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He too wore a black cape with a hood, but the cape bulged and seethed weirdly around him, and he let himself carefully down the steps as if he did not know or could not reures who had cli hi on, that their hands did not grasp quite where elbows and armpits should be

He half limped, half rolled up the steps toward the House's front door with his helpers still on his either side She seeht in a sudden updraft She wanted to glance at the faces of the other people, the people who had colihtened or appalled But she couldn't drag her own gaze away fro toward her

She felt the threenot to step back and away as she stepped forward She had been clutching the welcohtly that her stoantly ornahness of the intricate overlay on the cup's bowl gave her suddenly cold stiff fingers better purchase as she moved her hands to their proper places on its stem

She was Chalice, and hers the first greeting

The top step was a wide smooth half-moon of white stone before the door There was plenty of space for her and him and his two aides, as well as the threethe doorposts She raised her cup, grateful that the weight of it prevented her hands fro, and looked down Three faces turned up toward her, two of the

The third face was black, as black as the coal-coloured horses that drew the black coach, and its - his - eyes were red, flickering like fire around the black pupils She recognised nothing in that face froer brother of the dead Master She looked at hi - that she could welcome as Master, and in the final seconds it took him to climb the last step, she sahat she needed to see: comprehension He knew her for Chalice and knew she was there to welcome him, because he came as Master

When he stood with her on the top step he gave a little shudder, or ripple, and his two aides dropped their hands and stepped back As they let go of hiloves Herash, and she was slow to say the two important words: "Welcome, Master"

She was slow, but he was slower He should reach immediately to take the cup from her, hold it briefly over his head for everyone to see that he accepted it, taste its contents and hand it back to her It was possible that he would thank her, but it was not necessary

But he only stood, looking at her The hood shadowed his shadow-dark face; she thought she was glad of it He twitched, a tiny spas to raise his hands The third ti back as if blown by a wind, and she saw that he too wore gloves, long heavy ones, laced snugly to the elbows

She could not give any Chalice cup to gloved hands She looked back into his face - into the shadohere his face was She did not knohat to do She thought she ined the comprehension she had seen there a moment earlier; she could read no expression on that black face now

Cluh the laces of the glove on his right The cords fell away in uneven shards, as if charred Slowly he peeled the glove away froed out at her The air between them was almost too hot to breathe Even lowing like eers of that fiery hand curled round the bowl of the cup inches frorew uncoainst her skin and steam rose from the liquid within it

The weight of the cup did not change and she supported it as he stood with his hand around it He looked at it and back at her

"Whatdo you giveme to drink?" His voice was as eerie as his appearance, but perfectly intelligible

Her answer to this question had been in no record she had consulted about the rite of welcome; but then no one had ever welcomed a third-level Eleainst the preferences of the Prelate and the Grand Seneschal only because she was, in the end, Chalice, and they could not order her to give him the earthed wine customary for a welcome cup But she had not expected to have to announce publicly her departure from tradition: only the Master himself would taste the contents of his welco ard, unreasonable and oblivious all over again when she had to reply, "Water - plain water from the Ladywell - and a spoonful of honey, Master"

She was sure - she was aline it that he sin to draw the cup toward hiht, and so she carried it for hi it above his head, for the audience to see; and then she tipped it gently against his mouth, and saw him drink; and also saw a tiny rivulet run down by the side of hisa fire-red tracing thread behind it

He let her draw the cup back toward her again with his hand still around it She looked again into his face and saw, though she could not have explained how she saw, that he was tired, tired almost to death; and so she knew that it was only weariness that made him clumsier still, that when he lifted his hand away from the cup, he was not able to do it cleanly, and his hand dropped a little, and glanced - only barely, fleetingly glanced - off the back of her hand, where it seared the thin flesh to the bone

At the time it al so like it to happen, and did not flinch when it did She lowered the goblet only a little bit hastily, and tucked the weight of it against her body again so that she could drop her wounded hand to her side and let the long sleeve of her robe cover the burn This made it throb worse than if she could have held it up, but that couldn't be helped No one farther away than the threetheir turn - and possibly the Master's two aides - would have seen anything, and she wished to keep it that way

But the threejust behind her would have seen The Grand Seneschal ood - it was he who had negotiated with the priests of Fire in the first place, and he who had received the news that the priests did not believe what he was asking could be done She didn't know the Prelate well enough to guess after hissuspicion he had few of his own and preferred to borrow theent would have every reason to tell the tale - and doubtless had While it would upset the balance of the entire country if one of the demesnes were realloted, the process of the reallotely increase this Overlord's power, and bind the new Master to the Overlord with a political gratitude it would take generations of Masters and Overlords to bring into equilibriuain And their current Overlord was a little too fond of political power - she a others believed - without such teht burn his subjects by the touch of his hand

By the end of the first day of the new Master's return, the people she ht hand Gossip travels as fast as fire By then she had dressed and bandaged it, so there was nothing to see but the bandage; but that was enough And there was no way to shrug off what had happened as an accident Of course it had been an accident: no Master could remain Master who deliberately harmed any of his people What had happened to her should be viewed as no worse or nificant than if one of his coach horses had shied and trodden on one of the onlookers: an unfortunate mishap That's all But of course it was not, for it was not an accident that should have been able to happen If the new Master were not a priest of Fire If the new Master were still human

"It is nothing," she said to the people she caught looking at her hand "It is nothing" Sometimes she tried to smile She'd smiled at Sama, when she'd asked for lint and salve; Sama was a Housewoman with a round, happy face and three children, and she and her children were excellent customers for Mirasol's honey "I was cluainst a dish just out of the oven"

"It don't look like nothing," said Sama, whose round face was not happy today "And oven burns hurt"

"Of course they hurt," Mirasol said briskly, trying to be co "But we bear them because we are clumsy - and because we still like our food cooked"

Sama's face closed a little e

"It is not as though we had had a chance to practise our roles," Mirasol said, trying to make a joke, but she realised as soon as the words were out of her mouth they were a mistake Usually a new Master ell known to the demesne; usually the Chalice's welco his House as Master for the first time was a formality only

Usually a new Master was human

"But - " Saan

"He is our Master," said Mirasol firmly

There was an uncoe When she was done she raised her eyes to Mirasol's and said, "As Chalice wills"

Mirasol almost blurted out, It's not what I will! It is what has happened!

A few ht, a few o when her Chalicehood was still so new that every reminder of it was like a burn But she was Chalice now, and all things had changed, herself most of all Before the Chalice had chosen her, Saued with her; would have held her own opinion against Mirasol's She would not argue with her Chalice; it was her duty to accept the Chalice's ruling

Mirasol hoped she was right

She told herself it would have been worse if it had been an ordinary accident like a coach horse blundering into the audience, because that would so clearly have been a bad omen The new Master was a priest of Fire, and adjustments had to be e on her hand, but once she realised there was no point in trying to hide it, she used that hand freely, as if it did not hurt her She had to hope that the fixed expression on her face that this usage provoked - because it did hurt a great deal - only looked like the Chalice's professional mask

But if their new Master believed he could be Master, then she wanted him to have his chance In the first place this was only her duty: the Master was the Master, but no Master could maintain his land without his Chalice But in the second place she wanted this Master to grasp and hold because these first six months of her abrupt and lonely Chalicehood had been alth She did not think she would be able to bear - to contain - the tuiven a new, outblood Master; and she did not think this or any demesne could survive an outblood Master and a second disastrously new, inexperienced and untrained Chalice together

It was bad enough as it was Willowlands was restless, hurt and unhappy: half ht, delirious as a child with a bad fever Whether this was a result of being Masterless for seventhe previous Master's death it was impossible for her to say But she kneas also because she, the new Chalice, was herself rough and raw froht of her Chalicehood in wild metaphors: like a blind woed out of her kitchen, given a plough with no horse and told to raise six hectares of barley by sundown And yet if she lost her fragile balance as a result of an outblood Master and the Chalice passed to someone else, there was no vanity in her bleak awareness that this would be a catastrophe

She had learnt enough to begin piecing together ways to cal strain and distress the deaths of the last Master and Chalice had caused But she had learnt by precariousher nose through the footnotes and annotations, leaning hardest on the advice of the oftenest-cited manuscripts, when she could find them, when the House library or the old Chalice's roo eover from Master to Master and Chalice to Chalice should never happen - had never happened - as it had just happened here; uidance she needed simply didn't exist

And she had only barely begun She still had far , about everything to do with Chalice work And yet she was all there was The people rarely came to her with their individual problems and disturbances, but while this meant she was not yet well accepted as Chalice, which was in itself unsettling to the land and its people, she had asto the e ruptures in the fabric of the de eht, that's not it It'sout fires: like harvesttiht destroy all

Sometimes the deround, when the trees shook as if in a high wind, plates flew off shelves, and fences didn't merely fall down but burst apart Usually she could hear these in her mind if they were too far away for her feet to feel thee (She tried to tell herself this was an indication of some measure of approval, but she feared it was only that as Seneschal he knehat she, as Second of the entire Circle, second to the Master hiht to be capable of The Grand Seneschal was only Third: but she never re at her, or when another of his brusquely worded es arrived) The rest of the Circle were little use The violence of the deaths seven ed and disrupted all their abilities as it had da to do with the deain to take the full weight of his place in the demesne framework

Once, only a few days before the ho of the new Master, a fare on the back of one of his work-horses, still wearing its ordinary harness and looking as wretched and confused as its master She'd heard the commotion and come outdoors - even her bees had scattered out of the way of these tuhbour Possibly he had come to her because she was Chalice; much likelier he had come to her because of all the Circle she was nearest

"Can you come now?" he said breathlessly

She thought his eyes weren't focusing on her face: perhaps seeing the thing that he had left behind hi in one ofthe beasts away - it's big enough for one to fall in And it's growing" He was speaking as if past her, as if looking at soht, to remember the Chalice before the last one - she who had been Chalice to the father of the new Master and his brother That Chalice had been much loved; Mirasol's father had consulted her once about a stand of trees that did not thrive as they should "There was so about the air around the 'em I tried Oakstaff first, but he hadn't the time for the likes of me - but Chalice herself came" Mirasol knew of her own experience that these trees were now aht

That Chalice would have knohat to do But that Chalice had never had to grapple with her demesne in the conditions Mirasol faced

"A moment," she said, and flew back indoors A treround apart? She had no idea what she should do, but she had to try to do so She snatched up the cup of balance, three of the Chalice stones that worked ith it, a handful of herbs, and thrust two pots of honey in the pockets of her cloak She hesitated over her book of basic incantations; but basic incantations did not include crevasses opening in fields, and watching her fuood for neither Faine and his brothers nor herself Her best hope was that the earthlinesshe could use

The journey to Faine's far on to the hip strap till her fingers were sore to keep herself fro trot, that sheabout what she could do when they arrived She didn't knohat she could do She ers and bruised seatbones

It orse than she i at Faine's face, worse than it had been when he had left to fetch help A great ragged cleft had torn its way through the flat grassy pastureland; the red-brown gash looked eerily like a wound in flesh Part of the awfulness of it was that the rest of the scene see in the trees The end near them was perhaps only two hands'-breadth across, but Mirasol could see it widened swiftly farther down the field As she slid stiffly off the horse and her feet touched the ground, the ground shivered, like a horse's skin shedding flies; the tuft of grass at the end of the trench rocked wildly and then parted with a sound like tearing cloth, and the trench was suddenly a hand's-breadth longer The birdsong faltered, and then took up again Mirasol barely noticed; she was listening to the earthlines Two passed through Faine's field, and they eeping like children

She looked around, and broke a s the tree for its help She always preferred to find so she could use at the location itself, and she liked oak for Chalice work She brushed her fingers over its leaves and murmured a feords of dedication The now-fa - but what next?

Two e of the injured field, but the keening of the earthlines in Mirasol's ears was so loud it was almost impossible to hear human speech

"the rest of the

"Daisy's calf ran in the wrong direction, and Daisy followed," said the other man "They're"

And then, as if theof the earthlines was a curtain and they had parted it for her, Mirasol could hear the frightened bellowing of the trapped cow

"Get a rope," Mirasol heard her own voice saying "Two ropes Youthem out Your horse has a yokemate, I assume? Fetch him How has this - rift - opened? Does it stretch from one end, or out from the middle?"

"The far end," quavered the woan there Where Daisy is"

"Good," said Mirasol's voice again "That ht Mirasol The earthlines whi?" Every far; she hoped this one would be a strong one, and near at hand "Bring me a flask of the water - freshly drawn - as quick as you can"

The woman turned and ran

Mirasol walked to the edge of the field, took a deep breath, and climbed the fence She was immediately deafened by the lament of the earthlines It was not only the two in the field who spoke; the earthlines in the entire quadrant echoed their distress She walked slowly along the length of the cleft; would she notice in tiht, if it decided to widen suddenly? She fished the cup of balance out of her pocket and rubbed her fingers over it; it was very difficult keeping her own balance between the strange space where the earthlines moved and spoke and the fact that if the crack opened under her feet in the h the earthlines'here? Why was it here in this field rather than in some other field? Why was it here at all?

Broken, wept the earthlines Broken, broken

Soround itself, splitting, tearing itself from itself

She was staring into the far end, where it was deepest - probably the height of two tall h to imprison a cow and her calf - when the wo water, and shortly after her one of Faine's brothers with a pair of horses

Mirasolwater this field would know, herbs for distress of erous wounds that they will not fester; so was the season of joy for the future, and soly of handflowers Handfloere lavender-pink, and inside they were striped red in such a way that they reseether It was considered lucky to drink rainwater froularly did then saw all things so clearly that they could not be deceived I will not deceive you, said Mirasol silently to the earthlines I don't knohat I'; and there is still joy in this world She stirred theLast she dropped in the three sht in darkness, for compassion and for love

"Someone will have to climb down there with them, you know, to put the ropes around them," she said

The o" His face was pinched orry and fear; hehimself, and immediately looked away

"Drink this first," Mirasol said, and offered him her cup "Just a sip - you only need a sip" The Chalice stones clinked faintly against the side of the cup as he drank

She turned aithout waiting to see if her mixture had had any effect; she didn't have a second choice if it didn't She knelt, and then lay down flat, just above where the unhappy coled and thrashed It was not a graceful procedure - what ht the Chalice who had cured her father's trees have done about a trapped cos and sheep did get caught in natural cuts and hollows so natural about this one She spilled several drops from her cup on the bits of cow that happened to be under them when they fell At least once the sater landed on her nose - which here she was aiue reach up to lick it off The calf, being s to hide under its mother, was harder, but she splashed it a few times

And then she stood up, as if what she wanted and hoped would happen was going to happen

The cow stopped bellowing

"Go do," she said "Get ready I'll start at the far end: that'll give you a fewthe effect will last I have no idea why it worked If it worked Maybe the cow just likes the taste of honey

I have no idea if anything else ork

She turned away, and began again the long walk - it felt twice as long this second tiround The high dreadful keening of the earthlines had dione ru for her - looking for help, as Faine had done She knew the usual conjurations to quiet an earth tremor - often a h, like singing a lullaby to a fretful child - but these seemed hardly appropriate for an earthquake that had torn a hole in the landscape But she found herself hu to her: Sleep, my little love, sleep, my little one Sleep is sweet and love is sweeter, but honey is sweetest of all

There were several ritual ways a Chalice could hold her cup; she chose the one - only practical on the slender, steers of her two hands together around it while her crossed thue She tried several phrases from the incantation book she had left behind, but none of theht, none of them settled to the work before her She felt the earthlines listening - listening but waiting Waiting to hear the thing that would reassure theether, that would call them home

She reached the end of the crack and paused It had, she noticed with so But when she turned and looked back along the length of it, it see work-horses as s off their harness and disappearing into the crack were barely visible threads

"Please," she said clearly, aloud, as if she spoke to a person "Please be as you were I will try to help you" She hesitated, and pulled out the handflower honey and added a little ainst the silver cup; the sold and silver and ges Trees and birdsong and sunlight, and unfractured earth "Let the earth knit together again, like - like darning a sock Here are the threads to mend you with" And she threw a few drops from her cup into the trench She saw them twinkle in the air as if they were tiny filaments; the pit was quite shallow here, and she could see tiny spots of darkness where they landed Her fingers were sticky with honey Absentmindedly she put one in her mouth; the taste of the herbs was clear and sharp, but the honey's complex sweetness seemed to carry mysteries

There was a sudden sharp new tremor under her feet Her heart leaped into her throat and she froze The jolt loosened the dirt on the sides of the trench, and it pattered down Quite a lot of it pattered down, till the trench was barely a trench at all, little ht hollow

"Here are the threads tono better spell or command to offer, and she tossed more drops from her cup into the wound in the earth

The trench began to fill up