He tapped the staff lightly, clicking its iron butt-cap on the tower's stone floor. To his surprise, a sizzle of blue wizardlight spat away from the contact. Rasile noticed the spark also. Her grin bared a jawful of teeth that were noticeably sharper than those of a human being. "I told you the fight was not over, Warrior Cashel," she said. "I felt but I did not say that Chief Garric would be wise to keep me by him. I cannot do as much as his Tenoctris does, but I can do some things; and he will need many things done if he and his kingdom, our kingdom, are to survive the coming struggle."

Cashel nodded without speaking. From this vantage he could see birds fishing the pools that now dotted the plains where the Inner Sea had rippled before the Change. Most were the white or gray of seagulls, but there were darker shapes which flashed blue when they caught the sun right: kingfishers, he was sure. "Would you mind staying here a little longer, Warrior Cashel?" the Corl wizard said. "I would like to work a small spell. Both our height above the ground and your presence will aid me, I believe." "Whatever you want, ma'am," Cashel said. "And I'd appreciate you just call me Cashel. I'm not a warrior, you know.

I'm just a shepherd." Rasile snorted mild laughter as she squatted on her haunches. She took a handful of yarrow stalks out of a bag woven from willow withies, so fine and dense that Cashel thought it would shed water. The catmen were good at weaving; even Ilna said so. "You see what you see, shepherd," Rasile said. "But I see what the world sees. If you do not want me to say 'Warrior,' I will not say the word.

But the truth does not change, Cashel." She tossed the yarrow stalks into a pattern on the stone, then began mumbling words of power.

Cashel didn't pay much attention to her. He kept watching the sky and the land beneath, the directions that danger might come from.