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the light had caused her to see what she most desired. “That wasn’t the goddess,” she said to the night, as if it needed convincing. “I haven’t had a vision since I conceived Froan.”
    Yim was certain that she knew why: part of the enemy remained within her.
Karm can’t speak to me without speaking to the Devourer
. Nevertheless, that understanding didn’t lessen her sense of abandonment. The goddess’s absence was yet another burden she had to bear. “Small wonder my eyes play tricks on me.” Yim sighed heavily, then lit the torch.
    Before Yim butchered the carcass, she took care of the hide. First she spread it out, hair side down, and liberally covered it with salt. Salt was a trade item in the Grey Fens, and precious, but there was no other way to cure a hide. Then she folded the skin, placing salted side to salted side, folded it again, put it in a loosely woven reed basket, and hung it in the cave. Afterward, she whetted her knife and began to cut the meat into thin strips. It took a long time to reduce an entire goat to ribbons of flesh and arrange them on the racks for smoking. Afterward, Yim lit a fire and disposed of the goat’s bones while the fire burned to embers. Then she retrieved wood that she had soaked in the bog, covered the embers with the wet boughs, and set the racks of meat over them to smoke. By then, she was totally exhausted, and the sky was lightening with the promise of dawn.
    There was one last thing Yim had to do before she could sleep: she needed to clean the blood from the butchering stone. With the day’s first light, she could see it more clearly. Thick clots of dark maroon covered the smooth gray rock. Yim stared at the butchering stone wearily, feeling too tired to fetch the water to wash it. That was when the compulsion seized her to lick the stone clean instead. Before she knew it, she was running her tongue over its surface. While alarmed by what she was doing, Yim couldn’t stop. She savored the salty, metallic taste that encompassed life and death at once, and it was a long while before she found the strength to break away.
    Then Yim stood shuddering in the dawn, distraught over her weakness and the power of the evil thing inside her. She knew that it was nothing compared to the force of what lay within her son. Staring at the stone in the light of daybreak, she saw that it was mostly clean. As Yim went to get water to wash the remnant of blood away, she despaired for Froan.

SEVEN
    A VAGRANT’S life had made Honus a light sleeper, and he woke as soon as dawn’s light streamed through Daven’s open door. The hermit lay close by, apparently asleep. Honus quietly rose into a cross-legged sitting position, closed his eyes, and commenced the meditations to trance, but instead of visiting the Dark Path, he felt Daven’s stick across his back. “Thief!” shouted the old man. “I won’t have it!”
    Honus opened his eyes and saw that Daven had retreated out of reach. “Why name me that? I’ve stolen nothing.”
    “I, too, can trance,” replied Daven. “So I know what you were taking—the memories of others.”
    “Memories the dead have discarded.”
    “Those who snatched offerings from the temple claimed the gifts were discarded, too. Your offense is no less great.”
    “Theodus never objected.”
    “Never?”
    “Well, seldom.”
    “You mean he indulged your vice,” said Daven. “That was a mistake. And see how it has ended. Yesterday you spoke of your feelings for Yim. If you’re to help her, you must stop trancing.”
    “It’s not so easy,” replied Honus.
    “It’s oft easier to die than live. Is that what you choose? To forsake your love?”
    “She forsook me.”
    Daven sighed dramatically. “We’ve been through thisbefore. She felt she had no choice. Will you hold it against her?”
    Honus said nothing.
    “Then abandon Yim for the memories of others, for happiness that isn’t yours. But if you do, I’ll tell you this: You’ll soon visit