As Mihas did this, Besh pulled his knife from the sheath on his belt and dragged the blade across the back of his own hand. His skin there, tanned and brown from the Growing sun, was scored with dozens of thin white lines, all of them running parallel to the cut he had just made; evidence of a life spent drawing upon earth magic. Like rings within the trunks of the great firs and cedars growing in the forests around Kirayde, the lines on a Mettai's hand could be used to judge his or her age.

A man could even trace the history of all his years, if only he could recall the conjuring made whole by the blood that flowed from each of those scars. Some would claim that unnecessary conjurings like this one were a waste of blood and earth, that they were frivolous expressions of Mettai power. But wasn't there value in helping a boy find pride in his heritage and in the power that flowed in his veins? Besh had been conjuring for most of his sixty-four years. This, it seemed to the old man, was as valid a reason as any for drawing forth his blood.

He let the blood well from the wound for several moments before carefully gathering some on the flat of his blade. He held the knife over Mihas's hand, balancing the blood on the steel.

"Blood to earth," he murmured. "Life to power, power to thought, color to clover."

He tipped the blade, allowing the blood to drip off the knife and onto the boy's hand, where it mingled with the earth and the flower. For a moment nothing happened. Then the blood and soil, blended together now in what looked like rich crimson mud, began to swirl slowly in the palm of the boy's hand. Four times it went around, and then it vanished into the roots of the flower.

An instant later, the soft pink hue of the clover gave way to brilliant sapphire. The flower appeared to come to life again, its color dazzling, its leaves opening once more. In the center of the bloom, amid the blue, there appeared a small spot of bright yellow, as perfect and round as the sun in Morna's sky.

Mihas laughed aloud.

"If our magic isn't real," Besh said, "how do you explain that?" The boy reached for another clover. "Do it again, Grandfather!" "No. Once is enough. One should never trifle with Mettai magic." "Can you teach me?"

"Not yet. You know that. When you begin your fourth four you can start to learn. And when you complete that four, you'll have earned your blade. All right?"

Mihas nodded, looking glum. No doubt five years seemed an eternity to the child. Little did he know how quickly the time would pass.

Besh glanced at his hand. The bleeding had slowed. Another scar to mark the years.

Sixteen fours. How quickly they'd gone by. Many among his people lived to be this old. He wasn't so unusual in that respect. If anything, he was more fit than most. Sixty-four was said to be a powerful age for those who reached it, a time of wisdom and enhanced magic. For most it was actually a year of endings. How many men had he seen live out their sixteenth four only to weaken and die soon after?

Besh had no intention of being one of them. He planned to guide Mihas into his power. Better him than Sirj, the boy's father. The man would make a mess of it, and in the process he'd do the same to the boy. Besh had never liked Sirj's father-he was as stubborn as he was stupid, and he could never manage to keep his mouth shut. It was bad enough that the man had built his house just next to Besh and Ema's back when she still lived and Besh still worked as the village cooper. But that Elica should marry the man's son… Besh shook his head. He would have spit at the thought of Elica's fool of a husband had Mihas not been there, watching him. No, Besh couldn't die yet. Once Mihas came of age he could go and join Ema in the Underrealm, but not before.

He licked the blood from the back of his hand and from his blade, as was proper. A Mettai never wasted blood, and by licking the wound, he stopped the bleeding. From what he'd heard over the years, he gathered that this wasn't true for other Eandi or for the sorcerer race. But it worked for a Mettai every time.

"Can I see your knife again, Grandfather?"

"Have a care with it," he said, handing it to Mihas, hilt first.

Mihas's brown eyes danced in the sunlight. "I always do. You're the one who's always cutting himself."

Besh had to laugh.

Clever boy. His mother's child. Dark-skinned and long-limbed, like Elica and like Ema, and as quick as both of them. Ema would say that the father of such a child couldn't be all bad. As far as Besh was concerned it meant only that Elica's blood was stronger than her husband's.

The old man turned his attention back to the clover and grasses intruding upon his goldroot, and for a long time he and the boy said nothing. The sun burned a lazy arc across the sky, blue save for a few feathered clouds. Swallows darted overhead, wheeling in the light wind, chattering and scolding like children at play.

"Are you the oldest person in Kirayde?" Mihas asked suddenly.

The boy was sitting in the dirt, still toying with the knife. The blueand-gold clover lay on his knee, a prize that he would show his mother and father.

Besh laughed at the question. "No," he said. "I'm not the oldest."

He turned and sat, stretching out his stiff legs. An old man shouldn't kneel for so long, Ema's voice scolded in his head. If you're not careful, you'll wind up bent and lame.

"That little girl you play with, the one with so many older brothers." "Nissa?"

"Yes, Nissa."

"She only has four brothers."

"Only four?" Besh said. "I thought it was more than that. Anyway, her grandmother is older than I am. And so is the herbmistress."

"She is?"

Besh raised his eyebrows. "Is that so hard to believe?"

"Not really. I just…" Mihas shrugged. "If you're not the oldest, then why are you one of the village elders? Nissa's grandmother isn't."

"No, she's not, but the herbmistress is. Truly, Mihas, I don't know why the other elders chose me to join their circle. But I do know that there's more to the choice than just a person's age."

"Oh." Mihas turned the knife over in his hands. "What about Old Lici? Is she older than you?"

Besh glanced at the boy again, but Mihas seemed intent on the blade. Most likely he was curious and nothing more. Besh had seen several children shouting taunts at the old woman just a few days before, and he had warned Mihas to stay away from her. When the boy had asked him why, he hadn't been able to give a good reason. This was the first time either of them had mentioned the woman since then.

"I believe she is older," Besh said, trying to keep his tone light.

Apparently he failed.

"You don't like her, do you, Grandfather?"

"I don't really care for her one way or another."

"It seems like you don't like her."

Clever indeed.

Mihas was right. Besh didn't like the old witch who lived at the southern edge of their village. Or more to the point, he didn't trust her. He might even have been afraid of her. Besh had been no more than a babe suckling at his mother's breast when Lici first came to Kirayde, but he'd heard others speak of her arrival enough times that he could almost claim as his own other people's memories of that cool Harvest day.

Lici was but eight years old at the time, a pretty girl with long black hair and fair features. But something dark lurked in her green eyes-the memory of tragedy, some said-and for some time she refused to speak. It was clear to all that she had wandered alone in the wild for many, many days, perhaps as long as an entire turn of the moons, and that she had been without proper food and clothing for all that time. She was emaciated. Her arms and legs were covered with insect bites and scarred as if from brambles, and her hair was matted with filth. Most likely she had kept herself alive by eating what roots and berries she could find.