The Warlord's legacy

Chapter Twelve

THE CORRIDORS OF THE HALL of Meeting felt a lot more claustrophobic than they had mere minutes prior. Irrial could have sworn the walls were actually closing in, the doors transforming into prison bars. Not even the carpet muffled the tread of the soldiers who pressed in from all sides, reverberating in unison, the inexorable march of time itself.

She knew the plan-such as it was-for they'd both acknowledged the possibility of capture, but damn it all, if Corvis didn't act soon, she wasn't going to wait for him!

Two guards strode before her, broad shoulders and hauberks blocking her view of the hallway, while the other four marched behind. Irrial didn't need to look, for she could feel their looming presence, and the skin between her shoulder blades twinged nervously at the thought of those brutal crossbows.

Corvis walked beside her in a peculiar slouch, shoulders slumped and head hanging. He lurked at the corners of her vision, where detail blurred like moist watercolor, and she thought she saw his lips moving.

Almost time, then.

Her hand grew clammy, her breathing tight. "When it starts," he'd told her, "all I need is for you to keep them off me." A simple enough proposition, in theory. But what if-?

Corvis waited until they drew even with a branching passageway, the intersection providing a bit more room to maneuver than the narrow halls, and then he collapsed. With a pained, sepulchral groan, he struck the floor, limp as a boned trout. He landed facing away from Irrial and guards alike, and the noblewoman could only trust that he was maintaining his near-silent concentration.

Not being utter imbeciles, the soldiers reacted swiftly, calmly. The two in front knelt beside the fallen prisoner, one checking for pulse or fever, the other keeping tight grip on the hilt of his sword in case this should prove some feeble ruse. The remaining four clustered around Irrial, blocking any possible escape with their bodies while keeping their arbalests trained on Corvis.

The thought that the freckle-faced baroness might prove the greater threat had clearly never crossed their minds.

Irrial took her cane in both hands and yanked. For an instant, the walking stick seemed to come smoothly apart, before the illusion that Corvis had wrapped around it-subtle, static, far harder to detect than that which cloaked his own features-unraveled. In her left hand, Irrial clutched two thin strips of wood, wrapped in a leather thong to form a makeshift scabbard; in her right, a narrow, long-bladed sword, the weapon of a duelist rather than a soldier.

A sword whose blade was etched from tip to hilt with spidery runes and wavering figures. Even surrounded by enemies on all sides, it was all she could do to keep her focus off the whispers and urges that crawled through her mind, weevils hatched from the demonic spirit of the thing in her hand.

The baroness struck in both directions at once. The crude scabbard slammed one guard across the bridge of his nose, cracking wood and cartilage alike, while Sunder cleaved through a second mercenary's crossbow, rendering it so much junk. Dropping the shattered wood, she drove her knee into the groin of the man whose weapon she'd just obliterated. He doubled over in an awkward bow and Irrial thrust Sunder over his head, stabbing into the shoulder of yet a third guard. She prayed it would be enough to keep him out of the fight…

The last of the four drew his own blade and thrust brutally at her chest. Irrial leapt aside, sweeping Sunder in a desperate parry, awkward but impossibly swift. She heard the creak of leather and mail as the pair behind her rose from Corvis's side, but could not spare a moment to glance their way. She could only keep moving and hope that they'd recognize the distinct possibility of skewering their fellow guards before pulling the triggers on those crossbows.

Apparently they did, for no bolts flew. Instead she sensed a presence looming behind, twisted, then stabbed Sunder down into the thigh of the approaching man. He screamed, clutching at the gaping wound.

But the second soldier hurled himself bodily at Irrial's legs, knocking them out from under her. She fell hard, and only the thick carpeting saved her from a cracked skull. A broad-shouldered man, nose battered and bleeding, knelt painfully on Irrial's left arm, while the fellow she'd kneed stomped brutally on her other wrist. Despite herself she cried out, and felt Sunder slide from her spasming fingers.

"Cerris!" she cried out, trying desperately to peer past the shapes gathered around and atop her. No help there, she noted gravely; he lay on the carpet where he'd fallen. The guard who'd nearly gutted her now stood over him, sword held to his throat. Footsteps sounded in the hall, and another dozen guards appeared from around the corners and through various doors, drawn by the commotion.

Well, Irrial thought bitterly, that could have gone better. They were in worse trouble now than they'd been, without the slightest indication that Corvis's plan had even-

More footsteps, again from both sides. Guards and prisoners alike strained their necks first this way then that, desperate to see.

What they saw were Guildmasters and barons, knights and earls-perhaps eight or nine in total. Some wielded swords, some daggers, some chair legs or other makeshift clubs, but all wore that subtle, preoccupied look Irrial had seen upon so many faces earlier that day. And in the lead, bludgeon held high, was Mubarris, master of the Cartwrights' and Carpenters' Guild.

They were a rockslide of living, panting, foolish-looking flesh, ready to dash themselves to bloody bits against the bulwark of the assembled mercenaries. Stronger, more numerous, better equipped, and far better trained, the soldiers could have slaughtered the lot without breaking a sweat.

But these were their employers, men and women they'd been hired to protect. Confusion stayed the warriors' hands for a precious instant before self-preservation usurped control, and in that time the blades and bludgeons landed. Blood seeped into the formerly expensive carpeting, and the first soldier fell without having raised a finger.

The shock of the unprovoked assault faded, and the remaining mercenaries responded as mercenaries do. Crossbows thrummed, blades swung, and bodies toppled.

Irrial felt the pressure on her arms ease up as the guards holding her rose to deal with this new threat. She surged to her feet, reaching for Sunder.

Corvis, who had rolled from beneath his captor in his own moment of distraction, got there first.

The blade shifted like living clay from dueling sword to brutal axe, and the aging warlord began to kill. Irrial flinched from the butchery, the deaths of men and women who had committed no evil, but were simply doing the job for which they'd been hired. But when Corvis stopped for an instant at her side, extending, hilt-first, the sword he'd yanked from a mercenary's hand even as he'd ripped Sunder from the fellow's chest, she sighed and accepted the blade. And when Corvis waded into the thick of the melee, chopping down soldiers like saplings, she was at his back, stabbing and lunging. She would survive, she would escape, no matter what it took.

For Rahariem's sake, perhaps for all Imphallion's.

She had no choice. THEY RACED ALONG THE HIGHWAY, kicking up a cloud of dust as thick as a desert sandstorm. For more than an hour they'd galloped, Corvis desperately casting a handful of spells to keep the horses fresh.

Alas, he had no similar spells to protect his aching rump from the punishment of their grueling pace.

They left behind a capitol in chaos. Over two dozen guards, and perhaps four or five aristocrats and Guildmasters, lay butchered throughout the Hall of Meeting. Nobody seemed sure precisely how it had happened, for Corvis's surviving "minions" had once more been mystically coerced never to speak of what had occurred, and none of the soldiers who'd been present had survived. The former warlord had every reason to hope it would be some time before anyone in authority even knew for certain that they had escaped-and even longer until they could mount any sort of pursuit.

None of which was even remotely enough to convince him to slow down, no matter that his entire body throbbed like one big saddle sore.

Eventually, however, they reached the limits of Corvis's modest magics. The horses began to tire, their sides lathered, and though he'd have liked to cover a few additional miles, Corvis reluctantly reined in his mount and guided the laboring beast off the road. For only a few moments more they continued, until they found themselves on the cracked banks of what, during cooler months, would have been a stream. A few puddles of muddy water remained, and the horses gratefully submerged their noses as though planning to dive in and float away.

Irrial wilted from the saddle with an extended groan.

"You're starting to remind me of bagpipes," Corvis joked weakly as he, too, flopped to the dirt. He knew she must be exhausted when she couldn't even muster a glare.

"I'm sorry," he wheezed at her, taking a huge gulp from his waterskin. "But it's not just foot pursuit I'm worried about. I don't know what sorts of sorcerers the Guilds might have access to these days. Our best defense really is distance at this point. And-"

"I didn't ask," she told him flatly. And that, throughout the sweltering summer night and into the next morning, was the end of the conversation. "SO WHY DON'T YOU DO THAT more often?" she asked while they saddled the horses, after a cold breakfast of salted venison and dried fruits.

"Do…?"

"That spell." She hauled herself into the saddle, wincing at the pains in her back and thighs that hadn't faded overnight. "The one you cast on the horses. Don't misunderstand, I've no interest in enduring that on a regular basis, but it would save us a lot of time."

"Dangerous," he told her, standing beside his own roan, one hand resting idly in the stirrup. "It's far too easy to kill the horses-either by pushing them too hard, or just from the strain of the spell itself. If we hadn't been so damn desperate yesterday, I'd never have risked it." Still he stood, idly tapping a finger on the leather, and made no move to mount.

"Problem?" she asked.

"Maybe…" He frowned.

"Don't tell me: You have no idea what to do next?"

"Oh, I have some thoughts. It's just…" He sighed, and his expression became even more dour. Much as he'd have liked to hide it, any observer-let alone one who knew him as well as Irrial-would probably have suspected that he was frightened of something.

"I didn't really expect we'd find all our answers in Mecepheum," he admitted, "but I'd hoped. If we're to go chasing leads all over Daltheos's creation, there's someone I have to see first."

"Someone you think has answers?"

"Someone I think has questions."

"Um… All right," she said finally. "So where are we going?"

"Give me a minute." Then, at her expression, "I don't actually know, Irrial. Ever since my first campaign, I've cast a particular spell on my lieutenants. It lets me locate them far more easily than I could with any traditional divination."

Irrial shook her head. "I can't imagine why anyone could ever mistrust you. So we're looking for one of your lieutenants, then?"

"Ah, no." Corvis was clearly hedging now. "I, uh, I've also cast that spell on… On someone else I thought I might need to find."

"Fine. So get to-whatever it is you need to get to, already."

Corvis leaned against the stirrup, lost in deliberation. Distance, direction… He spread a mental map of Imphallion across his vision, and if they'd come roughly as far from Mecepheum as he thought they had, then that meant…

He couldn't quite repress a groan. They'd been there! They'd passed through on their way to Mecepheum! She'd been so near, if he'd only known to look!

Could that, come to think of it, have been what his dream had been trying to tell him?

"Where to?" Irrial asked again.

"Abtheum. We're going back to Abtheum." CORVIS LEANED BACK IN HIS CHAIR, the shredded remnants of egg and pork sitting on the table before him, and idly ran a whetstone along an edge of steel. The metal rasped and screeched through the common room of Whatever The Hell This Latest Roadside Inn Was Called. The barkeep scowled from across the counter, but because there were few paying customers this early in the day-just Corvis himself and a few bleary fellows who'd drunkenly slept the night away in that very room-he didn't quite seem willing to object.

"It's not going to get any sharper if I do it outside," Corvis said casually. The man began fussing with something behind the bar. Corvis continued to work, and the steel continued to shriek.

Sunder, of course, never needed sharpening, but the same couldn't be said for Irrial's sword. He'd shown the baroness the proper way to hone the blade, but he trusted his technique more than hers.

Rasp, shriek. Shriek, rasp.

"How did you get that?" a familiar voice demanded.

He looked up as Irrial dropped into the seat across from him. "I'm sneaky."

"Apparently. You stay the hell out of my room."

"Yes, my lady."

Shriek, rasp.

He'd hoped her mood might have improved at least a little this morning. During the previous day's travels, they'd passed several detachments of infantry. Men and women, their faces grim-clad in padded armor, pikes resting on shoulders-marched east beneath the banners of four different noble Houses. One unit had been led by a team of steel-encased knights on horseback; another time, they'd seen an entire squad of knights, and their squires, upon the property of a vast estate, making ready for war. It seemed that, even without the backing of the Guilds, at least a few of Imphallion's nobles were finally preparing to mobilize against the invaders.

It was the most hopeful sign they'd yet seen, but Irrial seemed to draw no hope from it. "They'll all be killed," she'd said simply when Corvis raised the topic last night, and given their numbers, he'd been unable to argue the point.

She was clearly no more cheerful today.

"Shouldn't we be getting on the road?" she asked him.

"You haven't breakfasted."

"I'm not hungry."

"You will be. I'll wait."

Rasp, shriek.

"You're nervous!" It was uttered with the reverence of revelation.

"No, I…" Corvis finally ceased his efforts, much to the barkeep's patent relief. "Maybe," he admitted grudgingly. "There's a lot left unsaid between us."

"I'll just bet." Then, more softly, "Rebaine? Why?"

He winced at the use of his real name, but a quick glance suggested that nobody had overheard. "Why was there a lot left unsaid between-?"

"No."

"Ah." Well, he'd known it had to come eventually.

Corvis propped the sword against the chair and craned his neck back as though reading the past in the dust and cobwebs along the ceiling. "Would any answer I could give make any difference, Irrial?"

"Probably not. Try anyway."

"Because Imphallion was dying-is dying. Slowly rotting away, while a few parasites grow fat off its diseased wounds. The cities grow corrupt and stagnant, while small villages starve. The Guilds want only to make themselves rich, and the nobility are too weak, and often too selfish, to stand up to them.

"I wanted to change that. I wanted to make Imphallion great again. Not just for me, but for everyone."

"And if you had to kill a few thousand people to do it, well, that was just fair trade, was it?" Clearly she didn't believe a word of it. "Was it worth those lives? The lives of my friends and my family?"

"Yes," he told her without hesitation. "If it had worked out the way that I'd planned, absolutely." Then, more softly, "I'm just… not sure anymore that it would have. Even if I'd won."

Irrial rose, swept up her sword, and disappeared back up the stairs, leaving the former conqueror alone with his thoughts.

"Hello, Cerris."

Through the open door, Corvis stared through time, listened to a voice carried from the past on a gentle breath. He knew she must have changed in five years, but damn if he could see it. Only the faint circles under her eyes were new.

"Hello, Tyannon."

Silence, for a while. Then, "I hate the beard. It makes you look old."

"No, the fact that I'm getting old makes me look old. The beard just makes me look hairy." He watched, expectant, but the smile he'd hoped to elicit never appeared. "You don't seem surprised to see me," he added finally.

"I'm not." Tyannon stepped back from the door. "You'd better come in, both of you." She punched the word both perhaps a bit harder than she'd needed to.

"Ah. Tyannon, this is the Baroness Irrial, of Rahariem. Lady Irrial, Tyannon. My wi-my former wife."

"My lady." Tyannon somehow managed to curtsy without breaking stride.

"Tyannon."

They were in the dining room, now, though Corvis had no memory of taking a single step. Habit, rather than courtesy, kept him on his feet until the women were seated-habit, and perhaps more than a touch of confusion. He finally selected a chair beside Irrial and across from Tyannon, and couldn't help but wonder if he'd chosen properly.

"The children?" he asked softly.

"They're fine," she said, voice tight.

"Could I-?"

"No, that's not a good idea. Anyway, they're not here."

Corvis found himself scowling. "Damn it, Tyannon, I'm not going to hurt them. I just want to see-"

"You've already hurt them more than enough, thanks."

"Gods damn it, you're the one who left! You…" He stopped at the pain shooting through his hands, startled to find himself pounding the edge of the table without even realizing it. Corvis examined his fist, as though unsure what it was. Tyannon watched him. Irrial watched them both, her face unreadable.

"But they're all right?" Corvis asked finally, rather than retort to the voice only he could hear. "You're all doing well?"

"As well as can be expected. Cerris, why are you here?"

Tyannon, he couldn't help but note, hadn't even bothered to ask how he'd found her. Either she had a pretty good guess, or she didn't want to know.

Or both.

'You should tell her anyway,' the ugly inner voice suggested. 'Don't you think she'd love to know about your spell? About how much you actually trusted her? Come on, it'll be funny!'

"I suppose you've heard the rumors?"

She nodded brusquely. "From some fairly reliable sources."

"I didn't do it, Tyannon. I've been in Rahariem until just recently. I haven't murdered anyone."

'Oh? Those Cephiran soldiers, and the guards in Mecepheum, they just dropped dead on their own, did they?'

"You came all this way just to tell me that?" She sounded-not doubtful, exactly, just vaguely astonished. "Why?"

"I just… needed you to know."

"And I'm supposed to believe you?"

Corvis felt as though he'd been slapped; the chair literally rocked back beneath him as he flinched. "You-I… Tyannon, I've never lied to-"

"Don't you dare!" Even Irrial, off to the side, cringed from the venom in Tyannon's voice.

"I didn't," Corvis insisted, his own tone pleading. "I promised you an end to it, and I meant it! It wasn't the same-"

"Magic? Charms? Mind control, Cerris? It's exactly the same thing!

It-"

"No, I-"

Irrial coughed, deliberately, just once. It cut through the argument like an assassin's dagger.

"I'm sorry," she said, "and I truly don't wish to be rude. But I have to guess that this particular disagreement is one you've had before, and I don't think we've the time to try to settle it now."

The glares Tyannon and Corvis hurled her way were identical, a tiny indication of how close they'd once been.

"She's right, you know," Corvis admitted grudgingly.

"Probably. Are you two-together?"

"Absolutely not!"

Irrial's vehement denial, though painful, saved Corvis the trouble of coming up with his own, far more complicated answer. He was, at the very least, heartened to note a swift flash of what might just have been relief cross Tyannon's expression.

'You're a fool. You know that you're a fool, right? I'm sure I must have mentioned it a time or two…'

"But I can assure you," the baroness continued, far more calmly, "that he's telling you the truth. Cerris was in Rahariem, aiding our fight against the Cephiran occupiers. He's not behind these murders."

Tyannon nodded slowly. "I owe you an apology, Cerris. I'm sorry.

"And I'm sorry for your loss," she said to Irrial, perhaps having abruptly made the family connection with Duke Halmon.

"Thank you."

Again the trio sat, none quite looking directly at any other, silent save for the constant commentary in Corvis's head.

"What's happening in Mecepheum?" Tyannon asked finally.

He shrugged. "Same as always. Everyone's running around like a two-assed dog chasing both tails, and nothing's getting done."

She took a deep breath, steeling herself. "What happened, Cerris? Why didn't it work?"

Why did you throw your family away on a gambit that failed?

Corvis sighed, absently fidgeting with the finger that once wore a ring. "Those damn Guilds… I knew they'd fight, but I had no idea they'd…

"I pushed too hard, too fast," he acknowledged finally. "I thought that once I had my people near the top, once I'd arranged for the ascension of a regent who'd make the right decisions, held the right beliefs-"

Irrial inhaled sharply but chose not to interrupt.

"-I thought that'd be it."

Tyannon grimaced. "But the Guilds didn't bend, did they?"

"No. I thought with the amount of pressure I was putting on them, from the nobles and from some of their own members, they'd have no choice. I never thought they could replace so many of their own people, so quickly. I certainly never thought they'd use their economic influence to force Halmon to abdicate." He grinned, a rictus without a trace of mirth, a sickly echo of the helm he'd once worn. "I always thought of the Guilds as weak. I guess, when it came to defending themselves, I underestimated them."

Irrial apparently couldn't keep silent any longer. "You arranged for my cousin to become regent? How much power did you have?"

Corvis shrugged. "Not enough, obviously."

'There's no such thing. You should have learned that long ago.'

"I don't understand. If you hate the Guilds so much, what were you doing as 'Cerris the Merchant'?"

"I couldn't just leave things the way they were," he told her. "Imphallion was in worse shape than ever, and part of that was my fault. But another military campaign wasn't an option. I'm getting too old for that, and besides…" Here he glanced sidelong across the table. "I gave Tyannon my word that the Terror of the East was dead. Maybe she doesn't believe me, but it's a promise I intend to keep."

His heart skipped a beat as, clearly despite herself, Tyannon smiled.

"So I thought," he continued, "that maybe I could change things from within. There were too many people who might recognize me in Mecepheum, but Rahariem was far enough away while still being economically important. I figured if I could gain power in the Merchants' Guild there, maybe I could use that influence to steer the Guilds."

"But how could you be sure you'd-?" Understanding finally dawned, and Irrial's face purpled. "You forced Danrien to sell you his businesses! You used that same damn spell, didn't you?"

"He got a fair price," Corvis protested.

The women shook their heads in unison.

"So what now?" Tyannon asked.

"Now we find out who's been murdering people in my name," he said simply. "Maybe then we can figure out a way to get the government moving while there's still an Imphallion left to defend."

Tyannon chewed the inside of her cheek, clearly struggling with some decision. "Jassion's hunting you," she said finally.

"What?"

"He was here, looking for you, just a few weeks ago."

Corvis shivered. Despite the intervening years, despite the mystical healing that had dragged him between death's jaws, he occasionally ached where bones had broken, still felt the chafe of manacles on his wrists.

No, he'd sooner die than allow the Baron of Braetlyn to take him alive a second time.

'Pansy.'

"What did you tell him, Tyannon?"

"What could I tell him? I might have helped if I could-I thought you were running around murdering people, remember?-but I didn't know anything."

"How many men does he have?"

"He-just one, I think. His name's Kaleb."

It meant nothing to Corvis. "Well," he said, trying for a lightness he didn't feel, "we'll just have to avoid him, won't we? It's a big kingdom, shouldn't be too hard."

Unsure of what else to say, he rose to his feet. Irrial and Tyannon followed.

"Tyannon, I…" He shook his head. "You won't even tell the kids I was here, will you?"

"No," she said softly. "I don't think so."

"If you change your mind…" His voice cracked, and he swallowed hard. The room was starting to blur. "If you change your mind, tell them I love them. And tell them-tell them I really thought I was making the world better for them."

He spun, chair clattering to the floor in his wake, and was gone. TYANNON WATCHED the man she'd loved-or the man she'd thought had become a man she could love-flee the room. The house quivered as he threw the front door open. The other woman, Irrial, bowed swiftly, offered what Tyannon assumed was meant to be a kindly smile, and followed.

Only when she heard the door click shut did Tyannon collapse to the table. Her entire body shook, her shoulders heaved, but now that she finally needed them, the tears wouldn't come.

She'd trained them too well, these past five years.

"Mom?"

She jolted upright. Lilander stood beside her, one hand reaching out as though he didn't really know what to do with it.

"I thought I told you to wait in your room," she said without much weight. She couldn't bring herself to be angry, not now, not with him.

"I couldn't." He sat beside her, not even trying to dissemble-truly a strange state of affairs for a boy his age. "It was all I could do not to come in, Mom. But I had to listen. I had to hear his voice again."

Tyannon's brow creased in worry. Eventually, he'd ask about what he heard, and she'd need an explanation. Eventually-but not now.

"Why didn't you tell him about Mellorin? Maybe he could have gone looking for her."

"That wouldn't have been a good idea, sweetheart."

"Why?"

Because I know damn well she's gone with my brother. And as long as she's with him, I don't want Jassion and your father anywhere near each other.

Tyannon took her son's hands in hers, squeezing as though she'd never let go, and said nothing at all. IT TOOK IRRIAL TWO BLOCKS to catch up with Corvis, who moved with a stiff-legged pace that chewed up distance at a startling rate. Clearly he wanted nothing more than to leave that house behind.

"We could have stayed," she told him, dodging a small cluster of workmen in the street and falling into step beside him. "At least long enough for you to see your children."

"They weren't there." He refused to look at her. "And Tyannon wouldn't have let me stay until they got back."

"I think maybe they were," Irrial argued. "Did you notice she always called you Cerris?"

He shrugged. "Doesn't mean anything. She called me that as often as she did Corvis. And especially now…" Another shrug.

Irrial's expression clouded. Clearly she wasn't sure she believed him-but just as clearly, she knew that now wasn't the time to press it. "I'm sorry," she told him gently, and anyone watching would have been hard pressed to decide which of them looked more surprised that she'd said it.

Through the day's moderate traffic, and the occasional squad of soldiers moving to join the eastern nobles' haphazard mobilization, they wound their way, each lost in very different thoughts. And so they might have continued, had it not been for a soft, high-pitched cry from off to the left.

"Corvis!"

He froze in the center of the road, and his neck ached as he fought the panicked instinct to glance about him. Nobody here should have known to call him by that name! If he'd been recognized, it was only a matter of instants before…

But no. A few people glared at him for blocking traffic, but it appeared nobody else had heard the call. Even Irrial, who'd continued several steps before noticing that he'd stopped, seemed bewildered.

"Corvis! Over here!"

He focused on a narrow gap between a winery and a baker's. Irrial must have heard it, too, this time, for she was peering intently the same way.

"Trap?" she whispered.

"Maybe, but I think we'd better find out."

They approached warily, hands on hilt and haft. Their eyes watered and noses stung at the miasma of uncontrolled and unintended fermentation, an indication that both neighboring establishments thought nothing of dumping their dregs in the alley. Beetles, roaches, and rats scurried through the detritus. One particularly large, mangy rat approached them with a peculiar stagger, and Corvis almost chuckled, wondering if it had gotten itself drunk on the rotting sludge.

Then the rat looked up at him and said, "Hello, Corvis," in that same high tone, and he started to wonder if he was the one who'd somehow gotten accidentally drunk.

Irrial gulped loudly beside him, her jaw hanging open, and Corvis actually felt better. It meant he wasn't going insane.

'Not about that, anyway.'

On the heels of that realization, a second swiftly followed, and he knew, with an abrupt certainty, what was happening. An enormous grin split his beard as he knelt to meet the rodent's beady eyes.

"Why, hello, Seilloah."

The rat blinked and appeared to notice Irrial for the first time. Whiskers and tail twitched in agitation. "So, uh, Cerris…" it-she-began nervously.

"It's all right, Seilloah. She knows pretty much everything."

Another blink. "Was that wise?"

Corvis shrugged. "I'll let you know. Seilloah, this is Baroness Irrial. Irrial, Seilloah."

"Charmed," the rat said.

"She's a rat" was Irrial's brilliant reply.

"She's a witch, actually," Corvis told her. "She's just inhabiting a rat."

"But it's talking. How can she make it talk?"

He couldn't help but smile, remembering the first time he and Seilloah had held a similar conversation. Echoing what she'd told him then, he asked, "Are you telling me that you've no problem accepting the fact that she can mind-control a rat, but it bothers you that she can make it speak?"

Seilloah snickered. Irrial just shook her head. "I don't think I'll ever really understand magic."

"That's why it's magic." Corvis turned back to his smaller companion. "Not that I'm not glad to see you, Seilloah, but surely there was an easier way. Where are you actually…?" Without really thinking about it, he focused, casting his mind along the mystic tethers he'd fastened to all his lieutenants, the same spell he'd used to keep track of Tyannon. And he found…

Nothing.

"Um, Seilloah? I'm not getting any sense of-um, of you."

Somehow, she twisted the tiny snout into an approximation of a sad smile. "That's because this is all that's left of me, Corvis. I'm-well, I'm dead."

Corvis felt the alleyway tilting. He fell back against the wall, slid to sit in a sludgy heap of refuse. "My gods, Seilloah. What…?"

"Jassion came to Theaghl-gohlatch."

"I'll kill him." Corvis felt blood pounding in his temples, saw the bricks of the opposite wall waver in and out. He'd lost friends, lost family, but Seilloah? He'd always thought of the graceful witch as eternal. "I don't bloody care whose brother he is, I'll gods damn kill him!"

"Well, I should certainly expect so," Seilloah said primly.

"Corvis," Irrial said, kneeling at his side, "keep it down." She tilted her head toward the street. "So far, we're just getting the occasional odd look for sitting in this filthy alley, but if you start raving…"

Fists clenched, he rose to his feet, pausing just long enough to lift the rat from the ground-and this close, the creature looked sickly indeed-and place it on his shoulder. Lips pressed tight, he stepped from the alley, glaring at anyone who looked his way, daring them to say a word. "THE SPELL WAS NEVER MEANT TO WORK this way," Seilloah explained some time later, as they sat huddled in a cramped, dusty room on the second floor of an inn so cheap that even the bedbugs were obviously slumming. On the way, they'd explained to the witch everything they knew about what was happening, what wasn't happening, and why. Once they'd arrived, Irrial had claimed the room's only chair, brushing aside the cobwebs before she sat, while Corvis perched on the edge of the sagging mattress. The witch herself was holding court from the center of a rickety table.

"But I was desperate," she continued. "I didn't know what else to do, and I had to warn you."

"Thank you," he told her, his voice rough with repressed emotion. "How long…?"

"I don't know, Corvis. It's so hard… My mind keeps drifting. And these poor creatures, they can't contain a human soul for long. This is my-I don't know, I've lost count. At least my sixth or seventh body since I left Theaghl-gohlatch, and I can feel it dying. Sooner or later, one of them will die around me, and I won't have the strength to move on." The tip of her tail twitched, drawing patterns on the dusty tabletop. "But I'll stay with you for as long as I have left, Corvis. And I'll help where I can."

He nodded, swallowing hard. "Can you work your magics?"

"It's harder than it was, sometimes a lot. But yes. That's how I found you, actually. I just traced back the spell you'd cast on me."

"But that spell was cast on your body. If it's-you're-dead, how…?"

"I'm a better magician than you are." Again she managed a faint smile. "Even as a rat."

"I can't believe we're having this conversation," Irrial muttered. Then, "Who's Jassion? You never gave me the chance to ask when Tyannon mentioned him."

"The baron of a seaside province called Braetlyn," he told her, biting each word in two as it emerged. "He's a cruel-minded, vicious bastard with a piss-boiling temper and a chip on his shoulder the size of hell's own gate. Which is where I should have sent him a long bloody time ago."

'Finally! We agree on something.'

"Corvis," the witch said seriously, "have you horribly irritated any powerful wizards lately?"

"Not that I know of. Why?"

"Jassion's companion. Kaleb."

Irrial and Corvis exchanged glances. "We've heard the name," he told her, "but I don't know him."

"Well, he knows you. And he's a bad one. Maybe even as strong as Rheah Vhoune was."

Corvis pursed his lips, remembering the woman who'd been one of his most potent foes before the threat of Audriss the Serpent had forced them into an uneasy alliance. "There aren't supposed to be any sorcerers that powerful anymore. Well, not in Imphallion, anyway."

"Somebody should have told Kaleb that."

"Maybe he's not Imphallian," Irrial suggested, determined to contribute despite understanding only half the conversation. "Could he be Cephiran?"

"He didn't have a Cephiran accent," Seilloah said thoughtfully, "but that doesn't prove anything. Hell, he could be Tharsuuli for all I know." She paused, snout tilting as she examined Corvis. "Could he be?" she asked. "After what happened to you up north, could the Dragon Kings have sent him?"

Corvis shuddered. "Gods, I hope not. That's all we need." Then, at Irrial's puzzled expression, "Before I came to Rahariem. It's a long story, for some other time."

She frowned, but nodded. "Isn't this all a bit academic, anyway?" she asked. "Shouldn't we be more worried about what we're going to do about this Kaleb? We can figure out where he's from later."

"She has a point," Seilloah squeaked. "You're a better caster than you used to be, Corvis, but I'm not telling you anything you don't know when I say you're still not all that impressive. And I couldn't match Kaleb at my best, let alone now."

"I see that being a rodent has done wonders for your sunny disposition," he grumbled.

She inhaled deeply, hesitantly, a truly peculiar image in her current form. Then, tentatively, "Pekatherosh?"

Corvis's face went hard. "No. Absolutely not, under no circumstances."

'For once, old boy, we are in complete agreement. You leave that pompous pustule right where he is.'

"We may need that sort of power, Corvis."

"Because it worked out so well last time? No, not a chance."

"I don't suppose one of you would care to let me in on this?" Irrial demanded sharply.

"Corvis…"

"She's a part of all this, Seilloah. She deserves to know." He faced the baroness. "When I was…" He cast about for a tactful description.

"Butchering your way across Imphallion on the backs of a thousand innocents?" she interjected helpfully.

"Um, right. The magics at my disposal weren't limited to my own. I had an amulet, a charm if you will. It made me the equal of any true sorcerer, if not stronger.

"It was also inhabited by a demon, who gave it its power. A truly loathsome creature called Khanda." He braced internally when he spoke the name, ready for a withering barrage of commentary from the voice that was either his memory of the demon, or some tiny remnant sliver of Khanda himself. But for a change, he seemed to be alone in his mind.

Irrial scowled. "Every time I think you can't sink any lower…"

"The point"-he bulled ahead, refusing to be sidetracked-"is that Audriss had a demon of his own, imprisoned in a ring. Pekatherosh. At the end of the Serpent's War, I banished Khanda back to hell, but I'd gotten hold of Pekatherosh as well. I didn't know if I'd need that sort of power again, so I entombed the ring in a cave atop Mount Molleya, in the Terrakas Mountains."

"And now that you do need him," Seilloah said, "you're not going to retrieve him?"

"I've learned a lot since then," Corvis said quietly. "About who and what I am. And I won't have my life resting in the hands of a demon again. Not ever."

"That's all very well and good," Irrial said after a moment of silence. "I might even admit to being a little bit impressed that you really do seem to be trying to put the Terror of the East behind you."

Corvis smiled, startled. "Well, thank y-"

"But it doesn't," she continued, the rickety chair creaking alarmingly as she leaned forward, "help us much in deciding what to do next."

To that, neither the former witch nor the former warlord had an answer.