erly or striven so long to hear a coward belittle the shattering of a people and their heritage."
"Coward!" Erlein exclaimed. "Rot you, you arrogant princeling! What would you know about it?"
"Only what you have told us yourself," Alessan replied, grimly now. "Safer roads, you said. One government where you might have wished for another." He took a step toward Erlein as if he would strike the man, his composure finally beginning to break. "You have been the worst thing I know, a willing subject of two tyrants. Your idea of freedom is exactly what has let them conquer us, and then hold us. You called yourself free? You were only free to hide . . . and to soil your breeches if a sorcerer or one of their Trackers came within ten miles of your little screening spell. You were free to walk past death-wheels with your fellow wizards rotting on them, and free to turn your back and continue on your way. Not anymore, Erlein di Senzio. By the Triad, you are in it now! You are in it as deep as any man in the Palm! Hear my first command: you are to use your magic to conceal your fingers exactly as before."
"No," said Erlein flatly.
Alessan said nothing more. He waited. Devin saw the Duke take a half-step towards the two of them and then stop himself. He remembered that Sandre had not believed that this was possible.
Now he saw. They all saw, by the light of the stars and the fire Baerd had made.
Erlein fought. Understanding next to nothing, unnerved by almost all that was happening, Devin gradually became aware that a horrible struggle was taking place within the wizard. It could be read in his rigid, straining stance and his gritted teeth, heard in the rasp and wheeze of his shortening breath, seen in tightly closed eyes and the suddenly clenched fingers at his sides.
"No," Erlein gasped, once and then again and again, with more effort each time. "No, no, no!" He dropped to his knees as if felled like a tree. His head bent slowly downward. His shoulders hunched as if resisting some overmastering assault. They began to shake with erratic spasms. His whole body was trembling.
"No," he said again in a high, cracked whisper. His hands spread open, pressing flat against the ground. In the red firelight his face was a mask of staring agony. Sweat poured down it in the chill of night. His mouth suddenly gaped open.
Devin looked away in pity and terror just before the wizard's scream ripped the night apart. In the same moment Catriana took two quick running steps and buried her head against Devin's shoulder.
That cry of pain, the scream of a tormented animal, hung in the air between fire and stars for what seemed an appallingly long time.
Afterwards Devin became aware of the intensity of the silence, broken only by the occasional crackle of the fire, the river's soft murmur, and Erlein di Senzio's choked, ragged breathing.
Without speaking Catriana straightened and released her grip on Devin's arm. He glanced at her but she didn't meet his eye. He turned back to the wizard.
Erlein was still on his knees before Alessan in the new spring grass by the riverbank. His body still shook, but with weeping now. When he lifted his head Devin could see the tracks of tears and sweat and the staining mud from his hands. Slowly Erlein raised his left hand and stared at it as if it was something alien that didn't even belong to him. They all saw what had happened, or the illusion of what had happened.☉☉網☉
Five fingers. He had cast the spell.
An owl suddenly called, short and clear from north along the river, nearer to the trees. Devin became aware of a change in the sky. He looked up. Blue Ilarion, waning back to a crescent, had risen in the east. Ghostlight, Devin thought, and wished he hadn't.
"Honor!" Erlein di Senzio said, scarcely audible.
Alessan had not moved since giving his command. He looked down on the wizard he had bound and said, quietly, "I did not enjoy that, but I suppose we needed to go through it. Once will be enough, I hope. Sha