Hearing his cat growl with hunger, he grasped the bloody muscle he had just liberated from the corpse and tossed it into the dusty circle.

The cat pounced. Turning back to the table, Reznik resumed his labors.

With the small saw, he cut the thighbone in two, exposing its marrow: soft, pulpy, and yellow-exactly what he needed. As every cutter-healer knew, it was the red bone marrow of a child that was initially responsible for the manufacture of the body's blood. The marrow inevitably turned yellow with maturity. Above all, it was blood that determined so much of one's destiny here in Eutracia-and in Reznik's capable hands, sometimes the nature of one's death, as well.

He carefully removed the marrow from each of the two sections of bone and placed it in a small pan. Then he opened up the skull. When the grayish white frontal lobes presented themselves, he began to whistle happily. Nothing soothed his nerves so much as the preparation of another of his potions-especially when it was for Satine. He employed only very fresh corpses in his work for her, and only those that had perished by suicide.

Eutracian custom dictated that suicide victims should be laid to rest in separate sections of the nation's cemeteries. Though abandoned in many places, this custom of segregation was still practiced in others. When the craft had been in its infancy, many had believed that the soul of a suicide victim might not be released to the Afterlife. Few had wished to risk the chance of being placed to rest beside those who had killed themselves. Separate arrangements had therefore been made.

Ridiculous, he thought, as he continued to work. Still, he was thankful for this superstition, which proved infinitely helpful to him in his arts.

His hands had grown excessively bloody, so he walked to the brook. As he knelt down before a calm spot at the water's edge, his reflection peered back at him. He saw the face that had wrinkled and creased beyond its fifty Seasons of New Life. He also saw his shiny, bald head, the encircling fringe of gray hair drooping haphazardly to his shoulders. The soft brown eyes stared back at him with intelligence, and he could see the yellow teeth that lay just behind the full, expressive mouth. He smiled, liking what he saw.