Midwinter

She stirred the jar's contents with a stick, watching it bubble, until the mixture turned a purplish color. She lifted the jar using the hem of her cloak and poured it out into another jar with a strip of cloth over the top as a strainer. She let the solid ingredients fall away.

The filtered icthula mixture stank horribly. With a grimace, she lifted it to her lips and drank the whole thing, wincing as the hot liquid scalded her tongue and the roof of her mouth. Almost immediately the drug began to take hold of her, drawing her out of herself until her awareness perched just outside her body, ready to leap out and explore its surroundings.

She stood up, her stomach turning at the dizzying perspective. She climbed the slope awkwardly, cursing herself for her own stupidity. It would have been a lot easier if she had returned to camp first.

The climb seemed to last hours but could not have, because when she returned to camp no one appeared to notice that she'd left.

"It's time," said Mauritane, as she appeared at the crest of the slope. "Have a seat."

Raieve took her place around a new fire, built upon the ashes of the fire from the night before. The flames wriggled and twisted like braids of light.

Mauritane let his eyes rest on her for a moment. The icthula drew her toward him and she held back, forcing herself to remain still for now. She gave him a silent nod and he turned away. The icthula had been her idea; the Hegest his. She'd seen the tiny mushrooms a few nights before and had told Mauritane about them during their ride through the shifting place. It was her mother's recipe she was using.

"Let's begin," said Mauritane.

"Before we start, can someone please tell me what we're doing?" said Satterly, his voice petulant.

Mauritane sighed. "The Hegest is a sharing of stories, but it is not simply words that we share. We speak of our history, our past, our vision for the future. These things bind us, each to the other. They remind us who we are and why we press forward, why we think and act as we do. The Hegest is a Self in words."

Raieve became lost in Mauritane's speech, remembering how he'd whispered into her ear as they made love, remembering the touch of his hand on her thighs and around her waist. The icthula painted the memories as bright as day, depositing her within the circle of his arms by a stream somewhere in the past. She had to shake her head to make the vision vanish.

"So, what do we, uh, do?" said Satterly.

"Watch," said Silverdun. "You'll get the idea."

Mauritane began. He took a handful of some cheap incense Silverdun had bought in Estacana and threw it into the fire.

"I am Mauritane, son of Ticumaura, son of Bael-La, son of Bael, son of Rumorgan, a child of the ancient Thule. On the day of my birth, an egret landed on my father's rooftop. I enlisted in Her Majesty's Royal Guard at the age of twelve. I saw the sun rise over the Plum Mountains on the longest day of the year. I killed an ogre with my bare hands when I was nineteen. I was made an officer in the Guard at the age of thirty, after leading my company to victory against the Unseelie at Midalel. I loved a woman, the Lady Anne, was married in the City Emerald. I was promoted to Captain of the Royal Guard after the death of Secon'anas."

Mauritane took a deep breath. "Now I am again in the Queen's service. That is an achievement I thought impossible only weeks ago. I am honored."

Raieve forced herself to remain calm, while all around her, Mauritane's words tried to draw her back to the stream's edge. She closed her eyes against them.

Silverdun's turn was next. Relying on the icthula to conceal her presence, she moved her awareness forward and into him.

"I am Perrin Alt, Lord Silverdun," he said, and the words were doubled in her mind as she heard them both from her own ears and within Silverdun's head. As he rattled off a list of ancestors that led backward through time toward the very first Lord Silverdun, she let herself ease into the stream of his mind and opened wide her awareness.

Silverdun's eyes were closed; she could see only blackness and splotches of red, tiny tracers of blue. It served as a soft screen against which Silverdun projected the images of his mind's theater, a cast of old, dusty portraits in a hallway, a single face in all of them, perhaps Silverdun's father. In the background of his mind played a repeating string motif that rose and fell in volume, repeating the same few measures over and over. Sometimes the violin was emphasized; sometimes there was a viola next to it, a cello. She recognized the tune as one he'd been whistling all morning.

As he spoke, she concentrated on the pictures displayed on his internal projection screen, like the silhouettes of puppets she'd seen in the markets of her youth. They were changing. Here was a woman holding Silverdun's hand, a mother.

"My mother converted to Arcadianism after I was born," she heard him say. "I was very young, and I remember only the singing."