Many tales have been told of Krynn. Tales of warfare and ambition, darkness and light, and magic and danger. But these tales are only half the world’s story. For Ansalon, the land of Solamnic Knights and Dragon Highlords, draconians, kender, and gully dwarves, is but one part of Krynn, one small continent on a much larger planet.

There are other lands besides Ansalon.

In Taladas, the Faceless Emperor, finally awoken from his long sleep, is building his army. Hult and Shedara have fled to find safety, but no land is safe as Maladar rebuilds his empire from the ruins of Aurim.

And they have what Maladar wants most to perfect Risen Aurim and force Taladas to bow before him—or die.

Taladas once was a place known only to legend and rumor.

Until now.

Shadow of the Flame

( Dragonlance - Taladas Chronicles, Book 3 )

Chris Pierson

FOR MARGARET.

THANKS FOR INVITING ME.

Prologue

Aurim, City of Songs

The city sparkled like a jewel on the banks of the River Ush. It was a sprawl of marble and lapis, adorned with domes and statues and bridges of shining gold. Flowers of crimson and flame spilled across its gardens, and soldiers riding hippogriffs wheeled above its bustling streets and markets, where men and dwarves and elves from all over Taladas thronged. The rain had just stopped, and steam rose from the rooftops as the sun baked them dry.

Beyond the city’s walls, for league upon league, spread green fields and golden hills, ripe with rice and grapes and olives, food enough to sate a continent. The Ush wound its way across the swelling land, a broad silver rope that flowed west toward the shining Indanalis Sea. Away to the north, the river stretched toward an arm of mountains that loomed purple in the morning mist. Cool breezes blew from that direction, rustling leaves and men’s cloaks.

Nowhere else in Taladas was there such a city as Aurim—perhaps nowhere on Krynn, though the priests of Istar, far across the sea, might have argued the point. This was the pinnacle of civilization, of learning, of art and music, in all the world. But Maladar an-Desh, its rightful ruler, looked down on his city from the highest tower of his palace and saw only swine rooting through rubbish. It could be greater, more glorious, than this. It should be. He needed only time—time he did not have.

Today, he thought as the wind billowed his robes. He reached up to touch the hem of his hood, the hood that never fell unless he desired it. Today they will come to kill me.

One could rightly say he deserved to die. Even Maladar, in his black heart, had to admit that truth. Had he not done terrible things? Had he not made powerful enemies? How many thousands had perished in the Square of Spears before the palace and on battlefields far away for the glory of the City of Songs and its emperor? He could not count, not anymore. But they were many, and men remembered. Over time the memories of his enemies had cooled into hate. Assassins had tried to kill him more than a dozen times in the century since he’d wrested control of the empire. They had always failed. But this time… today… they would succeed.

He foresaw his death—first in dreams, then later confirmed in a scrying-pool filled with the blood of his servants, a hundred men whose throats he’d cut for that one spell. He’d seen his own body, lying twisted in agony on the floor of his throne room as the midday sun shone through its high, sapphire windows, his kicking legs tangled in the folds of his blue and golden robes. He’d watched his hands clench like claws, his back arch, then the slow, smooth relaxation, the breath letting out. Then there was nothing.

That had been a year ago. The dreams had stopped after a while, and he could divine no more, no matter how much blood he spilled into the pool. He did not know who would kill him, or why, or how. But he knew where and when. He might have tried to run, to hide in one of the other cities in the far-flung provinces of his empire, but Maladar was not that kind of man. He had gained his power by facing his problems. He would not run.

He had made plans, however.

Someone stirred behind him. He turned, a dozen spells flashing through his mind. Maladar was the mightiest archmage Taladas had ever known, and though Nuvis, the black moon, was waning, he still had the power to kill an army if he must. It was no army that stood behind him, though, only a boy of eight summers, a barbarian slave who served him.

The boy kept his almond eyes downcast, never gazing directly at Maladar. He was deeply tanned, his head shaven except for a lone braid that trailed down from its crown—the mark of the Uigan, a tribe that dwelt on Aurim’s edges, with whom the empire had warred for millennia. This boy was the son of the Boyla, the Uigan’s ruler, whom Maladar had captured in battle five years ago. The Boyla and his elder sons had died screaming, in pits deep beneath the City of Songs. He had sent their heads back to the Uigan, their braids cut off and stuffed in their mouths as a mark of shame. But this one he had kept as his cupbearer and hostage, both to stay any thoughts of vengeance the steppe-riders might harbor, and for his own… amusement.

“Shai,” Maladar murmured, his voice a low and unpleasant gargle. “I did not summon you.”

The boy bowed his head further, never looking up—never. “Even so, Majesty,” he said, “the Seven Swords await you below. They seek audience.”

Had he been capable, Maladar might have raised an eyebrow. “The Seven? Here?”

Shai nodded. “Caspa sent me to fetch you. She felt it better that she keep watch over them.”

“Caspa is wise,” Maladar said, his mind rushing. So it was the Seven who would seek to slay him today, and they would succeed if the blood-vision were to be believed.

The Seven made a kind of sense. They were the mightiest warriors in all of Aurim, ruthless men who commanded its armies and governed its border marches, keeping safe the rich, well-fed provinces at the empire’s heart. He had thought them among his allies, for he always made sure to give them what they wanted, whether it was gold or slaves or land. He’d once drowned an entire city—Am Durn, it was called—and given the undamaged surrounding fiefs as a gift to Iadro, the mightiest of the Seven. But such men were ambitious and surely coveted the throne.

“Majesty?” asked Shai. “Shall I have Caspa bid them leave?”

Maladar shook his head. “No, boy. I will be down in a moment.”

The boy touched his forehead, a show of deference, then left. When he was gone, Maladar turned to look out across the city once more. He felt a chill that had nothing to do with the wind: a feeling that he would not gaze upon Aurim again… not in this life, anyway.

The wind tugged at his robes again, and he pulled down his hood. Then he whirled and stalked back into the halls of his palace to meet his death.

They were waiting for him in the throne room, a vast, vaulted hall with a floor of tiled moonstone and golden pillars the size of trees. They stood at its far end, beyond the play of light through jeweled windows, beyond the burbling silver fountains and Neroni feathered serpents, coiled in hanging cages of crystal. Maladar emerged from the tower stair behind his throne of carved dragon horn, which stood upon a dais amid a wide pool filled with glowing, golden fish. He walked forward to stand by his seat, resting his hand upon its arm. He tried to look untroubled as Caspa, his chamberlain—an aged elf woman who had served Aurim’s emperors for five centuries—crossed the floor. Her spidersilk slippers made no sound.

“Shai tells me I have guests,” Maladar said. He nodded toward the boy, who stood on the far side of the pool. “Bring wine, lad—the Chakani green. We should drink to welcome such august company.”

“The Seven, Majesty,” Caspa said as Shai withdrew to do his master’s bidding. “I asked them to give up their weapons, but they refused.”

“And so they should,” said Maladar, stepping forward. He crossed an invisible bridge, hidden just beneath the pool’s surface, which made him seem for a moment to be walking on water. “These are not common foot soldiers, Caspa; they are the right arm of the empire! Let them keep their blades and come forward.”

The throne room was two hundred paces across, so Maladar had time to think as Caspa went to fetch the Seven. He watched them approach: Iadro, in his enameled crimson armor; Bann the Lofty, seven and a half feet tall with a sword just as big slung across his back; Dreskith of Eöl, whose long beard was dyed the blue of deep water; Farashi Ogrebane, who had a golden left hand and was said to be half dwarf; Ettam and Ettor, twin brothers who fought with knives only; and a whip-thin, veiled warrior simply called Whisper, who never spoke. Maladar watched them come, wondering which would land the killing blow. He doubted it would be Iadro; he was the cleverest general of the lot but not the quickest blade. If he had to lay gold on any of them, it would be Dreskith… or possibly Whisper. With that one, it was always hard to tell.

He hoped to send a few to the Abyss before he fell. If Hith were merciful, he would manage all seven.

“How, then, have you come here?” he asked as the Seven drew near. “Long has it been since all of you have graced my halls together. Is there trouble in the marches? I had hoped for a summer free of war, but if the armies must march…”

“War does not bring us, Majesty,” said Iadro. He was smiling; Iadro always smiled, though his eyes glinted like diamond daggers. “Strange tidings have reached our ears, and we have come to parley with you about them.”

The men stopped, standing side by side, far enough apart from each other that he couldn’t hope to kill them all with a single spell, not without bringing down the palace in the bargain. They knew what they were doing today. None had laid a hand near his weapon yet, but they were ready.

“Tidings?” asked Maladar. “Of what sort?”

“A secret army,” said Bann, folding massive arms across his massive chest. “A force you have gathered in the eastern provinces, far from our lands.”

There was a moment’s silence in the throne room as Maladar thought: so, they know. Then he spread his hands. “Please, brothers. I know of no secret army. And why would I gather forces in the east, where peace has reigned since the Dynasty of Nûr?”

“Yes,” said Ettam, frowning, “why, indeed?”

“We were hoping you would tell us,” said Ettor, matching his brother’s glower.

Dreskith, ever the voice of reason among the Seven, held up a hand to stay the hot-headed twins. “Do not play us for fools, Majesty,” he said, stroking his beard. “We know you are smarter than that. We have sent spies to the east. All returned with the same tale: you are raising an army. We may not have learned where or who these warriors are to our satisfaction, but the news is true.”

“We have ways of making sure those we question do not lie,” added Farashi with an evil grin.

Whisper said nothing, only stood there, cracking his knuckles one at a time.

Maladar looked at them, from one to the next. “I had hoped you wouldn’t learn of this,” he murmured. “Not yet, at least.”

“I bet you did,” said Ettor.

Iadro shook his head. “Majesty, you must understand what we have to think about this army. There is only one reason to muster such a thing in the east when we command so many thousands of men on your western borders.”

“You mean to make war on us,” said Bann.

Then Maladar began to laugh.

The Seven bristled at that, for it was not scornful laughter that growled from beneath the Faceless Emperor’s hood, but a gust of genuine mirth. Maladar shook his head. “Oh, my friends,” he said. “Do not be angry when I tell you that you have ridden all this way for nothing! My eastern army is no threat to you… or to any living man.”

Ettor snorted at that while the others exchanged glances.

“What do you mean, Majesty?” asked Dreskith. “How can an army be of no threat? What good would such a force be?”

Maladar stepped back, folding his hands into the sleeves of his robe. “I can show you if you wish.”

The Seven were silent. They looked at one another. Ettor and Ettam shook their heads. Farashi made a forked sign with his fingers, a ward against evil, which was laughable considering how many vile things he had done to his enemies. Bann shrugged. Whisper, of course, said nothing. Dreskith leaned close to Iadro and murmured in his ear. Finally, the leader of the Seven nodded and took a single step forward, smiling his cold smile.

“I presume,” he said, “that you mean to use magic to do this.”

Maladar inclined his head.

“Know that you will rue any trickery, Majesty,” Iadro replied, “but not for long.”

“I do not doubt it,” Maladar purred. “But come now, my friends. We have done this before, many times, at your war councils. Have I not shown you our enemies and how they would array themselves? Have I not revealed the weaknesses of their keeps and cities? How, then, is this time different?”

Another silence answered him. Armor rattled as the Seven shifted from foot to foot. They looked to Iadro now, and he sighed, for the first time showing the burden of being the leader of such a band.

“So, then,” he said, gesturing for Maladar to begin.

The spell came easily to mind; Maladar had cast it hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times over the course of his reign. Even with the black moon’s power flowing sluggishly, he shaped it with ease, his silken robes fluttering as his hands danced in the air and he spoke the spidery words. The air shimmered around him, as the plains did on hot summer days. Most of the warriors rested their hands on their weapons, ready to draw them the moment anything went awry. Maladar paid them no mind, throwing himself into the magic instead.

He had cast the spell before, hundreds of times, but never quite like this. Today there was other magic, hidden within the weave of the first, magic that might save him… if the Seven did not sense it, if Hith willed it, if he was lucky.

Images of his twitching body, rippling in the bloody scrying pool, flashed through his mind. He knew his luck would run bad. Fate was fate; it could not be denied.

There was no more time for such thoughts, however; the end of the spell had come. He swept his hands around him, and black, smoky mist trailed from his fingers. The mist hung in the air, then seemed to come alive, swirling and eddying and finally coalescing into shapes. The Seven watched it happen. Dreskith had half-drawn his scimitar, and the twins had their knives in hand, but they all relaxed once the spell took shape. They settled back, sheathing their weapons as the smoke grew solid and the hall around them changed.

The throne room was no more; the moonstone tiles, the pillars and pools and fountains all had vanished. Instead, they stood in a cave of dark, reddish stone—a cave carved by sorcery, not flowing water or the hands of men. They were on a promontory, an outcrop that looked out over a wide, flat floor beneath a dome-shaped ceiling.

“Behold my secret army,” said Maladar.

And yes, there was an army in this room. Tens of thousands of soldiers stood arrayed in rows, clad in full armor and bearing swords, bows, and spears. Each of the soldiers was as tall as Bann, perhaps even taller. Full helmets, shaped into the visages of dragons, covered their faces.

But the soldiers were not made of flesh.

“Statues?” murmured Farashi.

Maladar nodded. The soldiers were hewn from dark gray stone—like the cave, made by magic, not mortal hands.

“What is this?” Iadro asked. “Where is this place?”

“I will not tell you where,” Maladar said. “I keep this vault secret from all. I would not have anyone know the whereabouts of my tomb.”

“Tomb?” Ettor echoed.

“Thinking of dying soon?” asked Ettam.

Maladar shrugged. “All men die,” he said. “I have ruled Aurim a long time. It would be foolish not to prepare for the day when my reign ends.”

That was only a partial truth. Maladar had not delved this cave, had not sculpted the statues, until after the blood-vision. It had taken two months of spell-casting, months that had left him exhausted. And the last stage had taken as long as all the rest combined. He stepped aside, letting the Seven see what he had wrought.

Standing upon the promontory, looking down on the stone army, was the final statue of shining black rock. It was only slightly larger than a man, but it seemed to swell with power, to suck the light and warmth out of the cave. It was the exact image of Maladar himself, cloaked and hooded as always.

“My resting place,” he murmured, reaching out a gloved hand to touch the statue’s surface.

The Seven stared in awe. If he could, Maladar would have smiled; instead, he nodded his head and wriggled the fingers of his right hand, just slightly, and let the second spell break free of the weave.

Dreskith was the first; Maladar had chosen him, as the best swordsman, to die before the others. He had no time to speak, no time to move, before the magic took hold. His eyes simply widened, and he fell to his knees with an awful crack. Then his skin split open, like a hundred whips had struck him at once, and he was screaming, covered in blood as his body flayed itself open, right down to the bone. His hands clawed the air. His bright blue beard turned deep violet. He fell face-first onto the floor in tatters.

The rest of the Seven reacted as Maladar knew they would; Bann, Iadro, and Farashi were momentarily stunned by what had happened to their sword-brother. Whisper and the twins, however, moved quicker. Ettor and Ettam had already drawn their daggers again: long, curved blades etched with glowing runes, the better to cut through armor and magic alike. They leaped forward, their faces alive with feral glee.

Had they been two steps closer, they might have accomplished their goal. Instead, Maladar extended a hand and the twins burst, their skin ripping and sloughing away like Dreskith’s had. Their enchanted knives clattered to the floor; then they followed, howling in agony and clutching at their hideous wounds.

Maladar cast about, looking for Whisper, but the veiled warrior was nowhere to be seen, and the others were moving, recovered from their shock. Swords in hand, Iadro and Bann and Farashi swept toward him. Again, the stupid fools were too far away. He killed each of them, Bann last of all as the giant’s greatsword was sweeping upward to deliver a blow that would have cut him in half. Maladar had to step aside to keep Bann’s shrieking, skinless body from falling on him. It hit the stones with a wet smack.

Only Whisper remained, and still Maladar couldn’t see the elusive one. It was the darkness of the cave: Whisper could vanish in shadows, such that not even an elf’s sight could find him. He had used his talent in the empire’s service many times, to assassinate enemies both within Aurim and without. Maladar felt his heart race, knowing the most dangerous of the Seven was stalking him.

His fear lasted only a moment, though, because he remembered something Whisper hadn’t, perhaps: the cave wasn’t real, and neither were the shadows. Maladar wriggled his fingers again and let the illusion dissolve.

All at once, vault and statues vanished, turning back to smoke and dissipating into the air. In their place, Maladar stood once more in the sunlit throne room. He spun, looking for Whisper.

The veiled killer had been right behind him… and close. Maladar brought up his hand to kill him, but Whisper sprang an eye’s blink before he could release the spell, a punch-dagger flashing in his hand. Hot pain raced through Maladar’s side as the blade cut through his flesh. He reached up and tore Whisper’s veil away, then wheeled with the impact of the blow. The momentum carried Whisper past him, sent him staggering, the punch-dagger trailing drops of blood… Maladar’s blood. Whisper got his balance back then turned to attack again.

That is no man, Maladar thought as he cast the killing spell again. It hit Whisper as the punch-dagger was darting forward again, but the blade missed, snagging in Maladar’s robes. Then Whisper joined the rest of them, howling and writhing, a shredded mess on the floor that fell still after a moment of horrid suffering. In the instant before the skin tore away, though, Maladar understood why Whisper had never revealed his face. It had been the face of a woman.

When they were all dead, the pain hit him at last. Maladar staggered, pressing a hand to his side. He had come so close, so damned close to surviving. But one had slipped through, as he’d known would happen. The Seven had killed him. He sighed, waiting for his vision to dim, his body to grow heavy and cold.

It did not.

Maladar felt the wound again. There was blood, yes, but not much. He stared at Whisper’s blade on the floor; there was no venom on it. He took a deep breath, then another. It hurt—but again, not as much as he’d feared. The blow he’d thought lethal had been only a graze.

I survived, he thought, barely believing it. I denied fate!

He turned, looking for Caspa, thinking to send her for a healer. When he saw her body, torn on the floor, he felt a moment’s regret. He had liked his chamberlain. But she had been in the wrong place, and the rending spell had caught her too. A pity. Maladar shrugged and turned back toward his throne.

Shai stood before it, eyes wide, gaping at the blood pooling on the moonstones. In his hands he held a silver tray with eight goblets: seven of jeweled gold and one hewn from a single, enormous diamond. Maladar looked at the boy, whose face was pale. This was far from the first slaughter that had taken place in this room, but it was the first in Shai’s memory.

“Be easy, lad,” he said. “All is well, though dear Caspa is lost. They came to kill me, but I was too quick for them.”

“I brought…” the boy murmured, still staring at all the flayed bodies. “I brought the wine.”

Maladar nodded. “Eight cups, I see. Well, there is only need for one now.” He walked to Shai and lifted the diamond goblet—the emperor’s cup—from the tray. “A pity to waste so much fine grape and so many good swords on the same day… but there it is.”

He turned, raising the cup to salute his fallen enemies. His wound was already feeling better. Then he drew the cup into his hood and made a horrible, wet, sucking sound. Shai didn’t flinch; he’d long since grown used to the strange noises the emperor made when he drank.

Maladar relished the flavor of the Chakani green. It was a subtle wine, made from grapes grown on a hillside where two wizards had fought long ago. Their magic lingered in the vintage, giving it a taste unlike any other in Aurim: sweet and herbal and velvety, with a strange but not unpleasant burn beneath. He let it wash down his throat.

Right away, he knew something was wrong. The wine’s burn changed as he swallowed. It grew stronger, harsher, and his throat started to twist and swell. In moments Maladar was wheezing, then gasping. The strength went out of his fingers, and the diamond goblet clattered to the floor, spilling green wine across the tiles to mix with the Seven’s blood.

He stared at the goblet and knew.

Maladar whirled, staring at Shai in shock. The boy was looking straight at him, for the first time since the slavers brought him to the City of Songs. Furious, Maladar tried to cast the rending spell one more time, to tear the boy apart, but he couldn’t move his fingers, could only raise his arm a little. Nor could he draw in enough air to speak the necessary words of enchantment. The poison was closing his lungs. Shai watched, a cruel smile curling his lips.

The strength left Maladar’s legs, and as he fell, he knew how he would end up: in the same curled pose of agony he’d seen in the blood-filled pool. He hadn’t cheated fate after all.

He heard a crash—Shai dropping the tray and the other seven cups—then the boy was standing over him, still smiling, his eyes looking much older than his eight years and smoldering with hatred. Maladar could do nothing to stop him as he bent down and yanked the hood from his head.

What Shai beheld should have horrified him, but he gave no sign. Maladar’s face wasn’t a face at all, for the flesh was long gone, sacrificed for his magic many years ago. What remained was a skull surrounded by gnarled gristle with a jawless, gaping hole where his mouth should be. Maladar seldom revealed his visage, and then only to shock his enemies.

Shai only sneered.

“You are a monster, after all,” he said, rising again. “But you are also a fool, emperor of emperors. Did you forget who I was? I am a prince of my people, Majesty! I swore vengeance the moment I was brought here—for the honor of the Uigan, for my father and brothers when they died in your dungeons… and for myself, for all you have done to me.” His face darkened with memory; he shook his head. “Now it is done. You are slain, Majesty… and by the hand of a child. Thus shall your reign be remembered… and the Uigan will still ride upon the steppes when Aurim is nothing but ashes. Farewell, Maladar.”

Then the boy was gone, without a look back. Maladar listened to his footfalls recede. He couldn’t breathe at all anymore, not even the slightest trickle of air. The cold and the darkness, which he’d thought he’d eluded, came all the same.

His last thought, before they swallowed him, was that one day, the Uigan would pay.

Silence. Darkness.

No smells, no tastes, no feeling. Only thought.

This was not the Abyss.

Maladar was a powerful wizard. Using his magic, he had prolonged his life for more than two centuries. He had hoped to live for many more. The thought of his death was terrible, and he had delved deep into his grimoires, seeking answers. He had made plans, in case fate proved as unavoidable as the philosophers said. Fate had. But his plans had worked.

He wasn’t still alive—not truly, anyway—though neither was he dead. They would find his body in the throne room, would burn it and cast the ashes out over the River Ush, as the Aurish did with all their emperors. Yet his soul would endure. He had bound his soul to this mortal world, sealed it within stone, within the black statue in its vault, deep beneath Aurim’s eastern provinces. He would stay with his army, in silence and darkness, until new flesh came for him to claim. He had sown the seeds, planning for that day. It might be centuries in coming, but Maladar the Faceless was patient. He would wait… and one day he would be free.

He would rule Aurim again.

Chapter 1

The Burning Sea

He felt the blade go in. He felt it with each step his body took. Barreth Forlo thought he would feel it forever—every day, every moment, until he died.

And when would that be? Soon, perhaps. Before his next breath, if he had any say. But he didn’t, of course. He hadn’t since that day, that awful day, at Akh-tazi.

Forlo had never considered life to be fair; few soldiers did, and certainly not officers. He’d seen too many good men die untimely, too many cowards escape, too many battles lost to sheer stupid chance. The gods, if indeed there were gods, were a capricious lot at best: vain and detached, if not outright cruel. That could be the only explanation for all the suffering he’d seen in his many years.

It was the only thing that could account for that.

Gods, he’d come so close—chasing halfway across Taladas and back again after the bastards who’d taken his wife. It had been a long road, beginning with the damned statue, the Hooded One, which had come into his possession by chance. He’d thought the statue was simply a valuable relic left over from the long-dead empire of Aurim. He’d hoped to sell it for a fortune, so he could enjoy his recent retirement from the armies of the Minotaur League. But he’d learned different: an elf thief, Shedara of Armach, had come to steal the statue and told him the truth. It was more than just an artifact of an ancient realm, for within it slumbered the soul of Maladar the Faceless, the most wicked of Aurim’s rulers.

Then the horde had come: thousands of horse-riding barbarians, the whole of the people known as the Uigan. Forlo had forgotten the Hooded One for a time, leaving it behind with his wife in his castle of Coldhope, to fight the savages when they crossed the straits of the Tiderun. Against all hope and odds, he’d won that battle, and—even stranger—he had found a true friend in Hult, the bodyguard of Chovuk Boyla, the prince of the Uigan.

It had all been a ruse, though, as he discovered far too late. The horde was a distraction, one that left cities smoldering in its wake, true, but only a small piece on the shivis board… as, he supposed, was he. He’d returned to Coldhope to find it emptied, its few defenders slain, except for Shedara. The Hooded One was gone… and with it his wife, Essana, and the unborn child she carried. It was their first. A black dragon had taken her, and the only clue it left behind was one of its scales, torn off in the fighting.

From there, it had been a race against time. He, Hult, and Shedara, joined by a wild elf named Eldako, had set out on the Hooded One’s trail. Their journeys had taken them to the mighty city of Kristophan, where he’d killed the emperor of the minotaurs, then north to the snowy wastes of Panak, where they learned the black dragon’s name—Gloomwing—from the Wyrm-namer, the oldest dragon in the world. From there they picked up Gloomwing’s trail, following him first to the kender valleys of Marak, then to the dank jungles of Neron. They had fought shadows and tentacle-mouthed creatures born of madness, and they slew Gloomwing himself. In the end, they had found the Hooded One and Essana, atop the ancient alien temple known as Akh-tazi, deep in the jungles of Neron. Her captors, the Faceless Brethren, had killed Eldako, and ensorceled Hult and Shedara. They hadn’t been able to stop Forlo, though, not even with all their magic and trickery. He’d found her, Essana, his Starlight.

But she was not alone.

He vividly remembered the young man who wielded the knife. The memory of his face was as hard a wound as the blade itself; it had been his own face, twenty years younger, beardless, the hair still full and dark, only with his mother’s eyes. Their son, still in Essana’s womb when last he saw her before riding off to battle. Perhaps half a year had passed since then, but the boy had been grown supernaturally and was already a man whose face lit with the fervor of a fanatic. He’d raised the dagger to sacrifice his own mother. If Forlo had had his sword in hand, he would have struck his son down. It would have broken his mind, but he knew it, in his heart: he would have killed his son to save Essana.

He’d lost his sword in the fighting, though. He had only his body to block his son’s blow.

The blade had gone in, and the moment it did, he’d known the blow was lethal. He’d been cut in battle too many times, dealt too many killing strokes himself, to believe any different. He’d found his Starlight, maybe even saved her; maybe Hult and Shedara could get to the boy before he tried a second time to kill Essana. Then it all would have been worth it. He’d let out his last breath—it felt like a sigh—and waited for death to claim him.

Only it hadn’t.

At first, lying there motionless atop his wife’s unconscious form, he hadn’t understood why he wasn’t dead. Then he’d felt it, the presence hanging above him, and he’d known. There had been another waiting near the altar, a ghost bound to a statue that bore its likeness, a horrible creature with a skull for a face, a mad tyrant who should have been dust a thousand years ago. It was Maladar, freed at last from his prison of stone. The sacrifice had been for him: Essana was to have died upon the altar, and her blood would have broken the binding spells, let the hideous specter claim his son as his new body. Forlo had been allowed to reach the temple so he could watch it happen; his grief, his rage, would have given Maladar, once the ruler of Aurim, new power in his son’s body.

Forlo had thwarted that and spared his son as well as Essana. But blood had been spilled upon the altar of Akh-tazi regardless, and the magic Maladar’s ghost had set in motion would not be stopped. Forlo had felt the darkness surround him, suffuse him. It was as if every drop of blood in his body were turning to ice—only this ice burned. If his body had let him, he would have screamed, but he’d only lain there, helpless, as Maladar claimed him instead of his son.

The pain went away. But things only got worse after that.

The ancient sorcerer’s spirit, swelling with power as it found itself in a body of flesh once more, had shoved Forlo aside without a moment’s hesitation, burying him deep within his own mind as it took control of his flesh. He’d only been able to look on from the edges of his own consciousness, like a spectator at a gladiatorial match, as Maladar made him stand and face his friends. He could only listen as the black wizard gloated over his victory. Maladar’s words were spoken in a voice that was at once Forlo’s own and something far darker. Maladar had cast a spell, and Akh-tazi vanished.

The next thing he’d known, Forlo was in an inexact place.

Forlo knew the tales, had learned them when he was a child. Everyone in Taladas knew a version of the story. Four hundred years ago, the continent had been whole, unbroken, most of it covered by a single vast empire, a realm of riches and splendor, a land called Aurim. Maladar had been only one of Aurim’s rulers and far from its last, and while he was certainly the most evil man ever to sit upon the dragon-horn throne, that darkness had not abated after his death. Finally, the gods had tired of the cruelty that lay at Aurim’s heart, and they had sent their punishment: a massive, fiery stone that struck the fabled City of Songs, smashing it into oblivion and shattering Taladas forever.

The survivors of the Great Destruction—and they were few and wretched—had fled from Aurim’s outer provinces, in time establishing new realms on the continent’s fringes. At its heart, however, the wound the gods had dealt did not heal. In Aurim’s place roiled a new sea, not of water, but of molten rock. Hith’s Cauldron, men called it: an ocean of lava and flame that raged beneath a sky black with ash and poisonous fumes. It was said that the gnomes had found a way to survive on its shores and even ply its currents in their mad tinkerers’ boats, but no other mortal had ever set out across it and lived.

And Forlo was crossing Hith’s Cauldron—or rather, Maladar was. The wizard’s spirit remained within his body, working it like a grotesque puppet while Forlo could do nothing to stop him. Under the control of the Faceless Emperor, he, Forlo, walked over the Burning Sea.

True, he didn’t actually touch the ocean of magma, but still, what he was doing should have been impossible. He moved along a narrow iron bridge, the metal cool to the touch even though it hung barely an arm’s length above the sea’s surface. Great geysers of flame erupted to either side, and hurricane winds blew cinders and the stinging reek of brimstone into his face. By rights, he should have burst into flame and died screaming, but Maladar’s magic was as strong as whatever kept the bridge from melting, and it protected him from the inferno. To Forlo, the air above the Cauldron seemed no hotter than a midsummer’s day back home.

He hadn’t eaten, drunk, or slept for days or weeks. Time was difficult, with no sun or stars visible beyond the smoke-laden sky, but he guessed about a fortnight had passed since he’d stood on solid ground. Maladar’s magic was sustaining him, he supposed, for he didn’t feel any hunger, thirst, or weariness. He had no doubt that the wizard would cast his body aside like a child’s forgotten toy if the opportunity presented itself—he’d heard the sorcerer say so, in his own voice—but for now, the Faceless Emperor’s spirit was treating him well.

Two weeks of walking, and his journey was barely half done. The Cauldron was vast, perhaps two hundred leagues across. He was bound for its center, the heart of the maelstrom, where the gods’ wrath had fallen upon the City of Songs. There, the legends said, a tower of living flame had once stood, rising high above the sea. Chaldar, scholars called this tower, which meant flame-spire in the minotaur tongue. In the years after the Destruction, it had been visible from the Cauldron’s farthest shores, but when the gods fled the world after the Dread Winter, some forty years ago, they had taken all magic with them. The enchantments that kept the Chaldar aloft failed, and it came crashing down.

As far as anyone knew, it had not returned.

“I will rebuild it,” Forlo murmured; only it wasn’t him, not really. Yes, it was his voice, but Forlo had no more control over his voice than his legs. It was Maladar who worked his lungs, his tongue, his lips. “It will rise again… and Aurim with it. The old glories will return, and all will bow before the might of the City of Songs. The minotaurs, the elves, the men of Thenol and the Tamire… they will bow, or they will burn.”

Forlo’s spirit groaned, trying to push against the bonds that gripped him. If he could just shove Maladar aside, wrest control for even a moment, he could end this travesty. He could leap off the bridge, into the fire. But he couldn’t. He was a hostage in his own body.

Together, Forlo and the dark being who controlled him marched on.

Maladar felt the warrior’s struggles and did not care. Indeed, they pleased him. Barreth Forlo was only one more life, after all. Maladar had ended thousands of lives, most them after great suffering. And, after all, he had been imprisoned for so long—trapped in the Hooded One, well beyond the time his disciples ought to have freed him. His plans had called for his release after only five hundred years, but something had gone wrong, and twice that span had passed instead. And his imprisonment had been far worse than Barreth Forlo’s: no sight, no sound, no senses at all… for ten centuries.

Besides, Forlo had tried to thwart Maladar and nearly succeeded. All of Maladar’s plans had come within a heartbeat of collapsing, his soul a razor’s breadth from falling, howling, into the Abyss. For that, Forlo deserved suffering far worse than being trapped deep within his own body.

There would be time enough for punishing Forlo, though. Maladar forgot about him for the moment and focused on the journey ahead.

He had known these lands when last he lived. Once, the land beneath his feet had been the province of Yush, an ancient mountain realm that had been one of Aurim’s earliest conquests. From its ore-rich mines had come gold and iron, star opals and the blue gems called Manith’s Tears, prized by jewelers all over the empire. Its wealth, mined by dwarf and goblin slaves, had filled the imperial coffers. Yush’s riches alone had financed most of the wars that led to Aurim overrunning Taladas.

Yush was gone, though, like the rest of Aurim. The Master, mightiest of the unlamented Faceless Brethren, had told him of the Destruction and the Cauldron. The tale had unnerved Maladar: Aurim had been the only thing he truly loved, and the place was destroyed, melted away into chaos. Hearing the tale was easy, however, compared with witnessing the devastation firsthand. That the gods would do that, would go so far to cheat him of his destiny, infuriated him.

He understood why his imprisonment had lasted so long. Only fortune had spared him at all, for the easternmost reaches of Aurim were among the few parts of the empire that endured, though even they were mostly dead lands, ashes and dust haunted by hobgoblins and worse. The only habitable parts were the Rainward Isles, far from here, broken off from the mainland by the force of the Destruction.

Other than that, Aurim was gone, lost forever—or so the gods had hoped. They had forgotten Maladar, though… all of them but Hith the Cowled, the Dark One. Hith had dominion over the Burning Sea, and Maladar’s soul had made a bargain with Hith, during the long, sleepless years of his imprisonment. In return for destroying certain realms—the Imperial League of the minotaurs, for one, and also the Rainwards—Hith would let the Faceless Emperor raise the Chaldar once more from the Cauldron. And in the shadow of that blazing tower, the fallen empire would rise anew, first the City of Songs then the lands beyond. Aurim would be reborn, and Maladar would rule over Taladas, as he’d planned all along. All he had to do was cross the Cauldron.

His destination was close. At last, it was so close.

Maladar’s gaze seldom shifted from the bridge ahead of him, stretching on toward the dark and distant horizon. It ran arrow-straight, its black, fire-pitted surface a thread of darkness through the Cauldron’s fire. It continued to the center of the sea, to the place where the Chaldar had once stood and one day would stand again. His eyes flicked up now and again as if he might glimpse the span’s end, but of course there was no sign. He still had fifty leagues to go—two more weeks’ travel in Barreth Forlo’s body. The journey might have been quicker in the younger, stronger body of Forlo’s son, the man-child whom the Brethren had dubbed the Taker. His body was less troubled by the onset of middle age. But fate and ill fortune had kept him from claiming the son, so he’d settled for what he could get. Forlo was not an ideal vessel, but he would have to do.

So intent was Maladar on the road before him that it was some time before he realized he was no longer alone. It was, in fact, Forlo’s own instincts that alerted him—a prickling at the nape of his neck, the itch to reach for the empty scabbard that hung by his side. Maladar hesitated at the unfamiliar sensation but did not stop. He felt no fear; he hadn’t felt fear since he was a child, long ago. He simply relaxed Forlo’s body, flexing its fingers, pressing its tongue against its upper teeth to begin the incantation of a spell. Then, one eyebrow rising, he looked to his left.

Tall walls of flame danced above the Cauldron, ever-shifting, gold and crimson and faint wisps of blue. It was a dizzying sight, curtains of fire parting and closing again, rising into tall whirlwinds or rippling like water across the magma’s surface. There was something different about them now, though: a presence that lurked deep in their heart. No, it was not just one presence; there were a multitude hidden among the flames, flickers of movement that were more than random conflagration. It was hard to count them, so deeply did the fires conceal them, but he thought there might be scores, perhaps hundreds. And they were on the other side of the bridge as well, in a waiting throng.

Maladar moved Forlo’s fingers again, shifting them into a different pose. His tongue dropped back to press against his palate as he chose a unique spell from the thousands he had learned—or created—over his long life. He didn’t delay; stopping in his tracks, he threw up his hands and began to cast.

The black moon, Nuvis, was close to full that day. Its power raced through him, bringing more joy than any wine or dream-smoke or pleasures of the flesh. Forlo’s battle-scarred hands danced in the air; his deep voice intoned words in a language he had never spoken before Maladar took him. The sounds were like the scuttling of creatures across the seafloor. He raised his arms, and the magic burst from him in a blue wave that raced across the Cauldron’s surface and high into the air.

Rain began to fall.

The first drops were small and scattered, hissing away to steam before they struck the Burning Sea. They quickly built to a shower, however, and then to a downpour so powerful that the flames began to hiss and flicker. Great gouts of vapor shrieked into the air as the fire died, leaving his stalkers nowhere to hide.

They were beings of living flame, white at their hearts, hotter than the fires he had just doused. They shrugged off the rainstorm, surrounding him, watching with eyes of green witch-light. They had the shapes of men, more or less, and each stood ten feet high, hovering above the Cauldron’s churning surface. Each held a sword, also made of flame.

The fire minions regarded Maladar without making a sound. He felt their hunger and hate and savored their enmity. These, he thought, might be useful… if I don’t have to destroy them.

“I have quenched the fires that cloaked you,” he said, steepling his fingers before him. “Do not doubt that, should I choose, I can do the same to you. Speak now.”

The minions said nothing, only continued to stare, shifting and sizzling beneath the deluge. So Maladar killed one of them.

It was quick, the movement so sudden the minions had no time to react. He simply spoke one word, rippling his fingers in a motion that took less than a heartbeat, and ending by pointing at the nearest of the minions. A white ray of frost, colder than the winds of Panak, lanced from his fingertip and struck the minion in its left eye. The creature let out a whump, as of igniting oil, then flickered out, fading away to nothing.

Maladar glared at the minions, folding his hands before him once more. They looked at where their fellow had been, then back at him.

“Speak,” he said again.

They reacted that time. One of their number, who looked no different than any of the rest, glided forward and stepped onto the bridge. The iron glowed red where its feet touched; the scent of hot metal stung Maladar’s nostrils. The minion approached him, sword held low, and stopped three paces away. Its heat baked his skin, making sweat trickle down his face. He did not brush the sweat away, did not make any move.

“Who are you?” he asked. “Why do you trouble me?”

The minion’s eyes bored into his. Its mouth opened, and the fire within was deep scarlet. The rest of them did the same, speaking in perfect chorus. Their voices were the roaring of forge flames, the crackle of forests burning. The words came from all around.

“We do not trouble you,” they said. “ You are the one who intrudes upon our home.”

He smiled—a strange feeling, to do such a thing again. He hadn’t had a face since his first years upon the throne. “Ah,” he said, “but you are mistaken. These lands belong to me, by right of crown and conquest. I am Maladar, once emperor of Aurim.”

The minions glanced at one another. At first he thought they were impressed, but instead they made a strange sound, a thunder of explosions all around. After a moment, Maladar realized they were laughing.

“Aurim?” they asked. “Aurim is no more. It has been cleansed from the world, drowned beneath this molten rock.”

Maladar allowed himself another small, slight smile. “Oh? Then what lies at the bottom of this sea? You know the truth as well as I do, you who have swum its depths. Hith safeguards the City of Songs, awaiting my return.”

There was no sound for ten beats of Barreth Forlo’s stolen heart save the whisper of boiling rain. The minions regarded him without emotion, their mirth gone.

“You are the one whose coming was foretold, then? The Sleeper in the Stone?”

Maladar nodded, saying nothing. Again there was silence, that time for twenty heartbeats.

“No,” the minions said, “you are not. Else, where is your army?”

It might have been his imagination, but Maladar thought there was amusement in those blank, green eyes. Were the fire minions mocking him? He considered killing another—perhaps the one who stood upon the bridge—then decided against it. He’d made that point already. Instead, his brow furrowed.

“My army?”

The minions answered him, but their voices were different. They had taken on a deeper, more sonorous tone, one he recognized at once. It had been his own voice, his old voice in his old body, cremated and scattered long ago. The voice spoke in verse, in an ancient meter:

For an age I shall sleep, though dream shall I never,
Save of returning to the city of gold.
When the guards at her gates shall hark and behold,
The Faceless returns—may his reign last forever.
I slumber in stone, in the dark, quiet chill,
But when I awake, my wrath shall be vast.
At my heels, a dire host of might unsurpassed,
And both beggar and king shall bow to my will.

With that, the rain ended, not a slow draining away, as it ought to have, but all at once, the suddenness of it taking Maladar aback. The flames leaped anew from the Cauldron’s surface, swallowing the minions, all save the one who stood upon the bridge. Now the flame creature was ridiculing him, of that there was no doubt. It rose up off the iron, floating on gusts of scalding wind.

“It is not your time,” the minion said, and its words echoed all around, as before. Its kin were still out there, hidden, waiting. “You may not pass. Try, and we will feast upon your ashes.”

Anger swelled inside Maladar, a cold and glittering stone in his heart. “I am the Faceless Emperor! This is my destiny.”

“Not without your army,” the minions replied. “It was foretold. Now go, and return when the prophecy is fulfilled.”

A shriek tore across the sky, high above. Maladar looked up and saw a shape moving through the fume: a huge, serpentine form made of flowing fire, gone almost as soon as he had glimpsed it. He saw enough to know what the shape was: a dragon, born of the Cauldron, larger and mightier than any mortal wyrm Taladas had ever seen. And he knew the moment he beheld it that it could destroy him. At last, he felt fear grip his stomach. He loathed himself for it.

The fire minions laughed, the flames rising higher.

He was walking again, several hours later, when he felt another presence beside him. He did not need to look to see who it was: the feeling of awe and dread that swept over him was unmistakable. Gliding along beside him was an empty, billowing black shroud: the foul god Hith’s form in the mortal world.

“You have turned around,” said the god. “The Chaldar is behind you.”

Maladar glowered at him. “The Chaldar is beyond my reach… as you well knew.”

The shroud’s shoulders moved, indicative of a shrug. “Perhaps. But if I had told you when you stood upon the shore that it was not yet time to cross the Cauldron, would you have believed me? No. You had a thousand years of hunger boiling in you, Maladar. A millennium of dreams and madness within your prison.”

Maladar considered that. Hith was a liar and a cheat—the tales of the god’s trickery were beyond counting—but here he spoke plainly. There could have been no dissuading Maladar, for his mind had been set when he embarked on his journey. Now though, he had time to reflect, time to plan.

He needed an army, and he knew where to find it.

“I will return to this place,” he said. “And my soldiers will be marching at my back. Those fiery wretches will bow before me… them and their dragon.”

He glanced sideways, expecting an answer. But Hith was gone, vanished into nothingness once more.

Chapter 2

The Blackrain Hills, Neron

Noise filled the forest that night, and Shedara was tired of it.

Before coming to Neron, she had loved the woods. The trees of Armach, her homeland, greeted her like a mother’s embrace whenever she came home—even the last time, during the hunt for the Hooded One, when she’d gone back to find the elf kingdom broken, her queen slain, and her own brother maimed and bitter. Evil might have overrun Armach-nesti, but the trees had been the same, the copses and glades soothing and peaceful.

It was not like this place. The jungles known as the Emerald Sea were alive with strange sounds, both day and night. Birds sang and shrieked and cried; beetles buzzed and whined; larger beasts roared and growled and snuffled in the undergrowth. Worst of all, though, were the frogs: it didn’t seem to matter how little they were, for they all made loud, keening chirps that pierced the skull and never stopped. Add the constant din to the pools of death-murk that tried almost daily to devour someone in her company, the gigantic, hungry bloodflies that ripped out chunks of flesh when they bit, and even vines that sought to seize them by their throats and drag them into the treetops to strangle, and Shedara had sworn a hundred times, over the weeks since she’d left Akh-tazi, that once she finally left Neron behind, she would never, ever return.

She had other, more painful reasons for that vow. She had lost two friends there, men she had grown close to in recent months. One, the merkitsa elf Eldako, might have been a lover in better times, a kindred spirit she could have spent many happy hours with, perhaps even a lifetime. Instead, he’d been taken from her twice—first by the mutilating acid breath of a black dragon, then by death when he sacrificed himself to slay the last of the Faceless Brethren. He lay buried at the temple’s foot, his grave marked by only a cluster of arrows left by the cha’asii, the jungle elves.

Hard as Eldako’s loss was, though—and it tore her heart whenever she thought of him—what had happened to Forlo was worse. He had been their leader, a driving force behind their quest. But he, too, was dead. Not everyone believed that, of course, but Shedara did. She had to. The alternative was too horrible to imagine.

None of them had spoken more than they had to, traveling north from the ruined temples to the highlands that once had been the edge of Aurim. The sky, when they could see it through the treetops, grew darker every day, an unpleasant green-brown hue like that of moldering corpses. Eight others walked with Shedara: the barbarian Hult, who was her sole surviving companion from their original quest; Forlo’s wife, Essana, whom they had rescued from Akh-tazi, and his son, Azar, grown to adulthood only weeks after his birth; and five of the cha’asii who had accompanied them from the village of Ke-cha-yat. The rest of the jungle elves had gone back home, bearing the heads of the Faceless Brethren and their servants, the tentacled creatures the cha’asii called akitu-shai, the Crawling Maws.

The five jungle elves carried the heads of several more Maws with them, smoked and dried so they looked like nothing so much like evil octopuses, impaled on the tips of the cha’asii’s spears. The heads were a warning, and they seemed to work: if any akitu-shai remained in that part of the jungle, they hadn’t troubled the party as they threaded their way up into the hills.

At last, their final night in Neron came. The next day they would reach the edge of the Emerald Sea: the jungle would thin, the hills would grow rocky, and they would enter lands that had been inhospitable since the First Destruction. They would be in Aurim. It would be a hard way, but no other lay open to them, and they couldn’t turn back, not with Maladar on the loose. The game had to be played to the end, whatever that might be.

Shedara sat on a rock bearded with moss, listening to the birds and the beetles and the Astar-be-damned frogs, staring north through the trees. She imagined she could see the glow of Hith’s Cauldron from there, though that had to be fancy; the sea of lava was far away, and they would pass well to the east of it, through the ashes of the old empire. Still, there was a strange, ruddy light in the sky, and it didn’t come from Lunis or any other of the moons. She watched the strange light a while, flipping a throwing knife over and over in her hand. Then she stopped, holding it by the blade. Someone was drawing near, and not one of the cha’asii either. She could tell an elf’s footfall from a human’s. Slowly, Shedara turned.

It was like seeing a ghost every time. Azar looked so much like his father that it gave her the shivers. He’d even begun to grow a beard, though it was light and was coming in patchy, finer red hairs mixing with black. Only the eyes gave him away. Forlo’s had been dark, but the young man’s were paler, like his mother’s, shifting from blue to hazel and back.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said.

Shedara grunted, relaxing her grip on the knife, though not entirely. Azar still wore the clothes he’d been clad in when she first encountered him, though they were bramble-torn and mud-spattered: the black cassock and cloak that had been the garb of the Faceless. That unnerved her, though it wasn’t as if there were any other garments to be had, unless it was the bark-and-leaf loincloths the cha’asii wore. At least he no longer had the ugly, curved dagger he’d wielded. They’d left that blade behind, at Akh-tazi, after Essana broke it between two rocks.

“What’s troubling you, Azar?” Shedara asked.

He looked down at his hands, twisting them together. “My mother says you and my father were friends.”

“We were,” she replied. Her mouth crooked into a half smile. “We’ve known each other since before you were born.”

Azar glanced up, a puzzled frown creasing his brow. “I was only born a month ago.”

“I know. It was a joke.”

He nodded but clearly didn’t understand. That was the other thing about him that disturbed her: the Faceless had used their magic to raise him from infancy to what looked like about twenty-five summers—a fair age, for a human—in a remarkably short span of time. His sole purpose, in their eyes, had been to serve as a vessel for Maladar. The Taker, they’d called him. There was much that they simply hadn’t bothered with, leaving nuances aside as unnecessary for one meant to serve as a host body for the ancient archmage. Humor appeared to be one of those things.

That, she thought, will make for a long journey.

“Ask what you came to ask,” she said. “Then be done. I’m not really in the mood to chat.”

“Ah. I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just that… well… I never knew my father. I never had the chance.”

“No. You didn’t.”

She couldn’t keep the accusation out of her words. Nor, she had to admit, did she really want to. The young man had been the one who struck the killing blow against Forlo, and though in her mind she knew he hadn’t meant to kill her friend, her heart was still dark with resentment.

At least he understood guilt: his face colored, and he stared at his hands again.

“Azar,” she began.

“Forgive me,” he said. “This is… difficult. My mother tells me he was a good man, but the Brethren said otherwise. They said he deserved to suffer.”

Shedara rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me you still believe anything the Brethren told you,” she snapped. “What about Essana? They told you she deserved to die too. Do you still believe that?”

He flinched, and only part of her regretted her tone. Some part of her wanted revenge, to make this young man hurt for what he’d done to Forlo. The need was childish, she knew, but it was no less real than the need for food or water… or love.

“Please,” he persisted. “I said this is difficult. I am confused. I need to hear it from someone else, someone who knew him.”

“What?” she snapped. “Need to know what?”

“Was my father good?”

She rocked back. It was as if he’d slapped her. Memories flooded her in a rush, images of all they’d been through: Forlo riding off to battle at the Lost Road, Forlo fighting in the Arena at Kristophan, Forlo watching the ancient dragon called the Wyrm-namer as it let out its last breath, Forlo… hurling himself between the falling dagger and his wife.

Shedara looked up at the trees, her eyes suddenly stinging. “Yes. He was the best of men.”

Azar was silent a while. His hands twisted together. “Then I wanted you to know. I am sorry,” he said. “I wish I hadn’t killed him.”

He left her there, with tears shining in her eyes, clambering back down toward the glow of the cha’asii’s campfire. When he was gone, Shedara snarled and flung her knife at where he’d been. It hit a tree, burying its blade an inch deep in the wood. She didn’t pull it out again until morning.

The Blackrain Hills were well named. The precipitation started as a mere drizzle as the group reached the edge of the jungle. There the plants were thin and sickly, their leaves and fronds patched with gray-brown. A smell like old, wet campfires hung in the air as the rain grew into a steady soaking. The water was indeed black—not like ink, but like soot. When she cupped her hands to gather it, Shedara saw the grit floating in it.

“It is as if a city has been burning,” said Hult, who would know. His people had put the towns of Malton and Rudil to the torch before being all but wiped out at the Battle of the Run. He held up a hand and watched the raindrops slide across his skin, leaving grimy trails. “Is this from the old empire?”

Le-nekh, the leader of the cha’asii, had called a halt and was looking nervous. He shook his head, fingering the feathered amulet he wore at his throat. “We do not know. My people have never gone beyond these hills to see. The land is cursed. Only evil lives here now… ghosts and fiends. We must return to Ke-cha-yat.” He looked at Shedara, his dark eyes pleading. “You can still come with us. It is not too late, and you would live as heroes among the trees.”

“Thank you, Le-nekh,” Shedara said, smiling. “In more peaceful days, the offer might tempt me. But we must go on, or nowhere will be safe before long. Not even your friendly lands.”

The cha’asii regarded her gravely, then crossed his arms. “Farewell, then, my friends. The ancestors will watch over you. We go.”

And they did, at a swift gesture from Le-nekh. The jungle elves melted away into the forest, swiftly and completely. Shedara swallowed, then turned to face the others.

Hult stood nearby, one hand resting on the sword that hung by his side. That hand was missing two fingers, lost on their journey. He stared north, past the rocky, scrub-dotted cliffs, into the pitchy fall of the rain. He had changed much in the past weeks, and no longer seemed the young man of eighteen or nineteen he’d been when she first met him. He’d matured: grown harder, angrier. Hult ran a hand over his head, where his fine black hair hung down past his ears. Once, his pate had been shaven but for a single, long braid: the mark of an Uigan warrior, along with the blue tattoos upon his cheeks. The minotaurs of the League had docked that braid, though, and he had chosen not to regrow it. The Uigan had no warriors anymore—not after the Run. Hult was a man with no home.

“This will be a hard walk,” he murmured. “Especially for the lady.”

Shedara followed his glance. Standing apart from them, trying to shelter under the scorched boughs, were Essana and Azar. Forlo’s wife had nearly recovered from her torments at the hands of the Faceless, but she was still dangerously thin, her muscles wasted from her imprisonment. She looked twice her forty years, her lustrous black hair streaked with white, her skin spotted and frail. However, there was also a diamond hardness to her eyes, showing the strength that had helped her survive months of captivity at Akh-tazi. Still, she was weak, and the mission they faced would take them across some of the harshest lands in Taladas.

Le-nekh had been right: the remains of Aurim were blasted, lifeless, and haunted by evil things. Shedara had visited them once before, years ago. Food and water were scarce and foul, and enemies plenty. It was a land that killed Taladas’s hardiest warriors. Essana might not survive the crossing. But she had been adamant: she was going with them. She would not stay behind with the cha’asii. It was folly, but Shedara understood. Essana’s husband, the man she loved, was out there somewhere—in body, if not in spirit. Hope was a hard thing to give up.

Besides, they might need her where they were going.

“I’ll see to our needs,” Shedara said. “I have my magic. I can conjure food and water to keep us all alive after our supplies run out. It’ll taste terrible, but even so. As to keeping her safe… you’re a protector, aren’t you?”

Hult scowled. “Not a very good one, I must admit. I was tenach to Chovuk Boyla, but he was slain. Then I protected Forlo.” He chewed his lip. “You know how that ended.”

“It wasn’t your fault. The Faceless had you paralyzed, just like me.”

“Perhaps,” Hult agreed, but his frown didn’t go away. “But my oath was chakta yani anchak—my life for my master’s. Twice now I have broken that vow. You should not trust me to keep it the third time.”

“Oh,” Shedara said. “I get it. You’re the proud savage who’s lost his honor. I recognize you from my bedtime stories when I was a child.” His face darkened, but she kept talking. “Listen to me, Hult. We don’t have time for self-pity. Essana needs your eyes watching over her and your sword keeping bad things from eating her. Any failures in the past, keep them between you and your god. I don’t care.”

When she’d first known him, saying such a thing would have ended with drawn swords and possibly blood. Though he glowered at her, he didn’t reach for his blade. Instead he nodded, his gaze shifting back to Essana.

“I will watch over her,” he said, “but I will take no oath. Not this time.”

“Fine,” she said. “No oaths. I don’t care, as long as she makes it to the Rainwards alive.”

“She will,” he said. Above, green lightning ripped the sky. Thunder echoed, booming from hill to hill. “And the boy?”

Shedara shrugged. “Protect him too, if you can manage it.”

“I don’t trust him. He was one of them.”

“Not by his will,” she said, watching Azar. He had drawn up his hood to ward off the rain and looked so much like one of the Faceless that the hairs on the back of her neck rose. “He never got to learn how to be human.”

Hult’s lips pressed together, becoming a tight line. “I sorrow for him, and for his mother. But if it comes to a choice to save one of them over the other, I will leave him to his fate.”

“I won’t argue with that,” Shedara replied and hiked her pack, settling it on her shoulders. “Now enough talk. I want to be out of these hills by the end of tomorrow. They give me a bad feeling.”

“Everything here gives me a bad feeling.”

She grinned. “So I’ve noticed.”

The ground grew rockier, loose with shale, slick with sooty water. They slid and stumbled, using their hands as much as their feet to clamber their way over the shoulders of hills. Essana had the hardest time of all, but each time she stumbled, Hult was there to catch her.

Night came quickly; with the sun obscured by the pall overhead, the only sign of its setting came when the sky grew even darker, cloaking the land in shadow. Shedara called a halt when she realized she was using her elf-sight more than the normal kind and began to search for shelter. It wasn’t hard to find in the craggy lands; there were overhangs and shallow caves everywhere. She got them settled in one such cavern, out of the rain, then had Hult and Azar gather a small pile of stones. There was little fuel for fires there, and any wood they did find would be wet. From then on, they would need her magic for warmth as well.

The moons’ power was flowing sluggishly that night, with Lunis and Solis both at their nadir, but she didn’t need much. She dragged their magic into her, forced it into shape with words that crawled over her tongue. Her fingers danced as they made passes over the little cairn the others had built and coaxed silent fire out of the stones. She shuddered as the magic flowed out of her, and the rocks began to glow ruddy orange. Dry heat came off them in waves. She sighed, smiling, then ducked outside to make sure the magical campfire was hidden from view. The rain had gotten worse, driving and drenching. It stung her eyes, and she had to wipe it away.

“Is it safe?”

Shedara whirled. Essana had come up on her so quietly, she nearly put a dagger in the woman’s throat.

“Safe?” she asked. “We’re in Old Aurim, milady. We won’t be safe again till we leave it. Where’s Hult?”

“There,” Essana said, pointing. The barbarian lurked in the shadows, his eyes flicking this way and that. “You set him to watch over me.”

“I did,” Shedara said. It occurred to her that somehow, since Forlo was gone, she’d become the leader of the ragged band. “You have my blades as well, but I have spell-work to do if we’re going to make this crossing.”

Essana glanced at the Uigan, her eyes narrowing. “Strange. His kind would have killed me if they’d won at the Run. They would have sacked Coldhope and put me to the sword.”

They would have done more than that, Shedara thought, but she kept it to herself. Essana was no fool; she knew what barbarians did with captive women, particularly the beautiful ones.

“Your husband trusted Hult with his life,” Shedara said instead. “To tell the truth, at first I thought he was an idiot. But… well, we’ve been through a lot. Hult’s proven himself. There isn’t a sword in all of Taladas I’d rather have at my back. Not even my own brother’s.”

She left out that her brother, Quivris, didn’t particularly like her anymore. Perhaps things could be better between them if she defeated Maladar and avenged her queen. Perhaps not. Family was difficult.

“You misunderstand,” Essana said. “I didn’t come to criticize you, Shedara. I wanted to thank you for thinking of me. I know what you lost at Akh-tazi. I wouldn’t blame you for being—what was that?”

Shedara froze, her mouth going dry. She’d heard it too: a low, rumbling grunt, somewhere off in the dark. Lightning flared, blinding her elf-sight; she grimaced, swore, and let two knives drop from her wrist sheaths into her hands.

Hult was beside her, his sword out, glancing this way and that in the gloom. It was hard to make anything out in the darkness and rain, but Shedara could sense something—something large and moving.

“I was just asking if it was safe out here tonight,” Essana murmured. “I feel like the answer is very much no.”

Shedara chuckled. “Back in the cave, milady. Go. You and Azar move as far to the rear as you can. Don’t come out again unless Hult or I say so. Understood?”

“Yes,” Essana said, and was gone. She didn’t argue, didn’t insist on fighting too. That was a relief.

“Can you see anything?” Hult asked, squinting. There was another chuff, unmistakable, a snorting sound that cut through the storm’s racket.

Shedara gritted her teeth. “Not a damn thing. Didn’t the cha’asii give you a bow?”

“It’s back in the cave. No time for it now.”

Lightning flashed again, bathing the hills in bright, green light. Shedara yelled, falling back a step; beside her, Hult said something harsh in the Uigan tongue. The light faded again, but it had done its job: they’d both seen what was coming for them.

There were four of them, and they were enormous: ten or eleven feet tall, their flesh covered with spongy, red growths that oozed between masses of gray-green scales, their faces stupid and bestial and grotesquely deformed. Patchy, black hair hung from their heads, and brown fangs filled their mouths. Filthy talons jutted from their fingers and toes. They were trolls, broken and twisted by the poisons that ravaged the remains of Aurim, pouring down in the ebon rain. It was their territory, and they had smelled warm flesh. They came to feast.

“Mother of Astar,” Shedara said and raised her daggers to throw.

Chapter 3

The Blackrain Hills, Old Aurim

Knives won’t be any use,” Hult hissed. He swiped at the air with his sword, getting it moving in wide loops between him and the trolls. “These things have thick hides. They’ll just bounce off.”

He peered through the gloom, hoping for another flash of lightning. He was blind out there, a terrible feeling with the trolls so close. The creatures were dangerous enough; even a battle-axe couldn’t always cleave through their horny skin, and when it did, the brutes’ wounds healed with alarming speed. He’d fought creatures that were kin to these two years ago, when his people were at one of their grazing camps near the Ring Mountains. The mountain trolls preyed on cattle, goats, and sometimes the Uigan themselves. Entire herds had been lost, until Hult’s master, Chovuk Boyla, had gathered his warriors and those of several other clans and hunted the beasts down.

The Uigan had lost fourteen good men before the trolls were destroyed. Fourteen out of fifty—and the numbers had been in his people’s favor. Before them were two trolls for each of them, him and Shedara. And he couldn’t see them in the darkness and black rain.

Be with me, Jijin, he prayed. His hand sweated as he swung his blade up-over-down-back, up-over-down-back, a quick and rhythmic pattern that made a whooshing sound as the sword cut through the air. I have not come this far, and through so much pain, to die now, in this desolate place. Get us out of this, and I will kill a dozen goats in your name.

His god didn’t answer; he never did. Hult was no shaman. But he did hear something, a spidery chanting from Shedara’s direction, and glanced her way in time to see a ball of blue-white light flare to life above her upturned palm. He winced, turning away before the spell could blind him, then crept his gaze warily back over. The elf looked ashen, drained, as she pushed the eldritch light up into the air. The ball floated up, glimmering bright enough to make the rocks around them glow like ghosts. The grimy rain became slashes in the air as it fell through the magical luminance.

“Well done,” Hult said.

Shedara smiled. “Glad you approve. Quick, to your right!”

Hult whirled, bringing his sword up in a parry that saved him from being ripped limb from limb. One of the trolls had stolen up, trying to flank him in the dark. The brutes were damnably quiet, particularly with the noise of rain all around. Jagged talons clutched at him, and he batted them aside with his sword, which struck the creature’s wrist hard enough to break the skin. The troll bellowed a wordless roar, full of hate and pain, and stumbled back with black blood coursing from its wound. Instantly, though, the bleeding began to lessen, the skin to knit and heal as he watched. He hacked at the creature two more times but only managed to drive it back a few steps.

The other trolls were close, slouching into the light of Shedara’s spell. They were hideous, even by troll standards: The one he’d been fighting looked like something had chewed off its nose and the entire right side of its face. Another had one normal arm, but the other was a bent and withered thing, no larger than a child’s. A third moved with an awkward, lurching gait, one of its legs so heavy with fleshy growths that it couldn’t bend at the knee. The fourth was emaciated, so disease-devoured that it seemed mummified.

That last one came at him next, its bones sliding beneath its wrinkled skin, moving faster than such a huge creature had any right to. Instinct took over, and Hult spun, snapping his sword around as the skeletal troll’s teeth snapped shut a hand’s breadth from his face. Its breath smelled like a week-old battlefield, and he tasted bile as his blade hacked into the troll’s arm at the elbow.

Into and through.

He heard the snap of bone breaking, felt a brief tug, and the troll’s left arm flew free, spitting black droplets as it spun through the air. The troll shrieked, battering him with a fist that sent him stumbling back. The arm slapped down onto the ground, still twitching.

Then, to Hult’s horror, the arm rose from where it lay. Its fingers lifted up the hand like legs and dragged the rest of the severed limb away into the dark. He stared at it, stunned. Then the noseless one was back, trying to grab him. It barked at him, brown gobbets flying from its maw. The wound he’d dealt before was already no more than a scar, almost healed over. A few more heartbeats, and there would be no sign that he’d cut the troll at all.

Jijin, he wondered, are you listening to me?

There was another flash to his left, and a wave of heat so strong that he smelled his own hair singeing. Half a heartbeat later, a massive thud set his ears ringing, and a bloodcurdling howl answered it. Hult risked a glance, already knowing what he would see: Shedara standing with arm outstretched and one of the other trolls—the one with the withered arm—on fire and screaming. The brute beat at the red flames that engulfed it, growing more frantic every moment, but there was no extinguishing the blaze. A roasted stink stabbed at Hult’s nostrils, making his eyes water, then Withered Arm let out a final wail and made only five long, loping steps before crashing headlong onto the rocks. Its arms, untouched by the fire, tried to drag its lifeless bulk away, but then the flames found the arms too, and the whole creature collapsed into a burning, lifeless mass.

“One down,” Shedara said. “That just leaves the thr—”

An angry shout cut her off as the remaining trolls closed in. Hult lost sight of her, pushing back as both his foes came on at once. He hacked at them furiously, dodging their snatching hands and champing jaws, retching at the charnel reek that thickened the air around them. Behind him he heard the hiss of Shedara’s short sword clearing its scabbard.

“Your magic!” he shouted. “Cast another spell!”

“The moons are too weak!” she snapped back. “I don’t have the strength.”

Hult gritted his teeth. Then we’re dead, he thought.

The skeletal brute’s claw darted at him, and he batted it away with his sword, taking off three gnarled fingers that writhed away like worms the moment they hit the ground. Blood spattered his face, stinging one of his eyes so badly that he had to squeeze it shut. He spat, ducked, whirled, and drove his sword deep into the noseless troll’s bowels. The beast made a vicious whooping sound and collapsed, nearly dragging the blade from Hult’s hand. As Noseless lay bawling in its own blood, holding shut its opened gut with its remaining arm, Skeleton got past Hult’s defenses with its maimed hand and clouted him on the temple.

A small sun burst inside Hult’s head, and he staggered, nearly vomiting as gray haze closed in around him. He went down on one knee, flailing with his sword, so that Skeleton had to pull back or lose its snapping jaw. He swore, trying to get his feet back under him. He didn’t have much time; soon Noseless’s belly wound would close, and he would rejoin the fray. He had to find a way to end the fight before that happened. He had to put Skeleton down as well, then start hacking them both to pieces.

First, though, he had to get up on his feet. Groaning, he shoved back the haze, swallowed the vomit, and began to rise… only to feel something lock around his ankle from behind.

Hult knew what had grabbed him without looking, but he looked anyway, if only to confirm that such a mad thought was real. It was the noseless troll’s severed arm. It had dragged itself back into the battle, intent on protecting the rest of its body. Its fingers were wrapped around his leg, its grip tightening until his bones ground together. He hewed at it, trying to cut it loose, but the angle was bad and he nearly took off his own foot.

The arm wrenched him sideways, sending him tumbling to the ground. His elbow hit a sharp rock, a lance of pain ran up through his shoulder into his spine, and his sword skittered from his nerveless grasp.

Not here, Jijin, he prayed while trying with his maimed left hand to pry loose the claws around his ankle. Damn you and the ancestors, not now!

“Hult!” Shedara shouted. “Get up! Look—”

She broke off with a grunt. Hult didn’t know what had happened to her, but his imagination filled with images of the half-lame troll ripping out her throat with its teeth, snapping her neck with its massive hands, or simply pounding her flat. He couldn’t look, couldn’t face the thought that she might be dead too—like Eldako and Forlo before her. He screamed, scrabbling at the severed arm, unable to make it let go.

Noseless was on its feet again, a wide, ugly purple line all that remained of the disemboweling Hult had inflicted. Beside it, Skeleton dropped into a crouch, its stupid black eyes gleaming in the faltering light of Shedara’s spell. He saw their fangs, long and crooked and sharp, and could already feel them sinking into his flesh. He shut his eyes, waiting for the pain to begin.

Instead, he felt something else: a strange, tingling sensation, almost a prickling, all over his skin. He opened his eyes again and saw that all the hairs on his arms were standing straight up. He had the dim feeling he’d felt the curious sensation before, and memories came to him of riding on the steppes as a young boy, during the worst of a thunderstorm.

The roar of thunder was so sudden, so loud, that it seemed to stop time altogether. Later, when he gathered his thoughts, he would think he’d actually seen the lightning arc and fork down from the clouds, striking the two trolls and turning them into seared, fleshy masses. Bits of charred meat splattered across the ground. The severed arm’s grasp went slack, and Hult’s skin crawled as he kicked the dead thing away.

And like that, the trolls were gone. Hult looked over to see the huddled, black, smoldering shape of the beast that Shedara had been fighting and the elf herself, lying dazed on her back, looking at him with an expression so amazed that he couldn’t help but laugh.

Then movement caught his eye, in the last moments before the light spell failed completely. He twisted, half expecting to see more trolls, but it was nothing of the sort. It was a man, standing on top of a boulder near the cave mouth. He looked down at them, his eyes shining.

Forlo? Hult wondered, his thoughts growing muzzy. No, that’s not right.

Then the magic gave out, and darkness surrounded him once more. Hult’s head filled with pain. Groaning, he lay back and let his eyes droop shut.

He awoke again to warmth and shouting. The first came from firelight; the second, from Shedara.

“Damn it, Essana!” the elf was yelling. “This is more important than your son’s feelings! If you’d seen what happened out there—”

“I did see,” Forlo’s wife replied. She was calm before Shedara’s temper, her voice hard and stern. The woman was made of iron, Hult had come to realize. No wonder Forlo had married her. “I tried to stop him from going out in that ungodly storm. I didn’t want him getting killed. I was in the cave mouth when the lightning struck.”

Shedara laughed, a mocking sound. “Oh no, milady. No. Maybe you weren’t close enough, or maybe you refuse to admit it, but the lightning didn’t just strike. Your son called it down.”

Hult was willing to lie there and listen for the moment, but his body had other ideas. A wave of nausea coursed through him, followed by pain that seemed to fill his skull with fire. He rolled on his side and retched on the floor of the cave. Essana had begun to shout back, but she stopped.

“He’s awake,” she said.

“I see that,” Shedara replied.

Hult heard the creak of the elf’s leather armor as she crouched beside him. He tried to open his eyes, but the firelight was too bright. He had the vivid feeling that the only way to relieve the pain in his head would be to split it open with an axe. Fortunately, he knew better. He’d felt that pain before, once, when he fell off his horse as a child. He’d be dizzy for a few hours and probably shouldn’t move, but he would recover—assuming no more trolls found them, of course.

“Easy,” Shedara said. “You’re concussed. Here, drink this.”

It was wine, made from some bulbous green fruit the cha’asii harvested in the jungle. It tasted sour at first, then gave way to a soothing, flowery sweetness. He took a sip, swallowed, then drank some more. His strength began to return, and the pain and nausea receded. He tried to look at Shedara again and managed to keep his eyes open. She was a slender blur, dark against the fire’s glow.

“You’re lucky,” she said. “That troll nearly painted the rocks with your brains.”

He managed a shrug. “Wouldn’t… feel this… bad… if it had.”

She stared at him a moment, then chuckled. “Was that a joke, Hult, son of Holar?”

He gave her a feeble grin. Essana moved into his view as well, her swarthy face lined with concern. She kept her distance, though, letting Shedara inspect his wound. The elf used a damp cloth to pat his temple then laid it over his forehead. It was cool, soothing. Hult sighed.

“You two were… talking,” he murmured. “I did not mean to interrupt.”

Shedara and Essana looked at each other, abashed. “I’m sorry,” the elf said. “I was angry. I didn’t mean to yell. Only… I don’t know what happened.”

Hult raised his eyebrows. “What is so difficult to understand?” he asked. “The boy used magic.”

The cave was silent. Essana shook her head, looking away. Hult expected Shedara to agree with him, but a dark crease appeared between her brows.

“That’s the trouble,” she said. “That spell was more powerful than anything I can manage, or ever will. Maybe five wizards in all of Taladas could have commanded the storm like that.”

“My son is no mage,” insisted Essana. “It’s not possible.”

“Your son is fully grown, a man older than I am, milady,” Hult said. “Yet only a month ago, he was still in your womb. Tell me, is that possible?”

She bit her lip, saying nothing.

“You don’t know what the Faceless Brethren did to him,” Hult pressed. “They could have taught him sorcery.”

Shedara scowled. “Not in so short a time. Sorcerers have to study for years in order to cast the simplest of spells. You don’t just give someone that kind of power.”

Hult spread his hands. “How, then? You saw him do it, Shedara; you just said so. How is it possible?”

She gritted her teeth, the furrow in her brow growing deeper. “I have no idea. That’s why I need to question him. I have to know where the magic came from.”

Hult’s eyes flicked to Essana. “Well, lady?” he asked. “I am inclined to agree with her. Strange magic is seldom a good thing.”

He thought of Chovuk Boyla, of the sorcery he had wielded. He had come by it mysteriously, and it had proven his undoing. The Faceless had taught it to him, let him use it again and again as he brought together his horde and sent it to war, then abandoned him to die when they had no more need of him. If Azar was taking his first steps on such a road, they had to know.

Essana, however, refused to be moved. “He is sleeping,” she said, and nodded out into the night. “Whatever happened out there, it exhausted him. And he may be grown, but he’s still my son. If he needs rest, then I will let him rest. There’ll be plenty of time for questions.”

She turned away before anyone could say anything more. Hult had lifted his head without realizing it; feeling faint, he lay back down. Shedara took the cloth off his forehead and dabbed at his wound.

“Guess we’d better wait,” she said, then lowered her voice. “Hult… I didn’t want to say anything else in front of Essana. I’ve upset her enough tonight already. But… well, there’s another possibility.”

“Yes?” he asked.

“The moons don’t give that power all of a sudden,” she whispered. An edge of fear crept into her voice. “But a god might.”

Hult swallowed. “Which god?”

“That’s the problem,” Shedara said. “It could be any of them. Manith, Jolith, Mislaxa…”

She trailed off, glancing over her shoulder at the back of the cave, and bit her lip.

“What?” Hult asked. “Shedara—”

“Listen to me,” she hissed, snapping back around. “It could be one of those gods… or it could be Morgash, or Chomos, or Hith. That’s why I’m worried, Hult. Because… well, think about Azar’s life so far. Where do you think he’d be more likely to get this power from? The light gods, or the dark?”

Chapter 4

The Cliffs of Glass, Aurim-That-Was

It was on the cliffs where Forlo first realized he could still feel pain. During Maladar’s failed attempt to cross the Cauldron, he’d almost come to believe he was immune. After an hour back on solid ground, however, he knew otherwise. He’d been very, very wrong.

The return trek across the Burning Sea had been easier. Forlo had taken a grim satisfaction that the fire minions had turned him back. As the site of the Chaldar receded behind him, he’d come close to gloating over the fact that even Maladar could be thwarted. There were no hopeless battles, as they taught in the military academies of the League, only difficult ones. When he finally caught sight of the Cauldron’s shores again—where the iron bridge ended—he’d begun to hope. With enough skill, and a healthy dose of luck, you could win any fight. He’d done so at Hawkbluff, at the Run, and again at Akh-tazi—hard battles, all.

Maybe he could win this one too.

He just didn’t know how yet.

It didn’t surprise him that the bridge didn’t end at the same place it had when he’d first set foot on it. There was fell magic at work there—Hith’s magic. Instead of the white, ash-covered beach of before, it was jagged, glistening rock, jutting in crooked fingers out over the magma.

The land there had been sandstone hills before the fiery stone fell on Taladas; the blast’s outer edge had broken those hills, melted them, then fused them into glass. Beneath, the ocean of molten rock had cooled enough that large, brittle shelves of black pumice floated on its surface, like ice floes off the coast of Panak. Cracks ran through the crust like rivers of gold; the cliffs, twisted and whorled by centuries of baking heat, gleamed with reflected light. The sky above was not as black as over the Cauldron itself, but clouds of smoke still ran from horizon to horizon. The Glass Cliffs had not seen the sun in centuries.

Forlo longed to stop, to rest, but Maladar pushed on, turning north and clambering over the boulders. It was a steep climb, the cliffs rising to precipitous heights, and Forlo wondered why Maladar didn’t simply use a spell to take them wherever he was going. Listening to the sorcerer’s thoughts, though, he quickly understood. To use a sending spell, you had to have an image of your destination in mind. That was impossible, for Maladar didn’t know the ruins of Aurim. The empire had been intact when last he’d seen it; though he’d walked the lands before, they were as alien as the surface of Nuvis.

And so they went, on foot, struggling up the crags. The glass was hot to the touch and gave little purchase, and Forlo soon lost his footing. He fell and slid, and the fused stones cut and burned his hands as he scrabbled to stop himself, which he did, an arm’s length from slipping over the edge and tumbling onto a heap of jagged shards below. Pain lanced through him, and he tried to make a sound of protest, to yell or grunt or swear. Instead he just lay there, bleeding, and wondered what Maladar was feeling.

He got his answer when his body began to move again, pushing itself to its feet, using its torn hands to shove up off the rocks, heedless of the fresh agony that tore all the way up his arms. Inside, Forlo howled, but no sound came out of his lips. Ignoring him, sharing none of the pain, Maladar started climbing again.

He fell three more times before he reached the top, and by then his palms were in tatters, blood coating his hands and arms, nearly to his elbows. Where it wasn’t cut, his skin had blistered from the heat of the glass. Tiny splinters were lodged deep into his flesh. The pain flared sun-hot with every heartbeat, and Forlo wanted to scream so badly, he thought he might go mad.

Maladar didn’t care. The sorcerer marched on, along the edge of the cliffs. The ground beneath Forlo’s feet was so thin that he could see through it, the blazing ribbons of the sea amid its cooling crust turned into a ruddy haze that showed off the bubbles and imperfections in the glass. There were things trapped in it too—bushes, trees, cattle, even one dim shape he realized was a child. Like dragonflies trapped in amber, they’d been preserved, undisturbed, since the Destruction. Forlo knew, then, that the cliffs must be a tomb to countless people. These were the Aurish: tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands had perished in the aftermath of the fiery stone’s fall, so only a handful had made it to safety in the outermost rim of Taladas: Thenol, the fisheries of Syldar, the provinces of the League, and the Rainward Isles. The mightiest empire in history, reduced in a day to a ragtag collection of petty city-states.

He pressed onward. Cinders fell like rain—fat, glowing embers that stung when they lit on his skin or got in his eyes. In time his hands stopped bleeding, the pain fading to a dull throb. The wounds began to heal, scars forming beneath the drying blood. The sight unnerved him: he’d never been a slow healer, but what he’d done to himself should have taken weeks from which to recover without a Mislaxan’s help. Before two hours passed, though, it was as if he’d never hurt himself at all. Maladar’s power had cured him.

An hour or so later, he caught sight of the city. Rather, it was half a city, split down the middle, its western half swallowed by the Cauldron along with most of the rest of Aurim. The remainder still stood, though many of its stone buildings were bent and malformed, having crystallized like the cliffs. It reminded him of Kristophan, the minotaur capital, which had suffered a similar collapse in an earthquake less than a year ago.

Of course he headed straight toward the ruins. Maladar even picked up his pace, moving at a reckless rate along the cliff’s edge. As he got closer, details became clear. Its walls had melted and pooled around it, scattered with bubbles where the bodies of guards in green-plumed helmets lay forever entombed. Its towers bent toward the east, away from the center of the blast, like trees in a storm’s wind. Its domes had sagged and buckled, looking like weird scarlet blossoms. Of whatever gardens and parks the city once might have had, nothing remained; anything that wasn’t stone had long since crumbled into ash, blown away on the hot winds that gusted off the Cauldron.

Looking upon the ruins, Forlo had an uncomfortable feeling. There was something familiar about the place, besides its resemblance to Kristophan. He knew the city: memories of it as it once had been flashed through his head. The stones had been scarlet, the color of sunset, rather than the dark and muddy hues they were now. Spikes of green serpentine had topped the towers when they stood straight and tall; the domes had been white chalcedony, laced with rose. Its people were tall and dark skinned, the men fork-bearded and shirtless, the women clothed in silk. Both sexes wore golden jewelry all over their bodies—neck and wrist, arm and navel, earlobe and nostril and lip. They kept chains of naked slaves, who toiled in the vast groves and vineyards that covered the hills for miles around, turning out the finest olives and grapes in all the empire.

Sha Moku, the city had been called. The Wine City had been one of the richest in the empire, besides Aurim itself. It was a dead place, its prized vintages lost forever.

Forlo had never heard of the place before. Perhaps it appeared in some of the ancient histories that had survived the Destruction, but he’d never read them: he was a soldier, not a scholar. Still, he realized that somehow he knew everything about the city. There was a temple of Bran in its center and another dedicated to Morgash. It was ruled by a council of nine men and women, the heads of its most powerful wineries. They once spoke Kurfan there, though the wealthy and the learned knew Aurish as well. Its best wines were the same dark red as its stones, with a complicated, spicy flavor relished by connoisseurs all across the empire. Hundreds of bottles stocked the cellars of the imperial palace, particularly the type known as Elvenblood. It was one of his favorites.

Forlo stopped, wondering. His favorites? He’d never tasted Mokuti wine; no one alive had. He’d never heard Kurfan spoken; it was a dead tongue. And yet he recognized the language’s musical tones, just as the piquant flavor of the vintage flooded his mouth.

They weren’t his memories after all. They were Maladar’s. He was inside the Faceless Emperor’s mind, at least partway. And what was more, he had the feeling Maladar didn’t know that he was.

Forlo thought long and hard about that revelation as Sha Moku drew ever nearer.

The cities of Aurim, what remained of them anyway, were dead places. Dust whirled down their streets. Their shattered halls and palaces were yawning caverns of rubble, old shells of their former glory. But derelict though they might be, they were not empty—far from it. Most were still occupied, though not by men anymore. The ashes of the old empire were too harsh for humankind to live there long, but there were others who could.

The Brethren had told Maladar that, and as he drew near Sha Moku, he saw that it was true. The Wine City’s occupants tried to remain hidden, waiting in ambush for the lone traveler who approached their walls, but he saw them nonetheless: bits of shadow moving on the battlements, skulking down behind the melted merlons.

A dozen spells raced through his mind, ready for casting. He would wait for the shadowy forms to make the first move; then he would act swiftly. They would not get a second move.

It hurt, more than a little, to see Sha Moku like it was. The last time he’d been there, the city had been whole and thriving, its gardens alive with talk and laughter beneath its scarlet towers. The gardens were dead and gone now, the towers bent and misshapen, and the only sound besides the whisper of his feet through the ashes was the moaning wind. He would have to make sure the Wine City was restored to its former splendor, once he’d reforged his empire. That was still a long while off, though. For the time being, he needed those who lived among its bones.

They were more patient than he’d expected, which was good: it meant they had discipline. He was nearly to the city’s southern gates, the great stone doors only shards of broken glass, when the hobgoblins finally appeared.

There were thirty of them that he could see, heads appearing behind the battlements, and likely five times as many that he couldn’t detect. Bows creaked as they drew back arrows the size of small spears, fletched with grease-stiffened hair. Small, yellow eyes glinted from the depths of helms of corroded bronze and iron, ancient bits of armor scavenged from the empire’s countless dead. Fangs jutted between blistered lips. Flat red snouts twitched in anticipation of the kill.

One of them barked something in a guttural tongue. Maladar had cast a spell of listening, and the magic took hold of the words and translated them into High Aurish: Turn back now, wanderer, or the skyfishers will pick clean your bones.

He found that unlikely. Hobgoblins relished the taste of human flesh, all the more so in a place such as this, where humans were seldom seen. If he turned his back, they would fill it with arrows and feast on his cooling carcass, so he stopped where he stood instead, his gaze sweeping up to the creatures on the wall.

“The skyfishers will only have your rancid meat to eat tonight,” he spoke, the words coming out in the hobgoblin language, changed by the same spell that let him understand them. His eyes glittered as they shifted from one archer to the next. “They will scorn it as foul, though, and leave it untouched.”

A few of them laughed, enjoying what they took to be his hubris. Most shook with anger, however, and began to snarl curses until one of their number, a fat beast with a long spike welded to the crown of what had once been a gladiator’s helm, held up a hand and commanded them to be silent. It was the hobgoblin that had first spoken, and it glowered down at Maladar from the wall and answered.

“Oh, ho!” it called. “We shall see. Shoot him!”

As one, the hobgoblins loosed their volley. Thirty arrows flew, darkening the sky. Maladar smiled, raised his hands, and spoke a single word. A wall of blue light rushed outward from his fingers and struck the arrows in the middle of their flight. Each vanished in a white flash, leaving only a cloud of dust behind.

But he wasn’t done. Chanting in the language of magic, he pointed at the fat captain. The hobgoblin had time enough to scream; then there was a hideous series of snaps as every bone in its body broke, one by one, swiftly. The hobgoblin’s body toppled forward, limbs flopping as they bent in all the wrong places, and plummeted to the ground.

Then, silence. No skyfishers came to feast on the captain’s corpse. The archers looked at what was left of their leader, then at one another. None of them drew another arrow.

Maladar wasn’t going to take any chances, though. “Lay down your arms,” he said, blue light flaring around his fingertips. “I will not say it again.”

They dropped their bows. None even hesitated. Good, Maladar thought.

“Listen to me, folk of Sha Moku,” he proclaimed. He did not shout, but magic made his voice loud enough to carry behind the city’s buckled walls. “Once, I ruled these lands as emperor. I have returned to reclaim what is mine. You have stolen this city, and for that I could slaughter the lot of you, but instead, I tell you this: I am your master now. You will follow me, and I will lead you to war. The blood of men shall be yours. You will burn their homes, devour their corpses, and take their riches for your own.

“This is not a choice,” he went on. “You belong to me now. Any who refuse me will know the pain your captain felt. And the skyfishers will scorn your flesh when I am done with you.”

All grew still. Even the wind died down, its gusts dwindling to nothing. Cinders fell upon Sha Moku, throwing up sparks where they struck glass or stone. The hobgoblins glowered at him, then turned and looked at something behind them, behind the wall. Maladar’s gaze dropped down to the gatehouse. It was dark, and he considered casting a spell to blast the whole barbican to rubble, but as his lips were pursing to speak the first word of the incantation, something stirred in the shadows.

It was a hobgoblin, old and stooped, gray bristles hanging down from his cheeks, braided with bones and beads of opal. He was naked, save for a loincloth made of what looked like human skin; every inch of his flesh was covered with scars, arranged to make the shapes of the faces and wings of dragons. His left eye was milky white, but the right was still clear. He leaned on a staff whose head was made from the skull of a dwarf, the long beard still clinging to what little flesh remained. He stepped out from the gates and eyed Maladar, his wrinkled face furrowed with disdain.

I will have to kill this one too, Maladar thought. He didn’t move, though, only watched the ancient shaman, arms folded across his chest.

“I am Ukku,” the hobgoblin said. “I rule this place, not you.”

“Not anymore,” Maladar said, nodding at the captain’s pulverized remains. “Ask your man there if you do not believe me.”

Ukku scowled, but did not look at the body. Instead, he rapped his staff upon the ground three times. “You will not do that to me,” he said. “My magic is too strong. You will not break through it before death finds you.”

Maladar knew something was wrong even before the ground rumbled beneath his feet. Frowning, he looked down. The glassy rock below him was shaking, tiny fractures spreading across its surface. He jumped back, lightning sparking between his fingertips as something rose toward the surface.

Watching him, Ukku let out a croaking laugh and rapped his staff on the ground, again and again. “Bak-su-chag!” he shouted. “Come, hunter of the deep! Answer my call!”

“Bak-su-chag,” murmured the hobgoblins, both atop the wall and within the city.

An instant later, the ground where Maladar had been standing exploded, throwing shards of glass in every direction. One bit into his cheek, others peppered his armored body. He felt the pain only as an abstraction, enough to know it was there, not enough to suffer. He left the suffering to Forlo. He took several more steps back as a rift opened up between him and the ruined city, and the thing he had glimpsed beneath the surface burst forth.

It was a worm, impossibly huge, its rubbery flesh the putrid green of a corpse pulled out of a marsh. Thick, black veins snaked beneath the surface of its skin. It had to be a hundred feet long, eyeless, with tiny hooks for legs along its length and a fanged sucker for a mouth. Bak-su-chag towered over him, tiny feelers around its mouth waving in the air. The stink of rotting flesh hung about it, strong enough to make Maladar’s eyes water. He had never seen anything like it, even in the bestiaries of Aurim’s great library. Perhaps the Destruction had given it birth, or perhaps Ukku or some other sorcerer had dredged it from the depths of the Abyss. Whatever, he knew he had only moments before the worm picked up his scent. After that, it would kill him.

The hobgoblins were wild, chanting Bak-su-chag’s name and shrieking with bloodlust. Within the city, the clash of swords against shields echoed from building to building. Above it all rose the mocking scrape of Ukku’s laughter and the pounding of his staff.

“The hunter answers the call!” cried the shaman. “Claim your prize, Bak-su-chag! I command you!”

The worm’s feelers kept twitching, then froze. Its massive head turned toward Maladar. Its maw stretched wide, and black drool drizzled forth, the drops steaming where they struck the ground. Within its mouth and throat gnashed thousands of tiny, bony barbs.

Maladar raised his hands. Words flashed through his mind, and he spoke them without a second thought. The black moon’s power surged through him. His fingers danced a complex pattern, weaving in and out. At the end of the incantation, he thrust his palms outward, toward the worm. Green flame billowed upward, a vast plume that engulfed Bak-su-chag’s head, chattering mouth and all. The hobgoblins fell silent, crying out in dismay. Then the flames stopped, flickering away to nothing. Maladar lowered his hands, and the worm’s head emerged from the blaze…

Unscathed.

The hobgoblins laughed, clashing their weapons even louder. Ukku raised his scarred arms, howling with delight. “Your spells cannot harm Bak-su-chag!” cried the shaman. “No living being can destroy him. Now, emperor, it is his turn!”

Maladar stared at the worm hanging over him. The fire hadn’t so much as scorched its flesh. He knew that none of the destructive magic he commanded would do any damage at all.

He smiled anyway, and turned his gaze on Ukku.

“I did not mean to destroy it,” he said, folding his arms again.

Bak-su-chag let out a chittering squeal, and dived—at Ukku, not Maladar. The old hobgoblin’s eyes widened in disbelief, but he didn’t have time to react anymore. The worm struck, and suddenly Ukku was in its jaws. The shaman wailed as the fangs and barbs dug into his flesh. He tried to wedge his staff into Bak-su-chag’s maw, but his hands were covered with blood—his blood—and he lost his grip on it. The staff fell, hitting the ground with a crack that split the dwarf skull in half.

Then Ukku was gone, pulled down the monster’s barbed throat. His screeches grew muffled, then ended altogether. The hobgoblins fell silent, shocked, as Bak-su-chag turned to look back at Maladar, like a hunting hound awaiting its master’s command.

The green fire had been a ruse, nothing more. Maladar had hidden a second spell within it—the one he’d meant to use. Rather than harming the worm, he had charmed it, drawing its obedience away from Ukku, binding its mind to his.

He nodded, gesturing at the hole. “Go now,” he said. “Rest. You are freed.”

Bak-su-chag twitched, and it was gone, sliding back into the hole in the glass. Maladar’s eyes turned back up toward the battlements, where the hobgoblin archers watched him with horrified eyes. The looks on their faces made him want to laugh, but he kept the impulse in check. Instead, he raised his hand to point at the wall. He began to chant.

The hobgoblins panicked, trampling each other in a mad rush to get away. Maladar did laugh at that, lowering his hand again.

“Is that all?” he called. “Have you nothing more?”

His answer came from the gates. Another figure emerged, an enormous hobgoblin clad in thick steel plate. In his hands he carried a double-bladed war axe. Behind him marched five other warriors, each bedecked in full armor, carrying cleaving swords and morning stars. They spread out in an arc before him, on the other side of the hole where Bak-su-chag and Ukku had vanished.

The warriors eyed him. He eyed them back. His fingers curled, ready to cast again. “I will kill every hobgoblin in Sha Moku if I must,” he said, “and continue my search elsewhere. I seek an army to fight for me. Will you follow me, or must I empty this city?”

The lead hobgoblin took a step forward, raising his axe, then bent down and laid it on the ground. The rest of the warriors did the same.

“I am Ghashai,” said the leader. “I speak for the At-khorakha, the People of the Weeping Towers, now that Ukku is no more. If there is blood and plunder to be had, we will join your war.”

He knelt, bowing his head. The rest of the warriors followed suit. Maladar looked at them and then back at the city. There were only a few hundred hobgoblins at Sha Moku, most likely. He would need many more before he had the horde he needed.

It was a start, though.

Chapter 5

The Dourlands, Aurim-That-Was

The rain lasted for five days as Shedara and her companions wound their way through the hills. It left everything stained dark with soot, from their clothes to their hair to most of the contents of their pouches; only Shedara’s spellbook and components, sealed tightly in a sharkskin bundle at the bottom of her pack, escaped the black drenching. By the time the land started to slope downward, they were all praying for an end to the constant downpour, and to remember what it was to be clean and dry.

The folk of Thenol had a saying: Irluth alcatha ec-harnos, pen ostigom delpharnos. The only thing worse than when the gods don’t answer your prayers is when they do.

On the fifth day, the hills came to an abrupt halt, yielding to flat lowlands that stretched far ahead to a hazy horizon. The rain ended as well and would not return, for what lay beyond the highlands was a desert. Dunes the color of powdered bone undulated for leagues, slashed by narrow, deep crevices that were always filled with shadow—not canyons delved over millennia by water or wind, but great jagged cracks in the earth, opened in mere days by the quakes that shook Aurim apart after the Destruction. Plumes of ash and dust whipped into the air, stinging their eyes as they descended into the wasteland.

“I heard the tales,” Essana murmured as they slogged through powder so fine that they sank to their knees. “The explorers who came to this place from the League, seeking relics of the old empire… my father collected books of their tales.”

“Explorers,” Shedara muttered and lifted the cloth mask she wore over her mouth to spit into the dust. “Jackals, more like. The kind of man who robs the crypts of dead kings, hoping to make their fortune out of the suffering of others.”

“Like you, you mean,” Hult added. “Or were you not a thief before this?”

Shedara flushed, her hands clenching into fists. “What I did was different. When I stole, I did it for my people. There were elves in Aurim too. Many of their artifacts were lost. Recovering them honors their memory. It’s not the same as despoiling tombs for gold and jewels.”

Hult shrugged and said nothing. His people were raiders, pillagers; the finer aspects of motive were not his concern.

In time, they reached one of the crevices. Shedara wasted no time, unfurling a long coil of silken rope from her pack and dangling it over the edge. She murmured a spell, and the rope’s loose end tied itself around a jagged finger of rock, cinching tight enough that both she and Hult, pulling on it as hard as they could, couldn’t make it slip. When that was done, the four of them gathered at the crack’s edge and peered down. The fissure was only ten paces from one side to the other and descended far into the rock.

“The explorers told tales of these places too,” Essana said, licking her lips. “They said awful things lived in the rifts. Dragons and demons and worse.”

Hult bit the heel of his hand to ward off evil. Azar raised an eyebrow. The wind hurled a wave of dust at them, forcing them to turn away, coughing and shielding their eyes.

“They would say that,” Shedara said when it had passed. “Places like this are the only shelter in these parts. These ‘explorers’ of yours make their camps in them, to keep hidden and stay out of the storms.”

“Then the tales of demons are lies,” Azar said.

She shrugged. “I didn’t say that. Some of these ravines might be swarming with them, or with the dead, or spiders and beetles the size of cattle. Aurim’s a bad place, and if I could avoid crossing these lands, I would. But the things they say live in these holes… we can avoid them if we’re careful.”

“Careful,” Essana murmured and pursed her lips. “Ah.”

Shedara studied her, watching her out of the corners of her eyes. Essana was a strong woman, and had been through dread and horror at the hands of the Faceless. But she was still afraid, and Shedara couldn’t blame her. Still, the only alternative to the chasms was slogging through oceans of ash for weeks on end. The entire southern half of what remained of Old Aurim was like this; it went on for a hundred leagues and more, broken only by the half-buried bones of cities where ghouls and hobgoblins dwelt. If those creatures didn’t kill them, thirst and fatigue would.

Shedara wished, not for the first time, that they had gone to Baltch. The island kingdom off Neron’s eastern coast could have given them respite. She could have booked passage for them on a ship bound for the Rainwards; she knew a few people there who owed her favors. But the trip would have taken them well out of their way: it would have been at least sixty days’ hard march through the Emerald Sea alone, and probably that again to sail to the Rainwards. They didn’t have that much time. Maladar wasn’t taking the long, safe path to where he was bound.

Still, Shedara worried.

“I will protect you, Mother,” said Azar, reaching out to touch her arm. “Nothing will harm you.”

Shedara glanced at Hult. He was looking back at her, his mouth a grim line. She curled her lip in reply. They’d questioned Azar at length the morning after the fight with the trolls. He’d had no idea how he’d summoned the lightning. He had no memory of it at all. Shedara believed what he said was true; she’d even surreptitiously cast a spell that would tell her if he were lying. He truly didn’t know what he’d done.

That troubled her even more.

She had a spell she could cast to look deep into his mind and discover the truth. She’d used it on Forlo to find out the cause of the nightmares that had plagued him when they first knew each other. It was arduous magic, though. She had to have time to prepare, and a willing subject. Right at that moment, she had neither. So there was nothing for it, not then, except to keep an eye on Azar—and a blade close at hand, just in case.

“I will go first,” Hult said. His face was pale even beneath its cake of dust, but he was proud, refusing to admit that he felt fear. He loosened his sword in its scabbard and bent to pick up the enchanted rope. “If there is trouble, I will call out.”

If there’s trouble, Shedara thought, you’ll be dead before we can reach you.

“Go on, then,” she said. “Jijin walk with you.”

He gave her a surprised look—she had never invoked his god before—then swung down into the chasm and dropped out of sight. Shedara glanced over the edge, and for a moment she saw him descending the rope, hand over hand and as sure-footed on the rocks as a monkey. The darkness swallowed him.

They stood there, none of them saying anything, waiting for the Uigan to call up to them—or scream. The wind buffeted them, sending ropes of ash hissing across the dunes. Above, the sun was a pale eye, almost lost in the yellow sky. Shedara realized she was holding her breath and forced herself to let it out. Hours seemed to pass. A tear crawled down Essana’s cheek, leaving a trail of clean skin behind.

At last, the rope went slack. Shedara caught her breath again, then leaned down over the edge. She picked up the rope, wondering what that meant. Had Hult reached the bottom? Had he fallen? Had something darted out of a burrow in the crevice’s wall and devoured him before he could cry out?

A moment later she got her answer: two hard tugs on the rope from the bottom. Hult’s voice drifted up from below, faint and hollow.

“It’s all right!” he called. “It looks safe down here. There’s even water!”

Essana bowed her head, exhaling. Azar put his arm around her shoulders. Shedara cupped her hand to her mouth and shouted back. “Don’t drink it! It’s probably fouled!”

“All right,” he replied. “Who’s next?”

They all looked at one another.

“I should go last,” Shedara said. “It’s less safe up here than down there, most likely. I’m not about to leave you here alone to get grabbed by ghouls.”

Essana nodded and wiped her face. The tear’s track smudged, dark. She took a deep breath and let it out. “Fine,” she said. “Give me the rope.”

It was darker than Shedara expected at the bottom; the sun had moved on since Hult climbed down, and the shadows had closed in. She dropped down into the water the Uigan had found—a shallow stream that was little more than a trickle, running down the middle of the chasm—then glanced up and spoke a word of magic. In response, the rope untied itself and dropped down after her.

Shedara nodded and glanced around, taking in her surroundings as she bundled the rope up again. The walls were close enough that she could reach across and touch both at the same time. The stone was jagged, dusted with ash, but also dotted with clusters of small, black mushrooms and patches of white lichen. The crack twisted enough that she could see only a dozen steps in either direction before it bent out of sight.

Hult stood nearby, sword in hand. Near him, Essana and Azar huddled together, both wide-eyed and blind as barrow-rats. They looked right past her.

“Shedara?” Essana asked. “Are you there?”

“Right next to you,” she said.

They all started, even Hult, who scowled. “We could use some light,” he said. “None of us share your elf-sight.”

“Give me a moment,” Shedara replied, reaching into her spell component bag. She pulled out a puff of milkweed fluff, tossed it into the air, and spoke a word as it started to fall. It burst into pale, white light and hung in midair, no longer drifting toward the ground.

They all blinked, squinting against the sudden glare. Their shadows danced on the chasm walls. Hult bent down and dabbled his fingers in the water, then raised them to his nose. Beside her, Essana did the same and winced when she sniffed.

“It smells like rotting meat,” she said, flicking the drops away.

“Or bodies,” Hult agreed. “A great many bodies, left out in the sun after a battle.”

Shedara sniffed the water too, tears stinging her eyes. “Couldn’t drink that if we were half dead of thirst,” she said. “And no one touch those mushrooms either.”

“Really?” Essana asked. “I was going to make them into a stuffing for the next lizard we caught.”

Hult let out a chuff of laughter, and Shedara cracked a smile. Azar, however, looked at his mother in horror and shook his head. “You shouldn’t eat anything here,” he said. “These lands are poisoned.”

There was a moment’s silence while Shedara did her best not to laugh out loud. She could see Hult doing the same, but Essana gave them both a hard look and reached out to pat her son on the shoulder.

“I know, Azar,” she said. “It was another joke.”

The young man blinked, not understanding. “Oh.”

“We could use some food, though,” Essana said. “Before we get moving again. I suspect we won’t stop again before nightfall, and I for one could use the strength.”

They all looked to Shedara, who sighed. She was tired already from the rope and light spells, but Essana was right. It was past midday, and they hadn’t eaten since morning. “Fine,” she said and took off her cloak to spread on the ground, away from the trickle. “Give me room to work.”

It was a quick matter to cast the spell, one of the simplest she knew. She coaxed Solis’s power, cool and crisp, into her body, then eased it out with a wriggle of her fingers and a few spidery words. Magic swelled around them, forming a mote of golden light above the cloak, which swelled and burst into thousands of splinters. When they faded from sight, a heap of food remained.

Food was a generous term for what lay before them. It was hard to describe—not bread, not porridge, but something in between, not quite solid but far from liquid. It was gray and greasy, but it was nourishing.

“This,” Essana said as they dabbed their fingers in the sodden mass and scooped it into their mouths, “is why you mages haven’t taken over the world. It tastes like wet parchment.”

“I’m sorry,” Shedara said and took a long pull from her waterskin. She’d conjured the drink that morning, enough to fill the flasks each of them carried. The next morning, she would have to do it again. “I suppose we should have asked Le-nekh for some kind of seasoning.”

Hult grunted, chewing with a far-off look in his eye. “It will do,” he said. “I’ve had worse.”

“You’re a rotten liar, Hult, son of Holar,” Shedara said.

Azar ate ravenously, not seeming to care about the food’s questionable texture and appalling taste. Shedara eyed him, wondering what the Brethren had fed him while they were… growing him. She suspected it was better not to know.

After they finished, Shedara shook out her cloak. Sucking at her teeth—the gruel clung to them like glue—she whipped the garment over her shoulders again. As she did, she caught a glimpse of Essana out of the corner of her eye and felt her scalp prickle. The woman’s eyes had gone wide, her mouth dropping open.

“What’s wro—?” Shedara asked, turning toward her.

“Hold still!” Essana breathed. “All of you.”

They froze, stiffening. Hult’s hand was on his sword, but he didn’t draw it. Something had just crawled out of a crack in the stone, less than a hand’s breadth from his shoulder. It was a black scorpion the size of Shedara’s hand, but with two tails curling up from its backside. It held still on the stone, pincers flexing, then scuttled toward Hult. Venom the color of rust beaded on one of its twin stingers.

In a single motion, Shedara flicked a knife from its wrist sheath into her hand, then slung it underhanded in Hult’s direction. The blade flew so quickly that the Uigan had no time to flinch, which was good because if he had, the scorpion would surely have stung him. Instead, he stayed still, and only recoiled when he heard the chink of the dagger striking rock. Sparks flew, and the blade dropped into the creek, the scorpion curled and twitching, impaled on its tip.

“What in Jijin’s name—?” he gasped.

“It’s all right,” Shedara said. “It’s dead now.”

She took a step toward the dagger, picked it up, and examined the scorpion, still spasming. The thing was deformed in other ways besides its twin tails: one pincer was much larger than the other and covered with gristly knobs; it had seven eyes, three of which were dead white; and its underside was covered with a lattice of sticky fibers, some sort of corrupt growth that clung to her dagger when she pulled it out.

“How horrible,” Essana said.

“No kidding,” Shedara said, letting the creature drop and grinding it beneath the heel of her boot. “This is how things are for the creatures that still live in Aurim. They breathe poisoned air and drink that foul water all their lives.”

“They live in pain,” Azar murmured, his eyes shut. “All their lives. They know nothing else.”

They frowned at him; then Hult yanked his blade from its scabbard. “We’ll need more light,” he said, and nodded at the glowing bit of fluff that still hung in the air. “That bit wasn’t enough to drive that thing away, but a few more might keep its kind in the shadows.”

“Good thinking,” Shedara said, reaching for her spell bag. “It’s lucky Solis is full for the next few days. I’m not sure I’d have the strength if it wasn’t—”

She stopped, her heart leaping into her throat.

There were three more scorpions on her bag.

All of them were deformed, none smaller than the one she’d just killed. One was close enough to her fingers that it could have grabbed them with its pincers. She held her breath, fighting back the sudden urge to scream. She let her eyes drift this way and that, then felt a terrible, sick feeling in her gut as the walls suddenly came alive, bugs crawling out of nooks and clefts all around them. There were scorpions everywhere.

Mother of the moons, she thought. I’ve killed us all.

The creatures swarmed around the four of them, moving over the stones, then onto their bodies. Instinctively, they all held still and fell silent except for a low groan that came out of Essana’s mouth. Sweat poured down Hult’s face. Azar raised his hand, and Shedara saw a scorpion with twelve legs scuttle down the sleeve of his robe toward his knuckles. Venom dripped from its stinger.

“No… one… move,” Shedara said through tight lips.

“What do we do?” Essana replied, her voice trembling.

I wish to Astar I knew, Shedara thought. She felt movement on her back, on her legs, in her gods-be-damned hair. She couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t remember the words to a single spell. If she so much as breathed too hard, she was sure, half a dozen stingers would drive into her flesh. She’d be dead before she hit the ground.

“Let me think,” she said, but she couldn’t. She watched the scorpion dance along Azar’s arm. Its front legs touched his palm, and it stopped. The stinger trembled. The creature was about to kill him, and still she couldn’t think of a single word of magic.

Then Azar’s fingers twitched, and the scorpion stepped onto his hand like an invited guest. He turned his hand, and held the thing cupped in his palm. The thing was huge, like the stone-crabs dwarf fishermen caught in their underground lakes. It quivered, pincers opening and closing, opening and closing.

Azar smiled, then clenched his fist.

That should have been it, the end of him. Even if he killed it, the scorpion should have stung him in its death throes. Then he would have cried out, and the rest of the creatures would have started stinging too. In three heartbeats’ time, they ought to have all been lying in the stream, carrion for the vermin to feast on. But it didn’t happen.

What did happen was, in a way, much worse.

The scorpion died without the least struggle. Azar simply crushed it with his bare hand; there was a wet crunching sound, as if he’d cracked a rotten nut, and white slime dribbled between his fingers. The monster’s tail held taut for an instant, then relaxed, drops of poison falling into the water. Azar looked at it, opened his hand again, and let the remains fall from his grasp. Then he looked around, raised his hands, and clapped them once.

Shedara felt a chill gust over her, like the winds of Panak. Then, with a chorus of crunches and squeals, the rest of the scorpions died.

It was the same with all of them: when the cold wind touched them, their shells shattered, broken as if by a hundred invisible fists. They simply caved in, guts oozing from their smashed bodies, and tumbled from wherever they had been. The patter of their corpses hitting the ground went on for some time. Shedara watched the three on her bag crumple then felt the warm dribble of ichor on the back of her neck as the one in her hair fell away. She shuddered, bumps rising on her arms.

No one moved or spoke for nearly a minute. They all stared at Azar, too stunned to react.

“What… what did you just do?” Essana asked at last, her voice scarcely more than a whisper.

“I don’t know,” Azar replied.

Hult made a face and turned to Essana. “Do you see now? Do you believe?”

She licked her lips, shaking her head, and Shedara felt annoyed, thinking the woman was about to deny what they’d all just seen. Just as she was preparing for an argument, however, Essana reached out and cupped her son’s cheek with her hand.

“Child,” she said, “it’s time we had a talk.”

Chapter 6

The Dourlands, Aurim-That-Was

It turned cold that night—as cold as the wastes of Panak, where the Ice People dwelt. Shedara found shelter and conjured a stone-fire to warm them, but the wind still howled down the canyon, slicing through their clothes and shivering their flesh. Hult sat by the ghostly flames with his sword across his knees, watching the darkness. They hadn’t seen another living thing in hours, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Not after how close they’d come to an ignominious death, there in that Jijin-forsaken hole in the ground.

They had decided to wait until the end of the day to question Azar, after Essana had asked him at length, and fruitlessly, about how he’d killed all the scorpions. She was still upset, constantly stealing glances at her son, as if fire might shoot from his eyes at any moment, and shying away from him whenever he came near. That hurt him, and after a while he walked in silence, head bowed and hood drawn low, so he looked all the more like one of the Faceless. He wouldn’t meet Hult’s gaze at all, and his face darkened whenever Shedara glanced at him.

Shedara set wards around their camp to guard them against anything that might approach, drawn by their scent. Hult searched the rocks, digging his knife into any chinks or cracks, to make sure they were empty. The group ate without words—more of Shedara’s tasteless, magic-born sludge—and when they were done, Essana met the others’ eyes and nodded. We must do this now, her expression said.

Azar looked sullen and surly, huddled in his torn and dust-caked robes at the edge of the firelight. His eyes were pools of shadow, his arms folded across his chest. It was a boy’s posture, not a man’s, full of guilt and anger. Shedara walked over to face him, her eyes glittering. He stared at his feet.

Shrugging, she reached into her pack and produced the broken remains of one of the scorpions. She held it up for a moment, grasping it by one of its pincers, then dropped it in front of Azar.

“Look at me!” she demanded.

He did as she bade, his eyes narrowed. There was a sternness in her voice that made even Hult sit up a little straighter. It was more sorcery.

Shedara nodded at the dead scorpion, her eyes not breaking contact with Azar’s. “You did that,” she said. “We want to know how. And no more fooling around, telling us you don’t remember.”

Azar’s face reddened. He glanced away into the night. “I… don’t know how,” he said. “I just killed the one, and I knew. I saw them all dying the same way. Then I wished it were true, and it was.”

“You… wished,” Hult muttered. “Perhaps you could wish we were away from this place and safe in the Rainwards.”

Shedara raised a finger. Not long ago, the gesture would have rankled Hult; the man he’d been when he rode with the Uigan would never have allowed a woman or an elf to silence him. At that moment, though, he nodded and shifted his grip on his sword. The wind gusted down the gorge, making the fire twist like a serpent.

“Essana,” Shedara said.

The woman leaned forward, reaching out to lay her hand on Azar’s arm. He flinched at the touch: another childish thing. Essana’s face creased; then she shook it off. She didn’t let go of her son.

“You can trust us,” she said. “Hult and Shedara wish you no harm; neither do I. You are my blood. But we must know. Too much is at stake for us to have this power among us and not know where it comes from, child.”

“I am no child!” Azar snapped, snatching his arm away from her.

She didn’t move, held him with her gleaming eyes. “Then why do you sulk like one? You must know the answers to our questions, Azar. You may not want to admit it, but you do.”

“And you’re going to tell us,” Shedara added. “One way or another.”

She might have drawn one of her daggers then to emphasize her words. Hult would have. But Shedara didn’t have to. She merely let the moons’ power surge through her for an instant. Hult felt the magic, the hairs on his arms standing up. So, evidently, did the others, for Essana looked alarmed and Azar grew pale.

“You promised you wouldn’t do anything to him!” Essana said.

Shedara shook her head. “I promised he wouldn’t be hurt. But there are other things I can do if he won’t cooperate. I know a lot of spells, Essana, and if you try to stop me from using them, Hult will have to restrain you.”

Hult’s eyebrows rose. They hadn’t talked about that. He looked from one woman to the other, feeling the tension. Essana stiffened, and Shedara’s fingers twitched. It could go very badly, he thought, and it could happen very fast.

“My lady,” he said, “you know us. We are your friends. We crossed half the world to help your husband free you.”

“And to destroy the Hooded One,” Essana said.

Hult shook his head. “Not I. I had many reasons—vengeance for my people was one, I admit—but most of all I did it because Forlo was my friend. He loved you, and so I loved you too, though I never saw you until we came to Akh-tazi. I would have to say the same of Azar. And though Forlo is gone now, that love is not diminished. If Shedara tries to hurt him, I promise you, I will stop her… with my sword if I must.”

Shedara drew back a little at that, and Hult allowed himself an inward smile. He’d thrown that bit in to surprise her. Essana, meanwhile, furrowed her brow, while Azar continued to glare at the fire.

“You swear it?” Essana asked.

Hult dipped his head. “On my ancestors.”

She thought about it a moment longer then, finally, nodded. “Go on, then,” she said. “Do what you will.”

“Mother!” Azar cried, beginning to rise.

She shook her head, her eyes shining. “It must be this way,” she said. “If this power of yours is born of evil—and does any of us truly doubt that it is?—we need to know. I’ve already lost your father to darkness. If I can, I’ll keep it from claiming you too.”

Azar gaped at his mother. His sullenness had given way to outrage. His hands curled into fists, and in his mind Hult envisioned him clapping his hands and Essana falling over dead, her bones crushed like the scorpions’ shells. He stood up and held his sword ready.

“Where will you go, Azar, if you flee?” Shedara asked, not moving from where she sat. “It’s too hard to climb around here, so you only have two directions to choose. Hult is a skilled hunter. I have my magic, and I can see in the dark. Now sit down, and either tell me the truth, or let me seek it myself.”

For a moment, no one moved. Somewhere in the distance, something howled. It wasn’t a wolf, not quite; there was too much human in the sound. Some monster of the wastes, Hult was sure. Perhaps a skin-changer, like Chovuk Boyla had been.

Azar glared at Shedara. “I don’t know!” he said. “I really don’t. You have to believe me.”

“I do, Azar,” she said. “But there is a way to find the answers we seek. I cast a spell on your father, once, to learn why he was having nightmares about his last campaign in Thenol. It didn’t hurt him; if anything, it set him free.”

His hands found each other and began to twist. “You wish to cast the same spell on me?”

“Only if you agree to it. I can’t cast it on someone unwilling.”

Far away, the howl rose again. It went on and on that time until it finally faded into the wind’s moaning. Everyone stared at Azar, waiting. His hands wrung and squeezed. When he finally answered, his voice was small and trembling, like a child’s.

“All right,” he said and bowed his head. “I want to know too.”

The world seemed to constrict around Hult, as if none of it truly existed. The Tamire, Neron, even Aurim beyond this canyon… it was all a dream he’d had once and was beginning to forget. He breathed deeply, trying to slow his hammering heart. He had to submit himself to the spell, or it would never take hold of them all. Millennia of Uigan tradition fought against his need to know the truth about Azar.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale.

Shedara chanted, her hands moving like moths, fluttering from one place to the next. Essana and Azar sat before her, cross-legged, waiting. Hult watched them both, ready to act if either of them did anything to disrupt the elf’s casting, as the world continued to fade, leaving only the smoldering campfire, bright in the darkness.

Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

The air shimmered, and all at once the fire didn’t really exist anymore either. There was only the four of them, sitting in a place that was no place at all. No stars shone above; no ground lay beneath them. Hult’s stomach lurched: he was floating in a void, a great, cold nothingness like the ocean. Wind howled, buffeting him. Even Shedara and Essana flickered away, and there was nothing but Azar, his eyes shining with some sourceless light. Those eyes drew Hult closer, closer, pulling him in.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

A flare of magic ran through him like lightning. Hult shuddered, his eyes squeezing shut, and when he opened them again, he was somewhere else.

It was a small, dark room. A monk’s cell, windowless, the door sealed shut. A bed lay in one corner, a chamber pot stinking nearby. The remains of a meal sat on the floor: gnawed bones, blots of some sort of porridge, an empty wine cup. The only light was a dim, violet glow from some undefined place near the ceiling. It gave him enough to see by, just barely. Shedara stood to his right, hands on hips; Essana to the left, her eyes narrow. Azar was nowhere to be seen.

“Where are we?” Hult whispered.

“Exactly where we were a moment ago,” Shedara replied in a low voice. “Sitting near the fire. As for this place… it’s Azar’s memory.”

“Akh-tazi,” Essana said, giving a shudder. “I know it well. I lived in a cell like this, for a time. I had hoped never to see its like again.”

“I know, milady,” Shedara replied. “But it is necessary. Azar will have no memories of anyplace else.”

Hult fought the urge to bite his hand and ward off the spell. He was sharing another man’s mind. Among his people, the punishment for that kind of witchcraft was to be tied up and dragged behind one’s own horse for three miles, then exiled forever into the wild steppes. Under some chiefs, it was even worse. All his instincts warned him to get out or be damned, forever forbidden to enter Jijin’s halls, barred from seeing his ancestors in the afterlife. He shook his head, forcing himself to remain there. The Uigan’s ways had failed him. He must try new ways.

“What about Azar?” he asked. “Where is he?”

“There.” Shedara nodded.

Hult’s eyes followed the gesture. At first, he didn’t understand what he was seeing, but he quickly figured it out. Lying on the cot, covered by a rough-spun blanket, was a mannish shape, only a bit over four feet tall. As big as a large kender, or a small dwarf, or even a goblin… but no. It was none of those things.

It was a child.

“Yagrut,” he swore.

One of Shedara’s eyebrows rose. “You didn’t expect this?”

“I…” he began, then stopped, frowning. “I didn’t believe it, I suppose. I know he’s less than two months old, but I couldn’t picture him as a child.”

Essana stepped forward, crouching down at the boy’s bedside. She reached out a trembling hand toward him. “My son,” she breathed, but her fingers passed through his shoulder when she tried to touch him. She turned away.

“He can’t hear you,” Shedara said. “We weren’t here when this happened, and we’re not really here now. You can’t change things in the past. You can only watch.”

Hult glanced around. The walls were black stone, carved into hideous reliefs of grinning skulls and bloated, many-eyed horrors. The whole cell was maybe three paces on a side. From the smell, Azar’s bedclothes had never been changed. He stared at the boy, longing to reach out and pull back the covers, see him as he was.

A sound came from the door: the scrape of a bolt being slid back. Hult recoiled, reaching for his sword, then held still at a look from Shedara. Do nothing! echoed her voice in his head as the door rumbled open.

Two Crawling Maws, the tentacled monsters who called themselves yaggol, stood in the passage outside. Both wore plain, gray cassocks. One had skin the color of spoiled milk; the other was a blotchy, deep crimson. They gazed into the cell with their white, pupilless eyes but looked right past Hult and Essana and Shedara. Instead, their sight fixed on the boy.

With a whisper of velvet robes, another figure stepped into view. He was cloaked head to foot in black, his hood pulled down low. Hult did bite his palm at that sight, though the man who entered Azar’s cell must have been dead now. All the Faceless Brethren were. The air around him turned cold as he walked to the side of the cot and knelt down. It was the Speaker, perhaps, or the Watcher. It was hard to tell one of the dark sorcerers from another; they all wore the same garb, and all had cut the flesh from their faces as a sign of loyalty to Maladar. Whoever this one was, he reached out a gloved hand and shook Azar awake.

“Taker,” he spoke, the voice harsh, distorted by his disfigurement. “It is time to rise. The Master awaits.”

Azar stirred, shaking himself awake. A youthful face appeared from beneath the blanket, and indeed it was Forlo’s son. There was no way of mistaking the prominent nose or the strong jawline, even in a boy of perhaps eight summers. Azar blinked, rubbing his bleary eyes, and looked right at Hult and Shedara and his mother. He nodded.

He can see us, Hult thought. The others won’t, but this is his mind. He knows we’re here.

“Watcher?” he asked, his gaze sliding back to the Faceless. “What is the time?”

“Still two hours until dawn,” the sorcerer replied. “But the black moon rides high; the Master summons you. All must obey the Master.”

Hult nearly laughed aloud. He’d watched the Master die, dragged off the roof of Akh-tazi’s temple by Eldako—the merkitsa’s last, heroic act. That even the other Faceless had feared the old man seemed downright ludicrous. There was no hiding the tremor in the Watcher’s voice, though, nor the widening of Azar’s eyes as he rose from the bed. He was also clad in black: the Brethren’s newest member, born only days ago, but already halfway to manhood.

“Don’t go with him,” Essana murmured. “Don’t.”

Azar frowned, glancing at her again, and for an instant it seemed he might obey her. Instead, he turned back toward the Watcher and nodded. It had already happened. It could not be changed, even by a mother’s plea.

“As you say,” he spoke, his voice clear, sounding older than he looked. “Lead on.”

They walked out of the cell together, and Hult and Essana hurried to follow as the Crawling Maws slid the door back into place. Shedara came after him, walking at an easy pace. She kept up without any trouble, and Hult understood: in Azar’s mind, they couldn’t stray far from him. Simply strolling behind him ensured he wouldn’t leave their sight.

Down a passage they went then up a narrow, winding stair and along a wide hall with colonnades of black pillars running down its sides. Another stair awaited them, broader and gentler than the last, giving way to open sky at the top. They emerged at the pinnacle of the ziggurat of Akh-tazi, beneath a black, starry sky. The trees of the Emerald Sea whispered below, all around them, stretching to the horizon in all four directions. Above, a black dragon slowly circled—Gloomwing, dead now too at the hands of the cha’asii.

And there, at the roof’s far side, stood Maladar’s statue, the Hooded One, looming above a massive, bloodstained altar. Around it were gathered the members of the Brethren. With the Watcher joining them, they were five in all—six, counting Azar.

“The Taker graces us with his presence,” said the Master, inclining his head as Azar drew near. “You wear well the flesh in which the Sleeper will soon clothe himself.”

Azar bowed in return. “I do as I am bidden, Master.”

“Come forward, then.”

Hult watched Azar walk to the altar. Beside him, Essana trembled, tensing, her teeth gritted together. He sidled toward her, ready to grab her if she darted forward.

“Whatever happens,” Shedara whispered, “remember—you can’t change it.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Essana hissed, her emotions roiling. “That’s not your child, walking toward that… thing.”

When they reached the altar, the Master held out a gloved hand and laid it on top of Azar’s head. With his other, he made several slow passes over the boy, murmuring words Hult couldn’t hear. Shedara leaned closer, trying to make them out, her brow creased with frustration. Azar had no memory of the spell, so it remained hidden from them.

When the Master was done, he stepped back and gestured to the statue. “Our gift to you, Sleeper,” he proclaimed. “When next we meet, you will awaken. Now, though, we prepare for his coming.” He bent close, whispering in Azar’s ear, but Hult heard his words clearly. “Look upon him, lad. See the one who will dwell within your body when you are no more.”

Azar looked. There was no fear in him, no sorrow. Hult wasn’t sure he was capable of such emotions. He gazed upon the Hooded One, whose stone cowl was thrown back to reveal the mangled, flesh-wreathed skull that had been Maladar’s face in life. Azar’s eyes glistened in the black moon’s light.

He was still staring, his face blank, when the Master seized him from behind, laid a curved dagger at his throat, and cut deep.

Hult gave a yelp as blood poured everywhere, instinct taking over, reacting even before Essana did. He lunged forward, his sword whistling through the air. The blow struck the Master on the crown of his head, simply sweeping through him as if he were made of smoke.

The Master didn’t react at all. He seized Azar by the shoulders and held him up as bright red blood shot from his severed arteries. It was a slaughterer’s cut—the kind the Uigan used to put down horses too sick or old to bear their riders any longer. The boy would be dead in moments.

But that isn’t possible! Hult thought.

Essana screamed and hurled herself at her son, but she couldn’t grab hold of him. Hult seized her arm and so he pulled her to him, then dragged her away from the altar.

“Let me go!” she shouted. “He’s dying! I have to help him!”

He held her fast, though she fought him like a steppe-tiger. “You can’t, milady. You can’t help. I can’t either.”

He looked at Shedara, and the expression on her face made cold dread gnaw his stomach. “Of course,” she murmured. “Light of Solis… it’s so obvious.”

“What?” Hult demanded. “What’s so obvious?”

But the world was changing, constricting again. The Emerald Sea vanished, as did the dragon above. The Brethren receded, as did the statue and the altar. All that remained were him, Essana, Shedara, and the slumping, dying shape of Azar. Hult cast about, confused, and found himself back where he’d started, by the fireside, deep in the crevice in the heart of Old Aurim. Shedara knelt before him, her skin the color of alabaster, her eyes wide. He still had Essana in a bear hug, though she’d stopped struggling and just lay limp, making a low, keening sound that made him shiver. To his left, Azar had collapsed, and at first Hult thought he’d really died, just as in the vision. There was still color in his cheeks, though, and his breast moved with his breath, very slightly.

A shudder ran through Hult, deep down into his core. He’d just seen something terrible, he knew, but he didn’t understand it.

“What just happened?” he asked.

Shedara just looked at him, her face blank. Then Essana threw her arms up with such violence that he had to let go. Yelling at both of them, she threw herself forward and gathered her son in her arms, telling them to go, get away from him, and to the Abyss with both of them.

Hult listened to her tirade, too bewildered to be offended, even when she called him a dirty barbarian, a motherless savage from a people who loved horses more than women. The things she called Shedara were even worse—words he’d never heard pass a woman’s lips before.

He rose and walked away. Shedara followed. He saw she was trembling.

“What did they do to him?” he asked.

The elf licked her lips, staring up at the stars. “They killed him.”

“But he’s alive,” Hult pressed, then stopped, gritting his teeth. “Isn’t he?”

“Yes,” she said. “He’s alive. They must have brought him back later. But he wasn’t when he earned his powers. That’s why he doesn’t remember. He was dead when it happened.”

Hult bit the heel of his hand so hard, he was surprised he didn’t taste blood. He glanced back at Azar, saw hate in Essana’s eyes when she caught him looking at them, and turned away again.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” he asked. “He’s the source of the boy’s power.”

He didn’t have to say Maladar’s name for Shedara to understand.

Shedara swallowed, biting her lip. “It must be.”

“But how? We saw him enter Forlo’s body. We heard him talk through Forlo’s mouth. How can his power be in Azar too?”

Shedara was silent a long time, staring up at the silver moon, shining down from high above them. “I have no idea,” she said.

Chapter 7

Bishan, Aurim-That-Was

The shell of the keep stood empty, long abandoned to dust and wind. It stood on an outcropping of cracked stone, where pale grass grew in stubborn clumps, which twisted high above the plains and crumbling seashore. It had been one of the mightiest strongholds in Aurim, a fortress that had never fallen, though it had weathered more than a dozen sieges. It was a husk now, lost not to war, but to famine and the poisoning of the land, its tallest tower of white marble jabbing at the leaden sky like a finger accusing the gods.

No one had called Upper Bishan home since its last caretakers died; two brothers and a sister, the last of a line that had held the fort for more than fifteen centuries, they had leaped from the precipice after the Destruction rather than leaving it for hospitable lands. The tale was well known, even among the hobgoblins, as was the rumor that the three siblings lingered as ghosts, haunting the keep, protecting its secrets, stubbornly clinging to that which they valued more than life. Tales abounded of men who had come to the place, seeking glory or riches. Inevitably, those unfortunate adventurers ended up either dying in unspeakable agony or wandering the wastes, their minds gone, wailing in voiceless terror until they perished of thirst. Whether living or dead, Bishan’s victims always bore the same mark: their eyes gone, torn out by the claws of some terrible beast.

It was nonsense, and Maladar knew it. There were no ghosts in Upper Bishan. The dead there were killed not by ghosts, not by monsters, but by men. He knew the truth: a clan of treasure-hunters from the Imperial League dwelt there and murdered anyone who came to those lands without their leave. They had been doing it for generations, using it as a base from which to plunder the ashes of the dead empire.

His empire.

Countless riches had passed out of Aurim’s ruins, through that place, and on by ship to lands far away—the distant Minotaur League, mostly, though the raiders who worked out of Bishan were not picky. They traded with rich men in the Rainwards, in Syldar, even in Thenol. They had made themselves rich off the blood and bones of those long dead, and slain those who came near to discovering what was really going on.

Maladar knew all this for a very simple reason: he had been to Bishan before.

He could still remember the day his slumber was interrupted. He’d lived in darkness, in silence, for so long that he’d almost forgotten what light and noise were. Then, one day, light had spilled into his vault, and with it voices and the scrape of shovels against sand and stone. The men of Bishan had found him and taken him from his vault, bragging about their prize. They’d brought him across water to the old keep. He’d stayed there for forty days—long enough to see the raiders kill and mutilate several hobgoblins and set one lone elf loose, blinded and insane, in the barrens. He’d watched them and listened, committing all to memory, until finally they bore him away on a long journey that would end in the town of Blood Eye, and the care of a minotaur named Ruskal.

Much and more had happened to Maladar since then. He’d gone on to the dwarf lands, then the pirate isles of the Run, then the castle of Coldhope, and finally Akh-tazi, leaving death in his wake wherever he went. But he had not forgotten Bishan and the usurpers who dwelt within its walls.

He stood upon the brow of a razorback ridge, a broken spine of stone ten miles south of Bishan. Night was falling, shadows creeping across the plain. Behind the keep, surf roared as it pounded the rocky shore. He looked upon the fortress and smiled, then turned to gaze down into the valley to the south. Five thousand hobgoblins waited there, huddled around dung fires, sharpening their blades beneath flapping black banners topped with skulls and the dried remains of snakes, their tribal totem. They looked back at him, expectant, hungry. He had told them the truth about Bishan and its occupants, and they were furious. They wanted blood for those the plunderers had slain, of course, but also as retribution for being tricked. They would get it soon enough.

For three weeks he’d traveled across Aurim, from one ruin to the next. Crumbling temples, shattered towns, once-proud castles reduced to rubble: he’d visited each in turn, and every time he’d found new followers. Sixteen other clans had joined him after the Mokuti, and more were on the way. Word was spreading across Aurim, from tribe to tribe of the hobgoblins, and soon, they would all be flocking to his banner. The hobgoblins craved war, but they were clannish and prone to feuding. They’d lacked a strong leader, one who would unite them and rule with an iron hand. They finally had one, and before long Maladar’s host would be ten times as strong as the one in the valley below.

Soon he would have his army. Then he would cross the Cauldron for real.

A hulking shape clambered up the ridge, hoisting himself from one crag to the next. Maladar had named Ghashai his second, a liaison to the rest of his people, and the towering warrior had taken to it with zeal. Under his command, the hobgoblins had learned discipline. They fought better, using tactics rather than simply swarming and rampaging when the scent of blood was in the air. Maladar wasn’t sure the newfound order would last long once the march to Bishan began, but he didn’t think it would have to. There were no more than sixty men in the keep, and the battlements were in shambles. The battle was already decided.

“They are ready,” Ghashai said as he reached the summit. “They await your command.”

“So they do,” Maladar replied. “I will give it… but not yet. There is one more thing I must do first.”

The hobgoblin stared at the fort’s distant shadow, his brow beetling. “Will it take long? My people are not good at waiting.”

Maladar looked down at his horde one more time. He saw hands caress swords, teeth gnash, feet stamp the blighted earth. It was still ten miles to Bishan, but if he bade them, the hobgoblins would run the whole way, howling for slaughter. It pleased him. He hadn’t commanded troops in battle for many, many years.

“Leave me,” he said.

Ghashai bowed, retreating partway down the hill. Maladar turned his gaze back to the distant keep. Those who dwelt there were warriors and thieves, almost to a man, but there was one other, one who could cause him trouble beyond what the rest could wreak with arrow and sword. His name was Randuvos, and he was a mage—a powerful one, at that. His illusions were what gave life to the rumors that Bishan was haunted. Much of the time, he was the one who killed the interlopers. He had even tried, and very nearly succeeded, to unbind the spells upon the Hooded One. A wizard with that kind of power could kill hundreds of hobgoblins before they reached the fortress.

Maladar relaxed, envisioning Randuvos in his mind. The mage was tall and gaunt, bald-headed but with a huge, bristly black beard. He wore robes of deep blue satin, decorated with silver runes. There were gold rings in his ears, his nose, both his lips. A jagged, red scar ran from the corner of his left eye down to his jaw.

Maladar caught the image in his mind, holding on to it as he opened himself to the moons’ power. It flowed into him like the tide, and suddenly he could see Randuvos, standing before him as if he were truly there. Other raiders moved around him, fading in and out of view, but Randuvos, who was busy pondering a large, ivory-paneled dulcimer the robbers had hauled out of the rubble somewhere, stayed still. Maladar focused on him alone, pulling more power into his body with each breath.

Only at the last moment did Randuvos know something was wrong. His nose wrinkling, he straightened up to look around. He put one hand to his temple, as if feeling a headache coming on, then looked directly at Maladar. His eyes widened, flooding with horror.

“You!” he gasped.

Maladar spoke a word and pushed the magic across the distance between them. It flowed into Randuvos, all at once: too much for him to contain or resist. His mouth opened in a silent scream. His back arched. Then, with a ghastly wet sound, his skull exploded. Bits of bone and brain blew in every direction, leaving a fine red mist hanging in the air. It spattered the dulcimer, the ground, men standing or walking nearby. Then the wizard’s body tumbled to the ground, its head a mass of crimson shards above the chin.

“There,” Maladar murmured. “That’s done.”

He let the spell end, and the images vanished from his view. From the distance, he thought he could hear the blare of a horn. The men of Bishan were warned: Randuvos’s death had cost Maladar the element of surprise. But then, with ten miles of open country to cover, in full view of the keep, surprise hadn’t really been his best option.

Maladar glowered at the distant fortress. “Ghashai?”

“Yes, my lord?” answered the hobgoblin.

“It is time.”

Ghashai flashed a bloodthirsty leer. “Plunder and blood,” he growled, then turned to face the horde. He drew his massive sword and raised it high. “War!” he bellowed.

The hobgoblins answered with a ferocious cheer. Spears and axes and swords punched the sky. Clashing their blades against their shields, they started marching.

Half the men in Bishan were dead by the time Maladar walked through its gates. He had to pick his way through the corpses of hobgoblins as he went; drifts of them lay torn and broken around the courtyard, piled in heaps around the bodies of the fort’s defenders. The groans of the injured and a charnel stink rose from the mess. There was blood everywhere: spattered on the walls, pooled on the cobbled ground, dripping in runnels over battlements and down stairs. The clash of battle had stopped for the moment, though not all of the robbers were dead.

The great stone doors of Bishan’s manor were shut, barred and bolted from within. Arrows lanced down from high slits in its walls, keeping the hobgoblins back. As Maladar watched, one of his troops strayed too close, and a heartbeat later lay on the stones, a shaft bristling from the top of its head.

Maladar was annoyed with how the fight was going. True, his forces had won the battle, or would once they got into the manor, but that had been a foregone conclusion. It would have taken true bumbling or a miracle on the tomb-robbers’ behalf for two and a half legions’-worth of bloodthirsty hobgoblins not to overthrow the place. The trick to such things was minimizing losses on one’s own side. There once were libraries in Aurim full of books devoted to the tactics of warfare. There had been no art to the hobgoblins’ attack, though, no strategy at all, once the attack began. And so he’d lost at least twice as many of his warriors as he might have with a properly trained force of Aurish soldiers.

It was disappointing but not unexpected.

The hobgoblins had charged the keep head-on, all five thousand of them sprinting toward its main gates with weapons held high. Bishan’s defenders had bows, though, and they’d responded with ruthless efficiency, loosing volley after volley into the onrushing horde. The hobgoblins had gone down like barley at reap-time, their bodies tumbling back down the slopes, sporting so many feathers that Maladar thought of the peacocks who had once wandered the gardens of his palace. Two hundred of them had died trying to reach the keep’s gate, another hundred as they battered it to splinters with axes and mauls, then two hundred more in the skirmishing within. The raiders of Bishan were mighty warriors, men who had once fought in the legions of Thenol and the League or upon the sands in gladiatorial arenas. They didn’t die easily.

Five hundred of his warriors dead, out of five thousand, and the battle not yet done. Maladar wanted to spit. If one of his generals had lost a tenth of his forces on such a straightforward maneuver as storming Bishan, the man would have found himself lowered slowly onto a spike in the Square of Spears, to be left for the skyfishers… or screaming in Aurim’s dungeons while Maladar researched new ways to use magic to cause pain.

These were hobgoblins, though, not men. They were savages, unworthy heirs to the bones of his empire. The world was a better place for each of them that died, and there would be scant space for them once Aurim was reborn. They served a purpose, but only for the moment.

“My lord!” called Ghashai from near the killing zone around the manor. He pushed his way back through the throngs. “We have the rats cornered. It’s only a matter of time.”

Maladar regarded the warlord, his eyes dark. Ghashai was leering with pleasure, enjoying the bloodletting. Red dripped from his sword’s notched blade.

“You need no time,” Maladar said with a shake of his head. “Ready your men. I will sunder the doors for you, just as I slew him.”

He pointed at a body, clad in blue satin, that had toppled from Bishan’s wall. The shattered pieces of a dulcimer lay beside it among shards of bloody skull.

“As you bid, my lord,” Ghashai said, eyeing what was left of Randuvos. He hefted his sword. “We’ll clean the place out within the hour and take the slime’s heads as prizes with their treasure.”

“Not all of them,” said Maladar. “I want some alive. A dozen, perhaps. That should be enough.”

Ghashai’s eyes narrowed. “Enough for what?”

“To send to the other chiefs of your people.”

The hobgoblin thought about that, then began to laugh. “Oh, yes! They will make fine gifts, indeed!” he cried, slapping his leg. Still chortling, he went back to his men to pass on Maladar’s orders. More laughter rose from their ranks.

Maladar sneered. There was no civilization to be found among the hobgoblins. Already some were feasting on those who had died atop Bishan’s walls. It didn’t matter, though. It was only one step in his journey.

He walked forward, stopping just outside bowshot of the manor, and raised a hand to point at the doors. With the other he began to gesture, chanting words that writhed like serpents. Finally, raising his voice to a shout, he forced the magic out through his fingers.

There was a flash of light, a crack of thunder, the stink of burned metal… then a boom and an eruption of billowing dust and tiny shards of stone. When it cleared, the doors of the manor were gone, blown apart by lightning. In their place was a jagged, smoking hole leading into the manor.

Ghashai howled a war cry. The hobgoblins charged. Up high in the manor, the archers poured arrows down into the mob.

It wasn’t enough to stop them, though. It wasn’t even close.

The screams were barely human anymore. It was closer to livestock in a slaughterhouse. Forlo needed to vomit. He wanted to turn away, to flee, to go wild and kill hobgoblins until they killed him. But he couldn’t; he had no way to wrest back control of his body from Maladar. He could only look on helplessly as, one by one, the survivors of Bishan met their fate.

When the fighting was finally done, the hobgoblins brought fifteen men to Maladar. Two he had judged too badly hurt to live; their bones lay on the flagstones, gnawed clean by the monstrous warriors. The rest he had ordered bound and brought to him, one at a time. When he was done with them, the hobgoblins dragged them away, but the screaming went on and on, growing louder and shriller with each victim.

He had done his work to twelve of the thirteen. He signaled to Ghashai, who brought forward the last. The man was older than the others, with scars on his face and gray in his beard. His sword arm hung limp by his side, and he ground his teeth with every step as the hobgoblins shoved him forward. He’d been the last one left and had killed thirty hobgoblins before they broke his shoulder and dragged him down. He walked forward, trying not to show fear but sweating and trembling just the same, a brave and heartless killer reduced nearly to the point of tears. He’d watched what happened to the others. He heard their cries. Even a minotaur couldn’t have sat through that without feeling afraid.

When he got close to Forlo, though, a different expression crossed his face, overwhelming the fright and pain. His eyes widened, his mouth dropping open in surprise.

“You!” he said. “The regicide!”

And he spat in Forlo’s face. Maladar didn’t even move, just let it hit him in the eye. There was blood in the man’s spit, and it stung. He left it there, not bothering to wipe it away.

“You killed Emperor Rekhaz,” the man said. “I know you, Barreth Forlo. I used to fight for the Third Legion, before I came here. I admired you. Now where are you? On the run, your holdings in ruins, commanding these scum instead of honest soldiers.

“The empire is in flames because of you. Randuvos heard it from other wizards, back home. Cities are burning, the legions are smashing each other to pieces. They say the League may not survive the wars. And it’s all your doing.”

Forlo cringed, sick inside. He wanted to hear more, but at the same time he wanted this man to be quiet, never to speak again. That part would come true soon enough. But first… first, Maladar had other things in mind.

There was a knife in his hand. It was covered in blood, tip to pommel. Maladar held it up before the old soldier, letting the man see it.

The soldier’s lip curled. “I know what you’re going to do with that. You’re not going to scare me any more than I already am. So just get—”

That was the last coherent thing he ever said. Smiling, Maladar went to work with the blade, and soon the raider was howling and gurgling and sobbing like the rest of them. When he was done, Maladar’s arms were red to the elbows and the hobgoblins had to hold the man to keep him on his feet. Stepping back, he surveyed his handiwork.

Inside, Forlo wept, as much for what he’d done as for what Maladar made him do. He’d killed Rekhaz, emperor of the minotaurs and his liege-lord, and while he tried to tell himself it had been necessary and even warranted—Rekhaz had hated him, had arrested him as a traitor and forced him to fight on the sands when he should have been searching for Essana—the truth was he’d done it on a whim, for vengeance. He could have let the emperor live, but he hadn’t. He’d murdered Rekhaz, and he’d enjoyed it.

The League had fallen apart, and it was his doing. He’d saved Essana, but he’d destroyed his nation and would be forever known as a traitor. There was a special place in the Abyss waiting for him.

“Take him away,” Maladar said.

They did as he bade, dragging away the half-conscious, keening ruin he’d made of Bishan’s last defender. Maladar made Forlo watch, forced his eyes to linger on the man’s face. That one would go to the Red Claw tribe, one of the largest clans in Aurim. The Red Claw had lost many hobgoblins to the “ghosts” who haunted Bishan.

Now they will bow to the man who put an end to that threat, Maladar’s voice whispered in Forlo’s head. They will follow me, as will the other tribes. Soon the hobgoblins will be one nation, under my banner.

Maladar smiled, turning away. He forgot the man in an instant. For Forlo, though, the memory lingered for days, until he wondered if it would ever go away. His face, the old soldier’s face, which he’d made sport of with his blade.

His tongueless, toothless, eyeless face.

Chapter 8

The Dourlands, Aurim-That-Was

The canyon ran on for what seemed like forever. They soon lost track of how long they walked: in the constant darkness, lit only fleetingly when the sun was high, time lost its meaning. Shedara thought it was around eighteen days, but it could have been twelve or thirty. The whole time, they met no greater threat than the scorpion swarm. There were no demons, no dragons, no hungry dead—just rocks and more rocks and the occasional centipede or lizard that scuttled away when it saw them.

They lived on Shedara’s conjured food and water, their way lit by her magical light. It was a grim and joyless journey, and they spoke little at first, then hardly at all. They were alive, but there wasn’t much more to say about it. Tumbled rockfalls and narrow clefts they had to slip through sideways slowed their progress. Shedara tried climbing out of the canyon a few times to see what the surface looked like, but she had no more bearings up above than down below. The surface was nothing but ash and broken stone and the stubs of old pillars and walls, littering the landscape like skyfisher-picked bones. Wind scoured the plains, whipping up huge twisters of dust. Once there was a dim line of gray mountains, far off to the west. Otherwise there was just devastation, trailing off into haze.

“We have no idea where we are, do we?” Hult asked her after one ascent, huddled by the stone-fire. He kept his voice low, so Essana and Azar couldn’t hear.

She shook her head. “Not yet.”

“When will we?”

“We’re still going the right way,” Shedara answered. “We’re still headed north. In time we’ll reach the sea.”

“And then?” Hult asked. “How do we reach these islands? We have no boat, and I don’t think there are many ports on the coast.”

“There are a few,” she said. “The Rainwarders cross the straits sometimes. I’ll know where to find them… once I have any idea where we are.”

Hult snorted, looking up. The stars wheeled above, a distant slash above the canyon. “Say we do get to the Rainwards—” he began.

“We will.”

“All right. We will, and we’ll warn them about Maladar. Do you think anyone there will be able to help with Azar?”

Shedara glanced over at the boy, asleep by the fire, his mother sitting nearby. Was it her imagination, or did he look older than when she’d first met him? Then, he’d seemed barely twenty. Now, she could see lines on his face and even a few gray strands in his long, tangled hair. That could have been just the arduousness of their journey, she supposed.

“There are a lot of mages in the Rainwards,” she said. “Including a fair number more powerful than me. Someone should know a spell that can tell us what happened to him.”

“We know what happened to him.”

She rolled her eyes. “We have a guess, that’s all.”

“What’s to guess?” he shot back. “You saw it as well as I did. The Brethren killed him. He’s sitting over there alive now, though”—they’d felt his neck for a lifebeat while he slept, just to make sure—“so they must have brought him back after Maladar was done with him.”

“If it was Maladar.”

“Do you really think it wasn’t? Do you think his power came from somewhere else?”

Shedara shrugged. “Azar’s powers have saved us twice now.”

Hult spat in the flames. “Chovuk Boyla’s powers saved me too, more times than that. It still came to no good, for him or my people.”

They sat quietly for a while, gazing at the ghostly flames that danced above the rocks.

“We might find someone who can help him,” she murmured at last. “But then again, we might not.” She bowed her head, blowing out a long breath through pursed lips.

Hult leaned forward and laid a hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right,” he said. “It’s all right not to know, Shedara.”

She looked up at him, tears blurring her eyes. Frustrated, she wiped them away. He was smiling, but there was a sorrow in his eyes that she recognized at once. It was the same thing she felt: he was out of his depth, in a place where he didn’t belong. In a just world, Hult would have lived out his life on the Tamire, riding horses and hunting antelope and warring with neighboring tribes. And she would be back in Armach, or abroad doing the elves’ dirty work for them. They certainly wouldn’t be huddled at the bottom of a hole in the midst of a ruined empire, wondering whether the soul of a dead sorcerer might kill their friend’s son.

She smiled back at him, then started to laugh. Fatigue, and the ludicrousness of their situation, made it hard not to. Hult’s eyes widened; then he started laughing too. She laid her hand on his, felt the stumps where he’d lost his fingers, back at the arena in Kristophan, and waited for him to pull away. He didn’t. They looked at each other. Then, so swiftly she didn’t realize it was happening, he leaned forward and kissed her.

And she kissed him back.

She didn’t know why. All she knew was, for a while, with his mouth on hers, with his lip in her mouth, with his teeth on her lip, with their tongues touching, she forgot. She wasn’t in a hole; she wasn’t in Aurim. There was no Azar, no Maladar, nothing but the two of them. She clung to that like a drowning woman.

Too soon, it was over. He ended it, pulling back. Another time, the look of confusion on his face would have made her laugh. At that moment her heart broke a little. Hult’s face darkened, and he started to turn away.

“Wait,” she said.

But he didn’t. With a shake of his head, he turned and stalked into the shadows, lost in his dark thoughts. Shedara started to rise, to go after him, then thought better of it. Hult needed to be alone, and strangely, so did she. Perhaps he was thinking of Eldako. She knew she was. What would the merkitsa think if he’d seen the two of them together? He’d been Hult’s friend—and for Shedara, more than a friend.

She heard movement behind her and turned to look. Essana had risen from her son’s side and was coming toward her. Shedara raised a hand to her mouth, wiping her lips as if some sign of what she and Hult had been doing might still linger there… as if Essana hadn’t seen. The way the firelight danced in her eyes told Shedara that wasn’t likely.

“Milady,” Shedara said as she drew near.

“I just realized something,” Essana said, crouching beside the fire. “If part of Maladar is in Azar… then all of him can’t be in Barreth, can it?”

Shedara thought about that. “Maybe. I’m not sure it works like that, like water being poured from one bucket to another. But yes… it’s possible that Forlo doesn’t have all his power.”

“Then he’s not fully Maladar, is he?” Essana asked. “I mean… there’s a chance.”

Shedara bit her lip, seeing where Essana was going. “Milady,” she said, “Forlo’s dead. Hult and I both saw him die—so did Azar, for that matter.”

“You can’t be certain. The Brethren killed Azar, but he’s here, alive. Why not Barreth, then?”

There was a gleam in Essana’s eyes as she spoke. It took Shedara a moment to realize what that gleam was: hope. Hope, she thought, could be dangerous. It could get us into a lot of trouble if we have to fight Maladar directly. If we have to kill him, she’ll bridle if she thinks Forlo’s still in there.

Or… she could be right.

Shedara was still wondering about that hours later, watching the stars wheel overhead.

Five days later—or was it six?—the canyon finally became too narrow to pass. Even sliding sideways, neither Shedara nor Hult could fit between its walls. Indeed, Hult got stuck, and it took the better part of an hour to pull him loose. When he came out, he was scraped and bloody.

“I could feel them trembling,” he murmured. “The stones. It felt like they were going to start moving… like they wanted to crush me like a locust.”

Shedara shuddered, feeling ill. Her people had trouble with confined spaces, fears she’d trained herself for years to ignore. For a moon-thief, tight squeezes were often a fact of life. But the notion of being lodged so tightly that the slightest tremor would kill her… she shuddered.

“What do we do now?” Essana asked.

Shedara shrugged. “Only two ways out, aren’t there? One’s back, and we don’t want to do that. Which leaves…”

She trailed off, glancing up. The others followed her lead. The sky above the rift was lit by the day, yellow-gray.

“We’ll be out in the open,” Azar said. “Vulnerable.”

“You don’t say?” Shedara snapped, then shook herself when he flinched. “I’m sorry. I don’t like it any more than you, but I don’t see any other choices. With luck, the chasm will widen out again in a quarter mile or so, or there’ll be another one close by, and we can take shelter again. With luck we won’t be exposed for long.”

“We should scout ahead, just the same,” Hult said and loosened his sword in its scabbard. He held out his hand. “Give me the rope.”

She did, pausing long enough to make sure the enchantment was still upon it. “I’ll go with you.”

“No.” He held up a hand and leaned close to whisper in her ear. “If something goes wrong, it’s best that I’m alone. If both of us were lost, Jijin knows what would happen to them.” He nodded at Essana and Azar.

An urge came over her, fast and strong, to kiss him again. She held it back. It wasn’t love. Lust maybe, worry certainly, but not love. She couldn’t afford to addle Hult’s wits right then just for the sake of calming herself. She settled for squeezing his hand.

“Be careful,” she said.

He looked at her, and she saw that he wanted to kiss her again too. He’d probably wanted to since that night. She shook her head, stepping back.

“Tie the rope off at the top,” she said. “Just a simple knot—the magic will take care of the rest.”

“All right,” he said. “I’ll toss the rest down when it’s all clear.”

He paused to incline his head toward Essana, glancing at Azar—the distrust on his face was plain—then jumped up and caught hold of an overhanging crop of rock. He was a bit clumsy, with half a hand gone, but he still managed to hold on and swing up a leg to get a foothold. Once that was done, he hauled himself up, leaned back against the canyon’s other wall, and began to scuttle upward. Shedara watched him go, impressed. She could have done the same, but climbing was part of a moon-thief’s training. Hult just did it. He’d told her and the others once—she thought it was while they were sailing to Panak, half a continent and a lot of grief ago—that he’d been a climber since he was a child, so much so the elders had nicknamed him Jasho, which meant monkey in the Uigan tongue.

When he was gone from sight, she turned her attention to the others. Azar could barely meet her gaze. She studied him a while, not for the first time since she’d looked inside his mind. She could see the scar, faint and pale across his throat, so wide that it nearly touched either earlobe at its ends. She bit her lip, remembering the sounds he’d made when the Master’s blade cut him.

Essana watched her with earnest eyes. They hadn’t spoken of Maladar or Forlo since the other night, but the woman’s belief that her husband still lived had only grown since then. And Shedara was no longer so certain that Forlo was dead. There was a logic to what Essana had told her. Shedara’s rational mind told her it was only wishful thinking to believe he hadn’t been killed at Akh-tazi, but she’d given someone up for dead too early before, when Eldako fell to Gloomwing’s breath on the shores of Neron. She’d been wrong then: he’d survived, though grievously injured. She might be wrong about Forlo too.

Perhaps.

After a while, she heard movement from above. A few pebbles dropped down, then a shower of grit. She glanced up, frowning; then her mouth went dry when she saw Hult, half sliding, half climbing back down the chasm with the rope still clutched in his hand.

“What’s going on?” Essana asked.

“Shh!” Shedara hissed, holding up her right hand. A dagger dropped into her left, just in case. “Keep your voice down.”

They watched in silence as he grabbed the last overhang, then let his legs swing down and free. His maimed hand scrabbled at the rock but lost its grip, and Shedara jumped forward to catch him as he fell the last short span to the ground. He sat on a rock, panting hard. There was a cut above his right eye. Shedara dabbed at the blood there with the hem of her sleeve. Waiting tensely for him to catch his breath, she bit the palm of her hand—a habit she’d picked up from Hult without realizing it until that moment.

“What happened?” Essana breathed, bending down beside the Uigan. “What did you see?”

He coughed, looking at them. “Hobgoblins,” he said. “There are hobgoblins everywhere.”

Shedara hauled herself halfway out of the crevice, looked around, and felt cold. Astar’s arrows, she thought, I’ve led us right to the midst of an army.

She and Hult had climbed up together, with spells to make them silent and invisible. She glanced at him—she alone could see him, just as he alone could see her—and he nodded.

No matter where they looked, there were hobgoblins, hundreds—no, more than a thousand, by her guess. They huddled around dung fires, sharpened axes and swords, wrestled in the dust, shot bows at lashed-up corpses, and drank black brew from leather flasks. A few tents stood here and there, made of crudely stitched-together hides, but most of the creatures slept in groups for warmth, with skins and fur blankets to cover them.

Somewhere, in the distance, a hoarse voice was screaming. She couldn’t see who it was, but the sound was so full of anguish that her skin prickled. She looked at Hult, who shook his head.

They climbed back down.

“All right,” she said when they reached the bottom, where the others waited. “We’re staying in the hole for now.”

Hult described what they’d seen for Essana and Azar. They both glanced up at the sky above, as if expecting to see cruel, apelike faces peering back at them.

“It’s just a bivouac, not a real camp,” Shedara said. “They’ll probably be moving away at sunset. Hobgoblins travel at night.”

“But… an army?” Essana asked. “Where are they headed?”

“To join a bigger army, probably,” Hult said.

“Why? Who are they fighting?”

The Uigan shrugged, looking at Shedara. She spread her hands. “I don’t know,” she said. “But the hobgoblins in the Steamwall Mountains are always warring with each other. It’s what keeps their numbers down, thank the gods. Some tribe probably profaned another’s sacred ground or killed the son of a chieftain, and things went out of control from there.”

“No,” Hult said. “It’s more than that. Someone’s gathering a horde.”

They all looked at him. A chill settled in Shedara’s stomach. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“I’ve seen clan-fighting among my people,” he replied, “and I’ve been part of a horde. I know the difference.”

“No one lives here but the hobgoblins,” Essana said. “Who else would they be attacking?”

“Perhaps they aim to leave Aurim,” Hult answered.

Shedara shook her head. “You don’t know any of this,” she said. “Not for certain.”

“No,” he replied. He glanced up, one hand resting on his sword. “Which is why I plan to find out.”

Chapter 9

The Blighted Plain, Aurim-That-Was

Hult’s hand hurt like the Abyss by the time he got to the top of the cleft again. He’d cut it and nearly ripped one of the nails out of its bed, fighting for purchase with only half as many fingers as he ought to have. He didn’t care; he’d even refused the climbing spell Shedara offered him, which would make his fingers stick to the rocks like a spider. It was a matter of pride: climbing was something he’d always been good at, and he wasn’t going to use magic just because of a little blood and pain.

He hadn’t refused all of Shedara’s spells, of course. He wasn’t a fool. She’d made him invisible again, and silent as well. They were more potent versions of the spell than the ones she’d cast before. The spells were more complicated, had taken more time, and drained more of Shedara’s strength.

“When you fight,” she’d warned him after the magic bored into him, settling into his bones as he faded from view, “you’ll be visible—but only for a while. Count to ten afterwards, without taking a swing at anyone, and then the spell will take hold again.”

“Ten,” he’d replied. “That’s a long time to be standing in the middle of a hobgoblin army.”

She’d shrugged. “So don’t get into a fight in the middle of an army. Or better yet, don’t do this at all. It’s too risky.”

“Maybe,” he’d said. “But we need to know what these hobgoblins are doing. An army of them, here, just as we’re passing by… it’s too great a coincidence.”

Neither of them had said what answers they thought he might find, though both had the same guess. It felt like bad luck to speak Maladar’s name, however.

He lay on the rim of the chasm, breathing hard, getting back his strength, then rose into a crouch. The nearest campfires were close by, about ten paces away; they went on from there, hundreds of them, sending black, greasy cords of smoke writhing into the sky. The stink was abominable, burning his nose: sweat, piss, dung, rotten meat. The worst place he’d ever smelled had been the cave of the Wretched Ones, the goblins who dwelt beneath the Ilquar Mountains. The reek coming from the hobgoblin camp made that seem like a bed of wildflowers. He fought back the urge to retch.

He held still, watching the hobgoblins. They went about their business, laughing, fighting, drinking, oblivious that a human was so close by. Occasionally one would glance his way, its small, yellow eyes gleaming with reflected firelight, and his heart would turn to ice, but they always looked away again without noticing him.

If the spell faltered, even for a moment, he was dead. A ten-count would be an eternity.

Holding his breath, Hult eased his sword from its scabbard. Unoiled for weeks, it rasped loud enough to make him grit his teeth, and he had to remind himself that only he heard the noise. He could clash the blade against the rocks and bellow Uigan war chants at the top of his lungs, and no one would hear. He dwelt on the thought, chuckled, and set it aside.

He stayed where he was for a quarter of an hour, crouching and observing, his sword laid across his knees. He watched how the creatures moved, where the guards patrolling the camp went, what the safest places were to slip past the guards… and he rose swiftly and strode straight through the camp’s midst. It felt like madness—there were hundreds of the brutes all around him, each well armed and a full head taller than he was—and his heart hammered in his chest whenever he came close to touching one of them. He and other Uigan had played a game like that, when they were children: at night, they would slip into the pastures around their tribes’ villages and try to pass among the sheep or cattle without waking them. They called it utanka, and he’d been one of the best at it.

That day he played utanka with the hobgoblins, his sword held close to his body, ready to fight in case things went wrong. He knew he’d never get away if it came to bloodshed, but he would send as many of the monsters to the Abyss as he could before they brought him down.

He followed the screaming he’d heard before. It was a hideous sound, bereft of sanity, the noise of a bowstring stretched too taut, ready to snap. It was thin; it warbled. There were no words—only agony and despair. Part of him didn’t want to see what made that sound, but he couldn’t leave without knowing. It was much of the reason he’d come back up there.

Before too long, he reached the camp’s other side. The ground was rocky, dotted with white, wind-worn boulders that towered over the plain. The chieftains’ tents were set among the rocks, along with tribal totems of bone and skin and insect shells. There were, in fact, very few hobgoblins near: the leaders were out among the clans, threatening and cajoling and carousing with their troops. One old warrior, his shaggy mane the color of bleached bones, sat asleep against a rock. There were three guards he could see, each armed with a horn-and-sinew bow. And there was the screaming man.

Hult’s gorge rose when he saw the poor wretch. The man was lashed hand and foot to a long, wooden pole set into the ground, his arms high above his head. Blood dripped from his toes into a sticky pool beneath; fat flies buzzed around, occasionally landing on him to feast. He’d been stripped naked, and his skin was bruised a dozen different colors, crusted with filth and dried blood. One of his legs hung at an odd angle—broken. One of his shoulders was misshapen too—dislocated, probably. And they’d done much worse to his face. His eyes were gone, his ears, and his nose. His hair was scorched away, leaving angry, red puckers on his scalp. His teeth were jagged shards. And when he opened his mouth wide to let loose a piercing howl, Hult saw the gnarled stump that was the root of his tongue.

They’d cut him other places too. Most of his fingers were gone and one thumb. Several toes were missing. And also…

Hult looked away, tasting vomit.

What he did next, he did without thinking. Later, he would look at his actions and think them foolish, but he had no other choice. He had no idea who the man was; though, from what Shedara said, there were few good men in Aurim. Still, no one deserved such a fate—not the most cowardly, goat-thieving robber of the Kazar tribes, not the minotaurs who’d tried to have him killed at the Kristophan arena, not even the Faceless Brethren.

He ran, heedless of the dust his heels kicked up as he charged one of the guards. The hobgoblin never saw him, never knew: he simply stood there, squinting into the afternoon sky, until Hult’s blade snapped around, struck him in the back of the neck, and sent his head spinning away. Blood plumed, and the guard’s body fell to its knees, sat back on its heels for a moment, then slumped onto its side.

And just like that, Hult was visible again, standing near the corpse, black blood on his face and his blade. He began to count. One… two… three…

There was no chance, though. The other guards saw him plainly. He wondered—too late to do anything about it—if any of them had a horn to blow to call reinforcements. Fortunately, neither did, though, he noted, the headless hobgoblin had had one on a baldric. By sheer stupid luck, he’d killed the one who could have summoned help. He muttered thanks to Jijin, weaving his sword in arcs before him as he charged the other guards.

The man lashed to the pole—no, that wasn’t right; he was spiked to it, with iron spearheads—screamed on and on, oblivious.

The hobgoblins were good fighters, but Hult was better. They traded blows, his teeth clenching every time metal clashed against metal, and after four quick passes, he ducked under one creature’s whistling axe, stepped in close, and pounded the pommel of his sword into the creature’s mouth. Bone cracked, and the monster went down with a yelp, clutching its broken jaw. He kicked it in the head, sent it sprawling, then turned to parry a crashing sweep of the other hobgoblin’s morning star. The force of the blow jarred his whole arm, but he didn’t break stride. Whirling, he raked his blade backhand across the guard’s belly. The hobgoblin clutched his stomach, blood pouring over his hands, then fell on his face. He let out a whimpering groan and lay still.

Nodding, Hult turned back to the one he’d kicked. Swaying, woozy, it was trying to get back on its feet. He drove his sword deep into its left armpit. Hot, dark heart’s blood shot through the air, and he yanked out the blade and turned to face the old warrior before the body hit the ground.

The warrior stood near the stake, sword in hand. “If you mean to rescue him,” he said, jerking his head toward the mutilated man, “then you are a fool. He is ruined and will soon die.”

Hult’s eyes took in the screaming man. What the old hobgoblin said was true: the man would be dead by nightfall. Judging by how old and fouled some of his wounds looked, it was amazing he was still alive at all.

“I am not here to save him, filth,” he said. “I am here to punish you for what you did to him.”

The warrior threw back his head and barked a laugh. “What we did? He was already broken when he came to us. Do not call our kind filth when it was one of your kind, a human, who wielded the blade.”

Hult’s stomach clenched. A human. He knew where the conversation was leading. Part of him wanted to be certain; another part wanted to remain ignorant. It would be a happier life, not knowing the truth. He nearly gave in to the temptation, nearly attacked the warrior rather than asking.

But he couldn’t not know.

“Who?” he asked. “What man would do such a thing?”

The warrior smiled, baring broken, yellow tusks. “He is our savior,” he said. “The one who will deliver us from this place. We answer his call. He will lead us across the sea, to the gray isles and their riches. He is Maladar, the true lord of Aurim.”

Hult showed no sign that he knew the name except for a tightening of his lips. In his mind he pictured the Faceless Emperor, wearing Forlo’s body like a suit of armor. He saw Forlo with a blade in his hand, bent over the bloody thing that hung from the pole. Rage swelled within him, clouding his eyes with red mist. He raised his sword…

And the world disappeared.

Hult stopped, startled. It happened in a flash; he could see through the stones and dust, as if they were made of water, then, just as fast, everything else came back. The hobgoblin, however, stood stunned, his jaw dropping open. And Hult understood, feeling the tingle of magic in his veins.

A ten-count had passed. He was invisible again.

“Where did you go?” roared the warrior. He raised his blade. “What trickery is this?”

Hult smiled. He strode forward, moving around the warrior in a wide arc, sword at the ready. Anger pulsed inside his head, made it throb. He stopped an arm’s length from the hobgoblin, on the creature’s left. He watched it shy back a step, fear in its eyes.

“Show yourself!” the hobgoblin bellowed, shaking his sword.

“Very well,” Hult said, thrusting the tip of his sword into the warrior’s face.

The blade went in just under the creature’s eye, and the spell broke a second time, leaving him visible once more. The hobgoblin stiffened, trembling where it stood. Its hands went slack, its sword falling into the dust. A line of black blood crawled down Hult’s blade.

Carefully, Hult twisted the blade. The hobgoblin screamed nearly as loudly as the man on the stake, blood pouring from its nose. Then Hult jerked the sword down and out. Gore streamed from the ruins of the hobgoblin’s face, and it crumpled to the ground. It kicked its legs twice then lay still.

“Better than you deserve,” Hult whispered.

He glanced around. No one had come to see what the trouble was. Likely no one knew there was trouble. He nodded, counting to himself. One, two…

No—there was something yet to be done. The man still hung there, squirming and yowling. Hult went over to the first hobgoblin he’d killed and picked up its axe. Three quick chops brought the pole crashing to the ground. It fell forward, on top of the man; straining, Hult flipped it over, wincing at the sight of the wretch’s wounds up close. There were maggots in some of them, squirming and burrowing. A sour taste flooded his mouth, and he spat and spat. He wanted to kill every hobgoblin in the camp, in Aurim, in all of Taladas. More, he wanted to kill Maladar.

“Jijin, forgive me,” he murmured. “I do this out of mercy, in your name.”

An old prayer, that, one of the first he’d learned. When a horse broke its leg or got too old to run, the Uigan spoke it before cutting its throat. They did the same for dying men after battle. Grimacing, Hult held the axe poised over the poor wretch’s neck. He took a deep breath, held it, and raised the weapon.

“Stop!” thundered a voice somewhere to his right. More snarls and shouts joined it. The hobgoblins had found him.

He brought the axe down. The screaming stopped.

The red mist was still all around him as he turned to face the next lot. He tried to count them, lost track at thirty, and settled on guessing that there were probably twice that number, all armed, eyeing him hungrily. They edged toward him, armor clattering.

They eat the flesh of those they kill, he thought. Fight them, and you will be gnawed bones by tomorrow.

“Your prize is dead,” he said, letting the axe fall and shifting his sword back to his good hand. “Who wishes to follow him?”

The hobgoblins hesitated, glancing at one another. Their dismay wouldn’t last long enough. They would find their courage and rush him. Already their faces were contorting into masks of rage, their weapons rising.

Eight, he thought. Nine. Ten.

His blood tingled. The world turned to glass, then solidified again. The hobgoblins howled in surprise, wondering where he’d gone.

Hult turned and ran, leaving them far behind.

Chapter 10

Whitewold, Aurim-That-Was

The sound of axes filled the air, blades hewing and chips flying, and mighty trunks crashing to the ground. There was a music to it, a grim cadence of purpose. Humans or dwarves might have chanted to its rhythm, might have sung to ease the drudgery, but not the hobgoblins of Aurim. They sang in battle only, for to them, that was the only joy. They simply destroyed one tree after another as they killed the land’s last forest.

Maladar stood on a crumbling hill overlooking the scene, frowning. He was in an odd mood that day, and it was because of the trees. He’d known that forest, had hunted in it with the local lords. In his day, men had called it Fel Skotos—in the local tongue, the Forest of Night. It was an old and supposedly enchanted wood that went on for mile upon mile, packed with massive trees, dark-leafed and moss-bearded, their branches woven into a carpet that let almost no light through. The villagers near Fel Skotos had revered the place as holy, and riding beneath that high, vaulted canopy, Maladar had understood why. It had been like a church, a still and peaceful place where daylight broke through the dark in fat, golden spears that lanced the fern-carpeted floor. Maladar had never been one given to sentiment, but the place had affected even him. It had been one of Aurim’s wonders, exceeding all but the mightiest works of men.

And now he was destroying it.

To be fair, what remained of Fel Skotos could hardly be called the same place. The Destruction, and centuries of poisoned wind and rain, had seen to that. More than three quarters of it was utterly gone, swallowed by the sea when Aurim’s northeastern provinces fractured away from the mainland. What remained was more boneyard than a church.

Many of the largest trees still stood but were petrified, turned to hard, dead spires that clawed at the clouds. Their stony trunks had changed color, from black to bone-white. Among those lifeless spires grew the newer forest, a gnarled tangle of brambles and evergreens whose diseased bark sloughed off in sheets to reveal pale wood underneath. It was terrible wood, soft and crumbling, with wine-colored sap that stank like rotten flesh and made the trees look as if they were bleeding. Given his druthers, Maladar would never have chosen it for his purpose, but there were no other options left to serve his aims, not for hundreds of leagues.

The hobgoblins were hard workers, driven by the promise of plunder and a new home far away. It would have taken human slaves months to topple the Whitewold, even if he worked them to death. The horde had been there just short of three weeks, gathering strength on the shores of the northern sea; now little of the woods remained. Another four or five days, and all that would be left of Fel Skotos would be the looming bone-trees, dead monuments to forgotten ages and beauty.

But soon to be renewed, Maladar thought. The forest’s death was one more step on his long road. Soon he would have his army. Then he could return to the Cauldron. Then the Chaldar would rise. He could see it in his mind, blazing above the Burning Sea.

He was so close.

The massacre at Bishan had accomplished all he’d expected. The hobgoblin clans had rallied to him, marching from all across the north of Aurim, bearing the tattered remains of the maimed men he’d sent them as trophies. By the time the horde reached the wold, it had swelled from four thousand to more than four times that many and had doubled since. Thirty-three thousand hobgoblins answered to him, the largest display of military might seen in the east of Taladas since the skies fell. It would be enough for what he needed.

He walked on, downhill toward the seashore. There the rocks had splintered, forming jagged fingers that groped out above a beach of gray sand. He strode along one of those ledges to an overlook that gave him a view of the sea. Below, more hobgoblins swarmed over the beach, hammering and sawing and lashing boards together. The creatures were no shipwrights; it was a wonder anything they built could float at all. But the crude rafts they constructed were much like the horde itself—they would suffice.

Already they had built two hundred boats and were working on a goal of a thousand. Even then the craft would be overloaded. Some would capsize upon the waves; others would founder and sink. Maladar guessed that he’d lose one in five during the voyage, but that was all right. The hobgoblins were expendable, and with bloodlust singing in their veins, they would never turn back.

His gaze rose from the beach to the waters beyond. They were rough, white-capped and frigid, the color of lead beneath the heavy sky. A storm flashed, far across the waves. Beneath, he thought he could see a distant arc of land; then it was gone, swallowed by mist. The Rainwards were close, almost within his grasp. He hoped his goal wouldn’t be snatched away, as the fire minions had cheated him in the Cauldron. If it were, Hith would have much to answer for, much and more.

Footsteps interrupted his brooding. He turned, and there was Ghashai. The warlord was moving briskly, his lips curled back into a kind of smile full of yellow and brown teeth. He strode to the end of the promontory, then stopped to bow before Maladar.

“Most high, I bear glad tidings.”

Maladar nodded. “Then you are welcome. What news?”

“More clans have come,” Ghashai replied, his chest swelling with pride. “Seven, including the Black Tongue.”

“The Black Tongue,” Maladar repeated, relishing the name. Good. They were the only tribe he’d sent one of the mutilated Bishani that hadn’t yet answered his call. “Where are they?”

“Close by, my lord,” Ghashai replied. “Two leagues. Their out-runners reached us just now.”

“Excellent,” Maladar said. “Summon the other chiefs. We will welcome them when they arrive.”

The warlord bowed and loped off, back down the rock finger toward the main body of the horde. Maladar watched him go, satisfied. After the Tongue, no other large tribes remained who dwelt close enough to worry about. There might be other, smaller clans still coming, but they mattered little. The bulk of the horde was assembled. He turned to stare across at the Rainwards again. They waited for him, behind the fog. He smiled.

After a moment, though, his expression faded, giving way to a puzzled frown. He noticed something else out there, something small, little no more than a speck upon the wide gray channel—a dark speck, with a lighter one above it. For a moment he thought it might be the crest of an oddly large wave, but… no, it was going the wrong way. It was something else, something that moved against the current.

A boat?

Maladar squinted, cursing Barreth Forlo’s eyes. His soul hadn’t claimed a young man’s vision, and he had trouble focusing. He muttered a spell to help his sight, and after a surge of magic, things became clearer. Yes, it was a boat—a smallish sailing ship, like a fisherman’s cog. It was tacking back and forth, moving away from him, toward the far shore. Tiny, dark figures stood upon its deck, working its sails as it zigzagged toward the islands.

Strange…

Maladar watched the boat, wondering who would be sailing upon these seas on the cusp of a storm. Finally, the vessel vanished, swallowed by darkness and haze. Behind him, the blare of war horns cut through the din of axes on wood.

Still wondering, Maladar turned away and walked back toward the dead forest to greet the Black Tongue.

The Black Tongue were many, more than two thousand strong, and they were fierce warriors who—true to their name—tattooed their tongues black when they came of age. They filled a valley, a mile east of the main horde, sticking out those inky tongues in ferocious leers while they thumped the butts of their spears against the stony ground. It was a sign of intimidation, and indeed, some of the lesser chiefs arrayed on the hillside behind Maladar shifted and muttered warily. The clans had warred with one another, year after year, for as long as they’d dwelt in Aurim. There were skulls and shrunken heads of rival tribes on the Tongue’s standard poles. Maladar shot a look at Ghashai as the Tongue continued to drum their weapons against the rocks, and the warlord turned a fierce glare upon the muttering chiefs.

“They may kill you when the fighting is done,” Ghashai rumbled, “but if you are not still, I will do it now.”

Sulking, resentful, the chiefs fell silent.

Maladar stepped forward, to the edge of the slope, and folded his arms across his chest in greeting. Down below, the hobgoblins of the Black Tongue returned the gesture. Their eyes all were fixed on him.

“Where is your chieftain?” Maladar asked. “Where is the offering I sent you?”

The hobgoblins looked at one another, many of them drawing their tongues back into their mouths.

Maladar pointed at one tall warrior, near the front. “You. Do you speak for your tribe?”

The hobgoblin turned pale, staring at the ground. “N-no, my lord. I am not—”

“Shargath,” Maladar intoned, and the magic flowed.

The hobgoblin’s eyes widened; then it began to make an awful sucking sound, the noise of a man unable to draw a breath. Its hands flew to its throat, and it groped and clawed, trying to open its windpipe again. Its claws tore its skin, yet that didn’t help or matter. Its lips blue, the creature pitched forward onto its face and lay still, save for the slightest twitch of its legs. Its tattooed tongue hung from its mouth.

Maladar pointed at the hobgoblin who’d been standing next to the warrior he’d just killed. “You. Do you speak for the Black Tongue?”

The hobgoblin had to tear its startled gaze away from its companion. It looked up at Maladar, squinting as it considered its options. “I—will speak for them,” it said at last.

“Wise,” Maladar replied. “Now… answer my questions. Where is your chief? Where is the offering?”

The hobgoblin swallowed, trembling. A new stink filled Maladar’s nostrils, telling him that at least one of the creatures hadn’t been able to control its terror. His lip curled.

“My lord,” the hobgoblin said, “there was a—a man. A warrior. He killed our chief and the offering. We burned them both, back by the Dourlands.”

“Burned them,” Maladar said. Rage welled in him, then subsided. “What of this man, then? What did you do to him?”

The hobgoblin shook its head. “N-nothing, my lord. He… he escaped. He had magic to help him.”

A warrior. Magic. Maladar’s eyebrow rose.

“Describe him,” he said. “What did he look like?”

The hobgoblin began to weep. “I—I did not see.…”

Maladar lifted a finger. Moments later, a second corpse lay sprawled in the dirt, hands clutching at its throat.

“Who did see him?” Maladar thundered, sweeping the assembly with his gaze. “Someone answer, and answer true, or I’ll tear those fearsome tongues from all of your heads.”

Silence answered him. Anger boiled in him, burning. He raised his hand, and the black moon’s power began to flow.

“My lord,” one of the hobgoblins ventured finally. He stepped forward, his head thrown back, arrogance sparking in his eyes. “I was there. I saw him.”

Maladar lowered his arm. The magic slowed from a torrent to a trickle, but he still held it inside, ready, waiting. “Speak.”

“He… he was short, for a human. Brown-skinned. His hair was black… and he had markings on his face.”

“Tattoos?” Maladar rumbled. “Like your tongue?”

The hobgoblin nodded.

Somewhere, deep inside, Forlo stirred. Maladar felt the unbidden spark of joy within his body and heard names in his mind. Hult!

The Uigan, the one that had been at Akh-tazi. And if there was magic at work, the elf had to be with him—Shedara.

“Were there others?” Maladar asked, intrigued. “A boy, perhaps?”

The hobgoblin shook his head. “We saw no one. Only the Uigan. He killed our chief then disappeared into thin air. We searched for him for half a day but found no sign.” He bowed his head. “I swear this is true, my lord. I would keep nothing from you.”

One of Maladar’s eyebrows quirked. “Oh?” he asked. “And what is your name, most honest of hobgoblins?”

“Kuvosh, most high.” The pathetic creature was trembling.

“Kuvosh.” Maladar nodded slowly. “You are braver than your fellows. You will make a fine clan-chief.”

“My lord?” Kuvosh looked up, amazed. “Chief?”

“Yes,” Maladar replied. He swept his hand across the assembly. “As the Black Tongue has not yet chosen a new leader, I must do so. Chief Kuvosh, step forward and take your place among my counselors.”

Kuvosh grinned as his neighbors shot him dark looks. “Thank you, my lord.”

He strode past his fellow hobgoblins to join Ghashai and the other chiefs. They threw him disdainful looks, wrinkling their noses as if he reeked—which he did, but so did they—but they made room for him all the same. None dared displease Maladar.

“The Black Tongue are welcome in these lands,” Maladar proclaimed, raising his hands. He let the killing spell seep out of him again, the magic rippling the air but doing no harm. “Tonight, you may rest. In the morning, you will join the others at their work. By the time the silver moon rises full, we shall have our fleet. And then… then we will cross the sea, and plunder will be yours. Let the Rainward Isles tremble! Their doom is at hand!”

The hobgoblins cheered. Maladar glanced at Ghashai, who smiled a feral smile. “Take care of them,” he said. “I will be back at the shore if you receive further word.”

The warlord bowed, and Maladar left, walking back toward the promontories of broken stone. As he did, his thoughts turned to the boat he’d seen, out upon the gray water. It had been sailing away from Aurim, toward the Rainwards. There had been figures upon the deck, too small to make out, but he realized that the Uigan and the elf must have been among them. There might have been others too.

The woman—Essana. The Taker. So they’d gone to the Rainwards to warn those who dwelt there. When Maladar’s horde reached the far shore, those the hobgoblins meant to slaughter would be alerted. It didn’t really matter, anyway, in the long view. The hobgoblins could live, or they could die; it was all the same. The Chaldar would rise either way.

He stood upon the rocks as the sun set and the storm clouds rolled overhead. Rain slashed; thunder shook the air. Gusting winds raised high waves upon the sea. Inside, Maladar felt Barreth Forlo tremble. Starlight, the man’s thoughts kept saying, over and over. I’m coming.

Yes, Maladar thought. We are. And war is coming with us.

Chapter 11

The Grayveil Strait

Nothing was visible astern of the Swiftwing—nothing, indeed, in any direction, beyond maybe a few hundred feet of open water. Fog had closed in on the little skiff, dark and brooding, clinging to the strangely becalmed waters in writhing shapes like ghosts. It swallowed light, devoured sound, soaked through the thickest mantle. Krenaz Bur, the boat’s crew called it, forking their fingers at the sky in a show of disgust as they worked the sails: the World Between, their vision of the afterlife.

Shedara thought it apt. In a way, that was where she was—on the way from one life to the next. She hadn’t been in a city for more than half a year, maybe more. Really, Blood Eye had been the last: she could hardly count her brief but violent sojourn in Kristophan, where the emperor had died on Forlo’s blade. Since then, it had been nothing but ships and the wild. But not that night. That night, they would pass through the blanket of mist that gave those waters their name, and at last they would reach the Rainwards. That night… she would have a warm bed, good wine, food in her belly that tasted like something. The trip had been long, but finally it was coming to an end.

She glanced again toward the boat’s stern. There was nothing to be seen back there, but a figure stood at the rail nonetheless, bundled in a woolen cloak, watching behind. Threads of mist clung to the figure, caressing it like fingertips. The sight made Shedara think of stories mariners told in wharfside taverns, back on the far side of Taladas: every sea captain had a tale or two of a haunted ship, where specters lurked in the hold or high in the rigging. More often than not, as sailors tended to be men, the phantom was a woman, a wife or lover who died while her man was at sea.

The figure was not dead, but she did seem to be dwelling in another world. Essana had spoken hardly at all since they’d left the Dourlands, finishing the long trek to the coast once the Black Tongue hobgoblins broke their bivouac and moved on. Even when they’d found the Rainwarders’ little harbor of Hyo-khal, hidden in a socket of the rocky coast as Shedara had promised, Essana had stayed quiet, lost in thought, always looking behind.

She was thinking about Forlo, of course. When Hult returned from his raid and told them what he’d learned, all of Essana’s grief and worry had returned, twice as strong as before. Then, as they began their voyage across the Grayveil, they’d passed close to an ancient woodland where the hobgoblins were camped. There, on the cliffs overlooking the water, they thought they might have seen him: a man, standing dark against the dusky sky, soon lost in the fog.

Barreth.

That had been hours ago; Essana hadn’t left the aft rail since. She stood still as a statue, her eyes fixed on the point where they’d seen that lone man. None of them went near her; Shedara had tried, once, but the look on the woman’s face had driven her back. There was sorrow there, of course—long damp tracks shone on her cheeks—but there was something else as well. It was a deep and burning anger, an emotion Shedara had never seen in Essana before. It made Shedara shiver and look away.

“What is she thinking about, do you suppose?”

Shedara looked sideways. Azar stood beside her, still clad in the same ragged robes he’d worn since Akh-tazi. While the others had accepted warm clothes from the Swiftwing’s captain—winter was easier there than in the west, but they were fairly far north, and the fog was cold—Azar still refused to wear any garment but the one the Faceless had given him.

Shedara sighed, running a hand through her hair. It was growing out long, something she hadn’t let it do for decades. It felt good, sliding between her fingers.

“Your father, of course,” she said. “She loved him. Seeing him again after what happened must be… difficult.”

“But that couldn’t have been him,” Azar replied. “You said so yourself. He’s dead. I killed him.”

Shedara flinched. He’d said it so matter-of-factly. She glanced sideways, looking for Hult as a chill ran through her. The Uigan was busy, however, hauling on a halyard like the rest of the crew, happy again to be working on a boat. His eyes raised and met hers, questioning: Is something wrong? She shook her head and turned back to Azar.

He watched her, curious as a child, though he looked roughly thirty. He could tell she was unsettled but didn’t understand why. “What happens when we reach the Rainwards?” he asked.

We rest, Shedara thought. Maybe we set this madness aside. Others can take up the fight; it doesn’t have to be us all the way to the end. Does it?

“We have to tell the kings,” she said. “About Maladar, the hobgoblins… everything. There’s going to be an important battle soon. They need to be ready. And we should find out if there’s a way to stop him. If what your mother says is true, Maladar’s going to raise the Chaldar, try to bring Aurim back. We have to keep that from happening.”

“Why?”

Shedara opened her mouth, then closed it again. She was quiet for a time, the only sounds the muted creaking of the boat and the slap of water against its hull. “Because he’s evil,” she said at last. “Because he’s caused too much suffering already.”

Azar nodded but abstractly, as if they were two philosophers discussing some minor point of rhetoric. He doesn’t care, Shedara realized. This isn’t his world; he hasn’t seen what the rest of us have. He doesn’t know what will be lost.

She was about to press her point when a shout from above cut her off. “The Spires!” called the lookout atop the crow’s nest, a short, narrow-eyed seafarer with beads woven into his long mustaches. “Sevenspires off the starboard bow!”

Shedara turned and caught her breath. There they were, as the lookout proclaimed: seven slender, onion-domed towers, jutting out of the mist. Two were hewn of green stone, two of blue, and the middle three moonstone-white, all inlaid with gold and gems that would have sparkled had the sun been shining. Each had to be three hundred feet high, maybe more, and silver lights shone from their windows. The stubborn fog clung to their lower reaches, hiding their bases so they seemed to float in the air. Jagged hills loomed behind them, capped with dark pines.

They’d reached the end of their travels, and miraculously, all four of them were still alive.

The boat’s captain, whose plaited beard was dyed a startling shade of sea-green, raised his fist, holding fast the tiller with his other hand. “Ready oars!” he shouted. “Hai!”

Working as one, the sailors lowered the sails, then moved to the benches that ran along the skiff’s sides. Each of them took a paddle, lowered it into the water, and began to pull. Even Hult did it perfectly, and Shedara had to smile at that. For a man who’d been afraid of the sea—and rightly so, having lost most of his people to the raging waters at the Lost Road—he’d become quite the mariner.

There was a faint clanging in the mist, some great gong being struck. At the prow of the Swiftwing, carved into the image of the front half of a leaping griffin, one of her crew struck a bronze bell in reply. Then, all around them, more chimes rang. They were coming into the harbor blind, the fog driving away all sight of docks and breakwaters and other boats, but they could hear the warning bells. The captain urged his men to row slowly, one ear cocked as he guided the steering oar. Dark shapes of rocks and ships faded in and out of the mist on either side, but it was the bells, each with its own distinct tone, that told him where to go.

They headed straight for one of the sounds, a deep, tuneless clanking that made Shedara think of a mace striking an iron shield. It got louder and louder as the rest of the bells faded away. Then, finally, the captain raised his fist again. “Back water, hai!” he bellowed.

“Hai!” the sailors answered and immediately reversed the direction of their rowing. As they did, a long wooden pier jutted out of the murk. With an expert’s eye, the captain guided the ship toward it, and the oarsmen killed the boat’s momentum, bringing it to a halt, then raising their dripping oars out of the water again as they pulled up alongside. Two sailors grabbed ropes and hopped onto the dock to lash her to the waiting bollards. The Swiftwing bumped against the dock, then was still. It was as gentle a mooring as Shedara had seen, and all of it lost in thick fog.

The bells fell silent. She looked at the dock, then up at the seven towers, the only part of the city that could be seen.

“Welcome to Suluk,” called the captain.

Shedara had never been to Suluk before, though she had heard tales. One of the largest “kingdoms” of the Rainward Isles, it—like its fellow realms—was really a city-state on the coast of a rocky, ruin-strewn island, part of Aurim’s far-flung provinces that had shattered when the Destruction struck. The folk who lived there were, like the men of the League and Thenol, descended from refugees who had fled the ashes of the fallen empire.

Unlike the League, however, the Rainwarders had lived in isolation ever since, making contact with the rest of the world on only rare occasions. Far away, in the west of Taladas where the minotaurs ruled, the kingdoms’ existence hadn’t even become known until two hundred years after the rain of burning stone. Since then, knowledge of the isles had grown: there were nine kingdoms in all, populated mostly by men and dwarves, though other races lived in the Rainwards as well. The kingdoms had fought several wars among themselves since the Destruction, but these days they tried to live in peace, for they needed one another to survive. Their true enemies were the monsters that lived in the depths, twisted, goblinlike creatures called disir who regularly raided the surface from the tunnels that shot through the rock. Because a disir attack could come at any time, and from any direction, nearly every Rainwarder was expected to be skilled in fighting or magic—or both.

That was good. An army of Rainwarders was needed, and quickly.

The fog was still thick on the shores as Shedara and the others walked the streets of Suluk. Its buildings were broad and many-columned, hewn of dark gray stone and decorated with bas-reliefs of sailing ships and images of Old Aurim at its height. Golden light flickered in the many windows, bleeding into the mist. Statues of mariners and warriors lined the main boulevard, which wound back and forth up the steep slope on which the city was built: smaller lanes took a more direct approach, climbing stairways carved out of the island’s rock to unseen courtyards on terraces above. Down the center of the main boulevard was a long strip of garden, with spindly, silver-barked trees that were just starting to come into their spring flower; tiny golden buds frosted the ends of their branches. At their feet grew riots of white and pale green flowers that glowed softly in the murk.

The streets were mostly deserted, the doors locked and barred: the disir came out when the fog was thickest. Silence even hung over the marketplaces; the only sounds were the distant, faint clamor of the harbor-bells as other ships moved into and out of port. Behind them, the mist swallowed the wharf. Above, the seven towers faded in and out of view, dark shadows in the gloom. They crowned the king’s palace, at Suluk’s highest point.

“What do you know about the one who rules here?” asked Hult, who kept one hand on his sword as they wended their way uphill.

Shedara shrugged. “The last word we had in Armach, King Zaldash was very old, and that was about five years ago.”

“Zaldash is dead,” the Uigan said. “His successor is named Nakhil. The sailors told me.”

“Then you know more than me,” she said. “What else did they say?”

Hult waggled his maimed hand. “Not much. Most of them were from the other kingdoms, and the ones who came from Suluk have never seen him. They don’t spend much time on land, these seafarers.”

“And then they probably don’t make it much past the alehouses,” Shedara said, chuckling. “Essana, did the Keeper tell you anything?”

She waited and got no reply. Essana walked alone, her head bowed, lost in thought. Shedara plucked her sleeve.

Essana jerked, startled. “What?”

“Wherever Forlo is,” Shedara said, “he is. There’s nothing we can do about him right now. I’m asking you a question. Did the Keeper tell you anything about the king of this place?”

“No.” Essana glanced around. “He only said the name of the kingdom. This is where the hobgoblins are going to attack?”

Hult nodded. “It’s closest to Aurim. If they hit one of the other kingdoms, the Suluki might be able to flank them. Maladar’s too smart to take that chance. He’ll hit here first, then work his way north. It’s what Chovuk Boyla would have done.”

“Can they hold out?” Azar asked. “Suluk, I mean. Can they stop them?”

Hult made a glum face and gave no answer.

The boulevard leveled out, giving way to a wide plaza dotted with ivy-covered pillars, atop which blue flames cast halos of light in the fog. The square was an overlook, and would have given a fine view of the city and the water below, except that right then they could see nothing but gray with the occasional shadow of a turret or steeple adrift in the vapor. On the square’s far end, beyond a wide pool ringed with more statues, stood the palace. It was built of the same stuff as the towers—a mix of blue, white, and green marble that glistened in the pillars’ light. A wide sweep of steps led up to doors of green bronze, surrounded by carvings of men on horses. Guardsmen stood silent before the entrance, clad in mail that was lacquered sea-green and snow-white cloaks. Plumes of peacock feathers fanned the crests of their helms. They held tall, oblong shields emblazoned with the seven towers and long glaives chased with gold. They stood motionless, staring at the four travelers as they drew near.

“They aren’t the only ones on watch,” Shedara murmured. “There are wizards too, though we can’t see them. I can feel the magic here.”

“What do we do now?” Hult asked.

“Get your hand off that blade, for starters,” Shedara said. “Let’s not give them any reason to be nervous. As for getting in…”

“Leave that to me,” Essana said.

Hult and Shedara looked at each other. The Uigan raised his eyebrows and shrugged.

“All right,” Shedara said. “You’re the noblewoman, after all.”

Their footsteps sounded unnaturally loud as they crossed the plaza. A narrow bridge spanned the pool; they crossed it single file, then climbed the steps to the doors. As Shedara expected, the guardsmen lowered their glaives to bar the way. What she didn’t expect was the dwarf who stepped through the doors to greet them.

He was tall for one of his race, nearly reaching the height of her shoulder. His beard was the color of gold, forked and bound with silver rings. He wore fine robes of crimson silk with brocade in the shapes of foaming wave crests. When he spoke, his accent was so thick that Shedara could barely make out the words. The air around him seethed with strong magic, making Shedara’s scalp prickle.

“I am Roshambur,” he said, “vizier to Nakhil the Shrewd, King of Suluk and the South Reach. You are strangers to this land, and must go no further.”

Essana stepped forward and pressed her hands together, a courtly gesture of the League. “Most Excellent,” she said, “we beg admittance, that we might seek His Majesty’s counsel.”

The dwarf raised an eyebrow. “You speak sweetly, my lady. Who are you?”

“I am Essana Forlo, baroness of Coldhope, in the Imperial League,” she replied, pressing her hands again. “These are my companions and protectors, Hult of the Tamire and Shedara, an agent of the elves of Armach.”

“A strange company,” Roshambur replied. His eyes lingered on Shedara. “I sense your mastery of the Art. That would make you a moon-thief, yes?”

Shedara nodded. “You are most perceptive, Magi.”

The dwarf allowed himself a chuckle, and turned back to Essana. “You have only named three of your company,” he said. “Who is this man who stands before me, who wears the garb of dark sorcery?”

“Most Excellent,” Essana replied, “this is my son, Azar. He bears the name of one who is known to this court, and to its king.”

Roshambur blinked. His hands twitched. He stared at Azar, who reached up to remove his hood. His face was very pale, almost white.

Azar’s namesake had been one of the Faceless, a man called the Keeper, but he had also been a spy, keeping watch on the Brethren for the Rainward kings. He had tried to help Essana escape, and had paid for that betrayal of his brother-wizards with his life… but only after days of unspeakable torment. Essana had told the rest of them the tale on their first night together, an age ago in Neron.

“Azar!” Roshambur murmured, and licked his lips. “You know him?”

“I did,” Essana said. “He was a friend of mine… before he died.”

The dwarf jerked again. He was silent for a moment, his lips pursed in thought. Then, though he made no movement or gesture, the doors clicked and swung open. He nodded to the guards, who raised their glaives out of the way.

“Come,” he said. “His Majesty will see you at once.”

Chapter 12

Sevenspires, Suluk

Everything about the citadel of Suluk’s king filled Hult with wonder. Its entry hall alone was larger than most Uigan villages. Its walls, floor, and ceiling all were inlaid with tiles that surrounded him with the image of some ancient city at sunset—Aurim itself, Shedara told him, as its survivors had recalled it. Beyond stood an indoor garden beneath a crystal dome, lush with green trees and gold and crimson flowers, alive with birdsong and the chirping of crickets the size of small dogs, whose shells were the color of polished bronze. Hult and his companions followed the dwarf, Roshambur, down a path of crushed blue stone to a shallow stair that swooped up to a massive pair of doors. The doors easily stood the height of five men and were made of some glossy black wood and inlaid with malachite and white onyx to form the image of cresting waves. From their mass, Hult expected them to groan and shudder when they opened, but they swung wide with silent ease when Roshambur touched them.

The throne room of King Nakhil was an oval, fifty paces across and seventy long, its high ceiling towering higher above their heads than the tallest tree Hult had ever seen. Its floor was mosaic again, this time a vast and intricate map of Taladas, with Hith’s Cauldron a blot of orange and crimson at its center. Hult couldn’t help but glance in the direction of the Tamire, which stretched green and gold across the northwest corner of the room; out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shedara look at Armach the same way, and Essana’s gaze drifted to the northern coast of Coldhope.

“Clever,” Shedara murmured as Roshambur held up his hand and bade them wait. “Everyone who sees the map looks first toward home, even if they don’t realize it.”

“So the king already knows something of us, even before we approach him,” Hult said.

Shedara frowned. “Did you see which way Azar looked?”

“No.” Hult studied Azar, who stood silent, hands folded in his tattered sleeves, watching the dwarf cross the hall. “Did you?”

“No.”

Later, it occurred to Hult that he had looked at Azar. The boy hadn’t looked anywhere at all. He’d barely even noticed the map. Hult wondered if he even knew what a map was—unless the Faceless had taught him, probably not. It would just be pretty colors on the floor.

The rest of the room was just as dazzling. The walls were polished white marble, veined with blue and green; four rows of broad pillars ran the length of the hall, made from the same stone and decorated with giltwork. They glistened in the light of hundreds of turquoise candles set around the room. Above, the ceiling was painted to resemble the sky at twilight, with the gods’ constellations in white and gold on a field that ran from blue-black in the east to rosy pink in the west. The three moons, white and red and, yes, black as well, stood at high sanction across the center of the room.

There were fountains too, tall lapis and silver sculptures of mermen and krakens and dragon turtles, spitting jets of water into deep basins, filling the air with sweet, tinkling sounds. Hult counted more than thirty of them, mostly around the edges of the room, though in its midst an arched walkway actually passed between two battling founts: one of a sea elf brandishing a trident, the other a hideous creature that looked like a man with the head and fins of a shark. It held a long, barbed spear, locked together with the elf’s weapon, to form an arch above the path. Roshambur passed under the arch, and approached a dais at the room’s far end. The candles were thick about it, dazzling Hult’s eyes so that he had to look away.

“They never took your weapons,” Essana said. “Strange.”

Shedara shook her head. “Not very. We’d never get near the throne if we meant them harm. There are mages scrying us even now. I can feel them in my thoughts. And look there!”

She nodded toward the ceiling. Hult followed the gesture with his eyes. About two-thirds of the way up the wall, a balcony he’d missed before ran around the entire room. Archers stood watch there, arrows nocked on their bowstrings. He tried to count them, got to thirty before he was halfway around the room, and yielded the point. Any false move, and he’d have more feathers sticking out of him than a steppe-grouse.

Carefully, he moved his hand away from the hilt of his sword.

“He’s coming back,” Essana said, pointing. “Get ready. And for the love of Mislaxa, remember to bow before the king—all of you.”

Hult thought about that. Nakhil was a king, not his king, but Essana must have seen the question in his eyes because her face grew stern in a way he recognized. Forlo had cocked his head and furrowed his brow in much the same way when he was being serious. Reluctantly, he nodded.

Roshambur drew near, his golden beard bristling as he puffed out his chest. “His High Majesty, Nakhil the Second, called the Shrewd, King of Suluk and the Southern Isles, protector of the Straits of Grayveil and the Fogbound Shores, bids you welcome, and asks that you approach.”

Essana led the way, moving at a slow and stately pace, her hands steepled before her. Hult glanced at the watching bowmen as he followed her. All his warriors’ instincts told him to turn around, get out of this place; it was like being in a canyon, surrounded by tribesmen he didn’t know or trust. It took effort for him to step onto the walk between the elf and the shark-man, even more to lower his eyes back to the dais before them.

He could see it more clearly: a platform of black stone with seven steps leading to its top, standing among the wastes of Far Panak in the northernmost expanses of the mosaic map. Candles surrounded the platform, but he could see through their golden glare to the figure who stood upon the black stone, awaiting them. When he did, he hesitated and nearly stumbled out of surprise. Nakhil was a young and handsome man, swarthy-skinned, with a long, rust-colored beard gathered in two long braids that hung halfway to his stomach. His head was shaved bald, and a crown of silver and turquoise rested on his brow. His chest was bare, though he wore a green satin vest, embroidered with golden knot patterns. Heavy, gilded bracers covered both his muscular forearms. He might have been a young prince of one of the Tamire’s other peoples—the Purgi, perhaps, or the Alan-Atu.

Below his waist, however, he was something else entirely. From there on down was the body of a horse—a chestnut stallion, to be exact, with white marks on all four fetlocks and a harness of gold, set with sapphires and emeralds that sparkled in the candlelight.

“A centaur,” Shedara murmured. “Interesting. Hadn’t expected that.”

King Nakhil stepped forward, his hooves clattering against the stone of the dais. Hult was so shocked, he didn’t remember to bow when the others did. The centaur didn’t seem to care; his lips split into a grin full of large, white teeth.

“Travelers, ah!” he boomed, tossing his head. It was a disturbingly horselike gesture. “And a Uigan among you, no less. Never has one of the western riders come to these halls. It gladdens me to have one who loves horses as the steppe-folk do. Well met, all of you!”

The four of them stammered a reply, Hult muttering something that wasn’t quite intelligible. His people told legends of horse-men, but he’d never thought they were real. But then, he’d seen little but strange things for most of the past year. Why not a centaur too?

“Not as well met as Your Majesty might wish, I fear,” Essana replied. “We bring much news, and little of it good.”

Nakhil’s smile disappeared. “I feared as much. You are the one, then, who was friends with Azar? And this young man in the robes is his namesake? The years are long since Azar left to spy on the Faceless Brethren. Since he is not among you, I sense his tale has ended in sorrow.”

“Indeed, Majesty,” Essana declared. She bowed her head a moment, her face pinching with memory. “Great sorrow and much pain. But that is not the worst of it.”

“Say on, then,” Nakhil prompted, waving his hand. “What tidings do you four bring?”

Essana swallowed. “The Sleeper has woken.”

Roshambur gasped, his face turning pale. From above, a murmur arose among the archers. The king’s expression didn’t change, however.

“Maladar,” Nakhil said, his voice deep and heavy. “Yes, it fits. For months now, my dreams have been of darkness and distant fire. There is more, is there not? He is coming here.”

“Just so, Majesty,” Essana said. “Even now, an army of hobgoblins, drawn from Aurim’s ashes, gathers on the far shores of the Grayveil.”

Nakhil pursed his lips, his black tail twitching. One hoof pawed the dais. “So, then,” he said. “The day has come. We kings of Suluk have long expected it, though in our selfishness, we all hoped it would not happen during our reign. It seems, for me, that that hope must die.

“Very well, then. You will tell me all, and leave nothing unsaid. I would know what doom the Rainwards face. But not here. There are others who must hear this.”

The Ishan Tokh, the Vault of Eyes, stood at the top of the highest of Sevenspires’ towers, a room of eight tall windows that looked out on nothing: beyond their crystal panes was the white stone of the tower’s outer walls. The rest of the room was also white, featureless, and so was its floor, save for a circle of silver, inlaid in its middle, wide enough to hold a dozen people in comfort. Only six stood within the ring, however: Hult, Shedara, Azar, and Essana, and also the centaur king and his dwarf vizier. The air reeked with magic, strong and thick. To Hult, it smelled of wildflowers and blood, burning metal and distant rain. It felt dangerous, and it took all his will to keep his hand from straying to his blade.

“I heard tales about rooms like these,” Shedara said, looking around. “The Voice had designs on building one of her own one day. I guess that will never happen now.”

“Never?” Roshambur asked. He squinted at her, worry in his eyes. “Has some ill befallen the woods of Armach?”

Hult blinked, surprised. So did Shedara. “You don’t know? When was your last word from the westerlands?”

The dwarf thought about it, then shot a questioning look at King Nakhil. “Half a year?” he said.

The centaur nodded. “Maybe a little longer.”

Essana sighed.

“Then there is more tale to this than I thought,” she said. “Shall I begin?”

“Not yet,” Nakhil bade. “Bide a moment. Roshambur? Are they all prepared?”

The dwarf shut his eyes, concentrating. His lips moved, and Hult strained to hear what he was saying. The words were indistinct, however, barely louder than a breath. What was stranger, he could swear he heard other voices talking too—whispers just out of earshot. His scalp prickled; his sword begged for his hand. He forced himself to fold his arms. Whatever was about to happen, it was going to be far stranger than invisible voices.

All at once, Roshambur snapped back to himself. He looked confused for a moment, as if he didn’t know where he was, then he nodded once to Nakhil. “They stand in their vaults as well. Shall I begin?”

The king waved his hand.

The dwarf’s stubby fingers were already dancing as he turned and strode to the center of the silver circle. He moved with surprising nimbleness, his spellcasting gestures every bit as agile as Shedara’s as he drew down the moons’ power. White motes sparkled in the air as his deep voice rose in a spidery chant.

“The tower acts as a channel for the magic,” Shedara murmured. “Roshambur is powerful, but there’s more at work here than just him. This place is enchanted with magic from the old empire.”

Hult could taste the sorcery in the air, sour and burning on his tongue. It made his eyes water. He gritted his teeth and weathered it as the white moon’s light billowed like a stormcloud above their heads, then broke and rained motes of quicksilver upon them.

There was a ripping sound, as of a great sheet of linen being torn in two, and lightning flared in the room’s windows all at once. When it dimmed, the crystal panes no longer showed blank stone beyond. Each looked upon another room, identical to the one in which they stood, but with different figures in their midst: a cowled wizard and a robed and crowned figure; there were eight pairs of figures in all. There were dwarves and men, and even a half-ogre. One of the wizards appeared to be an elf; one king had wrinkled skin and slanted eyes that reminded Hult of the Ice People of Panak. They all looked in through the windows, staring at him on all sides. It was as if there were nine rooms instead of one on top of the white tower.

No, it was not just nine—hundreds… thousands. In each room, Hult saw other windows, looking out on the other rooms beyond, and even more rooms beyond them, looking onto still more rooms, and on and on. He saw his own bewildered face, dozens of times over, staring back from the distance. Dizziness swept over him, and he swayed on his feet, forcing himself to look away. It was hard, though. In the blankness of the Vault, he kept turning back to the windows and the rooms beyond, stretching into infinity.

Shedara let out a low whistle. “Not bad,” she said, inclining her head toward Roshambur. “What do you do next—make the palace fly?”

The dwarf scowled.

“Hush,” Essana hissed as Nakhil stepped forward.

“Kings of the Rainwards,” spoke the centaur, “keepers of the Isles and Waters, I thank you for answering at such haste.”

“What is this, Nakhil?” demanded a dwarf king—no, actually a queen, though it took Hult a moment to realize it. Her beard and gruff voice made it hard to tell. “I was just about to ride out hunting. My falcons and my hounds await. Why so urgent the call to the Tokhu? And who are those people?”

Hult bristled at the way she said that last part. Yes, he was travel-weary and road-dusty, and their company were a strange lot to begin with, but the dwarf queen took the same tone as some of his people had when speaking of Kazar or goblins or others they considered unclean.

Nakhil dipped his head, patient before the dwarf’s bluster. “They are my guests, Pharga,” he said, “and have come to the Tokhu at my behest. They traveled long, across the wastes of Aurim, to find me.”

“Across Aurim?” asked another king, a man with skin the color of ebony and long white hair beneath his crown of iron. “Their need must be dire.”

“It is, Talkash.” Nakhil gestured to Essana. “This is the lady of Coldhope. She knew Azar before he… died.”

There was a ripple of movement on the windows, which carried on through the windows-within-windows, and so on. The Rainward Kings were startled, troubled. Some looked downright frightened.

“Azar… dead?” asked Talkash. “That is ill. What happened? Was he found out? Have the Faceless triumphed?”

“I know not,” Nakhil said. “I waited to call the Tokhu before I heard the tale, for it is long in the telling, or so they say.”

The kings and queens of the islands looked agitated. Hult felt their stares on him from all angles. It was daunting, but he had stood among the Tegins of the Uigan and watched the Wyrm-namer draw his last breath. He’d fought the Faceless and their minions and stood before Maladar himself. He could manage nine restless kings.

He looked at Essana. She looked at Shedara. Shedara sighed.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll start this off. I was in a town called Blood Watch to steal a painting from a minotaur named Ruskal Eight-Fingers…”

Chapter 13

Hyo-khal, Aurim-That-Was

Smoke clung to the air in sinuous drifts, shrouding the village, masking the smell of blood. The sounds of rending flesh, of screams, of harsh, barking laughter echoed through the pall. Here and there, a few fires still guttered, but most of what could burn already had. The battle was done, if it could be called that; in truth, it had been a slaughter. Maladar had brought only a small contingent of his army, maybe two thousand hobgoblins, leaving the rest to finish work on the flotilla that would carry them across the channel. Even so, he’d outnumbered the little harbor’s defenders twenty to one.

It had been much easier than Bishan: Hyo-khal’s folk were fighters all but lacked the skill of the treasure-raiders, and the village had little in the way of fortifications—just a ditch and stake-lined dike surrounding a wooden palisade. One simple spell had sent both stakes and walls up in flames, making a breach large enough for his hordes to boil through. After that, it had fallen to blade-work and burning, all of it done in an hour. One boat had managed to break free of the harbor, but before it got far across open water, Maladar burst its hull with another spell. It foundered and sank out of sight, its crew dragged down with it.

Most of the men and dwarves who lived in Hyo-khal were lucky: they either died in the fighting or were smart enough to take their own lives when hope ran out. For the foolish and unfortunate, things were worse. It was, after all, the hobgoblins’ first skirmish against the Rainwarders, and they were in a blood frenzy. They dragged their victims, dead and alive, off into the smoke and rubble to feast.

Maladar stood in the middle of the carnage, listening to it on all sides. His followers were ravenous and ate with relish and abandon. Inside, he sensed the soul of Barreth Forlo was upset, nauseated, and furious. He paid the feelings no mind, not even to take pleasure in Forlo’s suffering. It got boring after a while—the constant rage, the never-ending, futile attempts to wrest back control of the flesh Maladar wore.

Perhaps it is time take a new body, he thought. One of the survivors that hasn’t been eaten yet. They’re younger, fresher.…

But no. There were still reasons to keep that particular shell—four reasons, in fact: the four who had escaped from that very harbor only a few days earlier.

Especially the wife and the son.

Maladar walked through the cinders, down to the harbor, where smoke and fog blended into a brown haze. Blackened hulls sat swamped along the wharf: aside from the one boat he’d broken out on the open water, all the others had burned to the waterline. That was regrettable; he’d wanted to capture a decent boat so he had something in his fleet besides the miserable, leaky rafts the hobgoblins were building. He gazed across the foul water, where bodies bobbed among the flotsam. Fins plied the waters at the harbor’s edge, and occasionally a corpse vanished in a red spume. The sharks were hungry as well.

Beyond, there was nothing to see but mist. The fog banks over the strait had only grown thicker, hiding the Rainwards from view. He smiled at that. The mist would be useful if it held. The people of Suluk would know of his coming by now, but the mist would hide his fleet from their eyes. If they were quiet enough, the hobgoblins could be inside the city’s breakwaters before anyone knew they were close. The fighting would be hard, but he still had numbers enough to accomplish his goals.

He was still gazing into the fog, as if by will he might see through it to the far side of the water, when Ghashai found him. The warrior walked with a limp—an arrow had pierced his thigh, though not badly enough to cripple him—and blood covered him from snout to stomach. It was bright red, human blood, not hobgoblin black. As a warlord, Ghashai had the choice of the feasting, the youngest, tenderest meat. His eyes gleamed and his nose twitched, as if he could smell the flesh waiting for them across the strait. The day’s gorging was nothing compared with what was to come.

“What is it now?” Maladar demanded. “You always interrupt me when I’m thinking. I tire of it.”

Ghashai stopped, his mouth dropping open. Shreds of meat clung between his sharp teeth. “My lord. You bade me tell you if we found anyone who saw a boat leave the harbor, some days ago.”

“You found a witness?” Maladar asked, one eyebrow lifting. “And your people didn’t eat him?”

“Not… completely.”

Maladar’s lip curled. He hated the hobgoblins—their stupidity, their savagery, their hunger for human flesh. Their only virtues were their ferocity and their willingness to follow him. Once he had his empire back, once Aurim was risen anew, there would be no place for them in Taladas anymore. It would be a pleasure to get rid of them.

“My lord?” Ghashai asked. “Will you see the captive?”

Maladar nodded. “Bring me to him.”

The man’s condition made Maladar hate the hobgoblins all the more. His legs were both broken, and a deep gash across his stomach welled blood. Worse yet, there were other wounds on him, small tears that could only be caused by teeth. There was an art to inflicting pain, and the hobgoblins’ technique was indelicate. He gave Ghashai and the other creatures a glare that made them pale and draw back; then he bent down beside the man.

The man was dying; he wouldn’t live another hour even if the hobgoblins didn’t kill him. He probably would already be dead, but he was strong, sturdy… a stevedore, most likely. They’d found him at the docks. There was enough lucidity left in his eyes for Maladar’s purposes. He grabbed the man’s chin, turned his face toward him, fixed him with his gaze. Confusion creased the man’s features.

“It’s all right,” Maladar lied. “They won’t harm you anymore.”

“I… I know you,” the man said, his eyes rolling. He was delirious, beyond pain. “You were on the boat… but you were younger. And you’ve grown a beard.”

So, then—one question answered before he even asked it. The boy, the son, had been aboard.

“Who else?” Maladar demanded. “A barbarian? An elf? A woman?”

Weakly, the man nodded. “That’s them. I helped load the boat. But how are you back here? You should be on the other side of the Grayveil by now.”

“Where did they go?” Maladar pressed.

The man blinked, groggy. Maladar tightened his grip on his face and slapped him.

“Where?”

“S-Suluk,” the man groaned. “They were going… to warn the king.”

“They know we’re coming?” Ghashai asked.

“Be still!” Maladar snapped over his shoulder, then turned back to the dying man. “You have done well.”

“Don’t… don’t let them hurt me,” the stevedore breathed.

“I won’t,” Maladar replied and twisted the man’s head. There was a snap, and the man fell limp. Maladar rose, leaving him lying there. “He is yours now,” he told Ghashai. “But be quick about it. We sail on the morrow.”

The tide was rising quickly; the hobgoblins watched it come, standing among their rafts on the debris-strewn beach. The fog still clung thick over the water. They watched with hungry eyes, occasionally shouting battle cries that rippled up and down the strand. They were all there, together, in one place for the first time, their numbers dizzying.

A shout arose, a gleeful, hungry whoop: the water’s edge had reached the nearest boats, which were rising off the sand and bobbing on the waves. The hobgoblins pushed them out, jumping on and grabbing up crude oars to begin rowing. Some of them immediately began to sink. A few broke apart. Armored hobgoblins fell into the brine and sank to drown, to hoots of raucous laughter from rival tribes on shore. That was expected, but fewer died in those first moments than Maladar had thought. The hobgoblins were better builders than their savagery indicated.

Ghashai stood beside him, as ever. “Do not worry, my lord,” he said. “The blood-hunger is on them, but not so strong that they won’t remember to row as one.”

“Good,” Maladar replied. “I don’t want half my armada getting lost in that fog and rowing off every which way.”

“Yes, my lord.” Ghashai gazed out at the horde, his chest swelling, his yellow eyes shining with reflected torchlight. “Never have so many of our people gathered together like this. The songs we will sing of the battles to come! The shamans will tell of this day centuries from now, when we feast among the broken towers of the isles!”

Inside, Maladar heard Forlo praying. The man invoked every god he could name to make the hobgoblins fail, but especially Khubak, who ruled the calm sea, and cruel Zai who made the waves and storms. Let them be your sacrifice, the trapped soul pleaded. Claim their blood and breath. Let them drown in the fog!

Silence. The gods made no reply. More rafts launched, a few more foundering but most staying afloat. Maladar smiled.

“Your barge awaits, my lord,” Ghashai said, pointing down the beach. A much larger boat rested near the base of the cliffs, where the tides would climb at their highest; another hour or so, and it would be in the water. Many of the horde’s leaders were gathered near it already.

Too many, was Maladar’s immediate thought.

“You fools,” he growled. “Don’t gather all the chiefs together on one boat. One good shot with a catapult would cut off the horde’s head! Scatter the warlords among the fleet!”

Ghashai stared, slack-jawed. “But, Great One… we thought it only fitting that the chieftains accompany you in the grandest—”

Maladar struck him, hammering him in the face with his fist. Ghashai reeled, blood gushing from his snout, which broke with a ghastly snap. He staggered to one knee then got up again, confusion and anger burning in his eyes. His nose was flattened, spread across his right cheek.

“Wretch!” Maladar thundered. “Oh, yes, a grand boat indeed… and a grand target! One for the Rainwarders to rain down all their wrath upon! Will it fit to have all my commanders lying bloated and crab gnawed on the seafloor because of your stupidity?”

Ghashai made no reply. Maladar could tell from his expression that he didn’t understand; he had the look of a hound that had been whipped for some transgression it didn’t comprehend. That only aroused Maladar’s anger even more.

“I will not sail in that boat,” Maladar went on. “I will not draw the enemy’s eyes to me… and neither will you. Go down there at once and disperse the warlords. And as for that barge… have it broken up with axes, so no one uses it. Now.”

When you whip a dog too much, Maladar knew, it turns on you. He saw a hint of that in Ghashai’s sulky, resentful gaze as he slunk away, clambering down over the rocks. Satisfied, Maladar turned his eyes back out toward the sea. A third of the fleet was on the water, bumping and jostling, occasionally foundering, but mostly staying afloat. The water continued to creep up the beach, devouring it one wave at a time. From the great barge came much shouting and cursing in the hobgoblin tongue, but Maladar didn’t even bother to turn his head. Sure enough, after a few minutes of argument, the sound of axes hewing wood began.

When Ghashai returned, his snout had stopped bleeding, though it was still askew. There was more black blood on his hands, and Maladar knew it wasn’t all his. He’d had to enforce his will on the others.

“It is done, my lord,” Ghashai said, an edge of bitterness in his voice. “The warlords will sail with their own tribes.”

“Good. As they should have done from the start, if they’d had any wits in their empty heads.”

Ghashai was silent a moment, absorbing the insult.

“What of you, Great One?” he asked. “What boat shall you take?”

“Me?” Maladar replied. “Oh, I will take no boat. I will not sail with you.”

What? Forlo thought, deep inside him.

“What?” Ghashai asked.

Maladar waved his hand.

“The crossing and the battle are yours to command,” Maladar said. “You do not need my help—not any longer. I have… other business to attend to. I will meet you in Suluk when it is sacked and your feasting is done.”

What? Forlo wondered again, bewildered.

Maladar relished the man’s confusion. Did you think, he told Forlo in his mind, that I would make the army I sought out of this rabble? No. They are a distraction, nothing more. They need only draw the Rainwarders’ attention away from my real goal. As with the Uigan, and the Hooded One.

“My lord,” Ghashai was saying, “do you not care to watch the city burn?”

“I have burned cities before,” Maladar replied. “I’ve drowned them beneath the waves, and bidden the earth to swallow them whole. One more will not show me anything new. And you do not need me, Ghashai. You have enough warriors to win this battle without any trouble. Let the shamans sing of your victory, not mine.”

That last part worked, as Maladar knew it would. Lust for glory, for riches and blood, eclipsed Ghashai’s worries. The hobgoblins, for all their shortcomings, were easy to manipulate. He sneered as Ghashai clambered down to the beach once more. Maladar knew he would never see the warlord again. He would never see any of the hobgoblins again.

But it didn’t matter. None of it did.

None of it, but reaching the Chaldar.

Chapter 14

Karath’s Watch, Suluk

The glow of burning ships cut through the evening fog, staining it murky orange. Standing on the parapet of one of Sevenspires’ green towers, Shedara gazed out at the strange light, her heart heavy. If things didn’t go well, she’d be seeing more of that light very soon. It might be the last thing she saw.

“You’re sure this is necessary?” she asked. “It seems a bit… extreme.”

The dwarf, Roshambur, stood next to her, stroking his golden beard. He shrugged. “Not as extreme as fifty thousand hobgoblins rowing into the harbor unopposed. If we sink enough ships in the port mouth, we’ll form a battlement against them, make it hard for them to pass through. It is a tactic we’ve used before.”

Shedara regarded Roshambur with a thoughtful eye. She’d never liked his kind—the Silvanaes had long-standing troubles with the mountain-folk—but this one was different. She’d never known a dwarf to wear a wizard’s robes before; by her experience, they were gruff, rude creatures with little patience or care for inward thought. Roshambur, however, was as skillful a mage as Nalaran back home. She could learn a lot from him, she sensed. So far, though, they’d been busy with battle preparations; he hadn’t even had time to examine Azar, and the shred of Maladar’s soul inside him, much less commune about the finer points of sorcery.

Also, unlike most dwarves, he didn’t smell like damp earth and stale beer. That boosted her opinion of him quite a bit.

“The minotaurs have other means,” she said. “Great chains they string across the harbor, sunken rams they can raise with winches to gouge out hulls.”

“The minotaurs keep slaves to do that sort of work,” Roshambur countered, puffing out his chest. “We isle-folk do not.”

Shedara spread her hands, as if to say, well, good for you.

“And we have our wizards,” the dwarf went on, not seeming to notice her mocking. “Give me magic over engineer’s tricks any day.”

“In this slop?” she asked, flicking her hand at the fog. “Most war spells I know, you need to see what you’re attacking. Unless you’ve found a way of casting blind.”

“Perhaps we have,” Roshambur answered. “Or perhaps there are things you don’t know. You’re very sure of yourself. Are all elves this way?”

From another dwarf, that would have been an insult, a challenge she’d feel obliged to answer. Even coming from Roshambur, it made her hand itch, wanting to draw a blade. Shedara ignored that impulse, though; the look on his bearded face was one of genuine curiosity, not scorn.

“Perhaps we are,” she replied, “but you’re the one who claims your magic’s the key to winning the battle.”

Roshambur shook his head. “I said nothing of the sort. Only that we have ways of dealing with this fog.”

“Dealing?” Shedara asked. “You mean you can lift it?”

“Of course we can lift it. We put it here in the first place.”

Shedara looked around, stunned. “This isn’t natural?”

“Not completely. Which is to say, the Grayveil’s a foggy stretch of brine, but come now. Mist that doesn’t lift for—how long have you been here, five days?”

“Six.”

“Six, then. Have you ever heard of such a phenomenon in nature?”

Thinking about it, Shedara had to shake her head.

“There you go,” Roshambur said with a wink. “We fog-bind our cities to keep them safe. If the hobgoblins could see us from the far shore, they’d have built themselves a fleet long ago and come across for plunder. It’s worked for four hundred years. If it weren’t for Maladar, it probably would have worked for four hundred more.”

“And you’re leaving it be until they get close,” she said. “Until they’re close enough to hit.”

“Aye. Leave ’em not knowing where they’re going until they’re past the burnt hulls. Then they’ll be scattered, disorganized. When we lift the fog, it’ll be the shock of their lives. Then we start blowing their boats out of the water.”

She chuckled at that, imagining the hobgoblins’ faces when the fog bank suddenly vanished. Then another thought occurred to her, and her laughter died. “You’re forgetting Maladar. I’ve felt his power. He’s worth a hundred of your mages.”

The dwarf’s face darkened. He twisted his beard between his fingertips. “Well, then, it’s a good thing we have two hundred mages,” he said.

He bared his teeth in a grin as he spoke, but she could tell he was worried. The Rainwarders hadn’t forgotten Maladar; they just had no way to deal with him. Thousands of hobgoblins were bad, but an archmage who could drown entire cities—or a whole Uigan horde—was a dire threat. The look in Roshambur’s eyes when he regarded her made her feel cold.

If Maladar wants to kill us all, it said, he will.

They stood together, elf and dwarf, watching the glow of the burning ship. In time, the orange light faded; the burning ships would be sinking, breaking apart, pieces of their hulls jutting up out of the shallows like teeth. She saw it in her mind, though she still hadn’t seen much of Suluk for the mist, even after nearly a week in the city.

Finally, a clamor rose from the palace below—the clash of large, silver gongs being struck with hammers, a heralding signal. She and her companions had heard it before, many times in the days since their arrival in Suluk.

Beside her, Roshambur nodded. “I must go. The king needs me at his side.”

“Of course,” she said as the dwarf bowed and left.

She remained where she was a while longer, listening to the clamor of the gongs. She knew it meant another city’s fighters had arrived. The last of the reinforcements, in fact, from far-flung Thumar, the northernmost of the isles. They represented another thousand swords to defend against the hobgoblins, and thirty wizards as well. The Rainward kings had all answered Nakhil’s call. She must go down to meet the Thumarese and attend the ceremony of welcome—the last before the attack began.

Still, Maladar preyed on her thoughts. Why did he even need the hobgoblins if his intent was to destroy Suluk? His magic alone could smash the city, kill everyone within its walls. Horde or no horde, it didn’t matter. Magic was all he required; he needed nothing more, unless…

Unless destroying Suluk wasn’t his real goal.

Shedara peered out into the gloom, suddenly afraid. She’d seen the tactic used before. The Faceless had spent the whole Uigan nation as a diversion from their theft of the Hooded One. The more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed that Maladar was trying the same trick. He didn’t want Suluk at all; he wanted something else. But what?

She thought about it a while, then shook her head, cursing. She had no idea.

That worried her more than anything.

The Rainward kings—and queens—all crowded Nakhil’s throne room with their retinues, perfumed and groomed and clad in satin and cloth-of-gold, each trying to outshine the rest as they greeted King Calex of Thumar and his retainers. There were nine delegations in all, with all their heralds and servants—enough, at last, to make the room seem close to full.

There was Calex and his three sons, dwarves all, mail-clad and armed for battle beneath the violet banners of their realm, emblazoned with the golden trident that was its sigil.

Queen Pharga of Mazanti, also a dwarf, and the two princes who were her husbands, were clad in scarlet tabards with white storm clouds, all three wearing massive, two-handed mauls strapped across their backs.

Partho, Suzerain of the Isles of Selenna—unmarried, childless, and deadly dull, reading ponderously from a scroll of soft griffin hide. His robes were deep forest green, with five silver stars.

Queen Etishan, the oldest of the human rulers, was so frail and palsied that it seemed she might drop dead at any moment. She leaned on an ivory staff and was surrounded by a company of thirty warriors who were all her own great-grandchildren. They all wore white surcoats of the Great Isle Ios, cut diagonally in half by a black bar.

Rakis of Essud was massively fat, with a long beard dyed fire-orange, and had eight young wives. They boasted no heraldry and wore rich garments of brocade and cloth-of-gold, as if they believed they were attending a ball rather than facing impending war.

Vorth of Gald, another centaur, and his half-ogre bodyguards were each encased head-to-toe in polished steel plate with a copper manticore on the breastplate.

Qinnuk of the Eastern Archipelago was a voyager from Panak who had risen through conquest to rule the scattered outer islets of the Rainwards. Three yellow warships blazed on his cloak of sea-green.

King Talkash, dark-skinned and white-haired, showed traces of elf blood in the faint points of his ears beneath his iron crown. Aside from his wizard—they all had sorcerers as viziers, even the dwarves—he came to Sevenspires alone; his emblem was a fist of gray on charcoal, the war sign of his realm, the twin isles of Greater and Lesser Ull.

And, standing on his dais of black stone among the lapis and silver fountains, between the statues of sea-elves and shark-men, were Nakhil and Roshambur.

Nakhil was the first to speak, as was his right as host; he went on at great length, reciting a detailed history of the relations between his kingdom and Calex’s, from their rise out of the ashes of the Destruction, through the three great Wars of the Isles, to the peace forged at the end of the Godless Night. The welcome went on for half an hour, and though all the kings present—even barbaric Qinnuk—knew that history well, they all listened with rapt intent as Nakhil retold the tale.

Next Calex spoke, at equal length, in reply—about the very same thing, only from Thumar’s perspective. The other kings all looked on, nodding sagely.

Partho of Selenna was no better. If anything, his greeting was even duller, revolving around a parable involving wolves who yearned to reach a glistening river in a deep gorge until they fell in and drowned in the rapids.

Etishan of Ios insisted on speaking in ancient Aurish, which meant everything had to be laboriously translated for those monarchs who didn’t know the tongue, which was most of them. Everyone held their breath a little, for each breath the queen took seemed weaker than the one before, likely to be her last. A quiet sigh of relief rippled through the chamber when she reached the end of her speech, for many in the room had wondered if she would survive long enough to finish it.

By the time King Vorth of Gald got busy, quoting extensively from various heroic epics, Shedara decided she only had two choices left to preserve her sanity: flee or draw one of her daggers and shove it in her eye. She drew Essana aside, to the edge of the throne room.

“I need to get out of here,” she said. “Will I be missed?”

They glanced around at the various kings and their companies. There must have been two hundred people gathered in the throne room, what with wizards and bodyguards and counselors.

Essana shrugged. “I doubt it,” she said. “I think we could lose a king or two, and we’d only know when it was their turn to talk. I wish you could take me with you; I’ve spent my whole life at court and never seen anything as drawn-out as this.”

Shedara rested a hand on Essana’s shoulder, feeling a genuine kinship with her. After the first few times they told their tale—for they’d had to tell it to every ruler when they arrived—they’d stopped taking turns, and Essana’d taken on the whole of the obligation. Simply, Essana was by far the best storyteller among them, and so she would stay for the full length of the welcoming ceremony. Azar would remain too; he was listening intently to every word, his strange, young-old eyes shining. Shedara shivered, wondering what might be going on in his head…

What the piece of Maladar in Azar’s head might be thinking.

“At least this is the last one of these,” Shedara said. “No more kings to come, now that Calex is here.”

Essana nodded. “Yes. Now all that’s left are the actual war councils—with nine kings who all consider themselves the strategic heirs of Porfaran the Cunning, and who all have different ideas for how the battle should be led. I can hardly wait.”

Shedara laughed, but as she made her way out of the palace and into Suluk’s fog-shrouded streets and courtyards, she realized it wasn’t all that funny. She stood in the last nation left with the strength and will to oppose the Faceless Emperor, and it was divided among too many squabbling rulers. She’d seen enough signs of division already, and the war council hadn’t really begun yet. If there was a hope of stopping Maladar, she didn’t think it was coming from the Rainwards after all.

Where would it come from, then? She didn’t know.

She found Hult in the Square of the Mariners, a courtyard above the waterfront that was so broad, the buildings at its edges were only dim shadows in the fog. Massive statues of Rainward sea captains—none of whose names she recognized—loomed in the mist, bronze but stained green with age and white with gull droppings, their heads hidden from sight. Beneath them, armies clad in Suluki blue and green and the colors of two other kingdoms (one wore the white and black of Ios, the other Mazanti scarlet) marched in formation, sparred with wooden swords, shot arrows at barrel butts, and other things armies did to keep busy before a fight.

The warriors of the isles were quite good, well trained with both blade and bow, but Hult was better. A mob of soldiers had knotted around him, cursing and drinking and wagering. Shedara had to elbow her way through the crowd to get to the front. When she did, she saw why so many men had gathered: Hult was fighting three men at once, his curved wooden sword weaving back and forth as he parried.

No, wait—four men. One had gone down already, his left eye swollen shut and turning an alarming shade of purple; he was getting up again, struggling back to his feet while his comrades cheered him on. The others encircled Hult, feinting and drawing back, searching for weaknesses. He drove them back again and again, and sent another one sprawling with a crack of his sword across the man’s shoulders. The weapon was more familiar in his hand than the blade he’d borne since Kristophan; the first thing he’d done after their reception with the king was to trade that straight-bladed sword for a Rainward-style scimitar, which was closer to the shuk he’d wielded for most of his life. It improved his fighting; as she watched, he disarmed the man with the black eye and put him down for good with a thrust to the stomach that left him on his knees.

Shedara smiled and folded her arms across her chest, enjoying herself for the first time that day. Hult was a simple man, and she liked him for that. Perhaps not enough to kiss him again—she honestly wasn’t sure.

The crowd roared again; a fifth soldier, wielding a long-hafted flail, had just waded into the fray. His weapon whipped through the air, and Hult ducked just as it was about to crack his skull. As Hult went down, his foot swept sideways and took out one of his opponents’ legs; the man landed flat on his back with a yell and stayed down, groaning and clutching his side. Hult sprang back up again, his sword whistling in an arc that connected with the flail-wielder’s wrist. There was the unmistakable, sickening crack of bone, and the man screamed, dropped his weapon, and staggered away, his hand pointing at too sharp an angle with his arm. Someone shouted for a Mislaxan; a healer in a sky-blue vest was already hurrying across the courtyard, looking annoyed.

There was only one left: a big, beefy man with mustaches that hung down well past his jaw, weighted with amber beads. He had short blades in either hand and whirled them in hypnotic patterns, in and out, back and forth. Hult turned to face his last foe, his face and bare chest—he’d stripped to the waist for the fight—glistening in the mist. The beefy man stood very still, swords held low, knees bent, and waited.

“You first,” Hult said.

Shedara smiled. This was going to be good.

Then it was over, without a blow struck, for all eyes turned toward the harbor, where the hulks of burned ships were mere blurs in the fog. Hands clapped onto weapons. Voices whispered. Soldiers started running as their officers shouted. Shedara stood still and caught Hult’s eye. He looked grim. Together, they gazed out at the harbor.

In the gloom, out of sight, a massive iron bell was ringing, one single note, over and over. A boat had reached the breakwater: just a lone vessel, not Maladar’s horde—not yet—but not another Rainward king either. There weren’t any left to come.

“A scout,” Hult said. “Has to be.”

Shedara nodded. “That can only mean one thing.”

They shared the same thoughts. The hobgoblins had been sighted crossing the Grayveil. The enemy was on its way. And still Shedara wondered what Maladar was up to.

Chapter 15

Square of the Mariners, Suluk

The sword felt right in his hand. The balance was, if not quite what he’d grown used to, close enough. The blade had the right amount of curve to it. It had only one edge, but that edge was keen enough to cut through steel plate. The Rainwarders called their blades talga, but to Hult it was the closest thing to a proper shuk as he might ever wield again.

He held the blade low, eyes closed, picturing the enemy in his head. They’d been waiting for hours, the soldiers massed along the waterfront, the wizards standing ready in the square beneath Sevenspires, which were lost in the mist high above. Two more scouts had reported back, telling of the hobgoblins’ progress; many of their crude boats had fallen apart or foundered when waves swept over them, but they were still coming… and steadily. By the guesses Hult had heard, they would arrive shortly before nightfall, streaming right into Suluk’s harbor and the teeth of the Rainwards’ armies. Even though all the kings had sent troops, though, the word was that the enemy outnumbered the city’s defenders three to one, and there was still Maladar to consider as well. But there wasn’t much they could do about that—certainly nothing Hult himself could do. If the Faceless Emperor entered the fray, it would be the sorcerers’ problem, not his. They would have to fight magic with magic.

So they waited. The soldiers, clad in the colors of each of the kingdoms—violet and gray and sea-green and the others—peered into the fog as if they might make the hobgoblins’ rafts appear through sheer will. The hours wore on as they waited for the iron harbor bell to sound again.

Hult shook his head, chuckling.

“What are you laughing at?” Shedara asked, sitting on a stone bollard nearby. She had one of her throwing daggers out and was flipping it from hand to hand, the knife spinning in the air with each toss.

“I was just thinking,” he said. “I’ve never been on this side of a raid before. The Uigan were always the ones doing the attacking.”

“Ah,” she said, flipping and catching again. “What do you think of it, then? Being on the defensive, I mean.”

Hult ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t say I like it.”

“You’ve learned something, then.”

They glanced down the wharf at the soldiers arrayed along the length of the shore. They stretched from one end of the harbor to the other, anywhere from three to five ranks deep, thicker in places where the seawall was lower and the hobgoblins more likely to come ashore. Here and there, the head and shoulders of a centaur towered above his fellows, or an apparent gap in the ranks marked where a dwarf stood. Many held bows ready, quivers of arrows on their backs, the fletching a rainbow of kingdoms’ colors. Others had poleaxes, and those in the rear held long pikes that could reach over and between the forward ranks. Almost all had large shields too, bound with iron and emblazoned with the sigils of their realms.

“You ought to have a shield,” Shedara said. “It might save your life.”

Hult shook his head. “I’ve never really used one. This seems a bad time to be trying a new style of fighting. What about you? Where’s yours?”

She tossed the dagger into the air, snatched it out again, and snapped it neatly back into its sheath on her belt. When it was tucked away, she held up her hand, her fingers wiggling.

“Mage,” she said. “Remember? I can’t cast anything with a shield strapped to my arm.”

Hult grunted. “What are you doing down here, then? I’d think you would prefer to be up above, with the other wizards.”

“I don’t have that kind of power,” she replied. “My spells are for close-up work, not raining death from afar. And you’ll want my blades around when I can’t cast anything more.”

“You have an answer for everything,” Hult said.

Shedara grinned. He wanted to kiss her again, but it wasn’t the time. Later, maybe, if they both lived through the day. He peered out into the fog again, seeing only the distant glow of torches on the breakwater, and the slanting shadows of the ships the soldiers had burned and sunk that morning. He dropped into a squat, his talga laid across his knees.

He didn’t like being on the other side at all.

Hult had actually dropped off to sleep when the iron bell began to ring again—not fully unconscious, but drowsing where he crouched, lulled by the sound of lapping waves. He could have been flat on his back snoring, though, and the sudden clamor from across the water, coupled with the burst of nervous chatter among the soldiers, would have had him on his feet in a heartbeat. His legs ached as he rose and gave his talga a few short, quick snaps back and forth. It whistled through the air.

“Enough of that,” Shedara said. “You know how to swing that thing. Get your bow out.”

She stood ready, alert, her hands empty at her sides, her lips moving—going over her spells. The bell’s ringing was constant, not one or two notes over and over; this was no scouting boat returning with more word about the hobgoblins.

No. This was it.

He slid his sword back into its sheath and picked up his bow from where it lay. It was a Rainward bow, longer on its top limb than the bottom, so an archer could kneel as he shot. Its pull was far stronger than anything the Uigan used. Still, he’d gotten the hang of it easily over the past few days. He reached to his quiver and pulled out a crimson-fletched arrow, fitting it on the string. All along the harbor, soldiers were doing the same, standing ready, waiting for the command to aim and loose.

The murmuring died away. Without warning, the bell stopped, and someone let out a choking cry. A terrible silence fell… then, through the fog, came a new, horrible noise: a tumult of shrieks and howls and snarls that made Hult’s mouth run dry. There were thousands of voices, made flat and hollow by the mist. Out across the water, weapons clashed against shields or against each other. They had come—the first dim shapes of their rafts fading into view, just beyond the breakwater—and the clumsy slap of oars in unskillful hands rose amid the battle cries.

“Lift the fog,” Shedara muttered. “Come on, Roshambur… get rid of this stuff already.”

Hult frowned, wondering what she was talking about; then, all at once, voices high above began to shout spidery words. Moon power rippled in the air, warming it, making it even muggier and heavier than before. And, all at once, it began to rain.

It was not just rain, it was a downpour, the rain hammering down on Suluk in thick, heavy sheets. It was like one of the summer storms that battered the Tamire, only there was no thunder, no lightning, no wind; it was simply as if the sky itself had turned to water and come crashing down. It cascaded down streets in frothing rivers, poured out into the harbor in foaming cataracts. And as it rained and rained, things began to change.

The fog began to disappear.

Hult realized it was happening only when the sunken ships at the harbor mouth faded into view. Glances to either side revealed more of the city’s defenders, arrayed between the sheer, rocky cliffs to the east and west of the city. He glanced back, just for an instant, and saw a jumble of stone buildings, and green and blue spires scattered up a steep slope behind him: all Suluk was visible for the first time since he’d come there. Above, in the courtyard before the palace and atop each of its towers, stood hundreds of robed figures: the war mages of the Rainwards, arrayed for battle. Most were chanting, drawing in energy to dissipate the fog. Their hands danced, weaving in the shimmering air.

“Blood of Lunis,” Shedara swore, her voice so soft he barely heard it at all. “Look at that.”

He turned to stare across the harbor. Dozens of wrecked boats listed heavy in the water, some still smoldering even then. Beyond them, the sea was black with crude, leaky craft: a thousand boats at least.

The horde had come.

“Bows ready!” shouted the Rainward officers, up and down the lines. “Front ranks low!”

At that command, the archers in the forefront knelt, raising their bows, aiming them high. The men behind them stayed on their feet and aimed even higher. The first shots would fly long, to the utmost extent of their range. Perhaps Eldako might have been able to hit a mark at such a distance; most bowmen could not… not intentionally, anyway. Yet hundreds of shafts, all flying at once, was a different matter. Some were bound to hit targets, if just by chance. Hult had heard tales on the Tamire of entire raiding bands getting slaughtered when they charged a proper group of Alan-Atu archers. The Uigan had long since learned better than to try.

Either the hobgoblins told no such tales or they didn’t care. Anyway, their numbers were too great for bows alone to stop. Fortunately, though, bows weren’t all the Rainwarders had. From the watches above, the chanting grew louder. The air smelled clean and crisp, like just before a thunderstorm, but the rain was letting up, and the sun was shining through the scattering clouds. Its light was red and heavy, hanging just above the cliffs at Suluk’s western edge: a bloody sun for a bloody day.

Hult raised his bow.

“Good luck,” Shedara said.

He nodded. “Jijin’s sword at your back.”

The hobgoblins crawled closer, moving past the breakwater, roaring and shouting; those who weren’t rowing were bashing their swords against their shields. They made it to the burned-out hulks and immediately fell into trouble. Some struck sunken spars and masts, which tore their rafts apart and sent them plunging into the water; others swerved to miss the obstacles and slammed into other boats when they did. Bellicose shouts turned into panicked death howls as the hobgoblins’ armor dragged them down. The water churned and frothed, but the boats claimed only one boat in five: good, but not good enough. The hobgoblins were too close to turn back or even to slow: blood and plunder drove them, and nothing would make them give up trying to reach the shore.

“Hold!” the officers shouted. Down the lines, one or two archers let off hasty shots that fell short of the advancing rafts, but most kept still. They knew their ranges, knew the enemy wasn’t close enough yet. “Hold!”

The wizards landed the first blows. Thunder pealed from on high, and a volley of lightning bolts, sizzling blue and violet in the ruddy twilight, arced overhead. They struck the lead boats, blowing them apart with a boom that made Hult’s ears ring. Shards of flaming timber and torn shreds of flesh flew through the air, amid gouts of spray. Men all along the wharf cheered; cries of dismay echoed from the horde. Fire quickly followed the lightning, billowing golden tongues that fell upon the boats and engulfed them, turning them into floating cinders. Hult winced as the heat washed over him. The hobgoblins shrieked as they burned, flapping their arms as they madly tried to save themselves and leaping into the water—only to sink like the rest.

Another spell went off, a blossom of white light overhead, raining silver motes down. Massive black tentacles rose from the water and began to batter and crush the rafts. One of the wizards had conjured some beast; the creature reminded Hult of the Vaka-te-nok he and his friends had fought in Neron, but much larger and more fearsome. It tore apart fifty boats, he guessed, while the hobgoblins hacked at its many arms, to no avail. Their swords bounced off its rubbery hide as it ripped them apart.

A brass horn blew from across the harbor—a signal to the soldiers. As one, they drew back their strings to their cheeks. Hult did the same, his arm burning from the weight of the pull. Beside him, Shedara’s hands and lips worked, drawing down magic and shaping it.

Guide my shots, Jijin, Hult thought. Help me.

“Loose!” shouted the officers, and the bowmen obeyed. With a low thrum, they let go all at once, and the sky grew dark with arrows. Hult lost track of his shot amid the storm and watched the arrows climb high—a thousand soaring shafts—then drop like a hail of death onto the enemy fleet.

From across the water came the clatter and chunk of arrows striking wood and flesh. Hobgoblins screamed. Rafts capsized. The archers drew their second shots and launched again, then their third, and on and on. The harbor waters darkened with black hobgoblin blood. The creatures began to shove at each other, paddling madly, backing water—anything to get out of the archers’ lethal sights. A few broke through the slaughter, pushing on toward the wharf as more lightning and fire and sparking white darts rained down from the wizards. The smells of burning, both wood and flesh, stung Hult’s nose and made his eyes water.

The Rainwarders were winning. They were keeping the hobgoblins at bay.

But there weren’t enough arrows to last forever, Hult thought as he drew and loosed his eighth shot, then his ninth. The Rainward fletchers could have toiled for a month, and they wouldn’t have made enough shafts to stop the countless enemy. Some of the archers were beginning to tire too, their shafts falling short. They would hold back the hobgoblins for a while longer, enough for five or six more volleys, before the scattered rafts broke through in a flood. Even with the support of the mages above, it was only a matter of time before the enemy reached the shore.

Let them come, Hult thought, shooting again and again. His sword needed bloodying. After all they’d been through, if he got his only kills that day with a bow, it would be disappointing.

Sure enough, the archers began to falter. More and more shots went wrong. Boats shot across the harbor, the hobgoblins’ eyes gleaming with battle madness as they stroked toward the wharf. Hult feathered three more as they neared the seawall then threw down his bow and whipped his sword from its scabbard. The air rang as soldiers did the same, all along the seawall. As mage-flames poured down behind them, incinerating their fellows, the first of the hobgoblins bumped up against the piers.

“Axes!” barked the officers. “Break them up before they can get off their boats! Get at it, lads!”

The soldiers armed with poleaxes snapped into action, darting forward and hacking at the rafts and the hobgoblins in them. Black blood and splinters flew. The dwarves reveled in that work, laying into the foe with reckless fury. But the first screams of dying humans also rose above the dwarves’ war shouts, and the battle began to change. The hobgoblins were fighting back, climbing up onto the wharf and laying about them with cleaver and cudgel. People were dying on both sides. Red blood mingled with black. Some men broke and ran, but most stayed in the thick of the madness, forming pike hedges to keep the hobgoblins from advancing too far while the swordsmen laid into the rampaging creatures.

A dozen hobgoblins vaulted over the wharf near Hult, and red mist settled over his eyes, the old battle fury swelling in his breast. He leaped at them, howling in the Uigan tongue, invoking Jijin and his ancestors and yes, even Chovuk Boyla, then whirling and hacking his sword into one hulking brute’s face. The creature went down, its skull cleaved in two, and Hult didn’t even break stride, feinting to his right before reversing the blade and hammering it through another hobgoblin’s gut. The creature let out a bloody, barking cough as he tore the talga free, spilling its innards all over the ground. It fell to its knees, trying to hold itself together, and Hult took off its head with a sweep of his blade. The body stayed upright for a moment, fountaining inky blood, then tumbled back into the water with a splash.

After that, Hult lost sense of time. It grew dark, the sun disappearing behind the cliffs. There were only the hobgoblins, wave after wave of them, their blood collecting in black pools between the cobblestones as he cut them down, one after another. Beside him, Shedara poured out all her spells, fire and thunder and blazing white darts—lesser versions of the great war magics the Rainward wizards had cast from Sevenspires, which killed hobgoblins by the dozen, by the score. When the effort of casting them finally grew too great, she drew her sword and a dagger, set her back against Hult’s, and ripped through the hobgoblins with steel until the ground was littered with bodies and severed heads and limbs.

All along the waterfront, the same scene was played out, though for every three or four hobgoblins who fell, one of Suluk’s defenders fell with them. The creatures hacked men apart, stove in dwarves’ heads, and dragged down centaurs and ground spears into their flanks. The city walls and the mountainside rang with the song of steel and the cries of the dying. Bedlam reigned, and still the hobgoblins kept coming, more and more rafts moving through the maze of charred ships and flotsam to reach the shore. The water near the piers was thick with abandoned boats, making a treacherous bridge for the hobgoblins to run across and gain the shore.

“Hold the line!” the officers shouted. “Keep them from breaking through!”

Orders didn’t matter anymore, though. They were in the thick of dirty fighting, the insanity of battle, blood and screaming and hacking blades. No matter what the strategy, no matter the kings’ and viziers’ intricate plans, it always came down to this, to fear and rage and death. The soldiers fought like madmen, protecting their homes, their families, their own lives.

Hult bellowed, his sword dancing. He stabbed and slashed; he punched and kicked; he broke one hobgoblin’s face with a hard butt of his forehead. Black blood covered him, soaked his eyes and mouth, foul and reeking. He only grimaced and spat it out and kept on killing.

Chapter 16

Sevenspires, Suluk

Half the wharf was on fire, the smoke rising high and curling, mercifully, off to the east and away from the palace. Against the conflagration’s ruddy glow, the two armies became one, countless black shapes striving with sword and axe and spear, shadows in some mummer’s epic play. Beyond them, the harbor was a nightmare tangle of broken timbers, half-sunken boats, and corpses that bobbed on the lapping red waters. Dim sounds rose from the battle: screams of maimed and dying men, roars and howls from ten thousand hobgoblin throats, steel clashing against steel, and hacking through wood… and flesh. The stink of burning and blood rose high up into the city, even without the wind’s help.

Essana watched from the high watches of Sevenspires, horrified but unable to look away. She shivered, feeling cold, gripping the rail of the balcony so tightly that her hands hurt. Normally brown, they were white as breaking waves. She shuddered, her eyes stinging, threatening to spill over with tears.

She’d thought she understood war. Her husband had served in the Imperial Legions for more than twenty years and had told her many tales of the battlefield. She’d read the histories and seen countless plays in the cities—even the bloodthirsty sagas of Halshar Esk-Burlut. She’d watched fighting on the sands of the Arena, which often ended in death. But she’d never actually seen a real battle, two armies meeting and pounding at each other with blade and bow and spell. She’d climbed the long ramp onto the parapet of Sevenspires’ highest tower, to stand among the kings and queens and observe the action, convinced she’d be inured to the horror.

Yet no play, no tale could prepare anyone for the sights she saw, even from that far up: hobgoblins on fire, flapping their arms and fanning the flames as they tried to put them out; severed limbs scattered like broken toys; men writhing on blood-smeared cobbles, trying to scoop their insides back in. She had a repeated urge to vomit, and each time she pushed back the bile. Not here, not now, she told herself. What she saw was awful, but she would not lose control. That night, in the privacy of her chambers…

… if she lived that long…

… that night she would weep and sob, and purge her churning stomach. But she stood among kings, Nakhil himself just out of arm’s reach and most of the Rainwards’ other rulers nearby, all of them gathered to watch the fighting from Suluk’s highest point. She must keep her dignity.

Oh, Barreth, she thought, staring at the carnage below. I understand now. I know why you were reluctant to talk about what you saw when you were campaigning. I know why you seldom slept soundly. I may never sleep through the night again.

What made it worse was Barreth was out there somewhere. Perhaps not with the horde—Nakhil and Roshambur both agreed that if Maladar were among the hobgoblins, they would have seen some magic from the enemy by then—but somewhere close. She could sense him, the way she’d always known when he was riding home from war. He was out there.

Her gaze shifted to her right. Azar stood beside her, silently watching men and hobgoblins die by the hundreds. He didn’t seem to notice her discomfort or feel any of his own, for that matter. He showed no emotion at all, regarding the two armies as if they were pieces at a shivis table.

He still doesn’t understand death, she thought. He doesn’t understand that lives are ending below us, that souls are flowing like rivers to the gods… and the Abyss. This is a spectacle to him, nothing more.

It was hard to admit, but Essana couldn’t deny it: she was more than a little afraid of her son, afraid of the power that hung about him like a cloak of shadows, afraid of the coldness in his eyes, afraid of the fragment of evil lodged deep inside him. She would never say so to Nakhil, or Shedara, or Hult. She might not even admit it to Barreth, were he here beside her. Azar frightened her to her core. He was her own child, but he was something else too, something terrible and strange.

A particularly ghastly shriek rose from the harbor. The wizards, clustered along the edge of the courtyard beneath her, were raining new death upon the wharf, raising their hands to gather the moons’ power then hurling it down in great disks of green flame. The disks spun through the air, trailing sparks the color of old copper, cutting through the hobgoblins’ ranks. Bodies came apart, severed at the waist, legs crumpling while their upper halves let out squeals of dying agony. Essana saw the hobgoblins fall like wheat, saw the black blood spout, and finally could take no more. Teeth clenched, she turned away and covered her face with her hands.

She didn’t really expect Azar to come to her, but she hoped. When she felt a hand touch her arm, she looked up with a thankful smile and stiffened when she saw who it was. It wasn’t her son at all, but Nakhil. The centaur’s face was troubled and grave.

“It is difficult, is it not?” he asked. “Battle is not what the bards make of it. You should not be here, my lady. Go inside and rest. We have the upper hand, it seems; the victory will be ours ere midnight.”

She shook her head. “I don’t see any victory. Only death.”

Nakhil thought about that. “Difficult,” he said again. “And horrible. But when the last sword is stilled, Suluk will still stand. We will be safe, and the hobgoblins destroyed. Maladar’s army has failed, and that cannot be a bad thing.”

“Can’t it?” she asked. “If it truly is Maladar’s army… if he meant to overthrow the Rainwards with it… do you think the victory would be gained so quickly? And where is he, anyway? Why isn’t he with them?”

The centaur was silent, his eyes dark. He glanced at Roshambur, who stood nearby, stroking his golden beard. The dwarf was tired, having worn himself out lifting the fog and summoning the first lightning storm to shatter the oncoming fleet. He leaned on a short staff of ivory, tipped with a large, egg-shaped topaz.

“We thought about that also,” Roshambur said. “I have no answer. But it troubles me as well. There is something else at work, I agree.”

“It’s a trick.”

They all turned and looked toward the speaker. Azar had turned away from the battle to face them and was smiling. Smiling. Essana had to swallow the desire to smack him and wipe that smile off his face. Pride shone in his eyes; he had figured something out when they had not. And, perhaps, he was also proud of what Maladar was doing. Essana’s stomach twisted.

“A trick?” Nakhil asked, waving a hand at the slaughter below. “All these hobgoblins? That seems quite a bit of work just to fool us.”

Azar shrugged. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“What are you talking about?” Essana asked. “What worked?”

It was Roshambur, not Azar, who answered. “Misdirection,” the dwarf said. “Oldest rule of cheap conjurers. Get someone looking here”—he raised one hand high, stubby fingers wiggling—“and you can do whatever you want over here.” He held out his other hand, in which was a small, golden object with a blue-green seastone on it.

“My signet ring!” Nakhil exclaimed. “How did you—”

“Misdirection, as I said.” Roshambur handed the jewel back to his king, his mouth crooking into a sour grin. “Maladar throws half the hobgoblins in Old Aurim at us, and what do we do? We gather all the kings and their armies here… and leave the rest of the isles unwatched. Mark me well: what Maladar wants is here, on the Rainwards… but I agree with Azar. It’s not Suluk.”

“What, then?” Essana asked.

The dwarf looked at Nakhil, who shook his head. They all stared at Azar.

“That,” Nakhil said, “is something we need to figure out, before—”

He said no more; indeed, everyone on the parapet fell silent. Even the sounds of battle dropped away suddenly. The armies, too, had turned to look to the northwest, over the mountains and many miles on. On the horizon was something that hadn’t been there only moments ago: a pillar of red light, lancing high into the darkening sky. It was the color of blood, deep and menacing. Its radiance washed over Suluk as it rose and rose and finally burst into a crimson sphere, more than a mile above the ground.

“There’s your answer,” Essana murmured.

Then chaos descended.

The trees atop the mountains began to wave and shake, leaning away from the bloody burst in the sky. Some toppled, splintering and tumbling end over end down the slopes. Elsewhere, shelves of rock broke away, sliding in vast cascades down the cliffs, throwing up plumes of dust that billowed toward the city. A mighty roar sounded: not just of crumbling stone, but wind as well—a thundering, tempestuous gale.

Essana felt frozen in place. Several of the Rainward kings broke and ran, yelling and shoving each other as they bolted for the ramp that led back down the tower. Below, the mages were shouting and running too. But many, like Essana, simply stood and stared, too bewildered to grasp what was happening, what was coming toward them. Essana’s eyes rose to the red blaze in the west, expanding and twisting in the high, cold wind.

He had done that, her husband—or what he’d become.

“We should have guessed,” Roshambur said dully, also motionless, fixated. “I should have known he was up to something—”

“Come on!” Nakhil broke in, grabbing the dwarf’s arm. “We’ve got to get down from here before it reaches us!”

“We’ll never make it,” Essana muttered, watching the shockwave descend from the mountains toward Suluk. “It’s too late.”

Roshambur woke from his trance, his craggy face turning the color of bleached bone. He gawked at the sundering mountains for a moment, then turned to grab Essana. Nakhil took hold of her other arm, and together they started to pull her away. As they did, though, Azar stepped forward and raised a hand. There was a strange sensation in the air, like a brief but powerful gust of wind, and both centaur and dwarf flew back as though he’d struck them. Nakhil went down in a heap, and Roshambur slammed up against the battlements. They stared at Azar, stunned, as he stepped forward to position himself between them and his mother.

“She stays,” he said, his voice deep and growling, unlike anything she’d heard come out of his mouth before. “There is no time to reach shelter from this storm. I will keep her safe.”

“Azar?” Essana asked. She could see the front edge of the blast, crashing down the mountainsides, leaving the trees broken and leafless in its wake. At the edge of the city, buildings began to shudder and collapse into shattered heaps of stone. “What are you doing?”

He turned and looked at her, his eyes gleaming with reflected fire. Behind him, Nakhil got to his feet and looked out over Suluk, gaping as the wave began to tear apart his city. Shaking himself, Roshambur took a step toward the ramp then stopped, his shoulders slumping. He would be barely halfway down the tower, even at a full run, before the shock hit. Other kings and their advisors still were bolting down the steps and out of sight.

Shards of stone filled the air. The clamor of battle from the wharf had ceased, and the screaming started. The tower trembled beneath their feet, and the air grew warm, then hot, then searing, worse than the most inhospitable desert. Tiny spiderweb cracks spread through the stone; to their right, one of the blue towers broke off and went down with a roar. The green one beside it collapsed a moment later, throwing up colorful grit. Wind scorched Essana’s face as Sevenspires fell to pieces around her.

“Whatever you’re going to do,” shouted Nakhil, bracing himself against the rail, “do it quickly, for Chalva’s sake! Hurry!”

Azar barely even moved. All he did was raise his hand, suddenly, when the storm was on the edge of striking the tower. Behind him, one of the white spires blew apart, raining glistening fragments onto palace and courtyard alike. From below came a boom, then a lurch and distant screams amid a roar of stone and debris. Essana shut her eyes, screaming: their tower had given way too. Any moment, the purchase beneath her feet would drop, and they would plummet to their doom.

The blast hit her like a fist, reeling her backward. She hit a merlon, her head cracking against the stone. Lights exploded in her head. The world became nothing but heat and wind and dust. Then it all went away, and at last there was silence.

Shedara saw the wave of heat and wind coming, saw the western quarter of Suluk turn to rubble, saw the mountains broken and scattered with rocks and splinters beneath the glare of that strange, scarlet eye.

This is how I’m going to die, she thought.

Most of the fighting had ceased when the sky filled with red beyond the mountains. Man and dwarf, centaur and hobgoblin all turned to stare, their swords slowing, then falling still. None of them had seen anything like that before. It wasn’t just magic; it was magic of a size they’d never beheld, had only heard of in tales told late at night.

“The Third Destruction!” cried some. “The wrath of the gods is upon us!”

Shedara knew better. She’d seen sorcery like it before. She knew the one who’d cast the spell.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” asked Hult, shading his eyes against the rising gale. “Forlo.”

She glanced at him. He was covered in black blood, head to toe, except where he was covered in red. There were cuts on his chin and both his forearms, and a gash just above his left knee. Bodies of hobgoblins, slit open and hewn apart, lay strewn about him. She’d never seen anything quite like it: he must have killed fifty of the creatures, if not more. But they were out of time. Doom was almost upon them. Men were screaming down the wharf and being thrown into the air like leaves in an autumn storm. Hobgoblins rained down on the rooftops; then the rooftops themselves blew apart, peppering the ground with shards.

“Not Forlo,” she said. “Maladar.”

He nodded and reached out to touch her arm.

“It has been a joy of my life, knowing you,” he said.

She smiled, then reached out and squeezed his hand. Up on the slope above them, the towers of Sevenspires were swaying and toppling, one by one. Sorrow stabbed Shedara in the heart: Essana was up there. The palace collapsed, half its courtyard shearing away and pouring down onto the city below; wizards tumbled, wailing, amid the avalanche.

The central tower was the last standing; it was stronger than the rest, dwarf-crafted, reinforced with sorcery. But even it couldn’t hold up against the devastation that tore through Suluk. Cracks webbed its white stone, widening as she watched. Bodies poured out the rents in its sides, kings and courtiers who hadn’t been able to get to safety. Finally, the spire shattered, folding in on itself, dropping almost straight down into the earth…

But not all of it.

“Gods of the kender,” Shedara swore.

Hult stared too, and so did those who stood nearby. The top of the white tower hadn’t fallen; it stayed aloft, borne by a whirlwind of blue and green dust. It hung suspended there, impossible, and Shedara laughed in spite of all the carnage, in spite of her own impending death.

Essana was safe up there. And she wasn’t alone. Her son was with her.

“Well done, Azar,” she murmured.

Very near, a temple of Zai erupted into slivers of marble and crystal. The flying debris turned those standing nearby to red and black mist. Shedara flinched, throwing up an arm to shield herself. Hot winds buffeted her. This is it, she thought. She turned to say good-bye to Hult.

He wasn’t there. In his place was a shimmer of silver light, swiftly fading. She felt the sting of magic in the air, fading… then growing stronger, coalescing around her body. She recognized the sensation as it built within her, shining white, growing ever brighter. Her stomach dropped, as if she had just looked down into a bottomless chasm. The world grew hazy, indistinct. A sharp chunk of a boulder passed right through her, and it didn’t hurt at all.

A sending spell. Azar hadn’t forgotten them.

Oh, she thought, as the wharf turned to a wasteland of corpses and ruin around her, as the soldiers of the Rainwards and the hobgoblins of Aurim alike blew away. Very well done.

Then she was gone.

Chapter 17

Clovenmont, the Rainward Isles

Maladar’s pulse quickened as he reached the top of the ridge and beheld the mountains beyond. They were harsh crags, lashed by rain and wind, their lower reaches blanketed with black pines, their tops treeless and snow-capped. This was an old range, though much changed by the Destruction and the hard years after. Still, he knew it well, recognized many of its peaks from the years of his rule. There was the one known as the Blue Giant, which the ancients once believed was a sleeping titan, and there was Erestem’s Pillar, still broad and mighty, though two of its five summits had collapsed centuries ago. Beside them towered Icefinger, still familiar though its frozen pinnacle had broken off and lay scattered down its slopes, and Kharshan’s Tower, half crumbled into talus, with only a jagged remnant remaining.

He gave each of them only a cursory glance, standing exposed atop the highest of the foothills that swelled up to the mountains’ edge. His real goal lay before him, surrounded by the other peaks. Neither the most massive of the mountains nor the tallest, it might have been the least remarkable of the lot, save for two things. For one, there was its pinnacle, which was split down the middle as if the gods had struck it with an axe. Snow blew off both of its tines in thin plumes. Thus its name, the Clovenmont, called Jun Er-Fuil by long-vanished natives, who had held it holy and built a temple to some forgotten god within its cleft.

The second extraordinary thing lay beneath.

Maladar’s breath came hard and fast, the cold air flooding his lungs. It hurt to breathe and his hands had been cut to bloody ribbons climbing the hills, but he didn’t worry about the pain, forcing it down deep so that Barreth Forlo’s soul absorbed the worst. He felt the man cringe, which pleased him. When he finally claimed a new body, he would entertain himself by torturing this old one for a while before leaving it. He would cut tiny slivers of flesh off Forlo with a razor, as he used to do to his enemies. He would roast them over a flame and force Forlo to eat his own burned flesh. He would pour acid on the open wounds. It would be a pleasant way to reward the man for robbing him of the Taker.

For the moment, though, he allowed the man to look out through his own eyes, to see the Clovenmont looming before him as he descended the hither side of the ridge. He moved down into the trees again, catching occasional glimpses of the mountain’s twin summits and the cracked and toppled columns of the fane betwixt them. The ground rose up, laced with giant, moss-bearded boulders that loomed among the pines. His pace grew swifter, surer.

He knew the cloaked shape was moving beside him long before he chose to acknowledge it. Finally, reaching a clearing that gave an unimpeded view of the mountain, he glanced to his right. Hith floated an arm’s length away, shapeless within his billowing black mantle. The hood turned to look at him, and though there was only darkness within, he could sense the god was smiling.

“You are clever, Emperor of Emperors,” Hith whispered. “I worried, while you were gathering the hobgoblins, that you believed they might serve as your army.”

Maladar laughed. “Of course not,” he scoffed. “After all this time, do you take me for so great a fool? They were a means to an end, nothing more.”

“Yes,” the god said. “And what an end, weaving the Rainwards’ doom into your plans. You did not need to do that. It is an… unnecessary flourish.”

“By my experience, the destruction of an enemy is seldom unnecessary. The foe you spare might stab you in the back tomorrow.”

Hith made a scratchy sound that must have been a chuckle. “Still sore about the cupbearer, are you?”

Maladar didn’t answer, only started walking again, his eyes fixed on the Clovenmont. Hith continued to waft along beside him.

“So,” the god said after a time. “It must be strange, coming here like this. Why did you not simply use a sending spell? This moving about on foot… again, it seems unnecessary.”

“No,” Maladar said, “it was very necessary. Much has happened since I last saw this place. I might have sent myself into a collapsed chamber and died trapped in the rock, which, I suppose, would have pleased you.”

“You wound me. I would take no pleasure in your suffering, my servant. You are too useful.”

Maladar shrugged, not believing a word of it. “Even so, I could not trust things to be as I remembered them, and my own warding spells kept me from scrying this place.”

“Ironic.”

“Yes.”

“Whatever the case, though, you are here now. Another leg of your long journey complete—and one more, the last, waiting to begin.” The cloak turned to face him and bowed—a strange, elaborate folding, with no flesh within the garment to guide it. “Welcome home, Your Majesty.”

Maladar wanted to argue, to point out that the place had never been his home, only a safe haven. Before he could, though, the cloak unraveled, dissolving into black smoke and blowing away on the wind. He frowned, considering the thought. Perhaps it was home of a sort. He’d certainly dwelt there longer than anywhere else in his long life.

He hesitated, hearing something far off. It took him a moment to place the cries of pain and rage and terror. Many leagues away, people were dying: men and dwarves and hobgoblins. He smiled. The battle had begun. The Rainwards’ fall was nigh: the kings and their armies would all be gathered in Suluk, making their heroic stand, not realizing they’d sealed their own fate. The thought renewed his purpose, and he strode on.

The door was where he remembered it: a stone plug ten paces high, carved out of the mountain rock, featureless save for a tracery of jagged glyphs about its edge. Many of those were chipped away, a few wreathed by soot. Charred bones lay in the weeds, scattered and unburied. Robbers had tried, time and again, to force their way in there. It had taken them centuries to succeed.

A line of black showed between the door and the surrounding stone: the last ones to pass through hadn’t closed it fully, letting the protective spells bleed away into the air and soil. Maladar sensed no enchantment about the door, not anymore. Strangely, that made him angry. Even if it had served his purposes, he still didn’t like to see his magic foiled.

The door swung open at a touch. He paused on the threshold then stepped through into a long, dark cavern. Again, he felt annoyance when nothing bad happened: he’d set guardians there, bat-winged demons charmed to sweep down out of the shadows and devour anyone who set foot within. He’d half expected to have to fight them himself, even though they were his servants: seeing Forlo’s body, they might not have recognized the soul that lived within. But no shrieking beasts emerged from the gloom, and after he walked for a bit, among huge columns carved to resemble dragon’s fangs, he saw why: their shriveled corpses lay broken on the floor, their wings splayed awkwardly around them, their serpentine faces little more than skulls covered in parchment. The interlopers had defeated those guardians too.

Of course they had. They’d thwarted all his defenses, straight through to the Clovenmont’s heart. It could be no other way, or they never would have found him. They never would have brought the Hooded One up from the depths, setting in motion all that had happened since. If the vault were better protected, he’d still be down there, waiting. He might have waited forever. He should have been glad his defenses weren’t perfect.

He walked on, past the demons’ remains, deeper into the crypt—for crypt it was, the place his soul had fled to after he’d died. The place where he’d bided, bound within the statue, for a thousand years.

The stairs wound down and down, moving in a broad sweep for what felt like miles. He walked for hours, through dust piled thick with the passage of centuries but disturbed by other footprints. Men had been there before, perhaps a year ago: treasure-seekers, the same ones he had mutilated at Bishan. They’d come and set in motion the doom of the Uigan, the League, the Rainwards… and soon, if nothing was done, all of Taladas.

Down and down, down and down. He was far below the Clovenmont now, far below the earth. Strange insects crawled on the walls, centipedes and beetles that glowed with pale blue luminescence. They chirped and twittered, filling the air with their maddening song. He walked on for another hour, two. He descended below even the seafloor, into the nameless depths. Goblins didn’t go down that deep, nor dwarves; even the dragons preferred not to have so much stone above their heads. The air grew warm, damp. Yellow-brown mist clung to the steps, bringing the tang of brimstone to his nose. He remembered, when he first excavated the caves, thinking that if he went much deeper, he would break through to the Abyss itself.

But when the stairs finally ended, it wasn’t the fiery wastes of the underworld he beheld, but a vast, domed cave, lit by the glowing bugs that covered its walls. Gnarled stalactites hung from the ceiling, dripping milky water onto stalagmites below; in places, they had grown together into pillars, some half a hundred feet wide. The cavern’s walls undulated with flowstone, glistening in the light. Pools rippled on the floor. The sulfurous stench was overpowering, filling his nose and mouth. Maladar reveled in it, though elsewhere in his mind he heard Forlo groan, almost drowning in the stink.

Heedless, he walked on, through the mists. As he did, the shadows at the room’s edges began to shift. Instinct told him to react, to ready a spell, to look to his left and right and see what was there, but he did none of those things. He caught only fleeting glimpses of the shapes, large and shambling things, vaguely manlike creatures covered in slime-slick shells of horn, their bloodshot eyes staring, their sharp teeth gnashing.

Disir. The denizens of the deep. He had heard of them in tales spoken by adventurers in his court. They must have tunneled in from other caves in the years since the Destruction. There were a hundred at least. They shuffled toward him, and the rotting-meat reek of their slime overwhelmed the brimstone. Taloned hands groped the air.

Get away, thought Maladar, raising his hands.

The disir flew backward as if he’d struck them. Some hit stalagmites with ugly, splintering sounds then rattled to the ground, keening with pain; others vanished into the shadows. He moved past them, to the rear of the cave, and found another tunnel, ankle-deep in brackish yellow water. He had to duck his head to pass through, stooping beneath jagged overhangs. More disir lurked in the passage but shied back as he drew near, leaving a clear path through the flood, on into the Clovenmont’s innermost sanctum: his goal, at hand at last.

When the passage ended, it opened not into another cavern, but rather into a chamber of dark red stone, carved out by magic rather than water. Runes were etched into the walls, running all the way to the apex of its ceiling; the floor was plain, broad, flat. Cracks ran through the walls, dribbling water into a shallow pool that filled the room; time and the Destruction had taken their toll but hadn’t been able to collapse the place. No, it had survived, and even the gods hadn’t been able to thwart his return: if they’d collapsed the cave, all his designs would have been undone. But they hadn’t, or perhaps Hith had protected it from the rest of his kin.

The chamber was not empty—far from it. Thousands of figures stood in the water, facing away from him, toward a raised platform that served as a dais at the far end. They were statues, hewn of dark gray stone, carved into the shapes of warriors who stood two heads taller than he did. Each held a sword, a bow, or a spear; each wore full, splinted armor in the old, Aurish style; each had a plumed helm, sculpted into the visage of a snarling dragon.

“My army,” Maladar breathed.

He walked among them, between the rows upon rows of soldiers. They loomed all around, lifeless, staring straight ahead with empty eyes. In time, he reached the dais at the far side of the room and climbed the stairs to its top. Turning, he looked out upon the statues, the sea of fanged and scaly faces. He moved to the highest point of the dais, where there was only the thinnest coating of dust. The Hooded One had stood here for a millennium, watching over the soldiers, waiting to be found. It had been Maladar’s home, from his death until the moment when the raiders of Bishan won their way past the crypt’s defenses and stole the statue away.

The Hooded One was gone, destroyed.

But Maladar gazed down upon the soldiers and smiled.

The black moon was full, and its energy surged through the room like a river at the bottom of an icy crevasse. He fanned his fingers before him and set them to dancing, drawing in the power. It filled him, singing in his veins. He spoke words that stung his mind like angry wasps, ugly sounds that echoed off the chamber’s far wall. The magic moved through him, digging into his thoughts like burrowing thorns. Inside him, Forlo tried to scream and sob, but the man’s soul could only watch, helpless, as Maladar’s hands stopped suddenly, pointing once more at the statues.

“Awaken,” he bade in a voice so loud it made the chamber ring like a bell.

Red light, the color of blood rather than fire, sprang from his fingertips, sweeping over the statues. It flooded the room, flickered on the walls, made the water on the floor bubble and boil. Every inch of Maladar’s flesh felt on fire, and he reveled in it, though Forlo’s silent voice screamed.

Then, just as he was sure Forlo could take no more, when the man was staring over the edge of howling madness, the burning stopped. He lowered his hands. The fire and the ice and the thorns receded. He looked down at the statues.

As one, they raised their heads to look up at him, their eyes shining with crimson light.

“Yes,” said Maladar, his chest swelling with pride. “My warriors, my servants. It is time now. Will you follow me?”

The statues said nothing, but the walls rang with the echo of deep words, as though ten thousand voices had spoken at once, and he was only hearing the reverberating response.

WE WILL FOLLOW. YOU ARE SOVEREIGN.

“Then free yourselves, my creations!” Maladar shouted. “Escape this prison, and walk at last beneath the sun!”

For a long moment, the statues did not budge. Then, again moving in perfect unison, they slowly lifted their heads, looking up toward the dome above. Their eyes blazed like suns. They raised their weapons. The walls rang with the echo of a wild cry.

Then, with a wave of heat and wind and noise that nearly blew him off the dais, the ceiling exploded.

Maladar shouted with joy, watching the red light devour the stone above him, eating through layer upon layer of rock until the sky lay bare overhead, distant and evening-blue, shot through with clouds. The light didn’t stop there, however; it kept going, rising high into the sky and bursting into a vast ball of bloody fire. A shockwave swept outward, sending devastation in all directions—including toward Suluk. He had foreseen that and knew what would befall the city. The winds and heat of the blast would destroy that place and the Rainward kings and their armies too. The hobgoblins would perish as well, but that didn’t matter. He had another army, far mightier than any hobgoblin horde could ever be.

The blast would destroy Suluk and, with it, his last opposition. He would march back to the Cauldron with the statues as his army and cross all the way to the midst of the Burning Sea. There he would raise the Chaldar. And finally, there was no one who could stop him.

Chapter 18

The Ruins of Suluk

There were survivors, though for many that was no great mercy. They lay beneath rubble, mantled by a pall of dust that never seemed to settle, crying out for rescue or pity. What was left of the city resounded with their groans and wails, even a day after the battle’s disastrous end.

Those few who had escaped the devastation intact—and they were few, for even among those left alive, many lay broken and bloody, waiting for the too-few surviving Mislaxans to care for them—dug through the wreckage, trying to reach those trapped below. Common folk used pry bars and shovels and bare hands, scraping their knuckles raw; the remaining wizards cast spells the lifted blocks of stone into the air and cast them aside, drawing moon power until it depleted them. Every now and then, they pulled someone out, white-faced with dust, eyes hollow and haunted from the ordeal. But many of those were maimed or crippled, and quite a few died very soon after. And for every subdued cheer that arose when someone dragged a survivor free, three muted, plaintive voices beneath the rubble fell silent and were never heard from again.

Hult dug through the night, working by torchlight along what had been the wharf. The harbor was utterly smashed, its piers sundered, its waters choked not just with the burned ships of the Suluki and broken hobgoblin rafts, but also with taverns and storehouses, temples and shops, half-sunk and jutting at weird angles above the surface. He toiled alongside soldiers who had, miraculously, escaped the shockwave, the killing wind that had blown away both armies. A few hundred had been so lucky; the rest were gone. They scratched in the wreckage, trying to find their shield-brothers, but mostly what they found were pieces—red rags and bodiless limbs that were all that remained of Suluk’s defenders and the horde they had fought. The whole night through, Hult found bits of what seemed like a thousand men, dwarves, and hobgoblins, but only six who still breathed. Of those, one died while Hult was trying to pull him free, suffocating with lungs full of dust; two others were so badly broken, he knew they wouldn’t see the sunrise. He left them for healers he knew wouldn’t come and moved on.

One more was a hobgoblin with a broken leg. Hult cut its throat with his talga but took no pleasure from the act. That left two real survivors, a man and a dwarf, who stared at the remnants of the city with deep and abiding horror before setting to work with him.

When dawn finally came, yellow and sickly through the clouds of debris, it had been three hours since he’d heard a single voice beneath the ruins. Exhausted, his maimed hand bleeding from the stubs of its fingers, he sat down on a hunk of what had once been a pillar—from the gilt, it must have tumbled all the way from Suluk’s upper tiers—and surveyed the destruction. All across the city, barely one building in fifty still stood, and many of those were too badly damaged to be safe. As he watched, a cracked and listing old mansion halfway up the mountainside gave a shuddering groan and collapsed, rattling all the way down to the bottom, nothing more than shards at the end. Men stumbled like ghosts all around him. High above, the fingers of Sevenspires were jagged stubs atop a jumbled mound. He shook his head, feeling sick, and a thought rose in his mind that was alien to the Uigan, to everything he’d known, everything he was, but it was no less true.

I am tired of war, he thought. I am done with fighting.

Sighing, his eyes stinging with dust, he bowed his head and fell asleep.

“Hey,” said a voice.

Hult snorted, coughed, and glanced up, blinking. The sun was high, almost to midday. Shedara stood next to him, looking down with troubled eyes. Her face was pale and weary, her hands filthy and raw: her magic long since exhausted, she’d kept digging in ordinary fashion like everyone else.

“What is it?” he asked. His voice scratched in his throat.

“I’ve been looking for you,” she said. “His Majesty wants to see us. All four of us.”

“His Majesty should be digging.”

Shedara shook her head. “He has been. Hooked himself up to a harness and dragged away rocks bigger than you are, six hours straight. But it’s done for now, Hult. The wizards will start again tonight, once they have the strength to cast new finding spells.” She waved a hand at the ruins. “There aren’t enough people left alive under all this for it to make sense to dig blind, so Nakhil ordered the people to rest.”

“Which is what I was doing,” he grumbled. He lowered his face into his hands. “What does he want?”

“To wish us well when we go.”

Hult stiffened, snapping upright. “Go? Where?” He already had an idea what the answer would be.

Sure enough, Shedara pointed west. “The blast came from that way. Someone has to go see what caused it. I volunteered us.”

Anger broke over Hult, coming out of nowhere, born of sleepless grief and frustration. He lurched to his feet, stepping toward her with a curl in his lip. “Us? What makes you think you speak for me, elf?”

Shedara ducked back, startled, and tripped over a fist-sized hunk of serpentine. She went down, sprawling backward with a yell. Hult took a step toward her. A knife appeared in her hand.

“Don’t come any closer, barbarian,” she said.

Hult stopped, blinking, his heart hammering in his ears. Of its own will, his hand had started to stray toward his sword. He forced it to stop and shut his eyes, his face burning with shame.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m tired. I can’t take any more of this.”

Chips of marble rattled as Shedara rose back to her feet. He heard the soft snick of her dagger vanishing back into its wrist sheath. Her hand touched his cheek, cupping it, and he opened his eyes again. She was close to him, very close. He could smell her, even through the dust. Her thumb scrubbed his face, wiping away a tear he hadn’t known was there.

“I know,” she said. “Why do you think I told Nakhil we’d see what was out there? All this death… it’s more than I can handle, either. Now will you quit being stubborn and come with me?”

Hult took a deep breath and let it out. He looked around. Suluk was tomb-quiet—a dead place. Skyfishers circled above, and wild dogs nosed through the wreckage, occasionally snatching something from the rubble and skulking away. It was going to get worse, he knew; he’d seen enough battlefields to know what was coming. The Rainwarders were burning their dead on great pyres of broken timbers, but they couldn’t get to them all, probably not more than two in three. And the sun was out, warmer than yesterday. It wouldn’t take long before the whole city started to stink.

He didn’t want to be around for that, not for one moment.

“All right,” he said. “Lead the way.”

They walked in silence, wending among the stones and shingles and scatterings of brick. They headed toward the city’s dwarven quarter. It was the only part of Suluk left even slightly intact: the bearded folk’s stonework had withstood the blast better than anywhere else. Hult stumbled along, then stopped and looked back as they drew near the dwarven ward’s embattled walls. The bones of the city lay bare behind him, mile upon mile.

“I never even saw this city,” he said. “Not really, with the fog and all. Now there’s nothing left.”

Shedara coughed. “I didn’t see it either. That might be what’s keeping me from losing my mind right now, actually. If I knew how beautiful it was…”

She stopped, her voice tightening. Hult glanced up at her and noticed her eyes were shining. She saw that he saw, and didn’t look away. He took her hand. She let him and squeezed his a little in return.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go see the king.”

There were only four Rainward Kings left alive, four of nine, and five viziers as well. Hult found he was oddly glad about that; even though Suluk’s destruction wasn’t their fault, he would have been angry if they had all escaped the devastation. Nakhil, Calex, Pharga, and Talkash had survived; the others still lay buried beneath Sevenspires. No one was trying to dig them out.

They had gathered in the headquarters of the Masons’ Guild, the largest building in the dwarven ward, in a dim, barrel-vaulted chamber lined with statues of famous stonecutters. Most of those had toppled and shattered on the ground, their heads and arms lying in pieces. Nakhil, Roshambur, and the others were on the dais where the guild masters once had conducted their business, the centaur standing and the rest in low chairs, running the length of a long table. Hult saw, as he crossed the chamber, that Essana and Azar were there too. Essana looked old and tired, spent. Azar had aged ten years since he’d seen him last: anyone who didn’t know him would have taken him for a man of forty summers, with frost at his temples and lines etched into his forehead and at the corners of his eyes.

The kings were speaking in hushed voices as Hult and Shedara approached the dais but fell silent as they drew near. Not all of them looked up, though Nakhil and Roshambur did, and Essana and her son as well.

“My friends,” said the centaur. “It warms a heavy heart to see you alive.”

“I’m glad,” Hult replied evenly, “but you won’t get much more warmth in this city. Not from what I’ve seen.”

The kings gasped and muttered together. Nakhil looked stung. It was Roshambur who stepped forward, his brows low.

“His Majesty does not need you to remind him of Suluk’s condition,” the dwarf growled. “And you are no one to judge, you whose people have sacked cities since time out of mind.”

Hult trembled, his face growing red. It took all his self-control not to draw his talga. There were archers there too, as there had been at the palace—not as many, nor so cleverly concealed, but his blade would never leave its scabbard.

Shedara stepped forward, glaring at Roshambur. “You’d do well to keep your tongue behind your golden beard, dwarf. Hult and I fought for you on the waterfront. We would have died there if not for Azar’s magic. We’ve been trying to save your people ever since. If you think—”

“Be still, all of you!” Nakhil snapped, his hands rolling into fists. His chest swelled with anger. “I did not call this gathering so we could all play at pointing fingers! We are all grieving, in our way. If you cannot be civil, then leave.”

Hult stared at the centaur and decided he liked him after all. There was something in his temperament that reminded him of Chovuk—when he was Tegin of White Sky, before the Teacher corrupted him. No wonder so many men had gone to their deaths for him. Nakhil bore that knowledge with a deep pain but kept a brave face, as a warrior should.

“I am sorry,” Hult said, bowing. “My wits are at their end. I am not myself.”

“None of us are,” Nakhil replied, then shook his head and sighed. “None of us. Roshambur, will you back down?”

The dwarf’s nose was red; he had been weeping. That was a surprise—dry as a dwarf’s eye, the village elders had said when the Uigan’s wells dried up in the summer. Roshambur’s gaze flicked from him to Shedara. Then he nodded and turned away.

“So I brought him,” Shedara said, jerking her thumb at Hult. “What’s the business? We’re going west, we know that much.”

“If you wish,” Nakhil said. “I do not command you to do so. You are not isle-folk and are not subject to us. But we can spare few men now, when so many are suffering. I ask you to go to the mountains and see what Maladar has wrought there. We must know before we make our next move.”

“What move?” Essana murmured, her voice so soft that they had to lean forward to catch her words. “Suluk is broken, your armies destroyed. This game is ended.”

The kings exchanged grim glances. They all agreed with her—all but Nakhil, who smacked his fist against his open palm. “This is no game!” he said. “We speak of the fate of Taladas. If we give up, who will stand against Maladar? Who will stop him from overrunning all the free lands?”

Silence blanketed the hall. Everyone looked elsewhere—at the ceiling, at their feet, anywhere but at Nakhil. They had all given up. Even Roshambur shook his head, his lips pursed.

Anger bloomed inside Hult’s breast.

“I will try to stop him,” he said. “I haven’t fought so long, traveled so far, seen so many deaths, to quit now. Even if I must do it alone, I’ll find him. And I’ll sheathe my sword in his heart or die in the effort.”

Nakhil smiled. “Good. I knew you would. We are not so different, Hult, son of Holar, though we come from distant lands. And you will not do it alone, for I will travel with you.”

“My lord?” Roshambur asked. “You would leave Suluk?”

The centaur shook his head. “There is no Suluk, my friend. Not anymore. When the last survivors are found—if any remain—they will leave this place and go to the other cities.” He turned to the other kings, who looked just as startled as Roshambur. “I ask you all to give them refuge. And I lay this down.”

With that, he reached up and removed his crown. Its jewels glittered in the firelight as he set it down on the table.

“There shall be no rebuilding,” he said. “Let these ruins be my people’s tomb. As for me… I do not think I shall be much missed, even by history.”

The hall was still. Everyone stared at the crown. Finally, Roshambur cleared his throat. His voice, when it came, was husky. “I will accompany you, Majesty, of course. For I would miss you.”

Nakhil smiled and patted the dwarf’s arm. He looked to Shedara. “And what of you, my lady?” he asked. “Have you nothing to say?”

She shrugged. “I’m sorry. I was letting you have your moment. Are you done?”

The other kings gasped. Roshambur flushed again. “You will not address the king that way!” he barked.

But Nakhil only smiled. “Please, my friend. I am king no longer. And yes, my lady, perhaps that was a bit dramatic, but it’s hard to abdicate a four-hundred-year-old dynasty without a little pomp.”

“Fair enough,” Shedara said. “And as for me… I’m with Hult and you. Maladar needs to be stopped, or none of this will matter.”

“I’m with you too,” said Azar, rising from his chair.

They all looked at him. Hult glanced at Essana, who looked stricken but said nothing.

“Damn right you are,” Shedara said. “You’re a part of this whole mess, boy. But first, there’s something we need to deal with. This power of yours. I’m not going one step further until we find out for certain what it is.”

Chapter 19

The Ruins of Suluk

The hall was silent for a time. Eyes shifted from Shedara to Azar, who looked down and took a step back, a pained look creasing his face.

“We know where his power comes from,” Essana said. She reached out a hand toward her son, faltered, and let it drop to her side without touching him. “It’s Maladar. We all know it is. What other possibility could there be?”

“I don’t know,” Shedara said. “But we won’t have a better chance to find out for certain. Roshambur and I can use our magic to discover the truth. Once we’re traveling, we’ll need our spells to survive.”

“And if it is Maladar?” Azar asked. “What will you do about it?”

“Rid you of it,” Hult muttered. “If we can.”

A grumble of agreement echoed among the kings. Nakhil, however, raised his hand, his brows drawing together.

“Now hold on,” he said. “That power saved our lives. All of us in this room, we’d be buried in that rubble now, food for wild dogs. Why would we want to be rid of such power?”

“Because it is evil!” Hult exclaimed. “Because it is a part of the most evil man Taladas has ever known. Isn’t that enough?”

Roshambur glanced at Nakhil, one eyebrow arched. “Maybe… but then again, maybe not. The power may come from evil, but when has Azar used it for anything but good, anything but to save lives?”

“Interesting point,” Shedara said.

“It means nothing!” Hult snapped. “Chovuk Boyla used his powers for the good of our people, for a time. But they betrayed us, and him, in the end. If I could step back to those days and rip it from him, do you believe I wouldn’t?”

Argument ensued. Some agreed with Hult, some with Nakhil and Roshambur. Shedara, for her part, didn’t know what to believe. She watched the two sides clamor, their anger growing, until Essana’s voice cut through the middle of it all, ringing off the vaulted roof and columns of the hall like a thunderclap.

“Be still!”

Quiet fell over the room. Even the Rainward kings closed their mouths, abashed, as Essana stepped closer to her son and put an arm around his shoulders. He flinched at her touch, but she held him firm, and in time he slumped and leaned against her.

“How dare you?” she demanded. “All of you. You talk of carving up my son’s mind as if it were a haunch of venison! Of pulling out part of his soul like a rotten tooth! And you do it all while he stands here and listens to you. How dare you?”

No one answered. They all coughed and shuffled. Well said, milady, Shedara thought, feeling her own face grow warm with shame. Hult scowled and looked at his feet. Even Roshambur grew suddenly interested in combing his golden beard.

“Pardon, madam,” Nakhil replied, turning to face Essana. “You must understand the stakes—they could not be higher. There is no protocol for a situation such as this.”

Essana’s eyes glittered, hard as diamonds. “I know the stakes. I have already lost my home and my husband. I nearly lost my own soul. Do not presume to tell me I don’t understand.”

Nakhil met her gaze for a moment, then bowed his head, withdrawing. No one could stand before the anger, the grief, in Essana’s stare. It would have broken the resolve of the mightiest minotaur warlord and made a dragon look away. She swept the room with her gaze, and everyone quailed.

“This is my son,” Essana said, holding Azar fast. “My firstborn. He has walked darker paths than any of you will ever know. And you may be right: there may be great evil within him. It may need to be removed. But you will not make that decision without him. For all you say of him, for all the ways he is different… he is still a man. Not a tool nor a weapon to use or cast aside or break as you see fit.”

Again everyone shifted, unable to look directly at Essana. Shedara bit her lip. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re right.”

“I am sorry too,” Hult murmured, touching his forehead.

“Thank you,” Essana said. “These have been difficult days. I know you didn’t mean ill.”

Roshambur scowled. “Well, then,” he grumbled, “now that we’re all friends again… Azar, what would you have us do?”

Azar swallowed, still trying to shy away. Essana shook him, holding him fast and fixing her piercing gaze on him.

He is still a child, Shedara realized. He may look like a man of forty, but in his mind he’s a frightened boy.

“Answer,” Essana said. “Will you let them do what they say?”

For a moment, Azar’s eyes brimmed, and Shedara was certain he was going to cry. Instead, though, he drew a deep breath, let it out, and shook loose his mother’s grasp. She stepped back.

For a full minute and more, no one spoke. They all stared at Azar, waiting. He looked back, and Shedara saw something new in his eyes—something dark and terrible, like the shape of a sea monster swimming through the hazy depths. Essana clasped her hands, looking suddenly afraid. Then it was gone, and Azar was himself again. He sighed and lowered his eyes.

“Do what you will,” he said. “I will not stop you.”

Essana bowed her head and turned away, putting a hand over her face.

“All right, then,” Shedara said. “Roshambur?”

The stars shone down on Akh-tazi, and the black moon as well, bathing the temple with its foul unlight. The Brethren stood before the Hooded One, Azar in their midst. The Master drew his blade, brought it up, set it to Azar’s throat… and cut.

Shedara watched the blood flow, the bright red arc spilling upon statue and altar alike. She watched Azar’s knees buckle, the light begin to drain from his eyes. The Master caught him, held him up, the curved knife glistening scarlet in his hand. It made her feel ill, watching the boy die, but she held her focus, willing herself to continue the spell. She would not let it fail, not again.

Beside her, Roshambur stirred. The dwarf was working the spell as well, lending his power to her, eldritch light shining all around him. He raised his hand, and the blood stopped—in fact, everything did. The Brethren’s cloaks froze in midbillow. A red wasp that had strayed close to the ceremony hung in midair, its wings still. The air throbbed with wind that wanted to blow but could not. Shedara glanced at the dwarf, her eyebrows raised. He was powerful. She hadn’t been able to do that with the spells she knew.

“So this is the moment it begins to come apart,” Roshambur said, stroking his beard. “Look. Things are beginning to fray.”

Shedara looked, and indeed, Azar’s memories were failing as death claimed him. In the distance, the jungle had become a blur, and she could see through the roof of the ziggurat, just a little. Threads of black mist rose from the wasp.

“What now?” she asked.

The dwarf didn’t answer, just walked closer to the bloody tableau and eyed the Brethren and Azar. Shedara followed. The stream of the boy’s blood was a glistening rope that stretched from the ugly wound in his throat to the Hooded One.

“Another few moments and he’ll be dead,” Roshambur said, eyeing Azar. “We’ll have to be quick about this, when it starts again.”

“Quick about what?” Shedara asked. “I don’t understand.”

Roshambur looked up at her with a sly smile. “Seizing the vision,” he said. “Holding on. We can’t control all of it, or even much, so we have to decide what we want to retain and what we can unravel. So… we lose everything but what’s on the rooftop, and maybe even a lot of that as well. We’ll need Azar, obviously, and this one here. What is he called?”

“The Master. But what—?”

“The Master, yes,” Roshambur went on, ignoring her. “Last of all the statue. The rest of this lot”—he waved his hand at the Brethren—“we can keep as long as we have the strength, but when the time comes, we’ll let go. We’ll get enough from Azar and the Master and the Hooded One.”

He raised his hand, one finger slightly arched, but Shedara grabbed it before he could release the spell again. “Wait!” she asked. “How do we do this?”

“By mending the magic,” Roshambur said. “It’s like weaving. Just follow my lead; you’re clever enough to pick it up.”

Shedara wasn’t sure about that—it was something none of her magic tutors had ever even mentioned—but the dwarf seemed sure of himself. She considered telling him she’d never woven anything in her life but decided against it. He probably hadn’t either, outside of his spells. She let go of his hand.

His finger moved in a quick, tight circle. Time began again.

The vision dissolved fast, the jungle disappearing first, then the temple. It was like some terrible darkness was devouring the world. The stars winked out, one by one. Nuvis vanished. She glanced around as the nothingness drew closer, but Roshambur shook his head, pointing instead at Azar. The boy took a last, shuddering breath, let it out…

Then everything began to collapse at once. Azar’s body hung limp in the Master’s arms, and both of them became translucent, turning to smoke. Misty strands coiled upward from their dissipating bodies. Roshambur spoke a word and held out his hand. The filaments stopped then changed direction, wafting toward him. He caught them between his fingertips and began to spool them together, his hands working with surprising nimbleness. As he did, Azar and the Master grew more solid, more real, while the other Brethren faded away.

“The statue!” the dwarf bellowed. “Quick, before it goes too!”

The Hooded One was as transparent as crystal, great hanks of shadow-stuff rising away from it. Shedara reached out and spoke the same word the dwarf had said, feeling the magic surge within her. The dark threads came to her; they were cold to the touch, like strings of ice. She started winding them, following Roshambur’s example. Gradually, the Hooded One regained its substance.

A thrill ran through her, one she hadn’t felt in quite a while. A long time had passed since she’d learned anything new about sorcery. Another secret was revealed, and she remembered how much she’d loved uncovering those mysteries. She laughed out loud.

“Concentrate,” Roshambur said. “You lose your grip, the statue will disappear. And if you’re unlucky, it might take you with it.”

“What does that mean?” she asked, shivering suddenly.

The dwarf shook his head and didn’t reply.

It was hard: every time she secured one strand, two more seemed to loosen. She moved quicker and quicker, fighting to hold Azar’s memories together. The other Faceless were gone, and the altar and even the ground beneath them: just the boy and the statue and the Master remained. The blood’s flow slowed to a trickle, then stopped altogether. He was dead, and for an instant she saw—or imagined—a shimmering gray mist flow out of him. His soul? She wasn’t sure. It happened too quickly.

The Master held Azar a moment longer, then finally pushed him forward. He slumped over the altar—or rather, the space where the altar had been—and lay still. Roshambur’s hands kept catching the strands as they pulled away from his body.

The Master raised his arms, the dagger flashing with starlight even though no stars remained. “Blood for the Sleeper!” he declared. His voice sounded as if it came from somewhere far away, some cave deep below the earth. The air, warm and muggy only a few moments ago, turned freezing. “Awaken, Maladar! Awake, and claim your prize!”

Claim it? Shedara thought.

Then Maladar stepped out of the statue.

He was a ghost, a pale shadow of a man; he began to dissolve even as he emerged from the stone. Instinctively, Shedara caught the threads and began to weave them as well. They were cold enough to burn her hands. She ground her teeth and kept it up.

“Let… the statue… go,” Roshambur grunted, his hands flying. “Keep the… ghost.”

She did as he bade, releasing the tightly wound threads from the Hooded One, and it tore apart in a heartbeat. Shedara smiled; she’d sworn to destroy the accursed thing but never had the chance until now. She refocused on Maladar’s spirit, gathering the fibers of his being as he approached the others.

The ghost stood before Azar, looking him up and down. His ruined face was incapable of smiling, but Shedara could tell he was pleased. His lidless eyes turned in the Master’s direction.

“A fine vessel,” he said. “You have done well, Brother.”

The Master bowed his head. “My only thought is to serve you, Majesty.”

Already the Master was beginning to fade, and nothing Roshambur did could stop it. Shedara willed the loose threads to come to her, and she helped keep him together. The dwarf grunted thanks, sweat streaming down his face. They had another minute before they lost control, maybe less. Shedara wondered what would happen then. She thought of what Roshambur had said and imagined the both of them being pulled into some void, some nether space beyond the reach of the gods. Terror stirred inside her, screaming for her to let go.

She kept weaving, her lips skinning back from her teeth. She glared at Maladar. Hurry up, damn you, she thought. Whatever you’re going to do, do it quick.

The ghost studied Azar. “When?” he asked.

“Soon,” the Master replied. “His father is two days away. We will kill the woman in front of him.”

“Good,” Maladar said and laughed. “Good. His rage will make me strong. But now… I will have a taste of this flesh, so I know it better when the blood is spilled. When I am done, you can restore his soul.”

“As you will, my lord,” the Master said and stepped back. Roshambur let him go, and he blew away like dust, his strands ripping from Shedara’s grasp as well.

Both elf and dwarf were weaving madly, Azar and Maladar slowly dissolving before their eyes. Their hands became blurs, plucking and gathering, coiling and twisting. Come on, Shedara thought as Maladar gazed down on the dead boy.

The ghost reached out a hand, then hesitated. His head turned toward Shedara and Roshambur, his eyes blazing with malevolent glee. He nodded to them once. Then, laughing, he turned away and plunged his fist into Azar’s heart. Azar’s eyes opened. He screamed.

“Let go!” Roshambur shouted. “Now!”

She did. The image blew away. Everything grew dark…

… and faded back into the guildhall. Nakhil and the other kings reappeared, and Hult and Essana too. So did Azar. He gaped at Roshambur, then at her.

“It’s true, then,” he said. “I’m him.”

Shedara shivered and took a step back from him. “Yes,” she said. “Part of you.”

Just slightly, the kings edged away from them—afraid.

“Remove him, then,” Nakhil ordered. “Get that villain’s soul out of him.”

Roshambur pursed his lips. “About that,” he said. “I don’t think it will be possible. Maladar saw us in the vision, but it didn’t seem to trouble him. He’s in too deep for either of us to reach.”

“Khot,” Essana swore.

“Then I have no choice,” Azar said, and all at once his eyes were a child’s again, afraid and alone. “He will always be a part of me.”

“So it seems,” Shedara said. “But I don’t think any of us knows for sure.”

“So what do we do about it?” Nakhil asked.

Shedara looked at Roshambur, who shook his head. She blew a long, slow breath out through her lips.

“We go on with what we were going to do,” Hult said. “We find out where that blast came from and try to pick up Maladar’s trail. Are you all still with me?”

Shedara nodded immediately; so did Nakhil. After a moment, Roshambur did as well, though he looked troubled. “I can’t see what else we can do,” the dwarf said.

They all turned to Azar again. He glanced at his mother. “We will go as well,” he said.

But Essana held up her hand. “Not me, son. My road ends here.”

Azar started. “What?”

“Think about it,” she replied. “What good would I be on this journey? I’m no wizard, and I’m hardly a warrior. I will only be a burden to you. Everyone knows it. Don’t you, Shedara?”

Shedara nodded. “I wouldn’t stop you if you wanted to come, though.”

“But you would regret it. You would worry about my safety.”

“Yes.”

Essana turned back to her son. “You see? As much as I want to see… to see Barreth again…” She hesitated, a tear dropping from her eye, then shook her head and went on. “I refuse to be a distraction or a liability. Your thoughts must turn to defeating Maladar now, and nothing else.”

Azar clasped his hands and began to twist them. “What will you do, then? Where will you go?”

“Thumar, I think,” Essana said and glanced at King Calex, who inclined his bearded head. “It will be as safe there as anyplace in Taladas. I will wait there for your return.”

“But—” Azar said, his hands writhing together.

Essana stepped forward, putting her hands upon his, and forced them apart. Then she leaned forward and kissed Azar on each cheek and a third time on his forehead. He threw his arms around her. When they parted again, both their faces were damp.

“Farewell, child,” she said and walked away. Azar watched her go, looking as though he’d just been stabbed in the gut.

Essana stepped down from the dais and walked up to Shedara. “If you recognize any of Barreth left in his body when you find him,” she said, “tell him I love him. Then… do what you must.”

“Yes, milady,” Shedara said, her stomach twisting. “The gods walk with you.”

“If they walk with any of us,” Essana said.

Three days later, the companions made their way through the broken and smoldering remains of the Sulukanti Forest, thirty leagues west of the city. They were five now: Shedara, Hult, Nakhil, Roshambur, and Azar. They clambered up slopes littered with the shattered trunks of trees and slid down gravel-strewn embankments into valleys where fallen pines and alders choked once-foaming streams, already turning them into marshes. The hills there were a wasteland, and though some undergrowth and saplings had survived the blast, it would be many long years before the woods thrived again—if they ever did.

As terrible as the devastation was, though, Shedara barely thought about it. All her thoughts bent toward Azar and the vision she and Roshambur had shared. The group’s hushed whispering by the fireside at night turned to him as well. Though Maladar couldn’t enter the boy completely without the proper sacrifice, he had placed part of his spirit within him, to prepare the way. Shedara believed they were lucky about that, that if all of Maladar were in Forlo, he would be unstoppable. With their enemy divided between two bodies, though, he might be vulnerable. Maybe they could defeat him still. If so, Azar was the key to it all.

On the other hand, bringing him with them was a kind of madness. It could seal their doom, once Azar and Forlo were reunited.

They stopped to rest in a clearing not far from the mountains, where tumbling fir trees had dug deep furrows in the turf. Nakhil glanced around, sorrow creasing his face. “I remember this place,” he said. “I used to go hunting here. Remember, Roshambur? I shot a stag in this very glade, just this past spring.”

The dwarf nodded, expressionless. “Yes, Majesty.”

“I don’t suppose there will ever be any stags here again.”

“It is… doubtful, Majesty.”

“What do you think?” Hult asked Shedara, who was taking a pull from a skin of watered wine. “Are we close to what we’re looking for?”

She lowered the flask from her lips and handed it to the Uigan, then looked around. The air was thick with buzzing flies that bit deep when they landed on bare flesh. There was something else in it too—a sense of power, so thick it was almost a haze.

“We’re close,” she said. “I can feel it. Nakhil, what’s over that razorback there?”

She pointed at a sharp, sawtooth ridge. The power was strongest on the other side. The centaur glanced that way, his hands tight around the haft of his halberd.

“The mountains,” he said. “The Blue Giant, Icefinger, Clovenmont… dark places. Cursed lands. We Rainwarders don’t go that far, if we can help it. That’s where the blast came from, isn’t it?”

“It seems likely,” Shedara said.

Azar stared at the ridge. “What will we find?” he asked. “Will… will my father be there?”

Shedara looked at Hult, who shook his head. So did Roshambur. “No, lad,” she said. “He’ll have moved on by now. But hopefully we’ll find a way to find him.”

The afternoon wore on as they struggled up the ridge. It was hard going, all loose stones and great chunks of splintered wood. The sun was low, shining red in their faces when they finally reached the top, where they stopped, stunned to silence by what they saw.

The mountains loomed before them, as Nakhil had promised—some broad and dark, others tall and snow-capped. Among them, however, something had gone terribly wrong.

“The Clovenmont,” Roshambur murmured, his voice little more than a breath. “It’s… gone.”

Indeed it was. Where a mountain must have stood, not long ago, there was a deep, black hole, ringed with enormous, jagged chunks of stone. More rocks were scattered on the surrounding slopes in great, broken heaps. Wisps of smoke drifted up from the chasm where the Clovenmont had stood. The forests all around it had all blown down, facing outward, like the petals of some unholy bloom. And leading south, away from it, was a trail made by the prints of many feet—thousands of them. The sun’s dying light seemed to bathe the whole scene in blood.

“Yagrut,” Hult swore. “In the ancestors’ name, what happened here?”

It was hard for Shedara to tear her eyes away from the ruins of the mountain, but after a while she managed to look south. The tracks led over the hills, straight toward the distant, shining arc of the straits of Grayveil… and Old Aurim beyond.

And after that, the Cauldron.

“I think,” she said, “that Maladar has a new army now.”

Chapter 20

The Grayveil Shore, Aurim-That-Was

Maladar stood upon the rocky strand, staring out at the waves. The mists had not returned to the Grayveil—with Suluk in ashes, there was no more reason for the Rainwarders to conjure their protective fog—and he could see all the way to the far shores. There, the dark lines of the isles stood silent, their mountains silhouetted against the darkling sky. One of the peaks was missing, a conspicuous gap on the horizon, like a lost tooth or a breach in a keep’s battlements. Even now, in the dark, a reddish glow hung over it, though Lunis was young and not yet risen.

It was done, over, finished. The last impediment to reclaiming his power, the last realm that could have challenged him: gone.

He had scried the ruins of Suluk, just the previous night, to see what he’d wrought. The city was a home for ghosts, unfit for the few straggling survivors. Many of the Rainward kings were dead. All the hobgoblins were gone too. Maladar sought some sign of Ghashai along the waterfront. The hobgoblin chief was nowhere to be found, lost with the rest of his people, buried beneath tons of stone or already given to the fires. One way or another, he was gone too.

Pyres burned without cease among the shattered stones, fueled by broken timbers and the endless dead. It was wonderful to behold, the sort of ruin he hadn’t caused since his previous life. In those days, he’d drowned Am Durn, caused the earth to swallow Kattaya, and unleashed black fire on the twin cities of Gham and Ushik, turning even their stout stone walls to fine ash that blew away on the wind. What he had just wrought wasn’t as elegant as all that, but it filled him with joy to see Suluk lying broken.

It was all the more joyous because he made Forlo watch too. When the man beheld the vision, saw what had become of the city—the same city where his friends and family had gone—Maladar felt something tear inside him. There was nothing inside that wound but pain, and he savored it like wine.

Forlo had searched, as best he could, while the magical vision drifted among the blasted stones and fly-specked corpses. He’d tried to find some sign of them anywhere—his wife, his son, the barbarian, and the elf. But he saw no one he knew. Everyone was filthy, caked in dust and ash and dried blood. It was hard to tell one from the next.

Morning had found Maladar’s army still on the march. It hadn’t stopped to rest; his stone warriors, crafted over many years and with much spilled blood, didn’t need such things. They ate nothing, felt no thirst, never slept. They were relentless, fearless, tireless. Only their stupidity kept them from being the ideal killing force. They knew only what he told them, did only what he told them to do, for they had no minds of their own. That would be a problem, in time; he would need intelligent creatures to serve him if he were going to conquer all of Taladas. But for what he had to do next, the statues, Kheten Voi in the old tongue, were more than enough.

They’d come to the island’s southern shore just before midday, with the winter sun low and dim before them, coloring the waves the sickly hue of bone. There Maladar had left them, with the waves breaking around their ankles and the tide on the rise. A sending spell, swiftly spoken, transported him to the mainland, about thirty leagues west of the Whitewold. Gazing east, he saw the ghostly, grasping claws of the petrified trees upon the hilltops. Everything else was barren.

He stood at the edge of the sea, on the rocks, watching the waves roll in. He stayed there for hours, motionless, utterly patient. Gulls wheeled overhead. A whale’s tail broke the surface, just once. And that was it—no boats, no lights on the far shore. The place was desolate, bereft. Inside him, Forlo prayed for death. Maladar considered the plea. It would take only a stray thought, the mental equivalent of brushing away a gnat. One thought, and the body would be all his. Forlo would be with his wife and child. It would be a mercy.

Maladar, however, had never been merciful.

Be silent, he thought. I will destroy you, have no fear of that. But now is not the time. Not until the Chaldar rises anew, and my destiny is fulfilled. Now trouble me no more.

Hours passed, and more. Maladar watched out to sea, ignoring Forlo’s weeping. There were terns and gulls. A shark’s fin broke the surface, ran for a time, then ducked back below. The sun westered.

Then something was there: a ripple on the strait’s surface, out at the point where the water grew dark with depth. The ripple moved in toward shore, overtaking the waves, growing more pronounced with every yard. What finally emerged from the brine was a stone head, hewn with draconian features, its eyes gleaming crimson in the gathering gloom. It moved toward Maladar, its shoulders breaking the surface then rising higher and higher above the waves. Behind it, three more heads emerged, and behind them, eight, then thirty, then two hundred… Then thousands.

They marched up out of the ocean, dragging trails of seaweed, one with a speckled fish impaled on the tip of its stone spear, flopping and writhing as it died. They moved as they had on the far side, without hesitation, the waves rolling in and out around waists, then knees, then ankles. The water turned brown with silt.

Finally the forward ranks reached the rocks, and they halted, all at once, without a sound. The foremost statue stood directly beneath the promontory where Maladar perched, looking up at him. Its kin stretched behind it, all the way back to where they’d first appeared, scores of heads poking up among the waves.

They didn’t speak. Maladar’s army was silent; Kheten Voi meant Quiet Host in Aurish. They simply watched him and waited. Maladar looked on, smiling.

“It is time,” he said. “Behold the south, my children.”

They did, in unison. Maladar looked as well. The wastes of Aurim extended for many leagues before him, then rose into black peaks, above which roiled fumes of charcoal gray. Red lightning played among the clouds and lashed down upon the mountains. From where he stood, the march to the Cauldron was only a hundred miles. The army could cover that in two days—one to reach the jagged black crags, another to cross to the other side.

“That is our goal,” he said. “The heart of that darkness, where our old realm once was. And where it will be again. Follow.”

With that, he clambered down from his roost and strode southward. Maladar never turned, never looked back. There was no need. The scrape of stone against stone, of thousands of carved hands and feet climbing up the strand, was sign enough that his army obeyed him. Relentless, tireless, the Kheten Voi followed him onto the blighted plains.

Maladar saw no living being on the long walk to the Burning Sea—indeed, no creatures at all once he left the shore and its seabirds behind. Aurim was nothing but desert and the occasional shell of a village half-buried among the dunes. The mountains were treeless and dry, dotted with lichen the color of decaying flesh. The sky seethed, black clouds reflecting the infernal glow beneath.

His army walked behind, mutely obedient. When he stopped to look back, they stopped too, their gleaming eyes turning toward him. There were no questions there, no emotions, just unholy patience. If he didn’t bid them move on, they would stay there until the world crumbled, until the dust covered them over, until Taladas sank into the sea. On the other hand, if he ordered them to charge off one of the mountains’ many jagged cliffs, they would do so without a second thought as well, smashing to shards on the rocks below. It was an army to be admired; many times during his rule, he would have been glad for a band of warriors who would do what he commanded and nothing more. At the same time there was something forlorn about the Kheten Voi, something lacking.

The answer was simple: he had no one to talk to.

The idea that he was lonely made Maladar’s mouth twist. A chuckle pushed past his lips. There he was, at last, on the verge of regaining all he had lost, and what troubled him was that he had no company! But that was it; he was utterly alone. It reminded him of his long imprisonment beneath the Clovenmont, with only the statues for company. The hobgoblins had been savage and far from intelligent, but at least Ghashai had had a personality. The Voi gave him nothing.

That left Forlo, who was no use at all, with all his mewling about his family and begging to be killed.

So it was that, when he crested the final rise and saw the empty black robe floating on the edge of the ocean of roiling magma, Maladar was more relieved than awed. He all but ran down the sliding gravel slope, his army scraping and rattling behind him. A few of the Voi lost their footing and tumbled down the scree. Some of those didn’t get up again. For the most part, though, the statues could have been goats, for all their sure-footedness.

Looking upon the empty cloak, Maladar sensed that Hith was pleased. Indeed, the god made a hollow, creaking sound as Maladar drew near, gesturing up toward the Voi. “Well done, my servant,” he declared. “Quite well done.”

“Thank you,” Maladar replied. “But I am no man’s servant.”

“I am no man.”

“Even so. I serve no god either.”

Hith’s headless hood cocked to one side. “That is a presumptuous thing for a mortal to say.”

“That may be,” Maladar said, “but it is no less true.”

The god studied him in silence.

“I have done as the prophecy said,” Maladar went on. “I have found my army.”

“So you have. And a mighty army it is… even if there’s not a brain in the lot.” Hith looked up at the Voi, who covered the mountainside like some awful forest. Their glittering eyes made the mountain look like a sky full of red stars. “What now?”

Maladar scowled. “You know as well as I do. There is only one thing left. I demand passage.”

“Demand it?” Hith asked, amused. “Am I your servant now?”

“Of course not. But you wish this to play out as much as I do. Raise the bridge. This time, I will reach the other side.”

Hith regarded him a while longer, his cloak billowing in the Cauldron’s hot winds. “You had best do so,” he said. “For you will not come back this way again.”

With that, the surface of the lava began to roil, and the iron bridge emerged, glowing golden-hot, then cooling to red, then pitted black. It was broader than the last time, wide enough for twenty men to cross side by side: a span an army could cross. It stretched razor-straight across the Cauldron, vanishing into haze and shadow.

“The fire minions will be waiting for you,” Hith said.

“I have my army. They must let me pass.”

“They must do nothing,” Hith replied. “Nothing compels them. They might not have let you pass before because of the prophecy, but your living statues may not convince them.”

Maladar shrugged. “The Kheten Voi will be… persuasive… to anyone who tries to stop me.”

“Good,” Hith said. “Because the fire minions will. And they will not be the last. Some will hunt you, once you come into your power—including a few you already know well.”

An image flashed through Maladar’s mind then: a ship of steel, plying the Cauldron’s fiery surface. Figures stood on the deck, a few of whom he recognized: the damned elf, the Uigan… and a third who shone in his memory like the three moons, one he’d known better than any other: the Taker, the vessel, his rightful flesh.

And like that, the image was gone again.

My son, wept Forlo inside him. What happened to his mother? Where is my Starlight?

Maladar ignored him. “They survived. They escaped from Suluk alive,” he murmured.

“So they did,” Hith replied. “And now they follow you.”

“Let them. That ragged band will not stop me from raising the Chaldar again. They will be lucky to find me at all.”

“Yet find you they will,” Hith declared. “And your fate walks among them.”

“The Taker,” Maladar said.

“The Taker. He must be beaten, or it will be the death of you. He has a piece of you, remember?”

Memories came in a rush. Maladar saw the boy’s body, the vessels of his throat laid open by the Master’s knife. He saw his ghostly hand reach out, enter the dead flesh, take hold of the heart hidden within. The heart started beating again. The ghastly wound closed. The boy’s eyelids flickered, then opened.

All at once he was looking through two different pairs of eyes. He was still the ghost, bound to the Hooded One, but he was the boy as well, looking right back. The sensation was disorienting, like leaning over a bottomless chasm. He shook his head and exhaled, coming back to himself.

“Enough,” he said. “No more warnings. No more waiting. I have an ocean to cross.”

“So be it,” Hith replied. “But this is the last time I will aid you before they come, Maladar. After the bridge, you will get no more help from me.”

“After the bridge, I won’t need it.”

The god inclined his head. Then with a rustle of cloth—and without another word—he drew into himself until he vanished altogether. Maladar stood alone again, except for the Voi.

He glanced behind him, admiring the statues. They stared back, their eyes sparkling in the night. Facing forward, he set his gaze on the distance, the smoke and heat shimmer that hid his objective. The Chaldar waited.

“Follow,” he said and started toward the bridge. The Kheten Voi obeyed.

Chapter 21

Mirrorthorn Passage, Rainward Isles

They followed the tracks for two days, moving south across the foothills as quickly as they could. It was hard going, full of rocky drops and bramble-choked canyons, and though they had Shedara and Roshambur’s magic to aid them, the magic didn’t last. After the first few hours each morning, the climbing spells ran out and they had to make do with pursuing Forlo and his unseen army on foot.

The trail never diverted. It ran arrow-straight over the edges of stony cliffs and through the midst of iron-hard briars whose thorns could have ripped a dragon to shreds. They found not one body, though, nor a single drop of blood. Whatever had emerged from the crater of the Clovenmont, they were tougher than men or hobgoblins or even horny-skinned disir.

Yet no one spoke of those things, or even made note of how strange the tracks were. They were man-sized, or a little larger, with an even stride that never wavered, but they ran deeper than a man’s should have. Hult saw that right away: whatever followed Forlo, they were very heavy. His thoughts turned to ogres and trolls, but that wasn’t right; an ogre’s footprint would be huge, much bigger than those.

What, then? He pondered that well into the night as he sat watch on a boulder near the dell where the five of them made camp. When dawn bruised the sky, he had no more idea than before.

On the second day, the air began to change. It grew damp, carrying the tang of salt. The murmur of waves replaced the moan of wind through the gullies. The thorn bushes gave way to reeds and moss and spruce trees. Finally they reached the top of a rise and came to a beach of ash-gray dunes, scattered with tufts of hardy, brown grass. These rolled on for half a mile until they met the surface of a sea tinted the dull hue of iron beneath the leaden sky. White caps of foam dotted the water’s surface, where the wind whipped up waves that broke over sandbars and rolled gently over beds of silt to the shore.

In the distance, far across the water, rose the dark line of Aurim’s rocky coast, the black knives of mountains almost lost in the haze. Halfway across, long needles of black glass jutted at odd angles from the water, glinting in the muted daylight.

“Another leaving of the Destruction,” said Nakhil, nodding toward the dark, knife-sharp spines. “The blast melted the deserts and turned them to that. When the Rainwards broke away from shore, the glass shattered as the sea poured in. That is what remains.”

“They say you can see men inside some of those spikes,” Roshambur murmured. “Trapped forever, like ants in amber.”

“You can,” Shedara said. “There are lands like this in the west as well. I’ve been there. I expect your sailors give this place a wide berth.”

“Yes,” Nakhil agreed. “For every spike you see, ten more lie hidden beneath the waves. And it only takes one to slit open a galley’s hull, stem to stern. The seafloor is covered with bits of ships that sailed too close.”

“There’s something else,” Azar said. “There, in the silt.”

Hult looked, squinting to see what the boy had spotted. He’d had a hawk’s sight among his people, but he had to strain to make anything out from so far away. Azar’s eyes were that sharp. Even then, all he could discern were a few shapes, like large rocks mired in the ooze.

For Shedara’s elf eyes, however, there was no trouble at all. She caught her breath. “Towers of Silvanost,” she breathed. “That’s… that’s them, isn’t it? The army.”

“I see nothing,” Nakhil grumbled. “Describe it for a blind old horse-man.”

“They’re men,” Azar replied. “Men of stone.”

“Magical constructs,” Shedara added. “My people called them nala’ini. Among the men of the League, they’re known as Gulmat.”

“Ghelim in our lands,” Roshambur put in. “Some of the kings use them for palace guards. Leftovers of the old empire—the secrets have been lost since the world broke.”

“They’re still moving,” Hult said, forcing himself to make out details. “Stuck in the mud, but they’re trying to drag themselves out.”

Shedara nodded. “And they’ll keep on trying until they do it or until something destroys them. They can’t starve or drown when the tide comes back in.”

They stood silent, watching the stone men thrash in the surf. There were about twenty of them in all: casualties of a march that must have taken the rest across the sea. Hult thought of an army of such living statues, slogging across the ocean floor until they emerged on the far side, and shuddered.

“So that’s Maladar’s army,” Nakhil said. “Ghelim to obey his commands. They’d probably been waiting beneath the Clovenmont since he ruled Aurim.”

“They were,” Shedara said, her voice very soft. “I had a vision of a cave, when I first learned about Maladar. The Hooded One was there, along with… those. At the time, I thought they were just burial gifts—an army to accompany him to the afterlife, the way the old emperors liked to do. I never thought they might be nala’ini.”

“How many of them?” Roshambur asked.

Shedara shrugged. “Thousands.”

“Jijin’s beard,” Hult swore.

They watched the Ghelim struggle some more. They had been stuck in the silt for many hours—perhaps days—but they didn’t tire. They just kept fighting, trying to pull free, sinking deeper as time passed but never making a sound. The muck was merciless, refusing to let them go.

“Can they be killed?” Hult asked.

“They’re not alive to begin with,” Roshambur said. “But they can be destroyed, the enchantment in the stone unbound. A spell could do it—lightning in particular. And you can even bring them down with force of arms… though a sword’s not going to be much help unless it has a lot of magic bound into the blade. Better to use a good, sturdy war hammer.”

“Which we don’t have,” Nakhil noted.

“Best get some, then,” Shedara muttered. “Next chance we have.”

“What happens now?” Azar asked. “My father’s gone. How do we go after him?”

Hult nodded, looking at Nakhil. He’d been wondering the same thing.

“We don’t,” the centaur answered. “Not directly, anyway. If his army marched across the strait, he’ll be at the edge of the Cauldron by now. Maybe farther. Whatever, he’s beyond our reach… unless we get help crossing the Burning Sea.”

“The minoi,” Shedara said, pointing. “The Pillars of Bilo aren’t far from those mountains there, if I remember correctly. The gnomes who live beneath them have iron ships that can sail through the fire.”

“So the legends say, anyway,” Roshambur replied. “If they aren’t at war with the minions of flame, we may be able to discuss the situation with them. All we’d need is a boat.”

“Two boats, actually,” Nakhil said. “The Shining Lands lie between the far shore and the minoi. A hundred leagues of melted desert that wasn’t smashed and drowned. We’ll need the help of the Glass Sailors to cross it.”

Hult shook his head. “Three boats,” he said. “We haven’t even crossed the water yet. Unless you can use one of those sending spells on us, of course.”

Shedara and Roshambur exchanged quick head shakes, then turned to Azar. The boy flushed, his face darkening into a scowl. “I can’t do it,” he said. “I can’t choose what to cast. The magic just comes to me when I need it.”

“Convenient,” Nakhil grumbled. “Does anyone have another idea?”

“Yes,” Shedara said. “We walk.”

Hult stiffened, staring at her. “Like the Ghelim? We’ll drown. Unless you have a spell to let us breathe water,” he said, chuckling.

Shedara gave him a look and his laughter died. “I do know that spell,” she answered. “As does Roshambur, I’m sure.”

The dwarf nodded, then made a face. “It won’t last long enough. We’d never make the far side before the magic gave out; we’d be about halfway across.”

“With nothing but water all around us,” Nakhil muttered. “How lovely.”

“You’re forgetting something, Roshambur,” Shedara said. “We don’t have to go under water. We don’t even have to get wet, for that matter.”

“What do you mean?” Hult scoffed. He trailed off, his mouth opening then closing as he glanced at Roshambur. A crooked grin had split the dwarf’s beard.

“Oh,” Hult said.

The mud stank of rot and death, clinging in Hult’s nostrils, making his gorge rise. It sucked at his boots, tried to pull them off, to drag him under. Not far away, one of the Ghelim continued its fruitless struggles, mired waist-deep in the slime. As he watched, it sank an inch deeper, then another. In a day or so, it would be gone. Perhaps some had already vanished into the muck, trapped and squirming, never to emerge again unless someone dug them out.

He shuddered, putting it out of his mind, and turned to watch the wizards.

Shedara and Roshambur stood apart from the others, heads bent close to each other, talking in whispers. The sun westered above, Solis already having risen on the far horizon, not quite full. Magic surged strong in the air, and Hult was surprised that he could feel it. Being so close to the elf for so long had attuned him to the moons’ power. That alone would have been enough to get him exiled from his tribe in his old life, doomed to wander homeless upon the steppes.

The two sorcerers broke away from each other and slogged back to him and Nakhil and Azar. “Are you ready?” the centaur asked, his tail twitching in annoyance. “This place reeks like a cesspit.”

“Oh?” Roshambur asked, his face sour. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Shedara grinned, and Nakhil laughed as well. “We can do this,” the elf said. “Between the two of us, we’ll hold the spell long enough to walk across. It will take half a day’s march, if the seas stay calm, so we’ll need to do it in shifts so we don’t tire.”

“And if the seas don’t stay calm?” Hult asked.

Everyone was quiet.

“Pray they do,” Roshambur said.

Nakhil coughed. A short distance away, the Ghelim sank deeper.

“There’s no other way,” Azar said. “No turning back. Suluk is too far. We don’t have the time to spare if we’re going to find my father.”

“I will pray to Jijin that the weather holds,” Hult murmured. His voice was taut, his heart slamming against his ribs. That was how his people had died: at the mercy of the sea, the merciless sea. “You should all do the same.”

“Better to pray to Zai,” Nakhil said. “The sea-bitch may not have any love for us land-dwellers, but she can be appeased. I wish we had a cow to slaughter in her name.”

“I’m sure she appreciates the sentiment,” Shedara said, her mouth crooking. “Now everyone hold still. This will feel a bit strange.”

And it did, as always. When she placed her hand on his forehead, chanting the scuttling words and wriggling her fingers, Hult felt the familiar prickle of the moons’ power flow into him. He tensed, tasting something like golden wine, just for an instant, then an unspeakably sour flavor that faded just as fast. For a moment he felt as though he had no weight at all, as if he were suspended in midair and might float away if he pushed too hard off the ground. Looking down, he saw he was rising, his feet pulling out of the clinging mud, water seeping in to fill the holes where they’d been. When Shedara was done, he stood on top of the sludge as though it were a solid floor. He raised his eyebrows, stomping his feet. They didn’t even make a splash. The mire of ebb tide might have been solid granite.

Shedara was a little paler, a little weaker when she was finished, but they all stood on top of the mud. Nakhil smiled, pawing the ground with his forelegs, then dug the butt of his halberd into the mud. It sank in, and he had to yank it back quickly to keep from losing it altogether.

“Not bad,” he said. “Let’s see how the water is.”

Like that, before anyone could stop him, he broke into a half, then a full, gallop. He left no tracks in the mud as he ran across it, swerving around a Ghelim whose head and left arm were all that remained above the muck. He didn’t even break pace when he got to the shoreline but instead pushed himself even faster, leaping forward and landing on the breaking waves.

He should have gone down, straight to the bottom. Everything Hult knew, everything sane about the world, told him that much. But Nakhil lit upon the water without so much as a drop of spray. His laughter carried back to them, and he shook his halberd in the air as he charged out in a wide arc, curving back to shore. By the time he got there, Hult and the others had moved out to the water’s edge, and he came to a halt upon the surface, ripples eddying out from his hooves. Little fish darted beneath him, unconcerned. Hult made a face at the sight. That wasn’t right, not at all.

“Well,” Nakhil said, “shall we start walking?”

They did, though it took every ounce of Hult’s will to take that first step… and the second… and the third. For the whole first hour, in fact, he couldn’t raise his eyes to look at the others; he kept his attention fixed on the water beneath his feet and the shapes of the sea creatures that went about their lives beneath him, oblivious. Even a huge gray shark, running deep after a school of darting green fish, didn’t pay them any mind.

Jijin, Hult prayed, I will kill a hundred goats in your name. Just get me across this water alive.

So they went, eyes on the far shore, leaving the foundering Ghelim well behind. The ocean grew deep, the bottom fading from sight as soon as they got past the sandbar. Birds wheeled above, squalling at them as if wondering what they were doing there, occasionally dropping from the sky to plunge into the water—the very same water that bore Hult and the others up—and lunge free again, little silver minnows wriggling in their beaks. In time they left even the birds behind, and the Rainwards dropped away into the twilight, vanishing from sight.

The halfway mark came and went. The far shore became the near shore. Roshambur took over the spell, murmuring an incantation to draw control away from Shedara. She stumbled to her knees when the power left her, the water’s surface bowing beneath her weight. Hult and Azar were at her sides at once, each taking an arm and raising her up. She leaned on them, breathing hard, as they walked on.

Dawn came. They bent their course westward, into the heart of the glasslands. The coast was jagged and sparkling, riddled with cracks. Huge knives of obsidian loomed above them, too sharp to give purchase for the seabirds. The waves smashed against them, shredding into spray. As they drew near, Hult saw a great shelf of glass that had collapsed, sagging without breaking down to the water. He pointed, shouting to make himself heard above the surf.

“Is that a way up?” he asked, leaning close to Shedara.

She followed the gesture, then shrugged. “How should I know?” she replied. “I’ve never been here before. None of us have!”

Azar stared at it, brow furrowed. “It will serve,” he said. “We’d best get onto land soon. If we’re caught out here when the storm breaks, we won’t stand a chance.”

Hult frowned. Storm? he wondered. What—?

A great, roaring peal of thunder smote the air. They all looked up. Huge, anvil-shaped clouds, streaked with green fire, towered above them. They moved like an avalanche, pouring across the sky, devouring the morning light. There was no way the storm was natural, as they all realized instantly. None needed speak Maladar’s name.

“Mother of the gods,” Nakhil swore. “Move! Now!”

They ran, pelting toward the glass shelf as fast as they could while the wind whipped the water into frothing peaks. Rain began to fall, first in spattering drops, then in sheets. Lightning flared, striking a nearby spire and blowing it to flashing splinters. Hult felt one of them cut a furrow in the back of his leg, and he heard the others yell as well. One scream cut through the rest.

“Roshambur!” Nakhil cried.

The spell began to buckle as Hult turned to see the dwarf go down. There was a great sliver of glass, two feet long, lodged between his shoulders. He fell face-first onto the water’s surface, blood pouring from his mouth. Nakhil pulled to a halt, then twisted and charged to the wizard’s side. Leaning down, he caught Roshambur by the collar of his robes and scooped him up onto his back. Then he charged again, galloping toward shore. Water sprayed from his flying hooves.

“We’re sinking!” Azar cried. “The magic’s giving way!”

Hult swallowed, looking down. His feet dipped into the water as he ran now, about an inch… then two. He shook Shedara, feeling panic rise in him. “Hai!” he yelled. “You’ve got to take the spell back!”

“I don’t have the strength!” she answered. “I’m spent, Hult!”

He looked down. He looked at the shelf. He was three inches into the water… then four, deeper with every step. His grip on Shedara’s arm grew iron hard. They weren’t going to make it.

“Try,” he rasped. “Or we’re dead.”

Chapter 22

Glasstrand, the Shining Lands

Her blood felt like fire, like lead. Her eyes burned. Every breath was an effort. And yet, there was Hult, shaking her, yelling something about having to take back the spell. Take it back, when she lacked the strength even to cast the simplest of cantrips. The moon power surged around her like the rapids of a great and rushing river, a river that, if she set foot in it again, could easily pull her under and drown her.

Drown her. Drown.

Shedara looked down. She was sinking, up to her shins in the sea now, the wicked edges of the glass shards jutting beneath its surface. Her feet were only inches above one fragment’s point, sharper than any spear. If she slid down much farther, it would pierce her. She would slide down its length, awash in pain as the waters closed over her head.

Astar, Hult was right. She needed to take the spell back.

Shedara didn’t know what had happened to Roshambur, only that the dwarf no longer had a firm grip on the magic, the weft of which was fraying with each breath. She could see the glowing threads, waving around her. It was a miracle he’d held on to it that long; it ought to have been in tatters by then, pouring away into the air. Whatever had become of Roshambur, it had to be bad, but at least he wasn’t dead… not yet.

She reached out, though it hurt terribly. Spidery words tore her tongue as she spoke them. The power of Lunis and Solis poured into her, hot as boiling oil. She kept her focus on that single glass blade beneath her, watching her feet creep down toward its tip.

The threads snarled in her hands. She wove them together, her fingers working so fast they became a blur. Someone was screaming, and a distant realization told her the voice belonged to her. It felt like the moons’ power might burst forth from her nose, her mouth, her eyes, red-silver light annihilating all that she was, but it held, just at the cusp of rupturing. She wove on.

And she and her companions began to rise.

It was unbearably slow, but together they moved up through the water, only ankle-deep, their feet breaking the surface again. Thunder cracked, and lightning flashed above, a green bolt blasting another shard into molten fragments. They hissed as they splashed down into the sea. She jerked, nearly losing the spell threads, then got hold of them again and pulled taut. The water grew solid beneath her feet.

“Go!” she shouted through teeth clenched so tight, she feared they might shatter. “I can’t hold it long!”

They ran, Nakhil bearing Roshambur, who lay motionless on the centaur’s back. Hult and Azar bore Shedara up, half-carrying her as they sprinted for the fallen shelf. She felt the spell start to pull apart as she staggered along and clenched her fists about the threads as hard as she could. Her nails pierced her palms, drawing blood. Stars exploded in her eyes, crimson and white. She smelled roasting meat, and had the awful feeling it was her own flesh burning. A hot, iron taste flooded her mouth.

Hult lifted her up at the end, stumbling beneath her weight, and hurled her onto the glassy shelf. She hit it hard, the breath bursting from her with a guttural bark, and had to scrabble to keep from sliding back into the water. The spell unraveled in an instant, flaring away in scraps that faded like mist into the air.

Azar yelled something, and Hult was screaming too. She heard splashing. Shedara looked down toward the water, fighting to get her eyes to focus through the rain and weariness. Azar was sprawled on the edge of the shelf, legs splayed wide to anchor himself as he leaned out, one hand stretching as far as it could toward the Uigan. Hult, meanwhile, was two paces from shore, down in the water and thrashing, his eyes wide with panic as he tried to keep his head up. The water was pink, darkening to red: below the surface, the shards were slicing him to pieces.

“No!” Shedara shouted, heaving herself up.

The glass was smooth, made slick by surf and rain, and she immediately slid toward the water, fumbling to stop herself before she could plunge in. She ended up lying headfirst, just at the edge, staring down into the deep, where needles of death jutted every which way. Hult’s legs were impaled on several of those, and he was sinking farther down them the more he struggled. Waves crested over his head, and he came up sputtering, choking. Then he sank again and didn’t come up at all.

“Grab my legs!” Azar said and threw himself forward.

Shedara obeyed, though in her haze she didn’t really understand the words. She threw her arms around Azar’s knees as he lunged, holding on as tight as she could. He splashed into the water, a sword of glass missing his face by a hand’s breadth, and caught hold of Hult’s wrists.

“Pull!” he yelled, then coughed as a wave slapped him in the mouth. “Get us up!”

Shedara tried. She pulled with all her might, even as tired as she was. But Hult wouldn’t budge, and she knew why. The spikes had him anchored, held him fast. It would take more might than she could muster to pull him loose or break them off.

And she was starting to slide again.

“Nakhil!” she screamed, watching the thicket of glass beneath the water creep closer. She shut her eyes. “Help us! For all the gods’ love!”

She heard the centaur coming, his metal shoes ringing against the glass, then scraping as he came to a halt. She heard him grunt as his hands wrapped around her ankles, and again as he pulled with all his might. Hult howled with agony, then gurgled and fell silent. Azar made no sound at all. Shedara sobbed, broken. Somewhere, she heard glass break.

Then, like someone snuffing out a candle, it all went dark.

Images came to her through clouds of fog, coalescing out of the blackness and vanishing again like smoke. She knew she was on the edge of death. She felt cold, felt the void clawing at her. It was exhilarating, in a way. Each new thing she saw could be the last thing her eyes ever beheld in this world:

… great black ships gliding toward her—three of them, running over fields of glass on great metal blades. The air shrieked as shards of glass blew up from those scimitar runners…

… figures approaching, bound head to foot in cloth and leather, their faces covered by masks of white bone, painted red and green and black… hooked spears held at the ready, chattering in a language full of pops and clicks…

… the sea sliding away beneath her as someone carried her away from it… blood on the glass, great dark clots of it…

… the sky racing by above, dark and storm-torn… glassy pinnacles scudding past to either side… voices shouting, and rigging creaking as a sail billowed and bellied above her…

… Roshambur lying still upon a stone table on the far side of a dim room that stank of incense… a long shard of glass lodged in his chest, covered in blood… his face pale, his breast still… weeping, Nakhil covering him with a leather blanket…

… Hult and Azar, battered and bloody, looking down on her with stricken faces… Hult leaning on a crutch, Azar with fresh scars on both cheeks and his forehead… glancing at one another, then over their shoulders and nodding…

… a cloth-wrapped figure gazing at her, wearing a headdress of white, bone barbs arrayed around its mask like a peacock’s feathers… silently the figure raising its hands, slender and fine-boned—either a woman’s fingers or an elf’s—chanting in a voice made hollow and strange by the mask, more of a rasping howl than a song… somewhere beyond Shedara’s sight, someone rapping on a drum, a complicated pattern of five beats, then four, then three, over and over… the delicate fingers spreading over her, trailing the faintest strands of blue light…

Warmth suffused her, and it all flowed away.

She awoke from a dreamless sleep, what seemed like a hundred years later, to the sight of Hult looking down at her. His hand was on her head, stroking her hair, and for a moment he looked like he might pull it back, but she reached up and placed her own fingers over his.

“It’s all right. I like it,” she said, her voice dry and scratchy. “I’m thirsty.”

He held a flask to her lips. She took a careful sip: water. She’d never tasted anything so sweet, and shut her eyes as it slid down her throat.

“Roshambur,” she croaked.

The Uigan shook his head, his lips pressed tightly together.

She sighed.

“We burned his body three days ago,” Hult said. “The tchakkir tried to save him, but he was too far gone. The glass cut one of the veins near his heart. There was nothing anyone could do.”

Yet he had held on to the spell, Shedara marveled, held on to it though he must have known he was dying. Would I have done such a thing?

She thought on that a moment, then decided yes. For her friends, she would.

“Nakhil’s still grieving,” Hult went on. “I think Roshambur was the last thing he had left to tie him to his… to his home.”

He looked away, blinking, thinking, no doubt, of his own beloved steppes and all he’d left behind. Shedara remembered Quivris, her brother, still alive but no longer a friend, and knew in that moment that Armach was lost to her as well.

And Azar had never had a home.

All of us, outcasts, she thought. If we die out here, who will mourn us? Essana, perhaps, but no one else. We are alone.

Something occurred to her. “Three days ago?” she asked. “How many was I out?”

“Four,” Hult said. “You nearly died, Shedara. You hurt yourself very badly, using your magic like that. The tchakkir said you burned your insides. It would have killed you, if not for her.”

“I… see,” she said, feeling suddenly queasy. “And this tchakkir is the woman I saw? The one with the spikes on her head? She’s a Mislaxan?”

Hult nodded. “She prayed over you for a whole day. It took all her power to mend you.”

“And now? Is it safe for me to get out of this”—she glanced left and right to see what she was lying on—“hammock?”

“The tchakkir said it is, but you will be weak for another day or so. Have some more water first, so you don’t faint.”

Shedara took another sip, running it around her mouth to wash out the stale, sour taste that four days of unconsciousness had left, then tried to push herself up. The hammock lurched, making it difficult to get purchase, but Hult helped her, taking her hand and bracing her so she could get her feet on the floor. She rose, blood rushing to her head so fast that she thought she was going to black out again, and fought through the dizziness to stay standing. Her knees wobbled, and she trembled as she looked around.

She was in the cabin of a ship whose walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of the same dark wood. A few lanterns, dull red flames behind volcanic glass, shed a dim glow, just enough to see by. Bundles of dried grasses and medallions of some sort of beetle shell hung from the rafters, and strange, white runes were painted on the door.

The ship was moving, judging by the faint vibration under her feet, but it felt strange. There was no rocking, no motion of waves, but rather the occasional small, stuttering jump. And though the timbers creaked, there was no noise of water from outside; only a shrill keening, like a knife scraping fine porcelain. She blinked, her mind going back to her fever dreams.

“This is a glass ship,” she said. “We’re with the Sailors.”

The Uigan nodded, turning toward the door. For the first time she noticed that he was still leaning on a crutch. Looking down, she saw his left leg was bandaged from foot to knee.

“You’re hurt too,” she said. “The shards under the water?”

“Yes,” he said, turning pale. The memory could not be pleasant, particularly for a man who had long feared the sea. “I nearly lost my foot. I’ll probably always have a limp now.”

Shedara felt a pang at the edge of bitterness that crept into Hult’s voice. His hand was already mutilated, now this; here he was, not yet twenty and twice maimed. He had every right to resentment.

She took a deep breath and let it out. It hurt, but there was a relief to it as well. In her training she’d heard many tales of mages who used too much magic at once. Most of those who lived ended up invalids, bedridden, their lungs always straining for air. Whatever the sailors’ healer had done, it had saved her from that fate.

“I think I’d like to go up on deck,” she said. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

Hult shook his head, putting his arm around her waist. He stumbled, losing his grip on his crutch and nearly taking them both down.

“Look at us,” he said. “Mighty heroes, off to save the world.”

They laughed together, then headed to the door.

On deck, the world was filled with light. The ship—it was what the sailors called a Xogat, about the size of a small warship, with a crew of perhaps twenty—glided across a vast flatland of glass that reflected the sunlight from above. It sparkled in Shedara’s eyes, dazzling her. That was the Shining Plain, the remains of what once had been Aurim’s deserts. It ran for mile upon mile, smooth and sheer, marred only by the occasional ripple where the glass had still been flowing when it cooled. Dark mountains rose far to the south, lit red from behind: the Cauldron, where Forlo must be. On the northern horizon were towering, jagged hunks of glass, the edge of that strangest of seas.

The glass ships—there were three of them, two Xogatai and a smaller, more agile skiff called a Churqa, all running west with full sails—had no keels on their hulls, but steel runners instead, one at the prow and two extending to either side of the stern, pivoting whichever way the helmsman pointed the tiller. Those were what made the shrieking sound, flinging bits of glass up in billowing showers as they went. The sailors all wore masks to keep those motes out of their faces, and Hult donned one as well. He handed another to Shedara, who slipped it over her head. It was confining, unpleasant, like a burial shroud, but it was better than two eyes full of glass.

The sailors worked in silence, drowned out by the runners’ scream, communicating with hand gestures rather than words. There was no way to tell with the masks, but she got the feeling they were watching her as she and Hult made their way to the stern, where Nakhil and Azar stood with the tchakkir. Probably none of them had ever seen an elf before, and like most nomads, they feared her a little.

The tchakkir was the first to approach her, holding out a hand to touch her shoulder. She wore black robes, edged with night-blue, over her wrappings. There were red tears painted on her mask, leaking from the corners of the eye holes. She looked hard at Shedara, and the air between them quivered. Mislaxa’s power hung thick in the air; then it faded again, and Shedara felt invigorated.

“You are well,” said the tchakkir in the tongue of the League, her accent so thick that even those small words were hard to understand. “You should take more rest, but now be with your friends.”

With that, the healer departed, her robes fluttering as she strode toward the ship’s bow. Shedara watched her go then turned to face the others.

“It’s good to see you awake,” Nakhil said, but there was pain in his voice, making it tight and brittle. In his hands was a vessel of translucent glass; inside it, she could just make out a fine powder: Roshambur’s ashes. “More than once, we feared we might lose you.”

“Yes,” she said. She nodded at the glass urn. “I’m sorry. He was my friend, and I’m sure he was more to you.”

The centaur nodded, his face inscrutable behind his mask. But his shoulders shook, just a little.

“He told me, before we left on this journey,” Nakhil said, “he hoped I would be proven wrong about Suluk. He wanted it to rise again. Now it will never happen. I will not go back, whatever happens… and neither will he.”

With that, he removed the lid of the urn and upended it. The ashes spilled out, caught on the wind, and wafted away, rising high above the Shining Plains. Shedara watched them go, thinking of Thalaniya and Eldako and all those she had known who had died because of Maladar. She thought of Forlo too, then glanced at the others. Hult and Azar and the grieving centaur—in her heart, she knew Roshambur would not be the last of them to die.

She sighed, watching the dwarf’s ashes drift away.

Chapter 23

Hith’s Cauldron

He knew they were there before he saw them, but refused to slow his pace. He simply kept walking, eyes forward, staring at the smoky horizon beneath the red-glowing sky. The heat washed over him in waves, baking his skin, singeing his hair. His throat was parched, a desert. He didn’t notice, didn’t care. Let Forlo’s body and soul bear the suffering; for Maladar, there was only the road ahead, the iron bridge stretching off into the distance.

The fire minions swarmed around him, their green eyes appearing and vanishing again among the flames. The lava sea roiled beneath the creatures, islands of black crust dissolving in the heat. Their voices hissed and crackled, wary. That was a change; unlike the last time, they seemed hesitant, almost afraid. For this time he was not alone: the Kheten Voi walked behind him, the bridge ringing beneath the tramp of their stone feet. They stretched for miles, their strength undeniable. If they took notice of the flaming creatures skulking above the Burning Sea, they gave no sign.

Cautious or not, however, the minions couldn’t stay hidden forever; the forces that bound them to the Cauldron were too strong. They had to intervene, had to stop him and question him—kill him if they must—before he got close to the Burning Sea’s heart. That was their purpose, bound into them by gods and prophecy: to keep the unworthy from reaching the Chaldar. Two leagues after he first sensed their presence—and five days since he first set out across the sea—three of the minions wafted out of the flames and onto the bridge. White-hot tongues of fire, shaped like swords, flared in their hands.

Maladar halted, smiling, and waited. He could be patient; he had the upper hand. He folded his arms across his chest. Behind him the statues stood still, their eyes locked on the minions. Shapes guttered above the magma on either side: hundreds more of the creatures, hanging back, eyeing the Kheten Voi. And above, hidden by the pall in the sky and marked only by the distant whoosh of its wings, soared the flame dragon that had threatened Maladar before. Even that great creature seemed tentative, the sweeps of its great pinions a little slower, a bit less proud.

Maladar kept waiting.

Finally, the minion in the middle stepped forward. It was identical to the one he’d spoken to on his last attempted crossing, its form ever-shifting, towering above him. There was less menace in the way it approached him, though, and while its eyes were inhuman, mere licks of fire, Maladar saw doubt in their murky green depths.

“Who are you,” rumbled the minion, “who comes to this place unbidden?”

Maladar scowled. “Do not toy with me. I am not unbidden, and you know who I am. I have been here before and was turned back.”

“And yet you return?”

More doubt was hidden in the minion’s tone. The question could have been many things—mocking, threatening, angry—but it came across as nervous, nothing more.

“I do,” Maladar said. “I have done what was required. My coming was foretold, leading a great army, according to prophecy. Before, I was alone. Now I am not.”

He gestured behind him. As one, the Kheten Voi straightened, standing erect and looming taller than even the largest of the minions. The fiery creatures shrank back, eyes flicking toward one another, not sure what to do.

Maladar stepped forward. Heated by the minions’ presence, the metal bridge scorched his feet through the soles of his boots. Inside, Barreth Forlo screamed. Maladar shut out the man’s cries.

“The time has come,” he declared. “I am risen, lord of these lands long ago… and I have come back. Aurim is mine, and I shall raise its bones.”

Still the minions hesitated. Maladar took another step. They faltered.

“Yield to me,” he said. “I am the one you have awaited, these long years. It is all mine… the Chaldar, the sea, and all that lies beneath. Yield and serve me, and I will let you live.”

“What you say has the sound of truth,” said the minions’ leader, its eyes narrowing. “Yet it is hard to believe. Trickery surrounds you. We will not give way without a challenge.”

One of Maladar’s eyebrows rose. “There is no challenge here,” he said, his voice so soft, the Cauldron’s roar nearly consumed it. “I could destroy you with a word, as you know. And my army could slaughter the lot of you.”

The minion hissed a laugh. “Could they?” it asked. “With no ground to walk on? Your stone men would melt and become one with the Cauldron if—”

Sighing, Maladar flung his arms wide. A wintry wind, cold as a white dragon’s breath, rushed outward in all directions, blowing back the fire and smoke. As it passed over the sea, the lava on the surface hardened to a dark crust, shot through with veins of gold. No sooner had it done so than a hundred of the Kheten Voi sprang from the bridge onto the newly solid ground, swords and spears pointed at the minions. The fiery creatures scattered, howling in confusion and panic, leaving their three brothers alone on the bridge.

Maladar smiled and was about to speak again when a scream tore through the air overhead. He looked up at the rolling fume and saw ruddy light moving through it like slow lightning. His lips peeled back from his teeth as he watched the flame dragon emerge from the clouds, trailing a storm of smoke and cinders.

The beast was enormous, dwarfing most wyrms that lived on land. Certainly Gloomwing, the black dragon who had served him and the Faceless, would have been little more than a wyrmling beside that monster. It must have been a hundred paces from glowing snout to fire-limned tail, with wings that could have plunged entire villages into shadow. The reek of brimstone went before it, making Maladar’s eyes water as it roared overhead. The crust of stone he had summoned cracked and dissolved beneath the dragon’s heat, and he felt Forlo’s skin blister. Robbed of solid ground, the statues that had stepped off the bridge fell into the lava and disappeared, burning. They made no sound, nor did they struggle. They simply sank.

For the first time since he’d started crossing the Cauldron, doubt gnawed at Maladar. What if there was something else, something he hadn’t done? Was there more to the prophecy than the army?

The minions closed in again, eyes flashing, fiery swords at the ready. Maladar gritted his teeth and raised his hand, ready to send the Kheten Voi into battle. Far ahead—the creature had covered half a mile in the time it would have taken him to walk ten steps—the flame dragon let out a roar like a foundry, belching fire high into the sky. The inferno rose like a golden pillar, stark against the gloom. Then, as the fires died away, the wyrm wheeled around in a grand arc and came rumbling back, running low, down the length of the bridge toward him.

Flee! screamed a voice inside him, a voice that, for a change, did not belong to Barreth Forlo. It will kill you! You must flee!

He came close to obeying. But before he knew what he was doing, the words to a sending spell were on his lips, his hands poised to cast. Then he pushed aside the terror, mastering the rising fear. He reshaped his hands and spoke different words, a calming spell to counter the dragonfear. Calm settled over him, driving back the urge to escape. He stood still, his stone soldiers arrayed behind him, and watched as the dragon rushed closer.

It will stop, he told himself. It will not attack. You are the one that was foretold.

He raised his head, staring straight into the smoldering white pits of the wyrm’s eyes. The fear clawed at the edges of his mind, but his magic kept it at bay—just. He extended a finger, pointing at the dragon, a mote of violet light burning at its tip. The smell of burning metal filled the air.

“Yield!” he shouted, his voice unnaturally loud, blaring across the Cauldron. “I am your master now!”

The dragon was three hundred paces away… two… one. Suddenly it fanned its wings, spreading them wide to either side to slow it down. Great claws, each talon half the length of Maladar’s body, reached down and caught hold of the bridge, screeching against the metal. The span shook, groaning as the wyrm settled to a halt behind the three minions; then it raised its head high to glower down at him.

Maladar glared back.

Their eyes met. Neither moved for what seemed like hours. Then the dragon shut its eyes and slowly lowered its head.

“It is accomplished,” it growled, its voice so deep he felt it in his stomach. “The prophecy has come to pass. The emperor of old returns.”

The fire minions glanced back at the creature, then turned to face Maladar again. The amazement in their eyes nearly made him laugh. As one, they let go of their swords, which dissipated into soot, blown away before they could strike the ground. Then they bowed before him.

Maladar smiled. He had two armies, fire and stone.

“What is your will, Great One?” the dragon asked.

Maladar held his breath, relishing the moment, the time that had been so long in coming. Then, triumphant, he exhaled. “The Chaldar,” he said. “Take me to it now.”

A dragon. He was riding a dragon.

It was enough, briefly, to make Forlo forget his predicament. The exhilaration of it was like nothing he’d ever experienced before; among his life’s experiences, it ranked below only winning his first battle as the marshal of the Sixth and making love to Essana for the first time. Gods, tell the truth, she wasn’t there—it might have been even better than that.

Just touching the great wyrm ought to have killed him: made of living fire, encased in scales of pitted pumice, the beast should have burned him to ashes before he could climb up onto its back. That it hadn’t was Maladar’s doing, of course: a quick spell and Forlo was aware of only a faint warmth beneath him as he’d settled among the stony crags of the dragon’s back.

And, like that, the beast was up in the air—no running to gain momentum, barely even a leap from the bridge. The wyrm simply spread its wings, flinging embers in all directions, and caught the hot winds that gusted above the Burning Sea. It rose like a child’s kite, higher and higher, riding the updrafts toward the choking clouds.

“Stay below the smoke,” Maladar commanded. “I want to see where we’re going.”

The dragon glanced back, one white eye ablaze. Steam billowed from its nostrils. “Do you think I will betray you?” it rumbled.

“I think everyone will betray me. I thought otherwise of my own cupbearer, and he murdered me. Why should I trust you more than I ought to have trusted him?”

The dragon inclined its head, a simple gesture, strange coming from such a massive monster. It turned back around and dipped slightly, taking them below the murk. Beneath, the bridge stretched on toward the Cauldron’s heart; from that height, Maladar’s army of Kheten Voi seemed little more than a long column of insects, like the warrior beetles that plagued the marshes of Syldar.

The fire minions swarmed around them, above the lava on either side; from there Forlo could see that there were many more than Maladar had thought—enough to have destroyed his horde of hobgoblins without much effort. And even more were flocking to join them, from all directions, small storms of flame making their way across the sea.

The dragon banked, riding the breeze. It gave its wings one great pump, then left the statues and the minions behind, following the black line of the bridge, onward across the Cauldron.

That, more than anything, was when the euphoria took hold. He was riding a dragon! The miles flew past in heartbeats; hot wind buffeted his face. It stank up high, even worse than below—char and sulfur and burning metal—but up there, well above the earth, it felt as though nothing mattered. For a time Forlo forgot about everything—his wife, his son, even Maladar, who stayed silent and still. There was only the air rushing past him, the Cauldron far below, and the dragon’s massive wings, creaking and stretching as it rode the winds.

Soon, he felt a change in Maladar: a tightening, for want of a better word, of the soul that shared his body. It was as if the Faceless Emperor were leaning forward, almost ripping free of Forlo’s flesh in its eagerness to cover the last few leagues to its goal.

Go on, Forlo urged him. Leave me. I’ll burn and die, but at least I’ll be free of you.

Of course, Maladar did no such thing. Instead, he crowed with exultation, his gaze—and therefore Forlo’s as well—fixed on the sea far below.

It was different there than back where they’d come from, in a way that awoke a new horror inside Forlo. In what he’d seen of the Burning Sea before that moment, the magma had been cool, sluggish, crusted over in many places and barely warmer than blood-heat elsewhere. Here, however, there was a definite current, running in the same direction as the bridge, and the lava had grown hotter, now the bright orange of candle flames. Miles ahead, it turned to shining gold, then fed into a maelstrom of molten rock that had to be a league across. At the whirlpool’s eye, the magma poured down into a fathomless black hole, thundering in great, blazing showers down to the heart of Krynn… or perhaps all the way to the Abyss itself.

Khot, Forlo thought.

Maladar patted the dragon’s neck, pointing to the end of the bridge. The span stopped at the maelstrom’s edge, abruptly, without even a rail. “Take me there,” Maladar said. “I must be on solid ground to work the spell.”

The spell. To raise the Chaldar.

It came to Forlo then, in one clarion moment. He had to act, and act right then; he might never get another chance. While Maladar’s attention was fixed on the maelstrom, the place where his palace had stood, the heart of Aurim-That-Was. He had to do it. Now. Now. Now.

With one great wrench, he seized control of his body. Maladar wasn’t expecting it, and his guard was down. Pushing as hard as he could, Forlo shoved the Faceless Emperor’s soul aside and willed his muscles to move. They did, but reluctantly and with a great deal of pain, shooting from one end of his body to another. Tears welling in his eyes, he heaved himself up onto his feet. The dragon twitched, glancing back, startled. Its baleful eyes met his.

Forlo jumped.

No! Maladar roared, battering Forlo’s soul as he wrested back control over his body—too late. He was already plummeting, through coils of smoke and air that shimmered with heat. The molten, amber surface of the Cauldron rushed up toward him. Desperately, Maladar began to move his hands and shout words of magic, but they both knew there wasn’t time. The lava was very close, too close for him to finish his spell before he hit it. Then it would be over.

I beat you, Forlo thought, laughing silently. You took everything from me, but in the end, I won. I beat you, you bastard, and now—

A shriek split the air, just above him, loud enough to fill his head with splitting pain. Maladar looked up—and so did Forlo—and saw the dragon’s jaws, opened just enough to show a crack of white-hot flame. Fear blossomed in his mind, then calmed again and became a dark, perverse joy.

No, Maladar thought. You didn’t.

The dragon’s jaws closed with a snap around his charred and tattered left sleeve.

The cloth tore a little but held, and the dragon pulled out of its dive and leveled out, barely thirty feet above the raging whirlpool. It whirled around in a tight arc, the tip of its right wing actually dipping into the molten stone, spraying gobbets of fire everywhere, then spread out its claws and landed on the bridge. Forlo jerked and swung, dangling from its fangs. With surprising gentleness, the dragon stretched out its neck and set him down on the iron surface.

“Do you trust me now?” it asked.

Maladar raised his eyebrows. “No.”

The wyrm chuckled again. “I will return,” it said, “when I am needed.”

With that, the dragon sprang from the bridge, leaving Maladar behind. It arrowed almost straight up and vanished into the clouds.

Forlo stood alone, at the end of the bridge, staring into the whirlpool. He felt Maladar’s attention turn inward, on him. The Faceless Emperor’s wrath was like a distant thunderstorm, boiling closer every moment. He looked for somewhere to run, somewhere to hide, but there was nowhere.

I should destroy you now, Maladar thought.

You can’t, Forlo replied. You need me.

Maladar was silent a moment, seething. True. But what you have done cannot go unpunished.

His hands rose to hang, trembling, in front of his face. Forlo stared at them, a sick feeling settling in his gut.

Do you see these? Maladar asked.

Yes, Forlo answered. And you need them as much as I do. For your spells. To raise your precious Chaldar.

So I do. But there is something you should know, Barreth Forlo.

Forlo’s soul clenched. What is that?

And, as Forlo had already guessed he would, Maladar dropped to his knees and thrust his left hand into the magma.

The heat tore through Maladar’s protective spells like a sword through wet parchment. Forlo smelled burning meat and knew it was his own flesh, charring, melting, peeling, then burning away completely, bones and all. It took only a moment. When Maladar rose again and held his arm up before his eyes, there was nothing left at its end but a charred, smoldering stump.

Then the pain hit… and the nausea, the urge to vomit, but he had no muscles to do it with. Forlo howled, lost in suffering.

I can raise the Chaldar with one hand, Maladar thought, just as easily as two.

Chapter 24

The Shining Lands

By the fifth day, Hult almost didn’t notice the shrieking.

The sound of the boats’ runners gliding along the undulating glass plains was incessant, loud, and piercing. It was the sound of madness, grabbing hold of his spine and shaking it violently. For the first few hours after the Glass Sailors rescued them, he’d truly wondered if the noise would addle his wits for good. How did the sailors endure it without going screaming mad themselves?

A strange thing happened around the second day, however: he began not to hear it. It didn’t happen for long, for there was always something to remind him—a change in pitch as the Xogatai tacked or a sharp squeal as they jounced over a ridge—but for stretches, it was as if the noise didn’t happen at all. As time passed, those stretches grew longer. Then, one evening, as he stood at the boat’s bow with the hot wind buffeting his masked face, he realized he hadn’t heard it all day.

One could get used to anything, it seemed.

He was nurturing that thought when he felt a presence beside him. He turned and saw Shedara—or, rather, her body, for her face was also hidden behind a mask of bone. She stood with one hand on her sword, her cloth wrappings fluttering. She looked in better health than before, but he could still see signs of the toll the magic had taken on her: a stoop in her shoulders, the slightest tremor in her free hand as she brought it up to rest on the gunwale. He had to fight the urge to put his arm around her.

“Nakhil’s mood is worse,” she said after a while. “I think what happened to Suluk hadn’t sunk in until Roshambur died.”

Hult nodded. “Losing your people can be a difficult thing.”

“It can.”

They were silent for a time. He tried to think of things to say that weren’t you should be resting or can we trust Azar or I need you. Even garbed as a Glass Sailor, without any skin showing beneath robes and mask, she enticed him. He’d lain awake through half of the previous night, staring at her hammock, dangling beside his. It was seeing her hurt, maybe dying, that had done it, awakened some part of him that he hadn’t known was there. It was more than just the memory of an awkward, stolen kiss in the chasms of Aurim; there was something deeper at work. Visions of Eldako, lying forever beneath his cairn on the other end of Taladas, flashed through his head. His friend had loved Shedara; what would he think of Hult doing the same?

For that matter, what would she?

“How much longer, do you think?” Shedara asked. She was staring at the red-glowing clouds that hung over the Cauldron.

Hult shrugged. “Depends on the winds. If they hold, we’ll reach the serai by sunset. If they don’t…” He spread his hands.

“And then two more days from there to Bilo,” she said. “If the gnomes are at the serai to begin with.”

“They will be. The sailors say there are always gnomes at the serai.”

Shedara was silent. He wondered what face she was making behind the mask.

“We’ll get there,” she murmured. “By wind or by spell, if it comes to it.”

“By spell?” Hult asked. “Are you sure you should be using magic again so soon?”

It was the wrong thing to say, and he regretted it instantly. He watched her stiffen, saw the hand that had been trembling a moment ago tighten around the rail. “I think I know if I can use magic,” she snapped. “I know better than you.”

Hult flinched. Her tone hurt like a whiplash; there was so much arrogance in it, so much pride. He looked away, across the glassy plain. Sunlight glinted off its ripples, blindingly bright. To the south, the mountains loomed close, black and forbidding.

After a while, he felt her shift, moving closer to him. Her hand rose, hesitated, then rested on his arm.

“I’m sorry. I’m still not myself.” She sighed, looking away. “Also, the noise these boats make is driving me out of my mind.”

Hult chuckled. “You may not believe me, but you get used—”

A sudden shout from behind them cut him off. Hult snapped around, his talga half drawn from its scabbard before he even saw what was happening. He expected to see something terrible attacking the ship’s crew—all sorts of awful things were said to dwell in the Shining Lands, according to legend—but no giant black beetles dropped from the sky, no translucent worms burst up through the glassy ground. Instead, they saw a small knot of sailors, halfway down the deck—and Nakhil, standing among them, waving his arms.

“Get over here!” the centaur shouted. “It’s Azar!”

They ran, Hult outpacing Shedara. The sailors parted to let him through, silent behind their masks. Nakhil pointed at the deck, and Hult saw.

Azar lay on his back, his mask torn off, his face twisted into a rictus of pain. He was bent at the waist, legs tensed, his right hand clutching his left, which had curled into a claw and was twitching wildly. Hult wasn’t sure, but for a moment he thought he smelled burning flesh.

He knelt down beside the boy, Shedara beside him. “Get the healer!” she shouted. “Go!”

Nakhil and several sailors ran, shouting for the tchakkir. While they did, Hult bent over Azar and waved his hand in front of the boy’s eyes. They were vacant, staring at nothing. Blood darkened his lips. Hult tore a strip off his robe and forced the cloth between the boy’s teeth.

“It’s all right,” he said. “He just bit his tongue. One of the elders in my tribe used to have fits like this. He’ll be all right, once—”

“Mother of Hith!” Shedara swore. “His hand! Look at his hand!”

Hult looked, his eyes widening. Shedara had taken off Azar’s left glove; the flesh beneath was red and swollen, huge blisters rising as he watched. The smell was even thicker than before, sickening him. The Glass Sailors drew back, clapping their hands to ward against evil.

“Did that ever happen to your elder?” Shedara asked.

Hult shook his head, then looked around for a fire, a hot piece of metal—anything that could have burned Azar like that. There was nothing, though, and the glove wasn’t even scorched. What in the Abyss was going on?

Just then, Nakhil returned, the tchakkir following right behind. “Back to your jobs,” the healer told the other sailors in their clicking language. “There is nothing for you to do here but gawk and get in the way.”

They did as she bade, returning to the halyards and climbing back up the rigging. The boat leaped over a rise in the glass, was momentarily airborne, then came down again with a squeal. Hult grunted, feeling the impact run through his body. The tchakkir, however, didn’t seem to notice; instead, she touched Azar’s forehead, then his throat, then his injured hand. He howled.

“Has this happened before?” she asked.

Hult shook his head.

“What’s wrong with him?” Nakhil asked. “Some sort of curse?”

“I do not know,” the tchakkir replied. “We should get him below, where he can be comfortable. He is in no mortal danger right now.”

Together, Hult and Shedara lifted Azar and carried him to the ladder leading below. They left Nakhil up on deck; there was no way for him to climb down. They brought Azar to one of the hammocks. The tchakkir disappeared a moment, then came back with a wet rag, which she wrapped around Azar’s swollen hand. She laid her hand on his forehead again and murmured a word. At once his eyes drooped closed, and the lines of pain in his face began to smooth.

“He will sleep,” she said. “The fit will pass. I can heal his hand, as well, once it stops getting worse.”

“But why is he burned?” Hult asked. “What did that to him?”

The tchakkir looked down at Azar, and though he had yet to see her face, Hult could imagine the scowl of frustration there. The Mislaxans who roamed among the Uigan sometimes looked like that when encountering a sickness they’d never seen before.

“I know,” Shedara said.

Hult stared at her. So did the tchakkir. Shedara pulled off her mask to reveal her grave face.

“It’s Forlo,” she said. “Something’s happened to him, and it’s happening to Azar too.”

Azar didn’t worsen any more; under the tchakkir’s care, in fact, he slowly got better. Glistening scars covered his hand, and would for the rest of his days, but it was better than losing it entirely. He slept, and they went back up on deck to tell Nakhil what had happened.

“How is that possible?” the centaur asked when Shedara told him her theory about Forlo.

She shook her head. “I’m not sure. Maybe because he’s Azar’s father and they share a bond, each of them carrying a part of Maladar.”

“Wait,” Hult said. “I thought we’d agreed Forlo was dead.”

“Maybe we were wrong.”

Hult stepped back, glancing toward the Cauldron. “You can’t know that.”

“No,” Shedara replied, “I don’t. But… well, didn’t you see Azar’s face when he was lying there? The way he looked when the tchakkir put him to sleep?”

Hult thought back, picturing the way the pain had faded from his face. And yes, just for a moment, there had been something else… almost a smile ghosting his lips. He’d never seen Azar smile like that before, but he had seen it on someone else, one who shared Azar’s features. A chill ran through him.

“That was him,” he murmured. “He… came through when Azar lost consciousness.”

“I hate to keep asking the same question,” Nakhil said. “But how?”

Shedara shrugged. “I may be a mage, but I don’t have a lot of experience with long-dead emperors possessing men who let their own sons stab them on sacrificial altars. We didn’t get much of that in Armach.”

“Jijin’s seven steeds,” Hult swore. “Essana may have been right about Forlo after all.”

Shedara looked down. Hult could almost see the pain and regret on her face: she’d been so sure their friend was dead.

“Does it make any difference?” Nakhil asked. “Even if the father’s still alive, it’s not as if we can afford to spare Maladar.”

“True,” Shedara said. She steepled her fingers, then sighed. “But it does change things. It’ll be harder for us to kill him if we know there’s a possibility that Forlo’s still in there.”

“Maybe it will be harder for him to kill us as well,” Hult said.

Shedara’s masked face turned toward him, her eyes hard. “Don’t count on it.”

For a time, the only sound was the screaming of the runners on the glass. Hult shook his head.

“There must be some way to use this knowledge,” Nakhil insisted. “Some way to turn it to our favor.”

“Let us know if you think of it,” Shedara replied, folding her arms.

The centaur looked as though he wanted to say something else, but at that moment the mood aboard the boat shifted abruptly. The sailors said nothing, but Hult could sense it nonetheless. There was a greater urgency to their movements, to the gestures with which they communicated. They were hauling on ropes, swinging the boom.

“We’re tacking,” he said.

Shedara pointed ahead. “Look over there.”

Ahead, the mountains were different: blockier, squatter, with many flat planes. As they got closer, Hult saw that the stone there was strange: rather than glass or crags, the mountains were made of reddish gray rock that rose out of the ground in straight pillars, tall and broad and weirdly similar to one another, stretching on and on toward the horizon.

“The Columns of Bilo,” said Nakhil. “Here the Cauldron cooled quickly, when it swallowed Aurim’s great inland lakes. The minoi dwell there now, and ply the currents of the Burning Sea.”

“That must be the serai,” Shedara added, nodding toward something at the columns’ base.

There was a notch in the fence the pillars made, maybe a quarter of a mile across and surrounded on three sides by stone. There, in that hollow, stood five other glass ships—three Xogatai, a Churqa, and a much larger vessel Hult didn’t know the name of—and a gathering of tents and low stone huts. It was the closest thing the sailors had to a village; they made their homes aboard their boats, but came together to trade at outposts like that, all around the Shining Lands. There, they had commerce with the gnomes of Bilo, trading artifacts they found beneath the glass for food and metal, wood and cloth. Masked guards stood at ballistae atop the lower columns, keeping watch over the way into the camp; the glass tips of their quarrels flashed golden in the afternoon light.

“I hope there are gnomes there,” Nakhil said. “If we have to travel to one of their cities alone, it will be much—Azar?”

Hult turned, surprised. Azar stood at the top of the ladder, staring south beyond the mountains. His eyes were shut, his lips moving without sound.

“What’s he doing up?” Hult whispered to Shedara.

Shedara’s head turned toward the tchakkir, who hadn’t noticed yet. “I think he’s still asleep,” she said.

“What?” Nakhil asked. “How can he—?”

Before he could finish, Azar’s arms rose, straining as if he were lifting some heavy weight. “ARISE!” he thundered, his voice deep and cold and not his own. The shout was so loud, it felt like a slap against Hult’s ears. “ARISE, MY EMPIRE! ARISE, TOWER OF FLAME!”

All was silent. The sailors stared at him, shocked. The tchakkir whirled about, as confused as the rest of them. Hult swallowed, a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knew the voice; he’d heard it before, at Akh-tazi. It was Maladar, speaking through Azar’s lips.

“ARISE!”

Hult started toward Azar, reaching for his sword, but Shedara grabbed his wrist, stopping him. “No,” she said. “It’s only an echo. He’s not casting the spell. That’s happening in there.” She nodded toward the columns, at the Cauldron beyond.

No sooner had she spoken the words than the clouds above the Burning Sea changed, suddenly contracting toward its heart, leaving long streaks behind. Something was happening beneath them, hidden by the mountains: an orange glow lit the fume, growing brighter every moment. Scarlet lightning roared from cloud to cloud, moving inward as well. The ground shook, and the Xogat rose briefly onto one runner, then slammed down again. Hult stumbled and nearly fell; so did Nakhil.

The sky exploded.

Fire blasted upward from the Cauldron’s heart: a huge pillar of it, rising high and blooming outward like some terrible blossom. The clouds tore apart, spitting lightning in all directions. Great globs of magma streaked away, smashing into the mountains, melting their peaks as they burst open. The sailors cried out in alarm, the first sound Hult had heard most of them make. The plains of glass creaked and cracked, heaving as the Burning Sea erupted.

A massive chasm opened to their right and swallowed the other Xogat as if it had never been there. Working frantically, the sailors steered away from the fissure, ducking as shards of glass the size of spearheads rained down. One of them wasn’t so lucky and fell lifeless with a glittering splinter through his neck. The boat skidded sideways as the ground lifted, the runners making a horrible grinding sound.

Then they were past the worst of it, streaking on toward the serai. The columns still stood, tall and strong. And beyond them…

Beyond…

“Blood of the ancestors,” Hult swore. Beside him, Shedara and Nakhil uttered oaths of their own.

The eruption had subsided—mostly. But something remained: a slender finger of blue and white flame, rising miles above the sea until it vanished into the black pall. Maladar’s command had not gone unheard. The Chaldar had risen anew.

Chapter 25

Bilo-serai, the Shining Lands

The camp was on edge as the Glass Sailors brought their ships in to moor alongside the others. The crew of the Xogat dropped three heavy, spiked anchors that drove deep into the glass, then pulled the ropes taut, fixing the boat in place as others brought down the sails. Shedara and Nakhil led the way down the gangplank into the serai, looking around for some sign of the gnomes of Bilo. There were people everywhere, most of them other sailors, masked and robed, staring south like strange, silent totems. The rope of white fire still soared behind the columns, pouring flames into the sky. The sailors clapped their hands at it, trying to ward off its evil.

They’re going to need something more powerful than applause, Shedara thought.

She glanced over her shoulder. Hult still stood aboard, holding up Azar. Azar had passed out again after the Chaldar appeared, and he was just coming around. There would be questions later—many, many questions—but for the moment, they left him alone.

“He is the key to all this,” Nakhil said. “However this plays out, Azar will be at the center of it. He must be protected at all costs.”

“No kidding,” Shedara replied. “Of course, it also seems incredibly stupid to be bringing the rest of Maladar’s soul straight to him, doesn’t it? But kurvakh as-shamba thenak min charkath, as they say in the League.”

Nakhil frowned at her, not understanding.

“You must risk losing the world to gain it.”

“Ah,” the centaur said. “Yes, that sounds like something minotaurs might believe. Do you see any minoi?”

Shedara shook her head. There had to be two hundred sailors in the grotto, but no one small enough to be a gnome. “I saw some tents near the back of the serai that looked the right size.”

“That makes sense,” Nakhil replied. “The minoi would stay close to the columns.”

Shedara pushed her way through the crowds. Another image flashed through her head, looking at the sailors all gaping at the Chaldar: a field of nightflowers, all turned to face the silver moon. Any urge to laugh at the notion died, however, as her gaze followed theirs to the tower of fire. Her heart sank anew. Its appearance could only mean that Maladar’s strength was growing. How much longer would it be before the vision Essana had atop Akh-tazi came true, and the ruins of Aurim began to rise from the Cauldron’s depths? Could they ever hope to stop Maladar? Wasn’t he too powerful already?

Nakhil nudged her. “Are you all right?”

She blinked, turning away from the Chaldar. “Huh?”

“I’ve been talking to you, but you were somewhere else,” Nakhil said. He glanced at the flaming tower. “There?”

Shedara nodded, and the centaur gave her a look that told her he understood everything that was in her mind. He’d probably had the same thoughts, especially since Roshambur died. The pain of the dwarf’s death was still in his eyes, an open wound.

“What were you saying?” she asked.

“Gnomes.” He pointed. “There.”

She looked, and there they were. A group of tents clustered like mushrooms in the stony nook where the two sheltering arms that surrounded the serai met. They were brightly dyed, though beneath the dark clouds that spilled north out of the Cauldron, all colors were muted. Some were green, others gold, but most were sky blue. Standing near them, also staring up at the Chaldar, was a cluster of small, cloaked figures, maybe three feet high, with long brown noses and bushy white beards sticking out of their hoods. They gabbled among themselves, waving their hands at the same time; the minoi communicated with gestures as much as with words, maybe more.

Shedara smiled, offering a quick thought of thanks to Solis, or Astar, or Reorx… whoever had made sure the gnomes would be there. It was up to her and Nakhil to win their favor… and their help.

The minoi were one of the oddest peoples in all of Taladas—born tinkerers, with minds bent toward making new things, undreamt of by man and elf and minotaur. Many of the greatest feats of engineering in the world, from the simple windmill to the fire-throwing siege engines of the Imperial League, had originally sprung from the gnomes. Others they kept to themselves, either because no one wanted them or because the minoi didn’t trust anyone else with them. Their underground cities, dug deep beneath the Bilo Columns, were said to be places of wonder, with machinery everywhere, doing every task one could imagine. Their strange devices were what allowed them to survive where others could not, right on the edge of Hith’s Cauldron.

They had even built metal boats that could ply the lava seas. Shedara wasn’t sure how that was possible, but every account of the gnomes agreed that they sailed upon the Cauldron, harvesting the strange minerals they found on its islands and warring with the pitiless creatures who lurked among the flames.

There the minoi were, staring at the Chaldar, bewildered. They alone had seen the flaming tower when it first rose four hundred years ago, in the days following the First Destruction. They had watched it fall after the Second; some said they had played a role in its collapse. At the moment they stood stunned, aghast to see that it had returned.

“Greetings,” said Nakhil, bowing as he and Shedara drew near.

The gnomes gave no answer, nor did they turn to glance at the centaur. Raising his eyebrows, Nakhil went on.

“We are travelers in dire need. We seek the help of your august people.”

Again the minoi didn’t respond. They just gaped at the tower.

“Hey!” Shedara yelled.

The minoi jumped, glancing at her. She saw their eyes—alarmingly intelligent, the sparkling blue of glacial lakes—look her and Nakhil up and down. Heavy brows furrowed. Gnarled, brown hands tugged on beards.

One of the gnomes came forward. He was smaller than the others, the top of his head barely rising to Shedara’s waist, his beard dangling down to his knees, where he’d tied it in a knot so it didn’t trip him. He leaned on a staff of black iron, tipped with an amethyst pyramid inside which glints of light flickered. When he gazed up at her, his eyes glittered, so pale they were almost white. His face was a maze of wrinkles. He was clearly their elder, and the oldest gnome Shedara had ever seen.

He licked his lips. “Well met, travelers. I am Malkistarandimnordishtankiro,” he said, “first emissary of the Great Colony of Ilmachrutandabrunthabram.”

The gnomes were a straightforward people, and their language was the same way. They only had a few hundred root words; everything else, including their names, was made by linking inordinately long series of those words together. The name the old gnome had given was probably less than a percent of his true name. It was said the names of the minoi could fill entire books.

“Well met, Malkis,” she said. “I am Shedara of Armach, and this is Nakhil of the Rainward Isles. We have crossed the Shining Lands in search of your people. We wish to join you on your return to Ilmach, so we may speak with your ruler.”

“Mmmm,” the gnome said, only slightly annoyed that she had shortened his name so barbarically. He tugged his beard, then his eyes narrowed. He looked from one to the other. “Yes, yes, of course. All are welcome in Ilmachrutandabrunthabram. We will be leaving on the morrow. You may come with us. All know that Armach and the Rainwards are friends to the minoi… even if the elves shun our inventions. But one question, first.”

Nakhil leaned forward. “You need only ask.”

Malkis nodded and tugged his beard again. Then he raised his arm, his finger jabbing southward, toward the Chaldar.

“Did you do that?”

The centaur reared back, snorting a guffaw. Shedara fought to keep herself under control, but couldn’t manage it, and began to laugh as well. She was tired and punchy. When the mirth subsided, Malkis looked more than a little bothered.

“No,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye. “We didn’t. But we know who did.”

The elder gnome studied her, curiosity eclipsing his irritation at having been the butt of a joke. “Oh?” he asked. “Do you now? Well, then, you’d best come tell us your tale.”

The sailors and gnomes stayed awake all that night, watching the skies south of the serai. The Chaldar continued to blaze there, a brilliant ribbon in the black, throwing off tongues of fire that billowed and burst like the seed pods of some ghastly marsh grass. The tower made no sound at all, which only made it more eerie: there was only the distant mutter of thunder from the storm clouds that swirled around it, flashing red in the gloom.

Shedara found Hult staring at the tower atop a jutting outcrop of glass, sitting with his talga unsheathed across his folded legs. He started when she crept up beside him, but did not raise the sword. Instead, he gazed out at the Chaldar again, his brow furrowed.

“He’s in there,” he said. “Forlo.”

Shedara sighed. “Yes.”

Hult sucked on his teeth, then his mouth hardened. “I spared his life, back at the Run. I didn’t know why at the time; something just told me to. And now look where we are.”

“If you hadn’t,” she replied, “we never would have stopped Maladar at Akh-tazi. We probably wouldn’t have come close, without his help. It would be Azar out there now, Maladar would be whole, and no one would even know yet. Things would have been a lot worse.”

“I know,” Hult said. “I have thought of that. Perhaps it’s why I let him live. Maybe I sensed he was important. Maybe Jijin was speaking to me, and I didn’t recognize his voice.”

“Or maybe you had a whim, and it was lucky.”

He shrugged. His eyes drifted down to his sword, and he ran his hand down its curved length. “I will not let him live again, Shedara. If the chance comes, I will kill him.”

Shedara shivered. All the warmth seemed to have seeped out of the air. There it was, out in the open: the thing they’d both been afraid to speak. She let it hang there, in the stillness, the Chaldar’s distant light flickering in her eyes.

“I will too,” she whispered. “But I don’t think the chance will come. Not for me.”

He glanced at her, a dark line appearing between his brows. He looked much older than his years. There was gray in his hair, just a light frosting at the temples; lines of care and worry had begun to etch his face.

“What do you mean, not for you?” he asked.

Her eyes darted away, afraid of the pain that flashed in his. She blinked a few times, blowing out a long, slow breath between her lips. “Just a feeling,” she said, and though she tried to stop it, her voice cracked. “Hult, I don’t think I’m going to come back from this.”

She was in his arms then, or he was in hers—a bit of both. They clung to each other as if clutching at the last piece of flotsam after a wreck. Shedara’s stomach clenched, and she had to fight back a sob. She wouldn’t lose control, not there. Not…

He kissed her, and she started to cry. His mouth was soon salty with her tears.

“It may be nothing,” he whispered when their lips unlocked. “You could be wrong.”

She nodded. “I want to be. More than anything. But… gods, I’ve never admitted this to anyone.…”

“You’re afraid.”

Shedara drew back. “It’s that obvious?”

“To me, yes,” Hult said. “You have good reason, Shedara.”

“I thought the Uigan knew no fear. So the legends say.”

He raised her hand, took hold of her chin, made her meet his gaze. “The legends are wrong.”

And she saw it, lurking far at the back of his eyes. Terror shone there, like a flaw in a glittering sapphire.

“Only madmen are brave all the time,” Hult said.

She stared into his eyes, caught, transfixed. It wasn’t like with Eldako. The merkitsa had been a kindred spirit, a partner. She wanted to protect Hult, to keep him safe from harm, to make sure he didn’t have to look like that ever again. And, even stranger, she wanted him to protect her too.

Astar’s arrows, she thought. I’m in love again.

He kissed her again, gently. She let him.

“There’s a place,” she said. “Not far from here, where no one from the serai will see.”

He flushed, blinking suddenly, looking away. He’d trained as a tenach since childhood, and that meant a vow of chastity, to remove distractions from protecting his master. All that time, he’d kept to his oath: he had never known a woman. But Chovuk was dead, the Uigan slain and scattered, his homeland lost to him forever. Death awaited them, inside the burning tower, across the sea of fire. He swallowed, then carefully slid his talga back into its scabbard.

“Show me,” he said.

They were late rising the next morning. The sun was already cresting the basalt columns, casting long shadows across the Shining Lands. Far away, the Chaldar still burned. A chill wind blew down from the north, rattling the rigging of the glass boats. The sailors worked aboard their ships, silent as ever. The gnomes, meanwhile, were taking down their tents, breaking camp.

Malkis greeted them, leaning on his staff while his people packed their belongings. Azar and Nakhil were with him. The centaur gave Shedara and Hult a knowing smile.

“We looked for you last night,” he said. “But not too hard.”

Hult scowled at that, turning away. Malkis chuckled. Azar had no reaction at all. He knew nothing about that sort of a thing; the Brethren hadn’t taught him about it. Shedara gave Nakhil a wink, then studied Azar. “You seem yourself today.”

The boy shifted from one foot to the other. He didn’t remember anything about the Chaldar’s rise.

“Can you sense him?” she asked. “Your father?”

Azar shook his head. “No more than before.”

She let it go at that, for the moment, and looked around, eyeing the gnomes. “I don’t see any carts,” she said. “Or pack animals. How are we traveling to Ilmach?”

Nakhil coughed, baring his teeth. Beside him, Malkis raised his eyebrows.

“No, you weren’t there, were you?” the minoi asked. “Of course not. I showed the others last night, but you were… occupied.”

Hult made a strangled sound and strode away.

“It was his first time, wasn’t it?” Nakhil asked, watching him go. His grin grew broader and slightly evil.

Shedara glared at him. “Leave him alone. Showed the others what, Malkis?”

The gnome’s grin widened, his eyes agleam, and Shedara shuddered. There was something unsettling about that smile, as if he had too many teeth.

“Come,” Malkis said and hobbled away, leaning on his staff.

They followed him to the back of the camp, through a gap between two tall, hexagonal pillars. The stone columns were close enough that she could lean against one while reaching out to touch the other. Above, the sky narrowed to a crack of blue. At the chasm’s far end, small figures moved around something she couldn’t make out. Shedara glanced at Nakhil and Azar, but neither gave her any hint as to what lay ahead.

Before long the gap widened again, into a clearing among the columns, where one of the pillars had sunk into the ground, forming a smooth stone floor. There, in the clearing’s midst, stood five large wicker baskets. For some reason, they were all attached to the ground with ropes and pitons. Above them, suspended by metal frames, were large braziers, burning with bright blue flames. And above those were billowing sacks of canvas, each painted with an image of a fist holding a tinkerer’s hammer, black on gold. As she watched, the sacks grew taut, filling with hot air from the braziers. Then, one by one, they lifted off the ground, stopped only by their anchoring ropes.

“Gods’ blood,” she breathed, the color draining from her face.

“We use no carts, my dear,” said Malkis. “When we’re not sailing the Burning Sea, we minoi ride the winds!”

Shedara stared at the contraptions, feeling ill. Already the gnomes were loading them with sacks and barrels, climbing dangling rope ladders to get into the baskets. They were going to fly to Ilmach on those… those… whatever they were.

“They are called Zarlakanquistorphentilgormushandoloi,” Malkis said. His voice swelled with pride. “It means, carriages of the clouds that are lifted by bladders of air heated with burning vapor.”

Nakhil leaned down, close to Shedara’s ear. “Just so it’s known,” he whispered, “I don’t like the idea either.”

Shedara swallowed, still staring. Then, out of nowhere, she began to laugh.

“Why not?” she asked. “We’ve already walked on the ocean and sailed on glass. How much worse can this be?”

But the first thing she did when they returned from the clearing was to open her spellbook. Licking her fingers, she flipped pages until she found the one she wanted. Then she began to read, her eyes quickly scanning down the script, committing the incantation and gestures of the feather-falling spell to memory… just in case.

Chapter 26

The Chaldar, Hith’s Cauldron

To Maladar’s surprise, his hand still hurt.

He tried to push all of the pain away, to force it upon Forlo, but it wouldn’t obey—not completely. True, what should have been searing agony was little more than an annoying throb, but that he felt anything at all was unsettling. It seemed there were limits to his abilities. That wasn’t a thought he enjoyed having.

It was a minor concern at best, though, and it hadn’t hampered him from casting the spell that raised the Tower of Flame, at least. The spire shot up from the maelstrom in the Cauldron’s midst, at his command, fed by the black moon’s power. The magma sea continued to spin, and the storm clouds to surge, but at their midst was not the bottomless hole he’d first found, but a mile-high needle of living, writhing fire.

Up close, it had a shape: there were walls of what looked like fitted stone and sharp-pointed turrets and a dome capped with a tall spike at its pinnacle. That was an illusion, though, kept real by will alone. Maladar’s mind gave the Chaldar form, and the magic continued to pour through him, keeping it aloft. That was unexpected… and unpleasant: he’d thought that once the tower was erected, it would keep its shape without his help. It meant he had to stay there or risk its falling.

He would have to find a way around that. He couldn’t conquer the world if he had to remain in the Cauldron: that would make him a prisoner, not an emperor. There must be an answer, though, and he had time to find it. First, however, he had things to do.

The first was entering the Chaldar. That proved difficult, for the tower had no door. Indeed, he walked all the way around it, casting spells to cool the lava into islands of floating rock that he could walk upon, and there was no sign of any entrance at all—no windows, no parapets, nothing. It was just a sliver of fire with the shape of a tower trapped within. He sat upon a promontory of obsidian for hours, contemplating, before the answer occurred to him.

I am the Chaldar’s master. I can make it have a door.

No sooner had he thought that than a portal appeared in the tower’s wall, right in front of him. It was a tall double gate, apparently made of bronze and damasked with a clenched fist in gold and silver, with rubies and topaz glittering on the knuckles—the ancient emblem of Aurim. It was the gate of his long-lost palace, exactly as he remembered it, down to the script arcing above the fist, in ancient runes. Cha burush, cha yûn, cha kintai.

One realm, one rule, one empire.

Maladar smiled and bade the gates open. They did so at his command. He didn’t have to touch them. Within, a colonnade of red-veined marble ran down the length of a long hall… longer, indeed, than the Chaldar was wide. Birdsong sounded from within, and the music of unseen dulcimers echoed. Fountains bubbled, spilling liquid flame over the edges of their bowls. Burning statues of fierce warriors and stern-browed wizards gazed down from stout pedestals: the rulers of Aurim, down through the ages. At the far end, a pair of broad staircases swept up to floors above. He knew all of it very well.

I am home, Maladar thought, joy leaping in his breast. At long last, I have returned.

Smiling, he started up the steps toward the doorway. Before he could enter, however, an empty black cloak emerged from the flames to stand in his way.

Maladar’s elation gave way to fury. “You,” he growled. “You would bar me now, at the last?”

Hith stared back at him with unseen eyes. The dark cloth rippled in the heat but did not burn. The god made no reply at all, but neither did he move.

“What, then?” Maladar demanded. “I have done what was foretold. I awakened my army, tamed the dragon of flame. I raised the Chaldar, gave it form.”

“Indeed,” Hith whispered. “You did all these things, and for that I am grateful. But before you enter, there is something else.”

Maladar pursed his lips, his anger boiling. This is a god, he reminded himself. He is more powerful than you—for now. Humor him.

“What more must I do?” he asked.

The god gazed back at him, emotionless, impervious to Maladar’s rage. “It is not a thing you must do,” he said. “It is something you should know. Something about who you are.”

“Who I am?” Maladar shot back. “What do you mean? I am Maladar, emperor of Aurim, and I have returned to reclaim my empire. Who else could I be?”

Though Hith had no form, Maladar had the distinct feeling the god was smiling at him. It was not a pleasant feeling.

“Well,” the god said, “there is the other soul inside you, but that isn’t the trouble. No, it is something else.”

Maladar glowered. “Enough riddles. I am weary, and I wish to enter the Chaldar and rest. Either tell me now or get out of my way.”

Hith could have lost his temper, could have smote him, crushed him for his insolence. Other gods would have—Sargas, for one, or Jolith. But Hith was devious, and he was hateful, and he had a sense of humor. He laughed at Maladar.

“Go in, then,” he said. “You will see the answer, soon enough.”

He folded in on himself, vanishing in an instant. The aura of awe and power that surrounded him went away as well. Maladar breathed a sigh of relief. Gods were more trouble than they were worth.

A splinter of misgiving had lodged in Maladar’s mind, however, and worked its way deeper the more he worried at it. So as he stepped inside the Chaldar at last, the thought running through his head was not one of triumph and exultation, as he’d hoped. Instead, at what should have been the finest moment of his reborn life, doubt gnawed his mind in the form of a question.

Who am I?

Pain blinded Forlo, swallowed sound, devoured smell. All he could sense was the blazing agony at the end of his left arm—that, and Maladar’s thoughts, looming huge in his mind, like a mountain of hatred. He pushed back against that rage, but only enough to keep it from utterly crushing him. He didn’t have the strength for anything more—not with the pain.

Only once since his hand burned away had the agony lifted, and then just long enough for him to see the Chaldar rise. Maladar had done that, allowed Forlo to look through his own eyes while he waved his remaining hand, the fingers dancing as he chanted the words. Forlo felt the power of Nuvis stream through him, darker and richer than dwarven ale. He watched white fire erupt from the Cauldron’s center, blasting high into the sky like a geyser, then spreading across the undersides of the clouds. He felt the unspeakable wave of heat that swept outward as the tower rose, smelled the smoke and brimstone that thickened the air, heard his own voice rise in a victorious cry.

And after that—nothing. The pain crashed down again, leaving him cowering in the shadow of Maladar’s fury. Through his head boomed a lone thought, over and over again.

You have failed. The tower is risen. Taladas is mine.

No, he lamented. No, there is still a way. There must be.

YOU HAVE FAILED!

Essana, I’m sorry. I tried. I truly did.

When the pain subsided again, he was standing in a room he knew, though he had never been there before. He’d seen it, though, in faded frescoes and crumbling mosaics, in the ancient ruins that still clung to the rocks in the League’s eastern provinces. It was a vast chamber, grander even than the halls of the minotaur emperor, drowned and buried by the earth’s fury. The place was long gone as well, lost in the Great Destruction. All the historians agreed that the rain of burning stones had struck that very spot, smashing it into oblivion more than four centuries earlier. Yet there he was, standing in the grand doorway, peering down its immense length. There was no mistaking it at all: the moonstone tiles; the fat, golden pillars; the fountains of silver and crystal cages where feathered serpents slithered. And there, at the far end, towered the fabled dragon-horn throne, resting on its island dais amid a pool of still water.

The throne room of the Aurish emperors lay before him, whole again, in all its glory. But it was not entirely as the frescoes depicted it, for the chamber was crafted not of stone and metal, glass and jewels. No, it was made of fire, made solid by magic, shifting and flickering and throwing off smoke and shimmering heat. The fish in the pool were licks of living flame; golden light wreathed the throne.

That, then, wasn’t the true throne room; no, that was lost forever. He was inside the Chaldar, in a room hewn from Maladar’s memories.

Your empire is dead, he thought scornfully. This is just a delusion, just your pride given form. You are a king of ashes.

He expected the pain to return, to smash him, smother him, maybe finally kill him. But it didn’t. Instead, his head nodded.

“I am,” Maladar replied, using Forlo’s own breath and voice. “Lord of embers, master of soot. My subjects are fire and stone. That will change, however. I will make war on the League and subjugate Thenol. I will raze the Tamire. I will overrun the Rainwards. Neron and Panak and Syldar… all shall fall before my might, and their people will give me their fealty.”

No, Forlo thought. They will refuse. Aurim is dead. No one will suffer to see it reborn. Not even the Thenolites, evil as they are, would submit to your dark empire again.

Maladar laughed. “You think too highly of your fellow men, Barreth Forlo. I had willing subjects in this world, even when I was a mere phantom trapped in that accursed statue. The Brethren were not the only ones in this world who would serve me… particularly if the alternative is so much worse.”

The throne room vanished. In its place stood the Gotharak, one of the grandest surviving monuments in Kristophan. It, too, was made of flame, but on some level it felt as real as the last time Forlo had stood there, with the men of the Sixth Legion prior to going to war against Thenol. Then it had been a military parade ground; as he watched, he saw it was a bustling plaza. Minotaurs and men hurried about, clad in armor or loose, flowing tunics. Statues of imperial marshals stood atop pillars, armed with spear and axe, looking down on a broad expanse of marble surrounding a small lake, ringed with benches and blooming cherry trees. In the lake’s midst, on a rocky island, stood a green-bronze sculpture of a dromond riding a foaming wave, its sails full. That was where Gothos, the first of the minotaur sea captains to make landfall on Taladas, had claimed those shores in his people’s name.

“What is this?” Forlo asked.

“Their fate, should they resist me,” Maladar said. “Watch.”

No sooner had he spoken the words than chaos broke out. The cries started on the plaza’s far side and quickly grew in volume and pitch. They were shouts of anger, of pain, of terror. Forlo felt his heart clench: the bull-men didn’t know fear except in the direst circumstances. He craned his neck, trying to see what was going on.

When he saw the lumbering stone shapes, he knew. The Kheten Voi had come.

They moved through the crowds at a relentless pace, swords and maces rising and falling, rising and falling, leaving bodies and blood scattered in their wake. Even fully armed warriors perished before the onslaught, and though they brought down one or two of the statues here and there, hundreds more came forward, the press all but unstoppable. Blood ran in rivers between the marble paving stones. It spilled into the lake, reddening the water. Panicking mobs fled, trying to get away, only to find more of the Kheten Voi coming at them from the other streets that fed into the plaza. Forlo turned slowly—under Maladar’s power, not his own—and saw slaughter in all directions.

“So will it be for those who refuse to submit,” Maladar said. “My armies will destroy them, one by one. Even your mighty legions will not stop me. They are too weak now. And when the streets are flooded with the blood of my enemies…”

A new shriek cut through the air, and Forlo’s blood froze. He knew what it was, even before Maladar made him look up. The sky was heavy with clouds, but a golden glow was moving through them, just hidden from view. The scream went on, long and loud, shaking buildings and breaking windows all around the square. The folk still left alive howled and clutched at their ears, falling to their knees. Forlo might have done the same, but Maladar forced him to stand still, watching the golden glow come closer… closer.

“Behold,” Maladar whispered, “the vessel of my wrath.”

The fire dragon dropped through the clouds like a falling star, like the Destruction itself. Its eyes shone bright as the hearts of forges. Its mouth gaped wide. White-hot flames burst forth, slamming down upon Kristophan. Fearful cries became wails of agony as the flames swept over the plaza. The lake boiled, its cherry trees becoming torches. The bronze ship cracked, then began to melt. The giant statues ran down their pillars like glowing candle wax.

Forlo stood amid it all, fire surging around him, obliterating everything. All of Kristophan was in flames. Chunks of it broke away, tumbling into the sea. Despair clouded his vision, choked him, left him cold and numb.

And Maladar laughed.

Chapter 27

Ilmachrutandabrunthabram, Bilo Columns

Algandothustokranthetoragon, First-maker of Ilmachrutandabrunthabram, peered down from his throne. He was an enormously fat gnome, his gut spilling over the sides of the great chair even though it had been built in such a cunning way that it could grow wider or narrower with the simple turn of a crank. The engineers who had designed the throne, which had served more than thirty First-makers in four centuries, had not taken into account this particular ruler’s voracious appetite for food.

Indeed, while most gnomes tended to be so involved in their work that they forgot to eat for days—and so remained quite trim, if not gaunt—Algandothustokranthetoragon could devour sixteen roasted cave-lizards at a sitting… and that was before he tucked into his nightly bowl of fried mushrooms. He could barely walk under his own power, which was why he’d commissioned a movable bench that would do it for him. Said bench was still under development, however—the joints on the first three models had cracked when the appropriate test weight was placed on them—so the First-maker stayed put most of the time and rose only to waddle off to the water closet or to bed.

He was toying with his beard, which, though full, looked like an absurd tuft of down on his quivering treble chins; similarly, his opal-studded crown looked like a child’s trinket, perched atop the neckless mound of his head. His eyes, sparks of blue almost lost amid the blotchy bloat of his face, squinted as he took in the four travelers who had come to his court.

“A centaur, eh?” he asked. “Never seen one before. Very interesting, very interesting. Where do you keep your vital bits, anyway? Human half, or horse? Or do you have two sets of everything? Be good to have a second stomach. You could have luncheon again in the afternoon.”

Hult didn’t know whether to laugh or be angry. Truth be told, he couldn’t really summon the wit for either. He was still numb after the journey to Ilmach: riding in the minoi airship had been harrowing, even though the flying machine had functioned perfectly well. Hult had taken one look down as they rose away from the Glass Sailors’ serai, and that had been enough. The image of the glass boats falling away beneath him, small as toys, crewed by men as large as ants, would surely haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life.

The others had done better. Azar showed no fear at all, and Shedara—who had flown many times on the back of her hippogriff, Falasta—had been fine once the gnomes demonstrated the ship’s airworthiness. Even Nakhil had managed, reveling in the feeling of the wind in his mane as they cruised above the columns of stone. But Hult, who had never feared heights in his life and had climbed the steep foothills of the Ilquar Mountains without a rope when he was but a boy, couldn’t bring himself to rise to his feet again after the ascent. It was one thing to climb with one’s own muscle and sinew; it was quite another to be borne aloft by… he wasn’t sure what. He thought he heard old Malkis tell Shedara the ship was lifted by air, but that couldn’t be right. That would mean some air was lighter than other air, and that was ridiculous.

He’d sat on the floor of the basket the whole way, missing the others’ first view of the Cauldron, and of Ilmach itself. Only when they were finally descending, into an open, vertical shaft dug into the rock, did he finally rise to look around. He caught a glimpse of the Burning Sea, all fire and ash and red magma, and found it utterly unfathomable. Saltwater oceans were strange enough to one raised on the steppes; molten rock he could barely comprehend, even when he saw it himself. Far away, so distant that the world’s curve hid its base from sight, the Chaldar rose unchallenged from the Cauldron’s heart.

Ilmach itself was difficult to spot from outside; here and there, the gnomes had carved clusters of windows out of the columns, letting golden or blue light shine forth. Toward the bottom, gates with massive steel portcullises let out onto level ground. Chimneys jutted from the stone walls, spouting steam and ugly black smoke. From any distance, though, those features were all but invisible. Hult wondered how many more colonies of minoi lived along the shores of the Cauldron. Dozens, probably, which meant tens of thousands of gnomes… yet he’d never seen one before Malkis and his crew.

They’d descended through the shaft and moored at a stone platform. Hult had been the first out of the basket, never so glad to feel solid ground beneath his feet. From there, Malkis had led them directly to the throne room, bypassing the gnome guards with a wave of his hand. At one point they’d entered a room with no windows and only one door, waited while it shuddered a while—and, strangely, he felt a bit heavier than usual—then emerged again in a completely different place. Shedara had tried to explain what happened, but Hult didn’t really believe her. Who had ever heard of a room that climbed up and down?

Whatever, there they were, standing before Maker Algando, the world’s fattest gnome. Shedara told their tale, explained why the Tower of Flame had appeared across the northern horizon, told Algando about Maladar and the Hooded One and the fall of Suluk—everything, in fact, except for the bit of Maladar that dwelt within Azar—and all the great blob could think to ask was where Nakhil kept his kidneys. Another time, it might have been funny, but all Hult could see himself doing was drawing his talga and ramming it hilt deep into that prodigious belly.

Fortunately, Malkis saved him the trouble.

“Pay attention, my lord!” he barked, thumping his iron staff against the floor. It rang like a bell on the solid rock—Algando’s cramped, unadorned meeting hall was carved out of the stone, as were all parts of Ilmach—and everyone in the room jumped. “This is no time for trifles. The Chaldar is risen. It does not stand empty.”

“Yes, yes,” said Algando, waving a hand like a clump of sausages. “The Chaldar. We saw it two days ago, from the highest watch. And what is more, the kurshakur all seem to have disappeared.”

That rocked Malkis back on his heels. “Really? The kurshakur are gone?”

The Maker nodded, a smug smile curling his lips. He was happy to know something the older gnome didn’t. “Not a one seen since the tower appeared, even out in the deep fire. Now tell me the one isn’t related to the other.”

“Pardon, my lord,” Nakhil said, “but what is a kurshakur?”

“No, no, no,” Algando replied. “Kurshak is the singular, kurshakur the plural. As a people, they are the kurshakutani. And the locative—”

“Grammar aside,” Malkis interrupted, seeing the centaur’s face darken, “the kurshakur are the Flame Dancers, the creatures who live upon the Chaldar’s surface. We are always at war with them, for our ships must cross their territory to reach the other colonies. They roam the open fires, waiting to prey on the unprepared—”

“Except now they’ve vanished,” Algando said. “And I’ve a thought that this new master of the tower, this Maladar—or Forlo or whatever he’s named—is responsible for their absence. Which can only mean one thing.”

“He’s gathering them to him,” Shedara said. “As part of his army.”

Hult swallowed, trying to envision it. He didn’t know quite what a kurshak looked like, but he made a guess, picturing something like a troll made of flame. There would be thousands of those, on top of the statues they’d found mired in the shallows of the Rainward coast, all gathered at the Chaldar. And they meant to head straight for it.

“That is troubling,” Algando said. “If he means to make war, we minoi will be among his first targets.”

“Yes,” Nakhil agreed. “And I will tell you, as one who lost his kingdom to Maladar of Aurim… he does not know mercy. He must be stopped before this war begins, or I fear that none will survive.”

“No,” Azar said. “Some will. But they will not be the lucky ones.”

An uncomfortable silence settled over the throne room. Somewhere in Ilmach’s depths, some giant thing let out a rumbling groan. That didn’t seem to make the gnomes nervous, though, and there were plenty of strange sounds within the colony, so Hult let it go.

“My lord,” said Malkis. “We await your command.”

Algando nodded, growing several extra chins as his head dipped. “Just so. Well, then. It looks like we’ve got some work to do. But first, let us eat. Never plan a battle on an empty stomach, I say.”

They ate well that night—their first proper meal since Suluk was whole—and though the food was strange, Hult had never tasted better. In older days, his stomach might have turned at the notion of steamed giant spider, but he cracked their legs open and ate the meat with butter as everyone else did. There were no fewer than seven kinds of fungus, from fat, soft puffballs to long and delicate mushrooms that grew upside down from stalactites over underground lakes. There were thin slices of blind cave-fish, served still pink and cold with a pungent sauce made from some sort of grated tuber—the minoi name for it was, of course, enormously lengthy, but they shortened it to shawab. And there was beer, dark and earthy, made from mushrooms.

He ate until it hurt. They all did. Even the gods might not know when they would get another chance.

Algando, of course, put them all to shame. By the time the meal was done, his plate was piled so high with empty spider shells that all the others could see was the top of his head. He drank an entire gallon of beer. By the time the sweets came around—the gnomes served some kind of candied morel in honey—he alone still had an appetite for them. He finished the whole serving, looked as if he might demand another, then caught a look from Malkis and wistfully licked his fingers clean, waving to his servants to clear away the leavings.

The servants themselves were especially strange, for they weren’t gnomes at all—nor were they any living creatures. They were strange, clattering people made of brass, which slid on metal tracks along the floor and occasionally emitted startling puffs of steam as they moved. Hult thought they were magical things, but Shedara assured him that they were anything but.

“The minoi don’t use magic,” she said, unable to keep a note of disdain from her voice. “They use machines for everything.”

Hult nodded, though he didn’t understand. Shedara had tried explaining machines to him on the voyage from the serai, but to him, it was all sorcery. That annoyed her, and by the time they let the matter drop, neither of them was happy with the other.

Hult shied back as one of the brass men reached for his plate, neatly sliding fork-shaped arms underneath it and sweeping it away from the table. He glared at it as it went on its rattling way. Another appeared a moment later, bearing a deep crystal goblet filled with a thick liquor the color of rust. It set it down in front of him, then scooted off.

“Garlathingurashepankistambutragolazar,” said Algando, relishing every syllable. He swirled the drink in its glass, holding it up to catch the light. “Distilled from the finest russet molds, from the steam caves along the Burning Shore. Drink it slow; it has a bite like a gloombat.”

The other minoi at the table—Malkis, several advisors, and two young women whom Hult later discovered were Algando’s wives—all laughed and swirled their drinks. Hult followed suit, grinning as he raised the cup to his lips. He’d drunk fermented mare’s milk for most of his life, sometimes mixed with horse blood. He could handle any mold juice, he decided as he took a deep quaff.

A sun exploded inside him.

Shedara and Azar both had to pound on his back to keep him from choking. He felt like his lungs were ablaze, as though he’d gulped a mouthful of the Cauldron’s molten rock. Tears streamed down his face as the gnomes laughed and laughed.

“F-fire…” he wheezed when he could breathe again.

“Told you,” Algando said.

Nakhil swirled his garlath expertly and took a sip, his eyebrows rising. “Good,” he said. “We had a drink like this in the Rainwards, though we made it from rice. Akistah, we called it.”

“Oh?” replied the First-maker. “I shall have to try some. I do enjoy foreign goodies, but we so seldom get anything from the cold-lands. When you return to your home, you must send me a barrel of your Rainward brew. I will pay well for it, of course.”

Pain creased the centaur’s face. “Pardon, honored one,” he murmured, “but I have no home to return to.”

The chatter and clinking of glasses fell silent. It was like a cloud passing in front of the sun on an otherwise clear day. The minoi stared at Nakhil, their blue eyes blinking. Sorrow ran deep in all of them.

“We understand your suffering, my friend,” said Malkis. “The columns have not always been our home. Our fathers dwelt beneath mountains long dead, lost in the Golden Rain that was Aurim’s doom. We know what it is to lose all we hold dear. The ache for your kingdom will never go away, I fear… but you will learn to live with it, as have we.”

Nakhil bowed his head, looking very old. No tears came, though; he was well beyond that. Hult’s own eyes burned as thoughts of the Tamire ran through his head.

“All right,” Shedara said. “Enough of this. We’ve eaten your food. We’ve drunk your drink. Now we need to talk, because tomorrow we have to sail.”

“Of course, of course,” Algando said, draining his goblet in a long swallow. He let out a deep, rumbling belch as he set it down. “I understand your haste. All along the Cauldron’s shore, our people know something terrible is at hand. We always knew that, should the Chaldar rise again, it would mean trouble, but I don’t think any of us guessed how much trouble. If this Maladar means to restore Old Aurim…”

He trailed off, shaking his head.

“You will have all you need,” Malkis added. “On the morrow, our swiftest fireship, the Bandragothashingarthogliduras, will set out for the heart of the Burning Sea. You shall have charms against the fire and weapons that can harm the kurshakur.”

“Thank you,” Shedara said. “We’ll need something to use against the statues too. Something blunt and heavy.”

“Of course,” Algando said. “We can help with that as well. We are a stone-working people, after all. You shall each be given a hammer that will crack the hardest—”

Before he could finish talking, an ungodly shriek ripped through the room, shrill and forceful, like a rampaging dragon. Hult was on his feet at once, reaching for his talga. Shedara and Azar rose as well, and Nakhil snapped out of his gloom and cast about, alarmed, as the terrible noise slowly faded to silence. Then it began again, blaring even louder than before and making Hult’s skull ache all over again.

“What in Jijin’s name—?” he began.

“An alarm!” Shedara shouted, raising her voice to be heard. “Steam-powered whistle of some sort, running all the way up from the bottom levels of Ilmach to the top of its columns. Am I right?”

Malkis nodded. The minoi hadn’t reacted quite as swiftly as their guests, but they were all standing too—except Algando, of course, who was too full to dare putting weight on his feet.

“A good guess,” the First-maker said. “We call it the Wyrmsthroat. There isn’t anywhere in Ilmachrutandabrunthabram where it cannot be heard.”

Hult could believe it. The second whoop was winding down, and he hunched his shoulders in anticipation of a third. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Maladar could hear the whistle from his tower.

A door rumbled open. A young gnome, his snowy beard scarcely long enough to touch his chest, came bustling in. He tried not to look flustered, but he wasn’t doing a very good job; from the flush in his cheeks and the sweat covering his brow, he’d clearly been running hard.

“Majesty,” he gasped, trying to find his breath. “I come from the Firewatch.”

“Yes, yes,” said Algando. “I suppose it was one of your fellows who sounded the Throat? Tell us what the trouble is.”

The messenger bobbed his head, glanced at Nakhil, blinked in surprise—he might as well have yelled a centaur!—then took a deep breath.

“It’s the kurshakutani, my lord. They’ve returned.”

Algando smiled, indulgent. “You mean the kurshakur, don’t you? The kurshakutani are the whole race.”

The young gnome swallowed as a chill ran through the room.

“No,” Malkis whispered. “He means the kurshakutani. Don’t you, lad?”

The messenger licked his lips. “Yes. It’s not just a few of them, Majesty. They’ve all come.”

Chapter 28

Ilmachrutandabrunthabram, Bilo Columns

The lift shuddered and rattled as it climbed up to the top of the column. Shedara wished it would go faster and briefly considered casting a spell to make it do so. That was a bad idea; the minoi considered magic to be cheating and would be affronted. As much as she needed to get where they were going, it wasn’t worth offending Algando and the other gnomes, not when there was no other way across the Cauldron.

The kurshakutani. They’ve all come.

The words echoed in her head, making her shiver. She already had an idea of what she would see when they reached the top of the Rokatushakorthabunduzograstakun, Ilmach’s highest tower. She hoped she was wrong, prayed it wouldn’t be as bad as that, but she couldn’t make herself believe it. If Maladar were moving against the minoi already, he wouldn’t do it by halves. He hadn’t with the Rainwards.

Come on, you bastard, she thought as the lift shook and rumbled. Get there already.

When the little room’s iron doors finally scraped open, she was the first one out into the room above. It was a small, dark chamber of fitted basalt blocks, brought up from the heart of the column when the gnomes first delved it. A circular flight of steps led up to the observation platform and open air above. She ran up them two at a time, reached a trapdoor, slid back its bolt, and climbed up onto the Rokatu’s parapet.

Its height was dizzying, soaring five hundred feet above the tallest columns and giving a view that reached all the way back to the Shining Lands to the north. Hot wind whipped around her, blowing her hair into her eyes. She turned and crossed to the south side, where the Chaldar dominated the sky, a needle of blue-white light against the black broil. Beneath, the Burning Sea churned, slowly revolving around the flickering spire. Shedara leaned over the iron rail, gazing down at the shore as Malkis and her friends came up the stairs behind her.

“Mother of the gods,” she murmured.

An inferno blazed several leagues from Ilmach, brighter and hotter than any of the others that burned upon the Cauldron’s surface. The conflagration was unnaturally shaped, spread out in a long, narrow band parallel to the shore. And it was moving closer at a slow but steady pace.

And when she squinted, she saw that the conflagration was no shapeless mass. No—it was made up of human-shaped figures, armed with swords and spears and whips of flame.

Hult and Azar came up alongside her, one on either side. Nakhil loomed behind, panting from the exertion of forcing his horse body up the stairs.

“Bran’s withers,” swore the centaur. “That’s an army.”

Shedara nodded, too stunned to answer.

“It’s as I feared, then,” said Malkis, peering down at the fire. “The one advantage we have always had over the minions of fire was our discipline. Now they march together and fight as one.”

“What will you do?” Hult asked.

The old gnome shrugged. “Seal up the columns and weather the siege. I don’t know if it will be enough. The kurshakur are vicious, and if this Maladar is as cunning as you say…” He sighed, leaning on his staff. “They will find their way inside. It is only a question of when.”

“What about the other colonies?” Nakhil asked. “You’re not the only minoi. Send word to your allies that you’re at need.”

“It is already being sent,” Malkis replied, pointing to the west. “Look there.”

They did. “I don’t see anything,” Hult said.

“I do,” Shedara said, shading her eyes with her hand. Several small objects were buzzing away from Ilmach, faster than any horse could run. They flashed silver and gold in the firelight as they winged westward, skimming the tops of the columns. “They look like birds.”

“Clockwork birds,” Malkis replied. “We call them Palgantothanyugarbascivashobori. They carry scrolls to the other first-makers, at Aldinanachrukathoshangu and Nabrutacildiscarabimakaldascut, and the smaller holdings as well. The makers will send all the fireships they can spare to our aid. But it will take time for them to reach us. When they get here, there may well be nothing left but ashes.”

“What about us?” Azar asked. “We’ve got to get to the Chaldar. That’s the only sure way to beat the kurshakur. We must find Maladar and stop him, once and for all.”

“He’s right,” Shedara said. “If there’s going to be a siege, we need to be away from Ilmach before they can blockade us.”

Malkis grimaced. “It’s not that easy. The fireships must be made ready for the journey. Sailing on the Burning Sea takes its toll, and they need repairs after each voyage. Those kurshakur will be here in less than two hours. We only have one craft that can possibly sail before then.”

“Then we need to use that craft,” Hult said. “It’s your people’s best hope. If you’re so sure your allies can’t save you, then we’re all you have.”

The gnome knew it; the knowledge was clear in his face. He was a deliberate thinker, though, and not given to quick action. He stared down at the kurshakur, chewing on his mustache and shaking his head.

“Malkis,” Shedara said. “Look at me.”

He did. His eyes sparkled with fear.

“There’s no time for doubts,” she said. “Our chances get worse every second. Send a runner to your smithies, tell him to bring us weapons and armor and whatever else we need. Do it now, before we lose our chance.”

She had a spell ready, its first word on the tip of her tongue, her fingers poised to gather Lunis’s power. The red moon was full, up behind the clouds. It would be easy to use the magic to coerce the gnome, to force him to him do her bidding. She’d done it before, many times. But as she was about to begin, Malkis bowed his head.

“You are right,” he said. “Come. We will go to the shipyards.”

Ilmach’s indoor wharf was vast but crowded, filled with gnomes and steam and noise. Huge gears and pulleys worked all over the place, lifting and swinging grease-streaked masses of steel that did the gods knew what. Well, the gods and the gnomes—the minoi knew what they were doing, which levers to pull, which valves to turn. To Shedara it looked like insanity, but even she had to admit it was insanity with a system.

One thing that made it different from every other harbor she’d ever been to, of course, was that there was no water. Neither were there docks. The fireships—broad, stout boats with hulls of pitted black iron—hung above the stone floor, suspended by chains that rattled with the vibrations of hidden gear-works. Gnomes dangled around them, suspended by ropes and hammering away with mallets that made a maddening din. Stone hatches on the floor radiated heat into the shimmering air: below, she realized, was a long drop down to the magma of the Cauldron.

“If I had spoken of such a place while I lived among my people,” Hult said, chuckling, “they would have cast me out as a madman. And I would have thought it just.”

“Which is our ship?” asked Nakhil, staring at the hulks suspended above them. “None of these look like they’re ready.”

“They aren’t,” said Malkis. “Follow me.”

He hobbled into the middle of the bustle, and Shedara cringed, expecting someone or something to slam into him. At the speed the minoi and their machines were moving, a collision would likely kill the old gnome. Instead, however, the hubbub shifted, parting around him to make a path. The activity didn’t pause, and no one even gave him a second glance; they simply adjusted their routines and went about their business. Halfway across, Malkis glanced back and waved a gnarled hand.

“What are you waiting for?” he called.

Shedara hurried after him, and the gnomes parted around her as well. Nakhil and Azar followed, Hult coming last of all, staring at the chugging engines and spinning cogs all around him. As machinery went, the Uigan had the wheel and not much more. Shedara caught a glimpse of a grin on his lips and shook her head. He was enjoying it.

For one so old, Malkis kept a surprisingly brisk pace. He led the way across the sweltering shipyard, straight to the southernmost side, closest to the Cauldron itself. As they drew near, Shedara glanced at the wall and realized it wasn’t basalt, like every other part of Ilmach. It was metal, probably bronze, with massive pipes running to it from all sides. Several of the pipes dripped water where joints had loosened, and moisture beaded on the wall, sliding down to pool at their feet.

“That looks like a giant cistern,” said Nakhil. “What do you suppose it’s for?”

Shedara shrugged. She had no idea. “Malkis! That metal tank. Why is it there?”

“Protection,” the old gnome replied without looking back. “Ilmachrutandabrunthabram is not without defenses. Here’s the ship.”

He gestured with his staff, and Shedara’s heart sank. The vessel he pointed to was smaller than any of the others and much older: a scaly, battered lump no larger than a fishing scow. It had no sails, but rather a rotating wheel at the stern, like a watermill’s, with paddles on each spoke.

“That’s it?” she muttered. “We’re all going to die.”

“No, you’re not,” Malkis replied, shouting over the clanks and whooshes and shouts of the shipyard. “The Varyashakurvatonagorlitanthapuloram is the oldest ship in our fleet. It’s been around since just after the Destruction, and it hasn’t lost a battle with the kurshakur in all that time. If it were me crossing the Cauldron, I’d want no other vessel under me. Isn’t that right, Captain Noskalibaharokalmaraslindogahar?”

A wild-looking gnome with an eye patch, burn scars over half his face, and a red-plumed helmet came stumping up to them. He inclined his head. “No other vessel, no way. So you’re the fools going to the Chaldar, eh?” He squinted, looking Shedara and her friends up and down. “Motley lot, ain’t you? Well, no mind—my business is how, it ain’t why. I’ll get you from here to there. And back again, if I can.” He grinned, showing several silver teeth, and extended a hand that was blistered and red. “Call me Nosk. Keeps it simple.”

Shedara shook the scarred gnome’s hand. His skin felt strange, callused but too smooth from all the burns. “We’ll have to run fast,” she said. “With all those kurshakur coming—”

Nosk shrugged. “Kurshakur I can handle. Now if you’ll get aboard…”

“Not yet,” Malkis said. “There’s still the gear you need. Where is it, anyway?”

“Bunch of firesuits and frostblades?” asked Nosk. He jerked his thumb toward a heap of boxes on the other side of the little ship. “Plain old hammers too? They got here just before you did. Come on. Let’s go have a look.”

They made their way to the heap of supplies. It was all a bit strange looking, but Shedara quickly sorted it out. There were suits of what looked like ribbed leather armor, scarred black where cinders had scorched them. She picked one up, turning it this way and that.

“These protect us from the fire?” she asked.

“More or less,” Nosk said and waggled his hand. “There’s water pouches inside, to keep you cool. Just have to refill them every hour or so. And they’re treated with a special kind of grease to keep them from catching fire. I wouldn’t suggest you go for a swim in the magma, but other than that, you should be right as ratchets.”

“You have one that will fit me?” Nakhil asked, picking up a centaur-shaped suit. “That’s a surprise.”

“Well… we didn’t at first,” said Malkis. “But we do transport livestock, from time to time. Beg your pardon, not that I meant to call you that. The point is, I had the suitsmiths take part of a horse’s suit and part of a man’s and stitch them together.”

“They sewed that?” Shedara asked. “So quickly?”

Malkis shrugged. “There are machines to do most of the work, don’t you know. Quick, now, put them on, and Captain Nosk will show you the frostblades.”

Hult and Azar took their own suits. The Uigan scowled as he donned his. Shedara understood what was going on in his mind: the armor was bulky and uncomfortable, and she couldn’t quite bring herself to trust it either. She combed through her spells in her mind, selecting a charm to protect them from fire. If she had to, she’d fall back on magic.

“All right now, pay attention,” Nosk said, raising what appeared to be a short sword. “You all know how to use one of these?”

“Yes,” Nakhil replied. “The sharp bit goes in the other fellow.”

Nosk roared a laugh. “Well said, my good horse! Well said! Yes, it looks like a common sword. No, we don’t have any with longer blades, so don’t ask. But here’s how it’s different from the steel you already carry.”

He turned toward a burning brazier, sword whipping around, and thrust it into the heart of the flame. The fire went out with a hiss of steam.

Hult whistled.

“Impressive,” Shedara agreed. “How does it work?”

“White dragon bile,” Nosk said. “There’s a capsule of it in the hilt. Press the stud here on the cross guard, and it releases a dose, running down the fuller.” He pointed to the groove running down the middle of the blade. “That’ll take care of most fires, except, I suppose, for a dragon’s flame. Never tested for that. You’ve only got four or five doses before the capsule’s empty, though, so be mindful. There’s a box of vials with more bile in them, but likely you won’t have time to refill in a pitched battle.”

He held out the sword, hilt first, and Shedara took it. She ran her thumb over the triggering stud—a black gemstone set into the hilt—then gave it a couple practice swipes, back and forth.

“Nice balance,” she said. “Can I have two?”

“Don’t see why not,” Nosk replied, tossing her a second blade. He handed out more to the others, then lifted a heavy sledge. “You know what this is too, I suspect. No trick to these—hit things with them, and they break. But you won’t find any better-made warhammers in all of Taladas… not even among the Fianawar dwarves, and don’t let them tell you different.”

“Where do you get the dragon bile?” Hult asked.

“We have a few young wyrms held captive in a chasm between the columns, not far from here,” Nosk said. “Clip their wings, and they can’t fly off. Then we just drug them now and then and harvest the bile. It doesn’t make the dragons very happy, but it works. Anyway, enough talk. Let’s get you aboard. The Varya’s quick, but I’d rather have room to run, and those kurshakur aren’t getting any farther away. Come on.”

They followed him to a small platform beneath the ship. When they were all standing on it, Nosk pulled a lever and the platform jerked into motion, rising on a steel piston until it stood next to the ship. He hopped onto the deck. The Varya’s insides were made of gray stone. Half a dozen other gnomes scurried to and fro, securing supplies and stoking a furnace near the paddlewheel. Looking the fireship up and down, Shedara felt queasy. That thing was going to bear them across a sea of molten rock? It shouldn’t be possible. But the minoi had been doing that for centuries with boats just like the Varya. Swallowing, she stepped aboard.

Azar followed her, then Nakhil. Hult came last of all, smiling as he set foot on the deck. She glowered at the sight of him. How could he be having a good time when her own worries were so strong? Did he really trust the machine more than magic?

Malkis remained on the platform, leaning on his staff. “Here I leave you, my friends,” he said. “I wish we could have known one another longer. Perhaps, when this business is over, you will return to our halls.”

“Perhaps,” Shedara said. “Good-bye, Malkis, and good luck.”

The old gnome nodded. “The same to you. Reorx watch over you.”

He pulled the lever again, and the platform lowered out of sight. When he was gone, Nosk clapped his hands with a thump. He’d put on a pair of leather gloves and pulled a hood over his head as well. Shedara and the others followed suit. He waved to his crew, shouting in the minoi tongue. They called back. He nodded, grinning his mad, silver-toothed grin.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s get this bucket moving! We’ve got an army to outrun, and a tower to reach!”

Gnomes started shouting all over the place. The chains suspending the Varya began to move, and with a juddering lurch, the ship lowered toward the floor. Unseen gears squealed, and a wash of golden light shone up from below. Shedara leaned over the gunwale, looking down: a hatch in the floor had swung open, revealing blazing lava beneath. The Varya was rumbling down toward the Burning Sea.

Her mouth ran dry. She pulled back into the ship, and for the first time in many long years, genuinely began to pray.

Chapter 29

The Bilo Shore, Hith’s Cauldron

I will give you a goat, Hult thought. Jijin, if I survive to reach the Chaldar—if I survive the next few moments—I will give you ten goats. I will cut their throats and pour the blood upon the ground. I will burn the fat of their hindquarters on an altar in your honor. I will—

He stopped, realizing how many times he’d made that very promise since the massacre at the Run. There likely weren’t enough goats in all of Taladas to make good on all his vows. He would have to spend the rest of his life wielding the sacrificial knife, making offerings of gore, prostrating himself before the horse-god in all his glory. He shook his head as the fireship descended toward the Burning Sea.

Enough of this, he told the god. If I die, I die. It is up to you.

Shedara was muttering, invoking her own strange gods of woodland and magic. Nakhil fingered a string of beads, eyes shut, lips unmoving. Azar simply looked straight ahead; he had no gods. He didn’t know what a god was.

As for the gnomes, they carried on like any ship’s crew, shouting and cursing and scurrying about the stone deck. They were lowering toward a lake of liquid fire and racing to confront a deadly army on the march, but by their behavior, it could have been simply a day of ill weather at the harbors of Kristophan or Suluk. Hult took comfort from that, and from the heft of the frostblade in his hand.

The sword was all wrong—too short, too straight for his liking. And he had his doubts about the white dragon bile. But he had to admit there was something oddly comforting about the weapon.

Still, as they cleared the stone shaft that led down from the gnomish wharf and began to descend through open air, he had to stop himself from offering the goats again.

The gnomes had tunneled a bight out of the columns, making a sheltered cove surrounded by the massive stone pillars. Hult didn’t dare look down, so he looked out instead, across the Cauldron.

The kurshakur were plain to see from there: a wall of fire little more than a league away, creeping toward Ilmach across the roiling red lava. He glanced at the frostblade in his hand and almost laughed: the short sword seemed pitiful against such a horde. A thousand warriors armed with the weapons wouldn’t be able to prevail against such a force.

“This is going to be difficult,” said Nakhil, gazing at the kurshakur.

“That’s a word for it,” agreed Shedara. She wriggled her fingers, readying them for her spells. “Azar, if we need your help, can you give it?”

Azar thought about it. He alone was unperturbed by the sight of the army of fire swarming across the Burning Sea. “I will try. I don’t control my powers the way you do. I can only see what must be done, and then do it.”

Shedara met Hult’s eyes and made a face. Not good enough, her gaze said, but she shrugged it off and glanced over the gunwale. Sweat streamed down her brow, and Hult became aware of how much he was perspiring as well: despite the cooling armor of the minoi, it was still hotter than midsummer on the Tamire.

“Almost there,” Shedara said. “Hold tight.”

He wanted to grab her hand, but she wasn’t sitting close enough, so he tightened his fingers around the edge of the bench where he sat. There was a sound that was more slurp than splash—the Cauldron was thicker than any sea of water—and the boat lurched, rocking him forward on his seat. He winced, half expecting the flames to rise, the magma to eat its way through the hull and turn them to cinders.

None of that happened. Instead there was a hiss of steam, then the familiar rocking of waves. The tang of hot metal stung his nostrils, but the boat didn’t explode or melt. The gnomes let out a cheer, and Hult found himself whooping along with them as Nosk climbed up a ladder and unhooked the chain from the Varya. The captain gave it a hard shake, and it began to rise away.

“All clear the chain!” Nosk called. “Stations!”

The minoi scrambled, taking positions along the deck.

“Hull holding!” shouted one.

“Furnace hot!” called another.

“Steering oars, aye!”

“Wheel ready!”

“Good!” Nosk answered. “Yorgamathrukindopar-thashullotagamas! Keep an eye on the kurshakur, will you? We’re going to be cutting this close as it is. I want to know if anyone breaks from that line!”

“Aye, captain!” called a small, slender gnome perched on the bowsprit: a lookout.

“All right, then, start the wheel!” Nosk declared and leaned close to Hult and the others as he crossed to the tiller. “Be ready. There’ll be a slight jolt. Nothing at all to worry about.”

Someone turned a crank, and there was a rumble beneath them. Steam burst from pipes near the furnace with a shriek that made Hult’s skull buzz. He gritted his teeth and nearly fell backward out of his seat as the fireship shot forward.

It accelerated faster than the best warhorse. The great paddlewheel turned faster and faster, steel oars diving into the molten rock again and again and again, slinging magma in an amber cascade behind them, then emerging red hot, and cooling as they passed through the air before dipping into the magma again. Hult gawked at the wheel, fascinated, not really certain what was causing it to spin. It was something to do with the shrieking furnace, certainly, but what? Then he turned his gaze back toward Ilmach as it slipped away behind them.

The gnomish citadel was huge, covered with windows, all aglow with inner lights. He could see shadows in most of them: diminutive figures who had stopped whatever toil they were doing to watch the kurshakur. Dozens of airships hung above, waiting. If it went badly, Malkis had told him, there would be an evacuation—not of the minoi, but of the plans for their machines. They were too valuable to lose and would be sent to the other colonies, along with word that their reinforcements should turn back and see to protecting their own homes.

Hult saw something else too: row upon row of brass tubes, jutting from near the bottoms of the columns. More and more emerged from the stone as he watched, poking out of holes in the stone. There were hundreds, pointing south across the Cauldron, toward the kurshakur. It made him think, strangely, of the spines of the charvat, a giant lizard that prowled the steppes and sometimes preyed on the Uigan’s herds. When threatened, the charvat raised bony spines along its back to protect itself. Ilmach seemed to be doing the same thing.

“What are those for?” he asked Shedara. She frowned and shook her head. He turned to call the question out to Nosk, but the captain’s raspy voice drowned him out.

“Coming hard larboard! Hang on!”

Hult did what he could but ended up tumbling sideways into Azar as the Varya’s bow swung sharply to the left. Nakhil lost his balance altogether and slammed against the rail. As the agile little boat turned, it leaned precariously, giving Hult and the others a good view of the Cauldron’s churning surface. Then it righted itself and shot away parallel to the craggy shore, running close to the coast and flinging its fan of lava even higher as it gained speed. The gnomes kept working, unperturbed.

“Open her up, lads!” Nosk bellowed. “We’re gonna run full out! If the kurshakur want us, let’s make them work for us!”

The minoi answered with a cheer. Someone shouted about the valves being wide. The fireship gained even more speed, the furnace belching great blasts of steam as the wheel whirled faster and faster. The bow actually began to lift into the air from the speed. Hult felt the wind in his face, and exhilaration unexpectedly took hold of him. It was like when he’d used to ride a horse as hard as he could, across the steppes. There was a wild abandon about it that made him feel, strangely, at home.

Then a voice called out and killed his cheer completely. It was Yorgam, the lookout at the bow.

“Kurshakur to starboard!” he yelled. “They’re coming for us!”

Hult glanced toward the Chaldar, expecting to see a small group of fire creatures that had split away from the main army—eight, ten, maybe as many as twenty. Instead, the mass of approaching kurshakur was far larger—perhaps a hundred in all, a seething mass of flames.

“Khot,” he swore.

Shedara laughed. “Well put. Forlo would be proud. Nosk, what do we do now? Are we going to try to outrun them?”

The captain shook his head, his single eye sparkling. “Can’t,” he said. “Not enough distance between us and them, and they’re coming too fast. We’ll have to fight.”

“If we do, we’ll die,” Nakhil said. “There are too many of them.” He waved a hand toward the kurshakur.

“I didn’t say we’d be fighting alone,” Nosk shot back. He shook his head. “There’s a lot you don’t know, horse-man. Furnace low, lads! Bring us down. We don’t want to get too far from the columns now!”

The gnomes grumbled but did as he bade. The steam lessened, the wheel slowed, and Nosk brought the boat around in a broad arc that left them facing directly toward the fire minions. Hult stared at the wall of living flame rushing toward him, then up at Nosk, who guided the ship to a halt. It bobbed on the magma, moving with the current alone.

“Repeaters!” Nosk bellowed. “Break ’em out, lads! Pass ’em around! Let’s keep the flickering bastards from getting too close!”

There was a stack of crates at the stern. Two minoi worked the lids off with pry bars, pulling out the most bizarre weapons Hult had ever seen. They looked like crossbows gone completely insane, with all sorts of clicking, whirring machinery affixed to them. Each held a rack of quarrels on top, and he could see they were no ordinary bolts. Each was tipped with a tiny, glass vial instead of a head; inside, drops of pale blue liquid sloshed around.

“More dragon bile?” he asked Nosk.

The captain bared his silver teeth. “You’re a quick one, for a barbarian.”

The gnomes passed out the crossbows, one by one. Someone put one in Hult’s hands: it was surprisingly light, for all its bulk. He examined it, brow furrowed.

“The mechanism feeds it quarrels and cocks the string,” Nosk said, pulling a lever on the side of his own weapon’s stock. It made a chattering sound, and the string pulled back as a bolt dropped into place. “Just pull and loose, pull and loose. There’s a dozen shots in a rack, and you can empty it in a couple minutes. But have those swords ready. It’ll probably still come to close quarters, even with help.”

“What help?” Shedara asked, loading her crossbow.

“It’s the spines,” Hult said, understanding.

“What?” Shedara asked.

“Those.” Hult pointed back at the citadel and the brass tubes protruding from the columns. “That’s why you didn’t want to get far from Ilmach, isn’t it?”

Nosk grunted, clapping Hult on the shoulder. “Damn right.”

“What are they for?” Shedara asked.

The captain only grinned. “You’ll see. A little surprise!”

They all exchanged glances. Nakhil shrugged. “We won’t have to wait long, I think,” he said, nodding toward the kurshakur. They were almost upon the fireship.

“Places!” Nosk barked, striding forward. “Look sharp, lads! Don’t let them catch us with our spanners in our hands!”

The gnomes ran to the bow, all but the one who stood by the furnace. He stayed where he was, his snowy beard streaked with soot, waiting for word from his captain. Hult and the others hurried forward too, forming a second rank behind the smaller minoi.

“Hold till I say!” Nosk boomed. “Anyone looses early, he goes over the side!”

The gnomes all laughed, but it was a grim, humorless sound. They cradled their mad crossbows in their arms, not yet raising them to aim. Hult did the same. He caught a glance from Azar and knew what was going through the boy’s mind: he’d never shot anything before and was only following along, pretending he knew what he was doing.

Too late to teach him, Hult thought. Just don’t let him hit any of us.

The kurshakur came on, and Hult revised his count to a hundred and fifty. He could make them out distinctly—the flowing, dancing shapes of their bodies, with only the barest human outline. They carried swords and spears and whips, all made of living flame. Their green eyes flashed with hate. They saw flesh and wanted to sear it, char it, devour it.

When the minions were less than a hundred paces from the ship, a sound blared behind them, enormously loud, startling Hult so badly that he almost dropped his crossbow. It was a roaring whistle, not unlike the alarm that had interrupted their audience with Algando. Hult glanced back and saw steam erupting from chimneys above the brass tubes. He frowned, confused. Then the tubes began to vomit water, all at once.

“Mother of Astar,” Shedara swore. “So that’s what all those tanks were for.”

The water came out in jets, like the white-foaming rivers that tumbled down from the Ilquar Mountains back home. It arced like arrows in flight, rising high above their little boat then falling back down again, more like thunderbolts than rain. The streams struck right in the midst of the kurshakur, and instantly the minions vanished in a cloud of steam that billowed high into the black sky. A chorus of tormented sounds, like the whooshes of quenched campfires mixed with screams of pain, rose out of the vapor. At the ship’s prow, the gnomes cheered.

“Settle down!” called Nosk. “You know the cannons won’t lick ’em all. Now be ready!”

The minoi calmed down, raising their crossbows as one. Hult did the same and sighted down its length, watching the steam. Above, the streams of water faltered and stopped. Drops pattered down, hissing when they struck the lava. Slowly, the mass of steam began to dissipate, and the surviving kurshakur boiled forth.

Though the flood had killed two-thirds of them, simply snuffing them out of existence, that still left about fifty, furious and charging, burning blades held high. Hult picked one, kept his quarrel trained on it, and waited.

“Hold,” growled Nosk. “Hold…”

They were close, near enough that Hult began to feel the heat of their fiery bodies. There was nothing human in their eyes, no compassion or pity or even sanity; there was only hunger, a wildfire’s yearning to destroy all it touched. His finger twitched on his weapon’s trigger as he fought against the urge to shoot. The others held back too, waiting… waiting.…

“Loose!” the captain cried. “Now!”

Strings thrummed. Hult pulled his trigger and the crossbow kicked against his shoulder, bucking like a mare in heat. Azar stumbled back with a shout, shocked at his weapon’s power. Nakhil reached out to steady him as Hult watched the volley of quarrels climb high, then dive down toward the kurshakur. Many missed their mark, falling uselessly into the magma, but here and there, a bolt found one of the minions, and the creature shrieked and vanished like a candle flame in a stiff breeze. Seven of the creatures died, and the gnomes worked their levers, the air filling with the clanking of machinery as the crossbows reloaded themselves.

“Keep it up, lads!” Nosk yelled. “Hit ’em again! Shoot at will!”

The air filled with quarrels for some time, the gnomes loosing, reloading, then loosing again. Across the magma, mayhem reigned. One by one, the kurshakur disappeared, struck down by the storm of bolts. Hult shot one after another: the contraption wasn’t so different from a normal bow, once he got used to it slamming into his shoulder. Bit by bit, the throng of fire minions dwindled: thirty, twenty, ten. Hult ran out of bolts and dropped the crossbow, yanking his frostblade from its scabbard and stepping back to hold it ready.

It wasn’t necessary. As he settled into his fighting stance, Nakhil’s final quarrel flew through the air, straight into the heart of the last remaining kurshak. The creature howled as it guttered out.

The gnomes didn’t cheer again; the slaughtering done, they were already moving back to their stations aboard the Varya. Nosk barked orders about valves, and the furnace began to shriek again. The wheel turned, and in moments the ship was under way, veering away from the advancing army and churning across the Cauldron as fast as it could run. Only then, as they left Ilmach and Maladar’s minions behind, did the minoi begin to shout and laugh and celebrate their victory.

“Easy now, lads,” said Nosk from the helm, one hand on the tiller. “Long way still to go, and plenty of trouble to be had on the way.” But he was grinning too, his teeth flashing in the light of the Burning Sea.

Shedara clapped Hult’s shoulder. “How many?” she asked.

He glanced at her. “What?”

“How many did you shoot?”

“Oh,” Hult said and cast his mind back. “Five, I think.”

Shedara raised an eyebrow. “Not bad.”

“I assume you got more.”

“Eight,” she said, laughing when Hult’s face turned sour. “Don’t worry. Like Nosk said, we’ve got a long way to go. Three days, by my reckoning. You might get a chance to catch up.”

Hult nodded, looking away across the sea. Beyond the fire, beyond the roiling, molten rock, loomed the Chaldar. It coiled and writhed, throwing off tongues of blue flame that flared and faded into smoke. A long way away still… but not so far, really, after all they’d been through. Not so far at all.

Chapter 30

The Chaldar, Hith’s Cauldron

Who am I?

The taunting question made no sense. He knew who he was. He was Maladar an-Desh, Lord of Emperors, Master of Aurim—of that there could be no doubt. He had dwelt within the Hooded One for a thousand years. He had come out and claimed the body that he wore. How could he be anyone else?

Yet the doubts circled… and lurked… and grew. Something wasn’t right. He didn’t know how it was possible; he didn’t even know how he knew. But he knew. It wasn’t how it was supposed to be; Hith wasn’t tormenting him just for fun. He could feel it, a growing disquiet inside. What had gone wrong? Why didn’t he feel the triumph he’d expected when he came there? Why, with his goals within reach at last, was he so ill at ease?

Who am I?

Maladar rose from his throne with a growl and walked to the edge of the pool surrounding the dais. The watery fire glistened, the flame-fish that lived in it flickering as they darted through its depths. He could see his reflection within… or, rather, Forlo’s. The face he saw was cadaverous, enervated from going so long without food or drink or rest. Only will kept him from dropping dead. His beard had turned white; much of the remaining hair on his head was gone. His skin was the color and texture of parchment, stretched tight over his skull. But the eyes were clear, flashing with malice and power. Because they were his eyes, the ones he’d seen when he gazed into that same pool long ago—the only part of his face that had been left intact when he came into his power. They were Maladar’s eyes. He was Maladar, all the gods damn it. But not really.

He shook his head, trying to brush the doubt aside, but it wouldn’t go away. It circled him like an irritating gnat, too quick, too agile to crush. It wouldn’t be reasoned with, and it made him wish Hith were there now, so he could seize the god and shake him until he made the doubt go away.

A thought occurred to him. Perhaps the problem was right in front of him. He looked into the water, at the face of the body he wore. Forlo’s face. Maybe that was why he wasn’t who he thought he was. He was Maladar the Faceless, after all. He held out his good hand, clenched it into a fist, and as it closed, a dagger sprang into being, made of solid flame. It was long and sharp and wickedly curved, flashing with inner, golden light as he turned it this way and that.

No, said Forlo’s voice inside his head, thick with fear and the anticipation of pain. Please.

Maladar ignored it, staring at the blade. Perhaps that was all it was; as long as he wore another man’s face, he couldn’t truly be Maladar—not completely. He raised the blade, setting its edge behind his left ear.

Don’t, please, no.

He wished he still had his left hand, that he hadn’t burned it off so impulsively. That would make it easier. Emaciated as he was, all he’d have to do was pull the skin taut, then cut and peel. After that, he’d bathe the wound in fire to stop the bleeding, as he’d done with his own flesh long ago. Perhaps he’d keep the face around afterward, preserve it to keep it from rotting and wear it as a talisman. That would be… amusing.

Oh, well. His left hand was gone. He’d have to do a bit more crude hacking and sawing, but it would come off all the same. He put some pressure on the knife, felt a hot line of pain as its edge pierced Forlo’s skin.

Stop! No! Don’t don’t don’t DON’T DON’T—

He stopped, his brow furrowing. It wasn’t right. He lifted the knife away and let it go; it flared and vanished as it dropped from his hand, turning back into the flame-stuff of the Chaldar. Warm blood coursed down his neck from the wound the dagger had made; he let it bleed, pushed the sting away, onto Forlo. The man’s voice had fallen silent, which was a relief.

Maladar turned away from the pool, annoyed, seething. The answer wasn’t in disfiguring himself. It lay somewhere else. But where?

“Enough of this!” he shouted at the air. “I am Maladar. Do you hear me, Hith, you liar? There is no one else I could possibly be!”

The god did not appear, though for a moment he thought he heard a hiss of laughter. The doubt kept circling, circling. He shook his head and turned to leave the throne room.

“Very well,” he said. “I will prove it.”

He could see the whole Cauldron from the top of the Chaldar. The tower was so high that the lowest cloud wisps scudded by beneath him, black and fuming. The storm seethed directly overhead, so close he could almost touch it. Red lightning flared in all directions, lacing the heavens with unholy light. Down below, the Burning Sea churned, spinning slowly about the tower. Looking around, he saw the lands that lay beyond the black volcanoes that encircled the Cauldron. To the south was the Emerald Sea; to the west lay the boiling waters of Indanalis; to the north were the columns of Bilo, where his army of fire minions was busy besieging the first of many gnomish colonies; to the east spread the dusty, ruin-dotted wastelands of the old empire.

Between, there was nothing but bubbling, molten rock: mile upon mile of it. The gods had done that to his empire, his beloved Aurim. They had sent flame and stone plummeting from the heavens, had delayed his return for centuries when they smashed the empire into oblivion.

Had it been deserved? Possibly. The later emperors had been seeking ways to push their power beyond the mortal realm, it was said. The Faceless Brethren had said that, in the end, one had found a way to achieve godliness, and the gods had acted to stop him. Of course, no one knew for sure: anyone there had died that day, so there were only scattered scraps of history to go by. The truth was probably more complicated. It usually was. But it was gone, lost forever in the fire… like Aurim itself.

“No,” he murmured. “Not forever.”

Maladar shut his eyes, opening himself to the black moon. Nuvis was waning, a mere sliver of itself, but it didn’t matter; he drank deep of its power, all the same. Some on Krynn saw the black moon change that day, saw it swell full. Few could see it at all, though, so it went unnoticed except by a bare, troubled few. Then it was done, fading back to a crescent again.

Maladar held the power, filling him with euphoria. Wine, dreamleaf, lovemaking—all were mere shadows of that rapture. He retained it as long as he could, savoring it. Then, when he feared he might burst, that the magic might burn him up from inside, he began to chant, to move his one good hand, tracing complex patterns in the air, forcing the sorcery out through his fingertips.

“Rise!” he cried, throwing his arms wide. “Rise, my kingdom!”

The magic erupted around him, forming clouds that spat black rain. The black rain fell all around the Chaldar, evaporating as it struck the lava. When it did, the sea stopped moving. A tremor shook the tower, making it jump beneath Maladar’s feet. He smiled, looking down at the Cauldron. The rain intensified, slashing down, raising great gouts of steam. Black thunderbolts flared, striking the magma, throwing gobs of it into the air. And the Cauldron began to roll, molten rock rising up from beneath.

Yes, it was working. Yes.

“I am Maladar!” he cried. “I am the one true emperor! This is my realm! Come forth, City of Songs! Rise anew, and be reborn!”

The roiling grew stronger. Geysers of magma erupted as the rain hammered down. The Chaldar trembled, green flames running up its length.

Then, at last, dark shapes began to emerge from the heart of the Burning Sea. They were dull gray and glistening black, obsidian and basalt, domes and spires and colonnades, clustered on hills of smoldering pumice. The lava receded around them, running down streets of cooling glass. Charred husks of trees lined the boulevards; gardens of ash trembled in the midst of broad plazas. An island was surfacing from the depths… and on it, a vast city.

His city.

It had begun. Aurim was rising again.

The streets were empty, silent. All the windows were dark. No water flowed in the fountains. No stalls crowded the markets. There were no bright awnings or banners, no blooms in the gardens, no frescoes on the walls; no colors at all to that place of black and gray, save for the ruddy glow of the Cauldron and the Chaldar’s blue shine. The scents of a city—the spices and incense, the sweat and filth—were absent as well. There was only smoke and brimstone. The wind sighed down vacant avenues, throwing up whirlwinds of soot.

Forlo walked the streets by himself and felt lonelier than he had ever felt in his life. Aurim was a metropolis three times the size even of Kristophan at its height; half a million people could dwell there easily, swelling to two or three times that number at the height of the summer trading season. It ought to have been packed with laborers and merchants, priests and soldiers, nobles and servants, but there was no one. Aurim was a place of ghosts, a City of Whispers.

He gazed up at a statue of black iron, perched atop an obsidian plinth, and felt his stomach clench. Like all the statues he’d seen since coming down from the burning tower, it was shaped in his likeness. It had his gaunt face, his charred armor and tattered clothes. But at the same time, it wasn’t him at all: its stance was one of arms-folded arrogance, the head cocked back. Its expression was twisted into a sneer. The sculpted figure looked like Forlo, but it was all Maladar.

His eyes turned away from the statue, back to the city itself, bereft and silent as anywhere he’d ever seen. Black rain continued to drizzle down from the clouds above.

This is what you will rule over? he thought at Maladar. Ashes and dust? Halls home to nothing but wind?

Maladar laughed, his mirth filled with scorn.

For now, he said. Only for now. Those who survive will bow before me. They will come dwell in this place. I will raise the meadows and mountains again, and my new thralls shall toil in the fields and mines. They will make war on my enemies. Aurim will find its old glory. It will surely take time—decades, maybe even centuries—but it will happen. Perhaps, if you are lucky, I will keep you alive long enough to see it. If not, your ghost can always be bound to this place.

Forlo wanted to scoff at the notion. He wanted to call Maladar mad, his dream empty, but he couldn’t. He saw it in his mind: men and dwarves, goblins and ogres, even minotaurs submitting themselves to the emperor who had traveled through time and death to rule again. If it was the only alternative to doom beneath the fire dragon and the Kheten Voi, many would submit. Not every being valued his honor above life; indeed, when it came down to it, most simply preferred survival. Good people bowed to evil rulers all the time; even in the League, they had submitted to Emperor Rekhaz. The power to choose between light and darkness meant that, at least as often as not, people made the wrong choice.

Maladar was right. Aurim would not stay empty long.

He kept walking, down a long slope from the hilltop where the Chaldar stood in place of the imperial palace—the only part of the city that was different from how it had been when Maladar reigned. Many-columned buildings loomed on both sides, their windows staring like the eyes of skulls. The main street opened into a broad square where more statues towered. Beyond that were docks, jet-black jetties extending into a river of lava, with another bleak, dark skyline rising on the far side. Towers and obelisks stood black against the crimson-glowing clouds.

The plaza by the riverbank was not empty. The Kheten Voi awaited him, assembled row upon row, standing still except for their heads, which tilted slowly downward, always staring directly at him as he descended a flight of cinder-caked steps to the square. Their eyes gleamed in the smoldering haze. His army stood ready, awaiting orders.

He had already sent the fire minions to war, unleashing them upon the gnomes of Bilo. It was time to send forth the rest of his forces. He strode across the plaza, beneath the towering pillars, and climbed onto a high platform where poets and musicians had performed, back in the days when Aurim was a living place. Drifts of ash lay scattered across its surface. He walked through them and turned to look out upon the Voi.

As one, they faced him.

“The time has come,” Maladar declared through Forlo’s lips. “Chaos reigns across the face of Taladas. The minotaurs war amongst themselves. The tribes of the Tamire are scattered, crushed. The Rainward Isles reel in disarray. Thenol has fallen to war. Death and destruction have visited Panak, Armach, and the Emerald Sea. All across the continent, the iron lies waiting upon the anvil. It wants only the hammer’s blow. And you, my children, you will be that hammer. The cities and the tribes will fall to you, one by one. Only those who lay down their swords before you, who agree to surrender, shall be spared. They will follow you. Your ranks will grow.

“You,” he said, pointing to the nearest of the stone soldiers. “Come forward.”

The Voi did as he bade, stomping toward him, up the steps and onto the platform. Its legs creaking and cracking, it dropped to one knee before him. Forlo laid his fingertips upon its brow and shut his eyes, murmuring spidery words.

Magic flowed through him, dark and intoxicating. It poured out through his hand, and into the Kheten Voi. The statue grew warm, the light in its eyes darkening to violet. When Maladar lifted Forlo’s hand away, there was more than blind obedience in those eyes: a malicious intelligence shone through. Forlo wasn’t sure, but he thought the statue’s draconic features changed as well; they seemed less fierce, more cunning.

“You will be my voice,” he said. “When our enemies submit, when they swear to serve me in exchange for their lives, they will kneel before you.”

“Yes, my lord,” said the Voi in a voice like stones being rubbed together. “They will bow to me.”

Maladar’s lips curled into a smile. He stepped back. “Rise, then, and go to war.”

He extended his hands, pointing at the blazing river. The power of Nuvis coursed through him, and the surface of the lava simmered again. More shapes rose from the depths: long ships of stone, with tall masts that looked like trees that had died in a forest fire. They emerged all along the banks and at the docks, more than a hundred within sight, and many more around the river’s bends. The Voi turned and marched toward them, following shouted orders from their leader. One by one, they stepped aboard the ships, and gray sails unfurled, throwing up clouds of billowing soot. Then the sails filled, catching the hot winds, and the boats began to move.

Forlo watched them go, pulling away from the docks and sailing downriver. He felt hollow inside. The League would fall, and the other realms of Taladas after that. Aurim would rise in their place. Maladar would forge a new world from the ruins. It had already begun. And he could only watch, helpless, as everything he knew came to an end.

Chapter 31

The Burning Sea, Hith’s Cauldron

Molten rock fanned through the air, soaring high and far before splashing back down. The wheel turned fast, hurtling the Varya across the Cauldron, devouring the miles at a speed Shedara had seen a sailing ship achieve only once before without the aid of magic, and that had been running full-out at the leading edge of a storm so powerful it had drowned entire towns when it came ashore.

She had given up trying to understand how the fireship moved so quickly; the wheel was powered by steam made by the furnace, like most gnomish machinery, but how that could be enough to push a heavy boat through magma as fast as a skysteed could fly? None of the others could figure it out either, and the gnomes weren’t about to tell their secrets.

Shedara let her gaze linger on the paddlewheel a while longer, then glanced in the direction of Bilo. The columns were almost out of sight, only their tops visible above the horizon. The siege would be underway, the minoi of Ilmach using their water cannons and repeating crossbows and the gods knew what else to repel the kurshakur. Nosk had assured them, several times, that the gnomes could seal themselves up for years, sheltering from the fire minions in their stone citadel. Nothing could get in or out.

She wasn’t sure, though, and neither were Hult and Nakhil. After Suluk, after everything, how could they feel any confidence? Maladar was too cunning. She couldn’t shake the feeling that, if the Varya ever returned, it would find its home port in ruins, its halls scorched down to bare rock, the bodies of gnomes scattered and charred to black skeletons.

She sighed. Whatever the case, it was beyond her power. She couldn’t stop the devastation, any more than she’d been able to stop anything since the Faceless Brethren died. The gnomes, and the Glass Sailors beyond them, would either live or die. Never mind, then. There were other things she had to worry about. One was standing at the Varya’s rail beside her, gazing ahead, toward the Chaldar.

“He is waiting,” Azar murmured. “I can sense him, at the top of the tower. His war has begun, his armies are on the move. But something troubles him. He doesn’t have the power he believed, and he doesn’t know why.”

Shedara studied Azar. He looked as old as his father had: though he had no beard, gray showed in his hair at the temples, and harsh lines etched his brow and around his mouth. Maladar’s power had done that.

“What about us?” she asked. “Does he know we’re coming?”

Azar shut his eyes, concentrating, then shook his head. “Not yet… but soon. If I can sense him, he will be able to sense me as well, before long.”

“And then he’ll know,” she said. “He’ll understand why his power’s limited. It’s because of you… because you share his soul.”

“Yes. Without me, he can never be complete.”

And we’re bringing you straight to him, Shedara thought. Her mouth twisted. We really ought to hide you away, where he won’t find you in a thousand years. There are places… perhaps across the sea, in that place called Ansalon. Or we could just kill you, send the scrap of his soul to the gods, where he’ll never get it.

The idea was tempting. She bent her arm slightly, preparing to drop a knife into her hand. That and a quick stab, from his left side through the ribs… that was all it would take. Quick, easy. Dump him over the side, let the Cauldron devour the remains. She straightened her wrist, and the hilt slipped into her palm. She took a step toward him, the blade hidden from view. She’d done it before. Shedara was a thief, not an assassin, but that didn’t mean she’d never killed anyone.

“What will he do when he finds out?” she asked.

Azar never looked away from the Chaldar. “Send his minions for us. There are still many that haven’t gone to war, no matter what the gnomes believe. They will try to take me and bring me to him.”

“And if they do?” Shedara took another step closer, gripping the dagger firmly. Yes, one good stab, and Maladar would be thwarted forever.…

“I said they would try,” Azar replied.

He might have smiled slightly, or it might have been a trick of the light. Whatever it was, it was soon gone. He turned his head and looked directly at her, his eyes gleaming orange in the Cauldron’s glow.

Shedara froze, holding the blade motionless. She forced herself to keep her expression calm, friendly.

“You haven’t asked the real question yet,” Azar said. “The one you truly want to ask.”

Shedara swallowed. “All right. What happens when we reach the Chaldar? What are we going to do?”

“No,” Azar said. “That still isn’t it. You know most of the answer to that. You’re going to ascend the tower, and you’re going to try to destroy Maladar, even if you have to kill my father to do it. I know this, though you have tried to keep it secret from me. What you intend is no mystery.

“It’s what I’m going to do that troubles you.” His gaze turned back toward the Chaldar. “Because of what I carry. Because he and I are one.”

There was only the roar of flames and the constant churning of the Varya’s wheel. Shedara bit her lip, looking around. Nakhil was dozing on the other side of the boat. Hult was with the gnomes, helping them run the ship. Neither would see. She could make up a story, a lie to tell: an accident… something. She took another step, bringing her right beside Azar, the dagger between them. No one would see. It would take only a moment.

“I won’t deny it,” she said. “I want to trust you, Azar, but… well, it’s Maladar, even if it’s only the smallest part of him.”

“I know,” he said. “I hear that part speaking to me, in the silence. It says… terrible things.” His mouth pinched, his hand tightening around the Varya’s rail. “Even now, it tells me to take the knife from your hand and kill you with it.”

He moved then, so fast she had no idea how he did it. Maybe it was Maladar’s magic; maybe he was just that quick. All Shedara knew was, one moment she was holding the blade near his ribs, tensed to jab it into his heart; the next, her hand was numb, her wrist hurt like the Abyss, and Azar was pressing her dagger against her own throat, just hard enough that the slightest twitch from either of them would pierce skin and jugular.

“Azar,” she breathed.

“He wants me to cut you open,” Azar said. “He wants me to kill everyone on this boat and come to the Chaldar alone.”

Shedara stiffened. “You’re… you’re not going to, though. Right?”

He met her gaze a moment longer, then grimaced as if someone had just punched him in the stomach. He stepped back and opened his fingers, letting the knife drop. It clattered against the Varya’s metal deck.

“No,” Azar said, shaking his head. “But I may not always be able to resist. The voice grows stronger, the closer we get to my father. Who knows what will happen when I’m standing before him?”

Sweet Astar, Shedara thought. “That wasn’t the answer I was hoping for.”

“I know it isn’t.” Azar sighed. “You want me to tell you I’ll hold my ground, that I won’t falter or break. You want me to promise I’ll help you defeat Maladar. But… I can’t. That’s the truth. When the time comes, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“Then we may have to kill you too,” she said. “If it comes to a choice between our lives and yours.”

Azar looked up at her. He looked even older. He seemed to be aging by the hour. “I know,” he said, his eyes shining. “And I don’t blame you. But you won’t succeed. If that time comes, you will die first, just as sure as I took that knife from you.”

Shedara was still dwelling on those ominous words, staring up at the Chaldar, when a shout arose from the Varya’s bow. It was the lookout, Yorgam. He was bellowing in the gnomish language, which sounded to her ears like someone speaking three times normal speed and backward. He grew more frantic as he shouted, gesticulating wildly ahead and to starboard.

“What is it?” she asked, hurrying across the deck toward Hult. “Can you understand any of it?”

The Uigan nodded, his hand brushing the jade amulet he wore. “It’s difficult. The magic translates, but it doesn’t slow down the words.” He frowned, squeezing his eyes shut to listen. “Sails. A great many sails, rising out of the sea. Hundreds.”

“Sails?” said Nakhil, approaching from the bow. “That doesn’t make any sense. The only people who travel on the Cauldron are the minoi, and they use those to propel their boats.” He pointed back at the whirling paddlewheel. “Not sails.”

Hult shrugged, jerking a thumb at Yorgam. “That’s what he says.”

Shedara peered toward the horizon, shading her eyes against the Burning Sea’s glare. It was hard to see through the smoke and heat shimmer, but she made out a forest of masts, each bedecked with a taut sail. “It’s true,” she said. “It looks like a fleet of some sort. Sailing due west, straight as a spear.”

“But that’s not possible,” Nakhil protested. He licked a finger and held it up, scowling. “The wind’s all wrong. They’d have to tack back and forth to go west.”

“They would if they traveled on the same wind you’re feeling on your face right now,” Shedara said. “There’s magic at work. This is Maladar’s doing.”

“Full stop!” Nosk shouted from the helm. “Quell the furnace! Cut the steam! Move, now!”

Gnomes scrambled, following his orders. The Varya’s wheel slowed, then stopped. Nosk hauled on the wheel, slewing the fireship back and forth as it eased to a halt. They came to a stop with their port side facing the fleet.

“It’s more of his army, isn’t it?” Hult murmured, staring at the sails. They could all see them now, though the curve of Krynn still hid the boats’ hulls from view. “Those statues. He’s sending them to attack the League.”

“His war has begun,” Azar said, looking out across the sea. “The minotaurs will crumble before the Kheten Voi. One by one, their cities will fall. The survivors will surrender to their might. When it is done, the Voi will turn south and take Thenol. Then the valleys of Marak, and the Steamwall hobgoblins, and the forests of Armach-nesti. By the time they cross the Tiderun to conquer the Tamire, Maladar’s armies will be unstoppable.”

They all stared at him. His voice had changed, turning deep and cold. His face was different too—not the features, his expression. There was pride in the tilt of his head, a sneering curl to his lip, scorn in his eyes. Shedara nudged Hult, who had laid a hand on his talga. He glared at her, but she shook her head. A scowl darkened the Uigan’s face as he let go of the hilt.

“Maladar?” she asked. She kept her own hands in plain view, so he could see they were empty. “Is it you speaking?”

Azar leveled his gaze at her, and for the first time she saw what was inside him. She knew what he looked like. She had been in the Faceless Emperor’s company twice before. The cruelty, the arrogance, the edge of madness—it was all there, shining like dead stars through Azar’s eyes.

“You will fail,” the Faceless Emperor said through Azar’s mouth. “All of you will die before you see the inside of the Chaldar. All of you… except the boy. Him I will claim for my own. His body will be my new home, as was meant to be. I will give his father to the fire.”

All was silent, beyond the rumble of the Cauldron. Nobody moved. Then, so suddenly it made the others jump, Shedara began to laugh.

“You’re a fool, Maladar,” she said, smiling as Azar glowered at her. “You think you know the future, but you don’t. You never have. That’s why you died a thousand years ago. It’s why you’re split between two bodies now. And it’s why you’ll die again, on my sword, or Hult’s, or Nakhil’s. You act like you’re not afraid, but you are. You most certainly are.”

Azar’s face twisted into something hideous, rage distorting it so weirdly he barely looked like himself anymore. His eyes flashed with rage, but it was an impotent anger, full of fear. Shedara smiled even wider, and as she did, Azar’s eyes rolled back in his head and his face smoothed again. His legs gave out; he dropped to his knees. Nakhil and Hult moved in, catching him before he fell face-first onto the deck. They eased him down and laid him out. Hult bent over him, pressing his fingers against Azar’s throat.

“He’s all right,” he said. “Just passed out.”

“What was that?” Nakhil asked. “Was that really… him? Maladar?”

Shedara nodded, chewing her lip as she stared at Azar. “A shadow of him, at least. And his words. But did you see his eyes, right before he went down?”

“Yes,” Hult said. “He was afraid.”

“Of what?” Nakhil asked.

“Us,” Shedara answered.

They all looked at one another while the minoi jostled and yammered and watched the sails of Maladar’s fleet pass by.

“Then that means we can defeat him,” Nakhil said.

Shedara nodded. “Yes, we can. I just wish I knew how.”

Chapter 32

The Chaldar, Hith’s Cauldron

The city continued to rise, as did the hills around it. Black islands dotted the sea surrounding Aurim, jagged hunks of glass that glistened in the lava’s glow. The vineyards and groves that had once flourished upon their sides were gone, ashes, but no matter. Grapes and olive trees could grow again. They would grow again. Once Maladar’s new followers came, the lands around the City of Songs would flourish as never before.

And they would come. Maladar knew to be patient. When the streets of the Minotaur League ran red with the bull-men’s blood, and the Kheten Voi had conquered that land, the first folk of his new empire would begin traveling east. He had only to make ready for their coming. He had to raise the old realm from its grave.

So he stood atop the Chaldar, gazing down upon the empty husk of his city, hand outstretched as the power of the black moon poured through him. It streamed down to the Cauldron, questing beneath the magma for what remained from the Destruction. Little was left; the heat had consumed almost everything. So the magic turned inward, searching Maladar’s memories instead. It had rebuilt the city that way, drawing from the images that lingered in his mind, then raising Aurim in the shapes it saw there. The magic was doing the same with the surrounding countryside.

Maladar knew the empire would not be the same as it once was; memory was imperfect. But did perfection matter? Was the new Aurim any less real because he recalled some of its streets, some of its towers and arcades and courtyards differently from how they had actually been?

No one else alive remembered the real Aurim, except for the eldest of the elves and dragons. When his war was done, the elves would be no more, and the dragons didn’t care for the cities of men, save to ravage them from above. It certainly didn’t matter to them that Aurim had changed.

“But it matters to you,” said a voice from behind him—a soft, mocking voice. “It matters because it is unreal. It is a simulacrum, not the true thing. Your realm will be a mockery of itself.”

Maladar didn’t turn, didn’t take his focus off the magic. He continued to move his hand, drawing the hills up from the burning depths. He would not release the spell, even for a god.

“Not a mockery,” he said. “An ideal. What it should have been… what I might have made of it. Indeed, it will be better than it was.”

“Perhaps,” murmured Hith, just behind his right ear. “But it will be neither real nor whole. Just like you.”

Maladar hesitated, nearly losing control of the spell. The hills shuddered and began to sink, magma frothing around them. With a snarl, he gathered the threads of magic and forced them to bend to his will again. The hills stopped sinking but rose no further. He growled an incantation through gritted teeth then let the magic end. The hills stayed as they were. Lightning struck one, throwing glowing shards of obsidian down into the magma.

He turned to face Hith, trembling with anger. The god sneered back at him. The empty black cloak was gone, replaced with something much more fearsome. Hith was an ugly, reptilian figure, his hairless skin covered with glittering red scales, his eyes yellow slits. He wore ornate black armor, banded and filigreed with images of screaming faces; on his head was a helm made of a silver dragon’s skull, its long, graceful horns sweeping high and back to make him seem much taller than he was. A crimson cloak, embroidered with images of demons torturing men in obscene ways, draped over his shoulders, and a long, wickedly curved sword was sheathed at his hip. That was Hith the tormentor, not the whisperer of deceits. That was how he looked at the height of his power, and even Maladar felt overcome by awe and the need to bow down and humiliate himself before the god. The temptation lasted only a moment, though.

“Is this why you’ve come?” Maladar demanded. “To taunt me? To lie?”

Hith’s inhuman eyes glittered. “Lies are my trade, mortal. But what I tell you is truth. You deceive yourself, not I. Claim you are Maladar, just as you claim the city below is Aurim. Tell everyone, and they will believe you. None will be the wiser—except for you. In your heart, you will know it is false. You will always know.”

“Then what is true?” Maladar snapped. “Damn you to the Abyss! Who am I?”

The god stared at him, not answering. Hith’s lipless mouth opened, revealing rows of needlelike teeth. A soft, grinding noise came out. It took Maladar a moment to realize what he was hearing was laughter.

“You mock me!” Maladar said, trembling with rage. “You must answer me, though, or I will renounce you.”

The laughter stopped. “Do, and I will destroy you,” Hith said. As he spoke, all the warmth drained out of the air. Freezing winds swept over the Chaldar, and the tower’s white flames flickered and turned green. The tower shuddered and swayed. “Never forget I have more power than you.”

“Perhaps,” Maladar replied. “But you need me. You are a lesser god in the pantheon. If I do not bow to you, you will never elevate your place among your kin. Destroy me and you will never rise higher.”

Hith glared at him. The wind grew stronger, howling, flapping the god’s robes. Maladar felt the force, the wind pushing him off the tower, but he resisted and allowed himself to smile, savoring Hith’s frustration.

“I do not ask for much,” he said. “Only the truth. Tell me who I am, or I will forsake you, and no torment you inflict will ever win back my faith.”

Hith was a devious god, a cheat, a trickster. He could tell, at a glance, whether a mortal was lying. Maladar knew that, and felt the god’s icy thoughts probe his soul, searching for treachery. They found none: Maladar meant what he said. Hith drew back, angry but beaten. The wind ceased, and the broiling heat of the Cauldron flowed back. The Chaldar’s fires shifted back to blue and white.

“The truth, then,” said the god. “You will know what is real.”

He raised his hands; they were covered with the same scales as his face, with long, hooked talons on each fingertip. Silver light flared around them: a sending spell. The god made no other gestures, spoke no spidery words; the magic simply obeyed at his whim. The light flashed bright, bringing with it an eerie, squealing sound, like a knife blade drawn across crystal. Then everything disappeared.

“I will show you,” murmured the god’s voice in the darkness.

Forlo felt himself tumbling through darkness alongside Hith. As ever when in the god’s presence, his soul seemed to shrink, to curl in upon itself in agony. He had fought against Hith’s followers all his life, and Hith had not forgotten. The god’s rage was a powerful thing, battering him like a terrible storm. Despair washed over him, made him want nothing more than to die as ignobly as possible.

Then they were somewhere again, the sending spell reaching its end, spilling them out of the nothingness and back into… the sky, high above the Cauldron.

Maladar reacted, fingers dancing, an incantation springing to his lips on instinct. He was halfway through the spell, which would bear him aloft before he could plummet into the Burning Sea, when he realized he wasn’t falling. Hith’s power bore him up, making him float high above the magma.

“Be easy,” the god said. “I would not betray you like that. What would I have to gain by it?”

“You could have warned me,” Maladar said.

Hith laughed his grating laugh. “And give up the chance to savor your fear?”

That did little to please Maladar, either. “Where is this thing you were going to show me, then? This truth you promised?”

The god gestured, his clawed hand pointing down at the lava. “Look down.”

Maladar looked, and Forlo saw as well. They were a hundred miles north of the Chaldar, Aurim and the surrounding islands looming behind them. Far in the distance, fire engulfed the columns of Bilo: Maladar’s minions assailing Ilmach. Soon enough, they would destroy the place. There were vents in the stone where the gnomes’ engines expelled steam; the minions would enter that way, the one unprotected route into the citadel. Living things could not enter, for the steam would boil them alive. But the minions were made of fire, and the steam would not harm them. By the time the minoi realized the danger, it would be too late.

He glanced to the west and saw the boats of the Kheten Voi. The foremost ones were nearly to the Indanalis Sea, where the magma of the Cauldron flowed into the water, setting it to boiling. Beyond that bubbling brine lay the League. The Voi would sail down the Tiderun and come ashore near the ruins of Coldhope. It was only a few days away.

And directly beneath him…

Beneath him was a gnomish fireship, a tiny vessel with a spinning paddlewheel that threw up plumes of lava as it cut across the Burning Sea. Maladar frowned at the ship. It was moving south, headed directly for the Chaldar, as fast as the machine that drove it could make the wheel turn.

“Gnomes?” he asked. “They know the truth?”

Hith’s head shook. “No. You misunderstand, Maladar, as always. Look closer.”

Forlo would have screamed, if he had a voice. One moment, they were suspended three hundred yards above the sea; then there was a rush of hot wind and a lurch in his belly as they plunged straight down. In a heartbeat they were barely a foot above the lava’s surface.

He saw them, then, on the deck of the fireship: four tall figures among the scrambling minoi. The centaur he didn’t recognize, but there was the Uigan and the elf. He felt a stab of pain in his soul: Shedara and Hult had survived Suluk after all. They’d given chase. They were coming for him.

To save him… to kill him—he didn’t know which.

But it was the fourth figure, the one standing closest to the ship’s prow, who made his insides twist. It was disorienting to look upon him, for he was almost Forlo’s own image. He had no beard, true, and his eyes weren’t the same color—and, of course, at the moment Forlo didn’t look like himself, he looked like a living corpse—but otherwise they were identical.

His son. Yet he was already Forlo’s own age, maybe even a bit older.

And Forlo didn’t even know his name.

Maladar was even more unnerved. He stared at the boy, stunned, amazed.

“That is who you are,” said Hith. “That boy, now grown, soon to be an old man. You are yourself, Maladar, but you are also him.”

Forlo was confused. What did the god mean?

“Of course…” Maladar whispered, then stopped. Anger boiled within him. “That’s why I cannot raise Aurim properly. Why my memories are flawed. He has part of them… and part of my soul.”

“Indeed,” Hith replied. “You are broken, my servant. Split in twain. And you will not triumph, you will not be Maladar, until you are one again.”

Forlo felt as if the world were collapsing beneath him. Terror gnawed at him. What are you doing? he wanted to shout at his friends. Don’t bring my son here! You’re giving him what he needs! You’ll doom us all!

Maladar tensed, as though he had heard and understood Forlo’s thoughts. And perhaps he had. Forlo couldn’t know for sure.

“Let me take him now,” Maladar said. He reached out his good hand toward Forlo’s son. “Let me end this.”

“No,” Hith replied. “What he has cannot be taken by force. He must give himself of his own free will. He must come to you.”

Tell me his name, Forlo pleaded. I just want to know his name.…

Maladar’s hand fell. The ship moved on, leaving them behind, magma spewing in its wake.

“Very well,” Maladar said. “He will come. But not his friends. They will die before they reach the Chaldar.”

Hith shrugged. “Do what you will with them. I do not care about their fate.”

The god raised his hands, and he and Maladar vanished again, returning to the void between the spaces of the world, rushing back to the fiery tower. Oh, gods, Forlo prayed as they traveled through the nothingness. Jolith, Sargas, Mislaxa… someone must caution them to turn back. Someone must keep this from happening.

He got no answer from the other gods, though—only Hith’s mocking laughter, echoing in the dark.

Chapter 33

Risen Aurim, Hith’s Cauldron

I don’t like this,” Shedara said.

The Varya slid past another obsidian island, one of a long chain jutting like spears and clenched fists out of the molten rock. The fireship’s reflection rippled on the rock’s glassy surface. Hult caught a glimpse of himself, standing at the rail with sword in hand. He barely recognized his own image: the strange leather armor, the thick black hair hanging to his shoulders, the new scars on his face. And he had a stooped, haggard look, a pallor that made his skin look gray. He wondered how long it had been since he’d last seen the sun… or the moons and stars… or a tree.

He couldn’t think when.

“It’s too easy,” Shedara grumbled. “We’re getting close, and still no kurshakur. I know he sent most of them to Ilmach, but… well, there should be guards. Patrols. Something.”

She and Hult both glanced up, staring at the spike of blue flame that towered before them. The Chaldar was close—a league away, more or less. It filled the sky, from sea to sooty storm clouds. Hult could already see the tower hidden inside it: ghostly and wavering within its fiery shell but somehow as real as the boat beneath his feet. There were turrets, windows, balconies, stretching to a height far greater than any he’d ever seen.

The Varya pulled past the island, its paddlewheel churning through the magma. Another massive rock lay before them, and another beyond that. Nosk and his crew guided the little boat around them with a sure hand but worried eyes.

“These weren’t here before,” the captain muttered, glaring at the islands as if they’d risen out of the Cauldron to insult him personally.

“It’s Maladar,” Azar said. “He raised them. He’ll bring all of Aurim up from the depths, in due time. But for now he’s stopped.”

“Why?” Nakhil asked.

Hult answered before Azar could, his voice sounding flat and grim even to his own ears. “Because he knows we’re coming.” He glanced at Shedara. “He’s gathering his strength. It’s why there aren’t any kurshakur either.”

“He wants us to reach the Chaldar,” she said. “He wants Azar.”

Nakhil tossed his head, his tail twitching. “That’s preposterous. Azar’s the key to defeating him.”

“And his key to victory,” Shedara replied. “If he’s to come into full power—”

“Ho!” shouted Yorgam from the prow. “Land ahead! Past the rocks! It’s… it’s a city!”

“What are you talking about, lad?” Nosk barked, his silver teeth flashing. “There isn’t a city anywhere… near… the… mother of Reorx.”

Hult looked, and there it was: Aurim, the dead city, heart of a lost empire. He’d heard about it only in songs chanted by the elders when he was a boy, and more recently in tales Shedara told. It had been a place of surpassing beauty, all crystal towers and shining arches and domes of lapis and onyx. Malton and Kristophan and Suluk had amazed him, but all the stories agreed that they were but pale shadows of the City of Songs. He’d dreamed of it sometimes, when his sleep was untroubled enough. It was hard to picture a place as vast, as lovely as Aurim.

What lay before him was nothing like that. It was a nightmare. The crystal towers were dark and clouded volcanic glass, the arches black iron, the domes pumice caked with ash. They stood piled on the hills, their windows dark and empty, staring like the remains of dead men. Everything was gray and black, lit infernal red by the Burning Sea. Wisps of sickly brown haze wreathed the city, moving like ghosts along its laneways. And up there, at the tallest height—where, by all the tales he’d heard, a grand palace should have sprawled—was the flickering, buttressed foot of the Chaldar.

Hult shuddered as the Varya passed the last island and began to cross an expanse of open lava, the last half mile to the city. He glanced at the others, seeing despair in their eyes. Death waited ahead, they knew; they wouldn’t all leave Aurim alive. Perhaps none of them would.

“Find a place to moor,” Shedara told Nosk. “You can cast off again once we’re ashore.”

“Aye,” he said. “We’ll find a spot that’s out of view of that tower. How long will you be?”

She shook her head. “Who knows? I have a feeling you’ll realize when we’ve done what we’ve come to do. If it’s more than a day, though, get out of here. As fast as you can.”

“And leave you behind?” the gnome asked.

“If we’re gone that long, there won’t be anyone to leave behind,” Nakhil said.

Nosk nodded, his face dark. He leaned on the tiller, turning the Varya in a wide arc. “All right, then. Lads, get to! Ready on the mooring lines, and bring down the furnace! Move quick, or—”

And those were his last words. As he was shouting, a great fire blazed up behind him, a wall of white-hot flame that bloomed and curled fifty feet above the fireship. A dozen kurshakur leaped out of the fire’s heart, landing on the deck. Blazing swords flashed, and both Nosk and the gnome at the furnace fell, cut in two, their bodies igniting as they hit the deck.

The other gnomes yelled and dashed about, trying to get the Varya back under control. It straightened in midturn, heading full-out toward the city. Hult glanced at the looming shore and winced: they would hit it at an angle, but they would hit it. In his head, he saw the fireship smashing to pieces against the rocks, the magma burning them all to nothing.

“Stop them!” Shedara yelled, brandishing her frostblades. “Where are those crossbows?”

But the crossbows were at the stern, where Nosk had been. They were already burning as the kurshakur hacked at them with their flaming swords. Bits of smoldering wood flew. Another gnome went down with a cry, his body erupting in sheets of fire as the minions cut him apart.

Hult leaped at them, his frostblade held high. The heat that came off the minions seared his skin and made tears run down his cheeks. The stink of brimstone hung thick about them, not quite strong enough to mask the sweet reek of burning flesh. They turned to face him, their green eyes flashing.

“Get to the tiller!” he bellowed. He wasn’t even sure the others were behind him, but there was no time to check. “We’ll crash if we don’t finish the turn!”

Then he was in their midst, sword flashing as their glowing blades scorched the air around him. He ducked and twisted, felt a blaze of pain in his shoulder as one fiery weapon came close enough to graze his armor, then surged upward with his blade extended. He pressed the jeweled stud on the sword’s hilt as it buried itself in a kurshak’s gut. Dragon bile ran down the blade’s fuller, and the kurshak howled in agony. There was a flash and a whoosh of cold air that nearly blew Hult off his feet; then the creature was gone, a lone curl of smoke hanging in the air where it had been.

A roar like a stoked forge sounded to his right, and he ducked as another sword came at him, whistling above his head, the stench of singeing hair stinging his nostrils. He pressed the stud again, hacking at the kurshak’s ankles, and it vanished too.

He couldn’t see anything but fire, but through it he heard familiar grunts and shouting: Shedara and Nakhil had joined the fight. But the kurshakur were too many. He laid about him on all sides, felt blisters rise from his skin, saw a gash open on his leg, its edges blackened and smoking. He couldn’t parry, for the minions’ weapons were not solid, but he could dodge and spin and leap, and so he did, bellowing one Uigan war cry after another, summoning all his rage to hammer left and right and up and down with the sword. He pressed the jewel again and again. Kurshakur shrieked. One by one, the flames flickered and died.

All at once, he was through: no more minions stood between him and the Varya’s tiller. Choking on smoke, he glanced over his shoulder. Nakhil and Shedara were fighting on, pushing the kurshakur to either side, holding their own. Drops of dragon bile flew through the air, blue and glistening. Beyond the fireship’s prow, the rocks of Aurim loomed closer, only moments away.

Hult grabbed the tiller. It burned his good hand, shooting pain straight up his arm and into his spine, but he refused to let go. Screaming, he shoved on it with all his strength, and the Varya groaned as it turned… turned… and crashed its side into the rocks anyway.

The sound was horrific. Sparks flew. Metal tore. Gnomes cried out, one falling over the rail as the fireship listed hard. Some part of him told him it was Yorgam, the young lookout. The unfortunate minoi landed in the lava and disappeared in a splash of fire. The screech he made as he died was one of the most horrible sounds Hult had ever heard.

The Varya nearly broke as it grazed along Aurim’s shore. Hult let go of the tiller. He fell to his knees, clutching a hand that was black and curled and terrible. But the boat was finally slowing, shuddering against the rocks. The paddlewheel halted, bent and hanging askew. The furnace lay still and silent.

They’d made it. Shedara and Nakhil had slain the last of the kurshakur, and were hurrying to his side. The elf gasped when she saw what Hult had done to his hand.

“Don’t… worry about it… now,” he gasped. The pain was getting worse, though. The skin was peeling back, the flesh beneath the char swelling horribly. A sour taste flooded his mouth, and he vomited on the Varya’s deck.

I’ll never wield a sword again, he thought. I’ll probably lose my hand and half the arm as well. Three fingers left, out of ten. If I’m lucky. If I live.

The gnomes were all shouting, their voices strained, just shy of panic. Hult couldn’t make out all of what they said—agitated and afraid, they spoke even faster than normal—but thanks to his jade amulet, he made out some of the words, enough to get an idea.

Foundering. Breached. Never hold together.

“She’s sinking,” he grunted. “We’ve got to… get ashore, or we’ll… all die.”

As if to emphasize what he’d said, the Varya gave a groan and tilted away from the city. Lava bubbled beyond its starboard rail, bursting and spattering the deck with flecks of red-hot rock that quickly cooled to black. The smell of hot metal grew. Two more gnomes died howling.

The pain was fading, Hult’s body fighting it back, refusing to give in. His head felt light. He knew that wasn’t a good sign; he had seen men injured in riding falls or in battle settle into a painless daze for a few hours before dying. He couldn’t move his sword arm, but his legs were responding, as was his other hand. Gritting his teeth, he shoved himself to his feet, Shedara helping him up.

“Your hand…” Azar said, coming forward.

“Not now!” Hult snapped. “You want to use your magic for something? Get us on dry land!”

Shedara took Hult’s uninjured arm. “Calm down, Hult. We can get off without magic. Come on.”

He wanted to argue, tell her he was fine, he didn’t need help, but the truth was he badly did. His head was swimming, and he stumbled and would have fallen if not for her. She bore him up, looped his arm around her shoulders, and followed Nakhil to the boat’s rail. The centaur broke into a trot just before reaching the edge and sprang, clearing the gap to the rocky shore. He skidded a little when he landed, sending a shower of black gravel sliding into the lava, then got his purchase and turned to face them.

“Come on!” he called. “I’ll catch you.”

Hult jumped, though he had no idea how. He never could have made it without Shedara pushing him away from the boat or Nakhil waiting to grab him on shore. The centaur’s arms wrapped around him, jostling his ruined arm and sending fresh agony lancing through him, but it was better than falling into the molten rock. Nakhil shoved him aside, and he sat down hard on sharp stones. He looked on as Azar sprang from the sinking fireship. Nakhil caught hold of him, then turned to offer a hand to Shedara.

She didn’t need one; she was a moon-thief and made the leap herself without any trouble, landing in a crouch. Behind her, the Varya groaned and wheezed and broke apart in a hiss of steam and smoke. Hult heard gnomes screaming piteously, then falling into unpleasant silence. How many had gotten to shore safely? Had any of them made it off the ship? He had no idea. He was losing focus in his haze of pain.

“Now let him help you,” Shedara said, kneeling on his left side.

On his right came Azar, reaching out for the gnarled thing that had been Hult’s hand. When they touched, Hult felt as if someone had hit him in the head with a rock; the world shook, and he seemed to drift outside his body. He heard a thin, strained wail, which he belatedly recognized as his own voice. Black spider webs crept in at the edges of his vision.

“It’s all right,” Azar said. “I can fix this.”

Fix it? Hult wondered plaintively. How?

“Be still,” Shedara said. “Quit struggling and let him try this.”

“You’d better hurry up,” said Nakhil.

“What?” Shedara asked. “Why would—oh, gods, no. Not now.”

The tightness in her voice made Hult open his eyes. He looked ahead, into the city, and his pain-blurred eyesight cleared enough to see.

A long, broad street swept up from where they stood, running from the shore to the city’s heart, where the Chaldar stood. Tall buildings loomed, dark and empty, to either side, their colonnades like jutting teeth. The stubs of trees, leafless and charcoal black, ran the length of the boulevard. Statues lined the roads: even at a glance, he could tell they were all images of Barreth Forlo—or rather, of Maladar.

And there, in a long line across the street, a dozen wide and three deep, were the Ghelim. They stood stock-still, their gleaming red eyes fixed on him and his friends. They gripped swords and spears and maces, all of the same dark gray stone.

“I have… to fight…” he grunted, starting to push himself up.

“Not on your life,” Shedara said. She grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back down. “You’re no good to us like this, Hult. You’re worse than no good. I’d be too worried about you to keep my mind on them. Now stay still and let Azar help you, damn it!”

Hult wanted to struggle, wanted to argue, but he was losing clarity. His head filled with fog. Everything seemed to be tilting. The black webs crawled toward the center of his vision. He turned his head, looking at Azar. It was eerie, really, how much the son resembled his father.

“Do it,” Hult grunted. “Do it now.”

Nodding, Azar laid his hand on Hult’s blackened claw. Hult saw, but dimly. He could hear Shedara and Nakhil talking but couldn’t make out any of their words. They sounded as if they were miles away, anyway, so the Ghelim had to be even farther. What did it matter?

Azar shut his eyes and took a deep breath. Hult felt the magic in the air, flowing thick around them both, pouring into the other man’s body. It rose and rose, from a stream to a torrent. Then, with a sigh, Azar pushed it out…

Into Hult’s hand.

Hult cried out, and the blackness took him.

Chapter 34

Risen Aurim, Hith’s Cauldron

Shedara heard Hult scream but didn’t look back. She didn’t dare take her eyes off the Ghelim. The statues stood motionless, as if they’d been sculpted where they stood. But danger radiated from them nonetheless. When they moved, there would be little time for thought.

She had her warhammer, had had the presence of mind to grab it when it looked like the Varya was going to crash into the rocks. It was in a sling across her back; she unhooked it and held it in both hands in front of her. Its weight was unfamiliar, awkward for one used to knife-work; more than four or five good swings, and her strength would begin to flag. She murmured a spell, drawing in a bit of Lunis’s power to bolster her own. Magic sang in her blood. While it lasted, she wouldn’t grow tired.

Nakhil needed no such spell. He had picked up two hammers before the boat sank—both his and Hult’s. He held one in either hand, his thick muscles flexing as he brought them forward to crack their heads together. The sound echoed off Aurim’s derelict halls like a thunderclap.

“This is for Suluk,” he said. “For my people.”

Shedara saw the harsh gleam in his eye. All the centaur had been through, all he had lost, was coming to the fore. He had a sense of doom about him, which reminded her of Eldako standing upon the roof of Akh-tazi, just before he hurled himself and the Master to their deaths.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” she said. “If you mean to die here, then die here, but let’s get Azar to the tower. If he doesn’t, none of this will have had any purpose. Your city will have fallen for nothing.”

He glanced at her, sidelong. It took him a moment before he nodded. “Good luck,” was all he said; then he charged.

The statues came to life at once, all of them moving at exactly the same instant. Their actions had a disturbing symmetry, something almost hypnotic. It was as if they all shared a single mind, which guided a single purpose. Their heads snapped up, and they broke to the left and right, parting in front of Nakhil as he galloped toward him, the better to trap him in their midst. But Nakhil leaped to his right, slamming into their flank. He knocked three down with his hooves, then swung both hammers and smashed a fourth statue’s head to splinters. The Ghelim’s body fell to the ground with a crash, reduced to mere lifeless stone.

The statues milled in disarray: their single mind was coordinated but not very intelligent. Shedara let out a battle cry, lifting her hammer high, and half of them turned to look at her while the rest crowded around Nakhil, jabbing with their stone blades while he snapped his hammers at them, one weapon following the other in whirling arcs that never slowed. The Ghelim he’d trampled struggled to rise; one got back to its feet, but he kicked the other two, his iron shoes cracking against their faces. The light in their eyes dimmed, and they lay still.

Six of the statues started toward Shedara, leaving their fellows to confront Nakhil. They walked with startling swiftness, their long strides devouring the street. She dropped her hammer and flung her hands out before her, fingers splayed. She shouted an incantation, and blue lightning flared from her fingertips with a boom so loud, it set her ears ringing. The bolts forked and twisted through the smoky air, striking three of the Ghelim full-on. They exploded in midstride, peppering the ground with shards of broken, smoldering rock.

The others paid them no mind and kept coming. Shedara grabbed her hammer and flung herself forward, tucking into a roll as the statues drew near. She felt the wind as their blades slashed through the air above her, then came out of the roll, swinging her hammer in a low arc that caught one of the Ghelim in the ankle. Stone splintered, and the statue’s leg broke off at the middle of its shin. It staggered, fell to one knee, then pushed itself back up and balanced on the stump, wobbling as it turned toward her again.

Nakhil was bellowing curses at the statues, his rage building. She heard his hammer ring again and again as he battered them. He stood in the midst of a crowd of Ghelim, hammers lashing to both sides. His leather armor hung off him in strips, cut away by the statues’ blades; beneath, red blood bathed his body. He’d lost the advantage and was fighting for his life.

“Suluk!” he cried. “Suluk! Suluk!”

Then the statues came at her, and she had to turn away to face them. The two unhurt Ghelim came on, charging hard. Their swords were quick, and it was all she could do to parry them with the haft of her hammer. She ducked, twisted, spun, and tried to come at them from the side, but they pivoted to face her, too quick. The third, the one with only one foot, tried to lurch behind her, and she had to keep moving to make sure it didn’t. Other spells sprang to mind, but she thrust them aside; she didn’t have time to cast them. It was all she could do to fight, keeping the statues at bay.

She caught one in the sword hand with her hammer, and its arm snapped off at the elbow, but before she could press the attack, its fist lashed out and she had to leap back to keep it from turning her skull to pulp. She stumbled over a piece of one of the lightning-blasted Ghelim and wrenched her knee but managed to keep her footing. The statue whose arm she’d broken off stooped, joints cracking and popping and puffing with dust, to pick up the shattered limb. It smashed the hand against the ground, and fingers snapped and cracked, letting the sword fall free. The statue took up the blade in its left hand and came at her anew.

I’m in a lot of trouble, Shedara thought.

She hacked the hammer back and forth. The footless statue lurched around at the edges of her eyesight, and she swatted its blade away as it tried to stab her. The tip of the sword cracked off, leaving jagged stone behind—no great gain. She gave ground and changed direction again and again, always on the move. She was facing away from Nakhil and the Chaldar, looking back down toward the Cauldron. She saw Hult on the shore, and her hopes that he would join the battle died: the Uigan lay still, Azar kneeling over him, head bowed. A faint, silvery light glimmered around them as Forlo’s son attempted his magic, healing Hult’s burned hand.

To the Abyss with his hand, Shedara thought. I’m about to die here.

“Azar!” she shouted. “Help! Azar!”

Either Azar didn’t hear, or he wasn’t listening. He kept his back turned, his focus on Hult alone. Shedara snarled a curse, then ducked as a stone sword whistled at her head. A moment slower, and it would have taken off the top of her skull. Gritting her teeth, she jabbed with her hammer, hitting the statue who’d tried to cut her in the stomach. It didn’t even slow, and she had to leap aside as its sword came slashing down. She hit the ground hard, knocking out her wind, and lost her grip on the hammer, which skipped across the cobbles—only ten feet, but it might as well have been all the way back in Armach. She couldn’t get to it in time, so she flipped on her back, raising her hands to cast one last spell, knowing she couldn’t complete the incantation before the Ghelim cut her apart.

They loomed over her, one tottering on the stump of its leg, one missing an arm, and the third with a crack in its midsection. Their eyes flashed red, unfeeling. They raised their weapons.

As they did, she heard a wild roar, filled with fury, and a shape hurtled over her, slamming into all three of the statues at once. They buried their blades in its flesh, but it didn’t relent, shoving them back and laying in with hooves and hammers.

Shedara stared, stunned, as Nakhil flung the Ghelim away from her. Then, recovering her wits, she sprang back to her feet. The centaur had saved her. As she watched, he pounded the one-armed statue’s head to dust, then broke off the one-legged one’s other foot, sending it crashing back into a blackened tree. The tree came apart in sloughs of gray powder. The statue hit the ground and stayed there, struggling but unable to rise.

Teeth bared, nostrils flared, caked in blood, Nakhil came around to face the third statue… and caught its sword in his belly. His eyes went wide as the stone blade slid in; then his legs gave out, and he went down.

Shedara leaped, hurling herself toward her dropped hammer, then whirling around in time to see the Ghelim yank its blade from the centaur’s flesh. It strode forward, eyes aflame, its sword dark with blood. She braced herself, hammer gripped in both hands.

When the statue got close, however, Nakhil stirred. His horse half didn’t move, but his man half twisted to fling one of his hammers at the Ghelim’s back. The weapon whirled through the air and struck the statue square between its shoulders with a crack that would have killed it, had it been made of flesh. As it was, it staggered forward, knocked off balance, putting one hand on the ground to keep itself from toppling over.

Shedara wasted no time. In three steps she was on the Ghelim, screaming words with no meaning. It made a clumsy attempt to slash at her ankles, but she jumped over the sword, and as she came down, she slammed her hammer into the side of its face. Stone shattered; dust flew as the left half of its head turned to gravel. The red light went out of its remaining eye… and it simply stopped, anchored to the street on both knees and one hand, as if it had been sculpted there.

For good measure, she pulverized what remained of its head.

The statue with two broken legs was still thrashing, silently: she approached it carefully, avoided its flailing arms, and smashed its face. It stopped, stiffening. She glanced around, making sure none of the Ghelim were left. There was a heap of blood-spattered pieces where Nakhil had been fighting before he came to her rescue, but none moved, and no more were coming, so she went to the centaur and knelt down beside him.

He was almost gone, his face pale in the Chaldar’s blue light. Blood welled from his stomach in weakening pulses, pooling on the black cobbles. When he licked his lips, his tongue was dark red.

“I… did what I… could,” he said.

“Yes,” she answered, brushing his mane out of his eyes. His eyes were glassy, his sight already gone. “You will be remembered. We’ll tell them, back in the Rainwards. They will build a memorial to you.”

Nakhil smiled, his teeth pink. “A… statue… I hope. It would be… ironic.”

Then he let out his final breath. Shedara bowed her head. It was too hot for tears. She closed his eyes and sat by him a while, heedless of his blood soaking into her armor.

She wasn’t sure how much time passed, but after a while she heard movement. She turned, reaching for her hammer, and stopped when she saw Hult and Azar. The Uigan was grim, his face creasing with grief as he gazed upon Nakhil’s body. The hand he’d burned was whole again; only a slight puckering of the flesh betrayed the wound.

Azar had fared much worse. He’d aged again: whatever he’d done to heal Hult had drained him considerably. He could have been Forlo’s father instead of the other way around. His hair was completely gray, his face wrinkled, his hands spotted with age. Only his eyes still looked youthful. Seeing him like that made Shedara angry. All of it made her angry. Her rage was like a smoldering coal inside her.

“He saved me,” she said, resting a hand on Nakhil’s forehead. “He saved me and paid the price.”

Hult looked stricken. “I should have been with you. If there had been three of us…”

“Don’t think that way,” she said. “Don’t. There are things we all could have done to keep things from being the way they are. But this is it. This is what it is.”

Shedara rose, looking Azar up and down. She could tell he didn’t have it in him to heal anyone again. It would leave him a withered husk if it didn’t kill him altogether.

She looked up at the Chaldar. “Is he still there, Azar? Can you sense him?”

He shut his eyes. His lips moved, just slightly, then he nodded. “He is watching us. He knows we’re here.”

Shedara glared at the burning tower. She could sense Maladar’s gaze as well—a prickling deep inside her mind, as if some unpleasant insect had burrowed there. Hate boiled in her breast.

“Let him watch,” she said. “Let him see us coming.”

In a just world, they would have had the chance to bury Nakhil, or at least burn his body. But there was no soil there and nothing for fuel; they couldn’t even cover him over. They had to leave him sprawled in his own blood as they walked on toward the tower.

Nothing else stirred in Aurim. The statues they passed were all of Forlo—a gaunt, wasted Forlo with cruel eyes—Forlo as Maladar. Azar stared at the faces as he passed, studying them, but Shedara couldn’t even glance at them without rage billowing inside her. Another friend had been destroyed by Maladar. Like Thalaniya, Eldako, and Roshambur… and Nakhil. Everything she had loved, gone, lost… only the three of them were left. It almost seemed as if there were nothing left to save.

That wasn’t true, of course. There were entire kingdoms that would fall to ashes and rubble if Maladar weren’t stopped. The League would be destroyed, Thenol too. The other Rainward realms were in danger as well. And what about her estranged brother and the surviving Silvanaes? Yes, they were endangered too. And the cha’asii. The merkitsa. The kender of Marak. Whatever Ice People were left, up in Panak.

The boulevard led straight through the heart of the city, uphill to the gates of a wall, surrounding a broad plaza. Forlo’s face stared down from the arch above the open gates, graven into the keystone. She refused to look at it, kept walking, on through gardens of cinders and soot, to where the tower awaited. It loomed before them, massive, five hundred paces from one side to the other, so tall that her head swam when she looked up. The storm clouds that covered the Cauldron parted to let it through, and beyond, Nuvis loomed fat and full, blocking out the stars. The same unholy radiance she’d seen at Akh-tazi, the not-light of the black moon, shone down. All the colors were wrong. The flames of the Chaldar shifted and shimmered, pink and blue and silver and green. Nakhil’s blood on her body was deep violet. Her own skin was yellow-gray.

The tower’s gates were shut, the massive stone doors barred with gleaming steel. An army couldn’t have battered them down, even with the largest ram. And then, when they were halfway across the plaza, there was something else: a massive bolt of fire that fell from the sky, like the Destruction itself. The three of them stopped, drawing back as the flaming form came to ground in front of the doors, spreading its wings at the last moment to slow its descent.

Wings. A serpentine neck. A long, forked tail.

It was a dragon made of fire, the largest she’d ever seen, bigger even than the poor, doomed Wyrm-namer. It reared above them, staring down with eyes as white and hot as stars. Terror came off it in waves, making Shedara want to fall to her knees and grovel for pity. She fought back that urge, knowing it would be the death of her if she succumbed.

Hult reached for his talga, but she put a hand over his. “You can’t be serious,” she said. “You can’t kill that.”

“I know,” he answered, shaking off her grasp. The curved sword slid from its scabbard without a sound. “But I refuse to die without a blade in my hand.”

“Good point,” she said, letting a knife drop into her own grip.

Azar, however, stepped forward. He stared at the dragon, unafraid, as if it were nothing more than a small, harmless lizard. The dragon stared back, eyes narrowing, ignoring the puny human and elf and their weapons. Its eyes bored into Azar, its head lowering until it was barely an arm’s breadth away. Its very teeth were bigger than he was. The slightest movement, the barest opening of its jaws, and Forlo’s son would be gone, down its gullet. Shedara’s mind was a white haze of terror.

Still Azar showed no fear. “You know who I am,” he said. “You have already submitted to me. You will do so again.”

“I do not submit,” the dragon replied, its voice the roar of a forest fire. “I do not serve. But yes, I know you, Maladar, just as I know you are also in the tower.”

“Then you know I must pass. And you will let me.”

The dragon wanted to do nothing of the sort, Shedara could tell. It desired nothing more than to destroy them all and rule that place alone. But it couldn’t. There was strange sorcery at work, binding the creature’s will. The dragon sneered, its lip curling to let out a gout of steam; then the fire dragon drew back and was gone, a blast of hot wind erupting as it vaulted into the air. Behind them, the gardens came apart in ash. Shedara stared upward, watching the wyrm rise, then vanish into the clouds. Terror loosened its grip on her heart. She looked at Hult, who rolled his eyes, then turned back toward the Chaldar.

Its doors were open. Smoke billowed out like a dragon’s breath. Within was more fire, shaped into columns and fountains and mosaics. Even from a distance, Shedara could tell that it didn’t match the outside of the tower. She was looking upon the old palace, where the emperors of Aurim had ruled.

Maladar’s home.

“He’ll be in the throne room,” she said.

Hult nodded and raised his talga. He swung it in looping arcs, testing out his mended hand. Satisfied, he brought it to a stop and nodded to her, his eyes glittering.

Shedara looked at the dagger in her hand, then glanced at Azar’s back. One quick stab, at the base of his neck, was all it would take. But as she thought that, he looked at her, and she had a momentary vision of her body tearing apart, the flesh ripping and falling away in bloody hanks to leave her bones and innards exposed. She winced, shaking her head; when she looked again, Azar’s attention was back on the tower.

She set aside thoughts of killing him. But she didn’t put the dagger away.

Azar raised his hands, a gesture of command. “Father!” he cried. “I am here!”

For a moment, there was silence… or as close to it as possible, there in the heart of the Burning Sea. Then an answer came, chilling Shedara’s blood. It was Forlo’s voice—dark and rumbling and evil but still undoubtedly his.

“Enter, then. Enter, and come to me.”

Azar didn’t hesitate. Long strides carried him through the open gates and on into the tower. Shedara and Hult, exchanging glances, followed. The doors boomed shut behind them.

Chapter 35

Hall of Emperors, the Chaldar

On the northern coast of Hith’s Cauldron, the halls of the gnomes vomited smoke high into the night-black sky. Every now and then, a tongue of fire licked out of one of the many windows and gates, flashing blood-red in the gloom. The cries of the dying had long since stopped, an awful silence settling over Ilmach’s burning ruins. The fire minions reveled, feasting on the minoi and their works. Machinery melted, metal twisting and splitting in the unholy heat. Libraries became raging storms of flame.

Elsewhere, along the coast of the Tiderun, fishing boats tried to outrun a fleet of black ships with gray sails. But the larger vessels were made for war and easily overran the tubs, smashing them to pieces and drowning their crews as they bore down on the village of Kharto, a sleepy cluster of huts in a cove on the easternmost edge of the strait. The setting sun made the waters seem bathed in blood. Along Kharto’s wharf, men and minotaurs scrambled as war drums rolled. Most folk of fighting age had gone south from the village months earlier to join the wars, both before Emperor Rekhaz took the throne and after his murder, but perhaps thirty still remained.

They weren’t enough; a hundred times as many wouldn’t have been able to withstand what was coming. The Kheten Voi gathered into ranks upon the ships’ decks, staring at the city in emotionless anticipation. As the first arrows shot by Kharto’s defenders glanced off their stone bodies, they leaped over the gunwales and sank beneath the waves. Moving as one, with eerie precision, they settled to the harbor’s bottom then began to slog through the silt toward dry land. In less than an hour, Kharto would be in ruins, its people dead, and Aurim’s new army would have its first victory.

Maladar sat upon his dragon-horn throne, eyes shut, his sight venturing far across Taladas. It had begun. He smiled at the promise of conquest, of his enemies scattered and broken and begging to join his reborn empire. He would allow them… some of them, anyway. But first, there was another matter to see to.

He shifted his gaze, drawing back across the Burning Sea to look down upon the Chaldar from without. There, at the base of the tower, the gates were flung wide. Standing before them, alone amid the grandeur of the black city, were three tiny figures.

Three. Not one.

His sentinels had failed, then. The minions and the Voi had both been under strict orders: kill everyone aboard the gnomish fireship except for Barreth Forlo’s son. They had slaughtered the minoi and slain the centaur—he saw the horse-man’s body, lying in a sad and huddled heap not far from Aurim’s north shore—but the others had survived. The Uigan and the elf, the damned elf who had troubled him since the Brethren and their servants first picked up the Hooded One’s trail at Blood Eye. There was a stubborn one. He would make sure she felt as much pain as possible when he killed her.

He watched through his spell as they entered, tapping his fingers on the arm of his throne. His gaze followed them, invisibly, across the foyer of his palace and on toward the tall, broad stairs that led up to where he waited. The steps wound around and around the inside of the Chaldar, all the way to the top. They would be an hour or more climbing the winding stairs. Once he saw their ascent had begun, he left them to it, his mind pulling back to his body. His eyes flicked open.

Since the boy was near, he could sense him as clearly as a candle flame on a starless night. It was a strange sensation, his soul sharing two bodies. He could see only through Barreth Forlo’s eyes and hear through his ears, but he could feel two hearts beat at once and breathed the brimstone-heavy air with two sets of lungs. The closer the other half of him got, the more those curious feelings grew.

His weakness could not be clearer. Had he been whole, he could have reached out and destroyed the intruders in his domain with the merest thought. He could have flayed them alive, as he had done to the Seven Swords the day he died, long ago. This time, though, he couldn’t. The boy wouldn’t let him, was resisting him, his power creating a shell of safety around his friends that Maladar couldn’t penetrate.

My power, Maladar thought, furious. He’s just a vessel with no more innate sorcery in his blood than either of his parents. He uses my own strength against me!

He had to concentrate, center himself, make the anger abate. Let the boy wield the magic. Let him think he had the power. He would see, soon enough. They would all see. And they would weep to wish they hadn’t.

He stood before the throne, watching the doorway, waiting for them to emerge. It was strange to think it had come to that—not armies clashing upon a battlefield, or a violent battle with a legion of wizards, just three wretched people, winding their way up an almost endless stair, alone, and him waiting for them, to make himself whole again, to come into his full power and begin his reign anew.

He felt Hith’s presence, a cold wind rushing through the room of solid flame. He saw the god watching him, the red-skinned creature in its black armor, eyes smoldering like coals. Hith said nothing, only nodded slightly, then turned to shadow and vanished. Even the god refused to meddle in what was coming. Destiny hung thick in the air.

My empire, Maladar thought. Oh, beautiful Aurim, kingdom of kingdoms. Soon your glory will return. You will soar, and the whole world will tremble before your might. Who will stand against you? Who?

No one.

Time passed. The second heartbeat in his breast grew stronger. His whole body tingled. He licked his lips and brought his fingers up to them, steepled together. He could hear footsteps upon the stairs… slow, halting, tired. He trembled as he stood before the throne.

Then the doors swung open, and the boy came in, his companions by his sides. The two heartbeats became a single pulse. A smile of triumph curling his lips, Maladar stepped forward to greet his other half.

My son. My son. My son.

Forlo felt his mind tearing in half. The figure at the far end of the throne room was no boy, not even a young man. No, he was old, older than Forlo himself, older than his father had been when age and a bad heart killed him. His long hair ran to gray and was moving on to silver. Lines creased his face, and he moved stiffly, his joints troubling him.

His boy, less than a year old, his life run almost to the end of its course.

There, too, were Hult and Shedara—both weary and soot-smeared—staring in shock at him, Maladar, with Forlo’s face and body. That they had survived their long quest, only to die there, broke Forlo’s heart.

Essana wasn’t there. Either she was dead, as he feared, or she had decided the road to him was too dangerous. He didn’t know what to make of her absence, and he couldn’t ask. He forced his mind away from her, back to the three who were, even then, crossing the floor of the throne room. They stopped on the far side of the ornamental pool, with its darting flame-fish.

“Welcome,” said Maladar, sweeping his hand to encompass the whole chamber. “You are the first to seek audience in my rebuilt hall. I trust it is to your liking?”

“I would rather be in a swineherd’s hovel,” Hult replied. He folded his scarred arms, looking around. “It would not stink so badly.”

Maladar nodded. “Defiant to the last. You Uigan never change. This time, though, your kind will not best me.”

Hult frowned. Shedara stepped forward, her chin held high. “You won’t win this fight, Maladar,” she said. “We’ve come a long way to find you. We’ve watched a lot of good people die along the way. And you won’t be—”

She moved so quickly, Forlo didn’t even realize it until it was done. In midsentence she flicked both wrists, slapping knives into her hands and hurling them as part of the same motion. The two blades spun end over end, directly toward Forlo’s heart, each a killing throw.

Yet no sooner than Shedara started moving, so did Maladar. His hand came up, fingers splayed as the daggers left her hands. He spoke a word, and Nuvis’s power flowed through him, then out his fingertips as a glowing green orb. It flashed toward the whirling knives and made a metallic, shrieking noise when they met. With a flare of foul light, both the orb and the daggers vanished, leaving only a puff of dust hanging in the air.

Shedara stared, her hands still extended from the throw. It took a moment for what had just happened to sink in; then she slumped, sighing.

Maladar sneered. “Stupid girl. You really thought that would work?”

“No.” She shrugged, a trace of a smile ghosting her lips. “But I had to try, didn’t I?”

Maladar’s hand rose again, his fingers working quickly. Black moonlight shot out in a torrent that spilled through the air like ink through water. Shedara had time enough to open her mouth and let out the beginning of an alarmed cry before the spell engulfed her.

It was a spell of torment, devised to cause extraordinary agony before death. When the flow ended, Shedara ought to have been nothing but a mummified corpse, twisted on the fiery floor. But she wasn’t: the black magic broke around her, and when it cleared, she stood in the same spot, unscathed, the air around her shining like mist in the sunlight. Forlo’s son stood beside her, one hand touching her shoulder. The mist swirled around him as well, slowly fading into the air.

“That didn’t work very well either,” Shedara said, still smiling.

Maladar uttered a wordless snarl, eyes flicking from elf to Uigan. Hult drew his curved sword and held it low, a stance Forlo knew well. Shedara shook her head, waving him off.

“Not yet,” she said. “You won’t get near him.”

Hult gave no reply, except for a deepening of the crease between his brows. But he didn’t move, either. It was enough to satisfy Shedara; planting her hands on her hips, she turned her attention back to Maladar.

“Face it: what we have here is a stalemate,” she declared. “We can keep playing this game if you want until we’ve all run through every spell and trick we know. Or we can work this out another way.”

“What other way?” Maladar demanded. “There is only one thing I want from this. Him.”

They all looked at Forlo’s con. He met Maladar’s gaze, and the air blazed like lightning. Forlo felt Maladar shudder inside him and sensed the force that bound the two parts of his soul together. It was like an invisible cord, running from his body to his son’s and back again, back and forth and back and forth without end.

“This body will not avail you, Maladar,” the old man said. He held his arms outstretched to either side. “It fares worse than the one you now wear.”

Fury shot through Forlo’s mind: Maladar hadn’t expected the boy to be so old, so decrepit. After a moment, however, the anger subsided, yielding to cold, glittering malice.

“The body does not concern me. It is only a shell,” Maladar said. “I will take another—the Uigan’s, perhaps. You know full well what I desire. It has nothing to do with the flesh in which it dwells. Now… come.”

The cord between Maladar and Azar flared bright, then tightened. Forlo felt it yank at his flesh as it drew taut, but the pull on the old man was stronger. With a grunt of surprise, he stumbled forward. His eyes widened as he tried to resist but found he couldn’t. The power was too great. He took a second step, then a third, and soon he was on the bridge that led across the pool to the dragon-horn throne.

Maladar smiled, pulling him forward. “Yes,” he said. “You will obey me. You have no choice. Come closer. There is so much we must share.”

“Azar, no!” Shedara shouted, reaching for him. When she touched his arm, however, a noise like a thunderclap filled the throne room, and she fell back, staggering and dropping to her knees. Her hand smoldered.

So that’s his name, Forlo thought as his son was jerked toward him like a Thenolite corpse-warrior, no longer in control of his own body. Azar: it was a Rainward name. The cord brightened, tightened, pulling him on. The old man who was Forlo’s son fought and struggled, but couldn’t keep from moving.

Hult made his move, scimitar rising for a hard cross-stroke as he charged. He wasn’t aiming at Maladar, though, but at Azar. The sword rose high, then came hacking down toward the old man’s neck. It whistled toward flesh, a blow that surely would have taken off his head, but it didn’t. Instead, Azar twisted at the last instant and clapped his hands, catching the blade between them. Then he and Maladar both spoke a single, mind-piercing word, and Hult flew through the air as if a catapult had flung him. He hit the floor thirty feet away and lay there, clutching his ribs, too stunned to move.

Azar still held Hult’s sword, pressed between his palms. He stared at it, his brows knitting.

“This was how you thought to best me?” Maladar scoffed. He glared at Hult, who was trying to push back to his feet, and Shedara, who was nursing her injured hand and had a look on her face as if she’d just been run through with a spear. “You brought him to me! You have handed me my victory. It is over, and nothing any of you can do will stop it!”

“Nothing?” Azar replied. “Do not be so sure.”

He smiled… and drove Hult’s scimitar through his own throat.

No! Forlo thought.

“No!” Shedara cried.

“NO!” shrieked Maladar.

Only Hult stayed quiet, watching in grave silence as bright red blood shot from Azar’s throat. Already the light in the old man’s eyes was fading. He pulled the sword from the wound and released it, letting it clatter onto the bridge. His leather breastplate turned crimson.

Forlo felt his body moving, Maladar driving forward as his son dropped to his knees. The cord between them turned the color of rust and began to fray, faster and faster. Maladar dragged himself along its length, trying to reach the old man before it came apart altogether… and made it, just as the last withered strands were straining, ready to snap. He seized Azar by the shoulders, pulled him up, shook him. Blood splattered everywhere.

“No, you won’t,” growled Maladar, pulling in Nuvis’s power and forcing it into Azar. “You won’t rob me so easily.”

He yanked on the cord with all his might. It pulled taut, and something started to emerge from Azar’s dying form. It was a glittering apparition, a shadowy ghost without a face. Maladar’s soul. He was ripping it out of Forlo’s son, by force.

Azar looked up, his eyes dull amid a face so white it might never have seen the sun. Forlo’s heart broke to see that face, then broke again at the sound of his son’s raspy voice, ruined by the scimitar’s blade.

“I am sorry, Father,” Azar said. Blood spilled from his mouth in a long, thick strand. “I did what I could.”

My son, Forlo thought, shaking with rage and grief.

“Father,” Azar gurgled. His head drooped, his knees buckled. At the same moment, Maladar’s soul tore free, and Azar’s body toppled into the pool.

“I have it!” Maladar howled, pulling the specter of his other half toward him. “I have it! Aurim will rise again! All Taladas will—”

Rage came over Forlo, such a fury as he’d never felt before: not when the dragon took Essana, not when he killed Rekhaz, not even when he fought the Faceless Brethren. Their child was dead. His son was dead. His only son was dead. And Maladar was to blame.

With all his might, he pushed.

Distracted by what he was doing to the part of him that was Azar, the part of Maladar’s soul that dwelt in Forlo didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late. It howled, tried to push back, and clutched and clawed at Forlo’s mind, but Forlo’s anger and sorrow were too strong. With a lung-bursting bellow, he shoved Maladar out of his pitiful body.

He saw them together, twin ghosts linked by a frayed cord of magic, floating in the air between him and the place where Azar had fallen. Then, mercifully, blackness crawled over him and made it all go away.

Chapter 36

Hall of Emperors, the Chaldar

Hult had guessed, the moment Azar took his talga, what he would do. He understood and he mourned, but he did nothing to thwart him. Azar knew what he was doing, knew it was necessary. There was no other way out, not with Maladar so close to uniting his soul. What Azar did was as noble as any sacrifice a man could make. It tore Hult apart, but he forced himself to watch as the blade went in and the blood flowed free.

Then Maladar ripped his soul from Azar’s body anyway, and the hope that had swelled in Hult’s heart began to die. He dashed forward, hands clutching. Maybe if he reached the cord, he could tear it apart.

His eyes met Maladar’s, just for a moment, and he saw Forlo, his old friend looking back at him, eyes brimming with pain. Then Forlo looked away, at something no one could see. Then his face contorted, and he made a sound like a wounded animal, a sound that hurt just to hear. It was a strange moan—of frustration, of anger, of grief beyond anything Hult had ever heard. And Forlo flung his arms wide, falling back as another spirit burst out of him, twin to the one he’d torn out of Azar.

Hult stared at the two ghosts as Forlo tumbled, senseless, against the dragon-horn throne. There they were, Maladar and Maladar, divided, weak without bodies to inhabit. They were both beginning to fade, but at the same time they were moving, dragging themselves toward each other along the cord of magic that bound them. They put all their effort into it, pulling hard, shrieking in rage as they tried to become one again.

“Cut it!” Shedara yelled. “Split the cord!”

He glared at her, over his shoulder. “I don’t have a sword!”

But one was already flying toward him—her short, elven blade, spinning end over end from her outstretched hand. If not for his warrior’s reflexes, it might have plunged straight through his chest, but instead he reached out and caught it, the hilt smacking into his palm. He spun the blade in front of him, getting the weight of it, then turned toward the two Maladars.

They were close, only a foot of air separating them. The one that had been inside Azar was so pale, so faint, he was barely visible; the one Forlo had pushed out was in little better shape, a dwindling shade of what he’d been. They struggled, inching toward each other along the cord.

Hult ran, sword held high. He saw the two ghosts turn toward him and knew they were going to try to kill him. Magic seethed in the air, pouring down from Nuvis like storm rain. He bellowed a defiant battle cry.

Jijin, he prayed. One last favor, I beg you.

He hurled himself onto the bridge, still shouting. Magic exploded around him, black fire erupting on all sides. The air grew hot, but the flames didn’t burn him, and he felt other sorcery, power drawn down from Solis and Lunis, surrounding him like a babe’s swaddles. He heard a female voice, chanting.

Shedara, he thought. I love you.

Maladar and Maladar reached for each other, only inches apart, fingers trembling as they strained to make contact. Hult leaped, the elven sword coming down in a swift arc. The blade sliced right through the cord and shattered. Hult stumbled and fell, slamming up against the dais beside Forlo. With a groan, he turned to face the ghosts, the hilt of Shedara’s weapon still clutched in his hand. An inch of jagged steel was all that remained of the blade.

The Maladars kept reaching, their fingers almost touching.

Then, in a flash of silver light, the cord snapped.

Cold wind filled the throne room, blowing outward, making the windows explode and the waters of the pool overflow. It knocked the throne over and flung vases and statuettes to shatter against the walls. Hult threw up his arm, as if that might somehow protect him from the tempest, and saw the ghosts fly away from each other, flung through the air like autumn leaves. Maladar made a terrified, helpless noise, and the half that had come out of Azar vanished, torn apart like smoke.

The other half remained only a moment longer—long enough to turn its gaze on Hult. Hate blazed in its eyes; then it, too, unraveled, torn to pieces by the magical gale. When the wind finally faltered and died, it left the throne room blasted to pieces.

Shedara lay against the far wall, stunned and bruised. “Mother… of all… the gods,” she gasped, and spat blood on the floor. “Is he gone?”

Hult looked around. Pain shot through his bruised body. Still, he managed to push himself back to his feet. The room was disturbingly quiet. He knew he was surrounded by nothing but flame and illusion, and suspected that the room’s form ought to have collapsed the moment Maladar disappeared, but it hadn’t. That baffled him.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Are you hurt?”

“All over,” she replied, and struggled to her feet. “You?”

“The same. What do we do now?”

“Get out of here—and fast.” She nodded toward Forlo, lying beside the throne. The dragon-horn seat had broken in half, smaller pieces scattered around it. “Go check on him. I’ll have a look at Azar.”

Hult staggered to where his friend lay. His knee was wrenched, and one of his ankles throbbed, probably sprained. Still, he managed to lower himself down beside Forlo’s body. He reached for the man’s throat, fingers trembling, afraid of what he might find… or not find. When he laid them over the artery, though, he felt a pulse beneath his touch.

“He’s alive!” he called. “Out cold, but… I think he may survive.”

Shedara didn’t answer. Hult turned to look, then stopped, his breath catching.

She was crouched on the wet floor by the side of the pool, among the flopping flame-fish, blown out of the water by the wind and slowly dying in the air. There, before her, was Azar. He was sitting up, water dripping off him, mixing with the blood that still flowed from the ghastly wound in his throat.

“Yagrut!” Hult swore, ignoring the various aches and pains as he rose back to his feet. He reached for his scabbard, but of course his talga wasn’t there. He wasn’t sure where the sword was; the wind had blown it away.

Azar looked around, his eyes searching the throne room. He saw Shedara, then turned to behold Hult and Forlo. Hult half expected to see Maladar’s shade glimmering in his gaze, but there was no sign of him. It was just Azar, nodding so that the gash in his throat opened and closed like a second mouth.

“You’re—” Shedara said, then stopped, shaking her head. “Why aren’t you dead?”

The old man shrugged. “I am… or as good as. I will not live much longer. But I had to hold on. I kept some of his power, you see… enough to remain here, for a time.”

“I don’t understand,” Hult said.

“I’m afraid I have one task left: to save you,” Azar said with a bare smile. “Unless you already had a plan for leaving Aurim, with the Varya gone.”

They looked at each other, understanding.

Azar gestured to them both. “Hurry! Come close. Bring my father. Quickly, now. I still have power, but it’s fading. I will not last much longer.”

Hult scowled, confused, but did as the old man bade. Grabbing Forlo under his arms, he dragged his friend across the bridge to where Shedara knelt. Forlo didn’t stir, didn’t make a sound.

“Soon this place will turn back to flame,” Azar said, looking down regretfully at Forlo’s motionless form. “No living thing could survive inside. I must send you away before that happens.”

“What about Maladar?” Shedara asked. “Did we kill him?”

“No,” Azar said.

Just then, a howl rang out, a noise of pure wrath, as if the air itself had turned to knives and venom. It came from all around, loud and shrill and utterly insane. It went on and on, for far longer than any human voice ought to have been able to last, but finally it died away into a feeble, broken croak.

“Ancestors’ bones,” Hult breathed.

Shedara swallowed. “What’s happened to him?”

“His punishment,” Azar said. He shut his eyes, taking a deep breath. “You must go at once. Death is coming for me, and it will take you as well if you delay.”

Hult looked around. The room was starting to swim, details dissolving in the living fire. The air grew warmer and warmer, baking him. The Chaldar was reclaiming itself, shedding the shape Maladar’s will had imposed upon it.

“But if Maladar isn’t dead, we’ve failed!” Shedara protested. “He has to be stopped.”

“He is stopped!” Azar said. “Death is not his fate. What awaits him is far worse. There is no more time for talk. Come near.”

Shedara still didn’t look happy, and Hult couldn’t blame her. But the edges of the throne room were gone, devoured by the inferno, which crept nearer every moment. They gathered around Azar, huddling close, trying not to look at the fatal wound gaping in his throat.

“Farewell, my friends,” Azar said. “When my mother and father ask about me…” He trailed off, lost for words.

“We will tell them you met a hero’s end,” Hult said. “Do not fear.”

The old man nodded. He looked down at Forlo, a lifetime of sadness in his eyes.

“Tell them… tell them it will be all right,” he said. “Tell them to try again, and to remember me.”

Hult looked at Shedara, who was weeping unabashedly, and felt a surge of love and sorrow. His eyes burned, tears spilling onto his cheeks as well.

The air shimmered, so hot it grew hard to breathe. Azar began to chant, calling down the moons’ power. His face swam before Hult, aging with every word, until it was a withered mass of wrinkles beneath hair so white that it fairly glowed. Then the flames caught him, and he went up like a torch. Hult recoiled, barely noticing that he wasn’t burning as well.

Then silver light surrounded him, and he was gone, rushing through darkness toward some place far away.

Maladar knew fire and little else.

Flames swirled around him, blue and gold and white: a whirlwind of them, rolling and curling and billowing in great, blooming clouds that choked the air with smoke. There was no sky above him, no ground below. In fact, there was no up or down. There was only the fire, the unending fire.

It did not burn him; there was no pain, not even warmth. No feeling at all. He couldn’t feel his own body, and as soon as that thought came to him, another followed: he had no body. Barreth Forlo had rejected him, and Azar had chosen death rather than yield up Maladar’s soul. He remembered looking out of both sets of eyes, each of them seeing the other half of his ghost, with the cord of magic snaking between. He remembered pulling himself toward himself, and the Uigan—another Hith-be-damned Uigan!—attacking with a sword, severing the cord.

Though he couldn’t feel it, the memory of the pain remained strong. Being split from his own soul was a worse agony than he’d ever known, more terrible even than the day he’d cut off his own face or when he’d died, writhing, from poison. It was like a jagged blade, ripping him in two. Then one of his twin visions had dimmed to darkness as the piece of him that had dwelt in Barreth Forlo’s son dissolved.

After that, he remembered nothing else. What became of Forlo, the Uigan, and the elf-bitch, he had no idea. Everything had gone dark and cold, and he’d awoken to the sound of his own voice screaming, surrounded by flame, with no idea where he was or what he was.

I am the fire, he thought. He couldn’t speak, for he had neither lungs to make a voice nor tongue to shape words.

The fire is me.

“Yes,” whispered a voice, very near. Maladar didn’t have to turn, just shift his attention toward the sound. And, of course, there was Hith, scarlet-skinned and black-armored, the only thing in sight besides the flames. “You and the fire are one, as you and the stone were when you dwelt within the Hooded One.”

I don’t understand, Maladar thought. How is this possible?

“Because I willed it to be so,” the god replied. “You are stupid, and you failed. This is the price of your arrogance, my servant. You are no good to me dead, with your soul trapped forever in the Abyss. But here, in the Chaldar, you remain within my reach. Here you may linger, so that one day you might serve me again.”

If I am freed, Maladar thought. It worked with the statue. It can work here too.

“In time, perhaps,” the god said, shrugging. “Though only three know you are here, and none of them is likely to tell anyone. Perhaps, one day, your soul may escape. But that day may be longer in coming than all the time you spent in the Hooded One. Or it may never come at all.”

And if it doesn’t?

“Then you will remain here until the great book of the world is closed, and time is no more.” Hith chuckled. “You should be glad, Faceless One. Your dearest dream was to live forever. Now it has come true.”

Then the god was gone, and he was alone… utterly alone, amid the boundless fire, the fire that never stopped.

Maladar screamed for centuries.

Chapter 37

Thumar, Rainward Isles

Water thumped against the ship’s hull, waves lapping in a steady rhythm as the sailors furled the sails and brought her to a halt in the shallows off the port. Already a longboat was rowing out to meet them from the docks, which were lined with ships bearing refugees from lost Suluk. Thumar, home of King Calex and the northernmost of all the Rainward realms, surrounded the ship on all sides, a metropolis sprawled on seven rocky islands in a blue-green bay, linked to one another by high, vaulted bridges. Gulls wheeled above, diving down from the arches beneath the spans to pluck golden fish from the water or, sometimes, from the decks of fishing boats, lifting them away to the curses of the men who crewed them. Tall, moss-sheathed stone towers leaned over the water, carved out of the jagged rocks of the isles themselves. Stairs led down from those spires to the marble piers, and long-chained winch lifts carried cargo up and down.

All was quiet in Thumar that day, the banners flying from her parapets black, rather than the accustomed violet. The petals of lilies spilled down to the waves, along with a fine rain that was little more than mist, pattering down from a sky the color of lead.

Forlo looked up into that sky, letting the rain wash down his face and into his beard. That is the color of my heart, he thought as he stared at the clouds.

Someone waited for him, above, but a large part of him didn’t want to see her. Word had preceded the ship, which had borne him and his friends from the shores of the Shining Lands, through Mirrorshards and the Grayveil, all the way back to the isles. That was why Thumar was in mourning: their coming brought word that King Nakhil and his counselor Roshambur were both slain. There was some joy in knowing that Maladar was defeated—if not killed—but the death of the last sovereign of Suluk outweighed it in the people’s hearts. The loss overshadowed the victory.

So it was with Forlo. His son was dead: Azar, who had lived so short a life, whom he’d never known, whose name he hadn’t even learned until it was too late. He was lost in the flames of the Chaldar. He had died saving the rest of them, and Taladas as well.

Forlo had tried to let that knowledge cheer him, the gods knew. The Faceless Emperor was thwarted, imprisoned within the tower of flame amid the empty stone hulks of his city, an impotent ruler of a dead realm. It was a great triumph, though outside of the Rainwards few might ever know of it. Still, they’d done it. They’d beaten Maladar, right when he’d looked ready to seize absolute victory.

It didn’t matter to Forlo. His son was dead.

“It should have been me,” he murmured, not for the first time. “He should be standing here, in my place.”

“Perhaps,” said a voice behind him. “We all have things we wish were different.”

Forlo glanced over his shoulder and saw Hult. The Uigan gazed up at the bridges above and the circling gulls. Forlo barely recognized him, even after the long journey back from the Columns of Bilo, where Azar’s final spell had sent them. Hult’s hair was long, tied back in a plait that hung between his shoulders, and he wore no sword. His blade had broken in the Chaldar, and he’d refused all offers of another. After all they had gone through, Hult, son of Holar, had sworn never to lift a sword again.

“Who are you to say that?” Forlo growled. “You haven’t lost your only child.”

“No,” Hult said. Pain tightened his voice, but his face didn’t change; it kept the same unreadable nonexpression it had since Forlo awoke beside the Burning Sea. “Only my people and my home.”

Forlo fell silent, stung. He looked away, across the water, at Thumar’s distant island wards. Behind him, he sensed Hult stirring, as if the Uigan wanted to say more. Instead, though, the barbarian sighed and walked away.

Shedara came next, after a while. The longboat was almost to them, its oars dipping in the water to the toll of a bronze bell. The elf leaned on the rail beside him, jabbing at the wood with a dagger.

“You don’t have to be so hard on him, you know,” she said. “He’s carrying a lot of guilt. It was his sword, after all.”

Forlo grunted, refusing to look at her. The longboat came nearer.

“I don’t blame him,” he said. “He did what he had to.”

“So did Azar.”

Forlo coughed. It was all the answer he gave.

Shedara’s blade thunked into the gunwale, carving out splinters. “You think the pain will never go away, and you’re right. It won’t. Eldako is still in my memory, like a thorn. But you’ll get used to the hurt, and after a while, you’ll stop noticing so much.”

“Will I?” he snapped. “I can’t dull my pain by sharing my bed with Hult, you know.”

Shedara caught her breath, the sound of her knife stopping. He could almost hear the vituperations she wanted to hurl and knew he deserved them. What he’d said was unfair. He should be happy that she and the Uigan had found comfort in each other. But all he could think of was Azar and the red welter that sprang from his throat when the talga went in. To his right, the longboat bumped against the ship, and shouting sailors tossed a rope ladder down. He glanced toward it and shuddered.

It was too soon. He couldn’t move.

“You’ve got to go,” Shedara murmured. “You’ve got to face her. You can live the rest of your life hating Hult, hating me… hating yourself if you want. But Essana needs you, Forlo. And Azar wanted the two of you together.”

Forlo nodded. He knew that. They’d passed on the boy’s last words to him. Try again.

But how could he?

“You could come with me,” he said.

The elf shook her head. “We’ve been through this. Hult and I hanging around would only make the memories more painful.”

“For who? Me or you?”

He finally glanced at her and immediately regretted his words. Anguish etched her face, almost as deep as his own.

“Both,” she said.

He blew out a long, slow sigh. “I’m sorry, old friend. It’s just hard, after all this, to say good-bye.”

“Yes. But you and Essana need to be together. You’ve got to build a new life, and we, as you say, are part of the old.”

She had a point. If he was going to live there in Thumar, or in another of the island realms, or even somewhere else, such as Baltch or Syldar, he had to let go of everything. He was no longer Barreth Forlo, Baron of Coldhope. He wasn’t sure who he was, but that man had died many times over.

“Where will you go?” he asked.

She shrugged. “The Dreaming Green, eventually. We promised we’d tell Eldako’s father how he died. But that’s a long way away, and it will take time. As for afterward…” She trailed off, spreading her hands. “Maybe the Tamire, to see what Uigan still survive. Maybe Armach, to find my brother and help him rebuild. Maybe Panak or Marak or the cha’asii lands. We’ll probably wander a long time before we find a place we feel at home. And maybe, in a few years, we’ll come back and see how you’re doing.”

“No,” Forlo said. “We won’t see each other again.”

Shedara stepped forward, took his hand in hers, and pressed it to her lips. “Never say never, Barreth. Now go see your lady-wife. Those oarsmen are getting impatient.”

He glanced at the longboat, whose crew was watching him with dark eyes. When he turned back, Shedara wasn’t there anymore. He glanced down the deck and saw her walking back toward Hult. The Uigan gazed back at him, their eyes meeting.

Then he turned away.

Feeling a thousand years old, Forlo walked to the rope ladder, looked down at the waiting boat… and didn’t move. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. Someone offered a hand to help him down; even weeks after fleeing the Chaldar, he was still weak and frail, and missing a hand. He doubted he’d ever be as hale as he’d been, but he hated how the sailors were always offering to help him, as if he were an elderly man. He shook his head at the proffered hand—and stopped.

The hand had only three fingers.

He looked up, saw Hult, and nearly broke. The barbarian gazed at Forlo, inscrutable, then threw his arms around him in an iron embrace.

“I am glad I didn’t kill you, back at the Run,” Hult said when they finally separated. “You are as good a friend as I have ever known, and you are a far better man than Chovuk Boyla ever was.”

Forlo nodded. “And you’re a far better man than me.”

The Uigan chuckled. “Thank you,” he said. “Before you go… have I ever told you about the Takhanshi?”

“No,” Forlo replied.

“Among the Uigan, we believe the honored dead go on to dwell in the halls of Jijin and ride beside their ancestors for eternity. Those who fall into dishonor are cast into darkness beyond all knowing. But then there are the Takhanshi, They Who Linger. They are children, newly born, who die before their first year ends. The elders say they remain in the world and wait just out of sight until the winter comes. And if a Takhansho’s parents seek to make another child before the end of that winter, the ghost enters his mother’s womb, so he may be reborn into the world… for another chance.”

Forlo stared at him. “Are you saying Azar is a Takhansho?”

“I would not presume,” Hult said. “It is only a tale. But there is always hope. Farewell, my friend.”

Clapping Forlo’s shoulder, he turned and strode back to Shedara. Forlo watched him go, his mind a whirl. He glanced up, at the mossy towers above him, and ached. Essana was up there, waiting. His Starlight.

Eyes burning, he turned to the ladder and stepped down onto the first rung.

Epilogue

From the Archives of Nightlund, Volume XXII
Penned by the Red Robe Pelander

Three years have passed since the last of my vivid dreams of the lands across the sea. Many nights have I lain awake, wishing that they would return. In my mind, much remains unanswered. The bloodshed wrought by Maladar surely changes the face of Taladas to this day, and I yearn to discover more, but the gods, if gods it was that gave me the visions in the first place, evidently have had better things to do. There have been no more dreams, and I begin to believe they will never return.

Perhaps, in time, a lord or lady with the mind and the means will read this account and voyage over the seas of Krynn, to make contact with those who live there. If so, I do not know what such an expedition may find. It will surely be a long time before the continent recovers, and it will never be what it was. Such is the way of things.

With that said, I commit the last of my dreams of Taladas to this chronicle. It came to me on a stormy autumn night, long months after I last beheld our friends—Forlo, Shedara, and Hult. It does nothing to illuminate their fates, but I believe it is important to any who might seek, one day, to set foot upon Taladas. And with it, I bid you, my honored readers, farewell.

Far away from the Rainward Isles, on the other side of Taladas, a minotaur commander crests a hill, leading a company of soldiers, both his kind and men. His name is Bolgash, and he is young, newly elevated to the rank of Centurion in the Third Legion. There are many young officers in the League’s armies these days: the wars of ascension, following Emperor Rekhaz’s assassination by the traitor Forlo, have taken a deep toll. But there is a new emperor on the throne now, who has taken the name of Ambeoutin XIII in hopes of restoring the old peace to the war-torn land. He has commanded the Third to travel north, to the Tiderun’s shores, and investigate the village of Kharto, which rumor says has been destroyed.

Both Ambeoutin and Bolgash’s superiors suspect bandits, preying on the weak in the aftermath of war. But when Bolgash looks down from the hilltop, he sees something else.

“Khot,” he swears.

“Sir?” asks his shield-bearer, a dark-skinned, shaven-headed human named Tarl. He peers down toward the water. “What is that?”

Bolgash strokes his black muzzle, his eyes narrowing. He hears his men muttering, for they, too, have spotted what he has seen.

“I don’t know,” he says. “But we’d best see, up close.”

The soldiers follow him down the hillside, axes and spears at the ready. Kharto lies in ruins, bodies scattered everywhere. The fires have long since burned out, and the crows have eaten their fill. All is silent in the town. Even the birds refuse to sing.

It isn’t the village that worries Bolgash, though. It’s what’s in the water.

The sun is high, its light making the Run glisten like a band of gold, the distant shores of the Tamire a faint shape in the haze of springtime. The ships moored there are mere shadows against that gleaming vista. Even just beholding their silhouettes, though, Bolgash knows they’re like no vessels he’s seen before. They have an ancient look, like the Aurish vessels of old. He has seen their like in mosaics and tapestries that the men of the League rescued from the fallen empire. No one has built ships like them in more than four hundred years.

As he and his men make their way toward Kharto’s docks, however, the sun passes behind a cloud, and he knows they are not true Aurish ships. Aurim was a realm of wonders, but nowhere in history or lore has it ever been said that its shipwrights made their boats out of stone.

One of the ships wallows in the shallows; the moons are waning, and though the Run won’t drain this month, the tides are very low. Bolgash slogs through the muck to the boat and touches its hull. It is indeed stone, pumice to be specific—volcanic. It is a type not found in these parts or anywhere west of the Steamwalls. He glances toward the jagged, cloud-shrouded mountains, rising only two days’ march away.

“Who could have built these?” asks Tarl, standing shin-deep in the muck. He raps the hilt of his sword against the ship’s flank. The stone doesn’t chip. “Dwarves?”

Bolgash shakes his head. “Even the Fianawar don’t make their boats out of rocks. Maybe the gnomes… but there aren’t any machines aboard. I don’t—”

“Sir! Come quickly!”

Bolgash turns back toward shore. It’s one of the other minotaurs yelling. From where he stands, he can see a crowd of soldiers gathering at the western edge of the town. They’ve tightened into a knot, staring at something on the ground. The minotaur who shouted, a veteran named Kranthal, is standing on a hunk of charred rubble, waving his mace in the air.

Sloshing through the mire, Bolgash reaches shore again. By the time he and Tarl reach the crowd, it has trebled in size. “Back to your duties, you louts!” Bolgash shouts at them. “We’re supposed to search the whole town, not just this one… small…”

His voice trails off when the crowd parts to let him see. There, in pieces on the ground, is a statue, the likes of which he has never seen. It is huge, taller even than the largest of the minotaurs, and made of dark gray stone. Its head, tumbled face-up against the soot-covered husk of an elm, is carved into a shape that is neither man nor bull. It is the sneering visage of a dragon, with glittering rubies for eyes.

“Sir,” murmurs Tarl. “Look at its sword.”

Bolgash looks, already knowing what he will see. When he spies the rusty stain that covers the obsidian blade, he snorts, but is not surprised.

Stone ships. Stone men. A hard lump forms in his throat.

“Double the search!” he bellows. “Shout if you find more of these things!”

They do: three more, broken to pieces, surrounded by stinking, fly-covered bodies. Every one is identical to the rest.

Then Bolgash sees something else, and his bad feeling about things gets worse. To the east, the ground is torn, clots of turf gouged from the soil. He bends down, Tarl at his side.

The human runs a hand over his bald head, chewing on his mustache. “It’s a footprint,” he says.

“I know,” Bolgash replies.

The track is huge and deep: much deeper than any man could make… unless the man were made of stone. And there are more of them, many more, leading away from Kharto. When his men are done searching, there are many guesses as to the size of the company: scores, certainly; hundreds, likely. A thousand or more? Possible.

“Find a messenger,” Bolgash tells Tarl. “He must go to Marshal Ekhor’s camp at once. Tell him bandits had nothing to do with Kharto, and he must come here at once.”

“Sir,” Tarl replies and hurries off.

When he is gone, Bolgash stares at the tracks. They lead east, in a straight line, through thickets and creeks, up steep hillsides and down into deep vales. Nothing seems to steer them from their course, on toward the rocky mass of the Steamwalls. Bolgash knows, in his heart, that whatever the stone men are, they have gone to the mountains.

He stares at the peaks, a hand shading his eyes, and though he tries to hide it from his men—even from himself—he is afraid.

Glossary

Geographical Terms and Place Names

Akh-tazi: A ruined temple in Neron, thousands of years old.

Am Durn: A city of ancient Aurim; destroyed with a magical wave by Emperor Maladar the Faceless after invoking his displeasure.

Armach-nesti: A small elven kingdom, home to the Silvanaes.

Aurim: A vast empire that covered much of Taladas, smashed in the First Destruction. Also the name of the empire’s capital city.

Baltch: An isolated island kingdom off the eastern coast of Neron.

Bilo Columns: A land of basalt pillars along the north and west shores of Hitehkel, home to the minoi gnomes.

Chaldar: A tower of solid flame that once stood in the midst of Hitehkel.

Clovenmont: A mountain in the Rainward Isles topped by a split peak.

Coldhope: A barony in the Imperial League, on the southern shore of the Tiderun, and its keep.

The Dreaming Green: A forest north of the Tamire, home to the merkitsa elves.

The Eastern Archipelago: A Rainward kingdom composed of scattered islands.

Essud: The richest of the Rainward kingdoms.

Gald: A Rainward kingdom, home to many centaurs.

The Grayveil: A foggy strait separating the Rainward Isles from the mainland of Aurim-That-Was.

Hawkbluff: The capital of Thenol, site of a major temple to Hith.

Hitehkel: A sea of molten rock at the center of Taladas, where Aurim stood before the Destruction. Also called Hith’s Cauldron and the Burning Sea.

Hosk: The western half of Taladas, divided by the Tiderun into northern and southern parts.

Ilmachrutandabrunthabram: A colony of minoi in the Bilo Columns. Called Ilmach by nongnomes.

Ilquars: A mountain range running down the middle of Northern Hosk.

The Imperial League: An empire of minotaurs and humans that covers much of Southern Hosk.

Indanalis: The Boiling Sea, a long channel of superheated water between Southern Hosk and Hith’s Cauldron.

Ios: The Great Isle, largest of the Rainward kingdoms.

Kristophan: Capital of the Imperial League, recently sundered by an earthquake.

Marak: Several valleys in the central Steamwalls, home to clans of kender.

Mazanti: A Rainward kingdom inhabited largely by dwarves.

Neron: A little-known jungle land in the southeast of Taladas.

Panak: A frozen wasteland in the north of Taladas.

Rainward Isles: A piece of Aurim that survived the Destruction, now home to kingdoms of refugees.

Selenna: A Rainward kingdom composed of many small islets.

Sevenspires: The palace of the king of Suluk, topped with seven tall towers.

The Shining Lands: Vast plains of volcanic glass formed during the Destruction out of the deserts of Aurim. Home to the Glass Sailors.

Steamwalls: A range of volcanic mountains in the east of Southern Hosk, on the Indanalis coast.

Suluk: The southernmost of the Rainward kingdoms.

Syldar: A marshy land peopled by primitive fishing tribes.

Taladas: A continent on the northern hemisphere of the world of Krynn.

The Tamire: A vast stretch of grassland and steppes, covering much of Northern Hosk.

Thenol: A human realm in Southern Hosk, ruled by evil priests and necromancers.

Thumar: The northernmost of the Rainward kingdoms.

Tiderun: A shallow strait running east-west across the middle of Hosk. Also called the Run.

Ull: A Rainward kingdom, composed of two close-set islands, called Greater and Lesser Ull.

People and Cultures

Akistah: A strong rice wine brewed in the Rainward Islands.

Alan-atu: A minor tribe of the Tamire.

Boyla: The prince of the Uigan, highest lord of all the Tamire.

Cha’asii: A small, reclusive race of aboriginal elves in the jungles of Neron.

Churqa: A small, agile skiff used by the Glass Sailors.

The Faceless Brethren: A band of evil wizards and priests dedicated to bringing about the rebirth of Maladar the Faceless.

Fianawar: A hardy race of dwarves who dwell among the Steamwall Mountains.

Garlath: A minoi liquor, distilled from mold.

Glass Sailors: Mysterious, masked nomads who sail upon the Shining Lands in boats built to glide across glass.

Hosk’i imou merkitsa: Clans of barbaric elves native to the Dreaming Green. Also simply known as the merkitsa.

Ice People: Tribes of humans who rove across the Panak wastes.

Kazar: A nation of barbarians native to the Tamire, all but exterminated by the Uigan.

Khot: A minotaur obscenity, often used by soldiers of the League.

Krenaz Bur: Thick fog that shrouds the Rainward Isles, beyond which the islanders believe lies the afterlife.

Minoi: A race of tinkerer gnomes who dwell beneath the Bilo Columns on the shores of Hitehkel.

Purgi: A minor tribe of the Tamire.

Serai: An encampment of the Glass Sailors, where they engage in trade.

Shivis: A board game popular in the Imperial League; also used by the minotaurs as a tactical tool.

Shuk: A curved Uigan saber.

Silvanaes: An elf people of Southern Hosk, descended from survivors of an ill-fated expedition from Ansalon.

Talga: A scimitar commonly wielded in the Rainward Isles.

Tchakkir: A healer and wise woman among the Glass Sailors.

Tegin: A Uigan clan-lord, answerable only to the Boyla.

Tenach: A warrior sworn to protect and serve a Uigan lord.

Tokhu: A gathering of the Rainward kings, often using magic.

Uigan: A powerful people of horse-riding nomads, native to the Tamire.

Utanka: A children’s game among the Uigan.

Xogat: A type of ship used by the Glass Sailors; crewed by twenty men.

Yagrut: A Uigan profanity.

Zarlakanquistorphentilgormushandoloi: Minoi flying ships, lifted by sacks of hot air.

Creatures

Akitu-shai: An ancient, degenerate race of Neron. They have bulbous, hairless heads and masses of tentacles where their mouths should be, and can force their way into people’s thoughts. Also called the yaggol and the Crawling Maws.

At-khorakha: A tribe of hobgoblins who dwell in the ruins of Sha Moku.

Bak-su-chag: A massive, wormlike creature that dwells beneath the ruins of Aurim.

Charvat: A giant lizard of the Tamire; a predator and nuisance to the Uigan.

Disir: A race of slime-covered, thick-shelled humanoids who dwell in caves beneath the Rainward Isles.

Gloombat: A blind, albino bat found beneath the Bilo Columns, renowned for the viciousness of its bite.

Kheten Voi: Large statues animated by magic, for use in warfare by the people of Aurim. Also known as nala’ini among the elves, Gulmat in the League, and Ghelim in the Rainward Isles.

Kurshakur: Humanoids of living fire native to Hitehkel; bitter enemies of the minoi. Commonly called fire minions.

Palgantothanyugarbascivashobori: Clockwork birds used by the minoi to carry messages between colonies.

Skyfisher: A large, ugly carrion bird, usually found among ruins and on battlefields.

Skysteed: The common name among the elves for a hippogriff.

Takhansho: A ghost of Uigan folklore, believed to be the spirit of a child who died before his first birthday.

Vaka-te-nok: A burrowing creature with many tentacles, found in the jungles of Neron.

Gods and Moons

Astar: The god of the elves, a hunter and a bowman.

Bran: A god of the woodlands.

Chalva: A god of nature and animals.

Chomos: A god of death.

Erestem: The Queen of Darkness, now slain.

Hith: A god of deceit and a great power of evil in Taladas.

Jolith: A human war god, revered in the League.

Jijin: The god of the Uigan, a warrior and protector.

Khubak: A god of the sea and ships.

Lunis: The red moon, called Lunitari in Ansalon.

Manith: A god of contemplation.

Mislaxa: A healing goddess known across Taladas.

Morgash: A god of sickness and decay.

Nuvis: The black moon, called Nuitari in Ansalon.

Reorx: A god of the forge and patron of dwarves and gnomes.

Sargas: The warrior-god of the minotaurs.

Solis: The silver moon, called Solinari in Ansalon.

Zai: A goddess of the sea and storms.

History

Dread Winter: The troubled times immediately prior to the Second Destruction, when much of Taladas was covered in snow and ice.

First Destruction: Taladan term for the Cataclysm, when the gods rained fire upon Krynn. Also called the Great Destruction.

Godless Night: The years after the Second Destruction, during which both gods and magic vanished from the face of Krynn.

Second Destruction: The Second Cataclysm, caused by the Chaos War.

Disaster has struck at the ruins of Akh-tazi: Maladar, the Faceless Emperor, is reborn, and Barreth Forlo is his prisoner. trapped in his own body.

Forlo’s friends must find a way to stop Maladar before his power grows too great—and the solution may lie with Azar, Forlo’s supernatural son.

Shadow of the Flame brings the adventures of Forlo, Shedara, and Hult to a fiery, thrilling climax—and changes the continent of Taladas forever.

“(Chris Pierson) writes elegantly… and brings the continent (of Taladas) alive with characters that, While they take part in more than their share of battles, also have emotions and doubts…”

-Brian Thomas,

The d20 Magazine Rack,

on Blades of the Tiger