Pitt waited in a hall he thought should be at the back of the temple. He felt the presence of Mogen Farn looming over the building. He wished he had some tobacco to burn while he waited.

He doubted that the king of the gods was going to put in an appearance over the healing of a little girl. On the other hand, he didn't want to risk such an occurrence when he was so close to settling back on his farm.

If Farn did show up, that meant he had taken a personal interest. That meant he wasn't going to send his clerics out to handle the problem. That meant Pitt would be called on to take care of something before resting back in his cabin.

The god of knowledge loved collecting information and figuring out puzzles. That meant he would think nothing of having Pitt ask questions for him on the ground.

Why send a mortal into danger when one of the remaining Brothers was there and more capable of violence than most normal men?

“Roland,” demanded a voice in the air.

“Here we go,” said Pitt to himself. “Yes, sir?”

“I want you to talk to the girl's parents,” said Mogen Farn. “I feel there is something there that requires your personal touch.”

“You want me to kill her parents?,” asked Pitt.

“I just want to know about the scars she bears on her inner self,” said the god. “If they give you an answer, that will be fine. They might not like the questioning.”

“What if they don't want to talk to me?,” asked Pitt. He thought that was more likely than not.

“Come back to the temple and inform Mosien that the girl is not allowed to go home,” said Farn. “I will authorize it.”

“Is there something I should know about this?,” said Pitt.

“What Mosien tried to heal has attracted my attention,” said Mogen Farn. “It has been a thing that has resurfaced among man. It is not good for the person that has been inflicted. I would like your personal experience on hand in case the parents do not like any attempt to find out what they were trying to do.”

Pitt grimaced. He wasn't a magician except as a secondary ability that he had picked up among the Brotherhood. There were stronger magical talents and with a better understanding of what he would have to look at for his patron. None of them were in the mountains with him, and most were probably dead at this point.

What was the god omitting?

He had no doubt that Farn had seen this type of thing before in the centuries that the Brotherhood had been operating. Pitt had also probably seen it too. It was probably something bad that had ended with fire.

“I'll go over and talk to the parents now,” said Pitt. “They will probably want to know their girl is alive since she had been stuck down in the well for a while.”

But nobody at the inn had said anything about a missing girl. He hummed to himself as the god receded from touching his mind.

Had the parents even looked for their little girl?

Pitt knocked on the room the clerics were using to look after the girl and her strange dog. A younger woman looked at him through the door.

“Do you have any tobacco and paper?,” asked Pitt.

“No,” said the cleric. Her eyes said she was angry at him for knocking on the door and disrupting their healing.

“Tell Mosien that his boss asked me to talk to the parents,” said Pitt. “Something about some kind of scarring on her inner body. He wants me to go over and find out if they know anything.”

“All right,” said the younger cleric. Her expression softened.

“You guys might have to adopt the kid,” said Pitt. “I'll let you know when I get back.”

“What do you mean?,” asked the cleric.

“I'm just passing the word,” said Pitt. “I'll let you know when I get back. How hard could a talk be?”

Pitt left the hall and headed for the front of the temple. He waved at the gatekeeper to let him out while he crossed the courtyard the clerics used to practice. He stepped off the grounds and started walking down the road.

The way Farn had talked, he doubted his talk would be as friendly as he thought it should be.

He remembered where the girl had said she lived. He aimed himself in that general direction, ambling along as he thought about the events so far. He had no doubt that the parents would not want to talk to him about their little girl.

When someone like him showed up at the door, the last thing strangers wanted to do was spill their most precious secrets.

He doubted this would go in the friendly way he wanted. He worked on his smile as he walked along. He saw the white house and black tile roof in the distance. He kept his even pace so he could arrive when he arrived instead of rushing down the road.

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Farn hadn't set a time limit. He could take all night as long as he eventually returned to tell the clerics whatever news he gained.

He found a set of tiles set as steps leading to the flat porch in front of the house. It had been built out of stone from the looks of it and painted white. He saw small windows at either end of the front wall. They had been shuttered for the night.

Pitt knocked on the door. It felt heavier than the local wood he dealt with. It didn't matter. If he wanted to get inside, that door would have to be as thick as the gates to the Eternal Court to keep him out.

He listened. He thought he heard movement inside the house. He wasn't sure. He supposed someone showing up in the dead of the night would be a surprise for anyone.

He knocked again with a little more force. One knock could be stated to be some kind of mishearing. Two with the second one being louder indicated there was actually someone knocking on the door.

Footsteps approached the door. He hoped Farn appreciated this.

The door opened. A man in a robe held a lamp up to illuminate his visitor. He blinked at the traveler on his doorstep.

“Have you got any tobacco?,” asked Pitt.

“What?,” said the man. “No. Are you insane? Do you know what time it is?”

“Not really,” said Pitt. “I have had a long day. I was told to come up here to ask how you had scarred your little girl. Then I'm supposed to tell the clerics. So do you want to tell me what you did?”

“What do you mean?,” asked the man. “What daughter?”

“Do you have a daughter?,” asked Pitt. “The girl I rescued said she lived here at the Barnstows.”

“No, we don't have a girl,” said the man.

“All right,” said Pitt. “Good night.”

He turned away to walk back down the road, and then back to the temple. It would be easy to get the girl up there in the day time to look at the man to see if she said he was her father.

He heard motion behind him. He turned and found Annabelle's father reaching out to stab him with a knife. He slapped the knife away with the back of his hand. It flew away in the dark of the night.

“I suppose you just didn't try to stab me,” said Pitt. “That was a bad move.”

“Who do you think you are?,” asked Smolls. He rubbed his hand where it had been slapped.

“William Pitt,” said Pitt. “I found your little girl and her dog. I took them to the clerics to be healed. What did you do to the girl?”

“None of your business,” said Smolls.

“Ordinarily you would be right, but Mogen Farn sent me to ask,” said Pitt. “So I would like an answer now that you have tried to kill me.”

“I don't have anything to say,” said Smolls. He raised a hand. A pattern of fire appeared on the palm. A fireball started to form. Pitt stepped in and punched him in the face just hard enough to put him to sleep.

“No mana,” said Pitt. “Internal scarring. I have seen this before.”

He tied up Smolls with his robe and walked to the house. Where was the mother? Was she capable of the internal rune work like her husband? What would she do?

He paused next to the open door. The lamp cast a glow in the room, but he didn't see anything from where he stood. He didn't want to do a search in case Madam Smolls was as capable of energy moving as her husband.

He decided he should do the unwise thing and hope that Madam Smolls didn't try to kill him.

“Madam Smolls,” Pitt called. “Your husband fell down and hurt himself. Could you help me with him?”

“I don't believe you,” said the woman. She stood somewhere to his right, just outside the glow of the lamp.

“You can look for yourself,” said Pitt. He moved to allow her to get to the door. “He's outside on the edge of the road.”

She hurried to the door. He let her get outside before he put the lamp down and followed her out in the yard. She turned to glare at him when she saw her husband face down in the dirt.

“Do you want to be forthcoming?,” asked Pitt. “We can save some of this violence for the next time we meet.”

“There's nothing to say,” said Madam Smolls. She raised both hands. Flames surrounded them, gathering power from the night air. Pitt punched her before she could unleash the fireballs she was building.

“Everybody wants to do things the hard way,” complained Pitt. He tied her up with her own robe. “What were they hiding?”

He stepped inside the house and looked around with the help of the lamp. He found the usual things a family would have, but also a collection of metal plates with drawings and instructions in an older language on them. He frowned. How had they got those? What did he do with them?

He decided the best thing to do was hide the plates until he could figure out what to do with them. He could take the Smolls to the clerics and let the priests know what was going on and what they were dealing with before things got out of hand. He didn't know what he wanted to do about Annabelle and Spot.

Maybe Mogen Farn had an idea about how he could protect a little girl from her strange parents and their want to engrave magical runes on the bones of themselves and their daughter.

You didn't normally see that anymore since the runes could shift if something happened to the bone. Suddenly you went from a mage to a monster to a body of projecting slime covering everything.

Pitt picked up the Smolls. He jogged down the road toward the temple. He paused long enough to bury the plates under the rock he had moved for Moebs. Then he carried the couple the rest of the way to the temple and knocked on the gate again.

“Again?,” said the gatekeeper, using the gate slot.

“As soon as I talk to Mosein, I am done for the night,” said Pitt. “I have an explanation about the little girl and why it is so hard to heal her right.”

“Those two?,” asked the gatekeeper.

“They are her parents and made it possible,” said Pitt. “Can I come in now?”

The slot closed, and the gate opened. Pitt carried his burden on the grounds and went in search of the clerics. He found his way back to that hall, and to that door. He knocked on the healing room door. The young woman opened the door to look at him and his burden.

“Annabelle's parents engraved runes inside of her,” said Pitt. “They have the same thing and can shoot fireballs without external mana. I don't know what you want to do about it, but that's why you are having problems with helping her. Do you need to know anything else?”

“How exactly are we supposed to fix something like that?,” asked the cleric.

“I don't know exactly,” said Pitt. “We used to break the bones and let them reknit so the runes would do horrible things to their owners. I don't know if you want to do that. Maybe Mogen Farn can give you a better solution.”

“I don't think he is going to want the bones of a little girl broken so we can undo this,” said the cleric.

“If you don't, the runes will change on their own and turn her into a monster,” said Pitt. “She's not going to stay the same size forever.”

“Let me talk to Brother Mosein,” said the cleric. “Maybe we can think of something better now that we know what's really wrong under everything else.”

“I can wait,” said Pitt.