The Hob's Bargain

length of the staff. I erased them and drew a square. A few more lines and it was the widow’s house. While I rubbed the house out with my hand, I glanced up and saw the bloodmage.
    The sun was at his back, and I squinted against the glare. He started his horse toward me, so he must have stopped when he saw me. I stood up and dusted my hands, one at a time, on my skirt.
    He stopped again, just a few paces away, playing with the hob’s chain, rolling the little beads through his fingers, which were stained, like the earring, with the hob’s blood. He rode alone, as the sight had foretold. Caefawn must have found a way to lure the berserkers away, perhaps even killed them before he died. The blood on the beads was dry and it flaked off, drifting to the bloodmage’s hand.
    The sight stilled my doubts. The spirits I held were quiet as I gathered their power to use against the mage. It took longer than I’d expected. Each spirit had to be dealt with separately; each extracted something of me for its gift. We were interbound until I felt there was little left that was only me.
    â€œWell, now,” said the mage, who’d watched me patiently. His voice was a polite, mellow tenor.
    â€œSir,” I said politely, more from habit than anything else. A polite greeting of strangers.
    Moresh’s bloodmage had given me nightmares as a child, nightmares that had worsened after Quilliar’s death. Even then, the red clothing made more of an impression than anything else about the man. He was only my height, with ordinary features, dark coloring, and Beresforder blue eyes. There was little in his face that hinted at what he was—only the subtle softening of what had once been a sharp-featured face. His eyes were quite mad.
    For the first time since I took the initial noeglins, I felt that I was thinking clearly again. Facing the bloodmage at last, a deep calmness had taken root in my soul. Within me I held the power to destroy him. It was a heady feeling. My whole life I had feared this man, and now I did not. The power I held vibrated my bones like a building storm—of evil.
    How, then, was I different from the bloodmage?
    He was talking, but I didn’t hear him. My own question consumed me.
    Death! roared the spirit of evil in my head, a spirit made of the bits of my servants. Kill it, and all will be gained! We shall not fear the Green Man. What can he do to us? We can save the village from him as we save Kith from the bloodmage.
    â€œHow could I have missed you?” murmured the bloodmage in my ear. He must have dismounted while I was distracted, because he stood just behind me now, embracing me like a lover.
    Yes , shrieked my spirit, take him now. Bind him and make him ours. Hurry! Do it quickly. Take his power.
    A surge of magic shook me.
    â€œNever seen anyone with this kind of power,” continued the bloodmage. He gripped my shoulders and turned me toward him. His expression was filled with the same greed for power that had seized me far more tightly than the mage’s hands.
    When the spirits whispered to me, the bits of them that were becoming part of me answered. I knew then that if I managed to kill the bloodmage this way, I’d be an even greater danger to the village than he was. Merewich, Koret, and Tolleck trusted me. There were other mageborn in the village; I knew that, and so did the vile things who’d sifted it from my mind. Mageborn without the benefit of the hob’s training, and thus easy victims. Part of me writhed in horror, part of me thought, Prey.
    No wonder Caefawn had watched me when I called the ghosts. He had been willing to kill me, rather than let me access the ghost’s power—now, too late, I knew why.
    I twisted out of the bloodmage’s hold and shouted, “Go!” Using the voice of command I’d learned had a strong effect on the spirits, a matter of emphasis rather than volume. And I released the spirits, all of them. I returned the power they’d given and took the little bits of myself, of my spirit back. I could feel their disappointment as they scattered.
    The widow’s house rattled and creaked.
    â€œWhat was that?” said the mage, turning to look at the house where the spirits had waited.
    His distraction gave me time to realize I had nothing to fight the bloodmage with. For a while I’d forgotten to fear him. I remembered now, remembered just why I’d been so desperate to destroy