"What has this to do with the wizard?" she demanded, getting to the heart of the matter.

Mbugua decided to answer in kind. "There is an enspelled pearl within the clam shell. Wear it when Ka'Narlist sends for you. It will steal a portion of his spirit."

The girl nodded thoughtfully. There was no hint of fear in her eyes as she contemplated this attack upon her powerful master. "But how can this be done, that he will not notice?"

"Look at the sky," Mbugua advised her. "Does its sapphire hue dim when you take a single breath? Are the stars drawn closer when you weep? The sky cannot be diminished so. Thus it is with the spirit: it is a thing without beginning or end. The single breath of it that is drawn into the pearl will not disturb the wizard."

A rare smile broke over Satarah's face, and she quickly slipped the necklace over her head. "This I will do, and gladly. I only regret that it will bring the wizard no pain!"

"There is one more thing I need of you," Mbugua said hesitantly, "but first I must tell you more about Ka'Narlist's work than you will want to hear." When the girl nodded her encouragement, he told her of the wizard's ambition-to create a race of seagoing creatures from his own blood, a vicious race that would conquer and control the seas.

"Soon he will beget his first blood-child," Mbugua concluded. "I want my blood to mingle with Ka'Narlist's in that monster's body. I would bind the creature to me with the blood-bonds of the wemic clan, and turn him against the wizard. This is not something I do lightly, and for it, I will need your help. Your blood."

Satarah regarded him narrowly, hearing his reasoning but suspecting it. "Why not use your own?"

"Is Ka'Narlist such a fool, that he would not notice if his creature was born with four legs and fur?" Mbugua retorted. "No, you carry the blood of the wemic clan, but your outward form is more like that of an elf. It is still a risk, but a smaller one."

The girl shrugged. "I care not for the risk. But I do not see why the creature that results would work against the wizard."

Again Mbugua heard the unspoken question behind her words. He dared not tell her the second half of his plan-his determination to imbue the creature with Ka'Narlist's own rapacious spirit, with the wizard's driving ambition for conquest. Mbugua's fondest, darkest hope was that the creature would set its sights upon Ka'Narlist's impressive wealth, and devise a way to own it. It would not be the first time that a son ousted his father, nor would it be the last. Yet the creature would not have Ka'Narlist's magic, and could in turn be overthrown. Mbugua dared not tell Satarah any of this, for fear that the wizard might somehow get it from her. He would tell her what he could, and pray that she was daughter enough to understand.

"Why would this creature not seek vengeance," Mbugua retorted, "seeing that the wizard enslaves many of his wemic kindred? The ties of blood-bond are powerful in the clan. Do you not know this to be so?"

"I am only half wemic," Satarah said bitterly. But her fingers clutched her father's gift, traced the rune that he had etched unto the clamshell-the rune that proclaimed her, a woeful thing begotten of a foul wizard's magic, a member of a proud wemic clan. Her eyes were bright and fierce as they sought Mbugua's. "But yes, my father, the bonds of blood are strong. I know it to be so! I will do all that you ask."

The wemic cupped her cheek in his massive hand, and sadness smote him deeply as he realized it was the first caress he had ever offered to his elflike child.

Satarah gripped her father's tawny hand with both her own, fiercely and briefly confirming their pact and their bond. Then she stepped back and squared her shoulders as if preparing herself for the battle ahead.

Is that wineskin empty? Loretelling is thirsty work. Listening also has a way of drying the throat, and you and your kindred listen well. A finer audience I have seldom seen!

A trick? How so? Surely a band ofelven hunter-warriors is match for a single wemic loreteller, whether you drink or no. Such suspicions do not speak well for you, elf. As mygrandsire would say, "A thief never forgets to bolt his own door."

And have I not given my oath that I will not fight until the tale is told?

Oh, very good, elf! You turn my own taunt back against me-a nimble riposte! Yes, I have also pledged to give you the entire story, and so I shall.

That very night, the inhabitants of the wizard's castle shivered as they listened to the wemic shaman's song, carried to them by a mournful wind.

It was not an unfamiliar sound. They knew full well what it meant: yet another inhabitant of Ka'Narlist Keep had died. The knowledge that their turn could come at any time chilled them as they listened to the wemic's rhythmic chant. But tonight, the shaman's voice seemed somehow different-infinitely sadder and throbbing with suppressed wrath.

Far below the listening castle, Mbugua sang the spirit of Satarah on its way to the proud afterlife that awaited wemic warriors.

But first, he'd taken from her body two things: a vial of the blood that flowed freely from her many wounds, and a black pearl vibrating with a spirit so malevolent, so ambitious and vile that it could only be Ka'Narlist's. Of this, the wemic shaman was certain, as certain as he was that the daughter of his blood and his spirit lay dead before him.

Success was his. Later, perhaps, Mbugua would be grimly pleased. Now there was only frustration, and a grief deeper than he had expected to feel.

When the ritual was completed, when Satarah was well and truly gone, the wemic roared his rage and his anguish out over the uncaring sea.

And far above the windswept shore, the inhabitants of Ka'Narlist's castle shivered at the terrible sound. They had many reasons to fear the wizard; the fact that he himself did not fear the wemic was high among them.

In the birthing chamber, a female sea elf's moans mingled with the resonant chanting of the wemic shaman. Mbugua crouched beside the shallow pool where the elf woman labored, humming and chanting softly as he sang the child within her toward the light.

The sea elf tensed as yet another massive contraction rippled across her rounded belly. Her body arched, her mouth opened in a shriek of pure anguish. Mbugua reached into the water and caught the babe as it slipped from her body.

At once, the wemic knew that he had succeeded in shaping Ka'Narlist's magical begetting. The infant was not at all what the wizard had intended. It was a boy-child, perfectly formed, and utterly sea-elven, from his softly pointed ears to the fine webbing between the fingers of his tiny, flailing fists. But Mbugua's shaman senses, finely tuned to the new life in his hands, felt the blood-bonds of his own clan tying him to the child. The wemic shaman continued to sing, this time a song of welcome, as he tended the child and the exhausted sea elf who had birthed it.

The female's eyes followed Mbugua's every move, and slowly the despair in them changed to wonder- and the dawning of a mother's intense love. But Mbugua shook his head when she reached hungry arms out for the beautiful newborn. Although her blood had had a part in the infant's begetting, though she had carried and brought it forth according to the ways of nature, and though the child might appear to be nothing more or less than a perfect sea elf, the babe was none of hers. Already Mbugua could sense the still-amorphous spirit of the child. This was truly Ka'Narlist's own.

At that moment, the wizard strode into the room and peered down at the infant in Mbugua's arms. His dark face twisted with rage and disappointment.

"Another failure," he muttered, and turned away. "Dispose of it."