Free The Wide World's End by James Enge

air. I was tired of that house of sickness.”
    â€œI understand that,” Deor said, “but have you overdone it, perhaps.”
    â€œNo.” She stood tall and smiled down at him. “No! But . . . something bitter just happened to me.”
    He said nothing, but smiled and waited. He was a wordy fellow, but a good listener—a rare combination.
    She found herself saying, “I walked past Naevros just now. I think he saw me—he must have seen me. But he didn’t say anything to me.” She halted then, afraid that what she had said might sound disloyal somehow.
    He put his hand on her arm and said, “It has been a hard time for everyone. I assure you, Naevros was as worried about you as any of us. But relief from one pain can make us newly conscious of another.”
    â€œI suppose.” She gripped his arm with her free hand and he released her. “And what have you been keeping busy with?” she asked. That he was busy was a given: she had known Deor almost as long as she had Morlock, and she had rarely seen the dwarf at rest.
    â€œWe’ve got to herd the surviving Khnauronts down to A Thousand Towers where the Graith can have a look at them and decide whether to expel them or kill them.”
    â€œNo doubt.”
    â€œWell, Lernaion and Earno are sitting with their legs crossed, weaving a little version of the Wards for each of the prisoners. Then they are going to stitch them together into a kind of ghostly honeycomb. Then they’ll be more herdable, you see.”
    Aloê thought about this plan for a moment, then said, “It must be an enormous undertaking. Surely there are hundreds of survivors from the battle.”
    â€œNo longer.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œI guess you mean, ‘Why not?’”
    â€œI guess I do.”
    â€œThe Khnauronts without their lifetakers are a fragile bunch; there isn’t much that keeps them alive. All the wounded died. We had binders from the Skein of Healing working night and day to no avail.”
    â€œOdd.”
    â€œIt’s odder than that, harven . Many of the unwounded folded their hands and died. They looked—that is—”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œThey looked like you looked, until today. Empty. They’d given up. I’m sorry—”
    â€œNo, I understand. But some survive.”
    â€œYes! We made them soup, you see. Some ate it when it was set before them, some didn’t. The ones who ate lived.”
    â€œPerhaps you should have offered the others pie. Not everyone likes soup.”
    â€œEh! I wasn’t born to run a refectory for ghouls. They can eat soup or starve, as far as I’m concerned. But that’s not the funny thing, Harven Aloê.”
    â€œThere’s a funny thing?”
    â€œWell, more of an oddly disgusting thing.”
    â€œThat is a little different.”
    â€œShut up, can’t you? I’m trying to talk here!”
    She bowed low, waving her arms in a parody of a courteous flourish.
    â€œI like how you put that,” Deor said. “Anyway, you know how Southers cut up someone to find out how they died?”
    Aloê smiled. She had been born on an island off the southern coast of Laent—about as far south as you could go and still be in the Wardlands. “I’ve never actually done it myself, but—”
    â€œGod Avenger!” whispered Deor, genuinely dismayed. He put a hand over his mouth, as if to prevent more offensive words from pouring out.
    â€œ Harven Deor!” she said patiently. She grabbed his free hand and held it in both of hers.
    He slowly lowered his hand from his mouth. “It’s just that I forget sometimes—no, never mind!”
    â€œNever mind it, Deor, truly.”
    â€œWhat I really meant was, it’s those strange women from New Moorhope who do it, the yellow-robed healers.”
    Some of those women were men, but Aloê wasn’t surprised that the