"Much more quickly since the advent of the Copyweave," Wyth said, and the smile deepened.

"The Copyweave?" inquired Ealad-hach, glad for the introduction of a non-threatening subject.

Wyth lifted an odd little frame of wood and metal from the table and held it out to him. There was a piece of crystal-glass set into the top of the frame and its collapsible, jointed legs sported four wooden feet with leather pads.

"Osraed Saer built it for me," Wyth said. His eyes were bright with boyish enthusiasm. "You see, you place it over the text you wish to copy, then draw a circumscription on the glass, so you only get the part you need. Then, you draw the text into the glass and deposit it on the new page. The frame unfolds" -he demonstrated- "so you can expand or contract the image, as you desire."

Ealad-hach was impressed without intending to be. "A marvelous device, Osraed Wyth. You are a clever young man, to have developed such a Weave."

The boy looked suddenly gawky and uncomfortable. "Well, sir, I must be honest, It wasn't completely my conception."

"Oh? Whose, then?" Was it his imagination, or had the young man tensed? Did the brown eyes dodge his?

"Oh, a-a friend."

"Ah. Bevol, I presume."

Wyth turned the frame in his hands, his expression suddenly opaque. Ealad-hach cursed his lack of Thought Tell ability.

"Actually," Wyth said, raising his eyes a little, "it was Taminy-a-Gled who helped me with the Weave."

Ealad-hach thought his heart would stop and fall to the floor. "Taminy ..." he repeated, and wondered that he didn't stammer. "The girl Bevol brought to Nairne?"

Wyth nodded, eyes watchful.

"She ... Weaves?"

"She knew a couple of duans. One, she adapted from a Water Draw, the other, I think she might have composed ... although she could have learned it from Bevol." His eyes slid away again. "Perhaps she was only parroting."

"Very likely," Ealad-hach said. He could not quite make himself feel relief. He wanted it; it refused to come. Still, he gave lip service to the safe interpretation, even in his own soul.

"Bevol mentioned," Wyth said, "that you had an aislinn you wanted me to Tell."

Ealad-hach peered at him. So. You want to read my dreams, do you? Are you being sly, boy? Are you being clever? If I give you my aislinn, what will you do with it? What will you try to make me believe?

He almost said "no." He almost pulled back from the prospect of letting this anomaly into his nightmares. But a sense of duty drove him on. This was a riddle he must solve.

"Yes," he said. "I have dreamed. Let me tell you what I have dreamed."

Oddly, the boy's face seemed to close in on itself. "Are you certain, Osraed, that you wish me to give the Tell?"

Why was he wriggling away? Surely, he would want to interpret the aislinn to the advantage of his cause. "Yes, of course. You were always excellent at the Dream Tell."

Wyth dipped his head. "As you wish."

Ealad-hach told him then, of the Sea and the Shore and the girl upon it. He showed him, too, or tried to, but his Weave was weak and lacked depth and clarity. And when he was finished, he looked at Wyth's face and saw reluctance-no, more than that-distress.

The boy fingered his Copyweave frame and stared at his neat stack of papers and said nothing.

"Well?" prompted Ealad-hach. "Well, what do you say? Give me your Tell."

"I can't, Osraed." Wyth raised his eyes to Ealad-hach's face. "I cannot Tell this aislinn. It-"

"It what? What do you mean, you can't Tell it?"

Wyth shook his head. "It's too confused. Too confusing. The images are ... too thick with personal meaning. It is beyond me."

"Confusing how?" persisted Ealad-hach. "Do you balk at Telling a portent of evil?"

Wyth's eyes met his, sharp and probing. "Is that what you perceive it to be, Osraed? A portent of evil?"

"Whatever else is muddled, that much is clear."

"And if I told you it was not a portent of evil?"

"I would not believe it."

Wyth's shoulders moved in what was almost a shrug. "Then any Tell I might give would be irrelevant to you."

"Do you say it is a portent of good?" He cannot say that, surely. He won't say it.

Wyth frowned, his gaze suddenly turned inward. "The same Sun that warms the earth and ripens the crops, burns to ashes the dry grass and blinds the creatures of shadow."

Ealad-hach tried to pry at the boy's narrow face, tried to divine his meaning. The attempt was futile. "Who is the girl?" he asked sharply. "Tell me that much. Who is this Wicke?"

Wyth shook his head. "There is no Wicke in your aislinn, Osraed."

"Then what?"

"I ... cannot say."

"You mean, you will not."

Wyth shook his head again and lowered his eyes to the tidy mess atop the table. "If you'll excuse me, Osraed, I have much work to do."

Ealad-hach withdrew silently, though his spirit was not silent; it roared in ragged frustration. He went away to his chambers, then, to pursue a peace that no longer lived there. Later, he thought, later, when he was calm, he would tell the others what he had gleaned from Wyth.

"And then," panted Aine, "and then, she took the crystal out of the box and it lit up like a lightbowl!"

"No! It didn't!" Doireann's eyes all but started from her face. She lifted her skirts higher as they cut through ripening wheat toward the verdant line of the Bebhinn Wood.

Skittering sideways, Aine bobbed her bright head, her voice coming out in short puffs. "And Taminy said ... Taminy said ... she'd seen that Isha ... Isha had the Gift."

"And then what?"

"And then the Mistress of Nairnecirke began to wail ... and the Master set to praying ... and Isha just stared at that crystal, smiling like she was bewicked."

"And what did Taminy do?" Doireann gasped, half stumbling over a divot of earth.

"She just smiled-her face all aglow from the stone. Oh, Doiry, it was the stuff of chills. I swear I dreamed of it all night and into morning."

"If only they'd let me come," whined Doireann. "Why did it have to be my night to tend the stupid oil pots?"

They'd reached the verge of the wood now, and hushed as if entering the Cirke. Trees formed corridors, and leafy branches, vaults. Birds sang in lieu of choirs, and leaves whispered prayers. The girls ignored all in their quiet haste; their skirts swished no louder than the breeze, their footfalls beat no louder than their hearts.

They heard the waterfall before they could make out the murmur of voices. Pace slowed, they crept to within earshot, screened by a puff of greenery, and knelt to watch and listen.

" ... said naught about it this morning, but I've no illusions my mother will allow it unless father presses." Iseabal sat, cross-legged, upon a rock that lay half-out of the water, shredding flower petals into her lap.

"Do you want to go?" Taminy asked her. She was on a rock by the fall, looking for all the world like a Cwen holding court. Aine thought there ought to be an audience of squirrels and rabbits sitting in attendance.

Iseabal was slow in answering. Her brow furrowed, she abandoned her task and rubbed her palms together. "I want to learn the use of my ... my Gift. If I must go to Halig-liath to do that, then I shall, but ..."

"But?"

"But I'd rather learn from you."

"Would you?"

Iseabal nodded. "Oh, yes. And so would Gwynet, I wager. Am I right, Gwyn?"

Aine noticed, then, that the woodland Cwen had other courtiers. Gwynet and a second young girl sat sprawled on the grassy stream bank between the older cailin with books and whiteboards.

"Oh, aye!" said the blonde gamin at once, and her companion looked up with wide eyes and cried, "Oh, me too, Taminy! Me too!"

Why, that was Niall Backstere's youngest girl, Cluanie, Aine realized, gawping at the mouse-hued mop of hair. Could her da have any idea-?

"It could be slow learning," Taminy said. "You can't learn what I can't teach."

"But I've learnt bushels already," protested Cluanie. "My mam's all but sung over the perfumes I made her and she was mighty glad of that moonwort physic you taught me. She's been raw sick with this baby and all."

"Herbals are only a small part of the Art," Taminy said. "The Osraed have the knowledge-"

"Not the way you have it," said Iseabal. "I know. Prentices study for years and all they learn is how to make a dog chase his tail till he drops or how to interpret a dream. But look ..." She put a hand in the water beside her rock and gently moved her fingers.

Aine frowned and looked at Doireann, who merely shrugged and dug her hands deeper into the pockets of her skirt. It was when she glanced back at the pool that she saw it-the quicksilver flash and dart of tiny, water-borne bodies as they rushed to gather about Iseabal's rock. Aine swallowed a gasp. Doireann clapped one hand over her own mouth and brought the other one to her breast in a tight fist.

The two little girls on the bank jumped up and tumbled to the water's edge, squealing with delight. Taminy laughed too. "A useful trick for a fisherman, Isha, but hardly earth-shattering."

"It is for me," enthused Iseabal. "It's all earth-shattering. All of it. The world looks different to me today. The whole, entire world!" She raised her hands, flinging them wide as if to embrace that world and, suddenly, the air was full of birds, full of their songs, full of the rhythm of their wings.

It was Iseabal they flocked to, Iseabal they circled and wheeled about and chittered to. And the little girls danced and Iseabal laughed and Aine's heart beat so hot and so fast she thought she would swoon. Beside her, Doireann trembled and cowered and clutched her hands to her breast.

Then, Taminy, Cwen of the Bebhinn Glade, stood up on her rock and raised her hands, palms outward. The birds were gone faster than Aine could blink an eye. Back to their trees they went, in a hush so profound, Aine was sure no Cirke had ever known it.

"The Gift is not for the drawing of birds," Taminy said, and Aine felt a sudden prickling at the back of her neck. "Nor is it for the gathering of fish."

Gwynet and Cluanie giggled and Taminy turned her face to the puff of greenery Aine and Doireann had thought concealed them. "The Gift is for the drawing of spirits and the gathering of souls ...Come out, Aine. Come out, Doireann. Come sit with us and sing duans."

Both girls started up, bumping painfully in their haste and tumbling from their sanctum. Finding Taminy's eyes right on her, Doireann shrieked loudly enough to wake the dead and hurled whatever she had been crushing to her heart in Taminy's direction. It was a good throw, and the lumpy wad landed nearly at Taminy's feet. As the girl lifted her skirts and bent to pick it up, Doireann shrieked a second time and dashed back into the woods.

Heart tripping over itself, Aine followed. She caught Doireann up at the edge of the fields where she had crumpled into a forlorn heap, arms and face patterned with pale scratches, tears streaking her face.

"She's a Wicke! She's a Wicke! And she's made poor Isha into a Wicke! Oh, I knew it! I knew it!"

"Stop babbling, Doiry!" Aine told her crossly. Her own body threatened to quiver itself right into the ground, but she would never let the other girl see that, or even suspect it. "Stop babbling and tell me what that was you threw at her."

Doireann hiccuped loudly and grasped Aine's wrist, all but toppling her. "It was a runebag."

"A what?"

Doireann merely nodded frenetically, spilling hair into her eyes. "Daffodilly and marigold, vervain and a piece of chalcedony scratched by emery."

Aine shook her head dumbly. "What good-?"

"To drive away the wicked! To expose and expel them. Daffodilly and vervain and chalcedony cut by emery all do that, so I thought why not put them together?" She hiccuped again.

"Oh," said Aine, not knowing what else she could say. "And the marigold?"

Doireann pulled herself to her feet, using Aine's arm for support. "Repels Wicke. Did you see how she tried to get away from it?"

Aine sighed. "I think she picked it up."

"No, she didn't! She lifted her skirts clear and bent to inyx it away. I saw her."

"Doireann, you're wind-kissed. Besides, if what Osraed Saxan said is true, Iseabal and Taminy may gather all the fish and fowl they want."

Doireann peered at her from beneath a jumble of dark curls. "Do you believe it?"

"Well, it was brought from Pilgrimage by an Osraed."

"Huh. Osraed Wyth Arundel. You know Wyth. Were sweet on him, I recall. Are you ready to believe he's the voice of God?"

Aine could only stand blinking. Wyth as the Voice of God, was rather a difficult concept to grasp.

"And she didn't just speak of gathering fish and fowl, Aine-mac-Lorimer," Doireann continued, her eyes growing huge and dark. "She spoke of gathering souls. Of collecting spirits. It's our spirits she's after, Aine. Our souls. You heard her. Come out, she says. Come out and-and sing duans." Her hand, clutching Aine's arm, shook as if palsied.

Aine met her friend's eyes and couldn't help but shiver, herself, at the abject fear in them. She opened her mouth to utter quashing, brave words, but a loud shaking of shrubbery within the wood robbed her of them. Doireann set off, wailing, across the fields, with Aine hard on her heels.

Aine-mac-Lorimer and Doireann Spenser might not welcome her, Taminy reflected, but there were others who did. The pleasure of the Apothecary would have been hard to miss, even for one utterly without the Gift. Her eyes on the basket of herbs and confections in Taminy's hands, she sailed from behind her counter like a galley under full sail, skirts and sleeves and aprons billowing about her ample bow. One arm swung wide to embrace, the other went straight for the basket.

"God love you, child! Look at that wealth of riches! Wyvis! Rennie! Taminy's here!"

Taminy smiled as the embrace landed around her shoulders. Already she could hear the scuffle of feet on upstairs floorboards; the Apothecary's two youngsters presented themselves in their mother's shop before that lady had retreated behind her counter again to admire her new goods.