When the second sun sets into the sea, the shadow of the offshore islands slowly climbs the coastland slopes, ascending the serrated pattern of the trees: one by one, each dark pine and everwillow passes from daytime green to silhouette shadow. The dying sunlight glances off the exposed rock of the mountain, warms the thin soil on the higher ledges, then shadows the ridgeline of topmost pine. Above Peak Willenden, a first evening star emerges in the east, a beacon for all wayfarers who wend their way home.

In the gathering dusk of the Companion's setting, Brierley Mefell made her way down the sandy bluff to the beach below, careful in walking on the uncertain footing of the path. The bluff stood the height of four tall men, steep and sandy, and was treacherous in the darkening nightfall. She descended to the beach with a final awkward step onto the sand, then sat down on a broad stone to rest. She put down her staff and bag, then rubbed the ache in her arm from the healing she had done that day.

A herder boy had run too quickly after his flock and had tumbled himself onto rocky ground, breaking his forearm bone as he fell. It was not a grave injury, but painful to a young and active boy, and a Calling had taken her to him today. With her witch-sense, through her hidden witch gift, she had healed his broken bone by taking his pain into herself. It was her craft, that healing, and the pains of it were well accustomed and accepted. But she had not intended to return home this late.

Beyond the beach on which she sat, across a swirling pattern of cove-caught waves, stood a long row of large sea stones. Several of the great stones were large enough to be small islands, and were together the remnant of an earlier sea bluff now nearly eroded into the sea. Among their dark procession in the gathering gloom, Brierley's island home flickered with the white flash of breakers, beckoning with its promise of rest and sanctuary. Beyond the island's deep shadow, across a wide wave-swept bay and just visible above a northern headland, the tallest pinnacles of Earl Melfallan's castle stretched spidery fingers into the darkening sky. Beneath the headland, a distant fishing boat crept along the shore, weathering the point toward harbor and home.

The earl's castle was her constant visible reminder of the dangers of her hidden witchery. In all the Allemanii lands, the shari'a witches were proscribed as evil and forbidden to live, and so died a quick and agonized death whenever found. The Allemanii High Lords had a long memory, and had suffered greatly under witch's curse -- or so they said in their histories. In the three hundred years since the Disasters, the tales of Witchmere's evil had grown with their telling, becoming a legend of trouble and pain, of domination and plague and oppression. Or so the Allemanii would have their history: the journals in her cave told a different tale, although her predecessors also wrote of times they themselves did not remember. Their warning of secrecy, however, was clear, for the shari'a proscription still existed, preserved in the High Lords' laws.

How long had the shari'a lived in these lands before the Allemanii came from over the sea? How had the Allemanii's search for a new homeland, far away from blight and war a thousand miles to the west, turned into the destruction of an entire people? The Allemanii themselves had felt uneasy with their answers, and so had crafted excuses for their triumph, tales of rightness and fate, of black evil and men's agony. She sighed softly. Who had the truth? Were the shari'a truly evil? Or did that evil lie in the Allemanii who had hated them? Who?

Who could give her answers? On all of Yarvannet's shore, Brierley knew of no other shari'a witch. She was alone, and often wondered if she was the last of her kind, the last of the shari'a everywhere.

Many years before, the fishing town of Amelin had welcomed a pale young woman and her infant daughter, and had believed her tale of a husband's fishing accident in a northern town and the need to escape memories. Jocater Mefell she called herself, but had no history before the ship plank touched down onto Amelin's wharf. Had Jocater left behind shari'a kindred in Duke Tejar's northern counties, or to the east in the earldom of Mionn? Brierley never knew: by the time Brierley was aware of herself, her mother had long since deliberately forgotten.

In time, Jocater had married a shipwright in the town, a widower of middle years who wanted someone to keep his house and give him the comfort of wife and family, a busy man who needed sons for his shop to replace the two lost to plague years before. For all Amelin knew, Alarson and his Jocater had lived contentedly: only the occupants of their house knew of the worsening strain, the disappointed husband, the too-strange and barren wife, the arguments, the hurt feelings, the mutual bitter regret about the marriage. The stirrings of witch-sense, rigorously denied, had tormented Brierley's mother all her unhappy life. Unable to cope with Alarson's emotions, she had finally fled from him into madness and a plunge off a high sea cliff that extinguished all pain, all need.

That night, as her mother lay in her death shroud, twelve-year-old Brierley had sensed Alarson's relief that Jocater was dead, a relief as keen as a twisted joy, however carefully he hid his joy behind the pretense of grief he showed to neighbors and friends. And that same night Brierley had left his house, never to return. A fine gesture, she thought sourly: he was glad I left. Two years later Alarson had drowned in a sailing accident, before the time Brierley needed to forgive him. She appreciated being spared the effort.

He's dead, she thought, and dug the end of her staff in the sand. Dead for years now. Why are you thinking about him? She scowled more fiercely and banished the memory.

She braced her hands on her staff and stood, then swayed as the night wind suddenly buffeted hard against her back, its fresh breeze swirling down the forested slopes. It whipped her pale brown hair into streamers, and tugged impatiently at her broad-brimmed hat. She braced herself against its push and blinked wearily, half-blinded by the squat bluish sun on the ocean's horizon. In this autumn season, both the Daystar and Companion began to move together to the other side of the world, bringing into the late evening the True Night, a time of star-filled darkness that grew steadily longer as the world changed toward winter. As she watched, the Companion's blazing arc finally vanished beneath the Western Sea, and the world seemed to grow colder.

She turned and studied the top of the short bluff behind the beach, wary of any observers who might have strayed away from the coast road to overlook her beach. The beach was blocked to both the north and south by a tall jumbling of rocks, and was accessible only by the steep descent down the bluff. In that isolation lay her safety, and she hid her small boat here among the rocks each day, concealing it from above, and took care that her use of it to reach her island refuge was never observed. In the gathering night, she saw no one above, and her faltering witch-sense confirmed that absence of mind and eyes. She was alone.

Brierley pulled her small boat from its sandy crevice among the sea rocks and hauled it across the sand toward the waves, resting at short intervals as she again checked the bluff tops. Finally, at the edge of the sea, she pushed the boat into the water and stepped aboard. As the boat slid into the water, she dipped her paddle into the sea, and slipped across the waves with long-accustomed practice and rounded the southern end of her island. She waited for the proper wave, then neatly guided her boat into a half-submerged tunnel. The sound of the waves thundered in the enclosed space, then quieted as she turned a bend into the hollow heart of the island.

Ahead, above a rocky platform carved from the island stone, the small square shape of her Everlight gleamed in the shadows, its mellow light repeated in moving patterns in the water below. It flickered as it sensed her approach, then flared in welcome.

"Good evening, Everlight," Brierley murmured as its love suffused into her mind, bringing promise of peace and rest, and a comfort of long familiarity. "I am glad to be home."

She stepped from her boat onto the ledge and tied its bowline fast to a stanchion, then reached up to touch the Everlight, reinforcing its bond with her. Once the Everlight had likely guarded the ancient caverns of Witchmere, the great capital of the shari'a, and had somehow come to this cave to guard a witch's home yet again. It had a mental presence, and it loved her, but the Everlight no longer spoke, if in fact it ever had.

"Ah, well." She sighed, wishing it could speak and tell her answers. She touched the Everlight in a second caress. The Everlight flickered in response, dancing its reflected selves into the gently surging waters of the entry pool.

She bent to retrieve her cloth bag and staff from the boat, then climbed the long stair above the landing. Outside the doorway to her cave, she took off her hat and hung it from a peg, then leaned her staff and bag against the wall below. She walked into the upper level of her home, a small space scarcely a dozen paces long but comfortable enough for a single occupant. The stone surrounding her reverberated faintly from the pounding waves, a blanketing sound that walled off all rumor of the outer world. Only here did she escape the harsh light of her witch-sense, a knowledge of the heart and physical pain, of motives and thought not her own. Only here could she heal herself after healing others, mending the damage to her body and mind. She stretched and glanced around the dimly lit cave, finding comfort in its familiarity.

She rubbed her aching forearm again and winced at the stab of pain, then crossed the stone floor toward her bed and table, drawing off her tunic as she went. She stepped out of her long skirt, dropping both to the floor. Dressed only in a linen bodice and petticoat, she bent over the wide table and replenished the oil in her lamp from a flagon, struck a match to light the flame, and then sat down in the single chair to draw off her shoes. Her lamp shed a golden glow over the wood and stone, fabric and leather of the cave, catching the polished shine of the carved oak bedstead in the nearby corner. The light gleamed on the worn flagstones that led downward to her bathing pool and pantry and, on the opposite wall, warmed the bright-colored leather of the books ordered neatly on shelves.

How many had dwelt in this cave? She had often wondered. Some of her predecessors had not left a written record and so left no traces, but all of the cave's contents, handed forward from witch to witch, were old, perhaps dating back to the Disasters three centuries before, when the shari'a had suffered their final defeat. A few of the oldest books had crumbled to dust when opened. She had not dared to disturb others, so cracked and ancient they seemed, and regretted the loss of their answers.

She counted her beloved books with her eyes, knowing many volumes well, others only begun, still others for the next year or the year after. On most of the shelves stood books of herb lore and healing, various histories, religious texts and hymnbooks, and the other books that had caught the interest of the cave's many occupants. In the center of the shelves, on the middle shelf on the far wall, stood a row of twenty-three journals, each carefully hand-bound in leather and brass, most timely recopied by later occupants of the cave and so preserved, five now too fragile for handling. Each was the record of a witch's life, speaking from years now long vanished into time. Through the journals, the twenty-three had preserved their knowledge and experience for those who might come after them, and had written to affirm a belief in the future of the shari'a, however forlorn that belief had been for a few.

On the table beside her lay Brierley's own journal, to be the twenty-fourth of such volumes, and was the compilation of what Brierley Mefell had learned and felt and known in her short life, for whomever might come after her to this place. If one ever did. She had seen the signs of too long an emptiness when she found the cave eight years before: it had been abandoned long enough to crumble a pile of witch's bones to dusty ruin.

She lifted a shawl from the bedstead and wrapped her shoulders against the chill draft of the cave, then opened her journal to a new page.

My dear child, she wrote, do not despair. I believe that the Blood will continue beyond me, and that I am not the last....

She shook her head impatiently and began again. Today I went to Natheby to watch the fishing fleet before my Calling to the herder boy. By the docks I spoke to a northerner captain named Bartol about the lands farther up the coast. He had many strange tales, but no hint of other shari'a--

Or, rather, he had many tales of witches, each shrunken and evil and wishing men into death. In Allemanii minds, we have become creatures of the night, murderers of children, drinkers of men's blood, an evil concealed deep in the earth, within the boles of trees, or in any woman's heart.

At the end, he asked too pointedly about husband or father, glancing about for a protector against his intentions, and so I clouded his mind and slipped away. An unwise choice: I had misjudged him and he sensed what I had done. He raised a hue and cry throughout the docks, shouting "Witch! Witch!," and caused great panic among the wharfside folk.

She stretched and rearranged her shawl, warm in its woolen folds, then smiled ruefully.

I spent two hours among the wharf piers before the Natheby folk tired of the search and found more fun in taunting Captain Bartol. Duke Tejar's men are not liked here: it is easier to believe in a man's wounded vanity than a legend come to horrible life.

A foolish risk to ask about witches: I may end up undone by my wish to know too many things--

One thing I know: best to stay away from Natheby until Captain Bartol is safely gone home.

Her smile faded as she stared into the lamp's light. The flame flickered restlessly and the wick end crumbled ash into the oily pool beneath the flame, smudging the gleaming oil.

My child, be careful. The Disasters still live with us, and none of the Blood can walk openly in the High Lords' lands. Be vigilant, and take great care.

I wish I could meet you, my child. I feel alone. I wish... for many things I do not have.

Thora Jodann was content with the sea and the fisherfolk of this shore, and found her completion in simple things -- a lark's caroling, the blue twilight of autumn, a fisherman's chant as he threw his nets. I wish I could find her peace, but it is lonely without you, my child, my hoped-for apprentice, so very lonely. When will I meet you? Will I ever meet you? And if I do, will you and I ever meet any other of our kind? Are we the last, you and I?

She stopped and bit her lip. I am tired, my child. Forgive me. The Beast presses too closely tonight. She shut the book and rose, then turned down the flame in the lamp and climbed into her bed.

Beyond the stone walls, the sea murmured ceaselessly, a varying rhythm of water and tide and seaborne life. The sea gave a cloaking sound to ward away the world, or perhaps some substance had been built into these walls to make a sanctuary for a witch gone beyond her strength. Or perhaps one need only believe in such a thing--

She closed her eyes, and listened to the crash of the waves and the surge of water in the channel nearby. As with the Everlight, the journals often took the cave's protection for granted: did only she wonder about such things? So many books, so many voices speaking from dusty years: somewhere on the shelves, surely, she would find her answers.

Against the darkness of her closed eyes, from deep within her mind, the Beast rose from a churning sea, beginning the ordeal that followed every Calling. As its terrible gaze fixed upon her, pitiless and knowing, Brierley found herself standing upon a beach of firm wet sand, her heart pounding, held motionless by that horrible great eye. She had healed today, using the gift: the Beast now came for her, to seize her if it could.

The Beast advanced slowly upon her through the breakers, coiling and uncoiling its serpent's limbs beneath a gas-bloated body, its stench of rotting flesh corrupting the breeze. As it neared her, its massive head swayed higher. It advanced still further, then roared as it struck down at her. No! she shouted, and darted aside from its terrible jaws. The Beast roared again, menacing her, wanting her, and filled her ears with the sound of its fury and need.

In her bed, she threw her hands to her eyes and pressed hard against them, covering the Beast with scintillating patterns that beat as frantically as her panicked heart. The Beast roared from within the sparkling light, heart-stoppingly close. She drew a ragged breath, then another, and willed away the Beast. No! The Beast's smell filled her nostrils, and its roar filled her ears: she felt its touch graze her wounded arm, and that coldness leapt into her body, seeking her heart.

No!

With that silent shout, she drew harder on her will to drive it away, denying the Beast. No! Baffled and roaring, the Beast began to retreat into the sparkling sea, and she shouted in triumph. Groaning, the Beast sank slowly downward into the waves and submerged, its single eye gleaming pallidly beneath the green water, then faded in the white splash of a wave. The sea waves ran up the beach, sighing in a final splash of foam.

Brierley lifted her hands from her eyes and took a deep breath, then another, aware of the sour smell of her own sweat, and of the light-headed dizziness that tipped the edges of her bedstead and doorway. She tried to breathe more deeply, shuddering as if the Beast's cold touch still lingered near her heart, and slowly warmed beneath her coverlet.

She touched her arm. The ache had vanished, as always, dispelled by the sympathetic magic of the Beast. Madness? Delusion? Her books did not say, but each shari'a witch who healed recorded a similar mental vision, always the same for its bearer, always inflicted after a Calling. For some, they saw a giant bird descending upon a crag, others a fiery worm aroused from its burrow, each time to be defeated by the edge of a ragged will. For some of those who continued to heal -- and some did not -- the record stopped abruptly from one day to the next.