* * *

A cold, damp wind had risen in the morning. The not-so-distant pass was covered with a whitish haze, and Elena thought Pantocrator was on the fugitives' side in every way. If the company stayed there even a day longer, the day's journey would easily turn into a week. A snowstorm combined with running out of supplies and general fatigue... You can wish it on your enemy, but not on yourself. It seems that the fugitives had skipped just at the last moment before the snowfall that would make the main trails impassable until spring, so if anyone was following their tracks, they weren't now.

As she washed her face with cold water, the woman looked up at the frowning sky, as if the all-seeing eye of Pantocrator might be watching her. Her threadbare shirt fluttered in the wind like a sail, but it had been tight a month ago. Well, at least here it is not necessary to watch overweight and diet. In the Ecumene it takes a lot of effort to get fat, not the opposite.

Wiping herself with the towel, which was as thin and sparse as gauze from wear and tear and time, Elena caught the attentive, albeit fearful, gaze of the Frels' daughter. The girl was looking mostly at her guest's hair. Elena hummed, thinking that she really did seem strange. The black dye was starting to come off, revealing a dark red natural color. The traveler looked like a feather raven, but the appearance was the last thing the healer cared about right now.

The girl wasn't overly pretty, but she was surprisingly sweet. Probably, she had never seen independent, short-haired sisters by gender and perceived Elena as a marvel. The healer couldn't resist a little hooliganism and winked at her daughter, who danced, clutched the basket with onions to her chest, which had to be taken to the dry cellar for the winter. She turned around and ran, only to see her mother's boots, which had been worn out to a pale pale color and were probably her mother's.

The father, ignoring the woman, was tapping with a tool that looked like an axe with the blade turned ninety degrees. Frels, with two peasants, was chopping cabbage into halves for pickling for the winter. There was not enough salt, so they soured the cabbage by pouring rye flour with a little rock salt over the chopped pieces. Judging by the filling wooden troughs, at least this house would not starve in the spring. The cabbage was oozing with juice and a distinctive odor.

Breakfast was heated in a cauldron. For lunch, in honor of the guests (and obviously expecting to get another coin) they prepared a royal dish - yurma - chicken boiled in fish broth, by the standards of local poverty it was equal to a lamb cooked in exquisite gravy. Elena could already feel her stomach rumbling in anticipation of the treat. Then a stab of pain cut into the rumbling.

"Damn..." the woman hissed, bending down and putting a palm to her stomach.

Such bad timing! Thank God, they were in a settled and moderately warm region, where they could stock up and wash hygienic rags. She wanted to swear, to curse Mother Nature and all the gods in bulk for having designed female anatomy so badly. Or physiology...

She straightened up, picked up a jug of water, and went to wash Artigo. The pain seemed to be easing, but she couldn't walk easily, her knees bent like wood on nails. Nearby, Cadfal was praying, seemingly for the first time since the redeemers had entered the life of Elena, still called Lunna. The square-haired brother spread out a tiny mat and was making bows as if he were a Muslim. Beside him, the Rapist was making strange passes, something subtly reminiscent of Chinese wu-shu, and also of the skeletal breathing techniques of the late Draughtsman. Elena had noticed something like this a couple of times before and kept forgetting to ask whether it was a cunning prayer or church gymnastics.

Artigo was sitting under Grimal's care on a large stone with a blanket carefully placed on it. Ranjan was dragging sawed wood from the shed to the old stump, intending to chop it. The minstrel was haggling fiercely with the peasant, who scratched the back of his head, shuffled from foot to foot, and generally seemed a simple-minded respecter, but judging from the tension of the negotiations, he understood his interest well.

"Lift your head," Elena said to the prince, surprised at how harsh and unfriendly the words sounded. "Please."

The boy obediently carried out the instruction. Grimal realized that Artigo was in the right hands and went about his business.

"Here," the Frels' daughter, who had stealthily approached, shyly held out a tiny curl of soap, clearly cut from a larger bar.

"Thank you," she said sincerely. She only now noticed that the girl had a plentiful scattering of freckles despite the dark hair she'd been born with. A rare combination.

Artigo was silent and squinting as Elena wiped his face with a wet towel. The woman, on impulse, ruffled the boy's hair, and he flinched as if he'd been struck.

"Hey, what are you up to?" Elena didn't understand, staring into the guy's wildly dilated pupils.

Artigo froze, tense as a crossbow and stiffening at the same time. It was as if every muscle in his body had tensed to the limit. His lips trembled and his face paled. Elena looked at the hand, then at the disheveled head, and began to realize something. Apparently, this was some incredibly rude invasion of 'personal space' or a violation of the etiquette hammered into Artigo's head since infancy. Or maybe both at once.

"I'm sorry," Elena muttered, feeling like a fool in the land of the crazy.

The boy looked up at her, unblinking, like a porcelain-faced doll. Elena knelt so that the roles were reversed. The hard ground chilled her joints unpleasantly, her stomach tugged, and the medicine woman refrained from grimacing in pain with great effort. But her gut told her that a very significant moment was coming. Elena had done something important and wrong. Maybe related to etiquette, maybe wrapped up in the personal cockroaches in the prince's head, but if she let everything go to the brakes now, "it" would remain as a nail hammered into the relationship.

"If I put out my hand to you, can you touch it?" She asked, thinking if it wasn't clear it was best to take the easiest way.

He was silent for a moment, then nodded slowly, as if overcome by tension. Elena also slowly stretched out her hand, imagining she wanted to pet a street and frightened cat. A calm, very friendly motion, nothing that could be construed as a threat. Artigo's fingers were trembling and cold. After waiting a moment, Elena "made tactile contact", that is, still slowly and gently squeezed her palm. The medic's hand was not large, but Artigo's paw sank almost entirely into it. The axe clattered loudly as the Brether began chopping. The prince flinched, glancing around nervously.

"I am from very far away places," Elena said quietly and slowly. "I have learned some of your rules, but there are many things I don't know yet. If I do something wrong, it's because I don't know how it should be."

He shook his head again, seeming a little more confident and relaxed, but it could have been that. Good, communication seemed to be getting better. Medicine and psychology... that's what she should have learned, but who knew? She doesn't get to choose her destiny. For some reason, she remembered a humorous story about a bookworm who spent his whole life preparing to get to comrade Stalin in the forty-first year, filling his memory with countless knowledge about the preparation for the Great Patriotic War but ended up in the ranks of the French at Austerlitz.

"Where I come from..."

...there are no nobles, and children grow up normally... No, of course, she can't say that.

"...there were no such noble persons. We keep it simple. I did what I'm used to."

She thought for a moment and added:

"Sorry... Yes, I know you should be called. Your Majesty. But, uh."

"Highness."

"What?"

In fact, she heard perfectly well but jumped at the seeming opportunity to talk the young autistic man down a little more.

"Your Imperial Majesty, that is the correct address to the emperor," the prince said very clearly, with excellent diction as if he had been practicing for hours. His speech contrasted strikingly with his one-syllable lines, perhaps for the first time in the whole time of his escape the guy said something longer than a couple of words. Elena was ready to smile - there was contact! - but the next phrase threw her into a stupor.

"But you're from a dirty, lowly background and probably didn't know it."

Oh, you little scoundrel, Elena thought, feeling herself grow fierce. Dirty origins, huh? You owe me your life twice over. She wanted to slap Artigo, but then the split log cracked particularly loudly, and Helena came to her senses. No, it was necessary to be calm and tolerant...

"I'm not Emperor... yet," Artigo didn't notice the change in the woman's attitude and continued his reasoning. "I should have been addressed as "Your Grace" before. But that's no good either because my parents have left the world and now I'm the first in the family," the boy swallowed the heavy thought and returned to his businesslike tone. "Therefore, the most correct is 'Your Highness'. Yes..."

He thought for a moment and finished confidently:

"Yes, that's the most correct. Address me as "Your Highness." And tell the others to keep proper order. Besides, that ruthier and his servant must no longer dress and undress me so rudely. I'm used to being treated differently. And the food. I want different food. I must be served first, and the others may eat after I have tasted the food."

"Is that all?" The healer asked stupidly, mechanically counting the number of times the young aristocrat repeated 'must'.

"Yes. I'll wish for the rest in due course."

Elena stared at the boy, dazed, and saw that there was not a shred of pretension in his demeanor. God knows what the reason was but the prince's noble arrogance and absolute certainty that everyone owed him by nature was like a switch on a switch.

"Why don't you take it easy?" Pantin, who was nearby, suggested. Elena didn't even look at him, staring unkindly into the prince's dark pupils. Perhaps she should have kept silent, softened, corrected, and shown understanding. Perhaps. she should have. But Elena didn't want to, and there were many reasons, all woven together like a bundle of wire under a blacksmith's hammer.

"First of all, we're hiding. We're hiding so you don't get killed, you fool," she said quietly and clearly. "We're passing you off as a common city boy. And calling you 'Your Highness' is a sure way to get everyone killed. You first."

The boy swallowed but didn't look away.

"Second..."

Elena felt like she was getting carried away, but she couldn't stop and didn't really want to. Pantin shook his head reproachfully, refrained from commenting, and left for the Frels' daughter. She, along with Gamilla and the minstrel, was just helping a wounded Highlander to crawl out into the light of day.

"Second, we're the only thing between you and death. Your..."

She almost said "father" and stumbled at the last moment.

"Your savior sacrificed a lot to keep you alive. And will sacrifice a lot more. That deserves at least a modicum of respect and gratitude. So put the fuse on and act like a human being, not a highborn pig. Do you understand?"

She was ready for the hysterics, the foot-stomping, the other excesses of a spoiled brat, but nothing happened. Artigo bowed his head and settled down, his eyes faded, his pupils unfocused, staring through Elena into the endless distance. The prince looked like a doll with some of the air drained out of it in a couple of seconds.

"Get up and let's go," the woman demanded sharply, without sentimentality. "We need to wash you properly."

Artigo swallowed and shuddered, he remained silent, not even a sniffle. He remained silent while Elena washed him in the old bathing chamber, which looked more like a shower stall made of gray boards, grayed by time and woodworm. The washerwoman had expected to see signs of beatings on the prince's lean body, like Flessa's, which would explain the boy's lethargy and apparent inadequacy. But no, if he had been punished for instilling the rules of class behavior it was rare and not severe.

"Master!" called from the side of the house the Highlander. "It's time to heal me!"

"Wait," Elena cut him off. "You see, I'm busy. I'll be right there."

Pantin, as was his custom, reappeared out of nowhere, handing Elena a washed shirt and pants for the boy.

"I asked to heat water to treat," the man reported. "The cauldron is just hot and a smaller cauldron with boiling water, right?"

"Yes, that's right," Elena nodded, tying the laces on the child's shirt. Artigo didn't know how to handle them, he'd hardly ever dressed himself, and it was easier to tie them herself than to wait for the boy's awkward fingers to do the difficult task.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"And I also diluted salt, not too fine, rock salt, one part salt to ten parts water," Pantin finished his report.

"That's right, too," the medic agreed, tightening the last knot. Artigo stared at a single point on the wooden wall, doing nothing but following the washerwoman's instructions.

Gaval and Grimal helped the would-be patient shave and vigorously discussed the comet.

"It's a sorcerous serpent with a tail of fire!" interpreted the Brether's squire. "It was sent for our grave sins, and portends horrors, calamities, pestilence, pestilence, and dancing skeletons! But there is still a chance for people to come to their senses and not to sin, there is!"

It was strange, Elena thought. The dragon figure was virtually absent from local legends. Sometimes there is something conventionally similar, but strictly in the second or third plan. Instead of fire-breathing reptiloids, heroic knights barked devils and ice demons. Further proof that the world of the Ecumene was not populated by natives of Earth. I guess...

"It is not a dragon, but a heavenly body of mysterious but airy nature," Gaval said. "Otherwise it would have fallen from the sky to the earth long ago. And it passes through the sky every century and a half, as it has been written about in clever books for a long time. Every time it passes, the lowly plebs get excited, waiting for the end of days and God's punishment."

"Damn!" the god-fearing servant was furious. "It just so happened that...."

He stopped talking abruptly, glanced at the boy, and even slapped his jaw as if closing his lips tightly. Gaval looked at his suddenly surrendered opponent with a perplexed look, and shrugged his skinny shoulders.

Elena felt a burning shame for the breakdown and resentment at herself for the pedagogical blunder, which, by all accounts, was catastrophic. After the fact, it was clear that Artigo had tried to communicate in a human way, he just didn't know it was possible to talk in any other way. He should have kept the conversation going, built up the trust that had barely budged, and begun to prepare the prince for another life in tiny steps. And now it was too late. Apparently, it is.

Does she even want any of this? That's a good question.

"Is everything alright?" Ranjan asked loudly. Frels' daughter handed him a clay mug of pea beer, and with his shirt unbuttoned and his cleaver on his shoulder, the still unshaven swordsman looked like a rough pirate.

"Yes," Elena answered briefly, glancing at the washed and changed Artigo.

Ranjan shook his head feebly, barely perceptible, and a flicker of pain flashed in the depths of his dark eyes. It flashed and vanished without a trace. Brether sighed and said:

"Let's go to breakfast."

But Elena postponed breakfast so she could perform the surgery on an empty stomach and a steady hand. Then again, if the patient died or bled out under the scalpel, she'd have something to eat for the stress. Gaval retreated, claiming he couldn't stand blood. The minstrel managed to trade the plaid for a musical instrument, a crude but functional wooden plank about the size of two palms with metal brackets. Standing behind a crooked fence, he practiced, playing short and simple tunes

"You've lost your fucking mind, asshole," Cadfal said without anger as he passed by. "You're giving away other people's stuff?"

"I'll play and drink the payoff in the first town," Gaval promised confidently. "And then I'll buy something decent. I mean the instrument," he hastened to clarify.

"Watch it," the redeemer promised in an unkind and yet very firm manner. "Or we'll sell you. There will always be buyers for such a sweet boy."

Cadfal stared at the speechless minstrel for a few seconds, then snorted, unable to hold back his laughter, and slapped Gaval on the shoulder with a thud that would have driven him into the ground.

"Don't be afraid!" The cubic baton-bearer laughed heartily. "I was joking."

He grew sharply serious and promised confidentially, leaning close to the minstrel's ear:

"But if you don't pay up, we'll sell you anyway."

And went off to the cabbage choppers, leaving Gaval agonizingly wondering how much of the joke was real.

"You are jolly people," said the Highlander, curving his lips in a painful grimace. He sat down on the stump where Artigo had sat and stretched out his leg with a low hiss.

"Yes, we're not complaining," Elena said, checking water, clean rags, and a pot of boiling water for disinfecting the instruments. There was still grape alcohol in the Vietnamese footlocker, but the medic tried not to waste scarce medicines, remembering that they would not be replenished for a long time.

"Bite your belt," advised Gamilla as a volunteer assistant.

"Huh," the Highlander muttered inarticulately.

"Well, that's up to you," Elena shrugged, unwinding the blood-stained bandage.

The medic was prepared for festering and other effects, but the wound was clean, with moderate inflammation and swelling. The wound was exactly as described by the wounded man: a tip on a broken shaft just above the knee. Elena, out of pure vindictiveness - remembering the rude "hey" - wiggled the fragment, causing the wounded man to grind his teeth.

"Well, let's get started," he pulled out the shtick Pantin had carved. The Highlander rolled his eyes and turned white.

"How about some wine?" He asked, instantly losing his arrogance and pathos. "It's... for courage and to quench pain. A big glass."

"You can," Elena agreed. "But beware, it will make your veins expand and you'll bleed more. If anything goes wrong, you could bleed scarlet.

The Highlander thought for a while, and when Elena was about to ask the locals for wine, he shook his head.

"Cut it like this. I can take it."

In the dim sunlight, he appeared quite young, but his face was battered by life. Elena guessed him to be between twenty-five and thirty, hardly older. His nose was very distinctive, powerful, hunchbacked, and broken at the bridge of the nose, making it look like a parrot's beak. The left ear had been flattened into a pancake by a long-ago blow, no pigtails, and the head was shaved, so that several scars were visible. The man wore a northern beard, the same one Santeli had grown on his cheeks, but his neck was overgrown. The black growth was already silvery with threads of early gray. He was also dressed in a mix of continental "fashion", without a sash. On his belly, horizontally, he carried in a wooden scabbard a large, typically mountain dagger with a hilt in the form of the letter "H".

"What's the name?" The woman asked, righting her scalpel on the finest-grained stone, wetting the surface with water.

She waited again for some pretentious name.

"Maryadek of Kerazetov"

"Looking for luck on the plains?" Elena didn't really wait for an answer. She rather took her time as she prepared herself. She washed the wet stone dust off the small blade and watered the wound with a thin trickle from a pitcher of warm water, washing away the blood clots.

I thought all of you guys were hired for good silver. Take off your shoe or you'll bleed into it.

"I'm sick of the mountains," said Maryadek with unexpected candor. "I am tired of sheep and grandfather's halberds. I am tired of clans, tukhums, and elders. Tired of the fact you have not learned your name yet, and your wife has been picked up long ago and you already owe her family a ransom. Tired that you can serve only in a regiment, and you get a quarter of the salary, and the rest is sent to the tukhum. Tired that where your brother's and matchmaker's head lies, yours should lie there too, though you've seen them at the bottom, goat-breeders. So I've decided that's enough. My fate is in my hands."

Elena didn't understand about the bottom at first, then remembered that the Highlanders didn't practice the usual burial or burning of the dead. If possible, they decapitated the dead, boiled the skull down to the bare bones to put it in the ancestral crypt, and threw the body into the river - let it be carried as far away as possible by the swift current. It was quietly said that all the participants had to drink from the cauldron with a boiled head.

"All right, let's get started," Elena decided.

Maryadek let out a florid, vigorous curse and gritted his teeth, preparing for the pain.

"What am I supposed to do?" Gamilla asked.

"Tie the cord here and hold it here," the medic pointed and made the first incision to widen the wound a bit and insert the shtick more securely.

Maryadek blasphemously vowed to find the bastard who had set the self-shooter on alert and stick the tip in his ass, but the Highlander held his ground well, his leg steady. Pantin was washing off the blood running in scarlet streams down his hairy leg, the crossbow woman was helping quite deftly and, it seemed, she was studying. There was the smell of a fire, burnt porridge for breakfast, as well as tasty chicken and fish broth from the yurma stewing in the oven. The peasants continued to work with cabbage, now there were more women among them. In all, a dozen or so peasants were working on the fermentation. Frels's daughter served them with diluted beer and fed them fried chickens that roamed about, pecking at everything. The birds were athletic, fit, and twice as small as the birds on earth. The guests were served breakfast on a table dragged out of the house into the courtyard so they wouldn't have to breathe the fumes inside. Ranjan asked for directions, and Frels drew a tentative map with charcoal on the tabletop.

The surgery did not take much time, and the device justified itself, although careful work with a scalpel would have led to the same result.

"As a souvenir," Elena handed the Highlander, white as chalk, a black bifurcated tip. "They say you can make a talisman for good luck."

"I s-s-sell it," promised Mariadek. "And I'll drink the money. I'll drink the money for the bastard to die."

"Then give it to me," Gamilla took the iron from the wounded man's weak fingers without hesitation. "It will be used as payment. We'll sell it ourselves."

Elena wanted to make a caustic joke about the self-appointed treasurer but was too busy with post-op processing.

"So..." she wondered aloud. "Will they let you rest here?"

"They will. They won't be happy, but the master honors the old statutes and won't throw a sick man out."

"Then I won't sew it now. It could fester under the suture. Without me or another good healer, the wound cannot be cleaned so the leg can be sawed off at once."

The patient swallowed noisily and with a jerky movement wiped the profuse sweat from his forehead.

"We'll des... wash off the poison now, and I'll bandage it clean. You'll change the bandage once a day, only boiled and with washed hands only. With soap. I'll show you how. You got it?"

Maryadek nodded.

"If there is no pus after three days, you can rinse again and then sew it up. And to boil everything again before sewing. If there is pus, open the wound, so that everything flows out freely, twice a day wash with saline solution. It'll drain for a couple of weeks and then it'll go away. You'll have a scar."

" And if it doesn't?"

"Then you can look for a saw."

Elena picked up a pot of strong saline, which she intended to use instead of alcohol for the final disinfection.

"This is going to hurt."

"That's news," Maryadek said through gritted teeth, clenching his eyes.

Finished, Elena thoroughly washed the tool and her hands.

"Five pennies."

"I will," muttered the exhausted Highlander. "I'll rest a little and I'll cut it out."

"What?"

"I don't have that much in my purse. Too much. There's a stash in my belt."

"I see."

Elena left the patient to lie down and began to stow the medical kit. Gamilla had gone somewhere, probably to check on Gaval, whom the crossbowwoman had contracted to guard for another day or two.

"Take a sip," Pantin handed her a flask of real silver, roughly made, but capacious. Elena took a sip, and it was not alcohol, as one might expect, but a sweet brew flavored with licorice and rose hips.

"Thank you," the woman thanked, returning the flask.

"You're welcome," Pantin replied, screwing on the cap in the form of a jester's hat.

"I'm tired," Elena complained, stretching out her arms, scrutinizing her fingers with their nails trimmed almost to the root. - I want a manicure, moisturizer, peeling scrub, and cuticle oil. And I want normal pads instead of asshole panties. I would kill for pads. But I don't have them, and I never will.

"It must be tough."

"I'm used to it."

When she said that, Elena realized with horrifying clarity that it was true - she was used to it. The benefits of her native world seemed too distant and unfulfilled, like a fairy tale about amazing countries that were not on any map and where she would never get to visit...

"It was in vain," Pantin shook his head reproachfully.

"What?" the woman looked at him, frowning as if she couldn't remember something important.

"Mean words spoken to young Artigo. They were in vain."

"Maybe," Elena shook her head oddly, rubbing her temple, trying to remember when she'd ever called the prince's name. "Maybe... He..."

"You've been unfair."

"Really?" the woman asked sarcastically, her tone clearly reading, What's it to you?

"Yes," Pantin ignored the sarcasm and spoke with the same wise sadness. "You are tired. You are tired of running. You are tired of being afraid. You are tired of experiencing your imperfection. Getting rid of the tiredness or, at least, alleviating it is a reasonable and understandable desire. But to share them with another man, to dump half of your burden on him without consent... To make him suffer with you... There was no wisdom or dignity in that.

"He's a petty and disgusting freak," Elena said bluntly what she'd been thinking until now. "A nobleman incapable of gratitude."

She was silent for a moment, and then she spoke out sharply with a determination that she was afraid of a moment later:

"I don't need it I would have kept them, but Ranjan promised....."

She faltered again. Something was wrong here... an intrusive thought was beneath the lid of her skull like a faint, barely perceptible buzzing mosquito that didn't sting and kept her awake.

Maybe. But is it his fault? The boy had been raised from the time he was young to know that there were superior people, real people, only worthy of that name. And everyone else. He doesn't know how to communicate with those he's used to thinking of as lower than himself. He doesn't even realize that you can be spoken to as equals. Not yet. At heart, he is still a little aristocrat, equal to kings, surrounded by servants and waiting for his torment to end.

"Well, he's in for a nasty surprise," Elena snorted and asked bluntly. "Is that my concern?" and then answered herself. "Not at all. He's only alive because his father....."

She fell silent under the calm gaze of gray eyes.

Gray eyes.

Eye.

Elena looked at Pantin once more, the tired sadness on her face replaced by immense surprise, then horror on the verge of panic, the woman in one cohesive movement stepped to the side and snatched the knife.

"Who are you?!" She blurted out, clutching the hilt.

Pantin, warming the water. Pantin helps with firewood and cooking. Pantin cutting the horn for the operation. Pantin, bringing clothes for Artigo. Now, focusing her attention on the stranger, holding it in her memory, Elena could see that the not-young and gray-haired man had been with them for a long time, starting from... here the memory was failing. The man had just appeared, had been around for a while, and it seemed perfectly natural, and as soon as she looked away, the stranger was immediately forgotten.

Rapist's spear glinted with a tip, and Cadfal raised his club above his head, ready to pound the intruder into the ground.

"Answer me!" Elena's voice trembled as if she were about to become hysterical. Now the woman saw the stranger's eyes, which were like the eyesores of a blind man. The light gray whites turned into irises of irregular shape, devoid of pupils, but the alien saw, apparently, perfectly well. Elena had seen similar eyes before, only the colors were different. Her hands shook treacherously, and the pain in her stomach intensified as if a rusty needle had poked her bladder.

"I'm Pantin," Pantin grinned weakly. "I've told you that."

Who knows how it would have ended, Elena was teetering on the brink of hysterics, ready to either flee or attack, but at that second Ranjan came between her and Pantin. Brether bent to one knee before the intruder, holding his sword at the base of the blade, hilt up, like a crucifix.

"Mentor," the Brether mumbled briefly with a reverence that Elena had never seen from him before and had never even imagined such a thing was possible.

"Potter, son of a potter," Pantin bowed his head. "You called me."

"Yes, I did."

"Well, I'm here."

"I have an apprentice for you."

"I see. Let's say it's not the best possible."

Elena gulped.

"Eyes..." she squeezed out. "Your eyes..."

"Hello, Hel," the one who called himself Pantin showed a faint smile on his unseasonably tanned face. "And also Lunna, Wandera... Maybe it would be better to call you by your real name?"

"You don't know it," the woman snarled. The slaughter seemed to be postponed. The stranger, though he had eyes similar to the bloodshot eyes of a black creature, didn't seem intent on attacking. Who was it? A hunch fluttered its wings like a butterfly, very close by.

"I know it," the gray-eyed man smiled a little wider. "You're the one who doesn't know it. Or did you really think your name was Elena?"

He snapped his fingers sharply as if switching the conversation to another channel.

"I'm not the one you need to worry about right now," the stranger said.

He pointed away, to where there seemed to be nothing but a gray and dreary plain of hills. Elena took another step back, then two, remembering how fast the infernal witch had moved. Only then did she turn in a quarter turn, her gaze slanting, watching.

A small cavalcade of about a dozen horses and a half was coming from behind the nearest hill. There were no wagons or foot escorts, but a two-tailed flag fluttered angrily in the wind over the riders' heads.

"Your worries are over there," Pantin lowered his hand.

* * *