"True. But are you worthy?"

"Worthy?" The questions were tiring Sunbright. He should have paid better attention, he knew. A raven was the totem of his clan. Even the name of the tribe, Rengarth, some said was simply a rendering of "raven" from an ancient tongue. So now, if he of the Raven clan in the "raven" tribe saw a raven, that should be triply lucky.

But really, he just wanted to sleep for a while. It would be night soon, and he could sleep the night away, here on the warm ice that had already sucked up so much of his blood.

The raven interrupted his thoughts. "If you're worthy, prove it. Or else lie here, pity yourself, and die." With a flap of wide wings, it took off toward the south.

"Prove what?" Sunbright groaned. "That I'm worthy of a raven's power? Easy for him to say: he can fly. I don't even have any blood left."

But this test is important, a voice urged. Follow the raven. Perhaps it was his mother's voice, off in the east, or perhaps his father's, speaking from the lands of the dead. Or perhaps it was his own. He was stubborn too, and made demands on himself. But could he follow the raven? He doubted he could walk.

Still, he could crawl. Maybe that would do.

Squinting, he located south, one of only two directions he could go in this narrow canyon. The ice worm had gone north, so south was better. He put out a hand, hissing as skinned flesh stuck to the ice. But the wounds continued to weep their salty tears and didn't stick as badly as healthy flesh might. He put down the other hand, grabbed ice…

No, he was forgetting something. Two hands empty wasn't right.

Sword. His father's sword.

Lurching in a circle on his hip, he found the long steel tool half embedded in the ice. He almost wept as he dug into the ice to free it with fingers that were already raw. But then he clutched it tight. And it worked well, helped him, for when he turned the arched blade down, it bit the polished ice of the canyon floor and gave him a brace to pull on.

He shoved the sword ahead, chunked the edge down, pushed lamely with his toes, pulled with his arms, caught up to it. Did it again. And again.

Hours later, he crawled from the ice shadows, then blinked, blinded. The morning sun, as big as a god's face, rose in the east and bathed him in glorious, life-giving warmth.

Laying his head on a steel pillow, Sunbright slept.

Candlemas limped down a long, long hall wide and high enough for a coach-and-six to run flat out. The floor was black onyx and white quartz, the two colors swirling and interlacing in complex patterns hand-cut and meshed by generations of artisans. The surface of the floor was so shiny it was almost invisible, which made it difficult for the wizard to tell where to place his feet. And further, he limped, because his missing arm set him lurching off-balance.

At the far end of the corridor, he heard maids giggling and chiding one another over some sexual escapade, but when he appeared, they hushed and scurried back to work. Each wore a white cap and short white dress with a black apron: the colors of Lady Polaris, which Candlemas found monotonous. At one time, the maids would have been glad to see him, a welcome distraction in their dull routines here in Sysquemalyn's territory.

But after five months the wizard's arm was still regenerating. It had done so bit by bit, from the inside out, needing to be left in the open air. First the bones had grown, until he had a skeleton's arm rattling alongside, with no muscles to pick it up. Then the arteries had stitched themselves, so he was bothered by the pulsing of his own heart's blood. Then muscle, slowly knitting together. Now came the worst part, the spinning of nerves, like a thousand tiny spiderwebs, every one itching and burning yet sending electric shrieks from his teeth to his toes if he touched or bumped them. He prayed for the skin to grow back soon, for now his tingling arm looked like the work of a clumsy butcher. Maybe, with skin on it, the girls could stand for him to touch them again.

Snarling at the once friendly maids, he learned Sysquemalyn was in the conservatory torturing flowers. So he stumped that way, careful not to brush his raw arm against any obstacles.

Sysquemalyn was deep into the conservatory, which was longer and higher than some wizards' houses and roofed entirely with tiny diamond panes of bull's-eye glass. Green plants poured forth a riot of red and white and purple and yellow flowers, and no less than nine human stoop-backed gardeners bustled about them. Their supervisor tended her own patch at the back of the conservatory. Here in the hot greenhouse, she wore nothing but a short chemise and a frilly apron that looked ludicrous. Especially since, as a collector of grotesques, Sysquemalyn had many weird and sinister plants concealed back where Lady Polaris wouldn't see them on her infrequent visits. The flowers resembled fleshy organs, bilious teardrops, lizards' tongues, finger bones, and more. The female wizard hummed as she snipped liver-colored blossoms and dropped them into a pail.

"Your damned barbarian is still alive!" Candlemas growled without preamble. "You owe me an arm!"

She pretended bemusement. "An arm, dear 'Mas? Why do you need three? A third to comb your beard? Certainly not to comb your head." She laughed gaily at her wit.

Exasperated, exhausted by his long walk-regenerating strained a body-Candlemas nevertheless ran his good hand over his bald pate, evoking another merry trill. "Don't change the subject! And don't mock me! Your barbarian-you started this stupid contest-is still alive! He's been healing in the forest south of the Barren Mountains! He didn't die when attacked by the remorhaz, damn it, and you owe me an arm!"

Sysquemalyn set down her snippers and pouted prettily, as if sympathetic. "Dear, dear Candlemas. You're all tuckered out by your little rebuilding project there. Barbarian? I don't… Oh, the yellow-haired fellow, skinny as a plucked chicken! I remember him!"

"I remember too!" In the greenhouse, the wizard was sweating heavily. Salty drops running down his healing arm stung like wasps. "You cheated, sicced a fiend on me too soon-aargh!" Pained, he lurched backward against a table, knocking a dozen potted flowers to the slate floor with a crash.

Sysquemalyn tsked, but clearly Candlemas wasn't about to go away. With a theatrical sigh, she perched her rump on a tall stool. "Very well. I may have been in error when I conjured the fiend. It could have happened to anyone. You should feel sorry for me, I'm so embarrassed."

"Sorry?" gasped the man. "Em-embarrassed?" He swooned, clawing sweat from his face.

Smirking, Sysquemalyn replied, "You know, this is great fun. I'm so glad we formed this little wager. It was dead boring around here."

Eyes bugging from his head at her audacity, Candlemas couldn't answer. Almost absently, Sysquemalyn picked up a lacquered bladder and gave an experimental squeeze. A thin green stream arced across the space between them and struck Candlemas's red-meat arm.

With a scream, the wizard leaped fully three feet in the air, crashed against a rack of potted flowers, and sent them smashing as he shrieked and clawed and ripped at his new arm as if to tear it off.

"By Tipald, am I careless!" Sysquemalyn tipped a crockery pot to sprinkle cool water over the writhing wizard. "That's liquid fertilizer. My, I'll bet that stings!"

As Candlemas ground his teeth and fought to regain his feet, Sysquemalyn jabbered on. "I'll tell you what, since you feel so put-upon. Let's continue the contest, and up the stakes even further. Let's see… If your barbarian is healthy, we'll dump some more tests on him, hard ones this time. If he survives, you win, as before. If he dies, I win. And the loser this time gets flayed alive!"