Cazaril nearly convulsed out of his chair. "Five gods! How do I rid myself of this—this—this—horror?"

Umegat held up a restraining hand. "I... suggest... that you not be in a great rush about that. The consequences could be tangled."

"How, tangled? How could anything be more tangled than this monstrosity?"

"Well"—Umegat leaned back and tented his hands together—"the most obvious way to break the, ah, blessing, would be by your death. With your soul freed from its material locus, the demon could fly away with you both."

A chill stole over Cazaril, as he remembered how his belly cramp had almost betrayed him to a fall when jumping the roof gap at dawn. He took refuge from his drunken terror in a dryness to match Umegat's. "Oh, wonderful. Have you any other cures to suggest, physician?"

Umegat's lips twitched, and he acknowledged the jibe with a brief wave of his fingers. "Likewise, should the miracle cease that you presently host—should the Lady's hand lift," Umegat mimed someone opening their hands as if to release a bird, "I think the demon would immediately attempt to complete its destiny. Not that it has a choice—the Bastard's demons have no free will. You can't argue with or persuade them. In fact, there's no use talking to one at all."

"So you're saying that I could die at any moment!"

"Yes. And this is different from your life yesterday in what way?" Umegat cocked his head in dry inquiry.

Cazaril snorted. It was cold comfort... but comfort still, in a backhanded sort of way. Umegat was a sensible saint, it seemed. Which was not what Cazaril would have expected... had he ever met a saint before? How would I know? I walked right past this one.

Umegat's voice took on a tinge of scholarly curiosity. "Actually, this could answer a question I've long had. Does the Bastard command a troop of death demons, or just one? If all death miracles in the world cease while the demon is bound in you, it would be compelling evidence for the singularity of that holy power."

A ghastly laugh pealed from Cazaril's lips. "My service to Quintarian theology! Gods—Umegat—what am I to do? There has never been any of this, this god-touched madness in my family. I'm not fit for this business. I am not a saint!"

Umegat opened his lips, but then closed them again. He finally said, "One grows more accustomed with use. The first time I hosted a miracle I wasn't too happy either, and I'm in the trade, so to speak. My personal recommendation to you, tonight, is to get pie-eyed drunk and go to sleep."

"So I can wake in the morning both demon-ridden and with a hangover?" Granted, he couldn't imagine getting to sleep under any other circumstances, apart from a blow to the head.

"Well, it worked for me, once. The hangover is a fair trade for being so immobilized one cannot do anything stupid for a little while." Umegat looked away for a moment. "The gods do not grant miracles for our purposes, but for theirs. If you are become their tool, it is for a greater reason, an urgent reason. But you are the tool. You are not the work. Expect to be valued accordingly."

While Cazaril was still trying, unsuccessfully, to unravel that, Umegat leaned forward and poured fresh wine into Cazaril's cup. Cazaril was beyond resistance.

It took two undergrooms, an hour or so later, to guide his slithering steps across the wet cobbles of the stable yard, past the gates, and up the stairs, where they poured his limp form into his bed. Cazaril wasn't sure just when he parted from his beleaguered consciousness, but never had he been more glad to do so.

Cazaril had to allow Umegat's wine this much merit—it did mean he spent the first few hours of the next morning wishing for death rather than dreading it. He knew his hangover was passing off when fear began to regain the upper hand.

He found oddly little regret in his heart for his own lost life. He'd seen more of the world than most men ever did, and he'd had his chances, though the gods knew he'd made little enough of them. Marshaling his thoughts, as he sheltered under his covers, he realized with some wonder that his greatest dismay was for the work he'd be forced to leave undone.

Fears he'd had no time for during the day he'd stalked Dondo now crowded into his mind. Who would guard his ladies, if he were to die now? How much time was going to be granted to him to try to find some better bastion for them? On whom could they be safely bestowed? Betriz might find protection as the wife, say, of a stout country lord like March dy Palliar. But Iselle? Her grandmother and mother were too weak and distant, Teidez too young, Orico, apparently, entirely the creature of his chancellor. There could be no security for Iselle until she was out of this cursed court altogether.

Another cramp riveted his attention again on the lethal little hell in his belly, and he peered worriedly down under the tent of his sheet at his knotted stomach. How much was this dying going to hurt? He had not passed so much blood this morning. He blinked around his chamber in the early-afternoon light. The odd hallucinations, pale blurred blobs at the corners of his vision that he had earlier blamed on last night's wine, were still present. Maybe they were another symptom?

A brisk knock sounded at his chamber door. Cazaril crawled from his warm refuge and, walking only a little bent over, went to unlock it. Umegat, bearing a stoppered ewer, bade him good afternoon, stepped within, and closed the door behind him. He was still faintly radiant: alas, yesterday hadn't been a bizarre bad dream after all.

"My word," the groom added, staring about in astonishment. He waved his hand. "Shoo! Shoo!"

The pale blurred blobs swirled about the chamber and fled into the walls.

"What are those things?" Cazaril asked, easing back into his bed. "Do you see them, too?"

"Ghosts. Here, drink this." Umegat poured from the ewer into the glazed cup from Cazaril's washbasin set, and handed it across. "It will settle your stomach and clear your head."

About to reject it with loathing, Cazaril discovered it to be not wine but some sort of cold herbed tea. He tasted it cautiously. Pleasantly bitter, its astringency made a most welcome sluicing in his sticky mouth. Umegat pulled a stool over to his bedside and settled cheerfully. Cazaril squeezed his eyes shut, and open again. "Ghosts?"

"I've never seen so many of the Zangre's ghosts collected in one place. They must be attracted to you just like the sacred animals."

"Can anyone else see them?"

"Anyone with the inner eye. That's three in Cardegoss, to my knowledge."

And two of them are here. "Have they been around all this time?"

"I glimpse them now and then. They're usually more elusive. You needn't be afraid of them. They are powerless and cannot hurt you. Old lost souls." In response to Cazaril's rather stunned stare, Umegat added, "When, as happens from time to time, no god takes up a sundered soul, it is left to wander the world, slowly losing its mindfulness of itself and fading into air. New ghosts first take the form they had in life, but in their despair and loneliness they cannot maintain it."

Cazaril wrapped his arms around his belly. "Oh." His mind tried to gallop in three directions at once. So what was the fate of those souls the gods did accept? And just what exactly was happening to the enraged spirit so miraculously and hideously lodged in him? And... the Dowager Royina Ista's words came back to him. The Zangre is haunted, you know. Not metaphor or madness after all, it appeared, but simple observation. How much else, then, of the eerie things she'd said might be not derangement, but plain truth—seen with altered eyes?

He glanced up to find Umegat regarding him thoughtfully. The Roknari inquired politely, "And how are you feeling today?"