“Thank you for the gift,” Theamh called out. 
	She was enveloped in a sheath of flame that shimmered and buckled in the darkening air. Cinhe appeared not to find this strange, and let Theamh mount her without turning a hair. Theamh looked over the crowd, and raised one burning fist to pump the air.
	“Spring has come in now and winter is gone—
	Any who want to come follow me home!”
	Theamh shot down the path like a falling star, flames snapping behind her. 
Horses were spurred to follow her. Those standing climbed into wagons or carts hitched to other horses and rumbled after them, shouting to their drivers to hurry. If it was a race, it was a race Theamh was bound to win, with her head start and Cinhe’s speed. But she never let Cinhe carry her out of sight of the crowd.
	Keanrih wheeled around with the rest of them and galloped after her, pulling off the path into the trees. When he gave Leabra her head, she was something. Smooth, swift, with a keen eye for obstacles. 
	“Up, Leabra.”
	Leabra collected her feet and flew over the downed log. As her hooves plashed in the mud, Keanrih heard another horse’s hooves interrupting their clatter for the jump. 
	<Don’t look back,> Taric said.
	<Why, what will I see?>
	<Nobody you know.>
	He wouldn’t look back. But he would urge Leabra back onto the path, now that they had passed the wheeled and the ponderous.
	Keanrih hadn’t seen Tilhu, or his brothers, or his parents. Nocc was too old to enjoy a race; Minead didn’t like to go without him. It was possible none of them were there. Keanrih was surprised to feel almost disappointed.
	<Don’t look into the woods either.>
	Keanrih smiled, and allowed himself one sidelong look.
	Taric’s mare was slower than Leabra. But he was racing through the trees to the left, keeping up. When Keanrih was unable to deny himself a longer glance, he saw Taric leaning over Bearla’s neck with the reins in his hands, the wind blowing his hair back from that broad forehead and the lantern glowing as it dangled along Bearla’s flank.
	<Caught you looking,> Taric said.
	<Well I won’t again, so there.>
	<Would you put money on that?>
	Keanrih’s knees gripped Leabra tighter. 
	After a moment, he thought he could hear Taric laughing.
	But a lot of people were laughing, or cheering, or singing, as they came within sight of the gate to the City. The twilight had deepened to purple. Atop each gatepost there was a fireball blazing, and hovering over the avenue leading from the gate to the city center were globes of white fire strung over the center of the street like enormous burning pearls.
	Keanrih knew those lights were always hung in the City at night. But to the country people, who hardly ever traveled after sunset, the lights were part of the festival, a novelty to enjoy as they traveled down the broad avenue toward the City common. 
	Bearla passed him while Keanrih watched the others watching the globes. Taric looked up, too, for a moment, and then over his shoulder at Keanrih. Then he snapped his head forward and rode on.
	<Caught you looking,> Keanrih said.
	<Means you were looking,> Taric answered.
	The crowd was massed thick around the edges of the common. Keanrih led Leabra to one of the hitching posts, tying her up. He could see Taric, out of the corner of his eye, doing much the same a few posts over. And somehow, as they wedged themselves into the crowd, they ended up on the same plot of ground, looking over the heads of the women and children in front of them and pointedly, deliberately, not at each other.
	<You said you were going to be careful,> Taric said.
	<If you’re worried then why don’t you move.>
	Neither of them moved.
	Partly, maybe, because Keanrih felt Taric was becoming interested in what was happening out on the common. Theamh, as usual, was the last to arrive. By the time she had hustled into the center there were dozens of other shriias there, each wrapped in her own rustling sheet of flame. They moved about like a reflection of stars in water, breaking up into groups and crossing dark distances to greet each other.
	In the center, standing on a round stone dais, was Grinth. She was the head of the Order, and probably the shortest and definitely the oldest woman in it. She, too, was buckling with the heat and light around her, wavering in the darkness as she waited for them to settle down.
	<I suppose,> Taric said, <that as long as we don’t look at each other, no one will know we’re together.>
	Keanrih kept his eyes on the shriias, and smiled.

*	*	*	*

	Shri fire sounded different. Half the sound of an ordinary fire was the sound of fuel being consumed—wood snapping and cracking or oil hissing. Now, standing in the common trying to keep her bearings, Harani was learning that the sound of a shriia’s fire was as individual as the sound of her voice. Not the fire itself, maybe. More to do with the way bodies move. Slythe, trudging toward her, walked with that steady tramp that never seemed to get faster or slower, and her flame rasped around her in regular oscillations.
	“You all right, Harani?” Slythe said. “I know it’s your first.”
	Harani shrugged. “No harder than the Burning, is it?”
	Normally, Harani had to remind Slythe not to nod or shake her head yes or no. This time the fire made a faint windlike sound as Slythe’s head moved from side to side, so Harani could tell what answer she was giving.
	“So, nothing to worry about,” Harani said.
	“Not really,” Slythe answered, her voice as flat as usual. “You’ll enjoy it once you stop worrying. Damn—there’s Kelah wants to bother me. I’ll see you later.”
	Her voice was already farther away. Poor Slythe. Being department head was a lot of work, and Practical Magic was the worst. 
Harani heard a small firestorm bearing down on her from the northwest.
	“Theamh!” Harani called.
	“Harani!” 
	Harani felt the flame around her face getting hotter as Theamh embraced her.
	“Hello stranger,” Harani said, after she had released her. “Tell me why I haven’t heard from you in four months?”
	Flame rustled near Theamh’s head. Harani decided she was probably scratching behind her ear, which she did when she was embarrassed or at a loss.
	“I—I’m sorry, I just haven’t felt like talking much.”
	“Who can blame you,” Harani answered. “So tell me what this is like, all these people are making me nervous.”
	In an empty landscape Harani could find her way by reading animals or by using her stick. On a city street she used the noise from other peoples’ minds to draw a map of her location. But to be trapped inside a ring made up of hundreds if not thousands of people made her feel lost. In this chaos it was impossible to navigate. The fire running through and around her was distorting everything she could feel, hear or read. It was a sensation she was still learning how to adjust for, the trilling whisper running through blood, bone and flesh, blossoming at the edge of her skin into audible flame.
	“You’ll be in a circle with me, Slythe, and four other people,” Theamh said. “Lilea won’t be with us because she’s heading out to Kengda to watch out some dying relative, and I don’t know where Barant is…or Morat,” Theamh went on.
	“Yes, and I’ll tell you who else isn’t here, is Dalen,” Harani said.
	“So she isn’t. Wouldn’t have noticed.”
	“The things most worth noticing get by you,” Harani said. “You look around see those three people are not here. What does that suggest to you?”
	Again the flare from the shrugged shoulders. “No idea.”
	“They’re all on the Lythril committee.”
	Theamh said nothing.
	“Something is up,” Harani said. “They met yesterday—“
	“How do you know they met yesterday?”
	Theamh’s amusement at Harani’s ability to pick up gossip from all ends of the earth was matched by Harani’s own incredulity at Theamh’s ability not to know what was going on in her own yard. 
“Slythe said Dalen told her that’s why she and Grinth were late to the department heads meeting. If you would call once in a while, you’d find out things like this.”
	“No I wouldn’t,” Theamh said, a little bitterly. “I could check in six times a day, I’d still be the last to know.”
	“You’re probably right,” Harani said. “Well, first there were rumors that Morat had been truth-trapped. Then the committee met. Then on the night that the rest of the Order is cavorting on the common, the entire committee, minus Grinth who has to be here, is out there minding the store. Despite the widely held belief that nothing evil happens the night of the Turning.” 
“So what?” Theamh said. 
“So if I had money I’d bet you that the bitch in black is back.”
	There was a silence, which Harani found hard to interpret. It was broken by Grinth’s sharp, crackling head voice.
	<Get in position.>
	“Our leader calls,” Theamh said. “Our circle is over here.”
	Theamh took Harani’s arm and began heading over toward their circle. 
	Theamh never asked if Harani wanted help. She gave it, or didn’t, depending on whether Harani seemed to want it. Her knack of doing this was something Harani wished she could bottle and distribute.
	“Slythe!” She could hear the heat whipping around Theamh’s gesturing arm. “Come here, you’ve got the rest of your life to be hassled by Kelah.”
	Slythe came plodding over. They formed a circle with the other four shriias and waited for Grinth to start.
	A hush fell on the crowd. All Harani could hear was the roar of all that flame, the sound of feet fidgeting in the mud, and Grinth returning thanks to Idair for the fire.
	“…yet for the turning of the season,
	For the cold and frost that’s ending,
	For the iron earth unbending,
	For the flame that helped us live,
	For the good things that you give,
	And all the good that lives in you,
	We give back all the good we do.”
	There was a rattle from the dais as Grinth brought her flaming hands through the air above her head.
	“The season’s turned,
	And winter’s flown now—
	Hands together,
	Send it home now!”
	Harani lifted her hands. Theamh and Slythe grasped them on either side.
	All right, Harani heard from Theamh. Just do what I do, three feet to the left.
	Theamh had started behind Harani’s cohort; but losing her sight had set Harani back. Now, Theamh had two years of practice under her hreapa while Harani was still wondering if the Turning was going to take as much out of her as the Burning. Or if she would be able to remember the words. 
	Once the song started she wasn’t worried any more. Even in Old Tongue the lyrics were fairly simple.
	hand in hand around the ring
	magic is what gives life to the spring
	hands together, make the star
	magic is being more than we are
	Harani remembered to put her left hand in first. It joined six other flaming left hands. As they wheeled in their seven-armed star, she felt fire begin to flow out of her, feeding the pulsing ball of heat that surrounded their joined hands.
	hand in hand from me to you
	share out the burden
	share what we do
	hand in hand to take it higher
	send home the magic
	send home the fire
	Now the ball itself was leaping, carving a long line of heat through the air above them. She knew from Theamh’s mind that it was meeting, along with streams of fire from all the other rings of seven, in a conflagration hovering above Grinth’s head. 
She wished she could see it.
	<Break.>
	Everyone dropped hands. Harani felt strange—lightheaded but heavy-bodied, as if she had stepped onto land after a long time in the water. From the feel of the night air on her arms and face she knew the fire was out of her. It was gathering in that enormous cloud over Grinth’s head, which would be lighting up the night for everyone but her.
	Following Theamh’s lead she joined hands in the ring, which began circling in the other direction. Overlaid on their background was Grinth, singing in her age-cracked voice words hundreds of years older than she was.
	Idair, take your fire again
	From the hands of those you love,
	Send it back as warming earth,
	Send it back as loosened rain

Idair, take your fire again
	From the hands your daughters raise
	Send it back in green and gold
	Paint it bright across the plain

	Harani felt a twinge of anticipatory fear. Then Grinth said the words.
	“Linn ointe prithair, teir ag Idair!”
	Thunder burst in waves from the roiling space over Grinth’s head. Deafening as it was, it was drowned in the shout from the mass of humanity that was engulfing them.
	<Stay with it,> Theamh warned. <We’re not done yet.>
	Grinth was counting off while the pyrotechnics went on above them. <Four. Three. Two. One.>
	Along with the others, Harani dug her feet into the ground, dropped her hands, clapped them once, and held them up to the sky, turning her face toward the light she couldn’t see and shouting, with the rest of that sudden and air-shaking voice. 
“Ghaist maragam, mo linn agam!”
	Heat slammed into the palms of her hands with a thrilling shock. It trembled down her arms into her shoulders. Warmth spread tingling from them through the rest of her body, down through her torso to her legs and up her neck to her face.
	The crowd around her was an undifferentiated ocean of sound that crashed and withdrew and crashed again. What she heard didn’t matter. Her body was welcoming the return of its own fire. Lilea had told her to expect to feel it. But she hadn’t been prepared for the rush.
	The rite was over. She didn’t have to do a thing but wait for it to settle. For her body not to be shimmering in this strange excitement, giving off its faint breath of heat.
	She felt Theamh’s hand warm on her bare shoulder.
	“It’s all right, Harani, you’re out,” Theamh said.
	Harani just shook her head.
	“It’s something, isn’t it?” Slythe commented, phlegmatically.
	“Lilea’s right,” Harani finally said. “Who needs sex when you’ve got fire?”
	Slythe splorted in a horrified effort to stifle her laughter. Theamh lifted her hand off Harani’s shoulder and said, “Good thing Morat’s not here.”
	Harani’s face turned toward the sky. She could still feel the heat. They had drawn back their own fire, the flame they made from their own bodies. But the fire they had drawn down from Idair during the rite at the Burning at the beginning of winter, and then shared out to all those hearths, was now churning in the air above them, shooting itself into strange configurations as it celebrated its return to Idair.
	“Louder,” Harani said, with a little nod toward Theamh.
	Theamh’s mind began sending out commentary. 
	looks like a hand…there’s one like a leaf—oops, now it’s a star…
	Harani listened to Slythe too. But to Slythe, they all looked pretty much like fire.

*	*	*	*

	<You see that one over there, that looks like a rose.>
	Taric didn’t turn his head right away. When he did he could only catch a moment of it before another ball of flame burst into a seven-pointed star.
	They followed fast upon each other, blossoming and fading as the fiery cloud broke into bright fragments and gradually disappeared.
	“Where does it go, athi?”
	It was the voice of a very young boy sitting on his father’s shoulders.
	“It goes to Idair, sweet thing. Didn’t you hear the song?”
	“Who’s Idair?”
	“Idair’s the woman who made us.”
	Taric watched three of them burst in patterns that could be linked up to make the form of a running horse.
	“When are we having supper?” asked the child.
	He heard Keanrih laughing. He couldn’t help joining.
	<Priorities,> Keanrih said. <Where does it go, who’s Idair, when are we having supper?>
	“Soon, sweet thing. It’s almost over.”
	Taric looked up at the sky. It was almost over. He wished it could go on longer.
	The last of the offering blazed and faded, and nothing arched above them but a clear sky and the stars that were veiled by the lights hanging all over the city.
	Grinth’s voice rang out.
	“Our city is yours. Welcome home, and welcome to the spring. Idair with you all.”
	She made the sign of protection over the crowd and hopped off the dais.
	A burst of activity rippled through the crowd as it broke up. Taric found himself hurtled along with the people who were rushing off. He was half-carried out of the common in the stream of traffic, bouncing off half a dozen other people. When there was space to breathe, Taric was at the wrong end of the common from the horses, separated from them by interweaving streams of human and equine and vehicular traffic. Elbowed one way by a passerby, Taric stumbled and found himself face to face with Keanrih.
	Color was up in Keanrih’s face, brought blushing across the bones of his cheeks by the cold, the crowd, the excitement of the celebration. That made his brown eyes deeper, in the shadow of those long lashes and the half-light diffused from the hanging globes. Looking into them was a shock that went right to his thighs.
	“What next?” Keanrih said, his voice still breathy from running.
	Some lunatic that had come to live in Taric’s mind laid his hands on Keanrih’s wool overshirt, tugged him forward, and said, “I’ll buy you dinner.”
	The eyelashes lifted. A gleam of light set off flecks of gold in the brown irises.
	“You mean it?” Keanrih whispered.
	Taric looked at him, and accepted the fact that whatever had been in possession of Keanrih when he rode up to his farm, it had now claimed both of them.
	“There’s a tavern in the Fourth where they run a tab for me. It’s not fine food—“
	Keanrih put a hand around the back of Taric’s head and—did not kiss him, but drew his mouth very close.
	“If you think that I care,” Keanrih said, his voice low.
	No, Taric thought. I suppose even pride could not make me that great a fool.
	Before he could regret it, Taric began weaving through the crowd. Keanrih followed a few paces behind. Taric couldn’t see him. But he could feel him there.
	The hard thing was not looking back.

*	*	*	*

	Another time, maybe, the low ceiling, the dark beams, and the insufficient lighting might have made Keanrih think twice about the place. But Taric had always made him forget to notice things like that. Keanrih picked up his soup bowl and sipped at it, watching Taric tilt the liquid down his throat.
	Taric put the bowl down and wiped his mouth with the back of one hand.
	“What are you looking at?” Taric demanded, ready to be offended.
	“Your throat,” Keanrih said.
	Taric flushed.
	<We’re in public,> Taric said, setting his bowl down.
	<Doesn’t make you not beautiful.>
	At least it made Taric look at him, even if it wasn’t exactly a tender look.
	“So,” Keanrih said. “You’ve finally seen your own shriia. What do you think of her?”
	Taric picked up his cup and drank from it carefully. “She’s all right.”
	He could tell that she’d made more of an impression than that. Taric was just too bloody-minded to admit it.
	“Taric, have you ever considered the possibility that the shriias who raised you were just—well—meaner than average?”
	One short laugh burst out of Taric’s throat. He covered by taking a draught from his cup. Keanrih smiled, knowing Taric’s cup was already empty.
	“Suppose it’s possible,” Taric said. “Guess doing that job for no money at all might make a woman mean.” He put down the cup, vexed at Keanrih for being amused. “That and not having a man.”
	“It does affect one’s mood,” Keanrih agreed.
	“More soup, Taric?”
	The host appeared suddenly, pot in one hand and ladle in the other. He was in his middle years, with a protruding belly and balding head. Taric nodded toward his bowl, and the host began filling it. He was, of course, very interested in the fact that Taric was not dining alone.
	“Welcome to the Magic Kettle, friend,” said the host. “Are you in town for the Turning?”
	“Yes,” Keanrih said, flashing what he hoped was a pleasant and bland smile.
	“So you might not be back,” the host said, beginning to ladle soup into Keanrih’s bowl. “But if you do decide to run a tab, then when you have twenty-eight ticks we treat you to a free meal. And there’s always free refills on soup.” Having filled both bowls, the host replaced the ladle. “Will either of you have anything off the spit? Since it’s a festival, it’ll be three silver for the two of you.”
	Keanrih smiled at him, and said, <Is he taking me in?>
	<No more than usual. Go ahead, I’m good for it.>
	<Are you hungry?>
	<Yes.>
	<You order, it’s your tab.>
	“We’ll have two plates,” Taric said, lifting his bowl.
	“Coming right up, friends. Feal uidh in grathacht.”
	“Feal tu in grathacht,” Keanrih and Taric answered, almost together.
	The host walked away, ladle banging against the side of the pot.
	<Well,> Taric said, taking a swallow from his soup bowl. <There’s one man’s guessed it.>
	<You think?> Keanrih picked up his bowl, but found it too hot and set it down.
	<Your Old Tongue really is piss-poor, Keanrih.>
	<I answered!>
	<You didn’t notice the uidh.>
	<The uidh?>
	<Tu is for one. Siobh is for many. Uidh is for a pair of something.>
	Keanrih thought about how this felt.
	<Doesn’t seem to bother him.>
	<If he can get me to bring you with me, that’s two bills instead of one.>
	<Behold the power of gain.>
	Keanrih lifted his bowl and held it out toward Taric over the table.
	<Here’s to you, other half.>
	Taric let him wait. Then he picked up the bowl and clinked it against Keanrih’s.
	<Does it bother you?> Keanrih said.
	The pupils in Taric’s eyes encroached slightly on the darkening blue of his irises.	<I don’t think so.> 
Keanrih smiled tentatively. 
<No. It doesn’t. Not unless it bothers you.>
	The blue in those challenging eyes was ready to freeze into crystals. Well that had always been the trick. Melting him.
	Keanrih reached over and ran his fingers along the edge of Taric’s soup bowl.
	“I’ve been thinking about it all day,” Keanrih said. “Even before your friend the host came over to show off his knowledge of Old Tongue pronouns.” 
Now he was feeling it. It was one thing to think it and another to listen to his voice shake as he said it.
“You have never given a damn what anyone thinks of you.” Taric snorted. “It’s true. You care about thinking well of yourself and the rest of the world can go to hell.”
“Maybe,” Taric said.
“I admire that. Because I’m a coward. I do care.” 
Taric knew this, of course, but was startled to hear Keanrih admitting it.
“But I was riding over today and the thing running through my head was, nobody will ever think I’m normal. Even Sioanna fixed on me because I’m different from the other men in our set.”
“If you were like the other men in your set I’d never have looked at you twice.”
“You might have looked but you would never have touched,” Keanrih said.
Taric looked, if possible, vexed and pleased at the same time.
“Everyone knows there’s something about me. I can try to keep them from guessing what it is. But what does it matter, since they know the main thing. Which is that I have no way of being what they want me to be.”
He could feel Taric’s mind reach for him as his distress became palpable. Reach, withdraw, and then reach again along with Taric’s hand, turned palm up on the table.
Keanrih took his hand. He said, “My father....you asked me whether he meant it. I think…he might have. I think he might be starting to change.”
He wished his voice wouldn’t shake. And that the water wasn’t coming to his eyes. Not for the sake of the other people in the tavern, who were separated from them by dimness and noise and their own business. Just because he wanted to be strong.
“Maybe,” Taric said.
The pressure of his hand said more than his voice.
“Here we are, friends!” said the host cheerfully, plunking down a plate of steaming sliced beef in front of each of them and tossing down cutlery with it. “Enjoy. Taric, I’ve written you down, no need to settle up.”
“Thanks, Hibran,” Taric said, with a tightly controlled nod.
“Give a shout if you need me,” he replied, moving away.
Spooked by the interruption, Keanrih dropped Taric’s hands. He carved himself a piece and began chewing.
	Of course, Keanrih said, my father’s got a long way to go.
	Taric nodded, tearing into his beef.
	But then, Keanrih added. Seems like a lot can happen in a day.
	Taric’s knife and fork hovered over his plate as he looked at Keanrih.
	Like you and me going about in public.
	Like that.
	They kept at the food, looking down at their plates.
	It will get back to them, Taric said. 
	I know.
	And so what then?
	Keanrih looked around for a napkin, and saw none.
	I’ll have a choice, Keanrih said. I could make up some fnaa about my having run into you at the Turning celebration and gone to dinner with you to catch up…
	Taric swallowed with a grimace of pain.
	…or I could tell them.
	The swallow ended in a startled gulp.
	Well. Tell mathi, and see what happened.
“Don’t mess with me about that, Keanrih,” Taric said.
“I’m serious.” The tremble in his voice seemed to convince Taric, who became visibly alarmed.
“Keanrih—think of the consequences—“
“Do you not want me to?”
“I—“ Taric dropped his cutlery, having decided he wouldn’t be eating for a little while. “I don’t want you hurt.”
“I don’t think you can prevent them from hurting me,” Keanrih said softly.
Taric’s eyes moistened.
“Anyhow aren’t they hurting me already?” Keanrih said. “I mean aside from maybe breaking mathi’s heart, what have I got to lose?”
“Your home—your inheritance—“
“They’re not going to turn me off—“
“You don’t know what’ll happen.”
“There are other sons in our set who keep men and their families know it—“
“Keep men?”
Keanrih flushed. “You know it isn’t like that—“
“That’s the problem,” Taric said. “You don’t have a whore, you have a husband. That’s what no one will stand.”
“Won’t know till I’ve tried.” Taric lifted his hands. “Anyhow I don’t want all that. Do you see yourself coming to live in the na Poll house?”
It was good that Taric had stopped trying to finish his beef, because otherwise he would certainly have choked on it.
“Right. Whether they turn me off or not, you can never live there, and so—and so—“
“And so what?” Taric said. “You move in with me?”
The way he said it made Keanrih’s heart drop into his stomach.
“I guess not,” he said, starting to withdraw his hand.
Taric’s hands closed on his and kept it there. The blue eyes got bluer.
“Stop,” he said, his voice tight. “Tell me what we’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about—“ Keanrih shook his head, trying to convince himself it was really happening. “I’m talking about living together. If you don’t want to do that—”
Taric muttered something exasperated in Old Tongue and took a closer hold on Keanrih’s hand. 
“You have seen how I live.”
“I have.”
“One room with a straw pallet—“
Keanrih leaned over the table and spoke very softly.
“That pallet can’t be any more uncomfortable to sleep on than it is to thurk on.”
Taric gulped, and returned to the attack. “It’s the worst piece of—“
“—land in the Vicinity. I know.” Now his own grip was tightening on Taric’s hands. “It’s bad land. And you’re trying to work it alone. Any other man in your place would have a wife and some children old enough to pitch in.” He tried to turn the shake in his voice into a laugh. “I can’t give you children. But I’m all the wife you’ll ever have. It’s time I pulled my weight.”
Taric’s voice dropped into his chest.
“You have no idea of the work.” 
“Chara, that’s tarbhfnaa.” Taric’s head drew back but his hands remained where they were. “I’ve been around farmers since I was a child. I know the work. I’ve seen their bodies. I wasn’t bred for labor. My first week at that place is going to break me in half. But I’m only twenty-six. My body will learn to bear it.”
“But…”
Taric noticed that his voice was untrustworthy, and closed his mouth.
I like your body as it is.
	Wrought-up as he was, Keanrih smiled. Well, I’m sure the change would be gradual.
	Gravy was congealing on Taric’s plate. Keanrih took another piece of his beef, chewing to comfort himself as he went on.
	I like being with you here, he said. I want it to happen again. I want the fat man  with the ladle and the tally stick to ask me if I’m having the usual. Taric gave a brief, cracking laugh. Keanrih gripped Taric’s hands and leaned in over the remains of his meal. I want to be where you live. I want to fall asleep with you. I want to wake up with you. I want to go out into the fields with you and work all day till I’m ready to fall over. I have always wanted all of these things. I thought I could never have them. Then you said come whenever, and now somehow  it seems like they might be possible. 
	Taric’s lips were pressed thin as he struggled to control his face.
	It’s too fast, Taric said, fear blending with a sharp clean longing.
	Not fast enough, Keanrih answered. Seven years. I’m ashamed of myself.
	It isn’t all you, Taric said. I—made it hard.
	Don’t I know it, Keanrih answered. Just tell me. All those things. Do you want them too?
	Taric blinked. His eyelids were red at the rims. His head nodded, once.
	Can I build myself a little shed to paint in, out back by the barn?
	Taking a long hard breath, Taric forced himself to say, “If you buy the materials.”
	Keanrih readied himself to use his voice.
	“Will you have me?” he said, trying not to shake.
	Taric’s grip on his hands tightened.
	“If you go back on this,” he warned.
	“I won’t, Taric. Tomorrow.” He took a difficult breath. “Tomorrow I’ll tell mathi, and see what happens.”
	Taric watched Keanrih’s hands trembling.
	“It’ll be all right, chara,” Taric said. “Minead’s a good woman.”
	Keanrih looked up at him, and was ready to believe him.
	“How do you know?” he asked.
	Taric’s shoulders started shaking.
	“Because you came from somewhere.”
	His voice shook with his body. Keanrih slid onto the end of Taric’s bench.
	Chara, let’s get out of here.
	Taric mastered himself long enough to stand up and lead the way to the door, waving a casual farewell to the host.
	“We’ll see you again, eh,” called host at Keanrih’s retreating back.
	 “Feal tu in grathacht,” Keanrih said, and escaped.
	The streets were still crowded. But there was no one in the dark alley into which Taric pulled him.
	Taric backed up to the brick wall in the darkest part of the shadow, and pulled Keanrih toward him. When he held him Keanrih could tell Taric was shaking.
	“Is it possible?” Taric cried.
	The look on Taric’s face told Keanrih that words were not going to do it for him.
	“Let’s get the horses,” he murmured, putting his mouth up to Taric’s ear.
	“And go where?”
	“Just follow me.”
	Keanrih darted out from under Taric’s arms. Taric turned around and gave chase.
	“Where are we going?” Taric shouted after him.
	“Follow me home!” Keanrih shouted, untying Leabra.
		
*	*	*	*

	Getting into the house had been the only hard part. 
	Once the rain started Theamh put off her expedition until the Turning celebrations. She knew Minead gave the servants the day off; Nocc turned in early nowadays and the children would be out carousing. The only person she’d have to worry about running into was Minead. And fortunately, Minead had not been there to not see Theamh stuffing herself invisibly but ungracefully through a window in the kitchen and blundering toward where she thought the accounts room probably was.
	Minead wasn’t there now to see the most recent leatherbound volume on the shelf above the strongbox drift down to the table, open itself, and then begin, very slowly, to turn its own pages.
	Inside the shield she couldn’t make her own fire, so Theamh had knocked the ashes off the banked coals in the hearth and blown them up. Squinting in the weak light she pored over the entries.
	Flipping through the back entries, she learned that Rince was making almost twice what Carith made; that Trebor’s allowance had been cut in half last month; that a new colt had recently been purchased for more money than would have bought a year’s worth of hot dinners for six of Nocc’s tenants; and that Tilhu was getting a new ball dress for the start of the season. Interesting information; but none of it particularly suspicious.
	Until she got to the last week.
	Nocc evidently had a lawyer on retainer. At the beginning of every month there was an entry in Nocc’s handwriting titled “Legal,” next to which “200g” was entered in the debit column. Two hundred gold for a month’s work would seem like an awful lot to a laborer; but Theamh wasn’t sure how much it would mean to a lawyer. 
	The entry at the beginning of this month also said “200g.” But there was another entry under “Legal” two and a half weeks later, for “50g.”
	Fifty gold would get you a day’s worth of mindforcing from Lythril.
	Maybe Nocc had hired her to get into Keanrih’s head and find out the reason.	Or, maybe Nocc had paid his lawyer fifty gold to do some completely innocuous thing. What might a lawyer could do that would cost fifty gold?
	Ethir would know. But she didn’t have a link to Ethir.
	Her father wasn’t a lawyer, but anyone in business had to use them often enough.
	Her parents were probably out at a Turning party somewhere. But her athi wouldn’t mind.
	Theamh put a finger under the entry so she wouldn’t lose her place, and was surprised not to see it there.
	<Athi?>
	He was naturally surprised. <Theamh?>
	<Happy Turning, Athi.>
	<Happy Turning to you, Theamh. How are you?>
	<I’m…well, I’m in the middle of something right now, I had a question I wanted to ask you.>
	It struck Theamh that perhaps her mother was right when she complained that they never heard from her unless she wanted something from them.
	<Sure, Theamh.>
	Her father never tried to make her feel guilty. Which of course made her feel guilty.
	<You have a lawyer on retainer, right? For the family?>
	<Of course we do.>
	<How much do you pay him a month?>
	<It’s about one hundred gold.>
	Startled, Theamh began flipping back. Maybe she hadn’t read it right.
	<Is there some reason you need a lawyer, Theamh? I’d be happy to pay for it—>
	<No, athi, I don’t need a lawyer. Thanks anyway though.> 
	She was staring at the entry for the previous month. It said 200g. Twice what her father was paying.
	<How are you and mathi doing?> Theamh asked, while she checked the other entries.
	<We’re fine. We’re out at Geraine’s. Do you want to come? I’m sure Mielen and Edraw would love to see you.>
	<Thanks, athi, but I’m working tonight.Tell Mielen hello from me, and…>
	The entry she was looking at said “100.”
	It was from five months ago.
	<Theamh?>
	<Sorry, athi. Are you having a good time at the party?>
	The entry for six months ago also said “100.” So did the one before that.
	<…wants to speak to you about coming to visit,> her father was saying. <Theamh?>
	<I’ll think about it, athi.>
	<That’s good. We’d love to see you.>
	She went back to the first “200” entry. The book floated closer to the fire. She peered at the scratches on the parchment.
	It had been altered.
	The entries for the past four months under “Legal” had all been inflated from 100 to 200. It was easy to turn a 1 into a 2. It was less easy to turn a 0 into a 5. Which was maybe why Nocc had made that extra entry. 
	Four hundred and fifty. Half of nine hundred.
	About what Lythril charged for a charm.
	<Theamh?>
	She’d left her father hanging again.
	<Thanks, athi. You’ve been a big help. I’ll…I’ll come and see you as soon as I can.>
	<That’s great, Theamh. When?>
	<I don’t know, athi-- >
	<Mathi says she’s having Mielen and her husband for lunch tomorrow. Can you come then?>
	Theamh thought ruefully about the advice she’d given Slythe the day before. It had been such good advice.
	She didn’t want to take the time away from the practice. But she could.
	<All right, athi. Tomorrow.>
	<That’s great, Theamh. Come around noon.>
	<I will. Idair with you.>
	<With you too.>
	Theamh closed the link. She replaced the ledger and shoveled ash over the coals. 
It was suspicious. Highly suspicious.
But it wasn’t proof.

*	*	*	*

	Last night’s rain had cleared the sky, and with a full moon and bright stars Keanrih could find his way through the woods even without a lantern. Taric had been prudent enough to take one with him, and was backlighting him. Taric was better at planning ahead. Only stood to reason.
	<Watch out for the cat.>
	Leabra shied away as a gray and white cat sped across the path, terrified of the horses’ hooves.
	<You are stark raving mad, Keanrih mac Minead.>
	Taric had finally figured out where they were headed.
	<Mathi always gives the staff the holidays off. Drives my father crazy.>
	<So the festival’s got to be almost over, what if they-- >
	<Our stablehand has a girl in Peheot. He won’t be back before sunrise.>
	Keanrih reined in. Leabra stopped at the top of the hill.
	There, winking in the darkness below them, were the scattered lights of Mablad. Half the town was probably celebrating in the City. The other half was sitting quietly at home. And why should any of them disturb a beautiful evening like this to wander outside and watch two men on horses steal onto the na Poll grounds.
	Taric, for all his balking, had halted alongside him. They listened to the horses breathing, and the sleep of the town in the valley.
	<It’s the right place to start new.>
	<What in the world has gotten into you?> Taric demanded.
	Keanrih took his time answering.
	<I think it’s just that I’m happy,> he said. <That I’ve found it in me to change things. I don’t understand why now, unless…unless it’s that you said come whenever.>
	Bearla shifted her feet. Taric’s leg brushed against Keanrih’s.
	<I wish now I’d said it years ago.>
	Keanrih was too far away to touch him.
	After a moment, Taric went on.
	<They say nothing evil ever happens on the day of the Turning.>
	<Who says?>
	<The shriias. It’s what they believe.>
	<Do you believe it?>
	Taric dug his heels into Bearla, and started down the road to the na Poll house.

*	*	*	*

	Taric shuttered the lantern and hung it on a nail out of harm’s way. 
Inside the stable the darkness was thick but incomplete. He could smell the horses, snoring and champing in their sleep, the warmth from their bodies, warmth from the hay that exhaled stored sunshine up toward the wooden ceiling. If he closed his eyes he could still find his way. Keanrih was in Leabra’s stall, brushing her down. Taric put Bearla into an empty stall. It cost him something to go back out into the musky darkness that brought memory into his mouth like a taste.
	He saw Keanrih’s slender shape straightening itself in the filtered moonlight. The advancing silhouette blotted out the faint brightness seeping in between the planks of the door. The press of his body and the smell of his hair blotted out everything else.
	Those first years while Taric was still working for the na Polls, it had always happened here. Up in the loft or down among the horses. The memory of that early passion stirred green in him and he saw it growing in Keanrih too, in the desperate eagerness of his hands.
	“Is the ladder where it was?” Taric murmured.
	Keanrih moved to the loft entrance, but wouldn’t let go. Taric fell against the old wooden ladder, one hand grasping one of the rungs above his head, the other tight around the small of Keanrih’s back. One of Keanrih’s hands flew out to grab the ladder as his balance wavered.
	It had always been a delicate matter. Keanrih learned early that to make the first move was to command a peremptory and outraged refusal. On the other hand, Taric could hardly tamper with the son and heir of his employer without clear encouragement. It had to be mutual, and simultaneous. So there had always been a dance, circling until both were quivering on the same brink and the slightest breeze would fling them together. Not much said, at the time. A lot said later, on other nights when instead of bedding down in the hay Taric flung Keanrih’s land, station and family at him and Keanrih threw love back and dared him to reject it. Which Taric had never been able to bring himself to do, for long.
	In the dark Taric couldn’t see the things the new stablehand had scattered around the place, except as dark shapes in the corners. Keanrih climbed up behind him, carrying a blanket which he threw over the heaped-up hay under the eaves. The ceiling was too close for them to stand up. Keanrih lay back on top of the blanket. Taric leaned over him. Keanrih seized his tunic and pulled him into the hay.
	“Mo fearr chara,” Keanrih murmured, laying one hand on the back of his neck and pulling the tails of Taric’s flannel shirt out of his trousers with the other.
	Three words of Old Tongue Keanrih had no trouble remembering. Once Taric had explained to him about how “fearr” could mean both man and husband.
	They were wearing things in layers now, the fashionable set. It was easy to haul the wool overshirt over Keanrih’s head. Taric was vexed to discover a linen shirt underneath and, once he had found the hooks and eyes and undone them, a silk one underneath that.
	“It’s a plot,” Taric said, tugging at the final layer. “To foil simple folk like me.”
	“You’re not simple,” Keanrih said, pulling off Taric’s tunic and sliding the suspenders off his shoulders. “If there’s one thing you are, it’s complicated.”
	Taric buried his face in the curve between Keanrih’s neck and his bare shoulder. His skin tasted faintly of salt from the sweat of the ride. His calloused hands were less sensitive to the subtle changes of Keanrih’s body, the creases in his skin and the fine brown hair curling over his chest. So he used his mouth.
	you remember the first time
	always
	And something else he was remembering, as he groped for the fastenings on Keanrih’s trousers. It used to be Taric would hold back, staying above the waist, leaving Keanrih’s lower body clothed until the last minute. Reserving that marvelous gleacha and everything else for one big spree at the end. Until one afternoon Keanrih had joked about Taric having been the kind of child who always ate the icing last. Taric had been furious, and ignored him for two whole days, without even knowing why.
	Then Keanrih had climbed into the loft one night carrying something in a pasteboard box. He’d left it there and gone away. An hour later when Taric finally had to see what was in it, he discovered a small round cake, just like the ones the more fortunate children got on the anniversaries of their naming day, iced with white frosting and with something written on it in yellow sugar in extremely tiny letters.
	Most of the writing he couldn’t read. But Keanrih had taught Taric how to recognize the shape of his own name.
	For an hour Taric didn’t even touch it. He just sat there and cried, holding the box in his lap. When he was done he went out into the grounds and found Keanrih sitting on a bench in the garden. And just said, “We’ll share it.”
	What Keanrih must have had to do. Puzzling out how he had offended. Realizing finally that Taric could never have had much commerce with cakes as a child, since the children of the Order ate just as badly as the shriias did. Then recalling that cakes were something children usually got on their naming days. And thinking finally about how it would be not to have a mother’s name to add to yours.
	And deciding that if he couldn’t give Taric a mother or a childhood at least he could give him a cake. And a name.
	That hour he was crying over the box was the first memory, or maybe just the most vivid memory Taric had of being brought to his knees by love. And that was before he got around to asking what it actually said. He could still remember the way Keanrih’s mouth made the letters. Happy naming day, Taric fearr Kheanrih.
	It was later that he thought about what Keanrih had meant in the first place and realized that he was right. He was hoarding. Saving things up, keeping pleasures in reserve, in case there wouldn’t be any more later.
	He had stopped doing that once he bought his land.
	So there he was. With his hands on Keanrih’s naked gleacha, pushing hard into his mouth. Struggling toward the pitch with the same reckless passion that had driven them both out of hiding and, over the course of this long night, into…into maybe, someday, a life together, and at any rate, right now, the loft of the na Polls’ stable.
	I don’t want you working too hard
	what? 
Keanrih’s eyes opened, large and blurred in the darkness.
	on the farm
	why?
	I don’t want it to harden you
	chara
	like it’s hardened me
	Keanrih’s body heaved, and they rolled over. Taric felt the coarse weave of the blanket against his back and smelled the warmth of their bodies trapped in the hay.
	“Listen to me,” Keanrih breathed. “It hasn’t hardened you.”
	Taric was going to argue, but Keanrih kissed him, and when he was done Taric had forgotten what he was going to say.
	From so close up Keanrih’s eyes seemed larger than usual. And they were definitely wet.
	“You are a sensitive, tender, sweet, sweet man,” Keanrih said. “And beautiful. And good. You always have been. No amount of hard labor or hard knocks will ever change that.”
	Taric ran his hands up Keanrih’s narrow back to seize his shoulders.
	He brought Keanrih’s mouth to his. 
Keanrih was probably right. He usually was.

*	*	*	*

	I waited in the clearing for the cat to come back.
	The cat wasn’t enjoying the evening. Having almost been crushed by horses on the path, she was picking her way toward a house protected by a number of large dogs that were kept hungry. With a cat’s fastidiousness she was disgusted by the mud, and letting me know it. But she knew she would have all the prey she could handle once we got her home.
	The moon was visible inside the circle marked by the treetops. I arranged myself on the trunk of a fallen oak whose bark had crumbled into rotten dust on the forest floor. I could feel the wood under my hands, smooth and cold and dead. 
	Nocc was waiting in the garden, as he had been told to do. He was wrapped in a dark cloak with a hood that was meant to shade his face. He needn’t have bothered. Nobody would see him with me.
	The cat walked around him three times, rubbing up against his shins. She didn’t like doing it but I made her. Just as I made her stop and look at him as he showed signs of hesitation.
	Nocc walked toward her. Keeping a pace unnaturally slow for a cat, she began leading him through the wood.
	I had said midnight. But it was half an hour after when he finally arrived, trembling with the effort of the journey.
	The cat trotted into the clearing and hopped up next to me on the dead trunk. Nocc stepped into it, warily, his dim eyes darting everywhere as he looked for me. He couldn’t see me. I was wearing a shield.
	“Nocc mac Deira,” I said.
	For a moment I thought I’d stopped his heart. When he stopped twitching, his form was huddled small and frightened under the cloak.
	“Yes?” he whispered, his head swerving about in search of the voice.
	I dropped the shield, sending up a puff of fire. To Nocc it looked as if I had suddenly materialized from a spout of flame. His cloak trembled like a curtain hung before an open window.
	“Here I am,” I said, pushing back the hood of my robe.
	The moonlight picked up the links of the chain around my neck. He was taking his first good look at me. I wanted him to remember it.
	“Have you brought it?” I asked.
	The head, and the hood around it, nodded.
	“Think of it.”
	I read it off him as soon as he entered the clearing. But I wanted to make him give it to me consciously, knowing it was his decision.
	Keanrih’s name leapt into the air. I snatched it up and stored it away.
	“It’s done,” I said. “Expect a change tomorrow.”
	“Thank you,” Nocc said.
	“You will pay me the four fifty when Keanrih has given his promise and you have had the chance to publish it.”
	“Yes, Lythril.”
	“Follow the cat home,” I said, and raised the shield.
	Nocc blinked at me, or rather the space he saw instead of me. Then he turned to look at the cat, who leapt off the trunk and began walking into the trees.
	It was all so easy.
	So easy Nocc was already convincing himself it hadn’t really happened.
	I wondered what Keanrih was doing, at the moment his father sold him to me. Was he wasting the night in sleep? Was he in Felim enjoying his lover? Were they fighting, saying words that they would never get the chance to unsay?
	Up north, they put lifetakers to death. The last day before an execution is something in which their media take an intense interest. News programs are broadcast on their video boxes about how the condemned man is spending his last hours. They are fascinated by the impossibility of this predicament. What could you possibly do, when you know that these hours are the last you will ever have, that would not be a betrayal of their terrible significance? So they watch, wondering if maybe this one will beat the odds, and discover something really worth doing.
	But a condemned prisoner knows his appointed hour. Keanrih didn’t know that he had seen the sun go down on his last night as a free man. So how could he have found the answer, not knowing the question.
	I began my journey back. I had a lot of work yet to do before the sun rose.
	Of course I could have begun earlier.
	There is that superstition about the Turning. I don’t hold with it. The growing season is not particularly important to me, as I am more of a hunter than a farmer; so I don’t celebrate. I spend the day quietly at home, and don’t try to get much accomplished.
	Well after all. I have to have one day off.

7
In

	The bitch had stalled me long enough.
	Idair looks out for the poor, the pitiful, the impulsive and the intractable. Except for poverty, Keanrih mac Minead bore all the marks of one of her darlings. I’d seen her at work against me since I took on this case. His lover being a vision sufferer was not just my bad luck. That was Idair cheating. She can’t win a clear fight so she rigs the odds. But standing on the floor of the summoning chamber between the horns of the crescent I knew it was my time. I had the name. I had the power. Against his will and against hers, I was going in.

*	*	*	*

	Inside the loft Keanrih could still pretend it was black night. But his body had a sense for time, and he knew too much of it had passed. He would have to wake him, but it was a shame to do it.
	He had hardly ever seen Taric sleep. It was usually Keanrih who got shaken out of a doze and told it was time he got on his horse if he didn’t want the dark to catch him. Keanrih wished there were more light. The shape of his head, and the outlines of the arm stretched across Keanrih’s chest and the hand curled around his shoulder, he could see. But the features of Taric’s face were indistinct in the darkness, vague curves separating different shades of gray and brown. What he would know about Taric asleep he would have to know from his body, the feel of him sprawled relaxed and peaceful across Keanrih’s form, loose-limbed, light for his size, or so it felt.
	“Chara. Chara, wake up.”
	Taric’s head moved, slowly and then with a start as he pulled back into a crouch. Keanrih saw his head shaking a little as he recalled himself to his surroundings.
	“Chara,” Taric said, returning to his position but not his peace. “Are we both mad?”
	Keanrih swallowed. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
	“Are we really going to…do all that?”
	It was maddening not to be able to see his face. Keanrih tried to guess what he could from reading him.
	“If it’s too scary…we’ll just…one step at a time.”
	Taric’s hair brushed across Keanrih’s chest as his head nodded.
	“I tell mathi first. Then, we talk about what happens next.”
	“You’re sure now,” Taric said, one hand gripping Keanrih’s arm.
	“Yes.”
	Taric kissed him, and slid backward toward the ladder and his wadded up clothing.
	They were both used to dressing in a hurry. It was only a few minutes before they were clothed and brushing wisps of hay off each other. Then down to get Bearla and out the doors into the unmade world before dawn.
	“I’ll call you when I’ve told her,” Keanrih said. “And not before then.”
	Taric knew why he had said that. To force himself to the point, deny himself opportunities for cowardice. He nodded, and climbed onto Bearla’s back. 
	Keanrih expected the kick of the heels and the patter of hooves. But Taric sat there motionless for a long moment, silent and opaque in the darkness.
	“Ta tu mo ghra, go deo, cuideo,” Taric said.
	It was simple enough for him to know the response. “Ta tu liegich.”
	“Idair with you,” Taric said.
	Bearla obeyed the prodding of his heels, and made her quiet way out of the stableyard and off the property. Keanrih watched her go for a long time. He wondered why Taric had been driven to make such a formal farewell. It was a perfectly true thing he’d said. You are my lover, forever, whatever.  Or did “gra” just mean “love?” Or was it one of those words that could mean six different things depending on the sentence.
	He turned to walk into the house.
	The waterclock by the sconce near the servants’ entrance told him it was an hour before sunrise. Not worth going to bed. Enough time to get something done on the portrait, if he brought up a lantern.
	He knew there were some in a closet under the stairs. Intent on his errand, he didn’t notice Weroda until he had already collided with her, and sent the basin in her hands clattering onto the floor.
	Aware at first only of the cry of dismay and the water splattering over the flagstones, Keanrih had stooped to pick up the fragments of the basin before he realized what had happened. When he straightened up with it he saw Weroda wiping one of her red eyes with the heel of one hand, trying hard not to cry.
	“I’m sorry,” Keanrih said. “It’s my fault, I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going. I’ll clean it up, I know where mathi keeps the—“
	“—no, no, please don’t,” Weroda said, flying startled after him. “Don’t, Aiv, it’s my job, I’ll do it.”
	She reached the closet before him, putting her back against it and looking out at him with a mixture of fear and determination.
	“It’s my mistake and I’ll fix it,” Weroda said. “Please.”
	“All right,” Keanrih said. “But only if you let me tell mathi what happened. She knows I’m a menace, she won’t hold it against you.”
	Weroda nodded silently, and snuffled.
	“I’m sorry,” Keanrih said, again. “I didn’t mean to bother you. Don’t worry,” he said, with what he knew would be a nervous smile. “I doubt she’ll care about the basin, one way or the other.”
	Not once he’d talked to her, she wouldn’t.
	He started down the corridor toward the turret stairs. 

*	*	*	*

	When I call spirits I go up to a room at the top of the turret. I mark the sign of the crescent moon on the floor in blood, then draw a semicircle connecting the horns with a mixture of blood and ash. I trace around the inside of the crescent so that the oval I stand in is complete. I throw the windows open all the way around the room. And then, with a few choice words which you are not ready to know, I compel the insubstantial denizens of the 98 planes to appear and do my bidding.
	I had decided on the kraikk. Nocc would want the change to be immediate and obvious; and with a kraikk, it would be. You know of course that the kraikk are addicted to sensual pleasure. You know also that different kraikk have different ideas of what sensual pleasure is. Most of the pleasures to which they are addicted are, in moderation, harmless enough. But a kraikk, given room to run, will always push the host till it converts pleasure to suffering.
	With this in mind I had consulted Bric before drawing up the contract. In addition to a specific statement of what the kraikk would be compelled to do, it included clearly expressed limitations on what the kraikk would be allowed to do. Nocc wanted something that could live a normal human life, not something that would ruin Keanrih’s health and wealth in a month. Bric had made the agreement airtight, and I had translated it into Old Tongue. Now I had to find a kraikk that I could bind by those terms.
	“Tar kraikk anseo!”
	There was the familiar sizzling rip as I tore a slit through the wall between our world and the ether. In the darkness I saw them appear, solidifying slowly as if seen through a dissipating fog. Four squat, pyramidical shapes compounded of brooding orange fire. Silent and motionless, because not having accepted the bargain they were still bound by the terms of their plane.
	I unrolled the scroll on the stone floor between myself and the crescent in which they sat. At my word the letters blazed sharp and red off the parchment. Not having eyes they were not reading it. But when the letters catch fire, they catch the meaning.
I began talking them into it.
The kraikk heard my voice, and the power of the words held them there. I watched them consider.
	The first on the left was unsuitable. Its soul was wholly devoted to the pleasures of consumption. They say that food and sex are shoots of the same root, but I prefer to deal directly.
	The second on the left was feminine. To be more literal, it was the kind of kraikk that wants things done to it. A spirit with a mania for being passively violated was the exact opposite of what I needed.
	Far right was a kraikk who might be able to get the job done but would wreak so much havoc in the first thirty minutes that it could not hope to escape detection. Masculine it certainly was; but its thirst for violence would be hard to control.
	So the second from the right was the only candidate. I sent the other three back and waited to see if this one would take the bait.
	It didn’t budge. I would have to compel.
I placed the unrolled contract inside the crescent, weighting it down with round black stones. With my mind I dragged it across the floor until it was directly underneath the kraikk.
	The fire in the letters shot up to stab into the kraikk’s matter. As the fire ran from crimson to blood-orange, the kraikk’s shape began to break down. It slid oozing and vermilion over the parchment, enveloping it as amber does a trapped insect. Except that in this case, it was the amber that was trapped.
	The slit closed. This kraikk was in my world, bound by my terms.
	I lifted up the parchment. I laid it in the center of this new moon in the old. Through the trickling orange of the kraikk I could see the words written in fire. The words of Bric’s contract, translated into my tongue, written with my flame. And, of course, Keanrih’s real name.
	I spread my burning hands over the parchment.
	Go get him.
	The orange fire melted away, leaving only traces in the letters that flickered with my fire and its. I rolled up the contract and stashed it under the loose flagstone.
	The kraikk was on its way to Mablad. Maerin was on his way to Felim. And I had work of my own to do.
	I sat down in the center of the moon, and closed my eyes.

*	*	*	*

	By the time Keanrih had finished setting up the sun was beginning to rise. Soon he wouldn’t need the lantern. He sat on the bench by his worktable, looking through the lantern’s open door at the flame guttering inside, trying to understand how to make this thing live on canvas.
	He was so absorbed in thoughts of color, brightness and translucency that it took him a while to wonder why the flame was guttering at all. And then to look up at the open window.
	He had promised Taric he would be careful. He ought to close it.
	Outside the window the rising sun was burning orange, blotting out the branches of the trees. Blotting out the window frame.
	Blotting out everything in the room.
	Keanrih blinked. There was nothing but orange. And with it a sudden trill of pain in his head that ran down to churn queasy in his gut.
	The orange mist cleared. The early light showed pale outside the window frame. Keanrih shuddered on the bench, and got up to close the window.
	He didn’t get up to close the window.
	His legs remained as they were. His hands kept their loose hold on the edge of his bench. His face stayed turned toward the window. Despite the fact that Keanrih wanted, desperately, to get off that bench.
	He couldn’t make himself do it. It was as if all his limbs were paralyzed, as if even his eyes refused to move in their sockets. All that was moving was his chest, heaving and shuddering in panic, and his stomach, roiling as if it would burst.
	Palsy? A seizure? Was his heart stopping? No, his heart was hammering like a crazed bird against the bars of a trap. But his muscles wouldn’t move. And he couldn’t open his mouth.
	His breathing slowed. Air moved regular and smooth in and out of his placid lungs. And he had no idea why. Because it wasn’t that he was no longer terrified.
	The blood in his ears stopped beating. His stomach was no longer clenching. His body was bathed in a sense of calm, somehow expectant satisfaction. Every sense he had told him that he was not afraid, that nothing was wrong. Everything except his terrified knowledge that he could not get that body of his off the bench.
	That piece of sky framed by the window was all he could see. But his mind began going over other images. Weroda holding the broken pieces of the enamel bowl. The countryside in the darkness before the sunrise. The back of a horse and rider disappearing into the distance. A dark shape resting against his in a loft.
	His memories were flying past him in reverse order, unwinding like a skein of wool from its ball. Was he dying? He had heard there was something like that that happened to people on the brink of death. But how would anyone know that was what happened, nobody who died came back, and anyhow he wasn’t dead was he, he was breathing and blinking and sitting on that bench and his heart was now beating as innocently and softly as a child’s so what was happening to him?
	Now the memories were coming thick and fast, overlapping so he couldn’t even place them, tumbling out of his mind like cards from a badly shuffled deck. Keanrih tried to stop it, to force his mind back to the here and now. The stream stuttered, interrupted, and he felt a brief flash of pain.
	Help me, Idair, save me from whatever this is—
	Pain cut across the thought and severed it. 
	His body stood up. It walked slowly down the room toward the canvas, and stood there studying it.
	The stream of images flowed forth again. This time it stopped at Taric.
	It was matching the memory to the image.
	Keanrih didn’t know how he knew there was an ‘it.’ But once that came to him he was swamped by sudden comprehension. It had invaded him. It had taken over his body and now it was searching in his mind to find out who he was, what he knew, what he remembered, what he was like. 
	Get out of me, you bastard—
	It wouldn’t.
	He couldn’t scream. He couldn’t make his body do a single thurking thing. He couldn’t break its grip or get rid of it. What could he do?
	The link to Taric. He could—
	It would know. It would know and what if it followed the link to him, and took him too, and—
	He felt it listening. In a moment of panic-inspired mindstrength, he found the link and snapped it.
	His feet carried his body across the room, where his hands reached up to the casement and casually shut and latched the window.
	Then his legs brought him over to the work table, where he picked up a dropcloth and carried it back to the easel. His hands threw the canvas over the painting.
	At least he hadn’t had the chance to do any new work on it. The paint was fairly dry, and shouldn’t be too badly smudged by the cloth.
	His body turned away. It was moving easily, carelessly, as fearless on the inside as it would seem on the outside. The terror that was shaking Keanrih in its jaws could not reach his flesh any more than Keanrih’s will could. So there he was, imprisoned somewhere inside his own mind, divorced from the body walking across the floor.
	Something he had heard as a child came back to him at that moment. 
The thing had come in through the window.
	And it was going out through the door.

*	*	*	*

	Taric put Bearla in her stall and went to lie down on his pallet. The farm could wait for a day.
	He studied the plaster ceiling with a newly critical eye. If this were all going to happen, there would have to be changes made. He couldn’t bring Keanrih here. Not while it was only one room, while the floor was still hardpacked earth and where the kitchen also served as bedroom, sitting room, and storeroom.
	Bags of seed pratai stacked in one corner, worn-out boots piled in another, strings of garlic and peppers dangling from the beams along with a drying work shirt and a pair of trousers he had been meaning to mend for the past three months…and why should it have to be that way, when there was nothing to stop him from clearing that stand of trees up at the edge of the pasture and building himself a second room attached to this one, it would only mean some extra work cutting the wood, and perhaps he could get someone to mill the logs for him in return for…
	In return for what? And how would he explain it? 
	Taric turned abruptly onto one side and hugged the blanket around him. He wouldn’t think things like that. Not till later. Today, he would just believe that it would all work. That it was possible that they might have a happy ending. Today. If Idair would leave him alone, and let him believe, just for a day, that he might die happy like any ordinary man.

*	*	*	*

	So the thing wanted to go down the tower stairs. Keanrih wondered what else it had in mind.
	That was about all he could do. Half of him still didn’t believe this was happening. Maybe it was a dream. He didn’t ordinarily have nightmares, but maybe Taric’s talk of that vision and open windows had put this into his mind.
	That vision. That was what Taric had seen, the moment of his overtaking. And because the change was invisible, Taric hadn’t known what it meant, but he had known enough to know that window was dangerous. 
	All right. All right, Keanrih, there has to be a solution. Think.
	It turned down a corridor that Keanrih knew led past the servants’ quarters.
	Theamh. 
	When she saw him, she’d know. This was her business. She’d see it in him and she’d cast it out. 
	Relief overcame him. As it paced down the long narrow hallway he tried to think how long it would be.
	The thing would obviously not go looking for her. Most likely Theamh would find out when she came out to Mablad next for siulin. Unless his mother or father noticed him acting strangely and called her in.
	Supposing that didn’t happen, she would be around to Mablad in any case by…all right, he had run into her coming home from siulin in Felim	three days ago, she did siulin every other day and she always did Mablad right after Felim and then went around the circuit…
	It had been Mablad’s turn yesterday. 
He had missed it riding out to Taric’s for the Turning. It wouldn’t be Mablad’s turn again for…seven days.
	He would have to live with this thing for a week.
	No. No, it couldn’t go that long. Someone would notice. If not his father than his mother. If not his mother then someone, even someone like Carith, wandering past him carrying a mop and bucket of water and wondering what on earth he was doing in that part of the house at that time of the morning, because it wasn’t like him to be hanging around the servants’ quarters, that was more in Trebor’s line. Someone would have to let her know.
	But no matter who noticed, nobody would call Taric.
	Taric. Whose link he had just broken and to whom the last thing he had said was, don’t call me, I’ll call you.
	He would have given a lot just to have been able to scream.
	Instead, he drew back away from the woman he had surprised coming out of her room, murmuring an apology which was overlaid by her little shriek of discomfiture. His eyes ran to her breast, and the hands that were still doing up her bodice.
	He hadn’t gotten a good enough look at her face to know which one she was. All it seemed interested in was watching the flesh of her bosom rise and fall underneath the hand she laid lightly across it as she drew back against the doorjamb.
	“Idair’s hair, Aiv, you gave me a fright,” she said. 
	Now it lifted his eyes to her face. It was Elspice, he thought…or maybe it was Calarine. He had never been able to tell them apart; they were both dark-haired and about the same height and age. 
	“I’m terribly sorry,” his voice said, as his head ducked in a bow. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
	It kept him looking at her. Her lashes dropped over her dark eyes, and then lifted again to unveil an inquisitive and mischievous gaze.
	“Are you busy?” said his voice. “I came to ask your help with something, but if you’re needed elsewhere—“
	“No,” Elspice or maybe Calarine said, brushing the dark hair out of her face with one graceful hand. “What is it you need me for?”
	Keanrih couldn’t believe the look on her face. What was even more incredible was the stir of the blood in his thighs.
	“I’ll show you,” said his voice, as his arm took hers. “It’s the carpet in my bedroom, I’m afraid I just noticed a spill that looks as if it might be several days old.”
	“Well,” said the woman, whoever she was, maybe it was Elspice after all because it was Elspice who took care of the carpets and draperies and Calarine looked after the sheets and towels, at least he thought but he couldn’t be sure. “You show me what you’ve got, and I’ll see what I can do for you.”
	“Thank you,” his voice murmured, bashfully. “You’re very kind.”
	She patted his arm. “Don’t worry, little Aiv,” she said. “If I can’t get it out on the first try I’ll keep working at it.”
	Keanrih wondered how long he would be submitted to the pain of listening to this leaden banter. 
	Then he reflected that once the banter was over, things would certainly get worse.

*	*	*	*

	Some of them woke him with his heart racing. This one woke him with his head throbbing and his teeth ground.
	Taric put his elbows on his knees and dropped his head heavily into his hands. It was still in his head as clear as if he were looking at it.
	Keanrih standing by a tree decorated with yellow ribbons, in cream-colored trousers and a yellow tunic, holding onto a staff wound about with flowers, looking down a path that had been cleared between two crowds of people who were sitting on cushions on the grass. Watching as a woman approached from the other end of the path. Two women, actually—that shriia who was such a great friend of Keanrih’s, leading by the hand a woman with her hair piled up on  top of her head and wearing a yellow dress that left her shoulders and neck bare.
	Sioanna ni hAlanna.
	The shriia led her down to where Keanrih was standing. She turned to face the crowd. Keanrih and Sioanna turned to face each other, and took each other’s hands.
	That was all.
	Idair’s mercy, it was enough.
	Keanrih would tell Minead, and Minead would have a whole litter of kittens, and she and Nocc and his brothers and sister would work on him, and that shriia friend of his would work on him too, and they would break him of his purpose and he would agree to join with that little bitch from the big house in Felim, and it would all end that way.
	He knew it. He knew it had been too much to hope for. First rule, idiot that he was he had forgotten his first rule. Hope for nothing, that way you can be sure of getting it.
	How could he do it? Even given everything, how in the name of Idair could he do it? Was Keanrih that weak? Could Taric have been that deceived about him?
	“Forget it,” Taric said, speaking out loud because he needed to hear a voice. “Forget it. You have work to do.”
	He got up and strode angry out of the house, slamming the door behind him. 
	He heard yelping from the barn.
	The dog ran out to greet him, bounding on limbs that already seemed to be getting longer, launching himself at Taric’s face.
	“Get off!”
	Taric grabbed the dog and hurled it away from him. It landed with a whimper, and crouched away from him whining.
	“Mada,” Taric said, dropping on one knee into the mud and extending a hand. “Mada, come here boy. Come here.”
	The dog forgave him as dogs did, and bounced up to lick his proffered hand.
	Taric watched the dog. It was shooting happiness from every pore of its furry body, scattering love around it like stray hairs as it raced around Taric’s feet.
	What if Keanrih betrayed him? Would he have the heart to turn the dog off? To kill it?
	Oh for Idair’s sake, shut up, shut up, Taric, and go look to the sheep.
	His boots squelched through the mud toward the barn. The dog trotted after him.

*	*	*	*

	She was laughing. His hands were fumbling all over her bodice and all she was doing was laughing. And then drawing away from him and shaking a finger at him as if he were a naughty child caught with a hand in the sugar.
	“Aren’t you going to show me this famous carpet?”
	“You know and I know this isn’t about the damn carpet—“
	Chasing after her, the thing got one of his hands on her gleacha. She squealed, and stopped running so that his body collided with hers.
	His hands reached around to touch the rough fabric of her dress. One went up over her stomach to grasp her right breast. The flesh gave under his pressure, resisting slightly but not as much as the muscles of the thigh his other hand was squeezing.
	There it was. He was hard. He felt it, and obviously she felt it too.
	She turned around, and the indulgent smile on her face made him wish he could still feel nausea.
	“What’s gotten into you today?” she said, tracing his face with the fingertips of one hand in a way that threw his traitor’s body into tingling urgency. “You’ve always been such a good boy.”
	He felt his lips jerking back over his teeth.
	“I’m tired of being a boy,” his voice said.
	“Well,” said Elspice or Calarine, as her dark eyes swam toward his face. “I should think it was about time.”
	No, good spirits no, get away from me, I’m well as I am, Idair’s mercy if it’s too much to hope that this thing will have a shred of shame would it be too much to expect this woman to turn around and flee from the evil she can surely see in these eyes?
	It allowed her to pull his face forward and mash her mouth onto his. It sent his tongue in after hers. Its hands began pulling at the laces of her bodice.
	leave me alone leave me alone can’t you read me I haven’t even asked your name wouldn’t that tell you to leave me alone what are you meddling with me for anyhow
	It didn’t even want to undress her. It just loosened her bodice enough to admit one of his hands, and then hiked up her skirts around her waist.
	“Now Aivin,” said the woman, gently lifting his hand off her bare thigh. “I understand you’re in a hurry, but you want to enjoy the ride, don’t you?”
	no for Idair’s sake no I don’t want to enjoy this
	She began unfastening his trousers.
	every drop of blood you set moving in my veins is poison to me and treason to him I don’t want to enjoy this so why am I hard I don’t even know you
	The flabby loose flesh of her breast filled his mouth, stifling his breath as she took his zazb in her hand.
	don’t touch it it’s mine for mercy’s sake leave it alone
	Fire ran through his flesh now with excruciating intensity. His whole body was rising into fever, shuddering with besotted anticipation. What was he made of, what was flesh if it could be deluded this way? How could he be as revolted as he was if he couldn’t feel that in a single part of his body? 
	leave it alone will you show pity and leave it alone stop feeding this horrible thing	She laughed as his hands pushed her back onto his bed. The bed he hadn’t slept in at all that night. The bed Taric had never been in.
	I would stop it but I can’t I don’t know you but you must hear me it’s not human but you must be please will you please show mercy show pity STOP   TOUCHING   ME
	Instead of Taric he was with a woman he had never in his life said more than three words to. Instead of leaning over to kiss the face he had so often dreamed of seeing there he was crawling over this half-clothed woman’s body and feeling her legs part underneath him so the thing could send him into her. Instead of burning with love for him he was wasting and cracking in this other fire that would leave him and everything he loved a black and ruined shell.
	When he felt the shock he couldn’t even recoil. He couldn’t register in any fiber of his traitor’s body his revulsion at the wet, slippery thing into which he was disappearing. He couldn’t even communicate to this woman who after all had no idea what she was thurking with that she was making a terrible mistake, that she should never, never leave a window open when there was evil like this in the world.
	He heard her beginning to moan. And then his own voice crying out in passion.
	“Chara…”
	you bastard
	“That’s right, Aivin, keep going…”
	“Mo ghra…”
	may you bite my tongue off
	“…nno—yes—right there, stay there..”
	“Chara alanna, mo stor…”
	does it have to be old tongue, you son of a bitch
	“Push harder—push harder—“
	you’re a liar     sower of lies      falseness running in my veins
	“Yes! Yes…yes, that’s my Aiv, come on…”
	filth spilling out in my seed
	“Oh chara…oh Keanrih, that’s beautiful…”
	your rottenness    not mine    your treason    not mine   your pleasure    not mine
	“Thank you, chara…” murmured his voice, as his shaking hands went to her face.
	oh if Idair ever sends me the chance to thurk you like you’ve thurked me
	But he couldn’t. He couldn’t make himself sick. He couldn’t cry. He couldn’t lift his head up off her breast.
	“My pleasure, Keanrih,” she answered, playing with his hair and smiling.
	It smiled back. That was all it could do.
Because neither he nor it knew what name she used. 

*	*	*	*
	
	“Weroda, have you seen Calarine?” Minead said, bustling into the pantry. “She’s supposed to be airing out the ground floor carpets.”
	Weroda put the jar she was carrying carefully down on the shelf. Minead was glad to see she was getting less precipitous in her movements.
	“I think she was going up into the northeast tower,” Weroda said. “Something about the carpet in Keanrih’s bedroom.”
	“Thank you, Weroda,” Minead said, giving her an absent pat on the shoulder as she hurried by. 
	It wasn’t Calarine she was really worrying about. Keanrih had been out all night, and although it was possible he had just gotten caught up at the Turning celebrations in town, it was unlike him not to call. She reached the bedroom still half-abstracted, and was pushing on the door handle before she thought to knock.
	The door swung inward. A woman’s laugh ended in a shriek.
	“Calarine!” Minead shouted.
	She wasn’t anywhere near the carpet. She was lying on her back on Keanrih’s bed, her bare legs wrapped around his naked gleacha. In a moment Keanrih had pushed himself back into a crouch that at least hid his shame from her immediate view, and Calarine had scrambled up against the wall with her skirt pulled down to cover her legs. They could not, however, hide the stain on the coverlet, which only became more obvious because they were now huddling at separate ends of the bed.
	“Mathi,” said Keanrih. “Don’t—don’t be angry with her, it was my fault—“
	“Get dressed and get out!” Minead shouted.
	“Yes, Aiv,” Calarine whispered, hopping off the bed and feeling around for her shoes.
	“Go down to the ground floor and see to the carpets and if you say a word about this to anyone I will sack you instantly.”
	“Yes, Aiv,” said Calarine, transparently grateful not to have been sacked on the spot. “Thank you, Aiv.”
	She had the good sense to disappear swiftly. Minead remained with one hand on the door handle, still staring in shock at her half-naked son.
	“You,” she said in a thickened, rippling voice. “Pull up your trousers and come to my sitting room. I have words for you.”
	Minead wished the door were made of heavier wood so it would slam harder.

*	*	*	*

	It walked him through the door to Minead’s study without even a twinge of fear. It stood him on the carpet, moving his hands diffidently, bringing his face into an expression of contrition and apology that he knew it wasn’t feeling.
	Minead stared at him for a long time before speaking.
	“Sit down.”
	It put him into a gingham-covered armchair.
	“What in the name of Idair could you have been thinking?” she shouted.
	“I—I guess I wasn’t really thinking, mathi,” it said. “I’m sorry.”
	“That woman works for me,” Minead went on, smoldering. “I’m responsible for her. How can you treat her like that in my own house?”
	“She didn’t mind, mathi,” his voice said, still sounding timid. “I…well, she told me, anyway, that she enjoyed it.”
	Minead swept one hand across the clutter of her desk as she rounded on him.
	“That’s not the point!”
	“Well then what is the point, mathi?”
	She waited for several paralyzed moments before the answer shot out of her.
	“The point is you are her Aiv’s son and whatever she gives you can’t be given free. Just because she’s a servant, that shouldn’t have to make her a whore.”
	“But it’s not whoring, mathi, it’s just…it’s just sex,” his voice said. “She likes me, I like her, what’s wrong with that?”
	“Keanrih, you are not stupid enough to believe that your being a big house heir has nothing to do with the way she behaves toward you. I know that.”
	She did know that. So maybe she would start to realize that what was talking to her wasn’t her son.
	“I know, mathi, but…” His shoulders shrugged. “I’m just a man, like any other, and…you know, it’s hard.” 
	Keanrih hoped that the horrified expression on his mother’s face meant she was catching on.
	“I’m twenty-six years old, did you think I was a virgin?” his voice said. “I know how you feel about it, that’s why till now I’ve always gone out nights to…”
	It broke off, as if embarrassed. Minead’s face moved from horror to outrage.
	“ That’s where you’ve been? Meeting women?”
	“Of course, mathi. I mean…I like riding…but not that much.”
	“I don’t believe it,” Minead muttered.
	Of course she didn’t believe it. It made no sense at all. What had he ever done that would make this credible to her? Why was she even trying to believe it?
	“Well if all you want is a woman, why on earth wouldn’t you take Sioanna?”
	Good thurking question. He hoped it would fail to answer.
	“I’m…I don’t know. I just don’t want to be tied down yet.”
	Minead wasn’t really paying attention. She was still fuming over Calarine.
	“Well even so, do you have to go thurking the servants?” Minead said, her voice trembling. “Don’t you understand a single rule of decent conduct?”
	“I…I think I just…” Keanrih felt his eyes getting wet. “I got the idea from…how athi was acting to me…that maybe he just thought I wasn’t…that I didn’t…like women. I thought maybe that was because I was working so hard to keep it from you. I thought…I thought maybe if I stopped trying to hide it, it would change things for him.”
	Now Minead was crying. Silently, mouth closed, tense.
	“It’s been hard, mathi…you don’t like to see Trebor having women, you’re down on Bilhad running after that girl in the City too, and…I didn’t want you to be…disappointed in me…but then that made athi disappointed and…”
	It was making tears, putting a shudder into his breath and a tremble into his voice. So that the look on Minead’s face changed into pity, and she came to embrace him.
	He felt his mother’s arms around him. But where it mattered, they weren’t touching him.
	“I’m sorry, chara,” Minead said. “I’m sorry you felt you had to hide things from me. I don’t want you to have to run away or live half your life away from the house.”
	“I know, mathi,” it cried.
	“I just…couldn’t you…find a woman who was your equal, a woman who’ll love you for yourself? Someone you could love and join with, it wouldn’t have to be Sioanna, just…just someone who can be something to you?”
	“I…” It wiped his eyes with one of his hands. “I’ll think about it, mathi. I will. I’ll try to make you proud.”
	“I don’t want you not to enjoy yourself or to…to be what you are,” Minead said. 
	is that what you would have said
“I just want you to leave the servants alone. Can you do that? For me?”
	if I had been able to tell you     
	It moved his head up and down. “I will, mathi. For you.”
	don’t believe me
	She hugged him again, hard, releasing him suddenly.
	don’t believe me	see through me
	“Thank you, chara.” Her red eyes blinked. “Now I have to go and see that Calarine’s making out all right with the carpets. You think about what I’ve said to you.”
	“Yes, mathi, of course.”
	“All right then,” Minead said, and left the room.
	mathi 
It turned around and left after her, heading down the hallway in the opposite direction.
	She hadn’t known. She hadn’t seen it in him. She had somehow come to accept this monstrous thing as her son.
	If she couldn’t tell it wasn’t him…nobody would.
	Nobody but Taric.
	Who must certainly, right about now, be getting very impatient with him.

*	*	*	*
	
	“Nocc,” Minead said, slamming the door of his study shut.
	Nocc stood up behind his desk. “What is it, chara? What’s happened?”
	“I just found your son in bed with that slut Calarine.”
	Nocc sighed. “I’ve tried talking to him, chara, but—“
	“Not Trebor,” Minead bit off. “Keanrih.”
	Nocc couldn’t believe his ears. “Keanrih?”
	Minead nodded. “I could hardly believe it. I thought, well, I thought at least one of my boys has manners. The more fool me.”
	She was upset, he could see that. If she saw that he was glad to hear it, she would certainly make him share her misery.
	“Chara, he’s all right, it’s probably the first time he’s done it. You talked to him, didn’t you?” 
	He put his arms around her. She nodded, moving her head over his shoulder.
	“And I’ll talk to him too, chara. I’ll see to it.” He patted her back gently. “I’m sorry, chara, it’s just something that happens in a house with sons.”
	Minead broke from his embrace and went to the window, turning her back on him.
	“I know it’s not right, chara. I will speak to him. But at least…at least…”
	“At least he’s normal?” Minead snapped, turning around. “Is that what you’re about to tell me? That this is normal?”
	“Well,” Nocc said hesitantly. “It’s more normal than…than…”
	“You go and talk to him and you tell him that it is not normal for a man to take advantage of his money and his position!”
	“Yes, chara,” Nocc said, nodding. “Of course. I did say I would.”
	She sighed, and the anger seemed to go out of her.
	“I know, chara, I’m…I’m sorry. It’s just…” 
	Minead dropped into a chair wearily.
	“I suppose it’s just the old story,” she said. “No mother wants her son with another woman, really. Especially, no mother wants to have to see it.”
	“Oh, chara,” Nocc said, stroking her hair gently. “Of course you’re upset. You stay here. I’ll talk to him.”
	“Thank you, chara,” she said.
	Nocc left the room quickly, hoping she had been too upset to read him.

*	*	*	*

	“Well, Keanrih,” said Nocc, for the third time.
	“Yes, athi?” the thing answered.
	Nocc stood awkwardly by the door of Keanrih’s bedroom, his hand on the same bone handle. Keanrih looked at him from where his body lay sprawled on the rumpled coverlet, and allowed hope to rise in him once more.
	“I…your mother asked me to speak to you about what happened,” Nocc said, coming in and closing the door.
	His athi had never given him credit for being a man. Keanrih had come to believe that Nocc had been convinced Keanrih didn’t like women even before Keanrih had been old enough to know what to do with one. Surely he would realize something was wrong. Surely that bitter black prejudice Nocc had formed against him would, for once, come in handy.
	“Listen, son,” Nocc said, sitting down on one end of the bed as Keanrih’s body sat up at the other. “Your mother is upset, naturally…she has to manage the servants, and of course it makes them harder to deal with if they feel they have a hold over one of the sons. You…you just need to be discreet about it, and you need to know how to handle them, if you’re going to do this, which of course you shouldn’t.”
	The thing was nodding Keanrih’s head attentively. Keanrih thought that he had never seen anything as grotesque as his own father’s face.
	He was happy. He was trying to be serious and solemn but he could barely stop himself from breaking into a face-splitting grin.
	“It’s better…it would be a lot better, if you would find a woman of your own station, one you could make a real match with. It’s…I used to feel about women, like you do, but all of that changed when I joined with your mother, and…” His thin shoulders shrugged. “I’m better off this way. I know men who would scoff at me for saying it, but it really is true.”
	It nodded his head again. “I know, athi.”
	“Till then…you really can’t go interfering with the servants. You know how your mother feels about that.”
	“Yes, I know, it’s just…it’s hard, athi. You know how it is.”
	Nocc nodded, and patted Keanrih’s knee.
	“I know, son. But that’s part of being a man, is having a little self-control.”
	How much self-control did you ever have when you were my age, and for Idair’s sake how can you think I wouldn’t know you’re sitting there beside yourself with relief because now you think I’ve finally become something you can bear to acknowledge as the child of your body?
	“You know Ridac is still asking me about that match,” Nocc said. “I think Sioanna would still take you, if you could bring yourself to get excited about her.”
	“I…I know, athi. I will think about it. I promise.”
	Nocc smiled.
	“That’s my boy,” he said, giving his knee a final pat. “Now…son…you should really make it up to Calarine, it’s the fair thing to do.”
	“Make it up how?”
	“It’s customary to…well, it’s a nice gesture to give her a little gift, you know, to show you appreciate her properly. Not money.”
	Oh of course not money. One wouldn’t want her to feel like a whore. One wouldn’t want oneself to feel like a man who had to pay for it.
	“A nice dress, something she couldn’t buy on her wages. Or jewelry, or a new pair of slippers, something like that. Just to show you haven’t taken her for granted.”
	The thing made him nod in understanding and agreement. And too true he was understanding plenty. Understanding, finally, why Taric had refused for so long to let Keanrih give him even the smallest thing. That little naming-day cake had been the first thing he would take from him without a fight, and then only because it was a thing of no value that they could both share, and now he regretted that he had ever argued with him about it. Of course Taric was right not to accept anything that would turn what they had into what he had just done.
	“I will, athi.”
	“That’s settled then.” Nocc stood up. “I’m—you will think about Sioanna, won’t you?”
	“Yes, athi. I’ll think about it.”
	“Good man.” His mouth twitched. “You’re a good boy, Keanrih. I know you’ll do me proud.”
	The first kind words he’d heard from his father in years and this was how he’d earned them.
	“Thank you, athi.”
	Listen to me, Idair, he said desperately as the door swung shut. If you get this thing out of me, if my body can ever be drained of this poison, I will not waste another minute trying to please him. I will not let fear of that bastard my father keep me away from him for another thurking second. There is only one man in the world that loves me and every minute I didn’t spend with him is a knife in my back now. If this was a lesson I have learned it, now please, please, will you get it  out of me, for mercy’s sake.
	It got up from the bed and opened the door again.
	It was still in him. The thrill of triumph was flush in his blood. Awakening a thirst for more.
	All right Idair. It started down the turret steps. If you can’t get it out of me, then kill me. Just kill me. Don’t make me suffer this.
	It kept moving. Surefooted. Confident. In possession.

*	*	*	*

	He hadn’t called.
	A day of furious backbreaking fieldwork had pulverized itself into dusk and he hadn’t called. He hadn’t told them. Or he had, and would never call again.
	Taric knelt in the straw and dung by Bilash, looking at her head resting on his knee. He had taken the chance, ridden down to the market in Felim and got her the cake. He’d had the time. All the way down and all the way back trying not to remember that it was Keanrih told him about the cake, that Keanrih had been worrying about Bilash too and figured out how to get the information out of one of the farmers without making it look like he was asking for Taric, that it was because of him that Bilash was looking a little better now and maybe about to be on the mend, and if it was all over then who on the green earth would do a thing like that for him or do anything for him but take him for a fool the way that trader had done, the way, the way, the way, it seemed, Keanrih had done too.
	Bilash had certainly gulped that cake down as if she had been dreaming of it for months. That farmer had been right. And if she kept eating like that, who was to say she wouldn’t make it.
	The dog was curled up by his knees, head on his paws, watching Bilash and turning his head sometimes to watch Taric. The dog, the sheep, that little portrait he had hidden under his pallet. That was all he had to show that Keanrih had ever been there.
	He still wasn’t calling.
	Seven years. Seven years, and in one day, he could lose it all.
	The dog moved his furry chin from its own paws over to Taric’s bent knee, and rested there, looking up at him from under its comical brown eyebrows.
	Of course he couldn’t.
	He was being an idiot. Idair showed him these things as warnings. He’d seen the charm ahead of time, and foiled that. He could foil this. That’s what it was for. After all he’d only seen the beginning of the ceremony. Who’s to say he couldn’t…couldn’t…what, ride in on a horse and sweep him up into the saddle?
	Well, it was possible. They said anything was possible. And Keanrih would probably see the humor in it.
	And who knew why he hadn’t called. Maybe Minead was out, and he wouldn’t be able to talk to her until evening. Maybe once he broke it to her she had locked him in a room and ranted at him for hours on end. It was possible he’d gotten cold feet and failed to break it, and was afraid of what Taric would say.
	Well, anything was better than this agony. 
	<Keanrih.>
	It wasn’t even that there was no answer. He couldn’t open the link.
	He didn’t know exactly how he knew the difference. But there was nothing there at the other end of it, not even a blank wall. It was broken.
	He’d broken their link.
	What could have made him do that, unless it was that he was planning to break with him?
	Or unless he was dead.
	Taric felt cold slow water run in his veins.
	“Mada,” he said, scratching the dog’s head with one worried hand. “You’re a good boy, Mada. Aren’t you, Mada. See, isn’t Bilash doing better?”
	The dog looked back at Bilash. Who’s to say he didn’t understand.
	Keanrih couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be dead today and be going to join with Sioanna in the future.
	Taric got up from the floor, dusted off his worn trousers, and went into the house.
	He didn’t light the stove. He didn’t want to eat. He didn’t even take off his boots. He just lay on the pallet looking up at the beams and wishing he could beat his own brains out so he could stop thinking.
	He hadn’t called. He would never call.
	It was over.
	Just like that.

*	*	*	*

	<Lythril?>
	<Bric.>
	I got up off the floor and began wiping out the moon circle. My joints were stiff from long sitting.
	<I heard from Nocc.>
	<And?>
	<We’ve got results.>
	I stopped with the wet rag in one hand, and sat down on the damp stone floor.
	<Keanrih’s given his promise.>
	<Not yet. But he has thurked a serving wench. Nocc is thrilled.>
	My laugh rang inside the empty chamber and spilled out of the open windows.
	<Hit him up for the four fifty as soon as you hear the promise published.>
	<I will.>
	<Bric.>
	<Yes, Lythril?>
	<You’ve done well.>
	He was startled to hear me say it.
	<Thank you, Lythril.>
	<You can go about your other business. But make sure as soon as he publishes the engagement, I know about it.>
	<Of course, Lythril.>
	<Have a good night.>
	I closed the link. Then I opened the door, without my hands. I knew who was on the other side of it.
	Maerin looked startled. It ought not to surprise him. And he ought to have had time to compose his face. At least he had put the stone knife away where he thought I couldn’t see it.
	“You’re half an hour too late, Maerin,” I said, standing up.
	He shifted from one foot to the other.	
	“You know I can see you, when I’m out of my body,” I went on, walking toward him. “You know I would never leave it long enough for you to get to me. I don’t understand why you still try.”
	“Optimistic, I guess,” Maerin said.
	Because I was still pleased with the news about Keanrih, I laughed.
	“You would never do it,” I said, putting my hands around his neck and speaking into his ear. “You’re nothing without me, and you know it.”
	“I’ll show you different,” he growled.
	He would try, of course. But in the end, he would be there on his back listening to those same four questions, shouting back the same four answers. Smeared with the blood and ash in which I had rolled him, as abject and as violated as that pitiful kraikk-ridden creature I had just created.
	The shriias always say, don’t they, that nobody can predict the future.
	I can.

8
Occupied
	
A job is never over until the client has paid in full. 
But I could afford to let this one coast. Keanrih was taken; Nocc was happy; and nobody was any the wiser. Minead by now would have seen the same results Nocc was so pleased with; but she would never say anything. She had given Nocc that name. She hadn’t known what he planned to do with it. But there was only one reason she could have given it to him, and that was because she still believed that he and Keanrih could be reconciled. She was hoping to have it all—peace in her house, a cozy little family that would reproduce other cozy little families, her husband and son smiling happily at each other over their evening meal. So she would try to believe that the change was natural. Because she wanted Keanrih to procreate just as badly as Nocc did. It’s how it is with mothers. They have sacrificed themselves to this urge and they won’t rest until everyone else has.
I had Keanrih and I had Nocc. If this went on long, I would have Minead too.
And why shouldn’t it go on. The kraikk would keep Keanrih away from anyone who would help him. Maerin’s false vision had cured Keanrih’s lover of wanting to interfere. Nocc would never let a shriia near him. It’s true that Theamh was not one to take Nocc’s no for an answer, if she got a notion that Keanrih was in trouble. Which was why I had made sure to keep her occupied.
It pleased me that it should be in Kengda. From the earliest time I can remember my greatest ambition was to get out of that sinkhole. I had worked hard to make it happen, and so had Ulnach. And now here was Ulnach’s only daughter, bogged down in the same swamp that had spawned both of us. 
It was Ulnach’s fault that I made the mistake of taking them on in the first place. I assumed that any daughter of hers would have to have some potential.
	You see, if a woman is going to love anyone, she will probably find a way to love her mother. And since love of any kind is incompatible with dark magic, I save myself a lot of time and bother by recruiting women who hate their mothers. I could smell it off both of them when they came to me, that curdled, acrid resentment. Istria’s mother trouble was cold and bitter, like metal frozen so your flesh will stick to it. Theamh’s was all fire and snap. In my eagerness I mistook anger and hurt for real hatred. 
	If I’d taken time to reflect I would have known Theamh was a dead loss. And Istria—the blade had gone in, but I’m not sure it ever cut deep enough.
	With men it’s not as reliable. Bric thinks the sun rose and set over his mother. Although Maerin and his mother…well, even I don’t want to go there.
	We all have mothers. I had one. She’s dead now.
	You have one too.
Do you get along?
That’s what I thought.

*	*	*	*
	<Barant.>
	Barant rolled over in her bunk and wondered what time of night it was. It was certainly several hours before dawn, judging by the completeness of the darkness.
	<Lilea?> She was supposed to be in Kengda; Grinth had given her leave to go and watch out one of her relatives. <Is something wrong? Did you make it to Linn Agam?>
	<Yes, and yes.>
	Barant sat up, rubbing her eyes. <So what is it?>
	<The journey was fine. Unfortunately, Krenham was dead when I arrived.>
	Barant stood and groped toward the privy. <That is too bad.>
	<I don’t think his death was natural.>
	Barant arrested herself in mid-sit, and went back into the bedroom.
	<I thought he was ill?>
	<He was. That’s why his behavior during the last eight hours of his life strikes me as highly suspicious.>
	She sat down on the edge of her bed, pulling the blanket around her bare shoulders. <What was he doing?>
	<It would take a while to describe, but there is a unanimous agreement among his children, servants, and his wife that everything he did, he did ‘like a man possessed.’>
	<Oh no.>
	<It looks that way to me, Barant, but you know it’s not my area. I’d feel a lot better if someone could come take a look at him before I have to give him his departure. Theamh says sometimes you can detect traces in the mind after it’s been…you know…>
	<Vacated,> Barant answered, moving over toward the window.
	<Right. Barant, I know he was on his way out in any case, but this smells to me like murder. And it’s nothing the gardai can deal with. I know you’re too busy, probably, but do you think you could send Theamh out here?>
	<Let me think about it.>
	To get Theamh to Linn Agam fast enough to make it worth the trip, they would have to flash her forward. They would also have to get Grinth to lift the travel restriction and find someone to cover her practice while she was away. It would be a lot of effort, and there was no guarantee that Lilea was right; she was in Comings and Goings and made no secret of the fact that she didn’t understand much about the spirit world. 
	On the other hand, it would get Theamh out of Lythril’s path of destruction, and give her something to occupy herself with instead of moping over Istria’s disappearance—or, to all intents and purposes, death. And it was quite possible that Lilea was right, and if she were the case deserved to be investigated by a specialist. Say what you wanted about Theamh’s personality—and almost everyone on the Council had weighed in on it at some point—she was very good at her job.
	<I’ll talk to Grinth about it, Lilea, and get back to you.>
	<Thanks, Barant. Is there anything I should, you know, do with the body, to preserve the traces?>
	<No, the only thing we can do is get her out there as fast as we can. How long has he been gone?>
	<About eight hours.>
	<If she doesn’t get there in the next sixteen it’ll be wasted effort. I’ll get moving on it right away.>
	<Thanks, Barant, I appreciate it.>
	<Idair with you, Lilea.>
	She closed the link, and resigned herself to waking up a number of grumpy colleagues.
	<Grinth.>
	<Barant?> She was about as happy as Barant had thought she would be. <This better be good.>
	<Lilea thinks there’s been a possession murder out in Linn Agam, and she wants Theamh to investigate. We’d have to flash her forward--> 
	<Well, what does Lilea know about possessions?>
	<Nothing, that’s why she wants Theamh.>
	Barant had the feeling there was irritated muttering going on in Grinth’s mind.
	<Didn’t Dalen say in her last report that she suspected Lythril was operating around Linn Agam a few months ago?>
	<Did she?>
	Grinth evidently took a moment to check. <Yes, she did. Well, in that case I suppose it’s worth investigating. I’ll lift the restriction, you contact Theamh. Tell her to get down here as soon as she’s done with haons linn and not to bring the horse, it’ll be too much trouble to send them both.>
	<I will, Aiv, but—you really think this might have something to do with Lythril? Because if it does-->
	<Regardless, it needs to be investigated and that is exactly what junior shriias are for.>
	<I know, Aiv, but we did talk about keeping her out of harm’s way-->
	<Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t be a shriia and not be in harm’s way. Call her up and tell her to get down here.>
	<Who should we get to cover her practice?>
	<I leave that up to you. Idair with you.>
	Deciding sleep was a lost cause, Barant went to the closet and took her hreapa off the peg. She began pinning it on as she opened the next link.
	<Theamh.>
	<Barant?>
	She was clearly surprised.
	<How are you, Theamh?>
	<Well, I went to visit mathi and athi yesterday.>
	Shouldn’t have asked. <How did it go?> 
	<How does it ever go?>
<Badly, then.>
<One, it was miserable, and two, it killed an entire day when I could least afford it. Listen, Barant, there’s something I have to tell you about—>
	<All right, Theamh, but tell me on the way.>
<On the way to where?>
<I need you to get down here to the Pharc as soon as you can after sunrise. Don’t bring Cinhe. I’ll be in my office in the Raed.>
	<Oh for Idair’s sake. What have I done now?>
	It was an insolent question; but it was also frightened. Theamh knew she was on thin ice. The disciplinary committee, of which Barant was the chair, had been as creative as it could about coming up with ways to sanction her without actually expelling her, but they were running out of ideas.
	<Nothing. Lilea needs your help with a death in Kengda that she doesn’t think was natural.>
	After a moment, Theamh said, <I’m sorry, I just—I’m sorry. Of course I’ll come down. Is it that great-uncle of hers?>
	<Krenham, yes.>
	<How long has he been dead?>
	<She says about eight hours.>
	<But it’s a day’s ride to Linn Agam--> 
	<We’re flashing you forward. Grinth is lifting the travel restriction for this mission.>
	<Well hot damn.>
	<You’ll of course promise to go straight out to Linn Agam and straight back to the Vicinity.>
	<Of course.> And, after a pause, <Is it true Lythril is back in the Vicinity?>
	Barant recoiled slightly. <Who told you that?>
	<Harani said something about it at the Turning. Of course what Harani says, you know, she always thinks it’s true but half the time she’s wrong. Or at least I hope she is.>
	<The committee has discussed the fact that she may be operating in the area,> Barant said. <However we can’t be sure.>
	<One never can, with that bitch.>
	<Language, Theamh.>
	<Oh, and what do you call her? ‘My esteemed colleague?’>
	Barant decided not to explain why that wasn’t funny. Theamh would probably die before she ever understood why some women in the order couldn’t take that kind of joke.
	<Well, get yourself down to the Raed this morning, Theamh. Come to my office and you can tell me whatever it is before we send you off.>
	<Thanks, dhiaoc.>
	<Idair with you.>
	It was unfortunate that rumors had gotten back to Theamh. Harani was turning out to have a real talent for rainmaking but her lust for gossip had never been curbed, and her dhiaoc, Cualha, had never seemed concerned about that. Barant felt differently.
	Someone had to cover Theamh’s practice while she was gone. And why not Harani. 

*	*	*	*

	This time when Taric woke he could still hear his own scream.
	He was still on his pallet, still in his boots, his limbs stiff. It was just about dawn, but he couldn’t appreciate that. He couldn’t see the inside of his cottage, or Mada crouched near him. All he could see was that vision.
	It had to be a dream. He’d fallen asleep angry, despairing, hating Keanrih for abandoning him, and his mind had twisted that into this horrible shape. Because no matter what Keanrih was he couldn’t be something that would do this.
	It hadn’t even looked like him. Only on the skin. It hadn’t moved like him. Not that he had ever seen Keanrih doing anything remotely like this.
	Joining with Sioanna was a betrayal. But this was outright, violent, cruelty of the body, and no matter what Keanrih might be capable of in fear or weakness, cruelty just was not in him. The shriias always said that all things were possible, but surely this was the extreme edge of unlikely, that a man like Keanrih could do something like…
	Taric leapt up from the bed with a snarl of anger directed, this time, at himself.
	He wasn’t really going anywhere when he banged out through the shuddering doorway into the chill dawn air. He just had to give his body room to move, because otherwise he would fly to pieces.
	Of course Keanrih would never do a thing like that. Not of his own free will. 
And of his own free will he would never join with Sioanna either. 
But a man possessed would do anything his demon wanted him to do. 
That was the explanation. Keanrih was possessed, he had been overtaken by some evil thing that wanted—
“Ah, Taric, ta tu an mac na mhada!”
That was why he had broken the link. Keanrih had cut the link to protect him from the thing that had seized him. And Taric had wasted the entire day and night believing evil of him, when he should have been trying to return the favor.
	Taric squatted down in the field, wrapping his dirt-stained trouser knees in his arms, holding tight and rocking slightly as he tried to think.
	He had to get a shriia to cleanse him. But as far as the rest of the world knew, Taric had no reason to know anything about what was happening to Keanrih. Could he walk up to a shriia and say, “Hello, you don’t know me because since I was ten I have been avoiding all of you like the plague, but my lover has been possessed, you have to go out right away and save him. How do I know? Well, I have this gift for foretelling the future…who is he? He’s the oldest son of the richest landowner in the Vicinity. Of course nobody knows that we’re together, and I’m sure that right now if you ask him he’ll deny it. No, I have never been troubled by madness. Why do you ask?”
	Yes, he could, if he had to. But he had no idea how to get to his own shriia, who lived in an invisible house in the middle of the forest. If he went to a summoning well the call would go to whoever’s turn it was to handle emergencies, and it could be anyone up to and including those old battleaxes who had raised him, if any of them were still alive. How could he expect to explain to a stranger his terrible sudden urgency, the absolute necessity of freeing Keanrih of this evil before it hurt him more than it already had?
	No, it would have to be his own shriia—Theamh whatever her name was. Because even if she didn’t know Keanrih had a man for a lover she was his friend, and how big a surprise could it be to anyone who knew him.
	It was Vinha’s day for siulin. He would saddle Bearla and hope he made it to Vinha before Theamh left. 
	He’d never had occasion to go up there. It was a resort town, a place for people from the City to go when they needed a rest. A place full of rich people and merchants that were getting rich off them, where property was getting too dear for anyone local to buy. But there was a road, and surely if he followed it he’d get there. And when he found her he would just make her see that she had to go to him right away.
	She would go. She’d have to. Anyhow, she had seemed all right, that night…that night a hundred years ago, when they had both been happy.

*	*	*	*

	“…so I mean it isn’t proof proof,” Theamh said, as Barant hurried her out of her office and down the hall. “But—I mean—am I just being paranoid? Or is she really after him? What do you think?”
	“No, this way,” Barant said, tugging on the sleeve of Theamh’s hreapa. She swerved through the door to the stairwell and began clattering down it.
	“So what do you think, Barant?”
	“Have you ever done a flash forward before, Theamh?” When they got to the bottom of the stairwell Barant threw the door open as if she were in a very big hurry. 
“You know I have,” Theamh said. “You flashed us back to the Council when we escaped Lythril, remember?”
	“Oh, of course,” Barant said.
	She’d gone a few steps down the corridor before she realized Theamh had stopped following her.
	“Theamh?”
	“Third time, Barant,” Theamh said. “Do you think that Lythril might be working against Keanrih?”
	Barant was masking. That wasn’t a good sign.
	“Yes,” she said, curtly.
	“And it’s not because of what I just told you, is it?”
	“Not really, no,” Barant answered. “Hurry up, Theamh.”
	“What do you know that I don’t?”
	Theamh knew she was talking too loud. She was also pretty sure she was doing it on purpose to annoy Barant. Barant certainly looked annoyed.
	“Morat undid a charm that was given to Keanrih a couple days ago,” Barant finally said. “We’re pretty sure it was Lythril’s work.”
	Theamh knew she had to try not to explode. She couldn’t afford another disciplinary hearing.
	“Was anyone,” she said, quietly, “ever planning on telling me this?”
	There was a long, tense silence.
	“The Committee voted against informing you,” Barant finally said.
	If she opened her mouth, Theamh knew, she would say something sure to make everything much worse than it already was.
	She started walking, very fast.
	“Where are you going?” Barant called after her.
	“I’m going to thurking Kengda, aren’t I?” Theamh shouted over her shoulder. “Since I’m obviously not competent to handle my own practice—“
	“It’s not like that, Theamh…Theamh, listen to me…”
	Barant was running after her now. Theamh tried to stay ahead of her. She’d have to let her catch up eventually. But maybe by then she wouldn’t still be crying.

*	*	*	*

	Lilea stood at the top of the hill and waited for the word.
	It was a lovely morning, by Kengdan standards. Mist was still drifting among the reeds in the marsh, and the blue sky that had opened up over the hill and the big house behind it would soon be merging back into the gray clouds gathering over the sea. But for the moment, bathed in cold clear light, the house and its grounds had a strange beauty, something that could not be separated from the faint sound of gulls or the tossing of the first windblown sea roses among the brambles that grew out of the swampy ground. 
	No one in the house had emerged from it yet. They were occupied with preparations for the departure, which would be one of those whole-family affairs Lilea disliked. With something so big she always went home feeling she had failed them all. Too many people, each with a different grief, and it was hard to identify the mourners who were going to be most scarred. The fact that many of the people coming in for the departure were her own kin made it worse. When her mother had died the previous spring, they had all been kind enough. But so many of them simply never understood her decision to enter the Order. She had come to it late, after she already had a man and a trade and after—she supposed—they thought she ought to have been old enough to know better. None of them were capable of understanding that she might have chosen willingly to give up what she had given up, in return for what she would get.
	They would understand even less why she was involving a total stranger in her great-uncle’s death. At eighty-one Krenham had been a miracle of longevity; this last illness was not so much an illness as a long process through which his body informed him that it had had it with this life. No one had been surprised to hear that he was dead. Lilea was half afraid that it would turn out she had dragged Theamh all the way out there for nothing.
	<We’re ready, Lilea,> from Grinth.
	Lilea fixed her eyes on a level spot at the base of the hill. <Can you see it?>
	<Yes, we’ve got it. Wait.>
	A ball of fire erupted over the spot Lilea was staring at, sprouting legs that reached down to the ground to form a group of seven arches joined in a circle. Through them she could see the stone floor of the shriin, and the figure of Theamh, scratching one arm with the opposite hand and looking as if she were trying not to seem nervous.
	The arches, and the stone floor, disappeared; but Theamh was now standing in the long, shaggy sea grass, blinking up at Lilea on her perch.
	“Lilea!” Theamh started up the hill. “Thank Idair I made it. How are you?”
	“Long answer you don’t want,” Lilea replied. “Welcome to Biosch House, Theamh. Isn’t it grand?”
	Theamh turned to look up at the massive fieldstone edifice behind them.
	“My mother would tell you all kinds of things that are wrong with it,” she said, “but it sure looks grand to me.”
	“Ah well,” Lilea said, clapping her hands. “One reason to be glad you’re not your mother.”
	“One of many,” Theamh echoed glumly. “So what happened to poor Krenham?”
	“Well,” Lilea said, leading the way through the marsh to the house. “I think you should talk to his wife first—although she’s collapsed in the master bedroom, and is hardly fit for conversation.”
	“When you say collapsed, is she having an attack of rich woman’s nerves, or—“
	“I won’t say her being rich has nothing to do with this malady,” Lilea answered. “But she did just watch her husband of twenty years kill himself over an eight-hour period.”
	“Kill himself how?”
	“Well, that’s what I’ll let her tell you.”
	Theamh nodded, tramping through the grass, the remnants of mist sliding off the hem of her hreapa as she passed. 
	“Twenty years? Krenham was…what, seventy-five, eighty?”
	“Eighty-one. She’s not, of course, his first wife.”
	“Ah.”
	“He was sixty, she was thirty. At the time, they felt the age difference was irrelevant. Love conquers all, and all that.”
	“And all that,” Theamh said, hollowly.
	Lilea put a hand on Theamh’s shoulder. She said nothing, but she didn’t shrug it off. Which was a tribute Lilea knew enough to be able to appreciate.
	“Talk about it if you want, and don’t if you don’t,” Lilea said.
	Theamh looked up at the door with a sigh.
	“Let me do the job first,” she answered.

*	*	*	*

	When he got to Vinha’s town square he almost began to reconsider. So many people, and all of them dressed like City folk, with their shimmering fabrics and their tapered shoes. And most of them weren’t even talking to the shriia. They were talking to each other, looking over now and then at the white figure sitting on the grass consulting with the few people who needed her help.
	Taric could feel them staring at him as he made his way. He could hear them too. Never seen him before…must be a laborer come for the work Plunth’s doing to his villa…well after all that’s what shriias are for, isn’t it, the poor…
	And to think these were his good clothes.
	“…well, that is a new one, Dorinda,” said the woman in hreapa, laughing. “No, I will not put off the rain till after your garden party. Idair with you.”
	Taric leaned around the man in front of him to get a good look at the shriia.
	It wasn’t Theamh. It was a thin woman with straight brown hair held back in a clip, whose eyes were turned on those of the stout, middle-aged woman who was drawing her gold-fringed shawl around her satin-draped shoulders.
	“Oh please, shriia. Can a day make that much difference?”
	“Now get along with you, Dorinda, before I start to think that you’re not kidding.”
	“But I’m not—“
	“Ah ah ah!” said the woman, holding up her hand. “We’ve always gotten along so well, you don’t want to ruin it now. Next.”
	The woman moved along. The shriia looked blankly into the air for a few moments, shaking her head as if in wonder.
	“Afternoon to you, shriia,” said the man standing in front of Taric, sitting down on the ground in front of her. 
	The shriia’s head turned, and her eyes went to his face. But they weren’t focused on it. She was looking in his direction, but didn’t seem to be seeing him.
	“Ah, Chalfant,” she said, with a smile. “Nothing serious wrong with you, I hope?”
	“Yes, there is, shriia,” he said. “I’m troubled with a terrible hunger for news.”
	“Aren’t you a terrible man to tempt me,” said the shriia. 
	“What harm can there be in telling the truth, shriia?” asked the man innocently.
	“None, Chalfant, but there’s plenty in idle gossip, anyone on the Council will tell you that.” He waited. “They sure tell me, early and often. Go on and let someone who needs help get it.”
	“Good to have you in town,” he said, standing up. “Are you taking over the practice?”
	“Good spirits no,” said the shriia. “I couldn’t take on this job, it would kill me. How Theamh gets it all done I will never understand. You know this is supposed to be two practices; it’s just when Istria went riding off into the hinterlands to do battle with the Dark One Theamh took over her half till they found a replacement…and she got the whole job done by herself, so they never bothered. More proof that no good deed goes unpunished. No, I’m only out here because Theamh is off somewhere in Kengda.”
	“Kengda?” said the man, looking gratified.
	“Yes, I don’t know what for but it’s got to be serious because they flashed her forward. You don’t do that unless you’re trying to put out a fire.”
	“Really,” said the man.
	“Course not. If flashing forward were something you could do at the drop of a hat I’d never walk anywhere. The Council likes to limit it to once a month.”
“So what could it be that’s so urgent? I understood nothing happens in Kengda.”
The shriia laughed. “Now stop it, Chalfant, I’ve said too much already and the tall stranger behind you is getting very impatient. Go on. Go on, go on go on.”
	She waved him aside. Now it was Taric’s turn.
	He hung back for a moment. 
	“Can I help you, friend?”
	She was looking at him. Only she wasn’t.
	Then he realized. She was blind.
	He opened his mouth in an agony of indecision.
	“It’s all right, friend, you don’t need vision to get most things done. Whatever’s brought you all the way out here, have a seat and let me help you with it.”
	Taric squatted down on the grass across from her.
	“I’m Harani ni Linnin,” she said. “And you are?”
	“I’m—I’m just Taric.”
	“Well, just Taric, what can I do for you?”
	“I—you said Theamh is away?”
	“Sadly, yes,” Harani said. “I’m an imperfect substitute, but I do my best. What’s the trouble?”
	To help Keanrih Taric would probably have to tell someone. But it looked very much as if telling this woman would mean telling most of the known world. Was he ready for that? Was Keanrih? Would he want him to take this risk?
	“I’m…I’m afraid that…a friend of mine has been…”
	Harani nodded, still fixing him with that unnerving blank stare.
	“Has been what, friend?”
	“Been—overtaken.”
	The word seemed to throw her into dismay.
	“Ah, that’s bad luck for him,” Harani said. “And rotten timing. I’m just a rainmaker, I don’t know how to cast things. I don’t even have vigils.”
	“But—then—“
	“Don’t worry,” said Harani, lifting a hand toward him reassuringly. “You just tell me who he is and I’ll get someone who can help you to come out and look at him.”
	“You would?” Taric said, beginning to sag with relief.
	“Sure I will. Tell you what, Kelah’s on call today, she’s just what you need—“
	“Kelah?” Taric suddenly interrupted. “Kelah ni Mhulan?”
	She looked surprised.
	“The same,” Harani said. “Do you know her? I didn’t think she practiced any more. Too busy making herself feel important—”
	“Never mind, shriia,” said Taric, standing up.
	“What do you mean, never mind, if he’s really been overtaken—“
	“Idair with you,” said Taric, and fled.
	“Now wait a minute!” 
	He heard her calling after him, but he was on the horse and out of the square before she could get to him. 
	Maybe it was wrong. But he couldn’t. What was it Keanrih had said about the ones who raised him, that they were meaner than average. And among them, Kelah ni Mhulan had been the meanest.
	She was the one who’d caught him playing with one of the other boys. She was the one who’d told him that if he went on as he did he would never be anything but an affront to Idair. And she was absolutely not going to be the one he trusted with Keanrih’s life.
	There had to be some other way. He would go home, and he would think, and if Idair was good something would come to him.
	It came to him before Bearla had taken him halfway home.
Minead.
	Minead would remember Taric from his time in the stables. And Minead had to be a good enough mother to know the difference between Keanrih and a demon. If he told her his suspicions she would realize that they were right. Minead could get a different shriia to come out and take care of him.
	Keanrih had said he would tell her. Maybe he had. Even if he hadn’t, she couldn’t be a traitor to him. He had one coldhearted bastard of a parent already, there couldn’t be two. He had to have come from somewhere.

*	*	*	*

	“You’ve got to learn to keep up the motion without paying attention,” Carith said. “Otherwise it’s enough to drive you mad—six hours of turning a spit.”
	Weroda mopped the sweat off her forehead with one sleeve and gave the crank another turn. Carith was peeling an enormous pile of pratai and tossing them into a pot. Weroda looked at the lamb on its spit and wondered if this might not drive her mad anyhow.
	A knock on the kitchen door broke the monotony.
	“Get that, will you,” Carith said, tossing another naked pratai plop into the water.
	Weroda left the fireplace and crossed the peeling-strewn floor to the kitchen door.
	The man on the other side was a stranger—over six feet tall, with broad shoulders, a stout neck, and a startling shock of yellow hair whose fringes almost hung into his eyes. His muscular arms were folded over the blue fabric of what was probably his good shirt.
	“Morning to you, friend,” Weroda said with a smile, hoping he hadn’t come to the wrong door by mistake. “What brings you here?”
	He looked at her in a distress she didn’t understand.
	“You’re new here,” said the man, as if this disturbed him.
	“I am,” she said. “Are you a new hand?”
	Her question seemed to have reduced him to confusion. Before he answered, Carith burst into a shout of greeting.
	“Taric!” 
	The man blinked, and drew back a little as if startled at the report of her shriek. Then he said, “Yes, it’s me, Carith. I was afraid nobody here would still know me.”
	“Of course I know you, you great granite lump,” Carith said, affectionately, taking his arm and dragging him into the kitchen. “How are you? What are you up to? I heard you bought your own land?”
	“I—yes, I have,” said this Taric, bewildered at finding himself thrust into a chair and a mug of soup put into his hand. “It’s a poor place—“
	“Still it’s yours, isn’t it,” Carith clucked, resuming her peeling but swinging her chair around to face his. “Taric, this is Weroda, she’s my new subordinate. What did we figure out you were, Weroda?”
	“Sub-sub-under-scullerymaid,” Weroda answered, with a shy smile.
	Taric nodded, seriously, as if he didn’t get the joke.
	“But she hopes to work her way up to kitchen wench one day if she’s very good. And what is it brings you here at all?”
	“I…” He looked as if he would be turning his hat in his hands, if he’d worn one. “I’m in trouble, and I need to speak to Minead. Do you think she would see me?”
	Even from where she was standing Weroda could tell he wasn’t lying. Carith, who was both much closer and much keener when it came to reading, put down her pratai and dragged her chair forward to look at him.
	“Of course she’ll see you, Taric.” Carith looked around as Rince came in with the breakfast tray. 
	“Rince,” Carith called. “Look who’s back, do you remember our Taric? Or did you not mix with the outside help much.” 
	Rince turned his slim, elegant back on them and left the kitchen. 
	“You see he hasn’t changed,” Carith said gleefully. “Snootier than a houseful of eldest daughters. Weroda, that heat is ruining your complexion, why don’t you see can you find Minead. Tell her an old friend is waiting to see her.”
	Taric got out of the chair, as if hearing this made him restless. Weroda accepted the fact that Carith had outmaneuvered her, and left Carith to enjoy interrogating the best-looking thing in trousers that either of them had seen in a long time.
	On her way upstairs she realized she had no idea where Minead was. She’d try her accounts room; usually she didn’t linger long at breakfast.
	As she swung around the corridor her ear caught, faintly, the voice of Rince in one of the rooms. The words she could make out made her stop in the hallway and listen.
	“…remember you told me to let you know if anyone came asking to see either your wife or your eldest,” Rince was saying, his tones as modulated as ever.
	“Yes, Rince,” said Nocc’s voice.
	“There’s a stranger in the kitchen asking to see Minead. Tall man, yellow hair—Carith said something about him having worked here in the past. I suppose he wants to talk about getting work, but since you gave orders—“
	“Yes, yes.” Nocc’s voice was suddenly sharp and anxious. “You did right to tell me. Where is Minead now?”
	“In the gardens.” Nocc’s footsteps began moving. “Shall I go and inform her—“
	“Don’t bother,” Nocc said, his voice louder as he neared the doorway. “I’ll take care of this. Thank you, Rince.”
	Nocc’s back was to her as he strode out of the room.
	Weroda thought about the fact that Nocc clearly did not want the man in the kitchen to talk to Minead, and that she might well get herself into trouble by following Carith’s directions instead of obeying her Aiv’s.
	She remembered the look on Taric’s face.
	She ran out to the garden door.

*	*	*	*

	Krenham had been laid out in the downstairs parlor. From his neck down he was draped in his red departure dress; it was a heavy and elaborate damask affair. Well, he would have wanted the best. The servant sitting by his feet, looking more bored than contemplative, got up nervously as the two of them walked in.
	“Morning to you, shriia,” she said, making a little bow toward each of them.
	“And to you,” Theamh answered, bowing. “I’m Theamh ni hUlnach, I was—“
	“You’re Theamh ni hUlnach?” said the servant. “The one who cleansed the Ubh?”
	Lilea enjoyed Theamh’s consternation. Theamh disliked being made a fuss over, even when she deserved it.
	“Yes,” she answered. “You must be a Daircri?”
	The woman nodded. “Paliad ni Chalpai, shriia. My people are from Grentham. We lost no one, thanks to you.”
	“I’m glad to hear it,” Theamh said, a little stiffly. “Can you tell me something, Paliad—your Aiv here, exactly when did he die?”
	“Two hours before sundown yesterday, shriia. I was the one held the glass up.”
	Lilea tried to hide her annoyance. It was a rotten death test. But for people who couldn’t sense the departure of the spirit, it was at least one of the less intrusive or painful methods of making sure the dead were dead before they were burned.
	“Was the actual death sudden?”
	Paliad nodded. “Very sudden. He collapsed and by the time we had him in a bed he was gone.”
	“What was he doing before he collapsed?”
	“Jumping.”
	Theamh looked at her as if she hadn’t quite heard right.
	“I know, shriia. But he was. Jumping, in place, like some kind of mad rabbit.”
	Theamh looked at Lilea.
	“That’s what they all said,” Lilea confirmed. “You see what I mean, about this being suspicious.”
	“Too damn suspicious.” Theamh put her hands on Krenham’s whitened temples.
	Whatever Theamh was doing inside Krenham’s head, it was a mystery to Lilea. But she could read what was happening in Theamh’s head. So she wasn’t surprised when Theamh finally dropped her hands, straightened up, and delivered her verdict.
	“Well,” she said, “he’s definitely had something else in him, and if I’m right it first got in there about eight hours before he vacated. It’s gone now.”
	“What do you think it was?” Lilea asked, while Paliad made the sign against evil.
	“I could be wrong,” Theamh said, “but I’m almost certain that it was a human specter. The traces for that are very distinctive.”
	Lilea stared.
	“A dark user.”
	“Would have to be.”
	Paliad’s eyes got bigger. Lilea switched to the link.
	<And which dark user do you think it was?>
<I mistrust my own judgment about this,> Theamh said, looking down at Krenham’s sunken face. <But I’m pretty sure those were Lythril’s tracks.>
Lilea was not surprised, nor was she pleased.
<Now what do we do?> 
<Better go up and talk to the wife,> Theamh said.
“We’re going up to Nillima, Paliad,” Lilea answered. “Don’t worry—it’s quite safe to be left with him now. If Theamh says he’s clean, he’s clean.”
“I’m sure he is, shriia,” Paliad said, warily.
Lilea led Theamh out into the entrance hall. <You really think it was Lythril.>
<I would say it was definitely her, only it seems too strange.>
<Lythril and strange go together like-->
<I mean strange for her.> They began their progress up the staircase. <This is too stupid to be real. Either she was in a hurry to get out—which makes no sense given how long she was in there—or she wants us to think it was her.>
<Why would she want us to think it was her?>
<This is a question that will take some answering.>
	 <Shriias tell the truth,> Lilea said, opening the door to the master bedroom.

*	*	*	*

	“Is it a job you’re after?” Carith said. “I’d be thrilled, but it seems a shame, once you’ve had your own land…”
	Taric knew she was trying to be kind. That was the only thing that kept him from shouting at her to shut up, that she could not possibly imagine what kind of trouble he was in, and what on earth was he going to do if he had to have this conversation in front of a kitchen full of gossiping servants?
	“No,” he said. “Nothing like that.”
	Carith looked intrigued, as if this were a game of Who Am I. Taric heard heels clicking down the stairs, and sprang from the chair.
	“You’re nervous as a cat near coals,” Carith said, her compassion predominating over her lust for gossip. “Take it easy, friend. Minead’s a good woman.”
	Minead may well have been. But she wasn’t what walked into that kitchen.
	“So,” said Nocc, planting his boots in the sawdust. “I am Nocc mac Deira na Poll. I understand you wanted to see my wife. What for?”
	Taric swallowed, and said, “I need to speak to her about something.”
	“Tell me what it is, friend, maybe I can help you.”
	Even Carith’s face registered the falseness of his words. He was angry, violently angry, and only barely preserving his thin shell of landowner’s courtesy.
	It came to him suddenly.
	Nocc knew.
	Who knew how, but he knew. That was why the raised vein over one temple was pulsing, why his knotted hands were clutching each other so tightly.
	“I—“ The memory of that charm came back. “It’s your wife I need to speak to, Aiv.”
	“What are you here for?” Nocc finally said, striding forward and dropping his voice. “If it’s money, talk to me. I’m reasonable.”
	Taric couldn’t understand what he was talking about. 
	“It’s not about money, Aiv.”
	“Of course not,” said Nocc, wheedling now where he had been angry. “But of course the loss must make a difference to you, and if you’re agreeable I’d be willing…to…to tide you over, you understand…till you…”
	The lower Nocc’s voice dropped the clearer his meaning became. 
Taric could feel his heart actually petrifying.
	“I do not want money,” he repeated, clenching his hands to keep them innocent of Keanrih’s father’s blood. “I want to speak to Minead.”
	“But can’t we settle this—“
	“Settle!” Taric shouted, one of his hands swinging in spite of himself angrily through the air. “Idair’s teeth, you’d like it settled, wouldn’t you?”
	Nocc drew back a pace. But the fear on his face only lasted a moment.
	“Minead is not at home,” Nocc said.
	“Liar,” Taric said.
	“You won’t even tell me what your business is—“
	“My business is to save your son from the thing that’s taken him!” Taric shouted. 
	The look in Nocc’s eyes split the stone that Taric’s heart had become.
	“Rince,” said Nocc.
	Rince appeared in the doorway.
	“Please show this madman off the property,” Nocc said. “And if you see him set foot on it again, set the dogs on him.”
	Dry as his mouth was, Taric managed to work up a good spit. It crossed the four feet between them to land on Nocc’s whiskered cheek.
	“Traitor,” Taric said, strangely calm as he felt Rince’s hand on his arm. “Seller of your own. This is not settled.”
	The kitchen door opened behind him. Taric knew that when he turned around he would find the stablehand there. This had always been one of his minor duties.
	It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that he was being hauled off the grounds, that Minead was just now making her way into the house, too late to do any good. It didn’t matter because he knew now. Nocc had hired someone to work against Keanrih, and his body was no longer his own. But no matter what that body did, if Taric couldn’t get to him in time, then he had it in him to love him afterward. Forever, whatever.

*	*	*	*

	Theamh sat in a chair drawn up near the bed in which Nillima’a still well-turned body was wallowing in a sea of pillows, comforters, and blankets.
	“And you say that these are all things he gave up doing long ago.”
	“Years,” Nillima cried, opening her tear-dimmed eyes in distress. “He used to like chopping wood; but since his heart went on him he gave it up. Lilea told him to, and…”
	Nillima turned beseechingly toward Lilea, who was perched on the other side of the bed holding one of Nillima’s restless hands. 
“I instructed him a few years back to stop taking exercise. I specifically mentioned woodcutting and heavy lifting. I also told him he shouldn’t ride.”
	“So naturally he spent several hours doing each one of those activities,” Theamh said. “Aiv, you must realize, there was nothing you could have done to stop him. He was possessed; he wouldn’t have listened to anyone.”
	Lilea had wanted to say that, but she hadn’t been sure it was true. Nillima was hugely relieved.
	“Tell me how it started,” Theamh said. “What was the first thing he did that made you upset?”
	“It was…he woke up about an hour after sunrise, and got out of bed,” Nillima said, haltingly. “I told him he shouldn’t be up, and he said he felt fine. And while I was arguing with him he put on his trousers, and then his shoes, and…”
	Nillima began weeping. Theamh waited.
	“And then he went into the little cabinet by the privy, and took out all of his medicine, and poured it down the privy …”
	<What medicine was this?> Theamh asked Lilea.
	<Beats me,> Lilea answered. <I hadn’t given him any real curers in months. He wasn’t dying of anything but old age. On my last trip I brought him a bag of pounded retweed as a palliative; maybe that’s what she’s talking about.>
	“What medicine was this, Aiv?” Theamh asked politely. 
	“I don’t really know,” Nillima said, looking back at Lilea. “Lilea used to have it sent up from the City for him. It did him a world of good…I told him he shouldn’t do that, and he got so angry with me…”
	<And have you really been sending him—> Theamh began.
	<I absolutely have not,> Lilea replied, highly alarmed.
	“What did he do with the bottles, Aiv?” Theamh inquired.
	Nillima looked surprised. “He smashed them all into tiny pieces,” she said. “Then he put the pieces down the privy.”
	Theamh sighed.
	“So there isn’t any of this…medicine…left, then,” Theamh said.
	Nillima shook her head, but the servant standing by the dressing-table spoke up.
	“There might be, shriia,” she said. “Down in the pantry.”
	“Oh yes, of course,” Nillima said vaguely. “I suppose there might be.” She began to cry again. “Not that it will do him any good…”
	Theamh patted her hand gently, if somewhat perfunctorily, and abruptly left the bedside, taking the servant aside. 
	“What name do you use, friend?” she asked.
	“Talia, shriia.”
	“Talia, take me down to the pantry, and tell me about this ‘medicine.’”
	Talia looked at Nillima. 
	“Go on, Talia,” Nillima said, with a brave little lift of the head. “I’ll be all right.”
	“Very good, Aiv,” Talia answered, and started out of the room.

*	*	*	*

	“Well…?” Minead said, looking expectantly around the kitchen.
	“He’s gone, chara,” Nocc said, taking her by the arm. “He said it wasn’t important, he wouldn’t wait. I expect he’ll come back tomorrow.”
	They left the kitchen. Weroda walked back into it, slowly taking her position at the spit, turning the roast absently as she looked at the chair Taric had been sitting in.
	It was a while before she realized what was wrong. 
	Carith wasn’t talking.
	“Carith?”
	Carith shook her head, and said nothing.
	“Carith, what is going on in this house?” Weroda said, her voice high and thin.
	“Child,” Carith said, “the less you know, the safer you’ll be.”
	Carith flung herself into her chair and picked up one of the pratai. She didn’t peel it. Instead she sat with the knife in one hand and the pratai in the other.
	Weroda left the spit and crouched down by Carith’s feet.
	“I’m frightened,” she said. “Keanrih is supposed to have—been—with Elspice and Calarine in two days when he’s never touched anyone in his life before and now Aiv is lying to his wife and giving Rince orders she doesn’t know about—“
	Carith laughed once, more in amazement than mirth.
	“What’s happening, Carith, is this house haunted?”
	“No,” Carith said grimly, getting to her feet. “But I bet it will be.”
	“What do you mean by—“
	“Listen,” Carith said sharply. “Minead does her best, but when you come down to it, you and me are like field mice to them. You want to last in service, here’s what you do. Keep your head down, stay out of their way, and speak only when spoken to.”
	“But if you won’t tell me what I have to stay out of the way of…”
	Carith was knotting her shawl. “Stay out of Nocc’s way, and stay the hell out of Keanrih’s way,” she said. “I’m running out for an errand, Weroda, mind the roast and if anyone comes in here, I’m busy in some other part of the house.”
	“All right, Carith,” Weroda said.
	“You’re a good girl, Weroda,” Carith told her, pausing on the threshold. “You just do like I said, and you’ll be all right.”
	Carith shut the door behind her. Weroda turned the spit, and tried not to think.

*	*	*	*

	“All right,” Lilea said, pulling out one of the kitchen chairs. “So.”
	Theamh held up a hand. “Just a minute.”
	Lilea watched Theamh as she hunched over the table. She was concentrating furiously on a patch of reddish-brown liquid she had poured onto a marble slab that was normally used for chopping vegetables.
	“I hope you’re planning to wash that when you’re done with it,” Lilea observed.
	Theamh waved the hand at her to get her to stop talking. With the other, she drew a thin wraith of red flame out of the liquid.
	“Here we go,” Theamh murmured.
	They watched the transparent red flame coil itself into a wreath, sending out pointed little red darts of flame that looked like very sharp, very small leaves.
	“You probably don’t even know what you’re looking at,” Theamh said, her gaze hardening as it focused on that shifting coil.
	“You mean aside from pure evil?”
	Theamh laughed, joylessly.
	“This,” Theamh said, “is the active ingredient in Lythril’s most sought-after and most expensive preparation.”
	White flame from her hand enveloped the wreath. Lilea could see it twisting and turning, as if it were choking itself in alarm.
	“Feicainn dubh feicidh tu, isne teir abhaile riu!”
	The red circlet disappeared. Theamh drew the white fire back into her hand.
	“Well actually,” she said, “it’s the active ingredient in all of her preparations. But what’s spread out on this slab here,” she said, “is an extremely unappetizing mixture of blood, jiz, afterbirth, probably part of a live human heart, though I was never able to definitively verify that—“
	“A live human heart?”
	“—and a number of innocent ingredients which would blush to be associated with this concoction if they were sentient.”
	“Afterbirth,” Lilea repeated.
	The wave of disgust rolling off Theamh exceeded Lilea’s own visceral revulsion.
	“As far as we could tell, it’s the essential ingredient in youth potions,” Theamh said. “And that’s what this is. That’s why the flame took that circlet shape. If you wanted to, you could see it as an inspiring symbol of the cycle of time and the infinity of the universe. Or, you could see it as the emblem of the kind of cannibalistic self-consumption that seems to be what dark magic is about.”
	“I’ll take what’s underneath shell number two,” Lilea said.
	“You mentioned that Krenham was holding out longer than you expected,” Theamh said. “I’m afraid it wasn’t due to your ministrations.”
	Lilea looked at the ugly splotch of browning liquid on the chopping board.
	“He was terrified of dying,” Lilea said. “I could do nothing for him.”
	Theamh’s expression of jaded irony left her as she felt Lilea’s sorrow.
	“It’s not your fault Idair never gave us an answer for that,” Theamh said.
	“I know, but—“
	“But nothing. I’ve seen you do departures. If Krenham could have been reconciled to death, you would have been the woman to do it. Some people just can’t be.”
	Lilea sighed.
	“If I had been able to help him—“
	“No,” Theamh said. “Don’t start. Everyone dies, Lilea. That can’t be altered. Lythril’s spent her whole career trying, and this,” she said, gesturing at the drying scab on the board, “is the best she can do. A potion that slows death down. Based on what we saw we thought she was about half as old physically as she is chronologically. Krenham obviously came late to the party. Talia says this medicine didn’t start arriving until about a year ago.”
	They looked at the brown stain in silence.
	“He sold himself to the Dark One for a few extra months,” Theamh said. “So he could die in the growing season instead of the harvest season.”
	Lilea shook her head, feeling her eyes water.
	“This is the thing that used to drive us crazy,” Theamh said, conversationally. “That her clients would sell so much to get so little.”
	“All right—so—so he was dealing with her,” Lilea said. “And she killed him, what, because she didn’t like his face?”
	Theamh shook her head. “Lythril does everything for a reason. She definitely killed Krenham, and she definitely wanted us to discover that. We may never know why; but she assuredly does.”
	“This,” Lilea said, with a tearful little laugh, “is turning into a really rotten day.”
	“In most respects,” Theamh said. “But there is one bright spot.”
	“And what is that?”
	Lilea was a little disturbed by the light in Theamh’s eyes.
	“She knew we would be out here investigating. That’s why she had Krenham destroy the evidence of their transaction. But she only knew what he knew, and he didn’t know that the servants were storing the reserve down here in the pantry because men never keep track of that kind of detail. So she didn’t come down here and take care of it. And now we have something that I would never in a hundred years have believed Lythril would give us.” Lilea blinked at her. “Physical evidence.”
Lilea began to share the excitement. Theamh went on, with growing intensity.
	“Six out of ten times when a dark user is brought to justice she gets off because six out of ten times there is no physical evidence. It all hinges on the shriia’s testimony and a shriia can hardly ever say she is one hundred percent certain of something. But sitting in that crate,” Theamh said, nodding at it, “are two bottles of this junk and one bottle of ghilfeicc, which will prove, aside from the basic lesson that hope is a hard thing to unlearn, the fact that Lythril was trafficking with Krenham before he died.”
	“Ghilfeicc is what, again?”
	“An aphrodisiac.”
	Lilea groaned.
	“By itself, the possession might not be enough,” Theamh said. “By itself, this stuff might not be enough. But put them together…”
	“And this is how we’re going to nail her,” Lilea finished.
	Theamh held up a hand toward her. Lilea clasped it, and both tried not to let the people up above the kitchen hear them laughing.
	“Assuming we can find her,” Lilea qualified, withdrawing to her seat.
	“I know. But you better call the Council and tell them to get in touch with Ethir down at the Courts.”
	“With pleasure,” Lilea said.
	The tramp of boots on the floor above them reminded Lilea that she had a completely different kind of job to do. 
“Can I give Krenham his departure tonight?”
	“Yes; there’s nothing more to learn from him.” She shook her head. “Send the poor man home, and hope Idair’s got a more generous heart than I do.”
	Theamh walked to the washtub and began scrubbing the stain off.
	Blood, jiz, afterbirth, a human heart maybe, and she was scraping it off that board as if it were dried bean paste. Lilea had worked with Theamh and Istria after they got back from Lythril’s lair. Everyone said Theamh was transparent; and she was. But only when it came to some things. One thing that seemed to be important to her, and had become important to Istria probably for the same reasons, was to learn to talk about what she had learned without seeming upset by it. 
	Lilea was the first to admit that intellectual brilliance was not something in which she took precedence. But one thing she could do was feel hidden pain. And Theamh, at that moment, was steeped in it.
	Her job was to go up and take care of Krenham’s grieving kin. So she had to walk away from Theamh’s bowed shoulders and the mop of red hair that jigged a little as she scoured the last bits of evil off that hard white slab.

*	*	*	*
	
	The waterglobe sang.
	It was absolutely the last thing she wanted to hear. 
	Kelah got up and plodded slowly over to where the crystal globe sat on its glass pedestal. She ran one dry, thin hand over the glass surface, watching the water pool into the reflection of a woman’s face.
	“This is Kelah,” she barked. “Your call has reached me. What do you need?”
	It was ridiculous. She was a Council member. She was a department head. Why should she have to be on call, just because Barant had seen fit to hive Theamh off to a swamp somewhere in Kengda? Why couldn’t Tliath do it, or Barant? If Barant were head of Possessions, you wouldn’t catch Grinth asking her to be on call. And at her age, too. It wasn’t fair.
	“Shriia, I work at the na Poll house, out in Mablad,” said the woman’s voice.
	“And?”
	“Shriia…the eldest na Poll boy, Keanrih mac Minead, I think he’s possessed.”
	Great. She was about to be dragged all the way to Mablad for something that would turn out to be indigestion or a fit of temper. These calls never turned into anything real, and if the boy was possessed why wasn’t it his mother or his father or someone in the family making the call?
	“What makes you think so, friend?” Kelah said, with a long aggrieved sigh.
	“I—he’s been acting strange, not like himself, the change was very sudden—“
	“How strange?”
	“He’s—he’s—it’s hard to explain, shriia, I just wish you would take a look at him, and please don’t tell them it who asked you to do it.”
	A trip out to Mablad through the spring mud. With her bones rattling on horseback all the way. For an anonymous call. This was madness.
	But this woman was one of Idair’s children, and she had asked, and Kelah was bound to give.
	“I’ll go out there right away.”
	“Thank you, shriia, thank you so much, I’ll be much easier in my mind now, and the poor boy, he’ll be glad for the help,” she said. “Idair with you.”
	The image wavered and broke.
	Heaving another martyred sigh, Kelah pushed open the door of her office and went slowly down the hallway toward the courtyard.

*	*	*	*

	“Aiv?”
	Rince was standing at the edge of the study, and he looked nervous.
	“Yes, Rince?”
	“There’s a shriia here, Aiv, says she wants to speak to Keanrih.”
	Nocc tried not to show any reaction. “And what did you tell her?”
“That I would inquire if he were at home.”
	Rince had the instinct all right. “Thank you, Rince. Where is she waiting?”
	“In the larger parlor.”
	“That will be all, then.”
	“Very good, Aiv.”
	Rince disappeared. Nocc crossed the hall to the parlor.
	The woman in the chair got up, turning to him with a long face made longer by the knot of gray hair bundled up on her head.
	“I’m Kelah ni Mhulan, head of Possessions on the Council,” she said, making a creaky bow. “I got a call saying your boy Keanrih might be possessed. It’s probably nothing, but would you bring him down so I can look for the signs.”
	“Possessed!” he said. “What nonsense. Who told you a tale like that?”
	“She didn’t give a name,” Kelah said. “If you’ll have him step in here, we can clear this up right away.”
	“Well, shriia, I’m afraid he’s not at home now; he’s out on his afternoon ride.”
	Kelah looked annoyed. “How long does that generally take?”
	“Oh, I’ve no way of knowing—sometimes he’s gone for hours at a time. Often he doesn’t get back until after nightfall.”
	She was beginning to show signs of discouragement.
	“What did they say he was doing, shriia?”
	Her hands pulled her hreapa closer around her. “The report was rather vague,” she said. “Would you say you’ve noticed anything—out of character—about his behavior recently?”
	Nocc pursed his lips in thought.
	“No, shriia, I can’t say I have,” Nocc said. “I know my own boy, shriia, and if he were possessed, I would notice.”
	“I suppose you would,” Kelah muttered, her eyes glancing around the room.
	“Perhaps you’d rather come back tomorrow, when he’ll be in?”
	“I’ll wait,” Kelah said, resuming her seat unwillingly.
	“As you wish,” Nocc said, bowing. “I’ll see if anyone knows when he might return.”
	“Thank you,” said Kelah, settling back among the cushions.
	Nocc hurried to the tower stairs, scurrying up them as fast as his knees would let him. The boy would probably be there. That was where he’d spent the morning, or at least the same few hours of it during which Elspice could not be accounted for.
	“Keanrih,” Nocc whispered, rapping gently on the door.
	“Come in,” Keanrih called.
	Nocc opened the door warily. But Keanrih was alone. He was lounging on the bed, still in his nightclothes, nestled into the pillows with a look of perfect contentment.
	“Afternoon, athi,” he said. “Is it time for supper yet?”
	“Not yet,” Nocc said. “We’re having roast lamb.”
	Keanrih smiled. “My favorite. That’s so nice of you, athi.”
	Nocc coughed to hide his pleasure. “It’s my favorite too,” he said, ruffling Keanrih’s hair. “But you ought to get up and dress. Minead will be furious if she finds out you’re in bed this late.”
	“Oh, mathi won’t mind,” Keanrih said, getting up nevertheless and beginning to search in his wardrobe.
	“Keanrih,” Nocc said, as his son deliberated over undershirts. “You did promise me that you would think about Sioanna…”
	“And I am thinking about her,” Keanrih said, tossing a smile over one shoulder as he began pulling on his final choice.
	“Well, what’s your thinking then?” Nocc insisted.
	“I don’t know,” Keanrih answered, selecting a pair of trousers. “She’s a lot younger than I am, you know—“
	“Your mother is thirteen years my junior,” Nocc replied.
	“I know, athi, but…well, I’m only twenty-six. I’m not ready for a family yet.”
	“That’s ridiculous. At your age…well, not exactly your age…”
	“See? You didn’t marry until you were thirty-one. I’ve got five good years left, and I plan to make the most of every one of them.”
	Nocc heard this with dire alarm.
	“Keanrih, be sensible. A woman like Sioanna won’t wait forever, and there might not be a match like that on offer when the whim finally takes you. Why couldn’t you join with her now? Being joined is…well, it makes a lot of men happy…”
	Keanrih was now dressed, and turned to face him with an infuriating smile.
	“It’s just not the right time for me, athi,” said Keanrih. “I’m not ready to be happy. I’m having too much fun.”	
	Nocc looked at him and wondered if the shriia wasn’t on to something.
	Changed, he certainly was. But possessed? Lythril hadn’t said anything about possession. She had promised to change him so he could be happy. It seemed to Nocc that this was the same old Keanrih, only much better. But unfortunately he seemed to have the same old obstinacy about marrying Sioanna.
	“Listen,” Nocc said. “Fun is all very well, but I’m an old man and I don’t want to die before my first grandchild is born.”
	“Athi, if you don’t think you’ve got grandchildren, you haven’t been paying much attention to Trebor,” said Keanrih.
	“That’s enough!” Nocc shouted. “You’ll stay up here and have no supper at all and you’ll think about the duty you owe to your father!”
	“Athi—“ Keanrih was saying, as Nocc slammed the door on him.
	Of course the door locked from the inside, and there was nothing to prevent Keanrih from opening it and coming downstairs. But he didn’t. Nocc reached the foot of the stairs alone, and went back to the shriia sitting in the parlor.
	“No sign of him yet, I suppose,” Kelah said.
	“Afraid not, shriia.”
	Her eyes fell on the waterclock on the mantel.
	“Is it really two hours after noon?”
	“Yes, shriia.”
	“Well,” she said dryly. “I have unfortunately given my promise to be at a meeting at three hours after noon. I don’t have time to wait for your boy to get back.”
	“That is too bad, shriia,” said Nocc. 
	“Don’t bother,” Kelah said. “You’ll be glad to see the back of me, everyone is. Tell me this, man of the house. In your opinion, is there any ground to this suspicion that brought me out here? Is there anything your boy has done or said in the past few days that seems like it couldn’t possibly be him?”
	Nocc ruminated for several moments.
	“No, shriia, I can’t say there is.”
	“Then there’s probably nothing in it,” Kelah said. “When he gets in, go to the summoning well and call, and ask for me. I’ll come out and look at him and we can settle this.”
	“Thank you, shriia,” Nocc said, ushering her toward the door. “I will do as you say, of course. But he’s really all right.”
	“If I wasn’t pretty sure he was, I wouldn’t be leaving,” Kelah said. “But call.”
	“I will, shriia.”
	“Idair with you, then.”
	Kelah went down the steps to where her horse was waiting below. Nocc closed the door.
	First that creature in the kitchen, now the head of Possessions in his parlor. How long could he manage this? And how long would it be before Keanrih saw reason?
	Lythril had promised he would consent to the match. All right, she was a dark user, but he had paid and she wasn’t delivering.
	He stormed into his study, wrote out a note, and rang for Rince.
	“Yes, Aiv?”
	“Take this to the Third, to Bric mac Chlos’s office. Wait for an answer.”
	“Yes, Aiv.”
	Rince left as silently and unobtrusively as ever.
	Keanrih appeared in the doorway.
	“Must be about time for supper, eh athi?”
	“I thought I told you—“
	“Oh come on, athi,” said Keanrih. “I’m way too big to be sent to bed without my supper. I’ll fight you for it if you don’t believe me.”
	Keanrih crouched back and put up his fists. He was smiling, and Nocc thought he was probably kidding.
	All the same, he decided he wouldn’t take up the challenge.
	“All right, son,” he said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Come on down to supper. That lamb has been on the spit for hours now, I wouldn’t want it wasted.”	

*	*	*	*

	“Well,” Grinth said, pulling her chair up to the table. “Has everyone seen Lilea’s report?”
	Morat nodded. So did Barant and Dalen.
	“I take it nobody disputes Theamh’s conclusions?”
	“I don’t,” Morat said.
	“Nor do I,” Barant concurred. “I think Lythril did intend for us to discover this murder and I think she must have had a reason for committing it. What we don’t know is whether that has anything to do with what’s going on in Mablad.”
	“First things first,” Grinth said. “Why should she want to kill Krenham?”
	“It occurs to me,” said Dalen, “that it could just be a diversion.”
	“How do you mean?” Grinth pressed.
	“Well look what’s happened,” Dalen said. “Instead of working her practice, Theamh’s out in Kengda. Gives Lythril a clear field, or she thinks it does.”
	“We don’t know that she doesn’t know we’re working against her,” Barant put in.
	“True,” Morat said. “She probably knows that charm was undone. Now she might assume it was Theamh who did that; or she might…”
	Morat was dismayed at what was happening in her head.
	“Morat?” Dalen prompted.
	“Krenham’s not a diversion,” Morat finally said. “Keanrih is the diversion.”
	“What?” Grinth demanded.
	“Look at this,” Morat went on. “There’s four of us here trying to guess what she’s thinking of doing to Keanrih, and meanwhile Theamh is by herself out in Linn Agam handling a murder. Lythril must have known that given the choice between preventing harm and punishing it we would focus on the crime that’s about to take place—especially as it’s local.”
	“But Morat,” Grinth argued. “If she didn’t want us to investigate Krenham’s death, she could have killed him in some less obtrusive way…”
	“No,” Morat said, suddenly animated. “She couldn’t have. He had family and staff watching him around the clock and Lilea was on her way to watch him out. There would be no way for her to kill him without anyone noticing it had happened.”
	“Idair’s teeth,” Barant exclaimed.
	She had the look of someone who had just had a revelation.
	“She’s right,” Barant said. “And that’s exactly how Lythril works. Take a disadvantage and turn it into an asset. She has to kill him, so she pulls this insane stunt to make us all overlook the obvious. The death is so arbitrary—when he would have gone in a day or two even if she didn’t touch him—what motive could we assign to it, except this one Dalen brought up of it being a diversion?”
	“Explain,” Dalen said, a little gruffly.
	“She commits what seems like a motiveless murder,” Barant said. “Then, by making the possession seem like a diversion, she provides us with an apparent motive. So that way we’ll never look for the real motive.”
	Dalen still looked unconvinced. She turned back to Morat.
	“So what’s the real motive?” she said.
	“I don’t know,” Morat answered. “But if she organized this mess with Keanrih just to stop us from asking that question, the answer must be very, very important.”
	“If,” Grinth said. “I think both of you are overthinking.”
	“You can never overthink when it’s Lythril,” Barant said.
	Morat nodded.
	“What about these potions Theamh discovered?” Dalen said. “Is that part of her master plan too, according to your theory?”
	“No,” Morat said. “I think that was just the biggest mistake Lythril’s ever made.”
	“What do you think, Dalen?” Grinth finally said.
	“I don’t know what to think,” Dalen answered. “What Morat’s saying is plausible. It’s also plausible that this killing is motiveless, and that while we’re chasing our tails trying to come up with this mysterious motive she’ll wreak havoc under our noses.”
	Grinth looked from Dalen to Morat to Barant.
	“Here’s what we’ll do,” Grinth said. “Lilea and Theamh will stay in Kengda. Morat, you’ll head out to join them. You’ll have to ride, we’re not doing two flash forwards in one week.”
	“You don’t think it might be a good idea to—“ Morat began.
	“We should bring Theamh back, but not until you get out there. I don’t want Lilea trying to handle a possessions case alone. Barant can keep an eye on him until then. Barant, do you think Theamh’s right about Nocc being the client?”
Barant nodded. “I think it’s highly likely.”
Morat sat back in her chair with a sigh.
“If she is,” Barant observed, ignoring Morat’s obvious relief, “then Keanrih may be out of danger. The four fifty was the down payment on the charm. Lythril wouldn’t do anything else to him without being paid for it; and apparently she hasn’t been.” 
Grinth nodded. “We can hope. Dalen, any luck on the hunt?”
	“Some,” Dalen said. “Found a cat I think might be hers, but there are a lot of gray cats in the world. Don’t count on immediate results.”
	“It’s settled then,” said Grinth. “Barant, go see what you can find out in Mablad. Morat?”
	Morat was half out of her chair, following Barant’s lead. She stopped.
	“Yes, Aiv?”
	“You were right,” Grinth said. “We should have told Theamh. I’ll remember that next time.”
	Morat glanced at Barant, involuntarily. Barant was looking at the table.
	“We’ll see whether you’re right about this one. Go.”

*	*	*	*

	He had tried to stop caring what it did with him.
	It was too much. Couldn’t he just go numb, stop being scraped raw by every new outrage. Couldn’t he just resign himself. How long would it be before Theamh found out what had happened? What would happen to him in three days, or four?
	So after Calarine it went on to Elspice. Once it had forced him through the first performance how much could the second matter. At least now he knew it wouldn’t make him marry Sioanna. That much they could agree on.
	It didn’t seem very ambitious. At the moment it was wandering the ground floor aimlessly. The servants were busy, and it didn’t appear to care for things like books or painting. 
	Painting.
	He had tried not to think of Taric. But he couldn’t help thinking of him. Thinking of him and contracting in that strange disembodied pain that had become so familiar. It had been two days since they spoke, and how could he possibly interpret that except as betrayal? It hurt him to think of the anger Taric must be venting on him, cursing him as the bastard he had always been afraid Keanrih would turn out to be. It hurt him more to think of Taric huddling alone in that ramshackle house, nursing his broken heart, trying to understand how after all this time he could be left like that without a word.
	The thing had found itself something to do.
	It was walking him down the hall to Minead’s little sitting room.
	“Going out for a ride, mathi,” it called.
	Minead looked up, it seemed with some alarm.
	“Don’t worry, mathi,” his voice said. “This time it really is just a ride. I promise.”
	“Your father told me about your talk,” Minead said. “He’s very upset. So am I.”
	He had stopped crying out to her every time he saw her. She never heard.
	“I’m sorry, mathi, but…I’m just not ready. Why don’t we talk about it tomorrow, you and him and me. I don’t want to cause you pain,” his voice went on.
	She looked about to say something angry, and then she didn’t.
	“Go. Go on your ride. But when you get back, you come talk to me.”
	“All right, mathi,” his voice answered.
	It moved him quickly out of the house and into the stable.
	So it had discovered another kind of pleasure. Well, at least this was one he could enjoy honestly.
	That was another thing he worried about. He got himself through it by repeating it. Yours, not mine, yours, not mine. All the same. It was his body feeling the sensations this thing was consuming. How long could it be expected to remember that pleasure had become pain, that when it felt blood moving and desire rising and flesh straining that did not mean joy, happiness, love? And if he forced himself to remember, would he ever be able to forget? What would happen to him, after he got his freedom, the first time he saw Taric? Would the stir and the tremble suddenly make him as sick to his stomach as he was to his heart? Would his body have been retrained by this thing to feel revulsion at the sight of what he loved? To feel nothing at all?
	Leabra didn’t want to bear him. She tried shying away, but his hand got to her bridle, and when his body was on her back she resigned herself to obeying its commands, and trotting off the grounds.
	It was heading for Felim. Using the shortcut.
	Thurking hell.
	It was his fault. It was his fault for having thought of him. Now the thing was heading out there to… what would it do to him…tell him it was over, he never wanted to see him again, say every last thing Keanrih knew Taric could never forgive…or spirits of hell, what if it didn’t, what if it wanted…what if it made Taric thurk him this way, thinking it was really Keanrih, what if it made the one true thing in his life so obscenely false that it could never be right again between them…
	No. He had said he would stop screaming, but maybe this one time something would hear. No, Taric, don’t talk to me, be in one of your moods, send me back home, curse me out, don’t let me near you, make that pride work for us for once in your life for Idair’s sake for the spirit’s sake if ever in your life it was the time to see something coming that time is thurking now
	Leabra reared into the air. Using reflexes to which it had no right, the thing barely kept his body on her back. She was terribly, violently spooked.
	When the thing hauled her sideways, Keanrih could see what it was, the instant before they charged off. The tail end of a spout of flame was disappearing in the air.
	Idair? Had she heard him, finally?
	The horse plunged into the forest, thrashing in panic. Another spurt to the left sent her veering in the opposite direction. 
	Now his body was beginning to share Leabra’s fright. 
	Good.
	It was positively a relief to feel the fear that had been gripping him for so long. Even if this thing was only feeling it because Leabra was pitching like a ship in a storm and they had blundered far from the path into the darkening forest.
	With a frantic whinny, Leabra surged up and finally threw him.
	with luck maybe I’ll break my neck
	No luck. He landed on a pile of leaves and rolled back to his feet with the quickness of an animal. Then he froze into stone as the thing turned his eyes to the woman standing in front of him.
	She was only about five and a half feet tall, and couldn’t be more than twenty-five years old. But it was utterly terrified by the sight of her.
	When he saw the chain around her neck, Keanrih decided he was too.
	A silver chain, not thick but not thin, looped around her neck like any other piece of jewelry. But the links were large, more like what you would find on something holding a boat to an anchor. And above the chain, red lips, a nose that cut the air like the beak of a bird of prey, dark harsh brows, and a pair of blue eyes in which he could see hell burning.
	She wrapped in a dark robe that fell short enough to reveal a pair of black leather boots that went at least to the knee.
	“Where,” she said, in a voice that froze his veins, “do you think you are going?”
	It said nothing.
	One hand reached into the bosom of her robe and drew out a rolled-up scroll. She shook it out with a snap that terrified the thing in his body as if it were a thunderbolt.
	For a brief instant, he saw letters written across the parchment in red-orange ink. 
	Some of those letters were spelling out his name.
	His real name.
	The letters on the scroll burst into flame.
	His body convulsed in pain.
	“What does the parchment say? What does it say?”
	Finally, at last, he was screaming.
	“Does it say you’re allowed to thurk men?”
	Pain racked every joint in his shuddering frame. The relief of having his body in tune with his emotions soon dissipated, and all he knew was the agony and the fear.
	“I…wasn’t going to…”
	“Tarbhfnaa!” 
	The pain beat before his eyes in a red fog. It pulsed in his ears as the sound of flame. He wondered if his body were on fire. Was she burning him to death?
	“Pitiful son of a bitch,” the woman said, casually, as his body slammed to the ground. “Don’t lie to me, you’re not smart enough.”
	Every stone and stick felt like a separate bruise. “I’m…I won’t…”
	“Damn right. Let’s do it again, since you seem to have a short memory.”
	Through the throbbing fog he could see one of her hands clenching. Red fire coagulated in the sickened air around it.
	“Who bound you?”
	“You did!”
	“Who rules you?”
	“You do!”
	“And who am I?”
	“You are Lythril!”
	Oh fnaa.
	“That’s right!” she shouted, while his body flung itself into spasms.
Every story Theamh had ever told him about this woman was running in his mind now, as much for the thing’s benefit as for his. Had she ever told him the woman had a weakness, was there some way to fight her before she made him a smear of greasy ash…but no, all he knew from Theamh was that she was the destroyer of everything good and right, and at this very moment he was beginning to understand why.
	He could only see interrupted, disconnected snatches of sky, tree, flame, fog, as his head flailed against the forest floor.
	The thing got into a crouch, cowering away from her, lifting his eyes and then dropping them and then lifting them again in terrified anxiety.
	“You wanted a body,” she said. “Now you’ve got one. And now you know how it can hurt.” It whimpered. “This isn’t the thurking 57th plane, my friend. You’re in my world now and you are mine to torment as I please, whenever you fail to obey me, or whenever I just happen to feel like it.”
	The whimper had become constant, like the sound of wind in a slightly-open door.
	“Your contract bound you to give that promise within twenty-four hours. How many has it been?”
	“Th—th—thirty-seven.”
	She dropped down so she could look directly into his eyes.
	Close up she was vastly more terrifying. Especially since her voice was now soft, almost caressing.
	“If you do not perform what you have promised,” she said, “I will hurt you till you come to look back on this experience with a sigh of nostalgia. Then I will send you screaming into utina.”
	Cold nausea gripped Keanrih’s bowels.
	“Now you go back into the nice house and when the nice man asks you whether you want to marry Sioanna you say what?”
	“That I will.”
	“And say it like you mean it.”
	His head nodded vigorously, desperately.
	“Do not make me come out here again,” Lythril said. “Because if I do, you will learn what pain is.”
	His head nodded some more.
	“As for you, Keanrih mac Minead,” she said, standing and putting her hands on her hips.
	As he looked up at her from that groveling crouch she seemed a hundred feet tall and as broad and black as a mountain at sunset.
	“I know what you are and I know how tight you are with that little redheaded Idair’s bitch,” she said. “And if Theamh ni hUlnach, or any other living soul, ever hears from you or from anyone a single word about who overtook you or what happened here, I will go out to that farm outside Felim and I will find your thurgleach and I will make sure that his last action in this mortal life is to beg me to kill him quicker!”
	His body recoiled from a column of blood-red flame that spurted from the stones she stood on.
	It couldn’t even feel relief. Only the shuddering aftermath of the punishing it had taken at her hands, and a curdled mess of anger and fear starting to fester in his guts.
	Then it pushed his body up on his hands and knees and vomited.
	That was just fine with Keanrih. He was sure he would have done the same.	It stood up, unsteady on his feet, and began searching for Leabra.
	She had run. If she’d had any sense, she’d run into Kengda. But probably she’d just run home.
	It turned him back toward the path.
	He’d thought he knew the worst. He’d found out different.
	That woman knew his name.
	Who could have given it to her? His mother…his mother wouldn’t have…
	No. Lythril had found it out, somehow, Idair knew a creature like her must have ways of breaking into the minds of poor quivering victims like him, how could Minead stop this woman getting whatever she wanted out of her mind.
	Still. She knew his name.
	And this thing was going to promise to marry Sioanna.
	And there was something worse.
	The thing had changed.
	Before, it had been cruel to him, but it was a casual thoughtless cruelty, as if the fact that every action it made him take was an agony to him was merely incidental to the far more important project of gratifying its own lusts. It had just been hungry.
	Now, it was angry.
	It knew it was trapped. It knew it had to obey. But the yoke she had clamped so tight around its rebellious neck was chafing. It would find a way to kick against the goad.
	She had given it a whole new appetite.
	At least it was walking away from Taric. At least it would never go back. Since it was still quaking to his bones with fear of her.
	At least Taric was safe. As long as he kept his mouth shut.
	Keanrih never would be.

*	*	*	*

	Even though she was wearing a shield, she moved as if she didn’t. Dalen had trained herself to act at all times as if she were visible. If you trusted too much to the shield you would give something away—step on a dry twig, or make a bush rustle.
	Dalen had gone hunting with her brothers from when she was five, skulking in the brush finding the game for them. When she got older and understood more about life and lifetaking she found she couldn’t enjoy it. But that was something that made her good at this job. She enjoyed the hunt more without the kill.
	In the darkness ahead of her there was a slight, very slight, waver in the air, about the shape of a human. Sliding so fast among the trees she almost wasn’t sure it was there.
	Once the disturbance floated nearer, she was sure. It was her. 
Through the shield she could feel a faint signal that told her what was traveling inside that nothingness was human and present. Not the aftersight trail she had been following for the past hour but the real, live, Lythril, wrapped in her cocoon of invisibility. Heading home.
	That gray cat had been out there on her business after all. And it had led Dalen to the north side of the Vicinity, in a waste forest full of trees nobody wanted to cut and land no one wanted to farm. Where it had disappeared, through a small round tunnel that opened iridescent and shimmering near the ground, and then closed again in an instant.
	That slight warping shimmer hovered above a flat rock that shone in the moonlight like a scraped shin.
	Dalen caught her breath.
	A thin red line began to trace itself. Starting from the ground near that invisible thing, shooting quickly up to trace a door in the shield about six feet high, then dropping to the ground again.
	Inside the shape marked by that red line, the vision of the trees and darkness shuddered, rippled, and reformed.
	Dalen was looking through what seemed to be an enormous keyhole at a huge castle built of dark stone. She couldn’t see up high enough to find the turrets. But she was damn sure they were there.
	The vision shimmered. The door closed. It, and Lythril, were gone.
	But now that she knew where to look for it, Dalen could see the edges of the shield that was hiding that enormous building from her view.
	The urge to just go in and take her was strong. But Dalen knew what the result would be. How many minions or confederates did she have in there? What kind of evil had she got guarding the place? Whatever it was it had been too much for Istria to fight and survive. 
	<Morat.>
	<What?>
	<How far along are you on the road to Kengda?>
	<I’m over the border already. Why?>
	<I know where the bitch is.>
	The elation Dalen felt in her own veins echoed back from Morat’s mind.
	<Where?>
	<On a waste plot north of Peheot. Not thirty miles from the City. She’s got some thurking nerve.>
	<All right Dalen—do you think you can handle staying in hreapa for the night?>
	<Once.>
	<Contact Barant and tell her that as soon as the sun rises tomorrow she’s to come out too and bring along Tliath and Sibh for firepower. Move as soon as they get there. I’ll keep going out to Kengda in case this turns out to be another diversion.>
	<You’re right,> Dalen said. <All the same, I’ll wish I had you with me.>
	<I know, but we can’t afford to lose the trail.>
	<No we can’t.>
	<Idair with you, Dalen.>
	Dalen certainly hoped that Idair was. Because they were all going to need her.

*	*	*	*

	I’m not going to tell you.
	Because you don’t deserve to know.
	You figure it out. Which is the diversion. Keanrih, Krenham, maybe both. Work it out. Bend the might of that highly-trained brain on the problem and tell me which of them got it right.
	You may think you have the answer. But you’ll never be sure. Not till I tell you, and I will never tell you till I’m sure of you. Till the same black dross that is clogging Nocc’s veins has hardened in a crust around your own heart.
	It will. You’re almost there. Even the good left in you works for me now.
	You think you’ve crossed me. You haven’t crossed me. You don’t know enough to do that. And it won’t be long before you’ve forgotten that you want to. Before you’ve forgotten that great plan you hatched. Before you’ve forgotten that you’re not on my side.
	Before you are on my side. Body, brain and soul.
	Because corruption is irreversible. Because you were rotten, long before I came to you. Because you can’t stand not to be the one calling the shots. Because you can’t stand not to know everything.
	So I’m not going to tell you.
	Not yet.

9
Property

	It would never have happened if it weren’t for you.
	I wouldn’t even have needed you if it weren’t for the Project. I’d have spotted the bitch myself, but the Project takes all of my attention. That’s the only reason I need help. I could do without Maerin—I could do without Bric—if it were just this potions and possessions tarbhfnaa. And I could certainly do without you. But once I started the Project I couldn’t afford to waste time on gruntwork. Hence the minions, the agents, the spies. Hence you.
	Someday, maybe, I’ll tell you what the Project is. If I decide you might be useful. Till then, wonder. One thing’s certain. I’ll never trust you even half as far as Maerin could throw you.
	Especially not after today.
	No, I’ll never trust you. But I’ll use you, all the same.
	If I don’t kill you today. 
Which is utterly possible.
So understand this, before I go on.
You’re walking the bleeding knife-edge of death. 
Be careful where you step.

*	*	*	*

	He used to find it flattering. Now, it was humiliating. But it was better than having blood drawn.
	Maerin shook the last drops off and returned his zazb to his trousers. He had never become comfortable with the smell; it wasn’t so bad after the act itself but until he put the corked lid on the jar the odor wafting off this vessel could turn his head. 
	Once, when he was angry, he had done this into a couple of jars containing other ingredients. He’d known it would do damage because some of the ingredients she used couldn’t be touched by men. Afterbirth, for instance. There was plenty in that pantry that he could render useless just by being near it.
	It was shortly after that incident that he invented Fastest Way To Die.
	He closed the bedroom door and carried the jar to the landing. He was surprised to hear Lythril’s boots coming up the stairs, in a hurry.
	“You’re here,” she said. “Good. Give me that. Go strap down the minions, we’re moving house.”
	“What?” Maerin said, as Lythril hurried back down the steps. “Why?”
	“Because Idair’s bitches have traced us here,” Lythril shouted back.
	“How much warning?”
	“Yes, good thurking question, Maerin,” Lythril snapped, reaching the bottom of the stair. “Almost none. Now shift.” 
	 “But isn’t—“
	“Yes, of course, Maerin,” she said, in that patient voice that always meant she was just about to do something painful. “You’re absolutely right. We should have had at least an hour’s warning.”
	Maerin ran down the stairs. If he got by her while she was still fuming against someone else maybe this would be all right.
	“Two-timing bitch,” Lythril observed, taking the jar to the pantry. “What does she think I pay her for? The pleasure of her conversation?”
	“Are you going to—“
	“Save it till we get there, Maerin.”
	“Get where?”
	“You’ll know where we are when you go outside. Now move before I decide you’re defying me.”
	Maerin ran into the kitchen and opened the cupboard where the skeletons hung, glowing and rattling on their hooks. He found the bands that dangled from latches in the back of the cupboard and began securing them. Bones were brittle, and a lot of bother to repair, especially in something this long dead.
	He had always wanted to ask her how she did it. But asking questions was a pretty fast way to die.
	“What about—“
	“Shut up and drop.”
	Maerin went out to the hallway, well away from furniture and hanging objects, and spread himself out on the floor.
	She had finished battening down the pantry. The furniture upstairs, and what was in the cellar, would be left to shift for itself.
	He heard her going down the steps. He knew she was going into the round room.
	It didn’t take the usual half-hour. The floor began shuddering, then quaking. Then there was a roar that destroyed sound, and a stabbing flash of red light that shredded his consciousness.

*	*	*	*

	Dalen knew she was acting like she had lost her head. She couldn’t help it.
	“Well, maybe it’s behind the shield—“ Tliath suggested.
	Dalen fired a burst of showdust into the trees. It shot straight through the space until it splattered against a trunk, running down to the roots like iridescent sap.
	“It’s not invisible,” Dalen said. “It’s just not thurking there.”
	Behind her she could hear Sibh exhaling. Why not; it was her first month on the Council and of course she was relieved not to have been thrown into this kind of firefight.
	Barant returned, tramping through the space on which Dalen was still certain that she had seen that dark pile of stone sitting.
	“Want to see something weird?” Barant called.
	“What?” Dalen said, uninterested in anything but her own sense of failure.
	“Come look at these trees.”
	Dalen went. Barant leaned on one of them, her fingers curving over the smooth and peeling white bark.
	“These are bog oaks,” Barant said. “They grow near marshes, round the edges of fens and swamps, sometimes right up through standing water.”
	Dalen’s eyes flicked from trunk to trunk. Barant was right. She could still see moss dripping from the branches in those swaying festoons that used to frighten her when she was tracking in the bogs at night.
	“And look.” Barant bounced up and down in her ropesoles. The ground under her feet gave with her. Dalen tried it; the earth was soft and spongy.
	“Barant,” Dalen said, keeping her voice low so the others wouldn’t hear, “I know I did not imagine this. I know I am not crazy.”
	“Of course not,” Barant said. “We all saw the flash, didn’t we? Obviously that was her—and her pile—going. And all of this—“ Barant gestured at the trees and earth. 
	“Coming,” Dalen said.
	“Exactly.”
	“So that’s why she wasn’t where we found Theamh and Istria, that first time.”
	Barant nodded.
	“Wherever she went to is probably where all this used to be.”
	“Probably.”
	“Well,” Dalen said. “How lucky that Morat is already on her way to Kengda, land of bogs, bog oak, and motiveless murders. Should have known Morat was right. She always is.”
“Not always,” Barant observed.
“A little hyperbole never hurt anyone.”
“Very true.”
“I suppose I should go out there and join her.”
	“Would probably make sense,” Barant said. “Of course, if she can just hop all over the country at will—“
	“Then we may always be a minute late and a copper short,” Dalen finished. “So what. We got closer today than we ever have been. I think our luck’s changing.”
	“Let’s hope,” Barant said, following her out to where the other shriias were waiting.

*	*	*	*

	“Son,” Nocc said, enfolding Keanrih in his arms. “I can’t tell you how happy this makes me.”
	He turned around to beam at Minead.
	“Our eldest finally joining!” There were tears in his eyes, and his voice trembled. “How fast do you think we can plan the wedding?”
	Minead knew she should be happy about this. But she was looking at Keanrih’s face, and something about it was bothering her.
	“Keanrih,” she said. “Chara. Are you sure this is what you want?”
	“Of course it is, mathi,” he said, lowering his eyes. “I…I’ve been so much trouble to you. I know I can’t just…wander about doing whatever pleases me. I’m sorry I’ve been so irresponsible. I want to be a good son.”
	“Keanrih, look at me.”
	There was water in his eyes and his face looked sincere, pained and transparent as it did when Keanrih was feeling remorseful about something. At the same time, she couldn’t shake the feeling that the consent he had just given had not been given freely.
	“Nocc, will you leave us for a moment?” Minead said.
	“Of course, chara,” Nocc said, stepping up to her and kissing her cheek. “I’ll send a courier to Ridac. I hope he’s still willing.”
	“Nocc—“ Minead called, but he was already out of the room.
	Keanrih turned back to her, composing his face. “Mathi?”
	“Sit down, Keanrih,” Minead said.
	Keanrih pulled up the footstool and crouched on it, as he used to when he was a little boy. They used to watch the fire together, her in her armchair and him on the stool, playing shadows. Looking into the fire now, Minead couldn’t see anything but a vague premonition of trouble.
	“Son,” she said, turning back from the fire to him. “You know how your father feels about this match. I want you to know how I feel about it.”
	He looked dismayed. “Don’t you want me to join with her?”
	Minead sighed.
	“Keanrih…I’ve wanted for a long time to see you joined. Sioanna’s a good girl. But…”
	For relief, for a moment, she looked back at the fire. Drawing up her courage, she faced her son again. There was nothing in his expression of innocent attentiveness to give her the idea that he understood any of her doubts.
	Maybe she was making trouble out of nothing. Maybe he did want this, and all the ruction he had been causing was just his final fling.
	“It just has never seemed to me, before today, that you showed any real interest in her after Nocc broached the prospect of the match to you. In fact I…well. So far as I could tell, you didn’t seem interested in any woman.”
	“I’ve told you about that, mathi—“
	“I know what you told me.”
	There was a heavy silence.
	“So then what?” said Keanrih. “Do you not believe me?”
	Minead considered what to say.
	“I don’t care whether what you told me is the truth or not. I really don’t. I noticed your comings and goings and…never asked you because you didn’t want me to know. And I didn’t want to know. I still don’t want to know.”
	“Mathi—“
	“Let me finish. All that is your business. My business is to love you, and to try to help you do right and be happy. And that’s why I’m talking to you. This match will make Nocc happy. You have to think about whether it will make Sioanna happy.”
	“I’ll try to be a good husband to her,” Keanrih said, dutifully.
	 “Do you love her, Keanrih?”
	Keanrih gave a soft little laugh.
	“Mathi, how can I, I hardly know her. You didn’t love athi when you married him. It’s…haven’t you explained it to me, you respect the person and you like the person enough to work together, and after so many years of rowing in the same boat you come to friendship and out of that love. I don’t see it’s such a bad system. I admire you and athi, so much, it would make me happy to have a marriage like yours.”
	His face ratified the words, radiating hope and affection. Minead was conscious of how much she wanted to believe he meant it.
	 “I just…want to know that you understand that you’re taking someone’s life in your hands when you join her. That you know what a responsibility it is.”
	“I do, mathi. You taught me that.”
	Keanrih had always been a sensitive boy, sweet and loving and wanting everyone to be happy. And she’d watched him grow into a kind man who took stewardship seriously, who treated tenants with respect. Of all her children, he was the most likely to make a good husband and a good parent. So why shouldn’t she. Why not believe him.
	She put a hand on his shoulder. He covered it with one of his.
	“Happiness to both of you,” Minead said. “Life, and health, and many children. I hope your marriage is a good story with a happy ending.”
	“Thank you, mathi,” said Keanrih.
	They stood up. Keanrih put his arms around her.
	“I will be a good husband to her.”
	“I know you will, chara.”
	“I better go see about Rahill and his ground peas,” Keanrih said. “Nocc was just saying he was wondering how they were getting on.”
	“All right, chara.”
	Keanrih left.
	Minead sank back into her chair as the door closed.
	Her eyes found the fire, which was dying in the grate. She wouldn’t bother refueling it. The days were getting warmer.
	Quietly, without asking herself why, she began to cry.

*	*	*	*

	The toe of a boot was poking into his side. Maerin rolled over.
	“You were out colder than usual,” Lythril said. “Must be the speed. We’ll have more warning next time.”
	He sat up. His head hurt and his stomach seemed to be spinning.
	“But if she’s betrayed you?” he said.
	Lythril shook her head.
	“Once I get her back in line she’ll be twice as valuable.” She began tidying up in the hallway, straightening hangings and replacing sconces. “You want to know how I’m going to do it, don’t you.”
	“Yes,” he admitted, getting to his feet.
	“It’s her being at large that’s the problem,” Lythril said. “Hanging around with all those shriias. She’s been led astray by good company.”
	He returned her smile.
	“Nothing succeeds like the personal touch,” Lythril went on. “Especially when it’s applied to someone who’s just been yanked in an instant from her peaceful bed across half of Kengda to a pit like this.”
	“You going to keep her here?”
	Lythril laughed.
	“Maerin, I know you miss the work. But that’s the terrible irony of competence. Your methods became so efficient that you are now out of a job.”
He was glad she had at least noticed he was good at it. 
“Gratifying as it would be to see you start in on her, it would defeat my purpose. We’re bending her, not breaking her. Torture would be the wrong approach.”
	He sighed. Lythril found this funny.
	“So that’s where we are? Kengda?”
	“Last place they’ll look for me.”
	“What about Keanrih?”
	“What about him? He’s done. If Bric doesn’t get the money from Nocc by sundown tonight, I’ll let you stay on top.”
	It was infuriating, the suddenness of his inflammation.
	“Really?” he said.
	“Sure,” Lythril answered. “Now get the minions and get breakfast. I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

*	*	*	*

	Barant stood in the sun on the doorstep of the na Poll house. It had taken her the entire morning to walk there from the last known site of Lythril’s lair. Lythril’s ability to send not only herself but an enormous stone monstrosity across two provinces in the blink of an eye certainly was handy. She wondered how many creatures Lythril had to kill, maim or mutilate in order to make the spell.
	The oaken door swung slightly open, and the sallow face of Nocc’s steward appeared in the narrow fissure.
	“Good day, friend,” said Barant. “I’m here to see Keanrih. Is he at home?”
	“No, shriia,” said the steward.
	“Ah well. May I speak to Minead, then?”
	“I’m sorry, she is not at home.”
	Barant’s eyes narrowed.
	“Then I’ll try Nocc.”
	“I’m sorry, but he is not at home.”
	“Is anyone at home, friend?”
	“No, shriia.”
	“Friend,” said Barant, “I’m not going to ask you if you’re lying to me, as that is of course blindingly obvious. What I’m curious to know is why.”
	“I’m not at liberty to say, shriia.”
	They stared at each other. Barant wondered briefly if he were under the influence, but he was reading normally. Probably under the influence of nothing worse than his Aiv.
	“You know this isn’t a social call,” said Barant. “Keanrih is in danger. If Nocc doesn’t care about that I am quite sure Minead would—“
	 “I’m afraid none of the family are home, shriia. Please come back another time.”
	“So you can tell me again that they’re not at home.”
	The steward looked into the middle distance with an expression of resignation.
	“Suppose I were to go on in and wait,” Barant said, taking a step forward.
	“I’m afraid my Aiv would be bound to consider that excessive disregard for property,” said the steward. 
	Excessive Disregard for Property was what the lawyers called a term of art. She doubted that this steward, left to himself, would ever have heard it; he must be relaying an explicit message given to him by his aiv. No doubt Nocc had been advised by a lawyer that the way to keep a shriia out of your house was to get an EDP order. To get an EDP order, one had to show evidence that a particular shriia or shriias were or could reasonably be believed to be about to violate one’s rights to property. Barant’s forcing her way into this home against its owners’ will could be construed, by the right presider, as sufficient evidence for an EDP order. By the time she had gone to court to substantiate her reasons, it might be too late to do Keanrih any good.
	“And take appropriate legal action, no doubt,” Barant said.
	“Absolutely, shriia.”
	If she could find him now…but it was a huge place, and she had no idea if Keanrih really were in there or if so where. And suppose the danger hadn’t come upon him yet. Suppose it were still in the offing, and she tied the Order up in a legal quarrel at exactly the time he needed their help. It would be more prudent to retire now, and quietly initiate the process of getting legal permission to enter.
	“As you know,” Barant said, “the Order abides by the laws passed in the Seat.”
	“Yes, shriia.”
	“ Except when we judge that it is necessary to violate those laws in order to prevent a greater evil.”
	“I understand, shriia. But I must tell you that if you force your way into the house, I am authorized to remove you. My aiv will prosecute the intrusion to the fullest extent.”
	“Friend,” said Barant, “I doubt anyone in there could remove me against my will.”
	The steward looked unconcerned.
	“As I understand it, shriia,” he said, “that is why the EDP order exists.”
	“You know,” said Barant, “it’s people like your Aiv—“
	She stopped herself before the outburst could break.
	“Good day to you, friend,” said Barant, turning on her heel. “I wish you the best of luck as you struggle to live with your conscience.”
	She started down the steps. The door slammed shut behind her.

*	*	*	*
	
	Taric wasn’t used to the market at Mablad. Normally when he had to deal he went to the City or to Felim. But he wasn’t there to deal. He was there for gossip.
	Nocc might have warned him off the property, but he couldn’t warn him out of the market. At least he could find out where things stood.
	But he wasn’t hearing what he wanted. In the trading pens they were talking about livestock; in the taverns they were talking about planting. Taric only wanted to hear about what was going on in the na Poll house; and perversely, this one afternoon, nobody was talking about it.
	Perhaps it was his look of desperation that brought the horse dealer over to him.
	“Seen better days, has she?”
	Taric looked at the stranger’s face, with its sharp features and piercing eyes.
	“Friend?” Taric said.
	The man nodded his head at Bearla. “Looks like she came from a good line. But she’s been doing a lot of heavy pulling, hasn’t she? Ploughing, and that?” He put a hand on her haunch. “Still. You might find a buyer, long as you don’t get notions about the price.”
	“I’m not here to sell her,” Taric said, finally catching his drift.
	“Pity,” said the horse dealer. “What are you selling?”
	If he said “nothing,” this man would certainly walk on. If Taric could keep him talking, maybe he could get something out of him.
	“I’m looking for someone interested in buying into the Mypril Reds,” said Taric. “Know anyone?”
	“Well, I don’t touch sheep,” said the man. “But I might have a friend who’d help you out. How many you looking to unload?”
	“One,” said Taric.
	The man just barely stopped himself from laughing.
	“A dealer won’t bother with you, friend,” he said, dropping his voice as if he were imparting great wisdom. “Your only hope is to find a small farmer who wants a bargain. Tell you what,” he said. “Rahill mac Oread was here this morning—you know Rahill?”
	Taric shook his head.
	“Must not be from round here. Anyhow, Rahill’s the ambitious type. He keeps sheep—I bet he’d be interested. Might be worth going out for a chat.”
	“Where’s his farm?”
	“Out in the foothills, you can’t miss it. Here, what you do…” 
When the man was finished, Taric said, “Thanks, friend. What’s in it for you?”
	The dealer laughed, and seemed amused rather than offended.
	“There’s my card,” he said, handing Taric a square of plywood. “If I’ve done you a good turn, well, I hope you’ll remember to stop at the sign of the Three Roans next time you’re looking for a piece of horseflesh. Good luck to you, friend.”
	Taric looked down at the three horses painted on the square. He thought, automatically, that Keanrih would have painted them better.
	“Thank you,” he said, sadly.
	The dealer left him. Taric got back onto Bearla.
	The directions were clear—so clear that when Taric saw the little whitewashed cottage he couldn’t really believe he had arrived. But it was just as the dealer had told him—a two-room job with new thatch. There was a man sitting inside the barn surrounded by bags of some kind of seed.
	“Rahill mac Oread?” Taric called, doubtfully.
	“The same,” said the man, standing up. “What brings you out here, friend?”
	“I got your address from a horse dealer,” said Taric. “He told me you might be interested in buying a Mypril Red that I’m wanting to sell.”
	Somehow Rahill seemed very interested in him.
	“What name do you use, friend?” he said.
	“Taric.”
	“Where’d you come by a Mypril Red?”
	“From a crooked dealer in Streheel.”
	Rahill clucked in sympathy. “That little chiseler who runs Two Shakes?”
	“The same.” Rahill shook his head. “Now I’ve started her on the cake, she’s doing well. But I can’t afford her.”
	“Well,” said Rahill. “Walk with me to the house, and let’s talk about this.”
	Taric stepped aside as Rahill emerged from the barn. When Taric turned to follow him, he could see a man on horseback riding toward them down the lane separating Rahill’s fields from the next tenant’s.
	“Hm,” said Rahill, shading his eyes. “Wonder who that is.”
	Taric stood next to him and watched the man get closer.
	His body was on the alert before his mind knew why.
	That horse was Leabra. And the man riding it could only be Keanrih.
	“Ah, it’s just Keanrih,” said Rahill. “Must be about the ground peas. Nice man, our steward. Do you know him?”
	Taric had been, for some time, slowly moving toward Bearla.
	“I’m not from around here,” Taric said.
	“So no, then,” said Rahill.
	Only half-looking at Rahill, Taric noticed that the horse and its rider had slowed down. And then stopped.
	And now they were turning around.
	“Excuse me,” said Taric. “I have to go.”
	Taric leapt onto Bearla and began spurring her after the swiftly departing horse.

*	*	*	*
	
	was it him
	The thing wouldn’t let him look around. It spread his body flat over Leabra’s neck and dug his heels into her sides. But Keanrih was almost sure it was him. The shadow that had been getting larger in his peripheral vision was Taric, and the trampling hooves that were chasing him belonged to Bearla.
	it was, wasn’t it
	He was sure for a lot of reasons, not least of which was the anxiety in his body. This thing was scared. Not of Taric, but of Lythril. 
He had had plenty of time to think, and little ability to think of anything but that horrifying encounter with the black-haired predator in whose clutches he was writhing. Obviously she had forbidden the thing to thurk men, and given it free rein as far as thurking women. Had she also forbidden the thing to have contact with Taric?
	you bastard
	It would make sense. Especially since she was dead-set on getting him to join with Sioanna. Almost as set as Nocc. Even Minead was glad about it. The whole world wanted him to join with that woman. Why? What could it possibly matter to anyone but himself and Taric if he joined with her or didn’t? Why was that woman ready to crush his body and blight his spirit just to make it happen? Was Sioanna paying her? Was Ridac?
	come on Bearla
	He had always been proud of Leabra’s speed and agility; he was cursing it now, as she leapt over hedgerow after rock wall, barreling across the untilled farms toward the na Poll grounds. Taric had been able to keep pace with him at the Turning. But Keanrih hadn’t been trying to shake him then.
	The hooves were getting nearer. The agony of not being able to slow down his own movement was unbearable. If Leabra would just stumble, just once. 
	She didn’t stumble. But those hooves were still getting closer.
	It wouldn’t look back.
	His eyes were fixed on the rocking and leaping vision of the stone house with its grounds webbed out around it. Once Leabra galloped over that green line separating the grass from the muddy dreck of these fields, he would be caught again. The lawn was a bog, the house was a dungeon, the whole place was a quagmire waiting to suck him in.	ride I don’t care whether it’s anger or love or fear spurring you on just ride, close the gap, drag me off the back of this beast, capture me, seize me, overtake me
	Leabra stumbled.
	His body flew through the air to land in mud. As he rolled to his feet, he saw Leabra’s hooves churning in it. She broke its grip, charging onto the grounds. At least she hadn’t broken a leg.
	“Stop, Bearla!”
	It was Taric’s voice, and those were Bearla’s hooves that were whistling around his head as the wretched thing forced him to his feet and catapulted him across the mud toward that green border.
	He heard Taric’s boots thudding behind him. 
	His own boots were running on grass now.
	“Help!”
	That was his voice.
	He could see, emerging at the edges of the lawn, two groundskeepers, each holding the leashes of several dogs.
	“Frith!” 
	He could hear them shouting as they unmuzzled the dogs. 
	“Frith, madai! Frith!”
	Over the growling and snapping he could hear Taric shouting in pain.
	His steps slowed down. The thing dragged his body up to the house. 
	It never let him look back.	

*	*	*	*

	<Harani.>
	Harani had just settled down with her plateful of pottage at one of the tables by the refectory. She was glad to have someone to distract her from the food.
	<Theamh! How’s Kengda?>
	<Damp. How are things out in the practice?>
	<Nothing very major so far.> Harani explored the bowl with the spoon. <One guy up in Vinha told me a friend of his might be possessed, but he ran off before I could get particulars.>
	<Who was he?>
	<He gave me a name but I’m pretty sure it was a fake. No matronymic.>
	<In Vinha?>
	<Yes, but I don’t think he was from around there—different accent.>
	<I wish I’d been there.>
	<Forget about it, Theamh, there’s no way to follow up; I of course didn’t see him, and nobody around seemed to have known him.>
	<Still-->
	<Anyhow, forget Vinha. Mablad is where it’s happening.>
	<Really.>
	<Everyone’s in a tizzy over the wedding.>
	<What wedding?>
	<I thought he would have told you. Keanrih mac Minead—he’s joining with Sioanna ni hAlanna. She’s one of Ridac’s daughters, isn’t she? The pretty one.>
	<He’s joining with her? Are you sure?>
	<Published it this afternoon. Why, you don’t like her?>
	<I don’t like her any less than I like any other spoiled big house brat, it’s just—listen, Harani, what other dirt do you have on him, I mean his recent activities?>
	<Dirt?>
	<What have you heard about what he’s been up to?>
	<Well, I hate to say it about a friend of yours, Theamh, but it would seem he’s been up to nothing but trouble. I heard from this tailor whose cousin knows the brother of Carith who works in the kitchen-- >
	<What kind of trouble?>
	Theamh was often abrupt, but this was something else. Most of the time when Harani was passing on news Theamh was letting her mind wander. It was strange for her to be wanting more news.
	<Well…mainly, he’s supposed to have been going through the women servants like a milliner’s daughter goes through hats.>
	<By ‘goes through’ you mean-->
	<You led a sheltered upbringing, Big House.>
	<I’m sorry, Harani, it just matters, so could you dispense with the innuendos-->
	<He’s said to be thurking the help, Theamh. That clear enough?>
	There was a long pause that gave Harani pangs of conscience.
	<I’m sorry to snap, Theamh, of course you want to know what’s going on…>
	<And Nocc is doing what while this goes on?>
	<Going about his business with a fnaa-eating grin, from what they tell me.>
	<And what do your sources say about how Minead is taking all this?>
	<Dunno. She’s a lot cagier than he is, you know.>
	Another pause.
	<Theamh, have I just mortally offended you? Let me know if I have, because you’re one of the only real friends I’ve got.>
	<No, Harani. You’re—I’m sorry—look, you’re the expert on tale-bearing, tell me, this…these stories about him and the servants, in your opinion, are they credible?>
	Harani thought about this.
	<Nothing’s a dead certainty, Theamh, but…yes, I think they’re credible.>
	Silence.
	<You’re leaving me hanging again, Theamh.>
	<Harani, he’s possessed.>
	<What?>
	<He’s got to be. It’s the only explanation. I’ll call—oh fnaa, I won’t, my link is still blocked.>
	<You mean you can’t talk to the Council at all?>
	<They call me, I can’t call them. Can you go to Barant and tell her she needs to go see Keanrih right away?>
	<Well I don’t think she will, Theamh, because Nocc has filed for an EDP order.>
	<Oh has he.>
	<Heard about it from Ethir just about an hour ago. Hey, Theamh, you have eyes—does he look as good as he sounds?>
	<Harani, please!>
	<Idair’s teeth, you’re some serious fnaa tonight, aren’t you?>
	<Has he got the order?>
	<Not yet. They won’t act on the petition until tomorrow.>
	<Well then-->
	<Not going to happen, Theamh. You know how Barant is about going against the Seat.>
	<Will you ask, Harani. Will you just ask. Please. I’ll get there as fast as I can.>
	Oh dear.
	<Theamh, has the Council told you you can leave yet?>
	<No, of course they haven’t.>
	<Shouldn’t you ask first?>
	<If I ask and they say no I’ll be disobeying an explicit order. Now I’m just disobeying an implicit order.>
	<Theamh-->
	<Will you talk to Barant and try to get her to go out there. Please. It’ll take me a day to get back and that’s a long thurking time for a possessed person.>
	<All right, Theamh, I’ll talk to her. Should I tell her you’re on your way?>
	<Only if she asks.>
	Idair’s mercy and wisdom.
	<Theamh, they’re not fooling around with you any more. I heard Slythe say Dalen says Morat told her they’re running out of options. You don’t want to get-->
	<I promised I would go out and come straight back. That’s what I’m doing.>
	<They are going to roast you over a slow-->
	<Harani, I don’t have time. Let me know what Barant says. Idair with you.>
	The link closed.
	Show a bull a red rag, give Theamh a Council order, the result was always the same. She had never had an ounce of political savvy in her entire body. It had been hard enough talking sense to her while Istria was still working with her; now that Istria was gone, Theamh’s disregard for her career had become practically suicidal. She would go out to that house no matter what, and take whatever punishment came to her.
	Unless Harani could get Barant out there first.

*	*	*	*
	Lilea had just finished undoing when she heard the knock on the door.
	“It’s Theamh. I need a favor.”
	With her hreapa dangling from one hand, Lilea went to the door in her shift. Theamh was on the other side, still in her hreapa, and looking highly agitated.
	“Can I borrow your horse?”
	“What for?”
	“I need to get back home.”
	As soon as Lilea began wondering what for, she saw Theamh’s face become even more desperate.
	“Theamh, what is it?”
	“I—I know they expect me to stay out here but I didn’t actually give a promise and he’s one of my people—“
	“Who is?”
	“Keanrih.”
	Lilea had thought that was probably it. Theamh had talked to her about his case for two solid hours after the departure.
	“Theamh, are you sure this is nec—“
	“I just talked to Harani, Lilea. She said Nocc has announced Keanrih’s marriage with Sioanna.”
	Lilea blinked.
	“Take the horse.”
	“Bless you, Lilea.”
	“And take the potions!” Theamh stopped. “Ethir says you have to keep them in your possession till they’re turned over to the courts.”
	“Thanks, Lilea,” she said, darting into the room and scooping the bottles into her traveling bag. She ran back through the doorway.
	“I’ll cover for you if I can,” Lilea called. “Ride safely.”
	But Theamh was already gone.

*	*	*	*

	Bric bowed to Nocc across his office desk. “Congratulations.”
	“Thanks,” said Nocc. He dropped a velvet purse onto the desk. It fell with a clank. “It’s all there. You can count it if—“
	“I trust you, Nocc.”
	Besides, at this point Nocc would know better than to try to stiff Lythril.
	“Now about that EDP order.”
	“Filed it this afternoon. We should hear by tomorrow. I presume you would prefer we not make this public.”
	“Oh yes. I don’t want Minead to find out. She’d misinterpret.”
	After all his years in the business he still found it hard to believe. He’d look at a client and think, he’s got to be putting me on. Doesn’t he know? Does he think I don’t? Why go on pretending?
	And yet it was easy enough for him to confront evil that wasn’t really his. What would it cost Nocc to admit that he was afraid that Minead would guess right, that she would know as soon as the news reached her that her husband was working for the Dark One, and against their son?
	“We can have it sealed. I’ll talk to the judge.”
	Nocc nodded. “I know you’ll take care of it. Now. Obviously we won’t have a shri ceremony; we’ll just have the town leader do it. How soon can we get all the documents in order?”
	No, seeing as Keanrih was possessed it would be a bad idea to have a shri ceremony. But that in itself was normal. Most arranged matches were made in law only. 
	“End of the week, I think.”
	“Wonderful.” Nocc beamed. “Thank you for everything, Bric. You’ll let me know what happens.”
	“I will.”
	“Idair with you.”
	“You too.”
	Nocc left.
	Bric picked up the purse and went to the library that adjoined his office. He took a key from inside one of the books and opened a locked drawer in the bottom cupboard.
	Inside the drawer was a box done in black wood, with cryptic carving around the edges. It was polished as smooth as butter, and slid under his fingers like a woman’s soft skin. He lifted the lid. The inside was lined with red velvet. It was empty.
	Bric opened the purse and poured in the coins.
	Four hundred and fifty. Lythril would give him back his twenty percent at the end of the month. She didn’t like him docking it in advance.
	He closed the lid.
	When he opened it, the box was empty.
	He watched every time but he never saw the change. Not a flicker, not a sound. It went in, he closed the lid, it was gone. He’d seen much more spectacular displays of her power. But somehow it was this box that fascinated him the most. He just couldn’t believe there wasn’t a trick to it.
	Bric pushed the drawer shut and turned the key. He replaced it in a different book, noting the name on the spine.
	He went back to the desk and began drawing up the license.

*	*	*	*

	“I’m sorry, Harani. It’s out of the question.”
	Barant’s voice always had the soft warmth of sunshine, this time blended with the sadness of falling water. It was a beautiful voice, and Harani envied it. As she was discovering, however, it made arguing with her frustrating.
	“The order hasn’t come down yet, now’s the time—“
	“Harani, if I go in there tonight, the order will definitely come down tomorrow. If we leave the house alone they have no standing. I went out there on a legitimate call and I can show legitimate grounds to suspect evildoing. It’ll be all right.”
	“But if he really is possessed—“
	“Theamh is making an assessment from miles away based on third-hand information, Harani. If she turns out to have been wrong, I will have cut off our access to him before the time comes when he needs us.”
	Harani felt bad for being so angry.
	“But even if you only half believe she’s right, isn’t it worth the risk?”
	Barant sighed. Harani heard her pushing her chair back and getting up from behind the desk to walk over the creaking floorboards.
	“You have to look at the big picture, Harani.”
	Harani quashed her reflex impulse to point out that she couldn’t look at anything.
	“We’re not allowed to own property. Everything we have—our residences, our livestock, our food—has to be donated by the people or by the secular government that acts for them. In return, we allow that government, and those people, to preserve the freedoms they are entitled to. That includes the freedom to own property. The Seated Leaders trust us not to violate property rights unless it is absolutely necessary. If we don’t live up to that trust, then there’s no reason we should expect them to live up to their end of the bargain. Do you see?”
	“No, I don’t see.”
	“Of course we want to protect people from evil. But Idair wanted people to be free, even if that sometimes means doing harm to each other. Just as the Seat wants people to be free to pursue wealth and prosperity, even though that means throwing others into want and misery. We have to respect those freedoms. That’s what Theamh doesn’t understand.”
	“What I don’t understand is why you won’t listen to your own apprentice when she tells you she needs your help.”
	Even Barant’s sigh of weariness was musical.
	“I am listening to her,” said Barant. “I am helping her. I’m going into the Courts tomorrow to argue against that order. If we’re successful, then I can get in there and cleanse him tomorrow. And I have every reason to believe we will be successful.” 
	Her footsteps returned to the desk. Harani still hadn’t figured out what to say.
	“Thank you for coming to me, Harani. I’ll tell the others what Theamh told you. Idair with you.”
	Harani bowed. “With you too, Aiv.”
	She walked to the door and pushed it open. 

*	*	*	*

	You know why I dragged you out here. 
It was your fault. You’re probably surprised I haven’t already punished you for it.
	This is because your conception of “punishment” is tragically limited.
	I used pain on the kraikk because that’s all a thing like it can understand. I deal with Maerin in a manner that befits him. Your punishment is never to know that you’re being punished.
	This one time, I’m making an exception. 
Go on down to the cellar. Take the key. 
When you come back up here, it better be done. If it isn’t, I will show you how I get those hearts into the jars. 
It will continue to beat in there after you’re dead. Till I’ve used it up. Which could take years.
There will be no departure. No one will find your body. Your spirit will never make it home. It will cling around that heart like fog to a marsh. Keeping the poor thing alive. Hoping something will work out. Unwilling to let go.
You don’t believe me. It may be a lie. It may not. You won’t take the risk. You’re not made that way.
I’ve done the hard part. All you have to do is go down there and finish her. 
Do it. Or die. Because I’ve made up my mind.
After tonight, you’re my property.

10
Permanent Harm

	What you don’t know about demons could fill a book.
	It’s believed that a person can’t live with a demon, long-term. But it happens. The demon and the host’s spirit combine to make a third thing that’s neither one nor the other. A meeting of the minds, you might say.
	There are people in this country still walking around with demons I introduced into them ten or fifteen years ago. If you ask me, so is everyone in the Cretid Nation. They don’t realize it. They don’t believe in spirits, or in naming, and their minds are weak. The demons take them as soon as they’re born; by the time they’re grown, they don’t even know the demons are there. They assume that the demon’s appetites and instincts and desires belong to them. And who’s to say they’re wrong. By the time a demon’s been in you that long, it’s impossible to separate you from it.
	I wasn’t expecting this kraikk to stay in Keanrih forever. The damage would be done in three weeks. Once it left, the body would continue to do as it had been taught. And he would be broken enough to give up trying to teach it different.
	Three weeks. That was all I needed. No reason I shouldn’t get it. All it would take would be a little juggling. Keeping the people who wanted to help him busy doing anything but.
	I’m good at that.
	So are you. 

*	*	*	*

	“I knew you’d come round eventually,” Sioanna said, linking her arm in his.
	Keanrih felt his mouth opening in a laugh.
	He hoped this thing would leave him before he started to hate Sioanna. Before, she had been an annoyance, something he hoped would go away and leave him alone. Now, he found himself wishing her ill. Especially since she seemed so thurking pleased to be about to become the bride of this monster.
	“I’m honored to have you,” said his voice.
	“Oh don’t be so formal,” Sioanna said, whispering to him as they entered the na Felchetts’ dining hall. “Just say you’re pleased, and that I’m charming.”
	“I’m pleased, and you’re charming,” it said, giving her a kiss on one cheek.
	She laughed, and led him to the table.
	His family and hers, grouped around it, ready for the traditional luncheon. He couldn’t stand the sight of them. All applauding, congratulating him, even poor old thickheaded Bilhad who was honestly happy for him, Tilhu who was excited at the prospect of all the new frocks and new male cousins, Trebor who had been bantering with him all morning in a man-of-the-world tone that made him wish he could vomit onto his boots, and Nocc looking as if he were having a vision of the otherworld.
	But the worst was that as he sat down, he could feel some of that anger, resistance, resentment, in his gut. Either this thing hated the thought of marrying her as much as he did…or he was starting to feel like it did.
	Probably the former. Hopefully the former. Please Idair let it be the former.
	But how long could it go on? How long could he hold out against the evidence of his senses? How long would it be before finally, inevitably, he became what he felt?	

*	*	*	*

	Used as he was to all-nighters, Ethir still felt ragged. The motion for the EDP order had been scheduled for noon and he had had almost no notice. Since the sun rose he had consulted with Barant, put together his battle plan, gone before the presider, and come back out with a decision. Finally he had a few minutes to himself, and he was wasting them in an absorbing but silent disquisition on how, why, and in what ways he hated Bric mac Chlos. 
He heard the office door blow open as if in a strong wind.
	“May I help you, shriia?”
	“I’m looking for Ethir, Ernth, is he—“
	“I know that voice,” Ethir called, getting up from the desk and walking around to where Theamh ni hUlnach stood in the entranceway.
“Ethir!” She was sweating with exertion, and her hair was even more unruly than usual. “Thank Idair. I came to drop off the bloody knife, so to speak.”  
She took three glass bottles out of her enormous traveling bag.
	Ethir felt his heart go pitter-patter. “Is—is this it? The evidence?”
	Theamh nodded. “This one in the red bottle is ghilfeicc. The other two in the black frosted glass are the important ones.”
	“Youth potion,” he said.
	“Exactly.”
	They contemplated the bottles for a moment.
	“I love it,” Ethir said. “It makes me so happy just to stand here looking at them.”
	“I wouldn’t go that far, myself,” said Theamh. “But I understand.”
	Convicting Lythril. It would be the achievement of…well, not a lifelong ambition, but one he had been cherishing since his days in law school. This was what magic law was all about—battling evil, defeating minions, banishing dark users. Not these altercations between the Seat and the Order on which he seemed to spend so much of his time. The memory of that EDP order hearing was already beginning to fade as his mind began plotting strategies and constructing cross-examinations.
	“Do you need me to…give an affidavit, or anything?”
	“Later,” Ethir said, waving a hand. “I know where to find you. I just—it would be unprofessional to turn cartwheels in the office, but damn this is fabulous!”
	Theamh was smiling. “It is, isn’t it?” she said. “Just imagine how wonderful life would be without her in it.”
	Ethir felt a pang of remorse. He hadn’t been thinking of it that way. He had been imagining how his closing argument would bring down the house.
	“Couldn’t you be just a little ambitious?” Ethir said. “You make a man ashamed, standing there thinking noble thoughts while I’m having delusions of grandeur.”
	“Oh it’s not noble,” Theamh said, with a warning laugh. “It’s very, very selfish. Anyway, Ethir, ambition doesn’t corrupt people, except when it does.” 
Ethir laughed. Theamh yawned.
“Am I boring you?” he inquired.
She looked embarrassed. “Oh—no—I just—I was riding all night, it’s hard to sleep on a moving horse. Which reminds me, I’m in a terrible hurry, so if you don’t need anything more—“
“Where are you rushing off to?” he said, still feeling small. Here he was bitching to himself about getting up early, and she’d never slept at all.
 “The na Poll house,” she said.
He put a hand on her arm suddenly, alarmed. “No, you can’t, Theamh.”
“What do you mean, I can’t?” she demanded, glaring down at his hand.
He let go of her arm.
“They got that EDP order,” Ethir said. “I don’t know why, seeing as the law completely does not justify it, but Evran was the presider and—where are you going?”
“Don’t ask and you can’t tell,” she said.
“Theamh, were you listening to—“
“Yes, I was!”
“It’s not just a warning, Theamh, it is actually illegal for you to go out there—“
“Go down to the Council and tell someone who cares,” Theamh called.
“Theamh, be reasonable!”
She hesitated in the doorway. Then she hurried back to his desk.
He sighed. “For once.”
“Ethir, I just remembered—I had to borrow Lilea’s horse and, the poor thing is exhausted. Can I borrow yours? I’ll bring it back.”
He couldn’t believe it. “Theamh, I’m an officer of the Courts—“
“I won’t take your horse out to Mablad. Just back home to where I can pick up Cinhe. Can I? Please? Time matters.”
That pleading expression was never just about her. It was always on behalf of something else, some worthy cause, some higher purpose. He had donated more free hours to the Order and to her people than he’d had hot dinners, he’d invested years of his life in what he had until now believed would be a fruitless chase after Lythril, he’d put himself in opposition to some of the most powerful evildoers in the world because she had looked at him that way once too often. He had tried to resist, but never successfully.
“All right. She’s at the usual post. But don’t you use her—“
“I won’t make a criminal out of her, Ethir,” she said, haring off. “Or you either. Thanks, you’re the best, Idair with y—“
The door had closed on her before she was even done talking.

*	*	*	*

	 Keanrih wished it would just fall asleep so he could get some rest.
	When they got back to Mablad it had gone to his room to lie down, but it couldn’t nap. Now it was up on its feet, roaming, spiked with restless and hostile energy.
	It had been thwarted and it didn’t know what to do about it. He wondered what plan it would come up with for vengeance. Whether it would have the intelligence to realize that it could hide from that woman just by leaving him.
	No. It wasn’t intelligent. It was opening his door, and closing it, and going down the stairs toward the servants’ quarters. Again.
	Didn’t the thing get bored? Or was his own anguish keeping it entertained? He hadn’t been able to go numb, after all, not after being so close to Taric. He still didn’t know if Taric knew what had happened. But at least Taric hadn’t given up on him.
	Unless the dogs had killed him.
	The dogs wouldn’t go that far. He hoped.
	There was no one moving in the corridor. It was midday, and all the servants were busy in the house.
	Except for that one woman at the end of the hallway.
	The pale shape that had flitted out of one of the rooms looked almost like a ghost in the dim light. But when he got closer he saw that it was just Weroda. She had a pitcher and towel in her hand.
	His body stopped in the corridor, blocking her way.
	“Good morning,” said his voice.
	“Good morning, Aiv,” said Weroda, dropping her eyes. “Excuse me, I need to get by.”
	“What’s the hurry?” he said, lifting her chin gently with one hand. 
	Weroda’s head twitched to one side. She took a step back.
	“Please, Aiv, I have to get by.”
	“Won’t you even talk to me?”
	“Why should I, Aiv, I’m just a servant. Please—“
	He stepped to one side to cut off her attempt to pass him.
	“Now come on, Weroda. That’s no reason we can’t be friends.”
	“Let me get by,” she repeated, her voice a little louder.
	He stepped to one side.
	She began a grateful rush down the passage. 
	His arm shot out and snaked around her waist as she passed him. The pitcher flew out of her hands. 
An instant later she was pressed against the wall, struggling. His breast crushed hers. His fingers clutched the coil of hair at the base of her neck.
	When his tongue finally forced her lips open, she bit down on it.
	The thing withdrew suddenly, startled by the pain and the taste of blood. Weroda ran down the hallway.
	It turned his body around and ran after her.
	This time he caught her by the arm. It jerked in his grip as she tried to break it. He could feel his fingers crushing the flesh underneath them, but it wouldn’t let him look. It was making him look at her face, framed in the vise of his other hand.
	Somehow it knew she was going to scream.
	Keanrih didn’t want to make sense of what was happening but he couldn’t help it. He knew that he no longer saw her face because the thing had spun her around and clapped one of his hands over her mouth. He knew that she was no longer facing him, but forced up against him backward by the arm he had clamped around her waist. He knew that the fear and anger swamping him came from her mind and not his. He knew that what had given way as he backed into it was the door to one of the storerooms. He knew that what was pressed against her gleacha was his zazb, stiff with malice.
	Her whole body was thrashing. When it kicked the door shut his grip slipped a little and she got her head free.
	“Carith! Car—“
	“Shut up!”
	One of his hands slammed into the side of her head.
	She staggered. 
	Another blow knocked her to the floor.
	His fists were stinging. 
He had never hit anything so hard.
		
*	*	*	*

	She would choke. The filthy rag stuffed into her mouth and down her throat would make her vomit and she would choke to death on it.
	She grabbed at her mouth with her one free hand. His flesh collided with hers and her arm crashed to the floor. Her wrist bruised under the heel of his hand.
	“Let me,” said the voice in her ear. “Or you’ll find out what pain is.”
	Her head rang and spun from the blows. She could feel blood trickling over her skin but she didn’t know where the cut was. Rags and mop-ends and grimy wads of dust and cobwebs slid under her head and shoulders as she flailed against his weight. She tried to kick him off her. One leg couldn’t move at all and the other flailed uselessly in the air.
It was not a question of letting. He was an animal out for her blood. There was nothing to do but fight.
	Her ribs creaked as his torso slammed onto hers. Breath left her in a blocked shuddering gasp. Tiny pinprick lights burst before her eyes. She swam lightheaded on a wave of nausea. 
	It wasn’t until she heard the fabric of her dress ripping that she realized he’d let go of her hand.
	She brought it across his face, hoping to slash him. 
Her nails weren’t long enough. All she’d done was provoke a roar of anger, and a sharp stab of pain as her arm struck the floor. 
It shifted its weight. Her feet scrabbled in the litter but could get no purchase. She fell back hard against the boards, and against her arm. He had shoved it behind her back and now they were both pinning it down. His weight on top of hers wrenched the joints in the elbow and shoulder. The wadded rag stifled her scream.
Trails of spit thickened by grime twisted in a sticky web down her throat. She gagged, then broke into a hacking fit.
Her chest couldn’t expand. Nothing could come up her throat. Every cough went off like an explosion, shattering the flesh that couldn’t give way to it.
Her legs and arms twitched as if they were fighting without her. As if she were dying, and these were the throes.
“So you want to make it interesting,” he said.
Her head wrenched itself sideways away from the cruelty she saw in his face. 
“Suits me,” he said.
She turned to face him before she remembered she couldn’t spit.
One of his hands went down to his waist. He was undoing his trousers.
When it touched her, her body gave a strangled shriek. The gag clogged it in her throat. It vibrated in her bone, ringing inside her head with the tune of her own fear and anger. 
I’ll murder you
She wasn’t dying.
You’ll wish you’d never been born
She was trapped. She was smothered. She was crushed. She was in pain. 
But she wasn’t dying.
Do this to me and I’ll kill you    
 She was still fighting. 
Don’t think I won’t, big house
Even though she couldn’t move.

*	*	*	*

	Every time it drove him in she screamed and every time she screamed it sounded like an animal being smothered. Every time he heard that sound he wanted to scream too and every time he was reminded that he had already been smothered. He was dead already and instead of screaming his mouth was laughing and instead of screaming she was gagging.
	Couldn’t it just let her scream.
	son of a bitch   I’ll kill you
	At least she could still curse.
	I’ll cut it off	I’ll burn it
	It shoved his zazb forward in abrupt truncated thrusts. He felt her clenching against him. It battered him into her all the same. He knew from the friction, from the excruciating slowness of the progress, how painful it had to be.
	you bastard
	He knew also from the wire-sharp coils lashing out of her mind, leaving their stripes on his raw and bleeding spirit.
	permanent harm
	And he knew because the more she hurt the faster his blood rushed.
	His body loved this.
	His body was thriving on her agony like a fly lives on blood. It was shuddering with delight. He was shot through with desire for more of it, a newborn hunger that was fierce and cruel and getting stronger.
	It wouldn’t look at her face. It wouldn’t touch her skin. It didn’t need pleasure. All it wanted was his prick and her pain.
	One of his hands was around her throat. Not choking it. Holding it there. As a warning. Ready to close on her.
	That hand was wet. He didn’t know if it was with her blood or her tears or both.
	It could keep him from looking at her eyes. It couldn’t stop him from feeling terror fight for breath among her bent ribs, or hearing her whimper burst into that throttled scream.
	It had brought him to the pitch.
	His curses drowned hers.
	thurk you    thurk you      thurk you you bastard from hell      you and the bitch who put you in me      I hope she does kill  me       I hope it hurts
	But that was his mind.
As far as his body was concerned, this was the best he’d ever had.
It would never go back to willing women.
	It had a taste for this now. 
Was he getting a taste for it too.
	Was he starting to want this.
	If he didn’t why couldn’t he stop it.
	It was his zazb. It was his body. 
	What was he now but this animal made up of meat and cruelty and just enough cunning to get by.
He heard himself laughing.
How could he want this. How could anyone want this.
	Well then if he didn’t want it why couldn’t he stop it.

*	*	*	* 

	It was sliding out of her.
	He leaned back to fasten his trousers.
	Before she could fly at him he raised his hand again. Her head cracked against the floorboards. One knee dug into her stomach. His other hand was doing up his trousers.
	“Don’t try it,” that voice said. “I’ll kill you. I’ll enjoy it. I’ve never done that before.”
	She wanted to go after him. But her body was frightened. Her body was telling her to wait, huddled back away from him into the debris of the storeroom.
	“Thanks,” it said. “That was great.” And then, “I’ll make it up to you. Get you something nice. What would you like to have?”
	Don’t say a word. Don’t do anything that’ll make him kill you.
	“Be that way,” he said.
	Keanrih walked out of the room, laughing. The door slammed behind him.
	For a long time it seemed like nothing happened. 
	Slowly her mind began to notice things.
	Her battered head still ringing. Shooting pains knifing through the flesh of her wrenched arm. Blood from her head staining the neck of her dress brown, drying in dirty smudges on her skin. Skin scraped raw on the insides of her thighs. 
From the waist down, inside and out, she was one big bruise.
	She got up. Her legs shook. The room dipped around her, then steadied itself.
	Something was trickling down the inside of her leg.
	She pulled up her skirts to look. 
	It looked like dirty water. Thicker, like spittle. Rusty with blood.
	Mechanically she went to wipe it off with her skirt. Then she stopped.
	The fear that had stunned her was dissipating, and she could feel the pain. And a surge of anger.
	She was shaking with hatred, with rage, with a desire to hurt him. She probably wouldn’t be able to kill him. He’d just proved the point, hadn’t he.
	She dropped her skirts. The stains would be obvious. Well, good.
	Her hand shook on the door latch. But she pulled it open. And began walking down the hallway.
	Nobody was there. Nobody had heard. Or else nobody had bothered to look.
	Her hair had stuck to her neck, and the blood was beginning to dry. 
Let it dry. She could clean up later.
First she would go see Minead.

*	*	*	*

	He had thought he knew himself.
He had never known anything.
He had never known his body was so heavy.
	He had never known his arms were so strong.
	He had never known his hand was a fist.
	He had never known his zazb was a weapon.
	He had never known his blood was cruel.
He had never known his flesh was rotten.
	He had never known his laugh was cold.
	He had never known that this was what it meant to have a man’s body. 
To be heavier, and stronger, and taller, and harder. Without even trying.
He had never hated his body before.
He hated it now. 
Every fiber of his flesh, every drop of his blood. It was poisoned against him now. For good.
All day he had allowed himself to dream about what would happen if Taric rescued him. If he was finally cleansed and free of it, what would he do first. What would it feel like to throw his arms around Taric and feel his heart hammering like its old self.
Now he knew exactly what he would do first, if it ever freed him.
He would go down to the kitchen and pick up the sharpest knife he could find and drag it across his throat.
And go on loving him in the  next world, and hope he would understand. That he never wanted Taric to touch the polluted thing he was. That he never wanted to touch anything ever. That this body was evil, corrupted, a mad dog that had to be put down.
But it wouldn’t leave him.
Oh no.
It was having too much fun.

*	*	*	*

	It was hard to know how to put it to Sioanna. She was young, and romantic, and wanted a shri ceremony. But Minead was putting some thought into the letter, because she wanted it resolved before one of the na Felchetts talked to Theamh about it. Theamh would refuse, and probably with some harsh words that would just start everyone off on the wrong foot.
	She sat in the armchair in her study, her pen poised over the paper. Should she tell her about their ceremony? Would Sioanna like to know that if she wanted to, later, when she and Keanrih grew to love each other, they could have a shri ceremony, with the staff and the vine and everything, the way she and Nocc had after Tilhu was born and they knew things had turned for good?
	She would. Sioanna would like the story. It was romantic, after all.
	The door slammed open. Her pen jumped across the sheet of paper, leaving a broken trail of sputtered ink. She turned around to scold whoever hadn’t knocked.
	Weroda was pushing the door shut behind her.
	Bruises were livid down the right side of her face. Blood from a cut under one ear had run down her neck and was crackling in brown spots over her collarbone. Dirt and spittle dried in crusts around the corners of her mouth. Her hair was matted with grime, and she was radiating pain and anger.
	“Name of the spirit,” Minead said, standing slowly. “What happened to you?”
	Weroda’s chest shivered. Her face and neck turned red as she burst out into sobs.
	“I’ve been raped!” Weroda shouted. “By your son!”
	It came out hoarse from a throat swollen and raw. Angry tears came with it.
	All Minead could think of to say was, “Which one?”
	Her own voice was just a whisper.
	“Keanrih!”
	Minead fell backward, sitting down plump in the chair.
	“You said I should tell you if any of them interfered with me well I’ve been interfered with!” 
	“I’m…Idair and Cailte, Weroda, I’m…so sorry…”
	“So what are you going to do about it?” Weroda demanded.
	She was swaying a little with the violence of her crying. Minead forced herself to get up, take the girl’s arm, and pilot her over to the armchair.
	Weroda hunched over in it, her fists balled up in her lap, legs twisted up against her torso, her cries shuddering in the shocked air of the sitting room.
	“What…do you want me to do?” Minead said, in a voice that sounded like a child’s.
	“I don’t thurking know!” Weroda screamed, putting her hands around the back of her neck and pulling her head down onto her knees.
	Minead watched her cry. She could feel it streaming off her. Hatred of her, of Keanrih, of the house, of the job she had never felt right in, of a world that would put her in a house like this to have things like this done to her. And under that a terrible broken pain from which Minead’s mind wanted to recoil.
	Inside Minead’s head other things were running. Memories of Keanrih, as a boy, as a man, as the man who had promised to be a good husband to Sioanna. Visions of Keanrih packed off to the Zone, dying up there riddled with the poisons said to be eating the place. Voices telling her maybe Weroda was making it up, he said she said, does this have to come out, could we get her out of the house quietly…
	And underneath those voices another voice that kept repeating the same words.
	I am Minead. Daughter of Fillim and Hyrnd who worked a holding. I said yes to the money and the house and the land. I am the wife of the Aiv and the mother of the heirs and the employer of the servants but whatever else I have become I am Minead ni Fhillim and I am not a big house bitch.
	“Weroda,” Minead said, trying to sound gentle.
	Weroda looked up. Her face was a wreck of tears and blood and dust.
	“Are you willing to make a statement,” she said. “To the gardai when they come.”
	Weroda stared at her for a moment.
	“Yes,” she finally said.
	“I’ll be right back,” she said. “You stay here.”
	Minead walked to the door and opened it. Rince was on the other side of it.
	“Get Carith and tell her she’s wanted in my sitting room.”
	“Is there anything I can do for—“
	“Go. Now.”
	Rince hurried off.
	Minead returned to her room.
	They stared at each other for a while, Minead standing by the door, Weroda huddled in the chair, her sobs getting weaker but not less frequent.
	She heard the knock on the door. “Aiv? It’s Carith.”
	Minead opened the door, pulled a surprised Carith through, and closed it again.
	“Spirits of everywhere,” Carith shouted.
	Carith ran over to Weroda, who threw her arms around Carith’s neck.
	“Stay with her,” Minead said. “I’m going to Mablad for the gardai. Don’t let anyone in here till I come back.”
	“Right, aiv,” said Carith, as Minead shut the door.
	Rince was in the hallway again.
	“Is—is there anything I can—“
	“Yes,” Minead said, acidly. “My husband is still at the Felchett house talking with Bric and Ridac. Go tell him and Bric to come back here.”
	“I’ll send someone right—“
	“Go yourself.”
	“Yes, Aiv.”
	Rince hurried for his coat. 
Minead ran out of the house and down to the stables.

*	*	*	*
	
	“Where’s his room?”
	“At the top of the northeast tower.”
	“Right.” 
	The oldest garda was a broad shouldered woman with cropped blonde hair. She wore a yellow tunic, distinguished from those worn by the two junior gardai by a green patch with a sword on it. Minead was relieved to see that she wasn’t carrying a sword. Only a pair of iron wristlets jangling at her waist, and a thick length of polished wood.
	“You’re doing the right thing, Aiv,” she said. “We’ll try not to hurt him.”
	Minead heard one of the younger ones as they passed. Speak for yourself.
	She turned around to run after them. And then stopped.
	Their feet tramped up the stairs. Someone knocked at the front door.
	Nobody else was there to answer it, so Minead went.
	Nocc stood on the threshold, Bric and Rince running up the steps behind him.
	“What’s the matter, chara? Rince wouldn’t tell me. Is something—“
	Minead grabbed his coat and pulled him across the lintel. Bric followed.
	“Go to his study and wait there,” she said.
	Bric obeyed. Rince stepped forward.
Minead slammed the door in Rince’s face. 
“Chara, you just—“
“Let him go around to the side entrance. You come here.”
She hustled Nocc into the library, and shut the door.
“Listen,” she said. “The gardai are here. They’re arresting Keanrih for rape.”
“Rape?” Nocc echoed. “Who—who’s accusing him?”
“Weroda.”
“She can’t mean it.”
“She does.”
“Idair’s teeth,” said Nocc, sitting painfully down.
Minead crouched by his feet, holding onto the hands he extended toward her.
“He’s really done it?” he said.
“He has.”
“It wasn’t just—fun that got out of hand—“
“No it thurking wasn’t!”
Nocc’s chin began to quiver.
“Why?” he whispered.
“I don’t know.” Minead struggled against her own tears. “Nocc, what are we going to do? This is permanent harm.”
Nocc blinked at her, slowly. She thought she could see his face going gray.
“Mathi!”
Keanrih was shouting to her from the hallway.
Minead flung the door open. He was in the entrance hall, restrained by the two younger gardai. His hands were locked behind his back in the wristlets. The older one had pulled down his trousers.
“What have we here,” she said. “Blood on the blade.”
Minead refused to look. 
“Please do up his trousers.”
In deference to her pain, the older one hauled them up. His shirttails hung out over them. He looked miserable, and much slighter than the two strong women he was slung between.
“Mathi, don’t let them take me!” Keanrih shouted.
Nocc had appeared behind her and was suddenly full of action.
“Do you have a warrant to enter this house?” he demanded.
Minead turned on him.
“They don’t need one. They have my permission.”
While Nocc gaped at her, the gardai began dragging him out.
“Mathi!”
“I’ll do everything I can for you, Keanrih,” Minead called after him.
Her voice was hard. That surprised her. Given the way she bled inside when they pushed him through that door. And when it slammed shut.
“You gave them permission?”
“Don’t argue with me!” Minead shouted. “I swear I am so close to the edge of madness you had better not meddle. Just help him!”
“I’ll talk to Bric,” Nocc said. 
“Hurry!” Minead shot back.
Nocc pottered off, a little unsteady on his feet.
Minead burst into tears.

*	*	*	*

	<Lythril.>
	I was fiercely annoyed. I had told Bric not to call when I was working on the Project.
	< What is it?>
	He quailed, but it must have been important because he went on.
	<There’s a problem.>
	<What?>
	<Keanrih’s just raped one of Minead’s girls. The gardai already have him.>
	I considered this for a moment.
	<We have the money,> I said.
	<Yes…>
	<So it’s not a problem.>
	<You’re not concerned about this?>
	<I’ve delivered what I promised. What happens now is not my problem.>
	<I think that’s bad for business, Lythril, if you don’t mind my saying.>
	<I do mind but let’s hear your reasoning.>
	I could swear I heard him gulp.
	<You want repeat business, don’t you?>
	<Of course.>
	<I understand you wouldn’t take responsibility. But if you offered to take care of this…it would be an important gesture. I’m willing to donate my services, in your name. Of course I wouldn’t do it without your approval.>
	As I said. Bric’s a professional.
	<All right, do it.> 
	<Thanks for hearing me out, Lythril.>
	<I always listen before I punish,> I said.
	<I appreciate it,> he replied. <I’ll talk to you later when we know something.>
	Bric closed the link.
	I suppose he was a little taken aback. After all, he must surely have foreseen exposure. I wasn’t worried about that. If I know anything about the human creature, I know that Keanrih will never say a word about me or about what I have done to him. I taught him fear of me. He’s never going to unlearn that. 

*	*	*	*

She knew she should go into the sitting room and look after Weroda. But instead she stood in the hallway. Looking out at the doorway through which they had just dragged her firstborn child. Paying attention to nothing.
 Her eyes noticed movement at the back by the side staircase. Something white flickering in the shadow.
She watched it approach incuriously. If it was a spirit itself it couldn’t do anything to her that would make her feel worse.
“Minead?”
It wasn’t a ghost. It was Theamh. With her hreapa fluttering around her, her hair blown into crazy shapes, looking as if she were the one meeting a ghost.
“Where the hell have you been?” Minead shouted.
She didn’t know why she said it. 
“In Kengda,” Theamh said, quietly. “I rode up here as soon as I got back. I figured what with the EDP order I’d better go in through the back entrance.”
“EDP?” Minead repeated, vacantly.
“Excessive disregard for—never mind. Minead, there’s no one in the kitchen, and someone inside your sitting room is bawling her lungs out. What’s happened here?”
Her voice was oddly gentle. Unlike her, really. It made Minead cry. Which everything seemed to do at the moment.
	Theamh took a step closer, her hands raised as if to show a skittish animal that she meant it no harm.
	“Just tell me,” she said. “Where is Keanrih, and what’s he done?”
	A bout of sobbing seized her so violently that she sat down on the flagstones.
	She felt Theamh’s hand on her shoulder and saw her face hovering before her as she crouched down near her.
	“Minead,” she said. “I need to see him. I need to help him. Where’s he gone?”
	“The gardai took him!” Minead shouted. “They took my boy down to the Courts and I’ll never see him again!”
	“Minead, please try to tell me—“
	“The gardai took him and they’re going to try him for rape and it’s permanent harm and they’ll send him to—to—to—“
	She couldn’t talk any more.
	Theamh let her cry for a minute.
	“Who’s the victim?” she said.
	“Weroda!”
	“Where is she?”
	“In the sitting room!”
	“Of course,” Theamh muttered. “I’d know that if I had a brain, wouldn’t I.” She sighed, passing a hand over her forehead. “It’s no good my going down after him, the gardai will have him in keeping and that thing will never consent to see me. Listen, Minead…”
	Minead lifted her head.
	“You better find him a lawyer.”
	“We’ve already got a lawyer.”
	“Oh that’s right. Who is he?”
	“Bric mac Chlos.”
	The oath Theamh burst out with made Minead scuttle backward in shock.
	“Oh, no, no, no,” Theamh was shouting, her hands coming to sudden life in agitated gestures. “I’m sorry, no. You can’t use Bric.”
“Why shouldn’t I use Bric?” Minead asked, frightened without knowing why.
“Because Bric is a tool of the Dark One, Minead!”
Looking over Theamh’s shoulder, Minead saw Bric coming out of the study. 
“What do you mean?” she whispered.
“I can’t prove it but the whole Order knows it. He’s been pimping for Lythril for years. You don’t want him on your side, ever, and especially not now.”
	“That’s slander,” Bric said, calmly.
	Theamh swung on him viciously, her sleeves carving the air in an almost audible arc.
	“Truth is a defense!” she shouted.
	“Not if you can’t prove it.”
	“Thurk you anyway, who has time for this!” Theamh shouted, swinging back to Minead. “Your boy did what he did because he was possessed. You have to hire him a lawyer who will ask for a shriic evaluation and this bastard won’t.”
	Minead didn’t hear much after the word “possessed.”
	“Name of the Spirit,” she said.
	Why hadn’t it occurred to her? How could she not have seen it? For Idair’s sake…such a sudden change, and it happening…it happening so soon after she gave Nocc the name…
	Through the fog of her clouding mind, she was vaguely aware that Nocc had been drawn out to the hallway.
	“Chara,” he was saying. “Bric’s our lawyer, he’s the best. He’ll do right by him.”
	“No he thurking won’t,” Theamh said. “The day he asks for an evaluation—“
	“It’s too big a risk,” Bric said, speaking to Minead as if Theamh weren’t even there. “To get the evaluation you have to stipulate to the facts. We’d have to concede that Keanrih really did rape that woman. And if the evaluation were negative…a conviction would be absolutely certain.”
	Minead felt her chin trembling.
	Her boy, exiled. For life.
	“Please, chara,” Nocc said. “Bric knows what he’s doing. Let him help us.”
	The sight of Bric made her skin crawl. Still. He had gotten people out of worse.
	“Theamh,” Minead said weakly. “I can’t stand to lose him. I can’t.”
	She looked from Theamh to Bric.
	She found herself looking back at Theamh. Theamh had taken her chin in one hand and turned her head.
	“No,” Theamh said, as if she knew what Minead were thinking. “I know you love your son and your trust your husband but this is evil we’re talking about. I’m the shriia. You listen to me now.”
	Her grip was strong, but not hard. And the green in her eyes was burning, with a fire she found herself welcoming as if it could really warm her.
	“You go down to the Courts and find Ethir mac Briobh. If he doesn’t want the brief tell him I sent you. You tell him you want him to order a shriic evaluation and if he talks to you about the risk involved you tell him I said take it.”
	“You’re really sure he’s possessed?” Minead said. “Completely sure?”
	Theamh swallowed.
	“Almost nothing is a dead certainty,” she said. “I can’t say for certain sure. It’s possible I’m wrong. But Idair’s teeth, Minead—if I know anything about human beings, about evil, about demons or about Keanrih, then I’m right. And if I’m right, then he is in hell, and the sooner his lawyer orders me to examine him the sooner I can drag him out.”
	Minead felt the tears rolling down her cheeks, pooling around Theamh’s fingers.
	“It’s a risk. I know it’s a risk. But he needs you to take it, Minead. He needs you to believe in him.”
	 “All right,” said Bric, stepping up to them. “You’ve said your piece, now go before we have you arrested.”
Bric pulled Theamh’s arm away from Minead. She turned on him in fury.
	“Arrest me,” Theamh said. “Find out how much I care. The Council can piss up a rope, and you and your court order can go thurk yourselves.”
	“Wait a minute,” Minead said, starting to feel sick to her stomach.
	“Chara, if you let me explain—“
	“You got a court order to keep her out of here?”
	Nocc began vacillating. “Not her—the Order—we don’t need them interfering—“
	“Tarbfnaa!” Minead shouted. “This is my house, Keanrih is my son, Theamh is my shriia and I need her!”
	 Nocc stood with his mouth partly open.
	“So you go to hell and take the minion with you!” she spat.
	“I’m going,” Bric said. “Call me if you need me, Nocc. Good luck to you.”
	Bric hurried out.
	“What was his name?” Minead said, turning back to Theamh. “The lawyer?”
	Theamh impulsively took her hand. Minead held onto hers, hard.
	“Ethir mac Briobh,” she said.
	“I’ll go see him.”
	“Do that,” Theamh said earnestly. “I’ll see if I can do anything for Weroda.” 
Minead nodded. 
“If Keanrih lets you see him, tell him I’ll take care of him.”
	“All right, shriia.” 
	“And tell Ethir to have the evaluation done as soon as possible. Tomorrow if he can. Idair with you.”
	Minead stood in the hallway, looking at Nocc. He was still standing there, apparently paralyzed. In the silence, she heard Theamh’s knock on the door.
	“Weroda? It’s Theamh. Can I come in?”
	The door opened. Minead heard Theamh’s voice murmuring, and then Carith’s. She went into the room and the door closed.
	“I gave you the name,” Minead said.
	“Chara!” Nocc shouted, in pain. “You don’t—you don’t believe that had anything to do with this?”
	Instead of answering, Minead left the house.

*	*	*	*
 
Carith’s rag slopped back into the basin. “Weroda, the shriia’s here.”
	Weroda looked up.
	“Oh hell, Weroda,” Theamh said. “I’m so sorry.”
	“That’s what everyone says,” Weroda answered, hoarsely.
	Theamh stood irresolute for a moment, and then said, “I’ve got some things in the bag that may help with the pain. Can I…”
	“Go ahead,” Weroda said.
	Theamh sat on the floor and opened her bag. She took out a little glass bottle with a stopper. The glass was clear and she could see through the bottle. It was empty.
	Theamh took out the stopper and took a clean rag from Carith. She put the rag against the mouth of the bottle and tipped it over, as if there were something in there.
	“It’s called uisce,” she said, replacing the stopper carefully. “It’s nothing scary, just water and spells. It’ll help with the cuts and take down some of the swelling.”
	Theamh began dabbing at the wound under her ear with the rag.
	The sting lessened. When Theamh took the rag away Weroda put a hand up to feel it. The cut was open, but the lips were closer together, and it was no longer oozing.
	“Thank you,” Weroda said.
	“It’s nothing,” Theamh answered, embarrassed. “Here…probably you want to do the rest yourself.”
	She tipped more invisible water onto the rag and held it out to her. Weroda hesitated.
	“I’ll do it if you like,” Theamh said. “I just thought you might not want anyone touching you there.”
	“I…”
	“It’s safe, really,” Theamh said. “Just take it and use it like you’d use any clean cloth. Here.”
	Weroda took the rag. She turned away, lifting up her skirts, and began wiping herself. When she moved the rag along her skin she thought she could catch a faint sparkling trace, that evaporated along with the blood and the grime.
	Carith took it upon herself to distract Theamh.
	“You think he was possessed right enough, eh, shriia?”
	Theamh shook her head.
	“I can’t talk about that in front of Weroda,” she said.
	“Why not?” Carith said.
	“When this goes to trial, Weroda will be a witness for the prosecution,” Theamh said. “I don’t want to say anything that will compromise their case. And anyway…”
	Weroda began dabbing, tentatively, at the bruises around her dubhtil.
	“Anyway,” Theamh said. “What happened happened. Whether he was possessed or not.”
	The pain was still there. But less sharp and less heavy. Something that she could manage. Maybe.
	“Here, shriia,” Weroda said, holding out the stained rag.
	Theamh took it from her. “Now about…the hurt inside…”
	Weroda waited.
	“I’m bad at things like this,” she said. “But when Lilea gets back from Kengda, I’d like to introduce you to her. She’ll be able to do a lot more for you than I can.”
	“Thank you, shriia,” Weroda said.
	“Do…is there anything else I can do for you, that might help?”
	She said it as if she were asking Weroda’s advice. As if she wanted to be able to help, but she didn’t know how, and was hoping Weroda would.
	“I don’t think so, shriia,” Weroda said.
	“I’ll leave you then,” said Theamh. “Idair with—“
	As Theamh rose, Weroda’s hand tightened around her wrist and stopped her.
	“Weroda?” Theamh said, waiting.
	“I don’t want to stay the night in this house.”
	“Of course not,” Theamh said, hurriedly. “I should have thought. Where are your people? I can take you to them.”
	“Peheot, shriia.”
	“Well that’s easy enough,” said Theamh. “Carith, maybe you’d help her get her things together and—“
	Weroda’s pressure on her wrist stopped her again. She looked at Weroda expectantly.
	“Will you…talk to them…with me, when I get there?”
	“Of course.”
	Weroda nodded, and let go of her wrist.
	“Come on, child,” said Carith. “Let’s get you packed. You won’t be wanting to come back to this house, I imagine.”
	Weroda was looking at Theamh, and waiting to find out what she wanted to say.
	What she said was, “He was always kind to me.”
	Theamh crouched down, putting one hand over hers as Weroda began to cry.
	“He was,” she repeated. “I liked him—better than the others—“
	Carith clucked her tongue sadly. 
	“Why?” Weroda shouted. “Why me? Because I liked him? Why?”
	When her sobbing had slowed down so she could listen, Theamh tried to answer.
	“You were there,” Theamh said. “It wanted a victim and you crossed its path. That’s it and that’s all.”
	Weroda tried to stop crying.
	“Come on, chara,” said Carith. “Come on up to your room and I’ll make up a bundle for you.”
	Weroda nodded and stood up.
	“And get you into a better dress,” said Carith. “They’ll want this one down at the courts anyhow, won’t they.”
	Weroda let Carith lead her out of the room. She looked back at Theamh, standing there watching them go, watching the door swing shut.
	“She said ‘it,’” Weroda said.
	Carith nodded.
	“So he is possessed.”
	“I told you this house would be haunted,” Carith said heavily.
	They began the walk up to the servants’ quarters.

*	*	*	*

	Well it isn’t my problem.
	I did as he asked. I got him the match. I made Keanrih a man. With all a man’s normal appetites. Whoring included. Raping included.
	You expect me to cry for her? Because we’re all women under the robes? Please. A girl from no family, a two-piece-a-day scouring wench who knew the risks when she took the job. A bit player, a walk-on who’s lucky if she gets one line. Who can cry for that?
Oh, I know, all lives are of equal value to Idair. You don’t believe that. Idair doesn’t even believe that. She threw that girl to him like you throw the lapdog to the wolves when they’re gaining on the sleigh. Someone had to go so why not the serving girl. Idair’s the one picked her out for him. Not me.
No, I didn’t intend it. I won’t say I did. And I won’t say it bothers me either. Because it doesn’t. And I know it doesn’t. Because I don’t lie. Not to myself.
Are you crying for her?
Honestly now.
Liar.

11
Justice

	<Bric.>
	He didn’t want to talk to me. His call had interrupted me at a particularly inconvenient moment an hour earlier, and he was quite sensibly afraid to answer now.
	<Lythril.>
	<So what was so urgent?>
	Maerin’s labored breathing was evening out. Soon it would turn into snoring.
	<I thought you would want to know…> 
	He thought I would want to know that he had thurked something up. However, he didn’t want me to know it, not at all.
	<Well then you’d better tell me.>
	<Minead has hired Ethir mac Briobh for Keanrih’s defense.>
	That had to be the end of a very interesting story.
	<I will probably not kill you if you explain to me exactly why this happened.>
	I don’t know why anyone believes me when I make promises. But Bric did.
	<Theamh got to her before I did.>
	<She’s supposed to be in Kengda.>
	<Well she’s not.>
	<Didn’t you tell me you got that EDP order?>
	<I did. Theamh violated it.>
	<And how was she able to prevail upon Minead, since you are so widely reputed for the persuasiveness of your oratory and the strength of your mind?>
	<I don’t know, Lythril. Minead just told Nocc to go to hell and take me with him, and left for the courts.>
	He was almost as depressed at the thought of losing a good client as he was at the thought of my swift and terrible vengeance.
	<Where are you now?>
	<Nocc’s in my office with me. He’s talking about suing you.>
	<Have you explained to him why nobody ever sues me?>
	<Yes.>
	<And he’s still talking to you.>
	<He’s very angry, but so far he hasn’t fired me.>
	Maerin was asleep. I stood up and pulled on my robe.
	<That’s good,> I said. <That means he’s still ours.>
	<Lythril-->
	<Don’t contradict, Bric.>
	<I’m sorry, Lythril.>
	<Continue to make yourself available to him,> I said. 
	Since this implied my willingness to leave him alive, Bric was happy to consent. <I will. But what about Keanrih?>
	<You keep asking what about Keanrih. For the final time, that job is finished. He is no longer our concern. What we need to focus on is repeat business.>
	He didn’t believe it was possible. That was just because he was new to the trade.
	<Very well, Lythril,> he answered. <Now what about this Taric mac nothing.>
	<Give Nocc what he wants,> Lythril said. <Beyond that, I don’t care what happens.>
	<All right, Lythril. I’ll do my best.>
	<I’m sure you will.>
	I closed the link.
	Maerin was stretched out on the flagstones. His zazb lolled ridiculous and limp over one thigh. The fingers of one rough-hewn hand lay splayed out over his bare chest. His mouth was partly open, paling from red to pink.
	I thought about what he would look like dead, when the time came. Of course he would be paler. The other details would depend on how I killed him. But I could picture him lying there much that way, dead to the world, oblivious of the blood trickling from his mouth, and of the hole where his heart had been.

*	*	*	*

	When the stranger walked into his holding room the thing didn’t even lift his head. It had decided it was going to take a nap, after all, and had slumped him in a heap on the pallet. Suddenly now it could sleep. Thurking bastard.
Keanrih heard the chair scrape along the tile floor but the thing itself refused to take notice until it heard the man’s voice.
	“Keanrih mac Minead.”
	The garda’s key clanked in the lock. The strange man sat down in the chair. He was young, somewhere between twenty and thirty, with dark hair kept short around his head in loose curls and bright blue eyes that Keanrih found himself appreciating even in his wretched state. Strong features but delicate, a chin firm but not square. He was wearing the blue gown of a lawyer.
	“I’m Ethir mac Briobh,” he said. “I’m your new lawyer.”
	It sat him up.
	“What happened to Bric?” it demanded.
	“Your mother has dismissed him from your case,” said Ethir. “She’s asked me to take over. It’s her right under the law.”
	“I want Bric,” it sulked.
	“No you don’t,” Ethir answered.
	“I want Bric. I won’t cooperate.”
	“You will,” Ethir replied. 
	He leaned forward and riveted those piercing eyes on his.
	“Let me be blunt with you,” he said. “You’re up on a charge of rape. That’s permanent harm. If you lose, you get lifetime exile in the Zone. What do you know about the Zone, friend?”
	It didn’t answer.
	“The Zone is the Zone because neither country wants it. The only good thing about the place is that it separates us from that wasteland up north and keeps the bastards who live there out of our hair. Nobody’s willing to cross it because it’s quite simply hell on earth. Unless you escape to the Cretid Nation you will not last a year, and it’ll be a slow and horrible death. The Cretids have been using it as a dumping ground for the poisons they produce, and we use it as a dumping ground for trash like you.”
	“Did you say you were my lawyer?” the thing retorted.
	“I speak from the perspective of the ordinary man or woman on the Finders panel. See, here’s what that room is going to look like to them. Over where the victim sits is a woman half your size, dressed as simply as the prosecution can get her to dress because they want everyone reminded that she’s a servant who was in your employ.”
	The thing decided not to interrupt.
	“In the defendant’s box we have you. Six feet tall, well-nourished, son of the landlord, not a mark on you. Now. Every Finders panel is composed of seven people, of which at least three must be women and of which no more than three can be landowners. You’re going in there as a big house bastard accused of raping a woman who was in your family’s employ. Now suppose you’ve got Bric representing you. First thing he’ll do is work the victim over. He’ll make out that she’s lying, that she gave her consent and then thought better of it after, or that she’s trying to blackmail you after the fact.”
	Evidently they were still separate beings after all, because the thing wouldn’t let his body feel sick listening to this description.
	“Then he’ll get to the gardai who investigated. He’ll badger them into petty contradictions, make it look as if they didn’t see the injuries that they saw, get into the fact that they humiliated you in front of your mother, that they roughed you up on the way to the Courts.”
	Keanrih hadn’t cared. He’d have been happier if they’d beaten him worse. Then it would have gotten a taste of it.
	“Everyone knows how the gardai are about rapists. The Finders would easily believe that the gardai might be overstating the case out of malice. But here’s your problem, friend.” Ethir clasped his hands loosely in front of him, elbows resting on his knees. “Theamh ni hUlnach also examined her. And friend to you though she is, if they get her on the stand, she’ll tell the truth, and the truth will bury you.”
	The thought of Theamh testifying against him sent him even deeper into despair. Of course she would. It would be her duty, to truth and to poor Weroda.
	“So,” Ethir said. “We cannot get you off using he said she said. When the she is a shriia that doesn’t work. You don’t want Bric because that’s all Bric knows how to do. You want me, because I’ll get you off.”
	“How?” it asked.
	“We stipulate to the facts,” he said.
	“We what?”
	“We admit it happened like she said.”
	“How is that clever?”
	“Our defense is that you were not responsible for your actions.”
	“Because why?” it demanded.
	Oh say it. Say it. Tell me someone has figured it out.
	“I’ll get into that after the hearing this morning. But I give my word as a lawyer that we can make that defense work.”
	What the hell did he mean?
	Don’t think about it. Don’t tip the thing off. Think of absolutely anything else.
	It let him hang for a long time.
	“All right,” it said.
	“So I have your consent to stipulate to the facts at the hearing.”
	“Yes.”
	“Sign this then.”
	It ran its eyes over the parchment. There was an unpleasant feeling in the pit of Keanrih’s stomach, as if it found the situation distressingly familiar.
	It wrote his name. 
	“Marvelous. Be ready to go to court two hours after sunrise tomorrow.”
	“For the trial?”
	“For the pretrial hearing. It’s to determine whether they’ll hold you for trial.”
	“Is it important?”
	Ethir looked as if he didn’t quite know what to say.
	“Given the facts I would be surprised if they didn’t hold you over,” said Ethir. “But we will have an evaluation to determine whether you were acting under your own power; and if the result is favorable—as I’m sure it will be—the case may be dismissed.”
	Evaluation?
	Don’t think don’t think don’t think about it
	“All right,” it said grudgingly.
	“See you tomorrow, then.”
	The keys clanked in the lock again. Ethir left. It crawled back to the pallet.
	It had refused all visitors. His mother, his brothers, an unidentified shriia who he thought was probably Theamh although the gardai hadn’t been specific. 
	His father hadn’t tried to visit him. Even though he was sure the thing would have wanted to talk to him.
	Taric hadn’t tried to visit him either.
	What did it matter. There was nothing left for him. Whether this thing left or it didn’t.

*	*	*	*
	  
	Minead got to her feet as Ethir left the holding room. The garda had found her a comfortable chair, and was watching her with pity. She found the pity irritating, but was grateful for the chair. It had been a long time.
	“Would he agree?”
	Ethir held up a rolled parchment.
	“Right here,” he said, waving it. “The evaluation’s a go. Tomorrow morning, two hours after sunrise. I have to notify the victim. Where is she?”
	“I…don’t know, I haven’t been home. Her people are in Peheot. Her mother’s name is Lytle. They’re farmers.”
	“I’ll find her,” said Ethir. “You’ll want the family there as a show of support.”
	“Of course,” she said. “Will…when the evaluation comes back…what happens?”
	“I hope that as long as Theamh can state fairly definitely that he was possessed at the time of the offense, the Cause Finders will throw the case out. But they may decide to hold it over. If they do, we go to trial.” 
	“But I mean…will she cast it?”
	“Ah! Of course, I’m sorry,” Ethir said. “I look at it like a lawyer…not right there, no. After the hearing she’ll get him alone and do it then, if it’s still in him.”
	“It might not be still in him?” Minead asked, puzzled.
	“Often the thing vacates the host as soon as something like this happens,” Ethir explained. “That’s why Theamh wanted the evaluation set for tomorrow. If she doesn’t get in there twenty-four hours after it leaves she won’t find definite traces. But I wouldn’t worry,” Ethir went on. “I think it’s still in there.”
	“You do,” she said, finding it strange to feel relieved to hear it.
	“Based on its refusal to see you, or to see Theamh,” he said. “But I wouldn’t expect it to still be there tomorrow morning. I put the fear of Idair into it. Well, the fear of the Zone, anyway. If it’s smart, it’ll flee.”
	“Thank you,” Minead said, and sat down in the chair.
	“Can I see you home? It’s after dark.”
	“No thank you,” Minead said. “I’ll wait.”
	“Minead—“
	“In case it leaves him.”
	His blue eyes got deeper as he looked at her.
	“All right, Minead,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
	Minead sat down in the hallway.
	She had asked herself over and over why she hadn’t seen it. Why she hadn’t thought it stranger when he began chasing women. Why she hadn’t noticed that Rince and Nocc were running circles around her. Why she hadn’t wondered why Carith was suddenly so quiet, why Weroda got more frightened and skittish instead of less. Why hadn’t she known he couldn’t have changed so much, so violently, in such a short time? 
	Why hadn’t she even noticed that he never went up to paint any more, that he hardly paid attention to his duty as steward, that his conversations with her were always superficial? What had stopped her from seeing that he wasn’t being him?
	She’d wanted to believe it. 
She’d been relieved, just as Nocc was, to hear that he was after women. Angry about how he was doing it, but relieved all the same. She’d wanted him to join with Sioanna. She’d wanted Nocc to be happy about Keanrih. So she hadn’t questioned it. Hadn’t let herself wonder about the things that she knew, now, she had noticed.
	This was her fault. She was his mother, she should have been the one to catch it. Instead she had to wait for this to happen. And even after it happened, she had been able to believe a monstrous thing like that about her own son.
	Because even though she loved him she wished him different.
	There it was.
	She hadn’t loved him enough. She hadn’t been able to take him as he was, without criticism and without blame. And so she had failed him. And worse.
	She’d given Nocc the name.
	He couldn’t have used it against him. He’d promised not to.
	Why take out that order to keep the shriias out?
	He couldn’t. He was her husband, he was one flesh with her, he couldn’t do that to their child. He couldn’t do that to her.
	She’d given him the name. And a day later all of this had begun.
	Why wasn’t he here? 
	Maybe it was Bric’s fault. He had been working with Nocc a lot on the joining. Maybe Bric had worked on his mind, gotten into it, gotten the name out of him, and used it against him this way…maybe Bric had convinced him to take out the order…
	Why should Bric want to do this?
	Minead put her head in her hands.
	She couldn’t think about it. She wouldn’t, until her boy was safe. 

*	*	*	*

	“Ethir,” said Yearb, plucking at the sleeve of his robe. “Can I talk to you?”
	“I’m getting ready for a hearing,” Ethir said, looking through the window at the strengthening sunlight.
	“It’ll just take a minute,” said the young man. “Please, Ethir, I’m up against the thurking Dark Leader, I could use the—“
	“You mean Bric?” Ethir said, stopping to face him.
	The other man sighed, wiping his brow with the sleeve of his blue robe. “Yes. Thurking Bric mac Chlos. I don’t even want to talk about it but I need your advice.”
	“All right, go ahead.”
	“So I was assigned this case two days ago by the Courts. Client’s a farmer from Felim. Real country, slow as rongo syrup on a winter morning. Can’t read, can’t write, says maybe three words in an hour. Nice, nice guy. So he’s brought in for a charge of trespassing with intent to do permanent harm. I can’t interview him right away because the gardai sent him to the hospital so the medicals could work on the dog bites—“
	“Dog bites?” Ethir said.
	“Owner’s dogs got him before the gardai did. Lost blood, got infected, looked bad for a while but you know the medicals, they love an emergency, and they have him out of danger. So I thought well, let’s interview some witnesses. I found one farmer saw part of it and he says in his opinion it’s a love affair gone bad. I say right, well, that’s not going to play for the Finders, seeing as the alleged victim is a male, but on the other hand it’s always hard to prove intent.”
	Ethir nodded. “And you could play up the damage from the dogs.”
	“Exactly. So I get back from the field and I go to the prosecutor and I say look, it’s a first offense, you’ll never prove intent, and besides he’s a looker and with all those bandages he’ll be more sympathetic than Ethir mac Briobh.”
	“You did not.”
	“I did so. Anyway, the prosecutor says talk to Bric, he represents the victim, he’s the one really pushing this. So I’m like, thurk me, I get to negotiate with Bric mac Chlos, what a fabulous day this is.”
	“I feel your pain.”
	“Thanks. So I get Bric and the prosecutor in a room and I say why don’t we just take care of this. Bric says all his client wants is to be left alone, he’ll settle for a barring order. I’m thinking, fabulous, who knew defeating the Dark One was this easy, and then Bric says, ‘We’ll set the forfeit at four hundred gold.’”
	Ethir whistled in admiration.
	 “I know. And I’m thinking four hundred gold, you bastard, you know he’d have to sell his body to the medicals to get it, and I say, ‘Well then I’ll see you in court,’ and he comes back with two hundred and eighty.”
	“Still too high,” Ethir interjected.
	“Don’t I know it. But I’m hammering at him and he won’t drop below that so finally I say I’ll talk to the client. So this morning the client can finally walk about, so I talk to him and guess what he says.”
	“I wouldn’t presume to hazard,” Ethir said.
	“He says, ‘That’s what I paid for my farm.’”
	Ethir felt his eyes becoming larger.
	“Exact figure,” said Yearb.
“Unbelievable.”
“It gives you chills, doesn’t it? How does that bastard do it?”
	“Like I say,” Ethir answered. “He gets it straight from the Dark One.”
	“So I’m looking at the client and you should see the guy’s face, thinking about his farm being taken away from him, and I say look, all you have to do is agree never to go near the victim again, if you don’t do that they won’t take it away, it’s just to make sure you don’t go back on your word, see?”
	“And you think he got it.”
	“Yeah, he got it but you could see how torn up he was. And he sits there a while, and then he says, ‘If I sign, how soon will I be out?’ and I say, ‘soon as we can get the presider to call the case,’ and I tell him it’ll probably be the next afternoon. So then he says, if I don’t sign, how long will I be in here, and I tell him till the trial, unless he has someone who can vouch for him, which he doesn’t. So then he says, ‘I can’t write my name, will my mark be all right.’”
	“Poor bastard,” Ethir said. “Did you tell him about the bites?”
	“I laid it out for him how he’d probably get off with a fine at the most and if he wanted he could sue for damages afterward and clean up but he was on fire to get out of that room. So he makes his mark, and I go to Bric and he tells me that as of last night he no longer represents the victim. So I run to the prosecutor and I say, can we renegotiate, and he says tarbfnaa, your client signed it. Now what I want to know is, do I have to take that fnaa or can I make him do a better deal?”
	Ethir considered the story for a moment.
	“I think you’re stuck with it, Yearb,” he said sadly. “Or rather your client is. The prosecutor’s not going to give up a signed agreement unless he thinks he can do better. As the victim’s private counsel Bric’s got no real legal standing and his being fired doesn’t change anything. You’ve been had.”
	Yearb’s face fell. “Yeah, I figured, I just thought if anyone would know how to get around it, it would be you.”
	“Sorry, Yearb.”
	“Thanks for the help. Good luck with the hearing.”
	“Thanks.”
	Yearb headed away, leaving Ethir sunk in thought.
	“Yearb!” he called.
	“Yes?” Yearb turned around looking hopeful.
	“Who’s the victim?”
	“Come on, Ethir, I can’t tell you that,” Yearb complained. “I just spilled every detail of the whole case, if I tell you who it’s about they’ll defrock me over confidentiality.”
	“Right,” Ethir said. “Right, of course. Sorry, Yearb. Good luck. Hope your client makes out all right.”
	“Thanks, Ethir. Idair with you.”
	Ethir shook his head.
	He didn’t have time to wonder. He had to get to the hearing.

*	*	*	*

	Keanrih had never been inside a courtroom. He wasn’t liable to forget his first time.
	It was a square room, with a rectangular platform to the left which was enclosed on three sides by railings. There were fourteen people sitting inside the railings on cushions, one rank raised so they could see over the other. Ethir had explained that they were the Cause Finders and they were there to decide if the case would go to trial. Opposite him was a dais with a chair and the presider would sit in that. On the other side, across from the finders’ box, was a raised square platform with another cushion on it. That was for witnesses.
	He was sitting where the defendants sat. 
	The defendants’ area was inside a box on the right-hand side formed by another railing. His hands were manacled in front of him, and was dressed in one of those gray tunics they all wore. Unlike the Finders he sat in a chair behind a table, with Ethir on his left. There were no other defendants. Apparently it was a slow day.
	Next to the finders’ box was another space, with cushions, where Weroda was sitting next to a stocky black-haired man with a face like a granite quarry. He wore the same blue robe that Ethir wore. Weroda looked at Keanrih, once, and then looked away.
	People were filling the space behind him, sitting on cushions on the floor. It didn’t look around to see who they were. He wouldn’t know who was watching him.
	“Tioc an tesich,” called a voice behind him.
	“Get up,” Ethir whispered.
	It got to his feet. So did all the other people he could see. 
	The presider walked in through the doors behind him. Once he got to the front of the room Keanrih could see that he was an older man, but with a full head of white hair, and he walked as if he were thirty. Keanrih thought Nocc would be jealous of his health. If Nocc were even there to see it.
	He climbed onto the podium and assumed the chair. Everyone else sat down.
	“All right, what’s the first call,” said the presider to the clerk, who had now walked up by the podium.
	“Weroda v Keanrih.”
	Ethir got up. So did the man next to Weroda. They stood side by side in front of the presider.
	“Ethir mac Briobh standing for the defendant. We ask the Court for the opportunity to perform a shriic evaluation as part of the cause finding.”
	The thing inside him began to get nervous.
	“Stomk mac Hyslip defending the people. We have no objection.”
	The presider unrolled a scroll handed to him by the clerk.
	“Your client has stipulated to the facts alleged by the victim, Ethir?”
	“Yes, presider.”
	“And you are satisfied with the stipulation, Stomk?”
	“We are, presider.”
	“Have you got a shriia here willing to perform the evaluation?”
	“Yes we have, presider.”
	There was a slight murmur behind him. He could hear people whispering.
	“Defendant, do you consent to the evaluation?”
	“I do not!” shouted Keanrih’s voice, as his body began quivering.
	“Shriia,” said the presider, looking over everyone’s heads to the back of the room. “Do you accept the stipulation as sufficient cause to justify performing the evaluation without his consent?”
	“I do, presider.”
	The voice came from behind him. He could hardly believe he was hearing it.
	“Come forward.”
	He heard her ropesoled canvas boots padding up the aisle between the cushions. And then there she was, a few feet away, looking toward the presider and not at him. 
	“Use your name for the record, shriia?”
	“Theamh ni hUlnach.”
	A soft ripple of gossip washed around the spectators. Theamh ni hUlnach…The one who cleansed the Ubh …I know, she works in our neck of the woods…really, what’s she like…bit rough to take at first but she works hard…sense of humor, you don’t see that often in a shriia…wouldn’t change her for Morat, that’s for damn sure…hush now
	And none of them really knew what she was like, did they. But he did, and so did the thing inside him, because it wanted to wet Keanrih’s pants.
	“The court has asked you to determine to the extent that you can whether the defendant was possessed at the time of the stipulated offense, which took place eighteen hours from this hour. Please investigate him and make your report.”
	Theamh turned around.
	He could see her face now. He almost didn’t recognize it. It was cold, expressionless, devoid of anything but a deadly concentration.
	She put one hand around the back of his head.
	He could feel her fingers parting the hair in furrows, curving around his scalp. Her face was close to his, but he was no closer to seeing an expression in her green eyes. He wondered if the queasiness in his stomach was the thing’s fear or his own half-terrified anticipation.
	Inside his head he felt a sudden flicker of dull burning pain. Then a kind of convulsion, a churning of memory and perception that made him lose his grip on where he was and what was happening. And a voice.
	<Keanrih, are you in there?>
	It was her.
	<Yes! Yes, name of the spirit, get it out of me-->
	<I will, but I’m not supposed to do it here-->
	Hearing her temporize made him insane.
	<NO! Get rid of it, now, it’s evil, I can’t stand it another thurking second-->
	<I will, Keanrih, but-->
	<Oh, Theamh, for mercy’s sake get it out of me, get it out of me now, not later, now, for thurk’s sake now!>
	The panic that had seized him left room for nothing else. He couldn’t stand to think that she might go away and maybe never come back. He knew he was breaking down like a lost child but he couldn’t help it. If he had had his body he would have thrown himself at her feet and begged.
	Theamh didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she dropped her hands.
	Her face still hadn’t changed. 
	She reached into her hreapa and pulled out a velvet pouch closed with a drawstring. She opened it and tipped a small parti-colored metal ball into one hand.	She turned around to face the presider, closing her hand over the ball.
	“I’ve evaluated him,” she said.
	“And what do you find?” the presider answered.
	“It is my professional opinion,” she went on, “that not only was Keanrih mac Minead possessed at the time of the offense, he’s possessed right now.”
	He knew that the noise around him was the noise of fear and alarm. He wasn’t listening. He was waiting to see if she would show mercy.
	“And I advise anyone who’s not legally required to be here to clear the court,” she said. “Because I’m going to cast it.”
	In the startled uproar he could distinguish Ethir’s voice. “Theamh, the court hasn’t ordered…”
	She turned back to face Keanrih and raised the ball in one hand.
	“Tabhair, mo sielnai!”
	The air sizzled and tore. Lightning flashed from the ball in four different electric colors, hurtling into a shifting screen of blue, yellow, green and pink that crackled and snapped and carved out a space separating him and Theamh from the rest of the room.
	She tucked the ball into the pouch and closed it. The thing in him shied away from her, violently, in panic. She grabbed him by the temples and wrenched his head back so that he was staring up at her.
	“All right, kraikk,” she called. “Leave or be cast. It’s your choice.”
	It didn’t seem to respond.
	“Just so you know, Keanrih,” said Theamh grimly. “This is going to hurt.”
	A cable of sparking blue fire stretched from the canopy behind her and began twining along her left arm. A green one wound down her right arm. Both were traveling toward his head.
“Meet the vigils, you son of a bitch.”
	He felt searing pain shoot from both temples. 
	It was as if a fire were burning along the inside of his skull. His mind was buckling and rippling and there was a confused jumble of words and noise that he could barely keep himself coherent enough to understand.
	this place is a place of danger for you
	don’t like Zott do you well he’s never won any prizes for congeniality
	I wouldn’t wait for me to tire    as a shriia I can tell you I’m just getting started
	There was a flare of pain that he thought would knock him to the ground. Instead of falling he felt his chest suddenly expanding in a long, shuddering breath.
	He was screaming. 
He was screaming. 
Ripping his lungs raw with his own breath. Forcing out the pain that had been wadding itself up at the base of his throat for days, letting it burst flaming into the air.
	It hurt like hell. 
It felt good.
	face it		you’re losing him
	give it up Shaineen’s as mean as she is green
	He could almost see, through the haze of flame, his hands on the table. He was trying to move them. They weren’t moving, but he was almost sure they were shaking.
	all right then, you want rough let’s play rough
	“Close your eyes!” she shouted.
	He found he could actually close them. He couldn’t move his head, but he could close his eyes. And they were watering.
Even through closed eyelids he could see the flash of light. Then he felt a stinging pain whip through his brain, and a crack that rang in his ears.
	The screen of colored fire dissipated. Now the vigils were roaming individually around the room, green blue yellow and that shapeless pink fog drifting among the cowering spectators. He pulled away from the heat that was surging off Theamh as blinding white fire played over her body.
He could move.
	White fire shot out of one of Theamh’s hands in a bright streak that arched over his head. He craned his neck to follow it.
	The fire stopped in mid-air. The air it stopped in began to shimmer, and thicken, and bleed into orange.
	He gasped at the sight of it. A squat, quivering orange thing hovering and darting in the air like an enormous corpulent bat. It had no features at all. It was nothing but a dirty, pyramid-shaped lump.
	It broke away and darted across the room, over the heads of the screaming spectators. Straight at Weroda, who flinched from it in terror.
	“I don’t think so!”
	A bolt of Theamh’s fire stabbed the thing in its midsection. It stopped short, its points flailing spastically.
	“You want to thurk with women? Thurk with me.” Theamh clapped her flaming hands and began taunting it. “Come and get me. Come on.” 
	He wasn’t surprised that it showed no inclination to go near her. He’d always known it was a coward.
She threw out another stream. The orange thing left Weroda and began spiraling wounded up to the ceiling.
	“Coward! Gleachinai! Bosca na fnaa!” A long yellow stream of lightning snaked out after it. “Stinking lump from the Dark One’s privy! Come on!”
	The orange thing darted out into the crowd. People ran screaming away from it and into each other. The yellow lightning snapped around it like the coil of a snake. The orange thing hung inside the noose, spitting flame.
	“Take a good look,” Theamh called out. “This is your rapist. Right here at the end of Jayla.”
	Keanrih was looking. He wasn’t sure anyone else would be.
	“Someone open a window,” Theamh said.
	It came out in a conversational tone which nobody could hear.
	“Ethir!” she shouted. “Open a thurking window!”
	He heard someone scrabbling over the cushions to the wall, and the sound of a casement being pushed open. He was watching the thing inside the yellow noose struggle as Theamh’s vigil yanked it forward, away from the people and over to the window.
	The blue one and the green went to help it out. The three strands tugged it against its will over to the window, while the pink mist that was her fourth vigil hissed among the screaming spectators. He knew it was protecting them, but most of them were just as scared of it as they were of the orange thing. Which he could certainly understand.
	Keanrih was on his feet, stretching his neck out to look just because he could. Still savoring his freedom to move, hardly even noticing the manacles binding his hands.
	The three streams of lightning suddenly loosed their hold and snapped back to coil waiting around Theamh.
	With that tricolor torrent of alien flame rippling around the flapping white wool of her hreapa, white fire shooting up and down her arms, and her eyes blazing with what he could only really think of as madness, she was absolutely terrifying. To him, and please Idair to that thing struggling in the air near the open window.
	“Teir abhaile kraikk!”
	Fire rushed searing out of both her hands and hit the thing in the gut.
	It curled in on itself, with an almost audible whimper.
	Then it slipped out the window, and exploded into orange light.
	And then it was gone.
	Keanrih put his hands up to his face. He felt the wristlets bang against his jaw, and dropped them.
	Around him he could hear the waves of terror subsiding into shock. Theamh crossed her arms over her chest, one hand on each shoulder.
	“Mo linn agam,” she whispered.
	The white fire ran up into her shoulders and disappeared. 
	She was out of breath, and her face seemed to have been drained of all its color. Four different colors of lightning were still playing around her form.
	She took out the pouch, and the ball. Her hands were shaking.
	“Tar cieridh, mo sielnai.”
	Each stream of lightning crawled back into a different quadrant of the ball.
	Keanrih slumped back into his chair with an audible thump.
	Theamh hurried over to him as she tucked the ball into the bag. By the time she got there he was weeping uncontrollably.
	“Keanrih,” she said, her voice low under the noise. “Let me make sure you’re clean.”
	He nodded. He felt sick to his stomach, and weak as water.
	She put a hand around the back of his head, and then withdrew it.
	“You’re clean. It’s gone.”
He saw she had tears in her eyes.
“Welcome back,” she said gently.
	All that came out of him was a fresh flood of tears.
	“Say something, Keanrih, let me hear your voice.”
	“I—I—c-can’t believe it,” he sobbed. “I can’t—believe—it’s gone—“
	His shoulders shook. Then his chest. Then his arms and the rest of his body as his inexhaustible cry kept coming.
	“Don’t be afraid,” she said. “I’ll take care of you.”
	He felt her hands touch his. 
Suddenly he was convulsed in fear. He jerked his hands out of her reach, shoving his chair back into the far railing.
	“Don’t touch me,” he wailed. “I’m not safe.”
	Through the tears that blurred his vision he saw her hands hovering pink and uncertain in the air between them. Then she turned to face the presider.
She seemed puzzled not to see him in the chair. Then the presider, who had been crouched behind the dais for shelter, stood up cautiously and resumed his seat.. 
 “That was a kraikk,” she said, in a ragged voice. “The kraikk are just about the meanest things in the ether. They’re vicious, amoral, poison-minded things that care for nothing but bodily pleasure, and they don’t give a damn that they have to milk it from someone else’s suffering flesh.”
No one seemed to have a response. She resumed in a more clinical tone.
“This one got into him, as near as I can put it, the morning after the Turning. The possession was complete and his will was totally subordinated.” She glanced back at him. “He cannot be held responsible for any harm that his body may have done from that time to this.”
Theamh folded her hands, and looked up at the presider expectantly.
He stared at her for a long time, while the spectators quieted down.
	“Shriia,” he finally said, in a voice that was weak if still sharp. “I have seen contempt of court before, but today you have scaled new heights.”
	“What I just did was illegal and irresponsible,” Theamh said, solemnly. “I deserve to be arrested, and I’m ready to submit to the severest sentence the law can impose.”
	She passed a hand over her disordered hair, and gave a nervous laugh.
	“I’m sure you’ll be more lenient with me than the Council will.”
	Looking at her Keanrih suddenly realized what he had done to her. She’d been trying to tell him that she wouldn’t be able to do it now. And he’d bawled at her like a spoiled child until she did what he wanted and now she looked as if she were expecting a death sentence or worse.
	Another woman he’d hurt. And he couldn’t blame that on the thing.
	“Well,” said the presider. “I think we’d better call a recess. Reconvene in one hour. Counsel for both sides, I’ll see you in my office. Shriia?”
	“Yes, presider.”
	“I’ll ask you to go along with the gardai,” he said.
	“Of course.”
	Two gardai approached her, cautiously.
	“Take her down to the holding rooms,” said the presider. “Dismissed.”
	One of the gardai made a tentative motion toward her, then stopped.
	“It’s all right,” she said. “I’ll go. Just a moment.”
	Theamh crouched down on the other side of the table. He shuddered away from it, and her, averting his face in terror.
	“Look at me, Keanrih. Please.”
	She sounded like herself again. But he was still terrified. Still only able to look at her aslant, trembling.
	“You’ve got Minead, and you’ve got me. We’ll get you through it.”
	He couldn’t bear to see her looking kind.
	“Stay away,” he cried. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
	“Wait,” she said, holding up one hand. “It won’t always feel like this.”
	“Shriia,” said one of the gardai, apologetically. “We ought to…”
	She nodded. “Of course. I’ll go.”
	The gardai walked out with her between them.
	“I bet you could overpower us in the hallway,” observed the one on the right, helpfully.
	“It’s thoughtful of you, friend,” she said. “But I’ve been making trouble for a long time, and I’ve learned that if you’re going to make it, you have to be ready to just sit there and soak in it.”
	For a while he was aware of nothing but his own sobbing.
	“Keanrih?”
	It was Minead. 
He was almost afraid to look. But he turned around to lean over the railing that separated him from the spectators.
	“Mathi,” he said, miserably.
	Her face broke up into tears.
	“Chara, I’m…chara, mo stor, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…”
	When she put her arms around him he felt that sickening terror again. His body froze in her embrace.
	She dropped her arms, hurt and anxious.
	“Are you all right, chara?”
	“No, mathi,” he said, still weeping. “I’m not.”
	“Of course not,” she said, in a trembling low voice. “Of course not. After all this. But…but you’ll get better, chara. You’re going be all right.”
	He reflected that this was something Theamh hadn’t said to him.
	Because she wasn’t sure it was true.
	He realized he had never thanked her.
He could see Weroda watching him with an expression he couldn’t read, surrounded by her people. He could see Bilhad, Trebor, and Tilhu huddled together a little way behind Minead, watching to see whether it would be safe to talk to him. 
	Nocc wasn’t there.
	Neither was Taric.
	“Chara,” Minead said.
	The gardai, who had been keeping a respectful distance in the background, advanced now.
	“We’ve got to take him to the holding room for the recess,” they said. “You can come with him if you like.”
	“Thank you,” said Minead, gathering her shawl around her. “I will.”
	He looked at her gratefully, and tried to feel happy.
	She was standing right in front of him.
	She was a thousand miles away.
	She was close enough to be hurt.
	He was not going to be all right.

*	*	*	*

	“Well,” said the presider, shaking out some wrinkles in the sleeve of his robe. “That was more excitement than I look for in a cause finding.”
	The presider sat back in his chair, stretching his legs out. “Stomk? Your thoughts?”
	Stomk tried to recall himself to the task.
	“I…”
	The presider prompted him. “Do you still wish to press forward with the hearing? Because I think I know what the finding will be.”
	Stomk still looked vacant.
	“Of course, you could argue that the display we just witnessed would count as inadmissible evidence, and move to discard the hearing altogether and start again with a new panel of Cause Finders…”
	“But Presider,” Ethir interrupted. “That would be prejudicial to my client. If we have to do another shriic evaluation—“
	“Easy,” Stomk said, having finally gathered his wits. “Look, Ethir, I have no desire to be a gleachinai. The real perpetrator is that flying orange monster, and obviously we can’t try him. Personally I’m happy to drop this, but I have to consider the victim.”
	“And suppose the victim wishes to press forward?” said the Presider.
	“Then I’ll demand that we continue with the hearing. But I don’t see any need to select a new panel, or to throw out the results of the evaluation.”
	Stomk wasn’t exactly winking at him. But Ethir knew he would be buying Stomk lunch many times in the near future.
	The presider looked at them both.
	“Talk to your clients. Then come talk to me,” he said.
	Stomk bowed, and left the room. 
Ethir hung back, unwilling to push a presider that had already been so generous.
	“Yes, Ethir?”
	“How long are you planning to hold Theamh, presider?” he asked, timidly.
	The presider leaned over his desk.
	“Till tomorrow morning,” he said.
	Ethir allowed himself a sigh of relief.
	“I’m glad she cleansed that poor bastard, and how can a man not admire her balls. However, I don’t want her entering any courtroom I preside over, ever again.”
	Ethir said, meekly, “I’ll keep that in mind.”
	“Do that,” he said. “Dismissed.”
	“Thank you, presider,” he said, and fled.

*	*	*	*

	Weroda laid her hands flat against the shiny surface of the table. The waiting room was small, with high windows. Her mother and sister were sitting at one end of the huge table with her, bunched up together for comfort. Stomk sat across from them.
	“You see, Weroda, I doubt this panel will hold him over. I doubt that if they did, we could convict him. It’s your right to prosecute and if you choose to press forward then we press forward. But it might all come to nothing.”
	Weroda turned her eyes from Stomk’s face to her own hands.
	“Yes, chara, why not drop it,” said Lytle. “He did…what do you call it…”
	“Stipulate,” said Stomk.
	“Yes,” Lytle said, nodding. “That will stand, won’t it?”
	Stomk nodded. “The hearing will still be on record, and everything entered so far will be in there, including Keanrih’s signed stipulation.”
	“And that’s what matters, chara,” said Lytle.
	“Is that what matters?” she said sharply, turning on her mother. 
	“But chara what else can you have?” her mother replied, plaintively. “Of course you want everyone to know it wasn’t your fault. Now they know that, why not drop it.”
	Weroda realized that the anger rising in her was not really her mother’s fault.
	“Mathi,” she said. “Would you and Maorila go outside for a minute, I’d like to talk to the lawyer alone.”
	Lytle was offended, of course, but she took Maorila by the hand and left.
	Weroda didn’t know exactly what to say. Stomk waited.
	“Mathi doesn’t understand why I chose to prosecute,” she said.
	“It’s often that way,” Stomk answered. 
	“I’m not sure I understand it,” Weroda went on, with difficulty. “I was pretty sure that he was possessed, even before this happened. But I still wanted to prosecute.”
	Stomk said, “And you don’t know why?”
	Weroda lifted her hands off the table. She could see moisture congealing around the outlines her fingers had left, in a faint ghostly halo.
	“I’ve been hurt. I want someone to pay. It comes down to that.” She looked up at Stomk. “The thing that wanted this is gone. He’s still there. I want him to pay. Because he’s there.”
	Stomk nodded in resignation. “Then we’ll go on with the hearing,” he said. “After the recess you’ll be given the opportunity to speak. When you’re finished—“
	“No,” Weroda said, suddenly.
	“You don’t want to speak?” Stomk answered.
	She laid her hands back on the table, palms down, and looked at them.
	“Don’t press forward,” Weroda said. “It’s what I want. But all the same it’s not right.” 
	“Are you sure?” Stomk said gently.
	“Yes, I’m sure.”
	“Because once it’s dismissed, we can’t go back on that.”
	“I said I was sure.”
	“All right,” Stomk answered. “You’re a brave girl, Weroda. You’re doing the right thing.”
	He got up.
	She kept looking at her hands. They were steady now, quiet, clean. Thanks to the uisce her face wasn’t as swollen as it had been and the black and yellow bruise marks would fade soon. Theamh had told her she knew someone who could help with the other pain. Her body would heal. She’d pull herself together, and nobody else would see this when they looked at her. 
	But it would always be there. Under the new unbroken skin, under the healthy flesh. Something written into the marrow and the mind. Permanent harm.

*	*	*	*

	“…on the evidence presented before this court in the early session, the court concludes that there is no basis for the charge against the defendant. The case against Keanrih mac Minead is dismissed and he is free to go.”
	Keanrih heard the stone ball bang into its cradle. His mother began to cry.
	Bilhad put a hand on his shoulder. “Congratulations, Keanrih,” he said. 
	It wasn’t his fault he didn’t understand. He shouldn’t get angry.
	Trebor had been very quiet, of course. So had Tilhu. He couldn’t blame them.
	One of the gardai began unlocking the wristlets.
	He watched her snap the hidden lock into place, and break the iron circle around one wrist. The sight of her lifting the other cuff off his left hand filled him with terror. His arm muscles clenched in a desperate effort to hold his hands there, on the desk, absolutely still.
	They were still. So far.
	“Aiv?”
	He looked up. Weroda was standing there on the other side of the table.
	“I’m sorry,” he said, while his hands trembled. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
	“I know,” she said.
	It was difficult for her to say. He could still get the whiff of anger off her voice, and although she was looking at him he felt that she was trying not to see him.
	“Please,” he said, in a rusty voice. “I have something to say to you.”
	He got up, slowly because his muscles were sore with the strain of holding themselves exactly to the movement he willed to make and nothing more or less. Crippled by this exhausting caution it took him a long time to push the chair out and to kneel down on the floor, to bow his head and to put his hands behind his back.
	“Keanrih…” his mother began, alarmed.
	Keanrih started speaking before she could go any farther.
	“I have done harm to you that I cannot undo,” Keanrih said, unable to see anything but her feet under the table. “I offer myself here as prey to your anger. And I beg you, if there is a remedy I can provide, that you name it to me, for if I can give anything, even my own life, I will give it, to put this right.”
	He could feel his mother’s anxiety. She was the one who taught him the story, and the tradition that had been born from it. She knew that in order to say those words, you had to be ready to back it up. And that if that meant death, then you had to be ready to die. He knew that he was. Now his mother knew too.
	It seemed like a long time before Weroda said anything.
	“There’s nothing you can do,” she finally said. “There is no remedy.” 
	He found himself disappointed, and closer to breaking down.
	“Don’t torture yourself,” she said, in a voice devoid of either hatred or compassion. “Enough’s been done to both of us.”
	“Keanrih, chara,” said his mother’s low voice, “please get up from there.”
	Keanrih stood, painfully. His arms he kept clenched and stiff at his sides.
	Weroda turned to his mother.
	“I’m leaving your house,” she said. 
	Minead nodded. “I’ve drawn two months’ wages from the bank. I’ll send them by courier to your mother’s tomorrow. I…”
	One of her hands moved futilely in the air.
	“If there is anything I else can do, please tell me.”
	Weroda nodded. “Two months is what’s right, Aiv. I want nothing more.”
	She bowed stiffly toward her, then walked away to where her family was waiting.
	“Son,” Minead said. “Are you cold?”
	He shook his head.
	“You’re shivering.”
	He closed his eyes in pain.
	“Come on, mathi,” said Bilhad. “Let’s go home.”
	First sensible thing he’d said in a long time.
	They began moving out of the room.

*	*	*	*

	“I’m here to see Theamh,” Ethir said. “I’m her lawyer.”
	“Sure,” said one of the gardai, with a smirk. “Go on in.”
	 They opened the door. Inside he could see Theamh, sitting on the pallet with her hands in front of her. She was flashing fire out of them, then taking it back, then flashing it out again.
	“Theamh?”
	She looked up. “It’s nice of you to visit.”
	“Don’t get up,” Ethir said, pulling over the chair. 
	The fire in her hands disappeared again.
	“What are you doing?”
	“Checking,” she said.
	“Checking for what?”
	“To make sure that what I just did wasn’t an abuse of the fire.”
	“How could it be? You cleansed him. Isn’t that what fire’s for?”
	Theamh leaned back against the wall. Her red hair had come out of its band and was spread over her shoulders, shining ruddy-gold in the light from the one casement window. He thought he could see her hreapa glowing faintly in the darkness. The edge of that slanted beam of light caught her eyes and he could see into the irises, right to the gold flecks that studded the green. 
	“I know. I was just checking.”
	She brought the fire out, then leaned her elbows on her knees and put her chin in her flaming hands, staring thoughtfully into space.
	“Theamh…I know you’re incombustible, but that’s still disturbing.”
	With a little laugh, she pulled the fire back in.
	“It was very irresponsible.” She sighed. “As long as Idair doesn’t take back my fire, I can live with the Order taking back my house.”
	“Would they really do that?” Ethir asked, alarmed.
	Theamh buried her head in her arms and fell over onto her side with a groan.
	“Don’t talk about it,” she said. “Just tell me what’s happening with the hearing.”
	“They dismissed the case,” Ethir said. “Keanrih’s going home with his family. Weroda’s going back to her people.”
	“Oh, that’s good,” Theamh said, sitting up with a sigh of relief. “I’m happy for that. Ethir, listen,” she said. “Will you get a message to Minead for me.”
	“Of course.”
	“Tell her to watch him. He’s suicidal.”
	Ethir swallowed this with some difficulty.
	“I will,” he said. “Anything else?”
	“Tell her that as soon as I can I’ll be out there to help them with the aftershock.”
	“All right, Theamh.”
	He got up, and discovered he was reluctant to leave. To keep the conversation going, he said, “Is it always like that, at a cleansing?”
	“I don’t know,” Theamh said, haggardly. “I’ve never done one before.”
	Ethir felt his mouth hanging open.
	Theamh dropped her head into her arms again with a moan.
	“I’m a mess, Ethir,” she wailed. “I’m a natural disaster. If I had got there before he’d done that to that poor girl, there would have been some justification for rushing in like that. But as it is I just made a lot of trouble for no good reason. I couldn’t save him, I couldn’t save her, I’m no thurking use.”
	“Now,” Ethir said, almost angry with her. “Theamh, I know if I told you you were lying you’d hit me but you’re wrong. You did save him.”
	She sounded as if she were crying, although he couldn’t tell from the back of her head.
	“You’re not a mess. You’re good at your job and you take no fnaa off anyone and evil trembles in your path,” he said, half joking and half startled at how serious he was. “If something got to me I’d want you in there after it before any other shriia I know. You’re not a mess. You’re—you’re my hero.”
	She looked up, half in grief and half in amazement.
	“Really?”
	“Of course,” he said.
	Theamh laughed.
	“You’re good to try to cheer me up,” she said. “Thanks.”
	He looked at her face, and he began to feel that if he didn’t leave soon something very awkward would happen.
	“I better go get that message to Minead,” he said. “Good luck, Theamh.”
	He closed the door and began walking very swiftly down the hallway.
	No. It couldn’t be. All right she was a remarkable woman but a man just could not start having thoughts like that about a shriia. 

*	*	*	*

	“Well,” said Yearb, holding the door open. “Took us a while but it’s finally signed sealed and delivered. You’re a free man, Taric.”
	Taric got to his feet, carefully. The trousers pressed against the bandages on his thigh. He was grateful that they hadn’t mauled his face, or taken off anything important. But the lingering pain of the wounds was nothing compared to his crushing dread of the freedom he was walking into.
	“Thank you,” he said. Since after all it was not the lawyer’s fault.
	“You have the receipt for your horse, right? They’ll give it back to you when you present it to the clerk downstairs.” 
Taric nodded. 
	“Idair with you, friend, and good luck.”
	He walked out into the corridor.
	It was quiet on the second floor. Nobody up there but the gardai, and one man in a blue robe hurrying down the hallway. He was hurrying from another man who wore a brown tunic over black trousers, and was trotting after him doggedly.
	“I don’t have time, Kleark,” the man in blue was saying, without turning around.
	“Just for one minute,” said the other, winded from running. “Every chain in the country will be relaying the Keanrih story and half of them will get it wrong. Wouldn’t you and your client rest easier knowing one was getting it right?”
	Taric began walking much more slowly. The man in blue had stopped to answer.
	“Kleark, my client is probably never going to rest easy again as long as he lives. Now get away from me.”
	“But I thought he was acquitted!” Kleark called, as the other man turned the handle of the door.
	Taric turned the corner, stopped, and waited. His heart was pounding.
	“The case was dismissed. That’s different. If you’re going to start covering the courts why don’t you learn some law.”
	“So he’s not innocent?”
	“He is innocent. That’s why the case was dismissed.”
	“Why wasn’t the possession discovered before the rape was committed?”
	Taric bit his lip to keep himself from crying out.
	It had happened. What he’d seen Keanrih’s body doing in that vision had come to pass. He hadn’t been able to stop it.
	“…take up with the Council, they’re the ones protecting us from things like this.”
	“Are you planning to investigate Nocc mac Deira?”
	“I can’t really comment on that.”
	“Do you think that Theamh’s actions this morning were justified?”
	Taric waited, in terrible suspense.
	“I can’t say that they were consistent with legal procedure,” the lawyer finally said. “But based on what I saw of Keanrih after she cast it, I would say that in terms of her responsibility to prevent human suffering, they absolutely were justified. If I had been her, I would not have been able to bring myself to leave that vicious thing inside him for a second longer than necessary.”
	“And how is your client now?” inquired the repeater.
	“I can’t talk about that,” he snapped. “Go send the sceal and leave me alone.”
	Taric hurried down the stairs.
	He was already too late.
	He’d raped that girl and they’d arrested him and Theamh had thrown it out, finally. There was nothing he could do.
	At least he was free now.
	And now what was Taric supposed to do?
	That barring order was not going to keep them apart. 
	But he would have to think. If the farm had to go, then it had to go. But maybe it wouldn’t. It sounded like Keanrih had a new lawyer. Would that change the barring order? Now that he had himself, would Keanrih get it revoked or struck out or whatever? Now that he had himself, what would happen?
	Taric couldn’t go to Keanrih. Not as long as those dogs were still patrolling the grounds. But surely Keanrih would find a way to come to him. He’d have seen what his father was doing, he’d understand why Taric hadn’t been able to get to him.
	He’d go back to his farm and wait.

*	*	*	*

	Barant had known Theamh wouldn’t be happy to see her, but she hadn’t expected her to look quite so piteous.
	It was something Morat never seemed to understand. Theamh didn’t disregard orders because she didn’t care what the Order thought of her. Every time she did something like this she did it in fear, knowing she was digging that hole deeper, afraid of the retribution coming. The others didn’t understand, because they didn’t know her, that this was not disobedience. It was obedience, the only way she knew how to give it, to the only authorities she recognized. Idair, the right, and what she loved.
	Barant closed the door softly, but the sound still made Theamh start.	“Congratulations,” Barant said, with a smile.
	“Congratuwhat?” Theamh answered, wanly.
	“Your first cleansing,” Barant said, pulling up her skirts and sitting down against the wall. “How do you feel?”
	“I feel like I’ve been chewed up and spit out,” she said.
	“That’s normal.” Barant smiled faintly. “It sounds like the thing put up a hell of a fight. How’d the vigils do?”
	Theamh rattled the bag with the cieridh in it. “They were great! They kick gleacha. Especially Zott and Shaineen. Jayla’s harder to command but she’s very tenacious when she gets a grip on something.”
	“What about Phredi?”
	“I know how you feel about Phredi,” Theamh said, leaping to its defense. “But I’m glad I have him. If I’m going to go around pulling this fnaa in crowded courtrooms, it’s good I’ve got one vigil who looks out for other people besides me.”
	“And are you?” Barant said. “Planning to go around pulling this fnaa, I mean?”
	Theamh sighed.
	“Honestly, if I had known what it was going to be like I would never have done that,” she said. “I just—Keanrih was pleading with me, and I listened to him. I should have remembered you can’t just do what the victim wants, since the victim has most likely gone mad.” She shook her head. “No. I’m never doing that in public again, if I can help it.”
	Barant was very glad to hear it.
	“I wouldn’t recommend it,” she said. “But I do want to tell you something, as your diaoc.”
	Theamh looked at her, afraid of censure but still hoping for approval.
	“Grinth, Morat, Dalen and I have been working to try to protect that poor boy,” Barant said. “You were the only one who was able to actually do a damn thing for him. Because you were the only one willing to defy that EDP order.” Barant tucked her hands into the sleeves of her hreapa as she crossed her arms. “You took a risk to do right by him. You’ve done good and you’ve done well, and as your diaoc, I’m proud of you.”
	Theamh’s eyes became moist, and the expression of surprise and gratitude on her sad, pale face twisted Barant’s heart.
	“Thank you, diaoc. That means a lot to me.”
	“Now,” Barant said. “As the head of Internal Affairs…”
	“Oh no…” Theamh groaned.
	“I have to deliver the result of the meeting that the Discipline Committee just concluded, comprising me, Grinth, and Morat by link from Kengda.”
	Theamh clenched her hands in her lap and looked straight ahead into the air.
	“And?” she said.
	“The Committee has voted to reduce your food allowance to three scrip per month.”
	Theamh blinked.
	Her head turned. 
	“That’s it?”
	“It’ll be hard to get by on—“
	“My mother will make up the difference if I bring myself to ask for it and you know that. What the hell kind of a sanction is that?”
	Barant couldn’t help smiling. “If you’d prefer that we passed one more severe—“
	“Oh no, no, Idair’s teeth don’t if you don’t want,” Theamh blurted. “I just don’t understand. This is a much bigger deal than—“
	“It’s not about you,” said Barant. “It’s us. We…” She shrugged. “I said to the others, how can we punish you for something we are all glad that you did and stay sincere. Morat argued, of course…”
	“Of course,” Theamh said gloomily.
	“But Grinth saw it my way. We think it would have been hypocritical to give you a harsher punishment for doing what everyone agrees was exactly what the victim needed.” She smiled. “In fact, if you hadn’t decided to put on that show in the courtroom, you might have been actually commended for this. But you’re you, and so here we are.”
	“I’m me,” Theamh agreed.
	“I’m glad you’re you, Theamh,” Barant said gently. “We need shriias like you, to keep us honest.”
	Theamh looked at her as if she wasn’t quite sure what Barant meant.
	“I am proud of you,” Barant said, surprised by her emotion. “Slythe is out at your house looking after Cinhe and Pertlo. So get a good night’s sleep, if you can do that in here. You deserve some peace.”
	Barant walked to the door.
	“Idair with you, Theamh,” she said.
	“With you too,” Theamh answered, a little hopeful now.
	Barant felt a little bad about leaving her in there. But it was only for a night. 

*	*	*	*

	I see you’ve made the mistake of assuming this is over.
	Theamh did me a favor. She gave the kraikk the pounding it had coming for disobeying my orders a second time. She got Bric off the hook for a lot of free legal work, and she kept the na Poll family from breaking up. After all, thanks to her, Keanrih went home to the bosom of his family. And thanks to me, Keanrih mac Minead would be a lot better off in the Zone than in that house.
	You see, Theamh is not a strategist. She was never good at dubh solus. She can only see one move ahead.
	And she doesn’t know about the Project.
	You’re no better. You don’t even see that this wasn’t even a victory.
So she cleansed him. So what. I got what I wanted. Nine hundred gold, and the chance of repeat business.

12
Wait

	Time works for the Dark One.
	Truth is difficult. Resistance is hard. Love is fragile. Everything that takes a human being toward the light requires effort. Anyone can exert that effort at a moment of crisis. Almost no one can keep it up for a week, a month, a year.
	They say time heals wounds. This is true, if the wound is clean. On a poisoned wound, time has a very different effect.
	I see Theamh walking out to that house every day, going up the steps to the tower and that room. I see her crouching down in the hallway outside that locked door, talking to him. A little less sure every day that she’ll get him back. That she’ll get him to open that door, and let her start trying to pull him back from the edge.
	He will never open that door.
	She will tell him that all things are possible, that no one is unredeemable, that as long as he is alive he can heal. She will tell him these things and she will believe them and he will want to believe them too. But he won’t believe them. Because he’s not living in Idair’s world now. He’s living in my world and he knows in every bone in his body that in my world the first rule is fear.
	The wound is poisoned. It will not heal. 
He will never open that door.

*	*	*	*
	
	He found out on the first night that he couldn’t leave the house.
	He endured his mother’s solicitude, his siblings’ embarrassed attempts at compassion, his father’s silence. He went to bed when his mother asked him to. He got out of bed in the middle of the night and went down to the side door that led out to the stables and when his hand touched the latch he froze.
	Then the voices started.
	Do this to me and I’ll kill you		what does the parchment say		look at this blood on the blade	don’t think I won’t big house		evil goes out through the door
	He fled from the door as if that was what had sent that paralyzing fear through him. He ran up the tower and into his room and closed the door and locked it.
	He found out on the second day that he couldn’t leave the room. 
	The voices got louder.
	Big house bastard	cannot be held responsible for anything his body	I didn’t want it		what does the parchment thurk what the parchment says does it say you can thurk with men	why not I’ve done it all my life	that life maybe not this one it wasn’t me	I wasn’t it	maybe not but what are you now	you have one name and she knows it	you have one zazb and look what it wants 
blood on the blade
	He found out on the third day that it was an effort just to leave the bed.
	Open the door	   he’s waiting for me	   what did he ever do to deserve this    what did he ever do to deserve what’ll happen to him	you don’t want him	I do	that’s over	it’s not		he left you there	he didn’t stop it	how could he have he should have he didn’t how could he have stopped it if I couldn’t stop it why couldn’t I stop it unless I wanted it I am the man aren’t I
	He found out on the fourth day that if he put a pillow over his head he couldn’t hear people calling to him out in the hallway.
	leaving me now like I said you would	not leaving just trapped	might as well marry her now	   what else is left for you	   thurk you that’s not what I am    not then but now	don’t you want me	not like this rapist batterer big house bastard	    always thought you’d show your true colors 		glad I wasn’t there for it	shut up our link’s broken	it’s not you	well then what am I	shut up  	I’m you       are not		the new you	thurk you    you can’t go back after this	I will 	you going to touch him with those hands		you going into him with that prick	   why not     why not		what does the parchment say	   thurk you	it says you rape women	     not me     it says you do permanent harm    not me	      it says you’ll never be safe    she said I was clean	  for now
	for now
	if it comes back
	if she comes back
	you have one name and she knows it
	you have one zazb and she’s got it
	you had one body and it thurked you
	how can you even live there any more
	He found out on the fifth day that Theamh’s voice carried through the pillow.
	“Keanrih, come on, open the door.”
	Open the door		don’t open the door	she’ll help you		don’t open the door	what’s the worst that could happen	never ask that question    one night you went out thinking what’s the worst that could happen	 and look what happened
	“What’s happening to you has a name. It’s called aftershock and there are things I can do for it. But I can’t do them unless you open this door.”
	He could get to the lintel. He could almost put his hand on the latch. But he couldn’t bring himself to open the door.

*	*	*	*

	On the sixth day Nocc heard Minead moving around in the sitting room.
He entered cautiously and spoke softly. “What are you doing, chara?”
	“Inventory,” Minead said sharply, flipping a ledger on the desk open to a blank page. She pushed the stool over to the bookcase and began reaching up for the knickknacks on the top shelves.
	Nocc stood in the doorway to her sitting room, his knotted hands floating anxiously at his sides. “But chara, I told you…I told you…”
	“These crystal horses,” Minead said, brandishing a cutglass bookend. “They were a gift for me but they were from your mother. Do you want them?”
	All Nocc could do was shout, “No I don’t thurking want them! I don’t want a single thing in this house if you leave it!”
	“You should have thought of that when you gave my boy’s name to that bitch.”
	His howl of pain was involuntary, and raw enough to make even Minead stop and stare at him, that bookend suspended perilously in one hand.
	“I did not do that!” Nocc shouted, his voice shaking. “I’ve sworn it to you on my own head, on the ashes of my mother—“
	“You couldn’t find anything to swear by that would make me believe you!” Minead shouted, slamming the bookend down on the wooden shelf. “You promised me you’d never hurt him—“
	“I didn’t hurt him!”
	“How did that thing get into him then?”
	“I don’t know!” Nocc advanced into the room, his hands rising and then falling in a gesture of disappointed resignation. “I just know it was not my fault!”
	“For Idair’s sake why would you even do a thing like that?” Minead cried, clutching her hands in to her chest to stop them from shaking with anger. “Are you mad? Were you born evil?”
	“I wouldn’t do a thing like that! I didn’t!”
	Minead stepped off the stool, sat down on it, and began crying.
	“He’s my own son, how could I? It’s just a—a terrible coincidence—“
	“Coincidence!” Minead burst out. “You wanted this to happen—when I told you about him and Calarine you practically burst into song—“
	“I did not want this to happen!” Nocc shouted, coming closer to Minead so that she could read him. “All right, I was glad to see him acting natural—“
	“Natural!” Minead shouted, flinging a hand out at him so that he had to jump back. “Oh don’t talk to me—get out of here—“
	“I wanted to believe that it was natural,” Nocc shot back. “I wanted to believe he’d wanted a woman. Does that make me evil? Is it evil to want your son to be happy?”
	“You son of a—“
	“I wanted to believe in it,” Nocc repeated, feeling his tears. “I wanted that just like you wanted it!”
	Minead didn’t shout at him. She sat with her hands clutched and a stricken look on her face.
	“You wanted to believe it was natural too. You wanted him joined, you were happy about it, just like I was. You were. It’s not wrong that we were. It’s not wrong that we—tried to believe it was natural to him. Idair’s teeth who wouldn’t have tried?”
	She looked away, still crying.
	He knew she was starting to soften. And he knew that if he pushed this, if he kept leaning on the fact that she had wanted it too, she would start to believe him, and after that she would start to forgive him.
	It startled him, suddenly, to realize that. To look at her and know that he was working on her. Pulling the strings that years of marriage had taught him how to work.
	Nocc turned and fled to his own study.
	He threw himself into the leather chair and shut the door.
	Inside this room at least he could forget certain things. 
He could forget the fact that his oldest son was barricaded inside a room in the tower, and that when Nocc went up to speak with him his only reward was a torrent of abuse.	 thurk you	you liked me that way			you loved that thing better than me	I hate you	I’ll never stop hating you
	He could forget the fact that as soon as Keanrih recovered from whatever illness had gripped him, his wife would leave him and take his son with her.
	He could forget the fact that he had given his son’s name to Lythril.
	No, he couldn’t forget that.
	Well it was true what he’d said. He hadn’t wanted this. She hadn’t told him how she would do it. If he had known what was involved he would never have agreed to it. It was her fault, for deceiving him. For using a spirit that vicious. For not being able to control it. For letting Theamh get to him and cast it there in front of everyone so the whole City would know his family’s business.
	It was her fault. If she were susceptible to the law he could make her pay for it. Reimburse him. Put it right.
	Bric had suggested she would be willing to talk about remedies. He couldn’t believe she could come up with one. His son was mad, his wife was leaving him, and on top of it all someone was banging on the door.
	The door opened by itself.
	Nocc sprang trembling to his feet. But the woman who walked in was wearing white. It was only once his relief passed that he recognized her as Theamh ni hUlnach.
	Theamh reached behind her to push the door shut. Now that he was on his guard he made an effort not to jump when it slammed.
	“Were you expecting someone else, Nocc?” Theamh asked, in a courteous and conversational tone that she did not expect him to believe.
	“You’re not welcome here,” Nocc said. “This is my private study.”
	Instead of answering, Theamh cast her eyes over the shelves, the furniture, the drapes. He became nervous about what she would say when she spoke.
	“I don’t have aftersight,” Theamh said, her eyes still roaming the room. “I’m glad I don’t. Istria has it, and it’s always been a struggle for her, living with what she sees. Almost everything that you see, when you have the gift, is evil of one kind or another.”
	Theamh turned her eyes back on him.
	“She told me once,” Theamh went on, “that she thought the vision was only part of the memory. She said she thought I could feel things that she saw. That even if she wasn’t there to see it for me I might walk into a place someday and just know that evil had been done there.”
	Nocc was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to speak without giving his fear away, so he didn’t.
	“I’m not sure she’s right,” Theamh said. “She’s always given me too much credit. After all, I don’t need aftersight to know evil’s been done in this room.”
	Nocc just watched her talk.
	“I’m not talking about the possession,” Theamh said. “I’m talking about the day Morat came out here to tear into you for trying to corrupt me.”
	“I wasn’t trying to—“
	“Because I know what she would have done,” Theamh said, her pretense of detachment beginning to evaporate. “She’d have gone straight to you and taken you into a room—this one, maybe—and she would have let you have it. What were you thinking. How could you do something like that.”
	He realized with a chill that Theamh was standing exactly where Morat had stood.
	“And then you’d have said…well, the words are lost, places don’t remember words. But you’d have said something like, well, I’ll tell you if you promise not to tell.”
	“Get out,” Nocc said. “Get out of here. You’ve no right to come in here.”
	“And then you’d have told her what you were planning. And she’d have been trapped.”
	“Get out!” Nocc repeated, trying to sound forceful rather than afraid.
	“It was a rotten trick,” Theamh said. “To do a thing like that to a woman who’s been working for you and your family for years—that’s beyond evil. It’s just plain low.”
	“How can you say that!” Nocc shouted. “It’s a lie—“
	“No, it’s not a lie!” Theamh shouted. “It’s not a lie if I believe it and you can bet your back teeth that I do. You told her you were buying a charm from Lythril.”
	She didn’t know.
	She was guessing. But she didn’t know.
	“You paid for it and you thought that would be the end of it. I guess you didn’t know Morat well enough to know she’d find a way to get to that charm and undo it. I guess when you started getting your results you thought that was one seriously powerful piece of jewelry. I bet it was a long time before you found out how she’d played you.”
	All he had to do was let her believe she was right. They couldn’t get him for the charm. He’d never get Theamh to believe he was innocent. But maybe he could get her to believe he was a little less guilty.
	“I didn’t want this,” Nocc burst out.
	Theamh watched his hands tremble for a little while.
	“No, I’m quite sure of that,” she said, quietly. “I’m quite sure Lythril would never have let you imagine that it would end up like this.”
	“I’ve had nothing to do with her,” Nocc retorted, not even convincing himself.
	“It’s not about what you wanted,” Theamh said. “It’s about what you were willing to do. You sold Keanrih to the Dark One. Whether you wanted him charmed, or whether you wanted him overtaken—it makes no difference. So Keanrih is a complete wreck, Minead’s heart is broken, Weroda has been permanently harmed, Morat is half eaten with remorse and me, well, in the grand scheme who cares.”
	Theamh folded her hands in front of her, and stood up straighter as if getting ready to take her leave.
	“These are your consequences,” she said. “If you want to have a hope of living with them, you better learn from them. Specifically, you better learn not to ever let that bitch near him again.”
	“You come in here,” Nocc said, feeling his jowls shake with anger. “You use foul language to me—accuse me of betraying my own son—I have rights, it’s my house, I’ll bring the law on you if you don’t get out.”
	“If you ever do see Lythril again,” Theamh said, “I want you to take her a message for me.”
	“I don’t consort with dark users!” Nocc insisted.
	“Tell her,” Theamh went on as if he had never spoken, “that she can stop being afraid of Morat and start being afraid of me. Tell her I am the rest of her story. And she’s not going to like the ending.”
	She was finally going.
	When the door slammed Nocc finally took another breath.
	It was true. He hadn’t wanted this. It was true. She’d said it. So it must be true. 
	It wasn’t his fault.

*	*	*	*

	He found out on the tenth day that Theamh wouldn’t go away.
	“I can help you. Please, Keanrih. Open this thurking door and let me do my job.”
	Open the door	  what for	so she can help you	so I can hurt her	I won’t hurt her	I will	I can’t help it	open the door	no	stay here   it’s safe here    it isn’t	not for you but for him     
	“I’ll come up here as often as I have to, Keanrih.”
	Open the door	   don’t open the door	   what does the parchment say	does it say you can open the door	does it say you can ever cause anyone anything but pain and misery     evil goes out through the door
	“You know, if it’s the voices that are bothering you, I can help with those.”
	Open the door	   she doesn’t know	she does	she doesn’t know what I am
who cares will you open the door	I’ll hurt her	open the door	I’ll hurt him    I can’t go out there     you don’t have to go anywhere just open the door
	“You won’t hurt me. If it comes to a fight, I can take you.”
	Open the door	     she’s wrong    she is not    she didn’t see what I did to	yes she did    I can’t 	   what if I hurt her   what if I want her     what if I hurt him     what if I don’t want him
	“You can open it now, or you can open it a week from now after you’ve decided you can’t stand the sound of my voice any more. And I’m not prepared to say I won’t resort to singing.”
	He almost laughed.
	Oh come on will you open the door
	Evil goes out through the door
	What does the parchment say
	Will you all shut up
	I’ll cut it off I’ll burn it don’t think I won’t
	Just open the door
	Don’t open the door
	Idair what should I do
	Open the door
	I’ll hurt her
	You won’t
	I’ll hurt him
	You won’t
	She’ll hurt me
‘	She won’t
	You promise
	Who do you think you’re talking to
	Thurked if I know
	I’m you 	we’re all you		now open the door
	But what if
	“Open the thurking door, Keanrih.”
	He touched the handle.
	“Take your time.”
	His hand clutched the handle in a grip that whitened his knuckles.
	The handle clicked.
	The door swung inward in a short burst. Theamh forced her way through it sideways before he slammed it shut in panic.
	It had been so long since he’d seen another person’s face. The sight of it quieted the voices for a moment. She was silent too, looking around the room.
	He had fastened the window and drawn the curtains. Crusts and remnants of the meals his mother had begun leaving for him outside the door stuck to dirty plates and cups piled near the bed. Inside the room the air was heavy with the smells of the food and of the odors leaking through the door to the adjoining privy.
	“All right, Keanrih, let me tell you something as a shriia,” she said, taking shallow breaths. “That thing about evil coming in through the window?”
	He wondered how she knew he had been thinking about it. Obsessively. For days.
	“It’s a superstition,” she said. “It’s easier for a spirit to get into a house through a window or a door than through a wall. But really, if a spirit wants you, it’s going to get to you, whether you open the windows or not.”
	Keanrih climbed onto his mattress and huddled against the wall, drawing the bedclothes around him.
	“The only thing you can do is protect the house. Most people don’t do it because they won’t give up eating meat. But Minead’s keeping killed things out of the house, and I protected it over a week ago. You’re as safe as you can be.”
	This didn’t make him feel any better.
	“So is it all right if I open the window?”
	“No,” he said, loudly.
	He thought she would argue. But instead she said, gently, “All right, Keanrih.”
	She sat down on the floor, on the other side of the bed, and looked at him.
	“Well,” she said. “You’ve got a woman in your room. Let’s see what happens.”
	Nothing happened.
	“So are you hearing voices?”
	He nodded.
	“I’ll try and tell you why,” she said. “Maybe that’ll make it less scary. See…”
	She brought up her hands and began trying to use them to help her explain.
	“We go about our lives and we don’t think about what we’re really made of or how we hold together. No one thinks about that until something like this happens.”
	She sighed, and dropped her hands, and then brought them up to try again.
	“Who we are…it’s not like each of us is carved out of a separate block of stone. It’s…we’re woven, braided, stitched together from different pieces. Overtaking…it’s like something gets a knife and cuts the seams. When I cast it, I pulled out the knife. But now all the strands and tatters are fluttering loose…and every one of them has a voice.”
	Keanrih’s hands plucked at the stitching on his quilt.
	“I…is this helping at all? I can’t tell.”
	He didn’t really know how to answer. 
	“What has to happen now,” Theamh said, “is you have to mend yourself. Braid, weave, tie knots, do whatever you can to piece yourself together. I know it feels like you’re broken, but…really, you’re torn. Anything torn can be mended.”
	He shook his head. He wanted to believe her. But fear still sat cold in his bowels and wet in the corners of his eyes.
	Theamh held her hands up toward him, carefully, stopping in mid air.
	“I can help you do it,” she said. “I could go into your mind and help, but after what you’ve been through I don’t think I should. But I can help you do it yourself.”
	His voice was dry when he finally spoke. “How?”
	“There’s a song for this,” she said. “You maybe won’t understand the words. But you take my hands, and I sing it, and it will show you how to start.”
	He hesitated, feeling the chill spread from his bowels up to his heart.
	“Come on,” Theamh said, with a smile. “If it doesn’t help or it hurts you can kick me out and I’ll go. But till you try, you’re not getting rid of me.”
	“All right,” he croaked.
	Theamh pulled some pale yellow flame out of her hands and held them toward him, palms up.
	“Don’t worry, it won’t hurt you,” she said. “It’s practically all light and no heat.”
	He forced himself to reach out, carefully, tensely, and rest his hands on her open palms. The fire was wasn’t hot; it was warm, a little warmer than her skin, giving his hands a faint yellow glow.
	He felt the warmth traveling up his arms, slowly, as she began to sing.
	She sang in Old Tongue. But the strange thing was, he could understand it.

things the violated know:
	what a broken mirror feels
	all the pain of scattered shards
sharpened longing to be whole

	listen when I tell you then
	you were never made of glass
	you were never cut from stone
	and you will be whole again
	
	things the violated know:
	in despite of our smooth skins
	in despite of what we feel
	none of us is really whole

	listen when I tell you then
	every one of us is torn
	every one of us repaired
	every day made whole again

	torn and mended, shard and whole,
	all we are are stories told
	tell your story		start it new
	what you made and what made you

	He was hearing a different voice now.
	Chara	it’s my business to love you no matter what		chara	are you sure this is what you want	   chara		I don’t want you not to be what you are	chara my little son	the first child of my body	
	Minead.
	tell your  story		start it new
	what you love and what loves you
	Chara	mo ghra	 mo stor	mo fearr
	He began to cry.
	Ta tu mo ghra	godeo	cuideo	I don’t want it to harden you	like it’s hardened me
	Taric.
	tell your story		start it new
	what you hurt and what hurt you
	Don’t think I won’t big house		Do this to me and I’ll kill you		bastard permanent harm
	Weroda.
	Enough’s been done to both of us	
	Weroda.
	What does the parchment say		what does it say	you will learn what pain is		I will find your thurgleach		if you breathe a word
	Lythril.
	He burst into sobs, shuddering, gripping Theamh’s hands with his so they wouldn’t jerk themselves out of the fire, feeling her hold onto him, not about to let him get away.
	tell your story	start it new
	what you love and what loves you
	Godeo	cuideo	mo fearr chara	
	Open the door
	And on and on that way, for who knew how long, the song overlapping with the words in his head, and each voice that came to him now coming with a name, with a story, from a place he could fix. Minead. Taric. Weroda. Lythril.
	listen when I tell you then
	work the needle, move the skein,
	know that nothing’s finished here,
	know you will be whole again.
	She stopped singing. He sat looking at her for a while, his hands still in hers.
	It was quiet.
	“How do you feel?” Theamh finally said.
	“I feel…” He was still crying. “It’s not so noisy.”
	Theamh smiled, sadly.
	“That’s something.”
	“Yes,” he said, wishing it didn’t come out sounding so bitter. “It’s something.”
	She gave his hands an encouraging little squeeze.
	“You won’t over this in a day,” Theamh said. “But I’ll be back.” 
He nodded. 
	“I brought something for you,” Theamh said. “I left it out in the hall till I saw how things went…but I thought you might like to have it. One second.”
	Theamh opened the door, and leaned into the hall to drag in a pile of objects that Keanrih began recognizing before she had them all the way in the room. His sketch pad, his charcoals, bundles of brushes. 
“Now, I hope you won’t yell at me for this, but I didn’t bring in the palette knife, the penknife, the oil-based paints or the hammer and nails for the canvas stretchers. I could pretend that’s because they were too heavy but we both know it’s not.”
	He found this irritating. Which surprised him. A day ago he would have admitted at once that this caution was perfectly justified.
	“So your choice of media is going to be a little restricted, but—“
	As she thrust out a handful of charcoal pencils toward him, he flattened himself back against the wall away from her.
	An instant later he was weeping afresh in frustration.
	Theamh put the pencils down on the floor on top of the sketch pad, and put her hands quietly into her lap.
	“It’s all right,” she said. “You’ll go forward and back. Just remember…it did change. You felt that.”
	He nodded. He had felt it. But he couldn’t feel it any more. 
	“Do you want me to go now?” Theamh said, softly.
	He didn’t answer right away. She stood waiting.
	“I want you to tell me that it will never happen again!”
	Now she was crying too.
	“I can’t tell you that, Keanrih,” she said. “Anything is possible.”
	“I knew you would say that!” he burst out.
	“Listen,” she said. “Anything’s possible but not everything’s likely. I don’t think that thing is coming back, especially after the pounding the vigils gave it. Most of the time once you’re cleaned, nothing bothers with you. Word gets out in the spirit world that it’s dangerous.” He shook his head. “Keanrih, I can’t make you a promise that I know might not come true. But while I’m alive, I look out for you, and if anything touches you, I’ll make it sorry.” 
	He nodded, crying, and now afraid to look back at her, or at the half-open door.
	“I know that doesn’t help much,” she said. “But it’s true.”
	She stood up. 
“I’ll leave you now,” she said. “But I’ll come back tomorrow, and the day after.”
	Her hand was on the door.
	“Theamh?”
	He got a brief glimpse of her there, looking at him sadly, before he had to turn away again in fear.
	“Thank you,” he said.
	“It’s my job,” she answered. “Good rest to you, Keanrih. I’ll see you again soon.”
	She closed the door.
	Once she was gone, and the door was closed, he felt better. 
	Better.
	That, in itself, was a small miracle.
	Not enough better to open the door. But enough to get off the bed, and lift the pad and the pencils off the floor.

*	*	*	*

	On the sixth day, Minead began to believe Nocc.
	On the eighth day, she apologized for ever accusing him.
	On the ninth day, she knew that it was her fault. She should never have agreed to share the name. That had brought it into the open, and something had overheard. Something evil had caught the name as it passed, and used it to break into him. She should have just kept it to herself, and he would have been safe.
	On the tenth day, Theamh came down from the tower and said, “He opened the door.”
	Minead felt the tears come silently to her eyes.
	“I was able to talk to him, and to help him a little bit,” Theamh said. She looked tired, leaning there in the doorway, and less excited than Minead felt she ought to be. “It’s a very good sign and you should be happy about that. But…”
	Minead’s heart dropped like lead.
	“It’s going to be a long haul,” Theamh said. “He’s in really bad shape.”
	Minead nodded.
	“Everyone has some kind of aftershock. This is a lot more severe than I expected, even accounting for the rape. There’s something…”
	Theamh shook her head, and stood up straighter in the doorway.
	“Minead, if Nocc is around, I’d like to talk to him.”
	“He doesn’t want to see you.”
	“All the same,” Theamh said, her voice hardening.
	“Shriia…please don’t bother him,” Minead pleaded. “It hurts him so much that people believe this about him. He’s a good man, he wants to be a good father to him. He always has, it’s just that he…he didn’t know how. He loves Keanrih,” she said, unable to keep her voice level. “You don’t know him like I do, shriia. I’ve lived with him for twenty-eight years, I love him, I know he could not do this to me.”
	Theamh sighed.
	“Minead, I don’t want to believe it either—“
	“Then don’t!” Minead shouted, surprised by her own anger.
	Theamh looked startled too, and a little hurt.
	“I suppose in a way it doesn’t matter,” she finally said, her tone flat and dead. “Ethir has decided we don’t have enough to prosecute him.”
	“It would be wrong,” Minead replied. “This is not my husband’s fault.”
	She wished Theamh would stop looking at her with that combination of pity and concern.
	“You might try going up now to talk to him,” Theamh finally suggested. “He probably won’t open the door, but he might speak to you.”
	Minead nodded. Theamh turned to go.
	“Shriia,” Minead said, catching up with her as she left the doorway.
	“Yes?”
	“Thank you for everything,” Minead said. “I hate it that you believe what you believe about Nocc but I so appreciate what you’re doing for Keanrih.”
	“I know that, Minead,” Theamh said, gently. “I hope I’ll be able to do more tomorrow. Idair with you.”
	Theamh walked away, down to the servants’ entrance. She had taken to going in and out that way.
	Minead began the long climb to the tower.

*	*	*	*

	On the twelfth day, Weroda was finally able to scream.
	Lilea held her hands while she did it. Just opened her mouth as wide as it would go and screamed until her throat was raw. For what seemed like a long time.
	When she stopped she realized that her face was red and her hands were trembling. Her stomach hurt. She wiped the sting of sweat out of her eyes.
	“How did it feel?” Lilea asked, quietly.
	“It hurt,” Weroda said. “But…it felt good.”
	“You’ve had that in you for a long time,” Lilea said.
	“Yes.”
	Weroda stood up and walked over to the window. It was a small room, and didn’t take long to cross. She had crossed it a number of times over the past week and a half, walking out something before she could say it.
	“There was a rag in my mouth,” she said. “Half down my throat. I was choking. I couldn’t scream.”
	She’d told Lilea that before. But Lilea listened, again.
	“Why should it matter?” Weroda said. “Why scream now, when it’s all over?”
	“Just to do it,” Lilea answered. “Just because you needed to.”
	Weroda nodded. There was another silence.
	“I talked to Carith,” Weroda said. “She says Keanrih is suffering.”
	“I hear the same from Theamh,” Lilea replied. “What made you think of it?”
	At first, questions like that startled her. Now she knew that they weren’t like the questions of a lawyer.
	“I want to be able to forgive him,” Weroda said. “But I can’t.”
	“You’re not there yet,” Lilea said gravely. “You heal yourself first. Forgive your body for causing you pain. Grow to be whole again. When you are, then you can begin to forgive him. But don’t try to do it now.”
	Weroda nodded. There was a silence, and Weroda decided it was time to stop.
	Lilea knew that, and got up. “Till next time, then.”
	Weroda stood up. “Shriia, I’ve…do you think I’m ready to go back to work? It’s hard on mathi, my being at home.”
	“I would say take more time, but I know you might not be able to afford it,” Lilea answered. “Where are you thinking about going?”
	“I thought the City,” Weroda said. “Theamh told me her mother is looking for a new girl, but she also said that if I had any other offers I should take them.”
	Lilea laughed.
	“Ulnach has a reputation for driving servants to quit. But you would be safe. Theamh’s an only child. Their steward’s joined with the housekeeper, and she keeps him in line; and Theamh’s father is a good, decent man who would never give anyone pain if he could help it.”
	“Well,” said Weroda, “so was Keanrih.”
	“So he is,” Lilea answered sadly.
	There was a silence.
	“So you think I would be all right to try it?”
	“Start looking, and see how you feel.”
	“Thanks,” Weroda said. 
	“Idair with you.”
	Weroda left the counseling room and walked out of the Mathair into the courtyard of the Pharc.
	Spring was thriving now, and the grass was thick and green around the roots of the great tilu tree. Weroda looked up through its branches and their new, tender leaves at a bright blue sky. The wind sent flecks of shadow and light cartwheeling over the grass beneath the the branches, dappling Weroda’s upturned face.
	It wasn’t such a bad place, the City. On the right kind of day.
	She’d live.

*	*	*	*
	
	If Keanrih were going to die, he would have seen it.
	At least that was what Taric started telling himself, on the fifth day.
	He’d seen the rape ahead of time. So if Keanrih were going to kill himself, he would see that too. If someone else were going to kill him, he would see that. She wouldn’t let Keanrih be taken away from him, and not tell him. It didn’t make sense. Why show him anything if she wouldn’t show him a thing like that.
	On the tenth day he remembered the other vision.	
	He couldn’t join with Sioanna now. How could he? After all that had happened?
	But he’d seen it. If he’d seen it it had to happen. Didn’t it?
	Unless it hadn’t been real.
	He was always sure it was a dream, and then it wasn’t. Only that time, he had been sure that it wasn’t a dream. So maybe it was.
	Whether it was or it wasn’t, that didn’t explain why he didn’t come.
	It had been cast. So why didn’t he come.
	On the eleventh day he was sure Keanrih’s family had locked him in, and tried to think of ways to kill the dogs.
	On the twelfth day he decided that the thing had just turned Keanrih, somehow, that he didn’t want to come now, that he would join with Sioanna after all.
	On the thirteenth day he was certain it was his own fault for not going to him, right away. For being a coward, wanting to have the farm and him too. And now Keanrih thought Taric had abandoned him, and he would never come.
	On the fourteenth day the horse came.
	Taric was working in the field when he saw a reddish-brown shape moving among the new leaves on the trees.
	“Leabra?”
	He moved into the trees. She turned her head. Skittishly, she edged toward him. She knew she was there to find him, but was afraid of what might happen.
	“Come here, Leabra. Good girl.”
	Where was he? Had he been knocked off the horse? Was he lying somewhere in the woods? But if he was, why hadn’t she stayed with him?
	He stroked her neck thoughtfully. She wasn’t wearing a saddle. She wasn’t wearing anything but a pair of saddlebags slung across her back. Not even a bridle.
	Taric lifted the saddlebags. One of them, when he opened it, held nothing but pebbles for ballast. The other was full of paper.
	He put a hand on Leabra’s neck, and nudged her forward onto his land, then into the barn. She seemed content to stay there. 
Taric squatted down in the hay and began to unpack the bag.
	There were sheets and sheets of soft paper, folded in on each other. He began peeling off layers, smoothing each sheet out and laying it down flat on the hay. When he was done he was surrounded with them. A dozen, maybe more, all the same size and the same paper, marked up with the same shadings of black and gray dust. Blanketing the hay and dung in the barn like a broken patchwork of snow.
	He looked at them one at a time.
	He had never seen the things Keanrih painted. But he’d seen the images in his mind often enough to know that Keanrih had done these drawings. Even if at first, it was hard for him to recognize that they were all self-portraits. There was something wrong about each one of them.
	In one he looked made out of old pottery, with a fine network of tiny innumerable cracks spidering through the glaze. In another he had come apart in jagged pieces that wouldn’t quite fit together. In some of them there were two of him, drawn in not quite the same space so that he looked as if he were being seen through smoke or water. And there was one where he was a kind of rag doll, coming unstitched, stuffing leaking through rents in his legs and threads trailing off the ends of the burst seams.
	He was trying to tell him what had happened. He knew Taric couldn’t read so he had sent along the drawings. For some reason he couldn’t come himself.
	Taric looked back at the pictures again.
	Every one was different but they had one thing in common. They were all frightening him. And they must all have frightened Keanrih.
	Except for one.
	Taric pulled over a sheet he had spread out in the far corner. He thought at first that it was another double portrait. But though the two figures were intertwined, they were both separately solid, each taking up its own space.
	He blew some black dust off the surface of the paper.
	It was a little smeared. But the one on the left was Keanrih. And he could only assume that the one on the right was himself.
	Both figures were naked. Each had his arms around the other. They were kissing, Taric’s head pressing forward and Keanrih’s body curving backward a little, giving way not out of anxiety but eagerness, bending back to lead the other forward. There was no background. Just a border of roses. And running around the edges of the page, words.
	Taric looked at the image, and things that had been dead inside him for the past two weeks began to push green and living back through the crust. It was painful. But he looked at the picture for a long time.
	He wished he could understand the words.
	Tomorrow was siulin. He could take the picture to the shriia, ask her to read the words.
	No, he could not take that picture to the shriia.
	The Keanrih in that picture looked different from all the others. Graceful, happy, alive. In one piece.
	Taric got up and ran to the forge. He picked up a half-burnt brand from among the dead ashes in the furnace. Then he turned over one of the other drawings.
	Slowly, painfully, he began tracing the shapes of the letters, copying them onto the back of the drawing in a crude black scrawl.

*	*	*	*

	“So,” Morat said, opening her hands on the table. “We know as little now as we did before.”
	She and Dalen had stayed out in Kengda for more than a week after the battle, just to be sure. But the murder continued to seem as unmotivated as ever, and even before they went back to the Pharc Morat knew she had been played for a fool.
	Dalen sighed.
“You were right,” Morat said. “The murder was a diversion. And it worked. Because I’m obsessed with her and she knows that.”
	Dalen surprised Morat by shaking her head.
	“I know it looks that way. But I’ve changed my mind.”
“Oh no,” Morat groaned.
“Don’t scoff,” Dalen returned. “I didn’t see enough out there to show me what’s going on. But I saw enough. Keanrih was just a job she took like she’d take any other. Krenham…” Dalen waved a hand in the air to indicate the vague fog of hints and mysteries they had been wandering in. “This is something else. And my gut says it’s something big.”
	Morat shook her head. “She was messing with us. She decoyed me out there while she destroyed the lives of two of my people.”
	Dalen watched Morat subside into gloom. 
“It wasn’t a total loss,” she said. “We do know a few more things.”
	Morat leaned against the railings of the chair, one arm dangling across the back.  
“Such as.”
	“We know Lythril met with Krenham a little less than a year ago.”
	Morat waved a hand in dismissal.
	“It means that Lythril was in the area then.”
	“So what,” Morat said bitterly. “She’s not here now.”
	“I,” Dalen said, “am not so sure of that.”
	Morat suddenly sat up.
	“What do you mean, Dalen?”
	“I think she is out there.”
	“If she is then why did we come back?”
	Dalen shook her head. “We’ve been taking the wrong approach.”
	“What are you talking about?”
	“Morat, she and this castle of hers have been playing hopstones all over the country for who knows how long. We could track her to her current location, but once she saw us coming she’d pick up and move. Following her is tarbhfnaa. What we need to do is get in front of her.”
	Morat sighed. “And what are the odds.”
	“Better than you might think.”
	Dalen pulled a map out of her sleeve and unrolled it on Morat’s table. She knelt on the other chair and leaned over the map, pointing locations out as she spoke.
	“I’ve been plotting her movements,” Dalen said. “Based on the reports of activity that have come in to us. We can’t be totally sure, of course. But assuming I’ve reasonably approximated her flight history, we know some very interesting things about how she travels.”
	Dalen looked up. Morat suspected she was dragging this out on purpose.
	“Get to the good stuff, Dalen.”
	“I looked for a pattern. There is none. She goes where the work is, when she needs to. But there is one exception.”
	Dalen pointed to a small patch in southwestern Amst, marked with mountains.
	“Every year since I’ve been tracking her, in the first month of the cold season, she’s always been heard of here.”
	Morat’s eyes became dangerous.
	“That’s where we found Istria and Theamh after they escaped.”
	Dalen nodded.
	“We went back and it wasn’t there,” Dalen said. “Now we know why. I think this is where that pile was built. I think that’s it’s home place, and there’s something about the magic that requires it to be here one month of the year.”
	Now Morat felt she was finally catching some of Dalen’s fire.
	“And during that month she can’t move it.”
	Their eyes met over the marked map.
	“We have to tell the Lythril Committee,” Morat said.
	“No, we don’t,” Dalen answered.
	Morat just looked at her. Dalen hurried to explain.
	“I’m the one who’s been tracking this bitch with no success for years.” Dalen waved her hand angrily in the air over the map. “That raid we did in the Vicinity was just lucky—it was the only time she left in such a hurry that she left tracks. Ordinarily she must disguise the abandoned site so we don’t find the plants and wildlife of the province she’s just moved to sitting in the middle of the one she’s just left. That has to take time. I know you won’t want to face this, but damn it, Morat, this is not happenstance. Somehow, that bitch is getting information about us.”
	Morat couldn’t believe this. “How?”
	“Could be a hundred different ways,” Dalen retorted. “The Lythril Committee files reports that are available to any member of the Order. Any ordinary person can get information out of almost any shriia by being persistent enough.”
	“I just can’t believe any shriia would betray the Order like that,” Morat said.
	“I don’t think it is a shriia. It could be anyone who has enough contact with a shriia who takes an interest in Lythril. Look at Harani. She’s a one-woman repeater chain. I would never in a hundred years suggest that Harani is dark. But who’s to say she’s not nattering on about Council business to some man whose voice she likes while some suborned cat of Lythril’s rubs up against his leg?”
	Morat began to feel a chill at the base of her neck.
	“You know what I’m saying makes sense,” Dalen pressed. “You don’t want to believe it, but you do.”
	Morat slumped back in her chair.
	“You want to keep this from the Lythril Committee?”
	“You and I have some control over what we know and choose to reveal. Anything that happens on the Lythril Committee becomes public knowledge inside the Order. We’ll have a better chance of taking her by surprise if we keep this to ourselves for as long as we can.”
	“And how long is that?”
	“Till the first month of the cold season,” Dalen said, fixing her with a challenging stare. “I’ll be lying in wait for her up there. When I see she’s back I’ll call you. You’ll get some of the local shriias for firepower and meet up with me. We’ll inform the rest of the Committee…right before we go in and blast her.”
	Morat looked at her and thought for a long time.
	“I will make you no promise,” Morat said.
	“I don’t ask you to. Just consider what I’ve said.”
	“All right,” Morat said, uneasily.
	Dalen sat back with a sigh.
	“My gut says we will get her. Next cold season.”
	“I can hope,” Morat said grimly.
	Dalen looked like she might almost be smiling, if she weren’t Dalen.
	
*	*	*	*

	All those years he’d been living at Felim and he’d never been to siulin. Some of the people in the town square recognized him from having dealt with them. Most stood apart, not hostile but a little wary. But at least it was Felim and not Vinha. 
	And at least it was Theamh and not Harani.
	He watched the town leader showing her into the square. Theamh sat down, her hreapa falling white around her as she brushed her red hair out of her eyes. She dropped her hands into her lap and looked around at the people on the green.
	“All right, who got here first? Elayn, isn’t it. How’s the baby?”
	There were a number of people ahead of him. He fidgeted with the paper inside his trouser pocket and tried not to sweat.
	The girl in front of him looked familiar. She was a young woman, dressed in an expensive green frock. Her mind seemed agitated. So much so that Taric took a step back, remembering that he must be readable too.
	“…if you use leagruh long enough it does stop being effective. So…it’s possible your daughter might be pregnant.”
	“Oh no,” said the woman Theamh was talking to.
	“Is she still living with you?”
	The woman nodded.
	“Tell me where, I’ll come by after the reading if she wants to be sure. If it’s been a few weeks I should be able to tell.”
	“I’ll find you after the reading,” said the woman.
	“Good, I’ll be glad to help. Idair with you. Who’s next?” 
	When Theamh saw the young woman in front of Taric, her joking face disappeared. Silence seemed to radiate from Theamh like ripples around a thrown stone. Enveloping the young woman alone, leaving Taric stranded outside their privacy.
	“Good afternoon, Sioanna,” Theamh said.
	The tone wasn’t cold, or harsh, or sharp. It was even and correct and concerned. But it seemed to upset the young woman in whom Taric was suddenly very interested.
	Sioanna sat down, with misgivings. After looking up briefly at Theamh’s glass-green eyes, she looked back at the hands in her lap.
	“I just…I wondered if you would tell me…how Keanrih’s doing. If he’s all right.”
	Taric’s heart began working harder. Theamh waited a minute before answering.
	“He’s not all right, Sioanna,” she said.
	Sioanna continued to look down at her opening and closing hands.
	“He has the worst case of aftershock I have ever seen or heard of. He’s locked himself up and is keeping everyone away from him, especially the people he loves. He’s terrified of hurting any other person the way he hurt Weroda. And he’s terrified of being hurt the way he was hurt by that kraikk.”
	Sioanna nodded. “Thank you, shriia, I was just asking.”
	“No you weren’t,” Theamh said.
	Sioanna looked up, as if stung.
	“You’re safe of course,” said Theamh. “Without an admission from you, we’d never be able to prove it.”
	“I…don’t know what you’re…”
	“Wrong!”
	Sioanna flinched, in confusion as much as in fear.
	“That’s wrong, that is the wrong way to deal with it. Oh for Idair’s sake, Sioanna, look.” 
	Instead of angry, Theamh’s face was pleading, as if she were trying to explain something that should be simple to a child who wasn’t old enough to understand.
	“You’re eighteen years old,” Theamh said. “You still have time.” Sioanna seemed to have trouble looking away from her. “You can grow up to be a good woman who cares about people and does right, but that won’t happen if you don’t face it.”
	Sioanna got to her feet, slowly, and walked away without any kind of goodbye.
	Theamh glanced around the square. Everyone was pretending not to have been paying attention.
	“Friend?” Theamh called to him. “What can I do for you?”
	Taric hesitated, moved away, then moved back. Then sat down.
	“I…I don’t read, and I need someone to help me.”
	Theamh nodded, briskly. “Show me what it is.”
	He pulled the piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it, carefully so when he handed it to her the side with the drawing was folded up invisibly. She took the paper, holding it out delicately, peering at the shapes he had tried to reproduce.
	She began rotating the paper.
	“Ah,” she said. “Some of them are sideways. Well, it’s Old Tongue, and it’s four different things. This one here says “godeo.” That’s ‘always,’ or else ‘forever.’ This one here is ‘cuideo.’ ‘Anything,’ or else ‘whatever.’ This one here is a phrase… ‘mo fearr chara.’ Fearr is ‘man,’ but it can also mean—”
	“I know what it means,” Taric said, trying his hardest to mask.
	He was afraid he might have offended her. But she just nodded and went on.
	“And the last line,” she said, pointing to the word that had been at the bottom of the image. “It’s spelled wrong, but it’s one letter off from ‘nieaftidh.’”
	“Wait,” Taric said.
	Theamh nodded.
	She handed the paper back to him. Taric tucked it into his pocket, blinking hard.
	“If you’re interested in reading and writing and that, the fosterer teaches a course for grown people one night a week in Felim. I can introduce you if you think you’d get something out of it.”
	“No, shriia,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m well as I am.”
	He stood up, awkwardly. He felt strange towering over her like he did.
	“Thank you,” he said.
	“What I’m here for,” Theamh answered. “You coming to the reading, friend?”
	“Maybe,” he said.
	“Hope to see you there then,” she said. “Idair with you.”
	Taric moved away so the man behind him could have his turn.
	Wait.
	One letter off, but he’d remembered the imperative. Quite an effort, for Keanrih.
	She’d said he was keeping away from the people he loved. It would be like him to try to protect them, even though that caused him pain. And it would be like him to be afraid, especially, of hurting Taric. He always had been.
	It would be all right. If Keanrih could send messages he had his freedom. If Theamh was visiting she would keep him clean. Taric couldn’t talk to him; but he knew now what Keanrih would say.
	I’m still here. I’m still your man. Forever. Whatever.
Wait.

*	*	*	*

	The sun was setting, as it set every day. And Theamh was standing outside another big house’s kitchen door, watching it go. Trying to get her mind right.
	Nobody was going to touch Nocc. Bric would be happy to swear any number of lies that could account for the extra fees recorded in the ledger. Minead would never testify against him because she would never believe the truth. Ethir was right. It wasn’t enough.
	It didn’t matter. It wasn’t her job to see him punished. He’d taken care of that on his own.
	Her job was to get Keanrih back together. And finally, it was looking as if it might happen. Slowly. With a lot of trouble and pain.
	Someday, Keanrih would be all right. Someday, Dalen would find Lythril. Someday, Istria would be home and whole and happy, and Lythril would be in the Zone.
	Until then, she had a job to do.

*	*	*	*

	He wasn’t sure until the last minute whether he would go. Then just as the kitchen door was about to close, Taric ducked in.
	It was Ridac na Felchett’s house. He allowed the Order to use one of his humbler rooms for the reading, as a lot of landlords did. One way of promoting good feeling among the tenants. Taric didn’t know whether it worked or didn’t. He’d never gone.
	He sat at the back, wedging himself in between two other people. The crowd was too large for the kitchen;  people were piled on stools and tables and there was no free space on the swept floor, aside from a small path kept clear for the shriia.
	When the door opened he saw the dim white gleam of the hreapa, moving through the darkness toward the space cleared for her at the other end of the kitchen. 
	“Ta se dubh anseo,” she said. It’s dark in here.
	Around him he heard everyone giving the answer in Old Tongue. The sun has set.
	Light the fire.
	Taric’s mouth opened but he was too slow for the response. What is fire?
	He remembered Keanrih saying how hard it was to paint the flames.
	Above the floor he saw a bright yellow glow, outlining a soft lit space that enclosed Theamh’s hands and reflected on the open scroll unrolled beneath it.
	“Ta se an linn,” she said.
	She flung her hands at the ceiling. The globe flew up with them, sending streams of yellow light across the ceiling and down the rear wall.
	People who had brought candles began lighting them. In the glow from each lit wick he could see a different face. Children, men, women, big house, tenant, father, son, husband and wife. 
	“Here, friend.”
	The woman sitting next to him handed him a lit candle.
	Embarrassed, he took it. It was a minute before he said, “Thank you.”
	“No problem,” said the woman, and smiled at him.
	Probably trying to pick him up. 
	He looked back toward the bright cave where Theamh sat in front of the little wooden pedestal supporting the scroll.
	“What are you going to read us today, shriia?” called the town leader.
	“I don’t know,” Theamh answered. “What do you want to hear about?”
	Taric remembered Kelah asking this question. Everyone had always been too scared to answer, and Kelah had just picked whatever she felt like inflicting on them.
	“Idair and the Temple!”
	“Ooh, that’s a good one.”
	“Sincil and Anron!”
	“We had Sincil and Anron last week.”
	“Well you can never have it too often—“
	Laughter rippled around the room. Then Taric heard a low, gravelly, and sharp voice call out something that fell into the noise like a rock into water.
	“Sincil’s Choice.”
	Theamh looked over at the man who had requested it. He was sitting against the wall near a twelve-year-old girl who was probably his daughter. There didn’t seem to be a mother with them.
	“Is it someone’s anniversary, friend?” Theamh asked, softly.
	The man looked at the floor and didn’t answer.
	“Let’s have that then,” piped up a woman on the other side. “Sincil’s Choice.”
	Taric had never heard it. He was surprised that there were some he’d never heard.
	“All right,” said Theamh, finding the place in the scroll. “From the middle of the seventh scroll, after the joining of Sincil and Anron, before the Burning. Sincil’s Choice.”
	Theamh glanced down at the scroll. Then she looked up. From her eyes it was clear she was reciting from memory, looking at the scroll only for confirmation.
	“And as night fell the Followers began to be worried, for Iandar was still missing, and now Anron who had gone to search for him had never returned. And as darkness grew stronger between and around them, Sincil began to be sorely afraid. For she and Anron had been joined only a short time, and to think that he might never return made her heart melt to water and her limbs weak.”
	Nobody knew who wrote down the stories that made up the Chronicles. The shriias refused to say, since there was no way to know. Taric thought it had to be Sincil. How could anyone else know what it felt like to have a lover lost in the darkness outside the camp.
	“Idair saw how unhappy she was, and she said to Sincil, ‘I am going out to look for Anron and Iandar. Would you come with me?’
	“And Sincil’s heart was still pale and quivering but she said, ‘Yes, I will go with you, so that whatever has happened, I will know it.’
	“So they went into the wood, and they followed Anron’s traces, but a long time passed and they saw nothing. Sincil had tried to be brave, but as dawn neared she became wild with grief, and the tears came.
	“Idair stopped, and said, ‘Come between these two trees and rest.’
	“They sat where two trees screened them from the sight of the Dark Leader and his minions. And Sincil tried to cry without making a sound. And Idair said to her, ‘I am sorry; I should not have let him go.’
	“And Sincil cried, ‘How shall I live without him? Why did I ever come to love him, if he was to be taken from me? Why did I not simply go on as I was, so that this terrible grief could not come to me?’
	“Idair was silent, and it seemed to Sincil that she was distressed. And at last Idair said to her, ‘Would you rather that you had never loved him?’
	“Sincil said, ‘Why do you ask me that, Idair?’
	“And Idair said, ‘Because you were my first friend here, and to see you wretched hurts me badly. I do not know if I can find Anron or if he is even still alive. But if you wish, I can take this grief from you.’
	“Sincil said, ‘How would you do that, Idair?’
	“Idair answered, ‘If you think it would be best, I can make it so that you never did fall in love with him. So that you never joined with him, and this grief never became possible. If that is what you want, then I will do that.’
	“Sincil thought for a long time, for it was a very heavy question. She thought of the time before they had fallen in love, and the time after. She thought of their joining and of the nights they had had together. She remembered looking at Anron as he walked into the wood, and how frightened she had been. She imagined what she would feel, if she heard that he had died, knowing that Idair could not make him live again.
	“ ‘Idair,’ Sincil said. ‘I have made my choice.’
	“And Idair asked her, ‘What have you chosen?’
	“And Sincil said,
	
‘I have chosen
	To love him
	And if I must
	To lose him

	I have learned
	What love is;
	And so have learned
	What we are
	We are brands
	Waiting for flame
	We were not born
	To be safe
	To stay whole
	
I am a torch
	Wasting in fire,
	Let me waste
	
	And if he is lost,
Go ask my ashes
	If they regret
	Their burning

	They will say,
	To be safe
	Is the loss;
	To be whole
	Is the grief
	
	I am the brand,
	Give me the fire;
	I am the brand
	And the brand says
	It is better to burn.”

	The children were shifting restlessly, beginning to prattle. Taric didn’t hear them.
	“And Idair said to her, ‘It is a true thing you have said. And what you have said will stand.’ And Idair stood up, and said, ‘Let us go, we may find him yet.’”
	Theamh rolled up the scroll.
	Taric could see Theamh’s eyes shining in the light of her own fire. He saw her pale throat work as she swallowed something.
	“Who’s got the first question?” Theamh asked.
	Someone on the right side of the room—young man, by the sound of him. “What would have happened if she’d made the other choice, shriia?”
	Theamh dropped her hands into her lap. “I think Idair would have tried to give her what she wished for. It’s the only time that Idair makes an offer like that, and some shriias don’t believe she really meant it. But I think she did. I think that if she had unwritten that part of the story it would have been very bad for the world, but I really do think Idair would have done it, because she wanted Sincil to be happy.”
	Someone else threw out another question.
	“What do you mean, bad for the world?”
	“Sincil and Anron are the people who teach us about love. If Idair had changed the story…we might never have found out about love. Think how awful that would be.”
	There was a short, somber silence.
	“It’s a lesson… for us and for Sincil, but it’s also a lesson for Idair,” Theamh went on. “Idair learns, listening to her, that her job isn’t to keep us safe, to protect us from pain at all costs. Idair was prepared to sacrifice herself for us. But she learns from Sincil that she can’t protect us from making our own sacrifices. That if her world is going to live her people have to be willing to do what Sincil did. To say, I’m in pain, I’m suffering, but I want the world to have love, so bring me the fire, let me burn.”
	Her voice got stronger, flaring up into the fire of truth. Taric watched her and realized the tremendous power of believing, absolutely, that what you say is what is.
	The same conviction seemed to impress itself on the hearers, suppressing questions.
	“Come on,” Theamh said, with a sad smile. “Don’t make me do all the talking.”
	“Shriia,” said the man who had asked for the story.
	“Yes, friend?”
	“Sincil gets him back, in the end,” he said, half a question and half a statement.
	“Yes, she does.”
	“So why does the story end there?”
	“Because…well, it’s tradition to break it there, partly because the part where Anron is found is really part of the story of the Burning. But I think also…it’s to make a point. Sincil has to make the choice not knowing how the story will end. It’s an act of faith. Breaking the story there allows us to feel her faith. And if we believe her—if we say yes, it’s better to burn—then we have to say it facing the same terrible uncertainty that she faces. Ending it here makes us make her choice.”
	There was silence. Taric wondered if he could bring himself to ask a question.
	Then the man asked it for him.
	“What about when we don’t get them back?” he said, his voice hardening. “Sincil gets to go on living happy with him. What about the rest of us? When they’re lost, when they’re—when we don’t get them back,” he said, plaintively. “How do we live with it?”
	Theamh blinked at him. Taric realized there was a reason her eyes were shining.
	“It’s a hard question,” she said. “Let me take a stab at it. I can’t promise much.”
	Her hands came into the air and began describing strange shapes as she spoke.
	“I think that what Sincil realizes when she makes her choice,” she said, “is that we do get them back. Even if they’re dead, even if they’re lost. Idair says, before she walks off to that battle she’s not sure she’ll survive, that nothing and no one is lost forever. If we believe that…then we believe that we get them all back. That no one you love is ever lost to you. They live in you—in your memories, in your minds, in the children they leave, of course. But they live also in you—in who you are. Loving someone changes you. Whether you know it or not you carry the people you love with you. They breathe when you breathe. They act when you act. They live as long as you love them. I—ask someone else and you’ll probably get a different answer. But that’s what I believe.”
	Her hands clasped on each other as she said it again.
	“I know that—when a person dies, when they’re not physically there, we miss so much that we almost can’t notice what we have left. It’s—of course we miss their bodies, their voices, we miss seeing them move and hearing them laugh. But even missing all that…we get them all back.” She repeated it in the same ringing voice. “No matter what takes them. Madness, sickness, death. Nothing and no one is lost forever. I do believe that. As long as we love, we get them all back.” 
	Everyone was silent, thinking their separate thoughts.
	“Thank you, shriia,” said the man who had asked.
	The town leader rose.
	“Have we heard enough to keep us?”
	Taric said “Yes” along with everyone else.
	“I have given you my fire,” Theamh said, standing up and raising her hands. “Let me return bearing yours.”
	Flame ran licking along the floor back into her body, flying down from the ceiling to where she stood burning with it all. 
	He had heard enough to keep him.
	Enough to take back to that farm. Where he would build on that second room. Where he would plant his crop, and sell Bilash, and let himself hope for the best.
	And wait for the time when he would get him back.

*	*	*	*

	That is a nice little story. I’m sure Theamh reads it well.  But it’s a lie.
	She’s not getting Istria back. Nothing comes back from where we sent her. 
	She’s not getting Keanrih back either.
	I’ll wait. I can afford to. Time works for me.
	Your wait, however, is over.
	The rite is different for every new dark user. For you, it will be very simple. You’ve already done so much.
	When midnight comes I’ll take you down to the round room. We’ll go in and I’ll close the door. It will be pitch black. Except for my fire.
I’ll present you to the Dark One, and you’ll make your promises. And even though you are of course not a shriia, it is unwise in the extreme to go back on these particular promises, or to forget to whom you made them.
You will call on the Dark One to give you what you wish for. The Dark One will then come to me. Through me, the Dark One will ask you four questions.
	The first three answers are “You do.”
	The fourth answer will come to you, if you’re ready.
	If it comes, then so will your fire.
	If it doesn’t, then I will kill you, and no one will find your body.
	You think this is going to be the hardest thing you will ever have done. The darkest, the direst, the most black and twisted choice you will ever make.
	Wait.

The End