ch 2



Sunshine and birdsong laughed at Kastor as he walked.

He’d been enjoying this job. He liked Sister Magda. She was a kind person, if a bit querulous at times, and very well-read. She had picked up early on that he’d rather not talk about himself, and had been generous with her knowlege. The weather had been lovely. And then it had all gone abruptly to shit.

The bandit attack was bad enough. He’d added eight men to the running total of his iniquity, and done it so eagerly, as if he’d never tried to change at all. And in front of the poor Sister, who’d probably never even seen a serious fistfight before, let alone a Kyri berserker mindlessly bent on bathing himself in blood. Kastor was ashamed.

But that was nothing compared to the return of Mikah. Silly, nasty, witty, dangerous, lying Mikah and all his incalculable power. Why was the Mara even bothering with this charade of obtaining their consent? He could dance them like puppets to whatever tune his mad mind was playing.

Neither Kastor nor Magda spoke all the rest of that day. There was nothing to say. Speaking in front of Mikah would have seemed a kind of betrayal of their tentative friendship; at least that was how Kastor saw it. Mikah did not deserve to participate in their conversation. Kastor spent his time fuming, and wondering whether he was a prisoner. He didn’t think Magda was angry. She was frightened, which was worse. He wanted to punch Mikah’s pretty face for being the sort of person who would frighten a nun. He wanted to kick his own teeth in for ever, even for a moment, noticing the aforementioned pretty face in any way other than as a target. Every time Mikah used one of those twisted endearments on him, he writhed under his skin.

And Mikah used those endearments by the minute. The Mara kept up a monologue of dazzling, inventive nonsense, hour after hour.

“Do you know how to make a potion of immortality, my ravening?” he would say. “I don’t suppose you do. I mean to say, do you know how it’s done? You isolate your own death. Boil it out of yourself and distill it. You make a potion of pure death, you see, your own and no one else’s, and then you throw it away. Marvellous! A potion which works by not being drunk! Imagine the sort of thing you’d find in the sewer beneath a necromancer’s house! It makes me terribly excited to think of it. If one could find a use for those distilled deaths -- the deaths of men still living, mind you. Perhaps you could make them into a toy for children. Like a killing-jar for butterflies. Children are barbaric, don’t you think? It’s their natural curiosity.”

This sort of thing went on, without pause, all day. When they found a clearing with a fire-ring in it, a primitive kind of travellers’ rest, and began to settle in for the evening, Mikah made no attempt to help. He flitted around, getting in the way, pawing through their belongings, and then ate their food without thanks. All the while, even with his mouth full, chattering.

When the talking didn’t cease even as they tucked into their blankets, Kastor finally interrupted. “Che ghanhar, Mikah, shut up.”

Mikah giggled. “I win!” But he was quiet after that.

Kastor propped himself, blanket-wrapped, against the base of a tree, determined to sit awake all night. He didn’t suppose he could do anything against Mikah if the creature got up to any mischief, but he sensed that his wakefulness might allow Magda to sleep. He knew he himself wouldn’t be able to rest. For one thing, Mikah was staring at him.

He didn’t want to give the Mara the satisfaction of a response, so he didn’t say anything. It was unnerving, though. Mikah’s yellow eyes glowed in the light of the dying fire, reflective and amplifying, like a cat’s. Kastor turned his head from those two spots of light. He read a book until the fire’s glow was too low to read by. Then he simply watched the stars wheel.

Near dawn, he dozed. In his dream, he argued with Mikah about the job he wanted done. Kastor had been hired to steal his own heart out of Hell. He would not do it, he explained, because leaving his heart out of his body made him immortal. Mikah explained infuriatingly that this was unacceptable, because he could not associate with Kastor if Kastor were not whole. It was, horribly, a lover’s quarrel, held by flickering infernal light while the hole in Kastor’s chest oozed cold gore.

He woke the moment Mikah shifted. The rustle of grass as the Mara uncrossed his legs was enough. Kastor felt like a crossbow string, nerves tight enough to snap if dry-fired -- he rubbed his eyes. The analogy was dream-logic. His charm against sleep had not worked properly.

Mist drifted across the road in thick streaks. Birdsong went from a sleepy murmur to a racket within a few seconds. In the east, the sky was lavender and pink. It was going to be another beautiful day.

Kastor groaned.

“Nightmares, my insomniac? Anything juicy?”

“No, Mikah, you may not have my dreams. Those are mine.”

“You never share.”

“That’s right.”

Mikah stuck out his tongue, the childish gesture at odds with his finery. He sprang to his feet and clapped loudly. “Wakey wakey, pretty nunny. Let’s get those books to the messenger post at Garwater soonest, so you can go on a little adventure. Stir your sleepiness!”

Kastor hissed at him. “Let her rest, you beast! She’s exhausted. And she’s not going on your ‘little adventure’ -- I know you. You’ll get her killed.”

“You know me?” Mikah laughed brightly. “Oh, you know me!” His laughter grew louder. Magda stirred, frowning in her sleep.

“Hush! Mikah, please.”

“Sing praises on high, oh glorious dawn, Kastor knows me!”

“Stop! Hush! Gods, you’re doing this on purpose, you -- you ancient infant! Do you have any idea how much I hate you?”

Mikah’s laughter stopped abruptly. “I have a pretty close concept, yes.”

“Yes. Because you hated me first, unless your malice is too abstract for hatred. Look, you win, here I am, tormented. You’ve done what you came to do. You can go now.”

“You’re rather self-centered, aren’t you?” Mikah tilted his golden head curiously. “Can you perform a thought-experiment for me? Imagine, just for fun, what it would be like if I were telling the truth.”

Magda chose that moment to come fully awake. She sat up blearily, cropped hair making a dark-blond halo of unruly frizz. “Truth? The truth about what?”

“About the side-effects of what I’m after. About the consequences if it doesn’t get done. Extinction or enslavement for your race. Damnation for mine. Just possibly, and I don’t want to make any promises here, but possibly the end of all creation.”

Now that Magda was awake, Kastor gave up trying to whisper. “Sure, and you’re so altruistic. Mikah the hero saves the world.”

“Of course. All my stuff is there.”



Mikah ranged ahead of them this time, rather than chattering at them. He was exhausting to watch. He behaved exactly like a small child. He ran until he was just a speck in the distance, then stopped until they caught up and passed him, poking with a stick at something on the verge. The difference was that, unlike a child, he accepted no authority but his own, had no interest in pleasing, had the power to enforce his own agenda on whomever he wished. He picked poisonous toadstools, chewed them thoughtfully, and dropped the bitten halves in the road. He climbed a tree far too slender to hold his weight, then dropped suddenly just in front of Magda with a gleeful cry -- fifty feet or so, as if it were nothing. He rooted a maggot out of a rabbit’s corpse and carried it with him for miles, crooning to it, then threw it down and stomped on it.

He was, in short, mad. Kastor had known this. Magda, though perhaps warned by the previous day’s monologue, was gently horrified by the evidence before her. At one point, when Mikah had ranged well out of earshot, the nun whispered hoarsely, “I never guessed they would be like this.”

“Mara?”

“Yes. Or -- are they all?”

Kastor shrugged. “Mikah’s the only one I ever met. Believe it or not, he’s behaving rather well today. I was stupid to lose my temper at him. I keep forgetting what he is, treating him like a -- a person. He’s not. He’s more like an elemental or something. The problem is that, unlike an elemental, Mikah’s intentions have to do with the material world. I don’t know what he wants from us. But I’m afraid we’re not going to be able to get out of it.”

She nodded bleakly, as if she’d come to the same conclusion. “I know you prefer not to talk about your past, but I would very much like to know how you met him, how you found out what he was.”

“It’s...” He shook his head. He liked her, but she hadn’t earned this. “It’s not something I can tell. I’m sorry. Just believe me when I tell you he’s not remotely human, nothing he does makes any kind of sense.”

“Ho! Gossiping, my cruelty?”

They both startled as Mikah dropped into the road behind them. He danced around them to walk backward in front of Kastor. Sister Magda glared at him disapprovingly. “We’re trying to discover whether we’re going to be killed, or in some other way harmed, by your intentions for us. I don’t think you could call that exactly gossip.”

“Why, I wouldn’t hurt you for the world! As for Kastor, I’ll hurt him ever so, but he likes it. Ask him. Ask him why he hates me.”

“Don’t,” Kastor said sharply.

Mikah gave a sly smile. “He hates me because I made him a promise and kept it. He hates me for honesty, and then he calls me a liar. Silly man! Here, I found an acorn.” He snatched Kastor’s hand and pressed his find there. “A present! Now are we friends again?”

“We were never friends.”

“Oh. I forgot.” He waved, then dashed away again.

Kastor opened his hand, expecting to find something rotten, something poisonous. What he found was a perfect, burnished acorn, exactly as if it had fallen off the tree that hour. How Mikah had gotten such a thing in spring, it was better not to wonder. Kastor drew his hand back to throw it away, but hesitated. He wasn’t sure why. He dropped the acorn into his satchel.

“What if...” Magda frowned thoughtfully. “What if he is telling the truth? What if there’s something afoot -- something to do with those demons, perhaps? It would be irresponsible of us not to consider it,” she added defensively when she saw Kastor’s expression.

“Don’t tell me you’re tempted by his offer.”

“No, of course not. He can’t give me my heart’s desire, because I already have it. What about you, Kastor? You seem -- forgive me -- you’re haunted by something, and it seems you yearn after peace or forgiveness. If he were to convince you he could offer whatever it is you’re seeking...”

Kastor shook his head slowly. “I’m taking this seriously, Sister. I don’t have the faintest clue what he thinks my heart’s desire might be, but whatever it is -- he’d give it to me twisted. He’d see to it that, by the time I got it, it was exactly the thing I didn’t want. That’s how he operates. I’m only wondering if we can get away from him.”

“He seems bent on acquiring our willing cooperation. We could just say ‘no’ -- go on saying it, I mean.”

“He’ll follow us.”

“Until we part ways at the Wind’s Eye. Then one of us, at least, would go free. Or perhaps the Mother Abbess could help. He is, after all, a spirit of a kind. If I recall correctly, the Mara are of a type with angels and demons.” She gave a mock-modest smile. “That’s our stock in trade, somewhat.”

“It’s a thought.”

Again Mikah intruded, this time shouting back from where he’d wandered ahead, where they’d thought he was out of hearing. “But you can’t! We have to go west, we can’t go haring off to some dusty nun-house! If we do, I shan’t be able to pick up my soldier, and I need her!”

Kastor and Magda exchanged a weary look, in which they agreed, without speaking, to speak no more.



They reached Garwater in late afternoon. It seemed a quaint little village to Magda, but Kastor assured her that its population, about two thousand or so, was the largest they would find before Corathy. It was also the last place they would find any institutions of the government -- the royal messenger post, to be exact. If they chose to obey Mikah’s instructions, that would be their destination, and their point of departure. For fifteen silver talims, they could send the box of books on its way to Sister Chime, with a letter of explanation. And with, Mikah offered desperately, a fat sack of gold for the upkeep of the Library, courtesy of his own hoard, a sop to Magda’s conscience.

Nervously, but with determination, they refused him, then shut their ears to his persuasions. They bought supplies for the long walk to Corathy; dense, long-keeping food like cheese and bacon and a loaf of sugar, flour and salt, a jar of lard; some strong leather to repair an iffy strap on Kastor’s pack; an oilcloth for sleeping on damp ground. The mule was reasonable about the extra weight, once bribed with a taste of the sugar. Kastor found a smith with a decent stock of knives, and bought the two that fit most closely in the empty sheaths at his belt. The knives he’d thrown in the fight with the bandits had been turned to rust by Mikah’s tidying.

They did not stay the night. There was still a little daylight left. They continued on the north road, past the point where the river swung away from it, out of Garwater toward the wilderness.

Mikah was wroth. He paced back and forth in front of them, cajoling, threatening -- ridiculous threats, about how their refusal of him would turn the world to ash, and before that they themselves would dry up and become bitter people. When this didn’t change their minds, he finally grew still. He looked, just for a moment, like a sane adult. Kastor saw again the man he’d known last year, and clenched his jaw so hard his teeth creaked.

“I’ve got myself worked up for nothing,” Mikah said. “It’s all set in motion, isn’t it? One way or the other. Well, I’m sure we’ll meet again.” He kissed his hand at them and struck out across a field, trampling the tender shoots.

It seemed impossible that they’d got rid of him so easily. As they went, they expected him to pop up any moment. Kastor sat watch again that night, and every flicker of eye-light in the undergrowth was, for an instant, Mikah coming back, even when it was low and close and certainly a badger or something. Kastor’s mood worsened every time.

When he allowed himself an hour’s sleep in the morning, he dreamed of the work he’d done for Mikah last summer. He was hanging in the center of a vast domed space, a loop of black silk cord twisted around his ankle, reaching down toward the book -- and he found that the book was too heavy. He could not lift it. He strained, he stretched -- his rope snapped -- he tumbled into the book’s sudden gaping jaws --

He woke with a start and a small cry. Magda offered him a sympathetic look and some bacon.

As they walked that day, their wariness waned. It seemed Mikah had left them alone. Their refusal had held. Gradually, as the air grew warmer, as dragonflies and small trilling birds skimmed through the air and the land changed from furrowed fields to flower-washed prairie, they relaxed. They began to talk again. Tentatively, at first, as if afraid of being overheard. Then more easily, with something approaching the pleasure their conversation had held before. Kastor slept well that night, his charm holding him to a deep but well-defined three hours between false dawn and day. He dreamed of nothing in particular. After that, they enjoyed the journey again.

Magda picked plants and explained them as she walked. She spread leaves and petals for him to look, told of their uses, gave cautions, talked of their cycles of growth and seeding and death. She was very excited to find a beesbane orchid; a rare, drab little pouch-shaped flower which lured insects to it with a humming inaudible to the human ear. It devoured the insects, she explained, its metabolizing of their tiny spirits kin to the sacrifices that nurtured place-gods. She wondered aloud whether anyone had done a proper study of cryptoflora; if so, where she might find it, and if not, whether she should write one.

Days passed, warming as spring deepened.

From time to time, they walked through a tiny village. Magda always stopped for at least a few hours in these, to offer healing and tales. The villagers seemed prosperous enough, though increasingly suspicious of first impressions as the road wound north into hill country. Still, however they might eye Kastor, they recognized the dark-blue habit of a Sister of the Vine, and treated Magda with the respect due a pilgrim.

Twelve days out from Garwater, they reached a village where the headman came out to meet them with a cluster of armed and terrified youths behind him. They demanded ritual assurances from Kastor that he was not scouting for a raid-revel, wanted to know his clan and circle. This was the edge of the highlands, and not so far east that Kyri raids were unknown.

“No clan,” Kastor told them shortly. “No circle. By hand and hoof, I swear I mean you no harm, nor do I owe to anyone who does.”

“What do you mean, no clan?” demanded one of the youths, but the headman shushed him. Kastor’s speech sufficed. Nevertheless, it was gently intimated that the travellers should be on their way without pause.

“What was that all about?” Magda asked him when they’d passed the village.

“Oh, I’m used to it. My countrymen are known to get a little unruly at the end of winter, after all. Bit late in the season, but there could still be a raid.”

“What’s a circle?”

“A -- it’s -- hard to explain. Any group, I guess, like a trade guild or military unit. Or just friends that ride together. I suppose at the moment that would be you.”

“I see. You said you have no clan?”

“That’s right.”

She was prying, she realized. Treading on sensitive ground. She did him the kindness of changing the subject, and he gratefully joined her in speculating on the substance of clouds.

As the ground rose, meadow gave way to forest again, but a different type of forest from that which edged the River Gare. Unlike that lush, thick tangle of oak and bramble, this was a spare, restrained sort of woods, where pines spaced themselves like dancers across a ground paved smooth with their needles, where white pillars of birch reached straight upward to spread their cathedral ceiling of pale green. It was in this sort of terrain, Kastor reminded her, that one might find wyr and wolves. His charms might not warn him of the approach of animals.

Wolves were no problem, Magda was certain. They were natural beasts, after all. Wyr, on the other hand...

They walked with eyes searching the pillared distance, ears straining for the whistling cry that Kastor had heard many times and Magda only read about. But the woods were quiet. The season had provided the pony-sized dragon-kin with plenty of food, and wyr were smart enough to know that humans could be difficult prey.

They camped one night in the pine-black hills. The next morning, a couple of hours on their way, they began to hear the sounds of human activity. Indistinct shouts; the ringing of an axe. They discussed, curiously, what sort of people would begin cutting the forest here, so far from any market for timber. The nearest town, Merallis, held only a few hundred people, and had no easy way to export a resource so bulky.

Minutes later, they topped a rise and saw, at the bottom of the valley, men in royal scarlet milling around what could only be a roadblock.

Slowly, uncertain of the rules for approaching such a situation, they descended toward the blockage. Men were felling trees to add to the barrier; it was constructed of whole trunks, sloppily trimmed, braced into place with their own branches. It looked as if it were intended to stop an army. The soldiers at work on the barricade wore no armor or weapons, but they were guarded by a pair of officers on horseback, splendid in gleaming steel and scarlet.

As the travellers approached, the officer on the near side rode to meet them. Removing her plumed helmet, the Legionnaire dismounted just before they reached her, shoving a gloved hand through sweaty spikes of brown hair. She had a pleasant, suntanned face, freckles scattered on top of her tan. She looked friendly but immovable, like a big sheepdog.

“Sorry, folks. This road is closed. You’ll have to take another route, or try again in a few days.”

“Oh.” Magda made a small sound of disappointment. “But -- there isn’t any other way. We’re going to the convent at Corathy.”

The Legionnaire shook her head sympathetically. “Bad luck. Can’t let you through, not for love nor money. Guess there’s nothing to keep you from waiting here, but it could be a good long time before the road’s safe again.”

“May I ask, madam -- I’m sorry, I can’t read your rank.”

“Sergeant Jennet Tanner, Fifth Royal Engineers. Pleased to meet you.” She offered a hand, clasped each of theirs in turn as they introduced themselves. “You were going to ask why we’re closing the road? Don’t want you getting silly on me, so promise me you won’t run screeching into the undergrowth.” She grinned broadly to show that this was mostly a joke.

“Demons?” Kastor guessed.

“Well -- yes.”

“How many? Where?”

“I wasn’t told, and don’t you get any ideas. I’m sure you’re as hard as you think you are, highlander, but there’s a detachment of Specials out there to deal with it and you’re not invited to participate.” Her brown eyes narrowed. “Now, where did that guess come from?”

Magda explained. “There are demons loose in Elenshire as well. Gare is flooded with refugees. Where are they coming from, all of a sudden?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” The soldier shrugged. “Probably better, actually. We engineers are the mushrooms of the Legion. Now -- lovely talking to you, but I’ve got work to do. Make yourselves comfy. There’s a stream right down there, and if you can’t find enough dead wood you can go through that pile of branches, though it’s green. Try to cross the line and I’ll spank you.” With an idle wave, the Legionnaire mounted up and turned back to the roadblock.

“How inconvenient,” Magda sighed. “Well, as there’s no better route, I suppose we’ve no choice but to wait. We’ve plenty of food for a few days. We can get more in Merallis when they open the road. Unless -- you don’t think it’s dangerous to be here? So close to the restricted area?”

“The Legion’s known for being cautious. We’re probably twenty miles from the thing’s lair.” Once he’d said that, he realized he had no idea whether demons laired, and thus his reassurance might be bullshit, but she didn’t correct him. He forged into the forest’s edge, shuffling and stomping, until he found an area free of hidden roots and deadfall. He began clearing away fallen leaves in preparation to building a fire pit.

Magda was looking at him oddly. When he raised an eyebrow at her, she blurted, “Aren’t you annoyed? You were promised a lump sum; this delay is thinning your pay.”

Kastor shrugged. “Nice weather, good company, bit of a rest -- nah, I’m not mad. Are you?”

“A little.”

“We won’t be bored. We have books.”

“There is that.” She laughed a little, releasing the small anger she’d had. She was not, he speculated, by nature an angry person.

They ate a leisurely supper, listening to the sound of axes. The engineers seemed to find it funny to be watched; sometimes one would wave, and once a man whose red tunic was tied around his waist by the sleeves, whose chest was smeared with sap and bark dust, came over to ask whether the Sister had any ointment against biting flies. She had nothing to keep them off, but was able to cure the worst of his welts; contrary to expectation, this didn’t provoke a flood of requests from the others. Rather, the man’s comrades laughed at him for being a sissy, and bore their own itches without complaint.

Kastor had never encountered the Legion’s engineers before. They seemed a different sort of person from the stiff, bureaucratic keepers of order he’d had to deal with in the past. For one thing, they didn’t look for excuses to harrass him just because he was Kyri. Not that they would have been completely unreasonable to do so -- the Kyri had, after all, been raiding their neighbors for centuries, and refused until recently to recognize anything so abstract as borders. It was only in the past three hundred years or so that a Council of Thanes had existed; before that, it had been every Thane for himself, every clan a sovereign nation. There had been no one for Semnia’s diplomats to talk to. Only in the last few decades had the Kyri as a whole been willing to consider, for the sake of argument, that there might be places on the skin of the world where it wasn’t fair to graze their herds, that taking things which belonged to other people wasn’t much fun for the other people, and that a nervous foreigner was more trouble than sport.

Even the younger, more civilized generation of Kyri would never stoop to the work Kastor was doing. Wasting his swords guarding a helpless woman -- young enough to fight, and capable of magic, but wilfully soft -- and for money, of all the ridiculous things.

He had a laugh for them as well, though. Their newly polite relations with Semnia were not due to a change in philosophy, nor had they decided to humor the soft, weak southerners. They’d had a taste or two of what the Legion was capable of doing to them; that was what had changed their minds. Kastor guessed that he, personally, was a fair match for the two mounted officers at the roadblock, or all the non-mounted engineers, en masse. That would be an even chance. If they all came at once, mounted and infantry both, he would probably win but be maimed. But he was -- he knew this without pride -- the second best double-sword fighter in the entire Kyri. The average raider versus the average Legionnaire... well, the outcome would be in doubt, at least, and in a pitched battle...

“Why so gloomy, friend?” Magda touched his sleeve, offered him a steaming cup. It smelled strongly of winter -- cloves and apples.

He was sweating in his leathers, but he accepted the tea and did his best to look like he was enjoying it. “Did I seem gloomy? I was just calculating.”

“Calculating?”

“Imaginary battles. How many of which kind of troops could take how many of what other kind. I don’t know how I got onto the subject. Feel free to distract me.”

“Well, there’s something we could speculate about, right there.” She gestured toward the activity down the road. The engineers were cutting down the forest on the near side of their roadblock now, under the direction of the sergeant who’d spoken to them. “A pole across the road and a pair of men to explain it would be sufficient. They’ll have a hard time clearing this mess when they’re finished.”

“It looks more like a fortification than a road block. You’re right.”

“But if they were planning on doing something important here, wouldn’t Sergeant -- oh, I’ve forgotten her name -- Tanner. Wouldn’t Sergeant Tanner have made us go away? She as much as invited us to camp here.”

Kastor scratched his neck thoughtfully where something had bitten him. He tried to put himself in the sergeant’s shoes. The woman had assumed Kastor’s interest to be typical of his race. Looking for a fight. How she factored Sister Magda into it, he didn’t know, but he guessed the sergeant expected Kastor to take any opportunity to get in the Legion’s way. “I think she wants us where she can see us,” he concluded. “So she knows we’re not circling the roadblock through the woods.”

“Whyever would we do that?”

“People do crazy things sometimes.”

“Well, but if we were to put ourselves in harm’s way -- perhaps she’s not so careless, but -- isn’t her duty done? She’s warned us, after all.”

“She’s not here to protect us,” Kastor said patiently. “She’s here to make sure no one makes trouble for the squad of Specials hunting the demon. Out there in the woods, blundering around, we could panic and attack them by accident, or disturb some trap they’ve laid, or simply distract them.”

“I see.”

“Yes. But still --” he broke off.

“Still? What?”

He stretched his hands out, examined his palms, rubbed at the places where callus ought to have formed but never did. Abruptly he laughed. “She’s right about me. Damn me if she’s not right. She’s thinking I’ll want to go fight that demon, and she’s right. It sounds like a fine little fight. Sister, have you ever had to deal with someone who likes fighting a bit too much for their own good? How do you change that?”

“Oh. Well.” Taken aback, she gnawed her lip while she considered how to answer. Slowly, she replied. “Ordinarily, I would explain how fighting doesn’t solve anything. I’ve had students who bullied, or who exploded when teased. They learn, sooner or later, that there are much better ways of dealing with things. Once, though, I had a girl who simply loved to fight. She wasn’t malicious, she didn’t like hurting the others. But she’d take on bullies for the smaller girls, and with girls her own size she’d organize matches. No shoes, no hitting in the face.” She smiled at the memory. “Her, I sent to the Smithy. She wrote to me recently to tell me she’d made the rank of Renunciate and would be taking her guard-vows next year. If you’re like her, I’d say you’re already doing the right thing. Or... trying to,” she faltered. Probably remembering the bandits he’d sliced to collops before her eyes.

Not taking his gaze from the glint of axes, Kastor shook his head. “I’m not like her, Sister. I wish I were. What I am is ruagh feahar -- a berserker. It’s not a profession, you know, it’s a mental condition. I only ever met one other. I mean, all the young toughs claim to be feahar, but I only met one who really was. He was a very stupid man. He seemed bewildered by his own strength. When he fought, when he got to fighting, it was very hard to make him stop. He didn’t understand why everyone was afraid of him. He fought their enemies, didn’t he? But I -- I am not a stupid man, Sister. I can see it, when it happens, step back from myself and watch -- that little snap, and then it’s simply not acceptable for any threat to survive. I’ve tried. I’ve tried to strike with the flat, I’ve tried to capture, to warn. I can only do it when there’s nothing to fear. When I’m bored.” He stopped, heard again what he’d been saying, and felt his face color. He shrugged. “Sorry. I’m whining. Let’s talk about something else.”

“You’re not whining, Kastor. I don’t know yet how to help you, but I promise I’ll think about it. Perhaps Sister Chime can help.”

“Maybe. I’m not a follower of Kaleya, you know. We have different gods.”

“That won’t stop us from trying to help you. We’re meddlers. Ask anyone.” She smiled, and he accepted the lightening of mood.

“Meddlers of the best sort, Sister, and I thank you. What I was getting at before I descended into self-pity is that a demon is a fight in the open, so to speak. Everyone agrees that destroying it completely is the correct thing to do. And every once in a while I do like to have a holiday from moral ambiguity.”

“Quite understandable. The -- oh, look,” she broke off. “Sergeant Tanner is coming to talk to us. I hope she doesn’t want us to move.”

That was, in fact, exactly what Sergeant Tanner wanted. “We’re going to be clearing this side in the morning,” she explained. “Why don’t you come down and camp with us? The more the merrier, right?”

Kastor raised an eyebrow at her. “And you’d rather have me inside your pickets. I’m guessing you’d prefer I don’t take all my weapons if I get up in the night to take a piss.”

“Well, that would make us breathe easier, yeah.” The soldier laughed. “Come on. I’ll help you move your stuff.”

The engineers had made remarkable progress in the past few hours. They’d opened a space thirty yards broad in the birch forest beside the road, shaving stumps down to the ground and clearing away debris. Their camp was orderly and cheerful. They welcomed their guests with waves and questions and a few friendly obscenities. Kastor noted that each of the men, and the one other woman in the group besides the sergeant, unobtrusively watched his every movement as he got Sister Magda settled. There was no hostility about their wariness. They just recognized that he had the ability to cause trouble, and declined to be surprised by it if he did. This was a veteran crew.

Kastor did not attempt to slip away that night. Even if he’d been willing to abandon Magda, he wasn’t so hot for a fight that he’d ruin the Legion’s plans. It wasn’t as if he had any honor to add to.

The next day the engineers -- and the travellers -- were awakened by a bugle call. Sergeant Tanner stood atop the barricade with a bugler beside her, the source of the racket. She gave orders, cheerful and loud. She was obviously a morning person. Grumbling, the men rolled out and assembled for an enormous breakfast. Kastor and Magda were not invited to eat with them. After stuffing themselves with ham, oatmeal, and strong tea, the engineers began their deafening work again.

All that day they widened the clearing. Each tree they felled was shorn of its limbs and added to the barrier, which was being extended from both ends. On the near side of the barrier, the ground was cleared smooth, stumps cut level with the ground and deadfall hauled away. On the far side it was left ragged.

“They’re definitely expecting an army,” Kastor said. He and Magda were perched on a grassy bit of ground well back from the noise and dust. It was mid-afternoon, the air hot and still.

“But who? There’s no one -- you don’t think perhaps the Kyri --?”

“What, you think the story about the demon is a fabrication? It could be. But not the Kyri. Though it’s been years since I was there... things could have changed...”

“If that’s the case, Kastor, we should turn back. Sergeant Tanner seems pleasant enough, but if your kinsmen are who they plan to fight, she’ll have to -- to make certain of you.”

“In case I’m a spy?” He laughed.

“Yes. Why is that funny?”

“Kyri don’t spy.”

“Oh. I apologize, I didn’t mean to imply --”

“No, no, it’s not that we’re opposed to it; we’re just not very good at it.” Grinning, he shook his head. “I don’t think they’re planning to fight Kyri, though. If they are, they’re doing it all wrong. They can’t make the barrier long enough to keep from being flanked, not in a lifetime.” He narrowed his eyes, judging the height of the wall of logs. “Besides, any Kyri-trained mount could jump that. And they’ve built it on the lowest ground. The stream where we got water, it goes under the road, right in front of where they are. One good rain, and they’ll be sitting in mud. They can’t be that incompetent.”

Magda pursed her lips, thoughtful. “There are things that don’t like to cross living water.”

“Undead?”

“Yes.”

“You think they’re expecting undead?” He raised his eyebrows, imagining such a thing, but Magda was serious.

“It would explain the barrier. Undead are clumsy, for the most part. They’d be slow to climb. They’d take the easiest route, too, and come by the road, not through the woods. In which case the engineers are doing everything exactly right.”

Kastor considered this, and the more he thought about it, the more he realized Magda’s deduction was correct. “Unbelievable. An army of them? Who’d have the patience?”

“It’s been done before. Wait, I think the place I read that is one of these I’ve brought. Let me look.” She opened the chest and began setting oilcloth-wrapped books in stacks on the ground.

Kastor reached to help her. “What does it look like?”

“Blue leather with gold stamping on the spine. ‘A Military History of Fioradine.’ It’s thick.”

“Fioradine? That book’s come a long way, then.” He grasped a volume about the right size and unwrapped it.

“It’s a fascinating read, they do things very differently there. Is that it?” When he didn’t reply, she leaned closer. “Kastor?”

His voice was a hoarse whisper. “What’s this?”

The book he held was blue and gold, but it was not the book she’d described. The hide which covered it was reptilian, and its irridescent shade didn’t seem to be dyed. Its lettering was inlaid -- not gold leaf, but actually cut out of gold and held to the leather with tiny tacks. The title was a strange, alien block of interconnected symbols much more complex than Semnian letters.

He had seen that script before.

“Kastor? What’s wrong?”

“What’s this book?” he demanded again. “Why do you have it?”

“Why -- well, I told you, Sister Chime charged me with collecting rare books for the Library. I don’t know the script -- do you? Why does it affect you so?”

He shook his head mutely.

“I think it may be a spellbook,” Magda went on. “The way it’s organized, look.” She reached to open it. He froze, holding it closed, for just a second; then he realized she must have paged through it thoroughly and come to no harm. He let her show him pages, tight-packed with a cursive form of the strange script. She said, “You see how it’s made up of short segments, one or two pages, with diagrams, each section discrete. It looks like a spellbook. The script looks a bit like, perhaps, a form of Angelic, but I compared it with the Westlake Codex and it’s definitely not Angelic.”

“Angelic? Angels have a language? No, of course they do.”

“Yes. It can’t be spoken or written properly in the material world; it’s the language spoken in dreams, or so I’ve heard, though I’m sure my dreams are in plain Semnian. But there’s a simplified form of it that’s used for ritual thaumaturgy, and this looks a bit like that. It isn’t, though.”

Kastor closed the book with exaggerated gentleness, because he wanted to slam it shut and throw it. “Something... demonic, perhaps.”

“You’ve seen something like it before. You’ve gone gray.”

“Have I?” He pushed the book into her hands. “It’s not what we were looking for. We got distracted.”

She stared at him for a long moment. If she was waiting for him to explain what had alarmed him, she was disappointed.

When she found the history she was looking for, she paged through it as rapidly as she ever turned pages -- that is to say, with care but without lingering. “Here it is. It says -- let’s see, I’ll try to encapsulate -- ‘In Fioradine, before the time of the Queen-Admirals, there was a king whose sorcery brought pain to all who breathed.’ It tells about things this sorcerer-king did, until the neighboring countries got fed up and got together to remove him. Their armies ‘blackened the hills as far as the eye could see. Never had such a great force been assembled. The sorcerer’s army arrayed to meet it’ -- here’s a long list of apparently important people who were there. ‘The armies crashed together like great waves of the sea. The soldiers of the sorcerer did not fall when struck, however, but continued to fight after terrible wounding, and did not bleed.’ And a list of important people who died. Then some hero named Ceintha knocked the helmet off one of these undying soldiers, and discovered that they were already dead.” She closed the book. “Once they knew what they were up against, they regrouped and won. Numbers aren’t given, but I got the impression from relative scales that this sorcerer-king had at least ten thousand undead going at once.”

Kastor gave a low whistle. “That’s bizarre. You might know more about this than I do, but I gather it takes quite a while to animate even one corpse, and you have to mess with it continually to keep it from going to bits on you.” He frowned through the trees at where the horizon ought to be, as if he might see this hypothetical undead army tromping down the road on cue. “We must’ve missed something. The engineers must be expecting -- I don’t know. Their tactics wouldn’t be outright stupid against an army of normal men, provided they didn’t have much in the way of cavalry...”

“Yes. Perhaps.” Magda was unwilling to argue. “Perhaps we missed something.”

“In any case, Sister, should we be waiting around for this battle of theirs? There’s no other road, but we could take the long-long way around. Cut over to the Temischere, follow it upstream, go cross country along the foot of the mountains.”

“That would take a month!”

“We could go back. Wait in one of those villages -- one of the ones that weren’t scared of me -- until we see the Legion heading home.”

She pressed her hands together, considering. At last she nodded. “We’d better. It’s too late to set out today, though.” She sighed. “This is so very confusing. I wish Sergeant Tanner had been honest with us.”

Kastor announced their intention to Tanner once the day’s work was done. “I don’t want you thinking we’re -- I don’t know -- spying or something,” he told her. “I know it looks suspicious, to hang around for two days and then leave. But we’ve just deduced that whatever you’re gearing up for here, you’re expecting it to come this way, and I don’t want the Sister caught in the middle of that.”

The soldier grimaced, scratching at a bitten welt on her arm, shoving up her tunic’s short sleeve. “Wish I could go with you, mate. Why can’t this stuff ever happen in the fall, when it’s nice and cool? But look, don’t go spreading rumors, eh? I really should detain you. Officially. None of this is supposed to be public. But I couldn’t forgive myself if that sweet little nun got hurt on account of my not letting you leave. Think you could give me your word?”

Kastor obediently touched his lips and heart. “Hand and hoof. I swear.”

“Thanks. Say, I noticed last night that you don’t sleep much. I’m on first watch tonight. You play stones, at all?”

“Uh -- not for stakes. I won’t get paid until we reach the convent.”

“Penny ante. I won’t clean you out, I promise.”

She looked so eager, he couldn’t refuse. When the camp had settled down for the night, and he’d seen Magda safely abed between her trunk and the female engineer, he sat at the edge of firelight with Tanner to pass the time with games.

At first, they talked only of the game. She played by slightly different rules than the ones he’d learned in Ytris. The wind kept stealing the leaves they were using as bases, but the ground was too rough to use scratched circles. Tanner was fond enough of the game to have a pouch of glass blobs to use as stones, and this meant that when one of them gathered too large a handful on a long jump and a stone squirted out of a laden fist, they had to stop the game to go look for it.

“I like stones because it’s simple,” Tanner explained. “I’m pretty good at more complicated games, but the problem with those is, they get personal. Say you’re fantastic at cards, at Roundhouse or something. People want to prove they’re as good, they want to play for real stakes, and if you’re better you win all their money, which makes them sore. And they wonder if you’re cheating, and you always have to wonder if they’re going to say it.” She paused to consider his move, then snatched up a handful from the edge of the makeshift ‘board’, leapt zigzagging across and knocked his pawn out of home. “That’s you back to the beginning, mate.”

“Again.” He gave a mock-groan and dropped a penny beside the board. “What was that about being too good?”

“Your move.” She watched him bring his pawn back from start, collecting its followers along the first arm of the circle. “Not bad. But what I was saying, the thing I like about this game is you can’t possibly cheat, it’s all out there where you can see it. You don’t have to remember anything, or do any math. You don’t have to be able to read. I could play it with a general or with the lowest drummer boy, and no one would go away feeling like it hadn’t been fair.” She took her pawn out on a brief foray, coming back with a handful of glass troops. “But it takes skill, not like dice. Who wants to put money down on pure chance? I never got that.”

“I don’t understand it either.” His pawn forged ahead.

“What are you doing? You going to storm me, there? I’m going to kick your ass.”

Kastor laughed. “Probably.” Tanner genuinely amused him. He was enjoying his last night in the engineers’ camp.

Tanner must have been thinking the same thing, because while she mopped up the last few free stones on the board, she said, “What do you do when you’re not ferrying nuns, then? Where do you stay? Ever make it as far south as Verdichane?”

“Sure, sometimes. I was out to the Rule last fall.”

“That’s where I’m stationed, between tours. I’m technically attached to barracks maintenance there, but they have to send us out for a few months every couple years so we don’t get soft. You could come visit me. Have a drink or something.”

“Sure.”

“How old are you, anyway?”

“Twenty-four. Why?”

She grimaced. “Oh. Well.”

“What’s wrong with my age?”

“Nothing. Bit young for me, that’s all.”

Comprehension dawned. “You were --” Then he realized he couldn’t say it out loud. Then he realized he really ought to. “You were interested in me? As in --” He gestured vaguely.

Tanner laughed; a bit embarrassed, but not really ashamed. “Were? Still am, but I’m twelve years your senior.”

“Um... I’m not...”

“No, it’s all right. You’re as fine a thing as I’ve seen in a good while, but I think I can be a grownup about it.” She grinned to show there were no hard feelings, then grabbed her pawn and its army and wiped the board of his pieces in a few quick moves. “There. I am avenged.”

Kastor couldn’t help but smile. “If the invite’s still open, I’ll look you up some time for a rematch. You’ve got to give me a chance to practice, I’m rusty. Here, set it up again. This time I’m going to pay attention when you beat me.”

“Won’t help you, friend,” she said, but she was setting up a new game. “You play like a loner. A pawn might be worth five stones, but they stop coming in fives after the first minute of the game. Now, a veteran campaigner like me --”

A flash of red light froze her with her mouth open. In the northern sky, a ball of scarlet light pulsed, a trail of sparks fading beneath it. A second later, a distant thump reached their ears.

“Oh, shit,” said Tanner quietly. She shoved the pouch for her game stones at him as she sprang to her feet. “Up! Up! Get your lazy asses up! Where’s my damn bugler?” Still bellowing, she scrambled to the top of the barricade as her men startled awake. “Red signal! Red signal! Luth, get ‘em kitted! Terris, mount up. No, idiot, leave that shit, get mounted! Go tell Marsdale that it’s started. Ride! Luth, I want two men topside, and I want them looking both ways -- the enemy or reinforcements, sing out. Shem, Lou, cut poles about man-height, as many as you can, you don’t have to make ‘em pretty. Everyone else, axes, and I don’t want any heroes.” Fists on hips, scowling with the effort of planning her defense, she looked rather magnificent, like a war-goddess in a temple fresco. Her glare fell on Kastor, who was shoveling her game-stones into their bag.

She pointed at him. “Kastor the Kyri! Take Sister Magda and head south as fast and as far as you can go. Hell, take my horse. Leave your baggage -- there’s no time.” In a more normal voice, so that he could barely hear her over the bustling of her men, she added, “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

He jumped up far enough on the barricade to hand her the bag of stones. “I’ll return with your reinforcements. To give your horse back.”

“Good man. Hurry on out of here, now. I have work.”

He untied Tanner’s mount from the picket, looked for Magda. The nun was straining to lift the trunk of books onto the mule, which had been inexpertly saddled. Even if she got it onto the pack saddle, it would just tip off again -- she’d been timid about tightening the girth, he could see it from here. “Sister! Leave that!”

“But --”

“Leave it, I said!”

“These books are priceless!” she called fiercely. “I won’t leave them to be trampled on a battlefield!”

“Oh for the love of fucking mercy.” Gritting his teeth, Kastor stomped toward her, not sure whether he meant to help her with the trunk or throw her over his shoulder. He didn’t get a chance to decide.

The fear came first. It was a sudden, sourceless paranoia; at first only a winter midnight noises-in-the-woods feeling, but growing until every one of the engineers was shivering, eyes bugging. Kastor felt his body go rigid and a chill sweat spread across his brow. He heard Magda murmuring small worried noises: “Oh dear, oh my.”

Then came the voice. Singsong, burbling, a twisted mixture of a child’s rhyme-song and the last blood-choked gasp of a dying man. It came nearer and nearer, and as it came the fear grew.

Tanner was still yelling orders, but there was a frantic note in her tone. Kastor couldn’t tell if she was making sense. Her men were not obeying her. One broke and ran, and then another, pelting wildly into the woods away from the nonsense noise that was growing louder.

“What is it?” Magda was backing closer to him. “Kastor, what is it?”

“Stay clear,” he snapped, voice strained.

“But what is it?” She came too close. She was obscuring his field of attack. He grabbed her by the back of the neck and threw her aside. Her cry didn’t mean anything to him -- perhaps he’d hurt her, perhaps only surprised her, but he couldn’t care either way. He drew; his swords seemed to vibrate in his hands. Something was coming out of the woods, and the terror was unbearable.

It moved in a low, bouncing lope; shorter than a man, and broader, long-armed, with a flat head slung forward on a short neck. Apelike -- if apes could be made of tar. Its mouth was frog-wide and full of small, grinding teeth, lipless, undulating constantly with its murmuring. Two fist-sized eyes glittered with red light. Set above that were four smaller eyes -- human eyes, liquid brown, rolling independently of each other. It came in an erratic curve out of the trees. The fear came with it.