chapter3

Now Merra, no more nor less aware of events in a distant city to the south than of the daily rhythms of her own home, had gone off alone to honor the first day of summer in her own fashion. Not that she consciously recalled which day it was, but it was at this time of year that her footsteps took her a few leagues upstream along the clear cold torrent that flowed from the high mountains.
This was the place where the pack-path coming up from the valley forded the stream on its way to the hidden Sanctuary which perched like a hanging glacier on the southern shoulder of one of the great mountains. The road did not take a direct course, but scampered north up the slopes on the right side of the river before turning back westward to cross the river's upper reaches and hug the forested ridge at the end of which lay their home. Over a wide wooden footbridge the path crossed a deep channel, cut into the rock by the rushing waters where they poured out and fell down a crumbling gray cliff of gravels and brittle clay. And this was the only way up to the refuge, for such had been Silenus' counsel when they fled to the north-lands where the king's word did not travel save as a distant rumor.
Merra sat now on a white rock spotted like a dog by black lichen, which jutted out of the fern-strewn slope not far from the falls and the bridge. The rapids were below her right foot, and the dark evergreens rose up tall and whispering around her, leaning towards the steep hillside as if to keep from sliding down into the churning cold stream. Above and to the left the water came down from the cleft in a curtain that danced with puffs of mist and spray. The path ran along the top of the cliff behind her, and she could not see the bridge, nor where the trail on the far side of it turned around a knife-edge of rock before zigging and zagging its way down into the valley. Footpath and stream both seemed to be hurrying away from her toes towards the paler swaths of green below, where hardwoods stood up from the south-facing slopes and sparse grass and scrub from the north. She could see the smoke from the chimneys of huts far and distant in the valley floor, which was studded here and there by fields and pastures. The lines of smoke gathered together in one place where another watercourse from the south-mountains came down to form a lake.
There was the town of Jebithia, where all the herder-folk of the mountains came together to trade, to have families, to hold festivals, and to shape things by hand that needed forge or workshop and could not be done in the long hours while tending the goats and sheeps on the hills. Merra had looked down on it many times, but she had never travelled farther than the place where she sat now, at least, not in her memory. She always hid herself when any of the hardier townsfolk came up to trade for the vegetables and grains raised on the sunny terraced slopes above the Sanctuary. She did not think about the people that dwelt down below; she did not even think about those lines of grey smoke far below as anything more than strange wisps of cloud. Sometimes she spied a dun-colored flock being driven down towards the folds along the river near twilight, but it was to her no more than a great herd of deer.
Today her attention was not upon the pastures below her, not even upon the small lake that glimmered her favorite blue of sky. She looked east, watching pink-tinged peaks turn yellow under the new-risen suns' ascent, gazing with the child's boldness that does not flinch to look directly at them. She stood unmoving until their light had warmed the slopes where she waited. Then she seated herself and put off her wool cloak and thin scarf to face the suns in a white gown that left her arms bare to the shoulder. As the cool breeze from the upper slopes yielded to the suns, and rainbows glinted off the veil of spray from the falls, and small dragonflies sewed the air over the rapids, and the looming old pines whispered above her, she broke her fast on a spare meal of the last dried fruits of last summer. When she had finished, she brought out a small wooden lyre carved of ash, tuned it, and began her singing.
At first she used the language she had been taught, but most often she kept away from the voices of men and fashioned wild sounds and notes to match what she saw spread out before her from valley to cold blue sky. Sometimes, although she did not know it, she used the tongue of her own forgotten people. She fancied as she sang that the waterfall answered voice and harp, reflecting back her music with soft chords and patterns of its own. Perhaps she was not so far mistaken in this. Eusobeus had often observed of Merra that the more her mind retreated from the memory of them, the more she seemed unconsciously to walk in the spirit of her ancestors. Was it not said they had sung the rocks and stones of this world alive, when first they were brought here by the outcast gods? At least, so it was said in the Sanctuary, where the memory of old tales was kept alive. Merra seldom listened to such stories too closely.
It might have been hours she spent there that day, singing for no ears, least of all her own, when she heard an animal's hooves echoing hollowly on the wooden bridge above the tumult of tumbling waters. At first she did not understand the sound. Perhaps she had heard some other sign of their coming, but perhaps not, for the rushing of the falls was in her ears, and so was the music which seemed to spring from the cleft in the clay more than from her own hands. But she stopped her voice and then her fingers, and came back to herself enough to understand the voices that spoke up above the slope where she sat hidden among the rocks, roots, and ferns.
"I think there are spirits here, father." The voice was very young, probably a boy's. "The weaver wasn't teasing."
The horse's hooves grew softer again, thudding on dirt, and then came to a halt. "Maybe," a man's voice answered at length. "But maybe not. Don't you remember any of Grandfather's lessons? Put no stock in tales until you've seen the thing told, unless you trust the teller as a dear friend."
Merra hurriedly unrolled the thin scarf to cover her face like a veil, draping it around her head and shoulders and tucking the end through at the back of her neck to dangle down her back over her hair.
"I liked the weaver," said the boy.
There was a snort. "I liked her well enough," the man said with a certain heaviness. Then he added, "It's probably only one of father's students. We must be getting close now."
A familiar timber to the man's voice gave Merra more courage; also, she remembered her duty to protect the Sanctuary against strangers. So she stood up on the rock, where her view was not blocked by the small trees that clung to the crumbling cliff where it dropped away from the path. Then she could see a horse's head rising over the edge, and a tuft of sandy gray hair, and the forehead and brows and eyes of a man, looking down to the place where she had been hidden. The eyes widened as she stood, and the man stepped back upon the trail against the horse he was leading. She could also see the face of the rider, a brown and brown-haired lad no older than the children of the fugitives whom Merra sometimes looked after in the Sanctuary.
She spoke softly, for she did not speak often to any save the children orthose who knew her very well. "Hail, travellers from the south. What seek'st thou along this road? For it leads to no town, nor anything but the few dwellings of some lonely mountain-men that have no concourse with outsiders."
The boy pointed at her. "Spirit!" he said, afraid.
But the man laughed and stepped to the edge of the path and leaned over, so that she could see him clearly: an unremakable young man hardened to travel, to judge by his well-worn layers of clothes and cloak, and the few lines that creased his broad face. His eyes were gentle though deep-set, his sandy brows sparse, and there were freckles on his windburnt cheeks, which was a thing Merra had not seen before. "My son and I seek my father, who is, I suppose, a mountain man. He calls himself Eusobeus. Will you not lead me to him, or must I wander the whole way myself? The path seems to have changed, as many things must have during that long winter. But I do not think my father has."
Then Merra relaxed, for she saw Eusobeus' kindness in his face. "No, he has not. And forgive thou one unused to strangers. But thou art no stranger, but Dagus, I guess, from whom my second master has long desired tidings. I will take thee to him." She slipped the strap of her harp over her shoulder, tucked it under her elbow, and gathered up her things. To the animals she left the rest of her meal, and slipped carelessly up the steep wall of clay and mosses to hop lightly up onto the path.
Dagus gave a startled laugh and muttered, "Spirit, or deer?" as she drew up beside him. She noticed the boy gave the man a meaningful and questioning glance, and then the child stared at her again, but only from the tops of his eyes, for he kept his head lowered.
Dagus thanked her cordially and he followed her in silence. For she said no word, and seemed to hold the quiet of the mountain passes about herself, and the veils of cloud too: she drew her cloak around her shoulders and did not take the cloth aside from her eyes and face. He saw nothing of her, save that she was very tall for a woman, and thin, and that her arms were slender and pale, which was unusual even for the north country. So they came that way to the small stable and corral along the stream below the Sanctuary, just as Eusobeus and Silenus were crossing back over the stone footbridge. While Eusobeus was embracing his grown son and his grandson, and begging news and tidings, Merra melted away and disappeared up the short slope to the circle of houses.

Tulli had turned aside at the far end of the pasture where Mercius' four-legged friend was corralled. There was a wooden gate in it here, secured by a stake thrust through the bar which Tulli lifted from horseback, swinging the gate open and then leaning out to pull it shut behind them after they had passed through. Then he pointed across the field, to the far corner where Lia danced nervously in the tall grasses as if treading water.
"All right, call her over--what's that name you have for her? We don't have much time to spare. If I can't get her broken in time for the games at Hippo in a few months, I'll have to hold off for all the summer harvests, and who knows whether she'll still be ripe for running in fall."
Mercius snorted as he hopped down, taking the opportunity to stride several paces towards Lia's end of the field and away from the hooves of Tulli's sturdy horse. "Broken? That's a fine word, sir. You break animals and people, then expect somehow they'll be able to run faster on broken legs, or serve you better with their hands fettered. But Lia's not some dumb beast to be yoked and slaughtered come autumn."
Tulli's jaw dropped, and it was several seconds before he could master his composure. Then he burst into a mocking laugh. "A talking flea. No wonder you darkbloods were wiped out. I suppose you imagine that since you're indispensible to me on this matter, you can also be insubordinate?"
"As you say, sir," the boy agreed amiably, continuing to push his way carefully through the rustling grasses towards the other end of the pasture. The wind stirring them brought the distant smell of sea as it brushed against his face. He could almost pretend it was a peaceful morning still, the suns gleaming off the water and Lia's white shape just one more bright dapple silhoutted against the sea where she paced along the gentle curve of the hill. He called her again, cupping the name with soothing reassurance, and held out his hand although it was now empty. Hesitantly, with fits, starts, and many swerves, she tacked her way up to him, prancing sideways with her body and head turned obliquely to him as she crossed the last few paces.
"Easy," he told her coaxingly, stomach tightening at the nervous grace of the wild creature, as like to the earth-solid draft horse he had just ridden as a fern to an apple tree. "Please. Let me up? I won't hurt you. I promise. Never a spur or a whip." She shook her head agitatedly, nostrils flaring. He reached out with slow movements and began to groom her tangled gray mane, trying to get her used to his hands. Gradually she calmed and stopped pawing the turf, although her ears still flickered wildly, and her skin rippled now and again in a shudder. Choosing the moment as best he could, he planted his palms on her shoulders, boosted himself high enough to swing a leg over her back, and then fell forward across her neck as she bolted.
The first few seconds of the dizzying ride and the speed they were travelling were mercifully too blurred for him to notice, as he fought to hold on and get back his balance without spurring her to greater panic. There were a few doubtful moments when he was sliding off to one side with his arms wrapped around her and his face in her mane with his jaw taking a beating from the arch of her neck. Then he pulled himself upright and held on with his knees, wrapping his fingers in her wild flying hair just in time as she reached the stone fence, twisted under him, and wheeled off in another direction. He barely had regained his balance before again, she had reached the opposite wall, blanched, and fled away. How many times they careened back and forth across the field in this manner he had no idea, but finally her precipitous pace slowed, and he found breath to murmur softly to her until she had fallen back to a fast bouncing walk that would leave bruises he'd remember tomorrow. At this point he simply peeled off, flinging himself to one side and rolling as his shoulder struck the earth.
When he finally ventured to stir and lift one aching arm to peer up at the sky, he found Tulli leaning over him with arms crossed. "Nothing broken?" the man asked with a pointed smile.
Mercius grinned back, the exhileration of adrenalin and dizziness still rushing in his head too much to come up with any sharp enough answer.
Tulli held out a hand to hoist him to his feet. "Well done. Be back here tomorrow morning at the same time," he ordered briskly.
Mercius' green eyes widened even more. "What, you're not going to keep me?"
"Keep you? Why should I bother to feed another mouth, when you've got your own lodgings and roof?" Tulli eyed him with brows raised. "Although things would go badly for you if you disappeared. I could let the watch know that bitch I gave Tamnos had another little friend on the loose."
Mercius sighed inwardly, but kept his smile casual and undaunted. "Here's a good reason. The innkeep's shooing us out within the fiveday. If you want me here, you'd better have a roof and board for me and my brother before then."
Tulli snorted. "Ah, is that it? Trying to weasel your way to a warm bed and a full stomach?"
Mercius just kept smiling.
Finally Tulli flung his hands up in the air. "Fine, fine. You two can lodge with the stable-boys. I expect your brother can muck dung like any man, if his high and mighty ancestry isn't above such things." The man remounted his horse, chuckling softly. "Say thank you, boy. You should be glad indeed that Master Tulli's the one putting you in your place, before someone else does."

Lyra awoke in a nest of cushions piled in a small alcove set in the wall of a tiny room, her back curled against the wooden panels of a closed window. She remembered feeling dizzy, and stubbornly trying to climb a flight of stairs after Apheratos offered to carry her. She dimly recalled an older woman's voice, gentle hands, warm damp cloths wiping away the blood and grime, and some ache-soothing herb rubbed into her strained muscles. She did not remember being carried to this dark little chamber. She sat up cautiously, clutching a blanket in front of herself and shuddering as the simple movement seemed to set the world to wobbling and swaying again.
Next to her was a round table with a cup of water and a stone bowl with a lid. Inside were cool slices of pale green fruit. Gratefully nibbling on a few pieces, she started to feel a little better. The room stopped rocking around her like a ship's hold. Twisting around hopefully towards the faint ruddy light seeping under the panelled shutters, she struggled with her bandaged fingers to unhook the catch and pull them towards her. Peering out at a violet sky ribbed by sunset, she saw that she was in a house at the edge of the city, built right into the fortified walls, and that the rugged cliffs far below her fell away rapidly to the sea.
Cautiously slipping her feet down to the smooth floor, she walked over to the other piece of furniture in the room. There was a wooden stool next to an oak chest elaborately painted with rosettes and spirals. A stack of clothes was folded neatly on the seat; on the floor beneath was a pair of thick-soled sandals of soft leather. Lyra selected a white long-sleeved boy's tunic that fell below her knees and belted it around the waist. She pulled on the sandals, wondering with a scowl who had removed her ragged clothes while she was unconscious.
Finding a basin with real running water in the next room, Lyra filled it and saw for the first time what she looked like. She knelt and plunged her face into the cold water, ignoring the biting pain as it seeped into the cuts and scratches. The ugly burn and slash marks on one cheek stung and did not wipe off, but Lyra was used to having a few bruises. With a touch of unusual concern over her own appearence, she searched for and found a comb. After the wild locks of tangled, dirty blond hair had been brushed down into a uniform mass, she almost looked human. Last she folded the mantle and gown she had opted not to wear, changed her mind and flung them on the floor, and slipped out, navigating now by feel with fingers tracing the stone walls. The water-room led into a bedroom, which she discovered by ramming a knee into the bed's wooden frame. There seemed to be fine-woven hangings on the walls in here, a few chests, and a panelled alcove in which were stored clothes, both a man's tunics and leggings and heavy shoes and a woman's chitons and gowns and mantles. Further explorations discovered a sliding door leading out into a stairwell which curved down and around as if hugging the curved irregular walls of the city following the line of the bluffs. As she descended, she began to hear muted voices echoing up to meet her. Her paces slowed as the voices grew louder, but she did not halt.
The family was dining in the central hall, with torches already lit and the last ruddy streaks of sunset showing above where the ceiling was open to the sky. Two great wheels were set in the wall on either side of the room to bring down large wooden doors that served as a roof during the rainy harvests in early spring and late summer. Below was a broad square pool, around which benches were carved into the marble. In one corner of the great open room, where the light from the torches of two walls met, an upright loom was standing; a middle-aged woman in simple clothes was busy tying stone weights to the strings. Apheratos, Lydia, and young Phidias were dining at one end of a long oaken table running along one side of the pool. The servant's hands froze in the midst of her work as she caught sight of the slight figure stalking towards them in the firelight. Lydia set down her eating knife and straightened in her high-backed chair, noticing their visitor a moment later. The boy dropped his food and stared. Apheratos craned his head around to seek the source of their astonishment and blinked.
"She'll sleep until dawn?" he asked incredulously, pushing back from the table and heaving to his feet.
"The blood," his wife replied in a low murmur, overcoming her surprise. "I had forgotten."
Apheratos crossed the wide court in long strides and offered her elbow his hand, which she silently declined.
"I didn't think you'd wake up so soon," the gruff man said apologetically. "Jelvas and Marcia decided not to stay. Feel up to some dinner?"
"A little, maybe," she answered guardedly, scowling at the red stitching on his soldier's tunic and broad leather belt. Did he ever shed his uniform? But she suffered herself to be led towards the table.
He waved to the servant working on the loom. "Charis, when you have a moment, would you please bring our guest some victuals?" The woman called back a polite, "Yes, sir," and disappeared through another doorway.
Taking Apheratos' seat on the side of the table facing his son, Lyra feigned not to notice Phidias' half-eager, half-frightened scrutiny.
"Phidias," Lydia said sharply. "Lyra, this is our youngest."
"Thinks he's already a man just because he's started soldier's training. Don't let him bother you," Apheratos added, moving his platter down a place and taking a different chair with a bemused smile. "And this is my wife, Lydia."
"Honored to meet you," the matron said with a respectful nod.
Lyra eyed the woman around the corner from her dubiously, assessing her plain but gracious features and simple attire, a practical-looking faded blue gown stitched closed over the shoulders instead of pinned and falling in purple-shadowed folds above her belt and across her lap. The girl's gaze hardened as she noticed the lady's single piece of jewelry, a disc of fired white clay strung from a leather thong and bearing the stamped outline of a stylized wing.
"Did you really kill the ytrix with magic?" Phidias demanded breathlessly. Apheratos gave his son a grimace. The boy clapped a hand across his mouth and peeped furtively over his fingers.
Lyra couldn't quite stifle a smile, although she was almost certain the boy was exaggerating. He was probably no taller than she, and had wide gray eyes and more delicate features than either parent, but his gangling limbs and bony frame bore the earmarks of adolescence outstripping its clothes. Still, she had never been allowed near children since the War, so she could not be sure. She held up her right hand. "I wish I had," she replied. "I almost lost these fingers, see?"
"How do you feel now?" Lydia interrupted gently, studying her with grave courtesy.
The girl shrugged, the motion accompanied by a tightening of the jaw that belied the casual gesture. "Chewed. How should I feel?"
"Lyra," the woman said, cupping the name with a peculiar note of respect that drew the girl's attention sharply. "Would you turn slowly for me, please, and tell me if you feel any sharp pain here." She demonstrated as she spoke, laying the edge of one hand diagonally alongside her ribcage.
The girl complied grudgingly, twisting around sharply in her chair. She immediately crossed her arms over her stomach and curled over, struck by another wave of dizziness. She felt Lydia's hand on her shoulder and concern radiating from that quarter, and forced herself to sit up straight again. "Just a little dizzy," she growled defensively. "Nothing broken."
Lydia's reply was interrupted by Charis' return. Lyra grinned faintly as the woman set the platter before her and yanked her hands away as quickly as was polite, making all haste to resume her place at the loom.
"Thank you, Charis, that's enough for tonight," Lydia called after her. "Why don't you go back and get your supper. I'll call before I turn in."
The woman bowed and hurriedly left the family alone again with their unusual guest.
"I think you used magic," Phidias said with an air of authority. "It was too slow. It should have caught you before you had a chance to jump the wall."
"Oh?" Lyra snorted. "I'd like to see you do so well, if--"
"Enough hearth-stories for now," Apheratos interjected sharply. "Eat."
Lyra lapsed into silence for the rest of the meal, during which the family took pains to speak as if nothing were out of the ordinary. They politely ignored her difficulties with her eating knife as she tore into her dinner, spiced fish on a bed of fruits and boiled barley. Apheratos quizzed Phidias about some of the newer boys in his training school, and shared with his wife some of the city gossip he'd gleaned from Marcia and Jelvas on the ride home. Lydia consulted with him about an accounting matter, some shipments of spoiled fruit sent to the household. At length, Lydia excused herself and her son and shepherded him away. Apheratos waited until they had gone, then took a deep breath.
"You look a little more alive."
"I'm fine now," Lyra replied curtly.
Apheratos snorted but did not dispute the issue. "Good, I was worried when you fainted. Now, what are we going to do with you? I have to go to the Presidian's house in a few moments, and he will want to know what I'm planning."
"It would be much easier if you just had me killed," Lyra suggested flatly. "You wouldn't have to deal with me, and those carrion crows you call townsfolk would be delighted."
Apheratos sighed. "And you?" he pressed, a little bit irritably. "I'm not courting public opinion just now."
"I should have died then," Lyra muttered, taking an eating knife and turning it over slowly in her hands. "But I couldn't give those vultures the satisfaction. My death is my own to choose."
"Death and death; all you speak of is killing. You sound like you've been doing Ilus' work for him," Apheratos growled, hurriedly pressing her hands and the knife flat against the table with his. She whipped her fingers away, but he continued without a pause. "I heard you flaunting your self-righteous martyrdom in that theater; you didn't have to shout. You dodge every kindness and call us callous, and pretend it's a victory when you've found new reasons to resent us. It's easy to blame; it takes courage to survive."
Lyra glared at him with those deadly blue eyes, but he was not in the least intimidated.
"And another thing," he continued, when he saw she refused to answer. "No one lives in my house without carrying their share. You'll be let off easy for a few months, but by the second harvest you'll be helping out like the rest. Lydia will tell you what she needs. And this I swear, you'd better temper your manners, or it will go the worse for you. Do I make myself clear?"
Lyra still would not reply. Apheratos smiled wanly. "Give me time, and I'll give you a home. Give me courtesy, and I'll give you the same. The war's over, Lyra, and I'd much rather have a friend than an enemy under my roof."
In the distance, the horns by the city gates sounded the first watch of the evening. Apheratos sighed and stood, resting his heavy hands on the table to look at her frankly. She dropped her eyes.
"I have to go," he said at last. "You should rest. Call Lydia or one of the servants if you need anything." Without waiting for her reply or retort, he turned and strode off towards the archway leading to the front hall and out. Lyra heard his echoing footsteps disappear on the flagstones. She sat motionless for a long time, then rose and slipped silently after.

"Muck out stables? For Tulli?" Lucien slammed his fists onto his travel-bag explosively.
Mercius drummed out a cheerful pattern on his knees. "It's a great honor, isn't it, Lucien? Founding family, much nobler than Jimnos. And I hear he pays his servants."
Lucien glowered all over his broad, square face. "Idle rumor. What about my smith-work?"
"Tulli has a forge on his estates. You can probably work there. If you do well, he might let you at his anvil." The boy sobered. "Look, I know we needed to move on, before someone caught me. But it's too late now, see? And it's a lot better than it might have been. We'll have lodgings and food and perhaps more money than we'd have made for that one race with Jimnos--"
"Assuming Tulli lets his riders have any of the prize," interjected his friend sourly.
"--and safety behind his walls. Really, I think, this is a better opportunity than the one we were planning for. Besides." Mercius winked. "You'll still be near Laeca."
Lucien snorted. "Very clever. You know damned well it'll almost be impossible for me to catch her without her father stumbling across me, and maybe getting his ruffians to throttle me." He brooded over their scant belongings for a moment: a small store of dried food, boots, a few clothes. Finally he exhaled an exasperated breath. "All right, fine. Not like we have a choice. Tulli's made that quite clear."
"Well then." Mercius slipped off his stool and began gathering up his share of their bags. "I think we'd best get going as soon as possible. It's almost mealtime, and I've heard even the mice on Master Tulli's estate dine like the gods."
Lucien swept up his pack with a bit more enthusiasm. "Hmmn. There is that. Let's see if we can sneak out of here without paying that lizard of an innkeeper." He headed for the door.

"I understand entirely how you feel, Presidian," Apheratos was saying guardedly. "But I can't do it, not without a guilty conscience. You saw the verdict. We can't just have her executed, not after the Lady spared her life."
"Has she bewitched you, or did that cup she threw knock your brains loose?" the Presidian sputtered, choking down his wine. "You spoke good sense in the theater today, but you're not making it now. It wasn't a proper fight. She shouldn't have won by such a trick. The contest was invalid."
"You know better," Apheratos insisted. "The rule says they may use any resources available. Remember Patrocles and his loose brick? You yourself declared that it was divine aid thoughtfully provided by the Master's hand."
"I don't like it," the Presidian repeated, long face growing belligerant again. "Why so keen on this, anyway? I thought you were just protecting your tongue-flapping friend Jelvas. Surely you didn't take him seriously! You saw how dangerous that little creature is."
Apheratos pinched the bridge of his nose wearily. "Maybe, but I'm afraid Jelvas was right for the wrong reasons. The charges were untrue in the first place."
The Presidian scoffed. "Untrue? How's that? If you knew that, old hawk, why did you not bring it to my attention beforehand?"
"Because she was thrown from the block to the arena only a day after it happened," Apheratos snapped. "If your men weren't wasting the bounty and toasting her death in the inns while they were supposed to be on duty yesterday, I'd never have heard."
The Presidiant reached for his seal-ring on the table impatiently. "To the point Commander. To the point. What proof?"
"First, her own account of what really happened." He raised his hands, to forestall the Presidian's skeptical protest-- "Second, what the cook saw. Tamnos paid him well not to repeat the tale, I must say; it took quite a flogging to purchase the truth."
The old man jabbed a thumb at him angrily. "You had no right to authorize that! You will make full recompense to Tulli for damage to his property!"
"Done," Apheratos said curtly.
"I should hope so. How many more honest men do you plan to harm for the sake of this brat?" He leaned back in his chair. "Now, what kind of story have you woven for her? Tamnos stabbed himself in the eye, and the old man died of fright at the sight of blood? That won't do, Apheratos. I saw his face myself, scalded like boiled mutton."
"Of course he was," Apheratos retorted. "Tamnos was back in the kitchen scrounging up more wine, playing his usual games with the serving girls and boys. She told him to put his hands in the fire. Tamnos went after her with a meat skewer. Acis foolishly tried to stop him from beating her to death."
"So Tamnos tipped over a cauldron and roasted him? How did he lose the eye, then?"
"I never said she didn't do that. The girl panicked and bolted, and struck back when Tamnos grabbed her."
The Presidian shook his head. "A slave attacking her own master," he said severely. "This for you is innocence? Look here. Tulli's already dispeased with me for letting rumors spread about his nephew's ruffians, and now this slave-girl's been the all talk of the inns. Tulli's a fine man, Apheratos, with an outstanding family and honor to uphold. I won't antagonize him further; you've done quite enough of that already."
"Still, it would be unjust to punish her after what she's been through. She's paid for the eye, don't you think?"
The Presidian snorted. "So much for those fine words you spoke with all the gods and town as witness. All this proves to me is that she's battered away your wits. If we're not to execute the brat, what, exactly, are we going to do with her?"
Apheratos met his gaze levelly. "I'm giving her Sanctuary. She can stay in my hall, help Lydia and the servants. I daresay I and my wife will make better masters than Tamnos."
"And I daresay she'll cut your throats before the year's done," the Presidian returned icily. "Now look here. I really don't care what risk you're taking for your family. You can't offer Sanctuary. The people will want to know what happened to her, and when the word gets out, it won't merely be your reputation, Commander. It will be lightning striking in the midst of a herd. We barely restrained the riot in the theater after you left."
Apheratos straightened. "I already told you a way. Tell them she's been sent to the mines south of Port Aero. I'll keep her out of the way; there's few but Tamnos who've seen her close at hand."
The Presidian sighed. "All right, Apheratos. If you want the responsibility, take her. But by Daidalos and the gods above, I tell you this: if she ever harms another soul, both of you shall face the ytrix, and I'll see to it personally there's not a loose brick, pole, or nail in the whole theater. Do you understand?"
Apheratos smiled drily. "Oh, perfectly, sir. Perfectly."

Elsewhere a white figure was stealthily creeping down a narrow alley. She halted at the back of several shabby two-story buildings, all of which were locked for the night. Catlike, she sprang and scrabbled up the flaking mortar with a painful gritty sound that would have set the teeth of any passerby on edge. Hooking hands on the sill of a second floor window, the intruder hauled her legs inside and froze in a cringing posture, listening for a long time. Labored breathing through an open doorway answered her, but luck was hers for the moment. The chamber was unoccupied. Waiting until her eyes adjusted, she crossed to the back of the room, full of weights, looms, and loose cloth, and slipped down a narrow stair.
Ah yes. These were the small shops facing Apheratos' house, a shoemaker and a weaver sharing this building, a baker and a grocer the next. Straightway she went to the shelves and chests at the back of the first shop. A large heavy swath of woven wool would do for a cloak; she stole a few bone needles, cord, and metal studs to work some sort of a fastener. A spare square of cloth would do for a second tunic, and here were extra shoes. These were dumped hurriedly into a basket; then she slipped out the back and into the next building. A quick rummage through huge storage jars secured dried fruits, goat's meat, and honey-cakes meant for gods' altars. Every sound was hers to fear, but she moved with a slow, determined patience, as if this were not the first time she had engaged in such pilfering. A butcher's knife and a small jug of wine would have to serve for weapon and for drink. Tying the basket to her back with twine, she retraced her steps, agonizing on the stair up to the living quarters, and leapt out from two stories up to hit the road on the balls of her feet.
The remembered crunch of bone and the cat's dying scream were almost worse than the pain of impact, as the foot she'd used to kill the creature--could it have only been this morning?--buckled under her. Elbows and knees struck the street, and blood surged and throbbed behind her eyes as she fought for consciousness and control. While still half-fogged, she could not squirm away when two calloused hands grabbed her shoulders.
"Little thief!"
"Die slowly," she spat, but the words came out slurred.
"I was afraid I might find you around here," Apheratos said heavily, letting go with one hand to pull the knife from her pack and cut the makeshift straps. As she struggled to face him, he switched his grip abruptly under her armpit and yanked her straight up, almost off her feet, so quickly that all the blood rushed away from her head. Flipping the knife onto the ground behind him, he brought his other hand behind her head to protect it and dropped her ungently against the hard-packed dirt, knocking the remaining breath out of her. Then he turned to the doors of the shops, methodically distributing the stolen goods before each. While she lay coughing on her back and cursing weakly, he spoke to her in a low strained voice devoid of patience that actually drew some measure of sullen silence from her.
"Before we go inside, let's sculpt one thing in stone. You are not going out like this again. I know you don't want to stay, but you can't be running off in the night wrecking havoc on the towns. Not just for their sakes, but yours: you may be next thing to the gods for all I know, but you're still injured, and I'm not the only one out here who could leave you flat in the road. If that weren't enough, you've probably set that hand bleeding again with your stupid stunts." He moved to the last heavy door, setting the basket against it and slipping the knife under the sill. "But I'm not so concerned about that; you can abuse yourself as you like. However, I just put my neck on the block on your account before the Presidian. If you throw the bit, we'll both be fighting death in that theater by next harvest. My responsibility is to keep you away from the public. My hope is that you'll learn to live with that, or at least behave civilly enough that I don't have to reconsider the Sanctuary I've freely offered, at no small risk to myself and my family." With that, he returned, giving her a hand up which she angrily refused. "Choice is yours, Lyra.."
Lyra made an obligatory noise that could have been grudging acceptance or a snarl. When at last her head cleared enough to stand, she limped across the street to the gates of his front courtyard, with Apheratos following at a close march. Lydia, waiting in the house, met her without a word and escorted her up to her quarters. Lyra was briefly afraid that the kind woman would kiss her as she lay down on the cot under the window, and hurriedly rolled over with her back to the room. She did not see the woman smile, shake her head, and slip out. From cell floor to padded prison, Lyra thought grimly, left alone at last with the sound of the sea and her own sullen thoughts.

Lydia's smile had washed away by the time she reached the inner courtyard again, where, as she suspected, her husband stayed late sitting by the pool staring into its black depths. As she took her place on the bench beside him, he still looked only at her reflection, that of a middle-aged woman with long black hair going grey, a square face whose dignity commanded attention where conventional looks failed, and thin firm lips and light grey eyes wrinkled by frequent mirth that was not present now. She set a hand on his shoulder and waited, but his soft grunt was her only answer.
"You finally brought me my wish, husband," she said mildly. "A daughter. Perhaps we could have discussed it more, first?"
He continued to look at her indirectly, haggard hawk's beak of a face bent low over his chest. "I didn't really know what I meant to do, until the moment came."
Lydia simply laughed at him, and reached up to work at the knots that passed for muscles in his shoulders. "You did not, my husband? What did you want the sleeping herbs for, then? In case of headache?"
He caught the care and worry behind her teasing. "I decided to throw away the herbs and bring home the headache. Are you angry now?"
She gave his shoulders a slight shake at the question. "Of course not. You've given me quite a burden, beloved, in the keeping of her. But I will take it. You know me better than yourself." She paused at his wince, and coaxed the muscles loose again before continuing soberly. "But you do realize who she is? And whose?"
He finally turned to face her, and there was a haunted look behind the usually confident, blunt face of a battle-hardened soldier. "Even if I were blind, I would have to be deaf as well, to miss it. She boasted of her father before all the city. The only question iswhether she knows who I am."
Lydia's face grew grave, lines piling up behind the corners of her lips. "She did watch you all through the meal tonight. I think she wonders."
His face sagged further. "Then we'd better make sure she never sees the truth. We can't let her go, and she won't stay if she were to find out. She needs to be distracted from thinking of the past. Can you lie to her?"
Lydia met his gaze steadily, faint disapproval mingling with the sadness. "Yes. Can you?"
Apheratos bared a hollow grin of uneven teeth. "I've served a lie for seven years, my wife, a whole lifetime. What's one lie more?"

Days passed. Merra became less afraid of the newcomer who laughed and raised his voice louder than most of the people in the Sanctuary who had lived for two years or more in the mountains' high thin air. However, it would be a labor of many months to convince his son, whose name was Tavian, that she was not a spirit, and it had not happened yet. Often he begged her to change shape for him. She assured him she could do so no more than she could fly or move mountains, which alone Daedalus had done. And if his questions made her sad and prone to fall back into her fey mood, he did not see it, for she kept her face hidden after his father's arrival. Others in the Sanctuary had looked at her unveiled before, but she had never marked their gazes until now, and they unsettled her.
It was one morning, when he was helping her weed the gardens on the next ridge up from theirs, that he asked her to take off the veil from her eyes.
"If you are not a spirit," the boy said, "why hide your face? Lismene says you have the eyes of an owl."
"And dost thou believe her counsel?" Merra asked quietly, although his question made her hands tremble as she tugged loose the stubborn hardy plants clinging to the good soil they had spread here through years of work.
"No, but Hismone will not say anything, either."
"Hismone does not like to gainsay her own sister." Merra remarked..
"She tells me things," Tavian said stoutly, wiping dirt on the hem of his tunic as his father told him not to do. "Even when she doesn't say anything. Just like you do. Why are you afraid of us?"
Merra stood up quickly, and made haste to move to a new row.
He sighed and went back to prying roots with a stick. "This is your home. Father said so. He wouldn't think of telling you to go away. He said you used to give him nightmares, when he was a child, but he knows your father and his are very good friends, and your father isn't that scary. You don't give me nightmares."
"He is not my father," Merra said quickly, voice dropping almost beyond his hearing. She bowed her head and pressed her lips together, which meant she would not willingly speak again for the rest of the day.
Tavian did not choose to notice, though. "He is too. Close enough, anyway. He's been your father as long as Eusobeus has been my father's father, and longer. That's more than some men. I know you spirits reckon time differently, but isn't that long enough?"
At that, she suddenly straightened and put both hands to her face. For a moment it seemed she was about to hurt her eyes, but then she seized the edge of the thin white cloth where it wrapped around and tucked into the folds of her hood behind her ear. She snatched the veil away and stood looking at him sadly, for her eyes were wide and dark like an animal's (but not an owl's), though not so strange as not to be human. And her face was pale, her dark hair long and smooth where it fell from her cowl, and there was a white crescent of scar over one temple.
"I am no spirit," she repeated urgently. "Listen to me, Tavian. I am lost and know not who I was, but I know this. My blood flows darker, but it is thy blood. My skin burns easier, but it is thy skin. My years last longer, but my people are born and die and--" and her sudden flare of clarity and confidence began to erode as swiftly as it came-- "and bear babes like to thine, and are hurt by hurtful things. We died as mortals die, when the War came." She clutched at the stone clasped at her breast by a long chain. "We died," she whispered softly. "We are not spirits."
He frowned at that, not really seeing how a spirit could not take such a shape as it chose, even a mortal one, but he did not ask her that question again. Instead he put his stick down and walked over to her and touched her hand lightly. "I wished you had owl's eyes. Then you would not be afraid of the dark. I'm sorry about your father." He did not expect an answer, but went down again to tend the animals in the corral, and left her alone so she could work without thinking.

"Lyra."
The girl bared her teeth even in sleep, hands moving restlessly under the blankets.
The older woman set the pot of water down on the floor and sighed. "I wonder what your father would have thought of you, little tooth," Lydia murmured sadly. Then she leaned closer, trying to fit her mouth around the girl's own language, what little the matron could remember of it. "Lady. Accept this honor."
A sudden snake-lunge, and Lyra had burst off of the ledge with a hiss, bandaged hands gripping for Lydia's wrist and elbow and locking on tightly. "Don't name my father. Just don't. I'll kill you."
Lydia put her other hand over the girl's and squeezed gently. "Child, you're hurting me," she said patiently. "Let go."
Lyra stared at her for a moment with features slack and belligerent before the words slowly penetrated. She glanced down, blinked once, and slowly released her fingers one by one. "Pain," she said with a grim smile, "is relative. Tamnos would've called that a caress."
Lydia shook her arm several times to restore circulation, frowning faintly. "I have some hopes that you do not share your last master's manners entirely."
The girl sat back against the wall, retreating into the alcove and rubbing her eyes.
Lydia leaned across the bed and caught her hands, speaking quickly and firmly as Lyra tensed up again. "Shhh. Try not to touch. It's still swollen."
Lyra lowered her hands slowly to her lap, spine still arched like a cat ready to leap out of reach. "You were the one who tended me yesterday?"
Lydia merely nodded, picking the bronze pot of water up and setting it upon the edge of the shelf. "Mind the bowl. It's hot." She unwrapped the cloth bound around the handle and dipped it into the steaming water.
Lyra sniffed suspiciously, nose and mouth wrinkling at the tingling aroma, something halfway between mint and cloves. "What's in it?"
"A few herbs to keep the wound clean," Lydia explained, blowing on the cloth to cool it before wringing it out. She glanced up and discovered the girl's dubious and by now familiar glare fixed upon her. Lydia smiled in sudden apology. "Oh. Your father was a healer, wasn't he? This is vervaine and corsia. I'm sorry, but it's hard to find anything nowadays except cooking-herbs."
The girl relaxed and nodded. "That should help a little, I guess." She stared at Lydia more closely, curiosity finally starting to get past her hostility. "How did you know that about my father? Another stupid story people have been spreading around?"
Lydia did not reply immediately. Setting a steadying hand on the girl's shoulder, she pressed the damp cloth against her eye with the other. Lyra growled and gripped Lydia's wrist again, digging in with her fingernails. But she didn't squirm away, and her fingers slowly loosened.
"Sorry," Lydia said gently, not removing the cloth. "The cut's right between your eye and the bone. It's not too deep, but it's in a bad spot. The rest is healing well, though. One might even say miraculously, though of course, we both know you're not really a god."
Lyra gave an incredulous snort. "Do you mock all your patients while treating them? No, I'm not."
Lydia tooked the cloth away and dipped it back into the water. Her smile was warm and a little sad, giving shadows to the wrinkles of her face. "You were gods to me, once. I remember the tales in the temples, not just the words of envy and malice spoken after they were broken. It was easier, believing."
Lyra made an incredulous noise in the back of her throat. "You don't mean you remember. How could you?"
"Mixed blood," Lydia explained cautiously. "I was a girl not much younger than you, during the war. My father was a priest of the Well."
"Is that why I'm here?" Lyra gave a startled laugh. "You're not still bound by your oaths, you know. You could have spared your pieties and your pains and let me be."
"No, that was my husband's doing. I can assure you, there is very little he believes in nowadays." Lydia dipped the cloth again and began to lave the ugly bruises and welts on Lyra's upper back.
Lyra's features loosened a little more, expression hollow as the woman took the cloth away to soak again. "I didn't realize there was any of our blood in the priesthood. I didn't pay much attention to how the people outside of the mountains lived," she admitted softly. "Not until you came boiling over the hills like locusts."
Lydia clicked her tongue. "I'm not going to get into an argument with you over the war, child; I'll leave fighting to Apheratos. Lyra, please believe me. You are in Sanctuary now, and that means safety, if you can set aside your wounds enough to stay with us. I know this is not the family you miss. But we have opened our house to you, not least because of who you are. I may not call him a god, but your grandfather Daidalos is still honored in my heart. And my husband feels an obligation to do what little he can to aid Actae--" the woman caught herself barely in time. "Kasarchos' orphan."
Lyra clenched her hands at the slip, wincing as the half-forgotten scabs cracked. She stared mutely as Lydia moved to intercept her, deft hands moving to clean the gouges there.
The older woman finally stood and pushed her own hair out of her face, smoothing back the gray amidst the black. "You see? I know your father's old name," Lydia said. "Unless that one too is just a story."
"It was a story," Lyra whispered remotely. "But also the truth. I never thought I'd be denning with his dogs."

"Long ago in the first world, where there were less harvests than seasons, in mountains smaller than ours, there lived a people who lived by hunting. The animals in those days were not all like those here, for they had not the ytrix nor the dragon--"
"Tell us about the dragon!" a child asked, eyes shining.
"Another night," Silenus said with a chuckle, although that was the one promise he knew he would not keep. He could hear the rustlings of someone else coming into the gathering of children, men, and women of many ages and ilks, sprawling or standing in the cozy gathering-room after the tables had been cleared away and the dishes set outside in the stream for the night. Silenus waited until the newcomer's footsteps had stopped at his side. It was Eusobeus, of course; he could smell the faint whiff of wax and wood still clinging to his hands. The blind man smiled, pulled his stool a little farther out from the great stone hearth buffeting him with heat from the crinkling fire, and continued.
"Well. They had the hare, and the wolf who is as to our dog as the ytrix is to our cat, and lions, and the small burrowing things, and boars. Now of all these things they chiefly hunted the boars, for they would not hunt the other hunting creatures, deeming that this was a crime lesser only to hunting and eating one's own. And the boars were great and wild beasts, which moved like a boulder that rolls down the mountain, with a tough hard hide and bristles and hooves like a goat's and teeth as large as ram's horns."
This was almost as good as a dragon, and the children listened earnestly.
"And so they were a worthy prey for the hunters, swift and dangerous, so that the men could not hope to catch them without spears and hounds, and the prey had some chance to escape. And the boars could slay with their teeth of great size. Which they did, sometimes.
"For which reason, a boy was made a man when he killed his first boar, and allowed only then to seek a girl's favor. And the same held with girls and women who chose the way of the spear, although they chiefly concerned themselves with magic, and with making.
"Now there was a boy, no older than some of you," he waggled his finger in the general direction where he knew Tavian was sitting (the boy had just laid a hand proudly on the hunting-knife sheathed against his thigh), "who thought himself old enough to kill a boar. But his father, the chief of these people, would not let him. `For,' the father said, `though you can run as fleet and as fast as I, who alone can overtake the boar up the hill as well as down, you cannot thrust a spear into him with your hands, and take his life at once, and he could take yours.' `That remains to be seen, Father,' said the boy. But Actaeon, which was the name of this man--" here Eusobeus glanced down at him quietly, and set a hand on the storyteller's shoulder, "Actaeon was adamant.
"But the boy took his mother's spear, while she was making spear-heads down by the river, and followed his father when a band went hunting. But though he was as fleet as his father, and might have been able to overtake a boar uphill as well as down, he was not as enduring as the hunters of many years--"
"A year was much shorter there, remember, three harvests at most," Eusobeus interjected, to some whisperings and nudgings.
"--so he could not keep pace with the hunters, who disappeared silently into the woods ahead of him. Their hounds were silent too, while on the hunt, and he could not hear them to follow, and soon found himself alone on the mountainside. Of a sudden a boar went crashing through the brush down past him, as he sat with his head in his hands and his mother's spear upon his knees. Then he roused himself and chased the boar down the hill, and gave a mighty yell as he cast the spear into its back.
"But it struck the spine, and did it little hurt, only wedged into the knobby bones so that it was wrest from the boy's hand. And the boar turned on him. Now he ran uphill, to get away.
"The hunting party turned back their steps at his first shout, for they had not gone far, only silently. Actaeon ran before them, and found his son running up the slope below to meet him. But the son stumbled on a rock, and the boar, wrathful in its pain, gored him where he fell. Actaeon's own spear-cast did not find a sure mark, for fear of striking his son. It lodged behind his wife's spear.
"The boar turned and vanished away into the trees, and no other spear-cast touched him before he had escaped, and even Actaeon's hounds could not catch him. At this, all the hunters cried out in amazement, for they knew it was one of the Lady's beasts, a spirit, or else some other magic thing. But Actaeon heeded them not, for he knelt by his son, and his hands could not halt the wound, nor could he bind it in time. So his son died.
"Now Actaeon was as the boar had been, maddened with pain. Thus, although his brothers warned him that the prey he sought must be no ordinary animal, he vowed to kill it and to take its head as a parting-gift for his son, although that portion in hunting-law is the gods' share. He meant bury it with his son for the boy's eating on his last journey. And he would cast the rest of the body into a pit, where none would eat of it. So swearing this aloud, he ran after the boar's tracks, and none could catch him, for he could outrun even his own hounds, and no man saw him again.
"Actaeon ran for a day and a night, and finally overtook the boar. As it turned to face him, he grabbed the two spears with his hands, and leapt upon its back, and drove them deep into its back. And it fell down dead. Then he dug a pit and cut off the head and buried the body, and started back down the mountain with his trophy, without a word of thanks to the Lady of Beasts.
"But as he came back, he found himself lost, and all the paths strange to him, though he had hunted many days in all directions in this part of the mountains. And he saw no beast nor stream nor man, nor even a bird, for three days.
"And now he was very hungry, and fain would eat of the head, though it was no longer good food for the living. Still he did not eat, except leaves and some berries, which made him sick. Then at last he heard water, and went to it.
"Yet at the water, which was a small pool in the forest which bubbled up from the spring, he saw a great woman standing, dark like the earth, but clad in no raiment. And she turned and sprang up onto the hill like a wild thing, and towered before him. And she asked him, `What have you in your hand?'
"`Please, lady,' said he, `it is a burial-gift for my son.'
"`Is your son a god?' asked she.
"And then he was greatly afraid, and laid it at her feet, trembling. `I have erred,' he whispered. `Forgive me, Lady, for I loved my son greatly. This portion is for you and yours. But I cannot share the meat with all my people, as should have been done, for it is buried on the mountain.'
"`As are your two best spears, foolish man,' the Lady said with a grim laugh, for she is like the land and the wind and the rain, and is not always kind in the fashion of mortals. `But you have shared the meat with my wild creatures, by leaving it on the mountain, so I will forgive you the head. However, it was not right for you to kill the Sire of the Boars, whom I made to run with the Dam and fill the forest with their kind. So now your people will go hungry.'
"`Please then, Lady,' he said humbly, `Make me a Boar, and I will atone for his head that way.'
"She laughed and smiled at him. `Are you swift enough that the hunters will not catch you? For that was why he was the King.' But he could not answer her, for he found his teeth had grown big, and he looked now at her knees. She had changed him into a boar, as he had asked.
"For a year he served her that way. But at last she told him a secret. `The King of the Boars is not that only. He is sire to all my animals, and I am their Dam, whom you have touched and not known. Put off your shape, and choose another, for my Wolves dwindle, and even Hares need new blood sometimes, and the small things, and the creatures of wing.'
"But he fell down before her on his knees, for in his amazement he fled back to his first shape, a man. `Lady,' he said, `It is not meet that I should touch you.'
"`Nay, not that shape,' she commanded. `There are enough humans already. You shall not wear it while you serve me, for there are other gods for your birth-kind.' And he trembled before her, but did not know which shape to take or how, and looked to her for a sign. But she first gave answer to his protest. `How would I be the Lady of Beasts, and love them so, if I did not know the way each lives and thinks and flies and flees? I am Mother of all creatures, for I Am all creatures. And creatures choose mates where they will.' And she laughed again.
"`Lady,' he said at last, `I shall take what shape you bid me, and serve you as you ask. But I ask a boon.'
"`Here she frowned. `You ask?'
"`Lady,' Actaeon said gently, and for the first time he smiled at her in love not only awe, `It will also be a gift to you. Moreover the boon is not for me, but in memory of my son--to whom I never gave a parting-gift.'
"`You have not proved wise at chosing gifts,' she mocked, but frowned no longer. `Ask.'
"`I would make a new creature of the wood, food-beast like the boar, but who uses swiftness to flee its hunters, not only teeth to fight them. And it shall not kill children of men, for it shall be too fleet for them to chase, before they are a hunter worthy to face it. And it shall be beautiful and fair and the color of the Moon when she is Blood, for that is your color.'
"`This pleased her well, for never had another beast a mind such that it might design new creatures for her, since beasts had come into the world. `Show me,' she commanded. `But it will have horns, for the great prey-beasts wear horns or teeth in token of their kingship.'"
"`And he bowed his head, and then, slowly, sinew by sinew, bone by bone, he shaped himself into the first deer. It hurt him very much, for though he could fall back into his man-shape with ease, he had never tried to become something else save through her making him so. But at the last he stood, the first Stag, and his antlers were as the trees of her forest, and his hooves as the boar's, in honor of its speed, but he was slender and fair and red as the deer of the lower slopes always shall be. And she loved him very greatly, as was seen long afterwards, for she took the Deer as her first creature. And in that year, the deer multiplied on the mountains, and the men began to hunt them, and honored greatly the strange wild animal that had run quick as thought into their lives, but could outrun it too.
"But at last one day Actaeon wished to see the humans again, those of the one shape he was forbidden to take. He wished to see how they had taken his gift to the Lady and to them. And so in the third year after he became King of the Wild People, he sought out his own kind once more.
"By chance he came upon a hunting-party, led by his own wife. His heart both grieved and rejoiced to hear her voice again, and the sweet cries of his own hounds, but he honored the law set upon him by the one he now served. He did not forsake the form he wore. And they were coming home from a hunt, and had deer-meat with them, and he was pleased.
"But the dogs with them caught his scent, bayed, and followed. So he sped away. Swifter than any dog was he, but even deer tire, or we would never catch them. The Fates were not with him, for he stumbled on a root and fell, and they reached and tore him. Still he held the shape of the King of Deer, but when the hunting party came upon him, and his wife drew back her spear to kill him cleanly, it was too much to bear. He put aside his deer-shape, and fell at her feet, torn in many places. And as he died, he told brokenly how he had been changed to atone for his affront to the Lady of Beasts, when he met her by her pool. Yet a small but bitter wrong came of that telling, for he had been too long apart from human speech, and his tale was misheard. The story later said that his terrible end was a stroke of the Lady's pettiness, which was not so: for she is cruel, but not in mortal ways.
"Then he died. But lo! Upon his soul's parting, his body took upon it the shape that he had brought into the world, the King of Stags.
"`Then a dark woman came among them, and all gave way to her in awe, although she was small and lithe and seemed but a fragile thing. And she said, `His son shall have his parting-gift, and they shall not be parted.' And she touched the head of the stag, and it came away in her arms, and she disappeared from their midst before they could cry out. But afterwards a stag's head appeared hanging from a tree by the grave of the son, where he had been buried in the forest, and no animals would touch it, though the head which is left for the gods' share is really the share of the People of the Wild. Nor did it decay, and it remained in the forest for a long age, until the Dread Winter