"Are we supposed to let them continue on, just as we have for all these centuries? No. We're doing them a favor. Things will be better this way."

"Only if we find an answer," Mirage said, and put some bite in her voice. "I don't suppose you happen to have that up your sleeve?"

"I'm afraid not."

"But you think there is one."

"Of course. Why else would we be doing this?"

Miryo seemed to find Ashin's attitude as irritating as Mirage did. "What if Mirage and I die, though? Then what?"

The Air Hand Key shrugged. "Then someone after you will find the answer. One of the pairs we've arranged for. The Goddess will not let things continue on this way forever; eventually she will show us how things were meant to be."

Warrior's teeth. She'd make a good siege general. Throw bodies at the problem, and one of these days some of them will break through. Just don't count the casualties.

And as if Miryo and I didn't have enough pressure on us before. Now it's not just "find an answer or die," it's "find an answer or children will die, too."

"What makes you think there's an answer?" Miryo said.

"Did the Primes feed you that quote from Misetsu?" Ashin asked. When Miryo nodded, she snorted. "Crone's stick. You should read the rest of what that woman wrote. She may have been devout once, but magic went to her head; all the later stuff reeks of pride. You can bet that by the time Monisuko's opening ritual came around, Misetsu wouldn't have heard the Goddess if she'd had all five Aspects shouting in her ear."

Mirage could believe it. She'd seen Temple Dancers, who devoted their lives to honoring the Goddess, lose their way to the seduction of praise. It happened to the clergy, too. There was no reason it couldn't happen to a witch.

"You think she was wrong about doppelgangers, then," Miryo said.

"Of course. She couldn't find an answera"because she wasn't listeninga"and so she found an easy way out. Then she made up something suitably frightening to justify it."

Mirage doubted the story was that simple. But she didn't want to argue it too closely; she hoped Misetsu had been wrong.

"We've been trying to think of a solution," Miryo said. "Obviously. We had thought that what we maybe needed to do was divide ourselves completely. Find a way to cut the connection that remains between us."

Ashin looked dubious.

"You don't think it will work?"

"It might work," the Key said. "But so would killing Miragea"if your only goal is functional magic."

"It's one up on the old system; it leaves us both alive."

"But it doesn't really gain you anything."

Mirage raised one eyebrow at her. "And what do you think there is to gain?"

Ashin got up and began to pace, hands clasped neatly behind her back. "I don't know. Not specifically. But think about ita"the priests and priestesses all turn their noses up at us and call us unbalanced. Why? What's lacking in us? I'd bet anything it has to do with the doppelgangers. We're losing whatever's in you. It might be the physical attributes. You have speed, and strengtha"you're born fighters."

"So I'm the brawn, and Miryo's the brain?"

"You're not stupid; don't act like you are. You know as well as I do that idiots don't make good Hunters. You're fighting, and she's magic, but you're both intelligent."

Mirage conceded that with a nod. She had made the comment deliberately, intending to provoke Ashin.

"What about putting us back together, like we used to be?" Miryo asked. "That doesn't lose anything."

"Been tried. It didn't work. The Path of the Head's of the opinion it can't worka"the magic won't flow in that direction, if that makes any sense. It's like canceling a spell outright, instead of counteracting it. Just can't be done."

Mirage's spirits sank at the witch's words; for just an instant, she'd hoped that Miryo had hit on the solution. Her double seemed equally depressed. The room was momentarily silent. Then Miryo roused herself again. "Another question. Has anyone ever figured out why we only have daughters?"

Ashin nodded approvingly at her. "Not that I'm aware of, but it's a good question, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's a part of this same issue. Lack of sons would definitely qualify as an imbalance, at least in my book."

"How are we supposed to fix it, though? Are all you people crazy enough to risk your lives for a heresy you don't even fully understand?"

The Key shrugged. "We haven't thought of anything. But we've been trying. And we may not have an answer, but we do have faith in the Goddess."

Mirage smiled sourly. Her own arguments sounded flimsier, coming out of someone else's mouth. "You don't think separation is the answer, though."

"I don't see how it would right the balance. It seems that separation loses you just as death does."

Now it was Mirage's turn to stand and pace. "But it's the only answer we've found."

Ashin looked at her directly. In her eyes Mirage saw conviction, and determination, and a blindly trusting faith that frightened her with its unquestioning intensity. "But it's not the only answer out there. I'm sure it's not. You'll just have to find the right one."

Uh-huh. And it's going to be that easy, I'm sure.

"What do you have planned?" Mirage asked her bluntly.

" 'You' meaning 'you and your friends,' I assume." She hardly waited for Mirage's nod. "We're not certain. We'd like to go on as we have, and save more doppelgangers, but it's much more dangerous than it used to be."

Not surprising. Mirage glanced over to Miryo and raised an eyebrow.

"Our best bet is to hole up, I think," her double said. "To get off the road and really work this through. We'd have to find a place we're not likely to be tracked down. Does Silverfire have anything like that we could use?"

"Yes, but I don't think that's a good idea." Mirage sat down and twiddled her mask between her fingers. "Hunter security is good, but it can be broken, especially by magic. And they'll be expecting something like that." She realized that she had wrapped her entire head covering around her left fist. She pulled it off and folded it neatly. "Our best bet would be somewhere else, somewhere remote."

"The mountains?"

"Maybe. I'd favor the ones here in Abern. I know a few folk who live there; they might be able to set us up." The itinerary from Tari's study was in her saddlebags, so hopefully no one would be able to make the connection to her earlier jobs. Mirage wondered briefly if she should demand protection from Ashin as one of the three boons she and Eclipse were now due. No, no sense in it; they want us alive anyway. Save the boons for later. And hope there will be a later.

"Hiding is a good idea," Ashin said, nodding. "We can get in touch with you through the paper you have."

"And if we think up anything that requires your help, we'll contact you."

The Hand Key nodded again. "May the Goddess be with you. I'm sure she'll give you an answer."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

Flight

"Does Ashin frighten you as much as she does me?"

Miryo had to laugh, despite the tension weighing on her. "Yes. She's so single-minded it's unbelievable. There's the problem, which she knows; there's the solution, which she's looking for, and there's the Goddess, who will make it all okay."

"When you put it that way, she doesn't sound all that different from us. But somehowa I don't know. I think it's the way she's willing to gamble so many lives, including her own daughter's, on this."

"Yes." Miryo fingered the tail of her braid, twisting it around her finger. "Maybe that's the only way to do it, though. There really is a problem. The clergy have been saying so forever, and we've been ignoring them. I think that 'unbalanced' thing must have something to do with this. Which is encouraging, in a way; it means that we are right, at least in thinking that the current situation is wrong."

"Whether any of our hypothetical solutions are right is another story."

"I guess we'll find out." She glanced up sharply as a rumble of thunder reached her ears.

Mirage also looked up and made a sour face. They were in a large, open field probably intended for grazing, though at the moment no livestock were in it. There was no shelter to be had, other than the low stone wall at then-side. Miryo, considering the incoming weather, wished they had gone ahead and pushed to reach the next town, but Mirage had advised keeping as low a profile as possible.

Eclipse approached their campsite as a second roll of thunder began. He had been some distance away, bathing in the stream; he ran a hand through his wet hair and gave the sky an irritated look. "I might have saved myself the walk, and just waited for the rain to wash me off."

"Two baths won't kill you," Mirage said.

Ill weather might make them all sick, though. Miryo glanced at the wall. "Could we rig up cloaks over this? That might give us at least a little bit of shelter." If there was a more exposed place to camp within a hundred miles, she'd be surprised.

"We can try," Mirage said. And, as Miryo had hoped, the Hunters were able to set something up. They weighted one edge of their cloaks onto the wall with loose stones, and set their saddles on the inside of the other edge, forming a sloping roof. It would hold for at least a while, provided the winds didn't become too strong.

"I refuse to do this again," Miryo said when they were finished. "Dye my hair; Void it, cut off my nose and I won't complain. I just want to sleep in a building."

"It won't be bad after tonight," Mirage said. "Soon we'll be in trees again, and then we'll be able to set up something much better. Besides, the bad weather probably won't last long. Summers have been dry, lately."

"All the more reason we're due for a wet one." Hearing the whine in her own voice, Miryo grimaced. "Sorry."

"I can hardly throw stones at you for being in a bad mood. I feel the same way myself."

Eclipse glanced at them both, but said nothing. He had reacted little to their account of their meeting with Ashin. Lately he seemed to have assumed the responsibility of keeping them in one piece until they found their answer or killed themselves trying. Beyond that, he was keeping his mouth shut. Not long ago, such behavior would have intimidated Miryo, but she was becoming accustomed to him. He had begun treating her the way he did Mirage. This made things a little problematic for Miryo, who didn't understand him the way her doppelganger did, but she just followed Mirage's lead: If Eclipse's silence didn't bother her, Miryo wouldn't worry about it, either.

Mirage tapped her on the arm. Suppressing a sigh, Miryo got up and followed her out from under the shelter of the cloaks.

They had agreed to pray together every night, in hope of deriving some kind of inspiration from it. Miryo wasn't sure how productive it would be, but it couldn't hurt. If nothing else, it meant she'd at least go to the Goddess's arms with a good record of piety.

She banished such negative thoughts with a grimace. Thinking like that won't get you anywhere.

The first sporadic drops of rain began to fall. Miryo knelt on the ground at Mirage's side, looked at the sky, and began to pray.

I don't think this is doing much good.

Mirage suppressed a sigh. It wouldn't help to let Miryo know her heart was not truly in their prayers. It wasn't that she didn't care; her life was on the line, after all. She just didn't get the feeling that kneeling out here in the mud was getting them anywhere.

Once again she turned her mind to the ins and outs of their problem, in hope of having some sudden revelation that would make everything clear. No such luck. Separation still struck her as their best option, but Ashin hadn't favored it, and Miryo seemed to agree with the Key. They'd spent the ride so far cooking up bizarre schemes for making Mirage a part of the casting process instead.

She still had to shudder at the proposition Eclipse had put forth. He hadn't meant it seriously, but the potential consequences didn't bear thinking about. He had suggested that they try to create the channel for power in Mirage.

I can just see me spawning another one of mea"of usa"whatever. Three people with one soul. As if two aren't enough. And we'd still have an antimagical doppelganger around, which wouldn't solve anything.

Miryo had tried teaching Mirage to sing a spell, but that had been a miserable failure. Not only could Mirage barely tell one note from another, she found it impossible to remember the proper order of the syllables. The language used for magic was not easy to learn, and small errors had meaning. She'd accidentally said "kosuda" instead of "koshuda," and Miryo had fallen about laughing. According to the witch, she would have been summoning fish instead of a wind.

What else was there? They had already tried being in physical contact, the same night she had Eclipse knock her out. None of it was working.

Mirage realized her breathing had quickened. She forced herself to slow down. Even if I can't concentrate, I shouldn't distract Miryo.

She knew that Eclipse thought she had become resigned to dying in the attempt. He was wrong, although Mirage could not have said exactly why. She had said at one point that it was because "die trying" wasn't even an option; she would succeed. That wasn't quite it, though. And it wasn't Ashin's blind belief that the Goddess would make it all right.

Maybe it's just that I can't believe I really might die.

Oh, and this is a cheerful train of thought.

She shook the gloomy feeling off with an effort. Even as she did so, the intermittent drops from the sky became a real rain. Mirage sighed inwardly, but said nothing; Miryo was deep in prayer, and she would stay out here as long as her double did.

But Miryo was in fact not deep in prayer. She was looking at Mirage.

When she realized this, Mirage blinked. Miryo's eyes slid quickly away, but Mirage had to grin. "Have you been praying?" she asked.

Miryo looked uncomfortable. "Ia I just can't concentrate. I'm sorry if I distracted you."

At that, Mirage laughed outright. "And here I am, kneeling in the rain because I don't want to interrupt you. What a stupid pair we make."

"Do you want to go back in?"

"No, I'd rather sit out here in the mud." Mirage snorted and got to her feet. "Enough of this. Maybe some sects would tell us suffering is good for the soul, but I think the Goddess will understand if we forgo this in favor of not catching cold."

The rain, which had been showing every sign of blowing through quickly, changed its mind and camped out over the road they were taking. It did not improve Miryo's mood. She had hoped for a while that it would be possible to teach Mirage the words and pitches of a spell, and that this might be the answer to their problemsa"or at least the right ideaa"but she finally had to concede defeat. Her doppelganger was trying, but she didn't have the ear, or the voice.

Well, at least twenty-five years of study accomplished something. Even if I can't use it.

She found she was chewing on one thumbnail and made herself stop. Fine, so that idea won't work. Think of another one. You haven't tried everything, and maybe something you think is completely outlandish will turn out to be the answer. You'll never know until you try.

Of course, trying might well kill her.

But if I don't try, I'll still end up using my magic by accident. I know I will. I almost bit my tongue off last night, trying to keep myself from interfering with the rain. During the fight with Wraith, it felt so good to pull power. Even though I didn't really have it under control I'm going to get us killed.

For a while she rode with the fond fantasy that the Primes knew the key to solving it all, and were keeping it from her out of a spiteful desire to undermine the Goddess's gift. She particularly enjoyed the idea of hitting Shimi over the head with something large and heavy; the Prime was one of the few reasons she still wasn't sure about joining the Air Ray.

Shimi wasn't a truly bad person, though, and there could definitely be worse Primes. Miryo still remembered Ikkena-chashi, the Earth Prime who had preceded Koika during the first two years Miryo had been at Starfall. That woman's heart had been carved out of stonea"assuming she had one to begin with. And Ashin would make a miserable Prime. Her temper got the best of her much too often. Shimi would likely be succeeded by Naji, though, who was the current Heart Key, and who would make a very good Prime when the time came.

And thinking about that is getting you nowhere. Stop wasting time.

A fat splat of water hit Miryo in the face at that exact moment, and she bit back a swear word. Then, with a sigh, she bent her mind once more to the task of finding a way to stay alive.