“Look in the tent and see.”

He turned and ran.

Presently, I went to look too. She had been lying sleepily, nursing the red cat. Now Qwef kneeled by her, his face buried in her neck, and she stroked his hair, murmuring. I heard the cinnamon triumph in her voice, ever so soft.

There was a white scar on her breast, like a sickle moon.

The fluttering heart beneath it had faltered, then drummed. She had come back easily from her sleep—the dark ocean, cheated of her, falling away as the waves had fallen from her body that night I lay with her.

The white bitch had healed Peyuan after the dragon’s blow.

I, sly as she, had healed Peyuan’s daughter.

The circle ended and began.

3

I went to the beach on the other side of the island. Zrenn’s stolen boat was aground on the sand, and gulls were swooping and picking about on the waves. Otherwise I was alone.

It was a fine pale day, without storm or much heat.

I had gone beyond sleep, and sat like a shipwreck there, trying to come to terms with my own self.

It was very hard.

Certainly, I was not as I had known myself. For all Hwenit’s teaching, I wondered what new wells lay untapped within me. What of those strangest of all strange things she had mentioned, the priest gifts: the summoning of fire, the control of elements, the power of flight?

Each thing, perhaps, was there to hand in me, would come at a need. Yet, as the priests had done, surely I must prepare myself, train myself to be a vessel for such talents.

My thoughts went around and around, availing me little. Mingled in them was the image of the white woman, and the dark man, my father. Here was my destiny. I might look no further. I had sworn an oath to him. Find her and kill her, the enchantress who had harmed both him and me. When I thought back to my dreams, to Kotta’s story, to Eshkorek, it was very natural to me to hate her. So my debate crystallized. The tangle of mysteries was simplified to that one aim: his vengeance, my vow.

I stood up, then, discarding the rest.

If I had Power, I would use that Power to achieve my goal. Let me use it, then.

I cast about. How? I had no idea. It was laughable. Here was a baby who could smash mountains, and did not know where they were to be found.

At that moment, I saw the Dark Man, Long-Eye, standing at the edge of the wood, looking at me. I called to him, and he ran up at once, like my dog.

“Lord? How may I serve you?”

I perceived he had made himself over voluntarily as my chattel, having lost his other two masters, and assuming my anticipation of a slave. About a yard off, he kneeled down, and obeised himself. I recalled he had named me a deity, and apparently believed me so. He showed no fear. It seemed that, at the commencement, his race had known gods and no other. Gods had bound and ill treated and slaughtered and played with them. Gods were a fact, as were the sun and the shaking of the earth. Just another terrible reality.