"Only some of us." He gestured. Natha and Erastu laid hands upon me. "There is much for you to learn. We had best begin now."
I struggled, but could not move the hands. "Just what is it I'm supposed to be learning?"
"Who you were. Who you are." He stepped aside so the young men might escort me out of the chamber he'd called the hermitage. "Did the ikepra not tell you?"
"He told me he's not ikepra anymore."
"Ah. But he is ikepra. He will always be ikepra. He turned his back on the gods."
"Maybe," I said tightly, "he didn't want to merge."
"Then he will only die. Alone. Quite mad." He shook his head; rings glinted. "All men must die, but only we are permitted to merge. It is the only way we know ourselves worthy, and welcomed among the gods."
"That was his payment," I said. "Freedom. Wasn't it? For bringing me to you."
Sahdri offered no answer.
"He's free now, isn't he? No longer subject to your beliefs, your rules."
The priest-mage's tone was severe. "He does not believe in the necessity."
"Neither do I!"
"Most of us do not," he agreed, "when first we come here. But disbelief passes-"
"It didn't for Nihko."
"-and most of us learn to serve properly, until we merge."
Abruptly I recoiled, even restrained by strong hands. My lips drew back into a rictus. "You stink of it," I said. "It fills me up."
Sahdri studied me intently. "What do you smell?"
"Magic. " The word was hurled from my mouth. "It's-alive."
"Yes," he agreed. "It lives. It grows. It dies."
"Dies?"
He reconsidered. "Wanes. Waxes anew. But we none of us may predict it. The magic is wild. It manifests differently in every man. We are made over into mages, but until the moment arrives we cannot say what we are, or what we may do."
"At all?"
His expression was kind. He glanced at the acolytes. "Natha, do you know what each moment holds?"
"I know nothing beyond the moment," the man answered.
"Erastu, do you know what faces you the next day?"
"Never," Erastu said. "Each day is born anew, and unknown."
I shook my head. "No one knows what each moment or day holds."
"This is the same."
"But magic gives you power!"
"Magic is power," he corrected gently. "But it is wholly unpredictable."
"Nihko can change flesh. Nihko can halt a heart."
"As can I," Sahdri said. "It takes some of us that way. It may take you that way."
"You don't know?"
"I know what I may do today, this moment," he answered. "But not what I may be able to do tomorrow."
" 'It grows,' " I quoted.
"As the infant grows," the priest-mage said gently. "On the day the child is born, no one knows what may come of it. Not its mother, who bore it. Not its father, who sired it. Certainly not the child. It simply lives every hour, every day, every year, and becomes. "
"You're saying I'm one thing now, this moment, here before you-but may be something else tomorrow?"
"Or even before moonrise."
"And I'll never know?"
"Not from one moment to the next."
"That's madness!" I cried. "How can a man be one thing one moment, and something else the next? How can he survive? How can he live his life?"
"Here," Sahdri said, "where such things belong to the gods. Where what he is this moment, this instant, here and now, need not reflect on his next, or shape it. Where a day is not a day, a night is not a night, and a man lives his life to merge with the gods."
"I don't want to merge with anyone!"
"But you will," he told me. "You have leaped from the spire once, with no one there to suggest it, to force it, to shape your mind into the desire. Do you really think there will fail to come another day when you wish to leap again?"
"Nihko has no desire to leap."
"He will leap," the priest-mage said. "One day it will come upon him, and he will leap. As it will come to Natha and Erastu."
They inclined tattooed heads in silent assent. Rings in their flesh glinted.
"Then why does it matter?" I asked. "Why does it matter where a man lives?"
The dark eyes were steady. "A man such as we may love his child one moment, and kill it the next. It is better such a man lives here, where he may serve the gods as he learns to control his power. Where he may harm no one."
It was inconceivable. "I don't believe that. What about Nihko? Why did you let him go if you believe he will harm someone?"
"He keeps himself aboard ship. He sets no foot upon the earth of Skandi. He may harm himself, or his captain, or his crewmates-but mostly he harms the people he robs." His tone made it an insult: "He is a renegada. "
"You're saying anyone with this magic is capable of doing anything, even something he finds abhorrent?"
Unexpectedly, tears welled in Sahdri's eyes. "Why do you think we come here?" he asked. "Why do you think we desert our families-our wives, our mothers, our children? Why do you think we never go back?"
I scowled at him. "Except to gather up a lost chick."
"That lost chick," Sahdri said plainly, "may murder the flock. May bring down such calamity as you cannot imagine." His expression was peculiar. "Because if you do imagine it, it will come to be."
"You're saying you come here willingly, but only after you've been driven out by the people on Skandi."
"We do not at first understand what is happening. When the magic manifests. It is others who recognize it. A wife. Perhaps a child." He gestured. "It is unpredictable, as I have said. We know only that symptoms begin occurring with greater frequency as we approach our fortieth year."
"What symptoms?"
He shrugged beneath dark robes. "Any behavior that is not customary. Visions. Acute awareness. A talent that increases for no apparent reason. Or one may imagine such things as no one has imagined before."
Such as turning the sand to grass.
Such as conjuring a living sandtiger out of dreams.
Such as knowing magic was present and so overwhelming as to make the belly rebel.
Sensitivity, Nihko had called it. When the body manifested a reaction to something it registered as too loud, too bright, too rich.
Too powerful.
My voice rasped. "And once here, you make a decision never to go back. To stay forever. Willingly."
"Would you kiss a woman," he asked, "if you knew she would die of it?"
"But-"
"If you knew she would die of it? "
I stared at Sahdri, weighing his convictions. He was serious. Deadly serious.
I would not kiss a woman if I knew she would die of it. Not if I knew. How could I? How could any man?
"Know this," Sahdri said clearly. "We are sane enough to comprehend we are mad. And mad enough to welcome that comprehension-"
"Why? "
"Because it keeps us apart from those we may otherwise harm."
Desperation boiled over. "I'm not a priest! I don't believe in gods! I'm not of your faith!"
Sahdri said, "Faith is all that preserves us," and gestured to the acolytes.
Too much, all at once. Too bright, too loud, too painful. I ached from awareness. Trembled from comprehension.
Not to know what one might do one moment to the next.
Not to know what one was capable of doing.
Not to know if one could kill for wishing it, in that moment of madness.
Understood fear: Imagination made real.
It ran in my bones, the power. I felt it there. Felt it invading, infesting, infecting.
How much would I remember?
How much would I forget?