Book One – Chapter 18

She took a step toward him. He felt it before he heard it, and heard it before he saw — the pressure in the air, the faint tremor underfoot, not from her, but from the stone, while she herself moved without sound.

“Or rather,” she said, “why I did so?”

“Yes.” The word cracked out like a fracture, one more shard that cut his tongue as it broke off. He could not swallow it back, not any of the words. While she had left him the mask, he could not take back the self that had sliced through.

“Shamans swear to remain neutral,” she said, now a single pace away. The mask hung above him; white and immaculate, unbroken.

“Now,” her voice deepened, the edges smudging the syllables, “neutrality does not demand weakness, does it?”

Yu’s mind screamed at her. You have not sworn this! You are not a shaman!

“Tell me, Yu. Have I taken sides, between guards and travellers?”

The question threw him back. He swallowed. The answer was already in his mouth.

“No,” he admitted. “No, you haven’t.”

It was true. Her pulse had stopped everyone. She had refused no one. She had even offered a reading to the witch.

“Just so.” Her voice was silken. It barely rose, but it pressed against him and held him down. “Neutrality signifies not to fight for one particular side or party. It does not, however, forbid me from fighting. It does not mark me powerless. I am neither neutral, nor kind, out of weakness. To be kind, one must be powerful. Not necessarily strong, but powerful. You must be powerful enough to choose kindness, and always more powerful than those upon whom you wish to bestow it. The powerful may choose, where the powerless must be petty and cruel, simply to endure.”

The words lodged inside his chest, the truth burning and the hypocrisy curling. She had been far from kind to the krynn. Yu’s talons scraped the stone. The stone answered with affront, a stinge of scorn only Yu could hear. Startled, he stepped back. Once, on impulse. Twice more, deliberate. He put the selder’s cot between them.

The mask stared.

Yu forced his throat open. His voice scraped as it left. “So then, can we help him? With the power. With the knowledge. Can we help him survive?”