Oba puzzled that over for a moment, then looked again at the coin, this time carefully inspecting the edge.

"No, Mama."

"That's the coin you gave back to me."

Oba nodded, having no reason to doubt her. "Yes, Mama. The coin you gave me for Lathea. But I told you, Lathea died in the fire, so I couldn't buy your medicine. That's why I gave you your coin back."

Her hot glare was murderous, but her voice was arrestingly cool and collected. "It isn't the same coin, Oba.

Oba grinned. "Sure it is, Mama."

"The coin I gave you had a mark on the edge. A mark I put there."

Oba's grin withered as his mind raced. He tried to think of what to say-what he could say-that she would believe. He couldn't contend that he put the coin in a pocket and then pulled out a different coin when he gave it back to her, because he never had any money of his own. She knew very well that he didn't have any money; she wouldn't allow it. She thought he was no good, and that he might waste it.

But he had money, now. He had all the money from Lathea-a fortune. He remembered hurriedly gathering up all the coins that had spilled from Lathea's pocket, including the coin he'd only just given her. When he later set aside a coin to return to his mother, he hadn't known that she had marked the one she'd given him. Oba had the bad luck of returning a different coin than the one she had originally given him.

"But, Mama… are you sure? Maybe you only thought you marked the coin. Maybe you forgot."

She slowly shook her head. "No. I marked it so that if you spent it on drinking or on women I would know because I could go look for it if I had to, and see what you had done."

The conniving bitch. She didn't even trust her own son. What kind of mother was she, anyway?

What proof did she have other than a missing, tiny scratch on the edge of a coin? None. The woman was a lunatic.

"But, Mama, you must be wrong. I don't have any money-you know I don't. Where would I get a different coin?"

"That's what I'd like to know." Her eyes were frightening. He could hardly breathe under their blistering scrutiny. Her voice, though, remained composed. "I told you to buy medicine with that money."

"How could I? Lathea died. I gave you your coin back."

She looked so broad and powerful standing there before him, like an avenging spirit in the flesh come to speak for the dead. Maybe Lathea's spirit had returned to tell on him. He hadn't considered that possibility. That would be just like the troublesome sorceress. She was sneaky. This mi2ht be just what she had done, intent on denying him his importance, his due prestige.

"Do you know why I named you 'Oba'?

"No Mama"

"It's an ancient D'Haran name. Did you know that, Oba?"

"No, Mama." His curiosity got the best of him. "What does it mean?"

"It means two things. Servant, and king. I named you 'Oba, hoping you might someday be a king, and if not, then you would at least be a servant of the Creator. Fools are rarely made kings. You will never be a king. That was just a silly dream of a new mother. That leaves 'servant Who do you serve Oba?"

Oba knew verv well who he served. In so doing, he had become invin- cible.

"Where did you get this coin Oba?"

"I told you, Mama, I couldn't get your medicine because Lathea had died in the fire at her place. Maybe the mark on your coin rubbed off against something in my pocket."

She seemed to consider his words. "Are you sure, Oba?"

Oba nodded, hoping that maybe he was at last turning her mind away from the coin mix-up. "Of course, Mama. Lathea died That's why I gave you your coin back. I couldn't get your medicine.

His mother lifted an eyebrow. "Really, Oba?"

She slowly drew her hand from the pocket of her dress. He couldn't see what it was she had, but he was relieved that he was finally bringing her around.

"That's right, Mama. Lathea was dead." He found he liked saying that.

"Really. Oba? You couldn't get the medicine? You wouldn't lie to your mother, would you, Oba?" e shook his head emphatically. "No, Mama.

"Then what's this?" She turned over her hand and held out the bottle of medicine Lathea had Oven him before he had dealt with her "I found this in your jacket pocket, Oba.»

Oba stared at the cursed bottle, at the troublesome sorceress's revenge. He should have killed the woman right off, before she gave him the telltale bottle of medicine. He had completely forgotten that he had put it in a pocket of his jacket, intending to toss it in the woods on his way home that night. What with all the important new things he had been leaming, he had completely forgotten about the cursed bottle of medicine.

"Well, I think… I think it must be an old bottle-"

"And old bottle? It's full!" Her razor-edged voice was back. "How did you manage to get a bottle of medicine from a woman who was dead-in her house that had already burned down? How, Oba? And how is it that you gave me back a different coin than the one I gave you to pay with? How!" She took a step closer. "How, Oba?»

Oba backed a step. He couldn't pull his eyes away from the cursed cure. He couldn't look up into his mother's fierce eyes. If he did, he just knew she would wither him to tears under her deadly glare. "well, I…»

"Well I what, Oba? Well I what, you filthy bastard boy? You worthless lazy lying bastard boy. You wretched, scheming, vile bastard boy, Oba Schalk.»

Oba's eyes turned up. He was right, she had him fixed in her deadly glare.

But he had become invincible.

"Oba Rahl," he said.

She didn't flinch. He realized then that she had been goading him into admitting he knew. It was all part of her scheme. That name, Rahl, screamed out how he had come to know it, betraying everything to his mother. Oba stood frozen, his mind in a wild state of turmoil, like a rat with a foot on his tail.

"The spirits curse me," she said under her breath, "I should have done what Lathea always told me. I should have spared us all. You killed her. You loathsome bastard. You contemptible lying-"

Quick as a fox, Oba whipped the shovel around, putting all his weight and strength behind the swing. The steel shovel rang like a bell against her skull.

She dropped like a sack of grain pushed out of the loft-whump.

Oba rapidly retreated a step, fearful she might skitter toward him, spiderlike, and with her mean little mouth bite him on the ankle. He was positive that she was fully capable of it. The conniving bitch.

Lightning quick, he darted forward and whacked her again with the shovel, right on the same place on her broad forehead, then retreated out of range of her teeth, before she could bite him like a spider. He often thought of her as a spider. A black widow.

The ring of steel on skull hung in the otherwise still air of the barn, slowly, slowly, slowly dying away. Silence, like a heavy shroud, settled around him.

Oba stood poised, shovel cocked back over his shoulder, ready to swing again. He watched her carefully. Nearly clear, pinkish fluid leaked from both her ears, out across the frozen muck.

In a frenzy of fear and rage, he ran forward and swung the shovel at her head, over and over. The ringing blows of steel on bone echoed around the barn, creating one long clangorous din. The rats, watching with their little black rat eyes, scurried for their holes.

Oba staggered back, gasping for air after the violent effort of silencing her. He panted as he watched her still form sprawled atop the mound of frozen muck. Her arms were spread out wide to each side, as if asking for a hug. The sneaky bitch. She might be up to something. Trying to make amends, probably. Offering a hug, as if that could make up for the times he'd spent in the pen.

Her face looked different. She had an odd expression. He tiptoed closer for a look. Her skull was all m-.sshapen, like a ripe melon broken on the ground.

This was so new that he couldn't gather his thoughts.

Mama, her melon head, all broke open.

For good measure, he whacked her three more times, quick as he could, then retreated to a safe distance, shovel at the ready, should she suddenly spring up to start yelling at him. That would be just like her. Sneaky. The woman was a lunatic.

The barn remained silent. He saw his breath puffing out in the cold air. No breath came from his mother. Her chest was still. The crimson pool around her head oozed down the muck mound. Some of the holes he'd chopped filled with the runny contents of her curious melon head all broken open on the ground.

Oba began to feel more confident, then, that his mother was not going to say hateful things to him anymore. His mother, not being too smart, had probably gone along with Lathea's nagging, and had been talked into hating him, her only son. The two women had ruled his life. He had been nothing but the helpless servant of the two harpies.

Fortunately, he had finally become invincible and had rescued himself from them both.

"Do you want to know who I serve, Mama? I serve the voice that made me invincible. The voice that rid me of you!"

His mother had nothing more to say. At long last, she had nothing more to say.

Then, Oba grinned.

He pulled out his knife. He was a new man. A man who pursued intellectual interests when they arose. He thought he should have a look at what other odd and curious things might be found inside his lunatic mother.

Oba liked to learn new things.

Oba was eating a nice lunch of eggs cooked in the hearth he had started to build for himself, when he heard a wagon rumbling into the yard. It had been over a week since his sneaky mother had opened her mean little mouth for the last time.