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.Shit."I have no name, nor am I called by one," she said, her voice a rich contralto."But I am of the HealingHand."Double shit.Shit: I don't like the Hand; it's personal.They took Doria away from us for years, and never really gaveher back; she had to break free, and was only barely able to.We had run into each other one time, hermind more melded than anything else into their collective conscious.I know that's part of how they relateto the Power they call the Healing Hand, and that's what enables them to act as a conduit for its blessingsand providings, but I don't have to like it, and I don't like it. Double shit: it seems that as Hand clerics develop more power, they give up more of their identities; thehigher-ranking ones are known by their titles, having forsaken their own names.According to somebodywho ought to know, the Matriarch herself no longer has any of her own personality, but is merely areflection of the whole Hand consciousness, and that spooks me.I had a run-in with the Matriarch yearsbefore; she didn't find my rather charming self-centeredness, well, charming, and for some reason I'muncomfortable being in the presence of someone of power who strongly disapproves of me.Always havebeen, ever since back in high school when I had a run-in with the principal about the awkward incidentinvolving a hydrogen-filled basketball and a bunsen burner.Call me picky.Andrea gestured at where the slavers were camped out."And these are?""They are with me," Vair said."I required bodyguards.In Pandathaway, the slavers and my own guildhave a.standing arrangement." He cocked his head to one side."You seem surprised to see us; didyou think you'd be the only ones interested in such an event?"Nareen spoke up."I have been waiting here for most of a year," he said, "living off roots and leaves,watching the changes below, waiting to learn more." He gestured toward the flickering city."When Iarrived, it was still only in the center.Fewer of the ""There," Vair said, pointing."Another one."I followed the pointing finger, but didn't see anything.Neither did Andy."Another what?"Vair shrugged."Who knows? Something released from the shadows, to shamble off into the night.Darkand hulking it was, at the edge of visibility, now off in the darkness."Nareen's eyes were following something I couldn't see for a long while, but then he shrugged."It couldbe anything.A fairy taking a shape, a shape taking identity, a myth taking reality." His eyes sought andcaught Andrea's."I've seen two dragons spurt forth and fly away, a dozen deodands stagger off into thenight, and scores of large, hairy things, like humans but uglier even than humans." He watched the cityflickering for the longest time."There.A glimpse, a flicker, a taste of the Place Where The TreesScream."The Hand woman stroked the air in front of her."Possibly.I know I saw a flash of meadow earlier,somewhere outside of Aershtyn."I was going to ask how she was sure where the meadow was, but I didn't.Magic, after all.She shook her head."No, Walter Slovotsky, it was not that.The meadow was ringed by tiny firs, thesort that grow only high on the slopes of Aershtyn.""Whatis going on down there?" Trust Jason to ask the obvious question.Vair shrugged, again."It could be any of a number of things.It's possible that this is but the first tentativefeeler in a long time, an attempt to see if the powers of magic and the will of the gods still balance thefaerie and the fey. "Or it's possible that an immature one of them has been.Mmm.I don't think I have the words." Helooked at me, then spoke a few low syllables, while distant fingers touched my mind.It was only then thatI realized that he had been talking in English, not Erendra."It is possible that an immature one ofthem isloose, creating magical creatures and spinning them off into the solid regions like a child blowing soapbubbles off into the breeze." He smiled, sadly."Or it could be that I have been quite deliberately misled,and that this is just another part of the duel between the two long-mad ones."Nareen smiled
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