There was no sign of the Dolomites when I woke the following morning, so I went about my routine duties, then looked in on Kendra on my way to the Protora Memorium. She was bundled in soiled blankets against the trunk of a tree, head slumped down on her shoulder, face drunk with sleep. I was careful not to wake her, but her eyes rolled down and her face melted into a smile. I sat by her under the cap of the tree and picked a beetle off the ground. She regarded the beetle for a moment, then shook her head and pointed south. There was a lonely hotspring away from the larger one where we liked to swim. As the Dolomites were apparently indisposed, I decided I could afford to sneak away for an hour or so.

  I stood watch for a while on dry ground, slightly embarrassed to swim with Kendra as she'd begun to take shape. In my heart she was still a little girl, but any passers by might have frowned at me for swimming with her, even though she may as well have been my sister. She splashed at me until I gave in, and we spent almost two hours enjoying the water's heat. I hope that for you, precious reader, natural warmth is mundane, but for Kendra and I it was rare.

  I asked her if she would come to the memorium with me after our swim. Instead she found a pile of boulders to crawl on while I got us both some food from a nearby cart. Once we'd both eaten, I left Kendra to her climbing and singing and went to the memorium. Many in Ossary spoke of the memorium in insincere terms. They argued over its past use, and what might have shattered the walls surrounding it but not its domed roof. It made no difference what happened to its walls or what purpose it served before or who made it. What mattered were the stories told within.

  I walked in slowly, taking in the strange light from those crystal mirrors that painted the walls with triangular shadows. I remember pausing to examine my reflection in each crystal as I passed, perhaps to compare myself to Turk. He had eyes like mine, though mean and bright rather than soft and glowing. The Ossarians rarely allowed me close enough for a look at their eyes, but they looked like Kendra's save for their shape, hers being more rounded. My own in some way resembled those of a tyfloch, without the rot of course.

  I found myself in a very contemplative mood that day, seeing how a lifeless thing that grew in the deep measured me. It is a strange fact that there is no living mirror, no creature with skin or eyes that show its sight to others, and that it is only lifeless things, by nature or by construct, that give us such sight of our inverted selves. I wondered, if there were a living mirror, would the image it showed be more true or less?

  The memorium was more crowded during the middle of the day, so I could not reflect at the place of my choosing, at least not without pressing through the shoulders of others. I wove my way through the curving walls until I reached the center where the most harrowing events were recorded. The least crowded wall was one few ever visited, and as I observed the luminous lines of the fresco I slipped into a piteous rest. There were decedent molontiks, the former dwellers of the old town where Ossary was built, offering their male children to a fiery being who lurked in the shadow of a cliff. Above them looking down from the cliff's ledge was a slender black haired dog who sniffed at the air, and the plagued stars leaked through the murky sky in rivalry.

  Albedo Adept had explained the history to me. Generations ago, the Dolomites had drawn another community to their sanctum and provided what they needed to build themselves a town. To manage food and water, and prevent the population from growing past the safe borders of the torches, a limit was placed on how many children could be had. Girls became more valuable than light, and in a period of desperation parents with two sons would arrange for one of the boys to be slain to make way for a possible daughter. The most difficult drawing on the fresco for me was that of a mother and father with a long line of children being lured into the belly of the fiery bull. Doubtless they went through many sons before they bore a daughter, if they ever even did.

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  I managed to wait in the center long enough for the fringes to clear a little. On my way out I stood in front of my favorite mural. The Four Winds were depicted as sinewy heroes in gleaming armor, each with an animal companion. There was Twinstar of the north on his great elk, Matsu Kor of the east on her feathered dragon, Terrakom of the West with his wolf, and Asok of the south with his walrus. Behind them all was Pazuzu, slumbering by the foothills of Aoraki till the Four Winds woke him, his wings folded over body and face.

  Time slipped away from me then, and soon it was night. I found Kendra sleeping on an awning of one of the abandoned buildings near the sanctum. Beyond lie the twinkling candles of quiet Ossary, its compounds and storehouses cozily filling the dell above. I found myself lulled almost to sleep standing there by the sight of it, serenaded by the bone chimes hung from many a doorway. Those few who'd lingered in the memorium as long as I shuffled silently around me, and I waited there till only I remained, then went to the porter house, hung my robe on its hook and curled up in my bed.

  I woke several hours later and went outside to relieve myself. The tarrasquin mercenaries were patrolling the borders of the dell. One of them stood on the slopes of the high hill outside our house and turned his crested head away. I was about to go back to bed when a loud noise drew both our gazes upward. An adept was atop the hill, framed in black against the dim light of the torchwall. He danced madly, his robe streaming behind his shoulders like a cape. Legs like those of a scorpion sprouted from his waist, too short to reach the ground, and he began to spring about on the hilltop until he made a harsh squawk and was quiet. I sighed, then mustered the courage to go to the master. I had gestured for the terrasquin to follow me, but he kept watching the Dolomite as if I wasn't there, so I went up the hill alone. When I got to the Amaranthine Adept he was being helped along by another mercenary. His purple robe was draped over his shoulders, and the grafted legs were gone, leaving me to wonder if I'd even seen them at all.

  Anxious, I relieved the mercenary and took Amaranthine Adept's hand. Together we went down the ramp into the sanctum, and I saw there in the common area every last one of the Dolomite's on the floor bent over an object from the room, operating on it as if it were a subject of one of their tests. One performed a vivisection on a cushion, another prodded a bookend with a lighting fork, and three worried with sharp tools over a blanket that had been laid over a number of objects so that it appeared a human was beneath. Several more adepts bustled through the room, each carrying a limb from one of the volunteers in various states of amputation. As the door they came through closed, I heard screams, and backed away from them, almost tripping onto the blanket the others operated on. The adepts with the limbs began clicking and chirping at the ones on the floor, who squawked vehemently and shoed them away. One stripped a long piece of meat off the limb he carried and tried to feed it to me. I covered my mouth with my hands and ran, fearing they would pursue me. I heard no footfalls as I fled up the ramp, but there was a large shadow at the well lit top, just before the caldera doors. I backed against the wall and held my breath. It was immensely difficult, as the smell of human blood and muscle was still fresh in my nostrils, and the urge to retch was overwhelming.

  The dark shape moved closer, away from the light. I hoped for it to be Turk, that he had seen their strange behavior and had come to subdue them and rescue me. But it was Rouge Adept, and he stopped by my side and rumbled a low growl. Red blood dripped from his lips and claws. I was comforted by the shadows around me, but I saw, to my horror, that my leg was crossed by a single beam of light, and it was from another mind than mine that the power to remain still came. The torchlight beamed strong, highlighting the trouser leg beneath as it emerged from under my robe, and perhaps my fear made it seem brighter still, cast in a minty haze. My white calf was just barely visible between my boot and pant, exposing my pale, hairless skin shiny with sweat. As I looked at my leg, my eyes fixed on the bare patch of white skin, a shadow spread over me and in my insanity I felt hope that the darkness would obscure me from view, forgetting that the caster of the shadow was the very creature I feared.

  Rouge Adept's three clawed foot landed so close to me that his small toe almost touched my boot. His hand dangled limply by my brow, and I felt the rush of his hot breath as he swiveled his head from side to side. He clacked, then squawked, and I couldn't stop my lip from quivering. In a dream-fade memory I saw through water as the Dolomites observed me in a semi circle. One held a wand that radiated with fire, and it seemed that where Griseo Adept waved the wand I felt warmth inside my body, though I was immersed in cold liquid. My leg tingled, and the dingy white torchlight flickered, then found the floor beneath me, my leg an apparition. Had I been taken? Had I been painlessly lifted away by Anpiel, or some other goddess? Suddenly Rouge Adept began walking again, though I could hear him snarling all the way down the ramp.

  The next day I found myself going about my duties as if all were normal. The porters had cleaned away most of the blood, and I was sent to prepare the main course for an examination that afternoon. When I was done I found Kendra. We went to our lonely hotspring, but I was too distressed to swim, so instead I sat against a rock and she sat beside me, singing to a spider that crawled over my hand.