Sidri had thought herself prepared for anything, but she'd never anticipated this. There was indeed a soul other than Rahun's there; she felt it drawing her to it just as surely as one's feet are drawn to the ground. But it said nothing, seemed to hear nothing as she called to it, did not grasp greedily at her. It lay as inert as a stone.

She kicked down her shock, and the vague sensations resolved to an image. Rather than the sudden contraction and expansion of mist about the body, the pained gasping of souls trying to escape the prison of the Undying's will, two souls seemed smoothly to overlap, only distinguishable by slightly different rhythms in their shifting. She hesitated for a moment; all her training warned her against trying something uncertain without skilled helpers, but there wouldn't be a better chance. Jiriga would say . . . well, damn what Jiriga would say.

She reached her soul's hands into the mist and called to the front of her mind everything Rahun had told her about himself. There was always the risk that he'd been lying, but she was able to bring his soul into clear focus easily enough. The other . . . there was nothing to go by. Though it did not threaten to pull her across the boundary entirely, she could not heed its words to identify it either. Saying a quick prayer to whomever might be listening, she took hold of that still soul and Rahun's, and willed the two apart.

They came apart easily; the trapped soul felt so light she worried it might dissipate into the air entirely if she let it go. Her momentary relief was undone as a strange voice, neither man nor woman, resonated in her soul.

"It is an honor to finally speak to you, my friend," it said. Sidri fought years of cultivated instinct to retreat from the boundary to the safety of her body at the intrusion, trying to see anyone--anything--approaching her. Nothing. Every soul but hers lay reposed in their bodies.

"I wish we could have met face-to-face first, but leaving you this message seemed the safer introduction given what you've been doing to our handiwork the last few years. You understand." She realized to her horror that the soul bound to Rahun was speaking to her; the lips of its spectral form moving though no other part of it held steady or showed any sign of waking.

"The last time the lot of us met, there was some debate about what we should do with you. Some thought we should ignore you, others that we should kill you; I thought we should try to persuade you to help us in our mission. The only thing we were unanimous in was wanting to know who you are."

As she grew accustomed to the layered tones of the voice, she detected an aloofness, as though the voice was discussing a good day betting on cockfights with its cronies. Shock and fear had failed to break her discipline, but anger was coming close.

"I have pacified this soul not as a mere demonstration of power, but as a gift to you. I understand that natural necromancers can only know what history they find among the living, or what a gentle soul cares to reveal. With this one, you will find no resistance even if you reach to the very moment of its birth. Look, and consider the sort of soul you are 'saving.' If you keep chasing us, I'm sure we'll have the chance to speak in person. Until then, farewell."

Sidri waited until the silence settled in firmly. 'Natural' necromancers, the voice had said. That implied 'unnatural' necromancers--ones who were not born with the ability? Hard to decide what I should be most disturbed by, she thought. But as for this friend's 'gift' . . .

She pulled the inert soul out of Rahun's body and set it adrift without a moment's hesitation. Setting aside the likelihood that it was a trap, the notion of looking through a soul that had not--could not--open itself willingly would have been a betrayal. She withdrew from Rahun's body but waited by the boundary to see what would become of the soul. It shifted and stirred--it took more definitive shape, and turned its face to her.

"Where am I?"

The voice of a man, one terribly confused.

"You died--I do not know how long ago--but by some means you have been pulled back into the living world and your soul forced into the body of another," Sidri said. She'd hoped that would jar some memory back into the ghost, but he didn't react. Well, this is all backwards, but I have to try something, she thought."What is your name?"

"Mashkad," the ghost said. "Who are you? What is all this?"

"As I've said, you're dead, Mashkad." She searched for the name in her mind--the only Mashkad in the shrine's history had died at least ninety years ago. "You have been for almost a century. As for me, I'm Sidri. I'm a necromancer, and I'm trying to figure out what's been done to you. Anything you can remember would help."

The ghost studied her as though she spoke a foreign tongue. After a long silence he said "Everything is hazy. It's hard to think."

This is dangerous; he's deteriorating quicker than a normal ghost, Sidri thought. Fine, I knew this wasn't going to be easy anyway.

"Mashkad, tell me about what you do at the shrine."

"The shrine?" A pause. "Oh, well, the Feast Day of Imashra's coming soon, so I've been helping clear the ritual site lately and talking to the people that live around, to see out who will be attending."The Feast Day was mentioned several times in the chronicles, and a few deaths of shrine keepers were recorded in close connection with them, so that tracks. Let's see how much more I can ground him.

"And are you one of the ones that helps teach the children to read and write?"

"Oh no, not me. I barely learned my letters since I got to the shrine myself." Mashkad's soul had taken clearer and clearer shape--she could make out the lines of his body and face. The voice of someone utterly lost had gained clarity and strength. "Although I've been meaning to try to--wait . . ."

Then came the shock of realization, of learning about one's own death. Mashkad's form weakened.

"I'm . . . dead? But then--"

"Someone did this to you. Do you remember anything about who they might be? Anything at all?"

"No. Nothing. I was old and standing at the top of the shrine hill in the cold and my chest started hurting. I couldn't breathe . . . and then I was here."

"It sounds as though your heart gave out."

"I . . . see. But then why am I talking to you now?"

How much should I tell him? Sidri wondered. Too much might unsettle him and make this harder. Too little and his confusion could be the problem.

"Someone was trying to bring someone back from the dead. They touched your soul in the process."

"Did it work?" Mashkad asked, a hint of something more than mere curiosity in his voice.

"No. That's not how necromancy works. It was a foolish thing to attempt."

"Oh, of course." The ghostly form began to fade, Mashkad reconciling his situation more with each moment. He was on the verge of crossing back over the boundary again when he regained solidity. "I just remembered, I was looking up from a pit; there was torch light, or maybe lantern light above me. There was a crowd of people with me in the pit, and it felt like I knew some of them. There was a loud voice calling to me from outside the pit, and I started floating towards it. I couldn't understand what it was saying. Somehow I felt like I knew the voice's name was Bhasad."

If Sidri had been in her body, her breath would have caught in her chest; it had been years since she'd gotten a name for one of their friends. She calmed herself; It's only a name, you'll still have plenty of searching to do, but now you have something to go by, at least.

"Thank you, that helps more than you realize."

"I feel tired, all of a sudden," Mashkad said, beginning to fade.

Despite all that was coursing through her mind, Sidri mustered a gentle smile for him. "You should sleep soon. If you meet those others you said were with you in the pit, tell them I'll return for them soon."

The mists lost their form and swept away into the air. But I'm not feeling tired at all, Sidri thought, withdrawing her soul into her body. She shivered at the sudden return of sensation and drew herself up closer to the fire, holding her hands to it. She had turned down this Bhasad's 'gift', but it had been a more clever lure than she realized; even in turning away and properly exorcising the spirit, she'd worn herself far less thin than was usual. She caught herself bargaining--what if I could learn the technique of pacifying a soul completely but used it for proper rites?

It's already bad enough that you lied to the dead just now, she thought. It was not a rule for necromancers--indeed, back in Danar she'd known necromancers from the great families who had no qualms about lying to the dead if they thought it was kinder than the truth. But great-grandmother would have been disappointed; it was not the way of /their/ family.

She set aside those thoughts at the sound of someone else stirring; she looked over her shoulder to see Rahun standing up, yawning and stretching. Seeing her awake, he gave an understanding look and beckoned her to follow him. She wrapped her coarse blanket around her; Jiriga kept his back turned to her, but drew his own blanket tighter around himself; reminding her he was awake and could signal him if needed.

She walked a short way to find Rahun starting a second, smaller fire, watching it rise with relief.

"When I started having a hard time sleeping through the night, I started keeping little second fires like this. That way I could go somewhere to not wake up the others shuffling

around, but keep myself warm. 'course it only works if there's more than one safe place to start a fire where we're camping." He spoke just above a whisper, mindful of the echoes.

"What if there isn't?"

"I just lay there and think about the dreams I had." He furrowed his brow, staring into the fire. "Anyway, what has you awake? You scared?"

"A little," Sidri said. Though he was asking about her nonexistant husband, she thought she'd take the chance to unburden herself. "I've been scared and angry for years. And the longer it goes on, the more scared and angry I get. Certain things are supposed to be sacred. Anyway, I've been looking for a way to fix it, but it seems like it just keeps getting worse."

"Huh. Feels like I should be able to say something to make it better, but it sounds too complicated for me," Rahun said, scratching at the back of his head. "I keep things simple, that's all I understand. Maybe leaving like you're doing is the best way to make things simple for you again." He shrugged.

"You sound quite a bit humbler now than when you were railing against the Empire," Sidri said.

"I guess there's something about sleepless nights that makes me feel all honest. I'm no friend of the Ekbena, but truth is all that shit about the Empire and the traders and such is . . . I started telling myself that, you know, after I'd already started robbing people. Make myself feel better."

"But if that's not why, then--"

"Like I said, I only understand simple things. I do it because the villagers around here are my people. That's it. I'll steal from anyone else to take care of them."

He showed his youth with that, Sidri thought. Still, a worthy thing to admit it. There were a hundred good reasons not to go where she readied herself to go, but she wanted to reward him.

"Tell me about your dreams."

He must not have discussed the matter with his men, because he didn't have an answer ready. He was silent for a long while.

"I keep having this dream that there's an old man I don't know right behind me everywhere I go. He's always grabbing at me. I can't feel it, but I know he's grabbing at me. And he's screaming but no noise comes out his mouth. Every time I--." he paused, looking as though he'd almost given away a secret. "Every time I get hurt, he has a wound in the same spot."

"You have this dream often?"

"Every night for about a year."

"You were part of an experiment," Sidri said.

"What--"

"Let me guess. The dreams started shortly after you were shot in a robbery attempt. You thought the wound was fatal. Your men left you for dead somewhere, but you came to without any wounds," Sidri said.

Rahun stared at her in dumb amazement.

"Maybe you've forgotten the moment you were brought back due to shock but, you did die. Someone brought you back, and they used the soul of a long-dead man to do it."

"But that's--"

"Impossible? Then why do you think the shot you took in the back this morning healed so quickly? You've been made unable to die."

It was obvious from everything in the young man's body that he hadn't understood--had perhaps been too scared too question--what had happened to him. He slumped down onto the ground, holding his head in his hands. "I'm not a wife fleeing a cruel husband; I'm a necromancer trying to track down the people responsible for this, and other evils like it."

He did not move or speak. Could not. Sidri rose slowly.

"This is plenty to take in, but I should also tell you that I've already exorcised the soul that was bound to you while you slept. That was the old man you dreamed of. I'm sorry I deceived you, but I had to put my duties first. What was done to you is, I believe, the root of the haunting in your village."

"So it's my fault. This whole time, it was because of--"

Sidri swept to his side and took his face into her hands. The arrogance of the bandit leader was gone, replaced with a guilty child.

"No. Don't think it, not even for a second. It was not your choice. I have a witness who can speak to the fact that you were already dead, and this was done *to* you. The person who did this will answer for it."

Now there was no staying out the night. She and Jiriga lingering would only twist the guilt knife in the wound for him. Perhaps he would tell the others, perhaps he would tell the villagers and undo all their careful deception. Either way, she had done what she'd come for, and there were souls in the mines to tend to. She would return and wake Jiriga, and they would be on their way.

"Wait," Rahun said. Sidri turned to look at him one last time. He looked ashamed. "I'm glad you did it before I woke up. I think . . . if I'd known, I would have done whatever I could to stay that way."