The Hob's Bargain

what’s happening.”
    I’d never known that there was something between Kith and Wandel. I would have spent more time wondering what it was, but the vision would no more let me waste time fretting over it than it would give me time to mourn for Beresford.
    â€œYou think there is something in the tale the girl told, then, that the earthquake was just a minor part of what has happened?” Wandel took his tankard back and drank deeply.
    â€œHmm.” Merewich rubbed his hand on the table. “I know her grandmother was a witch. She saved my oldest boy. He’d fallen and hit his head on a rock. Four years old and the joy of my life. I took him to her, but I knew it was too late—there was a soft place on his temple that shouldn’t have been there. She looked at him, then she looked at me. Without saying a word, she took him and set him on her dining table. She laid her hands on that soft spot and closed her eyes. When she took her hands away, his skull was whole again. Forty-two years ago, and you’re the first soul I ever told that to. I’d thank you not to repeat it.”
    He drank from Wandel’s tankard again. “Do I believe her to be mageborn? Yes. Do I think she believes what she says is true? Yes.” He looked the harper in the eye. “Her grandmother showed me that mageblood doesn’t make a person evil.”
    Wandel pursed his lips. “Today I saw a cobble knocked askew on the King’s Highway.”
    â€œEh?” said Merewich softly. “I’ll tell Albrin we’ll be borrowing Kith for a few days.”

    A DAY OR TWO AFTER THIS CONVERSATION I AWOKE stiff and sore from sleeping on the hard earth and stared into the darkness around me. Over the past few days, either I’d grown used to magic or the magic had faded, but I couldn’t feel it humming in my bones anymore. The dirt in the cellar was just dirt, cool and dry. Best of all, no visions clouded my mind.
    I hadn’t changed clothes since I’d put on Caulem’s tunic and trousers, and it struck me that he’d never have let them get this dirty. The cellar stank of sweat and sloth.
    I bowed my head and bit my lip, wondering what Daryn would think if he could see me huddled in the corner of the basement. And I could almost see Gram, shaking her finger at me.
    â€œYou just get up now, Missy, and clean yourself. Then you start planning what you can do to help these people. For the fear and ignorance of a few, you will not let the rest suffer. They will need you soon, and you will be there for them, as I was and my father before me.”
    I couldn’t be certain if it was my imagination or the sight , but Gram’s words hit home. Cantier had carried me to rest in his house though he had no love of the bloodmages. Kith had been there for me when I needed him…as had the priest, for that matter, and I barely knew him—he’d been in the village less than a season.
    â€œWith this gift,” I said, quoting Gram’s favorite lecture out loud in a voice harsh with disuse, “comes great responsibility. We are caretakers. The bloodmages have forgotten that in their search for greater power. They don’t care that they are destroying themselves and those around them by what they do. Death magic is evil, and no good can come of it.”
    â€œResponsibility,” I grumped, but I got to my feet just the same. Without the incapacitating visions I lacked an excuse to cower in the darkness any longer.
    I found a change of clothes (more of Caulem’s), an old blanket partially torn up for rags and a bar of sweet-smelling soap before leaving the house.
    Daylight almost blinded me; I had to stand on the porch a moment before I could see. There were still a few chickens scratching in the dirt in front of the barn. Seeing the barn reminded me of the dead cow that had been rotting in there for the better part of a week. Somehow I was going to have to get her out.
    Soul’s Creek was icy cold, and I removed only my boots before stepping in. I scrubbed my face and hands first, while I still had the nerve, then set about washing clothes as quickly as I could. My hair took longer, but at last the dark strands were shiny and free of dirt and oil.
    When I was clean and dry, I began tidying the cottage, setting right what I could and sorting through the rest. Some things were so damaged I broke them up for firewood. Others I set aside for repairs. When