But I did not require an arrow. Now, when I barely needed it, I grew aware of the armament I had in me, as I had in Ettook’s painted tent.

Yet it was not the same. On that occasion the energy had used me to escape into the world. Currently it seemed I could control the thing, saddle and ride it, and dismount when I was done. I pulled off the silver skull-mask, dropped and kicked it aside.

Become easy, I scarcely felt it leave me, that sorcerer’s power, by the door of the eyes.

A thin white skim of light over the quarry. The yelling man floundering there let go his hold and flung wide his arms as if to fly, and dropped back among the scattered embers of the fire, and was silent.

I felt dizzy, but not weak; I had contained the power, utilized it, and put it to rest. This exhilarated me. I turned about and found the Dark Slave still standing near me.

His ugly face showed no fear, enjoyment, or chagrin at the death I had inflicted on his masters. But he got down, without a word, onto his belly, and pressed his face in the mud and ash before me. Then rising, still speechless, he sought the murdering skewer, the end of which was affixed in the forehead of a man, plucked off a part-roast rabbit, and loped away with it into the pit of the night.

I had been worshiped as a god, and I had been ignored as valueless.

Two strong liquors to mingle in one cup.

My shoulder was spurting blood. I assumed it would heal quickly and paid no heed to it. Indeed, I was very arrogant about the matter. After this I remember little for several days.

My game with the power of white light had cost me something after all. My wound was slow to close and bled much. Weary as I was, I must have staggered for miles, forgetting the horses or that four hunters remained to seek my trail.

Somehow I eluded pursuit, or else my drunkard’s insane wanderings took me out of the path of it.

I went mainly east, I think. At one point I rambled over a thread of river by a bridge of stone older than the old trees that grew there.

I lost about four days in this obtuse state, and finally came to myself lying by some pool where I had crawled to drink like a sick bear. My wound was healed, and my thickheaded stupidity with it. The air smelled new to me, an open, singular smell, and the pool was salty.

I muttered to myself that never again must I kill by use of a white energy harvested from the brain. But I sounded like a lunatic mumbling there. I could hardly believe any of it, and a sense of reality returned to me only in stages.

3

That evening I met a black witch with a red cat, walking on a headland above the sea.