Dole decided to interject something. “Where those two sets of waves intersected, you got Change-Circles. You can still see the damned things if you know what to look for—or you’re unfortunate enough to come across one that’s trapped a pool of sick, twisted magic at its heart. They’re circles of land that can be as small as a water bucket or as big as a couple of acres, where actual pieces of land were ripped up and exchanged across vast distances.”

Kordas glanced over at his cousin, who looked incredulous. “That can happen?” Hakkon demanded.

“Not anymore,” said Dole. “There’s not enough pure magic around to set off something like that again, for which the Gods be thanked. That story your bedfellow told you about the tree? That was part of a Change-Circle. And if you stumble into one, and you’re not a strong enough mage, you can end up as a creature as twisted and warped as the magic itself.”

“Seen people with their insides as their outsides, I have,” Wis reported, casually examining his wine-cup as if it were of the greatest possible interest. “Can put a body right off their feed, I can tell you.”

Hakkon looked more than incredulous, he looked stunned. He glanced over at Kordas, who shrugged. “If they say it’s true, it’s true,” Kordas told him. He couldn’t get his mind wrapped around it, but if the Circle stood by it, then it must have happened.

“We never lie,” said Wis. “Well, maybe sometimes. But only that we haven’t had enough wine. We never lie about history.”

“How do you know these things?” Hakkon said, sounding a little choked, as if he really might be starting to believe the six were a thousand years old.

“Because, unlike people who let their muscles do all their thinking for them, we read,” Sai told him, as sternly as a tutor who is chastising a slacking student. “There are a lot of books in this manor. You might try looking at some of them—oh, wait, all you know is the Imperial tongue, so I suppose you’ll have to listen to us instead. Now are you going to babble, or are you going to listen?”

Hakkon shut his mouth with an audible snap. Apparently satisfied, Sai picked up where Dole had left off.