Lilith felt almost like a fugitive as they walked back to the guild station. During all of her career- not that it had been very long, but still- she had never had to go out on an errand to specifically gather life-energy. Unless you count emergency supplies during a military campaign or for a medical problem, she amended to herself. There were just some things that were worth draining energy, and some that weren't. Getting energy to machine heal a bunch of metalheads didn't seem all that important to her, and getting it simply to supply a bunch of dark-side fighters energy for duels was outrageous. Of course, they would have to use a crystal intended for healing, wouldn't they.

As they came in the front door of the station, she realized she was exchanging guilt for anger, and decided that she liked it better that way. Better to be at a low simmer of outrage than to meekly accept mutual blame for a situation she knew was wrong. "Well, Tralis, " she remarked. "I think we're back in time for a slightly late dinner."

"Just as well," her companion replied. "Most of the others should have eaten and left by now."

Lilith nodded to the secretary, still at his post, and headed for the dining area while she mulled over the implications in Tralis' remark. She understood some of his reluctance, and after seeing the scorchmarks on the walls in there this morning, she didn't blame him if scorched fur appeared on the menu as often as it appeared to.

She entered the dining area by herself while Tralis continued on to deposit the results of their morning's work in the larger crystal in back. Looking around, she saw with satisfaction that he was right. There were only three diners in the room at the moment, and two of them appeared absorbed in their own conversation. The other fox adept was sitting by himself, apparently absorbed in his own thoughts. No one seemed to be tending the counter, so she walked back to the kitchen and opened the door. A cloud of steam and the sound of dishes being washed greeted her as she peered in.

"Good afternoon, adept, " a hurrying shape materialized in front of her. She made out the thin rat as he continued speaking, "I'm afraid we can't serve you anything just now. If you'll wait a few minutes I'll get someone out there, but we have things to wash and put away right now."

"Make sure you do get someone out, " Lilith replied with her best no-nonsense stare. It had the desired effect. The rat's eyes widened and his nod indicated a lot more thought and deference than his earlier almost casual promise.

Lilith close the door and stepped back into the dining room. She looked at the one fox adept by himself, and recognized him as Stoy, the adept who had won the match in the arena this morning just before her own confrontation with Tralis. Now was as good a time as any to learn more. She'd heard plenty- and seen plenty- talking to Tralis, but he'd only been here a year. Besides, they had had... other things... to do.

She walked over to stand in front of Stoy and asked, "Do you mind if I sit here?" in her politest, most deferential tone. Stoy looked up with a jerk, saw who it was, and shrugged a bit as he jerked a thumb towards the bench she was standing beside. She took that as an affirmative, and slid in to face him. After sitting there for most of a minute staring at him while he stared through a region somewhere below her breastbone and a thousand yards away, she asked, "is anything wrong?"

This provoked his first verbal response as he looked at her briefly and jerked out a rather bitter laugh. "Wrong? Of course not. Nothing more wrong than usual. I'm trying to decide whether it will cost me more to leave or to stay, and as if that weren't enough, now I have to worry about what might be done to my reputation if I do leave or stay." At Lilith's questioning look, he sighed and said. "Look. You're still new here. Take the chance to get out of this Chabat-hell while you can."

Lilith shook her head. "Thanks for the warning, but you're a day late. I committed myself when I stayed the night. Those local credit rules, you know." Her tone was casual at the end, but the scorn underneath it widened Stoy's eyes as he realized what she meant.

Stoy whistled soundlessly. "So now he's setting traps for new material, is he? I wondered what all of those hairball new rules were for. Now I know. No one even gets to stay the night without becoming obligated to him, unless you've got cash with you."

Lilith nodded. "And what magician normally carries cash?"

Stoy quirked a smile. "This one is going to start doing it, and soon. The world has run pretty short of the charity game at this stage. At least I have an outside job to attend to. Maybe I can wangle a decrease in my cash salary for room and board. Then all I have to worry about is what Vika will say about me to the rest of the guild."

"Are things really all that bad here? I admit, I've seen some pretty high-handed measures, but I thought as long as you more or less kept your head down you were ok."

"Keeping your head down means you agree with the gang that is running this place. I've had about all of them I can stomach. Look at the walls around here." He motioned to the char marks.

"I saw that. Looks like they can get pretty rowdy sometimes."

"Sometimes? No, this is all the result of one night."

"One night? " Lilith looked almost disbelievingly at the marks. "This place must have been a rat's hell in here."

Stoy nodded. "It was. To be more precise, it was an eight-way fight, with three of the participants- including me, I might add- simply fighting to save their own skins, and the others simply blasting out for the hell of it. And you're right, it was hell in here. Then Vika came in and the perpetrators calmed down so fast that they cooled off quicker than the air did. Too bad Vika couldn't have followed their example."

"He gave out a few fireballs of his own?"

Stoy grimaced. "Not literally, but figuratively, yes. All eight of us wound up on energy duty, galley duty, latrine duty, sweeping duty, whatever he could think of on the spot. The one thing we weren't ordered to scrub spotless was the walls. That was to 'remind us of our reckless judgment which led to our endangering the lives and well-being of dozens of others.'"

At this point, a weasel came hurrying out with a plate of food and a mug of water. Lilith sat back while he quickly sat it down, almost squeaked out a "by your leave, enjoy your meal adept, I need to get back to work," and left.

"Well!" Lilith remarked as she looked at the kitchen door slamming shut. "They certainly know how to give quick service around here."

"Safe service would be more like it," her companion said gloomily. Then he grinned a bit as he added, "but seeing as you're a newcomer, you must've done something to throw the fear into them as well. Want to give any clues as to what?"

Lilith gave him her no-nonsense stare as she replied, "when I come in here to get a meal, I expect a meal to be available."

Stoy leaned back and his breath whooshed out as he said, "is that what you told them?"

Lilith grinned. "Not those exact words, but that was the tone that they were said in."

Stoy's mouth twitched almost in spite of himself. "Yes, that would definitely do it, considering what's already happened to them in the past."

Lilith nodded as she began eating. After a bit, she picked up the conversation again with an observation. "From what I've seen of our local guildmaster, I would think that having fireballs flying around would be the last thing he was worried about. Or was he actually angry because he hadn't given permission?"

Stoy looked a bit startled at the question, and he said slowly, "you know, that might be part of it. I did detect that he was concealing the real reason for his anger- but I thought he was simply denying to himself the fact that he actually liked the new decor around here. I really think he does, and that that's why he had us keep it."

Lilith gave a sardonic chuckle. "I wouldn't be at all surprised. So how long have you been here, and how long has all this been going on?"

"Well, Vika has been guildmaster for about ten years now. I've been here four of them, but it hasn't been really bad until the last two or three years. Maybe that's because I didn't know what to look for at first, though."

"Ten years, eh? Sounds like this place is about due for a cleaning out any time, as soon as word gets back to guild councils."

"What makes you think they even care? Or aren't worse, even?"

"Because they can't afford to not care- at least when it is this open. Fortunately for the world, there are relatively few Vikas that are magicians, too. I don't think there could be a true light-side adept or master with that sort of self-deception. They'd find it simply impossible to function. In fact, I can't see Vika going to a light-side healer for anything more intimate than that new shoulder of his."

Stoy nodded. "I don't ever remember Vika having Sinar or Riki look at anything. I don't know when he got the shoulder, though."

Lilith was surprised. "You don't? I'd think it would be his favorite story."

Stoy shook his head. "Apparently not. He loves to show it off, but if anyone asks he gives impressive sounding generalities about a war wound received in the line of duty to the Heartland."

Lilith looked thoughtful. "I wonder where the records on it might be. Maybe asking Sinar or Riki- they're the guild healers here, I take it- would do some good."

"You could ask, but I don't think you'd get anything. I doubt they'd know, but if they did, Master Sinar wouldn't tell. And I know for sure apprentice Riki wouldn't say anything, she's too scared to look beyond the end of her nose when a dark-side magician is around."

"Apprentice, hm? That reminds me. Just how many magicians are there here, and what ranks, anyhow?"

"One light-side Master- the healer. His apprentice. Those are the only two light-siders. Two dark-side Masters- Vika and training Master Sechan- and fourteen dark-side adepts. Fifteen, counting you."

"No apprentices?"

"No dark-side ones."

"Odd. If he's so desparate for material, as you said earlier, why no apprentices?"

"Who would train them? He hasn't 'got time' for them, and Sechan says he has enough on his hands keeping the adepts in line without worrying about a 'wet-muzzled apprentice'. Besides, it'd probably mean inducting someone from the local population as a magician, and that might diminish the barrier of 'specialness' that he's all the time promoting."

"I see. And spouses? Children?"

"None. That's my main problem, in fact. I want to get a spouse, but there'd be no room for her here- and no room for me if I did, so Vika has told me."

Lilith's eyes twinkled a bit. "Got any particular vixen in mind?"

Stoy looked appropriately embarrassed. "Yes, I do. That's when I figured out about this barrier bit, when Vika heard I might marry a local. He doesn't want 'hairball vixens' around here distracting his people, period, but a local made it about five times worse."

"Yes, a good marriage might make it hard to maintain the appropriately aloof air, now wouldn't it."

In spite of himself, Stoy had to laugh at Lilith's arch tones. "Not that I would give a hairball for his aloofness in the first place."

Their amusement faded as Tralis entered the dining area and came over. "Good afternoon, Stoy. Lilith, Master Sinar would like to see you as soon as possible. He's the guild station healer."

"Yes, I was just hearing that, " Lilith replied. She finished off her steak and sat back with a sigh of contentment. "So, does as soon as possible mean right now, when I've just finished eating?"

"I suppose so. I think he's going to be waiting in his office until you get there."

"I guess I need to get going then. Which way is his office?"

"Second door on the left as you go down the main hall."

"Right, then. Stoy, it's been good talking to you, and--- " she leaned forward and smiled, "good luck with your vixen."

Stoy grinned back as he said, "thanks, I appreciate it. Oh, and if you ever want to find out who runs what in this town, just ask- I've learned quite a bit about that the hard way in the past few years!"

Lilith laughed. "I'll take you up on that sometime. See you later." She waved and left.

As she entered the door to the healer's office, he looked up from the records scroll he was reading and calmly said, "Adept Lilith? I'm Master Sinar. Have a seat." He then returned to his reading while Lilith complied. A quick glance around the office showed pretty much what she had expected. A set of shelves on one side filled with records scrolls, a set of slates slid neatly into their slots along the bottom of the wall behind the healer's desk, with medicine cabinets above them. She wondered where his apprentice was. The office was large enough for both of them to have a desk, but there was just the one. Maybe she didn't need one, or he didn't think she did. She noticed a door in the back of the office, and mentally calculated that it connected to the treatment room where the crystal was.

"Adept, " Sinar's quiet tones interrupted her observations. "Since you are taking up residence here, I am required to complete a physical examination as a starting point to your medical file. If you would follow me..." he got up and walked over to the door, with Lilith silently following. They went into the treatment room, and he motioned towards the table. "It will be better if you take off your robes first," he said as she started to lay down. Lilith grimaced, but did so without comment. "Face down, please," he murmured and she lay face down as he ran his hands- and gift- through her.

She almost began to drift off to sleep as he gently massaged not just her body, but her psyche. The only hard point came when he examined her metal left hand. Not surprising, considering it was a new implant that she really hadn't fully adjusted to yet. She couldn't sense anything significant in his aura, not that she was in any shape to sense anything. Things just felt too good to concentrate. He had her turn over while he examined her front as well, then simply told her to get up and dress and had her follow him back to his office.

She sat in the chair again as he began "writing" her medical file on a slate. By now, she was a bit baffled. It was normal for a healer to try to get to know a patient through conversation- and in fact, they usually did that before conducting a physical examination. This one didn't seem to mind looking at strange territory without a guiding mental picture first. Not only that, but unless he started talking soon, it looked as if he could care less about her, mentally speaking. She wondered if that was his normal nature, or if this bunch of dark-side adepts had driven him to this reticence. If there was ever a case of a group demanding only physical healing with no desire for mental, she suspected it would be this one.

"Actually, I was just coming to the mental examination," Master Sinar remarked as he looked up from the slate. He noticed her surprise and smiled slightly. "No, Adept, you should know that I can't read thoughts, but reading emotions and moods lets me deduce it almost as accurately. If I couldn't I wouldn't be a light-side healing master, now would I?"

His gentle admonition almost made Lilith blush as she returned the smile. "You're right, of course, sir. I just haven't been used to a healer who didn't seem more interested in talking than looking."

Master Sinar sighed. "It wasn't always that way, Adept. But, to your case. Would you mind telling me how you came to acquire your left hand? It is recent, I can tell. Also, it would seem you had trouble getting it to 'take'."

"Yes, I did. In fact, it almost killed me." She continued when Sinar merely looked at her inquiringly. "You see, I was bitterly disappointed when I lost it- not just that I lost it, although that was bad enough, I suppose. But I'd failed in my job duty, and that sort of drove it home. Having a metal implant was a mockery, a gleaming reminder of how I had failed. I.... I actually did reject it physically, sir. But, well..."

She fell silent, and Master Sinar nodded thoughtfully. "I thought you had. But it's still there, adept, and it seems to be functioning. Did they heal it for you?"

Lilith shook her head. "Actually, they didn't. I managed to do it myself--- don't ask me how, I just did. I was delirious with fever at the time, but I used life energy from a tree in the hospital garden to clean out the infection and make it part of me."

"An interesting phrase, 'part of you'. Do you mean it never physically connected?"

Lilith looked a bit baffled. "No, I did the physical connection myself-- didn't I??"

Master Sinar slowly shook his head. "No. It's never become part of your body."

Lilith's jaw dropped. "But of course it has, I use it all the time. Ok, so I'm still a little awkward with it, but if it isn't part of my body, how come I can use it?"

The healer leaned back and tilted his gaze above Lilith's head as he slowly replied, "I think I need to make myself clearer, Adept. 'Machine healing,' as it is commonly known, is the process of taking a specially prepared metallic mixture and pouring it into a wound or mold which is joined to a wound. Then, the talents of the healer mold it to become the body part that is missing. It is connected to the body, and the body accepts it-- the nerves connect directly to it, and blood flow goes through metallic veins, although they simply act as passageways normally, since there is no need for metallic tissue to use the normal nourishment that flesh needs. That is the process that your mental rejection stopped. When you made it 'part of yourself', you did not change that. It is still separated from you physically, but it is part of your life energy patterns. Look at it for yourself. You will see a normal hand, or nearly normal, as far as life energy is concerned."

Lilith looked and nodded. "I know, I thought that meant it was healed. So, am I healed or not?"

Sinar pursed his lips. "You are and you aren't. At a guess, I would say that it had an odd feeling- almost as if it were your hand, but at the same time it wasn't." Lilith's nod confirmed his guess. "You would consider it to be a numbness, or lack of nerve feeling. That's actually true. But a normal implant would begin to regain normal nerve function within a few days. This looks like you've had it about a q. By now, nerve function would be almost normal again. Physically, it's not."

Lilith was beginning to feel very uncomfortable. "Are you telling me that my hand is an illusion? That I can't really use it, and it's just been a mental self-deception that let me do it?"

"Not quite. The deception- if there has been any- is the thought that your use of it was via the normal nerve channels. You do have use of it- you said so yourself. But that use is based on the fact that it is in your life-energy net. Think of it this way. You can control someone's actions when you take their life cords in your hand." Lilith nodded agreement. "In this case, instead of altering someone else's life cords, you are putting your own life cords into a normally inanimate object and are using it as your own."

That didn't make Lilith feel much better, but it helped to explain the situation some. "So is that good or bad? Does it mean I'll never regain full use?"

"That depends on you. I've heard of these cases before, but they're pretty rare. What is going to happen depends on what you want to happen- or more exactly, what you expect to happen. Your subconscious mind is treating it as part of you, and the only limits on how well it works are the limits of your ability to control it via your own life-energy and the limits you subconsciously impose on yourself. As a result, you could wind up anywhere from totally paralyzed to having strength and capabilities far beyond anything normal flesh could handle."

Lilith blinked. "What was that last?"

"What I mean, Adept Lilith, is that all it takes is for your subconscious to agree that what you have here is a sort of 'superhand'. If you are convinced that it has an extra strong grip, then it almost certainly will- the only limits on that grip would be your control over it via your life energy. The same goes for your nerve perceptions. Numbness? What numbness? You would be able to count individual grains of sand on your palm, if you were truly convinced you could. On the other hand, should you be, shall we say, scared of it, it could be totally lost to your control because you would let it slip out of your personal net. So far, you've got a basically normal grip on it. It feels a bit strange partly because you expect it to. How that changes... well, as I said, it's up to you."

Lilith let out a noisy breath. This wasn't very comforting to hear. One second she was a superfur, the next a cripple. And only her own subconscious mind could make the choice. "Thank you for telling me... I think."

Master Sinar looked at her with a calm, penetrating gaze for a moment, then he smiled slightly. "Somehow, I don't think I need to continue with a mental examination. Your reaction to this has provided most of what I need. Not everyfur could take that as calmly as you just did."

"Calmly?" Lilith laughed. "I'm as jittery as a weasel's nose in a thunderstorm!"

"It has been a shock to you, yes. But your core determination isn't shaken. I think that if you simply regard this as a challenge and opportunity, you should have no problems. If you regard it as a fearful trap, then that too will become a self-fulfilling prophecy."

"I see." This time, Lilith's answer had more of a firmness to it, and Master Sinar nodded appreciatively as he returned to his writing. After a few more seconds of silence, Lilith casually asked, "oh, have you ever examined Master Vika?"

"Patient records are confidential, adept." was the calm reply. Then Master Sinar looked up at her with that penetrating stare, and said, "but as to your question, no, I haven't. Why?"

Lilith shifted a bit in her seat. "Oh, nothing too important, I guess. It's just that this whole station revolves around him, and it doesn't seem too.... happy? about it."

Master Sinar continued to look at her thoughtfully, then he nodded as if to himself. But all he said was, "thank you for your time, adept. If you want to come back tomorrow or later, I can let you examine the detailed results of my examination. But there are no irregularities that we have not discussed."

Lilith recognized a dismissal when she heard one, and stood up. "Thank you, sir. I may be back for it if I don't have other duties to attend to. Good afternoon, sir."

"Good afternoon, adept," was the cool reply as she shut the door behind her.

Whew! Lilith thought. Now that is one formidable master. This station is probably lucky to have him-- I hope he's on the side of good in all of this brew. And that, she realized as she walked down the corridor, was probably what concerned her most. In all of this mess, she felt she was going to need as many allies as she could get. This one seemed to be neutral so far, but she had the uncomfortable feeling that he could well be the linchpin to the whole thing if it ever came to a confrontation of any kind.