"I'm sorry," said Quill.

It was the first words either had spoken since they left the cave. He was miserable, but occasionally his thoughts would wander back into what the old man might teach him, had taught him already, and he couldn't help smiling. He made sure he had removed anything remotely resembling a grin from his face when he was facing Quen, however.

She marched ahead of him now, keeping a gruelling pace. Suddenly she stopped and whirled on him. "Sorry?" she demanded. "We're actually headed, on purpose with no choice in the matter, toward a cave full of what's likely trolls but really, gods only know, because anything that doesn't come from Valasia looks the same to that demented old wizard, and you're sorry?"

Quill stood staring up at her, shocked by what until now, only the stupidest of Guard cadets, or dead trolls, had seen—his sister in full fury. Finally he stammered, "Jiquen, I swear to you before the gods, if I could take it back, even now, knowing nothing, I would." He offered her his hand.

She glared down at him for a moment, then took his hand and grasped him into a huge bear hug. He felt a lump rising—he couldn't remember her hugging him since they were children. "You great idiot," she finally said.

They began walking and she said, "So. Do you think he's telling the truth about you?"

He nodded, relieved to have left the awkwardness, good and bad, behind them. "I swear to you I never started any fires on purpose, but it seems that any time I was very upset, a fire would start somewhere."

"Do you think you can do as he says, and call on it?"

"If I had a temper like yours, it would be no problem," he laughed, and ducked under her swing. He walked in silence for a moment, then said, "Jiquen. Do you think we're actually related?"

"I wondered about that—it's obvious we don't have the same father, now. I wonder who yours is. Hopefully not that filthy thing back there in the cave."

Quill had to agree. He might admire the knowledge the old man had, but he was hard-pressed to find himself liking anything else about him. Finally he said, "Well, with any luck we can sneak past the trolls and get those stones he needs...or you can just kill them all, I suppose."

"Me?  You can damn well swing that sword of yours too. I taught you how to use it well enough to keep Sallach from boxing your ears all the time."

Quill didn't like the sounds of that, "Well, if we get there when it's still light, they should be sleeping."

♣

The cave that Majul Anesti had sent them to lay half a day's march from his own. They had left before sunlight and kept a good pace, and now, just past noon, they stood opposite it, watching carefully for any signs of life. Quill shook his head—the march had taken them much deeper into the mountains than he had ever been, and though the Houndstooths (Houndsteeth? he wondered) were nothing like the Whitecaps in the distance, it had still been a rough morning. He hoped the old man was wrong about the cave being guarded.

"Well?" he asked.

"Well what?" snarled Quen. "Am I looking for scat?  I'm not exactly an expert on what troll shit might look like, Quill."

"Well, it's still daylight. Trolls sleep during the day, right?"

She sighed, "Honestly? I have no idea. They certainly don't go out in the daylight, or they turn to stone. That much is true. But honestly I don't know if they sleep at all." They watched the cave entrance for so long that Quill wondered whether she had fallen asleep. Finally she stood up and said, "Nothing for it, I guess. You all right with the plan?"

He laughed. "Try not to wake anything up, grab the stones out of the statue's eyes, then run like hell?  Yeah, I think I can manage that."

"All right then."

They approached the cave warily, eyes everywhere at once. As they neared the entrance, Quill caught a whiff of air so nauseating he had to stop, and force himself to swallow a couple times. Quen leaned over and whispered, "Well, that's definitely troll-stench."

"I'm so glad," he murmured.

It was her turn to grin at him now.

They entered the cave and once they were out of the direct light, she stopped him and pointed to his eyes, closing her own. She had said he would need to adjust his eyes to the darkness, and that the risk of standing there blind for a moment or two was better than being blind on the inside. He wasn't so sure.

After a moment she tapped him, and led him down into the cave.

They skulked down as quietly as they were able, but every squeak of her armour sounded like a clarion in his ears. Making their way deeper into the cave, he gradually grew more used to the..."troll-stench" she called it...enough so that he was able to differentiate between it and the other stench of rotting flesh.

Finally the passage widened out, and they saw the entire cave. Faint light filtered in from above, enough that he could make out forms lying about on the floor. Whether they were living or dead, troll or human he had no idea. As his eyes adjusted further to the faint light, he saw that it didn't come from cracks in the roof as he had supposed, but from the far end of the cavern where the statue stood. Light blue stones lay scattered about the base of the statue, giving off a faint aura. He wondered at these, but then his attention was taken with the stones they had come for—huge fire opals in the eyes of the statue, giving off a dull red glow. The statue itself was impressive, a huge, gaunt skeleton, wearing ragged chain armour and holding an impressive blade, which also gave off an aura similar to the stones. The statue stood at least three mitres high, give or take a handspan. When he realized what the mounds in front of the statue were, he had to swallow again.

"Are those...men?" he couldn't help the comment from slipping out.

Quen turned and glared at him, then continued forward, her eyes sweeping the room. So far none of the bundles on the ground had moved, and as he got closer, he could see that the ones closest to him were indeed that—bundles of junk, brick a brack, junk. And corpses.

They were within five mitres of the statue when the first troll appeared. It came out from behind the statue, holding a human head and waving it around as it snarled something...chanting? Quen moved faster than Quill would have believed possible then, springing forward silently, the only sound a soft whistle of her blade cutting the air and a slight jingle of armour. The troll raised its stony head to howl, but had four spans of cold steel in its throat before it could make a sound.

Quen kicked the troll off of her blade and circled behind the statue, searching for more trolls. She stuck her head out once, glaring at him. Suddenly he remembered his part of the plan.

He ran forward, gingerly avoiding the corpses and grabbed hold of the statue's arm. He hefted himself up into its crook, then managed to get into a sitting position astride its shoulders. Success!

Then, suddenly he found himself upside down in the middle of the air. One arm was pinned against his body by the fist of the statue, which shook him once before hurling him against the side of the cave wall. Quill hit hard and crumbled, his breath knocked out of him. He tried to cry out to warn Quen, but he could barely wheeze himself.

The statue laughed and said in a hollow voice, "Yes, this is good. It will be good to kill my own meat again." It stood over him now, its blade hovering over Quill's head. The blade shone a strong blue now and he felt a deathly chill emanating from it.

Then she was there. She stood over him as the statue brought its blade down, parrying with her own, which shattered at once. Still she managed to force its blade back with the shard of her own, then she tumbled to the right of it as it drew back again. Quill managed to find his feet and duck to the left.

Quen snatched up a pole axe from one of the bundles on the floor and turned to face the thing again. It chuckled and swung and she managed to parry again, though the blade again destroyed her weapon. Pieces of the shattered pole axe cut her face, and she screamed once at Quill, "Run!" She gasped for breath as she dodged the statue's next swing, and Quill could imagine the chill she felt from the blade; he could see the very air seem to freeze around the blade.

No. She was enchanted on his behalf, because of his own ache for knowledge. He wouldn't let her die because of it as well. Reaching out of his mind, he looked for fire, called to it. There was none, and he nearly despaired. Wait, there was one. Two. The eyes. Fire opals, not just in name. He called to them, and they answered.

Quen was cornered, her eyes darting, seeking a means of escape. The skeleton raised its blade, cackling, and then... its head burst into flame. Roaring, it dropped the blade and fell backward as the flame leapt down its body, hungrily attacking the dried husk. It was consumed in a matter of seconds, and a moment later, the fire sputtered out.

Quen watched all this in amazement, then suddenly grinned at him and winked. Quill collapsed.

♣

When he came to, she had propped him against the wall, and was slapping his cheek, gently. "I'm all right," he said, waving her off.

"Good," she said. "I've got the stones. Can you walk?"

"Yes, give me a moment."

"Not much more—I'm not sure how long we'll be alone here."

He looked up at her and noticed the long hilt of the skeleton's blade sticking up over her shoulder. He shuddered, "You're keeping that thing?"

Quen laughed. "Why not?  It's a nice blade, if a bit longer than I'm used to. It'll take some practice, but I'm sure it'll come in handy."

"Well, it gives me the shudders."

"I have to tell you, Quill, your burning the head off that thing gave me a shudder or two of my own, but it was handily done. I'd say we're even."

♣

"Just a moment," said Quen, "We have your opals, and you have our oath to get you home. I think Quill deserves a bit more information first, in case you kill yourself in whatever sorcery you're concocting."

The old man shot an annoyed look at her as he was reaching for the opals Quill held. He lay back against his pillows and sighed. "Very well. Where shall we begin?  You both share a mother, and though she wasn't exactly my sister, I think we are still held together with stronger bonds than blood." He chuckled as he said this, and Quen bristled.

"Fine," she said, and looked at Quill. He seemed oddly reticent, so she shrugged and continued, "How is it that he can do these things with fire?  Is this your doing?"

He glanced at her shrewdly, then at Quill. "If you mean did I father a bastard, no. I wouldn't sully myself with a barbarian. But I did have something to do with it. Jiquill has certain gifts because of his father. You should be proud, boy—your mother may have been common barbarian trash, but your father was a god."

Quill finally seemed to come round at this, "What do you mean, Anesti?"

Quen felt ill, suspecting, and dreading what the wizard would say next. His talk of gods and demons before led her to think he knew more about them than just philosophical meanderings.

"Two or three years after I acquired the slave girl and she whelped her half-breed—no offence, Jiquen—I decided that it might be useful to have another slave about. A boy, this time, who might grow into a man I could rely on to get me away from this forsaken place. Being a Vizier of fire, I am able to commune with those spirits most easily. It was a simple matter for one to be called and made to father a child on the girl. Of course, the girl was badly hurt and lived only long enough to give birth—"

Quen had already turned away from the Vizier, sickened, so she didn't notice that the bed had begun smouldering as he told his tale. By the time he broke off, the bed was entirely aflame and she led the mule outside to avoid his screams.

Sometime later, Quill came out of the cave. They stood together in silence for a while, until Quill said simply, "He killed our mother."

♣

They marched quietly down the trail, lost in their own thoughts. Quill led the mule, which was loaded with a crate of the Vizier's books and what was left of the food, with Quen bringing up the rear. They were about a league away from the cave, when Quen suddenly staggered on her feet. Quill turned, wondering, when he too stumbled and nearly fell, a strange fist-like feeling around his heart.

A cold sweat broke out on both of their foreheads, and they sat heavily on the trail, panting and sweating and gazing at each other. The mule, seemingly unperturbed, stopped and waited for them. Realization struck them together.

"Surely we can't still be expected—" began Quill, when Quen lurched to her feet, snarling.

"Might as well bring the mule," she said over her shoulder, "an oath's an oath."

Quill sigheed and turned the mule around to follow her.

"At least now he won't take up much room," he offered.

Quen's laugh filled the night.

♣♣♣