"Not hunters?" Kethry said, puzzled, as they took their packs and followed their guide into the nearest house. "Out here in the middle of nowhere? What on earth do you--"
The answer to her question was self-evident as soon as the old man opened the door. The house was a single enormous room, combining sleeping, living and working space. It was the working space that occupied the lion's share of the dwelling. In one corner stood a huge sink and pump, several wooden boxes of clay, and a potter's wheel. Various ceramic items were ranged on two long wooden tables in the center of the room according to what stage they were in, from first drying to final glazing. The back wall was entirely brick, with several iron doors in it. It radiated heat even at this distance; it had to be a kiln of some sort, Kethry reckoned. Most of the windows were covered with oiled parchment, but there was a single glass window in the wall opposite; directly beneath that was a smaller workbench with pots and brushes, and a half-painted vase. The rest of the living arrangements were scattered haphazardly about, wherever there was room for them.
It was, to Kethry's mind, stiflingly warm, but Tarma immediately threw off her coat with a sigh of pure bliss.
"Put yer bedrolls wherever, ladies," the old man said. "There's porridge as supper."
Kethry rummaged out a packet of some of their dried fruit and tossed it to the oldster, who caught it deftly, grinned his thanks, and added it to the pot just inside one of those iron doors.
"Directly supper's finished, we'll be gettin' visitors," their host told them, as they found places to spread their bedrolls on the clay-stained, rough board floor. "I be Egon Potter; rest of the folks out here be kin or craft-kin."
Kethry's curiosity had turned her attention to the half-finished pottery. It was more than simple pots and bowls, she realized as soon as she had a good look at it. It was really exquisite work, the equal or superior of anything she'd ever seen for sale in Mournedealth. "Why--" she began.
"--are we way out here, back of the end of the world?" Egon interrupted her. "The day, lady. No match for it anywhere else. Got three kinds of day right here; got fuel for the kilns; got all winter t'work on the fancy stuff an' all summer t' trade. What else we need?"
Tarma laughed. "Not a damned thing else, Guildmaster." At his raised eyebrow and quirky, half-toothless grin she laughed again. "I've always wondered where the best of the Wrightguild porcelain and stoneware came from -- it certainly wasn't being made in Kata'shin'a'in. You think I can't recognize the work of the Master when I see it?"
"Then there be more about you than shows on th' surface, swordlady. But you tol' me that, didn' ye?"
"Oh, aye, that I did." They matched grins in some kind of wordless exchange that baffled Kethry, then the Shin'a'in edged her way past the crowded work-table to the oldster's side. "Here. Let me give you a hand with that porridge."
As darkness fell, Kethry came to appreciate old Egon's craftsmanship even more, for he lit oil lamps around the room with shades of porcelain so thin that the light glowed through it easily. And when the first of the lamps was alight, the rest of the inhabitants of the little settlement began to arrive.
They crowded about the newcomers, treating them with friendly reserve, asking questions, but free enough with their own answers. Fairly soon everyone had found space on the hearth, and Kethry was able to examine them at her leisure. They seemed amiable enough. None of the women seemed to be in any distress. In fact, it didn't look to Kethry as if there were anything at all wrong here -- and this despite Need's unvarying pressure on the back of her mind.
Finally, while Tarma entertained the company with some Shin'a'in tale or other, the sorceress edged over to where old Egon was sitting alone a little off to one side.
He nodded to her, but waited for her to speak. She cleared her throat a little, then said, trying not to sound awkward, "Egon, is everyone in your settlement here?"
He seemed surprised by her question. "Oh, aye; all but the little ones. Well -- barring one."
This sounded a little more promising. "One?" she prompted.
His eyes went wary. "Well -- she bain't a guilds-man. Stranger. Settled here, oh, three or four winters ago. She don't have much t' do with us, we don't have much t' do with her. Unchancy sort." Egon blinked, slowly. "Trades with us, betimes. I think she be grubbin' about in the ruins, yonder. Bits of metal she trades, old stuff, gone t' powder mostly, but good for makin' glazes."
Something about this "stranger" evidently made Egon more than a little uneasy. Kethry could read that in his shuttered expression, and the careful choice he made of his words.
"Are the ruins forbidden, or something?" she asked, trying to pinpoint his uneasiness.
"Forbidden?" He flashed her a startled glance, and chuckled. "Great Kemos, no! It's just -- she seems witchy, like, but she ain't never done nothin' witchy." He gave her a sidelong glance, as if gauging her response to that. "It's like she was looking for something out there and mad as hops 'cause she ain't finding it. 'Cept lately she been acting like she had. Her name's--"
The door opened, and a bundled figure half-stepped, and was half-windblown, into the circle of light. She blinked for a moment, her eyes sunken into pale, pudgy cheeks, her flabby arms hugging her fur cloak tightly about her.
She'd put on so much weight since Kethry had last seen her that at first she didn't recognize her former schoolmate.
Then-- "Mara?" she said into the silence the woman's abrupt arrival had imposed on the group.
The woman whirled; peered past the heads of those nearest her at Kethry. Her mouth worked soundlessly for a moment; one plump, pasty hand flew to her throat -- then she turned and bolted back the way she had come in a clumsy run.
The door slammed behind her. The rest of those gathered sat in embarrassed silence.
Finally Egon self-consciously cleared his throat. "Tis a bit late, and we all have work, come the morning light...."
His kin and fellow guildsmen were not slow at taking the hint. Before too very long the house was silent, and empty of all but Egon and the two women.
There seemed no way to break that silence, and after a few halfhearted attempts at conversation, Egon excused himself and went to bed.
Kethry took a long while falling asleep, and not because of the unfamiliar surroundings. Mara Yveda was the last person she expected to see out here.
I wondered where she went, after she'd disappeared from White Winds. Poor Mara. She was so certain that we were hiding something from her-that control of magic was just a matter of knowing the right words, having the right talisman....
I'll never forget the night she ran off. Right after she stole Master Loren's staff-then found out the only thing that was unusual about it was that it was cut to exactly the right height to most comfortably help him with his lame leg.
She broke it in two when it wouldn't magic anything up for her. And then - she ran away.
She would never believe that power isn't a matter of "magic," it's a matter of discipline....
She's the one that's in trouble. She's found something, I know she has, and she's gotten into trouble over it. What's more, Egon knows it, too.