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The look she gave him then--the horror and the incredulity. It was the same look he'd seen on the face of his Cwn Annwn leader when he'd discovered what the Huntsman had done.
"You forced that man to kill his wife. You used your magic to make him kill her so you could claim his soul."
"He wanted to do it. He thought about doing it. That's the same thing."
"No, it is not!"
His leader rocked forward, as if he wanted to throttle the Huntsman. Then he recoiled, horrified by the impulse. That was their weakness. They enjoyed the Hunt, the taking of souls, and yet they would not let themselves indulge that hunger, even in service of wider justice.
"You knew what I was doing," the Huntsman said.
"I know you were targeting human killers. If I had ever imagined you were compelling them--"
"He would have killed her eventually," the Huntsman said. "I took his soul before he gave his darkness free rein."
"He did give it rein!" his leader roared. "He murdered his wife."
"One victim--it could have been more were I not there."
That's when the leader had cast him out. Told him if he was not gone within the hour, they would hunt him. Kill him. And somehow they claimed to occupy the moral high ground.
Now this woman stood and stared at him with the same look. As if he was the monster.
"Bring me your dog," he said.
"What?"
"You want me to fix this? Bring me your dog."
She hesitated, but then she staggered off down the hall and returned with the beast.
"You won't hurt him, right?" she said.
"I'm not the killer here. Now lay your hands on his head."
She did, and the Huntsman channeled his darkest magic, the kind the Cwn Annwn did not possess, the kind he had discovered in his wanderings. True magic.
He reached into the dumb beast and found what passed for a soul. Then he reached into the woman. When he touched her soul, she gasped.
"I'm saving you," he said. "You have committed murder, and so your soul is forfeit. But I am going to let you live. I am Cwn Annwn. To do my job properly, I require a cwn--a hound."
His magic held her immobile, but her eyes shifted to her dog.
"No, he won't do. He's a mere beast. A cwn is more, and if I cannot have one, I must create one. Or a reasonable facsimile."
He closed his eyes and set the dog's puny soul free. Then he slid the woman's into its place. The beast gave a start as the woman woke, finding herself trapped in the dog.
A pause, and then she went wild, snapping and twisting in a panic. He grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and smacked her with a psychic wallop that left her howling in pain.
"Enough of that," he said. "I let you live, and you will be grateful." He looked into her eyes. "I will teach you to be grateful."
NIGSU GA TESGU
JEFF SOMERS
Magicians aren't nice people. They're not moral people. They're not good people. Magic can be wielded by anyone who learns the ancient language of power (known colloquially among magicians simply as the Words) and who is willing to shed blood to fuel the spell--their own or somebody else's. In the dark, bloody world of power and predators in the Ustari Cycle, Mika Renar is one of the most powerful ustari in
the world--because she speaks the Words better than most, because she doesn't hesitate to bleed as many people as necessary to get what she needs, and because she knows the meaning of this story's title, "Nigsu Ga Tesgu."
