So, reluctantly, she met with the Brotherhood man at sunset -- and made an announcement to the whole pub. "The monster's not completely dead." When she told them about the attacked wagon, the crowded room erupted in shock and dismay.

It didn't help that the new victim was a man from the possessed one's family, who'd been leaving town. "Maybe he was trying to gather strength to get revenge on us!" someone said.

"It looked like the spirit attacked him," Ruyo said. "He didn't have anything suspicious in his wagon. In fact someone should go salvage that before the saplings die; those are worth some money."

The Brotherhood man stood too. "We believe that an evil spirit possessed your alchemist, and then possessed one of his family members. I call for a second hunting party to find whatever is left of him, and finish the spirit off for good."

There was a detail here that didn't add up. If the spirit had taken over the body of the self-banished man, willingly or not, why would it have then attacked his own wagon? Ruyo was up for fighting the thing. But she wanted to know what had really happened.

"There's something I want to know," Ruyo said. "I've heard that this family isn't very popular in town. I know I'm an outsider and it's not my business. But it would be helpful to know why, if it's got anything at all to do with spirits."

The crowd looked uncomfortable. Finally a young man swaying from too much alcohol said, "Lady, they've been at this kind of thing for generations. Channeling spirits or somesuch. It's not just the alchemy."

Another man said, "They've never turned into monsters!"

"Probably did it while we weren't looking! Remember that time the kid vanished?"

"That was a bear's doing."

"Are you sure?"

Ruyo held up one hand and conjured a swirl of water to get attention. "Okay. You think they've been consorting with spirits somehow. What if this evil thing targeted the man you had to kill, and then it went after the cousin? Who's next?"

"Moira!" someone shouted, and hurried for the door. That was the wounded, feverish woman.

The Brotherhood man said to Ruyo, "Wizard. Do you have any ability to fight a spirit, if it comes to that?"

Nusina told her, "I think so, if someone supplies the brawn."

Ruyo said, "Yes. We'll need a hunting party to find its current host and fight the body."

"Then I'll remain here and guard miss Moira." The monk addressed the room: "She needs trackers and fighters. I just need some muscle."

Men said, "Are you crazy, monk?" and "I'm not going out after dark to throw myself at some murderous monster!" and even "I never liked that guy anyway."

"Should've seen that coming," Ruyo muttered. "Sure would be helpful to get Baris."

Nusina said, "He's probably home by now, if we're willing to risk going out after dark and traveling all night."

Ruyo shook her head. Besides the mundane dangers of being "alone" on the road at night, there was a monster out there and she didn't even have her camping supplies.

Just then, the tavern door opened. Baris was there, tired from the road. "Well now, a town meeting?"

"Hey, it's Baris," somebody said, waving a glass mug. "First one's on me."

Baris got a beer and saluted with it. Ruyo explained what was going on.

He said, "Yes, I thought I should stop by. Wasn't planning on telling the whole village right away. Look, people, I don't want this monster festering around here, and I'm around this time to put a few arrows in it. How about joining me for some exercise tomorrow morning?"

There was some grumbling, but he got volunteers.

#

Baris took Ruyo aside a bit later. He said, "Are you up for killing a man?"

Ruyo paled. "You've been talking about this possessed person as just a monster, a wild beast."

"I think he's far gone, whether it was a willing possession or not. Maybe the monk can punch the ghost out of him, but after what happened last time I want our quarry down and bleeding before anyone even tries mercy. You saw how bad the last one hurt that woman, right?"

Ruyo nodded. Glancing around for more eavesdroppers she said, "Nusina says it was willing, but it doesn't make sense to me. The man in the cart would've had to agree to be taken over by a spirit that killed his relative, and then the spirit immediately smashed the cart and dragged off a horse?"

Nusina said, "It shouldn't be possible."

Baris said, "I had a talk with that monk. He knows you're a mage."

"And he might suspect more."

"I didn't expect you of all people to start playing with fire."

"I didn't show off deliberately. He's at least volunteered to guard Moira in her sickbed, on the theory that she's the next target. But we don't know if the spirit's second host is still alive. I just don't know enough!"

Baris said, "The alchemist family has a long tradition of being mysterious and spooky. I have to wonder if their bloodline was somehow more vulnerable to being taken over by spirits." He slicked back his hair and laughed. "Until lately, I rarely thought much about spirits and shrines. Did I ever tell you I'm from Brotherhood, myself?"

"No. So not everyone there fears mages?"

He nodded. "I was never part of the actual monastery. A lot of people just pray for them and live ordinary lives." Baris seemed lost in memories for a minute. "Can you and Nusina kill this spirit for real?"

Nusina said, "We can do it. Maybe even benefit from it. And Ruyo... I feel obligated to help, if it's one of my kind causing problems."

Ruyo repeated all that for Baris. But if there were a choice between saving the victim and stealing the spirit's power, she'd pick the former.

#

The next morning, Ruyo and Baris set out with four spear-wielding recruits from the village.

They knew the way to the wrecked wagon, but from there they knew little more than the direction of the blood Baris had spotted earlier. Their main advantages were Baris' realization that the ground was slightly disturbed here and there, like someone traveling underground, and Ruyo and Nusina's attempts to sense magic. Neither of them had a general power to detect spells, but both now had a feel for the directions where the worst mana leaks from the cavern shrine were. Maybe the creature would be drawn toward them... and hopefully not well enough to find the entrance or lead the hunting party right to it.

Their first clue was another pit, collapsed by no obvious mundane force. A tree had toppled there, exposing part of a tunnel. "Watch your step," Baris said.

The search path turned up more suspicious holes, smaller ones, and part of a deer carcass. Ruyo felt sick as she imagined a human tearing into the raw meat. "He... it's mindless, right?"

"If we're lucky," one of the village militia said.

The path led them toward the shrine along the direction of a mana leak. The beast wasn't heading straight for it, fortunately, but Ruyo coughed for attention. Baris got the point and steered them away from a chance of "discovering" the cave entrance, even though it cost them time and effort.

After more than an hour of stalking, Baris froze. Everyone else halted. He whispered, "It knows we're here. Play dumb but be ready. This way."

Ruyo looked at the ground, afraid it'd collapse any moment.

She conjured a puny water elemental, just a floating ball that she wordlessly commanded to Guard for what little that was worth. The hunters hardly paid it attention; there were worse things to find here.

The ground here was rocky, hilly, near the source of the stream that wound across the forest road. Wind whipped past them, carrying a rotten scent.

Everyone noticed it just in time. The ground erupted. The hunters leaped out of the way as a pit threatened to swallow them. Rocks and soil tumbled down and a cloud of dust barely obscured what was in the center. It was half man, raggedly dressed and bloodied. His face was contorted with mismatched tusks, his hands curled into black digging claws. He, it, roared with wordless rage at the world, and rose to kill everyone.

A quick-thinking hunter kicked a stray rock down at it from the high ground. But the earth sank under his feet, making him stumble. He made the best of it, knocking a larger stone down to pelt the beast. The impact made no dent in its hardened, hairy skin.

The little elemental at Ruyo's side zoomed toward the foe, and got slashed in half with a blow from its claws. Ruyo followed it up with a spray of created water to harass the enemy, but this was no creature of living fire; it didn't care. One of its claws got in a lucky swipe at a militiaman's legs.

Baris fired off a quick shot with his bow, forcing the beast to waste its time batting the arrow away along with the rocks and water. "It's distracted!" he said.

The monster tried to dig straight back down to re-establish surprise, but the relentless attacks took its attention away.

Ruyo's magic began to flood the mole-man's pit, threatening to drown it unless it kept to the surface.

The water was still only a distraction, keeping the possessed man from succeeding as it lunged upward to claw at the militia. But then it slapped the muddy pit's walls in frustration, collapsing more of the ground around it. Three of the locals tumbled into the expanded hole and the fourth, trying to grab his friend, toppled after him.

Nusina said, "No more flooding! Can you sense the spirit itself? Look for something like me."

Ruyo had been attacking its body, but her companion was right; the real enemy was the monster in the man. She reached out as though commanding water, but this time felt an invisible thread to pull at, connected to something that felt sharp, tasted bitter. The mole-beast looked up at her with some trace of understanding in its bloodshot eyes.

Just in time for Baris to catch it dead-on in the chest with an arrow. It pierced even the tough hide, drawing blood, and a second shaft nicked its skull. "It bleeds, men!"

It struck back not at the men but at Ruyo, lunging partway up the pit and knocking the militia aside into the mud. Its claws dug at the earth and tore away more and more of Ruyo's footing, forcing her backward. She flung a spray of water and turned it into ice in mid-fall, to no avail. The beast's next strike was at Baris, interrupting his shot. He rolled out of the way and came up with claw marks on his shirt, lightly bloodied.

The beast was wounded, but there was madness and loss hurting it too. The sounds of battle faded out as Ruyo tried to keep her footing and reach out by magic. "Can you understand me?" she said, too quietly for the men to hear.

But it heard, and reacted with a roar that echoed in both reality and the silent line of communication Ruyo had with Nusina. "Gone! Gone!"

Nusina said, "We can stop it!"

Ruyo shouted to the men, "Back off a second!" It felt like turning her body around without actually moving, to switch between speaking to ordinary men and to the tortured jagged thing before her. She said, "Rest now. Let go of this man."

The ground crumbled beneath her. She crashed down on her hands and knees in the mud.

The creature roared in her face. Saying, "All gone!", less in words than in the ache of an empty belly, a broken heart, an abandoned home. It hurt Ruyo just to hear.

But she stared into its bloodshot eyes and went on, half in mental images herself. "I can fix things. Rest. Leave this mortal behind. Let your power be used to remake what's broken." She pictured dry riverbeds refilling, broken towers mending themselves, a ruined city rising again.

"Again?" it said, echoing her thoughts with cracked and bleeding fragments of her forceful daydream. There were bits of true memory here, of ruin and death and ages of loneliness. She saw a city like a starry night, vanishing down into nothing.

She said, "Give me your power, and I'll use it to remake what was lost."

The earth sighed and steam wafted up from all around. The mole-creature looked like a broken toy now, overshadowed by the glow of brown and green smoke that was something more than the dust of battle. All of the men seemed to see it too, holding their weapons ready and hanging back.

"You fix," the spirit said into her mind, as the mottled fog condensed into a ball in her outstretched hand.

"Be at peace," Ruyo said, stung by alien memories. She knelt and clasped her hands together, and the fog was gone. The world was suddenly louder, brighter. She stood up, her boots splashing in the muck.

One of the militiamen said, "What did you do?"

Another said, "It's still breathing! Quick!" He started toward the unconscious mole-beast.

"Wait!" said a third, restraining his hand. "What if she healed the man?"

"Can't you see? It's still a monster!"

Ruyo said, "I think all that's left is the man himself. The evil spirit is gone."

Nusina appeared so she could say to everyone, "It wasn't evil after all. Just mad and in pain."

Ruyo nodded.

Baris loosened the arrow he'd readied to fire. "Somebody poke him."

A man nudged him and hopped away. "Unconscious but breathing."

"Then let's take him home." When they hesitated, he hopped down into the mud himself and did a few feints and dodges to make sure it wasn't about to stab him. Then he heaved it up onto his shoulder and said, "Let's go, men. We won."

Bleeding and battered, the militia finally realized they were all still alive and their foe was just a mutilated, ugly, unconscious man now. "We won!" someone said, and a ragged cheer went up from the battered, mud-spattered group.

"I feel what's left of it," Ruyo said, then covered her mouth. She'd spoken to Nusina without talking aloud.

Nusina's glittering eyes turned to face her. "Oh! Are you all right? I'm glad you learned to talk this way. It could prevent more incidents."

"I think so. No urge to tear up the ground or hurt people."

Baris turned to look at Ruyo. She'd said that aloud. He asked, "Is it really taken care of?"

"Yes. I don't know if the possessed man will recover, but he should be much safer now." She sighed in relief and conjured a handful of water. "Anybody else need your clothes cleaned?"