“We have burnt out,” I said, because it was basically the truth and the revethavar took too much explaining.

“Othala Celehar is too modest,” said the Amal’othala, as if he was enjoying jabbing pins into me. “He defeated a revethavar.”

“A revethavar? Those are just in wonder-tales.”

“This one was quite real,” I said. “It was trapped in a tomb beneath the Hill of Werewolves.”

“We would say you were joking, but that seems an even more implausible tale,” said Vernezar. “What will you do?”

“We know not,” I said.

“That,” said the Amal’othala with obvious satisfaction, “is a question for the Archprelate.”

It was well into the afternoon before I was able to escape from the Amalomeire. The first thing I did was find a zhoän and eat a bowl of split-pea soup. The second thing was find Anora. He and his prelates were involved with the registers, but he saw the expression on my face. It must have been dire, for he at once said, “You three know your work,” and came over to the doorway where I was standing.

“What is amiss?” he asked, waving me into his office.

“What isn’t?” I said. “The Amal’othala is writing to the Archprelate.”

“Is this not a good thing?” Anora sat down behind his desk, which was a massive norezhin-wood thing that would probably still be standing here when Ulvanensee was nothing but hauntings and cobwebs. I took the other chair.

“I don’t know what he’s going to say. And I don’t know how the Archprelate will answer, but he will probably call me back to Cetho to find something useful I can do.”

“Thou canst be useful here,” Anora said.

“Can I? I am no longer a Witness for the Dead. What else can I do?”

“I am sure we can think of something,” Anora said. “For it is immediately obvious that thou must also write to the Archprelate.”

“I must? Why?”

“Thou didst say it. We don’t know what the Amal’othala was going to say. Was he very angry?”

“Infuriated,” I said and told him about Tomasaran.

“Why in the world did Vernezar do such a foolish thing?” Anora said.

“He says she begged him to help her. I suspect that he saw a chance to get Amalo’s Witness for the Dead—if there must be one, and Prince Orchenis’s actions suggest there must—in his pocket.”

“He couldn’t know thou wouldst encounter a revethavar.”

“No, but he knows, as we all do, that this is a temporary assignment, and it would only make sense for the Archprelate to recall me when Amalo turned up a spare Witness. And she would both owe him a favor and be easily blackmailed. Nothing binds two people closer than a secret shared.”

“Yes,” said Anora, “that sounds like Vernezar.”

“The Amal’othala has given him penance, though I don’t know what.”

“That gossip will reach me, never fear,” Anora said. “But we have wandered from the point. Thou must write to the Archprelate.”