Shuddering, Raif felt a twinge of pain in his shoulder. A little icy jab. "How bad is it?" "Answer that and I give you the keys to this city."

Raif worked his way through the outlander's words, caught off-guard by their slyness. Remember the mist, he told himself. The man sitting before him had pulled fog from a lake on a still dry night at Black Hole. While everyone else in the raid party was fighting to gain entry to the mine, Thomas Argola had been packing Bear's saddlebags with enough supplies to carry Raif into the Want. It's a hard journey north, he had said, knowing that for every hundred who went there only two or three ever returned.

And here he was now, breaking the confidence of his chief and arming his rival with information. Raif stopped himself and forced a correction. The outlander was not clan and Traggis Mole was no clan chief; the expectation of loyalty did not exist.

The cushion Raif sat on had tassels on its corners and he caught one in his fist. So Traggis Mole was in a bad way. "What happened?"

Argola made a movement with his hand. "The thing that got onto the rimrock that night was never human. Even when it lived in flesh it had been some kind of monstrosity. More dog than man. It barely knew how to wield a blade, but it was strong—and fast. No one could get near it. Eventually the Dancer caught its blade in his sword-breaker, and as Linden Moodie came in to attack its unarmed flank, Traggis Mole took the side bearing the sword. Something happened. The creature's blade slid free of the breaker and it whipped around and tore through the Mole's side. Moodie cut off its arm. But it was too late. The damage had been done."

Raif nodded softly to himself as he compared Addie's account of the attack to Argola s. "The Mole kept the severity of his injuries hidden." "Wouldn't you?"

The flatness in Argola's voice irritated Raif He stood. "What happens when someone is injured by the Unmade?" As he spoke he heard the false note in his voice—the forced casualness of the question—and he imagined Argola would hear it too. The outlander looked at him carefully. "It depends on the extent of the injury. The Mole took a hit to the chest with voided steel. The blade missed his heart but passed through some of his lung. It didn't kill him….but it will. Not from infection, not as you and I know it. The wound is clean, if you can call it that. It's what the voided steel left behind … some of itself. It's a blackness eating away at him, incinerating his flesh like acid. I can only suture the wound so far. It needs to" He hesitated, "vent."

Raif closed his eyes and took a breath. It was the same as the Forsworn knight in the redoubt; the dark, silky substance leaking from his wounds. Half liquid, half smoke.

"Traggis Mole is being taken. The wound is too deep. He is strong and fights it, but his flesh is cankered with a substance beyond evil and to cut it out would kill him."

The outlander rose from the pile of cushions. "You'd better show me what you've got."

Raif stepped back. His heel struck one of the metal bowls, producing a note that vibrated through the cave.

Argola regarded him with some impatience. "It's why you came here, is it not? Something in the Want injured you?"

Again, Raif felt himself irritated by the outlander's assumptions. The fact that they were correct only made it worse. He had nothing to lose now—certainly not privacy as this meeting so far had been a demonstration in how little Thomas Argola valued discretion. With a snap, Raif unhooked the Orrl cloak. Yanking his undershirt and sealskin up around his neck he showed his back to the outlander. "It's low on the left shoulder."

Argola approached him. He looked and said nothing.

The pull from the flue lifted hairs on Raif s skin. After a while he could stand the silence no logger. "What is there?"

"Three puncture wounds. All are scarred over and dry. The middle one looks to be the worst of them. May I touch it?"

No. Out loud, Raif said, "Go ahead."

Two things happened then. First he felt a bite of pain where Argola's finger touched him, and second he saw that the cloth screen with the dragons and pears had been pulled partway back and Argola's sister was standing behind it, watching him.

Raif tugged down his shirt. He could feel his color rising and wanted nothing that moment except to be gone. The outlander shooed his sister with a flick of his wrist. He did not seem much concerned.

"They were not made with voided steel," he said to Raif, a question in his voice.

Glancing at the screen, Raif saw that Mallia Argola had disappeared He wondered if she was just beyond the screen. Listening. Coming here had been a mistake. He started toward the door.

Argola moved with him. "Stop," he said, his voice flat yet somehow compelling. "If you will not speak hear me out."

Raif halted by the door; the farthest point from the dragon-and-pear screen. Argola understood him and edged close, and for the first time it occurred to Raif that the outlander appeared whole. No obvious abnormalities or cuttings marked his flesh. What was his place here? Maimed Men would not tolerate an undamaged man or woman in their realm. The outlander did not hunt and was not well liked. Raif supposed he had his uses. He had tricks; the revealing of the suspension bridge across the Rift, the raising of mist during a raid.

The speck of blood in Thomas Argola's eyes floated toward his iris as he said quietly, "Underlying the middle wound there is some discoloring and a small pocket of inflammation. I thought it would be soft, but when I touched it I found it hard. I'm assuming something raked you with its claws—it's what it looks like—and I'm also assum-ing that the creature who did it was unmade." A pause while Raif nodded. "I believe you were lucky and unlucky. Lucky that it was maer dan, shadowflesh, not voided steel that punctured you. Unlucky in that a small piece of claw broke off in your flesh."

"Cut it out," Raif said.

Thomas Aigola was already shaking his head. "It's embedded in the muscle. Cut it out and you will loose function in your arm and shoulder. It must be drawn, not cut"

Raif did not understand why the outlander was playing games with him. "Then draw it out"

"That skill is beyond me."

More games. "You tend Traggis Mole."

"And I can do nothing for him. He dies."

Raif punched the meat of his hand against the door. Left shoulder. Left arm. Two hundred pounds of pull in a fully drawn longbow and the left shoulder and arm must brace against it. "Why do you manipulate me?"

"You know why."

Raifs gaze met the outlander's. At least he did not bother to lie. "Who are you?"

"Thomas Bireon Argola, from a city you've never heard of called Hanatta. I lay small claim to the old skills and have some experience as a healer. I came north three years ago with my sister, for reasons that are not yours to know. And I do not lie about the drawing of the maer dan. It is an art practiced by races older than mine and the Sull." "Are you whole?

"Do not make me show you all the ways that I am not." Raifs anger collapsed. Suddenly he felt tired and out of his depth. His shoulder seemed to ache more now than it did before Argola's pronouncement, and he remembered that he had hurt his ankle. And now it hurt.

Argola looked tired too, the corners of his mouth were turned down, the lips pale. Raif wondered if his thoughts were similar to his own: It would be good to have some peace.

"Can I live with the maer dan inside me?"

"You do," Argola said, almost gently. Then, in a stronger voice, "It is situated in the muscle above the back of your heart. If it moves inward there is no bone to stop it." Oh gods.

"The closest Sull settlement is due east of here, in the great taiga where the Deadwoods meet the Sway."