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4

Sharina watched three Serian healers—an old woman, a middle-aged man, and a ten-year-old girl—work on Cashel's back with jabbering enthusiasm while Cashel sat stolidly in a circle on the floor with his four companions. The Serian male cleaned and spread unguent in the long gouges while the child sewed them up under the old woman's direction. The healers might have been digging ditches on another island for all the indication Cashel gave that he was aware of them.

"I need to go after Ilna," Garric said. He'd turned the belt buckle to his right side so that the long sword lay across his lap instead of projecting awkwardly behind him. "It's my fault what happened to her."

Latias had given them the use of an entire building; its ceilings were high and the louvered walls provided ventilation while maintaining privacy. Trays of juices and sliced fruits sat on little serving tripods beside each guest.

Cashel had described Latias as his employer. The Serian's conduct toward Cashel reminded Sharina more of the deference the Blood Eagles had shown to Asera.

"She's my sister," Cashel said. "Besides, I've gone..."

He grimaced, either looking for a word or disliking the one he'd found. "I've gone other places. I'll bring her back."

Sharina had always known Cashel was strong. She hadn't appreciated how strong he was till she left Barca's Hamlet and saw enough of other men to learn that the boy she'd grown up with wasn't merely the strongest man in the borough.

She'd watched him kill the thing that Meder had become. She'd grown up with a man who tended sheep, and who killed demons with his bare hands.

"It's not a matter of responsibility," Tenoctris said, dividing her glance between the two youths. "Garric, you freed Ilna from a very bad master. That left her vulnerable to another power who needed a servant, but you didn't cause that to happen."

The Serians chirped like a flock of birds as they closed Cashel's wounds. They seemed to speak only their own language; certainly they had no interest in what their master's guests were saying.

"A worse master," Garric said flatly.

Tenoctris shrugged. "I don't think so," she said, "though bad enough. This one is human, or at least he used to be: the Hooded One."

Tenoctris had insisted on pronouncing a healing spell over Cashel despite his objection that she shouldn't strain herself on his behalf, that he'd be all right. Sharina remembered Garric lying torn in their father's inn, with Tenoctris and Nonnus discussing the gods and healing.

Sharina wished she could cry. She didn't know why she couldn't. She would have rather any result than Nonnus lying dead before the throne-room door; but he was dead.

Garric touched his sword hilt. "If the Hooded One has her, then I do need to go."

He didn't seem to be her brother anymore; and yet...Cashel was still Cashel, there was just more of him than Sharina had realized before. Maybe the same was true of Garric, that the things he'd encountered had brought out parts of him that nobody in the borough would have had a chance to see.

Nobody, Garric himself included.

"I can take you with me to where Ilna is, Garric," the old woman explained, "but I can't take anyone else. I don't have the power to take anyone else."

She looked at Cashel. "Garric has a link to the place, the time I believe, where the Hooded One hides. He comes out to do his business, but only through agents."

"People like my father," Liane said. She was beautiful woman, obviously a lady despite looking for the moment as though she'd just dried out after a shipwreck.

Perhaps she had. Sharina, Cashel, and Garric had all blurted the rough headings of how they'd gotten here from Barca's Hamlet, but Liane had remained silent during the discussion.

"I don't think so," Tenoctris said, meeting Liane's eyes. "I believe your father was in the service of another power, a competing power. At the end he served only himself, though. And Malkar, since all evil serves Malkar."

Liane nodded crisply. "I see," she said. "Well, I wanted to know."

"Is the sword what you mean by a link?" Cashel said. He'd listened to what was being said and sifted it for the only question that mattered to him. "Because I can carry it, if that's all it is."

Tenoctris smiled wanly. "No, it's not the sword, it's his ancestry," she said. "Garric by blood and soul is bound to one on the plane in which the Hooded One hides. That's why I can bring Garric to him."

She looked around her companions and went on, "I suppose you all realize this but I'll say it anyway: Garric and I can confront the Hooded One, but the most likely result is that he'll defeat us both."

The smile quirked her face again. "If we're more lucky than I expect, he'll kill us."

Garric shrugged. "He can try," he said.

More than the brother she'd grown up with; but still her brother.

"Garric," she said. He looked at her, a little surprised though he smiled. "Don't get yourself killed for Ilna. She wouldn't—"

Her voice caught. She went on, "Ilna wouldn't want to know that a friend had died to save her. She'd rather die!"

Nobody said anything for a moment. Sharina wiped her eyes fiercely, then wiped them again.

"It's not a matter of rescuing Ilna," Tenoctris said, looking at Garric as she spoke to the group. "Though that too, of course."

She held up a tatter of cloth that Ilna had woven and had worn when she and Garric fought the liches. "Ilna's presence allows me to locate the Hooded One's hiding place. If we only counter when he acts, then he'll withdraw whenever he's personally at risk. We have to go to him to defeat him completely."

"There was a throne where Sharina was," Cashel said. The male healer wound fresh linen bandages around his chest while the child held the ends in place. "Black. And ugly."

Tenoctris nodded. "I'm not surprised," she said. "I think it's sympathetic magic. Wizards like the Hooded One believe that if they claim to sit on the Throne of Malkar, it will bring the reality closer."

She shrugged. "Perhaps he's right," she added. "He's a greater wizard than I am, certainly."

"When do we go?" Garric asked. The careful nonchalance of the question showed he was tense.

"I'll need to make preparations," Tenoctris said. "Powders of various sorts. Cashel, do you think Master Latias will help us?"

"Sure, I figure he can find whatever you need," Cashel said. "He's a pretty big man in Erdin."

Cashel gave a big, slow smile of contentment. The Serians had started to leave. They paused in the exit—there wasn't a door, just offset panels—and chirped in horror when their patient stretched with his fingers interlaced.

Their bandages held. "His ceremony went real well, he says," Cashel added with quiet pride. "The one I kind of helped him with."

"Garric," Tenoctris said. "You don't have to go with me, though I hope you will, since I'm not fool enough to think I can succeed alone against the Hooded One; but I don't think the pair of us will succeed either."

She shook her head in self-deprecation. "Sharina," she went on, "I told your friend Nonnus that good and evil only mattered in human terms. I find that I'm human also. I hope Nonnus is amused."

Sharina touched the old woman's hand.

Garric stood up. "I have to go with you," he said. He fingered his sword hilt, grinned like another man entirely, and added, "Carus and I have to go with you."

Sharina looked at her brother and thought of Nonnus. And at last she was able to cry.

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