Child of a Dead God

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Chane stepped into the cavern's entrance hollow still clutching Welstiel's severed fingers-one of which wore the arcane ring of nothing.

He felt no hunger at all. Why?

Welstiel's pack lay against the hollow's near wall. He must have set it aside before facing Magiere. Chane grabbed it as he headed for the tunnel.

Running footsteps echoed from the entrance, and he stopped short.

Whether it was one of Welstiel's ferals or Leesil and the others, Chane was too weary for a fight. All he wanted was to get away from this place. He turned back to the chasm's edge.

Reaching around the landing's side, he felt for the lip of the nearest pocket in the cavern wall. When he found a secure hold, he swung out and into the pocket.

He landed face-to-face with a mound of slick stone, like a half-formed figure rising out of the rock floor. He wriggled past to crouch in the rear and began pulling the glove's remnants off Welstiel's severed fingers.

The second one bore the ring of nothing, slick with black fluids.

Chane slipped it over his own finger without bothering to wipe it off.

The pocket's walls wavered briefly in his sight.

Leesil ran down the arcing tunnel, followed by Sgaile. He slowed only once when he spotted the skeletons in their stone cubbies. Chap raced on, giving them no notice.

The dog's eerie hunting cry rolled along the tunnel walls an instant before Leesil burst out into a widened hollow.

Hundreds more cubbies pockmarked the vast cavern before him. Vapor wafted up from the glowing chasm, partly obscuring four narrow stone bridges arcing out to a stone platform above the wide chasm's center. Magiere stood but one step off the platform along the nearest bridge-with Welstiel a few paces in front of her.

"Get to that one!" Sgaile shouted, pointing with Leesil's old blade.

The muscular undead stepped to the bridge.

Leesil didn't see Chane anywhere as he sprinted forward. Chap closed first and snapped his jaws on the hem of the undead's robe.

"Hold him!" Leesil shouted.

He grabbed the big undead's robe between the shoulders, trying to get a grip with his punching blade still in hand. From the corner of his eye, he saw Welstiel block Magiere's first swing.

Leesil heaved hard as Chap lurched backward with his jaws clenched. The undead's robe began to tear in the dog's teeth. The muscular vampire stumbled as Sgaile closed from behind, raising Leesil's old winged blade.

The undead set his feet and twisted sharply around, swinging the iron bar.

Leesil's grip broke as the robe tore in his hand. He teetered, and Sgaile barely ducked as the iron bar arced through the air. It came straight at Leesil's neck.

He had no chance to regain his balance and raised both blades.

The bar connected with a sharp metal clang. The sound vibrated through his forearms as he was thrown off his feet.

Leesil landed hard on the stone floor.

The bulky undead lunged again for the bridge.

Magiere willed rage to come, pushing everything but Welstiel from her mind. Fury, like an echo of lost hunger, flooded Magiere at her first swing.

Welstiel blocked her blow with his longsword and stroked it aside, but his maimed left hand spattered black fluids all around. He retreated another step, drawing her further out onto the bridge. Rising vapor dampened Magiere's hair and strands of it clung to her cheeks.

"This is not necessary," Welstiel nearly shouted. "I know it speaks to you and fills your head with deception. Do not listen to that thing hiding in slumber, toying with us both! Everything I have done is to protect the orb-"

"For yourself!" Magiere returned.

Mention of that whispering voice, the connection between him and her, only made fury grow inside her. She snarled and swung again.

Welstiel dipped his longsword, catching her heavier falchion.

Beneath the impact of steel, he faltered, and quickly shifted his block. Magiere's blade slid along his and spun away. Welstiel came about and slashed for her throat. She didn't have time to pull the falchion up, and had to drop low.

The longsword passed just above her head. She jerked her falchion back, slicing across his side.

Welstiel's mouth gaped beneath his widened eyes, and he retreated another step.

The blade he'd created to defend himself against their father was now used against him. He felt its searing touch just like any other undead.

Magiere flushed with pleasure at his pain-and wanted to hurt him more.

As her mother, Magelia, had lain bleeding to death in her birthing bed, Welstiel had taken her only child, born of rape by an undead father and the blood rite of a necromancer.

But Bryen and Ubad were gone. Only Welstiel remained to suffer for all three.

Magiere reached behind with her free hand. She pulled the long silvery war dagger from the back of her belt.

Leesil flopped over and slashed for the undead's leg. His blade's tip sliced across its calf, splitting cleanly through boot cuff and breeches. The vampire whipped its curly-haired head around.

Maddened eyes fixed upon Leesil. It swung down with the iron bar, and he twisted the other way. Stone chips scattered over his face as the bar's end cracked upon the floor.

Leesil slammed his blade down atop the bar before the undead could lift it again. Chap lunged in, wrapping his jaws around the undead's other ankle, and Leesil saw the split where he'd struck its calf.

Thin trails of black fluids still ran down its leg-but no wound remained. It had already closed.

The iron bar lurched, squealing with sparks as it scraped free of Leesil's blade. He looked up as Sgaile kicked out hard.

The undead's head snapped back under the blow. Chap released his jaws and bit into the side of the man's knee.

"Over the edge!" Sgaile shouted. "Into the chasm!"

Leesil kicked into the undead's other knee as Chap shredded the one in his teeth.

Sgaile whirled. His foot lashed out and connected again.

Leesil caught a glimpse of Magiere.

Welstiel backed along the bridge. Magiere charged him with both sword and dagger drawn.

Magiere flipped her dagger, gripping it point down. The heavy falchion was slower than Welstiel's longsword, and she might not parry well with the dagger. But the silvery blade braced along her forearm might keep her from losing a hand if she had to block. All that mattered was stopping Welstiel's sword, just for one moment.

His tunic was split along the side. The fabric's edges were soaked dark with his fluids. But in place of an open wound, Magiere saw only a scar.

She'd seen the marks her sword left on the undead, but the wound couldn't have closed that quickly.

"I am bolstered… fed in the orb's presence," Welstiel whispered, "but you… you still live and breathe. No matter what you gain from it, I will not need to take your head… to kill you!"

Magiere hesitated. She didn't know to what extent the orb could affect her and wasn't about to test it. If he was right, she had to take his head before she was too wounded to go on.

Welstiel rushed with an upward whip of his longsword, trying to strike for her chest between her weapons. Magiere pivoted sideways and swept her left forearm down.

She caught the sword's end with the flattened dagger. Welstiel dropped low and thrust out, and the longsword skimmed along the blade.

The sword's point buried in the upper half of Magiere's sword arm.

Without hunger to block the pain, Magiere crumpled and dropped the falchion.

Chap saw Magiere drop to one knee. And he went cold inside as Leesil shouted, "No… no!"

Sgaile's foot cracked against the muscular undead's skull.

Chap sprang, clawing up the undead's body.

He didn't care what happened to him, so long as this vampire went down and someone got to Magiere. He sank teeth into the undead's throat and called up a memory from within Leesil's mind.

The large undead teetered and began to fall toward the chasm's edge.

Chap clung to it by tooth and claw, letting his weight bring it down.

Leesil rolled to his feet as Chap latched on to the undead's throat. Between Sgaile's last kick and the dog's sudden weight, the undead began to topple toward the edge.

Chap didn't lunge away.

Leesil threw aside one winged blade. He reached out wildly to grab Chap by the scruff, but his mind was still numbed by the sight of Magiere buckling under Welstiel's thrust.

A memory erupted in his head.

Downstairs in the Sea Lion's common room, he'd been alone in the dark-drinking-as Ratboy slipped in through a window. At the sound, he'd pulled a stiletto and hurled it. But the blade had stuck into a tabletop rather than into the little vampire's head.

Only Chap could have raised that forgotten moment, trying to tell him what to do-whom to save.

Leesil snatched a stiletto from his wrist sheath, breaking the holding strap. With one quick flip, he caught the blade and threw it.

Magiere gasped as Welstiel jerked his longsword out of her arm. Her fury held, but it wasn't enough to eat the pain-not like her missing hunger could have.

On withdrawal, Welstiel flicked the sword tip at her throat.

She barely blocked it with her dagger-shielded forearm. The longsword's tip slid off and scraped her hauberk's shoulder. It didn't cut her, but its drag on the leather pulled her off balance.

Welstiel swung his blade back, and it rose over his head. With no room to dodge aside on the narrow bridge, Magiere raised her forearm with the dagger and braced for the impact.

Welstiel lurched.

The longsword stalled and wobbled above him. His eyes widened, and his lips spread, exposing clenched teeth.

Magiere almost lost her opening in surprise. She spun the dagger in her grip and slashed fast and hard across his knee.

The blade cut through his breeches. He screeched in pain, and Magiere heard a sizzling hiss from the dagger. She started at both sounds.

Smoke rose from the severed cloth around Welstiel's leg. As he spun away along the bridge, Magiere saw the stiletto embedded below his left shoulder blade. She glanced at the dagger in her hand.

A red glow along its center hair-thin line faded quickly to its old charcoal black. Vapor thickened and sputtered softly as its moisture touched the blade-as if the metal had suddenly heated during her swing.

Welstiel came about. He fixed upon her in cold anger and advanced.

Magiere abandoned any notion of grabbing for the falchion. She came up, gripping the dagger's hilt hand over hand. Welstiel took a double hold on his sword as he brought it down.

Sparks scattered as weapons collided and then vanished rapidly in the humid air. Magiere let the dagger tilt upon the impact.

The instant Welstiel's sword slipped away, she slashed the blade back up across his face.

Welstiel whipped his head aside with a cry, and the stench of burning flesh filled Magiere's nostrils. She swung out, striking for his sword arm. Smoke erupted from his wrist as the blade slashed across. He shrieked as his grip on the sword's hilt went limp.

The longsword clanged upon the bridge and Magiere heard nothing more.

Welstiel grabbed for his wounded wrist with his fingerless hand. He tried to shield his smoking face with both arms, and one foot slipped off the side of the bridge.

"No!" Magiere screamed. "Not that easy!"

She grabbed for him as he fell, catching his forearm. Her knees hit the bridge as Welstiel's full weight dragged her down, and her grip slid up to his wrist.

Magiere held on to Welstiel and strained to pull him up.

She couldn't spend her life wondering if he'd truly died in the chasm's depths. She wouldn't live with that doubt. But she wasn't going to drop the dagger for a second grip.

Magiere slammed the blade down into Welstiel's chest.

He didn't even scream as smoke welled from the heated blade sinking into him. She heaved on the hilt, draging his torso halfway onto the bridge. She released his wrist, pinning him with her knee, and snarled her fingers into his hair.

Welstiel convulsed once as she jerked the dagger out.

The blade crackled as his black fluids burned off under its heat. Magiere pressed it to his throat.

A charred gash angled between Welstiel's eyes, running from the bridge of his nose and down through his cheek to the side of his mouth. Teeth and bone showed through smoking split skin. His eyes were filled with confusion and pain, as if none of what was happening could be real.

And it still wasn't enough for Magiere.

Not for all she had suffered or what so many others had lost because of him. She leaned close to Welstiel's mangled face, whispering, "Whatever waits for you… when you get there… give Father my hate!"

Magiere shoved the blade down.

Welstiel's face went slack as it split his throat. When she felt the dagger jam into bone, she ground it through.

The tip of the dagger grated on the stone.

Magiere let Welstiel's body tumble off the bridge.

Leesil hoped his stiletto had struck true. He rushed for Chap, but he wouldn't make it.

The large undead's back and head cracked against the bridge's side. He rolled off and fell.

Sgaile flung aside Leesil's old blade and bolted onto the bridge.

In midair, Chap tried to leap off the undead's chest. Only his forepaws hooked the bridge's edge. Sgaile reached out and grabbed for Chap, pulling the dog up. The yowling undead clawed at empty air, and fell into the chasm's clouded depths.

Leesil quickly closed on Chap and Sgaile, but then his gaze traced along the bridge.

Halfway out, Magiere knelt, staring over the edge, but Leesil saw no sign of Welstiel.

"Drop down," he said.

Sgaile buckled low, still holding Chap, and Leesil hopped over them. Before he reached Magiere, she lifted her face.

Her fingers were snarled in the hair of a severed head, and Leesil saw one white temple as he slowed. Magiere slumped and closed her eyes. Beneath her scowl, Leesil could see her pain. In the end, even killing Welstiel hadn't taken it away.

With her eyes still closed, Magiere flung the head.

Leesil watched it fall through the misty air, growing faint and small. It vanished altogether, though he never heard it strike in the chasm's obscured depths.

Magiere felt as if she'd awakened in one of those seven hells Leesil so casually spit out in his curses. Welstiel was gone, but it solved nothing-changed nothing-for her.

It didn't erase what she was, or change what might wait for her in the future.

Then Leesil crouched down before her.

Magiere gazed into his wild amber eyes, so faintly slanted beneath white-blond eyebrows. What might he say about all this? What was there to say? But the sight of his tan face and bright hair pulled her halfway from that hell.

"Where's Chane?" he asked, so softly, as if reluctant to ask anything of her.

The question shook Magiere fully back into the moment. "I don't know."

Leesil pivoted, and Magiere saw Sgaile and Chap near the bridge's end.

"Stay there," he called to them. "Watch the tunnel… Chane is still missing."

Chap spun about, and Sgaile followed the dog off the bridge. Leesil turned back and reached for Magiere.

"Let's see that arm."

She'd forgotten about the wound, and strangely, all the pain was gone. Leesil pulled apart the blood-soaked rent in the sleeve of her wool pullover. He wiped gently with his fingertips, clearing blood from her arm, and then stopped.

Magiere saw no wound. Not even a scar.

"Even you don't heal that quickly," Leesil said, looking none too pleased. "I saw a wound on that big undead close too fast. What is happening here?"

Welstiel had claimed he was untouchable in the orb's presence, and she wasn't. Apparently he'd been wrong-not that it made Magiere feel any better. She spun on one knee, looking back to the orb. Li'kan stood staring at it, and nothing on the platform had changed.

"Come on," Leesil urged, "before we get any more surprises."

He grabbed her arm, hoisting her up.

Magiere paused only to pick up her falchion, but she didn't sheathe it or the dagger. As she stepped onto the meeting place of the four bridges, she kept her eyes on the white undead.

All her dissatisfaction settled on the notion of taking Li'kan's head.

This ancient thing-and whatever controlled it-wanted Magiere to have the orb. So why had Li'kan done nothing to stop Welstiel and his minions?

"What's wrong with her?" Leesil asked.

Magiere took a long breath. "I don't think she's been down here in ages-or longer than I can guess. She just froze at the sight of it."

"So what is it?" Leesil whispered.

Magiere had no answer. She was no mystic or sage, and doubted that even those who were would understand the orb. She was just a rogue, a charlatan grown tired of the game… and a tainted thing born in the worst of ways. But instinct told her this device was no longer safe here, and she believed the Chein'as knew this as well.

They had given her the circlet, what Wynn called a thorhk.

Without even thinking, Magiere sheathed her falchion and tucked away the dagger. She pulled aside her hair to lift the circlet from her neck. From the look of its open-end knobs and the grooves in the spike's head… was this thorhk a handle for lifting the orb?

Leesil's brow wrinkled as Magiere fitted the circlet over the spike.

The knobs slipped along the stone grooves, until they settled in the notches on the spike's opposing sides. Gripping the circlet like a bucket's handle, Magiere lifted with both hands, trying to clear the orb from its tall stone stand.

She expected resistance. Whatever the orb and false spike were made of, the whole of it looked heavy. To her surprise, the circlet lifted easily.

A hum rose around Magiere, seeming to fill the cavern. Or was it inside her, running through her bones, gathering in her skull?

"No!" Leesil shouted. "Put it back in!"

Magiere felt water droplets gather on her face. She saw them on her hands as the air's mist seemed to pull in around her. A light spread from somewhere beneath her grip on the circlet, and she dropped her gaze.

The spike hung free, dangling from the circlet's knobs. Rather than lifting orb and spike together, her circlet had pulled the spike, separating it.

The orb, still resting in the stand, emanated light… was made of light. Its glow sparked within the drops upon Magiere's arms and hands.

Rainbow hues swirling through the orb suddenly bled into each other, until its whole form burned pure teal.

"Put the spike back!"

Magiere heard Leesil's shout, but she couldn't turn away, and her eyes began stinging from the light. Her vision blurred like snow blindness.

Only the orb remained crisp and real.

Magiere couldn't move, though she felt someone's hands close atop her grip on the circlet.

Chap turned back as the landing hollow's dark space filled with light. He cringed at the brilliance erupting from the platform.

Three hazy silhouettes were barely visible in the glare. Then a tingle crawled over Chap's skin, making his fur bristle.

Fay-he felt his kin manifested here.

Chap turned aside from the blinding light and saw Sgaile shielding his eyes. And beyond the elf, the hollow's walls began to bleed… water.

Globules welled from the stone and ripped from its surface, but they did not fall downward. Each glittering droplet shot toward the platform, like heavy rain falling inward from all around into the teal brilliance.

Chap felt a hint of connection to Earth, Fire, Air, Spirit… and an overwhelming sense of Water. He had not tried to root himself in the elements of existence, yet they sharply filled his awareness-and the last, primal Water, smothered the others.

He remembered being born.

Every pain and sensation flickered past in his mind. He drifted back further, almost remembering his existence among his kin, the Fay.

They-he-had mourned a loss.

No, a sin-from an instant before the first "moment" existed.

From when "time" came into being at the beginning of creation.

Chap inched forward in the blinding light, feeling with his paws for the bridge's edge. He cried out through his spirit to his kin.

What… was so horrible… in the making of this world? What did you… we do?

There was no answer.

Once, at one with his kin, "time" had meant nothing to Chap. Now he struggled with moments and days and years like walls built around his lost memories. But he felt the presence of a Fay in this place.

Chap lifted his head and tried to gaze into the light.

One? There was only one Fay here?

How could he sense one and not the many? There were no others like himself in this world that he knew of. The tingle across his skin sharpened.

A wordless hiss in Chap's skull drove cold into his bones. For an instant it almost shifted to a leaf-wing crackle in his head.

He felt it clearly-another Fay-a second, yet singular and alone. It wormed through him like winter's ache, the same one that had tried to coil around his awareness as he fled from Li'kan's mind.

The presence vanished from Chap's awareness. The tingle within him ripped away as he choked.

Within the painful light upon the platform, Magiere had done something to awaken or activate the ancient artifact.

He did not yet understand what or why, but there was a reason that the orb had been left fallow in the frozen mountains and burning chasm. Water droplets raced from the stone walls toward its light as vapors from the chasm twisted upward.

"What is happening?" Sgaile shouted.

Chap scurried forward with eyes down, barely making out his paws' outlines upon the stone floor. The glare broke away on both sides, leaving only a narrow strip running ahead. It had to be the bridge.

Chap padded blindly out, heading for the platform.

Leesil grappled for Magiere's hands, turning his face from the blinding orb. Though it burned with a green-blue glow, the light filling the air was searing white. He felt rain patter on his body. But it fell inward from all around, all directions. Droplets stung him and seemed to roll over his limbs, sucked away toward the orb.

He closed his eyes and shouted, "Let go! Damn it, Magiere, let it drop!"

No matter how hard he pressed on her hands, she remained rigid and unyielding.

Something grabbed the back of Leesil's hauberk.

Wrenching force heaved him backward, and his fingers tore from Magiere's hands. He landed hard on stone and flopped over once. He quickly flattened in fear of blindly tumbling over the platform's edge.

Leesil looked back for Magiere, and his eyes watered instantly in the glare. Tears beaded and ripped from his face. They joined a thousand droplets racing through the cavern toward the light beyond Magiere.

Her body shielded the orb, as if she stood directly in line with the sun, turning her into a darkly blurred silhouette. White light radiated around her, blurring everything else from sight.

Until another hazy silhouette closed on her.

Narrower and shorter, it reached out beyond Magiere, somewhere above the orb.

Leesil turned his face aside as he crawled toward Magiere. He could barely make out the open cavern. Vapors thinned from the air, and the far walls were lit up. The pocket cavities of the dead, not as bright as the open stone, were little more than oval blotches in his blurred sight.

He saw them begin to move.

Like shadows that the light couldn't smother, they shifted along the cavern walls and flowed in a slowly swirling pattern.

Leesil dragged the back of his hand over his eyes, trying to clear his warped vision.

The swirling of shadows undulated. They flowed together in turning paths like a snake with no beginning or end, and those huge shadow coils turned everywhere across the cavern's walls.

Leesil continued crawling toward Magiere. As he got closer, her body shielded him enough to raise his head and look at her.

A dim form rose above her silhouette.

More muted shadows joined into the shape of a head, growing larger… or closer.

At first, Leesil thought he saw the outline of the serpent guardian he'd faced before the burial ground of the elven ancestors. But it kept growing until its dull oblong took on more features.

Pale outlines of ridges… or horns… or spikes… ran back across its top from above lidless eyes. Those faint staring globes, set wide on its face, were surrounded by bulged and thickened scales that trailed in twined rows down a long snout.

Its reptilian head rose, mounted upon the end of the shadow coils worming along the cavern walls. The faint outline of its jaws widened.

Leesil scrambled up.

Within the beast's huge maw, Leesil saw rows of dark translucent shapes, like teeth as long as his legs.

It was no snake or serpent. He didn't even know what to call it.

He shut his eyes against the glare and sprang, throwing his arms around Magiere's torso when his chest collided with her back.

He opened his eyes once, looking up.

The scaled monster's jaws widened, as if it would swallow the whole platform, and it came down on them.

Leesil wrenched Magiere away with all his weight.

Magiere saw no cavern, felt no circlet. She saw nothing but white light. Then all the pure light snapped to blackness.

Enormous dark coils turned around her.

A whispering hiss surrounded her, as if she'd fallen asleep for the last time and slipped into that dark dream. But no clear words came from the hidden voice of the coils.

Hunger rushed through Magiere. If she'd had breath, she would have choked.

She felt an undead presence, as if buried in it-swallowed by it.

Only those coils-coils of an undead-and hunger rupturing her within remained in the sudden dark dream.

Something touched Magiere's hands-she felt her own hands once more-and her sight filled with a flash of brilliant white.

Small pale hands pressed down atop her own-and someone else squeezed tightly around her chest and heaved.

Magiere came to a stop, lying prone atop whoever had pulled her back.

All around her, the cavern had suddenly returned to its dim red glow.

For an instant, water droplets hung in the air. They all fell suddenly, and the patter of a rainstorm filled the platform. The cavern air became silent and empty.

Magiere looked toward the orb-and saw Li'kan standing beside the pedestal.

The white undead's hands rested atop the circlet and the spike had settled back into place. It had melded into the orb's dark rough form, the two parts once more a whole and unbroken shape. The teal light was gone, and the only glow came from the chasm's depths.

Someone shuddered beneath Magiere's back, and she spotted Leesil's hands clenched across her chest. She broke his grip and twisted over.

His eyes were shut so tightly that his features became a strained and wrinkled mask. Spattered water had soaked his hair and face. She clawed up his body and grabbed his head.

"Look at me!" Magiere shouted. "Leesil… open your eyes!"

His eyes snapped open, and he began breathing too fast. He shook his head free of her grip and craned his neck, looking wildly about the cavern.

"Leesil!" Magiere whispered, and took his face again. "Leesil?"

She'd never seen so much fear in his eyes.

Chap appeared beside them, rumbling as he paced around to watch Li'kan and the orb.

Li'kan hadn't moved or taken her eyes from the ancient object.

Chane watched everything as it happened. He saw water bleed from stone, droplets race inward, and vanish as if swallowed in the painful light. When the light grew too strong, he had to duck and cover his eyes.

In the brilliance that stung him, he felt his hunger return.

It churned inside him, unrestrained. He curled within the rock pocket as the beast inside him began to thrash.

As the glare piercing Chane's eyelids faded, so did hunger. It vanished into nothing-and the beast within him whimpered, cowering in the dark.

He opened his eyes to look out. The white undead stood before Welstiel's lost treasure, but Chane did not care.

He had only scorn for Welstiel, who had risked everything for something so powerful-even if the man had believed it would sustain him without feeding. Welstiel was a fool for all his knowledge, and had died for it. This thing-this orb-should have remained lost and forgotten.

But Chane had been a follower through all his short existence as a Noble Dead, from rising in servitude to Toret and then taking up with Welstiel. And freedom, now that it came, left him with nothing again.

Chane was uncertain what he felt at Welstiel's second death. A part of him had even wanted Welstiel to win-to finish Magiere instead. Or, better, wanted each to have taken the other over the edge.

He watched the wounded elf run along the bridge to join the others upon the platform. No one remained in the hollow of the tunnel's entrance.

But where was Wynn?

Perhaps Leesil had hidden her somewhere safe, up in the castle.

Chane kept silent as he slowly crawled to the pocket's front and reached around its side.

Neither Magiere's nor Chap's awareness of undead, nor even Leesil's strange amulet would sense him, now that he wore Welstiel's ring of nothing. But the last thing he needed was someone locating him by sight. He quickly swung into the landing hollow and crept along the wall to the tunnel's entrance. Once deep enough into the tunnel's upward turn, he ran.

The heavy doors at the tunnel's end were still cracked open, and Chane carefully leaned through.

The younger elf, who had held Wynn amid the battle, lay unconscious upon the floor. But Wynn was not there.

Chane leaned out enough to peer around the doors' edge, and he saw her.

She stood at the back end of the last tall bookcase, but she was studying the library's stone wall rather than a text from the shelves. She traced faded dark writing on the stones with her small fingers, silently mouthing what she read.

"Wynn…," Chane rasped, and hated the sound of his voice.

She spun, backing against the wall.

Her liquid brown eyes went wide at the sight of him. Wispy brown hair tangled about her small, olive face-dirtier than in his nightly visions, but otherwise the same face he remembered. In place of gray robes, she wore loose, dusky-yellow pants and a long hide coat.

Wynn rushed toward him, or so he thought, but she stopped between him and the unconscious elf.

"I will not let you harm him," she said. "He is one of our protectors."

Chane went numb, not because she sought to protect this man from him, nor even at the way she looked at him in frightened suspicion. He could not blame her for either of these things. But it hurt that she was correct in both.

"I saw you die," she whispered.

"Did you mourn for me?"

The question came out before he could stop it. Even as he spoke, the words sounded so petty and self-centered compared to all they had not said to each other.

"Yes," she answered. "I wept that night… and many nights after."

He stood looking at her. No one in his lost life-not his mother or his companions of youth-had ever cared enough to cry for him.

"But I mourned the scholar I remembered," Wynn added. "Not the true Chane… the one who would help Welstiel murder… the Servants of Compassion and make them into mindless, savage beasts."

Beasts. Chane flinched, anger growing inside him. He wanted to shout at her, but she only spoke more truth.

He had deceived himself as much as her. When they first met, had he not tried to pass himself off as a young, gentle scholar seeking like-minded company? And later, had he not helped Welstiel destroy the scholars within that monastery of healing?

"I did not turn them," he rasped at her and then faltered. "But I did not stop him either… and have regretted it ever since."

Her gaze softened, but only briefly. "Are my companions safe?"

More suspicion-and still legitimate. Chane knew he did not have much time left.

"Magiere took Welstiel's head… and the orb he sought. I thought it would be a small thing, created by some forgotten undead who no longer wished to feed. But… it is much more. What is it, Wynn?"

Her small brows drew closer. "It was created in the time of the Forgotten. I have been trying to find pieces-hints and clues-written by one of its guardians on these walls. It may have been created by whatever made her and the other undead who first appeared in the war."

She was close enough for Chane to reach out and touch.

"The orb belongs with the sages," she added.

The sages. Once Chane had believed that he, too, belonged among them-and with her. She did not seem to fear him now, but she should.

What place was there in her world for such a beast?

One that would never stop hungering and straining at its bonds.

Chane stepped out, walking wide as he turned his eyes from Wynn's.

He tried to hide his expression by studying the texts upon the shelves. He should leave and get as far from her as possible. But he could not bring himself to go just yet and lowered his gaze to the unconscious elf.

Bitterness slipped out. "Who is that?"

"I told you. One of our guardians… an envoy of the elves. It is a long story." She glanced at stone doors. "You should go. If Magiere and Chap find you here…"

Chane shook his head at her wish to protect him.

Wynn Hygeorht the sage-and sweet, naive little guardian of monsters.

"So, you will take the orb to your guild?" he whispered.

"Yes."

Chane closed his eyes, seeing the Wynn he remembered, clothed in gray robes and drinking mint tea in a warm study full of scrolls and books.

He would never be part of that vision. He had been lying to himself for too long. If she ever saw that feral beast inside of him, he could not bear to exist any longer.

"I will not follow you anymore," he said with back turned. "You will not see me again."

He did not mean to turn and look, but he did.

Wynn stood with tears running down her olive-toned face.

It was last time he would cause her pain.

Chane strode along the dark row of bookshelves, and it was hard not to look back. He almost reached the side passage when his boot toe kicked something across the floor.

It rattled like hollow metal, and he glanced down. In the dark, he spotted an old tin scroll cylinder rocking slightly where it had come to rest by the wall.

Chane stepped into the passage, and then paused. He turned and stared back at the dark casements.

So much was here upon the shelves. Perhaps Wynn would salvage what she could before leaving, though likely she would not carry away much. It would have been good to be there when she returned with her finds to Domin Tilswith in Bela, especially after all she had been through to reach this lost place.

Chane stepped back out and looked down at that lone scroll case, now motionless where it lay. He stooped and picked it up, then turned back down the passage.

When he reached the stairway chamber, with its archway to the wide corridor of columns, the bodies of feral monks littered the floor, headless and still. He found his pack and tucked the scroll away with the books taken from the monastery. He slung both his pack and Welstiel's over his shoulders along with a piece of canvas and a length of rope. He left everything else behind.

Chane kept his mind empty all the way down the long corridor of columns. But it grew harder to stay numb inside as he left, passed through the iron gates, and stumbled out upon the snow.

Magiere carefully removed the circlet from the orb's spike and hung it back around her neck. Then she gripped the top of the spike and tried simply lifting the orb from its resting hole in the store stand. Now it felt heavy, like an anvil, and she used both hands to lift it out. With the spike intact, it did not illuminate again, and remained dormant.

Li'kan just stood there, eyes locked on the empty stand. She glanced once at Leesil, and her face wrinkled briefly.

Magiere was ready to drop the orb and step into the undead's path. Li'kan's world had changed for the first time in centuries. How would she react?

Confusion passed over the white undead's face. She turned back to staring at the orb's stone stand, as if she couldn't understand what the empty place meant.

"Start heading for the tunnel," Magiere whispered.

"What?" Leesil asked.

"Just do it."

Chap and Sgaile had already gone to the cavern landing, and Magiere waited until Leesil was well onto the bridge before she turned to follow. When she stepped off into the landing's hollow, she looked back.

Li'kan stood before the bridge's far end. Mist began to gather once more in the cavern as the chasm's heat rose to warm the wet walls.

Magiere could swear Li'kan was glaring at her, and that she tried to step upon the bridge. A wafting curl of mist blocked the ancient undead from sight and drifted into the cavern's upper air.

Li'kan stood still as ice on the platform before the bridge.

Magiere backed away toward the tunnel.

The orb had sustained Li'kan for centuries, and without it, that ancient thing would soon hunger again. Magiere remembered Li'kan lifting the iron bar from the wall doors, her frail body barely straining with the effort.

"We haven't found Chane yet," Leesil argued.

"It doesn't matter-just go!"

Leesil headed into the tunnel. As Magiere followed, she saw blood matting the fur on Chap's neck and the dark stain on Sgaile's cowl and vestment.

"It is a clean cut," he said without slowing. "I will dress it later."

They couldn't stop, not with Li'kan still free behind them. Whatever held the undead back, Magiere wasn't about to wait and see if it lasted. She felt little relief when they passed the last skeleton-filled hollows of the tunnel and approached the parted stone doors. She desperately needed her strength to last for one more task. Magiere stepped out behind the others into the dark library.

Wynn was kneeling next to Osha but gazing blankly at the floor. Such sadness lingered on her face, but it vanished when she looked up at all of them. Her eyes locked on the orb as Magiere crouched to gently set it down.

Magiere turned immediately, throwing her weight into one of the stone doors.

"Leesil!" she grunted, and he came in beside her. Sgaile joined them as well.

The door barely moved at first, and Magiere wished she had her hunger again.

Finally, the bottom edge grated along the floor. It took longer to close the other one, and both Sgaile and Leesil's faces glistened with sweat by the time it shut.

The iron beam still lay on the floor.

Realization passed across both Sgaile's and Leesil's faces, followed by doubt. Sgaile had only one good arm and couldn't be doing well with his wounded shoulder.

"One end at a time," he said. "And you must get it off the floor before we can assist you."

Magiere took hold of the beam's end. In place of hunger she tried to find fury, remembering her mother dying in bed. She thrust upward with her legs.

"Now!" Magiere grunted, as the beam's end reached her waist.

"Where is Li'kan?" Wynn asked.

Leesil and Sgaile ducked in, bracing one shoulder each beneath the beam.

They all heaved, pushing up with their legs, and Magiere's arms began to tremble. As Leesil and Sgaile pressed upward, she poured all the strength she could summon into one last thrust.

The beam grated over the stone bracket of the closest door. As it crested the bracket's top, Magiere shouted, "Get back!"

Leesil and Sgaile ducked clear as she let go.

The beam dropped, and a dull clang echoed through the library as it settled. Leesil bent over, panting. Sgaile wavered on his feet and was breathing shallow and fast.

"Where is Li'kan?" Wynn repeated.

Magiere slumped against the stone door. When Li'kan's hunger returned, it would grow into starvation, and they couldn't let her loose into the world.

"She can't leave this place," Magiere panted. "Ever."

Wynn stood up, but Leesil cut in before she could speak.

"Did Chane come out?"

Wynn swiveled toward him. Her mouth opened, then closed as she glanced toward the path around the ends of the bookcases.

"Yes," she finally answered. "But he left. He is not in the castle."

Leesil groaned in frustration. "You don't know that. Chap, see if you can sense him."

Chap growled, loping off along the row of bookcases.

Magiere glanced toward the iron beam's other end still resting on the floor. Leesil and Sgaile were spent, and she didn't feel any better. But they had to finish.

Li'kan must never leave this place.

"What was that thing?" Leesil suddenly panted out.

Magiere shook her head, not because she didn't know, but rather that she didn't want to think about it.

"An undead," she sighed. "That's all I felt, but worse than any other… I could barely stand it."

"Not Li'kan," Leesil said. "In the light… what was that misshapen serpent… horned snake… whatever tried to swallow us?"

Magiere stared at him, baffled by what he said. Chap loped back into sight, coming up beside Wynn. The dogged huffed once for "yes."

Wynn's mouth tightened. "As I told you, Chane is gone."

Magiere turned back to Leesil in puzzlement.

"I didn't see anything in the light," she said.

Sgaile shook his head. "I saw nothing, just light too bright to look into."

Leesil straightened, his sweating face gone blank.

"How you could miss it?" He glared at everyone in disbelief. "It could've swallowed the whole platform. It had teeth instead of fangs, and rows of horns taller than you, and scales all over its face and snout. Its coils were turning all over the cavern!"

"Coils?" Magiere whispered.

She hadn't seen a serpent's head-just the coils in her waking dream, and the sense of an undead all around her… within her.

"Don't look at me like that!" Leesil snapped. "I know what I saw. Those coils were taller than two men… maybe three!"

"No," Magiere said. "I didn't see-"

"Fay?" Wynn whispered.

Magiere stared dumbly at the sage.

Wynn knelt beside Chap, looking into his eyes. "He says he sensed a Fay. Not all of them together, as when they come to him. Just one alone… cold… malicious."

"It was an undead!" Magiere snapped.

Wynn ignored her and frowned at Leesil. "You couldn't have seen… what you say. Maybe you heard or read something and the shadows played tricks on you."

"No!" Leesil snapped. "We were practically blinded, there was so much light."

Magiere was so tired, she didn't care anymore what anyone had seen.

Wynn shook her head at Leesil. "I can only guess, but it is not real- only a myth. Even less, just a metaphysical emblem, a weurm or-"

"What are you babbling about now?" Leesil growled.

"It is Numanese, my language," Wynn growled back, "for a type of dragon."

Chap snarled and lunged between all of them.

Wynn flinched. "Stop shouting at me! We heard you the first time-a Fay!"

The sage's anger vanished when she spotted blood-matted fur on his neck, and she reached for him.

Sgaile's angry voice startled Magiere. "Enough talk! We must bar the doors!"

She turned wearily along the tilted beam to grab its other end. But Chap's and Leesil's claims of what they'd experienced below-what either had seen or felt-ate at her.

One had sensed a Fay, and the other had seen a dragon, while she had felt the presence of an undead.

It was nonsense, nothing but the madness of this place. Leesil and Chap were wrong.

Magiere called the last dregs of her strength and hoisted the iron beam's grounded end.

"Someone comes," Danvarfij whispered and notched an arrow to her bowstring.

"Wait," Hkuan'duv warned in a hushed voice and belly-crawled a short way out from the wall.

His companion was having difficulty breathing the frozen night air, but they had to retain their vigil. In the moonlight, he saw the tall, auburn-haired man slip out of the castle gates and trudge across the snow. But he was alone.

Hkuan'duv waited, but neither the man's white-templed companion nor their robed followers came out.

The man kept on with two bulky packs over his shoulders and a large folded canvas in his arms. He paused to look back.

Hkuan'duv let the hood of his white-covered cloak drop low and peered under its edge, watching.

The man closed his eyes, sagging where he stood. He looked lost and defeated when he gazed listlessly about the white plain. The man turned and pushed on, never looking back again.

"Should I fire?" Danvarfij whispered.

Hkuan'duv considered having Danvarfij bring the man down. But they would have to move into the open to retrieve him, risking exposure, and then hide a body once they had finished questioning him.

Only the artifact, and dealing with Magiere, mattered to Hkuan'duv.

"He is nothing to us," he whispered to Danvarfij. "Let him go."