"But you should know that a muse is more powerful than many other kinds of masaaks. For most masaaks, our powers are small. Some merchants can only draw from others, learn what others know. They might at most be able to sneak into a person's mind and learn their secrets. Thus, they can discover if a man is guilty of a crime, or steal valuable trade secrets, or learn the numbers that will let them access secret bank accounts.
"People like that, they're really not merchants, are they? They're merely thieves. So we call them 'Thieves.' Most masaaks fall into this category.
"Others can pull memories and send memories, and these are true merchants. But they can't do what we call 'deep training.' They can't go into the brain stem and follow the impulses from your ears to your fingers, so that you can train a child to play an instrument or learn to walk. That takes a muse. Even Monique doesn't have my gift for that."
"So she's not more powerful than you?"
"No, she's different from me. She's more like a priestess, dedicated to a cause."
Olivia paused and took a deep breath, as if uneasy about revealing so much, and said, "Some of us never die, Bron. As you have guessed, there is a way for a merchant to cheat death. I could download all of my memories into a child, victimize someone. But there's a moral way to do it, too....
"When Monique was only a child of thirteen, she volunteered for this. She wanted to learn the history of our people, as much as there was to know, and a wise old man who had stored that information agreed to give it to her.
"But there was so much information, that her mind could not easily hold it all, so much information that only the most brilliant of us could have tried. So her teacher had to erase all of the information that she had stored to that point—nearly every memory that she held dear—and then he emptied his mind into hers."
"What?" Bron asked. "So he taught her everything he'd learned in his lifetime?"
"More than that," Olivia said, "for he'd had it done to him as a child, and it had been done to his teacher as well—for three thousand years the chain has gone unbroken.
"Monique, if she desired, could tell you about her life as a prophetess in a temple in Greece, conversing with Homer. She speaks ancient Assyrian and Egyptian, and was a tutor to kings. She was there when Saladin re-captured Jerusalem, and fought beside Joan of Arc.
"More importantly, she knows most of what can be known about our own people, and holds memories from before the dawn of recorded history."
Bron wondered. "So, she gave up everything in order to do this?"
Olivia nodded. "All of her hopes and dreams, all of her aspirations. She had to surrender herself completely. She is no longer a single person. So when she took time to think about you last night, it was to consult the myriad voices in her head, compose a single plan of action."
"She wanted this?" Bron asked, amazed.
"Many of us would," Olivia admitted. "It's an honored position. She is the Weigher of Lost Souls, a creature far older and wiser than you or me. I offered myself when I was young, but I wasn't ... bright enough, and it was felt that as a muse, I had other gifts that could benefit the community."
"What community?" Bron asked, for he imagined secret meetings of hooded Ael, held by moonlight deep in the forest.
"Mankind," Olivia explained.
"But you don't consider yourself human," Bron pointed out.
Olivia grinned. "I consider 'mankind' to include both humans and masaaks."
Bron asked slyly, "But the Draghouls don't?"
"No," Olivia agreed. "They think of humans more like... food."
"And how would they think of me?" Bron asked.
Olivia closed her mouth secretively, and at last said, "As a prize. They would honor you and fete you to your face, but as soon as you slept, they would take you. You want nothing to do with them, Bron. You cannot make a deal with a devil without becoming one yourself."
Bron chuckled. She sounded so over-dramatic.
"Don't laugh," Olivia said in a tone that spoke of despair and heartbreak.
Bron didn't want to hurt her feelings. He became solemn. "So any Masaak can become a Draghoul?" Bron asked, "or an Ael?"
"That's a tough question," Olivia said. "Most people can be on either side, but not all. You can try to convert a person who is evil to the core, one who lacks the capacity for love or selflessness, but in time they'll slip back into their old ways. And there are good people in the world, too Bron, people so giving, so honorable that the Draghoul can't really control them. All of their hateful thoughts, their selfish ideals, can never gain root in such people."
Bron had always been taught that people are basically the same. "Are you saying that the Draghouls are different from us?"
"I'm saying that some Draghouls lack the capacity for compassion. They were bred that way. Pit bulls were bred to attack, while Labrador retrievers were bred to lick your hand. The same is true with the Draghouls. They've been bred for ruthlessness. For more than five thousand years, the Draghouls have been perfecting their lines. You can try changing them, but it's not easy."
They had crossed over the dam now and were heading into the desert. Down below, Bron could see rusted-out trailer homes along a highway, where dead cars rotted in yards where no children played at all.
"That priest we met, Father Leery," Bron said. "Tell me about him. I mean, he's a priest, but once he was a Draghoul?"
"Yes," Olivia said. "He was a stalker, before he became converted."
Bron wasn't sure how he felt about a priest who could rip out your memories, one who would sneak into your house at night to do it. He wondered if the man was a true believer, or if he simply used his frock as some kind of ridiculous disguise.
"So one of your people captured him," Bron asked, "and possessed him?"
Olivia smiled. "It was the other way around. He caught one of us, one who stored special memories, and when he saw what was in the man's mind, he left the Draghouls."
"What kind of memories?" Bron asked.
"Memories of visions," Olivia said. "Would you like to know what Saint Francis of Assisi knew after he saw god? Would you like to know what Peter witnessed on the Mount of Transfiguration? Or what Moses saw in the burning bush? Or Mohamed? It's powerful stuff. That's why Draghouls want to destroy it.
"Bron, there's a war going on. A war for information. The Ael want to preserve it, to spread it among those who would use it for good. But if we're captured, the light we have in us will be snuffed out forever."
"So do you believe in God?" Bron asked. He felt odd about it, as if he was asking if she believed in Santa Claus.
Olivia bit her lip, trying to decide how to answer. "Let's just say ... the universe is far more vast and strange than humans can imagine. You're about to enter a far larger world."
"Do you think the priest would show me what he's seen?"
"I think he'd like to, but you're not ready for it. Let yourself grow a little."
Bron wondered about that. Could the priest prove that there was a God? And what if he did? How would that knowledge change a man?
"Do the Draghouls have muses, too?" Bron asked.
"They do," Olivia admitted. "You might learn music from them, if you liked—but they're more likely to train you in the finer arts of assassination. Avoid them. These people have no love for one another, no affection. If you meet them, do not confuse solicitation for kindness. They're at their most dangerous when they are at their most subtle."
Bron wondered at that. Father Leery had turned Blair's old acolytes into poppets. Could such creatures be trusted?