the old one eventually faded?'
'Quite possibly. Are you going somewhere with this, old boy? Thinking of taking up magic? It's a little late, and I'm not sure you've got the brains for-'
'It just seems to me, in my ignorance,' Jassion said with a slow smile, 'that if the first one hasn't dwindled yet, two such spells on the same subject might leave a heavier magical trail than one. Wouldn't they?'
Kaleb's jaw sagged, practically unhinging itself very much like a snake's. 'I'm an idiot,' he said to Mellorin.
'I just want it noted,' Jassion announced smugly, 'that I'm not the one who said that.'
The sun had settled beyond the mountains by the time Davro returned to his house, carrying a bucket of milk large enough for Mellorin to have bathed in. His eye narrowed in a fearsome glower at the sight of her perched on his stoop.
'I told you to leave!'
'We did, Davro. Kaleb and Uncle Jassion aren't here. It's just me.'
'Fantastic. That's two-thirds what I asked for, then, isn't it? What are you doing here, Little Rebaine?'
Mellorin rose. 'I want…' She swallowed once. 'I want you to tell me about my father.'
'You're joking.'
'No, I'm not.'
'You're crazy, then. Go away.'
'Davro…' She rose to her feet, which brought her barely up to the giant's waist. 'I don't know what drove you to live out here, apart from your family and your tribe. And I don't need to, to know that it can't have been an easy choice.
'But it was a choice you got to make. I don't know my father anymore-I suppose I never really did-and that's not something I chose. It's something that was taken from me. I know he's not your favorite topic…' She smiled. 'Understatement, again?' she asked.
Despite himself, Davro grinned back at her.
'Please, Davro, just tell me something about him. Then, I promise, I'll go.'
The ogre set down the bucket with a deep sigh and dropped into a crouch. 'All right,' he agreed. 'But just a little bit.'
'Thank you.'
'I suppose,' he began, deep in thought, 'it makes-' He yawned deeply, his head splitting into a gaping chasm of chipped teeth and jagged tusks. 'I'm sorry, it must've been-' Yawn. '-a more tiring day than I-' Yawn. '-realized. It makes most sense-' Yawn, a few blinks. '-to start with-'
The ogre toppled with a crash that set a dozen startled sheep to bleating. His snores, sufficient to shake the earth and shame the thunder, began instantly.
An unwary mind, and a few moments of contact.
Mellorin's body flexed, bulged, and melted like candle wax. A moment of hideous distension and impossible shapes, and then Kaleb stood in her place, blinking rapidly as he acclimated to the change in height. Swiftly, he knelt at Davro's side, casting a second spell to keep the ogre deep in slumber. When he finished, he glanced around and found he remained alone.
'Hey! Are you two just going to leave me standing here with my bugger-stick in my hand, or were you planning on joining me anytime soon?'
A shuffling in the nearby grasses presaged a pair of silhouettes rising into view.
'I think I'm appalled. Must he say things like that?' he heard Mellorin ask plaintively.
'I don't know if he must,' Jassion replied with unaccustomed humor, 'but I've noticed that he very often does.'
'Keep watch on him,' Kaleb said as they neared. 'He should be out for hours, but I've never tried anything quite like this. Fiddling with Rebaine's location spell shouldn't have any effect on the magics keeping him asleep, but let's not take chances.'
And then, despite his insistence in calling them to his side, Jassion and Mellorin could do nothing but wait as Kaleb knelt over the ogre's chest and muttered his incantations.
'So?' Jassion asked as the sorcerer rose, his expression weary, more than an hour later. 'Did it work?'
'I'm not…' Kaleb shook his head and leaned against the wall of the towering house. 'Maybe. A little.'
'How could it work a little?'
'Even with the two spells layered on each other, the trail's so tenuous I can barely feel it. I'm sensing a slight pull, but it's about as precise as pissing into a crosswind. I can tell you that he's somewhere between south and east of here.'
'Ah. So we only have to search about a third of Imphallion, rather than all of it,' Jassion groused. 'At this rate, Rebaine will be dead before we ever get near him.'
'He may not be the only one,' Kaleb said.
'At least it's something,' Mellorin interjected, not in the mood for another argument. 'It's more than we had before.'
Kaleb offered her a gentle smile.
'There's another option, isn't there?' Jassion asked. 'As I recall, Rebaine was known to have had four lieutenants during the Serpent's War. We've only found three. We could try to find-Ellwyn? Something like that.'
'I thought you were getting tired of traipsing all over the map hunting for these people,' Mellorin said.
'I am. But I'm not sure how traipsing all over a third of the map looking for Rebaine is any better.'
'Ellowaine.'
The baron and the warlord's daughter both blinked. 'What?'
'Her name,' Kaleb said, 'is Ellowaine. She's already been dealt with. She can't offer us anything new.' And that, no matter how Jassion insisted and Mellorin cajoled, was all he would say.
'Fine!' Jassion, clearly, felt he'd had enough. 'Let's conclude our business here, and we can be on our way.' He moved toward the slumbering ogre, hand closing about Talon's hilt.
'No!' Mellorin hadn't even realized she'd spoken until the faint echo came back with the sound of her own voice.
'Oh, come off it!' her uncle snarled. 'You want to snivel for the life of some random ogre, that's your call. I needn't understand it. But this is Davro! How many did he slaughter under Rebaine's orders? How many more will he kill if we let him live?'
'He doesn't look like he's all that interested in killing anymore,' she noted, gesturing at the surrounding vale.
'This is not up for discussion,' Jassion said coldly. 'And you need to learn to think with your head, rather than your heart.'
Gales of uncontrolled laughter burst from Kaleb's throat. He doubled up, clutching his stomach, and only the wall kept him upright. 'That, coming from you,' he gasped when he could finally breathe, 'is hypocrisy that even the gods must envy. I expect that you've carved out a place of honor in Vantares's domain, where the entire pantheon will come to learn at your newly angelic feet.'
Even beneath the chain hauberk, in the dim light of the moon and stars, they saw the baron's shoulders tense. His hands, as he raised Talon, vibrated with suppressed emotion.
'You,' Kaleb said far more seriously, 'are not going to kill that ogre. It is, as you said, not open to discussion.'
'And why might that be, sorcerer?' Jassion demanded. At least for the moment, he'd stayed his stroke. 'Surely not because you're hoping to win more of my niece's misdirected favors?'
Mellorin gasped, and there was no telling whether the spots of crimson across her cheeks were birthed by embarrassment or fury-or perhaps both. Kaleb held out a pacifying hand but otherwise remained focused on the baron.
'Because, m'lord Cretin, if we can't locate Rebaine in any reasonable amount of time, we may have to come back and repeat my efforts to track his spells back from Davro. And for that, he has to be alive.'
They heard Jassion's ragged breathing as he struggled to decide.
'Look around you,' Kaleb continued. 'Davro's obviously not going anywhere. Once we've dealt with Rebaine,
