Avris stopped abruptly on a half-wail, and Lydryth started, jerked out of the reverie she had fallen into. She looked over at the witch and gasped.
Her own face stared back at her-long, oval, with a traveler’s sun-browned skin. Avris now seemed to have bright blue eyes, a straight nose, a strong, stubborn jaw, all beneath a wind-tossed cap of soft black curls. “It worked?” the girl demanded. “Completely,” Lydryth told her, amazed. “Except that you are still shorter than I, I do not believe even your Logar could tell us apart. It is as perfect a Seeming as any I have witnessed.
Your Power must be greater than you think.”
The witch shrugged. “Perhaps it is just that I am desperate. What I could not do/or them, I will do to escape them. And the guard, I think, will not notice the difference in height. I will just roll up the sleeves and breeches a turn, so.”
When she was finished ordering her borrowed clothing, Avris reached into the bag again, this time withdrawing a bundle of twigs, bound with red thread. Lydryth pulled back as the girl made to brush the bard’s forehead with the twigbundle. “What is that?” she demanded.
“Rowan,” Avris replied. “Magic cannot work within its bounds, either of the Dark or Light. Its touch will help you resist the questioning of the witches.”
Lydryth’s mouth twisted into a hard, ugly shape. “I thought I recognized it, and I want none of it! I can endure the interrogation myself, with no aid from an ill-fortuned handful of wood!” Avris stared up at her in shock, but recovered herself quickly. “It is a foolish soldier who throws away even his smallest blade on the eve of the battle,” she pointed out. “I have trusted you, will you not trust me? I would do nothing to harm you, Lydryth.” The songsmith dropped her eyes, shamed, feeling the color rise hot to her cheeks. “I am sorry. You are right. Go ahead.” But despite her resolve, she could not keep from flinching as the twig-bundle swept across her forehead-once, twice, thrice.
“Tie me as soon as I am unconscious,” Lydryth ordered, then had to demonstrate to Avris how to weave knots that would hold against a prisoner’s struggles.
At last, nothing remained except the blow. “Here,” the songsmith said, pointing to a spot just behind her ear. “And you must strike with sufficient force to make them believe my story. You do me no favor if you hold back. Have you a weapon?”
“This,” the girl said, and withdrew a dagger in a sheath from the folds of her discarded grey robe. “Will it do?”
Lydryth ran a finger over the rounded steel pommel. “It should. Grasp it by the sheath, so as to use the blunt end. Strike using this much force-” Lydryth wadded the witch’s discarded robe and demonstrated swinging the weapon, sending it thudding into the wall, the sound of the blow muffled by the fabric. “Now you try.”
On her fourth attempt, the witch’s arm swung with the proper force. “Good. That is just the way of it. Can you do it?”
The witch needs must run a tongue-tip over dry lips before she could reply, but her voice was steady. “I can. I will.”
“Good,” Lydryth said. “I will meet you outside the walls, in that first grove of trees to the south of the city. Hide yourself well, and do not appear until you hear me whistle, so-” She produced a few bars of an old marching song from High Hallack. “And do not forget to pick up my gryphon-headed quarterstaff from the guard on your way out. He will be expecting you to ask for it.”
“I understand.”
“Good.” Deliberately, the songsmith turned her back, trying not to tense, forcing herself to stand still and not anticipate the blow. “Strike when you are ready,” she said. “But I would prefer not to have to wait much long-”
Pain and darkness crashed against her skull from behind. Lydryth felt her knees buckle, felt herself begin to fall. She let the blackness gulp her down, swallow her, like one of the sea-leviathans in the Sulcar tales. . . .
The songsmith’s memories were blurred after that. She halfroused to a ringing head and the sound of voices, then the touch of hands on her half-bare body. Then the hands lifted her, and she was careful to stay limp, let herself flop like a boneless doll stuffed with river sand, such as the little Kioga children cuddled.
Light met her closed eyelids then, and soon she was placed on a soft surface. Someone covered her chilled body with a blanket. “You may bring in the guard now,” she heard a cold, passionless voice say.
“Yes, sister,” came the response, followed by the sound of the door.
“Lady?” a gruff voice said, one tinged with fear and defiance. “Th’ sister said you wished t’ see me?”
“So I do, Jarulf. Look at this girl, here. Do you recognize her?”
A gasp. “But… Lady, that be th’ same young woman who left before m’ shift ended! The very same!”
“I see.” The cold voice was even colder now, but still calm. “That will be all, Jarulf.”
“Aye. Lady.”
/ ought to be coming around by now, Lydryth cautioned herself, and, accordingly, she moaned and tried to open her eyes. She did not have to feign the swift stab of pain the light brought her, or her squint. “What-what-”
The witch (for Lydryth could now see her silver-grey robe) moved back to look down at her, her face as blank as the stones of the walls enclosing them. She was older than the woman the songsmith had seen before, her features fine-drawn and aristocratic, her eyes hooded and remote in her oval face.
“You were found unconscious in a little-used storeroom,” she said. “It seems that one of our sisterhood is missing-our search found no trace of her. Tell me, who are you, and how did you come there?”
The songsmith moistened her lips. “Water?” she whispered, hopefully. “Please, water?”
“On the table. You may help yourself.”
With a groan that had nothing false about it, the bard pushed herself upright, clutching the blanket against her chest. When she saw the younger woman’s shaking hands, the witch grudgingly poured the water into a goblet for her.
The minstrel sipped, then put the cup down. “I am Lydryth, a wandering songsmith from a distant land,” she said, hoarsely. “I had an audience with one of your number, but she told me that she could not help me, since I was seeking healing for my father. She said that you granted no boons to men. So I took my leave of her. I remember following the young witch who had been sent to guide me down the corridor, my heart heavy . . . and that is all I remember.”
“Nothing more?”
The songsmith winced as she gingerly explored the lump behind her ear. “Naught… save that she turned back as if to speak to me, and there was something in her hand … something . . .” She frowned. “I know not what, save that it was bright, and my eyes were caught by it. . . .”
“Ah,” the witch said, her grey eyes raking the young woman’s face with the sharpness of fingernails. “What do you think happened then?”
Lydryth started to shake her head, but stopped with a grimace of pain. “I know not. Lady. Obviously, someone hit me, and took my clothes… my clothes!” She glanced around her, wildly, as if just realizing they were truly gone. “My pack … my harp! My purse! I’ve been robbed!”
“Indeed,” the witch said, her eyes never leaving the bard’s.
“My hand-harp … my mouth-flute! My instruments … all stolen! How will I earn my living?” The minstrel ran her hands through her hair, distractedly, being careful not to overplay her distress. “I have naught left to me-naught!”
The witch hesitated. “Since you were robbed on our premises, it is our duty, I suppose, to alleviate your situation as much as possible. We will provide you with clothing, food, and sufficient coin for two nights’ lodging. If you are telling the truth, and were indeed the victim of thievery.”
Lydryth hesitated, betraying confusion. “The truth? Of course I am! Why should I speak aught but the truth. Lady?”
“That is what I am wondering…,” the witch said, studying the younger woman as though she had suddenly sprouted feathers or fur. “Why should you?”
“I am no liar.” Lydryth let some other very genuine irritation and fear creep into her voice. It would have been unnatural not to react to the witch’s implied accusation. “You have no right to name me one, either.”
The witch raised a mocking eyebrow. “Really? We shall see, songsmith. We shall see.”
Without another word, the witch cupped her milky jewel in her hand and stared down into it. As Lydryth watched, light began to emanate from the stone, all in one direction, until a luminescent beam shone full onto the minstrel’s face.