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Chapter 10
Colonsay II

I will learn, but I'm not sure that I can believe all that I'm taught.

We're taught that White Swords contain the souls of saints, voluntarily putting off their entry to Heaven until the rest of humanity can join them.

I'll try to believe that.

I think I can.

And we're taught that Red Swords contain the souls of sinners. We're taught that some think them already damned, and merely being given an opportunity to delay their punishment, while others think that a Red Sword is merely Purgatory on earth—a last chance for repentance and salvation.

I'll not speak of the Khan or Croom'l, or the Sandoval, the Tinker, or any other of the Reds. But Nadide was just a baby, plucked hungry from her mother's breast.

What sins had she to repent of? What just God would damn her?

Perhaps, although I'll not speak of it in front of others, the answer lies in the question itself.

—Niko

The world was supposed to slow down; it had happened every time before.

But it didn't.

Yes, the world had changed about them. Yes, the red light coursed though not only the air around them, as though the lanterns and candles had become darker but more powerful; the light flowed into and through their shared steel, their shared bones and muscle and eyes and mind.

The demands of the body became distant and irrelevant, although the feel of the body was sharper, more distinct, from the blister on the sole of his left foot that had split two days before, to the small scratch over his right eye—it was all there, all present in their shared mind and body, but it just wasn't important, any more than her thirst for the sweetness of She Who Smelled Like Food was.

It was the pounding heart.

They could hear the beating of Niko's heart, but it wasn't the slow, desultory lub-dub of the other times; his heart was pounding fast, in time with the fast drums that kept pace with the piper's manic tune, a tune that the curtains could no longer keep out of his ears, and together with the pounding of the drum and his heart, drowned out all other sounds.

As he pushed past Becket into the hall, he could see Fotheringay's mouth working, and knew that the older man was shouting something out at him, but he couldn't manage to make sense from the words.

The baron was halfway down the blood-slicked stairs, his sword in hand, tentatively probing for some way past the two novices near the foot of the staircase, and into the McPhees clawing at them. There were now more than a dozen in the house, battling with the novices.

It was horrible. War, battle, fighting were supposed to be between men, and that was awful enough—but there were five women among them, and one child who couldn't have been more than five or six, who didn't even scream when Winslow kicked her away from where she was grabbing at his foot, trying to bite it, and back into the crowd.

She fell beneath the feet of the other McPhees, who didn't so much as look down, but just stepped on her as they made their way toward the foot of the stairs.

It should have been easy, a one-sided fight, despite the numbers—the shuffling McPhees were wide-eyed in madness, slow and clumsy, and armed only with their hands. It was like the distant piper was a distant puppeteer, sending them as fingers to grab and to clutch, and not caring one whit about the fingers themselves.

Most still wore their clothing—although it was filthy, sweaty, and disarrayed—though two of the men and one of the women were stark naked. But the naked and the clothed shuffled forward in unison, their clumsy feet trying to keep time with the drums, reaching out, not deterred by the blades hacking and slashing and stabbing at them, not even trying to evade the steel, ignoring everything, just to try to reach the men who blocked the stairs.

And, sure enough, they bled when cut, as the novices slashed with their swords. Thomas Scoville slipped the tip of his sword into the chest of one man, then kicked him off the blade and into the others, knocking three of them down, as blood spurted, spraying the stairs.

The one who fell stayed fallen, but others clambered over the body, simply rising again as they slipped on the blood-slickened stairs, and then rose again, and again, ignoring their wounds, and clawing at each other as they tried to reach the two novices.

One of the heavier men in front fell when the point of Thomas' sword found his knee, and Michael kicked him away, while the baron used the opening to reach through the two and put his sword into a bearded throat, then lightly brushed aside the withered dug of a naked old woman before his blade found her heart, too.

The baron's eyes were wide, too, but not with madness, but with something that Niko and Nadide had no name for, and his jaw was set.

There was something magnificent about him—blade in his right hand, he stood on the step with his left hand on his hip, as though in a gesture of disdain, and from moment to moment, seeing an opening, he would drop in full extension, recovering with a wet blade.

He turned to shout something to Niko for just a moment, but Niko still couldn't make out words, and the staircase wasn't wide enough for him to make his way past where the baron and the novices stood. The pipes and the drums didn't have a grip on his mind, not here and now, but they had enveloped his ears, driving all outside sounds away.

It was all wrong. There were hundreds and hundreds of the maddened McPhees, and eventually they would overwhelm the defenders, even if the bodies were piled so high that they would have to climb over them.

It was all wrong. He—they were all wrong.

Where was the speed that they were supposed to have? The incessant drumbeat from outside felt like it had anchored them in slow time, and without that they—

No.

Without that, they were still not powerless. They were still Niko and Nadide, welded together, and there was more than enough power in that.

They lowered their point, and reached out and in:

—in, for the fire and ice that lay at juncture of their fused souls,

—and out, past the baron, past the novices, for the souls of the maddened men and women.

To the part of them that was Niko, it looked and felt like silent thunderbolts crashed from the tip of the sword and into the McPhees; to the part of them that was Nadide, it was as though the jagged light was coming in to the sword, feeding a hunger that they had not even noticed that they had, but feeding it in a way that made them even more hungry.

And with that, the McPhees—the men, the women, and the children—died with horrid screams that diminished as they were eaten by the sword, the bodies falling limp and lifeless to the floor, leaving the baron and the two novices standing on the slickened staircase, drenched in blood and sweat.

Looking to him. Talking to him, although he could not make out their words.

It wasn't done. Still, the sound of the pipe and the drumbeat pounded outside. Still, the shouts and cries of the baron and the novices were drowned out in his ears and his mind.

It was only the other sounds that were absent, denied to him.

The baron was shouting something to him, to them, but they pushed past, and shoved Scoville aside. But the toe of their boot slipped on a patch of blood on the steps, sending him falling too fast, too hard to catch themselves with his free hand; it was all he could do to hold onto Nadide as he fell among the bodies, cursing himself for falling across the body of the little girl.

They would feel about it later.

Perhaps they would feel justified; perhaps they would be horrified; most likely both.

But they forced themselves to their feet and ran—too slow, too slow, still stuck in real time, anchored by the drumbeats—and out into the night.

The music had been intoxicating in Niko's ears, but that was before he had drawn Nadide.

The world was different now. Out here, the tune of the pipes was, at least, just a tune, one that they could barely hear—they could feel it wash madness over the McPhees on the beach, both those coupling on the ground before them and the others, who were quickly turning to face them, but it didn't wash into their minds, into their shared soul.

It was the drums that did that, and not only didn't the tune infect him, he couldn't understand—

No—he was wrong.

It didn't infect him, but he understood it all, even though he knew none of the words.

Outlanders invade the land that is ours, the tune said. Rise up, sons and daughters of the sidhe, throw off your chains of mere humanity.

It is their shirts, their shirts you are washing.

A glissando on the pipes was a mocking laugh, as the piper swayed in time with his own music, notes splattering madness across the sand.

Look at the boy and the girl, the music said. Curse them as the invaders that they are. Grab them, hold them down, mount them again and again until their flesh lies in pieces on the sand.

They ran and ran, toward the left side of the crowd, trying to make their way around them, toward where the dark piper stood alone, but the tune picked up, and the crowd moved in unison to block them.

No. Where was their speed? It was stolen, stolen, stolen by the drum, by the drum, by the drummer before him, and they would have to kill all of them before they could get to the dark piper, and silence his tunes of madness.

The drums, the drums—the drummer was off to his right, his face sweaty in the firelight, as he sat on a stone, his hands blurring with speed on the head of the drum.

Niko ran across the sand toward him, ignoring the crowd behind.

No, the part of them that was Nadide said. Drink them all. I'm hungry, and I'm only getting hungrier.

It should have been a mad, rapid tattoo that they were hearing, but all that they could hear was the rapid thrum-thrum-thrum in time with the pounding of their shared heart.

No chance to make their way around the crowd to the piper—

The drummer.

They reached out their fire toward him, the lightning flashing from the blade, or the soul being pulled into it, or both.

The drum burst into flames, and the drummer rose, his face sweaty in the firelight, his mouth wide in a scream—

That they could hear, as their shared heart, broken free of the tyranny of the drumbeat, fell into the slow lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub of a body trapped in real time, heart pounding as fast as it could, while they had their speed back, once more.

The nearest of the McPhees was reaching out for them, but the McPhees were all trapped in the slow time that clawed at their resistant body—

And beyond them, the piper played.

Now, it was as easy as something impossible ever was—they sped across the cold sands, past the crowd that was moving to block their way, both to the right and the left: men, women, and children moving so slowly, but so many of them, and across the bonfire the piper played.

It is their shirts, their shirts you are washing.

One path, and one path only . . . 

They ran to and through the bonfire, toward the piper, running up the burning cinders, neither knowing nor caring what the flame did to their body.

It didn't matter.

The hooded piper was caught in the same slow time as the rest were. Just a matter of getting close enough, then letting their flame burn him, burn him, as it had burned the others. They hungered for the taste of his soul, and reached in, and out, as they had before.

Lightning crashed—

And the pipes and robe dropped to the cold sand.

They poked at the robe, but it was empty.

Quickly, as quickly as their reluctant body could turn, they spun around. Where was he?

Gone.

The lub-dub, lub-dub of his heart had started to miss beats, their shared mind noted, as though it was something important.

Yes, yes, it was important. They had been together too long, and their body—Niko's body—was starting to fail.

So be it? Perhaps. Perhaps the thing to do was to turn the part of them that was Nadide upon the part of them that was Niko, and weld them together, forever. Be one with each other for eternity, not for this brief moment that was all that they could allow themselves.

But, no. Perhaps another time, but not now. There was work to be done, yet, before that.

So the part of them that was Niko stuck the part of them that was Nadide through the piper's empty robes, and into the sand, and then released their grip on each other.

And then he was just Niko again, shrugging out of the burning jacket, the pain present, but his fingers vague and clumsy, as though he was outside of his own body, and not, once again, trapped within it.

All around him, voices were raised in screams and cries of pain, and he found himself falling forward, into the warm blackness, not wondering or caring if he'd ever emerge.

That was better. The blackness was a place of no pain, no fear, no hunger, and it went on forever.

"Easy, young sir." It was Fotheringay's voice, of course, dragging him out of the dark. "Let me be helping you up." Strong hands raised him to a sitting position.

Where was he? His eyes were open, but they refused to focus, and stung as though he had opened them under sater. It was worse than trying to see underwater; at least, underwater, you could make out vague shapes and colors, blurred though they might be.

His eyes refused to focus, but his hand reached down to find Nadide. His fingers gripped only sheets.

"The swords—both your swords—are right next to you on the bed, young sir, where they ought to be," Fotheringay said. "But I think, just perhaps, you might want to save that for a while?"

He blinked, and tried to force his traitor eyes to focus on Fotheringay's face. But it wasn't Fotheringay's—it was Becket's. He closed his eyes and opened them again.

Yes, it was Becket, sitting in his chair next to Niko's bed, and Fotheringay was on the other side of the bed, half supporting him.

Becket gave him a nod. "Was starting to wonder if you'd wake up at all," he said, reaching out his good hand to touch the blanket that covered Niko. "You've got some minor burns here, here, and here," he said. "They've been cleaned and dressed—you're probably in for a spot of fever, but you should survive."

His mouth was dry, and it was hard to speak. "The Shanleys—" he croaked out.

Becket silenced him with a snort. "Do you think I'd be sitting here, watching you sleep, if the baron and the baroness weren't safe? They're in the next room, and they're both unhurt, which is more than I can say for you, or the boys. Scoville had his right leg pulled half out of him, before it all came apart, but he can stand, as long as he has something to lean against." Becket jerked a thumb up, toward the ceiling. "Should have some of the earl's troops landing in a few hours, and I've got the novices up on the roof with bows, ready to warn any of the locals to stay away, although the only ones who haven't fled are the dead, and there'll be plenty of work burying them." He shook his head. "And it seems the two of you managed to do for the Amadan Dubh, eh?"

His mouth was dry, and it was hard to talk, but he shook his head.

"No. At least—" His hand found Nadide.

Niko. You're hurting.

Never mind that—the Amadan Dubh, the piper . . . 

I wish we'd killed him. He was making the people do mean things.

"No," Niko said. "I . . . we just chased him away."

He expected a harsh comment at that, but Becket just nodded. "Well, it's not what I'd have hoped for, but it's better than any of the rest of us did, at that." He leaned back in his chair, and again they were teacher and student. "So what is the right thing to do now, Sir Niko?"

Niko shook his head. "I can . . . only see things that aren't as wrong as others. Get the Shanleys out of here, certainly; get the earl's troops and leave them in place, yes, but . . ."

"And about the attack?" Becket's face was impassive. "There were literally hundreds of McPhees trying to kill their liege lord last night. What would you recommend to the Baron? Trial? Execution?"

"No. Blame it on the one responsible," Niko said. "The piper. Find him, and kill him."

"You think you're up to that?"

"I'd certainly like to try. I'd much rather like to try that than to have to deal with the baron putting all of the surviving McPhees on trial, Sir Martin." He tried to gesture with his free hand, but it just flopped. "Is he considering that?"

"And if he is?"

Some things weren't difficult to answer. "We can't allow that. 'Justice tempered by mercy,' Sir Martin—there'd be no justice, and no mercy."

"True enough," sounded from the doorway.

Niko looked over. The baron was standing there. His left arm was bound up in a bandage and sling, and his face was pale, but his voice was as calm and quiet as it had always been before. "I'm sure I can say that I don't understand what went on, but it was no rebellion, just a madness—a madness which seems to have passed."

Becket grunted. "And the sooner that we get you and Grace off of this accursed island, the better I'll feel about it staying passed, or not hurting you if it returns."

Niko nodded. "I think we know what the source of it was—the piper."

"And your recommendation, Sir Niko?" the baron asked, as Becket had.

"To hunt him down. Bring him to ground, and kill him." That was obvious. Niko's stomach churned over the killings that he had done during the night. He would pray for the souls of each and every one of the McPhees he had killed, most with just a wave of Nadide.

But he knew where the blame was to be found. It wasn't in the souls of those whose minds had been captured by the pipes and the drums, but in the one who had sent them on their bloody path.

"And do you think you can manage it?"

"I don't know," he said. "I do know that I can try."

"Yes, you could." Becket nodded. "A knightly enough answer, at that, but—"

"But the matter has already been decided, and I don't know why you're bringing it up, Martin," the baron said.

"I'll thank you, Lord Baron, to let me test my own student in my own way," Becket said, a snap in his voice. He met the baron's gaze for a long moment until the baron nodded.

Fotheringay quickly turned his eyes away from that, and grinned at Niko. "Well, perhaps we can try after we get back from Londinium, or Windsor, young sir. If we're sent back here."

"Londinium? Windsor?"

"The king could be in residence in either place." Becket nodded. "For one thing, if a knight of the Order is to go messing about with any of the Old Ones, it's something that he should have sense to avoid deciding himself. Beyond that, if you're going to go hunting one of the last of the sidhe, you're going to need more than Fotheringay to act as your hound. And you'll need a lighter load on your back than the likes of me."

"Or, for that matter, the baron and his lady," Fotheringay said. "Can't watch out for them while he and I and whoever else are out hunting a mad piper, Sir Martin."

Becket glared at him. "You're not one who knows his place, Fotheringay."

"I think I do, Sir Martin." Fotheringay didn't quite shrug, and he met Becket's glare without flinching. "Just trying to do my job, Sir Martin, and watching the young knight's back is that job, and I'll do it, whether it's keeping it from sprouting daggers, or bearing too heavy a load for the task—and speaking of which, Sir Niko, if you'd do me the courtesy of just lying back for a while, there's a tray of bread and meat here that's not doing you any good lying on a plate, when it should be warming your belly."

"Fotheringay—"

"Listen to the man," Becket said. "He's got the right of it. Eat."

Niko forced himself to eat, but every bite was ashes in his mouth.

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Framed

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Chapter 10
Colonsay II

I will learn, but I'm not sure that I can believe all that I'm taught.

We're taught that White Swords contain the souls of saints, voluntarily putting off their entry to Heaven until the rest of humanity can join them.

I'll try to believe that.

I think I can.

And we're taught that Red Swords contain the souls of sinners. We're taught that some think them already damned, and merely being given an opportunity to delay their punishment, while others think that a Red Sword is merely Purgatory on earth—a last chance for repentance and salvation.

I'll not speak of the Khan or Croom'l, or the Sandoval, the Tinker, or any other of the Reds. But Nadide was just a baby, plucked hungry from her mother's breast.

What sins had she to repent of? What just God would damn her?

Perhaps, although I'll not speak of it in front of others, the answer lies in the question itself.

—Niko

The world was supposed to slow down; it had happened every time before.

But it didn't.

Yes, the world had changed about them. Yes, the red light coursed though not only the air around them, as though the lanterns and candles had become darker but more powerful; the light flowed into and through their shared steel, their shared bones and muscle and eyes and mind.

The demands of the body became distant and irrelevant, although the feel of the body was sharper, more distinct, from the blister on the sole of his left foot that had split two days before, to the small scratch over his right eye—it was all there, all present in their shared mind and body, but it just wasn't important, any more than her thirst for the sweetness of She Who Smelled Like Food was.

It was the pounding heart.

They could hear the beating of Niko's heart, but it wasn't the slow, desultory lub-dub of the other times; his heart was pounding fast, in time with the fast drums that kept pace with the piper's manic tune, a tune that the curtains could no longer keep out of his ears, and together with the pounding of the drum and his heart, drowned out all other sounds.

As he pushed past Becket into the hall, he could see Fotheringay's mouth working, and knew that the older man was shouting something out at him, but he couldn't manage to make sense from the words.

The baron was halfway down the blood-slicked stairs, his sword in hand, tentatively probing for some way past the two novices near the foot of the staircase, and into the McPhees clawing at them. There were now more than a dozen in the house, battling with the novices.

It was horrible. War, battle, fighting were supposed to be between men, and that was awful enough—but there were five women among them, and one child who couldn't have been more than five or six, who didn't even scream when Winslow kicked her away from where she was grabbing at his foot, trying to bite it, and back into the crowd.

She fell beneath the feet of the other McPhees, who didn't so much as look down, but just stepped on her as they made their way toward the foot of the stairs.

It should have been easy, a one-sided fight, despite the numbers—the shuffling McPhees were wide-eyed in madness, slow and clumsy, and armed only with their hands. It was like the distant piper was a distant puppeteer, sending them as fingers to grab and to clutch, and not caring one whit about the fingers themselves.

Most still wore their clothing—although it was filthy, sweaty, and disarrayed—though two of the men and one of the women were stark naked. But the naked and the clothed shuffled forward in unison, their clumsy feet trying to keep time with the drums, reaching out, not deterred by the blades hacking and slashing and stabbing at them, not even trying to evade the steel, ignoring everything, just to try to reach the men who blocked the stairs.

And, sure enough, they bled when cut, as the novices slashed with their swords. Thomas Scoville slipped the tip of his sword into the chest of one man, then kicked him off the blade and into the others, knocking three of them down, as blood spurted, spraying the stairs.

The one who fell stayed fallen, but others clambered over the body, simply rising again as they slipped on the blood-slickened stairs, and then rose again, and again, ignoring their wounds, and clawing at each other as they tried to reach the two novices.

One of the heavier men in front fell when the point of Thomas' sword found his knee, and Michael kicked him away, while the baron used the opening to reach through the two and put his sword into a bearded throat, then lightly brushed aside the withered dug of a naked old woman before his blade found her heart, too.

The baron's eyes were wide, too, but not with madness, but with something that Niko and Nadide had no name for, and his jaw was set.

There was something magnificent about him—blade in his right hand, he stood on the step with his left hand on his hip, as though in a gesture of disdain, and from moment to moment, seeing an opening, he would drop in full extension, recovering with a wet blade.

He turned to shout something to Niko for just a moment, but Niko still couldn't make out words, and the staircase wasn't wide enough for him to make his way past where the baron and the novices stood. The pipes and the drums didn't have a grip on his mind, not here and now, but they had enveloped his ears, driving all outside sounds away.

It was all wrong. There were hundreds and hundreds of the maddened McPhees, and eventually they would overwhelm the defenders, even if the bodies were piled so high that they would have to climb over them.

It was all wrong. He—they were all wrong.

Where was the speed that they were supposed to have? The incessant drumbeat from outside felt like it had anchored them in slow time, and without that they—

No.

Without that, they were still not powerless. They were still Niko and Nadide, welded together, and there was more than enough power in that.

They lowered their point, and reached out and in:

—in, for the fire and ice that lay at juncture of their fused souls,

—and out, past the baron, past the novices, for the souls of the maddened men and women.

To the part of them that was Niko, it looked and felt like silent thunderbolts crashed from the tip of the sword and into the McPhees; to the part of them that was Nadide, it was as though the jagged light was coming in to the sword, feeding a hunger that they had not even noticed that they had, but feeding it in a way that made them even more hungry.

And with that, the McPhees—the men, the women, and the children—died with horrid screams that diminished as they were eaten by the sword, the bodies falling limp and lifeless to the floor, leaving the baron and the two novices standing on the slickened staircase, drenched in blood and sweat.

Looking to him. Talking to him, although he could not make out their words.

It wasn't done. Still, the sound of the pipe and the drumbeat pounded outside. Still, the shouts and cries of the baron and the novices were drowned out in his ears and his mind.

It was only the other sounds that were absent, denied to him.

The baron was shouting something to him, to them, but they pushed past, and shoved Scoville aside. But the toe of their boot slipped on a patch of blood on the steps, sending him falling too fast, too hard to catch themselves with his free hand; it was all he could do to hold onto Nadide as he fell among the bodies, cursing himself for falling across the body of the little girl.

They would feel about it later.

Perhaps they would feel justified; perhaps they would be horrified; most likely both.

But they forced themselves to their feet and ran—too slow, too slow, still stuck in real time, anchored by the drumbeats—and out into the night.

The music had been intoxicating in Niko's ears, but that was before he had drawn Nadide.

The world was different now. Out here, the tune of the pipes was, at least, just a tune, one that they could barely hear—they could feel it wash madness over the McPhees on the beach, both those coupling on the ground before them and the others, who were quickly turning to face them, but it didn't wash into their minds, into their shared soul.

It was the drums that did that, and not only didn't the tune infect him, he couldn't understand—

No—he was wrong.

It didn't infect him, but he understood it all, even though he knew none of the words.

Outlanders invade the land that is ours, the tune said. Rise up, sons and daughters of the sidhe, throw off your chains of mere humanity.

It is their shirts, their shirts you are washing.

A glissando on the pipes was a mocking laugh, as the piper swayed in time with his own music, notes splattering madness across the sand.

Look at the boy and the girl, the music said. Curse them as the invaders that they are. Grab them, hold them down, mount them again and again until their flesh lies in pieces on the sand.

They ran and ran, toward the left side of the crowd, trying to make their way around them, toward where the dark piper stood alone, but the tune picked up, and the crowd moved in unison to block them.

No. Where was their speed? It was stolen, stolen, stolen by the drum, by the drum, by the drummer before him, and they would have to kill all of them before they could get to the dark piper, and silence his tunes of madness.

The drums, the drums—the drummer was off to his right, his face sweaty in the firelight, as he sat on a stone, his hands blurring with speed on the head of the drum.

Niko ran across the sand toward him, ignoring the crowd behind.

No, the part of them that was Nadide said. Drink them all. I'm hungry, and I'm only getting hungrier.

It should have been a mad, rapid tattoo that they were hearing, but all that they could hear was the rapid thrum-thrum-thrum in time with the pounding of their shared heart.

No chance to make their way around the crowd to the piper—

The drummer.

They reached out their fire toward him, the lightning flashing from the blade, or the soul being pulled into it, or both.

The drum burst into flames, and the drummer rose, his face sweaty in the firelight, his mouth wide in a scream—

That they could hear, as their shared heart, broken free of the tyranny of the drumbeat, fell into the slow lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub of a body trapped in real time, heart pounding as fast as it could, while they had their speed back, once more.

The nearest of the McPhees was reaching out for them, but the McPhees were all trapped in the slow time that clawed at their resistant body—

And beyond them, the piper played.

Now, it was as easy as something impossible ever was—they sped across the cold sands, past the crowd that was moving to block their way, both to the right and the left: men, women, and children moving so slowly, but so many of them, and across the bonfire the piper played.

It is their shirts, their shirts you are washing.

One path, and one path only . . . 

They ran to and through the bonfire, toward the piper, running up the burning cinders, neither knowing nor caring what the flame did to their body.

It didn't matter.

The hooded piper was caught in the same slow time as the rest were. Just a matter of getting close enough, then letting their flame burn him, burn him, as it had burned the others. They hungered for the taste of his soul, and reached in, and out, as they had before.

Lightning crashed—

And the pipes and robe dropped to the cold sand.

They poked at the robe, but it was empty.

Quickly, as quickly as their reluctant body could turn, they spun around. Where was he?

Gone.

The lub-dub, lub-dub of his heart had started to miss beats, their shared mind noted, as though it was something important.

Yes, yes, it was important. They had been together too long, and their body—Niko's body—was starting to fail.

So be it? Perhaps. Perhaps the thing to do was to turn the part of them that was Nadide upon the part of them that was Niko, and weld them together, forever. Be one with each other for eternity, not for this brief moment that was all that they could allow themselves.

But, no. Perhaps another time, but not now. There was work to be done, yet, before that.

So the part of them that was Niko stuck the part of them that was Nadide through the piper's empty robes, and into the sand, and then released their grip on each other.

And then he was just Niko again, shrugging out of the burning jacket, the pain present, but his fingers vague and clumsy, as though he was outside of his own body, and not, once again, trapped within it.

All around him, voices were raised in screams and cries of pain, and he found himself falling forward, into the warm blackness, not wondering or caring if he'd ever emerge.

That was better. The blackness was a place of no pain, no fear, no hunger, and it went on forever.

"Easy, young sir." It was Fotheringay's voice, of course, dragging him out of the dark. "Let me be helping you up." Strong hands raised him to a sitting position.

Where was he? His eyes were open, but they refused to focus, and stung as though he had opened them under sater. It was worse than trying to see underwater; at least, underwater, you could make out vague shapes and colors, blurred though they might be.

His eyes refused to focus, but his hand reached down to find Nadide. His fingers gripped only sheets.

"The swords—both your swords—are right next to you on the bed, young sir, where they ought to be," Fotheringay said. "But I think, just perhaps, you might want to save that for a while?"

He blinked, and tried to force his traitor eyes to focus on Fotheringay's face. But it wasn't Fotheringay's—it was Becket's. He closed his eyes and opened them again.

Yes, it was Becket, sitting in his chair next to Niko's bed, and Fotheringay was on the other side of the bed, half supporting him.

Becket gave him a nod. "Was starting to wonder if you'd wake up at all," he said, reaching out his good hand to touch the blanket that covered Niko. "You've got some minor burns here, here, and here," he said. "They've been cleaned and dressed—you're probably in for a spot of fever, but you should survive."

His mouth was dry, and it was hard to speak. "The Shanleys—" he croaked out.

Becket silenced him with a snort. "Do you think I'd be sitting here, watching you sleep, if the baron and the baroness weren't safe? They're in the next room, and they're both unhurt, which is more than I can say for you, or the boys. Scoville had his right leg pulled half out of him, before it all came apart, but he can stand, as long as he has something to lean against." Becket jerked a thumb up, toward the ceiling. "Should have some of the earl's troops landing in a few hours, and I've got the novices up on the roof with bows, ready to warn any of the locals to stay away, although the only ones who haven't fled are the dead, and there'll be plenty of work burying them." He shook his head. "And it seems the two of you managed to do for the Amadan Dubh, eh?"

His mouth was dry, and it was hard to talk, but he shook his head.

"No. At least—" His hand found Nadide.

Niko. You're hurting.

Never mind that—the Amadan Dubh, the piper . . . 

I wish we'd killed him. He was making the people do mean things.

"No," Niko said. "I . . . we just chased him away."

He expected a harsh comment at that, but Becket just nodded. "Well, it's not what I'd have hoped for, but it's better than any of the rest of us did, at that." He leaned back in his chair, and again they were teacher and student. "So what is the right thing to do now, Sir Niko?"

Niko shook his head. "I can . . . only see things that aren't as wrong as others. Get the Shanleys out of here, certainly; get the earl's troops and leave them in place, yes, but . . ."

"And about the attack?" Becket's face was impassive. "There were literally hundreds of McPhees trying to kill their liege lord last night. What would you recommend to the Baron? Trial? Execution?"

"No. Blame it on the one responsible," Niko said. "The piper. Find him, and kill him."

"You think you're up to that?"

"I'd certainly like to try. I'd much rather like to try that than to have to deal with the baron putting all of the surviving McPhees on trial, Sir Martin." He tried to gesture with his free hand, but it just flopped. "Is he considering that?"

"And if he is?"

Some things weren't difficult to answer. "We can't allow that. 'Justice tempered by mercy,' Sir Martin—there'd be no justice, and no mercy."

"True enough," sounded from the doorway.

Niko looked over. The baron was standing there. His left arm was bound up in a bandage and sling, and his face was pale, but his voice was as calm and quiet as it had always been before. "I'm sure I can say that I don't understand what went on, but it was no rebellion, just a madness—a madness which seems to have passed."

Becket grunted. "And the sooner that we get you and Grace off of this accursed island, the better I'll feel about it staying passed, or not hurting you if it returns."

Niko nodded. "I think we know what the source of it was—the piper."

"And your recommendation, Sir Niko?" the baron asked, as Becket had.

"To hunt him down. Bring him to ground, and kill him." That was obvious. Niko's stomach churned over the killings that he had done during the night. He would pray for the souls of each and every one of the McPhees he had killed, most with just a wave of Nadide.

But he knew where the blame was to be found. It wasn't in the souls of those whose minds had been captured by the pipes and the drums, but in the one who had sent them on their bloody path.

"And do you think you can manage it?"

"I don't know," he said. "I do know that I can try."

"Yes, you could." Becket nodded. "A knightly enough answer, at that, but—"

"But the matter has already been decided, and I don't know why you're bringing it up, Martin," the baron said.

"I'll thank you, Lord Baron, to let me test my own student in my own way," Becket said, a snap in his voice. He met the baron's gaze for a long moment until the baron nodded.

Fotheringay quickly turned his eyes away from that, and grinned at Niko. "Well, perhaps we can try after we get back from Londinium, or Windsor, young sir. If we're sent back here."

"Londinium? Windsor?"

"The king could be in residence in either place." Becket nodded. "For one thing, if a knight of the Order is to go messing about with any of the Old Ones, it's something that he should have sense to avoid deciding himself. Beyond that, if you're going to go hunting one of the last of the sidhe, you're going to need more than Fotheringay to act as your hound. And you'll need a lighter load on your back than the likes of me."

"Or, for that matter, the baron and his lady," Fotheringay said. "Can't watch out for them while he and I and whoever else are out hunting a mad piper, Sir Martin."

Becket glared at him. "You're not one who knows his place, Fotheringay."

"I think I do, Sir Martin." Fotheringay didn't quite shrug, and he met Becket's glare without flinching. "Just trying to do my job, Sir Martin, and watching the young knight's back is that job, and I'll do it, whether it's keeping it from sprouting daggers, or bearing too heavy a load for the task—and speaking of which, Sir Niko, if you'd do me the courtesy of just lying back for a while, there's a tray of bread and meat here that's not doing you any good lying on a plate, when it should be warming your belly."

"Fotheringay—"

"Listen to the man," Becket said. "He's got the right of it. Eat."

Niko forced himself to eat, but every bite was ashes in his mouth.

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Framed