Lilly handed Faute to Chanceux. The pudgy, blond girl pulled on her father’s mustache with a strength that was equal parts impressive and painful.

Lilly looked at her daughter, “Rose, I need to speak with you. Right now.”

Rose knew better than to question her mother when the older woman used that tone. She laid aside her knitting, brushed some auburn hair from off her face and followed her mother out of the front room of the tavern and into her parent’s bedroom. It was connected to the kitchen. Lilly didn’t like anyone cooking in the tavern’s kitchen but her. It was her domain.

“What is it mother?” Dread curled in the pit of Rose’s stomach.

“Your daughter.” Lilly began without preamble. “She is sick in the head.”

Weakly Rose tried to defend her spawn, “No… she’s just-“

“Rose,” her mother cut her off sharply, gray eyes narrowing, “I have been guarding this town since I was ten years old. I have been a mind healer for more than forty years. I know there is something wrong with your daughter and so do you.”

Rose couldn’t look at her mother. Now that her mother knew, a floodgate of despair was released. “Did you know I’ve gotten pregnant three times since Faute was born?”

Lilly was surprised by this turn in the conversation, “I did not.”

Rose nodded, “The first time, I didn’t even know I was pregnant. But she looked at me and said, ‘Don’t want a sister’. I woke up in the night with terrible cramps and bled. I thought it was just a strange coincidence. The second time she said it, I knew I was pregnant, I was further along. But the cramps that followed, they were worse than the first time, but I felt the same emptiness inside me when it was over. I knew then what the first one was.” Tears sprang into her eyes, “The third time… my youngest daughter had grown old enough that I had connected with her mind, the way you said I had with you. The way I hadn’t with Faute…” She choked back a sob, “I felt her die… but it was worse than that.”

Lilly’s eyes were blurry with tears, “How could it be worse?”

“She was fighting Faute. For days, Violet was struggling to live. I… I couldn’t admit what was happening. How could I? How could I accept that one of my daughters was killing the others?” Her legs buckled and she sat on the bed, “Now… how can I stop her? She… she still is my child.” I can’t kill my daughter, no matter what she has done.

But you let her murder Violet. Sorrow gripped her. Violet was your daughter too. Lilly’s voice grew was hard. “We have two options. The first and far better, is that we… help Faute past the first gate. The second is that we attempt to mind heal her.” Regret and confusion welled up inside her, Why didn’t you come to me? I could have taken care of Faute until Violet was born.

Rose looked wearily up at her mother, “I can’t let you kill my daughter. Whatever it may cost me.” She hung her head, “And… and Sir Wilbur isn’t here right now. He and Ellen are hunting the giant crocalyal that broke into the sheef pen. He is the only one that can execute someone and if we acted without his consent… he may decide that he needs to execute us.”

Sir Wilbur wasn’t rash, by any means. But he didn’t really understand what their line had been doing for the area surrounding Pode for generations. None of the townsfolk knew how they were being defended, and from what. If they acted and Sir Wilbur felt he had to reciprocate it would be disastrous for the town. The least of the town’s worries would be the undead castle reanimating. Both Lilly and Rose felt the castle seeking a weakness in their shield at all times.

Lilly’s voice cracked for a moment before she was able to get herself under control. “If we attempt to mind heal her, it may not do any good and rather a whole lot of ill.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?” Lilly asked. “If we do this, we are going to be putting a compulsion on her to value life. Something she currently sees no value in. Her mind will deal with this compulsion in one of two ways. In the best outcome she will integrate it into her psyche and grow from there. She can never be the shield of Pode that we are, but if she chooses this path, she could become its sword.

“However, more likely, given how long this has been going on and the choices she has made thus far, her subconscious mind will contest the compulsion at every turn. Her mind will cease to mature as her subconscious fights the compulsion instead of growing with it. This will leave her immature for her age with fully functioning powers.

“If she fights the coercion, her subconscious mind, fueled by her powers would constantly chew away at the strength of the compulsion. Keeping the compulsion in place will either draw power away from Pode’s barrier or directly from our life forces. Even if she doesn’t fight it, we will die before our time and the barrier with us. If she fights it, we will not live to see her grown and she will be like a wild cowbra; no conscience and all teeth.”

Rose clenched her hands around her skirt, “Such a choice is no choice at all. Killing her would be the death of me and the ending of our line. Our only chance is to try to heal her and hope that she lets herself be healed. I would sacrifice myself, you and Pode a thousand times for my daughter’s life.”

Lilly brushed a tear from her daughter’s face, “I understand love. Maybe once this is resolved you can have another child.”

Rose nodded, but she knew there would be no more children. When Violet died, she had felt a searing pain inside her. Since then she had not had her monthlies. Faute was all she had and all she ever would have. “When will we do it?”

“As soon as may be. She needs this in place so she doesn’t hurt someone else’s children.”

It was something she hadn’t considered. If she was caught harming someone else’s child, I wouldn’t be able to protect her. It wouldn’t matter how young and inexperienced she is. “Yes, yes. Let’s take care of her now… let’s go out to the sheef pen. The shefherds are out hunting with Ellen and Sir Wilbur so there will be no one to disturb us.”

Lilly laid a gentle hand on her daughter’s shoulder, “I’ll collect what is needed. Gather up your daughter and meet me there.”

Rose went back out into the tavern’s big room and plucked Faute out of her father’s lap. Chanceux looked at his wife gratefully, “Thank you, I need to finish getting this piece carved-what’s wrong?”

She kissed him on the cheek, “I’ll tell you about it tonight.” She bounced Faute on her hip, “Lilly, Faute and I are going to have some girl time together, yay!”

Faute waved her chubby fists in the air, “Yay!” She looked down at her father, “No boys allowed! Only girls!”

Chanceux smiled with a wince. For reasons beyond his comprehension, Faute had never called him her father. She loved to pull on his mustache, but when he tried to get her to say he was her daddy, she would say, “No! You aren’t daddy!” It was a losing battle for him. “Have a good time girls.” He knew that his wife hadn’t cheated on him, he had gotten a little bit of magic from his own mother, and he knew that Faute was his child. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to matter to his offspring. She seemed to have been gifted with her mother’s ability to see where you were hurting emotionally and cursed with his mother’s willingness to cause pain. It was his curse too, but he actively chose against it at every turn.

Rose carried her daughter out of the tavern. The tavern had been a staple of the town since before Lilly had been born. When Sir Wilbur had come to the small town, after being knighted in Capita, he had built the tavern to entice peddlers. He had then gifted the tavern to Lilly’s mother, Heather; since he hadn’t understood what their family did for the town and believed that everyone should be contributing.

Since the tavern was a late addition to the town, it was not situated in the town square, but rather somewhat off the square. The forest was continually attempting to creep into the yard. Lilly was constantly cutting back the blanket of Kali Maw Flowers. The Kali Maw Flowers were indigenous to Pode’s area. They looked and tasted like cauliflower that grew about a foot tall, with one central head and eight branches, four on either side. The incredible thing about them was that they were carnivorous, but not in any normal way, even normal for Pode, which everyone agreed was fairly unique.

Kali Maw Flowers had a strange power that allowed them to rip the heart out of any living creature that came near them. It began by a strange chanting hum and ended with the creature’s heart bursting from its chest as if the heart simply couldn’t stand being encased in flesh any longer. This worked on anything that was child sized or smaller. It was a danger the town of Pode could not afford to cultivate, which was why they were constantly fight it. The benefit to them, however, was their pest control nature, any rodents or birds carrying seeds would be eaten, along with the seeds, which prevented any additional growth of the forest.

Rose waved to the few people in the town square: Shannara was collecting more of the strange, dangerous and what could only be considered unpalatable foodstuffs. The woman had a gift for making things that would kill you not only taste delicious, but also fortify your strength. Momma Thompkins was speaking with the blacksmith, Rory, again. It seemed Rory always had to fix a plow or repair an axe for her.

Past the square, the few shops, and Sir Wilbur’s keep was the sheeffolds. Only one shefherd remained to care for the sheef still alive; a lad about ten years or so. He had a chisel out and was breaking off some of the coral that had grown up inside the pen.

Lilly was already there, “Here lad, why don’t I do that? You go have a bit of a break for about an hour or so, hm?”

The boy, in no hurry to do the back breaking work of clearing sheef slobber, handed over the chisel and ran off before she could change her mind. Sheef, a staple of Pode, were sheep that had mutated to incorporate coral into themselves. Their hooves were coral, their horns were coral and they spent much of their lives submerged to the neck in water. However, in a manner completely in discord with keeping themselves alive, they could not breathe water and if they were not watched carefully, would drown themselves; either by trying to drink and drowning, or trying to wet their coral horns, forgetting they couldn’t breathe and drowning, or by forgetting to lift their heads to the surface while eating kelp and drowning.

Sheef slobber solidified into hard, sharp coral. For this reason, a shefherd had to be on hand to wipe the slobber off the sheef’s mouths; otherwise it would solidify and cut their sensitive mouths. Sheef did have a natural, symbiotic relationship with some fish, which would come and collect the saliva to build coral homes for themselves, but shefherds had to be careful because the water had to be level and still or the sheef would be pulled under by their own wool. Too many fish in the pond would create disturbances in the water, which killed the sheef. The sheef could also be startled by seeing the bright colored fish or being brushed by them as the fish swam past. Startled sheef tended to forget how to stand, or would occasionally faint.

Lilly and Rose waded through the sheef; wiping dribble off their chins, pulling heads out of the water, and fluffing waterlogged wool. Once they had the sheef cared for, they set about preparing to mind heal Faute. The mind healing itself wasn’t technically difficult; they just needed uninterrupted time and no one around to influence their thoughts. This was key, since they would have to take down their mental shields and open themselves up to Faute.

Faute sat on the coral wall, dangling her legs into the sheef pen. She was kicking her legs gently, so that it stirred the water. Mother and grandmother sat on either side of her, each touching her hand. The two mind healers began sifting through the child’s mind and found emptiness. The place in her mind where people care about the lives of others was simply absent. It hadn’t been removed by some dark force, that would have left marks on the child’s psyche, it simply had never developed.

Lilly and Rose began using their power to build an artificial construct of compassion inside Faute’s mind. It was during this attempt that they learned that Faute had inherited some of their power; it was just infected with the demonic taint from her father’s bloodline. Faute’s subconscious fought against them. For every two building blocks they put in, it tore one down. Finally, Rose devoted herself to holding Faute’s power at bay while Lilly completed building the compassion construct.

When it was completed, an exhausted Lilly said to her daughter, “You will need to keep her away from wizards and sorcerers; they will think this is a charm spell and any do gooders among them will try to disable it.”

Rose gulped air and nodded. Whatever magical power Shannara had would almost certainly be passed in some form to her daughter Shandra, Rose would do her best to keep Faute away from that family. Faute had already been expressing disdain for pure blooded humans, if it was a disgust that would keep her daughter safe, Rose would encourage it.

Lilly and Rose’s decision to exclude the lord of the land from this choice was unfortunate. Sir Wilbur had been an adventurer before coming to Pode and was familiar with curses, enchantments and magical boons. He even had a magical artifact or two that could have been used to boost their power. Had they spoke to Father Franklin, he could have preformed a ritual that would have placed the burden of magical drain on the town as a whole instead of them as individuals. After all, both Father Franklin and Sir Wilbur were firm believers that the people of the town were the responsibility of the town and that every child’s life is precious.