It was growing lighter with the approach of dawn when they reached the cottage. Bronn came out to meet them as they approached, and with two of them to look after Tala Gren set her back on her feet, although he kept a firm grip on her arm as they escorted her to the door.

     Tala could see that the cottage had once been a pretty place with a white-painted fence around the garden and copper-coloured creepers climbing up the walls, but it had clearly been empty for a long time. The garden was a jungle of tall weeds and tree saplings, the windows were green with algae and the paint was peeling from all the woodwork. The door was standing ajar and fungi were growing in the decomposing leaves that covered the nearest part of the floor.

     The door opened soundlessly when Gren pushed it, though, and inside Tala could see that an attempt had been made to smarten the place up. The moldy furniture had all been piled into a side room, leaving the other rooms bare and empty, and the floor had been swept, although the floorboards were still warped and stained with damp. The windows had been opened in an attempt to let some fresh air in to blow away the musty smell that still filled the place.

     Bronn and Gren paused in the hall and a figure appeared from what had been the kitchen. The Crone looked exactly as Tala had always imagined she would be; the very caricature of an evil witch. She was dressed in black, except for a bloodstained bandage around her left arm. She had straggly grey hair and a long, hooked nose with a wart on the end. She regarded Tala with gleeful delight in her small, watery eyes. She looked tired, though. Tala wondered whether the preparations for the soul transfer, whatever they had been, had left her exhausted.

     "We meet in the flesh at last," she said, coming forward to get a better look at the younger woman. She stared for a moment as if she was having difficulty focusing, but then she reached out with a thin, bony hand to finger Tala's hair. Tala drew back in revulsion but Gren held her fast.

     "Nothing to say?" the Crone prompted, but Tala said nothing. She was more afraid than she'd ever been. So afraid that she could feel her chin trying to tremble. She was within an inch of falling to her knees and begging for mercy and was afraid that the last vestige of her self control would leave her if she started speaking. The small nugget of courage that formed the core of her very being was determined to meet her end with dignity, though. Make her remember you, she thought. It seemed that to survive in the other woman's memories was the only survival she could hope for now.

     The Crone sighed with disappointment. "Oh well," she said. "Bring her through. Best get this over with."

     Gren and Bronn nodded and Tala was led through into a back room.

     This room was drier than the rest of the house and contained far fewer signs of decay. Two circles had been drawn in some kind of brown fluid on the bare floorboards. Blood, Tala realised. The Crone's own blood, taken from the cut she'd made in her own arm. "We'll need some of your blood to add to mine," said the Crone. "As small a cut as you can make, though, Gren. I don't want too much damage done to my new body."

     The older man produced a small knife while his son held Tala tightly by the arms. Tala felt a pain in her hand as the knife cut into it, and then a small trickle of blood was falling into a clay cup the man was holding. When it was half full he took the cup away and Bronn tied a small bandage around the wound.

     Gren handed the cup to the Crone who poured a thin trickle around each of the two circles. When she'd finished the circles began to glow with a soft, crimson light and they emitted thin tendrils of vapour that dissipated rapidly in the humid air.

     "Take those manacles off her," she ordered. "She can get out of them any time she wants. Right, sweetie? You clever girl. Tie her hands instead. Unless she's more skillful with the green than I've learned to be in half a thousand years, it'll take her more time than she has to undo a good, tight knot."

     Bronn did as he was told, tossing the manacles into a corner of the room. Tala got a brief look at her wrists, noticing the marks the sharp metal had made in her delicate skin, and then Bronn was pulling her hands behind her back, crossing her wrists and tying them together with a thin length of leather cord. Tala winced as he pulled it tight and knotted it.

     "And now me," said the Crone, turning away from him and crossing her wrists behind her back. "Don't want her getting up to any mischief when she's in my body." Bronn nodded and tied her hands just as securely.

     "And now blindfold us both," said the Crone. "I don't think she's powerful enough to use her eyes on both of you at once but why take the chance?"

     Gren was holding strips of dense cloth and he tied one of them around Tala's eyes. It blocked her vision completely. Even her green vision was useless. She only knew what was happening in the room from the sounds she heard and guessed that the Crone was also being blindfolded. What would it be like to be in an old body? she wondered. Probably full of aches and pains. Weak muscles and arthritis. It was pretty clear that the Crone had poor vision, at least as far as her flesh and blood eyes were concerned. Now that Tala was blindfolded, had she seen clearly for the last time? She found herself wishing she'd taken the time to take a last look around the room, to appreciate the sharp vision her young eyes gave her. Now it was too late.

     Her resolve was weakening. The fear was growing with every second that passed. She couldn't keep herself from shaking and whimpering as the pain in her wrists reminded her of her helplessness. She tried pulling at the knots with her invisible hands but it was hopeless. They had been pulled much too tight.

     "Please don't do this," she couldn't keep herself from saying. She hated herself for her weakness. "Please."

     "Let's get this done," said the Crone, and there was a note of sympathy in her voice. "No point letting her suffer any longer than she has to."

     Gren took Tala by the arm and led her across the room. Suddenly she felt a weakness going through her body and guessed that she was now standing in the circle. Just a few feet away, Bronn would be guiding the Crone into the other circle.

     "Hold her there," said the Crone. "Don't let her leave."

     "It won't do anything to my hands, will it?" asked the man.

     The Crone laughed. "No need for you to worry. There's none of your blood on the floor. Now hold her steady."

     Gren's hands tightened on her arms. Her young arms. Soon her arms would he old. Wrinkled and saggy. The thought made her cry with despair. "Please don't do this," she begged. "I'll do anything."

     "What do you think you could do for me that's better than giving me your body?" said the Crone, sounding amused. "Take courage, Girl. Just a moment now and it'll all be over. Gren, just as soon as you're sure the transference has worked, put a knife to my throat. This throat. This old throat. Let this body's blood out. Give this poor girl some peace."

     "I'll make it quick, I promise," the servant replied.

     "Good. Let's do this then."

     Tala became aware that the Crone's astral form had left her body and was floating in the middle of the room. She felt incorporeal hands reaching out to her head where they took hold of something inside and pulled. Tala shrieked with terror as she felt her soul being dragged out of her body like a worm being dragged out if its burrow by a hungry blackbird. She resisted and her soul drew back, but the Crone pulled with more force. Tala heard the Crone gasp with the effort. Such great effort that Tala dared to hope that her ancient heart might give up and fail.

     The Crone's heart didn't fail, though, and  the green power of the older woman was too strong. Resisting as hard as she could, Tala couldn't stop her soul being drawn further and further out until it seemed that she was only holding onto her body by the tips of her fingers...

     There was a masculine cry of anger and pain and her soul was released. She felt it snapping back into her body with a thud that shook her and made her stagger across the room. She was no longer being held by Gren and the sounds of two men fighting were coming from just beside her. "What's going on?" she heard the Crone demanding. "What's happening?" The only replies were grunts of effort from struggling men and a sudden cry of pain.

     Taking advantage of the opportunity, Tala ran. She bumped her shoulder hard against the wall and almost fell. With her hands tied she couldn't steady herself but she managed to remain on her feet by staggering across the floor. As soon as she'd regained control of herself she went back to the wall and followed it with her shoulder until she came to the door. She slipped through it and, trying to remember the layout of the cottage, she made her way to the front door. It was still open and she staggered out into the overgrown garden.

      Blindfolded, she had to feel her way with her shoulders and her feet. She expected Gren and Bronn to come running out at any moment to drag her back in, but apparently whatever had happened in the house was still happening. She bumped into a tree and scraped her head against a knobbly branch that was almost level with her eyes. She put her head to it, hooked a branch under her blindfold and used it to pull it off her head.

     It was full dawn, with shafts of sunlight slanting at a shallow angle through the overhead canopy. The forest was alive with the sounds of birdsong. Tala was in no mood to appreciate it, though. Being able to see again, she was able to run at speed through the trees until the cottage was out of sight behind her. She didn't know how long she ran, but after a while she was forced to stop by exhaustion and she leaned, gasping, against the bole of a large tree that she hoped would hide her from anyone following.

     She had intended to stop just long enough to get her breath back, but just as she was about to set off again she heard the sound of someone running through the forest. She crouched down, her eyes widening with fear, and prayed that whoever it was would pass by without seeing her.

     Whoever it was got closer, and Tala could hear from the laboured sound of his breathing that he was hurt. Good. Maybe she'd be able to get away from him. She crept timidly to a clump of bramble that grew high enough to hide behind and peered through it.

     It was Gareth, she was astonished to see. Somehow he had escaped from the rats, followed her to the cottage and entered to attack Gren and Bronn. Did that mean they were dead? Was the Crone dead? No, she thought. He was running, just as she was. Running in a desperate attempt to escape a deadly enemy.

     The Knight leaned against a tree, then slid down it to sit with his back against it. He took his hand away from the wound in his side and opened his robes to look at it. His eyes widened with fear. He was dying, Tala realised. Without help, he would bleed to death. Good. Tala decided to wait for him to die. Maybe he would have a knife on him that she could use to free her hands.

     Gareth was trying to remove his robes, she saw. He probably intended to tear it into strips to make bandages. If he could put enough pressure on the injury, maybe it would slow the bleeding enough for him to stagger back to Ellford. It took him several minutes, though, during which Tala saw the blood spreading in a pool on the hard packed earth he was sitting on. With the robes lying in a pile in his lap, the Knight then reached for a small knife at his belt. He eased it out of its pouch, but it slipped from his bloody, trembling fingers, bounced on the ground a couple of times and came to rest three feet away from him. Gareth stared at it as if it was a hundred miles away.

     Tala also stared at the knife. She could use it to free her hands. She knew that the safe thing would be to wait for the Knight to die, but her hands were going numb from the interrupted blood flow and when she twisted her body around to look at them she saw that they were going purple.

     She wanted her hands free now, and Gareth was surely in no condition to be any threat to her. She could grab the knife without needing to go within reach of him, free her hands and run away to leave him to die alone. She dithered for a few moments longer, her numb hands warring with her sense of caution, but then she stood and walked carefully towards him.

     He saw her coming and stared in surprise. He leaned over to where his knife was lying but winced with pain and settled back with a look of hopeless despair. Tala went closer, turned her back, crouched down and searched around with her fingers until she found the knife. She picked it up and stood again.

     "Help me," said the Knight. "Please."

     Tala stared in surprise. "You were taking me to be stoned to death," she said. "Now you want me to help you?"

     "Please," begged the Knight. "Please."

     Tala ignored him and concentrated on using the knife to cut her bonds, but it turned out to be harder than she'd thought. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't bring the blade to touch the leather cords. She tried using her invisible hands, but although they could push and pull they couldn't do anything as dextrous as grip a knife. She cursed under her breath. She just needed more practice, that's all. She could do it with a bit more practice.

     Gareth, meanwhile, was still staring at her. "You can't just leave me," he said weakly. "Please."

     "Shut up," said Tala. She couldn't keep herself from looking at him, though. Could she really just leave him to die? She felt an urgent need to help him, but if she did, would he just take her captive later when he'd regained his strength and take her to her death? She had to think of herself. Helping a man who thought she was evil and deserved to die would be madness, but could she ignore her human instincts to help a dying man?

     She cursed bitterly, backed towards him and dropped the knife in his lap. "Cut me free and I'll help you," she said.

     Gareth stared suspiciously. "How do I know you won't just leave me as soon as you're free?"

     "I can't help you with my hands tied," Tala told him. "If you want me to help you,  have to cut me free."

     Gareth continued to stare, but then he picked up the knife. "Come closer," he said.

     Tala dropped to her knees and edged towards him until the side of her leg was against his body. Gareth reached up to hold her wrist in one hand and brought the knife up with the other. Tala heard him gasping with effort as he sawed at the leather cord, but after a few moments it parted and Tala felt the blood rushing back into her hands with blessed relief.