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absolute certainty I can give you is that you won’t survive without me; the rest of the outcome is still…to be determined.”
    The red-haired man blinked, but his green eyes had lost their glaze of shock. He rubbed his scarred chest absently, considering Wencit’s words. Then he surprised himself by smiling suddenly.
    “Well, you’re plainspoken—in some things—for a wizard,” he chuckled. “Basically, I’m damned if I trust you, but doomed if I don’t!”
    “Not a pleasant choice,” Wencit conceded. He fished out a battered pipe and filled it, his fiery eyes watching the younger man unreadably. Then he kindled a splinter at the fire and lit the pipe with care.
    “If you can’t tell me who I am,” the red-haired man said in a strangely dignified voice, “can you at least tell me what I’m supposed to do?”
    “Not entirely.” Wencit blew blue smoke at the waxed cheeses hanging from the kitchen rafters, yet his voice was compassionate. “I can only repeat what I said before. You’re a fighting man, and fighting men are always useful. But you’re much more than that, as well—potentially, at least—and there are things within you which I dare not disturb. Things which may make you of incalculable importance.”
    Gwynna delivered two mugs of hot tea, and the red-haired man thanked her and sniffed the steam, grateful for the interruption while he grappled with the wizard’s words and his maimed memory. He couldn’t believe anything special was hidden within himself, yet with only an empty void for a past, neither could he refute Wencit’s statements.
    He watched the grim figure of legend solemnly produce a silver whistle from one of Gwynna’s tufted ears, and he smiled as the girl clapped her hands in delight. She hugged the wizard’s neck tightly, whispering into his ear before she took her new treasure to show her mother.
    Leeana paused to admire the whistle properly and then touched the red-gold hair gently as she released Gwynna from her tasks. The girl curled down with the direcat, and the huge beast lifted his head from his paws to let her perch comfortably upon his forelegs and lean casually back against his chest. Blanchrach’s head was almost the size of her entire torso, but he rumbled with a powerful purr and rested his chin on her slight shoulder, amber eyes half-slitted.
    Wencit’s glowing eyes followed Gwynna, and the red-haired man recognized the fierce tenderness in the wizard’s momentarily unguarded expression. It did more than any words to win his heart, that tenderness, but he wasn’t prepared to surrender his doubt just yet.
    “Suppose,” he said quietly, leaning forward, “suppose I accept you’re who you say you are and that, impossible as it seems, I really am important. Let’s even say I have to trust you. If I do, though, what—if it doesn’t sound self-serving—is in it for me?”
    “A reasonable question,” Wencit said gently. “And a simple one. But I have no simple answer. I can’t even promise you your life, only the meaning of it.”
    “Riddles within riddles,” the red-haired man sighed.
    “Of course!” Wencit chuckled suddenly. “I’m a wizard, after all.” Then he fixed the younger man with a kinder gaze. “But I will promise you this. I swear by my art that someday, if we both live, you’ll know your own name and the reason for all my actions. For now, I can’t tell you any more than that. Not won’t tell you, but can’t tell you.”
    “I’m afraid I believe that,” the red-haired man said unwillingly.
    “And, believing it, will you let me guide you?”
    “What other choice do I have?”
    “Only those I’ve described to you,” Wencit said softly.
    “Then what can’t be cured must be endured, mustn’t it?”
    “I’m pleased you take it so well.” The wizard’s tone was desert dry.
    “I wouldn’t if I could help it!”
    “I expect not.”
    Wencit fell silent and sipped tea while the red-haired man slowly digested what