Cag-Mag let them both go, sighed, and murmured, “Fox catches pike.”
“Sorry? What?” said Caewen.
“Figure of speech. Like, bitten off more than one can chew.”
“Oh,” said Caewen. “I see. A fox would have trouble with a pike. But do you mean you, or her?” She indicated the direction of the retreating, angry young witch.
A shrug. “Maybe both of us. But now then…” She turned to first peg Caewen with a hard stare, then Dapplegrim with a still more scrutinising look again. “What was that about? You could have outed my little game, but you didn’t. If you’re expecting something in return…”
“Oh, no,” answered Caewen, hurriedly. “Nothing like that. It’s just that Moggie did me a good turn. And she seemed to want me to keep quiet about her. That’s all.”
“Who’s a moggy?” Puzzlement fell over Cag-Mag’s face. “Is there a cat about?”
“No, no, the faer-thing. Moggie Moulach. Don’t you know her? Why were you protecting her from that other woman if you don’t know her?”
“No, of course I don’t know her. I wouldn’t know her from a burnt kettle. Why would I ever consort with faer-creatures? That’s madness, that is. Proper madness.” The shadow-witch did not offer any further explanation for why she was lying about Moggie. Instead she just hummed to herself softly and said, “Seems you’ve been consorting with faer-creatures though. Funny. You don’t look half-baked to a burnt cinder.”
Frowning–just a touch–Caewen held out the the bound stone object to return it, but Cag-Mag shook her head, quite firmly.
“If you are on first names with faery creatures, you need that a great deal more than me. A lot more. Very much more. And besides, I can make another one. Or, more exactly, I could find another family of looking stones tumbling about in pieces in some wild stream, and tie them all together. Give them wholeness. Which is not quite the same thing as making something, if you follow me?”
Caewen didn’t, but she said, “Oh. Um. I guess. Thank you, I suppose,” all the same.
“And,” added Cag-Mag with a rather wry grin, it repays any debt I might have owed you, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. Ah. I see. Yes, it does.”
“Good.” She seemed satisfied.
“You could learn a thing or two from her,” said Dapplegrim, softly.
“H’m–I suppose I could–but what I really do want to know is why you were pretending that Moggie was the old woman? What was her name, the woman of ashes.”
“Old Lady of Embers.” She waved a hand. “It’s complicated.”
“How complicated?”
“Too much so.”
“That much?” said Caewen, unconvinced.
The woman sighed and her creased face fell into the more trenched lines of a frown. Her shadows leapt in a circle around her, jittery for a moment, then settling into a stillness. She looked at Caewen with dusk-blue eyes. “My shadows tell me to tell you.” She held quiet for a long pause, as if holding her breath. At last she said, “So I will. I do my best to listen to my shadows. I wonder why they are so insistent? Odd.” She resettled her shoulders. “So and so: Sorrateges has long desired a place on the Broadtable, and she is the next most potent of arts among the Fire-Magi, that is, after The Old Lady of Embers. If and when the Old Lady of Embers passes, the position would likely fall to Sorra. Unfortunately, it seems to me that Sorrateges perhaps got tired of waiting for a natural end. It would be hard to prove, though, and pointless to do so. Murdering another magician is frowned upon here–at the moot–but not so much outside the moot.” She shrugged. “But for now it is convenient for me to keep Sorra off the Broadtable. If some half-witted Faer wants to wander about impersonating Old Missus Embers, then that suits me. It’ll be seven years before Sorra can make another bid to put herself on the table. That gives me time to prepare other options. Why I don’t want Sorratages on the table is simple enough: In my opinion, she would not be a suitable settler of disputes, nor maker or rules. Rather too cruel. Rather too unstable. A bit too arrogant, all told. And that is saying a lot. It takes quite a lot of arrogance to make a wizard or witch uncouth. Arrogance is rather the currency of the profession, if you follow me.”
“So, in that case, why was Moggie pretending to be a dead witch?”
Cag-Mag arched an eyebrow. “You know, I was hoping you might enlighten me on that point. But it seems you don’t know either?”
Caewen shook her head.
“I see,” said Cag-Mag. “It seems odd, does it not? One of the Faer-Folk, going about pretending to be a dead witching-lady. Not typical behaviour of one of those folk. Why would the creature do that? Sport? A laugh? Something more sinister?” She shrugged. “They are capricious folk though. Who knows. Maybe it is naught but whim? You really have no idea?”
Caewen frowned more deeply now, turning over thoughts. She muttered, “Unfortunately, no. We’re not exactly grand old friends, her and me. I only met her once in the maze. That’s all.”
Cag-Mag twisted her old lips into a thoughtful slant. “Ah, well, and ho, and hum then. I guess that is that. But what does it matter? After all, even owls don’t fly in fog.” She gave Caewen and Dapplegrim a friendly half-smile, waved, said, “I guess that is that. So long then,” and ambled off, heading downhill.
They watched her go.
After a while, Dapplegrim said, “What an odd person. Hurm.”
“That seems to describe everyone here.”
“Hur. Us included?”
“Us two at the top of the odd heap, I reckon. Come on. We should get ourselves to he speaker’s place. Quinnya’s going to be angry.”