It got no easier with practice.
She spooned more herb, delicately, waiting for the buzzing in her head to reach the right pitch. When it did she began groping for the boy's name. That part was always tricky.
This time she could not remember. "Damn," she said softly, and began feeling through her clothing. This time she had remembered to write it down but then had not remembered to leave the scrap of paper where she could see it. She breathed shallowly, trying not to take in too much smoke.
Her fingers encountered the paper. She drew it out, frowned at it, wiped away the sweat that had begun to run into her eyes. Why couldn't she ever remember to wear a sweatband? She puzzled out the name.
"Histabel. Histabel, can you hear me?"
The boy did not respond.
"Histabel. If you hear me, answer me."
He made a sound.
"You must pay close attention to me, Histabel. This is very important. Say yes if you understand."
His "yes" was a sparrow's sigh.
"You are comfortable and relaxed and you feel very good now. Don't you, Histabel?"
"Yes."
"Good. That's good. I want you to feel comfortable and relaxed. Now I'm going to ask you some questions. Answer them the best you can. And I'm going to tell you some things. The things I tell you will all be true. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"What is your name?" "Histabel."
"Who is your father?" "Who is your mother?" "How many brothers and sisters do you have?" "How old are they?" And so forth, the boy answering every time, the answers being unimportant to the Witch except in that they set his mind in an answering mode.
"What I tell you is true, Histabel. You are four years old. In fact, today isyour fourth birthday. Where are you?"
For a time the boy's mind resisted being loosened from its anchor in time.
They always did, though with children the shaking loose was easier than it waswith adults.
"It's your fourth birthday, Histabel. You're four years old today. Where areyou?"
"At my grandmother Darragh's."
"What are you doing at your grandmother's house?" Cautiously, she led himthrough the details of a birthday celebration. When they were coming freelyshe jogged him back to his third birthday.
Third birthdays were very important to children of Qushmar-rah. If a childlived that long it was likely to survive, so it received its real name on itsthird birthday. Whatever it had been called earlier was just a nickname.
Fathers might pick names for their sons before they were born, but they wouldnot reveal them till the exactly proper ceremonial moment. Prematuredisclosure would tempt fate too much.
Birthdays were good milemarks in tracing a young life. The Witch always usedthe fourth and third to establish her dominion. She had that now. She led the child backward into time, past recollections of people, places, and things, into a time when everything had been feeling and mood, and earlier still, intothe closeness and warmth of the womb itself.
And back.
"What I tell you is true. It is a bright, sunny day, and one of the happiestyou have ever known. Are you there? Do you see it?"
Confusion in the child's face. The Witch wiped sweat and sprinkled herbs ontothe coals.
"Do you see it?"
"Yes." A little puzzled.
"Where are you?"
"Tel-Daghobeh, overlooking the Grey Reach." The child's voice had deepenedsubtly.
The Witch frowned. The answer did not make sense. "What is your name?"
"Shadid."
Ah. "You are Dartar, Shadid?"
"Yes."
Of course. Darters had died that day, too. She had not considered that before, nor had she encountered one before.
She controlled her disappointment. Going in she had not expected much of thisone. Slowly, she took him through the details of his happy day-the dateShadid's first son was bom. She gained her hold upon the previous incarnationand in time brought it forward to the day she had examined from thirty pointsof view already.
"There is so much smoke we can't see twenty yards. They tell us if we wantclean air we're going to have to take the top of the hill. But the stubborndamned veydeen won't stop fighting. We just fought off a band of old men andboys armed with tools and kitchen knives. What is the matter with the veydeen?
Do we have to massacre every man, woman, and child?"
No, the Witch thought. You have to slay one man, Nakar, my husband, and allthe killing will stop. The smoke will dear and the rains fall and the firesdie and the death and devastation prove to be less widespread than everyoneimagined. But it will be terrible enough to leave everyone's thirst for murderslaked. She nudged the memory of the Dartar Shadid. "The Herodians have begunto move. This part looks like it might get to be house-to-house. We aredrawing random missile fire from the rooftops. It's more a nuisance than adanger. The snipers can't find their targets in the smoke. There is a smell ofburnt flesh in it strong, now. Now ... Now ..."
The Witch did not press. This stutter was a warning that the end was near. Thesoul remembered and did not want to get any closer to the pain. She askedquestions to fix the place and time.
She had no reason to believe that information might be useful, yet sherecorded it all in hopes of charting a pattern.
Mostly, she found cause for ever-increasing fear.
A lot of people had died that day. Far more than there had been babies born.
So far it looked like only the strongest souls had attached to new fleshimmediately. But suppose that was an illusion? Suppose luck and proximity wereequally crucial? In this instance the Dartar had died on the doorstep of awoman in labor.
She seldom knew enough, or unearthed enough, to see the transition so clearly.
Cautiously, she put Shadid to sleep and reawakened Histabel, restored him tohis proper age, then told him to rest.
This had been an easy regression. Very little resistance. A pity all of themdid not go as smoothly. A greater pity none of them ever turned up anyone moreimportant than this.
If she could not unearth Nakar, her husband, then she wanted to find hismurderer, Ala-eh-din Beyh.
"Torgo," she called weakly. "I'm done."
The eunuch appeared immediately. He had been outside the tent recordingeverything, in case her fragile, drug-sodden memory played pranks on her. "ADartar," he said, disgusted.
"Yes."
"I suppose we can say we are a step closer to our goal, my lady. We knew itwouldn't be easy when we started."
For the first time she felt a spark of real resentment of the eunuch's ritualreassurances. "Get me out of here before I go mad. I got too much of the smokeagain."
"Perhaps you should space the regressions more widely, my lady. So muchconcentrated exposure to the fumes cannot be healthy."
"I want him back, Torgo. I don't want to waste a minute I don't have towaste."
"And if a minute not taken now means having to pay with an hour or a day lateron?"
His solicitude touched something deep. She flew into an instantaneousunreasoning fury. "You stop your fussing and nagging and do your damned job, Torgo! Let me worry about me. Get me to my bed. Bring me food and drink. Now!"
Inside the facade there was a very frightened woman.
The facade was starting to crack.
She ate and she drank and then she retreated into that place of warm sleep andpleasant dreams she found only after exposure to the drugged fumes. A stillsmall but blossoming part of her fear was that she had begun to look forwardto those hours of surcease.
"You sure favor that balcony these days," Meryel said.
Bel-Sidek turned, smiled. "It's a good place for thinking."
"For brooding, you mean. What is it tonight? The new civil governor?"
"Nothing so obvious and mundane. This morning I learned that there might be atraitor of relatively high station among the Living."