Pleasure of a Dark Prince
Author: Kresley Cole
Date: 2000-01-01 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Paranormal Romance; Paranormal; Romance; Fantasy; Vampires; Werewolves; Adult; Urban Fantasy; Shapeshifters; Demons
Description: Kresley Cole enraptures again with this seductive tale of a fierce werewolf prince who will stop at nothing to protect the lovely archer he covets from afar. A Dangerous Beauty Lucia the Huntress: as mysterious as she is exquisite, she harbors secrets that threaten to destroy her—and those she loves. An Uncontrolled Need Garreth MacRieve, Prince of the Lykae: the brutal Highland warrior who burns to finally claim this maddeningly sensual creature as his own. That lead to a pleasure so wicked... From the shadows, Garreth has long watched over Lucia. Now, the only way to keep the proud huntress

The Pleasure of Memory

The Blood Caeyl Memories, Volume One

Welcome Cole

Caelstone Press

Traverse City Michigan

Caelstone Press

5231 Goodrick Road

Traverse City MI  49684

Copyright © 2013 by Paul N. Herendeen

The Pleasure of Memory

First e-book edition September 2013

Caelstone Press

ISBN-13: 978-0-9894249-0-5

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices. For information, address Caelstone Press, 5231 Goodrick Road, Traverse City, MI  49684

The Pleasure of Memory is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Caelstone Press is a registered trademark.

Cover design by P. N. Herendeen.

Cover fonts by Aenigmate Productions.

Title page fonts by Apostrophic Labs.

To those dear friends who endured my early scribblings, and who supported me in spite of them, and who kept me from hanging myself in the garage, I cannot thank you enough.

Melissa

Stephanie

Nick

Amy

Tyler

Special thanks to Katherine, who supported me from the beginning, who saw the grain through the mounds of chaff, and who encouraged me from very early on.

And lastly, but most importantly, I dedicate this book to my once and forever girlfriend.

To Heide

I

A JOURNEY ENDS

I

T’S A GOOD DAY TO BE YOU!”

Beam threw a sour glare down at the old vagabond walking beside him. It was less work than slapping him, though not nearly as satisfying.

The tattered, shoeless bum defended himself behind a wide grin boasting three lonely teeth scattered haphazardly behind sunburned lips. Sadly, the dental impediment had little effect on the man’s ability to blather, which he did chronically and with great enthusiasm.

“Yep,” the old man said with a clap of his boney hands, “I’m guessing it’s a real good day to be you. Hell, almost makes me wish I was you instead of me.”

Beam squinted up into the glaring sun and steadied himself against the wind of tedium about to blow his way.

“I bet you got enough gold there to buy yourself a castle,” the bum continued, “I used to have me a bunch of gold once, too. Only the good goddess Calina, she didn’t shine down too good on me, praise her glory. I’m guessing it’s on account of the wine. I always liked my wine. Some’d say I liked it a full measure too much, if you take my meaning. Say, you got anything to drink in that pack?”

Beam fired off another warning scowl.

“No, no, that’s right!” the bum said, slapping his head, “I already asked you that, didn’t I? Might’ve asked you that yesterday. I’m thinking you got lots of gold, but you ain’t got nothing to drink. Reckon I’d rather have the drink, myself. You know, I owned a tavern once. I ever tell you that? Well, you’re damned right I did, and it was the finest goddamned tavern in all of Parhron City, too. You just ask anyone. But just like you’d expect, I went and lost it. I reckon it was on account the wine. You know, it just ain’t fair that a good man like me’d be so pissed on by the gods just for loving the fruits they so generously gave us, praise their glory. I don’t know how a man can…”

Blather, prattle, and spew.

Beam scratched his beard and looked out over the grassy plains in search of a distraction, any distraction. Sadly, the old man took no notice of his disinterest, but simply droned on with his story, free as usual from the burdens of point or direction.

Gerd had wandered in from the endless grasslands of these Nolandian Plains a couple mornings earlier, sun-parched and stinking like a dead bloatsnake. He looked so weak Beam feared he’d drop dead right then and there if he didn’t offer him some food and water. The old man gratefully accepted the jerky, but he stubbornly refused the water for most of the day until Beam finally convinced him he really, truly, swear-to-the-gods did not have any wine.

Sadly, the morning hadn’t even passed into memory before Beam realized his mistake in inviting the bum along. Gerd, it turned out, was a blowhard, a liar of mystical proportion. He’d barely gotten his name out before the bullshit started flying. He wasted no time sharing his ridiculous tales of grand and glorious travels across the whole of the world, over the entire breadth and width of Calevia herself, including traversing no less than three of her four known oceans. For two endless days now, his ridiculous stories had continued as he spewed out a seemingly endless repository of lies and mind-numbing fabrications.

His diatribe began with his valiant battles with the militaristic Pendts, a disgusting race of furred, two-legged curs with mouths full of daggers and an odor to shame a skunk. From there he leapt to his years spent intermingling undetected among the reclusive Mendophs, a race of people equally as unsavory as the Pendts, though a modicum more civilized. Xenophobic to a fault, Mendophs wore metallic masks and covered their bodies so perfectly in fabric that it was nearly impossible to determine the gender beneath. Other than the eerie blood-red eyes peering from behind their masks, their likenesses were legend only.

The ridiculous stories spewed from his mouth the way water pours through a sieve. And with every new tale, Gerd’s exploits grew grander and more absurd. Beam found it a brutal irony that he’d allowed the bum to tag along for conversation only to discover he had the attention span and self-importance of a five year old.

Then again, it wasn’t like there was a wealth of company out here in these miserable plains. Only predators and victims traveled this loveless road through the empty Nolands. No one with anything more than time to lose would risk it. Beam had been walking this seemingly endless route for somewhere on or about three weeks now, and his only other encounters had been with a handful of people, each of whom was of dubious character at best.

On the first day, he passed a couple nostrum vendors heading south against his north. They were hauling a wagon full of colorful snake oils to the worn out frontier towns of the southern scrubs where the people were so isolated that even the arrival of traveling salesmen was cause to take a holiday. The vendors’ normally colorful suits were dirtied to the point of ruin with sweat inspired by the brutal sun of the plains, and they smelled of every drop of it.

A few days later, he met up with a trio of squinty-eyed men dressed in dirty buckskins, long greasy hair, and too many knives. These hooligans led a sway-backed mule perfectly loaded with obvious contraband, leaving Beam to conclude that they were destined for the wilderness rogue camps in the western Nolands. He knew something of such men, having no lack of experience in smuggling himself, and therefore knew exactly how to encourage them to continue on about their merry ways.

It was a full week before he met his next passerby, a traveling rogue with the eyes of a raptor and a henchman’s grin. Beam was pretty certain this one could smell the contents of a well-laden purse from a hundred yards out. Easily the most menacing of the three visitors, he was also clearly the wisest. He immediately spotted the beast prowling behind Beam’s eyes and subsequently lost any interest in lingering.

Still, in spite of the miserable company, or lack thereof, in spite of the mind-numbing tedium of this endless walk, Beam felt happy, even joyful. At least, he figured this was joy gripping him. Emotions of happiness weren’t something he had much experience with. He’d always considered joy an emotion confined to the hopeful stories and songs of the nameless civilians surrounding him, something to lighten the burdens of the peasants and servant classes who burned away their years as flames to brighten their master’s lives; it wasn’t something to be wasted on rogues and murderers like him. Looking back over the dreary fugue that mapped his nearly forty year life, he was hard pressed to point to a specific place or time where he could admit to even simple contentment, let alone happiness.

And yet, after all these years, here he was, at long last fully blanketed in joy, and the only thing left burdening him was the bulging backpack strapped to his back.

He readjusted the straps on his shoulders. His spine was killing him from carrying so much happiness for so many days. He’d tried to buy the mule from the smugglers, but they apparently took his offer the wrong way and instead of haggling, drew their knives. Not one to let himself be outnumbered by a measly three backwoods greasers, knives or no, Beam quickly bloodied the nose of the biggest of them and sent the rest of them running away. Before he could show the bleeding leader how to use his knives more efficiently, the ruffian fled along behind his pals, dragging their miserable old mule behind him.

He could’ve easily taken the mule if he’d wanted it badly enough, but at the time, there’d seemed no point. The pathetic beast didn’t look like it’d live to see another week anyway. At least, that’s what he’d told himself in the moment. But now, looking back on the experience from the perspective of a couple weeks out, he realized the truth of it. He was simply too content to bother.

“You’re looking mighty tired, sir,” Gerd said as if reading his mind, “I can carry that bag a while if you want me to.”

Beam looked down at the man’s bare, dirt-blackened feet, and at the ragged robe displaying far more anatomy than he’d ever wanted to see, and had to wrestle back a laugh. “I’m fine, old man,” he said, “I’ll manage the pack. You manage the conversation.”

“Well, I know what you’re thinking, but I’m stronger’n I look,” Gerd squawked, “Before Calina cursed me, I was the strongest man in Parhron. Now, don’t you be looking at me that way. I ain’t telling no lies. Hell, you get me mad and I’m likely to break your legs. Why, I remember one time I was in a tavern way the hell out in Dobb’s Outpost. I was fixin’ to have me a drink when this big ole hairy son of a mule decides...”

Blather, prattle, and spew.

Beam shoved his mind back into the hike and put as much mental distance between himself and the old man as he could manage. Unfortunately, the nasally voice continued buzzing around his head, grinding away at the natural quiet of the world as persistently as a horsefly. After two days, the tedium was becoming dark enough to threaten his newfound joy, and the gods knew well that he’d filled more than one hole with remains of men who’d irritated him less than Gerd. He glanced down at the old man’s throat and considered his options. It’d be damned easy, wouldn’t it? To finally get some bloody peace? To pull his knife? To go back to the old ways for just a moment?

Instead, he fought back another impending grin. Nope. Not today. Today was too damned near perfect to ruin with useless bloodshed. For the first time in his life, everything felt right. For the first time in memory, it felt like everything was finally in its proper place, and he had no taste to jinx it by returning to his dark past. As he again scratched at his beard, he amended that thought: Once he had a decent bath, then everything would finally be in its proper place. He’d never felt so dirty in his life.

He’d spent the last two miserable years sniffing around an ancient Vaemysh graveyard that was damned near the size of grand old Parhron City herself, the same Parhronii capital he now ventured toward. Two years poking around musty crypts by day and scouting through moldy tombs by night. Two years of dried meat, drier bread, and stale, brackish water. Two years of the cursed elixir he needed to ease his confinement dread, along with the damnable nausea and retching that invariably followed the miserable tonic. Two years picking through pockets of the Vaemyn’s moldering dead. Two years of searching and waiting. And searching and waiting. And searching. And waiting.

He knew there were some who would consider such an enterprise vulgar. Robbing the dead. Digging through the personal effects of corpses. It didn’t exactly entitle him to bragging rights down at the local tavern. He’d spent most of his life as a blade for hire (whenever he wasn’t otherwise engaged in his preferred career as a smuggler), and even among the thieves and cutthroats he’d considered his colleagues back in those glory days, such a means to acquire wealth would be frowned upon.

But it wasn’t as if he’d been molesting the civilized dead, right? These were Vaemysh corpses, for gods’ sakes, demanding little more respect than the carcasses of toads. The Vaemysh were savages at best, primitives barely elevated above the animals they raised. They weren’t civilized and they surely were not human, and they rated the barest respect while alive and none at all once dead.

Of course, at the end of the day, it wasn’t like any of that pointless soul searching and handwringing mattered anyway. It was two years gone now, nothing but a memory fading into the dust far, far behind him. He fingered the lump hanging against his sternum just beneath his leather overshirt. The only notion of any importance was that he’d been successful. He’d found this perfect gem, this treasure he’d worked so hard to obtain, and he’d even found a small fortune in gold along the way to boot. Life was good. Yes, life was damned good indeed.

It amused him to think how abruptly his fortunes had changed. One short month ago he’d been toiling in the desperate scrubs and now he was strolling merrily along the Old Forest Road with a friendly, albeit irritating old vagabond just like the heroes of old returning from battle with their faithful squires at their sides. He was less than a three-day walk from Parhron City, less than three days from a life of leisure, liquor, and lavish indulgence. And all he had to do to complete the journey was keep moving his feet as the road passed away beneath him. The curse of a murdered childhood and a bastardized life was about to be avenged.

He began whistling a bawdry tavern song, or something like what he expected a bawdry tavern song would sound like. Though he’d squandered his youth in every cutthroat’s tavern between Parhron City and the scores of frontier towns spattered across the endless Nolandian Plains, he’d always been too busy gambling or scheming or whoring to pay attention to the music. So now, he simply made up a song of his own devising, whistling an erratic and tuneless ditty as he walked.

He turned his face up to the endless blue sky and let the sun pour its healing light down on him. A cool breeze sifted in from the western meadows in perfect complement to the solar heat. As he enjoyed the generosity of nature, the bum’s words faded to little more than a background buzz, like the cicadas droning their chorus from the mysterious treetops to the east.

This lonely highway was a dirty incision stitching the vast plains of the Nolands on his left to the great and ancient forest on his right. The shimmering Nolandian Plains rose and fell like land-locked waves rolling away into the western edge of the massive sky. Like a great sea, this grassland swept westward for hundreds of miles, an empty, drifting meadow spattered erratically with rare clusters of heady trees and congested shrubs and precious little else. So much like the Vaemysh wastelands, he thought, a vast expanse of nothing sprinkled with rare oases of riches, riches lying in wait for one with the fortitude to go after them.

The great forest on the right side of this road was the exact contradiction to that emptiness. It towered over him like a looming cliff wall, as solid and bountiful as the Nolands were sweeping and empty. Dense with prehistoric trees towering a thousand feet above the forest floor, this forest marched eastward across the jagged hills for nearly a hundred miles before terminating at the feet of the craggy Baeldonian mountain range. The forest had been named Na te’Yed by the Vaemyn savages hundreds of generations ago, a name that meant Forest of Life or Forest of Food or Forest of Fornication or some other such savage bullshit. At least, that’s what he’d heard. He didn’t speak that primitive language and had no desire to foul his tongue by learning it, so the details were inconsequential.

Yet, he’d wanted to trespass those naughty woods for as long as he could remember, and he meant it in the most literal sense. The stories he’d heard of the place were wild and unbelievable, stories of mages and spooks and unnatural beasts. The local common folk called it the Forbidden Forest, though the moniker only made him laugh; the very notion of the term ‘forbidden’ implied there was something of value in there that someone else wanted to protect from someone just like him. He vowed right then and there that when he finally grew bored with his riches, he’d come back and explore those ‘forbidden’ woods. And when he did, he’d find-

Something flashed against the road up ahead.

Beam stopped.

For a moment, he just stood there, studying the dirty two-track road rolling away from him and trying to make sense of what he’d seen. What he thought he’d seen. Maybe he hadn’t seen anything. Maybe it was just an illusion or a trick of sunlight. He’d kept his eyes open, right? Watching, always watching, it was his second nature. Besides, the stinking savages would never consider following him this far north, not so close to the Parhronian border. It was unthinkable. And even if they had, he’d surely have discovered them tailing him long before this. For gods’ sakes, where could anyone even hide out here?

He suddenly wanted to vomit. His pulse was thrumming in his ears. Where could anyone hide out here? Well, nowhere, of course. Except behind that swell in the road up ahead of him. Or possibly beneath the chest-deep grass washing away to his left? Or how about behind that massive wall of trees marking the forest there just a hundred feet off to his right?

“Damn me,” he whispered.

“What was that?” Gerd stood beside him with his fists on his hips staring up at him. He had a strangely curious look on his face.

Beam turned away from him, focusing his attention on the road ahead. “Nah, it can’t be,” he lied to himself, “There’s no way they’re out there. I’ve been watching it too closely.”

“Watching what?” Gerd asked.

Beam threw him a look. “The road, fool.”

“The road?” Gerd scratched at the cobwebbing of hair on his head and looked up the road ahead of them. “You been watching the road? Watching it for what?”

“Take a breather, old man.”

“A breather?” Gerd asked with a snort, “What are you talking about? Man, you got a strange look riding your face there. You having a brain fever or what? I seen brain fever before. Why, it’ll stop a man dead in his tracks before he even knows what happened. Usually happens in full sun just like this, too. It don’t make no sense, but that’s—”

Beam threw a hand over the bum’s mouth. A familiar burn flickered in his stomach, that peculiar marriage of acid and ice that feels like a kick in the gut. Something wasn’t right. He scanned the ocean of grass rolling off to his left and considered the terrible possibilities.

Gerd slapped the hand away and spit into the dirt. “What the hell is that?” he yipped, dragging the back of his hand over his mouth, “Don’t you ever touch me like that! What the hell’s the matter with you? You lost or what?”

Beam looked over at Gerd. Despite the man’s protestations, he was still grinning, though it wasn’t as enthusiastic as usual; he could only see two teeth in it.

“You don’t got to worry,” Gerd said quickly, “I can get you back to Parhron City. By hell, I been this way a thousand times, maybe more. You just keep walking up this here road and sooner or later, you hit the city gates. It’s easy. Ain’t nothing between us and it now. Nothing at all. Hell, the Parhronian border’s only a few hours up the way there.”

Beam ignored him as he studied the road. It was as still as death, nothing moving but the heat ghosts simmering across the gravel up ahead. There were no other signs of life. He glanced back at the road following him. It was equally empty, just two dusty wheel ruts and their fading footprints.

“It’s nothing,” he told himself, “A broken bottle. A shard of mica reflecting the sun. Maybe a cast off piece of tin. Nothing to get jagged up about.”

“Jagged up?” Gerd said with a laugh, “Why hell, I been walking these goddamned roads for fifty-seven years now, longer’n you been off the tit. Takes a hell of a lot more’n you and a brain fever to get me jagged up.”

Beam was a heartbeat away from slapping the old man into silence when he saw it again, a quicksilver flicker near the crest of that same low hill a quarter mile up the road.

He slugged his thigh. It wasn’t his imagination! It was damned well real!

He shucked the heavy pack from his shoulder, but it didn’t come loose. Instead, it snagged on the crossbow strapped across his back and sent him stumbling clumsily to the side. With a growl of impatience, he regained his stance and jerked the pack free. It landed with a metallic thud on a puff of dust. He dropped to a knee and dug a small field glass from the pack’s side pocket. Then he stood up and leveled it at the road ahead.

Even with the lens, he could see little of interest, only a passing dust devil, and a pair of crows tearing at something dead on the shoulder. As he swept it left across the plains, he realized there could be a hundred savages crawling toward him beneath that grass from as many different directions. Maybe it was complacency, maybe simple stupidity, but he’d never considered that the savages would risk following him so far up the Nolands and into civilized territory. Their treaties with the Allies seriously forbid their entry into the Neutral Outerlands.

And yet, here he was, and he was quickly becoming pretty damned sure that there they were.

He lowered the glass and cursed.

“What now?” Gerd squealed, “Good gods, you’re a moody bastard! I sure as hell hope you’re not getting crazy on me! Just so you know, I ain’t too fond of ravers.”

“It’s too far north,” Beam whispered.

“Too far north again?” Gerd snapped back.

Beam looked at him. “They’d never follow me so close to Parhron. It’d be…it’d be a suicide mission, that’s what it’d be.”

“Well, what the hell is that supposed to mean? Suicide mission? Who you talking about? You paranoid or what? Gotta be a brain fever. Maybe you need some shade.”

“Will you shut your mouth for a bloody minute?”

Gerd recoiled at that. “Well, I’ll tell you what, you’re really something! I thought I was the crazy one here. For the gods’ sakes, I don’t even know what you’re talking about, and I got me a suspicion you don’t, neither. Should’ve known something wasn’t right about you when you didn’t have no wine. Can’t trust a man what don’t drink wine. Shouldn’t never have done what I did, joining up with you back there. I knew there was something ain’t right with you the minute I laid eyes on you.”

Beam studied the road through the glass again. This was two hundred miles north of their borders, north of Vaen. A savage entering the Nolands was damned well unheard of, at least in these modern times. Besides, if they really were after him he’d never have seen them coming. There’d be no flash of metal, no warning cry, only the cold surprise of an arrow burying itself into his spine.

He dropped to his knees and stowed the field glass back in the pack. His mind was raging with the same suspicious notions that’d kept him alive during his years in the scrubs. “You deserve it if they are out there,” he growled to himself, “You’re a dull-witted bastard.”

“Who you calling dull-witted?” Gerd cried behind him, “My gods, I wish to hell I knew what you’re getting so twisted up about. You ain’t making no sense.”

“Will you shut up?” Beam snapped over his shoulder, “Just shut your mouth for one goddamned minute. Can you do that for me, Gerd? Can you just stop talking?”

Gerd froze at that. His face looked almost serious. “What is it with you?” he said carefully, “What’re you getting all crazed up for? For the love of Calina, now you’re starting to make me mad.”

Beam leaned onto a knee and buried his eyes in his hand. It’s probably a bladesmith or tinker, he thought, just another traveler making lunch on the roadside. Gerd was right, he was just being paranoid, that’s all. There was no way they’d follow him up here. Hell, anyone who saw the savages, whether soldier, farmer, or traveling salesman, anyone who spotted them here in the Nolands would fire on them without so much as a by-your-leave.

Yet, even as he struggled to rationalize it, he knew argument was futile. He possessed an intuitive sense for danger, something like a sixth sense, a product of his natural rogue’s instinct that manifested itself as a kind of alarm bell, and he’d honed that gift to a fine edge during his years smuggling. What he didn’t understand was why hadn’t he sensed this danger sooner, before the flash?

It had to be this new emotion, this goddamned joy. It’d lulled him into lowering his guard, and he cursed himself for ever having succumbed to its weakness.

He stood up. A breeze riled in from the plains, stirring the tanned, seed-laden grass beneath it. Somewhere off in the distance a crow barked. Nothing was obviously out of the ordinary, and yet his alarm bell was clanging like a town afire.

Then he spotted the second sign.

It was directly before him not a hundred yards out in the plains left of the road, a solitary spot in the grass moving ever so slightly out of tandem with the surrounding whirls. Then it stopped and there was nothing left but the dull grass standing lazily at attention. Still he watched it. He didn’t move, he didn’t breathe, he didn’t think. He only watched the grass.

Another whirl of grass bubbled up a hundred feet south of the first, and with it, his worst fears blossomed into truth. It was all true! They were out there! Worse, he could now see that there were three areas of grass moving in a line parallel to the road.

He turned away from the plains. The sun suddenly felt like a blacksmith’s furnace, the air thick and useless. He drew in a studied breath and closed his eyes and tried to persuade himself to a calmer, more controlled state, a trick learned from the monks of his childhood, one he’d used a thousand times over his career. Anxiety and fear were as much the enemy as the savages. It was critical to maintain control of his weaknesses at all times.

He reopened his eyes in time to see another flash on the road.

The summoned calm promptly deserted him. “Goddamned hell!” he barked.

“By gods, now what?” Gerd screeched behind him.

Beam raced through his options. The cold truth was there’d be no standing and fighting. Not by himself. Where the hell was he supposed to make cover? He might use the bum as a shield, but the man was so scrawny he’d be almost useless for the purpose. There was only one viable option: Flight.

The bastards had already cut off the road to the north, which certainly meant they had the road behind him covered as well. He considered the solid wall of the old forest lumbering along on his right. It was his only hope for escape, the only place offering any semblance of cover. He had to make a run for those trees before they forced his hand.

He grabbed the strap of the heavy, blocky pack and clumsily hoisted it up over his shoulder, and then he started walking. A few dozen yards ahead was a steep swale that dipped away toward the forest on his right, and though a vast thicket of dense brambles lined the bottom, it might allow him to drop out of sight for a few precious minutes as he made for the woods. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

“Gerd,” he said over his shoulder, “Come up here.”

The old bum was loitering a few feet back like a toddler throwing a sulk.

“Gerd!” Beam said, slapping his leg, “Keep up, will you?”

The old man scratched his ribs through a failed patch in his old robe, but only continued his dawdle.

“Goddamn you, Gerd! Listen to me! We need to go!”

“What?” Gerd said, throwing his arms out dramatically, “So the brain fever’s all gone now, is it? You just start barking orders again and old Gerd’ll—”

Beam grabbed the old man’s sleeve and dragged him forward. “By gods,” he whispered, “You listen to me. We’re in danger. Do you understand me? Someone is following us. We have to move quickly. When I give you the sign, I want you to run for those woods over there.”

The vagabond yanked his arm free and threw a finger out toward the forest, yelling, “Them woods over there? What, are you insane? You know what them is? Them’s the Forbidable Forest! There ain’t enough wine in Parhron to get me to go in those—”

Beam seized his arm and dragged him closer. “Damn me, Gerd,” he whispered into his face, “If you don’t shut up and listen to me, I’ll slap those last three teeth right out of your mouth!”

“Four!”

“What?”

“Four teeth, not three. I got one more right here.” Gerd threw open his mouth and jabbed a dirty finger at the rotted half of a rear molar.

“Oh for the love of...” Beam hauled the old man into a paced walk. “I’m not going to argue with you.”

“Well, it ain’t right,” Gerd said as he stumbled along in tow, “It’s insulting not to count all a man’s teeth. You said three, but I got four!”

“Four then! I’ll slap all four teeth out of your mouth if you don’t run for those woods on my command. Do you understand me?”

“All right, already,” Gerd said like an adolescent appeasing a parent, “Being followed, he says. Lordy gods, you meet all kinds out here. Lousy brain fever my ass, you’re just nuts.”

Beam counted out the time it’d take to remove the weapons belt, free his crossbow, span, and load it. Even without cover, he knew he could get a couple bolts off before the savages could apprehend him. If he couldn’t avoid going down, by gods, he’d take as many of the savages with him as he could manage.

Just another few paces and they’d make their break. He plotted the course in his mind: Down the swale, through the brambles, a quick jaunt to a line of shrubs dressing the feet of the forest. Once there, he’d slide behind that particularly large redwood leaning out toward the road and make his stand. He prayed the old bum would keep up.

The vibration announced the attack an instant too late. The arrow slammed his pack from behind. Beam spun away and landed hard on his hands and knees, biting his lip in the process. The weight of the pack nearly pulled his arm out of socket.

“Holy Calina!” Gerd screamed behind him.

“Gerd!” Beam yelled up from the dirt, “Get down here before you get hit!”

“Look at that!” Gerd shrieked, pointing at the fallen pack, “For the love of gods, looky there! That there’s a Vaemysh arrow, ain’t it?”

“Gerd! Get down here!”

Gerd was dancing in the two-track and waving both hands at the feathered shaft as if casting a spell to chase it away. “That’s impossible, ain’t it?” he hollered, “Can’t be no savages this far north! It’s in violation of the treaty, ain’t it? The Allies ain’t gonna like that! They ain’t gonna like that at all!”

Beam crawled forward and grabbed for the man’s ragged robes, but Gerd pulled back too quickly for him to get purchase. Dancing around in the road, shrieking with his arms out and his fingers wiggling their spell at the grasslands, he looked to be in the grip of his own brain fever.

“That ain’t possible!” the old man bellowed, “It ain’t possible! Can’t be no savages in the Nolands! What the hell are you doing? You trying to fool me or what?”

Beam again scrambled for the old man, but the weight of the pack sabotaged the climb back to his feet. He was barely standing when the next volley arrived.

The second arrow whistled in from the southeast, passing perilously close to his shoulder before sailing off toward the forest. The third slugged into the other side of the pack from the north. The impact threw him into a spin. He landed hard on his shoulder. The square pack thudded to the ground a few feet beyond him with a broken strap and two arrows sticking out of it at a perfect right angle.

He grabbed the broken strap and dragged the clumsy pack behind him as he crawled along the dirt rut toward Gerd. The old man was fully in the fits of hysteria now, spinning around with his hands circling the air as he preached the impossibility of savages in the Nolands. Beam was within a foot of grabbing the old man’s leg when the fourth arrow hit.

Gerd’s mania choked off in mid-shriek. He stumbled backward, but didn’t fall. For a moment, he just stood there looking down at the arrow buried in his chest, his terror replaced by a gape of utter disbelief. He looked over at Beam, mouthed something incomprehensible, and then slowly tottered backward. He landed on his back in the trough of the dusty wagon track with the same meaty thud a body makes when dropped into a makeshift grave. Beam knew the sound well.

“Gerd!” he called as he crawled up the length of the old bum’s body, “Gerd!”

The shaft of a Vaemysh arrow rose up from the old man’s chest above a swelling circle of red. Gerd’s eyes were wide and fixed, his mouth agape with all three teeth showing.

Four, Beam corrected himself. Four teeth, not three.

He slugged the dirt. He cursed and slugged it again. He’d been selfish and a fool not to have followed his own instincts and run the bum off at the very get-go. Instead, he’d brought the poor old fool into harm’s way. In that moment, all the ghosts of Beam’s past rushed in around him. Brother Dael and Sawtooth Jack, his Mother and Brilla and Hannible Frick, and all the others now long dead stood staring down at him in the reproachful sunlight, and the collective sense of guilt was nearly crippling. He couldn’t bear another ghost plaguing him now; he was crowded to the point of suffocation already. It seemed as though his life had been a thirty-nine year exercise in remorse and shame and self-reproach.

Another arrow spared him from his suffering. It pounded deep into the pack parked in the dirt at his boots. Beam lurched away from it and in the process rolled over the shoulder of the road and tumbled roughly down the steep bank of the swale. He landed in the brambles a dozen feet below the road. Moments later, he emerged on the far side of the patch in the clearing between the brambles and the forest. A palate of blood and crushed berries stained his hands purple and red. Tiny thorns peppered his fingers and palms, but there was no time to attend to the distress of flesh or clothes.

He cupped the sun from his eyes and looked up at the road. His precious pack was lying up there on the shoulder, as close as thirty feet and as far away as the sun. Gerd’s body rested on its back beside it with a feathered shaft rising up from his chest like a macabre flower, a grim silhouette against the clear blue sky. It was a dark and wretched sight, and yet it served him an instance of blinding clarity. None of those arrows had missed him. None of them were supposed to hit him. The Vaemyn hadn’t intended to kill him at all, only to stop him. If they’d wanted him dead, he’d be up there moldering in the dirt with Gerd right now. They wanted him alive!

Beam’s carefully constructed rules of priority abruptly shifted. Death wasn’t something that worried him overmuch. He didn’t necessarily cherish the notion of entering that dark house, but he also wouldn’t be afraid of it when the time inevitably came. Being captured alive by the savages, however, was another thing altogether. That scenario would never be an option, and no amount of gold in the world could persuade him to risk it.

Surrendering to the faithless truth, he reluctantly bartered his hard won treasure for a beating heart and turned for the forest.

As he ran, he cursed the Vaemyn, cursed the gods, and cursed the horrible injustice of it all. Most of all, he cursed himself for ever having yielded to that most miserable and useless of emotions, joy.

II

A JOURNEY BEGINS

H

E COULDN’T RUN MUCH LONGER.

Every breath was a knife in his side. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel it pulsing behind his eyes. He didn’t know if he was worse for the flight or the shock of being startled into the flight, but in the end, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he’d found himself hostage to a situation he’d vowed long ago never to allow. Until this moment, he’d carefully staged every encounter with the savages. He’d always known exactly where he was likely to find the bastards before he got there, and he’d always had an escape plan.

Until today.

Today they’d taken him completely unaware, the result of the traitorous complacency he’d lulled himself into. Every cut, every bruise, every break he suffered was as good as inflicted by his own hand. And the grand prize for his arrogance was to find himself running at full whip through this strange forest while a little spot tingled in the middle of his back where a well-earned arrow was scheduled to strike.

The canopy was woven so tightly that not a fleck of sunlight could breech it, leaving the forest as dark as night. The giant trees crowded the narrow track, making divergence from this path a practical impossibility. Low branches, spindly and barbed, menaced the trail, reaching for him, slapping at his face and hands, and ripping at his clothes. Rocks and roots swelled up from the dirt where none had been an instant before, confounding his footing and complicating his flight.

A less scientific man might suppose that the elements of this dark forest were working collectively to foil his escape. A less scientific man might wonder if perhaps there were more to the ‘forbidden’ in this forest than he gave it credit. A less scientific man might consider turning back and making tracks for the road, savages be damned.

He gave himself a reprimanding slap.

Don’t be a fool. He slapped himself again. Keep your focus. Don’t you dare unravel now! He slapped himself again, and then once more for good measure. And with the third slap, a root seized his foot.

He vaulted into a sprawling dive, soaring timelessly above the path as the stupidity of his situation passed dreamlike beneath him. Sadly, there was nothing dreamlike about his landing. He hit the ground with brute determination and little cushion.

Dirt and debris settled in a hushed cloud around him. The forest cheered his defeat in deafening silence. Rogue streamers of sunlight sliced through the gritty fog, hanging like ghostly icicles in the settling dust.

He pushed himself to his knees. He spit a wad of bloodied phlegm into the dirt and wiped his gritty mouth across a sleeve. Dirt and blood caked the teeth behind a swelling lip. He sat back on his heels, dragged the hair back from his face, and spit again. He’d never felt so tired, so timeworn, so utterly finished with the whole trip in his long, miserable life. He wanted to lay down in the dirt and sleep, wanted to be done with the whole goddamned thing once and forever. It felt like a debt of exhaustion collected over a lifetime was cashing itself in all at once, and for just an instant, he wondered if maybe the time had finally come to quit the game.

He shook his head clear away the thought. It would be a cold day in the Wyr before he’d quit, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be today. He wasn’t ready today.

Defying the forest's spite, denying his own exhaustion, he climbed back to his feet. The alarm bells were screaming in his head again. He had to run. He couldn’t stop. He pushed himself back into his flight, running harder, driving more fiercely along a winding and hilly path that was so buried in gloom, it was nearly impossible to see.

A mile deeper in, he noticed a change in the forest’s mood. A strange sound now loitered at the periphery of his hearing, something even more portending than the death knell his heart was serving him. He could feel the sound more than hear it, like the vibration of a thunder clap that drops its energy far too close to camp. Maybe it was a mill. Maybe it was a sign of hope, a clearing, perhaps. Maybe he’d be able to find a place to take a stand against the savages. It was going to come to that eventually anyway, to stopping and making a defense. The savages were natural runners. It was just a matter of time before they overtook him.

The path broke abruptly to the right and dropped into a steep pitch. For a sickening instant, he was airborne. He landed too hard. The jar nearly shocked the breath out of him, but he couldn’t wait to be sure. He immediately lifted himself back into the run and raced up the next swell. As he pushed himself forward, he realized the canopy was thinning. Irregular rays of light slashed through the trees here, blinding and unbearable. He was rapidly running out of forest.

An arrow whistled past his head and buried itself into the heart of a young sapling a few yards ahead with a portentous crack. Beam cursed and doubled into his flight. The ground again dropped steeply, again pitching him sickeningly forward. Another arrow seared past, this one close enough to feel the wind in its wake. It was all the inspiration he needed.

Just as predicted, the forest deserted him. He exploded out of the trees and into full sunlight like diving into a wall of fire. He was blind as birth and running full bore down a hill toward the terrible noise. The sound was thunderous here, the air cool and thick. The path was rocky and wet and falling away far too dramatically for his feet to keep up.

His legs continued pedaling even after the ground vanished beneath them. He clawed at the wind rushing past him. Somewhere in the distance, he heard a man screaming.

He hit the water like it was a wall.

The icy river boiled him along its frothing bed. He grabbed the air in fits as the current dragged him through the gravel and boulders. He hit a poorly placed log and heard the grisly crunch of ribs breaking even over the roar of the water. The impact knocked the wind clean out of him, and with it his fight. And as the river took him, he suffered a moment of revelation as tiny as a spark and as big as the sun. This was it, wasn’t it? He was finished. Done. This was how it all ended. This was the last slug off the bottle.

The revelation brought him closer to relief than regret. His only request as he surrendered his fate to the Gods of Pentyrfal was a small one: Please, Lords, carry my body far downstream, well beyond the ravaging hands of the savages. He couldn’t bear the thought of meeting Provareun in the next life with the remnants of his manhood in his hand.

∞

The darkness grudgingly dissipated. Beam felt himself drifting up toward the light. He wanted to resist it, wanted to remain there in the warmth of his oblivion, but could find no purchase to do so.

The ground beneath his face felt fleshy and infirm. His legs ached with cold, though his fingers dug into something warm and wet. Then the coughing erupted, wet and compelling, and unrelenting. The water poured from him. The fit seized him completely, reducing his entire world to the essential fight for oxygen, creatively tempered by the driving pain of broken ribs.

When he finally found his breath, he pushed himself up onto an elbow and pushed the wet hair back from his face. He was blind in his left eye, and considering how viciously it was throbbing, he doubted he’d be seeing out of it any too soon. He tried to push the focus into his working eye, but the sunlight was boiling up from the river’s surface like liquid silver.

He was marooned on the bank like a wrecked ship, his head and shoulders reefed in the mud. His trunk was up on the mud, partially sheltered beneath a mangle of spiky snakegrass, while his legs bobbed numbly in the icy current.

He dropped his face to his forearm. As he waited for sight to return, he ran a finger under his lips and found teeth. They were still there, all of them. That was something anyway. A toothless smile would only double the humiliation of begging for his life.

An arrow sliced into the mud beside him.

He recoiled from it, tumbling back into the river as a result. The white water dragged him back to its breast and keelhauled him along its rocky bed as the shore bobbed tragically past just a few yards beyond his grip. He eventually managed to seize a passing boulder and swung around to the downstream side of it. His knees ground deep into the sharp gravel built up behind it while white water roared along both sides of him.

“Bastards!” he yelled. The words sprayed the rock red.

In response to his challenge, a volley of arrows pelted the water around him, though they were quickly lost to the current.

He hugged into the boulder, pressing his face into the sun-heated rock as he tried not to scream. He cursed himself for not just dying back there on the road and being done with it. He should’ve stood his ground and died in the warm sunlight like a man, just him, Gerd, and a gentle breeze.

Another arrow ricocheted off the rock above him. He struggled to hold his ground. The crossbow strapped across his back bit into his ribs as the current twisted him back and forth. The pain crushed him. He pulled tighter into the rock and fought to stay calm. It was a fool’s dream to think he could maintain his position much longer. He needed a plan.

He steadied himself against the pain he couldn’t avoid, and then slowly worked his way up the boulder. The climb was worse than he could have feared. Once his broken ribs settled enough to let him breathe, he peered over the edge of the rock and studied his route through his one working eye.

The river upstream was a storm of boiling white froth raging through a battleground of boulders and mangled trees. The insanity ran on for hundreds of yards before disappearing into an oppressive cloak of mist. From that spectral vapor arose the gruesome head of the waterfall. It towered above the spray like a timeless wave, a screaming wall of violence that might throw itself down on him at any moment. Atop the waterfall, on the right side of the river, was a broken arch of stone. It stabbed out across the head of the falls like a natural bridge that had long ago surrendered itself to the river. That was where he fell.

His vision abruptly fogged over. He risked his security long enough to splash the blood from his working eye, then returned his surveillance to the waterfall.

There they were. The Vaemyn. They were standing on the tongue of rock in their muddy green cloaks. He could see their pale faces watching him from within those dark hoods. They looked more civilian than warrior, bearing no evidence of armor or mail. They might’ve just been rangers, or nomads, or just simple herders out grazing their goats in the Nolandian Plains.

Moron! Of course, they’d disguise their assassins as civilians! He should’ve goddamned well expected it. He cursed himself an idiot. Blunders of misjudgment like this were going to kill him one day.

They watched him from that cliff above the falls as casually as if they were at a horse race. One particularly large savage was pointing at him. Gerd’s face bullied its way into Beam’s head, his sorry four-tooth grin rising up unsolicited and unappreciated. Beam could still hear the poor old bum’s harried voice insisting there couldn’t possibly be savages in the Nolands.

You believe it now, don’t you, Gerd? They both believed it now.

He again splashed the blood from his eye. He sucked up a mouthful of water and swished it around before spitting the bloody fluid back into the river. When he looked upstream again, the warriors were gone.

Calina help him! They were coming!

He looked over toward the nearest bank, which was only a dozen feet away to his left. It was the opposite side of the river from where he’d taken his dive. Another dozen paces further up from the bank stood the edge of the forest. It towered over him like a dark cliff face. That would have to be his escape.

Carefully adjusting his position, he looked across the river at the opposing bank, the side he’d fled from, the side where he was confident the savages would deliver themselves shortly. That shore was nearly two hundred feet away beneath the shade of an equally oppressive forest. The water separating him from it was a riot of boulders and raving white water. The bastards would never be able to cross here. They’d have to go further downstream, maybe another mile or more, until they found a calmer, narrower neck. That little inconvenience might buy him a chance.

The thought made him laugh. A chance! Sure, about the same chance a worm has of holding a fish’s mouth open. He turned back to the closer bank. The water was calmer here, shallower. It might actually work. So he considered his trajectory, made his plan, steadied himself for the beating he was about to take, and shoved off from the security of his rock.

The river forced him a dozen yards downstream for every one he managed to kick and fight toward shore. His fractured ribs kicked him at every move. The mud and river brambles raced wildly by as the river swept him northward. Security was so close and yet so ridiculously out of reach. Yet, just as he thought he’d never make those last few precious inches to land, gravel materialize under his knees.

He clawed at the mud and grass, and forced his way up onto the bank. His soaked leathers were like iron splints against his cold muscles. Once ashore, he somehow willed himself to his feet and slogged his way uphill toward the forest. He didn’t make a dozen steps before the weight of his wounds brought him down. He crawled the last few yards to the trees.

A colossal oak stood like a sentry at the forest’s edge. Towering hundreds of feet over the river, it looked as if were single handedly holding back the cavernous darkness emanating from the trees beyond. He crawled around behind it and collapsed into the coarse bark. Once settled, he closed his eyes and willed back the pain and the fear. He mumbled another calming chant, though he had no faith it’d help. He thought of poor Gerd rotting back there in the rut of that two-track, his eyes glazing over in the sun. He thought of the savages chasing him through the tombs. He thought of that endless trip from the Vaemysh scrubs to the Old Forest Road that he’d been so callously forced to abandon. He thought of the wind and the grain, of the endless sky, of music and cold mead, of a dance with a dark haired girl with teeth like ivory who…

Beam’s head snapped forward. The damaged ribs slugged his chest. He smothered a cry and seized his side, and then he cursed himself thoroughly. As if things weren’t dire enough, he’d damned near fallen asleep. As he waited for his ribs to stop screaming, he watched the gloom hunkering down so threateningly in the black forest before him. The ground was nearly invisible in the darkness. It was a terrifying sight for someone with the confinement dread. He wondered if he should take some of his tonic before making his flight, but quickly decided against it. There was no time for the vomiting ritual the medicine induced. He’d just have to man up and hope for the best.

He fumbled at the heavy buckle of his weapons belt with stiff, bleeding fingers. The buckle only grudgingly submitted. Once it did, he dragged the quiver and crossbow around his shoulder and dropped them between his legs. A rush of water rolled from the quiver and escaped into the grass between the tree’s thick roots.

Free now from the constraints of that heavy belt, he dug into the neck of his overshirt and reeled out the leather cord hanging around his neck. The cord terminated at a dripping leather pouch with a wet drawstring cinched as tight as a cramp. He fussed with the knot, but between his raw fingertips and the cold-induced tremors, couldn’t work it loose. He was about ready to draw his knife and slash the damned thing open when the cord miraculously gave up its struggle.

He dumped the contents into the grass between his legs. A stream of brown water freed a soggy clump of tobacco, three brown-stained gold coins, and a large red jewel. He snatched up the gem.

This was his prize. This was why he’d spent the last two miserable years crawling through the nine hells. That paltry pack of gold he’d abandoned back on the road with Gerd was nothing. This was the mother lode. If he’d lost this to the river, he’d have unsheathed his knife and ended the savages’ worries once and for all by slitting his own bloody throat.

He held the sparkling crystal between unsteady fingers and raised it to eye level. “Thank the g-gods!” he whispered.

The red gem was the size of a particularly large walnut and carved in the form of an eye with a heavy, sensuous lid. It appeared more liquid than stone, like a glass amulet filled with blood. A ray of sunlight pierced the crystal and bathed his hand in its red glow. The warmth of the light filled his skin and spread pleasantly up his wrist and into his arm and shoulder, penetrating his muscles and sinew before settling into his bones. Wherever the strange warmth spread, the pain faded to silence.

He knew it was a kind of delirium, of course. He was no man’s fool. This was a delusion brought on by his traumatized state. No doubt, he’d taken a concussion and was hosting mild hallucinations. Only fools and savages put their faith in mystics and healing amulets, and he was no man’s fool. He was a man of science.

Nonetheless, it was a very appealing, very well timed delirium, and he took it for the solace it provided.

This little stone was going to bring him a king's ransom back in the civilized realms. Once sold, he’d have enough gold to live out the rest of his days like the noblemen he loathed. Unfortunately, the savages valued it as much as he did. He knew they viewed him as a grave robber, as a dog who swindled the dead for profit, and he couldn’t have agreed more nor cared less. He claimed the gem under the unwritten but time-honored precept of ‘finders, keepers’.

Satisfied his treasure was safe, he packed it and the coins back into the pouch and restored it to the place of security beneath his shirt. Then he leaned his head back into the tree and closed his eyes as the warmth he’d hallucinated while holding the stone dissolved back to the loveless cold of reality.

Time was running out. He couldn’t wait any longer. He had to get up off his ass and run for everything he was worth. So with a deep breath and a muttered prayer, he steadied himself. He braced his hands against the massive roots burrowing into the soil on both sides of him, but just as he was about to make the push to his feet, he spied a lump of brown goo on his thigh. Its oils were oozing most smugly into the wet green leather of his britches.

“My tobacco,” he cursed as he flicked the soggy lump off his leg, “Bloody hell! Is there no limit to the insults?”

More irritated than worried now, he peered around the side of the tree. Across the river, the first of the warriors had arrived. The savage had its cloak thrown back over its shoulder and was already pulling an arrow from the quiver on his back. Beam gave him a point for enthusiasm.

From this closer vantage, he could now see that the savage was wearing chainmail, after all. The mail was sleeveless, in the Vaemysh tradition. He’d woven mud-stained grass through the links to dull the metal. However, one small spot beneath this one’s arm flashed a spike of sunlight back at Beam as he readied his arrow, and the sight of it fully vindicated him. The spark he’d spied back on the road came from this warrior's exposed mail. That was the rip in the squad’s stealth. That was what had betrayed them. He immediately forgave himself. This savage had been the complacent one, not he.

He braced himself against the coarse bark and groped his way to his feet. His strength was returning, and with it came anger. The bastards had nearly gotten him killed. He again peered around the curve of the tree and was about to lob a curse at the bastard when he was struck by something odd. This savage had his nearly white hair cropped short and spiky in the tradition of men from Northern Parhron. He’d never seen such a look on a Vaemyn before. The savages traditionally wore their pale hair long and tightly braided for combat. He wondered if maybe these were renegades, not warriors. It’d explain their trespassing so far north, though it wouldn’t make them any less dangerous than conventional warriors.

The rest of the squad poured in from the forest behind him. Their armor was camouflaged just as this first one’s was, though these warriors all wore their tresses in the traditional Vaemysh braids, some boasting one solid braid snaking down their backs and others with a mess of finer braids sprouting irregularly from their heads like unmanaged brambles. None wasted any time freeing their arrows. Beam pulled back behind the tree as a round of death thudded the wood behind him.

Not inclined to wait for further discussion, he grabbed up his weapons and began limping into the forest. Yet, in spite of his pain, in spite of the stiffness of his heavy, wet leathers, he simply couldn’t resist his roguish impulses. Pausing at the edge of the trees, he turned and flashed them a gesture that transcended their language barriers.

An instant later, he was gimping his way into the forest, cursing the Vaemyn and laughing for his life as the sharp cracks of arrows worried the trees behind him.

III

THE CAVE

B

EAM SAT ON A TALL, FLAT-TOPPED BOULDER AND WATCHED THE CAMPFIRE SLOWLY DIE.

The last fingers of flame struggled stubbornly atop a glowing pot of embers, but they didn’t seem long for this world. Yet, even with so small a fire, the cave was glowing as brilliantly as a cathedral full of candles.

A dense, hoary skin of clear, jagged crystals adorned the inside surface of the cave. These shards completely covered the walls and ceiling, the smallest being the size of his fingers and the largest as big as his leg. The faceted surface threw out an array of light that sparkled and danced across the gravel floor around his fire. These crystals received the weak light of his flames and reflected it back down on him a dozen times brighter than they’d found it. It lent the impression that the walls were glowing from the outside in, like stained glass viewed against the sunlight.

A light wind kicked up from the gaping mouth of the cave. The breeze sifted through the crystals, whispering as nervously as old memories.

He was lucky to have found this shelter in the mountain, though it was a bittersweet gift. Most men would find the room’s presence inspirational, its ambience peaceful, maybe even restorative, but he’d never been most men. He loathed caves, crystal or otherwise. His dread of confined spaces had been a curse on him since his earliest memories. In his youth back in the priory, he often slept out under the eaves of the courtyard rather than suffer in the warm comfort of a bed imprisoned within a windowless room.

Fortunately, tonight his fear of exposure outranked even his confinement dread, and so he surrendered to the unsavory option of sleeping inside this rocky space, a disagreeable exchange of comfort for safety. He’d taken a slug of his dwindling elixir before entering the cave, and then he spent an unhappy half-hour performing the vomiting ritual the medicine invariably induced. Only once the nostrum instilled its calm could he enter and build a respectable fire. Unfortunately, the vomiting only doubled the pain gripping his chest, so while now safely sheltered, he was nothing like at peace.

He was thankful the river hadn’t thieved the medicine during his ride from the falls. The elixir enabled him to search through the ancient Vaemysh tombs scattered throughout the dusty hills of the southern scrubs. The elixir allowed him to prowl through the tombs by night and hide in them by day. The elixir bought him the strength to find victory in his quest.

Still, elixir or not, he wasn’t about to venture any deeper into the cave than necessary. He wanted the world of sky and trees within spitting distance. Such an arrangement would keep safety and fear perfectly balanced.

He hobbled stiffly around his rough camp in his damp linen undergarments. His wet outer clothes were spread out across the butts of several large boulders encircling his fire. He moved from one to the next, flipping each of them to facilitate their drying. Each turn of the leathers sent him cursing at the sting the act brought to his hands.

The aches and pains suffered in his flight were overwhelming. His right eye was swollen fully shut. His body was a painter’s canvas of scratches and bruises. His hands were raw from the brambles back at the road, and he had several split nails. But the crown on his entire miserable affair with the river was that he’d broken at least two ribs, probably three.

On a happier note, however, his head wound had at last stopped bleeding.

He sat back on the spike of the last boulder and collected his breath. Strewn about the gravel floor between his meager bed and the fire were the bony remains of a half-eaten rabbit whose luck had turned out to be even worse than his own. He considered putting the uneaten remnants in his pack, but the rabbit was all the way down there, and he was all the way up here, and the effort required to transition the two seemed insurmountable at best.

Instead, he kicked the last faggots of wood he’d collected into the fire and watched as an explosion of sparks sallied up to the craggy ceiling where the smoke slithered away through the shards. Then he crossed around the fire and collapsed into a hastily built bed of leaves.

His body serenaded him with a melody of aches and pains, the heart-wrenching ballad of a man whose fortune did him wrong. He’d wrapped the ripped skin of his hands and damaged eye in the fat, oily leaves of a flesca shrub he’d found on route. It would help speed the healing, but it didn’t do a damned thing to temper the pain. And though the pain was unmatched by any he’d experienced before in his roguish life, he remained grateful to the gods for having kept him alive to experience anything at all.

He braced his ribs and winced as he rolled his way onto his back. The growing fire's warmth appeased the aches in those muscles fortunate enough to face it, but those abandoned to the colder, darker side of his bed whimpered their complaints. And since the act of turning was an excruciating ordeal at best, he opted to spend the night in one position, the halves of his body clearly divided between warmth and cold, comfort and agony. It was accurate rendition of his life’s story.

As he waited for sleep, his mind wandered back over the wretchedness of his recent past. Though it’d been a mere two mortal years, it felt like a lifetime. The bloody savages hadn’t allowed him a single minute’s peace in the seven hundred eighty-three days he’d dedicated to his search. Small wonder he was so exhausted. And for what grand purpose had they spent so much time persecuting him? For a lousy gem? For an artifact they had neither the intellectual savvy to understand nor the cultural sophistication to appreciate.

It was like a pig wearing a hat; it just didn’t make sense. Why do packs of wild dogs attack and kill civilians and then leave them dead and mutilated without even eating them? Because it’s their nature. Because violence for the simple sake of it gives them a deep, visceral pleasure. There’s no deeper significance in it than that. The savages may have been enlightened once a long, long time ago, but they’d since fallen feral and unpredictable, and there was no more dangerous creature on all of Calevia than beasts that’d once had a taste of civilization before reverting back to their animal temperaments.

A wave of fatigue washed over him, as hot and breathtaking as a desert wind. He needed to push the whole affair over the abyss of his darker mind and get some rest while he was able. He removed the pouch with his prize from around his neck and laid it carefully on a low, flat stone next to his head.

A summer storm had followed him up this small mountain and now raged outside the cave. It was a gift from goddess Calina, one that would go miles in hindering the savages’ pursuit. The sound of the rain was as appealing as a lullaby, soothing and entrancing, and he rode its happy rhythm like a magic horse into the fog of sleep.

∞

The tavern was dark and crowded, though so quiet, it was nearly silent. Beam sat at a narrow table at the back of the room. A smiling lass with long dark hair and full, ripe lips sat on his lap with her arm snaked around his neck. She held a colorless goblet to Beam’s mouth and urged him to drink deeply of it, and he did exactly as instructed. The wine was tasteless and lacked body, but he couldn’t have cared less. He had no enthusiasm for the wine; he had something far more appetizing in mind.

He used the tip of his knife to tease loose the top and final ribbon of her bodice. As the pale fabric fell away to reveal his hard won booty, she giggled and covered his eyes.

“I don’t think so, silly Parhronii,” she said, “Not until you’ve paid me.”

Beam cupped his own hand over the hand blinding him. “Oh, believe me, darling,” he said, “I’ll pay you well enough. I may even give you a bonus.” He tried to pull her hand away, but she held it firmly in place.

“Now, don’t you be rude, young man,” she said, giggling, “You know the rules. You have to pay passage before you board the ship. Now, just where is that purse of yours?” Her fingers crawled into his shirt and slid down his chest toward his pouch.

Beam grabbed her wrist. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Ven’nya ge fae, Be’ahm.”

His alarms started clanging. The words were Vaemysh. He pulled her hand from his eyes. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Ven’nya ge fae, Be’ahm.”

He pushed her from his lap and shoved his way back from the table, but his foot caught the chair rungs. He stumbled backward and fell to the floor landing hard against the wall. When he looked up, the barmaid was gone. Sitting in her place was a Vaemyd, a female savage. Slender and muscular, she was dressed in a warrior’s mail with her white hair braided tightly back. Her tiny, delicate horns sprouted from just behind her ears and curled forward under her earlobes like iridescent pearl earrings.

“Where the hell did you come from?” he asked her.

“How thoughtful of you, Be’ahm,” she said as she bounced his pouch in her hand, “Doesn’t it feel better to return stolen property? The way of the criminal is such a sorry life, don’t you think?”

“What are you doing with that?” he yelled back, “It belongs to me!”

“It never belonged to you, skeechka. You stole it from us.”

“Bullshit! It’s mine by rights.”

The table and chairs faded away as a dozen warriors materialized behind the Vaemyd. Their bows were spanned, their arrows leveled down at him.

“By rights?” the Vaemyd said, laughing seriously, “What possible right could you have to our heirlooms?"

“I suffered for it,” Beam said, “I spent my life earning it.”

“No, Be’ahm, this is what you’ve earned.”

With that, the grinning warriors released their arrows.

∞

Beam bolted forward in his bed. The unexpected movement handed him another boot in the ribs that left him unable to breathe, unable to move, unable to think of anything beyond the agony gripping him. As he rocked himself toward composure, he attempted a calming meditation. He tried to send his thoughts to a happier time and place just as the monks had taught him, but the effort proved as useless as usual, due more to his scant supply of happy times to reference than fault in the brothers’ techniques.

Eventually the pain eased enough to allow air to pass again. He carefully pushed himself up onto his knees. He smeared the long strands of sweaty hair back from his face. The liberty of sleep was now thoroughly vanquished, rounded up and executed by grim dreams and broken flesh. His thoughts roamed back to the Vaemyd taunting him in his dream, and he immediately wanted to beat something to death. It seemed like those goddamned savages had been chasing him his entire life, and he’d been hating them just as long. Now, they were even plaguing his dreams.

Outside the cave, the rain still pattered. Darkness shuttered the cave’s entrance, though the crystalline surface framing it was shimmering in a most peculiar red light. It looked like a mouth seen from the inside out, with glittering crimson lips and jagged, bloody teeth, and though he knew the light was only the crystal facets stealing the firelight, he still found it mildly disturbing. And yet, watching it diverted him from his agonies more effectively than any feeble meditation attempt ever could.

He glanced over at the pouch still resting on the rock beside his bed, then immediately did a double take. It was glowing. It looked lit from within like one of the luminaries used by the Parhronii civilians to line the streets during the Festival of the Trees, candles softly glowing inside small, woolen bags half filled with sand. It was utterly impossible and perfectly fascinating, and obviously another trick of light in a cave defined by tricks of light.

He picked up the pouch. It bathed his hand and wrist in a muffled red glow. The bag and its content felt warm against his palm and fingers, like a pebble heated by a summer sun. He slipped the cord over his head and laid the pouch against his chest. The warmth quickly radiated into his flesh. It flowed through his arms and into his shoulders and swelled across his back like blossoming wings. The sensation was delicious and enticing. He closed his eyes and melted back into his bedding.

Time faded. His mind folded back into the veils of sleep. It may have been minutes or days before the voice stirred him from his slumber.

He opened his eyes. His heart was pounding. He held his breath and listened.

The rain was still murmuring quietly outside the cave, though the runoff from the mountain pattered more enthusiastically at the entrance. There was no voice to be heard in it.

It was nothing. Just an illusion induced by the residual anxiety left over from the misery of the day. He’d only been dreaming again.

He closed his eyes and tried to push the world away. His wounds rallied to sabotage his sleep, but he resisted them. He just needed to let go of everything, to stop thinking, stop worrying, to get some rest while he still could. He concentrated on his heart, focused on the singular vibration of each dedicated beat. Before long, he was sinking once again into slumber.

Someone whispered in his ear.

He pushed himself up onto an elbow and peeled the poultice from his blind eye. He peered around the camp. The fire simmered worriedly as the last licks of flame struggled to hold onto life. The crystals shards hanging high above him twinkled in reflection of the pale light of the flames. His clothes pasted the rocks surrounding the fire like the shadows of dead men. He was alone.

Then he heard it again, a feminine voice lurking just under the cover of the rain. He focused on the sound but couldn’t determine the location. It floated up from the darker depths of the cave, and yet was as close as if she were lying right here beside him.

“Who’s there?” he whispered.

The voice continued murmuring. It was growing louder. It seemed all around him, near and distant in the same breath. He braced his ribs and pushed himself to his knees so that he was facing the thick gloom gripping the hidden rear of the cave.

“Who’s back there?” he said, louder this time.

Again, no response. The eerie voice was growing more distinct, though he still found no substance in the words. It was like the sound of the monks chanting behind the thick oak doors of the priory back in his childhood, where he could easily recognize the sound and cadence of their prayers, but could never quite make out the message.

He grabbed his knife, held onto the tall, black rock rising beside his bed, and scaled it to his feet. The volume of the voice continued to swell. It wasn’t an echo and it wasn’t an effect of the wind. This voice was real. Someone was here in the cave with him.

He wrapped an arm around his chest and held his knife out before him, then hobbled cautiously toward the darkness. “Show yourself!” he called out. The tenor of his words disappointed him, sounding half-hearted and far too self-conscious as they echoed into the gloom

The voice didn’t seem to notice, but only continued chanting.

He eased his way deeper into the cave. The reddish light followed him, seeping through the crystal around him like blood burning beneath translucent skin. It was nothing more than an illusion created by the fire, but he was still thankful for it. Even the dim red light made the trip deeper into confinement less terrifying.

“Don’t make me come back there!” he yelled, “You’ll be damned sorry if I do!”

The voice responded by surging louder. The intensity was becoming uncomfortable. It reverberated through the crystal, echoing back and forth through the shadows so that it sounded like a dozen voices all chanting the same words just slightly out of synch with each other.

His palm was sweating. He adjusted his grip on the knife to compensate for it. He drew a stuttering breath and commanded himself to be calm, then forced himself deeper into the cave. He refused to be intimidated by whatever fools lurked back there.

The light continued to follow him. The volume of the voices continued to rise. He realized he could occasionally make out specific words, and though he didn’t understand them, he somehow knew they were an ancient form of Vaemysh. He thought about the Vaemyd in his dream, thought about her claims that he’d stolen the eye-stone from her. The memory spurred his aggravation.

“I swear to the gods, you’d best come out of there!” he yelled out. He immediately regretted the desperation in his voice, and compensated by adding, “I’ve about had my fill of this bullshit!”

The voice was loud enough now that he could feel his eardrums rattling. He considered going back for his crossbow, but with his ribs broken, he doubted he’d have the strength to span it. Still, he’d be damned if he’d let himself be played this way. Instead, he walked deeper in. The light flowed forward with him.

The volume of the voice was nearly unbearable back here. It pulsed against his skin. He covered his ears, which did nothing. The words felt like they were inside him, like they were insects tunneling through his veins. They coursed through his blood and lapped against the walls of his skull. The words were calling to him from the inside out like the refrain of a song pounding over and over in his mind. It was too much. He squeezed his head. He felt dizzy. He couldn’t focus. He had to block it out. He had to—

The voices abruptly stopped.

Their memory quickly echoed into silence.

Beam slowly lowered his palms from his ears.

His hand was trembling. He knotted it into obedience. Enough was enough. He was good and goddamned sick of the whole mess. Somewhere ahead of him was an explanation for this madness, and he was determined to find it. And when he did, he’d give the sorry bitch something serious to mutter about.

He marched boldly forward now, the red light dutifully in tow around him. He didn’t make ten more paces before everything changed.

The ceiling disappeared above him. The crimson light ascended the steep walls, rushing upward like water pouring in reverse. It washed over the tops of the walls and slowly flooded the glassy surface of a massive domed ceiling hanging a hundred feet above him. It was at once both breathtaking and terrifying.

He understood immediately that his was no ordinary cave. This was a chamber crafted by mortal hands, a chamber as wide and deep as the nave of a great cathedral, a cathedral made completely of crystal.

He edged forward, his knife at the ready.

As the light gradually filled the dome above him, the room’s shadows dissipated, and the contents of this great space made themselves known.

In the very center of the wide room stood four towering pillars, each as clear and luminous as ice, each the girth of an ancient tree. They stood in a square thirty or so feet across, and in the midst of them rested a low dais that connected them at each corner. It was like a glass barge adrift on a frozen black sea. Perched in the center of the dais was a great chair with a high back and scrolled legs and arms. It was as elaborate as a throne, and it was carved from the same clear material that composed the walls, ceiling, pillars, and dais.

He tracked the pillars up to the ceiling towering high above him. Detailed images of pagan gods, demons, and angelic patrons completely filled the smooth surface of the expansive dome. They sprawled across one another, men and women, soldiers and maidens, all naked and youthful and robust. There were hundreds of them with their limbs and bodies tightly entwined. Illuminated by the crimson light, they looked like the constellations of young gods shimmering against the summer night sky, and as he looked from one divine face to the next, he saw them shift.

At first, he was sure it was an illusion, a trick of light, or perhaps a hallucination brought on by a damaged head. Then their glimmering faces turned collectively toward him. They smiled down at him like old friends welcoming him home. They began inching their way across the ceiling, moving with the hesitancy of a dream, their naked bodies sliding sensuously across each other in an erotic dance. It was so fluid, so natural; it seemed as if they might leap to the floor and surround him in their lust

He threw his hands to his face. No! This wasn’t possible! It had to be the result of his confinement fear, or maybe a side effect of the bloody elixir, but nothing more. He ordered himself to be calm, to be sensible, rational. It was not real. There was an explanation here somewhere, there always was.

When he finally lowered his hands, the figures were once again as still as the crystal from which they were carved. It was exactly as he expected, a trick of light and nothing more. Satisfied, and more than a little relieved, he steadied himself before moving deeper into the chamber. There was still someone hiding here in this nightmare, and he was determined to find her.

This grand space surrounding him was incredible. Near perfectly round, the room was easily two hundred feet in diameter. The smooth circular walls were also dressed with images of pagan gods and ancient champions similar to those on the ceiling, though smaller, less commanding, and fully robed. Elaborate chairs, narrow tables, and shelves crowded with scrolls, oil lamps, and bottles lined the circular walls. Dressing the spaces between these items were exotic sculptures of men and women standing on waist-high foundations, all crystalline, all burning with the brilliant red light.

Only the floor remained as black and bottomless as a frozen lake. In fact, there was no sense that a surface to the floor even existed. If not for the twin of himself dropping away from his feet into the dark depths below, he may have been walking on air.

There were no signs of anything living.

He made his way further in and walked around to the front of the dais. Three wide, deep steps led up to the landing. The riser of each stair boasted elaborate runish engravings of some language he could never begin to read, and the surface of each step curled at the lip like a glassy scroll. The chair sitting in the midst of this ethereal barge was exquisite and enticing, like a mystical throne carved of pure ice and engraved in limpid flowers, vines, and oak leaves. He had the overpowering urge to go up to it, to touch it, to perhaps sit in it and rest there in its safety. He was about to start up the steps when something shuffled behind him.

Beam wheeled around with his knife out. “I know you’re there!”

His words echoed off into time.

The room appeared empty. He couldn’t make anything out in the shadows. Still, his heart was trying to kick its way out of his chest.

Then the air began to change. Thirty feet out from the dais, the shadows transformed. Darker air flowed up from the floor like oily smoke, spiraling lazily around itself as it rose. It looked alive, looked as if it were taking on substance, looked to be coalescing into matter. Gradually, it separated into two distinct columns that each quickly melded into the form of a man, each wielding a longsword.

Beam instinctively backed away. His heel caught the first step to the dais, causing him to trip and land back hard on the stairs. He scrambled back tighter into them and anchored his hands to their curled edges. He was dreaming, there was no other explanation. He never should have eaten that wormy stinking rabbit.

The two figures were now fully flesh, though they lacked any mortal colors. One of the figures was a giant of a man, a knight clad in an oppressive black armor. The other appeared to be a Parhronii man of normal height like himself, though he was much lither. His hair was pale and he wore it long and loose over his shoulders.

The combatants moved in the round, revolving pensively around each other with their swords at the ready in anticipation of the fight. Time passed slowly. Beam was beginning to doubt they were going to do anything more than dance when the dark knight suddenly lunged. The lithe man parried and immediately struck back. The sound of angry metal reverberated violently through the chamber. Steel flashed with violent authority. The chilling clangor of steel sang through the chamber as showers of sparks bounced to their death across the dark floor beneath them.

Oddly, the fighters made no attempt to address him. In fact, they didn’t even seem aware he was there. It only made the entire experience that much more surreal.

Beam rubbed his good eye. He again told himself this was a dream, that any second now he’d wake up in a cold sweat back near the remains of that wretched rabbit. But in truth, he didn’t believe a word of it. There was no way he was going to wake up any time soon. Some dreams are relentless. Some dreams must be endured until they free you or simply run out of fire. Some dreams will kill you.

When he lowered his hand, the dark knight was on the offensive. He flew into his smaller opponent in a barrage of cuts and thrusts. The lesser man fell back from the assault, losing more ground with each blow. The knight was unrelenting, hitting faster and more brutally until he finally delivered a strike that threw the other man from his feet.

The Parhronii man landed on his knees on the cold, black floor a few yards out from the dais. His sword hit the ground in a peal of metal that Beam felt clear through to his bones. The man slowly pushed himself up from the ground, dragging his sword back with him. His pale hair poured down over his shoulders as he struggled to rise.

As Beam watched him, he was gripped with a startling revelation. This man wasn’t Parhronii. The man was a stinking savage. A goddamned Vaemyn! He had the same pale hair. He had the same svelte, nearly gaunt physique, the same sharp opalescent horns curling up like delicate boar’s tusks from under each ear. But that was where the similarity ended.

This one wore his long hair unrestrained, not braided. And he wasn’t outfitted in the typical coarse savage's rags or warrior’s armor Beam was accustomed to. This one was dressed in ornate, knee-length mail composed of thousands of tiny golden scales, and it was bound at the waist by a rich belt of silver-studded leather. Silver bracers with detailed etchings covered his forearms, though they were clearly more ornamental than functional. His legs bore no armor at all, but only billowy silk britches that ended in bare feet. A colorless cloak poured from his shoulders. Dressed as he was, it was no surprise he was losing the fight.

Still, the man quickly found his way to his feet, though not without staggering a couple paces before catching himself. He slowly turned back to face the giantish man and held his sword point up unconvincingly. He was clearly in a state of exhaustion. He seemed to be defending himself through sheer will alone.

The knight marched in and released a cut that easily slapped the Vaemyn’s sword point away. The warrior stumbled sideways in payment, nearly losing his weapon in the process. The knight showed him no quarter, but flew at him with the ferocity of a wolf while the savage stubbornly resisted, parrying blow after blow with only the greatest of effort.

Beam knew the savage couldn’t hold out much longer, and the thought gave him some measure of satisfaction. In fact, he relished the fool’s inevitable fall. He couldn’t give one shit about the nature of their dispute, or who was at fault, or even who this dark soldier was or what his motives were. He only wanted to see this miserable savage’s blood spilled across the cold, black floor. That simple event would make this entire nightmare worth the trip.

The knight swatted the warrior’s blade to the side and planted a vicious kick in the man’s flank. The savage stumbled sideways, but somehow managed to recover and immediately turned back toward the knight. He held his weapon out with both hands. His sword tip wavered under his fatigue.

For just a moment, the fighters paused. They stood facing each other, the armored rogue seething in unearthly silence, and the Vaemyn wheezing and barely able to stand. Still, in spite of his exhaustion, the warrior continued to hold his sword up in stark defiance of his opponent. There was no way he could ever see this fight through to victory, though he willfully refused to submit. And while impressive, Beam saw the warrior’s act for exactly what it was: Heroic and valiant and utterly pointless.

The rogue knight barked something at the warrior that Beam instinctively recognized as a dare. The giant of a man then stomped the floor, slapped his chest, and threw out a malicious laugh. He was taunting the Vaemyn to strike him, though the savage only stood there with his weapon held up unsteadily.

Apparently tiring of the game, the knight lunged.

Amazingly, the savage parried the strike.

The knight pressed on, knocking the warrior’s sword from one side to the other. The sound of the sword blows bellowed angrily through the cave. The bottomless black floor shimmered beneath a flood of dancing sparks.

Finally, the knight sliced his sword tip in a vicious arc that ripped across the warrior’s chest. The Vaemyn spun away from the blow as a shower of severed scales clattered off into the darkness. He landed on his hands and knees directly at Beam’s feet. His sword hit the floor beside him in a deafening clang, though the man somehow managed to keep control of it.

Beam recoiled back into the steps.

The savage slowly pushed himself away from the floor, forcing himself up with the greatest of effort. Resting on one knee, he braced himself on his raised leg and struggled for air. The gash in his mail armor was breathtaking, running down across his chest from shoulder to hip through a fissure of broken scales. The savage looked down at the colorless blood seeping through the wreckage of his chest with an expression more of resignation than fear. His left horn was broken. Blood bubbled from his lips with each ragged breath. And yet, in spite of the horror of his wounds, his fingers were still scratching for his sword resting on the ground beside him. It lay with the hilt at his lowered knee and the blade shaft running back along the dark floor toward the soldier behind him.

As Beam watched this brutalized savage struggling to survive, he suddenly understood the critical elements of this fight. Though he had no idea how he knew it, the Vaemyn was not the villain in this dispute. The dark knight was the source of evil in this room. Unbelievably, the Vaemyn was the honorable one here, and with that revelation came an impossible emotion. Though he’d never have thought it possible, he suffered a peculiar surge of compassion for this savage.

A dark shadow swelled up behind the kneeling warrior. Beam looked up to see the knight towering over them like a mountain of coal draped in a bloody red cloak. The soldier’s helm was a seamless steel cowl vaguely contoured to the form of a face. There were no vents, no visor, no joints visible anywhere on the armor. It was as if the metal were simply another layer of the man’s skin.

The knight slowly raised his longsword above the dying Vaemyn. The blade dripped down from his hands until the threatening point hovered just inches above the Vaemyn’s back. This was it, the end of the fight. The savage’s suffering was about to end.

Beam braced himself for the inevitable, but the murder never came.

The rogue simply stood there, motionless, poised to drop the killing blow but making no effort to do so. Then Beam heard the voice, a new voice, the Vaemyn’s voice. It arrived in his head like an old memory that appears from the shunned recesses of the mind, unsolicited and unwanted. The words were the same ancient Vaemysh as the chanting voices, but now Beam somehow understood them. He knew these words as surely as if they had been uttered in his own native Parhronii.

“I’m finished, Be’ahm,” the warrior said, breathlessly.

Beam nearly choked. “What? How…how do you know my name?”

“You’re the beginning,” the warrior whispered, “The beginning of the end. You…you’ll finish this.”

“Finish this?” Beam said. He looked up at the knight frozen above them and hoped that wasn’t what he meant.

The warrior coughed weakly. Then he looked up at Beam. “You’ll free us,” the Vaemyn whispered, “You will break this wretched cycle finally and for always.”

“What are you talking about?” Beam whispered, “Who are you?”

“Listen for the voices, Be’ahm. The...the memories. They live within the voices. The memories are part of you. They…they always have been.”

Beam looked at the man. “Memories?”

“Listen to them. Do you hear me, Be’ahm? You must trust the memories.”

“What memories? I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

The warrior coughed. Blood spilled over his chin. He dragged the back of his hand over his mouth and looked down at the glistening black smear it left. The sight seemed to steady him. Even as he studied the blood, his other hand locked firmly onto the hilt of the sword resting on the black floor beside him.

Then his pale, bloodshot eyes seized Beam’s own with breathtaking authority. “This is why you were born,” the Vaemyn whispered as he pulled the sword blade up onto his lap, “This is your purpose. You must trust the memories. You must follow them, obey them, honor them until you’ve met your purpose.”

Beam looked up at the black knight, still frozen above them with his sword readied for the finishing blow. “Memories?” he said, looking back at the warrior, “What memories? What the bloody hell are you talking about?”

The answer never came. As quickly as it’d stopped, time rushed back in.

The black rogue drove his sword down into the Vaemyn’s back. The blade erupted from the warrior’s chest and spiked the stone beneath him in a hateful explosion of light and blood. Beam watched the warrior choking on his own blood, watched the dark pool swelling where the enemy sword tip met the cold floor beneath the warrior. And as he watched him, he suffered a ridiculous urge to help the man. He glanced at the sword propped on the warrior’s leg and considered seizing it, but immediately dismissed the notion for the folly it was. There was no helping this one, not anymore. The man was already dead, he just didn’t know it yet.

The dark soldier brusquely pulled his sword from the Vaemyn’s back. Beam winced against a spray of hot blood. The Vaemyn shuddered and threw out a queer little cough.

Beam found himself moving to help him, but the man threw up a blocking hand. “No,” he hissed, “No, Be’ahm. It’s alrea…already done.”

“Done?” Beam looked up to see the monstrous black knight wiping his bloody sword blade against a metal-gloved palm. Then the knight growled something incomprehensible and backed away. In the same motion, he hiked the sword back over his shoulder as if he were about to hack down a tree.

The Vaemyn gripped the hilt of his own longsword with both hands. The blade lay across his raised leg, running back under his arm with the point tilted up at the knight behind him. “Trust your memories,” the Vaemyn whispered through the blood, “Meet your purpose. End this. End it now and forever.”

The dark rogue released his blade. The glistening metal arced down toward the Vaemyn in a beheading blow.

Yet, even as defeat seemed inescapable, the warrior evaded the strike. With his blade secured under his arm, he threw himself backward with a speed that was impossible for a man in such condition. He flew back inside the range of the falling sword and into the knight. Beam more felt than heard the visceral screech of steel offending steel as the savage’s blade impaled the dark knight’s chest. The battling figures collapsed back into the shadows as one.

A horrible shriek rose up from the murders. The dark soldier’s arms and legs thrashed and pounded against the stone, throwing bursts of unnatural yellow sparks with each terrifying blow. The Vaemyn lay atop him, still holding the sword in place where it pierced the knight’s armor. The hideous scream intensified as the rogue fought his death. The cry surged higher in pitch and volume until the crystal matrix of the room itself was vibrating, until the darkness shrank back from it. The sound ripped Beam open and gouged its way into his mind until he was screaming in tandem with it.

Just as the scream reached a frenzied pitch, a yellow light exploded through the room, and the wicked odor of hot tar murdered the air.

Beam doubled forward and squeezed his head between his arms as he fought back the urge to vomit. Then the ground abruptly vanished beneath him and he felt himself falling.

IV

THE CAEYL MAGE

C

HANCE SHUFFLED SLOWLY THROUGH THE DARKNESS.

He felt his way through the cabin’s main room with unusual caution, determined to avoid the introduction of toe to chair leg, or thigh to table corner. Though the night outside his window was grudgingly surrendering to a dusky dawn, shedding enough of the darkness to make vague form of the colorless objects of the room, the floor remained cloaked in blackness. The great room’s yawning fireplace was dark as death, the fire having long ago fled into the soulless night, leaving him without so much as an ember to guide his way.

As he felt his way forward, every deliberately placed footstep elicited a sorrowful creak from the wide, time-buffed planks, and each obnoxious creak drove a spike of white pain through his head. He wondered if the old floor was perhaps mocking his pain, perhaps enjoying his early morning misery. Perhaps it was trying to punish him out of some arcane spite imposed by its own aging woes. Perhaps that old floor was just another conspirator in a house built of them, a conspirator plotting to rob him of any vestige of comfort as he rounded the bend into the misery of his two hundredth year and all the complaints of middle age brought on by that cursed number.

And perhaps this wretched hangover was simply driving him into delusions.

He fingered for the iron handle of the great door and pulled it. As the door eased open, the growing dawn light rushed into the darkness, and with it appeared a ghostly figure. The figure leered out at him from the shadows of the tall mirror mounted on the log wall immediately beside the door. A tattered web of long, startled brown hair laid siege to this creature’s head and shoulders, and the eyes glaring back from that disorganized cowl were as red as worry, bereft of cheer, and bogged deeply into the dark trenches surrounding them. The long, thin face was gaunt and sallow, the very enemy of hope or goodwill.

The sight of it was more than Chance could bear, particularly while suffering the curse of so fierce a headache. Yet, even after he turned away from it, the image lingered stubbornly at the back of his mind like a good dinner gone bad.

He pushed the wide wooden door open, wincing as the timeworn hinges shrilly complained. As he willed himself out into the spritely morning air, he cursed his affection for wine. Gods, he was an idiot! One lousy cup of wine too many taken one lousy hour too late into the lousy night, and all because of a lousy storm. He loathed thunderstorms. Lightning was one of the few natural events on all of Calevia that actually terrified him, a particularly hilarious flaw for a powerful Blue Caeyl Mage like himself, master of the very elements of the earth and sky. That one such as he would be so sadly and effectively controlled by a storm was ridiculous at best, pathetic at worst.

Sadly, wine was the only nostrum that dulled his ridiculous anxiety with any satisfaction, a fact evidenced by the iron band now crushing his skull. Or perhaps the anxiety was just a good excuse to abuse his wine. Why wouldn’t his dozens of calming tonics have worked just as well? That was the path he’d have prescribed for anyone else with a similar affliction. Why did he always run straight for the wine under such circumstances? It was the same age-long enquiry he’d been asking himself for a dozen decades now. Chance Gnoman versus the evil grape. Destiny or free will? Breeding or culture?

He slipped the door closed behind him, and groped his way across the covered porch until his hands found the relative security of the worn, moss-covered rail. Relieved at actually having made it that far, he closed his eyes, leaned into it, and savored a slow, cleansing breath.

The air was particularly sweet this morning. Or perhaps it merely felt that way by comparison. The fireplace was back drafting into the house again, and he’d awakened into the world with a plugged head and smoke encrusted tongue for it. That little gift was the icing on the cake of this sorely deserved hangover. He made a mental note to get his boy, Luren, up on the roof to clean the chimney first thing when they returned from their trip.

In time, he forced his eyes open. Sadly, dawn still had a tyrannical hold on the day. It was far too early for any rational man to have left behind a perfectly warmed bed, especially when said bed was the only truly effective treatment for his plight. He freed a hand from the damp rail and squeezed at his eyes. This headache was in no hurry to bid him farewell. He should just turn around right this very moment and make haste back to his pillow.

Instead, he sighed and leaned sideways into the rail post supporting the overhang. The shadows of night were finally on the run, making haste on their flight into the forest. Daylight always came too late to this yard, and night too early. His house sat atop a small mountain. The great cabin rested on the bare breast of a large meadow immediately surrounded by an endless wall of forest. These primeval woods were dense with ancient trees that rose hundreds of feet above him and his land. He peered up at the swath of immature sky capping the wide hole hanging above his yard. The heavens were a garish smear of the impending day’s pinks and oranges coarsely blended into the night’s fading blue. It was beautiful and excessive, and utterly unbearable.

He again buried his eyes into the meat of his palm. Someone or something was still beating that hammer against the walls of his skull, though with a tad less enthusiasm now. He began to worry that he may actually survive his misery. Eventually, he pushed back from the rail and lumbered down the few creaky steps to the meadow surrounding his cabin. Emerging rays of sunlight lit the grass in flames of gold and emerald. Hundreds of wet wildflowers sparkled like dark jewels in a darker mine.

As he followed the path through the deep, wet grass, he spied several massive branches floating in the taller grass at the periphery of his lawn just at the edge of the woods. They looked like the gnarled spines of sea serpents breaking the surface of a lake. They’d arrived overnight from their perch high up in the trees, sacrifices to the triplet demons of thunder, lightning, and wind. It was testimony to the violence of the storm that’d so effectively driven him into the fickle arms of his beloved wine. He made a note to get Luren sharpening the saws first thing when they returned. Just as soon as he swept the chimney.

The path led him south from the house through the long meadow and ended eighty paces later at a steep slope that plummeted steeply down to the primary forest floor at the feet of the mountain more than a thousand feet below him. A hundred yards wide, this precipitous slope was uniquely free of trees, a rare swatch of barren mountainside that allowed the sun to pour in unimpeded. Squatting just at the edge of this impressive drop was a tall, resolute, red-stone chair with a fractured back. It erupted from the earth like a jagged tooth. Chance collapsed happily into it.

Sitting there against that earth-warmed stone was nearly as satisfying as falling back into his care-worn bed. Some unseen force residing deep in the earth heated this chair. The warmth radiated up from the rock and into his back and shoulders like the fingers of love. It urged him back toward sleep, though he grudgingly resisted. The cruel truth was that there was simply no time for a nap this particular morning.

Today was the first full moon after the summer equinox, meaning it was time for his annual pilgrimage up to the high plains. He had a two-day window to find enough flowers of the Hangman’s Gloves herbs to supply his nostrums for the next year. It was a miserable, monotonous, and utterly joyless task that he’d been dreading for the past year. Two days of crawling through prickery weeds in search of a pale white flower no bigger than a bee’s rump. Two days scrounging on his hands and knees from dawn to dusk only to find enough harvest to fill a pouch smaller than a lousy sock. Two days of misery before he’d have to begin dreading it all over again for next year.

He slipped his head back against the chair’s high back and sighed. The warmth against the rear of his skull was joy incarnate. Within moments, his headache began to flee in terror of the stone’s healing radiance. Had that old chair ever felt so rejuvenating? Had he ever in the last one hundred ninety-four years ever needed that warmth more? Perhaps he should reconsider his refusal and snatch a quick nap after all. Perhaps just ten minutes of sleep was what he needed. A brief interlude of uninterrupted solitude and he’d surely feel like new.

“Chance!”

Tranquility died on the shriek of that adolescent boy’s unearthly voice. The monster in Chance’s skull started banging that damned pan again. He pressed a finger into his temple.

“Chance?” the voice mercilessly pressed, “Where the devil are you?”

Chance grumbled a curse, and then slipped his head back around the side of the chair. A boy in a shoulder-length mop of rebellious yellow hair walked slowly across the yard toward him. He wore a noxious blue tunic with a rope belt, frayed gray woolen leggings, and brown boots wrapped with rawhide strings to the full length of his calves. A small blur of pale blue light shimmered between his outstretched hands. He was levitating a small stone, his young face a knot of concentration. It was the first caeyl magic he’d mastered, and he was far too impressed with himself for it.

“Get a move on it, boy!” Chance called out exactly as harshly as he’d intended.

“Sure, sure,” Luren called back, making no effort to comply.

“I’m not joking, Luren. I want to reach the hut before supper.”

Luren laughed and let the stone fall as he skipped into a run. He slid to a stop beside the old chair, sending a cascade of pebbles bouncing down the steep mountainside. He was beaming a toothy smile at Chance. It wasn’t a good sign.

“What has you so amused this early?” Chance asked him, not caring in the least.

The boy’s grin persisted, though he offered no explanation. It was most irritating.

“Do I look in the mood for games?” Chance said. It wasn’t a question.

“I’d say not.” The grin didn’t retreat.

“Then just what in the Wyr are you staring at?”

“I’m studying the effects of early rising on the disposition of middle-aged mages after an evening excessive in grape.”

Chance grimaced. The boy was about as good for his headache as vinegar on heartburn.

“You don’t look so well, my dear sir,” the boy said, laughing.

“It’s a pity you weren’t born mute,” Chance said back.

“Do tell?”

Chance pressed his fingers back into his temples and glared at him through one eye. “A youth’s observations on his elders are about as useful as a monkey’s counsel to a king.”

Luren smirked. “Well, that’s…profound. Or it would be if it made any sense.” His voice broke on the last word.

Chance considered the knapsack hanging from the boy’s left shoulder. It didn’t look nearly full enough. “Did you bring all the supplies?”

“Of course,” Luren said, “Breakfast, lunch, your toothbrush…everything we don’t have stocked at the hut.” He dropped the bag to the gravel path and began rummaging through it. Soon he lifted out a pint-sized crystal jar with a rusting metal cap, which he raised to eye level before Chance, saying, “Of course, I’m confident this is what you’re most worried about forgetting.”

Squeezed into the jar and thoroughly covered in a murky amber liquid was the apple-sized head of a swamp shimlin. The hairless head had pocked gray skin, fleshy ears, and an oversized bottom lip that waved up and down with the motion of the jar's fluid, alternately covering and exposing stumpy yellow teeth. As a stray spike of early sunlight found the fluid, the bulging red eyes snapped open and shot directly at Chance.

The sight did nothing for the storm brewing in Chance’s gut. He frowned and waved it off. “That's fine. Put it away now.”

“You all right?” Luren asked, “You don’t look a bit well.” He was still holding the jar up.

In truth, Chance wasn’t sure. That face was the last thing his unsteady stomach needed this morning. “I’m certain I’m quite fine,” he lied, rubbing his hands on his robe, “I swear I should’ve sewn its eyes shut. The thing makes me sick.”

Luren laughed as he repacked the canister. “If someone preserved your living head in a jar, I doubt you’d be any friendlier.”

“Blood of the gods, it's just a minor shimlin's head. Surely no memorable loss to the world.”

“I suppose that's a matter of perspective. I’m sure the shimlin would argue it differently.”

Chance scowled at him. “Do I look like I care, Luren? It’s their own bad luck their body parts continue functioning after amputation, and none of my own.”

“You’re the one who keeps it pickled,” Luren said as he re-tied the pack, “It’d have suffered a natural death years ago without your help.”

“Is there a point to this argument?”

Luren shrugged. “Be honest, Chance. Limb regeneration isn’t the sole source of its bad luck. I’d say you had a reasonable hand in it, if you take my meaning.”

Chance fought back his irritation. “You’d do well to remember there are other heads that’d serve me as well as the shimlin’s.”

“Well, if you’re referring to mine, you’re going to need a bigger jar.”

Chance pushed himself up from the chair and immediately had to steady himself with the armrest. “You ready?” he asked. He paused there a moment as his head slowly stopped spinning.

“Are you?” Luren asked back.

Chance choked back the urge to say something he’d regret. Considering his headache and the impatience it was sowing, retreat seemed like the healthier option. He could indulge his irritation later. Instead, he steadied himself, then turned away and started down the path leading to the forest floor proper far below.

The path wove its way back and forth across the bare swath of the steep hill, weaving in and out through a maze of boulders and stumps and ancient rotting tree trunks. He’d been traveling up and down this very path for three mortal lifetimes. He knew every bump, every turn, every swell, roll, and dip on this old path, every stranded boulder he had to circumvent, every petrifying log he had to leap. He loved this meandering trip down to the forest road far below and savored every step. The trip back up, however, was never nearly as romantic.

As they eventually neared the bottom of the decline, saplings and shrubs began creeping back into the open space. Soon, the old forest engulfed them again. The path ended abruptly at the ridge of a tall stone wall hidden beneath a dense blanket of the familiar white ferns that covered most of the forest floor. The old stone wall bermed the last thirty feet of the mountain back from the densely shaded dirt road below it. A narrow stairway cleaved the wall at its center, dropping the remaining distance to the road like a waterspout from a gutter.

Chance climbed down first. He emerged from the stairwell and stepped down into the wet dirt beneath the steps, leaned his staff carefully against the mossy granite wall, and then sat with no little effort on the bottom step. The pressure of the motion nearly exploded through the top of his head. He buried his face in his hands and groaned.

Luren jumped past him and landed in the dirt before him.

“Hold up, boy,” Chance said through his hands, “I fear I’m going to need a minute here.” His stomach hadn’t appreciated the work of their descent and was again dropping hints that it may soon revolt.

“Taking a break already, are we?” Luren asked.

Chance just looked at him.

“Oh!” Luren said, smirking, “I see. Getting The Look now, am I? And so early? Less than a promising start to the day, I’d say.”

“Just sit down. I don’t appreciate looking up at you.”

Laughing, Luren fell back against the damp, mossy wall and slid down to his heels. “Fine, you’re the one who wants to make the plains by dinner. I’m content to sit here and wait out The Look all morning if necessary.”

Chance dropped his head and rolled the kinks from his neck.

“What?” Luren asked, “No witty retort?”

“I’m envisioning you without a tongue.”

Luren slipped the backpack off his shoulder and dropped it to the dirt. He dug out a fat leather water skin and held it out to Chance. “Drink,” he said.

Chance considered the proffered skin, but only shook his head.

“It wasn’t a request. You’re dry. You need water. Drink.”

Chance could find no strength to resist. He took the water. “How old are you?” he asked the boy, “Sixteen going on fifty?”

“Just drink, old man,” Luren said, laughing.

It seemed like the boy was always laughing. Chance considered a sarcastic reply, but nothing was forthcoming. He uncorked the skin and began to take a drink, but stopped just short of it when he noticed an odd sound above them. He lowered the skin and looked up at the canopy suspended hundreds of feet up. Something was humming above that tree line. It wasn’t the wind.

“What is it?” Luren asked.

“Quiet!”

The sound was indistinct. It was soft and susurrating, yet determined, and it was quickly growing louder. He handed the water skin off to Luren as he climbed back to his feet. As he studied that green ceiling, his stomach knotted. He suddenly realized exactly what it was, and he couldn’t believe it.

Luren stepped in front of him with his face turned to the treetops. “Oh my gods!” he practically shrieked, “It’s a—”

The forest ceiling exploded in above them. A wall of sunlight flooded down on them, pushed on by an impending wave of branches and debris. Chance threw Luren back into the wall and sheltered him with his own body as the first branches pounded the wet dirt behind them.

Wreckage from the trees rained down on the road. Fractured wood barraged the dirt, some pieces large enough to shake the earth on impact. A fierce wind quickly whipped up around them, whisking the debris up into a cyclone of grit and leaves. A huge bough smashed against the stairs, showering them in splinters. A branch large enough to leave a mark, smacked Chance’s shoulder. He cursed and pressed himself harder into Luren and the wall.

Though it seemed to last forever, the storm actually ran its course in short order. The memory of the chaos soon echoed off into the forest, and the world fell naturally back into silence, save for the last whisper of twigs and leaves trickling from the damaged treetops.

Chance peered back over his shoulder. What he found was exactly what he’d expected, and the sight of it sent his blood boiling. Squatting in the middle of the road a dozen yards back was a large winged golem.

He released Luren and marched toward the creature. “Again?” he demanded, “What the devil are you doing here?”

Luren ran past him and slid to a stop before the beast, watching in obvious wonder as the expansive wings slowly wound down. “A winged sentry!” he cried out, “Finally!”

Chance steadied himself by brushing the dirt from his arms as he braced his patience. He was feeling far less enthusiastic than the boy was. The stone golem squatted in the dirt like an ornamental lion. The great head was mantis-like and as big as Chance’s torso, and hanged low before its trunk. The eyes were widely spaced at each corner of the triangular head, and were as large as melons. They glowed with a brilliant cobalt-blue light. Intricately ringed horns erupted from the top corners of the head and curled around to the front of the face, the tips terminating just beneath the outside corners of the eyes. It squatted on thick haunches with heavy, clawed feet. Its wings were twenty feet wide and slowly undulating above it. All in all, the creature gave the impression of a skinny, wormy, winged gargoyle wearing an insect’s head.

Luren was already dancing around the creature with a ridiculous grin possessing his face. “I can’t believe it!” he yelled, “I’ve visited the sentries a hundred times, but I’ve never seen one animate. You’ve always refused to show me. You said you wouldn’t waste the caeyl energy for a demonstration.”

“And I stand by it,” Chance said as calmly as he could manage, “The energy needed for animation is significant. I can’t spare it just for your entertainment. You know that. It’s not a joke.”

Luren edged in between him and the sentry and grabbed the sentry’s face, which was hanging nearly a yard above him. “My gods, they look even bigger when they animate. Don’t you think?”

Despite his exasperation, Chance had to admit it was an impressive sight. From a distance, the sentry appeared solid. Only on close inspection did its ethereal nature reveal itself. It was translucent at the center, becoming nearly transparent at the very edges of its form. The outlines of the trees behind the creature were barely visible through its body, though the image was vague and distorted. As he watched, the wings slowly folded and tucked into place so that their apex towered a dozen feet above the beast. Then it shuddered oddly, and the blue light in its eyes faded to stone as it returned to its natural solid state.

“I knew I’d be able see through them during animation,” Luren said, “But I didn’t realize I’d be able to see...well, through them.”

The appearance of the sentry had pushed Chance’s headache fully into the fire. And though he had no appetite for lessons right now, he had no choice but to comply. An apprentice’s role is to ask questions, a master’s is to answer them. Besides, the damned sentry wasn’t going anywhere. He could make rubble of it later.

“All right, boy,” he said as matter-of-factly as he could manage, “Tell me why you can see through them during animation.”

“That’s easy!” Luren reached up on his toes and slapped the beast’s mantis head as if to confirm its solidity. “For matter to animate, it has to be forced outside its normal niche in the ethereal matrix. Once it’s coaxed between its native time-space and the caeylsphere, it can defy the natural laws regulating it.” Luren paused at that, and then shrugged and looked over his shoulder at Chance. “Well, maybe not defy them exactly. More like bend them.”

“I’m impressed,” Chance told him. He meant it.

“Inserting a sliver of your caeyl gem into the sentry infuses it with your energy,” Luren continued, “It allows you to force the stone into an animated state. I understand all that from an academic standpoint, but actually seeing it happen is...well, it’s amazing! It’s like the sentry has its own Bloodlink.”

Satisfied, Chance looked at the sentry. “Your approach was unacceptable,” he said to it, “You were reckless. You might’ve killed us storming through the canopy that way!”

The sentry remained motionless.

Chance’s anger flowed like molten lead. He wanted nothing more than to turn the beast back to mud right then and there. Unfortunately, he couldn’t, not with Luren watching anyway. He was the boy’s master, after all. He had an example to set. So, rather than indulge his anger, he steadied himself and asked as calmly as he could manage, “Sentry, what are your primary rules of function?” It was a test of the creature’s ethereal integrity.

The beast shuddered again. Its bulbish eyes flamed with a nearly blinding blue light. The stone head wavered and grew translucent as it reanimated. Its response was slow and deliberate, emitted in a gravelly monotone. “The foremost function of a caeyl Sentry is to protect the life and safety of its creator, Lord Chance Gnoman. The secondary function of a caeyl Sentry is to monitor the borders of Na te’Yed for—”

“Enough!” Chance shouted, pounding his staff into the gravel. “Enough,” he repeated, shaking his head, “I’ve heard enough.”

The creature solidified again.

It was clearly functional enough to answer the test questions accurately. Still, its reckless entry had pretty well ruined a perfectly tuned headache. Through a locked jaw, Chance heard himself mutter, “You’re a cursed piece of—”

He caught himself before he could finish. He sent a guilty glance down at Luren who quickly threw his eyes up toward the hole in the canopy. The boy was fighting a smirk.

“Don’t you start,” Chance said to him.

“I didn’t say a thing.”

“This pile of rubble and glue claims to understand its function, and yet this is the fourth false alarm in two years. The fourth!”

“Oh, you know it’s a false alarm already,” Luren said, “I’d say that’s pretty insightful. I mean, considering you haven’t even heard its explanation yet.”

“The last visit from a sentry was to report a whisper of Watchers traveling along the valley’s rim.”

“I remember,” Luren said seriously.

“A whisper of Watchers, for gods’ sakes!”

“I know that.”

“And do you remember that this reported infraction turned out to be Friss and Graen Cole and their crew?”

“I do remember that,” the boy said.

“They’re longtime friends. And they’re not even Vaemysh, for gods’ sakes!”

“I know that as well,” Luren said, grinning, “And before that, the sentries came out of stasis to report sighting Sarrigh. But you—”

“Sarrigh!” Chance said, seizing the argument, “Yes! Exactly! Sarrigh, who’s been buying elixirs from me for forty years, who comes into the forest at least twice a season. Every season!”

“So that’s your evidence it’s another false alarm?”

Chance scowled at that. “Don’t you be insolent with me.”

“It’s not insolence,” Luren said, “I’m just saying, I think you should stop berating it and just ask the necessary question. Then you’ll know the facts and you can stop throwing your tantrum.”

Chance bristled, but immediately steadied himself. Though he sincerely loathed admitting it, the boy’s logic was inarguable. “You’re right,” he said grudgingly, “It’s this damned headache. It’s making me irritable.”

“Sure, blame the headache,” Luren said on a laugh, “Better yet, blame the wine.”

Chance cringed, but again resisted his darker urges. He turned back to face the sentry who was waiting as patiently as the boulder it was. The beast was one of many created long ago at the end of the Fifty Year War to guard the border between the north and south forest at the great valley called Fe’tana by the Vaemysh and Farswept Green by everyone else. He reminded himself that they existed for surveillance, not conversation, that their answers were always monotonously black and white, meaning any questions he asked had to be carved the same way.

He had to change tack or they’d be there all day interrogating the creature. “Why did you leave your post, sentry?” he asked carefully.

“I bring news of movement in the forest, Lord.” Silence.

Chance tightened his grip on his staff. “And are you willing to share with me the nature of the movement?”

“I am, my Lord.” Again, silence.

Chance fought back a scream. “Miserable rock piles,” he growled, “I should scrap the lot of you and start from scratch. You’ve been a pain in my—”

Luren smothered another laugh. Poorly.

Chance sent a calculated glare down at him. “Amused?” he asked.

“Perhaps a bit,” Luren confessed.

“This lump of rock might’ve killed us. You understand that, yes?”

“So you’ve said. But I doubt your threats will make it any smarter.”

“I’m not threatening it. I know how to deal with a sentry. I built them a good century before you were even born, after all.”

Luren shrugged. “Didn’t you teach me that the sentries operate as they do because they possess the rule of your basic intelligence?”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“I mean they function as an extension of your intellect. By condemning their stupidity, you’re really condemning yourself.”

Chance opened his mouth to retort, but quickly realized he had no strategy left but retreat. “You’re too smart for your own good,” he said for lack of something smarter.

Luren shrugged. “I had a good teacher. It’s not his fault wine hates him so.”

Chance watched the boy stroll around the sentry. He was extremely proud of him, proud of the master caeyl mage he was destined to become. He deserved a better master.

He looked back to the sentry. “What exactly did you come to report?”

The blue eyes flamed and the statue blurred back into animation. “Two parties of Vaemyn were spotted. We observed them crossing the river near the Field of Light. The eastern party numbered one hundred two. The western party numbered eighty-three. Each party was comprised of Vaemysh warriors.”

The temperature of the forest plummeted. Chance considered the sentry’s statement in stunned silence.

Luren reappeared beside him. His eyes reflected Chance’s own disbelief. “I guess you should’ve asked that question straight out of the gate,” he whispered.

Chance didn’t look at him. “How do you know they were warriors?” he asked the creature.

“The Vaemyn were adorned in battle dress, Lord. They bore weapons unnecessary for foraging. They carried no mules.”

“Mules?” Luren asked.

“Domestics,” Chance said, “Indentured Vaemyn from the servant class. To bear the weight of their foraging harvest.” Chance’s headache tightened its straps. “Battle dress,” he said as he studied the sentry, “That’s impossible.”

“Is it?” Luren asked.

Chance looked down at him. “Excuse me?”

“Impossible?”

“Of course. It’s ridiculous.”

Luren seemed to think about that, and then he asked, “Have the sentries ever accurately reported warriors in the forest before?”

Chance had to pause at that. “Yes,” he said as he considered it, “They reported one authentic infraction twenty or thirty years ago. After a fashion, at any rate. They were indeed warriors, just as the sentries described, but it wasn’t an invasion force. They were a posse. They were pursuing one of their own, a renegade and murderer.”

“So you don’t doubt the sentry spotted Vaemysh warriors, you just don’t believe they’re an invasion force?”

“I don’t know,” Chance said honestly.

He looked at the sentry. After a moment, he held a fingertip just above the surface of one of the sentry’s radiant blue eyes and began making a circling motion with it. Soon, a whirlpool of dark blue grain formed in the glowing eye and followed the direction of his finger like drops of ink stirred into dirty milk.

Luren jumped up and grabbed the sentry’s horn, and then he kicked his way up over the neck until he straddled it. From there he leaned forward over the wide head on crossed arms to better observe what Chance was looking at. “What are you seeing there?” he said down to Chance.

“The power source in this one is weaker than it should be. Look at these cracks on the face here. It—”

“It means the cohesive force of the caeyl energy is failing the stone,” Luren said quickly.

“Exactly. The force driving the sentry has somehow been drained.”

“Drained? How do you mean?”

“It’s as if the energy is leaking, probably dissipating into the ground beneath the sentry.”

“You mean it’s being reabsorbed by the earth.”

“Yes. The earth’s a natural conduit for caeyl energy. Unless we reinforce the sentry at regular intervals, its energy will eventually drain away into the ground. I suspect that’s also a factor in why our caeyl energy has been decaying these past several decades. And yet, what I don’t understand is why the damned thing’s charge is so weak. I recharged the sentries just last year. Their charges should’ve been good for at least another eight or nine years. I don’t understand why it’s failing so quickly.”

“Well, supposing the energy actually is failing,” Luren said, “The sentry was still functional enough to find you down here in the forest, was it not? And it delivered the information to you, just as it’s supposed to, didn’t it?”

“Your point?” Chance said.

He was only half listening to the boy. The sentry’s information was weighing on him. What if the beast was right? What if something actually were amiss this time? What if the Vaemyn had indeed crossed the border? Impossible though he knew that construct to be, he was still losing appetite for questions.

“My point,” Luren said, “Is that the sentry may have a depleted energy level, but it was still functional enough to find you and deliver the message. So why would you doubt its accuracy?”

“Because the Vaemyn would never send warriors into my Na te’Yed, that’s why. Such an act would trigger an automatic declaration of war by the Allies, a war the Vaemyn could never hope to survive. No, it’s an absolutely ridiculous notion.”

“Is it?” Luren said.

The boy’s question was dead on, and Chance felt a pang of guilt for not being straight with him. Perhaps he was protecting the boy from worry. Then again, perhaps that wasn’t it at all. Perhaps he was simply denying the possibility for his own peace of mind. Not that it mattered. Either way, he was starting to feel sick, and it had nothing to do with the wine.

He decided to regroup. “The Vaemyn wouldn’t jeopardize my trust and goodwill by entering this forest uninvited. And they’d never violate their treaty with the Allies; the cost to their civilization would be catastrophic. No, it has to be something else. I’m guessing the sentry saw Vaemysh foragers and somehow mistook the information.”

“Well, you know best,” Luren said with a shrug of his eyebrows, “I mean, you’re the mage, after all. I suppose a hundred and eighty-odd Vaemyn marching into Na te’Yed is exactly the correct number required for foraging, yes? That’s probably why no mules. Don’t need them with that many warriors to carry the roots and herbs they’ll be looking for.”

Chance sighed. Though the boy was barely sixteen, he’d been born with the rarest of honors, the Birthsight. He’d been self-aware since the instant he entered this world. Physically and emotionally, he may be an adolescent, but intellectually he was far more than a decade older than his years. He’d mastered reading in infancy and learned to analyze what he read by the time he was a toddler. He’d been offering intelligent advice to Chance since he was five years old.

“All right, Luren,” Chance said as he leaned into his staff, “Something’s brewing in that monstrous little brain of yours. What’re you thinking?”

Luren offered a proud, albeit toothy grin. “Well, I have to wonder why the sentry would see foragers and mistake them for warriors, stating the precise numbers of the parties, describing their battle regalia and all? I mean, if its energy’s failing, isn’t it more likely it wouldn’t see anything at all than to create information out of the air? If its energy were too low, it wouldn’t have the power or direction to make facts up. At least, I wouldn’t think so. But then, you are the mage in the household.”

Chance closed his eyes and pinched the flesh at the bridge of his nose. The cursed headache was not retreating. He suddenly felt very tired.

“Hm, looks like it hurts.” Luren laughed.

Chance ignored him.

Luren slipped off the sentry’s neck, hung for a moment by its horn, then dropped to the dirt. “Well,” he said as he picked up the pack, “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Chance said, finally, “You’re probably right. The only thing I know with certainty is that the information is untrustworthy. The idea of warriors in these parts, Vaemysh or otherwise, is…I don’t know, a challenge to embrace. Surely the Baeldonian patrols would’ve contacted me by now if—”

“The Baeldonians abandoned their patrols of the valley,” Luren said too matter-of-factly.

Chance looked over at him. “Excuse me?”

“Six months ago. That’s the news Jhom brought you last winter, right?”

Chance realized with some disappointment that he was absolutely right, but still sent the boy a reprimanding look. “Are we perfecting the art of eavesdropping now, Luren?”

“I’m useless to you if I’m uninformed, Chance. I swear to Calina, you compromise my education by trying to protect me all the time.” Luren pulled a large green apple from his tunic pocket and bit into it.

Chance watched the boy eat. After all these years, the lad was still something of an anomaly to him. Perhaps if Luren had been his own son rather than his apprentice, he’d have a better bead on him. Perhaps it would’ve made him a better master to the boy.

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” he said at last, “I'll have to go up to the valley's edge and investigate. Sentry Four is the closest. If it has a weak charge, I’ll come back to the house and we can head out tomorrow to recharge all eleven of them. The Hangman’s Gloves will just have to wait.”

The boy was before him in an instant. “Let me go!” he said through a wet mouthful of apple, “I can run up there and be back by early afternoon. I'll be really careful, I swear it!”

Chance could barely hear him over the volume of his thoughts.

“I know how to check them,” Luren pressed eagerly, “I can get there and back faster than you, too. You know I’m right.”

The words suddenly found form. “What?” Chance said, “No, absolutely not. I want you safely back at the house until I figure out what’s going on.”

“But, Chance, you promis—”

Chance threw up a hand. “You’ll do as I say, boy. This isn’t the time to argue.”

“But I—”

“This isn’t a republic. You’re not a senator. This isn’t up for a vote. Nod if you understand.”

“Yes, sir,” Luren said exactly as though he didn’t mean it, “By. Your. Will.”

Chance crossed arms and looked down his nose at Luren. “Sentry,” he said as he watched the boy’s well-practiced pout, “Fly over the sentry posts on the southern rim, and scan for any signs of movement in the forest north of the river from here east to Graewind Castle. When you've done this, return to my house and wait for me. Do you understand your orders?”

“My orders are understood, Lord.”

“Good. Go, then.”

The command barely left his lips before the beast’s solidity faded and its wings gracefully unfurled to their full span and began to undulate.

As always, Chance marveled at the size of the grand wings. The sentries’ abilities weren’t due solely to his caeyl enchantment; simple physics dictated that a creature of such bulk required an enormous wingspan, no matter in which dimension of time-space it coexisted.

Soon the wings were beating at full measure and the massive beast began to hover. A whirlwind of dirt and litter raged around them as it inched upward.

Chance pulled the boy back to the wall and they once again buried their faces into the stone to avoid the debris stirred up by the sentry's liftoff. Chance's long hair whipped at his face as he squinted past his shoulder at the retreating beast. Soon the only evidence the sentry had been there at all was the jagged blue patch of fresh sky gaping through the canopy above them and the deep ruts left in the dirt where it’d squatted in the road.

Chance coughed and brushed himself free of the dust as the great whooshing of wings faded above them. Luren was already in the middle of the road staring up in awe at the blue hole.

“Curse my ignorance in creating those monsters!” Chance said to the sky, “Miserable things are supposed to protect us, but I swear they’ll kill us yet. I should’ve created foervang runners instead of winged sentries. In fact, my master urged me to do just that, you know. Foervang runners are more efficient he told me. Foervang runners can link essences and operate like a hive, he told me. Foervang runners can make complex decisions. But, did I listen? No! I was too busy stroking my arrogance.”

Luren laughed.

“Take my mistakes as a lesson, boy. The advantage of flying eyes is the ability to survey a vast area in a short amount of time, but it’s incredibly expensive in terms of caeyl energy. The price of flight is the loss of independent thought. There’s never enough power for both. I’ve ended up with flying idiots for my trouble.”

Luren laughed. “Listen to you. How can an animated object be an idiot? Besides, a foervang runner may be fine in the plains, but here in the mountains you’d need a hundred of them to cover the area patrolled by one winged sentry.”

“I know, I know,” Chance said, “But the fact remains that my decision to make winged sentries came from pride, not logic. I was young when I built them, and damned impressed with myself. When one is full of oneself it leaves little room for duty or responsibility to others.”

Luren rolled his eyes. “I’m sure that’s supposed to have some deeply insightful meaning for me since you serve up the same lesson at least once a week. And I’m equally sure that I still don’t have a clue what it means.”

“No obvious lies,” Chance said, squeezing the boy’s shoulder.

“It’s not a lie; it’s selective listening. I learned it from my master.”

Chance took the backpack from him. “You're a good apprentice, Luren,” he said as he helped the boy slip it onto his back, “And you’re well on your way to becoming a great man and a powerful mage, but right now, I need you to listen to me. I want you to follow my instructions without question or hesitation.”

A cloud passed over the boy’s face. “I know what you're going to say.”

Chance gripped his shoulder again and squeezed it with equal parts warmth and authority. “This is most likely just a caeyl malfunction,” he said, “But I'm responsible for the buffer zone this forest creates, so I don’t have the luxury of ignoring it. I’m going to check out a couple of the sentries and scout the valley rim. It’s possible I’ll be gone overnight. I need you to help me by tending the animals and minding the house. It’d be a good time to clean that fouled chimney, too. I’m tired of waking with ash in my mouth.”

Luren rolled his eyes again. “Right.”

Chance picked a twig from Luren’s hair and stroked the tangled blonde locks back into place. “I promise you can help me charge all the sentries when I get back. It’s time you learned basic animation anyway.”

The boy pulled his head free and turned away. He walked sullenly back toward the steps leading up to the path. “I'll do it because you want me to,” he said as he climbed the narrow stairs, “But it doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“You just mind the house, boy. And if Sarrigh happens by for the pox elixirs, they’re ripening in the root cellar. Give him those with the red leaf stamp, not the blue ones.”

“Yes, O mighty lord and master,” Luren said as he backed away, “By your will, your Lordship. Just promise you’ll be careful out there. I’m too busy to come save your butt.” Then he turned and disappeared into the ferns above.

He was barely out of sight before Chance’s humor was dead and buried. He immediately crossed the road and climbed up into the forest on the opposite side.

The land here inclined less severely than the hill leading up to his house. However, it’d change soon enough as he neared the ridge of steep cliffs overlooking the wide valley separating the northern and southern forests. There, it was a half-mile higher than the valley floor.

The appearance of the sentry had completely shattered an already miserable morning. It had to be a malfunction. The notion of a Vaemysh invasion was simply too preposterous to chew. It’d been two hundred years since the Vaemyn last entered these woods with blood in their eyes, and the price of any manner of invasion would be unacceptably steep to their people. They’d been the cause of too many wars over the last thousand years, and the Allies had made it clear they’d not tolerate another at the Vaemyn’s hands.

Yet, another voice murmured from deep back in the doubting recesses of his mind, a thin, timid voice that whispered his bellowing confidence into silence: And what if it’s true?

If the news held any truth at all, if the Vaemyn had indeed sent warriors into Na te’Yed, the consequences were greater and more severe than anything he’d faced in his lifetime. It would shatter the stability of the entire region and lead to a war like no one alive had ever witnessed.

If even a word of this was true, there was no worse message the beast could have delivered.

V

THE SWORD

B

EAM COULDN’T MOVE.

Or maybe he simply lacked the will for it.

Not that it mattered. In truth, he was prepared to lay there until he either wasted away or found the inspiration to move, and he was frankly too miserable to care if the first happened and had no faith the second ever would.

Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that sleep wouldn’t have him back. His ribs were raking at his chest again and his bed was as hard and unyielding as granite.

Certain that any further attempt at sleep was now a lost cause, he opened his eyes. He was surprised to find it still dark. How long had he been sleeping? It seemed like years. He carefully rolled up onto his side. Once stable, he reached for the poultice covering his bad eye, but it was gone. His vision wasn’t obscured by any covering. Rather, the cave was simply pitch black, leaving him wondering if it was still the middle of the night or if he’d somehow gone blind while he slept.

He braced his side and winced his way into a sitting position. He waved his hand before his face but saw nothing. He couldn’t even see the outline of the cave’s entrance. A wave of panic washed through him. What if he really had gone blind? He’d seen people lose their sight after bad head blows. They were typically the same ones who didn’t recover. What if the damage to his head was worse than he’d feared? It’d be his death sentence!

He struggled his way to his knees. He reached out and groped at the blackness. His hand found a smooth, cold ledge beside him. A quick probe told him it was only a few feet high. He used it to climb to his feet. With one hand running the edge as a guide and the other out before him, he inched his way forward. He’d only made just a couple steps when his foot caught something hard. He stumbled forward. A sharp edge bit into his shin. He dropped onto his hands and rolled roughly down a series of ridges before landing on his hands and knees on the cold floor.

At first, he could only lay there, barely able to draw a breath for the pain. It felt like someone had beaten his shins with an iron bar and they were now kicking him in his broken ribs. Was there no end to this torture? What had he ever done to deserve so poor a treatment by whatever entities ruled this wretched universe?

The thought almost made him laugh. What had he ever done? Hilarious.

When he was finally able to sit upright, he realized he could see again. Something white was glowing in the darkness before him. It was just a small spot of light, but it was undeniably real. It must be the remnants of his fire, perhaps the last of the dying embers. He raised his hand and saw the silhouette of his fingers against the radiance.

As he watched, the light slowly intensified. It swelled out across the floor like phosphorescent water poured onto black ice. It spread quickly away from the source like a blossoming flower. It flowed beneath him, flowed up the distant walls, poured across the ceiling high above him until he could see it all: The dais, the pillars, the throne-like chair, the pagan gods cavorting across the domed ceiling.

This was the room from his dream, which meant it hadn’t been a dream at all. The only difference between the dream and now was that the light pulsing through the crystal was no longer red; it was as white as the stars. He looked back at the pillars locked at each corner of the wide dais. They were even more impressive than he remembered, rising up from the floor until they brushed the ceiling a hundred feet above him. Carved into each crystalline pillar, and standing just a few feet above the surface of the dais, were the life-sized images of a man or woman of four different races. He couldn’t remember seeing them in the dream. The front two pillars hosted the image of a Parhronii and a Vaemyn, left to right. The rear pillars held a giant Baeldon and a masked Mendophian in the same order. It was breathtaking. This room was more beautiful than any cathedral he’d ever seen.

The carving of the Vaemyn warrior standing directly above him was dressed in royal fashion like some lost king or nobleman. He seemed to be looking directly down at Beam, and something about those eyes seemed vaguely familiar.

Trust your memories, Be’ahm.

The images of the battle erupted in his mind. He remembered the Vaemyn warrior. He remembered the man uttering those same ominous words to him just heartbeats before his death. Trust your memories, Be’ahm. You must trust—

Something pinged behind him.

Beam quickly twisted around toward the sound. No one was there.

Then he saw the bodies. A black suit of armor lay sprawled across the dark floor out before the steps. A broadsword rose straight up from its chest as if the suit were an insect pinned in a collection. The armor was exactly as he remembered it from the dream, seamless, like it was set from a single pouring of steel. Lying across the armor were the skeletal remains of a long dead corpse. A bony hand still gripped the blade exactly where it penetrated the armor as if it were still holding it in place after all these years. It was exactly as he remembered, except that, unlike his dream, the reality of this fight had occurred many, many years before, perhaps even centuries.

Beam worked his way to his feet, and then walked slowly over to the murder. Bracing his ribs, he eased himself down into a squat. The sword rising up from the armor had a golden hilt. The grip was composed of two intertwined snakes whose heads met at the pommel, and embedded in the pommel was a red gem carved in the image of a lidded eye.

Beam fell forward to his knees.

This was impossible! This stone was identical to the one hidden in his pouch. He felt for the lump beneath his tunic. It was still there. It was no trick.

The skeleton’s head lay on the armor’s shoulder as if they’d been in a tender embrace when they succumbed. Strings of corroded scale mail hanged between the empty ribs like metallic cobwebs. Clumps of long yellow locks still clung to the skull from patches of dry, shriveled skin. Beam leaned forward and carefully brushed the dead hair back from the bony neck. There was the telltale horn. A dulled, brittle oteuryn curled up from the skull just behind the mummified ear. It was broken at the tip.

Beam suddenly felt sick. As he watched, the warrior’s face superimposed itself over the gray skin clinging to the skull. He remembered the Vaemyn collapsing before him just heartbeats before the dark rogue drove the blade down into his back. He remembered the warrior throwing himself backward as he heroically vanquished the murderous knight before succumbing to his own mortal wounds.

A shudder seized him. He covered his mouth. A wave of dark grief boiled through him so suddenly, so forcefully that he thought for just an instant that he was going to be sick. Tears scalded the scratches on his cheeks. A sob wrenched loose from his chest. He couldn’t breathe.

Then, as quickly as it had taken him, the emotion was gone, leaving only the residue of embarrassment in its wake. He was left feeling strangely hollow, as if a flood had eroded a pool in his soul and then dried away to leave only a cold, loveless pit. He couldn’t explain it. Tears over a savage? A savage he didn’t even know except as the remnant of a bad dream induced by a bit of foul rabbit? It didn’t make sense. It had to be his head injury inducing delusions.

He wiped the evidence away on his sleeve. He tried to remember the last time he’d shed tears. Perhaps as a boy? Maybe he’d cried when his mother died, though he had no memory of it. Sorrow and melancholy were useless, burdensome emotions that he’d never counted among his weaknesses. It had to be his exhaustion making him weak.

He smeared the long hair back from his face and turned his attention to the sword. The carved gem in the hilt of this sword was exactly the same design as the stone hidden in his pouch. It was the same cut, the same style, the same flawless red bloodstone. Could it be a coincidence? Was it some bizarre trick of luck that led him to two ancient artifacts of the same design hidden from the world in locations over two hundred miles apart?

No, it wasn’t possible! There was no mystery in the way of his life. Luck had never been a factor in the misery that’d defined his existence. And yet, there it was. It was looking back at him from that sword’s hilt even as he studied it. How could he deny what he saw with his own eyes?

He thought back over the twenty-year road that’d brought him to this point, back to the mysterious box his mother had left him when he was young. The same red eye with the same heavy, sensuous lid had adorned the surface of that box as well. This couldn’t be anything as simple as coincidence. Was this destiny?

Trust your memories.

Beam shuddered and buried himself in his arms. No, he told himself, it’s impossible. Don’t succumb to it. Don’t abandon reason. The path of superstition is always the easiest, the path of simple minds, and he’d have nothing to do with it. There was always an explanation for the stranger events of life. Always! One just had to refuse to succumb to the temptation of mystical thinking and keep looking for the facts.

Bracing his side, he climbed awkwardly to his feet.

Loitering here pondering the mysteries of life and the roads of fate was a waste of time, time he couldn’t afford. Best to just take what he could, and then get the bloody hell out of here. He grabbed the sword’s hilt and was about to liberate it from the armor when he saw the spark. The center of the eye was glowing, like a fire burned at its heart. He leaned in closer to it. The light intensified as he watched it. It quickly became too bright to look at.

He closed his eyes against it. “Another damned illusion,” he growled as he blindly groped for the hilt. When his hands found the metal, he heaved back on the sword and pulled it free.

The instant he liberated the sword, the red light in the eye died and the white light pulsing through the crystal walls quickly followed it. Gone were the pillars. Gone were the dais and its ornamental chair. Gone were the gods, the kings, and the vaulted ceiling. Soon the only light remaining was the dim glow surrounding the great hall’s exit a hundred feet away, and that was fading fast.

Beam flew out of the room, down the darkening corridor, and past his abandoned camp. He exploded out the cave's entrance and slid to his knees in the sunlight beyond the cave. Only when the pain of his flight finally subsided and his heart slowed to a manageable pace did he open his eyes. When he did, he found the sword resting in the dirt before him with the brilliant sunshine pouring down on it like a beacon. It lay there as if presented for his inspection.

The sword came to life in the full light of day. Two silvery snakes grew out of the sword blade and wound helically around a feathered arm to end with the heads resting atop each other just beneath the pommel. The feathered arm ended in an eagle’s talon at the pommel, and in its grip was the red crystal eye. The blade was wide and flawless, with strings of tiny runes dancing along both its edges like ants marching off to battle. He tilted the blade into the sun and inspected it. Though he couldn’t read the runes, he’d witnessed them often enough in the savages’ tombs to recognize them as Vaemysh.

And yet, all the grandeur of this ornate weapon was simply dressing for the feast. It was the bloodstone eye he found most intriguing. It was every bit as glorious as he’d first thought it was back in the cave. It was larger than the one hidden beneath his shirt, and it was a deep, visceral red that at first past seemed almost opaque, though he could see the spark of sunlight glimmering deep at its core.

He thought back to the vault where he’d found the first stone, the one hidden in his pouch. The stone above the crypt’s door had born the faded image of the same eye, though at the time he hadn’t thought much about it. Pagan images like this eye were painted everywhere in primitive cultures. Totems, they were called. Or maybe talismans. Or something else scholarly like that, he couldn’t recall and didn’t care. Every race had their own version of such nonsense. Even the more sophisticated civilizations had their symbolic images. The Mendophs had their masks, the Baeldons their hammers, the Parhronii had that sentimental drivel they called poetry.

Regardless of the meaning, the eye’s value was his primary concern. The gem hidden in his pouch was already going to make him wealthy. Bloodstones of the quality of the one hidden beneath his tunic were highly valued in the wealthy markets of Parhron. However, this one in the sword, the one gazing so adoringly up at him from the dirt was the size of his fist. This one was going to make him rich beyond his dreams, and all he had to do to achieve that wealth was get it back to Parhron with his skin still on his back.

It took him forever to put his clothes on. His dried leathers were stiff and unyielding, and his damaged flesh was barely up to the task of donning them. Yet, the simple act of fantasizing about his riches proved a most effective analgesic, and before long, he was ready for the road. Once he’d secured the sword to his quiver, he walked back out into the courtyard and looked up at the sun. It was already midmorning.

“Time to get a move on, son,” he said, laughing, “Destiny calls, and I hear she pays very, very well.”

VI

THE BLINDING

C

HANCE’S STOMACH FELT AS IF IT WERE EATING ITSELF FROM THE INSIDE OUT.

He wished he’d brought a vial of his stomach nostrum along. He might also wish he were king of the world for all the good it was going to do. It served him right for leaving the damned pack with Luren. Between his stomach and the imp banging those pans inside his head, every step was an exercise in agony. If not for the terror gripping him, he might’ve just lain down in the ferns and had a long nap.

No sentry had ever malfunctioned before, not in a century of service, not like this. Perhaps the world's caeyl energy was decaying more quickly than he’d feared. It was an idea he’d considered a thousand times in the past. Uselessly. The caeyl energy was dying, plain and simple, and no fretting or wishing or praying would do a thing to change it. He had to push it from his head before he succumbed to another of the useless fits of melancholy he was so sadly prone to.

He stepped over a rotting log that was slumbering across his path without a care in the world.

Perhaps it’d been longer than a year since his last appraisal of the sentries. Could it be possible he was becoming complacent? The unfortunate truth was that he wasn’t getting any younger. He thought about his mentor and the horrid confusion that’d ravaged his final sixty years. Though this was the inevitable fate of all caeyl mages due to centuries of caeyl energy exposure, the possibility of it at his young age was simply unthinkable. For the love of Calina, he was barely a hundred and ninety-five.

The ground eventually changed from humus to dirt to barren rock as he climbed the craggy slope leading up to the cliff face. Monstrous spikes of rust-colored rocks erupted from the earth here. Needle shaped and dozens of yards tall, they gradually crowded in around him like the bars to a cell until he could no longer walk a straight line for very long. Streaked with deep veins blue granite, with their bases carpeted in thick, emerald moss, they looked like tombstones for gods.

The incline grew steeper at a dutiful pace as he wove his way through them, and before long, the boulders melded into one single upsurge of rock that evolved into the mountain itself. The climb was rough and irregular enough that he was soon using feet, hands, and staff to propel himself forward. Every other step sent a small cascade of debris clattering down through the boulders beneath him. In time, the climb led to a sheer wall of blue, black, and magenta streaked granite that towered over him like the outer wall to a castle. Once there, he groped his way laterally along a narrow ledge until he came to a split in the rock. Though the gap was wide enough for him to slip through, it was at such an angle that it was nearly imperceptible from any other station.

He passed into the narrow corridor through the mountain and felt his way to a steep, narrow, and perfectly unnatural stone stairway that looked more poured from the rock than cut into it. He’d used his Water Caeyl to melt this passage and the steps from the mountain many decades ago. The stairs terminated at a passage leading out from the crevice and into the brilliant sunshine of an open rock ledge. He shaded his eyes and walked the twenty paces across the ledge to the cliff’s edge. Once there, he threw back his hood and leaned into his staff as he waited for his breath to return.

The view from here was spectacular. The sheer cliff plunged away from his toes, plummeting thousands of feet to the valley, Farswept Green, far below him. The valley was an endless plateau of shimmering emerald that ran off into the horizon, stopped in time only by the brilliant blue wall of an immense southern sky. Slicing its torturous way across the belly of the valley was the white incision of a violent river.

Three vultures circled the air currents far below him, swimming in lazy arcs as they searched for something dead. As he studied them, he considered that they were particularly large buzzards, though they were far enough away that their details were indistinct. Normally he would’ve taken his time here, watching the view and taking his lunch as reward for the miserable climb. Today he turned away.

He followed the ledge as it wrapped its way around the mountain. Eventually he came to his sentry, and the sight of it sent his already troubled stomach into a spin. The winged stone beast was identical to the one in the forest, or would’ve been yesterday or a week ago. But this sentry would never fly again. This sentry was slumped on its low pedestal with a deep fissure gouging the side of its neck. The split gradually narrowed as it cut down across the chest and into the forelegs and eventually terminated in a web of fine cracks that laced through the claws.

For a moment, he couldn’t make sense of what he was looking at. He’d never seen a sentry fail before, not like this, not ever. This creature was one good wind gust away from rubble. The blue glow that normally indicated an active charge was missing from the orbish eyes. It was a most dire sign.

Though it appeared lifeless, Chance still approached it with caution. Caeyl energy was extremely dangerous and could be irritatingly unpredictable, even when that energy was of his own devising. He leaned closer and visually inspected the deep crack in the sentry’s chest. It was wide enough at the chest for him to have slipped his entire hand into. The creature appeared to have reverted to a permanently inanimate state, which would make it no more dangerous than a pile of stones.

He touched the sentry’s brow to test his theory. The contact resulted in a sharp snap and a shock of light. He recoiled, cursing and shaking the sting from his fingers. Yellow sparks danced across the sentry’s mantis-like face before quickly dispersing into the stone. The scent of ozone smothered the air. He looked at his fingers, still red and tingling from their encounter with the foreign energy. The presence of yellow energy in the sentry was more startling than the spark had been. Animation energy powered this sentry, and animation was the work of blue Water Caeyls, not yellow Fire Caeyls. It made no sense.

Again, he tapped the sentry’s face, and again the sparks flashed, but this time the lifeless beast made a sour, grating noise and then shuddered strangely. The cracks fouling its chest deepened. Chance backed away as it collapsed into rubble at his feet.

He watched in utter disbelief as the dust settled around the debris. This was unbelievable. Never in his life had any of his works run so afoul of their design. The caeyl energy of the world was decaying, certainly, but not at a pace that could explain this level of failure. And it surely wouldn’t explain the yellow energy he’d witnessed in the stone.

He squatted before the mess and picked up a fractured piece of the beast’s horn. The stone crumbled with a simple squeeze. He cast the remnants into the dirt and wiped his palm on his thigh. The severed head lay askew in the debris and remained relatively intact, though it was missing one horn and had three deep cracks weaving across the brow. He dug his thumbs into the cracks and easily pulled the head apart. Then he sifted through the remains until he found what he was looking for, a sliver of his blue caeyl, the source of the energy that once drove the creature.

He turned toward the sun with the caeyl sliver in his palm, and then pushed it around with a finger. What had once been a needle-shaped, flaming blue crystal was now opaque and lifeless as a chunk of dirty quartz. The sight of it blew out any candles of doubt he’d clung to since meeting the sentry on the road that morning. Though he’d never witnessed a caeyl transform this way before, he’d surely read about it. The sentry’s energy hadn’t just leaked into the ground. Something had extinguished it.

Something. Or someone.

He pitched the remnants of the caeyl into the stony rubble and stood up. The images of truth coalesced in his mind the way a bad memory serves itself up uninvited. He understood now, understood better than he cared to. That sentry back in the forest hadn’t been wrong at all. It’d been functioning precisely as designed. The Vaemyn were invading.

Chance grabbed his brow and wrestled back the terror rushing in on the heels of this revelation. The Vaemyn must be entering his lands through eastern passes. That would explain why his sentries hadn’t discovered them until today. Those eastern passes snaked north toward his forest across the mountains from Na te’Tula, the Southern Forest. That forest was the realm of the only other caeyl mage in the region, the only caeyl mage within six month’s journey of the Nolands. More importantly, he was easily the only mage in Calevia mad enough to befoul the realm of another caeyl mage.

Those civilians unfortunate enough to live under that fool’s sphere of influence called him Prae the Biled, and with good reason. The man was utterly insane. His dungeons boasted the bones of thousands of innocents unfortunate enough to have offended him. And offending Prae could mean as little as an accidental trespass onto his lands or rumor of a dissenting opinion of his rule, or even simple eye contact with his ministers or household.

Chance turned back toward the cliff. He looked out over the sea of trees washing across the valley floor far below. He envisioned Prae’s foul keep squatting in the open plains at the edge of the Southern Forest nearly a hundred miles south of where he stood. It was all painfully clear to him now. The Vaemyn were working with that bastard, they had to be. They’d never have managed safe passage to this southern approach without crossing hundreds of miles of Prae’s lands, not without the lunatic’s blessings. He’d have crushed them mercilessly the moment they stepped foot on his lands if they’d entered there uninvited.

He glanced back at the remnants of his sentry. He thought about the yellow energy that’d delivered him a shock. A Fire Caeyl drove that energy. That was the final proof. Prae had committed the ultimate offense as a caeyl mage; he’d sabotaged another caeyl mage’s works. Such an act was nearly unheard of among his kind. It would mean a death sentence if the Council of Twenty got wind of such an act.

The treachery felt like a dream, like a long fall into oblivion. He was shaking now, whether with rage or fear or both he couldn’t say and didn’t care. It made no difference. He had blood in his eyes now, blood in his heart.

Memories of war and death and despair flamed through his mind like a prairie fire. Prae was rallying the Vaemyn. Prae had somehow coerced them into an invasion. There could be no other explanation.

Chance immediately understood that he had only one course of action: He had to warn the allies. If he failed to warn them, if the Allies couldn’t rally in time to crush Prae’s assault in its infancy, it would lead to a war unlike any seen since the Fifty Year War of two centuries ago.

Na te’Yed was his responsibility. It was the buffer between the southern hazards and the northern Allies. Prae knew this. Prae knew that even with allowing the Vaemyn access through his personal forest, Chance would spy the advancing army long before they could reach the northern realms. Prae knew he’d have to blind him. He knew he’d have to disable his sentries before—

Prae would have to blind him!

The truth filled him so abruptly that his legs threatened to fail him. There it was! Prae’s goal wasn’t simply to prevent him from warning the Allies. That wouldn’t be nearly security enough for the lunatic. Prae wanted Chance out of the way. He wanted Chance dead. This was a trap!

As the implications of this treachery rolled through his mind, he remembered Luren. The boy was at home. And he was alone!

∞

Luren stood in the perpetual shadows of the great room looking down at his master’s wide desk. The afternoon sun spilled in through the irregular panes of the window rising above it and washed across the worn books and scrolls piled across the desk. An assortment of half-consumed yellow candles wept down over tarnished iron sconces at both ends of the desktop. Several tidy bundles of pungent herbs were hanging to dry from ancient hooks nailed into the timbers above the desk.

Squatting in the center of the desk was a grand and massive book with a worn leather cover engraved in the mystical images of Gods of Pentyrfal and other heavenly creatures. Luren pushed the tall stool in closer to the desk and climbed up onto it. The book was several inches thick and too wide for him to wrap his arms completely around. It was a history of the region Chance’s mentor had started hundreds of years ago and which Chance had subsequently continued through his own long life. It was the most recent of a dozen such books, and the stories contained between them dated back well over a thousand years.

Luren ran his hand across the rough, worn cover. He loved the way the tawny leather glowed so brilliantly under the sunlight. He loved the fragrance of the paper. He loved its age, loved the whispering script that was fading from years of hungry, searching fingertips.

Chance and his mentor had written each chapter of each book in the language of the people whose story it described. They believed the tale of a people was best depicted when written in their native tongues. Luren wasn’t sure he agreed, though the fact that he found reading a foreign language significantly more difficult than speaking it tainted his opinion a bit.

He flipped through the centuries until he found the section labeled the Fifty Year War. Though named the Fifty Year War, it’d actually lasted a full two years shorter than the label given it. This little inaccuracy had always annoyed him. Why call it the Fifty Year War when, in fact, it was the Forty Eight Year War? It was illogical, and the irritation of it distracted him whenever he read it.

He urged the stool in closer to the desk and began leafing through the pages, picking out and reading the sections that summarized the war and its outcome. Fortunately, Chance and his mentor prefaced each chapter with a synopsis, sparing him the torture of pouring through the bulk of his mentor’s rambling prose. Still, even the summaries themselves sometimes ran for twenty or more pages.

He pressed his fingertips to the script and began to read.

“The calamity of the Fifty Year War was the fruit of our now dead adversary, Fren’ba Shen. Even before the war began, Shen held the distinction of being one of only a very few Vaemyn born with the Birthsight, and was a bearer of a caeyl of Power. Vaemyn born with the Birthsight are uniquely rare among all the races in this world. The number of notable Vaemyn blessed or cursed with this gift may be counted on a single hand. In the end, his distinction as a Vaemyn Caeyl Mage was overshadowed by the immensity of his power.

“Shen was a Master of the Fire Caeyl, the gem whose power is demonstrated through its control over demons, wraiths, imps and other forces of the Wyr Realm (see Chapter 12, pages 1296-1317 for descriptive detail). Unlike the Water and Blood Caeyls, the Fire Caeyl has never had a practical function in the mortal world. Its energy is of sinister nature, one with the singular purpose of conquest through destruction, intimidation, and enslavement, and its bearers have used it for that purpose since the beginning of...”

Luren sighed. “My lord is a slave to melodrama.”

He flipped a page ahead.

“Shen rose in the Council of Fates to the position of Council Eijf’ey at the young age of sixty-three. This is the Vaemysh equivalent of Prime Minister. It was also no small comment on his power that a mere ten years later, he was voted unanimously into the position of Noble Seer of the Circle of Twenty, the powerful society of the Birthsight Lords of caeyl Magic. Given such power and prestige, how was it any surprise he was able to coerce his people to storm into the jaws of war so willingly? Using his immense charisma...”

“And on and on and on,” Luren muttered, shaking his head, “For the love of Calina, I know it’s in here somewhere.”

He thumbed forward through the book, following his finger along each line as he looked for keywords that would identify the details regarding the war’s outcome. Finding information in this particular section was not easy, even despite his proficiency in speaking Vaemysh. The Vaemysh language was especially non-conducive to writing. The characters of the Vaemysh alphabet were fluid and spidery, and many words were nearly identical when written, despite the fact that they sounded nothing alike when spoken.

Finally, he found what he was looking for:

“Suspicion and hatred toward the Vaemyn had been passed down like family traditions through dozens of generations of citizens of the Allied nations. A few unenlightened kingdoms, most notably the militaristic Pendts who inhabit the Plaguebrines east of the Iron Mountains (see Chapter 15, pages 2613-2688), even degrade to abducting them for use as chattel in that foulest of human enterprises, slavery. This—”

Their old gander started bellowing outside the house. It was trumpeting its displeasure as loudly as if warning of the arrival of the seventh hell. Not that Luren took any surprise in it; the old goose was prone to hollering at the slightest provocation. They’d have served that damned bird up for dinner years ago if he’d had his way. He was tempted to go outside and give the ornery beast a good kick, but the bird went quiet before he found the ambition.

Sighing, he returned to the book. He sifted through the next few pages, skimming past the tedious details of the Vaemyns’ previous unsavory involvement in the Divinic Wars, which occurred nearly eight hundred years before the Fifty Year War, and which were considered by some academics to be the precursor to that later war.

“Gods almighty! I don’t care, Chance,” Luren grumbled as he searched, “Only you old timers care what happened a thousand years ago. Just give me the Fifty Year War.”

He flipped another dozen pages and thankfully found what he was looking for:

“After the Fifty Year War, the Allies forcefully evicted the Vaemysh people from these parts, and the governance of Na te’Yed was eventually passed to me, Chance Gnoman. Na te’Tula, the southern half of the vast forest that had been the heart of the Vaemysh homeland, was so spoiled and corrupt from the fallout of Fren’ba Shen’s dark magic, it was deemed uninhabitable and was subsequently abandoned. It was eventually claimed by Shen’s young Parhronii apprentice, Prae the Biled.”

Luren stopped. He realized that every time Chance referenced Prae in this volume, he failed to identify him with a surname. He often used the man’s diminutive moniker of Prae the Biled, and other times just Prae, but there was never any mention of a second name. It was most odd and he made a mental note to ask Chance about it when he returned.

He went back to his reading:

“In consideration of their involvement in that great world war that was the Divinic Wars, and their subsequent initiation of the disastrous Fifty Year War, the Vaemyn were relocated to their current reservations in the southern scrubs. They were henceforth forbidden to trespass outside their new ‘homelands’ without approval of the Allied Council of Defense. Several dozen forts were constructed and managed by the Allies to supervise their ‘regulation’. When the Vaemyn did travel outward to trade or forage, they were banned from wearing battle dress or bearing weaponry of any kind. Any such intrusion would be considered an act of war and would result in the literal decimation of their state, their culture, and potentially even their very race. The Allies are bound by blood and their oaths to Gracious Calina and the Gods of Pentyrfal to eradicate the Vaemyn under such circumstances in order to prevent any possibility of a recurrence of another Divinic—”

The old gander resumed hollering again. He sounded just outside the window. Luren stood on the stool’s rungs and leaned across the book and into the deep desk toward the glass. Through the irregular pane, he could see heat waves shimmering across the tall grass between the house and the old forest, but there was no sign of the goose.

He was about to give it up, when the honking grew louder and more determined. Luren leaned closer and pounded on the glass, yelling, “Will you shut the hell up!”

“Would you like me to shut him up for you?” a voice answered.

Luren jumped back from the desk, tearing the open page nearly in half as he and the stool crashed to the floor. Across the room, the front door was wide open. The dark silhouette of a man who was seven feet tall if he was an inch filled the frame.

Luren quickly scrambled back to his feet. His heart was pounding hard enough to bust a rib, but he couldn’t let it show. Chance had taught him to project an air of stubborn authority when facing the unknown, even if he had to fake it.

“In these parts, it’s customary to knock before entering another’s home,” he snapped at the intruder.

The figure stepped casually into the room. “Forgive me, young lord, but I’m not from these parts.” The voice was harsh and grating, like the sound of glass scraping slate.

“Who are you, then?” Luren asked him, “And what do you want, barging into our house so boldly?”

The intruder casually moved a few paces closer. As he left the brilliant light of the door, the details describing him came to life. A deep, satiny gold cowl concealed his face. The cowl melted into a richly embroidered cloak that cascaded over wide shoulders and fell to the floor where it dusted the planks as he walked. He wore a suit of smooth, silvery armor beneath the cloak, armor that hissed strangely as he moved. Luren didn’t recognize it as the uniform of any nation or clan. He was about to order the man out of the house when four Vaemysh warriors abruptly slipped into the room and formed a half circle behind the man. Each wore the traditional Vaemysh sleeveless mail, and leather leggings engraved with symbols and runes that faded and darkened to match the tenor of the room’s shadows.

As Luren watched them take position behind the tall man, he thought of the sentry down on the road. Seems its energy charge wasn’t as weak as Chance had believed. In that moment, Luren swore to the gods above he’d never, ever, not for the rest of his miserable life, ever again tease Chance for that singular mistake if he’d only just walk in that door right now.

“I’m looking for the Water Caeyl Mage,” the man said as his hood surveyed the room, “Chance Gnoman is his name. I don’t sense his presence here, though I suspect you can tell me where he is.”

Without taking his eyes from the man, Luren picked up the fallen stool and placed it between them. “What’s your business with Lord Chance?” he demanded as firmly as he could manage, “You’re clearly no merchant.” It worried him that he couldn’t see the man’s face.

“You’re a bit on the small side to be the palace interrogator, aren’t you?” the man replied in that grating voice, “What’s your name, boy?”

“I’m Milaas,” Luren lied, “Son of Wahl. I’m tending to Lord Chance’s property while he’s away.”

“Really? Well, if you’re tending to his property while he’s away, you’re likely to know where he went, then, aren’t you.”

Luren looked at the warriors, who were staring back at him too intently. Despite the peculiar grins dressing their faces, they looked as serious as a funeral pyre. “Of course I do,” he said, turning his attention back to the intruder, “He’s in Barcuun.”

“Barcuun,” the man repeated.

“Yes. He has business with the Baeldonian Royal House. He won’t be back for several days.”

“Business with the Royal House of Baeldonia? My goodness, he must be a very important man.”

“He is very important,” Luren said, “But I guess you’d know that if you had business with him, wouldn’t you?”

“Well, look at you. You’re one sassy little bag of meat, aren’t you?”

Luren braced himself against an icy chill. He was suddenly very afraid. “What…what did you say?”

The man was now standing directly across the stool from him. “You seem ill at ease,” the hood said from a mile up, “We mean you no harm, young sir.”

“Truly?” Luren asked, nodding at the warriors standing directly behind the man, “Do they know that?”

“Fear not, Milaas. They don’t breathe without my blessing.”

Luren backed slowly away from the soldier. As he did, his hand slipped along the desk’s edge toward a tall iron candlestick perched at the corner. There was a window on the wall ten or twelve feet behind him. He counted the steps it’d take to throw the candlestick at the intruder, run for the window, and dive out into the yard. The odds weren’t inspiring. His fear promoted itself to full-rank terror.

“Where are you slipping away to, little man? I pray you’re not harboring any silly notions about fleeing. I just told you we’re not going to hurt you. We merely wish to have words with your master.”

Luren seized the candlestick and thrust the base up at the soldier. “You stay away from me!” he yelled, holding the candlestick up like a mace, “Stay back or I swear I’ll dent that helmet clean through to your skull, I don’t care how hard it is!”

“Which?” The intruder asked.

The question confused Luren. “Which?”

“Yes, which?”

“Which what?” Luren pressed.

“You don’t care how hard which is? My helmet or my skull?”

“I...I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter, really. I don’t believe we’ll put either to the test today.” The man slapped the stool out of the way. It spun across the room like a tossed rag before rolling into silence at the foot of the hearth on the other side of the room.

“You just stay back!” Luren yelled, waving the candlestick threateningly, “I mean it! Don’t you come any closer!”

“Well, you certainly are a brave little beating heart, aren’t you?” the man said in that offensive voice. He held a hand out to his side. One of the warriors behind him pressed the handle of a long knife into it.

Luren watched the man tapping the knife blade manically against his armored forearm. His legs felt so weak, he suddenly doubted he’d be able to run if the opportunity presented itself. He wanted to see the man’s face, to see what this giant of a soldier looked like.

“What do you say we put that bravery to a test?” the man said, “I’m wondering how long you’ll be able to maintain it under a properly applied threat.” Then he made a queer gurgling noise that Luren guessed was something akin to a laugh.

The wind suddenly kicked up outside the house. The man turned toward the window and bent down low to look outside. Luren saw the massive form of the sentry settling to a landing out in the middle of the yard. Maybe it was a sign of hope. Maybe the sentry could intervene, or maybe it meant Chance was close at hand.

“Ah, just in time,” the man said, turning his cowl toward Luren, “I have to say, that’s one of those many little things I most love about this mortal world, the concept of timing.”

Luren’s breath locked in his chest. Mortal world? The situation turned suddenly surreal. He felt ripped from his body, felt like his consciousness hovered up in the high rafters as he watched the scene unfolding below.

He backed away with his candlestick held firmly in the air between them. His heart was trying to beat its way out of his chest. He needed to make it to the window behind him. He was smaller than the soldier or the warriors who’d have to go back to the door and come around the house after him. It might give him just enough time to—

“Such thoughts are your enemy, young lord,” the man said, “There’ll be no reward in resistance. Besides, you’ll almost certainly cut yourself.” Then the man looked back at the warrior standing just behind and to his right, and he nodded.

The warrior easily overtook Luren and cast the candlestick away before Luren even had time to brace himself. The candlestick bounced off the stone hearth with a disheartening clang before landing on the floor beside the thrown stool. The Vaemyn grabbed him by the hair and threw him down on the desk, pinning his face and chest firmly against the pages of the great book.

Peering under the imprisoning arm, Luren saw the tall intruder casually testing the sharpness of the blade against his silver-gloved fingers. “What are you doing?” he yelled at the man, “I’ve done you no harm! You need to let me go!”

The man walked out of his sight behind him. Luren felt the cold pressure of steel fingers probing the back of his neck. An instant later, he felt the sharp edge of the knife press into the skin behind his head, and the horrible reality of it seized him completely. He was going to die! By this time tomorrow, Chance would find his cold body slumped over the desk and his life would become just another paragraph lost in the endless timeline of the great book. He couldn’t believe it. This couldn’t possibly be his destiny. It couldn’t be!

“All right!” he shouted into the torn book page, “Stop! Please, stop! Just tell me what you want! I’ll do whatever you say.”

But it was too late. Luren felt the motion of the blade and braced himself for the pain and the oblivion that was surely about to follow. In one smooth motion, the blade slid up the back of his skull. Wisps of hair tickled his cheek as they slipped to the paper beside his face.

Then, to his great surprise, the man withdrew the knife from his neck.

He was still alive. He didn’t understand. It felt almost anticlimactic. Then he felt the steely fingertips glide over the newly bald stripe running up his neck. They stopped at the point where a pea-sized lump formed beneath the skin just at the base of his skull. He felt the man spread the skin taut over the lump.

“Well, this is most odd,” the soldier said with another strange laugh, “What have we here, Milaas?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Luren lied into the page. In truth, he knew full well what the man was looking at: A translucent blue glow just beneath the skin at the very base of his skull. It was his Bloodlink, the Water Caeyl sliver embedded in his brain.

“Why, you seem to have developed an odd growth right here on the back of your head. Perhaps you’d like me to remove it for you?”

“No!” Luren said, “No, just tell me what you want. Please!”

“I’d think that would be fairly obvious, especially to a bearer of the Birthsight,” the man said seriously, “And even more especially to one with his own caeyl Bloodlink.” He snapped a finger against the lump.

Luren winced as the pain of the snap burned through his skull and sizzled down his spine. “Stop that!” he yelled up at the man, “Please! Please, just tell me what you want!”

“I think you know, little sire.”

“I don’t! I swear it!”

A steel fist slammed the desktop before Luren’s face. “I want your master!” the man snarled, “I want Chance Gnoman.”

“I don’t know where he is!”

The hood swooped down into his face, blocking the world with darkness. “I believe you do,” the man hissed, “And sooner than later, I believe you’ll be quite happy to tell me.”

The man’s breath was sickening with the reek of hot tar. For just an instant, Luren was sure he was going to vomit. Then the hood mercifully withdrew and the warrior locking him against the desk wrenched him back to his feet.

“What do we do with him, sir?” the warrior asked in Vaemysh.

The soldier was already walking toward the door. He didn’t turn back, but simply said, “We take him to Lord Prae, of course. This is a mouse I’m quite confident he’d enjoy batting around a bit.”

The warrior seized a wad of Luren’s hair and shoved him forward. And as the Vaemyn warriors brutally dragged him from the house, Luren knew he would never see his home or Chance again.

VII

SABOTAGE

C

HANCE TRIPPED OVER THE FINAL STEP OF THE PATH AND SPRAWLED FACE FIRST INTO THE DIRT.

He’d never made that terrible climb up from the road in such short order, and his legs and lungs were rioting from the effort. His terror had carried him this far well enough, but somewhere in the last hundred yards, his reserves had cruelly abandoned him.

He pushed himself up to his knees and leaned sidelong into the red stone chair rising beside him. Was it really just this morning that he’d rested in that very spot, basking and napping in the morning sun? It didn’t seem possible. The memory felt old and washed out, like an image from an old dream.

He took his staff from the dirt and stood it beside him, then braced himself on the chair and climbed to his feet. Standing there, he took a moment to study the yard. Even without the forewarning, he’d have sensed something was wrong. The yard was suffocating in the late afternoon shadows. The birds were silent. There were no squirrels scrounging through the undergrowth. Even the relentless drone of the cicadas was missing. The yard was a dark, silent void, and his house rose up from the midst of it as still and lifeless as a crypt.

He lowered the leather-bound head of his staff and held it like a pike. He readjusted his wet grip, steeled himself against his fear, and began moving toward the unknown.

The front door was ajar, though that in itself wasn’t unusual. They often left it open to allow in the fresh morning air. Luren was probably trying to clear out the smell of the back-drafting chimney.

He climbed cautiously up the porch stairs, wincing at each whine of the old, timeworn boards. A cricket chirruped from somewhere deep in the shadows of the great room. It was the first sign of life he’d detected since cresting the hill. He hoped it signaled optimism.

He nudged the door wider with his staff. Ancient iron hinges creaked tiredly as the door gave way. The room was as dark and silent as a tomb. Even the lonely cricket abruptly abandoned him. The anemic light sifting through the windows only made the shadows that much murkier.

“Luren?” he called, softly.

There was no reply.

He stepped into the room. “Luren?” he called again, louder now, “Where are you?”

A batch of fresh wine bottles stood at attention along the wall beside the fireplace. A basket of recently darned socks sat beside his chair. Newly dipped candles hung from a rope above the hearth like a string of pale bats. Everything was exactly as he’d left it. The only exception was his desk, where his latest treatise on the history of Calevia lay open. Luren was fond of reading that tome and had likely spent some time with it after their conversation on the road that morning.

A quick search of the back rooms revealed nothing. He returned to the great room and glanced up at the shallow loft. Unless someone was lying up there on the floor in the back, it was as empty as the other rooms. Then he spied the stool lying like a corpse before the hearth. A dropped candlestick rested a few feet away like a discarded murder weapon. As he moved toward them, he noticed a white scar on one of the stones above the fireplace.

He rolled the candlestick over with his toe. One side of the iron base had an ugly scrape. Someone had thrown it across the room. His stomach soured at the revelation.

As he walked back to his desk, he spied something yellow scattered about in the shadows beneath it. He squatted down and pick a bit of it up. It was hair. It was Luren’s hair!

He grabbed the ledge of the desk to steady himself. His heart sank as he realized he was too late! They’d already been here. He’d failed. He’d failed Luren. He’d—

No!

He slapped the edge of the desk.

No, he told himself, there’s no time for defeatism! Not now! Not yet! He had to find out what happened. He had to remain strong. He had to find Luren!

Still squatting, he reached back and touched the base of his skull precisely at the junction of his neck. His fingers dug up into that hollow flesh until they found a small bump that marked the point where his caeyl sliver entered his skull. This was his Bloodlink, the point of articulation between his caeyl, the caeylsphere, and his mind. He closed his eyes and summoned the energy.

There was the usual kick of nausea as his thoughts merged with the caeyl, though the discomfort quickly passed as his thoughts swelled beyond the boundaries of his flesh. He pushed harder, driving his essence out into the caeylsphere. Within seconds, he sensed Luren’s essence, and the rush of relief was nearly incapacitating. Luren was still alive.

He probed further, tried to achieve deeper contact with the metaphysical cord that bound them together, but the mind-link wouldn’t form. Something was blocking him, corrupting the bond between his and the boy’s caeyls. He pushed harder, but quickly realized it was useless. A foreign energy was blocking his efforts. Prae’s energy! It had to be.

He opened his eyes. A surge of anger threatened him, but he willed it back. For now, he’d just have to be satisfied with the knowledge that the boy was at least still alive. This was no time for anger. Anger would only slow him down. He could deal with his anger later. Bracing himself with the desk, he stood up.

The book on the desk was open to a chapter detailing the Divinic War. Chance wondered why Luren would have an urge to read that section. Given the news from the sentry, he thought it more logical the boy would explore the Fifty Year War rather than something that occurred during the Faelwyth Epoch nearly a thousand years earlier. Then he saw it. Lying in the middle of the torn page was a small lock of yellow hair neatly tied by one longer strand. He reached for it, but stopped short of picking it up. It lay horizontally on the page, its position too perfect to be accidental. Someone had placed it there deliberately. It was a marker.

He steadied himself. Then he nudged the hair to the side and read the passage above it:

“Each time a warrior fell to death in battle, Ja’an’s wyrlaerds used their unholy power to channel another demon into the lifeless shell. Short of decapitation or dismemberment, these deathmarch warriors could not be made to fall in battle again.”

Chance idly rolled the lock of hair back and forth beneath his finger as he thought about the passage. Why would Luren be reading about a war of demons that occurred a thousand years ago? He picked up the hair and studied it. No, he thought as he examined it, Luren hadn’t been reading that passage at all. Someone else placed the lock there with the intention that he find it.

Prae! He’d been here. He’d been right here inside the house. The vile bastard had not only tampered with his caeyl energy, he’d trespassed all the way into Chance’s home.

Chance closed his eyes and once again wrestled back the threatening rage. He could not let it drive him, not now. He needed composure now more than he’d ever needed it before. It was a time for the mind, not the heart. He slipped the lock of hair into the pocket of his robe, then turned and inspected the room again. He again went into the back rooms, which were exactly as empty as he’d left them. There was nothing else to be found here in the house. It was time to explore the yard.

He passed through the front door, stepped down off the porch, and slipped to the right along the front of the house toward the side yard with his staff leveled and the hooded head out before him and ready. He crept around a fat rain barrel and eased his way to the corner of the house where he paused and listened. The world beyond the corner was as still as a plague field. Until a loud bellow erupted behind him.

Chance wheeled toward the noise. A bolt of blue light exploded from the wrapped head of his staff. He barely willed the sizzling caeyl energy away from the offending goose in time to avoid cooking him. The energy veered into the rain barrel, which instantly exploded. A rollicking wave of water and wood splinters rushed violently out into the grass before the house.

The old goose raced away, screeching most sincerely, followed by a small herd of squawking red chickens.

Chance fell back against the log house and tried to breathe. He stared at the sizzling skeleton of the old barrel. Water sloshed anxiously over the charred planks still holding the base of the barrel together. Rivulets of water snaked through the grass like quicksilver making its escape in the fading sunlight. The leather hood on his staff was smoking, but remained more or less intact. He hoped his heart fared as well.

The neurotic goose was on the opposite side of the yard now, though still bellowing raucously. The chickens, being a few steps stupider on the food chain, had already found their calm and were scratching through the grass just beyond the porch. Stealth was useless now. Anyone within earshot would know he was coming. It left him no more reason to hide. He took a few steadying breaths, and then brought his staff back to its offensive position before slipping around the corner into the side yard.

The yard was empty, save for his sentry. Or what was left of it. It squatted in the middle of the grass, listing sorrily to the right. The eyes were gray and lifeless, and its body so riddled with cracks, Chance marveled that it remained upright at all. One wing remained folded up over its back, but the other spread out at full length to its left, little more than a memory of rock fragments outlining its general shape in the grass beside it.

The corpse of a Vaemysh warrior lay at the creature’s feet, its remains locked in the relentless grip of the thick forearm’s stone talon. The sentry’s frozen claw gripped the warrior’s neck so tightly that it nearly decapitated the Vaemyn. Chance was reassured to see the sentry had functioned well enough to make a defense; perhaps Luren had made it into the woods in time.

He looked up and quickly surveyed the dense forest lining the edge of the yard. When he’d determined he was alone, he knelt down before the corpse.

A Vaemysh warrior! This fully closed the book on his doubts. The sentry had been exactly right in its assessment; there was an invasion at hand. He threw a sleeve to his eyes to block the terror threatening him. Why had he refused the boy’s offer to go along? He should’ve damned well known better. He smeared the pain back from his face and forced a steadying breath. Calm, Chance, he told himself, think now. Don’t react. Think!

He pushed his attention into the scene at hand. He needed to understand what happened here; this was a game of recovery now. Understanding the steps that had preceded his arrival was all that mattered.

The corpse wore dark leather leggings and high boots protected by steel greaves. Dirt and dried blood caked its mail, and muddied grass woven through the rings dulled the metal. It was camouflaged in the ways of the Vaemysh trackers, though this one’s mail was golden in hue, the quality higher than that afforded a mundane warrior. The wooden fox badge fastened to its chest indicated this one had been a saaro in an elite tracking unit, and it was proof Prae was most sincere about taking him unaware.

He inspected the steel bracers wrapping the corpse’s forearms. Etched into the right bracer was the image of a great tree with a swallow diving across its crown. Chance recognized it as the House of Treul, one of the oldest Vaemysh high families. It was exactly as he’d thought. This corpse had likely been the son of a lord. It meant the treachery went all the way up to the Vaemysh Council of Fates. It was as bad as it could get.

He waved away the flies covering the darkening face and bulging tongue. As the cloak of insects erupted from the corpse, he noticed a tiny gem dangling from the warrior’s left oteuryn. It was an amulet of black bloodstone carved in the image of a skullish head. It bore a toothy, lipless grin and empty sockets for eyes. It was a vile face, a horrifying face, the face of death. He jerked it free and held it up into a stray sunbeam. Scratches marred the surface of the tiny stone around the skullish eye sockets where someone had removed something from the amulet. As he considered it, he suddenly understood precisely what was missing from this token: A pair of Fire Caeyl chips.

“Fren’ba Shen's badge,” he whispered, “And now Prae’s.”

He cursed and rose to his feet. Anger rushed over him. He moved to heave the amulet into the trees, but quickly reconsidered. Instead, he dropped it into his robe pocket, the same pocket containing the lock of Luren’s hair. He had to maintain his reason. He’d need this as proof for the Allies.

He looked down at the dead warrior. Unable to resist the furious urges any longer, he threw a violent kick at the Vaemyn. The dead man’s ribs cracked beneath the blow, though the warrior didn’t complain for it. Chance felt disappointed at how little satisfaction the act afforded him.

He turned his attention to the sentry and thought about the other back at the valley’s edge, the one Prae or Prae’s minions had so obviously sabotaged. This time, he knew precisely what to expect when he tapped the creature's brow. A familiar yellow spark snapped at his touch.

He raised an index finger to the sentry’s eyes and rotated it in a circle just above its surface. Strands of blue light surfaced from the depths of the orbs. The light gradually began to swirl through the stone, following his fingertip. It seemed Prae hadn’t been completely successful; the energy of his Water Caeyl still prevailed in this sentry, though it clearly wouldn’t last. The stone’s cohesion was quickly failing.

“Sentry,” he whispered, “Do you hear me?”

No response.

Chance glanced back over his shoulder. The yard remained empty. He leaned closer to the gargoyle and pressed a splayed hand against the wide face, whispering, “Sentry, acknowledge me.”

The sentry didn’t comply.

Chance was about to try again when he sensed a low vibration emanating from the stone. Then, to his great surprise, the eyes actually flickered. Blue flashes sputtered through the orbs. A low growl briefly rose from the creature before falling back into silence.

Chance fingered the lock of hair in his pocket and considered what to do. He had to try to reenergize the sentry. He might buy it enough time to give him some information of value. The worst case was that the energy could fail completely and he’d be standing before a pile of rubble. He slipped the burnt leather hood from his staff and dropped it into the grass. The top of the wooden staff terminated in a carved, life-sized hand that gripped a smooth, featureless blue gem. It was a Water Caeyl, and it was as large as his fist. The Water Caeyl’s soft blue glow immediately heaved into an intense light that was nearly impossible to look at directly.

Chance lowered the staff’s head so that the carved hand held the caeyl to the creature's brow. Then he closed his eyes and summoned the energy swell from the caeylsphere. Moments later, he reopened his eyes. The sentry's orbs were now at full blue glow. The creature's head slowly blurred into animation and the mouth began to move, though no words came out. Instead, a high-pitched whine pierced the air.

Chance winced at the sound. He pulled the staff back. The blue light radiating from the sentry’s orbish eyes was devolving into a sour greenish hue. It didn’t take long for him to understand the cause of the dire transformation. The energy from his Water Caeyl hadn’t died in the sentry; it’d simply been hidden. Prae’s energy was infused in the sentry much like the one at the cliff, though it seemed every bit as irrational now as it had back there.

It went against everything he knew about caeyl energy. Two caeyl energies could never commingle in a single vessel. The caeylsphere wouldn’t permit it. One of the energies must always dominate. And even if they could somehow violate all the laws of nature, the energy of his Water Caeyl should have trumped Prae’s Fire Caeyl. The sentry was a stone golem, not a demon. His energy ruled the world of matter, not Prae’s.

The sentry was groaning now. Its unnatural voice rose and fell erratically as the green light pulsed in its eyes. Despite Prae’s corruption, it was trying to communicate with him.

“Speak, sentry,” he demanded, “What happened here?”

The creature’s modulating groan continued, but no words came with it.

“Sentry, I command you to speak to me!”

The sound pulsed eerily as the creature attempted to comply. The claw gripping the dead Vaemyn was contracting reflexively, alternately squeezing and releasing the neck with a sickening crunch. Green sparks sizzled and snapped across the stone face like streams of water pouring off a rock. Soon the entire sentry was shimmering in the unnatural glow of their combined energies.

The creature was vibrating so intensely Chance could feel it pulsing against his face. He backed slowly away. The whining sound had grown shrill and piercing. It felt like something drilling through his head. His eyes were watering. He covered his ears. The pain in his head was unbearable. His stomach twisted. He began to salivate.

As he backed away, the reality of the situation seized him. This was more than a simply tampering. This was sabotage! A trap! He turned to flee a heartbeat too late.

The explosion hammered him from behind. For a sickening instant, he was airborne.

He ground to a stop in the grass several yards later. Debris from the blast pelted his back and legs. He tried to push himself up from the dirt, but couldn’t find any leverage. His mouth was full of fresh blood. His ears were ringing. The fetid smell of singed hair was nearly overpowering. The world was reeling around him.

He had to get up. He had to get up now! He tried to focus, tried to drive back the approaching darkness, but his efforts were useless. He felt himself slump back into the spinning dirt. It was too late. He was already falling.

VIII

THE DETOUR

B

EAM SPENT THE DAY LIMPING HIS WAY DOWN THE MOUNTAIN.

The descent was rough and exhausting, with roots and rocks taunting his footing and every resulting slip harassing his aching ribs. When he finally reached the level comfort of the forest floor, he nearly wept with joy.

There’d been no evidence of the savages throughout his walk, though he’d seen plenty of other stranger creatures in their stead. There were dragonflies with wings as wide as his outstretched arms, snakes as fat as his thigh, and shimlins of more sizes and colors than he’d ever thought possible.

He loathed shimlins. Barely two feet tall, the slimy little human-shaped creatures were like two legged rats that could pick the food from a sleeping traveler’s teeth and be gone before the victims ever knew what happened.

The worst of his encounters involved a sorry looking beast the size of a large dog with long, hairy legs, a leathery head that was mostly jaws and rakes of teeth, and a bony shell covered in long, barbed spikes. The miserable creature chased him for a hundred yards before Beam finally managed to swing up onto a low hanging branch and put some altitude between them.

By late afternoon, he arrived at a narrow road. The road was crowded in on both sides by steep embankments, which essentially made it a wide, deep ditch. He knew full well that the smarter plan of action would be to follow the road from the seclusion of the forest above the banks, out of sight of mischievous arrows. He knew it was nothing more than raw stupidity to risk an unexpected meeting by strolling along the road itself in plain view of any passersby. On the other hand, his wounds were begging for a break from the arduous task of blazing the forest, so he opted to follow the road for just a bit, just a few miles at most, and then he’d head back up into the safety of the woods.

He followed the road as gingerly as his abused muscles would allow, taking great pains to leave no tracks with his heelless boots. The path cut through the forest like a gash, climbing ever higher up into the mountains. The banks of the road rose up a nearly vertical ten feet on either side, sometimes more, and he suspected that in the event of a storm or during the spring melts, this road wouldn’t be nearly so accommodating as it was now.

In time, the comfort of the road allowed the complaints of his aches and pains to fall into the background, and as they did, his mind drifted to his treasures. The swag he carried now would make him richer than he’d ever dared to hope. He’d crept out of Parhron at an early age little more than an outlaw, but he’d march back in a lord. Raised an orphan in a rundown priory, he’d retire in a palace, and he wouldn’t have to stay in the dungeon this time. No, this time he’d own the bloody place.

He thought back over his two years in the Vaemysh scrubs and swore that if he ever entered another crypt again it’d better be to occupy it. He’d seen more dead bodies than a retired hangman. Granted they’d been savages, but that fact didn’t make the task any less unsavory. Rot was rot, and it didn’t matter whose face wore it.

Yet, in spite of the grim nature of his work, the pickings had been perfectly delicious. The pack he’d left with Gerd back on the road had been bulging with jewels and gold he’d salvaged from the Vaemysh dead. It amazed him that a race so desperately poor and beaten down could afford to send so much booty with their dearly departed to land of Shalra’fon. If he were a savage, he’d happily send the dead on to the next shuffle with a clean suit of clothes, a quick prayer, and a hearty pat on the back. When it came to their riches, however, they’d have to fend for themselves on the colder side of life. What was the point in wasting the family fortune on—

He stopped.

At first, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The path all around him was a murder of footprints.

He turned and looked back at the road following him. The footprints trampled the dirt all the way back to the last curve behind him. There were dozens of them, maybe more, and the evidence showed that they were all marching in the same direction he was.

He pulled his knife from his belt and scanned the surrounding forest up above him. How long had he been daydreaming? Twenty minutes? An hour? He couldn’t have covered more than two, maybe three miles. How could he have missed this?

He slipped carefully to one knee and outlined a footprint with his finger. It was a heelless leather boot, and it was identical in manufacture to those he wore himself. They were of Vaemysh design, crafted explicitly for stealth. If not for the loose, damp sand covering this part of the road, he’d never have seen them.

There were savages in the vicinity! A whole stinking squad of them! Worse, they weren’t even trying to cover their trail, meaning they didn't care if anyone spotted them. He tapped his thigh with the broadside of his knife. How could he have missed them? How could he have been so bloody complacent?

He grabbed his head and fought back the urge to scream. “Damn my greed,” he muttered into his palm, “And damn me! I’m a miracle of stupidity.”

He’d been walking with his head in the sky. Even the laziest of trackers could’ve taken him out. He was getting sloppy and it was going to get him killed, likely sooner than later.

The road drove straight ahead for a hundred yards before slinking into another curve. It was time to take cover. He turned to the north side of the road and scaled his way up along a riot of exposed roots while leaving the ground behind him as uncompromised as possible. His body screamed at him for the effort, but the call for survival again trumped comfort.

Once above the road, he focused more on stealth than evidence of retreat. The Vaemyn, with their hypersensitive oteuryns, could ‘hear’ his vibrations from a long way out, even as far as a half mile if they had elites with them. He had to move lightly and with an awkward rhythm that didn’t speak of two legged travelers. It was an arduous and physically taxing technique. In his current state, he wouldn’t be able to walk this way long. Hiking through the wilds was strenuous enough under the best of circumstances, but now he’d be scrambling sideways along a steep slope while trying to move outside his natural rhythm.

By late afternoon, he spotted a blaze of sunlight pouring through the trees ahead of him. He stopped at a safe distance and watched for a bit. The forest was silent. Sensing no obvious danger, he crept up to the edge of the clearing and took shelter behind the mossy bark of a gigantic fir.

After the deep shade of the forest, the sunlight pouring into this open area was nearly unbearable to look at. It took him back to the waterfall, to flying out of the forest into total blindness. He peered under his hand into the brilliance. This peculiar clearing was a wide, treeless swath that ran up the mountain for a thousand feet or more. Dressed along the road at the base of the clearing was a long copse of saplings. Anyone could be hiding in there.

At the end of his analysis, he understood that it just didn’t matter. Dashing across the clearing would expose him to murderous eyes, but climbing all the way up the mountain to pass around it would probably kill him. His only viable option was to follow in the concealment of the young trees down near the road. If anyone were hiding there among them, he might at least have a shot at surprising them rather than the other way around.

Minutes later, he slipped into that thicket of saplings. To his surprise and delight, the woods were unoccupied. An oddly placed wall ran along the road for the length of the clearing like a kind of berm against the mountain. The irregularly shaped stones were stacked in the Baeldonian tradition without benefit of mortar, fitting together like pieces of a puzzle. A narrow stairway cleaved the wall at its middle, dropping to the road fifteen or twenty feet below. There were no signs of the savages.

He passed quickly along the wall’s wide ledge, crossed the odd stairway, and then climbed back up into the forest on the other side of the clearing. He’d barely made a hundred yards into the woods before he heard them. He dropped behind the shelter of a rotting log.

Here he had a good view of the road below, which ran straight away into the forest for several hundred yards before curving out of sight again. Unfortunately, that was the end of the good news. Marching toward him along that selfsame arrow-straight section of road was a squad of Vaemysh warriors. Their pale faces and white hair glowed collectively in the shadows like a squad of marching ghosts. A quick count numbered twenty-seven. There were three lines of nine warriors, each line in perfect formation, each warrior marching like the mirror image of the warrior before them. He wondered as he watched, just as he did every time he watched his pursuers, how disciplined these animals could be when determination drove them. Unfortunately, this discipline was their only impressive attribute as a race.

In honor of that discipline, he decided this would likely be a good time to retreat.

He sauntered back along the wall through the line of saplings and across the wide clearing. He’d just dropped into the cover of the other side when he heard the muffled bark of a Vaemysh officer. It came from the west, from the direction he’d originally entered this nest, from the direction he’d also intended to flee back into. They were coming at him from both directions. The bloody savages had him surrounded.

He dropped back behind a big oak, to regroup. As he waited for his breath to slow, he threw his head back into the coarse bark and whispered, “Damn me to hell, what is this? Spontaneous generation? Is the bloody dirt spawning the bastards?”

Pinned in between two squads of the savages with nowhere to flee, he considered the cleared swath running up the side of the mountain directly to his right. It was a steep, miserable climb, and in his current state of exhaustion, there was no way he’d be able to—

Another voice ricocheted through the forest. It was closer this time.

Decision made.

He pushed himself into the forest proper and straight on up the mountainside. The climb was grueling at best, forcing frequent stops so he could beg for air and wait for his heart to catch up with him. The dense white ferns that seemed to cover the entire forest were nearly chest deep here. It was like wading across a snow-covered pond, and they occluded his view of the ground beneath just as effectively. Every step was a risk. His failed ribs were clawing at his chest, and the humus was so sweet it made the air as thick as mud. Still, he persevered, working his way higher in fits and starts, and in time, the crest of the mountain delivered itself.

A line of towering redwoods rose up like giant sentries standing watch over the ridge of this small mountain. He was just yards from level ground. It seemed hope might not be a delusion after all.

And then a breathtaking explosion rocked the forest.

He dove beneath the surface of the white ferns and buried himself under his arms as the ground shuddered angrily around him. Within a few moments, the report of the explosion echoed into silence. It couldn’t have been a thunderclap; he hadn’t seen more than a couple isolated clouds all day. Whatever the source of that deafening noise, it came from mortal hands, not the gods or elements.

He carefully pushed himself to his knees peered up over the top of the ferns like a swimmer breaking the surface of a calm lake. It appeared he was alone, at least for the moment. He glanced back down the mountain. That explosion was going to incite the savages just as surely as a stone thrown at a hornet’s nest. In fact, they were probably making a beeline toward him even now. He had no choice but to keep moving forward. With the land leveling now, he might even be able to lean into a free run, or something akin to what a man with broken ribs, seriously bruised shins, and multiple lacerations could call a run.

He didn’t make more than a dozen paces before he heard the voices.

He again dove beneath the ferns and cursed the dirt. Where the hell were all these people coming from? He might just as well be walking through the chaotic marketplace of Farksborough; it couldn’t be any more crowded than these stinking woods. Had his skin not been on the line, he would’ve laughed at the absurdity of it.

Staying beneath the cover of the ferns, he worked his way stealthily the remaining few yards up the hill and toward the voices. He had to know what his options were.

The nature of the words grew clearer as he moved closer. They sounded Parhronii, which was at least hopeful. There were two voices, maybe three.

He swam forward through the white ferns until he came to the rotting remains of another fallen tree that perfectly intersected the path between him and his future. It’d been a colossus in its day, and even laying on its side was as tall as his shoulder. The voices came from an open area just beyond it.

He fell back into the cool comfort of the tree’s green-carpeted bark. When his breathing slowed enough to take the risk, he worked his way up its side. What he saw beyond it did nothing to improve his mood.

IX

THE WYRLAERD

C

HANCE’S FIRST THOUGHT WAS TO WONDER HOW LONG HE’D BEEN LAYING THERE.

He was sprawled on his stomach with the world spinning giddily beneath him. He pushed his way up onto a shoulder and then rolled roughly onto his back. His mouth tasted of dirt and blood.

A fat lump of cloud floated worriedly across the bruise-colored sky above him. He used it as a point of focus, watching it as it fled beyond the wall of the forest. The world continued circling beneath him, though less enthusiastically now. It was time to try getting up.

He groped for support in the grass. His hand found something cold and pliable. He held it up over his face. It was the severed hand of the dead Vaemyn.

He pitched it away and scrambled to his knees. The movement sent his head reeling. He doubled forward and dug his fingers into the dirt as he fought back the mutiny in his stomach. Blood dripped from a cut somewhere on his face. He focused on those crimson spots dotting the green grass like they were his lifeline.

In time, he found the strength to pull his head up from the trenches. The severed hand squatted in the grass a few yards ahead of him, resting on its back with its fingers sticking up in the air like the legs of a dead spider. The sight sent his stomach twisting again.

“Welcome back, sire.”

Chance startled at the voice. He tried to stand up, but his legs weren’t ready to support him. He stumbled back into the grass, landing hard on his shoulder.

“Do you need assistance, sire?”

The voice again! It was behind him!

He scrambled around on his knees until he discovered the source. A tall, armored figure stood several yards back amid the rubble of the sentry. He wore a golden cloak that was too long by inches. A deep cowl shrouded his face. He stood with his arms clasped casually behind his back. A half-circle of armed Vaemysh warriors stood at attention around him. The scene was surreal, like waking from an uncomfortable dream only to find it wasn’t a dream at all.

Chance attempted to stand, but the warriors rushed him with swords drawn, efficiently persuading him back to his knees. As he watched the Vaemyn forming a circle around him, he said to the stranger, “Who are you?” The weakness in his voice disappointed him.

The armored figure made an odd growling noise. “I shouldn’t think you of all people would need to ask that, Magi Chance Gnoman,” he said. His voice was coarse and grating, and quite irritating to the ears.

The man was extremely tall, easily over seven feet. He appeared to be a soldier, or possibly a knight. As the man stepped closer, Chance spied the black bloodstone broach clasping the cloak at his neck. It was identical to that worn by the dead warrior, except larger and with the yellow gems still embedded in the black eye sockets.

Chance glanced around for his staff, but found nothing. He closed his eyes and willed his essence out into the caeylsphere in pursuit of it.

“Are you looking for this, sire?”

When Chance opened his eyes again, the soldier was holding his staff.

The soldier walked toward him as casually as a neighbor coming to the fence for an evening’s chat. His armor made a strange hissing sound as he moved. He stopped just a pace beyond Chance’s reach, and then leaned casually into the staff. The only warrior not surrounding Chance stood at his side.

“That’s my caeylstaff,” Chance said carefully.

“Do I look like someone inclined to walk with a staff?” the man said, “Of course it’s yours.” The voice was as abrasive as grinding rocks.

“Give it to me,” Chance demanded.

“I doubt that would be in my best interest.”

“Who the hell are you? Where’s Luren?”

“You mean the youthful meat bag we found in your house?” the man replied, “In good time. But first, I must say…you, sire, are a thief.”

“What did you say?”

“You’re a thief! You’ve filched the joy I’d hoped to find in defeating you.”

Chance attempted to stand, but the flat of a sword blade landing on his shoulder persuaded him otherwise. He settled back to his knees. “Who the hell are you?”

“Truth be told, I expected more of a challenge from a mage of such notoriety. Why, I’m tempted to set you free just for the joy of beginning the chase anew.”

Chance examined at the warrior standing at the man’s side, and then looked up at the warriors surrounding him. Much like the dead man in the sentry’s grip, these warriors were all dressed in full battle regalia.

He turned back to the cloaked figure, and said, “I’m growing tired of asking. Who are you?”

“I swear I find the question equally tedious to hear,” the man replied, “Again, I’m profoundly disappointed you’d have to ask.”

“Do I look in the mood for games?” Chance said.

“No, I would say most assuredly not. Very well, perhaps this will help.” The man slipped the cloak back from his head.

The same seamless metal that covered his body helmed the stranger’s head. It looked like a metal cowl, with no spaces for eyes, ears, or a mouth. He recognized it immediately. It was mudsteel, a type of armor not seen in this world for centuries.

The soldier flicked his head, and as he did, the helm melted away from his face like water running off a pumpkin. The odor of hot tar spoiled the air. The creature’s skin beneath the metal was black and oily, with a mouth like a gash and only the vaguest suggestion of a nose. The only breaks in the tarry sheen were the penetrating lights emanating from the burning yellow gems embedded where eyes would be on a mortal. The face beneath the helm was the very image of the badge worn at its neck.

Chance felt the ground open beneath him. His gravest fear had finally drawn breath. It was worse than he’d imagined. Much, much worse. He closed his eyes and pushed a psychic pulse toward his staff. When he failed to make contact, he again probed for it, but still couldn’t make contact. It was as if an ethereal wall separated them.

“Why, sire,” the man said, “I swear you look like someone has just walked over your grave.”

Chance opened his eyes and looked up at the monstrosity. “A wyrlaerd,” he whispered.

“Wyrlaerd,” the creature repeated, “Such a vile term. I’d never have taken the famous Chance Gnoman for a bigot.”

“I can think of a few other ways to describe you.”

“But wyrlaerd is so common. You may call me Wonugh, Second Priest of Yuseg’s Gate of the Sixth Empyrean Realm of the Wyr.” With that, the demon belched an obnoxious noise that Chance guessed was intended as a laugh.

“Gatekeeper to the Sixth Hell,” Chance said. He felt sick. There was no worse revelation he could imagine than the sight of a wyrlaerd standing before him in the mortal plane. It meant the apocalypse was at hand.

The demon’s features twisted into a scowl. “Gatekeeper,” it repeated, “Another base description. Your lack of reverence is beginning to insult me. I’m a Divinic Demon, and I’m due a certain level of respect, even from one of the more sophisticated meat bags such as you.”

Chance spit a bloody wad into the grass, and then looked defiantly up into those foul yellow eyes. “Divinic,” he said with a forced laugh, “There’s nothing divinic about your kind.”

“Your kind? By the Lords below, your prejudice is simply unrelenting.”

“Go to hell.”

The demon leaned into Chance’s staff as its tarry face twisted into something akin to a grin. “You really must be more specific, sire,” it said, “Go to hell? Which one?” Again, the perverse laugh.

“Are they teaching humor in the Wyr now?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ve no intention of going back anytime soon.”

“You sabotaged my sentries.”

“You’re very perceptive. I’ll give you a point for that.”

“I should’ve expected this,” Chance said, “I should’ve known that lunatic Prae couldn’t have pulled this off by himself.”

“Well, I loathe agreeing with you, but I suppose you’re right. He could never achieve his goals without our assistance.”

“Our assistance?” Chance felt hope slip.

“You’re surprised?” the wyrlaerd said, “If you were a Fire Caeyl Mage, would you summon only one of us? It’d be such an unforgivable waste of your dwindling caeyl energy, wouldn’t you say? There’s better economy in numbers. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”

Chance looked at the warrior standing directly beside the demon. “Why are you doing this?” he asked him in Vaemysh, “Allying with Prae will bring your house to ruin, surely you understand this.”

The warrior flinched at that. He began to say something, but a gesture from the wyrlaerd sent him back into silence.

“You’ll end up slaves,” Chance pressed him, “Or worse. And trust me, he can make it much, much worse. You need to end this before it’s too late. You need to help me so I can help you.”

The demon laughed at that. “A fairly arrogant statement coming from someone squatting in the dirt, wouldn’t you say?”

Chance glanced back over his shoulder at the warriors surrounding him. Each bore Prae’s token pierced through the oteuryns curling up from behind their right earlobes, and with that revelation, he understood. These were each potentially hacks, shells of men under the control of the demons themselves. Only the warrior standing directly beside the demon was free of Prae’s sign.

His desperation surged. He tried again to form a link with the caeyl in his staff, but the demon’s Fire Caeyls were interfering, creating a mystical sludge in the immediate caeylsphere. Unable to connect, he climbed unsteadily to his feet. The warrior without the token moved in to steady him.

“Ah,” the demon said, “I’m pleased to see your strength returning.”

“Your concern flatters me,” Chance responded. He looked up at the head of the staff, at the simmering blue light in the caeyl. He needed to reach it. He had to regain control over it or die in the process.

He again willed his mind through the interference and this time found success. The usual rush of dizziness seized him as his mind formed a link with the Water Caeyl. The blue stone flamed to life. The demon’s arm jerked forward in reaction to the staff’s urge to return to its master, but the beast didn’t release it and the staff didn’t break free. Instead, the creature pulled it in tighter. The yellow Fire Caeyls that were its eyes flamed blindingly. They were once again confounding Chance’s link with his caeyl. It was like a metaphysical game of tug of war.

“I know it may seem like a mortal weakness,” the demon said as it struggled with the staff, “But I believe I’ll keep your stick as a trophy.”

The warriors behind Chance snickered at that. Only the untagged Vaemyn, the one who’d helped Chance up, did not.

Chance doubled his efforts. He commanded his essence back at his caeyl. The great blue stone flamed brilliantly, casting a heat that forced the warrior beside the demon to back away with hands raised. The staff began vibrating more convincingly. Chance closed his eyes and summoned the caeyl energy up from the earth around him. The air felt as sharp as a lightning strike. The staff began shaking hard enough that the demon needed both hands to retain possession of it.

Just when it seemed he might wrestle back control of his caeyl, one of the Vaemyn standing behind him drove a foot into the back of his leg. Chance collapsed to his knees. The same warrior then kicked him into the grass.

The blow nearly knocked the wind out of Chance. Still, he refused to submit. He shook his head and slowly pushed himself up to his knees. Then he looked back over his shoulder at the warrior who’d kicked him and said in Vaemysh, “Do that again and I’ll boil you where you stand.”

The demon grabbed the untainted warrior by the back of his neck and shoved him roughly toward Chance. “You see the mighty mage you’ve come to slay, Vaemyn? His slave boy put up more of a fight.”

“Ay’a, Lord Wonugh,” the warrior replied, though he was clearly getting no pleasure from the interaction. He seemed uneasy, even scared.

“Such a pity,” the demon said, “This is more of a mercy killing than a hunt. What do you think? Shall we hang him now? Or spare the rope and cut his throat?”

The uneasy warrior didn’t reply. He was staring hard at Chance, looking at him as if he knew this was wrong, as if he were more afraid of Chance than the demon. Chance knew he damned well should be.

“Well?” the wyrlaerd snapped at the warrior, who nearly jumped out of his skin, “What’s your feeling on this, my friend? Rope or blade?”

“Leave him be,” Chance ordered the demon, “Why don’t you ask one of your hacks, instead?”

The nervous warrior bristled at the word, and with that, Chance immediately knew he was right about this one. He wasn’t a hack. He didn’t even know his comrades were hacks. He was simply a misguided Vaemysh loyalist who was finding himself increasingly uncomfortable with his people’s recent alliances.

“There are no hacks among the Vaemysh,” the demon said, grinding out another uncomfortable laugh, “All these dedicated warriors are here of their own accord. They’re here out of loyalty to Lord Prae and to their people.”

“What is it you want?” Chance asked.

“What is it I want?” The creature’s glowing eyes drifted over toward the blue Water Caeyl glowing softly atop the staff. “Where do I start? The list is so long.”

“What do you want from me?” Chance demanded, “What does that madman hope to accomplish here?”

“For the love of Wyr,” the demon said, slowly shaking its head, “Is it possible you really don’t know? How could that be? Was the formidable Water Caeyl Mage of Na te’Yed actually taken by surprise?”

“You confuse surprise with disgust.”

“Do I? Your security is pitiful. Your intelligence is practically nonexistent. We marched fifty thousand warriors right up to the border of your little kingdom, and you’re as ignorant of it as if it’d been a mischief of shimlins. You should be ashamed, you and your pretentious friends to the north, the wondrous Baeldons.”

Chance could only look at him. What response could he possibly offer? The wyrlaerd was right.

“Not that they’ll be of any concern for a while,” the demon continued, “The Baeldons, I mean. Not while they’re fighting their dearest friends.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re pathetically out of touch, aren’t you?” The demon laughed. “You are so predictably unaware of the little war we’ve arranged between the Baeldons and the Parhronii.”

“War?”

“They’re mobilizing their troops along their mutual borders even as we speak. The Baeldons have abandoned the war in their backyard for the fistfight in the front.”

“You’re lying.”

“Am I? Well, as much as I would love to convince you otherwise, there are more important matters demanding my attention. Not that you should let it concern you overmuch. You won’t be in a position to worry about it much longer anyway. Your mortal time is running out, my dear friend, so allow me to summarize the situation for you. Something valuable has entered your little kingdom, something of great importance to Lord Prae.”

“What are you talking about? What’s entered the forest?”

“A Parhronii rogue has stolen something of ours. We’ve tracked him here to your forest. Give him up to us and we’ll free the boy.”

“A Parhronii?” Chance asked, “There’ve been no travelers in these parts for weeks. What Parhronii are you searching for?”

“Heroics are such a pathetic mortal weakness.”

“These aren’t heroics,” Chance demanded, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve had no visitors.”

“You put on a brave act for a dead man.”

“It isn’t bravery. I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

One of the possessed warriors behind Chance kicked him to the ground, and then immediately grabbed his hair and dragged him back up to his knees. As he brutally twisted Chance’s head back to expose his neck, another warrior slid a sword blade across his shoulder so that the blade’s edge teased his throat.

The yellow fire in the wyrlaerd’s eyes flamed higher. Chance felt the icy touch of the demon’s essence probing his head. His stomach lurched at the sensation. His throat was on fire, his tongue thick and wet.

And then, as rapidly as the sensation had arrived, it was gone.

The warrior behind him released his hair. Chance spit the thick saliva into the grass and dragged his hand over his mouth. “I don’t know of any Parhronii,” he said as he struggled to breathe, “That lunatic you call a master has made a sorry mistake.”

“Yes, so it appears,” the wyrlaerd said, “Sadly, that leaves us with no option but to extricate you from Lord Prae’s plans. Still, it’s unfortunate your slave boy will be the one to pay for your incompetence. I hope you can take some assurance in the fact that Lord Prae will surely put him to good use.”

“I’ll see you dead before this is over!” Chance said to the demon.

“Really?” the wyrlaerd said, feigning surprise, “How terrifying! Why, you gave me a tremble.”

“I’ll boil the tar out of that armor and send you straight back to the pits you were puked from!” Chance shouted, “I swear it to Calina!” Then he knocked the blade from his shoulder and moved to stand, but the possessed warrior behind him clubbed him back to his knees.

Chance doubled forward onto his hands. The pain of the blow felt like a spike in his skull. The world was spinning again. He pushed himself back against his heels. He couldn’t focus properly, but didn’t dare show weakness. He looked up into the blur of the demon’s shape and locked contact with the spot where he thought its eyes should be.

“I believe the sincerity of your words, Magi Gnoman,” he heard the demon saying in the distance, “I really do. But I’m afraid you’ll find that a fairly difficult promise to keep.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Chance forced himself to say, “I will kill you! Just as Calina is my witness, I will.”

The wyrlaerd then looked over at the unaffected warrior standing beside him and said, “I’ve made the decision, mortal. The rope’s too slow, and it pains me to see him suffer so. Use your blade. Put his wretch out of his misery.”

The warrior bristled at that. For just the barest instant, he seemed to waver.

“Would you care to debate that order?” the demon said to him.

The warrior suddenly looked terrified. “No, my lord.”

“Perfect,” the demon said, gesturing toward Chance, “Then do your duty to your king and kin. Kill this miserable bag of meat.”

The warrior looked from the wyrlaerd to Chance. He hesitated only for the briefest moment, and then nodded and said, “Ay’a, Lord Wonugh. By your will.”

With that, the wyrlaerd simply turned and walked away with Chance’s staff still in its hand.

“You need hacks to do your dirty work?” Chance yelled after him.

The demon didn’t stop.

“Divinic Demon?” Chance shouted, “You’re a coward!”

The demon stopped near the window overlooking Chance’s desk. Then it slowly turned and leaned into Chance’s staff. Its tarry face twisted into a perverse interpretation of a grin. “Carry on, Vaemyn,” it said as it laughed, “Let us be done with this monotony.”

“I’ll kill you before this is over!” Chance yelled after him, “Do you hear me? I swear to gods, I’ll kill you!”

Someone grabbed Chance’s hair from behind and wrenched his head back viciously so that his neck was again exposed. The uncompromised warrior stepped before him. He looked scared to death as he pressed the cold blade tip into Chance’s trachea.

“I’ve defended your people!” Chance pleaded with him, “You have to listen to me. I’ve championed your cause to the Allies. I’ve worked to return Na te’Yed to you, to end your isolation. I can help you!”

The warrior hesitated. He readjusted his grip on the sword. He swallowed, hard.

“Don’t do this,” Chance said carefully, “You can’t turn back from this. You’ll regret it the rest of your life.”

One of the possessed warriors abruptly rushed forward and shoved the uncompromised Vaemyn out of the way. “Don’t plead for your life with lies, mage!” he said as he pressed his own blade to Chance’s neck, “You’re a tool of the Allies, just as you’ve always been.”

Chance recognized the tone of the wyrlaerd in the warrior’s voice. The demon was speaking to him through the mouth of the hack. Pleading was useless. He needed to retrieve his staff or he was going to die.

“Do you know what you’re called among their people?” the demon asked through the possessed warrior.

Chance tried to grab the hand locked on his hair, but another warrior seized his arm and twisted it hard behind his back.

The offending warrior released a queer laugh and said, “They call you the Head with Many Faces.”

Chance struggled uselessly against the warriors restraining him. Desperate, he looked over at the uneasy warrior who stood off to the side looking worriedly back at him, “Make him stop!” Chance demanded of him, “If you don’t, you’ll throw your people’s fate into the fire. You’ll condemn everyone and everything you love to damnation! They’re hacks! Can’t you see that? You’ll all be hacks when Prae’s done! Do you want to be possessed? Do you?”

“Shush now, mage,” the possessed warrior said, “It grieves me to see you suffer so.”

Chance closed his eyes and threw his essence out into the caeylsphere and toward his staff.

“And now you die, Magi,” the warrior said.

Chance looked up to see the hack snarling weirdly as he cocked the blade for the killing blow.

But the blade never landed. Instead, the possessed warrior shuddered and stiffened, and his hollow eyes filled with the first mortal emotion Chance had seen in him: Surprise.

X

INTERVENTION

B

EAM WAS LOOKING AT THE BIGGEST LOG HOUSE HE’D SEEN THIS SIDE OF FARK’S FREEHOLD.

It sat in a square clearing in the forest. Two behemoth redwoods flanked its sides, each large enough to drive a cart through, each big enough to dwarf the long dead giant he currently crouched behind. An expansive covered porch ran the full length of the front of the house, and windows with actual paned glass lined the side. The roof was thatch and coated in an emerald green moss that shimmered in the fading sunlight. A broad stone chimney towered over the far side of the house. He could see the outlines of a few barns, outbuildings, and stock pens scattered back in the woods behind it. It looked like a squire’s estate, and seemed a sight too homey and respectable for being so far out in the middle of nowhere.

However, as appealing as this setting was, it was the activities in the foreyard that most piqued his interest.

A hundred paces out into the meadow, halfway between his shelter and the log house, were six figures. Four were savages who wore the same camouflaged ring mail as those sneaky bastards back at the river. They stood in a half circle around a kneeling man with drawn swords and expressions as lethal as a heart seizure. He knew the look intimately. It didn’t bode well for the kneeler.

Standing directly before the kneeler was a remarkably tall man dressed in silver armor and cloaked in a garish blonde cape. His hood was back and he appeared to be wearing some kind of black mask or cowl, though it was hard to tell which from this distance. He was holding some kind of tall scepter with a blue gem mounted at the head that sparkled a tad too brightly in the fading daylight. Given his brash dress and the positions of deference presented by the savages, he figured this one to be the leader.

The kneeler seemed the least out of place here in this hideaway in the middle of the backwoods. His shoulder length brown hair was disheveled and unkempt. He wore a dirty, tattered tan robe tied at the waist with a frayed piece of rope. He was almost certainly some kind of monk, probably from some fringe priory dedicated to seclusion and an apparent rejection of hygiene. He was unarmed and appeared to be pleading with the warriors, who weren’t playing fair. As usual.

As if in confirmation, the savage standing directly behind the monk brutally kicked the poor man into the grass. Another savage immediately dragged him by the hair back to his knees.

Beam’s anger heaved up, hot and demanding. Even by the darkest standards of villainy, such barbarity was reprehensible. Why would they gang up on a helpless hermit anyway? What possible threat could a fanatical monk living so far from any kind of civilization be to them? It was the lowest form of savagery, even for a savage. The sight was simply further proof that the Vaemyn were no better than animals and they deserved every ill that came their way.

The monk tried to stand up, but one of the savages booted him back to his knees. Beam dropped his forehead into the moss-covered bark. No, he told himself. No, do not do this. Don’t even think about doing this. That monk is none of your concern. You’ve got your own damned skin to worry about. You don’t have the bloody right to intervene, let alone the responsibility. Anyway, where’s the stinking payoff? There isn’t any, that’s where! This is just the natural order of things and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it. You need to walk away and you need to do it now.

There! Decision made. Now move along.

With the savages’ collective attention focused on their game, his flight would be much more efficient. He turned away and crept low along the log toward the deeper woods. From there, he could make a safe flight to the north. He was sorry, truly sorry for the monk, but the pitiable fool’s death wouldn’t be in vain, would it? It’d help him get away, at least. That was something, right?

The monk cried out again, louder this time.

The cry landed like a kick in the stomach.

Beam dropped to his knees and cupped his hands over his ears. No! No! No! Don’t do this! Keep going! There’s no helping him now. The monk is as good as dead. You have to keep moving. You have to keep pushing forward and resist looking back. It’s the looking back that will get you killed. You just need to leave this all behind.

“But Be’ahm, surely you know nothing is ever left behind.”

Beam felt the ground dissolve beneath him. He slumped into the log and seized his face. That voice! His voice.

The memories crushed down on him from a mountain of guilt. His mind fled to his youth, to his parents, who died while he was an infant, to the extended family that abandoned him in shame, to Brother Dael, who took him in at the priory without question or prejudice. To Brother Dael, who’d raised him as a son, who’d stayed with him through all his bad decisions and dark deeds. To Brother Dael, with his long hair and threadbare robes.

His eyes burned with the heat of his shame. “Goddamn you,” he whispered, “Getting yourself killed over a ghost. Well, that’s just brilliant, it really is.”

He unbuckled the wide belt strapped across his chest, slipped the weapons from his back, and quickly freed the crossbow. His damaged fingers worked with more ease than they had a right to. Perhaps stupidity had some kind of numbing effect. He sure as hell hoped so, because it’d make it so much easier to bear when the arrows found his back.

He quietly freed his new sword from its bindings and propped it carefully on its tip against the fallen tree. The red eye shimmered in the hilt as if watching him. He lowered the crossbow’s tip to the dirt and braced the stirrup with his foot, then slowly spanned back the bowstring. Once locked, he slipped a black-feathered bolt in place. With three more bolts in hand, he crept up the side of the fallen tree.

The crossbow slid out across the bark. He laid the extra bolts on the moss beside it. Dusk was falling fast. He prayed the forest behind him was dark enough to camouflage his appearance, at least for a couple shots.

Out in the yard, one of the savages had his sword poised at the kneeling man’s neck. He looked uncertain, confused even. But then another warrior roughly shoved him out of the way and replaced him in the executioner’s position. Beam recognized the lusty smile worn by this new bastard. It was a look he’d seen many times before, up close and personal.

The revelation that the savages were fighting over who got to kill the poor monk pushed Beam’s ire to the limit. They were goddamned barbarians, and he was going to thoroughly enjoy seeing the bloody bastards go down for this! As he hugged the bow and drew a bead on the grinning warrior, he realized that this opportunity was actually a gift. He may yet get caught or he may yet get away, but either way he was going to enjoy this delicious moment while he had it.

Just as the bastard savage cocked his sword back for the killing blow, Beam nudged the trigger. He didn’t wait for the bolt to find its target, but instead fell back behind the tree and reloaded. Seconds later, he was back up top and aiming at his next victim.

The warrior he’d shot lay on his back, stone cold dead in the grass with a black bolt sticking whimsically up from his brow. The other warriors whirled about in confused circles. The tall, armored man remained back near the side of the house, watching the commotion in a detached, disinterested manner. Whoever he was, he showed no sign of alarm.

Beam smiled as he sent another volley.

The second bolt sliced cleanly through the neck of the next luckless savage. He felt no remorse as he watched the savage floundering about with the lifeblood spraying out of him. In truth, he loved the sensation of murder by distance, of adding the chill of surprise to the agony delivered by the strike. And the fact that the stinking savages were on the receiving end of this particular surprise only made the dish that much tastier.

Still, even as he relished the moment, he remembered the promise he’d made to change his dark ways, to abandon the man he’d been. But standing here now with that dirty pleasure tickling in his stomach, he knew the old ways could never be left behind, not completely, not by men like him. Some desires run deeper than habit.

The third warrior was on his hands and knees, his head slung low to the grass as if sniffing at the earth, though Beam knew he was actually listening for vibrations with his horns. Before Beam could even slide back from the tree to reload, the savage’s head twisted around toward the fallen oak and his eyes locked on him.

Beam grabbed for the third bolt, but in his haste knocked it away. He watched in horror as the last two bolts rolled over the side of the tree and out of his life. The third savage was already charging across the grass for him.

Beam retreated back from the tree. He heaved the crossbow at the savage just as the bastard crested the log, but the Vaemyn easily knocked it away. The warrior flew over the tree and landed in the soft humus with his sword at the ready. He was dressed in a foreboding grin. He immediately began walking toward Beam, waving his sword lazily back and forth across the space between them.

Beam grabbed the knife from his belt and held it up defensively. Sadly, it didn’t look anywhere near up to the task of facing the savage’s dancing sword.

“Well, well, well,” the savage said in perfect Parhronii standard, “I believe I know you, skeechka.”

“You should,” Beam said as he backed away in tandem, “In the world of brutes and savages, I’m the Angel of bloody Death.”

The savage laughed at that. Then he nodded at Beam’s face and said, “I pray that’s the result of my kinsmen’s hands?”

Beam instinctively touched his bruised cheek. “What, the eye? Nah, couldn’t be. The only kinsmen of yours I’ve met recently are floating downriver in chunks.”

The warrior’s grin evaporated. “You’re going to be an asshole to the end, aren’t you?”

Beam shrugged. “Love me for the way Calina made me. Who are you to second guess a goddess?”

The warrior sliced the air between them with three vicious strokes, and then began inching forward. “You’ve been a pain in our ass for quite some time now,” he said, “Like a boil that won’t properly suffer a lancing.”

Beam continued easing his way backward. “Trust me, friend,” he said, forcing a grin, “The feeling’s mutual.”

“Are you going to give me the caeyl? Or will you do me the favor of resisting so I can pick it from your corpse?”

“Sure, I’ll give it to you,” Beam said, “Like I gave it to your cousins out there. Just give me a minute to grab my sword.” He looked past the warrior at his sword resting uselessly against the fallen tree a dozen paces away. Even from here, he could see the red eye in the golden eagle’s claw. It was practically glowing in the shadows.

“You don’t have a minute.” The warrior lunged.

Beam only barely missed having his belly sliced opened by parrying the blade with his comparatively tiny knife.

The warrior attacked again. This time his blade tip caught the edge of Beam’s hand. Beam watched with great disappointment as his knife flipped off into the leaves on a spray of blood.

“Son of a bitch!” Beam yelled at him as he tucked the wounded hand under his arm.

The warrior was grinning as he leveled his sword tip toward Beam’s face. “I wish I could convey just how thankful I am to be the one who found you,” he said, “Calina blesses me with your blood.”

Beam again glanced at his own sword. He needed to get to it if he wanted to live. He just had to find a way around the little inconvenience of a sword tip circling the space before his face.

Still backing away, he said to the savage, “I tell you what. You put down your weapon and I swear to gods I’ll let you go with your skin intact.”

The warrior’s eyes darkened. “You’re an itch I’ve wanted to scratch for a long, long time,” he said like he meant it. He pressed forward with another lunge. Beam only barely swiveled out of the way in time.

“Goddamn it!” Beam shouted at him, “You should know you’re really testing my patience!”

“That’s quite amusing, skeechka,” the warrior snarled back, “But I don’t have time for your games. I’m going to kill you now. And I believe I’ll keep your ears as a memento.”

The warrior attacked.

The blade sliced across Beam’s belly, coming close enough to hear the scratch of steel on leather. He spun away, nearly falling for the effort. The savage sliced at him again, and then again, pressing in more boldly with each assault as Beam evaded him with rapidly diminishing margins.

Beam realized his final seconds were quickly ticking down, and he suffered a surge of irritation for it. The truth was he was about to be murdered at the hands of his own guilt. All for the memories of a goddamned monk! It was almost funny.

The warrior feigned left, but then attacked right. Beam dodged too late and braced himself for the incoming strike. But instead of the cold burn of steel, there was a brilliant pulse of red light followed by the pleasure of cold metal in his hands. He heard a shrill scream. Something hot and wet sprayed his face.

He landed on his back with the bastard savage sprawled atop him and the prick’s short sword spiked in the dirt an inch from his ear. The weight of the body was driving Beam’s own hilt so deeply into his gut that he couldn’t draw a breath. With great effort, he rolled the corpse off him and scrambled back from the murder, backing away on his hands and knees with his breath returning in gags and fits.

It was all too unbelievable. Buried to the hilt in the dead Vaemyn’s chest was his sword, his new sword, the sword he’d last seen leaning against the tree twenty feet away. Blood streaked the golden handle and coated the red crystal eye. It felt like a dream, unreal and unbelievable. He looked back at the lonely tree. When had he grabbed it? How had he grabbed it? It’d been too far away to reach. It had to be some kind of hallucination, the clutch of confusion brought on by the fever of battle.

He climbed stiffly to his feet. He spit some blood into the dirt. He wiped his hands on his britches as he walked over to the corpse. It didn’t matter how he’d reached his sword, he told himself. It was there when he needed it, and he couldn’t waste the time or energy pursuing foolish theories even if he’d had the time and energy to spare, which he most certainly did not. Instead, he braced the corpse with a foot and pulled the weapon free.

There was no time to ponder it now, not with an infestation of warriors crawling up the hill toward him. He had to get the hell out of there. He scooped up his knife and ran for the tree.

The armored figure was still standing back by the house. He had his hands raised out in the air before him as if trying to stop an approaching wagon. The monk was now on his feet and had somehow gotten his hands on the black-masked man’s staff or scepter, which he held leveled spear-like toward the man. He wore an expression of rage fierce enough to melt steel. Beam figured the masked man would be well advised to do more than just stand there with his hands up. The fourth savage was nowhere to be seen.

The mage yelled something threatening at the masked man just as a pungent, metallic scent filled the air. Before Beam could process what he was seeing, a blue bolt of lightning erupted from the end of the monk’s staff and sizzled across the yard toward the masked man. In the same instant, a similar charge of yellow light streaked out from the raised hands of his opponent. The peculiar lightning streams met in the middle, exploding into each other in a great, rolling ball of green fire.

Beam couldn’t believe what he was looking at. The fireball raged a yard above the ground, skewered in place by opposing streaks of lightning. Black smoke roiled up from the corpses smoldering just beneath it.

The monk appeared even wilder than before, with his teeth bared and long hair floating eerily around his head. Gone was the victim. Gone was the pathetic, defeated hermit. Gone was the image of a gentle, troubled man that had so compelled Beam to lay his head on the block for a man he didn’t even know.

Never mind, he told himself, it means nothing now. The savages would be pouring over the edge of the climb at any minute. It was time to put an end to this so he could make his retreat while he still had some skin to protect.

He shoved his weapons over the side of the fallen tree and into the yard, and then scrambled over himself. Once free of the tree’s shield he felt the true power of the blaze. Even from so far away, the heat felt as intense as standing next to a smelting furnace. The sickening reek of the corpses broiling in the grass beneath the fireball was nearly unbearable.

He could see the monk was tiring quickly, and he understood his defeat would leave Beam with the masked man’s undivided attention. Though he wanted nothing more than to run like hell, he knew this was a variable he couldn’t leave hanging behind him. He had to finish what he’d started. So he spiked his sword into the dirt and quickly spanned his crossbow. He dropped a bolt into place, moved a few paces to the side for a clearer shot, then cradled the bow against his shoulder and took aim at the armored man. The bolt buried itself deep into the soldier’s forehead.

Beam was about to applaud his remarkable skills of marksmanship when the unthinkable happened. The masked man remained standing. His fight with the monk didn’t even waver. The feathered bolt stuck out from the middle of its forehead like a misplaced antler, exactly as planned, but it had no more effect than to draw the man’s attention.

The masked man was looking directly at him now with eyes that burned in reflection of the yellow lightning. Even as he fought the monk, even as that bizarre light issued from his hands, even as he struggled for control of that fireball raging between them, his attention was focused on Beam.

In that unbelievably bizarre moment, Beam realized that the man wasn’t wearing a mask at all. In fact, he wasn’t even a man, not by any definition Beam was familiar with. That black, oily substance covering his face was skin. Stranger even than his flesh, his eyes weren’t just reflecting the light, they looked to be actually glowing from within, burning with the same yellow flame as the lightning issuing from his hands.

Impossible, Beam told himself as he quickly reloaded his bow. Maybe he was still back in the cave, still suffering the delusions brought on by that fouled rabbit. Maybe he was asleep and chained to the deliriums brought on by his wounds. Maybe he was dying. And yet, dream or no, delusion or no, reality or no, it made no difference in the end. He simply refused to yield.

He raised the crossbow and fired again, and again the bolt buried itself into the man’s head, penetrating the right temple, but this time the shot had consequences. The man’s yellow charge wavered briefly, just long enough that the monk was able to force the fireball back toward it. The flames rolled closer to the man, to within yards of it, a roiling ball of frenzied green light that looked more liquid than fire.

That did it. Whatever manner of creature this was, man or beast or something yet unnamed, it now had to focus its full attention on its battle with the monk. It staggered back from the inferno, its face bubbling in the heat. Black liquid spattered its armor and streaked down its chest as if he were a wax figure melting before a fire.

Beam couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Nothing could have survived so close to that fireball, and yet the strange creature continued fighting despite it. It was unexplainable.

Enough is enough, Beam told himself again. He’d done what he could. He’d given it his all and had nothing to show for it but a couple lost bolts and the attention of a murderer. The hermit monk was on his own. It was time to make his exit.

He turned to gather his weapons, but the sword was gone. Then he spied it. It was back by the tree. It was standing upright leaning against the bark. He remembered spiking it in the dirt, and right there before his feet was the hole it’d left as evidence. As he looked back at the sword, he saw the light. The eye wasn’t just dimly glowing; it was a brilliant flame, a beacon of crimson light that raged through the blood drying on the hilt, sending spikes of light dancing around it.

“What the hell is this?” he whispered.

The sound of the battle faded behind him. A voice materialized in his head, the same voice from the cave, the same voice that led him to the sword, to the strange crystalline room with the remains of the proud Vaemyn.

Trust your memories, Be’ahm. You must trust your memories.

Beam threw a hand to his eyes and fought back the illusion. That’s all it was, an illusion brought on by a weak mind and a tendency for self-indulgence. Helping the monk had been a childish act of pride and arrogance just the same as it had been with Gerd, and he was a fool and a sap for having succumbed to it. He had to leave! He had to get the hell out of here and back to Parhron and the city, back to the modern life. He had to get away from this nightmare before it consumed him!

When he opened his eyes again, he was holding the sword.

Blood rushed into his head, hot and demanding, and for just an instant, he felt faint. This could not be! The silvery blade rose up before him. The eye just beneath his grip was nearly blinding in its brilliance. Then he felt himself turning. It was the only way he could register the sensation. He felt himself turning back toward the battle, felt himself walking forward, felt himself leveling the sword at the man or creature or whatever the hell this thing was that so vexed the monk.

The dark soldier craned its head back at him, tracking him with its obscene eyes even as it continued its fight with the monk. Its face was boiling now. The radiance of heat shimmered from its head. The bolts still jutted out from its forehead, though they were drifting lower as the creature’s flesh melted. The odor of hot tar smothered the air even above the stench of the burning dead.

Beam felt himself moving quickly around behind the tarry bastard, the sword leveled lethally in his hands. And then, much to his horror, he felt himself charging toward it.

The blade pierced the armor as easily as a pitchfork pierces straw. He rammed into the beast at a full run.

He bounced back from the impact and collapsed into the smoking grass, yet somehow maintained enough self-control to roll quickly away from the heat. A screech ripped through the forest, a shrill, penetrating wail as cold as death. He knew the sound. He’d heard it before. He’d heard it in the cave, and it was as terrible in life as it’d been in his dream.

The shrieking beast continued to hurl its yellow energy at the monk even after it’d dropped to its knees. The sword’s hilt jutted out from its back, and the red light from the eye embedded in the pommel bathed the world in crimson radiance. The scream grew higher in pitch. Beam scrambled back against the log house and clapped his hands to his head. The horrible noise pulsed through his skull like a seizure, shuddering down his spine and into his limbs until every bone in his body wanted to throw itself free of him.

The dark figure began to shake. Then it convulsed violently. It twisted away from the monk as it dropped sidelong into the grass. The yellow charge followed its misplaced hands as it collapsed. The mysterious yellow light raced chaotically across the grass, leaving a fiery trail in its wake before landing on the log house. Beam rolled clear just as the logs above him exploded into flames.

He scrambled hastily out into the yard. His shirt and britches were smoking and he could smell the singed hair of his beard. The beast was still shrieking behind him, though less enthusiastically now. The yellow lightning was gone, leaving only the smoking corpses and the impending dusk fractured by the light of the burning house in its wake.

As he watched the creature convulsing in the grass, its scream faded to silence, and then the beast fell still.

The thing lay half on its side, propped up by the sword hilt sticking out of its back, its arms bent up stiffly at the elbows, its fingers reduced to stubs of glowing, molten steel. A few stubborn yellow sparks danced and popped across the smoking armor before finally dissipating into the earth beneath it.

He watched as the monk walked over to the dead beast. The man moved as quickly and deliberately as if he were doing nothing more dangerous than crossing the room for another bowl of stew. His apparent lack of fear for a creature that’d nearly sent him to a better life surprised Beam. Then again, if the man’s appearance was any indication, he probably lacked the faculties to understand what’d just happened.

The monk squatted before the mangled armor. The creature’s tarry face was pocked and cratered, and any human resemblance it once possessed was now gone forever.

Beam scaled his way to his feet. It took more effort than pleased him. His ribs were fully awake now and screaming for his attention. Bracing his side, he limped toward the monk. “Damn me, what in the name of Calina was that?” he asked the man.

Just as the question tripped from his lips, the dead creature’s misplaced yellow eyes flared and the armor heaved. Beam jumped back, but the armor immediately collapsed into the grass and went still. Steam hissed from the armor’s neck and melted fingertips, and the yellow eyes faded to gray. Then the head abruptly collapsed in on itself and a great rush of tarry liquid retched up from the neck of the armor. Beam watched the oily fluid slowly stream into the grass.

The monk poked the smoking suit with his toe. “It’s dead,” he said

“You think so?” Beam said, forcing a laugh, “I mean, what with it not having a head and all?”

“No, I mean…you killed it.”

“So it seems.”

Beam looked up at the monk, who stood a few inches taller than he did. The man was leaning into his queer staff, the end of which terminated in a hand holding a kind of blue jewel. The monk was staring at him too intently. His face was soot streaked, his long brown hair a wild tangle, his robes scorched and ripped. He looked fully insane in the light of the burning house, leaving Beam to wonder if he’d slayed the right man.

It was enough to convince him that he’d overstayed his welcome. It was absolutely time to bid his farewell to this madness. He pushed the empty suit over with his foot. Strings of tar stretched from the neck hole to the black puddle in the grass. The once golden cloak was now little more than smoking tatters. The suit was all one piece, like the cast of a statue. There were no joints or chinks that one would expect to see in normal armor. It provided an unwanted familiarity.

“Just like the cave,” he whispered to himself.

“What did you say?” the monk asked.

Before Beam could respond, a burning log exploded on the house. Sparks and flaming resins swirled up toward the darkening heavens on an agitated current. The flames were already devouring the thatch roof. There was no saving the house now. Beam turned back in time to see the monk pulling the sword from the empty armor.

“Whoa!” he yelled at the man, “What the hell do you think you’re doing there?”

The monk held the sword up, turning the weapon back and forth as he examined the hilt. The red glow was already fading from the eye in the pommel. “Where did you get this?” he asked as he studied it.

“Thanks, Brother,” Beam said, relieving the monk of the weapon, “I’ll take that now.” He was surprised to see there was no tar on the blade. He quickly slid the weapon through his belt.

“Where did you get that?” the monk asked again. The intensity in his gaze was growing more demanding.

The last thing Beam wanted was to incite a crazy monk, especially after the kind of day he’d just had. Instead, he opted to ignore the question. He turned away and walked back to his crossbow, which he quickly spanned and reloaded.

“I asked where you got that sword,” the monk said again.

Great, Beam thought, in the midst of all this insanity, the monk wanted to chat about his weapons, maybe exchange a few dueling tips.

He lifted the crossbow and turned to face the monk. “Look, Brother,” he said, “If I were you, I’d forget the sword and prepare for company.”

“What are you talking about?”

Beam looked over toward the edge of the mountainside. The path from the house dropped out of view just this side of an odd red chair. The savages had to be nearly up the mountainside by now, and he knew the first wave would be just a few of their best runners. He couldn’t flee without first surveying the situation and remedying the immediate threat.

He jogged over to the mountain’s edge, stopping beside the stone chair. The sight greeting him there was exactly as bad as he’d expected. Looking up at him from twenty feet down the steep hillside were six extremely winded warriors. They stood in a surprisingly orderly line down the path below, and they seemed every bit as startled as he was.

He wasted no time with greetings. At such short range, the bolt easily pierced the foremost Vaemyn’s mail. The impact threw the warrior back into his compatriots who collectively tumbled away in an avalanche of pale flesh.

“Fair turnabout, you bastards!” Beam yelled at the pile.

He turned to flee and plowed straight into the monk. He managed to stay on his feet, though the monk fell hard to the dirt.

“Brother,” Beam said to the fallen man, “I believe this party’s over! You best make for the trees while you still can.”

Wasting no time to help him up, Beam ran for his gear. He stopped to retrieve a bolt from one of the charred corpses, but the shaft was too hot. He cursed and shook the burn from his hand. He was about to make another pass when a chorus of screams ripped through the impending dusk.

He turned back toward the path and saw the monk standing beside the chair with his staff leveled down the mountainside. Beam could see the dancing line of blue lightning sizzling over the side of the hill. The man was a grim silhouette against the glowing blue smoke.

When the last scream died, the blue light went out, but the monk didn’t move. He just stood there, his backside bathed in the orange flames of the fire, his form shimmering demonically against the growing shadows. Then he threw his head to the darkening sky and released a mournful wail. It was a scene from a nightmare, sinister and grim, and utterly devoid of hope.

Then the man turned toward Beam. He looked fully mad in the light of the burning house.

Having been raised in a priory, Beam knew that when a monk goes bad, it can get very ugly. Men like these had years of pent-up good behavior to vent. He figured this would be about as good a time as any to leave.

XI

SANCTUARY

B

EAM WAITED IN THE TREE UNTIL THE MONK PASSED BENEATH HIM.

He pushed off from the branch and landed in a crouch with his loaded crossbow leveled at the man's back. His ribs kicked him a shock of pain that nearly stole his breath away, but he forced himself to recover and aimed his crossbow at the man.

The monk stumbled to a stop, and then slowly turned round with his staff leveled menacingly.

“Lower your stick, Brother,” Beam said seriously. His pain had him sweating like a pig. He hoped the man wouldn’t notice through the dusk.

“Lower yours first.”

Beam studied him as he considered his options. He wondered how he’d fare if the monk fired first.

“You don’t need that,” the monk said, nodding at Beam’s crossbow, “I’m not your enemy.”

“Damn good thing. I’ve seen what happens to your enemies.”

The man seemed to consider the remark.

“I'm surprised to see you here,” Beam said, “I’d have thought the savages would've freed you from your skin by now.” He threw a quick glance back at the path.

The monk only watched him. In the failing, dusky light, he almost looked sane.

“The savages back at the hill?” Beam pressed, “Dead?”

The man nodded.

“All of them? You killed them? You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Despite the soot and blood streaked face, despite the bloodshot eyes and hysterical hair, Beam believed him. “Seems we have a common enemy,” he said for lack of anything better.

“The Vaemyn aren’t my enemy.”

“Really? I imagine the corpses littering your lawn might argue differently.”

“They’re not my enemy! Not...not all of them.”

“Those weren’t renegades back there,” Beam said on a half laugh, “They were warriors, Brother, decked full out in Vaemysh military standards. That means their bad behavior has the blessing of the state.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Nothing complicated about it,” Beam said, “When a savage attacks, you can be confident he’s speaking for everyone in his tribe. Believe me, I know.”

“Did the Vaemyn do that?”

At first, Beam didn’t understand. Then he remembered his face. “What, my eye?” he said, grinning, “Nah. Got that from a bad day of swimming.”

The monk frowned at that. “But they were chasing you.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“You’ve no reason to fear me. If I wanted you dead, you would be. Your arrows wouldn’t prevent it.”

“Bolts.”

“Excuse me?”

“They’re bolts. Not arrows, bolts.”

The monk seemed momentarily confused by that. “Blood of the gods, what possible difference could it make?” he said with obvious irritation, “We need to help each other.”

“Nah, I don’t play well on teams,” Beam said, “Besides, I think you’re full of shit.”

The man bristled. “What did you say to me?”

Beam watched the man adjust his grip on the staff. His knuckles were too white by a mile. He resolved that if the monk made any sign he was about to use that weapon, he’d unleash a bolt first. He didn’t want to kill the man unnecessarily, but he’d seen what that stick could do. He couldn’t take the chance of being one heartbeat too late.

He nodded his head back toward the house. “What about the savages back there? I saw what they were doing.”

“I told you,” the monk said, “They’re dead. I boiled them.”

“Not the savages back on the path. I meant the ones trying to take your head.”

The monk didn’t respond to that. He glanced off into the forest in the direction of the house. Then he looked back at Beam. After a moment, he lifted his staff and stood it beside him.

Beam didn’t lower his crossbow. “Well?” he asked, “Why were they trying to kill you?”

“It’s a question I’d like answered myself.”

Beam considered him. The man seemed calmer now, almost sensible. His defenses told him the man wasn’t truly a threat. Given the enthusiasm with which his ribs were kicking at his chest, he decided to lower his weapon. Still, he kept both hands on it.

“My name’s Chance Gnoman,” the monk said, “That was my house back there.”

Beam threw another quick glance back the way they’d come. Even from a mile away, the dark sky above the forest harbored an angry orange glow in reflection of the burning house. He turned back to the monk.

The monk was leaning into his staff. Even factoring in his disheveled appearance, the man looked exhausted. “We have a better chance at survival if we work together,” he said to Beam.

“Brother, you may not be my enemy, but you’re not my friend, either. I don’t know a thing about you, except that the whole of the savage nation seems intent on seeing your ass sincerely dead.”

“We have to help each other,” the monk pressed, “We’re stronger conjoined. I can help you. I know every inch of this forest.”

Gerd’s sorry face bolted into Beam’s mind. He steadied himself against a rush of regret. “No, Brother,” he said firmly, “I just don’t like taking on partners. My luck’s always best when I’m the only one I have to worry about. No offense intended.”

He didn’t wait for a response, but instead moved around the monk and broke into a trot.

A dozen yards later, he heard the monk tromping behind him. He stopped and turned on him with his crossbow up and leveled. “Goddamn you, Brother, are you deaf or stupid? I told you I don’t want a bloody partner!”

“Goddamn yourself! These woods will be swarming with warriors tonight.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“It's not safe out here.”

Beam laughed at that. “You think not? You must be a seer as well as a monk, eh?”

The man flinched at that. “What did you call me?”

Beam started walking. Quickly.

The man jogged up alongside him. “Did you call me a monk?”

Beam stepped into a run.

“There’s no place out here to hide,” the man said, running behind him, “They’re superior trackers and they never quit.”

“Yeah, there’s a revelation,” Beam muttered to himself.

“I know a safe place to escape the night. If we hurry, we can put some distance toward it before they find our trail. They’ll have trouble following us in the dark.”

Beam stopped and turned on him. “Darkness won’t help!” he said exactly as harshly as he’d intended, “The best savages can track our vibrations from a half mile out. They’ll hear every footstep, every scrape of a bush.”

“I understand their taer-cael. I also know how to confuse it.”

“No offense, Brother, but you don’t look like a man who’s had a lot of experience rangering. Maybe if I needed a flock of sheep shepherded, I’d—”

“What’s your strategy, then?” the monk barked, “Keep running? Pray you’ll stumble into someone who’ll protect you? Your mother, perhaps?”

That one caught meat. Beam resisted the urge to slap that condescending look off the monk’s dirty face. Instead, he decided to let the insult go and consider the facts. It was nearly dark already. He was running through an alien forest with a hoard of warriors trailing him, warriors who’d likely draw lots to see who got to cut him first. And in truth, the monk was right; he didn’t have a clue which way to run except generally north by northeast.

Besides, whatever kind of a weapon that staff was, it’d be a hell of an asset in a fight. It all added up for a compelling argument to listen. Once the monk led him safely out of harm’s way, he could abandon the fool and light out on his own again.

“Well?” the man pressed, “How do you consider it?”

Beam unbuckled his weapons belt and dropped to his knees. He wrapped an arm around his chest and willed back the pain. His ribs were killing him. Every breath felt like someone cracking a shovel against his side. He’d been running all day. How much more could he take?

“Well?” the monk pressed.

“All right, already!” Beam snapped up at him, “Fine! I expect there’s some strength in numbers, given the proper circumstance. What do you have in mind?”

“I have a sanctuary.”

“A sanctuary?” Beam said, “Isn’t that just another word for asylum?”

“It’s a place of refuge. It's secure. It’s well concealed and well stocked.”

Beam disarmed his bow and began securing it and the sword to the weapons belt. “How far?”

“Nine miles or so northeast. If we hurry, we can make it by midnight.”

Beam dragged the weapons up to his lap. He tried not to cry out as he forced himself up to one knee. As he waited for his breath to return, he looked back at the trampled grass following them. “What about that?” he snapped up at the monk, “They won’t need their horns; you’re leaving them a bloody trail.”

“Does that mean you’ll come with me?”

“Not sure I have a choice. But we’ll need a better path. Is there a rock face or boulder deposit or maybe a creek or stream along the way?”

“There's a narrow stone bottom creek not two miles ahead. It travels easterly. It might add another hour or so to the trip, though.”

“That’s good. The water should confuse our vibrations,” Beam said as he prepared for the agony of standing, “Maybe you’re of some use after all.”

∞

Hours later, they waded along a shallow streambed. Beam’s boots were full of the frigid water. He couldn’t remember when he’d last felt his toes. On the positive side, it was a lovely distraction from his aching ribs and throbbing head.

They’d been struggling against the icy current for nearly three miles now. They eventually reached an area where the bank was paved with wide, flat stones gleaming ghostly white in the moonlight. He heard the monk splash up and stop just behind him.

“This is it,” the man whispered between pants, “This is where we turn. If we go much farther we’ll end up back in the forest.” He stepped past Beam for the shore.

Beam pulled him roughly back, saying, “Damn me, you wait! I’ll go first.”

The monk relented without argument. He leaned wearily into his staff.

Beam watched him for a moment as the stream gurgled noisily around them. When he was certain the man sincerely meant to comply, he turned and stepped up onto a broad rock braced tightly into the bank. Then he reached a leg carefully over the dense snake reeds growing along the water’s edge and gingerly climbed from the water, taking great care to keep his feet on the flat stones and out of the mud. Once secure, he turned and pointed to the rocks. The imprints of his footsteps glistened clearly in the moonlight. “There,” he said over the sound of the water, “Step exactly where I did. And mind the plants! It only takes one broken reed to betray us.”

The monk nodded and began to climb from the water, but Beam blocked him with a firm hand against his chest. “I mean it, Brother,” he said firmly, “I want you walking as softly as a princess sneaking into her lover’s bedchamber. You understand?”

The monk knocked Beam’s hand away and said, “Well, I can barely feel my feet, but I'll try to avoid knocking over any trees.”

Beam felt the cool slap of guilt. Why was he being so short? He shouldn’t be so hard on the man, not after all the poor devil had been through. As an act of redemption, he held out his hand. The monk considered the proffered assistance as if he weren’t sure what to make of it, but then relented and locked wrists with him.

“Sorry, Brother,” Beam said when they faced each other on shore, “I’m a little on edge. Guess the lifestyle's finally catching up with me.”

The monk pointed north, out beyond the clearing. “The cave's a few miles that way.”

Beam winced. “Cave?” he said, “What do you mean, cave?”

“Cave,” the monk said, “Something akin to a large hole in a mountainside? Perhaps you’ve seen one before?”

Beam felt sick to his stomach. He thought about the elixir stashed in his quiver. There wasn’t much left, maybe two or three days’ worth. At most. This trip just kept getting better and better.

“Is there a problem?” the monk asked. He didn’t sound like he cared.

Beam growled a curse and then started walking. “Nah,” he said, “No problem. Just another perfect hour in an already idyllic day.”

A few miles later, they stood at the precipice of a hill that swooped smartly down into the dusty plains. Beyond their perch, the land was flat for miles out, shimmering under the heavy moon like a white sea that swelled away until it met the star swept ebony of the night sky. The only break in the vast emptiness was a squat, brick-shaped butte that floated like an island above the sheen of dirt a half mile out from them. It looked to be a few hundred feet tall and maybe three times as wide.

The monk stopped at Beam's side and again leaned into his staff as he again struggled to catch his breath. Beam didn’t understand how a man of the forest could be so out of shape. Then again, it’d taken him years of training to get in condition for an all-night run like this. Short of an arrow in the back, he figured he could press on for days, even with a broken rib and no sleep.

The man pointed down the hill at the butte. “There it is,” he said, “Sanctuary.”

The top of the butte glowed softly against the radiant starlight, but darkness fully cloaked the foot. Beam could see no sign of a cave. “Where is it?”

“It’s hidden.”

“Hidden? How do you mean?”

“Hidden,” the monk said sarcastically, “Obscured from view. Out of sight. You understand the concept, yes?”

“No need to get pissy on me, Brother. I’m just saying—”

“Perhaps you were expecting a sign?” the monk pressed, “Sanctuary this way? Come on in?”

What the hell are you talking about? I just said—”

The man was already on his way down the hill.

Beam watched the man’s form descend into the night below and fought back his aggravation. “Damn me,” he whispered, “That is one irritable monk.”

They soon arrived at a row of barb-cedars lining the base of the butte like a wall. The shrubs rose fifteen feet above them. Scrubbier than standard cedar shrubs, barb-cedars boasted angry, gnarled, intertwined branches generously covered in two and three inch long thorns. These thorns could penetrate flesh with the slightest contact, often lodging themselves so deep in the meat of the unfortunate recipient’s body that nothing short of a sharp knife could dig them out.

Beam followed the monk as the man felt his way along the thick, spiny foliage. Eventually he stopped, bent down low, paused for a beat or two, and then disappeared into the hedge. Straight into the hedge.

Beam leaned closer. There was no opening in the barbs that he could see. He brushed his hand across the surface of the foliage with the greatest of care, but still found no vacancy. He was trying to make sense of what had happened when an arm erupted from the firs and grabbed his sleeve. He braced himself for the slaughter, but instead of stumbling face-first into a nest of thorns, he arrived unscathed in a narrow space between the cliff wall and the hedge. He was about to throw a sling of profanities at the monk, but the lunatic was already walking away, feeling his way along the solid cliff face with an open hand against the rock.

Beam looked up at the black ribbon of stars shining down through the crack between the cliff and the tall cedars, and he cursed the gods that must surely be laughing down at him right now. His irritation at full flame, he grabbed the wall and followed the man along it.

They stopped at an odd boulder protruding from the wall just at chest level. It was a perfect half sphere the size of a respectable pumpkin, and looked as completely out of place against the silky, moonlit surface of the stone as a goiter on a saloon girl. The monk placed his hands on both sides of the rock, dipped his head a bit, and began to mutter softly.

Beam knotted his fists. Damned monks were always praying. A horde of savages were ready to swarm in from the plains, and this idiot was offering his thanks to Calina or Geryn’Yag or whatever pagan deity nuts like him prayed to out here in the wilds. It was exasperating to the ninth!

It took several minutes of teeth gnashing, but the man eventually stood up. The odor of hot metal suddenly filled the air, the same smell Beam remembered back at the house just before the queer lightning battle started. He was considering the wisdom of putting some distance between himself and this particular spot when the surface of the rock just right of the boulder shifted. Two parallel seams of greenish light sparked the wall at ground level. They were a yard apart and snaked their way up through the face of the cliff wall like parallel rips in a midday curtain.

Beam blocked the light with his hand. “What the hell is this?” he said.

The two lines of light slowed just above the level of the monk’s head, and then curved inward toward each other until they joined into one. The result was a single door-shaped line glowing against the rock. An instant later, the outlined slab of rock took on a kind of fuzziness, like it had fallen out of focus. Then, without so much as a whisper, the rock began sliding down into the floor at their feet. As it lowered into the earth, the light pouring out at them from the door fractured the night like a beacon. When all was done, they were left with an entrance large enough to accommodate even the monk, who stood an easy half-head taller than he did.

Beam looked down at the door’s sill. There were no obvious seams, no evidence of a gap or chamber where a door of such size could recede. The door appeared to have simply melted into air. “You have got to be kidding,” he whispered, pointing at the sill, “What the hell is this?”

The monk gestured into what was now clearly a room, and said, “I give you Sanctuary. Enter in peace, leave in friendship.”

Beam threw him a glare. “You’re damned fond of quoting the savages, Brother.”

“And that apparently irritates you, does it not?”

“Nah. Just seems a bit odd. I mean, considering your relationship with them and all.”

“Seems odder that you recognize it as Vaemysh,” the man said as he passed into the light, “Considering your relationship with them and all.”

Beam wanted to throw back a stinging retort, but he was simply too tired to come up with one. Instead, he simply glared into the glowing entrance and kindled his annoyance.

Another. Bloody. Cave.

What was it with all the caves lately anyway? Another joke played by the gods at his expense? Well, he was good and greatly sick of it, and he had a mind to just make camp out here in the night and take his goddamned chances.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t camp outside. He had no supplies. His blankets and food were rotting in the road with Gerd and his gold back in the Nolands, and the temperature was dropping fast as the heat of the dry plains evaporated into the evening air. And clearly, a fire was ill advised. At best.

The door bridged a nearly two feet deep passage through the rock. Bracing a hand against the outer wall, he leaned cautiously forward and peered into the room. A dozen firebrands were spaced at even intervals along the walls so that the cave was actually quite well illuminated. In fact, it wasn’t even a cave at all, not in the traditional sense. The room was square and spacious, easily thirty feet long and nearly as wide. The walls were smooth as the surface of a maiden’s bedroom and painted sky blue. The floor was polished marble with a grand carpet at its center, and it was warmer than the outside air, probably due to the torches.

“How did you light all these so quickly?” he called to the monk. When he got no response, he readjusted his grip on the cliff face and eased his head in further. “Hello?”

The monk was loitering at the far wall, a dozen paces to his left. He stood with his back to Beam before a long wooden table covered with a multitude of colorful glass jars full of equally colorful powders and liquids. Shelves lined the wall above the table, each crowded with candles, wine bottles, and tin canisters. The room’s air was heady and aromatic with the scent of incense and herbs.

“I won’t be long,” the man said as he ran his finger along a series of smaller clay vials sitting on the first shelf above the table. He took one from the middle, removed the lid, and tapped the green powder into a clay mortar.

Beam’s mouth dried up just thinking about going inside. It wasn’t that he lacked experience with the terrors of his flesh. In truth, it was quite the opposite. As a matter of record, he’d fought this selfsame fear a thousand times in environments far more treacherous than this one. In those cases, however, he’d been alone and less vulnerable.

He willed himself a half-pace deeper into the cave, but even that miserly distance brought the room collapsing down on him. He couldn’t get his breath. He fell back against the jamb with his arm anchored safely outside the cave, half in and half out of the door. He was dismayed to note how vigorously his legs were shaking.

He closed his eyes. The cool night air whispering through the door felt like freedom. He needed to take his elixir if he was going in, but the thought of enduring the vomiting ritual again was simply unbearable. He didn’t think he could do it, not after the day he’d just suffered, not with his ribs in such a state. Maybe it’d be best to camp outside after all. He could sleep behind the barb-cedar hedge and take his chances. Nothing mortal could ever get through them. With their thousands of lethal barbs, they were as secure as a cell wall.

“What are you doing out there?” the monk called.

Beam dragged a sleeve across his mouth, steadied himself, and then leaned bravely into the room to look back at the monk. A torch was mounted on the wall slightly above eye level just inside the door. It rested in an iron brace that was older than the hills. He was surprised to see that the flambeau wasn’t even wood, but a thick rod of iron capped with a few inches of some reddish colored metal. More than that, the flame had a peculiar green tint to it.

Curiosity pulled rank on fear. With his back still pressed securely against the doorframe, he slid a half step further into the room and held an open hand up toward the flame. He’d never seen a torch like this before. There was no bundling on it. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have sworn the reddish metal at the end was itself burning. He eased a half step closer, his hand still locked tightly on the doorjamb. The flambeau had to be a lamp of some sort. The shaft was likely a kind of tube filled with oil. He tapped a nail against the metal taper. It didn’t sound hollow.

The granite floor suddenly shimmied beneath him.

He seized the wall. A rush of cool air washed over his damp legs. He’d ventured too far in! He was having a seizure!

He threw himself back at the door, but instead of an opening he found only rock. At first, he thought he’d made a turn somewhere in the two steps he’d taken, that maybe the door was still there, but around a corner he couldn’t see. However, a quick inspection told him that idea was bullshit. The door was simply gone! There was no door!

He threw himself against the blue wall and beat his fists on the stone as if he could open it by sheer force of will. “Goddamn it!” he cried, “What the hell is this?”

Horror tightened like a noose. While he’d been distracted by the torch, the exit had sealed on him. Worse, there was no evidence that a door had ever existed there at all. There were no cracks, no outlines, no latch or hinges. There was nothing but cold and unyielding rock.

He slapped at the wall. “What is this?” he yelled at the monk, “Let me out of here!”

His stomach surged into his throat. He couldn’t breathe. He turned and fell back against the stone. The walls were sliding toward him. The ceiling was spinning downward in slow, dream-like motion. The monk was miles away.

“Treachery!” Beam yelled as he slid along the wall to the ground, “What’ve you done, you bastard?”

Maybe the monk couldn’t hear him. The man hadn’t even looked back. Maybe he was too far away. Maybe the monk wasn’t there at all!

He felt the floor gather up around him. He landed hard on his rear, biting his tongue on impact. He fumbled at the buckle on his chest, but his fingers were thick as clay. He had to get to his quiver. He needed the elixir! He needed it now!

To his shock, the weapons belt miraculously fell free. He dragged the quiver around to his lap. His hands were shaking like a dry drunk. The stitching ripped as he clawed at the side pocket for the vial.

There it was! The elixir. It was in his hands.

He pawed at the stopper, but his hands were slick with sweat, his fingers numb and unresponsive. The vial slipped through his hands. He watched in horror as it clattered to the marble floor. It stopped rolling several feet out in the middle of the carpet, but it might just as well have been a mile. Fear had him paralyzed. He couldn’t call out, couldn’t even blink the sweat from his eyes. Bile washed against the back of his throat. He was going to be sick.

The monk appeared above him. He was looking down at him from a mile up in the cave. Then his form cascaded downward like a stream of water suddenly cut from the pitcher. The man’s face swelled into view, blocking the world behind him. He was attacking! He had to be!

Beam tried to warn him off, but his voice was useless. The monk could take everything he owned and there wasn’t a goddamned thing he could do to prevent it. He never should’ve trusted the man. He should’ve let the stinking savages have him back at the house. He never should have intervened!

The monk came at him and Beam could do nothing to resist. The bastard grabbed his face with both hands. He turned his head from one side to the other. What the hell was he doing? Was he a blood drinker? He wanted to yell out, to demand the monk leave him be, but his voice was lost.

The monk’s fingers probed his skull. He felt them skulking around in the flesh behind his ears, first one and then the other. The man was touching his stumps, goddamn him! The pressure of his fingers there were intense and unbearable, like the dull end of nails driving into his skull!

“I apologize for the drama of the door,” the man said, his voice as loud as a hammer beating a pan, “I suspected a half-breed Vaemyn would share the same terror common to full bloods, but I couldn’t be sure.”

The realization of what had happened landed like a thunderclap. The son of a bitch knew his secret!

The monk still had his head. His face again swelled into view before Beam. “Yes, I know what you are,” the man said, “I suspected it when you first appeared. You were too fast to be Parhronii, and then you were far too reluctant to enter the cave. But I wasn’t certain until I felt the stubs where you amputated your oteuryns.”

A small flask materialized before Beam’s eyes. It swayed back and forth in his vision, blurring into three, and then four, and then one again.

“I began mixing this as soon as we arrived,” the man screamed, “It’ll soothe your fears.”

An arm slipped behind his shoulders. Beam felt himself shudder as the man pulled him forward. Nausea swelled with the sudden motion. The urge to urinate was almost unbearable, though he fought it with all his will. Don’t let me do it, he pleaded to the gods. Please, I beg of you. Don’t let me piss myself. Not now. Not in front of the monk!

Then something warm and sweet trickled into his mouth, and with it a soothing heat radiated across his tongue and down his throat. The sensation spread quickly into his chest and washed through his belly, and the panic immediately began to ease. His heart was slowing. He could breathe again.

“This’ll cut the dread caused by your confinement fear.” The voice was still loud, but didn’t hurt so much now. “In a few minutes, you’ll sleep.”

Beam felt himself sliding along the wall. The floor was rising up toward him, but he had no urge to resist. Before he hit, the strong arm caught him and gently lowered him the remaining inches to the carpet as the lights gradually faded around him.

XII

AN ELEMENTARY DIALOGUE

B

EAM OPENED HIS EYES.

He was lying on his belly with his cheek against something coarse and prickly.

He thought at first he was back in the cave where he’d found the sword, but the weapon was resting there on the carpet beside him. He thought of the strange battle between the Vaemyn and the dark knight. He thought of his trip down the mountain, and the patrolling savages, and the cabin, and all the events that led him to lying on the floor of this unnatural cave.

He shoved himself up onto his side and grabbed his chest. The pouch was still there. He almost laughed with relief. His next stop was his crotch where he was equally relieved to find his leathers dry.

A pair of dirty bare feet stepped into view beside him. A hand lowered a metal plate of food to his lap. He couldn’t quite bring the plate into focus.

“How long have I been out?” he asked. His voice felt drier than a hangover.

“Not long,” the monk said, “Less than an hour.”

The memory of the door rushed in. The damned monk had tricked him. He sent an obligatory scowl up at the man. “You’re a real prick,” he said, “You know that?”

“Really? You’re welcome.”

“You might’ve warned me before you closed the door.”

“I treated you immediately.”

“I could’ve treated myself before I came in.”

“You wouldn’t have.” The man stepped over Beam and crossed back to the table.

Beam pushed himself up and shimmied himself back against the wall. “You don’t know that,” he said, “I have my own tonic. If you hadn’t been such a sneaky bastard, I could’ve taken it before you sealed the goddamned door. Better yet, before you even opened it.”

The monk sat down on a tall stool, one of two sitting before the long table. He picked a vial up from the table and shook it in Beam’s direction. “Is this the nostrum you’re referring to?”

“Where’d you get that?” Beam asked, though he clearly remembered it rolling out of reach immediately before the fit took him.

“This elixir’s older than the hills.”

“How the hell would you know?”

“Because I brewed it,” the man said.

Beam laughed at that. “You sincerely expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t give a shimlin’s rub what you believe,” the man said, “This blue leaf stamped here on the bottom is my symbol. My guess is you bought it from Sarrigh. A miserable old Parhronii in a red wagon painted up with pictures of serpents, nymphs, and saints?”

Beam couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You’ve got to be kidding,” he said, “How could you possibly know that?”

“I brew some of the tonics the weasel sells. He knows better than to sell it after the first year. Of course, he does whatever he wants to because he’s a lying, cheating scoundrel. You’re lucky it didn’t kill you.”

Beam popped a chunk of meat in his mouth and thought about the tonic. Judging by the monk’s threadbare clothes, he had no doubt the man needed the income. It looked like he needed a lot more than what the elixirs were providing.

“What’s that mean?” he asked as he chewed, “That I’m lucky it didn’t kill me?”

“The elixirs are sadly prone to going rancid after a span of just over a year,” the monk said, “They sour because of an issue around the preservation process for Elm Worms. They just do not keep well. After an extremely precise period of time, thirty-three days over one year, in fact, their blood extract curdles into a kind of venom. I’ve been trying to find a remedy for it, but...” The man shrugged and took a bite of cheese. “It’s unimportant. I’m working on it.”

“Why don’t the savages use this stuff?” Beam asked, “Works like a charm for me.”

The man didn’t look at him. “I only developed the test formula around ten years ago. It’s been a project in development since. It’s only been the last few years that I’ve evolved the recipe enough that it’ll work for the Vaemyn. Their phobia runs very deep. It’s more than a cultural phenomenon, it’s actually biological.”

“Biological,” Beam repeated. Sounded like so much bullshit to him.

“Doesn’t matter at this point anyway,” the monk said, “Sarrigh would never sell to the Vaemyn. He hates them as much as you do. Someday, once I’ve perfected the formula, I’ll take it to them myself.”

Once I perfect it, Beam thought. He remembered his days in the tombs. How many hours had he spent retching himself silly thanks to Sarrigh’s greed? “The miserable bastard!” he said, “I’ll break a couple fingers next time I see him.”

“It’s a good sized vial,” the monk said, “What were you doing that you needed so much of it?”

The question irritated Beam. There was a limit to how far he’d let the monk barge into his affairs. “Frankly, Brother, that’s none of your business.”

The monk blew the dust out of a couple stone mugs and then uncorked a generously sized clay jug. “Take some wine,” he said as he filled the mugs, “You’ll feel better.”

Those were the single finest words Beam had heard in months. He wasted no time getting to the table. He stood between the sitting monk on his right and the other vacant stool, and he grabbed the nearest mug. Hoisting it up to his new companion, he said, “Brother, you’re not much of a dresser, but you’re a fine host.” He then drained the mug and slammed it down on the table in proper Notown style.

“I’m glad you approve,” the monk said. He didn’t sound like he meant it.

Beam happily poured himself another round. The last thing he remembered eating was the beggarberries back at the cave that morning and whatever nuts and berries he foraged along his journey. The wine was going down like nectar.

“My apologies for the action of the door,” the monk said, “I didn’t believe I’d find another way to convince a half-bred Vaemyn into the confinement of this cave. I was acting for our future.”

“Our future?” Beam said, laughing, “No offense, but we don't have a future. This arrangement’s perfectly temporary.”

“I suspect you may analyze it differently in the morning.”

Beam bit off a piece of jerky. “Don’t count on it.”

The man shrugged. “I don’t believe I’ll be counting on anything anymore. Not after today.”

“And another thing,” Beam said seriously, “You ever deceive me again and it’ll be the last time you deceive anyone.”

“Is that right?” the monk asked without looking at him.

“That is exactly right.”

With that, the man’s eyes drifted over and seized Beam. “Well, you just listen to me, you little pissant,” the man said too carefully, “If not for my courtesy and high tolerance for associating with dirty scoundrels, you’d still be curled up over there on the floor quivering in a puddle of your own urine.”

“Dirty?” Beam said. The words stung. He sent the monk as hard a glare as he could summon, but the truth was his heart just wasn’t in it. He was too tired to fight tonight.

The monk slid a new vial across the table toward him. “Here,” he said, “You may keep this.”

It was a nondescript ceramic vial with a thin rawhide string securing the cork to the flask’s neck. Beam looked at him. “What's this, then?”

“It's the tonic I mixed for you. The one I gave you earlier. It’s safe, not like the toxin Sarrigh sold you. There's enough medicine in there to keep you underground a year. After that, you’ll need a refill.”

Beam examined the flask. It was similar to the one he’d bought from Sarrigh. He wondered what expectations came with the gift, though even as he thought it he knew there wouldn’t be any expectations. Despite the hijinks with the cave door, the honesty in the monk was nearly palpable. He really didn’t believe the man meant him harm, not intentional harm anyway.

Then again, honesty wasn’t always the best characteristic in a traveling partner. With lecherous men, he always knew where the cards lay. He expected deceit from them and they were usually reliable for it. It was unlikely they’d suddenly turn honest on him, and even if they did, what of it? It’d only benefit him. But, men like the monk? Men for whom honesty was the driving force? It was a harder road. If they suddenly changed, it could only go very badly.

“Are you all right?” the monk asked.

Beam shook his head to clear his mind. “Yeah, sure. Guess I drifted off. Damn me if I’m not prone to that.”

“I’ll write that down.”

“Comes from spending so much time alone. Of course, I expect a hermit would know that better than I would. Isn’t that right, Brother?” Beam winked over his grin.

“And just why exactly do you keep calling me ‘Brother’?” the monk said, frowning.

Beam didn’t understand. “What do you mean? It’s a title of respect.”

“Respect? You call people you respect Brother? Where do you come from?”

“Of course not,” Beam said, “That’s ridiculous. I mean, not people in general. Only monks.”

“What are you saying? You think I’m a monk?”

Beam shrugged.

“Blood of the gods, why on earth would you think I’m a monk?” The man looked perfectly indignant.

Beam considered the man’s long, disheveled brown hair, and his tattered robe with its rough robe belt, and his bare, dirty feet, and then he started laughing. “Are you kidding me?”

“Seriously?” the man said, “I’m a monk because I live in the mountains and don’t get dressed up for the remote possibility of company?”

Beam tried not to laugh.

The monk was staring at him like he had two heads. But then the man only lifted his drink, paused with the mug at his mouth, and said, “Forget it. I’m too tired to care what you think.”

“Well, damn me, it’s no wonder you’re tired,” Beam said, “The stinking savages nearly killed you back there. And that strange soldier pretty much burned down your priory.”

The monk slapped the table. “It wasn’t a priory! I told you, I’m not a goddamned monk!”

“Okay, okay. Don’t have a fit.”

“For the last time, my name’s Chance Gnoman. Say it with me. Chance.”

“Chance,” Beam said dramatically, “Chance. Chance. Chance. All right, I’ve got it now. Damn me if you’re not one irritable bastard.”

Beam again wondered if he’d be better off sleeping outside. He took another drink as he watched the man. Closely. The fool seemed likely to go into a rant at the drop of a hat.

Chance took another long drink as well and then put his mug down empty. He wiped his mouth with his filthy sleeve, and said, “Apologies. I don’t mean to be so short tempered. It’s been a difficult day.”

“So you’ve said.”

“I’m tired.”

“I can see that.”

“I’m simply...I’m trying to say sorry, that’s all.”

“Good enough. It has indeed been a long day, Chance.”

The man watched him a beat, and then said, “What’s your name?”

“Beam.” He held his hand out.

The man examined the proffered hand, but made no move to accept it. “Beam?” he said, looking up at him, “Peculiar name, that. Is it diminutive of something longer? Moonbeam? Sunbeam, perhaps?”

Beam steadied himself against another surge of irritation. “No,” he said very carefully, “It is not. My full name is Beam Ambix Gry’ar.”

“Gry’ar,” the man said thoughtfully, “Well, I’d have to say that sounds vaguely Vaemysh, wouldn’t you agree?”

As Beam chewed back his annoyance, he considered the strategy of hitting back. And yet, much against his truer nature, he again found a lack of energy to pursue it. He was just too damned tired for it. He opted for compromise, just for tonight.

“My manners have gotten a mite sloppy,” he said, extending his hand again, “Suppose I’m not much used to company.”

The man finally accepted his grip. “Too much time alone in caves?”

Beam recognized the bait immediately. It was a teaser to get him to talk. Nevertheless, the delicious wine had him feeling more amiable than usual, and it’d been a damned long time since he shared anyone’s camaraderie. If nothing else, he figured it’d be a more stimulating conversation than talking to Gerd. Or himself.

“No,” Beam said as he refilled his mug, “Not caves, friend. Darker places. Places where you’re not likely to run into another soul. Not a living one anyway.”

“I see,” Chance said.

Beam picked up the new vial and examined it. “I was using this stuff for some work I’d been doing these past couple years. Takes the edge off the confinement. It’s hard to find relics if you can’t go down in the holes after them.”

“I see,” Chance said again.

Beam didn’t like the way he said that. “Oh, you see, do you?”

“Well, of course. I’m not blind. You’re a grave robber.”

“Grave robber?” Beam tried for a look of indignation, but couldn’t pull it off. “That’s a bit melodramatic, don’t you think?”

“There’s another term for it?”

Beam laughed at that. “Yeah, well…probably not. Anyway, gold’s a pretty much useless commodity to the dead, don’t you think? I could never abide wasting resources.”

“Hm. Pardon my insensitivity.”

“Don’t expect it takes an astronomer to figure out why the bastards are after me, yeah? Seems they disapprove of my means of income.”

“I imagine they would. Defiling the dead is serious taboo to them.”

“Well, for the record, I never defiled anybody. Not the dead anyway. I only picked their pockets.”

“There’s a difference?”

Beam just looked at him. The conversation had taken yet another frustrating turn, and he’d rather eat dirt than explain his motives to a monk. He decided instead to change the subject. “Why were the bastards after your head?” he asked as he surveyed the man’s tattered robe, “Unlike me, it obviously wasn’t for gold.”

The man seemed to turn inward. He didn’t reply.

“Surely they weren’t beating on you for exercise,” Beam said with a snort.

“I’m not sure,” the monk said with obvious hesitation.

“You’re not sure? No offense, but that’s a little hard to believe.”

“I’m telling you, it came out of the blue,” the man said, “They disabled my sentries, they abducted Luren, they…” He stopped and looked down at his hands. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter.”

“Who’s Luren?”

Beam immediately regretted asking. The man suddenly looked like he was about to start crying. Beam wasn’t quite comfortable enough to share a good bawl with him yet, and he sure as hell wasn’t drunk enough. He needed to head off the heart pouring before it started.

“Forget it, Brother,” he said quickly, “It’s none of my business. I shouldn’t have pried.”

He was too damned late. The monk was already looking at him with a monsoon swelling in his eyes.

“No, really,” Beam pressed, “It’s none of my business. It was wrong to ask.” He had no idea how wrong.

“Luren’s my apprentice,” the monk said as he fought the emotions, “He’s like…he’s like a son.”

Son? Great, Beam thought. This was going to be painful.

“The Vaemyn abducted him and I don’t know why. I mean, I do know why, I just don’t understand. I...I don’t know, I just…”

Beam cursed himself. He was really stuck now, and consoling the grieving wasn’t a tool he typically kept sharpened. It was more his style to be the cause of the grief. Still, he had to do something.

“Brother,” he said carefully, “This is going to sound hard, and I apologize in advance for it. But the sorry damned truth is, if the savages took him? Well, you’re best off to just bury him in your heart right now.”

“He’s not dead,” the man said softly.

“The savages don’t take prisoners, my friend,” Beam continued, “Not for long, believe me. And even if he is a prisoner, you can bloody well believe he’d be better off dead.”

“No, I can sense his caeyl force. He’s still alive.” The man wiped a sleeve across his eyes.

Caeyl. Beam stared down at his plate. Caeyl. He knew the word, and it wasn’t good. He suffered a sudden dread that things were about to spiral out of control. He glanced back at where he’d last seen the door. Still just a wall. He seized his mug and tipped it into a deep drink.

“He only has a Bloodlink so far,” the man continued, “He’s still young. He’s an apprentice Caeyl Mage.”

Beam choked in mid-swallow. He put the mug down, coughing.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s just...well, damn me if you didn’t take me by surprise.” The surprise being he was locked in the cave with a lunatic.

“Take another drink. You don’t look so well.”

Beam needed no encouragement to do just that. When he returned the empty mug to the table, he said, “You said caeyl mage, right? Mage? Like in magic? Like in magician?”

“Oh, I understand now,” Chance said with a single nod, “You’re a skeptic.”

“Well, let’s just say I’m the victim of a scientific mind.” Beam proffered a smile every bit as sincere as he could fake. “No offense meant.”

“What about the wyrlaerd you dispatched?” the man said, “The demon was housed in a body of tar, for Calina’s sake. You can explain that with your scientific mind?”

Beam’s discomfort was starting to rage. There was the distinct possibility that the man sitting beside him might be a few coins short of a purse. He refilled his mug and braced himself with another slug before turning to face the storm full on.

“Brother,” he began, “Think this—”

The monk again slapped the table. “My name is Chance!”

Beam winced at that. “Chance,” he said, watching the man, “Yeah, got it.”

The man only glowered back at him.

“So, let’s think this through, Chance,” Beam continued, “There are more forms of life in this world than a thousand men could explore in their combined lifetimes. Why, just this morning, an animal that looked like a hairy turtle with long legs and a mouth full of teeth chased me halfway through the damned forest. The damned thing was—”

“A bogsquag.”

“Excuse me?”

“The animal that chased you. It’s called a bogsquag. There’s nothing mystical about it. It lives in the forest.”

“Exactly my point,” Beam said, stabbing the table with his finger, “You’ve vindicated my argument. Just because I’ve never seen one before doesn’t mean it’s a monster. It’s just an animal I’ve never seen before. The same theory holds true for that thing back at your house. Think about it. Someone who’s never met a Baeldon might easily mistake one for a…a giant, for example.”

Chance shook his head. “Blood of the gods,” he said softly, “You’re not a skeptic. You’re just unenlightened.”

Beam laughed at that. “I’m unenlightened? That’s rich. If you knew the things I’ve seen in my travels, you’d understand how much bullshit is wrapped around that statement. Some cultures have mystical explanations for farts, for Calina’s sake.”

“How did that happen?”

“I don’t know. Maybe some primitive once farted into a fire and sent the flames—”

“Not that! I mean how did your face come to look like a sausage?”

Beam feigned insult. “Now that’s just rude, Brother. We’re born with the looks Calina gave us, for gods’ sakes. It isn’t right to insult folks about things they’ve no control over.”

“Are you telling me you were born with your face beaten to a pulp?”

Beam paused. Then he laughed. “Oh, that,” he said, “No, that came from a little swim I took back by the falls, courtesy of our friends out there. But you’ll find comfort in the fact that I left them in far worse shape.”

“Is that right?”

“More or less.” Beam considered another drink, but pushed the mug away instead. He was surprised to find himself a little drunker than he should be. He wrote it off to the altitude.

“That part of the forest is a bad place to travel uninvited,” Chance said.

“Didn’t have much choice,” Beam said, “Found myself with the options of taking a swim at the falls or donating my skin to the savages. I’d take the swim again any day.”

“There’s another question I’ve been waiting to ask you.”

“I can’t wait.”

Chance leaned into the table sideway, propping himself on an elbow. He was staring at Beam a tad more intensely than Beam appreciated.

When the man didn’t proceed, Beam said, “You got something to say, Brother? If so, just do it.”

After a moment, Chance shrugged his eyebrows, and then waved a finger toward Beam’s head. “Didn’t that hurt?”

“What, the face? Damn me, no. Never felt a thing. I was knocked senseless long before the pain set in.”

“Not your face. The oteuryns.”

“Oh. The horns.” Beam carefully touched the exposed stub of bone behind his left ear. It was cut quite flush to the skin. Still, even amputated, the organs remained intensely sensitive. “You have no idea,” he said, thinking back on it, “Having an eye gouged out couldn’t hurt that much.”

“For the love of Pentyrfal, why in the world would you do something like that? Cut off a healthy piece of flesh, I mean?”

Beam shrugged. “It was a constant bloody reminder, that’s why.”

“Of what?”

“Imagine the blood of the person you hate most in the world pumping under your skin.”

“Go on.”

Beam didn’t go on. What was he doing? Why was he telling this stranger anything? It wasn’t any of his damned business, was it? It was just the wine making him chatty as a nun. He needed to get his shit together before he ended up the monk’s girlfriend and spent the night spooning on the carpet with him. He grabbed the wine jug and poured another shot after all.

“Who did they remind you of?” Chance pressed.

“Doesn’t matter,” Beam said, “I just wanted them gone.” He downed the wine and dropped the mug back to the table.

“I suspect you have more history with the Vaemyn than simple heritage.”

“What business is it of yours?” Beam said, “I just wanted the foul bastards out of my blood, if that’s all right with you. I couldn’t cut them out of me, but I sure as hell could cut the evidence off me.”

Chance took a sip of his wine.

“In retrospect,” Beam continued despite his better intentions, “It may not have been my best decision. It was like being blinded, I guess. The taer-cael was like a second set of eyes. I still catch some vibrations, but they’re too muddied to be of any use. In fact, now they’re more distraction than help.”

“When did you do it?”

Beam thought back. Had it really been so many years ago? Good gods, it didn’t seem possible. It seemed like he’d looked away for just a few minutes and his life had flown by.

“You’re scowling,” Chance said, “Again, I might add.”

“Suppose I haven’t thought of it in a while. Man, you should’ve seen it when the butcher made the first cut.”

Chance frowned. “Butcher?”

Beam laughed. “Yeah, a meat butcher. He was also the local bleeder and poker dealer.”

Chance’s eyes swelled.

Beam waved away his alarm. “Relax, Brother. It’s not as bad as you’d think. There were only three people in Notown with the right equipment: The healer, the blacksmith, and the butcher. The healer was a guttersnipe drunk who could kill a man lancing a boil. The blacksmith hated me because of his finger. That only left the butcher.”

“Gods above,” Chance said with a wave, “I don’t know why I’m asking this, but what happened to the blacksmith’s finger?”

“Disagreement over cards. He’d owed me money for a year and always had some excuse why he couldn’t pay. I finally got tired of it and took his finger as collateral on the debt.”

Chance again shrugged his eyebrows. Then he sat up with his wine and finished it off. As he set the mug back down on the table, he said, “You are some kind of man.” It didn’t sound like a compliment.

“Don’t look at me that way,” Beam said quickly, “I gave the finger back as soon as he paid me off.”

Chance didn’t say a word.

“Anyway,” Beam continued, “When the butcher made the first snip, the blood must’ve squirted a good ten feet across the room. It was bloodier than dehorning a bull. By the time he’d finished, the tavern looked like it’d hosted a murder. Took five guys to hold me down, and I damned well bathed them all in blood.”

Chance poured more wine into his mug. “Those have got to be the two foulest stories I’ve ever had the misfortune to hear.”

“I don’t know how bad the second horn went. I passed out a couple minutes after the first cut. But, I saw the room afterward. It was a nasty piece of work.”

The alcohol was making the memories bigger, uglier, and more impressive than they really were. He berated himself for having opened his mouth at all. That wasn’t an episode he particularly wanted to revisit, not tonight. It was time for a smart man to retreat.

“I swear I haven’t taken anything stronger than water in some time,” he said to the monk, taking care not to slur, “Getting a bit drunker than I should. As stimulating as this conversation has been, I do believe I’d best hit the straw, if you don’t mind.”

Chance nodded. “Agreed.”

Then the man stood up and crossed the room to a large, humpbacked wooden chest squatting against the wall on the far side of a huge wardrobe. He heaved the lid open and began rummaging through the contents.

Beam moved to stand up, but quickly lost his balance and fell back onto his stool. Laughing, he said, “Brother, you’re doing nine hells of a lot better than I am. Then again, nobody can drink like a monk. I know. I’ve spent enough time with them.”

Chance pulled out of the chest long enough to send him a foul look. “Blood of the gods,” he cursed, “I’m not a goddamned monk!”

“Right.”

Moments later, Chance dropped an impressive pile of blankets on the great rug just before the place where the door used to be. Beam stumbled off his stool and staggered as straight a line as he could manage toward the pile. It was only by Chance’s proximity and an offered hand that he didn’t fall flat on his face. He was suddenly so drunk he could barely stand. On the bright side, for the first time that day, nothing hurt. As he plummeted into the target, he planned a trajectory that would land him in the midst of the pile. He was fading to black before he even hit the wool.

∞

Chance lay on his back staring up at the torch flickering gently on its iron sconce above him. The green flames were burning so gently, so contently, he found himself in envy of them.

Down here on the floor, the world was a storm. The day’s events had taken him prisoner. The images raced through his head like a hurricane: Luren, Prae, the Vaemyn, the wyrlaerd, the future, the past, war, despair. He couldn’t even track one of the horrors for any functional length of time before then next shoved it out of the way and stepped in to take its place.

Luren was gone, most certainly a prisoner of Prae and his lackeys. A wyrlaerd, a Divinic Demon, walked this earth for the first time in a thousand years, and it seemed reasonable to assume there were more still out there. The Vaemyn had risen in arms, an event so improbable, so preposterous, it was nearly unthinkable in its absurdity. And the demon had indicated that the Baeldons and Parhronii were now at war, another utter impossibility. Put all together, it portended dire times for this region and the world at large.

And yet, the image most troubling his thoughts was that of the strange man snoring across the room.

He rolled his head toward the sleeping pile of drunken lout tangled in the blankets a few yards away. When Beam had first appeared back at the house, Chance hadn’t been sure what to make of him. He had shaggy, dirty, shoulder-length black hair and a coarse, unkempt beard. He was dressed in rough green buckskin britches and an overshirt that was nearly long enough to be a coat. He wore a heavy black belt at his waist and a broad weapons belt strapped across his chest. He looked every bit the smuggler, rogue, and backwoodsman type that’d be party to an enterprise of sabotage and assassination such as occurred this afternoon. That the man had intervened against the Vaemyn was completely unexpected; that he’d attack a wyrlaerd as if it were just another competing rogue was simply unbelievable.

The wine had worked about as well as he’d expected, loosened his tongue and started an elementary dialogue. The man was clearly not much inclined toward volunteering information. In fact, the only conversation he’d managed to drag out of the rogue had been limited to anecdotes involving his bravado. But when it came to the reason he was in the forest at all, or the means by which he’d come to possess the Caeyllth Blade, or why Prae was so vigorously pursuing him, he remained a mystery.

But come morning, there’d be questions asked. And rogue or not, if the man had any sense of self-preservation, he’d best be prepared to answer them. The wyrlaerd had been looking for this lout, that much was certain, and they’d clearly been chasing him for some time, most likely for the sword.

The sword.

That was the crowning gem on this nightmare. He knew from his near two centuries of study that the sword was a Caeyllth Blade, known through history as a demonslayer. And though they no longer existed in this world, he’d known what it was the instant he’d laid eyes on it. The eye embedded in its hilt was a Blood Caeyl, a caeyl that hadn’t been seen in this world for generations. They were the first of the three primary caeyls to lose their energy to whatever unknown anomaly was destroying the caeylsphere. But before they died out a few centuries ago, the Blood Caeyls had been the most potent stones of power ever known to this world. Even now, even from clear across the room, he could feel its energy thrumming through the caeylsphere at the farthest edge of his consciousness, like the sound of distant drums vibrating against his skin.

His thoughts drifted to the wyrlaerd. Like the Blood Caeyls, none had existed on this mortal plane for a thousand years, though he knew enough about them to recognize one standing before him. Demons couldn’t exist on this plane unless summoned by a bearer of the Fire Caeyls, and the only Fire Caeyl Mage known today was Prae the Biled. And true to those facts, the creature had spoken the lunatic’s wretched name. He’d declared Prae his master.

Prae! He should’ve murdered that bastard when they were boys. Even in his youth he’d known it’d come to this eventually, to a dark moment of regret for opportunities lost. If any of this were as it appeared, if truth were found for even one factor in this drama, it would mean the worst of times. And in that case, he’d own sole responsibility for it, for the wars that were certain to follow, for the lives that would be lost, for the suffering that would be endured. He’d been too weak these past decades, too complacent, too damned content simply gliding through life with his head in the clouds, and he hated himself for it.

He closed his eyes and willed back the anger. He had to concentrate on planning his next move. It was critical to get word to Baeldonia and the Allies as soon as possible. They must intercept the Vaemysh attack before it started. Once he fulfilled that obligation, once he notified the Allies, he’d be free to find Luren and then deal with Prae as he liked.

Grief swept in like a fall wind, sharp and biting and cold as the threat of winter. Luren, who’d never hurt a soul in his life, now a prisoner of that sorry bastard. It was the worst possible scenario for a young caeyl mage. He loved that boy as closely as if he were his own offspring. Luren was a pure soul without a blemish to deserve such a fate. He never should have left him alone. He should have known the sentry’s arrival preordained only the direst news. Luren’s fate, whether good or bad, was also his blame to carry.

He rolled to his side and pressed a finger to the Bloodlink Caeyl resting beneath the skin at the base of his skull. His stomach roiled as he found connection with the caeylsphere. For several moments, he suffered in bitter anticipation. It took far longer than it should have, but he eventually found Luren’s presence. The boy was still alive, thank the Lords of Pentyrfal! The link was weaker than it should be, but it was there nonetheless! Knowing the boy still lived would have to be good enough for tonight.

He dropped to his back and covered his face with his forearm. His stomach was on fire. He had to find calm. There’d be plenty of opportunity for rage and retribution later, but now he needed his rest. It’d been a brutal day, and tomorrow promised to be no better.

So he closed his eyes and drew a soothing breath, and attempted a calming chant, though he had no faith it’d work.

XIII

INTERROGATION

B

EAM WAS LOST.

The woods looked exactly the same regardless of which direction he ran.

Dark trees crowded the path, trees with skin for bark and deformed arms for branches. They leaned into the path, smothering him as he passed, their fingers clawing for his skin to add it to their obscene trunks.

He didn’t know how he got here. There was no exit, no way out, nowhere to flee. Panic threatened him. He needed out of this vile place now. He needed to break free!

A spear flew past his head, passing close enough he could hear its whisper.

Another ripped past, and then another, and another. There were hundreds of spears. They filled the air like a hailstorm. They littered the path before him, thousands of them, blocking his escape like bars on a cage. The bastards had him trapped!

He stumbled to a stop and fell to his knees. He covered his face and willed the spears away. It’s a dream, only a dream. Another goddamned nightmare. You only have to deny it, that’s all. You only have to force it out of your head and make yourself wake up. It can’t kill you!

He found himself standing in the colorless dirt holding his new sword up before him, though he had no memory of making the move. A monster stood a few paces out before him. It was the tarry beast he’d killed back at the mage’s house, clad in that unnatural armor and wearing a cloak of fire. It blocked any hope of escape.

He waved his sword at the monster. He threatened it, told it he’d kill it if it took another step. He’d kill it again and again until there was nothing left of it, so help him Calina!

But, the beast wouldn’t back away. Its eyes exploded into tiny suns. Its tarry flesh swelled. It grew in height and bulk until it towered over him, until it consumed the world around him, until there was nothing but him and this lethal, inescapable monstrosity. He had nowhere to run, no way to escape. And as he stared up at the beast, a horrible revelation seized him. This wasn’t the creature from back at the house at all. This was a different demon! A new demon!

His sword dissolved from his hands. The demon’s flaming head rose up into the sky! It was holding Beam’s sword with the point dripping back down at him! It was going to drive it down through his back just like the Vaemyn back in the cave. It was going to kill him with his own weapon!

“Wouldn’t Brother Dael be proud?” it yelled down at him, “Wouldn’t he be proud of you now?”

The creature’s unnatural laugh burned like acid in Beam’s mind. Then the beast drove the sword down on him exactly like the killing blow that had slain the Vaemyn in his dream. It was the end, and all he could do was bury his face in his hands and brace himself for the murder.

∞

Beam bolted upright. The pain of the movement seared through his chest. He doubled forward and waited for his breath to return. His bare legs glistened under a layer of cold sweat.

As the pain grudgingly released him and he could finally breathe again, he looked around at his surroundings. At first, he didn’t know where he was. He was on the floor in a tangle of heavy woolen blankets. His clothes rested in a neatly folded pile beside his boots just a few feet off to his left. The sword lay across his lap.

He smeared the sweaty bangs back from his face and examined his wet palm. And then it all came back to him. He was in the monk’s cave. It’d just been a nightmare. Just another bloody nightmare.

“Good afternoon.”

Beam nearly jumped from his bed. He twisted around toward the voice. It was the monk. He was sitting on a stool at the table behind him. The sight of the man immediately rekindled his irritation. He turned back to his bedding. “Afternoon?” he asked without knowing why.

“Just past noon, I’d say.”

“Really?” Beam grumbled. He wondered how the man could know this, considering they were in a room without windows or doors.

“You were having a nightmare.”

More aggravation. “A revelation. Thanks for that, Brother.”

“I told you to stop calling me that, I’m not a monk. My name is Chance.”

Beam rubbed his neck and shrugged.

“Are you prone to nightmares?” Chance pressed.

This was just what he needed, an interrogation first thing in the morning. Or afternoon. Or whatever the hell time of day it was. He threw a sidelong glance back at the man. “It wasn’t a nightmare,” he said, “And it’s none of your goddamned business anyway.”

“I meant nothing by it. I’m just concerned.”

“Concerned,” Beam said, forcing a laugh, “Thank you, mother, I’m sure I’m quite fine.”

“You were rather agitated in your sleep,” Chance said, “I considered you may be suffering a brain seizure of sorts. Perhaps having a fit. Do you have a history of fits?”

Another jab, another pang of irritation. “Actually,” Beam said sarcastically, “If you must know, I wasn’t having a nightmare. Truth is I was enjoying a perfectly lovely dream. Matter of fact, I was at a festival.”

“Hm. Must’ve been one beauty of a festival.”

“It absolutely was, and I begrudge having wakened from it.”

“Is that right?”

“It is right,” Beam said, throwing him a look, “I was in Taunter’s Way. That’s a town in the northwestern Nolands, if you don’t know. Just this side of the Wall of Morleph.”

“I’m too familiar with it,” Chance said smugly, “It’s a thieves’ den. A rat’s nest of a town.”

Beam was impressed the man knew of the town, more impressed that he understood its charming character. “I was having a fine time at a tavern called the Galloping Pig,” he said, “I was sitting at a table with this lovely little Parhronii dancer. We were on the verge of conquering bliss when the unthinkable happened.”

“I can’t wait,” Chance said. He didn’t sound like he meant it. Again.

Beam looked back at the man and sneered. “She turned into you,” he said, snapping his fingers, “Just like that! I’m surprised I didn’t wake up screaming.” He couldn’t suppress a chuckle.

“Well, isn’t that just hilarious,” Chance said sourly.

Beam suddenly wished he were anywhere else on Calevia. He’d rather face the savages hand to hand than be stuck in a cave with such a humorless boor.

“It’s said the Caeyllth Blades inflicted their possessors with exactly that singular malady,” Chance said.

“Malady?” Beam asked, “You mean dreaming of laying with you?” He immediately kicked himself. Could that have possibly come out more wrong?

“No,” the Chance said, “I mean nightmares.”

Beam carefully rubbed his eyes with his palms. He so didn’t need this right now.

“It’s said the dreams could be quite unsavory,” Chance pressed.

“Is that a fact?”

“I wouldn’t call it a fact, exactly, but it’s what the stories say. The few that survive.”

Beam crawled up onto one knee, but a brutal kick in his chest convinced him to go no further. Pausing there, he looked down at the splotch of blue and purple swirling across his right ribs. It was a most disillusioning sight. That was going to hurt for some time to come. Still, he couldn’t simply kneel there forever, so he braced himself for the rise to his feet. Once up and steady, he turned toward the table, and immediately stopped.

The man sitting on the stool looked nothing like the one he’d arrived with last night. Beyond the fact that he was cleaner and his long brown hair brushed and trussed back into a tail behind him, his dress couldn’t have been more opposite. He was no longer wearing the passive, threadbare monk’s robes. Now he was dressed in a white linen shirt with full sleeves, a fine thigh-length tunic of silver scale mail, and buffed brown leather britches with a wide belt bearing a sheathed knife. Moreover, this knife was no nobleman’s ornamental dagger. This was a regular curved battle-knife, forged for gutting two-legged prey and little else.

“Are you familiar with the Divinic Wars?” Chance asked.

The words slapped Beam from his gape. “What?”

“You’ve heard the stories? About the Divinic Demons and the wars?”

“Oh, the stories,” Beam said as he scratched at his bare chest, “Sure.”

“The stories of the Blood Caeyl and the Caeyllth Blades?”

“Yeah, all those.”

Chance just stared at him.

“What?” Beam said as he stepped up to the table and poured himself a mug of wine. His mouth tasted like a pig’s armpit.

“Lying doesn’t suit you much, does it?”

Beam couldn’t help laughing at that. “Apparently not.”

“Have you heard of the Caeyllth Blades or not?” Chance pushed.

Unfortunately, the change of dress had done nothing to temper the man’s grating personality. “All right,” Beam surrendered, “I concede my ignorance. What’s a cattle blade?”

“Caeyllth Blade.”

“Whatever you say.”

Chance grabbed one of a pair of tall, cuffed black boots standing on the floor beside his stool. “If my suspicions are correct,” he grunted as he struggled to pull it on, “That’s what the sword is.” The boot surrendered and his leg plunged in to the knee.

“You don’t say.”

“It was designed by an ancient caeyl mage who lived in these parts long ago.”

“How long ago?”

“An eon or more, the precise dates have been lost to time.”

“A thousand years?” Beam braced himself. Next thing, the man was going to tell him it was some kind of magic weapon.

“A Caeyllth Blade was a powerful longsword designed to slay wyrlaerds during the Divinic War. The war lasted—”

“Wyrlaerds,” Beam said, snorting.

“So you have heard of Divinic Demons.”

“Every child’s heard that fairytale, Brother, even me. I’m just riding you.”

“It’s no fairytale.”

“Brother Dael used to say one man’s delusion is just another man’s interpretation of reality.”

Chance grabbed the other boot. “Brother Dael?” he said as he pulled it on.

“Yeah. Maybe you knew him through the monk underground.” Beam was thoroughly amused with himself, but the eyes glowering back at him efficiently murdered his humor. He lifted his mug, but stopped just shy of a drink. “Gods, you’re a spoiler,” he said, “Would it kill you to crack a grin once in a while?”

Chance just watched him.

Beam shook his head, and then downed his wine. “Anyway, Dael raised me,” he said dragging the back of his hand over his mouth, “He was an Elysian Monk. His cloister was the Priory of Saynfyl in Parhron City.”

“Saynfyl,” Chance repeated. And then, to Beam’s great surprised, the man actually laughed.

Unfortunately, the sound of the man’s laughter wasn’t as rewarding as he’d hoped. In fact, it only spurred his irritation further. “Something’s apparently funny?” he said.

“Saynfyl Priory,” Chance said, still grinning, “I know the place. You’re telling me you were raised in an asylum?”

Beam felt himself blush. “It wasn’t an asylum,” he said quickly, “It was a gathering priory for the troublers.”

“Oh, well…that’s a completely different story,” Chance said, laughing, “You should have simply said so straight out of the gate.”

Beam threw him a scowl. “I wasn’t a troubler, so you can knock that idea out of your head right now. I lived there, I wasn’t...kept there.”

Chance just looked at him. He was clearly amused, but said nothing.

“You were telling me about the goddamned cattle blade,” Beam said harshly.

“Caeyllth. Blade.”

Beam winced. This was his punishment for having lost his temper. “Cay-lith Blade,” he repeated, carefully, “Of course. Thank you, Chance.”

“The blades originate from the time of the Divinic Wars, which, as I said, occurred at or about one thousand years ago.”

“Blather, prattle, and spew,” Beam said, shaking his head.

“I know, skeptic. But you asked and I’m telling.”

Beam’s irritation eased just a bit at the sight of a metal plate of food squatting on the table before him. He plucked a chunk of dried meat from the plate and popped it in his mouth as he watched Chance stand up and walk over to his bedding where the sword lay on display in his evacuated blankets. The man squatted before the sword with his back to him. He lifted the weapon to his lap and ran a finger across the engravings dancing along the end of the blade. Beam didn’t particularly like the man’s close proximity to his possessions, yet he made the effort to tolerate it. For now.

As Chance examined the blade, he said, “Their creation was the inspiration of a Parhronii caeyl mage, a mage described in the literature as the most adept who ever lived, a man whose prowess with caeyl magic was one of mythical proportions.”

Beam bit off another chunk of meat and pretended to listen.

“You see these entwined snakes embracing the hilt?” Chance said without looking back at him, “They symbolize the combined strength of mortals and the caeyl mages. Notice the Blood Caeyl here in the pommel. See how it’s carved in the shape of an eye? The heavy, sensuous lid conveys passion and devotion. It represents the eye of the goddess Calina.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen the sword, Brother. And the eye. Especially the eye. It’s all over the place in the savages’ boneyards.”

Chance lifted the sword and held it with the blade rising up before him. “I’m confident you’re mistaken,” he said as he again studied the writing on the steel, “The Eye of Calina is an image of reverence in both the Vaemysh and the Baeldonian cultures. It’d be considered sacrilegious to put it on a crypt.”

“Well, I guess you need to get out more. I’ve been there, and I’m telling you that eye is everywhere down there.” He was growing impatient with the familiarity the man was taking with his things.

“I imagine you’re quite the expert on Vaemysh customs,” Chance said as he leveled the blade out before him and examined its true lines, “What with your everlasting love for them and all.”

The sarcastic tone was about as much as Beam needed. He’d tolerated the man’s infringement just about long enough. “Look,” he said, “I’d be able to hear you better over here, if you get my meaning. You know, at the table and away from my things?”

Chance replaced the sword in the bedding, stood and walked back to the table. “I’m not going to steal your toys,” he said as he slipped back onto his stool.

Beam bit off another chunk of meat. “No,” he said as he chewed, “You definitely are not.”

“Should I continue?”

“Nothing would make me happier.”

“The Divinic Wars were instigated by another mage, a Fire Caeyl mage who lived by the name Ja’an. He rallied the Vaemysh nation to his side with promises of absolute power and untold prosperity. Through the energy of his Fire Caeyl, he eventually raised a horde of Divinic Demons to fight for him. Ultimately, he and his armies nearly destroyed every civilized nation in the region. Parhron, Pajestica, Na Ghun’ta, Smeck Major, all great cities, all decimated. Even Parhron City burned to the ground. Only Barcuun survived intact.”

“Well, no wonder. It’s built right into the mountains. It’s bloody well impenetrable.”

“The Vaemysh warriors fighting for Ja’an wore caeyl tokens just like this one.” Chance tossed something out onto the table.

The object clattered across the rough wood and rolled to a stop beside Beam’s plate. It was a small gem that appeared to be a black bloodstone. There was some kind of face carved in it. It looked like a skull. As he studied it, he bit into a piece of bread. He realized he was absolutely famished, which made this about the best breakfast he’d ever awoken to.

“Wherever these mortal warriors dropped in the field,” Chance continued, “Their shells were immediately possessed by one of Ja’an’s demons. His forces were nearly unstoppable.”

“Should’ve just cut off their heads,” Beam said as he chewed.

“Excuse me?”

“Their heads,” Beam replied, “Should’ve cut them off. A headless corpse doesn’t do anyone any good, least of all itself.”

“Well, it’s such a shame you weren’t there to counsel them. I’m sure they could’ve used a man of such superb tactical brilliance.”

Beam stopped chewing. “Look, it’s not astronomy, Brother,” he said, swallowing, “It’s a simple matter of locomotion. Legs and arms need a head to drive them. No head, no fight.”

“Seems you were born a thousand years too late,” Chance said sarcastically.

“I’m just talking,” Beam shot back, “Anyway, you brought it up. Damn me if there’s no need to get all pissy about it.”

“Care to surmise where I discovered this token?” Chance asked.

“Do I look like I care?”

Chance studied him for a moment, then simply shook his head and turned away. He bent low behind his stool and hauled a good-sized leather backpack up onto the table. He began packing it with fat wine skins and leather-wrapped packages that Beam assumed were food.

Beam continued eating, but he watched the other’s activity curiously. He bit off another chunk of jerky. “So tell me, Brother. Where exactly do you get all these ‘legends’ you keep referring to anyway?”

“I’ve had much time to study,” Chance said.

“And you believe everything you hear?” Beam asked, grinning.

Chance sent him a look. “One kind of fool believes everything he hears and another kind believes none of it.”

Beam set his mug back on the table. He didn’t appreciate the obvious jab. “All right, I get it,” he said seriously, “You think I don’t understand, but I understand more than you think. I understand that you believe the legend. I also understand that you think I’m an idiot because I don’t. Is that about right?” He stuck a finger in his mouth and picked at a molar.

“I believe what my eyes show me, fool,” Chance said, “I encountered a demon, a wyrlaerd, accompanied by an entourage of warriors who I theorized to be hacks, a theory I later confirmed upon finding this very token on one of the warrior’s corpses. I also saw you destroy the same wyrlaerd with that sword.”

Beam laughed. “What you perceived to be a wyrlaerd.”

“What I know was a wyrlaerd!” Chance said back, “You don’t understand. I’ve studied them extensively. My entire life has evolved around preparing for this very moment. This tarry creature looked exactly as a wyrlaerd shell should look, including the mudsteel armor. It spoke like a wyrlaerd, dressed like a wyrlaerd, and most certainly met its demise like a wyrlaerd. Beyond that, the demon even admitted to me that it was a wyrlaerd, as if I needed the instruction.”

“You ever see a wyrlaerd before yesterday, Brother?”

“I’ve never seen rock lizards mating, but I’ve seen a lot of rock lizards. Sometimes truth lies in deduction. I would think a ‘man of science’ would understand that.”

“I’ve never seen rock lizards mate, either, but using your logic, I could as easily deduce that they spontaneously generate from rocks. That’s what the Mendophian druids think.”

Chance returned to his packing. “I regret ever having broached the subject. You’re arguing simply to be belligerent.”

“Belligerent?” Beam snorted, “Me? Cantankerous, maybe. Temperamental, probably. Bad tempered, certainly. But belligerent? Never.” He was thoroughly amused with himself.

Chance sent him another look.

Beam held his wine up and grinned. “So tell me this, how much do you think I can fetch for that blade? You seem to know a lot about history. You think it’s worth more intact? Or should I pry the stone out, melt down the gold, and sell them separately?”

To his great disappointment, the man didn’t even flinch at that. “If that stone’s a Blood Caeyl as I believe,” Chance said without gracing him with a look, “It’s worth more than all the gold in Parhron.”

Beam felt the warm sensation of greed swell up. “Damn me, now you’re talking, Brother. Must be a pretty rare gem, eh?”

“You can’t imagine. The Blood Caeyls influence the energy of life forces. They weren’t uncommon at one time. Unfortunately, it became the popular belief several hundred years ago that if the stones were ground up and fed to women who were with child, their offspring would be born with the Birthsight. It was no more than a fool’s tale, but if a rumor gets spread far enough fast enough...” He stopped packing and looked over at Beam, but then simply shrugged and went back to his work. “Anyway, within a few generations the stones were absolutely consumed. None can be found today, and believe me, I and all the other Caeyl Mages have looked far and wide for one. I imagine the dust of Blood Caeyls line the bottoms of shit houses in every backwater town on the continent.”

Beam looked over at the stone shimmering in his bedding. “Hm, so much the better for me.”

“You won’t make a single coin from it.”

“You don’t think so?” Beam said, “You don’t know me very well.” He finished his wine and swiped his mouth across his bare arm. “Anyway, your fairytales are getting dull. Talk to me about gold if you want my attention.”

“All right,” Chance conceded, “You say it’s a fairytale. Did I see you drive your sword through the demon’s armor? Through steel armor?”

“Longbows do that,” Beam said, “Bolts do that. So do some pikes, and there’s no magic in any of it.”

“Was it an illusion when the beast's flesh melted and boiled into the dirt? Or when its energy turned my house to ash? Is it an illusion that they’ve taken Luren?” Chance slammed the table hard enough to rattle the jars and plates.

Beam flinched.

Chance dropped back onto his stool. His face was red and sore.

“Easy now,” Beam said carefully, “You worry me when you start getting all worked up like that, and I am not a nice person when I’m worried.”

“You know, Beam, you're probably right,” Chance said, “It’s all just a delusion. It must’ve been something you ate. Something we both ate.”

Beam disappointed himself buy suffering an unwelcome pang of guilt. Why the hell was he badgering the fool so? Where was the payout in harassing the poor monk? He’d just lost his boy, after all. His priory was little more than smoking ruins moldering far behind them in the dark woods. The man probably lost everything he had. He should be showing more charity.

“Look, Brother,” he said carefully, “Here’s what I believe. When bullshit is repeated often enough, even bullshit starts making sense. What’s important is to push the bullshit out of your mind before it gets comfortable there.”

Chance stopped packing and turned to him. “Okay, scholar, let’s consider the facts. Did you see the caeyl fight back at the house?”

“What, you mean the lightning?”

“Yes. The lightning. Blood of the gods! Did you see it or not?”

Beam took a drink and mentally kicked himself. This was exactly why he didn’t count charity among his talents. Because it offered no advantage, and because he was monumentally bad at it.

“Can your precious science explain that?” Chance pushed.

“These are modern times,” Beam said steadily, “Mysticism is dead. Science defines the world now. Parhronii scholars have created a machine that prints books a whole page at a time. I’ve read some of the books as proof. In fact, in just my lifetime, I’ve seen the invention of cannons that can fire a ball of iron a thousand yards. Talk is the Baeldons are close to making cannons small enough to hold in your hands. And the scholars at the University of Parhron have created a machine that can cause sparks of lightning to strike a target from a yard away. I know. I’ve seen it displayed.”

“Did you see any machines back at my house?”

“What?”

“Did you see any machines back at my house? Any contraptions? Any devices?”

As Beam looked into the man's eyes, he found himself wavering. He was suddenly unable to resist the one thing he revered most. The facts. He remembered charging the creature without having made the decision to do so. He remembered trying to release the sword and being unable to make it happen. And before that? When he was fighting the savage behind the fallen tree? Just as the savage should’ve parted him from his intestines, the sword was in his hands, though he had no memory of grabbing it and could never have reached it from twenty feet back. It didn’t make sense, but there it was.

“You believe what you saw,” Chance said as if reading his mind, “You’re just waiting for the courage to admit it.”

Beam pushed off the stool. It was a struggle not to show how much pain that little move cost him. “You can’t bait me,” he said seriously, “You can try, but you’ll just waste your time. I damn well know the difference between truth and madness.”

“Do you?”

Beam crossed over to his bedding where the sword lay nested in the blankets. The stone always seemed to be glowing, no matter the angle or lighting. He knew it was just the torchlight refracting through the crystal, but still...sometimes...

“I’m walking away from the conversation,” Chance said from behind him, “Bless me if I’m not too tired to banter with a fool.”

Beam looked back at him. He wanted to throw some vicious remark his way, but he couldn’t come up with anything suitable. Why was the bastard so goddamned contrary? He was about as aggravating as a rash.

He carefully picked up his folded cotton undershirt and shook it out. As he prepared to slip it on, he wondered why the monk would have bothered folding it. The faded blue fabric was frayed at the wrists and worn clean through at the elbows, and it was only as clean as a fall into a river could leave it. It was just more proof of the man’s persnickety nature.

As he worked to pull it on without bawling from pain, he watched the monk cross to the wardrobe standing against the long wall opposite where the door had been. The old, cave-tarnished hinges groaned as the man pulled the tall doors open. He watched Chance lean into it, watched him dig through the contents until he pulled out a brown leather belt with a worn scabbard.

“It’s a little beat up,” he said as he tossed it to Beam, “But it’s about the right size.”

Beam winced as he caught it. The mangled old scabbard wasn’t much to look at. The leather was scarred and rough, and the end of the sheath had eroded away from time or misuse. As Beam crossed back to the table, he slipped the sword into the scabbard. The blade stuck several inches beyond the tattered bottom. Otherwise, it was a perfect fit.

Chance went into the wardrobe again. This time he threw a metallic wad across the room. It slapped to the stone beyond the carpet and slid the last couple feet to the foot of Beam’s stool.

Beam looked down at the silvery pile. “What’s this?”

“You’ll find it more effective than that leather shirt if we run into trouble.”

Beam bent down to pick it up, grimacing against the protests of his broken ribs. He snagged the metal pile with a hooked finger and eased himself upright again. He held the chain mail shirt out before him. It was old, and a bit corroded, but was also the lightest mail he’d ever held. The rings were so tight, it looked more woven than smashed. And yet, he found it most unappealing.

He considered tossing it back, but his chest argued against such a move. Instead, he let it slip to the ground beside his stool. “I don’t think so,” he said, “I find mail restricting. Besides, it’s a little too Vaemysh for my tastes.”

Chance backed out of the closet and looked over at him. “It’s too Vaemysh for your tastes? Excuse my impertinence, but isn’t that leather shirt you wear of Vaemysh manufacture?”

“Yeah, well, there weren’t a lot of shops where I’ve been. In desperate times, fashion comes second to need. And believe me, I was in need.” He laid the sword and scabbard across the table, and went back over to his clothes.

Chance shrugged. “It's your hide. But it seems odd to me that someone could so thoroughly despise half of his ancestry.”

Holding his leather shirt out before him, Beam considered what approach to donning it would yield him the least pain and embarrassment. It had a narrow collar and a laced slit that ran down to the sternum. He had to pull it over his head to get it on. He was not looking forward to it.

“I’ll tell you again, Brother,” he said as he slipped his arms in first, “Neither my ancestry nor my distaste for it are any of your business.”

Chance shrugged, and closed the wardrobe closet doors. “As you wish, my friend.”

The man’s tone didn’t help Beam’s declining mood. “Don’t let this break your heart,” he snapped back, “But we’re not friends.”

The fire in his chest as he pulled the tunic over his head was his punishment for the crudity of that last remark. Shirt finally on, he stood staring down at the leather britches folded beside his bedding as he waited for his breath to return. He wasn’t sure he could endure much more punishment.

Chance crossed back to the table and began securing the ties on the pack, which was quite full by now. “We've got about a week’s worth of supplies in here, including a few skins of wine. Once the wine’s gone, we’ll just have to settle for any water we find along the way.”

“Along the way? Along the way to where?”

“Along the way to Barcuun.”

Beam looked back at him. “What did you say?”

Chance didn’t look at him. “Is there a problem, Beam?”

“Just hold up there,” Beam said as he crossed to the wall where the door had been the night before, “I don’t know what you’re planning, but I don’t see Barcuun in my future. Our best bet is to sit low, hang out here in the cave for a few days, and rest up.” He leaned back into the stone and began to don his britches. The pain of bending was ridiculous.

“Are you attempting to be funny?” Chance more said than asked.

Britches on, Beam fell back against the stone and closed his eyes as he struggled for air. “Hell, no,” he said with more effort than pleased him, “I’m not joking. That medicine you gave me is working better than anything Sarrigh ever sold me. I think I could stay in here for a week, which, believe me, is a pretty damned impressive claim for me. We go out there now and those bastards’ll be on us like blowflies on a corpse. I expect they’ll be camping outside by nightfall.”

Chance crossed back to the cabinet. “You don’t understand,” he said, “We’re not going out the front.”

Then the man stretched up on his toes and reached over the top of the wardrobe. He seemed to be fumbling for something too far back for Beam to see. A sharp click resounded, and then Chance pulled the closet away from the wall. A deep rush of dank air immediately followed the movement. Behind the cabinet was a narrow archway leading down into a blackened corridor.

Beam walked toward it. “What the devil is this?” he muttered.

“Freedom.”

Beam grabbed a torch from the wall and thrust it into the dark opening. The flame immediately began to dance and flicker. He poked his head through the door. It was a tunnel, and it was about as stark as a mineshaft with rough, chiseled walls and a low, sloping ceiling dripping with cobwebs. He leaned further in. The narrow tunnel drilled steeply downhill for several yards before intersecting a larger corridor ten or twenty feet below them.

He looked back at Chance. “What the hell is this?”

“Our escape.”

Despite the surprising efficacy of the monk’s elixir, Beam still suffered a chill. A tunnel was a tunnel, and no medicine could ever change that. He pulled back into the room and fell back against the wall. “Are you insane?” he said, “What have I said that led you to think I’d ever willingly go into a place like that?”

Chance took the torch from him and mounted it back in its sconce above Beam’s shoulder. “You think I like it?” he said as he led Beam back to the table, “I'm in the same disagreeable predicament you are. I’d much rather march out into the sunlight, but it’s not like we have options.”

Beam faked a laugh at that. “Are you kidding?” he said, louder than he’d intended, “There’re always options. A tunnel can’t be our last best hope.”

The mage lifted the pack and heaved it up onto his back. Beam noticed thick rolls of blankets tucked tightly into wide pockets, two on each side of the pack. As the man secured the straps over his shoulders, he looked at Beam and said, “Well, I expect you’re correct in that assertion. Staying here is definitely a choice. By that estimation, so is slitting our own throats.”

Beam glanced back at the darkness lying beyond the open door. He felt sick to his stomach. What was it with all the caves lately?

Chance stuffed a few small vials into a wide flap pocket on the right leg of his leather britches. “I don’t have time to argue,” he said as he worked, “And bless me if I surely don’t have the strength.”

“A cave with a door is one thing,” Beam said to him, “But a tunnel whose end could be miles away? How the hell do I know where we’ll end up?”

“All right, Beam, let me ease your fears.”

“They’re not fears! They’re tactical considerations.” Gods, the man was torture on legs.

“This cave and the tunnels beneath it were built centuries ago by the Baeldons as a winter highway through the mountains,” Chance said, “Winters at that time were wretched and long. After that, the tunnels were utilized as a means of transporting troops and supplies during the Fifty Year War. They originate in the Iron Mountains and extend as far south as Dragor’s Field, crossing through Na te’Yed on their way. There’s an exit to the surface at regular intervals, so you’ll never be more than a day’s march to sunlight in either direction. And, best of all, the Vaemyn can’t enter them because of the same natural confinement dread you inherited from them.”

Beam crossed his arms. “I’m familiar with the war tunnels,” he said, “And if memory serves, those exits are thirty miles apart.”

“I see. I presume you’re not convinced.”

“I most assuredly am not.”

“Very well, then. It’s your skin.” Chance took his staff and crossed to the new door. Before he passed through it, he turned and looked back at Beam. “I imagine your plan is to sit here until the storm blows over, and then possibly escape through the front door. Have I summarized that properly?”

“Yes, that’s just about exactly right, Brother. The savages are simple. They bore easily. Given a day’s tedium, they’ll disperse. Or they’ll see a delicious deer prancing across the plains and be gone.”

The Vaemyn are vegetarians,” Chance said matter-of-factly.

“Doesn’t matter the cause. They'll give up on the trail soon enough, and then I'll slip out unseen. I’ve done it a thousand times.”

“It must be a wonderful gift to so fully understand one's adversaries.”

“Well, you learn a lot when you've been a fugitive as long as I have. You learn or you become extinct.”

“I see,” Chance said too seriously, “Looks like there’s no point in arguing it. Your mind is clearly set.”

“You finally get it.”

“Of course, there’s one other thing I should tell you before I go.”

Beam gestured in mock anticipation. “Of course. I value your advice.”

“I wouldn't waste your time chiseling through the wall when you do decide to leave. The Vaemyn will blast their way through the rock by tomorrow morning. Perhaps even sooner. I imagine they can be quite persistent when driven by a wyrlaerd.”

“Wyrlaerd? Did you forget, my friend? I killed your wyrlaerd with my cattle blade.”

“No, you killed one of them,” Chance said.

The words landed like a slap. Beam looked over at the wall where the front door had been. Then he looked back at Chance. “What in the bloody hell are you trying to say?”

“The Vaemyn who tracked us to the cave last night are almost certainly waiting for—”

“What do you mean they tracked us to the cave?”

“The Vaemyn are camped outside the cave as we speak. There are over twenty of them. I told you that as you woke up.”

Beam stood up. “You didn’t tell me anything like that!”

“No?” Chance frowned and tapped his brow with a long finger. “Hmph. I must be getting old. How could I have forgotten to mention something as important as that? Well, no matter. The fact is they've been waiting in siege since well before dawn.”

Beam threw a laugh at that. “Now you’re just trying to confuse me, aren’t you? You’re trying to deceive me into going with you. You want to tow me along on your magical journey because you think I’ll protect you. Well, I'm not quite that stupid.”

“No, apparently not. I suspect I just can't fool a fool, can I?”

“No, you most definitely cannot,” Beam said, grinning. Yet, even as he replied, he wondered if he’d just been insulted.

Chance chuckled and shook his head. “Very well,” he said, still smiling, “But you should know this, Beam. Once they breech that wall, and make no mistake about it, they will eventually breech it, this tunnel’s going to look like the sweetest walk you ever took.”

“Is that right?”

Chance nodded once, saying, “By my estimation, yes.”

“Well, damn you and damn your conniving ways,” Beam said, “My answer’s unchanged. I’ll wait it out, well-armed and eager for the battle.” He slapped the sword lying across the table.

Chance shrugged. “Very well, then. I can only wish you luck. However, know this. Once I depart this room, that door will seal behind me. I mean to say, I’ll use my caeyl to seal it permanently, much like the entrance before the barb cedars. Once I do, you'll be alone with the Vaemyn. Alone with your fate.”

Beam studied the man. In the few seconds of their locked gaze, he was convinced Chance wouldn’t leave him here alone, that he was simply testing his will, that in a few minutes they’d be sharing more wine and laughing about the misunderstanding.

Then Chance was gone.

The air felt suddenly hollow. Beam marched into the middle of the empty room. He felt antsy, even uneasy. His stomach was starting to burn.

He pulled on his boots. He walked back to the table. He grabbed his weapons from his bedding. He walked over to the wall separating him from the outside world and placed a hand against it. He wasn’t even sure where the door had been. Maybe next to that third torch? He pressed his ear into the stone. Was that a scraping sound? Was that the vibration of a pick blow? Impossible! He was imagining things. The monk had put insecure thoughts in his head and his mind was running away with them.

He fell back from the wall and buckled the weapons belt across his chest, though he couldn’t remember making the decision to don it.

He found himself standing at the table again. As he strapped the scabbard belt around his waist, he envisioned a score of warriors working outside beyond the wall. He imagined them whittling away at the stone with their own picks and chisels as one of those strange creatures with the tarry skin and seamless armor barked commands. Then Chance's words superimposed themselves over the image: You’ll be unable to open it. You’ll be alone with the Vaemyn.

“Alone with my fate,” Beam whispered. He lifted a torch from the wall.

A rumble breached the silence.

Beam wheeled toward it. It was the cabinet sliding back against the dark exit to the tunnel. The color of the wood had somehow changed. It was blurry and out of focus. The sight served him up a surge of terror so intense, he couldn’t breathe. The door was closing fast, too fast. He had to decide. He had to decide now!

He shoved himself away from the table and only barely slipped through the shrinking space in time to avoid being crushed in it. He’d just barely cleared it when he jerked to a neck-breaking stop on the other side. The torch flipped from his hand. He heard it land in the sand behind him.

The tongue of his scabbard belt had wedged in the closing rock. He was pinned so tightly against the wall that he had scarcely the room to breathe. The cabinet was gone, replaced by a solid wall of granite that was cold and tight against his cheek. He couldn’t even turn his head enough to see his feet. Moving by feel, he managed to pull the knife from his boot. He slid the blade between his belly and the stone, and sliced off the excess leather.

He fell away from the wall like a released spring, landing hard on the gravel and rolling roughly down the steep slope to the main tunnel below.

For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. Then he forced himself upright, moving against the war cries of his pains. He propped himself up on an elbow in the dirt and gravel, and looked up into the darkness where the door had been. The severed tongue of his belt stuck out from the stone above him like a twig lodged in hardened mud. He was about to sling a curse when a distant howl drifted up from somewhere deep in the bowels of the tunnel to his right. Beam froze, listening. The pulse in his ears was nearly deafening.

The howl quickly faded off into the distance, replaced by the sound of feet scuffing across the gravel behind him. Beam flew to his feet and swung his torch at the sound. A ghostly figure screeched and leapt back from the flames.

“Get away!” Beam yelled as he swung the torch back and forth at it, “I mean it! I’ll kill you! I swear to gods, I’ll cut you open!”

“Beam, stop! It’s me!”

Beam froze with his torch thrust out before him. His heart was pounding so hard he was seeing spots. And then he saw it. It was no ghost. It was Chance. And in that moment, he could’ve murdered the man with his bare hands, monk or not. “What the hell are you doing?” he shouted, “Trying to kill me with fright?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Beam wrapped an arm around his wailing ribs. “Well you did, you son of a bitch,” he said, wincing, “Damn near scared me out of clean britches! What are you doing skulking around in the shadows? Don’t tell me you’re already lost!”

“No, I was waiting for you.”

“Waiting for me? Why? To surprise me? Because you sure as hell succeeded.”

“I was waiting in case you didn’t make it out in time. I wasn’t going to leave you in there. If you weren’t out once the door sealed, I was planning to go back in and get you.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Beam choked, “I nearly lost an arm for nothing?”

“I called out to you, but you appeared…preoccupied. Looked like you were doing some kind of dance against the door. Next thing I knew, you were rolling around on the ground.”

“Some kind of dance against the door? Are you serious? I got caught in the goddamned door! Why the hell didn’t you just help me?”

Chance leaned into his staff. “I didn’t know what you were doing. It looked…personal.”

They stared at each other for a beat, and then Chance started laughing.

Beam swiped the sweaty hair back from his face and then looked at his damp palm glistening in the torchlight. “Well,” he said, trying to look serious, “I guess I should consider myself lucky it was only my belt I caught in the door, yeah?”

“You have no idea how lucky,” Chance said, grinning down at him, “There are some wounds even I refuse to tend.”

Another howl silenced their humor. Beam held his torch out and studied the dark tunnel behind them. “What was that?”

“I don’t really know.”

“You don’t know? What do you mean, you don’t know? You told me you travel these tunnels all the time.”

“That is not what I said,” Chance said back, “I said I’ve travelled them. Not that you should allow yourself to get jagged up by it. It likely means nothing; sounds carry down here. They can echo on forever. The source is almost certainly miles from here.”

“You don’t sound too damned sure.”

“I’m quite sure.” With that Chance turned and began walking

Beam watched his reluctant companion marching away while a bubble of torch light rolled along in tandem on the tunnel’s rough surface. Before following, he looked back into the darkness again. “Sounds echo on forever, my ass,” he whispered to himself, “What kind of mess did I get into this time?”

XIV

THE VAEMYD

K

OONTA’AR LAY ON HER BACK IN THE GRASS, SAVORING THE WARM SUN ON HER FACE.

A blue blanket spread out beneath her like a beautiful boat floating through an endless sea of amber grain. The dense grass surrounded her blanket, rising above it like the railing to her ship, the ripening heads of grain whispering soothingly in the soft breeze. A slender goblet of summer wine balanced gracefully on her chest, her fingers entwined about the stem. She watched it rise and fall with her breathing as thin clouds slipped across the blue square of sky hovering high above her.

A change in the rhythm of the grass foretold someone approaching from the field. The goblet dissolved from her hand. She rolled to her belly and brushed the wisps of hair back from her face, and then lowered her oteuryns into the soft blanket.

The image of Pa’ana materialized in her mind. He was walking toward her through the field, gliding unhurriedly through the grass with his arms outstretched, his open hands brushing over the heads of grain. His pale hair hanged loose and unfettered over his shoulders. His oteuryns glistened beneath his ears like mother of pearl. His smile flamed brighter than the sun. He wore the same bronze cloak with the deep sleeves and braided hemp belt they’d interred him in.

He entered from the grass at the frayed edge of her cloth boat. She felt the tickle of joy as she pushed herself up to her knees. It was a joy housed in bittersweet memories. She urged him closer, gesturing him forward with her thoughts.

But Pa’ana did not move closer. Instead, he remained in the meadow, his bare toes just moments from the edge of her blue blanket. He was no longer smiling, but only stood there watching her seriously.

This change in tradition perplexed her. She shifted her trance state. She compelled him into her boat, summoned him hard enough to risk breaking the trance altogether. And yet her efforts were useless. Something was terribly wrong.

Her joy wavered, threatened away by the cold edge of anger. She didn’t deserve this! Her meditations were all she had left of him, and she hated the world for denying it of her.

She floated to her feet and walked toward him, but he drifted back in tandem, slipping deeper into the grass so that the distance between them remained unchanged. She was about to step off the blanket when Pa’ana raised his hand to stop her.

“Turn away from me, Koo,” he whispered, “You can’t think of me anymore. You must think only of yourself now, my sweet. The time has come to close this book. The story’s ended.”

Anger washed in, hot and barbed. Her old wounds were again scraped open by the hard edge of resentment.
She needed him, goddamn it! His memory was the only warmth she had left in this miserably cold world, and she refused to be denied it! She stepped off the boat and ran toward him.

As her feet left the blanket, his memory fragmented, blown away like dandelion seeds fleeing on a belligerent wind. She was alone again. She was more alone than she’d ever been.

Koonta’ar awoke to a head snap that sent a jolt of pain sizzling down the entire length of her spine. She winced, but managed to keep silent.

Nice work, she told herself as she waited for the pain to fade. Oh, and by the way, welcome back to hell. She slugged the hot dirt and then snuck a quick look around. The last thing she needed was to have her warriors witness such a clumsy emergence from her trance state. She was a leader, after all. She was their example. There was no time for the luxury of mourning, not now, not today. She was stronger than that. She had to be.

A pang of guilt seized her. Her grief was becoming a liability, and it was unbecoming of an officer. At first, being out in the field in pursuit of the Parhronii had been a welcomed distraction, but as the trail took its toll on her strength, it became harder and harder to resist her dark memories. Pa'ana had been dead for months now, and she’d used her work to put him behind her. Not to forget him, that was impossible, but only to distance herself from the pain of his memory.

She buried her eyes in her hands and cursed her weakness. Her emotions were escaping the forbidden box she kept chained and locked deep inside her more and more frequently these past days. It made her vulnerable, and she hated herself for it. She had to accept the word of the Elders if she were ever to feel normal again. Pa’ana’s death had been an accident, nothing more. Not treason. Not murder. Just a terrible, unforgivable accident.

She pushed herself to her feet. She was so tired she needed the cliff wall for support. Once up, she brushed the dirt from her leggings and smoothed back a renegade lock of hair. She looked up at the sun standing directly above her. The light poured straight down between the cliff wall and the cedar barb hedge so that her shadow was a dark pool at her feet. The heat was nearly unbearable against her face and bare arms. It made her silver arm bands feel like burning coals against her biceps. She turned back to the hedge, readjusted her sword, tightened her belt, and ducked out through the concealed passage and into the blistering heat of the open plains.

Thirty warriors lay scattered about the field before her, sleeping, talking, or quietly thinking of home under the burdensome sun. The heat was so intense out here in the plains that it smelled constantly of burning grass. She shaded her eyes and looked out at the long hill line nearly a mile south of camp where the silhouettes of two tiny sentinels marched dutifully against the blue sky atop the distant ridge. Even from this distance, she could sense their exhaustion.

None of them had so much as closed their eyes in the last forty-eight hours. They’d been pursuing the Parhronii rogue for weeks now, though it felt like she’d been chasing him her whole life. Time and again, he’d managed to evade them, even when they had him trapped and no mortal escape seemed possible. Even falling into a murderous waterfall hadn’t stopped him. In fact, it’d actually abetted his escape.

She should have just ordered him shot back there on the road along with his cohort, and been done with it. This chase was long past tedious, and she had explicit plans for demonstrating her displeasure once they finally stood face to face. Fortunately, that time seemed to be nearly at hand. After an endless night of tracking him up and down that miserable stream, she now had him cornered like the animal he was.

The bad news was that his tracks had terminated at the face of the cliff where it appeared as if he’d vanished straight into the rock itself, which shouldn’t have been a surprise given the company he was keeping. Just when it seemed the hunt couldn’t get worse, the Parhronii’s damned luck had driven him straight into the arms of the Blue Caeyl Mage.

Her fatigue rallied for another attack, and for the first time in two days, she just couldn’t find the strength to resist. Instead, she submitted to its assault, collapsing to her knees in the dirt. She needed to close her eyes for just a bit, just long enough to regroup. So she lowered her face from the sun, closed her eyes, and tried to put the woes of the world behind her.

She felt her way through fog as thick as milk.

A horse approached from somewhere out there in the white darkness. It was galloping at breakneck speed, its hooves pounding the earth like Osid’f’s hammers. Two more horses followed it, raging across the distant plains as if the devils of all nine hells were after them.

The leader rode several lengths ahead of the others, and in his face burned the twin suns of the Wyr Realm.

Koonta’s head snapped forward. Again, she suffered a shock of pain riding down her back. It was becoming a most irritating habit.

She shaded her eyes and looked around. She felt peculiarly disoriented, though the biting scent of cedar quickly guided her back to the world. She looked back at the dense hedge lining the base of the butte, looked out at the simmering radiance of the hot, dusty plains, looked over at her warriors mulling listlessly about their makeshift camp as they waited for something, anything, to happen. And then she simply cursed and shook her head and steadied herself against the tedium of her reality.

She looked off toward that distant hill. The sentinels were waving back at the camp and gesturing toward the backside of the knoll. She rolled to her knees, lowered her head, and listened to the earth. Soon, three horses materialized in her mind. The images were colorless and vague of detail at such a distance, but undeniable nonetheless. It’d been no dream. Riders did approach.

“Glad to see you’re awake, Saaro.”

The voice didn’t startle her. She’d sensed the vibrations of the officer’s clumsy gait long before he’d reached her.

“What do you hear in the dirt there?” he said in his prim little voice.

She pushed herself up from the dry grass and steadied herself. The fat little Vaemyn standing above her with his shiny gold mail and velvet amber cloak and all those pretty jewels wrapped around his little sausage fingers made her want to slap the stupid out of him rather than salute. Unfortunately, it was just another insult in the sorry state of her reality that he was her kadeer, the leader of their company.

“Well?” he pressed.

“Horses, Kad’r,” she said as carefully as she could manage, “About a half mile out and moving fast.” She climbed to her feet, but avoided his eyes.

Kadeer Fen’lar dug his thumbs into the wide blue leather belt harnessing his ample belly. He wore his hair trussed back a notch too tightly even by Vaemysh standards. He had a habit of tying it snug at the scalp rather than braiding it, so that a mop of hair stabbed out from the back of his crown like the tail on the rump of an ass. It was a most appropriate look.

She turned her attention to the distant hill as she struggled to conceal her irritation. In her exhaustion, she was finding it harder than usual to take him as seriously as the rank demanded.

“Well, Saaro,” he sniffed, “Are you inclined to finish your assessment? Or shall I rather climb yonder hill and look for myself?”

These spit and polish royal house types disgusted her. His family was one of the powerful Houses of Vaen and the first to throw alliance to Prae. His power came with his connections, and everyone knew it. If her dearest wish could come true, she’d find herself alone with him in a locked room for five minutes.

“Well?” the Kadeer demanded, “Are you deaf or simply taking a break?”

She forced herself to look at him. “It’d be an honor to spare you the climb, Kad’r,” she said.

Fen’lar’s eyes flared. Koonta immediately regretted her insolence. Attitude like that would just make things harder on her troops.

“Now, you listen to me, you dirty grunt,” he growled up at her, “I have had—”

“There are three horses, sir,” she said, cutting him off, “They’re at the point of exhaustion. One rider is well ahead of the others. It carries a greater weight than its fellows.”

Fen’lar’s face flushed. Koonta wondered for just an instant if he was going to strike her.

“Rider!” The voice came from the edge of the butte nearly directly above. “Rider approaching from the south!”

She and Fen’lar looked up in tandem to see the silhouette of a warrior standing against the blue sky high above them. He was pointing due south. They turned toward the distant hill just as the silhouette of a horse and rider crested it. An angry plume of dust pushed the pair swiftly down toward the plains. Sunlight flamed against the rider’s armor and a blood-red cloak snapped at his back like angry flames. This was exactly not the inspiration her team needed. It was a miserable wyrlaerd.

She turned back to find Fen’lar’s round face sneering up at her.

“I'm not finished with you, Saaro,” he practically sang, “Not by a mile. So you can wipe that insolent smirk off your face!”

He turned on his heel and lumbered off toward the warriors who were milling about in preparation for the riders. Clapping his chubby hands dramatically, he shouted at the troops to form ranks. It was an intentional insult to her that he was doing her job. Still, as she followed him, she took some pleasure in the fact that her warriors had started assembling before he’d even opened his pretty little mouth. They needed his guidance about as much as they needed tracking advice from their prey.

She walked to the head of the formation so she could see each warrior down both lines. When Fen’lar demanded that the warriors in the front line brush the dirt from their legs, she could only shake her head in disbelief. These were the army's most prestigious trackers and scouts, not honor guards.

The rider thundered into camp on a flourish of dust and flying sweat. It rode a Baeldonian warhorse, a giant of a mount massive enough to support the weight of one of those huge mountain dwellers. Or a wyrlaerd. The demon leapt to the ground before the horse had even stopped, landing hard under the fanfare of a billowing red cape. Layers of road dirt and grime had dulled its normally black mudsteel, but the creature’s countenance felt no less lethal for it. Koonta was certain the demon was bound to be good and pissed after the affair back at the mage’s house.

The bastard’s horse looked even worse. The dark mare wore a sheen of foaming sweat. The pitiful beast looked like it hadn’t had a drink in the better part of a day. On her gesture, a warrior stepped forward and took the reins dropped by the Commander, and then escorted the winded animal away a little too quickly. Koonta understood his urgency.

Fen’lar strolled up to the demon like a horny fieldcock strutting before the hens. At nearly eight feet, the demon stood three feet taller than he did, which only made the show that much more ridiculous. Fen’lar was just another useless, self-important officer sucking up to Prae’s pets, and it made her sick.

The remaining two riders came galloping in from the plains moments later. They brought their steeds to a reckless stop, needlessly risking the safety of the horses for the sake of show. Their mounts were normal brown and white paint horses, standing a full third smaller than the warhorse, though they were in the same dishonorable condition as the other.

The riders’ faces were thankfully hidden from sight by their menacing black helms, which were cast in the image of the same skullish amulet Prae forced all his pets to wear. These were Prae’s personal warriors, his Faev’gel Tower Guards.

Faev’gel was an ancient Vaemysh word meaning shell or thick skin like armor, but she knew the essence of the word meant ‘skin of the dead’. It was said they were essentially hacks, little more than corpses whose souls Prae had extracted and replaced with lesser demons. One had only to stand in their presence for a moment to believe. That they were wearing those dark helms was almost certainly to her advantage.

The wyrlaerd walked past her and Fen’lar, marching down the line of warriors without saying a word. It examined each face it passed, an act Koonta found most odd. It was uncharacteristic for a demon to acknowledge a beating heart standing next to it, let alone pay such close attention to common warriors. She wondered just what it was looking for. Fen’lar followed close behind.

When the demon reached the end of the line, it turned and appeared almost startled to find the Fen’lar close on his heels. Though its face was hidden behind its mudsteel helm, it did not appear amused as it examined him. “You’re the kadeer of this company,” it said in its unnatural, grating voice. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, Lord Graezon,” Fen’lar said, quickly withdrawing his sword six inches and then sliding it sharply back into place in formal salute, “Kadeer Emon Fen’lar of the Council's Third Tracker Elite Infiltrate at your disposal.”

Koonta wondered if ‘disposal’ was the best choice of words.

The wyrlaerd flicked its head queerly, and then the helm quickly melted away like water running off a stone. The odor of hot tar fouled the air, and the emergence of that oily flesh and those burning yellow eyes felt as offensive as a slap.

“Report the status this expedition, Kadeer,” the beast said to Fen’lar, though it was looking directly at her.

Koonta suffered a chill as its yellow eyes seized her. She forced herself to stand taller as she struggled against the shame of her fear. She couldn’t allow the demon to intimidate her so. She was a better warrior than that. Or she should at least pretend to be.

“Of course, sir,” Fen’lar said, “We tracked the scoundrels by torchlight after they confounded us with the altercation at the enemy's base.”

Koonta’ar nearly choked. Altercation? They’d damned well lost a Divinic Demon!

“My trackers worked relentlessly through the night,” Fen’lar continued, “They haven't the reputation as the Council's finest tracking unit simply because they’re led by the House of Fen’lar, you understand.” He chuckled and glanced about for an audience.

“This is your second in command?” Graezon asked. It was still glaring down at her, and she still felt uneasy for it.

Fen’lar threw a look back at her that told her to hold her tongue, that the impending introduction was for ceremony only and she shouldn’t be overly flattered by it. Then he informally took the demon’s arm and directed it toward her. “Allow me to present my lead tracker and saaro of this company, Koonta’ar.”

Koonta watched as the demon’s eyes locked on the fleshy hand gripping its arm just at the elbow. The air suddenly filled with the scent of hot metal, like the biting smell of ozone that emerges just seconds before lightning strikes. She felt her skin tingling and recognized it as a psychic pulse induced by the demon’s irritation. It was a warning sign that, once felt, could never be forgotten.

Fen’lar, however, simply stood there grinning like a monkey, with his hand still on the demon’s arm. Koonta was about to intervene and urge the fool back when the demon seized his hand. A sickening crack resounded. Fen’lar cried out sharply.

“I don’t appreciate being touched by mortals, Kad’r,” the demon said as it squeezed his hand, “Not even by an officer as clearly esteemed as you.”

Another bone snapped. Fen’lar groaned. His legs failed him. He sagged toward the dirt, but the demon’s merciless grip kept him just barely on his feet. A third sharp snap resounded.

In that moment, Koonta could have murdered Fen’lar herself. Thanks to the fool’s arrogance, she was going to have to intervene and risk her own safety, maybe even that of the entire company, to save his undeserving ass.

“Lord Graezon,” she said, stepping closer to the wyrlaerd, “He meant no disrespect by his touch! He merely meant to—”

The demon’s glare hit her like a fist. She backed away reflexively, her hands held up defensively. Its yellow eyes burned down on her as if it were considering whether to abandon Fen’lar and kill her, or finish Fen’lar first and then kill her. But in the end, it simply released him. Fen’lar collapsed into the dirt. The fool was whimpering in the dust like a baby, to the deep shame of all of them.

Graezon stepped over him like shit in the street and stopped directly before her. “You’re the one responsible?” it said from two feet above her.

Koonta’s mind flashed to the dead wyrlaerd back at the mage’s house, and her knees nearly melted beneath her. “Responsible?” she asked carefully, “Responsible for…?”

“Responsible for recovering the trail.”

The sense of relief was nearly incapacitating. She looked down at her kadeer moaning in the dirt behind the demon’s feet. Her first reaction was to break the rest of the fat bastard’s bones for having put her in this situation, but her sense of duty rushed in to save her. Physically harming an officer before his men was a disgraceful, even treasonable act in this army. Respect among officers and simple warriors alike was an honored tradition among the Vaemyn. The beast had shamed them all with its actions.

“I’m speaking to you, Saaro.” Its voice pushed the word out like ‘Say-ro’ rather than the proper pronunciation of ‘Swa-ro’, leaving her to wonder if there were even a tongue in that unnatural mouth.

“This man is a lord from the House of Fen’lar,” she said because duty required it, and because now she was good and pissed, “He’s a Patrician, a member of a Royal Family.”

“I don’t care if he’s Calina’s brother,” the beast growled.

“He’s an officer,” she said as directly as she could manage, though her heart was beating so hard she could barely focus.

“He’s incompetent. I don’t tolerate incompetence.”

“I don’t know how it works where you come from,” she pressed, “But here—”

“Are you the tracker who found the Parhronii’s trail or not?”

She swallowed. Hard. She glanced over at her warriors who were all watching her closely. She knew every one of them was prepared to put their lives on the line and rush in to help her if the situation turned foul. The knowledge gave her strength. She returned her gaze fully into the demon’s. She would not show fear. “We work as a unit, Commander,” she said, “Every warrior contributes equally. Pride is an indulgence we do not tolerate.”

“I’ll ask you again, Saaro, though it’s not my taste to pander to subordinates. Are you the tracker who recovered the fugitive’s trail or no? I advise heartedly against forcing me to ask you again.”

She rested a hand on the hilt of her sword hanging at her waist and held onto it like a lifeline. “I recovered the tracks where the fugitives exited the stream,” she said plainly, “Any of these warriors would eventually have done the same. I was simply fortunate enough to find them first.”

The wyrlaerd’s gaze was becoming unbearable. She felt the cold fingers of its essence probing at the periphery of her thoughts. The sensation was intense and disagreeable, and her stomach began to sour for it. Still, she steadied herself against it. She would not submit to weakness of the flesh or to this monster’s intrusion, not before her warriors.

The ethereal fingers withdrew as quickly as they had appeared, leaving no residue of discomfort behind. As she dragged her arm over her mouth, she wondered if the bastard found what it was looking for.

“Undue modesty is as miserable a trait as arrogance, Saaro,” the wyrlaerd said, “Though I commend your skills and perseverance.” Then it looked down at Fen’lar, and added, “Especially in view of your obvious disadvantages.”

“Our only disadvantage was the limitation of time, Commander,” she said, trying to pull its attention away from Fen’lar.

The malicious yellow eyes drifted her way on cue. “You’re capable and strong willed,” it said, “I’m in need of such officers given the obstacles facing us.”

Fen’lar attempted to stand while cradling his broken hand. He made it to one knee, but then tottered and fell back into the ground again with a childish whimper. As Koonta watched him shaming them in the dirt, she realized she could more easily disguise her contempt for the demon than she could her embarrassment of her kadeer. It was an act demanding contrition, and she would need to meditate on it and serve penance later.

“Perhaps this would be a good time to show you the trail’s end,” she said, looking up at the wyrlaerd, “We could use your guidance.” Anything to distract the beast from their fearful leader.

The demon looked at her a moment, and then it nodded, saying, “Perhaps so. You may lead on.”

They passed through the break in the barb-cedar. Koonta led them along the narrow space between the dense foliage and the cliff line. The shade felt like a gift from Calina. She was ashamed to be sweating harder than the sun merited. They stopped before a watermelon sized boulder that jutted out from the otherwise smooth rock. It was at chest height for her, but just above the waist of the demon. “The tracks end here,” she said, “The entrance is concealed by a blue caeyl enchantment. It appears—”

“Thank you, Saaro. You’re relieved.” It was Fen’lar’s voice, and it landed as harshly as a horsefly bite.

She watched him in stunned silence as he pushed his way past her. The stupidity driving him must be epic in proportion! Had he no clue she’d likely saved his life by distracting the wyrlaerd?

“Are you deaf, Saaro?” Fen’lar said, turning his swollen red face on her, “I said. You. Are relieved!”

No, apparently he didn’t. Well, if the man wanted to die so badly, he was welcome to do it on his own. “Your will, Kad’r,” she said as she backed away, “By your leave, sir.” She cut down the line past the two ghoulish Faev’gel Guards, giving them as wide a berth as she could manage in the narrow space.

“I’m quite skilled in the assessment of basic caeyl magic,” she heard Fen’lar instruct the demon, “But even I have been confounded by this particular enchantment. I’ve concluded that the opening must be mechanical in nature rather than ethereal.”

It was just the fool’s good fortune that the demon was too focused on the boulder to attend to him. The monster was carefully touching the boulder, probing it as if looking for a link or portal.

Then everything changed.

The wyrlaerd backed a step away from the boulder. Koonta leaned as hard into the barbed hedge as she could safely manage, struggling to see around the line of Prae’s guards and Fen’lar. The boulder was glowing with a faint blue light.

She heard Fen’lar gasp and cry out, “My gods, what treachery is this?” He reached for the rock like a child reaching for a shiny bauble, but the demon seized him and threw him back against the barb-cedar line. Fen’lar screeched as his arms caught a row of the needle-like barbs.

The stone’s surface was now pulsing with an iridescent blue light that shimmered like the surface of a still pond, looking more liquid than solid. A face quickly swelled up from the rock like a swimmer emerging from the depths. It was the image of a man, though the eyes were lifeless and the mouth lacked depth. The face turned slowly to the left and then to the right. It appeared to be looking for something or someone.

She recognized this as a sentry, though it was unlike any she’d seen before. This one moved more fluidly, more naturally than the rock gargoyles guarding the southern border of Na te’Yed. The wyrlaerd studied the image for a bit before tapping the rock with a finger. The encounter sent waves of blue light rippling across the surface, which temporarily distorted the image.

When the disturbance calmed and the face condensed back into focus, the wyrlaerd leaned closer to it. “What manner of sentry are you?”

“I am the sentry of Sanctuary.” The voice was no different from any sentry she’d heard, a grating drone that was just as irritating as the demon’s.

“My gods,” Fen’lar practically shrieked, “It’s Lord Prae!”

“No,” Graezon said, “It’s just a game played by the Water Caeyl Mage.”

“It’s Prae, I tell you. Just look at it! That’s his face!”

“You’re an idiot,” the wyrlaerd said, “It’s a stone sentry, nothing more.”

Koonta’ar agreed that the image did resemble Prae, though it lacked a beard. Then again, the details were vague and difficult to make out when the sentry animated. It seemed more logical that the face belonged to the Blue Caeyl Mage, who she’d never met in person.

Graezon held its black, metal-gloved hands out over the creature, but didn’t touch it. Koonta understood the move; it was feeling for the source of the caeyl energy.

“Sentry,” it said, “Open this entrance.”

The sentry showed no reaction to the command.

“Sentry!” the wyrlaerd said more forcefully, “Open the entrance.”

Koonta suddenly became aware of a new vibration. She looked down at her feet. It originated beneath her, from somewhere deep in the earth. It sounded like the groans of an impending earthquake, perceptible only through its taer-cael. She looked up at the guards, at the wyrlaerd, at Fen’lar. No one else seemed cognizant of it.

“Your request is denied, sir,” the sentry replied in its awkward parlance.

She placed her hand against the cliff wall and leaned closer to it, listening harder with her oteuryns. Earthquakes weren’t uncommon in these parts, but there was something different about this sensation. It sounded at once both distant and imminent.

“I told you to open this passage,” she heard the demon say, “Open it now.”

“You’re trespassing here, sir,” the sentry replied, “Perhaps if you can produce the proper papers?”

“Papers?” Graezon stood staring at the sentry like it wasn’t sure it’d heard correctly.

Koonta abandoned the cliff wall and leaned out toward the hedge to see around the guards. At first, she couldn’t believe it. Was the sentry actually smiling up at the demon?

“You’ll gain no entrance here, wyrlaerd,” the sentry said, “This place is forbidden to you and to all who seek to violate Sanctuary.”

Graezon was seething now. The smell of smoking tar was becoming nearly unbearable. She could see the radiance of its heat shimmering above its long red cloak. At the same time, the vibrations beneath them were growing more compelling. Koonta again looked up at the cliff wall and wondered if there was a correlation. Could the demon’s anger be responsible for the taer-cael she sensed?

“I command you to open this entrance!” the demon snarled at the sentry, “Open it or I swear I’ll wipe your face right off this mountain!”

The sentry actually paused at this. Its eyes rolled heavenward for just a second as if it were considering the threat. Then it looked straight at the demon and actually laughed. “I think not, sir. Not today. Probably not tomorrow, either.”

Graezon slugged the rock above the sentry. “You will open this door now!”

The sentry only shrugged its eyebrows and smiled. “Perhaps if you came back in a week or so. But you’ll need to remember your papers.” Then it shuddered and froze, its now solid eyes staring blankly up at the wyrlaerd. The blue light still simmered in the stone, but it was duller now, more anemic. The sentry appeared to have withdrawn.

“It’s gone, sir,” Fen’lar said.

The demon gripped the rock protuberance with both hands and leaned over it. Its eyes pulsed brilliantly. A yellow light erupted in the stone beneath its hands. Graezon was attempting to use its own Fire Caeyl energy against the sentry.

The vibrations beneath Koonta abruptly surged. She looked down at the ground. Thousands of ants were crawling over her feet, flowing over her boots like a rivulet of thick, black water. It was a revolting sight.

Then she realized the truth. These weren’t ants at all. The earth was moving. The fine black grit covering the ground along the foot of the cliff was shimmying toward the sentry like flowing water. She’d never seen anything like it. She tried to step out of it, but the fine gravel was already up over her ankles. It was thick as mud.

“Lord Graezon!” she yelled past the guards, “You should look at this!”

The dirt was a stream, flowing over the Faev’gel guards’ feet and calves as it rushed down the line toward the demon, which was apparently oblivious to the phenomenon.

“Lord Graezon,” she yelled, “Please! You have to look at this. Something’s wrong!”

The demon still didn’t respond. The space between its hands and the sentry was aflame in yellow light that crackled and snapped as it streaked across the boulder. The acrid smell of ozone competed with the reek of tar. The thick flow of gravel was coursing around the beast’s boots now, swelling up over its knees, though it didn’t seem to notice.

Koonta felt a rush of dizziness. The unnatural taer-cael was pounding in her skull. Dirt and stones pattered from the cliff above them. The dirt was swirling in a bizarre eddy around the demon’s boots, and as she watched it consume the creature’s legs, she suddenly understood. This was an ambush set by the mage, a foul homage to the one left for him by the Divinic Demon, Wonugh, back at the house. They were in imminent danger.

“Lord Graezon,” she again shouted past the Tower Guards, “Get back! Get away from the sentry! This is a trap!” She tried to move, but the dirt flowing over her legs had her feet locked.

The face in the rock suddenly blurred back into animation, though now it glowed in an eerie green light. It looked up at the demon and seemed to sneer at it. “I have something for you, demon,” it growled, “You may consider it a favor returned.” And then its sneer blossomed into a full grin as it added, “And please, do give my regards to Prae.”

The demon pushed back from the rock too late. A thick vortex of living earth coiled up around its legs, entwining it to the hips like it was being swallowed alive by some unholy snake. The sentry’s mutated green light was now so intense Koonta couldn’t look directly at it.

The rear Faev’gel guard suddenly pulled a foot free and fell back into Koonta. She stumbled back in tandem and caromed off the wall, twisting herself toward the barb-cedar hedge. She hit the ground hard enough to free her other foot and quickly rolled away from the flowing grit.

The ground was now shaking beneath her. It felt like the entire cliff was about to slide down on them. She crawled swiftly on her elbows toward the break in the hedge. She heard Fen’lar shrieking somewhere in the chaos, but he wasn’t her problem now. Her warriors were her priority. She had to warn them away from the cliff.

“Get back from the cliff!” she yelled as she scrambled through the hedge break, “Get away from the cedars! Run toward the plain!”

She just cleared the break and lifted herself into a run when the world exploded. A wall of heat pounded her from behind. She flailed at the air but there was nothing to grab. She landed hard in the dirt some yards later. The impact knocked the wind out of her. She pushed herself up to her elbows and struggled to draw air. Something hard landed on her shoulder, knocking her back to the earth. She again tried to stand, but a series of rocks pelted her back to the ground.

She lay on her stomach as the world whirled beneath her. Dirt and debris rained down around her. Thick smoke choked the air. Something hard struck her head, sending her face into the dirt on a spark of white pain. And then the sky fell dark, and somewhere in that timeless turning, everything went silent.

XV

THE PROMOTION

K

OONTA PUSHED HERSELF UP ONTO AN ELBOW AND SPIT THE DIRT FROM HER MOUTH.

A dense fog of cedar smoke shrouded the world. Her eyes were on fire, her breathing agony. The thrum of the fading explosion still vibrated in her head. Somewhere off in the fog and smoke, she heard someone coughing.

She plucked a cedar thorn from her neck and flicked it into the smoke. A quick count revealed four limbs, two oteuryns, and two eyes, all of which added up to no excuse for self-pity. Aside from a throbbing headache and some impending bruises, she’d survived without serious damage. This was nothing. She’d had much worse.

She stood up with more effort than pleased her. A deep pall of smoke cloaked the world like a late autumn fog. The smoke obscured her path, making it a slow, laborious process like wading through the muddy water of a rock-strewn river. The barb-cedar hedge was now a ragged line of fractured trunks and smoking limbs a dozen yards wide. The ground was a maze of broken branches and rocks. Eventually she made the soot-blackened cliff face and began feeling her way toward the sentry.

Out in the field beyond the battered shrub line, shadows of her warriors staggered through the fog like ghosts of the damned. It reminded her of the paintings she’d seen in the Boruoem Temple in Vaemogth as a child. Pictures of the cursed dead wandering blindly through Sken te’Fau, the Swamp of Voices, lost and desperate and deeply mournful. Those images had cost her more than a few troubled nights’ sleep. She wanted more than anything to go to them, to help them, but honor dictated she find Fen’lar first. Like it or not, he was their senior officer and their leader.

The crater left on the cliff by the explosion was wider and taller than her arm span, and yet only inches deep. It was still hot enough that she couldn’t touch it. It maddened her that the explosion had done so much damage to the cedar hedge and her troops, yet hadn’t been enough to breech the cave.

She sensed the taer-cael of a struggle beneath the smoking mat of mangled branches that had been the cedar hedge. It was just next to her, a half dozen feet back directly across from the crater. The image she was receiving was dull and indistinct. Still, it was clear that someone was alive under there.

She immediately began to dig through the branches. The thorns, the thick, oily smoke, and her headache were working in cahoots to aggravate the process of clearing the debris. The taer-cael grew louder as she dug deeper, though the lingering vibrations of the explosion confounded her efforts to form an image. Eventually she dragged away a large cedar branch and revealed…a metal hand.

It was all she could do not to scream at the sight.

For a dirty moment, she actually considered abandoning the fiend to fend for itself, to let it dig its own goddamned way out of the debris. And though it would be the path of deep satisfaction, it would just as efficiently lead her to shame. Instead, she continued clearing. To abandon even as foul a comrade as the wyrlaerd would bring dishonor on her and her family, and she’d have no part of it. Despite that truth, she made a secret prayer as she worked that the beast was mangled thoroughly enough to send it limping back to its master.

The beast soon disappointed her by climbing free from its chains. The heat had ruined the armor’s malleability so that it screeched horribly as the demon moved. Bits of stone pocked its tarry face, and the glowing caeyl of its left eye had drifted lower through the heated tar in such a way that it would have been comical under any other circumstances. Unfortunately, what little humor the sight offered died a quick and tragic death.

The demon lumbered toward her with its metal shrieking, its fists knotted, and its eyes on fire. She instinctively drew her sword as she backed away in tandem, though she wasn’t sure what she’d done to bring its anger. Had the demon read her thoughts? Had it sensed the contempt she felt for it? If so, she was most certainly a dead woman.

The cliff wall rudely ended her retreat, though the demon kept coming. The hot, unyielding stone of the crater at her back felt like standing at the end of the world. There was nothing left to do now but steady herself for the worst. As she hoisted her sword into the disfigured face of the wyrlaerd, she thought of Pa’ana. She remembered his eyes, how he smelled, the warmth of his breath, and in that instant was ready to join him in the Holy City of Pentyrfal.

Much to her surprise, the demon didn’t attack her. Instead, it simply shoved her to the side and slammed its fists against the smoking pit that had been the sentry’s post. It pounded the rock again and again, sparks flying with each blow. Finally, it threw its arms out and released a mind-numbing wail that swelled in pitch and volume until her eardrums felt like they would rip open under the pressure of it. The wretched sound was relentless, growing dramatically higher in tone and intensity. She threw her hands to her ears, but it was no use. Her eyes were watering under the pain of it. The sound was unbearable. It was killing her!

Then the nightmarish sound simply stopped, ceasing in mid-shriek, ending as abruptly as it had begun.

She collapsed back against the cliff and tried to breathe again. The pain was already fading from her head, though an odd ringing sound remained. As she struggled for composure, she watched the demon studying the crater.

It was as horrid a vision as she’d ever dared dream. The smoking ruins, the loss of her kadeer, her wounded wandering through the smoke, the failure of a mission in which they’d invested months of efforts. It was too much to bear.

And then there was the demon. The beast was a hideous, vile thing, a tumor in the consciousness of this mortal world, and she loathed it and everything it represented.

Something tingled through the ringing in her ears. She lowered her head and pressed her palm into her brow as she concentrated on it. It was a new taer-cael, and it came from the same heap of debris the wyrlaerd had dug itself free of. This one was fainter and less distinct, but she knew it was Fen’lar. The fool was still alive. She pushed away from the cliff and maneuvered around the wyrlaerd to begin the climb through the rubble toward the source of the vibrations.

Graezon again intercepted her. It seized her by the mail and threw her to the side as easily as she might toss a blanket. She landed hard in the dirt. Before she could even get back to her feet, the beast kicked away the branches and pulled the Kadeer free. At least, what was left of him.

Graezon threw him back against the hot crater and pinned him there by the neck. A jagged line of ripped rings exposed the pale and bloody flesh beneath Fen’lar’s mail. A shard of wood stuck out from his ribs. Bright blood bubbled around the entry wound. His scalp was a blackened cap of charred hair. The skin on his face was raw and blistered. His upper lip was gone, and what teeth he may have still possessed were lost in all the blood. As Fen’lar clawed at the metal hand shackled to his neck, his boot heels kicked impotently against the crater’s rim. The demon grabbed the wolf’s head badge and removed it from the broken mail

Koonta had to intervene. Superior officer or not, the wyrlaerd was not going to murder a warrior in the field, not on her watch. She again drew her sword and threw it into the demon’s face, shouting, “Release him!”

The demon didn’t look at her. It didn’t even seem to notice her. “Your incompetence cost us a Divinic Demon,” it snarled at Fen’lar, “You’ve lost the Parhronii and the mage! And now this? You led us to an ambush? You’re a fool and a liability.”

Fen’lar tried to speak, but only managed a wet cough that sprayed the demon’s armor red. He was dying quickly. She had to act.

“Release him!” she yelled at Graezon, “You’ve no right to do this!”

“I’ve every right,” the demon growled back, “This is punishment for gross ineptitude.”

“It’s murder!”

“It’s an execution.”

“It’s murder, and you know it! I will not let you kill him, do you hear me?”

This seemed to amuse the wyrlaerd. It actually looked at her now, looked at the sword tip hovering before its face. Its already twisted features warped queerly, and she felt a surge of repulsion as she realized it was trying to smile. “Why, Saaro,” it said, “Are you threatening me?” It actually looked amused.

A warrior walked in from the smoke and stood beside her. Another immediately followed. They’d both drawn their weapons.

“I don’t make threats,” she told the beast, “But there’s a line between discipline and treason, and not even you can be allowed to cross it with impunity.”

“Those are dangerous words, Saaro.”

“Kill him,” she said, “And it’ll be my responsibility to relieve you of command.”

The demon laughed at that. “Relieve me of command?”

Three more warriors joined them, coming in from the smoking field on the other side of the wyrlaerd. The demon considered the gathering company. “You’d find that an unhealthy move,” it said, throwing its foul eyes from warrior to warrior, “I would urge caution to you, Saaro, lest your comrades pay the price of your pride.”

“This is no idle threat, Commander,” she said back, “Continue this path and none of us will track for you.”

“I have other trackers.”

“The closest company of elite trackers is in the Nolands. It’ll take you weeks to gather and bring them here. By then, the fugitives will be in Barcuun and you’ll lose your precious prize. I don’t think Lord Prae will be amused when he hears how you lost his Blood Caeyl.”

The demon’s eyes narrowed at that. “And pray tell how you expect Lord Prae will hear about it if you’re all dead?”

More warriors emerged from the smoke, some scrambling over the burning chaos of the mangled barb cedars behind the beast. All had their swords drawn.

“You’ll never kill us all,” she said, “Some of us will escape. But kill one of us and you lose us all.”

She could feel the cold tentacles of the demon’s thoughts again tickling at the edge of her consciousness. She steeled herself against it, but the beast only pushed more determinedly. A sensation like cold, thick water filled her mind, though she fought the dark feelers back with every bit of faith she had left. She refused to submit.

The demon abruptly withdrew. Then it released Fen’lar. Her warriors rushed forward to catch the dying man as he slid down over the crater’s lip. They eased him carefully to the ground.

“You’re strong willed,” Graezon said, turning to her, “You’re devoted to your compatriots.”

“I follow the rules,” she said seriously.

“The rules of war? Why on earth would war have rules?”

“The rules of honor.”

“Meaning?”

Koonta’ar watched the warriors working to save their Kadeer at the feet of the demon. How could she define loyalty to a creature that would so easily kill its own confederates? One of the warriors tending to the Kadeer looked up at her and shook her head.

Graezon waved a hand at Fen’lar’s corpse without taking its eyes from her. “You see? He would’ve died anyway. You might’ve gotten yourself killed for nothing more than the pomp and circumstance of pride.”

She suffered a surge of anger that she could not rein back. “Do you know what loyalty means?” she demanded of the beast, “What allegiance means?”

The wyrlaerd only watched her.

She stepped closer to it. Her heart was pounding with her rage and terror, but she would not stand down. “It means I follow your orders because my leaders say it should be so. But if you think loyalty to my leaders equals betrayal of my comrades, you are making a dangerous mistake.”

“Harsh words, Saaro.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“Oh, you’re afraid of me, all right.”

“I’ll never yield to you.”

“Yes. That, I can see.”

As she stared up into those horrible eyes, she knew the creature had spoken the truth; she wasn’t just afraid of it, she was absolutely terrified. In fact, she wanted nothing more in that moment than to run, run as fast and far as her feet would carry her. Nevertheless, though she couldn’t control what darkness this world brought to her doorstep, she could resist yielding to it. She would not let fear define her.

“You’re second in command over this company,” the demon said matter-of-factly.

“Appears I'm first in command now, doesn't it?”

This seemed to amuse it. “You’re angry,” it said, “You’ll get over it.”

Then the demon grabbed her mail and dragged her forward. Its movement was so sudden, she didn’t even have time to flinch. It quickly secured the dead Kadeer's wolf head badge to her mail, placing it directly beside her Saaro’s fox head badge. Then it pushed her roughly back.

She stumbled backward and fell again. She cursed as she hit the dirt. It was becoming more than tedious. Her comrades quickly pulled her to her feet.

“Congratulations,” Graezon said, “You’re now a kadeer.”

She didn’t look at the badge and she didn’t acknowledge the promotion.

“I admire your courage, Kadeer,” the demon continued, “But I would advise you to make a greater effort at controlling your impulses.”

“I walk the path of honor,” she said back, “Impulse has little to do with it.”

“You should know how difficult it is for me to coexist with you in this mortal plane,” Graezon said as it studied her, “Not unlike a wolf walking amongst rabbits. I have urges that you could never understand. Keep pushing and you may discover how unappetizing my true nature can be.” With that, it turned away and shoved its way through the warriors.

The company’s healer was already tending to Fen’lar’s body, chanting their ancient death prayers, and ceremoniously anointing the body with the cedar ashes at hand. Koonta touched the rank insignia on her chest. It was still wet with blood.

Fen’lar would’ve died anyway, of course, she knew as much. His wounds were tragic. Still, to be forced to look into the face of hell as your life bleeds out of you? It was too ghastly an end to consider. She prayed that Fen’lar’s soul would walk free, that it wouldn’t stall here in this place because of the terror he’d experienced at his end. They were perilously close to Sken te’Fau, the Swamp of Voices. This was most assuredly not a good place to die.

She began working her way back toward her troops and nearly stepped on the detached arm of one mutilated Tower Guard. The gray fingers were slowly crawling along a blackened cedar log, pulling the severed arm behind it. She cursed and brought her sword down on it. The severed hand flipped through the air and landed upside down in the dirt, its fingers still wiggling like the legs of a dying beetle.

As she wiped the disgust from her mouth, a warrior limped past. Blood covered the Vaemyd’s left arm and shoulder, and her hair was singed along the same side of her head. “Are you all right, Saaro?” she asked Koonta, “Sit down and I’ll dress that wound on your forehead.”

Koonta swiped her hand over her brow, and then looked down at the crimson streaking her fingers. “No, I’m fine,” she said, shaking her head, “See to the others first.”

The warrior said nothing, but only nodded respectfully. Koonta watched her limp off into the smoking wasteland that had been their camp. A swelling red streak soiled the leather britches along her thigh where a sliver of wood had pierced her. And yet, despite that warrior’s obvious pain, despite her wounds, despite her deep, deep fatigue, she was carrying a satchel of bandages to tend the other wounded before looking after herself. It was the way of her people, and it gave her hope that maybe they hadn’t lost their souls after all.

∞

Koonta stood a yard back from the wyrlaerd with her arms crossed. The heat of the day was baking the beast in its metal suit, and the resulting reek of hot tar was nearly more than she could bear. As she struggled with the stench, she wondered just when the days had grown so dark? When had their desperation grown so fierce that allying with demons seemed a rational option? The creatures were not only morally objectionable, they were physically repulsive as well.

Graezon knelt before her, leaning over a low, flat boulder covered by a large yellowing map. It was a map of eastern Calevia, starting at the wilds of Northern Parhron and running down the parchment for over seven hundred miles to the Scrubs of Despair in the deep south. On the left center of the map was a large circle, and within that circle was the enlarged section of this specific region showing more detail. The demon smoothed out the stubborn creases and pressed a blackened fingertip into a spot near the center of the circle. “This is where we are now,” it told her.

“I know where we are,” she said, “We’ve no shortage of maps.”

Graezon turned its foul eyes up to her. She could feel the cold tentacles of its essence probing her once again, and once again, she denied them entry. It took less effort this time.

“You’ve a strong mind,” it said as its thoughts withdrew.

“You should know. You’ve tested it enough today.”

“Your resistance is impressive.”

“I’m getting a fair share of practice,” she said. It was the truth.

“Don’t be overly proud just yet, Kad’r. Every house has an entrance. It’s only a matter of finding the right door.”

“You should stay out of houses you’re not welcomed in,” she said sharply.

“I told you, it’s—”

“It’s your nature. Ay’a, I got that.” Her head was pounding. She wished the bastard would just get to the point.

“What’s the significance of that image?” it asked, pointing at her upper arm.

Koonta looked at her arm. Somewhere during this fiasco, she’d lost her bracers, leaving her biceps exposed. The tattoo of a great tree covered much of her bicep. Cradled in the midst of its branches was a brilliant sun at whose center was an all-seeing eye. She wondered why the beast would care.

“It’s my family crest,” she said.

Graezon seemed to be studying it, though it was hard to tell. It’d straightened its deformed eye, but the glowing yellow stone was still slightly off center. “Family crest,” it repeated, “The imagery is most interesting.”

She was simultaneously relieved and ashamed when the demon turned back to the map. It came as no small annoyance that the beast only had to look at her to stir her apprehension. Then again, she’d been afraid plenty of times before in her life and would be again before the end. And as she considered it, she again told herself it didn’t matter that she suffered the fear, only that she never yield to it.

The map fluttered lightly in the breeze. The demon anchored the offending corner with a rock. “You should look closely at this map, Kad’r,” it said, “I believe you'll find it to be like no other you've seen.”

Though skeptical, she did as ordered and squatted for a closer look. To her disappointment, the wyrlaerd was right. It was easily the oldest map of the region she’d seen. The legend and labels were written in Baeldonian. Old Baeldonian. It had to be two hundred years old. Intrigued, she leaned closer.

Within the circle, a network of dotted lines ran from the northeastern Baeldonian territory southwest to the furthest corner of Na te’Yed before turning due south into the southern forest.

“I’m going to tell you something,” Graezon said, “Something that may surprise you.”

“I’m listening.”

“The fugitives are no longer in the cave beyond that cliff wall.”

“I understand,” she said, “These dotted lines represent the Baeldonian tunnel system.”

Its face twisted into what she supposed was a grin. “You continually surprise me,” it said, “It’s a trait I find most appealing.”

“I’m flattered,” she said. She wasn’t.

Graezon tapped the map again. “These tunnels have been in existence for better than three hundred of your mortal years. The Baeldons used them during the Fifty Year War. Originally built for travel during the winter snows, they were adapted to serve as military transport highways. They were abandoned at the end of that war due to the damage inflicted by the combat. They’re now little more than a morgue for their dead.”

“We learned about the tunnels in the academy,” she said, “They’re in varying states of collapse. I was under the belief they’re largely impassible.”

“Not all of them.”

She dismissed that with a shrug. “Doesn’t much matter, does it? You’re aware we’re unable to easily pursue them into the tunnels, jh’ven? We have herbal remedies to counter our weakness, but the side effects of the tonics leave us in a hallucinogenic state for some time.”

“You fail to see the big picture.” Graezon traced a line of dots with its finger. “These circular marks represent hatches, exits to the surface. They're spaced at regular intervals along each tunnel system.”

“I’m familiar with the hatches as well. There are several near Prae’s keep.”

“Lord Prae,” it corrected.

She continued to study the map.

“You are exactly right,” it said, turning back to the map, “Those are indeed hatches to this same tunnel system.”

“The point seems irrelevant,” she said, “What use are tunnels if we can’t enter them. Even if you sent your Pendt soldiers in after them, what good are the hatches if the tunnels don’t go anywhere? Too many sections of the tunnels have collapsed.”

“I assure you, the tunnels are most traversable.”

“How do you know that?”

“I know much about the world beneath your graves.” It offered another repulsive grin.

She turned back to the map and prayed her disgust wasn’t too obvious.

The demon tapped the edge of a swamp that was a day’s hike north of them. There, one dotted line abruptly veered east. “This is the final hatch before Sken te’Fau. It’s where they must exit if they’re to take the swiftest route north to the Passage Lake and Boardtown.”

“As per the provisions of the Neutral Outerlands treaty,” Koonta said. She’d already considered that. “But surely the mage must know we’d anticipate such a move.”

The worried mudsteel armor screeched miserably as the creature rose to its feet. “Your earlier observation was at least partially correct,” it said, “The tunnels are in a state of disrepair. There are sections between here and Barcuun that have collapsed. That is what will eventually force them topside. Your job is to intercept them when they do. Or contain them within the tunnel if they don’t.”

“Contain them?”

“Until I can send the prodes.”

The word hit like a cold wind. “Prodes?” she repeated, “But I thought they wouldn’t be used until we took Graewind Castle?”

“Once we send the prodes into the tunnels, they’ll finish anything alive down there. Unlike me, they’ve no qualms about submitting to their true nature.” It grinned again.

She wasn’t amused. Someday the demon would learn a bit more about her true nature. “So that’s where we go next,” she said, nodding toward the map, “The swamp.”

“There are three hatches between here and Sken te’Fau. You will need to siege each of them.”

“I understand.”

“The prodes will arrive in three days. If you haven’t apprehended the fugitives by the third day you’ll open the hatches and mark them with the gland oil.”

“And if the prodes kill them in the tunnels? How do we get them out?”

“The prodes have been trained to retrieve bodies from enclosed spaces. It’s a contingency for the event that your people’s inherited weaknesses causes us disappointment.”

“I see,” she said. Trained prodes. Another mark of shame on her people.

“The Blood Caeyl will be returned to Eo Naehg Lek as quickly as possible.”

“Prae’s Keep.”

“Lord Prae’s Keep.”

Again, she said nothing.

“If the Parhronii lives, we want him brought south to the keep. Lord Prae would prefer you to kill the mage on sight.”

“I understand.”

“Though essentially incompetent, the mage can still be quite dangerous. I would advise against underestimating the power of his Water Caeyl.”

“We have been fully educated on the man,” she said. There was nothing incompetent about him. If half what she knew were correct, he would be a most formidable opponent. She was convinced this mage was surely not one to either take lightly or give any quarter to.

As she rolled up the map, she studied the goings on at the camp behind her. A few warriors were attending to the wounded. A hundred yards west of their camp, the others were lighting a hastily assembled pyre composed of the mangled barb cedars. Fen’lar’s remains already lay on a crude platform above the fire. A common field blanket wrapped his corpse, rather than the customary flax shroud preferred by their people. Watching her warriors working the funeral, she suddenly felt as if she were standing on the trapdoor of a gallows.

She tucked the map under her arm as she faced Graezon. “I’ll need the dead guards’ horses so we can get word to you with all speed,” she said, “I’ll leave three warriors here to watch the cave entrance in case your estimate of the enemy’s movement is erroneous. And now, I have to attend to the funeral of my Kadeer. You’re welcome to stay and pay your respects.”

“You’ll make do without the horses.”

At first, she thought she’d heard it wrong. “What did you say?”

“I require an escort back to the assault base. They’ll need mounts to keep up.”

She couldn’t believe she’d heard right. “You seem perfectly capable of protecting yourself.”

“An officer of my rank requires an armed escort for appearance if nothing else.”

“But I’ve only got a squad of—”

“This is not a negotiation.”

She studied its misshapen black face for some sign that this was a test or perhaps an odd attempt at humor. Finding none, she said, “So, you’re sabotaging my success for the sake of pageantry?”

The wyrlaerd seized her by the mail and hauled her up to it. It was holding her so high, she was barely able to keep on her toes and had to grab its arm for balance. Its flaming eyes burrowed deep into hers. She could smell its malice even over the reek of tar.

“I’ve tolerated your tongue this long because you impress me,” it said to her, “But I warn you not to press my good character too far. Do not confuse me for a patient deity. Nor for a merciful one. Do we understand each other?”

“We do,” she grunted. It had her so tight by the neck of her mail that she could barely breathe. Still, she refused to break eye contact with the bastard.

The beast held her there, glaring down at her as the tentacles of its mind again tickled at the edge of her awareness. When it again couldn’t find egress, it threw her back.

Koonta stumbled backward in the dust. The fact that she managed to keep from falling this time brought her no small relief.

The demon began to turn away, but then stopped and looked back at her. “One more thing, Kadeer Koonta’ar. I’d advise you to keep the image of your predecessor’s last breaths ever fresh in your mind. I believe it could serve you as a source of inspiration.”

“You needn’t remind me of that, Commander,” she said seriously, “You may rest assured that I’ll never forget Fen’lar’s death. Not tomorrow, not ever.”

“If you fail me, there is no force between the heavens or the Wyr that can bridle my wrath. The Vaemyn have disappointed me enough of late. I am putting a great deal of faith in you, and I won’t tolerate further incompetence.”

“Lord Graezon, if you think I’m motivated by fear or intimidation, you’ve grossly misjudged me.”

“There’s often wisdom to be found in fear, don’t you think?” it said seriously.

“I’m motivated by loyalty and nothing more. Murdering comrades in the field is an act of treason. It flies in the face of my people’s values.”

Its face twisted into an aberrant grin. “Perhaps you haven't noticed,” it said, “I’m not one of your people.”

She dragged her hand over her mouth as she watched the beast walking away. She’d acted foolishly. Foolishly! It was one thing to defend a fellow warrior, but quite another to taunt a Divinic Demon just to satisfy her arrogance. She hoped she was a better Vaemyd than that. She’d damned well better be.

∞

Fen’lar’s wrapped corpse rested atop a narrow platform of woven cedar branches suspended from four makeshift posts. The platform supporting him stood barely five feet above the dirt; there wasn’t the time or resources available to make it a fitting funeral pyre. His comrades had piled what branches and boughs they could salvage in a great heap beneath it and laid fire to it. Most of the warriors were already leaving Fen’lar’s blazing pyre by the time she arrived. Having quickly paid their duties to their fallen comrade, they focused on readying for the trail.

Fen’lar’s fire was growing steadily. A thick tentacle of black, oily smoke coiled into the heavens. The air reeked of evergreen and burning flesh. She moved around behind it so that she had a clear view of the camp as she paid her respects. Crossing her arms in the Vaemysh tradition, she gave up a prayer for the newly dead. Yet, even as she whispered her apology for having harbored such foul thoughts about fat, soft old Fen’lar, she kept her eyes on the demon.

Graezon was nearly a hundred yards away, standing at its horse and rifling through the saddlebags. As she watched the monster, a most curious thing happened. One of her warriors approached it. Graezon quickly ushered him around to the hidden side of the mount. A minute later, the warrior was walking back toward camp. If she hadn’t been looking directly at him, she’d never have seen him adjusting his belt pouch. The demon had given him something. It was exactly as she’d expected.

The evergreen sap sizzled and popped as the fire grew angrier. The intense heat forced her to back away from the flames. Despite her lack of love for Fen’lar, she regretted that he had to die the way he had. She truly hoped he’d find peace. Given the means of his death and their proximity to the great swamp, she wasn’t optimistic.

A lean, muscular Vaemyn with cropped white hair walked up to her. He stood half a head taller than she did. Normally energetic to a fault, he appeared tired and drawn, his face hollow, his skin sallow. It was evidence of the frenetic pace they’d pushed themselves to over these past days when the strongest among them suffered so visibly.

She turned to him and fastened her old fox head medallion to his mail. As she did, she glanced at the skullish black amulet pierced through his left oteuryn, but immediately pulled away from it and the angst it stimulated. “You’re now the company saaro, Maeryc,” she said as she finished.

He grinned and stood taller. “You honor me with this.”

“You saw Toma slip away a few minutes ago?” she said.

“Ay’a, I did. Seems he had a little chat with the demon. Makes me think they may be old friends, jh’ven?”

“I do understand,” she whispered, “I had the same thought. We’re sending two warriors to accompany the demon back to base. See that he’s not one of them.”

Maeryc nodded.

She glanced over at the demon, still milling about its horse. “Once Graezon’s departed,” she said, “Select three warriors to stay here and guard the cliff while the rest of us go on.”

“And I’ll make sure he’s one of them?” Maeryc said with a wink.

She looked up at him. “Exactly right. Keep your eyes open and your horns low. I worry the demon’s eyes are in our company.”

“Understood.”

“Once Vainor finishes tending the wounded, we’ll move the company out. I know we’re tired, but we need to make another twenty miles before dark.”

Maeryc's eyes dropped to the map in her hand. “I gather you’ve a plan, Koo?”

“You’ve the gift of insight, dear brother. Let's just say we're moving north by northeast to dig for worms.”

“Worms,” Maeryc said, “Sounds most interesting.”

XVI

PARALLEL TRAILS

B

EAM SAT DOWN IN THE DIRT AND LEANED BACK AGAINST A ROUGH TIMBER BRACE.

The brace was easily three feet wide. This one and its mate directly across the tunnel from him together supported an equally massive joist that spanned the twenty-five feet wide ceiling above him.

The braces were identical to the hundreds of others he’d seen shoring up the bowels of the tunnel, each carved with the detailed faces of impressively ugly Baeldons stacked one atop the other from the pillar’s foundation all the way to the ceiling. The faces scowled down on him as he rested, and he scowled right back up at them. He didn’t understand the meanings of the vulgar totems, and he couldn’t have cared less. They were simply testimony to his long held belief that the Baeldons were a race of giant, stupid, ugly thugs.

The tunnel was an endless parade of pitch black, a place of perpetual midnight only barely disrupted by the relatively feeble light of their torches. It was the very definition of gloom and despair. He wondered how long he dared remain down here before the risk of suicide would become too savory an option to refuse.

His torch lay in the sand before him, flickering erratically in a breeze wafting from points unknown deeper back in the tunnel. These torches still intrigued him, the way their intensity never wavered, the way the metal wick never lost any of its substance. He’d originally thought them metal tubes full of oil, but the slender rods could never hold enough liquid to keep the fires burning this long. No, it had to be some kind of chemical reaction within the reddish metal at the top end where the fire originated. That would likely also explain the flame’s greenish hue. In another time and another place, he would consider taking one of the torches to an alchemist in Parhron for further investigation.

Still, where the torches boasted endurance, they failed in passion. The light cast from the torch barely parted the dark, though his eyes had adjusted well enough to make out the nuances of approaching shadows and shapes as they walked. The stink delivered by the unending breeze, however, would still take some getting used to.

Chance sat across the corridor, leaning back against the coarse earth wall with his elbows on his knees and his face buried dramatically in his hands. Sitting there in such a state of despair, or despondency, or whatever useless emotion had taken possession of the man, he presented the perfect target for a taunt. And yet, Beam resisted the urge to throw an irritating remark his way. Instead, he grabbed the torch, climbed to his feet, and walked a few paces deeper into the tunnel. Streamers of ancient cobwebs sizzled and vanished as the fire passed through them. It was growing more and more difficult to tell where they were going from where they’d come.

“What time to you think it is?” he asked Chance, “Outside, I mean.” His mouth felt too dry. The wine hadn’t helped at all. He felt angry and edgy, even edgier than usual.

“I couldn’t tell you,” Chance said without looking up

“Well, how about hazarding a guess, then?” Gods, the man was useless.

Chance shrugged, but still didn’t look up. “Perhaps a few hours past midnight,” he said into his palms, “Why don’t you run up and take a look?”

Beam again resisted his baser urges. Instead, he turned away and studied the insufferable night. “We could be fifty yards from where we started and I’d never know it.”

“I once spent three months down here doing some studies,” Chance said behind him.

Beam looked back. The man had finally released his eyes, though he was only using them to stare uselessly into the torch burning at his feet.

“Oh, do tell,” Beam said, “And what exactly was it you were doing down here by yourself? Evading the hordes of aroused females combing through your woods after you?”

“I was doing some archeological research,” the man responded as matter-of-factly as if he hadn’t heard a word, “I was down here nearly ten weeks. When I finally returned to the surface, I learned I’d been passing better than twenty-four hours cycles without sleeping. Bless me if it didn’t take me the prouder length of a week to get back on schedule.”

Beam rolled his eyes. “Great story,” he said, “Really. Thanks for sharing that.” The monk was a study in annoyance.

A familiar howl echoed from somewhere back in the bowels of the tunnel. Beam turned and held his torch out toward it. Nothing presented itself for his inspection. In the day the thing had been trailing them, it'd grown neither closer nor more distant.

“If not for that bloody yowl, I’d never know which way we came from,” he said, more to himself than for point of conversation.

“You needn’t worry. I know where we are.”

Beam threw him a scowl. “That’s exactly the problem!” he snapped, “You see that, right? You know exactly where we are and yet I don’t have a clue. I’m dependent on you, do you see that? I’m dependent on some crazy old monk, and I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit!”

“You need to calm down,” Chance said, looking up at him, “Perhaps you should take some more of the elixir.”

“Oh, really?” Beam said, “Is that what you think? Another slug of Old Hermit Monk’s Happy Health Tonic and everything will be just fine and dandy?”

“Beam, seriously. Try to calm down.”

“You go to hell! I wouldn’t be here if not for you! You pulled one pretty trick of manipulation on me back there in the cave. You got me to come down here against my better judgment. You knew this was the worst possible place a man of my affliction could flee to, so you drugged me. You did something to my mind. You deceived me into coming down here against my best judgment.”

“Blood of the gods,” Chance said with a slap to his knee, “You know perfectly well it’s not—”

“It’s not what?” Beam said as he marched back into their camp, “It’s not what, exactly?”

Chance stood up. They faced each other from across the corridor. “It’s not like that,” the man said, “I would never have drugged you, nor would I have tricked you into joining me. You’re confusing my ethics with those of your brethren smugglers and thieves. No, you made the decision to follow me of your own volition and free will. I’m not your mother.”

“You’re not my mother?” Beam said, snorting, “Are you trying to make me angry?”

“You need to take a deep breath.”

“Oh, is that right? A deep breath? Maybe you just need to shut your goddamned mouth!”

Even as he threw the words, Beam knew the monk was right. His hands were shaking like he suffered the palsy, and he was sweating like a pig. His heart was rattling his ribs like a prisoner trying to break through the bars.

He swiped the cold moisture streaming down his face. He watched Chance pick a torch up from the dirt. He watched Chance stand up, watched Chance watching him as the monk moved cautiously across the corridor.

“Want to know what I think?” Beam said as he watched the man stop before his gear, “I think I should’ve let that tarry bastard take your stinking head back there at your house. You’ve been lying to me since you first opened your mouth!”

Chance knelt before Beam’s weapons belt. He began digging through the quiver’s pocket.

“What the hell are you doing now?” Beam barked.

He winced as his own words reverberated through his head.

“You planning on robbing me now?” he said more carefully, “Is that it? Drugging me and tricking me into this hellhole wasn’t enough? Now you’re stealing from me?”

He swiped his hair back from his face; it felt as wet and cold as if he’d just taken a swim in a mountain stream. He was fully dripping in sweat now. His stomach churned enthusiastically. His knees threatened to revolt.

He watched the monk stand up again, watched him turn to face him with the vial held out, watched him floating threateningly closer with his arms outstretched like he was going to attack him.

“Beam, you need to take a drink,” the monk said. His words echoed wildly around the darkness. “Your affliction is returning. This will help subdue it.”

“See, there’s another thing!” Beam said with a finger leveled threateningly at the man, “You’re always telling me what to do! Always pushing me around! Always trying to get me to do something I don’t want to do!”

Beam looked down at his pointing hand. It was trembling hard enough to break a wrist. He reeled it back in and locked it under his other arm. He looked up to see the ceiling hovering just inches above his head. In the same instance, the walls shuddered strangely, like metal sheets wavering before an infernal heat. The space was condensing around him. The tunnel was collapsing! It was going to crush him! He was going to die down here, just him and that miserable monk. They’d be trapped here for all eternity!

“Take a drink,” Chance said as he floated closer with the tonic still held out.

Poison, Beam thought. The man drugged him to get him down here and now he was going to kill him with some arcane poison! Panic fully seized him. He charged at Chance. He grabbed the man by the mail and shoved him roughly back against the wall with his forearm buried in the man’s neck. “I should’ve killed you back on the trail!” he yelled into the monk’s face, “I should’ve slit your throat when I had the stinking chance!”

Chance dug his thumbs into the soft flesh under Beam’s elbow. Beam suffered a shock of pain that screamed into his back and down his spine. He cried out and fell back away from him.

“It’s going to be all right,” Chance said as he rubbed his throat.

Beam couldn’t move. He could only stand there in the middle of the corridor and pray to the gods he didn’t piss himself. Again!

“You’ll be fine, Beam. Just take a sip of the medicine.”

“Fine?” Beam heard someone shriek, “Are you serious? Fine? I’m losing my mind down here! The ceiling’s moving! I can see it! It’s unstable, don’t you see that? It’s going to collapse on us. Look at those timbers there! Damn me if they’re not rotted straight through. We’re going to die down here! We’re going to die down here and it’s your bloody fault!”

The man’s form blurred in and out of focus. Beam watched him as he bit the cork loose, watched him as he swam closer.

“This will ease your pain,” the monk said from a mile away. His voice sounded low and ominous like distant thunder.

Beam’s teeth were chattering so hard now he couldn’t speak. The proffered elixir shuffled into two, then three, then one vial. The walls were swelling in on him. He couldn’t breathe.

An arm slid around his shoulders. Something hard pressed against his mouth. A warm fluid flowed over his tongue, sweet and tingling. He’d barely swallowed it when the anger loosened its grip and his knees disappeared beneath him. The walls slid past as he drifted toward the dirt. His anger, his fear, even his doubt melted away until there was nothing left but warmth and the sweet pressure of sleep.

∞

Chance stood over Beam, watching the man snore. He should’ve seen this little episode coming by the fit the man had thrown when they passed the collapsed hatch a few hours earlier. The man could be histrionic as a little girl, but he’d practically had a seizure when he learned the exit was unfit for passage.

And yet, who could have guessed the elixir would wear off so quickly? It should’ve lasted at least thirty-six hours if not a full forty-eight, but it’d dissipated in less than a day. He’d somehow miscalculated something, whether the measurements for the potion or his assessment of the man’s affliction, he wasn’t certain. Another error in judgment that had nearly led to calamity. Another error in judgment in a long line of them.

Chance sighed and wiped at his eyes. Self-abuse won’t help Beam, he told himself. It won’t help him find Luren. It won’t build him a new house and it won’t help him inform the Allies. It won’t help anyone. It was little more than an indulgent episode of self-flagellation whose only outcome would be to kindle the fire of his guilt. And what a fire it was.

He studied the stoneware vial in his hand. Perhaps the half-breed had developed some kind of tolerance to the medication after so many years of using it. It was something he’d have to explore.

Definitely, just as soon as life returned to normal.

He stepped over Beam’s sleeping form and knelt down before the half-breed’s weapons. He lifted the empty quiver and began replacing the arrows that’d spilled out in his haste to free the vial. He stopped at that thought and shook his head. No. Not arrows, he reminded himself. Bolts. The half-breed had been very clear about that.

When he’d replaced all the bolts, he lifted the flask to his ear and shook it. It was about three quarters full. It’d probably be best to tend to it himself, administering it to Beam on regular intervals before the man needed it. As he knelt there before the half-breed’s weapons, he noticed the sword leaning against the wall before him. The eye looked down on the half-breed from its perch in the talon grip of the pommel. It looked strangely purposeful, as if it were protecting Beam, standing guard over him as he slept.

He leaned closer and peered into the crimson eye. He studied it carefully, probing past the surface and into its heart. There was an unmistakable light glimmering from deep inside it, a kind of ethereal fire very much like his blue caeyl, though more corporeal, more animalistic in nature. The light swirled beneath the glassy surface like a lightning storm in a pillbox. This was indeed a caeyl, he was certain of it. It was a Blood Caeyl, and if all the lore he knew about this weapon were true, that tiny storm was a harbinger of very bad times ahead.

He slipped back onto his heels and pressed his palms to his eyes. His mind was swimming in exhaustion, and thinking about the Caeyllth Blade was only fouling the chaos further. It was critical that he put it behind him, that he forget about the nightmare that was this past day, at least for the night. He walked back to his pack and stowed the flask there. Once he’d secured the pack, he rolled his blanket out along the wall. Beam had cleared a patch of dirt for him there, removing the stones and rocks he said would feel like someone sticking a knife in his back as he slept.

The man was an enigma. He was as crude and selfish a rogue as Chance had ever met. And he had a much harder side, a bloodier side that Chance prayed he’d never have to face. Yet, when he’d spoken of his lost benefactor, Brother Dael, his emotions were so clear, so intense they were nearly physical. The simple fact that he’d even stopped to help Chance back at the house spoke volumes. He’d thrown in his assistance when he could’ve easily slipped past the melee and been miles away before the Vaemyn finished. He was a perfect study in contradictions.

A wrenching yawn seized Chance. Gods, it was late. He needed to clear his mind. He needed sleep. It felt like weeks since he last slept. He lay down on half his blanket and then pulled the rest over him. It was a terrible time to think of such things, in the final moments before sleep when the mind is most vulnerable to fear and despair. He needed to meditate, to escape this harsh reality before it ate him alive.

The ground beneath him was obstinate. He twisted around in search of a comfortable pose, but it was a wasted effort. There was no good position for sleeping on such hard scrabble in the cold damp of a tunnel. He opted at last to roll onto his back and try to lie as still as he could manage as he waited for sleep to take him away.

∞

Koonta’ar walked in from a night as dark as her mood.

A small fire shimmered against the dark plains a hundred feet ahead. A few tents hunkered down around it in protest of the night. Shadowy figures moved in the shadows beyond the sparse flames, though the usual enthusiasm felt at the end of a routine day’s march was missing. No sound came from the camp, no laughter, no banter, none of the usual noises of settling troops.

She’d had doubts about allowing the fire, fearing the smoke could alert the fugitives below to their presence. In the end, however, she was certain they’d never make their exit here anyway, not so far south. It would be a strategically illogical move, one the caeyl mage would never consider. Besides, her warriors were utterly exhausted. They desperately needed a hot meal and a distraction from their exhaustion, and so she’d allowed them the luxury of a fire on the condition they build it at least a hundred feet downwind of the small hill the hatch sat atop, and they’d keep it going only as long as necessary to prepare their food.

She entered the camp and stopped before the small campfire. Warriors lay scattered about the camp. Some had already retired to their tents. Some had thrown out a blanket, eaten and gone directly to sleep. Others had simply dropped where they stood and slept in the grass, blankets be damned. The only members of the party not sleeping or preparing for sleep were the three unlucky warriors who had drawn the short straws. They were stationed in a triad around the hatch for the first two-hour watch.

A big warrior rested across the fire from her, sitting cross-legged on a red and blue striped wool blanket and smoking a slender white pipe. He was a giant among her people, cresting six and a half feet and weighing in at nearly three hundred pounds of sound muscle. His hair was a couple shades closer to brown-blonde than was typical for the Vaemysh, who normally boasted hair the color of white sand, and he wore it loose over his shoulders now as he wound down from their day. His complexion was also duskier than normal for his race, putting him in the category of ‘dark skinned’ among their people, though she’d always considered the term vulgar. His armor was piled to the side, leaving him to relax in his soft, tawny buckskins and bare feet.

He was watching her and smiling familiarly.

“Evening, Mawby,” she said, “How’s your trail?”

The burly Vaemyn grinned and nodded and waved his pipe in salute. “Trail’s good, Kad’r. Having the time of my life. Wouldn’t have missed this outing for the world, by gods.”

She felt a chill at his use of the word ‘Kadeer’. It felt foreign, and uninvited. Still, she forced a smile back at him. “Well, if you’ve enjoyed yourself so far, you just wait’ll we reach Sken te’Fau.”

“The swamp?” he said, squinting through the pipe smoke, “Nothing more than dirty water and a few flies.” He drew in a toke, turned his face up toward the stars, and puffed out a string of smoke rings.

“It doesn’t worry you?” she asked, “Not even a smidge?”

“Reckon I can’t find any reason to sweat it.”

“No? Most of the company’s been sweating it since we got the orders.”

“Bah! What’s a ghost going to do? Scare the water out of me? I seriously doubt it. In fact, I got me a cousin who went to the crypt owing me money some years back. If I see her, maybe she’ll share some hidden stash with me, jh’ven?”

“Be careful what you wish for.”

“Ay’a,” he said with a wink, “The gods’ righteous truth, that.”

“Have you seen Maeryc?”

He waved the pipe off to his left. “Last I saw he was heading over toward the hill. The boy’s been looking a little rough these past couple days.”

“We’ve all had a tough road of it,” she said, “This pursuit seems endless.”

He watched her for a bit, looking like he had something more to say, but like he couldn’t find a way to kick the words out. Then he sent her a grin that looked like it took more work than it should have, and said, “I’m sure you’re right, Koo.”

It was a most peculiar moment. She knew him well enough to sense there was something bothering him, and she sincerely wanted to pursue it, but her urgency to check on the guards up by the hatch trumped her desire. So instead, she just smiled at him and nodded. “Thanks, Maw. We’ll talk about it later. Don’t be up too late. You look as tired as I feel.”

The warrior blew a stream of smoke into the fire. “You’re always quite the flatterer, Koo.”

“And drown this fire before too late.”

“Ay’a, I’ll see to it.”

Koonta made her way toward the low hill that served as a base for the hatch, sliding her open palms along the tips of the tall, heady grass and gazing up into the starry sky as she walked. The moon hadn’t risen yet and the milky smear of Mengrae’s Blade was in full blaze across the dark expanse of sky. A chorus of frogs sang in the distance. The air tasted as fresh as a winter snow. If she hadn’t been so damned tired, she’d stay out a while and enjoy it.

The ground rose gently at first, growing more steep as she made her way up toward the hatch. She was nearly at the top of the hill when she heard the voices, and the sound boiled her anger to a pitch. They knew better than to be chatting while standing guard, she didn’t care how damned tired they were. She’d have someone’s head for this. Then, as she crept up the hill closer to the hatch, she realized it wasn’t voices at all. It was one voice. And of all the warriors in her company, it was Maeryc’s!

She couldn’t believe it. What was he thinking? She expected more from her brother and Mawby than from any of the other warriors in their company. They’d grown up together, and they’d served in the army their entire adult lives together. Beyond that, Maeryc was as far from a slouch on the trail as a beggar was from riches. He was a professional’s professional. Gods, he was one of their best!

She crested the hilltop and stopped beside the huge hatch. It squatted on a low, circular stone base that was the height of her mid-thigh. The hatch entry was a perfectly round, thick, rusting iron plate, six feet wide and split down the middle into two half-round doors, each with a squat iron ring built for a Baeldon’s ham-sized fist. It looked as solid as the earth it rested on.

For a moment, she just stood there in the night, looking and listening. At first, she was confused. Despite her strict orders, there were no damned guards at all! Then Maeryc’s voice rose up from the far side of the hill.

As she marched down the steep slope toward him, his words became clearer. She stopped a few paces above him. He was at the foot of the hill squatting before a small, stagnant pond. He had his back to the hatch. He hadn’t even sensed the taer-cael of her approach. Worse, it seemed he really was talking to himself! Fortunately, the sound of the frogs croaking was as loud as thunder down here.

“I understand,” he said. His voice sounded odd and off kilter, like he was growing hoarse. He had a long reed of snake grass in his hands and was breaking off sections of it and flipping them into the water.

She continued to watch him.

“I won’t,” he hissed, flicking another stem piece away, “No, I swear I won’t.”

Silence.

“I said I won’t. You needn’t keep pressing me on it!”

Silence.

“No! There’s no need. I can...”

She’d heard enough. She swept in and slapped him hard across the head. Maeryc fell to the side, more from the surprise of the blow than the force of it. He quickly scrambled around to face her, splashing a foot into the smelly water as he recovered. The frogs fell abruptly silent.

“Koo,” he whispered, “What are you—”

“What in the hell are you doing?” she said as loudly as she dared.

He knelt forward in the mud and rubbed at the stubbly white hair covering his head. He looked ghostly in the pale moonlight. His eyes seemed darker here, more hollow, like stones melting into dark pits. It gave her a chill she couldn’t explain. He looked more tired than he had in days. He didn’t respond to her question.

“Well?” she pressed.

“Nothing!” he said too quickly, “I mean…I mean I’m taking guard duty, what does it look like?”

She looked back up at the hatch silhouetted against the brilliant array of stars above them. “Where are the other two?” she whispered.

“I sent them to eat. Told them I’d watch while they—”

“You were doing a fine job of watching! You’re nowhere near the damned hatch. For Calina’s love, you’re not even facing it!”

“I was doing up my breeches. I had a piss.” His gaze was unflinching. Though he’d been caught off guard, he was quickly regaining composure.

“Who were you talking to, then?”

He seemed confused by the question. Then he said, “No one. I was—”

“Goddamn it, Maeryc, I heard you talking!”

He flinched at that. “I hear you just fine,” he said, scowling, “There’s no need to be sharp. I was talking to myself, I guess. All right? Reckon I’m over-tired or…or something.”

She crossed her arms. “You were talking to yourself.”

Maeryc nodded and shrugged.

Koonta studied him. She wasn’t sure what to make of this. Talking to himself? He was clearly exhausted, but that wasn’t an excuse for disobeying orders. She thought about what Mawby had said, then dropped her arms. “Do I have to stay up all night to be sure the goddamned hatch is watched properly, Saaro?”

“No, I wo—”

“Maeryc! I don’t want to see fewer than three guards on this hatch at any time.”

“I understand.”

“I mean it, Maeryc. Not less than three. Not ever. Not even long enough to piss. You have to piss, you do it where you can see each other, are you hearing me?”

“Curse the gods already,” he said without looking at her, “I said I understand. What do you want, me to write it in blood?”

“You’d better understand, Saaro. There’s a goddamned caeyl mage down there beneath that hatch. Brother or not, I won’t tolerate another breach of that order.”

She turned away and hiked back up the hill. She stopped before the hatch. The edge of the iron plate that made the half-round doors was better than two inches thick. It had to be unbelievably heavy; she doubted it could be moved at all without the proper block and tackle. It must way a half-ton or more.

“I don’t think it can be opened,” Maeryc said.

The voice startled her, and she immediately cursed herself for it. She should’ve heard him approach. It pointed at her own fatigue, her own weakness, that she could be approached without foreseeing it.

“It’s rusted shut,” he whispered, “Even the rings won’t budge.”

“My orders stand,” she said as she studied it, “That’s a Water Caeyl Mage down there. Changing matter is exactly the nature of his power.”

“I’m not convinced. It’s solid iron.”

“You think iron will stop a blue caeyl?” she snapped back, “Were you awake during your classes? It’s earth-based magic. And, unless I failed my studies, iron’s an earth element.”

“Whatever. I’m still not convinced.”

“I don’t give a good goddamn if you’re convinced or not. Send the first guard shift back. I’ll watch until they get here.”

Maeryc nodded. Then he walked around the wide hatch and began descending the hill toward the camp.

“And Maeryc?”

The warrior stopped midstride, then slowly turned to look up the hill at her. She had to fight back a shudder. His unnaturally pale face gleamed as skullishly in the starlight as the token he wore in his oteuryn.

“What is it?” he said. He didn’t sound like he cared.

“We’re moving out before dawn. I think you need to sleep. Talk to Mawby. Tell him I want you to switch duties with him.”

“I’m fine,” he said, shaking his head, “It’ll look like you’re favoring me.”

“You were talking to yourself, Maeryc. You disobeyed orders. You need to sleep.”

“I see. You’re saying you don’t trust me. You’re going to embarrass me in front of the others?”

“It’d be favoritism if I let you stand guard.”

He glanced over at the camp, and then turned back to her. “I’m second in command, Sister.”

“You were talking to yourself, Brother.”

“I wasn’t.”

“No? Who were you talking to, then? The frogs?”

His face twisted up in anger. “Don’t be an asshole, Koo.”

She was on him in an instant, tackling him without restraint. He slid head first down the hill on his back with her straddling his chest.

As they slid to a stop in the dew slickened grass, she grabbed two fistfuls of mail at his neck and reeled his face up to hers. “Be careful the liberties you take, Maeryc,” she hissed at him, “Brother or no, I won’t let this mission be compromised. Not by you, not by anyone. Do you understand me?”

His face was bloody red even in the starlight.

She twisted his mail tighter around his throat. “Do. You. Understand?”

He choked and nodded as best he could.

“You’d damned well better.” She heaved him back into the grass.

Maeryc burst into cough as she climbed off him. He quickly rolled over to his knees and turned to glare up at her as he rubbed his neck. She knew he’d be raging inside, that he’d want nothing more right now than to draw fists on her, sister or not. It was exactly what she expected and exactly what she wanted. To make him angry. To snap him back to form.

Instead, he climbed to his feet. “Am I dismissed?” he said with a cough.

She noticed again how worn he’d become, how hollowed out. She’d seen blood drinkers in Morv’grel Vox with a healthier countenance than his. He was bearing the fatigue less ably than the rest of them, and she didn’t understand why. It was always exactly the opposite. He had the stamina of a horse.

It didn’t matter, she told herself. He just needed sleep.

“You’re dismissed,” she said at last.

He nodded curtly. “By your will, sir.”

As he walked away, she watched his long shadow cast by the dying campfire dancing against the hill below her. Again, she felt a chill of foreboding. Again, she was unable to explain why.

∞

“Luren! Put out that lamp!”

The light continued.

Gods, he needed sleep. How could he sleep with the boy reading in the same room? “Put out the light!” he said again.

The boy still didn’t comply.

“Luren!” he said, louder now, “Will you put out that damned lamp? What the devil is wrong with you? Are you deaf?”

The intensity of the light grew larger. It was a brilliant red inferno that bleached the color from everything it touched.

For the love of Calina, what is he doing? It‘s the middle of the night. This is no time to be reading, not with the long hike for the Hangman’s Gloves weeds tomorrow.

“Luren?” he yelled, “What are you doing?”

Was the boy suddenly deaf? Why didn’t he answer?

“Luren! It’s too damned bright! Put out that goddamned light!”

Chance flinched and opened his eyes.

For a moment, he wasn’t sure where he was. He wasn’t in his bed. Was he on the floor?

He rolled his head to the side. A torch burned in the dirt a few feet from his head, too bright to look directly at. That was the lamp, the source of the light. He’d been dreaming.

He rolled his head back upright and covered his eyes with a forearm. A dream about Luren. How tragic it should be one of irritation. It seemed he couldn’t find any more peace in sleep than waking. Then again, what right had he to complain? Truly? What damned right? He deserved every bit of misery that found him.

Even with his arm over his eyes, the light was too bright. He needed to throw the torch out into the corridor if he had any hope of sleeping. He rolled up onto an elbow and reached for it. And as he did, he saw the true source of the light.

It was the Caeyllth Blade.

The sword stood at Beam’s feet, balanced unsupported on its tip. The eye in its hilt was glowing blindingly, throwing a beacon of crimson light down on the man that cast the entire corridor into a rosy dawn. Shards of red light spiraled out from the caeyl, winking and shimmering as they danced around it like the aura around the sun. It was both painfully beautiful and utterly terrifying.

Chance climbed up from his bedding. He pulled back tight against the wall, and he watched. The sight was like nothing he’d seen before. The light was thick, almost tangible. It completely smothered Beam. The half-breed lay back against the wall with his legs sticking out into the corridor. The light completely encased his form in a glowing red shell that was nearly opaque. It swirled across the surface of his body so that he looked more like a statue of a man made of molten red liquid than a man illuminated.

Chance considered intervening, but wasn’t at all sure he should. This was a Blood Caeyl, after all. Its power was the energy of life. It wasn’t sinister by nature, not like the Fire Caeyl. Nor was it neutral like his Water Caeyl. This was a healing energy, one used for good, for the living.

On the other hand, no one had seen a Blood Caeyl in hundreds of years. What was known about them was little more than folklore. The rare bits of documentation that still existed were little more than a few decaying notes written by mages centuries dead. What if all he knew was wrong? What if this caeyl was actually the physical incarnation of evil?

His reservations were strong, and yet he felt compelled to do something. If the phenomenon proved to be benign, as he expected, he’d never intervene again. If it proved otherwise…well, he needed to protect the half-breed, didn’t he?

He took his staff from where it leaned against the tunnel wall and walked toward the shimmering red light. He was just within a few paces of the sword when a swell of dread gripped him.

The sensation stopped him cold. He was suddenly terrified. He wanted more than anything to run, to flee into the darkness of the tunnels, to get away from here as fast as his feet could carry him. And yet, he somehow knew this strange fear was senseless, that the terror had arrived too capriciously to have any stake in reality. It was the Blood Caeyl trying to control him. It must be. It was somehow manipulating him, employing his emotions, his fears against him.

He drew a breath and steadied himself. He refused to yield to it. Instead, he summoned the will of his higher intellect and forced himself to override this visceral and irrational fear.

He urged himself a pace closer to the sword, but then stopped. He raised a hand out toward the light. His palm tingled with needles and pins. His fear deepened, became harder to resist. Within moments, his entire body was prickling. He could feel his hair floating away from his head.

Still, he made himself take another terrifying step toward the light. His skin felt fully on fire now. It was nearly unbearable. His nose and eyes were watering. Pressure grew beneath his sternum. The caeyl was trying to stop him. Yet, as he resisted, he considered that if the effects of the caeyl energy were this wretched on the outside of the light, what must it be like for Beam who lay imprisoned in the heart of it? If this was the effect brought on by close proximity to the light, the half-breed must be in utter agony. He had to stop it. He had to kick the sword away from Beam.

He moved closer, forcing himself beyond the limits of his pain and terror. His hands were shaking violently. He spit a wad of thick saliva into the dirt, and pressed another half-pace. He was nearly there, nearly within striking range.

A sharp pain spiked his skull.

He winced and grabbed his brow. The image of the blinding light mounted atop the sword blurred and doubled. Vertigo seized him. He staggered a half step to the side and nearly fell, saved only by the support of his staff. He was burning up. Bile washed into his throat. His chest felt heavy as a keystone. The Blood Caeyl was squeezing the life out of him. He couldn’t breathe.

Unable to maintain his balance any longer, he threw himself back away from the light while he still had the strength. He stumbled back a few paces before falling roughly into the dirt.

The pressure in his chest immediately began to recede. The terrible burning faded from his skin. His stomach settled. He again spit out a wad of the tenacious saliva, and wiped his face against his sleeve. It felt like a miracle, like being stuck under water until the point of drowning and then released just as his heart was about to explode. It’d come on with his nearness to the Blood Caeyl. Move closer and suffer, ease back and live. The truth was the Blood Caeyl wasn’t harming Beam at all. The Blood Caeyl was protecting him.

He cursed and slapped the dirt. Blood of the gods, he should’ve expected this! It was a Caeyllth Blade for gods’ sakes! He should’ve known it would behave this way. Just as he should’ve listened to the sentry that first day back on the Old Forest Road. Just as he should’ve known Prae was summoning Divinic Demons. He should’ve sensed the massive energy surge that would follow a time-space event of that magnitude. Why hadn’t he? Why hadn’t he? Why had he failed?

Because he’d grown complacent. Because he’d stopped listening. Because he was a fool!

He dropped back into the dirt and threw his forearm across his eyes. His grief and anger swelled in, hot and commanding. A deep sense of impending doom seized him.

“No,” he heard himself whisper, “No. Don’t submit. Don’t submit. You have to stay in the light!”

Since the days of his youth, his natural tendency had always been to see the abyss of despair and to march straight into it. But he couldn’t allow it this time. This time, there was no room for the indulgence of self-pity or willful submission to the cold comfort of depression. The smell of calamity was strong. For once, he had to refuse his true nature. For once, he had to stay in the light. He had to start thinking like a caeyl mage instead of the village idiot. If he didn’t, everything would be lost.

XVII

THE INDWELLER’S TRUTH

I

T HAD TO BE THE MOST INTENSE SUNRISE HE’D EVER SEEN, AND SURELY THE WARMEST.

If it was this hot at dawn, how in the hell was it going to feel at noon?

He sensed someone loitering near him. “What time is it now?” he asked them.

“Wake up, Beam.”

Beam looked over and found Brother Dael walking beside him. He was dressed as he was always dressed, in his simple, worn, black-wool robe. His thinning white hair dribbled down over his shoulders like that last snow of the season, the weak one that leaves those thin, anemic icicles weeping from the eves like frozen tears. He walked with his hands clasped casually behind his back, just as he always had.

“What are you doing here?” Beam asked him.

“My dear, Beam,” Dael said, smiling warmly, “You’re talking in your sleep again.”

“I talk in my sleep?” Beam asked him.

Brother Dael shook his head and laughed. It was, as usual, the happiest, most gregarious laugh Beam had ever heard. “If you were awake,” Dael said, grinning at him, “You’d know that, wouldn’t you?”

It was a typical Dael paradox, one Beam could never find an approach to. Perplexed, or maybe just plain confused, he asked again, “Please, Dael. Tell me the truth. Do I talk in my sleep?”

“Does a monk float?”

Beam wasn’t sure what to make of that. “I don’t understand what that means.”

The monk slipped his arm around Beam’s shoulder. “It’s really most simple,” he whispered to Beam as if sharing a deep secret, “You’re talking in your sleep again, my sweet child. You always have. You always will. Your best conversations are lived while you sleep.”

Beam noticed that Dael stood a head taller than he did, but that couldn’t be right. None of this was right. Dael was a short man, shorter than he was at least. And he was long dead. This was all fouled up. Everything was out of balance.

“I’m confused,” Beam said carefully, “Who would I talk to in my sleep?”

“The Other.”

“The other? What other? There’s no other. I sleep alone.”

“You’re not alone, Beam. The Other is always with you.” Dael was facing him now, his hands clasping Beam’s face affectionately. They were the same height again.

“The other? What other? The other who?”

“The Other.”

“Who, Dael? Who’s the other? You’re not making any sense.”

But Dael had already turned and was walking away. He was far ahead of Beam now.

“Wait!” Beam called to him, “You’re leaving me here?”

The monk stopped. He was so far away, Beam couldn’t make out his features, yet he somehow knew Dael was frowning.

“You can come with me if you choose,” Dael whispered into his ear, “And yet, I know you won’t, my child. You never have, have you? You never really wanted to.”

Beam felt his eyes scald. Was he crying? Why would he be crying? “What do you mean?” he called back to the monk, “Please, Brother Dael. Please, don’t leave me again!”

“You can follow me or you can wake up, Beam. The choice is yours. It’s always been yours.”

“Follow you where?”

He was too late; Dael was already walking away. The monk’s image grew hazy and less tangible with each step until he simply dissolved into the blinding light of the rising red sun.

“Dael!” Beam called to him, “Dael, wait! You have to wait for me!”

“You’re not ready,” Dael’s voice whispered back, “Not yet.”

“Ready? Ready for what?”

“You have to be ready, my son.”

“I don’t understand! Ready for what?”

“Wake up, Beam.”

∞

Beam felt himself floating back to life and he offered neither assistance nor opposition to the motion. He simply let himself drift up and out of the darkness.

Something hard slapped his leg. He snapped his eyes open to see the sword lying across his lap. The sight of it left him both relieved and irritated. He must have been holding it in his sleep. The gem in the hilt had been reflecting back the light of a torch. That was obviously the root of the dream, the source of the intense light.

It’d only been a dream.

He muttered a curse. What a miserable way to wake up. A nightmare was one thing; at least waking from it brought the gift of relief. But dreams of better times? Dreams of lost friends and happier places? Those dreams only brought on the sickness of melancholy and nostalgia for a time long past recovery.

Dael’s face still simmered in his mind, a remnant from a dream that simply wouldn’t die. Beam tried to push him away, but it only seemed to make the image that much more real. The face sent him back to his youth, back to the Priory, all the way back to that first day.

It had been early when Dael found him so many years ago, so early that the rising sun had only just begun to part the night’s gloom. He remembered sitting alone there on those dull stone steps, a little boy abandoned by the only family he knew. He remembered watching his uncle’s wagon driving off into the shadows of the great stone buildings crowding the narrow street. He could still hear the soulful echoes of those hooves clopping against the cobblestone as his uncle deserted him. How long had he sat there on that last step with his little pack of dried cheese and stale bread? How long had he sat there on those cold bricks, all alone, afraid to move, afraid to breathe, afraid to fail this test that he didn’t understand for fear that in doing so he’d be abandoned forever?

He’d waited there until the sun eased its way above the dark brick buildings and the flies returned to the dung piles littering the commons. He waited until the streets slowly filled with people. He waited until he knew his uncle wasn’t playing tricks after all. He waited until he knew his uncle was never coming back.

He couldn’t remember feeling anger or resentment toward the man who’d abandoned him. He only remembered feeling like a tiny grain of dirt lost amid the endless sands. He was different from all the other Parhronii he’d ever known, with his horns and the ability to see the taer-cael of others through walls and darkness. He’d been different enough that it scared the people around him, scared them so thoroughly that he now found himself sitting alone on the steps of a strange priory in the middle of a frightening city.

Then Brother Dael was kneeling before him wearing a smile that offered hope. Brother Dael, squeezing his shoulders so gently, so reassuringly. He remembered looking into Dael’s aged, caring eyes on that lonely step and finally understanding nothing was going to change and everything was going to change, that he’d always be different, that he’d never be a faceless member of that crowd swirling around them. As he looked up into that dear face, he knew Brother Dael was there to save him. He understood that he was going to be safe with this kind old man. He understood that he’d never have to be alone again.

He often wished he were back in that worn down priory, back among the indwellers where everyone was different and everyone was the same, back in the warm, unconditional love of Brother Dael.

He dragged the sword higher up onto his lap. The blade was warmer than it should’ve been after a night in the damp cold of the tunnel. He ran a finger along the entwined snakes and stroked the blood-red eye gripped so sincerely in that golden talon. It was hot to the touch. At first, he thought it must have been lying too close to one of the torches, but the nearest was yards away.

A shadow swelled over him. Beam looked up to see the monk staring down at him. He wasn’t wearing his mail, but just that loose white shirt. His long hair fell unfettered over his shoulders. The light of the torches simmered green and unnatural behind him. He stood there glowing against the gloom like a bad premonition.

Beam turned his attention back to the sword. Seeing the man who’d misled him down into these godsforsaken tunnels only riled his grief further. Maybe the fool would simply get the message and go away.

But the monk didn’t move. He just stood there scowling down at him. Beam knew the look too well. It was the same look thrown at him by the adults in his childhood, the look that identified him as a horned freak who was clearly a threat to their own precious brats. The memory felt like a knife stab.

Unable to bear it any longer, Beam sent him a warning look and said, “What the hell are you looking at?”

“Your face.”

“Again with my face? Are you going to start insulting me already this morning?”

“No, it’s not that.” Chance squatted down before him. He wagged a finger at Beam’s face. “I mean it’s…”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Chance tapped the flat surface of Beam’s sword with his index finger. “I think you should look at this.”

“I know. I grabbed it in my sleep.”

“No. Look at your reflection.”

Beam hesitated to comply. He didn’t like the way the man was gaping at him. And yet, he knew it wasn’t the man’s presence at all. Something wasn’t right. He suddenly had the irrational fear that one look in the sword blade would change everything.

He tipped the flat of the blade up toward him, but it was several heartbeats before he found the courage to look. At first, he couldn’t make sense of it. The face staring back at him wasn’t the same face he’d seen there yesterday. This face was smooth and untarnished. The swelling, the black eye, the cuts were all missing from this face.

He shoved the sword off his lap and into the dirt. “What kind of bullshit is this?”

The monk was staring back at him like he was looking at a dying man and didn’t know how to share the news. “I don’t know,” he whispered.

Beam studied him. “What did you do to me? Is this a trick? Did you drug me again? Is this a hallucination or what?”

Chance slowly shook his head. “No, if it’s a hallucination, we’re both suffering it.”

Beam pushed his fists out onto his knees and slowly unfurled his fingers. The flesh on his palms was smooth and pink. There were no abrasions, no cuts, no split nails. Even the calluses he’d earned digging around in the savages’ tombs were gone. “Gods almighty,” he whispered.

“I’d have to agree.”

“Flesh doesn’t just heal overnight,” Beam said. He looked up at the monk. “Right? I mean…it’s impossible! Flesh doesn’t heal in one goddamned night!”

Chance said nothing.

“How long was I asleep?” Beam pressed him, “A week? Longer?”

“No, Beam,” Chance said, “Just a night. No more.”

Beam thought back to the night before. Last thing he remembered was the confinement dread. It’d come back with a vengeance. He remembered panicking, remembered pushing the monk, remembered…the elixir.

“You gave me something,” he said, looking hard at the monk, “Last night. It knocked me out.”

“I medicated you,” the man said, “You were suffering another bout of terror.”

“How long did it put me out for?”

“Blood of the gods,” Chance snapped back, “I already told you, you slept only for the night.”

Beam thought about it. Then he said, “Maybe you slept a week, too? Maybe you just don’t know it was a week because you were asleep the whole time?”

“Do I look like I’ve slept for a week?”

Beam examined the man. He appeared every bit as haggard as he had the day before. His face was still lined and hollow, his eyes drowning in exhaustion. His jaw and chin showed a faint red stubble, but he had no significant beard growth, at least no more than Beam would’ve expected overnight. No, he decided, this man could never have slept a week. He probably hadn’t even slept an hour.

“How do you feel?” Chance asked him.

“How do I feel? How in the hell do you think I feel? Like I’m losing my bloody mind!”

“You’re not losing your mind, Beam. I promise.”

“Oh, that’s assuring. I’ve seen the world you come from, Brother.”

“This is all real. Make no doubt of it.”

“Oh, it’s all real, is it?” Beam said sarcastically, “You’re sure about that?”

“Look at your hands. You doubt your own eyes?”

Beam laughed at that. “I’m a hundred feet underground,” he said, “I’ve suffered more than a few good blows to the head these past few days. I’m drinking a tonic to keep the terrors at bay. You don’t think that’s enough to support the possibility of delusions?”

“I see it, too. It’s not just you.”

“Forgive me, Brother, but that isn’t exactly reassuring.”

“I told you to stop calling me Brother. I’m not a goddamned monk!”

“No?” Beam said, just to irritate him further.

“No, my name’s Chance.” The man stood up and threw a hard look down on Beam. “Monk! Gods, you’re an idiot.” Then he crossed the tunnel and knelt down before his pack.

Beam dragged the sword back up to his lap and tilted the blade again. He couldn’t deny that the face looking back had indeed appeared to heal overnight. His senses confirmed the image and his mind validated it. So why was his heart pounding so? Why was he sweating like a horse in labor?

Then he remembered what Dael used to tell him about the indwellers, that their worlds were every bit as real to them as ours were to us. What they saw through their eyes was reality to them, regardless what anyone else saw. Beam wondered if that were true. If so, how could truth ever be defined in any practical manner?

He leaned his head back against the rock and closed his eyes, and he whispered, “Please, gods, don’t let me be one of them.”

“One of what?”

Beam opened his eyes. Chance was squatting across the corridor from him. He was looking back over his shoulder at him from the pack.

“One of what?” the man pressed.

“An indweller,” Beam snapped back. Gods, the man was worse than a wife.

“Indweller?” Chance asked as he worked, “What’s that?”

Beam rubbed his palms into his face. Then he dropped his hands to his lap and sighed. He felt like an orphan from hope.

“I’m not familiar with the term,” Chance said, “What’s an indweller?”

Beam dropped his head back to the stone, closed his eyes, and sighed. There was no running away from this. “It’s what Brother Dael called the lunatics,” he said at last, “He thought ‘troubler’ was impolite.”

“So, what about them? Indwellers?”

Beam thought back to those days in Parhron City. He thought about the lunatics wandering aimlessly through the expansive priory. Locked in their insanity, they'd pick at the air or eat any inanimate object small enough to put in their mouths or talk too loudly to nonexistent people.

“Most of them were ravers,” he said as he remembered, “Totally mad. Babbling and screaming, prowling around the priory like the walking dead. Some days it was amusing as hell, other days…it was unbearable.”

“I can’t imagine living in such a place.”

“They weren’t all that bad,” Beam continued, “Some of them were unnaturally peaceful, practically civilized, even though they were completely out of their minds. Hell, you’d never guess those ones insane, not at first pass. Not if you didn’t know. I didn’t get it then, how they could be insane and yet be so at peace, but I’m beginning to see it now. It was because they were comfortable in their madness. They were…I don’t know…content, I suppose.

Chance crossed the corridor and knelt beside him. He set a bundle of leather cloth on Beam’s lap, and then dropped to sit beside him. Beam unwrapped the leather to find a meal of dried fruit, cheese, and meat.

“Those were the interesting ones,” Beam said as he studied the food, “The ones that were at peace. I could talk to them, carry on something like a normal conversation. They could describe their delusions in such perfectly logical terms that if I wasn’t careful I’d almost start to believe them.”

Chance opened his own packet and picked up a piece of dried apple. “Almost,” he said as he put it in his mouth, “There’s the key.”

“There was one fellow I really liked. He was the tallest Parhronii I’d ever seen, maybe seven feet, and skinny as a snake. Weird looking guy with huge hands and feet, and a pumpkin-sized skull with a shock of orange hair that grew straight up off his scalp. Always looked like his head was on fire. His name was Ukee Oyt.”

“Ukee Oyt,” Chance said as he chewed, “Odd name. Was he a Boborean? Northern Parhronii?”

“I don’t know. I never asked.”

Chance shrugged his brow and took another bite.

“He swore he could make himself invisible,” Beam said as he thought about it, “He told me that whenever I went into the city, he’d make himself invisible and follow me. I remember asking him why he’d do that? I mean, was he spying on me or what? He said no, that he’d never use his powers to spy on people because that’d be rude. He said he was just watching out for me, making sure I was safe when I was away from the priory.”

“How old were you?”

“Ukee was there until I was around fifteen years, as I recall.”

“Most of your childhood,” Chance said matter-of-factly.

“The queer part was that he could always describe exactly where I’d gone and what I’d done. He could even tell me who I’d talked to.” Beam laughed again. “You can imagine that was a little unnerving, especially for a kid. Never did figure out how he knew. He was too big and too strange looking to sneak around behind me without being noticed. That was some kind of trick he managed to pull on me.”

“Was it?”

“What?”

“A trick?”

Beam frowned at him. “Yes, Chance. It was a trick. People can’t make themselves invisible. I’m sure he was just a damned good stealth.”

Chance said nothing.

“Anyway,” Beam continued, “I’d ask him if it were true what he said, why come back? If he could make himself invisible and all, why stay in the asylum? Instead of following me around town, why the hell didn’t he just keep on going straight out the city’s front gate? Most people would never know he was insane as long as he didn’t mention his special skill, so why stay there with all the irritating ravers? Why be locked up when he could be free?”

“What would he say?” Chance asked.

“He’d never give me an answer. Every time I’d ask him, he’d just shrug and walk away, saying I wouldn’t understand.”

“So, he never told you?”

“I’m getting to it. One afternoon we’re in the main hall of the priory washing the floors together. Side by side on our hands and knees, lye froth up to the elbows, scrubbing away at the stone. I hated the work. And he wasn’t much of a talker, so I did most of the gabbing. I’m sure it irritated him to no end.”

“I have no doubt,” Chance said, popping a bit of meat into his mouth.

Beam scowled.

“Sorry,” Chance said, raising a hand, “That came out wrong.”

“Do you want to hear this or not? Because I couldn’t care less either way.”

“I do.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely. Please, go on.”

Beam watched him for a moment, looking for any lingering evidence of an insult. Once convinced it was safe, he returned to his story.

“Anyway, on that particular day I asked him again. Ukee, why not make yourself invisible right now? Why not cross through that door over there and just keep on going? Why not get out of Parhron City and make for freedom? Why hang around this bloody hellhole when you don’t have to? I even offered to give him the little bit of gold I’d earned doing neighborhood chores.

“Well, much to my surprise, this time he sat back on his heels, and he looked at me with those milky eyes all serious as a tomb, and he said, you know they’re all insane out there, right?

“Well, I laughed at that because it was about the strangest thing I’d ever heard any raver say. I pointed out that he was insane, too, or he wouldn’t be here, and I said he’d probably be right at home out there. I mean, insane in here with the ravers or insane out there with the civilians, what’s the difference?

“Well, Ukee politely agreed that, yes, he was indeed insane, and he wasn’t the least bit ashamed of the fact. But, he was quick to point out that there was an important difference.

“An important difference? I asked him what could possibly be different. Insane is insane, right?

“Not so fast, Ukee says. Then he wraps his arm around my shoulder and scans the corridor like there might be spies in the stones, and he whispers, The difference, dear Beam, is this: The insanity in here makes sense. But the insanity out there? Why, it’s complete chaos.”

Finished, Beam leaned back into the stone. “Wisest words anyone’s ever passed my way,” he said in conclusion, “I’ve found them useful more times than I can count through my life.”

Chance sat there watching him as he chewed his food. A minute passed. As the silence lingered, Beam began to feel self-conscious. Finally, when no response seemed forthcoming, he said, “You don’t have anything to say?”

Chance shrugged. “I’m still trying to find a point.”

Beam couldn’t believe it. Didn’t the man have any sense of metaphor? “The point,” he said sharply, “Is that it’s important to get comfortable in your madness. And we’re all mad, make no mistake about it. None of us live in the same world, only the worlds we perceive.” He held his newly healed palms up before Chance. “I don’t understand my world anymore. Maybe it’s madness, maybe it’s not. The point is, either way, sanity or madness, I need to make sense of it.”

Chance pushed his last bit of meat into his mouth and watched Beam as he chewed. After a bit, he swallowed and said, “Whatever happened to Ukee Oyt?”

“Whatever happened to Ukee Oyt?” Beam said in exasperation, “Seriously? That’s what you got out of the story? Whatever happened to Ukee Oyt?”

“Pretty much.”

Beam just shook his head. He was disappointed. He expected more insight from a man who could read. He picked up a piece of meat and held it to his mouth, but abandoned it before eating.

“Is there anything else?” Chance asked.

Beam sighed. “Yeah, I guess. About a year after that conversation, Ukee did disappear.” He bit off a chunk of the meat. “Never saw him again.”

“Perhaps he took your advice.”

Beam barely heard the words. A wave of disgust seized him. The meat was wretched. He leaned to the side and spit it out into the dirt.

“What are you doing?”

“This meat’s spoilt.” Beam grabbed the wineskin and drew in a long draught, rinsed his mouth and spit it out.

“Spoiled?” Chance sniffed at the piece he was holding. He took a bite and chewed. “It’s fine. It’s the same meat we ate last night.”

“I’m telling you it’s gone over. Tastes fishy.” Beam poured more wine in his mouth, but this time he swallowed it.

“Beam, there’s nothing wrong with this meat. You liked it well enough last night. You ate enough to last any other man a week.” Chance bit off another piece. “No, it’s fine. Perhaps your Vaemysh blood is stronger than you think. You’re developing their aversion to consuming flesh.”

“Well, that’s just bullshit. Hell, I can eat a whole cow when I’m hungry enough. It’s gone rotten, I tell you.”

Chance pointed at the food on Beam’s lap. “Well, have some fruit then.”

Beam frowned. He folded up the leather square containing the food and handed the packet back to Chance. “I don’t think so. I’m not hungry anyway.”

Chance shrugged as he accepted it. “Suit yourself.”

As Beam climbed to his feet he realized that all the stiffness, all the aches he’d suffered over the past two days were gone. He ran an open hand across his chest. Even his ribs had stopped complaining. If this were indeed some kind of hallucination, maybe insanity was underrated.

∞

As they walked through the seemingly endless stretch of tunnel, Chance revealed to Beam his observations about the sword and the strange light he’d witnessed.

Beam forced himself to listen, though it went against his better judgment. His first inclination was to suggest that the man might be a chronic liar, but he somehow knew that just wasn’t true. Still, he wasn’t convinced the man had truly seen what he thought he’d seen. Sure there were forces at work here he couldn’t explain, but it didn’t mean there was anything supernatural about it. It only meant that there were forces at work here he couldn’t explain. Forces he couldn’t explain yet anyway.

“All I could do was watch you,” Chance finished, “I was fairly confident the Blood Caeyl wasn’t harming you. Not that it mattered. There wasn’t a thing I could do if it were.”

Beam considered his smooth palm. “There’s no denying the improvement,” he said, “I suppose it’s possible the stone may have some kind of regenerative properties, like flesca leaves.”

Chance just shook his head and said, “Flesca leaves don’t heal anything like that quickly.”

“I feel like I've slept for a week.” Beam suffered another surge of doubt that stopped him in his tracks. He looked up at Chance.

“For the last time, no!” Chance said, “You slept a night, not a week.”

Beam blew out a deep breath of relief.

They resumed their walk.

After a bit, Chance said, “I think we should talk.”

“You’ve been talking all morning,” Beam said, “You seem to have a gift for it.”

Chance laughed at that. “Are you kidding me? In a tavern full of the drunkest rogues and braggarts in the Nolands, none would outshine your talent for gab.”

“You may have a point there.”

“How did you end up at my house?”

The question reawakened Beam’s irritation. If the man thought he was going to get a journal of his activities for the last ten years, he was full of shit.

“Don’t tell me it was a coincidence,” Chance pressed, “You were there by design.”

“What difference does it make?” Beam snapped, “Gods above, I got there in time, didn’t I? What else matters?”

“Why were the Vaemyn chasing you?”

“Who said they were chasing me?” Beam growled, “No offense, Brother, but my comings and goings are most assuredly none of your business.” His face felt hot with blood. Another improving mood shot dead in its infancy. The man seemed to have a talent for breeding misery.

“Don’t play me for a fool, Beam. Your appearance wasn’t a matter of simple good timing. They were looking for you, the Vaemyn. The wyrlaerd essentially told me so. It suggested you had something Prae wanted, that I was merely a secondary target.”

Beam laughed at that. “Oh, so they were just killing you by accident, then. They stumbled across you in the woods and said, hey, there’s a monk! Let’s kill him.”

Chance stopped and looked at him.

“I’m not stupid, either, Brother,” Beam said seriously, “Don’t tell me you were an accidental target.”

Chance watched him a moment. Then he simply shrugged and said, “I don’t believe you’re stupid. I believe you’re a self-serving profiteer whose ambitions only stretch as far as your pocketbook. But I do not believe you’re a stupid man.”

“There you go flattering me again,” Beam said with a laugh, “I’ve never presented myself as anything more or less than the rogue I am. One thing I’m not is dishonest.”

“Fair enough.”

“Fair enough? I think you owe me an apology.”

“An apology? Blood of the gods, I concede I may owe you the truth, but an apology?” He laughed. “Unlikely.”

Beam considered a list of responses he’d normally enjoy slinging, but quickly realized he just didn’t have the energy for an argument. Again. Instead, he shrugged and resumed walking. “Fine, I’ll settle for the truth, then,” he said.

“Fine,” Chance said.

“Fine,” Beam said back.

“You’re right,” Chance said, “I wasn’t an accidental target. The Vaemyn were sent for me. They’re rallying for war and they didn’t want me warning the Allies. This entire event was all very carefully staged. They disabled my sentries first so I couldn’t see them coming. They essentially blinded me.”

“Sentries? What sentries? How can you afford to pay a sentry?”

“They’re not employed,” Chance said seriously, “They’re golems powered by my caeyl. They monitor the border between the north and south forests over the Boiling River. It’s a precaution leftover from the Fifty Year War.”

Beam’s snort came off exactly as sarcastically as he’d planned. “Golems,” he said, “I see.”

“One of the sentries came to warn me, but I denied its veracity. I was convinced it’d run amiss because of an energy failure. I sent Luren back to the house while I went out to inspect the others. While I was away, the demon’s trap played out. I was a fool. Let my guard down. Because of my complacency, they took…they took Luren.”

Beam felt the pinch of guilt. The man’s grief was palpable. Chance bore a burden that must be crippling in weight. The poor fool had lost his boy, his home, and probably everything else he owned as well. Yet, in spite of his pain and loss, he still felt some twisted responsibility to inform the Allies before he did anything else, including pursuing his boy. Beam didn’t understand that. It seemed to him the boy should come first, not that there was much hope he was still alive.

Then again, it was none of his bloody business. What the hell did he care about this hermit monk and his servants? The man’s angst, though tragic, had nothing to do with him or his plans. The next viable hatch they reached would be their point of separation anyway. He was heading up to the surface and due north to Parhron City at the very first opportunity, with a hearty wave and wishes of good luck to the poor fool and his boy.

So why did he feel so gloomy?

Because the man’s grief and chronically dour attitude was agitating his own ghosts, that’s why. His own melancholy memories were rushing past him like white in a river, one woebegone face after another. A life of loss and abandonment, of traitors and saviors, of thieving and murder and betrayals, all served up on a road of darkness. If he were to be honest with himself, if he were truly obliged to the truth, he knew he should take a higher road in this matter. He should show more generosity toward the man, maybe be more sympathetic. He should for once try to do what he’d threatened all his life, to be a better man.

He put a hand on his companion’s arm and urged him to a stop. “Chance, look,” he said seriously, “I’m sorry about the boy.” The words felt forced and sloppy, and he immediately regretted sending them.

Chance nodded, but said nothing.

“It’ll be all right,” Beam continued, “I expect you’ll probably find him. Eventually. I mean, if they haven’t—”

“I’ll probably find him,” Chance said, pulling his arm free, “Thanks, Beam. Bless me, that just bristles with confidence.”

As Beam watched the man stomping off into the grim darkness of the tunnel, he wondered just when he’d become such a social idiot. He felt as useless as a pig in a church.

He dragged his hair back, sighed, and reluctantly turned back to the march. He passed another wide brace with the usual stack of ugly, scowling Baeldons glaring down at him. How many hundreds of these faces had he passed since they began their hike through the tunnels? He’d originally written them off as primal totems raised by a culture of giantish thugs, but looking at them now, he suddenly understood. The faces had never been scowling at all. These were expressions of grief, not anger. They were the faces of those Baeldons who’d died during the war. They were the faces of the sorry dead, and the revelation only made him feel weaker and more pathetic.

Moments later, he jogged up behind Chance. “Brother,” he called, “Wait up a minute.”

Chance stopped and turned toward him. His face looked even sorrier than usual in the dancing green torchlight.

“Look, don’t get me wrong,” Beam said carefully, “I know I come off rough, but loss is something I understand better than most men. My whole life’s been a parade of grief, and the truth is that grief’s always been hardest when the source wasn’t blood kin.”

“Brother Dael?”

“Yeah, him and too many others to name.”

Chance studied him for a bit, looking as if he were trying to see the coming joke. But then he simply shook his head and said, “I know you’re trying to help, but you’re wasting your time. Luren’s been taken, and whatever comes of him…it’s my fault, and that’s the end of it.”

“That’s bullshit. It wasn’t your fault.”

“What do you know about it? I should have seen it coming. Blood of the gods, I had the responsibility to see it coming.”

“How could you expect the savages to break a two hundred year old agree—”

“It doesn’t matter, Beam,” Chance said, throwing up a hand, “Once I’ve notified the Baeldonians of the invasion plans I’m going after him. He’s still alive, at least for now. And when I’ve freed him, I’ll kill that motherless bastard, Prae. I swear to Calina, I will kill him dead.”

Beam had no doubt he meant it.

They stood there for a minute, caged in the oppressive silence of the corridor. The sorry faces hanging from the braces stared down at them in reverential despair.

“Damn me if we shouldn’t just drop it,” Beam said as watched the faces watching him, “This is no topic for the shadows. We’d best get moving. I’d love to see some daylight before tomorrow ends.”

He gestured into the awaiting darkness, and together they turned back into their walk, while the remains of their conversation stayed behind.

XVIII

THE HALF-BREED’S TALE

B

EAM WALKED OUT FROM THE SHADOWS, BUTTONING HIS BRITCHES.

Chance was stowing the remains of their meager lunch, wrapping the uneaten portions and packing them in the sack. “You must have the healthiest bladder in the region,” he said as Beam approached.

“Damn me, you say that like it’s a good thing. These bloody buttons are a pain in the ass.”

“You’d be better off with Vaemysh breeches. They favor laces.”

“They’re savages. Buttons are probably too complicated for their simple minds. The last damned thing I want to do is imitate them.”

“You wear a Vaemysh overshirt.”

“Different circumstance, that. It was a matter of necessity. I needed it, they had it, I took it. But I did boil it thoroughly before donning it. Didn’t want to catch anything untoward, you know.” He threw Chance a wink.

Chance shook his head. “I’ve known some bigots in my time, but you’re the Queen Mother.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“You’re right, I don’t. And I imagine it’s fair to say I wouldn’t understand if I did know.”

“There’s nothing to understand. They’re little more than filthy beasts. End of story.”

“Well, your bigotry’s more the norm than the exception, especially up here in the north.”

Chance tightened the cinch on the pack, then rolled over onto his rear and sat back against the wall. His hair was drawn back tightly so that his face looked almost hawkish in the torchlight. With his silver scale mail glittering against the light, his leather boots and britches, and that serious dagger on his hip, he looked more roguish than most rogues. He was studying Beam too closely.

“Just say it, Brother,” Beam said as he fastened his belt and scabbard about his waist.

“All right. Tell me something?”

Beam could practically hear the wheels whirring in the man’s head. “Go ahead,” he said reluctantly, “Ask. I promise I’ll probably try to tell the truth. In the beginning anyway.”

“How can you hold so much hatred for the people who make up half your blood?”

Beam gripped what little belt tongue was left after his encounter with the wall back at the monk’s cave, and pulled it tight. “It’s a long story, Brother,” he said as he slipped the sword into the scabbard, “Nigh on a forty-year-old story. It’d just bore you.”

“Who was the Vaemyn, your mother or father?”

The question landed on Beam like a boulder dropped from the sky. Just when his mood was finally recovering from a particularly lousy morning, too. He scooped his weapons belt with the attached crossbow and quiver from the dirt. “Doesn’t matter,” he said.

“I’m guessing it was your father.”

Beam threw the belt over his shoulder and tried to resist his darker impulses. As he buckled it in place across his chest, he looked at the man. “Why in the hell would you make that assumption?”

“I don’t know. A hunch, I guess.”

“A hunch?”

“Men tend to be more generous toward their mother’s families. For some reason it’s easier to hate a father.” Chance rolled forward onto his knees and grabbed the pack.

“Well, I’ve never given it much thought,” Beam said for lack of anything better.

“What happened to make you hate them so?”

Beam considered the question. The precious few who’d ever known his story were dead, and he’d never met anyone since that he trusted enough or liked enough to share it with. But here and now? After what they’d been through together, after the emotional beating the man had taken at the hands of the savages, after being forced into the darkness a hundred feet below the rest of the world? Well, it didn’t seem to matter as much. Maybe if he handed the story off to someone, his ghosts would give him a little breathing room.

“I don’t mean to pressure,” Chance said as he stood up. He heaved the pack higher on his back and cinched the strap tighter across his chest.

Beam watched him gather his staff and torch. He looked so tired, so beaten down. In that moment, Beam realized that in all his travels, he’d never had a companion who offered less threat to him.

Finally, he just shook his head and said, “No, it’s fine. Gods know we aren’t likely to make it out of here alive for you to tell anyone anyway. But once I’ve finished, I’ll have a few questions of my own. You up for that deal?”

“Fair enough,” Chance said as if he meant it, “Let’s head out. Conversation is the only diversion we from time and tedium.”

After considering the proposal, Beam nodded. He scooped his torch up from the dirt and followed the man into the endless darkness. As he considered his story, he realized he wasn’t sure how to start. He didn’t have much experience telling it, and hadn’t ever really thought about it chronologically.

“My mother was Parhronii,” he said as a start.

Chance nodded and smiled.

Even that simple act delivered Beam a sliver of displeasure. “Don’t look so smug! You had even odds.”

“I’m not saying anything,” Chance said. He looked like he was struggling to repress a renegade laugh.

“She was a Parhronii emissary to the Vaemysh reserves. That was before the Parhronii wised up and replaced the ambassadorial policy with common reservation agents.”

“And she met your father there?”

“Good guess, scholar. Where else would they meet?” The words came off harder than he meant them to.

Chance appeared unperturbed by the comment.

“The old man...” Beam stopped. He felt the heat of his face flushing like a traitor in the ranks. What was this, shame? Regret? No, he preferred to think it was just good old fashioned resentment. “My father was from Vaemogtha.”

“Vaemogtha,” Chance repeated, “The capitol city. He must have been a man of means.”

“He was a noble of the House of Vael.”

“Vael?” Chance’s eyebrows hiked up at the name. “I know of the clan. Once a powerful family with a respectable military pedigree, if I’m remembering properly. They’re all dead now.”

“Is that right?”

Chance glanced at him and said, “Well, almost all.”

Beam snickered at that. “And we’re actively working to close that loop.”

Chance laughed.

“My given name is Be’ahm Ambix Gry’ar. Ambix is my mother’s family surname. It’s Parhronii.”

“Be’ahm,” Chance said again.

“Sadly, yes.”

“The awakened one.”

“What?”

“That’s what it means in Vaemysh.”

“It has a meaning?” Beam asked, truly surprised.

“All Vaemysh names have a meaning. Be’ahm means the awakened one.”

“Bullshit.”

Chance shrugged.

“It should mean the miserable one,” Beam said, “Maybe the angry one. Better yet, how about the one who should be avoided at all mortal costs?” He gave the statement the laugh it deserved.

“So, I would hazard to assume your parents had reason to work together, yes?”

“Right,” Beam replied, feeling less enthusiasm than before, “The old man was a Vaemysh Elder. Brother Dael told me that he and my mother had developed some grand scheme for persuading the Allies to liberate the savages from their reservations in the scrublands.”

“Your mother was a progressive. If the Allies would’ve shown enough wisdom to forgive the Vaemyn years ago, we probably wouldn’t be traveling down here in these tunnels today.”

“Fifty years of war? That’s a hard road to cross.”

“Forty-eight,” Chance said almost under his breath.

“What?”

“Nothing. So, your parents came together.”

“That’s bad enough in itself, but then the old man ruffled her bundling at least once, and that was our undoing.”

He mentally kicked himself for that. He’d meant ‘their’ undoing. Why did he say ‘our’? He looked up at a passing brace stocked with the usual pile of miserable Baeldonian faces. They seemed to be growing sadder and more forlorn with every passing. It was like being followed by a mob of depressed minstrels. He forced his eyes back to the path.

“Are you all right?” Chance asked.

“They were ordered to be executed,” Beam heard himself say, “Never mind she was Parhronii. Never mind it was going to bring a world of hurt down on them from the Allies. They just didn’t care.”

“But they didn’t execute her.”

“No, she was smuggled back to Parhron before they could follow through on it. Brother Dael said there was a secret clan of Vaemysh resistors who got her out of Vaen.”

“Lamys te’Faht,” Chance said.

“Lamb’s what?”

“Lamys te’Faht. It translates roughly into the Eyes of the Faithful. It’s an ancient underground guild. It was established a dozen centuries ago during the Divinic Wars.”

“The Eyes of the Faithful,” Beam repeated, “Well, apparently they were faithful to my sire. Brother Dael said they wanted him to go, too, but he’d have no part of it. He was determined to reconcile the Elders and save his good name.”

Chance grunted as he adjusted the pack on his shoulder. “Should I ask what happened to him?” he asked as he fussed with the belt crossing his chest.

“Your guess would be right. He was Vaemysh, and noble or not, they could do as they damned well pleased with him.”

He was surprised to find that his stomach was growing a storm. He thought he’d long ago buried these emotions, interred them deeply enough in that black hole in his chest that they’d never trouble him again. Sadly, it seemed there still were signs of life down there after all.

“Are you all right?” Chance asked again.

“Yeah,” Beam whispered, “My ghosts aren’t happy with me in the best of times, but I guess telling the story has them stirred up.”

“If it’s any consolation, I think you’ve plenty of reasons to feel resentful, Beam.”

Beam felt a surprising rush of calm. For just an instant, he thought he was going to start bawling. Chance had said it in such a simple, understated manner: You’ve plenty of reasons to feel resentful. One simple statement from a near stranger and it felt like all the anger he’d brewed over his entire life was suddenly justified.

“Are you all right?” Chance said tentatively.

“Will you stop asking me that?”

“Apologies,” Chance said. He sounded like he meant it.

Beam steadied himself and pushed the story on down the years. It wasn’t necessarily a safer place, but it was at least different. “I spent my early childhood watching my mother waste away,” he said plainly, “She died when I was four, or so I’m told. Too young to remember, I guess. The seers plaguing Parhron called it divine providence.” He spit into the dirt.

“Seers are useless,” Chance said, “Most of them can’t see past the vision of a full purse.”

“Brother Dael said she never recovered from the death of the old man,” Beam said. He was suddenly good and damned sorry he’d ever brought the subject up. His ghosts were in a regular rage around him now.

“What happened then?” Chance asked. His voice was too gentle by yards.

Beam drew a steadying breath. Calm, he told himself, it’s just a stinking story.

“Take your time,” Chance said.

Beam threw him a look. “Go to hell.”

Chance offered a half smile, but said nothing.

Beam passed a dry tongue over dryer lips. This was a hell of a lot more work than he’d bargained for.

“Your mother died,” Chance said.

Beam nodded. “She did. I was passed through her family for a few years after that. First her sisters, then her cousins, then to friends of the family, then to friends of friends of the family, and finally back to her long renounced brother. Never stayed in any one place for long. No one wanted the stigma of a half-bred Vaemysh brat, not even an aristocratic one. People had their good names to protect, you know.”

“People are generally fools.”

Beam shrugged. “Well, maybe the savages had the right idea after all, just kill 'em and be done with it. Don’t leave any witnesses, just accusers. Then maybe there’s no crime, only rumors.”

“I suspect there’s a more effective solution. Perhaps they’d be better off just killing the accusers.”

Beam laughed at that. “Careful, there, Brother,” he said, “With thoughts like that, you could easily become me.”

“Calina forbid it.”

“Oh, please. When you serve only yourself, both master and slave are happy.”

“How did you end up at the priory?”

“Well, my childhood was a nightmare to that point. Actually, it was no childhood at all. I became the irresponsible, thieving, greedy rogue at age five that made me the man I am today!” He laughed harder than the joke deserved.

Chance politely said nothing.

“Anyway, by the time I was seven, they’d run out of places to store me. In the end, they dumped me at the priory in the middle of the night. Leashed to a horse post out front. Brother Dael found me the next morning and took me in without so much as a hard look. He housed me, fed me, even educated me. For all I put him through, he loved me better than my family ever had. He was the best damned man I’ll ever know.”

“What happened then?”

“What do you think? Bad went to worse. Despite his best efforts, I grew up in a perpetual state of pissed-off. I was in and out of trouble my entire youth. And it was just bad luck gone worse that I inherited my mother’s estate at age sixteen.”

“There was an estate?”

“Sure, she was well heeled. By then, of course, the good state of Parhron had absorbed the dragon's share of her wealth. Taxes, you know. Got to keep up the military, after all. The Parhronii think every nation in Calevia is plotting to overthrow them. I should be equally ashamed of both sides of my heritage.”

“Bless me, I swear I’ve never heard it put more honestly.”

“Once I got the last of my mother’s gold I left the priory and Brother Dael behind. I finally had enough money to live like the fool I was born to be. Stayed comfortable for a good five years or so. Needless to say, I wasn’t rich long.”

“Is that how you came into grave robbing?”

Beam winced. “You know, I’m not overly fond of that term. Or maybe it’s just the way it sounds when you say it.”

“Are you implying there’s a polite term for it? Because if so, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard it.”

“Do you want me to finish this or not?”

Chance bowed his head subserviently. “Clearly, yes. Please, continue.”

Beam closed his eyes and pinched at the stress saddled to his forehead. What had he done to deserve this? A couple days ago, he was winding his way along the open Nolands and minding his own damned business. And now look!

“Seriously, Beam. My apologies. Do go on.”

Beam sent him a glare, and then turned back to their walk. “I expect that’s about the time I started smuggling.” He threw Chance a challenging leer. “Do you want to comment on that line of work, too? Because this is your golden opportunity.”

“No, I do believe I’m good.”

“You’re sure?”

“Quite.”

Beam gave him a moment to reconsider, and then resumed his story. “Sometimes that line of work took me back to Parhron, and when it did I’d make a point to stop in to see Dael and give him some gold to help out in the priory. Once, when I was about twenty-seven or so, I visited the priory, and Brother Dael had a package for me.”

“A package?”

“A local magistrate had delivered it a few years earlier. My mother had apparently paid him a handsome sum to hold the package until I was twenty-five. Then he was to find me and deliver it.”

Chance stopped walking. “What kind of package?”

Beam stopped as well, and turned to face him. “Got to think about that,” he lied, like he could ever possibly forget it, “It was a wooden box that was far too well wrapped. So well wrapped, I somehow just knew she’d done it herself years before. Inside the box was a note from her. Written in her own hand. It said this was a gift, something that it’d been in the family for centuries.”

“Your father’s family?”

“Another good guess.”

“What did it say?”

“It’s funny. I can still see her handwriting. It was so…so gentle, so feminine. I read it so many times that the parchment eventually fell apart from the abuse, but I’ll never forget it. They were the only words I’d ever know from my mother. The note said:

Forgive me, Be’ahm, for the burden of this horrid gift. Though I’m certain you won’t long think of it as a gift, but rather as a hateful pox bestowed upon you by a deserting mother.

Before you curse me, know that we are not the masters of our own fates. Nor are we the keepers of the voices hiding inside us. Rather it is the voices who keep us, the voices who determine our fates, the voices who bring with them such tragic joy. Those voices are the shadows of other times, my dear son, the shadows of those who have lived before us, shadows whose purposes are unveiled only at the pleasure of memory.

The silence left in the wake of his recitation was as deafening as an explosion.

After a moment, Chance said, “My gods above, what a strange and wonderful message.”

“Tragic joy,” Beam whispered back, “It’s the perfect description of my memories of her.”

“Did the message mean anything to you?”

Beam shook his head and adjusted his grip on the torch. “No. Shadows whose purposes are unveiled only at the pleasure of memory? She wasn’t in her right mind before she died.”

“What else was in the package?”

“Another box.”

“Another box? What kind of box?”

“A puzzle casket. It was beautiful, actually, despite being savage in manufacture. It was inlaid with gold, silver, and bloodstone. It was…”

“It was what?”

Beam probed the lump skulking at his breast beneath his shirt. Should he share this secret with a man he barely knew, a man who at times seemed like he’d be equally at home among the indwellers?

“It was what, Beam?”

“It was the same design as…”

“Beam, please. Don’t toil with me. The same design as what?”

Beam looked up at him, and as their eyes met, he experienced a sense of trust he couldn’t explain. The man wasn’t a thief. If anything, he was the polar opposite of a thief; his honesty was a burden.

“Are you suffering a brain fever or what?” Chance said.

The words stung. Beam thought of poor old Gerd lying dead in the path back in the Nolands with a ring of blood swelling beneath a cruel arrow. He saw the old man’s mouth agape and all four teeth in full view.

What kind of man was he that brought so much despair and ruin to those innocents unlucky enough to simply cross his path. A wave of guilt washed over him, cold as ice and utterly defeating, and for just an instant, he wanted to lie down in the dirt and never get up again. He was a bad omen, a pox to everyone he met. It should be him moldering back there in that dirty road, not poor old Gerd.

He was reeling the pouch out before he knew what he was doing. His hands were shaking as he loosed the leather tie and poured the red stone into a sweating palm.

“It was the same design as this,” he whispered as he held up the gem.

Chance’s eyes swelled at the sight of the sparkling red eye presented to him. He brought his torch in closer and leaned toward the proffered stone. “Calina’s love,” he whispered, “Another Blood Caeyl. It’s identical to the one on the sword, just a smaller version of it. Where did you find it?”

Reality flooded in to replace his grief. What was he doing? He quickly stowed the eye, and returned the pouch to the security of his shirt. He felt like he’d just wakened from a ridiculous dream. What was he thinking? Was he losing his mind? He couldn’t trust this man. Not now. Not yet!

“Beam?”

Beam looked at him.

“Where did you find the caeyl?”

“What?”

“The Blood Caeyl. Where did you find it?”

Beam stared at him. He didn’t know what he was doing. He suddenly felt like he was standing naked at the head of a parade with no memory of having been invited.

“Where did you find it?”

For a moment, Beam wasn’t sure what to do. The memories were swirling around his head. He felt short of breath, like everything around him was simply going to vanish. He thought back to Brother Dael, to the priory, to the calming prayers he’d been taught as a boy. He mentally whispered those soothing words. He imagined himself in a better place, a place of peace and safety…

“Beam, what’s wrong?”

“It…it began with the box,” Beam heard himself whisper.

“The box from your mother,” Chance said.

“Yes.”

“The puzzle casket.”

“Yes.”

“Go on.”

Beam forced down a hard swallow. He steadied himself. Then he began, “At first, I couldn’t make sense of it. I mean, why would my mother leave me a puzzle casket, of all things? And the cryptic message in the note? It had to mean something, but what? The box itself was practically worthless.”

“The real treasure was inside.”

Beam looked at him. “Damn me, yes it was.”

“It doesn’t take an astronomer to figure it out,” Chance said, “It was a puzzle casket, after all. And probably not an easy one to crack.”

“A bloody understatement. I tried for months, maybe a year. I finally got fed up and found a sledge. I was ready to bust the goddamned thing to pieces. But, as I stood there with the hammer…well, I suspect I lost my nerve. Couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was all I had left of my family, of my mother, so instead I left it with Dael, packed it away and forgot about it. I think I kept it just to prove to myself I could. Like keeping it proved I wasn't completely lost after all.”

“What happened to it?”

“About six or seven years ago, I found it again. I’d been drinking. A lot. And womanizing. A lot. I was consorting with the wrong people and living beyond my means, as usual. I was in dire need of gold. Dael was dead by then, but I returned to the priory so I could at least eat. I was digging through my things in search of something I could hock, and there it was.”

Chance scowled.

“Don’t you give me that look!” Beam said as harshly as he could, “I was younger then.”

“And reckless.”

“Damn me, yes! Reckless.”

Chance looked at him for a moment. And then he said, “Please continue.”

Beam looked away. As he fingered the caeyl on the hilt of the sword dripping from his waist, he said, “Anyway, I suppose it brought on a bout of melancholy. I started thinking about my mother, which is odd since I couldn’t even tell you what she looked like by then. I could only remember her eyes and how good she smelled and a certain yellow robe she wore. Funny, isn’t it? The things you remember from childhood?”

“I don’t know about that. It’s different for me. I was born with the Birthsight.”

That slapped Beam back to the moment. “Bird sight?” he asked, though he wasn’t sure why he had. It would just lead to more aggravation.

“Birthsight,” Chance told him, “It means I was lucid from the moment of my birth.”

Beam shook his head. “I’m not even going to ask.”

“It’s a story for a different time. Please continue.”

“Anyway, I was playing with the box and thinking of my mother...”

“Yes?”

“I slid the complex panels this way and that, up and down and sideways, just like I’d done a thousand times before. And then, after a few minutes of farting with it, there was a click.”

“And it opened?”

“Opened? It literally fell apart in my hands. I mean, just like that. After all the years I’d spent working at it, on this particular day, when I really couldn’t have cared less, I opened it.”

Chance leaned into his staff. His face was just inches from Beam’s. “And so? What was in it? What’d you find?”

“What I found led me here.”

XIX

CHILDHOOD FRIENDS

T

HE OLD TREE’S BARK FELT LIKE HOPE AGAINST HER BACK.

It was as coarse and unforgiving as a boulder, and as heartening as a father’s embrace. Koonta couldn’t remember the last time she’d communed with a tree of such age and wisdom.

Roots as big as a Baeldon’s thighs burrowed into the earth along both sides of her legs, cradling her tightly against the trunk. The grooves in the ancient bark were nearly deep enough for her to slip her entire hand into. She had never rested in a more comfortable chair. She could’ve sat there all day in its cool shade, cradled in the natural seat formed between the roots.

She leaned her head back against the tree and gazed down her nose at the thick cricket grass covering the earth between her legs and the roots. She envisioned her prey crawling through the earth beneath her like worms escaping a bird. They might be directly below her at this very moment, resting and eating their midday meal just as she and her troops were doing. They might be looking up at them even now, wondering about her just as she considered them. They might be tired, and hungry, and desperate. They might be afraid, and so they had a right to be. She was coming for them.

“How’s your trail, Kad’r?”

She looked up to find the burly form of Mawby standing over her. A long stem hickory pipe jutted out from the clenched teeth of a broad grin. She’d been so mesmerized by the great tree that she hadn’t sensed his taer-cael. Hell, she should at least have smelled his tobacco.

“Trail’s good, Mawby,” she said, “You?” She pulled the wyrlaerd’s map over from the grass beyond the great root separating them and patted the earth for him to sit.

“Trail’s good as can be expected, I reckon,” he said as he dropped into a cross-legged repose with a grace that defied his size.

For a Vaemyn, the man was a mountain. Easily a head taller than the tallest warrior, he would outweigh the same by at least thirty pounds. Add in his heavy green field leather shirt and breeches, and the thick ring mail densely woven with grass and mud, and he looked twice as big. Except for his long, sandy, nearly brown hair and his oteuryns, he might have passed for a young Baeldon, though this wasn’t something anyone who knew him would ever feel safe saying out loud. More than a few adult Vaemysh warriors bore disfigured noses, prizes for having made that comparison known to Mawby when they were younger.

Mawby pulled the pipe from his mouth, blew out a cord of blue smoke, and squinted through it. He had a square face with a jaw like the foundation of a house, and deep, blue eyes that could see through to your soul. He was looking at the map she was rolling up on her lap.

Koonta tucked the map into her pack, and then leaned back into the comforting embrace of the tree again, and she closed her eyes. “I love this tree, Maw.” Her fingers traced the lines of the bark on both sides of her. “Wish we had giants like these back home.”

“Seems to me, that’s why we’re here, Koo. Get our trees back, jh’ven?”

“I expect so.”

“You look right at home there, all relaxed and at peace. I almost hate to ruin it by telling you we’re ready to move out.”

“This is a fough tree, Maw. There’s not an inch of them that can’t be used to make healing elixirs. It’s said their aura is so powerful that every minute you rest beneath one is the equivalent of ten minutes sleep.”

“Well, you might’ve told me that earlier,” Mawby said, patting the tree’s rambling root, “I could’ve used an hour’s nap myself.”

Koonta stretched her arms up over her head and arched her spine against the coarse bark. “Reckon we’d best be hitting the trail, then,” she said with a yawn, “We need to make the next hatch by nightfall.”

“We’ve known each other our whole lives, Koo.”

Her arms settled back to her lap as she considered his words. It was a curious statement, and strangely out of character. They were childhood friends. She was closer to this man than most of her own family. He could say just about anything to her without the need to buffer it with such a lead.

“What is it, Maw? Is there something you need to say?”

The large warrior shrugged and pulled the pipe from his mouth. His eyes wandered off into the sunny field beyond the tree’s dripline.

“Maw, I don’t have all day to wait. What is it?” She remembered his remark at the campfire the night before. He’d wanted to talk then. “Is this about last night?”

Mawby’s eyes gradually found hers, though he appeared reluctant to maintain the contact. “There’s something I’ve got to say,” he said too softly.

“You need permission to talk to me now?” She laughed at that. “Gods above, I’ve only been a kadeer ten minutes. Nothing’s changed. Just say it.”

“I’m not saying this between our ranks,” he said, “I mean, not as a feydeer to his commanding officer. I’m saying it between friends.”

For reasons she couldn’t explain, she felt a sudden rush of worry. “Well…go ahead, then.”

He picked nervously at the cricket grass. He was normally the most relaxed member of the company, a man who was unfettered in the most extreme situations. He was a paragon of strength to everyone around him. Whatever he was about to say, it wasn’t going to be pleasant.

“Maw, you look like you’re about to start bawling. What’s bothering you?”

Mawby tapped his pipe against the thick root running before him. The red embers scattered into the grass and quickly died. “Have you seen Maeryc in the last half hour?” he asked as he fiddled with his pipe.

“Maeryc? He’s probably getting ready to move out.” She leaned around to her right and peered past him back toward the camp. The warriors stood around in clusters talking, their gear packed and gathered at their feet. They were looking her way. She didn’t see her brother.

“You’re looking in the wrong direction,” Mawby said.

She looked back at Mawby. “What?”

Her eyes tracked the direction indicated by the pointing finger. A hundred yards off in the opposite direction of the camp, across a wide field, was a gigantic twin of her own fough tree. A warrior with short-cropped white hair knelt beneath it with his back to them. It was a long way off, but she knew it couldn’t be anyone else but Maeryc.

“I don’t get it,” she said as she watched him, “He’s away from the company. So am I. So what?”

“Keep looking.”

She wondered if Maw was overly tired, maybe having a bit of fatigue confusion. “All right, I’m looking. Is that a creek he’s kneeling in front of?”

“He’s talking to himself.”

“Talking to himself? He’s probably meditat—”

Maeryc suddenly threw his arms out to his sides and gestured strangely. Then he stopped and glanced about himself before returning his attention to the creek. It was a most odd sight.

“What in the Nine is he doing?” she asked.

“I’ve noticed it for a few days now,” Mawby said too carefully, “Only it’s gotten a bit worse since the demon was in camp yesterday. Or possibly just more obvious.”

She looked over at him. This time, his brilliant blue eyes stayed with her. “What are you talking about, Maw?”

“He’s been drifting away from the company during the march, especially when there’s water nearby. Yesterday he just turned and broke ranks, marching off into the forest. I caught up with him and asked him what he was doing. He said he was scouting, but…”

“But what?”

Mawby stared back at her, but didn’t say anything.

“But what?” she pushed.

“He’s been talking to himself.”

“You said that already. Everyone talks to themselves. We’ve been under a lot of pressure these...”

The burly Vaemyn shook his head. The act seemed so strangely profound that she forgot what she was saying. She turned back toward her brother.

“It’s the water, Koo,” Mawby said softly, “He only does it when he’s near water.”

His voice was miles too gentle. He was trying to protect her from something. “For the love of Calina,” she said, “If you don’t get to the point, I’m going to kick you in the ass and move the company out. Now what’s got you so worked up?”

Mawby stared past her. He was watching Maeryc and fidgeting with his pipe.

“Mawby!”

He flinched at that. He looked at her again. “Maeryc’s been like a brother to me,” he said too carefully, “The three of us grew up together, you, me, and him. Never seen him break from a march before. You know him, there’s no one more disciplined. No one can outmarch him without a rest.”

“Will you get to the point?”

“It’s just that…well, he’s never acted like this before. Restless, breaking ranks without explanation, disappearing for an hour at a time. And the water—”

“The damned water again. What about the water?”

His large eyes were everywhere but on hers. She could see he was struggling, that he had something important to say, but now she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it.

“Go on,” she forced herself to say, “What about the water?”

His eyes again drifted toward Maeryc. “The water’s how they communicate.”

His voice was so low she barely heard the words. “How they communicate?” she pressed, “How who communicates?”

“It’s how the demons communicate with…with their hacks.”

The ground dropped out beneath her. She dug her fingers into the bark to steady herself. For a second, she couldn’t get her breath. Then she looked at him and said, “Hacks?” She spit the word out, not wanting it in her mouth any longer than necessary. “Did you really just say that?”

“I did.”

“You’re calling my brother a hack? Because he’s been talking to himself? A hack?”

“I’m sorry, Koo. I love him like a brother. You know I do. It’s not—”

“Shut up, Mawby! Just shut the hell up.” The fury swelled up so suddenly that she was actually trembling. A hack? It was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard.

Mawby shrank before her eyes. His gaze was fixed on the thick, serpentine root burrowing into the earth between them. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, “I—”

“Don’t say anything! Not another goddamned word.”

She stared at him long and hard. She felt betrayed, violated. Hack was the slang term for the demons’ lackeys, for their grubs, their slaves. Hacks were little more than possessed corpses, something one step up from a zombie. She glanced over at Maeryc, who was walking toward them now. He was still gesturing oddly, though with less drama.

She turned back to Mawby. “Is this a joke?” she asked seriously.

Mawby didn’t reply. He didn’t even look up.

The words hanged in the air between them. The entire affair seemed unreal and dreamlike. She knew it must’ve taken a mountain of courage to say what he’d said to her. Especially in times like this when trust came at a premium. They were all exhausted, seeing enemies where there were only shadows. And yet…it was the worst insult one warrior could level at another.

“I’m going to forget you said that,” she said, finally, struggling to keep her voice steady, “I’m going to write it off as field fatigue. We’re all tired. It’d be easy to see changes in each other and suspect the worst. The last thing we need is to turn on each other.”

Though his eyes were red and wet, Mawby didn’t retreat. “Maeryc’s my closest friend after you. He’s my family. You have to know I’d never come to you with—”

She threw up a halting hand. “Stop! Please, Maw. Just stop.”

His eyes dropped back to the grass.

She glanced quickly around to ascertain they were alone, then leaned toward him and whispered, “Mawby, you know I disapprove of your service to Lamys te’Faht. I tolerate it only because…because I love you like family. And because I know Pa’ana would want...”

The words froze her up. The damned pain threatened to push its way up from the forbidden box again, but she simply wouldn’t have it. Not now.

She braced herself and pushed on. “Pa’ana supported your role,” she forced herself to say, “He supported it despite my profound objections. It’s never been my place to judge how a Vaemyn perceives loyalty or what shadow guilds they belong to, but—”

“Pa’ana would want you to listen to me.”

She threw her anger at him. “Don’t you presume to tell me what Pa’ana would want of me!”

Mawby flew to his feet. “He was my brother, damn you!” Then he jabbed a finger out toward Maeryc, saying, “And he’s your brother. If you love him, you’ll watch him closely. He’s worn Prae’s amulet for months now.”

Koonta stood up before him. “So does half the Vaemysh army. What of it?”

“Remember your history. Remember Fren’ba Shen.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it. It’s never been proven. It’s myth.”

“Is it?”

Koonta’ar turned back toward the creek. Maeryc was still walking toward them. With the sun full on him now, he appeared weak and troubled. He’d lost too much weight on this march. He seemed to be fading away like a spring snow. Her mind skipped back to the night before, to their encounter at the hatch. A chill gripped her, and she crossed her arms against it.

“My gods,” she whispered.

“What is it?”

“Last night. At the hatch. I found him—”

“I know. I followed you from the camp. I was watching from the shadows.”

She glared up at him. “You were spying on me?”

“No. I was watching out for you.”

“Do I look like I need a bodyguard, Maw?”

“I don’t know.” He looked over at Maeryc. “Maybe.”

“Bullshit!” she said, “He was tired. He slipped up, that’s all.”

“No,” Mawby said firmly, “You know it’s more than that. He disobeyed orders. He jeopardized the mission. He was sitting with his back to the hatch talking to the water. It’s not like Maeryc. It’s not like anything Maeryc would ever do.”

“So he was talking to himself,” she said, “Just because he was sitting by that damned pond—”

“It’s only when he’s near water, Koonta. That’s the only time it happens. It’s how they communicate. And look at him. He’s fading away.”

“He’s tired, Mawby. Give him some slack.”

“We’re all tired. But none of us looks so...”

“None of us look so what?” she said, louder than she’d intended, “Just say it, goddamn it. You’ve dug yourself in this deep. You might as well finish it.”

“Consumed,” Mawby said back, “All right? None of us looks so consumed. There’s more to him than simple fatigue, you know it as well as I do. You saw it last night. You know he’s not right. This is a version of Maeryc you’d never see if he didn’t have that goddamned amulet pierced through his horn. I don’t give a good goddamn how tired he gets, he’d never act this way otherwise.”

Koonta’ar felt sick to her stomach. Mawby was right, and she hated him for making her see it. She hated herself more for admitting it.

“Maybe…maybe he’s sick,” she whispered. It was a desperate move and she knew it.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it’s worse than mortal sickness. Can we take the chance?”

“And what if he is communicating with them?” she said, “The wyrlaerds are our allies. What if they do keep themselves posted on our progress, is that so bad?” Even as she spoke the words, she knew they lacked faith, and she knew he could see it. Mawby was an Eye of the Faithful. He was trained to watch for signs of demonic treachery. He’d see right through her words and there was nothing she could do about it.

“You don’t believe that,” he said. He sounded calmer now. “And even if you toe that line of rhetoric, I know you disapprove of the command spying on field troops. It shows a disappointing lack of faith, to quote a dear friend of mine.”

They were her words, and it pissed her off that he used them against her. “Stand down, Mawby. Stop playing me.”

“Then listen to me. Know that I’m not inclined toward suspicion or mistrust. Know that I love Maeryc. Know that it took everything I had to admit the possibility to myself, let alone to broach it with you.”

She brought a palm to her face and rubbed a tired eye against it. “What’re we coming to that we have to suspect each other?”

He squeezed her shoulder, but said nothing. She knew he didn’t have to. The shock had passed, but the anger was still rumbling. She knew what she had to do, and she was ashamed of herself for it.

“All right,” she barely said, “Keep posting him. Don’t let him slip off without eyes.”

“Agreed.”

She slapped his hand off her shoulder and threw a finger into his face. “But goddamn you, Mawby. If you’re wrong about this, we’re going head to head, I swear to Calina!”

“Fair enough.” He lifted the pipe stem toward his mouth, but stopped an inch short. “And, if I’m not wrong?” he asked coolly, “What then?”

“Don’t go there,” she whispered, “Don’t you dare go there. Not now. There’s nothing wrong until you prove it otherwise.”

Despite standing over a foot taller, the man shrank before her. Koonta’ar had no fear of him or any other warrior in the company. She knew her strength didn’t just come from her exceptional skills at hand-to-hand combat; it came from something much deeper. She had a resolve that was intimidating, and she knew he knew that.

Mawby’s mouth finally found the pipe stem. He clenched it between his teeth. “I understand,” he said, “But you should know that—”

She threw him another warning look. “Be very careful, Mawby.”

He pulled the pipe back out. “Pa’ana was murdered in front of me. You know that. He was as good as murdered by that goddamned demon.”

“It was an accident,” she said, “Gods above! I don’t have the strength to go there again, Maw.”

“It was no accident. Damn you to the Wyr, it was no goddamned accident!”

Koonta’ar flinched at that. She was surprised by the strength of his anger.

“I saw it.” He whispered the words as carefully as if they could harm her. “Pa’ana knew the possession was taking him, and he couldn’t fight it, so he…” He stopped. His face was raw. He quickly rubbed the grief from his eye. Then he seemed to find his resolve again and focused it on her. “I’m telling you straight out, Kadeer Koonta’ar. As I live and breathe, I won’t let that happen to Maeryc. So you can either work with me or against me, but I will do whatever’s necessary to prevent him following Pa’ana’s fate. With or without you.”

“I’m your commanding officer!” she snapped back, “You’ll damned well do as I say or I’ll have you busted down to grunt.”

“I don’t care squat about that, and you know it. You’ll have to kill me to stop me from doing whatever’s necessary to save Maeryc.” Then he rose to his full height and he said, “Or to release him, if need be.”

“Release him?”

“You know what I mean. If he’s truly a hack, there’s no way to recover him. He can only be released.”

She felt like she was going to vomit. She hadn’t missed his meaning at all, not by miles. She glanced back at the camp. The warriors were all still looking at her, and as she watched them watching her, she understood. Mawby spoke for all of them.

“They want him restrained,” she whispered, still looking at them.

Mawby released a deep breath, and said, “Ay’a.”

“No. They’re not to restrain him. You’ll need more proof than a tired warrior talking to himself, water or no. For now, keep eyes on him. And keep me posted.”

“We may have that proof sooner than you think, Koo.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”

“Tomorrow we enter the swamp.”

“So?”

“We’ll be wading through water for at least a day. He won’t be able to avoid the demon’s contact.”

Koonta didn’t know what to say. Maybe there wasn’t anything to say. She turned back toward her brother. She wanted to speak to him, but knew she’d never have the strength. What if Mawby was right? What if her own traitorous suspicions were right?

Instead, she simply looked away. She couldn’t bear to face him anymore. Looking at him made her feel like something was trying to slice its way out of her gut.

“You have your orders, Feyd’r,” she said as she began walking toward the camp, “Now, let’s move out.”

XX

THE TOMB

T

HE SILENCE WAS DEAFENING.

The only break in the overwhelming quiet was the soft crunch of sand beneath their feet and the occasional sizzle of cobwebs passing through their torches. Beam watched the torchlight flicker and dance along the rough tunnel walls as they walked. Another tower of sorry Baeldonian faces passed. They were beginning to feel like old friends.

“Well?” Chance asked.

The voice startled Beam. He looked over at the man. “Well what?”

“What was in the box?”

The puzzle casket. Of course. He’d fallen so deep into his thoughts, he’d forgotten they’d been talking. “A map,” he said, “It was a folded map. It was old and yellowed, brittle as hell. I could barely open it without tearing it.”

“A map?” Chance said eagerly, “Most interesting. What type of map? A map of what?”

‘Roads, buildings. I thought it was a city, but it wasn’t any place I recognized. The writing was Vaemysh, and that didn’t help. The map was drawn in a circular fashion so that no matter which way you turned it, the writing at the top of the map was always right side up. I couldn’t make sense of it. I couldn’t even identify which way was north.”

“Vaemysh maps are murder to read,” Chance said.

“Then,” Beam continued, “A few years ago in Boardtown, one of my lady friends found the map among my things.”

“Lady friends?” Chance said.

Beam didn’t appreciate the sarcasm in his voice. “Yes, Chance,” he said with equal derision, “Most of my friends have been ladies, if you must know. I’m inclined toward their species that way, and damn me, them toward me. It’s just one of the few gifts Calina actually saw fit to bestow upon me. The ladies can’t resist me.”

“I see,” Chance said.

The man didn’t sound convinced. Or maybe he just wasn’t interested.

“Moving along,” Beam said, though his enthusiasm for the story had suddenly ebbed, “One day Brilla was digging through an old chest of mine and found the map in—”

“Wait,” Chance said, waving his hand, “Brilla?”

Beam suffered a pang. He had the feeling he’d just made a big mistake. “Yeah,” he said, “Brilla. So?”

“Unless I’m mistaken, that’s a Faocenii name.”

“Yeah, again, so?”

“Your lady friend was a Faocenii? I pray you don’t mean what I think you mean.”

Beam winced. Yep, a real big mistake. “Don’t give me that look,” he said quickly, “She wasn’t my lover. And anyway, she wasn’t your usual Faocenii, either. She wasn’t even bad looking. And she was a hoot to be with. Had a great sense of humor. Anyway, it doesn’t bloody matter. You don’t get to judge me!”

“Seriously, a Faocenii?” Chance pressed, “With that gray, oily skin, and that pouch, and the extra pair of...I mean, was she the only woman in the region? Or perhaps you’re just not that fussy?”

Beam bit his lip.

Chance was fighting back a laugh. “Tell me you weren’t actually having—”

“Do I need this kind of abuse?” Beam demanded, “Especially from a man who probably hasn’t seen a woman naked since birth? I told you she was just a goddamned friend!”

Chance started laughing. “Apologies,” he said, “It’s just…well, bless me, but I may never get the image of you in bed with a Faocenii out of my head. Ten limbs flaying through all that grease? And that tentacle-like hair running all the way down her back? I mean—”

“I told you I didn’t do that with her!”

“I can only hope that’s true.”

Beam clenched his jaw. “Are you about done?” he said through his teeth.

“Oh, I won’t say another word,” Chance said, still struggling with his laughter, “In fact, I’m going to work the rest of my life to smother the mental image of you rolling through the straw with a naked Faocenii.”

“This is probably a good time for you to stop talking,” Beam said seriously. He cursed himself for ever having opened his mouth. He was an academic experiment in stupidity.

He walked for a bit in studied silence, waiting for the next laugh or comment or smart-ass remark. When none appeared forthcoming, he said, “I don’t remember where I was.”

“The map.”

“The map,” Beam repeated, “Right. Well, damn me if Brilla didn’t surprise me. Turns out, she was familiar with this type of Vaemysh map. More than that, she recognized the area. It was an old burial ground in the scrubs of southern Vaen.”

Chance snapped his fingers. “Why, of course,” he said, “I know this place. I’ve actually been there. It’s called gru’Felyum Thrael, the Cemetery of Remorse. It covers square miles. The Vaemyn have buried their disgraced dead there for nearly a thousand years. Only after they were forced to the southern reserves did they begin burying everyone there.”

“That’s what Brilla said. In fact, she didn’t want me to go. She was put off by the warnings posted at the entrances. Something about entering with a soul and leaving without one.”

“Vaemysh custom,” Chance said, “Curse everything and advertise it afterwards. But clearly such a warning served no deterrent, since here you are.”

“You’re damned right. What do I give a shimlin's damn about their taboos? It’s all superstitious bullshit as far as I’m concerned, the last refuge of the simple mind.”

“Of course,” Chance said, “You are a man of science, after all.”

Beam winced at that. He looked at the man, but was disappointed to find no evidence of a smile or smirk. Uncertain if he’d been insulted or praised, he decided to move on.

“What she said that I did take seriously,” Beam continued, “Was the warning that if any Vaemysh patrols discovered me they'd pretty much feed me my jewels. But if the map was right, that graveyard was out in the middle of the Scrubs of Despair. Closest Vaemysh settlements to there are deeper in the southern plains, a full two or three day’s ride.”

“She sounds like a reasonable sort,” Chance said, “Especially for a Faocenii.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. At least, until I realized there was more to it. She took the map seriously. So seriously, she wanted me to give it to her for safekeeping. She said it’d likely led to some cache of hidden gold or jewels, and that it’d probably be best if I let her take care of it for me, because of my drinking and generally irresponsible nature and all. And damn me if I didn’t actually consider her offer. Briefly, anyway. It was a Vaemysh boneyard, after all. What could the chances of finding anything of value be? But I guess the map had sentimental value now, coming from my mother and all. I just didn’t want to let it out of my sight, so I told her she couldn’t have it. Well, she didn’t much like that and got all pissy on me. She said I was just asking to be blistered over a Vaemysh torture fire. It was a couple days before she finally let it go. At least, I thought she’d let it go.

“One night, maybe a month or so later, while I was sleeping off a particularly bad drunk, she tried to take it from me.” He felt shame hugging him with her cold arms. How could he ever explain this?

“What is it?” Chance asked.

Beam hesitated. He wasn’t sure how to proceed. “I don’t know,” he said, “I reckon it didn’t go so well.”

“Didn’t go so well? What does that mean?”

“It means…” Gods, how could he share this?

“What? Tell me.”

Beam looked over at the newest stack of Baeldons glowering at him as they passed. He shook his head and threw his eyes to the path before them. “It means…it means I might’ve ended up killing her over it.”

“You might have?”

One look at the shock swelling in the man’s face, and Beam’s guilt heaved to the surface like a meal of spoiled milk. He was sick of his ghosts, and it seemed every conversation the damned monk dragged out of him just riled them up again. Even being down in these godsforsaken tunnels didn’t dissuade them. His ghosts were all in attendance now, Dael, Gerd, Brilla, and a dozen others, all there, all following him and whispering their curses.

“Beam, what happened?”

“Damn me, it was all so quick,” Beam said, trying to recover, “It was the middle of the night. It was dark, and I was three shades of drunk. I tried to stop a thief, the thief pulled a knife, I pulled a knife, and then there was blood. It was over in a heartbeat. When I finally got the lamp lit, there she was. Lying in a bloody pool in the middle of my room. Dead, with my knife in her neck.”

“Blood of the gods, you’ve got to have about the worst luck I’ve ever seen.”

There was nothing Beam could say to that. What did luck have to do with it? His life had been an endless parade of bad decisions. He could feel the cold shade of Brilla slip her arm around his. You see, Be’ahm? she whispered into his ear, We’re all in agreement, my sweet boy.

Beam suffered a chill that nearly wrenched his spine. That memory was too wretched to bear.

“She was the closest thing to a true friend I've ever had,” he said carefully, “And yet she turned on me over a lousy map.”

He heard her laughing behind him. He glanced back into the tunnel, but found only darkness. Then he simply shook his head and fell back into the tedium of the walk.

“Turns out there aren’t any Faocenii I trust after all,” he whispered.

He walked on for a bit, trying to settle himself, trying to breathe again. There was a darkness following that particular shade, and not just the usual black cloud of remorse and anger. This one was shrouded in the guilty shadows of his vices and bad lifestyle and utter selfishness. If he just hadn’t been so drunk. If he’d just recognized her before...

“So, you obviously discarded her advice,” Chance said, “You made your way south, probably soon after that.”

“Yes,” Beam replied once he’d drawn enough air to speak, “Yeah, I did. Took me months to reach the scrubs. I had too many things working against me, not the least of which was avoiding Fark’s crew in the Nolands.”

“Fark?” Chance said like he was certain he hadn’t heard right, “The brothers Fark? Lucifeus and Malevolus Fark?”

“You know of them?”

“Know of them? I live in the forest, not under a damned rock. Of course, I know of the pirates. Everyone in and around the Nolands knows of the pirate captains. They’re legion.”

“Ex-pirates.”

“Ex?” Chance said with a laugh, “How does a pirate ever become an ex? They’re hooligans and cutthroats. They may have traded their ships for a landlocked fort, but they run the same business on land as they did on the Sea of Hope. I’m confident I’ll regret placing this question, but what exactly did you do that you had to avoid them? A cultured, educated, upstanding young gentleman such as yourself? Why, as Calina’s my witness, I would have speculated you’d fit right in with their crew.”

Beam bristled at that. “There’s no need to flatter me,” he said sharply.

Chance harrumphed.

“I was actually good friends with Lucifeus at one time,” Beam said, “Even sailed with him for a time, eleven or twelve years ago. But it seems I found myself in the unsavory position of owing him money.”

“You owed the Farks money?”

“Don’t give me that look,” Beam said harshly, “I didn’t steal from them, and I sure as hell didn’t borrow from them. I got jumped while taking a payment back to the Freehold. Their money was stolen from me, and I knew Lucy well enough to know it didn’t matter why I wasn’t making the payment, only that I wasn’t making it. Friend or enemy, it didn’t matter; there’s nothing Lucy likes better than throwing a good hanging party. I knew if I showed up without his gold, I’d end up swinging from Fark’s Tree before he finished breakfast, never mind our history.”

Chance snorted sarcastically. “I have to say, the simple fact you’ve made it this far in life with your skin intact seems to me a minor miracle.”

“Are you about done?”

“Bless me, more than done,” Chance said, “Nothing would make me happier than to move on. The Farks. Blood of the gods!”

“Enough with the Farks, already,” Beam said, watching him closely, “I’m going back to the story. Unless you have some other worldly observations about my life you’d like to share?”

“Pray, continue.”

“I forgot where I was.”

“The scrubs, as I recall.”

“Oh yeah. Let’s see…I had a horse at first, but once I found the graveyard, I set it free. It was too conspicuous. And it drank a hell of a lot of water, which wasn’t that easy to find in those parts.”

“The scrubs are the most inhospitable place in the three nations,” Chance said.

“You don’t know the half of it. The map didn’t clearly point out a single, specific target, and damn me if there weren’t ten thousand decaying crypts and vaults scattered through those stinking hills. It took me nearly two years to find the right one. It was so hot I could only work at night. During the day, I’d take the tonic, sleep in the vaults, and pray like hell the patrols didn’t find my tracks.

“One morning I was looking at the next crypt on my list when I actually should’ve been wrapping things up and heading for cover. This particular crypt was even more run down than most, which meant the chance of finding anything more than bones was about null. I was even considering striking it from my list.

“Then I noticed a tree carved on the round capstone sealing the door. The paint was damned near faded to memory, but as I brushed the sand free, I spotted a design. Painted in the crown was a sun, and in the midst of that sun was one of those all-seeing eyes. I swear to Calina, I couldn’t believe it. I’d passed this very crypt a hundred times and never noticed it.

“It had to mean something, and I was pretty eager to go in, but it was just too late. It was already dawn and I couldn’t risk the patrols showing up while I worked, so I resolved that it would just have to wait until nightfall. I shucked my pack up over my shoulder and was ready to head back to camp when the sunlight poured through the gap between the crypts behind me. And when the morning light hit that tomb door, I saw the rest of it.”

“The rest of what?”

“I saw the handprints.”

“The handprints? What do you mean?”

“The form of two handprints chiseled into the rock. They were painted over, camouflaged within the drawing of the tree on either side of the eye. The fingerprints and palm creases were so detailed in the sunlight, it was like someone had pressed their hand into wet mud and let it bake solid.”

“Handprints?” Chance repeated. “And you didn’t see them until the sunlight hit?”

“Are you listening to me or not? The sunlight brought them to life. They practically glowed in the rays. I couldn’t believe my eyes; I had to touch it to prove it was real. And so…well, I’m not sure why I even did it.”

“Did what?”

“I pressed my own hands into the impressions. Damn me if the fit wasn’t perfect. I mean absolutely perfect, like putting on gloves that were custom made for me.”

“And then what?”

“You’re going to think I’m a raver when I tell you this. When I put my hands in the imprints, the round stone door began to move. Completely on its own, I mean. It just started rolling to the left. Slowly. Growling like a waking beast. Scared the shit out of me. I thought someone was inside.”

“But there was no one inside,” Chance said.

“Right,” he said, “It was empty.”

“And you went in.”

“You’re goddamned right I went in.”

“And?”

“The interior of the crypt was a complete disappointment.”

“How so?”

“It was just like every other crypt I’d broken into, except maybe older and dirtier. There was a crude sarcophagus in it that pretty much filled the room. In fact, it was more like a Parhronii coffin. The cover was just plain old dirty stone, no image carved in it or anything. The face and body of a savage were painted on the lid, but it was so dirty and faded I couldn’t even make out the gender. I was disgusted. I’d risked my safety staying out so late after dawn for nothing. I could’ve sat down in the dirt and bawled. It was enough to make me want to just quit it all.”

“But you didn’t,” Chance said.

“Start bawling?”

“No, fool! Quit.”

“Oh, hell no!” Beam said with a laugh, “I’d come too goddamned far. No, I pulled out my bar and pried the coffin open anyway. I’d gotten it about halfway open when the crypt’s stone seal started rolling back into place behind me. Damned near had heart failure at the sound. Thank the gods I’d brought my pack in with me. It would’ve been a ‘dig here’ sign to the savages if they’d found it outside.”

“Of course.”

“So there I was, sealed inside with only myself and a moldering corpse for company. I honestly didn’t think I was leaving that bloody tomb again. Those round doors are murder to move from the inside.”

“But, you did get out.”

“Figured that out by yourself, did you? Why, you’re a regular astronomer!”

“There’s no need to be an ass.”

Beam laughed. “Well, I couldn’t do anything but take a slug off the tonic, which, thank the gods, I already had out because I figured I’d be needing it. Once the vomiting subsided, I fired up a torch and finished prying that coffin open. And you know what? It only took one look inside to know I’d found the right crypt after all.”

“Because there was no corpse,” Chance said.

Beam stopped walking. He looked up at the man and tried to see the trick through his words. “What did you say?”

Chance looked like the cat that’d eaten the family chicken. “I would speculate that it wasn’t a coffin at all,” he said coyly, “I would further speculate that it was a passage. And were I to elaborate on that speculation, I’d say there was a stairway inside it that led to a lower chamber.”

The words danced around in Beam’s head for a dozen beats before he could accept them. Then he whispered, “Now how in the hell would you know that?”

“I know the legend.”

“Blather, prattle, and spew,” Beam muttered.

“No need to give me such a sorry look,” Chance said seriously, “It’s my business to understand such elements of the world and its history.”

“Fine. So you know the legend. In that case, maybe you’d like to finish the story for me?”

“Heavens, no. The legend’s thin. I know a few scattered details, most of which are probably false anyway. I’d rather hear it from you.”

“No,” Beam said, his irritation growing, “Really. Go ahead and enlighten me.”

“Finish your story,” Chance said quickly, “Please. I won’t speak again until you’re done, I swear it before Pentyrfal.”

Beam felt a little spooked by the man’s knowledge. He knew it couldn’t be true, but legends be damned, it was still one hell of a string of coincidences.

“Please, Beam,” Chance pressed again, “Proceed. Finish your story.”

“All right, all right,” Beam said, “The coffin was an opening to a set of stone stairs that pretty much just descended into complete blackness. So I grabbed the torch and I climbed down those miserable fifty steps, counting each bloody one of them. Elixir or no, it was the most oppressive stinking place I’d ever entered. There was no rail to steady against, no wall, just an open slice of stone steps leading down into absolute blackness.”

“What did you find down there?”

“The largest crypt I’d been in yet. In fact, it was nothing like the tombs I’d visited before. The walls were buried under rich runes and arcane images inlayed with silver, gold, bloodstone, and opal. There were tapestries and tables loaded with household wares, mummified food, and weapons of all sorts. And there were thousands of spent candles. This was no layman’s tomb.

“But the biggest surprise was squatting right there in the middle of the room. It was a golden sarcophagus sitting on a marble base with a huge pillar at each corner. The bronze lid was cast in the form of a Vaemysh warrior. His face was inlaid in gold and his hair was black as ebony.”

“Black?” Chance asked.

“I know. I thought it was odd, too. I mean, a savage with black hair? Never seen such a thing.”

Chance squinted at him. “Seriously, Beam?”

Beam felt himself flush. “Don’t even go there,” he said firmly, “I’m half-bred. I’m no savage.”

“Of course. Forgive me my poor memory.”

“Anyway, I damned near broke my back pushing the lid off. When it hit the ground, it spooked up so much dust I could barely breathe. Seemed like forever before it settled enough to see inside the coffin. But, boil me to hell, when it did—”

“There was no corpse,” Chance said.

Beam froze with his hands in mid-gesture.

“Sorry.” Chance’s blush was evident even under the green torchlight. “I’ve heard the legend in a dozen variations. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“You have a penchant for ruining perfectly good stories. It’s seriously annoying.”

“I’m confident I have my moments.”

“Well, this particular moment’s lasted two days. Is that normal?”

“Listen, Beam, I tell you what I know before you tell me what you know. If I told you what I know after you tell me what you know, you’d never believe that I knew at all. Isn’t that right?”

“Are you kidding? I’m not even sure what the hell you just said.”

Chance didn’t reply.

“Surprise!” Beam shouted, throwing out his arms, “There was no corpse!”

This time Chance flinched. And then he threw Beam a scowl he felt clear down to his spine. It was most satisfying.

Grinning, Beam resumed the story. “The inside of this coffin was lined with satin shrouds, dozens of them layered one over the other, but there was no body in them. Hidden under the rotting layers of cloth was a puzzle casket.”

“A Vaemysh puzzle casket?”

“Didn’t expect that, did you?” Beam said with a jab of his finger, “Bet your legends and stories don’t even mention a puzzle casket, do they?”

“No, they don’t. I expected you’d find the sword there.”

“Well, I suppose that’s a different chapter in the story.”

“I see.”

Beam could see he didn’t. “I’m telling you, Brother, no one could have found this place by accident, not in a decade of searching.”

“But you found it.”

“I had a map.”

“Why, of course you did. A map you couldn’t read.”

Beam studied his companion for evidence he was being played. “You think this is all some sort of supernatural plot,” he said, watching Chance closely, “Or maybe divine intervention or something, right? Maybe some elaborate scheme of the gods and long dead seers?”

“Something along that description, yes.”

“Wouldn’t it be grand if life actually worked that way? If all our little coincidences and lucky breaks could be explained as something bigger than that? Well, that’s not the way things work, Chance. Sometimes shit just happens to otherwise shitless people.”

“So, should I guess at what you found in the puzzle casket?”

“No, I’ve already shown you my hand. It was the red stone.”

“The Blood Caeyl,” Chance said, “Of course.”

Beam recognized the reverence in the man’s voice. He conjured up a deliciously sarcastic response, but for reasons he couldn’t explain, held it back. Again! Maybe he was going soft. Or maybe he’d just ridden the man enough for one day. He prayed it wasn’t some new character trait growing like a tumor in him, something akin to generosity. It was a most disturbing notion, and he’d have to think seriously on it later.

“Even if you hadn’t shown me the caeyl,” Chance said, “I’d have guessed it to be more than a handful of gold. I’ve the seen the stumps of your oteuryns.”

“And that proves what, exactly?”

“That with a modicum of creative interpretation, your story walks hand in hand with what I know about the legend of the Caeyllth Blade.”

They turned as one and continued their walk.

Beam scooped up a handful of sand as he thought about what the man had said. He sifted the sand into the open palm of his other hand, and then repeated it in reverse. He watched the grains disappear into time as he remembered back on his experiences. Finally, he brushed his hands together and laughed.

“Something’s funny?” Chance asked.

“Damn me, yes! Everything’s funny. This whole muddled mess I’ve found myself in the middle of is funny.”

“Do tell.”

Beam dug the pouch out from the neck of his tunic. “Have you ever spent time among ravers, Brother? Ever rubbed elbows with lunatics?”

“Not until now,” Chance said.

“Oh, that’s funny,” Beam said back, “Hilarious. You’re a real hoot.”

“I suppose I’m just trying to keep up,” Chance replied.

Beam brushed it off. The man had a point. But, rather than pursuing it, he continued his story. “The thing about ravers is there are basically two camps,” he said instead.

“Is that right?”

“That’s right. You’ve got the gigglers and you’ve got the screamers.”

“Gigglers and screamers.”

“Screamers are afraid of everything. They’re afraid of living and they’re afraid of dying, which means they never win. They never take risks, they never learn, they never experience anything more than those mundane events they simply can’t avoid. Their hell is never-ending. Kind of like this walk.”

Chance nodded. “And the gigglers?”

“Complete opposites. Gigglers aren’t afraid of anything. They’ll try anything that interests them. Hell, some of them will eat anything they can fit in their mouths, vegetable or mineral, natural or manufactured, anything. And mad or not, they thoroughly enjoy themselves. It makes them reckless, though. They die young.”

“I understand. You’re a giggler.”

“Brother,” Beam said as he poured the stone from his pouch to his sand-speckled palm, “I have a tendency for both, just depends on my mood and the company. However, I’ve decided the gigglers have the best of it. They’re not afraid of the things they don’t understand. Their truth is always in the moment. Sure, they risk premature death, but they’re completely alive in the meantime. And anyway, I sure as hell don’t want to be a screamer.” He held the stone out to Chance.

“It’s beautiful,” Chance whispered.

“Go ahead. Pick it up.”

Chance looked up at him, and as he did, Beam wondered if that was fear he saw in those dark eyes. If so, it was the first time he’d witnessed it since they’d been forced into this fateful party. Then the man gingerly picked up the eye and cupped it in his hands.

“All caeyls,” Chance said as he studied it through his fingers, “Contain the primal spark of their energy when they’re idle, and glow brilliantly when that energy’s being channeled via the caeylsphere. And this one…my goodness. This one’s practically alive. In fact, it’s even getting brighter as I look at it. It’s as if it knows I’m here considering it. This is the rarest of energies, the life energy of a Blood Caeyl.”

Beam could see the glow of the light through the flesh of the man’s hands. As he watched, the intensity grew until spikes of red light stabbed out from between his fingers, and with that change, he suffered a surge of panic.

“Oh, no,” he whispered. He pulled Chance’s hands open. The red light splattered the darkness.

Chance’s astonished face was awash in a crimson glow. “Oh, my lords,” he whispered, “It’s wondrous. It’s—”

“It’s terrible!” Beam interrupted, “See, the thing is…it’s not usually a good thing when the red light flows.”

Chance looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, it’s like a warning. It means something’s afoot.”

“Afoot?”

Beam turned and held his torch out into the gloom trailing them, but the light did nothing to part the deeper darkness. At times like this, he resented the stupid decision made by a youthful version of himself; he wished he still had his horns.

A mournful howl suddenly erupted from the gloom behind them.

Chance handed the stone off to Beam and held his own torch out toward the night. He slipped closer to Beam and whispered, “Our old friend’s getting closer. I think the light is—”

A second wail resounded, this one emanating from farther back than the first.

“Damn me,” Beam whispered, “Is that another one?”

“It’s the caeyl light,” Chance whispered back, “I told you it attracts predators.”

Beam just looked at him. “You said it attracts creatures. You never said it attracts predators specifically.”

“I thought you understood that. Why would I care if anything else was attracted to the light?”

Beam suddenly wanted to scream. “You know, you do that a lot,” he said as harshly as a whisper would allow, “Spill half the truth, and keep the rest to yourself.”

“Do I?”

“Damn me, yes! And it’s not getting any less annoying.” Beam replaced the stone and tucked the pouch back into his shirt.

“Well, I’ve never noticed.”

“We can debate it later,” Beam said, “We ought to get moving.”

Chance pointed at Beam’s hip. “Do you have anything to cover that with?”

Beam glanced down at his sword. The eye in the pommel was on fire. He slapped a hand over it. “That’ll have to do for now. If I need it in a hurry, I don’t want to have to fumble around unwrapping it before I draw the damned thing.”

Chance again held his torch out toward the darkness, and again it did nothing to part the shadows.

“What the hell is that thing anyway?” Beam asked as he watched.

“I’m not sure.”

Beam heard the last gasp of his dying mood. He turned to Chance. “I’ve been down here a hundred times, you said. It’s perfectly safe, you said. But we’re not in the tunnels ten minutes before something behind us starts bellowing like a banshee.”

“There’s no such thing as banshees.”

“That’s not the point!”

Another mournful bawl erupted. Before the memory of it faded into echoes, the second creature responded from farther back in the tunnels.

“They’re communicating,” Beam whispered as he peered toward the sounds, “How many more do you think there can be, Chance? Huh? Care to throw down a guess? How many?”

“I don’t believe I can say.”

Beam jabbed a finger into his chest. “Oh, that’s right! You don’t even know what they are, let along how many!”

“I don’t think—”

“That’s your first good idea in days. Don’t think. I’ll do the thinking from now on.”

With that, Beam turned and began a vigorous march in the opposite direction from the howls.

XXI

THE HACK

K

OONTA’AR LED MAWBY THROUGH THE DARK OF THE FOREST.

It was still before moonrise, but the smear of Mengrae’s Blade blazed across the cloudless midnight sky like the flames of Calina. Even without the use of taer-cael, it was bright enough to walk through the shadows of night without having to feel their way.

They walked carefully, expertly, staggering their steps in a coordinated effort to imitate the taer-cael of a foraging bear. As usual, the lightness of foot possessed by her old friend amazed her. For a man of his size, he moved like the wind.

She signaled him to stop, then stooped low to the ground and listened. The taer-cael was still distant, and the boggy ground made the images fuzzy, the motion of their prey hard to read. Still, she harbored no doubts about what lay ahead. She fingered a coded message back at Mawby. Their prey was directly in front of them, no more than six hundred feet.

It took them nearly as long to creep those final yards as it had to cross the previous miles from the hatch. They moved slowly, carefully, slinking through the underbrush with deliberate irregularity. She slipped into a sumac thicket and crawled forward, stopping behind the rotting carcass of a fallen beech. Mawby followed suit. Together they peered over the edge of the mossy trunk.

That they’d managed to creep within fifty yards of Maeryc spoke volumes about her brother’s state of mind. A warrior with his seasoning would always be on guard, always alert and listening. Despite their best efforts at evasion, despite even the sloppy transmission traits of the bog, he should’ve sensed them coming long ago.

He was alone out there in the darkness, a ghostly image pacing in the starlight before the silent expanse of an inky pond. It was too quiet. The frogs and crickets had fallen mute. Even the breeze had died.

Throughout the day, she’d struggled with her shame. Though she knew it’d be irresponsible not to follow up on Mawby’s suspicions, she hated herself for even considering them. It’d been a long day of anger and guilt, suspicion and self-doubt, and yet, in the end, she had to know the truth. She owed it to her warriors even above her people. She owed it to Mawby, who she trusted above anyone else. He wasn’t one to suffer unsubstantiated fits of suspicion. If there were a hack in the company, he would know. So, when Maeryc slipped off in the dead of night without so much as a sword or knife, she and Mawby were ready.

Now, the wretched truth was about to be revealed. As she watched her brother pacing before the dark pond, muttering to himself and flailing his arms about so murderously, she knew her real worries had only begun. She leaned into to the furry bark until her oteuryns were nearly touching it, and focused her sight, hearing, and taer-cael into a single effort.

Her brother’s words grew louder and more agitated whenever he moved closer to the water. “Tonight!” he said, his voice coarse and rough with fatigue, “Why do you keep asking me? I’ll go down in after them myself if I have to. Do you hear me? I’m not afraid of the goddamned tunnels, if that’s what worries you so.”

The silence that followed seemed eternal. Maeryc stood frozen, his gaze locked on the dark pond, his arms hanging limply as if waiting for something.

“I know,” he said suddenly, “I know what to—”

Silence.

Then, “Why are you pushing me? I’ve already sworn I will! I told you I’ll go after them! The caeyl mage doesn’t frighten me! They’re not—”

Silence.

Mawby flicked a finger message to Koonta. She looked up into his mud-camouflaged face. She studied the white flames of his eyes, and despaired what they both knew to be the truth. Maeryc wasn’t simply irrational. He wasn’t just talking to himself at the edge of a pond in the middle of a loveless night. He was communicating with someone. This was a conversation.

“No!” Maeryc suddenly yelled at the water, “No! No! No!”

Koonta flinched. The words echoed off into the forest, and each reverberation struck her like a kick.

“No!” he yelled again, “I told you I’ll do anything! I’ll go in after them! I’ll kill the mage! I’ll get the stone for you, I swear it! But I won’t do that! I won’t! I won’t do that!”

She could see that he was shaking even from this distance. He was clawing manically at his hair. She wanted to run to him, to pull him away from the horror of what he must be experiencing, but she couldn’t. It would mean revealing what they knew, and such was the state of the world now that secrets were the only power they had.

Maeryc slowly turned toward them, his long fingers locked to his skull as if holding it together. The moon broke the crest of the trees off to his left. Half his gaunt face simmered skullishly in the milky light, the other half was lost to the shadows. He was looking directly at them. His hands drifted slowly away from his head. For just an instant, she was sure they’d been found out, that he’d sensed their presence.

Then Maeryc released a cry that was as visceral and raw as the sound of a cornered animal. “Because she’s my sister!” he shouted as he again ripped at his hair, “I won’t do it! You damned well better here me! You can’t force me to do that! You’ll have to kill me first! You hear me? Do you?”

Koonta’s stomach wrenched angrily. She dug her fingers into the bark and willed her anguish back into the forbidden box. Not now, she told herself, you cannot submit now.

Maeryc beat his fists against his thighs. “She’s my sister! She has nothing to do with this! You’ll never make me do it! You’ll never make me! Never…never…” The words choked into silence. He fell to his hands and knees in the mud and vomited violently. Between the angry wretches, he slapped the earth and sobbed.

Koonta sensed Mawby looking at her and knew exactly what he was thinking. This was no ordinary hack. Maeryc was still at least partially in there, whether by the demon’s intent or by the power of Maeryc’s resistance. Either way, she didn’t know if his presence there was a blessing or a horrible curse.

The longer she watched, the more hopeless she felt. She dug her fingers deeper into the log’s lush moss as she struggled to hold on. This was her brother. She would not cry. Not now. She wouldn’t yield to that weakness.

Maeryc crawled away from them, pawing his way through the mud back to the edge of the pond where he fell to his belly and splashed water on his face. “I will,” he sputtered. He dragged the water back over his short hair, and then punched the mud. “Ay’a! Ay’a! Ay’a! As soon as we get it, I will! I don’t care about the others! I’ll get it for you, I swear it. I…I swear it.” He was crying now, sobbing so pathetically his shoulders heaved for the effort.

Koonta watched him in utter horror. She couldn’t remember him ever looking so weak, so out of control. It was the most wretched sight she’d ever had to witness, and knowing there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it only made it worse. No matter how deeply she loved him, she could not intervene. The wyrlaerd could not be made to know that they were aware.

The sobbing ceased as abruptly as it’d started. Maeryc slowly pushed himself to his knees and then staggered to his feet. He stood facing the black water in absolute silence. Ten minutes passed without a word or gesture.

Koonta couldn’t make sense of it. What was he doing? Was he fighting the beast? Resisting? Was he unconscious?

Twenty minutes passed. Thirty.

He just stood there, not speaking, not even moving. As she watched and waited, she wondered if it was possible that he’d somehow fought the demon off. Maybe his love for her, for his family, for his people had given him the strength he needed to break free of the bastard’s vile claws. Maybe he’d regained his lucidity, his independence. For just a fleeting instant, she considered going to him.

Then a low murmur simmered through the night. He was muttering something, something with a cadence that sounded like a dull chant, though the words were gibberish. It gradually grew louder. As he reached a fevered pitch, he slapped his thighs, threw his face to the stars, and howled, “I’ll kill them all! I’ll kill them all, I swear it to the Wyr!”

Her disappointment felt like an anchor dragging her down into the depths of despair. She cursed herself for her naiveté. What was she thinking? There was no hope now. It was so perfectly clear, so brutally and unforgivably clear. Maeryc was gone. She’d lost him forever.

Maeryc dropped to his knees in the mud and ripped at the snake grass, pitching it fistful by fistful into the water as he screamed, “No! No! No! I told you I won’t do that! She’s my sister, goddamn you! My sister!”

Koonta couldn’t breathe. Her head was spinning. This was too much, too unbelievable. It couldn’t be real.

Maeryc was punching the grass like a mad man now, flinging mud and pulp with each blow. “My sister!” he screamed, “My sister! My sister! My sister!”

The words slashed through the night, each one ripping at her until she thought she would die from the horror of it. She watched him until he’d worked himself into complete exhaustion, watched him until he collapsed into the muddy bank, until his voice fell weaker and weaker, until there was nothing left but harsh, primal grunts. Then, at long last, he faded into silence.

Koonta smeared back her own tears. She’d failed him. Maeryc was out of control. He was lost. Everything was lost.

∞

They made their way back to the hatch in silence, taking less care now to camouflage their steps. Halfway back to camp, Koonta flagged Mawby to stop.

She dropped down at the feet of an old, standing dead oak and fell back into the dry bark. Mawby sat as well and slid his arm around her. Too weak to resist, she yielded to her old friend’s warmth. Once safely in the comfort of his husky form, her weakness broke through the box she’d spent her entire life building, and she began to sob.

The power of her grief shocked her. Even when Pa’ana died, she’d reserved her grief for her solitude, her tears being too precious to share with anyone else. But this burden was different somehow. This burden was more than she could endure alone, and so she allowed herself this one indulgence and wept in the security of Mawby’s love.

It was late into the night when she finally pushed herself away from him. She leaned back into the unyielding bark and swiped her palm over her eyes, smearing back the last evidence of her weakness.

“You were right,” she whispered, “He’s gone. Isn’t he? Maeryc’s been taken. He can’t break free anymore.”

Mawby nodded.

“And Pa’ana’s death wasn’t an accident, was it?”

“No,” Mawby whispered, “No, it wasn’t.”

In the space of those few powerful words, she recovered her resolve. She dropped her head back against the tree and looked up into the brilliant stars sparkling through the dead, leafless branches above. When she was certain of her strength, she turned her eyes over to him. “Tell me the truth,” she whispered, “Pa’ana died resisting the demon, didn’t he?”

“Koo…”

“Tell me the goddamned truth, Maw! I have to know.”

“He didn’t want to become a...”

“A hack.” Koonta spit the word out for him. “It’s all right. It’s the truth.”

“He was a strong man, my brother. Strong enough to know that sometimes death is the only way to win.”

“Maeryc was a strong man, too.”

“Maeryc accepted Prae’s token. Pa’ana wouldn’t.”

“Maeryc’s a loyalist,” she said, “He thought it was the right thing to do. He did it for his people.”

“I know. It’s the same reason Pa’ana was Lamys te’Faht. The same reason I am now. Someone has to be watching, always watching. They were on to him. They knew his secret. He killed himself before he’d let the bastard demons take him, before he’d betray his guild.”

“Maeryc only wanted what we all want,” Koonta whispered, “He wanted our homelands back.” She felt a pang of shame as she realized she was referring to him in the past tense.

“I know,” Mawby barely said.

She looked up at him. His mud-pasted face glowed in the ghostly moonlight dripping through the branches. White lines streaked the dirt, and as she saw them, she realized he’d been crying, too.

She turned her eyes away from him.

“It’s the way of youth,” Mawby said, “They’re easily susceptible to such fervor.”

“I knew this damned allegiance would bring us nothing but despair,” Koonta said, “I knew it as soon as the council accepted Prae’s promise of the wyrlaerds. I knew it, but I turned the other way. I denied it.”

“We’re watching the council closely. The leadership in the Faht suspect several of them are under the influence.”

“Under the influence,” she repeated sarcastically, “You mean they’re hacks.”

“More likely simply entranced. Hacks can’t last long enough for prolonged use. The corruption of a demon’s influence spoils their minds in a matter of months, sometimes weeks if their presence is deep enough.”

She sighed and wiped her face. “You understand what was going on back there, don’t you? You know that Graezon was instructing Maeryc to kill us after we get the stone?”

“I know, Kad’r. Even with only one side of the conversation, that much seems pretty clear. Thank the gods Maeryc loves you so much. He resisted the bastard.”

She nodded, but couldn’t look at him. It was the kind of friend he was that he referred to her by her title now. He was helping her be strong.

“”He tried to fight it,” she said, “If he hadn’t resisted, we’d never have understood the conversation. It was his resistance to killing me that exposed it.”

“Goelvar wants the stone,” Mawby whispered, “The demon wants it for itself. I’m confident it has no plans to pass it on to Prae. But this means we’ve found the chink in the demon’s armor. We know its intentions.”

“I agree.”

“What do we do about Maeryc?”

Koonta sensed the tentativeness in his voice. He knew exactly what they should do, but he wanted her to say it first. “We keep him close,” she said carefully.

“Kad’r, I know this is hard for you, but the facts are clear. Maeryc’s not right. He’s—”

“He’s a hack,” she again finished for him. How sad that it was becoming easier to say it now. “It’s all right, Mawby. It’s the truth. I know it now. You don’t have to tiptoe around it.”

“Well, then…I reckon there’s no sweet way to say this. You know he can’t be recovered, jh’ven?”

“Ay’a, Mawby. You’ve made that clear. He can only be released.” She said it harsher than she’d intended.

“You think this is any easier for me?”

She shook her head. “No, I know it’s not easier for you, Maw. But I’m not ready to accept it yet. I won’t accept it yet.”

“I suggest we leave him behind,” he said.

She looked up at him. “What?”

“This latest hatch lists to the side. I’m guessing the shaft beneath it is collapsed.”

“Ay’a,” she said, “And?”

“They’ll never be able to surface here. We leave Maeryc behind to guard it. He’ll be safe, and we’ll be free of—”

“No,” Koonta said, “He’d never honor it. He’d follow us covertly. No, we take him with us.”

“With us?”

“He goes with us. Better to have him in our sights than dogging us from the shadows.”

“But we’ll...”

She waved him into silence. “I won’t abandon Maeryc, and I won’t tip our hand to Graezon or Goelvar. We’ll enter the swamp tomorrow as planned. There, he’ll be in full communion with the demon, which means that damned wyrlaerd will see everything.”

“How does that help us?”

“We’ll fence Maeryc between warriors so he can’t communicate without spilling it out to us. He’ll have an attendant at all times. If things get ugly, we’ll bind him and blind him.”

“If we do that, the bastard demon will know we’re on to it.”

“No. The demon would expect we’d kill him if we suspected him a hack. If we just imprison him, the demon will believe we think him unwell. I want this assignment to look like business as usual for as long as we can maintain the illusion. Let’s us be the spies now, jh’ven?”

“Ay’a, I understand. Still, you know I have to ask...”

“Just say it, Maw.”

“All right, Koo,” he said seriously, “You know I have to be straight with this. If it were anyone else in the company besides Maeryc, would you do the same? Would you take them with us?”

They were the same words she’d been asking herself since Mawby shared his suspicion that her brother might be a hack. She’d thought long and hard about what she’d do if it turned out to be true.

“Would you?” he pressed, “If it were anyone else, would you do the same?”

She forced herself to look up at the massive warrior, up into those loyal, loving eyes, and she said, “I hope so, Mawby. I sincerely do.”

XXII

THE HATCH

I

T WAS THE MOST DREADFUL SIGHT BEAM HAD EVER LAID EYES ON.

The shaft leading to the surface above him brought his hopes to ruin. The round, bricked cylinder rose up into the darkness like a great stone tower. Unfortunately, the back section of the tower had collapsed. That was the section with the ladder.

The wall had simply caved, crumpling into this chaotic mound of bricks, stones, and rubble he now stood on. A few twisted, infirm rungs hanged like jagged teeth at the rough edge of the broken tunnel some thirty feet above him, while the long line of their brethren dutifully continued their climb to the surface beyond it.

He climbed back down the jagged, rolling fallout in a state of utter dejection. At the bottom, he sat on a huge broken brace stabbing out from the debris like a fractured femur. There, he buried his face in his hands and groaned.

“I’ve already told you,” Chance said. He was sitting on a boulder a dozen yards out from the avalanche on the other side of the tunnel. “There’s little cause for alarm. We’ve only to go a bit further and you’ll have your beloved sky again. The next turret is infallibly reinforced.”

Beam snapped a jagged piece of wood from the end of the rotted brace. He held it out toward Chance. “Yeah?” he said, “Reinforced as dependably as this one?” He crushed the orange, mealy wood in his hand and threw the dust toward him.

“It’s not the same kind of reinforcement.”

“Oh! You mean it’s magically reinforced. Well, that’s a different story!”

“No, it’s reinforced the Baeldonian way,” Chance said, “Riveted iron walls from top to bottom.”

“As I recall, you never mentioned that this shaft was collapsed.”

“No?”

“You said we’d reach the next shaft tonight, but in your typical conniving fashion, you conveniently omitted its condition.”

Chance pulled a wine skin out of the pack and uncorked it. “Well, I don’t suppose that was particularly nice of me, was it?” he said, and then took a long drink.

“You’re a real bastard.”

“So you’ve said.” Chance mopped a hand across the stubble on his chin. He popped the cork back into the skin and tossed it to Beam.

Beam caught it. It felt alarmingly light. “Is this all of the wine?”

“There’s one full skin left.”

“Great. First, the shaft, and now we’re running out of wine. We’ll die of thirst down here trying to find our way out.”

“There’s always water.”

“We finished the water at lunch.”

“There’s always water.”

Beam’s stomach felt like it was grinding nails. “Really?” he said, “I haven’t seen a drop of water since we entered this hellhole. Not a puddle, not a trickle, not a goddamned drip.”

“I swear you’re going to give yourself a heart seizure,” Chance said, “Let me worry about the water.”

“And what are you going to do? Pray for it to appear?”

“For the love of gods! Who’d you whine to all that time you were alone in the crypts?”

“Go to hell.”

Chance just shook his head, sighed, and extended an arm out laterally along the wall with his palm flat against it. He dropped his head back against the rock and he closed his eyes.

“Yeah, that’s good,” Beam said, “Go ahead and have yourself a little meditation time. Let’s see what it gets us.”

The man didn’t respond. The stone gripped by the wooden hand at the top of his staff began to glow softly, like the blue flames at the heart of a fire. Then the wall began to shimmer where Chance was touching it. Beads of water speckled the stone around his fingers. The droplets sparkled like liquid diamonds as they broke free and raced down the rock. Within seconds, the water was trickling over Chance’s hand and down the wall and soaking into the sand below it.

Chance released the stone. Water covered his open hand and dripped from the heel of his palm. He looked over at Beam and flipped the water toward him. “Just as I told you,” he said, “There’s always water.”

Beam opened his mouth to speak, but immediately changed his mind. Better not to know. Better to forget it, to write it off as something he didn’t understand and didn’t want to. He was sick to death of trying to figure out every throne-room trick the man pulled.

“You should trust me,” Chance said as he wiped his hand on his britches.

“Trust you,” Beam said, forcing a laugh that sounded insincere even to him, “I’ll trust you when I’m standing in the sunlight again.”

“What you crave isn’t always what you need.”

“Now, why in the Nine would you say something like that?”

“Because the sunlight you’ll be standing in will be pouring down over Sken te’Fau.”

Beam snorted at that. “Big deal. It’s a bloody swamp. I’ve been to Boardtown enough times.”

“I imagine you entered Boardtown along the old Fen Highway from the north?”

Beam watched his companion rummaging through their pack. “Yeah, so?”

“So, that road’s built above the bog. Above it. It’s nine miles of boardwalk. You never had to touch the swamp.”

“Do you have a point?”

Chance held up a piece of jerky. Beam remembered the miserable nausea it’d induced the night before and waved it away. Chance shrugged and put it on his lap. “We’ll have to wade north through the swamp to reach Boardtown,” he said, “It could be…unpleasant.”

“I’m not afraid of ghosts, if that’s worrying you, and I’m equally unafraid of getting wet, swamp water or not. One thing I didn’t inherit from the savages is their fear of water.”

“Fear of water? Blood of the gods, do you simply make this stuff up as you go?”

“Of course not. Everyone knows the savages are—”

“It doesn’t matter!” Chance tossed a chunk of cheese over to Beam. “I’ve had enough of your bigotry.”

Beam studied the filthy cheese in his filthier hand and abruptly lost his appetite. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so dirty. He was about to throw a complaint when he saw the same thing in Chance. The man’s hair had long ago defied the leather strap restraining it. It now draped his smudged face in greasy tresses like the oily tentacles of a squid. Beam wondered if he looked as bad.

“I’ve figured out why Prae rallied the Vaemyn,” Chance said suddenly.

“What?”

“I understand why he’s moving them now. At this time, I mean.”

“I can’t wait.” Beam risked a bite of the dirty cheese.

“Prae knew the Caeyllth Blade was going to resurface. He’s mad as a loon, but Fire Caeyl mages are naturally adept at prophesy.”

“You’re telling me like you think I care.”

“Is there something you’d prefer to be doing? Playing cards, perhaps?”

“Damn me, yes! I’d rather play cards. I’d rather throw dice. I’d rather eat dirt. I’d rather do just about anything than talk about the bloody savages.”

“I see,” Chance said. His gaze dropped to the meal on his lap.

Beam immediately regretted his rant. The man was moody as a midwife and could be pushed into a sulk with a look. Still, he wasn’t sure he had the stamina for suffering another pout right now.

“Gods almighty, go ahead, then!” he said at last, “I’d rather hear you babble than watch you brood.”

“Forget it,” Chance said, waving him off, “I’m too tired to spend the breath.”

“No, really. I want to know. How in the hell would he know about the sword?”

“You’d know if you just bother to listen once in a while.”

Beam ground his teeth, but managed to refrain from throwing oil in the fire.

“I told you he’s prophetic,” Chance continued, “He saw it coming. He’s gambling that combining the energy of the Blood Caeyl with that of his Fire Caeyl will give him more power than the sum of the two.”

“You’re going to give me nightmares with stories like that.”

Chance gave him a scowl. “The Vaemyn were waiting for you when you exited that last crypt, were they not?”

“Sure, so what? They were always chasing me.”

“How many were there?”

Beam shrugged. “I don’t know. A dozen or so, I guess. What difference is it?”

“A dozen warriors? And yet you still managed to escape.”

“You see me, don’t you? There was a corridor leading out of the lower crypt. I followed the tunnel to another crypt a hundred yards or so away.” He took a bite of skanky cheese. “What of it?”

“Don’t you see? Prae’s been following you. You survived because he let you.”

“Bullshit!” Beam said, “I move like the wind.”

Chance shrugged and took another bite of his supper.

Beam sighed. “Look, it doesn’t matter either way. No one’s going to get the stone or the sword. They’re mine.”

“He’ll kill you for it if he can.”

“Well, he’d better start leaning into the effort,” Beam snapped back, “And anyway, if I’m dead, why would I care who got either one of them?”

“If he gets them, history will repeat itself.”

“Again, you say that like you think I care.”

“It’s bigger than you, you self-serving little pissant!” Chance barked out, “If he gets them, it’ll mean the end of times! The suffering and despair it’ll bring on will be unprecedented.”

Beam faked a laugh. “Yeah, you told me this story already. Repeating it won’t make me a believer.”

“Why do you ridicule me so?” Chance shouted back, “Why do you consistently mock me? Do you think I’m one of your ravers? Why are you so afraid of the truth? Blood of the gods, what happened to your soul?”

Those last words landed like vinegar on a cut. It seemed every time they had an altercation, the man somehow managed to hit the sore spot.

Chance fell back against the stone and sighed. He smeared the dirty locks back from his face, and said, “Do you want to hear the part of the legend that I think’s most intriguing? Or am I just asking for more aggravation?”

“No, please continue,” Beam said as harshly as he could, “I thought you’d never ask. Please! Tell me the part that you find most interesting. Is it the part about all the demons Prae’s going to hire? Or maybe it’s the part about how that great and powerful mage built all these swords a thousand years ago to destroy the demons the first time? No, wait! I know! It’s the part where the loyal warrior hid the swords after the war so that no one could find them ever, ever again. I mean, not until they’re needed, of course!”

Chance studied him for a moment, and then just shook his head. He turned away with his blanket and began making his bed.

Beam mentally slapped himself. He suddenly felt like the bully who beat up the skinny little rich kid who’d never even hurt anyone. He felt a far-too-familiar embarrassment for it, the same shame he’d suffered too many times in his own miserable life. He’d suffered the exact same pain and shame whenever Brother Dael had tried to reconcile him to his heritage. And though he hadn’t wanted to listen to it back then, he’d heard it. He always heard it. He understood it then with Dael just as he understood it now with Chance, that they were only trying to enlighten him, to make his existence easier.

He walked over to where Chance was laying out his blanket. “Look,” he said, “I’m sorry. I’m tired. I didn’t mean anything by it. I just want to sleep.”

Chance threw a second blanket into the dirt at Beam’s feet. “You’re an ass,” he said straight at him, “Your mother should’ve saved us all a lot of trouble by pinching your head off at birth.”

Beam picked up the blanket, but just stood there with it. How could this near stranger so easily send him over the cliffs of guilt with just a well-aimed word? It was getting more than tedious, but it seemed he just didn’t have the weapons to fight it. His only path to peace was through retreat.

“All right,” he said at last, “Tell me. Which part do you find most interesting?”

Chance was picking the stones from his bedding site and chucking them out into the tunnel. He was acting as if he hadn’t heard the question.

“Seriously, Chance,” Beam said, “I’m sorry. I am. Just…just tell me, which part?”

“The part that matters most for you.”

“And that is…?”

Chance stopped making his bed, sat back on his heels, and looked up at him. “It’s written that the Caeyllth Blade would be discovered by a Vaemyn and a Parhronii working together.”

“Well, then the whole legend’s just gone down in flames, hasn’t it?”

“Are you joking?”

“No,” Beam said, taking great care not to incite another argument, “I was the only one there, Brother. Unless you consider me getting chased into that waterfall to be a cooperative effort between a Parhronii and the savages, I don’t—”

“When did you cut off your oteuryns?”

Beam winced at that. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, though he knew exactly what it meant.

“A Vaemyn and Parhronii working as one? It doesn’t take an astronomer to point a finger at you, does it?”

“Are you making fun of me again?”

“You’re a half-breed, Beam. The legend’s talking about you!”

“Bullshit.”

“You seriously don’t see the symbolism?”

“There’s no symbolism! You’re reading into it. And that’s assuming there’s a legend at all and you’re not just making the whole thing up to bait me.”

“In that case, I must restate my thesis. You’re an ass.”

Beam’s unwelcomed guilt washed away with that last insult, while anger swept in on its heels. He dismissed Chance with a wave and turned away.

“I’ve had enough of you!” he said as he crossed to the other side of the corridor, “And I’ve had my fill of this conversation! It’s one thing to spend the minutes before sleep talking about a bunch of superstitious drivel. It’s another altogether to sit here and be insulted. I’m going to bed.”

“Beam, just think about it. It’s—”

“Stop right there!” Beam said with a halting hand, “I don’t want to hear any more of your bloody fairytales, I swear to the gods I don’t!”

“Look, I didn’t mean to—”

“Forget it! Seriously, just go to sleep already. I’ll take the first watch. You’ve got me too irritated to sleep anyway.”

XXIII

THE DREAM MAGE

B

EAM HAD THE QUEER SENSE THAT HE’D BEEN HERE BEFORE.

He couldn’t see anything through the darkness, nothing tangible anyway, nothing he could ground himself to, only shadows of unsavory things moving in the corners of his eyes, things that disappeared the instant he looked at them.

Still, the location was eerily familiar. Or maybe it was just the situation. How could he have possibly have been here before if this was only a dream? Then again, maybe he could only have been here before because it was a dream.

Brother Dael materialized before him, but the image was askew. This man was too young to be Dael. His long hair was blonde and full, and untarnished by gray, his face smooth and glowing. This was the Dael who lived before Beam was born, the original Dael, the Dael unblemished by age or grief.

Beam sensed the taer-cael of someone walking up behind him. He turned toward the sound. Brother Dael was also standing behind him, only this one was older, this was the Dael at the other end of life, the one closer to the Court of Death.

“Where are we?” Beam asked the older version.

“You needn’t worry about that, Beam,” Dael said from a warm grin, “You’re not alone here.”

“Well, I can see that, can’t I?” Beam said, throwing a glance back at the younger Dael, “You’re standing on both sides of me.”

The older Dael turned slightly and pointed into the darkness behind him. As he did, the darkness changed. It congealed and grew lighter. In the span of a breath, the shadows evolved into a peculiar silver vapor that was slowly twisting around itself. It was like a glowing whirlpool spinning against a vertical black lake. Gradually, the center of the pool opened so that it looked like the mouth of an ethereal cave.

“What is that?” Beam asked him.

“The Other needs you, Be’ahm,” the older Dael said.

“The other?” Beam said, looking at him, “What do you mean? The other you? He’s standing right behind me.”

“The Other needs you,” the younger Dael said from behind him.

“Yeah, I got that,” Beam said, frowning back at him, “You told me that before. Last night, I think.”

“Last night you declined to follow,” the older Dael said.

Beam turned back to the older one. “Hell yes, I did,” he said smartly, “Why wouldn’t I? I didn’t know where you were going, did I?”

Dael laughed. It was an odd sound, like stones pouring merrily into water. “Last night, you were afraid,” he said, “As you should have been. Fear is your nature. The Other understands this.”

“What do I care if he understands or not?” Beam said, “And I’m not afraid!”

At least, he didn’t think he was. He turned around. The younger Dael behind him was walking away from him. The strange, swirling fog was there, too, though here it looked more like a slash in the darkness than a portal here, like parting curtains slowly opening to reveal a stage. The silvery light swelled wider across the blackness as the young monk passed through into it. Soon, it engulfed him completely, and the curtains fell shut behind him, leaving only a midnight backdrop.

“You need to wake up, Beam,” the young Dael called from somewhere deep within the night, “You can wake up now, my son.”

“What? You’re leaving me here?”

He was too late. The young Dael was gone.

Beam turned around, and was deeply relieved to find the aged Dael still standing there. “You’re not leaving me, are you?” he asked the old man.

Dael smiled wearily, but said nothing. Then he turned away and began to walk toward the swirling silver portal. “Follow me,” he said, waving the back of his hand, “Follow me, or wake up. It’s your choice.”

“Wait!” Beam cried out.

The older Dael’s form grew weaker, less tangible as he neared the portal. It was consuming him, just as the curtains of fog had consumed his younger self. He was quickly fading into nothing.

“Wait,” Beam yelled after him, “Don’t leave me here!”

“Follow or wake up,” Dael said, “It’s your choice. It’s always been your choice.”

“Follow you where?”

Dael’s image vanished into the blinding light of the unearthly portal.

Panic seized Beam. It was the same fear and self-doubt he’d suffered back in Sanctuary, back when Chance left him for the tunnel.

“Wait!” Beam yelled as he ran after the monk, “Dael, wait! Don’t leave me!”

Beam flew through the spinning portal. As he did, the world shifted. He felt himself falling. Before he could even cry out, he found himself standing beside Dael again.

A towering wall of solid granite rose up before them. The monk reached forward and pushed his hand through the stone as easily as if it were wet mud. With his arm buried in the wall, he looked over at Beam and laughed. Then he walked straight into the cliff. He melted into the stone without looking back.

Beam reached out to touch the wall, but stopped just short of contact. It’s a dream, he told himself. Nothing here is real. They’re only images. Nothing here can hurt you.

Then he closed his eyes and stepped forward. When he opened them again, he was inside the cave. A low dais with four great pillars at each corner floated in the middle of the room like a glass barge on a frozen sea. A crystal throne rested upon it. A broken suit of armor was sprawled across the floor before the steps rising up to the dais.

The memory of the Vaemyn warrior washed through him like a late summer’s melancholy. He remembered the fight and the bittersweet victory of that warrior. He remembered the strange fire of grief he’d suffered at the Vaemyn’s death.

He stepped closer to the broken armor and nudged it with his toe. It’s a dream, he told himself. It’s only a dream. You can wake up anytime you want to. You just have to will it to happen.

The world shifted again. Beam stood before the stairs leading up to the dais. A ghostly image sat in the throne before him. Beam put a foot up on the lower step and leaned closer. The image was vaguely humanoid, but lacked any details. It was like the silvery portal, both tangible and indistinct in the same breath, a pool of slivery light somehow contained in the form of a man. He fingered the hilt of the sword hanging at his waist. He wasn’t sure if he should draw his blade or run away.

“Why so afraid, Beam?” Dael whispered behind him, “I thought this was only a dream?”

Beam wheeled toward the voice, but found nothing.

He turned back to the throne. A Vaemyn sat there before him, the same Vaemyn as in his dream back in the cave, the same warrior he witnessed murdered by the dark rogue.

Beam stepped up one stair. The man’s white hair draped his shoulders. He wore a brilliant blue tunic adorned with gems and gold thread. His legs were dressed in silken stockings that ended at the ankles. Strangely, he wore no shoes.

He climbed another step. The man didn’t react, but only sat there on that crystal throne with one leg dangling casually over the arm. He had an elbow propped on his knee, and his chin nested in his hand. He was smiling at Beam.

“I know you,” Beam whispered.

“Do you?” the man replied. The words were Vaemysh, though Beam understood them perfectly.

“Yes,” Beam said carefully, “I think so.”

“You don’t know me, my boy,” the man said through a grin, “Why, you haven’t a clue. You’ve never seen me before.”

“Who are you?” Beam asked.

“What an odd question.”

“What exactly is odd about it?” Beam argued.

The Vaemyn laughed. It was a healthy, happy laugh that was fully contrary to the morbid image painted by their last encounter.

“What are you laughing at?” Beam asked him.

“You!”

“Me? Why?”

“I’m laughing at your worries.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“What has you so perpetually afraid, my boy?”

The question stopped Beam cold. “I never said I was afraid.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“I don’t have to convince you of anything,” Beam said as seriously as he could manage, “And I’m sure as hell not afraid of you.” He absolutely was.

“Tell me, Be’ahm, have you ever seen the pig beeches in the forests of southern Mendophia?”

The question landed as abruptly as a fart in a cathedral. “Pig beeches?” Beam said, “I don’t know what you mean.”

The Vaemyn slipped his leg off the armrest and leaned forward onto his knees. “The pig beeches,” he said, “Do you know of them?”

“No, I don’t think I do.”

“Hmph. I’m rather surprised by that.”

“Why would that surprise you? You don’t even know me.”

The Vaemyn sat upright in the chair. He drummed his fingers on the armrest as he studied Beam. And then he said, “There exists in those uncivilized forests of southernmost Mendophia a most peculiar symbiosis between the massive pig beeches and the sugar boars that roam the forest floor beneath them.”

Beam wasn’t sure what to make of this, or even if he should be trying to make anything of it.

“The pig beeches begin their lives as five wide, flat, fleshy branches lined densely with tiny and most brilliantly blue flowers. These wide, flat branches and their flowers lay tightly against the forest floor so that they form a kind of bowl.”

“A bowl?” Beam asked, “What do you mean, bowl?”

The Vaemyn’s brow knitted tight. “Perhaps not a bowl, actually,” he said as if trying to make sense of it himself, “Perhaps they’re more like the fingers of the mortal hand. Or perhaps rather an upside down spider, one resting on its back with its legs kicked up in the air. No, that’s no good. That’s no good at all. There’d be no bowl on a spider, would there?”

The Vaemyn was staring into the air above Beam and drumming his fingers manically against his knee. He looked as if he were staring into another world.

Beam grew impatient. “Why are you telling me this?”

At first, the man didn’t seem to hear. Then he waved and said, “Bah! Flower, hand, spider, it’s no matter. What matters is that these paddles, if you will, eventually grow into a bowl large enough to hold a pig. When these pig beeches reach ten years of age, the hollow space within this bowl fills with a shallow pool of liquid.”

“Liquid?” Beam said, “You mean, like rain?”

“No,” the Vaemyn said with a laugh, “No, this liquid is nectar secreted by the tiny flowers growing along the five branches. The wild boars, through some heavenly design unrevealed to mortals, are irresistibly drawn to this nectar.”

“Pig nectar,” Beam said with a snort, “You know, you remind me of someone on the other side of this dream.”

“This isn’t a dream, Be’ahm. This is a memory.”

Beam shook his head. What had started out as a fairly interesting dream was quickly degenerating into tedium. “I’ll ask you again,” he said, “Why are you telling me this?”

“The pigs are so attracted to that nectar, they willingly climb into the bowl. They do this so they may better drink their fill of it. Certainly, they know it’s risky, for they’ve seen their brother pigs consumed by the same gluttonous urges, and yet they can’t resist the compulsion to possess what they believe they want most.”

“What they believe they want most?” Beam said, “For the love of Calina, they’re just bloody pigs!”

“Exactly!” the Vaemyn said with a slap to his thigh, “Exactly right, my boy! They are indeed just pigs. You are most astute.”

Beam rubbed his skull and then sat down on a bench that hadn’t been there just a moment before. “It’s a goddamned dream,” he whispered to himself, “It’s just a dream. You only need to wake up.”

“Why are you glowering so, my boy?” the Vaemyn asked, “Is perhaps your stomach troubling you?”

“No,” Beam said, “I mean, yes. I’m sick. Sick of this bullshit dream.”

“Now this chapter of the story is most important,” the Vaemyn continued, “The beech nectar has narcotic qualities. As the pigs drink of it, they are quickly lulled into an entranced state.”

Beam suddenly remembered the story, or at least he thought he did. But the details were there and gone too quickly. Still, the familiarity of it was as haunting as an impending toothache.

“So the nectar makes the pigs fall asleep?” Beam said at last, “They fall asleep in the tree? Right there in the bowl of liquid like a fat chop in a stew?”

“Ay’a! Exactly correct! And what a sleep it is! At the bottom of that pool of nectar are thousands of tiny hairs like tentacles. Once the presence of the pig is understood by the plant, these hairs begin to grow, and they grow with such amazing vitality! Before long, they completely and inevitably cocoon the pig in its entirety.”

“A pig cocoon.” Beam laughed at that. “That’d make one nasty looking butterfly, I imagine.”

“Soon after,” the Vaemyn continued, “Thicker fibers slip into the cocoon and grow into the pig’s own flesh. In a matter of hours they penetrate the skin and the muscles, the organs and brain.”

“Well, I’m sure the pigs find that most unsatisfactory.”

The Vaemyn laughed. “The fibers don’t kill the pig, my boy. They nourish it. They keep it alive and healthy, albeit in an entranced, cosseted state.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Through the course of a single night, the five branches close up around the pig. They form a pod, like a fleshy bubble that partitions the pig from world. In the matter of a few short months they completely assimilate the creature.”

Beam stood up. “Wait a minute,” he said, “You’re trying to tell me the trees eat the pigs?”

“No! No, they assimilate it! They fully assimilate it! The difference is distinct and inarguable. The pigs remain completely intact. They’re never harmed and never digested. The tree creates a kind of womb for the pig, and that womb becomes the tree’s heart.”

“A womb?”

“In time, the tree grows into a normal beech. If you were to look at a pig beech fifty or a hundred years after acquiring its pig, you might see the outline of a leg or a tail or even a snout growing like burls from the trunk. They’re completely covered by bark, of course, but their features are quite distinguished.”

“You’re joking,” Beam said. What else could he say? The story was like some kind of grim, ridiculous fairytale.

“And if you were to cut into a pig beech when it’s fifty or a hundred years old, if you cut into precisely the right spot, you’d still find the flesh of the pig inside it. The heart still beats. The meat is fresh. The sap from the tree is as red as blood.”

Beam shook his head. “Damn me,” he said, “Why in the hell would that happen? If the trees don’t devour the pigs, why would they waste the energy? Damn me, there’s no point. It’s an absurd notion.”

“You’re wrong, Be’ahm. Eventually, the two life forms become one. The trees allow the pigs to live for centuries, and in return, the pigs give the trees self-awareness.”

Those last words stopped Beam cold. He couldn’t get his head around it. “Are you saying the trees are conscious?”

The Vaemyn bolted up from the throne and seized Beam’s face with his jeweled hands. “Precisely!” he cried into Beam’s face, “That is precisely it! You are brilliant, my dear boy! Brilliant!”

Beam pulled his face free. He watched in stunned silence as the Vaemyn retreated to his throne. The man was trying to tell him something, that was pretty obvious. So why didn’t he just come out and bloody well say it. It was as irritating as a burr.

“I tell you this to ask you a question,” the Vaemyn said as if reading his mind.

“Well, it’s a hell of a long way around a question.”

The Vaemyn leaned forward and re-planted his elbows on his knees. His white hair cascaded down past his shoulders and poured over his thighs. “The question is this,” he said, looking up at Beam, “This new life form, this conglomeration of animal and plant, of beech and pig. What is it now? Is this melded life form now a pig? Or is it still a tree?”

The question disappointed Beam. It was obviously a trick; there was no right answer. “You’re joking,” he said.

“Is this new life form a beech or a pig, Be’ahm?”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Stop calling you by your name?” The Vaemyn smiled impishly.

“Stop calling me by that name.”

“Oh, I see. You prefer the Parhronii version of your name, do you?”

“I do.”

“Very well. Which is it, Be’ahm?”

Beam slapped his thigh. “Goddamn you, I told you to stop calling—”

“Which is it, my dear boy? A beech or a pig? A pig or a beech?”

“It’s...damn me, I don’t know. It’s both, I expect.”

The Vaemyn pounded the armrests and threw his arms wide, shouting joyously, “Precisely right! You’re exactly and perfectly right! It is indeed both!”

Beam didn’t know how to react. The Vaemyn was laughing as if he’d found the pearl in the heart of an oyster, but Beam still couldn’t fathom the point. Despite his victory, he disliked being the object of amusement, benevolent or not.

“I’ll ask you again,” he said carefully, “Why are you telling me this?”

The Vaemyn leaned back in the chair. He was still laughing. “I give you this image to help you understand, to give you insight.”

Beam suddenly found himself sitting in the great chair. He bristled in surprise, seizing the armrests for support. The chair was as cold as ice, or maybe it was the disorientation of suddenly finding himself sitting in it. The Vaemyn now stood where he’d just been, immediately in front of the bench.

“How in the hell did you do that?” Beam asked.

“I am the beech, Be’ahm. You are the pig.”

“What?”

“You give me sentience and I give you immortality. I will give your life the purpose you’ve so desperately sought. I will guide you to your destiny.”

“Damn me if you’re not just insulting me now.” Beam wanted to stand up, but couldn’t make it happen. His heart was working so hard he felt dizzy. “I...I need to go. I have to get out of the tunnels! Chance needs me.”

The warrior stepped up to the chair and braced himself on the armrests, leaning down so that he was face to face with Beam. “Chance is safe,” he whispered, “And you have so very much to learn.”

“No!” Beam suddenly broke free of the chair, shoving his way up and past the warrior. He leapt over the steps and landed on the polished floor. “I have to get the hell out of here!”

When he looked back, the Vaemyn was exactly as Beam had first seen him, sitting cockeyed in the chair with a leg hanging over the armrest, elbow on knee, and chin in hand. Was this a dream within a dream? Had he been really sitting in that chair listening to the warrior’s story? Maybe he’d never been standing at all until now.

He felt an overpowering urge to run, to get far away from this madness, but he didn’t know which way to go. “I have to leave,” he again told the Vaemyn.

“Of course you do.”

“I mean now!” Beam yelled, “I have to leave! Now!”

“I know you do,” the Vaemyn said, laughing.

“I don’t want this! I want out of here! I want to leave!”

“Then that is exactly what you should do. You’ll stay when you’re ready.”

Beam studied the room. The crystal walls were melting, disintegrating into silvery, smoky vapor. “I…I don’t know how,” he said, looking back at the Vaemyn, “I don’t know where to go!”

The Vaemyn smiled wistfully and then waved his hand as casually as dismissing a servant. “It’s really most simple, Be’ahm. You merely wake up. Wake up and walk toward the sun.”

Someone nearby was groaning.

Beam looked up into the morning sun rising dramatically before him, an engorged red disk slowly levitating into the heavens. He tried to walk toward it, but couldn’t will himself move.

There it was again! Someone groaning. It was so close. Was it Chance? Was he hurt? He couldn’t open his eyes. He felt a sharp sting on his face. Then another, harder this time.

He awoke to find Chance’s face nearly nose-to-nose with his own. He rolled his head to the side and looked around. He felt confused, uncertain. It was dark. The walls were coarse and dirty. A stack of ugly Baeldons glared at him from across the corridor.

The tunnels. They were still in the bloody tunnels.

He rolled his face back to find Chance still hovering too close to him.

“What the hell are you doing?” he whispered to the man, “Maybe you wouldn’t mind giving me a little air.” His voice felt thick and coarse.

“Your nose is bleeding.”

“Bleeding?” Beam wiped a sleeve across his nose. The leather came away with a dark streak. “What the hell is this?” He looked at the Caeyllth Blade lying across his lap. His palm was covering the warm stone. When he pulled it away, the caeyl was dimly glowing. He looked over at Chance. “What’s going on? Is it my watch already?”

“Already?”

“What? I took the first watch, remember?”

“No,” Chance replied, “I don’t believe you did.”

Beam tried to process the words. He couldn’t remember waking the mage for his watch. Had he actually fallen asleep?

“You were buried in the light of the sword again this morning,” Chance said.

Beam wiped the sweaty locks back from his face. He remembered watching Chance make up his bed, remembered they argued. After that, there was nothing.

Chance leaned into him again, this time with the torch held up beside him. “You look like hell,” he said as he inspected Beam.

Beam pushed the arm and greenish flame away. “Thanks,” he said, “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

Beam dragged a hand across his nose. Fresh blood glistened against his knuckle. “I can’t believe I fell asleep,” he said as he inspected the dark smear.

“Well, perhaps you didn’t. I mean, perhaps you hadn’t a choice.” Chance held up a flask. “Here’s the elixir. I believe you should take a sip.”

Beam pushed it away and let his head drift back against the stone. “I don’t want any,” he said, closing his eyes.

“You haven’t taken any in some time. You don’t want—”

“I said no!”

Chance flinched. Then he re-corked the vial. “Suit yourself,” he whispered as he withdrew.

Beam thought about the dream. He thought of Dael and the Vaemyn, thought of the strange story about pigs and beeches, and he suddenly felt afraid. The dream lingered in the back of his mind like a memory of darker times that won’t set you free.

As he struggled to distance himself from the lingering angst of the memory, he closed his eyes and thought about the feeling of the sun on his face, and the wind and the rain on his back. He needed something familiar, something to ground him, something to wash away this sense of impending doom.

“Are you all right?” Chance asked.

“Damn me, no,” Beam said without opening his eyes, “I don’t think I’ll ever be all right again.”

XXIV

THE SWAMP

K

OONTA TRUDGED SLOWLY THROUGH THIGH-DEEP WATER.

The swamp water was thick and as hot as fresh blood. The reek of rot and decay hung so heavily over this place that the simple act of breathing was nearly unbearable. Dense emerald algae wholly covered the surface of the water, making every step forward an exercise in hope. Beneath the algae, the water was the color of rust, and was nearly opaque.

More than once, she’d nearly lost a boot to the powerful suction of the sludge festering deep below the surface, an event she found fully terrifying. The thought of walking through this putrid water without her boots was nearly more than she could bear.

Scattered relics of trees haunted the nightmarish vista, their skeletal forms twisted and disfigured, their failing branches laden with clumps of gray moss that dangled over the stagnant water like great cobwebs. Dead and dying vines bound their insect ravaged trunks like chained prisoners being dragged slowly down to their cells.

The sun was already settling behind the murky brown gases of the swamp. Dark clouds were rolling in from the northwest. Night was coming on fast and with it the disagreeable possibility of rain.

They waded to the rhythm of slapping flesh as the warriors fought off the hordes of biting, sucking insects provided for their discomfort. The splash of some unseen creature escaping into the water periodically fractured the silence, and the yelp of the nearest warrior invariably punctuated the sound. Only six other warriors were selected to make this unsavory journey to the hatchway in Sken te’Fau, and she knew none considered themselves lucky for the honor. The rest she sent east around the swamp to the remaining hatches near the mountains of their enemy, the Baeldons.

She’d only sent those eastbound warriors out as a formality. She was confident the fugitives would surface here in the swamp. The mage needed to send word to the Allies as soon as possible, and Boardtown was the closest outpost. It was exactly what she’d do were she in his place. She was also certain the mage would capitalize on her people’s cultural fear of this loathsome swamp. He’d be a fool not to, and despite what other Vaemyn thought, she understood full well that he was no fool.

Now, as the sun quickly deserted them, she harbored doubts about her plan. The hatch was probably still hours away, and they were likely to be the worst hours she could imagine. They’d be walking by torchlight through a quagmire of unseen dangers, wading through this fetid nightmare in a state of utter terror. The swamp was nearly unbearable in daylight; she didn’t even want to imagine what it’d be like at night.

This place was legend among her people. The swamp was said to be the result of a leak in the earth, an unholy rift leading to the very gates of the Wyr Realm. The rusty water beneath the algae was said to be the blood of the earth herself.

It was believed by many that the spirits of those who died tragically and unexpectedly were drawn to this wretched place in their confusion. They were cursed to wander these waters until such a time as those who knew them in life bought them passage to the Cities of Pentyrfal, whether through mortal acts of contrition, extraordinary heroism, or simple kindness. It was said if their memories were lost to time as all who knew them in life died away, their ethereal link to this swamp would be severed, that their souls would be drawn through the portal beneath the swamp and into the Wyr, damned for all time.

She had her doubts regarding the veracity of such claims. She simply could not believe that her goddess, a virtuous and benevolent goddess, would allow such a place to exist, a place of eternal suffering delivered to those whose only crime was the simple misfortune of suffering a tragic death. It was a tough nut to chew.

Still, she prayed daily that Pa’ana wasn’t lost here, wandering through his quagmire in search of a path home.

“Kad’r! Over there, the hatch!”

Koonta nearly jumped out of her skin.

Mawby sloshed forward along the line of warriors, slapping the head of the offending warrior as he passed. When he reached Koonta’ar, he pointed off to the east, saying, “There it is, Kad’r.”

At first, she couldn’t see anything but a haze of brown gas flamed brighter by the settling sun. Then an unnatural knoll materialized above the waterline like the hunched back of a drowned beast. It was the first sign of dry land they’d seen since late morning.

“This isn’t right,” she whispered to Mawby, “It should be another two hours north.”

“Ay’a, I thought the same. But those old maps...well, who knows how accurate they are, jh’ven?”

“My gods, what if we’d missed it completely?” she said as she studied the hill, “We could’ve wandered this damned hellhole until—”

“We didn’t miss it, Koo.”

Koonta looked up at him. Even through the beads of sweat and flecks of algae scattered along his jawline, his face was so assuring, so wonderfully positive, it was all she could do to contain the urge to laugh. “You’re right, Maw,” she said, “You’re right. We didn’t miss it.”

“And thank the gods for it. It promised to be a long night.”

Someone was splashing through the water behind her. They turned back in tandem. Maeryc had broken rank and was already wading toward the hatch, and he was doing so in a hurry.

Koonta couldn’t believe it. “Maeryc!” she called.

Maeryc kept jogging toward the hatch with his arms flailing for balance, though the water and muck dragged his flight down to little more than a frantic, sloppy walk.

“Maeryc!” she called again, “Halt!”

Her brother staggered to a stop, nearly falling as he did. Flecks of green algae spattered the back of his head and arms. The nearly solid green surface of the water quickly settled around him. He didn’t turn around.

“It begins,” Mawby whispered behind her.

Koonta didn’t take her eyes from Maeryc, but only nodded. Then she started wading toward her brother. She could hear Mawby following. When she splashed to a stop beside him, Maeryc still didn’t turn to face her. His blatant defiance made her angry enough to spit.

“Maeryc!” she said, “Just what the devil are you doing?”

Maeryc didn’t turn. He was panting harder than he should have been.

She felt the heat of blood in her face. “Saaro,” she growled at him, “You’ll goddamned well face me when I’m talking to you!”

Maeryc only cocked his head halfway back toward her. Hunched and panting, his wild eyes scoured the water at her thighs. Then he straightened himself and slowly turned to face her, and much to her shock, he was grinning.

She pressed into him abruptly enough to send him staggering back. “You wipe that goddamned grin off your face or I swear I’ll slap it off!” she said.

The grin slowly faded. Maeryc threw a sharp stare up at Mawby, who stood just behind her. “Well,” he said, returning his eyes to her, “Are you going to give the order to move out?”

Her hand landed instinctively on her sword hilt. She was angry enough to spit fire. “What did you say to me?” she whispered at him.

Maeryc glared at her with his withered, faded eyes. His face was dirty and speckled with brilliant green algae. The skin on his lips was dried and split, and the rims of his nostrils caked with old snot. The sight of her strong, proud brother looking so befouled mortified her.

Yet, in the same instant, she experienced what her people called gret k’feyn, a moment of divine enlightenment. This was not her brother. Looking at this shell of a man before her, she finally understood. This was her brother’s flesh, but those were the eyes of the demon looking out from it, and that dark revelation liberated her.

She slugged him hard in the stomach. He doubled forward, coughing. Before he had time to recover, she was back on him, dragging him up by his mail. “Maeryc!” she yelled into his face, “You ever defy my command again, and I swear I’ll have you in chains! Do you understand me?”

Maeryc’s eyes flamed at her. He grabbed for his sword, but Mawby’s powerful hand crushed over his, locking it to the weapon’s hilt.

“You’re tired, Maeryc,” Mawby whispered into his ear, “You’re not acting yourself.”

“Go to hell, Mawby.”

“Maybe,” Mawby said, “Maybe we’ll go together, jh’ven? It’s your choice, not mine.”

Maeryc was clearly furious, though he didn’t attempt to escape Mawby’s hold.

Mawby then slipped his arm around the hack’s shoulder, ushering him back to the line as casually as if they were walking out of a tavern together. Judging by Maeryc’s flinch, Koonta was certain Mawby’s blade tip was parked just under the arm of Maeryc’s sleeveless mail.

“You better have a damned good explanation for this,” Koonta whispered to him as Mawby guided Maeryc past.

Maeryc looked at her. Dry lips sneered back from dirty teeth. Then his expression abruptly melted into a queer smile, a smile she knew was supposed to look natural. It was the same unsavory smile she’d seen too many times on the tarry faces of the demons, and it was the most horrifying sight she’d ever seen.

Maeryc laughed hoarsely and slapped Mawby’s chest with the back of his hand. “My apologies,” he said, “It’s this vile swamp. Has me uneasy, jh’ven?”

Koonta walked up behind them and retrieved the sword from her brother’s scabbard. Maeryc stopped and looked back at her.

“You ever defy my command again,” she said as she slid his blade under her belt, “And I’ll take your fingers as penance.”

Mawby then shoved Maeryc roughly into the line of warriors. Maeryc staggered backward and collapsed into the water. The other warriors backed away from him as the hack came up sputtering and painted in algae.

“What are your orders, Kad’r?” Mawby asked her. His eyes never left Maeryc.

For the first time that day, Koonta felt cold. She tried to hide her trembling from the warriors who stood watching them in silence, but they already knew what was happening here. They’d known it longer than she had. They understood her pain and they honored her with their silence.

“Maeryc,” she said carefully, “You’re relieved of duty.” She removed his insignia and handed it to Mawby. “Put it on, Maw. You’re Saaro now.”

“What?” Maeryc said, “You can’t do that! I told you I’m just tired, for gods’ sakes!” He stepped toward her, but Mawby quickly moved between them and threw a halting hand against his chest.

“You heard the Kad’r,” Mawby said, “Fall in!”

The shell that was once her beloved brother didn’t look at Mawby, but reserved the pressure of his gaze for her alone. As she watched him glaring at her, she wondered what would happen when the time came to release him. And she now fully understood the black truth, that it was a matter of ‘when’ and not ‘if’. How would she explain it to her family? How could she live with such a terrible weight?

Maeryc suddenly shoved Mawby’s hand away and rushed forward through the water. He stumbled to a stop before her, seizing her by the shoulders. As he looked at her, something about him changed. For just an instant, she was looking into the clear, knowing eyes of her brother again.

“Koo,” he whispered desperately, “Please! Don’t tell anyone. Don’t let our family know! Don’t let—”

He never finished his words. He stiffened sharply, as if taken by a seizure, and then stumbled backward through the water. He threw his hands to his head and began to shriek. His wail reverberated through the silence of the swamp as he clawed at his face and skull. Finally, he doubled forward and vomited violently into the murky green water.

The company watched him in stunned silence as he alternately retched and gasped for air. When he eventually lifted himself up from the mud and dragged a forearm slowly across his mouth, any evidence that Maeryc had ever lived in that shell was gone. His eyes were alive, but burning with someone else’s fire. It was the demon glaring at her now, the demon baring its dirty teeth at her without any attempt to conceal itself.

Mawby seized the hack and dragged it roughly back through the water. As he threw Maeryc’s remains into line, he said, “You make another move like that and I will slit your throat, I swear it before all that’s holy.”

Koonta felt all hope evaporate before her. She turned slowly away from the hack and began feeling her way through the fetid swamp. She felt sick and weak, and utterly useless.

As she walked through the thick algae, she pulled Maeryc’s sword from her belt. The hilt was made of hand carved witchwood wrapped in the richest leather in the style of their ancestors. It had their family name engraved gracefully along the length of the perfect steel blade. This had been her father’s sword before Maeryc inherited it. It’d served her people through three generations. It’d been a symbol of loyalty and pride and honor. But now...

She stopped. She held the sword out to her side and let it slip into the water without ceremony. As she watched the algae slowly fill in the break created by the act, she wiped her face and willed her pain back into the forbidden box. She looked over at Mawby, but couldn’t dwell there for fear if she did she’d never be able to pull away. Instead, she turned away from him and the company.

“Move them out, Maw,” she said as she resumed their march, “We’re nearly there.”

∞

The hatch squatting at the crest of the unnatural hilltop became vividly real as they approached it. Covered in twisted, scraggy overgrowth, the rounded hill was like a tumor swelling up from gangrenous flesh, and the hatch was a scab rotting at the top of it. As they made their way toward it, she somehow understood that their fates were to be divined up there on that wretched mass, that there would be no turning back after this. It was like how a deer must feel when it smells the approaching wolf, but still can’t see it. She only prayed that any decisions she made at this critical junction would be sound ones, decisions to make her family proud.

They were a hundred feet out from the hill when she halted her troops and ordered them into formation. She stood before them in the hot, wretched water with Mawby at her side. She knew there wasn’t a warrior in that line who wasn’t praying for escape from the damned swamp before night settled its full weight on them, but she was determined to do this right. There’d be no second chance.

“I want the base of the hill combed along the waterline,” she ordered them, “I want it thoroughly searched and I want it called clear before anyone sets so much as a toe landside.”

The troops collectively nodded. All except Maeryc, who only glowered angrily at her.

“If the fugitives have already exited the hatch,” she continued, purposefully avoiding his gaze, “We’ll have a slim chance of apprehending them before Boardtown. And if it rains, we’ll have as good as lost them. Given that, we’ll have to work quickly. When the mud line is clear, Mawby and I will counter-circle the hill up to the hatch while you remain in the water. Once we’ve cleared the grounds, we’ll make camp.”

She’d no sooner finished issuing her orders when a coarse breeze kicked up to whisper through the reeds. Wide eyes probed the dusk growing around them. A few of the warriors drew their swords.

“It’s only the goddamned wind!” she said as loudly as she dared, “If you need something to fear, fear me. Anyone who foils our efforts to track that hill will have something far worse than a dead man’s voice to contend with, jh’ven?”

The warriors shook their heads.

The island hill was larger than it looked from the distance, easily a full two acres in total land mass. The banks were dense with snakegrass, thorny milkweed, and woehag brambles with their venomous purple burrs. The center of the island was covered with patches of tough, scraggy boar grass scattered through the smelly mud and rocks.

It took them nearly an hour of painstaking search before she allowed them to set foot on land. When she gave the signal, the warriors stumbled forward through the aggressive foliage and collapsed in the less offensive gravel further up the muddy bank. They wasted no time peeling off their soggy boots and saturated breeches, sparing no modesty in the pursuit of dryness and comfort.

At the very pitch of the hill sat their purpose. Standing nearly three feet high, the hatch base was composed of perfectly fitted, interlocking stone blocks seated without benefit of mortar in the Baeldonian tradition. A round, rusting iron hatch was mounted atop the base. It was easily six feet across and split down the middle, exactly like the previous two. However, this one was different in that the hinges were hidden, contained on the inside of the hatch, so that there was no purchase for a lever to pry them open even if they’d had the proper tools and tackle. Two matching thick iron handles sat a foot apart from each other on either side of the seam.

Koonta'ar and Mawby took the first watch. She sat down on the hot surface of the stone base encircling the rusted iron hatch. Mawby joined her a few minutes later. He helped her shuck her boots before attending to his own needs.

“Well,” she whispered as she massaged a pale, wrinkled foot, “That’s a bit of good news. It seems they haven't left the tunnels yet.”

Mawby stood beside her. He placed a bare foot on the warm rock beside her and leaned an elbow into his knee. “Unless they've passed this one for the next hatch,” he said quietly.

“I don’t believe it. This is the one, Maw.”

“What makes you so certain?”

“It's the closest exit to Boardtown. Moving onto the next would cost them an extra two days. This is where I would exit.”

Mawby nodded his head. A few green flecks of dried algae flittered from his brownish hair. He twisted around and looked down at the camp. Even in the settling gloom, the form of Maeryc was undeniable. He still stood in the water with his hands knotted at his sides and his eyes burning up at them.

“And what about him?” Mawby asked.

“Keep two pairs of eyes on him at all times.”

“Ay’a. And?”

“Don't underestimate him. He’s stronger than we think.”

Mawby rubbed the tired flesh between his eyes. “I’ve no doubts about that.”

She looked up at him. He was clearly three shades of exhausted. His eyes were hollow, his normally chiseled, granite face now appeared as washed-out as a mudslide. She took little comfort in the knowledge that she must look at least as bad as he did.

“Mawby?” she whispered.

“Kad’r?”

“I want you to swear something to me.”

“Anything. You only have to name it.”

She slipped a hand onto his forearm and looked up at him. “Swear to me you won’t let the demon get the caeyl.”

“You know I won’t, Koo.”

“Swear that if anything happens to me, you’ll seize it, that you’ll steal it into safe hands. Not to Prae or Goelvar. Take it to Kaelif Ro’eb. You’ll likely find him at the Snake River siege base just south of Graewind Castle. If you don’t find him there, take it to Fael'r Braelon in Vaen. She’s the only council member we can trust.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to you, Koo. Not while I’m able to draw breath.”

“Promise me, Mawby. Promise me you’ll do it.”

“I told you I won’t let—”

“Swear it, Maw!”

For a moment, Mawby just looked at her. Then he nodded solemnly and said, “Ay’a, I swear it.”

Koonta looked off into the darkening sky. The waning moon floated just above the horizon behind a narrow slash in the approaching storm clouds, its milky white surface stained disturbingly brown behind the steamy swamp gases. As she studied it, she wondered if the world hadn’t already fallen to the powers of the Wyr.

“We should bind him.”

Mawby’s voice startled her from her thoughts. “What?” she asked.

“Bind him. Strike preemptively.”

“No,” she said without hesitation, “We can’t show our hand. Not just yet. I don’t think the demon suspects we know yet.”

“Once it suspects, it’ll send its lackeys after us. Maybe even the prodes. How long do we wait?”

“Prodes,” she whispered on a shudder, “How did it come to this?”

Mawby’s face was bloodless and jaundiced under the corrupted moonlight. “You needn’t worry, Koo,” he said as he pretended to study the night, “I’ll do whatever I have to. The bastards won’t get the caeyl.”

“And Maeryc?”

He seemed to shrink a bit at that. But, then he looked her straight on and said, “I’ll release him when the time delivers itself. I won’t suffer him to linger, I promise it.”

His voice was thick and sore, like the dark whisperings shared among the survivors of a funeral, and in that moment she wanted nothing more than to hold her old friend, to find comfort in him and give him comfort back.

“I’ll never blame you,” she whispered to him, “No matter what you have to do. I promise I’ll never blame you.”

XXV

SANCTUARY, REDUX

“I

’D KISS THE QUEEN OF PENDTS FULL ON THE LIPS FOR A BREATH OF FRESH AIR.”

Chance back at Beam, but said nothing. The man was squatting before the pack, rolling up an uncooperative map and largely ignoring him.

Beam watched him stuff the map into a side pocket. The backpack looked as loose as an oversized pair of britches. It’d lost a hell of a lot of weight since yesterday, an observation that didn’t help Beam’s mood one bit.

A series of howls rolled up from the darkness behind them. Beam looked back toward the sound. Eventually the godless wails echoed off into the identical darkness awaiting them, leaving them once again surrounded by silence broken only by the metallic drips and pings of the unseen water.

It seemed odd to Beam how the creatures’ wails had changed. The sounds felt more honest now, like they were making them a promise of sorts. Or maybe they were unchanged and he was simply hearing them differently, maybe he’d just had his fill of this miserable prison and so everything he saw or touched or heard seemed immeasurably more disheartening for it.

Another outbreak of howls resounded, each slightly staggered from the other as they slowly swelled into a crescendo. Then they once again collapsed into a chaotic brawl of fading yelps. As the silence gradually returned, Beam understood why he felt so much more dread now than before: They sounded like they were communicating. They sounded intelligent. And there were more of them now.

His hand crawled up the sword’s hilt until he found the warmth of the stone at the pommel. Bring the bastards on, he thought. He drummed his fingers against the caeyl, rapping out a tight beat that reflected his growing anxiety. Sometimes the fight itself is less disagreeable than the anticipation of it, like the slow build up to puking after a bad drunk. Sometimes it’s best to just fall on your finger and be done with it.

“Is there a problem, Beam?”

Beam flinched at that. He looked over at Chance. “Problem?” he said, faking a laugh, “Hell no. I’m just sick of the bloody banshees’ whining. I wish they’d bring it on already.”

“I told you, there’s no such thing as banshees.”

“No?” Beam said as he walked over to the waiting mage, “I suppose there’s no water, either.” His sole made a squishy noise as he tapped it against the wet sand.

“Well, I can’t say that,” Chance said, looking down at the moist sand, “There’s definitely water.”

“Damn me, it’s good of you to say so. I thought maybe I was hallucinating.”

As they resumed their walk, he realized this was the closest they’d come to conversation since early that morning when he’d demanded the mage stop probing him about his dreams.

The dream had left him feeling plenty perturbed, and he’d suffered a lingering aggravation since. It was the same dream he’d had the night before, only more fleshed out. To make it worse, he couldn’t understand why it’d stayed with him so long. Most dreams fade into shadows within minutes after waking, leaving one to wonder if there’d been a dream at all. This one didn’t. This one stayed with him like a nagging headache, complete with all the details.

“I warned you the tunnel would go a bit deeper.”

Chance’s voice again shoved him out of his thoughts. Beam wanted to fling a sorry retort his way, but immediately denied the urge. He didn’t have the strength to give the argument his full attention.

“I remember it with perfect clarity,” Chance pressed, “I warned you this morning. I told you we’d have to go a bit deeper into the earth before reaching the next hatch.” He watched Beam a moment, as if he were hoping for a comeback. When none was forthcoming, he turned away and resumed their march.

Beam reluctantly followed him.

“We’ve been walking downhill all day,” he said to the man’s back, “Pretty sure we’ve gone more than a ‘bit’ deeper.”

“We’re directly beneath the Sken te’Fau,” Chance said, “I believe the rationale for the appearance of water beneath the swamp is actually defined by your beloved science. As a matter of fact, there’s a new construct that’s been shared amongst the astronomers and academics in the universities these past few decades. It’s called ‘the gravity principle’. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? It explains why water would work its way down through the earth rather than float away into the heavens.”

Beam winced at that, cursing under his breath, but resisting the urge to engage the obvious taunt.

He looked up at the ceiling, which was dark and shimmering. Another stack of Baeldons slipped past. The faces lately had devolved into gruesome images as the water had its way with them. The mournful eyes gawping down at them were rotted and unsavory, their faces pulpy and bloated.

“I don’t like this,” he said, pulling his eyes away from the hideous faces, “Damn me, I don’t. How long do we have to trudge through this muck?”

“I can’t say. The tunnel was dry last I visited.”

Beam suffered a sinking sensation. “You’re joking,” he said without enthusiasm.

“I am not.”

“I swear to Calina, you’d best not be baiting me. I’m pissed enough without your help.”

“You certainly have managed to figure me out, haven’t you?” Chance said over his shoulder, “I simply continue inventing new ways to irritate you. What else do I have to worry about? Truth is we’ve been able to exit anytime we desired, I’ve merely been holding it back because I get such a hoot watching you stew so.”

“You’re hilarious.”

Chance quickened his pace. “I do my best.”

“How long did you say it was since you were last down here?”

Chance only kept walking.

“Damn it, how long, Chance?”

“I’m thinking about it!” Chance said over his shoulder, “Blood of the gods, you’ve the patience of a taxman.

“You need to think about it?”

“I suspect it may have been thirty years, perhaps more.”

Beam dragged a hand down his face. “Thirty years!” he snapped, “Gods almighty! Why is it every time you open your mouth, I feel more depressed?”

“I don’t—”

“Forget it!” Beam picked up the pace and marched on ahead of him. “You’ll have me hanging myself if you keep talking.”

They walked on in silence. The sound of their footsteps splashing the water barely filled the void.

Beam thought about sun and the air and freedom, about the gold that would soon be his, about women and liquor. Yet, even as he considered the future, he had the nagging suspicion that he could never really escape. He had the sense that even if they got out of here today, the memory of the dream warrior would follow him through his life like a plague. The dreams had left him with the irksome feeling that he’d forgotten something important, like some obscure memory was making ripples at the fringe of his awareness and he couldn’t seem to dredge it to the surface.

The story about him being the beech and the warrior being the pig peeved him to no end. Or was it the other way around? Was he the pig and the warrior the…bah! What did it matter? All that mattered was the point the dream warrior had been trying to make. Or the lack of one.

He looked over at Chance. “You ever hear of a pig beech?"

The mage turned his weary gaze to him. His eyes were like sinking ships. His hollowed face was softened only by the red glow of his beard glimmering eerily in the green torchlight.

Beam immediately regretted the question. “Never mind,” he said quickly, “It’s nothing.”

“Pig beeches? Why on earth would you ask me about that?”

“I don’t know,” Beam lied, “Just curious, I guess.”

“I’ve heard of them.”

“They’re in southern Mendophia?”

Chance shrugged his brow and said, “They’re nowhere. They’re legend.”

Beam thought about that. The words should’ve been good news. They should’ve affirmed the absurdity of his dream. They should’ve shown him that the warrior and his words were simply an irritating nightmare with no more lingering point than his last dump.

So, why this pang of disappointment? He couldn’t shake the sense that the warrior’s words had a purpose. Dream or not, he had the feeling they housed some kind of coded message. Or cryptic warning.

“You’re sure about that?” he asked Chance, “That they’re legend, I mean?”

“Yes. I’m quite sure.”

“And in this legend, do the beeches...assimilate the pigs?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

“No reason,” Beam said as he again quickened his pace, “Wandering thoughts, that’s all.”

∞

Beam wondered if maybe he were actually dead. Maybe somewhere in the endless parade of hours, he’d just passed on over and no one had had the courtesy to inform him. Maybe he hadn’t woken up this morning at all. Maybe his soul was still earthbound, wandering through these tunnels oblivious to the fact that it no longer needed to stay here.

He was standing in cold, ankle-deep water at the edge of an underground pond, freezing his bloody ass off. It was too much for a living person to bear. Yes, he had to be dead. There couldn’t be any other logical explanation. He was dead and this was the third hell where he was paying penance for a lifetime of wicked deeds.

“Have you considered that m-maybe we took a wrong turn b-back there?” he asked without looking at Chance. He’d intended more sarcasm, but he was shaking too hard to afford the energy.

“No,” Chance said, corking up the vial of elixir, “This is the correct path.”

“Well, tell me if I’m wrong, b-but the tunnel seems to be a b-bit...how should I put it? Flooded?”

“Brilliant observation, Beam. Thank you for that. Most helpful.”

“I mean, I could b-be wrong, but I’ve seen a lot of w-water in my life, and d-damn me if this doesn’t look and feel just like it.”

Chance was ignoring him.

The mage had given him a slug of elixir, and much as he hated to admit it, it was beginning to work. The potion had infused him with a strange sense of warmth that didn’t seem exactly real, but was still effectively washing the cold from his limbs. Sadly, it’d done nothing to improve his mood.

“Yep, I’ve drank plenty of water,” he kept pushing, “Why, I’ve b-bathed in it, I’ve swam in it, I’ve even used it to clean clothes, and I swear to gods, this appears to be the real thing.”

“I warned you there could be flooding in this part of the tunnel, Beam. The good news is the rungs to the hatch are only a few hundred yards ahead.”

The words had a shadow. “Great,” he said, not at all sure he wanted to know, “What’s the bad news, then? I know it’s coming, so just put it out there already.”

“The bad news is the water’s going to get a bit deeper before we reach it.”

“Deeper?”

“Significantly.”

“Significantly?” Beam growled. “You’re telling me we left a perfectly dry oasis back there where the tunnels forked for this? For a midnight swim? Lovely. Thanks for this. I hope one day to repay the favor.”

Beam glanced behind them and thought about the other tunnel at the fork a half hour back, the one they hadn’t taken. That one lifted up out of the water and led to drier and happier land. In spite of his pleads, however, Chance refused to go that way. It was as if he thought he knew better or something.

“The hatch ahead will have us out of the tunnels tonight,” Chance said as if reading his mind, “The other way will cost us two more days underground. But if being dry is more important than getting to the surface, feel free to go back.”

Beam wanted out of the tunnels so badly, he’d have gladly walked barefoot across a mile of steel shavings to get there. And though the elixir had taken the edge off the cold, he still felt like a vessel overfull of despair. His choices all kept coming back to an essential lack of choices.

“Fine,” he said at last, “Let’s just do it already.”

With that, he pushed forward into the water. The water felt like an ice bath as it washed up his legs and over his crotch. The first rush of pain was nearly unbearable, though the sensation quickly dulled to a level just tolerable.

It was only a few hundred yards, the man had said. He just had to buck up and push forward. He could suffer the cold long enough to make it that far. At least, he hoped he could.

∞

Beam bobbed through the neck-deep water, moving from tiptoe to tiptoe with one arm holding the torch above the water line and the sliding along the slimy tunnel wall. It was all he could do to keep his head above the surface. He could barely breathe. He was frozen through to the bone and felt on the brink of exhaustion. He was only able to keep moving forward by the force of sheer pride; he refused to show defeat before the mage.

Being taller, Chance had less difficulty and often had to stop and wait for him, a fact that added the burden of embarrassment to Beam’s physical complaints. As he forced himself forward through the water, he passed the time fantasizing about the revenge he’d exact from the man responsible for this trip once they made it topside. If they made it topside.

Chance’s voice shattered the silence of the tunnel like the Horn of Acolaemed announcing Calina’s return. “The shaft!” he yelled back at Beam, “I see it! It’s just there!”

Beam managed to lift his shaking torch high enough above the water to see the wavering outlines of iron rungs climbing like two-legged spiders against the dark stone. The steps ascended up from the water like the stairway to the First Circle of Heaven. It was as beautiful a view as he’d ever laid eyes on.

Wasting no time on courtesies, Beam forced himself past Chance. He scrambled eagerly forward through the water. Moments later, he grabbed the first thick rung and hoisted himself up from the quicksand-like drag of the water. The water poured from his clothes as he climbed free, roaring back to its source with the thunder of a waterfall. The corroded iron of the rungs bit into his soggy, ice-numbed hands, but it didn’t slow him down.

He’d only climbed up a half dozen rungs before being forced to stop to get his breath. His muscles were screaming for the effort. His leather britches felt like boards against his legs, and his back was on fire from holding the torch in one hand as he climbed. And yet, his thrill was a slave master, and he was soon working his way upward again.

Barely another dozen rungs passed before he had to pause again. As he waited for a refill of breath and strength, he studied the darkness above him. This time, he saw a pale light defining the edge of a landing another twenty steps above him. He was about to sing out his joy and bellow his gratitude to the gods when he was struck by a sorry pang of doubt. How could there be light? A torch couldn’t ignite itself. Someone was up there.

“Chance!” he whispered down to his companion, “Look up there! A light!”

Chance was halfway down between him and the water, hugging the rung with his face buried into his arm wall and panting as if he’d been running for his life.

“Chance, did you hear me? There’s a light!”

The mage waved Beam on with his torch. “It's...it’s okay,” he said with great effort, “It's just…just a torch. Baeldonian. Like…like back at the cave.”

Beam thought about it, thought about the odd metal torches that’d already been burning when they entered Sanctuary, the same torches they now carried. But he didn’t linger on it. In the end, he realized it didn’t matter one difference whether someone was up there or not. Whatever lousy hand the gods had dealt him would just have to be played out, because he sure as hell wasn’t going back to the water.

Still, he locked his torch arm around the rung and slipped the dagger from his boot. He clenched the blade between his teeth and resumed his climb.

When he reached the top, he paused for a careful peek over the edge. The room was maybe thirty feet wide and forty or so feet deep with a smooth floor, but craggy, roughly cut walls and ceiling. Yet, despite the wide breadth of the room, there was barely a fifteen-foot wide path down the middle of it clear enough to allow passage. Scores of chests, heavy bags, and crude wooden boxes piled two and three high lined the walls so densely that they sprawled several feet out into the room like dueling avalanches of junk. Nothing living was in view. It was warm and dry, and he felt such a rush of happiness at the sight he would’ve hugged the mage if he’d only been a few rungs closer.

He rolled the torch out into the open space and scrambled up over the edge. Once secure, he threw a hand down to Chance and heaved him up. Then he turned and walked into the room.

As he walked down the relatively narrow path, he inspected the junk filling most of the space on either side of him. He noticed with some surprise that there were even weapons scattered through the debris. Swords, bows, pikes, and maces were propped against the walls between crates, piled in the corners, heaped in mounds across the bags and boxes, or just spilled carelessly across the floor. Loose clothes overflowed the boxes and bags. Ropes, empty bags, and tools were haphazardly strewn everywhere. It looked as if someone had been caught ransacking the place. He’d seen similar clutter in tombs he’d explored, evidence that previous looters had made their mark before him.

Despite the oddity of the debris, the queerest item in the room was a stone gargoyle squatting at the back right corner. It was several feet tall with wings peaking nearly to the ceiling, which was a good twenty-odd feet high. He wondered how the devil anyone managed to get it in here; the thing must weigh a ton. At least. He was about to ask Chance about it when he saw the statue’s dimly glowing blue eyes.

More magic. Perfect! He was far too tired to endure the sermon that would follow any inquiry about the object. Besides, it just didn’t matter. The most important observation about the statue was that it blocked a dark, narrow arch that could only be his beloved doorway to the world.

He ran toward the gargoyle as quickly as his stiff, wet leathers and abused muscles would allow. Up close, he could see the arch behind the statue was indeed a door, and that it led to a corridor of some kind. This had to be the way out. Unfortunately, he soon discovered that the gargoyle was actually wider than the door and effectively blocked any egress. There were gaps around the statue’s form, but none wide enough to allow him to slip through, at least not that he could see at first pass. A surge of irritation gripped him. The statue’s placement was no accident.

Still, there had to be a way through. As he studied the arch of the door rising above the gargoyle, he saw the break he needed. There was a tall, though narrow space rising above the statue just between the head and wings. He’d almost surely be able to squeeze through it if he could manage to climb the gargoyle. Unfortunately, his leathers were like wet splints; he could barely bend his legs, let alone climb with them.

He slammed a fist against the gargoyle’s mantis-like head. “Damn me to hell,” he shouted, “I can’t get past the bloody thing. It's as big as four men.”

“Five, if you're the man.”

Beam threw a scowl back at the mage. “Damn me, Brother, you're a real wit!”

“Not to worry. It can be relocated.”

“So relocate it!”

“I intend to. But first we need to dry up and don some warmer clothes”

Beam followed Chance over to a particularly large black chest that was nearly buried under the debris of bags and weapons. “What do you mean get dry first?” he asked him, “We can dry off up there, under the sun.”

Chance dragged a few overflowing bags of what looked like raw wool from the chest and tossed them onto the piles behind it. This exposed a pair of odd wooden clubs with sharp jags of metal mounted in the head. They appeared to be Pendtish in design, crude and created only with the intent of drawing the most blood and bone possible from a target. These he tossed to the side onto more bags of clothing. He pushed the remaining remnants of old, rusting mail and leather tunics to the side and cleared access to what appeared to be the only chest in the room that wasn’t already open. The hinges wept as he raised the huge lid.

“Why don't you strip out of those wets and we'll see if we can persuade them to dry?” he said to Beam.

“They’ll dry just fine outside,” Beam said back. Persuade them to dry. Was he joking?

Chance nodded, but didn’t reply. Instead, he began methodically searching through the clothes.

Beam understood the gesture quite clearly. It meant he might as well be talking to his hand. “You’re a real asshole, you know that?” he said through his teeth.

“Yes, Beam,” Chance said as he worked, “I’m quite thoroughly aware of that, thank you.”

Beam could only look at him. He was too tired, too cold, and too desperate for a single breath of fresh air to engage his baser urges. Instead, he turned back to the gargoyle and looked up at the notch of arch just visible above it.

“Well, tell me this at least,” he said as he studied the gap, “How much farther to the surface?”

He looked back down at Chance to see him holding a pair of leather britches up to Beam’s legs as if he were considering a purchase. Beam cursed and swatted them away.

“Are you insane?” Chance asked him seriously, “What the devil is wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me? Here’s what’s wrong with me. I’ve been waiting days for this! I want fresh air and I want it now. I want you to move that statue. We can change our goddamned clothes later.”

Chance rubbed his forehead with the butt of his hand. “The hatch is about fifty feet above us,” he said with obvious effort, “The tunnel beyond that sentry spirals several rotations up to it. It’s not more than a five-minute walk, but you must manage your way past the sentry first, and only I can move it. And I am not moving it until I’m dry. So pull your britches up and cinch your belt a notch tighter, and try to be an adult.”

“No, I think you’ll move the damned thing now,” Beam said back.

“Is that right?” Chance said, “Well, let me think on that a bit.” He then returned to the chest, pulling out another pair of britches and holding them in the air for consideration.

Debate was clearly futile. What gain came from arguing with a man on the verge of collapse? He seemed to be in the midst of some kind of brain fever, one that only rest and time would likely resolve. It was more than obvious that he wasn’t going to be any help, at least not soon. He likely couldn’t even help his obstinacy, given the state of decrepitude he’d descended to.

No, in that moment, Beam understood he was on his own.

He got up and walked back to the sentry. “Five minutes to the surface,” he whispered as he studied the situation, “Five stinking minutes.”

He examined the gargoyle and its proximity to the door. There was a slim gap near the floor between the outer wing edge and the door jam. Hopeful now, he got down on his belly and tried to squeeze through the gap, but it was more than ridiculously tight. He then moved to the inside of the wing, pushing his way into a narrow gap between it and the creature’s haunch, but was again rebuffed. Cursing, he stood up, stepped back, and reexamined his options. The other side of the statue had no gaps at all. It was too tight against the door’s edge. Egress at ground level was clearly out of the question.

He studied the creature’s wing line where it rose up toward the ceiling. The statue’s wings towered over it, rising to a peak beyond the arch of the door before fanning out to the sides like curtains.

He stepped back another pace.

There it was, that narrow gap near the arch of the door he’d seen originally. He moved a pace to the side, and then he saw exactly what he was looking for. The wings leaned forward into the room ever so slightly at the top. It wasn’t much, but it might be enough.

His wet leathers fought him as he scaled his way up the gargoyle’s height, but anger and desperation can make serious allies. He would not be stopped. Not now, not here, not so close to victory.

When he finally climbed up onto the head and was in position, he saw that the wings leaned further into the room than he’d even hoped. They created a kind of chute through the arch and into the dark hall beyond. The drop would be like sliding through a tunnel and down a steep hill. He’d have to watch that he didn’t clip his jaw on the arch on his way under it. And the landing likely wouldn’t be gentle, but it was absolutely manageable.

“The hatch at the surface was built for Baeldons,” Chance called to him, “You’ll never move it alone.”

“You’ll never move it alone,” Beam muttered, “Watch me.”

Sitting there atop the statue, so close to freedom, so close to victory, he felt like a god-man. He could move a mountain if he had to. He could walk on water. He could pass through solid stone if that’s what it took. One way or another, he was getting out of this hellhole tonight.

He lowered himself feet first into the chute. It was a tighter squeeze than he’d originally estimated. He braced a hand against the wall above the arch, and then carefully slipped one and then the other foot into place. Then he eased his legs down into it. Holding tight against the wall, he maneuvered his body deeper into the hole. When he was in to the level of his hips, he drew a steadying breath and released himself. He’d just started sliding down the chute when his sword snagged the gargoyle’s wing above and behind him.

He jerked to a neck-breaking stop. His jaw clipped the arch precisely as he’d warned. He was stuck, hanging there in that chute by his stinking scabbard, so close to freedom and yet so goddamned far from it. He wanted to scream.

Instead, he repositioned. Bracing himself against the door’s arch, and holding firmly onto one of the gargoyle’s wings, he managed to heave himself back up a bit higher, just enough to brace a knee against the arch and steady himself there. The movement bought him enough slack to loosen his belt buckle. An instant later, his sword and scabbard clattered raucously as they tumbled back over the gargoyle and into the room behind him. He was free. All he had to do now was let go and slide down into the chamber beyond.

“You’ll never move the hatch, Beam,” Chance again called from the room beyond the gargoyle, “It’s a fool’s mission.”

Beam ignored him. He let go and glided into the chute.

He landed on the darker side of the arch and rolled to the ground. Despite the restraints of his wet clothes, he was on his feet in a flash. The narrow walls of this new tunnel were solid stone, carved from the bedrock itself. Mounted on the wall above him was metallic torch burning with a now familiar green flame. He pulled it down and used the light to examine the corridor. Just to his left rose a wide stairway of smooth, wide steps. The stairs quickly twisted into a tight curve and disappeared.

He bounded up the first few stairs and stopped. The stairs continued to twist away upward and out of view. It was just too good to be true. Let Chance flounder about for dry clothes, or a warm bed, or his mother’s tit, if that was what the man needed. But for himself? Food and physical comfort could wait. At long, long last, he was here, rising up this wondrous passage, cycling toward the heavens like riding the stairway to Pentyrfal! He was mere minutes from freedom, and by the gods above, freedom was what he’d have.

With that, he broke into a sprint and quickly made his way up the stairs through the spiraling passage.

∞

Chance rocked back on his haunches and rubbed at his aching head. After a few minutes, he looked over at the sentry blocking the outline of the door. The half-breed was utterly exhausting. It would require less work and patience to train a team of monkeys to map the stars above than guide that fool across a city street. For the thousandth time since he became aware of just what a load of work Beam was, he considered that poor old Brother Dael must surely now be an Arch Santir sitting at the right hand of Calina in the hallowed Halls of Pentyrfal.

He rubbed at his eyes and searched for his center of calm. Just let him go, he told himself. He’s a rogue and a fool, and nearly uneducable. Besides, he’ll never get out by himself. He’s just a stubborn child, and you’re a fool to let him frustrate you. The man’s like a cellar shimlin, all mischief and diabolical creativity. Best just to keep working on their preparations and let the child wear himself out.

He pulled out a pair of leather britches, some cotton shirts, and woolen hats, even a pair of leather boots, but tossed them all out into the room behind him. Nothing seemed suitable. Or perhaps he simply couldn’t focus on the task at hand. He kept thinking about Beam up there, alone and desperate for a breath of fresh air. Regardless of the efficacy of his tonics, a Vaemyn could never be completely comfortable down here beneath the earth, and it couldn’t be any less miserable for a half-breed.

Perhaps he should go help the poor bastard. After all, the sorry fool had been through nine levels of pain these past days. And don’t forget, Beam had rescued him from certain death at a time when he could just as easily have gone on his merry way and left him to his own misfortune.

Then again, the bastard was misery incarnate. He was an ethereal burr in the saddle of life. He argued simply for the enjoyment of it, and was more than adept at finding the smallest chink in the most complicated armor. He deserved to suffer a bit, didn’t he? Just a bit? He deserved to broil in the aggravation he so relished imposing on others. The man may be the savior, the Caeyllth Bearer, but he was also a studied and committed pain in the ass.

Despite the perfect logic of his arguments, he found himself standing. He grabbed his staff. He couldn’t do it. It just felt wrong. He had to go up there. He had to intervene before Beam threw his back out trying to open the damned hatch.

He cursed and shook his head, and then he crossed to the sentry and laid his hand on its brow. Just as he was about to activate it, a deafening clang split the silence. Chance froze and listened. It was impossible! There was simply no way he could have managed it. The monkey could never have opened the damned hatch alone, not in a thousand years!

Then he heard Beam yell.

Well, there it was, exactly as he’d predicted. The fool probably wrenched his back or caught a hand in the hinge. He was probably up there bleeding all over the place, and now Chance would have to sacrifice his own comfort and run up there to the rescue. For just a moment, he considered letting the monkey lay up there and suffer for a bit before going to his rescue.

Then Beam yelled again.

This time, Chance heard someone yell back.

XXVI

CROSSROADS

T

HE PASSAGE TERMINATED IN A NARROW, CYLINDRICAL ROOM LIKE A SHORT TURRET.

Barely six feet across, the black ceiling floated ten feet above him. A serious iron ladder climbed up the stone to the hatch above, bolted seriously to the stone wall with rivets as big as his fist. On its way, it passed through an iron platform hugging one side of the circular wall. This platform was a landing that looked like a grate from beneath, and it filled half the turret in a semi-circle. A wide crawl space cut through the landing at the wall where the ladder ran through it. The turret terminated at a round metal hatch about four feet above him. It was as wide as the landing itself. There were no runes, no decorations, no scrolled edges, just a practical tube of metal and stone. It seemed a bit anticlimactic.

Still, Beam felt so giddy, he could barely contain himself. There, but for ten feet of rusty ladder and an iron lid, waited the real world, the world of warmth and air and sun, the world of life.

He scrambled up the ladder and onto the platform. The sound of his footsteps against the grated iron reverberated clumsily in the tight chamber. The clearance up here was low enough that he had to bend his legs to stand beneath the hatch. Squatting, he placed an open hand against it. The rusted iron was warm to the touch. It felt as solid as a mountain.

Despite his enthusiasm, he suffered a pang of doubt as he assessed the hatch. What if Chance was right? What if he couldn’t open it alone? This was Baeldonian design, after all. If the iron was built to their scale, it could easily be several inches thick and impossible for him to move it alone.

He scolded the thoughts from his mind. There was no room for doubt. Not now. Not after such a long and burdensome journey. Now, he only had to focus on the strength he’d need to breech this final gate. He only had to envision the freedom waiting for him just beyond that iron door. That hopeful image would give him the strength he needed, he was certain of it.

He laid the torch to the side on the grated platform, and then scooted out to the edge at the center of the turret where he probed the lid above with his fingers. A tight seam divided it into two semi-circles. He stood as high as he could and pressed a shoulder into the metal. On a count of three, he heaved against it. The hatch didn’t budge.

He fell back to his knees and looked up at it. It was likely just improper positioning on his part. All he had to do was achieve the correct leverage, and then maintain it. He stood up and again pressed a shoulder into the half lid, and again heaved against it. He leaned all his weight into it. He pushed until his legs ached, until his head was throbbing, until it felt like his eyes would burst. The hatch didn’t even think about moving. Breathless, he collapsed back into the ladder. His head was spinning as he waited for his wind to return.

It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be possible! Not after all he’d suffered to get to this point. The goddamned thing would open! It had to open. He was certain it would open!

When he’d collected his wind, he returned to the task. This time he took a different approach and positioned his upper back against the rusty metal, bracing his hands solidly against his bent knees. Channeling all his energy into a single, determined assault, he crushed himself against it. He pushed like a man possessed. He pushed past the pain. He pushed hard enough to bust a tooth.

Then he felt it. The hatch gave! It gave just a bit. It wasn’t much, only enough to spur his hope, but it did give, he was certain of it.

He dropped to his knees and collected his breath. A minute later, he pushed himself up to one knee and psyched himself for the task. Then he rose and reassumed his position, knees bent and locked, upper back braced against the metal, hands tight against his knees. He redoubled his previous effort. He pushed against it like the world depended on it. He pushed past the pain.

The hatch gave again. It gave more than before. The hinges spoke. He pressed harder, pressed until it felt like the pressure would tear his skull apart. The hatch eased upward at an agonizing pace, moving a quarter inch, a half an inch, an inch. And then it stopped. He couldn’t move it any further. The pain was unbearable. The damned thing was coming back! He willed all his strength against it, commanded it to stop, but it wouldn’t stop! The goddamned iron was crushing back down on him!

He was about to retreat and regroup when the pressure simply ceased. The weight disappeared completely. The hinges screamed. The hatch rushed open above him. Water pelted his back. Before he could react, something snagged his arms. The platform disappeared beneath his feet as he was dragged up into the rain.

He landed on his hands and knees in the wet, muddy grass.

It was dark. Shadowy figures encircled him, but he couldn’t make out the details through the pouring rain and cloak of night. He tried to stand up, but the pressure of a sharp point in the back of his neck convinced him to stay where he was.

He settled back on his knees and gave a silent curse. He didn’t need to see anything. He knew exactly where he was. The bastards finally had him.

He squinted up through the hammering rain. A clap of thunder rocked the night, followed by a several brief pulses of light. He couldn’t make out their faces, but the shimmer of their mail against the distant lightning was unmistakable.

He dropped forward and slapped the wet grass. “Stinking savages!” he cursed into the rain.

“Stand up, skeechka!” someone called over the crackling roar of the downpour. The voice was female, but there was nothing feminine in its tenor.

Beam spit some water back into the grass and again squinted up into the rain, aiming in the direction of the voice. “I’m comfortable right here, thanks,” he called back, though he could barely see her.

“I told you to stand up!” she yelled, “I’m not inclined to tell you twice!”

The sword point twisted viciously against his neck. Beam disappointed himself by wincing. He was confident it’d drawn blood. His mind drifted back to his own sword nestled snugly in its scabbard on the stone floor behind the gargoyle five minutes below him. He should have listened to Chance!

Another peal of thunder and a lingering flash of lightning briefly unveiled the silhouette of the Vaemyd standing directly before him. She was illuminated only long enough to see her sleeveless armor and her bare, muscular arms glistening against the rain. Her face remained hidden in the night. He tried to look off to the sides, but the sword in his neck convincingly dissuaded him. Still, he counted at least three others.

He again slapped the wet grass. “Bad bloody luck!” he cursed.

“Nay, you’re wrong there,” she called through the rain, “Luck isn’t even in the equation.”

“Get that damned blade out of my neck. I'm unarmed.”

An explosion rocked the night. Beam flinched. It was too loud to be thunder. Despite the swords, he managed a peek back. The savages had opened the other half of the lid. The open round hatch gaped up into the rain like a radiant, mocking laugh.

A second sword found his right flank and a third dug into his left. The blade on the right twisted a little harder than it had to.

“Easy!” he yelled up at the offending Vaemyn, “Do that again, and I’ll slap you back into diapers!”

Something struck him in the back of the head. He landed hard on his belly. He wasn’t sure if he was hearing another peal of thunder or just the ringing in his ears. The warriors dragged him up to his feet. His skull was throbbing. His legs felt weak as wind.

The Vaemyd pressed in close to him. “You’re damned mouthy for a man with three blades against his flesh,” she said to him, “You’re either fearless or brainless. Which is it?”

She was nearly his height and as solid as an oak. Another rip of lightning threw her wet face into light. Her features were chiseled and commanding, betraying neither compassion nor humor. She wore her hair bound back in the severe Vaemysh tradition, laced up so tight even the rain seemed unable to penetrate it. Water streamed down her face, but it did nothing to diminish the malice in her eyes, which were as blue and cold as ice.

“Strange,” she said to him, “I’d expected you to be bigger. All this fuss about such a little man. I find it rather disappointing.” Her eyes looked almost serpentine in the greenish light radiating from the open hatch.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Beam said back, “A Parhronii dandy could’ve evaded your girls.”

“Have your laugh, skeechka. It’ll be your last pleasure.”

Beam shook the rain from his face. “I’ve heard that from your kind before,” he said, “You threaten and threaten but never seem to follow up. I was beginning to think you weren’t really trying.” He spit more water into the grass.

“Well, aren’t you a regular dancing minstrel.”

“Yeah, so I’ve been told.”

The blade on his right twisted into his ribs again. This time it stole his breath away. He tried to turn on the man, but was quickly subdued. The bastards had a solid lock on his arms, cocking them mercilessly behind him.

“Keep it up, you savage prick!” he snarled over his shoulder, “I’ll feed your jewels to you before we’re done!”

“You’ll have to excuse their zeal,” the Vaemyd said, “My trackers are thirsty for your blood. You’ve been a monumental irritation to them these past months, jh’ven?”

Beam again flipped the rain from his face, but said nothing.

“However, I do have an offer for you,” she continued, “I give you my word that if you answer my questions directly I’ll make your death quick and painless.”

“And if I’m stubborn?” he said through the rain.

“I let my warriors have their way with you. You look strong enough that you might last a week or more before their fires.”

He steadied himself against that. “Do you really think I’m intimidated by you?”

She smiled at that. “I’m confident of it.”

“Go to hell,” he said. Sadly, she was right.

She stepped in closer to him. “Where’s your friend, the mage?”

Before he could respond, he felt a new pressure. It was the serious end of a short sword pressed convincingly into his belly. Her hand was at the other end of it.

“What a cute little sword,” he said, looking up at her, “Did your daddy give you that?”

Her slap nearly knocked a tooth loose. He shook his head as the restraining warriors steadied him. If not for the pressure of the rain, he might’ve slipped out.

He spit some blood into the grass, and then looked straight at her. “Keep it up,” he said to her, “I can do this all night.”

Another sword hilt struck his head. He started to fall, but the arms restraining him wouldn’t allow it. His head was spinning. His stomach wasn’t faring much better. They had his arms twisted back so severely, his shoulders were screaming. He wasn’t sure his legs were bearing any of his weight.

She grabbed a fistful of his beard and pulled his face into hers. “I’m going to give you another chance,” she pressed, “Where’s your friend, the mage?”

“I don’t remember!” he yelled back.

She slapped him. Hard. “Don’t you lie to me, skeechka! It’ll be the biggest mistake you ever made. Where is the mage?”

“I don’t know!”

Still holding him by the beard, she studied him for a minute. The rain was streaming down her face, but she seemed incognizant of it. Then she flashed him a smile immediately before burying her fist in his gut. Beam doubled forward, but the arms again kept him upright. He couldn’t draw any air. Thunder pealed in celebration of his defeat

“Perhaps I’ve misjudged you, skeechka,” she said as he struggled to breathe, “Perhaps the threat of our fires don’t intimidate you. Perhaps you’re not afraid of me after all. Well, no matter. You will be.”

He was hanging in the warriors’ arms. His head was pounding so hard he could barely see. He prayed she couldn’t see the truth, that she was right.

“I can make you hurt in ways that’ll have you begging to tell me what I want to know,” she shouted over the swelling downpour, “Now, tell me where the mage is. Is he still in the tunnels?”

Beam tried to stand straighter against the hands twisting his arms back so brutally. He couldn’t tell if he was succeeding.

“I swear to Calina!” she shouted, “You don’t want to make me ask you again.” She slapped him again, harder this time.

The warriors reeled him back to his feet.

Beam shook away the rain and confusion. He had to stay focused. “All right!” he yelled back, “All right, I’ll tell you. He…he’s dead.”

She paused at that. Then she stepped in closer and said, “Dead? What do you mean, dead?”

“Dead,” Beam repeated, “I killed him in his sleep!”

“In his sleep?” She looked strangely disgusted by that.

“Yeah,” he said back, “In his sleep! Backwoods bastard wouldn’t stop snoring!” He forced a laugh.

Another punch found him. This time he landed hard on his knees. He heard someone moaning in the distance. Disembodied voices simmered above the deafening patter of rain. He dropped to his hands and vomited into the muddy grass. Someone grabbed a fistful of his hair and roughly jerked his head back. When he opened his eyes again, the Vaemyd’s face filled his vision.

“You think me a fool, skeechka?” she hissed into his face, “I assure you I am not!”

Beam struggled to appear focused. “I knew it was you,” he whispered, “It's in your eyes. I knew it the minute I saw you. You’ve made my life hell.”

“I'll ask you one more time! Should you fail to answer me to my satisfaction, I’ll have Mawby here slice your fingers apart one knuckle at a time.” She barked some orders in Vaemysh. Someone pinned his hand flat to the wet grass.

Beam shook the water from his face and then looked up from his hands and knees. Towering over him was a giant of a Vaemyn. He looked as big as a young Baeldon.

“Calina’s blood!” he said, “Damn me if you’re not the biggest pile of savage I’ve ever seen!”

The mountain called Mawby said nothing. He only leaned down a bit and pressed his sword tip deep into Beam’s face.

Beam didn’t withdraw from the blade. “Do it!” he yelled up at him, “I’ll die a man and you’ll still live as an animal.”

The female laughed at that. “So, you know our curses? Do you speak our language as well?”

He looked over at her. “Only enough of it to get me through your slums and whore houses. Not much, but enough to cover most of that useless wasteland you call a country.”

She twisted his head back by another fistful of hair. “I put it to you one last time, skeechka. Where. Is. The mage?”

The rain abruptly sizzled to a stop. In the matter of a few heartbeats, the world went eerily silent except for the distant trickle of water still fleeing down the hillside. The big warrior knelt down before him and pressed his blade tip against the little finger of Beam’s right hand. The blade began to slice into the skin. Beam set his teeth. He refused to cry out.

“You’re running out of time, skeechka,” the Vaemyd said. Then she called out an order in Vaemysh.

Though Beam didn’t understand the words, he fully grasped the gist of them, and he knew he couldn’t let it happen. His chances for escape would dwindle dramatically with each finger he lost. He knew from experience how hard it is to run while bleeding to death

“No!” he yelled, “No, wait! Wait, I'll tell you.”

The blade withdrew, but only slightly.

“Speak your mind then, Parhronii,” the big warrior said, “And be quick about it.”

Beam glanced to the side to assess the makeup of the squad, but the warriors pinning him down blocked his view of the rear. There was no way to know how many there were. He dropped his head submissively before her. His long, rain-soaked hair hung like black netting before his face. “I told you the truth,” he said, “The mage tried to take the stone from me two days ago. I was forced to kill him.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“It’s the truth!” he pleaded, “Let me up. Please, I’ll tell you everything. I don’t want to die like this.”

She studied him for a moment, clearly probing him for evidence of lies and plotting. Then she barked an order and the warriors dragged him back to his feet.

Beam steadied himself, forced himself to stand independently. He glanced back at the warrior that had drawn blood from his side. He looked just like the rest of them, sleeveless mail, painfully bound hair, bare, tattooed arms. Then he looked back at the Vaemyd. “I can’t feel my arms. Tell them to release me.”

She only watched him.

“Please,” he said quickly, “The pain is unbearable. Just tell them to release me and I swear I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

After a moment, she snapped off another Vaemysh order. The warriors abruptly let loose of him, though their swords remained leveled at his neck.

“Pray you’re not lying to me,” she said to him, “This is your final opportunity to die with dignity.”

Beam’s legs felt like mud. It was all he could do to keep standing without assistance, but he had to show some kind of strength. He had to be ready for any opportunity to change the direction of this interrogation.

“Speak, skeechka,” she snapped at him, “Your time is dwindling.”

Something shifted in the shadows behind the Vaemyd. It was a dozen feet back, creeping slowly up the hill toward her. It was another warrior.

This savage stopped a pace behind her and the giant, and then just stood there. Something wasn’t right about this one. The light radiating from the open hatch illuminated his face. His hair was cut short. His face was a portrait of misery. Lifeless eyes sank into pits above hollow cheeks. A peculiar black gem with yellow sparks dangled from one of his horns. Beam recognized him as the fool back at the river, the one whose mail had shimmered in the sunlight back on the road, the one who had betrayed his fellows. He was clearly up to something.

“Speak!” the leader shouted again “Where is the stone?”

The rain suddenly swelled again, and Beam was deeply thankful for it. He turned his face up to it. The water grounded him. As the downpour rapidly grew harder, it revitalized him. It gave him strength.

Without warning, the Vaemyd slugged Beam in the chest. The blow sent him stumbling back. The backs of his heels caught the hatch. He would’ve toppled back into the tunnel if the Vaemyd hadn’t grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him roughly forward. Holding him with one hand, she efficiently patted him down with the other.

“All right, all right,” Beam said over the pouring rain, “You can have me if you want me, but I’d prefer a little privacy.”

The Vaemyd quickly worked her way up his torso and found the lump beneath his shirt. She wasted no time dragging the pouch up from the tunic’s neck. She held the pouch up to the light radiating from the hatch, though the cord around his neck restricted her efforts. “What’s this?” she asked, staring hard into his eyes.

The cord bit deeply into Beam’s neck. She had it pulled as tight as it could reach. Beam could only stare at the pouch locked there so plainly in her open hand. How could it have come to this? How could everything have suddenly turned so sour?

“Is this what I pray it is?” she asked him, giving the cord a sharp jerk.

The rawhide seared the back of his neck, but he couldn’t have cared less. All of his attention was focused on the pouch held tightly in her hand.

“Put it back,” he demanded, “Put it back and I’ll let you and your pals go. No hard feelings, no bloodshed. You can just go.”

She retightened the rawhide strap, twisting it in her hand until it was a garrote around his neck. Beam felt a surge of panic as the strap choked his airway.

“That’s most merciful of you,” she whispered into his face, “I’ll take that under advisement.”

He grabbed at her hand but couldn’t break the grip. The pressure of his heart pulsing against his occluded neck was unbearable. Then, just as he was certain that suffocation was going to spare him the horror of torture, the Vaemyd sliced the cord with her sword and released him. He grabbed his throat and began coughing.

She forced the bag open and dumped the contents into her hand, discarding the coins to the grass. The light of the glowing stone flamed her face red in the rain. Yet, he noticed that instead of the joy he’d have expected to see there, she looked almost disappointed.

“This is it?” she whispered.

“I thought it’d be larger,” the giant next to her said.

The red glow of the stone was like a torch in the night, casting her face into full light. Beam was shocked at how tired and worn she appeared. How could anyone so obviously fatigued manage such strength and speed? Though he loathed admitting it, he was impressed.

The grim looking savage with the spiky hair suddenly pushed his way in between the leader and the giant, with his arm reaching for the gem. “Give that to me,” he yelled. He lunged for the stone, but she pushed him roughly away.

The large warrior dragged him back into the rain and then shoved his sword point into the man’s face. The grim savage backed away, hands held up defensively. He was grinning weirdly, like one of the screamers back at the priory. Beam could see by his eyes that he wasn’t finished. It offered hope.

The leader returned the stone to the pouch and handed it off to the giant.

Beam spit blood and water into the grass. Then he looked her dead in the eye. “Take that stone and I swear to Calina, I'll hunt you down and kill you like a dog!”

The giant slapped him hard. “You defile her name by speaking it.”

Beam shook the confusion away. His legs were shaking. As he collected himself, he forced himself to stand taller. He looked up at the mountain called Mawby, and he said with great deliberation, “Do that again, you savage prick. Please. Do it one more time.”

The giant obliged him.

Beam stumbled back and landed hard on his ass on the edge of the hatch, but the warriors immediately hoisted him back to his feet. Three giants now wavered before him with their hands raised. They slowly blurred to two and then quickly settled back into one. “Want some more, skeechka?” he heard the man ask.

“Doesn’t it feel better to return stolen property?” the Vaemyd said, “The way of the criminal is such a sorry life, don’t you think?”

Beam flicked the water from his face and tried to focus. “I’ll find you, you savage bitch,” he whispered to her, “I swear I will. I don’t care where you hide. I don’t care how far you run. I’ll bloody well find you, and once I do, I will kill you.”

“Is that so?” she said with a laugh that sounded like it took some effort, “That’ll be a difficult promise to keep with no legs.”

Beam again shook his head. When he looked up, he saw the fouled savage again creeping up from the dark rain behind the giant. The warrior’s face was wild and unsettled, and glowing eerily in the green light from the hatch. This time, Beam saw the gleam of a knife in his hand, and the sight fueled hope. There was conflict within the squad. This may be his only opportunity to turn the tables. He steadied himself for action.

“Tell me where the mage is!” the Vaemyd said, “It’ll only go harder if you resist answering my questions.”

“Do you have a problem understanding Parhronii standard?” Beam yelled back, “I told you he’s dead.”

Then a new voice boomed up from the hatch behind them, “Actually, I’m right here!”

The warriors on either side of Beam wheeled toward the sound. In that same instant, the fouled warrior drove his knife into the giant. The blade found root just behind the big Vaemyn’s shoulder, driving down through the armhole of his sleeveless mail. The huge savage stiffened and cried out. The leader looked back at the giant.

It was the opportunity Beam had been praying for. He grabbed the Vaemyd by the mail and pulled her hard. They toppled backward over the rim of the hatch into the turret below. As they hit the grated landing, Beam twisted and rolled her over the side. The Vaemyd landed on her back on the floor of the turret with Beam hard atop her.

Blue light exploded through the darkness above them. The now familiar smell of lightning and boiling flesh filled the air, and Beam immediately knew the warriors above were no longer a threat. The one beneath him, however, was a different story. Even after a six-foot fall, even with him straddling her, she had her hands locked around his neck.

His anger surged. He was bloody well good and done with this.

He focused all his rage and aggravation into a volley of slugs. He hit her again and again and again, hit her until his arm was numb and his fist bloody and raw. With that, the Vaemyd finally went limp.

Beam hunched over and fought for his wind. The rain pattered against his back. The water felt cool and fresh, almost rejuvenating. Someone was screaming somewhere above him. He looked up over his shoulder into the night. Chance stood on the landing above him with his wet white sleeves clinging tightly to his arms, his staff leveled, his long hair pasted to his skull as the water streamed from it. He was a grim image hovering against a fog of wild blue light.

Beam used the rungs to pull himself to his feet. “Chance!” he yelled up at the man, “Get the hell down! We’re done here.”

Chance either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. He continued to flame the air above them with his blue energy.

“Now!” Beam yelled again, “That’s enough! Let’s go!”

With that, he stepped over the Vaemyd and jogged down the circular passage. He hadn’t made more than a dozen yards when he passed the statue of the gargoyle. It was halfway up the stairs to the turret. As he passed, he wondered how the hell the mage had managed to drag it all the way up there by himself. More importantly, he wondered why.

Beam had just made it to the arch at the bottom of the passage when he heard the footsteps. He looked back an instant too late to brace himself for the tackle.

∞

The grated iron platform creaked sorely under the sentry’s weight. The creature stood with one rear claw locked on an iron rung of the wall-mounted ladder and the other on the platform. Chance watched it from the bottom of the turret as the translucent creature slowly pulled the final hatch door closed. It then locked the internal rings with its claws and immediately solidified as it fell still again. It would take a block and tackle the size of a house to pull those open now. He only hoped the Baeldonian iron was up to the task of bearing the creature’s immense weight.

Chance knew the charge was good on this sentry. There was no sabotage here, no corruption of his caeyl energy. He could depend on this one. “Sentry,” he said, “I have instructions for you.”

The blue eyes flared briefly as the head slipped back into a translucent state. Then it turned its mantis-like head and looked down at him with its blue, orbish eyes. “I am prepared to accept your instructions, lord,” it grated.

“Once you’ve sensed that we’ve left the cave below,” Chance said carefully, “You are to release the hatch.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

Chance looked up at the creature for a moment as he considered their next move. “When my companion and I have departed Sanctuary,” he instructed it, “I want you to exit the hatch and fly to the Iron Mountains. Seek out Jhom'ne Fenta at the War Ministry in Barcuun City. Give him this message from me:

“War is imminent from Prae and the Vaemyn to the south. They’ve invaded the southern perimeter of Na te’Yed. Immediate military intervention is imperative. We’re in the tunnels beneath the Swamp of Voices, but the tunnels are flooded at Sanctuary North. We’ll retreat to the southern fork and begin heading eastward again from there. I’m leaving this sentry at your disposal with instructions to answer to you only. I expect an energy level of one month’s active use.”

The sentry successfully repeated its orders back.

“Once you have delivered your information,” Chance told it, “You are to put yourself at Jhom’s disposal. Follow his directions and no one else’s thereafter, except at his bequest, do you understand?”

The sentry again acknowledged the orders.

Satisfied, Chance ran back down the spiraling corridor. He’d just reached the bottom when Beam stumbled backward through the door from the main room, landing hard against the corridor wall. Though covered in blood, the man didn’t even pause for air before pushing off and diving back into the room.

Chance immediately followed after him, angling toward the fight with his staff leveled and ready, but the warrior saw him first and threw Beam into him. The impact knocked them both to the ground.

Beam had only just risen back to his feet when the Vaemyd rushed him again. She threw him into a pile of bags and dove into him, straddling his chest as she laced him with a storm of punches. The only consolation to be found was that they appeared to be painted in equal portions of blood.

Beam managed to break free of the warrior and immediately broadsided her with a fearful slug. She reeled into the wall hard enough to crack bones. It should’ve been enough to put her down, but to Chance’s dismay, she barely flinched before stepping back into the battle. Beam was just giving him the thumbs up sign when she plowed into him. He stumbled over a discarded pile of armor and drove face first into the wall, and then dropped into the debris. For a moment, he simply sat there with a queer grin snaking through the blood. He seemed stunned, even confused.

The warrior grabbed a torch from the wall and moved toward him with nothing short of murder in her eyes. She waved the torch threateningly.

Chance knew he couldn’t unleash his caeyl energy without jeopardizing Beam as well. Instead, he’d have to use the staff as a polearm. It was as solid as a tree trunk, and the caeyl in its grip was like a chunk of rock. Perhaps he could knock her unconscious with it, though he had no faith in the plan. The Vaemyn were biologically stronger, faster, and more resilient than the Parhronii. He was within a yard of her and ready to make a move when she overtook him. She moved like an acrobat, spinning around and kicking his staff off target with one foot while almost simultaneously landing the other in his chest. The blow sent him skidding across the floor and into the edge of the doorway.

He pushed himself slowly up from the floor and shook his head to clear the shock. When he looked up again, Beam was back on his feet. The half-breed now had his sword. He held it with both hands, leveling the blade threateningly at the warrior. The red light of the caeyl only made his bloodied appearance that much worse.

“Stop!” Beam shouted at her, “You've got the stone. Just take the damned thing and go!”

Chance used the wall to climb to his feet. His head was pounding, his back on fire. Still, he threw his hand out and summoned his staff. Once it was securely in his grip, he eased his way around behind the warrior.

“Don’t do it, caeyl mage!” she yelled back at him, though her eyes were locked on Beam’s sword. Without even gracing him with a look, she swung her torch back at Chance. “Just back away now. You can’t use your caeyl without risking your sweetheart here.”

“Beam’s right,” Chance told her, “Listen to him. He’s offered you an exit strategy. You have the stone in your possession. You have what you came for, so just go on your way. I swear we won’t try to stop you.”

She threw him a warning glare. “Do I look like a fool, caeyl mage?”

It was then he realized she was nearly as brutalized as Beam was. Her hair had long since escaped its restraints. The disheveled braids pasted with blood to her scraped brow and lacerated cheeks like the tentacles of a swamp crab. More blood covered her face and painted her bared teeth pink. One eye was swollen, though nowhere near closed.

“I’ve no grievance with you,” Chance said as he moved around her, “Leave now. Go on about your business and we’ll make to attempt to stop you.”

The warrior moved so suddenly, there was no time to brace himself. She flew across the space separating them, throwing a ferocious kick into his shoulder. He stumbled backward through the debris and fell over a snarl of old swords, landing roughly amid a cluster of armor-filled boxes.

Before he could recover, she threw the torch at him. It narrowly missed, bouncing off the wall above him in a shower of sparks and landing in the piled clothes, which immediately erupted into flames.

Chance scrambled frantically back from the fire. He couldn’t believe his eyes. The flames had erupted too abruptly. They were even crawling up the stone wall. Then he realized why. Laying at the edge of the mound of cloth was a fallen lamp. The lid was gone, the brass surface slick and glossy. It was the oil burning.

Beam’s cry shocked him from his thoughts.

He turned to see him and the Vaemyd fighting at the rear of the cave. Beam threw a brutal slice at her with his longsword, but she easily dove inside the weapon’s reach and knocked him roughly to the floor. The sword clattered away, now well out of his reach. She threw herself on top of him, swinging hard. He heaved her to the side and assumed the top position, though she quickly reversed it. They trundled across the floor together that way, rolling one over the other through the scattered clothes and debris like a single creature, a bizarre composite of blood and flaying limbs. They were only feet from the edge and heading for it fast.

“Beam!” Chance yelled, “Watch the ledge!”

Beam either couldn’t hear him or couldn’t comply. He and the Vaemyd continued their punching duel, rolling closer and closer to the drop.

Chance ran to intercept them. He leapt over a pile of weapons and threw himself into a dive, hitting the ground hard. He slid to a stop just as Beam and the Vaemyd toppled over the ledge and into the dark abyss beyond.

XXVII

AFTERMATH

A

VOICE MURMURED SOMEWHERE IN THE DARKNESS.

He tried to open his eyes, to look toward the voice, but couldn’t manage the effort. His side was on fire. The air was thick as oil. Someone was burning something sweet and unpleasant nearby. It was hard to breathe.

Someone spoke to him. He could hear the sound of the voice but couldn’t find the words. He tried to move, but his body again refused the order.

“…awby? Can you…”

What was that? Someone was calling his name. Was he lost? Were they looking for him?

“…hear me? Mawby? Can you hear…”

Mawby flinched and opened his eyes.

He was lying on his back. Angry black clouds rolled against a darker sky high above him. He was wet and cold, but it wasn’t raining. Where was he? He should know where he was.

A face hovered into view. He knew this man kneeling over him. “Ven?” he whispered. He tried to sit up.

Ven pressured him back to the grass with a hand on his shoulder. “No, Maw. Don’t move. You’re hurt. You’re hurt bad.”

Mawby tried to push him away, but couldn’t find the traction he needed. He relaxed back into the wet grass. “Where’s Koonta?”

“Maw, you’re in a bad way. That bastard Maeryc slipped a knife along your side. Think he might have caught a couple ribs. And the mage burned your face with his caeyl. He burned it pretty good.”

Burned? Mawby touched the side of his face. The skin was damp and bumpy, but he couldn’t feel anything. He wondered why it didn’t hurt. His oteuryn seemed unharmed. He still had his eye.

He tried to sit again, but Ven’tar again pinned him back.

“Damn it, Ven!” he shouted, “Let me be!” He rolled to his side and shoved Ven away, but the price was high. He doubled forward and struggled to breathe. The side of his chest was on fire.

“It’s bad, Maw,” Ven whispered, “It’s real bad.”

“My face?”

“More than that.”

“Damn you, stop talking in riddles. Where’s Koonta?”

“She’s gone. The Parhronii dragged her down into the pit with her.”

Mawby suddenly felt sick. He steadied himself for the dreaded question. “Was...was she alive?”

“What?”

“Was she alive? When she went down the goddamned hole? Was she alive?”

Ven shrank back. He fell to the side, propping himself up by an arm in the dark grass. He coughed and dragged his hand across his mouth. “Ay’a,” he said quietly, “I think so. Last I saw. Then the caeyl fire started, and…I…I can’t be sure. I’m sorry.”

Mawby felt the world open beneath him. He felt like he was dropping into a black abyss. It was too much, the thought of her below ground with that barbarian. He fell back into the grass. He grabbed his head and shoved the thoughts from his mind. There was no time for them now. If he dwelled on it overlong, those thoughts would crush him.

The black clouds sliced through the darkness above him, giving him the sense that the sky was standing still and it was he who was spinning away. The sight threatened his stomach. He closed his eyes against it.

“Who has the stone?” he asked. When Ven didn’t respond, he reached over, seized him by the mail, and pulled him closer. “Who has the goddamned stone?”

“Maeryc.”

“Maeryc? Where...where is he?”

He turned to search the hill, but the pain in his chest threw him back. He released Ven. He grabbed the side under his right arm and tried to stay conscious. He focused on the wet grass beneath his head. He felt like he was floating.

“You shouldn’t try to move,” Ven whispered.

“I want Maeryc restrained,” Mawby said through the pain.

Ven didn’t move. He only looked at Mawby.

Mawby reached for him, but the pain again threw him back. “That’s an order,” he said through clenched teeth, “Do it now, damn you!”

“I...I can’t.”

“What…what did you say?”

“I can’t.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Ven suddenly doubled forward. He was shaking. Hard. Was he crying?

Mawby rolled to the side and forced himself to his knees. The pain was like nothing he’d ever endured before. It felt like Maeryc’s knife was still lodged in his ribs. His face burned where the breeze hit it. When he was confident he wasn’t going to fall, he braced his side and climbed to his feet.

The smell hit him before he ever saw the bodies. He took a few steps closer and saw the legs sticking out in the grass beyond the hatch. There was no need to examine the corpses.

Ven walked up behind him. “It was the mage’s caeyl fire, Maw. It killed Heo on the spot. Yeal was burned bad, too. He didn’t last very long...fortunately.”

“Where’s Maeryc?”

“He’s gone. He took the stone while you were out. He…he’s gone.”

“How long was I out?”

“An hour, maybe two. I’m not sure. I…I don’t have any sense of time.”

Mawby heaved a threatening stare down on the warrior. “Why didn’t you stop him?”

Ven shrank back. “I tried, Maw. Heo and Yeal were dead. You were down. Goudt took off after him, but he’s burned pretty bad himself. I tried to...I…”

Mawby felt everything collapsing around him. Everything they’d worked for, all their fears, it was all so much shit now. Koo was gone. The hack had the stone.

He looked over at Ven and fought with the urge to slap him. “You should’ve stopped him,” he said instead, “You should’ve put your useless life before the loss of that caeyl!”

“I…I tried…I swear…I…”

Mawby grabbed the warrior by a wad of mail. “You tried?” he yelled, “You should’ve—”

Ven made no effort to resist, but only stared up at him from an expression of shock. Something wasn’t right.

Mawby carefully released him and turned his palm open toward the slowly growing daylight. A thick, wet sheen covered his hand. It was blood. He looked at Ven. “What happened?” he asked.

“I tried to stop him, Maw. I swear it. You know me. You know I’m no—”

“What happened?”

“He got his knife in me. Think he ripped open a lung.” Ven wavered, and then started to drop. Mawby caught him and eased him back to sit on the edge of the hatch. The warrior was having trouble breathing. His lips and chin were black with blood.

Mawby suddenly felt sick with guilt. “I’m sorry, Ven,” he said, “I…I didn’t mean to...”

Ven’s trembling finger pointed off into the dawn. “He went that way,” he whispered, “South by southeast. Watched him long as I could manage.”

“Ven. I didn’t know. I—”

“Forget it,” Ven said, pushing Mawby back weakly, “It won’t help. Go after him. Help Goudt stop that goddamned hack before he gets—”

Ven started coughing. Mawby felt the warm spray of blood on his forearm. He slid an arm around the wounded warrior and eased him down into the grass so that he was sitting back against the hatch’s rim with his legs out in the wet grass before him.

“I can’t just leave you here,” Mawby whispered, though he knew that was exactly what he’d have to do.

“Be reasonable, Maw,” Ven whispered, “I’m…I’m dead. You’re all that’s left. You have to go after him. Help Goudt. You have to stop him. He can’t take the stone back to that loveless wyrlaerd.”

∞

Chance lay on his belly staring down over the ledge into the darkness below as fire raged through the cave behind him. The smoke broiled along the ceiling, thick and brooding. It choked the life from the air and burned his eyes. And yet, despite the threat, despite the imminent danger of suffocation or worse, he couldn’t pull himself away from that dreadful abyss.

He’d watched in horror as Beam and the Vaemyd rolled over the edge. He’d heard a profound splash, heard a few seconds of disturbance in the water, and then nothing. There was only silence as thick as blood. He held a torch down over the side, extending it as far as he could reach. The dark water glistened far below him.

“Beam!” he yelled again.

The name rolled desperately off into the darkness.

“Beam!”

There was no response, only another chorus of hopeless echoes.

“Beam!” he shouted into the night.

He dropped his head against the stone floor. He felt suddenly hollow and confused. How could this be? How had it all come to this, to this moment of sudden failure? It was too much to bear. His world was crumbling away, one piece at a time like a decaying monolith. First, the sabotage of his sentries, then Luren and the attack of the wyrlaerd, and now this! In that moment, he only wanted to stay right there where he was, laying at that hopeless abyss in the burning darkness, and sink into a deep, unending sleep.

A distant sound rose up from the darkness beneath him. It sounded miles away. It was faint and barely recognizable.

He lifted his head. He stopped breathing and listened. Perhaps it was nothing, just his angst playing games with his mind.

Then he heard it again. It was a voice.

He leaned deeper over the side, cupped his mouth, and screamed, “Beam!”

Finally, a clear word drifted up from somewhere deep in the abyss. “Chance!”

“Beam!” he yelled back, “Beam, I’m here!”

No one answered. He leaned deeper over the side. He swung the torch back and forth below him, but found nothing but inky darkness.

“Beam!” he called again, “Is that you?”

“No, it’s the Queen of Pendts! Who the bloody hell else would it be?”

A pulse of relief as physical as a scream seized Chance. “Thank the gods!” he yelled back, “Are you hurt?”

“Hell no! Having the time of my life! No need to rush!”

“I’m coming!” Chance yelled back, “Hold steady!”

He pushed himself up from the edge and looked back into the room. Flames now fully engulfed the entire east side of the room. A thick cloud of black smoke roiled across the ceiling like an impending storm. The hot air burned his lungs.

His pack lay a few yards ahead of him where he’d dropped it on their arrival. He crept forward and seized it, then grabbed his staff and climbed down over the edge. Before he began the descent, he remembered Beam’s weapons. They were lying on the floor just outside the flames in the middle of the room.

He set the bag and staff on the ground and crawled back up over the edge. Burying his nose and mouth in his sleeve, he scuttled forward. He grabbed the weapons belt with the quiver and bow, and threw it across the stone back toward the edge. The heat was nearly unbearable. The smoke scalded his eyes so that he could barely see. Coughing violently, he crawled a few feet deeper into the fire, snagged the sword, and tucked the blade through his belt. Before leaving the inferno, he crawled to the wall near the ledge where the fire hadn’t yet taken control. He quickly grabbed two more torches from their sconces.

He returned to the edge and again dropped over the side so that he was standing on a lower rung. He was coughing harder now. He couldn’t draw a decent breath. He heaved the weapons belt and their pack up over his shoulder, and then took all three torches in one hand.

“I’m on my way!” he called down to Beam, "Cover your head!" Then he dropped his staff over the side and began the laborious climb down to the water.

Beam’s hollow voice bounced up from the darkness beneath him. “Good gods, are you coming or not? Not exactly a bathhouse down here!”

The familiar scent of stale, dank water grew more intense as he descended, but the smell was like nectar compared to the smoke. At least he could breathe here. Once within a few feet of the water’s surface, he held the torches above his head and dropped into it. The icy water rocked and slapped the walls with the excitement of his arrival. Beam was nowhere to be seen.

He turned slowly with the torches held up before him. The black, oily water simmered and swelled beneath the light. “Where are you?” he called as he scoured the darkness.

Beam didn’t answer.

He waved the torches across the back wall. “Damn it, Beam, where the devil are you?” He felt a growing panic at the thought that he may be seconds too late. “Beam!”

“I'm here!”

It came from his right. It was farther down the tunnel than he’d expected. “Hold on,” he shouted, “I'm coming!”

Chance waded a few yards through the water and soon spied the dusky form of his friend holding tight to the wall just ahead. As the torchlight diluted the darkness, he saw that Beam was nothing like ‘great’. He had one hand tucked into a narrow crack in the wall above him, and was only barely holding himself above the waterline. His dark, wet hair pasted his head like a skullcap. His beard was a tangled mess, and the part that was above the bobbing waterline was stained with blood. One eye was a beefy pulp, and his nose was bent and swollen. Under his free arm floated the limp form of the Vaemyd.

“Damn me!” Beam whispered hoarsely, “I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to see anyone in my life. I was sure you'd left through the hatch.”

“Never,” Chance said, “I’d never leave you. Besides, the hatch isn’t an option anymore.”

“Gods almighty, it's good to have some light again!” Beam readjusted his hold on the unconscious warrior. “I didn’t want to die down here like this. Not alone. Not in the dark.”

“Doesn’t look like you were alone.”

Chance held the combined torches out before the warrior’s face. Her disheveled yellow braids floated on the water like dead cave snakes. Her eyes were wide but vacant. White and waterlogged, she looked as close to dead as a living person could.

“She went limp when we hit the water,” Beam whispered, “I only found her because I was floundering for the wall and she bobbed up between us. Guess the darkness must’ve finally provoked the fear.”

“Let me take her.”

Chance slipped his arm under her shoulders and handed the torches off to Beam. Being nearly a foot taller, he’d be able to manage her with less risk of drowning. He shifted the Vaemyn's weight, braced his shoulder against the wall, held his free hand out above the water’s surface, and connected with the caeylsphere. An instant later, a blue light singed the darkness as his staff glided into view. He took it and looked back at Beam, nodding in the direction of their retreat, and said, “We've got to get back to the intersection. That's the nearest dry land. The other way’s a dead end.”

Beam waded alongside him. “Whatever you say, Brother. I don’t have the strength to argue.”

Chance started moving forward with the Vaemyd in tow. “Blood of the gods,” he said over his shoulder, “You have no idea how happy I am to see you alive.”

“I’m thrilled to be seen,” Beam said quietly.

Chance turned a bit and looked up at the glowing orange ledge simmering high above them. Then he looked back at Beam. “It’s a respectable drop,” he said, “You shouldn’t be alive.”

Beam glanced up toward the light of the flames, but then quickly turned away from it. “Figured I stood better odds with the fall than her fists,” he said, “But damn me if it didn’t hurt a hell of a lot more than I’d planned.”

“You went over the side on purpose?”

“It was that or let her beat the sin out of me.”

“That has got to be the single most foolish thing I’ve ever heard of anyone doing.”

“At least I still have all my teeth,” Beam said.

“Well, I suppose that’s something,” Chance said back.

Beam suddenly stopped. “Wait! The sword. I for—”

“I’ve got it,” Chance said quickly, “It’s safe, tucked in my belt.”

“Thank Calina,” Beam said, “You’re a quick thinker, Brother.”

Minutes later, they trudged out of the water and up onto the rough hill created by a collapsed section of ceiling at the intersection of the first tunnels they’d only just left an hour or so earlier. Together, they dragged the warrior around the hill. This was an intersection. A second tunnel deviated sharply east from their original tunnel, running slightly uphill through a wide wooden arch carved with an odd collage of hammers and chisels and other Baeldonian tools mixed with runes of the same origin.

“We should’ve taken this one in the first place,” Beam said, as they passed through the gaping arch, “And as I recall, I recommended just that.”

“I told you before, this tunnel turns due south just two or three miles down the line. It takes us twenty miles out of our way. Sanctuary North was the closest dependable exit to the surface.”

Once inside the new tunnel, they dragged the limp warrior over to a spot where age had disintegrated part of the wall so that it washed out into a sprawling bed of rock and gravel that ended in a fanned mound of sand. There, Chance pulled a wet blanket out of the waterlogged pack and laid it out. They positioned the warrior on her back atop it. Chance positioned the three torches with their heads together in the dirt beside her so their flames made something akin to a campfire. Then he squatted beside the fire and dug the elixir out of their wet pack. He took a deep slug from it. The heat radiated through him almost immediately.

He handed the vial off to Beam, then knelt in the dirt, closed his eyes, and let himself receive the tonic’s effects. The sense of calm instilled by the medicine was almost as welcomed as the warmth. After a few moments, he opened his eyes.

He laid his staff on the dirt beside him so that the caeyl end rested in the sand beside the torch campfire. Closing his eyes, he willed the caeyl light larger. The blue light intensified until it was nearly unbearable to look directly at it, and with that light came a deep warmth that ushered the chill from the air immediately surrounding them.

“This will help,” he said to Beam.

Beam dropped down on his knees beside the caeyl and the torches and held his hands up into the deep blue light. “I don’t know what chicanery you use to pull this weirdness off,” he said seriously, “But I’m not going to second guess it. Not so long as it stays this warm anyway.”

Chance pulled the Caeyllth Blade from his belt and handed it over to Beam. Then he returned to the pack. He pulled out the other blanket, wrung it out, and then dropped it on the ground beside the caeyl. He removed the leather wrapped packets of food and put them on the gravel beside the torches and caeyl light, opening each to allow them to dry. None of it, the meat, the dried fruits, the cheese, none of it looked particularly appealing. Everything was soaked like a bloated fish. The bread had returned to its primordial state, looking more dough than loaf.

“We’re getting low,” he said as he worked, “But I think we can salvage some of it. It won’t be savory, but it’ll sustain us. We should eat something now. It’ll help with the cold.” He handed a leather square of meat to Beam.

Beam waved the offer away. “I can’t,” he said, “I told you. It turns my stomach.”

“Well, we don’t have much else left. The meat’s suffering the water better than the cheese.”

Beam again looked at the proffered meat, and again just waved it off. “Nope,” he said, “Can’t do it.”

Chance couldn’t do more than simply shrug. He was learning to read the stubbornness in the man, coming to identify the nuances in his behavior that indicated when he could be pressed and when he simply could not. He laid the soggy packet on the blanket beside the Vaemyd. As he pulled the last blanket out of the pack, he thought about Beam dining most happily on that very same meat a few nights ago, back at the first Sanctuary. The meat resting before them now was still fine; nothing had changed since then. He’d been eating it himself. There wasn’t a thing wrong with it. It didn’t make sense.

“You’re more Vaemysh than not,” he said as he picked a wet chunk of meat out of the lot, “I suspect it’s some kind of latent trait you inherited from them, this inability to eat flesh. What I cannot divine is why it suddenly manifested, though I’m sure the Blood Caeyl has more than a little to do with it.”

Beam was kneeling on the other side of the warrior. He had his arms wrapped tightly around himself and was shivering a bit. He seemed to be studying her. “Doesn’t matter,” the half-breed said seriously, “I just don’t want it.”

“There’s barely enough fruit and cheese to last more than a few days, perhaps less now that it’s wet. It won’t stay edible long. It’s eventually going to come down to only meat until we get out of the tunnels.”

“I’ll worry about it then,” Beam said as he probed the inside of his mouth with his finger, “Besides, I think the bitch loosened a couple teeth.”

Chance shrugged and chewed his meat. He looked over at the Vaemyd. The firelight flickered against her pale skin in shades of green and yellow. Wet clumps of nearly white hair pasted her brow and cheek. Thankfully, her eyes had finally closed. Chance pressed a hand against her cheek, which was cold as death. “She's responding to the tunnel the same way you did back at the cave. She needs the elixir.”

Beam gave him a look that required no translation. Even through the broken nose and swollen face, the message in his eyes was clear.

“Don’t start, Beam,” he said firmly, “She’s in a bad state. I won’t let her suffer.”

“You can smother that idea in its infancy,” Beam said firmly, “I need some sleep. You need some sleep. Neither of us will get any if she’s awake.”

It was exactly as Chance expected. “That’s unnecessary cruelty,” he said, “You should know that better than anyone. It’s a horrid thing to inflict on another soul.”

“So is getting punched to sleep!” Beam replied. He spit a wad of bloody phlegm into the dirt and carefully probed his bruising jaw with his fingers.

Chance thought about that. As thoroughly distasteful as he found such barbaric behavior, as much as it went against his nature to leave anyone in such a wretched state, he knew Beam was right. They were both exhausted. They needed sleep more than anything else on earth right now. They were both on the verge of collapse. Left to her fear, she’d eventually sink into a state of oblivion that was something akin to a coma.

In the end, he reluctantly agreed. “We’ll make her as comfortable as we can,” he said, “We’ll revive her in the morning.”

“You’re d-damned right we will.”

“Here, strip those waterlogged leathers off and cover up in this,” Chance said, handing Beam a blanket, “It’s wet, but the wool is from the Highbridge goat herds, so it’ll dry fast and still keep you plenty warm while wet. We'll dry our clothes by the caeyl light.”

He turned to the Vaemyd. Due to the genius of their Vaemysh design, her clothes were already drying. The mud meshed into the grass woven through the fine rings of her mail had nearly washed out during her time in the water. Her bare arms were white as fish bellies. Her face was a maze of cuts and bruises, much like Beam’s, though not nearly so dramatic. He folded the other half of the blanket she was laying on up over her.

“Why can’t you just dry our stuff out with that staff of yours?” Beam asked as he worked free of his wet leathers, “I’ve seen you boil flesh and coax water out of rocks, so why can’t you pull the water out of our clothes?”

Chance began stripping out of his own clothes. He was surprised Beam was asking questions about the caeyl now. It was a good sign. Perhaps the skeptic was reconsidering.

“Fifty years ago I could’ve done exactly that,” he said as he undressed, “Used to be I could will the water out of a sponge. These days, I’d be more likely to incinerate it. The caeyl energy’s been dying for centuries, and it’s accelerated over these last fifty years. I don’t possess the finesse I did even twenty years ago.”

Beam tossed his clothes carelessly to the dirt beside the meager flames. When he’d stripped down to his long undergarments, he dropped to the gravel across the fire from Chance with his blanket cinched tightly around his shoulders. He pulled the sword up across his lap. He was shivering so hard Chance feared he’d fracture a tooth.

“I’ll take the f-first watch,” Beam said, “You get some s-sleep.”

“Are you joking?”

“I’m f-feeling just f-fine to—”

“Absolutely not!”

“I’m perfectly capable of t-taking watch!”

“I said no. You look like misery incarnate. And anyway, the last couple times you took first watch didn’t work out so well.”

“Fine,” Beam said as he dropped to his side in the gravel, “I’m too damned t-tired to argue.” True to his word, he’d barely hit the ground before he was softly snoring.

Chance pulled his own blanket around himself and sat back against the craggy tunnel wall. He wasn’t surprised Beam had gone out so quickly. The man was a mess of bruises and lacerations. If he’d suffered no more than a few loose teeth and a broken nose, he was in better shape than he looked.

He dropped his head back against the stone and watched the Caeyllth Blade resting beside Beam. The half-breed hadn’t been asleep five minutes before the eye in the pommel of the sword began to glow. As he watched, the red light quickly swelled. Then the sword itself shimmered briefly and became translucent. In a blur of metal and light, the sword rose up onto its point before Beam with the crimson eye gazing down at him.

As Chance watched it standing there over the half-breed, he considered how it was possible that it could operate exactly as his sentries did. This was a Blood Caeyl, after all. It influenced the forces of life. His own stone was a Water Caeyl, influencing the forces of the earth and matter. A red caeyl should never be able to stimulate either animation or the motion of physical objects any more than his blue caeyl could heal the sick. It ran contrary to everything he knew of the world and caeyl energy. It was just another anomaly, another mystery, another violation of what he knew to be reality in a week already crowded in them.

The sharp tingle of energy filled the air around him. He could feel the pins and needles tickling at his skin. He turned his head away and covered his eyes. The flash of light that followed was brilliant enough to pierce even that preparation. When he thought it safe to look back, he found the tunnel thoroughly illuminated in red.

A beam of light erupted from the eye, pouring down on the half-breed like a stream of water shooting from the mouth of a fountain. As the radiance struck the half-breed, it rushed across his skin like molten steel filling the grooves of a mold. It completely consumed him, sealing him beneath a red skin that was more liquid than light. It wrapped him as tightly as a stick dipped in tar. It took his shape. It clung to his form like a glowing red membrane. The details that defined the man’s individuality were missing beneath the red light, but his form was as perfect as a statue carved from garnet.

Chance held a palm out toward the sword. There was no tingling, no burning sensation. His stomach wasn’t even roiling. He sensed no defensive reaction from the sword at all. Since that first night, he’d kept his distance when the light came to life, but now he understood. Aggression triggered the reaction, not simple proximity. If no ill intent were present, no ill reaction followed.

He lay back in the dirt and made himself as comfortable as he could. As he laid there studying the craggy ceiling above him, he reached back and pressed his fingers against the caeyl embedded at the base of his skull. When the uncomfortable sensation of linking passed, he closed his eyes.

The sense of relief he felt as he detected Luren’s life force was nearly unbearable. The boy was alive, and his essence was strong. At first, Chance found deep and profound comfort in that knowledge, but his pleasure quickly devolved into anger. Alive or no, even safe or no, the boy was in the possession of that maniac, Prae. He may be safe now, but he wouldn’t be for long, not once Prae’s true nature took hold.

The moment they were free of this prison, Chance swore he’d go south. He’d recover Luren from that monstrous place, and then he’d kill that bastard, Prae. He swore it now before the gods of Pentyrfal. He’d kill that vile bastard dead. He’d rid this earth of his foul presence once and forever.

XXVIII

STRANGE COMPANY

“W

ELL, BE’AHM? ARE YOU READY?”

“How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me that?” Beam snapped back.

The Vaemyn laughed. “Many, I think. I’m unreasonably stubborn that way. I fear you inherit that same trait from me.”

Beam squeezed the throne’s arms in frustration. The man stood over him, smiling in his usual patronizing manner. He wore the same blue, gilded tunic, just as before. His pale hair poured down over his breast, just as before. He bore the same aggravating, condescending grin, just as before. And just as before, it was all Beam could do to resist reaching up and slapping that grin off his face.

Beam looked out into the great chamber. The essence of the crystal glittered all around him. The dais, the pillars, the artifacts lining the distant walls, everything but the bottomless black floor shimmered in white light. As he considered this absurd scene, he realized he had no memory of walking into the cave this time. There’d been no conversation with Dael, no passing through the cave wall, no preparation for another irritating encounter. He’d simply awoken here, sitting in this damned throne while the bastard hunkered down over him with his face an inch too close to his own.

He looked up at the Vaemyn again. “How about you give me a little breathing room?” he said.

The Vaemyn proffered him a most annoying grin and then nodded. An instant later, he was standing back at the edge of the dais, leaning into the front right pillar with his arms crossed and a foot cocked up on its bare toes.

Beam glanced around the dais. They appeared to be alone. “Where’s Brother Dael?” he asked.

“He’s here with you. And he’s also quite not here.”

“Is that supposed to mean something?”

“It means you don’t need him anymore, my boy. You only need his memory.”

Beam again squeezed the glassy armrests. He’d only been here one minute, and he already wanted to scream. “That’s not what I asked,” he said carefully, “This is my dream, so I guess I can decide what I need and what I don’t.”

The warrior laughed again. “It’s not a dream, my boy.”

“Bullshit.”

The Vaemyn pushed away from the pillar. He walked over to Beam and resumed his previous pose, leaning in too close to Beam with his hands propped on the armrests. He pressed in closer until their faces were nearly touching. “This is no dream, Be’ahm,” he whispered, “This is your life.”

Beam retreated as far back into the throne as he could. “I suppose there’s no tunnel, either,” he said, twisting his face away, “And, damn me, probably no monk, either? I suppose this is the real world, and when I sleep I dream about the tunnels?”

“That is a most intriguing concept, Be’ahm. Do you think that’s possible? Or are you simply being contrary?”

The bastard’s grin was unrelenting. “Look, friend,” Beam said carefully, “Unless you’re going to kiss me, how about pulling back a bit?”

The warrior’s face didn’t waver. “You have quite an opinion of things, Be’ahm. I rather admire that. It reminds me so of myself.”

“I told you—”

“To stop calling you Be’ahm,” the Vaemyn said, laughing, “Yes, I know.”

“Do you have a problem with your memory?” Beam said sarcastically.

“No, Be’ahm, but I believe that you do. In fact, that would be precisely why you’re here with me. Your memory is not nearly as robust as it should be.” He laughed at that.

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Beam demanded, “You’re starting to sound like Chance. You remember him? He’s the guy in my other dream.”

“This is no dream, Be’ahm. This is a memory.”

“And so the riddles persist.”

Beam clenched his jaw and counted to ten. The Vaemyn was a monument to frustration. The monotony of this dream made his time with Chance seem like an episode in joyful meditation.

“I pose you no riddles, my boy. I only give you facts. What you make of those facts is your decision and yours alone. You may opt to learn from these memories or you may simply be vexed by them.”

“So, this is no dream,” Beam said with a forced laugh, “This is a memory. Well, maybe you’re right! Maybe this is the memory of another dream I had. A dream I had just last night, in fact!”

He tried to stand, but found he couldn’t leave the chair. It felt like he was strapped in, though his arms and legs appeared unrestrained. He tried to move again with the same results. It was some kind of paralysis.

He scowled up at the Vaemyn. “What’ve you done now?” he demanded, “Let me out of this goddamned chair!”

“Hm, I think not.”

“You son of a bitch! I swear, you’d best—”

Everything abruptly changed. The throne was glowing brilliantly around him. A pure white light flowed up through the legs, into the arms, and up the back. His skin felt on fire. He could feel his hair rising up around his head.

“What the hell is this?” he said as he struggled to get up, “Goddamn it! I just want to wake up!”

The warrior finally pulled away from him. He stood and backed a pace from the throne. For a moment, he only watched Beam. Then he turned and stepped down off the dais.

Beam noticed with some alarm that the Vaemyn appeared different now. He was wearing a suit of silvery armor with golden lace so that he simmered like rusting moonlight in reflection of the chair’s light.

“This is important, Be’ahm,” the Vaemyn said, “You must strive to listen. This is not a dream. This is a memory, your memory. I’m going to continue to tell you that until you understand.”

“This is no goddamned memory!” Beam yelled as he struggled against the chair’s ethereal restraints, “You’d best let me out of this bloody trap! I mean it, you son of a bitch!”

“The problem is the wall.”

The words struck Beam as oddly familiar. He stopped struggling. He looked at the Vaemyn and tried to make sense of what he’d heard. “Wall?” he asked, “What damned wall? What are you talking about?”

“The wall around your memories. The wall blocking you from the truth.”

“What truth?”

The armored Vaemyn now stood on the icy black floor below the dais, though Beam didn’t see him move. He was leaning onto one leg. His arms were crossed and he was watching Beam and absently stroking his smooth chin.

After a few moments, he dropped his arms and said, “Yes, that’s it. That’s it, indeed. The wall is fully in our path. We must remove that wretched wall if we are to proceed any further.”

“Wall?” Beam said, “What wall? What are you—”

The chair shifted violently beneath him. Beam’s stomach lurched with the motion.

Beam fought back a surge of panic. He twisted against the chair, tried to break free of the ghostly bonds locking him in the seat, but it was useless; he couldn’t break them.

The chair shifted again, dropping several inches into the crystal dais. Before he could scream, it stopped.

As he struggled to reclaim his breath, he looked down at the dais. He was right where he’d been all along. The chair hadn’t moved at all! It was some kind of bizarre illusion.

He looked up at the Vaemyn still standing out on the glassy black floor. He yelled at the bastard to release him, but the warrior only stood there grinning.

Then the floor dropped completely out from beneath him, and he was plummeting toward the rising sun.

∞

Beam opened his eyes. He recoiled as the sword fell toward him, catching it an instant before it dented his brow. He lowered it to his lap and looked up to find Chance standing over him. The man was dressed. He looked dry now. His silvery mail shimmered like firelight in the fading glow of the caeyl.

Beam dragged a hand across his mouth and tried to find his moxie.

“Are you all right?” Chance asked him.

Beam studied the moisture on the back of his hand. “Let me guess,” he said, “Another nightmare, compliments of my sidearm there.”

“You’re awake now,” Chance said seriously.

“Yeah? You’re certain of that, are you?”

“Yes, quite certain.”

“That’s good, because I’m starting to have a little trouble telling the difference.”

The previous night’s events rushed into his mind. He remembered his fight with the Vaemyd up in the turret that ended with their communal fall into the water. He couldn’t remember ever getting hit so hard, so fast, or with such conviction. The bitch could dance; he had to give her that.

Then he remembered the crowning blow, the one that’d practically knocked the fight out of him. He carefully probed his nose. “Is it broken?” he asked.

Chance squatted down and inspected Beam’s face. He took Beam’s chin and turned his face into the torchlight. “Not anymore,” he said.

Beam gripped the tooth loosened by the warrior and gave it a tentative wiggle. It was as tight as the rest of them. He offered up a silent prayer of relief.

“The Blood Caeyl,” Chance said, “It’s done its magic on you again.”

“Magic,” Beam said, “Don’t even—”

Before he could finish, he spied the Vaemyd sitting across the fire from him. She was awake. More than that, she was untethered and glaring at him with blood in her eyes!

He was on his knees in an instant with his blade leveled across the torch flames at her. “What the hell is that?” he yelled.

Chance pushed Beam’s blade off to the side. “She’s restrained,” he said carefully, “I lashed her arms behind her back with a length of bone I found down the tunnel a bit.”

Her face was bruised and pale. Dark rings gouged a pit beneath her eyes, one of which was swollen nearly shut. Beam took some solace in the fact that she looked nearly as bad as he did. Or, at least, as bad as he had.

Chance crossed around to her. “I gave her a drop of the elixir,” he said.

“I can see that.”

“I gave her only enough to soothe the panic. Enough to wake her, but not so much that she’d be a threat.”

Beam wasn’t convinced. “Are you good with knots, Brother? Because these stinking savages are devilish with them.”

“Her name’s Koonta’ar. She’s a kadeer, an officer in the Vaemysh—”

“I know what a kadeer is!” Beam snapped, “I’m not a bloody idiot.”

“I never meant—”

“Those goddamn knots better be tight. I’m not in the mood to kick the shit out of her again today.”

Chance laughed. “You mean like you did last night?”

Beam sent him a look. Then he made to stand up, but quickly realized he was practically naked. He pulled the blanket up around himself. “Grab my britches there, will you?”

“She won’t care. The Vaemysh have different standards of modesty than the Parhronii”

“Well, I’m not a goddamned Vaemyn, am I?”

Chance just looked at him.

“Goddamn you, Chance! Don’t you start on me already!”

∞

Beam fingered the last of his cheese as he watched Goonta or Boonta or whatever the hell the savage’s name was. She was kneeling across the fire from him, though he couldn’t fathom how she’d managed to twist herself into that position with her legs tied at the knees that way. Damned savages were nimble as monkeys.

Her failed braids slithered along the sides of her face like dirty roots groping for purchase around a rock. Beam was disappointed to see she still had all her teeth, and he knew she did because they were all standing at attention behind her sneer. She hadn’t taken her eyes off him since he woke up.

He popped the last of the mushy cheese in his mouth and gagged it down. Then he stood up. He walked around the fire, keeping his eyes locked on her, and she tracked him right back. He grabbed one of the torches and then squatted beside her. She didn’t wince or recoil as he held the flames a bit closer than was polite, but he could see in her eyes that she sure as hell wanted to.

She looked much better in the light. The bruises painting her brow and cheeks were breathtaking. The split lip was a masterful touch.

Beam glanced back at Chance and grinned. “Damn me,” he said, “Looks like I got a few good shots in last night, yeah?”

“You should’ve seen your face before the caeyl blessed you.”

Beam threw him a scowl, but got no satisfaction for it. He turned back to the Vaemyd. “Are you hungry?” he asked her.

Her answer was a cold, lethal stare.

He jabbed a finger at his mouth, repeating. “Are. You. Hungry?”

She didn’t break his gaze.

Beam shrugged and stood up. “Suit yourself, then. Either she doesn’t speak standard or she’s being stubborn.”

“She was cursing you in perfect standard last night,” Chance said as he fussed with the pack, “Do you have a problem with your memory?”

The question cut as sharply as a shaving nick. The dream warrior had asked him the same thing. Or was it the other way around?

Chance dug through the pack. “I’m going to give her another drop.”

The words slapped Beam back to the present. “Of the elixir?”

“No, Beam. Swamp water.”

“And why the hell would I allow that?” Beam asked. He couldn’t believe he even had to ask.

“Why would you let her suffer when we can stop it?”

“Because she’s the enemy, Brother. Because she’s less dangerous this way. In fact, I suggest we withhold the elixir altogether and just leave her here.”

Chance stopped digging and looked up at him. “What did you say?”

“What do you mean, what did I say? We should leave her here. Let her fend for herself. Tactically, it’s the smartest thing we could do.”

Chance studied him like he was a breath away from delivering him a good slap.

Beam threw his hands out to his side. “What?”

“I’m not withholding the elixir,” Chance said, “And I’m not leaving her here.”

Beam watched Chance rummage through the pack. “Were you there last night?” he asked him, “Did you see what the savages did to me? Or maybe you just don’t care? Bastards nearly cut my bloody finger off, and I still have the stinking cut as evidence!” He threw his hand up, but the once offended finger was now smooth as birth. He quickly hid it behind himself.

Chance pulled the vial from the pack. “I saw it,” he said without looking up.

“I’m won’t allow this, Chance.”

Chance stood up. “I didn’t beg your permission,” he said seriously, “I won’t sit idly by and watch her suffer. You of all people should understand what she’s going through.”

The anger radiating from Chance’s eyes felt as physical as a bite. It was the same look he’d worn back at the house, back at the fight with that thing in the armor. With that, Beam decided it might be best to avoid riling the man any further.

“Fine,” he surrendered, “What do we do when she’s her old self and pissed as hell?”

“We’ll take her to the next hatch. Then we’ll let her go.”

The words bounced manically through Beam’s skull. “Did you say let her go?” he said more than asked, “You ask me if I’m insane and then you propose we just let her go?”

“What would you prefer, Beam? That we kill her? Perhaps slit her throat?”

“Nothing so melodramatic! I’ve already told you. We’ll just leave her here.”

Chance took a pace toward him. His fists were knots. His eyes were portraits of murder. Beam braced himself for the worst, but then the man stopped and simply shook his head in obvious disgust. “And you call them savages,” he muttered as he turned away.

“You cut me to the quick,” Beam said as he followed the man, “You know what I’ve been through. You know what I’ve suffered at their hands. You know better than any other living soul. Yeah, I hate them and I’m not ashamed to admit it. But what about you?”

Chance stopped and turned to face him. “Me? What about me?”

“Where’s your boy, Chance?”

Chance flushed at that. “I’m too tired to play your games, Beam.”

“Survival isn’t a game, Brother.”

“Killing her in battle is one thing. It’s honorable, perhaps even reasonable. But abandoning her here to die is simple murder, plain and dirty. So let me say this clearly enough that even a heathen like you may understand it. I won’t allow it.”

Beam opened his mouth to speak, but found an empty tongue. The mage was good and pissed. Still, Beam figured he could take him even in a fair fight. Especially in his current condition. Yet, even as he considered it, he knew he was just talking shit. The sorry truth was he simply didn’t have the stomach for fighting a friend.

And there it was. There was the humiliating, mortifying, god-awful truth of it all. He was beginning to see Chance as a friend.

“Fine,” Beam said just because he felt he had to say something, “It’s your party. Just don’t come crying to me when the hangover lands.”

Chance knelt before the warrior. He bit the cork free and cupped a hand behind the Vaemyd’s head. He didn’t look back at Beam.

“But the restraints stay!” Beam added for punctuation, “And don’t look to me to cover your ass when she throws another fit.”

“This is going to help,” Chance said to the Vaemyd, “I only gave you enough before to soften the edge of your terror, but what I give you now will make you feel almost normal again.”

As Beam watched them, he felt the wind die in his sails. He felt like a fool. Chance was right. He of all people did understand what she was going through. In truth, there weren’t a handful of people in the entire world he’d wish such misery on, and none of them were here in this wretched tunnel with him now.

“If you betray my trust, I’ll turn this elixir to water,” Chance said to the waiting Vaemyd, “I’ll destroy it, so help me gods, and you’ll die down here in this black tomb, alone and terrified, and without honor. I swear it before Calina. Do you agree?”

She glared up at him with eyes that could set coal to flame. Beam had just about had his fill of her stubborn attitude. Didn’t she see how generous he was being with her, with a prisoner of war? He was just about to launch into a tirade when she offered them a barely perceptible nod.

XXIX

THE TRAILS

M

AWBY RESTED IN THE MORNING SHADE OF A FOUGH TREE.

He studied a thick root snaking its way back into the earth beside him. He probed the deep grooves of the coarse bark with his fingers. Had it really only been three days since he’d sat with Koo beneath that last great tree? Had it only been three days since he’d forced her to hear the godless news, that her brother was almost certainly a hack?

The memory felt strangely unreal, and yet it was as physical as a choke. It was like the realization of a brother’s death that hits you like a kick in the stomach before fading away to a dreamlike numbness. And now they were all gone. Pa’ana and Koo and Maeryc, all painful memories that could never be dulled, memories carrying the sentence of lifelong guilt.

He wiped his eyes and pushed the pain back out of reach. There wasn’t time for it now. Instead, he focused on dressing the gouge Maeryc left on his ribs. It was deep, but could’ve been worse. The torn flesh began just at his armpit, the cut running several inches down his ribs toward his sternum. It’d cut deep enough to expose a couple ribs. If Maeryc had been a quarter of the man he’d been a month ago, that blade would’ve severed the pipes of his heart just as surely as the sun shines. Still, it was bad enough. Even after stitching it as best he could manage, it didn’t seem to want to stop bleeding.

Koo was right about the fough tree; he’d made a salve from the sap and was dressing his wounds with its leaves. The salve numbed the burns of his face nearly on contact. Judging by the fluid weeping so profusely from his cheek, he knew it had to be bad. He thanked Calina that he could still see with both eye and oteuryn. It can always be worse.

Following Maeryc’s trail had been about as hard as following a rolling boulder. Ven had been exactly right. The hack made a straight line south by southeast through the swamp. Once clear of the swamp, he’d found both Maeryc’s and Goudt’s trails within minutes. There was so much blood, he could’ve followed the trail by scent alone. It seemed Maeryc wasn’t even trying to hide his tracks.

He slipped an arm through his sleeveless flax shirt. The pain was deep and intimate. It felt like the knife was still wedged between his ribs and twisting every time he moved. He could barely draw a solid breath. It took as much strength as he could summon just to finish pulling the shirt on.

As he waited for the pain to subside, he considered his mail shirt draped across the large root beside him. It was a stiff wad of metal, and it was going to be one hell of a fight to don it. Then he thought about pulling it back off to change the dressing later. The notion was dispiriting at best. In the end, he abandoned the entire idea. He’d simply leave the mail behind. He needed speed now more than ever.

Besides, he had no faith the armor would make any difference in his survival odds. He was within spitting distance of the Baeldonian border now. If a band of Baeldon soldiers came across him out here in the plains, he’d be a dead man, armor or not.

He braced himself against the tree and climbed his way up the bark. Then he concealed his mail beneath a blanket of leaves and rocks. Once that was done, he sheathed his sword, shouldered his pack, and took back to the trail.

He followed the tracks for most of the morning. It appeared Goudt had actually managed to catch up with the hack. His trail now followed Maeryc’s by only a hundred yards, though it appeared he just couldn’t manage to close those last few feet between them. It was clear they were both badly wounded.

A quarter mile later, the trails turned on each other. The grass was trampled and broken where Goudt had eventually closed the gap with the hack. They’d fought right here, fought seriously enough for blades to be drawn and used. Mawby touched a spot of blood and smelled his fingers. It hadn’t been more than three or four hours ago, though the signs spoke of no victor. Instead of ending there in that trampled grass, the trails simply resumed on the other side of the fight.

Mawby pressed on. They were drifting more easterly now with Maeryc still in front and Goudt trailing by no more than thirty or forty yards. Goudt’s trail was more erratic than before. It wasn’t good news. The blood back at the trampled grass had likely been exclusively his.

The urge to drop into the grass and sleep the pain away was nearly overpowering, but the voices of his dead screaming in his head wouldn’t permit it. The voices of Pa’ana, of Koonta’ar, of Ven, of all those who’d paid with their lives and all those who’d yet pay if he failed compelled him onward. He had to stop the hack. He couldn’t allow the goddamned demon to receive the Blood Caeyl, and he’d fight to prevent that dire outcome just as long as he drew breath.

∞

Beam pulled a wineskin from the pack. The lightness of it gave him pause. He shook it to confirm what his hands already knew, that it was nearly empty. There was another fuller one in supply, but it wouldn’t last long, not with three of them needing it. Once it was spent, they were back to water. It was a discouraging thought.

“Why didn’t you kill me back there?”

Beam looked across the fire at the Vaemyd. Her gaze was every bit as intense as it’d been earlier. “So we’re talking now, are we?” he said more than asked.

“Back where we fell. Back in the water. Why didn’t you just kill me? You had the opportunity and the motive. You might well have just left me there. I’d have drowned in short order and you’d have been free of me.”

Beam struggled with the question. He’d asked himself the same thing as he dragged her through the water. Now, though, as he watched her sitting there bound and bruised and impotent, he knew exactly why he didn’t kill her. Because he wasn’t supposed to. It wasn’t in the plan.

Something was different now. There had been a kind of voice speaking to him lately, a voice rising from somewhere deep in the alien, unexplored realm of his mind. It was like a distant memory, confused and vague, but compelling all the same. He knew now that all his loud talk about abandoning her to die here in the tunnels was simple bravado. He knew he’d never do it. He couldn’t do it. He wasn’t supposed to do it.

He dropped the skin back in the pack. “Well, just don’t get overly confident, sister,” he said, “I may kill you yet.” More bravado, more dancing around the truth.

“You think that frightens me?” she said back.

The light from the torch fire pulsed erratically against her chiseled features. Her eyes danced in and out of the dark hollows above her cheekbones like jumping spiders. He could see a world of resolve in that face, and there was no shortage of anger, but he saw no evidence of fear.

“No,” he said at last, “I don’t think I’m nearly man enough to scare you.”

“Then why do you waste energy making empty threats?”

“Well, I wouldn’t go getting complacent.”

“I would have advised you to kill me when you had the chance.”

“Is that a threat?”

She shrugged. “Nay, it’s no threat. We’re enemies, you and me. It’s simply a matter of policy.”

“It wasn’t our plan to take a prisoner. You were persistent.”

The light in the sword caeyl suddenly pulsed. He looked past her into the darkness and listened for the impending howl. He was quickly rewarded.

“That’s a Blood Caeyl on that sword.”

Her voice startled him. He hoped she didn’t notice. “Didn’t you hear that?” he asked her.

“I heard it.”

“We’re being tracked.”

She shrugged.

“That doesn’t worry you?”

“Why should it?”

“Why do you think?” he asked.

Again, she shrugged. “How much worse can it get? Besides, they’re nearly a mile back.”

He didn’t understand at first. Then it dawned on him. “The horns,” he said.

“What?”

“I forgot you have the earth sight.”

“Taer-cael.”

“I know what it is,” he snapped. Then he glanced back into the dark tunnel again. “A mile, you say? Both of them?”

“Both of them?” she asked.

“Right. Are they grouped together or is one ahead of the other? They sound separated, at least by a bit.”

She twisted around for look down the tunnel, an effort that looked supremely uncomfortable with her arms bound back around that lizard bone. When she looked at him again, a bemused smile had taken hold of her face.

“What are you grinning at?” Beam asked.

“Tell me you aren’t serious,” she said through a sarcastic grin, “I don’t want to think even less of you than I already do.”

“Serious about what?” Gods, she was the picture of aggravation. If he wanted games, he could talk to the mage.

“There aren’t two of them,” she said, still grinning.

“What are you talking about?”

“There are five.”

The words landed like a cramp. What was she doing? Was she trying to scare him? Did he come off that easy? “Bullshit,” he said, forcing a laugh, “You’re baiting me.”

“Am I?”

“Damn me, yes. You’re lying to rile me up.”

“You don’t seem to need much encouragement to get riled up.”

He studied her, looking for support in his belief that she was gaming him, but found nothing. In fact, he somehow knew that she was actually telling the truth. The revelation arrived from places unknown, places deeper in his psyche than he had privileges to. It was as though her thoughts were a kind of rope that he’d used to climb into her mind.

He shook the sensation away. “No,” he muttered to himself, “Impossible.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“You said impossible.”

“I was just talking to myself.”

They fell back into stiff silence.

After a bit, the warrior said, “That’s a Blood Caeyl in that sword.”

“Yeah, you said that. I had another one a few hours ago. Maybe you remember it?”

“Where’d you find it?”

“None of your business.”

“I know where you found the first caeyl. You robbed it from our dead. Where’d you find the sword? Who’d you defile to get it?”

“Are you deaf?” Beam said, “I said it’s none of your bloody business. Now, go back to sleep.”

Even after warning her off, he could feel her eyes continuing to probe him. She suspected there was more to him than she’d assumed. Again, he didn’t know how he knew it, but he did know it.

He sent her a warning look, but she just kept staring.

“What are you gaping at?” he said sharply, “Do I have something on my face?”

“Not on your face.”

“Are you incapable of getting to a point?”

“You don’t like to dance,” she said, grinning, “I get that. There’s nothing on your face, but I suspect there’s something behind your ears.”

Beam froze. It was impossible. He was too dark to be Vaemysh, and his hair was long enough to cover the stumps. So how could she know? “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said without looking at her.

“You’re a bad liar.”

Beam fingered the hilt of the sword resting in the dirt beside him. Why was his heart pounding so hard? Was he going to let a savage goad him?

“I can see through your swagger,” she said, “You’re ashamed of your dark secret.”

He threw himself up onto his knees and leveled his sword blade across the flames at her face. “Don’t think my generosity is without limits, savage,” he said seriously, “I’ll gut you like a pig if you push me far enough, I swear to the gods. You’d do well to shut up before I gag you.”

The Vaemyd didn’t respond and she didn’t break eye contact. Even as his sword tip hovered an inch from her eyes, her gaze remained relentless. If his words intimidated her, he’d never be able to tell by her expression.

He suddenly felt like the village idiot. How had he ended up like this, jabbing his sword into the face of a thoroughly bound prisoner? Even trussed so perfectly at the wrists and feet, she managed to keep the upper hand. It was enough to make him want to cut out her tongue. Unfortunately, the little voice whispering in the back of his mind forbade it.

“Is there a problem, Beam?”

The mage’s words arrived like a parole. Chance was standing back behind her at the edge of the darkness.

Beam rolled back into a sitting position. “No problem, Brother,” he said, smiling sweetly, “I was just showing her my sword.” He sheathed the blade.

Chance walked into camp and dropped his torch into the pile with the other two. He glanced at the warrior, but she only stared into the flames. Then he looked at Beam.

Beam rose to his feet and secured the belt and scabbard around his hips. “Let it go, Chance,” he said, “We were just talking.”

Chance watched him for a few seconds, but apparently decided against pursuing it. “Well,” he said, “Good news. This tunnel stays dry. I don’t see any evidence that we can’t press on. A day and a half from now we’ll be topside again.”

Beam scooped up his weapons belt and began strapping the crossbow and quiver across his chest. As he fussed with the great buckle, he watched the mage stowing the remains of their supplies. The man was looking closer to a corpse by the hour. He wished he could somehow use the caeyl to heal Chance the way it was healing him.

“I’m going to release the binds on her legs,” Chance said, “Give me a hand lifting her.”

They gripped the warrior under the arms and hoisted her to her feet. As Chance knelt down to free the ropes from her legs, Beam gave her bicep a rough squeeze. “Remember the promise you made him,” he whispered to her, “If you can’t keep your word, my knife will keep it for you.”

As he released her, he noticed the tattoo on her arm. It was a tree with a sunburst in the crown. In the middle of the sun was an eye. It was exactly like the one on the tomb where he’d found the first caeyl. The entire image. It was identical.

He backed away from her. It’s impossible. A coincidence, nothing more. Ignore it.

Chance stood with the rope dripping from his hands. “I fully share Beam’s sentiment,” he said to her, “Should you attempt violence toward either of us, I’ll destroy the elixir. I know you have no fear of death. I can see that in your eyes. But the notion of dying down here in the throes of terror holds a greater influence than even your valor. And such a death will serve your people no honor.”

“I’m no more afraid of you than him,” she said back.

Chance looked up at the head of his staff. He’d wrapped his caeyl in a spare white shirt to dull the light, but the clay vial containing the elixir dangled from a rawhide cord immediately below it. He waved a hand toward it. The flask began to dance and clack against the staff.

“As you can see,” he said to her, “I can destroy the vial with a simple command. I’ve no need to be near it. We have no plans for you. We have neither the intent nor desire to keep you prisoner. We’ll release you at the next hatch, but only if you cooperate. Do you understand?”

The warrior stared back in silence.

Beam moved to give her bare arm another warning squeeze, but the sight of the tattoo stopped him. The arm was solid muscle anyway; he doubted she’d even feel it. Instead, he turned to Chance and said, “She understands. The question is will she comply?”

She said something to Chance in Vaemysh, and then sent a punctuating glare at Beam.

“He’s confused,” Chance told her, “But on my word, he’s more smoke than fire.”

Beam flinched at that. “What the hell did you just say?”

“Why would you let me go?” the Vaemyd asked Chance while staring at Beam.

“Because you’re not our enemy,” Chance said, “Our adversary, perhaps. Not our enemy.”

“Maybe not your enemy,” Beam said with a laugh.

“Then who is your enemy?” she asked Chance.

Beam saw the mage’s face flush as he considered the question.

“My enemy is the same as yours,” Chance said carefully, “My enemy is Prae.”

XXX

THE BAELDON

J

HOM TOOK A DEEP SLUG OF HIS COFFEE.

It was hot and thick as mud, exactly as he liked it. He put the tin mug down on the plank, graffiti-scarred table and leaned back in his chair. The early morning sunlight swept over his hand and mug. Their conjoined shadows spilled across a spent plate of eggs and a dejected looking fork.

He ripped off a bit of bread and swiped up the last of the greasy yolk. As he chewed, he gazed out the tall, paned window standing watch over his table. Steam simmered from the rolling meadow beyond the uneven glass as the morning sun enthusiastically burned away the dew. It promised to be a glorious day, far too glorious for thoughts of war with Parhron.

He dragged a napkin through his short-cropped beard and dropped it on the plate. A woman sauntered up to the table, set down a large, fire-darkened metal coffee pot, and began clearing his dishes. As she worked, she flashed him a smile that spread the full breadth of her face. Jhom felt the heat boil through his loins, and he immediately cursed himself for it. He was such an easy mark.

Then again, why wouldn’t her attention enthrall him? She was a substantial woman even by Baeldonian standards, with arms like tree limbs and an ass like a mine car. He wanted her as much as he wanted to breathe. As she brushed the table crumbs onto the plate, her widely spaced brown eyes found his. She flashed him another crippling smile.

“Would you like me to top off that coffee, Jhom?”

“Thank-you, Soontra,” he hoped he said, “If it’s not an inconvenience.”

“Well, the pot’s right here,” she said, as she filled his mug, “Don’t know how much more convenient I can make it. Give me a yell if you need anything else, you hear?” She threw him a wink as she turned away.

He admired her legs as she sauntered away from him. He loved the way the muscles rippled along those thick, strapping calves. Why in the nine had this woman affected him so? He’d never been one to seek the company of females, other than to satisfy the obvious needs with a flip of coin, of course, and he’d especially never seen himself settling down and breeding. Yet, here he was. For the first time in his long life, he was actually smitten. And it terrified him

He scratched the stubbly hair behind his head and wondered for the thousandth time if he’d ever work up the nerve to ask her to marry him? For the thousandth time, he received precisely the same answer. Sure, just as soon as he was ready to abandon the mercenary life and finally settle down. Translation: Probably never.

He sighed and parked his chin in his hand as he leaned closer to the window. He rubbed a hole through the grease on the wavy glass. The Iron Mountains rose up in the distance, dark and imposing even in the morning light. He could see the veil of smoke where Barcuun barricaded itself into its oppressive cliffs twenty miles distant, and he imagined the chaos that must be gripping the city as war loomed with Parhron.

As he watched the world, he noticed someone out on the road. They looked to be running. He leaned closer and cleared more grease from the glass. Though still a ways off, it looked like a soldier. It was damned early for someone to be running along the Easthigh Road. They were coming toward the inn.

He sat back in his chair and took another drink of his coffee. Soontra was flitting through the heavy wooden tables and booths cluttering the inn, filling coffee mugs, clearing plates, and swinging her feminine wares. He watched her as she sauntered past the massive fieldstone fireplace. The roaring flames behind her flashed the image of her thighs through her skirt.

He grabbed his head and pushed his mind away from such dangerous thoughts. He had to make a decision before he became just another goddamned ‘regular’. He needed to make his final decision and make his move. He was nearly sixty years old. If he were ever going to settle down and start making offspring, he’d best do it before middle age walked past him.

Sighing, he looked out the window again. The runner was nearly at the inn. He could now see with certainty that it was a soldier. More than that, it was a Baeldonian runner, a cross between a messenger and scout. As he watched the solitary figure dutifully making its way closer, he wondered if it was bringing a bad cloud with it, mayhaps news of a turn in the winds of war with Parhron.

Minutes later, the inn’s door flew open on sour screech of hinges. Brilliant morning sunlight exploded through the dark room. The silhouette standing in the blaze of the door didn’t enter further.

“Close the goddamned door!” someone yelled out, “By Calina’s tits, were you born in a field?”

“Sorry,” the intruder said as he awkwardly closed the massive door. The huge iron latch defied his attempts to secure it. The door creaked back open.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” someone else shouted, “You deaf or stupid? Close the door already!”

“Sorry,” the man said again, as he fumbled with the hardware, “Think I got it now. Yea, there it is.” The door finally submitted and the latch clanked into place.

“It’s about goddamned time!” a ruddy old farmer said as he turned back to his meal, “Bloody grunts! No smarter than cattle, as Gimbletout’s my witness.”

The soldier stowed his helmet under an arm. Dark spots of sweat trailed him across the dusty planks as he walked through the room inspecting each of the patrons he passed. When those inexperienced eyes finally landed on Jhom, a look of recognition blew into his face.

“Damn,” Jhom whispered to himself, “This can’t be good.”

The soldier stopped before his table, still a little winded from his run. He was a young one, not more than twenty-five years. “Ghanter Jhom’ne Fenta?” he said. He threw up a salute like it was an afterthought.

Jhom leaned back in his chair and studied the boy. “You can drop the ‘ghanter’,” he said, “I’m no soldier, not anymore.”

The boy’s mouth moved to speak, but no sound came out. Regrouping, he said, “Uh…but you are Ghant’r Fenta?”

The boy wore his reddish hair cropped short and tight in traditional military style, but braided his long beard in a manner indicative of a runner. He also wore a runner’s narrow, black-steel breastplate, knee-length black britches, and queerly jointed greaves covering thin, black leather shoes laced tight to his feet and calves. His footwear was more akin to the heelless, nearly soleless desert boots worn by the savages than standard military issued boots. A short, narrow sword hanged against his thigh from an equally narrow belt. Considering how anemic their armor appeared, Jhom had always wondered why the runners bothered wearing any at all.

“Does your mother know you’re here, boy?” he asked the grunt.

The soldier flinched at that. “Sir?”

“You’re barely old enough to wipe your own ass.”

“Sir, with all due—”

“How’d a runt like you manage to get into the army to begin with?”

The soldier again faltered. “Runt? That’s—”

“Are you deaf as well as short? Are there no height requirements in His Majesty’s modern army?”

The soldier’s brow shot up. “Uh…well, I’m eight foot one, sir. I’m as—”

“You’re not a hair over eight, boy.”

The soldier licked his lips and looked nervously about the dark inn. When his eyes returned to Jhom, he said, “With all due respect, sir, I—”

“What’s your business with me?”

The runner stiffened formally. “Ghant’r Fenta,” he began like he was reciting a script, “It’s—”

“I told you not to call me that.”

“Yea, sir…I mean, of course. I just—”

“Well, which of Khe’naeg’s balls are you waiting for? Get on with it already!”

“Ghant’r Fenta. The—”

Jhom slammed the table hard enough to bounce his mug. “Sit down, for gods’ sakes!” he shouted, “You’re giving me the jitters standing there like you’re gonna faint or something!”

“Yea, sir!” The boy set the helmet on the table and dropped into the proffered seat.

Jhom leaned back in his chair and drummed the table with his fingers as he studied the soldier sitting across from him.

“Sir,” the young soldier said, “I’m instruc—”

“Soontra! Bring this pup some milk before he wets himself.”

The soldier was as nervous as a worm on a fishing trip. Jhom knew he had good reason to be.

“Well, soldier,” Jhom demanded, “What is it?”

“I have a message from Gran’ghant’r Bender.”

“I might’ve known. What’s that bastard want now?”

The boy’s eyes swelled.

Jhom lifted his coffee. “Relax, son. I’d bet a gold trekla he can’t hear us from here.”

The soldier nodded unconvincingly. “Uh…there’s news, sir,” he said quickly, “From the caeyl mage down in Na te’Yed.”

Jhom’s mug froze before his lips. He wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “What did you say?”

“The Water Caeyl Mage, sir. We’ve word from one of his sentries.”

The mug slid back to the table.

Soontra placed a large cup of yellow milk before the soldier. The soldier drew a quick gulp of it and swiped a hand across his mouth. “One of the mage’s sentries landed in town,” he said eagerly, “It’s got some message from the mage, but won’t give it to nobody but you.”

“A sentry?”

“Yea! And it won’t talk to nobody but you, sir.”

“Has Bender tried talking to it?”

“Of course. Not that it’s done him no good, you know. The sentry says the message is only for your ears. It’s got old Bender blowing smoke out his—”

“Easy there, boy! Just because I’m retired doesn’t mean Bender and I aren’t still pals.”

“Sorry, sir. I didn’t mean no—”

“Forget it!”

As Jhom stared at the young Baeldon, he thought about the fact that Bender sent a runner to get him. Runners were scouts, but were used for stealth more than speed. Bender didn’t send a rider, he sent a runner. Over twenty miles. Not only that, but he’d sent a new recruit; this boy was green as the grass. It meant Bender was buying time, hoping to get something from the sentry before Jhom could make it back to the Ministry.

“How long you been a runner, boy?” Jhom asked.

“Sir?”

“Never mind.”

Jhom stood up, sending the great chair skidding back across the oak floor. He flipped a large metal coin down on the table. The coin bounced once, and then hummed for several seconds before clattering to a stop.

“Where did the sentry land?” he asked the boy.

The soldier nearly knocked his chair over scrambling to his feet. Better than a half foot over nine feet, Jhom was a solid head taller than the boy. “Right in the military square,” the boy said, “In front of the war building.”

Jhom didn’t wait for him. He grabbed his leather hat from the table and stomped for the door. As he pulled the door open, he paused. This time, no one complained about the light.

He looked down at his hat, at its wide brim that was turned up slightly at the sides, at the long silver feather tucked into the blue band, and he struggled against what he wanted to say. Finally, he pulled the hat up on his head and adjusted its angle to just a bit of a cock, and then turned back into the room.

Soontra was leaning back against the grand old bar, wiping her ample hands in her apron, and sending him a look even an old bachelor could interpret without help.

“I might be gone a while,” he called to her, “Any sign of Parhronii soldiers and you high-tail it for Barcuun, you hear?”

She smiled. “I hear you, Jhom.”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Yea, I know you will, Jhom. Gods’ speed.”

“Well, ain’t that just the sweetest thing?” a ruddy-faced old farmer said loudly, “Now will you shut the goddamned door already?” Laughter percolated through the other patrons.

Jhom barely heard it. His attention was welded to Soontra. He knew by her look that she’d be waiting when he returned, and the knowledge gave him strength. Could be it was time to make that proposal after all.

Minutes later, he was riding toward Barcuun, driving his huge warhorse forward at a frantic pace while his mind fended off a storm of questions. Why would Chance send him a message? And why land it before the war ministry? Chance knew damned well he was no longer in the military, despite the fact they still called him Ghant’r and saluted him like the idiots most soldiers were. He was an advisor now, a soldier of fortune at best.

Could be Chance was sending word about the impending war between Baeldonia and Parhron, though even as he considered it, he knew it was bullshit. Chance would never get involved in their fight, not unless the security of the Nolands or Na te’Yed was somehow at risk.

Still, mayhaps he was wrong in that angle of thought. Mayhaps Chance was concerned. Nothing good could come when two member countries of the Allied Council waged war on each other. In their nearly thousand-year alliance, the two countries had never had a conflict of any kind. Now three Baeldon ambassadors were dead, accused of being assassins, spies, and saboteurs. The stability of the entire region could go to hell if these two old friends went to war. It would risk the collapse of the Alliance.

Could be it wasn’t such a stretch after all. Could be Chance actually was trying to intervene.

∞

A mile into Slagstep Canyon, Jhom passed the first gate into Barcuun, a wall of stonework spanning the three hundred foot width of the steep gorge. Referred to as the Greeting Gate, it was a sixty foot high wall of granite fortification with four separate arched entrances, each barricaded by wooden gates large enough to allow the greatest machines of war to pass through, including the massive cannons the Baeldons were famous for. Hundreds of soldiers and civilians occupied the grounds before the gate. They were crowded in so tight, he could’ve walked clear across the canyon width just using heads as stepping stones. He eventually urged his warhorse through the throng toward the military entrance, where he was quickly identified and waved through the gates.

The inner staging grounds were even more congested with travelers. It took him better than an hour to reach the second gates, a ride that normally would’ve seemed long at twenty minutes. The canyon walls rising on either side of the gates were nearly a half-mile high and carved with the faces of thousands of Baeldons, each one twenty foot tall. These loyal faces covered the cliff walls from the base of the mountain to the skyline high above. They were lined chin to brow and cheek to cheek for the ten-mile length of the cities gates. They were a memorial to those who’d fallen in the Fifty Year War two centuries before, and they never failed to humble him when he rode beneath them.

As he wallowed through the interminable crowd, he watched dozens of squads of young soldiers march past in the other direction. They were all in their field armor, all armed with axes, bows, and pikes, and followed by warhorses towing their machines of war. They were bound for points northeast near their border with Parhron, and the sight of them only further decayed his mood. This war was an ideological impossibility, a hell-bent dive into a fight that seemed about as real as an opium-induced dream. The Parhronii claimed three Baeldonian diplomats had assassinated an entourage of their ministers during the winter Festival of Calina in Parhron City several months earlier. Jhom knew this to be a ridiculous claim, an act that had no more chance of happening in this mortal world than a frog growing wings.

The notion of the Baeldons sinking to an act as despicable as assassination was preposterous; assassination was culturally repugnant to his people, and particularly when said assassination was staged against their closest ally. And the crown on the absurdity of the entire affair was the fact that the Baeldonian diplomats committed suicide to avoid capture. Suicide was essentially unheard of among his kind, making the accusation not only a cultural impossibility, but a religious impossibility as well.

There were many among his peers who believed there was more to this unbelievable war than met the eye, that the true roots of the incident were driven by forces somewhere outside their sphere of influence, forces with motivations known only to themselves. Unfortunately, no evidence to support that supposition had arisen to date.

At the third gates, the final barricade before the city itself, the passage narrowed to a width of barely a hundred yards. Still, this gate was the largest of the three, towering a thousand feet above the crowd, a blockade so impenetrable that even the darkest agents of the gods would struggle to breech it. It was a formidable wall of granite blocks, iron girders, and wood beams built so thick, the passages through it were virtual tunnels. Hundreds of archers, grenadiers, and cannons were posted in the crenellations above the massive gates and in outcoves carved into the cliff face higher up.

Jhom was surprised to see that, despite the impending war, the place still teamed with civilian activity. Lines of wagons heaped with produce and crates of fowl awaited inspection. Merchants peddled their food and drink to travelers awaiting approval to enter. Shepherds and wranglers drove herds of sheep, cows, and horses into the city proper. Soldiers directed the traffic, yelling and signaling to each other above the cacophony of the crowd.

As Jhom directed his horse toward the smaller military and attaché entrance at the northwestern corner, he passed a soldier arguing with a merchant driving a wagon of cured meats into the city. The soldier wore a tight, skullish metal helmet covered with pocks and dings, and was shirtless, wearing only heavy leather pauldrons on his shoulders and a back full of hair. He was sweating profusely in the heat of the full sun.

Jhom gave the soldier a playful kick in the shoulder leather. “Yo, there, soldier!” he yelled, “Stop harassing that poor farmer. You ought to pick on someone your own size.”

The soldier wheeled on Jhom with his truncheon ready, yelling, “You son of a bitch! Who do you think—”

“Oh, don’t hurt me, sir,” Jhom said as seriously as he could manage, “I’m a hell of a lot more delicate than I look.”

“Jhom!” the soldier said, slapping Jhom’s thigh, “You son of a bitch! How the devil are you?”

“I’m good, Gart. How’s life in the trenches?”

Gart dragged his helmet off and swiped the sweat back from his short gray hair with a hand dressed in a fingerless glove. “How does it look?” he asked, waving his truncheon at the dense crowd, “I’m working mob control. Not exactly the level of adventure I signed on for.”

“Yea, I imagine that’s truth. Thinking I quit the service just in time.”

“Damned right, you did. There’s more excitement in blacksmithing. So, what brings you to town?”

“Need to call in a favor. I’ve got urgent business in the city and no time to wait.” He nodded at the line of civilians mobbing the gates.

“Right. The mage’s sentry.”

Jhom snorted and shook his head. He should have expected that. “Word travels fast,” he said.

“Faster when war’s brewing. We’ve been expecting you.”

Gart looked back toward the gates. He waved his truncheon over the crowd and yelled at a soldier standing on a catwalk immediately above the military door. “Yeph! Yeph! Over here!”

The soldier above the gate quickly found Gart’s flailing arms and signaled back.

Gart cupped his mouth and yelled, “Let this old man pass before he starts crying, will you?”

The other waved back his acknowledgement.

“Thanks, Gart,” Jhom said, leaning forward, and slapping the soldier’s helmet.

Gart’s grin suddenly melted away, replaced by something far more sober. He leaned into Jhom’s horse and said up to him, “We’re all hoping that mage of yours brings better news than our diplomats did.”

“As do I,” Jhom said, “You keep your backside covered, Gart. I don’t like the smell of things. A farmer can plant a knife as deep as a soldier can in a crowd like this.”

Minutes later, he passed through the gate’s tunnel and into Faen Square.

This was the beating heart of Barcuun. The square was an octagonal open space covering nearly twenty-five square miles. The city proper rose up around the square into the encircling mountains like a giant amphitheater, one tier of life after another rolling ever skyward.

Shops and tradesmen, blacksmith and tinkers occupied the ground level tier that fed directly into the square. Governmental offices followed on the next two levels above it. Beyond that, homes stepped skyward on several hundred subsequent terraces. The mountain city stopped only an angel’s breath this side of the clouds. It was the largest and oldest city in the three nations.

Faen Square was a forest of colorful tents and wagons, from the small to the expansive, each bearing the standard of its owner merchant. Tens of thousands of people rushed about, shopping and doing business, or just making passage through the city. The air was thick with the chorus of the crowd and the heady smells of herbs and fruits, sweat and piss.

Jhom pressed forward through the mob at a maddening crawl. The people and carts parted only begrudgingly as he made his way to the rearmost wall of the square where the armed services were housed. Eventually he came to the solid stone wall segregating the military grounds from the civilian. Bored looking soldiers stood guard at the crenellations thirty feet above him, their purpose not so much to guard the wall as to police the crowd below it. A soldier in one of the crenellations called out to him, and then waved him through a narrow gate. Jhom had no idea who the man was, but that was usually the case. He was well known in the circles of the military here in his home city. It wasn’t a blessing.

The world on the military side of the wall wasn’t so much different from the civilian side. More orderly, mayhaps. Less colorful, definitely. He passed long rows of precisely placed tents in the drab, military shades of brown, gray, and dirty green. Scores of soldiers milled around the tents, putting pots atop fires, cleaning utensils and arms, and striking or setting camp depending on that particular company. The activity was hurried, but disciplined, the normally dull routines now charged with the excitement of impending war.

Nearly an hour later, he approached the offices of the Gran’ghanters, the Baeldonian military’s warlords. A long line of structures grew out from the mountain city at ground level. These wooden facades were extensions of the catacomb of stone rooms within, rooms that burrowed deep into the mountain. A red banner with a golden star rising behind a standing blue fist waved from a tall pole before these rooms. Gathered beneath the flag was a boiling mob of soldiers. If pressed to guess, he’d have counted the crowd at no less than five hundred grunts, runners, armsmen, gunners, cavalry soldiers, and marines.

He’d only just reached the rear of the mob when someone yelled out, “He’s here!”

Heads and pointing fingers rolled toward him in a wave. Hands without faces hailed from the crowd. A short soldier in sloppy fitting field armor seized the bridle of his mount. The crowd swelled in around them like a tide of flesh. Farnot, his warhorse, snorted and pulled back, startled by the sudden change in the motion of the crowd.

Jhom quickly climbed down and rubbed reassuringly at her neck as he cooed her into calm. He handed her off to the short soldier, instructing him over the crowd, “See she’s brushed down and fed!”

The soldier acknowledged him with a sloppy salute. Jhom watched in silence as a tide of faces and petting hands swallowed his horse.

“What nature of trouble’s been brought to our house in your name this time?” a deep voice bellowed behind him,

Jhom turned toward the voice. A Baeldon with a heavy beard and a head full of long blonde, maniacally twisting hair moved confidently toward him through the yielding mob. A half head shorter than Jhom, he wore a full suit of steel, battlefield-grade platemail that clacked ceremoniously as he marched closer. A pair of life-sized silver hands curled up over his shoulders exactly as if someone were grabbing him from behind. These were the epaulets of Gran’ghanter, the position of highest command in His Majesty’s army.

“Ghant’r Jhom Fenta,” the man said as he stopped before him.

“You can drop the rank, Bender,” Jhom said, offering his hand, “It’s just Master Jhom Fenta to you now, yea?”

The blonde soldier scowled at the proffered hand, but made no attempt to take it. “Still firm on your denouncement of rank, eh Jhom?”

“Still firm, Bender. However, you’d be more than welcome to purchase my services, if it pleases.”

“Am I, now?” Bender said, “Well, what’s the harm? You’ll probably work for the grub and shelter.”

He finally accepted the hand. Metal clinked sharply as Jhom’s brass wristguard struck the Gran’ghanter’s armored forearm.

“Let’s get on with it,” Jhom said. He wasn’t in the mood to parley.

Bender cupped the back of Jhom’s neck and roughly pulled him closer. “Word has it they’ll offer you a post as Fen’ghanter if you reinstate. Not bad, eh?”

Jhom removed the hand from his neck and pushed Bender out to arm’s length. “Bender,” he said firmly, “Even a dog stops humping your leg if it’s kicked enough. When you going to stop asking? I’ve had a belly full of the military these past forty-five years and you goddamned well know it.”

“Well, I have to try, don’t I?”

“Do you?” Jhom said as he scouted the crowd, “Forget it. Let’s stop stoking the fire and start hammering the iron. Where’s the sentry?”

“You always take the short way around the bar, don’t you?” Bender said, scowling sincerely, “Never met a soul so averse to enjoying a moment. All right then, Jhom. The cursed thing’s over here.”

Bender ushered Jhom forward as his aides pushed a path through the mob. “I don’t know what tricks that mage friend of yours is up to,” he said over the discord of the crowd, “But there’s little room for his humor around here, not with the Parhronii coming at us.”

They stopped before a coarse brown hemp tent with the traditional pointed peak of a battlefield courier’s lodge. It was only barely cordoned off from the crowd. Despite the effort of Bender’s soldiers and their flimsy rope, the mob pushed in around it like a flood courting a dam. The soldiers shoved a passage forward through the crowd without the inefficiency of courtesy.

Jhom stopped just shy of the flap. It was pulled closed and cinched tight as an omen. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go in. He had a feeling the message waiting on the other side of that canvas was going to deliver them a new set of goals.

“Bastard gargoyle landed right in the middle of the road,” Bender said, “Damned thing wouldn’t budge. Had to drape a tent around it to keep the excitement down. Might be your mage friend doesn’t know you’ve ended your tenure with us, eh?”

“Chance wouldn’t send the sentry without good cause,” Jhom said, “And you damned well know it. He’s no fool.”

“Funny, that’s exactly what His Majesty said just this morning. I didn’t agree with him either.”

Jhom ignored the remark.

“He won’t be too popular in these circles if he tries to stick his nose in the war,” Bender pressed.

“Enough already!” Jhom said, slapping the tent flap, “For the love of Calina, let’s just see what the damned thing has to say. You can throw a tantrum afterward.”

An aide-de-camp moved ahead of them and began efficiently unlacing the flap.

“Take a look at these faces,” Bender said, nodding at the crowd pressing in on the insubstantial rope barrier, “There’s plenty of Baeldons who still hold him in low regard for his stand on the savages. He never should’ve argued the Allied Council in favor of loosening restrictions on the animals. So if he’s come to parley for peace with Parhron, he’s not going to find a lot of friends in his corner.”

Jhom had heard enough. As the aide pulled open the tent flap, he pushed past Bender and ducked inside.

The room was dark, lit only vaguely by the ominous blue glow of the heavy beast’s great eyes.

“Damned thing’s been as obstinate as the mage who sent it,” Bender said behind him, “Says it speaks for your ears only. Apparently, your friend isn’t familiar with the concept of ‘chain of command’.”

Jhom slapped the sentry’s wide brow. The creature was an impressive piece of work. Even squatting, it was as tall as he was, and that didn’t count the wings.

“Sentry,” he said carefully, “You have a message for me?”

The blue light in the huge orbs intensified until the room was flooded with it. The mantis-like head blurred as it rose toward Jhom. “I bring you a message from Lord Chance Gnoman, sir.”

Bender snorted derisively, “So, it’s Lord Chance now, is it?”

Jhom ignored him. “Sentry, I am Jhom’ne Fenta. Give me Chance’s message.”

The blue light in the beast’s eyes swelled even brighter, and then washed across the wide, flat face like water overflowing a bowl. The light was thick, nearly tangible. It swirled through the stone like indigo stirred into gray paint until an image slowly evolved. In a matter of seconds, it formed a face in the matrix of the rock. It appeared like a swimmer looking up at him from just beneath the surface of the water. Though hazy and distorted, the face looking out from the stone between the great eyes was undeniably Chance.

"War is imminent from Prae and the Vaemyn to the south,” the blurred face said in Chance’s familiar voice, “They’ve invaded the southern perimeter of Na te’Yed. Immediate military intervention is imperative. We’re in the tunnels beneath the Swamp of Voices, but the tunnels are flooded at Sanctuary North. We’ll retreat to the southern fork and begin heading eastward again from there. I’m leaving this sentry at your disposal with instructions to answer to you only. I expect an energy level of one month’s active use.”

The face then submerged back into the stone, the blue light washed away, and the creature melded once more into a solid state. The room faded to shadows.

The aides standing behind them began whispering excitedly, but Bender silenced them with a look. “What is that supposed to mean?” he asked Jhom, “And what does he mean by we? We are in the tunnels. Who’re we?”

Jhom only half heard him. His mind was tumbling through the abyss opened by Chance’s message. His friend was in danger. Why else would he be in those miserable tunnels? But who was he running from? And why?

“This is a sorry time for a nap, Jhom. Who the hell does it mean by we?”

Jhom’s thoughts parted at the words. He looked over at Bender, whose face was lightly bathed in blue by the sentry’s still dimly glowing eyes. “I imagine it means him and the boy,” he said at last.

“Boy?” Bender asked, “What goddamned boy?”

“His apprentice,” Jhom said, “Luren.”

“He has an apprentice?” Bender said, laughing.

Jhom’s irritation surged. “You find that humorous?”

“Is Hob’te a rancorous god?” Bender said sarcastically, “Yea, I’d say I find it humorous. All this fanfare for a message that’s obvious bullshit.”

“Bullshit?”

“Hell, yea! Absolute bullshit! Prae wouldn’t dare. Besides, the Vaemyn would no more start an invasion than eat a steak. It’d mean suicide for them.”

Jhom just looked at him. He couldn’t tell if the old bastard was simply baiting him or if he was serious. It would be perfectly in character for him to do either.

“Did you hear the same message I did, Bender?” he said at last.

Bender reached out to the sentry’s head and rolled his thumbnail against the space between its lightly glowing eyes. When he pulled it back, there was a deep groove in the stone.

“You see?” he said, tapping the scar, “The stone’s gone soft.”

“That doesn’t mean—”

“Oh, kiss me a whore!” Bender yelled, “It means everything!”

Outside the tent, the crowd fell quiet. It only lasted a few heartbeats before rising in more excitement than before.

Bender drew a hand across his mouth. “We all know the caeyl energy is dying faster than summer snow off the mountain,” he said, more carefully now, “The sentry’s charge is weak. The message is questionable at best. I’ve got a war brewing with Parhron. I can’t—”

“The sentries aren’t prone to dispersing false information, Bender.”

“Jhom, we’ve been watching the borders for two centuries, and in all that time, the savages have never crossed them. They’ve never even danced provocatively at the edge!”

“The Allies abandoned the patrols a year ago,” Jhom growled back, “And if I recall correctly, you argued in favor of it. Mayhaps Prae saw an opportunity and took advantage of it. That being the—”

“Prae’s a madman!” Bender said too loudly. He winced and glanced back at the closed tent flap. Then he turned back to Jhom and said more cautiously, “He’s a madman, barely capable of wiping his own ass.”

“The sentry says the message was sent from the tunnels beneath the swamp,” Jhom said, “That means Chance was on his way here, to Barcuun. He’d only resort to the tunnels if it weren’t safe to travel on land.”

Bender studied the dirt for a moment. Then he turned to the sentry and said, “Sentry, where the devil did Chance go after he gave you these orders?”

The gargoyle remained solid stone.

“Goddamn you!” Bender shouted at it, “Answer me!”

The crowd outside again fell quiet.

Bender again glanced at the tent’s closed flap, then up at Jhom. “Foul creature’s been a pox on my patience all night.”

“All night,” Jhom said. It confirmed his suspicions.

Bender didn’t look at him.

“That’s why you sent a runner. You were stalling for time. Goddamn, you are one predictable son of a bitch, Bender.”

“Oh, stop crying! This is a time of war. It was a need to know situation. You know how this works.”

Jhom didn’t dare look at him. He could feel his pulse ticking behind his eyes. That was never a good sign. He’d suffered a delicate temper his entire life, and that sensation, that ticking behind his eyes, was like a countdown to cannon fire. Instead of engaging, he steadied himself and returned to the sentry. “Sentry, what other creatures were at the hatch?”

The sentry’s eyes flamed as it blurred into animation. “There were Vaemyn warriors, sir,” it grated.

“The devil, too!” Bender snapped, “I don’t believe it.”

“Then you’re a bigger fool than everyone already thinks!” Jhom said without looking at him, “Now show some sense. I’m going to send the damn thing south to scout the border at Na te’Yed and Farswept Green. If the savages are down there as proof to words, you sure as hell well better know about it sooner than later.”

Bender snorted at that. “Damned piece of rock barely has the energy to speak. How the hell can I depend on it for surveillance?”

“You can’t. Not completely. You’ll have to send runners out as well.”

“Runners?” Bender said, “Have you gone daft? If you think I’m going to spare my scouts—”

“You’re willing to risk it, then?”

“What?”

“You’re willing to risk the lives of Baeldonian civilians on your conviction the sentry’s words aren’t true? That Chance’s words aren’t true?”

Bender’s mouth opened, but no words came out.

“What if it is true?” Jhom continued, “What if the Vaemyn have allied with Prae? Remember your history, Bender. Think!”

“Tell me you’re not implying demons?” Bender snarled back, “For the gods’ sakes, Jhom, do you know what year this is? Besides, it’s a moot argument. It’ll tax our resources too far. We need to wait until more reserves arrive.”

“So, you’re saying you’d investigate a possible invasion if the timing was a wee more convenient?”

Bender just looked at him, though Jhom knew he’d hit his target.

“Well?” he pressed the Gran’ghanter, “It’s your call, Bender.”

“All right, all right!” Bender pushed a hand back across his rebellious yellow hair. “You’re right. Goddamned inconvenient a time as it is, I’ll send the bloody runners.”

This time, Jhom laughed. “Hm, could be you are trainable.”

“Go to the Wyr.

“Nay, I’ve resigned my post. I’m clean out of hell now.”

Bender ignored the remark. “I reckon that all things being equal, we have to assume the worst.”

“Could be you’re smarter than you look,” Jhom said, “Then again, you’d almost have to be.”

Bender threw a thick finger into his face. “But Goddamn you, Jhom! You owe me for this, you son of a bitch!”

“I owe you? That’s rich.”

“Yea, it’s rich, all right,” Bender said, “It’s the rich truth. I’m short on scouts, so you’re going to lead the exploratory party south for me.”

“I’m not one of your grunts.”

“Your friend brought this pox on us, which marries you to his responsibility.”

“We both know the truth,” Jhom said, “Resources that should’ve been watching the Vaemyn were instead sent to spy in the Nolands. Truth is you didn’t give a shimlin’s damn about the Vaemyn, you just wanted to keep your eyes on Lucifeus Fark and his brother because there’s more gold in it.”

“You can kiss my ass for that, Jhom.”

Jhom stared down at the shadowed face of the Gran’ghanter. There was no need to reply. He had him now. He’d pushed the boulder of doubt over the edge and now all he had to do was watch it roll.

“Khe’naeg’s balls!” Bender said right on cue, “You are one loud-mouthed, pushy son of a bitch! Fine! We’ve called up twenty-seven thousand reserve troops from the nearest parts of the empire. I’ll give you a squad of runners. I can spare two hundred cavalry to send south to Graewind Castle, but not a body more. If the bastards are coming, they’ll have to take that castle first.” Sunlight fractured the room as he pulled open the tent flap and yelled, “Sawta!”

A soldier slid to a stop in the gravel before the door like he’d been waiting with bated breath for the command. “Yea, sir!”

“What’s the status on the reserves?” Bender said.

Sawta shrugged. “We won’t have the bulk of the troops here before next week, sir. Most are coming from outlying provinces that don’t even know about the war yet.”

“I want two hundred reserve cavalry troops readied here in the northwest market field by nightfall. Clear all vendors from the pavilion and cordon them off to the north section of the square to make room for more tents. And I want my staff assembled in the war room in fifteen minutes.”

“But, sir,” the aide said too quickly, “I don’t know that we can clear all the vendors by nightfall. I don’t see how…I mean, there’s a thousand—”

“It’ll be your public whipping they’ll be clearing for if you don’t! And prepare forty runners. I need to send messages to the southern outliers as well as do a little reconnoiter south of here. There appear to be a few rumors I need to quell.” He sent a scowl up at Jhom.

“Yea, sir! Right away!” The soldier saluted and then dove into the crowd.

Bender dropped the flap. The room plunged into darkness. He turned back to Jhom and jabbed another finger in his face, growling, “Now you listen here. I need you, damn it. I want you to rejoin.”

“Sentry,” Jhom said without taking his eyes from Bender.

The room shone blue. “Yes, Lord Jhom’ne Fenta.”

“Sentry, I place your services at Gran’ghanter Bender’s disposal. He’s the homely bastard with the beady eyes and sloping forehead standing here before you. Despite his sorry appearance, he’s not as stupid as you’d guess at first pass.”

Bender’s face flashed purple in the sentry’s light. “A regular jester, you are, Jhom.”

Despite his best efforts to the contrary, Jhom grinned. “I want you to answer to his needs as he dictates them. You’re to follow his instructions exclusively. Do you understand?”

The sentry acknowledged the order.

“That doesn’t change a thing,” Bender said, “I’m still ordering you to join up, goddamn you!”

“You can order yourself taller for all the good it’ll do,” Jhom said, “I’m going to find Chance. He’s more valuable than a hundred of me. When he’s safe, I’ll place myself at your disposal. I give you my word. I’ll re-enlist.”

Bender drew a deep breath and shook his head. “Fine!” he said, “Not that your word is worth a fart in the wind! Just bring the goddamned mage back when you find him. Much as I loathe saying it aloud, I reckon we’re probably going to need the witchy son of a bitch. Especially if that whore’s son, Prae, is involved as the sentry says.”

“If this is as bad as it sounds, we’re going to need the Circle of Twenty.”

“The Twenty,” Bender snorted, “That band of lunatics hasn’t even met in thirty years. Still, I hope they’ve kept their caeyls polished.”

“Good enough,” Jhom said, “I’ll leave as soon as I can procure provisions.”

Bender snapped his fingers at his aides and said, “Get crybaby here anything he needs.”

“Look, Bender,” Jhom said, tentatively, “There’s something else. It’s a …well, not to put too fine a point on it, I need a small favor.”

“Name it,” Bender said.

Though he nearly choked on his pride, Jhom forced himself on. “Ah…well, there’s a woman.”

Bender planted his fists on his hips and pushed his gaze into Jhom. “A woman,” he repeated.

“Yea, she’s a …a friend. She lives outside Barynel Fields. She, uh …she owns the Grinning Goose Inn. I wonder …I wonder if …”

Bender waved him silent. “I’ve heard enough,” he said, “If she’s fond of you, she must be simple of head. I expect she’ll need the help. I’ll park a couple of squads outside her place. If there’s any sign of trouble that way, I’ll have her escorted to the city on the double. If the mage’s bullshit reports are actually true, we’ll be evacuating the whole countryside to the confines of Barcuun.”

“Thanks, Bender.”

Bender nodded. Then he took Jhom’s arm and sidled in closer. “Look,” he said up into his ear, “If you go into the tunnels, do an assessment for me. We may need them before this ends. I imagine those old wormholes will need more than a little dusting off before we can use them. The corps of stone- and iron-smiths will be working around the clock starting today.”

XXXI

THE MURDER

M

AWBY GAGGED AND PUSHED HIMSELF UP FROM THE GRASS.

He sat back on his knees and spit the excess saliva into the grass. Despite his need to listen for the taer-cael, he just couldn’t stomach the smell. The mold and decay here had corrupted the normally dry, musky scent of the soil. He wondered if it was due to the proximity to the swamps, or maybe it was just the incessant winds.

These grasslands sprawled between Sken te’Fau and the eastern mountains were called the Criohn Plains. He’d heard stories about the winds here, heard they were relentless, heard they poured down off the steep, rocky foothills of the Iron Mountains from sixty miles away, and didn’t slow down until they reached the Nolands, another fifty miles in the other direction. It was said these winds were alive. It was said they were composed of the souls of the Blood Drinkers of Morv’grel Vox in the eastern Plaguebrines, and that they sustained themselves by sucking up the vapors of decay from the graves they passed over as they stampeded their way westward. He was beginning to believe it.

He closed his eyes and let the wind drive the foul odors from his face. He pushed his mind away from his anger. He whispered some calming words. It was critical he find Maeryc’s taer-cael. He had to subdue the hack before the Baeldonian patrols found him or, worse, he stumbled into a Vaemysh scouting party. It was a sorry thing that he didn’t know which would be worse.

As he found his center, he lowered his face back to the grass. This time he held his breath. He closed his eyes and pushed away the collateral noise the way a prospector sifts through the sand to find the grains of gold. Slowly, very slowly, the images began to form: A small herd of deer grazed in the grass to the south while a pack of scrawny wolves stalked them a hundred yards further out. Squirrels scratched through the poplars in a shallow swale just to the north. A fox skirted the hill above him.

He gradually sifted his way through the sand and found...nothing.

He pushed himself back to his knees and drew air. Though he’d been following Maeryc and Goudt’s trails all day, he couldn’t seem to gain any headway on them. They’d only gotten maybe a two-hour start on him. Gods almighty! He should’ve been on top of them by now, especially if Maeryc’s wounds were as bad as Ven described.

A drop of rain landed on his arm. He looked up into the wind, but there was barely a cloud to be seen. He looked back at his arm. His gloom deepened as he realized it wasn’t rain at all. The drop fell from the burn on his face. It was weeping again. He took some solace in the fact that at least this time the fluid was nearly clear. That was something. He’d have to apply more salve soon. He couldn’t afford a fester. Not now.

Bracing his side, he climbed against the pain, staggering awkwardly to his feet. The wind made the effort somehow harder, pushing him constantly off center and making his control over gravity more elusive.

He steadied himself and turned, cupping his eyes against the sun as he looked out over the tall, blowing grass. He needed a spot to tend his wounds, preferably some place offering a bit of cover from the wind and patrolling eyes. He spied a stand of poplars a quarter mile off. It wasn’t much to look at, a small copse of skinny saplings shooting up from a patch of rough, gnarled undergrowth. Nevertheless, it was in a shallow between the hills, sheltered and out of sight, and that was something. He’d just have to make due and keep low.

A few minutes later, he walked down into the swale and through the scraggy bushes surrounding the trees. There was shade here, and a much-welcomed break from the wind, but not much else. He protected his face with an arm and pushed through the dense brush. Once inside the copse he was surprised to find a shallow pond squatting in the midst of the trees.

He collapsed to his knees at the edge of the water. For several minutes he could only rest there with his eyes closed, struggling to find some semblance of peace amid the storm of fear and pain gripping him. There was a battle raging between the knife wound in his side and the blisters on his face to see which could bring him the most misery. The knife wound was mostly winning.

Eventually he opened his eyes and shucked the pack off his shoulder. Then he braced himself in the mud and bent close enough to the water to scoop a drink. The water tasted brackish and stale, but he was too thirsty to care. He’d downed a few handfuls before realizing there was something else amiss about it.

He scooped up another handful and let it dribble between his fingers. The water had a pink tint to it. He repeated the action, netting the same results. He’d seen this kind of water once before during a skirmish with Mendophian renegades in the Nolands. The bulk of the fighting had occurred at a creek nestled between two hills. When the battle was over, the creek ran red. Just like that creek, this water was tainted with blood.

He spit what he could from his mouth and wiped the memory of it from his face. Then he scanned the pond’s surface. The poplars in the middle of the pond were standing in two or three feet of water. There were no cattails. That alone should’ve tipped him off. This was a runoff hollow. It caught the rain channeling from the surrounding hills. This pond was little more than a large, stagnant puddle.

He cursed himself for being so negligent. People died from drinking the water in festering pools like this. He knew better.

There had to be a dead deer or coyote lying somewhere along the perimeter. He wondered if he should make himself vomit, maybe clear his stomach before it made him sick, but decided against it. His chest wound was too bad; he needed proof before putting himself through the agony of a self-induced retch.

He struggled to his feet. The pain was worse, much worse. His legs felt like rubber. He felt light-headed and couldn’t draw a decent breath. He braced himself against a poplar sapling and wiped the sweat from his cheek, noticing with some shame that his hand was shaking. He’d never suffered wounds as poorly as he was suffering these. He wondered if they might finally be his undoing.

No, he told himself! No treacherous thoughts! It was unacceptable. Notions of defeat and failure could easily become self-fulfilling. He couldn’t accept it. He was a better man than that, or at least he should try to be.

He was about to turn away and find a place to dress his wounds when he saw it. Off to his left, down the bank just past a honeysuckle shrub a dozen or so feet away. It was a mangled ring of grass and disturbed shrubs. His first instinct was to deny it, to write it off as a circle of deer bedding, but he knew it wasn’t so. It was the trail. It had to be.

He stumbled through the shrubs toward it. The bank was soggy here, the mud slick and pliable. It got wetter as he proceeded toward the site until he was sloshing through ankle deep water. As he got closer, he noticed several dark spots drying against the broken grass drowning at the water line. He carefully lowered himself to one knee, touched one of the spots, and then smelled it.

Blood! It was still sticky. They hadn’t been gone long.

He got up as quickly as he could manage. The trampled path led through the bushes and wove an erratic path up the hill behind him. This was no deer or coyote making the water pink. Goudt and Maeryc had fought again. He turned back toward the pond. The loser was still here.

He staggered toward the spot where the trail met the waterline. At first, he couldn’t see anything but a black mirror of water reflecting the sky and treetops. He waded carefully into it, walked out several feet until he was knee deep. His invasion troubled the pool’s surface, sending out angry rings that made everything below them invisible to him.

A few yards further out, he stopped and waited for the surface to settle. His heart was beating too hard. No matter what he found under that murky water, he knew it wouldn’t be good.

Gradually the ripples melted away and stillness again gripped the pool. The water was dark and bottomless, and greedy for the treasures it held at its breast. Just then, a cloud freed the sun above him. Something metallic shimmered just beneath the water’s surface a few more feet out.

He sloshed toward it. When he was nearly on top of it, his foot caught something beneath the surface. He tripped and stumbled forward, falling into the shallow water. His hands landed on something hard and slick. He rolled away from it and shook the water from his face. As the ripples again settled, he saw a pale, twisted face lurking in the muck just below the surface. Cloudy eyes gaped up at him from the silt. The mouth was agape in a voiceless scream.

It was Goudt!

He grabbed the warrior by the mail and pulled him up from the water. The body broke through the surface without its head. The neck was sliced through to the bone. The head hung back against the spine, kept in place by a bit of sinew and nothing else.

For just an instant, Mawby thought he was going to vomit. Still holding the corpse up from the water, he closed his eyes and willed the nausea back. “My gods, Maeryc” he whispered, “What…what have you done?”

Terror paralyzed him. He didn’t know what to do. His wounds were shrieking. He could feel the edges of his chest wound pulling against the stitches, threatening to rip wider. There was no way to remove the body from the water without killing himself in the process. He couldn’t release Goudt and he couldn’t hold on. He could only stand in that fetid water holding the mutilated corpse just barely above the waterline.

You can’t help him.

Mawby heard the words, but couldn’t make sense of them. He couldn’t take his eyes from the gaping neck. He couldn’t get any air.

Lower him back into the water.

“I can’t,” he whispered. He was holding the dead warrior’s mail so tightly his fingers ached.

Lower him back to the water.

“I can’t!”

You can’t help him now. Lower him back to the water.

He suddenly understood. This was his voice, the voice of his reason. It grounded him. It gave him strength. He shook himself free of his terror and did exactly as it told him.

The dead warrior slipped back and quickly disappeared beneath a sigh of water. Mawby sloshed back from it and collapsed into the muddy bank.

For a time, he couldn’t will himself to move. He sat there in the mud with his feet in the cool water, staring out over the murky surface until the waves subsided, and the rippling rings exhausted themselves, and the pond was once again as still as death. He might’ve sat there a minute or an hour. There was no time here by this wretched pool. There was only death and suffocation.

For once, he was thankful for the pain. It bullied him back to reality. In time, he forced himself up from the mud and climbed onto the bank. But before he resumed the trail, he stopped and turned hesitantly back toward the dank water. He watched his dead friend moldering out there beneath that glassy surface, and he grieved his lack of options. There could be no consolation for a warrior buried in that soulless pit, no hope in so loveless a tomb. And yet, the argument lacked point; there was no time to honor him with a proper crypt or even a field funeral pyre. For an honored Vaemysh warrior, this was as bad as it got.

Resolved to the grim reality, he abandoned his friend. And as he staggered up from the pond, he made himself two promises. One was that he’d eventually find his way back to this horrid place and give that warrior’s remains the funeral pyre he deserved.

The second promise was that he’d find Maeryc, and when he finally caught up with that soulless hack, he’d kill him. He no longer cared whether the man was responsible for his behavior or driven by the darkest demon in all the hells. He’d kill him, so help him Calina. He’d kill him if it took his last breath to do so.

∞

Jhom had nearly shoved his way clear of the maddening crowd when he ran into a tall, thin Baeldon. The soldier stood outside the officers’ saloon at the distant end of the military supply stores lining this end of the tier. He was leaning against the corner pole of the plank promenade and effectively blocking the path to the stables. He was staring straight at Jhom. He didn’t seem intent on moving anytime soon.

Jhom stopped and studied the man from a distance. He was taller than Jhom, nearly ten feet, but easily a hundred pounds lighter. If the man’s slight frame wasn’t tip enough, he was dressed all in black with a tight leather shirt and britches, fingerless gloves and tall, soleless boots, all of which revealed him for the runner he was. He was twenty years younger than Jhom. Clean-shaven, he wore his shoulder length black hair all in tight braids so that his head looked like an explosion of snakes. A thin scar ran nearly horizontally along the length of his left jaw, though it didn’t detract from his rugged handsomeness.

Jhom began walking again, the clink of his spurs and the clop of his step counting down the distance. The runner didn’t yield as he grew closer, but only stayed propped where he was against that pole with one gloved hand planted solidly on his hip and the other tapping its index finger against the antler-handle knife parked on his belt. He was glaring down his pierced nose at Jhom.

Jhom stopped a few feet back from the man. He threw the glare right back at him, saying, “What the hell are you looking at, Runner?”

The man gave him a little snort, and said, “Looks like you’re the only one around, Pokey, so I reckon I must be looking at you. You got a problem with that?”

“Nah, I don’t mind,” Jhom said seriously, “Just move to the side so I can pass, then you can follow me around adoring me all day.”

“Adoring you?” the runner said with a laugh, “Adoring? Have you looked in a mirror lately, grunt?”

“I don’t have to. I see my beauty reflected in your eyes.”

“Beauty?” The runner pushed off from the pole and punched a finger into Jhom’s shoulder, saying, “You’re starting to irritate me, boy.”

Jhom seized the offending hand and twisted it so the runner quickly found himself on his knees with his arm wrenched hard behind his back. Jhom slipped his free arm around the runner’s neck and gave it a squeeze. The runner cried out.

Still holding him, Jhom leaned in close and whispered into the runner’s ear, “Say it.”

“Go to hell, you son of a bitch!”

Jhom wrenched the arm just a bit tighter. “Say it,” he whispered again, “Say it and I’ll let you go.”

“No, goddamn you!”

Jhom pulled harder. “Saaaay iiit.”

“All right! All right! You’re the handsomest soldier in this grunt’s army, you son of a bitch bastard!”

Jhom laughed and pulled the runner back to his feet. “You never learn, do you, Wenzil?”

The runner rubbed his shoulder and sent a clearly feigned frown back at Jhom. “No fair. You took me by surprise.”

“By surprise?” Jhom said laughing, “So, you want a warning next time?”

“Yea.”

“You were blocking my way as I recall. The warning should’ve been the sight of me coming.”

“You know what I mean,” Wenzil said, “You could’ve warned me before you jumped.”

“Oh, you mean like in the field?” Jhom asked, “Like when we count ‘one, two, three, go’ before the battle begins?”

Wenzil laughed. “Yea, just like that.”

Jhom slapped his arm. “You look good, Wen.”

“Of course, I do.”

Jhom watched him a moment, drumming his fingers on the head of the double bladed hand-axe sheathed on his belt. Then he said, “You know, it’s about high time you came out with me, don’t you think, Wen? There’s a lot of gold out there for a man who knows how to stalk a rogue and swing steel.” He looked down at the long, thin blade hanging at the runner’s belt. “Or a man who’s good with a pig sticker, for that matter.”

“Don’t even start on the sword,” Wenzil said, “If you’re close enough to smell a man’s breath, an axe won’t do you any good. Anyway, it looks like I’ll be joining you sooner than you think.”

“Bender got the orders to you that quickly, then, did he?”

The tall, thin Baeldon shrugged and smiled. “In a manner of speaking, I reckon.”

“In other words, no.”

The man’s sheepish smile matured into a full-grown, shit-eating grin. “I’m a hired scout with this army, Jhom. I’m not enlisted. Reckon I can come and go as I please.”

“Is that a fact?”

“It is. And here’s another fact. I got word they’re assembling something like thirty or forty runners to follow up on the sentry’s warning, but that’s not the action I’m following.”

“No?” Jhom asked.

“Hell, no. I’m going with you.”

Jhom studied his friend. He wasn’t sure whether to run him off or hug him.

“Things are looking bad,” he said because he ought to, “If anything that sentry said was true, this could be the beginning of serious times. I mean, a hell of a lot more serious than war with Parhron. You understand that?”

“I do,” Wenzil said, “I do, indeed. Matter of fact, that’s exactly why I’m going with you. We need Chance back here.” He was absently fingering a tiny blue stone hanging on a gold chain at his neck.

Jhom recognized the pendant as his sliver of Water Caeyl. Wenzil’s great grandfather had been a fledgling mage when he died during the Fifty Year War. Though no mage himself, Wenzil had a kind of insight of his own, a prescience of sorts. He always knew when trouble was afoot. It was a natural talent that had saved Jhom’s butt more than once in the Nolands, and the caeyl sliver Wenzil wore at his neck dramatically enhanced it.

“All right,” Jhom said, glancing around for ears, “You can come with me. But you’re riding, not running.”

“Agreed.”

“And I mean you’re riding a horse, not one of those loveless lizards.”

“You’re the Ghant’r, sir. I’m at your disposal.”

“Stop calling me that,” Jhom said quickly.

“Your words to my ears, sir.”

“Is Hector going with you?” Jhom asked.

“Damned right. I speak for both of us.”

“That’s good. Hec’s the best damned archer in these parts.”

“Yea, he’s no slouch in the saddle, neither.”

Jhom again surveyed his surroundings. They couldn’t afford to be overheard. Confident they were alone, he leaned closer to Wenzil. “Here’s what I want you to do,” he whispered, “Ride over to the western rim of Sken te’Fau—”

Wenzil suddenly threw his hands up. “Now, just you stop right there, Jhom.”

“What now?” Jhom asked, though he already knew the answer.

Wenzil was visibly paler than just an instant earlier. “Not a chance of that,” he said, “I’m not going in the damned swamp. I’ll follow you into the darkest pits of the Nines, but I’m not going there.”

“Relax. I only want you to scout the perimeter. I’ll be the one going into the swamp if need be, not you, though I don’t believe the trip will even be necessary.”

Wenzil nodded, visibly relieved. “That’s fine. I don’t mean to be—”

“You don’t have to explain. I know how the swamp affects you. I only want you to scout the perimeter for signs Chance may have come out after he deployed the sentry. If he did, he’ll either head his way due north to Boardtown or swing northwest to Barcuun proper. Depends on where the least resistance offers itself. Truth be told, I suspect I know where he’ll be coming up for air. I’m only sending you that way as a precaution.”

“Sorry, Jhom. Don’t mean to seem weak-kneed or nothing.”

“Forget it, Wen. Just scout the perimeter and then swing southeast. Meet me at the hatch in the northern Criohn Plains, the one east of Belfry Hill. Keep your eyes peeled for signs of Vaemysh incursions. You see anything of significance, anything supporting Chance’s claim, send Hector back to Barcuun with it, and tell him to make wings about it. Got no time to waste.”

“And me?”

“You keep coming and meet me at the northern hatch. If I’m not there, I’ll leave a signal.”

Wenzil’s braids danced as he nodded enthusiastically. “Yea, Hec and I’ll head out right away. Be gone before late afternoon settles over us.”

Jhom glanced back toward the military compounds behind them. “No, I reckon you’d best attend that war council meeting with me. I don’t trust Bender not to backtrack on his word. I’ve got something I have to do, so I need your ears there. If there’s any truth at all to the sentry’s message …”

“I know,” Wenzil said seriously, “Chance ain’t much favored around these parts of late. The first time he says something the king doesn’t like, he’s labeled undependable.”

“Undependable, my ass,” Jhom said.

“When do we leave, then?”

“Meet me at the third compound gate an hour past dusk, we’re heading out tonight. I don’t like the smell of the air around here. We need to get out of Barcuun before it’s too late.”

“Understood,” Wenzil said.

Jhom slapped the runner on the shoulder and stepped past him, heading for the stables. “I mean it, Wen,” he said, still marching, but with a stern finger leveled back at Wenzil, “No goddamned running. You be ready to ride, you hear me?”

“The hell with you, I was born ready!”

XXXII

THE LONG MARCH

B

EAM FOLLOWED UP THE REAR SO AS TO KEEP A BETTER EYE ON THE SAVAGE.

The last thing he wanted was her at his back. They’d started early, moving out soon after Chance returned from his foraging, and they’d been marching all day. Or night. His sense of time had pretty much shriveled up and died in the perpetual gloom.

He studied Chance walking farther up ahead of them. The image was an odd one. There was enough distance between them that the light from the man’s torch was fully separated from his own. Chance was a solitary figure walking along in a lonely bubble of light.

As he watched his friend, Beam felt a strange thought materialize in his mind. It was the face of a boy with shoulder-length blonde hair and a toothy grin. The boy was in the forest with the man’s old cabin behind him. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen years. He wore a bright blue tunic and was playing with a pebble, tossing it back and forth between his hands, or maybe up in the air, it wasn’t clear. He was walking down a stone path that led away from Chance’s now destroyed house. The image was so crisp, so tangible, it was more like a memory than a random thought. There was something about a chimney in the image, too, though he couldn’t quite isolate that piece of it.

Beam stopped.

He realized he knew who this boy was. This was the mage’s boy…Luren, wasn’t that his name? But that was impossible. How could he ever know what the boy looked like? He threw a palm to his brow and willed the image away. It was impossible, he told himself, just a random thought generated by a mind stressed through too many days of darkness. It had to be.

He shook his head, and then started walking again. This world of perpetual night was killing him. It was fouling his mind, driving him to bizarre thoughts. He had to get the hell out of here. He thought back to his months in the scrubs scouring through those dank crypts and communing with the dead. In comparison to this, that trip had been a holiday. Back then, he’d at least known daylight was always only a few hours away, or at least just beyond that next door. Not like here, not like this dungeon where—

He looked up just in time to avoid colliding with the savage, who’d stopped unexpectedly before him. Irritated, he gave her a rough shove, and said, “What the hell are you doing? Maybe a little warning next time?”

She landed against the irregular tunnel wall, but quickly recovered herself. Standing taller, she faced him squarely and returned his stare unflinchingly. Though her eye was well swollen and her face a medley of cuts and bruises, it did nothing to lessen the intensity of her eyes. This one could lay down a murderous look with the best of them.

Beam glanced down the tunnel at Chance, and immediately realized why she’d stopped. Chance stood before a wall that completely sealed off the tunnel. But this wall was different. This wall wasn’t roughly carved from the surrounding matrix, but was built of large, cleanly squared blocks. The revelation did little to remedy the sour flavor his stomach had taken on. It was a bloody roadblock.

He jogged up to Chance, placed his hands against the bricked wall, and gave it a good slap. When the wall didn’t retreat, he turned and looked up at Chance. “Are you bloody kidding me?”

“Don’t panic. There’s a door.”

“There damned well better be.”

Chance moved around him. He ran his fingers along the mortar lines separating the massive blocks defining the wall. Before Beam could offer the curse dancing at his tongue, something clicked.

“Found it,” Chance said over his shoulder, “Give me a hand with this.”

There didn’t appear to be anything to give a hand with. The wall didn’t look any different than it had a moment ago. Beam stepped up beside him and ran the flat of his hand across the stone. Definitely no different. “What exactly are we doing, Brother?” he said as he explored the cool surface.

Chance tapped the butt of his torch against the middle of one block. A hollow rap echoed off into the darkness.

“What?” Beam asked, “Am I supposed to hit my head there or what?”

“Yes, Beam, please do that. Do it hard and with repetition. When you’re finished, look at the wall more closely.”

Beam held up his own torch. There was a fine seam running through the mortar line. It rose up along the line between blocks for a good ten feet and then spread sideways for four feet before dropping again. It was the outline of a door, and if it had been open, it would have been wide enough for them both to pass through shoulder to shoulder. It was a door built for a Baeldon.

“Help me push it open,” Chance said.

“What? No magic?”

“Don’t be an ass.”

Beam laughed. “Too late.”

He looked back at the Vaemyd. The warrior was standing a few feet back in the darkness with her arms still bound behind her around the lizard bone. Her beefy face shimmered eerily in the shadows.

“Care to give a hand?” he asked her sarcastically. Then he looked at her arms bound so dramatically behind her, and said, “Or should I say, a shoulder?”

“I do not,” she said back.

Beam almost laughed at that. She’d refused the offer as matter-of-factly as someone declining an invitation to sit for tea. “If we don’t get this thing open,” he said plainly, “We’ll all be stuck here. And just so I’m perfectly clear, ‘we’ includes you.”

For a moment, she only stared at him. Then she walked forward and braced her shoulder against the wall between him and Chance. Together, the three of them leaned into the door.

The stone growled as the section began sliding back into the wall. When they’d pushed it inward nearly two feet and still hadn’t found an end, Beam began to worry. Then the door’s resistance fell away. Chance put a hand on his shoulder and urged him back.

The door was now moving on its own. As they watched it sink into the wall, a worried wind grew up behind them. The torches danced wildly. Sand whipped past, rushing violently into the new opening. Beam covered his face and wondered if this was a trap set by the Baeldons, but quickly realized it was just the pressure adjusting between the two chambers. He’d experienced similar occurrences back in his tomb raiding days.

The wind soon lost its vim, and the air fell still again, though the remnant dust effectively smothered the air. When Beam pulled his face from his arm, the door had recessed fully into the next room, which was glowing warmly beyond it.

“Come on,” Chance said, nudging him, “I think you’ll find this most appealing.”

Beam waited until Chance and the savage passed through, then gave the nearly black tunnel behind them one final inspection before following them. When he emerged on the other side, he was pleased to find the mage had understated the fact. This change was far more than just appealing.

This tunnel was nothing like those they’d traveled thus far. There was no dirty gravel floor, no craggy rock surfaces with doubtful looking wooden braces. This new tunnel was twice the size of the original passage, both in height and breadth, and was as clean and polished as a monarch’s personal cathedral.

The floor was tiled in icy blue granite marbled in complex yellow and magenta swirls. Exotic geometric designs of brass inlay danced along the edges of the tiles composing the floor. The arches and braces here were massive beams of brilliant blue steel rather than rotting old wood. Complicated imagery and arcane runes were etched into the steel so that the metal looked more ornamental than structural. Metallic torches flamed from elegant silver sconces mounted on alternating braces running along either side of the corridor.

However, the walls of this new corridor were what he found most intriguing. Life-sized images of Baeldonian soldiers sculpted in full three dimensions from heavy slabs of silvery marble lined the walls along both sides of this grand hall. They stood shoulder to shoulder in sets of three between each of the wall braces. The sculptures were mounted so they appeared to stand upon a scrolled red-stone ridge a yard above the regal floor. They were dressed in royal regalia with their weapons in place and one arm folded peacefully over their armored chests.

A soft, lustrous material gilded the faces and hands of the carved soldiers, giving them an eerily flesh-like appearance. The eyes were inlaid in white stone with dark, brown onyx irises that twinkled down at them as they passed. He could almost hear them whispering to him, murmuring their names in his head, telling him their stories and demanding fealty for their grief. These were sarcophagi.

“Beam?”

Beam nearly jumped out of his britches. He sent Chance a well-aimed scowl.

“A hand?” Chance’s pose suggested he’d been trying to push the block door back into place. “If you can pull yourself away from the artwork.”

“Artwork,” Beam said with a snort, “Nothing artistic about the dead.”

“Help me with the door,” Chance said, “It’ll hopefully block whatever that is chasing us.”

Pushing the door back proved more challenging than opening it. This time the door made no effort to assist them. Whatever hinges or secret mechanisms had allowed the door to open so easily were missing in action on the closing. The dirt that had blown in with the pressure change acted like a wedge beneath the stone. Even with three of them pushing, they managed to wedge it only partially closed. There was still a gap, though it was only seven or eight inches wide and too small for any of them to crawl through without crushing a rib.

“Forget it,” Chance said, “I expect that’s going to have to serve as good enough.”

Beam picked his torch up from the floor and slung the weapons belt over his shoulder. “Agreed,” he said, “Let’s hit it. I want out of this hellhole as soon as possible.”

“Agreed,” Chance said. He sounded like he meant it.

The metal flambeaus lining the corridor were identical to those they’d taken from the mage’s sanctuary, except that they were twice as big and the flames twice as bright. The light emanating from these torches lit the corridor as clearly as a royal hall. As Beam studied them, he estimated that their combustion life must be shorter since only about every third or fourth one still burned.

Chance removed one of the extinguished torches from its wall sconce and stuck it into his belt. Beam considered doing likewise, but decided against it. He didn’t want to risk offending any of the creatures sleeping behind those lifelike faces. The Vaemyn at least had the courtesy to hide their dead in crude stone boxes, which were typically bereft of detailed likenesses of the occupants. The dead he found inside those boxes were little more than bones, bits of hair, and rotting fabric; they were all identical. There was no personality discernible between corpses.

In contrast, the distinct faces of these Baeldons staring down at him felt too personal by miles. They watched him too closely as he passed beneath them, and each face seemed just on the verge of speaking to him. He knew it was an illusion brought on by the dark and the confinement, but that knowledge did nothing to ease the pressure of their stares. He just wanted away from them.

∞

They’d been walking for hours through the ranks of the dead, and despite the pleasant, almost regal surroundings, the boredom was becoming unbearable. Beam needed something to alleviate the agony. He wanted a distraction, some conversation, a witty repartee, anything!

“So, tell me, Brother,” he called out to Chance, who marched just a few paces ahead of him, “What exactly are you going to do when we reach the hatch?” His voice echoed on forever through the marble-decorated tedium.

Chance glanced back at him, but didn’t stop walking. “I am most genuinely not in the mood for your games, Beam.”

“No games, Brother,” Beam said as sincerely as he could manage, “Just wondering what happens next, that’s all.”

“You’ve made it quite clear where your priorities rest, Beam,” Chance said without looking back, “So I see little to gain from discussing it further.”

“Oh, I have, have I?” Beam said, laughing.

“I would say so. You’re planning to beat a hasty retreat back to Parhron City, correct? You have a palace to purchase, as I recall. Perhaps some long overdue whoring to engage in?”

Beam winced at that. He glanced over at the Vaemyd walking beside him and hoped she was unable to interpret that last remark. Nice shot, he thought as he looked back at Chance. He was beginning to appreciate the man’s darker side. Under the right circumstances, he could be a fit partner for a good banter.

“Well,” he began, though with some reluctance now, “You apparently didn’t hear me as clearly as you give yourself credit for. I asked what are you going to do?”

At that, the mage stopped and turned. He seemed surprised. “My lords,” he said as he studied Beam, “What an odd question, especially coming from you.”

“It’s just a question,” Beam said as he walked up to the man, “Don’t go rubbing yourself over it.”

“Rubbing myself,” Chance said seriously, “Are you actually interested, or is this just a set up for some dramatic bit of humor?”

Beam looked up at him. “I asked, didn’t I?”

Chance’s eyes studied him from their dark pits. Then he said, “No changes have developed in my plans, Beam. I’m going to Barcuun, precisely as I’ve said I would from the beginning. I have a duty to make certain they received my message. Moreover, to ensure they took it as seriously as it merited. After that, I need to notify the other members of the Circle of Twenty.”

“I thought you’re the big holy man in these parts,” Beam said, grinning, “Surely they’d never disregard the message of a man of your...” He paused to examine the state the man had fallen into during their travels. His hair was a tangled mess, his once sharp leather britches now scarred, scraped and scuffed, and his shirt so dirty it could never have been white. He opted to finish with, “Well, a man of such obvious rank and importance.”

“Do you ever let up?”

Beam didn’t even try to suppress his humor. “Depends on my mood.”

“You’re a real work of art.”

“So you’ve said.”

Chance turned away and resumed his walk. His heels clacked coldly against the marble floor as he marched deliberately away.

Beam gave the Vaemyd a warning look, and then hurried to catch up with Chance. “And after that, though?” he said as he shuffled to a stop beside him, “After you parley with the Baeldons?”

“After Barcuun, I’m going south.”

“South? What’s south? Mobs of savages. Not much else.”

“Prae is south. Luren is south.”

The image from earlier flared through Beam’s mind, that of the blonde boy in the bright clothes. It arrived on a pang of guilt that he didn’t deserve. “The boy,” he said as he drove the face from his mind, “Of course.”

“Yes,” Chance said back, “The boy.”

Beam glanced back at the bound Vaemyd, then leaned closer to Chance and whispered, “I told you, Brother, I wouldn’t hold much hope for anyone taken by the savages.”

“Yes, you have told me that. Again and again.”

“I’ve mentioned it once.”

“I’m confident your plans haven’t changed?” Chance asked, looking down at him, “You’re going to make your way back to Parhron, melt down the Caeyllth Blade, live that well deserved life of luxury after so many burdensome years robbing the dead.”

Beam’s humor drained. “That was beneath you,” he said.

“That’s a Caeyllth Blade?” a different voice asked.

Beam and Chance stopped and turned in tandem. It was the Vaemyd. She stood a few yards back, staring at Beam’s hip.

“That’s a Caeyllth Blade?” she asked again.

Beam didn’t respond.

“I thought they were myth,” she said, “Where did you find it?”

“Yes, Beam,” Chance said, turning toward him, “Where exactly did you find it?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Beam said.

“Did you steal it from our dead like you did our Blood Caeyl?” she asked him. She was wearing a look suggesting her binds wouldn’t be nearly strong enough if she got the wrong answer.

Beam steadied himself. Though his impulses pleaded with him, he knew slapping her up would be a dishonorable act, no matter how satisfying it’d feel. He couldn’t do it. At least, not with Chance watching. “This would be a good time for you to go mute,” he said instead.

“No, tell us, Beam.” Chance stepped closer. “Tell us, it’ll help pass the time. Where did you find the sword?”

“What is she, your new pal?” Beam said, “She’s a prisoner, for Calina’s sake. Whose side are you on?”

Chance planted his staff between them and leaned closer. “There are only two sides now, Beam,” he said with his face pressed against the wood like he was peering out from a cell, “You’re going to have to pick one sooner or later.”

“Two sides?” Beam said sarcastically, “Yours and mine?”

“Can you just once strive to not be an ass?” Chance said seriously, “You know exactly what I’m talking about. How long are you going to stand aloof, pretending you don’t care?”

“Gods almighty!” Beam said with a roll of his eyes, “Here we go again.”

“I’m damned sick of your derisive attitude,” Chance snapped at him, “Sick of your denial of the obvious. How a man who professes such adoration for the objectivity of science, and yet so effectively refuses the facts standing directly before him, defies logic.”

“Well, that’s just a load of—”

“You found the Blood Caeyl because of a message from your dead mother!” Chance said sharply, “And you found the Caeyllth Blade because of the Blood Caeyl. You put so much energy into pretending you’re some hermit with nothing but disdain for the world, and then you rush headlong into the fracas when it suits you. You’re a hypocrite, Beam. You’re a half-bred Vaemyn who thinks the world owes him—”

“The prophecies,” Koonta’ar said suddenly.

“Yes,” Chance said, still looking at Beam from behind his staff, “The prophecies.”

Beam sent the Vaemyd a warning glare, but it felt just as hollow as he was sure it came off. “I’m not in the mood for this, Chance,” he said, turning his eyes back to the mage, “Or for your lectures. I was just looking for a little conversation, something to break the damned silence. If I’d known it was going to reopen that emotional tar pit of yours, I wouldn’t have said a goddamned thing. Forget I brought it up.”

Koonta moved toward him. He threw a hand to his sword hilt and turned to meet her full on. Her face brought him another pang of guilt that he couldn’t explain. Maybe because, unlike her traumatized face, his own face showed no memory of the same fight, courtesy of last night's sleep under the sword's light.

“I was right,” she said, “I knew it this morning when you pulled me from the fear. I knew something was different as we fought last night. A Parhronii wouldn’t have lasted as long as you did. You’ve done something to your oteuryns, much as I suspected, but the truth of it remains. You’re a half-bred Vaemyn. Why, you’re practically family.”

“Don’t pride yourself,” Beam said to her, “I didn’t need my savage half to beat you. You’re not as tough as you think.”

“The legends say the Caeyllth Blade will be raised from the earth by a Vaemyn and Parhronii together,” she said, looking up at Chance.

The reverence in her voice was too syrupy, too full of faith and fire. “Here comes the drama,” Beam said sarcastically, “You two are like a couple of midwives gossiping over a weaving bee.”

“She’s right,” Chance said, “Those mages who survived the Divinic Wars a thousand years ago knew it hadn’t ended cleanly. There’d been no victors. The wyrlaerds were dispatched, but not destroyed. They’d simply been sent back to the Wyr. Those old mages knew it was just a matter of time before the whole nightmare came around again. The Caeyllth Blades have returned, much as they were foretold to do.”

“Could it be true?” she said as she stared at Beam, “He’s half-bred Vaemyn and Parhronii, and he’s in possession of one of the Caeyllth Blades. It aligns with every story our people tell about those times.”

“Yes,” Chance said to her, “And there’s more. The caeyl takes him when he sleeps. It cocoons him in its light. I’m absolutely sure it’s speaking to him through his dreams, though he’s not much inclined to discuss it.”

She stepped closer to Beam. She studied his face too closely. “I can see that,” she said, “The sword did something to him. It …healed him. Is it changing him in other ways?”

“I believe so,” Chance said, joining her examination of Beam’s face, “I don’t know it beyond doubt, but it would appear so. He’s more volatile than before. He has moments of compassion followed by moments of anger followed by moments of kindness. It’s strangely cyclic, like he’s fighting with another side of himself.”

“At least that offers some hope,” she said, “It seems to me that any change would be an improvement.”

“He’s had a hard life,” Chance said, “He didn’t ask for any of this.”

She laughed at that. “What kind of excuse is that? We’ve all had hard lives. It’s the way of the world.”

Chance shrugged his brow. “Well, that’s as true a statement as I’ve ever heard,” he said, “But, I’m hopeful he’ll come around. I’m hopeful the Blood Ca—”

“For the love of gods!” Beam yelled with his arms thrown wide, “Hello! I’m standing right here! Stop talking about me like I’m off taking a piss! Good gods!” He cursed himself for ever having started the banter to begin with. It was just another stupid decision in a long line of them.

For a moment, they simply looked at him. Then the Vaemyd shook her head. “No,” she said, “It can’t be true. We’re wrong. The gods would never curse us with so low a standard for so great a cause.”

“All right, that’s it!” Beam said sharply, “That is just about all I’m inclined to take. I’ve had my fill of your assessment of my moral character. You’re both full of shit. Besides, neither of you even knows what the hell you’re talking about!”

Chance nodded at that, saying, “Oh, I see. The skeptic’s now an expert?”

“Apparently more than you.”

Chance laughed mockingly. “Seriously! Well, please, then. Do enlighten us.”

“Fine!” Beam belted back at him, “First, there’s only one goddamned blade, not two, not ten, not a hundred. There’s one! Your legends are abundantly full of shit. Second, that entire story about the survivors of the Divinic Wars knowing anything is also complete bullshit. There were no goddamned survivors except him. Do you hear me? There was no they, there was only he. There’s always only been he. He was a Vaemysh mage, and he planned …”

Beam stopped. He pressed a hand against his temple. His head was suddenly pounding. He didn’t know if it was the change of air in this new corridor, the infuriating tack the conversation had taken, or maybe just simple fatigue. Not that it mattered. Regardless of the cause, he needed to get the hell away from these fools and their drivel before they gave him a brain seizure.

He opened his eyes to find Chance studying him like he’d suddenly grown an extra eye. “What now?” Beam asked him, “You don’t like the answers?”

“I believe you’re making it up,” Chance said carefully.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Beam said without enthusiasm, “I probably did make it up. I’m nothing but a stinking liar, so you’d do well to just ignore everything I’ve said.”

“But, I don’t understand how you could—”

“You goddamned right you don’t understand!” Beam said harshly, “You don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about, and damn me if I’m not good and bloody well done listening to you.”

With that, Beam turned away and marched off into the shadows. He was disappointed to note that his hand was trembling, while a cold trickle of sweat snaked its way down his spine. His fingers crawled across the hilt of his sword until they found the caeyl, which he locked onto for safety.

A hundred feet deeper into the corridor, he stopped. He dropped against the marble wall. He pressed his hands flat against the smooth surface, pressed his face into the cool, soothing stone, and closed his eyes.

The Vaemyn in his dreams was haunting him even when he was awake now, pestering him from the back of his mind, whispering suggestions in his ear. He found himself saying things that he didn’t understand, though he somehow knew them to be the absolute truth. He was beginning to sense things that he’d never been aware of before. He knew when the savage was lying. He sensed when Chance was worried or angry without even looking at him. He was getting flashes of images in his mind, images that could never ever have reason to be there, images from his companions’ most personal thoughts.

The cold, hard fact of it was that Chance was right about him. He had indeed changed since he found the blade. He’d changed in ways he didn’t understand and couldn’t begin to explain.

“We need to keep moving,” Chance said as he passed down the hall behind him.

Beam pushed himself away from the stone and looked toward hollow clacking of footsteps. Chance was already marching off into the darkness, his reflection dutifully following beneath him, a strange doppelganger hanging in the polished marble as he walked away. As Beam watched him, he cursed himself and his wretched lack of impulse control. He’d stupidly exposed himself. He’d opened his mouth and let the truth spew forth like vomiting this morning’s breakfast.

And yet, if he were to be honest about it, Chance had actually spared him. Chance was pulling back when most other men would’ve taken such an opportunity of weakness to strike and strike hard. Chance had just done him a favor by showing him once again just how superior a man he was. Chance was walking away without a victory.

Beam fell back against the marble. He buried his eyes in the butts of his hands and rubbed at the aggravation. Gods, he was a fool! He should’ve been born a goddamned mute.

When he dropped his hands, he was surprised to see the Vaemyd standing directly before him. Her arms remained bound back around that miserable-looking bone. Her eyes, however, had no such restraints. She was looking at him like she’d suddenly found the way into a forbidden building.

“What are you looking at?” he said as hard as he could manage.

She didn’t answer, though her blue eyes continued to probe him closely. Then, after a moment’s study, she whispered, “I’m not certain. Not yet.”

And then she simply turned away.

∞

Chance placed a leather square of food on the floor in front of the Vaemyd.

The warrior barely glanced at the food before returning her gaze to the fire, saying, “I’m not hungry.”

The lie didn’t fool Beam. She was hungry, all right. She was hungry as hell. He could feel the pain in her belly as surely as if it were his own. She just wasn’t about to lean down and eat like a pig at a trough. As long as her hands remained tied, she would not submit, and he took that as a little victory. Let her eat the air, then.

Chance crossed over and stopped before Beam, then reached an open hand down to him. “Give me your knife,” he said plainly.

Beam continued to watch the savage stewing before her food. As he did, he slipped the blade from his boot and held the handle up to the mage. Chance grunted something that Beam took for a thanks, and then he walked over and knelt down behind the savage.

Beam suddenly understood. He stood up. “Wait!” he said, stepping directly before the Vaemyd, “Just you hold up there now! What the hell are you doing?”

Chance looked up over her shoulder at him as he sawed the ropes. “What does it look like?” he said as he worked.

“This is against my council,” Beam said quickly, “I don’t trust her.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“She’ll run straight to her tribe.”

Chance didn’t stop his work.

“Damn me, you’ll regret this,” Beam said harshly, “You know that, right? We’ll both regret it!”

“I don’t believe there’s any truth in those words,” Chance said.

Beam looked down at the Vaemyd who was glowering up at him with an antipathy he completely recognized. Her gaze was nearly physical in its intensity. As he watched her watching him, he understood that she had every right to her anger. Why wouldn’t she hate him? He’d taken much from her people over the years. Hiding behind the rage of his blood grudge, he’d stolen their material wealth, he’d violated their sacraments, and he’d sent more than his fair share of their souls along their merry way. Were their roles reversed, he’d hate her just as deeply.

And with that thought, he suffered an unwelcomed epiphany. He suddenly understood that this was the very truth of the matter. He didn’t hate her. Of course, he still held his share of animosity toward her people, but he didn’t hate her. Not personally. She was just an individual, a singular soul. What responsibility does one solitary individual hold for the actions of their people?

“How can he be the one?”

Beam flinched. For an instant, he was sure she’d said something. But she wasn’t even looking at him anymore. She was staring down into the polished marble at his feet.

“What if he’s the wrong one?”

Beam choked and backed a pace away. He grabbed his stomach, which suddenly felt on the precipice of revolt. They were her words, but she wasn’t speaking. The words were in his head, not his ears. Was he having a brain fever?

“What if he has it by mistake? What happens to us then? Do the demons simply win?”

His head flew into a spin. The air was suddenly too thick to breathe. He grabbed his brow. The colors in the tunnel were shifting strangely, as if he were looking through the heat of a fire. He felt faint. He reached out for the wall to steady himself.

“I’m not strong enough to act on faith, not on faith alone. It’s not enough.”

He winced as the words appeared. They materialized in his mind exactly as if they were his own thoughts.

He braced his arms against the steel girder and struggled for composure. He couldn’t feel the floor beneath him anymore. It was like he was floating just a breath above the marble, like he was separate from the world and watching it from the outside in.

When he looked up, he again caught the Vaemyd’s eyes, though there was something different about her face now. It looked as if the air had suddenly turned to liquid, like she was looking up at him through the ripples on a pond. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t release her. Their shared gaze felt like a portal, like they were studying each other through a long, dark tube.

Then something eerily familiar rushed into that hollow space, a sense of knowing, of understanding one another. It was like there was some dark secret they shared, one that neither of them understood, one that couldn’t be articulated even if they did.

He felt a tingle of warmth on his hip and looked down at his sword. The caeyl was awake. He threw a hand over the red light. Somewhere deep in the fog, he saw the Vaemyd rubbing her wrists. He saw Chance toss the restraining bone to the side. He heard the echoes of it clatter boldly through the tunnel.

Beam tried to push away from the wall, but couldn’t find purchase to do so. She was doing something to him, corrupting him with some kind of hypnosis or mind control. He wanted to warn her, to threaten her against any tricks, but he couldn’t manage the words. Everything was terribly out of synch. He wanted to move toward her, but couldn’t will his legs.

A white light pulsed violently through his head.

Someone groaned.

The wall hit him from behind.

Another blinding flash struck him!

The color suddenly drained out of the world. Everything around him, the dead Baeldons, Chance, the savage, everything devolved into a metallic shade of gray and then faded completely away like water evaporating from hot stone. In the same instant, the ground dropped out from below him.

He was falling!

And then it stopped.

He found himself standing on a wide, stone stairway. The sight was vague and colorless like the dying remnants of a dream. The stairs hugged the inner wall of a huge round tower, circling over and over as they made their way skyward. He looked down over the edge to see a flagstone chamber a hundred feet below him. The chamber floor milled with people.

A man cried out.

Beam recoiled at the sound. He fell back tight against the wall. Another cry rang loose. He looked up toward it. Timber scaffolding stretched across the forty-foot breadth of the tower above him like a giant spider’s webbing. There was some kind of construction going on, and it blocked any view of the tower’s crown beyond it. A man hanged by his hands from a joist just below the lowest gangplank. His feet kicked uselessly at the air. Above the dangling man, another man, a huge Vaemyn, lay on his belly on the planking. He was stretched down over the side, groping for the hanging man, who Beam realized was also a Vaemyn.

“Grab it!” the rescuing giant yelled down at him, “Don’t do this! Grab my hand!”

The hanging man made no effort to comply, but only looked back over his shoulder at the void beneath him. Though the saving hand was easily within his grasp, he didn’t accept it, wouldn’t accept it. And as Beam watched the desperate scene, he understood that the man didn’t want to be saved. He was there in that lethal position by choice.

“Goddamn it, Pa’ana!” the large Vaemyn above him shouted as he strained lower for the man, “Grab my hand! You can’t do this! I won’t let you do this!”

The hanging man again looked up at the reaching hand, and then up to his would-be savior. But instead of taking the proffered help, he only whispered, “Forgive me, Mawby.” And then he let go.

He plummeted away from the scaffolding like an acorn falling from an oak as the Vaemyn called Mawby screamed above him.

The white light pulsed again.

Beam winced and seized his skull.

When he eventually opened his eyes again, he found himself standing in a forest. It was dark. The moon was just rising over the tree line. A man, another Vaemyn, was on his knees before a stagnant pond. He was gaunt and pale, his dirty white hair cut short. Beam knew this man. It was the troubled Vaemyn he’d seen back at the hatch, the one who’d slipped the knife into the big one, the same one who’d betrayed his comrades with a flash of armor back on the road.

The Vaemyn looked ghoulish in the weak moonlight. He cried out and threw himself to his hands and knees. He beat his fists against the wet embankment. He hit that bank again and again. The blows spattered his face and chest in mud. The man’s mind was on fire, his thoughts corrupt and full of poison. He was shrieking nonsensically.

Beam turned to see two Vaemyn watching the man’s suffering from the cover of a dead log well off from the pond. A woman, a Vaemyd, had her face buried into the emerald moss. Her grief and her rage were as palpable as a toothache. She wanted to intervene, but she wouldn’t. No, he realized, not wouldn’t. She couldn’t intervene, though she desperately wanted to. This was Koonta’ar, and these events had happened before their encounter back at the hatch. The man with her was the same one as in the tower, the man called Mawby.

Another flash of light. Another charge of pain.

Beam was standing in a field of deep grass atop a rolling hill. The sun was full and warm, the breeze gentle but determined. Another bigger hill lay just to the north. A great tree towered at the top of that hill, its trunk like a pillar, its crown like a cathedral. This place looked much like the Nolands, though he knew that wasn’t right. The plains here rolled and swelled with massive hills like small mountains, and the wind blew relentlessly. This was somewhere much farther east of the Nolands.

He sensed the taer-cael of someone approaching. Beam turned his attention toward the foot of the same hill he stood upon. The same poor Vaemyn who’d suffered so on the bank of that miserable pond was running up the hill toward him. His gait was raw and indelicate. He had to use the deep grass like guide ropes to keep himself upright. The side of his face was burned nearly beyond recognition. A shaft of red light shone out from a raw and empty eye socket. He’d just reached the crest of the hill when he abruptly stopped. He stood there panting and staring up into the sky. A shadow quickly formed over him. He backed slowly away from it. Then he threw his hands up and cried out pitifully as a living black cloud descended on him.

The white light exploded again.

Beam landed hard against the marble wall. He slid gracelessly along its cold surface and rolled over the protruding boots of one of the dead Baeldons before collapsing to his knees and vomiting onto the ethereal granite floor. His heart was ramming his ribs. The corridor was a blur of shadows and sparks of torchlight. He vomited again and again.

Sometime later, he swiped the back of his hand across his mouth and spit into the pooled emesis. A drop of sweat slipped from his nose and splattered into the vomit with more force than it had a right to.

“What the hell did she do to me?” he whispered into his hands.

“No,” he heard Chance say, “What did you do to her?”

Beam pushed himself away from the vomit and sat back against the cold wall. He dragged a sleeve across his beard and fought for composure. He had somehow moved across the corridor to the wall opposite where he’d been when this…this occurrence began.

The warrior was where he’d last seen her, but now she was on her back, her head and shoulders cradled in Chance’s lap. Her eyes were wide and vacant, her open mouth frozen with shock.

“What…what the hell happened to her?” he asked, though he was fairly sure he already knew.

“You touched her and she collapsed,” Chance said. His voice was angry and accusing. “She’s had some kind of seizure.”

“I touched her? When…when did I touch her?”

Chance was examining the Vaemyd’s eyes. He didn’t answer.

As Beam again wiped his mouth, the memory of it sparkled back at him. He remembered the falling Vaemyn in the tower. He remembered the foul warrior in the field, and the Vaemyd struggling behind the mossy log. He remembered the hill and the odd darkness that fell upon the befouled warrior.

“Beam!” Chance said behind him, “What the hell did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. I mean…I…I saw things.”

“You saw things?”

Beam nodded.

“What things?”

Beam stared at the warrior resting in Chance’s lap and tried to put sense into his visions.

“Beam! What things?”

“I don’t know!” Beam snapped back, “The truth, I guess.”

“Truth?” Chance said back, “What truth? What are you talking about?”

Beam looked at Chance. “The truth about her lies,” he whispered.

“Lies? What do you mean, lies? What are you talking about?”

Koonta stirred and gasped as if she’d just emerged from a terrible dream. Beam couldn’t make himself look at her.

“What do you mean, she’s lying?” Chance asked harder.

“She’s not going to betray us,” Beam said as his certainty grew, “She’s…she’s going to help us.”

“The Blood Caeyl. You probed her mind.”

“I don’t know,” Beam said as he watched a dead Baeldon watching him back from across the wide corridor. The unnatural eyes were judging him, defining him, warning him.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“She has doubts,” Beam heard himself say, “She fears Prae. She despises the wyrlaerds. Someone she loved died because of them. Another was stolen from her, and I’m pretty sure he’s going to die as well. It’s her brother, I think.”

Chance helped Koonta sit up. She was leaning hard against him. “The Blood Caeyl,” he said again, “What’s it doing to you?”

“I’m not sure.” He absolutely wasn’t.

“Goddamn you, Beam!” Chance yelled suddenly, “Will you be honest with me for once?”

Beam leaned back against the marble. He rolled his face to the side and pressed it into the smooth stone. His equilibrium was coming back, but too slowly to please him. He needed to get out of here. He needed to get away from them. He couldn’t bear their accusing stares.

“Beam, what is it? Blood of the gods! Talk to me!”

He couldn’t answer.

“Are you all right?”

“No,” Beam whispered, “No, I don’t think so.”

“Please! Tell me what’s happening.”

“Nothing. I mean...I’m...I’m remembering. I guess.”

“Remembering what?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters. What’s going on?”

Beam pushed himself away from the wall and staggered out into the corridor. He had to get the hell out of here. The memories were unbearable.

“Beam!” Chance called, “What is it?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Beam said as he turned away from them, “It’s done. It’s all in motion now.”

XXXIII

THE SEEDS OF CHANGE

T

HE SIGHT OF THE ICY CRYSTAL PILLAR SENT BEAM’S MOOD INTO A DEATH SPIRAL.

He threw his head back against the throne and clenched his eyes shut. “Not again!” he said, rolling his head against the chair, “For the love of gods, not again! Not again! Not again!”

But it was happening again. He was locked in that goddamned, miserable chair! Again!

He struggled against the ethereal restraints, but the effort was an exercise in perfect futility. It was exactly as the night before, and the night before that. He was trapped in his own bloody head! Again!

The Vaemyn warrior materialized before the dais. He was dressed in a more formal robe now, a smoky gray silken affair that cascaded to the floor with abundance. This dress seemed more in place here in this crystal palace than his armor had. Golden thread danced along the surcoat’s chest and sleeves, and down the seams of his robe, interlaced with blue, yellow, and red gems that swirled through the thread as if they were alive and swimming through the fabric. Golden combs secured his pale hair back from his face, though the length of it still spilled freely over his shoulders.

“Hello, Be’ahm,” he said, smiling sincerely.

“Well, aren’t you all prettied up,” Beam sneered back. He’d slap that infernal grin off the bastard’s face if he could only move his hands.

The Vaemyn’s annoying smile continued, unfettered by the insult. “I’m thrilled to share your company, again, my boy.”

Beam’s dark mood flamed up a notch. “Well, the change in your dress is something,” he said, “At least it throws a little variation into the monotony of this damned dream.”

“It’s not a dream, Be’ahm. It’s a memory.”

Beam threw his head back hard against the crystal chair. “You’re killing me with monotony!” he shouted, “Is that the plan? Keep pushing until it becomes unbearable? Until my mind collapses in on itself and I die of pure tedium?”

The warrior just stood there for a moment staring at Beam as if he were a king considering how best to sentence a common thief. Then he crossed his arms and said, “I seem unable to understand how unbearable it can be to simply listen.”

“Switch places with me,” Beam snapped, “Give me an hour and I’m pretty damned sure I can make you understand.”

The warrior laughed.

“You think that’s funny?”

“Ay’a, I think it’s quite funny, actually.”

“So it amuses you to tie people up? To irritate them in their sleep when they can’t defend themselves?”

“No, of course not,” the Vaemyn said, still grinning, “Don’t be absurd. It’s nothing like that.”

“Then why do you—”

“We don’t have much time, my boy.”

“Time? Time for wh—”

A sharp chill kicked up Beam’s spine, arriving as snappishly as a winter wind sneaking through a light coat. A rush of dizziness seized him. Something was in his head, something thick and tangible like fingers probing at the edge of his thoughts. He tensed and pushed back against the foreign energy, but he couldn’t drive it out. It was the Vaemyn. The bastard’s mind was sifting through his own.

Then a strange calm seized him. It radiated through him like the heat of a welcomed fire, ushering out the cold as expeditiously as it’d arrived. He no longer cared that the man was in his head. There was no threat in his presence anyway, more like curiosity or amusement. He quickly understood that the Vaemyn held him in special regard, as if they were old friends or long lost lovers who hadn’t shared wine in years, and who suddenly rediscovered each other on the street corner of some strange city. The Vaemyn wished him no ill will. The Vaemyn loved him.

“I believe you’re least alive when you’re angry,” someone said.

The words were in his head. He shook them away. He fought to free himself from the invading presence. Still, he felt those blue eyes drilling into him from somewhere in the distance. It felt like they were dissecting him, like they were trying to take him apart layer by layer. He had to drive the man out of his mind before he collapsed in on himself.

“I believe you’re least alive when you’re angry,” the Vaemyn said.

Beam couldn’t open his eyes. “More of your drivel,” he said, though it came out barely a whisper.

“You know that’s not true, Be’ahm,” the man said, “With every visit here, you open one more door.”

“Get the hell out of my head!”

“Your doors are obstacles to your true nature. They separate you from your gifts.”

The man’s mental fingers slinked deeper into Beam’s thoughts. They were crowding him out of his own head. They were so deeply entrenched that he couldn’t tell which thoughts were his and which belonged to the Vaemyn.

“I know you don’t believe me,” the man thought inside him, “In truth, it doesn’t matter that you do. All that matters is that you are here, now. That you are with me at last. The rest will come as naturally as winter’s thaw.”

Beam realized his eyes were open again. The Vaemyn knelt on the dais before him, resting back on his heels with his hands folded placidly on his lap. As he looked up at Beam, their shared gaze became a tunnel, a secret passage between two strong keeps, and the sensation of entering that ethereal tube felt as physical as a hot bath.

The thoughts emanating from the Vaemyn’s mind were colorful and intense, rich with memories and exotic images. Beam found humor and laughed out loud, found friendship and felt comfort, found death and despaired. It was a strange and wonderful place, a place of mysteries and hidden rooms.

But as the memories lured him deeper, he found great and terrible loss here. He remembered wives sailing into old age and infirmity. He remembered generation after generation of children born, maturing, and falling to dust. He saw loved ones passing over as he lived on, as he remained alive, as he defied time and age. The images repeated again and again through countless centuries. The pain was deep and visceral, unrelenting and unbearable!

Beam withdrew on a gasp. His head snapped back hard against the solid chair as his mind recoiled into its own space. He doubled forward and seized his face. The emotional pain he’d found in the Vaemyn’s mind was a terrifying burden. The anguish lodged in this man’s memories was unbearable!

“Your life is rich with loss, Be’ahm.”

Beam drew a breath and steadied himself. The pain was finally ebbing. He pushed himself upright, but kept his eyes locked on his lap. He couldn’t bear to look at the Vaemyn for fear the memories would assault him again.

“And because your life is so rich with loss, it is your pain that defines you.”

Beam thought about the pain he’d found in the other’s mind. Or had the pain been his own? Maybe he’d confused the Vaemyn’s suffering with his own memories. He didn’t know. He couldn’t make sense of it.

“Not just in this world,” the Vaemyn whispered into his mind, “But through all your incarnations, through all your lifetimes. That has been the defining essence of your collective existences: Pain and loss, birth and death, few victories and countless defeats.”

Beam realized he’d been weeping. He wiped the shame from his face. “No,” he said back, “That’s not true. You’re confusing us. You’re mistaking my thoughts for yours.”

The warrior seemed to shrink at that. His own eyes were now wet with memory. “Precisely so,” he said so softly Beam barely heard him, “Our thoughts are the same. Our losses are the same. And therein hides our salvation.”

The Vaemyn climbed carefully to his feet. He turned away and stepped down from the dais. Beam stood and followed him, and as he did, a name materialized in his mind. “Prave,” he whispered.

The man stopped, but didn’t turn around.

“Prave,” Beam said again.

“Ay’a.”

“I know you.”

“The pain that’s plagued your life isn’t random or senseless, Be’ahm,” Prave said without turning, “It has purpose. It defines you. It reminds you of who you are, of what you are. It prepares you.”

Beam wanted to move closer to the man, but the Vaemyn threw up his hand.

“I don’t understand,” Beam said.

“Tell me what you don’t understand.”

“I don’t know. I mean, I’m not sure.”

“You don’t know what you don’t understand?”

“No,” Beam whispered as he wrestled with the elusive truth, “At least…I don’t think so. But then, at times, it almost makes sense.”

The Vaemyn looked back at him. “Continue,” he whispered.

“The memories,” Beam said, “They’re so close. It’s like…like they’re hiding at the edge of my thoughts, like they’re so close that I can’t make them out.”

The warrior said nothing.

“What the hell’s happening to me?” Beam said, looking him hard in the eyes, “You obviously know, so just tell me. Why are you doing this to me?”

The Vaemyn offered him another tired smile. “It will all be clear in time, my boy. Some fruits are too large to eat in one bite.”

Beam felt his irritation riding in to the rescue. “More riddles,” he growled, “I’m such an idiot! For a minute, you almost had me believing—”

The Vaemyn turned and seized Beam by the shoulders. “Remember this, Be’ahm. Suffering is the sire of strength. Sometimes pain is necessary. Sometimes pain should not be avoided.”

“What?”

“Great suffering will descend upon you soon, and when that time comes you must accept it. You must embrace it no matter how foreboding or unfair it seems at the time. Only by crawling through the dark tunnel can you ever see the sun again. When you finally emerge back into the life-giving light, you’ll no longer be the man you were. You’ll be every man you ever were.”

Beam felt sick. “I...I want to understand,” he said, “I mean, I think I do. I just—”

“You’ll understand soon enough, Be’ahm. You’ll be complete again soon enough. Until then you have more to learn. No god is born ignorant.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

The Vaemyn squeezed Beam’s shoulders tighter. “No god is born ignorant, Be’ahm.”

Beam found himself back in the throne. The white light was pulsing through the crystal. It flowed up into his legs, through his stomach and chest, and down his arms until it fully engulfed him.

Then he was falling.

∞

The red sun swelled up over the morning horizon, a bloated red disk too engorged to successfully climb the heavens. Beam snatched the sword falling toward him and pulled it down to his lap. He smothered the warm caeyl under his hands. Then he opened his eyes.

Chance was sitting across the corridor from him beneath the watchful eyes of another dead Baeldon. He was fussing with the dwindling portions of their food supply, though his eyes were leveled soundly at Beam. He looked like he’d been waiting on pins and needles for Beam to wake up.

“I trust you had a good sleep?” he asked far too casually.

Beam easily saw through the words. The real question the man was asking was has the caeyl changed you? Again? In truth, he was wondering the same thing. Am I still sane? Am I still me?

“I’m good,” he offered as a compromise.

Koonta’ar materialized from the shadows. Her face looked like an abandoned house, alone and hopeless. She was clearly exhausted, and as he watched her watching him, he suffered another misplaced pang of guilt for it. For all the aggravation they brought, the dreams seemed to recharge him; he felt like he’d slept a week. Once again, he prayed that his revitalization wasn’t coming at his companions’ expense.

Koonta caught a piece of molding bread tossed by Chance, and then melted to a sitting position on the glassy marble. Her eyes never left Beam’s.

He’d normally have slung a disparaging comment her way, but this morning he found he just didn’t have the urge. The dream had him too preoccupied. He thought about his strange communion with the warrior and the ethereal tunnel that’d joined them, and he realized he’d done the same thing to Koonta the day before. It had been a cruder experience, not nearly as deep or intense, but it’d been every bit as invasive.

What was it Prave had told him? That he was changing? That with every visit he’d open another door? What if there was something to it? Something greater and more significant than simple superstition and religious dogma? What if it actually was true? Prave had said he’d become a god. He knew it was so much bullshit, yet still couldn’t seem to let it go.

Chance knelt down before him with a leather skin of food. Before offering the food, he reached forward and plucked something from Beam’s shirt. As he held it up between them, Beam realized it was a clump of hair.

The sight was so curious, so utterly unexpected, he couldn’t wrap his mind around it. Why would the man be holding a lock of his hair? “You gave me a trim while I was sleeping?” he asked.

“Sure,” Chance said as he picked more hair from Beam’s shirt, “What else do I have to do at night?”

Beam had no retort for that. The sight of the hair had his mind reeling.

Chance rolled the clump of the hair between his fingers as he studied it. “It’s from your face.”

“My face?” It was the queerest thing Beam ever heard anyone say. He ran his fingers through his beard and then held his hand out. Black hair covered his fingers.

Time stopped.

“I could be wrong,” Chance said as if reading his mind, “But I’d have to say your beard is…well, falling out.”

“Falling out?” Beam said, “What? No. That’s impossible.”

Chance held his torch closer.

Beam plucked out another clump from his chin and flicked it away like it was offal. He was about to complain when he caught Chance’s eyes. The look stopped him cold. “Why are you looking at me like I’m a leper?” he said carefully.

“Your hair.”

“I know,” Beam said, “My beard’s falling out. I got that.”

“No, there’s more. It’s…” Chance stopped.

“It’s what?” Beam pressed.

“Your hair...”

“What about my hair?” Beam asked.

“It’s…well, longer.”

“Longer?” Beam said carefully, “What do you mean, longer?”

“It appears to have grown a bit overnight.”

The words rolled around Beam’s head for a moment. They didn’t make any sense. Finally, he laughed and said, “Bullshit.”

“Is it?” Chance asked, pointing at Beam’s chest, “Explain that, then.”

Beam looked down at his shirt. For a moment, he thought he was going to throw up. The terminal ends of his hair hung past his armpits.

He cautiously fingered the tips. It was at least two or three inches longer than when he went to sleep. “How…how long was I out?” he asked, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“Overnight,” Chance said, “That’s all.”

“You’re sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Pretty sure?”

“Beam, I’m certain of it. You slept the night. Though you were in the caeyl’s light longer than usual. Eleven or twelve hours, perhaps longer.”

“Eleven or twelve hours?”

Chance nodded. “Perhaps longer. We’ve been waiting some time for you to reemerge.”

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

“You were in the light. How was I supposed to wake you?”

Beam tilted the sword up and stared at the reflection looking back from the wide blade. There was no question about it; the hair on his head was longer. It even seemed a bit lighter, though he told himself it had to be an illusion brought on by the gloom. However, it was the condition of his beard that most alarmed him. Patches of bare skin spotted his cheeks. He was molting like a spring wolf.

“Miners,” he whispered.

“Miners?” Chance said, “What does that mean?”

“I’ve heard of a sickness miners get sometimes when they’re down under too long or too deep. Makes their hair fall out, and then they get really sick and die.”

“It’s no sickness.”

Beam knew he was right. In his heart, he understood exactly what was happening. Yet, he just couldn’t will himself to face it. Not now. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

“No, Beam, I think this is something else,” Chance whispered.

“Curse the bloody gods!” Beam said more to himself than anyone, “This isn’t right! I haven’t been a saint, I admit it, but I sure as hell don’t deserve this.”

Chance’s eyes were locked on his. “I doubt it has anything to do with deserving.”

“It’s the damned caeyl. It’s killing me, isn’t it?”

“It’s not killing you,” Chance said, “It’s more like…like it’s changing you.”

“Changing? What does that mean, changing?”

Chance shook his head, but didn’t pull his eyes away. “I’m not sure,” he whispered, “Perhaps a metamorphosis of some kind. Worm to moth, something like that.”

Beam scowled at the imagery. “You think that’s pretty funny, do you? A goddamned worm?”

“I intended no humor.”

“It’s the heat of the caeyl,” Beam said as he brushed the hair from his tunic, “It’s speeding my blood up, that’s all.”

“Speeding your blood up?”

Beam reached for his knife, but the sheath in his boot was empty. Then he remembered Chance cutting the warrior’s bonds the night before. He looked over at the Vaemyd and saw the dagger wedged beneath her belt. He immediately looked back at Chance and resisted the urge to knock him flat. “You gave her my knife?”

“She took a watch. She needed a weapon.”

“You let her take a watch?”

“I can’t take them all, Beam. And I couldn’t exactly tap you for a shift. As point of fact, I haven’t been able to depend on you taking a watch since our first night in the tunnels.”

Beam watched him for a moment, but decided against pursuing it further. There didn’t seem to be a point in expanding their collective aggravation this morning. Instead, he looked at the Vaemyd. “You there, Vaemyd,” he said, gesturing for the blade, “Give me the knife.”

“I told you my name is Koonta’ar,” she said, “Do you have a problem with your memory?”

Beam bristled. If one more person asked him that question, he swore he’d murder them where they stood. “Just give me the goddamned knife.”

“Say my name,” she said stubbornly.

He held his hand out toward her and asked as sourly as he could manage, “Koonta’ar, if you’d be so kind as to give my knife back, I’d be forever in your debt.”

Without breaking eye contact, she tossed it across the corridor. As it clattered to a stop at his feet, she said in Vaemysh, “Notice there’s no blood on it.”

“Of course there isn’t,” Beam said in kind, “If there were, it would’ve been yours.”

Chance gave him a look like he’d just grown a tail. “You said you didn’t speak Vaemysh.”

“I don’t,” Beam said, “I mean...I don’t bloody know. Maybe I picked up a little along the way. What difference is it?”

“That sounded like more than a little.”

“It was a lucky guess. Just leave it, will you?”

Chance looked at him for a moment, and then he simply nodded and withdrew.

As Beam watched the man repacking their supplies, he felt a deep and sorrowful pang of angst. The man was confused and terrified, and though Beam wanted more than anything to assure him, to drive his fear and pain out into the rock, he couldn’t. The unfortunate truth was he had plenty of worries of his own standing in line ahead of the mage’s.

Finally, he sighed and tipped his sword up toward his face. As he considered the reflection looking back at him from the blade, he took the knife and tested its sharpness against his thumb. Then he began to shave.

XXXIV

THE APPRENTICE

L

UREN WONDERED IF IT WAS DAY OR NIGHT.

His world had devolved to a perpetual gloom whose oppression was broken only by the anemic torchlight whispering through the barred window of the cell door on the sidewall at the other end of the long, narrow room. It could have been days or weeks or even just hours since his confinement began. It felt like he was in a dream performing the same simple task over and over, and every time he’d come close to finishing he’d inexplicably find himself back at the start, and the only way he could ever escape it was to either wake up or die.

He threw his head back against the stone. The pain seared across his skull, and he felt a strange satisfaction for it. In truth, the pain was all he had. The pain distracted him from his self-pity, at least temporarily. The pain grounded him.

The decaying straw covering the stone floor was thick and greasy from decades of excrement and decay. And though his vision had adapted as well as it might to the perpetual dusk, the acrid fumes wafting up from the rotting bedding made his eyes water constantly so that the flesh around his eyes burned viciously from the relentless irritation.

He struggled against the rusted iron collar for the thousandth time. The damned thing was rubbing his skin raw. His neck was perpetually hot and sticky from the blood oozing beneath the corroded metal. The chain leashing him to the wall was so short that he had to hold the collar up when he rested to keep it from choking him to death in his sleep.

In the scheme of things, though, he knew the pain was the least of his worries. He could endure the pain. It was only physical after all, and he could escape the weakness of his body when he meditated. What terrified him most was the fact he wasn’t alone.

The sparse light seeping through the caged window brought all the horrors of this dungeon to life. His nearest mate laid a few feet away on the sidewall, hanging from a throat shackle identical to his own. His hollowed eye sockets gaped incessantly at Luren. The fleshless mouth hung open like a frozen scream. Tatters of rotting, colorless cloth draped the ribs like cobwebs. Yellowed hair sprouted in clumps from patches of mummified skin.

And there were others keeping him company in the cell as well, though they were little more than scattered suggestions of death. A skeletal arm, a toothless jawbone, a rake of ribs curling up from the rotting straw, eyeless orbs peering up from the bedding like a swimmer spying on him from just above the waterline. The images were gruesome and hopeless, but they weren’t the worst of it. His most chilling companions were the rats.

They crawled through the gloom like living bits of shadows, climbing in and out of his companions’ ribs and eyes, gnawing on their decaying bones. Their ever-present eyes gleamed red in the anemic light so that he was always aware of their hungry gaze. One particularly greasy black rat had the habit of climbing atop the skull of Luren’s nearest neighbor and clicking at him as if urging him to hurry up and die so that he and his family could dine.

Luren snapped his head back against the stone again. The resulting pain was like a stomp on the floor that scatters a swarm of ants. It drove away his fears and gave him strength. It told him he was alive, and as long as he was alive, there was hope. He closed his eyes and thought of Chance and home. He had to get out of here. He refused to die in this wretched place, alone and forgotten.

His fingers slipped along the coarse iron collar until they reached the lynch peg. This part of the collar was in much better condition than the rest of the shackle; he could feel the fresh grease and smell the biting scent of oil even above the stench of old urine. He’d tried repeatedly to coax the peg into surrender, to use his caeyl energy to alter its position in time-space just enough to slip it free, but he’d failed every time. He was too young, too inexperienced.

He wasn’t mature enough to have his own external caeyl, like the one in Chance’s staff. He could only use his Bloodlink Caeyl, the one imbedded in his brain at the base of his head, to summon the natural energy emanating from the earth, and then only to a small degree. He could create brief space-time events like levitating pebbles or freezing water or creating fire, but none of that would serve him here.

Everything was different here. The earth beneath Prae’s keep was impure. It was corrupted and spoiled. Its effects somehow fouled the caeylsphere so that the natural energy available to one of his inborn talents was made nearly useless, and he lacked the skills and experience to subjugate its corruption. His was a pure magic, and in this place, purity was a handicap.

He knocked his head back against the wall.

Where the hell was Chance?

He hit his head again.

He needed Chance. He needed help!

Hot tears burned his eyes. He buried his face into his hands. “I’ll die here alone,” he whispered, “And no one will ever know what happened to me.”

He heard the familiar sound of tiny claws scratching against bone.

The black rat was back, watching him again from atop his cellmate’s skull. All thoughts of Chance and self-pity dissipated with the sight of that miserable vermin. Survive first, grieve later.

The wicked black rat dropped and rose, dropped and rose, again and again, as if locked in the hypnotic rhythm of some evil dance, all the time chattering, chattering. The sight was revolting and terrifying. Then he saw the rest of them. The dark straw beyond the black rat and its corpulent perch was moving. Shadows flowed through the decaying straw. The rats were creeping toward him in a slow, determined wave. There were more than he had ever seen.

He withdrew as far as the wall would allow. The king rat’s chattering grew louder and more maniacal. The dark wave of vermin crept closer, developing form and substance as they swam forward. The clicking of teeth rose from the mob, growing louder and more determined as their frenzy intensified.

Luren dug through the slimy muck beneath the straw. He needed a weapon, something he could throw.

The black rat was dancing so feverishly atop his cellmate that the skull rocked forward and back in an unnatural nod. Luren felt something warm scurry along his leg. He screamed and kicked at it. The rats were nearly on him.

In the last possible instant, he found a piece of bone beneath the fetid straw and heaved it at the black leader. The projectile landed a direct hit, knocking the squealing rat away with a sickening thud. The skull toppled backward in pursuit, bouncing off the wall and rolling out into the middle of the cell. It came to a rest amid the scattering rats with its cavernous eyes gaping up at him in surprise from the filthy bedding.

With the loss of their leader, the rats evacuated the cell, pouring like water out through the cracks and crevices hidden in the darkest corners of his prison.

Luren couldn’t scream. He couldn’t even breathe. His fear boiled up to such an unbearable frenzy that it seemed to circle back around to reason again, until there was no fear at all, only truth. And with that, a rush of terrible clarity seized him. He had to act now, really act, or he’d certainly die here alone in the dark silence. He’d never see Chance again. He’d never feel warmth or sunshine or love, not ever again.

He twisted himself around in the imprisoning collar and found the lynch peg again. He pushed his life force out into the caeylsphere. He summoned from the depths of his spirit every bit of power and knowledge he’d achieved in his apprenticeship. He closed his eyes and strained to remember every lesson Chance had ever given him, every act he’d witnessed Chance perform with his caeyl, every moment in his life when he’d felt the earth’s energy pulse through him. He opened his mind and his heart, and as he did, his senses became a magnet for power, a conduit for the earth’s natural energy, exactly as his mentor had taught him.

He held his open palms up on each side of the lynch peg. He muttered the ancient words of lost chants as his thoughts condensed to a singular point of focus.

He anguished that way forever, it seemed. Finally, a dim blue glow tingled against the flesh of his palms. The energy was meager at first, but it quickly grew in intensity until blue sparks sizzled from flesh to iron on both sides of the shackle.

He pushed his mind ever deeper into the effort, exactly as he might put his back into rolling a heavy rock. The world around him faded away. He was floating in a dark void where nothing existed except the shackle and his mind and the caeylsphere.

The smell of ozone filled the dank cell. The lock began to glow ever so slightly, a blue heart pulsing in the darkness, a glimmer of hope. Another blue spark sizzled across the tiny space between him and the metal. And then a sharp crack split the silence of the cell. A rush of steam puffed from the metal like a last gasp as the space that had once been the lynch pin became nothing more than dripping water.

The pin was gone. The shackle was open with the sparkling remnants of his magic still popping and racing across its surface.

Luren dropped his face into the stone. “Oh, my gods,” he whispered as his eyes flooded hot with tears, “Thank you, Calina. Thank you. Thank you.”

Numb fingers pried the rusted iron collar open. He’d barely opened it wide enough to free himself when he heard the voices. He froze. Someone was coming. Dreadful memories rushed in, memories of the grievous whippings he’d received at the hands of the jailer on that first day he’d arrived.

He pushed the collar closed. He couldn’t let that miserable shell of a jailer know he was free yet. He needed a plan.

A dark shadow passed before the barred window to the cell door on the far side of the room. Keys jangled. A key scratched the metal in search of the keyhole. Then tumblers clacked confidently as they rolled away under the pressure of the key. Slowly, the great door swung inward, squealing on rusty hinges, flooding the cell with light. Luren buried his face in his arm to escape the pain of it.

He squinted up over the edge of his sleeve. Two silhouetted figures were moving toward him. One of the shapes, the one with the torch, stopped at the middle of the cell. The face of the jailer simmered in the torchlight behind it. He was old and hunched. Cobwebs of hair moldered on his large, flat head. The flesh on his face dripped down his cheeks and jowls like melting wax, but his eyes were sharp and far too keen.

The second figure, the one in front of the jailer, was fully shrouded in the shadows cast by the torchlight behind him. He stepped toward Luren, stopping just at his feet. Then he squatted before him.

The man leaned closer, close enough that Luren felt the warmth of his breath on his face. It was sour with old alcohol.

“So, this is the apprentice, eh?” the man said.

Luren’s breath caught in his chest. The voice was intense and strangely familiar.

The jailer shuffled forward and stopped just behind the squatting man with his torch held high. “Aye, sire. Scrawny little rat, ain’t he?” The voice was unnaturally shrill.

“I’d expected something modestly more impressive,” the kneeling man said, “I swear, there’s barely enough boy here to bother with.”

Luren looked up into the face. The man’s hair was shoulder length and straight, and appeared reddish where the torch lit the edges, but that was the extent of what he could make out. The details were lost to the shadows.

“Refresh my memory,” the kneeling man said, “What’s the name again?”

The jailer floundered with the question. “Name? Uh...Creenon, sire.”

The dark figure rose up and wheeled on the jailer. Luren flinched at the sound of a harsh slap.

“Not your name, idiot!” the man yelled, “What’s the boy’s name?”

“The…the boy?” the jailer snuffled.

Another slap. Another shrill cry.

“You worthless hack,” the familiar voice bellowed, “Get out! Out!”

Luren hid behind his knees. The jailer shuffled out of the cell. He was still whimpering.

The figure squatted before Luren again. “What’s your name boy?” His voice resumed its false gentility. “I’ve been told, but my memory for inconsequential facts is sadly not what it once was.”

Luren squinted up into the shadowy face. He refused to show fear to one who’d doubtlessly exploit it. “Who asks?” he said.

The man laughed. It sounded absurdly musical in the fetid misery of the cell. “Excellent,” the man said, “Even after all this time under such distasteful accommodations, you remain feisty. I admire that.”

Luren didn’t respond.

The man turned slightly and yelled out to the jailer, “Creenon! The torch!”

A grunting response rolled in from the dungeon beyond.

The man turned back to Luren. “How many days have you been my guest now? Five? Six? The time passes so quickly when one is consumed with the glory of planning great events. I’m afraid it leaves little room for the concern over others.”

Luren felt his heart stop. He couldn’t draw a breath. He suddenly understood, and he cursed himself for not realizing it earlier. This was Prae!

The jailer appeared with a torch. His features twisted demonically in the dancing flame as he approached Prae. He stopped immediately behind him. “Here ye be, sire,” he said, “It’s a torch, just like ye’d be asking.”

Prae twisted to look up at him. The jailer fidgeted and averted his eyes.

“Well?” he said to the jailer.

The jailer was practically dancing in fear. “Sire?” he asked.

“What practical good is a torch held behind me?”

The jailer seemed confused by the statement. Then he quickly knelt beside Prae and held the fire above and between them. As he did, Prae’s face flamed to life.

His nose was long and narrow on a thin, angular face. His fine, shoulder length hair glimmered reddish brown in the torchlight. Save for the fine, black lines of face paint around his eyes and an excruciatingly manicured beard, he looked hauntingly similar to Chance.

For the barest instant, Luren felt a false surge of hope. Perhaps it was Chance. Perhaps this was some strange flux of space-time. Perhaps he’d been locked away in some dark dimension of the Wyr Realm where time passed differently than in the mortal world. Perhaps Chance was here to free him.

Prae’s voice parted the gloom like a cleaver. “What would have you looking so perplexed, boy?”

“What?” Luren asked. He didn’t understand.

“What are you staring at?” the man asked as if posing a question with no correct response, “Do you see something in my face that interests you, my dear child?”

“I…I’m not staring,” Luren said.

The face loomed closer. He was grinning. His perfectly straight teeth were as white as hope. “Why, boy,” he whispered, “I declare you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” His laughter boiled through the cell.

“What do you want with me?” Luren asked.

“How long has Chance employed you as a tutor?”

Luren’s sweaty hands adjusted the heavy collar at his neck. “Fifteen years. And a half. Since nearly my birth.”

Prae’s eyes slid over to the jailer who cowered on contact. “Fifteen years and nearly a half,” he said to Creenon, “My goodness, where does the time go?”

The jailer grew flustered. He continued to avert his eyes. “I...I don’t know what you mean, sire.”

Prae turned back to Luren. A wicked grin snaked through his beard. “Fifteen years and a half, you say. You’re nearly sixteen years, then, aren’t you? Nearly a man. Well, I imagine you must be quite adept with the Water Caeyl by now, aren’t you? Do you have your stone yet?” He poked a long, jeweled finger into the boy’s chest.

Luren recoiled into the wall.

Prae brought the back of his hand to his mouth and sniggered into it. The tiny gems woven through the ruby cloth of his shirt glittered in the torchlight. Such pretentiousness was the last divide between this one and Chance.

“You must be quite impressive,” the mage continued, “Chance would never stoop to taking on an apprentice who wasn’t immensely gifted. He’s always been desperately arrogant that way. Not that a caeyl as impractical and subservient as a Water Caeyl requires any special degree of ability, of course.”

“You don’t know anything about him,” Luren said.

“Don’t I?”

“No.”

“I imagine he has you spending your days washing his dishes and chopping his wood, am I right?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Prae laughed again. “You’re beginning to sound like my jailer. Perhaps you’d like a position. I may have a vacancy soon.” He snapped a glare over at the jailer who nearly dropped the torch in surprise.

Luren said nothing. It surprised him that he felt a tiny spark of sympathy for the jailer.

Prae leaned closer. “But fifteen years?” he whispered.

“And a half,” Creenon whispered from behind the torch.

Prae laughed at that. “Fifteen years and a half,” he said, “My goodness! He’s being a bit greedy with his stone, wouldn’t you say?”

“He’s not greedy. He’s smart. He knows better than to fracture his caeyl before he needs to. I still have studies to complete.”

“He’s smart? I’d think the wiser wager is he’s afraid.”

“He’s not afraid of anything,” Luren said, “Least of all you.”

Prae’s grin didn’t waver, though the darkness in his eyes seemed to deepen just a bit. “I recall from our youth,” he said, “Chance used to tell me that having an apprentice would be just like having a little slave girl. Someone to do all the work, but share none of the glory. Much like a handmaiden, I would dare to estimate. But you don’t look like a handmaiden.” He laughed at that.

“You’re a liar,” Luren said.

“Me?” Prae said, still laughing, “A liar? I dare say I should know him better than you. You’ve been his slave a mere fifteen years and a half, but I’ve been his brother for two centuries.”

Brother? Luren couldn’t get his breath. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. The madman was just trying to provoke him.

Prae leaned closer. His hawkish eyes burned at Luren from above a lethal smile. “You seem distraught, my boy. Is something bothering you?”

“Chance never...he…he never...”

“He never what, boy? Never told you he had a brother?”

Luren could only look at him. There was nothing he could say. The news was too big. Too terrifying.

Prae glanced over at the jailer and feigned guilt. “Oops,” he said, covering his mouth with a few bejeweled fingers, “I fear I’ve never been much skilled at keeping secrets.”

“I don’t believe you!” Luren said.

“You don’t have to!” Prae growled back at him, “Chance has one brother, and you’re looking at him. He has a sister as well, but I fear I’ve lost sight of her these past decades.”

“It’s not true. You’re not his brother.”

“I am Lord Prae Gnoman, Master Mage of the Fire Caeyl and Keeper of Dragor’s Field and the Southern Realm of Na te’Tula. I’m Chance’s older and far, far wiser brother.”

“I...I don’t believe you,” Luren lied.

“My dear lad! You don’t have to! I’m more than his elder brother. I’m also a far more powerful mage! He should be my apprentice just as you are his. That’s how brightly my flame burns over his.”

“You’re a liar!” Luren yelled up at him.

Prae seized the torch from the jailer and thrust it into Luren’s face. Luren recoiled from the heat. He could smell his hair singeing but refused to submit to it. Let the mage kill him, what difference did it make now? He didn’t care.

Prae eased the flames back. Then he gently stroked Luren’s hair. His fingers smelled of soap and perfume. “Don’t you see, my son,” he whispered, “That’s why he covets the Blood Caeyl so?”

Luren pulled away from his hand. “Blood Caeyl? What’re you talking about? The Blood Caeyls are all gone.”

“That’s why he’s plotted against me for so many decades, don’t you see? So that he may finally be stronger than me, that for once in his wretched life he may stand superior to me. So he can finally be a real mage, a mage worthy of the respect of the people.”

“He’s a member of the Circle of Twenty!” Luren yelled at him, “And what are you? Why, you’re nothing! You’re nobody! You’re a prisoner in your own keep.”

“He resents me for my strength,” Prae whispered as he caressed Luren’s cheek, “He resents me because I’m a constant reminder of his weakness.”

Luren withdrew into the stone, whispering, “You’re insane. You’re Prae the Biled!”

Prae’s eyes swelled like a dragon’s wings unfurling. He slapped Luren. “You dare call me that?” He slapped him again, harder. “You dare mention that name in my house?” He slapped him again and again.

Luren suffered the blows in silence, refusing to beg mercy from a lunatic.

Prae stood up. His eyes were wild, his breath ragged. He waved a threatening finger down at Luren and yelled, “Well hear these insane rants, boy! By tomorrow night, Chance will be dead. Do you understand me? He will be dead! And once he’s dead I’ll have the Blood Caeyl.”

“What Blood Caeyl?” Luren cried, “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about! There is no Blood Caeyl!”

“I should kill you right here and now and give your shell up to one of my demons. I’m confident you’d make a magnificent hack.”

Luren refused to lower his eyes from the mad stare of the mage. Don’t show him fear, he ordered himself. If you show fear, you’re lost.

The mage watched him for another few moments, and then his features abruptly melted back to their pre-rage simmer. “But I don’t suppose it matters now, does it?” he said softly, “By tomorrow midnight it’ll be done. Then, when I receive the word that it’s so, I will have you executed as well. It’s all very neat and organized, don’t you agree?”

Luren said nothing.

Prae grinned. “Aya. Yes, of course you do. You’re a bright lad. I can see that now. It’s unfortunate our lives couldn’t have worked out differently. I would’ve enjoyed raising an apprentice of such obvious talents. I could’ve shown you the glorious side of caeyl magic.”

It was more than Luren could bear. “You’re a liar!” he yelled, “You’ll never beat Chance! He doesn’t even have any damned Blood Caeyl! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Prae stepped gracefully from the path of a flying wad of phlegm. Then he turned and walked toward the door held open for him by the miserable jailer. Before he exited, he stopped and swept his gaze over the ghastly cell as if surveying its contents. Eventually, his eyes landed back on Luren.

“Please forgive these dreary accommodations,” he said, smiling, “It’s just that we’re so busy these days with our planning. It seems I’ve filled every room with dignitaries and heads of state. Being as you’re nearly family and all, I pray you’ll understand.” He glanced at the headless skeleton resting near Luren, and added, “And I do hope you get along well with your bunk mates.”

His noxious laughter continued even after the creaking door closed and the lock clacked tight.

“You’re insane!” Luren yelled after him, “You’re insane! Do you hear me? Insane!”

As the cell door wrenched shut, he fell back against the mildewed wall and curled into his knees, and then he started to cry. It was only after his grief had been spent and his tears run dry that he finally slumped back into the cold rock and faded into an exhausted sleep.

XXXV

BELFRY HILL

M

AWBY TRUDGED CAREFULLY THROUGH THE CHEST-DEEP GRASS.

The ground rising up the steeply sloping hill was uneven and unpredictable, turning each step into a calculated risk. His pain and growing fatigue perfectly compounded the gamble.

He pushed himself up the last few yards to the peak of the crest and back into the unending wind. Once there, he dropped to his knees and waited for his breath to catch up with him. From up here, his view of the surrounding plains was completely unfettered. Hills the color of heady grain rose and fell and rose again like the swells on an angry ocean until disappearing into an unreachable horizon.

He pulled the waterskin from his pack. The lightness of it was tragic. He hadn’t seen any water since that wretched pond where he’d found Goudt. He might be able to dig for water at the bottom of one of these swales, but loathed the effort it would take. His wounds were sapping his energy at an epic rate.

Despair plagued him like a stubborn cloud. The death of his brother, the loss of Koonta, Goudt floating so indignantly in that damned pond, all sang to him a ballad of failure and defeat. And now Maeryc was getting away with the Blood Caeyl. It was nearly more than he could bear. He’d never wanted anything more in his life than to scream out at the gods, to release the too’ke fel of all war cries, to screech until it drained him of life, and then collapse into the welcoming earth. He was failing his people! He was failing them!

He dragged an arm across his eyes.

He looked at the moisture glistening along his bare forearm. It’d been long since he’d last cried. Even when he watched Pa’ana plummet to his death in the dark tower, he’d denied himself the weakness of tears. Even as Pa’ana begged him forgiveness in the seconds before his suicide, he wouldn’t allow himself to grieve. Grief would only weaken him, slow him down. Grief was a distraction he could not afford.

He dropped his hands to his lap and drew a hard breath. Then he again looked out over the rolling plains. They were every bit as oppressive as the Nolands, though more extreme due to the unrelenting wind and the violent hills that seemed to consume every inch of this place. The only break in the endless grass was the surreal outline of one great tree that exploded up from the apex of a larger hill just to the north.

He spotted something moving in his peripheral vision. He turned toward it, blocking his eyes from the wind as he studied the agitated grass. There was nothing to be seen there. Again. It was just his body betraying him. Again. It was just more nothing, more obscure blurs and smudges that disappeared when looked at full on. His chest wound was infected, and he was certain he was suffering a fever. How much longer would he be able to trust his senses?

Yet, even as he pondered the question, he knew it wasn’t worth pursuing. He was dying, and there wasn’t a single thing in Heaven or the Wyr that was going to change that fact. It wouldn’t be long before his mind would start failing him, betrayed by disloyal flesh. In truth, he relished the moment. To lay down into the welcoming grass, to sleep beneath the wind. It was—

He saw it again.

He rose up on his knees and pinned his wind-whipped hair back from his face as he studied the distant grass. There it was! It was just over a half-mile out and climbing that next hill. It was almost unnoticeable, the sparest spark of red against the swelling green. He ripped the binds free on his pack and dug out his field glass. He scanned that hill, moving the glass slowly and methodically across the section in question.

Though the details were hazy, he recognized the erratic movement of the figure climbing the next hill. It was Maeryc. It had to be.

He stowed the glass and shouldered the pack. It took all his determination to keep from busting into a full run, though he knew full well his wounds would never bear such an act of zeal. The goddamned chest wound was taking him down more quickly than he would’ve ever thought possible, making it critical he reserve his strength for the deed that awaited him.

A large bird circled the sky high above the hill Maeryc was climbing. Mawby watched it as he crept forward through the grass. It might be a prairie vulture, though it’d have to be a damned big one. He imagined Maeryc must look like an awfully tempting proposition from that altitude, a staggering mess of bloody wounds and festering flesh. Then he remembered his own condition, and he couldn’t help laughing. The damned vulture could be circling for either one of them.

Not that it mattered. He’d be on Maeryc within the hour. Once he dispatched that miserable hack to the demons that loved him, it didn’t matter what happened to his own corpse. He’d find a place out here in the middle of this godless no man’s land and bury the caeyl where no one would ever find it. Then his only wish was that he’d still have enough strength to crawl as far from the hiding spot as possible before giving himself up to the vultures.

∞

Wenzil burst through the dripline of the massive tree and into the deep shadows before reeling back on the reins.

As the horse danced to a stop beneath the low, heavy crown, Wenzil swiped off his hat and dragged a bare arm across his brow. He was sweating more than he had a right to. It was the fear again. The plains had always been difficult for him, coming from a culture of mountains and caves as he did. A day of riding through nothing more than grass and wind and a towering sky had left him feeling a bit jittery. The shade here beneath the low hanging branches felt as soothing as a soft bed in a dark room.

Hector’s horse exploded through the dripline a moment later. The nearly white beast lumbered to a circling halt beside his, snorting and shaking its mane wildly.

His partner was a foot shorter than Wenzil. His braids and short beard were dark blonde, though leaning toward a premature gray. Heavier than Wenzil, he was dressed in the same light, black leathers, though Hector sported a turtle shell, a pair of thin plates of blackened steel armor that covered his chest and back. He wore a wide-brimmed, black leather hat with the front brim pulled low and the right side tacked up against the crown. The hatband sported a pair of long red feathers that spiked backward dramatically, the tips landing in space well beyond the edge of the rear brim.

Hector leaned back in his saddle and pulled a leg up over the horn as he grinned at Wenzil. “What’s the matter, little feller?” he said, leaning into his raised knee, “Feeling a bit sheepish, are we? Is that big old sky making you all scared again?”

“Piss off!” Wenzil snapped.

“Fear of the plains and of heights. My gods, mayhaps it’d be safer if you just found yourself a bedroom with a big old door on it, and retired to the blankets.”

Wenzil leaned over and slapped Hector’s hat off. It landed in the grass between them. The horses continued ripping and eating at the grain on either side of it.

Hector’s grin faded. “Now I know you’re going to climb your ass down there and pick that up.”

“Well, sure I am,” Wenzil said, “You just wait and see.”

With that, he urged his horse forward under the tree and toward the opposite edge of the canopy.

This place was called Belfry Hill, at least among his fellow runners. There was an official, old-timey name for it, but it was too long, too old, and too cumbersome to bother committing to memory. This hill was the highest point on the plains, and crowned by the grand old tree rising above him, the only significant tree for twenty miles in any direction. The trunk was several feet wide at the roots. The canopy began a mere twenty feet above him and swelled out from the trunk for another seventy feet in all directions. The heavy crown whispered and hissed as the deliberate winds coaxed them to life. The air here was delightfully dark and cool.

Wenzil passed through the deep shade to the opposite side of the canopy and ducked beneath the dripline as he clicked his horse back out into the sunlight again. As he emerged from under the tree, the cool wind slapped him hard enough to doubt his security in the saddle.

The sky beyond the tree was a solid ceiling of endless blue floating above an ocean of rolling hills. Despite the apprehension he’d experienced just minutes ago, it was one glorious view. Hector urged his horse up next to his and turned his face up into the sunlight. Wenzil envied his partner’s comfort with the open spaces, the way he even seemed to relish it. He often ribbed Hector about it, accusing him of being half-savage, an insult that never settled well with Hec. Not that it ever deterred Wenzil from applying it. Insults were his only advantage over a soldier like Hec.

Hector was the best horseman in Barcuun, and had such a command of the bow that he could shoot a bee from a flower at a hundred paces. Wenzil never felt he had the right to ride side-by-side with Hector, let alone be his partner. On the other hand, Wenzil had two important attributes that Hector was sorely lacking in: A tactical mind and good judgment. It was what made their relationship so symbiotic. Their strength as a team was far more effective than the simple sum of their talents.

“Wen, look there!”

The words startled Wenzil from his thoughts. Hector was on foot now, stooping as he led his horse out through the tree’s dripline. He stopped a dozen paces out in the grass ahead of Wenzil and threw a finger up at the sky. “Look up there,” he said excitedly, “Up there, above that next hill to the south.”

Wenzil tracked Hector’s pointing finger up and out into the blue. A bird with a massive wingspan was slowly circling on the thermal winds directly above the hill. It was nearly a half-mile up. “Vulture,” he said, “So what?”

“So what?” Hector replied, “You ever see a vulture that big before?”

“It’s just a vulture,” Wenzil said, turning his attention back to the grasses, “I’d be more interested in what it’s drooling after.”

“Look at it. It’s practically floating in one spot. You ever see a buzzard do that before?”

“He’s just riding the wind currents. Strong as the wind is down here, I can only imagine what it’s like up there.”

Hector led his horse a few paces further out into the grass. “Something odd about its wings, too,” he said over his shoulder, “They ain’t right. Kind of fuzzy looking or something.”

“You’re thinking’s fuzzy. Khe’naeg’s balls, it’s a buzzard. Let it go.”

“What do you reckon it sees?”

“How in the Nine would I know?” Wenzil said, “Likely it’s looking for dinner. We’ll just have to wait and find out.”

“Something dead, I expect,” Hector said, “Dead or damned near.”

“Don’t get jagged up yet. It’s probably just a deer or coyote.”

“Jagged up?” Hector asked with a glare thrown back over his shoulder, “What jagged up? I just said it was a strange looking bird.”

A red light flashed on the hill directly across from them. It was as brilliant as sunlight reflecting off a shard of broken glass. It was off to his right on the western slope. It was nearly at the top of the hill. “What the hell was that?” Wenzil said, “Did you see that?”

Hector shaded his eyes and studied the hill. “See what?”

“There, on the east side of that hill. I saw a light.”

“A light?” Hector said. He studied the indicated hillside through cupped hands. After a bit, he whispered, “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Wenzil cursed his eyesight. He probably had the worst eyes of any runner he knew. He couldn’t see detail very well over any significant distance, and his night vision was near worthless, and getting lousier by the year. Add this miserable wind to the mix, and he was damned near blind.

“Well?” he asked impatiently, “What do you see?”

“There’s only one,” Hector said as he watched, “He’s marching due east up the crest of that next hill a half mile over. He’s got his arms up in the air like he’s a prisoner, but I’m damned if I see anyone else around him.”

“Goddamn it!” Wenzil said, “I can’t see shit. I’m going to have to get closer.”

“Too small to be a Baeldon,” Hector said, “But it ain’t the mage, neither, I’m sure of that. And that makes it fair game, by my reckoning.”

“It’s moving pretty slow,” Wenzil said. It was the most he could offer.

“Yea, and it’s either limping or swaying,” Hector said, “Can’t rightly tell which. I’m thinking it might be wounded.”

Wenzil waited as his partner studied the field.

“Calina’s tits!” Hector said suddenly, “I think it’s one of the savages.”

Wenzil felt his skin prickle. “You sure?” he asked.

“It’s hard to tell, but…I think he’s wearing battle mail.”

“You don’t sound sure. Is it mail or not?”

Hector climbed up into his saddle and adjusted his hat, taking an extra effort to smooth back the long blue feather in the rim. “Their mail’s pure deviltry,” he said, looking over at Wenzil, “The way it changes color, they could be standing right in front of you and you’d never see them.”

“Yea, but it’s not right in front of us,” Wenzil said, “It’s way over there, isn’t it? So is it mail or not?”

“I hate these godless plains,” Hector said, frowning, “All this grass makes for better cover than a forest. If we hadn't been atop this knoll? Well, hell. We’d never have seen that—”

Wenzil leaned over from his horse and slapped the back of his partner’s head, knocking his hat into the grass again. “Damn you, Hec! Is it battle mail or not?”

“Damn you straight back!” Hector said. He leaned low from his saddle and scooped up his hat. As he again readjusted it, he stared at his partner. “Do that again and I swear to Hob’te, I’ll slap the sin clean out of you.”

“Hector,” Wenzil said carefully, “Is it mail or not?”

Hector let his stare linger for a bit on Wenzil before turning back to the traveler. “Yea,” he said at last, “It’s standard issue, field-tested, Vaemysh battle mail!”

“Might be a trap,” Wenzil thought out loud, “That son of a bitch over there might just be drawing attention to himself. Who knows what’s hiding in the grass between us? From this distance, its horns’ll sense us coming the minute we set out.”

“Then there’s no point sneaking in, is there?” Hec said, grinning, “We’re going to have to run in at full gallop. It won’t be hard to overtake him, and he sure as the hells can’t hide.”

“I suppose if we split up—”

“Wait a minute,” Hector said suddenly, “What’s that?” He shot a finger toward the plains a hundred yards or so west down the backside of that same hill well behind the Vaemyn.

Wenzil shaded his eyes. A gray dot was pushing its way up through the grass. “Yeah, I see it,” he said, “Another savage, you think?”

“Yea. No mail, though. And his gait ain’t right, neither. Looks like he’s wounded, too.”

Wenzil looked over at Hector. “Why don’t they know we’re here?” he asked, “They should’ve sensed our horses galloping up the back of this hill, don’t you think?”

“Mayhaps it’s true. Mayhaps it ain’t. We’re still a ways back from them. And they don’t look exactly right, if you ask me.”

“Well,” Wenzil said, “There’s two of them and there’s two of us. By my estimates, that makes them outnumbered by at least twice.”

Hector laughed. He pulled his longbow around his shoulder and dragged a long arrow free from his quiver. “Well, I don’t reckon it’ll take much to slow them down.” He loaded the arrow and began to span the bow, but Wenzil’s hand on the shaft stopped him.

“What?” Hector asked impatiently, “Once they crest that damned hill we’ll lose our shot.”

“It’s damned near a half mile out!”

“And?”

“I want them alive,” Wenzil said.

“Alive? Are you insane?”

“Yea,” Wenzil said, laughing, “Reckon I’m likely quite insane, but that’s another discussion. Jhom sent us here to ferret out what’s going on, not to hunt.”

Hector relaxed his drawn string. “Yea, so?”

“So killing them won’t prove nothing.”

Hector laughed at that. “Oh hell, we’ll just cut their horns off. Don’t need no more proof than that, yea?”

“It’s not enough,” Wenzil said as he studied the blurry shapes, “We need them to tell us why they’re here. Scalped horns can’t do that.”

Hector shrugged, but didn’t put his weapon away. “All right,” he said, “How about you take the savage trailing low to the west there, and I’ll take that there one up on the hill?”

Wenzil nodded. “Let’s take at least one alive. Go easy with your bow, but use it if you need to. Let’s move our way into position slowly, then we’ll charge once we’re both about a hundred yards out.”

“Your will be done, sir.”

Wenzil examined the sky. The strange bird was lower now. As he examined it, he realized Hec was right. “That is one big ass vulture,” he said, “Best you keep an eye on it, eh?”

Hector wheeled his restless beast around to face Wenzil. “Forget the bird. And don’t you go worrying your pretty little head none about that savage out there, neither. I swear I won’t do more than pin one or two arrows in his leg.”

“Just don’t be bursting any damned arteries this time. Remember that Pendt back in Fairy’s Hide last year.”

“Now, just you stop right there!” Hector said, scowling, “You said we’d forget about that little episode. Besides, you might need my arrows before this here’s done, so I’d think hard before you go hexing me.”

Wenzil threw his friend a sloppy salute. “Keep your backside covered, Hec.”

“Yea. I’ll cover mine and yours as well, just like every other day of the week!” Hector wheeled his horse around and urged it carefully down the hill toward the east.

Wenzil looked up at the vulture. It was hazy and out of focus, like it was floating behind a light fog. He could tell that the effect wasn’t the result of his lousy eyesight. Something else was amiss about that bird. He wondered if it was a consequence of the wind, mayhaps dust in the air.

He pulled his horse around and coaxed it down the long hill toward the west. He’d circle around back of the savage and come up behind him. If luck was with him, if the savage actually was wounded, his horns might not sense his approach until too late. And if luck wanted nothing to do with him...well, he’d trade surprise for brute force. He’d just ride in at full bore, knock the savage senseless and be done with it.

∞

Mawby used the grass like a rope, pulling himself up the hill one fistful at a time. Every movement sent his knife wound screaming. He prayed it wasn’t too late, prayed that Maeryc hadn’t killed him before the fight even began.

He immediately shucked such defeatist thoughts from his head. He may be dying, but he wouldn’t be stopped from completing his mission first. He was going to stop that damned caeyl from reaching the demons if it was the last thing he did in this miserable world. Even though he was exhausted to the point of stumbling confusion, he refused to stop. He couldn’t stop. Not while he was so close.

It took him the better half of thirty minutes to climb that hillside. He came upon Maeryc just as he cleared the crest of the hill. The hack was standing in the tall grass at the crown a few dozen paces ahead. He had his back to him. He was holding his sword up as if expecting a fight, though he didn’t turn around.

Mawby drew his sword. The dreaded time had come and he hoped to make it quick.

“I know you’re there,” Maeryc yelled over his shoulder. His voice sounded scratched and slurred. He still didn’t turn around.

Mawby felt his sword trembling, and suffered a pang of discouragement for it. He tightened his grip, then steadied himself and began walking forward.

“I know you’re there!” Maeryc said again, “I can hear you! You move like a cow!”

Mawby stopped. He was shaking like a frightened schoolchild. He wished the goddamned hack would turn around. It’d feel more honorable to look Maeryc in the eye when he did the miserable deed. He adjusted his grip on the sword and started walking forward.

Maeryc finally turned, and the sight of him stopped Mawby cold.

The face looking back at him was charred nearly beyond recognition. His skin was raw and black, and covered in weeping sores. His lips were shriveled and drawn back into a grotesque sneer of bared, dirty teeth. His left eye was a raw, meaty socket, covered with dried blood and oozing fresh pus, but the other eye was worse.

The other eye was gone as well, but Maeryc had pushed the Blood Caeyl into his pustulant socket as if to replace his own melted organ. Red light spiked from the embedded gem like the beam from a miner’s lantern. The light sliced the air in front of him, following the hack’s gaze as he twisted his head this way and that in pursuit of Mawby.

Maeryc stumbled a few steps closer to Mawby, swinging his sword back and forth in the space between them. A dark veil of flies crawled across the remains of his face like a living mask. His oteuryns were black stubs weeping beneath the melted remains of his ears. He was blind in every sense. That was why he was swinging his sword so wildly; he was acting by sound alone. He didn’t know where Mawby was.

Mawby’s anger drained from him like water from a kicked bucket. He understood the academics of the situation, understood that this horror standing before him wasn’t Maeryc at all, but just a hack, just a shell operating without any control or sense of self. He understood that killing this flesh would sever the demon’s ties and release whatever memory of Maeryc might still haunt that walking corpse. He would be doing Maeryc a favor. He would be setting him free.

Yet, even as he made the decision, Mawby’s memories argued contrary. They’d grown up together. They’d joined the military together, become trackers together. What if that echo of Maeryc’s humanity could be saved? He’d lost Prae’s token when his oteuryn was burned by the Water Caeyl. What if the love that’d defined their friendship could breach the demon’s hold? Could he just walk away from it? Could he risk murdering his oldest friend unnecessarily?

He lowered his sword. He closed the distance between them to several feet. He held out a hand. “Maeryc,” he said gently, “You’re…you’re sick. Let me help you.”

Maeryc froze with his face up high and his sword held stiffly before him. He cocked his head awkwardly toward Mawby in the way of the newly blind. “Maw?” he asked, “Mawby? Is that you?”

There it was! A glimmer of Maeryc in that dreadful voice. Mawby stepped closer. “Ay’a, Maeryc,” he said carefully, “It is. It’s me. It’s Mawby. I’m here to help you.”

“Help me?” Maeryc released an unnatural laugh. The flies erupted from his face like a puff of smoke, but quickly sucked back in. The laughter quickly devolved into a series of wet coughs.

“I have medical supplies, Maeryc,” Mawby said as calmly as he could manage, “I can help you.”

“Do I look like I need your goddamned help?” Maeryc said, still coughing, “I’m on top of the world!”

“You’re sick. You’re burned pretty good, but I’ve got some salve here in my pack. It’s from the sap of a fough tree.”

“You go to hell!” Maeryc yelled. He sliced his blade viciously across the space between them.

“Please, Maeryc,” Mawby said, “Please come with me. Do it for Koo.”

Maeryc stiffened at that. Then he screeched hideously and lunged toward Mawby, slashing the air between them. “You stay back!” he shrieked as he spun wildly around, “You stay back or I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”

Mawby easily slipped out of the path of the aimless sword.

“You just want the caeyl!” Maeryc cried, his sightless head twisting back and forth in search of Mawby, “I know you do, Maw. You’re no better than the rest of them! You’re no better, you hear me?”

“I just want to help you, Maeryc.”

“No! You lie! You want the caeyl! I know you do!”

“You’re wrong, Maeryc. I—”

“You can’t have it! I need it now, don’t you see? It’s a Blood Caeyl. It’s going to heal me. It’s going to make me a god! Do you hear? A god!”

Mawby backed slowly away. There was nothing he could do. He couldn’t fight the truth any longer. Maeryc was lost. He was lost beyond saving. There was no hope for him now except release.

“Where are you, you bastard?” Maeryc called out as he slowly turned, “You’re a traitor, Mawby!” Then he sliced the air so aggressively that he fell down for the effort. His sword flipped off into the grass.

Mawby walked up behind him. He stopped just at Maeryc’s head. The flies were swarming Maeryc’s face densely enough to mask the horror of his wounds

Mawby adjusted his grip so that the blade dripped down from his hands. One strike, he told himself, placed carefully so you sever his heart cleanly. You have to do this with one strike. Maeryc deserves to go quickly.

Maeryc suddenly twisted around onto his hands and knees. He was screeching incoherently as he pawed through the grass for his sword.

Mawby moved in before him and again raised his sword. “I’m sorry, Maeryc,” he whispered.

Maeryc suddenly went silent. He froze for just an instant, and then pushed himself upright onto his knees. He seemed to be looking up at Mawby. “No,” he whispered, “You can’t do that. You can’t…you can’t do that!”

Mawby readjusted the grip on his sword. His palms were sweating. He wasn’t sure what to do. He wondered if Maeryc were fighting past the demon’s hold again. Maybe he was on the cusp of breaking free.

“It isn’t right!” Maeryc screamed.

Mawby’s sword drifted lower. “Then come with me, Maeryc,” he urged, “Please! Just—”

“It isn’t fair! I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me. You can’t do this!”

As he watched Maeryc raving in the grass, Mawby suddenly understood. Maeryc wasn’t speaking to him at all. The hack’s attention was on the sky behind him.

Mawby turned. A flock of black birds was rolling down toward them like a living plume of smoke. He thought for just a second that it was the fever bringing him hallucinations, but then the terrible reality of it exploded through his mind. These weren’t birds at all. They were prodes!

“No!” Maeryc shrieked behind him, “No, goddamn you! No!”

Mawby staggered back through the grass, moving quickly back behind Maeryc. There were too many of them coming down too fast! They were only a hundred yards out. There was no time to get away. He was a dead man! They were both dead!

Then he remembered the vial. He had to get the vial.

He dropped his sword and dug desperately into the neck of his shirt, but it was too tight against his bandages. He clawed at the thin leather cord. The cord snapped and the vial flipped free. It landed in the grass before he could catch it. Mawby dropped to his hands and knees. The prodes were screeching above him. The sound of their leathery wings sounded like muted thunder.

He ripped at the long grass. When his fingers finally uncovered the tiny glass ampoule, he held his breath and broke the glass tube toward his chest. Pearly fluid spattered his shirt.

The prodes eclipsed the sun. Mawby grabbed his sword and climbed back to his feet. Maeryc was standing in the grass several feet before him with his wretched face turned up toward the descending death. The prodes were nearly on him, but before they could strike, he turned his glowing red eye toward Mawby and said calmly, “Don’t tell her, Maw! Don’t tell Koo I died this way. Tell her I—”

The line of prodes pounded into Maeryc like a heavenly sword. A few of them hit the ground so hard they flopped around in the throes of death, necks and wings broken on impact. The rest blanketed Maeryc under a frenzy of black quills, screeching and tearing at his flesh as if they were one vile creature with a dozen mouths.

Two prodes abruptly broke off from the rest and flew several yards straight up into the air. Then they turned on Mawby and came at him.

Mawby stumbled backward through the grass with his sword held out in defiance of the attack, but the creatures stopped a yard short of him. They didn’t advance. They just hung there, thrumming the air with their membranous wings, their black talons clicking at the space between them. Black as midnight, hey were the size of eagles, but appeared more brethren to bats. Long, black bills filled with hundreds of needle-like black teeth snapped and hissed at him. Nearly covered in fine, oily hair, their backs were a wild brush of long black quills that glistened wet in the sunlight. Their quills flared with each screech.

When they finally broke away from him, Mawby collapsed into the grass, falling hard to his side. Pain seared his chest and back. He could feel the heat of fresh blood under his shirt. His wound had ripped open again, worse now, he was sure of it. The pain was making him dizzy. He wanted more than anything in the heavens or hells to just lie back in the grass and succumb to his agony.

But he couldn’t quit. He had to get the Blood Caeyl.

He somehow managed to force himself back to his knees. Maeryc was now completely obscured beneath a screeching frenzy of boiling wings and quills and ripping beaks. At first, Mawby thought they were feeding on him, but then quickly realized the truth. They were trying to carry him!

The black mob of flailing wings began to rise, collectively lifting Maeryc’s body into the air. Three lifeless black blotches remained behind in the grass, victims of their own enthusiasm for the kill. The screeching chaos of black wings lifted Maeryc several feet, but then stalled.

One of the prodes suddenly flipped free. Mawby barely rolled away in time to avoid it as it bounced to a stop in the space he’d just evacuated, a shapeless mat of oily quills.

He looked back in time to see Maeryc’s body hit the ground where the creatures dropped him. A few of the prodes drove back into him and resumed their attempts to lift him, while the others swirled the air above him like oily smoke. Another of the circling prodes suddenly flipped off from the collective. It hit the grass hard several yards later and flopped about wildly. The remaining prodes spiraled upward in cyclonic formation. When they were fifty feet above him, they turned and flew off into the plains as one.

Mawby looked back at Maeryc and tried to breathe.

Three prodes were still upon him. The largest of them crawled up Maeryc’s body. When it reached the hack’s chest, it paused, turning its head one way and then the other as if studying the dead warrior. Then it stabbed its long beak into Maeryc’s face.

The sound of the prode ripping at Maeryc’s flesh was nearly more than Mawby could bear. He slapped a hand to his mouth and willed back a sudden rush of nausea. Then the large prode stopped and turned toward Mawby. In the tip of its blood-covered beak, it held a brilliant red spark. The Blood Caeyl!

The prodes exploded skyward. In a last hopeless gesture, Mawby heaved his sword at them, but the weapon only flipped uselessly away into the grass. The two groups of prodes pulled together as they ascended. Within seconds, they’d regrouped into the form of one massive bird, a smaller version of the vulture he’d seen earlier. There had been no vulture at all.

As he watched the re-formed mass lift skyward, despair poured over him. Everything was lost. Everything he knew and loved was gone. His failure and loss felt as physical as the wound on his chest or the burns on his face.

He couldn’t breathe. The world was spinning sickeningly. He dropped hard to his knees in the trampled grass. One of the dead prodes moldered in the grass beside him with a ridiculously long arrow spiked cleanly through its breast. The sight sent him laughing.

Baeldons.

It was like the final line that punctuates a bad joke. Baeldons were in the area. Baeldons were near enough to kill an airborne prode with an arrow.

A hot wave of fatigue swept over him. The grass blurred into a swirling tapestry of green that rolled past him in slow, dulled motion. He landed on his side with the sweet smell of dirt in his nose and the coarse fieldgrass beneath his cheek. He closed his eyes. The world of sight and sound and smell faded gracefully into shadows, and he knew that at long last, he was dying, and he’d never been more grateful for anything in his life.

XXXVI

THE RUNNER

W

ENZIL KEPT A WARY EYE ON THE VULTURE AS HE MOVED UP THE HILL BEHIND THE SECOND SAVAGE.

The more he studied the huge bird, the more convinced he became that it wasn’t what it appeared to be. It was descending too rapidly, spiraling downward in a way he’d never seen any raptor do before, especially one of such size. It was diving for the first Vaemyn at the top of the hill, he was sure of it. Then, when the giant bird was within a hundred yards of the warrior, it exploded.

Wenzil reined his horse to a hard stop. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The vulture simply came apart, spraying its bits in every direction. He listened for the delayed punctuation of cannon shot, but none came. Then, as quickly as it’d disintegrated, the drifting specks of vulture began pulling back together.

“Khe’naeg’s balls!” he whispered.

Most of the black spots coalesced back into a smaller version of the vulture and coursed out over the plains, but the other parts continued descending. They pulled together like a swarm of bees and spiraled toward the earth, diving down toward the first savage like a spear.

Old stories forced their way through his shock, stories of black, bat-like creatures with leathery wings, creatures covered with quills so poisonous that just one prick brought on a slow, convulsing death. It was said that they’d been hunted to extinction centuries ago.

“Prodes,” he whispered, “How is it possible?”

He didn’t know what to do. Should he approach or stay back? Scanning the vast plains surrounding him, he knew there was no point in running. There was no place to run to, and his movement would only bring attention to himself. He glanced back at Belfry Hill towering above him. There was always the tree. He thought about Hector and said a quick prayer that his friend knew the phenomenon for what it was, that he’d get his ass out of there while he could.

The black column streamed violently down toward the savage on the hilltop. They descended in silence broken only by the whip of their wings against the air. Wenzil watched in horror as the column of prodes struck the hilltop without even slowing down. They drove into the Vaemyn like a spear sent by Calina herself, knocking him mercilessly into the grass. The savage probably didn’t even know what hit him.

Wenzil kicked his horse into a lope and climbed cautiously up the hillside. He soon spied the head and shoulders of the other Vaemyn. He was up near where the other had been attacked. He just stood there watching something in the grass, most likely his fallen brethren. Wenzil cautiously eased his mount nearer. He was close enough now to see the flurry of black writhing in the grass ahead like a pit of boiling tar. He reined his horse to a stop. It was a feeding frenzy of black wings and quills and ungodly shrieks. The wings were whipping frantically in a horrible mass. They were trying to lift the body of the first Vaemyn.

A tide of panic rushed over him. He had to get the hells out of there. He had to warn Hector. They had to get away from there before they aroused the creatures’ attention. He was attempting to negotiate his horse into a lateral run around the hill when it all went south. A prode flipped away from the rest, driven by the force of an arrow. Hector’s arrow!

“Hector, no!” Wenzil yelled, “What are you doing?”

He had to stop the attack. He had to warn Hector before he agitated the beasts further. He prodded his horse into a risky gallop straight down the hill. The long grass whipped harshly at his legs, but the pain only fueled his drive. He glanced back up the hill in time to see the prodes drop the body. Then they were swirling heavenward like smoke from a funeral pyre. A second beast knocked away from the mob, another victim of Hector’s arrows.

“My gods, Hector!” Wenzil yelled, as he pushed his horse harder, “Stop!”

The prodes split off into two groups. Three or four of them were racing hell-bent down the other side of the hill toward Hector. The rest were coming for him.

Wenzil dug his heels into the horse’s flank. Time shrank away as his mind ascended into a tactical state. He fervently clicked off his options. They couldn’t outrun the prodes. He had to make for the tree up on that next hill and take a defensive stand, though it was unlikely he could make that distance in time to avoid talons in his back. Or worse, the quills!

He stood in the stirrups, moving with the rhythm of the horse’s flight as it galloped across the uneven plains. He pulled his bow under his shoulder and dragged an arrow from his back. He glanced back over his shoulder. The prodes were a hundred yards behind him and coming fast, but still too far out for him to make an accurate shot. He didn’t dare waste the arrow.

He leaned lower on the horse’s withers. They were already over halfway up the ascent to the tree atop Belfry Hill, but it was a long and cumbersome climb. He knew the horse would slow under its fatigue long before it made the top tree. He risked another look back at the prodes. Fifty yards back now.

He looked over across the roll of the hill and spied Hector. He was just a few hundred yards off to the right, though lower on the hill. He rode backward in his saddle, flinging arrows at the pursuing prodes. The man was a marvel. He was the single best rider and shot Wenzil had ever known, gifted to the point of supernatural ability. As he watched, one of the prodes chasing his friend stopped as suddenly as if it’d hit an invisible wall, a victim of Hector’s godlike skills.

Wenzil twisted back toward his own prodes. They were less than a hundred feet back now. He spanned the bow and took aim, holding his breath as he accommodated the rhythm of the horse. The arrow streaked away but missed its mark by a yard or more.

He yelled out a curse as he dragged another arrow free. He was nearly three quarters of the way up the hill, but his horse was slowing at a terrifying rate. When he glanced back again, there were only two prodes following him. He quickly scanned the surrounding sky but didn’t see the missing third, not that it mattered overmuch. Two prodes were no less dangerous than three.

He took aim at the nearest prode, but before he could release his arrow, something knocked the creature hard off its course. As it flipped away into the tall grass, he spied the unique red feathers of Hector’s arrow.

Wenzil looked over at his companion who was now riding sidelong over the hillside toward him. The idiot was shooting at these prodes while neglecting his own. Hec was protecting him at his own peril.

Wenzil cursed again. Then he twisted around in his saddle and fired another arrow at his final pursuer. The beast deftly evaded it, though it bought him some distance. As he drew another arrow, he glanced again at Hector. His friend still had two prodes flying hard on his tail, but he either didn’t see them or didn’t care. He fired another arrow at the last prode chasing Wenzil. Hector’s arrow arced across the grass toward Wenzil’s prode. An instant later, the prode tumbled away.

Wenzil was beginning to think there was hope when Hector’s horse tripped. It plowed headfirst into the grass, catapulting Hector backwards over its neck. The prodes followed them both down into the deep grass.

Nearly at the tree now, Wenzil brought his horse dancing to a stop. He waited in horror, winded with excitement, his eyes fixed on the still grass where he’d last seen his friend. His own horse shivered beneath him, snorting and pawing at the grass. The breeze whispering through the grain was as loud as thunder.

Then Hector’s horse was on its feet, shaking the chaff from its back. An instant later, it pranced off into the vale between the hills.

Wenzil held his breath.

The two remaining prodes shot straight up out of the grass, twisting skyward in a rage of black wings. They rose up ten, twenty, thirty feet, shrieking and rotating around each other as they ascended. There was no sign of Hector.

Wenzil’s heart felt like it was pumping sand. He couldn’t breathe. His friend was dead. There was no other possibility. Hector was dead!

The horse then kicked into a lope beneath him, though he had no memory of issuing the command. His stomach felt like ice. The cool, calculating edge his mind had summoned just moments ago was gone, replaced by the dull stupidity of shock.

He was nearly up the hill when a shriek rang out behind him. Wenzil drew his sword and twisted around in the saddle, slicing backward instinctively. The prode fell to the earth in pieces behind him.

The last prode was twenty yards back and closing too fast.

He dropped low and kicked his horse forward. As they broached the outermost edge of the low canopy, he cast the sword away. When his horse galloped past the massive trunk of the tree, Wenzil stood in his stirrups and reached for the lowest branch.

The horse erupted from between his legs. Wenzil swung up onto the branch and was immediately climbing. He prayed the tree was old enough and strong enough to support his weight.

A bone-chilling screech erupted below him. Wenzil doubled his efforts, climbing like a monkey chased by a leopard, flying up one branch after another. Another screech rang out from just at his feet. Wenzil kicked down at the beast with the flat of his boot. The prode tumbled a dozen feet before catching the trunk with its talons and stopping. For a moment, the beast simply clung where it had stopped, its wings wrapped tightly to the smooth bark like a smear of tar. The long oily quills covering its back rose and fell as its tiny black eyes seemed to study him.

Wenzil dragged his heel against the bark and scraped the greasy black quills from the sole of his boot. As he resumed his climb, he prayed they hadn’t penetrated the leather.

He heard the scurry of claws on bark beneath him and looked down. The prode was coming again, shimmying quickly up the tree after him. It had insect-like claws at the apex of its wings, which easily gripped the wood as it scaled the smooth bark. A thick eruption of long, shiny quills covered its shoulders and back, and each foul screech sent the quills flaring.

Wenzil slipped himself up over a particularly thick branch, straddling it and scooting himself backward. He slid several feet out from the trunk, then steadied himself and pulled his knife free. The branches were too dense here to allow the creature, which had a wingspan of a solid four feet, to fly. The little monster would have to come out after him if it wanted him badly enough. It’d have to expose itself to reach him.

The prode hissed threateningly as it poured up over the base of the branch.

“Come on, you little bastard,” Wenzil whispered, as he inched his way farther out on the limb, “What’re you waiting for? I’m right here!”

The prode released an ear-piercing screech, revealing a beak densely lined with black, needle-like teeth. It screeched again and its quills flowered across its back. Oily venom sprayed the trunk behind it.

Wenzil knew he had to draw the beast out to him. He tapped his blade against the trunk, drawing the prode’s interest. “Come on, you son of a bitch!” he yelled, rapping the blade harder, “Come out here and get me!”

The creature obliged his request, flowing quickly out across the branch.

The prode came out faster than Wenzil expected, moving within reach in a matter of seconds. Wenzil panicked and spiked his knife at it, but the prode withdrew too quickly. In his excitement, he’d driven the blade deep into the wood, too deep. He tried to pull it out but couldn’t apply the leverage needed to free it without crawling closer to the prode.

The prode appeared to sense his predicament. It shrieked again and flared its quills. Then it flowed forward across the limb toward him, though more cautiously now.

“Come on, then!” Wenzil growled as he struggled with the knife, “Come get me, you greasy little bastard!”

The creature feigned a rush at him. Wenzil abandoned the knife to retreat further out the limb. He threw a quick glance behind him. He was moving too far from the tree’s trunk. The branch was sagging. It could never support him out here.

The prode screeched at the buried knife. Oil spattered the leaves around it. Wenzil thought the blade might deter it from coming closer, but the prode only hissed at it again, then flowed under the branch and around top again just beyond the knife.

Wenzil inched back. The branch was sagging most sincerely. He glanced down at the ground thirty feet below. There were a dozen large branches between him and the end. He might be able to drop a dozen feet at a time, hopping from branch to branch, but even if he did manage to make the ground intact, then what? Run away? Not hardly. His horse was probably a mile away by now. Could he make his sword in time? Doubtful.

The prode was barely two feet back now, easily within striking distance.

Wenzil grabbed a narrow side branch and began twisting at it hoping to break it and use it as a stave. As he fought the wood, he thought about the stories he’d heard of people in olden times, people who’d died from unfortunate encounters with a prode’s quill. It was said they convulsed to death, sometimes taking hours before succumbing to the venom.

He decided that if he had a choice he’d rather suffer a broken neck and go quickly, if not peacefully. If he pushed off just right, he might land cleanly. He’d rather not bounce from branch to branch on the way, breaking half a dozen bones and ending up only incapacitated in the dirt below and still at the mercy of the prode. He had to drop determinedly.

He was out of time. The prode was coming for him.

He steadied himself for the lunge. He visualized his descent. He took a deep breath and braced himself for the trip. And then—

The prode abruptly snapped upward, flipping free of his branch and hitting the branch above it. But it didn’t drop back. It was pinned to the wood by a clothyard arrow with bold red feathers. One of Hector’s arrows.

Wenzil looked down at the earth and yelled, “Hector!” He couldn’t see his friend through the dense branches separating him from the earth below. “Hector!” he called again.

No one answered.

He slipped down to the branch below him, and worked his way back toward the trunk, taking care to avoid the oily venom dripping from the dead prode above. From there he quickly made his way down the trunk. Soon he swung from the lowest branch and landed on the ground more gently than he’d been expecting just moments earlier.

He looked around for his friend, peering across the shadowed humus covering the ground beneath the tree.

“Hector?” he called.

There was no answer.

“Hec, where are you?”

Nothing.

Wenzil looked back up at the dead prode. He estimated the trajectory of the arrow. The shooter must have been standing right here, almost directly beneath the prode. He looked at the earth. The ground cover here was trampled. A few spots of blood spoiled the dried leaves. He followed the trauma to the edge of the tree line. And then he spotted Hector’s abandoned bow.

“Hector!” he yelled.

He broke through the canopy and nearly tripped over the prone form of his dear friend.

Hector lay face down in the grass, his arms stretched out on both sides of him as if he were hugging the earth itself. Dozens of shiny black quills, some a foot or more long, littered his neck and shoulder. Wenzil knelt beside him.

“Hector?” he asked, fearing both a response and a lack of one.

He laid his trembling fingers against his friend’s neck. The skin was icy and moist, and no pulse was palpable beneath it. It was the most terrifying moment of his life. Hector was dead.

He took Hector’s arm. He dropped forward into the grass and buried his face in his dear friend’s hand. Hot tears washed between their entwined fingers. “Why, Hec?” he cried, “Why did you do it? Why? Why?”

Yet, even as he asked the question, he knew the answer. He knew it as clearly as he knew he was the one who should be moldering in that grass instead of Hector. Hector was a fantastic shot. He could’ve easily dispatched his own prodes and made the tree safely. Instead, he’d used his last living minutes to save Wenzil.

Wenzil felt the ground melting away beneath him. He was plummeting through a cold, dark shaft of grief. “I’m so sorry, Hec,” he said, sobbing, “I’m so, so sorry.”

∞

Wenzil buried Hector beneath that great tree.

It took him nearly the rest of the afternoon to dig the grave, having only a small pack shovel to use. His grief was so heavy, so commanding, that he could barely dig for more than a few minutes before the pain and tears disabled him. They’d been friends since diapers, and partners all their adult lives. They’d ridden side by side through more adventures than a hundred average men did in their collective lifetimes. He loved Hector better and truer than he’d ever loved anyone in this mortal plane.

Now, Hector was gone, and Wenzil had never felt so alone in his life.

When he finished burying his dear friend, he took his knife and carved four lines into the smooth gray bark:

HERE SLEEPS HECTOR FELTHE.

THOUGH HE RESTS NEATH THIS TREE,

HE RIDES WITH THE WIND.

HE IS DONE BUT NOT FINISHED.

He then took Hector's knife and spiked it deep into the wood above the inscription so his spirit would have it for protection in the Jha’wyr.

It wasn’t the glorious marble sarcophagi expected of a Baeldonian soldier. He’d never rest in the halls of his kin lying deep beneath the earth, as was his people’s way. All Wenzil could do was take some solace from the knowledge that Hector had been a runner all his life, that he’d always been more at home in the fields and forests than the mountains. He knew Hector would find a kind of satisfaction, even amusement, in this resting place beneath such a grand tree here on Belfry Hill. Mayhaps the tree would eventually consume his remains and he’d become one with it, like the legendary pig beeches he’d heard stories of in his youth.

He sat beside his dear friend until he ran numb from the pain. He prayed to Calina and all the Gods of Pentyrfal that Hector’s spirit would find peace out here in the sweeping plains. He prayed harder that his soul would settle calmly, contentedly into eternal silence, and that it stay far clear of the restless swamps of Sken te’Fau.

XXXVII

THE LITTLE MOUSE

F

REE OF HIS SHACKLE, LUREN CROUCHED IN THE DARKNESS DIRECTLY BEHIND THE SCARRED CELL DOOR.

He rubbed at the ache that’d taken root in his fingers as he watched the dim orange glow of torchlight radiating through the barred window high above him. The suggestion of firelight beyond his prison was the only semblance of warmth to be found in this nightmare, and he took what solace he could from it.

He wiped at his sore, weeping eyes. A dry tongue rubbed ineffectively against scabbed lips. He couldn’t remember his last drink of water, and his urine had grown thick and hot. He’d die soon if he didn’t get a drink. He’d die alone and forgotten in this miserable pit.

One of his cellmates lay across the cell from him. He’d been a Baeldon in life. His huge skull hanged awkwardly from the brace of the collar imprisoning it. The massive bones of its arms and legs sprawled across the rotting straw as if he’d finally just given up, as if he’d surrendered to his fate and hung himself by that thick, rusted shackle because, in the end, what other option was there? As Luren studied the remains of that pitiable Baeldon, he wondered if such an end would be so bad.

But one look into the empty caverns that’d been the Baeldon’s eyes was enough to convince him that such an escape was no escape at all. Spending the rest of eternity here in this wretched tomb as the greasy rats gnawed on his remains? Decaying into time, his name gradually forgotten as everyone he knew slowly died off? No! It was an unthinkable option. There had to be another way out.

He again looked up at the cell window. The dim light filtering through the bars offered hope. It spoke of blue skies and green fields, of crimson sunsets, of the prospect that, no matter the horrors conjured within the colorless nightmare of this cell, the beauty and hope of the outside world still existed.

Keys clinking just outside the cell door startled him back to the present. He crawled deeper into the shadows, moving back behind the door. He held his breath as the jailer fumbled to find the right key on that terrible ring.

“Ye in there, little mouse?” The voice was shrill and ignorant, and reeked of bad intentions. “I got a surprise for ye, little mouse.”

Luren cowered tighter into that corner behind the door. His back burned with the memory of the whippings Creenon had given him on that first day. He couldn’t take another beating like that one. He’d never survive it, he was sure of it.

The key scratched against the lock face. “I got me something real good, little mouse,” Creenon said, cackling weirdly, “Thinking ye’ll like this, I am.”

Luren had to act. He had to act this very instant or resign his fate to the hands of a drunken maniac. His eyes combed the cell for a weapon.

He found himself staring at the hapless Baeldon. Even as he crawled toward the corpse, he knew it was wrong, that a Baeldon would die before performing such an act of sacrilege on the remains of a comrade. Unfortunately, ethics were an indulgence he could not afford, not now. He grabbed the giant’s femur and twisted it free of the hip’s socket. He promised to repent later.

“I be coming for ye, boy,” Creenon said as the tumblers clacked free.

Luren squeezed back into the corner behind the opening door. The door sang shrilly as it slowly swelled open. The shadow of the jailer poured across the cell beyond it.

“Are ye ready to have some fun, little mouse?” The monster laughed girlishly.

The moment had come. It was time to act decisively. Luren crept slowly around the door. The monster was moving toward the opposite end of the cell where he expected Luren to be. Still laughing, the man moved as seductively as a gentleman with ungentlemanly intentions. The dreadful whip danced menacingly across the matted straw beside him, moving as if it had a will of its own.

Luren crept up behind him.

Creenon paused and then crouched down before the empty shackle. He held the torch out and swept it across the back of the cell. As he suddenly understood the situation, he flew to his feet. “Little mouse!” he shrieked as he wheeled around, “Ye’ve got—”

Luren brought the head of the femur down on the man’s forehead as viciously as he could manage. The horrid jailer collapsed back against the wall and slumped into the straw. For a moment, he just sat there looking confused and strangely surprised, the torch still held up at his side, the tentacle of the whip sprawled impotently in the straw. The man’s scarred, maligned face simmered ghostly in the torchlight as he tried to make sense of what had happened.

He swiped a hand over the blood flowing down his brow and examined his shiny palm. “Why…why’d ye go and do that, little mouse?” He looked up at Luren.

Luren rushed forward and clubbed him again with the butt of the femur. The torchlight sizzled as blood sprayed through it.

The monster cried out. He tried to climb to his feet, groping at the wall like a dead man rising from a tomb. His nose was nearly sideways and blood coursed from his nostrils and mouth.

“Why, I’ll kill ye, ye little shit,” he shrieked, “I swear to the Wyr, I’ll kill ye dead!”

All the terror and hatred Luren had cultivated since that first beating erupted to the surface. He heard himself scream as he again hammered the femur against the man’s head.

Creenon fell sidelong into the wall and slowly slumped to his knees. The whip slipped from his hand. His twisted face was a shiny mask of blood.

Luren’s rage had full rein. He would not be the victim! Not now! Not ever again!

Blood and teeth sprayed the cell wall as he pounded Creenon’s face and head, hitting him over and over. The monster collapsed into the straw and lay there on his back whimpering almost pitifully. His left eye was pulp and his ear was hanging by the skin. He tried to say something, though the message was lost in the sludge of split lips and broken teeth.

Though Luren couldn’t make out the words, he recognized the acid in the tone, and that revelation opened the dams of rage completely. He hit the monster so hard that the head of the femur snapped off and ricocheted from the wall before flipping into the shadows of the rotting bedding.

The jailer tried to stand again, but only fell back against the cell wall and slumped to his knees. The torch slipped from his hand and landed in the bedding, which erupted into flames. He shrieked horridly and kicked at the fire.

“I’ll kill ye!” he raged as he fought his way free of the fire, “I’ll kill ye, I swear I will!” The cuffs of his britches were already burning as he kicked at the rapidly growing flames.

As he watched the horror, Luren felt seized by a strange calm. His breathing slowed. His hands stopped shaking. Watching the monster’s suffering felt like a dirty pleasure. He wanted to just stand there and watch it through to the end, watch the bastard die in agony and horror. Unfortunately, his needs were too great, and his patience too feeble. Instead, he marched through the flames, marched directly up to the monster, and held his broken femur up like a sword.

The jailer held his burning hands up defensively. “Please, mouse!” he screeched, “Don’t hurt me. Please don’t hurt—”

The word mouse cut Luren’s last string of control. He drove the splintered end of the femur into the jailer’s face. He stabbed it at the man’s eyes again and again as the man tried to retreat into the wall. He beat at the monster until the smoke was too thick and the flames threatened to take him.

His rage spent, he staggered back from the murder. He dropped the bone into the smoking straw. The jailer’s hot blood covered his face and hands. The fire had consumed the back of the cell and was spreading quickly. The jailer was still rolling through the flames, shrieking wildly as the fire killed him.

Luren pulled the great cell door closed behind him and calmly locked it.

As he pulled the key from the lock, Creenon appeared in the window. He gripped the bars with his blistered hands and pressed his mutilated face tightly into the space between them. “Ye there!” he screamed, spraying blood through the bars, “Ye let me out of here!” Fire danced on his head and the rancid smoke poured past his bloody mask of a face.

Luren watched the man curiously as his screams slowly died. It was much like a scene from the books about the Wyr Realm he’d read as a youth. As he watched the man burning to death, he realized his own anger was fading away. He closed his eyes. He focused on the desperate screams. He embraced the calm they summoned in him. He felt absolutely no remorse about the murder of the jailer. In fact, he felt a little sleepy.

He backed slowly away from the door, taking care to keep his head high in hopes Creenon’s eyes were still functional enough to see his face one last time. Soon the cell window was empty, save for the oily smoke roiling between the bars. No sound came from the cell. Luren held the key chain up and jangled it before the barred window. He felt a strange kind of disappointment when the monster didn’t resurface.

Finally, he tucked the keys into his belt, and shrugged. It didn’t matter anyway. It was time to go.

He grabbed a torch from the wall and inspected his surroundings. His cell was at the end of a long, dank corridor with a low ceiling and greasy stone walls. At the far opposite end of this nightmarish hall glowed a small, squared light. It was the exit out of this terror. It must be.

He passed dozens of silent cells as he made his way toward the dungeon proper. Once there, he passed through and then pushed the cell row door shut behind him. He carefully locked it, then fell back against the door and closed his eyes. A godlike sense of peace gripped him. His mind was crisp and wonderfully clear, his thinking precise and calculated. In that moment, he knew he could do anything. In that moment, he knew nothing short of Pentyrfal could stop him.

The dungeon’s main room was enormous, easily a hundred feet wide. It was circular with spokes of cell corridors spiking off in four directions. Rotting straw and wet dirt matted the stone floor, and sinister machines of torture cluttered the room. A wide wooden beam cleaved the ceiling, and from it hung hundreds of iron tools of despair, pincers and saws, pliers and pokers. In the middle of the room, exactly between him and the door leading out of the dungeon, was a massive round table. At the edge of it sat the most wonderful image he’d ever seen: A waterskin and a cloth packet of food.

He drank his fill, but wasted little time eating. He needed to get out before more guards arrived. He packed the jailer’s lunch in his shirt and hung the waterskin around his neck. As he was about to leave, he spotted a sheath and dagger. He tucked them into his fraying rope belt.

Minutes later, he locked the dungeon behind him. The room exited to a narrow passage with wide stone stairs spiraling up and away from the iron door. He was suddenly unsure of himself. Was that the only way out? Straight up the dungeon stairs? To what did they lead? The guardhouse, perhaps?

Then he noticed the stone faces. There were two of them, each growing out of the walls outside the door, but on opposing sides of the corridor. They had the features of Parhronii men, and just below each face was a perfectly carved stone arm that extended from the wall with a torch locked in its hand. He found it strangely intriguing. As he moved in for a closer inspection, the nearest face’s eyes physically tracked his movement.

Luren fell against the door hard enough to nearly let himself back into the dungeon. He glanced up at the other face, which also had its eyes fixed on him, and he immediately understood. These weren’t statues. These were sentries, of a sort.

He moved back up to the nearest face. The stone eyes glimmered blue and the face became translucent as the eyes followed him. The energy of a Water Caeyl powered them; there could be no other possibility. He touched the creature’s cheek, which was clearly stone, though the surface was slightly pliable like hardening clay.

The face’s mouth moved slightly. Luren leaned closer. The mouth stirred again, moving stiffly as if struggling to speak. Luren put his ear up against the sentry’s mouth, all the time keeping an eye on the arm shaped sconce beside it. It was possible the sentry could be threatening, though he didn’t believe it.

He listened for a bit, and though the lips moved desperately, there was still no sound. Luren stepped back and examined the face. The eyes on the creature were intensely lifelike, though they were solidly blue when it animated. He thought back to his studies, to the stories of the early days of caeyl magic, back more than a thousand years, when caeyl energy was young and certain gifted mages could mix the energies of two differing caeyls, and then he understood.

“My gods,” he whispered, “You’re not sentries at all. You’re...you’re alive.”

The nearest face in the wall again attempted to speak. Its desperation was palpable.

“How long?” Luren whispered, “How long have you been this way?”

The dull, blue eyes drifted to the shadows at Luren’s feet, and the mouth went still.

“Forever,” Luren translated.

The eyes rolled back to Luren.

“If I get out of this castle alive, I’ll come back,” he told the face, “I’m apprenticed to the greatest mage on Calevia, and I’ll bring him here to free you. I give you my word that I will.”

The face’s eyes darted over to the arm shaped sconce growing out of the wall beside it. Luren looked up at the torch, but didn’t understand. The face repeated the gesture.

“What?” Luren asked. It was trying to tell him something. He turned and looked back at the other face. This one was making the same gesture, looking from Luren to the sconce above the first face and then back to Luren.

It was the arm holding the torch. There was something about it the sentries wanted him to examine. He jumped up and grabbed the crook of the sconce’s elbow. His feet scrambled against the stone as he climbed his way up and over the arm until he was straddling it. The torch was like the ones in Sanctuary. Baeldonian in design, it’d burn forever. He grabbed the torch and twisted it, but he couldn’t wrench it free of the hand gripping it.

He wiped his hands on his legs and seized it again. This time, he felt the arm shift ever so slightly beneath him. Then a sound like grating stone growled from the wall beneath him. He was about to slip back down to safety when the arm gave way, abruptly rotating to the side and pitching him hard to the ground.

He sat there in the dust for a minute waiting for the pain of a broken bone to announce itself. He was about to try standing when a sharp snap ripped through the corridor.

A dark line materialized in the wall above him. The crack began at the floor and slowly ripped its way up through the seams between the stones, spreading in a line around the face and back down to the earth. Seconds later, a sour groan erupted and the new door began sliding inward. A rush of dank, stale air blew in from the new space, pushing a cloud of dust out into the stairwell.

Then silence. Dust hung heavy in the hall, glowing like an eerie green fog in the torchlight. Luren moved cautiously toward the new door. There was a corridor of some sort beyond it. Mounted just inside the door on the interior wall was another Baeldonian torch. Its green flames revealed a narrow stairway descending into darkness.

“My gods,” Luren whispered, “A secret passage.”

The face gazed down at him from its perch on the receded wall, while its mouth again formed words that carried no sound.

“This is a way out, isn’t it?” Luren turned to the other face. “I won’t forget this. I’ll come back when this is done. I swear it. I’ll see you freed.”

He shouldered the waterskin and stepped into the passage. He removed the torch burning inside the door and then passed into the chamber beyond. He’d only descended a few steps when the ground shuddered beneath him. He jumped toward the sound, but it was too late. The door had already closed behind him. He watched the lines fade from the stone blocks with a sense of dread.

There was no turning back now.

XXXVIII

THE RESCUE

J

HOM WASN’T NEARLY FOOL ENOUGH TO BELIEVE THAT RESTRAINT WAS HIS STRONGER SUIT.

Not when jeopardy lurked in the shadows, and particularly not when his friends were in danger. It took all the willpower he could summon to refrain from galloping Farnot across these final few miles to the hatch. One rock, one unseen gopher hole, and it’d mean the loss of his horse, perhaps the loss of his life, and he’d be no good to Chance dead.

The message delivered by the sentry was unambiguous in its urgency. Chance wasn’t one to send so portentous a warning without right and proper cause. In fact, if anything the man was too damned forgiving of Vaemysh transgressions. He’d be far more likely to minimize the importance than exaggerate it.

He rose up in his stirrups, shading his eyes as his horse loped along beneath him. There it was, not a half mile ahead, erupting from the grass of that low hill like a great rusting canker. It was the same thrill of seeing a candle in the window of home at the end of a terrible march. Unable to suppress his impatience any longer, he urged Farnot into a gallop.

Minutes later, his horse danced to a halt before the stone rim, snorting her excitement amid a flurry of dirt and clods of grass. Jhom landed on his feet before she’d even stopped, and was already unbuckling the saddle. There was no way to know how long he’d be underground. Farnot needed the freedom to run and feed while he was preoccupied below.

He dropped the saddle into the grass on the shady side of the stone rim. Farnot drew in a deep breath and snorted in relief, shaking the sweat from her withers as she wandered a few feet off to munch on the grainy heads of grass. Jhom only wished he had time to brush the frothy sweat from her. Instead, he hugged her neck, wished her the gods’ speed, and then turned to the hatch.

The heat radiating from the iron was impressive. When the summer sun heated that much iron, a man could fry meat on it. He slipped off his wide leather hat and wrapped it carefully around the nearest ring.

The hatch door creaked woefully as he labored to open it. Raising a two-inch plate of iron was no small feat, not even for a Baeldon. Once he got it upright, he wanted nothing more than to simply release it and let it drop the remaining distance, but he knew the resulting clang would act as a beacon to any nosy ears or horns in the area. Instead, he got into position behind it, braced himself, and used his great legs to ease it the rest of the way down.

Then he slapped his hat back on and gave the surrounding plains one last scan. The grass was empty for as far as he could see. In fact, there seemed to be no life at all out here with the exception of one particularly large buzzard drifting lazily on the thermals a few miles off to the west.

Satisfied, he lifted his saddle and heaved it across his shoulder. A moment later, he was descending into the abyss as the brilliant blue half-circle to the outer world slowly shrank above him.

∞

“We’re getting woefully low on food,” Chance said as he packed the last few bits of food into the pack.

Beam sat with his back to a wall, his torch burning on the ground beside him. He was cleaning his nails with the tip of his knife. “Well,” he said without looking up, “There’s only a half dozen more miles to the exit. So what’s the worry? We can go topside long enough to scavenge, right?”

“We don’t know what waits for us topside.”

Beam shrugged and continued his grooming.

“Well, you seemed fairly unconcerned about—”

“Are you going to start?” Beam immediately regretted the words. They came out harder than he’d meant. As usual.

The mage watched him for a few beats, and then turned back to his work. “Forgive me,” he said as he tied the hollow pack’s straps, “Didn’t mean to interrupt your work.”

Beam silently slapped himself. It seemed like every time he opened his stinking mouth, he caused the man some kind of offense. If he had any scruples, he’d cut out his own damned tongue.

Chance sat back against the wall beneath the sarcophagus of a remarkably ugly Baeldon. The mage looked across the corridor at Beam and proffered a weak grin. “Apologies,” he said too quietly, “I’m just overtired.”

The man’s face was so drawn and pathetic that Beam felt a kick of shame just looking at it. He turned back to his knife and thumbed the edge of it. He could sense Brother Dael’s ghost standing over him shaking his head in that sad way he did whenever Beam disappointed him in his youth. It was an act he’d experienced with shameless regularity.

He glanced over at Koonta who stood with her back to them a dozen yards down the hall. Her bare, muscular arms glistened green in the unnatural torchlight. She was listening for the taer-cael of their predators. As she did, she thought about the three Vaemyn he’d seen in his vision of her memories. Her most pressing worry was for the big one, the one called Maw or Mawby.

He leaned his head back against the marble and pressed his palms into his eyes and tried to drive her thoughts from his mind. It wasn’t like before when he had to force his way in. Now her thoughts were coming to him like unguarded whispers from across a thin wall, unsolicited and unwanted. He could hear Chance’s thoughts as well, though it was somehow easier to filter his.

“Are you all right?”

He dropped his hands to his lap and looked over at Chance. “Sure,” he said with a forced grin, “I’m just dandy.”

“Blood of the gods, you’re a lousy liar.”

Beam sighed. “Sit with me for a minute, will you?” he said, “I need to talk to someone.”

Chance stared off into the awaiting darkness. “The hatch is close,” he said, “I know you want fresh air. Perhaps we should continue—”

“No!” Beam said, exactly as hard as he meant, “Sit with me. Please.”

The mage watched him for a beat, and then shrugged. He grabbed the pack and climbed stiffly to his feet. He crossed over to Beam and dropped beneath the boots of another dead Baeldon. He set the sagging pack between them.

Beam checked to see that Koonta remained at her post, then leaned closer to Chance and whispered carefully, “I’m hearing things.”

“Hearing things?” Chance repeated, “How do you mean, hearing things?”

“I mean I’m hearing things. I’m…I’m hearing...”

He shrugged and shut his mouth and ran his hand along his newly shaven jaw. He didn’t know how to explain it. Trying to say it out loud only made him wonder for the thousandth time if he’d gone mad.

Chance put a hand on his forearm. “Just say it, Beam. You’ll never have a safer audience than with me.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“It’s exactly that easy. Just start talking. I’m pretty sure you’ve got enough experience to pull it off.”

Beam again looked over at the Vaemyd, who didn’t appear to have moved a muscle. “All right,” he said as he watched her, “I’ll just start.”

“Well, that’s—”

“She thinks the creatures are very close. She’s confident they’ll make a move soon.”

“What?”

“She’s also thinking about three men. She’s most worried about a warrior named Mawby. He was the big Vaemyn, the one back at the hatch. She worries that he’s dead. She worries more that it was her brother who killed him.”

Chance sat forward and looked at him. Some of the wear had faded from his face, displaced by the fresher look of curiosity. “What are you saying exactly?” he asked.

Beam anchored himself onto Koonta, held her tightly with his gaze. “She thinks I’m an ass,” he said, “Yet she’s strangely fascinated by me. She thinks I may have an answer she’s looking for, an answer she’s sought for a long time.” He looked at Chance. “Do you want to know what that question is?”

Chance stared at him a moment, and then softly shrugged. “I expect she wonders if her people follow false gods.”

“Yes,” Beam said, “We’re her greatest fear. You and I represent the absolute worst case for her, that we’re right.”

Chance said nothing, but only waited patiently. Beam knew he’d wait all night.

He looked back at Koonta again. “She’s suffered great losses,” he said, “A lover named Pa’ana. A brother named Maeryc. It’s tearing her apart, not that she’d ever show it, not to us anyway. But it’s become nearly more than she can bear.”

“Keep going,” Chance whispered.

Beam dropped his head to his chest, dragged his hair back, and tried to keep breathing. “You said I was changing,” he whispered, “But you have no idea. It’s the goddamned Blood Caeyl. It’s screwing with my mind.”

“If the lore about the caeyl is true,” Chance said gently, “Your old life’s gone. You’ll never be what you were. You’re something new now, something different.”

“Something different,” Beam whispered, “Well, that’s reassuring.”

“I’m afraid it’s not so much about the Blood Caeyl, either,” Chance said, “As I’ve read it, the lore is directed more toward the bearers than the amulet. It’s the men holding the blades that are at the heart of the legends.”

“Bearer,” Beam whispered, “Singular, not bearers. I told you, there’s only one Caeyllth Blade.”

Chance seemed to shrink at that, again leaving Beam regretting having opened his mouth. The man was already grief-wracked enough. It didn’t help to keep waving the flags of his failures in his face, and the man considered his historical misconstructions failures.

Beam threw a hand on Chance’s forearm and squeezed it. “Look, it’s not your fault that you were given bullshit all your life and were told it was history,” he said, “Stop beating yourself up. The heart of what you know is still valid.”

“I know,” Chance whispered, “I mean, I understand. It doesn’t matter. Please…go on.”

Beam dropped his head back against the marble and rocked the kinks from his neck. “Be’ahm Ambix Gry’ar,” he said with a laugh that didn’t even convince him, “How did that name ever get mixed in the same sentence as legend? It’s ludicrous.”

“Is it?”

Beam thought about the dream warrior and wondered how to begin. It wasn’t going to be anything like easy to explain this. “The bloody dreams,” he said for lack of a better place to start.

Chance waited.

“Every night it’s the same. Same place, same conversations. And every night I meet...”

“A mage?” Chance offered.

“I don’t know,” Beam said, “Maybe. He’s a sav—” The words dried in his mouth. It was wrong; he didn’t see those people that way now. He’d never see them that way again.

“He’s a Vaemyn,” Chance finished for him.

“Yeah. A Vaemyn. A warrior. Maybe a mage. Probably a mage.”

Definitely a mage. He wasn’t sure why he was so hesitant to say so.

“What happens in the dream?” Chance pressed.

Beam caught the gaze of another Baeldon glaring down at him from across the corridor. The eyes were at once both blind and all knowing. He swerved his attention away from it. There was too much grief in there; he had enough of his own.

“The dream mage,” he said, looking down at his boots, “Tells me it’s not a dream at all. He says it’s a memory. He tells me I’m learning things.”

“Learning?”

Beam shook his head. “No,” he said carefully, “No, that’s not right. Not learning. He says I’m remembering.”

“Remembering?”

“Damn me, I know. It doesn’t make any sense to me, either.”

“It makes perfect sense.”

“I…I know things now. I hear things. Every time I wake up, I feel different. It’s not just that the damned light heals me every night. It’s more complicated than that. Every time I wake up, I feel more…I don’t know. Complete, I guess.”

The white water of Chance’s thoughts suddenly coursed too close to his mind. He could hear the fury of the man’s anger and fears and hopes. Beam felt like he was falling into a deep pit, and he didn’t know if he’d hit the merciless rocks at the bottom or simply drop out the other side.

“Can you hear me?” Chance whispered to him, “Right now? Do you hear my thoughts?”

Beam considered the question. Telling the man he could hear his thoughts just felt too personal, too defiling. Instead, he looked over at the still form of Koonta.

“Not like her,” he said, “I can hear her words. I can see the faces of her memories. I can feel her pain, her anger. I have to fight to stay out of her head. And yet, the twisted truth is that every time I touch her mind, I feel more normal.” He dropped his head and sighed. “Maybe what that dream warrior says is true. Maybe they are memories.”

“You’ve been through a lot,” Chance said, “You deserve to go easy on yourself.”

The man’s words were stated so simply, so matter-of-factly, they felt like a rescue, like a hand reached down to a man dangling from a rafter. He realized that telling his story out loud felt like freedom, though he understood the price was high. In admitting the reality of the caeyl’s effects to Chance, he was admitting them to himself. There could be no more denial after this. The skeptic may not be dead, but he was in one hell of a coma.

“Beam, there’s something I have to ask you.”

Beam’s stomach knotted. Chance had selected his words a mite too carefully, as if he were picking his way across the rocks littering a coarse stream. He pushed himself back against the marble and braced himself. “Go ahead,” he whispered.

“Do you realize that you’ve been telling me this in Vaemysh?”

Another thunderbolt! Vaemysh! You’ve been telling me this in Vaemysh! It wasn’t possible! He suddenly wanted to cry. Or scream. Or maybe just slap someone.

“I think the dream warrior’s right,” Chance said quickly, “The Blood Caeyl seems to be awakening a kind of collective memory, perhaps the remnants of your Vaemysh ancestry.”

Beam struggled to breathe. He was suddenly freezing, but he was determined to stay focused. He wouldn’t submit to his fears, not anymore. They’d only defeat him. It was time to face this.

“It’s not unprecedented,” Chance said, “The order—”

“He said pain defines my life.”

Chance stopped. Beam could feel his fear. He could feel the cold slicing through his bones. He heard the question before Chance could put it into form.

“Praven Vaenfyl,” Beam said, “The dream warrior. He said my pain defines me. He said my pain makes me who I am. He also said that strength comes of suffering. He said that pain should not always be avoided. When I say it out loud it sounds even more ridiculous than in the dream.”

“Suffering?” Chance asked, “I don’t understand. Physical or emotional?”

Beam was standing now. He was facing the emptiness awaiting them. “You have to walk through the dark tunnel to arrive in the light,” he heard himself tell Chance, “That’s what he told me. He said when I do, I’ll be every man I ever was. He said I’ll be a god.”

Chance was standing beside him. Beam could feel the man’s terror. Chance was suddenly afraid of him, and knowing that fact left him feeling dirty. “Just say it, Chance,” he whispered, “Damn me, we don’t have any secrets now.”

The mage laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. “Whatever happens,” he said, “We’ll face it together. We’ve been through a lot in a handful of days. I won’t leave you.”

Beam laughed at that. “Damn me, Brother, I don’t think you have a choice.”

∞

Koonta walked in from the darkness and stood before him. She was looking down at his sword. Even without listening to her thoughts, he understood her apprehension. He cupped his hand over the caeyl in the pommel, but it did little to dim the light. The damned thing was practically a beacon now, a goddamned bonfire raging on his hip.

Another dreadful howl fractured the cold silence. It was immediately joined by another, and then another. Beam studied the tunnel trailing them. Whatever they were, they were too damned close. He heard them scratching around the shadows of the marble floor, heard them sniffing and snuffling about as if searching for something.

He dragged a hand over his mouth and ordered himself to calm. He wasn’t even sure that the fear gripping him was of his own creation. The terror radiating from the minds of his companions was pummeling him like a winter squall.

Chance slipped the tattered linen from the head of his staff. The dazzling blue glow of his caeyl nearly overpowered the red light of Beam’s sword. Beam took the move as guidance and removed his hand from the Blood Caeyl. As their combined lights fractured the darkness, five sets of tiny yellow eyes erupted from the shadows a good ways back in the tunnel.

“They’ve only kept their distance because of the torches,” Beam whispered, “They’re afraid of the fire.”

“Agreed,” Chance whispered back, “So perhaps we can give them some incentive to back off.” He looked at the torch Beam was holding before them.

Beam nodded. Then he heaved the torch.

The flame flipped through the gloom and bounced across the marble in a burst of sparks. As it rolled deeper, a chorus of screeches erupted and five ghostly figures leaped away from the flames and seemed to flow up the walls. Beam couldn’t believe his eyes. They were climbing the marble like huge spiders.

“Look at them,” Koonta whispered to him, “They must be seven feet long.”

Beam could only nod. Though outwardly cool, the psychic intensity of her anxiety felt like ice in his stomach. She was good and seriously scared. He tried to push it back, but her emotions were gripping him more eagerly than his own worries.

The creatures scrambled along the walls and ceiling like white spiders, finding purchase on the carvings of the dead Baeldons, and even the seams in the marble. Once past the torch, they dropped into the middle of the corridor again and began creeping slowly toward them, staying toward the middle to avoid the sporadically mounted torches on the high walls. Some walked nearly upright while others skulked on all four limbs. Their wiry bodies were slick with white oily fur, their forearms long and wiry. Their heads hung so low they seemed to grow out of their chests without benefit of a neck. Blunt, toothy snouts and red, beady eyes were smeared across flat faces between fleshy, oversized ears.

The lead beast arched its back dramatically, threw wide its long arms, and released a bone-grinding screech from a mouth thrown open to unbelievable proportions. Beam thought of the sharks he’d seen in his few years at sea, with their oversized mouths and rows of razor teeth. As the beast screamed again, the longer hair on its shoulders flared out like a threatened cur.

Beam thrust the business end of his sword toward the foremost creature. “What in the Nine are those things?”

“I don’t know,” Chance whispered, “It resembles a...a gor’naeyd. But they’re so white, so big...”

“Gor’naeyds?” Koonta said in obvious surprise, “There’s no such thing. They died out centuries ago. ”

“I’m as shocked as you are,” Chance said.

“I damned well doubt that,” Koonta said with an odd laugh.

The lead beast snapped left and right, clacking its teeth oddly and releasing a staccato series of bubbling sounds. Two of the creatures immediately swept up the walls on either side of the tunnel as if moving on command. The leader threw its head up and clacked its dagger-like teeth again. The two remaining gor’naeyds swept up along its flanks, slithering in on all fours. The leader then rose straight up and began shuffling toward them on two legs like a general leading an army of warriors.

“They’re making a formation,” Koonta’ar whispered to Beam, “They’re not just attacking in a pack. They have a strategy.”

“Gor’naeyds were very intelligent predators,” Chance said, “It took the Baeldons years to exterminate them.”

Beam threw him a look. “Exterminate them?” he whispered, “I don’t think it took.”

The beasts were moving forward with a lethal sense of determination, two nearly on the ceiling, leaping from Baeldon to Baeldon, and two just forward of the leader. They were barely thirty feet back now.

Beam looked over at Koonta’ar. Her fear was thankfully melting away, replaced by something warmer and far more powerful. Her warrior’s instinct had taken hold. She was game for the fight.

“Koonta” he said as he flipped the buckle open on his weapons belt, “I think—”

“You’re ready to give me the bow?” she said.

“You don’t know how ready.”

She’d pulled the bow free before he even had the belt off. She was grinning at him as she spanned it far more easily than he’d ever been able to. “Maybe you have a sensible side after all, jh’ven?” she said, slipping a bolt in place.

A pulse of primitive violence seized Beam’s mind. It came from the lead gor’naeyd. It was so vile with rage that Beam wavered under the intensity of it.

“They’re coming,” he whispered.

The lead creature threw out another mind-numbing wail, and the other beasts flew forward. Two white anti-shadows raced along the ceiling’s edge, leaping across the Baeldons with unbelievable speed. Two more crawled in tandem at the sarcophagi’s feet, pouring along the floor like liquid.

They were coming too fast. One of the wall-bound monsters suddenly raced ahead of the others, scaling the ceiling like it could fly. It leapt out from the wall, flying down on Koonta like a streak of lightning. It landed on her before she could even get a shot off. She hit the ground hard with the shrieking gor’naeyd straddling her. Her bolt ricocheted off into the darkness.

Beam wheeled on the beast and sliced its spine open. Blood sprayed the sarcophagi as the creature flipped away from Koonta’ar, still screeching raucously. Beam quickly silenced it with his sword.

Koonta was back on her feet and reloading the crossbow. Her right bicep was striped red, though he sensed she was unaware of the wounds. She wheeled the loaded crossbow toward Beam and yelled, “Duck!”

Beam flinched as the bolt streaked over his shoulder. The dead beast slammed him from behind, sending him rolling across the floor. When he pushed himself back to his knees the gor’naeyd was glaring up at him from the floor with a bolt growing from its throat and crimson bubbles simmering from its mouth.

As he shoved the vile beast away from him, he looked over at Koonta, who winked back at him. In that moment, he understood that she was loving this. This was what she’d been born for, for the battle.

The gor’naeyd leader released another blistering wail and the remaining beasts launched themselves forward. Beam swung his sword at the nearest, but it evaded him with a vertical leap that landed it on the ceiling ten feet above him. Before Beam could react, the creature reached down and slapped his weapon away as easily as a cat bats a mouse. The sword clattered off into the darkness. Beam landed hard on his back with a monstrous claw seizing his throat and another wrapped around his head. The beast’s hot, putrid breath blew in from a raw cavern of teeth that were clacking inches from his face.

His stomach lurched as the creature flew up the wall with him still locked in its claws. He dug his fingers into the paw locked around his throat, but it was as tight as a shackle. The pressure on his head was unbearable. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t feel the ground beneath his feet. The monster’s face was growing unclear, fading from focus behind a fog of glittering spots.

Then a bolt materialized in its skull just an inch above its beady pink eye. A red bulls-eye swelled in the oily white hair around the shaft. And yet, the grip choking Beam’s neck didn’t release.

The room flashed in blue light. The beast seized more convincingly this time, and this time the pressure of the crushing paw slackened. They both dropped from that perch high above the floor. Beam landed hard, clubbing his head against the foot of a Baeldon. He tried to stand but couldn’t get his footing on the slick, bloody floor. He fell hard on his back and slugged his head against the marble.

The world was spinning giddily. He couldn’t seem to focus. He rolled himself to his side and saw that the last monster had Koonta! He tried again to stand, but couldn’t find his balance. Unable to support himself, he collapsed onto the warm corpse of a gor’naeyd.

His head was pounding insanely. The world swirled sickeningly around him. He tried to push away from the odorous body, but couldn’t find purchase. And just as unconsciousness seized him, he saw a battle-axe the size of a wagon wheel flip through the air above him.

∞

Jhom dragged the final gor’naeyd off the Vaemysh warrior with his massive arm wrenched around the monster’s neck. The creature’s mouth opened, but made no sound. Jhom inserted his short sword between the creature’s ribs. The white carcass slumped to the ground, settling into a swelling pool of blood. Jhom squatted beside the corpse and wiped his bloody blade across the grimy white fur.

“Gor’naeyds,” he said, looking up at Chance, “I thought you told me they were all dead.”

“That error’s already been pointed out to me.” Chance dropped to both knees and rolled Beam onto his back, and pried his eyelids open. Satisfied the half-breed suffered no more than a head blow, he sat back on his heels and drew a steadying breath. As the excitement waned, he felt the dull ache of exhaustion return.

Koonta was standing across the corridor from him. She fell back against the granite and slid down the wall into a sitting position with her legs out into the corridor. One of the dead gor’naeyds was sprawled across the marble at her feet. Its white fur was almost as bloody as she was. She seemed completely nonplussed by its presence.

“Are you hurt?” he asked her.

She held a hand to the back of her neck and examined her palm. “A few scratches,” she said, “No more.”

Chance watched Jhom inspect the corpse. “Your timing’s impeccable,” he said to the Baeldon, “I’ve never been happier to see you.”

“You’re keeping a peculiar set of travelling companions these days,” Jhom said, grinning at him.

“You haven’t seen anything yet. This company’s full of surprises.”

Chance stood his staff upright beside him and used it to climb to his feet. He crossed over to Koonta and squatted before her. “Toss me that,” he said over his shoulder to Jhom.

The pack slid to a stop at his feet. Chance took Koonta’s head and urged it forward. One quick look at her neck and he knew she’d lied to him. She was more than scratched. Her face was ashen and she was sweating profusely. He felt her cheek. Her skin was as cold as ice. Her teeth were lightly chattering. Her eyes were locked on Jhom.

Chance took her arm and looked at the gouges streaking her biceps. She didn’t resist his efforts. “Koonta’ar,” Chance said as he inspected her, “This is Jhom’ne Fenta. He’s an old and true friend. You’ve nothing to fear from him, he’ll stand by my word.”

“Call me Jhom. I hail from the clan of Barcuun’d Gheghe.”

Koonta’ar stared up at him in silence. Her eyes were hollow and filling with blood. She tried to speak, but her teeth were clattering too hard to allow it.

Jhom squatted behind Chance. “You’ve nothing to fear from me,” he told her, “We’re brothers of the stone, Chance and me. If you’ve a bond with him, you’ve my bond as well.”

Chance pulled a vial of medicine and a roll of fabric from the pack. He bit out the cork, then tore off some of the gray cloth and poured tonic into it. Pulling her carefully forward, he began cleaning the wounds on the back of her neck. It was a worrisome sight. Three gouges ran the length of her neck from the base of her skull down into her back. They weren’t particularly deep, but they were already inflamed and hot to the touch.

“I believe this is going to be a good story,” Jhom said to him, “Isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid so,” Chance said as he worked.

“Where’s Luren?”

The name sent his stomach roiling. Chance braced himself against the cold angst summoned by the thought of the boy. But he didn't let himself linger there, instead forcing his attention back to the task at hand.

“It’s not good,” he said as he worked Koonta’s wounds, “I think they have him.”

“They? You mean the Vaemyn?”

“I mean Prae.”

“Prae?”

Chance had no energy for a conversation as dour as this one was going to be, not right now. Koonta’s neck wounds were worsening as he watched. The inflammation was spreading faster than anything he’d ever seen before. Her entire neck was hot and red, and she was shaking so hard he worried she’d break a tooth.

“There’s a hell of a lot to tell,” he said, dribbling the elixir over the wounds, “And precious little of it’s good.”

XXXIX

DEATH OF A ROGUE

B

EAM PUSHED HIMSELF UP FROM THE COLD MARBLE.

He ran his fingers up over his head and through his hair, which felt wet and sticky. He winced as he found the source of the blood.

He eased himself back down to the floor. His skull was pounding. His pulse was throbbing unreasonably just behind his eyes. He wondered if he was back in the cave, but then he sensed Chance’s essence at the periphery of his thoughts and remembered everything.

He forced himself back upright and sat back against the wall. He touched the side of his head and winced. “Tell me I’m dead,” he whispered.

“No such luck,” Chance said.

Beam groped his way to his feet. As his vision cleared, he saw that Chance was tending to someone. It was the Vaemyd. She wasn’t moving. “She’s hurt?” he whispered to Chance.

“Get me the blankets, will you?” Chance asked.

“Sure,” Jhom and Beam answered in unison.

Beam nearly jumped out of his skin. He wheeled around to find the biggest Baeldon he’d ever seen towering over him. The man made the sarcophagi rising up behind him look small in comparison. He was dressed in Baeldonian field armor, including a strangely jointed steel breastplate that started at his clavicles and swept downward to a point that covered his crotch. He had a short, closely cropped black beard and a leather hat with rolled up sides like those worn by plainsmen, including a spear of a blue feather that shot back from the band and swept out over the rear brim.

“Where in the Nine did you come from?” he asked the mountain, “By gods, you’re a big one.”

“Don’t flatter him, he’s not that big,” Chance said, “Now will someone please get me those blankets?”

Jhom pulled a bedroll from under the shoulder of a dead gor’naeyd, and then used his foot to shove the oily white body farther down the hall as easily as Beam might shove a chair.

“I sure as hell hope this is a friend of yours,” Beam said as he watched Jhom cover Koonta’ar with the blanket, “Otherwise, we’re both dead.”

Jhom laughed.

Beam felt the heat of goodwill radiating from the giant’s mind. It told him everything he needed to know. This one and Chance were as close as brothers, and despite the man’s calm exterior, he was worried sick about Chance.

“So,” Jhom asked from a studious gaze, “Just what manner of mayhem have you gotten my friend into that’s left him looking so careworn?”

“You have it reversed, my friend,” Beam replied, “If I hadn’t made his acquaintance when I did, he’d be fertilizing the trees right now. Truth is he’s the one who’s been leading me into trouble these past days. And I’ve been a damned good sport about it, if I have to say so myself.”

Chance sent him a look.

As Beam met Chance’s eyes, he felt the worry gripping the man’s mind. He was terrified for Koonta’s condition, but he was also trying hard not to think of the boy. As he looked down at the brutalized Vaemyd, he realized he couldn’t sense her thoughts anymore.

“She’s sick,” he said as he crawled over beside Chance.

“You think so, Beam?”

Beam knelt across her from him. She was shaking as violently as he’d ever seen anyone shake. He touched her forehead and quickly recoiled. “Damn me if she’s not clammy as a fish.”

“I know,” Chance said as he carefully rolled Koonta up onto her side, “Give me a hand with her.”

Beam held her by the shoulder and hip as Chance propped her up with a rolled blanket.

“If I didn’t know better,” Beam said, “I’d suspect the plague.”

“It’s no plague,” Chance said, “Look at these wounds on her back. They’re festering already.”

“What does that mean?”

Chance just looked at him.

“What?” Beam asked again, “I’m not a healer. What is it?”

“I think it’s venom. Jhom, you ever hear stories about gor’naeyds having venom in their claws or teeth?”

“No,” Jhom said, “I don’t believe as I have. But who knows what horrors grow in the misery of these breached caverns?”

Chance finished cleaning the first of the back wounds, then applied a loose outer dressing of torn linen to them. Sitting back on his haunches, he thoughtfully stroked the reddish fuzz covering his cheeks.

Beam looked down at Koonta’ar and listened. He willed himself into her mind, pushing forward through that ethereal tunnel connecting them. As he did, a sensation of terrible pain seized him. He pulled back so hard it left his head swimming. “She’s dying,” he said to Chance, “The pain’s unbearable. You need to do something.”

“What the hell does it look like I’m doing, Beam? Brewing tea?”

“I’m sorry,” Beam said seriously. He absolutely was. “I didn’t mean—”

“Hold up!” Jhom said suddenly, “By Calina’s tits, I recall now. There was a type of gor’naeyd bred to work these tunnels back when they were new, but they died out during the Fifty Year War. I believe they were mildly venomous, but fairly docile. These bastards are six hells of a lot bigger. Mayhaps it’s some new race of gor’naeyds. Could be some that only recently found their way up from some deeper caverns.”

“That could explain the white fur and tiny eyes,” Chance said.

“And the ears,” Jhom said, crossing arms the size of logs, “They may have developed the—”

“What the hell difference does it make?” Beam yelled.

The others looked at him.

“Damn me, she’s laying there dying and you two are discussing the origin of those mops over there? Focus on the task at hand, will you? What’re we going to do?”

Chance watched him for a minute, and then he asked Jhom, “How much farther to the next hatch?”

“Hm, mayhaps four miles.”

“Good. I’ve applied an herbal poultice that should help draw out any poison still in the wounds, but it won’t help what’s already in her blood. We get topside and I might be able to find some Cobbler’s Vetch and other herbs I can use to make a more effective tonic. We’ll need some fat from a rabbit or squirrel, too. And I’ll definitely need a fire.”

“Then let’s do it,” Beam said, standing up, “We’re just wasting time here.”

The Baeldon knelt down and carefully scooped the unconscious Vaemyn into his arms. Beam felt the cool shock of Jhom’s surprise as the Baeldon touched the icy cold of her flesh.

“By gods, Chance,” Jhom said, “Her mail’s warmer than she is.”

Chance shouldered his pack and grabbed his staff. “Let’s move out.”

Beam studied the darkness and found a point of red light a dozen paces down the tunnel. When he picked up the sword, he wasn’t surprised to find it still in perfect condition. There wasn’t a scratch on it. There wasn’t even any blood. As he sheathed it, he wondered why the creature had so easily knocked it out of his hands. Wasn’t the damned weapon supposed to be protecting him? It made no sense.

On his way back to the others, he grabbed three of the dropped torches. He handed one off to Chance and carried the remaining two since the Baeldon’s hands were full of Koonta’ar. Then again, as he considered how tiny the Vaemyd looked in those colossal arms, he figured the Baeldon could have easily managed a half dozen torches if he’d wanted to.

∞

Beam listened without much interest as Chance and Jhom exchanged information.

Chance spent the walk explaining the circumstance of his meeting with Beam, about the sentries and the Divinic Demon. He told Jhom about Luren’s abduction, assuring him that the boy was still alive, and that hope was not yet lost.

Beam had his doubts on that point.

Finally, Chance explained how the Vaemyn tracked them to Sanctuary, about their decision to take the tunnels, and of the unfortunate encounter in the swamp that led to the circumstance of a Baeldon holding a dying Vaemysh kadeer in his arms.

Then, just when he was feeling some relief that Chance was finished with his drama, the damned Baeldon apparently felt compelled to reciprocate, telling about the sentry and the scandal it raised, and the Gran’ghanter’s less than jolly response to it.

Blather, prattle, and spew.

Beam picked up his pace. He was sick of thinking about it, sick of living it, and doubly sick of hearing it retold. If he didn’t get out of earshot of their gossip, he swore he was going to throw himself on his own damned sword. He redoubled his pace, trotting now as he tried to distance himself from the voices. They were killing him with tedium.

His head had been aching mercilessly since their fight with the gor’naeyds. He felt shaken and jittery. Considering the Vaemyd’s state, however, he realized he had nothing to complain about. At least he hadn’t been bitten or scratched. She was dying, and she was doing so in a bum’s rush.

Even more distressing than her condition was the fact that he was actually worried about her.

He wasn’t sure where these uninvited feelings of concern were coming from, especially in view of their mutual history. When he thought about how many Vaemyn he’d killed over the years it almost made him sick. It’d always been in self-defense, of course. He’d never hunted them for sport like so many of the half-witted thugs he’d known in the Nolands. Still, when he thought back on it he felt...

He stopped.

There was light ahead.

A half circle of light loitered at the side of the tunnel. It cast the black marble floor into a pearly gleam too dim to be sunlight or even torchlight.

The giddiness of truth seized him. It was moonlight!

“Is that...?” He turned back toward Chance and Jhom who were dawdling along a hundred yards behind him. “Is that the hatch?” he yelled out.

“Yea!” Jhom called back, “That’s the hatch, all right.” The words echoed on in joyous celebration of the announcement.

Beam turned back toward the light. A waft of cool, dry air hushed over him. He closed his eyes and lifted his face into it. “Oh lords, can you smell that?” he whispered to himself, “That’s fresh air, son. Fresh! Air!”

It was too much to resist. He fell into a run toward the hatch. Chance yelled something behind him, but the words were lost to echoes. He slid to a stop at the base of the hatch and looked up. The breeze whispered more insistently here, caressing his face like a lover’s summon. Familiar iron rungs climbed up the wall of a wide, metal turret that ended in a small half-circle of night sky smeared sweetly with the soothing glaze of Mengrae’s blade. It was like looking through a spyglass into the very bosom of Pentyrfal.

It was too much to resist. He leaped for the rungs. Carrying the torch slowed his ascent, but he didn’t care. Each new rung brought the smell of freedom closer. The wind poured down over him like a baptism.

Chance again called to him from somewhere below, but he again ignored it. The last thing he wanted to hear was the chastising, motherly nag he knew was coming. Anyway, he didn’t care what the mage thought or wanted or feared. Not now. Not when he was so close to feeling the sweet love of earth beneath his feet again.

“Beam, wait!” It was the Baeldon’s voice this time.

Beam didn’t want to stop. He wouldn’t stop. He was too close to freedom.

“Wait!” Chance called, “It’s not safe!” His voice sounded miles away.

Despite his nearly unbearable urges to the contrary, Beam did stop. He hugged the rungs and waited for his breath. The edge of the rim was right there, just a few more steps away. The stars were so close, he could nearly pick them from the sky. He was almost there, for Calina’s sake! Why did the man perpetually rain on his hopes?

He looked down and considered the caeyl embedded in the hilt of his sheathed sword. The red eye was dark as night. There was no warning spark in it, no worrying gleam, no suggestion of danger at all. It had to be safe or the caeyl would be blazing just like when the gor’naeyds attacked. Not that it mattered. Right now, his excitement was so extreme, he’d risk just about anything to feel the grass in his hands again.

He scampered up the last few rungs, laid the torch up on the stone rim, and then climbed up out of the grave and into the night air like a dead man reborn. He stood there on the rim of the hatch with the torch burning at his feet and the midnight sky shining on his face. A robust breeze sifted past. It felt as pure and delicate as a butterfly’s kiss, free of the reek of mildewed earth or stagnant water. The world was ripe with the heady aroma of grass and wind and life.

He hopped down to the dark grass and laughed. The wind hissed seductively through the tall grass. Crickets chirruped gaily from a thousand blinds. Somewhere in the nocturnal darkness above him, a bird cried out. It was a singular instant of pure joy. For the first time in weeks, he felt the thrill of impending calm.

The bird cried out again, closer this time.

Calm rudely deserted him.

He opened his eyes and looked up into the inky night. Birds? At night?

He glanced down at his sword. The eye was still silent. So why were his alarms clanging like a call to arms? Something warm flushed past his head. He swatted reflexively at it, but found only air. What was that? A moth? Maybe a field bat?

Another bird cried out.

He grabbed the torch from the rim of the hatch and drew his sword. Something fluttered behind him. He wheeled toward the sound, swinging his torch wildly at it.

Nothing was there. Then the darkness shifted and something brushed his face. This time he caught a whiff of foul, musky odor as it passed.

He held the torch out at arm’s length and turned a studious circle, scanning the night just beyond the light’s reach. It was probably nothing, just a reaction to leaving his confinement, a kind of hallucination induced by so much space.

Another something swept past, close enough to feel the wind on his neck. He swung his torch toward it an instant too late. The shadow was absorbed into the night, but this time he caught the whispers of primitive, chaotic thoughts. Whatever it was, it was ripe with the lust of violence.

Then a snip of sound to his side, like a sheet snapping in the wind. Something brushed the back of his head. He whirled toward it, swinging both the torch and his sword. A black shape flew past and he barely dodged what looked like a talon.

He threw the torch into the grass and grabbed the sword with both hands. He sensed the creature making another pass to his right. He flipped around and threw himself at it. The sword intercepted the thing, slicing it cleanly in two. The remains of a monstrous creature flopped in the grass, all barbs and talons and teeth.

He caught the vile thoughts of another creature an instant before its talons raked his back. He screamed and twisted toward it, slicing wildly at empty air. His spine felt like someone had thrown boiling water on it. He groped at his back and felt the blood-soaked shreds of leather. “How the devil can—”

The agitated thoughts of others erupted in his mind. They were coming for him! There were dozens of them, too many to fight. He turned to make for the hatch an instant too late. Two of the creatures dove in from his left. He heaved his sword into the attack. A wing flipped away but the body kept going. Another scream rang out to his right, and he swung his blade at it. The creature’s head flipped free, but the body slammed against him, knocking him to the grass.

He climbed back to his feet with the black horror pinned to his chest. He pushed it away, but it wouldn’t give. Desperate, he grabbed the oily wing and ripped it free. His hand was on fire. He held it up to the moonlight and saw a brush of long, dark quills covering his palm and wrist. To his horror, the line of quills ran up the length of his arm and across his chest. It felt like he’d stuck his hands into the coals of a campfire.

The voice of another vile mind screamed down from his left. He tried to raise his sword to intercept it, but nearly dropped it instead. He couldn’t feel his hands. Two black shapes swept by his head, spraying his face and neck with their horrible barbs. He grabbed a fistful of the wet quills and ripped them from his cheek.

He was covered in the monster’s needles! He wanted to pull them out, wanted to get the wretched things out of him, but his arms were numb and useless. He suddenly felt cold. His gut was knotting violently. The ground was swirling beneath him. He couldn’t focus.

Two more creatures lit down out of nowhere. Their talons ripped into his shoulders, but this time they didn’t let go. Their claws gouged deep into his muscles. The bastards were pulling on him. They were trying to lift him! Their leathery wings beat viciously against him as they pulled him upward. Their talons ripped the flesh from his bones. He cried out and managed to twist out of their grip. He fell back against the hatch, but they were on him in an instant. Daggers sliced through his chest and leg. A boiling storm of beating black wings raged across his body. They were dragging him back from the hatch with their claws.

A third creature drove its talons into his back. The pain seared down his spine. Another of the monsters took his arm, its grip like knives ripping through his muscles. He felt himself scream, but heard no sound from it. The creatures’ frenzied, chaotic thoughts raged through his mind like a terrible storm, deafening him, blinding him. But even through the chaos, he could hear one of them most clearly. This one’s mind was singular of purpose. This one harbored the image of a red light. This one wanted the Caeyllth Blade!

He tried to yell out at them, to warn them away, but his throat felt full of poison. He could barely draw a breath. Even the pain of their talons was numbing into silence.

The night was devolving into a blur of black shapes and muted screams. The ground disappeared beneath him as they lifted him from the grass. They had him now. They were going to kill him, and this time it meant more than just his lousy death. This time it meant the end of the story, the end of hope. The Caeyllth Blade was lost. The world was lost. He cursed himself, cursed the gods, cursed his miserable fate.

Then something metallic flashed above him and a screeched ripped the night. His sword arm fell free from the monster’s grip. He looked at his hand and struggled to bring it into focus. It was his hand, wasn’t it? He was still holding it! He still had the sword!

Another flash of metal liberated two more of the bastards from their talons, and with that, his feet found the ground again. As he struggled against the remaining talons, he heard a voice bellowing above him, a voice like distant thunder, a voice as powerful as the gods. The voice was cursing the beasts. It was threatening them. It called them Prodes.

The last of the prodes released him. Beam felt himself falling, felt himself drifting down into the grass as lazily as the fluff floats away from a cottonwood tree. The stone rim slowly rolled by and the ghosts of his past smiled at him from each passing brick. The grass swelled up around him, a field of dreamy yellow and green sizzling past his face toward the heavens above. He landed on his back as gently as falling into a bed.

A god of a man towered over him, his head adorned with a great crown of stars. He was swinging both an axe and a sword. His limbs flew about in a murderous rage as the black remnants of the creatures danced gloriously around him.

Then the world fell silent.

It may have been years before Beam felt the powerful arms slide beneath him, before he felt himself floating back up out of the darkness, before he felt himself hovering in the air like an angel, his arms spread wide like diaphanous wings. He knew he was dying but felt no regret. He’d soon be joining his ghosts in the quiet bliss of death as a thousand crickets chirruped their approval.

Before he passed into that hopeful night, Jhom’s voice hammered through his head, though the words were lost on an unholy wind. Then he felt himself dropping again, dropping through a hole into the earth like a sinner plummeting to the hells. And as he descended into that gaping pit, he saw the Caeyllth Blade. It rose up from the giant’s hand far above him, and his relief at the sight trumped even his pain. Nothing else mattered, not anymore. He could die now. He’d fulfilled his destiny. The future was safe. They had no need of the likes of him anymore.

The stars jittered above him, rocking rhythmically back and forth, pulsing with each step lower, like waves washing onto a celestial shore. They were shrinking away from him as he descended into his grave, gradually crushing into a half-circle of light that shrank smaller and smaller as he fell away from it. At long last, the time had arrived that he’d often dreaded but never feared, and it was beautiful to behold.

As he died in the security of the Baeldon’s arms, he found the strength for one final regret. He wished more than anything else that he’d warned the great man about the quills.

THE END, VOLUME ONE