First Truth

  “No,” Strell said from between gritted teeth. “Only that it’s at the Hold where she can find it and Bailic can’t.” He jabbed at the fire to try and slow his anger. The conversation wasn’t going the way he wanted. He had given a lot of thought to what he would say if Useless showed himself again, and as much as it rankled him, Strell was going to try to get the man out of his cell—if he couldn’t convince Alissa to go to the coast. “Look,” he said. “Just tell me where you are and we’ll get you out. Then you can take care of Bailic.”

  Disbelief and a mocking surprise flowed over Alissa’s face. It was so familiar to the looks Alissa had once given him, it was eerie. “You think you can get me out?” Useless said. “Fine. I’m in the cellar. The passage starts from a hidden closet under the stair. The door there can only be unlocked by a full Keeper. If you get past that, there’s a gate made impassable by a ward only a skilled Master can break. Are you a Master, poet?”

  “What stairway?” Strell said, undeterred. Useless’s disbelief didn’t bother him. The man’s mocking tone did.

  “In the great hall, but don’t be foolish. You can’t free me. Take her home.” Useless sent a quick hand over Alissa’s head, grunting in surprise when he touched her hair. “What I want to know,” he said tightly, “is how she got it into her head to seek out a memory belonging to your line. I set for her a pattern of thought that would frighten the wind from the hills, and she’s shifted it to some—frivolous—no account path that’s—absolutely worthless!”

  Strell struggled to keep his breath even and his hands unclenched. Drawing himself up, he looked across the fire, proud for some inane reason that Alissa had succeeded in defying Useless. “I asked her to,” he said boldly. “She said she wouldn’t be dragged about any longer.”

  “Dragged about!” Useless choked. “Dragged about! I try to save her miserable hide, and she complains of being dragged about!”

  In a single, fluid motion, Alissa rose and began to pace the edge of the overhang, keeping just shy of the rain. Strell scrambled to his feet, unwilling to let Useless have the high ground. But Useless seemed to be angry at Alissa, not him. “Burn her to ash,” Useless said in a whisper. “I can’t send her among the lines again. She might jump to one that’s not compatible with the pattern I set. She was lucky I found a congruent septhama point this time.”

  “Septhama?” Strell’s hostility vanished in an icy wash and he swallowed hard. “You mean like—a ghost?”

  Alissa turned from the rain in astonishment. “Ghost! Ashes, no. A septhama point. A memory fixed in an object rather than a person.”

  Strell felt himself go pale. Angry voices taking over young women were one thing. Ghosts were something else.

  “I found it on a piece of Mirthwood, no less,” Useless said, unnoticing or, more likely, uncaring of Strell’s increasing panic. “Where,” he accused, “did you get a piece of Mirthwood?”

  “Me?” Strell said, wincing at how high the word came out. “I don’t have any Mirthwood.” He hesitated. “What’s Mirthwood?”

  Alissa ceased her pacing and sat on her bedroll as if made of stone. Her gray eyes looked almost black in the dim light of the fire as Useless drew Alissa’s features into a tight knot and fumed. “Reddish wood. Heavy. Smells like—like Mirthwood,” he said irately. “I know Alissa doesn’t have any. And the memory was fixed by someone in your line about sixty years ago.” He stared up at Strell. “How did a sliver of Mirthwood get into the plains sixty years ago?”

  Strell slowly sank to the ground, his thoughts swirling. His grandfather’s pipe. He had asked Alissa to see why he was forced to leave his family. It couldn’t have been his grandfather! Slowly, Strell brought out his second pipe from his pack, watching as if his hands belonged to someone else, hoping that Useless wouldn’t confirm his suspicions.

  “That’s it!” Useless shouted, snatching the pipe from Strell. Alissa’s eyes went round. “Bone and Ash. It’s worked