Trenwyn’s chair toppled over as he leapt to his feat, the black wolf by his side in an instant.  “What?” 

“Trenwyn, please.  Calm down and sit down.”  I glanced at Lucian, wishing that he, too, would calm down.  I had to bring reason back to the situation.  “Now, I’ve told you my dilemma.  I’m going to need information and answers from you.  I’ve waited long enough.”

Trenwyn seemed oblivious to me as he paced back and forth across the room.  Lucian, however, seemed to have heard me better than his master, for he sat back on his haunches, watching the maj.  I tried again. “Trenwyn, I need to know why this Seti maj, as I suppose he was, wanted to mark me for death.  Let’s start there.”

Trenwyn threw up his hands in a frustrated gesture.  “I don’t know, I don’t know!  That is what I’ve been trying to puzzle out.  If I discover why, I might be able to help you…or hurt them.  As it is, I know even less than you of the matter.  I can only guess that he considered you a threat, either to their circle or to himself.  Usually, people from your world are not marked for death if they’re marked at all.  It takes a great deal of energy and trouble to mark someone in your world and drag them into this one.  But why he would go to this great trouble I have no idea.”

“Alright, fair enough.”  

Trenwyn moved to the table, poured more wine into his half-full chalice and then drained it in a single gulp.  

“Another question, why did you feel compelled to save me?”

“Not all majai are evil and power hungry,” Trenwyn stated.  “I saved you to foil the Seti.  And if I hadn’t come to you when I did, you would not have outlived the night.”

“Fine.  Third, why did you burn the splint Masad gave me and why do you think he helped me if he’s really working for the Seti?  And can I get another splint at some point?”

Trenwyn’s lips tightened.  “Yes, forgive me, my lady.  I will splint your hand now.”  He righted the chair he’d overturned and seated himself.  The cloak he wore seemed to become a magic carpet bag and he produced four polished wooden slabs and some white cloth.  I held out my injured hand to him across the table.

“If you really do have powers, why don’t you just heal it for me?” I inquired not entirely able to keep my tone from sounding facetious.

Trenwyn looked at me closely, as if trying to discern whether or not I was being sarcastic.  “My powers, as you call them, do not extend to such areas,” he said simply.  He began to work on the new splint and spoke as he worked.  “As for why I threw that black splint into the fire, I was not sure he had not put some kind of spell or evil object on you that might track you or have some other adverse effect.”

Suddenly, the medallion under my blouse felt cold.  What if Trenwyn was right?  What if Masad was some kind of agent for the Seti circle?  He had said that this medallion could call him if I needed help, but did that not imply that it would also allow him to locate me?  But which man was telling the truth and which was lying to me?  Even now, there was something in me that refused to tell Trenwyn about the gift.  Instead, I just sat, feeling the weight of the medallion around my neck, hoping it would not prove to be a millstone.  Trenwyn was speaking again and I reluctantly turned my attention back to him.

“As for why the mercenary helped you, it seems all too clear to me now.  They have your true name and, so, can manipulate you.  More than you can imagine.  They did not find you with me when they came upon me—they were none too happy about that, let me assure you.”

“If they’re really as nefarious as you say, why didn’t they kill you anyway?  You were alone.  People might have thought you’d just been killed by a bear or something.”

Trenwyn chuckled a little, though his chuckle still seemed nervous.  “No member of the Duri circle would ever be harmed by an animal.”

“And that is your circle?  The Duri circle?”

He nodded and then went on.  “Also, I am connected to the other members of my circle here in the Roughlands.  It’s like the mark you now bear.  We can feel each other.  Only, it isn’t like feeling each other…” he paused and frowned, beginning to wrap the white cloth around the splint he’d made.  “It’s more like when you can feel something is not there.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Like your toes,” Trenwyn said suddenly.  “You don’t think about your toes, you just expect them to be there.  But if you woke up one morning and two of your toes were gone, you’d notice immediately.  That’s how it is for majai.  If someone in your circle is killed, you know, just as you’d know if you suddenly lost a toe, and if I was murdered, the rest of my circle would hunt the Seti who killed me.”

“Ah.”  I was not quite sure what to make of his analogy, but I supposed he was right.  Toes are generally undervalued body parts.  “And what does this have to do with Masad?”

“I’m getting there,” Trenwyn said testily.  “The black Seti are on a campaign to dominate the other circles. They’re already more powerful than any individual circle, but they will have to become stronger than all the circles combined if they wish to stage a successful coup.”

I wasn’t seeing how this pertained to Masad, but I tried to be patient.  Besides, any information I could glean might be helpful in the long run.

“It would benefit them far more if they could entrap members of the Duri circle.  If it was clear my whole circle here had sided against the Seti in sheltering you, they might be able to raise enough support in their larger circle to come against us in force.  And the Seti Circle here in the north would like nothing more than an excuse to exorcize or kill the Duri of the Roughlands.  If they could do this at the same time as they killed their mark—you—they would consider it a great victory.  At least,” his face darkened in hatred, “some of their most powerful members would.”

Now I began to catch on.  “So you believe that Masad was acting for them, spying on me, and trying to catch you with me, which they failed to do initially?” As I thought of it now, Masad would make an excellent spy.  The fact that he had not shared his name and had kept his face hidden were marks against him.  Against me, too, for being so naïve. 

Trenwyn nodded.  “If I were a Seti maj, I would want nothing more than to track you and then ambush you and members of the Duri at the removal of the sign.”

“But how would Masad know that I would fall off the elk at that place and that point in time?”  This time I had him caught for sure.

“They have your name, my lady.  Who’s to say that they did not cause your fall at that point and even cause your injury as well?”

He was perfectly serious and I was incredulous.  That was not possible.  As I thought about it, if I accepted Trenwyn’s postulates, it made sense.  Was it not a strange coincidence that I would fall off the elk near another human in that wilderness, let alone a Seti mercenary?

Trenwyn had finished with my hand and I pulled it back to examine his work.  It was a decent job but not nearly the quality Masad had managed.  This made me frown.  Logic told me to take off that medallion and forget all about Masad, but my memory and intuition strangely warred against logic.  I sighed and my mind returned to something Trenwyn had just said.

“So can you remove the Seti sign somehow?” 

“My circle can remove it.  It will take more than just one maj, though.  It is more difficult to remove a sign—especially a sign on someone foreign—than it is to give a sign.  We can do this tomorrow night.  I will speak with the other members of my circle here in Rhir in the morning.”  He paused, gazing at the candle flame which had burned lower.  “There is also a way to deal with your name.”  His careful tone brought my guard up.  

Something told me I was not going to like what I would hear. “Oh?”  My tone matched his for caution.

“As it is, my lady, you are a dead woman, even if we remove the sign now.  They have your name.  They can and will use it against you to manipulate you into their power and, likely, to your death.  Unless we can change this, it will be pointless to remove the sign.”

“And how would you ‘fix’ my name?”

“There is a renaming ceremony.  In it, we take away your true name and you choose another one which is then joined to you.”

“So I just have to change my name and that solves the problem?”  That was easy.  Why was this such a big deal? 

“It’s not so simple, my lady.  Here, your true name—the one you now bear—is more than you know.  It is not just a conglomeration of sounds, but your very essence.  If you survive the removal, you will be forever changed.  Your survival of the renaming, if you live through the initial removal, hinges upon the similarity of the new name you choose.  If you choose a name that is not similar to your old name, it might be antithetical to certain elements of your identity, in which case, those elements will cease to exist.  If you choose a name with too many antithetical elements, you will cease to exist.  You will come to take on the essence of the new name you select, whatever essence that is, and will change irreversibly from what you are now.  Whether that change is small or great depends on the new name, so you must choose wisely.  It is a very traumatic process, even for those that survive it.”

I swallowed hard.  My mouth was dry and I poured myself more wine.  “And you’re certain that this is the only way to fix the problem?”  I hoped he had overlooked something.

“Yes.  Otherwise it’s only a matter of time until they find you.”