The River of Shadows

The Uses of Madness

Thasha knew they were under attack. Voices howled-more voices than there were people in the party-and hands were groping at her out of the darkness. A sword whistled, sickeningly close; blows were falling, bodies crashing to the ground. She tried to back away from the fighting, but someone collided with her, knocking her hard into the fern-fungi. Then all at once she was seeing again, but all she saw were shapes from a nightmare. Cats, hundreds and hundreds of them, famished, feral, converging on them from all sides. Thasha raised her arms before the onslaught; they were closing, leaping They vanished like soap bubbles as they struck.

A hand on her arm. She whirled. It was Pazel, embracing her, drawing her close. She leaned into him, whispered his name; he opened his mouth for a kiss.

And laughed. The flame-spittle of the trolls burst out of him, straight into her face. Thasha screamed and broke away.

She was not burned.

I’m dreaming. No-hallucinating. I’m mucking wide awake! With a tremendous effort she made herself stand still. Once again she was perfectly blind, but that was better than the alternative. Some of the others were still at it, shrieking in terror or in pain.

Thasha shouted at the top of her lungs: “Stop fighting! It’s in your head, your head! There’s no one here but us and Fulbreech!”

Bolutu and Hercol were already shouting much the same thing. “Stop fighting! Stop fighting! We’re lighting another torch!” Then she heard Pazel say: “Don’t light it yet, Hercol! Look at the pool! Are you all seeing that, or is it just me?”

Thasha at least could see it: the pool where Fulbreech lay was starting to glow. The light came from the fungal walls, and rather than orange it was now an indistinct purple, a weird radiance that seemed only to strike the edges of things. Still it brightened, until they could see Fulbreech plainly, one another less so.

“Here is the torch-drenched,” said Myett, from the edge of the clearing.

“Something struck it from my hand,” said Neda. “A globular thing. It flew out of the darkness as though someone had hurled it.”

“Hear me, people,” said Bolutu. “We have been drugged. We are seeing and hearing what is not there. Do not trust your eyes. And for the love of Alifros, do not be guiled into attacking one another!”

“The trouble,” said Pazel, “is that some of the dangers are real. Those white worms, for instance. And whatever struck the torch.”

“The fungus-trap holding the boy is real as well,” said Ensyl.

“And I know just the solution,” said Alyash. “We’ll find a long stick, see, and push his mucking head under the surface. Deceitful son of a whore! He’s managed to betray us one last time. Arunis could be anywhere by now.”

“How do you propose to find out, if you kill the boy?” said Cayer Vispek.

But the bosun was suddenly distracted. “Look up,” he murmured.

Whispered curses: dangling overhead was an enormous mass of crisscrossed vines, so laden with growths they looked almost like a second forest floor. And hanging on the underside of every surface were bats. They were tiny, no larger than hummingbirds, but their numbers were incalculable. Most dangled motionless, upside down, their wings enveloping their bodies like cabbage leaves. But a few strained their necks around to look at the travelers. Their eyes gleamed purple in the torchlight.

“Those!” said Neda suddenly. “It was they who snuffed the torch! Why would they burn themselves up, attacking a fire?”

“Light here seems to be the enemy,” said Bolutu. “Or rather: our kind of light. If they live off the fungus, perhaps they do it a service, too. The pool’s glow draws creatures near; the liquid catches them. And the bats-they eat something that thrives here, around this pool.”

“They’re weighing down the vines,” said Alyash.

It was true that something was making the vines hang low and taut, as though under some heavy strain. “It’s not the bats,” said Pazel, “they’re too small, even if there are ten thousand up there. You could set a mansion on those blary vines, Mr. Alyash.”

“There is something else,” said Ensyl, shielding her eyes. “Something wide and smooth. I can’t quite make it out, but it is enormous-far wider than this clearing.”

Hercol stepped away from the others. With a sidelong swipe of Ildraquin, he slashed away a yard or more of the wriggling tentacles. The other appendages writhed in distress, and the bats quivered and squeaked (more were waking; a few flitted about). Hercol raised the sword high. “Watch your feet,” he told the others. Then he struck, lightning-fast, and a V-shaped chunk of the pool wall fell outward. Hercol jumped back. The gelatinous substance began to ooze through the gap, and Fulbreech, floating like a raft, slid toward it as well.

They groped for sticks in the weird light and used them to drag the limp youth through the incision, out of the worst of the spreading ooze. With the tip of Ildraquin, Hercol snagged a corner of the rag in Fulbreech’s mouth and lifted. The rag came out; Fulbreech gagged and retched.

“Master Hercol,” he rasped, his voice a feeble mockery of the one that had, briefly, excited dreams in Thasha’s heart. “Master Alyash. It’s really you, isn’t it? By the Blessed Tree, you’re not illusions, not ghosts.”

“Are you certain, Fulbreech?” said Alyash. “I think we’d better prove it to you.”

The Simjan’s face looked drowned: not in the substance of the pool, but in a boundless immensity of terror. “I can’t feel my limbs,” he said.

“That’s all right, boy,” said Alyash. “You won’t be needing ’em.”

Fulbreech gazed helplessly at the bosun. “He will not harm you without my consent,” said Hercol, “and I will not give it, whether you help us or refuse. For I have done you a disservice, Fulbreech.”

Thasha, and most of the others, looked at him in shock. “A grave disservice,” Hercol went on. “I have had some opportunity to reflect on my mistake, these last days of traveling. How you came to be Arunis’ creature I will never know. Were you madly ambitious as you seem? Or were you weak, like Mr. Druffle, seduced into lowering your defenses, until he made a puppet of you, colonized your mind? Do not speak yet! I will believe nothing you say. But the fact is that when I guessed whose work you did, I chose to leave you in his clutches, for weeks. It was the only way I could think of to locate Arunis’ hiding place on the Chathrand. But in so doing I treated you as a pawn, just as Arunis did. I might have struck a deal with Ott, had you safely confined, asked Chadfallow and Lady Oggosk to attempt the rescue of your soul.”

“You don’t know that he needed any rescuing,” said Thasha, her rage boiling over. “You don’t know that he wanted any.”

“And now I never shall,” said Hercol, “unless we escape this place. Then, Fulbreech, I will seek help for you-again, whether you aid us now, or not.”

“Damn it, Hercol!” Pazel exploded. “Why don’t you make him your mucking heir and be done with it?”

“Pazel’s right,” said Neeps. “You’re going too blary far.”

“Thashiziq!” said Ibjen suddenly. “I hear voices. From the black water beneath the roots.”

Hercol waved imperiously for silence. “What you must appreciate, Fulbreech,” he went on calmly, “is that if you do not help us, we cannot prevail. And then you will be doomed. Your body will perish here, and your soul-what did he say would become of it, lad? He had a promise for you, didn’t he?”

“They’re calling me, calling me away,” whispered Ibjen.

Bolutu shot him a quick, distracted look. “You’re in nuhzat, lad. Be still and it will pass.”

Ibjen sank to the ground, hugging his knees. Thasha crouched down and held him, whispering, begging him to hush. Whatever Hercol was attempting she didn’t dare interrupt.

Fulbreech’s tongue slid over bloodless lips. “I don’t know what you want, Master Hercol,” he said.

“What I want is answers,” said Hercol, “although I know you cannot give them if you still serve the mage. If that is the case we must fail, and perish here together. But even then I will help you.”

“How?”

“With a clean death,” said Hercol, “and if I discover you in a lie I will do it instantly, for our time is very short.” Then, as if following a sudden impulse, he added, “I will also do so at a word from Mr. Undrabust. You may not be aware of it, Fulbreech, but he has a nose for lies. The best I have ever encountered.”

Neeps stared at him, shocked silent in his turn. Pazel reached out and squeezed his shoulder. Courage, mate. Hercol rested the tip of Ildraquin on Fulbreech’s throat.

“Speak a little truth,” he said.

Fulbreech lay there, blinking and trembling. He licked his lips again. “Arunis can use the Stone,” the youth whispered. “He’s already doing it. Through the tol-chenni we brought from Masalym. He has terrible powers now, worse than anything you’ve seen.”

“Then we’re too Gods-damned late,” hissed Big Skip. But Ensyl, on his shoulder, hushed him quickly.

“He’s keeping the forest dark,” said Fulbreech. “He says it’s always full of light-made by creatures, and plants, and mushrooms-just not the kind our eyes can see. Only the fireflies make our sort of light, and he’s driven them into hiding. And he… created this place around me. As a trap, in case you made it this far.”

“What is the danger here?” asked Hercol. “The bats? The pool itself?”

Fulbreech shook his head slightly. “He said that if I didn’t know, I couldn’t tell you. That’s the truth, by all the Gods. But I know this: he has power from the Stone, but not control-not yet. The idiot really is mad-dangerously mad. And to use the Stone, Arunis has to reach into his mind and make him see what he wants.”

“How much does he know of us, boy?” said Lunja suddenly. “Our numbers, our distance from him? Is he watching us even now?”

“No,” said Fulbreech. “He has caught only glimpses of you, though they seemed to grow clearer with each day-as you grew closer, perhaps. When we stood on the shores of the glacier lake, he closed his eyes suddenly and cried, ‘Vadu! Vadu has drawn his knife, somewhere on the plain below! That buffoon is chasing us!’ Then again, a day later, he stopped and pressed a hand to his forehead. He was furious, and I heard him growl: ‘So you are bringing her, are you, Counselor?’ I thought he meant Macadra, the sorceress from Bali Adro City: after all, we fled when he learned that she was coming for the Stone. But now I think he meant you, Thasha darling.”

“Enough of that talk,” snapped Hercol. “Where is Arunis now?”

“Deeper inside the forest. Where the River of Shadows breaks through to the surface.”

“That is no help,” said Cayer Vispek. “Which direction, and how far?”

Fulbreech shook his head again. “I don’t know. He would not tell me.”

Hercol and Neeps exchanged a glance. “Continue,” said the swordsman.

Fulbreech coughed: it was like an old man’s rattling wheeze. Then he lay still, gazing strangely at Hercol. “Are you finished?” said the swordsman at last. “Have you nothing more to tell?”

“You want to know how I came to be in his service?” said Fulbreech suddenly, and there was pride in his ruined voice. “Perhaps you think he seized on some weakness. Oh no, Stanapeth, not at all. I went to him. In all that multitude at Thasha’s wedding, I alone saw through his disguise, saw that he was the power behind the spectacle, the master of ceremonies, the one who would win.” He turned his head, gazing at them in defiance. “And when you know that, do you linger on the losing side? Not if you’ve been poor. Not if you mean to go places in your life, to be something better than a clerk in a backwater kingdom on a humdrum isle.”

“You were already goin’ places, you little bastard,” snarled Alyash. “We’d seen to that.”

“The Secret Fist,” said Fulbreech. “A priesthood of cutthroats, bowing to a crude stone idol named Sandor Ott. I would never have remained like you, Alyash, a cringing servant. When I guessed that Arunis was manipulating Ott’s conspiracy, I walked right up to him, right there at the procession. I told him I was Ott’s man, and would be his if the terms were better.”

“Were they?” asked Bolutu.

The Simjan’s eyes widened, but he was no longer focusing on what was before them. “Choosing sides,” he said. “That was my talent; that was my only gift. I told you, Thasha: I placed all my trust in that gift, and I have never been wrong.”

“This time you were wrong, giant,” said Myett.

Fulbreech kept his gaze on Thasha. “Cure me,” he said. “I know you have the power. Cure me, heal my limbs, and I will tell you about the River of Shadows.”

“What about the River?” she asked.

“Don’t listen to him, Thasha,” said Neeps. “I doubt he knows any more than we do.”

“You know that it surfaces here, in this forest,” said Fulbreech, “and you know that it touches many worlds, that if you fall into its depths you might wash up anywhere. But what good does that do you? I know something Arunis wishes no one to know. Something priceless to your quest. I know where the River touches the world of the dead.”

Bolutu turned him a sudden, piercing look. “Yes,” said Fulbreech, “I was there when Arunis discovered it; I saw his fury and disbelief. The world of the dead, Thasha. The one place that can save you. The place where the Nilstone belongs.”

“Where is this place?” demanded Hercol.

A vein pulsed on the youth’s white forehead. “Cure me,” he said to Thasha. “It is a small deed for you.”

“Greysan,” she said, “you’re wrong about me. Everyone is, by the Pits.”

“Don’t lie,” he said. “Heal me, Thasha, let me walk. I can help you defeat him. With your power, and all I’ve learned-”

“I am not a mage,” she said.

There was steel in her voice. Fulbreech watched her a long time, and Pazel saw belief welling in his eyes, and then a new, colder look. “None of you stand a chance, then,” he whispered. “You’re the walking dead. He’s won.”

“Not while one of us draws breath,” said Hercol.

“You’re dead,” said Fulbreech again. “You’ve never known who you were fighting. You think he’s just a beast, a monster, someone who hates for no reason. But he’s not.”

“What in Pitfire is he, then?” said Pazel.

Fulbreech’s eyes swiveled until they locked on Pazel. A ghastly smile appeared on his face. “You should have guessed by now,” he said. “Why, he’s the same as you, Pathkendle. A natural scholar.”

Pazel looked as though he might get suddenly ill. Fulbreech’s smile grew. “Thasha talked a lot on that bed, when I let her. She told me what you loved as a child. Books, school, good marks. Treats for cleverness from your betters. And who were your betters? Old Chadfallow, of course, and all those captains who let a dirty Ormali set foot on their boats. And of course, Thasha herself. Tell me, Pazel, was it worth it? Did you ever earn your treat?”

Pazel leaped at him, quite out of his mind. It was all Neeps and Thasha could do to hold him back. Fulbreech watched them gleefully. “Arunis is no different,” he said. “He’s been a student for three thousand years.”

“How many lies do you need, Hercol?” said Bolutu, furious. “Arunis has been torturing this world for three thousand years. The North. The South. Kingdom after kingdom, war after war. Tell me he does not hate Alifros, Mr. Fulbreech. Say that, if you dare.”

“He does not hate Alifros,” said the Simjan. “He has no time for love or hate. He is a student, in the school where Gods are made. And those wars, those perished kingdoms, this last, total extermination-” Fulbreech’s body shook with mirth. “They’re his exams.”

In the appalled silence that followed, Thasha knew suddenly that there were great regions within her where her mind dared not go. In one of them a woman was screaming. Thasha heard the scream like an echo from the depths of a cave.

“He promised to take me with him,” said Fulbreech. “All the way out of Alifros, to the realm of the Gods. He lied, of course: that was the best way to ensure my services. There was never anything personal about it. How could a mind that old have feelings for the likes of us? A dead world. That’s his project. Nothing else will suffice. He has to offer it up for inspection by his betters, you see. He called it a difficult school.”

Ildraquin slipped from Hercol’s fingers. No one moved but Fulbreech, giggling in his madness. Then Ibjen crawled forward on hands and knees, lifted the sword and stabbed down, through Fulbreech’s stomach, into the earth.

Fulbreech gasped but did not scream. Thasha rushed forward to pull the blade free, but Hercol stayed her with a hand. Too late. Removing the blade would only speed the Simjan’s death.

Of course the wound gushed all the same. Fulbreech tried and failed to lift his head. “I can’t feel a thing,” he croaked.

“But you are dying, all the same,” said Hercol.

“And your soul is damned,” said Jalantri.

“Who knows?” said Fulbreech, drooling blood now, and yet somehow still amused. Then his eyes found Thasha’s once more. Through hideous expulsions of bile and blood, he said, “You’ll… fight?”

“Fight Arunis?” said Thasha. “Of course we will.”

Suddenly Fulbreech screamed. He convulsed, his paralysis ending with his life. But through the torment his eyes blazed with sudden defiance. With a terrible effort, choking on his own fluids, he spat out a last word.

“What was that?” said Bolutu, starting forward. “Did you say Gurishal?”

Fulbreech nodded. Then he raised a hand, shaking as with palsy, and Thasha took it, and held it as he died.

No one else made a sound. When Fulbreech was still at last, Thasha turned and looked blankly at Hercol.

“You asked for the truth,” she said.

All of this had happened by the light from the pool alone. But the strange ooze was draining away, and the purple light was dying. “In a few minutes we’ll be blind again,” said Alyash, his voice shaking. “We need a plan, Stanapeth.”

“The plan has not changed,” said Hercol. “Come, let us be off.”

“But friends!” cried Bolutu, “didn’t you hear his last word? Gurishal! The River of Shadows touches death’s kingdom on Gurishal! Fulbreech has given us the key. Gurishal is where we can send the Nilstone out of Alifros forever.”

“And before he came here, Arunis did not know,” said Dastu. Thasha and Pazel turned to face him, and for a moment there was no hatred between them, only wonder and amazement.

“Gods,” said Pazel, “you must be right. He’s been doing everything he can to get the Shaggat there, with the Nilstone in hand. And yet it’s the one place in Alifros where we want the Stone to go.”

“He was being used,” said Dastu. “Arunis the sorcerer was being used.”

“No wonder he was furious,” said Thasha.

Ibjen looked up at her, blinking back his tears. “Fulbreech may have helped you in the end,” he said, “but he betrayed you a moment before. He was calling out to Arunis, trying to get his attention, to tell him we stood by this pool. He started the moment you declared you could not heal him, Thashiziq. The voices told me: ‘Come away, come away, you’re doomed, you’re in the sorcerer’s trap.’ ”

“You did well to kill him,” said Neda. “Don’t weep; there is no shame in your act.”

Ibjen shook his head. “It’s not because of my oath,” he said. “It’s because I waited, hoping one of you would do it for me. That is worse. That is meaner.”

Hercol looked up: the darkness was descending like a black fog. “No more delay,” he said. “We must get away from here, away from those bats, before we try again with the torch.”

The elder Turach gazed at him heavily. “And then?” he said.

“Then we backtrack to the trail we were marking,” said Hercol, “and resume the search.”

“Resume!” laughed Alyash. “Begin it, you mean! Only this time we’ve got piss-all to go by. Stanapeth, it’s over. You can fool yourself that you might find a needle in a haystack-no, in a blary barn-if you’ve got a lodestone to drag around through the hay. But our lodestone was a cheat.”

“We must find the place where the River of Shadows breaks the surface,” said Hercol. “What else would you counsel?”

“To follow our own trail back to the vine, that’s what,” cried Alyash. “And the vine to blessed daylight.”

Several of the soldiers, human and dlomic alike, nodded approvingly. Hercol looked at them in alarm. “You know that to concede the Nilstone to Arunis means death to us all,” he said. “Surely Fulbreech made that clear once again?”

“Let’s just start walking,” pleaded Big Skip.

A furtive movement caught Thasha’s eye: Jalantri was squeezing Neda’s hand in his. She pulled away. Jalantri whispered something in Mzithrini that unsettled her even more. But before he finished there came a loud pop, like a child’s toy cannon, and Jalantri howled in pain.

Something black and amorphous had struck the back of his head. He stumbled, groping at it. The thing slipped through his fingers again and again, and yet one end of it seemed embedded in his skin. At last he ripped it away, leaving a coin-sized wound.

Pop. Pop. Thasha felt a blow to her arm, and a sharp stab. An identical creature was there, wriggling, burrowing into her flesh. “Leeches!” cried Dastu, as another struck his leg. “But they’re coming like cannon-shot!”

Pop. Pop. Pop. “The globe mushrooms!” said Ensyl, pointing. “They’re bursting out of them! Great Mother, there could be thousands.”

All at once the air was thick with the foul, biting creatures. Thasha felt them strike her again, in the shoulder, in the neck. “Out of here!” bellowed Hercol. “Get beyond the globes, beyond that ridge we descended! But then stop and regroup, for the love of Rin!”

Humans and dlomu were bolting in all directions. Neeps tripped over Fulbreech; Jalantri, his chest thick with leeches, shouted for Neda as he ran. Alyash was waving his pistol, of all things. Then Pazel slipped in the slime from the pool, and cried out as his wounded leg was wrenched. Thasha dived for him, grabbed his arm and dragged him, leeches and all, out through the fern-fungi, and under the fallen tree, and then “Cover your eyes!”

— right up the slope, the wall of exploding fungi, and on among the towering trees until she was sure nothing else was striking them.

Twenty feet from the pool, and it was nearly pitch black. “Tear them off, Pazel!” she shouted.

“I am! I am!”

Gods, but they hurt. Eight, nine of them-and another in the small of her back. She was still trying to get a grip on it when she felt Pazel’s fingers. He groped, squeezed, ripped: the leech was gone, along with a barbed mouthful of her skin. Then a match flared in the blackness, somewhere off to their left. It died, and Alyash bellowed in rage. Another match glowed, and this time Alyash managed to light the torch. “Here, here, to me!” he bellowed. “You heard Stanapeth! Regroup!”

Thasha and Pazel stumbled toward him. Others, by the sound of it, were doing the same. Then Alyash screamed as a flickering, flapping darkness took his arm. The torchlight disappeared. Thasha caught the stink of burning flesh.

“The bats!” cried Alyash. “They attacked the torch! Devils in the flesh, they’re suicidal!”

“Light it again! Light it again!”

“Ain’t but half a dozen matches left-”

Another flared: Thasha saw Alyash’s crazed eyes by its light-and then sudden motion, and darkness. “Damn the mucking things!” cried the bosun. “It’s impossible! They dive on the flame!”

“Strike no more matches,” came Hercol’s voice, suddenly. “We must get farther from their roosting-place; there are simply too many here. Do not run, do not separate! But tell me you’re here! Turachs! Where are you?”

“Here!” shouted the younger of the soldiers. “Undrabust is with me. We’re all right, we’re just-”

“Vispek!” shouted Hercol. “Jalantri! Neda Ygrael!”

Only Neda answered him-and from a surprising distance. Thasha heard Pazel’s frightened gasp. “Neda!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Over here! Hurry, hurry!”

This time there was no answer at all. The bats flowed about them like water. Nothing was visible save the fading glow from the pool.

Footsteps crashed nearer, and then Neeps and the younger Turach found them, their blind hands groping. From farther off, the dlomic warriors shouted, drawing nearer.

“But the sfvantskors!” cried Pazel. “I can’t hear their voices anymore!”

“Forget them,” said Alyash. “They ran the wrong way.”

Furious, Pazel turned in the direction of Alyash’s voice. “She’s my Gods-damned sister!” he shouted.

“She’s a fanatic, a monster with a womb!”

A sword whined from its sheath. “Pathkendle! No!” cried Hercol.

“You drawing a blade on me, Muketch?” snarled Alyash. “Come on, then, I’ll have your blary head!”

There was a horrible scream. But it came from neither Pazel nor Alyash. It was the Turach who was screaming, and his voice came from above them, rising by the second.

“It’s the worms!” Pazel shouted. “I’m fighting the mucking worms!”

Then there was no order of any kind. Every voice rose to howling; no one could see anyone; bodies smashed in all directions; Hercol’s shouts for order fell on deaf ears. Thasha felt a tentacle graze her hand, then whip around her leg. She was rising; then her sword flashed and cut the tendril and she fell headfirst, and barely missed dying on her own sword. Up she leaped, stumbling, whirling, blind as death. The voices were already fewer, and all farther away. She cried out for Pazel, for Neeps and Hercol, but no one answered. From somewhere a fitful light appeared; she whirled toward it, a strange, pulsing, indistinct sort of light, but there were figures in it, struggling “Oh Gods. Oh sweet Rin.”

Not struggling. Making love. It was herself and Pazel she saw, naked under their cedar tree, her hands on the branch above them, her legs on either side of his thrusting hips.

It was Syrarys and Sandor Ott. The concubine looked at her suddenly, over the assassin’s shoulder. “Daughter,” she gasped.

Thasha fell to her knees. Not real. Not true. But she was weeping; it was a physical attack she was suffering, it was the spores, the darkness, the world that stabbed and stabbed again. She forced herself to her feet and pushed on, toward nothing, and then she heard Alyash and Hercol behind her, and they were fighting, and she turned and floundered toward them with the last of her strength.

“Idiot! Put it down, put it down!”

That was Hercol. Thasha tried to quicken her pace-and fell down the slope, back among the leeches, not stopping to fight them, not stopping for anything. There was the dying glow from the pool. And there was Hercol, collapsed against its rim, dragging himself after Alyash, who kept leaping out of his reach, and fumbling with matches, and something else “Fool! You can’t shoot whatever’s up there!”

“I can mucking well scare the bastards!”

“Don’t do it, Alyash!”

A match flared. The bats descended on it immediately, but Alyash was quicker. He forced the tiny flame into the ignition chamber of his pistol, thrust it straight up through the mass of creatures and fired.

Bats erupted from the clearing in a boundless swarm. Alyash stood unharmed among them, laughing, triumphant-and then came a sound like a great sail ripped in two.

The flood lifted Thasha like a matchstick. The light was gone, the clearing gone; she flailed, helpless, borne away by the onslaught of water. Disarmed, nearly drowning, rolled head over heels through the fungi and leeches and drowning bats, grabbing at the larger growths only to find them ripped away, smashing through trees, tearing at roots with her fingernails. And still the water thundered down, as if a suspended lake were emptying into the forest.

A bladder-fungus, dangling over them, a monster of a growth. The trap had been sprung.

Her strong limbs were useless; her body struck tree after rock-hard tree. A part of her had always wondered what it could possibly feel like, to go down with a ship in storm. This was the answer. Pain and blindness and sharp blows in the dark. She thought of Pazel and wished they’d made love long before.

Just let me see something (she was begging Rin like a schoolgirl). I can die, we can fail, but let me see something, anything. So many ways they might have died before, but not this way, in this pit of a forest, this unspeakable, dark hole A thought burst inside her. She stopped fighting, stilled by wonder. An insane, a delirious idea.

Look for me But hope was like that, wasn’t it? A delirium that clouded your mind. A mist that protected you from the truth you couldn’t bear to look at. Until something solid parted the mist: a cannonball, a reef, the words of a traitor with just minutes to live.

— when a darkness comes beyond today’s imagining.

It was at that very moment that her hand caught something solid, and held. It was one of the worm-like tendrils, and though it strained terribly to pull free, to lift her up into the canopy and another sort of death, the rushing water was far stronger, and it became Thasha’s lifeline, minute after blind, precious minute. And then her blindness came to an end.

Logic told her that she was hallucinating yet again, but her heart knew otherwise. At a great distance away through the flooded forest, a haze of light began to shine. It was wide and dispersed, like the stars on a cloudless night, except that these stars were blue, and moving, and as they neared her they lit up the forest as no starlight could. They were fireflies, and they broke over her in a blue wave, a second flood above the water, and before them flew a great dark owl. It circled Thasha once, then swept away into the darkness, and the storm of fireflies went with it. But some of the insects stayed, whirling above Thasha, showing her the great complexity of vines and upper branches of the trees, and the underside of the bottommost leaf-layer, three hundred feet over her head.

When the water fell, it did so quickly, draining out through the root-mat beneath her feet. Fungi opened pores like puffy lips, spat out water and mud. When the water dropped below her waist Thasha released the tendril, watched it curl into a slender orifice high in the joint of an overhead branch. Trees with mouths. In some of those mouths were dlomic soldiers. In another, a young Turach marine, sent by his Emperor to the far side of the world on a secret mission, to fight (he was surely told) the enemies of the Crown.

Dark or bright, I hate this place, she thought.

Then the fireflies drew closer together and dropped nearer to the ground. As she watched, dumbfounded, they illuminated a path: one that began just over her head, and stretched away into the forest. Thasha couldn’t help but smile. As in a dream, she set out walking, and the path vanished behind her as the little insects followed on her heels.

Some ten minutes had passed when she saw the owl again. It was perched atop a high quartz rock that glittered in the light of the fireflies.

“You’ve lost your ship, I see,” said the owl. “And it is yours, you know, regardless of the paperwork back in Etherhorde.”

Thasha stared at it a moment. “I’m not imagining you,” she said, and raised her arms.

The owl dived straight at her, and Thasha did not flinch. Right before her face it suddenly fanned its wings dramatically, came to a near halt, and fell into her arms: a black mink.

A cry from deep in her chest escaped her, and she lifted the creature and hid her face in its fur. “Ramachni. Ramachni. Aya Rin, it’s been so long.”

“Oh dearest, that is such a charmingly human way to reckon time. I was just thinking that this has been the shortest night’s sleep I could remember. But an eventful night, to be sure. Come, dry your eyes. There will be time for tears, and much else, when the fight is done.”

“Don’t leave us again!”

The mage sat back in her hands. His fixed his immense black eyes on her, and there was a thousand times the depth and mystery in them as in the forest, and yet they were, as they ever had been, kind.

“You and I cannot be parted,” he said. “Even if we leave the world of the living behind-minutes from now, or years-we shall do so together. Now walk, Thasha. Or better still, run, if your wounds will bear it. Many are suffering for your sake.”

His words were like a jolt out of a dream. She ran, with the mage in her arms, beneath the firefly-lit path, and in another five minutes she came to a small rise, above which the fireflies danced in a net of brilliance. Atop the rise, seated among seashell-like fungi, were some half a dozen of their party. She dashed among them, heart in her mouth. Ibjen. Neda. Bolutu. Big Skip. Lunja. And Neeps.

“Thasha!” he cried, jumping up to embrace her.

“But where-where are-”

Neeps pointed down the far side of the hill. There were two other firefly-paths snaking off into the forest. One of them was shrinking toward them, and upon it they could see the older Turach, Dastu and Cayer Vispek, running with one hand folded to his chest. When he saw Neda on the hillside Vispek did something Thasha never would have believed of him: he sobbed. Hiding the reaction almost at once, he held out his arm, and Myett leaped to the ground. The humans and the ixchel gazed with wonder at Ramachni.

“The weasel-mage,” gasped the Turach. “By the Blessed Tree, I thought Arunis had finished you off.”

“Not yet,” said Ramachni, baring his teeth.

“Hercol spoke of you,” said Cayer Vispek, “a woken mink with the powers of a wizard. I did not believe him, but now-”

“I am a mink only in this world, Cayer,” said Ramachni, “and even here I can take other forms, now and then. I know you believe that that can be done-you who crossed the Nelluroq as whales.”

“And died as humans, some of us,” said Vispek. “Jalantri fell to the leeches, Neda Ygrael. He was gone before the water came.”

Now it was Neda’s turn to fight back tears. Thasha reached to console her, but Neeps caught her arm, gently shaking his head. The two of them descended the hill, toward the last remaining path of fireflies. At first glance it appeared quite empty. Wordlessly, they started to run along its course, back into the forest. They could see where the light ended, just beyond that next tree, and then Hercol and Pazel, limping arm in arm, rounded the tree, and clinging to Hercol’s shoulder was Ensyl. Seeing Neeps and Thasha, the ixchel woman pointed and cried out with joy. They rushed together, and Thasha for one made no attempt to hide her tears.

When she told them that Ramachni had come at last, Thasha thought her friends were close to tears themselves. “He’ll be stronger than ever,” said Pazel. “He said he would be, when he came back.”

“The rest of us aren’t so lucky, though,” said Neeps. “Lunja is still alive, but the other dlomic soldiers are gone, and so’s the younger Turach. And Alyash too, I suppose.”

“I’m not sorry for that,” said Pazel.

“Be sorry for the day he was truly lost,” said Hercol, “though it was decades before your birth, and perhaps not so long after his own.”

“Lost to evil, you mean,” said Pazel. “I understand. I saw into his master’s mind, Ott’s mind, you know.” He stopped a moment, his voice suddenly tight. “I understand, but I can’t forgive. Is that wrong of me, Hercol?”

“You are wrong only in being certain of what you can and cannot do,” said the swordsman. “For now clear your minds, of rage and fear alike. Our work is not done. And here is one tool that remains to help us do it.” He touched the leather band across his shoulder. Ildraquin was still strapped to his back.

“Cayer Vispek kept his sword as well,” said Neeps, “and Neda still has her dagger. That’s all the weaponry left to us.”

“Then be glad I made you train with staves,” said Hercol, “and find some, quickly. Put Big Skip on the task; he is a fine judge of anything resembling a club.”

It was then that they noticed the moaning sound overhead. It was the wind: something they had not heard once in the Infernal Forest.

“That change came quickly,” said Ensyl.

“Yes,” said Hercol, “suspiciously so.”

The wind picked up speed. Leaning into it, they hurried back to the glowing hill. Even before they arrived Thasha could see what was happening: the fireflies were being carried off, dispersed, and the great darkness of the forest was returning.

But atop the hill Ramachni stood straight and calm, and the fireflies about him danced on unperturbed. As Thasha and the others drew near they stepped abruptly into quiet, windless air, as though they had passed through the wall of an inverted fish-bowl, with Ramachni at the center. But it was a tiny space in the darkness. Once again Thasha felt as though she were standing on the floor of the sea.

Hercol knelt down before Ramachni. “Beloved friend,” he said. “Now I know that what I professed to others is the very truth: that despair alone brings ruin. Even with the Nilstone in hand, Arunis could not prevent your return.”

“On the contrary,” said Ramachni, “I was able to return only because he had the Nilstone in hand-or rather because his idiot does. They are delving very deep into the River of Shadows, calling out to the Swarm, the force that would end all life on Alifros. But when you open a window you cannot always be sure who or what may blow through it. I was waiting outside that window. Arunis was not happy to see me.”

Big Skip, as it turned out, was already on the club-seeking task. He, Bolutu and Ibjen had scoured the area and managed to gather a number of heavy limbs. Soon everyone who lacked another weapon had a solid piece of wood in their hands.

“Arunis is experimenting now,” said Ramachni, “but we are not too late. Remember that no matter what fell powers he has gained, his body is still that of a man. He will try to stop us from closing on him. But close we shall, and strike we shall, or die together in the attempt.”

Pazel walked to the edge of the sphere of becalmed air. He stretched out his hand until he felt the raging wind. “It’s still growing,” he called over his shoulder.

“My own strength has increased as well,” said Ramachni. “There is nothing left but to test it. You have one march left ahead of you, travelers, but at least it will not be in the dark. Thasha, my champion, carry me; we must have words as we go.”

The survivors started down the hill, in the direction Ramachni indicated, and the globe of still air with its multitude of fireflies moved with it. Thasha walked in the lead, but off to one side, and the others kept their distance, knowing that words meant words in private. She tried to catch Pazel’s eye, but only caught him wincing as he raised his wounded leg.

“Arunis knew just where to take the Stone,” said Ramachni. “For many miles the River of Shadows flows under the skin of Alifros: first beneath the lake you crossed, then deep under the Ansyndra, one stream hidden by another. Only here in this forest does it churn to the surface. And it was at that very point that the Auru, the first fair tenders of life in this world, raised a watchtower after the Dawn War, lest evil things return to Alifros. It is only a ruin now, for evil did return, and triumphed for a time, and nearly all the great towers fell. But their ruins still mark the places where the River of Shadows touches Alifros. Much of the strangeness of this world has trickled in through such gaps. The spores that grew into the Infernal Forest are but one example.”

“And the Nilstone entered the same way, didn’t it?”

“Yes, dearest,” said Ramachni.

Thasha smiled. “I think you must be desperate,” she said. “That was a straight answer, by Rin.”

“Wicked girl,” said Ramachni, pleased.

“Are you going to give me any more?” asked Thasha.

“It is not out of the question,” said the mage, “but we are on the cusp of battle, and must speak of what may keep us alive. There is power in you, Thasha Isiq: we both know this. And Arunis knows it, too, and fears it.”

“But it isn’t mine, is it?”

“Of course it is yours. Who else’s?”

“Erithusme’s,” said Thasha. “What are you pretending for, Ramachni? I don’t know if she’s my mother or something else to me entirely. But she’s trying to use me, get into my head. Just like Arunis does to others, except that she would use me to do good. Although she’s never managed to do much good in the past, as far as I can tell.”

Thasha knew how bitter she sounded. They marched on through the dripping forest, and for a time Ramachni made no answer. Deny it, deny it! Thasha wanted to scream.

But all Ramachni said was, “It is you he fears most, ever since he first understood whom he faced, in that chamber on Dhola’s Rib. Your power, your magic, far more than my own.”

“What are you talking about?” cried Thasha, no longer caring who heard them. “I hardly know a thing about magic, and everything I do know I learned from you.”

“No, Thasha. Everything I know, I learned from you.”

She stared at him, appalled.

“Erithusme is not your mother,” said Ramachni, “and she is not trying to possess you, to force her way inside. For she has never been elsewhere, since your birth-since your conception. Thasha dearest, you are Erithusme. I have no time to explain, but know this: you can draw on her power if you want it. Only if. No one can force you to do so, no one can demand it of you. Do you understand?”

“No I don’t! What in the Nine Pits are you saying? I’m not Erithusme, I’m Thasha Isiq!”

“Yes,” said Ramachni quietly, “for as long as you wish to be.”

“What did he say to her?” whispered Neeps as he helped Pazel limp along. “Look at her, she’s crying.”

Pazel did not look; he was afraid his own face would be too revealing. What was wrong with Ramachni? Why would he shock her now? He felt furious at the mage, though a part of him knew there must be a reason. There were always mucking reasons. Vital, and cruel.

“Your leg’s worse, eh?” said Neeps.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Pazel. “Don’t say anything about it.”

Suddenly Lunja raised her hand. “Listen!” she said.

A sound was reverberating through the forest: a huge, muffled thump… thump. “A heartbeat,” said Ibjen. The sound rose very quickly, until the giant trees themselves seemed to shake with it, and the more delicate mushrooms trembled with each thump.

“We are nearly there,” shouted Ramachni above the din. “Fear nothing. You are stronger than you know, and Arunis has achieved too much by terror already.”

“That he has,” said Hercol. “Lead on, Ramachni. We will give him no more easy victories.”

On they went, but not three minutes had passed when Pazel realized that Neeps had begun to sob.

“Mate? What’s happened, what’s wrong?”

“Bastard,” spat Neeps. “He’s doing this to me.”

“Doing what?”

Neeps drew a hand over his eyes. “Showing me Marila,” he said. “Captured, hurt… hurt by men.”

“It’s a lie,” said Pazel, gripping him tightly by the arms. “Keep your eyes open. Look at us, look at the trees, anything but what he shows you.”

“I’m trying, damn it!”

Pazel was about to say more, but then, without a moment’s warning, he learned how hard it was to take his own advice. A picture sprang open in his mind, like a child’s pop-up storybook, but utterly real. He saw Arunis cowering, and Thasha taking the Nilstone from his weakened hand-and death consuming her like some ghastly, wildfire mold…

Enraged, he looked at his companions. All save Ramachni were clearly suffering, their faces twisted with anguish and fear. Between the pulses of the unseen heart, Pazel heard Cayer Vispek and his sister, fighting in Mzithrini. Neda sounded almost out of her mind. “She will use it to destroy us, destroy the Pentarchy, to finish her father’s wars! I see Babqri burning, Cayer! I see our people thrown alive onto bonfires!”

“You see what he shows you, not what is. They are not our enemies, Neda Ygrael. We are none of us the people we were-”

“But the girl! She is not what she pretends to be! She has hidden her face from us all along! So many times we’ve been lied to, deceived-”

Letting go of Neeps, Pazel rushed forward and grabbed Neda by the elbow. She whirled, raising her fist. Perhaps in that moment she would have struck at any face but his.

“Trust me,” he begged. “Thasha won’t do anything like that. I promise.”

Neda looked at him, torn by fury and pain. “One Arquali defends the other,” she said.

Pazel was furious in turn. Not that again. He wanted to spit half a dozen retorts in her face, and was struggling against them all, when Bolutu cried, “There, look there! Do you see it?”

Ahead of them, far above the fireflies, a light was shining down. It was the moon, the old yellow moon, and around it Pazel saw a few faint stars. “A rip!” said Lunja. “A hole in the tree-cover!” And so it was: a jagged triangular gap, all the way to the open sky. As they stepped nearer, Pazel saw that something truly monstrous stood in that gap, pointing upward like a great jagged stump.

The moonlight flooded the land below. After so much darkness it felt almost like emerging into sunshine. There was the river, the mighty Ansyndra, sweeping through a glittering curve. There were broad, grassy banks where no mushrooms grew. And on both sides of the river, and even within it, lay gargantuan carved stones. They were bricks, Pazel saw with astonishment: stone bricks the size of houses, grass and turf sprouting atop them, scattered like a child’s building-blocks across the land.

Now Pazel could see the thing piercing the tree-cover. It was what they had taken for a hill, when they looked out across the forest from the crater’s rim. But it was the remains of a circular tower, huge beyond reason, the curve so gradual that at first he took it for a flat wall. Very little of it remained: just a shattered ring of cut stones that had formed its base. For most of the circumference the ring was but sixty or seventy feet tall. But on one side it still rose to dizzying heights, cutting through all four layers of the trees, and rising above the topmost by several hundred feet. The tower projected somewhat into the Ansyndra, so that the current broke and quickened around the wall. And there was, Pazel saw now, one more feature that had survived: a great stone staircase, dead ahead, leading up to a flat surface that must once have been a landing by the tower door.

At the top of those stairs stood Arunis and his madman.

Their backs were turned; they were facing the river. The idiot was hunched, knees slightly bent, arms crossed over his chest. Arunis stood with one hand clenched upon the idiot’s scalp.

Ramachni glanced left and right at the fireflies. Silent as mist, they drifted away, and the wind wrapped around them again: deliciously, then worryingly, cool.

Suddenly Arunis bellowed, shaking the idiot with great violence. “It is there, animal! Call to it, call to it now!”

The heartbeat grew louder, faster. The idiot convulsed, like one in pain-and suddenly the river rose, churning, frothing around the base of the tower. Waves crashed against the ruin and the banks, and a dark hole opened in the river’s surface. Then, just as suddenly, the water fell back into its normal course. Arunis struck the idiot on the head.

Ramachni’s gaze was fixed on the sorcerer. His dark eyes gleamed in the moonlight, and his white fangs showed. “Put me down, Thasha,” he said. She obeyed, and Pazel knew they could all feel it, the power compressed in that tiny form. Ramachni tossed his head about, slowly, like a much larger creature, and those nearest him stepped sideways, making room.

Pazel did not know what Ramachni was up to: something deadly, he hoped. He looked down at the branch Big Skip had provided: solid, but crooked and awkwardly long. A stick, he thought. After all this, I’m going to rush Arunis with a stick.

“Fight now, as never before!” cried Ramachni suddenly. Then he leaped into the air, and something about him changed, and he did not fall to earth again but ran above it, and about him Pazel saw a ghost-body forming. It was a monstrous bear, thundering through the grass and scattered trees, and before he knew it he and all the others were racing after him, their foes cornered at last.

The bear grew more solid and heavy as they ran, but Ramachni’s tiny form was still visible within it, running and leaping with the same motions as the huge animal that surrounded him. Pazel lost ground, as he knew he would. He could try to ignore the pain in his leg, but that did not make it work any better.

As soon as Ramachni bounded onto the stone staircase, Arunis whirled. He seized the idiot by the back of the neck. “Slay them!” he howled. “Kill them all!”

The idiot turned, looking at them blankly-and there it was, cradled against his chest: the black sphere of the Nilstone. All at once he screamed like a furious infant, and four tall, gaunt creatures rose out of the stone before him and flew down the stairs. They were vaguely human, with great mats of wiry hair and the fangs of jungle cats. But in a moment of sickening insight Pazel saw that their faces were identical: all four had the face of one of the birdwatchers in the Conservatory, the one who had objected the loudest when Arunis claimed the idiot for his own.

Ramachni met the creatures on the stair. He cuffed the first off the side with one blow of his paw, and bore down on the second with his teeth, savaging it, and left its corpse where it fell. Hercol, Thasha and Cayer Vispek were on the stairs already, and leaped to attack the other creatures before they could spring. But above, Arunis was goading the idiot to renew the attack, beating him about the head and screaming, “More, much more! Kill them instantly!”

The idiot bent nearly double, and his back heaved like a retching dog’s. Once, twice-and then he vomited, and went on vomiting, an impossible flood of slick black oil. It raced down the staircase toward Ramachni, and just as it reached him, the whole sheet burst into flame.

Ramachni shouted a word of command. The flames died instantly, and the oil thinned to water and drained off the sides. Now the whole party was on the stairs. Hercol and Cayer Vispek had caught up with Ramachni, and the three of them were within twenty steps of the sorcerer and the fool. Then the idiot, his head cocked to one side, began waving his hand spasmodically before him.

This time three creatures appeared and flew to the attack. They were very different from the hags he had summoned before. These were creatures of mud and fire, but they were also mirror images of the attackers. There was a blazing bear for Ramachni, a mud-fire Hercol and a mud-fire Vispek. The clash was terrible. Pazel could not see clearly what happened to Hercol and Vispek, but Ramachni’s huge foe caught him squarely, and the two bears rolled like a snarling, blazing boulder down the staircase, felling several of the party as they went. Pazel felt the rush of wind as they rolled past him. Lifting his head, he found the stair above him empty all the way to Arunis. With a feeling like he’d once had as a child, reaching for a pan on the stove that happened to be glowing an alluring red, he ran straight up the broken stones.

The idiot kept waving and moaning, and suddenly Pazel saw the creature’s arm lengthen obscenely, and then the giant hairy hand with its scabs and black bitten thumbnail caught him cleanly, and more angry than frightened (of course this had happened, of course!) he was scooped from the staircase, hurled over the moonlit grass and stones-and plunged headfirst into the river.

Thasha had stopped to help Cayer Vispek fight his double. It grappled with him, strangling, howling in Vispek’s own voice, and it barely seemed to feel her club. But when she landed a sound blow she felt its arm buckle slightly, and then Vispek, wriggling free, cried out in rage and slashed it to pieces with his sword. Thasha pulled him to his feet. Vispek, shocked, pointed past her. She whirled-and saw Pazel strike the river’s surface, forty feet from shore.

Gods! Was he even conscious, after a fall like that? Thasha broke for the river. There was his hand, thank the Blessed Tree, but the river was violent, he was sucked under again, it would be the hardest swim of her life to reach him.

Then she saw that Ibjen was well ahead of her, boots off already, and like a diving cormorant he shot into the Ansyndra. Thasha’s heart was torn. Pazel needed her, but the battle needed everyone. Still praying for her lover she charged back up the stairs.

The tol-chenni’s giant hand was still smashing and flailing, but now it was an armored fist. Up it soared above her; down it came with a rending crash. She leaped; stone stairs were pulverized. Now she was falling, scrabbling to stop herself. She caught the black silhouette of the fist against the moon, it was plummeting again, she could not dodge it With a roar, Ramachni leaped above her, braced his bear’s form against the blow. She raised her hands into his fur. There: oh Gods, the blow was crippling, lethal. The bear toppled onto its side, and with a shout of pain Ramachni abandoned it, leaped out as his old, mink self. The ghost-creature tumbled from the staircase, and vanished before it touched the ground.

Ramachni was dazed. Thasha grabbed him and leaped again, and the mailed fist struck where they had lain a moment before.

All of them had been driven to ground; the stones above them were now more rubble than staircase. With his left hand still on the idiot’s neck, Arunis flexed the fingers of his right, and the mailed fist did the same. He was gaining control, and he leered, enjoying it. He spread his fingers wide; the idiot’s ghastly hand did the same. Then the fingers started to grow, slithering down the ruined staircase, each one a serpent as thick as a man’s body.

Hercol did not wait for them to close. He charged forward with Ildraquin, right into their jaws, and Vispek was beside him, sword held high. The snakes proved clumsier than they looked: caught between serpent reflexes and Arunis’ conscious control. Hercol danced among them; Ildraquin swept a figure eight, and two heads fell. Vispek’s blade tore the throat of another. But the wound began to close almost before it could bleed, and already new heads were forming on the gushing necks.

Then Ramachni shook himself and sprang from Thasha’s arms. A stinging, furious word left his mouth. The remaining snakes caught fire. The whole conjured arm jerked back and shrank away to nothing, and far above them Arunis cried in awful pain, cradling his own hand.

So there were costs for the power he’d seized.

Then Arunis stood again, and his gaunt face was mad with fury. He took hold of the idiot once more. This time nothing sudden happened; the sorcerer’s face became quiet; the tol-chenni stopped his gestures and held still.

“On guard, on guard!” cried Ramachni suddenly. “He is preparing something worse than all that has come before! I cannot tell what it will be, but-Ah Mathrok! Scatter, run!”

It was too late to run. Around them, a circular pit suddenly opened, deep and sheer. Bristling at the base of the pit were spikes-no, needles, needles of burnished steel, five or six feet long. The party huddled together; the space they occupied was barely large enough for them all. And then the rim of the pit-the inner rim, beside their feet-began to crumble.

Ramachni closed his eyes. At once the cracks in the earth stopped growing, and there were sighs of relief. But the mage remained very still and tense. Above them, Arunis and his slave tilted their heads together, in perfect synchrony, as if one brain were directing them both. Thasha saw Ramachni wince, and then the cracks once more began to spread.

The instant he struck the river Pazel knew that something was wrong. He kicked and flailed. He was a strong swimmer, but his wildest efforts barely lifted him to the surface; it was as if the water were partly air. There was a roaring below him, and a sense of infinite, rushing space.

He looked down into the Ansyndra, and thought the madness of the spores was infecting him anew: beneath his feet he saw a black tunnel, twisting down and away, a tunnel enclosing a cyclone. It was no illusion, he realized, horrified. He was seeing the River of Shadows, treading water above a hole in the world.

There was no escaping it. He had not yet begun to sink, but his terrified paddling had not moved him an inch toward shore-and suddenly there was no shore, for the Ansyndra had swept him downstream, to where the sheer stone wall jutted out into the river’s path. Pazel threw out his hands as the current slapped him against the stone. For twenty feet he scraped along its slimy edge. Then, miraculously, his hands found something to grip.

It was only a thin vine, reaching down from a crack in the wall, and its tendrils began to break as soon as he seized it. But for a moment it stopped him. He gulped a breath, furious. A ridiculous death. Not even in the fight. And damn his stupidity, he was carrying lead! Mr. Fiffengurt’s blackjack was still there in his breeches, sewn into its special pocket. He couldn’t spare either hand to cast it away.

Then he saw a dark streak below the surface. It was a dlomu, shooting toward him. A moment later Ibjen rose, treading water in a frenzy.

“This water’s unnatural!” he cried. “Even I can barely swim!”

“The vine’s going to break,” Pazel shouted.

Ibjen turned in place, splashing desperately to hold still. “We’ll swim back together,” he said.

Pazel shook his head. “I’m not strong enough. I’ll have to go around the tower, downstream.”

But there was no more hope in that idea than in Ibjen’s. Even if he managed to keep his head above water, the river would simply peel him away from the wall once he rounded the curve.

“You can still make it,” he shouted to Ibjen. “Go on! Take care of Neeps and Thasha!”

Ibjen was staring at him strangely. “I failed the prince,” he said, just audible over the water’s roar.

“Ibjen, the vine-”

“I broke my oath to him. And to my mother. I’m paying now, like Vadu did.”

Ibjen’s eyes, like those of the woman in Vasparhaven, were jet-black. In nuhzat again. Was he aware of things around him, or in a different world altogether?

“Pazel,” he shouted suddenly, “you’re going to have to climb that wall.”

“Climb? You’re mad! Sorry, I-”

The vine snapped like a shoelace. Pazel clawed at the stone, but already the current was whirling him on. He felt Ibjen seize him by the shoulders. “Down, then,” gasped the boy. “Hold your breath. Are you ready?”

Before Pazel could say No! the boy pushed him under. Kicking hard, he drove them both down the side of the wall. Descent was swift and easy; it was staying up that had been close to impossible. But with every inch they dropped there was less water, more black air, and now Pazel could feel the roaring cyclone, tearing along the side of the tower. It would lift them, bear them away like leaves. But Ibjen fought on, kicking with astonishing determination and strength, clawing at the water with his free arm, down and down.

And suddenly Pazel saw his goal. The river had undercut the tower’s foundation; two or three of the mammoth stones had been torn completely away, and dim moonlight shone through the gap. It was a way through the wall, into the center of the ruin.

But they would never make it. They were sliding past the gap already, and now the River of Shadows had replaced the Ansyndra almost entirely: the water felt as thin as spray. Beneath his feet, Pazel caught another glimpse of that vast windy cavern, winding away into eternity. There were walls, doors, windows. Lights in some of them. He saw a mountainscape at sunset; he saw two children with their noses pressed to glass, watching their struggle. He saw himself and Ibjen vanishing into that maelstrom, forever.

Then, from somewhere, Ibjen found even greater strength. His limbs were a blur; his teeth were gritted, and with another blast of clarity Pazel found some last reserve of his own strength. For two or three yards, no more, they managed to move upstream. And just when Pazel knew that he could go no farther, Ibjen shoved him bodily into the gap.

Pazel clung to the stone, found purchase, dragged himself forward. The wind fought him terribly, wild surges of air tried to pull him back into the river. Howling inside, limbs straining beyond any effort in his life, he gained another inch, another foot, then turned and reached for Ibjen The dlomic boy was a speck, whirling away down the tunnel. A black leaf, a shade in a river of shades-dwindling, dissolving, gone.

“Hercol,” said Ramachni, “can you leap over the pit?”

Thasha was aghast at the strain in his voice. The two mages were fighting to the death, and Arunis, it seemed, was the stronger. The edge of the pit was now just inches from their toes.

“Not that far, Master,” answered Hercol.

“Never mind, then, I will-”

Ramachni broke off, and his eyes opened. Then Thasha heard it: a whirling, whistling sound. Five feet above their heads, blades had appeared: long, heavy scimitar-blades, parallel to the ground, spinning at unholy speed. Thasha could not count them: maybe a dozen, maybe more. Everyone crouched down, horrified. To reach for one of those blades would be to lose a hand. And now, as she had known that they would, the blades began to descend.

“Well,” said Ramachni, “he has certainly mastered the Stone.”

His limbs were rigid, and his small body shook, and Thasha knew that he was trying to arrest both the blades and the advance of the pit. And yet the blades were still lowering, very gradually. “You had best get to your knees,” said Ramachni.

They got to their knees, but the blades kept coming. They were almost invisible with speed, and through them Thasha saw Arunis gesturing at something beneath his feet, and then “Look out!”

Several large fragments of the staircase were moving toward them. Not quickly, not with aim or force; it was as if Arunis had reached the limits of the horrors he could control at once. The first stone dropped motionless before it had traveled halfway; two others fell and slid along the ground, toppling at last into the pit. Then a larger fragment rose, wobbling, teetering, like a stage magician’s clumsy prop. Above, they heard Arunis groan with effort.

The stone flew at them-flew directly at her, Thasha realized. She raised her arms-but there was Hercol, pushing in front of her, absorbing the blow. The chunk of stone must have weighed more than he did, and it struck him dead-on. The top edge nicked one of the whirling blades; fragments of stone and steel flew among them; there were cries and sick sounds of impact. And before they knew what harm had come to whom, the blades dropped lower still.

Hercol was unconscious, the stone upon his arm, Ildraquin loose in his hand. Lunja was bleeding from her mouth. Earth crumbled into the pit, a little here, a little there. Among the crouched and bleeding bodies Thasha could no longer see Ramachni. But then she heard his voice in her mind.

I cannot stop him, Mistress. If you would help me, do it now.

Mistress? Help him? What could she do? He was mistaken; Arunis had fooled him like he had fooled everyone else at one point or another. She was not Erithusme and never had been. She was a mortal girl in a trap. Weepy, weak, besotted with a boy who might already be dead, caught up in a fight that was never her own. Why had they lavished their love on her, their efforts, their belief? She heard the Mother Prohibitor’s voice from her old, detested school, and knew that the ancient woman had, after all, known her better than she’d known herself. Failure is not an accident. Not a thug who grabs you in an alley. It is an assignation in a darkened house. It is a choice.

They were all pressed flat. Thasha suddenly found Neda gripping her hand, saw that she and Cayer Vispek had reached for others as well. They were praying, praying in Mzithrini. Why hadn’t she studied the language harder? Pazel would laugh. It was a farewell, wasn’t it? Something about knowledge in the last hour, peace when the fight was done.

Some of them had been cut; a mist of blood haloed the blades. Neda turned her head to Thasha. “I am glad to die with you, warrior,” she said. “I am glad you loved him, while you could.”

Something in Neda’s voice changed Thasha forever. There was no sign of daybreak, yet she was flooded with light, with certainty. She knew who she was, and who she had been; and she knew that Arunis had been right to fear her. She could have swept him away like dust from her hands. She could have seized the Stone before he lifted a finger, pounded his body a mile into the earth, hurled him into the clouds and let him fall. She could feel the edges of that power, almost taste it on her tongue. It had slumbered inside her, untapped for years, laid away like firewood against the winter, this winter, this moment of need.

Thasha’s eyes streamed with tears. All that power was waiting, but not for her. Yes, she had been Erithusme. And Thasha Isiq-that girl had been an invention, a disguise, a hiding place when the sorceress stood cornered by her foes, expecting to be killed. Cornered (it must have been) very close to the big house on Maj Hill, in Etherhorde, where lived one admiral’s wife, Clorisuela Isiq, longing for children she could never have. Thasha could picture the bargain: a daughter born sound and healthy, in exchange for one chamber of her mind in which to hide my soul. A pact between mage and mother, both desperate in their way. Had they known, even then, that they were creating a hollow shell, a child whom Erithusme would slowly replace?

But like most desperate schemes, this one had failed. For the shell had wanted her life, wanted to breathe and dance and learn and love, and Erithusme had been powerless to stop her. Year by year the mortal girl’s mind had grown stronger, bolder, and the great mage had retreated. As with the Waking Spell, Erithusme had misjudged the riotous strength of life, its habit of mutiny, its defiance. Thasha’s mind called out to Ramachni, vicious with despair. If only I had withered, died inside, the way you wanted. Then you’d have your champion, then you’d win.

He answered fiercely: No, Thasha! That was never the plan!

But of course it was. Erithusme would have had a new body, just as Arunis had once seized the body of a prison guard. And the whole, pointless shadow-play of Thasha’s life, from her first breath in the midwife’s hands to her shudder of joy in Pazel’s arms-would have been expunged, spat out, blackened and unmade.

I’m so sorry, Ramachni. I can die for this fight. I can’t go back and not have lived.

Thasha, you have felt her power; it is yours and yours alone, if only you No!

She blotted out his voice-and that other voice, that woman’s. They were trying to take everything from her. Past, future, lovers, life. Worse, they were trying to make her renounce it. Maybe she could wish that her soul had died, leaving her body for Erithusme. But she hadn’t. She was here, a woken animal called human, and she would live until those blades struck her down.

“Hold fast!” cried Vispek suddenly. “Neda and I are going to stand up. Our bodies may stop the blades, or deflect them-”

“No!” cried the others, trying to restrain them.

“Do not interfere! There is no other-”

“Wait, Cayer,” said Ramachni.

Atop the wall, behind Arunis and the idiot, a third figure appeared. It was Pazel, crawling up from the inside of the wall, rising unsteadily to his feet. Stealth in his movements, Fiffengurt’s blackjack in his hand; and just as Thasha felt the first nick of the whirling blades he stepped forward and struck the idiot a crushing blow to the head.

The blades were gone. The pit was gone. On the wall, the idiot crumpled, and the Nilstone slipped from his fingers. Arunis whirled and lunged at Pazel, lifted him by the neck-then tossed him down again as he saw his prize rolling slowly, inexorably, toward the edge of the wall.

Thasha gasped: her despair was gone as well. Everything had slowed except her mind, her hammering heart. She saw Arunis diving for the Nilstone; saw her hand groping along Hercol’s twisted arm, saw the mage seize the Stone and topple with it over the wall, saw herself sprint forward to meet him, weightless, almost laughing. She saw his lips move, his hands blackening where they gripped the Stone; saw a dark hole open in the river and something leap like a fish into the sky; saw the perfection in herself as she swung Ildraquin and severed Arunis’ head from his body before he struck the ground.