《The Bondage of Magics》


 Prologue: Disembodied Intelligence

    The world began ending two hundred years ago. This slow, inevitable end began at the center and stretched to the edges, like a drop of ink in a puddle. A puddle that was dirty with life, language, magic, and worst of all, politics. To the northeast, the arid deserts of Barrid. To the southeast, the wetlands and marshes of Prisnidine. To the southwest, the steppes and plains of Adalaant. To the northwest, the forested realm of Ecliptica and its many fragments.


    All was one horizon away from extinction.


    The Fade was a towering wall of poison, heat, and erosion. A violet, seething mist, slowly crawling across the world and absorbing everything in its radial path. It ate less like a great monster which opens and shuts its jaw, and more like a slime that slowly envelopes its meal, digesting it from the outside. This mist left nothing behind but bones. The bones of people, the ribcages of cities, and the skeletons of civilizations. The ruins sat as if there''d never been color or life in them. They were the only decorations in the bare, rolling deserts of the smoky world within the Fade.


    The Fade was a heap of paradoxes. The Fade didn¡¯t hunger, but it consumed miles every year. The Fade didn¡¯t care, but it did its work more passionately than the most driven laborer. The Fade didn¡¯t sense, but none could escape its hearing and sight. Especially if they made the mistake of shedding blood.


    The Fade was not unlike a reanimated corpse that holds its head in its hands instead of on its shoulders: it uses something else to hunger, care, and sense. A Servant, the Servant, of the Fade. A repurposed human body and mind, which hosts the Fade¡¯s strategy, ruthlessness, and, on the occasions when it has them, thoughts.


    Disembodied intelligence has advantages and disadvantages. Today, a disadvantage came due. The time had come for the Fade to replace its head.


    The Fade withered everything away eventually. Even its own Servant. In this, it was no different from a craftsman who must replace their old tools, for wear or for upgrades. The only trick was that replacing a Servant of the Fade necessitated a window of release.


    ***


    Lady Deledrim sat on her knees in what had once been a throne room, her arms stretched to either side by chains lashed to thick pillars. The ceiling of the palace room had long crumbled to the floor around her. The pillars supported nothing but the purple winds and mists curling by overhead. The proud marble was stained black with death and damnation, along with what curtains and windows remained.


    Deledrim knelt on a long, tattered, dull rug. Her dark hair trailed out behind her for several feet. Her eyes were a green stained purple by her years of service, like her brown skin. The Fade had just left her body and mind. She remembered everything in a completely new light, one in which she could finally think for herself about all the uses she had been to the Fade for the past decade.


    Lady Deledrim breathed quickly. She was finally allowed the unfiltered thought of her deeds as the Servant of the Fade. Her worn and tainted eyes were moist. Her skin scratched with burns. She couldn¡¯t move, couldn¡¯t bring herself to her withered legs and feet, couldn¡¯t pull against the chains binding her wrists in the air. Her hair felt as if it could be blown away like ash. If the Fade left her here, at its epicenter, she would die in hours at most.


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    But she knew the Fade was a better disposer than that. She''d been its glove for long enough. The Fade had planned Deledrim''s own discarding using her mind, after all, just as it had forced her to chain herself here and discard the weapon it had fashioned and bestowed upon her for her tasks. Deledrim¡¯s eyes widened as a figure appeared in the darkness down the rug, at the top of the stairs from the courtyard. The great doors lay to either side of the silhouette. The weapon she wielded was all too familiar to Deledrim, even as it regained its shape from the mists that formed it.


    ¡°I¡­¡± Deledrim rasped, then tried again after taking a deeper breath, ¡°I know you¡¯re going to kill me¡­ no matter¡­ no matter what I say.¡±


    The Servant of the Fade, who Deledrim could now see as she emerged from the dark, was a young woman. Her death mark, denoting the injury that had killed her, rested across her throat. Deledrim once had a death mark, every Servant did. But sooner or later it became camouflaged in the decay of their flesh. She didn¡¯t even remember where it had been.


    The new woman¡¯s hair was long, sheathed and trailing on the ground behind her. Already patches of her orange Adalaantian skin were tainted with something that looked like ash. Her teeth were black. Her eyes looked as though they''d been an Adalaantian purple to begin with. Beside her, the massive axe she dragged on the stone took form. It was as weightless to her as the mists, but as heavy to its victims as a battering ram.


    ¡°That is correct,¡± the new Servant said. ¡°But that never stops any of them from talking.¡±


    Deledrim sighed. ¡°And I¡¯m no exception¡­ who is this girl, who is to replace me?¡±


    ¡°She is the Fade, just like you were.¡±


    Deledrim shook her head. ¡°I was a noblewoman. My lands were prosperous. I treated my husband well. How do you decide such things?¡±


    ¡°The Fade doesn¡¯t decide. Only its Servants do.¡±


    Deledrim shakily lifted her head again to see that the new Servant stood over her, like a frog looking hungrily down at its old skin. With all the energy left in her body, Deledrim found the only words she knew could make the wraith pause. She didn''t even rasp them.


    ¡°How is a Fadewraith chosen?"


    The axe was raised. Deledrim flinched. There was a grating sound.


    Deledrim looked up to see the axe being sharpened. The Servant was running a solid piece of mist like a whetstone across one of the blades.


    ¡°Do you know why few people have death marks?¡±


    ¡°N...no¡­¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s because a death mark can only be cast on oneself, not by another.¡±


    Now Deledrim remembered where her death mark had been. She hung her head. A gesture with ugly echoes.


    ¡°Oh¡­¡±


    The Servant nodded. ¡°You gave yourself away, just as the person before you, and just as this person after you.¡±


    The whetstone vanished in a puff of purple smoke. The servant adjusted her grip on the weapon.


    ¡°I stayed still for too long¡­¡± Deledrim mumbled. ¡°I thought my apathy protected me, but it ¡­ only paralyzed ¡­ me ¡­¡±


    "You weren¡¯t going anywhere else,¡± the Servant said as she raised the axe over her head, ¡°but here.¡±


    With that, the axe came down, splitting the frail husk of the former slave like a log. There was no blood. There was no scream. The chains binding the wrists pulled either half of the corpse their way. That was the last time Lady Deledrim died.

 Chapter 1: Mothers

    The small girl played the harpsichord badly, but it was the only thing between her and the noises being made behind her back. Sadly, her legs were too short to reach the pedals. It was all up to her clumsy, tiny fingers to drown out the shouts and screams.


    It wasn''t all rage. Sometimes the two women behind her would coo or flirt with each other instead. Invariably, though, they would return to the painful roaring and fighting the girl was trying so desperately to ignore. She played wrong notes constantly, and her rhythm was nonexistent. She wished she practiced more. She wished she hadn''t insisted on skipping the easy, boring songs.


    For some reason, the harpsichord was outside, in the open. How it managed to do this without being destroyed by the elements in this green, rainy land, the girl didn''t remember. Maybe they carried it out just for her, and then took it back in after she was done. Maybe this harpsichord was special, somehow. She knew the moons in the sky could do all sorts of strange and wondrous things.


    After some time, one of the voices took on a new quality. A manic quality, as if the owner was suddenly looking at life through a pair of interesting glasses they couldn''t remember putting on. It was the voice of her maamel, or non-birth mother. She had never spoken like that before.


    The girl played louder. Not better, but louder.


    Then, her maamel''s voice returned to normal. She stopped saying frightening things. She was still yelling, and she was still angry at the other woman, but it was still an improvement. A period of peace and warmth followed between the two.


    When the girl''s playing was starting to improve, the other voice gained that easily perceptible manic quality. Her maamvi, or birth mother, was doing it now. She waited for it to pass by restarting the song all over again. Finally, it did, and they were back to screaming at each other in their normal voices.


    Then, there was the sound of glass shattering, and everything went quiet. The girl didn''t notice until she reached a rest, but when she did, the keys stopped playing. They went down when she pressed, but no sound came out.


    The girl didn''t dare turn around. She heard footsteps. Tiny ones. She realized that her legs had extended and could now reach the pedals. Her fingers were larger, and her body had matured. She was still very young, but no longer a little child.


    Any doubt of who was walking behind her disappeared when they spoke in her voice. Or rather, wept:


    "Maamel, please make me forget!" There was a thumping of small hands on a bigger person''s clothes. "I wish this didn''t happen. Please, make me forget! I know your moon can do that! Please, maamel! Please!"


    The girl looked down at her hands. Silver magic was starting to curl off of them. For a moment, she didn''t know why. Her cheek burned, and she remembered.


    She blinked. The harpsichord was gone. She wasn''t out in the open anymore. The voices behind her stopped. She turned. She was alone in an attic. There were no windows, but she could tell it was still night. The air was warm. She remembered where she was. She was sitting on her tiny mattress in the attic of the farmhouse. And she was a slave.


    There was a rune on her cheek. She knew what it was supposed to do. Given that she''d just woken up, could remember what her dream was, and her magic hadn''t gone away, the rune wasn''t working. She didn''t know why, and it might start working again at any moment. She could remember everything. Her name, the town they''d bought her from, all the reasons they branded a memory capture rune on slaves in these parts. She didn''t have time to dwell on all of it. She just needed to move.


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    She couldn''t run; her master had a horse, and knew how to ride it. She would have to deal with him first.


    Gladly, she thought, turning toward her door. The lock on the door was the only thing protecting her master during the night. She had to move quickly. She gathered up a silver charge of magic, stuck a finger in the lock, and thrust.


    ***


    "Where," bellowed the girl, "are my mothers, Derek?"


    Normally, Derek would have enjoyed to have Phoebe on his lap, but not on the wood floor of the hallway, and certainly not with a crack in the azure slave rune on her cheek. In the hand that wasn''t pressed into his throat, she held a festering orb of magic. Like her eyes, it shone a vibrant, threatening silver. It was blinding in the darkness of the farmhouse at night. Derek didn''t want to know what it would do if she slammed it into his face like a rock. Based on the remains of the door to the attic, he already had a pretty good idea.


    "Mothers?" Derek wheezed. He couldn''t get her hand off his throat; her grip was steel. Even though he was ten years older than her. What had happened to her in the night? And where was that music coming from? It sounded like someone incompetently playing the harpsichord, through several walls.


    "Yes," Phoebe snarled. "Mothers. I''m Adalaantian. I should''ve known from my yellow-brown skin that you stare at so much. You kidnapped me and took me to Barrid. What did you do to my mothers?"


    Derek''s mind worked quickly. He just needed to touch the rune on her cheek. He had no idea what she was talking about, but he knew enough to keep her distracted.


    "I told you," he gasped, "I bought you in Aleb! I don''t know anything about your mothers. Phoebe, please ¨C Ack!"


    Phoebe leaned closer, teeth bared. "You lie. My rune cracked, and now, I can remember their faces. I came from Claazent, in Adalaant." She squeezed tighter, silver light curling around Derek''s neck. "And my name is not Phoebe."


    Derek made no words. He tried to signal to her that if he wanted her to talk, she needed to loosen up. The rune on her cheek was within reach. He needed to be fast, and more importantly, she needed to be slow.


    "What ¨C " he said as a smidge of air was allowed into his body, "what is your name?"


    Phoebe opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Her expression turned searching, and when that happened, Derek jabbed a hand up and into her runed cheek. The tattoo flared a painful violet color. Phoebe recoiled with a scream, the magic evaporating from her eyes and hands. Derek pushed himself up as she toppled backward. She clutched at her face as the rune re-assembled and asserted itself. Derek pinned her down beneath him, holding her hands away from her writhing face.


    The slave rune was a basket hanging from a chain, surrounded by a firm circle. The problem, Derek observed, was a hole in the circle. As he watched, it closed itself up, but he''d seen enough slave runes to know this one was long overdue for maintenance. He frowned.


    I had it touched up half a year ago. How is it fading already?


    He looked up at the remains of the door to the attic down the hall.


    And what kind of magic was that?


    Beneath him, Phoebe stopped moving. Her eyes were closed, her mouth hung open, and her chest rose and fell. Derek gazed at her for a minute, then dragged her back to her room, the attic. He grabbed a heavy set of chains and manacles on the way. He didn''t know if that would stop whatever just happened from repeating, but it was better than nothing while he waited for morning. Not that the runewright had any excuse to sleep in as late as he did; damn layabout hadn''t done a day''s work in his life.


    As Derek bound his slave to her bed, he couldn''t help but glance out the window he installed for her. The westward view was dominated by the Fade. The wall of gas towered over his farm like a giant tree. A colossus that provided fruit, but promised to fall ponderously on everything Derek knew. The source of his livelihood, and its eventual destroyer. That was what it meant to be a fogcrawler, to slowly crawl away from the Fade, the source of your livelihood and your eventual destruction. It was no different from any other farmer, who worked the soil to which they would one day return.


    His property secured, Derek rubbed his eyes and made his way back toward his room. He nearly tripped on what was left of the door. When he laid down again in his bed, his eyes were drawn out of his own east-facing window. He squinted at a bright silver moon that set in the east every night and every afternoon. It was a very fast moon compared to its few remaining siblings in the sky. He tried to remember what its name was before falling asleep. He failed; his mind was too busy wondering if he''d seen it dim.

 Chapter 2: Maintenance

    The town of Halfway was named after an old refugee saying about always being only halfway to the destination. It was an odd cross of culture. It had once been a small Barridian village that had fled at news of the Fade¡¯s beginning, despite the Fade¡¯s great distance. In that first week, the Fade spread like wildfire through a hay bale in baskerwol, before slowing down to the crawl at which it now traveled. After the Barridians had fled, refugees nearer to the Fade found it and settled it. They filled the Barridian buildings with Centralian color, crafting, and eventually, art and music. The signs proclaiming the place''s Barridian name couldn''t be read by the refugees, so they were ignored. Now, those signs were all gone, replaced by the expanding buildings of Halfway.


    Derek Dextovis patted his horse''s neck affectionately. They stood at the point between two hillocks where the road turned toward Halfway, and the small town became visible. It had no walls, just a few farms and a wide market square for traveling merchants and farm owners like Derek to try to cheat each other. There they were now, mostly relaxed during the lull between opening and noon.


    The sun, Yu''um, shared the sky with half a dozen moons, most of which were only visible to someone who had lived in the same area for long enough to notice them. One of them, the silvery one, seemed to stick out more than before somehow, like a bottle that''s been facing backward in the pantry for years which now faces toward the door for some reason.


    Derek didn''t notice. His mind was on the incident last night, and the unconscious girl slung across the back of his horse.


    Derek wasn''t bad at market, no matter what his late mother and father said. In fact, that was proof enough to him that he surpassed both of them. He just didn''t enjoy it, because at one point or another, he always had to deal with the damned runewright.


    "Well, Clopper," he said, gently kicking the beast''s sides. "Let''s trot into the thieves'' den."


    Derek hated runewrights. Everyone did. They always charged too much, did shoddy work when they could get away with it, and always acted like they had people by the balls. And in a way, they did. At least they did in Barrid, where the damn crown kept making it harder for new ones to be trained and restricting access to moon shards. If a fogcrawler village was lucky enough to have a runewright set up shop, they had to act right if he was going to stay. And if a runewright stayed in the same place long enough, he got settled in all the wrong ways. Hired guards, scaring off others of his kind. A runewright was practically a baron, if he played his cards right, and runomancy was an excellent hand all by itself.


    And the Crown''s a whole desert away, Derek thought bitterly as he slid off his horse. Close enough to tax us, but not close enough to deal with these damned mages. Whole chain of parasites, and I''m at the bottom.


    Derek strode down the "thoroughfare" of Halfway, his slave bouncing gently behind the saddle as the horse clopped along. She wouldn''t awaken for several hours; that was one of the many uses of a quality slave rune. The purple thing sizzled occasionally on her cheek whenever it appeared she might awaken, and she went right back to slumber. The thing was like a cattle brand with extra utilities. It controlled her memories so she didn''t know where to run back to, it could be used to sedate her, and it could even be used to inflict pain when necessary.


    Derek arrived in front of the runewright''s shop. Unlike most of the merchants here, he didn''t stand outside and call out his wares for attention. He didn''t need to. Arrogant prick. All he needed was the sign above the door, which proclaimed, in perfect spelling, "Runewright: Runes, Engrams, Written Magics for Sale at Reasonable Price". It even had a decorative slave rune, and a contraceptive rune. The two most popular runes in a place like Halfway. One of these days, Derek was going to rewrite the sign, once Derek figured out how to spell the swear words his father brought home from the legion. And if he could ever sneak past the pair of guards the mage employed, eyeing him as he approached.


    Having tied Clopper to the hitching post, Derek reached up and slid Phoebe off the back. She stirred momentarily before the rune kicked in. Derek held her in his hands like he''d seen his father hold his mother. Whatever he thought of them, the chicken farmers'' son had to admit they must have loved each other. It felt good to hold Phoebe the same way. He loved her too, after all. He just so happened to need a slave at the same time, with his father and mother gone.


    Derek gazed at Phoebe''s beautiful features. She did indeed have that distinctive yellow-brown tint to her skin, marking her as a narubati woman. While most narubati did live in and around Adalaant, along with the yaglids, that was the opposite side of the Fade from here. The previous owner told Derek she was just a kid from a failing orphanage in Aleb. He highly doubted she was actually all the way from Adalaant, but after last night, it was difficult to know anything about her for certain.


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    Derek''s eyes kept coming back to the rune on her cheek, especially the imperfections he was here to have addressed. When he purchased her several miles north, in Aleb, his father was angry. He accused Derek of purchasing her because she was pretty, not because she could work hard. As it turned out, she could indeed work hard, but Derek was without shame in admitting his father was correct. That''s what he got for sending a boy he gave no time to meet a girl "properly", as mother would put it.


    Derek''s eyes wandered downward on Phoebe''s sleeping form.


    Perhaps I oughta have the ¡­ other rune checked, too, he thought. Certainly don''t need any kids yet. Not before she''s ready for the slave rune to come off.


    Derek walked up the step to the mage''s house, and kicked at the door with his foot. Some people knocked with their knuckles, but not Barridians. It implied their hands didn''t have anything better to do, and Derek''s definitely did.


    But of course, the runewright couldn''t be bothered to open the door himself.


    "Come in," he called through the wood. Derek closed his eyes and counted to three. It wasn''t smart to deal with someone when angry. It just made Derek more likely to make mistakes.


    After an annoying sequence of gently laying Phoebe against the wall, opening the door, and lifting her up again, Derek sidled into the cramped space of the runewright''s shop.


    Everything about the way Mr. Kebbik the Runewright looked made Derek angry. He had not two, but three chins. His wardrobe took Derek''s neighbor, the cotton farmer, a year''s harvest to make. His fingers had enough rings to impress a Jel-Hangan polygamist. His hands and skin revealed to any honest man that this was not someone who knew which end of a plow to hold. Derek had only met three runewrights in his life, and the only one that hadn''t gone to fat was the youngest. He''d looked well on his way there. Derek was pretty sure Kebbik never went out the door.


    But perhaps the thing that made Derek seethe the most was his hair, which had the audacity to stretch past his shoulders. Even at the Fade edge of Barrid, hair length was an important symbol of status. Slaves like Phoebe were bald, while monarchs'' dragged on the ground behind them in a protective sheathe akin to a crown. A free farmer like Derek''s hair was short and respectable. A runewright who knew his place only let it go past his ears at best.


    The inside of the shop matched its owner. Replicas, models, and drawings of various runes for sale cluttered the desk and the walls. Trinkets and the like were scattered in the display. Most of those, Derek knew, had once been heirlooms that farmers around here gave up to pay Kebbik''s service fees. One of them was a hair sheathe his father once wore. If the building caught fire and nothing was rescued, Halfway and the surrounding farmland would lose more property than Aleb would if its bank collapsed. It gave the impression of an Ecliptican vampire''s blood hoard. A parasite''s collection. Derek wasn''t sure whether to rank Kebbik one step below or above one of those creatures.


    "Ah, Mr. Dextovis," the mage greeted from behind his counter, offering his hand to shake but not standing up. His voice sounded like it washed in the fat of his chin before exiting his lips.


    My hands, Derek barely kept himself from snarling, are still. Fucking. Full. You dolt.


    Derek didn''t shake the proffered hand, just stared at it until the merchant got the message and leaned back with much more grace than should''ve been possible. The huge, cushioned chair probably helped.


    "So," Kebbik said, in his expensive voice. "What do you need me for today, man? Slave rune need maintenance? Perhaps there''s a young lady who''s finally interested in you, and you need a rune on you for some ¡­ mechanical assistance?"


    Derek knew Kebbik was trying to make him uncomfortable. Uncomfortable people are easier for a merchant to squeeze. But Derek was a farmer, and it would take more than sex advice to get under his skin.


    Derek pulled up a chair for sitting rune recipients in, and gently laid Phoebe in it. Her head lolled to one side, and he corrected it so the purple rune on her cheek faced Kebbik.


    "I had this touched up at the beginning of this caskerwol season," Derek said. "It was supposed to last the rest of the Yu''um year and into the next. But last night, it started giving me issues. See this?" Derek tapped gently on the place where the circle border of the symbol broke. "What gives, mage? Losin'' your edge?"


    Kebbik frowned. He leaned forward, selecting a pair of glasses so he wouldn''t have to stand up. His chair creaked beneath him, and then so did his desk.


    "Hm," he said after a moment. "You seem to have weakened it somehow."


    "I did nothing of the sort," Derek replied. "Do I look like a splendomancer?"


    Kebbik sat back, setting down his glasses. "No, but you do look like a farmer."


    "And?"


    "And farmers often break things they don''t understand."


    Derek rolled his eyes. "The best swordsman in the world is still at the mercy of his blacksmith''s competence. Just fix the rune and I''ll get out of your hair. My account says I get unlimited touch-ups during caskerwol."


    Kebbik considered, which was annoying because the only thing he could be considering was how to extract money from somebody who''d already paid him in advance.


    "And don''t fuck up her skin this time," Derek added. "Last time, you ¨C "


    "Yes, yes," Kebbik waved him aside. "I know her beauty matters a lot to you, young man. I remember the other rune you''ve purchased for her. Now then, let me check your account and we can get to work."

 Chapter 3: Beetle Bite

    Phoebe let out a deep sigh of exhaustion and sat back on her haunches in the course earth. She removed her shoes and set them next to her basket, which sagged under the weight of its bulbous green contents.


    The title of "least favorite part of being a slave" was a competitive one, but only when Derek wasn''t around. Right now, she struggled to choose between the cuts and scratches on her hands from harvesting fade-talents, and the burns. Every so often, the big wall of gas less than a mile away from her would shower little specks of itself, and if it touched the skin, it felt like garlic in a cut. At least for Phoebe, the burns didn''t stick. They just faded away after a few minutes. For the other slaves, the ones Derek didn''t own who worked the fields north and south of his, those burns were permanent. She didn''t know why she was different, but she certainly didn''t make a big deal about it. The less unique a slave was, the better.


    Phoebe was too unique as it was. Her lack of scars continued to draw Derek''s eye. She wore a slave dress sewn for her as a gift from him. A reward for a particularly good harvest a year ago, which revealed more than anything she''d seen another fogcrawler slave wear. He knew she could shrug off the burns from the Fade, and this was one way he took thorough advantage of her uniqueness.


    At least she could be alone when she worked, and didn''t have to deal with other slaves competing for resources from her master. The majority of Phoebe''s experience with other slaves was the fact that they would turn her in if she wandered north or south, off her designated plot and into theirs. The rewards, and more importantly the punishments for failing to do so, turned them into pitiable versions of the slave catchers she knew all too well. Euffie was not a complacent slave, and she never would be if she had anything to say about it. She got herself through most days by scheming to get her rune off, and trying not to think about how many plans she¡¯d already lost, wiped away in rune maintenance visits.


    A mosquito landed on her collarbone. Phoebe crushed it without thinking. She took a deep breath, and exhaled, letting the dry air wash over her aching muscles as soothingly as it could. Phoebe ran a hand over her bald head, wiping off sweat that had accumulated there. It was useless; next to the Fade, the wind hardly ever blew. All it did was make Phoebe feel even stickier than the nadderfruit between her fingers already did. Nadderfruit was one of Derek''s favorite fade-talents, and that made the stickiness even worse. Euffie would almost have preferred harvesting a different talent, something else that only seemed to appear at the edges of the Fade, like zukern metal. At the very least, it would give her practice swinging a sharp object, and she could definitely think of ways that would be useful.


    "Rather be digging for black diamonds than these," Phoebe muttered. The day was almost over, and so was the nadderfruit season. Just a little longer until sundown, and then all she had left to do were the chickens. At least it was still caskerwol, the half of the year when there was a night time, and not just one sun setting as the other rose. She looked forward to that cool night breeze, from the inside of her attic window.


    Just as Phoebe gathered herself enough to finish work for the day, a beetle bit her foot all the way to the title of "least favorite part of being a slave". She screamed and kicked back at it. She rose to her feet and promptly collapsed as she stepped on the bitten toe. Through blurry eyes, she saw the beetle scurry away into the dirt, down a hole she''d been sitting directly on top of.


    "Agh ¡­ " she moaned, laying her foot across her lap and pulling it close. "How ¨C the hell ¨C does a bug that big fit ¨C in such a tiny hole?"


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    Phoebe rocked back and forth, nursing the foot. She pulled her sandals close, but didn''t put them on yet. She still had fruit to pick; the basket was heavy, but had enough space left that Derek would have questions. Possibly punishments. He was already on edge since this morning, and she didn''t know why. He''d chained her up in her room, again. He''d done that all throughout this year''s baskerwol.


    Phoebe felt tears welling up in her eyes again, even as the pain subsided somewhat. She was in no condition to walk. Barridian beetle venom was mostly harmless, after an hour when the hellish pain went away. Still, that left her no time to harvest and fill her quota for the day. Derek would have to ride out here on his horse to take her back, once she missed curfew. He''d make her work earlier and later tomorrow, once her foot was healed, and he''d find a way to make back the money he spent on ointment to make sure her foot didn''t develop any nasty damage and make her even less useful.


    Or less beautiful, she thought with a grimace. Gah, to hell with him.


    The most dangerous thing about a Barridian beetle bite, however, was that its venom reacted with human blood to create a scent human noses couldn''t detect. What could detect it, however, was the Vimovarv Cobra, which Phoebe only remembered a minute or so later when she spotted one sliding toward her through the desert brush. It slowly slithered its triangular head framed by an imperial black and red hood. The things were supposedly quite rare; Phoebe had been stung by beetles before, and never attracted one until now.


    With a scream, Phoebe leapt to her feet, only to suck all that air back in and collapse on her back again. That beetle bite had rendered her foot useless, and she made it exponentially worse by putting weight on it. But she needed to run. That snake was after her foot, and if it sank its teeth in, she was done for. On its own, the cobra''s venom was lethal in days. Combined with beetle venom, it could kill in minutes.


    I''m going to die, Phoebe realized as she scrabbled away with her one useful leg. That thing is gonna bite me, and I''m going to die here, a mile away from the Fade. I''ll never get this rune off. I''ll never ¨C


    The snake lunged for her foot.


    Something inside Phoebe flared. Something she didn''t recognize the moment it ceased. The rune on her cheek flared too, but for a moment, Phoebe was able to push it aside. With the familiarity of walking, and the speed of a scream, Phoebe raised a rock, and smashed the snake''s head down in mid-strike. Silver light flashed. Somehow, Phoebe''s hand and body moved faster than a lunging snake.


    Less than a second later, whatever it was passed. The rune locked back up again before Phoebe could realize what was happening.


    She looked at the rock in her hand, and saw bits of the snake''s head dripping off of it. Its broken teeth peeled off and fell on her dress. The rock itself cracked from the impact side.


    Phoebe heard a noise behind her, like a huge wave of water taking its time to come crashing down. She turned, and for just a moment, she saw the Fade moving toward her at the speed of a walking person. If she blinked, she would''ve missed it, but for just a second, Phoebe knew she saw the skyscraping wall of gas move. And only that part of it nearest to her. Phoebe''s wide eyes locked onto it for a moment, afraid that if she looked away it would move again.


    Then, the pain in her foot prevented any further thought except to grab her basket and start limping back to the farm, before another Vimovarv Cobra came after her foot. She nursed her screaming foot again, her attention diverted. The Fade didn''t seem to move any further without eyes on it.


    "Damned snake," she muttered. She kicked aside its long, headless body. "Serves you right."

 Chapter 4: The Fadewraith

    Sand padded gently beneath Liilia''s feet, unable to ride the wind out of her way. The Thirsting Wastes made up most of the Vimovarv Province. They were the Fade''s most distinct unswallowed victim. When it first sprung up, the Fade gobbled up the mountains from which the rivers in Vimovarv flowed. The skeletons of villages lined the dry riverbeds. Liilia steered well clear of them. The Other Liilia had a nasty tendency to flare up when it saw corpses. A town without people was as dead as a human without blood. Liilia would rather stray closer to the Fade than pass one of those husks of civilization. That horrible wall of gas loomed into the sky off to her left side as she strode north.


    Liilia was a tall woman with a face that looked perceptive in the same way water looks wet. Her age was impossible to tell. Her sharp brown eyes made strangers flinch as though she were brandishing a knife. Her hair trailed on the ground behind her in a protective sheath, not because she was a royal but because she damn well liked brown hair, and it was one of the only things she could get the Other Liilia to agree on. No one else''s opinion mattered. Especially since most of the time they were trying to kill her, or paying someone else to give it a go.


    In keeping with this pattern, Liilia also wore her lunacloak everywhere she went. There was not a single circumstance where it was uncomfortable. Hot and humid, hot and dry, hot and bright, hot and dark, hot outdoors, hot indoors. It had hot under lock and key, which on Mekkendor meant it was set. None of this was to say it couldn''t handle cold. Like right now, in the desert night of Barrid. Deserts were brutal places where it was always either scorching or freezing.


    The lunacloak wasn''t short, but it looked that way next to Liilia''s hair. It only reached down to her hips. It was a deep pink color patterned with maps of the sky and moons. Two hundred years later, it was like a family photo with lots of faces scratched out as the stars moved and left relatives behind.


    Liilia''s hands were shaking at her sides. Again. Nights like these made Liilia grateful she had the sense to get rid of the one person she couldn¡¯t bear to hurt, all those years ago. Whatever her life was like now, it had to be better than being around the Other Liilia. If Liilia listened carefully, she could hear shrill screams bouncing off the sand dunes, landing nowhere except her own ears.


    Liilia stopped walking. That should have told the people she¡¯d detected that they¡¯d made their last mistake. The last one that mattered, anyway. The moon Hepa, high in the sky, also would have alerted a more experienced lunomancer tracker that their lives would be measured in seconds from now on as its blue hue shifted to pink.


    When Liilia turned around, she was greeted with a band of surprisingly well-dressed bounty hunters. They didn¡¯t actually greet her; they were hiding behind a few sand dunes she¡¯d already crossed, visible through Hepa¡¯s eyes that Liilia shared, highlighting them in pink through the terrain. But Liilia still felt greeted by the crossbows she saw on their fine clothing and the restraints hanging from their belts. The bounty probably read dead or alive. It usually did.


    Liilia¡¯s eyes glowed as she started taking steps towards them, the seeming casualness of the intense brightness an intimidating show, especially to someone who¡¯d never seen it before. Her hands sparked with the same light, little drops of magic trickling off onto the ground beside her feet as she approached her pursuers. They left little burn marks in the already scorched sand. Her lunacloak¡¯s patterns started to shimmer and light up. By the time she took ten steps in the direction she had been coming from, she was a terrifying display of power.


    A fight like this was all about the witchbinder. The runomancer who had specifically trained to hunt moon-witches like Liilia. None of the other mercs mattered to a lunomancer of her caliber. But as she looked over these merc''s silhouettes, she couldn''t pick out an obvious mage. Did they not have one?


    The mercs showed no reaction as she approached. They sat there on the opposite incline of the dune, holding perfectly still, as one of the last lunomancers on Mekkendor bore down on them. Liilia slowed her stride. Her hair rose from the ground behind her, curling in the air like a whip.


    At moments like these, the faintest sound thunders in the strained ear, the weakest vibration of the ground feels like an earthquake, and the slightest movement looks like an ambush in full swing. Time slowed down for Liilia as she absorbed all the information Hepa¡¯s birds-eye view could give her. She sensed a beetle burrowing a few yards away, and nothing else. That didn''t calm her a bit. Her lunacloak¡¯s patterns gave off an angry hum that only a lunomancer could hear.


    Through the distant screams, Liilia could feel someone else listening.


    When Liilia had crossed about a third of the distance towards the bounty hunters, she swiveled around just in time to block a vicious downward axe blow with a hastily summoned shield. Behind her, the bounty hunters vanished like crushed vapor grapes. Liilia came face to face with someone whose eyes glowed a dim purplish-grey. The same color as the Fade.


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    Liilia knew this face. She knew it better than any other. It was the same face she''d seen the Fadewraith wear before.


    ¡°Hello again, Liily!¡± the Fadewraith said cheerfully as it swung its ono axe again. It slammed into Liilia¡¯s shield and made a crack. Lunoplasm was a durable material, but Fade mist could make it look pathetic when it wanted to.


    That isn''t her, Liilia ordered herself to remember. That''s just the Fadewraith. She- it''s worn faces you knew before. You know how to see through an illusion. You make illusions.


    The Fadewraith had disembodied intelligence, Liilia knew. This meant it could hold intelligence in its hands, examine it, put its thumbs in the eyes, and push. Liilia wouldn''t let it.


    Liilia backed up and transformed the shield into a sword. Her hair rose off the ground as if she were underwater, coiling like an angry snake dripping with pink magic. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse. Probably from all the screaming.


    ¡°Trying to kill me this time?¡±


    ¡°I detect a hopeful note to your inquiry!¡± the Fadewraith said. Its long vaporous hair trailing in the air behind its wispy head like Liilia¡¯s. ¡°Too bad. I¡¯m not here to kill you at all. You¡¯re coming with me.¡±


    Fuck, it even talked like her now. Liilia bore her teeth.


    ¡°I¡¯m not going anywhere with you,¡± Liilia replied. They circled one another in the sand, watched over by Hepa and the Fade. Liilia¡¯s lunoplasm sword was short, but swift, dull in color but not in edge. The smaller size of Liilia¡¯s weapon granted her room to summon another, smaller tool if she needed. Most of Liilia''s more unique arsenal of lunomantic spells would be useless against a creature like this. Illusion magic didn''t work on a being literally made of smoke and mirrors.


    The Fadewraith¡¯s grin grew. ¡°Actually, you¡¯re coming several places with me. Starting with the Fade, and ending with hell. Whichever version you please.¡±


    The Fadewraith charged forward, and the two crossed weapons. The blades sparked on contact as if they were still in the midst of heat treatment, spraying sparks that were only harmless to the mage that summoned them.


    The Fadewraith¡¯s larger masakari prevailed in all head-on collisions, which was why there were none. Only deflections off of hastily summoned bucklers from Liilia. The shields dissipated and reappeared with necessity. She kept her sword ready in her dominant hand. The pair¡¯s hair guided itself in the air behind them with the power of their wearers. Liilia fought like water. Her attacker fought like a very fast boulder. Light flashed and shone all around them. Sand sprayed up and blew about in the chaos. Hepa¡¯s outline strained to support her partner with their combined power.


    The axe nearly glanced the wrong way, into Liilia''s face. She caught it with her short sword, binding the heavy weapon between both of hers. It trembled with the tension, inches from her nose. The Other Liilia wanted out so badly, but now was not the time. With Hepa in the sky, it was easier to control her.


    ¡°How many times do I have to kill you before you lose my trail?¡± the lunomancer shouted. ¡°Why do you still bother with us? Why do you keep wearing this face? Do we scare you that much?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t flatter yourself, Liily,¡± the Fadewraith said with a dark smile. It pushed its axe closer. ¡°There is no ¡®we¡¯ for you lunomancers, and if your kind scared us, you¡¯d have been dead long ago like the Empress magics.¡±


    With an angry yell, Liilia ducked to the side, avoiding the blade pushing through her defenses. She disintegrated her buckler, and the axe slammed into the ground with a sudden lack of resistance. Liilia re-summoned her buckler and struck the off-kilter Fadewraith across its face. While it recoiled from the blow, she plunged her sword into its gut. Liilia bashed her buckler against the blade, forcing it out the Fadewraith''s side and spraying black fluid across the kicked-up sand.


    The Fadewraith made no sounds of pain or anguish at the slice of its torso. Not to say it had the decency to be silent as it teetered and collapsed on its side in the moonlit sand, its masakari crashing beside it. Instead, it laughed the whole way down. Its manic eyes met Liilia¡¯s as they both stopped flaring their magic and their eyes returned to the closest thing they had to normal.


    ¡°You¡¯re alone with yourself,¡± the Fadewraith said smugly. It started to dissipate, further staining the sand an ugly black color. ¡°See you soon. You were never enough for any of them, and you won¡¯t be enough for me.¡±


    Liilia said nothing. She started walking the same way she¡¯d been traveling before, as if no fight had taken place. This, of course, angered the Fadewraith, so for the last few moments of its existence, it swapped its voice for the sound of a harpsichord.


    A harpsichord being played by a complete novice.


    When Liilia stopped and turned, her eyes were moist. The Fadewraith was nearly gone, but it still had time to laugh and nod.


    ¡°Yes, she¡¯ll be dead soon, too, Liily. The orphanage couldn¡¯t protect her. You did the work for us, like those good little witchbinders you''re always looking for over your shoulder.¡±


    The Fadewraith vanished. Its mist started trailing along the sand in the direction of the Fade, like a horde of tiny insects who couldn''t decide what shape they were.


    With that, Liilia was alone with her least favorite person, dragging her feet and sheathed hair through the sand while her moon fruitlessly tried to comfort her.

 Chapter 5: Oppzis

    When her feet started to cry louder than her fear of Derek''s hands touching her back, Phoebe came out of the silvery slipstream. She leaned with her hands on her knees, sucking the hot desert air into scorching lungs. She immediately missed the cooling wind whipping past her.


    What ¡­ the fuck ¡­ was that?


    Phoebe slowly turned and looked behind her. The Fade, as always, dominated the view to the side like a giant cliff wall. But looking past it, Phoebe had to squint to see the farmhouse. A trail of heavy footprints that streaked into each other led from where she now stood to the home. Actually, they led past it.


    That''s not even Derek''s farmhouse, she realized. The silo''s all wrong. His is to the east. This one''s in the way, and I''m north of it. Is that farmer Pablo''s house?


    But that couldn''t be right ¡­ farmer Pablo lived miles north of Derek. There was at least one other fogcrawler farm between them, wasn''t there?


    That was Pablo''s land, though, no mistake about it. Phoebe had run all the way past it, miles north of it in fact.


    Phoebe looked down at herself. Her clothes looked like someone had grabbed them from behind her and yanked as hard as they could. At least most of them hadn''t fallen off. Her shoes hadn''t been so lucky. She could feel the course dirt beneath her feet. She hated it, but she knew how to deal with it. Masters before Derek took shoes away as a punishment.


    What drew her eyes the most were her hands. Silver light coiled around them. It was a blinding effect in the morning sunlight. It was just like the light that flashed when she killed that snake earlier today. A wisp of Fade smoke struck her right arm, but the silvery magic repelled it.


    Derek is coming, she realized. She couldn''t see him yet, but she knew the man would already be astride Clopper, galloping as hard as he could. Phoebe wouldn''t be surprised if he followed her straight into the Fade.


    Phoebe still had no idea what she''d done to move that quickly. The silvery magic dissipated, and she didn''t know how to bring it back. Or if she wanted to. Without shoes on, would it tear her feet apart? What if she ran into something, like a house or a sharp hill? She''d navigated up and down several already, hills that had passed so quickly she didn''t have time to think about them. None of them had been steep, but the steepest made her legs hurt.


    She decided to run normally for now, and if the magic came back, it came back. She didn''t know what caused it the last two times, but she guessed it had to do with danger. A snake nearly biting her. Derek pinning her down after treating the beetle bite. What kind of magic was this? It wasn''t runomancy. She didn''t have the pencil, the moon-shard, to write spells. The only other kind of magic it could be was ¡­ was ¡­


    Just before she could ask herself what other type of magic there was, Phoebe''s rune pulsed painfully on her cheek. She stopped in place and held her hands to her face. This was different from the usual pain of thinking things the rune didn''t want her to. The rune always clamped when she tried to remember something she wasn''t supposed to. But that meant she''d once known the answer to this question. Phoebe, before this, knew something about that other magic.


    By force of habit, Phoebe had already moved her thoughts elsewhere. But the rune kept squealing at her. It wouldn''t go away, even though she''d already changed the subject of her thoughts.


    "Gah!" she sank to her knees as the agony intensified. This was bad. This was the kind of pain that made one scrabble for a mirror, the kind of pain that made one even more frightened that there wasn''t any blood. Phoebe felt as if the barber were ripping out a tooth, but he''d missed and grabbed the inside of her cheek with the pliers.


    Just as Phoebe was about to scream, there was a soft tearing sensation, and the pain ¡­ stopped. There was a minute of quiet. Phoebe gathered herself, calmed her breathing, and stood up once more.


    Then, there was a feeling. Phoebe knew it wasn''t from her, in the same way that she knew when she was talking versus listening to someone else talk, just to a more intimate degree. She wasn''t having this feeling, something else was feeling it at her.


    The feeling was a greeting. There was no "hello" in any language, or a wave of the hand. There was just a feeling, in Phoebe''s chest, that was identical to the feeling she got when someone did those things.


    "Hello?" she tried, glancing in every direction. There was no one there. Only mist-scorched, purple-splotched sand and desert brush.


    Phoebe peered at the Fade suspiciously. There were tales of a ghost the Barridian fogcrawlers called the Fadewraith, a creature of the fog with an axe she used to hook runaway slaves, disobedient children, and anyone else who strayed too close to the Fade when the suns weren''t out. Or, if they didn''t have enough money on them to grant Amethra and Peri''s protection, depending on the pantheon. Phoebe didn''t believe those stories, but she was having trouble deciding what she did believe at the moment.


    Phoebe got another feeling from the same source. It felt like someone was pointing away from the Fade, away from the ground entirely. Into the eastern sky, which in the desert was bright and clear. With a few steps away from the Fade and more than one suspicious glance over her shoulder, Phoebe turned and looked up where a finger would be pointing if the feeling had a finger to point with. There, in the blue Yu''um skies, was a handful of the remaining moons over Mekkendor. Phoebe could see Hpea, the pink one, and Zirelex, the green one. A little below both of those, however, was a silver moon. It seemed to glow noticeably brighter than the other two. Phoebe couldn''t remember its name, even when Derek told it to her.


    Until now.


    "¡­ Oppzis?" she tried the word out. As soon as she did, her tongue remembered that it had spoken this name many times before. It was like fingers wrapping around the handle of a familiar tool.


    Memories came rushing back. So many at once. It was like a heap of notes being scattered across the desk; Phoebe had them all, she could read them all, but only one at a time could she take them in. She staggered in place, holding out a hand for balance. To an observer, she was sure she looked like a heat stroke victim. She stumbled over a sharper piece of desert grass and snapped out of it.


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    "Phew ¡­ " she panted, hands on her knees as she tried to process some of what she just got back. She turned to look up at the moon in the sky, the silver one that felt like it was trying to put a hand on her shoulder.


    "Oppzis," she repeated. "It''s ¡­ it''s you. Again."


    Oppzis. The Moon of Velocity. Suddenly the little waxing silver circle in the sky became a lot more prominent. It felt warmer, closer, more like a friend. Not like a pet, but not like a trusty tool either. It occupied a strange place between the two. Oppzis could feel things, but in the same way a highly domesticated animal did. It was fiercely loyal, but it wasn''t a dog or a horse. Phoebe could talk to it, but for some reason, she still felt alone in key ways.


    With the memory came a horde of others, some of them still partially scratched out by the rune, others only reluctantly legible. But as she said those words, Phoebe felt scores of them slot into place. The important ones were:


    I was, I am, a lunomancer. I don''t remember how I got to be one, but I did.


    Lunomancers can work magic just with their moon''s light in the sky. They don''t need a moon-shard, like those runewrights.


    Oppzis is my moon. My partner. I can move really fast with his power, though I''m not very good at it and I need to be extremely careful. I learned how to use a lot of my powers in secret under a previous master, somewhere.


    "Oppzis, are you a boy, or a girl, or something else?"


    Instead of answering, Phoebe felt encouraged by the moon to keep moving, both to put distance between herself and her pursuer and to help herself think. With a deep breath, and a shake of her shoulders, she took off at a jog in the same direction she was already going in: north.


    To Aleb, she realized. Aleb. Aleb! The city I ¨C the city where I ¨C the city Derek bought me in, she finally finished, finding something the rune wasn''t blocking.


    "Can''t you see Derek from up there?" she asked the moon. She felt a suggestion that she didn''t need to talk out loud; just thinking at Oppzis was good enough.


    Can''t you? she tried again, looking pointedly at the moon. Phoebe felt the moon explain that it was very hard to see anything from up where he was except for her. Phoebe felt for a moment like she was trying to spot an individual building in a map of not just its city, but the entire world. She got the picture.


    So you are a boy, she thought. Interesting.


    The moon explained that this didn''t really matter, and it was up to her what Oppzis was. It felt to her, and she felt to it.


    Phoebe glanced over her shoulder again as she crested a hill. She drew a sharp breath. There was a cloud of dust fast approaching from beyond farmer Pablo''s property, following the blindingly obvious trail Phoebe had left behind. The horse''s rider was too small for her to make out. She didn''t need to.


    Phoebe looked ahead to the north, and saw that she was almost to the dunes, in that little space on this side of the Fade where the winds were fierce enough and the sand loose enough to bury everything the Fade tried to sprout. The winds here came from the north, where the Fade didn''t block them. The dunes stretched for hundreds of miles north, and beyond that, Aleb awaited. She remembered that now, with Oppzis''s help. Yes, the world was coming back into focus. If Phoebe were to draw a map of it, there would be a lot of gaps, but at least the city where Derek bought her wouldn''t be one of them.


    And, Phoebe realized, it''ll bury footsteps.


    Oppzis urged her to run. She took a step forward, but then looked back. Her tattered clothes blew in the wind.


    What will I eat?


    Oppzis told her she would be out the other side of the desert in no time. She wouldn''t need to eat or drink. It would just be a few hours if she went at the speed she just ran at.


    Phoebe looked down at her hands. They weren''t glowing.


    How do I cast that spell again?


    Oppzis advised against waiting until Derek was right behind her. He seemed anxious. She allowed herself a smile. Maybe Oppzis had more personality than she remembered.


    It was a difficult explanation, but Oppzis didn''t have words in his way. He just felt it to her, and Phoebe felt the answers to follow-up questions present themselves. This went on for a minute or so. The sand, Phoebe was assured, was soft enough that she could run on it without too much issue. She''d start a small sandstorm in her wake, but that would just hide her tracks even faster. She would probably trip a few times, and it would probably hurt, but if she focused and didn''t stop, she''d be all the way to the other end of the desert. She could take breaks here and there, and she definitely should. It was hard to enter and exit that spell gracefully, especially when she hadn''t done it in years and had never been good at it in the first place. She was lucky the ground here was so soft and the land was so open. Running into a tree or a rock would strip chunks of her clean off.


    Phoebe bowed her head wearily. There''s still so much I don''t remember.


    Oppzis assured her that she had nothing to worry about.


    You seem very confident. Too confident, in fact. Hey, I remember that about you now. Yes, she chuckled, and gave her moon a playful glare. Oppzis, you rascal. You always had the worst ideas.


    Oppzis reminded her that they''d always worked so far.


    Well, I can''t argue with that, she looked forward again. If only because I can''t remember them all. You better not be selecting those memories out, with whatever you''re doing to help me break through the rune.


    Oppzis told her that she could trust him not to do something so irrational and rude. She chuckled again.


    Guess I''ll never know until I find a runewright who can get this damn thing off. First thing''s first: I gotta get back to Aleb, and find Mother Marthera. She''ll know somebody.


    Oppzis added that if not, she could always just keep running west, around the northern edge of the Fade. There''d probably be an Ecliptican somewhere willing to help her.


    We''ll figure it out, Phoebe agreed. By the way, Oppzis, one question: what was my name, before? Phoebe is Derek''s name for me. What was my parents''?


    Oppzis explained that it was difficult for him to convey specific words, especially ones that held no concrete meaning like names. He promised to do his best to unravel the bits of her rune that blocked that, but couldn''t promise anything fast. Best just find Marthera and ask her.


    Can you explain anything else about my past? Or will it just make the rune act up?


    Oppzis confirmed that this was the case, with tangible sympathy.


    Oh well. Better than nothing.


    Phoebe bounced once or twice, shaking out her muscles. She already ached from a morning''s work, and that mad dash she''d made. She looked down over the dunescape. Gusts of wind blew little clouds of sand here and there. The air shimmered with heat. She was looking at one of the hottest places on Mekkendor, she now knew. The Thirsting Wastes. If she stopped partway through and the magic ceased working, she''d burn up and thirst to death.


    Phoebe looked over her shoulder at the still-approaching horse.


    Or I can stay, and let Derek catch me.


    Phoebe took a step forward. Following Oppzis''s instructions, she got a good cloud of silver magic swirling around her. It was so easy now, with proper instructions, that she completely understood how she''d done it by accident. A few steps forward, then a few accelerated ones, and then a crack like the world''s loudest crossbow firing, and Phoebe was away.

 Chapter 6: The Witchbinder

    Derek stared fixedly at what passed for a face on the little creature between his gently pulling fingers. This was an even rougher approximation, since he''d already removed its mandibles. As he looked closely, Derek could see the yellowish paste of beetle blood leaking down its front.


    That''s what you get for trying to sting me, he told it with his eyes.


    "Um, good sir?"


    The insect''s last legs came off, and it fell to the table in a half-living exoskeletal heap. Derek stared at it a little longer, watching it twitch, and then looked up at the inquiring mercenary seated across from him. The world outside of that infernal little creature came back into focus. The inside of the trading post, the small company of manhunters across from him, the free-length hair of the four company members. There was the smell of cheap pipe tobacco in the air, the kind that didn''t grow next to the Fade. Derek had grown tobacco once; knowing the difference had been the line between praise and a tanning more than once.


    "Are ¡­ " the man frowned. "Are you going to kill it?"


    "It''ll be dead in a minute. You were saying?"


    Derek spotted another beetle on the ground near the bench. He reached down and gripped it between two fingers at its sides so it couldn''t bite him. He placed it on the table in front of him, holding it so it couldn''t see the other beetle''s corpse. He held it very still while the conversation continued, not hurting it but not letting it go anywhere either.


    The mercenary cleared his throat. "We were discussing money, sir."


    "We already talked about money. I agreed to your gouge of a price. And don''t call me ''sir'', either. I work for a living."


    The mercenary, whose name escaped Derek, seemed distracted by the person he was dealing with. He didn''t seem so much afraid of Derek as fascinated. Derek didn''t want to be feared, and he certainly didn''t want to fascinate a fighting man. He just wanted respect, and if he didn''t get it soon, they were going to learn as many lessons his father taught him as they could before they expired.


    "I see," the mercenary said. "Is ''mister'' alright?"


    "''s fine," grumbled Derek. "Now can we go? She''s gained miles on us while you''ve been yabbering."


    Hadley ¨C that was his name ¨C made a placating gesture that annoyed Derek more than it helped.


    "Remember, mister, there''s a lot of money on the line with a ¨C " he lowered his voice ¨C "moon-witch, in the picture."


    "I know that better than you," Derek snapped. "Believe me."


    And he did. Selling a farm was difficult business for a fogcrawler, but his nadderfruit acres and wealth of chickens had been enough to raise money for a band of slave catchers. Even still, it took that slimeball Kebbik''s connections to acquire a slave catcher band with the right tools for the job. Phoebe was no ordinary slave.


    Not for the first time, Derek cursed himself for this whole fiasco. He shouldn''t have hidden that silvery nightmare she turned into that night from Kebbik. If he just told the mage what happened, instead of having her tattoo patched and trying to figure it out for himself, this could have been avoided. The damn runewright had known anyway, from the first incident, but he''d done nothing because he knew Derek would have much more frequent maintenance costs.


    Derek knew nothing about lunomancers until it was too late. He''d thought Phoebe was some kind of advanced runewright, one that didn''t even need a moon-shard to write spells and was somehow very vulnerable to others'' runes. Nothing Derek tried made the rune stay on any better. At least she never surprised him with another lapse and nearly killed him again. She slept in chains ever since that night. The danger was always after dark, when she was asleep and the rune''s grip weakened.


    caskerwol came again, and it happened while they were out in the yard, after she came in from the fields with a beetle bite on her heel. He treated it for her on the porch with the last of his ointment. When he went to punish her for wasting his money, it struck.


    Phoebe didn''t hurt him this time. Derek knew she didn''t hate him. He could tell when someone hated him. Derek''s parents taught him everything they knew, but their two most important lessons had been:


    <ol>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">How to tell that someone hates you.</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">How to hit back. </li>


    </ol>


    Derek''s parents knew that personal example was the best teaching method. They stuck to that method to the end of their lives.


    No, Phoebe didn''t hate him. She was just confused. She didn''t understand that Derek was just waiting for the right time to take her rune off and set her free. She was too impatient. So when her tattoo fractured again, and she remembered that she was from Aleb, and that silvery magic was flashing all around her, she ran away.


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    The beetle in Derek''s hand started squirming again. He ignored it.


    "Of course, of course," Hadley was saying, "but listen: I know you hate that Kebbik guy, the type what hooked you up with us. We hate ''im too."


    Now Derek was listening. An opportunity to gang up on a runewright was not to be missed. Hadley gestured to one of his men, and the man took a seat beside him. He motioned for the others to go off and entertain themselves, which really meant distract as many other people in the trading post as possible.


    "So, a lunomancer," Hadley said in a low voice, "is worth a lot of money out west in Ecliptica. Hear me out, I know you want that girl back. But listen: it''s been two hundred years since that business in Deckodon and the Fade. Almost all those moon-witches are gone by now. Many people don''t even know what they could do anymore. Your little Phoebe is rarer than any gemstone dug out of the rocks in the Crown Mountains, and there''s a few smart people with a lot of amethyst out west."


    Hadley leaned closer. "Your farm''s gone. An honest man like you needs a new start, and to be truthful with you, we need to retire. Slave catchin'' just isn''t enough money anymore, especially not when you''re tryin'' to pay a professional like this," he added, patting the shoulder of the man beside him, "without enough witches to catch."


    Derek examined the other mercenary, the one who hadn''t spoken yet. The Witchbinder.


    The Witchbinder had piercing green eyes that couldn''t help but stick to things. They were like hands covered in glue. Derek was used to people in Halfway not meeting his gaze, but this man met it like ¡­ an equal. There was no better word for it. The Witchbinder had hair the length of a common workman like Derek. He had dark Barridian skin, also like Derek''s. There was a scar across his face that didn''t look like an animal put it there. More like a tool of some kind. His gloved hands held eerily still. This, Derek felt confident, was no ordinary runewright. This was a working man, someone who earned his money and had gone into magic to earn it even harder. Not avoid earning it.


    Derek remembered his name was Larry. A Barridian name that didn''t do its owner justice. Derek hoped it was short for something.


    "So," Derek said, turning back to Hadley, "what''s your idea?"


    "Way I see it," Hadley said, "there are five different angles on this whole situation. The first one is your scummy runewright Kebbik''s. He''s a runewright; he wants Phoebe out of the picture. Runewrights hate lunomancers. They''re unwelcome competition, and easy to vilify. He was greedy enough to let you keep paying for the rune her magic was eating at, but something tells me he thinks you and your slave are both loose ends he can''t abide."


    "Yeah?" Derek said. "Then why''d he let me leave instead of just having you go get her and come back? He knows I''m never coming back to Halfway."


    The smell of cheap tobacco was starting to get on Derek''s nerves. His nose refused to adjust to it.


    "Because he knew he wasn''t stoppin'' you," Hadley said, "and because he paid us a little more to bring you back with her."


    Derek seethed, but controlled himself. This was a bargaining situation. No time to let a little poor smoke and a typical runewright get under his skin. He glanced down at the beetles on the table. The dismembered one had stopped moving. That was good, at least. He had kept himself from squeezing the other to death so far.


    "And you''re offering to double-cross him with me," Derek guessed. "What do you want from me?"


    "Let''s talk about those other angles I mentioned. Yours is simple. You want your slave girl back, and you want to start fresh somewhere else along the Fade. Am I right?"


    "Right enough."


    Larry''s stare was starting to bother Derek, so he returned it. That made things better, he found. Like walking downstream instead of up. Derek had the stare to match. The beetle had given up, sitting still in Derek''s pincer grip.


    "Then there''s those loaded folks over in Ecliptica I mentioned," Hadley continued. "They want lunomancers. Alive and in good condition."


    "Alive?" Derek said, not taking his eyes off Larry. "Why?"


    "You''ve got your reasons for the same thing," Hadley said simply. "And you''re broke as a twig. I''m sure people with as much money as them do too. Anyway, that''s all the angles we''re working with."


    "What about the fifth one?"


    "Oh, that''s just the gods. I''ll worry about them. I don''t want to forget their desires. Rest assured, they want what you and I want. That''s the nice thing about Amethra and Peri, you see."


    Ah, so Hadley was a Halorist. That could come in handy. Derek knew his way around Halorists. Real ones, not whatever muck Kebbik pretended to be. His father had been a Halorist. Once.


    "So I think," Hadley said, "that you and I should grab Phoebe, which shouldn''t be hard, and then haul you over to Ecliptica and turn her in for the bounty money. Then, with our help, she busts out and you two can start a new life on the Fade border in the Gri''zin desert. How does that sound?"


    Derek considered. He had to look away from Larry again to focus.


    "What''s the catch?" Derek said. "What do I have to do to get your help getting her out of prison?"


    Hadley turned to Larry. This unnerved Derek more than he anticipated. The bastard was still staring at him. Derek no longer felt like an equal under that gaze.


    He felt like a beetle.


    Hadley patted Larry''s shoulder again. "I''ll let my friend here explain that bit. He doesn''t talk, ''s very persuasive. He''ll need some room to demonstrate, though, so let''s start headin'' after your slave."


    Derek had never taken an opportunity to pause a conversation so readily. He crushed the second beetle between his fingers, scraped both off the table, and left with his new company of scum who preferred the term "businessmen".

 Chapter 7: Aleb

    "M-maamel," Phoebe trembled like her words. "How do I ¡­ how do I forget something? Forever?"


    She pressed against her mother, but it was like hugging a statue wearing clothes. Her maamel''s voice didn''t conflict. There was no world, no room or walls around them. Nothing that Phoebe had time to register, anyway.


    "You don''t," she said. "My magic doesn''t do that. I''ve told you many times. Now let go of my dress, and practice your harpsichord like a good girl."


    But Phoebe tugged at the dress again. This was important. She couldn''t sleep anymore. She didn''t realize it was possible for a single person to bleed so much.


    "What about the thing on Griinel''s wrist? She says it stops her from remembering things."


    "So that''s where you keep learning new words you''re not supposed to use. I will have that girl''s master punish her if you keep spending time with her. Griinel''s rune is also very useful in that regard, you know."


    That made Phoebe pull away. Her mother used threats like that often, because she knew they would work a lot better than threats to Phoebe herself. At least she almost never followed through. Almost.


    I just need to talk to Griinel one more time, Phoebe thought. I have to know more about that rune.


    When she got a few steps away from her maamel, Phoebe''s eyes opened to a wide open desert sky. The rune on her cheek buzzed and bit, but Oppzis managed to keep just enough of the dream that she remembered the words between her and whoever her maamel was.


    Phoebe sat up in the sand, and rested her head in her hands. She needed more sleep, but everything coming out of her past from behind her rune was so unsettling.


    I want my past back ¡­ right?


    She was almost to Aleb. She could find answers there. Then she could decide. With a yawn that lacked conviction, she laid back down in the sand.


    ***


    With a sigh of relief, Phoebe gave her legs a chance to rest at the top of a sparsely-grassed hill. Below her was, at long last, the city of Aleb. Named after an old Centralian word for murder, supposedly because this was the spot where a woman murdered her sister out of jealousy before spawning a city with the man she won. Though Phoebe didn''t understand the legendary woman''s motivations at all, Phoebe had to admire the ambition.


    The city sprawled out below her. She could smell the life and death of it. It combined interestingly with the taste of salty coast air. In the distance beyond the city thrashed the Gulf of Kimto, with a fraction of the violence of the Everwhite Seas beyond the capes. The city rested on the river running between the sea and the lake Phoebe passed hours before. Phoebe''s eyes were drawn to the Tower of Eyes near the city center, said to be the tallest structure east of the Fade Parallel. The tall cylinder held nothing but a staircase, a passion project for a forgotten engineer with a penchant for eye designs along the sides.


    Phoebe squinted at the individual shapes in the streets. She remembered walking them, vaguely, though the rune on her cheek got angry if she tried too hard. Although human beings were a second currency in Aleb''s well-lubricated economy, it was a rather friendly city to exist in. Once. Becoming a slave could happen to anyone, but it rarely lasted for long and the pay was better than many "free" jobs. It was treated like losing a game. A person let debt get ahead of them, or lost a bet, got caught without their paperwork, broke a law, or got conscripted by the government or some nob, and they worked a few months before being let go. Inconvenient, but it came and went. It meant that very few people had time to grow their hair out past their ears.


    That all changed when Akastamsis came in, and started moving slaves around. In Aleb, owning a slave had rules. A slave had to be paid. A slave got to see their family. A slave was released when they got pregnant, or injured, or served the maximum time for however they became a slave. All those rules disappeared when a slave left Aleb.


    Not long ago, Aleb''s laws made it extremely difficult to export humans. Akastamsis''s early attempts to bribe those laws down were withstood by a governor with foresight and the luxury of stability. Later attempts found easy purchase among successors made desperate by misfortune and greed. So, year after year, Aleb''s citizenry were purchased not by friendly neighbors who they would in turn purchase back, but by ruthless Akastamsians who carted them away from the safety of their home, to lands where "slave" had a more permanent definition.


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    What had once been a friendly if forceful employment turned into all but a death sentence. Being turned into a commodity, once an unavoidable but natural step in Alebian life, became a fate feared more than death. People banded into factions to avoid being sold by their enemies, and the government became just another band like them. People lengthened their contracts to avoid being traded to the Akastamsians. Slavery in Aleb gradually decayed to that recognized almost anywhere else.


    Many were sold westward in the Ecliptican principalities, but some, like Phoebe, were sold south along the Fadeward edge of Barrid. Year after year, the city shrank, leaving dozens of empty houses in patches like bruises on a dropped fruit. Phoebe had the misfortune of getting caught in one of those bruises, and before she found a faction to shelter her, the Akastamsians took her away to the south. To Derek.


    But how did I get to Aleb in the first place? she wondered, turning her head to follow people momentarily. I''m Adalaantian, aren''t I? I''ve got the narubati looks, and so did my mothers. They spoke Adalaantian in the dreams and I understood it. Hm.


    Phoebe needed a plan. She had to find a runewright who would get this stupid rune off her face, without running into someone who would use it against her. Especially since those could easily be the same person.


    Maybe I''ll try the farms all the way to the east of it, she decided. There''s gotta be a poor farmer with a slave or two, who can point me in the right direction.


    She stood up, brushed herself off, then looked down at her hands.


    And if worst comes to worst, I can ¡­ do whatever got me away from Derek.


    Her confidence was short-lived after just a few steps.


    There''s probably a lot of slave catchers in Aleb. This probably isn¡¯t a good idea.


    Oppzis expressed that she should relax. She was only visiting the outlying farms, to start. Oppzis reminded her that Derek was still coming, and would probably arrive in Aleb by tonight.


    Then I''ll have to go inside the city.


    Oppzis said that would be fine too. Aleb at nighttime was no place for a runaway slave girl, but Phoebe was no ordinary slave girl. On his advice, she started wrapping part of her dress around her head to conceal the rune.


    It''s not like I¡¯ve got a better idea, she conceded. Doing another speed-dash to the Crown Mountains or Akastamsis doesn''t sound much safer.


    Phoebe didn''t add that her last dash had missed Aleb by over a hundred miles. She''d needed to walk the rest of the way while the magic protecting her feet regenerated, wearing a shitty pair of shoes she''d found in a dried-out riverbed.


    At least Mother Marthera lives here. Or at least, she used to.


    Oppzis agreed that this was the best course of action, though he advised Phoebe to wait until he was in the sky to do anything. If he wasn''t in the sky, that meant she was on her own. No powers, and no advice from him.


    Sounds like a decent trade-off, she teased.


    Oppzis had an extremely fast orbit. He was, after all, the moon of velocity. He orbited Mekkendor twice in the time it took the planet to complete one spin. He also orbited in the opposite direction of that spin. That meant he rose in the west and set in the east, opposite the sun Mekkendor happened to be orbiting, and it meant he crossed the sky twice in a twenty-four hour period, once in the afternoon, and once in the very early morning. Twelve to six, AM and PM.


    When she''d been east of the Fade, Oppzis had the additional obstruction of the Fade to contend with. The Fade stretched high into the atmosphere, so much so that until halfway through his journey in the sky, Oppzis was blocked from where Phoebe stood on the planet''s surface. This meant she could only access him from three to six. Luckily, this factor disappeared now that she was so far north the circular Fade was southwest of her, not just west, and she could see both the western and eastern horizons.


    Fine, she added. I''ll wait till you''re in the sky to go into the city. And yes, I''ll leave as soon as you set this evening. Okay?


    Oppzis was satisfied.


    Just keep working on those memories of Aleb, okay? I don''t wanna get too lost in there. There''s probably slave catchers and rapists wandering about.


    Oppzis reminded her that the more work he did on the rune, the harder it would be for a runewright to set her memories back in their proper order and place.


    I know. Just do what you can. We''ll find Marthera, and go from there. And Oppzis?


    Oppzis made her feel like he had raised an inquiring lunar eyebrow. She turned to look at him in the sky through the one eye she hadn''t covered.


    Thank you.

 Chapter 8: Marthera

    Phoebe was nearly to the orphanage when someone tapped her shoulder, and she made the mistake of stopping.


    "Hey miss," said the man she saw when she made the further mistake of turning. "What''s a young girl like you doin'' out and about after dark? And why''s your head all covered up? Tryna hide an engram, are we?"


    The rune on her cheek pulsed. Here, closer to Ecliptica, they called the things engrams rather than runes. Phoebe thought coming into the city at night was a better option, just before the gates were closed and the stream of people in and out was thinning. She thought the darkness would make her less conspicuous. It had done the opposite. She noticed people following her almost immediately, and picking up her pace hadn''t helped. Now, one of them had caught up to her, and she needed to deal with him before the rest surrounded her.


    Phoebe saw other slaves following their masters, like children following their parents. Their masters were like masks of invisibility. She saw an older fellow bearing a rune on his forearm, following a young man into a small home. Phoebe felt exposed and naked compared to him. Everyone''s eyes were deflected from him to his master.


    Phoebe saw shadows take positions in the street and turns ahead. She focused on the face in front of her. It was shaven, but not young, and certainly not friendly. There was a rune on his cheek, a slave rune just like hers. If you were going to be a slave, you might as well be higher on the pecking order. There were slave soldiers, slave tax collectors, slave everything. Phoebe wondered if there were slave kings somewhere.


    "I- I''m getting food," she said, thinking too quickly. "There''s a farmer who saves her best for the time just before she closes. My husband won''t have anyone else''s, er, if you take my meaning."


    "Hm," the man said, squinting at her eyes. "I''ve lived here all my life, girl, and I don''t know anybody stupid enough to save the best for last. Someone would steal it, I reckon. Somebody smart, like me."


    The stranger seemed the type who was very familiar with scraps and leftovers. Phoebe wasn''t about to argue with him, but the problem was, he was arguing with her.


    "You mind your business, sir," Phoebe said sharply. She turned away from him, only to nearly collide with two more men who leered down at her.


    Oppzis unhelpfully added that he did tell her entering Aleb at night was a bad idea.


    Fuck off. I''ll just dash out of here.


    Oppzis reminded her that the spell needed time to regenerate, or she''d shred her legs. Besides, in a city, she would splatter against something. This wasn''t the open dunes.


    "There''s some money in returnin'' a slave," said the first man, too close behind her. "Or even better, re-selling one. We get a lot like you around here, little girl. That dress you''re wearin'' isn''t doin'' you any favors."


    Phoebe held her bag to her chest, refusing to turn back around. She didn''t know what to do. The story wasn''t working.


    It''s starting to activate anyway, she realized, a similar sensation beneath her gloves and on her cheek as the rune reacted.


    Oppzis told her to control it before the magic acted up on its own, like when she''d killed the snake. She might run into a wall, or she might hit one of these men with the same force. Maiming one of them would not help.


    I know! she sent back, panicked. You''re not being ¨C


    The stranger grabbed her shoulder and made her turn to face him.


    "Leave me alone!" she snapped, voice rising in terror. Before she could react, he pulled down the scarf over her face, revealing the ugly purple rune on her cheek.


    "Ah-ha," he said with satisfaction. "I figured that''s what was ¨C "


    "Excuse me, mister," said another voice. Female, this time.


    Phoebe looked over the man''s shoulder and he turned to follow. They saw a broad-shouldered, middle-aged woman striding toward them indignantly. Her hair was commoner length, and untidy. She wore simple clothes and an expression no one in their right mind argued with.


    "This yours, ma''am?" said the man.


    "As a matter of fact, it is," the woman said. "Thank you for stopping her. And before you ask, yes, have some compensation."


    She passed the leader a few coins, and motioned for him to step aside.


    "This is all?" he frowned.


    "You''re lucky to receive even that much," the woman said. "All you did was hold her still while I caught up to her. Now be off. I have a slave to punish."


    The man glared at the new stranger, but stepped aside. Phoebe felt the shadows grow thinner all around her in the dusty Aleb streets. Her power had retreated. She regarded the new woman suspiciously. She wore simple clothes, better-maintained and cleaner than Phoebe''s. What color and craftsmanship remained indicated the wearer was from around here.


    "Trying to take me for free, are you?" she said, stepping back. The woman sighed patiently and offered a hand. She said, in a hushed voice:


    "Euffie, it''s me. Marthera."


    Phoebe gasped as the rune on her cheek bit down. Recollections escaped its fraying grasp, but only in vague shapes. She held a hand to her face. Everything started to spin.


    "E-Euffie?" she managed.


    "Oh dear," Marthera said, stepping closer to support her. "You''ve still got an engram on you, don''t you? Here, come with me."


    The more the woman spoke, the harder the rune fought. Phoebe knew this person, and knew her well. That made Phoebe want to trust her. She allowed herself to be guided away, back toward the city gate and through it to the countryside beyond. Things blurred as her brain fought with the memory locks. Her rescuer was talking, but the words didn''t make it through the haze.


    Finally, with a few painful snaps like the weaker parts of a bedframe giving in, Phoebe''s head came to a standstill with the rune. She had gained some ground, but was sure the magic reclaimed a few bits for itself. She was still on the road out of town, with Marthera at her side, guiding her through the night. The air was cool, and the Fade hung in the sky miles to the south.


    "You ¡­ " Phoebe said, recognition in her voice now. She nearly tripped but Marthera righted her.


    "Me," the woman agreed. "Marthera. The orphanage keeper. Hello again. Has your engram settled down?"


    Phoebe nodded. "What did you call me earlier?"


    Marthera slowed, holding Phoebe carefully before she repeated it. "Euffie."


    Phoebe flinched, but the rune made no argument. It no longer owned that territory.


    "Euffie," she repeated, tasting the word. "Was that my name?"


    "That''s the only name I was given for you," Marthera replied.


    Phoebe, or rather Euffie, took a moment to process that. She had a name, and it wasn''t Phoebe. She was alright with that; Phoebe was what Derek called her.


    "How did you find me?"


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    Marthera snorted. "The same way everyone else and their third cousin found you. What were you thinking? Walking into Aleb, at night, alone? You should be ashamed ¨C "


    She kept talking, but Euffie wasn''t listening. Images and feelings coursed through her like water running through ruts on a surface. This was Marthera. The woman who practically raised Euffie for as far back as she could remember. There were memories as old as ten years ago, and it felt incredible to have them. When a slave rune has gripped its victim for long enough, the brain becomes unaccustomed to going back that far. It felt so good to stretch between her ears like that, like a leg waking up after the pins and needles sensations fades away.


    " ¨C teach you nothing?" Marthera went on. "You should know better."


    "I''m sorry, Mother Marthera," Euffie recited, comfortable on familiar ground. "I won''t do it again."


    Marthera smiled, and gave Euffie a squeeze. "And you even have a new sarcastic tone. I missed you."


    "Where are we going?"


    "To my home," Marthera explained. She resumed her stride with Euffie beside her. "After the orphanage failed, I moved to an orchard outside the city and got married. My husband passed away a few years ago, so now I live there alone."


    "I''m sorry to hear that," Euffie said.


    "Don''t be. He was a pain in the ass. Good riddance if you ask me."


    Euffie couldn''t help but smile. Good old Mother Marthera''s familiar brusqueness was more than welcome in the memory space she was reclaiming. They passed by farmland full of half-sun crops, plants that didn''t need constant sunlight to survive. They didn''t grow as large, but they were better than nothing. Euffie was confident people were following them, but she didn''t glance over her shoulder. She was used to being watched, and that experience meant not revealing that she knew she was being watched.


    Oppzis felt suspicious about something, and when she listened to it, Euffie couldn''t help but catch it. She frowned.


    "If you live out in the countryside, how did you know when I arrived? Did you spot me out on the road and just ¡­ follow me?"


    Marthera shook her head. "No, I was already in town. I hadn''t gone home yet, you see. I just happened to see you on my way out."


    "You recognized me with the scarf over my face?"


    "Yes," Marthera said firmly. "You have a very distinctive set of eyes, girl."


    They turned off the main road toward a homestead with a sad crop growing in not enough land beside it. It was one of the green crops that only grew in caskerwol, the kind of plant that couldn''t withstand two suns and needed a night time to survive. Bales and stacks of baskerwol crops, the two-sun needing kind that were white as rushing water, lined the homestead in rotting heaps.


    Marthera gripped Euffie''s shoulder tightly. "We''re being followed. Get in the house, and do exactly as I say."


    Euffie nodded. "Yes, Mother Marthera."


    "Master Marthera," she corrected with a tap on the nose.


    ***


    "Yes, yes," Marthera said quickly, sitting Phoebe down at her table. "And it hasn''t gotten any better since they got rid of you. I think the people after us have finally cobbled together enough reason to give me the engram. I missed rent here and there, you know how it is. Here they come, now."


    Euffie couldn''t go back. Not so soon after returning to Aleb. They couldn''t just get rid of her again. If Mother Marthera was taken, Euffie''s rune would doom her.


    "What do we do?"


    "Just sit quietly and do as I say," Marthera replied. She strode to the door as if she''d gobbled up all of what little confidence remained in the room. Moments later, there came a knock at the door, the kind of knock that invites itself. Marthera put her fingers over her lips in Phoebe''s direction, then turned to the door.


    "Come in," called Marthera.


    The knob turned. Three people stood outside the door, a woman flanked by two men. They all had swords at their hips, but they weren''t dressed like soldiers. The men each had slave runes on their foreheads. Good ones. The kind that didn''t need to be touched to inflict pain. The woman in front probably had one linked to theirs under her wrist or something.


    "Well, don''t just stand there," Marthera said before they could speak. "I said come in."


    The visitors seemed happy to oblige. Euffie''s nerves, on the other hand, were now firing for them. Didn''t they feel uncomfortable at the invitation?


    "And no smoking in my house, Telda," said Marthera when the woman in front took out a cigarette. Telda put it in her mouth and lit it. After a drag, she pointed a finger at Euffie. The other two men stayed behind her, as if attached like wings.


    Only Euffie seemed to notice Mother Marthera closing the door, and locking it.


    "Miss Marthera," Telda said. "When did you buy this pretty thing?"


    Marthera folded her arms. "Not that it''s any of your business, but I purchased her months ago. My useless nephew took his sweet time givin'' her back."


    "Got your receipt?"


    Marthera scowled. "Got your warrant, Telda?"


    "I always do."


    "Well, so do I. Now get."


    Telda made a hand motion, and the two men stood over Euffie. She could feel herself changing hands in the conversation without being touched.


    "Your neighbors say you don''t own any slaves, and haven''t for years," Telda said patiently. "They don''t own slaves, and they work in the fields. They''d see this one."


    "My neighbors," Marthera said, far less patiently, "are a bunch of idiots who can''t tell a cat''s head from its ass. And you can tell ''em I said that. They don''t listen when I do."


    Why did she lock that door? Euffie squirmed. Any moment now, Telda would give another gesture, and those guards would take her arms and haul her out of here. If the door wasn''t locked, she was sure she could have made a dash for it. Just a short one, so her legs didn''t explode.


    "Idiots or not," Telda said, "there''s more of them than there are of you. And a few of them are doing quite a bit better than you are on their mortgages. You know how that looks in court."


    "The court can stick it," Marthera said.


    "Correct," Telda said. She made another hand motion, and Euffie''s prediction came true.


    "Hey!" she tugged at their grips on her arms. "Let go of me! See the rune? I''m hers. I work here. Fuck off!"


    Telda turned to face her, blocking Euffie''s view off Marthera. Telda was a disconcerting mixture of cold and to the point, but when Euffie looked up at her, the cold gave way to the point.


    "That hag," Telda hissed, "does not own you, and now that you have also lied, there will be ¨C "


    Telda was interrupted by a hand gripping her stomach from behind, and another yanking her head to one side. A middle-aged woman sunk teeth she didn''t have a minute ago into the woman''s neck. It was not a clean bite. Telda''s scream turned choke, and the cigarette dropped from her lips. Euffie and the thugs stepped back. Telda was thrown to the ground with a crash, revealing what almost looked like Marthera.


    Almost, because Euffie didn''t remember Marthera having yellow sclera and red irises.


    Before the other two soldiers could react, Marthera rushed one of them down, shoving Euffie aside. She moved inhumanly fast. Not nearly as fast as Euffie could, but still enough to blur at the edges. When Euffie turned from where she lay on the floor, one soldier was clutching his neck and gasping for air through a stream of blood, just like Telda. The other was being repeatedly struck in the kidneys. He pitched forward. Marthera bit into the back of his neck with a sickening crunch, and he collapsed to the ground. He was eerily still. Marthera spun back to the first man and closed her jaws on his neck. Blood continued escaping his body for a few moments, and then he was still.


    Marthera turned to Euffie, and gave a quizzical look.


    Euffie realized silvery magic was curling around her arms, and her fists were clenched. She relaxed and held them up defensively, but the magic took a few more seconds to fade away.


    "I''ll ask you about that later," Marthera dismissed. She turned to Telda, who was scrabbling for her cigarette with the hand not trying to stop the blood leaking from her jugular. Unsuccessfully.


    "What ¡­ the fuck?" Telda said, squeezing the words through what was left of her neck. Euffie turned away before Marthera''s dripping teeth finished Telda in the same place. Instead she fixated on the blood pooling beside her from the man with hardly a neck anymore. And on keeping her magic in check.


    Euffie heard panting, and suddenly became sharply aware that she was alone in a room with Mother Marthera.


    "Now look, Euffie," Marthera said, turning to face her with those horrible yellow and red eyes. She wiped her dripping mouth, forever ruining her already dirty sleeve. Her voice didn''t change, despite how Euffie felt it ought. Like the runewrights'' always did before doing something awful with her rune.


    Marthera wrung her hands. "If you need to scream, I don''t blame ya. There''s a pillow on my bed. Use that."


    Euffie raised a trembling finger. "Th-there''s a ¨C a knife in your, uh ¨C "


    Marthera looked down and saw the weapon sticking out of her gut. She grimaced.


    "Oh, he got me. Thanks for lettin'' me know. You, er, might wanna look away ¡­ "


    Euffie took the invitation gladly. This time she avoided the body beside her, and stared at the trembling hands in her lap. She heard a sticky pulling sound, then a stranger and stickier one. The familiar noise of a weapon clattering on the ground was a relief in comparison.


    "All better," Marthera said. "Here, let me help you up. We got some clean-up to do, and then I think you oughta get headed."


    Euffie saw a bloodstained hole in Marthera''s clothes where the knife had stuck, but the wrinkled flesh beneath looked untouched by anything but age. Her sclera looked even yellower than before, like old paper. Her red-stained teeth, which Euffie could''ve sworn were longer and sharper moments before, now looked completely normal.


    "Oh ¡­ okay. Y-yes, Mother Marthera," she added, for safety.


    Marthera sighed, and closed her eyes. Without the yellow sclera visible, Phoebe saw through for a moment and realized it was still the same woman she''d known before. She was just a lot more dangerous than she''d let on, when she wanted to be.


    "Run along, Euffie," she was saying. "My pillow is still there for you to scream into. I need some privacy while I ¡­ take care of the bodies. And my face, of course."