The Wizard's Fate

Chapter 17

The next morning, after a whirlwind of preparations, Tol rode out with Early Stumpwater as his only companion. It was brilliantly cold, the sky clear as a dome of polished sapphire. All around them the land glittered under a heavy frost, every weed, every tree limb, and every sheaf of grain silvered with frozen dew. Tol was astride a tall black war-horse chosen from the imperial stables for his formidable strength and stamina, and in spite of the prickly temper that had earned him the nickname Tetchy. He led a pack horse laden with gear and provisions. Early was mounted on a white-maned sorrel pony he’d christened Longhound, after a dog, he’d ridden as a child.

After the fashion of his race, the kender’s name seemed a slippery issue. When, at the Inner City gate, guards asked his name for the daily log; he told them, “Early Thistledown.” A short time later, after regaling Tol with a wild tale about his adventures in the eastern lands beyond the Thel Mountains, the kender declared, “And that’s the true story of how I rescued the chief of the Karad-shu tribe, or my name isn’t Early Foxfire!”

Kiya was still asleep as Tol prepared to depart, after haranguing him late into the evening about risking this mission without her; he didn’t wake her. He left her a goodly purse of gold to live on in his absence, as well as two scrolls. The one sealed with red wax was a legal document, giving Kiya her freedom and absolving her of all obligations to him. Under Ergothian law a widow was liable for her spouse’s debts, monetary and social. It was not unheard of for a surviving wife to be forced into marriage with a man to whom her late husband owed money. Tol had no such debts, but he wanted to be certain Kiya would be unencumbered.

The second document was closed with white wax, as was customary with wills. Over the years Tol had amassed quite a fortune in war bounties and imperial largesse. In the will, drawn up by Felryn over a year ago while they were still fighting the Tarsans, he left everything to Miya, Kiya, and Egrin, and made bequests of gold to certain old comrades like Darpo. The millstone, listed among his possessions as “a decorative metal-and-glass artifact of ancient origin,” he left to Valaran. The night before he departed, he had revealed its power to her.

“This is the means by which you’ve always escaped enchantments?” she’d said, staring at the trinket resting in her palm. “It looks like a brooch, and a rather dull one at that!”

He took it back. “Yoralyn told me many lives could be lost if word of its existence got out.”

“She’s right.” Valaran the historian put a hand to her chin, thinking hard. “Pakin Zan himself once owned a nullstone. He sacked the city of Ulladu on the western coast to obtain it from its owner, the priest Gomian.”

“Ulladu? I’ve never heard of it.”

“That’s because Pakin Zan razed it to the ground. Sixty hordes breeched the defenses. Those inhabitants not slain in the battle-men and women, young and old-were forced to sift the wreckage of their city with sieves until Gomian’s treasure was found, then they were executed. Burned alive, if I recall correctly.”

Once again, he was struck by the calmness with which she could relate the most horrific information. He didn’t know if this was due to her scholarly detachment or to her upbringing in the imperial palace, where plots, assassinations, and massacres were common occurrences. Perhaps it was a little of both.

“What became of Pakin Zan’s nullstone?” he asked.

She looped a stray strand of hair behind her left ear, and for a moment was again the bookish girl hiding in an alcove, reading dusty tomes.

“A rook stole it from him.”

As Pakin Zan lay on his deathbed in the palace, a large Mack rook had flown in a window and plucked the millstone from the dying emperor’s neck. Onlookers could only watch helplessly; Pakin Zan’s strictest edict decreed death to anyone who touched his amulet. The rook flew away with the ancient artifact, never to be seen again.

Some authorities, Valaran said, held the bird was simply attracted by the shiny metal. Others believed the rook was the familiar of a sorcerer or rogue spellcaster, perhaps even the Silvanesti mage Vedvedsica himself. In the intervening twelve decades, no millstones had surfaced. Until Tol’s.

Tol gripped her hands tightly and stared into her green eyes. “You will keep this secret?”

She did not wince or shrink away. “I have forgotten it already,” she replied calmly.

As he and Early clopped through the frozen farmland in the cold light of morning, Tol was melancholy. Departing without saying good-bye to Kiya had left him with an odd, unfinished feeling. Through strange turns of fate, she was the only companion of his youth still with him. Miya was married and soon would bear Elicarno’s child. Egrin ruled in the emperor’s name back in Juramona. Darpo scoured the seas in command of the imperial fleet. And so many of his other brothers in arms were dead-Narren, Felryn, Frez-

For the first time in his life, Tol felt old. Though wrapped in fur, his knees ached and old wounds pained him. The deep stab wound in his side, courtesy of his one-time friend Crake, was particularly troublesome when the air was this chilly. More than that, he felt lonely. He’d survived so many of his friends, and so many enemies, too. Surprising how much a fellow could miss his enemies.

“-until the whole house collapsed!”

Tol’s wandering attention returned. “What?”

“That’s how I became chief food taster for King Lucklyn. Weren’t you listening?” Early said, a little exasperated. Tufts of hair, stiff as broomstraw, protruded from his fur hood, framing his face with an orange fringe.

“Remarkable,” Tol replied, though he’d heard none of the tale. “How fares Lucklyn’s queen, Casberry? I met her once.”

He’d made the acquaintance of the wizened kender queen when he and his men had gone to Hylo to find XimXim. Upon learning they had vanquished the monster, Queen Casberry fined Tol for hunting out of season.

“Oh, Cas is gone.”

“Gone? You mean dead?”

“No, no. She left on a tour of Balifor the same day Lucklyn returned from his long walkabout.”

“Was it affairs of state that separated them again, after they’d been apart so long?”

Early gave him a disbelieving look. “I thought you said you’d met Queen Casberry?” Tol laughed.

Putting aside his own worries, Tol found the kender a diverting companion. Early had an endless supply of droll, bizarre, and amusing stories, including one explaining the origin of the topknot hairstyle so many of his people wore. Tol blushed like a new bride when he heard that one.

They rode northeast all day, through empty orchards and harvested fields. Tol stayed off the main road, wanting to make it more difficult for spies to track their progress.Well after sunset, Tol finally called a halt, and they camped in a windbreak of pines. The woods were silent. All sensible creatures were either hibernating or had shifted to warmer climes. Early settled on the other side of the small campfire, making a tent of his blanket. Only the tip of his nose and frosty puffs of breath betrayed his presence. Frost formed on the horsehair blanket Tol draped over his head.

Hypnotized by the flickering flames, Tol slept sitting up, Number Six lying across his lap. In the oblique, abrupt way of dreams, he found himself sharing the fire with two robed figures, one seated on each side of him.

At first the two seemed identical, cowled in dark gray fabric, their faces invisible. Tol tried to speak but could make no sound. Even so, he was not afraid. There was no telltale flicker of heat, so magic wasn’t at work. This was only a dream.

The figure on his left slowly leaned forward, hands extending from the sleeves of his heavy gray robe. The right hand was white, with short fingers, the left dark and lean. A memory of the apparition on the bowsprit of the galleot Quarrel flashed into Tol’s mind; it too had had mismatched hands. After a slight hesitation, the phantom on the right made the same motion; his hands were both dark.

The fire hissed and popped. Sparks lofted skyward, winking out against a background of brilliant stars. Rising above the sputter of burning wood came other sounds-indistinct, rapid whispers. Gradually, the scratchy sounds resolved into words.

Go back! Go back!

The words came from the specter on his left, the one with mismatched hands.

Tol tried again to speak, and this time he could. “I will not go back! “he stated.

There is grave danger. This came from the apparition on the right, yet its voice seemed identical to the first.

“I will not turn back,” Tol repeated. “Many wrongs must be righted.”

From his left: Go back, or all you love will suffer.

“Who are you?”

The figure with two dark hands pointed through the leaping flames at the other phantom: He is the one you seek.

Tol gripped his sword hilt, and glared at the phantom with mismatched hands. Mandes, of course! The sorcerer must have replaced his lost arm with a limb belonging to someone else.

The shade with mismatched hands gestured sharply. Pay no attention to him. He is dead!

Tol’s heart raced. A name surfaced in his mind, the name of one cherished and lost, one who had dark skin. “Felryn? Felryn, is that you?”

Go back, or all you love will suffer!

The words came from the Mandes figure, and this time there was no doubt they were not a warning, but a threat. Although his limbs felt oddly leaden, Tol shifted the heavy saber off his lap.

Mandes spoke again. Go back, Tol of Juramona. Give up this quest, or each night someone you care about will die!

“No! This matter is between us, Mandes! Leave everyone else out of it!”

He’s afraid, whispered the Felryn shade. You are his doom.

“Protect them, Felryn! Protect Valaran and the rest!”

He can do nothing! He is dead! Mandes said.

With a mighty effort, Tol swung the saber up, laying the blade flat on his right shoulder.

“Nothing short of my own death will keep me from seeing justice done. You will submit to the emperor’s judgment. If you harm anyone else, nothing will prevent me from taking your life-and it won’t be easily done! You’ll die by moments, traitor! I promise you!”

With that, he managed a wild swing of his sword. It swept through the campfire and into the figure with the mismatched hands. There was no sensation of striking cloth or flesh. The blade passed through the specter as through smoke.

Tol lost his balance and pitched headfirst into the fire. He clenched his eyes shut, expecting to feel searing flame.

With a jerk, he came awake. He was sitting upright under his blanket, Number Six cold across his legs. The fire had died to a few glowing embers. By this feeble light he saw his kender companion curled up across from him, frost heavy on his blanket. The horses drowsed nearby, standing so close together their sides touched.

The quiescent horses as much as the undisturbed dirt around the fire told Tol that no one had been present. The millstone was safe in its pouch in the waistband of his smallclothes. Had it been only an ordinary dream, or was Felryn truly warning him?

He stood and stretched his stiffened limbs. With the constellations as his guide, he looked back in the direction of Daltigoth, out of sight below the horizon. Did Valaran sleep peacefully tonight? Were Kiya and Miya well? Would Egrin be safe?

Early shifted in his sleep, snorting as he settled back into deeper slumber. Tol added wood to the fire and listened to his companion’s steady breathing.

Ah, to be a kender and never fret about anything.

As dawn began to brighten the eastern sky, they broke camp and reached the Dalti River just as the sun was clearing the tops of the trees. The simple dirt track they followed, used by cattle herders and itinerant peddlers, ended at the broad, slow-flowing Dalti. There was no bridge, only an anchored ferry. The ferryman’s hut stood on a knoll overlooking the waterway. It was surrounded by empty cattle pens and a ramshackle stable. Smoke seeped from the hut’s chimney. Tol rode up, dismounted, and knocked on the door.

The ferryman was a centaur. Gray-bearded, with a seamed, leathery face, he emerged from the snug house pulling a blanket over his shoulders. His horse’s body was a brown roan color.

“Early,” he grumbled, wiping sleep from his dark eyes.

“That’s me,” replied the kender.

The centaur looked confused. “Early to be travelin’,” he clarified.

Early nodded vigorously, “I am, and this is my partner, Lor-”

“Name’s Loric,” Tol said loudly, not wanting to announce his identity to all and sundry. “My kender friend’s Early.”

“You both are,” the centaur answered, stamping a hoof.

Tol let it drop. They followed the centaur into the ferry station.

The station had been built for a human operator, but the centaur, whose name was Edzar, had long occupied it. The house now resembled a horse barn, devoid of any furniture, its packed dirt floor covered with hay. A fire burned on the hearth, and two iron kettles bubbled there. Edzar offered them oat porridge and sweet cider. Tol gladly accepted the cider. Early had both.

The centaur clamped a gnarled hand around the handle and lifted the cider pot off the fire to fill Tol’s clay cup. Tol was amazed. The twisted iron bale was hot enough to raise blisters on a human hand.

“Where you headed?” asked Edzar.

Fortunately, Early was spooning gray porridge in his mouth and couldn’t answer. “Caergoth,” Tol said.

“Soldier, eh?”

An obvious assumption, what with his war-horse and sword, so he nodded. “Reporting back to my horde in Caergoth.” Edzar’s meager curiosity was satisfied.

He told them they couldn’t depart right away hut must wait to see whether others might come wanting to cross the river. As it was winter and traffic was light, no one else had arrived by midmorning, so the centaur agreed to ferry them alone.

The ferry was ten paces square, worn from many years of use, but a sturdy craft. Still, Tetchy snorted and shook his black head, nervous about leaving solid ground. Early’s mount moved closer to him, and Tetchy quieted instantly. Tol was amused to see the muscular war-horse walk docilely aboard beside the much smaller pony. Longhound obviously had a calming effect.

Edzar watched them from the cupola of the station. Thick cables linked a treadmill on which he stood to pulleys on the far shore. The cables were also attached to the ferry, so as the centaur walked, the craft was drawn across the river.

During the crossing, Early pointed ahead to a thin rim of clouds on the eastern horizon.

“Gonna snow,” he said.

“Are you a weather seer as well as an official taster?” Tol asked.

“Nope. Just know snow clouds when I see ’em. Gonna snow.”

So it did. The plain west of Caergoth was largely empty, as crops had been harvested and herds driven in for the winter, and they made good progress all day. However, the low line of clouds grew steadily until the sky was uniformly gray and furrowed like a farmer’s field. Snow began to fall in late afternoon. Darkness came early, hastened by the heavy pall of clouds.

They camped on the lee side of an outcropping of boulders. Tol rigged a canvas fly to keep the snow off. They built a fire and pooled their simple rations: salt beef from Tol and “go-far” from Early. This was a concoction of potatoes, carrots, onions, peas, and other things which had been lightly cooked, then pounded into a lumpy paste. It could be fried in a pan, or simply eaten as it was. Tol found the kender rations surprisingly tasty.

As they ate, Early talked about his forebears (whether these were Stumpwaters or Thistledowns or Foxfires, Tol wasn’t sure). They hailed from Balifor originally, he said. His great-great-grandfather had been the right-hand kender to the famed Balif.

“So what was the truth about Balif-was he kender or elf?” Tol asked, biting seared beef from a skewer.

“We do not speak of that awful tragedy.”

Tol blinked at the uncharacteristically laconic response. A subject kender would not speak of? He was intrigued and tried to wheedle the tale out of Early. Surprisingly, the kender would not be persuaded.

Early soon succumbed to slumber, leaving Tol to watch the soft flakes of snow falling in the still air. The blanket of white was already ankle-deep. At this rate it would be knee-high by morning.

Tol found himself reluctant to sleep. His dream of the night before (if dream it was) filled him with a dread of closing his eyes. Stupid and illogical, of course. If Mandes meant mischief, he could do it whether Tol was asleep or awake.

Still, he kept his eyes off the fire, the dance of flames being notoriously hypnotic. Leaning back, with Number Six resting across his lap, he propped his head on the cold boulder behind him, the canvas fly keeping the snow off his face. His eyes were gritty with fatigue, so he blinked to clear them.

A gray-wrapped figure appeared between one blink and the next. It stood a little ways off in the snow, at the very edge of the campfire’s circle of light.

Not taking his eyes from the gray figure, Tol called out to rouse Early. The kender snored on. Tol pushed himself to his feet, pulling his saber from its sheath, and presenting the point to the phantom.

“Name yourself, stranger!” he said hoarsely.

I have stopped his mouth.

Tol whirled. The words had come from behind him. Much closer to him, directly over the sleeping kender in fact, stood an identically garbed phantom.

Go back to Daltigoth.

“Go to your grave, trickster!” Tol shouted.

He leaped over the fire and slashed through the Mandes phantom with his saber. His blade passed harmlessly through the specter. Tol kept moving forward, arms spread wide, intending to let the millstone’s influence disperse the spell. Sure enough, as he passed through it, the image disappeared.

Stumbling in the snow, Tol turned back toward the fire. The second ghost-Felryn? — was still there, immobile as a statue. Early was curled up as close to the fire as he could get. He’d not stirred a muscle through all the alarums. Mandes must’ve used a soporific spell on him. Of the Mandes phantom there was no sign.

Something flickered in the smoke rising from the fire. At first Tol thought it was a trick of the flames, but the amorphous shape resolved itself into the facade of a building, translucent to the smoke rising around it. The building was a familiar one. It was Elicarno’s workshop in Daltigoth.

The image shifted, as though the magical eyes through which Tol was seeing the scene were rushing toward the front door. No guards stood watch, but the heavy portal was secured by one of Elicarno’s sturdy iron locks. It proved no barrier. The scene changed to the inner room beyond.

The great room was only dimly lit, filled with Elicarno’s many machines. Unerringly the image tracked through the gears, pulleys, and standing frames until it found the stairs leading to the living quarters. With dizzying effect, the scene swung up, rising into the pitch-black stairwell.

“Stop!” Tol cried.

He raised his sword but made no other move. Whatever Mandes was doing, he was doing it from his lair. This image was intended as a mirror of what was happening in far-off Daltigoth. He could do nothing but stand and watch.

The magical invader moved along the second story, passing several open doorways and peering into each as it ghosted by. Elicarno’s crew, apprentices and journeymen alike, were sleeping four to six to a room. Although he could plainly see mouths gaping from snores, no sound came to Tol’s ears.

At the end of the upstairs hall was a closed door. Again the phantom pierced the locked panel effortlessly. This room was lit by the soft blue glow of a lamp atop a shelf near the door; the lamp’s chimney was a polished, hollowed out lump of lapis. A curtained bed stood by the far wall.

The scene halted for a moment, and for the first time Tol glimpsed the intruder-a heavy, hairy paw, tipped with ivory claws like a bear’s, came into his field of view. No longer an incorporeal wraith, the thing moved forward with deadly deliberation, reached out a claw, and parted the velvet curtains surrounding the bed.

Tol shouted with frustrated rage, advancing a step toward the fire. Plainly visible by the azure light were the sleeping forms of Miya and Elicarno. Heavy with child, Miya slept on her side, facing the intruder. Her husband lay close behind, one arm draped around the curve of her swelling belly.

Claws reached for Miya’s throat.

Tol clenched his eyes shut, praying to the gods this was not a real occurrence. It must be an illusion, designed to frighten him into giving up his mission. Mandes was a powerful sorcerer, but even he couldn’t send murderous phantoms to do his bidding from so far away, could he? Yet the golems had been sent to Tarsis to kill Tol-

Something brushed Tol’s shoulder, and he threw himself away from the odd, feathery contact. To his surprise, he saw the second gray-robed phantom had come forward out of the snow and now was standing beside him. Even at close range, he couldn’t make out the phantom’s face, but he felt a presence behind the cowl, a presence he somehow knew was both benign and terribly angry.

“Felryn, help them!” he cried, gesturing to the smoky vision.

As he continued to watch, Elicarno awakened just before the monstrous claws reached Miya’s neck. He shouted soundlessly as he grappled with the hairy paws. Miya awoke, thrashing, her throat taut with unheard cries. She rolled aside and fell out of bed. Elicarno, clad only in a breechcloth, braced a foot against his attacker’s chest. Ivory claws raked down his arms. Blood flowed.

Miya snatched up a stool from beside the bed and pounded the invader with it. The image jounced and shook with every blow she landed.

Tol cheered, but what she really needed was a blade-a table knife, a pointed tool, anything! He called upon every god he could name to send her assistance.

The monster dragged Elicarno off the bed and held him up. The engineer’s feet dangled above the floor. After raking his face and chest with its claws, the intruder hurled him against the wall. Elicarno slid down and did not move. Miya was next.

The view shifted suddenly from Miya’s horrified face to the doorway. Wild-eyed apprentices were spilling into the room, armed with whatever came to hand-staves, hammers, a carpenter’s square. When they beheld the monster attacking their master and his mate, their faces went pale as candle wax.

“Don’t stare-fight!” Tol bellowed. He edged forward.

The terrified workmen mustered their courage and attacked. Forming a protective line between the monster and Miya, they held off the nightmare beast as best they could. Lightning-fast claws tore into them time and again, and the brave engineers went down bleeding, battered, eyeless. Only one still stood when more help arrived. These were older men, Elicarno’s journeymen, armed with halberds. They jabbed and hacked at the beast, its blood spattering their spearpoints.

Now the image began to shimmer, like a view distorted by heat. Miya snatched a halberd from one man and swung the thick blade at the monster’s head.

The monster drew away. The bloody paws it held up were no longer solid; Tol could see the carpet through them. It retreated from the valiant Dom-shu woman.

Leaving the remaining men to fend off the injured beast, Miya knelt awkwardly by her husband. Tears coursed down her cheeks. She lifted her face and let out a long shriek of grief.

A log in the fire broke, and the image dissolved in a tide of sparks.

Tol turned. “Felryn! Is Elicarno alive-?”

He woke up. He wasn’t standing by the fire, sword in hand, but sitting with his back to the chill boulder. His weapon, still sheathed, lay across his lap. The fire was only a pile of dimly glowing embers. Tol’s hands and legs were numb with cold.

“Early! Early, get up!”

A brief mumble was the kender’s only reply.

Tol forced himself to his feet, willing his icy limbs to move.

“The fire’s going out!” he said. “If it dies, we die!”

He stirred the coals, adding more deadfall wood. The embers blazed into life.

“What’s the matter?” Early asked, sitting up and blinking at Tol who was wildly circling the snowy clearing. “We bein’ attacked?”

Tol related the experience-dream? — he’d just had. He mentioned the one of the night before as well.

“There’s no sign anyone else was here,” he finished. “I don’t even know if what I’m seeing is real!”

The kender drew his fur collar up close to his eyes. “Oh, it’s real enough. If the Mist-Maker was throwing illusions at you, they’d be a lot worse. You say your woman friend lived, but her husband, this builder-fella, seemed bad hurt, maybe dead? Probably true, I say. If it was only an illusion, everything would’ve gone Mandes’s way, wouldn’t it?”

Early’s logic made horrible sense. On the other hand, Mandes was wily and might not overplay his hand. He knew Tol well enough to tailor his phantasms.

Tol drove a fist into the palm of his hand; This uncertainty was maddening! How could he know for sure?

Early was regarding him with surprising sobriety. “You’re going to have to kill him, you know,” the kender said. “Taking him back to your emperor ain’t gonna be enough.”

Snow hissed down around them, and the fire crackled with renewed life. Early was right. They couldn’t possibly take the rogue wizard all the way back to Daltigoth safely. No one Tol cared for would be safe until Mandes had drawn his last breath.

“I’ll stand by you,” Early added solemnly. “All the way.”

Now Tol was truly taken aback. While kender could be foolishly brave in the face of terrible peril, they weren’t noted for selflessness, or for sticking to a plainly dangerous course.

In Early’s green eyes Tol saw something he hadn’t before: determination. Moreover, the kender’s face seemed different somehow, its lines subtly altered.

“I’d like to finish this with you.”

“I’d welcome your company,” Tol said even as the odd phrasing, the tone of the words, stirred something within him.

Before Tol could say more, Early’s chin dropped to his chest and he muttered, “The passes’ll be treacherous. What we need are snowshoes…”

The words trailed off into raspy breathing. The kender had fallen asleep.

Tol slept no more that night. The cold was merciless, held at bay only by the little fire he tended. Conditions promised to be even harsher in the higher elevations ahead.

They skirted Caergoth the next day, keeping well clear of the flow of travelers drawn to the city. They saw smoke rising from myriad chimneys and knew snug hostels and a hot meal waited within the city’s walls, but also within were potential informers and assassins. The wizard’s gold could buy a great deal of trouble in Caergoth, so they were forced to pass it by, keeping to the gray shadows in the snowy woods.

The cold and lack of sleep wore on Tol, but he pushed onward even harder. Echo Pass, the gateway to Mount Axas, was eighty-odd leagues from Daltigoth, an eight-day journey under the best conditions. The deep snow would make the going even slower, but Tol was determined to make the pass in five days. Mandes’s dreams tormented him only by night, when he slept. If night and slumber were required for the attacks on his friends, Tol wanted to reduce the number of opportunities Mandes had to strike at them.

They turned north, following the west bank of the Caer River. Once they were through the Forest of Aposh, north of Caergoth, the snow eased. By late afternoon they had reached the fork of the Caer, where Tol had found the millstone in the Irda ruins half a lifetime ago.

The sky north and east was a band of bright blue, shining under the wooly mantle of clouds behind them. Across the fork was the Eastern Hundred, Tol’s old homeland. The high plain was dry, only lightly dusted with snow, but a bitter wind scoured down from the north, bringing tears to their eyes and cracking their parched lips. Early taught Tol an old kender trick: he smeared butter on their faces. The grease would protect them from the desiccating wind.

They camped on the bluff overlooking the confluence of the east and west branches of the Caer. Their short day ended, with Early laying the night’s campfire as Tol gazed down at the Irda ruins, almost invisible beneath the vines and brambles. He would like to visit the ruins but feared Mandes might be watching from afar. He didn’t dare betray any knowledge of the Irda. Mandes might connect that with Tol’s puzzling immunity to magic and infer the existence of the millstone.

The horses, tethered in the lee of the icy wind, huddled together for warmth. Tol fed and watered them, noting how they trembled with cold and fatigue, even his stalwart Tetchy. Tol felt as miserable as they looked.

Early, lying in his bedroll, groaned loudly. Though a seasoned wanderer, he’d never ridden so hard or so long in a single day before. He claimed to be too tired to sleep.

Tol, loath to fall asleep and leave himself open to Mandes’s manipulations, kept himself awake by regaling Early about his past, relating his adventures in the Great Green as a youth, how he had defeated the Dom-shu chief in single combat and thus earned his two “wives,” Miya and Kiya. He’d just begun to speak of XimXim and the Tarsis war when the kender interrupted him with a piping snore.

Tol sighed. He drained the last of the broth from his cup and hunkered down, facing the fire. His eyelids slowly closed.

Instead of the dreaded sound of Mandes’s voice, instead of the bitter, icy wind, Tol dreamt of warmth. He was on the Bay of Ergoth, the Blood Fleet under his command. The thumping of oars, the salt breeze, the hot sun were balm to his soul. He leaned against the mast of the quinquireme Thunderer and let the wonderful heat penetrate his bones.

“Ship to starboard, two points off the beam! A merchantman!”

Tol shifted his gaze. Though he’d given no order, the helm was put over, and the galley churned toward the tubby merchant ship. Sailors spilled out on deck, distributing cutlasses and pikes. A springald catapult on the poop was winched around and quickly cleared for action.

“Stand down!” Tol said. “We’re not attacking.”

No one paid him the slightest heed. Indeed, the pirates rushed past him as if he wasn’t even there. He tried to grab the nearest fellow and found he couldn’t. His reaching hands passed through the pirate’s sun-browned arms without hindrance.

The merchant ship piled on more sail and turned, trying to run from the powerful galley. The pirates unfurled a sail of their own, adding the wind’s power to their oars. Inexorably, Thunderer overhauled the clumsy trader. Soon Tol could see men stirring on its deck. Bronze glinted in the ship’s waist. They were preparing to resist.

The galley could have rammed the fleeing ship easily, but that would’ve destroyed the pirates’ plunder. They had to board her. Pulling parallel to the merchant, separated by only the length of the portside oars, the pirates trained the catapult on their prey and let fly.

Instead of a wooden javelin or stone ball, they flung a bronze-tipped arrow tied to. a long line. It buried itself deeply in the merchant’s hull. The galley’s portside oars were run in, and a dozen pirates hauled away on the line, drawing the two ships together.

A horn blared. Pirates swarmed over the galley’s side and onto the merchant ship’s deck. Iron clashed, blood flowed, and men toppled into the sea. Tol dashed back and forth, shouting for the pirates to cease, but he was a phantom to them, unseen and unheard.

— and then he was on the deck of the merchant ship. The ship’s waist was a busy battlefield, with sailors from both ships locked in fierce combat. On the sterncastle, men in Ergothian armor fended off twice their number in pirates. In the midst of the frantic throng, Tol spotted a familiar face.

“Darpo!”

Tol tried to go to his comrade, but his feet were sluggish, as though mired in mud. He could barely make any headway.

Bowstrings twanged. Pirates had gained the rigging of the merchant ship. Holding on with their legs, they drew and loosed arrows into the defenders. Tol watched in horror as one archer took deliberate aim at Darpo, unaccountably the only Ergothian warrior who wasn’t sporting a helmet.

“Darpo! Look out!”

With awful clarity, Tol saw the archer release. The arrow hummed forward, twisting through the air as the fletching caught the wind.

Darpo cut down a bare-chested pirate and stood back to draw a breath. At that instant he must have heard the arrow’s thrum, because he turned toward it-

— and received the broadhead in one eye.

Tol bolted upright, shouting hoarsely. Early sat, legs folded, staring across the small fire at him.

Uncharacteristically, Tol began to curse. Disheveled, the sweat rapidly cooling on him in the frigid night air, he clenched his hands into fists and cursed.

“What did you see this time?” Early asked. His voice was strange, low and deep.

“Darpo-my old friend Darpo, commanding the imperial fleet. I was on a pirate ship that attacked him.” Tol swallowed hard. “He was shot by an arrow-”

He shivered, then was struck by several thoughts. It was winter now, yet in his vision the weather had been warm. That could not be. Besides, Darpo was in command of Thunderer, not plying the seas on a merchant vessel being attacked by Thunderer.

“It must’ve been only a bad dream,” he said, forcing himself to breathe deeply, forcing himself to believe his own words. “Only a dream!”

“I fear not. What you saw was truth, disguised as memory and dream. Something grave may have befallen Darpo.”

The kender sounded so unlike his usual breezy self Tol said sharply, “How do you know all this, little one?”

“Sometimes I see far.”

Early’s face had taken on a completely different cast, more serious, more powerful-and was his skin darker than before?

Tol shook off the strange impression. Lack of sleep and raw nerves were affecting his judgment. Wasn’t that just what Mandes wanted?

He had intended to avoid all towns, but his peace of mind demanded otherwise.

“We’ll stop in Juramona tomorrow,” he told Early. “I want to warn Egrin myself of the danger he faces.”

It could be only a matter of time before Mandes turned his malign attentions to the marshal.

The high plain had turned from summer green to harvest gold and thence to winter brown. Beneath a leaden sky, an ocean of grass spread out before them, dry and stiff. Here and there, copses of trees lifted bare limbs sharp as talons to the sky.

As they rode briskly toward Tol’s old home, they spoke little. The wind of their passage was bitter on their faces. Gloved, caped, and hooded with furs, eyes squinted against the icy breeze, they cantered across the silent plain.

Late afternoon had come on the short winter day when they finally beheld Juramona. Tol hadn’t been back since leaving for Daltigoth with Enkian Tumult when he was but eighteen years old. The provincial town had grown steadily in his absence. The old wooden wall now sported stone towers, and the spans of timbered bulwark in between were slowly acquiring a thick skin of cut stone blocks. The marshal’s High House, on its mound overlooking the town, had been whitewashed. It stood out starkly against the slate roofs and unpainted houses below it.

Footmen were closing the western gate for the night when Tol hailed them. Shading their eyes against the rays of the setting sun, the soldiers delayed until Tol and the kender rode through the gate.

Riding down the dusty lane, Tol was assailed by a deluge of odors, some sweet, some foul, but all with meaning from the past. Frying meat and local beer, livestock and garbage mingled with vigorous, unwashed humanity. Tol drifted in a nostalgic haze. Only when he saw Early had halted ahead and was waiting for him to catch up did he snap out of it. This wasn’t the time to reminisce.

Guards challenged them at the foot of the ramp leading up to High House. They were young, local boys, cold and bored with guard duty, but they crossed poleaxes in front of Tol’s horse and recited the required challenge: Who was he? What business did he have in the High House?

Tol pushed back his fur hood. “I am Lord Tolandruth of Juramona. This is my companion, Early Stumpwater.”

The young soldiers gaped. If the emperor himself had appeared before them, they couldn’t have been more surprised.

“My lord!” stammered one, a stoutish fellow. “We didn’t know you!”

“I have business with Marshal Egrin.”

The soldiers hastily backed away, and Tol spurred Tetchy forward. Early followed close behind. They galloped up the spiral ramp, drawing curious stares.

At the door of the marshal’s residence, Tol leaped from his horse before the beast had stopped. He dashed inside, ignoring the challenges of the soldiers on the door.

No one tried to stop him as he stormed through the halls, shedding gloves and heavy fur cape. Within High House there were many who knew him.

The sight of an elderly healer standing before the marshal’s quarters finally brought him up short. He recognized Ossant, a priestess of Mishas. She was an old acquaintance and a woman of conviction. Years ago, the then marshal, Odovar, had ordered Egrin to behead the Pakin rebel, Vakka Zan. Odovar intended the headless corpse be put on display as a warning to all Pakin sympathizers, but Ossant used her status as priestess and healer to have the body removed-”to prevent disease,” she had said.

His arrival obviously startled her. “I must speak with the marshal,” he said. “Where is he?”

Ossant’s pale blue eyes and the nimbus of white hair framing her round face gave her a deceptively gentle appearance: she was not one to mince words.

“Lord Egrin has withdrawn for the evening. A man his age needs rest.”

“My business is important. You come too, lady. There may be need for your services.”

“Is someone ill, my lord?” she asked, but Tol moved past her to push open the door and did not answer.

The marshal’s bedchamber was close and warm, the effect of an oversized fireplace blazing in the room. Egrin, dressed in a heavy brocade robe, sat before the fire in a large chair.

Head resting against the chair’s high back, he snored gently.

Tol paused. He suddenly thought of his father-his real father-and wondered where he slept this night. It was a bad son who let his parent fall into old age unsupported.

Ossant approached Egrin but did not touch him. “My lord marshal, Lord Tolandruth is here.”

Egrin jerked awake with a snort. He looked past the priestess and saw Tol. Immediately he sat up, and Ossant stepped back. The marshal cleared his throat, face reddening slightly at being caught napping.

“This can’t be good news,” he muttered, voice rough with sleep.

“No.” Tol’s smile was fleeting. “There are grave matters stirring, my friend.”

Egrin arose to greet Tol properly, his movements stiff. He drew up a chair before the fire, facing the marshal. Ossant stood at Egrin’s back and Early at Tol’s. The kender had sidled in unnoticed. Though he’d never been in High House, he’d somehow found his way to the marshal’s bedchamber unescorted.

After Tol explained his mission, Egrin said gravely, “So it has-come at last. You mean to slay the sorcerer.”

“I do.”

“I have reports from the mountains of his activities.” Egrin poured milky liquid from a brass pitcher into two clay cups. Tol was surprised to find it was barley water, a tipple associated with the old.

After downing a large swallow, Egrin said, “Mandes is on Mount Axas. He has hired between two hundred and four hundred mercenaries, mostly nomads from the east side of the mountains. His recruiters tried to enlist men from the Juramona garrison.”

Tol’s task suddenly seemed much harder, but he put on a bold face, saying, “Good. At least I won’t have to chase him around the country!”

“Not good,” Egrin countered. “He knows you’re coming. You’re walking into a trap.”

The fire snapped and popped, bits of glowing bark falling into the dark bed of ashes. Egrin refilled their cups, and Tol rested his chin on his fist.

“What I need is cover, like the Mist-Maker’s clouds,” he mused.

“Diversions,” said Early.

Everyone turned to the kender. He been so silent and still and unkenderlike, they’d nearly forgotten he was present.

“Why not a cloud of Tolandruths to befuddle the Mist-Maker?” he suggested.

A number of Tol impersonators, he explained, men from the Juramona garrison, could lead phony expeditions toward Mount Axas along different routes. Mandes and his hired army wouldn’t know which threat was real.

“A man of his talent won’t be fooled long,” Ossant cautioned.

“I don’t need long,” Tol said. “Three days, maybe four.”

Egrin rose. “I’ll give the order.”

While he was gone, Tol said to Ossant, “Mandes will do anything to stop me. So far he’s sent terrifying dreams which seem to show my friends and comrades being killed. He’s bound to try and harm Lord Egrin. Can you protect him?”

“I am only a humble priestess of Mishas,” she answered. “No one in Juramona can contend with the Mist-Maker.”

“You don’t have to trade blows with him, just do your best to protect the marshal!”

The anxiety in his voice caused her to relent. “The wards of the temple of Mishas are the strongest in town. I will convince the lord marshal to spend each night there until you return.”

Tol smiled. He clasped her hands and wrung them gratefully. “You’re the best rear guard I’ve got, lady. I love Egrin like a father. Keep him safe and I’ll build you a new temple of Mishas, as fine as any in Daltigoth!”

Egrin returned, and he and Tol walked out together.

As she followed them, Ossant caught Early’s eye. Although the two had never met, a curious recognition flowed between them.

No one noticed when the elderly, revered priestess of Mishas bowed her head respectfully to King Lucklyn’s royal food taster.

Smoke curled around ancient beams, coating the heavy slate roof slabs with soot. Far below, by the open hearth, Mandes sat in a canvas chair. A tripod supporting a brazen pan of clear oil stood before him. He gazed into the still surface of the oil. The silence was absolute.

A door flew open, thudding against the wall, and a fur-clad man stomped in. Wind howled through the open portal, nearly extinguishing the fire and sending ripples across the oil.

“What word, Wadag?” Mandes grunted.

The nomad warrior closed the door and shook out his wild, tangled hair. “We got word of your man Tolandruth, Chief. He’s leading forty men up Wildcat Creek, coming this way!”

“Is he? Yesterday you told me he was coming from the west, through Anvil Pass, with twenty-two riders.”

“Some of the men still think that, but this is fresh information, Chief.” The young warrior waited, expecting praise and new orders.

Mandes pondered the new information for a long interval.

“You must investigate, I know,” he said at last. “I leave it to you, Wadag. Trouble me no more about it. Whatever you hear about Lord Tolandruth’s movements, you handle it. Yes?

Wadag thumped his chest with one fist. “Yes, Chief! I’ll bring you the head of that fancy flatlander!”

Plainly excited by the prospect, Wadag departed as loudly as he’d entered.

Mandes sat back in his chair. Not every bird in the sky was an eagle, the saying went. Not every Tolandruth in the mountains was the real one. None of his stratagems to rid himself of the vengeful warlord had worked so far-not the death of the engineer Elicarno nor of the sailor in the far-off sea. Perhaps he had miscalculated. Maybe Tolandruth was not the sort of man who could be diverted by threats.

Now what? What could he do?

Violent trembling seized him. Tolandruth intended his death. If he, the Mist-Maker, who’d once held the great and mighty of Daltigoth in his thrall, could not defeat this one man, all his plots and plans would come to nothing. He would surely die.

Old Yoralyn, leader of the White Robes when Mandes first arrived in the capital, had prophesied on her deathbed that a silent man would seek to slay Mandes, and even if forestalled, his coming would mean the Mist-Maker’s end.

The sorcerer reached out with quaking hands to the oil-filled pan. So great was his trembling he knocked the tripod over, sending rivulets of golden oil across the worn stone floor.