Jareen sat at the little table at the back of the hut. It was raining again, and it was uncomfortably hot. Before her, the foul scrap of hide lay exposed. Thick colonies of fungus had grown upon the blood of the now departed vien. A few inches away, the stain of her own blood remained untouched. She had found the pathogen; the experiment upon the vien satisfied her of that. A few quth had carried the vien's body to the Mingling at Coir's request, sneaking it away in the night when no one from the enclave would likely observe. She hoped the movement of the quth would not draw the attention of any Forel sentinels watching the border.

The vienu who brought their supplies came at predictable intervals, and she had taken care to meet them on the path, preventing them from coming too close to the hut while the vien had remained within. Now that he was gone, she need not be so watchful. And yet, what was she to do, now?

That witch Vireel was wrong. It had not taken her a hundred years. It was not yet two months. Thought of Vireel turned her mind to Faro, and her worry overmastered her anger. What might that awful vienu be teaching him? Had Jareen taught him enough that he could resist the witch's deceits? Or had she spent his few decades sheltering him, so that he was unprepared for dangers of lies? Who was her son? She had never seen him encounter hardship that she might know. That was her own fault. What had she given him to guide him? What did she know about raising a vien? There was so much she could have told him, warned him about. She glanced over at Coir, who sat dozing in a chair at the door of the hut. Beyond him, rain poured down. Faro had talked with Coir more than he had with anyone else. Maybe he had instilled something in the lad that might help.

But what other option did she have but to hide him away in Vireel's glade? Was she not a prisoner as well?

She looked back to the filthy hide, the old distracting comfort of work. Vireel was wrong; she had found the fungus. Now, what was she supposed to do with it? If the fungus could truly do no good in combatting the Malady, then why would Vireel hide it from Jareen? Once again, she picked up the little bottle of the vien's blood. The glass was pocked with fungal colonies, and the blood itself had taken on blue-ish hue. She swirled the liquid, reconstituting the separated elements.

That done, she pulled the stopper and smelled the blood. There was certainly an aroma. It was similar to the odor of the festering extremities of those who lingered long enough with the Malady that their circulation failed. She could see scum from the fungus collecting at the surface. On a whim, she tipped the neck of the bottle and poured some of the tainted blood atop an unused patch of the damp fur. Using a pitthorn, she pricked her thumb and dribbled her own blood atop it.

***

Faro stood with Vireel at the roaring seashore where only a few weeks before, frigid winds had battered the rocky land's edge. Now, though a few yards away the cold spray still whipped in the winds, flowers bloomed around Vireel and Faro, and a lemon tree blossomed. The leaves did not sway, for no wind touched them. The embrace was small, but it was warm.

"You are sustaining it now by yourself," Vireel said, "using both the Nethec and Isecan Currents mingled."

"How long could I sustain this, before. . ."

"Before the Change takes you?" Vireel asked with a grin. "An embrace this small you might sustain for hundreds of years, drawing on one Wellspring or another. But you could sustain it for thousands of years drawing on both."

"It makes that much of a difference?"

"Yes, but the scope of the embrace matters."

"How much faster, if we expanded it?"

"The greater the expanse of the embrace, the faster the Change comes, but it is not the same for everyone. By doubling its expanse, you might triple the rate of your Change, or more, or less."

Faro held up his hands and looked at his fingertips. The Change had only touched the pads of his middle three fingers.

"My embrace covered a single glade," Vireel went on. "It was nothing compared to the great enclaves, and the enclaves are nothing compared to the Nethec. Even drinking from the Wellspring itself and joining their wills, the members of the Synod Change rapidly."

"Is it painful, to die of the Change?"

"Not in the end," Vireel answered, "or so the ancients said in my youth. When there is nothing left of this garment of flesh, you become malir."

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She had described the malir before, the strange tree-like growths that were the ultimate end of the Change. They were revered by the Inevien. The idea unsettled him.

"What else can be done with the Current?"

"Things great and small, but none without danger. The Change has taken some at the attempt of a single working. Others, through caution and careful discipline, keep the Change at bay for many centuries. Some have accomplished feats beyond all expectation."

"Like the destruction of Drennos?" Faro asked.

Vireel squinted, hesitating.

"Coir told me of it many times," Faro said. "I still do not understand how such a thing could be possible." The thought of it always horrified him. He could never understand the justification of such an act.

"It was a mighty deed, but it was done through cleverness and not brute power."

"What cleverness?"

"To push such a mass of water so far. . . I am not sure it would be possible at all, not without sacrificing all of Isecan. But a great vien, Olor of Theniel, discovered great seams in the rock beneath the sea near the coast, as if expanses of fractured rock warred against each other, pressing with incomprehensible force."

"How could he discover such a thing?"

"It took him centuries of quiet observation in the Current."

"And how did he make the wave?"

"By using the power stored up in the rock beneath the sea. All he needed to do was release the tension between the great shelves. Make them slip. It still cost him his life, and many others who willingly sacrificed themselves to deprive the Nethec of their ally."

"Did you know him?"

"Yes, long before."

Faro hesitated, unsure if he should ask his next question, but Vireel somehow anticipated it.

"No," she said. "I was not part of it."

"Then how do you know how it was done?"

"The attempt was no great secret among us, but even if it were, such a working could hardly be hidden. It is easy to sense one who grasps the Current. It is those who do not grasp it who walk like shadows. That is why I cannot easily see the Nethec warriors in the Mingling, even though I grasp Findel's Current."

"You cannot sense them, even though they are controlled by the Current?"

"There is a great difference between receiving the influence of the Current and using it."

"How does the Synod control the wills of their people? Is it like the quth?"

Vireel plucked the stem of a vibrant orange-and-black flower, a variety Faro had never seen before Vireel had grown it there. She lifted it to her nose and inhaled.

"That goes all the way back to Findel," she said. "He drank first of the waters of the Wellspring, before any others could learn its use. He enslaved his people. I have long wondered how the Synod can both sustain the embrace and control so many." She shook her head and cast the flower away. "I do not know. I cannot fathom how it is possible, especially with so few members of the Synod remaining."

Faro looked up at a lemon blossom above his head. He could smell the citrus tang of the leaves. He reached up and touched the blossom with his finger, directing his will and the flow of the Current into it. Before his eyes, the petals fell away and the ovary swelled, turning green as the fruit matured. In moments, a ripe lemon hung there. He plucked it and tore open the peal, smelling the sweetness. Lifting it to his lips, he sucked out the pulp and juice, tart and delightful.

"The flower wishes to become a fruit," Vireel said. "The seed wishes to grow. It takes little power to bring forth such life, only encouragement. It is dangerous to go against the inclination of a thing."

Faro had already learned that through the experience of growing the garden, but Vireel kept reminding him. The real difficulty in their little embrace lay in blocking the wind, for the air wished to move. They let in the sunlight to warm the earth and air, but trapped the heat from escaping. The heat wanted to rise, as the wind wanted to blow. It was far harder to fight the flow of life than to add to it. A grimness entered Vireel's tone.

"Remember this. Using both Currents is not merely to delay the Change. Those who grasp the Current of the Nethec can sense when another uses it, but they cannot so easily detect the power of Isecan. If you fight the Inevien, use the Nethec. If you fight the Nethec, draw on Isecan. Best is to wield both and confuse your enemy."

Vireel stepped closer and took Faro's hand in her own, lifting up his fingers. She examined the discoloration of the Change there. Her own hands were warm, and he could feel the different textures the Change had wrought in her skin. She met his eyes and smiled. The Change had stiffened the flesh at the corner of her mouth, giving the smile a wry asymmetry that did not diminish her beauty.

***

Coir and Jareen stared down at the hide.

"What. . . what does that mean?" he asked.

Jareen glanced at him and frowned. What kind of question was that?

She had anticipated a few possibilities after she had dribbled her own blood upon the vien's. First, it might not matter at all, nothing would come of it, and the colonies of the fungus would continue to grow on the vien's tainted blood. Or, the sudden change from the bottle to the fur might disrupt the fungus somehow. In her wildest dreams, her own blood might hinder the growth of the fungus.

Instead, the fungus had changed. It had lost its bluish tint, turning a translucent white and growing a white fuzz that crumbled when touched. Despite its delicacy, it had slowly continued to spread outward from the blood, growing atop the damp fur until the fungal growth from the first test pool of the vien's blood and the white fungus from the mixed blood met. There, the most interesting phenomenon was occurring; the white fungus appeared to be draining the yellow and blue colonies of color. They had turned pale along the edge, and now the effect was spreading inward.

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