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turn to leave.
    Elswyth sighed loudly, as though she was the one who kept losing in this bargaining. "What?"
    "What would it cost me to buy a spell from you?"
    Selwyn didn't at all like the smile she gave him at that.
    "What kind of spell?" she asked.
    "A spell to prove my innocence."
    "You will have to be more specific than that," she told him.
    Selwyn considered. There were only two people who knew for a fact that he was innocent: he himself and the murderer. He cast a nervous glance at Farold's shrouded body. Well, actually, counting the dead man, that made three. He swallowed hard and said to Elswyth, "You know a great deal about dead bodies."
    "I'm well read," she told him with a wildly innocent smile.
    "Do you know how to bring the dead back to life?"
    "No," she said. But she paused to deliberate. Selwyn held his breath, which had nothing to do with the smell. She said, "Well, perhaps. But only temporarily. And it depends..."
    Selwyn could hardly get his voice to work, knowing he was getting himself into the darkest sorceries. He asked, "On what?"
    Elswyth counted out on her gnarled fingers, having to go around the magic light. "The right ingredients. Which, by coincidence, I do happen to be carrying with me." She moved on to a second finger. "The amount of time the dead has been, in fact, dead." She, too, glanced at Farold. "Which, in this case, may be a complication." She moved on to her third finger. "And the willingness of the dead to come back."
    Selwyn said, "I will give you yet another year of my life to raise Farold from the dead for me, just long enough so that he can publicly proclaim that I didn't kill him."
    "Oh, no," Elswyth said, almost laughing at how ridiculous that offer was. "The casting of this spell will cost you three years all of itself, whether your Farold chooses to heed its call or not."
    Three years!
Selwyn thought. Without assurance that it would work. On top of the one year he had already agreed to for Elswyth's showing him out of the cavern, and another for not starting his service immediately, and ... He said, "If Farold clears my name tonight, I won't need the extra week we discussed."
    Elswyth gave that smile he was growing to dread. "But you already agreed."
    Selwyn gritted his teeth.
Six years.
But what other choice had he? He nodded.
    Once more Elswyth put her magical light over her head to free her hands. "Bring the body here," she commanded Selwyn.
    "You mean, touch him?"
    Elswyth smacked him on the side of the head. "If you tell me that you can magically transport him without touching him," she said, "I'll apologize for that."
    Selwyn took many gulps of air, and flexed his fingers, and closed his eyes and wished that he would awake from this terrible dream. But in the end he had to walk over to where Farold's body lay, and he had to get his hands under the weight of it, and he had to pick it up—all loose and floppy as it was.
    "Don't worry," Elswyth said, "he won't start to fall apart for several more days."
    Selwyn began to gag, though he hadn't eaten since earliest morning a full day and a half ago.
    Elswyth pointed to another body, set in the wall and resting on a litter. "Bring me some of the wood from that one's bier."
    It would do no good to protest. Dry pieces broke off easily in Selwyn's hands—this body had lain here a long time. Selwyn whispered an apology to it, anyway
    "Kneel down," Elswyth said, "and don't break the circle."
    "What circle?" Selwyn started to ask, but Elswyth was already scratching a mark on the rocky floor with a sparkling stone she had gotten from her pack, a circle that was big enough to enclose her, Selwyn, and Farold, as well as the wood he had brought. Next, she arranged this wood into a neat little pile, and she set about trying to strike a spark, using flint, steel, and a bit of flax.
    "Can't you start a fire magically?" Selwyn asked.
    "One can't use magic to make magic," Elswyth told him. "And every time you speak, you drain energy and make