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their heads down. The fisherman didn’t have to renew his threats, which was fortunate, as he doubted he had the strength left to carry them out.
    ‘Noetos tal Upanas, we have learned a great deal about you this afternoon,’ the second voice said calmly. ‘We enjoyed our discussions with our guests, though initially they were somewhat reluctant to share their knowledge with us.’
    They are trying to fan the flames of my anger.
    ‘We now know why our servant sought you out. Arathé, that was her name, was it not?’
    Baiting me. Somehow their magic depends on my response.
    ‘Truly, we did not know her name until today. She was a very biddable servant. She did anything we told her to do.’ Noetos fought his rage as the Recruiter began to shimmer with power. ‘Now you have lost a son as well as a daughter. Perhaps you will be more fortunate this time, and we will decide to fashion him into one of us. Maybe this one will get to keep his tongue.’
    ‘Listen to them!’ Noetos shouted across the Square, unable to resist their goading. ‘They lied to you! They killed my daughter, and have taken my wife and son!’
    Another thread of blue power flowed towards him, thicker and faster than before. ‘I am one of you!’ the fisherman cried desperately. ‘Help me!’
    As the thread approached, a blue finger of obscenity in the mist, the Hegeoman turned to face him. ‘You are one of us no longer,’ he said in his unctuous voice. ‘The Recruiters may exact upon your body any justice they see fit to take. This is my judgment.’ Turning his back, he folded his arms.
    Noetos could feel the power of the Recruiter taking a grasp of him. In some fashion the magic-wielder had the ability to seek out his emotions; yet, knowing this, the fisherman could not contain his anger and despair. He knew he had no defence against such an attack. As the blue filament hovered above him, Noetos turned and ran.
    There were no roads connecting Fossa with the outside world. In ancient times, it was said, the village had been on the major north route taken by southern raiding parties, and had regularly suffered at the hands of invaders. The Fossans were never numerous enough to defend themselves effectively, and time and again those left alive were forced to begin anew. Finally a group of survivors decided that hiding would be more sensible than fighting, so erased any evidence of the cliff-side village from the farmlands above. From that time onward all that could be seen from the Fisher Coast Road were waving grasses and wheat fields. Strategically placed belts of trees kept anyone travelling the road from seeing the cliff-line. The maxim ‘out of sight, out of mind’ was adopted by the Fossans, whose farmers took a different route to their fields every day so as not to leave any permanent track. However, there were a number of narrow paths down to The Circle from the cliff-top, and it was one of these, much later that night, the Recruiters used to make their way out.
    Noetos crouched behind a rocky outcrop and watched them leave. In the hours since the confrontation in Nadoce Square the bewildered fisherman had wandered the murky streets of Fossa, trying to understand what had happened to him; lurking in the shadows of the village that had been his home all his adult life, avoiding people he knew, some of whom he had called friends.
    The fog lifted during his wanderings, rolling away towards the sea. Out beyond the reef it hung, waiting for a chance to creep in again should the night breeze relax. Noetos had found himself walking along the cliff-top with no thought beyond the overwhelming sorrow gripping him; at one point he stood right at theedge of the cliff looking down on the remains of Fisher House, and spent some time wondering if it should become his tomb. That the scene of his daughter’s betrayal and death could become his own resting place seemed fit, but he knew he would not let himself fall. The Recruiters had set him a puzzle,