Child of a Dead God

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Leesil bolted out of the chute's top and chased after Magiere. They raced on through late afternoon until exhaustion threatened to pull him down.

He couldn't find a trail in the fresh snow that Magiere was following, but her course never wavered. And he was still uneasy about what she'd done with the anmaglahk's severed head.

Magiere had seen-relived-the moment of an undead's kill. She had not tried anything so reckless since Bela, and that had been by accident. It had served a purpose then, and perhaps it did now, but she shouldn't have repeated the experience.

He hadn't even seen her pick up the head until it was too late.

And how could a vampire exist here, with no life to feed on? The only thing clear to Leesil was that Magiere somehow knew how to find Wynn and Chap.

"Is she still sane?" Sgaile panted beside him. "Is she aware of what she does?"

Leesil wished he could answer. It wasn't that simple where Magiere's dhampir nature was concerned.

"Yes," he lied. "Just be quiet and follow."

Leesil hadn't forgotten what they'd found in the gully. Sgaile had questions to answer later. What were other anmaglahk doing here-and why? Sgaile said he didn't know, but was he lying? Or was this more of Brot'an's scheming?

Magiere hit a steep rocky incline where snow thinned. She didn't even slow, but climbed on, with one hand clawing for holds.

"Move faster," Leesil panted. "Before she's out of sight!"

Sgaile passed him on the slope as Osha came up behind. Leesil raised his head, grabbing for holds with both hands. Magiere stopped at the crest and looked down at him.

Her enlarged irises were pitch black in her pallid face. She shifted nervously, head twisting back and forth, and she kept glancing over the ridge's far side.

"Wait!" Leesil called to her. "Don't move!"

Magiere thrashed about, pacing the ridge's narrow top, and an anguished whine escaped her mouth. It turned into a screeching snarl that echoed down the ridge.

Sgaile stopped cold and glanced over his shoulder at Leesil.

"Just get up there," Leesil urged.

Sgaile pushed on, and Leesil noticed a flattened roll of canvas strapped to his back, along with Magiere's sheathed falchion.

The jostle of running had shifted the bundle, and the winged tip of one of Leesil's old punching blades peeked out the bottom. Sgaile crested the ridge, and Leesil scrambled over the top, rising to his feet beside Magiere.

Her breath came in vibrating hisses between clenched teeth. Leesil followed her fixed gaze into the distance and his eyes widened.

A vast plain lay trapped in a ring of distant high mountains. Its snow was a pure blanket of undisturbed white. And resting amid that smooth perfection was the shape of a multitowered castle. Even at a distance, its size seemed impossible, like a gray sentinel guarding the empty quiet of the sunken plateau. The castle itself almost seemed an illusion, sitting in this barren place at the top of the world.

"Is that it?" he asked, finding his voice. "The one you've been seeing?"

"Yes," Magiere hissed. She back-stepped once downslope, watching him in anticipation.

Leesil scanned the plain for any movement, anything out there waiting to intercept them.

"There," Osha said. "Tracks!"

A broken trail led away from the rocky slope's bottom and out across the smooth white snow.

Magiere inched downward, with her eyes still on Leesil.

He flipped the straps on his new winged blades and pulled them.

They didn't yet feel as if they belonged to him. His gloves muted his grip on their handles. But the half-loops of metal, rising partway down the wings, made the blades settle solidly on his forearms.

"Everyone on guard. Whatever took Wynn and Chap"-Leesil glanced sidelong at Sgaile-"and killed your friends… just be ready."

Sgaile made no move to hand Magiere her falchion. He just stood there, watching her.

Leesil wondered if he'd have to put Sgaile down to get the sword back. When he turned to Magiere, her black eyes widened, and they fixed on his chest.

In the waning daylight, Leesil hadn't even noticed. The topaz amulet Magiere had given him was glowing.

He grew worried how the others might respond to this clear warning, but Sgaile didn't even flinch at the amulet's light.

"You told us about the guardian undeads before we left Ghoivne Ajhajhe," Sgaile said, "and something here killed our caste brothers before they could defend themselves." He looked to Magiere. "But I am guardian to your purpose. We will find this artifact you seek-and your friends."

Sgaile's certainty didn't squelch Leesil's worry. He saw nothing but the castle, so what had sparked the stone and Magiere's inner nature from such a distance?

"Go on," he said, and Magiere took off down the slope. "But stay within reach!"

They trudged down and followed the trail of broken snow. The closer they came to the castle, the brighter the amulet glowed. It made Leesil even more nervous, and he tucked it inside his coat collar. He didn't want a beacon announcing their arrival.

They reached a bleached stone wall surrounding the castle grounds.

Leesil hadn't noticed it from the ridge. Magiere turned along it, no longer looking to the trail. Leesil followed farther out from the wall, glancing up over its snow-capped top. The castle loomed in the darkening sky. It looked so old, decrepit and decaying.

Magiere halted before a pair of tall, ornate iron gates. One hung slightly ajar at the bottom from a broken lower hinge, leaving an angled space between them. The snow trail led inward toward a wide rise of stone steps that were strangely free of snow.

"No… birds…," Magiere whispered, and tilted back her head to stare at the high arched peak where the gates joined. "Dif… rent. Wrong… old… broken."

She gripped the rusted iron with both hands and peered through the gates at the castle beyond. Her shoulders hunched, as if she were about to tear the tilting gate from its one remaining hinge. Leesil quickly grabbed her forearm, as Sgaile hissed a warning.

"Do not announce our presence!"

Leesil shook his head. "Whatever is here likely knows someone's coming-it might even have taken Wynn and Chap just to bait us."

Magiere looked expectantly into his eyes, but her gloved hands remained clenched on the gate's bars.

"Push the rage down," Leesil urged. "You got us here… now clear your head."

Magiere's brow wrinkled, almost in a snarl, then smoothed again. She appeared to understand. Her jaw muscles worked, and her tongue passed briefly over her teeth. She inhaled deeply, and her breath hissed out, turning to vapor in the cold air.

"Yes," she whispered, and she straightened up, but her irises remained fully black.

Relieved, Leesil turned to Sgaile. "Welstiel used the term 'old ones, but we don't know how many. Your stilettos won't help. Get out my old blades and give one to Osha."

"No, we have not trained with your weapons," Sgaile answered. He held up his left hand, exposing a garrote's handles, its silvery wire looped about his gloved fingers. "But we can still take heads."

Magiere looked at the wire and nodded in approval. "Good."

Rather than ripping the gate from its hinges, she shoved it, widening the space. Leesil slipped through behind her.

"My sword," Magiere said.

Leesil glanced back, and at Sgaile's hesitation, he growled, "Give it to her!"

Sgaile unstrapped the falchion, and Magiere took it and belted it on. Osha held out the long war dagger before she'd even asked. She slipped it into her belt at the small of her back.

The sun had dipped below the western peaks. Though the sky was still light, deep shadows filled the sunken plateau, enveloping the castle and its grounds. Leesil cursed himself again for losing Wynn in the blizzard. If not for his desperation to find her and Chap, he would insist they all return to camp and wait for dawn before entering this place.

The courtyard's smooth white was broken by massive stones fallen from above ages ago. The first step of the wide stairs sank midway along the seam between two of its stones. They all climbed to the top landing. The large iron doors were etched and discolored-but sound enough to be a problem.

Magiere set her shoulder to one door and shoved. It moved barely an inch.

She was stronger than any of them with her dhampir nature awakened. Through the opening crack, Leesil saw only darkness inside.

"I don't like this," he grumbled. "The door isn't even barred."

"It doesn't have to be," Magiere answered. "Help me."

Sgaile joined Leesil, and they put their own efforts behind Magiere's. And they both flinched at the squeal of rusted metal as the door opened wider. Magiere didn't hesitate to slip through before anyone else.

Leesil followed, with Sgaile and Osha behind, and paused to let his eyes adjust. The temperature was no warmer than outside.

He and Magiere had entered the lairs of Noble Dead before-first Rashed and Teesha's warehouse in Miiska, and then Ratboy's lavish home in Bela. Both times, Leesil had had a sense of something therein, by Teesha's needlepoint and the paintings in Ratboy's townhouse. These false impressions of "life" marked a presence. But as his sight adjusted, he saw no such things here.

Dim twilight slipping through the iron doors offered barely enough illumination for his half-elven eyes. He stood in a long stone corridor wider than the council hall in Bela. Paired rows of pillars the breadth of elven trees stood near to either side wall, and each broadened at the base where it met the floor. The open way between was wide enough for seven armed men to walk freely abreast, and it ran on toward the castle's hidden depths. The walls beyond the pillars were difficult to see, but sections of stone appeared deeply etched by age in random patches.

"You said it looked wrong," he whispered to Magiere. "Do you mean compared to your dreams?"

"Older," she answered. "What I saw was sound and clean, even in the snow and ice."

"Maybe you saw it from the past?" he asked. "Through the eyes of who… whatever guided you here."

Magiere closed on one pillar and sniffed sharply.

"Pull out the amulet," Sgaile whispered.

"It won't be much use for tracking this close," Leesil answered.

"For its light," Sgaile insisted. "There is something wrong with these walls."

Magiere's gaze wandered as she sniffed again, and this time her nose wrinkled.

Leesil pulled the amulet out. "What's wrong?"

She shook her head. "Something familiar but… I'm not sure. Thin- and all around."

Osha watched her intently. "Wynn? Or Chap?"

"No," Magiere answered.

Sgaile tapped Leesil's shoulder. "Come."

He stepped around the first left pillar toward the wall beyond. Leesil followed, and his gaze fell on a patch of stone etched by decay. The amulet's light spilled across it, but the roughened age didn't vanish.

It became a wild patch of worn and faded black writing scattered along the wall.

Some crude implement had been used for the rough strokes, and even so, Leesil couldn't make out what it said. Once or twice he spotted Belaskian lettering, or something like it, but the characters didn't spell out words he recognized.

"Elven… and some Sumanese, I believe," Sgaile whispered. He crouched low, his fingers tracing a wandering line. "Here… and again, but not words in my people's language."

"More here," Osha called.

Leesil spotted him near the next pillar down the wall. The young elf lifted his gaze up the stone wall.

"More above," Osha whispered, and he looked to a height no person could have reached.

Magiere pushed in beside Leesil, flattening her hand upon the writing. She sniffed again and shuddered in revulsion.

Sgaile watched her. "What are you doing?"

"Magiere?" Leesil whispered.

Her eyes moved across the gibberish on the walls. She pressed her face even closer to the stone and inhaled deeply.

Magiere spun away, choking as she stumbled in the open corridor. She reached for her falchion and cast about, as if looking for a threat.

"Blood," she whispered. "From one of them… written with its blood!"

Osha lunged backward into the open corridor.

"What nonsense do you speak?" Sgaile asked Magiere. "This is not blood."

Leesil grabbed Sgaile's tunic shoulder and pulled him up. "Not from the living-from the dead… undead… the ones we've fought, the vampires, their fluids are black."

Both he and Sgaile backed away.

"I can smell it," Magiere hissed. "Faint… but everywhere."

"Who do such sick writing?" Osha asked.

Leesil remembered that an'Croan were repulsed by any mutilation of the dead. Even he didn't want to imagine how this demented practice had been accomplished.

"Is there harm in touching it?" Sgaile asked.

Leesil shook his head. "Not that we've experienced. But let's move on."

He turned down the long corridor with Magiere close beside him. They stuck to the center between the pillars.

Farther on, they spotted a massive archway straight ahead, shaped in a peaked echo of the iron doors and the outer gates. Its frame stones were rounded and smooth but unadorned, and through the opening lay a wide stone stairway leading to upper floors. As they stepped through the arch, narrow passages stretched into the dark on the left and right.

"No central hall," Sgaile said. "No main meeting or feasting place."

"What?" Leesil asked.

"Human fortifications usually have a main hall from the entrance, where visitors are greeted and formal meals are held. But not here-this place is strangely built."

"It wasn't made for the living," Magiere said, looking down one side passage. "The dead don't take in visitors or host feasts."

Leesil thought he saw a flicker in the dim side passage beyond Magiere. Then it was gone, and he turned away.

Magiere suddenly flipped the falchion between her hands. She ripped off her coat and let it fall.

A mute shape, darker than a shadow, sailed toward them through the dark air in the side passage.

Leesil quickly shed his coat. He'd barely separated his blades back into both hands when the darting shadow shot into the stairway chamber. It rose higher… and spread into a set of wings.

An enormous black raven wheeled in the chamber's heights. It tucked wings and began to fall. When it spread out again at the bottom of its diving arc, Leesil saw the landing of the stairs behind it-through it-in the amulet's light. He remembered Ubad's ghostly guardians in the Apudalsat forest.

The black winged shadow leveled straight at Osha.

"Don't let it hit you!" Leesil shouted.

Another shadow shot out of the passage, rising behind its falling twin.

He raised his blades out, fanning them in the air as he shouted, "Here!"

As Osha dodged away, the first shadow raven swerved toward Leesil. He dropped and rolled forward beneath the bird's dive.

It slammed into the archway's wall and vanished.

Leesil heard the flutter of wings out in the pillared corridor, and the second raven flew at Sgaile. At the last instant, Sgaile lunged aside, out of its way.

"Stay off the stairs and in the open!" Magiere shouted. "Don't get penned in."

An eerie caw sounded loudly, and Leesil saw the first bird coming in low along the pillared corridor. When it neared the peaked archway, the amulet's light seemed to shine upon its black feathers.

Magiere stepped into its path.

Leesil went cold with panic, but the raven stalled, wheeling up in a flutter of wings.

"We need light!" Sgaile shouted.

Leesil spun about, still uncertain what Magiere was doing. The amulet's light turned with him, spreading over the chamber and stairs. He spotted the second raven diving along the central stairway, straight for Sgaile's back.

"Down!" he shouted.

Sgaile dropped flat, and the raven passed an arm's length above him. It swerved suddenly, straight at Leesil's face.

He had no defense against something that could pass through solid walls and threw himself aside. His shoulder hit the floor, and his hauberk's rings grated along the cold stone. As he rolled, he grabbed the amulet's leather cord, trying not to stab himself with his own blade. The cord snapped, and he cast the amulet to the chamber's center for light. Then he saw Magiere.

She turned to face the bird swerving toward her and just stood there, waiting before the archway. Her arms opened wide, as if challenging the thing coming at her.

"Magiere!" Leesil shouted.

She whipped her arms together and under as the second raven darted for her chest. And her falchion swiped upward.

The tip's arc caught the bird, dead center. A screech filled the chamber as it exploded into smoke.

Trails of sooty vapors blasted around Magiere, driven by the bird's momentum. They collected beyond her, smoke gathering again into the raven's form. It shot out the peaked archway as its twin dove in from the corridor.

The first shadow raven slammed into Magiere's back.

She buckled as it shot out her chest and rose up the center stairs. Sgaile's eyes widened at the sight just before he had to duck away from the bird's passing.

A rumbling growl escaped Magiere's mouth as she straightened.

Leesil took a shaky breath. These things had no more effect upon her than did the ghosts of Apudalsat.

"How?" Osha cried out from where he crouched by the archway's near side.

"She can't be hurt by such things," Leesil shouted. "But we can, so watch yourself!"

The first raven turned for another pass. Magiere couldn't get her blade up in time. She swung at it with her free hand as the amulet's light glimmered on the bird's form.

Feathers tore away in Magiere's hooked fingers, and a squealing caw echoed through the chamber.

Torn black feathers turned to vapor before they reached the floor.

The shine upon the raven's plumaged faded as it righted its tumbling body. Magiere whipped the falchion in the air, and it wheeled away out of reach.

Leesil didn't know what these creatures were, but he saw an advantage.

Magiere's falchion inflicted true injury on an undead, so these birds were something akin. And when they couldn't harm her in their shadow state, one had appeared to turn solid for an instant.

"Watch for light on their feathers!" he shouted as Sgaile rose and backed toward Magiere. "That's when they can be struck!"

Leesil reached for Osha to drag him clear of the wall.

The black shadow of a wolf's head thrust through the stone, its jaws spreading wide.

Wynn knelt upon the floor near Li'kan.

Her pity mixed with fear as she tried to read aloud from pieces of writing on the walls. Every word drew a cringe from the pale woman, though her eyes were filled with hunger for the sound. She had been alone for so long that she no longer recognized the wall writings as her own. Chap urged Wynn on, hoping to learn more from whatever memories flashed through the undead's mind.

He was able to gather that Li'kan had been one of three guardians who once existed in this place, perhaps as far back as its original construction. She was the only one left.

Though Li'kan had the attributes of a vampire, Chap sensed no hunger in her, at least not for the blood of the living. What sustained her remained a mystery.

Time and again, Wynn halted over a mislettered word she couldn't make out. A few times, Li'kan slowly mouthed something. Wynn tried to catch the woman's voiceless, breathy utterance, sounding it out as best she could.

Some writings described events Wynn could not understand, but most were incoherent ramblings. In the worst places, the characters grew haphazard, perhaps written after Li'kan's mind had deteriorated too much.

Wynn dearly wished to return to the iron sheaf's hide pages or any other texts she could lay her hands upon. The clearer prose might hold far more than the mad marks upon the walls. She grew weary from constant fear, and her throat was getting dry. And she wondered if she would ever again leave this place.

Li'kan's fascination with her voice, her words, seemed to be all that was keeping Wynn and Chap alive. But it also made them prisoners. If Wynn stopped talking too long, Li'kan became agitated.

Chap stayed close, but often, Wynn dared not turn her attention from Li'kan to ask what he learned.

He suddenly pricked his ears and looked to the doorway.

Li'kan rose fluidly to her feet, turning the same way.

"What is it?" Wynn asked.

From a distance, she heard a voice shouting, and then the hint of metal striking something hard.

Li'kan darted out of the study. Chap lunged for the doorway, halting to look about the outer corridor, and Wynn quickly joined him.

Outside, the passage had dimmed once more. Had they been in this chamber all day? But Wynn saw no shadows moving. How far had Li'kan brought them beyond the pillared corridor?

Stay behind me, Chap ordered as he trotted out.

Wynn hurried after him. Ahead down the corridor, Li'kan's white form turned right at an intersection.

Chap rounded the corner ahead of Wynn. When she followed, she caught a glimpse of Li'kan far ahead. Dim light from outside spilled through ice-glazed windows high along the corridor's right wall. Wynn shuddered as the undead passed through those shafts.

Li'kan did not even flinch as waning daylight slipped across her naked body.

The shouting ahead grew louder, and Wynn ran on behind Chap as one voice became clear.

"Watch for light on their feathers!"

Li'kan swerved left into the opening of a narrow passage.

"That was Leesil!" Wynn cried. She followed as Chap turned in behind the undead.

Li'kan raced out the corridor's distant end. The space beyond was lit by a soft amber glow. Chap bolted out, leaving Wynn behind, until she, too, skidded into the open.

Magiere stood in a huge chamber before a wide staircase, and shadow ravens circled high above. Leesil reached for Osha, crouching beside a broad archway.

A wolf shadow lunged from the wall, directly behind them, snapping at Osha's leg.

"More damned dead!" Leesil spit.

He jerked Osha aside, and the lanky elf tumbled away as the wolf's transparent jaws closed on air. Another wolf shot from the small passage on the chamber's far side, and it charged at Sgaile. For an instant, amber light glittered upon black fur and eyes.

Images of Li'kan mangling the two anmaglahk flashed into Wynn's mind.

"Li'kan, stop this!" she shouted.

Leesil spun about at her cry, as Sgaile ducked around the stone banister, poised to strike the wolf coming for him. Leesil ran to Wynn, grabbing her coat and pulling her backward.

The ravens lighted upon the stairway's rail high above.

Both wolves came to a halt, poised as their heads turned toward their mistress.

Li'kan stood staring at Magiere.

Magiere's eyes were flooded pure black, and a livid snarl twisted her face. She lifted the falchion, gripping it with both hands, and closed on Li'kan.

"No!" Wynn shouted, for Magiere did not know what she faced.

Magiere looked into the naked undead's teardrop-shaped eyes. This thing had to be one of the "old ones" that Welstiel had hinted at. But the woman looked nothing like what Magiere had expected. Frail and small, too tiny to be a true threat.

Yet she had taken two anmaglahk before they could fight back. And she had stolen Chap and Wynn.

Magiere wanted her head.

She swung the falchion back and up. Both hands gripped the hilt as it rose past her shoulder. When she charged, she faltered at a glint of metal.

"No!" someone cried.

Magiere saw the thick ends of red-gold metal with protruding knobs about the undead's slim throat. The white woman sprung forward with a silent snarl, and Magiere twisted aside, bringing her sword down. A frail white hand caught the falchion's blade, and the sword stopped without cutting through.

The impact shuddered through Magiere's arms and into her shoulders. The little woman wrenched the blade aside, and it twisted in Magiere's grip. This only made her angrier, and her hunger erupted.

"Leesil, stop her-she cannot win against Li'kan!"

Magiere heard Leesil's name, and her eyes shifted once to find him. Wynn struggled, pinned in one of his arms as he held a winged blade before her. A flash of doubt passed over Leesil's face.

The woman's colorless eyes widened, mirroring Magiere's hunger. She shook, and her mouth gaped, exposing sharp teeth.

Magiere released one hand from the falchion's hilt and grabbed for the undead's white throat. More quickly, the woman latched her other hand around Magiere's wrist.

They stood straining against each other. Black fluids ran down the falchion from between the white undead's fingers. Magiere tried to press her blade forward but couldn't, and her boots started to slide upon the stone floor. One of her legs began to buckle.

She let one knee drop to the floor, then thrust upward with her whole body.

The white woman's narrow feet lifted sharply, but her grips tightened on Magiere's wrist and sword. Magiere pivoted before the undead could come down, and whipped the woman's small body in an arc.

Glistening black hair snapped wildly around the woman's white face, until her body slammed into the stairway's side. The stone railing shattered, scattering pieces across the floor.

The grip on Magiere's wrist broke, but the woman's momentum jerked Magiere off her feet. Her sword clattered from her hand as she hit the floor and rolled onto all fours.

The white woman scrambled to her feet amid bits of broken stone. A figure in gray-green leaped up onto the thick railing's remains. A long, glinting wire was stretched taut between his spreading hands.

"Wynn, stop it!" Leesil shouted, and then, "Sgaile! Don't!"

Sgaile hesitated, his amber eyes fixed upon the white woman below him. She lashed out with one hand, not even looking up at him.

Sgaile hopped up into the air. A grating screech of stone filled Magiere's ears as the undead's nails tore more chips from the railing. Magiere gained her feet and lunged with her bare hands.

The white woman charged to meet her-and then jerked to an awkward halt.

Magiere's whole body grew instantly weak.

A sudden sense of weight nearly crushed the hunger out of her, and the chamber turned dim in her sight. She wavered where she stood, and when her sight cleared…

The white undead shuddered with narrow muscles straining beneath her smooth skin. She lifted her sagging head, but her eyelids drooped as colorless irises rolled up. She swayed like a drunkard or someone caught in waking sleep.

Wynn appeared in Magiere's way. "Wait! She is more dangerous than you know… and we may need her."

Chap trotted over, pacing before Magiere as he watched the frail-looking undead.

Magiere held her place only because hunger had slipped from her, and she wanted it back.

Nothing was as Magiere had expected. All she wanted was to kill any undead in her way, find and take the object she'd come for, and silence her dreams once and for all. She felt weary.

Magiere grabbed Wynn by the arm and pulled the little sage back behind herself. Then she remembered the shadow beasts.

The ravens were perched upon the rail of the upper landing. The inky coats of both wolves glimmered slightly. Then they all turned to translucent smoke and vanished through the chamber walls.

"This is getting a little too odd," Leesil whispered, "even for us."

Magiere's relief doubled at the sight of him beside her. Beyond him, Osha hurried toward Wynn, but Sgaile still perched above the white woman, watching her coldly.

The white undead lowered her head, crystalline irises rolling down to settle upon Magiere.

Chap reached for Li'kan's memories.

Her forced breaths hissed out, twisted and broken, as her lips worked in a failed attempt to speak. She pressed a hand over one ear and appeared to whisper to herself. But she never uttered a sound.

Chap recalled a memory he had seen within Magiere-and once heard her recount.

When Ubad had conjured Magelia's spirit, Magiere's mother had shown her memories from a few moons before her birth. Welstiel had wandered her father's keep's courtyard in the dark, whispering to a voice Magelia could not hear.

Chap saw nothing within Li'kan's mind.

Then something blinked through her thoughts.

Not an image, but a fleeting sound, like a whisper or a hiss.

Chap could not make out any words. About to pull free from Li'kan's thoughts, he heard the sound change.

Like a leaf-wing flutter?

That was how Wynn described hearing Chap communing with the Fay, but rather than the chorus she'd mentioned, he heard just one quick, soft buzz in the undead's thoughts.

Then it was gone, like a blink completed.

Chap watched Li'kan tilt her head with half-open eyes, as if listening. Her lips moved silently again, and he pulled quickly from her mind.

Perhaps he had only heard Li'kan's own voiceless whispers.

He studied this mad thing and reflected upon the "night voice" spoken of in the old parchments found by Wynn's guild. He felt like a pup lost in a dark room, wandering to find a way out.

Chane stared at Welstiel in disbelief as dusk settled in.

"What do you mean, 'she's lost'?" he demanded.

"Last night," Welstiel answered. "Sometime before sunrise."

They crouched in the tent, facing each other across the glowing steel hoop. The ferals sensed their tension and shifted restlessly.

Chane's mouth hung half-open. He closed it, teeth snapping together.

"You knew… when you returned before dawn? And you said nothing!"

"What would you have done?" Welstiel challenged. "Run off once more to save your little sage-in daylight? Spare me your outrage."

Chane slapped open the tent's flap. He was already ripping down the shelter before any of the others got out. Barely bothering to fold the canvas, he lashed the tent into a bundle as Welstiel sat scrying in the snow. When the undead stood, he appeared mildly surprised.

"What now?" Chane hissed, hating to even ask.

"Magiere may have gone farther than anticipated… or has not yet returned from the search."

Welstiel's continued reluctance to share information was infuriating. Chane finished packing their gear and motioned to Sabel.

"We go."

She took up the bundled tent, and the other monks reluctantly gathered the remaining gear to follow. This trek of ice and starvation wore on all of them.

Welstiel stepped off upslope as they followed, but Chane hung back to walk at the line's end. They trudged on, until spotting a crusted canvas pinned to a rock face across the slope.

"Their camp," Welstiel said. "We can track from here along their trail."

Chane had a fleeting urge to look inside the canvas, as he smelled no life nearby. Instead, he pushed past Welstiel along the clear path in the snow left by Magiere's people. He followed this for a long while-up to a place where the tracks broke in all directions. Many of them turned back atop each other, all placed around a gully that forked in two directions.

"Which way?" Welstiel asked.

Chane crouched in the snow. The thought of doing anything for Welstiel's benefit made the beast in him yowl. But he could not stop picturing Wynn lost out here in this frigid land.

"The right fork has no returning footprints," Chane rasped. "Wherever they went, they did not come back this way… as on the other paths."

The ferals crouched, sniffing about, but none seemed to catch anything of interest.

Chane stood up and pressed on. They passed through a saddle between the rocks, and he slowed at the sight of a boxed gully. As they moved inward, he found a wide split in one stone wall-and a frozen, stiff body just inside.

And a head tossed haphazardly near one gully wall.

The ferals sniffed wildly but did not rush in. Even Chane smelled no blood in the cold. Perhaps the monks were confused by the lack of scent when faced with a dead body-and no life to feed on. He glanced at the head.

A coating of snow crusted its face and open eyes.

"How many elves were trailing Magiere?" he asked.

"Uncertain," Welstiel answered. He stepped close to the corpse in the chute.

A fist-sized hole gaped in the man's chest. Chane studied it from where he stood.

"Could Magiere have done this?"

Welstiel leaned over the wound before answering.

"No… this is not the way an undead kills, even her." But he did not sound sure. "We press on. There's nothing more to learn here."

"Press on?" Chane hissed. "To where?"

But he followed as Welstiel turned up the rocky chute.

Hkuan'duv and Danvarfij watched the pack of crouching humans and their two leaders approach Sgailsheilleache's camp.

"Downwind," he mouthed, and they slipped south.

Danvarfij's eyes narrowed as she took her first clear look at these people.

The dark-haired one with white temples led, while the younger brought up the rear. Both wore cloaks and heavy clothing and swords. Both looked grim and weather-worn and pale, but otherwise like any common human Hkuan'duv had encountered.

But the hunkered ones sniffed and grunted like dogs, often crouching on their hands and feet.

The taller man with red-brown hair took the lead, following the broken trail in the snow.

Hkuan'duv waited until the last of them vanished into the broken mountainside. He had expected Sgailsheilleache to bring his charges back, but no one had returned to the camp. He began second-guessing his decision to wait.

What if Magiere had not assisted in searching for her small companion? What if she had already found what she sought, whether the others located the young female or not? And what did these other two and their hunched entourage have to do with any of this? Did they seek the artifact as well?

"Follow?" Danvarfij asked.

Hkuan'duv finally nodded. They slipped out of hiding, trailing low and carefully in silence.

Welstiel did not need to scry for Magiere. Out the chute's top, he found a clear trail again. The strides of the footprints were long, as if Magiere and her companions were running, and Welstiel picked up the pace.

They traveled a long while until they reached a steep rocky incline narrowly breaching two tall peaks. Three ferals grunted in protest, but he drove them on to the top and stopped upon the crest.

Out on a vast white plain, couched between high peaks all around, rested the six-towered castle.

After so much effort, and so much planning and manipulation…

Welstiel looked upon the end of his search and the promised end of his suffering.

His night sight sharpened under the moon, and the relief inside him wavered.

Even in darkness, the castle was not the same as in his dreams. It looked old and decayed. The trail resumed at the slope's bottom, heading toward the fortification.

Magiere was already there.

Welstiel hurried down the rocky slope.