"Yes, thank you." I wonder if she will be one I will have to watch die. "Whether they know it or not, this town is lucky to have you, Mary," he said, putting on the smile he knew she wanted from him. Her expression softened, and he did not need magic to know that it had the intended effect.

He stood up, lifting himself with his mind as much as his legs. He knew it was a subtle but graceful, easy movement and he wanted to portray that strength and confidence. Remain confident. They all need that. Mary stood as well, looking refreshed and ready for what they had to do next.

He took another look at Stott's vacant expression. Stott's mind was still very unsettled. The shock had left it pliable, but really helping him would take a considerable amount of time. Again, Agmar did not have the time he needed.

"He needs to sleep. His mind needs the quiet time to settle and recover. There will be more I will be able to do in the morning," he said. He reached into Stott's brain, gently triggering the parts that regulated sleep. It was not one of his best skills, but it was easier while Stott's mind was still more susceptible. It had the needed effect. Stott would be asleep within minutes.

"We should head downstairs. Margaret should be nearly ready for me by now."

He positioned a pillow and gently laid Stott down. Stott remained curled up, but relaxed slightly into the pillow. Mary put a blanket over him.

"He will be fine here for a while," Agmar suggested. He turned towards the door and Mary followed. The door opened and closed quietly on oiled hinges, and he found himself stepping lightly and quietly. It was a habit he had kept when he was younger, and he was not sure why it had come back just then. They were both quiet down the hallway and the stairs down, with Mary's footsteps the loudest sounds.

They found Margaret alone in the kitchen. She did not notice their arrival right away. The evening was getting late, and the cooks had all cleaned up for the night and left. The servers had gone to rooms. All the knives here will have to be secured before this time tomorrow. There was a peaceful air in the room as Margaret did some final mixing and stirring. She was humming a tune he did not recognize. Agmar wondered to himself how many of these gentle moments were left.

After a moment, Mary's footsteps were heard by Margaret and he saw her take a deep breath before she turned towards them, the healer's face blank of whatever she'd been thinking moments before.

"How's Stott doing?" She looked between the two of them, but focused on the empty bowl that Mary had brought down with her. "He ate?"

"Yes, he ate it all. It took some coaxing, but once he smelled it well enough he realized somewhere in there that he was starving. Agmar has said he'll be better off once he's had some sleep," she waved a hand, deferrring to Agmar for further details, before moving to set the bowl in an empty washbasin.

"He's still in too deep for me to risk bringing him out of it, but the soup is a good sign. I've helped him along towards sleep, hopefully it will help curb some of the dreams as well so it will be a restful one. He needs it." Agmar tried to keep his own face blank while he spoke.

"Yes, I see. This elixir is nearly done. A couple more minutes of boil should do it, based on how it smells now. Was there anything more you wanted to do to it?"

Agmar moved to the large pot that steamed and boiled atop the stove, working a spell on his right hand as he did so, allowing the hand to glow slightly in the process to allow the two women to know he was about to do something. He slowly lowered his hand halfway into the pot, using his other hand to keep his jacket sleeve out of the way.

He felt the water, the herbs, the potency they had reached, the temperature, and consistency with his mind through his fingers. He closed his eyes and envisioned each element within the pot swirling together as they boiled, and he pushed them together tighter while raising the heat that they boiled at as well. He helped some of the herbs that would have the most effect, similar to how he had worked with the infant's lung, increasing their maturity and potency in the process. The mixture changed to a darker brown color and thickened to the consistency of a gravy by the time he was done, and he pulled his hand out of the pot, shaking as much off as possible back in with the rest.

Margaret handed him a towel, silently. She seemed to look at the mixture skeptically, but said nothing. She had already laid out a tray with enough cups for the remaining pregnant women, and a ladel stood ready. She turned the heat off beneath the pot, and replaced its lid atop it to keep it warm.

"I believe we're ready then. Let's begin speaking to them." She looked at them with a grim expression.

He nodded at her, and noticed Mary do the same. She turned and headed towards the dining hall, Agmar and Mary following behind. He was greatful that she seemed to be taking the lead.

The first stop was a couple that Agmar estimated to be in their mid-thirties. The wife had light brown hair and freckles over a broad nose. The husband was a working man, as evidenced by his frame, and build. They both wore worried expressions.

"Sara, Dodd, this is Agmar, the man Avern mentioned, who's here to help us," Margaret said, introducing him. "Agmar, these are Sarah and Dodd Wrint."

Sara was far enough along to know she was pregnant, but early enough that she was not showing yet. There was no chance that the baby would survive this early.

"Avern told you that there is trouble coming," Agmar began. "This evil force will start by attacking unborn babies--your baby. It has already happened to the town animals. Mary was attacked by a baby horse that had claws and horns. It killed the mare coming into this world."

"I am truly sorry to have to tell you this, but there is little time. In a few hours your baby will...change. The evil will turn it into a small demon, and it will not be your baby anymore. The demon will kill you coming out, and then will try to kill every living thing it sees."

Agmar paused, letting the weight of it sink in. Looks of worry had evolved to alarm which evolved to fear. He could see disbelief as well, but it looked to be secondary.

"It's true," Mary said. "Agmar healed me, so I don't have the gashes left to show you. Please listen to him. I hit the damned thing with a shovel and it didn't even flinch until I managed to kill it with the edge. Hosef is in pretty bad shape, too."

"There is one thing we can do," Margaret said. "You know I would never even suggest such a thing unless it was dire. There are herbs that can end a pregnancy. I hate doing it, but...."

Dodd looked at her somberly, before looking back at his wife. "But you're going to tell us we have to, aren't you?" he asked when he turned back. "That she'll die otherwise."

"My baby..." Sara said feebly.

It occurred to Agmar that Margaret had not picked this couple first by chance. This couple was not questioning his authority, was not complaining about his being a wizard. Perhaps they had had some positive experience with magicks before. Why they were being even this receptive he was not going to question. He was glad they were first nonetheless.

"Dodd," he said as compassionately as he could, "you will lose them both, or we can save Sara. But the two of you should decide."

"I don't want to lose my baby," Sara whimpered.

"I know that, hon," Margaret said.

"I don't want to lose you," Dodd told his wife emphatically. He was sitting to one side of her, his arm mostly around her waist, and he pulled her tighter to him as he said it. Sara nodded silently, tears welling up in her eyes. "Tell us about these herbs, Margaret," he added.

"I've blended them together into a thick drink. It won't taste pleasant, but it will do what is required. Agmar has helped enhance it some so that less will need to be taken. There will be some discomfort, and cramping, but it will pass and be done with quickly enough that you'll be home before the night is done. There will be other things the town will have to contend with starting tomorrow, so everyone will need as much rest tonight as possible." She leaned forward, and took one of Sara's hands in her own, looking intently into the woman's sad eyes.

"This baby is going to die, no matter what we do, Sara. It's much kinder to do it this way. For both you and the child. There will be other children."

"I understand," Sara whispered. She turned and buried her face in her husband's chest, and Margaret waved at Agmar and Mary to step back.

"We'll give you two a moment, while I get the herbal drink." Dodd nodded and Margaret turned, indicating they should follow her into the kitchen again. Once they were out of earshot of the couple, Agmar spoke.

"You knew they would agree," he said.

"I thought it likely. They're both sensible enough to have listened to the stories they've likely heard by now, and neither of them are the type to take risks."

"They're the couple that married at this inn two years ago aren't they?" Mary asked.

"Yep. They planned an indoor wedding so that they wouldn't run the risk of rain ruining the ceremony. It ended up being a lovely day outside that day too, ironically enough. Still, it was a lovely ceremony regardless."

"I imagine it was," Mary replied. Agmar noticed she kept her voice casual, but sighed slightly.

"Nonetheless, I thought it best that we start with someone who'd be easier to convince, and then have them to use as an example of people who've seen some reason already when we approach more difficult ones. And I expect they will get increasingly difficult." Margaret pulled the lid off the pot, and steam rose up from beneath it, wafting to the ceiling before thinning in the air. She took the first glass from the tray and filled it halfway, seeming intently focused on her task.

"We will want to keep those who have taken this elixer separated from those who have not. Some of them might experience reasonably severe cramping and worsen our chances with the others," Agmar pointed out.

"I agree. Mary, would you talk to Elsa about moving the other women out of the dining hall and into the study? We'll call them out to another room from there and then take them back to the dining hall once we've convinced them. I believe Allek has an office down there that we can use to talk to them."

"Of course." Mary moved off to find Elsa.

"So of the rest, how many do you think will be the more difficult ones," Agmar asked.

"Two or three," Margaret replied after a moment's contemplation. "The Rennills might be the hardest, maybe. This is their first, and it took them four years of trying for her to even get pregnant. And that was with me helping. She once offended some wizardess, and believed for the longest time that she had been cursed by her. She only gave up that belief when she was finally pregnant."

"There are a couple others not likely to believe it all. Some of them won't believe Mary, either. Do you have a plan for those? The ones that won't listen to you and won't believe Mary?"

"Short of sending for the remains of the thing that attacked her, no, not yet."

"I see," Margaret said, picking up the cup. "Well, let's bring this one out, and we'll have one behind us."

"Agreed," he said, and she led the way back to the dining area and Sara and Dodd. The two were still whispering to each other. They looked like a happy couple facing something difficult together. A shame more couples cannot be like that.

"So," Margaret said to them, "here we have it. It's not a lot, but you really should drink it all down." She handed Sara the cup and sat towards the foot of the mattress.

"Drink it?" Sara asked somewhat incredulously. "Looks more like I should eat it." Agmar reached into her mind, watching for the part of it that would register the flavor. Suppressing that seemed like the least he could do.

She raised the cup and sniffed it tentatively. "Is it supposed to smell spoiled like that?"

"It's alright," Margaret offered reassuringly.

Sara took the first careful sip, and Agmar nudged down the taste. Not enough to have no flavor at all, but mild enough to be palatable enough. He watched her take a deep breath and he could feel her gathering her courage. She drank it all down in several swallows without stopping. He pulled out of her mind.

"Not as bad as I was expecting," Sara said, handing the empty cup back. "Not yummy, but not revolting either. Kinda slides down the throat, which is weird."

Margaret looked at Agmar with a raised eyebrow--an almost accusing look. He smiled back as Mary and Elsa walked in. Elsa looked slightly frustrated, and also somewhat resigned. Mary did a better job of concealing what she was feeling. Agmar kept to himself.

"Everyone settled?" Margaret looked at her daughter expectantly. Agmar noticed that Elsa wasn't looking directly at her mother, and she looked tired. He found himself automatically giving her the same courtesy as Margaret had asked for, and kept himself from searching out the reasons in her mind. He tried to wait patiently to find out what he could. Mary spoke up first.

"Allek Gannen chose this particular moment to wander his sorry drunken ass back inside and took offense to us comandeering his office. He gave young Elsa here quite an earful before I had the chance to intervene. Fortunately Rachel Gannen has a head on her shoulders, or I think I would have just beaten that man unconscious! Not that it would have taken much with him being so piss-drunk!" Mary fumed for a moment, and Agmar didn't doubt she could put the heavyset man under if she set her mind to it. "Rachel has taken Allek upstairs for the night, to their rooms. In the meantime, she has set aside one of the servants' rooms for us a short ways down the hall from the office we wanted, and upgraded the two girls who's room it is to one of the guest rooms for the night instead. The room will be open for our use in just a moment. The others are settled into the study, although they're full of questions and it's a small room. We'll want to move quickly before things get out of hand. Treya, her husband and the good Captain are up in a guest room for the moment, for when we're ready to try talking some sense into her." Mary sighed and smiled. "What a day this is turning out to be!" She shook her head incredulously before continuing.

"Also, Lynna just came back from getting her nightclothes and such. She requested a room adjacent to your room Agmar, and she's up there dropping off her things now. I expect she'll be down here with us shortly."

"Elsa, I'll need you in this room, while I talk to each of the other women," Margaret said. "Sara here has already had the dose, just a moment ago. It may work a bit quicker than you're accustomed to seeing. Let me know if anything doesn't seem right and we'll come right back, understood?"

Elsa nodded silently, and smiled over at Sara.

"Good. Let's go talk to the next couple, shall we?" Margaret turned and headed to the hallway, Mary and Agmar following behind. Agmar reached with his mind for Lynna's and sent her a message, Lynna, stay up there for a bit yet and get some rest. Lie down and relax, you will need it. I will show you a few more things before I sleep, but I will know where to find you when it is time. He waited for her mental agreement, before letting go of the connection. The girl had enough on her mind that she didn't need to be present as the women aborted their pregnancies.

There will be enough in store for her tomorrow and the next day. No need to put her through this as well, he thought to himself. He took a breath and mentally reviewed the minds of the women and their husbands, before entering the study with Margaret and Mary, trying to prepare himself for the fact that the next couple of hours was only going to keep getting harder.

Chapter 11

Lynna set her two heavy bags at the foot of the bed and looked around the little room. It was smaller than her room at home, but not by much. She had always thought of her own room as small. Now she thought maybe it was not so bad after all.

She hopped onto the bed, bouncing in it when she landed. It was softer than her own, fluffier. This part could be nice. The rest of the room was plain, and lacked the feminine touches she had had to work to create at home. She loved her father dearly, but he knew nothing about how to decorate.

Or clean, for that matter. She dreaded the mess she would come back to when things settled back down again. Unless he doesn't end up back home over the next few days. That's possible. Probable, she decided.

"Lynna," Agmar's voice said in her mind, "stay up there for a bit yet and get some rest. Lie down and relax, you will need it. I will show you a few more things before I sleep, but I will know where to find you when it is time."

Alright, she thought for his benefit, and she felt his presence leave. For a moment she simply sat caught off guard, considering the implications of feeling his presence. She wondered for a moment if she had done that, or if he had intended it.

Spurred on by the thought, she closed her eyes and felt around her, wondering what else she might feel. She found that she could tell where in the room things were, but she doubted herself, unsure how much of it was because she already knew where they were.

She tried to feel into other rooms next. She reviewed in her mind the bubble that Agmar had created, with the tendril that allowed hearing beyond it. She focused her concentration like she had then, and directed it into the next room.

Suddenly she saw it, as clearly as if she were there. She lost her concentration with the excitement of success. She opened her eyes, and saw that her hands were yet again fidgeting with her apron. Why am I still wearing this stupid thing? She took it off a little roughly, crumpled it up and threw it across the room before closing her eyes and refocusing her concentration.

She found the room again, and examined more calmly this time. Something felt familiar to her in this room, and she realized that it was the bag sitting on the floor at the end of the bed. That's Agmar's bag, she realized, this must be his room. The fact that she'd been in that room before served to lessen the excitement she had felt earlier, and she refocused her energies on the room across from her own. I've never seen that one, she reassured herself.

The room was empty, and laid out slightly differently from the one she was in. There were two beds, instead of just the one, and a small nightstand sat against the wall between them. There was no window, and Lynna realized suddenly that she could see everything as clearly as if it was well-lit. She looked, but found no candles or lanterns lit either. She felt as if she was outside of herself, and floating near the ceiling of the room, looking down on it as a bird might.

She saw the bureau at the other end of the room, and wondered if it had anything inside it. She tried to move herself towards it, and suddenly seemed to slide towards it, as if slipping forward on ice. She felt as if she was moving too fast, and would smash into the doors of the bureau, but instead she found herself somehow going through them, and was inside the large wooden chest. She seemed to stop moving almost as suddenly as she had started, and could see just as clearly as she had in the room. A few empty hangers hung on the bar inside the bureau, and an extra blanket lay neatly folded on the floor of it. This room had obviously not been assigned to anyone yet.

She moved again, this time to exit the bureau, and found herself bumping up against the wood of the doors, unable to go past them again. She tried a second time, with more force, and this time the impact against the doors made her spin for a moment, leaving her feeling dizzy. She suddenly realized that she couldn't seem to open her eyes or move her body in any way either. She panicked, and started trying to push against the wood on all sides of the bureau.

She grew dizzier and dizzier as she kept trying to get out, feeling sure she was hurting herself in some way. She tried to call out for help, but nothing seemed to come. She felt like she'd been separated from herself somehow, and she didn't know if she was breathing anymore or not. In terrified horror, she remembered the view of the bureau from the outside, and realized that the doors had been kept closed by a simple metal hook that was essentially locking her inside. Minutes seemed to drag by as she searched for any opening she might be able to escape from.

Suddenly, without warning, the doors to the bureau flew open and she heard wood splinter and the metal hook twist in protest. With some alarm, she felt herself being pulled roughly back towards her own room, the two doors in between opening of their own accord so she could fly through them. She saw herself, lying atop the comforter on the bed and looking pale, before she slammed into herself and felt as if she re-connected.

Who taught you to do that?! Agmar's voice was loud and angry inside her head, and she winced as she sat up.

Why? What did I do? After opeing her eyes briefly to check that she was intact, she closed them again, trying to send her words specifically to him alone, as he was doing to her.

You left your body, Lynna. You are not ready for such a maneuver. I approve of your attempts to explore, but you need to be more careful. When you went into that wooden bureau you slipped entirely out of your own body to do so. You leave yourself vulnerable when you do, as you do not know how to protect yourself yet. The force we are contending with is already powerful enough to affect us in some ways, and it was able to cut off your return to yourself. If you feel yourself sliding away from yourself like that again, concentrate hard on opening your eyes instead, and it should bring you back right away.

I'm sorry. She felt foolish. I keep making stupid mistakes. She had meant to keep that last thought to herself, but realized that he had likely heard it as well, and felt embarassed.

We all make mistakes in the beginning, Lynna. Just be more cautious. I know it is difficult when there are new and exciting abilities to explore. Every student starting to learn makes many errors, but they help you to learn. I will keep a light connection to you, just in case, and will warn you if I feel you heading into anything dangerous, alright?

Maybe I shouldn't explore right now at all?

The more you learn now, the easier the things I need to teach you will be. So, by all means, explore. Just do so with caution.

Lynna found herself nodding, and then guiltily sent a "yes" to him in her thoughts. She felt him chuckling, and wondered how much his contact with her could see. She felt it diminish, and realized that she could see the connection to him if she concentrated hard enough. She kept concentrating, and opened her eyes, allowing it to show up in her field of real vision as well. For a few moments, she sat quietly, just watching the thin wisp line of smoke that was her visualization of the connection Agmar was keeping to her. She created a similar wisp from herself and used it as her tether to see out into the hallway again.

She considered for a moment where to explore. She decided not to check out downstairs where Agmar was. Better to stay up here, or maybe outside...

She guided the smoky tendril back and sent it towards the window. She wondered for a moment if it would pass through the window, or if she would have to open it. Agmar's went inside from out back just fine. At the time she had not noticed what route the tendril had taken. She tried it. The tendril went through the window as if it were not there.

Walls are only obstacles to your body, not to your mind or will, Agmar said to her.

How much are you here with me, anyway?

Enough to feel the thrill you get when you discover something new. At that point it only takes a moment to see what you learned. Every emotion has a different feel to it, and with enough practice you can read them by that feel. It is a bit like feeling a carving with your fingers and picturing it in your mind. It does not come right away, but you can learn with practice.

And how long have you been doing this for?

Longer than you would suspect. Not a great deal longer, but longer. If you will excuse me, however, I need to pay more attention down here right now.

Alright. I'll try to stay out of trouble.

With a start she sat up a little straighter, and let the tendril dissolve by ignoring it. A thought had occurred to her. The bureau doors. He opened them. How do I do that?

She thought about the tendril she had been using. She had been looking through it. She tried picturing one with a ghostly hand at the end of it. One appeared. She tried to reach out with it, but discovered she could not feel anything with it. She focused on it until she could see it with her eyes open.

She looked at a candle holder on the small table, and reached for it. The ghostly hand went clear through it. Hmm, this isn't easy. She slowly and deliberately moved the ghostly hand back to the candle holder. She closed the fingers around it, and it shifted! In her excitement she lost focus on the tendril and it collapsed.

Remembering that her door had been opened, she reformed the hand bigger this time and concentrated hard before sending it slamming against the wood. She lost the ghostly hand visualization in her head again as she nearly jumped in excitement at the sound of the door slamming loudly shut. She giggled, realizing the kind of mischief she could do if she used this around some of the more superstitious people in town.

I would have to recommend against that course of action with the current situation as it is, Agmar's voice in her mind sounded amused.

Oh, I wouldn't really do those things! Lynna felt slightly guilty just knowing that someone else knew she'd even thought such notions.

I did not think you really would, don't worry, however the more power you have available to you the easier you will find it is for you do do things. When the power is at its highest, you will find that some of the things you inadvertantly think of may occur, without you intending it. You will need to heighten your focus and control as the power you feel grows in strength. Idle thoughts that involve using magic to accomplish something could prove dangerous over the next three days.

Okay, I'll try to keep that in mind. She felt the equivallent of a mental nod, and realized that she also felt a shift when his attention was focused elsewhere.

Lynna decided to explore the level of rooms she was on first, creating the long tendril to see through, and noticing that it was getting easier for her to do. She wound her way around, going in and out of rooms and peering at the people inside some of them. She found that many of the rooms on this level were already occupied by people off the ships. Some she recognized as they'd been in the town before, but others she didn't know but recognized the clothing style or luggage to be similar in nature. A couple of rooms held people who lived at nearby farms and had been brought into town earlier. Most rooms had at least two people assigned to them, from what she could tell, and some occupants were already asleep, although many were quietly talking. She found that she couldn't hear their conversations, and tried to change the tendril to allow for that. She tried several different things, even making the end of the tendril resemble an ear, but it didn't seem to help. In frustration, she moved from the room she had been trying in to another one closer, thinking a closer proximity might make it easier.

She found herself forgetting entirely about sound when she caught the scene in the room she entered. She froze there in astonishment as she saw two figures moving rythmically on the bed. She didn't even realize she was holding her breath, fearing she'd somehow be noticed as having seen them. The candlelight left flickering shadows of the woman's profile as she sat atop the man in the bed, rocking back and forth on him as his hands seemed to roam in patterns over her bare skin. She recognized the woman as the schoolmaster's eldest daughter, a year younger than Lynna, and the man was the son of one of the merchant ship captains.

Ahem. Lynna? She startled at the sound of Agmar in her mind, as if he was clearing his throat, and withdrew quickly back into her own room, feeling her face flush with embarassment. I suppose I have just lost my chances of protecting your youthful innocence. She heard him mentally sigh.

I...um... Lynna couldn't think of anything to say. She put her hands to her cheeks, realizing she was projecting the blushing at Agmar as well.

You were moving things earlier, maybe you should go back to that for a while. One name for it is telekinesis, and it is a good thing to practice control with.

Yes, that was fun.

So here is what I want you to do. You brought two bags. Unpack them and get yourself settled in for the night. I expect everything shaken out and then folded neatly.

But it's only for a few days, is putting stuff in drawers really necessary? She knew she had brought much more than she needed, but it was her first time sleeping away from home, and she felt better over-prepared than under. For just a few days living out of bags seemed easier.

Agmar chuckled in her head. Silly, it has nothing to do with getting settled into the room. It has to do with practice. I want you do to it all without getting up off the bed and without touching anything.

Oh, I see... She felt his smile in her head. It felt...warm. She nodded, hoping he would feel the gesture back. His presence faded away.

She looked at the two bags, and used her ghostly tendril hand to open them. They were tied, and it took more concentration than she expected. Pushing at a door or nudging a candleholder was much easier. It took her several minutes just to get a knot untied. This is going to take a while...

She tried to reach inside, but she could not see inside from where she was, and she could not feel with her recent third hand. Eventually she shrugged and pushed the bag over. Then she could see inside it to grab things.

The first item was a towel. Shaken and folded, Agmar had specified. Shaking it was easy. Folding it, she found, was very difficult to do with one clumsy hand. She still was not very good at controlling it. After several tries she groaned in frustration.

This is too hard...

Why? Agmar asked her.

Why? Have you ever folded anything one handed?

No, he replied with a snicker she could feel. She asked herself what she was missing, but nothing came to her.

Who said you had to do anything one handed? I only specified without getting up or touching anything.

What do you - Oh!! She felt him chuckle again at her sudden realization. But how do I control two of them?

It is not entirely different from using your two physical hands, Agmar answered. With practice it will feel as natural as doing it without magic. Eventually you will not need to see the visualization, and it will feel more as if you are telling the towel to fold itself. But, for now, seeing the forces you are commanding as being hands is a good way to learn control. There are a lot of instances that require a wizard to use their magic in multiple tasks at once, just as you might find yourself doing in normal activities, like housework or cooking.

Okay, I'll give it a try, Lynna thought back, realizing he'd given her an even more difficult task than she'd first thought. She concentrated, letting the one hand drop the towel for a moment, while she focused on creating a second hand in the air. It slowly came into existance, it's ghostly presence hovering in the room, and she grinned excitedly, only to watch the first of the two disappear with a sudden puff. She sighed, in frustration, and the second one puffed away as well.

It helps, in the beginning, if you bring them up together. Agmar added in, quietly. Some people also find it helpful if you make the physical gestures you want to see happen with the magic. Then your mind is thinking the same as your hands, so to speak. It starts becoming natural with practice, although some wizards have to use their hands to make it work, and others use their hands only to occasionally emphasize what they are doing.

Hmm. I'll try that first then.

Lynna raised both her hands slowly in the air, trying to feel as if the ghostly hands were extending off of them. She was pleased when both magical hands appeared on the first try. She reached down with the right, gesturing with her real hand as she did, and slowly moved the fingers to pick up the towel again. She brought the left hand over to grasp another corner of the towel, and smiled as she realized how much easier it was when she was making the gestures along with the magic. The realization was dampened a little when she lost hold on the towel entirely as she tried to bring the corners together, and move them into one hand like she would with her real hands. She realized that she usually felt the towel when she folded it normally, and that her ghostly hands couldn't feel the texture.

Can't they? Close your eyes, Lynna. See the hands with your mind. Feel the towel with your mind. Focus, but relax too. Some of it will come naturally, as this is a task you have done with your physical hands hundreds of times.

She tried it, and closing her eyes helped. She could feel the towel with her mind. At first it was just the location of it. Then she could feel the edges of it. There was no sense of texture, but she did not worry about that. It took her a few tries and quite some time, but she did get the towel folded.

The next item was a wash cloth, and she did the same thing with it. It was easier than the towel. Each following item got a little bit easier, a little bit faster. She worked her way through the bags.

The effort and concentration were tiring, and she was starting to look forward to sleep. Agmar was supposed to show her some meditation and defenses before bed. She started to understand that the next few days were going to be long and tiring.

She had heard or been told enough to know to be afraid of what was coming. But she was also excited, and she was not sure how to feel about that. She could not deny it entirely, though. Often she had dreamed about some stranger showing up and whisking her off to learn magicks. She had been born with the potential.

And now there was some stranger here in town, and he had singled her out. He was even teaching her. She wondered what would happen afterwards. The town would start rebuilding whatever needed rebuilding. Families would help each other. It was what the town did after hardships. The people of Eagle's Harbor had either been born into a familial town that cared for its own or had come here for just that reason.

But I'll never be the same. How can I just go back to helping father around the house as if nothing has happened? She stopped thinking to focus on socks, which were proving more difficult. What if everyone's afraid of me afterwards? What if they drive us out of town?

Suddenly she envisioned herself standing at the fork in the road a few miles up. She pictured herself having to choose between going with her father down one road and going with Agmar for proper training down the other fork. How could she be expected to make a decision like that?

Focus on right now, Lynna. You often will not know what other factors might influence a decision until it is time to make it. You do not have to plan your future this instant. I am nearly finished down here. We are having some difficulties with the last couple, but it will be resolved shortly.

Alright, Agmar. One thing at a time, then.

She returned her attentions to the last couple pairs of socks and then proceeded to struggle with opening the top drawer on the low chest in her room. It finally jerked open, rattling the ceramic pitcher and washbasin sitting atop the chest, and she counted herself lucky they didn’t fall off. She carefully stacked the clothes into organized piles and then placed each of the piles in the large drawer. She closed the top drawer and managed to get the bottom one open with more grace than the first before stuffing the two empty bags into it. She closed that one and wondered what she should do next.

Agmar didn’t seem to be really noticing her for a moment, likely distracted by things downstairs, so she decided to wander the inn again and try and hear this time as well. She stretched out on the bed and closed her eyes, trying to allow her sight and hearing dangle at the end of the wispy tentacle she weaved through her door and out into the hallway. She moved towards one door on her side of the hall, but further down, and was rewarded by the sounds of a man snoring within.

Now I’ll be better able to tell which rooms to not peek into, she thought, blushing again briefly as the scene she’d stumbled onto before came unbidden to her mind. She refocused her attention again, barely managing to not lose control over her exploring tendril.

She noticed quite a few people had turned in for the night, and the inn was reasonably full, although mostly with sailors from the ships. Some rooms were entirely empty, but others had as many as six men or women crammed into them. Some shared the bigger beds, and others had thrown bedrolls down on the floor. She suspected that the empty rooms would start holding entire families tomorrow, when people moved to group together for the next few days.

She found one room that had only one figure in it, curled up in a fetal position and hugging the comforter tightly as he moaned and kicked his feet in his sleep. Lynna moved closer, and recognized Stott Jacobs. He appeared to be sweating, and she tried to add touch to her tendril so she could feel his forehead. She brushed across it lightly, but couldn’t actually feel anything, as the tendril seemed to go through his head instead. She tried again, this time trying to focus on making a connection to his head.

Suddenly, Stott sat bolt upright in the bed and screamed. Lynna found herself frozen, the tendril caught on his mind. Images bombarded her – visions of Stott’s father and brother dying - along with feelings of physical pain from the wounds Stott had endured. She tried to pull away, recoil back to her own mind, but she felt something dark blocking her retreat, and moving towards her slowly. Somewhere, in the distance, she heard herself scream.

The images came without stopping. The hook swung at Porter Jacobs.

--The hook swung back, at Stott--at her--and hit. She felt the hook hit her shoulder. She screamed, and she did not know if she was screaming in the room with Stott, in her own room, or on the swaying boat.

--"What's wrong with you?! Etrick?!"--

Suddenly there was a hand around her throat, choking her, strangling her. She saw Etrick's eyes. She tried to ask herself where she was, what was happening. The unblinking eyes were glazed with something, more than just glassy looking.

...Men rose from their bunks and started killing eachother. Some with their bare hands...

She struggled with him, or Stott struggled and she watched, or she was there. She forgot which. There was somewhere she was supposed to be, something she was supposed to do. Rope--restrain him...stop him?

He--she--they--struggled. They had to get the hook away. The other hand was pinned by the rope. Both hands now focused on the one with the hook. The fingers were too stiff. One finger made a snapping noise when it came free.

Fear was turning into anger as the hook was starting to come loose. ...Some with their bare hands... Suddenly the hook was gone. It clattered against wood somewhere. Etrick was bigger and stronger than they were, how could they stop him.

There was a renching pain in their leg, and they screamed. Etrick made some kind of noise, but there was a pounding noise that drowned it out. It was too fast to be a normal heartbeat. Pound pound, pound pound it came.

Time hung suspended between pounds for just a moment as they saw a machete. Etrick was too strong for just bare hands. ...Some with their bare hands...

She grabbed for the machete--they grabbed for the machete. It felt like power. With power she could strike out--lash out. Anger made her stronger more than fear had, and the power and strength flowed through her, washing away the pains and hurts and doubts. Suddenly everything was clear. Kill...

Somewhere there was a crashing noise. It was an ugly tearing splintering sound. Something broke. Her worlds all went dark.

Chapter 12

He felt as if all he could do was struggle for breath as he dangled dangerously at the end of an invisible taut cord that threatened to break at any moment. From the end of that cord he watched through a haze as people took him away from the boat, and the bodies of his father and brother. He saw them tend to his wounds, wash him, change his clothes, and even feed him. But he couldn't feel. He was afraid to call out to them to. Afraid they would know what he had done.

But it wasn't just me. I gave up, but something else took over.

Whatever that something else was, put a chill in his heart like he had never known. He recoiled as far away as he could go, but still the images seemed to come, over and over his mind replayed the scene. He killed Etrick again and again in his thoughts. Each time the scene played the same.

Then, suddenly, he wasn't alone. Someone else followed the line to reach him, as some strange man had done twice before, but this one wasn't in the room as it was done. This one came all the way to him. The touch felt both feminine and familiar somehow.

You shouldn't be here... he tried to say, but he couldn't speak. He had no way of communicating with her. He felt something else, behind her, and tried to scream. The darkness was following, pushing her into his prison. He felt her feeling as he watched the scene play again, Etrick's blood flowing on her hands as his. He felt her screaming.

In one last fleeting moment, before he considered letting go of the cord entirely, he saw the way back. She slipped away on a thin gray trail that ran beside his own lifeline, and he threw himself at it with a final hope that there was still a chance to live and save his soul from the damnation he was sure to be destined for.

One moment he was an observer, the next he fell off the bed and painfully onto the floor, biting his lip as he slammed into the wood. He lay there a moment, shaking as he tasted the blood in his mouth. Then he tried to get to his feet, only to cry out at the sharp pain in his hip. The other leg was no better, as he saw the ankle was swollen and bruised.

Slowly, he took stock of his injuries. He could hear voices nearby to the room he was in, but they were beyond the door. As he tested his shoulder and tenderly touched bruises that seemed to cover a good majority of the front of his body and face, he wondered where exactly he was. Everything was hazy, and he tried to recall the faces of the different people he'd seen nearby recently.

So much of it was a haze. Ms Gretch had been there, hadn't she? And had he seen Mayor Mordan's face at one point?

He had seen a stranger, though. He thought he remembered some strong bald man. He would help. Maybe he could save them. He gingerly tried to get up.

Then he remembered the ship. Did it burn? He had to find someone, tell them about the ship. If any wreckage survived he had to warn them. It was all cursed. But it wasn't the ship, was it? It was something the ship passed through. Something we passed through.

He slumped on the floor, giving up trying to stand as the weight of what had happened--what he had done--came back to him. I killed Etrick. Some part of him knew he had not been in control at the time. But it was no excuse, and no comfort. He killed Father.

He also realized that he was alone now. It had always been the three of them. Ever since Gull's Roost. They had settled here to start anew. That new start was over, now. He did not know what to do, who to go to.

Etrick had been the friendly one. Father had known people. Stott was the one of them that could read, and he had spent much of his time doing so. It occurred to him that he could not think of a single person in town that he called by their first name.

He remembered that he had heard noises not far away. Somewhere outside this little room. An inn somewhere, maybe? He slowly stood up. It took some time and more than a couple tries. There were so few parts of him that worked the way they ought. In small, patient, determined steps he made his way to the door.

He leaned against the doorframe for a moment once he’d reached it, feeling the coolness of the wood against his forehead. The voices were still just murmurs, as if more than just the door stood between them and Stott. He turned the handle and pulled the door open, gritting his teeth against the effort. It felt as if every movement hurt. He borrowed some strength from the door and wall as he made his way towards the voices.

The hall wasn’t familiar to Stott, but one of the women standing in it was. Though he’d only seen her in passing, as his father’s opinion of her was rather poor, Stott recognized Lady Mary right away. He was surprised to see her looking disheveled, with bandages wrapped around her forearms and blood on her sleeves and some of her dress.

I’m too late...Am I in Lady Mary’s inn?...What’s happened here?...Do they know it’s coming? Thoughts seemed to tumble over one another in his mind. He didn’t know what was coming, but he knew with some certainty that something was coming. He’d felt it on the ship, in the fire, and it seemed to follow him from there. What if I’m now cursed, and I’ve brought it here? That thought brought him up short, horrified at the prospect. He froze, against the wall, unsure of what to do.

Mary was standing with her back mostly to Stott, as she looked into one of the other rooms. An argument seemed to be happening inside, and she watched silently by the doorway. Stott waited for a moment, listening in on the conversation within the room.

“You said you would protect her!” He thought he recognized the mayor’s voice, although he’d never heard the man so angry before. He thought he heard Mrs. Gretch’s voice in the background, trying to calm him down.

“She is not hurt, she is merely unconscious. She will recover.” Stott knew the third voice as that of the stranger he’d seen earlier. He’d heard that voice very clearly through his haze somehow, making it easier for him to pinpoint now.

“Don’t try to tell me she wasn’t in danger, Agmar! You know she was, or you wouldn’t have destroyed the door like that!” Stott looked, and realized that there was only part of the door on the hinges in the doorway. Splinters of wood littered the floor in the hallway around Mary’s shoes, and it looked as if larger pieces of wood were scattered on the floor further into the room.

“I am not suggesting she was not in any danger. I am merely saying she will recover from what happened?”

“Just what the hell did happen? Why was she screaming? What did you do to her?!” The mayor seemed on the verge of hysteria, and it occurred to Stott suddenly that the familiar feminine touch he’d felt before waking from his haze must have been connected to Lynna, the mayor’s daughter.

How could she reach me like that without even being in the room with me? he wondered to himself.

“Margaret,” the stranger said suddenly, “the young man is awake. Stott.”

Stott’s jaw dropped open, wondering how the man could know that when he couldn’t see him from inside the room. Mary turned, looking surprised, and quickly came over to his side, offering up an arm for support.

“It’s good to see you awake, young man, but you shouldn’t be out of bed!” she said, as he took her arm gratefully.

"No, you shouldn’t," Mrs. Gretch agreed, coming out of the bedroom.

He tried to reply, but his throat was raw and dry and he ended up coughing and doubled over as pain coursed through his beaten body.

“Agmar, if Lynna’s alright then maybe you can help Stott. The boy’s in a lot of pain!” Mrs. Gretch called back behind her.

Mrs. Gretch and Lady Mary both helped him stand and then supported him while waiting on the stranger Agmar. It was easier to breathe standing up more, but it took them each a couple tries to find a part of him they could hold without hurting him. As for him, he could no longer tell where pain started and stopped. It felt like every part of him hurt. Etrick always handled pain better than me.

"Actually," he heard the stranger say, "Lynna is going to help."

"But--" Mayor Mordan stammered.

"Come, Lynna, I will show you." The stranger again.

Agmar stepped out into the hallway and Stott recognized him immediately. The mayor's daughter followed, looking dazed, and her father followed right behind.

"Agmar, I said no," Mordan insisted in his mayor's voice. Stott had only heard him use that voice once before, but everyone in the town knew it at least a little. Everyone understood when Mayor Mordan meant business, and he was the mayor, after all. Agmar stopped and turned.

"That's enough, Avern," he said with an ominous seriousness. Mordan's face slackened a little and he actually took a step back submissively. Who is this stranger?

Agmar walked up to Stott and put a hand gently on his shoulder. Just like that all the pain was gone. Stott looked at the man in awe and wonder. A wizard. He was at the same time afraid of the man and yet he trusted him completely.

"Come, young man. You are rather hurt, are you not? I can fix that."

Agmar led him back to his room, and he was aware of Lynna following them. She followed them into the room and closed the door behind them.

"Agmar--" the mayor said from the hallway but stopped abruptly. The room was quiet. Agmar guided him to the bed.

"Lie down," the man suggested. He did, relieved that he was able to do so without pain. Once he was lying down the pain started gradually returning.

"You will need to feel the pain during the healing, but do not worry, it will not last long." It did not come back all at once, and it was tolerable as long as he did not move.

Agmar looked at Lynna a moment and she sat at the foot of the bed. She tenderly put a hand on his leg just above the ankle. Her touch was soft and soothing. She's kinda pretty. I never noticed that before.

"Take one wound at a time. Like you did with Mary's arm, start at the surface, then slowly work inward as you've seen me do today." Stott saw Lynna nod, as she stared intently at his swollen ankle. He realized that it was feeling warmer than the rest of his body, as well as tingling oddly. He watched as the swelling slowly seemed to go down as the ankle grew warmer in temperature.

Once the ankle was down to the normal size again, Lynna lifted her hand and took a deep breath. Stott realized suddenly that he'd been holding his own, and he let it out, feeling the warmness in his ankle already starting to diminish. He tested it gingerly, to find that it was probably the only part of his body that now didn't hurt. He stared at Lynna, startled at the realization of what she'd just done. She shifted position, moving forward on the bed so that she could reach the side of his leg near his wrenched hip, but she seemed to be trying not to meet his eyes.

He lay on the bed, quietly thinking and watching Lynna, as she moved from injury to injury. Sometimes Agmar would say something to her, suggesting the order she should approach them in, or something she should do differently that she already was. Sometimes, what Agmar said seemed almost like something Stott could understand, as he was talking about them in somewhat visual terms. It seemed to him that Lynna and Agmar could literally see inside Stott's body, and he slowly felt his injuries healing. In a couple of instances, Agmar reached forward and put his hand over where Lynna had hers, and Stott felt a sharper, more direct heat course down into the area, as if he was adding to make what Lynna was doing more effective.

She looks tired, he thought, looking at Lynna's face. And afraid. Is that because of me, or because of what's coming? How much did she see? She was in my mind, and she was...screaming. He saw her eyes flicker to look at him for the briefest of moments, and he realized that she was looking in his mind as he had thought it. You saw what happened. You've every right to be afraid of me after that, he thought deliberately at her.

"It's not like that!" She moved her hand away from him to her face, and burst into tears.

"Lynna?" Agmar looked at her, worriedly, as he put his hand on Stott's chest. After a moment, Stott felt several areas on his body suddenly flare up with and intense warmth, and he inhaled sharply, startled by it. Agmar stood, staring intently at absolutely nothing, it seemed, until Stott was about ready to cry out in alarm at the heat some parts of his body were feeling, when Agmar took his hand away. Stott tried to slow the pounding of his heart as he felt the heat begin to diminish right away, almost as quickly as it had begun. He saw Agmar put his hand on Lynna's arm.

"I have finished the healing. Perhaps the two of you should talk for a moment while I try to settle things down with your father, Lynna?" Lynna shrugged in response, and Agmar gave Stott a seemingly cryptic look before letting himself out of the room, leaving them alone.

Once the last of the heat seemed to have gone away, Stott tensed the muscles of his body in a slow pattern, checking himself over thoroughly, to find that he hardly ached anywhere anymore. His head still throbbed slightly at the back of the neck, but the rest of his body felt like he'd had no more than a long workout and run like Etrick sometimes made him do.

Used to make me do, he thought soberly. He moved his attention to Lynna, instead, sitting up on the bed so he could be at the same level as she. He reached out and touched one of her hands, and she jumped.

"Lynna, look, I don't know what you're thinking right now, so you're gonna have to tell me, okay? You saw stuff in my mind, and it wasn't pretty, but I know it was you that showed me the way back here from the edge of wherever I was. I just wish you hadn't of had to see all that in order to do it." He sat there awkwardly, fidgeting with the edge of the bedsheet and not knowing what to say.

"I can do magic stuff," she mumbled, taking her hands away from her face. He saw tears rolling freely down her cheeks, and she still wouldn't meet his eyes.

"Yeah, I kinda noticed that." She's afraid of what I think of her?! The thought seemed incredulous to him after everything he'd seen recently. Her eyes finally met his, and he found himself mildly amused that he didn't have to repeat what he'd just thought.

"You know how people are, Stott. This isn't the best town to do magicks in. People are gonna find out, and I don't know what's going to happen then."

"But how is that your fault?" he complained. He didn't see how it could be. Magic was something you were born with, right? It's not like she's killed anyone.

"What happened to you wasn't your fault, Stott."

"But you saw...you were there, I mean, kind of." Was she still reading his mind somehow? He didn't think she was still there the way she had been before, but she did seem to know what he was thinking.

"It's something I've been able to do for a while, actually. Usually it's just what people are thinking...more loudly, if that makes any sense." She lowered her eyes a little, looking down towards his chest, he guessed.

"We saw the logbook, Stott. Agmar is a real wizard, and he's read other books about what's going on. It's an old evil, and it's coming here. Some of it is already starting. Animals are acting up, all the pregnancies are in danger, and it's just going to get worse," she said. She was fidgeting with the hem of her skirt. Stott found that amusing, but not enough to lift the mood she was setting. She stopped when he noticed it.

"Stott, tomorrow night everyone who falls asleep will become a tool of the evil. Just like what happened with Etrick. He was unconscious, so it was able to control him. And then you got mad enough and scared enough that it was able to take some of the control away from you. It...pushed you, basically. But I can do some magicks. If I don't learn enough control from Agmar, it will be able to do things through me."

"Lynna," he asked, "why are you telling me this? We've seen each other around town, but you don't usually talk to me, or I'm usually busy somewhere. How come now you're telling me all this?"

"You've always got your nose in a book, and it's not like you've gone out of your way to talk to me either," she declared, sounding somewhat defensive.

"Whoa, I..." he put his hands up to stop her from saying more. "That's not what this is about." Besides, you're the mayor's daughter. He realized as soon as he'd thought it that she'd likely caught that as well, by the look of concern on her face.

"What's that supposed to mean? Most everybody likes my father!"

"Um... yes, that's very true. But most everybody also knows he's very protective of you. If he knew about your magic all along, then now I can understand why." He tried to give her an apologetic smile. "Look, I was really just wondering why you were telling me all about your magic. You've never needed to explain yourself to me before today, is what I was trying to say."

"You were wondering what has happened here so far, and what we knew, so I just thought I'd fill you in." She started fidgeting with the hem of her skirt again, still not looking at him.

"And you're scared," he said. It didn't take any magic to read the look on her face. "You're afraid of what the town will think when they find out about your magic, and you're afraid of this thing that's coming. Even more so now that you've seen it in my mind." He sighed at the last part, realizing he didn't have anything reassuring to say to her. There was an awkward moment before she spoke again.

"It wasn't your fault. What happened, I mean. It's weighing on you and making your head and heart hurt and I can't fix it, no matter what magicks Agmar shows me. There's going to be more. Worse things are going to happen here. I can feel it coming now. I felt it trap me into your mind with you..." she trailed off, her tears starting anew. "I'm sorry."

"You showed me the way out of that trap, and just now you were healing my physical wounds. You've got nothing to be sorry for." He took a deep breath to help pull himself together before he continued. "How do we stop this thing?"

He had hoped she'd stop crying, as he didn't know exactly what to do about it, but her tears seemed to get worse at his question.

"We can't! The best we can do is listen to Agmar, while he tries to help us ride it out. He came here to try and get us prepared for the worst of it, but half the town seems against him..."

Stott nodded, thoughtful for a moment.

"Well maybe they'll listen a little better once they've heard my story then," he finally said. "It's likely to come out eventually anyway, I might as well tell it straight off." He wasn't happy with the idea of telling it in front of the entire town, but he had a feeling that it might help. It seemed the best he could do for the moment, so he resigned himself to it. He just hoped he wouldn't find himself in the stockades or worse for the duration of the darkest times.

"They'll have to see it wasn't your fault. I was able to see that it wasn't." She looked up at him finally, her eyes and nose starting to get red from crying.

"You had the advantage of being able to see it from my perspective though. All they'll have is my word to go on. And, admittedly, I'm not the most social person in town. Etrick and Pa are - were - " he winced momentarily as he corrected himself, "far more likely to be on a first name basis with any given person in town."

"What are all those books you're always reading? I mean, I've read a few books here and there, but I swear you've had one in front of you more than half the times I've seen you." She sniffed her nose, and he found himself looking around for a handkerchief or something to offer, and came up emptyhanded.

"Um...most of them..." he suddenly felt embarrassed, not knowing how to answer. "Most are stories of adventures and other places. A couple of the regular ship captains like to read as well, and I trade books I've bought from the caravan merhants and read already for different ones they've already finished. A few have been descriptions of far away places, but most tell tales of knights and kings and such. Some wizards too, actually." He tried to smile at her again, hoping he looked encouraging.

"Not that reading any of that helps anything, I guess," he finished. He sighed, and disappointment started filling up the places that had been filled with pain and fear.

There had always been two reasons for doing as much reading as he did. One was the more public reason. It was the reason he gave from time to time when someone would comment on how he spent his time.

Eagle's Harbor was a small town, and small towns were boring. Each day was the same as the next. Each day one got up early, worked hard, and then had a little time to rest and relax before waking up and doing it all over again. On a good day there might be some scandal or gossip to make the day worth remembering. But there was no adventure here. There was adventure in his books. If he could not live them out here, he could at least live them out in his mind.

The second reason was the one he had never admitted to anyone. Deep down, he always suspected he was a coward. He was not strong like his brother. His father was strong of heart and character. Stott admired them; they were better folk than he. To him the stories of adventure and tales of great heroes were also manuals. Perhaps if he read enough of them, and learned what being a hero was about, then perhaps he could be one if the opportunity ever were to arise.

But that opportunity had come. He had failed. He had failed them both. Nowhere was it written that heroes succumbed to evil forces and killed their brothers. He had. He wasn't strong enough to resist. He hadn't been able to stop Etrick, and so he had failed his father.

"What's wrong?" Lynna asked, scooting closer to him on the bed. He noticed that she had stopped fidgeting with her skirt. He had obviously distracted her from her own problems. She's the one that gets to be a hero... Suddenly he understood his place, his role.

"You're going to have a lot going on in the next few days, aren't you?" he asked.

"Pretty much. Agmar will be teaching me how to protect myself, and then I think he's going to keep me as busy as possible. Idle hands and all. I think he figures if he can keep me doing stuff then it'll be harder for the evil to affect me. He hasn't said it, and I can't read him, but there are ways other than magic to figure out what people are thinking. --Why?" she asked abruptly.

"Well," he said tentatively, "the way I see it, the more people have that they need to get done the more they'll need people helping them. Your father can call on just about anybody to help him. Agmar can have you do some things for him. But who do you have, Lynna. You're going to need someone to help you with stuff, and--well--I'm gonna need stuff to do. So how can I help you, Lynna?"

"Me?" Lynna looked so startled, he put a hand out to steady her from falling off the bed.

"Well, yeah. Why not? It sounds like you're going to be needing a little help as things get worse. My hands might be kind of idle too, otherwise."

"Are you sure you're up to all this?" She seemed skeptical.

"I think it would be far better than for me to sit around dwelling over what's happened already while potentially worse things happen all around me," he said bluntly. "I'd be better off dealing with all of that later, when things have calmed down, or else I'll just be a mess while all of this is going on. I need to keep preoccupied, and you could use the help. It works out for both of us in the end."

"I ought to ask Agmar if it's okay," she said, looking at her hands nervously.

"Why wouldn't it be?" He found himself suddenly worrying that Agmar might get upset with her.

"I'm sure it will be fine, I just don't want to make anything more complicated," she said quickly. "He's been having a hard enough time with having to explain himself to everyone else and all, that I'm trying not to be too difficult. Especially since he's trying to help save my life and all."

"I thought the evil thing wanted to control you, not kill you?"

"I think it's worse than even Agmar knows or at least has told me. After what I saw that you went through, and what I felt trying to keep me from coming back while seeing it..." He noticed she was visibly shaking at the memory. "I don't think I want to know everything that's coming, Stott. Or else I might just sit here too afraid to even move. If it can't control me, it sees me as a threat. It's like pure rage, and if it can't use me then I think it wants me dead."

She's more than just scared, she's terrified. He found himself remembering the moment when he thought the fire was burning too fast, like it had a will and desire to kill him, and he'd been cornered. He'd been sure he was about to die. Pa saved me, but then I couldn't save Pa. Is Agmar going to be strong enough to save Lynna? Worry washed over him, as he watched her deliberately breathing slowly to try and calm herself. He saw something in her that he wished he could find in himself. It's too late for me. But she's got a chance.

"You're stronger than I am, Lynna. You're gonna get through this. I just know it." He found himself wanting to give her a reassuring hug, but wasn't sure if it was really the right thing to do just then, so he didn't. "You just tell Agmar that he can have me run errands and stuff so that you have more time to learn magicks to protect yourself. And if you need me to do anything else, just let me know." He tried to say it as a matter of fact, instead of as a suggestion, and she seemed to take it the way he had intended.

She nodded, wiping her eyes and cheeks with her hands, and he made a mental note to start having a handkerchief handy in case it was needed again. She stood up and smoothed her skirts out again.

"I should probably talk to Agmar then. I also need to let my father know that I'm alright. He worries."

Stott nodded, and stood up to join her. He marvelled at the fact that his wounds were gone and standing up was so much simpler than it had been only minutes before. They headed to the door, and he moved forward quickly so that he could open it for Lynna, as a gentleman might.

She looked caught off guard by it. She went through after a moment's hesitation. By now the hallway was empty, and Lynna's room was clearly dark and empty. The door was still missing, although the debris had been removed. All the other doors were closed, and the hallway was dark. Only a window at one end let in the light of the nearly full moon.

"So where is everyone, do you think?" he asked. He tried to think over how he was supposed to act, but he was not sure. Should he be leading her to Agmar, escorting her, or should he just follow?

"He is downstairs with my father," Lynna said matter-of-factly. Maybe she can feel where he is...

She took the lead and he followed her down the stairs. Her soft shoes only made a little noise on the stairs, which creaked under his weight. It was not until the stairs that he realized he was not wearing his shoes. He wondered what would be said when someone eventually noticed. He chose not to bother Lynna by suggesting they go back for them.

They found Agmar and Mayor Morden in a side room. Lynna led them directly there, obviously knowing exactly where to go. Agmar had already turned to face the door when they entered, and the mayor noticed them and turned, as well.

"You both look better," Agmar suggested.

"We have been discussing your training," Morden said to Lynna, "as well as...what to do about it."

"When people find out about it, you mean?"

"Yes."

"How do you feel, Stott?" Agmar asked. Stott felt a little intimidated by his gaze, and it was not helped by the mayor turning to look at him so directly as well.

"I'm alright," he managed. "Lynna here has taken care of the hurts, sir, and I think I'm alright enough to make myself useful. I need to make myself useful, I think. I've already offered my services to Lynna, you see."

He suddenly felt rather informal for the declaration. He was very aware of his stockinged feet, and felt as if he should be holding his cap in his hands. He wondered where it was, and then noticed that he was fidgeting with the untucked hem of his shirt. He started tucking it in, embarrassed and feeling sloppy.

"I see," the mayor said, flatly.

"I told you," Agmar told Mayor Morden, to which they both nodded sagely.

"You just make sure you keep your word, Agmar. I'll speak to you again in the morning. Lynna, I'd like a word with you privately before I head home?" The mayor looked at his daughter, and Lynna nodded. "Goodnight, Stott."

"G'night, sir," Stott mumbled. The mayor moved towards the door to the hallway, and she fell into step behind him giving Agmar a look that suggested they might be conversing mentally. Agmar gave her a nod and a small smile before she left the room, and Stott suddenly found himself standing alone in a room with the wizard. He scuffed his feet against the wood floor nervously, wishing again that he'd thought to put his shoes on. He could feel Agmar looking him once over.

"So..." the wizard said, "You plan to assist young Lynna."

It didn't seem like a question, but more of a statement. Stott didn't know if he was expected to respond or keep quiet, so he just bobbed his head in agreement, trying not to look as nervous as he felt.

"Well, you will do her no good if you step on a rusty nail at the wrong moment, so you had probably better go fetch those shoes you seem so concerned about. And, while you are doing that, you might as well gather whatever items you will need to spend a few nights away from home so that you can stay here at the inn where she will be. Although rooms will be a bit scarce beginning tomorrow, so I expect you had better bunk in my room, since it would hardly be proper to put you in with Lynna."

Agmar watched him with a level gaze while he spoke, and Stott couldn't stop himself when his eyes widened upon hearing the last part. Agmar leaned forward, as if he were about to tell Stott a secret of some kind.

"Do not worry boy, I do not cast spells in my sleep," he said very quietly, as a smile spread slowly across his face and an look of amusement grew apparent in his eyes. Stott found himself smiling despite himself.

"Of course not sir," he replied. "And yes, sir, I should get some things. I'll be quick about it."

"Though I appreciate your politeness, young man, you may call me Agmar if you like."

"Yes, s--er--Agmar."

"Would you like someone to accompany you to get your things?"

"I don't want to be any trouble, s-- I'll be fine on my own." He stumbled through the words realizing just how little he actually talked with people other than his father and brother. Everyone else was either a sir or a ma'am to him except for the folk his age that he'd been in school with. And most of them he rarely talked to at all. It had felt awkward talking to Lynna, and was now even stranger to be talking to Agmar.

"Very well." Agmar nodded his head to him, and Stott nearly flew out of the room, mumbling some words about hurrying. He ran back to the room he'd been in before, and found his shoes where someone had neatly placed them under the foot of the bed. He stuffed his feet into them and tied the laces quickly before heading out of the inn and down the road towards the small house that he and his brother had lived in with their father for as long as he could remember.

It didn't take him very long to get there, as the streets were nearly empty. He dodged the few people he saw on the road, hoping nobody would want to ask him questions just yet. As he approached the house itself, he felt a knot growing in his stomach as he realized why it was that Agmar had suggested he might want someone with him. The windows were completely dark and shuttered, to protect the house against any storms that might arise while it's owners were away at sea. It seemed as if it loomed up in front of him, and the moonlight made the shadows it cast deep and dark.

It was not a big house. It only had four rooms total, with a loft above them all. He found himself standing at the door for what seemed like several minutes. He had to remind himself that it was still his house. It's my house now...

He unlocked the door and stepped inside. The main room of the house took up the majority of it, and with the windows closed and shuttered up it was very dark and unwelcoming. He left the door open to let the moonlight in while he grabbed a candle from the little table near the door.

The moon hung unnaturally low and bright in the sky, but its light seemed more reluctant to enter the house than he was. Eventually he got the candle and got it lit. Its feeble light was enough to navigate the house by. Much of it he could maneuver his way through in darkness, but he wanted what little light he could have.

The room took the center and one corner of the house. Along the back wall were the two bedrooms: Father's and the one he had shared with his brother. The kitchen took up the wall to his left. A wind started up outside. Enough of it came in the open door to make the candle flicker. He shielded it, suddenly afraid, and he pushed the door shut with his foot. It latched with a hollow click.

Anxious to get finished and out, he moved to his bedroom. He took in the shared wardrobe and dresser and the two beds and had to remind himself again that he really did live here. He could not shake feeling like a burglar. There was another candle on the dresser, and he lit it with the one he carried. More light helped. He set the candle down.

He scratched his head. He did not know what to pack. Whatever I need to spend a few nights away from home? The only times he was away from home any length of time was when they went out fishing. Then they would be gone three or four or five days and come back. But Father had always handled the planning for those. He had just needed enough clothes. He shrugged and started with that.

He wondered idly, as he threw some clothes into a large duffel from under his bed, where the boat had ended up. He'd already had things packed and with them for boat travel, although that was generally a different type of clothing than he'd need here in town. He remembered the log book briefly, and threw his light rain parka into the bag, along with some warmer sweaters. He hovered over his small cache of books for a moment and chose two of his favorites, wrapping them in a light blanket before stashing them into the very middle of the bag for safekeeping. He also tossed a few other odds and ends that he thought he might need, including his razor and a spare pair of shoes.

He did everything quickly, trying to stay focused on the task at hand rather than the surroundings. He found himself looking over his shoulder now and again, feeling as if he were being watched. He was drawing the cord tight on the duffel when his heart leapt up to stick in his throat as a loud banging noise echoed through the empty house. He stood for a moment, frozen in fear, before he could force himself to let go of the duffel and grab up the candle. The second time the banging came, he realized that someone was at the front door.

It's just a person knocking on the door, Stott. Get ahold of you wits you big coward! he told himself harshly. Leaving the duffel for the moment, he made himself walk to the door at an even pace and peer out the window nearest to it, to see who was there. Mr. Lenchet, from next door, saw him in the window and waved at him, and Stott found himself letting out a sigh of relief. He moved to the door and opened it, shielding the candle from going out as he did.

"Heya, Stott! The wife saw light movin' in the winda over here an' sent me over ta make sure that it weren't one of them cargo crew up ta no good, seein' as how you were laid up an' all." Stott waved him in, and Mr. Lenchet stepped inside so Stott could close the door.

"Ya don't look so wounded, do ya?" Stott stood there uncomfortably for a moment, not knowing exactly what to say, before Mr. Lenchet continued. "I'm guessin' that wizard healed ya then, eh?"

"I - I was healed. Yes." Stott hoped that that would be enough, as he wasn't about to start telling anyone about Lynna's secret until it was already out in the open. "I appreciate the concern, Mr. Lenchet. I was just picking up some things for the next few nights. I'm supposed to stay up at the Surf and Sleep for now."

"Aye, I reckon Margaret would want ta keep an eye on ya after that wizard done his magic an' all. Make sure he didn't do any curses or what-not."

"I doubt that Agmar would bother to put a curse on me right now, sir. He's far too busy. He's trying to help, from what I can tell."

"Riiiight. Well, that's good there, Stott. You just keep yer positive outlook. I'm right sorry ta hear that we lost yer brother an' Porter out there lad. Right sorry. You keep yer head up. An' if ye need anything, just let me or the wife know, okay?"

"I appreciate it, Mr. Lenchet. I really do, thank you." Stott nodded and shook the man's hand before Mr. Lenchet headed back out the door. He sighed quietly, in relief, as he closed the door behind him. Then he swore, as the candle blew out.

He knew he should have sheltered the candle from the open door. It took him a moment to get it relit. He shook his head, frustrated and disappointed with himself. If you mess up the little things, what good are you gonna be to anyone else?

He made one final pass through the house, looking for anything that struck him as something he might need. In the end he gathered up his duffel without having added anything more to it. He blew out the candle and locked the door behind him. He gave the house a final look, wondering if it were the last time he would see it. He wanted to trust that everything would be fine, but he could not shake the feeling that he had closed it with an eerie finality.

The streets were dim and empty. Outside lamps had mostly been extinguished. A strange wind had picked up, and here and there swirling eddies blew about loose bits of straw. The town already looked battened down for a storm. He had to wonder if it was enough.

Eagle's Harbor seemed like a ghost town to him as he prowled the streets. Windows were shuttered up tight, so it was difficult to tell who might still be awake. He supposed it might be getting close to midnight already. Somewhere a sign creaked as it swayed back and forth in the night. The night air reminded him of winter, with windows shuttered up against that, but there was no snow on rooftops and no icicles hanging.

He walked uphill towards the Surf and Sleep, and the town only grew darker. From the front of the inn he turned and looked down at what he could see of the town. A brooding darkness obscured the stars at the horizon, and he could tell it was a line of wicked clouds coming towards them. It looked unlike any approaching storm he had ever seen.

The town itself looked deceptively serene, save for the greater than normal darkness. Smoke wafted from chimneys, but it was odd not seeing light in windows, not seeing lamps hanging over doorways. The town was still, as if holding its breath. Realizing it, Stott let out his own.

Chapter 13

Frustrated and uneasy, she couldn't fall back asleep after that. She lit the lantern next to her bed and got dressed, washing her face and pinning her hair up after applying a light amount of rouge to her cheeks and lips. Even if the world itself were to end today, she was not about to forget those little things that made her who she was. She did, however, put on a longer skirt so that she could wear more comfortable shoes for the day. Her feet still felt mildly swollen from being on them all day in rather unsensible footwear the day before, and she had no plans to make that mistake again. She tightened the laces on her bodice as much as she could before loosening the topmost ones just a bit. She bounced up and down a bit before tying the bow, to be sure she wouldn't actually fall out of the bodice unintentionally, but situated her bosom so it loooked as if it could at any moment. Her inn was due to be full of a bunch of temporarily boatless sailors today, she knew, and she planned to do her best to see that they spent a little money while being allowed the rooms themselves for free. She grabbed a light shawl and pinned it so it hung loosely over her shoulders, as the morning air was feeling chilly on her bare arms. One last survey in the mirror assured her that she looked as she usually might, before she headed out to try and get an early start on the daily morning routines.

Her first stop, since she had extra time, was to check her desk. She tallied up the numbers from the previous day, noting that the more bad news had been in the air, the more business she seemed to have gotten despite her own absence at the inn. Pleased with the numbers, which proved higher than the usual off-season intake, she tucked the contents of the drawer away in the metal safe she kept hidden in an alcove beneath the stairs. Only two others knew where it was, and she trusted them. The rest knew, however, that she kept track of the numbers regularly, and she'd hardly had any problems with thievery over the years. She closed the books, marking the date and her initials on the final tally, before replacing them in their drawer, and setting everything up for that day's trade.

Her next stop was in the kitchens, where she found her cook, Genla, already pulling out the bacon, eggs, and other such items to start cooking breakfast. It was nearing on sun-up, and Marcus sat silently on the back stairs, just outside the open door, polishing his boots. He gave her his usual nod as she entered the room, and she smiled and returned the gesture.

"Good morning, you two! Ready for another chaotic day?" she asked, keeping her voice bright and cheery.

Marcus gave the tossing of his head that was his version of laughter before setting a boot down on the floor with a final-sounding thud. Genla put her hands on her hips and looked back at Mary. She looked a bit lost.

"What's the matter, Genla? Kind of early for that, isn't it?"

"What's the matter? Well, I see you've got your humor about you already this morning." The look she leveled at Mary made her feel like she was about to be scolded for something. Mary reminded herself that it was actually her kitchen, and not Genla's, although that had been argued before.

"We've never been this crowded before, Mar', past capacity." Mary never liked it when Genla called her that. Usually it meant she was frustrated about something she didn't want to talk about. Usually she did anyway.

"I'm unaccustomed to cooking for this many. And what's more, this one breakfast is going to clean us out of a few things. Eggs, for one. And you know what that means," she said, gesturing at Mary with an egg.

"Jacob..."

"Jacob Bentz. You know how much I despise that weasel." Another boot went thud on the floor. Mary wondered if it was his way of punctuating the statement by way of agreement.

The egg in Genla's hand cracked. She looked down at it, startled. She started to say something, but the words never got out. She dropped the egg and it hit wood the countertop. What happened then was all wrong.

The egg did not splatter, but rather just broke. A...thing wriggled out of the shell. It was dark gray or black or brown. It had bits of fur in some places the way that a dead animal found in the woods could still have some fur left here and there. Bits of bone showed: white skull around a malformed black eye.

It opened its hooked beak and a tiny forked tongue sampled the air. Fleshless, too-small wings stretched. It squawked at them, an ugly noise that seemed part crow and part toad.

Mary found herself feeling oddly detached, after the events of the day before. She marvelled a moment at the horrified screams of Genla. Genla never screamed, but she was wailing at the top of her lungs as the remaining basket of eggs on the countertop started wiggling and cracking. She backed away and got up on a chair, despite the fact that the things were on the counter, and not on the floor. Marcus had stood up in the doorway and surveyed the situation, though Mary wasn't in a position to tell what the look on his face was. She pulled herself together as she saw the first "hatchling" waving its wings to dry them. She'd be damned if she was going to let one of them try to fly in her inn.

Mary moved to the large wood-burning stove on one wall of the kitchen and snatched the largest of the heavy iron skillets that Genla had laid out to cook the eggs in. She turned and heaved it heavily down on top of the first of the critters. She heard a sickly, wet crunch along with the hard banging noise of the metal edge striking the thick wooden counter. As she lifted the pan to see the damage, two more of them wriggled their way out of their shells and rolled out onto the counter. Mary realized suddenly that the large basket on the counter probably had as many as sixty eggs carefully stacked in it. She looked at Marcus, who had already grabbed another of the frying pans and swung it down on the nearest of the two. He nodded at her, one eyebrow raised. He left her to contend with the other hatchling, and some others that scattered out, as he grabbed up the basket and ran outside with it.

Mary grabbed his discarded frypan in her other hand, and took turns smashing the tiny beasts with each of them. She heard more screaming added to Genla's, and realized that some of the girls had come down to see what was happening. She sighed and rolled her eyes before tracking down the last couple of croaking beasts and flattening them into the floor. She stood there for a moment, with the frypans still in her hands, dripping with the remains of the miniature invader