But Raj Ahten has been here, Borenson realized. The girl had given an endowment to him.

When she saw Borenson in the doorway, she opened her mouth to scream. Nothing came out.

A mute who had endowed Voice on her lord.

Almost, Borenson did not have the strength to carry his plan through. He felt sickened. But he was a good soldier. Had always been a good soldier. He couldn’t let the little thing wriggle through the wet bars of the portcullis and summon help. Though this child would die, her sacrifice could save thousands of lives in Mystarria.

He rushed, grabbed the broom from the girl’s hand. She tried to shriek, tried to yank free from his grasp. She clawed at a table, overturned a bench in her terror.

“I’m sorry!” Borenson said fiercely, then snapped her neck, not wanting to make the girl suffer.

He gently laid her corpse to the ground, heard a thumping sound in the buttery—back in the shadows thrown by the lamplight. Another young girl stood back there, black eyes shining in the darkness.

In all his heroic imaginings this day, he’d not envisioned this—an unguarded keep, where he would have to slaughter children.

Thus began the most gruesome night of Borenson’s life.

31

A TIME FOR QUESTIONS

As the horses raced through the woods, beneath the black trees, Binnesman held his staff high, shining its dim light for all to see by. Yet the very act seemed tiring, and Binnesman looked drained, old.

The trees whipped past.

Gaborn had a thousand questions, felt as many uncertainties. He wished to speak to Binnesman. But for now he held back his questions. In Mystarria it was considered rude to interrogate a stranger in the way that Gaborn wanted to question Binnesman now. Gaborn had always thought this rule of civility a mere custom, formed without reason, but now he saw that it was more.

By asking questions, one intruded on another’s Invisible Domain. At the very least, you took time from him. And information often had its own value, as much value as land or gold, so that in taking it, one robbed another.

To keep from musing about the obalin and the loss of Binnesman’s wylde, Gaborn concentrated on this insight, wondering how often courtly manners were rooted in man’s need to respect the Domains of others. Certainly, he could see how titles and gestures of respect fit into the larger scheme.

Yet Gaborn’s thoughts quickly turned away from such matters, and instead he considered what he’d seen.

Gaborn suspected that Binnesman knew far more about the dark time to come than he would say in front of Raj Ahten, perhaps far more than he could say. The study of wizards was long and arduous, and Gaborn had once heard that certain basic principles could only be understood after weeks or months of intent study.