I floated closer to Angina and studied the centre of the corruption of his spirit, a festering red and purple streak that corresponded with the wound from the arrow that he had taken in the White Valley. I wondered why it was so raw-looking when the wound to his flesh had long since healed. The physical scar was an ugly thing, to be sure, for the wound had become infected, but it had healed. Yet you would not know it by looking at his spirit.

Somehow the unhealed spirit wound was the cause of Angina’s sickness. If Angina and Miky were beasts, this would have made perfect sense, for in beasts the connection between flesh and spirit was much closer and stronger than the bond between humans and their spirits. Indeed, most animals were aware of their spirit at all times and those as evolved as the ship fish could actually draw on their spirits when they were awake, even as I believed Darius was now doing.

But this very closeness, which gave them power over their spirits, rendered them more vulnerable, for even a slight hurt to the flesh could kill a beast if both flesh and spirit were not tended. When a beast licked the wound of its mate or cub, or lay close to warm it, it was as much to heal the spirit as the wounded flesh. Human spirits appeared to be less vulnerable to wounding in general, and that must be because humans were less aware of their spirits, and so the link between them was less powerful but also less vulnerable. Of course, given the nature of their Talent, futuretellers were aware of their spirits, but for the most part they lived lives shaped to nourish their spirits and seldom ventured far from home or sought adventure. Nor did many of them realise that they could fly in spirit away from their bodies, for their interest was bent largely upon the limitless inner world, and on the mindstream.

There had been those who had flown in spirit, of course. Maryon had done so, and whatever she had faced there had led her to describe the dreamtrails as perilous dreamslopes. It was her experience of the dreamtrails that had led her to restrict knowledge of spirit-travel among her futuretellers by swearing to secrecy any who blundered upon them. But I suspected that even Maryon did not know it was possible for one spirit to feed energy to another. Indeed, there was little need of it, since the healing of the human spirit occurred naturally when the flesh was healed.

Except now. This brought me to the inescapable conclusion that something must have happened to make Angina aware enough of his spirit for it to become vulnerable. But what?