The men were glum and in low spirits as they continued on their way south. Their force had been reduced by four men, one of them permanently, and the remainder felt the loss keenly. What banter there was, when they stopped to sleep and eat their meals, was reduced almost to nothing and they made their way through the trackless hills and valleys in an uncomfortable silence that was broken only by the sighing of the wind and the lonely cries of solitary wild animals.

     It was with great relief that they eventually left Radiant territory, five days after their encounter with the demon, and shortly after that they came across a road with signposts in the language of Arago, a country few of them were familiar with. They took a detour to the north to avoid the most densely populated region of the country, in the hopes of avoiding notice by the authorities who might have detained them for an unknown length of time while they quizzed the foreign soldiers about their business in their land, but although they did see the occasional small Aragon patrol they weren’t bothered by them. Arago had generally good relations with Helberion, mainly due to the fact that they lacked a common border, and the only contact they had with each other were the merchant caravans that carried trade between them along the Spice Road.

     The climate was warmer here, several hundred miles south and west of their homelands, and the land was considerably drier as well. The hills were brown with dead grass, and the shrubs that lined the roads bore wicked spines to deter whatever grazing animals might have been tempted by their waxy leaves. The people wore brightly coloured clothes and were surrounded by an exotic, spicy smell that seemed to rise up out of the very ground. The men grumbled and complained as they ate the foreign food and drank the syrupy sweet local beverages, but the Brigadier was pleased by the progress they were making. If not for the losses they had taken, their short cut through Radiant territory would have been an unqualified success.

     On the southern horizon, a line of mountainous peaks were just visible in the dusty haze, and the Brigadier told them that they were the northernmost extremities of the Uttermost Range, the mighty mountain range that marked the southern edge of human knowledge. The sight of it cheered the men, even the Brigadier himself, even though their destination still lay many hundreds of miles further to the west, and their conversation had returned almost to normal when they stopped for their midday meal by the banks of a huge, nameless river whose far bank was almost too far away to see.

     “Have you ever been this far from home before?” Malone asked the Brigadier as the carcass of a large river herbivore turned on a spit above their camp fire.

     “Never,“ replied the Brigadier without looking up from polishing the buckles of his uniform. “I know this region by reputation only. I once travelled with a group of traders who came from Mekrol. They told me everything I know of this place, so I can only hope they were telling me the truth. Not simply spinning tales for the gullible northerner. It was they who first told me of Parcellius, the great sage and master of ancient knowledge, although I later heard of him from other sources, so we can have some hope that he, at least, is based on truth. He is said to live in the great city of Barag Tull where he is the court wizard to the Empress Jaxia himself.”

     “I’ve heard of Barag Tull,” said Harper nervously. “They say it’s a city of cannibals and demon worshippers, that those who enter are never seen again except for their skulls that adorn the city walls.”

     “And I heard that the Empress was adopted by Radiants," said Zpencer, "and that she lived among them long enough to gain their powers before returning to retake her throne. They say that she now uses her Radiant powers to enforce a reign of terror over the city.”

     “Fanciful tales always grow up around little known, far off places,” said the Brigadier, putting his jacket aside and turning to the brass adorning the raised peak of his cap. “I expect they have equally imaginative tales regarding Helberion, if they’ve even heard of the place. They’ll just be people, little different from us. With their own customs and traditions doubtless, but with the same hopes and ambitions as anyone else.”

     “We’ll find out soon enough, if we find a way to cross this river,” said Malone, regarding the sluggishly flowing water doubtfully. Far out, away from the shore, the glistening, leathery backs of some large river creatures occasionally broke the surface before sinking lazily again. They looked easily large enough to destroy any water vessel they took a dislike to.

     “The people of the last town we passed through spoke of a ferry across the river,” replied the Brigadier, applying a dab of polish to his cloth and scowling as he rubbed the brass briskly and energetically. “If we follow the riverbank, hopefully we’ll come across it before we’ve gone too far.”

     Malone jabbed the carcass with his knife and smiled with satisfaction at the clear juices that flowed from it. “Reckon this thing's done,” he said, and he began carving off bits of meat.

     “You ever wonder what would’ve happened to this creature if we hadn't killed and eaten it?” said Harper. “Someone might have adopted it one day. It might have been a person one day.”

     “Well, it’s not a person,” replied Malone as he kept cutting. “It's dinner.”

     “My sister became a vegetarian,” Harper continued. “Said she wouldn't eat something that might have been human one day. She said it was little better than cannibalism.”

     “It's just a fad some people go through,” said Spencer. “Teenage rebellion. What was she before she was adopted?”

     “A fallow deer.”

     “Ah, there you are then. Herbivores sometimes have a hard time adapting to eating meat.”

     Harper nodded. It was true enough. “Suppose this creature we’re carving up now had been human once, though “ he said. “Some guy who got cursed back to an animal, like what happened to Smithie.”

     “The law says that if it’s cursed back far enough, then it's an animal and you can eat it,” said Quill. “Smithie was still human enough to be human, though, even before I blessed him back up a bit.”

     “Suppose you're a human,” continued Harper, “And you are cursed all the way back to being an animal, and then someone adopts you and raises you back up to being human again. Would you be the same human, or a different human?”

     “That has actually happened,” replied the wizard. “I actually knew a woman that happened to. Connie Mallaway her name was. Her father was a magistrate in the town of Bywell.”He accepted a plate of meat from Malone and popped a small strip into his mouth. “Anyway,” he said around the meat. “Her father was out to get a local witch who’d been hiring herself out to local villains. Cursing their enemies, helping them with their capers, that sort of thing. Justice Mallaway had made it his mission to get her and he did, but she knew he was coming and had taken steps to take revenge. She couldn’t strike back at him himself, so she cursed his daughter instead.”

     “They say they can put curse power into a glass of water,” said Malone, handing carved meat to everyone around the camp while his eyes stared in fascination. “So long as it's got life in it. Pond life, like the really small creatures that live in pond water, too small to see. All they've got to do is find a way to get their victim to drink the water, and they can curse their victim without coming anywhere near them.”

     Quill nodded. “Anyway, she cursed the woman, and it was a strong curse. She was knocked all the way back to being a crow. It's rare for a curse to be able to do that, but this woman was an exceptionally powerful witch. The parent bond was completely broken. The crow would have flown away and been gone for ever, but by chance she was in a room with all the windows closed when she drank the potion and she was trapped there. Even so, though, she almost escaped when her mother returned to the house. She had no way of knowing that the crow was her daughter. She thought her daughter had just gone out somewhere, and that the crow had flown in while the door was open.”

     “That happened to us once,” chuckled Spencer. “Not the curse, a crow getting in the house. It ate all the...”

     “Spence!” warned Harper. “We're listening to a story.” He gestured for the wizard to continue.

     “Anyway,” continued Quill. “They figured out what happened, and they had the crow, so they adopted it again. They figured they'd get their daughter back again. It might take a few years...”

     “But it wasn't her,” guessed Harper, when a couple of minutes had gone by without the wizard speaking.

     “No. The new girl she became had none of the old girl's memories. None of her personality traits. She bore a physical resemblance to the old girl, because she was raised by the same parents, but it was a completely different person, like a sister. They had to give her a different name, as a permanent reminder to themselves, which was confusing for the girl because they'd been calling her Connie all the time they were raising her. In her mind, she was Connie. She couldn’t get used to the new name they had to give her.”

     “Was that back around the late thirties, by any chance?” asked Blane. “They passed a new law around then. The Rehuman Act.”

     Quill nodded. “Yes. If the same animal is raised to human twice, the second human is legally a different person from the first human. The second human can only inherit titles and property from the first human if the first human leaves it to him in his will. That's not what happened to Smithie, though. He was only partially thrown back. Legally, he's still human, and when he's been completely restored he’ll be the same person, as far as the law is concerned. I'm afraid there might be gaps in his memory, though. Possibly a change of personality, but that happens as we grow older anyway.”

     “So, could you use that to escape a murder charge?” asked Malone as he took the last plate of meat for himself. “I mean, if you killed someone and were sentenced to hang, could you have yourself cursed back to animal, then be raised back to human by your parents and the law would have to let you go free because you're a different person now?”

     “I suppose,” agreed the wizard. “You could achieve the same effect by throwing yourself off a cliff. When you go all the way back to animal, you're not just legally dead. You're actually dead, just as though you'd blown your brains out with a pistol. Everything that makes you you is gone. All your memories, your personality...” Malone nodded sombrely.

     “I wonder if Radiants have a Reradiant act,” said Harper around a mouthful of half chewed meat. “If a Radiant were cursed back to human...”

     “Radiants can't be cursed back to human,” Quill reminded him. “That's why we’re on this mission, remember? We wouldn't need to be searching for a cure if the Princess could be simply cursed back to normal health. They tried cursing her, anyway. They got Boll himself to do it; probably the most powerful ontomancer in Helberion.”

     “I wonder how she is,” mused Malone. “The princess. Do you think we... that is... do we still have time, you think?”

     “It’s only been a few weeks,” replied the wizard. “We've got plenty of time. Don't you worry.”

     The batman nodded. “I wonder what's going on back home,” he said quietly.