Following her, Krassus saw her stop at the end of the alley, near the protection of its angled, dead end and the large wooden box that sat against one wall. A few rusty cooking utensils lay nearby. Crouching, she set down her makeshift coin bag and began to light a small fire.

Silently, Krassus came to stand before her.

She did not see him until the length of his shadow crawled toward the flames. Looking up, she snatched her coin bag to her breast and scrabbled back toward the false security of the dilapidated wooden box.

Krassus regarded her carefully. She was very old. Her long, gray hair fell crazily over her shoulders, and her face was weather-beaten, presumably from living for so many years out of doors. Wrinkling his nose, he wondered how long it had been since she had bathed. Her plain, black robe, tattered and worn, covered a thin, unremarkable figure.

"Who are you?" she demanded. Her piercing, dark eyes betrayed a sharp intelligence. "What do you want?"

"I know what you are," he answered quietly. "You may fool the simple, unendowed peasants in the streets, but not me."

"What are you talking about?" she shot back. "Go away and leave me alone."

Krassus smiled. "This is what I'm talking about, crone," he answered. He raised one hand, and the azure glow of the craft appeared about her. As he moved his index finger slightly, a small incision began to form in her right palm. Several drops of her blood fell to the floor of the alleyway. Looking down, Krassus watched them twist their way through the thirsty dirt, forming signatures.

As he had suspected, they were partials.

Only the softer, curvier halves revealed themselves. The woman's mother had been her only parent with endowed blood.

"You're a partial," he said calmly. "And because your blood reveals a signature without the aid of waters from the Caves, it is also clear that you have been trained. That makes you a partial adept. Tell me, what are your skills? I may have need of you." He was becoming more certain of his find by the moment.

The old woman shook her head. "I have no such skills," she said sullenly. "I am but a poor street performer, trying to make a living. Go away and leave me be." She inched farther backward a bit, closer to the wooden box. Her knuckles whitened from her tight grip around the coin bag.

"Oh, you are far more than a simple woman of the street," Krassus countered. "The blood signatures prove that." His jaw hardened. If he was forced to use violence against her in order to learn the truth, then so be it. All he cared about was getting his answers. "What is your name?" he asked harshly.

"Grizelda. What of it?"

"Tell me, Grizelda, are you really what you seem?"

No answer came.

"Are you a trained herbmistress, perhaps?" he asked.

Again, only silence reigned.

His patience growing thin, he took another step closer. "Are you a blaze-gazer, as well?"

"The answers to your questions depend," she said, sensing an opportunity. She stood up, and he saw that she was taller than he had first thought.

"On what?" he asked, knowing full well what her answer would be.

She took a step toward him. "On what you're willing to pay," she answered craftily. "As you can see, I do not eat well. My stomach has long pressed emptily against the insides of my ribs." For the first time, she smiled crookedly at him.

Krassus had suddenly had enough. He raised his arm, and the familiar azure glow of the craft appeared in the air between them and coalesced into a recognizable shape: a human hand.

With a twitch of one of Krassus' fingers, the hand tore across the remaining distance to the woman and wrapped its glowing fingers around her wrinkled throat. The force of the impact was so great that it lifted her off her feet, slamming her hard against her wooden box. She began to choke. Drool frothed at one corner of her mouth, spilled over to snake crazily down her chin. Her body shook with the convulsions rattling her starving lungs.

Twisting and turning his hand slightly, Krassus pointed to her shoes. The laces began to untie themselves. Then the shoes slowly slipped from her feet and fell to the ground. With a simple turn of his head, Krassus caused the small fire the old woman had lit to rise slowly into the air and come to rest just below her. Burnt-orange shadows darted across the darkness of the alleyway.

Krassus turned his hand again, and the flames licked upward at the soles of her feet. Her scream came out as a rasp.

"Now then," he said quietly. "Let's try again. Are you a blaze-gazer?"

The old woman nodded.

"Very good," Krassus answered. "You are now one-third of the way toward staying alive. Tell me, and do not lie. Believe me, you don't have the time. Are you a trained herbmistress?"

Again came a single nod. Her face was turning from red to light blue, and her toes were twitching involuntarily, trying to escape the flames.

"I'm impressed," he said. "Two out of three." Just to see her suffer, he paused before asking his final question. The moments ticked by slowly, dangerously, as the flames scalded her naked feet.

"And are you protected by someone's time enchantments?" he asked intently.

She shook her head.

Finally satisfied, he extinguished the flame and let her go. She tumbled hard to the dirt of the alley, her feet badly burned and her lungs crying out for air.

"You'll do," he said simply. "You're coming with me. I have need of your services." With the toe of one boot, he lifted her chin. "Provided, of course, you have been telling the truth," he added. "But that we will discover later, won't we, Grizelda?"

The haggard herbmistress managed to come to all fours. "How do you… know… I won't run… away?" she gasped. With a cry, she collapsed again and curled up on the dirt of the alley, protectively gripping her tortured feet.

"That's simple," Krassus answered almost politely. "I traveled halfway across Eutracia to find you. Do you really believe I could not search you out again, especially given the short distance you might travel before I discovered you had fled? We have a great mission to fulfill, you and I. Disobey me, or fail in the demands I shall make of you, and you will die. Do as I say, remain successful in the arts you have admitted to possessing, and you shall live."

All she could do was give him a short nod.

From that moment on, she was his. He had then gone on to use the craft to heal her feet. Not because he wished to be kind, but because a partial adept who could not keep up would surely prove more of a hindrance than a help. And there remained a great deal to do.

"I am ready, m'lord," the herbmistress said now, breaking into the wizard's reveries once more. He turned from the sea to look at her.

Several open bottles of herbs sat on the table next to her, their contents spilled out and combined into a pile in the center of the large iron bowl next to her feet.

"You may begin," Krassus said. "But first, tell me: Will we be able to hear what they say?"

"No," she said with certainty. "For that, I would need something truly personal of one of those we wish to view. And we still do not know who possesses the other scroll."

She reached down into the basket again and produced steel and flint. Without hesitation, she struck them together, and the pile of herbs came ablaze.

Krassus watched as the flame grew into a bonfire. Grizelda motioned with one hand, and part of the fire separated itself from the main body-a lesser offshoot that would allow her to work in closer proximity to her creation. That arm of fire lengthened, and flowed parallel to the deck of the ship. Grizelda tossed a few more herbs into the branch of the flame.

Standing as close to it as she dared, she held out a piece of blank parchment recently taken from the Scroll of the Vagaries. Then she closed her eyes.