The Bear

SIXTEEN

Cormack knew better than to question Milkeila's instincts. The shaman had noted something amiss, some movement or sound, perhaps. She paced about their small encampment cautiously, peering into the darkness, holding her solid oaken staff in one hand and the loops of her toothy necklace in the other.

She chanted to the trees and the grass, bidding them to tell her the secrets of those who walked near.

She kept ending her song, though, and turning to Cormack, her expression befuddled. "They tell me of no intruders."

"But you do not believe them?"

"Someone, something, is about," the shaman declared. She swept her gaze across the fields and trees. "I sense it keenly."

She moved to the fire and began chanting again, but this time her call was to the fire itself, strengthening it, brightening it.

Cormack joined her and took out his dagger, though it was more a knife for utility, like cutting kindling, than a serious weapon. "Do you know where?…" he started to ask, but he stopped suddenly and spun about, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.

"You felt that?" Milkeila whispered, turning beside him.

"Or heard it," Cormack said, unsure which of his senses had told him that there was someone or something near.

Brother Cormack, he heard in his thoughts, not in exact words, but a representation of a greeting by a familiar voice. He recoiled instinctively, mental defenses rushing to the forefront to deny the intrusion. Even as he did that, hardly thinking of it, he sorted out the intrusion and knew, then, the source.

"Brother Giavno!" he said aloud, and Milkeila screwed up her expression curiously.

"Spirit walking!" Cormack explained in a harsh whisper. He nodded as it came clearer to him. "He seeks information so that he might report to Dame Gwydre."

"So we must tell him."

"All of it," said Cormack, and he began, paused, and asked a question instead. "Has Dawson returned to St. Mere Abelle?"

Yes, he heard in his mind.

Now knowing where to properly begin, Cormack started recounting their adventures at Laird Ethelbert's side, of the meeting with Bannagran and Bransen and the loss of Jameston Sequin.

"We have not surrendered the notion of a truce with Laird Bannagran yet," he finished after a few moments. "He seems not an unreasonable man, and Brother Reandu does not support the cause of Father De Guilbe-of that, I am sure."

He felt Giavno's approval and a sensation of farewell, and a moment later Cormack looked at Milkeila and announced that they were alone.

But they were not. Weary from his magical expenditures and from simply resisting the urge to possess Brother Cormack, Giavno's ghost swept out of the encampment. He wasn't sure if he wanted to soar through Bannagran's lines to learn what he might of the powerful laird or return straight to St. Mere Abelle and report on Cormack's progress, perhaps to return the next night.

Barely away from the couple, though, Brother Giavno found a detour.

He sensed them before he saw them, their mortal forms compelling his wandering spirit toward them. Their positioning and posture warned him clearly enough, for they-two forms-crept along branches in the direction of Cormack and Milkeila.

Bandits?

Giavno flew in closer. Though he dared not try to read the minds of either, he felt their malice, and he saw their weapons.

He sped back to the encampment and imparted a fast warning, Murderers! Flee! to both.

Cormack sputtered a question, but Giavno didn't pause. He sent forth the thought again, Murderers! Flee! and willed his unseen spirit back to the forest. Ishat Parzun crouched on the thick branch, twisting himself about in an effort to gain a clear look at the low firelight ahead. He held up his fist, signaling his companion to halt. He licked his dry lips, knowing that Affwin Wi would not be pleased if he failed in this. Half their band of eight had been killed: one in a fight with Milwellis's knights; two by the Jhesta Tu Highwayman; and one by the tall scout, Sequin.

Affwin Wi would tolerate no further failures.

But this seemed simple enough. Ishat and Wahloon had teamed on successful assassinations several times before, and these two strangers did not seem so formidable. Not compared with the martial prowess of two Hou-lei warriors, at least.

Still, the assassin reminded himself to take it slow as he crept inch by inch along the upsweeping branch, moving closer to the firelight and higher.

The victims were scrambling! They knew!

Ishat Parzun leaped to his feet and waved Wahloon forward. Off Ishat ran, along the branch, leaping to another and taking a circuitous route to the right of the couple. The man, Cormack, yelled out and grabbed at his arm, and Ishat understood that Wahloon had scored a hit with a shur'a'tu'wikin, a small throwing star, Wahloon's favored weapon.

Now Wahloon had the attention of the couple, and Ishat rushed along, confident of the kill. To the side and above, he leaped and executed a twisting somersault, catching a branch in his grasp. He swung under but held fast as the branch bent forward under his momentum, then reversed his direction, meaning to let go with one hand and spin around at the exact moment of the branch's greatest swingback, dropping from above onto his victims.

He caught it, swung out, and then came back and started to turn.

And then it hit him, as solidly as if a club had struck him on the side of his head. Ishat Parzun had never been violated in this manner before, and the sudden and vicious encroachment of another soul into his mortal body revolted him so profoundly that he lost all sense of where he was.

Somewhere in the distance the woman shaman screamed a warning. He flew from the branch, tumbling out of control. He landed feetfirst, but falling forward, hooking his toes awkwardly, and the ground rushed up to slam him in the face.

But Ishat didn't feel that impact, or the blood rushing out of his shattered nose, or the sharp pain about one eye from a crushed socket. No, his pain was internal at that awful moment, as a clawing, shadowy form assailed something more profound and sensitive than his flesh, as an invading spirit fought to expel him from his own corporeal coil. Milkeila's cry and her shove were the only things that allowed Cormack to fall out of the way of the flying black-clad form. The back of his arm torn and burning with fiery pain, Cormack stumbled and fell to one knee as the assassin flew past him, landing hard. The man's awkward descent made no sense to Cormack and Milkeila, for they thought these warriors akin to the graceful Highwayman.

The monk didn't focus on that unexplained event, though. Expecting more of the sharp missiles from the man crossing the other side of the encampment, Cormack threw himself into a forward roll and came back to his feet angling to the side. He spied the other assailant, the man's arm up to throw, but before he ever executed the throw, the small campfire exploded, directionally and with the blast aimed right at the star-throwing assailant. Sparks and cinders cut through the darkness, and the warrior launched himself sidelong through the air.

Cormack glanced at Milkeila. Of course she had done that! She faced the fire, chanting to the ancient spirits of the earth, bending the flames.

"Come!" Cormack called to her. "Quickly! We know not how many more are about!" He scrambled to her side, and together they ran into the tree line. A whistle just over his head was the only indication Cormack had of how close the next missile had come.

They had barely reached the trees when Milkeila spun back and raised her staff and necklace, and Cormack noted a wave of energy, like the distortion of a heated surface, roll out from her. The assailant nearest them writhed on the ground, seemingly out of his senses, but the other man had nimbly come back to his feet. He started forward but jerked weirdly, for the grass was grabbing at his feet, and when he tore one foot free, a clump of dirt went flying! He did well to regain his balance almost immediately, but then a branch bent down at him, as if grabbing at him!

And indeed it was. Cormack marveled at his wife's attunement with the plants about them. Strong was Milkeila's magic, and without gemstones, and it remained one of Cormack's greatest laments that his order would not study the mysterious powers of Yan Ossum, would not see them in concert with the powers bestowed by the gemstones of Blessed Abelle.

Now Milkeila went with him into the darkness of the tree line, but barely had they entered when the woman stopped and shook her head, looking back the way they had come. If Brother Giavno could have seen his own body, far across the miles in St. Mere Abelle, he was certain that his face would be streaked with tears. The tumult and darkness of possession engulfed him and swirled and jumbled everything he had known to be good or evil.

Even so, he could not stop. For the sake of Cormack and Milkeila, perhaps for the success or failure of the war itself, he could not surrender this battle. So he thrashed, losing himself in the fury of the moment, battling for control, muscle by muscle.

The body he had invaded was enough his own at that point for him to feel the grab on his shoulder when the assassin's companion came by, yanking him roughly to his feet.

"Ishat!" he heard the man scold him, and he saw momentarily out of Ishat's eyes to witness the other man lift his arm, a small circular throwing missile in hand.

Brother Giavno tried to yell out, "Cormack," but nothing decipherable came forth from the twisted lips. The monk gained enough control of one arm to lash out, though, his punch slamming his companion in the jaw just as he moved to throw.

The momentum had Ishat stumbling forward into the lurching man-at least until that warrior deftly and powerfully caught his balance and shifted in a twist, throwing Ishat over his hip. Staggering, out of control, both Giavno and Ishat reflexively recoiled as they went face-first into the fire.

Explosions of searing pain assaulted Giavno and Ishat simultaneously, and now the corporeal form did scream out, as the two inhabitants found common agony. Arms and legs began thrashing, desperately trying to get out of the blaze. He-they-hit the dirt and began rolling about wildly to douse the biting flames.

"Ishat!" the other man cried. The assassin went to his fallen friend, slapping at the flames and trying to roll the wounded man over.

And all the while, Cormack lined up his charge, for Milkeila had assured him that there were only these two.

The black-clad man lifted his friend's arm, then cried out and threw his arms up defensively as Cormack flew in sidelong, a heavy body block. He collided hard and took the smaller Behr man down beneath him, the monk scrambling even as they hit the ground to execute a deadly hold. Cormack was no stranger to battle. His fighting prowess had been the primary reason he had been selected to journey to Alpinador with Father De Guilbe's expedition those years before. He wore a powrie cap because he had, indeed, defeated a bloody-cap dwarf in single hand-to-hand combat, no easy feat for any human!

Cormack didn't know how he might measure up against either of these two assassins in a fair fight, though he suspected the answer to be not very well if either was anywhere near as proficient a fighter as Bransen. With that unsettling thought in mind, his focus from run to leap to body block and now, especially now, remained tight. All that he wanted to do was get his legs wrapped about the man's neck.

And he did, and he clamped down with all his strength. The man reached up at him, or tried to, but the grass grabbed at him once more, further pinning him.

Milkeila was doing that, Cormack knew, and he clamped down tighter, with all his strength, and dared glance back to see his beloved wife rattling her necklace in the air before her, bidding the grass to pull at the man.

"The other one," Cormack growled to Milkeila, for now his leg vise was set and he knew that his battle was at its end.

The downed assailant pulled an arm free and slapped at Cormack's leg, but weakly and too late, and Cormack just rolled himself to the side, bending the doomed man's head back with the turn.

And the former monk of Abelle squeezed and pushed aside his compassion with a continual reminder that this man was as dangerous as Bransen. The pain did not abate, though the flames were gone, for now it was of a different source, a brutal struggle of muscle against muscles, of muscles against themselves. Brother Giavno and Ishat battled furiously within the wounded body, Ishat instinctively countering every attempt by Giavno to garner any control of any part of the body that belonged to him.

Normally, a possessing brother in such a situation would be expelled; his own reactions to the horror of possession would weaken his willpower enough for the host spirit to throw him far. But Giavno knew the stakes here, and he fought harder and more furiously, pointedly sending his demands to parts of the body where he believed Ishat to be weakest. They thrashed and squirmed, rolled about and kicked and flailed wildly. Fists clenched and the muscles of one arm contracted, biceps and triceps, each pulling against the other to their fullest, so disconnected to each other, so lost in the singular determination of separate wills, that the fibers tore and blotches and bruises erupted the length of the upper arm.

A second battle erupted in Ishat's jaw, with teeth grinding and pressing tightly. At one point, Giavno gained the upper hand, and Ishat's mouth twisted open just enough for Giavno to stick out the man's tongue. Ishat regained control. Hardly conscious of the movement, he clamped the jaw tightly again, biting off the end of his tongue.

And so it went, thrashing and squirming, pain mixing with strain, sharp and dull and weaving in and out as each of the internal combatants wrestled back control. Through all of it, Giavno fought blindly, blackness and pain and his sense of self somehow mingling with, being lost to, the identity of Ishat.

He managed to gain control of the one eye that was not swollen shut just in time to catch a glimmer of Milkeila's form standing over them, of Milkeila's staff fast descending.

A burst of senselessness, an explosion of white fire that quickly dulled to nothingness, sent Giavno spiraling uncontrollably. Again, though, he did not exit the corporeal form, but instead felt a contraction, a pointed tightness and grip in his, in Ishat's, chest.

Then he felt a sudden cold sensation and saw a flood of light, distant and surrounded by blackness as if he was looking through a dark tube. And growing, rushing toward him and he toward it. He felt nothing, he knew… nothing.

Brother Giavno-the collection of memories and experiences and thoughts that comprised the consciousness of the man known as Brother Giavno-felt a rush of freedom as his soul flew from Ishat's dying corporeal form.

Then nothing. Emptiness. A void.

Nonexistence.

Brother Giavno's eyes popped open wide, and he reflexively threw himself to the side, crashing into the wall of the small meditation room at St. Mere Abelle. He tried to make sense of what he had seen, to put it in the perspective of Blessed Abelle and the promises of eternity. He tried, but everything jumbled too quickly. He tried to call for Brother Pinower, for Father Premujon, but the sounds that came out of his mouth made no sense, the garbled nonsense of a spirit-walking brother gone insane.

In a brief moment of clarity, Brother Giavno understood the source of his malady and from that deduced the source of this too-common loss of sensibility that occurred with brothers who dared use the soul stone to such dangerous extents.

He couldn't cry out clearly, couldn't form a cogent phrase, because he wasn't alone.

Ishat-some manner of the being that had once been Ishat of Behr-had come back with him and now reflexively, instinctively, battled Giavno for control.

Giavno stood, turned toward the door, and pushed his way into the corridor. Other brothers were around him, he saw through fast-blinking, flittering eyes. They grabbed him and supported him and called his name.

He tried to respond and did manage to call out the name of one brother, but when he tried to expand on his sentence, only gibberish came forth.

He knew, and those around him knew, for they had seen this before.

The struggle was not the same as the one that had occurred in Ishat. There was no fight for control of Giavno's physical form and no danger that he would tear himself apart, muscle against muscle. But Giavno found his every thought stabbed by the raw emotion and unbridled terror of the utterly lost soul of Ishat Parzun.

He had sacrificed his sanity to save Cormack and Milkeila. What was that?" Milkeila asked as she stared wide-eyed at the very still form on the ground below her. She glanced over at Cormack, who finally dared to unwrap his legs from the assailant's neck. "I did not hit him that hard."

"Brother Giavno," Cormack explained. He climbed to his feet and bent over the fallen Behr warrior, bringing his fingers to the man's throat to see if his blood still pumped. "Alive," he said to Milkeila. "Barely." He walked over to join his beloved, then similarly bent over the burned and battered body.

"Brother Giavno," he announced again after a quick inspection, including pulling aside the man's shirt. He nodded as he searched and pulled the shirt down lower, revealing the bruises on the man's upper arm. "He waged an internal war. Brave man. We owe him our lives." Every word came hard to Cormack, for he understood the implications here and knew that Giavno's efforts had likely cost the monk greatly, perhaps irreparably.

He stood up and closed his eyes and was very glad when Milkeila wrapped him in a tight hug.

The other man stirred. Milkeila broke off the hug and moved toward him as he began to cough, and then started to sit up.

She moved to restrain him, but Cormack cut in before her and kicked the man hard in the face, laying him low.

"Cormack!" Milkeila cried.

"For Giavno," was all the disturbed man would reply. He took a deep breath then and rolled the man over, tugging his arms tightly behind his back. "We need some rope or cloth," he started to say, meaning to finish with "or we have to kill him," but Milkeila was already on the task. She moved to a nearby tree thick with climbing grapevines. She whispered to it and stroked the trunk gently and gave a slight tug on the vine, which dropped to the ground beside her. Still talking to it and gently coiling it, Milkeila moved beside Cormack. She placed the vine on the ground beside the man and called on the spirits of Yan Ossum.

The vine began to crawl of its own accord. It snaked up onto the man's back and slithered about his wrists as Cormack fell back in surprise. Winding ever more tightly, the vine wrapped intricately, weaving in and out and about. With the man's wrists secured many times over, the vine's remaining length climbed up his back and looped like a constrictor about the poor fellow's neck.

"He'll not get free," Milkeila assured her husband. "Let us be quick to Pryd and Laird Bannagran."

Cormack looked at her doubtfully. "If Bannagran learns of this attack, if he recognizes our prisoner as he surely will, then how are we to assure him that Laird Ethelbert is trustworthy and deserving of alliance?"

"How are we to believe that?" Milkeila asked.

"For Dame Gwydre, then," Cormack decided. "We will speak not on behalf of Laird Ethelbert."

"For Dame Gwydre and Father Artolivan," Milkeila agreed. "For the good of all the folk of Honce."

The man on the ground began to stir again, so the couple hooked him under the arms and hoisted him roughly to his feet. They set off at a swift pace, pushing their prisoner along.

Two days later, they arrived in Pryd Town, less than an hour after Bannagran's army had settled about the place.

Clear sailing in the gulf, and Dawson will be ashore in three days!" Dame Gwydre said excitedly, rushing into the audience hall of Father Premujon. The woman quieted immediately, though, when she noted the tenor of the place. She brought her hand to her mouth to muffle her gasp when she spotted Brother Giavno laid out on a bench to the side of the dais. Brothers Pinower and Jurgyen crouched over him, with Father Premujon and several of the chapel's masters standing nearby, shaking their heads solemnly.

"What has happened?" Gwydre asked, rushing over.

"The perils of spirit walking," Jurgyen explained, looking up at her and meeting her gaze squarely. She found no contempt there, nor blame, just a resigned sadness. "He has been driven to madness, no doubt through the sin of possession."

"Can you help him?"

Jurgyen shrugged, and Pinower said, "We have sent for Bransen. Perhaps his mystical skills and the power of our gemstones will penetrate the veil Brother Giavno has constructed."

"It is a terrible loss," said Father Premujon. "But it will not be the last we can expect." He stepped over and herded Pinower and Jurgyen away from Giavno's twitching body. "The army of Vanguard approaches," he said to them. "We must make our preparations and be out to the east to greet them. You have a great and vital march ahead of you, brothers. Go now and sleep-it has been a long night."

"The man is my friend," Pinower struggled to reply. "I cannot leave…"

"You would honor him by deserting the cause to which he has so greatly sacrificed?"

Pinower lowered his gaze and gave a great exhale, a great sigh, and seemed to simply deflate. "No, father."

Premujon hugged him and whispered something in his ear, then pushed him away, toward the door.

Brother Jurgyen caught up to Pinower and supported him and also patted Gwydre comfortingly on the shoulder as he walked past her. The two brothers neared the exit as Bransen, Cadayle, and Callen came rushing in.

Bransen moved right past them, sprinting to Giavno's side, and Pinower and Jurgyen paused to watch, both making the sign of the evergreen.

Beside Bransen, who was already crouching over Brother Giavno, Father Premujon waved them out of the room.

"Can you help him?" Dame Gwydre asked, coming over to the Highwayman.

Bransen looked at her doubtfully. Without saying a word he unwrapped his bandanna and took down the soul stone Master Reandu had given him. He clutched it tightly in his hand, feeling its magic keenly, then placed it on the forehead of Brother Giavno. Almost immediately, the man's eyes flickered open and began to twitch.

Bransen felt the spiritual connection to Giavno. He pictured his own line of ki-chi-kree, running like a thin line of lightning from his head to his groin. Then, in the swirl of the hematite, he saw Giavno's line and felt the constant interruptions to it, the stabbing outbursts of protest causing it to flicker and spasm.

Bransen broke the connection and fell back, confused. He opened his eyes to find Gwydre and Premujon hovering about him, staring at him hopefully.

"I don't know," was all that Bransen said, and with a glance at Cadayle, who nodded her agreement, he fell back into the stone, seeking again Brother Giavno's ki-chi-kree.

It seemed like only a matter of moments, but most of the morning had passed before Bransen again opened his eyes and looked outside the spiritual experience of the soul stone. Gwydre was gone from the room, as were Callen and most of the monks, but Cadayle and Father Premujon sat together on a nearby bench.

"Bransen, what do you know?" a startled Premujon asked when he noticed that the Highwayman had returned from his out-of-body journey.

"Brother Giavno is in there," Bransen heard himself answering, although his concentration remained almost fully upon the task of deciphering all that he had seen, the darkness and the jumble. And then it occurred to him, "But he is not alone."

"Possession?" Father Premujon asked, coming right out of his seat, as did Cadayle beside him. The woman rushed to support her husband.

Bransen shook his head, unsure.

"One of De Guilbe's traitorous monks?" Father Premujon demanded, but again Bransen shook his head.

He wasn't certain. He needed to go back and try again to separate Brother Giavno from this other entity-enough at least to try to gain some information from the monk. But what he needed most of all was to rest.

"After supper," he said. "In the quiet night."

"Dame Gwydre wishes to be out before the dawn," said Cadayle. "You must march with her."

Bransen nodded. He knew that, had pledged that, and, freed of his bout of self-pity and cynicism by the loving slap of Cadayle, intended to fight for Gwydre, for his family, with all his heart. He glanced back at Brother Giavno, though, and knew, too, that he had to come back here, had to go back through the gemstone and Jhesta Tu magic into the realm of the spirit to try to find the lost soul. His friendship to Giavno demanded that, of course, but so, too, did his sense that there was something more here, something important.

I am surprised that you came to Castle Pryd instead of the chapel," Bannagran remarked when Cormack, Milkeila, and their prisoner were marched into the laird's hall. "But I see that you come bearing a gift, at least."

"Demand free me!" said the man from Behr.

Bannagran flashed an amused grin and motioned to a guard, who promptly stepped over and smacked a mailed gauntlet into the side of the prisoner's head. Stubbornly, the warrior began to protest again, but Bannagran warned him to silence with a wagging finger.

"That is one of Ethelbert's hired assassins, I expect," the laird said.

"I believe his name is Wahloon," Cormack replied. "Else, that is a Behr word meaning something else."

"Wahloon, Hou-lei!" Wahloon said proudly, thrusting his chin forward.

Bannagran gave him a sidelong smirk and motioned to the guard, who smacked him again.

"You have seen the truth of the war, then," Bannagran said. "Laird Ethelbert cannot win, and so you have betrayed him to win my graces."

It wasn't a question, but stated as fact, and in a tone growing darker and more intense. Cormack glanced at Milkeila, who merely shrugged. When he turned back to Bannagran, he saw that the man was standing, towering over him, though Cormack was much taller, with a hateful look in his eyes.

"You think to impress me with treachery?" Bannagran fumed.

"Treachery?"

"That you wish to change your allegiance is for your own conscience, but to so deceive a laird-"

"No, Laird Bannagran!" Milkeila interrupted, and Cormack was glad that she did, for he could see that this ball of anger was gathering speed, rolling down the hill like an avalanche. And with Laird Bannagran facilitating that fall, surely it would prove no less deadly.

"We come as emissaries to promote the cause of alliance," Milkeila went on.

"Dame Gwydre beside Bannagran of Pryd," Cormack added, "and with the Order of Blessed Abelle supporting their cause against King Yeslnik."

"Emissaries with a gift," Bannagran said.

"Not gained through treachery," Cormack explained. "Not our own, in any case. This man and a companion attacked us on the road. If there was treachery afoot, it was-"

"Ethelbert's," Bannagran finished for him.

"Laird Ethelbert!" cried Wahloon, and that earned him another heavy slap that staggered him into Cormack.

On a motion from Bannagran, a pair of guards rushed up to the man and dragged him away.

"Laird Ethelbert tried to kill you, then?" Bannagran asked. "Perhaps he is not as fond of your Dame Gwydre as you believe."

"If it was Ethelbert," said Milkeila.

"That is one of his assassins, is it not?"

"It is," Cormack replied. "But it is senseless for Laird Ethelbert to try to kill us, even as we support his cause-likely his only hope-to Bannagran of Pryd."

"Then what?"

"I know not," said Cormack.

"Ethelbert's court divided?" Bannagran asked, and Cormack could only hold up his empty hands.

Bannagran gave a wicked little chuckle. "We will learn soon enough," he promised, and he waved the guards to drag Wahloon to the dungeons.

"Laird Bannagran, I protest!" said Master Reandu, coming in the door just as Wahloon was being taken out.

Bannagran dropped his face into his hands and sighed.

"They come to us as emissaries, under a flag of truce!" Reandu continued, rushing forward to Cormack's side.

"Truly, he squeezes the blood from my heart," Bannagran whispered to Cormack and Milkeila just before the sputtering Reandu arrived on the spot.

"You remember Cormack and his wife, Milkeila," Bannagran said before Reandu could launch into another diatribe. Reandu glanced at the couple and still seemed ready to erupt, but his expression soon enough changed to one of curiosity as he clearly saw that the two weren't bound.

"We brought the assassin in as a prisoner," Cormack explained.

Master Reandu turned his curious expression to Bannagran.

"It is a long tale they can tell to you at your chapel," Bannagran said, and he waved for more attendants to escort them all out.

"Laird, I beg you to reconsider your course," Cormack pleaded. "Dame Gwydre is noble in heart and mind. The cause of the Order of Blessed Abelle is just."

His voice rose as he was pulled back from the throne.

"My laird, please," Cormack called.

"My course is to kill powries, monk," Bannagran called back at him. "There is no course more just than that!" To Reandu he added, "Keep them in your chapel. I will call for you shortly, as soon as I have spoken to the prisoner."

"Spoken to?" the monk asked suspiciously, for he had seen Bannagran's dungeon.

"With all the respect due an assassin, I promise," said the laird, and before Reandu could answer, another guard, acting on Bannagran's wave, shut the heavy oaken door in his face.

As soon as his spirit entered the realm of Brother Giavno, Bransen found himself enmeshed in a spinning and confusing jumble of opposing thoughts and wants and emotions. It wasn't an internal argument, of the kind every man experienced, and not based in simple puzzlement or torn loyalties or fear of unexpected consequences. No, this jumble was more akin to swirling thoughts and demands, unrelated to and seemingly unaware of contradictory notions moving right beside them, even merging with them.

Chaos, Bransen thought. Pure and unblemished chaos. He tried to search further but found himself distracted, and when he tried to examine the distraction, he found himself distracted again, in an entirely new direction.

Bransen rushed back through the soul stone portal, back into his own body, and opened his eyes. He stood and rubbed his face and shook his head.

"What do you know?" Brother Pinower asked, startling Bransen, who was unaware that the monk had entered the dark room. "What did you see?"

Bransen took a deep breath and tried to formulate some cogent response. What had he seen? He had sensed the identity of Brother Giavno, a man he knew fairly well from their travels in Alpinador and Vanguard, inside the tumultuous swirl of discordant thoughts.

Images of blowing desert sands and dome-topped shining marble structures, pink and white and some covered in gold, flashed in Bransen's mind-little specks of the southern kingdom of Behr, he knew, for he had seen the same type of architecture, on a far lesser scale, in Ethelbert dos Entel.

"Had Brother Giavno traveled to Behr?" he asked aloud, though he was speaking to himself.

"To Alpinador but never south of Pollcree that I have heard," Brother Pinower replied, and again his voice somewhat startled Bransen.

"Spiritually," Bransen clarified. "Is it possible that he flew his soul all the way to the desert lands?"

Brother Pinower's face screwed up for a moment. He shook his head but then merely shrugged. "He was not assigned to any such thing. His mission this night was to find Cormack and Milkeila and learn, perhaps, of their progress. Nothing more."

Bransen considered the words and thought of the last time he had met with Cormack and Milkeila. They accompanied people who would know of such sights as those he had found inside the spinning memories within Brother Giavno. Was it possible that there truly was another entity trapped inside the mind of the mad monk? He stared at the troubled man across from him. Giavno was asleep, but it was far from a contented respite. He trembled and shook, occasionally cried out and waved his arms defensively.

"Dueling spirits," Bransen whispered.

"How so?"

Bransen turned to Pinower. "Or pieces of consciousness," Bransen tried to explain. "They fight for control of the man's mind-one other consciousness at least-and that battle manifests itself as Brother Giavno's madness."

"How could this be? Is it the mind of another brother who was out spirit walking? Surely not Cormack!"

"No," Bransen said repeatedly. "I believe that Brother Giavno possessed someone-likely someone far in the south-and he has inadvertently taken a piece of that person back with him to St. Mere Abelle. Both of them trapped in his one mind, vying for supremacy, though they likely are not even aware of the other." Bransen's face lit up with cognition. "Perhaps that is always the way with the madness that sometimes results with spirit walking. In the act of possession, you are aware of your dalliance, and surely your target understands and recoils immediately from the intrusion. And so it is a furious and desperate battle of willpower, but one with singular identities. This, brother, this is true madness, an oblivious mingling of two minds, two spirits, two souls. I cannot-"

He stopped as Brother Pinower made the sign of the evergreen, and even in the dim light of predawn, he could see the blood drain from the man's face.

"Does the mind that is still Giavno know anything about the progress in the south?" Pinower meekly asked after a short pause.

Bransen glanced back at the man.

"Dame Gwydre will be out within an hour," Brother Pinower reminded.

Bransen nodded and sat down again beside the dreaming and restless monk.

"No, Bransen!" Brother Pinower scolded. "You came forth in fear. Do not risk your own clarity again in the madness that is Brother Giavno!"

"I know what I will find in there now," Bransen calmly answered, and he flashed a confident smile.

A smile that was a complete facade, for Bransen was truly afraid of entering the swirl of discordant and jarring sensibilities.

But he had to.