Once her quarters were clean and she had sneaked a few exploratory forays into nearby parts of the cloister, and had penetrated the rest of it riding ghosts, and had found herself an away place in a high tower overlooking the square where she had arrived, she grew bored. Even study became appealing.

She snarled her dissatisfaction at the worker who brought their meals. That was on her tenth day in Maksche.

Things seemed to move slowly in Maksche. Marika's complaints continued for a week, growing virulent. Yet nothing happened.

"Do not cause trouble," Grauel cautioned. "They are studying our conduct. It is all some sort of test."

"Pardon me if I am skeptical," Marika said. "I have walked the dark side a hundred times since we have been here. I have seen no indication that they even know we are here, let alone are watching. We have been put out of sight, out of mind, and are imprisoned in a dungeon of the soul."

Grauel exchanged glances with Barlog. Barlog observed, "All things are not seen by the witch's inner eye, Marika. You are not omnipotent."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that one young silth, no matter how strong, is not going to use her talent to see what a cloister full of more practiced silth are doing if they do not want her to see."

Marika was about to admit that that might be possible when someone scratched at the door. She gestured. "It is not time to eat. The drought must be over."

Barlog opened the door.

There stood a silth older than any Marika had encountered before. She hobbled in, leaning on a cane of some gnarled dark wood. She halted in the center of the room, surveyed the three of them with rheumy cataracted eyes. Her half-blind gaze came to rest upon Marika. "I am Moragan. I have been assigned as your teacher and as your guide upon the Reugge Path." She spoke the Reugge low speech with an intriguing, elusive accent. Or was it a natural lisp? "You are the Marika who stirred so much controversy and chaos at our northern fastness." Not a question. A statement.