I found Bregg and the hunters waiting for us when we reached the shore again. The old hunter glared at me as we approached, then turned his gaze to the shaman.

“Was it worthwhile, Letharvis?”

Aeld hesitated, then exchanged a glance with the big hunter. Bregg froze for a moment and looked toward the ship, then back with a hard expression at the single tent still standing. “I can get it to talk,” he growled, flexing his fists.

“No, Bregg,” Aeld replied, placing a hand on the big man’s arm. “There’s no need for you to dirty your fingers. I have ways to gather information that are far less messy.”

“Fine,” the hunter spat. “But I’m coming with you. I won’t leave you alone with that ojain!”

“He wasn’t going to be alone,” I pointed out. “I’m coming along.”

“This is the business of the valskab, Hemskal,” Bregg said flatly. “It has nothing to do with you.”

“Actually, since I was the one to take her prisoner when you would have killed her, I think it’s my business, not yours, Bregg,” I countered.

“He—he’s right, Bregg,” Aeld said with a sigh. “That choice was his, not ours, so it’s part of his path.” He looked at me with a serious expression. “Still, Freyd, I’d like to question the ojain. I do have ways to get it to speak whether it wants to or not. Plus, I do speak some of its language.”

“Happy to have you along, then, Aeld.”

“In which case, I’m coming, too,” Bregg growled. “One way or another, Hemskal.”

“As long as you don’t interfere, I don’t care what you do,” I shrugged. “Now, come on. I’ve got her restrained, Aeld, but you might need to wake her up before we can talk to her.”

As it turned out, the ojain was fully awake when we entered the tent. She didn’t appear to be, at least not at first glance. Her eyes were closed, and her head hung limply to the side, as if she were still unconscious, but it was easy to tell that she was pretending. Her head drooped sideways, but not quite far enough to let the loop around her neck put pressure on her throat. Her eyelids trembled as she fought not to look in our direction, and her body wasn’t quite limp as she supported her weight. Plus, the ground around her bore scuff marks from where she’d struggled, apparently trying to break the circle I’d drawn around her.

I turned to Aeld to tell him that the woman was awake, but he ignored her and moved to squat beside the circle I’d drawn.

“Freyd, what did you do, here?” he asked, his voice a little surprised.

“I just drew a circle,” I shrugged. “Like the one you used before the battle to hide your presence. I figured that if a circle like that kept power in so she couldn’t sense it, it would also keep power out so she couldn’t tap it.”

“Yes, a circle could be used that way,” he agreed slowly. “But this—this is more than that! I can’t feel anything beyond it at all, and neither can my spirits. It’s like you cut everything inside off from the spirit world entirely!” He waved a hand before the barrier, not quite touching it. “How did you do this?”

“I just did it,” I said deprecatingly. “By the way, before you say anything else, you should know that she’s awake.”

The shaman stopped and turned toward the woman, who still lay slumped in pretend slumber. “Are you certain?”

“Yeah. She’s faking it. Look at the way her eyes are twitching—and the ground around her feet. She woke up, tried to escape, then stopped when she heard us getting close. At least, that’s what it looks like to me.”

“Good eyes,” Bregg grunted with grudging respect, shifting his hand on his weapon. “He’s right, Letharvis. She’s awake.”

“We know that you do not sleep.” I suppressed a since at Aeld’s attempt to speak Oikithikiim. It was accurate enough, but the pronunciation was terrible, and his mouth seemed to have trouble with some of the sounds, making the words thick and slurred. “Awaken and answer us.”

The woman’s eyes slid open, and she straightened, staring at Aeld with a mixture of fear, hatred, and contempt. “Fine, Beast,” she spat angrily, shifting her body around. “I’m awake. If you think that you’ll get answers from me, though, you’re gravely mistaken!”

“You will answer,” Aeld said simply, lifting his staff. “You will, or I will make you. Choice is for you.”

She snorted. “You sound like a child,” she said contemptuously. “And I’m not afraid of you or your disgusting Anduruk heresy. Do your worst.”

“The worst is bad. It may break your spirit or mind. It will hurt. If you talk, it will not happen.”

“Your spirits are weak and pathetic, just like you are,” she snapped. “Go ahead, try and compel me. I’ll bind your spirits and turn them against you!”

The shaman hesitated and looked at me. “I believe I can compel her,” he said after a moment. “However, doing so through your circle will be extremely difficult, Freyd. Can you break it?”

“I can.” I paused and gestured at the hunter beside me. “However, it might be easier to let Bregg have some time with her first. His spear can reach her through the circle, and after he’s bled her out a bit, you might not need to compel her.”

“Give me five minutes, Letharvis, and I can guarantee she’ll tell you whatever you want to know,” the big hunter growled, lifting his spear.

“Or we could just cut away this tent and let the wind and cold in,” I added. “Maybe she’ll be willing to talk to keep herself from freezing to death. I’ll bet once the first of her fingers freezes solid, she’ll feel a lot more cooperative.” I leaned toward the woman, activating Terrifying Demeanor as I did and seeing the sudden spike of panic flare in her eyes. “If cold doesn’t work, maybe fire will. I imagine watching herself be cooked alive might loosen her tongue a bit.” I felt the heavy silence as the others stared at me, but I ignored them.

“Of course, you could avoid all that by just talking to us,” I said conversationally, speaking directly to the woman. I’d been watching her face as we talked, and I saw the understanding in her eyes—and the fear as she heard my threats. “You do speak our language, after all, don’t you?”

“Y-yes,” she said in badly accented Menskallin a moment later. “I—I speak your language.” Her accent was terrible, but her pronunciation and grammar were both better than Aeld’s attempts at Oikie.

“Good.” I squatted down next to the barrier and gave her a friendly smile. “What’s your name?”

“M-my name?” she asked.

“Yes. You have a name, don’t you? What is it?”

“S-Sointa,” she stammered, her voice sounding slightly confused. “Sointa Ammatilata.”

“Sointa,” I repeated thoughtfully. “Okay, Sointa, here’s the thing. You’re going to answer my questions, one way or another. It’s going to happen. You can fight and resist, but all that’s going to do is make this worse for you.” I slowly drew my knife and held it up where she could see, turning it gently in the dim light. “Do you want me to tell you what I could do to make you talk? What I will do to make you talk? Do you want me to describe the kind of pain I can inflict on you? How close I can get you to death and keep you there, for days on end?”

My gaze hardened, and I leaned forward slightly. “Because that’s what will happen, Sointa. In ten minutes, you’ll beg me to stop hurting you, but I won’t. In an hour, you’ll beg me to kill you—but I won’t. In a day, you’ll promise me anything—anything at all—just to let you die, and I still won’t. In the end, you’ll tell me everything that I want to know, but you’ll do it as a shattered, broken lump of meat, barely alive and conscious. That’s what’s about to happen to you, unless you start talking, right now.”

The woman’s eyes widened as I spoke, and the blood drained from her face. I knew that my words alone wouldn’t break her, but they would set the stage for what I was going to do. I wanted her afraid—no, I wanted her terrified. I could use that terror to break her faster, after all. To my surprise, though, she shuddered as my words sank into her, and her head dropped forward as tears streamed from her eyes.

“Please,” she said softly, her whole body shaking and trembling. “Please, no. I—I’ll answer your questions. By the Great Spirits, I’ll answer. Just don’t hurt me!”

I blinked in surprise; the woman had been full of fire and iron when speaking to Aeld just moments before. It didn’t make sense that a few threats would break her that quickly, not when I hadn’t even shown my willingness to follow up on them.

“It’s your Dread Investigator ability, John,” Sara explained quietly.

“What?” I asked silently.

“Dread Investigator. It adds the bonus from your Interrogation skill to any sort of questioning, even when you haven’t actively interrogated the person, remember?”

I did remember gaining the skill, but I’d forgotten that it was there. That would certainly be useful; I didn’t really like torturing people, but the fact was, sometimes getting information was important enough that what I wanted didn’t really matter.

“Okay,” I said, refocusing my thoughts. The sudden change had caught me off-guard, and my mind raced to catch up. “It’s a deal. Answer our questions, and I won’t do any of those things to you.” I stopped and recentered myself, picking back up on the thread of my questioning.

Interrogation isn’t just a matter of asking questions. It’s a technique, and one that I have a certain amount of practice at. Just because you break someone doesn’t mean that you can just barge in asking them whatever you want to know. That’s likely to convince them to try to clam up again, and then you have to break them all over again. Instead, you have to lead them to the questions you want by starting slowly and working up to them. The idea is to get them so used to simply answering that they don’t stop to think when you ask them the important questions.

“Where are you from, Sointa?” I asked amiably, not putting away my knife but no longer twisting it in front of her face.

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“L-Lokiri,” she said, her voice dull and tired-sounding.

“I’ve never been there. What’s it like?”

“It’s—it’s just a town on the Jayoki River.”

“Do you still live there?”

“No. I live in Pitatali, where the Jayoki empties into the Eastern Sea.” She stared at the ground as she spoke, her eyes occasionally flicking up toward my knife.

“Is that where you boarded the ship?” I asked.

Her eyes hardened slightly, but I lifted the knife, and she swallowed hard. “Y-yes.”

“You’re doing great,” I said reassuringly. “Did you sail directly here from Pitatali?” That I could check, or at least Sara could with the charts and map.

“No, of course not.” She gave me a strange look. “We had to sail far to the north to avoid the—what do you beasts call it? The Endalbarat.”

“That means something like Storm of Forever, John,” Sara translated.

“And then, you came here?”

“Yes.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Several weeks, at least.”

“Are there other ships in the area? Or was yours the only one?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. I lifted the knife, and she paled. “I don’t! I don’t know!” Tears began to stream from her eyes as she spoke. “The sailors set up the camp, and I never saw another ship, but one could have arrived and used the camp after we left. The kateen would know, not me!”

“Okay. Now, for the big question. Why were you here in the first place? What were you doing?”

She hesitated again, and I moved quickly, crossing the circle in a rush. I grabbed her hair and tilted her head back, pressing the blade just below her eye. “Don’t stop talking now,” I growled. “It was just getting interesting. Why. Are. You. Here?”

“The—the silver!” she babbled, sobbing and shaking as she spoke. “We had barrels of silver, and we poured them into the ocean! I don’t know why!”

“Then why are you here, specifically? If they didn’t need you, why bring you along?”

“To maintain the spirits driving the vessel! It was a long voyage, longer than normal, and the storms and cold let some of them escape! I’m just here to keep the ship running smoothly! I swear it by the Great Spirits!”

I held the blade in place for a moment before a familiar scent of urine struck my nose. I glanced down and saw the back of the woman’s undergarments stained with fluid, which told me all I needed to know. She was telling me the truth—either that, or she was an amazingly good actress. Few people would piss themselves to sell a story.

“Fine,” I sighed, lowering the knife and stepping back. I looked at the others and motioned toward the exit. They followed me out, and I turned to see Bregg eyeing me speculatively, while Aeld’s face was clearly unhappy.

“Freyd, that…,” the shaman said hesitantly. “That was…”

“Necessary,” I cut him off abruptly.

“I was going to say brutal,” he argued. “And unnecessary. I could have compelled it to speak.”

“Only if I freed her from the circle,” I pointed out. “And doing that might have given her access to her abilities. Plus, she seemed pretty confident that you wouldn’t be able to compel her.”

“The Oikithikiim always underestimate the power of the letharvisa, Freyd.”

“Or they know exactly how powerful you are, and she’s got some sort of defense against you.” I looked at Bregg. “Would you have taken that chance, Bregg?”

“No,” the old hunter replied after a moment. “No, I wouldn’t have. And he’s right, Letharvis. Sometimes, ruthlessness and brutality are the best path to take.” He snorted. “However, in this case, it was a waste of time. The Oikithikiim knows nothing.”

“It wasn’t a waste of anything, Bregg. We know that they were pouring some kind of silver, and that it’s probably in the holds. We’ll want to get a sample of that to examine, to be sure. Knowing that she didn’t know anything is useful, too, as is knowing that if there are other ships out here, they stay far enough away from one another that she never saw one. In fact, that’s probably the most useful bit of information we got.”

“I’m not sure how you can call that useful, Hemskal.”

I pointed at the pile of supplies that Bregg’s hunters had gathered. “What are you going to do with that, Bregg? And with the ship?”

“Burn them both, of course.”

“And that will create a glow that can be seen for a long way in the dark. You could wait for sunrise, of course, but then you’re just trading a glow for a pillar of smoke. In either case, if there is anyone else out here, destroying this camp is going to bring them running. Thanks to what she told us, though, we know that anyone who might see the evidence of that destruction is probably far enough away that we’ll be long gone before they arrive.” The hunter grunted but didn’t say anything, and I turned back to Aeld.

“I’m going to need your light to find that silver they were using, Aeld. We’ll want to look at that, I think—and we might want to bring a sample back for your rashi to examine, as well.”

The shaman looked at the ship with reluctance, but after a moment, he sighed heavily. “You’re right, Freyd,” he said. “We should at least look at it. Let’s go.”

“All three of us,” Bregg interjected.

“I thought you didn’t want to touch that ship?” I asked the old hunter.

“I don’t, and you shouldn’t either. However, I’m not about to let the letharvis go down inside that thing without some sort of protection.”

“I’ll be there, too, Bregg,” I pointed out, refraining from rolling my eyes.

“You aren’t part of the valskab, Hemskal. You don’t count.” The big man stormed past us toward the gangplank. “Let’s go get this over with, so we can burn this place and get back to the Haelendi.”

Exploring the ship’s lower decks wasn’t a terribly complex process, but it wasn’t a comfortable one, either. The ship had been designed to maximize available space, meaning no cabin or passage was any larger than it had to be. Since it had also been made with Oikies in mind, the passageways were narrow, and the overheads were low, forcing us to duck down and walk in a stooped posture the entire time. Bregg insisted on being in front, with Aeld in the middle and me taking up the rear—which was, quite frankly, the worst possible way for us to explore.

The fact was, I knew enough about ships to know that the cargo would probably be stored low and to the front and back, fore and aft in sailing terms. The extra weight in those places would serve as ballast, making the ship stabler in rougher seas, and that way the crew could sleep amidships, from where they could easily get to any part of the ship quickly. However, Bregg didn’t seem to know any of that, and I couldn’t think of a way to tell him that wouldn’t make it look like I knew more than I should have. I was already probably going to have to explain how I knew how to interrogate someone, but that wasn’t too hard. I already had an idea for a cover story that would serve to explain my skills and knowledge—and lack of both—without too many issues, but that story wouldn’t include knowing the layout of an Oikie ship.

So, we ended up wandering across the middle deck, through galleys and workstations, peering into each compartment futilely. It took Bregg ten minutes to assure himself that nothing interesting was on that deck and to take the stairs—there were no ladders, which I guessed might be hard for quadrupeds to navigate—down to the bottom deck. We passed through the crew quarters into the forward hold, which was filled mostly with food and water. I had guessed it would be, mostly because the galley was also forward, and it made sense to have the food close to where you cooked it.

I couldn’t really say that, though, so I followed gamely along as he led us to the rear of the ship, where several heavy barrels rested on their sides in racks, chained down so they wouldn’t roll around. Each had a wax plug set into the top of the cask, and when I pried one of those free with my knife, a silvery fluid that glittered in Aeld’s light gushed out. The fluid was thick and viscous, flowing like glue instead of water, and it clung together on the deck, forming a circular puddle half an inch deep rather than flowing out to cover the wood the way water would. I activated See Magic and See Spirits in quick succession; the fluid glowed with arcane energy, but it looked lifeless and dull in my spiritual sight.

“Well, she was telling the truth about this,” I sighed, shoving the plug back in place and tapping it in with my knife’s hilt. I pointed down at the puddle of liquid on the floor that looked somewhat like mercury. “Any idea what this is?”

“Never seen anything like it before,” Bregg grunted, standing well back from the fluid. “It doesn’t look safe to me—or natural.”

“It’s not,” Aeld said softly, squatting over the pool and holding a hand out over it. “Natural, that is. I can’t say for sure if it’s safe to touch, though.”

“It should be,” Sara offered silently. “I’m not sensing any spiritual energy in it, at least, so I don’t think there’s anything in it that could hurt you.”

“How do you know it’s not natural?” I asked.

“I can feel the energy flowing through it,” the shaman explained. “It’s—strange.”

“It’s that profane Henguki,” Bregg growled.

“Certainly, but it doesn’t feel like their normal unclean practices. Then, I can sense the trapped spirits within, yearning to escape. I don’t feel anything like that here. It’s as if they managed to store spiritual energy without binding a spirit somehow.”

“Meaning what?” I asked.

“I don’t know, Freyd,” he sighed, rubbing his face tiredly. “I’ve never even heard of something like this, much less what it could be used for.” He lowered his hand and looked at me gravely. “I can tell you this, though. I’m pretty sure this means that the ojain was lying to you.”

“Lying?” I asked skeptically. “Are you sure, Aeld?”

“Not completely, but it makes sense.” He pointed to the puddle of fluid. “This isn’t a natural creation, Freyd. I can feel the power in it. It was made by Henguki—and that means that the creature likely either made it or at least knows how to use it.”

“Unless it was made elsewhere and just brought along.”

“I suppose that’s possible, but it’s more likely that the ojain is skilled at deception and tricked you.” He sighed. “Tricked all of us, in fact.”

“Why tell us about the silver, then?” I argued. “She had to know we’d check it out.”

“Perhaps it didn’t realize I would be able to sense the energy inside it,” he shrugged. “I don’t know, but I think I’m going to have to compel it to tell us.”

“It’s too dangerous, Letharvis,” Bregg interjected. “The Hemskal had a point. If you break the circle, the creature might find a way to use its powers against us. We’ve lost two hunters already; we can’t afford to lose more.”

“Maybe we could create a circle on something moveable, like a wooden sled,” I offered.

“It wouldn’t work, Hemskal. Your circle might hold out spirits, but it won’t stop the thing from physically crossing it, and that would give it access to its profane taint again. If you make a circle large enough that it can’t cross it, then it’s too large to pass through the narrow places in the High Reaches.”

“There might be another way,” Aeld said slowly. “I might be able to cut it off from its abilities—permanently. Then, I could safely compel it.” Bregg sucked in a deep breath, but I just looked at the shaman with obvious interest. Being able to cut someone off from their magical abilities permanently could be a very useful thing, obviously.

“How would you do that?” I asked.

“I can I bind it so that it can’t touch the spirits. That would remove its abilities permanently, and it would be harmless to us.”

“Letharvis, you can’t do that!” Bregg growled.

“I can, Bregg,” the shaman replied, his voice quiet but hard as iron. “I am the letharvis, not you. I am the arbiter of the spirits.”

“The rashi…”

“The rashi chose me for this mission, Bregg. They gave me this authority; it’s mine to use, no one else’s.”

“They’ll be angry when we return,” the hunter growled.

“Then next time, they can send another.” The shaman laughed thinly. “They won’t, though, and we both know why.”

“I’m confused,” I cut into their byplay. “What are you talking about, and why does Bregg seem to think it’s a bad idea?”

The two continued to glare at one another for several seconds, but at last, Bregg snorted and stepped back, looking away from Aeld, and the shaman turned to me with a weak smile.

“Bregg’s correct to be concerned, Freyd,” he said. “Binding a mortal spirit is a serious matter.”

“Deadly serious,” Bregg growled.”

“Serious how, exactly?” I pressed. “What is it?”

“I’ve told you a little about the spirits, Freyd,” Aeld explained after a moment’s hesitation. “You recall that I told you that close spirits seek to possess the bodies of mortal beings, yes? Well, part of the duty of a letharvis is to find those and drive them out.”

He grimaced. “Sometimes, though, that’s not possible. Sometimes, a Menskallin’s spirit is so deeply bound to the close spirit that removing it would damage their spirit permanently. When that happens, the only recourse is to bind the Menskallin’s spirit. Doing so cuts them off forever from the world of spirits and forcibly ejects the close spirit.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “So, why is that a bad thing?”

“Because being severed from the world of the spirits isn’t a simple matter, Freyd. It’s as painful as losing a limb.”

“It’s more like losing your senses,” Bregg countered in a dark tone. “All of them, all at once. Imagine it, young hunter. Imagine suddenly having all your senses stripped from you, being left alone in the darkness, unable to hear a sound or feel the world around you. That’s what those who’ve had it happen to them say it’s like. It’s bad enough that most of those who go through it end their own lives rather than living that way.”

“Then why not just do that instead of binding them?”

“Sadly, killing them would only release their spirit, not free their body,” Aeld explained. “The close spirit within them would still inhabit and animate their body, at least for a time, creating an abomination known as an upvannik. They’re terrible creatures, immune to pain and fear and filled with malice and cunning.”

“Binding is an option of last resort,” Bregg added, glaring at the shaman. “And not something I’d wish even on an Oikithikiim.”

“Neither would I, Bregg, but we need to know more, and this is the only safe way.” The shaman sighed again. “Besides, it won’t have to live like that. At least, not for long.”

The hunter’s face hardened, but at last, he looked away from the shaman. “Do as you must, Letharvis,” he said shortly. “As you said, the decision is yours alone—and only you will have to answer for it.”

“Yes, I will,” Aeld said, rising to his feet. “In more ways than one, Bregg.”