Taken Child

I.

It's A Living

I don’t always start the day with a harangue, but that morning I was mad at myself. I knew I was forgetting something important. There aren’t many professions where absentmindedness is an asset, but in my line of work it can and does kill people, and I’m cursed with the kind of which folk legends are made. I have never yet put a baby in the oven and tucked a loaf of bread into bed, but that’s probably just because I don’t have children.

The morning rites I can do in my sleep, so it wasn’t that. I scattered the drops to the seven points and tried to concentrate. With Aine clattering around in the kitchen it was difficult. I had tried to make it clear when she was assigned to me that her duties did not include cooking or cleaning, but for the first of many times my attempt to depart from the official program had been baffled by her incredible fidelity to the rule. Her contract said to learn by serving and by Idair she was going to serve. So there she was, making a breakfast I didn’t want, nervous as I was, but would eat anyway because Aine’s feelings were easily hurt and long in healing. I was willing to do a lot to avoid bringing pain into Aine’s transparent face. I remembered being an apprentice.

But I didn’t remember whatever it was that I knew I was forgetting, so I gave up, made the marks, and started downstairs.

Aine made the bow and handed me my breakfast. “Here you are, dhiaoc.”

“Thanks, Aine.” I decided to start with the eggs, since they looked the least intimidating. “Have a seat and have some of this. It’s wonderful but there’s no way I can finish it. I’m too nervous.”

She sat down but didn’t touch the food. “You’ll be fine, dhiaoc. They’ll all love you.” And her face lit up with that fervor that frightened me. In Aine a respect for my status as the incarnation of Idair’s power and knowledge--something I am not, never claimed to be, and wished I could convince her to stop thinking I was--combined with a strange emotional attachment in a kind of devotion I thought was dangerous. If you’re unwilling to face the truth, this is not the career for you. And Aine didn’t want the truth about me--that I’m short-tempered and scatterbrained with a memory like a sieve and an undisciplined heart--to interfere with her reverence. Something would have to be done, and watching her across the table I knew it would have be soon, but my mind was on my imminent ordeal and I put it off.

I got up to go. As I was adjusting my hreapa in a futile attempt to stall, I said, “Aine, you have a mind. I know I’m forgetting something. Any idea what it is?”

Aine studied me, looking for the things I would. Marks made on each shoulder, the hreapa and all its fastenings in place. Probably nothing wrong with my hair, although I could never be sure; the stuff was unmanageable and seemed able to escape from any retention device I could come up with.

She had a thought. “Have you fed the vigils?”

I uttered an oath a woman of my standing should never use. “No. Of course not. And it’s been four weeks, hasn’t it.” Aine nodded. “And now I don’t have time. Will you do it, Aine?” I clattered out into the hallway in a bit of a panic. “It’s no big thing--just do what I do, and remember to say when you do the greeting that you’re acting on my behalf. And remember Shaineen gets an extra bun for the Cacht affair. I put all the food out in the pantry last night, I can’t believe I forgot. Thanks, you’ll be saving my life. Idair with you!”

I ran, skirt flapping, the first quarter-mile, then slowed down. It was a beautiful day, I had an hour yet, and the walk through the forest wouldn’t take that long. The sun was unusually strong for a day this early in the growing season, and pleasantly warm. Birds were at their usual chatter but in high spirits. The prevailing topic seemed to be migration. Birds never say anything that important, but their mood is a pretty good divining tool, and when the birds are happy, so are we.

At the gate of the city the birds who had followed me flapped off. I walked up the broad cobbled street, skirting the horses, cows, carts and carriages that were rambling up and down it on their way to or from the central market. Those who saw me touched their lips and tried to get out of my way. I made the sign of protection over them and jostled through the crowd.

The Scoil Chanon is part of the Pharc, the seven-pointed star at the center of the city. A straight road from each gate leads to the star, because as the seat of knowledge and power it should be easy for everyone to find. And it’s a good thing, too, because otherwise I’d get lost. The streets that branch off from the main arteries are more numerous than the strands of Idair’s hair and crooked as the Dark One’s heart. Only the people who live and work there have any idea how to find their way around the Sevenths. But I could probably make it to the Pharc in plenty of time unless--

“Shriia! Shriia, oinach!”

Unless. Well, it had to happen at least once. I stopped and searched for the owner of the voice.

“Here, shriia,” said a young farmer in creased and faded coveralls who was leading a bullock by a short leash. He pointed through the parting crowd toward a woman who sat by the wall, holding two children in her lap. One was nursing through a tear in her worn red dress; the other sat listless among the folds of her skirt. That was the one she was worried about.

“He’s not moving,” she said, without waiting for me to greet her. “Since yesterday he’s been like this. He won’t even nurse.”

I lifted the child. He was lighter than he should have been for his size. Under the dark matted hair the eyes were dull and cloudy. I set him on his feet; he plumped down into a sitting position, staring at me inertly.

“I’ve seen the medicals,” she said. “They say it’s a case for you and yours.”

The child offered no resistance as I examined him. He must have been a handsome little thing when those brown eyes had had their proper light. Probably his mother’s favorite. And clearly something else’s too.

“They were right,” I said at last. “He’s been taken.”

The mother silently hugged her other child to her. A disturbed murmur ran through the small knot of onlookers. I stood, lifting the child into my arms.

“Your child is now under my protection. I’ve given my promise to do something and so I need to go on to the Pharc right now. I’ll keep the child with me so that no further evil will come to him, and return home with both of you afterwards. Be here an hour from now and be ready to stay a week or more. I’ll try everything I know and we’ll pray for the best. What is promised must be performed. Have I given what you need?”

She looked up at me haggardly. “Yes, yes, shriia, I’ll be here. Idair with you.” The tears started in her eyes. “My boy--”

“Don’t say his name,” I broke in. “Not yet. It’s not over. Wait here for me. Very often children can be brought back.”

She nodded, but I knew what she was thinking. Very often children can’t be brought back, very often they die soon after, or worse, grow up with something else inside them. As I traced the sign of protection on the child’s forehead, the full horror of the situation seemed to grip her, and she pitched forward in a dead faint.

I crouched down to lift her up and pulled the bottle of uisce out of my bag. As I sprinkled some on her face, I began to feel the familiar anxiety that comes with conflicting commitments. I had given Ethir my promise, and I had to go. But I couldn’t very well leave this poor woman here slumped over her other child. The drops of uisce sparkled faintly as they ran along her cheeks, leaving behind pale tracks. It was only then I realized that what I had thought was a suntanned complexion was at least partly the dust of the street. She hadn’t just come out there to find me. This was where she was living.

She murmured, and her eyes fluttered. She sat up, vexed with herself for giving way, glancing furtively at the crowd that still surrounded us.

“I’m all right now, shriia,” she said.

Rather than chide her for lying, I looked around for someone who could sit with her till it was true. My eyes went back to the sunburnt, yellow-haired farmer who had first pointed her out. Partly because I was reading something off him that seemed to me like compassion, and partly because I was starting to feel as if I’d met him before.

“Friend,” I called to him. “I’m sorry, I know your face but I don’t remember what name you use.”

His face didn’t change, but he now seemed troubled somehow.

“It’s Taric.”

I glanced over his broad shoulders and plowman’s thighs. “Of course it is.”

The women in the crowd laughed; taric is Old Tongue for “bull.” Taric’s eyes dropped and I felt his intense embarrassment. Once again I had spoken too quickly, and done hurt without meaning it.

“Well, Taric,” I said. “Would you mind staying with her until I come back? Do you have anything very important to do in the next hour or so?”

“Shriia, I don’t need-“ the woman began.

“I’ll stay by her,” Taric said. He patted the bullock’s neck. “He’ll sell as high at midday as he would now.”

“Good man,” I said, hoping that my wretched memory would inform me finally about where I had seen him before. I seldom forget a face, but I often forget just about everything that goes with it. I uncorked the glass bottle and handed it carefully to the woman. “Here, take a sip of this, you’ll feel better.”

She peered into it suspiciously. As usual, it looked empty.

“It’s all right, friend, I know it looks like nothing but it really isn’t.” She took a cautious sip, surprised to feel the water on her lips.

“There you go. Keep the bottle, and have as much as you like; it’ll do you good. I’ll be back soon.”

“All right, shriia,” said the woman.

Taric said nothing, and merely watched me go.

The crowd parted for me, its members touching their lips and calling greetings. “Life to you, shriia.” “Peace to the little one.” “Idair with you both.” I acknowledged as many as I saw and hurried forward.

I was not happy. It had been years since a child had been taken in the City. Twenty years ago it was common enough, but then twenty years ago even aleasai would attempt it. Since the development of more effective protections most of the small fry had given up. By the time I was learning, this generally happened only when a family had never bothered to take precautions--but I was sure this mother had. The poor seldom overlook the formalities. This case meant a crack opening up somewhere.

I opened the link to Aine to let her know to get the spare room ready. [I’m bringing them in an hour--a taken child and his mother and brother.]

[How old?]

[They’re twins, and they look to be about two years old although I can’t say for sure. The mother’s probably nineteen, maybe eighteen.]

[Idair preserve them.]

[Have you fed the vigils?]

There was a tense pause. [No.]

[Well, for everyone’s sake do.] Sensing her hesitation, I added, [They won’t hurt you.]

[I will, dhiaoc.]

I closed the link and rushed into the vestibule of the Pharc. Ethir was waiting for me. He was smiling, as always, his blue gown perfectly pressed and black hair artfully tousled. He touched his lips. “It’s all right, you’re not that late. Relax.”

“Easy for you to say.” Ethir was then the hottest young law teacher in the Pharc--partly because he was brilliant and partly because he exuded a charismatic enthusiasm that swept everything before it. He and I had worked together in the past, and now that he was teaching the introductory survey he had somehow convinced me to give a guest lecture. Ethir was never nervous, and refused to believe that I was. To ordinary people, I suppose, a classroom full of staring eyes is far less fearsome than a demon from the 57th plane. But if I were an ordinary woman, my life would be very different.

“Is he yours?” he asked, looking at the boy.

“Don’t mock the afflicted.”

“Just as well,” Ethir said, peering closer. “He doesn’t look very lively.”

“Neither would you, if your spirit were rattling through the ether in the company of Idair knows what.” I sighed. “So lead me to my doom.”

“Oh, don’t worry, Theamh,” he said, heading down the hall to the classroom. “I wouldn’t have asked you if I thought you’d put them to sleep.”

“I can put them to sleep all right.”

“I meant unintentionally.” He touched the door handle and shot me one of those smiles that had got me into this situation in the first place. “Ready?”

“What do you think?”

He opened the door anyway. Still toting the child, I followed him in.

The class stood as we walked in. He waved them back to the benches and mounted the box.

“Well, this is the week you’ve been waiting for,” he said brightly, as the noise of conversation died. “You’ve suffered through Property, you’ve dragged yourselves through Contracts and Breaches, you’ve fought through the Five Fundamentals--” There was some traumatized laughter. “And through it all I’ve heard you whimpering, ‘So when does it get interesting?’ Well, whimper no more.” They smiled. “Today we move into magic law, which means that not only do you get to hear about afflictions and thralling and all kinds of other good stuff, but for today at least you don’t have to look at my ugly mug any more.” Their heads turned toward me, responding to his unspoken cue. The child sparked a little speculative curiosity, but they remained politely attentive and silent.

“Yes,” Ethir continued, as they looked back toward him, “today only, you have the chance to see Theamh ni hUlnach in the flesh.” The ripple of startled interest that followed my name surprised me. “And when those of your classmates who couldn’t be bothered to get up this morning find out what they missed, I hope you rub it in.” More laughter. “Those of you who pay attention to the world you live in will already know that Theamh is responsible for a few trifling matters in the shriic line, such as the defeat of Lythril, the purification of the river Ubh, and most recently the freeing of Cacht. What you may not realize is that she is also a brilliant amateur jurist, and I can’t imagine anyone better qualified to introduce you to this topic. So without further preamble, I’ll give the box to Theamh.”

I handed the child to Ethir, who shrugged and sat down with it. The students’ eyes followed me as I took the box. Looking out at the faces of fifty young, eager men in identical gray robes, I was startled afresh by the intensity of their interest. I was still not used to this. I hadn’t been famous for very long.

Behind me the stylus, apparently of its own volition, was inscribing “MAGIC AND THE LAW” on the lecture board. The students whispered and nudged each other. When the stylus finished and flew into my hand, they clapped.

“Thank you. I’ll be writing on the board the usual way, because it’s much easier. What you’ve just seen is what we call uafasi.” I wrote the word on the board. “Any Old Tongue scholars? Who knows what that means?”

A hand went up. “Awful things.”

There was some laughter. “Right, but wrong. That’s the literal meaning, but in magic that term applies to what you might call parlor tricks. Things that are amusing and impressive, but that anyone can do with enough mindstrength and a lot if practice. They’re not what real magic is about--and they’re not what you’ll deal with if you specialize in magic law.”

I replaced the stylus and stepped off the box. “To you will fall the unenviable task of trying to either defend or convict those who have been accused of practicing dark magic. And that’s a different fish altogether. Someone who’s done the reading give me the legal definition of dark magic.”

Another hand. “The use and/or abuse of extra and/or supra-subhuman powers with intent to injure a second party.”

I blinked. “That’ll work.” Scattered laughter. “No, seriously, what you’ve just regurgitated is in fact the exact legal definition. Pretty clear, right? But of course in law nothing’s ever as clear as it looks.” They nodded. “Ethir invited me to do this lecture for a few reasons. One, he knew it would scare the hell out of me.” The admission of fear made their laughter nervous. “I’m a shriia, folks, we tell the truth, get used to it. Two, since I am a shriia, I know more about magic than Ethir and can give you a sense for what’s involved and why sane persons want to stay far away from the whole business. Three, as one of the women involved in bringing our generation’s most notorious dark user to justice, I can tell you something about what the law means to the real world. Or rather the world of magic.

“So let’s start with the basics. What are the premises the prosecution must establish to get a conviction in a dark magic case? Not you, you’ve already gone. You in the gray.” Laughter. “All right, you with the freckles.”

“That the harm was the direct or indirect result of magic; that the accused performed that magic or caused it to be performed; and that the accused intended the harm when the spell, charm or attack was performed.”

“Right. The first is the easiest to prove, which isn’t saying much. When Lythril was being tried on one of several charges of unlawful possession--”

“Possession of what?” from Freckle Boy.

“People. There’s no way to possess someone except through magic, so in that case the first count was incontestable. Unfortunately, proving that Lythril actually performed that magic was next to impossible. The only physical evidence considered conclusive proof of direct responsibility is a scroll with the victim’s name in it in the accused’s handwriting.” This provoked a startled reaction. “Yes, that stipulation does suggest that dark users actually write these laws. Anyone smart enough to do dark magic is smart enough to destroy the documents afterwards. So the only thing we could do is what we usually do in these cases, which was to try to prove that the accused is the only person who could possibly have done this.

“Naturally such a case is incredibly easy to contest. All you have to do is demonstrate that another dark user had means, motive etcetera. So we lose, a lot. That’s something to be aware of. Legal theorists argue about changing the laws, but you can see the difficulties. Magic doesn’t leave the kind of material evidence you’re used to because it doesn’t obey the laws of nature. And witness testimony is extremely unreliable under any circumstances--people lie, people remember things wrong or leave things out by accident. So the core of any magic prosecution has to be shriic testimony.

“Shriias are trained to adjust for the kind of sensory deception magic involves, and we learn how to resist mindforcing. So we make fewer mistakes. But more important, a shriia is bound by all she holds holy to tell the truth. Under any circumstances, no matter how trivial the matter may be. Lie once, in or outside of a courtroom, and that’s it--you lose your fire, you lose your power, and unless you want to join up with the Dark One, your life as a user is over. We won’t lie to save our own lives, so we’re not going to do it just to help out some lawyer.” Good sports that they were, they laughed. “So those convictions we get, we get because a shriia can say in court that she believes the accused is responsible. The finders know she’s probably not mistaken, and definitely not lying.”

By now many of them were scratching away at their tablets. I’d gone over the text so often that I could remember it even with the headache my nerves were bringing down on me. “Lythril is into possession. It would be hard to say what she gets out of it, but she spends a lot of her time trying to get into other peoples’ bodies. So we thought we’d be able to get her through her own expertise. Only Lythril, of all the dark users we knew about, had the skill to defeat the protections done on this particular victim. So when the defense asked, ‘Is there anyone else who you think could have overtaken him?’ the shriia in the box said ‘No.’

“That should have done it, but Lythril’s lawyer--fellow named Bric mac Chlos--” A chorus of hisses. “I see Ethir has you trained. Anyhow, Bric did something insane. He contested the shriia’s testimony.”

I gave it a minute and then went on, hoping the strain from the headache wasn’t showing on my face. “I remember thinking, this man is either dumber than tree bark or smarter than we are. Anyone out there who’s still awake tell me what happens when a shriia’s testimony is challenged.”

A few voices broke in together. “Establish the shriia’s allegiance.”

“By means of?”

“An in-court auralysis.”

“So, they get the witness--a shriia named Lilea--up there, and Morat gets the gessol out and lights it in front of her. We wait for the vapors to reveal her aura...” I folded my arms and leaned back against the board. “And you can imagine our surprise when they start turning black.”

There was a general noise of shifting in seats. Most of them, of course, would have heard some of this story; but it’s always different coming from someone who was there. “I can’t even convey to you the effect it had on that courtroom. Mayhem you’d have to see to believe. Parents pulling their children into their arms, Bric demanding Lilea be taken into custody, the gardai milling around trying to decide whether they’re going to do it, Morat backing up and talking against evil as fast as she can, people just screaming, the presider banging that little--what’s that thing they have, the round thing they hit to open the--”

“Alaive,” from various corners.

“--thank you, he’s banging that rock on the desk as if that’s going to do anything, and I’m looking through all this chaos at Lilea, and she’s standing there with this shattered look on her face and tears in her eyes and I can’t hear what she’s saying because over the screaming and banging no one can hear anything but I can see her lips moving, and what they’re forming over and over is, ‘Idair, forgive me, I didn’t know.’ And that’s when I knew what had happened.”

I realized that I had moved down into the area where the students were seated. I backed up. “She honestly thought that this was an accurate result, and that all this time she thought she was serving Idair she had somehow been serving evil instead, by mistake or I don’t know how. Now that’s the kind of reaction you’d only get from someone who was still true. So while everyone else was recoiling from her as if she were carrying ten plagues and a rabid ferret, I vaulted over the bar, ran up and took her by the wrist. She tried to pull away at first, but when my hand closed around her arm she stopped, and looked up at me.

“And so did everyone else, because as they knew and you know, when two users allied to opposite powers make contact, what you get is pain on both sides. And I’m not talking minor twinge, I’m talking about teeth-rattling, knee-buckling, consciousness-threatening, this-is-what-I-imagine-childbirth-feels-like pain. And neither one of us had felt it. So there were now two possibilities. Either I was false too, or Lilea was true.

“I raised my hand and stood there for a while holding Lilea’s up so everyone could see this. And I said, ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m really hoping that someone falsified that test, because if both of us are on the dark side, well, Idair preserve us all.’

“Morat stood there, unsure what to do. The spectators were quiet and the presider seemed to have calmed down. Lythril still looked smug.” A hand went up. “Yes?”

“But couldn’t you just touch Lythril and prove she was dark that way?”

“Ah, that would seem to make sense, wouldn’t it? Anyone know why this is not a good plan?”

Freckles Boy had his hand up. “Because it would hurt like hell?”

“It certainly would, but that’s part of the job. Anyone else?”

A pale boy with an eager face and dark brown eyes said, “It would only prove that you were opposites. She could have been the true one and you all false.”

“Yes, that’s true, and the one thing I did not want was her claiming to be the only true shriia in the room. I don’t suppose anyone would have believed her seeing as she was never in the Order, but one never knows. But there’s another reason.” The boy looked disappointed. “That’s the common-sense answer, now think like a lawyer.” Nothing. “Come on, Ethir said you’d done the Five Fundamentals--”

“Oh! I know!” shouted a red-headed boy sitting near the front. “It violates the right to spiritual privacy!”

“There we go! It’s a violation of the accused’s rights to force her to submit to any test designed to establish allegiance and any evidence gained thereby is inadmissible. So there I was.” I paused and pressed my hands to my temples, not because I had done that then but because they were really starting to throb. “Up there in front of a crowd of people who weren’t sure I wasn’t evil, with no way to prove Lythril had rigged the test, no way to prove she was dark, nothing to work with. Except words.” I took a step forward and spread my hands. “So I started talking.

“ ‘Women, men,’ I said, ‘I am prevented by law from walking over to this woman and proving on her body that we are consecrated to different powers. That’s as it should be. No one should be forced against her will to reveal herself in such a public forum. Lilea underwent auralysis voluntarily because she is a servant of the truth, because we are required and ready to show ourselves to you whenever it will serve. If she had thought it would prove her dark, she would never have agreed to it. She believed, when she stood up here in front of you, that she was a true daughter of Idair. And I believe she is, if only because I know that to see that black vapor rise around her broke her heart.’

“That much was obvious to anyone in that room who had a shred of sensitivity. I’ve never seen devastation written more plainly on a human face. I was going to hand things back to Ethir, who was prosecuting the case, but he gave me the nod to keep going. ‘We’re used to trusting shriias implicitly. In every aspect of our lives we rely on the knowledge that they know the truth, they speak the truth--they are the truth, as far as we can know it. And now you’ve seen that challenged.’”

I had forgotten the classroom, forgotten Ethir, almost but not quite forgotten my headache in the memory of that evil afternoon. “ ‘If a shriia can be false, what is true? If truth is not itself, how can we know what’s right? How can right and wrong even exist?

“ ‘Women, men...we’re not the truth, itself. We fail, we make mistakes, we are not always what we vowed to be. But truth survives us. Truth is real, absolute, good--it shines through us, and through whatever faulty vessels illuminates the world. It pierces veils. It conquers darkness. It will shine on you, whatever has been done to stifle it.

“ ‘Don’t look at auras. Don’t consider personalities. Look for the truth. You’ll see it. And when you do, you’ll know what Lythril is. I believe that Lythril called for this test knowing she could falsify the result. I believe that I am, that Lilea is honest and that Lythril’s power comes from the Dark One. I believe that Lilea’s account is the truth. I believe that you will believe it too.’”

They were staring at me. So was Ethir. I took a deep breath. I hadn’t known how much reenacting that speech would take out of me. “They believed me, and they put her away.” A general movement of relief. “But it was a bitter victory. It set the single most disastrous precedent in the history of magic law. Auralysis is no longer considered proof of allegiance. Of course, we have other ways of establishing allegiance--but they are secret, sacred rites that cannot be explained or performed in public, and thus have no legal value. So if shriic testimony is challenged--and it always is, now--there’s no way to validate it. In effect, truth has disappeared from the courtroom. It was the worst thing Lythril ever did to us.”

They were silent, most of them not even taking notes now. Krenham against Lythril was still relatively recent news, and many must never have heard the whole story. It was going well, but my headache was still there, and my shoulders hurt too now.

“So what happens now? That’s where you come in. Lucky you. Your generation of magic lawyers gets to try to convict dark users without shriic testimony. Oh, the fun you’ll have.” The laughter didn’t cut through the pain that was starting to spread to the rest of my body. “There are two practical tips I can give you. The first is--” I turned to write on the board; they snapped back into note-taking mode. “Make the defendant lie. About anything. Ask embarrassing personal questions if you must. Once you do that, you establish that the defendant is not a shriia.” The pain was now too strong to ignore. “Two, and I know this seems like a no-brainer, but you must establish that the defendant is a magic user. Everyone for three provinces around may know the defendant uses magic but that doesn’t matter unless you can establish it according to legal standards.”

I had to stop. The pain was making my thoughts drift. The students watched, disconcerted.

“Now, in Lythril’s case...we...”

I couldn’t finish. A stab of pain throbbed through my head and in each shoulder. Instinctively I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Theamh, are you all right?” from Ethir.

When my hands touched the marks on my shoulders my mind rallied for a moment. Long enough for me to realize this was the wrong kind of pain.

“Will everyone,” I gasped, clutching my shoulders and gathering what scattered force I had left, “please leave the room.”

Before I finished the sentence I was mentally reciting the nilachaon. The pain intensified, but it was localized now in my head. Encouraged, I kept up the recitation and prepared to reveal. Unfortunately the students must not have understood the warning, because they were still in their seats, watching me.

I closed my eyes and dug my fingers deeper into my shoulders, focusing energy through the marks into my hands. I felt the drain--my legs seemed to be gone, my guts were cold and quivering--but my brain was still repeating the nilachaon and the pain was now a small burning spot concentrated right behind my eyes. With any luck--

“Close your eyes!” I shouted as I felt it reach flashpoint. “I mean it! This is not a drill! If you don’t want to go blind, close ‘em, NOW!!”

Ethir was the only one who seemed to really know what was about to happen. He put one hand over the child’s eyes, and repeated my warning to them. Fortunately they listened to it coming from him.

The light broke from my hands, crackling around my body in a searing white rope until I felt its tendrils reach my head.

There was a deafening crack, and a flash of the kind of pain that makes you wish you had chosen another career. Then my head was clear, which was a relief. On the down side, the students were screaming and running for the windows, because hovering in the air in front of me was a snapping, smoking, angry mass of black and blood-red light.

I was safe now--the white fire was burning all over my body--but I couldn’t keep up that effort for long. I threw a bolt from each hand; she let out a screech that caused several students to pass out cold, and retreated, slightly. By now I was sure who I was dealing with.

“This is mine! Go back to the body Idair gave you!”

She writhed, but didn’t move. I felt for the amulet I had started carrying around with me after the trial. Holding it out with both hands, I recited the Old Tongue words engraved on it.

It screamed like a thousand winter windstorms. A stream of black and blood-red light shot hissing through a window, and the room was clean.

I touched the marks. The fire melted back into my body. The students began slowly to recover.

My knees buckled and I plumped abruptly onto the floor by the box. For what seemed like a long time I sat with my arms crossed and my legs drawn up.

After Idair’s fire the world seems mute, insubstantial, transparent. You can see right through people. The students gathering in the middle of the room were like glass to me. The boy with the freckles was ambitious but afraid he had no talent. The blond one with the piercing blue eyes would have a bad marriage. The tall thin boy was here because his parents wanted him to be; he wouldn’t finish the program. I closed my eyes.

When I opened them some moments later the terrible clarity was gone. Several of the students now sported gray hairs. All of them were shaken. Ethir himself looked stunned. He was crouched next to me now with a hand on my shoulder.

“What in the name of..” he began.

I was drenched in sweat and I could see the scorch marks on my hands; I was sure there were some on my head as well. “Lythril,” I said.

“What was she doing?”

“Trying to take possession. What else?” I laughed, which seemed to disturb him.

“But--you’re all right?

“Well,” I said after a long pause, “it was a close call.”

“May Idair keep her out of here and away from you.”

“Oh, don’t worry; the specter will have to rejoin her body.” I hoped. “For today, I’m safe. From her, at least.”

I stood up slowly. My entire body was sore and my head felt like an anvil after a long day at the smithy. The reaction was setting in.

“Scoili chanon,” I said, as calmly as I could, “that was not part of my prepared text.” There was some weak laughter. “Any of you who have been wont to make light of stories of possession--yes, you with the shaggy eyebrows, I’m talking to you--can start changing your minds. You just saw the nastiest being that ever wore black try to invade my personal space. Why, I don’t know. Probably because it’s partly my fault she’s been exiled. One thing about magic law--you make powerful enemies. Anyway, I’m going to let that episode speak for itself, because I’m going home. I hope the abridged version of what I assure you was going to be a brilliant lecture was somehow useful.”

The students touched their lips and bowed to me. I collected my papers and tugged my hreapa back into something approaching normalcy.

“I’ll walk you out,” Ethir said.

I had turned, but I stopped. One of the students had started to sing vausha.

Another joined him. Soon a small choir--the whole Dairc contingent, I gathered--were singing in five-part harmony the song of blessing and thanks. It’s in a dialect of the Old Tongue that’s still spoken in the northern mountains, and the text has been handed down from the earliest days after Idair’s passage. It brings back the days of blackness and death, when shriias were few and had nothing to fight with but love and courage, when there was a dark user in every hamlet and three demons for every thatched roof and the battle I swore to fight was just beginning. Faith, love, despair--all blent together and sung over a shriia who has fought a battle. The citizens of Daircri sang it over me after I cleaned up the river Ubh. It had unnerved me then. This time, I was better able to appreciate the gesture, but still unsettled. Vausha is also sung at the feasts of the martyrs.

I put my hands over my heart to thank them. Then I took the child from Ethir and escaped through the door.

“Theamh, let me take you for a bite or a soup or something. You must be shattered.”

I shook my head. “I don’t have time. I have an appointment.” When and with who, I couldn’t remember. I hoped it would come to me. “Besides,” I added, losing my temper as I found some of my strength, “I have to go home and hurt my apprentice.”

“Oh my. I thought you had the pick of the litter.”

“Aine’s got a fabulous mind and a memory like a steel trap,” I said, picking up speed. “Unfortunately, she’s got the nerve and daring of an elderly hedgehog. She doesn’t have the stomach for this kind of life and she’s not making mine any easier. I almost lost my body to the queen of all that’s twisted because the vigils make Aine nervous. Well, if she wasn’t going to feed the thurking vigils she could have told me that instead of saying she would and then hoping no one would notice. Fnaa, death, hell and ashes!”

I was still cursing when we reached the doors. Ethir smiled. “Good to see you’re still yourself, Theamh. That mouth of yours is unmistakable.”

“I know, I’m awful, but thurk it, if there’s anything I’d consider a fate worse than death it’s sharing a skull with that, and I almost suffered it because Aine wouldn’t stand her ground against even a field mouse, if it looked determined and unfriendly. So long, Ethir, you’ve been a great help, I’m sorry I gave a bad lecture and burnt your classroom and made everyone’s hair go gray--”

“Listen. Your lecture was great, what you got through of it, the scorch marks will give me an excuse to push them to repanel that classroom, and in this profession people trust you more if you look older. Even without the battle it’d have been more excitement than all of first term put together.” He paused. “Do you do that often?”

“Reasonably.”

“It must hurt?”

“Oh yes.”

He gave me a long, thoughtful stare from beneath those black curls. His hair hadn’t been affected, at least. Finally, he said, “Take care of yourself, Theamh. People like you don’t grow on trees.”

“Neither did you, Ethir--didn’t your mother tell you?”

“I’m serious.” He put a hand on my shoulder and then, embarrassed, took it away. “You don’t understand what it’s like for someone else. I swear you looked like the other world had already claimed you. Just--be careful, will you?”

“Careful as I can be,” I said cheerfully.

“Theamh.” I returned his insistent stare. “Aren’t you at all concerned about this?”

“Well, nobody likes to be attacked, but--”

“We exiled her,” he said, seeming to feel the need to emphasize each word with a gesture. “The point of getting her out of the country was to prevent things like this from happening. That shouldn’t have been possible.”

I shrugged. “Every net has holes,” I said. “The border does a fabulous job, but she’s a powerful woman, and it wouldn’t be hard for her to make a pinhole big enough to send her specter through. That doesn’t mean her body will be following.” I clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ve got my shield, I’ve got protections, and I’ve got my own fire, Ethir. I’ll be all right.”

He nodded, still not convinced. “I hope so.”

It must have shaken him badly; I’d never seen him serious for five minutes together. I hoisted the child and walked through he door. “Idair with you, Ethir.”

I went storming down the street talking to myself. The sound of my own voice soothes me after one of these episodes, although in this case what I was saying wasn’t very soothing. “Ten of the worst minutes of my young life because the stomachless, water-veined thing that calls itself my apprentice can’t bring herself to visit the thurking vigils. She can recite you the seven scrolls in three living and two dead languages, she can give you the location of every major heavenly body on any given night of the year and she can’t figure out that I feed those things for a reason. It’d serve her right if Lythril did posses me. She’d eat Aine whole. As a snack. As part of a snack--”

“Shriia! Shriia, oinach!”

I spun around. “What?”

It was a young woman in a torn red dress, carrying a child. My tone had brought water to her eyes. Next to her stood a young man with yellow hair and an angry face.

“Shriia,” she said, apologetic, almost whispering. “Shriia, my child.”

She looked at the limp form I had forgotten I was carrying.

“May the spirit forgive me and may Idair someday sharpen my wretched mind,” I cried. “I forgot completely. You’ve been sitting here worried sick and I forgot. I’d have taken your child all the way home and then had to turn around and come back for you. I am so sorry. Come along, and you too, little guy, and we’ll see what the most useless bundle of bungling this side of Jipran can do for you. Taric, thank you for watching this poor woman while I disgracing my profession, you can go sell your bullock now.”

Taric shook his head. “I’ve sold him already. And if it’s all the same to you, I’ll see you both safe home. I live nearby.”

“Really? Where?”

“A smallholding just outside Felim cloch.”

Felim Cloch is a village about ten miles west of my house. It was also, I suddenly realized, where I had seen him before. The image popped back into my head with the name of the town. I’d seen him during my regular walkout to Felim, a long time ago. I could now see him sitting awkwardly on the green in front of me, holding out a piece of rag paper, asking me to read something that had been scrawled on it. So, like many of his fellow small farmers, Taric had never learned to read. I wondered what else I had forgotten about him.

“Well, come along then, Taric. What name do you use?” I asked the woman.

“Mna.”

“Mna, I am truly, deeply sorry--”

“Please, shriia, it’s nothing. I’m grateful you took up the case.” She stared straight ahead. “The medicals were no use, and the guardians just lectured me and sent me away.”

“Lectured you about what?”

“About joining in spirit before joining in--”

“Ah.” Taric dropped a few paces behind us. He was a man of some discretion, evidently. “So I ask only because it may help to know this--where is his father now?”

“Gone.”

“Dead or just--”

“Just gone.”

“You loved him?”

“I thought so.”

“Faithless bastard.”

“I know. But...” She shook her head. She kissed the other child’s forehead. “Ah well. I don’t need him.”

Taric caught up with us when he thought it was safe. “I’m sorry now I didn’t bring the horse this morning.”

“What a coincidence, I was thinking the same thing.”

“You look tired,” Mna said.

“That’s probably because I am.”

“Have you been in a battle?”

I nodded. “My apprentice forgot one of the precautions.” I should have left it at that, but I was still furious. “I could’ve been taken, easy. And it’s pure luck none of those students got hurt or blinded. Idiot. If I had been taken Aine would have been toast, that’s for sure. Imagine the damage that bitch could do if no one realized.”

“What bitch?” from Mna.

“Lythril.”

“I’ve heard of her,” Taric said. “And nothing I’ve heard is good.”

“There’s little good to be said about her.”

“She must be very bad,” Mna said. “Or else she must have hurt you very badly.”

I looked at her. “You’re a sharp woman,” I said.

“The shriia honors me.”

“Mna, my used name is Theamh. Go ahead and use it. You too, Taric. Respect is a wonderful thing in moderation. Anyway, that’s my house.” I pointed into the trees. “Taric, will you come have a meal with us?”

“I don’t see a house, shriia,” he said after a pause.

“No, there’s a reason for that. I’ll have to let you in through the shield.”

Taric shook his head. “I’ve got to get back to my farm. Idair with you.” He bowed and touched his lips, then went stumping down the path.

Mna watched his retreating form for longer than was strictly necessary.

“Well,” I said when she finally looked back, “it’s just you, me and the twins. Close your eyes and cover his.” I covered the taken child’s eyes with my hand.

I found the gate and said the words. We stepped through the shield. To an observer it would have seemed that we had disappeared. But I make sure there are no observers.

“Here we are.” I enjoyed her astonishment. I’m proud of my little clearing, the herb and flower gardens, and the little house made of timber that sits in the middle of it. The forest stands thick around it, green and cool even in summer, and out back is the vegetable garden. Most shriias are far more successful with plants than I am. Until Aine came the garden was entropy incarnate, an asylum for sick, dying and dead plants, a labyrinth of exposed roots and tendrils gone berserk. For Aine even the tomatoes behaved. I don’t know what I do wrong.

“It’s beautiful,” Mna said. “Frih, look at the pretty flowers.”

The child in her arms nodded gravely, then hid his head in her chest.

“He’s shy,” she said. “And he misses his brother.”

“How old are they?”

“Almost two. It’s a little less than a year since their naming.”

“Isn’t he old to be nursing?”

“Maybe. But my milk is free.”

“Like Idair’s love,” I said, embarrassed. I paused at the door to prepare my assault.

I opened it and made noise coming in. “Aiiiiiiine! I’m home!”

I led them through the greeting space up the steps to the guest room. At least Aine had taken care of that. The bed was made, and a little trundle bed had been set out for the twins. Everything was neat; she’d even put a spray of branch roses in a jar on the windowsill. I saw it and all the little touches Aine always put into such jobs and almost decided to forgo the confrontation, but a glance in the mirror changed my mind. My forehead still had scorch marks, my face was still pale.

“Make yourselves at home. I’ll be back after I’ve found and destroyed my apprentice.”

I went to the kitchen. No sign of her. Living area, music room, both empty. The door to the laboratory hadn’t even been opened. She must be in her room.

I tiptoed up the steps and past the spare room till I came to her door. For dramatic effect, I opened it without using my hands.

Aine was too far along to be impressed by uafasi, but this time it got her. She jumped, dropped her book, and retreated as I advanced. She had recognized the battle signs.

“You didn’t feed the vigils, did you, Aine?”

She shook her head.

“Do you know why I feed the vigils?”

“I--uh--”

“Because if you don’t feed them they stop doing their job. Which is to prevent people like Lythril from attacking the spirits of people like me.”

“Oh no--” Aine cried.

“That’s right,” I broke in, “in broad daylight, in the middle of my thurking lecture. As a result, the Pharc is going to have to repanel the classroom, a number of young law students now have salt-and-pepper hair, I feel like the Amstian Army has been using me for target practice, and it will take some fast talking to get Ethir to invite another shriia in for a guest lecture.”

“I’m so sorry, dhiaoc, I’m--I’m--” She was crying, her face twisted and red with pain. My anger wouldn’t hold up, but she had to be told.

“I know you didn’t mean any harm, but I almost lost control over my mind and body today and it makes me a little cranky. I like my mind. My body isn’t much but it’s the only one I have. Besides, if Lythril had won, your own life would have become a lot harder, not to say shorter.” She was sitting on her bed wiping her eyes. I crouched in front of her. “You knew it was important. I told you twice to do it. You told me you would and then you didn’t.” She was crying too hard to interrupt. “I don’t have to tell you what’ll happen if you pull that kind of fnaa after you get your fire.”

“Dhiaoc!” she cried out, as if in real pain.

“I’ve put up with your skittishness around the vigils because I don’t want to make things hard for you, but thurk it, Aine, I draw the line at this. Being possessed is worse than being dead. And I’m the thurking possession specialist. Who else would have been able to cast her out?”

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed.

“Why didn’t you feed them?”

She snuffled for a moment, then shouted, “Because they hate me!”

“How can they hate you?”

“They do! They think I’m useless and stupid and a coward and they despise me and they’re right. I’ll never be a shriia, never, I’m scared of everything and even the vigils know it. You think so too only you won’t admit it. I work so hard all the time and it’s all for nothing and I’ll never survive the Ordeals and--”

She was really breaking up. When she started tearing at her brown hair I grabbed her hands and held them.

“Look at me. Aine.” She raised her eyes. They were puffed and red. “You’re brilliant, you have the instinct and the faith. All you need is to learn some courage.”

“But I’m scared,” she wailed. “I’m scared of everything.”

“So am I. Dark magic is the most terrifying thing in the universe, and bright magic--well, even Idair doesn’t know everything, and we only know what she chooses to tell us. You think any of us can really control what we summon? Once you’ve felt the fire you’ll know different. The powers we serve are as frightening as the ones we fight. Being a shriia means doing things that scare the fnaa out of you on a regular basis. Nobody’s born able to do that. You can learn, just like I did.”

She sniffled. “You really think I can?”

“I do. And a shriia is telling you this. Now come with me and we’ll see if I can repair the damage.”

We went down the hall to the spare quarters. Mna was playing with Frih by the window. The taken child lay inert in his bed, watching the ceiling with his inanimate stare.

“Everything all right?” I asked.

“Wonderful. Shriia--”

“Theamh.”

“My baby...”

“For right now, he’ll be safest here with you. Until I get the vigils back I’m a demon magnet. Aine and I--Aine, Mna, Mna, Aine--are going after said vigils right now.”

Either I looked especially grim or she could tell how scared Aine was. “Is there danger?”

“Oh...pfft...” When asked inconvenient questions, we often try to put them off with gestures. “Just stay here and don’t go near the laboratory. Also ignore any noises you may hear. Except an actual death scream. If you hear that, grab the twins and run like the wind.” Aine moaned. Mna just nodded, then smiled slightly.

“What a profession.”

“Oh, this is the best job in the world,” I said as I left.

“Also the worst,” I added as I opened the lab door.

“All right, Aine,” I said after I had locked us in. “Watch closely, because someday you’ll be trapping your own vigils. First rule: remove all breakable objects. Second,” I added, opening the pantry, “they love food. Bring lots. We have any custard?”

“I made some yesterday.”

“Good. Let’s get the stuff out.” On the four pedestals in the center of the vigileacha we placed four wooden trenchers, and began doling out food. “Shaineen likes those sugary buns...the custard is for Jayla. Phredi’s more of a starch fiend...” Aine produced a loaf of fresh pumpkin bread. “That’s it. Put it on the plinth.” I stared at the fourth pillar. “Zott’s a hard one. I dunno. Try that tomato aspic in the back. He’s not got much of a sweet tooth...so to speak...” Aine finished setting the food out and drew back.

“All set?” she faltered.

“Third rule,” I said. “Don’t let them know they scare you.”

“I’ll try, dhiaoc.”

“Theamh, thurk it.”

“Sorry, dhiaoc.”

“Fourth and final rule,” I said. “Pray hard.”

Aine closed her eyes. “Oh, I am, dhiaoc. I am.”

I licked my dry lips. “Prepare.” Aine grabbed my hand. Considering my condition it wasn’t actually a smart move but I knew I couldn’t have made her believe that. “All right. By Idair’s power and in the name of the spirit which we will never know.”

I sang the song. With Aine’s sweating hand tightening its grip on mine, I challenged the vigils. I abused them for abandoning me. I asserted that I was their Aiv and they were bound to me and only me. I reminded them that I had conquered them once and since then had always treated them well. I invited them to return and escape punishment.

I waited. Nothing. Except that Aine’s teeth had begun to chatter.

“All right, brace yourself.” Aine whimpered. “They must have been really hungry.”

Raising my voice, I taunted them. I dared them to come and best me in my own house. I hinted that they were staying away because they were afraid of me, a mere mortal. I insinuated that they had failed to defend me because they were afraid of Lythril, another mortal. I called them unworthy of the ether they inhabited and suggested that a vigil worth the name would come and fight it out with me.

Aine felt it before I did but it wasn’t long in coming to me. Every hair on my body stood up. Shivers spidered over my skin. My muscles trembled, my jaw clenched. My mouth went dry. They were coming.

“Which first,” I muttered, to keep myself from thinking. “Which first, which first...”

“Dhiaoc,” Aine whispered. “Why is everything green?”

It was true. Aine’s face, the food on the trenchers, the whitewashed floor, everything had a greenish cast. I sighed.

“Because Shaineen’s coming first.”

The green deepened. The room swam in emerald light. Images buckled and ripped as the air shook. Light thickened, bubbling in green globs.

“Form!” I screamed in Shaineen’s language. “Enough!”

Green light licked flaming along every surface toward the pulsing emerald globe hovering in the center of the room. Light poured into a column, green, seething, and so bright it hurt.

Shaineen spoke a strange variant somewhat related to Amstic but with even more hellish grammar. I formed the sentences carefully.

“Welcome back.”

Spurts of green shot at me. It was hard not to flinch, especially with Aine flinching next to me as if it were going out of style. “Care to resume your post?” More spitfire. The column sizzled, waiting. “Don’t forget, Shaineen, I’m good to you. I house you, I sing to you, I know your favorite foods...who else will do that for you?”

She was still, as if pondering. Then a crackling lash of flame seared my arm. I fought the pain. Vigils are fearsome, but no one would call them intelligent. If you act like you’re invulnerable, they’ll believe you.

“Go ahead,” I shouted. “Fire away. As long as you can’t get inside--” I broke off. “No, really. Zap me. See if I care.”

Shaineen drew herself up into her brightest light. She was thinking.

The column poured toward me.

Aine shrieked. I’m sure I looked bizarre enough, glowing all over with a green nimbus. Shaineen was inside me; her restless energy was zinging up and down my spine, through my bowels, around my brain, desperate to consume. There was no danger of that. Vigils cannot possess, they can only defend. Being as stupid as the day is long, however, none of them realize this.

“Is tu liom, is tu liom...” I began. Shaineen hummed with rage, causing spasms in muscle groups I didn’t even know I had. “Is tu agam, is me ag Idair, is i ag an nGhaist.”

I repeated this while edging closer to the buns. My muscles were not entirely my own; they jerked and convulsed and twitched as I forced myself slowly toward the pillar. But as I repeated the spell, the pain lessened slightly. The old words have a soothing effect on the vigils, besides binding them.

I stretched my hands out over the food. Shaineen sensed something was up. My flesh stretched taut over my resisting bones but I held myself there. “Tag is ith is bi liom go deo!”

In a livid, dazzling jade torrent the light gushed from me onto the buns, swarming over them and down the pedestal, then poured straight up to the ceiling, raising a pillar of clear green light from tiles to rafters. Inside the pillar the food began to glow, brighter and brighter until it exploded softly into a star. Shaineen had fed.

I leaned heavily on the table. Aine watched with round eyes from a corner.

“You did it, dhiaoc. That’s amazing. I can’t believe you did it.”

“I can’t believe I’m going to have to do it three more times.”

And indeed, almost before I could stand up again a ball of yellow light warped the air ahead of me. Wearily I switched dialects. Jayla’s was so dead there was no one left who could remember having heard a mortal speak it. Twelve cases and fourteen kinds of subjunctive are perhaps too much to ask mortals to cope with on a daily basis.

“Greetings, Jayla. Will you join your colleague?”

The ball pulsed, quietly. Apparently not.

“I’ve always treated you well, Jayla. I’ll do my best not to fail again. Come back.”

The globe remained unperturbed. I didn’t. I knew she would strike, suddenly, at the moment I’d stopped expecting it. Jayla is a little brighter than the others.

“If you fight me, look to yourself,” I said. “You might do what you like with my body, but my self is proof against you, and it’s my self that does the fighting, isn’t it? And can you get in there to hurt it?” I turned to Aine. “Let her steam over there if she likes--”

As soon as I took my eyes off her she was snapping toward me. I met her face on and drew her inside me.

She was even angrier about that than Shaineen had been. The first spasm knocked me to the floor. Aine rushed forward.

“Don’t!” I shouted. The pillar and its custard looked very far away, but I did my best. “Don’t touch me, it’ll burn.” I was safer on the floor, anyway. At least Aine kept it spotless and the boards were smooth. I dragged myself forward, painfully, still not quite believing this was happening. Had I known, when I entered the scoil, that someday I would be slithering across a plank floor towards a plate of custard with an ancient spirit trying to grill my innards by sheer force of psychic spleen, I might have thought twice about this career.

When I finally reached the pillar, the words had calmed her enough to allow me to stand up. I extended twitching hands over the quivering mass.

“Tag is ith is bi liom go deo.”

With a final wrenching shudder she left me and devoured the custard. The globe hovered above the empty plate, shining smugly. Vigils and food are funny. You can almost hear them belch.

“Two down,” I said.

“Dhiaoc...” said Aine.

I turned. At the sight of the amorphous pink fog I felt nearly faint with relief. Phredi was a pushover.

“Phredi,” I said. “Look. Pumpkin bread. Your favorite. It’s all yours if you come back. I’m sorry I didn’t feed you. I promise to look after you better in the future, only get back there and don’t mess with me, I’m not ready for it.”

The fog gently floated over, engulfed the bread, and consumed it, glowing happily.

“That was easy,” said Aine.

"Disappointed, are we?” I snapped. “Zott’ll make up for it, trust me. He’s--AAAAGH, mac na mhada! Hell, death and blood!”

I said this because the room had unreasonably become an electric blue cyclone of which I was the unfortunate center. Zott’s fire whipped around and through me, passing into my body and out and back in, a process infinitely more painful than simply entering it and staying there. Zott churned the tornado faster, raising the level of pain until I could barely pull myself together to say the words. “Is tu liom, is tu liom, is--YEEEEEAGH!!”

Zott hurled me against the wall. I could hear Aine crying. I couldn’t blame her. There I was, her dhiaoc, the woman responsible for initiating her into Idair’s mysteries, spread-eagled and screaming curses as a blue whirlwind tried to think what else it could do to me. I repeated the words. The cyclone slowed. Carefully, I approached the last pillar.

“Is tu agam, is me ag--fnaaaaaaaa, you SUCK!!” All right, Theamh, so he’s got you on the ceiling. That’s no excuse for that kind of language. Nothing you can’t handle. It’s just like being on the floor, only gravity works backwards.

I wriggled along on my back until I was over the fourth pedestal. I flung an arm out toward it.

“Tag it ith is bi liom go deo already!”

The blue shot in a straight bolt to the trencher. I fell even straighter.

“Dhiaoc! Dhiaoc, are you all right?”

I groaned.

“Dhiaoc!”

“Is Zott at his post and quiet?”

“Yes, dhiaoc. Are you all right?”

“ ‘All right’ is a very subjective term, Aine.”

I was still flat on my stomach where I had fallen. I wasn’t sure if I had broken anything. I was sure, though, that it would be a few minutes before I could move.

“Let me help you--”

“No, thank you,” I said, rolling painfully onto my back. “I think I’ll just lie here for a bit until I’ve recovered the use of my limbs. If you could maybe...”

“Anything, dhiaoc.”

“Heat up some tomato soup?”

“Of course, dhiaoc. Are you sure--”

“GO!”

She went.

I contemplated the ceiling. I know that ceiling well. It had looked almost the same after I first captured the vigils. I know because I contemplated it then too. I’ve thought of putting a mural on it, but I never seem to have the time.

When Aine returned with the soup, I was still there.

“Dhiaoc...”

“What do you think, Aine? A nice painting of the Coming up there, Idair on the left, Sincil on the right over that bad patch of plaster, and the tilu tree branches covering the scorch mark right above Shaineen’s plinth...”

“Can you get up? Are you hurt?”

“Aha! I can move my arm. Well, I know my back’s not broken, that’s something.” I sat up. “I’ll have my soup from here, I think, no sense in pushing it.” I took the soup. My arms were a little shaky but they did what they were told. “Thanks.”

“Dhiaoc, are you going to be all right?”

“I think so. The fall knocked the wind out of me, but probably I was limp enough by then that nothing else happened.”

“Thank Idair.”

“No kidding.”

“Are you angry with me? Because you should be.” I sighed. “You gave me a direct order and I willfully disobeyed it. I could be expelled for that.”

“Only if I charge you.”

“But I should be punished! I put your life at risk! I’m a bad apprentice! Say something! Aren’t you angry?”

“Of course I’m angry! Catch your vigils and then come tell me if you ever want to do it again. Falling from the ceiling is trivial compared to what they do to some people. But now you’ve seen what’s involved, you will of course not do this again.”

“Oh no.”

“See? You’ve learned something. That’s what you’re here for.” I stood up. “All limbs still in working order. Fabulous.” I plumped into a chair. “Speaking of which, since I’m not starting on the child till I get my strength back, we may as well do freagair now.”

“But dhiaoc, you’re worn out. I can skip a day. It’s my fault anyway.”

“Aine, if I stopped your education every time something like this happened it’d take you 90 years to get your orders. And you must have questions.”

We went through to the study, passing Mna’s room. She was in the doorway.

“Shriia, are you all right?”

“Why does nobody ever use my name even though I specifically ask them to?” was my somewhat irrelevant answer. “Sorry. I’m safe, anyhow. In fact, as soon as I’ve had a bit of a rest, I’ll need you and the child in the laboratory but just relax for now.”

She smiled at me. “You relax too, shriia. You look a little...”

“Are the bruises showing already?”

“No...no...” She was giggling. So was Frih. Even Aine cracked a smile.

“What? What?”

“Your hair,” she finally gasped, and burst out laughing.

I looked in the mirror. It was standing on end. And I have long hair.

“It happens,” I said. “As long as my life is intact I don’t care so much about my dignity. Come on, Aine, you can watch my hair settle as we work.”

We sat facing each other across the study table. Aine looked at me, hands flat on the table, eyes bright. Aine never takes notes. She remembers everything.

“By Idair’s power and in the name of the spirit, which we will never know,” I began.

“Bi I go deo,” Aine answered.

“Ceard a bfhuil thu ag iarradh?”

“Ta me ag iarradh shri.”

Freagair, or Questions, is conducted in Old Tongue. For the sake of the tale I’m shifting into vernacular. You’ll thank me for it. “Ask and I answer.”

“Why do the vigils have to enter you?”

“In order to bond. To protect you, they have to be attached to you on the psychic level, which only happens when they enter. Once they’re in you and you say the spell, they’re bonded.”

“But Phredi didn’t enter you.”

“Phredi voluntarily resumed its post. That meant it agreed to reactivate our former bond. Since the others chose not to honor it I had to form another.”

“Why do you have to feed them?”

“It cements the bond. Once they’ve eaten they’re yours--for one cycle of the moon. The bond breaks 28 days after feeding. So you have to feed them before it breaks.”

“Are they dark or bright?”

“Ah. Well...they’re ancient. They pre-date Idair’s coming. Before her there was a lot more ambiguity in the world. The vigils--they’re good at heart, I think. They’re just so appallingly stupid that they can’t be trusted to recognize the good. Often they end up bound to dark users.”

“How do they absorb the food?”

“No one knows.”

“Why four?”

“There are four kinds of vigil--each lives in one of the four encircling spheres and speaks a different language. Not everyone goes to the trouble of catching four. But for a really tight shield you need one from each sphere.”

“And once you have, they’re invincible?”

“I don’t know. But they do a good job. At the very least, they warn you.”

She nodded to show she understood, but there was an unanswered question still in there. I waited.

“Do--do you...” This hesitancy was unusual; generally freagair was the one time that she spoke quickly, deliberately, and without her habitual underconfidence. “Do you know...why she came after you?”

I sat back, exhaling my tension.

“I would say just for spite,” I answered, my fingers tapping slowly on the table. “But that’s the thing to remember about Lythril. She’s got spite, meanness, and cruelty in her, and plenty of it. But she doesn’t do evil just for the pleasure of it. She has reasons for what she does--reasons that always go back to her own profit and the power of the Dark One.” A line of worry had appeared between Aine’s eyebrows. “She hates me, and I hate her. But that alone isn’t enough to make her violate her exile, find a way through the border, and make an attempt on me in public.”

“Then what else is there?”

“That’s what I don’t know.”

Thinking this over, Aine fell silent. When she found her voice it was smaller.

“Do you think...it has something to do with the child?”

“I don’t see how. Lythril’s never been interested in children the way some dark users are. But at the same time...” I sighed. “It’s funny, her making that attempt right after Mna came to me. It could just be a coincidence. But you’ll find in this business, Aine, that coincidences usually aren’t. Idair can’t solve all of our riddles, but she does what she can to give us hints.”

I was used to seeing her afraid, but there was something different about the anxiety in her face and her body as she sat awkwardly forward to put her next question. Something sad, almost something ashamed.

“Will she make another try, do you think?”

“Not today,” I said, with as confident a smile as I could flash. “But I’d be afraid to take bets on tomorrow.” She really was looking alarmed. I tried to laugh it off. “But she’s got better things to do with her time--and so do I. We’ll hunker down and get started on the child, and now that the vigils are fed and happy, she can attack me all she wants.” Aine looked a little more comforted, having seen them in action. “Ask me about something else, if you’ve still got questions. Have you?”

Aine nodded, then came out with it. “Why do you sleep on the floor?”

I blinked.

“I am only bound to answer questions about magic. My reasons for that are not directly related to the magic arts, and I am not ready to give them to you.”

“Is it some kind of discipline? Purification?”

“I don’t sleep on the floor because I think it serves Idair. Probably it’s wrong of me to do it. But even so, it hurts no one but me. Therefore I continue. But don’t you start. It’s uncomfortable. Although the medicals tell me it’s good for the spine.” I smiled at her, but she was unconvinced. I didn’t know if she asked because she had heard the story or if she had just wondered. But she knew enough about me to know I wasn’t doing it to improve my posture.

“What purpose does it serve, then?”

“It serves no purpose, beyond keeping a memory alive. Aine, unless you have another question about magic, I think we’re done here.”

“I’m sorry, dhiaoc.” It hurt her feelings that I wouldn’t tell her. But I wasn’t going to. “I do have one more question.”

“Fire away.”

She gritted her teeth at the pun. “What will happen to the child if he’s not brought back?”

“One of two things. He will sicken and eventually die, or...”

“Or...”

“Or something else will fill the space inside him.”

“And then what happens?”

I spread my hands in defeat. “He grows up possessed. When his body is grown enough to do the will of whatever’s in him, he’ll do something, and it will probably not be very nice. After that the possessor will destroy his body and go back where it came from.”

“Can you bring him back?”

I smiled at her sadly. “Ah, now that I don’t know, Aine.”

After another pause, she said, “That’s all.”

“Then it’s ended.”

We both stood up. I took a deep breath.

“Well,” I said. “Now that I’ve given my lecture, fought a battle, snared four vigils and answered your questions, I think I’m ready to go look for a missing child’s spirit up and down the 98 levels of incorporeal existence. Want to come watch?”

Slowly she grasped the fact that I was trying to be funny. “Naturally.”

“Let’s go then.”